he blogging world is a glorious thing - a thing that I am just now discovering.

I wrote my first blog back in 2008, right before I got pregnant. We all know how that turned out for me. I could hardly stay alive on a day to day basis, never mind write about it. I mean, what would I have blogged about? "Ooopps! Puked Again!" "Yep, I'm Still a Fat Whale!" "No, That is NOT a Pumpkin Under My Shirt. Leave Me Alone." Riveting topics, I tell ya.

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It was around this time, three years ago, that I first noticed the return of Lincoln Logs.

I was at Target - in the book section, natch - and there was a big display of them across the way in the toy section. Upon further inspection, I found the aisles were stuffed with My Little Ponies, Cabbage Patch Kids and Strawberry Shortcake. How stupid!, I thought. I mean, really. Can't these toy companies come up with some new ideas?

At the time, I didn't realize that this was not stupid; it was, in fact, genius.

Fast forward (a year later) to Christmas of 2008. I was 10 years pregnant and Christmas shopping/waddling around Target between bouts of puking and crying. I noticed the Lincoln Log display again, but this time, my reaction was different.

Oh my gosh! Kasi and I played with Lincoln Logs!! Gasp! They are REAL wood, too, just like when I was a kid!

I picked up the box and studied it. Yes, these are exactly like the Lincoln Logs we played with growing up! But, dang it... Not for children under 3. Alright, I'll leave myself a mental note. When this kid turns three, he's getting Lincoln Logs and he and I will build them just like Kasi and I did. It's going to be great!

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I've never been a crier.

I prefer to keep everything bottled up while telling myself that I'm "tough" and I put on a brave face when I'd rather lay in bed and die. I'm not saying it's the best way to deal, but that's how I deal. Actually, I should say that how I USED to deal because since I've become a mom, everything has taken on a new meaning.

This change started when I was pregnant. Yes, I was totally miserable (despite announcing that 2008 was going to be the best year ever) and doing nothing but drinking Maalox and puking at the sight of food, but this was different. I was literally turning into a hot mess. Seriously.

I remember driving to my doctor's appointments - you all know how many we preggos go to in the course of 9 months - and crying all the way there. Why? Because I knew that sometime in February of 2009, my husband and I would be driving this exact route while I'm in labor (that's totally not how it ended up happening). Then, I started crying when certain songs came on. Which ones? I have no idea now, but I'm certain they were nothing to cry about. And TV shows? Forget it. I cried when Kate and Sawyer hooked up; I cried when Michael Scott and Jan broke up; I cried when Liz Lemon stuffed her face with cheese puffs and scared off another potential baby daddy.

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The freaks really do come out on Halloween, don't they?

By "freaks", I mean all of the crazy neighbors. For whatever reason, Halloween is the perfect night for them to get down with their bad selves and be OK with it. I don't know what it is - the kids, the costumes, the candy, or (in the case of certain neighbors) the football - but there were a lot of freaks out last night.

Halloween started out with a little pumpkin carving in the driveway. Blake wasn't too interested in that so the kid next door carved a haunted house on Blake's pumpkin while he ran around like a cracked out animal. Mind you, Blake doesn't even know what candy is. He's just always like that, Halloween or not.

"You want me to do WHAT?! I'd rather run wild!"

After pumpkin carving/running wild, all of the kids got into their costumes. The sun was setting and it was getting close to Trick or Treat time! Two of the kids were nerds (complete with "KICK ME" signs on their backs), and there were a couple of scary monsters, some fairies, and then Tigger. Yep, that's right. Blake was Tigger, courtesy of a friend of mine who has FOUR (count em... one, two, three, FOUR) kids that have all been Tigger on Halloweens past.

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Somebody LOVES "doe doe". Can you tell by the fleet of Tonka Trash Trucks? No, we can not have only one trash truck. We must have every single trash truck that any toy company has ever made in the history of trash truck toy making.

FYI- The small one has a name: "Baaaabeeee DOE DOE!"

His life is horrible. Just ask him. (5mos)

His back was hairy, his skin wrinkled and eyes squinted almost shut. I was laying on the Transformers-like delivery bed (seriously... the way the bottom of it folds down and the stirrups come out...) and looking to the right at my newborn son, "Boy A".

We didn't officially have a name for him yet, so he was "Boy A" for the first couple hours of his life. We had a few names in mind, but after a slightly annoying conversation with my dad, we decided to keep that list to ourselves. We couldn't name a person we'd never met. Ken's mom wanted "Matthew". I have cousin named Matthew. My dad liked Zac. Yeah, that's right. Without the "H". He spelled my name without an "E" so why not misspell my son's name, too? Ken liked Dustin. As in Dusty. Like Dusty Brown. NO. And I wasn't going for Tanner, James, Charlie, Chris, or Bobby, either.

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I told the doctor I was going to have him quickly.

My mom had me in two hours and my brother in one. Her doctor told her that if she got pregnant again, she'd better live in a Winnebago in the hospital parking lot. When I told my doctor this, she wasn't impressed. Maybe it wasn't that, actually; it was more along the lines of disbelief. Women NEVER have their first baby that quickly. Never ever in the history of man. And I wasn't going to be the first.

So there I was, in the delivery room, dilated to a six and not in labor. No water breaking in the mall. No 80 year old woman holding my hand in an ambulance. No giving birth on the freeway because the traffic here sucks. There we sat, watching the lines on the monitor show no progress.

The nurses had a new attitude now that I was actually admitted in the hospital and having a baby today, just like I had told them thirty minutes before. One of them came in and turned on the TV that was on the other side of the big, brand new room. She asked if the news was OK, and it was. Why the heck not. Maybe watching that super annoying Jillian Reynolds on Good Day LA would send my body into convulsions and cause the baby to have no choice but to quickly exit.

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