Today is my middle son’s birthday. He is 10 years old. Since I shared the story of my first son being born, I’ll share his birth too.

I, once again, was past my due date. Having already had a child 15 months prior I knew what to expect. I had a different doctor because the first one made douchebags look like wonderful people. I had decided that I didn’t want to be induced. I wanted to do it myself. I had a doctor visit and I wasn’t even dialated. My doctor was going out of town so he wanted to give my a hormone insert and induce me the next day. I wasn’t thrilled but I wanted him to deliver my child (we didn’t know the sex of this one). The plan was to go the Methodist, get my hormones to dialate me and the next morning I would be induced. My son had other plans.

I get to Methodist and they get me settled in my room. The nurse comes to check me before they give me my hormones and I had started to dialate. They call my doctor, who happens to be in a nearby town covering their emergency room. He said to skip the hormones, so I don’t dialate too fast. Well, the resident decided that he was just going to induce me. I refused. So silly little resident tells me that he will just call my doctor and tell him. I told him that the doctor and I had a deal that I would be induced in the morning and if I wasn’t progressing I would be induced then but I would be damned if he would induce me now. He called my doctor. He came back to my room with his head hung low and told me he wasn’t going to induce me. Ha! Victory is mine! So I keep on dialating and contracting and Brad has to leave. He had to cover someone else’s shift at work so he had to basically show up and then I would call and he would come back to the hospital. I fell asleep and when I wake up, no contractions. Shit! Now I have to be induced in a few hours. I get up to go to the bathroom and the mother of contractions start. The nurses are a bit concerned and I call Brad. The nurses keep asking me if I am alone and I keep telling them Brad is on his way. I am getting irritated. Brad finally shows up and I am in some heavy duty labor but where is my doctor? He is still out of town covering the emergency room. Finally, doctor is here, Brad is here, I am ready. No I am not. I still have a half of a centimeter to dialate. So my doctor decides to take a quick walk, since he has been up all night, to get him pumped up for delivering my kid. Once again, my son has other plans. Suddenly, I finish dialating and he decides he is coming, ready or not. So they are paging my doctor, a resident is trying to hold him back and all I want to do is push and get it over with (no epidural this time either). My doctor rushes in and basically catches my son. I had some problems in my pregnancy and didn’t gain alot of weight and didn’t get very big so when they announced that he was 9 pounds and 3 ounces the doctor almost had a stroke.

Now since we didn’t know the sex of our child we didn’t have a name picked out like with our first child. So here we are with another little boy when inspiration hits my husband. He wants to name him Elwood after the Blues Brothers because we already had a Jake. I had a fit. There was no way I was naming this child Elwood. The nurses all agreed with me. So we “discussed” names during my whole stay at the hospital. We didn’t finally settle on one until about an hour before my release. Now that my son is older and has seen the Blues Brothers he is pissed that his name isn’t Elwood. He has told me that he is going to get it changed. I’m hoping he’ll out grown this but knowing him I doubt it. So Happy Birthday Elwood!

Tomorrow is my middle son’s birthday. We have a tradition that I cook whatever the birthday boy wants for dinner. Usually it is pizza, meatball subs, and fun things like that. My son, who is picky, has become a fan of the show Bizarre Foods on the Travel Channel. So for his dinner he wants something bizarre. At first he wanted chicken feet. Then he seen the hearts and gizzard variety pack at Kroger. I am not going to dare tell him I seen pork stomach at Super Walmart! Hopefully I can talk him into something that I actually know how to cook. Be thinking of me tomorrow night as you eat your normal dinners.

Tonight we were eating pizza for dinner and I noticed that Wayne’s World was on. It was almost over but I thought the kids might enjoy it. I change the channel and the boys start complaining. I tell them that this is a movie from when I was younger. My middle son, the sarcastic smart ass of the bunch, says “It isn’t in black and white, is it?”. Thanks, son. I’m so glad I spent all that time pushing your 9 pound 3 ounce body out without an epidural!

Wednesday, I was eating peanuts and I found one that looked like a penis. It was complete - cock and balls. I, of course, thought it was hilarious and put it on the kitchen window sill to show my husband. I started thinking that if people can put tortillas, grilled cheese sandwiches and pretzels on ebay that look like Jesus or the Virgin Mary and get big bucks then there has to be someone out there that would appreciate my penis peanut. It could be considered an “objet d’art”. The perfect piece for the penis enthusiast’s collection.

My husband comes home. I show him my treasure. He is not as amused as I am but concurs that it looks like a cock and balls. I put my penis peanut back on the window sill and wait for the kids to get home. The kids come home (I didn’t show them!) and I go get on the internet for about a half an hour. I go back downstairs and my peanut is missing! I hollar for my oldest son and he admits he ate my peanut. I am completely devastated. There go the millions I’m absolutely sure it would have fetched on ebay! I guess we’ll have to go back to funding the old 401K!

BTW - I am really disturbed by the fact that my 11 year old son would eat something he found sitting on a window sill without knowing from where it came.

Eleven years ago today I was up at Methodist scared out of my mind getting ready to give birth to my first son. I was trying for the natural childbirth but changed my mind after the good contractions started. I had one epidural that didn’t take. They gave me my test dose for my second one when I announced to my husband that I had to push. He got the nurse and low and behold I was ready to push with only my test dose of epidural! My son was born with the cord wrapped around his next and was whisked off to the nursery.
Even though we already agreed on a name, my husband wanted to name our first born Elvis since he was born on Elvis Presley’s birthday. I said absolutely not. He countered with have you ever heard of an Elvis that wasn’t famous (Elvis Presley, Elvis Costello)? I said you don’t generally hear of Elvis the service station attendant unless he goes nuts and kills a bunch of people.
A week after he was born we finally got to take home our 8 pound 1 ounce bundle of joy who, by the way, is not named Elvis!
Happy Birthday Bubba*!

*Bubba is a nickname and not our chosen name for our child

I hope everyone had happy holidays. We had a pretty good Christmas. My boys got me a margarita machine (they obviously know what Mom likes). I have had several “what was I thinking?” moments. The first one stems from buying my youngest son a harmonica. He follows me around and wants me to play name that tune. I have just started naming outrageous songs. He keeps telling me “No Mom it’s not Free Bird, it’s jingle bells.” or No Mom it’s not Metallica, it’s here comes the bride.” Santa also provided his oldest brother with a guitar. Santa obviously forgot the tylenol for my stocking after a “hot jam session”.

We went out and did massive amounts of errand running and ended up with lots of snack foods because I was shopping hungry. My youngest asked about New Year’s Eve while we were shopping. I told him we had lots of snack food and unless we end up going somewhere we would just stay up and eat that stuff. He then asked where he and his brothers would be if Mom and Dad had somewhere to go. I told him they would go to Grandma’s and then he said “You suck.” Thanks son and I love you too!

If I don’t get a chance to post before then have a safe and happy New Year!!

This Halloween started off on a bad foot early. My kids came home from school and dumped their candy and started sorting it. These little asshats in training who are “babysat” at the drug house come to my porch door and holler “You givin’ Snickers?” My boys showed them the Crunch bars we were handing out. Then the douchebaggery was afoot. They started bitching and beating the shit out of my door. I told my kids to tell them that we were going to eat and I would pass out candy after dinner. Then they started shoving rocks (which they stole from someone’s driveway) under my porch door. I couldn’t even open the door. So I decided I would eat my dinner on my porch. They started coming down the sidewalk, seen me and ran back to the “babysitter’s”. Next they manage to rustle up an adult to come with them to my house so they can get some of our “awful” candy. Once again the wheels in my head start turning. I am going to personalize my candy for select kids, you know the ones that are dicks. Just like conversation hearts, I would have a special bowl of candy for these “special” children with sayings such as:

Use the Sidewalk!
U R an Ass
Fuck you
Trick or Treat MotherFucker (Kid: “hey, how did they know my name?”)
That isn’t chocolate!

Then a sad truth was pointed out to me. Most of my target group probably can’t read anyway so I would be wasting my time.

Since the city of Peoria and the Police department in their infinite has decided to drop the jaywalking tickets in exchange for sitting through an assembly, it is making my job as a responsible parent harder. With children thinking they can whine their way out of punishment I am now having to become more creative in the way I discipline my boys. I thought hey why not apply my new proven punishment to this situation. Now when my kids start acting up and threatening to call the ACLU (see what the protesters taught our kids), I make them sit in a chair and listen to the ABBA song “Dancing Queen”. I think the whole assembly should be a tribute to ABBA. “Dancing Queen”, “Waterloo” and if they really are defiant “Fernando”. I’m sure the NAACP with say that it is cruel and unusual punishment. But if it is good enough for my kids, surely, in the name of equality it is good enough for these kids.

Last night we went out to Sommer Park for the hot dog roast and hayrack ride with the Cub Scout pack. I was dreading going because I sneeze pretty much all year long and I was unsure what the exposure to hay would do to my sinuses. We had a pretty good time.

First we got our hot dogs and roasted them as a photographer from the Journal Star took pictures. He said they may be in the paper today and online. We don’t get the paper so I am unsure if my kids are in it but I did find a picture of two of them online. The baked beans were excellent. My husband doesn’t like baked beans and he even thought they were good. Then it was time for smores. I don’t care for smores so I sat with our oldest while Brad and the other two roasted their marshmallows. My youngest got tired of waiting for a spot to roast his marshmallows so he put his smore together cold and ate it that way.

After the food, most of the scouts gathered on the playground as the adults tried to get everyone organized so we could go on our ride as a group. My boys were on the tire swing being spun around as they were swinging yelling, “Make us puke! Make us puke!” That is all we need is my kids puking on the hayrack. There were too many of us to go on one ride so we had to split up. Our kids were mad we made them go with us instead of their friends but hey, we are fun too! My husband was kind enough to point out the giant “land mine” left by one of the horses right by were we exit the hayrack. At least we all missed it. All and all it was a pretty good time.

BTW: my blog is acting up so I couldn’t link to the picture of my kids. So you can play guess which kids belong to East Bluff Barbie, if you go to the Journal Star and check them out!

I have never been so glad to have put my kids on the bus as I was this morning. We have had a full weekend and I am ready for a break. Saturday, Brad and I attended my friend’s wedding while the boys went to InPlay for a birthday party. The birthday boy’s mom and grandma were kind enough to let all three of my boys attend the party and let them come to their house afterward so we wouldn’t miss the wedding reception. I thank them for that.
Sunday, was basement cleaning day. All three of the boys got in trouble Friday so we made a deal that they got to go to InPlay only if they helped me clean the basement. About an hour and a half into the cleaning I was starting to wonder who was really being punished them or me. By the time four o’clock rolled around and I didn’t have as much done as I wanted and the boys were bickering and underfoot. I called my husband and told him that I need a bottle of watermelon Boone’s Farm. He came to the rescue with not one bottle but two and they were cold so none of that pesky waiting for them to get cold in the freezer. I was pretty much ready for bed by nine thirty.
Monday, I was sore as I could be from my basement adventure Sunday. I thought that I really should finish but I figured that I will work on it today before the trash comes tomorrow. The boys were at each other again. I was cursing Christopher Columbus most of the day and thankful that I had another bottle of Boone’s farm for after the kids went to bed. I ended up too tired for my Boone’s and just went to bed. Whoo, Whoo What a weekend!