First, I’m too scared to look at my lottery ticket, but I’m pretty sure I did not win.  This is mainly because I also did not get killed by a falling piano and I figure these things go hand in hand.  However, like a gift from God, my friend Jessie, who I have met I think only once or twice, but who has great shoes, wrote me asking me for a gory post about pregnancy.  Yes, you did Jessie.  Quit denying it.  If you’re a man, especially if you’re a man I have ever made eye contact with, you should stop reading right now.  Cover your ears and go, la la la la la and also gouge your eyes out.  The rest of you, let’s do this.

So Jessie is wondering if it’s as bad as they say and if she really will need these products she found on the interwebs.  I think she’s planning on getting pregnant one day and I’m going to go on record to say that that’s a bad idea.  Not for her particularly, but for women everywhere.  It’s just all around bad news.  But if you must, here are some scary ass products that will help or make things worse, depending.

Shrinxx Hips Reducer

Also useful as a gun holster.

Well hey!  Isn’t that a cute and jaunty belt!  I would totally wear that over a dress, paired with gladiator sandals and a fedora.  Oh, what’s that?  It’s a post pregnancy belt?  Weird, she doesn’t look like she had a baby.  She doesn’t look like she’s even thought about having a baby.  Her stomach has “No babies for me, no sir, not ever!” written all over it.  They think they can fool me with the granny panties, but in about five minutes she’s taking them off and going clubbing – because like I said, she has no kids and never will.

Prenatal Cradle V2 Supporter

You can't see the model's face. But she's crying a little.

What are these?  Sit down children and I will tell you.  According to the description: “Vaginal varicose veins and pubic swelling are just two of the things that no one tells you about beforehand. The Prenatal Cradle V2 Supporter($47) is designed to support the pubic area and help relieve the feeling that ‘everything is going to fall out the bottom.’”  So, here’s something I’ll just mention:  everything does fall out the bottom and relieving that feeling is not a good idea, because it’s something you should get used to.  Your insides will fall out and they will give you a pad so insanely big to wear home from the hospital, that your sister will see a couple spares in your bag and say way too loudly: “Now that’s what I call a MAXI pad!”  But if you want to get one, I won’t stop you.  You could pass them off as sexy undies maybe.  Except I guess not, because whoa, I just looked at the back.  Plus 3 points for the designer who said, “Oh, you know what would make this jock strap really sing?  A doily on the front!”  Minus 55 points for the designer who said, “Let’s put the label on the outside of the jock strap so we can double down on the humiliation factor.”  Her husband might be like “Whoa, where did you get those and what are they called, because those are HOT.”  And she can turn around and show him the label that says “V2 for vagina varicosities,” and he’ll die a little inside.

The TENS Machine or Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulator

One way to alleviate labor pains is to give yourself repeated electric shocks.

Jessie, I know you’ve heard some bad stories about labor.  It’s not that bad.  Especially if you have a birthing ball and electrical currents to distract you.  You just strap on this apparatus above and every time you feel a contraction, you just press the button and it gives you an electric shock to soothe the pain.  The good thing about this product is that you have to take your shirt off which is super handy for when the guy with the good meds comes around and gives you a spinal block.  The bad things are numerous and varied.  For starters, electricity.  Do not want!  I mean not on my bare naked self.  For seconds, the remote looks exactly like the hospital TV remote, which means that while you’re sweating and crying and jamming the buttons trying to give yourself “pain canceling electric currents” you’re actually just changing the channel from CNN to reruns of Murder, She Wrote.

I leave you with this final thought, Jessie.  People will tell you that you don’t need any medication.  And that is true, you don’t.  I admire those women.  I think they are crazy, but in an admirable way.  But let’s say I told you that you needed to have your leg amputated.  It’s going to be so painful that at some point you might start shaking violently and throw up, especially if it this pain lasts, say, 48 hours.  But here, I have this birthing ball for you and also if you breathe like this he he he h0 ho ho, you’ll get through it.  Also, here is an electric shock machine called the Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulator that you can wear while we are sawing your leg off.  Oh, and we’ll let you have a cup of ice chips.  Option B is this medication in an IV bag.

But I’ll support whatever decisions you make, because you have great shoes and people with great shoes make great choices.  For the most part.  I’m generalizing, but for you, it’s true.  I might also send you these products, even if you decide babies are not for you.  The TENS machine has recall written all over it, but I think you could probably make the other stuff into a Halloween costume.

Pregnant? Nope, just badass!

You be the judge.

There is much talk at our house about who does and does not have a penis.  This is mainly from Clyde who has recognized that he is outnumbered.  There are only two penises in the house.  Possibly three, because the guinea pig is a mystery.  There is a cat too, who might be a male.  Might be.  According to his vet file (we are his third owner) he has been both spayed and neutered, which was probably the worst day of his/her life.  Clyde likes to list all the people he knows who have one.  This is a somewhat awkward interchange between us because he lists lots of family members and friends.  And I don’t really want to think about my dad’s penis.  Like ever.  But yeah, anyway.  This morning he’s going through his list of penis having people and he says, “And Thomas the Train, he’s a boy, so he has a penis.”  Which is true.  Thomas is a boy.  But he’s also a train and trains don’t have penises.  Plus it would get caught in the train tracks.  And they’d have to do a whole episode where Thomas was like “Well bust my buffers, my penis is stuck!”  And Percy and James would have to free his penis from the tracks.  What a bother it all would be.  My friend, Sarah twittered today that her son has opined that Spongebob Squarepants has a square penis.  Except there’s no way that guy has a penis.  At all.  His voice is too high.  Eunuch for sure.  How about Mickey Mouse?  Winnie the Pooh?  Lightning McQueen?  Oscar the Grouch?  Those guys from the Wiggles?  Penises?  I need to know.  Clyde wants answers.

poo sculpture: because they love you.

Valentine’s Day is fast approaching, which can only mean one thing – crappy gifts from my kids.  The other day I was given a bunny made out of a toilet paper tube.  At Christmas, I got what may or may not have been a dream catcher made from a paper plate and yarn.  I know I should keep this stuff but, well, I don’t.  I’m a good mom.  Or I’m an acceptable mom.  Or marginal.  Some days I drift into bad mom territory.  But mostly I’m pretty so so.  Anyway, you get the idea.  So, being a so so mom,  I crow over these things, “Oh isn’t that wonderful!  You made that yourself?  Jesus Christ, it’s amazing!” Once my friend Jody, furious over her misbehaving daughter, grabbed a drawing her daughter had done and crumpled it up in front of her.  “This is what I think of your drawing!” Jody shouted at her.  I mean, she was honest.  They’re not that good.  For a while I keep the stuff around, tacked to the fridge or on some ledge in the kitchen or on the mantle.  And then when no one is paying attention, I get rid of it.   I used to save every little scribble.  It seemed important at the time.  Like one day when my kids were in college I could spread the stuff before me on the rug like some obsessed psycho and sob sentimentally over their drawings of legless pirates.

The worst art project of all is coming up at school:  clay.  Last year I got the above item.  I actually put it up on facebook and asked my friends what they thought it was, so I could act like I knew all along.  I thought it was poo, or possibly a sex toy.  Turned out it was a sea otter.  I mean look at it.  I know I’m supposed to treasure these heartfelt gifts.   But I sorta wish they’d just give me cash.

One of these days in the future, my kids will ask me if I saved all their doodles and art projects, and I’ll have to make up some story about a fire in a storage unit we don’t have.  About how tragically all their Christmas ornaments made out of cat food tins were destroyed.  And maybe I’ll muster a tear in my eye too.  And I’ll say, well we may not have the log cabins made of Popsicle sticks you made when you were four, but at least we have each other

Best for Dipping, Dressing and Sauce. Also, scapegoating.

One time, my sister, after hearing Madonna’s Like a Virgin, asked my mom what a virgin was.   I was older than Bridget by nearly five years, and so I had a vague idea what Madonna was singing about.   We were in the kitchen and I stood there transfixed, waiting for the inevitable train wreck of an explanation. I knew enough to know my mom was in deep shit and I wasn’t about to miss it.

“A virgin?” my mom said, trying to stall.  She glanced around the kitchen looking for help. “Well it’s like how olive oil is.  Olive oil that has virgin on the label is extra good, and expensive and has good olives in it with olives from Italy that they press until olive juice comes out and sometimes I buy it from the grocery store.  And you know, I cook with it, you know that spaghetti sauce you like?  So there’s virgin olive oil in that.  Or extra virgin olive oil, I’m not sure.  Anyway, virgin is good.  And extra virgin olive oil is even better.  Mostly.  I mean that’s what people say.  But sometimes you can use regular olive oil and nobody notices.  Your dad doesn’t.”

And my sister walked off wondering why the eff Madonna was singing about olive oil.

You gotta be careful as parents to avoid these conversations.  Because eventually they’re going to find out what a virgin is and they’ll remember your sad babbling about olive oil and they’ll think, wow, my mom’s kind of a moron.  I have managed to avoid these conversations so far, though there are only a few sands left in that hourglass.  Anytime now I’ll be stumbling through an explanation of baby making complete with metaphors about seed planting.  When I was pregnant with the twins, one of Hazel’s preschool friends looked at my belly and said, “How are the babies going to get out?”  I too commenced with the pathetic babbling and eventually said, “They’ll come out from my legs.”   “Like your knees?” he asked.  “Sorta, yeah,” I said.  He took a long look at my kneecaps and decided that not only was that clearly false but he’d engaged in conversation with a lunatic.

So yeah, watch out parents.  Tell the truth or at least tell a convincing lie.  I’m working on one myself about where babies come from.  It involves olive oil and kneecaps.