Go Ask Aunt Becky
I stole a lot of your material from your blog. Now I have herpes. What happened?
P.S. I am a virgin. So is my 16-yr old daughter.
You know what confuses me most? I am a virgin too. I was explaining this to my doctor when I got pregnant with Amelia and she rolled her eyes at me! I thought that was very nervy of her because it’s very obvious that I am a pure, pure girl.
And I also have The Herpes. Well, okay, I don’t, but I was trying to make you feel better about yourself and your diseased crotch.
But perhaps stealing my very important and obviously awesome (and by awesome I mean I should probably not quit my day job)(wait, I don’t have a day job) content is a bad thing. Because stealing content is what gave you herpes. Maybe you should give me tens of thousands of dollars as an apology so that your crotch goes back to normal. Then your herpes will go away.
P.S. Give me money.
Do you let your kids watch cartoons? How do they feel about the new computer generated graphics vs. the old hand drawn cartoons? Personally, I can’t stand the new Disney characters that are CG, even if they are slightly 3-dimensional. I was just wondering how an actual child felt about them.
I am going to guess that my family is not going to give you the normal spectrum of answers because my kids are full of weirdness and quirks. Which, I mean, with me as their mother, you can’t really blame them for.
Ben, the 8 year old, will succumb to peer pressure of the kids in his age bracket and watch a CG movie if they’re watching it. Otherwise, getting him to watch a movie is kind of like getting him to get a root canal. Actually, he’d probably prefer the root canal.
But, like I said, if his friends are doing it, he’ll do it. Likewise, if his 2 year old BROTHER is doing it, he’ll do it too.
Alex is 2. 2 year old’s that come forcibly ejected from my nether bits tend to be as stubborn as the day is long (whatEVER that means). Roughly translated, if I put his dinner on the wrong plate, he won’t eat it. So there’s a couple of videos he’ll watch, and that’s it. (I’m betting some of you are frantically reaching for your birth control pills right now)
Some of them ARE CG, though, but not to the exclusion of others.
And Mimi? I think she’s too busy beating on her brothers to notice.
What, praytell, does the tooth fairy bring to your house? How does she do the exchange without waking the kid? And why does that wiggly tooth make me want to throw up?
Thank the sweet merciful Lord in heaven that Ben sleeps like a stone. My other two, not so much, so when they start losing their wee teeth, I’m going to have to come up with some better solution than clomping in there half-asleep because I’d woken up from a dead sleep, panicked because I’d forgotten to leave a couple of bucks for my kid.
Now, Ben isn’t greedy and could give a shit what the Tooth Fairy brings to him, so I keep it at a couple of bucks. I could probably give him a shiny quarter, if it weren’t for his freakish memory. He’s the kid who is all “remember when we ate the red potatoes on the day that the snow piled exactly 4.3 inches high?”
And I’m like, “uh, and how is it that you can’t remember to wash your hands after you use the fucking bathroom?”
But this is neither here nor there (autistic people have amazing recall, something I could stand to borrow right about now).
So, HEED MY WARNING: once you give a dollar amount, you will be stuck with that amount, amazing memory regardless. Start SMALL, my friend.
And I get heebie jeebies with eyeball stuff, not so much with the teeth. *shudders*
Hey Aunt Becky,
My friend of eleven years has recently cut off contact with me. She’s blocked me on all social media sites (facebook, AIM, stopped following my blog, etc.). I’m not quite sure what prompted this. She was my best friend in high-school and a good portion of college, and then she started dating this guy.
You had to know a boy was involved, right? Well, he’s a scumbag. He’s not quite right in the head, and he has no respect for her or her friends. I told her when she started dating him that I didn’t like him and that I thought he was bad for her. She later found a few suspect text messages on his cell phone (to another woman…and they were of the ‘if you were here I’d so totally be making the sex with you’ variety), and they broke up…for a week and a half. She took him back, and they’ve been together ever since. She’s convinced that he’s going to propose to her soon. Urg.
And so that was that.
Since that point, we’ve been drifting apart. Almost to the point where we would only speak to each other about once a month. But, I figured that it was because we are both busy – I’m constantly job hunting, and balancing a full-time job with volunteering; she just started a new job, and she just moved. And then the blocking occurred.
So I’m just kind of left in limbo. I know that we’ve been distanced for a while, and I can accept that that might be why she’s cut off contact. But I feel as if I’ve done something (when I haven’t). What’s worse is that one of our mutual friends has also blocked me – I’m scared that all of our mutual friends will follow suit. I shot her an e-mail asking her what was up, but she hasn’t responded.
Help?
-Nyx, aka Confused and Less Two Friends
Oh Nyx, I’m so sorry. What your friend did was a shitty, low-ball thing to do and no matter what perceived wrong you did to her, that’s a really immature way for her to handle it. As adults, we should behave, well, like we’re adults and not like we’re 12 again, and you did the mature thing by trying to figure out what was going on.
What you have to do now is to accept that whatever happened is done and that it’s not your fault. Even if it is, you’re not the one who handled it like a jackass, the both of them are. The mature thing to do isn’t to hide behind not returning emails, it’s to respond, face up to problems, and then move on.
I’ve had this happen with two of my former best friends before (one was supposed to stand up in my wedding as my maid of honor and just stopped returning my calls. I’ve not heard from her again) and it sucks. You’ll probably never know what you did “wrong,” and whether it was “wrong” is a matter of personal opinion.
What I’ve tried to do (especially since one of them stalks my blog) is accept that you won’t ever know what exactly you did, and that anyone who so blatantly disregards you and your feelings isn’t really worthy of your time or energy. It’s sad and it’s hard and I’m sorry.
In this case, don’t beat yourself up too much, okay?
xoxo,
AB
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As always, please fill in where I left off in the comments, yo.
OH!
BlogHer ’10 is coming to NYC this summer and some of the Mouthy Housewives and me!! have put together a proposal for a room, called Dear Abby 2.0: Giving Advice in the Blogosphere. We will tell you everything you need to know about creating a successful internet advice site, all while eating bon bons and swilling vodka. It’ll be a lot of laughs, and a fun discussion for sure.
Please help us bring this session to BlogHer! Whether you plan to be there or not, you can vote by going here, logging on to BlogHer and then clicking “I would attend this session” (it’s just above the title: Dear Abby 2.0). After you click it it will miraculously say, “I would not attend this session.” This means that your vote for the session has been successfully registered. Thank you!
Nyx – Anyone who pulls shit like that isn’t worth the time and energy it takes to worry about them. A REAL friend would never just cut you out of her life without any kind of explanation. Count yourself lucky (though I know it isn’t easy – it has happened to me before too and it sucks big) that she’s gone and and save your time and energy for people who will be there for you when you need them. I’m so sorry you’re going through this. xoxo
Nyx: You may have done something to deserve to be cut off, and you may not have. If you are not exaggerating the man, though, it sounds like she has gotten caught up with an abuser. There are a bunch of signs there already, including cutting her off from sympathetic ears. There may not be anything you can do while they are together and she is wrapped up in his manipulations.
You could get an answer from the other friend who cut you off, depending on what kind of ‘friend’ that is/was, but you are most likely not going to like the answer if you go asking. People who cut you off with no explanation are not worth having around. Move on.
Nyx, My best friend (of roughly the same number of years at the time, come to think of it) did the same thing, and I never even got the chance to tell her the boyfriend was jerk. Regardless, three years after the Silence descended, I got engaged and she called to congratulate me. She’d broken up with the boyfriend, because, oh yeah, he was a lunatic. We’re no longer best friends, of course, but she is a friend again, and I’m good with that.
If I had to hazard a guess, your ex-bestie knows the guy is a jerk. Unfortunately, she’s also in love with him. So she’s trying to ignore the jerk-ness, and that includes the people who care enough about her to tell her the truth (being that she deserves way better). The best you can hope for is that she gets a visit from the Reality Fairy and dumps the guy, but even if she does, you’ll have to decide if you’re willing to forgive her.
The other woman is a bit gutless. Maybe you could try treating this as a visit from your own Reality Fairy, regarding whether she was ever a good friend in the first place. If you’re worried about other mutual friends, talk to them now. Don’t say anything nasty about the ex-friends, just mention what has happened, and ask the existing friends to tell you if you’ve screwed up, rather than ignoring you.
Good luck.
My sister married a loser guy and he instantly tried to cut off all of her personal and family contacts. They know that we know they’re scumbags and so don’t want us around!
I HATE the new cartoons! I am such an oldies girl – I don’t even want to watch the new stuff – but oh yes, the boys do because it is “cool”
As for our 2 year old. After he screams until he gets his coffee in the morning, it is one of only 3 movies he’ll watch. The twins have taking to mimicing the movies to make them more fun. Birth Control is for us!
My 3 kids like both types of cartoons from the Pixar stuff down to the Tom & Jerry’s and Popeye’s from the early days of cartoonery…but then, so do I, so…
As for Tooth Fairy payouts and sneakiness:
I made a little pouch for each kid out of foam paper. This goes under the pillow with a tooth-shaped plastic box that has the tooth inside. The next morning the kids wake up to see the tooth box gone and some money in their pouch. $5 for the first tooth lost and $2 after that.
My kids are sleep-like-the-dead-types so it hasn’t been a problem so far. The Tooth Fairy usually drops off their loot after they go to sleep but before I do…if you know what I mean!
And Nyx, it may be hard right now, but you will be better off in the long run now that you are shed of this friend. Word of caution: if the jerk ever dumps her (because she is seemingly unlikely to dump him), she may pop back in your life expecting things to be like before…don’t let them be! She will do the same thing for the next guy. Sorry!
When my oldest found out that Dad & I were the tooth fairy, he started asking about when HE could be the tooth fairy. I told him that because we were pirates (I’m trying out this Guide to Pirate Parenting book) that part of our training was to be the tooth fairy. So, while we dressed as pirates, we also had to wear a tutu and be the tooth fairy until we passed that part of our training.
After that, he didn’t ask any more questions. As for money, leave a gold dubloon or a shot of rum. After they get all excited you can “trade” it for a more modern form of currency.
I love the old cartoons. The new stuff is too digitized & busy. Give me the simple stuff like Pink Panther & Bugs Bunny. Although I do like some of the new Anime stuff as long a it has blood, guts & gore. Something like an animated horror flick is ok…lol!
aunt becky, i hope the friend that cut you off and stalks your blog gets herpes, cuz that shit is just like stealing.
Oh how i love the pirate parenting comment above! Just love it! I am so going to vote for your session at BlogHer right now, and how I wish i could be there, not to learn anything though, just to be there.
Facebook makes people revert back to Jr HS. It also gives cowards an easy way you. Whether you believe it or not, you are probably better off without these two. They don’t play well with others.
my parents always put the tooth in a juice glass on the kitchen counter with about an inch of water. then when they forgot to put the quarter in over night, they saw it first thing before the kids were up. oddly enough, my teeth were only worth a quarter, but my little brother routinely got a dollar and up… oooh, that is going to bug me ALL day.
(1) Computer generated cartoons? I hate them. My kids hate them. Complain loudly when they come on.
(2) Tooth fairy business: My kids get $1 if the tooth falls out, $2 if the dentist has to pull it. I make them put the tooth in an envelope. When I come in at night, I make like I’m doing the usual check with kiss and hug and sneak my hand under the pillow and grab the envelope. I leave the room, do the switch then come back later and do the hug and kiss thing again. If they wake up, they just think I’m doing my normal check on them (I check on them a couple times a night, anyway).
I already bought my ticket to BlogHer. So if it’s not too much to ask, would you mind holding off on filing that restraining order against me until AFTER August?
EEK – If your friend is in love with a douchnozzle then she wont come back until she agrees. She will never be your BEST friend again, but the friend in me says take her back when she comes. Being in love with a douchnozzle sucks. (I always agreed with my friends when they told me of douchyness, but stayed anyway, until I left FWIW)
I dont have kids, but do you think at age 7 they believe in the tooth fairy? Or are they just scamming you with their cute gap tooth faces wanting to score some cash? Because the alternative is terrifying. If they really believe why arent they having night terrors and trying to cram their teeth back in?
As for blogher, NYC? For real? I so want to go, and I registered (Lissie), but they said I am not authorized to post… Do I HAVE to have a blog? Because really I just work, and have cute niece and nephew’s. And my work (which I would blog about) constantly sends reminders that they monitor the Internet and will not tolerate being slammed. (not verbatim obv.) But I WANT TO GO!! I mean I wouldnt buy a plane ticket to go, but 25 miles away? I SO want to go!!
At my house the Tooth Fairy doesn’t actually go into the child’s room (my sister told me a horror story of trying to get money into her child’s room without waking her up). I have a basket that I decorated just for the Tooth Fairy. Inside, I placed a tissue and then on top goes the tooth. We set the basket at the kitchen table before bedtime. Then in the middle of the night the Tooth Fairy comes, takes the tooth, and leaves money. Everybody’s happy.
Oh, I give 2 quarters — my son loves coins, more so than dollar bills (but he’s only 5 and doesn’t know better… yet).
Odds are you’ll catch more from sneaking around with The Daver’s blog, right?
I kid, I kid.
The Mouthy Housewives are thrilled to possibly be sharing a stage with you! Please remember you’re in charge of the refreshments and hip-hop music.
Nyx: c’mere babe. I’ll be your friend.
Re: The tooth fairy question. In our house, the TF brings $5.00 for the very first tooth lost. After that, she brings 50 cents. (Don’t scoff…we have 4 kids and I’ll be goddamned if I’m gonna go broke because of the tooth fairy.)
Extenuating circumstances? Both of my boys had an abscess which required having a tooth pulled. They each got $20 for that (plus a bowl of ice cream for supper).
And the wiggly tooth makes you want to throw up cuz you’re human. And it’s gross. Totally, completely icky.
Introducing: The Tooth Nest. My oldest came up with it. We have these tiny little baskets with lids from Guatemala (from a grandparent) that he insisted would be a great tooth nest. I shoved a couple cotton balls in it, some shiny fabric scraps over the top (to make a pillow, of course), and he puts the tooth into the basket, leaves it on a table by the door with a note, like with Santa. We’re trying to convince him that the tooth fairy would also like a beer, just like Santa.
As for what he gets – my sister suggested gold dollar coins. It means whenever a tooth is loose, we have to frantically go to the bank and buy a dollar or two, or keep them on hand.
And I love the pirate parenting!
MWAH! Thankyou for that, Aunt Becky (that was me, totally frenching you).
I’ve pretty much come to that conclusion about her as well. They’re engaged now (blech, threw up in my mouth a bit…found that one out through an ex-friend of hers), so that could have prompted the sudden silent treatment. Luckily, no other friends have blocked me (that I know of).
I’ll let sleeping dogs lie. 🙂 Thanks for the advice, it actually made me feel much better. Had one of those pathetic “wah wah wah i miss her wah wah wah” moments earlier today, and then I logged onto blogger and my question was up (good timing there Aunt Becky).
Also…you guys rock. Yes you, commenters of the Aunt Becky’s blog variety. 🙂 Thankyou so much! Ya’ll are all sorts of the awesome.
the basket and kitchen counter for the teeth are the best ideas ever! my kids figured out early on that dad was the TF, because he’s so NOT SNEAKY. This past year we didn’t even have to pretend about S.C. anymore — it was fabulous!! instead of a bunch of crap that made ’em fat and they’d get bored with in a week, we took ’em to Great Wolf Lodge! Love having a bit older kids!!
Your blog always makes me laugh! Thanks for that!
The first time my son got a loose tooth I nearly tossed my cookies. I have no idea why it bothered me so much. Maybe it was because it was my child instead of some other snaggle-toothed urchin. Whatever the reason, I could not bring myself to pull that tooth. The mere thought of causing my child pain sent me cowering into the corner. I called my best friend in the world (we referred to ourselves as wombmates. Not because we had the same mother but because the only people we’d known longer than our mothers was each other) and requested she come to my house in her official capacity as family dentist. Until that moment in time she had no idea she’d had training in the oral arts other than, well you know. Moments later she arrived and with tissue in hand she begins to stalk my small son down the hallway telling him the whole time to scream. “Scream really loud” she’d say. Luke started to giggle. She laid him gently on the sofa and leaned over him telling him the whole time to ‘scream like you mean it because I like it when I think I’m hurting you’. Anybody wondering about the mental stability of my children right now??? While Luke tried to scream through the hysterical laughter, my friend pulled that tooth and nobody noticed. Not even me. She pulled every single loose tooth my children ever had. God love her warped soul!
I had a friend do that. Best friend in high school, was in my wedding, and then she met a guy that talked to her like she was a moron. The one time I met him, I called him on it. After that she never returned my calls, never spoke to me again.
A few weeks ago she tried to friend me on facebook and called me her long lost buddy. I’m not interested. I don’t have the time or energy for people who are going to play games with my heart. She had it, she stomped on it, not doing THAT again.
Lolol okay I SO didn’t mean to make that sound like a Backstreet Boys single….
oops. Bwahahaha!
My mum did the water in a sherry glass for our teeth. The sherry glass because it was cut glass and looked fancy, ad water because when we woke up the next day, the tooth was replaced with a dollar coin, and the water had CHANGED COLOUR! Proof of magic involved.
Then there are the people that keep baby’s first tooth in a special box. That shit freaks me out – voodoo anyone?
Wow I’d be seriously broke if I gave that much money to my kid for each tooth. She’s lost 5 since November. But we only give a dollar. We also keep the tooth in the bathroom in a glass makes it SOOO much easier for the tooth fairy as long as the tooth fairy doesn’t have al what’s his name disease and forget to put money in the glass and take the tooth. Its only happened twice. Once because she got up at like 7am and had to wake us up to wonder why the tooth fairy hadn’t been there yet. The second time we were broke and forgot to get some change.
My kids appear to like the pixar movies and not so much the hand drawn ones. But I don’t blame em, we watched Dumbo the other night and I was like man this is old. To me its like watching bad hand held 70’s porn vs watching the Hollywood budget hd-dvd High def porn they have now a days where you swear you could reach out and touch the splooge.
My daughter tends to get whatever cash I may actually have on me (typically none). I have also on occasion taken her little wallet and “borrowed” tooth fairy money for it to replaced the following payday. She hasn’t noticed yet, but she also usually doesn’t know where her wallet is.
Bwahahahahaha! Ben hasn’t spent a dime of his money, ever, because he doesn’t understand the concept of it. I think he’s too young for it.
Oh, you are SO right about the autistic recall. We have to be very careful what we set as the standard for something, because it can NEVA-EVA change. GAH.
As for the tooth fairy, I tell Jordan that “tooth-fairy mommy” will take him to the store to pick out a prize (usually from the dollar bins in the front of Target).
Oooooh! GOOD ONE. I like that idea too!
If a supposed friend sabotages you under exactly the same circumstances in which you had her back and put up with a lot of shit and abuse in support of her efforts and you call her on it twice and both times she laughs in your face, is it okay then to cut her off with any further explanation? If not, my bad.
However, in my defence, I don’t think there’s anything I could say that would change things. She knows what she did. She knows it was wrong (used someone else to lie to me to get me to do what she wanted), she was offered two chances to either apologize or at least say she didn’t mean to upset me, even if she can’t bring herself to either really be sorry to to lie about it.
At what point do you severe ties without being a douchebag? Help me, Obi Wan KiBecky! You’re my only hope!
Personally, I say let her know. Although you’ve called her on it, it sounds like there weren’t any actual consequences for her. When she laughed the first time, you didn’t slap her sniggering face and tell her to go fuck a chylamida-riddled koala, you gave her the benefit of the doubt and tried again. And she, of course, just laughed again.
Send her a list in dot points, put on a puppet play, hell, express it via interpretative dance. Make it clear exactly why you’re severing ties. Think of it as getting closure (and, my inner-brat would like to add, an excellent chance to let rip!)
Unfortunately, if you cut her off without a word, you’ll be the bad guy. Even if she has no intention of changing her ways, she can still make the claim that she would have, if you’d just told her, blahblahblah.
So tell her. Best case scenario, it’s the wake-up call she desperately needs, and you’ll be able to rebuild your friendship. Sometimes, people who haven’t grown a clue before will grow one real quick when they realise just what the consequences are. Worst-case scenario, you’re not giving her the option to be the victim. She might play that card, of course, but it’ll be a very weak hand. Given her history of lying, you may want to ask a mutual trust-worthy friend to be witness to your ‘discussion’, so you’ve got backup if she starts making wild claims (although this is a big ask, so think it over first).
Thanks, Science Geek!
But it IS alright to severe ties, right?
She knows EXACTLY why I’ve walked away. As do others. And she’s not going to change her ways. She is never wrong. And I don’t want to rebuild the “friendship.”
Oh, if only there’d been a koala handy…
WordPress stole my comment.
WordPress taketh, and WordPress giveth back.
so the toothfairy thing – first we have the MOST FORGETFUL toothfairy on the planet! I mean, my 8 year old (who incidentally also sleeps like a rock) has lost 8 teeth and the only tooth that the toothfairy showed up for on the first night was the first one. But b/c my 2 younger kids do not sleep like a rock, my MIL actually made them tooth pillows – they are like 3″x5″ pillows with lace trim (yup, even for my son – but his is blue) and a pocket with the word “TOOTH” (think iron-on embroidery) on it. there’s also a ribbon so the kids can hang it somewhere but they’ve all played just a little too hard with that and pulled it out. They put said pillow NEXT to their pillow so that the toothfairy – the lazy gek – doesn’t have to search for it.
oh, and our toothfairy didn’t get the memo on inflation… The first tooth gets a silver (well, gold now) dollar and then a quarter for every tooth afterwards – just like I got!