Coffee!!

Every mom should drink coffee. It's essential. Mandatory. You should not be able to pass as a mom unless you drink a cup of Joe. At least one a day. Now I have a friend who's allergic to caffeine so I guess she's an exception. But if you aren't allergic to caffeine then there's no good reason you should not drink coffee. I don't care if you're trying to keep your teeth white. Drink through a straw or get them bleached. I don't care if you don't like the taste, add some sugar, mix it up, whatever. Not drinking coffee is like taking a college course without the main textbook. You will not pass. In fact you will fail, miserably. And it's the only legal drug us mommies can partake of and still be considered sane -- most of the time.

On the flip side, I know all the politics over coffee. How third world plantation workers are being over-worked, under paid and taken advantage of on coffee/cocoa fields. How one cup of coffee/espresso actually requires a ridiculous amount of beans that someone busted their behind to pick for us. But it's COFFEE. We can't help it. Blame the corporations ("The Best Part of Waking Up, Is A Folgers In Your Cup!")! We turn a deaf ear to the coffee plantation stories just to get one drip of the aromatic bliss. I'm sure right now as I type (and drink a luke warm cup of Joe from a Styrofoam cup!!) someone is probably doubled-over, dripping sweat and maybe even shedding a tear while finding me the perfect bean. And I feel for them! Really I do. But in all seriousness, it is really unfortunate what goes on behind the scenes in the coffee industry just so another Starbucks can go up in Timbuktu. And perhaps us moms should rally up to do something about it. But first, let's discuss our strategy, put our brains together, really take this issue seriously -- over a cup of coffee, shall we?

Remembering...

Over Thanksgiving weekend I came down with the most terrible stomach thing. Not sure if it was food poisoning (my body's revenge for being a glutton) or a nasty stomach flu. Whatever the case, I was doubled over in pain, crying my eyes out and reminiscent of labor pains almost a year ago! My family was quick to suspect that I could be pregnant again since I was also running to the bathroom constantly to give back all the lovely food I had partaken of. That or had H1N1, Bird Flu, or any other heinous illness.

I ruled out the preggers possibility by asking my single sister, who's never had to buy a pregnancy test in her life, make a drug store run. She hesitated at first. Then admitted to being embarrassed. It was cute. Almost like she was in middle school and I was asking her to go buy some maxi pads. Or her first condoms purchase. But she went anyway for the love of her little sis. Wonder what her face looked like as she put the pregnancy test down on the counter. Did she make eye contact with the cashier? Try to throw in gum or water or something else to distract from it? I'm sure in her mind she was paranoid that she didn't have a wedding ring on and that the cashier would assume she was some irresponsible single person making a secret pregnancy test run in her pajamas. Hilarious.

Later that night the pains got worse. I really started to believe that I was about to give birth to a 10 pound baby. Maybe the test was wrong and I really did have a big huge baby stuck inside my belly, hiding along side my size 1 waist? Maybe I would end up on that TV show I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant!

Finally, when I couldn't take it anymore, I asked my husband if he could take me to the ER. I was giving birth... to something. So he did. And my sister came too, the loyal sis that she is. Naturally, when I got there the pains began to subside. But as we pulled in front of the ER and checked in, I began to have de ja vu. The last time I had been to ER was for Cub's arrival. As we sat in the ER triage room, amidst my discomfort, I felt a warm feeling of happiness come over me. Everything started coming back to me. The drive to the hospital, the wheelchair taking me up to the labor area, the smell of the hospital, the anticipation... and at that moment I felt like the luckiest woman alive. To be able to conjure up that memory. To have lived and experienced giving birth.

After our Ken Doctor (that's what we called him because he seriously looked like a Barbie doctor) couldn't find a reason to keep me there, and my husband was barely able to continue standing he was so tired (it was now about 1 AM), we were released.

While the stomach thing was the worst I've experienced in my 30-odd years of life, I am so grateful that I was able to experience that little moment of remembering... the day my first-born was brought into our lives. That made it all worth it... kind of.