CD20

According to my ovulation predictor sticks, I am not yet in an LH surge. However, basing it on the amount of ewcm I have, well, let's say I sm sure something is about to happen. "They" always say you shouldn't use your first morning urine for the OPKs, but really, when else do I have 30 seconds to myself where I haven't been drinking for 2 hours to do this? I guess I could do it at work, but then I run the risk of someone finding out. I think I will go pee on one right now (thus wasting $1.50 but whatevs). Did I ever tell you that prior to Chuckles I charted my BBT and discovered I was anovulatory? Well, I did and I was. Here I sit mostly ovulating some months and whoa! I am incapable of BBT charting this time because I often get out of bed (and I think I have had a cold for two months now and occasional fevers...must call doctor tomorrow about the lesions on my tonsils...those are sexy, right?). And I think the pee on them sticks, while more expensive, are more accurate.

Speaking of ovulation, I WON THE FERTILITY MONITOR. I know I said I wasn't going to pay a lot for this muffler, but I got caught up in winning and I paid a little over $50, but retail is between $200 and $300 so a good deal really. The sticks for it are expensive too so I guess I'll try to ebay those. Or drugstore.com or something. I must see who is cheapest and reliable and whatnot.

What else? I love my new washer. If it wouldn't require moving to Massachusetts, I would marry my new washer. The boy and I just sat there watching the laundry tumble on Sunday. And the clothes were surprisingly wrinkle-free after the dryer considering how twisted and mangled they were coming out of the washer. About the soap....H/E detergent. High Efficiency laundry soap. I bought some to have on hand for the first few loads. But, I think it's just low-sudsing detergent. I have over 500 ounces of regular laundry detergent in the house right now, so no chance I won't use it, but if I remember my chemistry correctly, I think you can add one tablespoon of liquid fabric softener to the soap per load to keep the sudsing down. Now I have to google this. Google fails me. I know you do not want suds in your front washer but I cannot figure out whether fabric softener will do the trick. I have 32 loads until I am out of he soap to decide.

The bathroom ceiling is done. I just need to paint it now to make sure it's smooth as a baby's bottom. High gloss white bathroom paint. Woo Hoo. And the walls, when I actually do them, will be chocolate colored. With white procelain toilet and pedestal sink and chromed accents. Am so excited by my domesticity.

And a very bad thing happened at work. I work in heavy industrial manufacturing. I see flames shooting out of stuff on a daily basis. We have big equipment with scary tires and clanky noises and booming and vibrations and sirens and blinking lights. Someone was killed. A kid really. Only 22. And his dad works there too and saw him and talked to him right before the accident and the dad heard the call for paramedics and everything come over the radio and was on the scene in a flash. Hug your family a little tighter tonight and have a kind thought for the family. And for the man who accidentally killed him. According to the preliminary investigation, no one did anything really wrong. It was a tragic accident. Tragic.

Fertility Stuff

No peak on the sticks yet. I'm the high bidder on two fertility monitors (I promise to find a good home for the secon one if I win both). I'm noticing some ewcm, so I guess something will happen in a day or two. Wouldn't that be crazy if I ovulated again, for like the 4th month in a row? Crazy.

Did you know that if this doesn't work, there is a fertility clinic 4 blocks from my house? And if that doesn't work, I will never have another child because my husband vehemently opposes adoption for us. I think if we hadn't had CHuckles I would be a lot more insistent about adoption, but since we already have a child, I am way more laid back. We have a lot of relatives who have adopted (domestic open and international) and a few who decided to live child-free after years of trying, so we've seen it go all ways. At least he knows his limits. The man cannot adopt and cannot do finish carpentry.

My Husband Loves Me Because....

I am really good at finish carpentry. Our downstairs bathroom has been in various states of "torn apart" for the last few months. Today I got the go ahead to do the plaster work. I am between coats right now waiting for it to dry. And I'm wearing safety glasses. I rock.

I found some flexible, paintable caulk to do some repair work where there were some cracks caused 40 years ago by water damage. I am so excited. If this stuff works, I am using it on all sorts of things. I have a lot of settling cracks and as the house heaves and expands and contracts again, every crack repair cracks again. If I can use a flexible product, maybe it can hold up to the cycles. I am so excited. And a big dork.

So Excited

I got a new washing machine. And it's being delivered tomorrow! Sunday. For Free. Squeeee!

I got a Kenmore front-loading washer (which I stealthily figured out is made by Frigidaire and is the model that was a Consumer Reports Best Buy). The Kenmore has plastic handles instead of chromed stainless, but really, it's going to live in the basement, so I don't mind at all (especially when those chromed handles would add $200 to the price). The inner drum is stainless steel, and it has a bunch of wash cycles from hand washed by nymph fairies to beaten with stones in the river. It is energy efficient in so many ways. It uses less water so there is less water to heat, it tumbles instead of agitates, and it extracts a lot of water when it spins so it takes less gas to heat my dryer because the clothes dry faster. And it promises to clean your clothes until they sparkle. However, one wash cycle is between 60 and 100 minutes. That's a lot. But if they're clean, I don't mind.

I do 6 loads of wash per week, usually. And this will probably cut that to 4 because it's 3.5 cubic feet of wash space. I think I will even be able to do our queen comforter. Am considering sending out email to my whole address book announcing its arrival into our family. That's cool, right?

CD14

Today is Cycle Day 14 and if I were a textbook, I would be ovulating. But, I am not a textbook, so I am sitting here blogging instead of upstairs having procreative relations.

When I last googled "long follicular phase", one of the questions that kept coming up on message boards was somthing like 'does this mean I'll have a harder time getting pregnant'. The answer was 'no, but it might take you longer just because you have fewer chances because your overall cycle is bound to be longer'. So, now you know. A woman with a 28 day cycle, ovulates about 13 times per year. A woman with a 35-day cycle ovulates about 10x/yr. So, in a year, she has three fewer chances. And if you happen to be a woman with a 23-day cycle, you have 15-16 chances per year (and a lot less standing around twiddling your tumbs...of course twiddling your thumbs is not how you get pregnant so are you sure you're doing it right?).

I recently read that there are a lot of reasons for a long follicular phase including: delayed emergence of a dominant follicle, demise and replacement of a dominant follicle, delayed follicular recruitment, a prolonged initial drop in oestrogen and an extended oestrogen peak. If I had to guess, I would say I am either delayed recruitment or demise and replacement. Very interesting and if I ever win a fertility monitor, I will know more and be all powerful and take over the world.

Oh my

In the past week, I have bid on 7, yes 7, Clear Plan Fertility Monitors on e*bay.

Lo*Mart apparently stopped carrying my peeonthem dip strips, which were super-cheap (or maybe I just need to go to ghetto Lo*Mart like I have been doing instead of going to hillbilly Lo*Mart like I did over the weekend).

I ended up buying 2 boxes (14 tests in total) for $24, which works out to a price of $1.71 each. My other ones were 20 for $17 or a unit price of 85 cents. Now, I'm no genius, but it looks like I am paying twice as much and the packaging is harder to open. And I'm not even sure 14 are enough (although I had 3 left from last month that I used first). Seventeen ought to be enough.

Put that on a Sampler and Sew It

I worry

because

I care.

Anything she can do, I can do

Sunday, I put Chuckles down for a nap without a car ride. Am a rock star.

Whoops!

I just accidentally flushed a washcloth down the toilet (that'll teach me to clean the kitchen floor on hands and knees with rags and dump the water bucket in teh toilet without securing the rags in another room prior to dumping).

And now, a list of things I have accidentally flushed down the toilet and one thing I haven't.

1. This rag today (and it was one of my good rags too).
2. brand-new maxi-pad (not that I flush my used ones, just that this one was unused)
3. a pot of soup (I didn't have a garbage disposal, and it was several weeks old and homemade so had a lot of chunks....how should you dispose of that?)
4. a pair of glasses
5. And the thing I have not flushed: a disposal diaper (our water bill keeps coming with notices about how someone in the south end of town is doing this and if they find out who it is, that person will be liable for all the expense and mess that it has caused)

So, what have you flushed down the toilet? Hopes, dreams, a beer?

In which I admit that I was wrong

First: Boy's fever is gone. Woo Hoo. Mine is not, but that's OK.

Next: By delaying nap one hour and being tough as nails, Grandma got Boy to nap without a car ride. There was have been some threatening and some bribery, but all-in-all, I am fine with that. Something about consistency and follow up (and having 2 hours to work on the nap).

Some Stuff

I know I mentioned Julia had her babies. But it bears repeating: Julia had her babies.

I don't want to tell you how great our sleep was last night because I don't want to jinx it.

But tonight, we have fever. Wee one is a nice 101.1 deg-F but he took the grape-flavored children's advil chewables like a champ. I'm sporting something in the 98-range, which for me is a veritable fire of burning up (I'm a 96-97 girl so high 98s is like 100 for regular people). The husband is coughing and snotting and swearing up and down he's 102 if he's a degree, but the thermometer tells me he is 98.7 deg-F. So, men. They're not good when they're sick.

We have already scheduled Grandma and Grandpa for Chuckles tomorrow. This was pre-arranged but works out nicely since with 100+, he's banned from day care (and they know since they were taking his temperature when I got there). I had suspected illness coming on, so no big surprise.

Chuckles is marginal at napping at day care these days and I think everyone on the internets knows how I put Chuckles down for a nap, so it will be interesting to see what happens with Grandma and Grandpa. I will stress the importance of nap since he is ill. Do you think they will take him for a little ride, get him to sleep without a ride, or let him skip nap? Post your thought in the comments and I will report back tomorrow. My hunch is he will be sick enough to lay down with Grandpa and they will both fall asleep in the chair (not that this has ever happened, but it will make for a nice "I-told-you-so" when they tell me I just do it wrong).

Did I mention that I played Guitar Hero on New Year's Eve? Well, I did. I played Mississippi Queen and I was notgood.

Further to that, did I mention that I highlighted my hair? I put little sexy streaks in my roots because with winter full-on, the hair was a little reverse skunk. I spent all glorious summer outside and then the last 4 months with no windows. The hair was not good. But now it's not bad. This blended the roots away. I did not color all over and I think it will grow out without showing.

Oh no, cough-cough-cry from upstairs again. yikes. Gotta go. Post your nap guess.

Where was I?

Oh yes, I was googling "long follicular phase" and "short luteal phase" when I heard teh distinct sound of cough-cough-barf cough-cough-cry coming from upstairs. I checked it out. There is no puke but I suspect fever. If we get another awakening, the thermometer is at the ready.

Never forget:
Sleep begets sleep.

So, if we messed him up bad with the party, we will pay for the next several nights until we get things straightened out.

That's what I thought

Last cycle, I had only talked to the medical assistant who phoned in the script for my progesterone. Although, I did call back twice because the instructions made no sense to me. But, I mostly followed them, although my 4-day surge had me confused and then I was still surging but CD20 came and I was to start the progesterone, so I stopped having sex and well, here I sit not pregnant.

As her last act of 2007, my very excellent nurse practitioner (who handled all my infertility stuff with Chuckles) called me personally Monday night and I told her not pregnant, plan for this month and she said keep it same, and I said that it made no sense and we went over it and she was all like "oh, that's not right" and "no, not like that". So once it was clear to all parties that I do not ovulate on CD14 like a textbook, she left it up to me to decide when I ovulated and to start progesterone 7 days later. And with a four-day surge, it's the last day that counts, but you don't know it's the last day until the next day so you have to treat every surge day like it's the last and just have a lot of romantic encounters. So, there's that too. And I felt better. Like I was getting medical care tailored to my actual body. But then, after I got off the phone, I remembered that there is a very real possibility that I will start my period before the 7 days to progesterone are up. So, I am going to start progesterone 4 days after the end of my surge at the suggestion of a friend and just figure it out on my own. I've always said that I am every bit as smart as a doctor. I just need someone to write the scripts and order the blood draws. So, that is this month's plan. It feels good to have a plan.

2008

Happy happy. Glad to see you made it to the other side.

I went to a party. I watched Dick Clark's New Years Rockin' Eve even though I did not know a single artist on stage (I just watched to see whether they brought Dick Clark out of suspended animation for the night). Chuckles and Mr. L-S went too. I was reluctant. Resistant. I did not want to go. Chuckles is such a marginal sleeper, and this was going to involve us staying away for the night. And my mom volunteered to babysit Chuckles in our own home with his own bed and so on. But the mr would have none of that, so the boy went with us. It was almost an "I-told-you-so" night, but it worked out ok. We muddled through. Some sleep was had and I had two bottles of champagne (and no hangover).

My mother-in-law volunteered to put Chuckles down for bed (at about 9 o'clock). We didn't see her for 2.5 hours. That boy is stubborn, but MIL is persistent. When she came back to the party, she was begging for a mixed drink and some time on the Wii (and Guitar Hero). She got both. Chuckles was awake and sitting upright in the hallway (!) when I went upstairs at 2:30. I have no idea how long he was there, so I took him to the potty with me while I brushed my teeth and got marginally ready and then brought him to bed with me. He was up at 6 am to go potty and have some milk and went back down until almost 10. Not too bad.

But then! Then, some ugly things were said that made me question whether my mothering is poor, which I have decided it is not. I just play the cards I have been dealt. Chuckles is not a poor sleeper away from home because we rarely stay away from home. We rarely stay away from home because he is a poor sleeper away from home. B is the root cause of A not the other way around. When he was an infant, we tried just toting him with us wherever we went and we were all the worse or it. Once I realized (lightbulbs exploding over my head with the force I realized this) that he needed routine, sameness, consistency, and his own bed (and a lovey), we stayed home more and slept more. A lot more. I was happier. I pray that BoBo (theoretical future baby) does a better job away from home, but if not, I vow not to beat myself up. Play the cards you are dealt. And if you have to get a sitter to stay home with the baby so you can go out, then do it. Especially if MiMi is standing there saying, "Leave him with me. Go. Have fun. We'll be fine."

Why did I read that?

I just went back and read some of my awful posts from July. Why? I get a knot in my stomach just thinking about it, but for some reason, every few weeks, I go back and read it again and again. I think I'm either a glutton or a sadist. Or both. I am so glad 2007 is coming to a close. I hope 2008 is better.

Speaking of 2008, I went to Target today to buy my Christmas cards for next year. 50% off, baby. Anyway, I bought photo holder cards again and I hope. hope hope hope, that next year's picture is Chuckles sitting in a chair with a cheesy smile with some kind of tiny baby half schlumped over next to him. Maybe wearing a Santa hat.

Bodily Fluids

Warning: Do not read this post if you are squeamish or eating.


During the previous 24 hours, I have cleaned up the following fluids:

• pee (dripped off of small one as he spun around after peeing on the potty)
• poop (same small person had a very loose bowel movement that...well, I'm sure you can imagine)
• Spittle (small person learned how to make "zerpies" at me...you know, zerpies, like razzberries but without my belly involved)
• snot (for the love of god, don't wipe your nose on the couch, use your sleeve or a tissue)
• vomit (good morning, mommy, cough-cough-bleck)
• and blood (after my shower, I was toweling off and icked on the floor)

I know I am lucky and everyting to have my husband (whom I love once again) and my son (who is my sole reason for carrying on every day), but some days, I'd like a maid.

Dinner Menu

I know you all like it when I tell you what's on the table around here.

For breakfast, we had scrambled eggs with stuff (onions, tomatoes, ham, cheese), bananas, egg nog, and Emergen-C.

Lunch was PB&J sandwiches with clementines and milk.

For dinner, I am making a homemade loaf of wheat bread which should still be warm come dinner. I'll be serving it with dipping sauce (parmesan, balsamic, olive oil, spices). And I am making a beef stew: 7-bone roast that I butchered off the bone myself, carrots, celery, veggie stock, shi-itake mushrooms, onions, garlic, oregano, black beans, cannelini beans, green beans, wild rice, and tomatoes from my garden (frozen back at the harvest). It smells divine. I should throw some wine in with it, but uhhhh, I think I drank it.

Speaking of drinking wine....I find it immensely funny when I wash my prenatal vitamins down with red wine while eating soft cheeses (and feta with kalamata olives). It's the imagery that does it for me.

The Personal is Political

So, from time-to-time, I cover the Presidential Race. I've looked at Hillary, Guiliani, Thompson, Huckabee, I think Romney, and Kucinich. Or maybe I didn't cover Kucinich. Maybe the Weekly World Alien News Service covered him. Hard to remember. Anyway, today we'll look at two long-shot candidates. Ron Paul and Richardson (who is such a long-shot I need to google his name to get the first name. I'll do him second).

Ron Paul - Ran as a Libertarian a few years back. I'm a closet Libertarian, so already I like him. Although, I do tend to be a little Hawkish on foreign policy and he is non-interventionist. He's OK. He's pro-low tax (Yipee) and pro-business (woo hoo) and anti-federal government and anti-nationalized health care (I mean, do you think our Federal Government would insure my infertility better than my private insurance?...I think not...unless powerful big interest were involved...because you know, embryos are involved in some of this stuff), pro-home schooling (I love home schooling), pro-Life (but doesn't want to legislate it), but he's anti-war (I mean, we all are anti-war, but he's anti-this war and while I'm not exactly pro-war, we're there and we can't just leave, the surge is working, so we need to stay the course, the soldiers on the ground overwhelmingly feel like they're doing good work). So, all-in-all, Ron Paul gets a thumbs-up from me. He has a snowball's chance though. Maybe someone will pick him to run as the VP.

Bill Richardson - One of the issues in his platform (they all have little ISSUES menus where you can go and find out their actual position on an issue) is LGBT which is pretty neat. I haven't seen that as an issue on anyone else's official campaign website. For the record, he is pro-rights for LGBT persons. Oh by the way, Bill RIchardson is a minority. He's Hispanic. Apparently, people forget that when Obama is in the room. 'Hey, I'm an underrepresented minority over here.' He's from New Mexico and a Democrat. He wants to uphold Roe v. Wade. He's on the side of America's working families (this sentence makes me laugh because i want to see the candidate who proclaims that he (or she) is NOT on the side of America's working families and is firmly and squarely in the pocket of big business or Big Pharma). He also has a Issue called Darfur. He's anti-genocide. I don't like him though because he raised the minimum wage while governor of NM. I am anti-minimum wage. I believe that a job pays what a job is worth. I'm funny like that. And when he talks about education, he talks about working hard ofr teachers. SHouldn't he really be working hard for students and not beholden to the teachers' unions? He's also anti-Bankruptcy reform. I'm not. I'm harsh like that. I guess that's why he's a democrat and I am a Libertarian.

I urge you to go out and research your favorite candidates. It's quite easy. They all have webpages with Issues Links and you can find your favorite issue and research who has the best positions for you.

Check our Kucinich, he's wacky.

Julia's Babies are Here!

Oh my god. Oh my god.

Julia had a boy and a girl.

Google is Really Weird

I found a website today while googling something like "my oh my but progesterone is expensive and where is the pregnyl?".

The website is http://prescriptionrxmedicinepharmacy.com/?gclid=CMSvxYupzJACFRXOIgod8BMWXg

They offer the following convenient services:

Our order process could not be simpler, just select the medicines you need, fill
in our medical questionnaire, and submit your order. Our U.S Licensed Physicians
will review your order and issue your prescription. Next, our U.S. Licensed
Pharmacies will dispense, and FedEx your order discreetly using Next day
delivery.

So, you can say you have trouble getting it to stay up, and they send you Levitra or something. So, I can tell them I have lots of sex and no baby and they send me what, a baby? No, no, no. But do I need to tell them exactly what I want? Like 75 mg clomiphene on cd3 through cd7 and 200 mg gynodiol on cd8 through 18. 10,000 iu pregnyl on day 20 and 200 mg prochieve on cd 21 through 30. I mean, how specific do you need to be? OH MY! They have painkillers too. So, if I get a negative hpt and want to drown my sorrows, I can go back and get some valium or something. Interesting. Doesn't quite seem legit though, you know what I mean?!?

Crafty is as Crafty Does

To celebrate my newfound fertility (you know, the semi-regular cycling kind), I offer you the following craft:

Maxi-Pad and Tampon Christmas Tree Angels

1. Locate a maxipad with wings, preferably the extra-long overnight kind.
2. Find a tampon. One with a white rip cord works best.
3. Get a white, silver, gold, or sparkly pipe cleaner.
4. On permanent marker.
5. Remove tampon from wrapper and applicator, if present.
6. Remove paper backing from pad (but not from wings).
7. Fold wings out to the sides.
8. Stick tampon to the pad using the adhesive strip.
9. Use Tampon string to stick straight up (keep it straight up with the pipe cleaner).
10. Fashion the end of the string and the pipe cleaner into a halo.
11. Draw face on the tampon.
12. You now have a be-haloed angel with wings and a smiling face.
13. Ta-da. Hang on tree.
14. Stand back and admire your craftiness.

What Age?

I think 2.5 years old is the perfect age for a kid to learn about quid pro quo, or bribery as I like to call it.

• If you eat three more beans, you can have a cookie.
• If you leave school and come with me quietly, your Tow Mater is in the car.
• If you remember to say 'please' and 'thank you', you get more Christmas presents.
• Open your mouth wide while I brush your teeth and you won't get cavities.
• Sleep through the night and I will play with you tomorrow.

OK, so it's not bribery per se, it's more like an elaborate reward system for doing what I want.

Best. Christmas. Ever.

A quick recap of Christmas...

Chuckles's best present from his Grandma and Grandpa: a tool box from Menards filled with small cars and trucks.
What Chuckles got in his stocking: two cars, a clementine, and a small block of cheese (traditions).

My two favorite...no three favorite....presents: a gift cert for a massage, hub caps/covers (because I drive a ghetto-mobile that lost 3 of the four already....they just break off), and four packages of Pond's Clean Sweep Facial Cloths (I love them....they even clean make up off of the counter if you happen to spill it on your brand new counter/sink combo)

Husband: Simpson's movie (which I bought the day it came out), a remote controlled helicopter, a remote-controlled hovercraft and it truly was his best Christmas ever as he specifically mentioned that he received no clothes! And I got him a gift cert for a complete auto detail and hand wax job (which sounds dirty but it actually very clean)

Coolest present I got someone else: a key chain digital picture frame thing. Only like $25 at amazon and it holds 60 pictures and I preloaded it with pictures and charged the batteries so it was ready to roll on Christmas morning.

Most thoughtful present: I printed some Great-Grandpa pictures on my husband's side and framed them for my FIL side-by-side with pictures of Chuckles looking almost exactly the same. I think it almost brought tears to his eyes to see his dad side-by-side with his grandson (with their hats both cocked just so). And I did them all in black-and-white to make the comparison even better and put them in a black frame.

Sad, but not at all unexpected

Benazir Bhutto was assassinated today. Not a surprise. I hope that the (free, fair) elections continue as scheduled and are truly free and fair.

Cycle Day 1: The Dawn of a New Cycle

Well, it's official. I am not pregnant. And I am bleeding. And while I am somewhat disappointed, I am just fine. My cycle, for those of you keeping score at home, was 29 days-long. That's surprisingly normal. But, the luteal phase was short - even with progesterone supplementation (and it only took 36 hours after cessation of progesterone for my menses to begin, so I really do have a progesterone deficiency).

I called my doctor's office to see what to do, but apparently, they are out today and tomorrow (and the weekend), and Mondays are busy and Tuesday's a holiday, so I guess we're done until Wednesday. I suppose that means I just continue as I have been doing. I thought they might want to order some Day 3 bloodwork just to see where I am (or perhaps at my harping insistence try me on a low-dose clomid regimen this month). My insurance doesn't cover any of this, so I guess it's better that we wait until 2008. I am upping my HCRA considerably.

I love the sound of a vaccuum cleaner taking money out of my wallet. Perhaps I should quit my new job and go work in Illinois where infertility is covered. Or just keep my job and use all my salary for drugs and blood tests and visits with the wand monkey. Ahhh, the wand monkey. I haven't thought about that in years!

Positive but Negative

Merry Christmas (or Happy December 24th, if you don't celebrate this particular holiday). I am filled with Tidings of Comfort and Joy. I am not, however, filled with future life. I took the test this morning and rarely have I seen a hpt so resoundingly negative. And that's OK. If the worst thing that ever happens to me in this life is that I raise Chuckles as my one and only child, then life is good. And thinking that thought actually makes me tear up. He really is that good. Apparently, I can tear up at the drop of a hat. But c'mon, Peter came home for Christmas to surprise his mom AND made the coffee.

So, anyway, that's where we are. And to celebrate my barrenness, I had three glasses of champagne with brunch. Joy to the World.

Most of the family (both sides) came over for brunch today. I made my easy and famous French Toast casserole (which had some odd spots of not-tasty in it this time). There was coffee and egg nog and champagne and orange juice and milk for the kiddies and cookies and casserole and Denver omelette casserole and we opened some presents. Everyone got one present (except Chuckles who got 3 pairs of shoes, one outfit, some Cars stuff and some trucks!) to open (and one present which required adult assembly and then just shot marbles at us all but that was fun too). And it was laid-back and fun and not at all annoying as some holidays are.

Have I given a strenuous reccommendation for Ann Douglas's the mother of all pregnancy books? If not, I am doing so now. I am reading and re-reading the sections on "your pre-game plan", "sperm, meet egg", and "missed conceptions". Fascinating stuff. Really stellar.

Oh fascinating nugget: women with short follicular phases tend to have boys and those with long follicular phases have girls. So you are ever-so-sligthly more likely to have a boy if you ovulate before Day 14 and ever-so-slightly more likely to have a girl if you ovulate after Day 14. Now, those four or five times in my life I have ever ovulated were all after Day 14, and I have a son, so take this info with a large grain of ever-so-slightly salt.

Love,
SarcastiCarrie
And PS - Yes, I might in fact be drunk-blogging...maybe tipsy blogging is more accurate.

Full of Joy

I send a lot of Christmas cards, and consequently, I get a lot of Christmas cards. You may even have sent me one.

There is one card I got, though, that is my favorite. It's not because it had the cutest picture, although it was cute. And it's not because it was handmade, which it was. It's not because it had a lengthy verse of scripture which I skipped over to get to the hand-written note, but it did have that and I did skip over it. It's not because it had a gift or a witty newsletter, as it had neither. This card simply filled me with Joy.

Do you remember back in the Spring, when I told you about some friends who had a baby right before Thanksgiving last year? If not, go refresh your memory. Anyway, they had a son who only lived five hours. It was very hard on them, as you might imagine. But they are strong people. Good people. They are better people than I.

There, on the front of their Christmas card, they are smiling. Not just smiles, but big broad smiles. Joyful smiles. Smiles that prove that no matter what the past has dealt them, they are persevering. And expecting a baby in March. A girl. And I teared up just a little thinking about how happy I am for them.

Life is Not Fair

Jamie Lynne Spears is pregnant, and I am not.

I am not jealous, per se, as I do not want her child, but you know, she does not want her child either, so there you have it.

Oh, and her mother never thought little Jamie would get pregnant because she was never late for curfew!!! Does that woman know where babies come from?

I'm a Liar

I think I wrote the wrong cycle days on my ovulation journal. Whoops. There were four days with surge. Same idea though.

Also, I know what I said about tossing birth control and just seeing what happens, but eh, I'm me. I like to control. Plus I know too much. After the very first cycle with no birth control, I knew something wasn't right. I noticed my fertile signs and then shortly thereafter, my period hit which told me my luteal phase was too short. So, It was less than a month to my annual exam and we talked it over and it was confirmed and another month happened and still another short luteal phase so here I am with my progesterone and my pee sticks and none of this is looking like seeing what happens. For Pete's sake, I've been bidding on Clear Blue Easy ClearPlan Fertility Monitors on ebay. I refuse to pay more than $30 (shipping included) for a fertility monitor, so I suppose I will never actually win one. Oh well. I guess I will just see what happens. And I've been looking at buying bulk OPK sticks and pregnancy tests from amazon. Bulk! I'm looking into buying a gross of pee sticks. I am sicksicksick.

So, I lie. I lie to you and myself when I say I am just seeing what happens. It's so easy to think that when here I sit cycling somewhat regularly, which is a far cry from anything I have ever done in the past.

And my husband is remodeling our downstairs bathroom and right now he is standing on my son's potty chair to hang a light fixture. I need something else to obsess about other than the fact that ten are coming for brunch on Christmas Eve morning and my bathroom is a leetle teensy weensy bit unusable.

Fun with Science

OK, so I mentioned that I have little pee sticks upon which I, obviously, pee. Every day. To detect ovulation (which part of me highly suspects I do not do, evidence to the contrary notwithstanding).

Here is my OPK journal for this cycle. I had, ahem, marital relations with my husband on cycle days CD16, CD18, CD19, and CD20. I started progesterone supplementation on CD20 PM. I ruined my plastic party tumbler on CD21 in the morning when the greasiness from the progesterone got on it and WOULD NOT WASH OFF. I think I had a surge for too many days. THat just doesn't seem quite normal to me. Peeonastick says that this is pretty unusual, although not impossible. I trust the internets. These women have vast peeing experience which I must exploit.

So, here, for your viewing pleasure is my cycle in full-color...

Fun with the photos

Baking cookies with mom.

Playing the what should be the "It" toy of the season. It's called Solving Path and is available at museumtour.com.

Frying a turkey on Thanksgiving...

Chuckles has not been napping at "school" lately. You know he's a tough one to nap. Well, even though he didn't nap on Friday, he was in a good mood, so we went out to dinner. He fell asleep at 6:30 in the car on the way home. I got him out and laid him in the living room for a while. He didn't seem to stir at all after a while, so I changed him into jammies (and a diaper) and put him to bed where he stayed until 7 am Saturday. Awesome.

The first really big snowfall of the season. As measured on a ruler in our backyard, it's 9.5" but in places it drifted to more than 2'.

Winter Wonderland

In the lane snow is glistening....

Unfortunately, that lane is supposed to be the "fast" lane on the interstate....


Saturday night, the Mr and I had Mimi come sit on the child and we went out to dinner with two other couples. We went to Pappadeaux. I got the Costa Rican tilapia, and it was excellent. Like little pieces of heaven on the plate. With capers. Anyway, apparently, while we were dining and carrying on, a big snowstorm hit Chicagoland. We got to the restaurant in just under an hour in very light snow that was melting when it hit the warm pavement, but 5.5 hours later when we left, it took 1:20 to get home and the pavement, if I could have seen it, was not longer warm. No biggie. It's not like Mimi was going to leave at midnight if we weren't home yet (which we weren't, and we brushed her car off for her, so she was happy). This morning, Chuckles did not get up until, wait, this cannot be right, 8 am!!! Anyway, we all woke up to 10" of snow. I know because I put my boots on with my pajamas and went out with a ruler and measured it. Good sight, that. Took almost 2 hours with all three of us working to clear the driveway. But we're fine and all is well.

Oh, and apparently, I had a sneak attack ovulation on Saturday. My little pee on them strips were nothing-nothing-nothing-a little something-a little more something-nothing - nothing - nothing- BAM ovulation. Crazy, I know. Friday night I had some cocktails at the Mexican restaurant and seduced my husband...my timing was impeccable (kid fell aslep in the car coming home from dinner at 6:30 pm...how else was I to spend a Friday night, then). So, now we wait. I will test on Christmas Eve morning.

To my Husband

I just want you to know that while I don't mind, laundry is not really a hobby.


Sudoku is a hobby. Cooking is a hobby. Reading is a hobby. Sewing is a hobby.

Taking cold, wet pee-soaked clothes out of bags-of-shame from daycare and washing them in scalding hot disinfecting water is not a hobby.

The Weather Outside is Frightful

The weather is calling for sleet, freezing rain, slush, ice, and frozen fog (which is FUN).

I can hardly wait.

Last week we had weather. Lots of weather. Six Inches of Snow one morning and black ice the next. And wow, am I really going through this intersection at 5 mph sideways? Whee. Did my 12 mile commute actually take me over an hour two days last week? Yes, yes it did. Was it really only 5 deg-F one morning? Yes, yes it was.

Sunday morning, the driveway was a sheet of ice. Slippery andfun. I went for a little slide down to the sidewalk, but had some trouble getting back to the top. We had to take a running start in the car.

So, Mr. Long-Suffering, who for the record really does not get to have much fun, decided to put EnergetiCat on the driveway and see what she'd do. Well, she put her claws out, got traction and hopped into the snow-covered bushes. Now that's fun! We got her back and she's fine, but I think we cured her of her escapist tendencies...for a little while at least.

A few hours later, Mr. L-S decided to play with KleptomaniaCat and the laser pointer. I really enjoyed when she started climbing the wall trying to get the red dot.

Oh, why is she KleptomaniaCat? Because she takes things out of the basement (off of L-S's tool bench) and scatters them around the house. I found conduit connectors in teh upstairs bathroom, cable ties in the nursery and wire nuts in the kitchen.

Why was my prescription not covered?

Uhhhh, because my insurance apparently doesn't cover anything vaguely related to reproductive health for women. I called the prescription drug coverage people today and they do not cover custom-compounded progesterone suppositories. And as long as I had the very-helpful woman on the phone, I asked a bunch more questions.
For the record, here is my coverage:

• Progesterone suppositories - not covered
• Progesterone gel (Crinone) - not covered
• Progesterone in oil - covered but still quite expensive (basically the copay is as much as me paying cash for the suppositories)
• Clomid (clomiphene citrate) - not covered
• Estrace (estrogen) - not covered
• hCG (pregnyl, profasi) - not covered

That's the basic cocktail I took for the seven months leading up to me getting pregnant with Chuckles. Well, except that I stayed on progesterone for 14 weeks. Ahh, good times, good times. Only back then, I had excellent coverage that covered everything with a reasonable copay.

I will be upping my HCRA for next year, I guess. And I suppose if it comes down to it, I'll need to pay cash for all the monitoring and ultrasounds and everything and I think I am feeling ill just thinking about shelling out that much money.

Oh, and I did do some comparison pricing at ivfmeds.com and drugstore.com. Even if you don't need ivf, ivfmeds has very reasonable pricing on all kinds of fertility drugs. But, my sister lives near the Mexican border, so I'm sure she could come up with something for me. She got some birth control pills there once (and hey I didn't get pregnant, so they must have been fine....oh wait, that's right, I'm infertile).

Anal Retentive

In case of nuclear holocaust, let's meet in my basement. We're good for at least a month on the food down there.

I'm having my in-laws over for dinner tonight (fajita burritos, hopefully as good as at that one restaurant we used to go to every week before we moved). I am going to make a cake for dessert. There are three boxes of yellow cake mix on my shelves (one Betty Crackpot, one duncan hines, and one pillsbury). I picked the one with the closest expiration date which is Pillsbury. Oddly, there was only one can of frosting, which means I need at least two to go with the cake I already have.

Right now, in my home, there are no less than 30 boxes of cereal. It's an addiction really. I have 12 large cans of diced tomatoes (you like chili, right?). I have a flat of cream soups and another flat of canned mushrooms. I have an instutional sized can of fruit cocktail. I have over 700 ounces of laundry detergent. I easily have 15 pounds of beef. I would not be surprised to learn that I have 20 pounds of frozen vegetables. I have 12 pounds of sugar and 15 pounds of flour (in three or more varieties: unbleached all-purpose, cake, whole wheat, and bread flour). I have five tubs of oatmeal.

I have at least 20 liters of pop, which we do not drink but have just in case company comes over (which they never do). I have six bags of chips, which is a two-month supply if not more. The chips are in addition to Fritos, pretzels, crackers, crisps, and other snack-y foods.

I am now going to get all philosophical about why I do this. Sure, I do a lot of cooking and we eat most of our meals at home, and it is the rare occasion that something goes bad and I need to discard it. But, when I was growing up, we didn't always have food. OK, that's not true. I suppose I was never in danger of going hungry, but we did sometimes have to wait until payday to have milk (and cereal with water is gross). And sometimes there wasn't anything normal to eat. I have a vivid memory of eating seasoned breadcrumbs one day for a snack. And my mother used to complain bitterly about the price of two of the things I liked (and still do like) best: fresh fruit and cereal (never did I see her complain about the price of cigarettes, switch to generics, or wait until payday for them, but I digress*). With the internets as my witness, Chuckles will never have to eat breadcrumbs. Now if he wants to eat them, that's a different story.

* - For the record, Mimi is now a doting and loving grandmother whose financial situation is quite a bit better. And she quit smoking. Good for her.

Words that have come out of my mouth that, I swear, are not my own

• Sit down before you fall down.
• Stop crying or I'll give you something to cry about.
• I have a hankerin' for some spankerin'. **
• What's the magic word?
• If you're not crying, you're not learning. **
• Every time I'd see that blueberry stain, I'd be reminded of what a bad little boy you were and that would make me sad.*

* - This one caused crying, so I thought I should tone the language down a little.

** - Not mine, my husband's channeling his own father.

Things That Make Me Angry: Part 82

• Traffic
• People who think Christmas is about the gifts
• Traffic
• Black Ice
• Red Light Cameras
• Cloudy Skies
• My insurance, which is actually quite good, did not cover my prescription, which was filled at a totally far pharmacy because (A) Walgreen's in not on my insurance any longer and (B) that's a moot point because they don't carry it at any of my local Walgreen's anyway.
• The prescription for which I paid cash shorted me one bullet. Perhaps my math is wrong, but "insert one vaginal suppository on cycles days 20 through 28" tells me that I need 9 bullets to complete that action. I received 8. So, I paid $30 for 8 suppositories of a drug (progesterone) I know is not expensive. That's almost $4 per day I will be paying for this. And no, honestly $30 is not a ton of money, but if it takes us an average length of time to get pregnant, which according to Ann Douglas's The Mother of All Pregnancy Books, which is like the Bible would be to me if I were christian, is 6.7 to 10 months in the early 30s, then we are looking at, perhaps, $300 in drugs, assuming we don't even need anything other than the progesterone, which when I think about it is not bloody likely.
• I will call the insurance tomorrow to find out whether I need to mail order this, because even if I do get pregnant, I will be on supplemental progesterone until week 13 or 14 because if you need it to get pregnant, you need it to stay pregnant according to my awesome Nurse.

I will now recreate the chart in the book because it's good:

Odds that you will conceive any given month

(1)early 20s: 20-25%, (2)Late 20s: 15-20%, (3)Early 30s: 10-15%, (4)Late 30s: 8.3-10%

Average # of months it takes to conceive:

1: 1-5 months, 2: 5-6.7 mos, 3: 6.7-10 mos, 4: 10-12 mos

% of people who are pregnant within a year

1: 93-97%, 2: 86-93%, 3: 72-86%, 4: 65-72%

Last time I had a baby, I was in my late 20s. It took me 13 months (7 cycles with help). It looks like I'm on the wrong end of the stats, here. And my chances are apparently worse now. Although with two months of spontaneous ovulation, things actually look up. I continue to pee on sticks every day. There is a line starting to form, but considering its already Cycle Day 11, it's still pretty light. I think I ovulated on CD17 to 21, the last two months, so I have plenty of time (and plenty of little pee sticks left).

Icky News

As my profile says that I am up on current events, I will now mention the following, just to prove it.

• Earthquake in Bali during summit.
• Stacy Peterson married a man who had been married three times before and who was 20+ years her senior. And now she's (probably) dead. And her husband is smiling on TV every day and the paprazzi are camped out outside his house.
• A man shot and killed his ex-wife in front of their two kids a few miles from my home. They were in a public place exchanging custody of the kids. Then he killed himself.
• That shooting rampage in a mall: Ick.
• Traffic so bad my eyes bleed (hours wasted in car not getting anyone to sleep)
• Obama & Oprah bonded over having funny names that start with O
• Two Words, America: Chuck Norris
• and on a lighter note, The Mom Song (love it)

Why worry?

I wondered whether we should do a whole family picture on Santa's lap and whether we only get one picture and blah blah blah. Well, it turns out it was all a moot point as Chuckles would not sit on the jolly fat man's lap all by himself, nor would he sit on the chair next to Santa all by himself.

Daddy had to hold him near Santa and DING is in the picture and so is Mommy and if you look really closely, you will see a tear too (and the wall on either side of hte blue backdrop). We even went back to the back of the line after making it to the front of the line so we could watch more kids do this and get more used to the idea, but no go. And we did end up getting two pictures. In the other picture (which was vertical), my body was cut off and I am just a smiling, floating, disembodied head. Talk about your nightmare before christmas!

Work-Life Balance

My work and my life are not balanced, but they co-exist in semi-overlapping spheres.

Saturday, I needed to do some work, but I didn't want to go in to the plant. I needed to meet one of the traveling guys and get some samples of failed material, but he lived closer to me than either of us lived to the plant, so we met at McDonald's. And I brought CHuckles and Mr. Long-Suffering with me (we were right next door doing some shopping and it seemed silly to go all the way home when this was only going to take 20 minutes).

Chuckles sat at the counter on a stool and drank milk through a straw (which was the highlight of his week based on the number of times I have heard this story) while I sat at the next table and talked business. All went well until Chuckles needed to potty and only mommy was allowed to take him. Excuse self from table, take child potty, enter back into the work conversation. My husband and the guy chatted while I was gone, they knew some people in common. All was well. The men in my industry tend to be a little older than my own father and so often have working mom daughters and usually feel sorry for me and think I'm doing OK. And I am.

Late Breaking Addition to Things that Make a 5th Grader Laugh

From caramama: Poop Deck

Anal Retentive

I sent out my Christmas cards, but I was not first. Dang. I've gotten two cards already. I'm always first. Oh, slippping. Off my game.


Oh, but at 8 am Saturday morning, we have tickets to see Santa, for free. Woo Hoo. Should we do a whole family picture or just Chuckles? Pictures are free, but I think we only get one.

Lying Liars and the Lies they tell

Osco lies. I called Casa Sarcastic's resident pharmacist, Banjo, and she says that she and her female pharmacist counterparts all play with progesterone (with gloves or something). She said they just didn't want to do it. That's what I thought.

I also talked to my doctor's office today and they said there was only one pharmacy in teh area that has progesterone suppositories, Walgreen's at the corner of major street and far away major street. I disagree as I know of at least two other pharmacies closer where I can get them and that are not Walgreens who will no longer honor my prescription drug coverage.

Speaking of which, I have no idea whether my insurance will cover this as it could be consiered a fertility drug and I am pretty sure my insurance doesn't cover that now. Very disappointing. To get Chuckles, my insurance covered everything, and it was great. I never ever worried about not getting an ultrasound for follicle counts or a blood draw to confirm (my lack of) ovulation. With 7 treatment cycles, I paid a $200 out of network co-pay (which honestly, I could have avoided if I weren't so particular about who tested my blood) and a reasonable co-pay on each drug during the cycle (not usually more than $25). So, all-in-all, maybe $500 out-of-pocket to get pregnant and another $420 to have all prenatal visits and give birth. I knew I was lucky. I knew it. Others have far less, if anything. I am now one of those. So, I guess to have Bo-Bo, I will have to shell out more money, but I;m making homemade eggs this time, so maybe it won't be so bad.

Or I'll think that, only to be disappointed in new and exciting ways. I can hardly wait to find out.

Not My Most Proud Moment as a Mom

Chuckles did not nap at school today. It's becoming an every-other-day thing at school now. ANyway, when there is no nap, the evening is often fraught with peril. Tonight, dinner was a challenge. He didn;t want to sit or eat or anything, so he sat on my lap, sat in a big chair, and stood while eating the following (which just barely meets my minimum dietary requirements...no nap days get lower requirements than good days): Yoplait full-sugar HFCS yogurt, two cups of soy milk, 1/3 banana, 1/8 pear, a Gerber Biter Biscuit (I told him it was a cookie), a package of peanut butter Ritz crackers, one kidney bean.

So, now you know. While I imply that I feed my child healthful foods and responsible snacks, I actually feed him peanut butter-stuffed Ritz crackers (which he got from a neighbor while trick-or-treating).

I had homemade chili and Thin Mints for dinner.

Getting ready for the most wonderful time of the year

Chuckles's day care is not endorsing any specific holiday this year, but they are referring to December, in general, as the most wonderful time of the year.

I have taken the winter-holiday themed books out of Chuckles's closet and started reading them. I can almost recite Clement Moore's 'Twas the Night Before Christmas by heart. Getting close. Did you know the last line is: "Happy Christmas to all and to all a good-night"? Me neither. Who'dve thunk it?

I really love the Charlies Brown Christmas. Of all the Charlie Browns in the world, he really is the Charlie Browniest.

We have one book something about Snappy Sounds and Friends Giant Annoying Book of Loudness that makes noise. One page says "Ho, Ho, Ho" another is singing carols and one page is the sound over and over and over and over and over and over again of dropping silverware inside a dishwasher full of broken glass. With a cat. This gets my award for Most Annoying Sound of the Most Wonderful Time of the Year.

We put the lights up on the house Sunday. We're tres retro. Those big bulbs along the gutters and white light nets in the bushes. It's 1952 meets 2002. Chuckles is enchanted by it. He'd like to know why the lights are not on in the morning, mommy. I've come up with something about they are on you just can't tell.

Things that make a Fifth Grader Laugh: Christmas Edition

1. From "Deck the Halls": Don we now our gay apparel.
2. From "'Twas the Night Before Christmas": On the breast of the new-fallen snow.
3. From some overly religious Christmas song we have two: Round yon virgin
4. And: Holy infant so tender and mild (the word mild always makes me think of sausage, and sausage is funny).

That work "Bonus" I got

You know, teh two $50 vouchers....well, you cannot combine forms of payment at amazon, so I freaked out and called customer service and blah blah blah Raj in India...finally I had an epiphany. I ended up buying two amazon gift cards for $50 each, using those and then paying for the balance with the coinstar voucher and $9 on the credit card. Now, I guess my shopping is done.

I adopted two kids through the Angel Tree at the Salvation Army, so we headed back to Lo-Mart today. I got the 13-year old girl clothes (and novelty socks) and the 9-year old boy gets a remote controlled hovering airplane. I want to adopt a whole family next year and have our whole family do it. It would be way fun, I bet.

I got up from the computer

Right after I wrote that last post, I got up from the computer, went to the bathroom and learned that I am definitely not pregnant. I saw red.

It turns out that my infertility comes in many different flavors and I am now the proud owner of a luteal phase defect. So, next cycle, I will supplement with progesterone for the second half.

But, as I mentioned I can no longer fill prescriptions at Walgreen's and it turns out Osco doesn't have a male compounding pharmacist on staff at my local store, so I have to go far. I will end up transferring this script to a local pharmacy affiliated with the hospital. But, whatever. Oh, why do they need a man? Female pharmacists cannot play with female hormones (or certain other medicines). I wonder if men are not allowed near some drugs.

So, I'm not pregnant, but I guess I never thought I was. But my husband was so disappointed. I just keep disappointing him in this department. Poor guy. He was so sad and kept telling me it wasn't too late. Poor guy.

So, I went to Lo-Mart today and got more pee on the strips to detect LH surge/ovulation. In case I happen to ovulate for a third straight month which would be a record, I guess for me.

Things that make a 5th Grader giggle (or a 32-year old)

• Regina is the capital of Saskatchewan. Regina rhymes with, well, something.
• Lake Titticaca is the world's highest navigable lake.
• titmouse is really a bird.
• sperm whale is quite large and a marine mammal.
• breast cancer is not the leading killer of women.
• Trojans are from Troy.
• Ramses was a New Kingdom Egyptian pharaoh.
• Pipe Nipple is just funny.
• And pornography checkers flag on both "has strong morals" and "the pen is mightier than" because the first one contains the string "ass" and the second "penis".

Please add some more in the comments. I love these. Because I am 10.

Random Agglomeration of Thoughts

Let;s do them in numbered list format. I;m good with numbers. Let;s also replace all apostrophes with semicolons. It;ll be fun.

1. I am a little embarassed to mention this, but apparently, I had a lot of mucus when I was at my annual appointment. It was the ovulation, I swear. I don;t get all hot fo the speculum. Gobs of ewcm (that's egg white cervical mucus for people who don't track their cycles).
2. The test this morning was negative, but even the most sensitive tests would read negative this early even if I were pregnant, which I probably am not.
3. I am three people at work this week and it's a little bit stressful. From 6 am until 7:10 pm today I have been on the cell phone. I finally turned teh phone off.
4. I accidentally faxed something to the guy's phone yesterday. And when the fax didn't go through, the fax machine kept calling and calling and calling. Whoops.
5. Thanksgiving was good. If you ever get a chance to deep fry a cajun injected turkey, I recommend it. We had two turkeys. L-S's turkey (fried) was better than mine (traditional open pan oven roasted).
6. Dinner was 45 minutes late because my 14-year old brother is a meticulous turkey carver. There was not one speck of meat on that bird when he was done and each slice was the same size as every other one. But we were eating 45 minutes late so I actualy died. Then I came back to life to do the dishes. Then my sister-in-law fell over my dishwasher while holding her baby and they're fine but the door and basket for the dishwasher will never be teh same again, but that's ok because if I can make it leak, I get a Bosch. L-S promised.
7. Did you know that it is hardest to buy gifts for the people closest to you? Or so I have heard. I usually hit the ball out of the park for my husband (this year's birthday...crank powered emergency radio with 7 NOAA weather bands and a cell phone charger, emergency alert siren, and flashlight...the FR300 from Eton....I got him the Red Cross version from Lowe's for $43 less 10% coupon).
8. I used a $10 off your $100 purchas at Target on Saturday. I am more than half-way done with shopping.
9. Kohl's short-shipped my order by three pieces and one came in the wrong color (and their shipping is expensive but I called them and had them reverse teh shipping charges...hopefully that worked).
10. I love Walgreen's but there is some federal case between them and Caremark (who owns CVS). I don't know the details, but I guess Caremark wants to direct retail traffic to CVS and Walgreen's won't play ball and all I know is there is a Walgreen's on every corner and in even the smallest towns I frequent, so I need Walgreen's. They have Fever-All and Pedialyte, and special formula and diapers and sweatpants and cards and gift cards and milk. It's everything a busy mom needs. And now my insurance isn't accepted at Walgreen's. I consulted Casa SarcastiCarrie's resident pharmacist "Banjo" and she said that Caremark is still playing nice with other, smaller pharmacies and that Medco and Walgreen's still cooperate.
11. I think I will refer to Lisa, the new cat, as EnergetiCat. In the middle of the night, we found her in the upstairs bedroom with the turkey's wishbone, which up until that point had been on top of the stove.
12. CoinStar, the coin counting kiosk in teh grocery store, will waive their standard 8.5% counting fee if you get an amazon gift certificate with your change, so I now have an amazon voucher for $20.01 (I was trying to make it even, but I wasn't perfect). Work gave me $100 in amazon vouchers as well, so there's the rest of the X-mas shopping (but they tell me taxes are coming out of my check to cover this "bonus" but isn't it more of a gift?).
13. I absolutely adore the TV show Chuck and I hope hope hope the writer's strike does not kill it.
14. I got my first Christmas card today. This means my cards are not first. I must hang my head in shame.

To test or not to test

PeeOnAStick.com tells me that a home pregnancy test (hpt) can read positive as early as, oh, heck I don't know, whatever, but it's really low threshold levels for the brand I buy. I buy Dollar Store brand (or maybe it's Family Dollar) which is distributed by Inverness. The official rated sensitivity is 50 (which is micrograms of hCG per deciliter, I think).

Anecdotally, you can get a + test at 10 dpo or <10 mcg/dL on that brand despite whatever the official sensitivity is. With Chuck, at 12 days after trigger, which is probably 10 dpo, I was at 34 mcg/dL (which is really low for a successful pregnancy...which he is, as he pees on the potty and occassionally sleeps through the night). I am 7 or 8 dpo right now. hCG doubles every two days, so let's work backward on Chuck's numbers.
10 dpo 34
8 dpo 17
6 dpo 8.5

Right now, I am about 6 or 7 dpo, so I would be between 8 and 17, which officially would not show positive. So, do I waste the buck in the am? Yes, I will. I had a routine exam last Monday (which apparently in the throes of ovulation) and was given strict instructions that with my history of luteal phase insufficiency (low progesterone unable to sustain a pregnancy) I need to know ASAP so a progesterone number can be run and supplementation offered, if needed. I guess then I will test every two days after that until I get my period or I get that mystical second line. Which if we're being honest here, I do not expect, but I hope (or I don't hope, whatever....I'm not getting my hopes up).

On Funerals

It doesn't take a lyric poet to wax on about the significance of funerals, so I won't try, but I will say the following:

Why do I often have a good time at funerals despite being sad? It's because a funeral feels mandatory, so people come. And you often get to see people you like whom you haven;t seen in a while. I caught up with a large number of people I would not have seen otherwise. I called other people out of the blue to see whether they had heard. We chatted. It was nice. But it feels wrong.

Two more things:
1. If a measure of success of your life is how many people show up (in an icestorm) to pay their respects, my former co-worker was a huge success. He was a big man, both in stature and personality. He had many friends. It took about 2.5 hours to get up to the receiving line. THe line of people waiting to pay their respects snaked out of the chapel, around the corner, down the hall, through the "family room" where they keep the snacks, back down the hall the other way, up the steps toward the offices and back down and to the front door. If the weather had been more agreeable, I'm sure the line owuld have snaked outside and down the block. They ran out of prayer cards and when I signed teh book, it had ten or fifteen pages completed already.

2. When I die, if I have a headstone (which I will not as that is a huge waste of money), it will not read "Always Came Prepared for the 7:30 am Meeting" but it will read "Beloved Wife and Devoted Mother" and that is the way it should be. I went to the 7:30 am meeting today (in at work around 6:00), but come 4 pm, I scooted my way toward the exit pretty darn fast because Chuckles was eagerly awaiting my arrival at school (where he did not nap today). My priorities are in order.

This Season's Hottest Toys

at my house....not in general because none of these toys make noise or are marketed with a tv show or movie.

Solving Path - fun for the entire family. On Thanksgiving (which was a huge 18-person success), even the sullen teenagers and slightly tipsy adults played.

Wedgits - which I just played with for a few peaceful minutes and found enthralling. You can buy them here or here.

And lastly, Magna Tiles which were also a lot of fun.

The phoen just rang. An old co-worker of mine died at work on Thanksigiving. I have to run to the funeral home now.

Code Adam

Two things tonight.

1. I just checked in for my flight tomorrow morning, and I got a B group boarding pass. Not just any B, but B 36, whatever that means. Guess I should have done this earlier. What do I care where I sit though? It's business.

2. I hope to god you never need to know what a Code Adam is, because I do and I wish I didn't. Code Adam is the alert that goes out over the radio in the store when a child goes missing. They block the doors, search the bathrooms, etc. Chuckles caused a Code Adam on Saturday and I think I will now die five years earlier. Details will follow from my hotel room (if I have wi-fi, and really these days, who doesn't?), but rest assured, everyone is ok. A little worse for the wear, but fine.

Thanksgiving

Supposedly, I am hosting Thanksgiving here Casa Sarcastic. I am having 11 adults and 11 children. That's 22 people. I need to come up with the menu.

• Turkey (obviously, but we're doing two, one in the fryer and one in the oven)
• Crescent rolls from the cardboard can* with butter and margarine
• mashed potatoes
• sweet potatoes with brown sugar
• southern comfort sweet potatoes
• tossed salad*
• cranberry salad from the can with the can indentations still on it, served on an attractive plate
• cranberry jello with mandarin oranges
• cranberry chutney
• broccoli cream corn casserole (or souffle if you want to fancy it up)
• green bean casserole
• spinach/noodle/parmesan cheese side dish
• gravy
• stuffing (or dressing if you're southern or something, traditional not oyster or cornbread)
• pumpkin pie x2
• pumpkin crunch
• something with apples or pears
• whipped cream
• beaujolais nouveau
• coffee
• spinach dip with cocktail ryes
• veggie tray

*-these items added by my husband because it's not a holiday without them

What did I miss? I am sure there is something. Once the menu is finalized, I can begin writing the shopping list. Do you have any good recipes for carrots (I'm thinking savory, not sweet)? Share recipes with me, and I'll share mine with you.

Carly - how about a cranberry rice walnut celery salad recipe?

Job

I haven't blogged much about my job. But I was late today. I got lost and wound up going away from work on the expressway. Apparently, one street near work just turns into an entrance ramp. That was a piece of information I wish I'd had prior to making that turn. Oh well. I got off the higway and came back and made it a few minutes late. To a meeting. With my boss. Very embarassing. I am supposed to be this totally together professional person, but I just keep doing stuff like this.

Also, in the last week, I have heard several people say (referring to my predecessor): "Oh, well, that's why Jennifer quit." Huh, that would have been good information to have. Apparently, Jennifer quit because the job sucked monkey butt, to put it politely (that's polite, trust me...I could have said much worse). The position involves being a referee between different departments and all the third-party registration places (like ISO and UL). And on one side, your conscience is telling you to do what is right, and on the other side "Larry" is telling you to hide all the bad stuff. Hey Mr. Rock meet Mr. HardPlace. I have a feeling this is another one of those AngeliCarrie versus DemoniCarrie moments. So far (and throughout most of my career), AngeliCarrie has won, but it's hard always saying no. Sometimes, you know it will be easier just to give in and say "yes" knowing you'll feel dirty later.

Rereading this: "Sometimes, you know it will be easier just to give in and say "yes" knowing you'll feel dirty later. " makes it sound dirty and like a whole lot more fun than it is.

Oh, and did I mention that I work in a division that was acquired in a somewhat hostile takeover so there is a lot of animosity and ill-will? I didn't mention that. Nevermind then.

Did I mention that corporate "forgets" that those of us in this other division have different phone numbers, no mail codes, a different ID card and so on? So, when they send out memos saying that so-and-so's phone number is now x2157 without giving the area code and exchange, it just pisses me off. Or, when they say that you can get a free flu shot after your scheduled shift by putting your request in a spreadsheet on the common folder on the server, I am enraged because I cannot access the common folder on the server because people in our division are denied access to these tools.

Oh, did I tell you that a guy actually told me that he would not give me that information because then I might use it??? It's not like I was trying to do insider trading. I was trying to learn my job, which is exceedingly difficult because no one returns my calls or emails and I have not gotten any training and when I do get someone on the phone and ask questions so I can train myself, they withhold information so I don't use it. ARGH!!!! I am starting to long for those golden days of 20-minute car rides to get someone to nap.

Pee on a Stick

So, I'm still using my little fertility sticks. It's kind of fun - like science. But, so far, nothing has happened. All I get is a control line. I think that's normal considering it's CD4 or 5 or something. I don't have to remember what cycle day I am on because the sticks do it for me. Yay.

Note to self (and to you, should you ever visit): do not use the plastic party cup in the bottom drawer of the bathroom cabinet when brushing your teeth. Because I am not the most co-ordinated crayon in the box, I pee in the cup and dip the stick...so, you know. Just drink out of the faucet.

Bad Citizen - Bad

I didn't vote today. I told the candidates who came to my house to knock on doors and talk with the constiuents that I would. And then I didn't. I suppose this makes me a liar! Oh no. It's not like I don't care about the relative size of my water bill ($65/month) or the state of our schools (blue ribbon, if you must know). It's just...the polling ends early and it's crowded and half of the races were uncontested.

Oh, and I pinky swore to the HUmane Society that I would take Lisa to the vet within 5 days of getting her and today is day 5, so we had to go to the vet. And she's perfect, by the way. Just as I thought. Apparently, her poop is made of diamonds, she pees liquid gold, and she got a 1600 on her SAT. Although, it is possible that she is allergic to her Hill's Science Diet food. We'll wait and see. But, man, that cat can pass some gas.

Here she is in her 9-pounds 9-ounces of glory....

Did I mention that she likes to hang out in the bath tub and she drinks from the faucet? She's odd. She'll fit right in here.

New Addition to Our Family

We took the plunge and adopted. She's 8.5 lbs, 20" long, has green eyes, and triangle ears. Oh yeah, and a tail. Her name is Lisa and she's a cat. She seems so active compared to GeriatriCat that we had before. She jumps, sprints, runs, dashes, and makes a break for the door when it's open (retrieved from the garage x3 so far). But she's no kitten. She's almost 3.5 years old. And she wants to be spoiled.

So far, she seems pretty good. She's quiet at night (unlike GeriatriCat who would get senile and scream in the middle of the night until you reminded her who she was and who you were). She eats and drinks, uses her box, and mostly stays off of the counters. We're working on that. She seems generally uninterested in eating our houseplants too, so that's good. She has all her claws, but I have yet to see her bare them.

She rolls over and plays and Chuckles is adorable with her. She seems very tolerant of toddler antics too.

Fun while it lasted

I made it to day 30 of my cycle (approximately) before the bleeding started. Now, when pregnant with Chuckles, my first symptom was bleeding, so while I was diappointed to see red, I wasn't crushed until the single line on the hpt later that night. Oh well. Like I said, it would have felt like cheating to get a baby by having sex with my husband.

But, one thing is nagging at me. 30 days is a pretty typical cycle length for a lot of people, I had a negative LH test at the beginning of the month, and I think I ovulated, so all-in-all, that was a pretty weird month for me, but very normal. I never have cycles like that. It almost makes me think it would be possible to get a baby the old-fashioned way. And a little hope is a dangerous thing. So, while I was at Low*Mart the other day, I bought something called Answer Daily Ovulation Tracker. (And true to their word, Low*Mart's price is lower than drugstore.com's.) Basically you test every day for 20 days looking for your ovulation (20 days is better than 5 or 7 for me, since I really have no idea when I would ovulate if I even do, and it was comparably priced to the 5 and 7-day kits). I start tonight. I wonder if I'll surge and get a positive. I'll probably be on my business trip if I do. That would be so ironically perfect as the husband will not be present.

Harvest

With frost coming, last weekend we did the harvest. We got about 15 cups of basil which made 6 batches of pesto. We used 3 cups of olive oil, a lot of parmesan cheese, and 30 cloves of garlic. Man, I love pesto.

We also have a ton of green tomatoes and I am making a green tomato stew out of them for dinner tonight. I have no idea what it will taste like, but I did put red wine in it, so it will be good, regardless.

It;s just me, isn't it

Have you ever been tempted to do something baaaaaad and as if in a sitcom, a little angel appers on one of your shoulders and a little devil on the other. Let's call them SarcastiCarrie and AngeliCarrie. Today one of them is telling me to eat the pie before our dinner guests arrive. They'll never know I was going to give them a pie. And that stupid do-gooder on the other shoulder is telling me I want my pants to fit in the morning and my blood sugar and insulin resistance and blah blah blah. Ding Dong. Gotta go. The guests are here.

Speaking of Potential New Babies

Next one is named Bo-Bo. Boy or girl. Once you've named one kid after a clown (Chuckles), you really need to keep that up with the next kid.

Home Alone

OK, so technically, Chuckles is here, but he's been asleep for 3 hours (more than), I made an apple pie and it is already cooled. I've surfed teh web, did laundry, cleaned the kitchen and dining room and sorted teh little green army men from the little blue police men. Now what?

The Mr. is out doing what he loves best...browsing at the hardware store without anyone needing to go potty, no one looking bored or rushing him, etc. I bet he's in heaven. I'll ask him when he comes home.

Three Little Words

Watch more Three Little Words here.

Crying (because I am a sap)

So, I was just saying I don't cry much anymore. But then I went and watched Good Morning America Satuday this morning. They have this segment called Three Little Words or something. And people take videos (you-tube style) and send them in of Three Little Words. Today we saw the following powerful images:

• A piece of notebook paper saying "Fighting off cancer" and then the paper is pulled down and you see a 6-month old baby with a huge scar on his back crawling away
• A man and woman on the front porch or a middle-America house. Her paper says Will Miss You. His says Miss U More. He is in uniform. She kisses him.
• Three index cards that are being held up by a woman whose face you cannot see...just her hands. They read: My Rapist Jailed!!!! and then the hands give two thumbs up.
• A girl with glittering nailpolish and lots of rubber bracelets on writing in a notebook My Mom Survived and a little pink ribbon
• A photo frame on the mantel and the words, I miss you.
• A cat and dog kissing and playing and the words Love Is Blind
• A picture of twins and Worth The Wait
• A big pregnant belly with the words Dream Come True written on it (in marker, not stretch marks)
• A mom and son with signs reading "Adopting from China" and "Waiting for Sister"

And then you can write your Three Little Words on their website. These are some:

• Love Conquers All
• Please Parent, Britney
• Embryo Transfer 10/21 (ed: and good luck to you)

I'm not supposed to be this emotional. I swear, the only time I ever cried from that damn coffee commercial was when I was pregnant. I mean, Peter came home and surprised his mother. I don't know why she's so shocked. He's been doing it every year since 1982!

Babymaking lazy, infertile style

So, uhm, I have no idea what cycle day I am on since I have no idea when I should start counting. Is it first day of spotting, first day of flow, first day off of the pill, three days after the last pill when my body would finally figure out that I hadn't taken a pill?

I have no idea. Either way, I am somewhere in the Day 20-something range.

In all the fertile propaganda, they say you start bleeding on Day 1 (what no spotting beforehand, you just go full-on into flow?), ovulate on Day 14, and then conclude on Day 28. Well, in the real world, something else happens entirely. Who knows?

Generally, ovulation takes place 12 to 16 days before you get your period. How that helps you figure out when ovulation will take plce, I do not know. That time between ovulation and the appearance of your period is known as the luteal phase. If your luteal phase is shorter than about 12 days, you are more likely to miscarry when you do conceive because of something with progesterone. That's called a luteal phase defect. The first part of your cycle from period until ovulation is known as the follicular phase. It is when the follicle (the little sack on the ovary that will release the egg) is formed. Where am I going with this Biology 101 lesson? I have no idea.

Somewhere on Day 2 or 6 or something early, I took an ovulation predictor test that I had around the house from four years ago. Anyway, it was stunningly negative. I mean, nary a hint of a line. PCOS is known for giving a low-level line all the time, so I figured if I was negative, I might actually have a shot at an ovulatory cycle this month, and I actually think I may have ovulated, but around Day 21 or 24 something. That would be late, so I guess I wait to see if I have a period by Day 35 or so, and if not, I freak out and hyperventilate until I test.

Oh, and crazy thing...I am trying to get pregnant by having sex with my husband without consultation of ovulation predictor tests, doctors, blood draws, ultrasounds, drugs, or even, wine. If we do get pregnant this way, it will feel like cheating. It will have been too easy. Weird, huh?

A million little things

I've been writing blog posts in my head for two weeks and now that I have a free minute, I cannot for the life of me remember what I wrote, but trust me, it was good.

1. I think I may have had some minor depression back in the spring (OK, no maybe and probably not minor). I've had it before and it usually breaks before I actually go off of the deep end. I think I am better now. I like my husband again. I no longer blame him for all the evils in the world (I mean, he wasn't even in San Diego when it caught on fire). I always did have immense love and affection for my son even at the worst of it. Amazing power of a mom, I guess. But, I am enjoying my son (most days) now. I think the depression lifted in June, maybe. But, I've been a lot better since we all recovered from salmonella. Since then, I've been good.
2. I don't know how to phrase this. I complain about how hard being a mom is. I complain a fair amount, if by fair you mean a lot. But, know that I love my son and I derive great pleasure watching him grow into a real person. Example: I asked him to tell me a story the other morning. This is approximately what he told me: "Three little pigs were walking in the forest, but grandma wasn't there. A fox ate her. Then, she went home to her house all by herself." The End. So, I love him and think he is a genius, plus he does things that are so cute, it makes your uterus ache. Example: He lined up a really big bear, a medium-large bear, and his teddy bear and called them Mommy, Daddy, and Chuckles bears. Then he said that made it a Family. Oh, my uterus aches, it's so cute. Then he threw another bear into the mix and then he brought in Snoopy, so we just decided it must be our cat, who has been gone over a year now. Anyway, the point to all this is I love my son, and I am throwing my hat back into the baby-making ring. I tossed out my pills three weeks ago. I am infertile, so this is not as monumentous as, say, a fertile person doing this, but it is symbolic nonetheless. We are probably not going to go the medical route, we'll just see what happens. And so far, what has happened? Zits. Lots of icky, white-headed zits on my cheeks.
3. I went to the dentist. Look ma, no cavities.
4. I applied for a passport. The http://travel.state.gov website assures me that they have already put it into the return mail for me. Now, I can travel to Canada for work. Woo Hoo.
5. I bought really cute tourqoise and lime green striped sheets for the big boy bed that is slowly making its way into Chuckles's room. He's such a marginal sleeper, we are not planning on pushing anything. We'll just set it up and see what happens, some day. We're in no hurry. The bed (and two dressers) for Chuckles's room were Mr. Long-Suffering's when he was a boy (and they were his uncles' before that) so it's no big deal really.
6. Chuckles is almost completely daytime potty trained. No diapers from morning until bed for the last week or so and only and accident or two when no one was paying attention to him. All poopy in the potty though. And most pee. Standing. Which is fun, since the aim is not so good. The Clorox wipes are close at hand. No biggee.
7. There's this new show on TV called "Chuck". I like it. And hubby likes it too. Hot girls who fight. A computer geek who went to Stanford. Unrequited love. The longing. Humor and action. What's not to like? Go watch this clip...it's hysterical. Ok, that clip wasn't actually hysterical, but there were laughs. And guns. Watch the show. It's not on too late. I've given up on shows that are on too late.
8. Sometimes, I feel like my life is just an extended jam session version of Office Space. Please keep this in mind when I am at work over the weekend. Something about needing weekend coverage to handle issues within 24 or 48 hours of when they occur. Dang!
9. One of the odd symptom of our recent cold illness was gluteal pain. All three of us had it and that was weird. I had no idea what Chuckles meant when he said his butt hurt until three days later when my ass was tender. Like Pilates class tender. And sitting on hard plastic chairs. Talk about it being a pain in your ass.
10. When I moved from Ohio some 4.5 years ago, a moving company came and packed up all our stuff and brought it here for us. In all that stuff, there was a large bag full of smaller bags. A bag of bags, if you will. Anyway, I pulled one out the other day to line the garbage can in the bathroom and it said Akron Boo at the Zoo 2002 (and it rhymed so well, I got a chuckle). That is all.
11. I got three new tires to go with the one new tire I got already (twice). The guy at the tire place found some major problems with the linkages (which is actually one of the repairs we passed on earlier this year when the car died and I discovered sitting in the car for nap time). So, all-in-all, I think with groceries, a trip to Boo at the Brookfield Zoo, a trip to Costco, and the car repairs, I spent about $1500 this weekend. There I go and get a job and the next thing you know, I am spending money like it's going out of style.
12. Speaking of style, I miss shoulder pads. Not the big ones, just the nice ones to offset my hips. Speaking of my hips, did you see the study about how a mother's hip measurements help determine her daughter's breast cancer risk? I will paraphrase for you: "The findings showed that women had three times higher risks of breast cancer if their mother had wide hips and seven times higher risks if they happened to be a second or third child." So, huh, not only are my hips no good for birthing babies, but should I ever have a daughter, she might get cancer, because damn, if I'm not hippy.
13. My sister went to Sea World in San Diego over the weekend. She's back at her home now and is safe. Whew.
14. Fred Thompson, please be as good as I hope you are.
15. I can't think of anything else this very second, so be well, and Jamington, I am thinking of you.

104.3

Not the radio station (which in this market is Jack FM), but the level of the fever that sent us to Urgent Care two weeks ago. Chuckles is mostly better now as are Mr. Long-Suffering and I. The adults got sinus infections, the kid wound up with a barking cough, but we're on the mend. Just in time for a big MRSA outbreak. The day care sent home a flyer today on their disinfection program and a reminder of their illness policy.
While Chuckles was sick, he was out of school three days (plus two days for the weekend). I have been working six weeks, and I have already called off once. Am model employee. Mr. L-S took off Monday and Tuesday but he had something important at work on Wednesday so I stayed home because Chuckles was still quite ill and we didn't want to expose the grandparents.
But, we're mostly back to normal, so no harm-no foul.

As promised

Just notice how far away from my body the sweatshirt hangs. I think the boy was born a day or two after this picture was taken.


This photo here of a tiny baby being mauled by an enormous boob reminds me of so many things....my body is covered in moles, nursing breasts are one of nature's cruelest jokes (oh yes, they are big and no you cannot touch them), my son (MY SON) had a shock of black hair at birth and it smelled greasy greasy greasy, his cheeks were really red too, once upon a time, I had long nails. But, yes, here is one of the few pictures of me nursing. It's funny, but I spent a lot (A LOT) of time nursing and there really aren't many pictures of it at all. And that;s kind of sad.

PCOS and obesity

So PCOS and obesity go hand-in-hand. They're like those two little naked kids from Love Is....

I am not obese. But, I am not some waif-like stick figure. I have a point with my weight where I can sit with very little effort, but almost any false move can tip me back up. Fortunately, I usually keep pretty close track of such things and nip it in the bud before I need to nip it in the butt. But, I slid since I have started working. There is the mocha coffee and the Twix bars and the free donuts from vendors on Wednesdays...and well, ten pounds snuck on in a month. That's not good. So I am consciously on a food reduction trip for a couple of days here to get back down to the comfy place. And I am not happy about it one bit. I still had some Twix bars this week, but no mocha (stupid broken coffee machine at work helped with that) and no donuts and I skipped dessert after dinner 4 of 5 nights (but that 5th night was sooooo good). Si, I am going to go upstairs for a moment of scale truth. I'll let you know what I find.

Last Saturday, first thing in the morning, I was 160#.
Friday night after a full day, I am 158#.

So, at this rate, I can lose it as fast as I put it on. I'll let you know. I think I am going to start taking vitamins just so that I know I am getting enough (even though I am still eating plenty of food and calories...probably 1800/day most days).

Odd thing about work

There is another manufacturing facility inside our gate and they share our locker rooms. It's quite odd. They are a competitor and once upon a time, some equipment in our building was sold to them and they didn't move it (and we didn't require that they do so). So, here we are, in the bathroom with competitors. Very strange. I don't think it violates any anti-trust things provided you don't scream out trade secrets and pricing philosophy while on the john.

Let's talk about money

Money is something I did not have as a kid, but I guess I didn't realize it because no one else had any either. There were families with more kids who got less and families with fewer kids who got more, but the families basically all evened out.

Until we moved to a better school district...and the kids had Guess? jeans and Benneton sweatshirts and straight hair with no bangs instead of the big hair with big bangs we had where I was from. And then, the kids had cars. Their cars were nicer than the teachers' cars. My sister drove a 1973 Chevy Impala in 1989. It got from A to B and could carry her 25 closest friends. She would have been laughed out of the parking lot at my high school. Few kids had after-school jobs and most spent money for prom and things. I spent money too, but it was money I earned by working 20 hours/week. When AP exams were offer at $72 apiece, I wondered how I could possibly afford them (I needed like 7 my senior year).

When I got out of (very well-granted) college with some debt, I freaked out. I did not want to be my mom. She's a good lady but not the best with money and numbers. So, I quickly paid off my student loans and saved up a down payment for a house (which I bought right before my 23rd birthday). My husband and I both make nice salaries. I mean, we're not pharmacists, but we do just fine. We live in a nice community with reasonably priced homes and good schools. We save. But, really, we don't have to worry. Even when I wasn't working, we had plenty, though certainly not what we have now. When I said things got tight, I should have added that there was no money left at the end of the month after paying all our bills and fully contributing to our savings.
So, even if something bad happens, we'll be OK with money. But, what do we teach our son? I already know the rule for in the store. If I say, "no" and he continues to pester, I will just add, "We don't argue over money." But, this strategy can only last so long. Some day, he'll be 12, and I will need to teach him about money and responsibility and I want to instill in him a little fear of not having enough some day, just so he knows and feels how important saving is. He will never know not having a need fulfilled. I will never ask to borrow $20 until pay day. He will never know any sort of real deprivation. How do I make him frugal?

I tried

I just tried to post pictures of me as a 9-months pregnant hippopotamus and one-day post-partum attempting to nurse a teeny weeny baby on an enormous, engorged teat, but blogger keeps crashing mid-download, so trust me on two things:

1. By 9.5 months, I was so large, I was unable to reach my own nether parts to cleanse myself properly after using the facilities. I tried around front, around back, leaning to the side, throwing paper at it from the corners, and so on, but I just couldn't reach. Eventually, I just decided I'd fix it up in the shower.
2. You might think your breasts are large, but oh, ho ho, they are NOT big until you actually fear your H-cup will suffocate your child, whose head circumference was 14" and yet looks surprisingly small in comparison to your, ahem, motherly orb.