Fearless

I had no intention of doing any more than dangling her little feet in the water. I thought the newness of cool waves lapping at her feet, sand squishing between her chubby toes would suffice. It was early evening, so I hadn’t even changed the baby into her swimsuit; the sun would go down, and no one would want to swim. Instead, I found myself struggling to pick up a baby who had doubled over my arm reaching towards the water. When I tried to straighten her and carry her, she allowed her body to transition from completely limp to completely tense–whichever would successfully allow her to slide beneath my grasp.

I marveled that evening as she moved through the water, determined to keep traveling ahead. She was undeterred by the small waves that would meet her and pressed on. Her orange tank-top dragging across her body with the weight of water, she continued to crawl with a small grin on her face. She purposely dipped her head into the ocean to feel the cool on her cheek, only stopping momentarily, and then she continued.

Watching her move with such grace, I thought to myself how free she looked.

Fearless.

I envied her. To be able to look at something so vast, so huge, yet jump in without hesitation is not an action to which I can relate.

I can relate more to my son who, upon seeing the ocean for the first time since he was a baby exclaimed, “It’s too scary! It’s too scary!” I was surprised by his reaction. He went on to say that the ocean was so big, but almost immediately, he, too, braved the scary sea.

My second-born wanted to be brave; she wanted to run towards the waves, but her fears kept her dancing along the shore.

Until the next day when she gripped the back of her daddy’s neck, wrapped her legs around his waist, and allowed him to carry her through the waves. I watched as cries left her open mouth, but then gradually the black hole I could see from afar began to close. She trusted her daddy.

And why should any of my children have been afraid? If they turned their heads away from the sea in front of them, they would’ve noticed a creased brow over the eyes of one watching with concern, not turning her eyes from the fearless babe unaware of how easily a wave could knock her over. They would’ve known as soon as they took their first step into the deeper water, their mommy would’ve been right behind them.

Or behind the lens, capturing their every move, their brave moments in the waves, stood their Daddy. With each click of the camera, a smile spread across his lips from the joy of watching his kids play. He stood proud, cheering on his children with each memory he preserved.

And when I turn my eyes from the vast sea in front of me, I am reminded that I no longer need to fear. I look into the eyes of my Father and know He is guiding my every step as I pick up my foot that has sunk into the sand and push through the water lapping at my ankles. I walk and feel the cool on my calves and then the back of my knees. As the first waves splash around my thighs and more are forming in the distance, I turn back with worry written on my face. But the eyes of my Father speak, “Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go” (Joshua 1:9).

It is then that I begin to play in the water and splash until I taste salt on my lips. It is then that I know that I, too, can be fearless.

Wax and Wean

When she was brand new, her little hand would hug my pinky as our tummies touched. As she grew, she let go of my finger to slide her hand on my side, a hand that was always cold and would cause me to catch my breath and arch my back for a brief second. I would then relax and watched as she was soothed to sleep.

In the early months of her life, we would drift to sleep together. I’d catch myself, jerk awake at the pain in my neck from sleeping upright, to see she had unlatched and was sound asleep. Now, she stays awake and yells, “No!” when I begin to sing, my indication that bedtime has commenced.

For months, I have threatened my husband with plans for my weekend alone: “I’m leaving as soon as Chloe turns one!” Once one, I could begin to wean her.

One happened a week ago, and I have found myself ambivalent. How I want my freedom, yet, how I don’t want to stop breastfeeding my baby.

People say that breastfeeding produces a bond between mother and child unlike anything else. I’m not going to make the experience out to be something more than it was. There were definitely times when I felt an amazing warmth and closeness toward my baby; I can still remember the first time all of my babies successfully latched on to me. The apprehensive moments before, wondering if we would succeed, and then–he did it! She did it! She did it! We’re nursing! I knew I was blessed.

However, I know a mom can feel an amazing bond when feeding her baby with a bottle, too. To hold one’s baby and watch as she drinks, gulping down the milk that will produce those endearing dimples in her squishy thighs–how could one not fall in love?!

The magic of breastfeeding for me, though, was knowing that God had equipped me with everything my baby needed; she became chubby solely off of what my body produced, and she depended on me alone to nourish her in that way.

And so that magic day has passed, and I sit.

For five days I didn’t even make a game plan as I had with the other two babies–until two days ago. I was watching a friend’s two-year-old, in addition to my two-year-old, and the mid-morning nursing session would have been a little complicated. So we didn’t do it. Chloe was fine; she was distracted by all the fun of a new friend, but my heart ached a little.

Then, yesterday, we skipped that meal again. Caleb and Hannah Grace had their last-day-of-preschool picnic during the time I would normally nurse, so we didn’t.

And I look at the clock now and know that in a few minutes Chloe will wake up from her nap, and I don’t have any distractions for her today. She will want to nurse, and I will want to give in. Or maybe she won’t want to nurse, and that fact might bother me more.

Motherhood can be crazy–we long for our babies to crawl and walk and talk, loving the excitement each new age and stage brings, yet when they’re four, a small part of us wishes that they were still that chubby bundle of giggles that didn’t mind if we squeezed them and rocked them in our arms until they fell asleep on our chests.

I could postpone weaning–there’s no rule that says I must stop today–but how I look forward to no more days of children drinking ketchup and maple syrup out of the refrigerator while Chloe is drinking something a little more nutritious. I look forward to scheduling appointments based on the day that I’m available, not when a baby needs to eat. I look forward to a small taste of freedom.

And I feel so selfish admitting that fact, but I know I shouldn’t. For almost five years I have been pregnant or nursing; I only stopped nursing the other two when fitting them on my lap with a competing baby bump became uncomfortable. My body is ready to rediscover normal.

But to my heart, what I’ve done for the last four years is normal, and my heart knows that I might not experience this normal again.

So as I sit and tear up a little thinking about my baby growing up and how she might be my last to nurse, I also say a silent prayer to God, thanking Him for this experience. I’ve been blessed with three children who easily nursed and shared in this beautiful bond with me, but more importantly, I’ve been blessed with three beautiful children.

Sweaters and Rabbits

Today was a beautiful spring day. The sky was bright blue and cloudless, and the temperature was perfect. The kids had their good and bad moments today, but the time we spent outside playing baseball while admiring the flowers and little buds appearing in our vegetable garden helped those bad moments to fade…

…until bedtime. As the day came to a close, my level of fatigue rose, and my patience level dropped dramatically. Knowing that Matt wouldn’t be home to help with the bedtime routine made the day seem that much longer, added to the fact that the kids seem to unravel after 5:00 p.m. No one was listening, and I was tired of going up and down the stairs, corralling the kids back into their rooms. How I miss the safety gates that were screwed into the walls prior to putting the house on the market!

I felt helpless as I was nursing Chloe in her room, trying to settle her into bed. I knew every minute I spent in her room was one more minute that a sly child could sneak downstairs for Easter candy. There was one of me, and three of them–what could I do?

As I prayed with Caleb and Hannah Grace in their respective rooms tonight, I felt burdened and fought back tears. Why couldn’t I make my children obey? Why did I struggle–even my ‘fun’ clean-up games failed–repeatedly when others seemed to triumph?

Caleb finally calmed down and was reading on the floor in his room, so I propped myself against the wall across from Hannah Grace’s room. I knew she would try to escape many times. As she took a nap this afternoon, I didn’t expect her to actually fall asleep before 10:00. True to form, she made her appearance in the hallway a half-dozen times or so, and I, as patiently as I could, redirected her to bed.

The last few times she came out of her room, she requested that I go rest in my own bedroom. I assured her I would as soon as she stayed in her room. That answer did not satisfy her.

A few minutes later, this little two-year-old appeared in the door frame with a heavy, crocheted sweater buttoned up to her neck, her strawberry-blonde hair falling in her face.

“Mommy, you make my feelings,” she stated matter-of-factly.

I had no idea what she meant. Many times she had told me that I hurt her feelings, typically when she was in trouble, but she had never said this particular phrase before.

“Hannah Grace, I don’t know what that means,” I answered.

With a straight face, and without missing a beat, she replied, “I don’t like rabbits. Because you make my feelings; that’s why you need to go in your room.”

I immediately started to giggle. What in the world was she saying?! And at that moment, I realized she didn’t have a clue. Her brother and she were little and probably had as much an idea of why they did the things they did as I.

In that moment, through her cryptic message, I had a moment of clarity. The good of the day, the accomplishment of beds (finally) being made by all, sweet moments when the kids all played nicely together, baseball outside in the warm sun, was still there. And tomorrow would be another day full of more good, and probably a little bad, too, because, after all, there are three of them and one of me.

I pulled Hannah Grace to me, and we snuggled together down on the floor in the hallway. And as we lay quiet, together we drifted off to sleep.

Ten Indications that Your Husband is Away on Business for the Week

10. 15 minutes after stumbling out of bed, you catch your son sucking down Infant Tylenol–you know, the one with the child-proof cap.

9. You run down the stairs dressed but in bedroom slippers with your make-up half done in order to take out the trash, hoping to catch the garbage truck as it loops back around–a job your husband normally does when he is in town.

8. When you come back inside, you find that your daughter has the other half of your make-up on her face…and the new carpet.

7. Before the day is half over, you already are searching for the Superglue to fix the first broken object of the day.

6. None of the three children takes a nap today.

5. You get to clean pee off the kitchen counter (yes, you just read ‘pee’ and ‘kitchen counter’ in the same sentence).

4. You discover you CAN remove red permanent marker from the inside of a white cabinet if you scrub with all the fury you can muster from inside your worn-down soul.

3. You utter a prayer to God asking Him to help you find patience and be a better mother at least two times more than you do on a typical day.

2. Your baby runs a fever and clings to your legs all day, as you are pretty sure she picked this particular week to start teething again on purpose.

1. At the end of the night, your blood pressure is 2138/2078.

1 day down, 4 more to go….

For more top ten lists, visit oh amanda and her weekly top ten lists where I have ‘linked up’ this week! Thanks to thegypsymama for letting me in on the fun!

Reasons You Will Not Win Mother-of-the-Year

10. For the second year in a row, you promised to dye Easter eggs with your kids and didn’t get to it. In order to make up for this failing, you sat your two oldest kids in front of The Ten Commandments at 9:00 P.M. while you boiled some eggs. Your kids are 4 and 2 -1/2.

9. Your daughter actually DID throw up from eating too much candy on Easter.

8. After throwing up, she then drove her brother’s Power Wheel into his groin.

7. Forgetting that your children didn’t actually eat their Easter lunch, you did not make dinner. After all, you weren’t hungry, but you hadn’t thrown up Easter candy, either.

6. You were awoken at 6:00 A.M. by your husband who wanted to show you that a food thief had left the refrigerator open and ham, asparagus, a gallon of milk, and a block of cheese on the floor. Also at the scene of the crime–the identical pink snuggly with which your daughter sleeps. Maybe if you made dinner the night before, your two-year-old wouldn’t have raided the refrigerator in the middle of the night.

5. You didn’t serve your children breakfast until 10:45 A.M.

4. At some point in the morning, your daughter calls, “Mommy, can you help me get off the table?” At that moment, you realize that your two-year-old has been sitting on the table for a majority of ‘brunch.’

3. Your attempts to get your son to put down the lid to the toilet and flush have failed.

2. Your baby was playing with toilet paper in the toilet. See previous statement.

1. Your daughter, who has been potty-trained for months but strong-willed for longer peed on you as you pick her up to take her to the potty. She then exclaimed, “Peeing is fun!!!”

Alternate titles for this post:

“Reasons You Should Not Host Large Gatherings at Your Home”

“Reasons You Should Take Your Weekend Away from the Family Soon”

Enjoying the New Carpet

4 spit-up spots

3 pee-pee accidents

2 poop stains

1 pink silver polish incident

10 reasons why we should not have gotten new carpet!

Of course, Matt and I knew what we were getting into, and in fact, always said that we would NOT get new carpet until all of our children were housebroken. However, when we decided to put our house on the market during this terrible housing crisis, we knew our only chance to sell without giving our house away would require our house to look as close to perfect as possible.

And our old carpet was anything but close to perfect. We can’t take sole responsibility for it’s condition–the carpet was original to the home, and the home is 13 years old. I will say that we did more than our fair share to speed up it’s deterioration in the last three-and-a-half years that we have lived here!

When I was scrubbing out the pink stain from the silver polish that my two-year-old so lovingly spread onto the carpet (this polish only appeared after getting the new carpet, of course), I began to cry. That evening, I had a nightmare that I was having a party with a group of women that I didn’t know, and someone spilled salsa on the new carpet. One of the ladies curtly spoke, “We couldn’t get the stain out.” A huge pinkish red circle tarnished the beautiful carpet. A few nights later, I had another bad dream, and one more involving marker all over the walls and furniture followed.

So a couple days ago, when I was cleaning spit-up out of the carpet, I thought to myself, “I wish I had my nasty carpet back. This stress is not worth it! This house better sell fast!”

A few minutes later, there was no evidence of the spit-up, just as the previous poop, pee, and silver polish stains vanished before it, and I scolded myself. How could I even think that I wanted my old carpet back? It was disgusting, and I had always looked forward to the day when my children would choose the commode over the carpet to relieve themselves so that we could live in a house that didn’t look yucky.

I realized that I did a lot of looking forward and not enough looking around.

When I was younger, I couldn’t wait to get out of college and get a job. Then I couldn’t wait to get married. Once married, I would wonder how life would change with children. When I had my two-year-old, I looked forward to retirement, and then when he hit three, I changed my mind and looked forward to him starting school so I could have a little break during the day. Then his sister turned two, and his other sister was born, and I looked forward to Matt’s retirement again. How fun to enjoy marriage without kids and travel the world!

Right now I look forward to moving to Alpharetta and lessening Matt’s commute so that we can enjoy more time as a family. A husband home earlier in the evenings to help with the children means a wife with fewer gray hairs! And, of course, to make all of this happen, I have to keep the carpet spotless!

Except I don’t know that we’re moving to Alpharetta. God never promised me that everything I plan will happen as I hope. In fact, He hasn’t promised me tomorrow: “Now listen, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.’ Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes” (James 4:13-14).

If it is God’s will, we will move to Alpharetta, but if it’s not, we better figure out fast how to make more family time with the time we have. I better smother my two-year-old every day with hugs and kisses because when she’s 22, I might not see very much of her when she starts her first career. I better find a way to treasure the stains on the carpet because they are a reminder that I’m blessed with healthy, rambunctious little children.

I better enjoy my new carpet. If we don’t move, I know very well that the carpet won’t look this pretty in a year, and it will be a looooong time before we buy any more. And I better not lose any more sleep over it; there are far more important things in life than stainless floor coverings.

The Elephant in the Room: A Short Story

“Look at her!” the oldest boy directed with an air of superiority.

“I don’t want to look at her,” the pre-teen girl whispered. “She scares me a little.”

“Aw, come on,” he egged her on. “She shouldn’t scare you. She’s just a crazy old bat!” he nodded his straight brown hair in the direction of the old lady.

“Well, I think she’s gross,” the pretty blonde huffed, looking at her nails. “Look–she’s drooling.”

All eyes fastened on the old woman who was in fact drooling. A group of adults surrounded her, one woman rubbing her back, but the old lady didn’t seem to notice. She sat slightly hunched forward with her feet solidly planted, legs apart. Her knee-high panty hose were actually ankle-high now, neatly rolled above her tennis shoes. Her flower print dress was predominantly a pale green that accentuated her eyes, the only part of her body that seemed alert and in the present. They were piercing eyes, and as if sensing her grandchildren’s glances, she sharply turned her head and stared back at them across the sterile room.

“Elephant in the room–Ha! I couldn’t pretend I didn’t see it if I wanted to!” she spat at them, her dentures shifting in her mouth.

The three oldest children quickly turned back to the little circle they made with their bodies on the couch, afraid of meeting her eyes again. The younger ones lying on the floor pushing cars back and forth to each other didn’t even notice the outburst.

“What is she talking about?!” the pretty blonde asked, rolling her eyes and not caring to hear the answer.

“Oh, who knows?” the boy answered. “She’s always talkin’ about some stupid elephant.”

“My mom says she used to be an officer in the Air Force,” the youngest of the three whispered, afraid of attracting the old woman’s attention. “It’s hard to believe now….” her voice trailed off.

“Oh, Aunt Chloe’s always sticking up for Grandma,” he retorted. I don’t believe she was in the Air Force at all. Can you picture her leading anybody? The only thing I can picture her leading is the line on Jell-O night!”

The sarcastic boy quieted down as a group of adults walked over.

“Well, I think Grandma is getting tired,” a distinguished-looking man observed as he placed his hand on his son’s shoulder. He had the same eyes as his mother’s, hazel-green, but bigger and more pleasant. “You kids need to tell her goodbye.”

The youngest children on the floor obediently got up and went over to the old woman.

“Dad, was Grandma really in the Air Force?” the oldest boy asked.

“Yes, before I was born.”

“Have you seen pictures as proof?”

“Well what kind of question is that?” asked a rather soft-spoken woman, obviously offended by the question.

“Oh, Aunt Chloe, I just was wonderin’. I have a hard time picturing Grandma leading a group of people, is all.”

“You know, Grandma wasn’t always like this,” a stylishly dressed woman jumped in, gesturing to her mother on the other side of the room. “She was actually very intelligent at one time.”

“Well, what happened?” asked the youngest girl, still in a very small voice, “you know, to make her this way.”

The group looked over just as the old lady began swatting at something invisible to them.

“Well, honestly, I think Chloe was the breaking point for Mom,” the stylish woman eagerly volunteered.

“Wha-?” Chloe began, but the other woman continued.

“Three was obviously too much for her. You came along, with your seven days without pooping, screaming at night…Mom said she went five years without getting a full night’s sleep…the sleep deprivation just did her in.”

“I was just a baby! How can you hold me solely responsible for Mom’s condition, Hannah Grace! If anything, you and Caleb drove her crazy! She always said so! In fact, I think I know the exact minute she lost it. Mom is always talking about elephants–you two were the ones who embarrassed her at church knocking down that inflatable elephant in the lobby! She said it was eight feet tall, and all the men in the lobby were trying to stop you, but you two just laughed and pushed it over and kicked it–I’m sure she felt like a failure as a mother.”

“Okay, ladies. I think we’re all being a little dramatic here. I’m sure none of us is responsible for Mom’s condition. These things happen with age,” the distinguished man answered matter-of-factly.

“Oh, please, Caleb,” Hannah Grace snapped. “You just don’t want to get us started on you!”

“Me? I wasn’t any trouble. I always did very well in school, didn’t give my teachers any problem. I mean, Hannah Grace, if you really want to play this game, you peed on your teacher at church. I’m sure that was a bigger embarrassment for Mom than my involvement in knocking over some fake elephant!

“Well, Caleb, in all fairness to Hannah Grace, you had the bigger problem with pee,” Chloe gently chimed in.

“Okay, here we go!” he threw up his hands in the air in disgust.

“I mean, you almost set your room on fire.”

“Chloe, you couldn’t even remember that! You were a baby. Heck–I’m not sure if I actually remember it or if I just heard the story a thousand times!”

“Chloe’s right,” Hannah Grace interjected. “If anyone’s responsible, it’s you. Who pees on their wall? I mean, really! Were you aiming for the electric socket, or did it just get in the way of the urine design you were painting? When was your first clue that this wasn’t normal behavior–when the socket started sparking?”

“Enough, enough,” Caleb said softly, hanging his head in shame.

The sarcastic boy looked up at his father in horror. “Is..is it true, Dad?” he asked incredulously.

Caleb sighed. “Yes, Son. It’s true.”

“Yuck. That’s disgusting, Uncle Caleb,” the pretty blonde spit the words as if they tasted bad.

“Poor Grandma,” the other girl whispered.

“Yes, poor Grandma,” Hannah Grace agreed. “She was a good woman. It’s such a shame, such a shame.”

Slowly, the remaining grandchildren made their way to their grandma to kiss her goodbye.

“Darn pigs all over the place,” the old woman muttered under her breath, not talking to anyone in particular.

Food from Heaven

As I cut the butternut squash in half length-wise, a sweet aroma tickled my nose. I marveled at the beautiful orange color that was contained within the thick, pale skin and took pleasure scooping the seeds and stringy flesh out of this fruit. I cut the squash into cubes and thought to myself, “Yes, this is what God had in mind.”

I took pride in the fact that I was cooking natural. Our vegetable dish wasn’t coming from a bag in the microwave but from the ground to my hands (with a short stop at the store in between). My senses were delighted through the process of preparing this squash, something I had never done before. My husband and I have never been big vegetable lovers but were trying to change our affections for the sake of healthy living and providing good role-models for our children.

As I tossed the cubes in a little olive oil, I thought to myself that I had never liked many vegetables because they hadn’t gone through this process. If I had seen their true colors, smelled their sweet scents, broken their crisp skin with my teeth instead of forcing myself to swallow the limp, drab vegetables that came from a can, perhaps I would have had a love affair with food from the Earth a long time ago.

I completed this new recipe with enthusiasm for the finished product–bleu cheese mashed with lemon juice, red onions and baby leaf spinach, all mixed together with the beautiful, roasted butternut squash. I knew I had a winner, and the choir would sing.

When I tasted the final product, a smile spread across my lips. The bleu cheese didn’t overpower the squash, the red onions gave the perfect combination of sweet and bite, and the spinach lay beneath every satisfying bite.

I had decided the squash would serve as the main dish with a few slices off a piece of leftover steak as the side. Magic. A healthy, satisfying dinner for my family.

I plated the food and carried the end product to my children, and immediately Caleb spoke:

“Thanks, Mom, for making me meat!”

I encouraged Caleb to try the squash to which he licked a piece. “Plaaagh. I don’t like it.”

“Well, nothing tastes great if you only lick it,” I encouraged him.

He took a bite, the smallest bite possible, only shaving 1/100th of a cube of squash with his teeth.

“I don’t like it,” he said in disgust while shaking his head.

“Hannah Grace, try your vegetables,” I ordered.

She copied her brother exactly, licking a piece of her squash. “I don’t wan it,” she insisted. “I wan ketchup.”

I sighed and got up in search of ketchup packets for the steak. The fact that my children were putting ketchup on steak almost saddened me as much as the fact as they would only lick their vegetables.

I squeezed the red globs on their plates and stared at the food I really wanted them to eat. Hannah Grace had let me down; she always tried everything. Caleb was perplexing. How did his little taste buds change so much from when he was a baby? Squash used to be one of his staples.

“Mom, this meat is delicious!” Caleb exclaimed, interrupting my thoughts.

I knew then the butternut squash would not enter his mouth again. I had given him food from heaven, but he was more excited about the dead cow on his plate.

By request–Whole Food’s Recipe for Butternut Squash with Wilted Spinach

Quality of Life

Typically, I write blog posts about my crazy kids or my struggles. My hope for my blog is that I can unleash my tension through writing and also help other women in the process. When God teaches me something important, I want to pass on the information so you can see how good He is. When my kids make me feel like I want to jump out a window, I need to focus my frustration somewhere other than on them (although they do get a dose of my frustration, too!) In the moment, I tend to feel that I am the only one who has a kid who would purposely pee on his Grammy, but surely there are others, right? Umm…maybe not. I digress.

I wanted to do something different with a series I’m calling “Quality of Life.” Believe it or not, there are some things I am doing right or at least some efforts for which I am proud. My hope is to become a better person every day of my life, and there are some deliberate choices I am making in the quest for achieving this goal.

Every week for a few weeks, I plan to write one blog post focused on a typical area where I am trying to improve. The point of these blogs is not to pat myself on the back or sound preachy but rather to give us an interactive forum. I want to hear back from you! What are you doing in this area to make your life better? If we can glean one tip from each blog or the comments that follow, my hope is that we will all become a little happier and healthier as a result.

What do you say? Are you in?

Quality of Life 1: Calling All Tree-Huggers!

Quality of Life 2: In Need of Lighter Fluid

Quality of Life 3: Pick Up the Phone

You Know Your Life is Overtaken by Small Children When…

10. You had to clean the downstairs bathroom 3 times in less than 24 hours in preparation for company.

9. Your king-sized bed is too small as a result of uninvited munchkins appearing in the middle of the night (and sleeping in the unconventional position of sideways across the top of your pillow)

8. You have to wash your sheets again this morning even though you washed them yesterday because one of the uninvited munchkins had a leaky Pull-Up.

7. You turn your beloved office into a playroom.

6. ‘Stupid’ and ‘butt’ suddenly sound so offensive.

5. You pack three baggies of exactly the same snack to avoid arguments when packing one to share would be so much easier.

4. Leaving the house with unbrushed hair is perfectly acceptable.

3. Your front door is covered with extra door locks not meant to keep hardened criminals out but your kids in.

2. You’ve never been a drinker, but you find yourself, on more than one occasion, having strange cravings for vodka.

1. Your ob/gyn asks if your husband and you have thought about what birth control you plan on using, and you reply, “Abstinence.”