I figured it out. To not have a minivan is to be celibate.

You have your beliefs, you are fulfilled in many other ways. Your SUV has horsepower, a DVD player (with wireless headphones even), a Bose sound system, a removable middle seat in the second row to create captains chairs and access to the third row (which, btw, folds down flat), your back gate is automatic and you have runners. A fine piece of vehicle. Sure, your kids open the doors into other cars once and awhile (and sometimes while the neighbor car still has a person in it, but whatevs). Sometimes you may need to use the off road handle to propel yourself into the front seat whilst making sure your boots don’t slip on the runners causing your knee to bang against the car in sheer utter pain. And when you try to lift the infant carseat into the base, while the other kids are climbing over your head to get to the aisle for the third row, your back spasms causing a moment where you literally can’t move a muscle. But you believe what you believe and no amount of peer pressure can get you to cave.

It’s about making a commitment to yourself, to your loved ones, to your peers. Celibacy is a pact with yourself to never waiver, never give in to temptation, never take the easy path. I know, I’ve been there. I’ve been celibate. You are proud of yourself and your will power. And you should be. There are so many choices for vehicles, so many options to take you and your family from location A to location B effectively. In this day in age, it’s cool to be celibate – it’s the era of the crossover and the 3rd row option. You remind yourself, you can’t go back once you give in, so don’t give in.

Honestly, you can’t desire what you don’t know, what you haven’t experienced. So in a way, it’s really not too hard to be celibate. Except when a few of your friends give subtle hints on last night’s escapade to the strip…mall with a group of wild, crazy, half-naked…toddlers. But deep down, you know that these “friends” have given up and given in to the ease of a minivan and it’s a shame to you who is celibate and can stand their ground. You realize that maybe you don’t have as much in common as you once did. They talk flippantly and laugh about being able to push the right buttons and have easy access.

And you know what, when you’re celibate, there’s this sense of desirability that those of us who have given in don’t have anymore. There’s a chance you can still get checked out by that Christian Bale look alike that (I’m convinced) is out driving around suburban streets. I know I’m used goods to the drivers I share the road with.

I’m not going to ever sit and tell you to defy your beliefs. I respect people’s life decisions. You gotta do what you gotta do for you and your family. And I refuse to be the person who tells you to try “just the tip…just to see how it feels.” I won’t tempt you or disrespect you in that way.

Just look away from the graphic revealing of my interior when my automatic doors slide open, the size of my 12 inch…step into my seat using no hands, the explicit nature of my captain seats for easy access to any position (whether it be standing or sitting). And I won’t mention the amount of junk I can fit in my trunk. You probably aren’t a “butt” person anyway.

Basically, I won’t rub you the wrong way (or in any way) with the constant orgasm that is my minivan.

*WARNING: These photographs contain graphic content

Had a conversation with a first grader that went like this:

Kid: Your baby is sleeping, is she tired?
BRW: Yes, she likes to sleep and eat. I bet you liked to do that when you were a baby.
Kid: A baby? That’s all I like to do now.

Touché.

Every year on February 14th, I post a simple and delightful Facebook status: Happy VD. Makes me laugh every time. Clearly, I’m not wishing you a happy Valentine’s Day, but a happy venereal disease. J/k and just joshin’ (so underused these days).

This post is going to be a little more on the “serious” side in the sense that I have nothing to make fun of or any demeaning stories about myself to share regarding Valentine’s Day. On the contrary, I feel very sentimental about VD. I never had a significant other to share VD with until senior year of high school when I had my first boyfriend (lucky I got that in before the age of 18 or else I’d have many more self deprecating stories than I already do). After that year, I went back to be VD free. But during that time, one of my favorite memories was sharing my VD with my best friend, eating Whoppers and watching TV in the sorority house while our friends were drinking away their VD’s. Cut to junior year of college when I had a boyfriend again (who is TH and now the only one I share my VD with).

But because of the type of cynical and sarcastic person I am, I never cared about Valentine’s Day. I didn’t expect gifts, a planned night out or anything expensive or daunting for TH (at least in my revisionist head I didn’t care). So leave it to him to end up making Valentine’s Day one of my now favorite holidays. After 6 (extremely smooth and always conflict free) years of dating, he proposed to me on February 14th. How cute, gag, right?! That’s your first impression. But you have to remember who he was dealing with – a girl who would make fun of anyone who proposes on Valentine’s Day, thus, making it the one day I would never expect to be proposed to. So give him credit for pulling off the element of surprise and simultaneously turning me into a romantic (or at least bringing it out of me).

And so it is, February 14th, 2014 (2/14/14)…the 10 year anniversary of our engagement.

By the way, this isn’t the point of my post, I just get talking and go on tangents.

No, the point is I’d like to give a shoutout to 1.0’s kindergarten teacher for making this Valentine’s Day celebration at school both easy and fair. The Pinterest and Facebook posts are in full effect this week of the VD boxes and cards you can do yourself. I don’t subscribe to DIY. Our teacher has decided to provide every child in the class with a simple handle bag that they can decorate with stickers, glitter glue, etc. Wonderful. Genius. Simple.

First of all, it’s just not fair to the kids who don’t have Pinterest-worthy parents making their boxes for them. Why create a situation in which someone feels bad because their box/bag looks schlumpy or worse, they don’t even have one because, oh I don’t know, some parents these days have actual responsibilities and commitments that include earning a wage, getting food on the table and helping with homework, leaving maybe not 3 hours of time one night to make a freaking box. I could go into the dumbness (word?) of even celebrating Valentine’s Day in our schools and pressuring kids to give each other love notes, but ugh, then I’d have to get into the issue of uniforms, prayer in schools, etc. because I’m incapable of not going off on a tangent…clearly.

So I’d like to say thank you to our teacher for helping the parents out. We still need to send our kids with a card to give to all the students and that was a bit onerous, but it was much more manageable than trying to do any of this:

I think we can stop saying “Go Seahawks”…they went.

Who? BRW
What? Oreo ice cream sandwich crumbs
Where? Inside of bra
When? Too embarrassed to answer this
Why? Exactly

It may be the year of the horse, but this was not the year for the Broncos. Unless of course this means that the 2014 season/Super Bowl is their year, but I would be getting way ahead of myself.

Big bummer. That being said, if there had to be a different team to win, I’m glad it was the Seattle Seahawks, my home team. People are excited (click here, it’s worth it), the team is gracious and the Broncos walked away classy. It was a terrible game in the sense that it was not entertaining or exciting at all and did not showcase how amazing the Broncos receivers are. I think that was the hardest part about it, the Broncos just couldn’t perform (no medication for that in this case) and there seemed to be a lot of bad calls (or lack of many interference calls). And for some reason, I am just not a Bruno Mars fan (other than Grenade, love that song), so that was a double bummer. However, I LOVE the Red Hot Chili Peppers, but it wasn’t enough to get me through halftime. I think the vibe of the game for me was diminished with the National Anthem. Sorry, I did not dig that. And the commercials would have been awesome had I not already seen the best ones in their entirety ahead of time (the best one being Bud Light for sure).

Well, this post turned out to be a bit of a bummer itself, a little pity party apparently.

Any other year the Seahawks win, I could totally get on board with the parade and excitement, and like I said, I’m psyched for them, I just can’t get into the celebration since I’m mourning my team’s loss. But the game has come and gone and just like a minivan is just a car (albeit a fucking awesome one…post to come later), this was just a football game. Time to move on with dirty diapers, leaky bottles, spit up, pee accidents, knee scrapes, runny noses, homework and pure love with 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, the dog and TH (he may need another day to get over the disappointment, especially because he lost a bet that will require him to go to a bar called Cowgirls and ride the mechanical bull…twice). I will be choosing to not watch TH’s bull rides because I’m nervous I won’t ever be able to unsee what I witness.

Yeah Yeah, I had a baby…but the big news is the BRONCOS are going to the SUPERBOWL!!!

Unfortunately, when I posted “Superbowl!!!” as my FB status, many people assumed I was excited because Seattle was going…but if they paid attention to the timing of the post, I wrote it right after the AFC Championship game, before the NFC game.

I couldn’t ask for a better matchup. My favorite team playing my resident team. I’m admittedly not a true Seahawks fan yet. I like them and cheer for them since they are my “home” team, but obviously, when playing a team I care about (which only includes the Broncos and the Bears), they take second place.

But I have to comment on how fun it is that people around here are so excited. That being said, there is still a little quirkiness going on…like when my doctor said he doesn’t follow NFL football because they are all thugs and criminals…or how TH wore his Broncos jersey while jogging down the main street of our city the day after the playoffs and received no hoots, hollers or honks. The PNW doesn’t like to be predictable, I’ll give it that.

We have a tradition of going to Las Vegas for the Superbowl for a couple of reasons: 1) Because it provides a high energy atmosphere regardless of who is playing, so if we don’t care about the teams, we can at least participate in some fun bets and feed off the energy of other people cheering for a team; and 2) In an effort to get me to sleep with him in college, TH invited me to Superbowl XXXII Broncos v. Packers (you can see how it was pretty easy for him to make Trophy status), where we stayed in Vegas over the weekend and then flew to San Diego the morning of the game. It was my first ever Vegas trip and I was sold…I.Love.Vegas….so it’s kind of a tradition now.

But this year, due to the arrival of 3.0 we are staying in our fair Pacific Northwest city. This is great because we get to be around people and in a city where they are invested in the outcome as well (just the wrong outcome).

Oh and can I comment on all this Peyton Omaha business…it’s been so hard keeping my mouth shut. As noted in a previous post: Get right to the heart that matters…I state that Peyton Manning says Omaha a lot. He’s been saying it for years but it took until the playoffs for the media to make a stink and make Omahans sound unfortunate. “Omaha thanks Peyton Manning”? Let’s go easy on representing all of Omaha here (but real quick, the Omaha Steaks tweet was pretty funny). However, I just learned that a bunch of Omaha-based companies/businesses pledged to donate money to Manning’s charity, Peyback Foundation, every time he yelled “Omaha” or as he says it, “Oma-Ha!”. The result from the AFC Championship game was $24,800. Good on ya, Omahans! I like that they turned what I thought was stupid hype into a meaningful venture. And note, native Omaha peeps, that DJ’s Dugout (where Scorecard used to reside…shout out to all the B’nai Mitzvah parties held there in 1990…where I won MANY a hoola hoop contest) was among these major companies as a participant! Whether that was publicity to boost their patronage doesn’t really matter since money went to charity. I’d hands down go there to watch a game next time.

We could also talk about Richard Sherman, but I’d slap myself if I did because I’m so sick of hearing about it.

So, on to Superbowl XXMCLwhateverVIII…okay, XLVIII!!!

As my father-in-law would say…Go Donkeys.

I’m so excited to announce the launch of 3.0. We had a baby girl! She came a little early which maybe threw off some schedules and plans but was a welcome surprise (as was that she was a girl since I was convinced there was a boy in there). When she came out, the doctor hadn’t even announced what she was when she held her up and I saw. So I believe I was the one to announce it when I said, “It’s a girl? Oh my gosh, it’s a girl!” I was seriously looking for a penis and just couldn’t find one.

I know blogging is supposed to be very personal and that’s why people are drawn to certain posts, but I’m actually going to refrain from the details of labor and delivery. It feels like such a private moment for me and TH that I just don’t feel right writing about it.

That being said, I can’t birth a child and not have at least one story I want to share.

When my cervix was complete and the baby had labored down, it was time to push. I cannot for the life of me remember what was said at that moment, but someone said something that made me laugh really hard. So have you ever laughed really hard and farted with each little exhale chuckle? Well, if you haven’t, I have to say, it’s quite possibly the funniest thing ever and leads to more laughing and more farting. Anyway, it’s been kind of an unfortunate theme with pregpocolypse #3 and even happened the night before I went into labor. Point of this is, sometimes when you laugh, it puts a bit of pressure on your lower abdomen and pelvic floor. And I unintentionally proved that theory. Whatever that person said right before delivery, they said it as my contraction was starting and I was told to push. I instead started laughing, which resulted in unintentional pushing and the baby’s head started to crown. I got nervous actually because I wasn’t doing what they said to do so I asked if everything was okay. The doctor’s response was beautiful:

“Go ahead, let’s laugh this baby out.”

What are your plans for the day?

Oh, you know, gonna go see a man about a minivan. Maybe Bed Bath and Beyond but I don’t know if we’ll have time.

I like being a chick. Then again, I don’t know what it’s like to be a dude. But regardless, I think men have figured out some pretty neat tricks to getting by in life and I see no reason why women can’t also take advantage of these little secrets. So I vow (when age appropriate for each item) to teach my daughter how to take advantage of these little secrets.

1. Make #2 work for you. Any bathroom excursion entailing #2 must last at the minimum 15 minutes (regardless of actual extraction time). Men caught on to this years ago. I’m not sure why women haven’t; and instead why we take pride in how fast we can take a shit (personally I can do it faster than peeing sometimes).

2. Stand up for yourself. Well, we can’t really pee standing up. But a nice alternative is to learn how to squat. When my mom was going abroad, I bought her some disposable pee funnels so she could pish standing up if ever in a precarious situation. Click here and here for some visuals if you dare.

3. The Man Side Pick. Men have this amazing way of picking their noses so it can be done in public. I call it the “side pick.” It’s where you take your thumb and pointer finger and slightly graze the inside of the nostril with your thumb nail toward the pointer finger. It’s genius.

4. Quote the movie. Caddy Shack. Anchorman. Holy Grail. Top Secret. Just to name a few. This list could go on and on. Know these movies, quote these movies, love these movies. So when you are walking into a party and people are introducing themselves/shaking hands and you bust out with, “Doctor, doctor, doctor, doctor…” (click) you have instant self entertainment.

5. Men’s deodorant. That is all about that one.

What are some of your favorite male secrets to life. I’m always looking for more to instill upon 1.0.