Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been nearly a week since my last blog post. Also, I am pretending to confess to a priest, only I am really confessing to the internet and tomorrow is Easter which means that surely I will be struck with lightning.

I need your help. I know! I take and I take and I take, and what do I give? Nothin’. This is totally a one-sided relationship. I think we need counseling.

As I was saying, I need help. My son doesn’t like kisses anymore. He is usually ok getting a kiss as long as he can wipe it off immediately after, but he won’t ever let me kiss him on the mouth anymore. WHY DOES HE HAVE TO GROW UP? Anyway, thats not really the problem. The problem is that there is one person in his family that he CAN NOT STAND to hug.

Eeyore is almost always a very good boy, he’s sensitive and would hate to hurt someone’s feelings, and he listens to me pretty damn well for a seven year old kid. However, when it is time to leave this person’s house and they ask for a hug he runs the other way. He doesn’t care that it hurts her feelings and it takes me telling him repeatedly to hug her before he listens to me. I hate this.

Why do I hate this? Not because my son turns in to a completely different person when it is time to hug this lady good bye. Not because he stops minding me and he doesn’t worry about her feelings. Because I strongly feel that if he doesn’t want to hug someone then he shouldn’t have to hug them.

We teach our children that any touches that make them uncomfortable are bad. We teach them that their body is their own and they can say no if they want to. Yet here I am, forcing my child to hug someone that he just does not want to hug. I know it is just an innocent hug, but it is still HIS BODY and it is still something he DOES NOT want to do. Isn’t that a mixed message?

Regardless of how strongly I feel about this, the fact remains that Eeyore is related to her, she is someone who loves him very much and, well, its family. You hug your family.

How would you handle this internet? Would you continue forcing the kid to hug someone he doesn’t want to? (And I feel like I should clarify that its not just that he doesn’t want to, I mean he DOES NOT WANT TO. For whatever reason he feels VERY strongly about it and is thoroughly against the idea. Yes, I have my ideas as to why. No, I can’t share them here. NO, she hasn’t molested him or any crap like that.) Would you kindly tell the person that from now on if Eeyore wants a hug he will give her one, otherwise they can…what? Just wave?

I’m not sure how to handle this. I want to respect my child and his right to say no. I don’t want to hurt any feelings. What should I do?

*Does anyone know what TV show I got that title from?

Baggy pants. Love ‘em, hate ‘em, whatever. But OUTLAW them?

TWELVE STATES have taken action against baggy/saggy pants. You can get fined or JAIL TIME if you wear baggy pants.  Why? Because it is offensive. Because you could be hiding a weapon in your baggy pants. Because it is disrespectful.

Does this offend me? No. I’m not looking at anyones ass! I’m looking at their boxers. A freakin’ piece of clothing. NOT OFFENSIVE. Do I think you have a gun hidden under there? Uh, no. Am I feeling like you do not respect me? Huh uh.

Seriously, y’all. Whats next? No low cut shirts? I don’t find cleavage offensive, but you can bet some people do. Is that going to soon be outlawed? How about WINTER COATS? They are big and bulky and OHMIGOD some of them even have POCKETS on the INSIDE! Do you know what you could HIDE in a winter coat? Guess the government better outlaw WINTER so that we don’t need to wear fucking coats.

Seriously, this is the most outrageous thing I have ever heard. The government DOES NOT have the right to tell us what to wear! Where will it end? I am TOTALLY offended by President Bush wearing crocs with socks BUT I DON’T WANT IT OUTLAWED! (Maybe I do, but thats not the point.)

Does anyone else think this is ridiculous? Or are baggy pants so offensive to you that you think they should be outlawed?

I’m going to start this with the dreaded phrase “So, last night I had this dream…” and before y’all go closing the window I just want to clarify that while this is about a dream, its really NOT about a dream. Got it? Now remove your cursor from the red X at the top of your screen before I cut you.

So, last night I had this dream. I dreamt that Cleatus had gone to the doctor for some routine bloodwork and SURPRISE! The doctor told him that his blood work indicated that I was pregnant. With twins! A boy and a girl! (Do not ask how Cleatus’s blood work showed that I was pregnant. We go to very fancy doctors ’round these parts. Mmkay?) Cleatus came back from his doctor’s appointment with my ultrasound pictures and told me the news. (I told you our doctor is bad ass. I wasn’t even in attendance and I got ULTRASOUND PICTURES!) I was so happy. I’m actually very nearly crying right now remembering HOW HAPPY I was. It was just that perfect everything is exactly the way it should be 100% content kind of happiness. I spent the remainder of the night showing my friends and family the ultrasound pictures (which, by the time I had shown quite a few people and told them the news, the ultrasound pics had turned into a sliced onion (?) and they were starting to fall apart and that was kind of sad.) and saying “Twins. A boy and a girl.” and just being happy about being pregnant.

Some of you may remember that Cleatus got a vasectomy a while back. And that right after his vasectomy I hoped thought that I might be pregnant. I’m right back to that place again. That place where I think that MAYBE I could be pregnant. I mean, it HAS happened before, right? Vasectomies don’t always work. Stranger things and all that.

Cindy-Lu came about after trying just two times. In one month. Hell, in one week. I had been BEGGING Cleatus to have another baby for 2 years when he finally agreed. It was March. He said lets do this. We did it. And then I freaked out and changed my mind. I was so worried about day care. I worked and we couldn’t afford for me to quit, but we also wouldn’t be able to afford daycare for two children and the current situation of Eeyore staying with his great-grandparents wouldn’t work out if there was a newborn in the mix. So, after two years, I said nah, lets wait.

Cleatus and I had always used the “pull out” method of birth control. (TMI?) But, we had sex one last time after I had changed my mind without pulling out. And I got pregnant. I’ve always believed that I didn’t get pregnant before that (four years of pulling out! Pulling out is not one of the most effective birth control methods!) because we weren’t BOTH ready. And then he said he was ready. And BAM. I got pregnant. It was like all that time he had just been bossing around his sperm and telling them to stay away from my eggs. Either that or God had a plan. You choose. (I choose option A, because the image of Cleauts lecturing his penis is very humorous to me.)

All I’m trying to say here, I guess, is that these babies from my dream, they could be real, couldn’t they? I mean, I got pregnant so quickly with Cindy-Lu and I WANT this so bad. I have held on to this dream, these babies, all day long and I just can’t let it go.

I told Cleatus about the dream and asked if he would be happy. No. He wouldn’t be. Of course he wouldn’t be. That’s why he got the vasectomy. And I agreed to him getting the vasectomy. I understand why he doesn’t want more children (No, I don’t. Why wouldn’t he want more children?). I DON’T actively go around wishing for babies. He wanted one. I wanted three. We have two.

I just…I wasn’t done. I really wasn’t done yet.

Fucking compromise. Its so dumb.

This cute little guy is my grandpa. He’s not doing so great. Five or six years ago he had a bunch of surgeries on his heart and since then has been pretty much confined to bed. My grandma kept him home with her for as long as she could, but about a year ago he needed to go to a nursing home. He’s been there ever since, doing about the same as he’d been doing at home. Stuck in bed, ornery, and grumpy. But, still so damn cute.

The past few weeks (months?) he hasn’t been doing so well and the decision was made yesterday to let him go. We are taking him off all of his medications, except his pain pills, and letting him go be with his Mama, Daddy, brothers and sisters, and all the others who went before him.

He’s my Poppy. I love him. And I’ve been so horrible about going to visit him in the nursing home that is just a few blocks from my home because I just don’t know what to say to him. But, I’m going to see him today. And I’m going to tell him I love him and I’m going to give him a kiss.

Please pray for him to pass peacefully and painlessly.

This morning I woke up and turned on my laptop. I was eager to check my email and see who all was out there de-lurking. Lots of people! Thank you! It was so fun to hear from some of the people that never comment!

Along with an inbox full of your comments, I also had some "Flickr mail," which is basically just an email sent to me on my Flickr account. I have never before received mail from Flickr. I had four different messages, all from people that I had never heard of. The first one said "RE: Naked Family. You are a sick bitch. Fuck off." Hmm, I thought. Thats strange. The second email said "I dare you to say that to my face." Um, okay. I didn’t say anything, what the fuck is going on? The third email said "You better explain. I am contemplating reporting you to the FBI." Um, WHAT THE FUCK? Now I’m really nervous. And the fourth email "I don’t know what is going on with your account, but I am getting some really odd messages from it." Yeah, I bet you are.

I have NO IDEA who these people are or what the hell they are talking about. I logged in to my flickr account and the emails were also in my flickr inbox and were from flickr members. They all have normal profiles with normal pictures. They have all blocked me so that I can not reply to their emails.

It appears that I am offending a bunch of people on Flickr, but how the hell did that happen? I checked my sent messages in my flickr inbox and it shows no sent messages. I changed my password, but really…I have no idea how anyone could have gotten my password anyway. Creepy.

Anyone else have anything like this happen to them? Or if you are one of my Flickr contacts, have you received a weird email from me?