I finished my first book, a chapter book about a little girl. I sent in my first submission to an agent, and am fully expecting no response, since as soon as I sent it, I came to conclusion that I am missing key elements. I have gotten good feedback concerning it, and am learning about a lot while looking at it for the millionth time. I have a problem with writing simply and matching the audience to the voice. Or something like that that my ego can handle, because it can't handle that I write like shit. I don't think I am a totally shitty writer, but I know I have a huge amount to learn. I plan on rewriting the book and submitting it when it's ready.

In the meantime, I have been having a hard time with time. I rarely have time to myself, much less time to work on my book and having daydreams of being a sugarmama to Mower. I have three wonderful kids that can ruin a good concentration in a matter of a nanosecond. I am still breastfeeding, and do not know how long we will go for it. I am still very fat, and am hoping to get on a good medication to help with that after I stop breastfeeding. I am not complaining, because I love breastfeeding and have enjoyed that time with Snookums (her new nickname--Honey was a brief nickname Handsome attributed to her, but it didn't stick), as I have with all three kids.

Handsome is potty trained for the most part--he is just a difficult little guy when it comes to that. He's very sweet otherwise. But the grey hairs on my head--most of the hairs, according to Bubba--can be directly attributed to him. Handsome and his father--both of them are just trouble. Snookums is the heart attack baby--she does something and my heart just stops. Then she gets cuddles and is all better and goes off in search of other things that make me freak out. Bubba is becoming quite the handful again. She is always asking questions. Always. We have watched the Harry Potter movies for a year now, and the girl cannot stop herself from asking a million questions every time we see one. She is upset she is not little like her brother and sister and we ask for her help in things like walking through a store, not riding in the cart, and bringing in the groceries. Gasp! We are terrible parents, in her eyes. Imagine making her wash her hands before making her eat a nutritious dinner--poor parenting at its best.

Mower and I are doing okay. We annoy the living hell out of each other, but isn't that what marriage is all about?

And that's about it.....I haven't lost my desire for writing, just the time for it. Love ya!

Me (noticing the pot is sitting on the stove, half filled with tea, no cover on it): The tea doesn't have a cover.

Mower: I know.

Me: I'm not drinking it.

A few moments later. I contemplate getting some caffeine to give me the energy to decorate for Christmas today, and have that tone in my voice that shows Mower I think he is a dumbass for leaving the tea on the stove, and also just in general for being a man who leaves his socks on the floor minutes before we host 24 people for Thanksgiving. I stare at the tea in the pot, wondering how sanitary it is to leave it uncovered for 24 hours.

Me: Is it decaf?

Mower: Yup.

Me: So no caffeine?

Mower: No, no caffeine.

Me: I'm still not drinking it because of all the bugs we always get in here every now and then.

Mower: (slightly chuckling at my sentence, but completely dismissing me) It's fine.

He goes and gets his large cup, the Bubba Keg, which can hold far more than any human bladder can ever handle.

I busy myself holding the sweetest little baby who doesn't want anyone else holding her right now, but shows it in the sweetest way, not by crying, but by turning her face away with a smile from the person that wants to hold her and she gently places her face against the arm of the person she doesn't want to let go of. Yes, huge grammer and run-on sentence faux pas, but I don't care. I have the cutest little baby who is manipulative and adorable at the same time, a winning combination.

I notice Mower by the sink, not drinking tea. He gets this look on his face that indicates he is ashamed at having to admit I am not wrong. I see the pot has now been poured out into the sink.

Mower: There was a bug.

I said, "The bath? Sure. But the bayith, nope."

She looked at me with typical seven-year-old disgust and shame that she shares my DNA and announced that she said "Bayith!"

"Yup, you said bayith." I agreed.

She stomped her foot. "I did not say bayyyyeeeeth, I said bayith."

I agreed again, she said "Bayith."

She got the scowl on her face that I remember perfecting at her age, and before she could argue further, I told her to get her "Buttith to the bayith."

I should have seen this coming, she drew it in crayon, the elementary version of carving it in stone:

The T-Rex is fixin' to eat sumthin, so better tuck tail and get outer the way!

If you are unable to read it, this is a picture of Wal-Mart's website for Moon Shoes, a delightfully wonderful product that is not sold online, and it is not sold in stores. I can either assume it was not available anywhere on the market yet, although they were advertising it on tv, or they really enjoy messing with me above and beyond the cashiers that should be wearing a monitoring device.

I am currently wiped out by a head cold, and before that, I was knocked on my butt by something I ate. So I obviously need to work on my food intake and my body is reacting to all the changes, but it could be worse, a lot worse. I don't feel like my skin is crawling, like my hair is tickling me, or like I am about to just start screaming and never stop. I find it easier to handle the kids as the days have gone on. I actually gave Mower a mini-backrub on his pavement-like back last night, without him asking or me trying to get anything out of it.

The still-hard part is the direct opposite of what I used to think. Now I am wondering what, other than water, I can drink. I used to just get a soda and wonder when I would want or squeeze in the water I knew I needed, but didn't feel like ordering. Now I drink the water and wonder what I can have when I am sick of the water. Some tea, some juice, that's about it. Better problem to have, though.

I have read that it can take up to 60 days to get aspartame out of your system, so I am assuming by Christmas, it will be just me, without the asparatme affecting my moods and temperment and body issues. That's kinda a scary thought, to face myself without excuses. I hope I'm up for the challenge!

Woman. Yesterday she called me Mother. What's next? Biotch? Ho? Egg donor? Sigh. This kid cracks me up and drives me nuts at the same time. I love it!

Handsome wanted to watch "Happy Feet" which bothers the heck out of me. The peguins are about this . close to humping each other. The sounds and songs in it are all about getting in the mood. Exactly what I think my four-year-old should be hearing and emulating. It's basically 108 minutes of penguin porn.

I have a little bit more focus once I am up, which normally would take me three sodas to achieve. Dishes are being washed and I've cleaned up a little. I would traditionally drink several DDP's in the morning, assuming I haven't begged Mower to let me get a nap, and then say I would get started at noon. If I actually did get started at noon, it more likely than not involved going out and doing some shopping, again involving some more DDP.

I feel like there should be a support group for overly sensitive, irritable people who are addicted to very stupid things. Like DDP, articles about Britney Spears, and MTV's Date My Mom.

Mower and I figured out a little more definitively how much we have spent on soda in a week. About $25 easily, including eating out and having a soda each once a week. We'd waste gas trying to find soda cheaper at stores we might not normally shop at or drive to.

Hot Stuff emailed an article that was on the other spectrum from what I found, and I just gotta say, Hot Stuff--you are one sexy septuagenarian! That aside, I know the site I went to is of course, biased against aspartame and found evidence to support that position. I know that, like vaccines and crotchless underwear, there are going to be people that are totally for or totally against anything, including aspartame.

I wish I could be middle of the road on this, but I know me, and everytime I have tried to reduce my intake of soda, it creeps back up like your undies under a tight pair of jeans. It's impossible to take care of without digging into ass. Same with my soda addiction. I can't keep clinging to something that is hurting my health, even if I am buying too much into a conspiracy-theory thought process. Plus I need the extra money for midget porn.

http://www.sweetpoison.com/aspartame-side-effects.html

So I have known for a while that asparatme isn't great for you. On Sweet N Low they have the warning label about it causing cancer in lab animals. But I talked myself into having it in Diet Dr. Pepper and other sodas, thinking that you have to ingest a ton of it to have an effect. And I do ingest a ton of it. I have allowed my kids to have it. I breastfeed while ingesting it. And I have written it off as a mild concern, like an occassional alcoholic beverage or cigarette. But last night, reading the side effects, and with a poster of depression symptoms fresh in my mind from seeing it in the pedi's office when I took Honey for a vaccine shot (we are on a delayed schedule for her, much like we were with Handsome), it hit me. Hard. HARD.

One of the side effects is severe depression. Another is anxiety. Another is irritability. Another is marked thinning or loss of hair. Another is gradual weight gain. Another is frequency of voiding. Another is increased craving for sweets. Another is tinnitus. Another is personality changes. Another is severe intolerance for noise. I have had problems with all of those for a while, some more than others, like losing more hair than seemed normal after having Honey. The sound of the three kids vocalizing at the same time makes me cringe and get very snappy quickly, which I then regret that I can't control my temper over normal noise. I have been having anxiety attacks, joke that I have a bladder the size of a pea, and feel like I am losing myself in a maze of bad moods, tiredness and unproductivity. I used to be the kid who would tear everything out of her closet and drawers and rearrange them on a Saturday afternoon for fun. I used to be tall and then, then gained weight in middle school when I started drinking Diet Coke, and kept gaining weight through high school while starting my day with a Diet Coke and a package of Saltines.

I stopped drinking soda after graduating high school, and the weight went down without increasing my exercising much. I did a lot of Snapple and water. I was able to exercise consistantly, had a lot of energy, and was doing well in school for the most part. When I went off to live on campus at a state school instead of at home going to community college, I started drinking Diet Dr. Pepper out of the vending machines because it was a drive to go get Snapple. I got hooked again on the caffeine, and the only time in the last 11 years when I have been able to stay away from it was when I was pregnant with Bubba and then nursing her. Then I started back on it after she weaned at 8 months, and for the past 7+ years, have been drinking it daily. I limited it while pregnant with Handsome and Honey, but still had it.

I never really removed the weight I gained with Bubba's pregnancy 8 years ago. I just added onto it, and then did the same after Handsome was born. I have not been stuck to a weight-removal plan or exercise schedule for more than a week in the past 11 years. After having Handsome and then again after having Honey, I lost weight due to mastitis, and then gained it back slowly. I have healthy veggies and fruits sitting in my fridge and I go for candy bars and granola bars and things made with high fructose corn syrup instead. I drink diet sodas because I don't like the sugary taste of regular soda, and yet I know I have read recently, and it makes sense, that aspartame affects your appetite more than regular sodas, and people who drink diet sodas ingest more calories overall than regular soda drinkers.

So knowing all that, and being in complete denial of that info, just shoving it into the category of "there are worse things to do to yourself than that," I have continued to drink DDP and rely on the caffeine. I ramped up my intake just recently due to a project we were working on and not getting a lot of sleep, and now I hear about, then research, the aspartame side effects and toxicity. It's all falling into place for me now after reading that site. I am not a hypochondriac per se, but I have been searching for a reason for the depression, something I can do other than antidepressants, and I knew I needed to stop relying on caffeine, but it wasn't until last night that I realized it's not just the caffeine. I didn't know you could have toxicity from the additives. I know it wasn't good, but I had no clue all the things it affected.

The past four years have been marked by depression, as was the time during and right after college. I gained weight starting during the semester I was asked to leave college the first time. It isn't just a coincidence that I was getting A's and was very friendly when I first got to college and then towards the end when I was spending several dollars a day on DDP from the vending machines, I was depressed, cutting myself, and screwing up virtually all my friendships. I thought it was just depression and the only thing I could do about it was to find the right antidepressant. I thought this time, as well as when Handsome was a newborn, it was post-partum depression and I would be doing the babies a disservice to take meds while breastfeeding. And yet I have been poisoning myself slowly with aspartame and writing it off as that everyone takes in toxins and this one is better than smoking or drinking or fried foods every day. I honestly believed it was better than coffee.

I feel like crap, physically and now with Mommy guilt that I knew better and ignored it. The depression made me tired, so I drank three DDP's and it gave me the energy to do stuff and feel like the depression lessened a little so I could be productive. The caffeine wears off mid-afternoon, and I am back to feeling down, not wanting to write, not wanting to clean, not wanting to do things that need to be done so that the next day or our finances or a friendship are better and less stressful. Then the eating comes into play, because the caffeine wearing off makes me not want to cook any of the healthy stuff I buy when I have the energy to go shopping, and the aspartame makes me want sweets and an easy fix.

So it finally hit me like a ton of bricks that it isn't about the caffeine. It isn't depression fueling my DDP addiction for energy. The aspartame I have been ingesting plays a huge part in all of it. It's all connected. It's the single thing that has been with me since college, and except for the time while pregnant with Bubba and then when breastfeeding her when I wasn't drinking it, so has the depression, or anxiety, or irritability. I think back now and see that the past few years have been very stressful, even as I try to regulate it or do pro-active things to make myself better, such as writing, which is where my heart lies. There hasn't been consistancy with anything other than drinking DDP and not having consistancy in anything else. There has finally been the "click" in my head, like a clock finally chimed with all the cogs in the right place.

I am going to be weaning after these sodas in the fridge are gone. Mower and I talked about it briefly last night, and he's cool with it (it's seemed like, in the past, one of us will decide to stop caffeine and the other gets pissed that no soda was bought because the other thinks it's not the right time for them, etc). The expense is something we have been discussing for a while. Each 12-pack costs about $3-$4 depending on if we catch it on sale. Each 12-pack only lasts a couple of days, maybe a little more if we are eating out and getting our soda at restaurants. At restaurants, we pay easily $1.50+ per soda. We easily drop $20 on soda a week, because we get some with caffeine and some without, and the kids drink some without caffeine. We do limit what they have, but they do drink it, too, which again I have ignored isn't good for them, especially since they have asthma and one of the side effects is aggravated respiratory allergies such as asthma.

I will try my best to chronicle this. I have doubts about that, because of my history of wanting to do something and not following through. What's kind of funny is that I asked for some prayers for help with my anxiety attacks recently at church, to direct me how to handle them or find the root, and half a week later, there's the click, the answer hitting me over the head.

I am very interested to find out how I feel over the next few days. I'm expecting a headache, and some tiredness. I think Mower and I are going to want to give in, and I'll have to think of ways to distract us from giving in. I have to think of the money we're saving more than the health benefits. Health benefits have not been a big motivator recently, unfortunately. But I hope they are the thing that we come to realize is much more important than an addiction to a food additive that has taken over our lives and made us be unbalanced in so many ways Even if I am just overreacting to this aspartame thing, getting off caffeine will be a great benefit and I'm sure there will be many improvements after the adjustment period.

I need to contact my wonderful friend Kristin and have her adjust the site--no more addiction if I can help it!

Handsome seemed to only poop in a clean diaper. He still isn't potty-trained, and he is now four. The kid wanted/wants a clean diaper before he soils it, but then he could stew in it all day long singing Kumbayah and lighting incense to cover the smell. Ask him if he went stinky poo-poo, and he'll respond with a high-pitched scream of fury, and may even try to hit you. We have a Wall E toy perched on a shelf to encourage him to stinky poo-poo in the potty, and all we get is a little boy who tries to manipulate us into giving it to him by accident. Mower was enticed to come and "Help me!" and Handsome stood there and casually asked for Mower to get Wall E like he has mistakenly placed him out of his own reach. Nope, sorry dude. Gotta drop the kids off at the pool before you get that $25 bribe.

Luckily, Honey wants a clean diaper often, and not just to poop in. She despises the feel of poop. I am thinking at this point that she will be trained before Handsome. We may even need to send Handsome to his prom with a diaper. "Here you go, son, your date's corsage and your XXL Training Pants. With Lightning McQueen on them, your favorite. Have fun!" I would even switch him to pink Pull-Ups, but the boy would just proudly show off the Disney princesses he was wearing as if it's Fashion Week in NYC.

So I am debating whether or not to pour some gasoline in the washer to clean the poop that was saturating Honey's outfit, but it's still too expensive to use gas to do that. I'll just throw some of Mower's clothes in there and let them be the test subject to whether or not the poop is mutant or if it did wash out of her outfit and enter the water system to be cleaned at a plant. Sorry about that guys. I know the wastewater management guys deal with a lot of smell and mess, but Honey's leakage onto her outfit probably doubled their normal annual allotment of disgusting water. But my kids and their massive poops will keep that particular facet of the economy going, so yes, you're welcome.

http://www.asiasbulletin.com/ Asia Carrera's blog. Yes, retired porn star Asia Carrera. Now a retired tandem-nursing mom and widow, complete with co-sleeping and being a computer geek.

http://cfhusband.blogspot.com/ Great blog from a husband and father's perspective of life with CF. Writes incredibly well, shows such cute photos of their adorable baby, and speaks from the heart.

http://creatingcongruence.blogspot.com/ Takes you away from the hussle and bustle of the everyday grind, and allows you to experience something new and cool.

http://cakewrecks.blogspot.com/ Funny and fresh. You'll see.

http://www.julianawetmore.net/ This family is too cool. They have challenges that would scare the pants of most everyone, and handle them with grace and grit. Awesome.

http://www.familyjohnsonobx.blogspot.com/ I can see our family being like theirs in many ways in the future. We would love to adopt and take kids out of the foster care system. I disagree about the blanking out names and such, because it's just our perogative:)