Let the record show once and for all that I am not a Video Game Person ™. You’d never know this by the vast amount of video game systems that currently reside with us, though, as the two oldest males in my home are obsessed. Honestly, it doesn’t bother me much unless I’m trying to have some sort of conversation with either of them while they are trying to “beat this guy! C’mon Mom/Becky! THIS IS IMPORTANT!!!” With as self-centered as I happen to be, I cannot believe that ANYONE wouldn’t want to hang onto my every word (truthfully, I also cannot believe that video games are EVER “important.” Bring on the hatemail, people.), so this tends to offend me.

Several months ago, we happened upon a Wii, which thrilled and delighted both Dave and Ben. Overall, I think that it’s pretty neat and I even have a game that I occasionally play (go Elebits!), and Dave wouldn’t admit it but I can totally whup him in bowling.

Ben had his best friend over yesterday, and he mentioned that we had a Wii. Bad move, BAD, BAD move, as I am pretty sure that this child is never going to leave my home again. Suddenly, I may have to resort to ninja-like stealth to enter and exit my house so that I don’t have to sit, watch, and mediate golf and bowling and somehow figure out how the hell to work the damn box. Because, Lord knows, a game isn’t nearly as awesome without an adult watching it and cheering vigorously for both children WHILE troubleshooting something I know nothing about.

His friend even suggested offhandedly that the Wii could perhaps come over to HIS house when Ben wasn’t at home. You know, in case it got lonely and needed another 6 year old boy to keep it company. It was with great pleasure that I informed him that Dave might cry without it.

This child’s school lets out a bit before Ben’s does, and man, I tell you, I’m going to have to barricade myself in the basement and turn on some tuneage to block out the doorbell and subsequet weeping and pleading.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve lived life in the present moment. Maybe it’s a defense mechanism for me, but I was shocked when I actually graduated college, stunned when I finally got married, amazed when Alexander was born, and these were all events of which I had a ton of control over but felt as though I did not.

Or maybe it’s because when you have a baby, then a toddler, followed by a preschooler that you become so busy wrapped up in whatever is going on day to day (and occasionally feeling like this stage is never, ever going to end) that you forget that time does eventually, march on, and pretty soon, your oldest child is a Real Person. And suddenly, you must start behaving like a Real Parent, which has far different implications when your child becomes of school age.

I’m not sure, but I do know that I took each stage as it came and I never, ever looked at my tiny screaming baby Benjamin and thought, wow, someday he is going to need me to make snack for school AND NOT EMBARASS HIM IN THE PROCESS, GOD, MOM.

For a shamefully long time, I admit to having felt like an outsider to the Club of Parenthood. I vividly remember taking prenatal aquatics classes while pregnant with Ben, and I was completely shunned by the other women. Not only was I younger, but I was much younger, I had no house, I had no husband, therefore I was not as good as them. Later, the nurses and my own OB at the hospital were shocked by my love for my teeny ickle Ben, as were my own parents. After that, when he started preschool, I was constantly reminded of the gap between myself and the other parents, they were older, more established and most of all THEY REALLY UNDERSTOOD WHAT WAS GOING ON.

When Ben would go to birthday parties thrown by other kids, he’d come home with very thoughtfully exectued gift bags with matching shwag and candy, so incredibly unlike those that we would put together which consisted mainly of bags of stale chips from the pantry and leftover lighters we’d found lying around (y’know, for their crack pipes). While on days that Ben needed a lunch for a field trip, I’d run out and pick up a preservative-filled, nitrate laden, horrifying for you, Lunchables (shudder, shudder), these kids would have a nutritionally sound, perfectly cut, handmade, organic lunch. In matching tupperware.

We’ve signed up to do snack for his soccer team in the coming weeks, but neither of us is quite sure which day it is, which leads me to believe that whichever day it actually is, we’ll show up empty handed. So, like the good mother that I am, I’ll be forced to run out and pick up a couple dozen donuts and a big jug of coffee. For 6-year olds (for the record here, if I myself were bringing something to a party, it would be my standard bag ‘o’ Funyons and a box of chocolate covered donuts. I’m not creative.). But hey, don’t worry, I won’t forget the cream OR sugar. Don’t worry, Internet, I DO KNOW what’s important here!

But anyway, I find myself having to start to make the sort of rules that YOU remember your parents inflicting upon you: bedtime is between 7:00-7:45, only one hour of television/video games each day, don’t forget to brush your teeth and wipe your ass. And Internet, it feels weird.

I feel like a hack, an imposter, like I don’t really know what I’m doing. I haven’t read a parenting book, well, ever, aside from the one’s that promise to help your baby sleep through the night, I don’t have 1,001 creative ways to handle each situation, sometimes I find that a swift just punishment works far better than some kind of touchy feely “talk it out” punishment does.

Maybe we’re all just faking it ’til we make it, I’m not sure. The best that I can hope for is that he won’t have to spend TOO many thousands of dollars on his future therapist trying to undo all the damage that we’ve done. Like make him wear a “My Mom Rules” shirt in public. Frequently. That’s just cruel.

It’s October now, and we’re coming up on my favorite part of the year: autumn. Summer has so few holidays that I adore, with the possible exception of my birthday, which I’m still petitioning for national holiday status. Not too sure why the holiday makers are ignoring me so thoroughly, but anyway.

Now, on the not too distant horizon all of my favorite holidays are looming. We’re going to an actual pick-your-own-pumpkin patch this weekend which is about a million times better than the overcrowded, carnival-like one that we used to go to. Like anything else in the world, our old pumpkin patch was super-awesome until the rest of the world discovered it, and then the owners brought in a petting zoo, rides, a clown, a circus, a corn maze, a donkey show, llamas, an apple orchard and rocket rides. I’m only exaggerating slightly.

Afterward, if we’re all still alive, we’re going to carve pumpkins and decorate cupcakes. I’m completely excited by this because not only does this mean I might get to eat a cupcake, which, after weeks on a diet sounds totally delicious, but also, seeing the holidays through the eyes of your children is half of the reason for HAVING kids in the first place. Right?

(the other half is, of course, tax deductions. OBVIOUSLY)

In a orange and black induced haze, I had forgotten what ELSE October brings to our house: fundraiser time. We live in a kid-infested neighborhood, the kind that you literally cannot walk through without tripping over someone’s bike, or someone’s toddler which is great. Mostly I like kids, especially if I don’t have to watch them and they’re not destroying my stuff.

I was a Brownie for a year until I dropped out when I realized what a waste of time and energy it was. Time I could have better spent sitting on my ass and watching grass grow. I dutifully sold cookies door to door as mandated by sadistic leaders everywhere and possibly one of the most traumatic experiences of my eight year old life.

I had doors slammed in my face. People scream at me. I got stiffed and ripped off. I got blisters and ruined a perfectly good pair of Keds. And for all of my trouble? I got some stupid sad-eyed puppy charm for the zipper on my hoodie.

I didn’t even sell enough to get a stupid patch.

In a month or two I will be literally be swimming in the very same stuff that I cannot eat (hel-lo diet!) my personal tithing to the Fundraising Gods. I am entirely sympathetic to these poor little tykes coming around, so much so that I try to buy something from the younger ones. PLUS, I am also trying to work up our Fundraising Karma for our children, so that by the time that I have to take them (shudder, shudder) door-to-door, mayhap people will not spit at them.

Every time the doorbell rings, I grab my check book and say a silent prayer of thanks that my own door-to-door days are now over, and later as I’m swimming in a sea of butt-ugly wrapping paper or popcorn, I’ll try and remember that maybe, just maybe, I was the house that got that kid the patch that I never got.

Or maybe I just have SUCKER written on my forehead.

Man, oh man am I feeling full of The Laziness today, but as I have committed (at least in my head) to trying to post something every day on this here blog, I have decided that the only way to accomplish this somewhat lofty goal is to do a post in bullet form.

*Alex has decided that rice cereal is as nasty as it looks. So nasty, in fact, that he no longer wants to take part in having it grace his now discriminatory palate. Luckily, he thinks Pear/Pineapple and Carrots are akin to heaven, so he has been eating them with gusto. He has also taken a liking to my nonfat/gross/foul yogurt, which is taking me out of my lazy slump to head out to get him his own kind. Because the kid doesn’t need Splenda quite yet. At least not until he’s 12.

*Today, I gave him a graham cracker (don’t worry, not the honey kind, I checked) which he summarily destroyed all over his bouncy seat leaving the dog in new heights of ecstacy, unparelled by only the mere mention of broccoli. Yes, my dog adores broccoli and carrots. He’s strange and sausage shaped and kind of stupid, but we love him. Well, except for when he fights with skunks. Then we call him variations of dumbass for the next couple of weeks.

*I recently started using some self-tanning lotion, which frightens me, as I have visions of myself looking like a slightly chubby, streaky carrot. I have this old friend you see (well, she’s not old per se, but I’ve known her since pretty much forever) who comes into town bringing me a bag full of cast offs from the lotion store that she works at. She’s brought me a bunch of self tanners before, but I was pregnant, and the smell bothered my sensitive nose, so I gave it all away. Now that I’m not pregnant, I’ve realized that it wasn’t actually pregnancy nose that prevented me from using it before. No, it just completely smells horrific. Either way, my previously pasty baby is emitting a nice sun kissed glow (I kid, I kid).

*Week 2 of The Diet is going swimmingly. I’ve lost another 2 pounds, which of course makes me extremely happy, although I have to admit, I wish those numbers were going down FASTER. I can so see why the no/low carb diets are popular, and sometimes I wish that I could do them without, of course, the anal leakage. Other than that, it’s a good diet, it makes sense and best of all NO BOXED MEALS (shudders dramatically).

*I am a touch anal (how many times can I mention the word butt, ass, or anal in a post? Many, many times.) and a little OCD, so when I got a note from Ben’s school in red ink demanding that a book that we read last week be returned to them I got a little panicky. I distinctly remember sending the book back to school, I signed for it certifying (which is a total hoot. *Me*, signing stuff like *that.* Man, I really am a mother, aren’t I?) that we’d indeed read it and now it’s gone. My gut tells me that the book has been lost at school, and I’d bet $150 that I’d sent it back, but all the same, it’s making me unnaturally upset that it’s gone BECAUSE I DON’T KNOW WHAT ELSE TO DO ABOUT IT. I’m not going to argue with it, and since I come across as well, different, in writing I need to make sure that they have checked thoroughly at school prior to sending them a check for the stupid book.

When I was pregnant with Ben 6 years ago now, I was utterly floored to find out that he was indeed a he, so floored that it was a miracle I had been laying down for the sonogram because if I hadn’t been, I’d have fallen over from the shock of it. My intuition is terrible, almost as bad as my ability to sing on key, which is pretty horrifying. I’ll admit it now, I was pretty upset by it as I had really, truly, madly, deeply wanted to have a daughter (let’s be honest here so that I can tell you that it was a damn good thing that I found out then and not later in the delivery room. I’m sure the doctor and nurses would have been a little freaked out by the sight of me crying over the privates of my perfect little boy, as apparently I had been judged to be an unfit mother. I guess I must have a poker face when it comes to OB appointments, because my ancient little doctor who barely said a word to me in the nine months that I saw him, kept coming into my postpartum room and saying “Wow, you REALLY love that baby!” which shocked me. Of COURSE I loved my ickle baby!)

When I got pregnant with Alexander, I was much more laid back about it, likely because it had taken quite a long time to get pregnant, as long as It was healthy, I genuinely didn’t care if It was a She or a He. I found out before Dave did, as the sonographer refused to let him come into the room until she had completed her assessment of the fetus, which I wasn’t so happy about, I mean, what if something had been wrong? Did I really need a stranger to tell me some bad news alone?

Anyhow, she asked me if I wanted to know what flavor baby I was having without Dave’s hulking presence (hahaha) and of course, I’m impatient so I found out. I can still hear her in my mind, “It’s a little boy and he’s perfect.” Ah, sweet sweet relief, the baby I had wanted so much was well (to be fair here, having had the misfortune to rotate through the NICU at a major children’s hospital, I took nothing about the health of my unborn child as an assumption of the best. I saw many, many horrifying things there, most of which will never leave me and STILL haunt me even now), and now I could gloat: I had won the bet.

Instead of having to wear a “Chicks Dig Linux” shirt, Dave was going to have to wear a Britney Spears one. In public. Without covering it up. Which reminds me…I need to make him DO that and THEN I’ll post them on the internet for him! I’m such a nice wife.

The discussion of having another baby has recently come up, as my initial intent was to not go back on birth control and just wait-n-see what happened, get the newborn/baby thing done with and get Dave’s nuts snipped (again: aren’t I a SWEET wife?), and while our other friends were dealing with midnight feedings and diaper rash, we’d be sipping Pina Colada’s by the beach somewhere, laughing knowingly. Unfortch, Lake Michigan doesn’t exactly count as a beach in my book, AND I think if I were to have an Oops! Baby! now Dave’s head might explode and Alex might try to strangle me in my sleep.

So no babies for awhile (besides you need to actually ovulate to have babies, and the one benefit that I can see to Alex’s need to wake up at all hours of the night and eat is that I haven’t had my period since last July.) for us. A long while, actually, because the prospect of physically being pregnant again freaks me the hell out. I’m a TERRIBLE pregnant woman, a fat, obsessive, unhappy, and sick as hell.

But (isn’t there always one with me?), I have a new problem. Suddenly, I really, really, really want to have a daughter with every fiber of my being, in order to balance out all of the testosterone raging rampantly throughout my house. I want to play house and dolls and put her in cute ickle dresses and OOOHHH PATENT LEATHER MARY JANES! I want to choose a name that I really, really like for her and not have to worry about it being too trendy or frilly or not manly enough (plus, between the two boys and their 209 middle names, I’m clean out of good boys names), I want to not have to cut off her hair because it’s “too long” and “too girly looking”. I want someone who maybe just maybe looks somewhat like me and have it not be an insult to them later in life, because what boy do you know WANTS to look like his mother? I don’t want to have to train yet another young boy how to pee standing up WITHOUT losing aim because Oh! Look! A Mirror!

It’s okay to have wants, although I am highly afraid of what I would feel if/when we have another baby and it turns out to have yet another penis. Because frankly, I have enough of them to worry about.

Dermatologists are strange creatures. Being a nurse, I’ve run into a whole slew of doctors, and I have to say, dermatologists are the strangest of the lot.

Let me back up for a second: back in August, at Ben’s 6 year old checkup my non-alarmist ped (which I love, love, love, especially since he is our GP. He’s an old military doctor, very no nonsense and I adore him) noticed a mole on his back that he wanted someone else to take a look at. I felt pretty bad, mainly because I’m trained to notice this sort of stuff and I hadn’t. Probably because at 6, I don’t often examine Ben’s body sans clothes.

So I dutifully made the appointment for him, and yesterday I pulled him out of school to visit this dermatologist. And thus began the day that should have been good.

We waited for over an hour to see this guy only to have him quiz me incessiantly about the state of this mole, when it popped out, if there had been any changes in it, if it bothered Ben whatsoever. When I confessed that I had no idea about anything to do with it (to me it looks fine, and I never would have thought to have a specialist take a gander, but hey, I trust my GP/ped impeccibly). We were sent on our way, slightly creeped out by his strange manner (he spent a good time stroking Ben’s large head of hair, which was just strange and made me take a mental note to NEVER, EVER leave my child alone with this man) with an appointment for 3 months to check if it’s changed.

My error came on the way home when I decided to keep Ben home from school for the rest of the day. Visions of having two children home together playing sweetly danced in my head, which turned out to be just that: pipe dreams.

Alex was furious because he had to go poop and couldn’t seem to actually do it (damn you mushed bananas, you will never grace his palate again–I should have known better–the B in the BRAT diet does stand for bananas).

Ben was unhappy because he was tired and bored and wanted to play with his frrrrriiiiieeeennnndddsss, which meant his normally decent attention span was less than that of a mosquito and he was supremely whiny.

The whole day was like being pecked to death by two extremely cute chickens with the only highlight being when Ben decided to “play” with his brother while he was in his Exersaucer. Pretty much, all that Ben has to do is get down next to Alex’s face and make noise to make Alex belly laugh. It’s freaking adorable.

I was waiting for the sweet salvation of bedtime to relax and unwind for an hour or two. Har-dee-har-freaking-harr.

As Alex was finally falling asleep nearly an hour after his normal bedtime, Dave let the dog out…

Wait for it…

Wait for it…

Wait for it…

And the dog, in his infinate wisdom, decided that RIGHT NOW was the appropriate time to tangle with the neighborhood skunk yet again. Off to the garage with H2O2 and baking soda again.

Then we realized that the reason for the exorbitant electric bill was not due to turning the A/C temperature down at night, but was due to the fact that the unit is now starting to fail. Thankfully, it’s September in Chicago, and we should be able to live off box fans (I’m deluded, I’m aware).

After the dog had been sucessfully cleaned, the baby began to scream loudly. And continued to scream on and off every time that I started to fall asleep, until I finally gave up and just slept holding him all night long (which reminded me of those glorious newborn days).

It’s lucky that I long ago decided to take this parenting thing one day at a time.

(but how do people with 2+ kids manage? I wish I knew)

Seriously now, how many blogs can one person have? Okay, so I have 2, but I update pretty regularly now.

Then I found this, and realized that if this is not you, there’s a frightening sub-culture out there that I’d never known.

I don’t know which is a scarier thought.

For those of you keeping track at home, I may have set a new record for dumbest injuries sustained:

It appears that I have actually broken my toe while making a peanut butter sandwich.

That’s right, a peanut butter sandwich.

And not one for some cancer ridden child in a building that’s burning down, either. Just one for my son’s lunch. For tomorrow.

I cannot believe they let people like me breed.

On the way home the other day, Daver mentioned that he’d been posting on his “Twitter,” which sounded like he had yet another Internet Girlfriend to add to his collection. My knowledge about current stuff -n- things has always been lackluster at best, especially considering I only recently found out about this thing called “MySpace.” Come to think of it, I was amazed that this house actually had a microwave AND a dishwasher to boot!!

He explained that it was something you can post little bits of things here and there, kind of like a mini-blog. When I stopped laughing long enough to catch my breath, I promptly began laughing again.

Here’s the thing: I’d always found blogs to be incredibly self indulgent (keep in mind I have 2…what does that say about me?), useless, and boring, full of ramblings about what the owner thought about kittens and poodles and the like (although to be completely fair, I have found a TON of interesting blogs in the past couple months). Mushroom Printing was started as kind of an anti-blog blog, and I found I rather enjoyed it. We only posted when we actually had something either semi-interesting or semi-coherant to say (some may argue that this is actually never), and I’m pretty sure we never discussed at any length what we ate for lunch (unless there was a pube in it or something).

To me, posting about the minutae of your day sounds stupid and boring, only interesting if you were a teenager or an international man of mystery. If possible, this is MORE self indulgent than a blog. I’ll give you an example by writing what my day was like today, ala Twitter:

*Oh my God, I’m tired. WHY does Alex insist on waking up at 6:30? OHMYGOD did he pee a lot last night. AAAHHH! Why does he wait until I open the diaper to pee on me? Asshole.

*Ooooh. I’m hungry and my nipples hurt. YAY! I can eat a bagel now! I like bagels. I gotta hide these from Ben, or he’ll eat them all. DAMN, he spied my bagel and now he wants one. Guess I should’ve waited.

*Wow, the Internet is boring. WHY isn’t it interesting yet? OH MAN I GOT TO PEEEEEEE!

*That was a GOOOOOD pee. I feel SOOOOO much better now.

*Yum, bagels are gooooooooood. I’ve got to start Weight Watchers today. I wonder how many points are in this delicious bagel…OOOHHH I wonder how many are in a Monte Cristo sandwich. I’ve heard those are terrible for you, but ew, they sound nasty. Dave probably likes them.

*Am I really old enough to have a first grader? Damn, I’m old. But HAHAHAHA Dave is older. I should remind him of that.

*Hmmm…Dave sounds crabby. I guess he didn’t want to hear from me about how old he is at 8:16 am. I wonder why…?

*HOLY CRAP I’M THIRSTY! I need a Diet Coke STAT.

*That’s much better. I freaking love Diet Coke. I wonder if it’s addicting. It must be.

*NOOOO! Alex wants to eat again. The kid breastfeeds at least every hour. I guess it’s time to start the formula.

*OHMYGOD I have to PEE again. JESUS H CHRIST I GOTTA GOOOOOO NOW!

*Aaaahhhh. Better. I peed for like 20 minutes.

*Wow, the Internet is still boring. I wish people did cool stuff. And post on their blogs.

*Oh shit, soccer practice is tonight. So is Parent Night. Hahahaha, Dave has to go to Parent Night. I should remind him of that.

*Wowzers, he sounds cranky. I wonder why he’s cranky now? I didn’t mention how OLD he is, hahahahaha. Maybe it’s arthritis…CAUSE OLD PEOPLE HAVE IT!! HAHAHAHAHA. I should ask him if he has arthritis. And hemmorhoids.

*Man, he is UNHAPPY to talk to me. I wonder if he’s having a bad day.

*The basement smells like pee. It’s probably cat pee. Sometimes, I hate the cats.

*There are too many socks for me to sort. I hate sorting socks. Dave has this weird hangup about sorted socks. He got that from his mother. SHE is anal about sorted socks. I bet she doesn’t like it that my socks never match. Ever.

*Lunch is good. I like lunch. I had an egg white omelette and an english muffin and an apple. I wonder how many points are in that.

*WOW HOLY CRAP IS MCDONALDS BAD FOR YOU. LOOKIT ALL THOSE POINTS!!! I should tell Dave to not eat McDonalds anymore.

*Hmmm…he’s not answering his phone. I guess I should call back.

*Now it sounds like he answered but then the phone hung up. I should call back to make sure that he’s okay.

*Voicemail again. He must be busy. I’ll send him an email.

*HOLY CRAP THE BABY JUST FARTED ON THE CAT!!! HAHAHAHAH! Wow, that smells TERRIBLE. I wonder if he pooed.

*No poo this time. Maybe that’s why he’s so crabby right now. I get crabby when I have to poo.

*OHMYGOD I think I just heard a car pull up! Maybe Dave’s home from work!!! We can talk about being old together BECAUSE HE’S OOOOOLLLLDDD!!!

*No it wasn’t. Now I’m sad. Oh, I guess it’s only 1:30.

*FINE, I’ll go take a walk. I should move my fat butt.

*OH MAN!! I just got LAPPED on my walk by an old guy with orthopaedic shoes! MAYBE IT WAS DAVE!!! HAHAHAHAHA!

*I like my iPod, but I wish it was blue, not pink. I didn’t want the pink iPod, I wanted the green one, but they were out when I got this. Now I’m sad. Maybe I should break this one AND THEN I CAN GET A NEW ONE!!!

*Man, I’m HUNGRY. I wonder how many points are in a sandwich.

*Wow, that was a gross orange. It peeled well, but sheesh, it tasted like sawdust.

*I love our vaccuum. Especially because it has a motor. Motor vaccuums are awesome. I wish it were pink. I saw a pink one at Target and now I want it. Maybe I should go buy it.

*UHOH I gotta get Ben’s soccer stuff ready for him. I should totally get a skull tattoo on my arm so I don’t look like a soccer mom.

*THE BABY FARTED AND IT WAS HILARIOUS. It totally smelled like rotten eggs. I should tell Dave that.

*WHY is his phone now registering as disconnected? I should call back.

*Hmm, the phone company doesn’t know why his phones are all disconnected. MAYBE HE’S AT MCDONALDS AND HE DOESN’T WANT TO TELL ME. I’m gonna punch him for that. McDonalds is awesome and I love it.

*Holy crap, feeding the baby rice cereal is hard. It’s like peeing into a moving target at 20 feet. WITHOUT A PENIS.

*Man, the baby is soooooo cute. Too bad his butt smells like rotted eggs. He must get that from Dave. His butt smells rotted, too. Gross. Men are gross.

*WOW, I’m glad someone else is taking Ben to soccer. Practice is boring.

*OHMYGOD, I just accidently busted Ben for taking a dumpalump. I thought he was playing in his room when he was supposed to be getting ready for bed. I guess I’m a bad mother or something.

See, my life is BORING and DULL and you don’t care what I do minute to minute. Because it’s BORING!

It’s Daver’s birthday tomorrow, and I’ve been wracking my brains as to what I could say about my darling husband to comemorate the year. He’s older than me, he’s always GOING to be older than me, and you can take that to the bank.

In honor of him turning 29 years YOUNG tomorrow, I am going to list 29 things that I have learned about my husband this year (and only a partial roast):

1. There exists 2 time zones in my house: “Real Time as designated by whoever designates such things” and “Daver Time,” which runs about 1-2 hours behind Real Time.

2. He can sleep through anything, including labor and a screaming baby.

3. While the house may be in complete shambles, The Internet will always function perfectly.

4. He is more apt to quickly celebrate a positive pregnancy test than I will ever be, and never think to exclaim “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

5. Despite what he may say, he hates Chocolate Brown.

6. While strapped for cash, he will drop a significant amount of money on an outfit that makes his pregnant wife “feel better.”

7. Although he’d never admit it, he loves it that I make a hugemongous deal out of holidays.

8. He’s more of a creature of habit than I am, as evidenced by the fact that we have gone to the Hideaway for the past 3 years for his birthday.

9. He’s too sweet to admit that the baby actually said “Daddy” the other day, despite having heard it while I wept into my hands sobbing “Mommy, Alex, SAY MOMMY.”

10. He allowed me to purchase Ben a Playmobil house for his 6th birthday because it was really what Ben wanted, without making a big deal out of it not being particularly manly. He also didn’t rub in the fact that I was overjoyed by said purchase.

11. Even after a hugely long day for him, every time he comes in the door and the children clamor for his attention, he makes sure to not let them see just how exhausted he is.

12. When thwarted by Marriachi music, he went and “camped out” on Ben’s floor because they’d been looking so forward to camping outside.

13. He’s not really a morning person, either.

14. Even after being up most of the night with a newborn baby, he trucked his sorry ass to each and every one of Ben’s soccer games.

15. To save his life, he would STILL be unable to put away his laundry.

16. After listening to me complain about being fat, he doesn’t rub it in if on my next breath, I ask for McDonalds.

17. For many months, he didn’t realize that I was not actually hand washing his special “not dishwasher safe” mug AND ACTUALLY USED IT DIRTY.

18. He fully accepts that I absolutely hate to cook and doesn’t complain about it.

19. Rather than make fun of my addiction to crappy TV, he plops down beside me and watches such shows as “Americal Idol” and “The Girls Next Door.”

20. He allowed me to get myself a pet bunny even though we had a baby coming in about 5 minutes.

21. Although completely justified, he does not often engage in “Why, Becky” conversations with me as much as he could. For example “Why, Becky did you bleach the Kate Spade pillow covers that cost as much as a car?” he just agreed that we needed to buy a couple more.

22. He didn’t rub it in my face that the baby who made me sicker than God looks just like him. Which I totally would have done had the roles been reversed.

23. Despite having the best intentions, he is almost utterly unable to complete a project once started because “oh LOOK, a BLUE car!!!”

24. He was so proud of the 8 week gummy bear ultrasound pictures of Alex that he took them into work to show them off. Even though you couldn’t tell what it was.

25. He never once (okay, ONCE) bitched at me over how sick I was when I was pregnant with Alex, nor did he complain about how me not working affected the finances.

26. Although I can beat him in arm wrestling and rub it in his face for the next 3 (ahem 8) weeks, he never complains when I make him carry the vacuum up and down the stairs for me.

27. He calls me “Shorty The Pimp” instead of “Sweetie.” ‘Nuff said.

28. He admitted last night to having boofed in a sock to me, which is a dangerous, dangerous thing to admit to me.

29. He puts up with me, year round, which should earn him a metal or something.

Happy birthday, Dick For, I love you.