Did you guys miss me yesterday?

Oh, you didn’t notice I wasn’t around the interweb?  Great.  Thanks.

Jerks.

I remember listening to Howard Stern years and years ago.  He was talking about how he had been prepping for his first colonoscopy and had pooped himself in his limo.  I listened to him tell the story with fear in my heart.  Sure I laughed at his expense, but I also feared that by laughing at Howard Stern’s poop story I was somehow setting myself up for the same fate.

Dude, I never want to poop myself.  Even if it’s in my own limo.

This past Sunday was spent with me fasting and then forcing myself to ingest 32 horse-sized pills that would induce my stomach to expel anything that I had ever eaten.  But that wasn’t enough.  On top of that I had the flu.  So while my stomach was being torn to shreds by modern technology (via pills), the flu virus was trying to push whatever was left in my stomach out through my mouth.

I lost eight pounds in two days.

I woke up yesterday ready to drive myself in for my fifth sixth colonoscopy.  I planned on taking Babboo to daycare and then hoping on the freeway to my downtown hospital.  Only problem was that I was still throwing up….and um, using the potty.  At the last minute The King’s mom had to be called in to drive me to my appointment.  Nothing is more embarrassing then quietly sitting in your mother-in-laws new SUV hoping and praying liquid won’t eject from any opening on my body.

My MIL dropped me off at the front door of the hospital and I ran into the surgery check-in desk, just in time to make it to the potty.  Eventually it was my turn to undress and get my IV started. Problem was, I WAS TOO DEHYDRATED TO START MY IV!  Duh.  It took three times before they got a vein that didn’t collapse.

Great fun.

Next thing I knew it was 4:30 and I was waking up on my couch at home.  I vaguely remembered The King picking me up and taking me home.  I remembered eating something with Nutella on it.  And I remembered throwing up.  Again.

And then I remembered the worst thing possible.  The doctor wasn’t able to perform the colonscopy!

I would have to come back next week!

And do it all over again!

Apparently my colon was “too dirty” to finish once the doctor had started the procedure.   Apparently I had thrown up all the pills.  Apparently it was all for naught.

I may have shed a few tears.  Andy then thrown up again.

I wonder if this is my payback for laughing at Howard Stern for pooping himself?

Long gone are the days of me waking up at every sound Babboo makes during the night. Now days I sleep right through it. But not The King. He jumps right out of bed and races to Babboo’s cribside before I even realize my son is screaming for me.

One night last week The King and I woke up in the middle of the night to Babboo screaming out for both of us. And like has become the tradition, The King ran to see what was wrong. Next thing I knew Babboo was snuggled in between us in our Big Bed. He’s always so warm and willing to snuggle up to one of us when he’s in bed with us. Both The King and I enjoy the occasional night of Babboo being added to our bed. Unfortunately having Babboo in bed with us means that he is woken up at the butt-crack of dawn when I get up for work. It makes his day at school long and doesn’t necessarily mean he’ll sleep better the next night.

Needless to say, the following night, when getting Babboo ready for bed he and I talked about how he’s a Big Boy now and needs to sleep in his crib and not cry to come into the Big Bed with Mommy and Daddy. I explained that his crib is much nicer for him and it’s where he needs to be at night. He listened to me as I talked and put his jammies on.

And then he said, “But The Guy scares me.”

“What guy?”

“The guy in my crib! He scares me.”

The air suddenly got heavier and Babboo’s bedroom seemed a little darker.

“There isn’t a guy in your crib. You don’t need to be scared.”

Babboo slowly walked over to his crib and pointed to the space between his crib and the wall.

“The guy lives right here.”

Not only was the bedroom now darker but I’m pretty sure I felt a cold draft hit me from underneath the crib. And then the lights flickered and I might have wet myself.

It was clear, by the look of sheer honesty and terror in Babboo’s eyes, that he believed what he was telling me.

I admit it, I was scared. There was no way I was looking under the crib to prove to my toddler that there was NO GUY LIVING UNDER HIS BED! And no matter how many times I told him, out loud with my voice cracking, that no guy lived between his crib and the wall did I believe what I was saying. Sure, I know there isn’t a man that secretly lives in my kid’s bedroom. I’m smart enough to know that’s true. But dude, what about a monster or a ghost or something else even creepier?

I’m the adult here and even I’m not convinced.

I assured him, with the most adult voice I could muster, that he was safe and that Mommy and Daddy would never let anything bad happen to him. And I told him that if he was truly scared in the middle of the night that all he needed to do was call for us (well, mostly for Daddy since I don’t seem to wake up) and we’d The King would come and get him. He seemed to understand what I was saying and I’m pretty sure he trusted what I was saying.

But here’s the thing, I’m a little freaked out by this. Here I am the adult and I’m just a little too uncomfortable with the fact that I’m not automatically assured that there isn’t something in our house. I mean, again, I know there isn’t a guy living in our house. And yet, I’m not 100% comfortable with the whole situation. It isn’t keeping me up at night, but it making my skin crawl a little when I stop and think about. Especially if I’m in his bedroom.

I guess I just assumed that the second a child passed through my own private birth canal that I’d become an adult that is confident, secure, and knowledgeable. I’d no longer be worried about noises in the night and shadows that seemed to move. I thought that once I was the parent all of my childish fears would vanish.

But they didn’t vanish. Apparently. And now I don’t know what this means. I hate that I now question my parents own confidence. Were they not convinced that nothing was living under my bed when I was Babboo’s age? Was my mom afraid on the nights that my dad was out of town for work? Did she sleep with a heavy flashlight like I’ve been known to do when The King’s out of town? Did my dad hate it when he had to go into our dark basement?

I guess most of us adults are just faking it. If we say we’re not afraid loud enough and enough times we might start to believe it ourselves. At least that’s what I’m hoping for.

And in the mean time, I’m still not looking under Babboo’s bed.

I’m about 98.8% sure I forgot to rinse my conditioner out of my hair this morning.

This should make for an interesting day.

You know how I mentioned a certain something-something I saw written on The Berlin Wall? And then once I got home from our trip to Europe I never mentioned it again. Nor did I share the picture proof I swore to have?

Yeah, that’s because that was the day we toured around Potsdamer Platz WITHOUT A MEMORY CARD IN OUR CAMERA! Yeah, I was sick about it. So instead of thinking about it, I just blew it off and tried to put it out of my mind.

“I’ve been to Potsdamer Platz before”, I told myself, “I don’t need no stinkin’ pictures from this trip.”

I changed my thinking this morning while I was downloading some other pictures. Dude, I found the missing pictures!

That’s right, I found all most of the pictures from that day. Apparently, at some point, there was a memory card in the camera.

Without further ado, may I present you with the Deutschland edition of “Oh my heck, we love teenage vampires“, written on THE BERLIN WALL.

(The best part may be the “me too!” written underneath! To which I think most of us would agree!)

———–

Hey, did you check out my latest New Thing?

I didn’t mean to get pregnant with Babboo. That’s right, my Sweet Babboo was an accident. An oops! An unplanned and unexpected pregnancy.

In the grand scheme of things, he was very much planned. Just maybe not for that specific month.

When I found out I was pregnant with Babboo we had just returned from a glorious (and topless) vacation in Tulum, Mexico. I thought my period was so late because of the international traveling.

Or because of all the fish tacos I ate.

(Have you ever eaten a fish taco from a street vendor in Mexico? If not, I highly recommend it.)

My period was late and I wasn’t too concerned. You see, I had spent the last seven months pregnant. I knew what being pregnant felt like. I knew what day I ovulated. Day 14, just like most women. I knew what days I had participated in acts that would render me knocked-up.

As far as I was concerned, I was not pregnant. Being pregnant was not on my radar.

If you’re new here to holaisabel.com you might have missed the few times where I mentioned that Babboo was actually my third pregnancy. After experiencing two miscarriages at 9 weeks pregnant I discovered that I am the proud recipient of a genetic blood disorder that allows my body to self-abort fetuses.

After discovering why my body kept rejecting perfectly good babies and learning how to avoid the repeat occurrence, The King and I decided to hold off on trying to make another baby. At this point we knew that I could get pregnant at the drop of a hat (you know, a hat covered in semen). We also knew that going through yet another miscarriage might physically break our hearts in two.

And so we had stopped thinking about babies and the art of making babies. At least until the hole in our hearts healed.

Months passed and we slowly forgot pushed the memory of our miscarried babies out of our minds. I boxed up the few pieces of maternity wear I had purchased. I put away my copy of “What to Expect When You’re Expecting” and life went back to normal.

I looked at my planner. Again. And then again. I checked the dates and noted my markings. (Like most woman who are of baby-making age, I was a pro at tracking my cycle, even though we weren’t actively trying to get pregnant. Dude at this point we were actively trying to not get pregnant.) Since I had the two pregnancies to prove it, I knew without a showdown of a doubt what day I ovulated. And honey, my notes indicated that nothing sex-ay had occurred near those dates.

And yet, still no visit from my monthly friend visitor nuisance.

On a whim I bought my one and only pregnancy test from The Dollar Store we passed on the way to dinner with friends who lived in the ‘burbs.

As I recall I took the test the next day. Or maybe even the day after that. What was the hurry? While it was a little daunting to find a cup I wanted to pee in and very confusing to figure out how to mix the powders and what to use to dip, I was pretty sure I took the test correctly.

After the allotted time I got the No Loser, You Aren’t Pregnant! message from my $1 pee stick. I went and informed The King and patiently waited for my period to start flowing. Fifteen minutes later and still no period. (Hey, I honestly thought it was all psychological and as soon as I knew I wasn’t pregnant, my period would arrive.) Eventually I went back to the bathroom and more specifically, the trash can.

I looked at the pee stick again. Against my better judgment. I knew they pregnancy test people say to never look at “delayed results”. But um, my $1 pregnancy stick was now very surly stating that I was with child.

I was horrified. How had this happened? I mean, besides the whole “semen meet egg” thing, how did this happen? I was a pro at getting pregnant. I seriously knew, without a shadow of a doubt, what day of my cycle resulted in babies. I had control of my body and my fertility. I had proven it two previous times.

I told The King about our impending parenthood and with a blank look on my face I went back to my planner and rechecked my schedule (again!). Out of the corner of my eye I saw a little “x” on day 21 of my cycle.

For those of you that aren’t familiar with the key to my cycle schedule (and hey, why would you be), an “x” means I engaged in sexual activities that day.

I quickly flipped back to September. The month of my first conception. Yep, another “x” on day 21.

And then I looked at January. Day 21. Another damn “x”.

And now I looked at June and saw the third, and most recent “x”.

Day 21.

I had it all wrong. All this time I was dead a@@ wrong. Those months of tracking and counting and being so careful I had it wrong.

I was like one of those pregnant teenagers that realizes that you can, in fact, get pregnant on your first time, or standing up, or in a hot tub, or any other myth out there.

We were okay with being pregnant again. While it was a shock and a surprise, clearly The King and I weren’t against having a baby together.

We were simply against miscarriages.

A quick call to my doctor assured us that this time, there would be no miscarriages. With the help of some simple vitamins and a few other things she pert near promised us that this pregnancy would grant us a take-home-baby.

And thus we looked forward to the upcoming 34 weeks with anticipation and hope.

Of course the pregnancy went off without a hitch and we got the best take-home-baby in the world. At least we think so.

I still keep my planner updated with a little “x” every now and again. And I remind myself that it’s day 21, not day 14.

DAY 21!

While I’ve never really been super comfortable with the fact that every month I get my period, I am a 33 year old woman and I do need to just get over it already!

When it’s that time of the month, I totally sneak off to the bathroom at work with a tampon hidden in my pocket. If we’re on vacation, my supplies are safely hidden at the bottom of my suitcase. It’s not that I’m ashamed about it. And, around just The King and I, I’m not embarrassed about it or anything. I guess I’m just not ready to publicly cry out; “I’m bleeding. So there!”

I guess it’s just not my style.

That being said I had to sneak away on Saturday, while Babboo was napping and The King was building our (awesome) new deck, to buy some tampons. I also needed to buy some diapers and use a coupon I had for free ice cream which, by the way, is the best kind of ice cream. This was perfect. I wouldn’t even need a basket. I could grab the diapers and the ice cream and then slide the tampon box underneath them so I wouldn’t have to walk around the store professing that, “yes, I’m on my period right now!”

Easy-breezy.

I walked in the store, which was exceptionally busy, and headed straight for the diaper section. I picked up the diapers and then my (free!) pint of yummy ice cream. I walked over to the “feminine hygiene” aisle and tried to decide what box I wanted to purchase. I have my brand, but dude, the other brand was on sale. Upon closer examination I realized they were really on sale.

They were marked 3/$1.00.

I looked at the sign twice. And then a third time. Was a box of tampons really 33 cents? Really?! I stood there for a second thinking about it. What if I walked through the store with my three boxes only to get to the check out and find out that it was a misprint and I would have to walk back through the store to put them away and get my regular brand?

Whatever, a deal is a deal.

I grabbed three boxes and tried to balance them between my huge box of diapers and my cold pint of (free!) ice cream.

I got to the check out and the cashiers got all giddy. She had also seen the sale and had planned on stocking up herself, once her shift was over. When the tampons really did ring up for 33 cents I decided to go back and get more. I left the purchase with the cashier and headed back to the “feminine hygiene” aisle, with a shopping basket. This time I grabbed as many boxes as I could get my arms around and loaded up my basket. Dude, so not classy. But with a sale like this, I couldn’t be thinking about class.

I cleaned out the shelf.

When I went to pay for my second pile of tampons I went to a different cashier. This one wasn’t as thrilled about my pile of goodies. She was a little skeptical.

I assured her that there were numerous signs professing the 33 cent tampons. I paid my $3.00 and headed out to load my car full of my supplies.

I guess this means that I can pretty much get over my monthly embarrassment with the help of a little huge bargain.

Now I just need to find a place to store all of this crap.

(The King ate the ice cream. I had a spoon full and it was good. Too good.)

(I’m only on page 300 of “Breaking Dawn“. So far, I love it. So much! I wish I could spend all day reading it out on my new deck and not bother with work. But I can’t.)