Cell Phone Photo Shoot



From a NW State Park

Eggs & Positivity

I ovulated.

You are probably thinking to yourself “Big deal, I do it every month.”  But for me it is HUGE. 

It is still surreal to me to just ovulate naturally, on my own.  All of my girl parts and hormones synchronized in wonderful baby making harmony without the push from fertility drugs.  As I sit here patiently working my way through the two week wait until I can take a pregnancy test, I am not stressed out by the baby making process, or the threat of Aunt Flow beating a path to my door.  At this point, yeah, I will be a little disappointed if she shows up, but not devastated because my body is doing what it is supposed to do, for the first time, ever.

I believe that the fact that my body is having full, complete, regular cycles is making me a little more relaxed than the first time around.  Having had my first child also helps a lot as I no longer have floating around in the back of my head, that harrying worry of: “Will ever be a mom?”  I am trying to promise myself that this relaxed and positive attitude will hang around for a while, even if it takes months to get myself knocked up.  One other little thing that is helping me keep my sanity: LYING. This time I haven’t announced to our family that we are trying to conceive a second child.  My mom and a few close friends are the only ones who know (and no one knows about my blog or twitter account) and it is saving me the constant bombardment of questions that I endured for years the first time.  It is like my own little happy secret.

I ovulated.  For real.

Neglect

Dearly Neglected Blog, we are gathered here today to re-assure you that you have not been forgotten.  A new post will be written soon.

It is a lame excuse, but travel, kid illness, trying to get knocked up and an 80th birthday party kept me distracted.  Not a good thing for a new blog.  But tomorrow is another day............

Princess Rant

I have read a lot of what is out there about how Disney Princesses are a horrible influence on our daughters. I fully understand the point that people are making, it makes sense. I don’t want my daughter to think that she needs a man to rescue her. I don’t want her to think that she needs to look or act a certain way to be beautiful. But I also don’t want to take away her fun.



My daughter loves Disney Princesses. She loves to wear the dress up clothes and she is hoping for a trip to Disneyland to meet those girls she truly loves. I am choosing to let her watch the movies, have a little fun with it and enjoy being a 3 ½ year old princess for a while.


You might not all agree with me, but I believe that the person who influences a little girl’s self esteem more than any Disney Princess could, is her mother. Mommies have a direct impact on their daughter’s self image daily. They see their mommies putting on makeup and fixing their hair to be “pretty.” They notice when we change our clothes a couple times to find the right outfit. Many little girls hear their moms talk about being or feeling fat multiple times throughout the day. What do you think it is doing to your daughter when you speak of dieting and weight loss in front of her?


I believe that the best thing that you can do for your daughter is educate her and teach her independence. Teach your daughter that she doesn’t need ANY one to rescue her, that she is capable to do it herself. Teach your daughter that make up is for fun and not a necessity to be beautiful, that being beautiful is something that comes from the inside and that being a good person is more important. Most importantly never use the words diet and fat in a negative way around your daughter. You exercise because it is healthy for your body, not to be skinny. Teach your daughters to eat healthy and not to diet.


Take some responsibility for your daughter’s self esteem and don’t be so quick to blame others.

Manipulating Mother In Law

My mother in law just called and asked me if I would give her $20 cash for $50 worth of food off her food stamps card. Seriously. She said that she gets a lot of money for food each month and so does the person that she is living with, so she has more than she needs.



I am pissed. We struggle to pay our taxes every year because we get screwed owning our own business. I blame people like her who screw the system every month. I am angry, and needless to say she got a huge lecture from my husband and I both.


That is not what the welfare system is about. My mother in law has been manipulating the system for the last thirty years. She even had her youngest son, who is now almost 18, diagnosed with a behavior disorder and signed him up for disability. They get a check every month because he is a little asshole who won’t work and doesn’t like authority. Meanwhile, friends of mine with special needs children struggle to get help for their children on a daily basis.


Food stamps and welfare should be a hand up not a hand out. I will be glad when her kids turn 18 later this month. After 30 years she will have to get a job and quit using her kids for a free hand out.

I Need to Move

I am battling with one of my Mother In Laws. Yep, I hit the fucking jackpot and got two of them, neither of which really cares for me. My husband’s birth mother lives about thirty miles from us. She comes and stays at his Grandmother’s house, who lives right around the corner but within sight of our house. His mom isn’t your typical mom. She didn’t raise my husband; he was with his grandma until he was five, then his dad and stepmom came and took custody of him. My husband has a half brother who was not raised by her either. He also has a set of boy/girl twin siblings. They were raised by her, but I am not sure that was a good thing.



The twins grew up in and out of drug houses in southern California, no stability with a mom who was using speed and highly erratic. She would get mad at someone and pack them up and leave where they were living for a while, then turn around and move back to the house they spent the most time at. Those kids have been through a lot and at seventeen they have their issues. When the kids were twelve we move them up here for a while so their mom could go to the Midwest and start a new life. That lasted a year and before we knew it the boy was living with my husband and I and the girl and my mother in law were living at the grandma’s house.


Since the birth of our daughter I have had to deal with her regularly. I am having a hard time dealing with the unsolicited parenting advice from someone who I have no respect for and did a pretty shitty job raising her own kids. She is mad at my husband and I because we won’t let her take our kid anywhere, babysit, or pretty much be alone with her for too long. A year ago she threatened to take me to court to get some kind of rights to take our daughter once in a while. My mother in law has the attention span and mentality of a fourteen year old. She hasn’t held a job for more than a few months at a time for the last fifty years and she makes horrible decisions on a daily basis. We are also pretty sure she is still doing drugs on occasion.


My husband’s grandmother defends her. I get it, she is her daughter and she refuses to see how bad she really is. So now I have to fight them both whenever my mother in law is in town. My mother in law will have her mom call my house to see if C can come over there for a while. I know that it is my mother in law behind the phone call, because grandma has rarely asks for her to come over. I have to deal with them both pushing my husband and being angry with me when I say no.


I am at a breaking point here. I have had about all I can take and since we can’t afford to move, I am sure that something bad is going to come out of my mouth soon. And it will be ugly.

Going Nuts

C was born with food allergies.  It is a huge ordeal to deal with food allergies.  Eating out and travelling are especially challenging.  After a little time I figured out how to make it work for our family.  I learned how to bake without eggs and milk, I made baked good, pancakes, waffles ahead of time and froze them to make things move more quickly for me in the mornings.  C also tested positive for peanuts.  It was mild, but we were told to completely avoid peanuts, but not to the extent that I had to worry about foods that were processed in plants the process peanuts.  We were actually pretty lucky considering how deadly peanut allergies can be.

After allergy testing by blood work and skin prick every year, C finally had no skin reaction to peanut and her blood reaction was almost non existent.  Her Allergist said that in order to be safe and avoid a Epi-Pen episode, he wanted to do a food challenge with peanuts.  It is a little scary to take that step and watch them feed your child something you have spent years avoiding.  Not to mention the fact that C is three and might not cooperate.  But we did it.

C went through this challenge like a freakin' champ.  I was so proud of her.  After her first bite, a quarter of a teaspoon, she decided that she did not like the taste or texture of the peanut butter.  I was worried that she wasn't going to complete the food challenge.  But as they brought each "dose" of peanut butter, she sucked it up and gagged down the peanut butter through tears and almost vomiting it back up.  I was so proud of her.

I am so excited that my child has outgrown egg, milk and peanut allergies.  That is going to make preschool snack time a lot less of a worry for me.  The only food we have to avoid now is raw tomato, which is totally do able.

*sigh of relief*