Don't Cheat Me Out of a Party!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYY, my friends! My dear sister, Neiman Molly, is GETTING MARRIED!

Who is the lucky guy? Ah, well. He shall be known to you all as Mr. B.S. These are, in fact, his initials. B.S. and Neiman Molly met - SEVEN?! - years ago as first year law students. Theirs has been a courtship both torturous and tortuous (I don't THINK she'll slap me for writing that. In fact, I think she would agree.). FINALLY, they have decided they simply cannot live without each other, and that is that.

As Harry said, "Once you decide you want to spend the rest of your life with someone, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible." Of course. But my darling sister has somehow misinterpreted this statement to mean she DOES NOT need a wedding. EEECK! True, neither B.S. nor Molly (despite her love of all things haute) are showy exhibitionists. Right now their plan is to have a Justice of the Peace in New York tie their knot, and follow up with a ceremony and reception SOMETIME. 2011, perhaps.

No, NO! Say it isn't so, Neiman Molly! It doesn't have to be a big flashy 450 guest affair at the National Cathedral followed by the jillion dollar reception with Rolexes in goody bags. But surely every bride deserves to have her life and love celebrated by a gathering of family and friends. Even the preternaturally reserved Neiman Molly would LOVE the wedding dress, champagne and cheezy "Come On Eileen" (yes, you know I am going to request that song) playing at her reception while some close relations drink inappropriate amounts of merlot. What says everlasting love more?

But truly, I know a thing or two here: I eloped once, in a prior life, before PVT. Yes, it seemed right at the time, but in the end, unless it is done out of necessity, it cheats the bride and groom of the opportunity to show to their loved ones that they are proud of and serious about the commitment they are making to each other. And it cheats the family out of the opportunity to show their love and support for the couple, for better or for worse.

And if ANYONE deserves a wedding more - see the aforementioned TORTUROUS AND TORTUOUS SEVEN YEARS - it is Neiman Molly. Besides, a ceremony a year later? Rather anticlimactic, oui? Would you rather go to a wedding or an...anniversary party?

So please join me, my friends, in wishing my gorgeous Pre-Raphaelite sister congratulations in her upcoming nuptials. And please VOTE in the poll displayed to help convince her that she needs to HAVE some nuptials for us all to celebrate.

After all, Tarzhay Miss and I REALLY want to wear bridesmaids' dresses. It is, of course, all about MOI.

I Think He Had Me in Mind with the "Flesh Is Weak" Clause

I'm sure many of you know that 'tis the season of Lent right now. That time of year when Catholics like me have an even greater sense of vague guilt and shame than they USUALLY do. Or maybe that's just ME.

During Lent you are encouraged to fast or abstain from things that are unnecessarily decadent, in respect and honor of Jesus' long stint in the desert. When he did not EAT for 40 days and was tempted by the Devil (wouldn't they have had to get him to Nazareth General Hospital STAT after 40 days without FOOD?!)

Anyhoo, for Lent I decided to give up 1) chocolate and 2) danish (Wal Mart makes two good things: one is their cream cheese danish, the other is their cinnamon toast. So if you're low carb, you don't even have to go through the doors. Just run away.). And I would say the rosary at church, go to confession, and drag my children to the Stations of the Cross.

Well, my friends, I think I got to about noon on Ash Wednesday before I HAD to have a piece of chocolate. And the next morning I could not RESIST a little piece of danish. My pathetic rationalization? Well, Jesus wasn't PREGNANT when he was in the dessert. If he had been, I'm sure the apostles would have been running McChickens, milkshakes and Cheez Its to him 24/7.

But really, I HAVE had to give up booze, ciggies, Nyquil, cocaine, freebasing, crystal meth and my Tuesday night gang bangs. To give up ONE MORE THING is really asking a lot. Isn't it? Right?

Just ANOTHER topic to add to my ever-growing confession list.

Where I Fail Miserably In Trying to Entertain You All

BLEEEEEEECHHHHHHHHH, my friends. I apologize. I was going to post about my visceral hatred of capri pants, but alas. After plowing my way through Sprite and chicken sausages this evening, thinking THAT would of course settle my stomach, now I'm not so sure I can sit upright, let alone type much.

I will try my hardest not to turn this space into a (literal) navel-gazing PREGNANCY blog, but holy nausea, Batman. If you are pregnant, or, God forbid, been MARRIED to someone pregnant, you know that the pregnancy is pretty much the ONLY freaking thing the pregnant person can think about. Even if you have a job, or other kids, or an actual life. The other parts of your life must make way for this all-consuming task, obsession, nine-month sentence, what have you.

I am NOT COMPLAINING, by the way.

No sir.

I will just be GRATEFUL if and when the first trimester becomes the second.

Now please excuse me while I go plow my way through some Cheez Its. THAT's what I need. I think.

There's No Such Thing as Jinxing. Right?

Have you noticed the posting around here has been a bit lackluster? A bit tired?

Well, here's my excuse: I've been busy...gestating.

Many of you know about my loss last fall, which I blogged about ad nauseum. And then, in December, I had another positive pregnancy test. I started bleeding heavily a week later, which was obviously so effing depressing I didn't even write about it.

So it is with great trepidation and guarded hope that I tell you all I'm knocked up. AGAIN.

Yes, for all of you keeping track, that's a lot of snogging.

What has given me great comfort this time is this: almost from the beginning, I have felt like doggie doo. Nauseous. And I NEVER felt like that with my loss. I'm fortunate that I don't puke my brains out like a lot of women in the first trimester, but I have been functioning under varying degrees of blechiness throughout the day. Certain foods I cannot even THINK about, let alone EAT. Fresh fruit? Ughh. Vegetables? Oh my GAWD. There was one night I could fathom eating nothing but pot stickers (which PVT obligingly fetched for me). In the mid-afternoon I have to keep up a constant intake of goldfish or saltines.

Who knew I'd be grateful to feel like I've had the world's longest hangover?

I suppose propriety would dictate that I refrain from telling you all until the end of the first trimester (I still have a few weeks to go). But phooey to propriety. If I lose this one too, I will need all the help I can get. And that's where you will come in.

Even if that happens, though, I do realize this is our "bonus" child. That so many women go through far, far worse. Each night I troll the Babycenter message boards,trying to divine whether I will have a healthy baby amidst all the chatter, and so many women have had three, four, EIGHT miscarriages. Stillborns. Or even lost an infant. It's enough to make you want to curl up in the fetal position and and weep for days (with your legs firmly crossed).

So...here's hoping that I get to have this baby #5. Five children. Where we VT's officially cross the line from noteworthy to traveling freakshow.

I Hope He Remembers This When I'm an 84 Year Old Bag Lady

My 5 year old is, rather charmingly, obsessed with all things Lego Star Wars. For months now, he has fantasized about this:






This, my friends, is the REPUBLIC DROPSHIP WITH AT-OT WALKER. For ages 14 and up! For $249.99! Rory has obsessively, lovingly, caressed its page in the Lego catalog every night before bed. Santa did not get this for him, because hello! Ages 14 and up! And $249.99! But one night in early January, in a fit of maternal indulgence, I told him: "Rory, if you can save up $100, I will buy it for you." Thinking, ha! He can't save up that much money!



Well, I gravely underestimated this determined little guy. He has relentlessly and purposefully done chores every day since our "deal." True, some of the rates he was paid were a bit inflated at times - think 1995 in Silicon Valley - $2 for mopping the garage? $1 to pick up 8 toys in the game room? - but quarter by quarter, dollar by dollar, he finally arrived at $100 this week. So I ordered the darn thing - $292 with tax and shipping! - and we tracked the package vigilantly. Yesterday it was "Out for Delivery," so Rory donned his coat and waited in the driveway for the package guy. The screams of delight when poor Mr. UPS arrived were ALMOST worth the freaking $300.



And then he woke up at 5:15 am this morning to work on it.



Ugh. Sure, babies can melt your heart, but who knew little boys meticulously assembling Star Wars monstrosities could too? I hope I am not such a susceptible sucker when he asks for a little Beamer for his 16th birthday.

All Springed Out and Nowhere to Go

Today the sun finally came out. The temperature broke 4o, and as usually occurs when the first hint of spring wafts through, I have a sudden primal urge to do something spontaneous and highly impractical; something like running naked through the streets, or dying my hair fuchsia, or taking a day trip to the beach, or booking an unaffordable trip to Spoleto. Just ANYTHING but staying in the house for one more minute and mopping the floors while Colette watches another episode of Brainy Baby.

But ALAS, I live in Tulsa. What is there to DO here? Now, before PVT slaps me around for complaining about my very nice life, I will say this: Tulsa is a wonderful place to live your day to day grind. Nonexistent traffic, affordable housing, friendly people, good schools. BUT. Say you have a weekend. Or a week. Or that awful season of all kids all the time - SUMMER. WHAT do you do? There's only one nice mall that, AS YOU KNOW, has no Nordstrom - just a tired old ladies' Saks. You could take a day trip....to Muskogee. You can't go hiking. You can't go downtown and prowl about, since there is NOTHING downtown but office buildings and a hotel or two. You can't go skiing (not that I like skiing. I do, however, have a special talent for apres-ski in the lodge with a Hot Toddy). You can't go to the beach.

Now I have been spoiled: I've lived in Seattle, Portland, Southern California, the East Bay, and Manhattan. But am I missing something here, natives? Am I just not imaginative enough?

Well, do let me know. Otherwise I might have to scare you all and run naked through the streets with fuchsia hair if this springiness-fever holds.

I'm Probably Not Ready to Train for a Marathon

I apologize for the dearth of posting lately, my friends. This endless winter is slowly sucking the life out of me, let alone the ability to BLOG. And embarrassingly enough, it's not like I even go OUTSIDE in this weather, save a 20 foot sprint from my car into Target.

What has happened to me that I've become such a wimp? In college, I got up at dark thirty several times each week and ran 5 miles in whatever gray awfulness Seattle was spewing forth. And after college, when I worked in Manhattan and lived in - dear Lord - Jersey City, I did not commute, I TRIATHLONED to work. From my apartment in Jersey City, I walked about a mile to the PATH train station, and then took the stairs deep to the bowels of the earth to the trains, which take New Jerseyites under the Hudson River. The PATH train would launch us under the (then!) World Trade Center, where we would reclimb to ground level. Then I would catch one subway, then transfer to another subway, and then hop off at Rockefeller Center, and schlep another two blocks to my office building. This through Nor'easters and blizzards and awful Northeast winters! How did I survive?

And now I can barely go into the garage to fetch a beverage from the man fridge, for goodness sake. Either I'm getting old...or can I blame the children somehow?

Namastay, Baby

In a concerted effort to be less...LAME in 2010, I signed up for a yoga class. It's through our local community education, so it is very low key. I do not have to slim down, tone up, boob up and blonde up before I even enter the door, as I would have to do here, the local fitness mecca for hot moms and their personal trainers. Nor do I need to sport gorgeous yoga pants and a cute tank top. (Although that wouldn't be all that bad...)

So each Thursday I put on my old college sweats and join twelve or so friendly baby boomers - perhaps hippies in their day (is there such a thing in Tulsa? If so, they are in my yoga class) and do odd, animalistic stretches for an hour. And even more oddly, I quite enjoy it. Despite being the least flexible and least nimble person to be born since the Dawn of Man, I find it relaxes me immensely. Because it is ONE HOUR out of the whole week where I am not thinking about my children. Or housework. Or anything remotely related to Chaos Chez VT. Which is so giddily refreshing it's almost as good as a stiff drink. And when I come home I'm ready to dive in head first again.

Obviously most mothers know to take a little break now and then...and one would think I had learned that lesson. It's just one I need to keep relearning.

Oh, and Nordstrom does have some cute yoga duds.

Shoes that Make Me Weep

Let's pretend for a moment I could afford these:

Aren't they breathtaking, in a kick-arse, take-no-prisoners way? But where, o where, would I wear them? Kiddie soccer practice? Kindermusik? Piano lessons? The 2nd grade Valentine's party?

Who am I kidding. I'd wear them to all of those places and then to BED if I actually owned them.

I Don't Think I'm Invited to the Housewarming

Grab those airsick bags, my friends:


Why, people? The cover of ARCHITECTURAL DIGEST? Can we not escape All Things Aniston? Listen, I am sure she is a lovely person. And she IS very pretty. My thighs will not be that taut, my teeth not that white, my highlights not that golden, when I'm 40. 41 now! But assuming we are over the Friends thing, has she done anything really noteworthy since maybe....Office Space (which would have been good with any cute, pert, lovely twenty-something)? Is there any great intellect, or passion, or wit, or fire behind all that toned and tasteful blondeness?


And it drives me bonkers when these fawning magazine editors laud celebrities' "good taste." HUH? I would have really great taste, too, if I could hire a designer and a phalanx of consultants to rip apart and painstakingly reconstruct my Beverly Hills mansion-on-a-hill. And fill it with antique baubles and Italian marble and redwood wainscoting...

Ah, I'm just jealous, yes. But don't you think you or me should be on the cover of Architectural Digest instead: "Harried Mom In Her Not-So-New-Home Somehow Manages to Hang a Facsimile of Artwork On the Wall Despite Multiple Attempts to Knock It Off With Nerf Footballs"?

Now THAT would be a noteworthy story.

Come On Over! Just Don't Use Our Potty!

Disclaimer: I apologize, but I feel moved to post the obligatory mommy blogger lament regarding errant urine. Yes, pee is involved. You've been warned.

This is my third son, Will:

Of all my boys, he is by far the most "social." The family ham. Keane is the neurotic, academic drama queen; Rory, the brooding introvert; but Will is Most Likely to Be Voted Fraternity President, or Most Likely to Star In a Remake Of Caddyshack. He loves to regale us about his "bad dreams," which involve Will the protagonist killing monsters! And bad guys! And crocodiles! And hitting them! And throwing poop at them! (It's hard to promote pacifism in a home with so much testosterone. We'll attempt the concept of "just war" at a later date, don't worry.)

Will has finally wanted to master that pinnacle of male development, peeing while standing up. Which of course I must encourage, since I don't believe sitting down would go over well in the 8th grade locker room. I'm not sure if my first two boys were exceptionally GOOD aimers, or if Will is an exceptionally BAD aimer, but my GAWD. He pulls the step stool over to the potty, and triumphantly shoots all over the wall, the potty seat, his legs, the floor...everywhere but the potty bowl. And I stand by rather helplessly, cheering him on, while trying to ascertain how long it's going to take me to attack the bathroom with Lysol. I think I must be missing some lately, since the powder room is starting to smell like a line of urinals at a sports bar during the playoffs.

Eh. They say urine is sterile, right?

Lots of Tears, Please Send Beer

I'm sure you've probably heard, my friends, that the Duggars had their NINETEENTH child at a mere 25 weeks gestation. Michelle, the Mama (I am pretty sure she deserves the capital M), had to have an emergency c-section due to a sudden onset of preeclampsia (which can happen during ANY pregnancy, by the way. Not just your nineteenth. The camp that believes that Michelle "got what she deserved" after having so many kids is rather abhorrent to me).

Well, I haven't watched the show, but I wanted to watch this season's premiere with this little one's birth. Why? I don't know - perhaps for the vicarious torment and subsequent cathartic tears?

What surprised me was how NORMAL the family seemed. Yes, large and more - ahem - devout than most of us, but they don't speak in tongues all day; there was just a lot of cheery mayhem and swinging on stair rails - rather like my house . And NO, PVT, Jim Bob and Michelle do not look like brother and sister. How could they be? ALL of those kids look happy and healthy and not plagued by West Virginia-esque backwards-ness (apologies to West Virginians)!

Anyhoo, when they delivered little Josie via c-section, I lost it. For many reasons: I suspect many mamas get teary eyed when seeing a little one being born, since it reminds them of the own births (right? Don't tell me I'm the only one?!). And while I've had three c-sections, obviously I haven't SEEN the process (as you are of course screened off while they tear open your midsection and then, hopefully methodically, reassemble your innards all up again).

And it reminded me of my D&C, too, since, cruelly, the stage setting for a D&C is just like a c-section: same operating room, same doctor, same scrubs - just a rather different outcome.

So poor PVT thought I had just lost it over the Duggar's little beautiful preemie, but no - I had lost it over the whole bloody mess of birth and life and death. The tightrope we all walk when we sign up for this parenthood gig, that can tilt either way to sunny bliss and happiness, or gray and foggy despair. But I think the Duggars know, that despite the risk of loss each and every pregnancy can bring, the possibility of the birth of a healthy child is simply worth it. Every umpteenth time.

And yes, you can feel free to send condolences and Corona Light to PVT, for having to coexist with this emotional, hormonal wife.

Now excuse me while I go blow my nose. AGAIN.

Friends Don't Let Friends Wear Orthopedic Apostle Sandals

My friends, while I believe that about 90% of what you buy at Nordstrom will rock your world, there are times when even the gods and goddesses that are the Nordstrom buyers get it wrong. Terribly wrong.



For instance: just yesterday I got my big order of PVT-approved lingerie. Of course, to take advantage of free shipping on orders over $100, I threw in a few baubles to try on. This being one of them:

So seduced was I by the pretty coral color that I neglected to notice all that drapey fabric in the front. The result on my dwarfish frame: I looked pregnant with a pair of wrestling boa constrictors. REVOLTING, my friends.

And then, my dear friend Kappa Kappa Karen (who continues to get me into trouble by emailing me the latest kiddie trunk shows in town) sent me this atrocity:
What IS that? Doesn't it look like something one of the disciples of Jesus Christ wore after a bad ankle sprain?

So, my friends, even Nordstrom can fail you on occasion. DRAMATICALLY. Luckily you have me to shake you to your senses. You're welcome.