Moral Of The Story: Violent Snuggling Edition
Right now, I’m trying to work three home business jobs. Trying, in this context, is a euphemism for failing.
Luckily, all three of those jobs are from home. Luckily, I have a phenomenally supportive husband. Less luckily, Jack has entered that charming toddlerhood stage in which he must be physically attached to me at all times or he might die. Not conducive to working from home.
Earlier today, I was hiding in the kitchen and trying to get some work done. (See: “trying”, above.) I’d been in here for about an hour, and I was able to get a few posts edited and loaded, a few pictures chosen, with little more than a knock at the door I chose to ignore.
All this I could probably handle — people have certainly done more difficult things in the whole of human history. But, as many of you already know, Jamie and I got the bright idea to have another baby.
If you have been pregnant, or have ever known someone who is pregnant, you’ll know that when another human being spends 24 hours out of each and every day violently snuggling with your bladder, you pee. A lot.
I would never be able to open the ancient kitchen door and sneak off to the bathroom without detection. I tried to keep loading posts until I couldn’t do it anymore and was physically tasting pee. I still couldn’t imagine the carnage that would ensue if Jack saw me sneaking off to the bathroom, so that was out. I thought about peeing in the sink but it was full of dishes. I was desperate.
Again, if you know anything about pregnancy, you know that you spend a lot of time peeing in cups. Once a month, then once a fortnight, and finally once a week, throughout your whole pregnancy, you’re peeing in cup after cup after cup. I look at the cups and think very hard about peeing in one of them. After three seconds, I realize this is ridiculous. Not because it’s unhygienic and disgusting, but because there’s not enough room in a cup. I’m pregnant, people. Pregnant ladies make a lot of pee.
I’ll spare you the details of how the situation physically came to be but I’ll tell you this much. I realized that the true glamor of entrepreneurship had sparkled into my life.
I was hiding from my children in the kitchen, squatting under the table between an iMac and a car seat, and peeing into a juice pitcher.
And that’s when my husband walked in.
Moral Of The Story: Plan Ahead
Look at your situation. If there is anything about the circumstances in which you find yourself that could later provoke the thought, “I fucking KNEW that was going to happen!”, act now, not later.
If you like listening to me embarrass myself in front of over 1000 people, check these out:
Moral Of The Story: Topless Edition (With Photos!)
Moral Of The Story: Neocitran Edition
Moral Of The Story: Marketing To Alcoholics Edition (This one got me fanmail that started out, “Dear Wine Box Lady…”)
Like IttyBiz? Click here to subscribe now. I try to humiliate myself as often as I can.
***
Think you need a micro-business marketing coach? Click here to get started.
*cackling so hard he falls off chair*
… sobering thought…
You aren’t going to *keep* that juice container, are you?
Yes, actually. I’m going to store breast milk in it. Are you out of your fucking mind?!?!?!
Just checkin’, just checkin’… women get funny ideas when they’re pregnant and all.
“Oh honey! Don’t throw that out!! That’s memorabilia! We have to save that for three or four decades as a symbol of the moment in time when our darling child squeezed my bladder too hard… or nearly drowned because it was too full, one or the other…”
You think so little of me. We are SO not BFF anymore. I am scratching your name off my binder. (Do kids still do that? My first crush was James Chute but I thought his name was James Shoot. I had I LOVE JS written all over my books and then I had to cross them all out when I realized I’d spelled his name wrong.)
When I come to visit you one day, I’ll smack you if you offer me juice.
Just sayin’.
@ Susan - Totally reasonable. If I’d had a wine carafe handy nobody would ever visit me again.
Urine is a sterile fluid, isn’t it? :)
(The juice jug that is currently in my fridge was used for that one time, if I recall. If you think pregnant ladies make a lot of pee, imagine how much pee my wife made when pregnant with triplets… if there was a market for it, we probably could have retired off the profits - couldn’t drive 50 feet without a ‘pee break’)
Wait a second. Just hold on a minute. First James, then James, and now James. I think there’s a recurring pattern here, but I’m not quite sure what it is…
Even worse is that if you’d written I LOVE JC all over your binders, you would’ve had some ’splainin’ to do by the time I came along.
@ James - It would have been my burning love for our Lord and Savior.
@ Brett - I have to pee just reading that.
@ Naomi - you can use my juice jug if yours is full. Nothing the old dishwasher can’t fix…
This one even tops the wine box episode! I’d love to have seen the look on your hubby’s face!
@ Brett - Maybe that’s the difference. I don’t have a dishwasher, so I have to wash the pee out by hand. And thank you for your kind offer. I may take you up on it.
@ some other Naomi - I am like a magnet for this kind of thing.
ROFLOLOLOL. One of my boys just walked in to tell me about how he’d been badly wronged in life only to have me look up from this post and laugh hysterically in his face. I’m going to have to ’splain that to a therapist some day, I just know it.
Great Post, great story. I read it aloud to my darling wife (three months pregnant), and she laughed her ass off.
Thank you!
I am still laughing too hard to think of anything witty to say. I had this sudden vision of a new product on the market - disposable pee cups (or pitchers) for pregnant women who are avoiding cuddle time with their toddlers. We’ll call them Stealthy Mommies. Heee!
Perhaps the Disposable Pee Pitcher would be compatible with this: http://www.whizproducts.co.uk/en/
Hi Naomi - I do remember how it feels, especially towards the end when you’re out of bed all night to go to the bathroom.
But, I couldn’t have gone in a cup. I’d have missed it totally. You have no idea how many times I had to try before I even managed to urinate on the bloody pregnancy testing wand thing.
Ok, you’ve told a lot of really funny stories, but this is by far my favorite. If I was drinking milk, it would have come out my nose and all over my keyboard. Thanks for the levity, Naomi.
@AmyL, you can even flick it dry after use!
http://www.whizproducts.co.uk/en/whiz_freedom_anti_bacterial.aspx
Just don’t use it facing the wind…
http://www.whizproducts.co.uk/en/whiz_freedom_anti_bacterial.aspx
(too much fun has come from this, I will have sore laugh muscles tomorrow)
This is why I go to the library to work.
Although my pee management situation is currently ok, due to lack of nonknockedupedness.
You may not know this, but medical science has figured out what causes pregnancy.
When we found out after our second, well, we quit doing that pretty quick!
I have one that’s 14 and one that is three. I am living testimonial that the calendar method does NOT work. Trust me.
Ours are now 40 and 33.. I’m just turning 60 this month, and my wife is 61, so we joke that we’ll all be in the same nursing home someday.
I’m still hoping that I have two generations to provide me with health care when I’m creaking in my rocking chair. At the rate my teen slams doors in my face and my toddler screams blue murder at me, it seems my expectations are rather high…
I got so rotund during my second pregnancy that I laughed at the lab guys who wanted me to pee into a little cup. They had to give me a bowl.
I applaud your aim.
OK, its not nice to make me snort like that! Hilarious. I know how hilarious because my wife went through two pregnancies with me standing around in disbelief the entire time. Bit of advice to all males - do not take a pregnant wife on a trip through the windy mountain roads in your new sports car. It won’t smell new anymore.
I have actually heard of people catheterizing themselves to deal with this kind of thing. A little bit extreme maybe, but you wouldn’t have to separate yourself from your work for a while. Or just wear depends…
Come to think of it, I have a pee story. Sort of. I’m borrowing it from my ex. She rode horses up until her 8th month of pregnancy. (Flatwork, people. No jumping. Limited gaits.) She had to get off to pee before trotting. She trotted. She had to get off to pee after trotting. Rinse. Repeat.
She stopped riding the day she timed it wrong and wet her pants completely an hour from home with eight strangers riding in tow behind her.
[...] Naomi’s post on a certain reality of life as a pregnant mom (warning language in link). [...]
You just couldn’t make that kind of stuff up. This is one of those times that I thank my lucky stars that I’m male, otherwise I could be writing the exact same thing, thats just the way my luck goes.
My girlfriend’s brother and partner have just had a baby (not him per se, he just kind of acquired one) and so far the missus has seen “baby-lite”: the edited version where he isn’t being a poo/sick/noise monster. So if she gets any crazy ideas about having one anytime soon, I’ll point her here.
I’ll add to your “Plan Ahead” moral with this:
“What CAN go wrong, WILL go wrong”
Believe it or not, I have to hide in the same way from my fucking cat, or I end up typing and vector drawing with only one hand… (the other HAS TO scratch her head) How weird is that ?!?
Good luck with… all of it ;)
[...] wicked sense of humor and humanity, as we see in this recent excerpt from a post entitled, “Moral Of The Story: Violent Snuggling Edition:” “Again, if you know anything about pregnancy, you know that you spend a lot of time [...]
Oh… My… Fucking… God.
That is all.
I laughed until I almost peed my pants!
OMG!!! I laughed so hard. Doubly because I realized I’d been holding it myself for the last 20 minutes (pregnant as well.) I was positive if I turned my back my toddler would destroy something and if I took her in the bathroom with me I’d loose all chance of her self playing after that. :)
Fucking brilliant.
I just want to know what the next thing said was.
@Michael: He probably took it with a grain of salt. Failing that some smartass remark about finally understanding why the apple juice tasted so horrible that morning would be the only other obvious option.
Kudos Naomi for being able to both deliver a fantastic story and drive a good point home.
[...] Very busy peeing and compiling the World’s Longest Blog Post. (Actually, that’s horseshit. Have you read Steve Pavlina?) In the mean time, I’ll share this charming nugget. [...]
[...] it’s time to go see if Naomi is peeing in the kitchen again. I love [...]
I wonder what your hubby told you about it or what he’s done to you after. :)
[...] of the Story: Topless Edition (with Photos!) Moral of the Story: Violent Snuggling Edition Moral of the Story: Marketing to Alcoholics [...]
[...] Moral of the Story: Violent Snuggling Edition [...]
If the business world could be filled with more people that had even a 1/100th of the humor that you and Jack have, we’d all get something done and feel a whole lot happier doing it too!
I’m forwarding this post to my little lady, she’ll eat it up.