…is the song that we’re singing. Gotta love the happy horseshit of the Partridge Family.

So, yeah, I already have this blog, right? And I love it. Slowly, however, I realized that my readership was getting weary of my posts about my boob-loving new baby, my slightly (I’m being generous here) obsessive six year old, my workaholic (also being generous) spouse, my three neurotic cats and my sausagey-looking pooch. This fact, rather than allowing me to kick into super-interesting world of grown-up wordly observations stifled my urge to write.

But since I stay at home, thereby limiting the amount of conversations not about SpongeBob or blocked ducts, I realized that I had to keep on truckin’ into the blog world. Because, if you can’t say it on the Internet, where can you say it?

So here I go, back into the sorted world of blogging, where my posts will always be riddled with extra commas, and Spell Check will continually go unused, but the posts will always be real.

I used to tell people that I wanted three children. Having had Alex now for almost 10 weeks, I’ve decided that I don’t ever want any more children. Which would be funny, except that it’s not.

You see, Internet, I’ve been lying to you: I’m not doing so well over here.

I gave birth to a child who on his best days could be described as difficult, and on his worst, hell-sent after a pregnancy that pretty much zapped my will to live. And now I am a prisoner in my home, chained to this baby who refuses to quiet for anyone but me. He rarely sleeps. Breastfeeding has turned from a ‘Hey, wow, this is cheap and we’re bonding and stuff’ to a virtual noose around my neck, tightening with each successive thing that I have to pass up because I cannot leave the baby for more than 2 hours.

I sit around day after day, surfing the Internets and watching shitty daytime TV while Alex alternately shrieks or breastfeeds, often simultaneously. For hours. I have no mommy-friends close, and my other friends live real big-girl lives that don’t involve diaper duty and cracked nipples. I’m so tired that I can no longer do simple math (let’s be clear here: I used to be able to do it) and I have no end or relief in sight.

There are even days that I question my choice to have had him at all. Of course, seconds later Mommy Guilt kicks in and I cannot believe that I could think that way. Alex doesn’t MEAN to be such an asshole, and being loved so wholeheartedly is somewhat flattering. But sometimes I wake up (or am still awake at 3am, so anxious that I cannot sleep) and look around and say ‘is this REALLY the life that I chose for myself, each day the same as the rest?’ and I wonder how other people do it.

I love him so overwhelmingly and I hate that I feel this way. It will get better; I know it will. My first was no walk in the park (he may have actually been worse as he was totally inconsolable) and I distinctly remember the day that life with him in it didn’t seem to be quite so long. However, in the here and now, I’m honestly picturing breastfeeding him through college. THAT’S how much he loves the boob and how trapped I feel right now.

Like an addict, I’m going to have to just take this one day at a time and hope for a better tomorrow, because losing my marbles just isn’t an option. And I am going to try like hell not to resume smoking, which is all that I can think about these days.

When I was pregnant with Ben, in order to stay under my parents insurance plan, I had to remain a full-time student. That meant that I could start to take the blow-off classes I’d always wanted to take but been too busy with my Biochemistry Labs. I gleefully (read: hungrily) signed up to take a couple of lit classes and a child psych class. It was a refreshing change of pace for me.

I remember the day. There were 3 pictures of the 3 temperaments: a happy child smiling (easy child), a child who looks somewhat apprehensive about something (slow-to-warm-up), and a child who was pushing away a bowl of food and looks pissed off (the difficult child). I remember saying a prayer to whomever was listening that my unborn child be an easy one.

Well, whomever was doling out personalities had a good laugh at the child that was dispensed to me. As a baby he screamed ALL OF THE TIME, he wouldn’t eat, he was up ALL NIGHT LONG, never wanted to be held or snuggled, so much so that I found myself wondering if my child hated me. My Ben, he just seemed to hate me.

When he got older, he was diagnosed on the autistic spectrum and went through millions of hours of speech and occupational therapy sessions. It was surreal, raising him, and it still is.

I mean I made the kid eat a hot dog just so he’d try it. A HOT DOG! ALL kids love hot dogs! They’re full lips and butt holes, and salt and fat, and in kid-speak, that means extra-specially delicious. What kid DOESN’T love hot dogs?

Mine, and only mine.

(he loves them now, lest you think I’m beastly for it)

I’m constantly regaled with stories from friends, and friends of friends who tell me about their children sleeping through the night, trying different foods, LIKING HUGS and it always kinda chafes my ass. In all of those stories, I always can detect a certain smugness, a sense of superiority, intentional or not, it’s still there.

And it always seems to do the trick on me, I mean, at some point you begin to wonder if all of these people have normal kids, what in the hell am I doing wrong?

There’s a lot of therapy available for kids with special needs. They’ll teach the kids to try different foods and handle textures, noises, and sensations. If the kid is non-verbal like mine, the therapists work with the child to speak, first sounds, then more sounds, and eventually words, sentences and so on.

But what about us? The parents, I mean. Those of us who sit sobbing quietly in the bathroom, wishing for a hug or a simple dinner without a battle over food. Those of us who know how much it hurts to hear about how we’re fucking up our kids and how inferior our children are.

Where’s the therapy for that?

Last night was Parent Night at Ben’s new school. I sat there nervously next to The Daver on the hard pew and looked around into the sea of hippies all 10-15 years older than us, dressed in various shades of browns and greens nodding attentively. I was dressed in an electric red sweatshirt while Dave was wearing a bright purple shirt with blue jeans. The gasp of “there goes the neighborhood” when we walked in was palpable.

It’s not just that we were younger or that we were wearing designer clothes that weren’t from sustainable farms or that we didn’t listen to NPR or eat all organic foods, it’s just that we were different. They knew it, we knew it, and there was never going to be anything we could do about it.

I sat there, trying to pay attention as my ass cheeks feel asleep and noticed that I was the only parent in the room who spent the meeting figuring out how I was going to convince Dave that $450 pants were an investment.

Even Dave looked more enraptured by the speakers than I did. He wasn’t fidgeting, re-reading the handouts for what could be missed gossip about Britney Spears, or trying to count the hairs on HIS legs like I was.

It’s not that I don’t care about my 4 year old. I care very much about his preschool. I care what he eats and when he sleeps and if he potty trains on time and that he’s well adjusted and that he’s getting enough calcium and if he gets to play enough and most of all, if he’s happy. I care a lot about that.

But I can’t live my life for him.

And as we chose “groups” to join after the meeting was done, I introduced myself to the ethnic/cultural group that I had to join (joining a group, I learned, was mandatory) I plastered a smile on my face and was as polite and friendly as I could be as the circle of parents formed around me.

Pretty soon I was standing outside the circle, edged out by all of the unwashed, unshaved hippie women who, were living their lives for their children. So there I stood, on the outside of the circle, unwanted. I saw that, sighed and I walked away.

One of these things is not like the motherfucking other. Thank Jesus.

—————

Several months after that, we pulled Ben out of that horrible school and then we moved out of that town. Our interactions with other parents and staff at the school never improved and it was very, very clear that there was never going to be anything that we could do to fit in.

Thank God.

With friends like that, you wouldn’t need enemies.

I had the worst possible experience this past Sunday when I attempted to show my son that his father is a worthwhile human being by going to Sonny Acres to pick out pumpkins together. What should have been a reasonably (you’re lying through your teeth, Becky, you were dreading this from the moment it was planned) fun time quickly turned into a nightmare.

The Ex, being pissed that I didn’t want to carve pumpkins that day, decided that NO ONE needed pumpkins so we had to leave. Sonny Acres isn’t exactly my thing anyway, so I didn’t protest too much. Besides, I figured Dave and I were taking Ben this Saturday with his future wife, Rose. We’d get some pumpkins then.

Now, to those who know me well, I do whatever I possibly can to get as much stuff as I can when I go out with Nat. Childish, perhaps, but it makes my ickle heart sing as I consider it payback for years of being so goddamn cheap.

So we go to catch lunch together at Olive Garden, per Ben’s request. Lunch quickly becomes a Jerry Springer episode when Nat calls me “the most selfish person in the world,” berates me for being unstable and screams that I’m “ruining my son’s life.”All this, right in front of our son.

Because THAT isn’t gonna fuck up a kid or something. He doesn’t care though, because it’s more important to Nat to be right and to cut me down than it is to take into account the eyeballs of his son watching his every move.

Although the food has just arrived, I made a tactical call. I stood up, kissed Ben goodbye and turned to leave. Nat pulls on my arms to get me to stay and I begin to cry. I quickly said goodbye to my son and walk out of the restaurant sobbing like a little bitch.

After bawling in front of the restaurant like a crazy person I decide that since Ben is upset and I am his mother, I need to go back inside and comfort him. When I went back inside and found Ben hysterical I informed Nat that I was taking my son home, where he belonged.

We paid the bill and EVERYONE IN THE ENTIRE PLACE IS STARING AT US which makes me feel like an even bigger freak than I know I am. Awesome.

I strapped Ben into my car, safely out of earshot and gave Nat a piece of my mind, while he stood there, silently reproachful and apologetic. The anger drained out of him and into me and I drove away angry and sad.

I haven’t spoken to him since.

Tonight my dad called to me from the porch show me the freak show. My porch is the proud recipient of two brand new pumpkins.

Fucking weirdo.