While I was downstairs starting some laundry earlier (I know, I know, but I wasn’t carrying baskets or anything, only moving clothes from washer to dryer) I noticed that peculiar silence that sends off danger bells in any Mama with a two-year old.

“Eric?! Where are you?” No answer. Eerie quiet.

He was downstairs with me and Jeffrey, playing in the play room- but he’s not there anymore. I waddle upstairs (screaming ligament/groin pain- the baby has dropped) calling his name. No answer. My voice gets a little sharper, “Eric, where are you- tell Mama right now!”

As I enter his room, he is under his bed, and I see his little hands poking out, and his shiny little eyes and pink cheeks- he is peeking out at me, looking very proud of himself and a little sheepish at the same time. “What’re you doing?” I ask.

From under the bed he pulls a blue cardboard box and some wax paper wrappers, proudly showing me “My have BUTTER mama!” He had helped himself to a pound of butter from the ‘fridge and had unwrapped them and begun to have a little… snack…under his bed. His cheeks and chin were all glossy with butter, but only one of the sticks actually had bites taken from it yet.

It was impossible not to laugh. Sometimes I wish I could go hide under the bed with a pound of butter, too. We have to get a ‘fridge lock. Today.

Has anyone seen the new video by Pink?? Flipping around the other day, we came across “Stupid Girls” on VH1- so totally funny! I wasn’t really a fan of hers (or any really pop-y music) but this song is hilarious- and sharp.

She pokes serious fun at all the ding-a-ling ditzy pop icons that are continuously paraded in the media these days- and she does it with flair and humor- lamenting “whatever happened to wanting to be president??” It’s a great song, especially as a counter to the vast and constant barrage of young, vapid, vacant and materialistic women our entertainment media tells us girls want to emulate. Three cheers for Pink!

Historically, in my family and with people I know, it is dangerous to admit you like something. You are sure to be bombarded at the next birthday or holiday with a plethora of items representing that something you casually mentioned you “liked”. Don’t ever do it. Just don’t.

It has been my goal, all of my adult life, to never collect anything. I hate “collections”. Things that serve no purpose and just sit around collecting dust, make me insane. There is an absolute, correlative reason for my animosity- if you know my mother, you know why I hate collections. If you don’t (almost everyone), lets just say, every room in her house, including my bedroom when I stay, is covered, floor to ceiling, in her collecting.

It just seems so dumb to go ape over some thing, and invest so much time and money and energy in it. There is nothing I like enough to “collect”. It seems, rather, to be the domain of adolescent girls and women who really like to shop and wear embellished sweatshirts- picking something and making part of your identity- tigers, penguins, pigs, angels, Mickey Mouse, spoons, wacky and ugly commemorative plates, whatever… is just a vacuous activity to suck time from your life. I, um, have strong feeling about this, could you tell?

And people always seem to want you to collect something. Does it just make gift buying easier? Or do you want me to join you in your lu-lu-bird cult? I have actually been told that I have to pick something to collect. Uh, yeah, nope.

There are things I like. There are things I like a lot. But there is nothing I like enough to cover my home, my environs, my car, my children or my clothing. I like antique dishes. I have a few. I do not want more. I like German toys, but my kids play with them, they do not, and will never, sit in a curio cabinet on a glass shelf “for looking only”. I love my fountain pen. Someday I may write about it, but I don’t want more of them. I have the best one in the world (Mont Blanc Meisterstueck 150- don’t even try and argue with me), and it superb, and I have no need of 17, 27, or 170 more of them. I have one, thank you very much.

And one, of almost anything, is more than enough!

Why now? Why oh why? Because I need more angst?? It’s a fair statement to say my life has the stability of the Titanic right now, so-why? Eric has decided he no longer needs a nap, and unless I want to give him a shot of cold medicine, there is nothing I can do to make him go to sleep.

There is little lovelier than a two year old, right around dinner time, who has not napped all day. Not that I cook much these days, but that 5 o’clock hour is brutal no matter what. Hey, fun! It’s meltdown time! Lets throw toys, bite our brother, hang on Mama’s off-kilter body! Hooray! Lets bang our head on the floor, run and hide under the bed where preggo Mama can’t reach and put our Binkie’s in the toilet. Let’s ask for something to eat, then throw it on the floor when we get it, lets pour our juice on the new carpet, and then roll in it! And the most fun of all, let’s stand in the middle of the room and just scream at the top of our lungs until our whole head turns red!

And I have SO much patience and reserve energy right now, I am making all the best choices in my mothering! I am kind and sympathetic and sensitive and soft-spoken with my little dear children. I never loose my cool, nor do I have to run to the bathroom and barf while reading a story to my little angels. I never get stuck on the floor, and have to crawl to the chair to gracefully pick myself up, while fending off children who wish to “ride” me. Voices are never raised in our home. Oh, no, never. Our home is a model of grace, patience and love right now.

It’s especially fun when Dad comes home from 13 hours at work, just in time to clean up poop or barf, start some laundry, and scrape up something for dinner. Hooray for a blissful home! Can you picture our Family Night tonight? They ought to put us on the cover of the Ensign; the perfect little LDS family; everyone would feel all good about themselves after they looked at us! Just call me inspiring! And you’re welcome!

(Uh-oh… here come the nice men in the white coats with my special jacket. Nice men. Nice…)

Just when I thought this pregnancy couldn’t get any harder, yesterday happened. I passed out, cold, in the driveway, draped over the passenger seat of our car, and Jeffrey had to find a way out of the car, run inside, and find his daddy. Seriously, what is wrong with me?!

Earlier in the day, (after the repair guy put in the new hot-water heater and my husband was home early from work to help the guy) I decided I had to have some Mexican food from my favorite new hole-in-the-wall. DFM didn’t want to go, so I figured I would take Jeffrey and we would have some nice time alone- he really likes it when we do that, and he likes Mexican food as much as I do. The place is really close to our house, and I felt fine. Drive there, waddle inside, sit, eat, waddle out, drive home, no problem, right?

Things started out ok- we got our food (delicious!) and were discussing baby names, dogs, cartwheels and other four-year-old topics- when all of the sudden I felt ill. I grabbed Jeffrey and ran to the bathroom, and was sick. Not so unusual, really. But when we got back to the table, I felt a little lightheaded, and told Jeff we had to go. I went to pay and have his food put in a box, and the guy at the counter asked me if I needed an ambulance. I kinda laughed, said I was fine, and I just needed to go home.

Jeffrey was climbing in the car, trying to buckle his food-box in a seat belt when the contractions hit- and I almost doubled over. The were wrapping around my back, and this is not a joy I had with either of the boys. The pain was insane- I could hardly breathe, but we were already in the car, and home was only a few blocks away. In retrospect, I probably wasn’t thinking clearly, but I just wanted to get home, asap. As we were turning into our neighborhood, I started to hear “crickets” in my ears, the ringing got louder and louder, and my vision was tunneling- I don’t know how I actually got home, but I was praying out loud the whole way.

As soon as I pulled in the driveway, I passed out. Somehow Jeffrey got out, got my husband and he got me in the house. I don’t remember much, except when I came to, I was in agony. The contractions were shaking my whole body, and I couldn’t even catch my breath. My husband called my doctor and of course, he said to take me to the hospital. DFM’s Aunt came over immediately to watch the kids, and we left.

We spent the evening in the LDR ward at the hospital. By the time we got there, the contractions had eased up to every 12-14 minutes, and I was able to stay conscious. They ran some tests, checked the baby, checked me and watched us for a couple of hours. The doctor had no idea why I passed out, but the baby was fine. We went home.

Now, I can’t drive anymore, or go anywhere alone, until this baby is born. I’m just sitting here shaking my head. I hate drama, and this baby had caused more drama pre-birth than I can stand. I am soooo ready to be a normal mama and woman again, instead of this bizarre, gestating thing I am now. My doctor says in 2 1/2 weeks he will let me go. Counting the days…

It’s getting worse. The kids ran downstairs to play, and slipped in a big puddle of water on the way to the family room. The hot water heater has sprung a leak- and is slowing puddling all of its many gallons of water all over my downstairs. So me, with a belly the size of a beach ball is on the floor with every towel in the house, and a two and four-year old “helping” me, wipe up buckets of water. I call DH at work, he gets on it and has ordered another one and the guys should be here this afternoon to fix it.

SO, NOW we are spending our tax return before I can even figure out how to get the %$#!&*#? thing filed. Oh, so happy about all this!

And Jeffrey is upstairs picking on Eric, and currently crying in his room because he cannot get his snowboots on. They can’t play in the play room because, for some reason, letting them play near puddle of water and an electic water heater just doesn’t seem like a good idea to me. And it rolls on…

I’m stuck in computer hell- I cannot get the #&%! patch for the TaxCut- and thus I cannot file my tax return. I was online with Norton Antivirus all last night, and I cannot figure out what to do. Their online tech help was NO help at all- dead end after dead end- and to call them costs $29 bucks. Im stuck in computer hell. Help. Me.

Holy Cow, I did it! They are done! It only took a few hours, and was NOT worth the weeks of procrastination. I think they might even be done correctly! I do have one rant, and one rave about TaxCut, the program I used.

The Rave: When I downloaded the new program, it automatically plugged in all our information from last year, making it a breeze to fill everything out. I just had to check over everything and make sure it was right, then input the numbers for this year. Super cool, and super easy.

The Rant: I downloaded the program today, paid my money and got it done, but when I ran the final check on it, there were things flagged as errors. EVERY error it checked was a flag in the program that simply required downloading the same patch. Now why, when I purchased the program today, were the patches not part of the initial download? AND when I tried to download the patches so I could e-file, my firewall anti-virus thingy stopped the patches from being loaded. SO now I have to contact Symantec and get the patch for the patch. GRRRRrrrr. Have I mentioned how much I hate computers??

So, our taxes are done, and correct as far as I can tell. But they’re not yet filed, because I have to figure out how to patch the patch patch. Can I really say I’m done? You betcha- hello, refund!

I’m really tired of avoiding my office because Turbo Tax is sitting on the floor, mocking me. So today, while Jeffrey is at school and Eric is napping, I am going to attempt to begin our taxes. Yuck. Eeewww. Gag. I hate doing taxes- my brain is just not wired for it. But I can’t put it off much longer- April 15 looming and all the way it does. In an effort to force myself do this, I won’t be posting anything until I am done with the suckers. Here goes nothin’.

The cavalry has arrived! For the next five Wednesdays, a different friend is picking the boys up and taking them out for some fun. I am so relieved. The hands-down hardest part, worse than the nausea and barfing, has been seeing my kids trapped in the house with sick-mama. I am so happy for them.

Last week I got all pigheaded and decided I could go to the grocery store myself. How hard could it be, right? I hate asking people for help over small things (well, really, over all things- prideful mule) All I wanted were some strawberries and some popsicles. Both boys were with me, of course, but I figured I would only be on my feet for about 15 minutes- long enough to waddle through the produce section, down the freezer aisle, then out the door. This particular market has clerks to take your groceries to the car, so I knew I could get someone to help me put the kids back in their seats- so I figured we were in good shape.

Yeah. So much for my will overpowering my biology. It isn’t always mind over matter- before I even got Eric to crawl in the cart (I did not pick him up) I was having contractions. They were not bombers, but enough that I was uncomfortable for a minute or two. Every minute or two. Heck, I was half way to my popsicles and like I said, I’m a mule, so I plowed on. Jeffrey pushed the cart, and I held the front to keep him from turning the produce section into a demolition derby.

I must have looked like crap, because the produce lady took one look at me and rushed over and asked me if I was in labor. Uh, no. But I’m working on it. Got my strawberries, chatted with produce lady about the joys of contractions, and waddled off towards the popsicles, stopping to catch my breath every few minutes.

Popsicles in hand, boys banging the cart down the aisle, heading towards the checkout. It was like Moses parting the Red Sea- people got out of my way. It was kinda cool. No less than five people asked me if I was in labor and if they could call someone!

The little clerk who loaded my bags and my kids in the car looked really nervous, like I was going to drop the kid right there. I thanked her for her help and reassured her I was ok

As soon as I sat down at home, the contractions eased up and slowed. And I had my lemon popsicles. Yummmm. It was worth it. But I won’t do it again. Probably.