After knowing Mr. Flinger for nearly twenty years now, seven years of those married, six of those as best friends, and 5 years of dating, you’d think I kinda know the guy a bit. You’d think that. And you’d be right. Mostly.

For some reason I’ve been approaching this whole birth control thing completely wrong. I’ve been approaching it like a women, with logic and emotion. *We* don’t want to have children, so *we* need to find a solution that works for *us*. *We* need to get a cost effective/low impact solution. *We* don’t need the Mommy (hi) to be an emotional wreck from the hormones of Birth Control Pills (also? I can not be counted on to take them thus making their reliability around 2%) or the IUD*. *We* don’t like condoms. *We* don’t want an abortion. *We* don’t want to do this again. We’re happy. With two. A boy and a girl. Remember?

So why is it that The Other Solution isn’t discussed? Because he doesn’t want to discuss it. Because “he’s not ready for that” and “not man enough” and “someblatheringIcan’tunderstand”.

Then it hit me. A chart. I needed a chart.

Lo, I created a chart.

Remember back when we purchased our garbage can? Remember how

he graphed my hormones during my miscarriage? Did you know he once asked me to rate my daily activities on a scale of one to ten before deciding to go back to Graduate School? You know, to quantify the decision?

Graphs. Charts. Engineer. :: Slaps Forehead ::

:: owie ::

So I decided to quantify the decision. And this is what I came up with.

Note in Figure A we have a cost ration per various solutions. Note that in Figure B, all birth control costs pail in comparison to the cost of raising a child as noted on Baby Center.

Here in Figure C we have the joy ratio of various birth control methods:

And here is the link I’m sending via IM to my husband as we speak.

http://drsnip.com

Did I mention the pocket knife? You get a pocket knife. Snip. Snip.

Maybe now I’ve talked his language, he will talk mine. BowChickaBowWow.

*A note about The IUD. I thought about this route. I thought long and hard. I thought I’d go this route but in order to do so, my doctor wants me to call The First Day Of My Cycle, which as you know, is completely unpredictable and irratic (because the ENTIRE internet knows this about me) and thus have been trying to get in for three months now. Three. Long. Sexless. Months.

**I didn’t even take in the anual cost of therapy the third child will bring, the cases of wine consuned before child reaches four, or the pregnancy tests I will continue to pee on until the snip is complete.

**For your further reading enjoyment.

****Links thanks to Michelle.

I remember the day I knew I could marry Mr. Flinger. Surprisingly, it wasn’t in High School when we were mushy young love-birds. (gag) It wasn’t during college when we were best friends, not-dating, and desperately fixing one another up with other people. It wasn’t until years later, at 24, having moved home to Texas and back that I saw him with my cousin Danielle. I remember the summer, of 2000, living with my Uncle and Aunt having found a job up in Portland, but not an apartment. I moved up from Houston ready to start my job and my new life, namely, hoping Mr. Flinger and I would hook-up (chicka chicka bow-wow).  One day we took my cousin roller blading. She so adored Mr. Flinger that she made a necklace for him, a pretty little thing with beads and a star at the center. Perfect for an 8 year old and slightly odd for a 25 year old man. Mr. Flinger wore that necklace all day long. He wore it roller blading at the park. He wore it to the store. He wore it even though the small string barely fit around his neck and the star jabbed him as it stuck straight out, strained on its new owner.

This was the day I realized he would make a wonderful dad; Years and years before that day ever happened.

Years and Years later, we started a family together. A family we want. A family we’ve talked about since we were 15 years old. Internet, I’ve talked about these very two children with my husband for 17 years. And yes, that freaks me the hell out. Why shouldn’t it?

Most days we do just fine. We go places. We enjoy friends. It’s lovely. There are the meltdowns. There is screaming (the baby) and crying (LB) and the occasional W.T.F. (me) but usually, we do ok. We manage. We’re.. happy. Really.

But I clock out at 5. I expect the man with the star necklace to walk through that door at five. I NEED the man to walk through that door at five. FIVE. That’s an entire hour after he gets off work, providing for traffic and the all important “getting things squared away” time. Five. O’clock. That’s when help walks through the door and the children smile/laugh/outburst with glee at the sight of Daddy.

That’s 17:00 if you’re in the military. Or eight PM if you’re on the east coast. Or much, much, earlier the next day in Australia. I’m just sayin’.

So what happens at six? Or seven? Or when the bed-time routine is long past due and both children are melting down and I haven’t had dinner because some small people keep BUGGING me? Or when I clock out and don’t get over-time? Or when I can’t poor a glass of wine because the guilt, oh the guilt, of drinking before back-up is here? And yes, I’m being horribly selfish but really? I’m not the only one.

Work is important. Work is good. Work pays for my coffee and our children’s clothes. It pays for our house. It provides a sense of importance. It gives us ways of using our minds. But work? Is not home. It is not the family. It is not the wife and children. It is work. And while work can go on long after you do, the family can not. And all it takes is one phone call to give an update and work is forgiven. But damn if that phone isn’t there at that desk around five o’clock. He must get shuttled to Mars around 4:30 because for some reason, some weird reason, the phones don’t work after then.

Or, at least, that’s what I’m choosing to believe.

I’ve been thinking a lot during these last few weeks. My thoughts swing from “GET THE DAMN BABY OUT! NOW! OUT OUT OUT!” to “This is the last time my daughter will be an only child.. the last time she’ll get every ounce of my attention; aside from the blog and the laundry and that shiny thing over there, that is.” Lately I’ve been romanticizing every aspect of her tiny little person because look! We made a tiny little person! Who turned out to be pretty damn incredible! Don’t we rock?

We somehow survived those first few months of reflux, screaming, not sleeping. We made it through the first winter with our newborn, we figured out how to feed her, to swaddle her, to get her to sleep. I remember sitting with her in various locations feeding her and telling her I loved her, even though the words landed on an unresponsive baby who couldn’t comprehend what I said any more than I could. I remember those first few months of struggle, telling myself this is what I wanted, I wanted to be a mom, I loved my daughter, I really did. I just wasn’t so convinced at first. I remember the guilt I felt over admitting those feelings and how relieved I was when so many others confessed the same thing.

In thinking back, I’m sad for my first-time-mom self. I’m sad that nobody said it’s OK to cry on the bathroom floor and it’s OK to become so insanely over-protective and it’s OK to bottle feed because your boobs can’t squirt more than three drops of milk. Maybe people were telling me it was OK, I don’t remember, I just remember the loudest voice of all was my own guilt, my own fear, my own self-loathing.

That voice got quieter and my mom voice got a lot louder.

We learned we could still do the same things we loved. We found out it’s so much more fun to go to a park with your child, to watch her swing with such a joy, you think you’re flying.  We celebrated her first birthday in awe and relief; somehow we managed to become parents that first year. We took our collective gene-pool and created a person we loved to show off, to let see our places, we let in to our hearts.

We created standards for her life. We collectively pulled together as a team, the parental unit, and came up with a secure home with lots of love and respect but also high expectations. We waited a whole year before letting her try her first beer. We made sure it was classy.

Even during the toddler years, the struggles of being two, the independence that takes a two minute task and turns it in to a three hour event (called “Getting Dressed”), we still somehow found a way to mesh. The three of us make a pretty fine team. She makes us laugh with her expressions. She comes up with stories on her own. She is still incapable of lying and tells on herself almost daily. “LB? What are you doing?” “I’m pooping on the carpet! That’s a NONO!” I respect her honesty.

LB, during the past two and a half years we’ve come a long way together. We fell in love, we conquered the big issues like eating and sleeping. We taught you how to talk and walk and you taught us how to be parents with high standards and a classy kid.  You’re someone we can take to your dad’s work and be proud of how well you handle your tiny two-year-old self. We’re proud of how often you choose to listen to us even when we know you’d rather not. We are amazed at how much you can do on your own now and how helpful you are to me during the day. I’m so proud of how well you’ve accepted your new role and how you already set aside one of your favorite stuffed toys for your brother. You already hand me your Yellow Buddy and tell me it’s for Baby O. Your kindness is inspiring. It’s because of all this that I know you’ll be the best big sister ever. It’s because of all this that I know you’ll always be someone we can respect and rely on. It’s because of all of this that I know you’re going to handle doing all of this over again so well.  I hope I handle it even better than last time but honestly? It didn’t turn out half bad. And I have you to thank for that.

I love you.

In case you are ever curious why I am not here:

Little Man will be staying put until the already appointed eviction date.  As much as I’d like to kick him out early, I also know I’ll be screaming to put him back in about two weeks later, so I’ll just use this time to freshen up my mad nesting skillz and organize the closets and myriad of children’s clothes he’s already accumulated.  We’re all just about ready. We’re putting the final touches on things like “put together cradle” and “wash clothes” and “install car seat.” LB is repeating what happens when mommy goes to the hospital and how she’s a big sister just like Dora.  (Including how Boots is also a big sister and will be coming home from the hospital with her baby brother. I let this one go.)

Since we have four weeks until we meet the little man first hand, I’ll be re-watching his Ultrasound Video over and over. Thank god it’s not VHS. I think I’d already ruin the tape by now.

**What you see here is my favorite 2 min segment from our 32 week ultrasound. The gal tickles his back with the wand and he arches in response, then pushes his nose on my uterus, which looks like a screen in the video. He smiles, grins, opens and closes his mouth and then tries to eat the umbilical chord. Yes, I realize it’s nearly impossible to actually get all of that from this tiny video screen, but I assure you, he’s extremely active and completely hilarious. If your his parent, that is. I think shortly after I cut the video off here, he tap-dances and looks directly at the camera and says, “Hey yo!” but I didn’t want to show off or anything.

***You’ll need the quicktime plugin to view it.

Hi there! Well, hello! I can’t seem to keep my mind focused on one thing longer than .2 seconds, which is not long enough to write a post, mind you, and thus have attempted to write FOUR THOUSAND posts in the last two days, all of which look something like this:

“You know how when….”

“One day I was…..”

“It was a dark and stormy night….”

Ok, no, that last one was the start of my latest best-selling-novel that never got past seven words long. It was a damn fine read, though, in my head.

I’ve started seven projects, three websites, two loads of laundry and a grocery list, all of which remain unfinished. I believe I washed half the kitchen floor, but the kitchen floor runs in to the dining room floor and runs in to the living room floor and that’s just too much floor to wash at one time. So I took a nap instead.

My daughter is loving the new thrilling life we lead. She seems to communicate better with me on this level. “You want to watch Sesame Street?” “Yes!” Three minutes later we’re both bored and unsure of what we were going to do. “How about we go to the park?” “OK!” Five minutes in to packing the bag I’ll remember an email I need to send, which is just fine because she’s now engrossed in a village of little people and unaware we had plans. Thirty minutes after I download six songs from iTunes, start another website and email two people, none of which was the original email I remembered I need to write, I’ll stand up, stretch, and say, “Should we watch Sesame Street?”

She seems to like this new Mommy.

I, on the other hand, am having a hard time remembering to go to the grocery store or, say, shower once a day, which does nothing for one’s social life. It’s funny, at first, this new dizty version of myself that I’m carting around. It’s almost as if I should go back to that year I was blonde, start wearing makeup, and show more cleavage. Instead, I’m waddling around town with my head up my ass, totally unaware that I’ve knocked down three small children (I can’t see you down there, FYI), stepped in a pile of dog crap and clothes-lined some old lady crossing the street.

I have an OB appointment tomorrow. I may ask to move up the C-section if it’s at all possible. I’m no longer asking for myself. I’m asking for the good of all man-kind. And also my shoes.

We’ve hit another milestone in life, much like the expanding wardrobe and increasing panty sizes, our cars are feeling a little too tight lately. I’ve had a Subaru Outback Sport (see? I’m SPORTY! My car says so!) for about five years now. Five years ago children were a mere mention. One child, let alone two, was hardly conceivable and as a single woman with a nice job, I was able to make whatever decision I wanted. I wanted sporty. Because? I felt sporty.

Just like Guess Jeans, my car isn’t meant for a behemoth pregnant lady coming dangerously close to weighing the same thing her husband does. In fact, we’ve recently traded cars so my belly would fit behind the wheel and I could get the SheChild in the car without breaking a disc or giving myself a hernia.  That’s right, Internet, we’ve “de-balled” the Xterra and placed them in the mason-jar next to Mr. Flinger’s. Last week he climbed in the Xterra, looks around, sees cheerios on the floor, toys strewn about and Dora blaring from the CD. “Oh, Jesus, the man-mobile has been neutered.”

It’s time to update the Subaru. It’s time to let go of “sporty” and find something “practical.”  I’m not ready for a mini-van but I’m not trendy enough for a Prius. What I want is a smart, sensible, reliable vehicle that gets a million miles to the gallon, can fit two car seats comfortably, two adults, a stroller, diaper bag, gear, and have an iPod hookup. That the equivalent of Eddie Bauer jeans you find on sale that slip just over the hips snugly, lift and contour the ass nicely, and leave a little room in the leg with a slight flare.

Any suggestions?

Because If you hear me ask if this car makes my ass look big, you’ll know I caved.

I want to tell you about the amazing Baby Shower we had last weekend. About some of my favorite people that all came to celebrate our little boy’s birth. About the loot, the food, and the activities. I want to tell you about how we painted canvases and wrote birthday cards to our little man and how these things mean more to me than a million gifts.

I want to, but I can’t because maternity clothes are made by a man.

While rummaging through all the shower photos, I realized ninety percent of them were not fit for the World Wide of Webs. Some smartass at Old Navy, Gap and Motherhood Maternity came up with the brilliant idea that bellies will look great under cute little shirts that show ample cleavage. (Because? Pregnant women have cleavage, yes, thank you, we do.) Some smartass didn’t think that bellies grow after week 25 and certainly don’t ever appear to be about to “pop” at week, say, week 33.

Or, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe this really is the fashion and I’m just so unhip, I wear socks with my Tevas and Pads during my period.  Because if it was made by a woman, I’d be wearing a muumuu.

May 1: Officially 34 weeks pregnant.

11:00 AM- Whilst talking to a group of moms, have contraction. “BlahblahBlah.. uugghhhhh… uuhhhhhh… pppffffffff…. BlahBlahBlah.” Perhaps mention that you’ve been noticing more of these braxtin gigs lately. Also, they hurt.

12:00PM- Have lunch outside with Mr. Flinger. Choose a Venti water at Starbucks instead of coffee because uuugghhhhhhh… uhhhhh.. ppffffffffff contracting. Remember that last time around false labor is most usually brought on by dehydration.

1:00 PM- Pee

1:15PM- Pee

1:30 PM- Pee

2:00 PM- Keep contracting. Mention to a few people that you feel like the “Pre-Labor Flu” you were so thrilled to feel at week 37 last time around. Mention that labor feels eminent. Mention how you still have to pay bills this month and paint the dining room and set up the cradle and send out thank you notes and…

2:15pm- Pee.

2:30PM- Run up and down the stairs roughly four million times to get child to nap. Continue “pick child up and throw her in the bed” game for roughly an hour and a half. Alternate Peeing and Contracting.

4:30 PM - Decide child may enjoy jumping off second bunk alone for a while so you can lay down and time contractions because HOLYMOTHERGODFORTHELOVE these bad boys are hurtin’.

5:30PM- Decide you’re too hungry to time contractions anymore. Family heads to Red Robin: The ALL American Pre-Labor Meal.

6:30pm- Eat less than half your burger between running to the bathroom at Red Robin and swearing to god you will knock the block off that big Red Bird if he doesn’t move outta your ... UUGGHHH.. UHHHH. PPFFFTTTTTTT… way…

7:00 PM- go home in tears.

7:20PM- Alternate between contractions and peeing and checking the cooch for an arm or an eyeball or something poking out from there like those Enquirer magazine births.

9:20PM- Call doc. Get same speech Charla got… “blahblahblah.. Braxtin hurts more second time around, blahblahblah.. if doesn’t stop in an hour.. blahblahblahblahblahblahblahhhhhhhhhhh.”

Uugghhhh.. uuhhhh.. pppfffttttttt

11:00 PM- Contractions stop. Sniffles start. Child waked up four times in as many hours. Husband sleeps on the couch downstairs (blissfully unaware of child’s non-sleeping).

3:00 AM May 2nd: Fall Asleep creating “TODO list”

Now: Write up “If I go in to labor early… ” list. Don’t forget to paint the dining room! Because? The baby cares what color those walls are…

Damn that blog karma. Naturally, you make a large, sweeping claim like “haven’t been to the ER this pregnancy..” and VIOLA! Contractions started at 4:30 today and haven’t stopped. I’m feeling like general dog shit and expecting to see a face looking up from my cooch every time I go potty.

Five weeks and three days left.

I think I’m done.