So you’re having a vasectomy?

April 20, 2012 - jodimichelle 4 Comments

There’s a few things you need to do first, you’re aware. And as a super helpful wife – I’ve got a little kit for your recovery.

Well, actually I have the kit you should NEVER give your spouse through recovery. Let’s chat about “What not to do.”

You should never offer a DIY kit:

Source: de-nota.blogspot.com via Linda J. on Pinterest

And now is a really bad time to announce you’re pregnant:

The morning of the vasectomy is probably not the best time to tell your husband you have company coming in for the weekend. And you don’t have a guest bedroom.

It’s also not the best weekend to volunteer your guy to supervise a sleepover …

You’ll have to push back the plans to go rock climbing or slack lining.

And, in general, it’s a bad time to offer the suggestion of a martial arts course, ball room dancing, a new gym membership. Don’t tell him you signed him up for Spin Class tomorrow morning.

This isn’t the weekend to debut your newest lingerie purchase. It’s the worst weekend possible for you to host your parents for dinner, or forget to mention you’ll be out of town for a bachelorette party … so he’s got the kids!

But by all means, the least you can do is outfit his recovery with a new t-shirt.

Source: zazzle.com via CrazyAssBear on Pinterest

Congratulations!! If you haven’t met his lawyer yet, you might after these gifts.

Tread lightly, ladies. Be gentle.

newborns

March 9, 2012 - jodimichelle 5 Comments

Today I get to hold a newborn. For reference I looked up my babies as newbies:

Jessica …

I can't wait for this again :)

Oliver …

Today I meet another handsome little man, Judah Joel. Our friends have had babies, welcomed home sons and daughters across the globe and we celebrate with each one. They all feel like family – but Judah Joel and Jessica and Oliver … they are family.

Maybe just in our hearts and maybe not in any tangible way. But when I told Jessica about his birth she gasped! Another boy! (She was delighted, yet was SURE it was going to be a girl. You see, Jessica needs another girl in her life, we’re told.)

Our kids love babies so this wasn’t surprising but there’s something in the air about this one.

Babies, and having them, have been a conversation I seem to be a part of a lot recently. Not by my choice. I keep getting asked when we’ll start having kids (oh it’s it nice that you waited! they tell me). Unknowing women, older women, who just want to make conversation over awkward baby shower games.

I can’t have any more babies, but we already have 2, I say. Delighted to offer them at least this bit of information. What is it about elderly women and their joy of finding out you procreated?

I take pregnancy tests often (and used to, too) but now I’m afraid every time I do. There’s a hunger for a miracle and a driving fear of knowing better. The decision we put off last year to make this huge question mark a thing of the past is now on the top of our priority list.

Friends comfort me and let me be angry at nothing, near them, while I recount these awful conversations. The words I heard from a doctor and the truth I know inside. I’m done having kids. No more babies from my belly. And we were well on our way to that decision – but all of a sudden someone else took it away from me. And I’m sad. For me, for Jessica, for Oliver. For Aaron. He’s such a good dad. We make pretty awesome humans.

I think in the middle of these past two years I was just afraid. Afraid of other people’s kids, other babies. What if by osmosis I was infected? What if by holding and caring and opening my heart to these babies, I’d wake up pregnant tomorrow?

I loved them, but from afar. I wanted to make them laugh but didn’t want to hear them cry. Part of me wanted to be part of this club again with newborn nail clippers and long conversations about nipple flow or diaper ointment.

And then I realized, I had the best years of that club. The years when my kids were newborns and I was thick in the field of learning how to do this Mom Thing. Loving those babies, kissing on them and bathing their bellies.

Sink baths and still life.

These are my people, this is my tribe. And this week it grew by 19 inches and 7 pounds, 4 ounces. My heart can still have babies, as it turns out.

And I can’t wait to meet him.

Notes

September 1, 2011 - jodimichelle 2 Comments

I have this outline for an ebook I’m considering putting on paper: The Myth of Parenting School.

I’ve told my kids so many times “I learned that in Mom school!” “Dad learned that in parenting school!” just the same as I was told growing up and couldn’t WAIT to get to this mythical school. It was my plan to be mom – what is college all about any way?

I have no idea, because my outline is half scribbled on by the best artists in town (my kids) so my thoughts on this ebook are generally in my head; however I’m pretty sure the first chapter might read something like this.

Enjoy …

There are some things you won’t be told when you announce you’re pregnant. This is a smart decision on everyone’s part. There are the books that “tell the truth!” about pregnancy and parenting infants and toddlers and then there are the medical books that warn you of everything you would have slept better without knowing. It’s my belief that the Medical Field wants you all to be scared shitless and have them on speed dial. Your Insurance Company cringes at your upcoming birth and yet – they’re delighted to sucker you in to needless office visits, weight checks AND OH EM GEE the fear of bathing your child or pooping. (You’re the one who needs to poop, by the way.)

That’s all fine and dandy. I encourage most of this because naiveté is usually your best-friend as a new parent. You just need to get through the day – wearing gloves if needed. Hold that baby, feed him/her and enjoy the quiet. Because age 3 is on the horizon … and this is the chapter the Tell-All’s leave out.

How to react to your child when they say things like “I put something in my butt!” “My nose hurts because I shoved a stick up it to see what it would do.” “Mom, is it ok to eat the soft brown things on the side walk? It looked like candy!”

Oh hello! You’ve walked into my life.

We’re past the infant carriers, high chairs and baby dvd’s (thank you, Jesus) but we’re in new territory without even one map.

Enter: The Myth of Parenting School; so your child just turned three?

dot dot dot.

Painting today!

March 13, 2010 - jodimichelle Leave a comment

My house is a little crazy right now – kids are hither and yon – naked from showers and baths, over taking laundry bins as their personal traveling systems and littering my hallways with dirty socks and pants.

My son learned the word Boobie this morning and then proceeded to pee on my carpet. My daughter, with a double ear infection and sinus infection, is sitting quietly reading her books … she requested that we keep the TV off this morning.

And we’re painting soon!

Can’t wait to show you the results. I’m off to tape the room.

Bedroom reduex

March 11, 2010March 11, 2010 - jodimichelle 4 Comments

This is my daughters bedroom about a year and half ago …

Since then we’ve taken her carpet up, she now has hardwood floors, changed her window coverings (and installed new windows) and added a locker to her room. A stand alone, vintage locker – painted white. If it were day time I’d take a photo to show you – for now, just imagine it.

This weekend we’ll be repainting her walls – and the wonderful wall decal of the dandelion is no more so maybe we’ll do a new one with the new paint. (It was a one time use deal)

Now. Please tell me what to do.

She wants her walls in the purple family, which is just fine by me – but it has to be muted. Think an elephant grey with a purple undertone. I want to do her room so she can grow into it for the next 10 years and not feel like she’s living in a barbie playworld. Also? I hate Barbie playworlds.

We need a rug, I’ll be repainting an old brass headboard for a new bed (so her brother can have hers, RIP crib) and I was thinking this:

Here’s one pallet I like:

Here’s another – I like the Ash Violet.

I like this turquoise for the bed frame (Gem Turquoise), or something similar …

However, Aaron, the husband, would prefer to paint the new headboard something along the lines of a very dark purple, almost black …

Only a little darker.

I like my idea better – with a punch of color like that in the room, but maybe that’s not making it “grow up” at all. So help please.

Feel free to link to things you think I should know, look at, buy. I buy paint tomorrow, so it’s down to the wire!