Don't count me out, please

Even though I'm raising a small army of human beings, please don't think I can't handle anything else. I know how full my hands are but they can't always been full of kids and diapers. I need something else to do to keep my sanity. My brain is so saturated in pregnancy hormones I need something to help me wring it out so it's useful in a non-maternal way.

I want to be a good friend and offer to help watch your child(ren) while you run errands or go to the dentist. I want to be "that" mother for my kids who volunteers at their school parties and helps make costumes for their school plays. I want to participate in my church family and offer my talents where I can. I need to be involved in my community so I can help make it a lovely place for my family to live.

It takes work and energy just to get involved in friendships and activities. Coordinating babysitting also takes some time and creativity (I'm the most active member of my babysitting co-op). But don't count me - or my kids- out! Don't ever not ask me to help just because I have more kids than you. Please don't assume I don't need or want anything else to do. Sometimes our lives are too full at a particular moment, but keep asking: don't count me out! We can do almost anything a family of three can do, it just takes us longer and we have a much bigger diaper bag :) 

So, boys suck, right???

I have three boys; I love them dearly and with all my heart. So it pisses me off to no end when people assume I would be happier in life if there's a girl out of one of these twins gestating in my belly.

My husband assures me it's a natural response from people and that they don't mean it negatively. But it is hurtful and makes my boys seem insignificant - whether the speaker meant it to be or not.

I recently read another blog post (thank you Lisa K) that addressed the hurt that her boys felt when people "joked" about the mother's fourth (and final) child was "thankfully a girl." How must it feel to a child when even strangers speak down about them.

This doesn't just apply to boys either. One of my best friends has 5 (yes five) girls and is pregnant with Baby #6. She and her husband never find out their baby's gender during pregnancy so this adds to the "problem." Not only does she hear it over and over again about having five - soon to be six - children, she endures countless comments from family, friends and strangers who all assume they're simply breeding until they get a boy. He daughters are old enough to pick up on all of this and it just makes me want to slap everyone in the face and ask them how they think that makes this family feel.

I can't believe that people actually know how hurtful these assumptions can be (that would just crush all faith I have in Humanity). But we need to be more sensitive and think before we speak. What if the mother you're asking has lost a child in the past or struggled to become pregnant? How do you think it makes her feel when you assume she wants a girl or boy or whatever? I guess it's become part of our culture that the 2.5 kids should be one boy and one girl. When did we stop feeling like we've been blessed with a child - any child - and feel we deserve to have both ends of the parenting spectrum? Whatever happened to just appreciating the fact that you have a healthy little baby?

It just makes me sad that people unknowingly discount what children I have and assume that I'm not happy with my three little men: that my life as a mother won't be complete without a girl. Whatever is given to me I will take, and love and raise with all that I am. And I will be thankful for what lives and little beings have been entrusted to me.

To every one of my friends who has kindly wished a girl upon our family, please know that I accepted your wish knowing it came from a lovely place in your heart. But also know that it did sting a little to think you didn't think of my boys and how much I love them and how wonderful it would be to have more children just like them. That's all.

I'm filter free, baby

Like young children and the senile, most pregnant women have no filter. Once you're knocked up, it's socially acceptable to speak your mind in a way that would otherwise be deserving of a name that rhymes with witch.

As someone who naturally avoids confrontation, I personally find it very liberating. Whether it's the hormones or just the fact that I have very little patience for stupidity and rudeness, I suddenly have the perfect thing to say - at the right moment! You know how you've laid in bed awake at night thinking of all the things you could have and should have said to that fat cow in the grocery store line "advising" you on how your crying baby needs a pacifier and would sleep so much better if you fed them rice cereal.... Or the jackhole who just cut you off illegally because you were going the speed limit on a residential street - in a school zone!

To those who dare to cross my path after my three year old accidentally crapped in his underwear, my two year old is having a full-fledged meltdown in the parking lot of Costco and after my 10 month old has skipped his morning nap and bucked the bottle of formula I've been coaxing him to take - look out; I'm filter-free and not ashamed in the least to tell you how I feel.