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.”

97: times I’ve wondered if that Google Friend Connect button for my reader actually works.

0: times it’s worked.

1,273,009: posts that I’ve undoubtedly missed.

84: times each day that I offer a prayer of thanks to the universe for bringing me Diet Coke.

2: days until I am officially a mother of an 8 year old.

984: times that thought has made my heart stop.

1,679: Twitter followers that are no doubt in awe of my awfulness

3: potentially offensive things I say on Twitter each day on average.

3: average number of Tweets per day

6: number of flies I have fed my Venus Flytrap in the past four months.

6: number of times I have clapped like a stupid monkey after it ate that fly.

0: hours a day Amelia fells like sleeping

60: times an hour I lovingly caress the Children’s Benedryl bottle and say, “soon, my sweet, soon.”

24: hours a day I feel like sleeping.

4,373: times a minute Alex can say the word, “Mommy” without breaking a sweat.

0: trolls I have gotten here from the NY Times article.

53: comments the article garnered before they wisely closed comments.

50: comments that made my jaw drop wide, wide open.

9,473,030: times I have wondered how one is supposed to handle criticism like that.

1: horrible haircut that I bestowed upon Alex after it became tragically clear that I could no longer easily get him to wash his hairs.

36: times I have vowed to never let another pair of scissors wielded by me to get near his enormous cranium.

9,110,746 and counting: hairs I have lost since Amelia was birthed.

394: times I have considered weaving sweaters made of my own hair to sell on Etsy.

13: mcg my Synthroid was adjusted yesterday.

9: minimum number of months for my thyroid to get back out of “dangerously low” range.

Infinity: number of times it will be funny to say “I HAVE A GLANDULAR PROBLEM” in a high, nasally voice. Because I do.

Infinity: number of times I wish that I did NOT have a glandular problem to mock.

1,331,789,756,009: times I have wanted to choke the stupid duck on the Wonder Pets for saying, “This is SEWEOUS.”

Because THAT, motherfucker, IS serious. DEADLY serious.

It’s time for me to share my story.

It made the Sunday cover of the Life & Style section of time times. Which, WILD.

So imagine my surprise when I get a shout out in an article about my friend Stefanie Wilder-Taylor, from The New York Times. Certainly you should all take to the editor with your spears and torches to tell nay, to SCREAM to them that I am highly unworthy of such an honor.

Because, obviously.

———-

I stay at home now, with my kids, retired from my chosen profession at 26 and I write while my husband goes out and earns the bucks for us. It’s like a 50’s throwback here, without the pearl necklaces (something I’m ITCHING to bring back) and candied hams.

The Daver works in finance, which is a somewhat nebulous term that people typically respond to with a harsh intake of air and a drawn out, “Oooooh.” Since the Crash of Ought Eight, people tend to have a different perception of “working in finance.”

I don’t understand a single thing that The Daver does, and when he tries to explain, my eyes glaze over the same way that his do when I talk about my latest email from my agents. But, for all intents and purposes, what “working in finance” means to me is that he’s almost never home. A 70 hour work week is a relatively easy week for him.

Add to that an hour plus commute each way and you can easily call me a single mother during the week. Oh, don’t worry, I’m not up on the cross about it or anything; I’m sure some new mother needs the wood. To me, it’s just the way it is.

And while I did choose to have my three children, I didn’t expect that I would have to lose myself in the process to be successful.

Certainly, I am Ben’s mother, Amelia’s mother, Alex’s mother, Dave’s wife, daughter of Ann and Joe. Sister of Aaron. But I’m more than the sum of who I am to other people. This includes my children.

Sure, I suppose, I could go back to work to reclaim the Becky I was, now lost among piles of diapers and educational toys, but that wouldn’t solve anything. I’m fortunate that I’m able to stay home with my children, I’m not going to deny that, but, like any other choice, there are consequences.

It seems to me that with small children–even making the choice to have them–comes a loss of self.

Because for every healthful morsel I can shove down my kids gullet comes a meal I’ll eat cold and gluey. For every doctors appointment that I schlep someone to and from, I never can quite make the time to get my own blood work done. I peck out words onto my keyboard in between poopy butts and loads of laundry, and I’m expected to apologize for taking this time for myself.

I could, after all, be spending it growing my own organic food and mowing the lawn with my teeth. As Dave and I frequently joke, it never ends, does it? And it doesn’t.

That’s okay with me, honestly, because childhood doesn’t last forever.

My kids will grow up, go to college and move out (presumably). They’ll lay on faceless therapists’ couches and spill out all of my secrets: I didn’t prepare a three course gluten-free trans-fat free organic meal for dinner. I selfishly wrote about them and their lives. I reminded them every day that they should never lose track of who they are and what they want and that made them feel…angry?

They’ll grow up and be gone and I’ll have plenty of time to myself then. I’m sure I’ll spend a bit of that time wishing I’d done something different: spent less time worrying about washing their hair and more time inhaling that new baby smell. Knowing it will end helps me savor it.

And I do.

But I’m not selfless enough to live my life for my children. Nor, do I think, would they, as adults, want me to.

So no, I’m not going to apologize if I have a drink with my husband after they go to bed. I’m not sorry that I carve out some time each day to write and to connect with other people. I can’t tell you that I’m going to stop looking for things to fulfill my need to be Becky, As Herself and not Just Mom. They’re not mutually exclusive, people.

Lest you picture me passed out on the couch with a bottle of vodka next to my head, as the name of my blog implies, while my poor–WON’T ANYONE THINK OF THE CHILDREN?– children fend for themselves, let me assure you that I couldn’t tell you the last time that I actually had a drink. It wasn’t today, or yesterday, or last week. And when I *did* have a drink, I had just one.

The last time that I got soused was well over 3 years ago. I’m compulsive, maybe, but not when it comes to The Drink. I don’t have the luxury of a hangover any longer and I don’t care to wake up the Day After to pay for what I’d done the Night Before. It’s not my thing.

But responsibly letting your hair down with your friends, getting loud and obnoxious, or having kinky wild butt-sex with your husband? I can’t see the fault in that. Life–with or without children–can be tedious. It can be tedious, it can be boring, and it can feel long.

Certainly, that doesn’t mean that one should drink a fifth of Absolut, smoke a doob and get behind the wheel of a car. There’s nothing funny whatsoever about drunk driving or parenting while intoxicated, don’t mistake my meaning here. There’s no excuse for that sort of behavior, no matter how isolated, neglected, abused or miserable one may be.

There’s a happy medium to be found, I know that there is, between here and there. Between living for yourself and for someone else. And I like to pretend that it involves a cabana boy named Carlos and his well chiseled, oiled chest.

But maybe I’m wrong.

His name could very well be Paulo.

————–

So, Gentle Internet, what do YOU think?

I’ve been in the paper before: one time I got busted shoplifting (shut UP! I was 14 and it was HAIR PICKS)(SHUT UP), I was typically on the honor roll because I am a complete over achiever, but for fear of a vicious ex-boyfriend, I didn’t even put my wedding announcement in there.

I didn’t really want a rehash of the last scene of The Graduate–this time with police and guns and restraining orders! Oh My!–on My Big Day.

So imagine my surprise when I get a shout out in an article about my friend Stefanie Wilder-Taylor, from The New York Times. Certainly you should all take to the editor with your spears and torches to tell nay, to SCREAM to them that I am highly unworthy of such an honor.

Because, obviously.

Okay, so the title is a complete lie. Sure, I do have a Facebook account and yes, I’m probably friends with you on there, because if I already pour my heart and soul out (stop laughing)(no, I mean it) on my blog, why the hell can’t you see the meaningless bullshit I post on Facebook?

(answer, as always, is: because, obviously)

(and I will absolutely friend you)

(unless you hate me)

(or maybe even if you do)

Because I rode a dinosaur to school back when I was a wee lass, I had a Myspace account well before I had a Facebook account and before that, because I think I even had a Friendster account. But then Myspace got all blinky and annoying and so I stopped going on there because it took my computer 4 hours to load your stupid ass profile.

Eventually, I succumbed to The Facebook empire and got myself an account. People were ALWAYS (read: maybe once or twice) telling me how CRAZY COOL Facebook was and how many AWESOME people they’d reconnected with there. I logged on, signed up, and promptly refriended all my friends who’d similarly abandoned Myspace for less blinky pastures.

And then….

…..

….

….

Nothing whatsoever happened.

A year or so after the fact, I can appreciate that it does connect me with some of my blog friends, there hasn’t been a single soul from Back In The Day that I’ve found through there that has blown me away.

I’ve often bemoaned that I can’t stalk my exes through Facebook so that I can feel smugly superior towards them because everyone freaking ELSE has some “this was my first grade boyfriend,” “this was the first person I got drunk with when I was nine,” story to rub in my pathetic face. It appears the only ex with whom I am to have contact is my least favorite: Nat.

Dave is one of the frequent gloaters I put up with on a semi-regular basis. He’s always reconnecting with someone or another: exes, family maybe, old friends, old not-so-friends (because we all know that we’re judged on the amount of friends we have on Facebook and Twitter), and whatever. Maybe a prostitute or two.

I don’t really keep track. He’ll occasionally pull up a profile to show me someone’s kids or whatever, and I look, tell him the kid is cute, and then go about my day. It’s never dawned on me that Facebook could be seen as a den of intrigue and tomfoolery.

(why yes, yes I WAS looking to use tomfoolery in a sentence! Next up, I’m looking at YOU caterwauling or cacophony)

But apparently, there was even an ARTICLE on The Internet, which has to be true, because it’s online, that made mention of Facebook being kind of bad for marriages. According to the article, people are rekindling old romances through Facebook, while fitting in endless games of Bejeweled and/or Which Vampire Are You? Quizzes.

(my result: An Asshole)

For someone whose relationships prior to meeting The Daver ended after my boyfriend decided to use another vagina as a tea cozy, I’m shockingly trusting.

I’ve never read his email, I’ve never gone through the recently dialed calls on his phone, I’ve never considered logging onto his facebook account, and I have no plans to. To me? It just seems really boring. And he’s honest enough that if he is having cyber sex with someone (or whatever crimes against marriage these people commit), he’d probably tell me whether or not I cared to know.

And likewise. I’m not positive, but I do leave my email open 99% of my time and my phone around the house, and I’ve never caught Daver going through it. Probably because, like his, it’s very, VERY boring to anyone else. Plus, I firmly believe that he deserves privacy just as I do. Everyone should have small secrets, right?

(I will mention here that I absolutely CANNOT stand when someone stands behind me while I’m on the computer no matter if I’m surfing old lady porn or writing a blog post or checking Twitter. I’d be fine if you looked at it WITHOUT me there, but for some reason the hovering just drives me nuts)

But reading the article and hearing other people talk about how they guess passwords and check up on their significant others makes me wonder: am I in the minority here? SHOULD I be checking up on The Daver? Am I being naive?

Should I really be stalking him on Facebook?

I remember the first time I realized that I hated most fiction was whenever we were forced to read A Tale of Two Cities* in high school. I suffered through it along with the rest of my class, trying to muddle through the names and nicknames of people–all of whom I mixed up regularly–before giving up entirely and buying my first and only copy of Cliffs Notes. And even in discernible English, I was bored shitless.

As I’ve gotten older, it dawned on me that overall? Not very interested in fiction. I’m glad that the genre exists, the same way I feel about soft-core porn romance novels, but given a choice between reading one and having to suffer through another visit to my endocrinologist (I HAVE A GLANDULAR PROBLEM, PEOPLE), I’m not positive which I’d choose. Diabetes Monthly might interest me more, and I am (shockingly!) not diabetic.

Maybe that’s what appeals to me so much about blogging. With a few notable exceptions, most of the blogs I read are at least mostly non-fiction. I guess I can just connect with a real person more than I can connect with Mrs. Pip or whatever her fucking whore name was.

There was this whole panel at BlogHer about “finding your blogging tribe” and, no, of course I didn’t go. I’m certain that had I tried, I would have found that there was standing room only in the back, so in the long run I’m glad that my slackerdom won out there.

But the point of the session was good. It’s important to find Your People. Back when Jesus was my classmate and I first started blogging, one of my first real friends, and I mean REAL friends, was Stefanie Wilder-Taylor, who blogs at Baby on Bored.

Stef probably knows more about me than anyone else on the planet, which, considering I live in the Armpit of the Midwest and she lives in hip AND sunny California, is saying quite a lot for someone who doesn’t regularly get to to slam back some Diet Cokes with me. Stef is the shit and if you don’t know her, you’re an idiot, and go over to her blog immediately. Well, no, finish this entry first because I DO have a point.

(shut UP)

Because she is cooler than the rest of us, Stef has written not one, not two, but three books, AND THEY HAVE ACTUALLY BEEN PUBLISHED. Her first was Sippy Cups Are Not For Chardonnay (which, obviously, they’re for VODKA), her second was Naptime Is The New Happy Hour, and her latest is It’s Not Me, It’s You.

The first two of her books focus on parenting, taking an honest look at what parenting means and then reminding you that things are pretty fucking funny after all (also funny are the hateful reviews on Amazon, because, seriously, these people need to get the fcuk over themselves). I wish I’d had them when Ben was a baby, because reading them was like talking with a good friend. You know, the sort that knows you and likes you anyway?

It’s Not Me, It’s You is a bitingly funny and honest memoir that had me wincing and nodding at the same time (I never wince)(I also never cry)(I also hate Thousand Island dressing, because what’s the point?). And seriously, you need to read it to believe it. The woman has lived approximately 405 lives and counting and makes you or I seem like the most boring person on the planet.

She sent me a copy right after Amelia was born, and I actually forfeited sleep one night WHILE I HAD A NEWBORN to stay up and read it. If you know how much sleep means to me and how I’d probably auction off one of my arms to get more of it, it would be evidence of just how fucking good this book is.

I don’t do product reviews here because I’m not really an authority on much besides firmly advocating AGAINST generic toilet paper, and I really hate it when blogs are all “go spend your money on THIS” because it’s fucking annoying. But you need to read this book. Because if you like ME, you’ll love Stef.

(do you remember those designer impostors perfumes? If you like Obsession, you’ll love STALKER? It’s kind of like that. Or maybe I’m the Diet Coke of Stef)

So, now that I’ve told you what you need to be reading, what should I be reading? Blogs? Books? Toothpaste tubes? People Magazine?

*To be fair, I’m sure Mr. Dickens would probably want to pop out his eyeballs if forced to read anything that I wrote.