I have a confession to make, Internet. No, it’s not that The Daver is secretly a 12 year old, because hi, he’s a whole whopping 2 years OLDER than me (old balls)(loose skin) and it’s not that my 5 year plan consists only of one phrase: don’t die. It’s not even that I actually appreciate how much shit I can shove into my mini-van.

It’s this: Back to School Night makes me feel like a fraud.

Every time I have to deal with something related to Ben’s schooling, I feel like at any moment, an unmarked Child-Napping van will pull up and a bunch of guys in polyester suits will spring out and drag me into the van. Then, the soccer moms will all emerge from their coordinated hiding places around the playground, wielding pitchforks and torches; their pony tails mussed and their jeans hiked up to their nipples.

“FRAUD,” they’ll scream at me, gnashing their perfectly whitened teeth. “You’re no MOTHER! GET AWAY FROM OUR KIDS.”

Well, Internet, I guess I might have a bit of an imagination. And maybe a complex or thirty-seven.

(shut UP)

It’s funny, I guess, in one of those not funny kinds of ways, because I have no such issues with the smaller kids, but when Ben reached school age, I just feel like I don’t belong. Most of the parents are older than me by 10-15 years and I’ve frequently been snubbed by them (and no, to answer your question, my nipples were NOT hanging out at the time. And both of my ass cheeks were firmly INSIDE my pants, thank you very much).

It’s obvious that I need to get the hell over myself immediately if not sooner, because, this shit is just ridiculous. I need to make some friends that have kids, get involved and move the hell on to be neurotic about my socks or something.

Believe it or not, the one thing I am NOT neurotic about is my socks.

There’s just something so very…ADULT-like about going in and registering your child for real school. When Ben went to the hippie Nut Ban! school, it was different, because no matter what grade he was in, it always felt like preschool. But shit, man, *I* remember being in 3rd grade pretty vividly.

THAT was the year my mother scarred me for life. And shockingly not by walking around the house naked as a jay-bird, although that would have been pretty terrifying too. No, see, she gave me BANGS that year. Bangs that would certainly have kicked YOUR bangs’ ass. They started approximately at the crown of my head, or maybe it was the back of my neck, I don’t know, but they went all the way to my eyebrows in one straight line.

I’m pretty sure she hated me at that point in her life. Because, obviously.

Long. Straight. Bangs.

When I saw that bangs were making a comeback, a part of me died a little inside. That same part died when I saw stirrup pants AND oversized shirts make their reappearance for the second time in my life, because shit, you know that splatter paint technicolor shirts are coming back too.

I always thought that the eighties was kind of the time when designers threw their hands in the air and then migrated to Siberia for a decade and a half. But, according to H & M, I am sorely mistaken. It was like my childhood vomited itself all over the store, down to the gaudy plastic earrings and plastic pearls and I half expected NKOTB to be blaring from the speakers.

But no, it was some other God-awful screetchy music and I kind of wished for half a second that I was deaf so I couldn’t hear it any longer. Then, when I realized that wishing I was DEAF was stupid, I sort of prayed for a meteor to fall on me.

THEN I realized that I was an old fart and that I’d effectively turned into my mother.

I went home immediately so that I could lay down on the couch dramatically and after I rested my hip (my arthritis was acting up) and changed my Depends, I went outside where there was all kinds of ruckus and commotion disturbing my afternoon Matlock session. I shook my fist at the damn fool kids on my lawn and wished feverishly that I had a cane with which I could beat them silly.

It was only after one of them addressed me as “Mom” that I realized that those kids on the lawn were my kids.

Shit, man. Shit.

Monday was just one of those days, you know what I mean? It had all the promise of being a good day until Ben burst into tears whenever I redirected him away from fixating–he’s normally not so tearful (the fixating is turning into the new normal, though).

Then, just as I was renewing my commitment to both Weight Watchers AND exercise, I realized that whatever had crawled up Alex’s ass and died last week had somehow made it’s viral way into my own digestive tract.

By the time that Alex came home from school (a term we loosely use around these here parts) and kicked a ball into one of those stupid reed diffuser things I really should have gotten rid of when Tate, the world’s grumpiest hedgehog bit the big one, and knocked clove oil all over the whole fucking house, I was just DONE.

Add in one precious sweet baby who won’t fucking go to sleep and the looming fear of Back To School Night (it always makes me feel like a fraud), couple that with the fact that The Daver has some ridiculous deadline at work AND garnish it with a side of nasty headaches on my end, and you have a day that I wanted to be over by 1 PM.

(also included at no charge to you, bonus World’s Longest Sentence Barf Bag! HOORAY!)

Pretty sure my Momma never said there’d be days like THIS.

It recently occurred to me that the mood swings I was having directly AFTER taking something for aforementioned headaches probably had a little somethin’-somethin’ to do with the drugs. And not just my shitty ass attitude about life in general. Because, Internet, I WIN at life. And so do YOU.

But, mood swings can be managed because I don’t have much of a choice with drugs to take, as The Good Stuff is kind of off limits when you’re parenting 3 children. Plus, I’m compulsive enough to either die of an accidental overdose or use up a month’s supply in 2.5 days if I were to get anything deliciously narcotic.

Besides, I don’t take it out on my kids or anything; no! Not when I can grind my teeth and be mad at the air for being so fucking AIR LIKE. ASSHOLE AIR PARTICLES. IT’S NOT EVEN 100% OXYGEN, WHY DON’T PEOPLE ACKNOWLEDGE THAT, HUH? I FUCKING HATE THE WORLD, AND AIR. AND SPACE. AND PEOPLE. BUT MOSTLY AIR! GAH!

By the time The Daver got home from work, I would have been in tears if that hadn’t seemed like such a futile waste of time and energy, we discovered that we had the same exact day. Well, his had (presumably) less poopy diapers, but one can never be too sure of that in finance. So, while I watched him eat a frozen pizza (I ruin dinner. And expectations), we commiserated and chatted with Amelia.

Amelia, like the other creatures in my house, has about a zillion nicknames. Alex is “Jay,” Ben is “Benner” and Amelia is…”Goo.”

Yeah, that’s right. My kid is called “Goo” at home.

But, in my defense, The Daver made THAT one up and once I realized what a fucked up nickname that was for a baby, I started to call her “Gooey-Gooey-Gumdrop.” Which, thanks to the combination of drugs, made me think of Candyland. Which reminded me that she’s six months old and that means I ONLY HAVE 6 months to plan her first birthday party! ACK!

(Why yes, my eldest turns 8 in a couple of weeks, but he’s beyond the age of wanting this sort of party. He’d much prefer bowling or a kegger or something. Or maybe the kid’s museum. And he gets like 200 birthday parties, most of which I have to plan and none of them Candyland themed. Lucky kid, huh?)

What, ME neurotic?

Once I realized that I could have a Candyland themed birthday party for Amelia, it was like the heavens opened up and shone an angelic light on the rest of my day. Which was, unfortunately for me, nearly over.

Immediately, I ran to the computer to scour Wikipedia for the name of the Princess in the game. Ben had been obsessed with the game for a year or so, and I’d remembered loving it as a child, and always longing to be the princess. But what was her name? I simply couldn’t remember.

Considering that you can get tapeworms online (no, seriously), it was no stretch to find the name for the characters from the game.

• The Gingerbread People
• Mr. Mint
• Gramma Nut
• King Kandy
• Jolly
• Plumpy
• Princess Lolly
• Queen Frostine
• Lord Licorice
• Gloppy the Molasses Monster

Dave and Amelia had gone downstairs to watch television (presumably Daver, but you never know with kids these days. Damn kids on my lawn!!) and told them of my findings.

Aunt Becky: “Dude. Mimi is going to be Princess Lolly. And ONE OF THEM WAS NAMED PLUMPER. BWAHAHAHAHA!”

Daver: “You’re so full of shit.”

Aunt Becky: “Maybe it was Plumpee or something. But STILL! HAHAHAHAHA!”

Daver: “Whatever. That’s SUCH BS.”

Aunt Becky: “I found it on Wikipedia! And I remember that they all had names! I always wanted to be the princess when I was a kid.”

Daver: “You do know that not everything they say on The Internet is true, don’t you?

Aunt Becky: “SAY IT AIN’T SO!”

Well, I pulled up the entry on Wikipedia and he STILL wouldn’t buy into it.

Daver: “Someone obviously forgot to edit this entry.”

Aunt Becky (clicks on Hasboro link and points triumphantly to the names of the characters): “HA. SEE! How’s that FOOT taste, Mister?”

What strikes me as oddest about this isn’t that he wouldn’t remember that they had names–I only did because I’d wanted desperately to be a princess–but that it was always the three of us who played Candyland until our eyes bled.

If I am IN the picture, I am not taking it. Therefore, SOMEONE else was taking the picture. But (dot, dot, dot) mayhap he was just an innocent bystander. Hmmm…

Oh noes, who is that man in dire need of a haircut? Why, that would be a very, very old picture of The Daver, now wouldn’t it? And what’s that that he’s playing? Why it almost appears to be CANDYLAND!

Fancy that.

Sorry baby, looks like you’ll be assuming the role of GLOPPY come January.

Alternately: The Most Boring Post On The Internet.

I didn’t have jack shit of my own when I was pregnant with Ben. Everything I had and everything that he had was graciously given to me by other people as I had no influx of income, only a douchy ex who wanted me to itemize everything I ever bought for Ben. I know. I KNOW. I sure knew how to pick ’em.

Ladies, don’t all clamor for his number at once, please. And stop throwing your underwear at the computer, I promise it won’t help you win his heart.

But anyway, because I was not exactly rolling in the dollar bills, I had to kind of make do with whatever people gave me for Ben. Baby Stuff is something most people are really eager to hand down to others, usually by the carful, because, well, it costs a fucking fortune and usually can be used and reused. So, I was showered with hand-me-downs, which, awesome. Unless it involved swishy-looking pastels, which, not QUITE as awesome.

By the time that Alex was born–5 years later–the hand-me-downs were long gone, handed down to someone else. I had some of the clothes from Ben, but even those had been scavenged before I got to them again. No fear, though, because this time around, I was fortunate enough to be in a decent enough financial situation to not require castoffs.

Meticulously The Daver and I began to pick up painstakingly researched gear: the car seat, the pack-n-play, the swing and the bouncy seat. And the high chair. While Dave had been content with just having Ben, I’d wanted a gaggle of kids. We settled on two–Ben and Alex–with the option to have #3. With that in mind, we tended to try and pick out the more resilient options so that we didn’t have to buy it all again.

What we hadn’t really taken into account is who the fetus flipping about in my body cavity was: Mr. Destructo. I should have known, as he never stopped wriggling and flipping, nestling his tiny toes into my liver using and my internal organs to box. Being pregnant with Alex was a violent, violent act.

As a child, Alex just beats on things. He’s not destructive for the sake of destroying things, thankfully, but I worry one day that a well placed kick to a particular support beam will send my house into rubble. It wouldn’t have been on purpose, likely it would have been something that just sort of happened. Alex is Chris Farley in miniature form, frequently flinging his body onto the ground (or into a wall or something) just to make you laugh.

Ben is distractible, Alex is destructible.

The first of our carefully executed choices to be broken was the swing, which was Alex’s bed for the first 6 months of his life. It just…stopped working one day. Next to go was the bouncy seat, which somehow lost an entire screw somewhere along the lines from his constant movement. His crib is missing a couple of screws too, although they’ve been replaced, because he’s somehow managed to wriggle them loose as he flings himself at the mattress from a standing position.

And his high chair? ALSO missing some screws.

So. Yeah. Plan. B.

It was obvious Amelia wasn’t going to inherit anything from Alex save for the saucer toy.

Also obvious was my desire not to acknowledge that she’s growing up. Because while I simply couldn’t WAIT to stick spoonfuls of cereal and fruits into the screaming and indignant mouths of my boys, I’ve only half-heartedly tried Amelia on the cereals and fruit. She’s suitably underwhelmed with them all and I haven’t pushed it. I mean, she’s only a BABY after all, right Internet?

Except no, she’s 6 months old and ready, but getting her a high chair was not even a wee blip on my radar. She’s my last baby and I’m just not ready for her to grow up. It always annoyed me when people would tell me to savor it; it goes so fast, because dude, OBVIOUSLY.

But it does. It goes so, so fast.

(I did not have a digital camera back then and I do not have a scanner now, so I cannot add Ben at this age. Instead, I will show you a picture that will carefully show you what Ben thought about rice cereal)

I was cruelly serving Ben PIZZA.

Captain Destructo, himself.

Dude. Who knew Heaven was shaped like a Wagon Wheel?

The Daver, sits alone on the couch fiddling around with his work Blackberry ring tones, stops on Für Elise.

The Daver, “This is your ring tone, baby. When you call, this is what plays.”

Aunt Becky, mulling it over while listening to the pretty tune, several seconds pass.

“Really? Seriously?”

The Daver, “Yeah.”

Aunt Becky, “Hm. I would have thought the Darth Vader Death March song thingie would have been more appropriate.”

The Daver, “Heh. That one doesn’t come standard.”

As someone who very recently professed that she not only wants to make babies with likes hardware stores and wants desperately to join a roller derby, but also plans to learn how to properly box (the sport, Uncle Pervies, the SPORT), you may find the following statement to be at odds with who you think that I may be.

I’m heavily into gardening. (and not just bush-wacking. Which, dudes, have you SEEN that razor commercial where the unruly bushes turn into perfectly landscaped pseudo-crotches? There’s the classic triangle, the landing strip, and uh, I forgot the third one, but I don’t think it’s a Brazilian but maybe it should be. It’s almost obscene, yo.)

*GASP*

I know, I know, it’s about the least hardcore thing to profess a love for, but I figured since it’s Saturday and the only people bored enough to peruse my blog are a number of spam bots looking for “mommy punish my ass for i have been bad girl” (my search terms would likely turn your hair grey. They make me want to shower in a bucket of bleach), most of my readers will never see this statement. And if this turns the creepy spam bots away from me, well, the world will be a brighter place for us all.

Nor, I hope, will they see the longest run-on-sentence in history (see above).

I don’t grow, of course, vegetables, herbs or anything else that might serve much of a purpose. Partially because no one (besides ickle Aunt Becky) in Casa de la Sausage would dare TOUCH a vegetable, and partially because the rabbits eat the shit out of those fuckers. Also, I tend to use pretty heavy fertilizer on my roses, and I can’t grow stuff that you eat in that flower bed.

My post-miscarriage therapy for #2 was three rose bushes, all of which were sorely neglected when my last crotch parasite came on board last year, but ended up faring just fine. In fact, one of my roses deserves a prize or something for being just absurdly awesome. Also, it’s radioactive, which adds, I’m sure, to it’s awesome factor. Because radioactivity = RAD.

It’s a lucky break, I suppose, for The Daver that I enjoy getting down and dirty in the garden, as he has about as much interest in going outside as he does to get a hot coffee enema. He’s pasty, Internet, which is a kind, kind way of saying that he sort of combusts when in direct sunlight, and, as a geek, he’s pretty much allergic to anything that does not operate Linux.

I’ve been sort of on hiatus from the garden lately because the garden in August in the Midwest = wasps and wasps + Aunt Becky = anaphylaxis. I do have an epi-pen, well, I have two, but I’m under strict orders to call 911 after I administer the first dose. Apparently, many people need two doses. And you know what? I don’t really have the time, energy, or babysitters enough to manage an ambulance ride to the ER these days.

And the recovery? HA. I only wish I had the chance to think about laying around on a couch while my children sweetly served me grapes, while fanning me with large ficus branches. Because yeah, if I ACTUALLY laid down on the couch? Alex would try peeling out my eyeballs while Amelia teethed on my nose. Ben, though, I’m sure would be happy to feed me grapes in exchange for some Wii time because bribery is TOTALLY the way to go.

So, banished from my garden–I will be braving it tonight, Internet, which I am sure is very, very thrilling news, and you will be biting your nails on the edge of your seat just waiting for me to return to tell you of the weeding I did–I turned to the one thing I could safely do indoors: grow orchids.

(shut UP)

Try as I might, there’s just no cool way to talk about how fucking wicked orchids are. Because nothing about the phrase ‘I repotted my orchid’ gives me anything other than Epic Dork Points. It’s almost as Full of The Dork as ‘I HAVE A GLANDULAR PROBLEM.’

Now if you’ll excuse me kindly, Internet, I’m off to do dorky things like….reprogram my Linux box* or um, play World of Warcraft* or uh….[insert dorky thing to do here*].

Please tell me that I’m not the only one with a dorky hobby. Please tell me that the lot of you aren’t sitting somewhere Worldly or Continental drinking fantastically chic drinks with very yuppie garnishes and being all cool and fanciful and shit while I muck around in the, well, MUCK, I guess you could really call it.

Please?

*I totally don’t do any of these things because I am NOT a dork. No matter what my orchids say. Or my roses. Or even my peonies, those wily bastards.

I know that I am apt to lose some readers when I announce this but I feel in the name of pure disclosure on my end, I should probably ‘fess up. *deep breath* Here goes:

While I mocked the #nikonhatesbabies thing on twitter with my own variation #auntbeckyhatesbabies, I don’t actually hate babies. (if you are blissfully unaware of what I speak, I’ll give you the rundown in a comment. It’s too stupid to put in a real post).

But wait, there’s more!

My given name is NOT Aunt Becky: it’s Rebecca, and I’m not really an aunt. Well, technically I am, but only to The Internet, which is probably good for my charge card, because while I do adore The Internet, I do not have urges to buy It frilly hats.

And I should warn you that if you try to call me “Rebecca,” I will probably freeze and give you saucer eyes, because the only person who has ever called me that was my mother. And only when I maybe stuck the fetal pig I was dissecting in college (FOR CLASS, YOU PERVERTS) into the Meat Keeper of our refrigerator for safe keeping.

Confession #3:

I’m not much of a drinker. Sure, I’m known to imbibe now and again, and I’m sure that I’ll lose my Hardcore Audience when I admit that I’m shamefully responsible about it. Take a breath, Internet, while I wrap my hammy arms around you. I know, I know, I’m sorry I lied to you for all these years.

Someone who calls themselves Aunt Becky and writes a blog called Mommy Wants Vodka has deceived you for years. I’m sorry.

*bursts into song*

“Forgiveneeeessss, forgiveness, EVEN if, EVEN if…”

Well, you know how that song goes. And if you don’t, be grateful. Be very, very grateful.

While my confessions are true, being tongue-in-cheek is more fun, so on I will go being Aunt Decepticon, only confessing to those bored enough to read the about me or things you never needed to know page on my sidebar.

I pigeonholed myself there and I’m not sorry, why should I be?

This brings me to the point of my post in a totally awkward segue that should go on record as being The Worse Segue Ever.

When I first started Mommy Wants Vodka, I was very anxious to separate myself from the Mommy Bloggers out there. I didn’t want to define myself entirely by my children, my husband, my marital status, my hair color, my shoe size, my IQ, ability to blow spit bubbles, my preference to drive manual transmission sports cars, my dislike of mini-vans and high top shoes, the type of crust I prefer for my pizza or my totally awkward segues.

They’re all pieces of who I am, but none of those can possibly describe precisely who I am in and of themselves. So, I was NOT going to be A Mommy Blogger, dammit! I was going to be MYSELF! I am a mother, yes, and I blog yes, but why limit myself?

According to some hippie I once knew, when you define something, you LIMIT it. I’m pretty certain he was trying to justify sticking his penis into someone other than his devoted girlfriend, and I’m pretty sure his logic sucked, but it’s always something I’ve sort of said in jest.

Because why should anyone care if they’ve been pigeonholed into Mommy Blogger Status? Why is that something so dirty now?

That’s the New Thing, I guess, is raging against this stereotype, and while I can see not caring to be associated with the Palmolive Ad Blogs or the Let Me Tell You How My Kids Rule Blogs, or the ever popular This Is Obviously A PR Statement Blog Sponsored By (insert big corporate sponsor here), I don’t see why it fucking matters anymore.

For as long as I write here, on Mommy Wants Vodka, I will get angrily written articles that refer people here to shrilly scold me for getting stinking drunk while watching my children and maybe feeding the baby a bottle of whiskey to shut her up. Even though I don’t and I haven’t (don’t tempt me), I’ll never escape that.

And I’ll never escape being called a Mommy Blogger.

So I’m going to go out on a limb here and say so.fucking.what?

Opinions are like assholes (presumably because everybody’s got one) and if someone wants to define me by the former occupants of my uterus? My blessed crotch parasites? Go ahead.

What I write and who I am stands on it’s own.

If it’s easier for some nameless PR firm or group of Anti-Mommy Bloggers to allow this to define those of us with children so.fucking.what? It’s no dirtier a term than “Breeder” or “Wife” and if it conjures up an image of someone who you think I should be, well, let me show you who I really am. Maybe our perceptions will align, maybe they won’t, maybe 50 million African Pygmy Hedgehogs don’t give a shit.

No stereotype is 100% accurate, no one fits any mold completely and anyone who is incensed by people trying to lump them into a category should really take a look at why it matters to them. People get me wrong ALL THE TIME and I don’t give a flying shit about it. Why does it matter here?

Are all frat boys beer guzzling moron assbags? Does everyone born between the years 1964-1974 feel apathetic and wear flannel while drinking coffee in a grungy coffee house? Do all teenagers suck to be around? For the love of GOD, are all red velvet cakes moist?

The answer, of course, to all the above questions is a resounding “no.”

Just like not all mommy-bloggers are alike. How could we be? We’re all different people, not to get all special-raindrop on your asses or anything, but it’s true.

And why did I, myself, once care if I was called one? I was trying to define myself OUTSIDE of my children: I am a suburban mother who stays at home with her kids who swears, has tattoos, occasionally drinks, and doesn’t poo rainbows or sunshine. I was trying to assert to the world that hey, y’all, I am more than the sum of my parts. And now? 2 years later? I know this without having to cram that down your throat.

What I write and who I am can stand on it’s own. And if you want to judge me for who you think I am? Go for it.

Just don’t try accuse me of being A Blonde. Because I tried it once and well, there’s a reason we dark-skinned girls shouldn’t try to go platinum. That reason? The color orange.

———–

What do you think, Internet? Not about brunettes trying to be blonde, of course, but about being pigeonholed. Is it really something to be all that upset over or should we just try and remember that not everything is Very Serious, Indeed?

For some reason when I was pregnant with Alex, I somehow got it into my head that all babies were alike. I’ll allow you to revel in my stupidity for a moment, because even for me, this is quite a doozy. Go ahead, roll your eyes. I do.

I think Dr. Spock probably said that most PREGNANCIES were alike, you know, if you puked your guts out from the moment the sperm hit the ova, to the moment the baby crowned, it was likely that you repeated that with Baby #2. I can’t honestly say that my pregnancies were all that alike, besides my propensity to become brilliantly fat with each baby, no matter if I was hugging the bowl or stuffing my face.

But Alex was born and BAM! He was IMMEDIATELY nothing like his brother. He looked like a small yellow old man/garden gnome whereas Ben had looked shockingly like Chairman Mao. Then he acted nothing like his brother, further solidifying how dumb that thought train had been.

Where Ben preferred the company of his mobile to human interaction, I literally could not put Alex down without evoking a tantrum. He was born with separation anxiety so fierce that I nearly lost my marbles. No, I mean, like Crazy Town USA type marble loss (not ACTUAL marbles, because with a toddler, why on earth would I have marbles around?).

Language is one of those pesky ways in which Alex was nothing like his brother. Where Alex sat in his bouncy seat and babbled different sounds and managed a first word by age one, “kitty,*” Ben barely spoke until he was three. And then, only with the aid of speech and occupational therapy.

Now, of course, he never STOPS talking, and Alex is right along side of him, yelling over each other to hear and be heard. The tone and timbre of their voices are identical (Finally! Something that IS the same) and if I can’t hear who is doing the speaking, I cannot tell them apart.

When you get closer, of course, one of them speaks coherently and the other speaks and while some words may emerge, it’s more like listening to a long monologue done by someone in another language. Either Toddler or Devil, depending on his mood. Alex is my clone, be it good or bad, he’s very similar to me, although he’s infinitesimally more charming than I could ever be.

As proof of his infinite charm-a-bility I offer you this:

Whenever Alex has something with ketchup plopped neatly onto his tray for ultimate dipping pleasure, he partakes of the sweet red goo. Rather than use a pointless utensil, he would much prefer to place one of his fingers into the mound, coat the tip of his finger in it and then offer it to whomever it is that is sitting nearest to him.

Which is often me.

He offers it to me as “ice cream.” As in “Want some ice cream, Mommy?” Although with less intelligible words. And obviously, with less ice cream. Alex tears through the entire mound that way, finger full by disgusting finger full, each time gently promising ice cream when he will only deliver ketchup.

Can we get him a shirt that says, “Future Used Car Salesman?”

Anyway. Like I alluded to, you can understand a fraction of what Alex is saying up and to a point, always with context, and it’s frustrating for us all as he is obviously really saying SOMETHING. What it was, nobody really knew, except, of course, for Alex.

Earlier in the week, though, I woke up, grumbled to myself about having to get up and shuffled down the stairs to come upon my Alex, who ran full steam into my legs, demanding to be picked up.

“Hi Mommy,” he screamed joyfully. “How’s it going?”

“I’m fine, Alex,” I replied, confused. “How are you?”

“I’m watching TV with Ben,” he hollered (Alex was born without an inside voice. This is, apparently, genetic). “Come sit with us.”

It was like I’d somehow gone to Turkey, gotten off the plane knowing all the Turkish I know (answer: none), and found that I could understand the cabbie perfectly. I don’t know if it was me or Alex or both, but it was like the Intelligible Switch was flipped into the ON position.

And now, the talking back begins. The Terrible and Terrific Two’s. I couldn’t be happier**.

“Might I interest you in a genuine pair of WOODEN NICKELS? I only have one pair left and they’re going fast! Hurry and take advantage of this once-in-a-lifetime offer!”

*sounded like “titty.”

**I could, but it would involve a pit of black beans and wrestling female gladiators. And oodles of illegal AND immoral narcotics.

One of the most frequently asked questions I get, besides “how does The Daver put up with you?” (answer: he’s not home much) and “do you want to increase the size of your manhood?” (answer: yes x 1000! Why even ask?) is this: how do you handle blogging with your real name?

It’s a good, fair question, and that’s the only reason I’ll answer it because I believe that the people who say shit like “there are no stupid questions” have horse shit where their brains should have been.

Back in Aught Four, when every single person on the planet didn’t have a URL, twitter handle, and a Facebook account, and children fucking RESPECTED their elders, dammit, Dave got me into blogging. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, it’s probably so that I stopped talking the paint off the walls in our rental apartment, but he’ll tell you it’s because I’m a good storyteller. I think the answer probably falls somewhere between this, but I don’t know, you be the judge.

And when I started, I was “Ren” and my co-blogger was “Stimpy” but we frequently used our real names in part because the only people who read it were people that knew us in real life. And I thought that all the cloak and daggerness of the whole anonymous thing was kind of silly. I couldn’t imagine that anyone would want to stalk either of us young 20-something girls (Jesus, Pashmina, really? Has it been so long?) and I’m not clever enough to remember a pseudonym.

We dumped the blog and I moved to my new digs here and I saw no reason to bother operating under an assumed name. The only name I could conceive of was “Rachel” and not because I have any sort of feeling good or bad about it, but because if your name is “Rebecca,” people will frequently call you “Rachel.” I don’t know if it’s vice versa, but I’d be willing to bet yes.

I never made any real effort to hide my full name and who I am here. even though if you google my maiden name, you will find a very fancy lady (who is not me) dominates it, and my married name? I alone have it, so I don’t have the cloak of anonymity on my side and I have to own each of the words I put out there. Besides, there’s no REAL anonymity available, shockingly, just a false sense of security.

I like blogging in the open, most of the time. It keeps me honest, it makes me genuinely think before I hit the keys and say something nasty or foul and it quells my inner urge to gossip like a little bitch. I’d rather not wake up one morning to a string of nasty-grams in my inbox or my voicemail (ha! Like I check my voicemail or something.) because someone found out that I’d told The Internet that they have a fetish for sticking their fingers up puckered cat poo holes.

You’d be shocked to know that I cannot tell a lie to save myself and I think that the stress of simply having something up there that was Full of Mean would eat me up inside. I’m guilty until proven innocent on my best days, and on my worst, well, I’ve pretty much ruined the world AND killed Kenny. It’s easiest for everyone I know to have access to my blog, the good, the bad and the ugly.

But that doesn’t mean I always like it.

There have been times–MANY times–where I have wanted nothing more than to sit down here at my computer and peck out a rant-like post about Nat, Ben’s “father,” or my strained relationship with my mother and how it proves that I do, in fact have feelings. I’ve wanted nothing more than to lay it out on the line when Daver and I have a brawl and I just want The Internet to cheer me on and tell me, “You fucking rule and he fucking sucks.”

But most of the time, I don’t.

Not to say that I don’t write ’em, edit them mercilessly and then decide that it’s probably better to keep that to myself, because I have and I probably always will. Blogging is good therapy and it’s a hell of a lot cheaper. Now and again I might publish one, let you guys tell me what you think before I click the “MAKE PRIVATE” button. I’d publish them on the anonymous sites if I felt I needed to, but I probably never will because you know what? I don’t want THEIR readers, I want MINE and I can’t exactly direct my blog there. Kinda might defeat the purpose a wee bit, eh?

I guess it all boils down to this: “Don’t put anything on the Internet that you wouldn’t wear on a shirt.”

(You probably can’t believe it that I would own just about everything I’ve said here, but if you met me, maybe you would. I censor myself too, don’t you worry, because not everything that happens needs to be recorded for posterity.)

I haven’t decided if my approach is best, because, let’s face it, anyone who Knows Best and will tell you so is probably so full of hot air and self-righteousness that you’d not care whatever it was that they DID tell you was right. There are drawbacks to being out there like I am, even if my audience is composed primarily of Spam Bots offering me deeply discounted V!agra.

They just don’t outweigh the benefits.

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What about you, dear sweet Internet? Grab a mug of vodka, pull up a chair and tell Your Aunt Becky what you think. Why do you blog the way you do? Or if you don’t blog (GASP!!!), which would you choose?

(boring housekeeping crap is below the extra-awesome entry. Because on a scale of 1 to 10, I am super great)

I’m thinking I could maybe sue my parents or something maybe, for not being more supportive and helpful when I was Trying To Decide What I Should Do With My Life. Whenever I told them what I was going to be when I grew up, they absentmindedly gave me the parental equivalent of, “Yes, Dear,” without so much as looking up from their New Yorker or Atlantic.

If they batted an eyelash when I swore up and down, at age 8, that I was going to be a world class ballerina (while I routinely walked into walls because Grace is absolutely NOT my middle name), I’d happily eat my own tongue, slathered in mayo (!!!). I got the same reaction as if I swore I was going to become a serial killer who began her killing spree by murdering her parents or swearing that I was going to be the next Cover Girl model.

I couldn’t raise a pulse in either of them no matter what I tried. They toed the line between being “free-to-be-you-and-me” and comatose.

In the 5th Grade, I remember sitting around in a circle at the end-of-year picnic and one by one we were supposed to say aloud what we were going to grow up to be*. Always the overachiever with the answer normally on the tip of my tongue, I was baffled beyond belief. So I did the only thing I could think of: I copied other people. When it got to be my turn, I took the previous two answers and nearly shouted them, “I’m-gonna-be-an-actress-and-a-secretary!”

Never mind I’d never shown the slightest aptitude or desire to act–unless it got me out of making my bed–nor did I have the slightest idea what a secretary did. My own mother, at the front and center of the feminist movement, who had her degree in chemistry, would have shuddered if she heard me.

But hey, it was a reaction.

As I got older, I continued my quest to determine what the hell I wanted to become. My high school is sort of like a small college, so there were any number of courses and tracks you could take to go wherever you wanted. Figuring I’d become a doctor like everyone else in my family, a noble profession, I didn’t give much of a thought as to what that really meant.

And then I had Ben, freshly 21 and a single mother. Medical school was out, nursing school was in. So I became a nurse. In order to make it through a program that I hated so much that I spent the first day of nursing school sobbing (always with the dramatics!) on the way back to the train, I told myself that I would Do Something Else when Ben was older.

Then I met The Daver, retired from nursing, and waited.

I’d juggled and jiggled the small kid, the spouse, and school before and it wasn’t fun, so I figured that once I closed the doors to my uterus, and my youngest was old enough (old enough is to be determined), I would start to do all of the things I’d been unable to do.

In essence, I’m getting very close to being able to do the things that I want to do again and I can taste the freedom and it is flipping sweet. I don’t have a huge long list of things, nor do I plan to have some sort of crazy timeline, because that sort of thing is setting yourself up for failure, and being a parent is like living a lesson in failure every single day.

Opera singing is out, however, because desire isn’t everything, and you kind of do have to have a talent for something like that because we can’t all be astronauts or opera singers.

But next week, I’m going back to the gym (imagine that sung to “Going Back To Cali”) to begin training for, wait for it, wait for it, wait for it…

Roller Derby. Stop laughing. I have a perfect Roller Derby name. “Becky Sharks.” And how rad would I be? Stop laughing or I will punch you. Then, I’m going to tackle boxing. No, not kick boxing or some boxing aerobics class, but real mouthguard in mouth, maybe lose your teeth, and probably get loads of broken bones. Teeth are overrated, right?

And while those of you who know well my propensity to be injured, I figure if I can break a toe making a sandwich, why not at least do something cool while dislocating bones and getting rad scars? Scars, I’m sorry, but scars are cool.

I also have less dangerous ideas, like getting better at using my digital SLR. I don’t have any desire to do anything besides take better pictures of my family, but I think it’s really about that time to start figuring out what all those numbers and buttons and settings do. Because otherwise, why didn’t I just get a point-n-shoot?

(rhetorical)(alternately, because I am a moron)(but I like rhetorical better)

Eventually, I’ll go back to school to pursue my degree in virology and then plead to the CDC to hire me, even if it means I have to move away from the Midwest to do it. When I used to tell people this as I was slogging through nursing school, they’d laugh at me. And honestly, it WAS unkind. No one could believe that I’d want to go back to school, but I’m pretty sure that they didn’t realize mocking my dream was only going to make me THAT much more determined.

If I can get into any program, that is. If I can’t, feel free to mock away.

More than anything else, I’m just really looking forward to doing something besides wiping butts, using my body as a gigantic teething ring, and reclaiming my individuality. Not to say that having my kidlets isn’t part of who I am, it’s just not all that I am. It can’t be. Otherwise, I’d end up a useless pile of goo the first time all three of my kids are in school at the same time, and not celebrating by drinking a dirty martini for breakfast.

Because it’s always vodka-o-clock somewhere, right?

What do YOU want to be when you grow up?

*Why do adults always think to ask kids what they want to be when they grow up? What a dumb question to ask a freaking 8 year old.

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It’s HOUSEKEEPING TIME, Kids! Yaaay!

The video that I put on Facebook of my daughter–the one where I told you we could be BFF, an offer that still stands–was edited using iMovie. I have a Mac (read: love, love, LOVE) and iMovie was ridiculously easy to use. Especially since I had The Daver do it.

I’m thinking that the best way to handle the business cards contest is this: YOU, oh brilliant creative soul that you are, write a blog post about it. Post your pictures on your own blog, write your captions, tell your story, it’s cool. I’m on the edge of my proverbial seat here, people.

Then EMAIL me the link (aunt.becky.sucks@gmail.com) and I will put it up on the post I will write after the emails come in. Then you can urge YOUR people to come check out the competition and my blog won’t take 38 hours to load from all of the pictures.

IF, by chance, you do not have a blog, or have a blog that you want traffic to, send me the blurbs and pictures or whatever you do, and I’ll put them in the post here. *I’ll* be your blog, Internet. Deadline for entries is September 8, which will also be the day that voting begins. Let’s vote for a week, deadline September 15 at 11:59 PM, and winner–and several runners up, yo–announced the next day!

So, pimp yourself out, and don’t feel bad about it.

Let me know if you haven’t gotten the cards by the end of the week and you got your address to me last week because it’s likely I misspelled something or maybe missed an important number.

xoxo,

Aunt Becky

We were released from the ER after my diagnosis of pneumonia on the day after I was forever to become Mrs. David Harks*, and by the time we trundled off to the pharmacy and carried our wedding gifts up the 47 flights of stairs to our condo, it was well past dinner time. The limo was coming at the ass crack of 3:30 AM to take us to the airport so that we could properly celebrate our nuptials by drinking gallons of rum and laying around in our undies.

Which, come to think of it, was pretty much every Friday night for us.

Neither of us had slept well in days thanks to hangovers (The Daver), coughing so violently that I may have thrown up (me), and dealing with a sick child (both of us), so we threw some stuff into our bag…

(Pointless Rambling! Which was still reeking of cat pee, but it was Sunday night and neither of us was smart enough to go to Target and replace the damn suitcase, but this is neither here nor there)

…and went to bed. 3:30 is just a ridiculously ridiculous time to be awake.

Sure enough the alarm went off what felt like just after we’d fallen peacefully asleep and we blearily got our stuff together and hauled our jangly bodies down the stairs to wait for our limo. One limo ride later, we were at O’Hare, tickets and passports in hand and mustered up some glee as we headed towards the Delta counter. We were flying internationally to St. Lucia on a 6AM flight, and made sure to follow The Rules like good sheepies and get to the airport at 4AM.

Information that might have been useful beforehand:

Knowing that Airport Staffers? DO NOT WORK AT 4 AM. They’re sensibly ensconced in their happy Airport Staffers Bed, visions of murdering ignorant passengers dancing in their heads.

(notice I am not mocking them for this)

We did notice a gaggle of TSA staff sitting behind the desks, all drinking coffee and gossiping, I’m certain, about the terrorists they apprehended mere minutes before plunking their asses down together. I suppose that’s the time of day with which The Reign of Terror could feasibly sneak through security undetected.

Thankfully for The Friendly Skies that day, The Daver and I are not terrorists.

And after awhile, other people began to trickle in line behind us, all of us grumbling at what a stupid fucking idea it is to tell people to get to the airport hours before a flight only to stand in line, waiting for the staff to wake up. Apparently, none of them got that memo either, which made me feel a little less like the moron I am.

I admit, I felt pretty self-important being the first in line, like that was some kind of honor or something, which makes no sense considering it only illustrated what a dumb-ass I am. But we checked our bag eventually, as I glared, red-eyed and sick at the clerk who was still rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. It was unfair of me, I know, but I never claimed to be fair, smart or awesome.

Okay, I DID claim to be awesome once or twice. But that was a lie.

Not clever enough to pack a spoon, I began to chug the bottle of codeine-in-aded cough syrup as soon as our delicate butts grazed the seats of the airplane for the first leg of our bipedal flight (please tell me you get that.).

(bipedal = two legs = we had two flights? That was AWESOME! *high fives the air*)

I rested my head on The Daver’s bony shoulder and began to nod off, the codeine kicking blissfully in. I floated somewhere between awake and asleep for quite awhile until I realized that….we weren’t moving. The passengers had boarded, the gates locked, and we.were.sitting. The climate in the cabin abruptly changed as people began to chatter and twitter and grumble.

Something.was.wrong.

After about 45 minutes, the captain came on the speaker to tell us that the plane had engine problem.

Fuck.

Fuck.

Fuck.

That meant our connecting flight?

Not gonna happen.

There was one flight that would get us to a DIFFERENT connecting flight, the flight attendant told us, but it had maybe 4 open seats.

Hell hath no fury like a woman in the mood to fucking drink rum in her fucking underwear, so I pushed and pulled and fought my way through the rest of the passengers, grabbed Daver’s hand and we HAULED ASS through the terminal and back to, you guessed it, The Everloving DELTA counter again.

I was prepared to bribe, borrow, guilt, and even turn on the waterworks to get us on that flight. I’d suffered for many miserable months planning a wedding that I didn’t want, comforting myself the entire time that I would at least get a fucking vacation out of it, and I was going to fucking get that vacation, dammit.

By the grace of God, we got tickets onto that flight. *PHEW* Back through security we went, this time subjected to the rigorous pat down/partial strip search. Poor The Daver had been used to flying under the radar until he began traveling with his new wife: A TSA Magnet since 1980.

Deemed safe for travel, we pulled up our pants, tried to put our dignity back on our shoulders and continued down the terminal. Several hours until our next flight took off, we decided to start getting up with the get down and we found a bar. At 9 AM on a Monday in the airport.

We went to the bar.

And we got WASTED with a capitol WASTED. Screwdrivers, something I normally cannot stand, upon screwdrivers were tossed back as we laughed, HAHAHA, so funny! We’d been at the airport for 6 hours now and gotten nowhere! HAHAHA. At least, I laughed, the fucking wedding was over!

Finally it was time to get on the plane and we sloppily made our way to the gate, slurring our speech and staggering into each other. There comes a point during any clusterfuck that you have to look at the person next to you and quote The Dead, “Nothing left to do but smile, smile, smile.”

And it’s true. What else could we do?

Anyway, our happy wasted asses boarded the plane, trying to pretend that we were dead sober and no, ma’am, not the SLIGHTEST bit tipsy! Sober as a Judge! Sober as THE POPE! Sober as KEITH RICHARDS, more like it.

Plane #2 didn’t serve food, and landed in Puerto Rico many hours later, where we only had a short layover until Plane #3 took us to The Island. Heaven. Paradise. I could just picture myself swimming in the ocean! I could feel the hot sand beneath my feet and hear the lapping of the waves. The rum was calling me, I could hear it, and I was more than willing to answer it with a warbled “I loove you.”

By the time we sat down on Plane #3, a veritable tin can of a plane–incidentally, the ones I always see on the news in conjunction with the phrase “crashed into the ocean”–we were both sober and beginning to feel the effects of the vodka. Nothing worse than STILL BEING AWAKE when your hangover kicks in, eh?

The plane ride was as uneventful as being hurled through space in a Pepsi Can is able to be. The day that had now yawned into 18 hours. We finally landed in our destination at roughly 8 or 9 PM, the humidity curling my hair slightly and making us both sweat under our it’s-September-in-Chicago outfits of jeans, sneakers and hoodies. But we were there and we would soon be able to change into proper clothes, and we high-fived each other. We’d MADE it.

Sure, our 5 day vacation was now only 4 days, but, well, 50 million wild condors don’t give a shit, right?

The island has two airports and we’d flown into the smaller of the two, barely a shack, no food, no food courts, no nothing. ESPECIALLY no luggage belonging to the happy couple. Turns out that our luggage (to no one’s surprise) was lost in a nebulous sea of nothingness. It hadn’t followed us onto our second plane. Where it was, nobody could say. Gone baby, gone.

Also absent? Transportation that the hotel was supposed to provide. Stranded on the Island, no luggage, blood sugar plummeting rapidly, I promptly lost it.

Just like at the old Delta counter, there was no one currently working to lose my crap on, so I just sort of raged indignantly at a palm tree. Unsurprising to no one, it didn’t give a shit either.

Finally, after about a half an hour or so, the resort van picked us up and we wound through the hilly island in the back of what I lovingly call “Child-Napping Vans” due to their lack of windows and huge back cabin. At this point, I’m not sure how much I would have cared about being kidnapped anyway, but it turned out that fortune smiled upon us: the driver merely wanted to escort us back to the hotel.

Winding through the island, bumping this way and that, while it would never normally bother me, netted my new husband the lucky honor of watching his brand-new bride dry heave into her backpack. Considering he’d already escorted me to get a colonoscopy the year before, this was probably marginally better.

Although not by much.

The hotel concierge was unbelievably kind and offered us some sorts of promotional alcohol shirts to wear–we could buy some new duds at the gift shop in the morning–as we checked in while I was openly weeping. Because, you know, crying totally helps, right?

The following morning, after we laid about in hotel bathrobes in our mini-hut, we purchased some ill-fitting clothing from the gift shop. Not only was the selection awful, but nothing fit well.

It didn’t matter. It’s all what you make of it. And we? Had a blast. Pneumonia, luggage lost for 2 days, airplane trouble. Didn’t matter. At least the fucking wedding was over, right?

*kind of want to punch myself for calling myself this.

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Photographic evidence of my ill-fitting (likely) zillion dollar sundress:

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All right, Internet, pull up a chair, pour yourself a cup of coffee, make fun of the longest blog post ever (there was NO good place to break it up that would make sense whatsoever) and tell me about YOUR vacation nightmares. Or other superficial disasters.