Well, shit.

About a week before Christmas, Mr. Adventure and I were having the age-old debate: Vasectomy or IUD?

I'm pretty anti-IUD.  My mom had horror stories about her old copper one from back in the 1970's and, more recently, a friend of mine had hers migrate from where it was put in and she had to have it surgically removed from her stomach.  I'm sure that's a rare thing, but it freaks me out.

Christmas Eve, after baby bedtime, the Mister and I drank a lot of rum and became unable to complete putting together Hamburglar's Fire Engine Play Set (a feat that took Sober Me less than ten minutes to accomplish the following morning).  PSA: Heavy drinking causes a decrease in fine motor coordination.

Do any of you have the TimeHop app?  The one that tells you that on facebook five years ago you fell down the side of an active volcano/fell into a swamp/are never going to drink again?  Well, I had one pop up about a hockey game about two years ago, which was the same day I took a pregnancy test and discovered I was pregnant with Chumbercules.  (Do you see where this is going?)  I realized that Lady Time had not yet come to me and she was about a week overdue for her visit.

"Well, shit," I thought.

So, since living on a single family income makes frivolity a bit difficult, I couldn't spring for one of those fancy $19 pregnancy tests, so I went to the Dollar Tree.  Did you know they sell pregnancy tests for $1?  And it was positive.

"Well, shit," I thought.

Over the course of two weeks, we'd gone from, "Let's nip this potential for more baby things in the bud with a more permanent/reliable birth control solution," to, "Guess who's having a baby!"

"Maybe the dollar store pregnancy tests aren't terribly accurate," I suggested as I told Mr. Adventure the news.  And I scheduled an appointment with my midwife.

The girl that answered the phone when I called the midwife's office asked me how many tests I took.  "Um, one?" I replied.  Other than on TV, do women actually take multiple pregnancy tests?  It seems like a waste of money to me.

The midwife confirmed McCloud is going to have a sibling (who, after the Quickening, I believe I will call him (el bebe in utero) Sean Connery, because I don't remember Sean Connery's character's name from the Highlander film).

"Well, shit," I thought.

The midwife asked me how I was feeling.  It's weird.  We'd just finally for realz made the decision to only have one child, and now there's another coming along.  Which is great because I can die one day knowing that my son will not be left all alone (he has a half sister, but things can go either way with half siblings.  With full siblings, too, I guess.  It's probably best not to put all your eggs in one basket anyway.  Ha!)

I have an estimated due date of the end of August.  Which means I am going to be super pregnant all freaking summer.  Again.  Summer pregnancies suck.

I also feel like we are really finally hitting a groove again and we've established our new normal and having a 16 month old is awesome.  Having a newborn and a two-year-old seems like a huge pain in the ass.  But, I bet it will be awesome when they're two and four and can play together.

I guess I'm still getting a hold on how I'm feeling.  I know that I have a heightened sense of smell, but no nausea or acne or anything yet, so that's nice.  Hopefully this pregnancy is as smooth as the last one.  I think I need to stop drinking coffee.  I had borderline high blood pressure throughout my last pregnancy and I don't want that to happen again.  And I'm not buying a new car.  I'll just need car seats that are a bit more narrow so we can all fit into the Fit.

Here's a piece from McSweeney's called 30 and Pregnant.

Also, the Ugly Volvo has a new piece out.  It's about finding the time to read an article in a magazine with a toddler around.

"Look at me!  Sitting on a sofa reading a magazine!  Like a person!   This is like a thing a person would do!  I imagined myself doing other “person” things like going out for a drink with friends or seeing a show.  What an imagination I have!"

And I guess that's about it.

Also, according to the fancy chart I made back in August of 2013, Sean Connery is currently the size of a blueberry.  Or a Tic-Tac.  Either way, totally edible and could get lost in your handbag.

Happy new year!

Hi!

I hope you all had a pleasant holiday season.

We've been doing a lot of learning around the House of Adventure.  We learned that the Little Miss is more into building blocks than she is Barbie, so I'm returning her birthday presents and getting some blocks.

And Hamburglar is learning and repeating everything.  He said fuck for the the first time last week.  That was nice.  He also says shoes, socks, hat (of course).  And he learned "turkey" back in November and he recently started saying "turtle," which he enunciates very clearly.  He likes to point out that he is a baby, he calls water "wa" and, most importantly, he has learned to say "Hodor." Which has provided a lot of entertainment for the Mister and I.  And I'm sure that any Game of Thrones fans out there also appreciate it.

Mr. Adventure also taught Chumbercules to kick a ball!  I picked up a mini soccer ball at Old Navy several months ago for $3, and it's the perfect size for little toddler feet to kick.

He really likes his rocking horse and his fire engine play set, and a friend gave him some Mega Blocks as a Christmas gift, and we all have fun playing with those.

We had grilled cheese and tomato soup for dinner last week and Chumby was using a spoon on his own and most of the soup made it into his mouth!  It was all very exciting.

I think the most exciting thing that has happened lately, though, is this.  Jaws-themed baby crib!  They're going to need a bigger boat.

Also, for any pregnant ladies out there, the Pregnant Chicken has this super killer giveaway happening right now.

And, this is a little late (though still hilarious): The Ugly Volvo put up a new post a couple weeks ago.  And now I kind of want to sit on Willie Nelson's lap.

66 weeks

Some moms in my local mom group still talk about their almost-three-year-olds in months.  "Johnny is 34 months old today!."  I feel weird saying Hamburglar is 15 months.  So, when people ask me how old he is, it normally takes me a moment to answer while I try to figure out how many months he is and whether I should say one, one and a half, or maybe one and a quarter?  When he was six months old, I would just tell people, "half."  Because it was funny.

Now that our Christmas tree has been up for almost two weeks, most of the candy canes have been pulled off the tree and had their tops broken off and the ornaments have been moved higher and higher up the tree as a certain 15-month-old (who shall not be named) removes them and brings them over to me.  We got our standard six foot tree, but now that it's up and I know things I didn't know a few weeks ago, I wish I had done two things differently:
1) I wish we had purchased a four foot tree and put it on a table so it would be harder for baby paws to reach.
2) I should have used yarn to hang the ornaments rather than ornament hooks.  (I could still do this, but I'm also incredibly lazy, so it is very unlikely that this will occur.)

So, there you go.  For all you mamas out there that are going to have walkers and crawlers next Christmas, thing about these things.  I also kind of wish I had waited a bit to put out the stockings.  I mean, they were hung by the chimney with care, until tiny little toddler hands pulled them down over and over and over again.

I am pretty much done with Christmas shopping (I do it year round).  I still am on the look out for dog beds (they tend to destroy them) and I'm thinking of just hitting the thrift store and getting them quilts or blankets or something for their kennels.  I would like to get them another Bark Box, but we are trying to not spend tons of money since we are still on a single income and blah blah blah.  I also found this cool thing called Kiwi Crate, which is like a Bark Box for kids!  Little Miss Adventure's birthday is in January, and we are thinking about getting her a 3-month subscription.  Because kids love receiving mail.

Now, for the Christmas Breakdown:

For Chumbercules:
1) We got a couple wind-up toys for his stocking and a toothbrush and a little wooden car with wheels.
2) Santa is bringing him this wooden rocking horse (we got it for $23!  Um... I mean Santas elves are totally building it right now)
3) RC Willey was having a flash sale and we scored this super rad fire engine play set for $20!  We haven't put it together yet, but I hope the little man is as excited about it as I am.
4) The moms in my group with toddlers all swear by books like Little Blue Truck and Goodnight Goodnight Construction Site.
5) I love Mo Willems books.  I'm particular fond of the Elephant and Piggie series.  And Can I Play, Too? is hilarious.

For the Little Miss:
1) She is still struggling a bit with reading (her dad and I were both super early readers, so we are constantly trying to think of ways to help her figure things out) so we got her a LeapReader.  It has a pen that you upload the stories to or something and if they struggle with a word, they can use the pen to help them.  We also got the Cinderella LeapReader book to go along with it, because she still totally digs princesses.
2) I got her a really nice duvet cover, duvet and flannel sheets.  I'm not sure that she will love them a ton, but they're so soft, she will be super cozy in her bed all winter, so that's exciting.
3) Are you familiar with the Heavenly Nostrils Chronicle?  It's super funny.  In the first book, Phoebe and Her Unicorn, the main character meets a snarky Unicorn and wishes for it to be her best friend.  It's written graphic-novel style.
4) I realized we didn't really get her any toys, so we got her a Monster High Doll (Lagoona Blue, daughter of the Sea Monster!)
5) And she doesn't have any male Barbies and these went on sale, so Ever After High dolls!
6) For her stocking, I found some thin, metal bangles, some nail polish, a tooth brush and I don't remember what other little things.

And we bought this pint-sized broom for the kids to share.  Because kids love to sweep, right?  I figure we should take advantage of their desire to help.

We are also getting a family pass to the Discovery Center.  And Mr. Adventure's stocking is never complete without his annual bottle of Beard Oil (we are trying a new oil this year).  And our younger dog, the one that eats all of our socks, has purchased us all socks this year.

So, there you go.  Every Christmas, I feel simultaneously that I'm getting too much and not enough.  I'm assuming it will feel even more like too much once it is all under the tree.

If I don't post before next week, Merry Christmas!  And Happy Hanukkah.  It's the festival of lights, y'all.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

... is a pain in the ass.

We had big plans for the weekends.  We were going to get our tree and see Santa and maybe go ice skating on Saturday.  It was going to be sooo amazing and Christmas-y.  We would be all bundled up in our coats and sip hot chocolate as the kids ran around... the Little Miss (LMA) looking for the perfect tree (while inevitably picking a Charlie Brown tree) and the baby wandering around until he knocked over a tree or tripped over one or whatever cute things babies do.  I don't know.

We were all up early on Saturday.  I fed the kids and looked to see what time the tree lots opened.  We like to support local businesses and causes with our purchases, so we decided to go to the Rescue Mission to get our tree, but they didn't open until ten.  At 9:30, Hamburglar was demonstrating his need of a nap, so we laid him down.  He woke up at 11:00.

We left the house and went to the Mission.  Where it was $60 for a 5-6 foot tree (we have 7 foot ceilings, because our house was built in 1950 and people were little then, I guess.  Or they just really liked having ceilings they could reach up and touch.  I mean, it DOES make for easy dusting).  We are a single income household and $60 for a tree is crazy.  But I had read about a place across town that allegedly had trees for $20.  So we drove across town, stopping at various tree lots along the way who all had prices starting around $40 or more.  We made it to the $20 place across town, but the address was a greenhouse that was obviously closed for the season.  I had seen a place when I picked up LMA from school on Friday that was advertising $30 trees, so we went over there.  The kids wandered around, there was another couple there with their 7 year old daughter and <year old baby who were admiring Hamburglar's fedora (Target.  $8.  He has a rather varied collection of fancy caps and hats).  We picked out our tree (it was crooked on top!  Perfect!) and when I went to pay, the fellas told me they were a cash or check only operation.  We had to use our Christmas Tree cash on a situation, so we were tree shopping on credit.

By this point, I had to use the restroom and we were all really hungry.  I think it was 12 or 12:30.  We decided to stop at the next lot we saw and, upon pulling up, LMA said, "this is where me and mommy and *mom's boyfriend* got our tree."  Mr. Adventure looked at me.  I asked him if he wanted to go somewhere else and he said, "I know it's petty, but yes."

So, we ended up at the same lot we've been to for the past 3 years.  The people there were really nice and we found a great tree for $30 pretty much instantly.

Next was food.  Mr. A had talked about a super delicious pizza place that had cheap lunches that was just down the street, so we stopped there.  They only do the lunch deal during the week and only offer whole pies on the weekend, and they were $20 each-ish.  So, we went to the Argentinian empanada place, which was so crowded there were no tables, and we got our food to go.

After lunch, Chumbercules was ready for a nap.  So, we laid him down around 2 and he slept until about 4.  Then we brought in the tree and decorated and made dinner and whatever, determining we would put off Santa until the following day.  I had also wanted to hit the library to get some books and take the kids to the library puppet show, but Chumby needed to nap.  So, we decided to see Santa Sunday.  But that didn't happen either.  At least we made it to the library.

Also, I heard the Santa I wanted to see wasn't in his sleigh on Saturday anyway.  He was at the local running store or something.

In other news...

Since we put up the tree I feel like I've told Hamburglar not to touch the ornaments about 1000 times.  He has removed and broken three candy canes (and the way he does it is hilarious) and he's been learning new words like crazy.  He said rooster the other day while looking at a rooster.  He knows  owl.  He says "diggle diggle" when he's tickling people and he will say "you're welcome" but it comes out more like "gell-come."

We are still working on weaning.  We've been down to just the before-bed feeding for a long time, and he's not ready to give it up yet.  But I'm ready!  My goal for this last leg was 15 months, which gives us 9 days.  Wish us luck!

On Stepparenting

I think I've said this before, but having a child hasn't made me understand my parents any better.  But having a stepdaughter has not only given me some insight into how fucked up my parents were/are, it's also given me tremendous amounts of sympathy and understanding for my own stepmother.

So, I'd never dated anyone with children until I met Mr. Adventure.  I wasn't interested in the responsibility, so I respectfully kept myself out of the single-parent dating pool.  I had a pretty rough weekend that kind of confirmed my reasons for never doing it before.  I read in Suburban Turmoil that over 70% of blended family marriages end in divorce.  Those are some freakishly high statistics.  And I can see why.  It's tough on parents who didn't/couldn't communicate well when they were dating or married to communicate after a break-up when there are a lot of negative feelings floating around.  And it's hard on stepparents.  I've kind of viewed my role as one of support.  Because I'm not Little Miss Adventure's (LMA) mom and I know that.

98% of problems stem from miscommunication.  And LMA was going to be with us through Thanksgiving this week, but her mom changed plans at kind of the last minute and it really bummed me out.  The kid loves to cook and I had already planned out how we were going to do all the prep work on Wednesday night and she would help me make pies and how fun it was going to be.  Now it's just going to be me and a bottle of wine, making Thanksgiving dinner and feeling sorry for myself because a kid, who I really have no claim to, isn't there to help me.  Boohoohoo.  Poor me.  Blah blah blah.  If I start early enough, I can always get Hamburglar to help me by pulling all the pots and pans out of the cupboards...

So, Suburban Turmoil wrote a piece called "10 Brutal Truths About being a Stepmom" and number 9 really hit home for me.  You can't fix what you didn't break.  My desire for everyone to get along and be super respectful of each other and be this super collaborative co-parenting team for LMA isn't going to happen any time soon.  And there's not really anything I can do other than be supportive and help out when I'm asked.

So, I'm just telling myself two things when situations come up and I don't like how it is being handled: 1) Not my monkeys, not my circus and 2) You can't fix what you didn't break.

Gender and sexual identity for children!

I picked up Little Miss Adventure (LMA) from school on Friday and, while we were driving, we got on the subject of love and marriage and I don't even know what.

LMA: When I grow up, I'm going to marry two girls!  I mean, two boys!

Me: You can marry a girl if you want to.

LMA: That's silly.

Me: Girls can marry girls and boys can marry boys.  I have friends in Chicago who are both girls and they love each other and they are getting married and my old roommates, who are both boys were recently, married, too!

LMA: When I grow up, I'm going to marry a house!

Me: You've lived in Idaho too long.

I've come to the conclusion that politicians and people who argue that "next people will want to marry animals or inanimate objects" or whatever are obviously getting their logic from first graders.  And I figured I should save the polygamy talk for another day.

LMA has a reading assignment for the month of November.  For every 15 minutes she reads or someone reads to her, she gets to color in a turkey on a piece of paper.  I was reading her a story called, "Yuck!  That's Not a Monster!"  In the story, a super cute little pink monster is born to some monster parents.  The pink monster is a he in the story.  We've been working on not correcting adults in our house and LMA corrected me when I was reading the story.  Mr. Adventure sent her to the corner and talked to her again about correcting adults and asked which of us is the better reader and so on.

She said it looked like a girl to her, which sparked a conversation in our house about gender and how boys can wear pink and girls can wear blue and liking a certain color doesn't mean that you are not a boy or girl or whatever.  Then she said that gay people wear pink, which spawned a whole other conversation about how liking certain colors is not indicative of sexual preference and blah blah blah.

Basically, we all learned a lot this weekend.  Hopefully some of what we were saying stuck with the Little Miss.

In Hamburglar news...

He's in the fussy phase of Wonder Week mental leap 9 and he's teething and crying a ton and getting into EVERYTHING.  I think I like him better when he wasn't mobile.

Not really, but I'm really glad to be at work today.

He and I went on a downtown adventure on Saturday and went to the different shops and bookstores and visited all of our favorite downtown people and got some coffee and a new wooden toy.  Then we went to a puppet show at the Library!  Then home for a nap.  It was fun.

He and I also got some new socks, since Owen keeps eating them all.

And that's about it.

The park, the zoo and a lot of poo

We went to Boo at the Zoo on the 25th.  Little Miss Adventure and I had sparkly masquerade masks we'd picked up for $7 each at Pier One, Mr. Adventure wore Groucho glasses and the wee babe was dressed as Chucky.  It was fun and funny.  I saw about 3,000 little girls dressed as Elsa, but no little Elsas came trick-or-treating at our house on Halloween.

Hamburglar and I are still in the weaning process.  We hit a bit of a lull because I wasn't sure how to stop the morning or night feedings, but we've skipped out on the morning feedings four days in a row, now.  He's waking up a little bit earlier, but that's okay.  I keep wondering if each session is going to be the last.  He's becoming less interested in the night feeding, too.  Which means my goal of being completely done breastfeeding by 15 months is likely going to happen.

It's the end of an era.

Mr. Adventure experienced the Poo-Pocalypse about a week and a half ago.  Chumbercules slept in late the Friday before last and he normally sleeps in a disposable diaper, and nothing else.  Mr. Adventure woke up at 9:30a and went into the babe's room and found poo everywhere.  It was in Hamburglar's hair and eyes and mouth and on the wall and all over the crib and in between the crib mattress and the crib frame... When Mr. Adventure went in there, Chumby was balling it up and dropping it on the floor.  Mr. Adventure has a sensitive stomach and is easily grossed out (I'm assuming it's because he was an only child) and he claims to have vomited twice during clean up.

Events like this make me feel better about working all day.

Halloween came.  We took Little Miss Adventure trick-or-treating.  Or, her dad took her.  She was dressed as Aurora and was pretty damn cute.  Chumbercules and I stayed home, watched Elvira, and handed out candy.  He was really into the Monsta Rap.  And yelling excitedly at trick-or-treaters.  I think we'll take him out when he's 3?  Maybe 4?  I don't know.  The following day, the Little Miss put her princess crown on Owen.  He looked very handsome.

Saturday Hamburglar and I went to story time at the library.  And we went to the Nordstrom rack and I found some rad baby toys, including this guy from Skip Hop.  I love wooden toys, and I love this giraffe.  It was $6 at the rack.  I also got him some bath toys for $3 and talked myself out of spending the rest of my paycheck on adorable dresses for the Little Miss.  I think I may take her out to find a fancy holiday dress the next time we have her.

Saturday it monsooned all afternoon and all night.  So we were going a bit stir crazy.  I baked muffins Sunday morning and Rupert ate most of them off the counter, because he's a dick.  Then Chumby and I went to the park.  I was trying to get him to walk to the play area from the car, but the play area is around the bend and he really wanted to put leaves in his mouth.  Once I got him to where he could see the playground, he headed straight for the swings.  because the swings are obvs the best thing ever.  I got some really good pictures.

One of my favorite bloggers posted a while ago about photo wallpaper, and I've been mentally putting together our wallpaper photo thing in my head for a while now.  After we paint, it's going above the couch in the living room.

I think I want a real camera.  Since I'm the one that typically photographs our lives, I think my old Galaxy S2 isn't really cutting it anymore.  I have 1700 photos on my phone, because I don't want to delete them.  Because I'm a photo hoarder.  Even though I have them all backed up in the Cloud.