bookerdog.com

Hello? Still there? Sorry that I’ve been MIA. No real excuses, really. Just hanging on for dear life around this whirlwind.

Here’s April in a nutshell: work, work, work, entertain the toddler, Easter, entertain the toddler some more, work, 24-hour trip to IKEA (complete with 10-hour round-trip drive), work, work, work, toddler.

That’s about it. Oh, and we finally got the Bug Man back to take care of our pests, much against my better pregnant judgement. But, hey, I discovered that ants bothered me a lot more than potential contamination of my home with pesticides! Who knew?

The belly is getting quite large. My lap is virtually gone (just ask Auggie and the dogs — they all look at me like, ‘Why don’t you love us enough to suck that in, lady?’).

I had my first emergency C-section dream the other night and woke up totally freaked out. Like the other disturbing birth dream I had (after the birth, the baby was taken away and no one would give him to me), the worst part wasn’t the birth but the fact that no one would let me nurse the baby once he was born. I’m such a psycho.

Anyway, this evening has been a total write-off. I’ve worked for the past three nights straight and Auggie is going through what I generously deemed a “rough patch” earlier to Tim. It seems that nothing else gets through to him other than yelling. Which I hate. And today was one of those days where I woke up with no energy, and that just doesn’t get better as the day goes on. With the yelling and the constant negotiations with the two-year-old. It has basically been another one of those days where thinking about doing this with two boys leaves me wanting to curl up into a ball and weep.

Except that I can’t curl up into a ball anymore. Not with this belly.

Recently, Auggie has taken a shine to bedtime stories. Not the kind that you read from convenient books over and over and over again — my God! We get it! You do not like green eggs and ham! Jeez! — but the kind you make up in your head. From scratch.

Of course, since Auggie is obsessed with all things Thomas the Tank Engine (the boy reads the catalog like it’s a toddler Bible), the stories all revolve around Thomas and his friends. Since I’m the one who often ends up as storyteller (tell me why that is again, hon?), the burden falls upon me to make up said stories.

It’s been pretty easy up until this point. Thomas comes to visit Auggie at Auggie’s house, Auggie goes to visit Thomas on Sodor, Thomas and his friends experience various adventures on Sodor, etc. And usually there is a snack and a nap (since these are bedtime stories, you see).

Lately, though, I feel like I’m in a story rut. James the red engine is always in danger of losing his shiny red paint, but then he reconsiders and ends up getting a splendid new coat of paint. Thomas and Auggie always play in the backyard and then have a snack. Diesel 10 decides that he is tired of not having any friends because he’s mean and decides to be nice from now on (Auggie’s favorite).

So the stories have to be fairly simple, not too scary as Auggie is easily scared these days (just wait till I get around to telling the tale of The Bug Man and how I scarred my son for life — later), and generally boring as anything so as not to get him too excited before he’s supposed to drift off to Snxx-ville. Maybe I should start trying to work in characters from other cartoons that Auggie likes. But really, what would Blue the dog and Thomas the Tank Engine have to talk about? I’ve already started working in guest spots for people like Grandma Libby (you make cookies for Thomas and Auggie when Thomas visits), Mommy and Daddy, of course, and the dogs.

These are the things that they don’t write about in parenting books.

Oh, and Tim says that storyteller is my role because I was an English major. Yet another reason to get a business degree, I suppose.

If any of you all happened upon ole bookerdog.com here because of junk email, allow me to assure you that we would never do such a thing. Unfortunately, some unscrupulous spammer has “spoofed” bookerdog.com’s good name. I even got a message this morning, complete with attached .zip file (a virus, most likely).

I’m not guessing that many of you all are here because you got some interesting spam and thought you’d check out the website affiliated with it. I mean, does anyone actually read those things? You are here to read about my daily hijinks with a 2-and-a-half-year-old and fetus, right?

That’s going to have to wait, I’m afraid, as said two-year-old kept me up half the night yesterday. Sleep now.

This week, I finally let myself contemplate what life might be like with two children. Up until this point, I’ll admit that I hadn’t really thought about it much. I was too busy with my self-centered worries about another pregnancy, how it would affect my body, going through childbirth again, getting nursing off to a better start with this one, etc.

So what changed? Well, I guess Auggie did, a little. He’s been honing his “willful defiance” skills for some time now, but it hasn’t been this bad. You know, watching him run a few football fields worth of ground away from you in the back yard and realizing that yelling at him to stop is not going to prevent you from having to haul your pregnant butt over those few football fields to get him.

Or having him purposely dump an entire bottle of water all over the living room floor while you try to rest on the couch after a long day of playing with him, keeping him happy and generally trying to make it a good day. I swear I didn’t know whether to grab a towel and make him help me clean up the mess, grab him and take him to his room for a time out, or grab him and beat him. (He got the time out, then helped me clean it up.)

So there I am, thinking, ‘What am I going to do with two of these things running around?’

Dear fast-food playplace thingies:

Sorry that my son always poops when he is playing in you. Take it as a compliment.

Sincerely,

Beth C

Dear Fetus:

Sorry for testing out the name “Meriweather” the other night. I was half asleep. Still, that’s inexcusable, even as a middle name. Also, sorry for the apple and banana this morning. Now, could you tone down the heartburn just a tad?

Love,

Mom

Dear Clarence Gilbert (MU basketball stand-out 1998-2002),

Sorry for blaming Missouri’s lackluster season on you and your influence over the players that came after you. I was tired and Tim and I were getting into another of our way-to-deep conversations about MU basketball. I’m sure that you are a very nice person and didn’t mean to poison all those impressionable young players who looked to your selfish play as an example, therefore rendering the team not so much a “team” but a “collection of hot-dog players only in it for themselves.”

Best of luck,

Beth C

After a long convalescence, Coco is doing much better. She has serious calcification of her spine, especially in her neck. One vertebra is ever so slightly protruding, but not enough to warrant the major surgery it would take to remove the disk. Of course, all of this was ascertained after some expensive radiographs and radiological consultations. But Coco is so totally worth it. And now that she’s feeling better and looking up at me with those big, brown eyes that say, ‘Thanks, Mom,’ it more than makes up for all the times she looked up at me last week with those same big, brown eyes that said, ‘Why aren’t you making this better, Mom?’

Here’s the scenario: It’s a typical Monday, except this Monday has no end in sight because Tim is on a business trip. I’ve been running around all day and now I’ve just finished taking our dog Coco (the oldest and fattest of our dachshunds) to the vet because she has badly injured her neck and is quivering in pain. I swore that I would never take Auggie with me to the vet again after the time he shoved my car key into my ear canal while I contemplated Coco’s fate the last time we were in this predicament. That really hurt. Even the vet was like, ‘Wow. That looked like that hurt.’ But some things just can’t be avoided, I guess.

Needless to say, the vet didn’t tell us anything new about Coco’s situation. Just medicate and keep her still. If you knew Coco and what a go-getter she is (she isn’t), you know that this will not be a hard proposition.

Anyway, we’ve got about 30 minutes before we’re heading to my League meeting (which I am not leading, thankfully), so I give Auggie the choice of reheated leftovers at home or Wendy’s. Big surprise — he goes for the Wendy’s. We procure the Wendy’s, and as I prepare to drive away, the drive thru guy looks at me (no makeup, haven’t combed my hair since 10 a.m., 6 months pregnant, wedding ring clearly visible) and says, ‘I know you’re a Mom and all, but I think you’re really cute.’

I drove away with the biggest grin on my face.

How weird is it that I’m kind of annoyed that my baby doesn’t have his own blog that he updates (way more regularly than his mama) from the womb?

I’ll leave it up to you to imagine what some of those entries would sound like.

OK, I can’t resist. Here’s my guess:

‘Dude! Some jerk keeps shoving his finger up my nose! Oh, wait. That’s just me.’

‘This “Prenatal Pilates” tape is really helping me refine my kicks against Mom’s bladder. Wonder if it’s one of a series… Gotta check out eBay.’

Oh, man. Things are happening around here, and I’m just hanging on, trying to keep the Tums coming.

Last week, a friend of mine (who is expecting her second in May) was complaining about the severe heartburn that was keeping her up at night. I was like, ‘Dude, that sucks.’ And mentally ticked through a list of heartburn prevention techniques that she probably had already utilized, so I didn’t say anything. It’s not that I wasn’t sympathetic, I just thought that heartburn sure beats the constant nausea I was dealing with that day. Tonight, after our oh-so nutritious meal of McDonald’s, I’m dying over here.

Of course, I’m still getting over the wonderful stomach flu (hence the said constant nausea) that Auggie passed along to me last week, so that isn’t helping.

I haven’t really gotten a chance to mention my reaction to the revelation that this troublemaker inside me is male. Before the ultrasound, I was convinced, I mean convinced, that this baby was a girl. I mean, that would be the ultimate kick in the pants from the universe, right?

Maybe I should explain: I don’t think anything frightens Tim and I more than the prospect of raising a young lady in this Britney/Christina world. Walking through the mall makes me feel positively ancient as I gasp at the teeny little shirts and hip-hugger jeans — oh! and now the mini skirt is back! Even better! Is anyone else completely disgusted at how girls today have to wear all these impractical body-revealing clothes, when the boys are considered hot in their ill-fitting jeans, Mr. Happy Crack T-shirts and unkempt hair?

I apologize to those of you who have (or are expecting) baby girls of your own. I’m sure that flannel shirts and baggy jeans will be all the rage once again when she hits puberty…

So now we get to have another boy. Another choo-choo addict. I couldn’t be happier.

Well, after much wailing and gnashing of teeth, we should be switching over to our new ISP in the next few days. This of course will mean that we will probably have some outages as the big ‘ol internet resets itself to track down our new and correct address. If you need to get ahold of us, the at – bookerdog.com addresses should continue to work, no problem.