Womb Watch 2014

I'm beginning to understand how Jennifer Aniston feels - her lovelife has been a source of jokes from her friends, her hair is so amazing that it inspired a revolution, and the vacancy of her womb seems to be a constant topic of conversation.

If you're a woman of child-bearing age and you happen to also have perfect hair like Jen and I do, you can probably relate, too. EVERY single time I walk into a doctor's office, no matter what my symptoms are, I'm asked if I'm pregnant. When I politely but definitively tell them 'no', I am asked several follow-up questions to which my answers are always ignored, and then I'm told, 'we're going to have you take a test anyway'. Like I'm a 16 year old who is going to hide a pregnancy and then give birth in a bathroom at the prom. I could run into the Emergency Room on fire, with flames shooting out of my head, and they'd probably make me pee in a cup before extinguishing my perfect Jen Aniston hair.

Every time I mention that a baby is cute or that I heard a funny thing from a toddler, I'm flooded with questions of when I will be making a kid of my own. Every time I say, 'Guess what?' I'm bombarded with, 'OMG! You're pregnant!!' Nope. Just wanted to share that I have a 3 day weekend/upcoming vacation/great seats to a concert.

It's not that I don't like kids. I LOVE kids! From newborns to teenagers, I am a free sitter of all. I look forward to spending a day with a niece or nephew or a friend's kid. I get to feed them ice cream for dinner, be fun and play the whole time, and then my favorite part of all - RETURN them. When they get sick, or have an attitude, or I just want to be responsibility free, I get to take them back to their parents. The awesomeness of this arrangement cannot be over sold. It's really the best thing EVER.

And also, here's my soapbox moment for the day - it's kind of crappy that society puts this kind of pressure on people. Like the lack of producing an infant somehow makes your relationship, or worse - life, incomplete. I assure you, the people who don't have kids find plenty of other wonderful things to fill their lives with - like travel and sleeping and not cleaning up puke.

Here's the other piece of this womb watch intensity - it's not like we're 18. One of us is pushing 30 and the other is pushing a number a few bigger than that. We waited a tad longer than a lot of people do to enter wedded matrimony, and I feel the need to explain this to all who inquire about our lack of tiny humans. We've been told by countless people that the first year of marriage is the hardest...until you have kids, and then relationship satisfaction often plummets. Awesome - sounds fun - can't wait. Having made it through Year 1 with flying colors, I'm looking forward to a few more calendars filled with vacations, extravagant gifts, and not having to push a grocery cart with an extra 30 pounds of a small, smelly creature.

While I do think that it is sweet that people are anxious for us to start a family, and I sometimes feel like a jerk saying this, but I'm not really interested in letting a tiny human keep me up all hours of the night, puke on me, and suck all of the money my husband and I spend on ourselves. At least not quite yet. Before you write me a letter professing my lack of a heart or maternal instinct, let me say that if we end up with a small creature that bears a resemblance to us, I'm sure I'll be thrilled.

Know what else is thrilling? Sleeping in on weekends. Having nobody puke on you. Not having to explain to a tiny human why they can't lick the floor. Getting to have as many date nights as we want without having to pay someone to keep the tiny puke-y floor licker alive for a few hours.

You can try to argue that logic all you want, but there is really no rebuttle to that. And despite the best efforts of doctors everywhere trying to prove me wrong, I will take this opportunity to confirm that there is currently not a future puke-y floor licker renting out my uterus. Hope you didn't have December 2014 in the office pool.

All Is Fair In Love, War, and Games

When you work in healthcare, there is no such thing as a 'snow day'. There is, however, such thing as an 'everyone in our office called in sick' day that also happened to fall on a Monday that greeted us Iowans with snow, sleet, and freezing rain.

I woke up exhausted from another night of sporadic sleep, texted my boss at 6:50am that I was not coming in until later, and promptly went back to sleep. When I woke an hour and a half later, I had a text from her that said, 'Don't go in - I'm closing the office.' Basically the best boss in the history of the world.

Monday is traditionally Ryan's day off, and as someone who needs her alone time in order to not become a raving lunatic, I was very concerned about 'crashing' his time off. Fortunately (for a lot of reasons), he is a much better person than I am and was happy to share his time with me.

We are both incredibly competitive (one of us, who shall remain nameless, once yelled 'In your face!' when their bag filled up the fastest at a charity blood drive) and we love games so we decided to make this a day of playing. We started with Monopoly, a game that I have yet to win. Here's my theory on why: I'm too nice. I get very sad when the other player doesn't have very much money, I always agree to trades that help my opponent, and though I own Park Place and Boardwalk almost every time, I can never bring myself to put up hotels because I feel bad charging others so much. I'm an intelligent, successful woman and yet I cannot convince myself that this is make believe money. Much like I once got into a VERY heated conversation with Ryan about how we were going to spend the $625M lottery jackpot (that we didn't even have a ticket for), I sometimes have a hard time separating reality from fantasy. Even after getting a pep talk about how it is okay to win at Monopoly because it's just a game, I can't in good conscience participate in a scheme where the rich get richer while the poor have to mortgage pretend properties to pay me.

After realizing that I am never actually going to win at that game, we set out for our weekly date night. We decided to try bowling, as I have no ethical issues when it comes to winning that game. What I failed to take into consideration is that in 3 years worth of date nights, I've never actually beat him in bowling. Nor did I account for the fact that we choose which alley to frequent based on who has a 7 lb ball that I can use, because my girlie arms can't throw 8 or more pounds with any sort of regularity. Needless to say, there were no victory dances done on my part. Out of 4 games, I broke 100 once.

Down 0-2 on the day and not knowing when to cut my losses, we headed to Toys R Us to pick out a new game. After browsing a few aisles and getting over the initial shock of the going rate for board games ($35 each?!? Really?!), we settled on a $6 pack of Uno and another reasonably priced card game, Rack-O. The moment we walked in the door, I was opening Rack-O and rapidly reading the instructions so I could prepare my winning strategy. The basis of the game for those of you unfamiliar with Rack-O is that you get dealt 10 cards and have to place them in the holder in the order you are dealt them. Then you take turns swapping cards from the deck for cards in your hand in an attempt to get all 10 cards in numerical order first. There is a point value associated, and the first to 500 wins. My mom was a math teacher for 17 years...you'd think I'd have this in the bag. Well, after approximately 6 rounds, I was down 200 points and did what any self respecting adult would...I quit and then texted his mom.

That's right, I told on him. Unfortunately, she apparently can't ground him for winning. Down 0-3 on the week and unable to convince Ryan to re-download Words With Friends (I RULE at word games), my last hope is that sweet, sweet beacon of draw fours. And if I lose at Uno tonight, we're going to a blood drive for next week's date night!

Love is...(a sappy Valentine's Day post)

1.)A first trip out of town:

2.)Wearing flannel:

3.)Our first Valentine's day:

4.)Cardinals baseball:

5.)A picnic in the park:

6.)Matching shirts:

7.)Being goofy together:

8.)Kissing like no one is watching:

9.)Feeling like the only two people in the world:

10.)Being in your arms:

If You Need Me, I'll Be Sleeping

There are two types of people in this world: those who can function without a lot of sleep, and those who cannot. I am unabashedly in the latter category. Ryan and I know each other's triggers pretty precisely these days - if he is cranky, it's because he is hungry. If I'm cranky, it's because I am tired.

I have ALWAYS loved my sleep. When I was a teenager, I made it very clear to my very best friend Ashley that if she EVER called me or showed up to my house before 10am, we would no longer be friends. And 10am was me being generous, because I loved her. I'd really prefer not to be woken until noon. And I went to bed early! If I made it to 11pm on any given night, it was a big deal. Word on the street is that even as a newborn, I didn't want to wake up even to eat...I've literally always loved my sleep.

So it's quite unfortunate (for me and those who must deal with me) that I am on day #10 of getting little to no sleep every night. Ryan calls me an 'anxious' sleeper, and says that at times I roll over every 10 - 15 seconds trying to get comfortable. Recently, during one of these gymnastic routines, he laid his arm over me and I settled down for a little while. The next morning, I said 'that was so sweet when you tried to comfort me last night', to which my sometimes too honest husband replied, 'actually I was trying to pin you down so I could get some sleep.'

I say all of this to set up a case for my defense: Lack of sleep turns me into a completely different person and I cannot be held responsible for what I say or do while tired, including, but not limited to:

1.)While in a sleep deprived state, I recently spent several minutes trying to start my car before finally summoning Ryan to the garage to help. He got in, took one look, and asked me where my keys were. They were in my hand. I forgot to put them in the ignition.

2.)Once actually asleep, I was having a terrible nightmare about a murderer who had killed all of my co-workers and knew I was still alive in the building. I was hiding under a desk and could hear the bad man's footsteps getting closer. I was holding my breath trying not to make noise, and apparently I was holding my breath in real life, too. Ryan reached his hand to my chest to make sure I was still breathing, and I, still thinking he was a murderer, sprang up and started trying to beat him up.

3.)My alarm went off for work and I immediately started weeping. The ugly cry. Ryan held me for a good 5 minutes, gently pulled away to assess how badly I was still in need of comfort, and I started sobbing harder. He kept asking me what was wrong and all I could say was, 'It's not time yet! I'm so tired! It's not time yet!'

4.)At the Starbucks window, I tried to pay for my coffee with my Kohl's department store card. When that didn't work, I handed him my driver's license. Neither of those things buy coffee, apparently.

5.)My boss proactively handed me tissues, told me to clear my calendar, and offered her house up as a place to take a nap.

And like any good wife would, I can't let this post come to an end without also throwing my husband under the bus (while being fully aware that his sleep deprivation is 100% inflicted by yours truly):

In the midst of a rare but peaceful slumber, I woke to Ryan's face thisclose to mine while he was tugging at the pillow under my head. Teeth clenched and eyes glazed over in that universal 'sleep walking/talking' look, he growled 'I told you I NEED this!' and ripped the pillow out from underneath me. He then promptly rolled over, and threw my pillow on the floor.

If you see me in the next few days and I don't seem quite like myself, please remember the following: