There ain’t nothin’ like school picture day to bring out the raging hypocrite in me.

Generally, I try to give my daughter a fair amount of leeway when it comes to her personal fashion. Wouldn’t want to squelch her creativity or sense of self-expression, you know. I know. I know. You don’t need to say it. What an amazing mother I am, right? Yes, I laugh at conformity! I am unwavering in the face of cultural pressure to dress my child in that $500 outfit I saw at Gymboree the other day! I do not care what other people think of me when my child is decked out in 5 different clashing prints! No! I don’t care! Let them think what they may!

OK, so here’s me this morning:

“I know you want to wear your hair in a ponytail, but I’m choosing and you’re wearing your hair down!”

“I know you want to wear that pink dress but that turtleneck doesn’t go with it so we’re going to choose something else.”

“Eat your lunch over your plate so you don’t spill on your shirt!”

And the kicker, “When it’s time for you to take your picture, smile like this.”

You know, I’m so glad I can kick into Nazi-mom mode when the need arises because sometimes it is simply a matter of life and death—like today. I mean, after all, today WAS the day she took her kindergarten school picture and we all know how important that kindergarten school picture is. Why, without a decent picture from kindergarten, who will ever hire her when she’s ready for a job? And who will ever want to marry her if at age five her hair was in a ponytail? And would it even be possible that she could ever lead a normal, happy life if her smile was a little crooked? Extensive and suffocating care is essential when preparing for that all-important kindergarten picture, you know. God forbid she look like HERSELF or anything.

Geez. How pathetic. I am sick, people. SICK!

Well, the dreams have started. Could be just me but I typically experience weird and/or freakish dreams when I’m pregnant. I’m generally an active dreamer (like I terrorize my husband in my sleep on a regular basis) but pregnancy kicks it up quite a few notches. Not to mention the fact that I always wake up swearing it was real.

So the other night I go into labor. It was clear we weren’t going to make it to the hospital so delivery was up to Brian. He did an excellent job, as I would expect, but as he caught the baby, he was most perplexed. “Uh…it’s…uh…it’s a squirrel.”

“Oh great. First of all, how did THAT happen? But most importantly, how will we ever explain this one to people at church?”

You may have heard about Michelle Duggar who gave birth to her 16th child last week. I think it’s great but I just can’t even wrap my brain around that. How. In the world. Is that possible? I’d like to sit down with Michelle and pick her brain because I imagine I’d learn enough from her in one hour than I would in 10 years of my piddly life.

So, apparently the Young Singles group at our church is coming over to our house in a few weeks to talk about dating, courtship and marriage. It’s amazing. The titles “Pastor & Pastor’s Wife” have made us experts in so many things. I love it. We know completely nothing and then all of the sudden someone says, “Meet the pastor and his wife” and BAM! people think we know a whole lotta stuff. Trippy.

Anyway, so the group is coming to our house and we’re gonna tell ‘em what’s up when you’re a young twentysomething lookin’ to tie the knot. I’ve been thinking about this quite a bit and so I thought I’d share with you my thoughts—for two reasons. First, if I’m totally high, I know you all will tell me so. Second, if you’ve got anything to add, I’d be totally stoked because it’ll make me look that much smarter.

So, here’s what I got so far:

Number 1. Deal with your crap.
Number 2. Don’t marry a loser.

(That’s right. I’m the pastor’s wife and I just said crap. And I will say it many more times in this post. Hey, Paul said it—in the Bible, no less. Phil. 3:something. It’s usually translated “dung” but knowing Paul, I bet he actually used a word more equivalent to our “S” word. I have my limits though, you know. After all, I am the pastor’s wife.)

Anyway, let me recap:

Number 1. Deal with your crap.
Number 2. Don’t marry a loser.

I’ve tried and tried to come up with something more eloquent, but alas, something more profound totally escapes me. (It ain’t the first time.) I really feel those two things pretty much sum it up.

Here’s how I plan to elaborate:

Deal with your crap. It may come as a shocker to you, but you ain’t all that. Contrary to what you think, you are not Mr. or Miss Right. No, you’ve got crap and the quicker you recognize and admit it, the better the world will be. It’s nothing to be ashamed of nor are you the only one who’s got issues. We’ve all got crap. It just is my friends.

(By the way, when I was a young twentysomething lookin’ to tie the knot, this was particularly difficult for me come to terms with. I really, honestly, in my heart of hearts thought, felt and believed I was all that and a bag of chips.)

Crap comes in all shapes and sizes. In general, I define crap as the pain which comes from yours or someone else’s sin. That pain, in turn, makes you do, say and think things that are, well…either sinful or just plain stupid. I don’t know how else to say it. So, figure out what your crap is and get rid of it.

Next, realize that you will acquire new crap as time goes on and until you die so commit now to adopting an attitude of “Crap is not good and whenever I find myself with more, I will rid myself of it as soon as possible.”

Don’t marry a loser. This one seems like a no-brainer, but I am constantly amazed at how many people marry losers. And perhaps the term “loser” is a bit strong but I use it because it’s punchy. When I say loser I’m not referring to the terrorists, serial killers and pathological liars of the world. When I say “Don’t marry a loser, ” I mean, DON’T MARRY SOMEONE YOU REALLY DON’T WANT TO MARRY. Again, a no-brainer, right? You’d think so, but it’s amazing how quickly common sense goes out the window when someone (1) thinks their biological clock is ticking loudly, (2) just found the “perfect” wedding dress despite not having a groom, (3) is getting constantly interrogated by well-meaning (whatever) friends and relatives with questions like “When are you going to settle down?”, (4) can’t stand the fact that their ex has clearly moved on, as evidenced by his/her recent $10,000,000 wedding, (5) has been a bridesmaid not 3 times but so many times she’s lost count, (6) suddenly has pangs for parenthood, (7) has already become a parent and is riddled with guilt that the kid is growing up without a mother/father, (8) wants to buy a house but needs someone else’s good credit rating, (9) is convinced there is just no other good men/women left in the world so “I’d better just take the next available one that comes along.” I could go on, but you get my point. Oh yeah, one more thing. If you’re a Christian in search of a mate, remember this formula: Not Saved = Not An Option. Period.

Anyway, I’m running out of steam and I’m getting a little tired standing up here on my soap box. Besides, I now have to go live vicariously through the people racing around the world on The Amazing Race. I want so badly to be a participant on that show but I can’t because I’m too afraid of what sort of ugly, unbecoming behavior would most inevitably leak out in the heat of the battle for that 1 million bucks. It’s just my crap. I’m working on it.

I’m feeling better and I’m so ready to be blogging again and wouldn’t you know it, I can’t think of anything to blog about. I guess this is what they call blogger’s block—it’s like writer’s block but that’s not what I have because I’m not a writer. To think of myself as a writer is enough to give me extraordinary stress. I hate writing. Always have. Always will. Blogging is fundamentally different. Blogging is simply exposing the nonsense going on in my brain. Writing is far more deliberate, classy and meaningful.

So, I’m thinking to myself, if blogging is “simply exposing the nonsense going on in my brain” and I have nothing to blog about, it begs the question: Where has all the nonsense gone?

I’ll keep you posted.

So, I am feeling better—not 100%, but significantly better than I was. Thank you all for your prayers, thoughts & well wishes as well as all your suggestions to deal with the nausea. Nothing worked. I just ate alot. Nothing sounded good, of course, but for some reason I figured that as long as something was going down, it was unlikely something would come up at the same time. I ain’t got much to show for it but a few extra pounds around the middle. But hey, I gained 40 pounds each time I was pregnant before so why should this time be different? I was running a fair amount each week before I got sick and I had such outstanding intentions to continue to walk a little each day to minimize the weight explosion. Yeah, OK, whatever. My other problem was that I could never eat the same thing twice and cooking was enough to make me scratch my eyeballs out, so we ate out A LOT. The kids thought they died and went to heaven. We don’t eat out much due to our very wise spending choices (OK not really, we just don’t have the money) but the little extra I’ve gotten from my childcare profession (read: I babysit the little girl across the street a few hours a week) came in handy.

AAAAnyway, I do believe we’ve come out of the woods. Now hopefully the budget and my “middle” (what’s left of it anyway) will benefit. That will be hard though, because I’ve developed some very bad habits. (That’s funny. I say that as if bad habits are so unusual for me.) In fact, the other day I ate nearly an entire bag of wannabe Cheetos in the course of 36 hours or so. And let me tell you people, they were GOOD. Every last one of those puffy, chemical-laden, “Made with Real Cheese!” little morsels of unhealthy goodness. And another thing, I had no idea how CHEAP generic junk food can be. That entire bag of fake Cheetos was exactly $1. ONE BUCK! What a steal. It’s like the whole world is opening up to me.

Q: Why do grandparents and their grandchildren get along so well?

A: They’re united by a common enemy.