My last pregnancy test

I have just done what I believe to be my last pregnancy test. The makers of Clear Blue Easy are certainly going to notice a decline in their sales (would definately recommend that brand to anyone who is in the market for a preg. test- easy to use applicator that turns pink when enought urine is collected, clear results five days before your period is due, and who can resist their marketing campaign- "the nicest peice of technology you'll ever pee on" - because it undoubtedly is, handles well, great curves. It was an honor to have peed on it. I purchased a test today, "just for fun" because my period isn't due til Monday, anyways. But low and behold, wonder of wonders, if that test didn't turn positive!! Imagine my reaction. I thought for sure that I wouldn't get pregnant on this cycle, what with my period being so screwy lately. But I guess I was wrong about that. So YAY!! Even more exciting is the fact that we don't need to do it anymore so I invite y'all to call me now again anytime- but not after ten because a woman in my condition must get plenty of rest.
But even as the shock and excitement settles in, so too does another feeling. Tonight I was pushing Payton on the swings at the park, and I thought- "another five years of pushing swings". And then I was washing her hair in the bath, and I thought "another five years
of washing hair and buying bubble gum flavored toothpaste".

What have I done? But it will be good, and this I know just as surely as I know... well, anything, like who shot JR for example. When the time comes I will only be too happy to do all of those things all over again. One more time.

I am officially three weeks and four days pregnant. Wish there was a zero after that three, but unfortunately- that's a LONG way off for me right now. I suppose we'll get there, one day at a time, one pound at a time, one craving at a time. The due date will be April 9th according to my calculations, so that should be a perfect time to have a baby. Well, anyways, guess I'd better sign off. It's after ten and I must take to the bed. Just wanted to let you all know. Peace out.

Don't call me, I'll call you.

Sometimes in life it's really handy to have a blog. Like today, for example. This has been happening for a while now, actually, like a week or so, but everyday I hear the phrase 'tapas style menu' on the radio at least two or three times a day. And I'm always left wondering 'what the sam hell is a tapas style menu?' So then I thought: I'll ask on my blog. Perhaps there are some of you out there who are familiar with a tapas style menu? For some reason I am picturing greek food or something, but I'm not sure if that's quite right. The only kind of food I know that starts with 'tap' is tapioca, but I'm pretty sure that their menu is not full of different types if tapioca. Honey Barbeque. Ranch. Orange Pekoe. If so, that would be rather dreadful. I'd bet the farm (talk about counting your chickens before they hatch-- a pun within a pun-- I'm so brilliant sometimes it scares me) that it would go under within a few months. I don't think that anyone even eats that stuff. Well, at least not people with teeth and hair.
The other news is that I've made a rather terrible discovery. I'm getting fat. And I'm not just saying that so that you can all post messages "Randine- you are SO not fat. You have a totally hot body and I'd shag you anytime" (however, I'm not totally discouraging such comments either, per se, though I expect not to get them from certain people IE- mom, dad, etc.), but really, truly, I think the 'middle age spread' is creeping up on me now. Thirty ishanging around, that big, obnoxious 3-0, lurking behind me, waiting to take hold of me and turn my body into mush and then dress me in Mom Jeans and Northern Reflections sweaters. I've noticed it a little here and there- certain pants not fitting quite the way they used to, etc, etc. Its been building up to this, now that I stop and think about it, it really has. And so then I thought, well I guess I'll do what fat chics do and just take a diet. But unfortunately, taking a diet is kind of tricky. This morning I was really hungry so I stopped at BK on the way to work to get a croissantwich meal. And then afer work we ended up having BK again, because it was just me and Gage for supper and what was I going to make for just the two of us? Cook a big roast and just slice off a little peice off the end for me and Gage and then throw the rest down the drain?? So, you see that I had no choice. And then I thought 'oh, well, I can just go for a walk or something later', but now I'm kind of tired and its really kind of hot outside so I'm thinking that the walk isn't going to happen, either. I guess I can go on what some of my clientele at work refer to as the "Jenny Crack" diet-- you can lose a lot of weight this way, believe me you, but you just have to be willing to be strung out on coke for a while and so on and so forth. Which could be OK. Don't knock it til you try it, right? That's what they say.

Lastly, just to let y'all kow that its that time again- Ovulationville. So just be forewarned that if you phone me in the evenings and such I may not be available to take your calls. So just keep that in mind. And if you do phone, limit your rings to under four. If I don't answer it before four rings then consider me shagging and hang up, because it can be something of a distraction and the mood really has to be just so. Well, actually, let me just put it this way: don't call me, I'll call you. Until further notice.

Still alive

Hi. I guess some of you might be wondering- well, except for you Nik- I saw you today while getting gas, or you Lorrie- saw you last night at Aunt G's, and also you Jodie & Jen- had lunch with you today. OK, that covers pretty much all of you, but for those others out there, and I know you're out there. I have to believe you're out there, otherwise what the hell am I doing wasting my days and nights away sitting alone in the basement on the computer?? But back to what I was saying. Some of you might be wondering if I'm alive or not, as I haven't been posting anything for a while. But alas, here I am, alive. Wounded but still breathing, barely breathing, but breathing nonetheless.
On Sunday I gave away my dog. Oh how I loved that little dog. And I could say that it was easy and for the best, but that would make me a liar, and my friends, a liar I am not. It was very difficult. There were tears. And everday when I come home from work I just feel like this house is a hollowed out empty shell of the place it used to be. Well I guess we still have one dog left. But she's kind of a lame excuse for a dog. All she does is lay around. You have to poke a stick at her to see if she's still alive or not. I poke her with a stick three times a day to make sure she's still kickin. If she flinches a little, she's OK. If not... time for the old cereal box/makeshift coffin. Depending on the size of the cereal box it could be something of a tight squeeze, so I'll have to bear this in mind when shopping for cereal from here on in. Of course, we do have those two kids we keep that run about asking for food and what not. I don't know where they came from but they do seem to be setting up shop here...
So today, I had a revelation. If Baxter needs to live on a farm, well then, maybe, just maybe, WE could live on a farm. Not a fully operational farm, mind you. I don't want to have to slaughter anything or cut anythings head off. That would kind of defeat defeat my animal loving philosophy of the farm. And it would also be a buzzkill. I mean like, okay kids, lets go kill animals today. Kids, draw your weapons. Sharpen the blades. Better put a smock over top of those new clothes. Anyways, you get the point. It would be depraved. Well, we wouldn't be moving any time soon, anyways. I'm pretty sure the bank would put a big old "rejected" sign on our loan application, as we've gotten ourselves into a big old juicy pickle here with our financeroos. I just feel better using the word financeroos. It sounds somehow less ominous than 'finances'. Actually, it works with pretty much anything when you think about it. What sounds nicer? Murder? Or Murderoo? Murder: Bad news. Murderoo: Happy Fun Time. Think about it. Anyways, about the financeroos... let's just say that we won't be moving anytime soon and just leave it that.
Anyways, hope you have a nice evening and weekend. Thank you for your readership and your well wishes during this time of sadness for me and my family. There are good days and there are bad. Dreams of the farm shall pull us through the bad.

Good bye my Friend

It's just.
A dog.
Its just a dogitsjustadogitsjustadogitsjustadog.........
Perhaps if I keep repeating that mantra over and over to myself I will believe it. I'm really not looking forward to tomorrow. I will surrender my dog. Mans best friend. I love that little dog, even though I realize that he's a bit of a slow learner. But lots of people are slow learners, and we don't just get rid of them, do we? He's a slow learner so lets just move him out to a farm where he can run around all day and chase geese? No. It would be inhumane. And yet, that's what my husband is making me do with my little Baxter. So I'm not happy on that front.
Secondly, on the daycare scene, things are not going well, either. My husband and I had two interviews yesterday, both of them did not go well. The first one seemed totally disinterested in Payton. Didn't talk to her or say hello. Just totally ignored her. And when we asked why she wanted to do daycare she said so she could spend more time with her two year old daughter. And I didn't really think that was a good answer. It's all about your own kid? Most people will cite a love of children in general. So that was out. The second woman was much more enthusiastic and you could see that she did love children, she was playing with Payton and Payton seemed to take to her. The only thing was that it seemed like a poverty situation. Dirty carpets, old concrete basement, a front door that was hanging on by the thinnest thread, no AC- 200 degrees in the house. And to make it worse, halfway through the interview her friends starting showing up. She was going out to the bar so they were getting ready. I was like 'well, we'll call you..." NOT. And her literacy level was a bit scary. I mean the 'contract' that she showed us was written on a piece of scrap paper and letters and words had been scratched out. I was like 'if you're going to be starting up a business, you think you would be able to buy a pack of real paper at Wal Mart for three dollars.' Honestly. So now we are back at square one.
Other than that: things are going pretty OK. I have a summer of deadlines ahead of me. First of all- I want to get pregnant this summer. I figure if it doesn't happen by the end of summer we won't try anymore because I don't want to be trying until Gage is thirteen. We have to call it quits at some point. And I also want to finish my book this summer. I'm almost at the halfway point now, so it will be a lot of work to finish it in three months, but I really want to hurry up and finish it. Perhaps someday I'll be able to quit my day job. It's all a pipe dream I know. But when I do quit my day job I shall buy my dog Baxter back and spend my days with him. I'm really going to miss that stupid dog. It's so dumb, because I keep telling myself, there are worse things in life. A fellow I work with just lost his mother. And here I am feeling sorry for myself because of a stupid dog. And it's not like he's dying- I'll still be able to see him sometimes. It's pathetic, I know.
Lastly, I would like to print a retraction. When I announced the contest winner I put Nikki R., but in fact, that should read Nikki S. So sorry for the confusion. Well, have a happy weekend. Hopefully it will be happier than mine. I may slit my wrists. So if I do... I guess we won't be seeing each other. But just remember the good times.

A time for change

Well, the Beatles said it right- there is a season for everything- a time to give up, a time to let go. And so it is for me that I will be giving up my dog, Baxter Brown. Things have been difficult with him. He's had a particularly stormy relationship with Geoff. And now we have to face the fact that we don't have the time to properly train this dog. This dog who I am still making monthly payments on...
But, I guess money isn't everything. So the dog will be moving to a farm, to live a life free of kennels and being locked in the bathroom. I think it will be good for him. And since it is my aunt and uncles farm, I know that I will be able to see him still, which will be good for me. I will miss him. But my husband has reminded me of the fact that perhaps within the next year or so we will have an even cuter bundle to bring home and lavish our attention on. And maybe, with a little luck, it won't chew the furniture apart or dig holes under the fence to escape.
I'm also expeciencing another change, which has been stressful unto itself. I am trying to find a new daycare for my Payton. Our day care provider is calling it quits, mainly because she wasn't making enough money for it to be worthwhile. So now I'm trying to find someone else. It's hard because who will give them the love that they get from a parent? No one. My current childcare worker has a bond with Payton, and it's hard to start over with a stranger. I sometimes regret having to work, but I know that the reality is that we have little choice. Without my income we could well end up living in a van down by the river. Although, I guess that could be OK, we could fix it up a bit. Maybe some needlepoint on the seats. A few doilies and a welcome mat.
Lastly, I would like to report on some preliminary name preferences. It's obviously early to be picking names, but it's still fun. So last night I dusted off the jacket of good old "Cool names for babies". I would choose the name Harper or Lacey. But Geoff doesn't like it. But it was so cute because he actually has a name chosen himself, before he even looked at the book, which surprised me because who knew that he thought up baby names? The name itself is not at the top of my list- Courtney- but I didn't dismiss it right away because I like the fact that he chose it himself. Perhaps it will grow on me. There are early days yet. Well, I have to go. Have a good night.

Be careful what you wish for.

First of all, just let me say, that the topic I'm going to be discussing is not for every reader (Joe- this means). So you will have to decide if you want to carry on reading or not. I will give you a moment to decide.

... Okay. For those of you who have decided to stay with me, you will know that for the last two months I have been fretting over not getting my period. And so my doctor gave me some crazy pills to induce one. They are tiny pills. Tiny but deadly. It doesn't seem possible that two little wee pills could wreak so much havoc. Its a very strange phenomenon, but believe me, very real. Yesterday morning I stumbled into the bathroom, leaving a trail of blood behind me. And from then on out, it only got worse. I was wearing a tampon and a pad and changing both every twenty to thirty minutes. The cramps were wicked. I took a thousand miligrams of Tylenol and 800mg of Motrin, and only then did I feel a little better. It was brutal. Things are getting a bit better now, but it has been a rough couple of days. I guess that's why they say 'be careful what you wish for'. Because when you think about it- it doesn't really make much sense 'be careful what you wish for'- because a wish is, by it's very nature, something which one desires, or otherwise possessing some desirable quality. But now I know better. Next time I won't be so keen on getting my period. Although, I suppose, the longer I would have waited the wore it would have been. I shudder at the thought. But here's another example of the 'be careful what you wish for' theme.
Baxter Brown. My little dog with such a lovable face. I saw that dog in Petland and fell instantly in love. Oh, how I wished for that dog. I wished and wished and wished until finally my husband got sick of listening to me an conformed to my wish. And now we have a dog. I love him. But Geoff hates him. And he wants him out. And I can't even really say that I blame him. If I were to honestly appraise the situation from an objective perspective- the dog is not going so good. I bought him on a whim and have never really had the time to train him. I don' know. I can hardly bear the thought of parting with him, but I know that the dog is difficult to live with. He's not house trained. He's chewed up our leather couch. He runs away and doesn't come back when you call him. In essence, he's bad. And that's probably 100% my fault because I just don't have the time to really train him. But now what am I to do?
Onto the last item of business. Contest winners. I shall be sending out the prizes this week. For those of you who didn't win, I don't want to pour salt on the wounds but I do want to say that the prizes are excellent.
1st Place: Stationary and ballpoint pen
2nd Place: "#1 Dog" Fridge Magnet/Grocery pad
3rd Place: "Kathy" cartoon fridge magnet which will surely give you a hearty chuckle every time you open the fridge for many years to come. So you can expect those packages to arrive fairly soon.
Thats it for now. Have a good night.

Here we go again.

Here we go again.

The title of my blog. It has given me pause to reflect because my original purpose in doing this blog was to chronicle "my fifth and final" pregnancy. As you know, my fifth pregnancy has come and gone- rather in the blink of an eye. In fact, my fifth pregnancy encompassed ten posts on this blog, which now has over a hundred. So it would seem that my original reason for the blog ceases to exist. So now I am changing the focus.
I am instead going to chronicle my sixth and final pregnancy. Surprise. You heard it here first. And when I say final, I mean FINAL. This time for sure, no ands, ifs or buts. Though it's hard to anticipate how one might feel when the situation actually comes, I think I can say with a fair amount of certainty that this will really be it for me and my old uterus. Hopefully, she can still pump one out. She's let me down before, but I still continue to believe her fundamentally capable of rising to the challenge.
Life is interesting. I guess that's something of an understatement, but really, it is. I commented on here before about how life pushes and pulls us along, forcing us to go places we never considered. And such it is again. After losing my last pregnancy, I was pretty much certain that I wouldn't want to try again. I thought 'too much stress', 'too much worry'. Why push our luck when we already have two great children? A boy and a girl, who could really ask for anything more? And though that logic is sound, I guess with the passage of time, that little voice is getting quieter now. And the part of me that still yearns to feel life within me is still there. As I watch my little girl grow, I experience simultaneous joy and sadness. Its incredible to see your baby grow and develop into a special and unique being. But it is a little sad, because when I look at her I no longer see that little baby that I once nursed to sleep. And so it was that on Thursday of last week, my husband and I had a rather long, shall we say, discussion, about this possibility. My husband was hesitant, just in light of everything that has happened. But I was like "so what?" Maybe we have had a bad run of luck, but that is all it is. Bad luck. And I don't think that we can really live our lives with a black cloud hanging over our head "what if...". Because, so far as I can tell, we are all mortal, and therfore anything could happen to any one of us at any point. I could get hit by a car tomorrow and die. He could be stricken with a horrible ailment. Our house could burn to the ground. We are not invincible. The ties that bind us to this earth are, in reality, remarkably fragile. And who among us knows when our string is going to snap? But can we really live our lives always fearing the worst? I think we need to do precisely the opposite. Live our lives believing the best, because any given day could be our last. So we need to fill our lives as much as we can, not fearing death, but embracing life.
I think I missed my calling as a Methodist Minister. But really, it's true. And if and when I get pregnant again, I will fear not the end of it but just enjoy the experience, whatever it yeilds. Because I don't regret the pregnancies I lost. Some our greatest growing, both individually and as a family, happens during those dark hours. And like I told Geoff: even if we have another miscarriage- we get free muffins at the hospital, which is pretty good when you think about it. Of course they were bran, and I don't like bran all that much, but I guess it's good for regularity. See- there's an upside to everything. Well, that is all for now. I shall write more about this issue at a later date.

Highly anticipated contest announcement

So here it is, the second of July. First and foremost, we celebrate our great country on this most spectacular long weekend. And secondly, we must close the comment contest, which recieved many entries. So without further ado, I give you the winners:

1st Place: Nikki R.
2nd Place: Lorrie S.
3rd Place: Nikki R.

You have 24 hours to email me your mailing adresses, otherwise your prize will be forfieted. I am not going to post what you have won, as I think it will detract from the surprise element. And also (and most importantly), I haven't gotten said prizes yet so I'm not really sure what they will be. Congragulations to all who participated!! And don't be discouraged: perhaps there will be more contests to come.
There is much to write as I have just returned from my holidays, but I will have to write later as I would prefer to go for a walk now.