I've seen her dehydrate, sir. It's pretty gross.

Note to the administration of this here fine institution: if at any point you're incredibly concerned about an outbreak of swine flu, please feel free to shut this place down and keep paying the staff anyway. I have absolutely no problem with that. I believe there have been a couple cases of swine flu reported here in central Ohio, but nobody's died yet, thank goodness. It still kind of blows my mind that in this day and age, people die of the flu. Again, I think if some genius could figure out a way to sell cute, safe IVs at Target, that would be a big help. I don't know if everyone who dies from the flu dies from dehydration or pneumonia or what, but there have been many a day when I would have liked to hook myself up to an IV without going to a doctor. Cause I'm basically just not much of a water drinker. Never have been. I prefer my beverages to come with fizz, unnatural fruit flavors and/or candy in the bottom of the bottle. Plain water? BORING.

Sit in the master's chair, pet the pooch

Lil J's best friend (the cute 9-year-old girl across the street) saw J bringing in the trash cans last night, and yelled over to him something along the lines of "Guess what? Somebody stole my bike and spray painted it black and my friend lives next door to them and saw it so the police went over there and they were growing marijuana in their backyard!" Man! You move all the way across town thinking you're getting away from this, and it turns out it's going on everywhere. Although, really, I have no way to verify this information, and for all I know, there's some dude in this house with a horrible glaucoma problem, but it all seemed so eerily familiar. If I see even one 1970's-era Cadillac parked on our street, we're moving again.

Stop your grinnin' and drop your linen. Found 'em.

I just found out this morning that I need to find another babysitter for Lil J next week. Oooh, the stress. I'm trying to save up as much time off as I can for maternity leave, J's job really needs more notice if he's going to take off three days in a row, and everyone I know is working next week. I may have to bring the little guy to work in a crate and let him chew on library books all day. "Boss, I got us a new paper shredder. He's even cheaper than the ones at Office Max. Whoo!" I wonder if she'll go for that....

You know, if it wasn't for this Craigslist killer case in the news, I would never have known that Craiglist has an "erotic" section in it. I was happy thinking it was all about swapping furniture (and, let me just say, we've gotten both a delightful dining room set and roll-top desk from Craigslist in the last few months). I don't know what people are thinking posting personal things like that on the internet. So gross.

No one persecutes harmless crackpots like Gaston

I was in the grocery store the other day and saw a new flavor of Orbit gum called "Sangria Fresca." Gum that tastes like wine? But, you know, that's as close to the sauce as I'm going to get until 2010.

Philosophical question: do you think there is an "addiction gene" that causes certain people to become more easily addicted to things than other people? I think for a lot of people, that's just a given, but I've been talking about this a lot lately and have heard the stance that even if there is an "addiction gene," it's still the person's choice to indulge in that vice and is, therefore, entirely their fault. Which seems harsh if there is a physical trait in that person that causes them to immediately become addicted to say, alcohol, when other people can drink it casually and have no problems. I just find this whole area fascinating. I feel fortunate to not be addicted to anything...although one might argue my dependence on sugar isn't entirely healthy either. But we can discuss my poor pancreas later.

Is you is or is you ain't my constituents?

On Sunday afternoon, I called my Mom to say "sup?" and Lil J subsequently got all ticked off because he wanted to play with my cell phone and press all the buttons. Which, surprisingly, makes it very difficult to talk to one's mother on the phone. So while I was trying to talk to her, I said to Lil J "Why don't you go find your Elmo phone?" So he starts looking around the family room, obviously not exactly sure of the Elmo phone's location, so I said to him "Where is your Elmo phone?" And he looked at me with this truly frustrated look, threw both his hands in the air and cried "I don't know!" That was his first sentence! J was standing in the kitchen and heard it, and we both found that hilarious. He was so dejected! Makes me wonder if we keep this up and keep depriving him of the things he wants, will that make him the next Shakespeare? I'll write in another 40 years and let you know.

Cubs win!

Dude, check out the time stamp on this post. I'm having a morning where I'm attempting to embrace my insomnia instead of curse it. And I've already been up for an hour cleaning and doing laundry. This may come as a shock to many of you, but did you know there's not much on tv at 4 a.m. on Sundays? If you're interested in tomato trees, however, this is your peak time to learn.

"Can you say 'Iron Man'?" "Man!"

I am pleased to report that I'm feeling much, much better today. Yay! So much so that I've already started thinking about lunch and what to eat today. I think I'm going to take it easy and not eat anything toooooo heavy, but, man, I could eat a whole plate of french fries. That's what I'm talking about.

Lil J woke up really early this morning and was therefore pretty cranky before we left for work. So to appease him, I let him watch a couple cartoons as we were getting ready. But as a result of this, I didn't get to see the Today show, and I have no idea what is going on in the world. And, more importantly, I don't know what's going on with the killer chimp or the crazy lady who jumped into the polar bear exhibit in Germany. It's those personal stories of human triumph and general insanity that really get my attention.

You like jazz?

I'm still sick. I got home last night and threw up again. Not only do I feel bad, but I'm getting anxious worrying about how this is affecting the baby. I'm trying to drink fluids, but it's really hard since I'm so nauseous and half the time I throw them back up. In good news, however, I was up at 4 a.m. today so I went downstairs on watched Lost on the DVR. Ahh, Hurley, where would that show be without you? I don't understand why so many people dislike Ewoks though. That's like hating puppies or pizza. It seems inhuman.

Bleeding Gums Murphy

Oh man. Just when I thought I was feeling better from having the stomach flu this weekend, I went and read Beth's blog about mayonnaise and grapes salad. I'm going to hurl. Oh my God.

Ok, I'm back. Got some air. Doing ok. Yeah, I had an awful stomach flu the last few days. So bad I even had to cancel class last night. On Monday night, in particular, it was quite unpleasant--fever, vomiting, chills, aches, the whole enchilada. Lil J and my mother-in-law have been sick, too, so there's definitely something going around. I'm glad the worst is over, but even yesterday afternoon, I was sitting around, feeling nauseous and thinking "I might have overdone it with the food today," and all I'd had all day was about 20 Cheerios and a slice of toast with peanut butter on it. That is just pitiful.

When it's time to change, you've got to rearrange

I got into work this morning, and there was a Cadbury Creme Egg sitting on my computer keyboard! Sweet! The Easter Bunny was out early today! ...or late last night...I can't say for sure. But that was a delightful surprise. I put on my sunshine yellow maternity shirt today so I would look pastel-y and spring-ish even though it's gray and rainy outside. Trying to keep the overall mood cheerful...even though the holiday is about Jesus dying and rising from the dead. Such a weird holiday. To this day, I don't really get what pagan tradition with the bunnies and the eggs got mixed in with the Christian events. So confusing. But I think Jim Gaffigan sums up the absurdities of our holidays very well in this clip. I suppose it's better to not overanalyze and just enjoy it. I feel pretty confident that Jesus doesn't mind me gorging myself on chocolate for the next couple days anyway. He'd be cool with dat.

The main bullet point of this presentation

I saw an interesting article on cnn.com yesterday about the number of out-of-wedlock births in the U.S. in 2007. Apparently, of the over 4 million babies born that year, 40% were born to unwed mothers. Daaang, that's a lot. But here's where it gets really curious: when it came to white mothers, 27% were single. Of the Latina new moms, 51% were single, and over 70% of the African-American moms weren't married. Huh. That is a completely wacky statistic. Obviously, there are some major cultural differences in the attitudes towards single parents out there. And this study didn't break the numbers down according to whether the mother was truly by herself or if she was living with the baby's father but just not married to him, so it doesn't necessarily mean the kid will only be with the mother. But, dude, when I think about trying to raise a child all by myself, I get the shakes. Can you imagine how hard that would be? I'm not sure how people even do it if they're divorced and sharing custody. But apparently the number of women who choose to become single moms is growing every year. Which, hey, if you have the money and energy to do that, I'm not going to stop you. Rock on with your bad self. I'm just not sure I have that kind of fortitude, however. Cripes.

Which one's the Daddy Mac, and which one's the Mac Daddy?

Really, I don't know if I'm just getting slow and tired from being pregnant or what, but Lil J plain tuckered me out the last couple days. Sometimes that kid is like a toad that got into someone's stash of crack. Monday and Tuesday, he didn't want to nap, he was intent on going outside even though it was cold and snowy, and he generally would not give me a moment's peace. As our pediatrician said yesterday, "Often, parents of kids his age ask us why their child is going through the terrible two's before they're two, and we tell them it can start as early as 15 months." Well, thank you for stating the obvious there, Doc. Wow. But, again, it's possible I'm just getting weighted down by the high-kicking gal in my uterus, and Lil J is being a completely normal, reasonable kid. I don't know. I think my perspective is all out of whack. I ate two packages of Oreo Cakesters yesterday, so my judgment is pretty off.

Someday, son, all this will be yours

You know what? I got to watch the first 20 minutes of Wednesday's Lost this morning, and I'm so proud of Jack for not operating on young Ben. Why? Because it means that somebody is finally backing up Sayid, who, in my opinion, has ever been the only person on that island with his head not firmly entrenched in his own rectum. Poor Sayid has been saying for years now that Ben lies, you can't trust him, etc..., so then he has the cajones to shoot the kid, and finally FINALLY Jack backs him up with a figurative fist-bump and is all "Do what you gotta do, amigo." Right on. Of course, if this was real life, I'd be horrified that someone shot a 12-year-old, but since Ben is a fictional character, I say do your worst. Get 'im. Take away his Halloween candy and push him in the mud for all I care.

I've been up since 2 a.m.. I am wiped.

Darth Sidious wears Crocs?

Lil J's Grandma S. took this picture of him yesterday:


When we got home from work, that flower was sitting in a mug of water on the table, looking all pretty and fresh. Unfortunately, as we were eating dinner, he picked it up and dunked the entire flower into the water, so the poor thing was pretty wilty after that. This should probably inspire me to meditate on the transience of earthly beauty, but I'm still mostly just wondering what happened on Lost last night.

Girl powah!

I had the anatomy ultrasound on the new baby on Monday, and the OB was mostly sure that it's a girl! Wow! That was a shock. I thought that with my family's history, my Mom was surely going to wind up with 9 grandsons and one granddaughter (that's my brother's 4th who was born a couple months ago). But lo and behold, life is all about surprises, isn't it? The OB said she couldn't be 100% sure about it because the baby was sitting breech, so it was hard to get a completely clear view, but she looked and looked for a long time, and neither one of us ever saw anything that resembled a boy part. And Lil J had no shame about showing off his stuff in utero, so I feel pretty confident that this is a girl. So send name suggestions! We have a lot more leeway with girl names, so I won't have to shoot down very many. Nice.

I just sort of hope she has a lot of hair. Because she'll be wearing a lot of blue and my one chance to make her look girly is with accessories. But no pierced ears. Babies with pierced ears creep me out.