I have a lot to say but not a lot of time or motivation to get it said. Winter is the pits. I sit and stew about a million things all at once but none of what I think about can actually filter through my brain and out my fingers and onto the internets. I blame the cold. And the economy. And the fact that work is making me work when I'm at work.

It's tough.

Lucky for me, there was a question and answer exchange going on over at A Free Man and since I completely neglected the questions that Beth Fish sent me a few weeks ago, I should probably get on that soon too. I was given the task of asking Trish over at Light. Sweet. Crude. a few questions and Joe at Irrational Dad was assigned to asking me a few things. I feel terrible now because I only asked Trish three burning questions. She is a busy mom, and she is writing a novel, and her kids have actual activities that they are into rather than just licensed characters that they are obsessed with. I thought I was doing her a favor by asking her just a few but it turns out I'm a terrible question asker.

I wonder if this has anything to do with the fact that I'm better at talking about myself than I am at asking other people about themselves.

Yarr.

Here's what Joe wants to Knoe.

Maintaining one blog is quite a task for most of us. How do you find the time (and inspiration) to run 4 of them?
I am a spaz.
It would be completely annoying to the rest of the world if I didn't channel my energy and free time into a medium where it is completely acceptable to talk about myself whenever I felt like talking about myself. It would be completely annoying to my family if I had the time to act upon the compulsions that are constantly flying around my brain all the time so I channel and filter everything here.
I'm also very observant and I seem to have a way with words that other people get a kick out of and I find writing relatively easy. I can get a post out pretty quickly, and I think it is a good way to take a little time out from the day.
Blogging is like my smoke break.
Oh, and it's cute that you think I only have four blogs. See now, I only have four blogs on my blogger profile. I think I have a dozen or so on my dashboard.

With a few years of parenthood under your belt, what is one piece of advice you think all new parents should heed?
Everything your baby does is normal.
There is nothing that your baby will do that hasn't been done before. If you run into a difficult time or you don't know how to handle something, ask for help. If your baby is sick or delayed in some way, look for others who have been what you've been through. We are all in this together.

On the topic of parenthood, is there anything you thought would be easy that ended up being extremely difficult (or vicey versey)?
There haven't been any real surprises in parenthood. Sure there are no manuals, but the answers are out there and luckily I get paid from 9-5 to know them. It really helps on the homefront.
I knew I would love my baby, but I didn't know I would be obsessed with him.
I knew I would be tired, but I didn't know I would be exhausted in every sense of the word.
I didn't know how many senses the word exhausted had.
I was surprised at how easy it was to leave Jake at daycare and go back to work. I thought that would be hard but I couldn't wait for my maternity leave to be over.
I thought transitioning from "couple" to "family" would be easy, but it wasn't.

Has Dave found out about your $400+ purse yet? How'd that go?
Well Joe, and the rest of the world, how would you feel if you found out that your wife bought a $400+ purse?
Exactly.
He asked me if I was retarded and what the hell was I thinking.
(Slightly and I wasn't.)

Sigmund Freud, Keanu Reeves, and Florence Nightingale were all also born in the year of the dragon. Do you identify with any of these three people (and if so, how)?
I'm obsessed with being obsessed with all things that resemble sexual organs. I can't even look at Tupperware lids and not think of vaginas. When I was little (really little, like 5 or 6) I refused to pull the lid off the orange Tupperware bowls by the vag-tab because I was afraid that I was touching its vagina and I knew I wasn't supposed to touch vaginas that were not attached to me. I also stopped eating popsicles straight off the stick around the same time. I would let them melt into a Dixie Cup and drink them. Navel oranges don't remind me of belly buttons, they remind me of breasts. It's a sickness. I've brought it up in therapy several times with several different therapists but they all assure me that I am just fine and wasn't sexually assaulted as a small child. And to top it all off I know that seeing genitalia in everyday objects comes with a diagnosis.
Schizophrenia.
I'm almost convinced that I'm not schizophrenic but I still won't hold a microphone in front of boys. Or pickles. Or bananas.
I like the Brady Bunch too. That Florence Nightingale is a really groovy chick.

Has your superpower (I'm obsessed with superpowers, and I'm referring to your sense of smell) ever gotten you in trouble? Have you ever used it for good?
Unfortunately no, although one time I stopped a coworker from eating a chicken leg that had gone sour. She was in a car accident and lost her sense of smell. I smelled her lunch from two cubicles over. She would have had a bad case of the pukes-n-poops if she ate that chicken. I mean, what if she got sick at work? How would the rest of us be able to use the bathroom after that mess? It's like I saved my entire company from sure demise.

If someone that's never been to Philadelphia makes a trip there, what is one place you would demand they visit? I'm talking "court-ordered-go-here-or-die".
I guess the Italian Market. Although there isn't much Italian stuff going on there anymore, it is really a neat place to bum around for a day.
If you are feeling adventurous, I say take the 10 trolley all the way out and back. You will appreciate what you have at home once you've been all the way up Lancaster Ave. If you are especially brave and it is daytime, get off around 52nd Street or so. You would be very surprised how people in our country are forced to live.

If, for some reason, you didn't have any children, what do you think you'd be doing right now?
Professionally? Probably the same thing.
For fun on the weekends? I like to think that I would travel more and spend more time and money on things that make me happy. Like hiking and camping and beaching and boating and exploring foreign cities and maybe checking out my own country once in awhile. I'd be living the life that I'm watching Dora and Diego lead. Those crappy little unsupervised brown bastages are having all the fun that I should be having.

Last March, you said that you do not want to have another baby. Have your feelings on that changed in the last (almost) 12 months?
Absolutely not. After the week that we just had with Jake I am considering getting my tubes tied.
I like being the mom of an only child. We are totally bff's (for now) and I really get to focus on watching him grow up and I get to fully participate in his childhood.
It would break my heart to ever say "not right now Jake, I'm taking care of the baby".
Also, it is WAY easier to get a babysitter for one kid, and I like getting babysitters.
I'm never torn in two different directions, I sleep well because I only need to keep one ear open and that makes me a better person when I'm awake.
I have a bit more money in my pocket than my friends who have multiple kids, and that is good when we could lose everything at any time. I have less stress in my homelife, and I like that too.
And I don't want to get fat. Is it just me, or is everyone who is finished having kids glad they don't have to go through that nonsense again?
Pregnancy is disgusting, miserable, and unnatural. I'm sorry, but putting a body in my body just isn't the way to keep me happy and comfortable.

If Jake was completely in charge of throwing you a birthday party this year, what would you see there?
McQueen
Sally
Doc
Mater
Ramone
King
Chick Hicks
Sheriff
We would eat pizza and hotdogs and hummus and rice & beans and drink coffee and Carnation Instant Breakfast.
We would listen to Life is a Highway and Mamma Mia over and over again and we would watch Geotrax until our eyes bled.

And a bonus, 11th question:

How about a "Would You Rather..." question from Zobmondo.com? Would you rather choose to see your future (without being able to change it) or know everyone else's future and not be able to tell them?
I would rather know everyone else's future. I like to be in the know about everything. Plus I'm really good at context clues so I could probably figure out what I was up to if I knew what you were going to do.