T minus 6 days until Husband’s vasectomy.

This morning Maverick came up to me and asked me to lean down so he could whisper something in my ear.

When I leaned over, he said: “Tomorrow me and Daddy are going to the store to get you a whole bunch of nothing!”

Aww. How sweet.

I’m thinking of starting a new series on my blog called “First World Problems.”  

Here is my first First World Problem: my mother-in-law bought me a Groupon for three hours of house cleaning a few months ago. It was right around the time that I gave up completely on cleaning my bathrooms, so it was excellent timing. 

I have been trying to schedule an appointment with these people and finally took their “first available” opening. Because I am pregnant and everything is a big effing deal I stressed for an entire day over whether or not I should stay in the house with Asher while she cleaned, or if we should leave. Should I take what little valuable jewelry I own with me? Should I hide it? Am I being crazy? I should wash our bath rugs. Right now.  

Things of that nature.

To make a long and boring story short, the girl got in a car wreck on her way to my house and had to reschedule for today. So for the second time in less than a week, I went through the house and cleared the floor of toys, hid our important paperwork and pulled all of the towels out of the bathrooms. I crammed a few items in my purse that have value. I woke Asher up from his nap early and left the house for several hours in the pouring rain so we wouldn’t be in the girl’s way while she cleaned.

I left a key for her.

It was a car key.

Her phone was dead so she couldn’t call, and when I got home with two cranky kids I found a note with the CAR KEY I left and an apology to me that she couldn’t open my door.

My second First World problem is that I can’t back out of my driveway because I seem to have lost my ability to drive. I fully expect to get pulled over for suspected drunk driving at some point soon. Here is a conversation I had with Maverick this morning when we were leaving for school:

Maverick: “We have to be nice to the plants. It’s our job to take care of them.”

Maverick: “So is petting them with your car nice? Because you just ran through our grass and petted that bush with the van.” 

My third First World Problem is that Husband and I swapped phones and I really don’t know how to explain what has happened … except to say that every single picture I ever took with my old iPhone is now downloaded to our computer, including pictures like this.

 
 And this.

 
 And this one here.

You see … I text pictures to my girlfriends sometimes, either for entertainment’s sake, or to make a point, or because I need a helpful opinion — like this series of photos below. I asked my friend who is a scarf guru to help me tie a scarf correctly, and that explains why I have all of these pictures. Not that it’s any less embarrassing once you know the explanation.
 

I think this last one was me showing another mom what some sunglasses and a stern look can do. It frightens children, that’s what. I’m just grateful that Husband didn’t ask for an explanation for anything that he saw. I figure he either didn’t want to know, or just didn’t care. But seriously … if I found something like this on his phone, I’d have some questions.

A few months ago, when it dawned on me that Penelope Rose was going to be born in mid-June and I would have a 4-year-old, a 1-year-old, and a newborn in my house with no Husband around between the hours of 8:15 a.m. and 8:30 p.m., I freaked.

Not that our family isn’t helpful, they are. But they also have lives and jobs, and while I know that they really do care about my mental state and the conditions that their grandchildren are living in … I don’t expect them to drop everything and rush over to my house to hold a crying baby while I clean up pee in the boy’s bathroom or deal with some other catastrophe. 

Okay … scratch that. I actually may need someone to do that, let’s not kid ourselves. But I can’t expect it on a daily basis. And so, I decided that the best course of action was to enroll my oldest boy in day camp for the summer at the preschool he attends. I gathered the information and presented it to Husband. It’s Monday thru Friday, all day long! It’s so much fun! He would already know his teachers! Look at this! Look at that! You could take him in the mornings on your way to work! Exclamation point, exclamation point. 

Husband was intrigued until he saw the price tag, and then he basically told me to forget it. We can’t afford it, he said. Well … no. We can’t. But I also cannot afford to lose my mind, because I really need it. Our first two children were horribly colicky, so I assume the third will follow suit. The thought of having a colicky newborn doesn’t frighten me so much … I’ve dealt with it before. But the idea of a colicky newborn plus my sons for the entire summer TERRIFIES ME.

So I said to Husband, “You think this is impossible? YOU WATCH ME.” And I proceeded to stuff cash in a drawer for months. I would make headway, and then something would come up and I’d have to take some of it out to pay for something else. But I kept scraping it together and telling myself this has to happen because if it doesn’t the Earth will open up and swallow me. The Earth will also open up and swallow me if Husband doesn’t get the can of white paint out this weekend so I can touch up the spots where ONE has peeled it off, and if the curtains I ordered from overstock.com don‘t make it here by Sunday, but that is a whole other issue.

And then, the day came. Today. I have the money together, before the deadline. We’re paying for the entire summer up front, suckas.

Husband looked at the cash with an expression that said he could think of a thousand other things he would rather spend it on than day camp. I looked at the money, I looked at him, and I decided it was one of my biggest accomplishments to date as a stay-at-home mom. Then I got mad at him for not making a big huge deal over it, because can’t he see how awesome this is?! Come on, Husband. This is a lot of money! I wanted a high-five, or an “You are an amazing specimen,” or maybe a simple, “You were right.”

But THEN, I realized that while I may have been the one stuffing the money into a drawer, I can’t take credit for what happened here. Yes, I am one awesome bitch, and Husband should acknowledge me as such, but this wasn’t really my doing. I had help.

I really don’t discuss my religious views here, mostly because I am confused about them, and I like to keep that part of my life relatively private. Which is kind of funny, because I openly discuss my purple vagina … clearly I’m not a very private person. But the God thing is different, maybe because I don’t know how I feel about putting the word “God” in the same blog entry as “my purple vagina.” But now that I’ve gone and done it, let’s just move forward.

People have many ways of looking at God and I respect them all. I happen to believe wholeheartedly that He blesses my family, not because we deserve it, but because He loves us and probably pities me and knows I need all the help I can get. Sometimes I get overwhelmed by how many of my prayers have been answered — literally all of them. Maybe it‘s because I’m choosy about what I ask for, but how can I keep something like that to myself? God knows what I need and He gives it to me. I am blessed.

Husband is not a religious-type man, and maybe he thinks I‘m crazy, but God answered my prayers when I asked for a husband who would understand me, and He answered my prayers when I asked for help getting hundreds of dollars together for summer camp. He gave me a van to drive because three kids don’t fit very well into a Chevy Malibu, and He gives me strength every day to deal with life. 

I’m a floundering, disastrous, messy-messerton — not like my house is messy, but my thoughts are — and there is absolutely no way I could figure things out on my own because life is terribly confusing. So THANK GOD there is a God somewhere up in space or wherever He is. I will keep on keepin’ on because I know He hears me when I call.

There was an explosion at the Boston Marathon today. My heart hurts for everyone affected. I don’t understand pure evil or the sad, scary world that we live in. It worries me to think that I’m responsible for three tiny people who will one day go out and interact with a whole lot of wackos. All I can do is pray and focus on the good, and when things happen that are completely out of my control, I hold tight to what I have.

We were dancing to Adele and he was cracking up, so I took a picture. Normally I would keep a shot like this to myself, because my face looks terribly fat. But sometimes emotion outweighs vanity, and the pure joy on his face makes me not really care what I look like.

It‘s important to me to capture and record these moments, because who can say what tomorrow will bring? Today, I have this.

My friend Brooke is visiting from Germany and she brought me the biggest jar of Nutella I have ever seen. It‘s literally the size of my head.

Oh man. I love Nutella. I’m eating it now, actually. I may eat it every day until this baby is born or I’m too fat to walk, whichever comes first.

Yesterday, Husband showed me something so awesome on the internet that it’s all I’ve been able to think about. 

Are you ready? Here it is.

(source)

So this morning I googled “cat bathing suit” and found all manner of bathing costumes, including this wolf one:

(source)

And so, when my mother came over to pick ONE up for church this morning, what was on my computer screen? This.

(source)

 Purrrfect.