it's my blogoversary!

today's my 1 year blogoversary. is it weird that i just gave myself a cake? blogging seems to fit me and my current lifestyle very well as i've figured it all out and learned the ropes. when i wrote my first post, i didn't even know what a follower was or have any inkling of what i was getting myself into. who knew i'd have 160 posts inside myself, just waiting to come out in the course of one year. or that i'd get 500 hits on that one crazy post about shaving my head.

when i look back on that first night of writing, it reminds me of how far i've come in the past year. how much my life has changed and how you can learn and adapt to anything that's thrown at your way if you're willing to try. that was a really rough period (and i don't mean of the red, sloppy variety) because my husband was sick & suffering & we were trying to adjust to life without 2 vehicles. i seriously thought i'd be getting a replacement car at some point shortly after the dead one died, but instead, i learned to write & to cook. not exactly an even exchange, but valuable, none the less.

at first, i wanted to write out all my ideas as fast as i could. my posts were sometimes ridiculously long, but i wanted to squeeze every funny thing i thought of into each post. they were often of a listy nature rather than a story nature, but since then i've learned that i can do a story more justice by letting it stand alone as a solo post rather than abbreviating it and putting alongside several other amusing stories. these are not facebook statuses that need to be short & witty. this blog's not going anywhere, so i can slow down & tell a story the way it's meant to be told. i think i may extract portions of my older posts that i wrote back when i had hardly any readers. some of them are pretty good & it's a shame to let them disappear into history, so if you guys don't object, i may rewrite them & present them a second time around.

another thing i didn't realize is how much i'd come to enjoy reading the blogs of others'. i didn't know that i'd get drawn into the lives of so many people by reading their posts regularly, as if each one is a chapter in a book. or an episode of a tv show, but one where you can interact with the characters through comments. i can spend hours a day just reading through and commenting on people's posts. i love commenting, especially on someone's blog who doesn't yet have a lot of followers or commenters. some of them are truly gems & i wonder why they don't get more traffic. i want to encourage them and let them know that they're doing well & they're appreciated. they have value, even in the mind of this humble stranger.

thanks to all of you guys who stop by. you are appreciated & i like you, even if you just lurk in the shadows in the middle of the night. if you want to come out into the light of day & introduce yourselves, i'd love to meet you. you've seen my place & i'd love an invitation to yours too. we could sit & chat, maybe exchange boob stories or laugh about that time when you called that bearded lady "sir." you tell me one of yours & i'll tell you mine and we'll laugh and cry together. and maybe on occasion, we'll do both at the same time.

shut it, kid

today has been one of those days on the homefront where i shake my head & wonder why it's too late to go back & use some birth control. because my kid is straight up driving me NUTS! the chaos & crying that periodically take over my wee one are enough to make me want to take up smoking & drinking all over again. and perhaps indulgence in some smokable organic substances that shall remain nameless. i haven't used them before, but today seems like it might be the day to start.

we recently studied an indian tribe and we learned that when their babies were born, any time they cried, the parents would pinch the baby's mouth and nose shut so that it couldn't breathe. when it stopped crying, it was allowed to breathe again. their lifestyle of hiding and hunting depended on stealthiness. they didn't leave the kids with granny while they went on their stealthy missions, so the kids had to learn to hold back any and all sounds, even if they got hurt. otherwise, the whole tribe could go hungry or get scalped due to some kid stepping on a thorn with his little bare foot and letting out a yelp or a howl.

this is sounding like a very good idea to me today. do you think it's too late for me to do that to brooke?

yes, she showed me her scar

i believe i'm going to need to apply the kitty rule again for this post. i'll use one i took yesterday since it's handy.

i try to never make fun of anyone other than myself on my blog and since there are miles and piles of things for me to choose from in my own list of stupid or embarrassing events, i rarely need to look elsewhere for blog fodder. but there's a story from many years ago that just makes me giggle every time i even think about it, so i'm going to tell it tonight, in spite of the fact that it involves my husband and a moment of delightful (for me) confusion.

i was newly pregnant with brooke, so it was about 9 years ago, when a friend came for a visit. she already had a baby, which of course meant that there was lots of talk about pregnancy & baby stuff during the visit. she mentioned, in the company of our husbands, that she'd had a c-section with hers. i asked if i could see her scar, so we went into another room and she showed it to me.

here is a diagram of what a c-sec scar should look like if done in a hospital around this time in history, just in case any of you aren't familiar with such nitty gritty. and yes, i did crop the boobs out of the picture cuz i get enough google hits from people looking for naughty stuff that's really not here. and my dad reads this blog sometimes & i don't want to distress him cuz i'm usually nice like that.

after our friends went home, my husband asked me about the c-section scar viewing.

he said, "did she show it to you?"

me, "yeah."

him, "how big was it?"

me, "like, this long" & held my fingers about 4 inches apart.

him, making a horrible face & cringing.

me, "i think that's pretty standard. though i haven't seen many of them. that's a scar that's rarely seen by others."

him, "no kidding! i'm surprised she showed you."

me, "what's the big deal?"

him, "how did she show it to you?"

me, "she pulled her pants down a little."

him, "... and then what?"

me, "what do you mean, then what? she pulled them down & showed it to me."

him, "but how? did she bend over?"

me, staring blankly, trying to work out just how i'd see a scar on her stomach if she was bending over. "of course she didn't bend over. it's right here!" and i drew a line across the bottom of my stomach.

we stared at each other for a few seconds, both of us totally discombobulated, before i realized what was causing the confusion. being that he was new to this whole pregnancy/baby/delivery business, he'd mixed up the words "c-section" and "episiotomy" (thank you, wikipedia for teaching us everything we need to know and want to share) and he'd thought that she was showing me the OTHER scar. no wonder he was so surprised at how nonchalant we were being about the whole topic. and no wonder he was cringing when i said the scar was 4 inches long!

oh the things you'll see behind closed doors

i've been cleaning houses for several years now and while it's totally not my ideal job, it does work for my life. it pays adequately well & has the flexibility that i need. there was a period of time where i had to take brooke to work with me frequently and that certainly made for some very long days. some of my houses take up to five hours or even longer to clean and she was 3 when i started carting her to my jobs with me. she wasn't quite old enough for me to expect her to help or i totally would have gotten some labor out of her.

she kind of liked going because most of the houses were quite large & often there was no one home, so she had the run of the house while i was occupied scrubbing and mopping or with the vacuum running so that i couldn't even hear her. for the most part she was very well behaved & she learned some valuable lessons about never snooping or peeking into the personal spaces of others. i don't know what people keep behind their cupboard doors or in their bedside drawers and i don't want her to know either. some of the houses had children & therefor toys, so she was allowed to play with those toys until i ran the vacuum through the room & declared it finished & off limits.

one day, she was with me, playing in one of the upstairs kids bedrooms. i was at the other end of the hallway cleaning a bathroom. she yelled, "mooooommm! where are yoooouuuu?" i replied, "i'm down here in the bathroom." a couple minutes later she came in & showed me whatever it was that she wanted to show me & i went on about my work.

a bit later in the morning, the man of the house came and found me, which in & of itself was rather odd. he was fairly quiet & not one to look for excuses to chat, but generally stayed out of my way.

he said, "did brooke tell you...?"

me, panicked that she'd broken something valuable, "tell me? no, she didn't tell me anything!"

him, "oh. uuuh..."

me, choking back a massive wave of anxiety. i couldn't afford to lose this job.
"what did she do?"

him, "she just came into my room."

me, "i'm so sorry, i didn't realize you were home, so i didn't tell her to stay out of there"

him, "actually, she came into my bathroom."

me, "oh my gosh, i'm so sorry!"

him, "and ... um... she... um, i mean, i was just stepping out of the shower when she walked in."

me, mouth hanging open. eyes bugging out of my head. face turning purple.

him, "i hadn't even had a chance to grab a towel yet when she walked in. so she... saw.... well... everything."

me, "BWAAHHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!"

him, blushing, "i just... she didn't tell you?!"

me, choking for air & trying to stop the horribly inappropriate hysteria that had taken over my head, "no, she didn't tell me anything!" gasp, heeheehee. "she didn't even act funny. i told her i was in the bathroom and i guess she thought i meant yours.... HAHAHAHAHA! i mean, i'm so sorry, i shouldn't be laughing." gulp

him, "i just wanted to tell you so that if she says anything about it at some point, you'll know what happened and the circumstances."

me, finally getting a grip on myself through a major act of self control, "thank you very much for telling me. i am so, so sorry she did that. i'll talk to her about it and it will never happen again. " snicker, snicker, giggle.

he walked away and as soon as i was alone, i collapsed against a wall & laughed the hardest i've ever laughed as silently as i could manage at the absurdity of the whole situation. i asked brooke about it and she was totally unfazed. didn't seem to have even noticed that he was flashing the full monty.

that might have been the best/worst cleaning day ever.

innocent wonder

i thought i'd participate in one of these photography challenges this week. the subject is "innocent wonder" and this picture makes me happy every time i look at it. it says happy, innocent childhood to me. 

be nice, smile for a change!

do you ever go out shopping or to the movies or anywhere in public & see a kid dressed like some wacky thing? it might be a super hero or a furbie or a princess? and maybe that kid seems to you to be too old for wearing costumes out. but you don't know that kid. or that family. and there might be a really good reason to smile at that kid rather than smirk or whisper in a mocking sort of way to your companion. have you ever seen the show parenthood ?  if you have, think of max braverman and his pirate costume.

so when you see this girl, be nice, please! this is brooke. we're pretty sure she has aspergers and costumes make her gloriously happy. they are harmless and fun. they hurt no one and cause no drama except when strangers are rude.

the next time you come across a kid in a costume, smile! maybe even wave. that's a happy kid you're seeing, even if their face doesn't show it.

but if you see this lady, feel free to mock & throw tomatoes. she needs to take that thing off her head.

the fresh man and the young woman - a romance novel

once upon a time, there was a young woman. she thought of herself as cute, perky and funny with a dash of sexy thrown in. she spent much of her time making herself pretty and trying to smell good. she went out on dates with many possible suitors, but knew that each of them wasn't the ONE. she kept her eyes open and her weekends available, but eventually she grew hard hearted. she started to think that most men were only capable of lust rather than love. she was starting to despair that she'd ever find the man of her dreams. her knight in shining armor.

then one day, a fresh man arrived. he was new to the kingdom and was charming and kind. he loved the young woman in spite of the others she'd tried out before him. he only looked toward the future, never the past.

it wasn't long before the young woman and the fresh man fell madly in love. they couldn't stand to be separated and paged each other with silly codes whenever they were apart. the young woman wanted her man to always see her as a dainty flower. one who could do no wrong. she always wanted to be adorable and lovable so that the fresh man would never turn away from her and break her heart.

then one day, the young lady was lying on her stomach on the floor to get her back cracked by her fresh man. he leaned down & pressed on her back, producing many wonderfully stress-relieving cracks. the fresh man then proceeded to sit down on the young woman's backside & tickle her. he thought it would be funny to trap her in this way and make her squeal. little did the fresh man know, this was a very bad idea. the young woman wasn't capable of controlling herself when she was tickled. much to her horror and shame, the young woman let loose a jarring poot, directly onto the fresh man's bottom.

things changed between them after that. the illusions were gone and reality set in. and henceforth, the fresh man's name changed to Mr. Musty and the young woman's name was changed to Thunderpants.

and mr musty and thunderpants lived happily ever after.

what would your honest fairy tale name be?