Dear My Husband Doctor House,

I *can* call you Greg, can’t I? I mean, because it’s your name and all and because we’re married. Wasn’t our wedding day special? I’ll never forget how your mom cried when we said our vows, and how the light caught your eyes justso and they looked as blue as the Caribbean Sea. And that dress that I wore, how we laughed when the cake got smashed on my train, my elaborate, diamond-encrusted 40 foot train sewn with the tears of Bonsai Kitties.

It was the happiest day of your life.

Being married was the happiest you’ve been: we shared a love of Vicodin cuddly kitties and playing air guitar, of blues music and being cranky assbags, and the satisfaction of always being right. Hell, we’re both snarky windbags. It was a marriage made in heaven hell New Jersey.

I followed you through all of your stupid fellows and obvious attempts at emulating reality television–which, I frequently moaned, was kind of stupid. The cases got pretty annoying, especially when Cut-Throat Bitch was front and center. I hates me some Amber.

Shit, I even supported your co-dependent relationship with James Wilson (whom I find ridiculously attractive, but since I am your wife and he is your BFF, that makes it all pretty awkward)(let’s forget that I said this)(seriously, DROP IT) and your mousy coworker who was obviously in love with you.

But I’ve finally hit my breaking point with you. It’s not your addiction to narcotics rainbows and sparkly unicorns or your overall unpleasantness, no.

I CAUGHT YOU HAVING THE SEX WITH ANOTHER WOMAN ON TELEVISION. How DARE you come home to my television after you had sex with that lady with the fantastic rack? How COULD you flaunt that in front of THE WHOLE WORLD? YOU DIRTY BIRDIE!

How dare you act like you’re not married to some anonymous Midwestern blogger who is no longer anonymous but linked inexplicably in all sorts of places to the lady who drank a fifth of Absolut and killed all of those people? Because. OBVIOUSLY. The same thing.

(don’t compare poor taste with drinking a fifth and driving kids to their death)

So I wept to The Daver–sorry about not telling you that I was already married–and he tried to tell me that you weren’t a REAL PERSON. I screamed at him, yelled that our love, OUR LOVE was REAL and that NOTHING he could say could convince me otherwise.

Until he pulled up Wikipedia.

There you were, Greg House, THERE YOU WERE. Turns out that your name? NOT DOCTOR HOUSE. Your name is a ridiculously English one: Hugh Laurie. I could scarcely believe my own puckered eyeballs! I pulled up a Youtube Video to be sure.

And there you were again! Only this time, instead of sounding like a surly American tortured genius doctor, you sounded like you had a mouthful of marbles! And you were making jokes that simply WEREN’T funny and yet an entire studio of wily Brits were laughing like you were making actual jokes! My brain sort of melted because THEY WEREN’T FUNNY.

So I guess this means we’re over, Doctor House Hugh Laurie Vincent D’Onofrio whatever your name REALLY is. Because while I can overlook the 3 children with another lady–HEY, don’t you DARE point out my glaring hypocrisy! There are people in this world without legs and you shouldn’t…oh look! A blue car! Oh HAPPY DAY!

So good riddance, my third husband from television. I’m sure this fall line up will bring me a new husband, a new LESS OLD BALLS new husband.

Love

Sincerely

I Hate You You Philandering Misogynist

Your Bitch Ass Best Be Leaving Me My Vicodin

Your Former Wife,

Aunt Becky

P.S. Watch out, Cast of Glee. Momma’s HUSBAND-hunting.

My daughter is teething, I think, but I’m not quite sure. I mean, I THINK she is, but I would have sworn on a stack of Bibles that Alex was, too. Turns out that, no, Alex was merely unpleasant, and popped his teeth after his first birthday without pomp or circumstance. He went from zero to Jaws-like in the matter of a couple of days.

Ben, like Alex, was so full of The Screaming that it was impossible to ascertain if he was teething, or just displeased by being born (the NERVE!). He too, just popped out a set of chompers in a few days, looking not only like he was wearing a toupee, but also had a set of dentures.

For the last couple of weeks, though, my daughter has been damn near impossible to handle. I find myself on edge almost constantly, because the slightest rustling of the wind through my orchids, or the air conditioner clicking on will catapult her from sleep to wake. Once she’s awake, there’s almost no getting her back down until her next scheduled nap time.

With two other children, two dogs, two cats, and a husband who is not home, I’m sort of at my wit’s end (one may argue that I never had wits about me anyway, an accusation that is neither here nor there.).

The phone dares to ring and I verbally rip the face off whomever is unfortunate enough to call.

The neighbor comes by to see if I need my lawn mowed, and I cry, because the commotion woke Amelia up, and I cannot fathom another swaddle, bounce, pat, binkie, bottle, binkie, thrashing, sweaty, restraining I-love-you-baby-but-fucking-go-to-sleep session.

Alex operates on top volume whenever he is awake and my dogs like nothing more than to bark at innocent caterpillars that crawl in our front yard, and I. am. spent. Exhausted.

Sometimes, I cry into Amelia’s head, her tears mingling with mine, as we’re both incredibly frustrated by the situation: she cannot settle and there is nothing either of us can do about it. Other times, I just grind my teeth, giving me such migraines that if I had the luxury, I’d be incapacitated, in bed with my eyes closed.

We’re stuck here in this holding pattern.

This, I think, this is the real ass-kicker about having had a child whose life was, at one time, in flux: how can you possibly be upset with someone who you worried so very much about losing? I imagine this happens to many parents-of-children-who-survive-a-massive-trauma.

Life isn’t fair, you know this as you weep over your child in the NICU, the monitors alarming, the staff flitting from one emergency to another, because if it were, no children would be sick. Ever.

And somehow, after all that anxious uncertainty, all that worrying, teeth-gnashing and terror, your child was the one who made it out alive. His neighbor in the hospital may not have been so lucky and you know it. You’re blessed to even have this child. It’s like chewing on a piece of aluminum wrapped candy: sweet and shockingly painful at times.

Because you’re human, too.

I know how lucky I am that Amelia made it and is normal. I know that most children with her diagnosis don’t come home alive and breathing. I’ve watched my friends mourn their lost children and cried with them. Because the world–it is most certainly not fair.

But she–my daughter–she is a child, a human child. And if I know anything about children, it’s that they can make you so crazy that you’re nearly sane again. I’ve been through two of the toughest children already, the sort who screamed, and cried, and nearly (in the case of Alex) drove me to the brink, and I know that this is what kids do.

She’s not like other kids, and yet she is, and it’s this that is making my head spin.

I feel guilt, such massive crushing guilt, whenever I am at the end of my rope, like today. Today she slept for maybe an hour total, which is far, far less than she needs. And yet there was nothing, not one single ever-loving thing that I could do about it.

There’s that niggling part of me in there, too, the part that wonders if maybe her head is hurting her. I mean, she was born with a malformed skull, she has an implant in her head to correct it, and her head is growing. I know this because her scar is stretching, nearly taking up most of the back of her head now.

Or maybe it’s a new symptom of something more sinister. No one was able to tell us much of anything about her diagnosis besides it’s name (encephalocele) and what it was (neural tube defect). We’re not-so-casually waiting to see what happens next because no one knows precisely how this will affect her.

She could be normal, she could be profoundly retarded, or somewhere in the middle. Her issues with sleeping deeply may resolve themselves in a couple of years, like Alex’s did, or maybe she’ll be a Lifetime Member of The Unisom Club like I am.

On days like today, when I worry that the nape of her neck is becoming disproportionally large by comparison, and that the top of her head has begun to point in a cone, I can’t seem to talk myself out of it. Telling someone who is genuinely afraid of something–logical or no–to not worry is like asking them to hold their breath for a year. Or a week.

Im-freaking-possible.

I don’t sit around all day, every day crippled by grief and worry, and I try to live in the moment and not the might-be’s or the may-have-been’s because I know that they go nowhere.

And yet, this is who I am now, someone who hyperventilates in hospital parking lots and worries that every little stupid thing is the mark of something more sinister.

So I wait, and I watch, and I worry and I hope that some day we will all look back on these days and laugh.

And I hope.

I hope.

If you have no idea what I’m talking about, go here for a visit, then come back. It’ll make more sense that way.

Hm…It’s lunch time. What shall I cook?

Wow, those cookbooks are shiny and new looking! That must be painfully obvious that I do not cook. Unless one calls “shamelessly ordering take-out” cooking. Which, probably not.

WHY WON’T SOMEONE THINK OF THE CHIIILLLDREN?!?

*wrings hands dramatically for several minutes*

Man, being sanctimonious makes me hungry.

Wait, now THAT looks like a book I would like! Retro lady, the word “secret” in the title, and I’m pretty sure no foodies would masturbate onto it.

Phew! I can make lunch after all.

Let’s see…

Hm…

Well.

Now.

Not really quite what I had in mind. I left my bitter pants upstairs, and while I like cookies, I’m pretty sure this won’t be too tasty.

Well, hel-lo lover…

Hooray! Even *I* can use the microwave! And look at the whimsical packaging! I can’t go wrong here.

Okay, dude, Pad Thai box, I sort of hate taking direction. Remember the whole “nursing school” fiasco?

Yeah, me too.

But lookit all the cute individually wrapped packages! How wee!

I can artfully arrange them JUST LIKE BEN! He’d be so proud of my technique! I should show him. Oh…right.

*sighs*

Man, Day 1 of school and I already miss him.

Posing the water next to my orchid is very artsy. Maybe I could be…a photo blogger.

(shut UP)

And that’s ABOUT a cup. Close enough for me.

5! More! Flavors!

I might actually eat lunch properly again! O! Thank you, box of prepackaged Thai food!

Add the bag of noodles.

Wait. Um. That sauce looks semi-unappetizing.

But wait! Look! Whimsical packaging!!!

What was I saying again? I totally forgot.

Look at me all using the microwave like a big kid. Daver is going to be SO PROUD of me.

*hums Jeopardy song loudly*

Aww, yeah! END. I know what THAT means!

Uh. Well.

YUM?

Maybe this is what will make my lunch more delicious: one more microwaved minute.

Aww YEAH.

And just like that, I have noodles glued together with an unidentifiable sauce! I should TOTALLY WRITE A COOKBOOK. That’s EXACTLY what I should do! WRITE COOKBOOKS!

Uh, MOM? Hi. Are you a total idiot?

My friend Marinka went on vacation this week because she is a lazy slacker, so she asked me to fill in for her at The Mouthy Housewives. I’m all giving advice and shit (although this isn’t the Ask Aunt Becky column that I’ll be setting up)(it’s not ready yet)(because, obviously).

Below you, or click this link in your reader, you can see all the sweet ass places my business cards have been. Deadline for entries is September 8th, y’all.

Also, because I am trying to be more like Marinka in my laziness–especially if it gets me a vacation (bwahahahaha! Yeah RIGHT) what should I post about?

I’ll be back tomorrow with either a love letter to one of my television husbands or Aunt Becky as the Pioneer Woman.

Some days, I really wish that I was a dude, and no, not just so that I could write my name in pee in the snow (I have a feeling the “y” would be the hardest thing to get out there, but this is neither here nor there). I’m not trying to be all dramatical and like, oh em GE, Internet, I HATE women, I’m ONLY friends with men because that’s SO missing the point.

But seriously, I think that men have something on women when it comes to dealing with (quote, unquote) issues. You pop each other in the jaw, then you shake hands and have a beer: it’s done.

I only wish that this was the way that I could solve things. It beats the shit out of talking behind each others’ back, playing fake nicey-nicey at social events and commenting passive-aggressively about each other on Facebook.

(Status Update: Of course you’re “Hermione” because you’re bookish and annoying.)

It seems that no matter how hard I try to bring issues, problems and misgivings out into the open, nobody wants to address them. Suddenly, I can’t pin them down, or they respond in an equally passive-aggressive manner. Working on solving anything (including things that *I* have done and am ready to own and apologize for) becomes as easy as nailing jello to the wall.

So rather than actually resolving and moving past, it’s a clusterfcuk of swirling undertows whenever I see these people. Better not bring up this or that; best shut your mouth and smile kindly. Because bringing up your flakiness or my aggression or that you hate me and yet stalk my blog simply won’t do.

(because we all know stalking someone is just another way to say “I hate you,” right?)

I lost one of my best friends before I got married. She simply stopped returning my phone calls, emails, or the phone calls of anyone else in the bridal party. This was the way she handled conflict, I knew this beforehand, but I had hoped that our friendship meant more to her than just cutting me off.

I still don’t know what I did, but I wish that I’d had the ability to at the very least defend myself, apologize for whatever I’d taken a crap on, and parted ways on better terms. Then, 4.5 years later, I wouldn’t be stuck wondering. I still consider sending her a Christmas Card every year, and maybe that’s just what I should do, because what do I have to lose?

(answer: nothing)

Maybe this will be the year that I reach out again. Or maybe I won’t. 50 million Tibetan Monks don’t give a shit.

Maybe I just need to work on my sucker punch and call it a freaking day. Besides, being punched in the face would give me a good excuse to have a drink**.

—————–

How do you handle conflict?

**WON’T SOMEONE PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN!?!

On my list of things that I am feeling even more neurotic than my standardish garden-variety neuroses:

1) Being on time. Daver, it appears after six of the longest happiest years of my life, might actually be allergic to being punctual. Not, you see, because he is TRYING to drive my blood pressure into the high 200’s, but because he dawdles.

I’d prefer to be at least 15 minutes early; maybe even more like 30, so watching him do just one more thing on his Linux box makes me wild. I suppose having the Sausages is a great cover for our constant, uninterrupted tardiness.

2) Having a clean sink. My bedroom is STILL not quite unpacked from BlogHer–my bedroom, I should add, is also the place that my daughter sleeps so lightly that the cat farting in the basement can make her eyes open like that kid from The Exorcist. So getting in there to clean it must be when I am without kids.

Which, hahahahaha!

But anyway. Having a dirty sink is one of those things I can’t handle. I can be blitzed from the night before, so zonked from my Lunesta that I’m hallucinating fleets of rabid Attack Squirrels bombarding me from strategically placed corners of the kitchen, and still, you will find me scrubbing pans and loading them dutifully into the dishwasher.

3) Having an empty dishwasher. I cannot handle the thought of having clean dishes in the dishwasher that haven’t been put happily back to their ickle homes in my cupboards. I also hate emptying the dishwasher like it was a Nazi Hitler who ate babies–similar to how I feel about getting gas–so it’s fortunate that my eldest can help.

4) Running out of the sweet, sweet nectar of the Gods, Diet Coke. Now, my love affair with all things nutra-sweetly kissed by that delicious combination of chemicals and tin, is well documented. Dave has often considered putting in a soda fountain to save money on Diet Coke–Diet Pepsi will NOT do, sir, NO–but so far, nothing.

Why yes, yes I am an addict. I swear on all that is holy that Coca-Cola puts something into DC cans to make we weight-obsessed women go ga-ga over it, and I’m not going to complain. Certainly, water is better for me. But water is NOT Diet Coke, the yardstick to which all liquids are measured. And is therefore sub-standardly good.

Besides, there is water in Diet Coke.

Daver calls it “battery acid” which is something I take with several tons of salt, as he is the person who will eat not only beef sticks, but pig skins. So he’s not exactly one to talk on the relative flavor of things.

5) Blogging. On the days that I am not quite sure what I feel like talking about, I feel anxious and sweaty until I am able to find something more that I can pollute The Internet with. Because Lord knows, the Internet will not be able to handle it, and the world may stop turning if I can’t blather on and on about my butt cheeks or something.

Unrelatedly but kind of related if you squint kinda, I am trying to respond to comments IN the box of your initial comment. Because, yeah.

—————-

So what are YOU feeling neurotic about today, Internet?

And because, saying that I “stay home with my kids” seems to elicit looks that fall on the spectrum somewhere between ‘pity’ and ‘disgust’ (if I had to choose a color to describe the look, I’d choose puce), I’m “opening up my horizons.”

My high school counselor would be proud of me. In fact, somewhere, he’s probably beaming into his “Time Magazine’s Man Of The Year” mirror and adjusting his afro. He knows not why.

So I’m going to go back to work.

No, no, not like ACTUAL work, like WRITING, which isn’t REALLY work at all. It appears that I will be contributing to another website (details to follow, for those of you sitting on the edge of your seat, biting your nails and twitching) and avidly looking for other places to brighten up with my sunshine and rainbow pee.

By “brighten up” I mean, of course, write for. Just because I need more to do. No, seriously I do. Wiping adorable asses, is, well, not always quite as satisfying if I don’t have anything of my own to work for.

So there you have it: I’m looking for more places to write and defile with my lewd mouth (or my scrubbed with bleach version. Whatever). Holla if you think of anything because You, Internet, are smart and I am not.

(also, does foul language on blogs bother you?)

Also, have no fear, Internet, I’m not even remotely considering abandoning you. IN FACT, I’m thinking that the very NEXT thing I am going to do is to start an advice column. Oh yeah, I’m gonna give ADVICE to people who send me QUESTIONS. Do you think I should put it on another URL? Or should I just plop them here as I see fit?

Hm.

In the very NAME of not leaving you, I wanted to let you know that I am totally going to be responding TO comments IN the comments, because I’m dead tired of trying to email people who leave me slightly incorrect email addresses. Why yes, I AM lazy.

Also, Facebook has taught me that it’s WAY more fun to have dialogue than a one-sided conversations. Hats off to YOU, Facebook.

Oh, and these questions I’m asking you here? Aren’t the rhetorical types, I’m looking for real! live! answers! and! opinions! Because, obviously.

Please humor my mother. Please?

It’s been kind of a heavy week here, on Mommy Wants Cocaine Vodka, and I was going to peck out the story of how The Daver and I met, but I think that’s better suited to a day when I don’t have to be up and down and around and out like a chimp on meth. (notice I said CHIMP, not CHUMP)

No, I think today is a day for fluff. So I am going to bring out an old favorite: Love Songs That Make Me…A Little Gushy.

Dave Matthews Band, “Crush”

Now, I’ve always mocked DMB, not because they didn’t have talent, because they do, but because it was always the favorite choice of rich hippie frat boys who wore pukka shell necklaces and deliberately distressed Abercrombie and Fitch shorts. And they’d always call their band “Dave” as in “have you seen the new DAVE album?”

See, now, that sense of imposed familiarity has always annoyed Your Aunt Becky*, but undeniably the song “Crush” is one of the best love songs ever written. Somehow, the guy who looks like a middle-school teacher that routinely got all sorts of panties thrown at him, somehow he captured that feeling of falling in love.

“It’s crazy, I’m thinking, just knowing that the world is round.

And here, I’m dancing on the ground.

Am I right side up or upside down, and is this real, or am I dreaming?”

I’m deeply resentful of the fact that not only do I love, love, love this song, I would probably marry it. I exact my revenge upon him by imagining him as the retarded savant he played on House, MD.

I’m sure he’s weeping into his millions of dollars and teenage panty pile.

Ray Charles & Van Morrison “Crazy Love”

Several weeks before my wedding, I begged Dave to change Our Song from Louis Armstrong’s “Wonderful World” to this song, which combined two of my favorite voices. Van Morrison has one of those voices that seems to coat me in honey and make me warm and fuzzy inside, no matter how shitty a mood I’m in.

(this is also how Johnny Cash makes me feel)

If you like him I beg, no, I INSIST that you go to iTunes and download his version of “Comfortably Numb” with Roger Waters. It’s.breathtaking. No, I mean, it, like you’ll be unable to breathe, it’s so good.

When he sings, “And the Heavens open every time she smiles,” in “Crazy Love” it never feels to give me pee shivers and goosebumps. In a GOOD way, not like an “I’m scared for my life of this clown with an Uzi in front of me.”

Elton John, “The Way You Look Tonight.”

Now, he’s made his career out of singing sappy love songs, and his catalog either makes me swoon or roll my eyes depending on which one I’m listening to (“butterflies are free to fly, FLY AWAY, HIGH AWAY?” BLECH). But this one, this one makes me just melty inside.

(unrelatedly, I think “The Bitch Is Back” is exquisite)

BONUS!!

The one you can mock me mercilessly for, because the song is seriously Full of The Lame and The Corny:

Bon Jovi’s “Always.”

This song came out when I was dating my first boyfriend, back sometime around 1994, and I was entranced.

This was uncharacteristically bad taste for me, whose first albums purchased from Columbia Record Company (buy 4, get like 13 free) included, The Red Hot Chili Peppers album Blood Sugar Sex Magik (arguably their best album, um, EVER), Pearl Jam’s Ten and Sex Pistols Anarchy in the UK.

All albums I still listen to.

But there it was, cheesy ass-rock from a guy who spent more time in front of the mirror than a 14 year old girl, and I loved it. I STILL love it, although not because it’s the kind of song that gets a girl in the mood or anything, but because it’s just…awesomely bad.

SUPER BONUS OVERACHIEVER SONG!!

Rod Stewart’s “You’re In My Heart.”

Okay, I know, I KNOW, you’re snickering, I can hear it, people. I have bionic hearing and I can hear your snorts from even here. Rod Stewart is The King of Cheese, I know, and his songs mostly suck, and he’s like eleventy-niner hundred years old.

I DON’T CARE.

“You’re In My Heart” is one of the awesomest love songs ever written. And when I told Daver as much, I swear he looked around for my Depends and my Geritol and then insisted upon seeing my driver’s license. Perhaps he was making sure my AARP card wasn’t expired or something.

It wasn’t.

—————-

Your turn. What love songs make you swoon and get mushy inside? The more shameful, the better.

OH! And I’m going to try and respond to you in the comments, because I’m not awesome about emailing everyone as they comment. So yeah, I’ll be IN THE COMMENTS. STALKING YOU.

*get it!?!

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.

3AM: “Amelia needs to cry it out.”

3:15AM: “This really sucks listening to Daver snore as I’m laying here NOT SLEEPING. Maybe I should kick him. That might make me feel better.”

3:18 AM: “ACK. Okay, I just got my eyes gouged as I tried to sleep. FINE, Amelia, we’ll go downstairs. Sitting here and falling asleep only to be woken up every two seconds is torture. ”

3:20 AM: “I should totally go to my reader and leave my friends random middle of the night comments.”

3:30 AM: “Hahahahaha! I AM SO FUNNY BECAUSE A FLEET OF RUBBER DUCKS IS….”

3:31 AM: “Shit, okay, I was hallucinating. BREATHE, THERE ARE NO DUCKS OUT TO SHOOT YOU.”

6:15 AM: “I hate everyone. And everything. Especially puppies. And kittens. Fuck, man, Amelia really needs to start to soothe herself.”

6:20 AM: “zzzzz”

6:22 AM: “Fucking formula is ALL OVER ME and it’s cold and I’m wet and this sucks. That’s what I get for trying to make a bottle while sleeping.”

6:24-7:12 AM: “Oooh formula is warm and I swear I don’t know how to dance on a stripper pole and holy shit I’m dreaming that I’m at a rave and lookit the glow sticks….”

7:13: “SHIT. Alex is up now. I bet he just took a crap.”

10:40 AM: “Okay, this has really got to stop. Neither Dave nor I can handle this shit any longer. Maybe I should lug those sleep books out of storage.”

10:42: “OOOH! LOOKIT! A BLUE CAR!”

12:48 PM: “Hm, so where did I put those books again? I’m going to grab them out and SHOW them to Amelia to THREATEN her that if she doesn’t start properly sleeping like a normal baby, I’ll have to OPEN the book and READ IT.”

1:13 PM: “Ha! I TOTALLY showed her the “No Cry Sleep Solution For Dummies” book and I bet this is going to be what makes her sleep at night again! I’ll SCARE her into sleep! HA!”

1:17 PM: “These words, they’re dripping onto my lap and…zzz….zzz…”

1:46 PM: “I just totally drooled all over myself. Thank God neither of the small kids will notice because they think nothing of crapping their pants regularly. I wish I could crap my pants. Maybe I should think about some Astronaut Diapers like that crazy lady wore to stalk that guy.”

2:12 PM: “Now I remember why these books didn’t work for Alex. They don’t SOLVE it FOR you. You have to do WORK. Like make POOR SWEET ICKLE BABIES CRY. I hate crying babies.”

2:43 PM: “Just the THOUGHT of making Amelia cry at night is making me nauseous and gassy. I can’t do it. I just can’t do it. Maybe I can pay someone else to come and do it. Surely if I can pay someone to potty train my kid, someone will come teach her to sleep.”

2:48 PM: “SOBS. I need to take some Advil. My head is throbbing just thinking of her tears tonight. Damn, I wish I had a Xanax or eleventy-niner.”

2:54: “Wait…..wait…..is eleventy-niner a word?”

3:10 PM: “I don’t think it’s a word, but it SHOULD be. Maybe I should be in charge of making new words up and putting them into the dictionary.”

4:30 PM: “It’s not gonna happen. She’ll never go to sleep. Man, I’m fucking HUNGRY. And seriously did I just lose a wigs’ worth of hair?”

5:34 PM: “Googling ‘Cry It Out’ makes me feel WORSE about myself and the world.”

5:46 PM: “Twittering about CIO is going to make people totally send me hate mail and lob breast pump parts in my direction. Note to self: check Friend or Follow when I get to a computer again.”

6:02 PM: “Bejeweled makes my brain melty and good.”

6:32 PM: “I bet she’s teething or something, that’s probably why she now sleeps so lightly that the gentle breeze ruffling the ribbon on some prized pig in Vancouver is waking her up. I can’t make a TEETHING baby cry it out.”

6:43 PM: “PHEW! I don’t have to make her cry it out. She’s teething. THAT’S GOT to be it. I mean, sure we were convinced that Alex was teething for eleventy niner years and no, he was not. He was just…unpleasant.”

7:10: “Shit, man, I’m hungry, and damn, I’m tired. Tonight is going to be loooonnnnggg. Thank GOD she talked me out of letting her cry it out. She’s just a defenseless BABY and The Internet tells me that it’s cruel. EVERYTHING The Internet says is true, I know.”

7:12 PM: “I bet she won’t wake up in the middle of the night when she’s a teenager. Better savor this as best I can. Also, I miss cupcakes. I would cut a bitch for a cupcake. Dieting blows.”

9:40 AM: “Dude. DUDE. Threatening her with the CIO books TOTALLY WORKED. Those books are GENIUS! I now I need to pull out my Calc 3 books and threaten her to LEARN CALCULUS baby OR I’LL HAVE TO OPEN THE BOOK AND….TEACH YOU.”