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Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Bad Blogger...

I'm such a damn liar, huh?

I swore up and down that I would be better about posting in June, but I totally broke my promise. The den has been nuts these past few weeks. So much to write about, but so little time to write. My Blogger app decided to crap out on me which has made it even harder for me to post. Nevertheless, if you're interested in what's going on in my world you can always stalk follow me on Twitter. Mike Shinoda (from Linkin Park duh!) once famously tweeted that Twitter is his blog's "bitch". Well, Twitter is my blog's bitch too....sorta. (Don't mind the occasional pointless banter that goes on there.)

What a bad blogger I've been! Bad bad bad! (*slaps self on wrist*)

It's not that I haven't been writing. On the contrary, I've been writing feverishly --more than I've ever written before. I just don't have time to play proofreader, that's all. It's been invigorating to write this much, but I don't want to look like a dang fool by prematurely posting my blog entries sans spellcheck. And I'm writing "for two" now. (More on that later.) It's hard to keep up with our busy ass lifestyle. So much has gone on this month and I'll be posting those entries soon. In the meantime, here's a sneak peek on the blogs coming ahead...

- Niki's Memorial Day Weekend
- Kev's Growing Up
- Tilden Park Photo Essay/Review
- Carnival with the Cubs Photo Essay/Review
- Niki's Hospitalization
- Birthday Weekend
- Miscellaneous Updates

See, told you I've got tons to tell you about! It's a damn shame that Fireball 2 is making me the laziest and sickest girl ever. All of the medical madness and my pregnancy-induced pseudo narcolepsy is lovely an all, but I need to get this blog back in the swing of things.

Bare with me, okay? Keep checking back.

Thursday, June 3, 2010

I'm Knocked Up...

If you're a woman of child-bearing age, chances are you've taken a pregnancy test before. (I know I've taken about a bazillon.) 

This is now my 6th positive pregnancy test.

When my monthly visitor didn't arrive as scheduled, I figured that stressing off of my final project was the culprit. I really didn't think I was pregnant. Nevertheless, I couldn't wait for Aunt Flow to make her grand entrance any longer so I opted to purchase a pregnancy test on my way to the final day of training. (5/23/10) I *thought* this particular purchase would be a waste of money too! I was even mildly irritated with the fact that I spent $21 on a pack of two stinking pregnancy tests. However, I figured that I could put the second test to good use some other time. Fuck, was I wrong.

Clearly, I have no use for the second test now. Any takers? 

I damn near fainted when my hCG-laced urine slowly crept across the result window and turned both lines pink. It was break time and the restroom was filled with people from my class so I had to keep my cool. I walked out that restroom with the now-positive pregnancy test discreetly burning a hole in my pocket. I was stunned. However, the expletive "mother-f*cking-sh*t-a**hole-ballsack" comes to mind when I try to think of the best way to describe exactly how I felt when I found out that I was pregnant.

Yeah yeah, I know...I've had hella kids and I use NFP  for birth control so why am I surprised right?

Let me explain something to ya'll. I've only had three "surprise pregnancies" out of the six I've experienced so far. Honest-to-God.

1. The First Cub "Dylan"  (I was an ignorant high schooler.)
2. Ethan ('cause I was on the pill)
3. My womb's latest inhabitant ('cause dude, I was supposed to get married this year!)

Kevin was totally planned. Anthony was totally planned because we wanted our kids two years apart. And Niki, we'll we were grieving. Nothing makes you feel more connected to your partner during times of despair than physical closeness. (More on that some other time.)

"Fireball 2" (Boo's nickname of unknown origin for this baby) is right on target with my I-get-pregnant-every-two-years-theory.

1. Dylan (2000)
2. Kevin (2002)
3. Anthony (2004)
4. Ethan (2007) - Off-schedule because I was trying to tolerate the pill. Should have been 2006.
5. Annika (2008) - on schedule
6. "Fireball 2" (2010) - also, on schedule

John called it too. He always knows that I'm pregnant before I do. A few weeks earlier, when my mom was sick in the hospital and I acted liked a weepy-fool, he looked at me and said, "Oh God, you're pregnant, aren't you?"

Of course, I stopped sniffling and hurriedly responded, "No! Impossible."

Fuck, was I wrong. Less than two weeks later and he was right -- I am pregnant. I kept my secret all day long until I couldn't hold it any longer. Actually, I told a room full of "strangers" at SFSI before I even told John. I'm THAT comfortable talking about my sexuality now. We had to go around in a circle and share with the class "what has changed for you as a result of this training" and I told everyone that I got knocked up. Oh, and that I learned a lot about my own sex life too! I've only been intimate with John. (Yep, same penis for the past 12 years.)

Let's just say that my Sex Educator training did some "rekindling" on the wrong day.

Also? I blame my friend G at work too. Perhaps you've heard about "menstrual synchrony" before? Well, G and her alpha-uterus caused my visit from Aunt Flow to come early in April. I'll spare you the boring technicalities of how NFP works, but basically I counted wrong. I should have counted from when I would've normally gotten my period as opposed to counting when I got my outlier cycle. So, my days were totally off for the month of May.

I abstained on the wrong days!

Shortly after I found out that I was pregnant (on the next class break), I did some recalculating on my iPhone app in a feeble attempt to figure out what went wrong.  I reentered the data to reflect when I should have gotten my period (at my usual 31 days) and saw that I was the most fertile a few training weekends back! I remember that particular "moment" too.

Stupid class. Stupid libido. Stupid menstrual synchrony. Stupid iPhone.

I figured I would tell John in person because I wanted to see his face. Fireball 2 completely derailed our plans, but nevertheless I knew that God gave us this gift for a reason. I was terrified, but I had aaalllll day to come to terms with the news. After I got off from school, I made a run to the same Safeway were I purchased to $21 pregnancy test. I scoured the floral section and found a stuffed lion that would work perfectly for presenting my positive-pee-stick. Go figure, huh? Then I took the test, placed in around the lion's neck, and popped it in a bag so I could give it to John.

All I could do was hope for the best.

When I got home from training that day, I told John that I had a surprise for him, but I wanted to go out to dinner first. Of course, the damn pervert thought that I got some sort of sex toy from school. John was clearly interested and on our way to dinner, he played 20 questions to figure out what was inside of the bag. He got so excited to open his "gift" that he pulled over. I whipped out my camera phone and snapped this picture as he opened the bag:

A picture says a thousand words, doesn't it?
He was saying, "Oh." Lol!
The "Lion of Doom"

After his initial shock subsided, we discussed all that this pregnancy will come with. There was no fairy tale "oh-honey-I-love-you-so-much" moment. I'm overjoyed with Fireball 2, but these are scary times too. A lot can happen with this pregnancy. At the end of our lengthy discussion we came to the conclusion that we're both okay with whatever our Higher Power decides is best for our family.

I can't wait to know what it really feels like to tame four little lions.

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

A Tale of Three Sundays...

I haaaate playing catch up. I'm sure it's been very confusing to read scattered blog entries about random crap that happened in April and May. I was on a blog entry roll and then got sidetracked again. (I'll tell you why in a future post.) It really sucked getting hit back-to-back-to-back with various family illnesses. And man, this past holiday weekend was doozy. (Post coming soon!) I've been in desperate need to relax and "just write" so it feels good to be back. (Once again, you can all thank John's Auntie "N2" who reminded me yesterday that I need to get my ass back in gear.) I promise, promise, promise I'll be better about posting this month. Scouts honor. :)

Sunday, May 9, 2010: Mother's Day and My Unofficial 12 Year Anniversary

I had SFSI training all day and this particular session was emotionally draining. We learned about "perps", rape, abuse, and a whole bunch of other depressing shit. Happy Mother's Day to me. Nevertheless, the SFSI switchboard occasionally receives calls about these things and we need to learn how to deal with it. I really wanted to mentally check out after the first hours, but it was important for me to absorb the material.

Thankfully, I managed to keep my head together and salvaged the rest of my Mother's Day once I got home.

I got out of training at 6pm so our Mother's Day dining options were limited. Our brood is a picky and rowdy bunch (not to mention someone always has to go pee or poop) so we often frequent the same places whenever we decide to dine out. Akagi was closed, Totos was packed, I wasn't in the mood for Chevy's,  so Long John Silvers/KFC it was! Fucking classy, huh? Haha...John rarely needs to bring out the bells and whistles to impress me anyway. My Mother's Day nomnom session was perfect and I loved my gifts from the cubs. My mom was still admitted so we spent the rest of evening with her at the hospital instead of celebrating our 12 year "anniversary". Twelve years went by quick!

I'll write about May 9, 1998 some other time...

Kev's Gift
A Card and a Coffee-Filter Butterfly Magnet


The Inside


Boo's Gift
According to Boo the writing said, "Happy Mother's Day Mommy. I love you very much."


Ethan's "Gift"
Saw this on one of the tables next to me. The year is wrong, but I say it was a sign.


Sunday May 16, 2010: Blog Changes & SFSI stuff

John secretly logged into my Blogger account and purchased a domain for me. Apparently, my self-proclaimed "biggest fan" felt that my ".blogspot" address was waaay too long to type. He later told me that meant to surprise me with www.fourlittlelions.com on Mother's Day, but because I was in school all day, he didn't have time to go online. My new .com inspired me to spend the rest of my day girling-up my blog. Lol, it's a shame that I can't keep it this way 'cause it took me a while to fix it.

I spent the rest of the week working on my final presentation for SFSI training. My partner and I chose eco-friendly sex as our topic. We were set to present on 5/22, but we both procrastinated on  conducting research all month long. (I was busy with the health issues and she was completing grad school at UC Berkeley.) My partner was graduating that week so I ended up scrambling for the both of us at the last minute.  I did everything. After I got the approval from the director to cuss a little during our presentation, I titled our project "Eco Sex: How to Fuck without Fucking Up the Environment." We ended up fawking rawking our presentation! *pats self on back*

Sunday, May 23, 201: Super Surprise Sunday!

My last day of SFSI training. I took the Intensive Track which means that I opted to condense 60 hours of training into four weekends. The final class was by far my favorite session. We had a full guest panel of sex workers speak and we also learned about various fetishes. I found that BDSM is quite intriguing, but still totally NOT for me. I even met my all-time favorite sex blogger Violet Blue! I didn't want to get all "sex groupie" on her so I didn't approach her to tell her what a huge fan I am.

I'm totally kicking myself in the head now, but whatever. Gawd, I totally admire her though.

Taking this course was an absolutely life altering event. (In a specific way that I'll elaborate on in a few minutes.) In addition to vastly expanding my knowledge base and improving my communication skills,  I also learned a lot about myself in the process. In fact, the President of the Board (who also so happened to be my assigned mentor) even pulled me aside and told me how impressed the trainers were with my progression throughout the program. It was a pleasantly gratifying surprise to hear that compliment. I'm really looking forward to getting more involved with the organization and working to switchboard. Especially now that my I'm-too-dweeby-for-these-people-paranoia has been completely dispelled.

It feels good to go from from totally geek, to totally chic. I'm officially a Sex Educator, ya'll!


Sunday was also filled with another interesting surprise. This...
I wasn't bullshitting when I said that taking this Sex Educator class was a LIFE ALTERING experience!