Dear Aunt Becky,

Just a quick one… can I block a site from looking me up.  I was checking out my stats (well… my blog stats) and found, much to my utter horror, that some porn site in Russia is sending quite a bit of traffic my way.

Now I’m all for traffic but I don’t know if I want some porno Russian reading up on my life… how do I do the Internet Protect thing?

It’s my NAME! I’m Working Mom… BUT NOT THAT KIND OF WORKING MOM, you Russian Nit!  I’m a Mom that works… at a job… full time… Maybe I should just change my name… But I’ve always been Working Mom…

Wails…

Oh, Dear Prankster, do I feel your plight. Here, let me show you:

You may have to click that to make it a bit bigger.

But this, this is taken from the Band Back Together stats thingy I use and there’s a zillion more like it. Now, Mommy Wants Vodka? Perhaps that would make sense. But Band Back Together is like, um, GOOD shit, and my blog, well, let’s be honest with ourselves here.

ANYWAY.

Now, I don’t ever block IP addresses. And if I did, it would require much hand-wringing and teeth-gnashing before I gave it over to The Daver.

But I’m going to do my best to help you. I will assume you run Windows Vista Firewall or Norton Anti-Virus Firewall. Let’s start with Norton, because I like the name better.

How To Block an IP Address if You Run Norton Internet Security:

1. Open Norton Internet Security and hit, “settings, under the field “internet.”
2. Hit, “advanced settings: configure” under “smart firewall. “
3. Hit “general rules: configure,” and the button, “add.”
4. Choose button, “block” and hit “next.”
5. Choose, “connections to and from other computers,” and hit “next.”
6. Choose, “only computers and sites listed below.”
7. Hit, “add” and type the IP address you’re blocking in the space.” Hit “okay” then “next.”
8. Hit “next” two times as the default settings are fine.
9. Give this firewall a nice name, like, “Russian porn,” and hit, “next” then “finish” to block this IP Address from stalking you again.

Then buy Aunt Becky a nice cup of coffee (read: vodka).

Blocking IP Addresses From Windows Vista:

1. Login to the admin account in Windows vista and hit “start.”
2. Type in “firewall,” and hit, “windows firewall with advanced security” located under “programs.”
3. Choose “inbound rules” on the left side of the firewall window.
4. Choose “custom” then hit “next.”
5. Choose “all programs” and hit “next.” And hit “next” again.
6. Choose “these IP addresses” in the area, “remote IP addresses.”
7. Hit “add” and type your Russian Porno site’s IP address in that area.
8. Hit “OK” then “next.”
9. Choose “block the connection” then hit “next.”
10. Type in a nice descriptive name for this firewall rule (Russian Porno Site) and hit “next,” then “finish” to block ’em.
11. Choose “outbound rules” on the left side of the firewall window and repeat steps four through ten.

Then buy Aunt Becky thirty cups of coffee or at least one.

Good luck, Prankster. And if it’s any consolation, they’re probably NOT reading your archives.

Dear Aunt Becky,

How come in your new schmantzy pants website you no longer link to We Know Awesome? Also, what on earth are schmantzy pants?  I think I made up a word. By pants I mean underwear as I am English btw!

Ah, Prankster, I’m glad as hell you pointed it out. I’d thought there WAS a button up for We Know Awesome and seeing that it’s not sent me into a “THAT’S BULLSHIT,” rage. Having my designer work something up so we can fix this.

Thank you for letting me know!

Dear Awesomest Aunt Becky;

I have been dating a man for 4 years, after being divorced for 1.  Every 6 months or so he decides that he has “loving feelings” towards me but he doesn’t have desire for me physically.  So we break up, during which time we fuck like bunnies.

So we admit that we are really still together and go back to being BF/GF.  So we are in yet another “slump” and I’m not sure what to do.  Do I tell him that I am done with this even though I love him to death as does my 6 y/o son?  Or do I wait it out knowing he’ll swing back the other way soon enough?

Thanks for your advice!
Lisa

Oh Lisa, I’ve been with That Guy before and he kinda sucks. But he’s kinda awesome, too.

So here’s my advice: do you like this limbo? Do you like not knowing whether you’re going to be dating or not? Can you handle the back and forth of it all? Is it worth it?

Because if the answer to any of those is, “no,” I’d suggest moving on. Love or not, you deserve someone who loves and desires you all of the time, not someone who keeps you in limbo.

That’s just my two cents. Which probably make zero sense.

Pranksters?

Dear Aunt Becky,

Wanted to know where my shirt was! I ordered one of your awesome shirts and it hasn’t arrived! HALP!

Oh Prankster, you made my day. I love it when you guys buy my shirts. Because I think they’re full of the awesome.

I spoke with my shirt guy (who currently stocks my stuff) and he’s mailing out a number of the shirts on Monday. They screen print the shirts and I know they’re done now, so, you know, thanks for your patience.

Email me at becky.harks@gmail.com if you don’t get it by Wednesday of this week (or so).

And send me a picture of yourself wearing it for my Gallery of Awesome Shirts! Doing something wacky, you know? I like wacky. And if you have a blog, send me the URL so I can add it.

Dear Pranksters,

What do you think of a “Mommy Drinks Because You Cry” shirt?

Love,

Aunt Becky

—————

As always, Pranksters, please pick up where I left off in the comments! And tell us your creepiest stalker IP addresses.

OH and stalker stories. I love stalker stories.

I started blogging in 2004 when Moses was my classmate and I wrote a wee dinosaur to school. A Mushroom Print – for those not in the know – is a dick-smack, and that was precisely what my co-blogger Pashmina and I fully intended our blog to be. A verbal dick-smack.

It was.

My first post was something about a) pubic hair or 2) my vagina, something I know because that was generally what we wrote about. You take two youngish-twenty-somethings and you put them together, and you’d expect to hear about how we were trying to be Carrie Bradshaw or something.

Not so, Little Grasshopper, not so. We deliberately wrote about things no hot young thang would, in her right mind, put out there.

Some of the stuff has made it’s way over here, the rest was deleted when I reinvented Mushroom Printing as a snarky group blog for us Pranksters.

In 2007, I started Mommy Wants Vodka*, my less-snarky site. It was here that I wrote my heart out. Turns out, those who want to read about your vagina may NOT want to read about your colicky baby. The name was a deliberate poke at the other mom blogs who seemed to exist in a dream world, where everything was perfect all the time.

Because I am many things, Pranksters, but I am most decidedly NOT perfect. None of us are. Okay, maybe you are. But I’m sure as shit not.

It took me ages to write about the really hard shit. Sure, my kid was colicky and yeah, I never slept, but the first post I recall writing about something a) deep or 2) meaningful was when I wrote about how much I hated Mother’s Day. I wrote my heart out.

It was probably not good, but it was real and it was mine. Which is the only thing I’d tell anyone who “wants to increase their blog traffic.” Write honestly and from the heart and for god’s sake, do it in your own way.

ANYWAY. I digress.

Rather than eschew me for being unfunny that day, I had a number of people who spoke up and said, “you know what? ME TOO. Here’s why:” and they told their stories.

That was the moment that I realized we all had stories.

When Stef died, I wrote about my grief, albeit badly. I’ve never been properly able to write about her, although not for lack of trying. I’ve deleted thousands of words because they weren’t enough.

But once again, my Pranksters spoke up and told me their stories. In comments, in emails, in other posts, I read about how you, too, had lost someone you loved and how it changed you. Your stories made me laugh, they made me cry, and they sparked an idea in the back of my very tiny head.

Then my daughter was born, and she was so, so ill. You’ve all prayed with me, you’ve watched her grow from a very sick girl to Amelia, Princess of the Motherfucking Bells. You’ve told me your stories in emails, blog posts, comments and phone calls. I have an email folder specifically for your stories, did you know that? I read them sometimes and am reminded of how lucky I truly am.

Because I know you all. My Pranksters, I am so fucking lucky to know you.

I launched Band Back Together in September, a place that I envisioned like a library of stories, complete with resources to accompany them. I knew in time, we could fill all those empty shelves and we have. And more.

Yesterday, National CASA posted about Band Back Together. If you don’t know CASA, you should.

I was reminded of the immense power we have. Blogging has turned from a “hobby” into something that means something. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: our words have power. The power to connect, the power to unify, the power to change.

Alone, we may be small blogs, letting others into our lives, glimpse by glimpse, but when we unite, we have the power to change. I’ve learned so much from you, my Pranksters. Stories I’d never have been told on the street, things no one else may know about you, but things I do. Because you were brave enough to sit down in front of a computer screen and type out your words.

That is an act of bravery, you know. Every time you sit down in front of a computer and type out your words, that is brave. No. Let’s try that again, this time for Stef: it’s MOTHERFUCKING brave.

So I, once again, invite you into Band Back Together, a site I run, but a site that is owned by many, to share your stories, let others into your world and tell your truth. To commit an act of bravery.

If we can unite, tell the world we exist, put our stories together and demand change, we can achieve it. That’s not a question.

I look forward to your stories.

Each and every one of them.

And I hope that we can work with other organizations, like CASA**, to show the world that we are unafraid, that our stories matter, that we matter.

Because we do. From the biggest blogger to the person who’s never written a single word, we all matter.

So let’s act like it.

*The original concept was “Mommy Wants Bourbon” but it didn’t roll off the tongue the same way “Mommy Wants Vodka” does.

**if you work with a site like CASA or another blog doing Good in the blog world, we’d love to work with you on The Band. Email me at becky (dot) harks (at) gmail.com and we’ll chat.

***or, if you’d like to work behind the scenes with us at The Band, we’d also love you to do so. Email me. We’ll chatty-chat.

I didn’t know Amy Winehouse.

I never called her on the phone and said, “What’s up SLUT?” like I do my best friends. I’d never been to see her play in concert and I never said the one thing I always wanted to: “eat a fucking sandwich.” These are all things I’d lovingly say to my bestest of friends.

I never knew Corey Haim, either.

I’m barely up on whatever Hollywood is doing this week, if it doesn’t involve my television husbands, Dexter or Dr. House. And even those two, I couldn’t tell you where they lunch or who they’re dating (besides me obvs) because I don’t much care. I was a strict Corey Feldman fan myself – if I had to choose – and the only reason I knew much about him was through his television show, The Two Coreys.

And yet, when they died, I was gutted. On the floor and weeping like they were my very closest friends.

But I knew those two had once had something special: a sparkle. A shine. Something that set them apart from the rest of us shmos, trudging along in the dirt, eking out a living.

And I also know someone else who died who bore the very same sparkle like a noose around her neck. Someone who I’d watched drown that sparkle in the bottle, unable to find her happyiness in this world. Someone else found dead in her bed. Another star snuffed out.

Stef.

Now, I know addicts. My parents are in recovery now, but I grew up like so many of us did, in the shadow of that bottle. I know the hunger, the itching deep within the bones only tamed by the bottle or the pill. I understand.

Perhaps it is because of this that I never blamed myself for her death. I knew better. An addict is an addict and sobriety is a choice. Not the kind of choice that someone else can make for you. But that doesn’t stop me from weeping into my coffee cup, gutted by the loss of someone that sparkled. It hits too close to home, perhaps, or maybe I’m just getting soft in my old age.

If I’ve learned nothing of addiction beyond a jaw-grind disposition to a panic attack, I’ve learned this: those whom you love – those who love you back – they are a part of you. Always. And however corny it may sound, life is precious. No, that’s not right. Life is FUCKING precious. Wait, let me try that again, just for Stef: Life is MOTHERFUCKING precious.

Much better.

I’ve also learned this: born of tragedy, sometimes that too, can be magical.

On Monday, the UPS guy came to my house. Generally, that signifies something a) FULL of the awesome or b) mind-numbingly boring, but this week, I hadn’t ordered anything. So I figured it was probably the dyslexic UPS guy delivering something for my neighbor. Which is option three, I guess.

However, the package was addressed to me and it weighed approximately 600 pounds. That had to be good, right?

(I learned one year, after my brother wrapped up a small book in a large television box that size really doesn’t matter)

But heaviness? WIN.

Eagerly I tore into it, confused as to who had sent me anything – forgetting it had just been my birthday – and came to a nicely wrapped box from my friend Crystal.

In it, I found this:

Six motherfucking cans of Spam.

While I do admit to an unnatural love of encased meat products, my love does not and has never involved Spam. Especially Spam with bacon. There’s just something so terribly wrong with this.

I gagged as I neatly placed them in my china cabinet, next to the Cock Soup another Prankster sent me, and realized precisely what this Spam needed.

Fucking cats with fucking laser beams coming out of their heads.

I have the best Pranksters ever.

I hadn’t realized the heaviness I’d been carrying around with me until it was lifted. I’d like to be all dramatic and say (hand to head), “I don’t remember how long it’s been,” but that’s a lie. I think I may remember precisely the last time I felt like I wasn’t waiting for the other shoe to drop.

February 10, 2008, 10 AM

The first time Alex slept through the night.

He’d been such a hard little baby – a Benevolent Dictator of a person – insisting that no, in fact, his mother would NOT be sleeping for a year because, in fact, absolutely no one else may touch His Majesty. My parents called him “Devil Baby” because, well, he kinda deserved it.

However, sleeping through the night meant that he’d finally turned a corner. I wouldn’t perhaps, be up every 1 to 3 hours for the rest of my life, so sleep-deprived that I’d manage to dump and entire pot of hot coffee on my hand without realizing or, quite frankly, caring. Functioning on that little sleep was hardly functioning; it was surviving. And I had.

Miserably.

Not two hours after waking up from my first full night’s sleep in nearly a year and writing that blog post, I got a phone call. My friend Stef had died in her sleep. Age 26. Cirrhosis.

I didn’t sleep, eat, breathe or function properly for a very long time. My grief was heavy. Dark. I couldn’t make even the smallest decision.

Then came Amelia’s pregnancy, which, all three of you who read my blog back then, was fraught with peril for the first twelve weeks as my progesterone bottomed out, followed by a nice heaping dose of prepartum depression.

My daughter was born gravely ill, but alive. And so began a nice fresh hell.

I’d told myself I was past it – that I’d accepted she was okay because she was…mostly. If you ignored the gigantic scar and the creepy diagnosis. I would accept whatever hand fate dealt me. If she was special needs, well, she was special needs. If she wasn’t, well, then she wasn’t. Either way, she was my kid, and I’d fucking love the shit out of her.

Which I do.

It was simply a matter of figuring out which kid I loved.

Turns out, being pulled out of limbo has lifted that feeling of dread, that heaviness, and replaced it with an emotion I can hardly recall: lightness. Joy.

While I can recall the last time – by date – that I felt so light, I’d forgotten what it felt like. The world, once again tinged with sky-blue-pink, my heart carefree and soaring, and, for the first time in so long: truly happy.

It seems a lifetime ago that my daughter was born, pissed-the-fuck-off at the world with an ominous lump on the back of her head. That day changed us both.

Once shattered and broken on that hospital floor, I’ve slowly pieced myself back together, removing the bad bits and replacing them with good. Stitched up and mostly whole now, I’m not the person who waddled into that room and popped out a very sick daughter. That’s okay.

I begged her doctors, all of them, for something, anything, to hold onto while I schlepped my ill daughter from neurosurgeon to neurosurgeon and I heard the one thing patients abhor most: “we don’t know what this means for her,” followed by the kick-in-the-teeth, “time will tell.”

So we’ve been watchfully waiting from the sidelines, celebrating the victories while fretting the small things: Does that foot-drag mean she’s brain-damaged? How brain-damaged? Is that a seizure or is she just fucking with me?

I don’t know when you exhale. I don’t know how to accept, “it really IS okay.” Because those words nag at the back of my brain, my own untouched brain, just below the surface: “time will tell.”

Sometimes, I get angry, because it’s such a bullshit thing to do, wait for time to do anything. It’s always been there, “time telling” underneath all the milestones and victories, as I wonder what next.

Today, we finally got our answer.

Time, that fucking bastard, got off his ass and came to our Early Intervention meeting and opened his whore mouth and said, “Amelia is at or above level for everything. We see no reason to continue services.”

And for the first time in a long time, I exhaled as my daughter, the Princess of the Bells, led me into the future.

Dear Aunt Becky,

First let me say I fucking LOVE this place. I see myself in you, but not in the creepy way. As in we have the same personality and I tend to respond to things how you do :). I love ya!

Anyway. I have 3 living children – all girls. I’ve lost two pregnancies in the third trimester. One was eight years ago and one was two months ago. I do not want any more children. But my dreams are filled with being pregnant, hearing babies crying, etc. Even during the day, I hear a baby cry. What do I do? Is this normal? My worldview eight years ago was different and I kind of never dealt with the loss. So I didn’t have to feel the pain, I suppose. And I guess I’m doing that now….

Why am I doing this?

Thanks Aunt Becky,

LW in Misery (Missouri)

First, Prankster, let me tell you how sorry I am for your losses. I have a number of friends who have lost babies and there is nothing more devastating.

I’m no shrink, but two third trimester losses sounds like a hell of a stressful thing to live through, so props to you for surviving. Seriously.

Your last loss was two months ago which means you’re still in the postpartum period, so I’d venture an unprofessional guess that you’re experiencing a bit of postpartum depression AND PTSD WHILE grieving your losses. The nightmares and flashbacks are classic post-traumatic stress disorder and your losses, well, they’re significant.

(I’m linking you there to the resource pages on Band Back Together. I hope they help a bit)

Prankster, I’m going to say this and I don’t want to be preachy or peachy or anything fruit-flavored (purple is a flavor. NOT grape), but I think you should see someone. Just talk to someone. You need to get this grief out because it’s eating you up.

And, because we see a lot of baby loss on the site, maybe you should write your story for Band Back Together. Getting it all out, well, it could help you, or someone else reading.

But please, talk to someone.

Much love to you, Prankster. I wish you nothing but healing and light.

Dear Aunt Becky,

First off, LOVE the blog, and the fact that my mother told me I should read you because you sound like me makes me come to your site every day.

Aaaannnyway, so my ex-dipshit and I have joint custody of our 9 year-old son. Said son is usually with his dad (multitude of reasons, mostly because I’m in school), but with me this summer.

Now, I’m not a hardass, but remember when we were kids and our parents told us to, “Go play in the street,” or some other shit like that?

Well, apparently now it’s “the thing” to sit on your ass all day and hop from gaming system to gaming system, and that’s their exercise.  I call BULLSHIT!  So when I suggest my son go on a bike ride with me this morning, he threw a hissy fit.  I basically had to MAKE him come with me, where the whole time he had a major melt-down and finally when we got home, I sent him to his room to calm the hell down.  Well, actually, it was so I could calm down before I had my OWN temper tantrum.

So, after all that rambling there, here is my question: Short of beating your kids our the door with a wooden spoon and locking the door, what the hell do we do with kids these days?

Thanks!
Short-tempered in Minnesota

See, I have a nine (almost ten) year old son too. Did you know what a complete and total motherfucking idiot I am? He does. Did you know how much I suck at life? He does. Did you know how much I fail at breathing properly? He does.

And he’ll motherfucking TELL your ass about it. He tells me constantly, with the eye-rolling and the “you shut your whore mouth, Mom,” attitude.

I think ages nine through twenty-two are a lost cause for our kids. I’d expected to have him not loathe the very oxygen I’m forced to inhale a little longer, but apparently *feet stomp* not.

So just grin and motherfucking bear it. When in doubt, there’s always vodka.

P.S. Lock his whiny ass outside.

Hi Aunt Becky:

I’m wondering if you’ve ever waxed the hair in your nose.

It’s actually pretty painless.  And as I approach 39 years, I hate the hair in my nose more and more.
However, my friend recently told me I am risking sending those pesky staph germs that my nose hairs supposedly catch straight up the 3 inches to my brain.  Which leads to all kinds of bad shit.
Your thoughts?

Piper

OHHOLYFUCKNO.

I’ve never waxed my nose hairs. I’m actually sitting here with one hand over my nose (a total lie) because that sounds epically painful. Like worse than having to sit through a Celene Dion concert.

Your nose hairs do serve a purpose (some of ours a bushier purpose than others), and that’s to catch germs. Kinda like pubic hair.

But I doubt you’re waxing high enough up there to worry about that. I mean, you’d have to go pretty fucking high.

And I’d have to BE pretty fucking high to do that. If I were that high, I’d probably think listening to Leonard Skynard and eating six soft shell tacos from Taco Bell was a good idea, not pain.

But that’s me.

———–

As always, Pranksters, fill in where I left off in the comments. Because, as my son would gladly tell you, I suck at life and probably should never answer another question again.

Um. I don’t think the people at McDonald’s want to be considered “wildlife.”

My kids are home this week. After I realized what a job Band Back Together was going to be (and how freaking BORED they are with me), I enrolled the two smallest ones in preschool. Plus, that gives me ample time to sit on my ass and watch cactus videos. Those cacti are a laugh a minute!

Anyhow, for some strange reason, my preschool teacher decides once every six months or so to go on vacation. (I call bullshit) Then, the crotch parasites are home with everyone’s favorite Aunt Becky. Everyone, of course, but my small crotch parasites who are bored after two minutes of looking at my face. It sorta goes like this:

9:17 (AB): “Hey guys, let’s COLOR a PICTURE!”

9:18 (Alex and Amelia): “WE’RE DONE MAMA.”

9:20 (AB): “Let’s play a game called, “Make Mama a Martini!”

9:20 (Alex and Amelia): “NO.”

9:21 (AB): “How about, “let’s take a nap!” that’s a GREAT game!”

9:22 (Alex and Amelia): “That’s bullshit!”

9:22 (AB): *headdesk*

See, I’m just not cut out for playing games with toddlers for more than twelve seconds. And it’s approximately eleventy-billion degrees out now, which means I can’t boot them out the door to “play” and lock it behind them. Which is, I’m pretty sure, how my parents handled ages 2-18.

(come to think of it, perhaps I shouldn’t follow my parents lead)

So now I have two days left of “entertaining the children” and am about ready to sell them to the Hare Krishna’s because, well, I think they take kids and shave them and put them into wee orange robes. If not, they should.

When my preschool teacher gets back on Monday, I’m planning on tongue-kissing her. Or perhaps not. Anything to make her want to watch my children again. Because I think they’re sharpening their Play-Doh knives into shivs to attack me for ruining summer. I only hope that it takes them until Tuesday.

Until then, I’ll be counting down the minutes. And praying each one isn’t the one that brings me to my dramatic death-by-Play-Doh-knife.

———–

I wrote this on The Stir. It’s about Tattooed Moms. Because obviously.

Today, Pranksters, rather than sit around on my ass, watching cats do wacky things, I had an appointment downtown to get my tattoo “worked on.” Some may say “finished,” but those motherfuckers would be wrong. My tattoo may never be finished.

In several blood-stained hours, my tattoo went from this:

To this:

*groans*

Someone pass me the Vicodin. Then entertain me with your tattoo stories while massaging my feet.