not that you asked...

There was also a gift card, but Macy's sent it SEPARATELY.

I came home today to find a package on the doorstep. It was addressed to Lucy (BOOOOO) but seeing as how Lucy is unable to get her own thumb into her mouth, let alone safely wield a pair of scissors, I opened it myself.

It was a rather large box.

Too large for an outfit or a set of bibs. But it was clearly from Macy's (DUH), so, a toy, maybe? A ridiculously oversized stuffed animal that I will quickly relegate to Those Who Are Less Fortunate? Oooh! Perhaps it contained Baby's First Panini Press! (PLEASE LET IT BE A PANINI PRESS.) (SPOILER: IT IS NOT A PANINI PRESS.)

Maybe you can't really tell from that first picture. The box was as big as Hambone. 

Hambone was very suspicious of the box. Note the Milk Bone used to lure him onto the couch for comparative purposes.

Sidebar: Some of you wanted to know how Hambone is doing. He continues to dislike the children and I continue to give him table scraps to make up for the fact that we now have TWO of these very unlikable things called children, which means that he is a little bit pudgy and very much reluctant to have you see him from the neck down. So here's a head shot.

ANYWAY. I opened the box. It was full of styrofoam packing peanuts. 

The peanuts were hiding another big box, which was tied beautifully with a white satin ribbon. You will note that I did not take a picture of the unopened box. This is because I was still unaware of the absurdity of the situation at hand.

I opened the white box. There was yet ANOTHER box inside the white box, and inside that box there was a bag, and do you know what I found inside the bag?

A silver baby rattle. A VERY VERY TINY SILVER BABY RATTLE. (Which I actually love, it makes the sweetest little tinkly sound, but HONESTLY, MACY'S.)

Can you see it? Sitting right there next to the box? The box that it is approximately 1/300000th the size of? (You: JUST BARELY! IF I SQUINT!)

Dear Macy's,

WHAT A FREAKING WASTE OF CARDBOARD AND STYROFOAM. No wonder you charge $15 for shipping. 

Your friend,

Emily

Alex Trebek jokes never get old, do they?

In the last three months:

I have been enormously, hideously pregnant.

I have had preeclampsia, and the 30 or so pounds of water weight that came packaged with it. (ON TOP OF THE REGULAR PREGNANCY OVEREATING WEIGHT.)

I had a baby. Three weeks early. By c-section. I cried about the timing, because I am That Way.

I have decent health insurance, but still paid $1000 out of pocket for the birth.

I was medicated for extremely high blood pressure.

But only after being discharged from the hospital and having to return to the emergency room six hours later with heart palpitations and difficulty breathing.

I have had eleven separate doctor appointments to treat everything from the aforementioned high blood pressure to my c-section incision to my underactive thyroid to a raging sinus infection.

In her first two months of life, that baby I had has been to six appointments of her own, four of which were specifically because she wasn't gaining enough weight.

Our insurance company denied Lucy's claims and refused to cover her. (We fixed that one pretty quick after getting a $300 bill from the pediatrician's office.)

In her fourth week of life, she stopped sleeping. Obviously, SO DID WE.

After a month of that, we figured out the reason, and now that I'm not nursing, she's been placed on milk-free formula, which only costs about three arms and legs per very tiny can. Enter magnified guilt about the not-nursing-anymore thing, even though I know I said I wouldn't do that.

My husband got pinkeye.

He went to the doctor, which meant we paid somewhere in the neighborhood of FIFTEEN co-pays in less than 90 days.

My dog ripped his toenail out.

My two-year-old turned into a two-year-old and the sudden onset of tantrums and defiance made me kick things and scream things and hate myself for it.

The plumbing in our second bathroom went kaput.

And just this morning, we found out that our heat pump is utterly useless and will need to be completely replaced to the tune of $6100.

SIXTY-ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS. Let's see... I'll take “Selling Your Kidney on the Black Market” for $500, Alex.

I don't need to tell you that that's a big chunk of change, especially for a family with two kids, one of whom drinks liquid gold from a bottle, and only one full-time working adult. And we still have to call someone about the leaky roof. And let's not even talk about the dentist and how badly both of us need to go and how SCARED YOU-KNOW-WHATLESS we are about how much it could potentially cost, which is exactly why we're not going.

So! This is all just to tell you that I have about ten pounds to lose before I can fit into my clothes again (sadly, each of those pounds resides somewhere in my thighs/hips/rear) and at this rate, I will NEVER fit into my clothes again because I AM EATING MY FEELINGS, and coincidentally, my feelings are the same size and shape of sixteen handfuls of M&Ms. A DAY. Oh, how I wish I was a Stress Starver, the kind of person who loses their appetite altogether when faced with hardship. But I am not; I am the kind of person who feels they deserve another bowl of ice cream because their day was extra hard. The kind of person who medicates with cookies instead of a nap; the kind of person who loves to exercise but who could not possibly, NOT IN A MILLION YEARS, work off the extra calories she's consuming by simply doing a 20-minute video sporadically during the week. The good news is that it appears that I am not actually gaining weight, but I can't get myself in the appropriate weight loss mindframe.

I am hoping that when the weather gets a little warmer and it doesn't get dark at 6pm (daylight savings time is in just a couple of weeks) and the baby isn't quite so hold-me-all-the-time-or-I'll-scream needy, that I'll be able to get out and jog or take out the stroller with both kids for a walk. Exercising outside makes me happy, and that, in turn, inspires me to eat healthier and eat LESS. It doesn't take away the ridiculously expensive home repairs, but it does give me a healthier mindset and a better attitude. I know a better attitude is possible; unfortunately, I am currently stuck at HATE LIFE AND ALSO HOME OWNERSHIP, EQUITY BE DAMNED.

The other hard thing is just having the time to figure out exactly what it is I'm eating. When I did WW before, I had time and a free hand to put everything I was eating into the WW website until I got comfortable with making decisions on the fly. Lately I can hardly remember when the last time I SHOWERED was (please see: baby who still eats three times a night and cannot seem to figure out how sleep for longer than three hours, GAH) so I cannot be trusted to remember what I ate for breakfast and lunch and whether I should allow myself another ladle full of pasta for dinner. (I KNOW. I should just go with “no,” BUT I'M HUNGRY.) And chances are, when you don't have time to log what you're eating, you don't have time to fix something good for you to eat either, so I'm eating a lot of grab-and-run food like granola bars and sandwiches and toast and HANDFULS OF M&Ms. (They're so portable!)

I try not to give myself a hard time about it, but I would so very much like to fit into those clothes. I remember how good it felt to be fit and healthy and how proud I was of being there and how I could wake up in the morning and know there was a closet filled with clothes I liked wearing and felt comfortable in. Of the things I hate in life, waking up knowing that I own only two pairs of pants that button (and neither of them comfortably) is at the top of the list. And I have said before that I would also like to fit into those pants rather than go out and buy myself a bunch of new ones that I hope to not wear for very long, especially after today and the heat pump and the fact that I still have two kidneys, WHO WOULD LIKE TO PAY FOR ONE OF THESE KIDNEYS?

But I also know that I've got a 10-week-old baby who doesn't sleep well, and no idea how to even GROCERY SHOP with two kids, let alone launch a Major Battle against my weight, so I'm taking it slow. (I HATE TAKING IT SLOW.) I want to lose it by the beginning of May. I want to feel decent in a bathing suit during the summer. I want to wear a hot dress to a wedding in the fall. And I'm signing up and training to run in this for the third time, and I don't want to feel my butt jiggling up and down independent of the rest of my body, like it happens to do right now. I don't need my butt putting out someone's eye, that's for sure. I need all my cash money for a heat pump, not for legal fees for my reckless use of a gluteus maximus.

OMG I HAVE A BLAWG

Dude, this thing? Where I have two diaper-clad children living here in my house who were grown in my own body and therefore look to me to keep them alive? It ain't easy. I mean, I knew it wouldn't be easy, but I didn't know it would be HARD. I thought it might be somewhere in between, you know, challenging, but still with enough downtime that I remained somewhat sane and also had enough time to watch TV and eat dinner and bathe as well as continue writing for Decompression Purposes. Also I thought maybe the smallest one might sleep more than three hours at a time at some point.

Which, ha! And also, HA!

So then when I get a moment to sit down and write something, I don't have the energy or inspiration to do it. When you get down to posting once every two weeks, you want what you write to COUNT for something. I want to write something funny and engaging and entertaining and I do not want it to contain references to The Children, as I am already exploiting them for money three days a week at my other blog. But as it turns out, my current state of being is set to All Children, All The Time, Plus Diapers and Spit Up and Tantrums and No, I Was Most Certainly Not Kidding When I Announced on Twitter That I Accidentally Banged the Baby's Head on a Case of Beer at the Grocery Store. I don't know how to write about anything else, unless it is related to HGTV or the fact that my house is falling apart, and frankly, the thing about how the house is falling apart is a little bit of a stretch since really we only need to fix the roof and the furnace and the two bathrooms and the kitchen and OH WAIT, that's not a stretch AT ALL, IS IT? Except my husband takes offense when I say things like that, like perhaps he is Personally and Solely Responsible for things that need to be repaired and replaced due to normal wear and tear.

Where am I even going with this? Oh! Yes. I am about to pull a major Cop Out on the old blog. In other words, if there's something you think I should or would like to ask me to write about, would you mind leaving a comment and giving me a little nudge? I don't care if you want to know about my underwear drawer or my first kiss or my why I refuse to dress my child in anything that says “Princess” on it. I want to write and I NEED to write but sometimes I need a little help getting my brain to move past My Offspring and on to something else. I find that once I start writing regularly, the writing comes easier and I just need a little push to get me there.

I heart you all.

House Hunters, Part Two

So out of all the posts I've ever written, I do believe the comments on that last post are my absolute, all-time favorites. You guys were funny and witty and agreeable and you didn't even HAVE TO BE, because you had me at Man Cave.

I went through the comments and made a list of Ten Things We Would Like The People on House Hunters to Shut Up About Already (Except Not Really, Because Then What Would We Yell About). Out of the seventy-something comments, can I just tell you there was not ONE out of ALL OF THEM that I didn't either completely agree with or had already thought at length about? It's like you READ MY MIND. (And everybody else's! We all hate the idiots on House Hunters!)

Without further ado:

Ten Things We Would Like The People on House Hunters to Shut Up About Already (Except Not Really, Because Then What Would We Yell About)

1. Paint. It costs $25 a gallon at Home Depot and does not require anything fancy. Just your arms, and this thing called a paintbrush. For those not in the know, it looks like a stick with evenly trimmed hair on the end. I'm sorry you think hunter green is a terrible color for a bathroom, and granted, while you're absolutely correct, IT SHOULDN'T MAKE OR BREAK YOUR DECISION. Also, the phrase, “I guess we could paint it...” makes me wonder why you would be so apathetic to live in a house you don't actually love living in. And if the only reason you do that is because you're lazy... well. I don't think we can be friends.

2. The Man Cave. I think the thing that bothers me the most about the Man Cave is the idea that the rest of the house is Woman's Territory. Like maybe we're going to go around gluing doilies on every available surface and trimming everything in lace and painting everything Pepto-Bismol pink and OMG, the men JUST CAN'T STAND IT ANY LONGER! Except, HELLO, last time I checked, men and women used the rest of their houses pretty equally. I mean, yes, I get screwed in the Laundry and Cooking department, but that doesn't mean that Dave isn't in the kitchen just as often as I am. He might not be preparing gourmet meals like I would, but that doesn't mean he can't go in there and get cookie crumbs all over the counter and drink out of the milk carton. So in other words, it belongs to both of us.

3. The Closet Jokes. Every. Single. Episode. Stupid woman looks inside the enormous walk-in closet and says, “I don't know where you'll put your stuff, sweetie!” Oooh! I know! MAYBE IN HIS MAN CAVE.

4. Master Bedrooms. Exactly how much space do you need for a bed and a dresser? I agreed with all of you who were all, “WHA?” when people wanted space for sitting rooms and fireplaces and a nice spot for the plasma TV. Did you want a bedroom? Or did you want ANOTHER LIVING ROOM, OMG, LOOK DOWNSTAIRS where there IS ONE ALREADY.

5. Side-By-Side Sinks. It irritates me most when the bathroom is about 3,000 square feet and the counter is 40 feet long with a mirror the same size and yet, HOW WILL WE MANAGE IF TWO PEOPLE NEED WATER AT THE SAME TIME? If Dave is brushing his teeth, and I need to brush my teeth, I guarantee the longest amount of time I will have to wait is about two minutes. I ask you, what cannot possibly wait TWO ENTIRE MINUTES? I mean, if you're THAT desperate, stick your toothbrush into your marble, sit-down, 85-adjustable-showerhead, glass-walled shower. OR YOUR GARDEN TUB.

6. Comments on the Owners' Furniture. Does this bother anyone else who watches Designed to Sell? Now don't laugh, but it honestly didn't occur to me until last week that all those prospective buyers who are attending the Open House on that show are mic'd and therefore, have clearly signed some sort of waiver that allows their likenesses to be shown on television. I don't know why it didn't occur to me before, maybe because I'm an IDIOT. But on that show (I'm sorry to get away from our general hatred of House Hunters, but bear with me for a moment) the people are ALWAYS commenting about how nice the kitchen table is or how beautiful the artwork is, and it finally all came together for me: they want to draw attention to the projects the designers did for the show, even if they're not staying with the house. OHHHHHHHHHH. Here I was thinking, YOU IDIOTS, why do you even care about the kitchen table when the kitchen table clearly DOES NOT CONVEY? And really, I should be thinking EMILY, YOU IDIOT, they have likely been COERCED to say that, because they devoted six whole minutes of the episode to how inexpensive it was to make such a classy-looking kitchen table. Anyway, the people who do this on House Hunters are just morons. The end.

7. Entertaining. Hee! We all seemed to agree on this one: Everyone likes throwing parties. FEW PEOPLE THROW ALL THAT MANY. (Amanda, you are excluded from this.) Also, I do love when the homeowners throw a party that is edited into the end of the show and the people attending are their parents and their realtor. Yes, excellent party. Good thing you got the granite!

8. Appliances. Yes, the stainless steel thing, but also the people who are SO DISAPPOINTED when the house doesn't come with appliances. Honestly, when you're buying a million-dollar house? You can probably afford to get some appliances. AND A PORSCHE.

9. Soaker Tubs and The Men Who Try Them. Right after college, Dave had this male roommate who was a) very hairy, and b) very fond of taking candlelit baths while drinking white zinfandel. The amount of fun that was made of this person made me absolutely certain that men just don't bathe. (I already knew they probably were a little risky if they bathed with wine and candles. Alone.) Am I wrong about this? I personally don't know a lot of men who take joy in soaking away a hard day. So it weirds me out when the men (it's ALWAYS THE MEN) are trying out the soaking tubs to see if they fit. Also, currently? That is SOMEONE ELSE'S TUB, and not only did you just get into it, you got into it WITH YOUR SHOES ON, you jerk. (Ever tried to keep your house clean for showings? GUESS NOT.)

10. Spa-like Bathrooms. While I like a bathroom as much as any chick, I have to agree with H, who said something along the lines of, “Why would I need a chandelier to go poo?” AMEN, SISTER. Amen.