Chicken Adventures: Meet the Girls

We have a lot of testosterone in our house.  When I found out my second son was a boy, I have to admit that I was disappointed.  Another boy?  Including our dog, that meant I would be outnumbered 4 to 1.  And it’s rough being the only girl.  A day in my life=superheroes, cars, dirt, and urine.  Urine.  So much urine.

I’m never invited to guys’ night.  Instead, I have to hang out all by myself with nothing better to do than read books or catch up on Jeopardy or eat massive amounts of cookie dough that I hide under the vegetables in the freezer.

So, in an effort to reclaim my girliness--to make up for the distinct lack of pink and purple and tiaras and ballet--I decided to bring up the estrogen levels in the same way any girl would.

I bought 12 chickens.

For a couple of years, I’ve been trying to figure out a way to have backyard chickens.  Motivated by Jonathan Safran Foer’s gripping book Eating Animals, we started changing the way we eat in our house.  We eat a lot less meat and a lot more fruits and vegetables.  We try to eat as local as possible and in season as possible.  Most importantly, we like to know where our food comes from.  

The angle makes it look like the bottom yolk is bigger, but it's not.  The top yolk--from my chickens--is bigger, firmer, and clearly more colorful.  The bottom yolk is from a "local" store-bought egg that probably sat on a shelf for 40-100 days before we ate it.

Before anyone writes me off as one of those people, know this: I’ve already mentioned my cookie dough addiction, and for the record, Doritos are always in season.  We are totally debatably normal people who are just trying to make better choices for our family, but we also have our guilty pleasures to be enjoyed without guilt on occasion.

We are a military family, so the next decade+ will be full of moves, so I can’t settle into farm life the way I probably would under other circumstances--I would LOVE to be completely self-sustaining to know that every bit of food I consume came from my hard work, but it just isn’t possible.  BUT, I can start with chickens and at least know that eggs are coming from healthy, happy, humanely-treated hens who haven’t been pumped full of steroids or antibiotics.

We live on 38 acres with only one family as neighbors, and we were chatting a couple of weeks ago about my desire to have chickens.  The Saturday before Mother’s Day, my neighbor, Mike, asked if I was serious about turning an unused outbuilding into a coop, and by Monday, we had a coop.

This shelter is right outside our house and wasn't being used for anything.  Neighbor Mike made the door out of  some chicken wire and scrap wood he found lying around somewhere on our 38 acres.

Helping Daddy build the door

Between our house and theirs, there are eight boys (the smallest one is tiny, so he was taking a nap) which makes a great construction crew.

I put Ben up here to take a picture, and Will said, "Is Ben trying to poop out an egg?"  Another added bonus to having chickens--more conversations about anatomy and reproduction.

Bawking.

Even though I look like I haven't showered (because I hadn't) in this picture, I wanted to post a picture of me with this chicken-induced smile on my face!

On Wednesday, I contacted two local farmers--two very lovely stay-at-home-moms--who sold me a total of twelve hens.  On Thursday, we had our first four eggs (which I think is a pretty excellent return considering the trauma my girls experienced being uprooted from their homes and transferred to a new place with a bunch of chickens they had never met before--probably not unlike how I felt when I switched schools between junior high and high school).  We had six eggs the next day and eight the next, so I think the girls are starting to feel comfortable in their new home.

Speaking of homes, I have too much pent up creativity to just throw them in a coop.  No, no.  Welcome to:

This is an homage to the epic serial novel, Bleak House, penned by the incomparable Charles Chickens.  I mean, Dickens.  (If nothing else, I hope you are a more informed reader by the end of this post.)

And now, some pictures and bios because I know you are all dying to meet the girls. They refused to line up for individual pictures, so if you want to know who is who, you’ll have to visit, so I can point them out to you.  Their breeds are in parentheses.

From L to R: Erika Buzzard, Feathery O'Connor, Emily Chickensen, and Louisa Lay Alcott.

• Louisa Lay Alcott (Rhode Island Red): a natural nurturer and motherly hen.  She is clearly the queen of the roost and lovingly keeps all the other girls in line.
• Feathery O’Connor (Barred Rock): the penultimate Southern lady.  She is quiet and reserved and makes her presence known with compact, deliberate strength.
• Emily Chickensen (Barred Rock): the shiest of the group by far.  She spends most of her time alone in the corner.  The other hens both fear and are drawn to her dark eccentricity.
• Erika Buzzard (Rhode Island Red/Black Australorp): the only hen without a literary namesake.  She is named after one of my best friends, who just happens to have a bird as her maiden name, and who is jealous of my backyard chickens and thus insisted I name one after her.  Erika is the only mixed breed chicken, making her the most unique of all the hens at Beak House.

Emily

• Harper Lay (Rhode Island Red): one of a kind and irreplaceable.  She is a hen who wears her morals on her wings as an epic purveyor of good.  Her wisdom is not broad, but deep, and she influences the other hens to think before pecking.
• Judy Plume (Rhode Island Red): the girls’ girl of the group.  Her juvenile humor allows her to be a peacemaker during girlish squabbles and makes her a perfect social chairwoman, organizing all girls’ day out activities.
• Maya Angelay (Rhode Island Red): the yin to Judy Plume’s yang, the woman’s woman of the group.  She exudes charm, beauty, and confidence.  Effortlessly.
• Eggith Wharton (Rhode Island Red): a hen of prestige and privilege, who appreciates the finer things in life while remaining accessible to those who have not had the same opportunities.  She is diplomatic and humble in regards to her position in the coop and maintains positive connections with everyone.  She is also the resident designer of Beak House.

Not a chicken.

My best helper.

Buying flax seed in bulk to add to their pellets.

Me and Dorothy

I love her.

Obligatory crazy chicken lady picture--take note of my new rubber boots.  Who doesn't love buying new boots?

• Emma Layzarus (Rhode Island Red): a proud and spirited hen.  Her natural compassion and fervor for hen life inspires all who meet her to act on behalf of less fortunate hens.
• Anais Hen (Rhode Island Red): a scandalous little lady.  Many of the other hens view her as an outcast and a show-off, while secretly wanting to be her.
• Eggna St. Vincent Millay (Rhode Island Red): a hen who loves her simple home and refuses to be bullied into submission by anyone who does not appreciate her individuality.  She is stubborn, smart, and assertive.
• Dorothy Bawker (Rhode Island Red): the comedienne of the group.  She is wildly (but forgivably and lovably) erratic, standing out in the crowd with her noise.  She makes friends easily but alienates some by spending far too much time at the water bowl.

We also bought six chicks on Friday, who are named after characters rather than the fabulous writers who created them.  Their names are tentative, as we won’t know if they are actually girls for another few weeks.  The two Rhode Island Reds are Jane Layre and Scout Finch.  The two Barred Rocks are Hester Preen and Katniss Everpreen.  The two Auracanas are Henny Weasley and Hermione Freeranger.

Each day has brought more eggs, and everyone seems to be adjusting well to Beak House.  Eggith Wharton and I are still in the process of decorating, but I will post more pictures soon when I have more to report.  Thanks for reading!

The Great Laundry Detergent Disaster of 2012

On Wednesdays, Will attends classes at ORLA--a homeschool co-op that is part of the Olympia public school district.  So, this past Wednesday, we started with a little school before running some errands.  On my list was Walmart (gag) and Costco (which I actually enjoy) and the library (which is my version of going to an amusement park).  

At Walmart, we had a few random items to pick up, one of which was one of those clip-on air fresheners for the car.  Earlier in the week, Will told me the car smelled like “someone stepping on nuts with their bare feet.”  I have no idea what that means, but I figured it wasn’t a good thing, so we entertained ourselves scratching and sniffing the packages of car air fresheners until we picked one made by Febreze called “linen and sky.”  When we got in the car, I placed the clip on the passenger side vent and immediately smelled fresh laundry.  I set it to the lowest setting, as I have a super sense when it comes to smell and didn’t want to get nauseated.

We finished up at Walmart and headed next door to Costco to stock up on fruit and cleaning supplies, two things that must be bought in bulk in our house.  We made it through the store with only three impulse purchases (damn you, Costco food carts!)--a bag of pine nuts (yum!), a box of taquitos for Ben, and some “Simple” Go-gurt (Star Wars with glow-in-the-dark light sabers on each tube, so we totes magotes had to get some).  As I approached the check-out, I grabbed a container of chocolate-covered almonds for good measure.  So, four impulse buys.  Not too bad.

I loaded everything, including a monster-sized container of laundry detergent, into the back of the car and headed to the library, our last stop before heading home.  We spent about half an hour in the library, looking for some new books and picking up some movies I had on hold to use in school this coming week.  When we got in the car, my first thought was good God, I need to turn down that air freshener--too strong.  I leaned over to the passenger side and realized it was on the lowest setting.  I’d have to give it to Scott or something and get a different kind.  

We drove home, and when I opened the hatch on the car, I found this:

That’s right.  160 loads worth of liquid laundry detergent in the back of my car.  Or as I refer to it now: the world’s most effective car air freshener.  The container was EMPTY.  (BTW, these things NEVER happen when Scott is home--disastrous back seats, trips to the ER, car wrecks--always when he is gone.)

Thankfully, I had loaded these four storage containers that I use to store things that are leaving the house (Goodwill, give away, gifts, and library), so all of the food and supplies from Walmart and Costco were for the most part elevated.  After removing all of the food, I took stock.  Will’s karate bag was the only victim.  Someone gave it to us for free, and we are never short on bags around this house, so it went the way of el trash can immediately.

After that, I did what any smart woman would do--I called my dad.  He confirmed what I was already thinking and gave me the proper amount of perspective to stop me from falling to the ground in a toddleresque tantrum.  I mean, at least it wasn’t milk.  Or dill pickles.  Or paint.  Right?

Did you see, though, how BLUE this detergent was?

I heard Will yelling for me right about the time I heard Ben scream-crying, so I hurried upstairs to see what was happening.  Will told me quickly that Ben was trying to go poop and needed me.  Anyone who has ever had a three-year-old knows that a pooping child takes precedence over pretty much anything else you can think of.  So, as I was helping Ben finish up, I heard Will yell from the other room, “Mo-om!  Bokonon pooped in the kitchen!”  I swear our dog’s mission in life is to find the worst possible moments to be an idiot in an effort to have me locked away in an asylum.  Years later, my grown children will come visit me, and they will find me humming Ralph Covert’s “M-O-M-M-Y Needs C-O-F-F-E-E” and mumbling about how the kitchen smells like dog pee.

After cleaning up the pee and poop with Clorox wipes, I told Will, “We have a bit of an emergency on our hands here.  I’m going to need you to be my big helper, okay?”  After instructing him to start a movie for Ben and to play his DS until I told him to stop (because it doesn’t really matter how much idiot-boxing my kids had done at that point--I just needed them to be occupied), I went to work.

I started by literally scraping the top layer into a box.  Next, I used an old beach towel that I didn’t really like to soak up the next layer.  The beach towel also went the way of el trash can--I mean, it’s not like I could stick it in the washing machine to wash it--I’m not that dense.

Who knew something so tiny could make me so angry?

About the time I threw away the towel, Will yelled down, “Mo-om!” (Note: the six-going-on-thirteen voice.)  “Mo-om!  You are taking FOREVER!  WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO BE DONE?”

I thought about knocking him out with the detergent container but realized it probably wouldn’t actually knock him out since it was empty.  Luckily, he was saved from loss of consciousness, and I was saved from going to jail when one of the neighbor kids showed up, asking to jump on the trampoline.  (Sidenote: the trampoline is the single greatest purchase I have made in my mom-lifetime.)

When we moved to WA, the movers had packed our boxes with these giant sheets of packing paper.  I kept stacks and stacks of it to use for homeschool projects like this:

There is no way we will ever make enough collages to use it all, so it made a great third step material.  Lastly, I started using paper towels (which I had purchased during my last trip to Costco).  And wouldn’t you know it?  One of the things I’d picked up at Walmart was a box of 13 gallon trash bags.  I felt like a boy scout!  Always prepared.  For laundry-related disasters.

Two hours later, I had done as much as I could, so I cleaned up my area and headed upstairs to find Ben like this:

After instructing him to get off the dining room table, I gave the boys a fantastic dinner of taquitos, pine nuts, and Go-gurt (no joke!), while I swiffered the entire kitchen floor to make sure there were no dog remnants.  Then, I tucked them into bed without baths because I didn’t want to clean anything else for the rest of my life and snuggled down with my vat of chocolate-covered almonds to catch up on Top Chef.

The next day I made an appointment to let the professionals take care of the rest (for the car, not me) for $40.  A prudent investment in my personal sanity.

So, what have we learned, kids?  Travel with your detergent in the front seat, and always listen to that tiny voice inside you that tells you to buy whatever the sample lady at Costco is selling.

Happy Sunday, and I hope everyone has a great week!

The Five Steps of Deployment

Halloween is just around the corner, and it’s kind of a big deal in our house.  For a recap, you can read THIS.  

Earlier this week, my husband left town for a two-month Air Force-sponsored trip to the southwest Asia, so he won’t be joining in the festivities, but that will not stop us!  No, no.  In fact, we will be in OK for Halloween with family and friends, and I intend on stretching out the holiday as long as possible.  I am attending adult parties both Thursday and Friday night, a family party Saturday night, a neighborhood association gathering Sunday night, and then, of course, we will trick or treat on Monday since that’s when the actual holiday occurs.

I figure if we are all fratched out on sugar highs, we won’t even notice that we still have sixty days until Daddy comes home.  Let’s be real--I’ll throw a pack of Smarties and a Tootsie Pop at each of the boys, send them to bed, and then spend each night cuddled up with the Kit-Kats and Reese’s peanut butter cups while I watch late night reruns of Friends on TBS.  When the madness is over and all that is left in the pillow case are those weird peanut butter taffies and gross jawbreakers, I will throw away the candy waste and wake up the next morning with resolve to make the best of the next two months, and step one of deployment survival will be complete.

I should really start this survival guide by saying, this will be the shortest deployment we’ve experienced yet, so I feel a little like I’m cheating and acting like this is a bigger deal than it is.  In our little corner of the Air Force, deployments are typically four months long.  For clarification purposes, a deployment is an instance where he leaves and stages out of another country to support war efforts.  This should not be confused with “trips”--which can last anywhere from one week to one month; “temporary duty”--which can last any length of time, but usually involves training somewhere in the United States with more flexibility/possibility of seeing each other; or “remote assignment”--which would take him somewhere most likely for a year to a place where our family is not invited.

So, a deployment for us is usually four months, and our spouses go more frequently, as opposed to some of my friends’ spouses who go for longer but less frequently.  Deployment schedules vary drastically from branch to branch (and more specifically from air frame to air frame in our world), but the steps of deployment survival seem to be consistent across the board.

I have already detailed Step 1 above, but let’s give it a name:

EXCESS.  This stage involves acting in a way that is contrary to typical behavior and almost always involves too much of a good thing.  Even the most disciplined spouse may find herself looking for her dignity at the bottom of a bag of snack-sized Twix.  (I have several male friends whose wives are the active duty members, and I in no way mean to exclude them, but in reality, most spouses-at-home are women, so for the purpose of continuity, I will be using feminine pronouns from this point forward.) Other spouses (around the time the first tax-free check comes through) may experience sudden budget-blindness and justify the purchase of a new handbag.  Still others may wake up at a resort in St. Bart’s, surrounded by friends, with the fuzzy memory of how a last-minute girls trip happened so quickly.  (Thanks, LivingSocial!)  However this stage plays out, it’s important for us all to go through it because without living excessively and irresponsibly for a bit, we would never find the motivation to move on to stage 2:

GROWTH.  During the growth period, your average military spouse (to be referred to as AMS from this point forward) snaps out of her delusional thinking.  Clearly, no one really wants to gain three pounds a week in chocolate.  Expensive handbags are fantastic (until one of the kids decides to empty the contents of his cereal bowl in one of the inner pockets), and St. Bart’s can only last so long before the children start to wonder where their mother went.  So, AMS digs her heels in and formulates a plan.  It’s during this stage that the Christmas decorations get reorganized--who cares that it’s July?  It needed to be done!  AMS might take up a new hobby--cross-stitching, synchronized swimming, or archery.  She spends her evenings (that were spent emptying the DVR reserves during the Excess stage) sewing new curtains for the sunroom, writing a novel, and planning out a detailed list of activities for the kids including educational trips to the science museum four towns over, a weekend of apple-picking, and one trip to Disneyworld with the grandparents.  The junk drawer consists of a box of toothpicks and a few paperclips, organized nicely into trays.  The kids are on the best sleeping schedule of their lives.  AMS has never been so productive and efficient.  And then that fateful day comes that moves her into stage 3:

ANGER.  All is going smoothly in AMS’s world.  The linen closet is organized by color, and AMS has finished reading for all three of her monthly book clubs.  After sticking the last Tupperware container of pre-made dinners for the week in the freezer, she takes a glance at the calendar for next week.  And there it is.  A giant red circle she drew before her husband left over the day that marks the “halfway point” of the deployment.  Suddenly, AMS is angry.  She is is forlorn.  Her hand instinctively reaches behind the alphabetized spice rack for the Boy Scout caramel corn.  And the Cool Ranch Doritos.  And into the freezer for some Rocky Road ice cream.  IT.  IS.  ON.  Halfway?  HALFWAY!  We still have as much time left as has already passed?  What on God’s green earth am I going to do for the next half?  RE-organize the wrapping paper bins?  Start another blog?  Plan a trip to Great Wolf Lodge?  GOODGODINHEAVEN, this is never going to end.  With the light at the end of the tunnel dimming a bit, AMS settles in with her snacks, sets the DVD player to play When Harry Met Sally on repeat, and wakes up with her hair stuck to the couch by a glob of popcorn and ice cream.  AMS has reached stage 4:

DOLDRUMS.  In Norton Juster’s Phantom Tollbooth, a young boy named Milo finds himself in a place called the Doldrums.  He runs into some inhabitants, the Lethargians, and has this conversation:

"Well, if you can't laugh or think, what can you do?" asked Milo.

"Anything as long as it's nothing, and everything as long as it isn't anything," explained another. "There's lots to do; we have a very busy schedule-

"At 8 o'clock we get up, and then we spend

"From 8 to 9 daydreaming.

"From 9 to 9:30 we take our early midmorning nap.

"From 9:30 to 10:30 we dawdle and delay.

"From 10:30 to 11:30 we take our late early morning nap.

"From ll:00 to 12:00 we bide our time and then eat lunch.

"From l:00 to 2:00 we linger and loiter.

"From 2:00 to 2:30 we take our early afternoon nap.

"From 2:30 to 3:30 we put off for tomorrow what we could have done today.

"From 3:30 to 4:00 we take our early late afternoon nap.

"From 4:00 to 5:00 we loaf and lounge until dinner.

"From 6:00 to 7:00 we dillydally.

"From 7:00 to 8:00 we take our early evening nap, and then for an hour before we go to bed at 9:00 we waste time.

"As you can see, that leaves almost no time for brooding, lagging, plodding, or procrastinating, and if we stopped to think or laugh, we'd never get nothing done."

"You mean you'd never get anything done," corrected Milo.

"We don't want to get anything done," snapped another angrily; "we want to get nothing done, and we can do that without your help."

"You see," continued another in a more conciliatory tone, "it's really quite strenuous doing nothing all day, so once a week we take a holiday and go nowhere, which was just where we were going when you came along. Would you care to join us?"

"I might as well," thought Milo; "that's where I seem to be going anyway."

And this is where AMS finds herself.  The laundry can wait.  The dishes pile up.  There are so many other important things to do.  Like watch Lifetime movies about missing children and battered women.  Pinning recipes and quirky quotes to Pinterest.  And Stumbleupon--so many things to stumble upon!  And finding new Tumblrs about Ryan Gosling.  And the cast of Harry Potter.  The Little Caesar’s drive-through crew knows AMS by name--you really can’t beat Hot and Ready pizza when you’ve run out of pre-made lasagna and chicken pot pie.  She was going to make more casseroles, but there was a Twilight Zone marathon on Syfy!  At the end of each day, she checks off her mental to-do list.  Everyone survives without major injuries. Check.  Shower.  Yesterday counts--check! Bought dog food.  Oops--she’ll just give him some leftover pizza crusts until she can find time tomorrow to get out.  It is a haze of nothingness that lasts until she gets that phone call--the one from her deployed spouse.  During their fifteen minute phone call, after the voice announcing, “you have one minute and fifty-three seconds,” he tells her they have an estimated date for return.  She yawns, and answers, “Let me know when it’s a little firmer,” and then glances at the calendar. GOODGODINHEAVEN, it’s time for stage 5:

SPRINT.  Ohmygodohmygodohmygod!  That return date is a few short weeks away (maybe even days on a shorter deployment!).  Look at this house!  Who lives here--the cast of Animal House?  The laundry!  The dishes!  That smell!  We definitely have to do something about that smell before Husband gets home!  Luckily, the cleaning supplies are still in their orderly place.  AMS starts making lists for everyone in the house.  You!  Sort the laundry into darks and lights.  You!  Find all the rogue dishes throughout the house and bring them to the sink.  You!  Well, you just keep chewing on that pizza crust, and I promise I will get some food for you later today.  She makes a phone call to Friendwithnochildren asking if she could take them for an afternoon, so she can get a haircut and pedicure.  Husband has been gone for X days--the least she can do is pretend she hasn’t let her feet go the way of the Hobbit in his absence!  There is rushing and running and scrubbing and scouring and baking and freezing and maybe even a little exercising.  (The Doldrums are never easy on the waist.)  And before she knows it, the stacks are put away.  The smell is mostly gone.  The dog has food in his bowl.  And Husband is coming home.

If you look back over the stages, you will notice that if you add the first letter of each word together, you get “Egads!” an exclamation that originated in the late 17th century meaning, “Oh, God!” which is something that comes out of AMS’s mouth a million times during a deployment--for a myriad of reasons.  Wherever you are in the process, hang in there.  There IS light at the end of the tunnel--just put away some of the stacks of laundry, and you’ll be able to see it!

Screw You, Chinese Express!

Last Friday, Will promoted to yellow belt in karate.  At his studio, they have a “Little Dragons” class for 4-6-year-olds, in which they wear white belts with stripes.  Even though he’s only five, his instructors thought he was ready to jump up to the kids’ class based on the fact that Will is a) super intense and focused, and b) a self-proclaimed ninja.

Each time that he promotes to a new belt, I let him choose where we eat dinner.  Choices in the past have included hibachi, steakhouses, and McDonald’s (blech).  Last Friday, Will chose a Chinese buffet.  A Chinese buffet.  Don’t get me wrong--I love all things Asian when it comes to food, and I am SO appreciative that my children will eat just about anything I put in front of them, but eating at buffets is just plain scary and gross to me.  

There’s a Chinese restaurant a couple of miles from our house that we get take-out from on a pretty regular basis.  The food is actually really good, and most importantly, there’s a wide view of the kitchen, so I don’t have to worry about what’s lurking around the dishes being prepared.  (After having a dad who worked in the food industry for fifteen years, you learn a few things.)  In good mom fashion, I took the boys in and loaded their plates with chicken and rice and most importantly, red jello (because that’s really why Will wanted Chinese food).

Nestled in a booth between two families who could have singlehandedly sunk the Titanic, we ate our warmish food and talked about what a great job Will did in his belt ceremony.  Ben ate a ridiculous amount of rice, and Will ate a ridiculous amount of smoked chicken (including the portion that I couldn’t finish of my own), and we finished off the night with some froyo from the machine.

All in all, the dining experience was relatively uneventful--which is always a good thing when you’re dining with a 5yo and 2yo by yourself.  I have to say that eating out with children is not always pleasant, but we’re finally getting to the point where it’s not an ordeal.  My kids are relatively well-behaved and about the business of eating when we’re in restaurants, and I’m really thankful to be past the point in my life when I had to eat everything with my fingers while nursing a baby.

You know what my biggest nightmare is when it comes to eating out with children, though?  Kids eat free nights.  Like I said, my kids are generally well-behaved.  Why on God’s green earth would I want to purposely go to a mediocre restaurant packed with demonic spawn just to save $8 on free kids meals?  This is nuts to me.  

Of the handful of times I’ve ventured into a restaurant to meet friends for a KEF event, I spent the entire time screaming to be heard over the sound of caterwauling banshees.  And God bless the poor souls with no children who just happen to have a hankering for Moe’s on a Tuesday night.  You see them huddled in the corner, shielding their burritos from slobbery binkies flung by snotty toddlers, holding on to their chips and salsa with that “Why, God!?!” look on their face.  I don’t blame them, but one word to them--forgive these parents, for they know not what they do.  Sleep-deprivation does weird things to people--like make them think it’s a good idea to drag four sticky, wild-haired, unmatching, boogerpots into an eating establishment to ruin a roomful of strangers’ dinner.

Anyway, I digress.  So, we had a pleasant meal together at the Chinese buffet, and when it came time to pay, I had Will open our fortune cookies and read them to us.  Here’s what we got:

This was Ben's.  Although he's a man of few words at age two, this totally makes sense.

This was Will's.  Anyone who has met Will can testify that he is a classic extrovert and would like nothing more than to be surrounded at all times by friends.

This was mine.  WTF?  No, seriously!  WTF?  This is the worst fortune I've ever received from a cookie.  I'm what's left?  I don't even know what that means, and if I did, I'm pretty sure I would totally be pissed!

Help Me Tame the Beast

If you’re new here or have a penis, you might want to start with a different post.  You also might not know that my husband went under the knife recently.  Due to this development, I am (after many, many years) completely off the pill.  Aside from the assurance that we are officially done having kids, I am most excited about not having to take a pill every night before bed.  (Of course, I still think about it every night.)  But I gotta be honest.  So far, it has sucked.

I would say that generally speaking, I’m a pretty level-headed, level-hearted person.  On the PMS scale (1 being super chill and 10 being Naomi Campbellesque bitch), I usually linger somewhere around a 3.  I’m not saying I can’t be a bitch sometimes.  I’m just not that affected by the hormone changes necessarily.  I’ve also been lucky in that I don’t suffer from all the typical issues associated with periods--bloating, cramping, etc.  (And if I'm to be completely honest, I kind of thought people were just exaggerating about those things.)

HOWEVER,  I have officially been off the pill for two weeks, and I kind of want to kill someone.  I have cried at least one time every day.  And not over real, cry-worthy things.  I can’t sing along with Christmas songs without weeping, and I looked at a friend’s newborn/family pictures on Facebook and became a blubbering idiot.  Seriously.  

So, anyway, when I got an email in my inbox titled “5 Tips for Taming PMS,” I was definitely interested.  The email was from Jillian Michaels--I signed up for her emails when I started doing the 30-Day Shred a few months ago.  For the most part, her emails have been helpful, and I lost somewhere between 15 and 20 pounds, so something was obviously working.

When I opened the email, I had one of my (recently common) bipolar moments.  Here are the five tips, and my thoughts about them:

1. Exercise: Screw you, Jillian.  My insides feel like they’re about to fall out, and I’m pretty sure doing crunches is going to move them in the wrong direction.  Plus, it’s hard doing jumping jacks with all this extra water I’m retaining in my mid-section.  I look like freaking Humpty Dumpty.  Why don’t you go exercise!?  I’ll be here on the couch curled up in a ball crying about that Hallmark commercial.
2. Get some R&R: Oh, I’ll be sure to do that.  I’ll just have my five-year-old do the laundry and my two-year-old cook dinner, while I lounge and sip on my mojito...what’s that?  Oh, crap...
3. Cut out most alcohol, caffeine, and salt: No mojitos?  No Dr. Pepper?  And no potato chips?  What do you expect me to eat and drink?  Do you think juice and vegetables are going to stop me from wanting to claw someone’s eyes out?  That’s not going to cut it.  I need some white wine and dark chocolate STAT.  Just hook me up to an IV. 
4. Cut out most simple sugars: Now, you’re just being mean.
5. Consider supplements: Okay, finally, something I can do.  I’ll be supplementing my mashed potatoes with extra cheese.  Oh, you mean calcium supplements?  Cheese has calcium.  Back off.

Here’s the deal.  I think Jillian gave these tips because “she’s” really just a “female” robot, and “she’s” a bitch all the time, so “she” has no experience with actual PMS.

I’m hoping these recent issues will resolve with time.  If not, I’ll be checking myself in to the nearest treatment facility.  It’s really best for my husband and children.  I would like to solicit the advice of other women who have experienced this.  Thoughts?