Geronimo!

Of course, I’m over visiting R2K and see this…

Leanne has launched this weight-loss blog. Go, check her out!

So I do. And I’m thinking, Eureeka! Blogging and weight loss combined?!? What could be better? So, I too, will follow the wise masses and join up. But, R2K, I can’t figure out how to get the button, even after lurking around your page source, so give me shout when you can, so I can be conveniently motivated!

I have self diagnosed Blogger Elbow. Will be taking a leave of absence today. Will be tending to the house in which it appears someone has detonated a grenade. Will be digging out of the ginormous piles of laundry atop every surface on the first floor. Will be scraping dried chocolate off bar. Will hopefully get that blasted castle cake decorated. Will post pics if successful. That’ll be all. Over and out.

More evidence in the growing case to have a little chat with our eldest child concerning the issues of how babies are made, and how they actually get out here with us. We. now. have. cable. And no, not any of the channels that one would think could bring up the facts of life, other than TLC. Yep, A Baby Story. A show I still love to watch, even if it has been 5 years since my last birth, and a million til my next (read: there will not be another).

So yesterday was Celebrate the Cable Day, with a free for all surfing the channels they’re allowed to watch, like Animal Planet, Nick, Toon Disney, TV Land (I love TV Land). In fact, here’s a shot of my allowing their nubile young minds to rot right in front of me.

After several hours of SpongeBob, Tom and Jerry and House of Mouse, I had to intervene. Here, said I. Let’s check out TLC…A Baby Story is on! Yay. It started with an audience appropriate advertisement. Tampons. Pearl applicators. Double layers. Alright-y. Jake picks up on the spot. What is a tampon, Mom? Well (I’m playing cool), it’s kind of like a bandaid for women, for mommies. Where do you put it? Oops. Didn’t think about this angle. Um, if a mommy doesn’t have a baby, the lining of the uterus (OK, uterus, they know this word, and that is protects the baby) is not needed, so it sheds from the mommy’s body. From where? Where does it shed from? Catgirl cuts in. Your bottom stupid. OK, now one, we do not use the word stupid. Two, it does not come from your bottom. Pointing to the little dimple above your, um, bottom, at kind of where the cheeks meet, she says, doesn’t it come out right there? Well, no, hon. It comes from the birth canal. I’m thinking at some point they’ll just say Oh, and go back to rotting their brains. But noooo. They have to be thinking. Blue Boy pipes up. Something comes out of your bum? Poopie comes out of your bum! You don’t need a bandaid for poopie! And Speedreader says, no, something to do with the uterus. Not your bum. So, Mom, where’s the birth canal? OK, this is simple…just be short, truthful, and nonchalant. The birth canal is a special place only girls and women have that is between the place she tee-tees from, and her bottom. Where is that? He insists. Catgirl starts looking for hers. Put your undies back on, please. Finding yours right here right now is not appropriate. Thank you. Commercials end, and I distract with the upcoming show. But then, of course, this woman is about to go into labor, and we will all see her, knees up in the air, as she tries to get a baby out of her birth canal, so the subject if far from over. You’ve probably seen it…it’s not graphic. You just know what’s going on. That part comes. Speedreader is perplexed. OK. Boys don’t have them because they don’t have babies. If a mommy doesn’t have a baby, the tissue and blood that would support a baby just passes through. Uuughhh! Blood!? You bleed out your birth canal, where you go to the bathroom?!?
In a place behind that, hon. It’s how God made us. It’s normal, natural, and great. Otherwise, you couldn’t have ben born. So, what, you stick that thing up there? Well, yes. That’s disgusting! OK, show back on, woman is getting uncomfortable. Speedreader comments that all babies should just be cut out the top, it’d be a lot easier. Noooo, I say. Not at all. It’s not supposed to be like that. You mean this is what a woman is supposed to go through? Catgirl declares she’s never having a baby. I try again. When you want to have a baby, with your wife (son), or with your husband (daughter), it will be good, and right, and beautiful. You don’t have to worry about it now. Just trust me. Boy, I’m sure glad I’m not a girl, says Speedreader.

Show and woman progress, delivery is close, and she is pushing pretty hard. Yikes, Mom. I had no idea you had to do all that to have us. Yep. Better remember that next time you think about giving me any lip. And finally, the baby slides out. All covered in what any baby is covered in immediately upon birth. Aaargggh! That’s blood! Speedreader shouts. That’s awful! It looks like a frog alien! Where did it come out?!? A part of the vagina called the birth canal, hon, made just for this purpose. Well, how can it be that big, and Catgirl can’t see hers? It changes for the baby to come out, just for that time. It’s small otherwise. Well, I think it’s awful. She looks like she’s in pain. It does hurt, but it is sooooo worth it. Without that trial, you three wouldn’t be here, out in the world with us. It be really tough to carry around a 10 year old in uteruo. Yeah, I guess, he conceded. But how did I get in there in the first place? Heeey, look at that, I think that Crocodile dude is on Animal Planet…who wants to see?!

I’m canceling my gynecological exam. Scheduled for my check up today, and I’m just not in the mood. Why would I not be in the mood? For one, I am lacking child care today, and hanging my arse out of the tissue paper gown with my feet in stirrups gives me some difficulty in effective child round-up and discipline.

For two, the whole event just bothers me. I know it’s necessary, you know it’s necessary, everyone knows it’s necessary. But what is not necessary is the annoying attempt at small talk intended to make me feel more comfortable. To engage me. I’m not going to be comfortable, I do not want to be engaged, and no amount of verbal drivel will change this. Hey, how are we today, great weather we’re having. I’m just going to put my fingers on your breast right like this…I’m not terribly modest. I don’t even wear underwear for Pete’s sake. My children see me naked all the time, and if a friend came in the house, as I was getting out of the shower, I’d probably only be embarrased at my saggy post partum belly. But to chat about the weather like he’s not fondling me in this clinical manner is absurd. So, I see from your chart you just moved. Are you liking Greenville? I’m just going to roll and squeeze this nipple, here, right like that, and now the other…Good. Can you put your arm over your head? In this position, flat on my back, I’m supposed to wax on about the merits of living in the small town south. How commerce is booming, what restaraunts I like. I give it a try. Um, well (wince at nipple tweaking), I really like that there’s so little traffic. Oh yeah, me too, now I’m going to go around the areola, that’s a great part of not being in a big city. Yeah. That’s grand.

Then it’s the OK, we’re going to have you sit up, and do the pelvic now. Are you comfortable? Hell no, I am not comfortable. I’m about to put my girly bits 3 inches from his face, and pray I showered well enough. Again, it’s not really the exam that’s so unnerving. It’s his insisting we have a little chat all the way through it. I’m thinking of questions I can ask him. So, um, how was that last vagina you took a look at? Blonde? Redhead? Yeah, those labias can be tricky when you do the speculum thing. I get settled in, spread eagle. And then get a can you scoot your bottom down just a bit more? Like I’m not already feeling his breath? I can tell what he had for lunch, and on what side of town. And somehow, that spread eagle scooting is the most humiliating part of the whole visit. It can’t be pretty. I know. I’ve seen what it all looks like. I mean, I’m all for the beauty of the body, and God’s creative wisdom in creating all sorts of things, including vaginas, but that is just not a flattering view. And I’m always wondering just what sort of person wants to get this view, like, 19 times a day? Can he be normal?

And then, this is going to be just a bit uncomfortable, gonna feel a little pressure. That damn shoehorn with the mini jack attached. And has he cranks, cranks, cranks (how wide can it go already?) he’s jabbering. You know, I saw a movie the other day with my kids…my eyes are closed, I’m practicing transporting far far away, and he’s doing a movie review while loading up on the KY. And really, it’s not that I’m embarrased of my girliness. Or my not so tight anymore body. It’s just that it feels so vulnerable, I don’t really want to wholly engage and be in that moment. I’d rather it just go on and pass, shoo, shoo, get away from here. But he won’t let me! Now, you’re going to feel my finger, and my hand pressing down from the outside. He’s trying to get his fingers to connect, one from in and one from out, through my skin. And going on about that movie. Yeah, it was about some spy, no wait (what else can I do), a family of spies. Yeah, they were undercover. OK, that’s good there. Now I’m going to feel for your ovaries. I’m transporting, I’m transporting…So anyway, yeah that feels right, this family has to capture this kid’s show guy, who’s nabbing all their friend spies, and threatening the security of the country. Did you see it? Wasn’t it a good one for the whole family? The guy is literally tickling my ovaries, and asking my opinion on a movie at the same time. I’m not here, but give a feeble effort. Um, well, OK, I think I remember that one. Yeah, very (wince again) funny. OK, Mrs. Tannery, I think that all feels good (really? according to whom?). Seem to be perfectly healthy. We’ll let you know via postcard the results of your pap.

As I get dressed I think about that last statement. Isn’t it sort of callous, maybe a bit crass, to probe me such and drop a postcard? It seems awfully impersonal for what we’ve been through together. At least a personal phone call, maybe? A cup of coffee? Nothing. Just a postcard, and a box of personal wet wipes left on the gurney. On to the next vagina. And the next. And the next. I wonder, what will he say to the others? Will he tell them about the great weather, the movie? Does he use the same lines on all the girls? I didn’t ask for this. I tried to transport. But he just had to go and make it personal. All his interested-in-me chatter. Bastard.

As I leave the exam area, I see him entering another room. That reassuring smile, offering his hand. I feel like chattel. Used and discarded. Replaced. And then, I go pay $180 for it. The check out lady smiles knowingly. What does she know? Does she know that he makes no disctinction from one out-stretched vagina to the next? That he tries to make us all feel comfortable with his incessant meaningless banter? That somehow, we feel, well, intimate, but we’re left with only a stupid postcard and the instructions to clean ourselves up? We’re left just hanging out to dry (so to speak)? Or does she just know that we all loathe that yearly exam, and feel helpless to do anything about it, and after all, she’s one of us, too.

Do we need to be concerned about this thing enough to get vaccinations this year? I’m not hot on vaccinations, anyway, especially if it is not necessary…opinions? Knowledge to share? Links to link? Should the children get one?