A Proverb From Physicians Running Behind Schedule: Patients, Entertain Thyself

Scheduling Doctor's appointments for all 6 mini-Infidels last week turned into an exercise in extreme patience.
We sat there at the clinic for an excruciating 3 hours on Friday. And then on Monday, we tacked on an additional 4 to our Frequent Vinyl Bench Sitters Rewards Program.
When will these public waiting rooms ever learn that vinyl in 90 degree Houston heat can only cause the heartbreak of excessive leg sweat?
Rivulets Of Leg Sweat: The key to keeping vinyl furniture looking shiny and smooth.

You know what I think? I think that plopping you down into an examination room/holding cell for hours on end with nothing to read except a tattered copy of Golf Digest, is the preferred method the office staff uses to administer an effective temperament test without you even realizing it.
Little do they know that 4 of us are bloggers. We're accustomed to sedentarily staring straight ahead at nothing in particular for hours on end while restricting all movement, outside of the clickety-clackety motion of our typing fingers.
We remained determined to not let the winds of boredom declare victory on us. After all, we freakin know how to make our own entertainment in a sterile and humorless room!
First thing we did was thoroughly read the instructions on the hand sanitizer dispenser. That was fun. Just as we were about to start crafting our own cast of tongue depressor characters for a rendition of Popsicle Stick Theater, I remembered that I brought along my trusty camera sidekick.

Naturally, Sunbum, the eldest mini-Infidel, remained the least inhibited.
Here she's a little bubble of unbridled enthusiasm stuffed into a fashionable Pyramid inspired gown.

And this is the precise moment where the Nurse pops that bubble of unbridled enthusiasm with a hypodermic needle filled with the meningococcal vaccine.....followed by a tetanus booster......followed by a chicken pox booster....followed by a Hepatitis A shot.....followed by a TB test.....followed by a blood screen and a urinalysis.

Sunbum is now ready to expand her circle of friends to include those afflicted with the above conditions.
You can submit friend applications here.

As several earnest but hollow promises of"The Doctor will be with you any minute now" drug into tedious hours, we started to give up hope.
Sunbum remarked that the privacy sheet she was given to cover her lower extremeties during the exam reminded her of something you'd see on a crime drama where they use a white sheet to cover up a corpse. I guess this shortened sheet is the one reserved for use on a person who's only half-dead--or for midgets.

Bored, Sunbum started fashioning her sheet into a gallery of remarkable designs. I encouraged her to. Mainly to stop myself from tying sheets together to make an escape from our third floor prison.....or a noose.
I'm going to field a guess and say that in this picture, Sunbum's representing the under-represented class of Constipated Shawl Wearers...........

Ready To Tie On The Feed Bag With A Customized Bib Guaranteed to Catch All Drips And Dribbles...........

Striking A Pose Suited For An America's Next Top Model Competition.....Or Doing The Robot. I'm not entirely sure.

People Jump Ship. People Jump Rope. And Some People Even Jump, Jump For Your Love- But Only When Listening To The Pointer Sisters. Instead, My Sunbum Jumps Sheet........

Working On Her New Line Of Du-Rags That Double As A Baby Burping Cloth........

Only A Clorox Sponsored Superhero Would Dare To Wear A White Cape........

Ghost Costume: You're Doing It Wrong!
Virgin Mary Costume: You're Doing It Right!

Sadly, not all of the mini-Infidels were so thrilled with the photographic attention as they actively shied away from the digital spotlight.

Stay tuned as next month The Smiling Infidel gang and their multitude of toothy problems, invade an unsuspecting Dental Office in hopes of depleting them of all their complimentary toothbrushes to resell on the toothbrush black market.

My Son, The Rocket Man (And Elton John Has Nothing To Do With Any Of It)

My 10 year old son, Buster has finally moved out of the destructive frame of mind-so typical of male adolescence-and into the constructive zone.
Buster's been busying himself this summer with drawing up rocket designs and then devising ways to build it and launch them.
Here's a sampling of some of his handiwork:





Many a paper towel tube and plastic bottle valiantly gave its life so that Buster could pursue the art of the perfect rocket technology.
And now? To infinity and beyond!........................

The Day I Plopped Down In The Bathtub And Plopped Out A Baby!

This is a story that's taken me 9 years and a lot of nagging (elizabeth-w) to write. I guess I never thought to hash and rehash everything out in written form because most of the people I know detect the first mention of an impending 'Miracle Of Life' story and they instinctively double over-feigning a massive diarrhea attack in the hope that they can escape and run far, far away.

We totally planned on delivering Caterpillar at home all along via the two really experienced midwives we hired..........but you know what they say about the best laid plans.


I woke up around midnight on June 21, 1999 with that horrible cramping sensation that only occurs when you eat way too many chili dogs at the Sonic Drive-Thru. It also happens when your labor powers suddenly kick into ACTIVATE mode. Within the hour I knew that this was the real deal and the birthing process had begun. As M.C. Hammer should have sang to expectant mothers, it was STOP! Labor Time!


This was to be our first at-home birth so I really only had the medically invasive experiences of my three prior hospital births to apply towards my Masters Degree in Baby Pushing.
I figured that laboring would constitute a long arduous process so I ignorantly waved Papi on to work around 2:00 A.M. I then harnessed the power of my nesting instinct and set about cleaning the house in super turbo gear. The last thing I wanted was for the midwives to arrive and have to assist me in birthing my baby while standing in the middle of a dirty underwear pile. Apparently, keeping busy and moving around progresses labor much faster than laying in a hospital bed moaning and groaning and cursing at your husband. Yeah! I was single-handedly proving Newton's Law Of Gravity without even realizing it! Plus I didn't have to wheel an awkward I.V. pole to the toilet with me.


I didn't telephone the midwives right away because I didn't want them or anyone hovering over me until it was absolutely necessary. You know, a watched pot never boils is equivalent to a watched pregnant woman never births. Well, by the time that moment of "absolute necessity" arrived it would be too late.(oooh, ominous foreshadowing)


Somewhere around tidying up my ceramic pig collection and enjoying the quiet solitude of my home while our 3 kids under the age of 4 were sound asleep, I got kind of shaky and weak.


I decided to fill up the bathtub so I could sit down and take the edge off the labor pains. I switched on the radio in our room and lowered myself into the tub. Immediate relief whooshed over me as the warm water helped ease the increasing pace of the contractions. Then the soft sounds of Kenny G. and his lilting saxophone filled the room and I was thinking, "Oh crap. How the freak did it get on this lame station?" That sneaky Smooth Jazz station lured me in with the sounds of The Doobie Brothers 'What A Fool Believes' and made me think I was on the lite rock channel. The last thing I needed was a craptastical array of Smooth Jazz favorites to compound my increasing labor pain. I mean Kenny G. may be aight for baby making music but he certainly isn't fit to provide the soundtrack for baby birthing.


Suddenly, I was rocked with excruciating pain so intense I started mini-hyperventilating. I knew I had to call someone NOW so I started with Papi and told him to come home immediately. Then I phoned the midwives and talked to the mother of the mother-daughter midwifery team. She tried to console me as I incoherently babbled about how I felt like my hoo-hoo was a burning ring of fire bigger than anything Johnny Cash could ever imagine.


I guess the midwife knew that was an imminent sign that she wasn't going to make it to the house on time. She very kindly didn't apprise me of that information until much later so she could try to minimize my freak out at being alone and in pain. While she was en route I suddenly screamed at her, "Ohhhh Noooooooooo I feel like I have to push" and then I dropped the phone.


I made a snap decision that if I had to deliver the baby myself, I could see more clearly what I was doing if I got out of the dimly lit bathroom and laid down on the bed. Unbelievably I was still annoyed at the gaggy Smooth Jazz blaring on the radio. Part of my big plan to haul my massive laboring body over to the bed involved throwing the radio across the room to silence it forever.


As I got on my trembling knees in the tub and leaned over the side in an effort to hoist myself up, I started pushing uncontrollably.I will never-as long as I live-forget the tremendous 'PLOP' sound the baby made as she exited my body and landed in the warmth of the tub water. Frantically, I turned around to fish her out.


I'm not exaggerating when I say I was terrified that something was wrong with her, especially since she never uttered even one cry. I sat there, stunned, in the yuck tub water holding her and blubbering all over the place while I kept apologizing out loud to her that she had a stupid mother that was too stupid to even know she was in advanced labor. It's a good thing we're not Scientologists because all my wailing and carrying on probably left a big imprint on Caterpillar.


Ummm, my Caterpillar did nothing but look up at me with these dark grey eyes while she made the perfect crinkle-nosed newborn face that seemed to say "WTF is wrong with you, woman?" It usually takes children until their teenage years to perfect a look that reveals they think their mom is insane and my baby got it down within minutes of her birth. I am so proud.


After I was sure she was breathing okay, I wrapped Caterpillar up in a towel and waited. I mean really I could have gotten out of the tub and started walking somewhere to get help but I wouldn't have ventured too far with the giant dangling umbilical cord still hanging down out of my nether regions. It would have looked like I was walking my pet baby on a weird looking leash. Mercifully, thankfully none of our other kids woke up because I'm not sure I would have been able to deal with that on top of everything else going on.


Papi got home about 10 minutes after the birth. I started laughing as he nervously took the cord clamp, iodine, and scissors out of our homebirth kit with his super shaky hands as he announced he was going to cut the cord. That was anything but reassuring. I didn't need Papi's trembling hands to miss and give me an unexpected episiotomy so I advised that we should just wait for the midwives to get there so they could deal with the umbilical cord and deliver the placenta.


So, the midwives arrived a few minutes later and took care of the rest of the post-birth details like weighing Caterpillar and examining her and giving me the all clear to go and take a much needed shower. We didn't have plans to eat the placenta or bury it under a tree or anything so we graciously allowed the midwives take it with them.....for FREE!


I remember Papi and I marvelling over Caterpillar's body that was so tiny except for her ginormous butt. Papi called her 'J.Lo Booty' and kept telling me, "Wow girlie, I'm not amazed that you were able to squeeze her head out without any help but the way you delivered those giant nalgas took a small miracle!"


When we rolled into Church a few days later with our newborn, word of her somewhat unconventional birth had already gotten around. Church members started calling me 'The Pioneer Woman.'
Dang, that would have made a great blog name. :)


Anyway, as you can see, the story has a very happy ending. Whenever someone asks Caterpillar where she was born she always yells out exuberantly "In The Bathtub!"

Infidel Parenting Pointers: Prolonging The Life Of Your Crayons

Do you silently cringe whenever you have to blow 4-5 bucks on a giant box of name-brand Crayola crayons for your child only to see those crayons mashed into the carpet/snapped into pieces/wrapper-less/crayon tip-circumcised/used for furniture graffiti just a few scant days later?

We all know that purchasing cheaply-made generic crayons isn't the solution either because they're too wax-heavy and ineffective to create any artistic feats of wonder. Seriously, you'd be better off in your coloring ventures using the waxy Paris Hilton dummy from Madame Tussauds than inferior crayons imported from China.

So, what to do? Simple. The answer is in black and white. Only purchase coloring books for your children that feature black bears, zebras, pandas, and black panthers. (Make sure you're buying the animal kingdom's version of the black panther and not the supremacist organization. That could be problematic.) See, those species are already printed in their natural coloring. There's no need to sully any of your crayons. Genius. To continue on in the name of crayon preservation you must also steer your children away from any of those pesky, imaginative outbursts. Yes, they may gush excitedly, talking about how cute a purple, polka-dotted panda would look, but you must squash that creative uprising before they want to utilize and ultimately destroy all the colors in the box.

Happy Coloring!
*This Parenting Pointer Tip Brought To You By The Crayon Conservation Coalition*

We Got Flashed By An Inanimate Streaker At Cici's Pizza!

The Infidel family made a rare public appearance yesterday as we dined out amidst the glitz and glamour of the vinyl booths and serving line heating lamps at Cici's Pizza Buffet. Yes, so there we were eating away again in Diarrheaville, searching for our lost shaker of cheese when Melody suddenly screamed out in a horrified voice "That napkin holder is NAKED!!!!"
We've taught our mini-infidels the moral value of embracing the ideals of modesty and now we're finally seeing the blossoming fruits of our parental diligence. Young Melody wants everyone and everything to be properly clothed......even the napkin dispenser.
When I flipped the dispenser over to reveal that it was stuffed full of napkins on the other side and therefore could only be half-naughty and possibly suffering a split personality disorder, Melody decided to give the wayward napkin holder an encouraging squeeze. I guess that makes Melody some sort of tree-hugger because napkins do come from trees, and she is trying to save them, right?

Moral Of Today's Blog Post: Love The Napkin Sinner, Not The Napkin Sin.

*I Made A Loincloth Out Of Napkins To Cover The Nakedness Of Humor-Blogs.Com*

You're So Vain.......You Probably Think This Blog Post Is About You

A lovely English Sister in our ward at Church delights in fussing over Melody every chance she gets. She quite often tells me in her stately accent, "Your Melody is so gorgeous."

So on occasion I'll teasingly repeat that to Melody to which she matter-of-factly and proudly exclaims, "That's right! I AM so gorgeous!"
For sure, the gods of self-confidence were smiling upon this child the day she made her grand entrance into the mortal coil.

My BUNS OF STEEL Workout Regimen Using LEGO Blocks

"Elasticwaistbandlady, a blogging Infidel . A woman barely alive. Gentlemen, we can rebuild her. We have the technology. We have the capability to build the world's first bionic woman. Elasticwaistbandlady will be that woman. Better than she was before. Better, stronger, faster.......and a second third stomach to accommodate her voracious appetite."

Mothering two rampaging sons has rendered me nearly indestructible--especially in the tender foot and tushy areas. I've stepped on, sat on, fell on, and pranced on so many little plastic toy pieces scattered about my floor that I could bill myself as the world's first LEGO cyborg mom. I'm sure that a routine physical would uncover enough tiny blocks hidden amongst my squishy, heiny-folds to erect an entire LEGO city--a city that's never quite complete because there's always another "new-and-improved" set you have to purchase. Oh how I do so love toys thats designed specifically to make you keep buying and buying more to add on to it.

Anyway, I'm not really sure why Papi wants to waste his time watching recycled 70's cheeseball-o-rama shows like The New Adventures of the Old Bionic Woman, when he has me, his own personal Bionicle Woman by his side.

My weapon of choice as a mighty Bionicle Woman? The high-speed hurling of an itty-bitty ,connectible-piece arsenal that strikes certain fear and dread in the hearts of thine enemy....thus engaging them to stoop over and scoop them all up off the floor which leads to extremely debilitating backaches. I'm a calculating foe, indeed.

Fear me!

I know the pictures from my camera-phone constitutes some pretty crappy photo quality but I really love this picture of my two youngest children while at the Library on Friday........especially the way Melody seems so focused and intent on checking out what her brothers doing.