When I got pregnant with my second son, somewhere around week 16 he started moving. And once he started moving, he started using my internal organs as punching bags and target practice. I started to wonder if I’d somehow been impregnanted with a child with 6-8 arms and started to call TLC before the ultrasound tech informed me that, no, my son really only had 2 arms and 2 legs.

It doesn’t help that I have no torso and am mostly legs, so that at 5’5″, when I’m pregnant, I look frighteningly like a very chubby daddy long-legs.

At multiple prenatal appointments, he’d kick so violently at the fetal heart-tones doppler that it would go flying out of the nurses hand, across the room. I barely slept for six months, because no matter what position I managed to heave myself into, he’d find something that displeased him about it and kick.

My ribs. My pelvis. My sternum. My liver. My stomach. My kidneys.

My son kicked them all day, every day. All night every fucking night.

By the time he was born, I’d begged my OB for an induction, who must have taken pity on me. He apologized to me when he informed me that I wouldn’t be delivering at my choice of hospitals and glassy eyed, I told him that I would deliver in the back of a Pinto if that was all he would do. I meant it.

Hooked up to the monitors in the hospital, The Daver finally heard his son kick. And kick. And kick. And kick. For 12 hours straight, my son kick at the monitors strapped to my belly, which he found HIGHLY displeasurable, apparently. Dave laughed about it until he fell asleep.

Ass.

Anyway, after Alex was born, he didn’t sleep, and who was surprised? He never slept in utero, so why start now?

Shockingly, though, he also didn’t really move much. Late to crawl (10 months), I was too tired to consult Baby Center (dear Baby Center, I am not pregnant, plz be stopping emailing me) or give much of a shit. I mean, despite my awesome experience in the polo club in college, I am not very coordinated (dear Internet, plz be seeing the time I broke mah toe making a peanut butter sandwich).

When he did crawl, though, he just…took off. No hesitation, just BAM.

Several months later (15 months), late again to walk he just…took off one day. My jaw dropped as my son just started walking. I’d figured he was probably as uncoordinated as I was, but apparently I was wrong, he was like a Jedi or something.

The very next day, I noted that my son was standing there, foot next to a ball and I watched him to see what the hell he was doing. Angrily, he tried to use a single foot to make the ball move, and each time, he fell. Over and over, he stood back up, tried to use that foot to make the ball move and failed. The screams that came out of him made me close up the windows, lest my neighbors call CPS.

Alex was trying to learn to kick a ball.

It took him about an hour but he did it. I don’t know how this child was sprung from my loins, but somehow I have raised a wee jock.

He’s starting soccer soon and I can’t help but wonder if they’re going to look back and forth between me and my athletic son and laugh like I do. Couldn’t blame them, really.

Who the hell breaks their toe making a sandwich?

This was a pre-walking Alex who is already giving me the “you throw like a GIRL, Mom,” look. Which, I mean, I do.

ALEX, however, does NOT throw like a girl, Pranksters.

Don’t know WHERE he came from. Really. I’d say the mailman, but I don’t know if he’s more coordinated than I am.

We were at Target this weekend (also known as My Social Life) (also known as My Boyfriend) buying both groceries and pants for my middle child. The groceries, I should clarify weren’t strictly for Alex, but rather stuff that we could all safely enjoy. Deliciously, even. Especially Uncrustables, which are pretty much heaven in a wee package.

Alas, I digress.

In the children’s section, I happened to come across a shirt for my daughter that I found to be the proper amount of sass-a-frassery AND adorability and as such, I picked it up and exclaimed to Alex, who happened to be in the cart I was pushing (yes, we take two carts)(no we don’t FILL them), “Oh! Look at this cute cupcake shirt for Your Sister!”

Upon examination, Alex said “I want a cupcake shirt for Alex!”

What went through my head was this:

“Oh shit, Dave will kill me. This is a BABY FUCKING BLUE SHIRT with a frilly blue collar. And look at the cupcakes! They’re SPARKLY. I mean, there is not a single doubt that this shirt is for a girl. You couldn’t make this shirt more girly if you tried.”

“But I mean, he’s two years old! How the hell can you possibly tell a two year old that he can’t have a shirt because it’s for a girl? This is probably the most manly two-year old boy ever. His second word was penis. Who gives a fucking shit if he wears girl’s clothes? He’s a baby! HE’S STILL IN DIAPERS. I will CUT someone who looks at him funny for wearing girl’s clothes.”

So, I looked for the shirt in a 2T and I handed it to him. He grabbed it, hugged it and said, “I love you, Cupcake Shirt.”

Dave glared at me for a second before bursting out laughing because really, what the hell can you do? The shirt is pretty fucking cute. I kind of want one in my size.

(yeah, the coloring is off because I messed with the flash by accident)

The shorts, he insisted upon wearing, are actually Mimi’s.

Never one to let an opportunity pass him by, he insisted that his sister wear her cupcake shirt as well. This is exactly why I love kids, even if they poo their pants and teethe on my legs.

I’m always amazed when my kids do something clever. It’s not that I don’t think they’re smart…okay maybe it is. But I don’t really think any kids are smart. Shit, I wasn’t smart as a kid. Unless you call eating an entire tub of frosting with my tongue smart, which you cannot unless you’re a lying liar who lies.

People who are all “my kid is a fucking GENIUS!” make me sort of itchy because it’s very clear that they’re annoying.

Kids aren’t SUPPOSED to be smart because they’re kids. They’re supposed to do dumbass things like jump off the back of the couch onto their heads because it seemed like a good idea and they’re supposed to eat toothpaste because it’s tasty and they’re supposed to annoy the hell out of you by asking you over and over things like “WHERE’S MY HAND?” even though it is VERY CLEARLY attached to their arm.

They’re kids.

So when mine do things that are reasonably smart, I’m all “who the hell ARE you short people?”

But my middle son, the one that I’ve pegged to be a mini-Chris Farley at the ripe age of 2, because he routinely runs into walls on purpose so that he can fall down, only to spring back up and yell “I’M OKAY!!” he appears to have developed some odd habits.

I may have to stop lovingly calling him “Buckethead” and start calling him “The Professor.”

In the past month or so, he’s developed an obsession with two things. Two weird, maybe related, but nonetheless, strange things. Perhaps all of the jumping off the couch onto his head has jangled something loose. Because he now is infatuated with:

1) numbers (specifically the number 0)

B) The Andromeda Galaxy

This is the second of my children to take a more than passing interest in the planets (my first son could, by Alex’s age, name all 63 of Jupiter’s moons), and before you think that I’m somehow indoctrinating them with my own adoration of cosmology, let me assure you that I am not THAT kind of scientist. I’m a virus kinda girl, myself.

Ben has since grown out of his love of the planets and Alex has fallen headfirst in love all on his own. It’s beyond weird.

So watch out, Carl Sagan. Alex Harks is coming for you.

Just as soon as he gets his diaper changed.

A post in vignettes:

I’m pretty sure Alex has started smoking.

Which means that not only is he in direct defiance of my rule, which is “no smoking until you’re 12,” but now he’s got this horrible “I smoke a pack-a-day cough” and I’m sort of ashamed to send him to daycare. They’re OBVIOUSLY going to know he’s smoking.

In MY day, kids RESPECTED their elders and DIDN’T SMOKE until they were at LEAST 12.

*grumbles*

Damn kids on my lawn.

Speaking of damn kids, here is a absolutely great shot of my own damn kid:

Now, he looks as though he’s positively giddy by what is on the plate (similarly to the look I get every time I get a comment or email from you guys!) because it’s a horrifying amalgamation* of junk food picked by his father! Why, there are hot dogs, and french fries and a whimsical Santa plate!

But no.

What Alex is crowing so happily about is not the food.

It’s the condiments.

Specifically *shudders* the mixture of the cheese sauce and ketchup mixed together. Which he ate with great gusto while I heaved in the next room.

*shudders*

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I got interviewed by a real journalist and stuff! See! Anyone looking to make the leap from blogger to More Than Blogger should check out her site, as she’s trying to merge the gap between the old media and the new media. It’s a great idea and I know her site is going to take off.

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May I present to you my eldest, in Hog Washers**:

Also in this photo, a random pillow, proof that I need to sort my laundry, the tip of Dave’s shoe, and “I don’t think Pioneer Boys wear Airwalks.”

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I guest posted over here! YAY!

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For Neil’s Great Blog Interview Project, I Interviewed Gunfighter who is pretty full of the Awesome, so you should check him out. And I’m not just saying that so he doesn’t kill me. He rules.

Katie Couric better watch out because I had WAY too much fun with this interview.

1) Sprinkles on ice cream or not? Or do you call them jimmies? Some people call them jimmies and I don’t understand it, but I think it’s a colloquialism like “soda” and “pop.”

Ha! I was just talking about this a week or so ago. For me, you only have sprinkles on soft-serve ice cream… and then only when you get it from the “Mr. Softee” ice cream truck that would come through our neighborhood in the summer. As for what you call them, I always called them jimmies. I understand that it is a fairly common thing in the northeast (I was raised in northern New Jersey. Go Yankees!).

2) Are you going to kill me if I mess up this interview? I’m screwed, aren’t I? (don’t shoot me, please, I have delicate skin)

Shoot you? Naaaah, I probably wouldn’t shoot you… you seem like a nice enough person… and you make me laugh, which goes a long way. Not that you need to worry, or anything… because you are doing fine… so far.

3) If you could choose one single song for them to do on Glee to die a happy person, what would it be?

You know, my wife and I were listening to the Glee soundtrack when I got your email with these questions… we agreed that it would really be beyond cool (and I mean cool in the sense of Miles Davis, and Lou Rawls) if the cast of Glee performed Mel Torme’s iconic hit “Coming Home Baby”. If they were to do that, I would be a really happy man… that song or the them from “Underdog”

4) What annoys you most about blogging? Everyone has some pet peeve. As for me, I can’t stand it when people abbreviate people into initials because my brain is too small to handle and retain such information for long enough to make it through a post.

You mean bloggers can be annoying? Never! Well, ok, since we are new pals and all… I’ll just say this about that: Sometimes bloggers are just a little too sanctimonious… and that probably means me, too.

5) You’re sent to live on a desert island with an iPod filled with the collective works of only 5 musical artists (let’s assume somehow you have unlimited power for said iPod). Who are they?

Mel Torme (don’t laugh. Mel Torme was as cool as they get)

Michael Jackson (Dude was weird, but name a really talented person who isn’t/wasn’t)

David Phelps (Look him up, he’s awesome)

Frank Sinatra (Frank doesn’t need any commentary)

Tuck Andress & Patti Cathcart (An incredible Jazz duo)

6) What’s the song that plays in your head every time you walk into a room? Like when you make an entrance, I mean. Not just like when you walk unnoticed into a room.

Oh, you mean personal theme songs? I have several, and they vary depending on what I am walking in the room to do. When I am walking into a classroom to teach, the song is “The Imperial March” from Star Wars (also known as “Darth Vader’s Theme”), The other, when I am on an operational assignment is the Main Title theme from “Superman“. Often, in my everyday life, my theme song is that favorite hymn of mine: “A Mighty Fortress is Our God”… there isn’t a much better song for a warrior.

7) If I came over to your house to eat dinner, what would you make me? Because you seem to be a good cook and I sometimes can’t be bothered to order takeout because I am JUST that kind of lazy and maybe I am kind of hungry right now.

I would probably roast a chicken with vegetables. Oh, and I do a chicken right, my friend. Mind you, it’s a rich dish, and ought to be shared with good friends and an ample supply of wine. To die for, trust me.

8) Now that I have read your archives, I have realized that my brother would salivate at the bit to be your best friend, (which I will lord over him as punishment for years of torture when we were kids) which means I need to be your best friend. Can I be your best friend?

Interesting… why would he want to be my best friend? Is it because of my tattoos, or because I have a rockin’ family?, or is it because I spend my day playing with guns? Maybe it’s because chicks dig me. Well, whatever it is, I am all about revenge on older brothers for childhood torture, so ok, we can be best friends. Do you hear that, Becky’s brother?She and I areBFF’s now, so don’t **** with her ever again!

So you should check him out because seriously, he’s awesome.

———————

And in the interest of full disclosure, I am going to tell you that my brother, Uncle Aunt Becky, would want to be BFF with Gunfighter because he would love Gunfighter’s job. Also, now I am going to visit Gunfighter so he can teach me how to shoot a gun. (but he doesn’t know that yet. He better get that chicken cooking. HA.).

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How would YOU answer those questions, yo?

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*50 cent word!

**We had to order them off the Internet. They don’t readily stock overalls in size 8 up here. Probably because there are no hogs to wash. Although I guess he could wash my car. GOOD IDEA.

Last night, as I was blearily trying to tuck in some dinner, talking to The Daver and waiting for the Vicodin to kick in to stop my eyeballs from trying to pop out of my head with a loud SLOP! sound and slither down my face onto my chicken sandwich, our eldest son came in to read aloud.

He’d been reading, I knew, from a book that The Daver and I had bought him when we’d found out that we were pregnant with his brother (Benny was 5), called It’s Not The Stork. Why he had the renewed interest in baby-making, I didn’t know, but he loved the book, and that was good enough for me, so for reading time, which he has every night, he was opting for that.

Last night, though, he came in with that book and a horrified look on his face.

“LISTEN TO THIS,” he said to us.

I couldn’t see what page he was turned to, but already I knew I wasn’t prepared. We’d been over most of the book together, and the only stuff we’d sort of skipped was how the sperm made it INTO the vagina in the first place.

(Oh yeah, in my house? We have sperm and vaginas and penises and ovaries and fallopian tubes and uterus’s (it’s not uter-YOU! Becky, it’s uter-US!) because those are the names of the organs. And I don’t believe I could call his penis a “tinky-wink” without then thinking that the next time I got into the sack with The Daver. *shudders*)

Autistic kids have memories like traps, so anything we’d talked about before was stuck firmly in there, so I knew whatever was coming had to be about those pages we’d sort of ignored.

And I was right.

“LISTEN TO THIS,” our son crowed. “THE MAN PUTS HIS PENIS IN THE WOMAN’S VAGINA IN A SPECIAL SORT OF SLEEPING CALLED MAKING LOVE, OR HAVING SEX.”

He said it so loudly that I’m pretty sure the entire neighborhood heard.

The tone though, that sent me over the edge and I snickered into my hand. I didn’t WANT to. I mean, I’d been preparing for this chat for YEARS. And yet, here I was, laughing. It was just the way he said it.

And the look on his face afterward. Sort of a mixture of awe and disgust. Kind of the way I felt when I first found out about The Sex.

All I remember is thinking to myself when I got The Sex talk, “when I grow up, I never want to stop having it.” He certainly looked more horrified than that, which means he’s probably going to be a more upstanding citizen than I.

So, dutifully, Daver and I dragged our sorry assess out to the living room, after I scooped up the last of our “results of making special sleeping” named Amelia and asked if he had any questions.

We informed him that this wouldn’t happen until he was much older AND PREFERABLY MARRIED (o! the questions this will no doubt create) and we talked a little about puberty as we both quietly died a little bit inside as we both remembered that this gangly 8 year old was not the tiny 2 year old any more.

He seemed to accept it all remarkably well, considering, and seemed most concerned about his voice changing more than anything else. Promising to order him the book about puberty and continue the conversation tonight as he read more, he went off to bed, as at least 204 more grey hairs sprouted forth atop my head.

And now, I’m just waiting for the frantically irate phone calls from the parents of kids that Ben teaches ALL about this. Luckily, I guess, he’ll have the anatomy down PAT.

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What was your sex talk like? Did you get one? Did I just ruin my son for life?

As I type this post to you, I hate to tell you this, but I may or may not be dying. I know, your Google Reader* probably thanks you. It’s through a haze of Delsym that these words are arranging themselves into sentences that may or may not make more or less sense than normal, but onward! Onward and upward we will forage, Internet!

Because that is what we do!

Halloween. Yes, Halloween. This is the obligatory after Halloween post where no one will read these words anyway, because, oh! look! funny looking cute kids! A blue car! A frog reading Aristotle! HA!

On Friday, I was all Mr. Burns cackling that I was gonna pay Alex back for sleepless nights and being an overall difficult baby by making him dress up in ridiculous costumes before he made me buy him costumes like dragon warrior stealth slasher or (the bane of my existence) Star Wars Characters.

Exhibit A:

The Halloweiner:

I mean seriously, how much worse can you get? The kid was a HOT DOG! HA.

(also, I was in the wild throes of sleep deprivation).

Exhibit 2:

The Hedgehog (which everyone thought was a rat. Which, hi, NO)

Okay, so this costume was funking adorable and he was thirty quadrillion times cuter than my own! live! hedgehog Tate, who was an ASSHOLE. Also, I bribed Alex to pose for this picture by giving him candy because I win at life and motherhood.

Revenge, this year was a dish best served, well, you’ll see…

This is what Alex went dressed as for Halloween this year. A Skelly-ton. A Skelling-ton.

When posed with the question, “do you want to put on your costume?” Alex said, “NO!” and then threw his wee body with the head the size of a globe on the floor and began to flail about.

Somehow, it seemed unfair to force it upon him, although I considered it for a millisecond. In fact, he’s squawking indignantly, if you can imagine, at me taking this picture, because the flash is bothering his wee eyes. Delicate flower, that one.

Speaking of delicate flowers, here is his sister:

Also as a Skelling-ton, pre-Halloween (this was on Facebook, so I’m sorry for those of you squawking at the outrage of a repeat), a much calmer child in the eyes of the paparazzi.

My very own Flower Grrrrl, who was a freaking trouper and a half.

I should have some additional pictures up on Facebook later in the week, so as not to slow the load time of my blog any further. Because I am not only a Queen among Men, but a considerate soul.

And lastly, but certainly but not least, the person certain to win biggest brother of the freaking century. The person who made sure to ask at every house for candy for his brother, even when his brother was too afraid to go up to the house himself, my first son…

First the Wayback Machine:

And this year:

A ninja. Which proves that I am not a little boy because a ninja? REALLY? I don’t get it AT ALL.

Aside from being on my Death Bed now, Halloween was a rousing success (SHOCKING) and I’m pretty sure that no one tried to poison the kids.

How was your Halloween?

This post was totally powered by Delsym and a wicked fever.

*your Google Reader can also send me diamonds and other precious stones to thank me for NOT signing up for NaBloWhatever, that daily posting thing that runs through the month of November. Because, obviously.

While normally, my sex column is fairly PG, with the occasional unable-to-be-scrubbed-away-no-matter-how-hard-you-try-image thrown in for laughs and spits (porn-n-eggs?), this week, I’m talking about the time I got busted. By my boyfriend’s mother.

And I’m warning you, it’s probably not, well, for the faint of heart, those who may be pregnant, those wanting to become pregnant, those with heart conditions, and please call your doctor for erections lasting longer than four hours.

Do not stare directly into the sun.

(it’s really not very graphic at all)(or is it?)

(click to go)(scroll down to stay)

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After I had Ben at age 20, I was left looking around and figuring out what the hell to do with my life. Professionally, I mean. I won’t bother getting into how PERSONALLY having a baby really crimps your style, especially when your kid is the one that screams like a banshee whenever he’s, well, awake.

I’d finished half a degree with a dual major in Bio/Chem, and had some pretty lofty Follow In The Males Of My Family’s Trek To Med School ideas of what I would do. Lofty, perhaps, but also the only damn thing I could think to do with my life. Whomever decided that 17/18 year olds should be in charge of choosing a profession is a wicked genius of a person (and also the reason majors like Media Studies are invented).

There’s a stupid commercial out there and the tagline is something like “Having a baby changes EVERYTHING.” I call it stupid, because I’m pretty sure that’s the most annoyingly obvious statement I’ve heard in my life, for a seasoned parent or not. But in the case of my schooling, it was irritatingly spot on.

Even if I’d been able to get into med school, which is either highly or only slightly laughable, as a single mother, I was aware that something was going to have to give. And if I’d chosen school, my son would be without a real mother at home (although I could have gotten a life-sized cut out of my picture and insisted that it follow him around creepily watching him as he went about his day), until he was approximately 26 years old.

Figuring I’d take my chances on extra-massive therapy bills for him later on (mental note: deposit money into Future Therapy Account every time I tell The Internet about my kid), I buckled down and made my choice: Ben.

Which left me with another choice: what the shit was I supposed to do now? I had to finish A degree in SOMETHING, and preferably something I could, oh, I don’t know, get a salary upon graduation WITHOUT asking if they wanted fries with that.

And as I saw it, my future was a toss-up between teaching and nursing. Neither of which were anything I’d ever considered as actual career options before then, so I chose what I considered to be the lesser of two evils. For approximately 12 minutes.

Yes, my friends, it’s true: I considered becoming a teacher for about 12 minutes. I even went as far as to try and say “I’m going to be a TEACHER” out loud. It was when I couldn’t contain my laughter AFTER that statement that I reconsidered my initial thought. The thought of me as a teacher was as laughable as the thought of me as a nurse.

I have the highest regard for teachers, really, I do. They’re tasked with wrangling OUR CHILDREN (or at least the children we know) all day long, and trying to teach them as they bounce off the walls like monkeys.

I pictured myself standing there in front of The Youth Of America, trying in vain to get the kids to stop eating each others’ boogers, my cardigan (I’d have to wear a cardigan if I became a teacher, this I knew) stained and buttoned incorrectly, my eyes puffy from a long night of drinking to make the voices go away, and I knew I just couldn’t do it.

This weekend, the care of 7 of The Youth Of America in my incapable hands, was like a vision into The Future That Could Have Been, and I hated every moment of it. As soon as we got there, the incessant questioning began. It’s like the kids could sense who was least equipped to handle their weird questions and glommed onto it.

“Why aren’t you serving pizza?” (the party was at 2:30 PM)
“Why are the cupcakes green?”
“I thought there would be more kids here” (me too, sweetheart, me too)
“Can we go to Pizza Hut?”
“Is Ben’s baby (points at Alex) a girl?”
“Why isn’t he a girl?”
“What’s his name?”
“Why’d you choose that name?”
“Are you having another baby?”
“Is it going to look like Ben?”
“Can I have some more money?”
“Can I have some more money NOW?”
“Why is that called air hockey?”

This was pretty much all I heard for the last 30 minutes of the party (thank you moon bounce for making them be quiet for an hour and a half), and while 30 minutes sounds like no time whatsoever, I found myself wishing that I had thought to bring a telephone number list to call their parents to pick them up EARLY. See, I’m not so patient. Or teacherly.

So, to all of the teachers out there, Aunt Becky salutes you. I consider you to be among America’s Finest; standing in the trenches and educating Our Youth while I hide at home. Away from the questions I can’t answer.

What job would YOU be unable to do, my Internet peeps?

Amelia, it was clear by our lack of preparation, was our third child. I think it wasn’t until week 34 or 35 that we set up anything that we could have brought a child home to, having barely put them away for Child Number 2. Mostly because we didn’t have anywhere to put her and partially because we are lazy.

Let me back up (Ima let you finish) and give you a brief rundown of the layout of the land.

We technically have a 4 bedroom house.

Upstairs are three bedrooms:

1) Master Bedroom: currently occupied by 1 Aunt Becky and 1 The Daver which is stupidly big. Not us, but the room, you know. It’s a poor design, and should have been 2 rooms, but will probably be bedroom PLUS office or bedroom PLUS porn den or something.

Had originally thought to be converted into boys room until it was determined that the space would never be used by the boys as play space.

2) Ben’s Room: it’s a medium sized bedroom full of the weird stuff my son cannot manage to part with. This is only noted because this is the same child who FREQUENTLY comes through the house saying “when I grow up, MY house is gonna be SUPER organized.”

Judging by the back issues of catalogs and his inability to throw away anything up to and including: tags to clothing and/or Target bags, he may want to rethink his berating of others within earshot.

3) The Nursery: It’s a fart (armpit) of a room, previously painted French Impressionistic pink (one of the only colors of pink that offends even me, lover of all things pink) where Alex spent most of his babyhood hating, well, everything.

(Bedroom 4 is in the basement and would probably be best for a teenage lair, not for a child, especially not one who might get up overnight.)

Mimi has been sleeping in a pack-n-play (o! bless thee God of pack-n-plays) in the living room since she was born because she seems to hate the crib that we’d set up in the master bedroom. Oh, sure, she’ll NAP there, but when it comes to SLEEPING at night, oh, HELL no.

This weekend, we made the switch. The dreaded switch of sleeping quarters. The only one looking forward to this was Ben, who had been promised, in time, bunkbeds.

Alex moved in with Ben, and Amelia got her own room. I was terrified and Dave was so annoyingly optimistic that I sort of wanted to pee on him, which is the same way Dave and I go into pretty much everything. Blind optimism and The Voice of Reason. It’s not that I want things to go WRONG, it’s just that sometimes, I think that Dave should remember that they could.

Like this, for example:

Alex, who previously has slept like a champion in his fortress of a crib has now learned to crawl out of his crib. I’m not sure why it took moving in with his brother to take place but somehow that’s when it happened: yesterday at naptime, Alex took the opportunity to hoist his wee body from his crib to the room to lock the door. FROM THE INSIDE.

Can you hear my hair greying as I peck out those words?

We have a toddler bed, yes, and obviously I am somehow going to dismantle that lock today (chainsaw?)(icepick?)(playing Britney Spears music at it?).

Mimi is adjusting swimmingly to not sleeping among the chaos, and Ben, poor abused Ben, was kept up last night by his brother, who, overjoyed by having company, not realizing bedtime could be a team sport, wanted nothing more than to TALK to him. All night long. Poor, poor Ben.

In time, we’ll adjust, and in time mean time, I’ll pry my anxiety ridden fingers from my own neck where I am trying to strangle myself for having such a lovely idea and remember that this had to happen eventually.

Amelia couldn’t live in the living room forever. Right? RIGHT?

——————–

So, loves, come gather round Your Aunt Becky and tell her a story. She’s not feeling too well today and could use some distractions. Advice, stories, gossip, just, anything.

When I was a kid, on the list of things I would have happily gnawed off my own limbs for was a sibling. A whole MESS of siblings. Didn’t matter which brand–Japanese mushroom or cheeseburger–I just wanted more.

I had a pack of neighborhood kids that I chummed around with from sun-up until sun-down during the summer and after school most days (I don’t remember having as much homework as my kid gets) and that was all well and good, and I even was always pretty well liked in school. But I wanted a pack of siblings. A HUGE family.

My tiny nuclear family, well, most of them ignored me and I was a really lonely kid. I did have an older brother whose attention I vied for like an overzealous puppy, always shocked when he kicked me away, but eager to try again. Even at age 8, I was nothing if not persistent and shockingly transparent in my desire to be liked.

Luckily, while I didn’t outgrow my persistence, I did outgrow the gene that made me care if people liked me, but I never did outgrow the desire for a big family.

If you haven’t poured through my archives with a fine-toothed comb to discover that *gasp* my eldest was born *gasp* out of wedlock *gasp* and sired by another *gasp* father, well, he was, but if you haven’t, it’s because we don’t make a big deal out of it here at Casa de la Sausage.

Anyway. It’s not a dirty little secret or anything, it’s just not that important to us, because, really, it’s kind of old news now. But after I was pregnant with him and before I had met The Daver (this was a shockingly narrow window), I knew that I wanted to have more children, and, being the planner that I am, I wanted to have them closer together than my own brother and I are.

Part of the problems (but really, only a small part) that my brother and I faced were that we are ten years apart. What do an eight year old and an eighteen year old have in common? Fuck-NOTHING. The other problems are farther below the surface and much more purulent, so let’s just stick with the age difference, shall we?

Luckily, The Daver came along before I had to think about begging my male friends for a shot of their Man Juice–can you imagine the awkwardness? Because I can’t–and I would happily have dropped trou and tried to start makin’ babies well before I was Mrs. Aunt Becky Sherrick Harks.

The Daver is more traditional than I am (I know, you’re shocked), so we waited until after the wedding to cook up a couple of crotch parasites. I got pregnant with Alex as we were nearing our one year anniversary and Amelia as we were nearing our third. And no, to clear up any pesky rumors, we have no affection for the letter “a”.

I mean, it’s a good letter and all, and it’s a vowel so that makes it awesome by association, but if I had to BE a vowel, I would be “sometimes y”. Wouldn’t you?

It was weird the amount of ominous flack I got from people as I lugged Alex and Ben around, largely pregnant with my third.

“You’re going to be busy…” people would cluck meaningfully at me, obviously disdainful of my “delicate condition”

“Wow… you have your hands FULL,” others would sort of sneer, as I heaved a box of diapers and Alex, never offering to lift a finger to help.

While I appreciate that everyone is entitled to have an opinion on everything, and what comes out of (or, apparently, goes INTO) my vagina is no different, this was really not their call to make. They never liked to hear it when I told them as much, but come on, how rude could you be. I had 3 kids, not thirty. My uterus wasn’t exactly a clown-car yet.

But no, thank YOU, Mr. Fuckface, I appreciate you loudly judging me in front of my children, I have it under control. And you know what, I do. I still have it under control even now that I’m only pregnant with a burrito baby.

I sit in the other room sometimes, the baby banging merrily away in her saucer, gnawing on a pair of metal measuring spoons that were her older brother’s favorite toy too, screaming joyfully, her voice echoing against the glass door and bouncing back again.

Mingling with it are the indistinguishable voices of her older brothers, who have–5 years apart–the same tone and timbre of voice (without the words, I cannot tell them apart) as they scream delightedly together, piling on top of each other like squirmy puppies.

They are happy. My children, they are happy.

And I smile quietly to myself, as I sit there listening, knowing that if I do nothing else right for the rest of my life, I have done this right.

My children, I have done right by.

I really hate those Johnson & Johnson commercials, you know, the ones with the baby in the bathtub with the sunlight streaming in the window at justtherightangle. The perfectly coiffed mother sitting there, smiling at her marvelous child. Then the voice over guy says, “Having a baby changes EVERYTHING!” and I roll my eyes, because, well, no SHIT, Sherlock.

Okay, so maybe I’m bitter because I’m not only unshowered, but I am in dire need of a haircut AND a pedicure, and I can never make the bubbles in the tub look quite so…bubbly. Plus, bathing the baby only occurs at night, when the other small one has gone to bed, so no sunlight here, unless it’s just being expelled from my inner sunshine-y nature.

(shut UP)

But bitterness and rancor aside, it’s true: having a baby does change everything.

Because, without Ben, I wouldn’t be here.

I’m not being all dramatical and oh-em-ge, guys, I would have KILLED myself, because that’s really not my style.

(shut UP)

It’s just that there is no life without Ben to think about: I had him at 21, which isn’t *gasp* scandalously young, but it’s young enough to say for certain that we grew up together. Without Ben, there would be no Dave, no blog, no Alex, no Mimi, none of this. *gestures to the room and the world around her*

It’s been a wild ride, for sure, the one that Ben and I have been on together.

Ben has moved 3 times in his young life, he walked me down the aisle at my wedding and stood proudly next to Dave, as his best man. He watched me graduate from school, he’s watched me find my way.

He’s been through a kidnapping and bitter battles between Nat and I. He’s become a big brother twice, taught his siblings the proper names of the planets and learned to (happily!!) change diapers.

He’s overcome speech issues and learned to manage his other compulsions.

We’ve grown up together, Ben and I, and we’ve found our way, where they thought that we were lost. Adrift. But they, they were all wrong. So long as we have each other, we’ll never, ever be lost.

I only hope, child of mine, that one day I can do you as proud as you do me.

Happy, Happy Birthday, Benner. We love you. Without you, we ALL are nothing.