The New Year is weird. Nothing changes, but everything changes. Maybe it’s the end of the holiday insanity, or maybe it’s some psychological shift that occurs as we switch to the first month of a new year, but it really does feel new and different, though nothing is actually new or different.

Same people doing the same things in the same places, generally. Time is a human creation, people. We only think it’s a “new year.” The earth is all “same ol’ shit, new day.” Oh wait. Days don’t even exist. (Wahhhhhh we’re so insignificant! We’re all gonna die and fade into nothing! Seize the moment! Wake up! I’m afraid.)

Setting aside my existential angst, I’m always sure it’s going to be better this year. I can feel it. Every year, a strange breath of hope and newness in the air.

In unrelated news, 2013 can bite me. I’m done with the bastard. Thankfully, it appears done with me, too, and all of us for that matter.

Good riddance, motherfucker. You’ve taken too many of my jobs and burglarized my house one too many times and, in matters of actual importance, you’ve given too many people cancer and taken too many young lives in random tragedies.

I don’t know what your deal is, asshole, but you have got to go.

And so, in the interest of moving on to better and bright horizons while also accepting one’s slacker nature (please check out last year’s “Slacker Resolutions“), I’ve written some Honest Resolutions for 2014.

I get pretty tired of these sweeping “2014 is gonna be the BEST YEAR OF MY LIFE” and “I’m going to change everything I’ve ever done wrong ever and become the best version of myself!” resolution lists.

Basically I’m just hoping to suck less than I do now. Generally speaking, ya know?

Sucking less is a universally positive move.

So here we go, friends. My Honest Resolutions.

(FYI, these are not in order of priority.)

1. Stop getting up 30 minutes before you have to leave to get the kids to school. It never works, Janelle, and yet you keep doing it. Barking orders from your bed does not count as “getting up.” Every day is like a mad dash through hell trying to get out the door in time. Get out of bed an hour before you need to leave, dumbass. JUST DO IT.
2. Stop eating cookies in the middle of the night. We get it. You’re pregnant. You get hungry at 2 or 3am. But really? Cookies and milk? Are you ten? Are you Santa? Eat something else in the middle of the night. Work with me here.
3. Speaking of cookies, you’re 18 weeks pregnant and you’ve gained nearly 20 pounds. You are on a fast track to “OMG HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?” You may not comfort yourself with carbohydrates anymore. Well, you can. BUT NOT AS OFTEN AND I MEAN IT.
4. Do kegels. No really, do kegels this time. Though we all know how much you enjoy the Sudden Leg Trickle, maybe we could just get crazy and do something else this pregnancy. What do ya say there, champ?
5. Stop getting on your kids’ cases for eating food or drinking water in your presence. Just because you’re a fucking psycho and hormonal beyond recall, you do not have an excuse to snap at your child for ____, well, yeah. That’s right. Doing nothing. You’re the problem here, Janelle. YOU. I thought we’d been over this.
6. Do not, under any circumstances, reinstall Candy Crush.
7. Maybe jump off the crazy train right at the beginning rather than ride it all the way through to the end. For example, when you come home on Christmas Eve and your husband, in an effort to be helpful (because you have a cold and are exhausted and overwhelmed), has wrapped nearly all the gifts, and you feel a sudden pang of sadness because you are now “left out” and “not feeling a part of Christmas anymore,” recognize there’s something seriously wrong with you and for sure stop talking. Like, go to bed. No need to verbalize. Just sleep. That look he’s giving you? Yeah, that one. The one that manages to mix terror, sympathy and pure wonder right between the brows? Yeah, use it as a sign. GET OFF THE TRAIN.
8. Stop squealing at the dog. Alpha pet owners do not lose their cool with their idiotic Labradors. Rather, they are like Zen masters. Calm, powerful, grounded.
9. Actually maybe you should try not to squeal at all. Nevermind we’re supposed to be realistic. Work toward a generally squeal-free day. Less overall screaming. Good call.
10. Do not engage in flame wars. Do not engage in flame wars. Do not engage in flame wars. For the entire year, because it’s stupid exercise in futility AND YOU KNOW IT, do not engage in flame wars.
11. Do one healthy thing a day for yourself. Exercise, eat a super food, meditate, pray. Take care of yourself, asshole. If you aren’t taken care of you’ll have nothing to give others.
12. Stop staying up so damn late just because the house is quiet.
13. Rather than turn everything in 24 hours after it’s due, maybe try 12. Winning!

But mostly, kid, you enjoy the next 5 months or so with Georgie as your “baby,” your family as it is, cause a new baby’s coming, one of these nights will be the last as it was, or is, and when he or she arrives, don’t miss a single whiff of that newborn breath, or the way they sleep on your chest with their bottoms in the air, and the fists they make for the first couple months, and the way the siblings will hold and smile and gaze as you watch them tumble on, relentlessly on, to the new, and different, and same.

Happy New Year, friends.

How are you hoping to move toward Generally More Solid Human?

Yay for sucking less in general!

Hi. It’s been awhile.

I haven’t written in nearly 3 weeks. That’s the longest I’ve ever gone in the 3 years I’ve been writing this blog.

I wanted to. I mean, I tried. But I’ve been in a spot, you know, one of those dead zones where you just kind of wake up and do your thing and go to bed and that feels like enough, like all you can handle, and everything additional is too heavy.

I was already in that spot, but when one of my best friends faced a personal tragedy that rocked her to her core, I hit some mental state of feeling totally and completely lost.

Does that ever happen to you? It happens to me on a semi-regular basis. I’m going along minding my own business when all of a sudden I’m just not interested in anything. It’s like a fog descends over my eyes and into my brain. It all feels blurred and unclear, gray and, well, foggy.

Part of it is moving in with my mom. These transitions are never easy.

Part of it is that I now have to drive an hour each morning to get my 3 kids to school, and 1.5 hours to get them home. I spend at least 2.5 hours a day driving kids around. It’s not exactly an inspiring situation.

Part of it is that we don’t know where we’ll be living in a couple months, though I would like to joyfully report that I got a job teaching English at a community college about an hour away – two sections of first-year composition. Yes. So lucky. (That was not sarcasm. I am LUCKY as hell to get that job. And I am grateful and excited.)

My insomnia has reached new levels, but at least it’s consistent. I sleep from 11pm til 2:30am. Then I’m awake until 3:30. My husband’s alarm goes off at 4am. I go back to sleep at 4:30 and sleep til 6am. So I average maybe 5.5 hours a night. I wake feeling like I didn’t sleep a wink. I’m groggy and irritated and it’s like my body weighs a thousand pounds.

Do you know that feeling? The body is not rested; it’s only heavy. It’s all so heavy.

I eat crap to make myself feel better, which makes me feel worse, of course.

I regularly wake up with headaches because there’s so much tension in my neck and back and shoulders, none of which is getting released during those you-have-got-to-be-kidding-me nights.

So I’m sleeping like crap which makes me feel like crap which makes me eat crap which makes me feel worse so I sleep worse and fail to do the things that make me feel better.

(If anybody wants to hire me for a life coach, I’m totally available.)

I realize I am in control of this. I realize it’s my responsibility to change it. I realize I am in this spot because of my own rather apparent inability to snap the fuck out of a crap pattern and take care of myself.

But sometimes I just like to ride my misery as long as I can. You know, really draw it out. I like to just hold on to the inaction and insanity of doing the same damn thing each day expecting different results, which is only slightly crazier than doing the same damn thing each day expecting the same crap results.

Today I hit the end, I guess, after yelling at my husband (again) over something infinitely stupid (again).

Today I went to the gym. It took me a solid hour to drag myself into gym clothes and onto the treadmill, and I only spent 25 minutes on it. I spent 15 minutes stretching.

It was all very impressive I assure you.

But I felt better than I have in days.

In unrelated news, I’m 16 weeks pregnant, which blows me away (feels like I was just 9 weeks). I’m gonna level with you, I’m so in love with this baby I can’t quite handle it. I don’t know why. I don’t remember feeling so in love so early – maybe it’s because I know he or she is my last, or maybe it’s because I’m older, but my whole heart is with the tiny beating one in my womb, and this manifests in a warmth beyond words but also a profound fear. I haven’t felt the baby move yet, so other than the fact that I feel like crap I really don’t know I’m pregnant.

The thought keeps running through my brain “Maybe he’s gone. Maybe you’re not pregnant anymore.”

I told you. Crazy. Also, I keep feeling like this baby is a boy, but I don’t know that, and I’m probably going to be one of those assholes who doesn’t find out (which is going to have crippling consequences for my sister-in-law who’s dying to plan my ironic gender reveal party (because we all know how I feel about those fuckers.)

Incidentally, I’ve also gained like 15 pounds. UNCOOL JANELLE, uncool. I’m gonna need to nip that shit in the bud. Of course it doesn’t help that I have these super badass midwives who are like “Whatever. If you’re eating right don’t worry about it.”

Of course I haven’t been eating right. NOBODY EATS RIGHT IN THIS CONDITION. So as much as I want to use their supportive words to justify my fat ass, I know it’s actually the cookies. Winning!

You know life is pretty strange sometimes, the way it corners you in these new ways, backs you into feelings you’ve never quite felt before. I haven’t felt these before. It’s like I’m disconnected from myself. It’s like my physical and mental bodies are not unified. My body feels weak and incapable and generally shitty and my head feels lost.

All the faculties that normally pull me through are all “Fuck you, you’re on your own, bitch.”

I get angry a lot. My irritability is profound. I’ve been spending too much time on my phone, scouring social media and engaging in arguments with egotistical assholes who I really shouldn’t be wasting my time with (acting, on occasion, like an egotistical asshole myself, because let’s be honest, flame wars don’t always bring out our most mature side.)

I think I’ve been escaping through the bright lights of my iPhone.

And the worst part is the tears. I’ve never been a crier. Not that I’m too tough or have some problem with it, I’m just not super prone to tears. Now, oh lord, I cry all the time. It’s pregnancy hormones, I get it. But I feel raw and exposed and like the protection I’ve always had is gone. Now, when my feelings get hurt, I cry.

I cry from hurt feelings! Fuck me.

This is new domain.

Maybe this baby is making me softer. Maybe he’s demanding a new side of me.

Nah.

It’s just the hormones. And they can BITE ME.

One of the worst parts about these mental blank spots and periods of malaise is that I feel like I’m letting you guys down. Not that this blog is like food or air or whatever, but you know, I feel like I should say something entertaining or insightful or whatever, and when I can’t think of anything and I’m unmotivated and tired, each day that goes by leaves me feeling more stressed like I’m NEVER GONNA WRITE AGAIN.

(I told you. CRAZY.)

And I explore every crevice of my brain for a something funny, something amusing at least, and all I get is “Oh my god I’m so tired.” Every crevice says “tired. Unmotivated. I gotta go to bed.”

But then I realize I can just tell you the truth. Normally life amuses me and gives me all kinds of things to write about, it sends me blog posts like pouring rain – it just dumps on my head. I don’t have to think about it. I don’t have to work at it or try or worry or even think. I sit down and the words come like water, just flowing. I laugh as I write them and I cry too sometimes, like really big ass tears (but I’m not a crier!) and I hit publish and that’s that (which is why there’s often typos).

I realize I can tell you the truth because maybe it happens to you, too, maybe not with writing but with life. I don’t know, whatever your thing is that makes you feel more alive and like you’re contributing something. Maybe work or art or cooking or singing or sewing or teaching or coaching or mothering. Whatever it is that makes you feel like you’ve got something inside that might help others, and make you unique.

And all of a sudden the energy driving that creation halts, and life sends you nothing but fog. Those days when the motivation leaves you, the inspiration slips away like your naked toddler as you try to dress her.

But then you get tired of the fog, too, and the silence, and you’re all “Well I guess I’ll have to force the issue, motherfucker,” and you move your pen and feet and hands and just start going again, forward, cause there’s no place else to go.

And you realize the blank spots must balance the vivid ones, or maybe in the end they’re one and the same anyway, and all that worry was for nothing, cause here I am, writing, even though I’ve got nothing to write.

And here I am pregnant. 16 weeks and crazy, and no end in sight. This was right before the gym. Please enjoy the hair. Yes, I went out in public like this.

Hot. Hot is the word you’re looking for.

It took a while to figure out, but I’ve finally determined that yes, for sure I have a kid I used to judge other people for having.

I used to look at people with their insane toddler hell-bent on standing in the shopping cart or running through the center of the mall and I’d be like “Well now, look at that little specimen of humanity” and then I’d look down at my own toddler, sitting quietly in her stroller gazing at shit with age-appropriate curiosity (reflecting profound intelligence and insight, obviously) and I’d be all “I’m so glad my excellent parenting has produced such a solid toddler as opposed to that person’s shithead kid.”

The other day, as we walked through the mall, I looked back and saw my husband carrying Georgia sideways and upside down as she flailed.

He asked me: “Do you have her other shoe?”

Yep. That’s me.

I now have the kid who’s plotting her escape at every fucking moment, occasionally finding success and running full speed, gleefully, into the wild blue yonder while I attempt to run behind her, which is a sight, I assure you, you’d rather not experience.

Actually, at this point, I’m so over it I usually just send one of the older kids after her, which makes me an even MORE SHITTY parent as I stand there watching my insane toddler bolt across public areas while calmly telling my 8-year-old “Dude. Go get her.” Then I watch with a mixture of resigned amusement and vague depression as he darts through the crowd and grabs the youngest one’s shirt, or pants, which may or may not result in her hitting the ground laughing hysterically, or bawling and screaming.

One can never be sure.

If you don’t buckle the carseat fast enough, she will launch herself across the car and into the back seat while giggling. She may get back into her carseat, IF you’re going someplace interesting to her (“When you get in the carseat we can go to the park!”).

But then again, she might NOT. There’s a good chance she’ll just run to the opposite end of the car no matter where you go to grab her, like the bad kid in Chevy Chase movies. And then you’ll just be the asshole yelling nondescript threats and wondering what the point of children really is. You know, when it’s all said and done.

Yesterday she squealed “Super Georgie!” and bolted through legs of the people standing in line of a restaurant. But that was kind of my fault, because I brought up the whole “super Georgie” thing to my mom and inspired her.

Silly me.

I have the toddler who won’t stop squirming down the bench seat in the restaurant (to say “hello” to the people at the next table – duh), but when you put her in the high chair she repeatedly pushes off the table to shove herself backwards and occasionally removes half-chewed food from her mouth.

Why? Because toddlers are fucking insane.

Later, when you go shopping, she’ll GRAB EVERY FUCKING THING SHE CAN REACH OFF THE GODDAMN MOTHERFUCKING SHELVES.

And she’ll stand in the shopping cart. Or try, repeatedly. She’ll grab shit out of the back of the cart and throw it.

She’ll scream “I HAVE A PENIS!” as loud as she can, which is mostly just annoying because of the volume, though the content could also be improved.

Or, my other favorite: “Santa is POOPY! You’re POOPY! I’m POOPY!”

That was yesterday, in Michael’s. We keep it classy.

Spilling things, mixing things, throwing things, constantly. Huge, huge messes. Messes you didn’t know were possible. In the refrigerator. “I’ll do it myself!” All the toys from the bedroom in the bathtub. Strange liquid mixtures all over the counter. Stickers. Everywhere. Pen marks on every wooden toy. Climbing. Jumping. Flailing. Lying down in parking lots, randomly.

It never, ever ends.

Maybe this is a result of deficient parenting. But IF this is a result of deficient parenting, WHY THE FUCK DIDN’T MY FIRST TWO KIDS ACT LIKE THIS?

Nope. This is just her.

Or maybe it’s that once you have more than two, the little hoodlums outnumber you and the older ones CRACK THE FUCK UP every time the smallest one screams “penis!” or “poop!” or flings herself sideways across dinner tables or throws her shoes and socks off while riding in the cart in Costco.

And you’re like “Stop laughing!” and trying to put your motherly foot down but for real it does nothing because there’s THREE of them. The energy of your voice is like a kitten walking against a tornado. Sorry. That was a little morbid.

The kitten’s fine.

A couple days ago Rocket was lying on the floor and Georgia literally did a cannonball off the couch onto his stomach. It was awful. Not funny. INSANE.

Where does she get this shit?

Maybe I’ve done something wrong. Wouldn’t be the first time. Maybe it’s just her. Maybe it’s a perfect storm of factors resulting in this gorgeous, crazy kid.

But whatever it is, I’d like to offer an enormous, heartfelt “FUCK YOU” to the old me, to the mom who walks by and sees me kind of sucking ass with this child, trying my hardest to rein her in when all the forces of life are against me.

And I’d like to explain to that mom, the one standing there with her perfect toddler or two, that if she has enough kids, her day may come too, when suddenly SHE’S the one in Michael’s picking shit up in the aisles with a toddler squealing at a stranger perusing the aisles: “Those are OUR BUTTONS! Don’t take OUR BUTTONS!”

And I’d like to explain something else, that the kid you see throwing herself out of the cart is also the one who runs into my room each morning and yells (after removing her clothes): “Do you want to cuggle (cuddle?). I ALWAYS love to cuggle!”

And she’s the one who had a big boy monster truck birthday party. She’s the one who hears a song in Old Navy and says “I gotta dance!” Then gets down and dances in front of the mirror. She’s the one who sat on an old man’s lap for a few minutes and gave me one of the most beautiful moments of my life.

She’s the one who seems to fill just about every square inch of the lives of those who know her with a joy that’s hard to explain. You can kind of see it in her eyes. In her sly smile, in the way she walks. A certain determination to live, to be what and who she is, as “irritating” as it may seem to the rest of the world. And to me.

I’m very serious when it comes to manners, and I am decidedly not one of those parents who’s all “Oh look at my kid acting like a shithead! Isn’t it cute?”

It’s not cute.  I don’t think it’s cute. You don’t think it’s cute. NOBODY THINKS THIS SHIT’S CUTE.

I don’t let her get away with poor manners and insanity. It’s just that she ALWAYS TRYING NEW METHODS OF CRAZY, which means my life with her is often a serious of averting disaster and attempting to correct the last disaster. Sometimes my mothering of this child is reduced to just trying to get through whatever task is at hand: a trip to the grocery store, dinner, the car ride.

If you don’t understand what I’m saying, just have a couple more kids.

If you’re lucky, you may get one like this…the best worst kid in the world.

And you’ll learn the only cure for horrible judgmental douchebaggery is to become one of the assholes you used to judge.

So thanks for that, Georgie, I owe you one.

I wrote a post about the struggles of motherhood, those moments when the work becomes too much and we’ve got nothing left and we just want to quit the whole damn gig. Those moments when we’re really, really not “grateful.”

And in response, a woman wrote this (more or less): “A year ago around this time my 2-year-old died unexpectedly in her sleep. I’d give anything to experience the things you complain about, to get irritated at the noises and antics of my child. Why don’t you think about what it would feel like to lose those children you’re ranting about.”

Just for fun, click over and read the other comments left on that post.

You back? Cool.

39 mothers (and a stay-at-home-dad) commiserating about the harshness of this job of parenthood. 40 people who found a place to say the shit everybody’s thinking (well, lots of us at least) but nobody will admit because, well, I don’t know. We’re not supposed to, I guess.

I read her comment in the car and wanted to vomit. I was simultaneously filled with rage and sadness and piercing guilt. Even shame.

I didn’t publish the comment. I’m not exactly sure why. I thought she might be a troll (I mean what the hell was she doing on a parenting website while mourning the death of her child?), but I don’t think that was really it. It’s unlike me to censor somebody. In fact, that’s the only comment (besides troll name-calling (e.g. “You’re a slobbering vagina.”)) that I’ve deleted.

I really didn’t want to subject the 40 other commenters to her guilt-inducing wrath. It was like she had this flaming sword and could SLAUGHTER any parent in the world for the slightest hint of ungratefulness, in a few words. And holy shit, did it work.

I think that was a wrong choice. Nobody needs me to protect them. I should have published it. I won’t make that mistake again.

In hindsight, I imagine I deleted it because it struck some chord with me that I couldn’t handle.

I’ve thought about it a lot since then and I’ve realized I really, really hate that shit: You can’t complain about your job because people are unemployed.

You can’t bitch about pregnancy symptoms because some women can’t have children.

You can’t loathe motherhood occasionally because parents have lost children.

And come on, friend, stop talking about your pneumonia. People are dying of cancer.

You lost your dad? I lost BOTH parents (I didn’t actually, thank god). You’re 20 pounds overweight? I’m 40. You’re poor. I’m more poor. Unemployed for 3 months? It’s been 6 for me. And on and on.

Somebody can always, always one-up your problems. And you know what? They’re fucking right. It’s true. It’s 100% true that I should be grateful for the fact that I can conceive children. I should be grateful for the fact that none of them have been ripped from my yearning hands. And I should be grateful I’m alive, and my parents and family are alive (mostly), and nobody is facing a terminal illness (that we know of).

And guess what. I AM GRATEFUL. But I’m not grateful all the time. I’m not some freaking guru.

I am also beat sometimes, by them and me and my life, just as it stands, as glorious and beautiful as it is. Sometimes I fall into a depression. Sometimes I’m full of self-pity and agony and pain and I’m not even sure why it’s there. It’s real. It’s life.

And THAT is why the problem one-upping thing is so fucking irritating and a complete waste of time: Because it doesn’t WORK.

It is 100% ineffective in actually reducing pain.

When I am depressed, or terrified, or tired of being broke, no amount of mental chanting “But some people have it worse” reduces my pain for more than a minute or two. Ultimately, no mental construct – no new idea – will pull me through my darkness.

If you think about it, the pain one-upping could just go on forever. There is always somebody “worse off” than you…what about those women locked in the Castro house? What about people who lose their whole families in car accidents? What about people trapped in abusive marriages living in countries that don’t give a shit? Should we talk about Ethiopia? Starvation? Sex slavery? Come on. We could do this all day. There is always, always a “worse” situation.

So ultimately, where do we land? If we take this one-upping as far as I goes, we end up at “No pain means anything. No pain deserves treatment. No pain matters.” And that, my friends, is completely ridiculous.

Why? Because this pain is real. It does matter. It’s happening, isn’t it?

THIS is where I am in my journey. What good is pretending I’m not in pain just because I should be more enlightened or insightful or deep or appreciative? I should be a better person, capable of focusing on my blessings. I should be blah blah freaking blah.

I should, BUT I’M NOT.

Maybe my pain is ridiculous. Maybe you’ve been down to levels of agony that make my problems seem utterly ridiculous.

And yep, when I hear people bitching about which tile to pick out in their Newport Beach mansion as if that’s the biggest, hardest decision they’ve ever made, I judge the shit out of them. I wonder what the hell is wrong with them. Privileged assholes. Never suffered a day in their lives.

And I imagine that is precisely what that woman saw when she read my blog: Privileged asshole. Look at her, bitching about those gorgeous children. She thinks she’s suffering. She’s never suffered a day in her life.

And compared to her, she’s right.

I have not known that pain. I cannot even comprehend an ounce of the pain that is her pain.

But my pain is still real, and unfortunately, imagining greater pain does not alter the course of my own. The only thing that alters the course of my own is life. Experience. I must live through my pain as you live through yours, wherever we are on the spectrum of depth and insight and development.

I must move through the course of my life, learning as I go what matters, what doesn’t, and each person’s journey is their own, to be endured, enjoyed, lived and learned from.

There’s a line in this song by Langhorne Slim, one of my favorite singers in the world, and it goes like this: “I’ve had it better than some and I know that I shouldn’t complain/though my grandfather told me once that all pain hurts the same.”

I have a hard time believing the pain I feel from my nondescript depression that’s come and gone my whole life, my vague dissatisfaction with life, is the same as the pain of losing a child. In fact, I know it cannot be. And frankly I find it self-righteous and ridiculous to claim it’s the same.

But he’s right: Pain is relative. And it all hurts. And the pain you feel from your suffering can be as profound as my own, even though your life might not cause ME pain. We cannot one-up each other’s suffering. There’s no healing in that.

And yet, there’s a strange thing that happens when you put yourself in the presence of somebody in greater pain than you. Theirs becomes yours, and yours seems small.

Sometimes I speak in rehab centers for drunks and addicts who were found homeless on the streets. When I spend an hour with those women, I get in my car and I have no fucking problems.

And when I spend time with friends who are really, really struggling, like fighting cancer or losing a baby or missing a husband who just died, and I try to be of service to them somehow, I get out of myself, and my pain is diminished, forgotten for a while. I let go of myself and find peace in the disassociation. I would say those moments keep me alive, bump me back on track.

It’s a fucking gorgeous thing. But it isn’t an IDEA. It’s an experience. I am experiencing a shift in my perspective arising from a moment with somebody else – a collision with reality that knocks me  out of my delusion.

But day in and day out, as the daily annoyances and difficulties of my life arise, as I find myself impatient and yelling at the small human specimens who irritate the living shit out of me but would take my life if I lost them, when I lay my head down at night broken and done and without resources, the vague idea that some people have it worse does precisely jack shit to alleviate my pain or make me more patient and loving and kind.

Does that make me an asshole? Probably. But I’d rather be an asshole facing my asshole nature than an asshole pretending to be enlightened.

Part of my journey is facing exactly how self-centered I am, how self-absorbed and shallow I can be – how unreliable my perceptions often are. And, perhaps most importantly, how 99% of the time, my problems lie IN MY HEAD rather than in reality. Reality is that I have a damn good fucking life. My head says “Let’s be sad. Let’s be depressed. All things suck.”

But I can’t change a broken mind with a broken mind. I can’t fix a problem WITH the problem. (That’s not mine. I learned that from sober alcoholics.) I’ve got to move my feet in a different direction. I’ve got to continue living my life, trusting that teachers will always come, teachers who won’t TELL me how I SHOULD be feeling, shame me into something I’m clearly not capable of doing, but SHOW ME through their actions, through the very essence of their selves, through their motherfucking LIVES – who they are what they see  and how they’ve suffered, and overcome. Until I remember, see the truth of my own life, and maybe realize that through my own suffering and what I’ve overcome, I can help others do the same.

Until my problems become nothing, and my pain diminishes, and I’m grateful again.

So I’m not exactly sure how to tell you this, but, um, I’m pregnant.

Yep. You heard that correctly, and no, I’m not joking. And yes, we’re broke and living with my mother and between jobs and unsure where we’ll be in a few months.

WHAT?

Yeah, I know.

If any of you are thinking “But you can hardly handle the three you’ve got.”

Let me just say: “THAT’S WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT DUDE!”

But logic has no place in the uterine equation, and when there’s a dude who’s SUPER INEXPLICABLY interested in another baby (at one point he was even like “But you promised me four kids the night we met!” and I was like “BUT I WAS ON ECSTASY MOTHERFUCKER!”) and your friends keep reproducing and there’s baby thighs and chin fat and you’ll be 35 in March and you’re like “but maybe just ONE MORE?” but then all hell breaks loose in your life and you’re all “never mind let’s wait” but then the IUD is already out so you get this app on your iPhone to determine when you’re ovulating and shit but oops, yeah. Baby.

Hypothetically speaking, of course.

FYI, iPhone apps are horrible birth control. Tell your teens.

But this should explain my lack of writing and extreme exhaustion. I totally wanted to tell you all sooner, but you’re supposed to wait and shit. And I did wait. I’m 10 weeks now and I’ve known since 5 weeks.

I wanted to announce this to you all in some super cute, Pinterest-y way, but, actually no. I didn’t.

But that got me thinking about pregnancy announcements, which apparently exist, and then I was all “What would mine say if they told the truth?”

So obviously I made a few.

As always, please enjoy the clip art.

And let me just say: There will be bitching about this pregnancy. There will be sentimental slop. There will be a baby by mid-June of 2014 (or my heart hopes).

I’m glad we’re doing this together. It should be fucking interesting.

I’m already crafting a post: “Top 5 stupidest things I’ve read on my Babycenter due date forum.” (Yes, since I didn’t have you people, I ventured over to hell to see what was up and WOW. Now I just go over there for material.)

Please feel free to pin any of these for future ideas.

with so much love,

Janelle

P.S. So I’m planning another homebirth but since the midwives don’t give you a “confirmation ultrasound” I totally made an appointment with the local women’s health people and lied to the OB/GYN to avoid The Homebirth Lecture to get my ultrasound. I just couldn’t believe it was real. I just wasn’t feeling “connected.”  I wanted to SEE something.

And when I saw the tiny rushing furiously powerful little heart I thought “Oh, yeah, there you are. I knew I loved you.”

And I got excited, and that’s the truth.

Also all of the above. That’s true too. Some things never change, I guess.

P.S.2 REALLY should have made sure I wasn’t going to have another baby BEFORE writing those baby sprinkle/gender reveal party posts because OHMYGOD my friends. Are losing it.

I’m 95% sure I may have both. But they will be ironic. As god as my witness, THEY WILL BE IRONIC.

And you’re all invited.