I wear radioactive pants.

I hate the smell of urine. Conversely, dried maple syrup smells like urine to me, so I hate maple syrup too, but that's another issue and mine to own. Anyway, you can imagine my disdain when, after yet another medical test, I had to coax my three-year-old into peeing on command. This child has a bladder of steel and has been known to not pee for almost 24 hours. So when we were told that he couldn't leave the hospital until he'd emptied his bladder, we did everything in our power to get him to comply.

Now, I didn't quite get why we couldn't leave the hospital until he'd emptied the bladder of steel, but sometimes I don't question things. And given that we'd already been at the hospital for hours trying to keep our child clam while the staff stuck tube after tube of this liquid or that IV into him, we were tired. Husband and I took turns standing in the urine-stinking restroom, begging, pleading, demanding, running the water, counting down, begging some more. But nope. Camel Boy refused and held his ground.

Finally, after three trips to the bathroom, I squatted down in front of him, water in the sink running, and said in my most convincing Mommy-voice "I... need... you... to... pee...". Magic. And bulls-eye. Why in the world did I have to stand there, in direct aim?

When you're a mother of two boys, you learn to overcome the disgust of bodily fluids. Or at least that's what I have convinced myself. I nonchalantly did my best to clean my shirt and pants and we walked back to the examine room. The nurse there saw my feeble attempt to clean my clothes and stopped dead in his tracks. "Did he pee on you?"

Here's where I could have lied and laughed it off and said something witty. But nope. I'm not that witty and I'm also a terrible liar. "Um... oh, that... yeah."

The nurse rushed past me and came back holding what I would swear was a device stolen from the set of some 1950's movie about a nuclear power plant exploding. Sure enough, he swipes the hand-held meter over my pants and tells me I need to take them off because they were radioactive.

It's not every day you get to carry your radioactive pants out of a hospital while wearing scrubs that are about 30,000 times too big for you and act like you meant to do it.

I sit in my office, topless.

Twice a day, I sit at my desk, topless. I'm lucky enough that I actually have a door to my office, although there was that one day when the IT guy tried to walk in. I think he even used his key. What an office faux-pas that would have been, right?

Breastfeeding is one of the rare things that I pride myself on being good at. It's a passive skill, but I was able to feed all three kids with just my body and even though it was a bumpy road now and then, we were successful, my breasts and me.

Working full-time means pumping at work at least twice a day. I use the time to catch up on learning German, emailing, reading my Feedly stuff or surfing the web. I take pride in the fact that I can express milk and type at the same time. I should clock my WPM while pumping and put it on my resume.

SKILLS:  Can express breastmilk while typing 60 WPM!

The time is coming near when my youngest, AD, will turn a year and the need for pumping at work will diminish. My middle child, G, was a self-lead weaner. I never thought those really, really existed until I gave birth to one. At 11 months old, he looked at me and signed "All done" and never went back to nursing again. I remember saying, out loud "What, you're not done! I'M not done!" but he never nursed again. He would pretend he was going to, out of kindness I supposed, but as soon as my nipple was in his mouth, he would nip me (ha!) and turn away. As if to say "That was your warning bite, Momma. Don't attempt it again..." He was a biter too, but that's a different story.

I rake leaves in the snow.

Yesterday, it snowed for the first time this season. If you know me at all, you know that I loathe the winter. My soul craves warm weather like my cat craves hot dogs (this latest craving of hers was only discovered this evening. Who says you can't learn something new about your 13 year old cat?). I dream of residing someplace where the weather never dips below 45 degrees and when it gets to 50, people start freaking out and stupidly put snow tires on their cars. I once lived in a place where it was so hot in the summer that your eyeballs would dry out during the three minute walk from your car to the front door of the supermarket. Those were the days, man, those were the days...

So, imagine my ire when I realized that I had to rake leaves in the snow in order to get our inflatable puppies set up for the kids. Yes, I have inflatable dogs on my lawn. Yet another fact about me, I hate the inflatable puppies. They were received as a gift for E's first Christmas, back when I was living in a tiny condo with no discernible front lawn to place said puppies. There was a certain joy in that, honestly. I could look my pleading child in the eyes and say "No, we can't set the puppies up... they'd get pierced by the arbor vitae!" and the matter would be settled for another year. When we moved to the semi-middle-of-nowhere, we suddenly gained two acres of land and lo-and-behold, there was room for the puppies. Moving from the condo to 'real' house meant unloading 10 years of junk from the basement. In order to lessen the moving load, I graciously offered to leave the puppies behind, but no. TDH Man insisted that the puppies came with us and onto the moving truck they went. When he gripes about how we needed to rent a second 26-foot moving truck just for the basement stuff, I remind him of those puppies.

I bite my tongue.

Last night, E got off the phone with his BioDad and I knew something was wrong. First, TDH Man and I had heard E arguing with BioDad about not being able to attend his Strings Concert later this month. Second, he semi-pouted his way up the stairs before bed. Two clear signs that he was brooding, like I tend to do.

When I went up to say prayers with him before bedtime I asked him, feigning ignorance, what was wrong. He huffed and puffed his way through his side of the story and I sat on his bed, biting my tongue. Normally, I would rush to BioDad's side, explaining to E that parents have commitments, need to work to pay their bills, need their own sanity, but nope. I just sat and bit my tongue. A few months ago, I read something about how if you want your kids to confide in you, just sit and listen. Don't speak, don't offer advice, don't do anything but listen. And as much as I wanted to pipe up and say to him "FINALLY! You're seeing what I saw for four miserable years!" I didn't. I just bit my tongue.

Because in the end, I want to be the Momma that E runs to when he's sad and needs to vent. I want to be the Momma he depends on, even when BioDad is too busy. Having two families can be a blessing and a curse and no matter what, I want E to at least feel like I'm present in his life, always.

What kind of Momma are you?!

In 2004, I became a MOTHER. Capital letters and all.

Then, in 2010, I became a Momma again. Another boy, this one crazier than the first.

And finally, in 2013, a little girl came along.

And now the husband and I are outnumbered. Oh, oh, oh, yes we are.

I needed a place to keep all our crazy-kid stories in one place because, well, you know I'm just not busy enough in my day to day life. Ok, scratch that. Truth is, I'm way TOO busy and if I don't write these things down, they'll run away. Sort of like the boys do when I say it's time to leave for school or daycare.

So, every post will have a theme and said theme will tell you what kind of Momma I am. Hopefully there'll be more good than bad, but time will tell.