When I was pregnant with the Princess and the ultrasound confirmed that she was a girl, I knew it was time to get down to brass tacks. Because when people found out, it was going to mean an onslaught of pink and I wasn’t going to have any of that oppressive, stifling, gender-stereotyping color around. You see, I was still recovering from a women’s studies minor and having girl babies was serious business. I had to get to work fighting the dominant paradigm. Or something like that. So no pink!

My relatives put up with my rude, ungrateful self and stuck to primary colors. I think the Princess was four or five before I started to get a grip. Just in time for me to be pregnant with – ! – a boy.

At least I had the decency to let the boy wear blue, although I did still worry about gender neutrality. I drew the line at baby cammo. (What – was he going to need it to go duck hunting at six months old? Bah.) Still, what blue he got was largely pastel, and I made sure he got plenty of other colors, too. Balance, I thought.

Then then Moo came. It didn’t help that I’d forgotten that I’d given away all the baby clothes until I was nearly due. At that point, I just didn’t want the poor baby to go naked. Beggars can’t be choosers, so I was seriously excited to get the bag full of beautiful pink layette that L left on our doorstep. Then the family started up with pink jammies. And I – ahem! – may have picked up a few sort of light red things, myself. Okay, I won’t lie - I grabbed armloads of pink hats, fuchsia onesies, bubble gum socks. (In my defense, I got lots of blue, green, and yellow, too.) I threw caution to the wind. And I was too tired for feminist ideals.

Guess what? The cutesy girly colors are pure camouflage. She may be fluffy and pretty and sweet looking, but underneath that outfit breaths a fire-breathing dragon! She is the only one of the three kids to ever throw knock-down drag-out tantrums. She curls up her fists, kicks out her legs, and screams when things don’t go her way. And you’d better not laugh, because she does not like to be mocked. She steals cars and tools out of her brother’s room, is a fearless explorer (Yikes! The baby’s on the trampoline!), and when she gets hurt she is furious with whatever got in her way. She is tough as nails, but you’d never guess it from her ensemble.

She is not a princess, she is a queen. And she has decided that you may live. For today.

Want to know something really depressing? I am healthier, but I am heavier.

For three months now I have put in my mile-plus-a-tenth, with one week off when I was down with a nasty cold. For three months I have been huffing it along, sometimes running the whole thing, sometimes slowing it down and hiking up a 13% grade. And I am seeing some places where muscle is beginning to wake up again. But I am also alarmed when I get on the scale – I’ve GAINED four pounds! Man, that’s just plain wrong.

No biggie, you say, muscle weighs more than fat. To that I answer by holding up my formerly baggy jeans that are fitting a bit more snugly these days.

What is the deal?! I am not eating more. In fact, I am trying to make wiser choices when it comes to snacking. I eat way less candy than I used to. I don’t eat chips or doughnuts. I hardly ever have soda. I can’t imagine a glass of wine and an ounce or two of snobby cheese a couple of times a week would do this.

I will keep running. But it sure would be nice to see some numerical reward for all this botheration.

After church we went to Easter brunch with my folks and L and her family. This is the year I finally figured out that the best time to take pictures of all the kids is before we sit down to eat.

Moo gets set to run, but L’s Bear seems resigned to his fate.

Nobody is ready for this. There’s a tie askew, blinking, lip pursing, and my Bear seems to be caught doing his best Jack Nicholson impersonation.

At this point, I should quit while I’m ahead. Everyone is hungry and tired of my shenanigans. All eyes are open, no one is poking anybody, and it is mostly in focus. Well, maybe one more shot…

Nope, the thrill is gone. Time to go eat.

Happy Easter!

I was reduced to begging. “Please, honey?”

“No.”

“C’mon. Please!”

“No!”

“Try it just once.”

“I tried it. More than once. It just doesn’t do anything for me.”

“But I enjoy it so much! Couldn’t you do it, for me? It will bring us closer as a couple.”

“No.”

Mr. MG was totally, utterly against ever having to watch Lost. (Why, what were you thinking?) He had caught an episode here and there early on, but because of various deployments he had never gotten to see it on a regular basis. So to his mind, the plot was random weirdness. He got so he detested even hearing about it.

But I love it. I love getting wrapped up in the mythology of it. And it drove me a little bonkers that I couldn’t discuss it with him.

“Pleeeeease?!”

“NO.”

I promised him that if he would watch the entire first season with me on DVD and he still hated it, I would never ask him to watch it again. Never ever. Didn’t he want to do it, just to get me off his back?

“No!”

And then one day, he relented. He would suffer though it. He tried to skip episodes he had caught before, but a deal’s a deal so he had to watch them all. And when we got to the end?

Mildly sarcastic: “Too bad we don’t have the second season. We’ll just have to stop.”

“Nope! Got it right here!”

We also watched the third. And I still have all this season on the tivo, so he figured we’d better watch those too. After a month and a half, on the night of our anniversary he was finally caught up. He would never admit it if you asked him, but he has gotten the bug. Know how I can tell? Because he has theories cooking. He’s got opinions about Ben. He cracks jokes about Scott and Steve.

Ah! *Sigh!* Togetherness – it’s a beautiful thing.

Some people are superstitious.

They avoid black cats.

And walking under ladders.

They freak out over a broken mirror.

They toss salt and carry rabbits’ feet.

The number 13 is so feared that hotels pretend that they don’t have a thirteenth floor.

 No superstitions here, though. I know that 13 is great.

Today I’m the lucky woman who has been married to my sweetie for 13 years.

Happy Anniversary, my love.

“Is lunch ready yet?”

“Nope, not yet. I’m working on it right now.”

Five minutes pass.

“Is it lunch time?”

“No. Not yet. I’ll let you know.”

Two more minutes.

“Is is time to eat lunch?”

In the nine years I have been making lunch, I have never ever forgotten to announce it being ready. It has never slipped my mind. Not once have I taken the lunch to the table and sat down to eat, only stopping halfway through to wonder, “Where are all the kids?”

And still I am not to be trusted.

As in, I’ve got a rotten code. And now I am so totally dragon.

***

Remember how cool and collected I was about moving Moo? (“Ooooh, look at meee! I’m sooo well adjusted!”) It’s a really good thing I didn’t post that night. When it was time for me to hit the sack, I stood there and stared and cried. It felt awful and empty and wrong.

The next night was easier. I only needed one tissue.

And then it started to feel a little more like normal. And normal now meant trudging down the hall in the cold to comfort a crying baby. And I think she has some kind of special sense that alerts her to my coming, because 90% of the time, she will clam up and go back to sleep just as I reach for her doorknob. I am then free to stumble back to bed and lie there, now fully awake.

***

So she finally got the hang of sleeping in a new place. What a perfect time for a cold bug to sweep through the family!

The Bear brought it home and after a week he is finally down to “only” coughing like a TB patient and producing so much snot, I am afraid his little nose will get wiped right off.  I dole medication out very rarely, but gave him a cough medicine strip a couple of times. Poor little Bear.

Next was Moo, and like always she got it in spades. Her nose is so stuffy, she can’t suck on her finger and the coughing is so miserable she can’t get any sleep. That poor baby looks like a boxer, her face is so puffy and swollen. And the Princess is exhausted since her new roommate coughs and hollers all night. In desperation, I grabbed the unopened box of baby cough strips and checked the box for dosing instructions. That was when I noticed the section marked “Inactive Ingredients.” Great googly-moogly! The first thing on the list?

Acetone.

Yup. The same chemical used to remove nail polish and melt plastic.

The second thing on the list? Alcohol. Now I’m feeling nauseous. I had already given this garbage to the Bear.

So she has has to muddle through with baby Vicks and lots of nursing. She paid me back, too – now I have it. And it must be a doozy of a bug, because nuking myself with Zicam and Airborne are only marginally holding things at bay. I sure would like to lie here on the floor and zone out.

What great timing! Now the Bear is getting his energy back.