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Top 10 Signs You Are Ready To Have a Kid

1.  It’s 1:00pm on a Saturday and you are bored out of your mind. 2.  You stay home on St. Patrick’s day because of “all the drunks out there.” 3.  Sleep is not that important to you. 4.  You’d rather put money in the savings then blow it on a pair of shoes. 5.  You sanitize your hands. 6.  You notice every kid on the street and say to yourself “My kid would never…” 7.  You don’t work at Hooters anymore. 8.  You notice that you’ve been telling the same “funny” story at the parties for a couple of years now. 9.  You say “I did…” more than “I wish I…” 10. Because you just know you are. Author: Ilona...

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The Joys of Car Dancing

The Joys of Car Dancing

I love to dance. I mean, like, I really love to dance. The photos posted in this article? They’re really me – no stock photos here. Obviously, as I just gave birth seven weeks ago, these photos weren’t taken yesterday, but they’re not that old either. I’ve loved to dance for as long as I can remember. My first true memory of dancing is from when I was three. Yes, three. I had the 45 of Kool & The Gang’s “Celebration”. And if you don’t know what a 45 is, keep it to yourself and go have a lollipop. Anyway, I would dance in my ruffled slip in my living room for hours on end – usually until my mom would hide the 45 from me because she couldn’t take it any more. I realized today that because I no longer go out dancing, I’ve become a car dancer. As I pulled out of my son’s school parking lot, I turned up the radio to an almost painful level and went to town to Michael Jackson’s “The Way You Make Me Feel.” Yep, that’s right. I’ve become the crazy lady who dances in her car. Those five precious minutes in the car by myself every morning after I drop him off at school have become a real treat. I so look forward to being alone, blasting the music and dancing as much as I’m able to dance while sitting and driving. The joy you see on my face in that picture is the same joy that’s on my face when I get to car dance. No one to ask me for milk, or crackers, or if I’ve fed the dog…no one needs me. So for five minutes, I dance my sitting backside end off. Granted, the woman you see in these photos here isn’t exactly the woman in the car today. Instead of contacts, there are glasses (it’s early people), and instead of wearing my hair down, it’s all tied back in a ponytail and it’s slightly gray too (so annoying). But that woman in the red shirt is still here, I know it, she looks more like the woman in the black and white photo now, but she’s in there. The presentation may have changed, but the soul inside is exactly the same. I don’t always let her out, but she’s in there. I feel like Monica on...

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Top 10 Things Parenting Magazines Suggest That Make No Sense To Me

1.  “Make sure you develop interests and hobbies outside of being a parent.” 2.  “Get at least eight hours of sleep every night.” 3.  “To feel better, get some kind of exercise every day.” 4.  “Find time to be romantic with your husband.” 5.  “You can purchase this beautiful onesie for ONLY $78.00.” 6.  “When you are with your kid all day, make sure that TV is NOT playing in the background.” 7.  “Here’s an easy way to apply our 764 make-up tips.” 8.  “To give your hair volume ALL you have to do is…wash it, divide it into sections, blow dry it, set it in hot rollers and then finish it by teasing your hair and spraying it” 9.  “Sleep when your baby sleeps.” Well, that would be NEVER. 10. “Love your naked body.” Forget “loving it.” I am still trying to not cry when I look in the mirror before my weekly shower. Author: Ilona...

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The Other Side Of Stretch Marks

I wore a bikini this summer for the first time since my two-year-old came into the world. I had to purchase a new one this season, as the pre-mommy bikinis I have didn’t quite sit where they used to. And I wanted something new, something fresh I could feel good in. And I did feel good in it, considering everything my body has been through to become a mommy. It’s funny, before I had my sweet girl, I was always complaining about something. My stomach wasn’t tight enough, my thighs were kind of jiggly, my arms didn’t have enough “cut.” I hit the gym frequently and always had a spot on my body that I was working on, constantly trying to tweak and improve my physique. Now? My previous body seems like just a dream — a mirage I will never get to. I have stretch marks, and those are forever. I used the creams, the body butter, the lotions … almost everything the beauty market had to offer. And I was good to go for a long, long time. Right until three weeks before my due date, when my lower abs finally gave into the weight I was carrying and, well, stretched me. And humpty dumpty was never to be put back together again. Initially, I actually wasn’t that concerned about it. As I was still carrying around an extra 25 pounds for the first eighteen months of my daughter’s life, I had plenty of other areas on my body to focus on. When she was born that summer, I figured I’d be back in shape before the following summer without question. Well, the next summer came and went, and I still had about fifteen pounds that would not budge. Finally, the weight came off that following spring, and my wardrobe was once again embracing me. And now, with all the weight finally off, I was taking stock of my official new figure … and focusing on the most glaring reminder that my body will never be the same again. I hated the stretch marks at first. I mean, who wants them really? Who looks in the mirror and says, if only I had a few sexy stretch marks? No one! But as this spring turned into summer, I found myself growing fonder of them. I was starting to own them — they were mine. I created them by creating...

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Cleaning House

When exactly did I become a crazy person about house cleaning? I was possibly the world’s messiest kid. (True story: once when I was about nine, our house was broken into, and the police expressed regret to my mom that the robbers had ransacked my room; she told them that my room was the only one they hadn’t touched.) But just a few minutes ago I had to stop myself from yelling at my 11-month-old baby for pulling muffin pans out while I was wiping the counters off. I wanted to say, “Can’t you see that I’m cleaning? And you’re just making more of a mess!” What kind of person wants to yell at her baby about MUFFIN TINS? When I was in high school, a far-off aunt got married, and then had her marriage annulled soon after. I remember the only explanation was: “Turns out he was crazy. If she was reading a book, and got up to answer the phone, he’d put the book back on the shelf.” I’m sure there was more to it than that, but that was enough for teenage me. I just felt sorry that my aunt had married such a control freak without knowing it. Twenty years later, here I am, putting books back on the shelf when my kids are probably still reading them. Oh, long-lost-control-freak-almost-uncle-guy, I’m sorry for judging you. I get it now. You give birth, and the baby comes home, and with that baby comes, at the very least, the giant car seat, some clothes, and a lot of diapers. So even though I was trying not to go overboard, having my first kid almost six years ago created a mini explosion of extra stuff, and extra mess. And now I have three children, and their mini explosions overlap so much that I think there’s only a dinner-plate-sized kid-free spot next to my bed. I spend all day beating back the chaos, but I can never work fast enough, and by 3:00 I usually just give up. I remember Allison Janney’s character in American Beauty, and how she just sat at the dining room table and stared blankly ahead, saying, “Sorry the house is such a mess.” And she said this even though her house looked spotless. At the time, I remember thinking, “Wow, seems like someone in her family would notice that she’s totally insane and would...

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Losing Weight. Yeah, Right. As If.

Have you ever had a Monday morning that starts something like this: “OK! Today is the day! I am going to do this thing! I am worth this weight loss. I deserve it. My thin self is still in there somewhere, and I’m going to let her come out! OK. How about oatmeal for breakfast! Awesome! I rule. I’m all over this. This is the beginning of the end. No more fat lady for me!” Cut to: 2:30 that same day: “Oh forget this! PUH-leze. Like a freaking bag of Doritos is going to hurt. I deserve this bag of Doritos. I need the energy. I’m tired. Who’s going to notice anyway? I look fine, especially when I wear this tent of a dress. My husband still loves me. I think…Oh of course he does! It’s fine.” Then, you can follow that up on Wednesday with something like this: “I guess the $45 for this online weight service isn’t so bad. I need to pick up that book “French Women Don’t Get Fat.” I mean, the $45 is better than a weight loss center or paying to go to meetings, right? Yeah, but they give me all the food, I won’t have to think. So maybe that’s better. Hmm. Or a personal trainer! Yes! That would be awesome! Oh wait, can we afford that? The book is cheapest. I should just get the book. Oh look! A muffin!” I don’t know about you, but I’ve lost the same ten pounds probably a good fifteen times in my life. That’s a whole person. In fact, that’s my current weight (please don’t tell). I have had some incredibly successful runs with losing weight. Wait, umm, make that two. I’ve had two successful runs with weight loss in my life. In my early 20s during the throes of new love, I realized I had gained quite a bit of weight. I was getting ready for work one morning, and I looked at myself in the mirror. I was wearing a white turtleneck (anyone who sells white turtlenecks to anyone other than Diane Keaton should be shot) and I was stunned at the reflection staring back at me. Stunned I say. I walked into one of those commercial weight loss centers and started that day. That was all there was to it. I was shocked, horrified even, and that was it. No waffling...

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