#31: The change begins, and already I don't want to write this post.

Ok, so let me introduce you to the other bundle of joy in my life, the one who still brings a smile and warm fuzzies to me when she smiles and/or plays. My oldest daughter, Justeen, is just two months from turning SIX. I still remember the first day bringing her home from the hospital in Ames, about an hour away, which that day it took us about an hour and half. Because I drove about 40mph most of the way home, because she started sleeping the moment we put her, in her car seat, into the Jeep. We took the old highway from Ames to State Center, and then stopped there, talked to her dad for awhile at his work, and then headed home. I'll never forget it, because it was my first child. Not to say I'll forget Rory's coming home either...-10 with -40 wind chills, what a week that was!

Justeen loves to play in the yard, plant flowers, (trying to) cook, draw on the sidewalk with her massive amounts of chalk she got two years ago and hasn't worn out of supply. Her aspirations this summer are to learn how to tie shoes, ride a bike, and how to use a hammer (she helped me with building a bird house last spring). She hates when I play with my band because we are "so loud for me!" as she puts it. She likes to play princess, and has so much Disney princess junk that there is no mistaking there is a little girl in that room. She painted her walls in cotton candy pink and purple, which she helped with and was SO proud! She also helped paint trim on the house when we moved in here two years ago.

My daughter lives in a world of fantasy and unfortunately has taken to my habits, and has hit friends of hers at school. She has also bit, said mean words to, pushed down, taken a ball that was being played with from, and pulled hair on her friends. She has subsided a bit since we have taken things away and let her earn them on a daily basis. She is also working on earning 50 stars for days with good behavior towards a Nintendo DS, of which she has earned five already.

I bring that up because of a transgression between my wife and the mother to one of Justeen's friends. I can't tell what all went on because the facebook status post the discussion was on is deleted now. But in the general realm, what happened is, the mother of her friend (A in further reference) told my wife that A's daughter (C) is not allowed to be around Justeen right now, because of some of the above listed actions. My sister-in-law (D) discussed this with my wife over the phone, and my wife said how she felt A was just holding this shit back, and just sprung it on us now, and we had no way to know what was going on, C told her that since we were family and she was a close friend, that she wasn't going to support either side in this, and that she might not even hang with either side until this blows over. Now A, and D, along with several other people had railed on my wife about this on facebook all day, and she was just holding onto it and did nothing to protect herself. I resigned from the argument, and I'll explain why after I get done with this section. Now E comes along and sees all of this and is talking to wifey on facebook chat, and then posts something to back her up, she says that we're good parents, despite what our kid does, because we try to parent her, we at least make an effort, and that anyone who is talking shit about us really needs to look at themselves first. A comes along and says that my daughter was cussing at her daughter at school, and then drags me into the argument, saying I'm a bad parent because I use cuss words in front of my daughter, also because I advocate some violence (or something other than a fucking lesson) in cartoons, kids go to school the majority of their waking day, they don't need to come home and watch lessons and school lessons for however long they watch TV.

Let me sidebar for a bit about this first: Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends just had it's series finale a couple weeks or so ago, we just watched it, and I'm sad, because I really loved that show, its been on as long as my daughter has been alive so far, and I've watched it with her in my arms and eating from a bottle, and now sitting next to her on the couch, or curling up under a blanket. I remember a day when I was going to head outside and do a lot of stuff, but none of it got done because there was a six hour Foster's marathon that day, and we watched. Every. Single. Episode. I love it because while the lesson is subversive (which is the way I think it should be) it's not omnipresent. They're not trying to teach you like Sesame Street or Dora, and I think that's what is wrong with kid's TV shows now. Too many are trying to be edutainment, and that is so wrong, kids need to unplug and enjoy flights of fancy every now and again. I know I daydreamed as a kid, I used to wonder what it would be like to live with the Smurfs, or Pippi Longstocking, or the Muppets. Hell, I even daydreamed and played with friends like we were Care Bears.

Another sidebar: What the fuck happened to Care Bears?! I watched a DVD with my daughter and they were all CGI, and damn these fuckers were whiny. There's a difference between showing emotion and being a whiny little fuck about it...

Now, I've mentioned those two points to get to this point. I feel this person is just nitpicking on us, because our daughter chose to react to teasing, she got teased all last year during kindergarten, my wife has told me she'd come off the bus crying because of what A's child did to her. Now, as I mentioned earlier, I've resigned myself from this argument, because I have WAY more important shit to deal with as opposed to her drama-stirring bullshit! I can easily list about ten things I'm trying to deal with that are way more important than her shit. Not to mention there are at least 20 more on that list that I'd have to sit down and think about. Oh, forgot where I was at for a bit, but after A says her shit, E comes back on Facebook and is like "Look, these two have shit going on, not only do they have a new child, but they have to try to keep the other one under control (like we've ever had that!), along with dealing with unemployment and looking for work and one is going back to school." She said something else as well, but I can't remember what it was but I was like "FUCK YEAH!"

At some point I hope this situation resolves itself in any way or form, but for right now, to all parties involved, sick my fucking duck! I'm tired of people stirring up drama and shit just to get my wife and I pissed at each other. I'm having a hard time dealing with my marriage as it is, and I'm trying to keep it together, because we've been through shit like this before, and we made it through, but now we're at each other all the time, like we just have a gun and waiting to draw on each other and trying to make the other feel pain first. We've got a lot of shit on our plate, and a lot more to work on between the two of us, but since having our second child, we haven't had much time to talk at all. We used to deal with stuff in a fairly rational manner, and now we just can't wait to bite the other person's head off! I often sit here wondering what the fuck happened, we were doing great, and all of the sudden the family dynamic changed and ever since that happened, the five months since have been sheer hell. I don't even want to list all of the shit that is going on here, because I don't want a pity party, I don't want sorrow, I need anything to get me out of this rut. Unfortunately for me, Publishers Clearinghouse hasn't showed up with the big check despite answering their emails for the big $10 million deadline since it passed over a year ago. I don't think anyone ever wins that shit, it would help to win it, but like that'll ever happen.

I've done so much good shit, I've been such a nice person, I've done everything I can for my family, I've fought tooth and nail for four years after we lost our apartment because we couldn't pay the rent, what with our NO jobs and all. I've fought so damn hard for everything I have, and I'm tired of fucking drama, I'm beyond needing it, I have enough, you can take yours back and kindly go fuck yourself!

But I guess I can't paint too good of a picture of my daughter, because it's really an objective issue, it depends on who views it. But I still see the smiley little chubby face that used to look back at me from a pile of blankets and just coo and giggle at me. I still remember the first time I ever got her to laugh by blowing raspberries on her tummy, I called EVERYONE who would listen over the phone to her giggling. She may be going through some shit of her own, and she may hit people, and do mean things, but I don't see where it is, I don't see the meanness in her. But you know what, I'm done with this argument. I figure I'm a good parent as long as she doesn't wind up killing anyone, or on the pole.

#30: The solid foods come into play tonight!

I'm stoked, ecstatic, enamored, and scared shitless at the same time. Little bit starts solid foods! We're going to give her some cereal tonight!

I'll keep you posted and put the pics up in the next posting on here. Also, I'm changing the main focus of this blog to be for the parenting of both of my daughters. I have so many tales to tell.

#29. Observations and Exasperations

So its been awhile since my last blog post, and since then I've discovered many things. My daughter, the new one, lil bit, of whatever I'm calling her this week, is impressive.

She has started off this week by proving to me how well she can vomit. All over the place. I had to not only change my daughter twice, but change myself twice as well. She got me so good that I had to change my underwear. It's freakin impressive, astounding, I really can't put it into words.

And while I'm not as impressively long winded of a blogger as some of my counterparts, but I've discovered a new blogger this week, and his name is MetroDad, a blogger from deep in the heart of Manhattan who knows his way around a sentence, can craft a yarn about many inane yet hilarious aspects of life with children, and here he is on his first time around. I'm on my second, and I'm astounded at this man. Check him out, read the exploits of MetroDad, The BossLady, Peanut and MetroDog, and tell him Jason sent ya!!!!

Sometime in this next week, I hope to sit down for awhile, and muse about things, and also I will post the link to Rory's photobucket.

#28. The birth!

Lorelai came over three weeks ago. It was a great thing! It started off rocky, cold as hell, and we got the most nastiest food from Hardee's we've ever had.

Got everything started, and rolling, about 1230, she was at 3cm and fully effaced, they called for the anesthesiologist, and by the time they got there, she was 10cm and ready to go! They couldn't even sit her up to do it. So she had to go natural, none of the other painkillers worked, and she had to do something I've only heard about. So she gets an award for that shit!

And then I saw her, and she's so cute, I have a link I'll post here soon of her picture album.

The only thing that sucked worse is when we brought her home, I was sicker than a dog, so in that nice crucial bonding time, I was too sick to hold her.

But she is sooooooo cute!

27: The last two weeks in a nutshell...

Lets start off with the Saturday night after wifey got off work. She was feeling really dizzy, so she went to the hospital and got checked out, full stress test, all that good shit. They want to give her an ultrasound and hook up another stress test. And after all of that, the stress test is over, and she asks the doc if she can still work. He just laughed at her.

So we go in again this monday for the ultrasound, and Rory shakes her head no when we try to look at her face, and we got a great moon shot! She mooned us, but we can definetly tell she's a girl.

Thursday I had to take her in for the appt and then get our daughter from school, I got to watch the ultrasound however. But she got good face pictures! Then I had to get my daughter. They found out she's two cm dialated now, and 50% effaced, so its go time! Monday at 7am we start the fun!

And then last night, her friend, or I should say heinous bitchbeast, sent a message in reply to one wifey sent out to her friends, people she thought cared about her, and got this back from the above in reply: "No offense but I really don't care" I'd have just shut the fuck up! You don't do shit like that to a friend. I'm about ready to choke a bitch!

#26: Baby Watch begins?

Well, I got a call from my wife from work about 9pm tonight, and shes told me she had seven contractions in the last hour, and that she'd call First Nurse after 10pm when she got out of work.

Well, flash forward at 1045 and I'm here watching Storm Chasers and waiting for the update as she is in the hospital and we're seeing where it goes from here.

I'll keep you posted and hopefully I'll have pictures and video when I get back to you.

#25: Two or four more weeks to go?

I've seen morning sickness, dizzy spells, more stretchmarks than one could ever count, an ever expanding form, and kicks, punches and spins from this little one. Soon it will all be over and the real fun begins again. I've taken many pictures of this form for document and post on wifey's cafemom page, and I've also had many interesting moments, each one I've been able to experience and laugh about, or cry at times.

It's been one weird wild ride, and now I kinda feel bad, it ends and then the real work begins.

But at least this one really likes me. Her and the cat both do. She responds and pushes outward to my voice, or kicks the same number of times I tap on the belly. It's been so fun playing with her. I can't wait until she gets here! But at the same time I don't want to see it end. It kinda sucks.

But I guess, its been fun while it lasted. Hopefully she looks cute, like her sister. But who knows!

#24: The Shower

Well, the shower was today, and wow, this kid has no reason whatsoever to go naked. It's nice to see that family and friends all think about this kid, no fancy gadgets, just clothes, diapers and other stuff like bibs and burp rags and blankets. I love that. Nothing better. While some people might view the second baby shower for another girl as greedy or something else, fuck them. Its not about that, its about the love those people want to "shower" on the newborn. I hope she realizes that. She has a lot of people who love her, and she's not even here yet! The room is looking great, I put up the letters for her name today, and her animal plaques. Oh, and the curtain rod! \m/!

#23: The fun dwindles...

Well, its week 30. The belly continues to grow...as do the hormones!

I'm missing out on this one already and its still got ten weeks left until R-day. (Rory day) To recap so far. I've enjoyed this rollercoaster ride of a pregnancy. The hormones have made each day interesting, I never know which side of my wife I'm waking up to. The tear my head off because I woke up a half hour later than I normally do wifey, the mushy "I love you so much..." wifey, the wifey who can't wait to get this kid outta her, or the wifey who gets a lil wake-n-snake. Girls, you aren't going to get that shit, but guys know the wake-n-snake. Thats the time when you're either asleep or half-asleep, she comes in, and next thing you know, she's going to happytown and you don't even know whats goin on! That, is the wake-n-snake. Similar to the wake-n-bake, but much much more fun!

It's been a blast watching Rory grow, and become more active (my back has never felt better from all the kicks I get while I sleep), and the best thing about it is, she has been so fun, and even she knows what is what before she has even been born!

The economy is shit, but life is ok. I guess its ok. Who knows!

22: The expanding continues!

So I'm looking at my naked wife after her shower today. And WOW is she getting huge! I couldn't be more enamored with her right now! It's so nice to see her come into true form, she's easily gained several inches in belly in just a few short weeks. And yes, her butt, and breasts have swollen as well, much to my desire!

It's awesome to watch it week by week, if you get the chance, I highly recommend paying close attention to your SO next time she is pregnant!

Also, we put together the playpen to try it out, and we had a blast, or I should say *I* had a blast trying to put together the changing shelf on the playpen, it didn't fit right at all, so wifey to the rescue and she fixed it and made it work, and I like it. Maybe I'll have some pictures soon.