I have this zit

We have a wedding to go to in Ottawa this Saturday and I have this really bad zit. I am not 14 years old. I am way older than that (28) and I haven't had a bad zit for years and years. What is this??

It's in a really bad place, on the left side of my face (as in, on the same side as my personal left hand, which is opposite from the left side of my face as seen by you), about a centimetre diagonally above the corner of my mouth. It started a few days ago as a hard and painful underground bump. I poked it a bit and massaged it curiously and hoped it would go away. But over the past few days it has been surfacing and becoming red and swollen. I had Eric touch it yesterday and he exclaimed in surprise at the heat of the pink zit bump. It is still not a full-fledged zit, but more like a small pointy mountainous mosquito bite. I am afraid that by Saturday it will have matured into a mighty whitehead, and I will have to pop it. And then the skin will be broken and will not look right even with concealer and make-up, because the surface will be all scraggy. Plus I will have to keep on RE-popping it, because it will continue to refill itself with pus and blood and fluid.

It reminds me of this time I had a huge underground zit for about two months on the left side of my face near the top of my cheekbone. This is a really long story, and just thinking of it makes me so excited I get exhausted, so suffice it to say, it eventually erupted into a mighty whitehead which I popped every night for four nights. It was a veritable zit-shaped cornucopia of pus. It kept on refilling, and each subsequent night yielded greater and greater volumes of pus and blood. Finally, on the last fateful night of the life of this zit, I did the usual pop, and gobs of pus ran out, followed by rivulets of blood. I collected all this waste on a piece of tissue and clambered up onto our bed to show Eric, who reacted with dutiful horror and disgust. Then I went back to the bathroom to continue playing with the zit for awhile, mainly to continue squeezing blood out of it until I got bored. I placed a finger on either side of the still prevalent lump, and pushed inward and downward. What I'm about to tell you will sound like an exaggeration. Admittedly, I sometimes exaggerate on the blog for shock effect, but - and I can't stress this enough - this is not one of those times. This is 100% accurate with no embellishments.

Okay.

So I placed a finger on either side of the still prevalent lump and pushed inward and downward. And a large hole about the size of the tip of a medium ball-point pen opened up at the apex of the zit lump, and a semi-solid substance ERUPTED from this hole in almost the exact manner of silly string. It wasn't gooey drippy pus. It wasn't blood. It was white, and it came out in a strip, like Play-Doh squeezed out of the spaghetti maker. Recall, this zit was at the top of my left cheekbone. This column of pus shot out perpendicular to my person and then fell with the natural force of gravity down against my face. It hung down a FULL INCH. It was completely disgusting and completely beautiful. If you don't believe me, you can verify my story with Eric because, of course, the next thing I did was clamber back up onto the bed to show him. He couldn't believe his eyes. He still talks about it to this day.

After much oh-my-godding and holy-christing I wiped it off and squeezed a few more times to clear it out completely. And suddenly, the lump was entirely and utterly deflated. It lay totally flat. This underground hard lumpy tumour of a zit that had been with me for over two months was just gone. It was hands down the most incredible zit experience of my life.

I do have another hard lump in a place similar to the insane zit, and it has been there since before Dylan was born. I told Eric about it the other day and he does not believe me. But I am not lying, this lump has been in my face since before I gave birth. If you want to feel it, I will let you. I've been waiting for it to erupt the same way, but as each month passes I am disappointed. I feel that insane zit was truly a once-in-a-lifetime zit.

But this painful, hot, red bump on my face right now, I don't know what will happen with it. But I'm not happy. I think I'll go to the washroom now and play with it a bit.

Carol and Carols

I'm getting anal for Christmas. Whoa wait, let me clarify. I am not getting penetrated in the butt by an erect penis as a holiday gift (Eric: "Boo"). What I mean is that I am starting to get excitedly anxious about the holiday season, and am worried that I won't get anything done in time and will have to battle through the crush of holiday shoppers with my screaming child in order to buy thoughtful and appropriate gifts for everyone on my list. As a result, I have an Excel spreadsheet all typed out with the people for whom I must purchase gifts, and the possible gift ideas listed in the column next to their names. And I am planning on ticking those gifts off the list a few at a time over the next two weeks. I am on an uber efficient holiday shopping spree!

As a result of this, I have also moved up the annual playing of holiday music. I keep checking radio stations in the car to see if anyone is playing holiday music yet (they're not), and yesterday I searched for "Christmas" in my iTunes and created a playlist of all the songs that came out of that search and re-synched my iPod and put it back on the iPod docking station. And today, I decided it was time to start brainwashing Dylan with Christmas music. So instead of the usual mix of Disney songs and girly pop music I make him listen to, I put on the Christmas playlist and sat down with him to play with his toys.

The first song that came on was "Where are You Christmas" by Faith Hill. Slow, moving, beautiful music with cheesy stupid lyrics. I love this song! Christmas was off to a great start!

Then came another favourite, "All I Want for Christmas Is You", by Mariah Carey. I so can't get enough of this song. It makes me want to dance! So that's what I did, I picked up Dylan and we boogied all over the condo. Good times were had by all.

Then "Santa Baby" by Madonna. Hmm, I thought to myself. This song is pretty skanky. But you can't deny "Santa Baby", after all it's a classic.

Then came Britney's "Santa Can You Hear Me". I had a cringe moment; I didn't want Dylan listening to this. And then I had an introspective moment. I have never been a huge Britney fan, but I can't deny that her past music is catchy. While I have always turned my nose up at the low quality of her offerings, I am now at a point where I feel I can admit that she was culturally one of the voices of my generation. She is approximately my age, and her music managed to permeate most of the years of my youth when I felt that the world was at my feet and I would be young and awesome forever. My friend Jordan even wrote a shout-out to her in his graduating blurb of our yearbook. When I hear her warbling nasal voice, I am sent hurtling back into that bubble in my life: full of doubt and confidence, full of fear and hope. Secure and happy and clueless. And while it's true that Britney has been a complete mess for a few years, she's looking pretty hot again now, and has that "surprisingly candid" interview with MTV so...maybe she's okay again? Anyway, I decided to let go of my prejudices and to embrace this song, and so Dylan and I danced as Brit implored Santa for a man, promising that this was her only wish this year.

Then came a really stuffy operatic version of "Still Still Still" by the Cambridge Singers. Yeah, I have totally dorky music.

And then, unfortunately, Mr Garrison's voice came on the speakers:
I heard there is no Christmas in the silly Middle East
No trees, no snow, no Santa Claus, they have different religious beliefs
They believe in Muhammad, and not in our holiday
And so every December I go to the Middle East and say...

"Hey there Mr. Muslim Merry fucking Christmas
Put down that book the Koran, and hear some holiday wishes.
In case you haven't noticed it's Jesus's birthday.
So get off your heathen Muslim ass and fucking celebrate!"

Too late I remembered my extensive collection of South Park holiday songs. I snuck a glance at Dylan and he was looking at me curiously. I decided that not to react would be the best thing, so I pretended to play with a plastic giraffe. Unfortunately, by the time Mr Garrison got to this part:
"Hey there Mr. Shintoist Merry fucking Christmas
God is going to kick your ass you infidelic pagan scum"
Dylan had decided he liked the song and was bopping to the beat and waving his arms. My baby could be a racist.

Of course right after this, we got "Mr. Hanky the Christmas Poo":
Mr. Hankey the Christmas Poo
Small and brown he comes from you
Sit on the toilet here he comes
Squeeze him 'tween your festive buns

A present from down below
Spreading joy with a "Howdy-Ho!"
He's seen the love inside of you
`Cause he's a piece of poo

And it didn't end there. We also sat through "Lonely Jew on Christmas", "Swiss Colony Beef Log", and "The Most Offensive Song Ever" which is about how Mary can suck all the dick she wants and still be a virgin. Luckily, Kenny sings most of the worst parts so it's mumbled. But I think Dylan could tell it was very dirty.

I will end with a haiku to Santa Claus:
Santa are you there?
Keep Dylan from Children's Aid
I'll get new music

Cheeeeeeeeeeeeese

I've been thinking: it's time I wrote a blog post about cheese that is not of the dick variety. I love cheese but not all cheese and, this is important, not all cheese in all ways.

Here for your perusal is a brief list of my cheese preferences:

1. I like Black Diamond marble cheese, but never ever Cracker Barrel. It is too creamy.
   
2. I don't like Black Diamond marble cheese if it has come to room temperature
3. I like Black Diamond mild cheddar, but never medium or old, and again never ever Cracker Barrel. Ditto goes for the temperature point above.
4. I don't like cream cheese. I will not eat it on bagels, in spreads, in cold dips, or rolled with smoked salmon.
5. I like cream cheese in hot crab/lobster dip
   
6. I like cream cheese in cheesecakes
7. I don't like Japanese cheesecakes
8. I like mozzarella on pizza, lasagna, panini, and most baked casserole dishes.
9. I do not like mozzarella cold or eaten on its own.
10. I like mozzarella cold if it is buffalo mozzarella and served in a caprese salad.
11. I no longer like cheese in my subs.
12. I don't like cheese in my salads.
13. I don't mind some cheese in my salad at St. Louis Wings.
14. I like real cheese melted on nachos.
15. I hate liquid squirtable/dippable cheese on nachos.
16. I don't like Parmesan cheese on top of pasta.
17. I like Parmesan cheese in pesto.
18. I do not like Parmesan cheese (or any other kind of cheese) in tomato sauces
    
19. I am starting to like Parmigiano Reggiano cheese, but mostly baked inconspicuously into lasagna, preferably mixed with mozzarella and breadcrumbs.
20. I don't like fettucine alfredo.
21. I have historically not liked feta, but I am starting to work on it. I like feta on some gourmet pizzas. I have also not historically liked feta in my Greek salad, but am starting to get it on the side so I can try it. I do not like spanikopita.
22. I don't like goat cheese, and don't expect I ever will. It tastes like goat.
23. I don't like swiss cheeses like Emmental or Gruyere. I also don't like Jarlsberg, though I'm not sure if that's swiss or not. It follows that I don't like cheese fondue or quiche. Both really gross me out.
24. I don't like cottage cheese.
25. I like ricotta in pasta.
    
26. I like brie and Camembert - a lot.
27. I don't like brie and Camembert from a supermarket. I call these varieties Supermarket Brie and Supermarket Camembert. My fancy soft cheeses must be unpasteurized and/or come from a fancy cheese shop, and be either from Quebec or France. It must be strong but not so strong that it is bitter. I eat these spread thinly on good french bread, like fancy butter.
28. I don't mind Supermarket Brie or Supermarket Camembert, if it is served with flavourful crackers that mask the plastic supermarket flavour. I eat these spread mediumly on said crackers.
    
29. It is likely that I also do not mind Supermarket Brie and Supermarket Camembert if it is covered with a bunch of flavourful stuff and then baked. This theory has not yet been tested.
30. I tentatively and cautiously like blue cheese. But definitely not all blue cheese. I like St Agur blue cheese, and this must be spread very lightly. I do not like the Danish Rosenborg cheese from the supermarket. I call this Stinky Supermarket Blue. I liked a blue cheese from an oyster restaurant downtown called Starfish (the restaurant, not the cheese). This leads me to believe that I may also like other varieties of blue cheese.
    
31. I love love love Morbier cheese from France. It has a thin streak of black ash across the middle. It smells like the feet of angels. It is earthy and a little nutty and I love love love it.

AND FINALLY:
As of last night, I am obsessed with Tete de Moine cheese. This is the main reason for this post. Tete de Moine cheese (or Monk's Head cheese) is made in Switzerland, and is a noble and generous gift from the cheese gods who live in their heavenly Mount Cheesympus. To serve it, you scrape at it on an angle with a tool called a "girolle", and it forms a flowery buttery bundle of delicious awesomeness. You can then gobble it up plain, or dollop some jelly into the curling folds of the luscious cone.

I sampled this cheese at the Gourmet Wine and Cheese Show last night. It was the night reserved for insider people; it turns out one of my Mommy Friends has mad hook-ups and got us all in for free. Together, we experienced this cheese and it changed my life forever. I can't wait to get out to a fancy cheese shop, because I am SO going to get me some Monk Heady goodness! If you come over to visit over the holidays, I will share it with you.Haiku Finale:
Mother cow and sheep
Creamy cheese flows forth from teat
Not literally

Motherhood is neat

I've been trying to train Dylan to sleep good. I put him down in his crib while he's still awake, and I tuck him in, make sure he's warm, make sure he's not too warm, make sure there are no plastic bags in the immediate vicinity, and then I walk away. If I've timed it just right, he will quietly put himself to sleep and nap for 1-2 hours. If I've mistimed it a little, and he still has some energy, he'll lie in bed and talk to himself for a few minutes, then put himself to sleep. If he's been a little overexcited, he'll yell and bitch for about 20 seconds while I put him down, and then realize he's tired and figure "Meh, it's not worth the hassle of throwing a tantrum", and put himself to sleep shortly after. But if I've done something really unfortunate, like go out to the mall and force him to stay awake and stimulated for way longer than I should have, he will NOT go to sleep. Not for anything, not for anyone. And he will just continue to get more and more tired, and he will be miserable, and I will be miserable, and by the time Eric gets home, we're both pissed and miserable, and then he has to deal with TWO bitchy treats. Haha.

To avoid this, I have resorted to getting Dylan to sleep using any means necessary. I don't mean that I drug his blueberries, but I will take him into our bedroom and snuggle, massage, and sing him to sleep in our bed. And I will hold him and nap with him in order to keep him asleep. It's usually pretty uncomfortable, but it's also extremely priceless and wonderful. I love snuggling my little baby and hearing his little baby breaths and being able to kiss him as much as I want while he's unconscious. Yes, I'm a sappy sappy mommy.

As he got a little bigger, he started to roll onto his side to sleep, especially when he was overexhausted. When he's in bed with us, he almost always rolls toward one of us, and reaches out with his little hands to hold onto us while he sleeps. It's really freaking adorable.

A couple weeks ago, this last scenario took place. He was overtired and very unhappy. He wanted to sleep, but he didn't want to sleep. So I brought him into bed with me, and snuggled and shushed him, and eventually he rolled towards me, reaching out with his chubby little paws to hold onto my hair and my face. We fell awesomely asleep like that and napped for about a half an hour.

I was awoken by a strange prodding sensation...in my nose. It took me a couple seconds to realize what was happening, but yes I woke up to Dylan gently picking my nose with his fingers. I'm excited to tell this story at his wedding, too. I need to start keeping a list.

Cuban Gaycation

At the end of October, Eric and I went to Cuba for our gay friends' wedding. Wikkid trip. We were a group of about 17 people, and here's the best part: we left Dylan at home with my parents. The uninterrupted sleep! The alcohol at all hours!! The sheer bliss!!!

For serious though, we missed him like like crazy mofos.

But this trip was amazing. One of he gays is still complaining that the weather wasn't consistently hot as hell enough but as far as I'm concerned, it was a fantastic trip.

Here are two short highlights:

You Don't Want Carol as Your Officiant
Gay David is my oldest friend in the entire world (with the exception of my imaginary friend Ah Cho who, at the age of five, could drive a car and take me to the supermarket). When he asked me to officiate this ceremony, I was honoured and delighted to accept. I spent hours creating a short but sweet personal ceremony that spoke to the love between my oldest friend and the love of his life, and also to the close friendships between those of us who had made the journey to witness this beautiful union. I cried while writing it, I cried while rehearsing it, and I cried while previewing it to David for approval. Then I screwed it up.

Here's what I SHOULD have said:
"Neil, I've known David since we were six years old. And I have never seen him as happy as he is when he's with you."

Here's what I ACTUALLY said:
"Neil, I've known David since we were six years old. And I have never semen as happy as he is when he's with you."

I rock. It's even on video, because of course Eric filmed the whole thing.

Carol is a Bad Wife
Eric had a great time on this trip. He drank many cervesas and partied with Grant's friend "Ron" every day. On our second night, most of us went to the discoteca for some dancing good times. Eric tore up the dancefloor! I think that since having a son, he has felt the pressure to be a good example, and one of the things he wants for Dylan is to be an outgoing fun-loving guy. As a result, he is putting in a lot of effort to let loose and be an outgoing fun-loving guy himself. So he bounced and bopped on that dancefloor like it was going out of style. And he had a revelation: Eric LOVES to dance in a discoteca. He couldn't remember the last time he had so much fun! And he couldn't wait to go back.

Two nights later, people were discussing what to do in the evening.

Eric: "LET'S GO TO THE DISCOTECA!!"

So we agreed, it would be a discoteca night. But as is typical of my friends, lameness and tiredness set in early that day, and by the time it was one hour till the discoteca opened more than half the group were in their rooms. And the people who were left were fading fast. Well, Eric and I were anyway. But Eric had a plan! He disappeared for about 20 minutes and came back with a Red Bull and three enormous shots of vodka. After downing two of the shots and most of the can of Red Bull, he was READY TO GO!! He was jittery and bouncing up and down in the seat next to me. I did not have the energy for this.

Carol: "Hey Eric?"

Eric: "DISCOTECA!!!"

Carol: "Hey babe? Eric?"

Eric: "DISCOTECA!!!"

Carol: "You know, if we go back to the room, there's a discoteca in my pants...you can, you know. Dance in there."

Eric: "Ooooh!!!"

Everyone else: "Don't do it Eric."

Carol: *nudge nudge*

Eric: "Yeah, okay!!! DISCOTECA IN THE PANTS!!!"

So we left. You can probably imagine what happened next. We were walking back to the room.

Eric: "YEAH!! DISCOTECA IN YOUR PANTS!!!"

Carol: "Yeah, no. The discoteca's closed. We're going to sleep."

Eric: "...Dammit."

The best part is that the exact same thing happened the following night. This time I let him believe the discoteca in my pants was open all the way until we got into bed. He reached over and sexily started to hug and kiss me.

Eric: "Mmmm, yeah it's time for discoteca..."

Carol: "Hmm. No, there's no discoteca tonight. I'm really tired, we're going to sleep."

Eric: "DAMMIT!! You promised me!! YOU PROMISED ME DISCOTECA!!!!"

Carol: "Shhhshhhshhh...get the light."

Hahahahahaaahahahahahaaaa...yeah, I'm awesome. And Eric is still bitter.

So many potential posts, so little motivation - UNTIL NOW! / Penile Adhesiony Goodness

I haven't blogged in ages. I'm fairly certain that no one is even checking this anymore and if they do check it, it's only to link to ThePeach's blog. I know this because my friends say the following:

"Are you ever going to update your blog again or should I just delete my shortcut to your blog and link directly to ThePeach? It seems a waste of a mouseclick to have to go to yours first."

In a jealous fit of resentfulness, I went over to ThePeach's blog this evening while eating a panzerotto. I almost choked on a sausage, her blog is SO FUNNY! God, it's so damn good. It made me think of all the times funny things happened to me (not nearly as funny as hers, don't get your hopes up), and I thought wistfully to myself "That would make a great blog post" and then proceeded to do nothing about it.

I could make smug excuses and say that with a nearly-9-month-old baby, one has no time to blog. But the truth is that I passed World of Goo on the Wii in 3 days AND went back and redid some of the levels to get "OCD" status, all while Dylan napped. (Actually, once I played World of Goo while he stood at the couch next to me and tried to fit a tv remote in his mouth and as a side victory managed to get the back panel off and the batteries out before I noticed).

So here I am. I am determined to start blogging again. I am unsure as to how I ought to proceed. Should I make one enormous attempt at a monster update? Or should I start blogging smaller stories a little every day? We shall see.

Tonight I will blog one very important story. It is the heartwarming story of the little penis that could, and one day I hope that someone will read this at my son's wedding. I am confident that someone will be me.


We circumcized Dylan's penis. Turns out circumcision is a really controversial topic in the world of babies, second perhaps only to vaccination (which I'm not going to touch with a ten-foot pole in this blog - it could literally start a jihad).

The decision to snip or not to snip was left entirely to the boy's father. I have no penis of my own, and while I certainly have an opinion as to what I personally like to see in a man's pants, this would never (ever) be an applicable scenario in the case of my son. Eric decided we should snip. The reason was simple: Eric is snipped, and he wanted his son and him to have matching dongs. I can understand this reasoning, as my mother used to buy her and me matching pyjamas. And so we snipped Dylan's wee foreskin off when he was two days old. It was simply the most traumatizing thing in the entire world - for me. Dylan apparently slept through the entire thing and peed all over the pediatrician. I didn't even watch it, I just sat in my hospital room and imagined it happening and it was enough to have me in tears. I should probably also add that I was a post-partum emotional mess, which may have been a contributing factor.

Anyway, the following week I refused to change any diapers until the thing was healed. It broke my heart to see the tiny little dressing on the tiny little penis I had worked so hard to make. In no time at all, it healed and there before us was the cutest little tiny mushroom-headed penis in the whole wide world. Everyone was happy.

But then a couple months ago, Eric and I started noticing that the mushroom head was no longer so mushroomy...it was more...like a torpedo. Greatly alarmed, we made our pediatrician check it out at his next appointment. After a quick inspection, she confirmed our worst fears: Dylan had penile adhesions.

PENILE ADHESIONS.

Seriously, people. Do you remember who ELSE had penile adhesions?! Yes, this guy. The letters "OMFG" do not even begin to describe my horror. The doctor expressed regret that this had come to pass, and told us to wait until Dylan's first birthday; if it hadn't cleared itself up by then, we would have to go see a pediatric urologist who would probably have to CUT IT OPEN again.

I was so sad for my little monkey. We had screwed up his penis. When I got home, I consulted the most reliable source of information available to me - the internet. The internet told me that when this happens, there is usually nothing you can do. And it told me what I SHOULD HAVE DONE in the first place to prevent it from happening. Eff you, internet!! You suck!!!!

Unwilling to sit around until February and do nothing, I started to tug at his reattached foreskin at every diaper change. Dylan did not like this. Sometimes he reached down with his little hand and cupped his genitals protectively against my prying fingers. But he's just a baby, I easily swiped his hand away and kept on prodding. We also pulled on it in the bath, with the theory that the warm water would soften the adhesions. And then! Last week, after a particularly long soak in the tub, we bundled him up in his hooded towel and put him in his crib to be dressed. I pulled at the skin a little and slowly, reluctantly, the skin started to peel back.

Dylan: "AUGH! What are you doing?!!"

I pulled, and the skin kept coming away. I called out excitedly to Eric, and showed him.

Dylan: "GET AWAY FROM ME!! OH MY GOD!!"

Eric: "Maybe you should stop now."

But as with large pus-filled zits and big crusty scabs, I couldn't stop. I kept on peeling, all the way around his little torpedo until *boing*, his mushroom head popped back out!! It was red and raw and looked really really painful.

Dylan: "AHHH MAHHHH GAAAAAD!!! AHHHHHHHHH!!!! FAAAAAAAAAAACKK!!! FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACKKKKKKKKK!!!!!!"

Carol: "YES!!! YESSSS!!!!!"

And I did a dance of joy that looked a lot like a chicken having a seizure. Then I left the room while Eric dealt with the horrible-looking baby penis.

I'm so happy!! Things aren't great right now. Dylan whimpers and panics at every diaper change, because I always pull the skin back to keep it from sticking. This exposes his raw penis wound to the open air and he totally hates it. Poor thing is also teething again, so he's got unbearable pain in his mouth as well as in his peepee (there's a gay joke in there somewhere). But I don't care about his pain, because this means no pediatric urologist, and no second penis-chopping procedure!

I will end with a spontaneous haiku:

Your penis is good
Mommy kept on touching it
Oh yeah. That sounds wrong.

Oh Eric.

A couple weeks ago, Eric and I were getting into bed. We decided on big spoon/little spoon designations, and snuggled in.

Carol: Mmmmm comfy comfy.

Eric: Yeah, comfy comfy.

Carol: I love you, Eric.

Eric: I love you too, you skinny bitch.

Carol: ........

Eric: Carol?

Carol: .........

Eric: Honey?

Carol: What did you just call me?

Eric: Umm...skinny bitch?

Carol: Why did you call me that?

Eric: Uhh...I thought I'd try it out. I hear you call your friends skinny bitches. Just this past weekend, you called Patti a skinny bitch at her wedding, so I thought....you know. I thought I'd try it out. Was it not good?

Carol: Husbands cannot call their wives skinny bitches. It doesn't work that way.

Eric: Oh. But I think you're losing weight, and I just wanted to say -

Carol: Yeah. But don't do it again, okay?

Eric: Oh. Okay.

We still got it

Eric and I went to bed late last night. We were both extremely exhausted, me from staying up late on Friday night making spraying penis cakes for a gay wedding shower, and him from staying up with me to consult on the spraying penis cakes. We got into bed and groaned in exhausted unison.

Carol: Oh god, I am sooo tired.

Eric: Meeee too.

Carol: I don't think I have been this tired since Dylan was just born.

Eric: Yeah, I want to sleep for a very long time, I hope Dylan doesn't want to eat tonight.

Carol: Yeah.

Pause

Carol: You wanna do it?

Pause

Eric: Yeah okay.

Pause

Carol: I call bottom.

Eric: I call not doing anything.

No one moves.
5 minutes later.

Carol: Maybe we don't do it.

Eric: Okay.

Dada Is So Inappropriate

Dylan has been teething for about 3 and a half months. It blows because he's basically been soaking every adorable overpriced outfit with drool for that entire time, with nary a tooth to be seen. But a couple weeks ago, Eric put his finger in Dylan's mouth and felt two little pearly whites poking their way through his gums! So cute!!

Dylan loves to snatch at people's fingers and hands and haul them into his mouth for gum-relieving gnawage. This was cute when he only had gums, and all that would happen was that saliva would run down your hand and pool on the floor beneath you. That, and I would bark you with your finger ensconced in my son's pie-hole and demand to know whether you had washed your hands with soap for 15 seconds.

But now that he has these two little teethies, it's a whole new ball game. Those cute little lower incisors are effing sharp!! They're like tiny thin jagged blades, thrusting up just enough to pierce the skin and release small rivulets of blood.

The other day, Eric was playing with Dylan. Dylan had snatched up his Dada's hand and was having a grand time cannibalizing a juicy finger.

Eric: Ow!! Oww oww!! Aww, little guy. You know what would be really bad right now? Putting a penis in his mouth.

Carol: .......

I will end with a haiku that expresses my feelings regarding this story:

Oh my effing god
Please don't call Child Services
He sucks only boobs

Good Mother

Last night we were at the gym with our friend Chris Robb. In between half-hearted attempts to eliminate my sagging wrinkled paunch, we talked about the gathering to come the following night at our condo. We are holding a How I Met Your Mother tv marathon night, and most people are excited because we have episodes that no one has seen as a result of our filthy downloading. Chris was pumped about the wild tv-watching times to be had, and we shared this conversation:

Chris: "I could bring margarita mix!"

Carol: "We have some margarita mix in the freezer."

Chris: "I see. Well I could bring the tequila!"

Carol: "Hmm, I'm pretty sure we have tequila too."

Chris: "I see. Well then I will come and drink your margaritas and tequila!"

I got home and checked our ridiculously well-stocked liquor cabinet (I have no idea how we got such a well-stocked liquor cabinet. My theory is that the bottles are having babies.) and it turned out we did not have a a single drop of tequila in there. So this morning I loaded Dylan into his stroller and off we went across the street to Bayview Village.

Bayview Village on a weekday is a positive mecca for two distinct types of people: mommies with babies, and the elderly. However, no members of either population tend to frequent the LCBO. I picked up a large bottle of tequila and grabbed two bottles of wine while I was at it. At the checkout, the cashier looked at me, looked at my booze, then at my baby, then at my booze, then at my baby, then at my booze, then at me.

Carol: "Yeah, we're gonna get shmammered."

And that, my friends, is what it means to be a good mother.

Happy Anniversary! To Us!

Hellooooooo Blogosphere!!

So wow, my last post was just over six months ago. Huh. Well when you put it that way, I can understand why people have been writing this blog off as dead.

All I can say is that I pushed out a new human, tearing my vagina in the process (about an inch - "not too bad" according to the nurse. Eff you, nurse!!), and have since been occupied as the primary careprovider for said new human. It is difficult to get up the energy and motivation to blog! Rest assured though, I have thought of you many times. Like the time I was sleeping in my own bed and was awoken by the sound of the baby taking a giant crap over the monitor. And like the time he crapped all the way up his back to his shoulders, and all the way out one leg down his calf and then put his hands in it while I was trying to clean him up. And like the time he vomitted in my mouth. And like the time I had sex with Eric for the first time since the birth, but only did it because it was his birthday and I had forgotten to get him a present, but then realized after I put out that I had promised to let him get laser hair removal on his butt, but it was too late cause I had already let him do it. You can now consider youselves caught up!

But wait, formal introductions: Readers, meet Dylan Luke Johnston. He is a boy. He is cute as hell. He was not named after Beverly Hills 90210. It was an unfortunate coincidence.

But today! Today is an important day, and seems to be an appropriate day to blog. For today is our 3-year anniversary! Later I will be dropping Dylan off at my parents' place, and Eric and I will be going to a seafood restaurant to get shitfaced on oysters.

I am taking this opportunity to change the name of the blog. I feel that three years of marriage in which a baby has been manufactured no longer qualifies as a "Newlywed" stage. "In the Life of Newlyweds" will henceforth be known as "Keeping Up With The Johnstons". Geddit? Geddit??? As in you check the blog to "keep up" with events in our lives!! Clever, yes? Bwafwafwafwafwa!!

And that's all for now! It's a lame post, but it's just the beginning! The beginning of a new beginning of great things to come.

I will end with a pair of haikus that summarize the last 5 months:

"Push", the doctor said
Thus my genitals were torn
Eric says it's fine

"Wahh", wee Dylan cries
Nectar spurts forth from my breasts
Poo, my baby, poo

Hottest Sex Ever

Today I am 35 weeks and 4 days pregnant. I had a doctor's appointment this morning, where a resident swabbed my vagina and bumhole for potentially lethal bacteria. Eric came with me and watched while my anus was violated. Then we went and had breakfast. We came home and each checked our emails, then cleaned various parts of the condo. Eric got out his two hair trimmers and trimmed all the hair off his body. I used the precision trimmer and helped him to shave his bum and inside his bumcrack and marveled at the new smooth hairlessness of his buttocks. We opened our new Dyson vaccuum cleaner and marveled at its truly impressive suction abilities. I played some Zack and Wiki on the Wii. We had an afternoon snack of tapenade and oiled toasted baguette slices. Eric cleaned the kitchen while I played yet some more Zack and Wiki on the Wii. Then we decided to take a nap.

We proceeded to the bedroom where we closed the blinds, stripped to our undergarments, and turned off the lights. We slipped under the covers and sighed at the comforting bliss of smooth cool sheets against our bodies in the mid-afternoon. We snuggled and chatted about inconsequential things.

One thing led to another, and soon we were having afternoon sexy sex. Now, afternoon sexy sex used to be much more sexy. When we were both younger, lustier, more energetic, these mid-day romps were feats of acrobatic prowess and porn-like theatrics. These days, considering the large and prominent dome of extra human on my torso, sexy sex is much less sexy and much more practical. We need to do it so that Eric's balls don't fall off, and so that I feel mollified that I am still a sexually desirable woman, despite the fact that I fart every four minutes and that I have no idea what my pubic area looks like because I haven't bothered to look in over two months. This means it probably looks like a tropical rainforest of hair.

However, this round of sexy sex looked to be promising. Eric was feeling hot because of the new smooth hairlessness of his buttocks. I had showered an hour earlier and my vagina felt minimally leaky. We got adventurous and engaged in multi-position sexy sex. We did pregnant-woman-on-top, pregnant-missionary, pregnant-doggy-style, and the one that ruined it all: pregnant-doggy-style-with-vibrator.

Pregnant-doggy-style-with-vibrator seemed like a good idea at first. Lately, the sequence of sexy sex events consisted of Eric getting his groove on first, then Carol getting her groove on with a vibrator. Therefore, if Eric could get his groove on from behind his pregnant doggy wife (there is a bitch joke in here somewhere), and Carol could get her groove on at the SAME TIME with a vibrator out in front, then everyone wins and all parties involved can proceed to the napping portion of the event that much faster. Excellent situation all around!

Unfortunately, this is where the sexy sex became awkward sex. I found it immensely difficult to hold myself up with one arm/hand while clutching the vibrator to my genitals with the other. However, since I had announced that I was going to get out the vibrator, and Eric had enthusiastically agreed, I felt obligated to make this work. So as he grunted along behind me, I lay with my face smushed against the bed, one arm futilely trying to support my upper body, swollen belly pushing against the bed, while the other hand held the vibrator. As this went on, my legs started to slide apart further and further until I was spread facedown, on my knees, balancing on my unborn child as though it were an exercise ball, and numbing my vagina with incessant vibration.

What followed was a blur of sexy sex activity, where the vibrator wasn't being so helpful, so we abandoned that idea, and Eric ended up satisfied, collapsed at the end of the bed. I hopped out to go pee, having learned my lesson about not peeing after sexy sex, and Eric got in the shower to soap up and rinse off.

I headed back into the bedroom to possibly lounge in bed and doze off a bit, when I noticed a large wet spot on the bed where all that sexy sex had just occurred. It was a very large wet spot.

Carol: "Oh my god! Eric!!"

Eric: "What??"

Carol: "Did I PEE during the sexy sex?"

Eric: "No, of course you didn't."

Carol: "But there's a BIG WET SPOT on the bed!"

Eric: "Maybe that was...you know, me?"

Carol: "It does not look like you."

I went back to investigate the wet spot.

Carol: "ERIC!!"

Eric: "What??"

Carol: "DO YOU THINK MY WATER BROKE??"

Eric: "No! No, I'm sure that's not what happened!"

Carol: "BUT HOW DO YOU KNOW?"

Eric: "Well, I think there would have been a lot more water."

Carol: "But SOMETIMES it comes a little bit at a time! Or at a constant trickle!! Did you poke a hole in my uterus?? Oh why oh why did we have sexy sex??"

I had now gotten my hands on a large wad of toilet paper and was frantically swiping at my vagina, trying to see if there was more water coming out. However, I had also broken into a cold sweat, so it was difficult to tell what the moisture was. Eric suggested we go to the hospital to check, and I thought this might be overkill. He agreed, and said that it probably wasn't my water breaking. I countered that by asking HOW DID HE KNOW?? He said he didn't know. That's when I came up with a great idea.

Carol: "Can you SNIFF the wet spot and see if it's pee?"

Eric: (sigh) "Yes."

So I watched as he leaned over the bed and took a great big sniff of the wet spot.

Eric: "Euuuuuueeaaaurrrghh!!!! Yes, that is pee."

Carol: "OH YAY!! YAY!!! IT'S PEE!! You didn't poke a hole in the baby!!"

Eric: "Yeah. Haha, you peed on the bed!!"

Carol: "Even better, I peed on your CROTCH in the bed!!"

Eric bent over and sniffed the bed again.

Carol: "Ugh! Why are you doing that again???"

Eric: "Euuuuaaaeurgh!! Oh yeah, that's pee."

Carol: "You're gross, why did you smell that again??"

And that is the story of the hottest sex ever. Eric is now washing the sheets.

Why not?

I am writing Christmas cards today. I am very late with Christmas cards this year, but I do have all my shopping done, so I figure as long as I get them in the mail by tomorrow morning, they will arrive in time for Christmas, and no one will be too put out.

Just now, I finished addressing the envelopes. My hand is crampy, and I am exhilarated with my accomplishment. Eric and I have an arrangement where he'll lick the envelopes after I'm all done writing the cards and addressing them. So I picked up my big stack of enveloped, addressed cards and went to look for Eric.

Carol: Eric!!

Eric: Yes?

Carol: Where are you?

Eric: I'm in here.

Carol: Where? In the washroom?

Eric: Yes.

Carol: Are you pooing?

Eric: Yes, don't come near here, it doesn't smell good!

Carol: Are you in the hall washroom?

Eric: YES, go away!! I can hear you coming closer!!

Carol: (covering nose) It's okay...here, while you're doing that, can you lick these envelopes?
(rounds the corner to see Eric half-squating on the toilet with what appears to be his hand up his bum)

Eric: NO!!!! GO AWAY!!! I will NOT do that here!!

Carol: Why? Because the cards will smell like your poo?

Eric: Yes!! And....OTHER REASONS!! Go away, I'm wiping my poo!!!

Carol: Oh. Okay.

He's also not happy that after months of NOT blogging, I've decided that I would blog this.

Happy holidays!

Eric is a Good Negotiator

We're looking at getting a new car for the baby. We currently drive a 1998 Nissan Altima that my parents gave to us for free. Free! My mother had fit of overconcern last week in which she demanded that we buy a new car because a 1998 Nissan Altima is apparently a death trap for babies and/or pregnant women. Who knew?

While not looking forward to having car payments again, I was happy to agree to her demands. I would feel safer with my new baby in a new car. Also, the Altima is stinky, despite many professional cleanings and steam cleaning of all surfaces. We decided we may as well get a bigger car, something with more heft. We went the way of my parents and settled on a Toyota RAV4. It has a ton of cargo room and an optional V6 engine! Plus it's very very roomy inside. And it's not weirdly ugly like the new Honda CRV.

We are just in time to get the very last of the 2007 models before the 2008 models come out. This may be a good bargaining situation. Our friend Luke's mom is apparently an animal at bargaining for cars. We got Luke to ask for her advice, and she said to decide on exactly what you want, decide exactly what you want to pay for it, and then just keep asking. Eric took this advice very literally.

As reference, the little Mazda Protege5 we used to lease cost nearly $400/month.

A 2007 RAV4 Limited model with a V6 engine (according to the website) costs $525.74/month to lease, with $5000 down.

Eric got on the phone with a salesperson who had this car on his lot.

Eric: I want to pay $300.
Salesman: ...I'm sorry, what?
Eric: I want to pay $300 a month for this car.
Salesman: Are you serious?
Eric: Yes. I am serious.
Salesman: (punches in some numbers on his calculator) But you'd have to put down $14,000 in order to pay $300 a month!
Eric: Yes, I don't want to do that either. I just want to pay $300 a month.
Salesman: Umm...
Eric: I stand firm at $300.
Salesman: (punches in some numbers on his calculator) Okay, no way. You're asking me for like a $10,000 discount. We only make a $3059 profit on this car. Call me back when you've thought about it.
Eric: Okay.

Eric thought about it overnight and decided he still wanted to pay $300 a month for the car. He just called the salesman back, and is once again trying once to get our car for $300 a month. His one concession is that we don't need the V6 engine.

We'll see how that goes.

Pregnancy Update: Second Trimester Fun!

Everyone says that the second trimester of a pregnancy is the "honeymoon period". I have no effing idea what they're talking about. It's better than the first trimester for sure, but it's NOTHING like my honeymoon. For starters, I could sleep comfortably on my stomach during my honeymoon, and I could have sex in full parallel positions without feeling weird in my belly. But in any case, here are some fun pregnancy updates!

1) I Pee Funny
You know how when you hold your pee for a long time, and by the time you get to a toilet, it feels painfully good to release it? And then there's usually so much pee built up, that if you want to stretch your urethra a bit, you can push out and increase the force of your pee stream, and that feels good too? And then you might alternate the force of your pee to keep it from spraying in a weird direction and getting on your under-bum? Okay.

Lately, every time I go pee, it feels like I've been holding it for ages, even if I only got the urge to go 5 seconds ago. And every time I sit down and start peeing, it feels painfully good. Nothing wrong with this, no one is going to complain about consistent orgasmic urinating experiences. But the weird part is, when I now push down a bit to increase the force of the pee stream, the pee NO LONGER COMES OUT ANY FASTER! In fact, it consistently comes out in a non-satisfying near-trickle. This results in pee on my under-bum, and sometimes pee on my under-thigh. And if I push out on the pee, I can feel the force of the push against my own organs, but the pee stays the same near-trickle. It makes me feel impotent.

2) I Brush My Teeth Funny
I do this thing when I brush my teeth where I'll end every session with a vigorous tongue-brushing. Often, when I brush too far back on my tongue, I'll gag. This is not a big deal for me, and I'm used to it. It sounds gross, because I make a huge gagging sound, but all in all it hurts no one.

One of the biggest trademarks of the second trimester is supposed to be acid reflux. The baby is pushing up on my stomach or something, and so it makes it easier for the acid and stuff to spill back up into my esophagus. I've never had issues with acid reflux before, and I was having a pretty easy time of it until last Sunday when I made lasagna for dinner. I ate a lot of lasagna at around 6:30pm, and then at around midnight I was brushing my teeth for bed. At the end of my toothbrushing session, I brushed my tongue. Vigorously. I gagged.

And barfed lasagna right on my toothbrush, into the sink.

I wouldn't have even realized right away that I had barfed if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes in the mirror. I've never watched myself barf before. It was gross. And then it tasted like lasagna barf in my mouth, and there was barf all over my toothbrush, and in the sink all mixed in with the toothpaste foam. It was really nasty.

3) I Burp Funny
On Monday I went up to Markham to have dinner with my Mamee and my brother. We went to a Chinese place where I ordered Malaysian Beef Curry with rice. It was delicious. It was a really large helping, and I ate it all and I felt wonderful.

And then as we were driving away from the restaurant, I started burping a little. Just normal post-dinner burps, they weren't huge belches, just small discreet little burpies as air bubbles made their way back up my food tube. Unfortunately, due to the acid reflux described above, these little burps resulted in little mouthfuls of Malaysian Curry Beef Barf being squirted up into my mouth each time. And then I had to swallow it, because it's not like it was a large mouthful, and plus we were in the car. I wish I could say that it just tasted like the Malaysian Curry Beef that I had just ingested mere minutes earlier, but it tasted like curry beef barf, with extra garlic. I don't know where the extra garlic came from. It was really gross.

I will now end with a pregnant haiku:
I eat barf for you
Please don't grow to be a jerk
I will kick your ass

Five Thousand More of These and I Can Make a Jacket

I like to peel the skin off my feet. I used to peel from my big toes, as well as that fleshy underpart on the outer side of each foot, as well as sometime right in the centre of that front pad area. These were the areas I would sometimes get hard callousy skin that eventually got kind of itchy and bothered me. Instead of going to a pedicurist and having these areas sloughed off with professional tools, I would sit down with the spiky fold-out part of a nail clipper, create a starting cut, and start peeling.

My goal would be to peel off the largest single piece of skin possible without causing bleeding. Oftentimes, I would get carried away and end up bleeding anyway, and then my feet would hurt, and it would be difficult to walk, and I would have to wear bandaids for a few days. Like a perverse tribute to my ancestors who had their feet bound for reasons of perceived beauty.

Anyway, I have gradually phased out the peeling of foot skin in the past several years so that now, it's pretty much strictly toeskin peeling. Only the hard skin on the outer-under edge of each big toe. I had decided that peeling from the other parts and making them bloody was too painful, and so now I only peel the big toe, and only on occasions where the skin has gotten way too thick and hard for any sort of comfort, and only when Eric isn't looking.

Eric HATES when I do this. It grosses him out more than any other thing that I do. This includes popping all forms of pus-filled growth on either my own or his body/face, picking all forms of scabs on either my own or his body/face, and farting everywhere due to pregnancy. It's possible that the main reason he hates this particular habit is because I like to save the large pieces of toeskin as triumphant trophies, and I leave them lying about the condo. They sit and dry with each passing hour, turning into hard scratchy pieces of skin-sheet-rock. I leave them on the coffee table, on my nightstand and if he's really lucky, on his nightstand as a token of my love and esteem. He will get angry and loud, and gather up the toeskin sheets and flush them down the toilet, while I scrabble after him trying to pry them from his fingers, begging to be allowed to keep them for just one more week.

He has been so strict in the flushing of my toeskin, that I have taken to saving them in my pockets. Not any pocket in particular, just any pocket of what I happen to be wearing. This usually means the pockets of pyjama pants, pyjama tops, jeans, or the pockets bathrobes. And then I forget about them.

When Eric does my laundry, the pieces of toeskin will reconstitute in the washing machine, rehydrating into soft supple sheets of what could be the soft virgin skin from an innocent child. It's really quite lovely. Unfortunately, when Eric finds these large, soft, rehydrated sheets of skin, he gets ESPECIALLY grossed out and throws an otherwise even bigger fit than if it had just been on his nightstand.

Earlier today, I did a load of red and purple clothes. As I pulled them from the washing machine, out tumbled one of these pieces of reanimated toeskin. And not only had it been given new life, it had been DYED PURPLE!! It was one of the coolest things ever!!

Since Eric didn't sleep all last night and stayed up working, I've left them on his nightstand as a special present, to show him how much I love him. I think he's going to like them.

He shoots, he scores!

After copious amounts of the sexy sex, one of Eric's sperm have made it to my fallopian tubes where it invaded a brand new ovum, breaking down its barriers, thrusting its way inside, thereby creating life!! LIFE!!!

I'm pregnant!!

We're both extremely excited, and it's one of the reasons I was unable to perform on the blog for the past two months - every time I tried to sit down and write about anything, all I could think of were pregnancy-related tales. My friend Jennifer got married to my friend Christopher, and there were hilarious things that went down at that wedding, and I still couldn't bring myself to concentrate. But hopefully, this is the start of a new chapter...maybe once I get all this pregnancy gold out of my system, I'll be able to blog properly again. And so begins The Pregnancy: More Than You Need To Know.

Where Do Babies Come From?
Let's start at the very beginning; a very good place to start. This was a planned pregnancy. Eric and I had decided that we wanted to aim for an early-in-the-year baby so that it would have an edge at school in beating out the other kids. Even before conception, we were setting this child up for a life of high expectations and enormous pressure, resulting inevitably in disappointment and low self-worth. So in May, a week after my last menstrual period, which started on Sunday May 13, we started humping like animals twice a day.

For those of you who recall my last two blog posts, you will remember that I came down with a very nasty UTI just after this time period. That was a direct result of the aforementioned humping a la animals. I didn't look it up beforehand, so after sex, I would stuff tissues between my legs to keep the good stuff in, and then fall asleep like the lazy whore wife that I am. If it was the nighttime round of babymaking hump, I would sleep all night. If it was the morning/afternoon round of babymaking hump, I would sleep for an hour or two. This lack of peeing after sex twice a day for a week apparently caused my vagina to marinate in enough unsavoury juices to bestow upon me a mighty mighty UTI. I have subsequently learned that when attempting to get pregnant, one should lie down in a sperm-filled state for 10-15 minutes at most, and then get up and pee like any normal vagina-respecting woman.

After the many bouts of fever and sweating out in bed, and soaking my sheets like I had peed them up, I was convinced that even had there been a little fetus in my womb, it would have baked to death. Here's a nugget of help for you people who may require the use of disposable pregnancy tests: First Response stinks like a cheesedick! (not literally) You know the one? It has a commercial with a pretty healthy looking brunette who says "There is such a thing as being a little bit pregnant". That's total crap! First Response is supposed to detect the pregnancy hormone up to 3 days before your expected period or some crap like that. I took it the NIGHT BEFORE my expected period, mere hours really, and it told me negative. It looked me right in the face and showed me one pink line instead of two. So I assumed I wasn't pregnant, and I went to the pub and had me some sweet sweet alkyhall. The next day, I missed my period.

And the rest my friends, is history.

Morning Sickness
Zero, zip, nada! Our friends Lindsey and Jordan are two months more pregnant than we are, and from the sounds of it, Lindsey has been puking her innards out for months. She's experiencing aversions to various meats on a rotating basis, and barfs almost daily. I know nothing of Lindsey's pain, because my baby will eat anything. Just like mommy! Baby is a food slut.

Anal Sickness
Here is where the first trimester kicked me in the anus, literally. I was so constipated, I thought I would never poo normally again. I have never ever, in my entire life, experienced this kind of constipation before. My bowels seized up and simply decided to stop moving. Upon reflection, I'm not sure I can decide whether I would have wanted to trade in the constipation for the morning sickness. Pooing is one of the most joyous parts of my day, and while the universe handed me the most precious gift of all in the form of a child growing in my belly, it seems it took away something nearly equally close to my heart.

I noticed it just a couple days after I took a non-retarded pregnancy test (ClearBlue). I wasn't pooing! So when I went to see my family doctor, I mentioned it to her, and she said that it was a typical pregnancy thing. I was horrified. Most laxatives were out of the question, in case they induced labour and flushed out the baby. I went and stocked up on prunes and oranges and Benefibre. The prunes worked best, but I had to be careful; 3-4 prunes would bring out a non-stellar but passable poo. 6 prunes would give me farty farty diarrhea. The farty farty diarrhea would spray the inside of the toilet bowl with such force that it took a couple of flushes to clear it out.

Even so, the prunes were not the life line I had been hoping for. While it did cause me to poo, I noticed that my poo was about two days backed up. I like to purposely put markers in my poo. For example, I will intermittently eat things that will be identifiable in poo form, such as corn, or spicy food, or lots of spinach. This is so I can observe the turnover time for food to become poo in my system. From past experience, I know that the corn eaten at noon on Monday should appear by bedtime the same day, or worst case scenario, Tuesday morning. What I noticed was that the corn eaten on Monday would not appear until AT LEAST Wednesday, and only with the help of prunes. Without prunes, it wouldn't come out at all. While this was disturbing and frustrating, the worst part of this situation was that my poo became the STINKIEST POO EVER MADE!

I think that it makes sense that the longer poo has to fester in your intestines, the more it will break down and decompose, and the more it will get stinky. But SWEET LORD, the smells that came out of my body as the prune-induced poo exited my godforsaken anus were pure evil! Gone were the days when I could sit on the toilet with a book or magazine or supermarket flyer and slowly, leisurely enjoy my poo. Now I had to quickly sit and expel my gas and nasty unsatisfying little logs of poo, and then hold my breath, depriving my little one of any oxygen whatsoever while I wiped up my Bumhole of Satan, and flushed that accursed poo down. I would have thought that once the lid was down and the Poo of the Damned were riding their way down to Lake Ontario, I would be able to breath. But as I would exhale and start breathing normally while washing my hands, the smell would linger in the air, thick as smoke, assaulting my nostrils, causing me to literally choke and gag and dryheave as I soaped up and rinsed. One time, I even made a poo that smelled like farm animals.

I'm currently 13 weeks pregnant, and I'm relieved (get it? Relieved? Haha...) to report that the constipation has dissipated. In fact, the drippy little plinky poos of yestermonth have been replaced by some of the largest poos I have EVER made! Earlier this week, I think it was Monday, I made an enormous poo, and I mean ENORMOUS. It was thick and luscious, but not too wet, and it came out easily with what appeared to be a force of its own. It wiped up clean, and it smelled like NOTHING!!

Farty McFartfart
I'm only just entering my second trimester right now, and this is my first pregnancy. As a result, I shouldn't be "showing" very much yet. My in laws seem to be looking forward to physical signs of my pregnancy, and are definitely on the lookout. More than once, I've had this conversation with my mom-in-law.

MIL: "Ooh! Is that a little bump I see?!"

Carol: "No, it's just gas."

I have so much gas, that usually by mid-afternoon, I look very very pregnant. My belly sits high and proud, giving all and sundry the distinct impression that I am great with child. In actuality, I am great with gas. Much much gas. My child is only just the size of a jumbo shrimp this week. It's no reason for me to look like there is a large balloon in my shirt.

In the past, I drew a strict line with passing gas. While Eric would liberally fart in bed and at mealtimes, I personally never felt comfortable tooting in his direct non-toilet related presence. If we were watching tv, and I felt some gas coming on, I would retire to a bathroom to release said gas. Eric came to believe that I was physically unable to fart unless I was on a toilet with my pants pulled down.

I am now so bloated that all bets are off, and if I can feel a fart, I will do it anywhere. I do it on the couch while watching tv. I do it on the couch while watching tv and eating. I do it in bed. I've lost all censorship abilities with my gas. I feel that if the gas is sufficient to make me look 7 months pregnant, then I really owe it to my body to just let it out whenever I can.

Two days ago, I cleaned out the cupboard under our ensuite sink. We had lots of bottles of stuff we don't use anymore, and the bandaid drawer needed organizing...stuff like that. Well, I sat down on the bathroom scale to tend to this chore, and sometime near the end of my cleaning, I stood up to get a plastic bag. When I came back, instead of sitting back down on the bathroom scale, I chose instead to squat down in front of the cupboard as my buttcheeks were feeling a little sore. As I settled into my squat, the longest, loudest, most obscenely sustained fart RIPPED out from between my buttcheeks. I squatted there, frozen in utter horrified curiosity, as this mighty mighty fart echoed against the bathroom walls and tiles. The force of this fart cannot be overestimated. I was wearing full bum underwear and pants. And as the fart continued to liberate itself from my bowels, I could feel the warmth of the forced air as it whooshed past my ankles. I could feel my fart on my ankles! And the best part? This fart smelled like nothing!! You could have pressed your face against my butt and wedged your nose between my cheeks and let this fart travel straight into your nasal passage, and I don't think you would have smelt anything except the Dove bodywash I used that morning.

In fact, none of my many many farts smell. I swear to god. If you don't believe me, come over and I will fart on you.

Hmm. In conclusion, I never really intended for this to become a poo post. But it seems it became a poo post of its own accord. Ah, this blog is like my child; it may not turn out the way I expect or intend, but it's perfect just the way it is and I love it. Poo on, my blog child. Poo on.

The Newlyweds Blog Game - Results!

Firstly, I know I said the results would be up by the end of last week. It turns out I suck pickled ass and I'm sorry that some of you had to wait for the results. Secondly, thank you to those of you who sent me threatening messages regarding the absence of said results. That was nice.

And now, the results:

Two weeks ago, I got a urinary tract infection. I'm quite sure that this infection was caused by the increased amount of sex-making that occurred this month, possibly brought on by the unbearable sexiness of my best friend Peggy's boyfriend, who we finally met at the end of May. There is no way of telling for sure, but no one can deny that Ryan is sexy to the max, and Eric for one was enthralled with his charms.

I chose to leave this UTI untreated; I had never had one before, and many of my friends had, and they just drank lots of cranberry juice and peed it out. Gloria, if you recall, was urinary tractally infected every week by her boyfriend's stinky cheesedick, and she got through without antibiotics. So I stocked up on lots of bottles of Ocean Spray 100% Pure Juice Cranberry, plus Gloria brought over her extensive stock of cranberry extract pills, plus some crazy Chinese herbs which looked like dried cat hair and baby rat droppings. She boiled these in water and made me drink the whole pot.

One week later, I experienced two days of intense abdominal pain, and decided something was amiss. Since it was Sunday, Eric called Telehealth at which point I got to describe the feeling in my bowels, stomach, vagina, as well as the state of my poo to a nice nurse. I enjoyed that experience immensely. Within an hour, I had me a prescription for antibiotics to treat my UTI that may have started down the path to a kidney infection. That same hour, the fevers started.

Amidst great throbbing headaches, I would suddenly feel freezing shivering cold, while my body temperature went up. I would put on two layers of winter pyjamas, with a hand towel laid against my skin at the front of my body, and one laid out on my back under the pyjamas. I would lie in bed under two down duvets and a big fleecy blanket made by my Aunt Angela, folded in half, with two large hot microwaved bean pouches in the blankets with me. I would pop two extra strength Advil and try to fall asleep.

The abdominal pain wouldn't go away no matter how I lay down:
Eric: "Just lie on your back, that's the best position"

But it didn't help:
Carol: "It hurts"

When I finally could fall asleep, I would wake up 30 minutes later with my clothes and towels drenched in sweat. Eric would come to help me:
Eric: "Let me take that off for you"

The towels would be hot and wet against my skin, and I wanted those taken out first:
Carol: "Oh my god, pull it out"

Eric would pull the towels out of my pyjamas and they would be hot and drenched in his hands:
Eric: "Oh baby, you're so wet"

Once the towels came out, all I could feel was how wet my sleeves and my pants were. The sweat was still dripping down my arms and legs and between my non-boobs, and I couldn't get the clothes off fast enough:
Carol: "Faster!! Faster!!"

Eric would take the drier parts of the clothes and wipe me down, to make sure the sweat didn't sit on my body:
Carol: "Wipe my bum, too"

Then he would bring out two more sets of winter pyjamas and bundle me back up before I got too cold. He also replaced the towels:
Carol: "I need another towel"

After I had sweat out two or three times like this, Eric would decide it was too many times, and that no matter how much he wiped me down, I wouldn't be clean enough to be comfortable:
Eric: "You have to shower again"

And he kept track of when I was supposed to take my antibiotics and fed me more Advil to help me battle the fevers and abdominal pain:
Eric: "Swallow it down baby"

And those, my friends, are the results of the Newlyweds Blog Game.

I have learned 3 things from this experience and I will end by sharing these with you:
1) The easy way to lose 4 pounds is to get yourself an infection and sweat out fevers in your sleep 12 times in a day and a half
2) The peeing-after-sex rule should be very stringently followed - never again will I pass out directly after orgasm like the oversatisfied whore wife that I am.
3) Dried Cat Hair Baby Rat Poo Tea will not cure a UTI, no matter what Gloria says

A Newlyweds Blog Game!

Here are some phrases exchanged by the sexy Prince Eric and I in the past few days. The game is this: What do they mean and what do they refer to?

(Also, if you know what they refer to - you know who you are - you can't play! If you do, I will cut you.)

And now, The Game:

Eric: "Just lie on your back, that's the best position"

Carol: "It hurts"

Eric: "Let me take that off for you"

Carol: "Oh my god, pull it out"

Eric: "Oh baby, you're so wet"

Carol: "Faster!! Faster!!"

Eric: "Swallow it down baby"

Carol: "I need another towel"

Eric: "You have to shower again"

Carol: "Wipe my bum, too"

A follow-up blog post will come by the end of the week. Happy playing!!

Carol Finds a New Snack

I had to write a new blog post, just to get the scary picture from the last post from being the first thing people see when they check the blog. The eyes! They burn my soul!!

I know I promised posts involving Egyptian poo and farts and smells and camels, but those are not for today. Today we talk about H&A Natural Bars.

I love H&A Natural Bars. They are sold in the concourse under the building where I work. They contain all natural ingredients, and unlike most granola bars, are not fried in oil. They are sweetened with honey and orange blossom water. They are thick and chewy and a little bit sticky, and feel substantial in my belly. They really hit the spot at 3:00pm, when I need a pick-me-up. They cost almost $2 each, and they are bleeding my (Eric's) wallet dry. They are made in Ottawa, so I feel like I am supporting the Canadian economy.

My favourite H&A Natural Bar is the Seed Bar. Seed Bars contain pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, sesame seeds, flax seeds, honey, orange blossom water, and lemon juice. And that is all!! That is literally the entire ingredient list!

Discover H&A Natural Bars today.