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This message is brought to via "childtype." I'm underwraps, humidified and medicated. Flu season has arrived.

You've been warned about peer pressure, right?

And just because it's overcast outside and I have a little extra time, I thought I'd tell you all about my worst experience with peer pressure.

Mothers get your daughters. They need to learn what to expect from creepy little boys.

Fathers get your boys. They need to learn what absolutely does not work.

Let's go back in time to 1995 when I was dating money minus the brains. Mind you I said dating-- not sleeping with-- DATING-- like this was our second or third date.

And so, I agreed to meet the boy at his office (yes, he had a real job, but I'll still call him "boy" -- you'll understand in a minute).

There I was dressed in my college finest, waiting to go out on the town-- when from behind the desk Mr. Brainless says

"Wanna do "it"?
"Excuse me?" I said.
"Yeah," he said. "Wanna do it? You look hot."
"No," I said.
"Oh come on. It will only take a second," he said.

Like TIME was an issue. I don't think if you really want ot get in a girl's pants, bragging that "it will only take a second" is the key that unzips the zipper.

So what was your worst experience with Mr or Ms. Brainless?

A little VD goes a long way

And so it's Valentine's Day, a day that always makes me think of VD (because of the initials not because of some little V-Day gift of years gone by-- I have more class than that-- not much, but it is true there is class somewhere in these veins).

Years ago, I used to get as furry as a kitten around Valentine's Day, wondering what kind of trinket I was getting this year. These were the high school years and the answer was always the same: I wasn't getting no stinkin' candy gram or carnation bouquet-- not now, not ever. The boys in my life always managed to dump me just days before VD and the big dance requiring me to wear some big, obnoxious red polka dotted dress and red lipstick.

But today, VD is no big surprise, really. I'm getting something and well sex is pretty much a given. Ho-humm! What is there to look forward too, anymore? A box of Godiva? Some roses? A steak?

Well, dear readers, it is true. I'm stuck in a rut. If this were a children's book, I'd be the piggy in the puddle in the muddy little puddle or some duck stuck int he muck, but I'm not-- I'm just a woman waiting for -- something. Have any of you felt this way?

This is the first VD that I just don't give a flying foosball what happens-- because really nothing happens. I've been married for nearly 10 years-- we're tapped out of ideas. We're boring. We're comfortable. We're old shoes in need of a shine.

Anyhoo, I really do hope you all get something spicey and naughty, and who knows maybe this year will be saucy. But chances are, I'll be fixing some big fancy dinner for five. There will be no Godiva (and you know what I don't want it). There will be no roses because roses stopped years ago. They really are so unpractical. So what will there be?

Just the quiet comfort of two adults who have seen it all, done it all and who just want some peace and quiet-- and you know what that is the sweetest gift I could ask for-- a night with my husband (and children until 8 or 8:30 p.m. because everyone is out on VD) just being boring people.

OK I am lying just tidge. All I really want is to feel excited about the day again. Is VD only for the young and child-less?

Writer's Block

A blank screen
In the corner near the top, a cursor blinks on and off
But nothing happens--
Just the sound of
Fingers tapping
Tic
Tic
Tap
Tic-tic-tap

And the quiet of

Eyes wide open, ideas trapped behind blue irises
I should say something, but my mouth is dry
My fingers arthritic with waiting
Wondering
What they have to say
How do you say love? Anger? The bitterness of a cry in the woods--
no one hears, right? How can you know?

Inside
Behind the blinking of too-tired eyes
the words are pasted in pictures--
a Douglas Fir, some dirty feet, the bleeding cut of a hand
and a woman leaning against a tree--

It's in the black and blue
where the light gets in and reflects
Upside down images

Now where did I put my little grey sponge?
If only he could
Soak them up,
Put them on their feet and
File them
At the bottom
In a never ending line of
sentences I never finish reading

A magical paste, a Genie and a Mason jar-- the end of an era

There are few things I’d sell my vital organs for or consider selling all my worldly possessions just so I could get “it.”
Really. I’m pretty happy.

But there is one thing I’m willing to pull out all the stops, break open all the piggy banks and even pray to God, Allah, Hashem, Jehovah, Buddah and any other godly figures just to make it happen--- The End of the Diaper Era.

Yes, I’ve spent the last eight years swiping butts, wondering if it is my kid emitting that foul-smelling sulfurous odor at every family gathering and chasing little swirming baby behinds that want to smear (or worse yet fingerpaint) all over the changing table, walls and bathroom floor.

My purse has at times resembled a large suitcase. My trunk-- a portable closet. My trash-- toxic waste.

I have tried it all-- M&M bribery, award posters, going cold turkey, feel and learn pull-ups, pull-ups with designs that fade when the “deed” is done, pull-ups that get cold, singing potty chairs, boring potty chairs, stickers, toy prizes and the promise of puppies, kittens and love birds (if only they’d stop doing “it”).

I even once offered one of my daughter $5 if she’d just go No. 2 in the potty-- just once. She did-- and then she put her pull-ups on, bought some obnoxious toy and gave up the potty chair “forever.”

I just don’t get it. I don’t. Really. It’s disgusting. Who would want to be that way?

Apparently some residents who at one time or another were 3-feet or less and who reside in my house.

Long ago, I got a clue to this problem when one of my daughters said “I like diapers.”

Another one of my daughters said, “I’m baby.” Plus, she didn’t want to go to preschool “not ever. I want to stay with ‘chew’ mommy,” and so she’d hold “it” until she got her baby pants on and then let it all out. She was also afraid of the potty.

But the biggest hair scrunching problem was the daughter who would go in the right place-- if and only if she was naked.

I’m tired of rubber sheets and diaper genies.

And so, a few weeks ago, I decided we’d all have a competition. I was going to pay for potty. Yes, in my household, you get a penny for No. 1, a nickel for No. 2 and 25 cents for a dry night.

We’ve lined up the Mason jars and are filling them up quickly. I’m sure the Costco executives are starting to sweat because one day soon we will not be one of the ones piling up our carts with two sizes of pull-ups and cases of wipers. I won’t be searching for soothing creams and powders so I can make the all-healing paste. We will be paste-free.

My diaper days will be over.

But first it’s going to cost me as one my one they catch on to what will make them go the most. Gallons of water are being drank. What once took one trip now takes six. And a little stomach flu is revered as a blessing.

I can be patient. I can pay up. There are not limits to my pennies. Nobody wants them. If need be, I can take up a collection.

Yes, send your pennies and send them quick so one day--
My trunk will once again do what it was made to do-- carry shoes from Gigi’s Shoe Parlor, City Shoes and Heel and Sol.

But until that magical day arrives (and it is oh so very close), I will get the honor of listening to the the words that are more delightful than a Shakespeare sonnet and yes, I think at this point in my life-- even more delightful than “I do.”

The words come complete with a smile and little legs with overalls around the ankles jumping up and down.

“I did IT!” a voice calls with inflections only comparable to angels singing in heaven.

“I did IT!” Oh, the excitement. I run to give a high five and a penny or better yet a nickel.

“I went poo,” she says as she peaks out the bathroom door.

Oh it’s pay day in the Sitter household.

And then I am reminded of the consequences of “Pennies for Potty.”

“You wanna see?” she says.

Oh yes, what mother wouldn’t want to see the end of the Diaper Era swirling down, down, down the drain?