The whole family trooped into the doctor’s office today, with video tape in hand. I still have the same video tape with both Jachin’s and Zoe’s ultrasounds on it, so we added baby Gale #3’s to it (or BG3, as I like to call it, since we don’t have a name yet).  With some jiggling and bugging the little guy, we finally got a shot of the “goods”. It’s a boy for sure. Zoe started crying. Then she actually left the room. No, I’m not kidding. Jon had to go after her. Jachin never took his eyes off of the screen the whole time. “Wow, there are his ribs!” he said. “And look at his legs!” At one point the little guy did an impressive yoga move with his legs extended back over the top of his head. As the ultrasound tech measured his head, Jachin remarked about how small the baby’s brain appeared to be. The tech assured him that it was normal; the little guy will have no problems with video game aptitude. Jon came back into the room carrying Zoe, who refused to talk the rest of the time, except to occasionally whimper: “But I really wanted it to be a girl…”

But she’ll get over it… eventually. Hopefully.

And now we can start buying blue. And thinking of boy names. I have a few in mind. Jon named Jachin, and Jachin named Zoe, so Zoe and I are the only ones who actually get a vote on the baby’s name… since we’re the ones who haven’t gotten to name a baby yet. (Zoe cried more when I talked about this, because — as she pointed out, sobbing — she’d only thought of girl names.)

(She hasn’t yet talked about actually leaving for Hawaii. We’re hoping it doesn’t come to that. Because we’d really miss her. And airfare is so expensive right now…)

One of my rad friends from high school, Shay, wrote a book about our hometown. I told her how mad-jealous I am of her… since having my own ISBN is a life-long dream of mine. But she’s done it.

So assuming you’ve always wanted to know more about Smithsburg, Maryland, and assuming you want to support a fledgling writer (because what heartless jerk wouldn’t?), you can now go to Barnes and Noble and pre-order your own copy.

Go here now!

(Yay for Shay!)

This morning I went in to the doctor for my usual monthly check-up. These monthly visits are short and sweet: the doctor listens for a heartbeat and then asks if I have any questions or concerns. Assuming I have no questions or concerns, these visits can be as short as 45 seconds. Of course that’s after a mind-numbing 30-45 minute wait in the waiting room beforehand. So if I don’t have any legitimate questions or concerns, I make some up… just to help me feel like I’ve gotten my co-pay’s worth.

The kids love going with me to these visits. They love fighting over  playing with the infant toys in the waiting room. I told them that for Christmas this year they are getting letter blocks, plastic keys, and one of those wooden rollercoaster thingys, since they seem to love these items so much they will actually fight babies for them. My kids also love to hear the heartbeat once we’re in the patient room. They think it’s awesome, actual proof that mommy is growing a baby and not just getting fat.

So today the doctor walked in and said, “Hey guys! Ready to hear a heartbeat?” And they were all, “Yay!” And then he said, “So we don’t know what this one is yet, right?” And I said, “Not yet, the ultrasound is next week.” So then he turned to my kids and asked the magical question: “What do you guys think it is?” Here is the actual transcript of the conversation that followed:

Jachin: “It’s a boy.”

Zoe: “Nuh-uh, it’s a girl.”

Jachin: “No, it’s definitely a boy.”

Zoe: “If it’s a boy, I am moving to Hawaii. That’s where Miss Jesse, my kindergarten teacher, just moved.”

Jachin (not to be outdone by his sister): “Well if it’s a girl, I am moving to Canada.”

Doctor (to me): “Wow, Canada, huh?  You’d think he would have picked Hawaii, too.”

Me (to doctor): “He had to out-do his sister by actually moving to another country.”

Doctor: “So what do you think?”

Me: “I think next Tuesday will be a sad day, because one of them is definitely moving out.”

Doctor: “Well, that’s okay. You’re already used to having just two anyway.”

(Then I made up a few questions and concerns before leaving the room.)

But as far as next week goes, we are working on the situation both ways. We are calling Miss Jesse to see if she has a spare room for Zoe on the BYU Hawaii campus, and we’re getting an expedited passport for Jachin and teaching him lingo from the movie “Strange Brew”. Either way, when Tuesday comes, we’ll be ready.

When I spotted this funny quiz on my sister’s blog, I immediately clicked on it as I laughed my butt off. I wanted to prove just how tough I am by taking a very scientific, accurate quiz about me beating up children. This, I thought, was frickin hilarious. While cracking up and clicking the link, The Universe kicked me swiftly in the crotch by immediately freezing my laptop. I couldn’t click on anything, close anything, shutdown anything… nothing. Finally I beat my laptop into submission by kicking it like it was a 5 year old child and then throwing it against the wall. (For the record, I normally don’t throw 5 year olds against the wall… I save that for puppies and kittens.) When I finally did take the super-accurate quiz (the next day) it turns out that I really am quite tough. Just take a look at the results for yourself. So who’s laughing now, Universe? Wanna fight?

18

OnePlusYou Quizzes and Widgets

And oh yeah, ps…if you add all those five year olds together, it also makes one ninety year old. Double boo-yeah!

I was in a major ponytail funk. You know, that funk you get into when you are trying to “grow your hair out” because you imagine that when you have long hair, it is flowing and magical and sultry. But then you actually start to grow your hair out and you remember that you hair is not sultry and flowing, but in fact it is frizzy and damaged and has cowlicks in really weird places. And the only way to tame it is to pull it back into a boring old ponytail every day. And soon it becomes a funk. And my particular funk was made worse by the fact that I am pregnant and have no energy to hold and operate both a hair dryer and a round brush at the same time.

I really needed a change. So there I was last week, flipping through late-night channels, and I landed on the Oxygen Network. The network that runs the sweet reality show called “Tori and Dean: Home Sweet Hollywood”. So I sat there and watched Tori Spelling in all of her pregnant, big-headed glory, and I thought: “She has awesome hair. It really frames her huge head nicely.” And I thought about my huge head and how Tori’s haircut would look good on my big ‘ol noggin. Plus, her hair is platinum blond. And I was born to be blond. (I subscribe to the idea that some of us are born blond, and others of us are born to be blond.)

So I called my stylist.

My stylist is Jen, my sis-in-law. She is awesome with hair. For real. Awesome. Not just awesome because I get the “family discount”, but awesome like I would also pay full price to go to her at a salon. So I call her and I try to figure out how to tell her that I want Tori Spelling’s haircut without admitting that I was watching Tori Spelling’s reality show. But I just couldn’t think fast enough. So I just said quietly, “So I was watching Tori and Dean, and Tori has cute hair…” And Jen immediately said, “Juli and I were watching that last night, too, and her hair is awesome.” And then I said, “Yay!” and she said, “Let’s do it!” and then Saturday we did it.

Here are some examples of Tori’s hair, to give you an idea of what I now look like:

This is what I would look like if I actually wore my glasses and believed that you should kiss your dog every day (which I don’t):

This is what I would look like if I wore my glasses and had a Blackberry (which I don’t):

This is what I would look like if I wore my glasses and a short woman approached me in Burger King to have her picture taken with me:

This is what I would look like if I had my own jewelry line and it was being introduced on HSN:

And this is what I would look like if I were on HSN, inexplicably holding Tori Spelling’s child:

Now I’ll show you some examples of my new hair cut to give you an idea of what Tori Spelling would look like if she also had a pregnancy-related identity crisis and decided to be me:

This is what Tori Spelling would look like if she were applying bug repellent:

This is what Tori Spelling would look like if she were spraying her bed with Fabreeze:

This is what Tori Spelling would look like if she were organizing her Star Trek DVD’s:

But it’s unlikely that Tori Spelling would suddenly up and want to copy me.

Anyhoo, that’s my hair story.

And I’ve decided that I want my own reality show.

After a week of diligent wiggling, Zoe lost her first tooth. During the wiggly week, she went around polling just about everyone who has ever lost a tooth (she may have spoken to you) asking “How bad does it hurt to lose a tooth?”, as she furrowed her brow and wrung her hands in anxiety. She has a very low pain threshold…

Finally last night, after 30 minutes of bribing and cajoling, and a squeeze of tooth numbing gel, she let Jon take a tug at it. It took 2/5th’s of a second to pull it, but in that tiny speck of time, her hand flew up, she karate chopped Jon’s hand, and the tooth went flying. As Jachin scanned the duvet cover for the stray tooth (because yes, we do all of our family medical procedures on our bed, and the tooth finding was made difficult by the fact that our duvet cover is the color of lost baby teeth) Zoe discovered a drop of blood in her mouth where her tooth used to be and completely freaked out. So she swished with salt water and examined the hole in her mouth (we were told in a screeching 6 year old voice not to look at her in the mirror). Jachin found the tooth and we all looked at it. Unlike Jachin’s most recent lost tooth, her tooth didn’t have a huge hole in it from brushing with Pop Rocks and swishing with Sprite. Finally she smiled, and she looked like a big girl — completely different. One tiny gap in the bottom of her mouth, and suddenly she aged a couple of years.

Jachin came up to me and flashed me a quarter that he had palmed in his hand. “What is that for?” I asked. He gave me the shhhh, quiet look and I shut up. He put the quarter in his pocket and walked quietly out of the room.

Jachin and Zoe decided to have a sleep-over last night, something they do often when they’re actually getting along with one another. Zoe found a little box to put her tooth into, and slid it under her pillow (which was now on Jachin’s bed). They  settled down and chatted quietly in Jachin’s bed giggling and talking about the tooth fairy. After about 10 minutes, Zoe ran into our bedroom, freaking out.

“Mom! The tooth fairy came and I wasn’t even sleeping yet!”

Jon and I looked at each other, puzzled. Because, umm, we hadn’t seen the tooth fairy pass through our room yet.

“So I put my tooth in the box under my pillow,” she continued, “and then I went to my bedroom really quick to grab my butterfly night light…”

And then cute little Jachin who had been quiet the whole time finally piped up: “Yeah, and I was just casually reading my Lego magazine the whole time…”

Zoe went on, “Yeah, and then I brought my night light into Jachin’s room, and then we were talking, and then Jachin said that sometimes the tooth fairy comes even when you are still awake! So I looked in the box under my pillow and my tooth was gone! And there was a shiny quarter!”

“Wow!” Jon and I both said. (And just like that, the tooth fairy payment went from a dollar to a quarter… and no one seemed the least bit upset.) And Jachin was trying so hard not to grin that I thought his face would crack. And I wanted to squeeze his precious little head off.

Who knew the tooth fairy was a 9 nine year old boy… and a cute one at that?

The ultrasound for baby number 3 is in a few weeks, July 29th. While I am technically far enough along to go to one of those 3D places at the mall to get one, I think it’s kind of silly not to wait a few more weeks and have it covered by insurance. Plus those 3D pictures kind of freak me out. The truth is that since we already have one of each — a boy and a girl — the gender really doesn’t matter to me. I’m more anxious to find out that everything is okay developmental wise — y’know, the right number of limbs attached at all the right places and all of the heart chambers pumping correctly. But that kind of stuff isn’t what’s fun to discuss in the weeks leading up to the ultrasound. Everyone wants to know the answer to the BIG question: Girl or Boy?

To help you make an informed guess, here are my symptoms from the first two:

Boy: Sick both day and night (pretty much for the entire duration of the pregnancy); craved ice cream and chilli cheese dogs; really irritated by strong smells (puked a lot over the smell of Victoria’s Secret lotions, and I vividly remember running out of the theater during Practical Magic to puke because the lady sitting next to me smelled like a rank rose bush).

Girl: Sick both day and night (again for the entire duration of the pregnancy); craved fruit and dairy (although I noticed a dairy sensitivity during pregnancy); again with the smells.

This time around: Not very sick, except when I go too long without eating or smell something strong and gross (like the smelly kid in the theater during Wall-E) (and by the way, what’s up with smelly people cramming into movie theaters?); don’t really crave much of anything in particular (with the exception of jalapeno peppers), in fact I have much less of an appetite; tired as tired can be.

These comparisons lead me to believe that perhaps there is a third gender option that no one has told me about.  This pregnancy is very different from either of the first two. Maybe part of the difference is just my age; pregnancy in my 30’s as opposed to my 20’s.

So I want to know what you think. Boy or girl? Guess correctly and you could win a fabulous prize! Just kidding… I so do not have the energy to get together a fabulous prize, let alone actually mail it.  But if you guess correctly, you win my respect for you as a psychic; a pschic who can make a correct 50/50 guess.

What are your tingling psychic senses telling you? (Mine are telling me I have to pee again.)

This spring I was psyched. I was gearing up for a summer full of pool time and fun-filled days with the kids. I pictured 5ks lined up every weekend. I had personal best times to beat. I had pictures to take of my kids doing flips off the diving board. I had anniversary trips to plan. I had stuff to do and all kinds of energy to do it.

And then I got pregnant.

And now? Well, I still have stuff to do, but I possess virtually none of the energy required to do it. All of my body’s energy is being diverted to growing the tiny human in my tummy. And while it’s great to imagine that women have babies everyday and Mother Nature just kind of takes over and the baby-growing process happens by itself (almost as if by magic) and there’s practically zero impact on the pregnant woman’s body… well, that’s a big fat lie.  Some days I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck. (Not like “Ow, my skull is cracked and my ribs are broken from the truck running over me“, but more like, “When the truck hit me, all of my breath, wind, and energy to move got knocked right out the back of me“. ) Days at the pool? Sound  hot and sweaty and like a lot of work. 5ks? I’m so tired I need a nap after just blow drying my hair and folding a load of whites. I’m not myself. I’m lazier than usual. I have no patience for my kids’ whining, fighting, bickering, bossiness, slapping, kicking, or any other shenanigans. I send kids to their rooms without thinking twice. I yell. I know– it’s terrible. A mom shouldn’t yell. But what else am I supposed to do when the kids are screaming at the top of their lungs all the way at the end of the hall and I’m too lazy to get up from the couch to go put a stop to it at the source? Yell over them, exactly. BE LOUDER. Sound like I mean business. Give the loud impression that if I DO have to get up off of this couch there will be beatings… Ok, so the house isn’t as tranquil as it was a few months ago…

But mostly I take naps. In between trying to keep the house from falling apart and being over-run with mice, ants, raccoons, or neighbor cats, and trying to do some fun things with my kids. I’m trying to not be a total jerk this summer, because this is the last summer I’ll have with just these two kids. Soon my time will be split again to accomodate an infant that will take up hours and hours of time that my kids are used to getting from me.  I fear they will resent me. And the baby. And when I see that train wreck coming in the distance, I feel that I should be making this the best summer ever for them. I should be pouring on the love while I still can, before I am up to my eyeballs in diapers and bottles. I vow to try to keep some sort of balance to it all. Time with each kid. Heart to heart talks. A few days at the pool…

All of this I vow… right after I take a short little nap.

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…