The Horrifying Gods of Teething are making damn sure I regret never, ever being bitten on the nipple while nursing, making sure I regret being slightly pleased by Alex’s non-Jack-o-Lantern-type smile for the first 12 months of his life. I’m getting paid back for every time I ever sneered at a bottle of Ambesol, and friends, let me tell you this: payback is a BITCH.

Earlier this week, I was feeling pretty rung out, dragged through the muck, and buried by my cat in a pile of soiled kitty-litter. I tried to pinpoint why, and finally decided that my thyroid must be out of whack (neglecting to remember that well, actually Becky, my thyroid is GREAT during gestation. It begins to suck when I come down with a nifty little ditty I like to call “Post Partum Thyroiditis.” And yes, my people, it is as sexy as it sounds. I HAVE A GLANDULAR PROBLEM, PEOPLE).

I trundled off to my endocrinologist (can I just tell you how decrepit I feel admitting that I have an endocrinologist? I HAVE A GLANDULAR PROBLEM, PEOPLE!), certain that my TSH would be off the charts, insane, and I would require a heaping double helping of my already ridiculously high dose. My trusty nurse friend called me to report that actually, Becky, my thyroid was behaving magnificently.

It was then that I turned my previously blind eye to the toddler standing before me, ripping apart the cords from my laptop, pulling each and everything I’d ever put in my kitchen out of the cabinets, while simultaneously laying on the ground, screaming for “kitty” (his term for wanting to watch YouTube videos about, you guessed it, cats) while banging his ample noggin against the Pergo.

I think I might be suffering from a mutant form of Asshole Toddler-itis.

While he’s never really been a model sleeper (I will not go into it here, for fear that other pregnant women may read this and hyperventilate), only ceasing to get up every 1-3 hours at the ripe old age of 10+ months, and his napping schedule would have you convinced that I was addicted to crack during my pregnancy, he used to go down for his pathetic naps pretty easily.

Blankie, bottle, bed, DONE.

Now, I know better than to think that The Way Things Are Today is the same as The Way Things Will Be Tomorrow; I’ve had kids and am not terrifically naive, but I was not really expecting that he would suddenly have to scream himself to sleep as though he was being poked by the fire of a thousand burning suns. And yet, my eardrums tell another tale.

It appears that he’s taken his Willful Level from the top of the charts to 11, leaving his 20 week pregnant mother and his harried father scratching our heads. What do we do now? Can I drop him off at the Toddler Shop and take a quieter loaner model home for several weeks, while Alex’s attitude is readjusted? Can I build him a wee house outside to live in where he cannot destroy anything else I own (I’d bring him out meals and change his diaper–don’t worry)?

And more importantly, will this ever end?

I’ve been preparing for The Sex Talk with my kids since, oh I don’t know, about week one of Ben’s life or so. It’s always been expected that with my background in nursing and my dabbling into virology/bacteriology the task of embarrassing the bejesus out of our children When The Time Comes. I have a powerpoint planned, honestly, with plenty of disgusting images of genital warts, gonorrhea, chlamydia (o! the search terms that will come).

If they’re gonna hump anyway, I might as well make them DAMN aware of the risks.

Anywhoo, when I got pregnant with Alex, I realized that pulling out a picture of a wart covered weenis was probably overkill, considering he didn’t even know that he himself had testicles. It didn’t matter, at age 5, he wanted to know where babies come from.

Fair question, considering he knew he’d be a big brother soon enough.

The brilliance and perhaps the best part of having my kid be on the autistic spectrum when it comes to these sorts of things is his detachedness (it’s also what makes me want to pull my hair out when I want a hug from him). It makes the telling of these sorts of things a snap, because he has very little emotional response. He accepts things at face value and comes back later on to ask any questions he’s thought of.

Ben is such a literal person, that we decided that the best manner to explain where babies come from is a book. This book.

Diligently we read this with him each and every night, carefully explaining such words as “anus,” “labia,” and “ovary,” and he soaked it up like a wee sponge. The only thing that ever seemed to vex him was how the baby got from the inside to the outside. No answer seemed to assuage his curiosity, and eventually he decided that the most likely exit point–despite my assurances that the baby would come out of my vagina–was through a cut in my belly button.

Well, now that THIS was taken care of, he set about really LEARNING about the baby makin’ crap. And the best way for Ben to learn anything is through singing, so the songs that he would come up with had a decidedly hilarious subject matter.

This one was my favorite, sung in no particular tune:

“There was an egg, sitting in the fallopian tube and a sperm came along and BAM! there was me!”

Thankfully for my delicate sensibilities, I didn’t have to ever explain HOW the sperm from the dad got into the body of the mom, because seriously, he would tell everyone he ever met about that. He just seemed to accept that the sperm somehow got there and that was that.

It went a hell of a lot smoother than the inevitable Sex Talk will, that’s for certain. And I hope, at the very least, that by the time we do have the Sex Talk, he will have outgrown the singing to learn. Because if not, I may shrivel up into a puddle of goo if I have to hear him sing about, “Syphilis is a sexually transmitted disease caused by the spirochetal bacterium Treponema pallidum, and it’s primary form is a chancre.”

What kind of sex talk are you planning on having with your children? Any?

When I got married three years ago, it took me a good long time to reach the conclusion that I was going to change my name. It’s not because I felt like it was a super-antiquated tradition, or because I would now feel like The Daver’s property, not really.

Problem is, I liked my name the way it was. Becky Elizabeth Sherrick.

It had been my name for 25 years and I was rather attached to it. Plus, when I had birthed Ben, I’d given him my last name as one of his two middle names, so it was the one real link I had to my son.

Practicality won out, and once I deduced that my family would have three different last names to contend with, I decided to change my name along with my marital status. I would become Becky Elizabeth Sherrick Harks.

Despite Ben’s 4 names on his Social Security Card (and later, Alex’s), the administration refused to allow me to add a name without removing another. So, choosing between my last name and my middle name it was (unless I wanted to hyphenate, which I didn’t).

In the end, I dropped the Elizabeth and moved the Sherrick to the middle, adding the Harks to the end.

For ages, I still thought of my new last name as the rest of my in-laws names, not a name that belonged to me. Within the last two weeks, I noticed something strange: I now had begun to associate the name with me. It was now MY last name.

For ages, I didn’t understand how divorced women didn’t immediately go back to their maiden names. It made no sense to me, as I had far more pride in my maiden name than I had in my married one, so I always assumed I’d seamlessly return to who I was before I was married. Now, I’m just not so sure. Would I keep my name or change it back?

So, your turn, lovers. Dish. Did you change your name? Would you? Would you change it back? Were you as fucking conflicted as I was about changing your name?

Am currently potentially dying right now. Have been suffering headaches for weeks now, but it’s especially bad today. Extra Strength Tylenol farts in my general direction.

Any advice?

While my parents did manage to instill a number of values in me, namely, a love of all things Jam Band related as well as a supreme taste for tofu (you cannot begin to tell me that tofu is not an acquired taste/texture), they neglected to teach me how to select a greeting card. I’m not sure that my parents ever, in all of my life, sent anyone a card.

It’s not necessarily a BAD thing to not have been taught at a young age where and when and why and how to send a card, really, it’s not, but it leaves me completely without a frame of reference as to the proper etiquette for such things. Do I send a Christmas Card to everyone in my address book, or just those who will send one back to me? Do I bother sending birthday cards to people who don’t send me one?

I’m simply not sure.

I suppose that part of the problem is that I really hate to shell out $4-$8 on cards that will undoubtedly be thrown out with the wrapping paper and bows, knowing that if I were in the same situation, I’d rather have a magazine or two rather than a card.

And an even bigger piece of my Problem Pie is that I’ve yet to find a line of cards that really SAYS what I mean. Sure, birthday wishes are generic, I know, but I want a card like those somecards E-Cards. I want something that says, “Happy Birthday, Your Balls Have Excess Skin,” or “Happy Birthday, Be Glad You Don’t Have Herpes” or something else.

Problem is, most people I’d send this to might be horrified by it. I’d laugh my lack of balls off if *I* got this as a card, but I’m fairly certain that I might be in some minority.

Sympathy cards present an even bigger challenge to me. I went out this morning with toddler in tow to pick out a card to send to Steph’s parents, and like most things in my life, I was only half able to concentrate on what I was doing. Motherhood has definitely honed my ability to do 4,000 things at once, but not without sacrificing quality here and there.

In picking through the myriad of sympathy card hell, I was struck again by how much I fucking hate sympathy cards.

I now present to you Aunt Becky’s reasons That She Hates Sympathy Cards, Bullet Form:

*Many of them are deeply religious, and while I know that enough people do derive comfort in Biblical Verses, not everyone does. And even if people ARE religious, I can’t be sure of which way they lean, and who wants to offend someone dealing with a death in the family? Besides, I’m not uber-religious myself, so I’d feel a little wonky sending something like that.

*99% of the cards are covered with misty pastel watercolor flowers. Which is so unlike who I am and what I represent, that I couldn’t send it in good faith. Besides, it often makes the card look cheap, which I can assure you by checking the backs of the cards is not the case.

*The fonts are annoyingly cloying. It’s like the You’re Dead, So You Now Have The Taste Of A 90 Year Old Cat Lady. Sadly, most of the sympathy cards that I’ve bought are NOT for older people, so the schwoopsy-poo font is just irritating.

*The cards never, EVER say what I really want them to say. I can get by with the canned “Happy Birthday!!!!” greetings found on birthday cards without wanting to go homicidal, but the sympathy cards make me insane. Certifiable, even. They’re all “deepest condolences” and “deepest sympathy” and my favorite “only memories remain.”

And I think that’s bullshit. It doesn’t BEGIN to say how I feel about the loss of this person. Here’s a sample of what it SHOULD say, if I wrote it:

“FUCK. I’m so damn sorry for your loss. I puked when I heard the news. Shit. Fuck. I’m so fucking sorry. I want to beat someone up with the unfairness of it all. Fuck.”

Mildly inappropriate doesn’t begin to cover it, now does it? But death in general is at the very least, mildly inappropriate, and I don’t think that any misty pastel flower scene with ties-up-loose-ends Biblical verse really begins to cover that.

Until I get off my lazy butt and make my own damn inappropriate cards, I suppose I’m just going to be stuck scouring the shelves for cards that don’t begin to say what I mean and trying to make do with them.

Or maybe I just need to find somewhere else to buy better cards.

What do you, fair Internet Reader, hate about greeting cards? What would you say in one that you designed yourself?

One of my best friends died this February at the age of 26, leaving behind two young sons. Her death changed me nearly as much as having her in my life did, and I find that no matter how hard I try, I’m unable to write about her very much. It’s not because I don’t think of her because I do, daily if not longer, but I’m too afraid to write about her.

What if I get it wrong? What if I try to tell the most important story I can think of and it’s all wrong? I can’t bear to think of not doing it right for Steph, so I don’t do it at all.

But I want to tell you.

I want each and every one of you to know who she is, who she was, and what she meant to me. How she was one of the best friends I’ve ever had. And how there is now a gigantic hole in my heart now that she’s gone. I want you to know how things will never be the same now that she’s gone from the world.

And I will.

I got word this morning that her older brother died yesterday; died of a freak accident, so my stories today will have to wait for yet another day. He died, leaving behind a wife and two small kids, leaving behind parents who have buried two adult children in a little over six months.

He died, and although I’m not an uber-Christian, I like to imagine that he’s meeting Steph up there in Heaven. I like to imagine that all of the loved ones that I lose down here are hanging out together and waiting patiently for the rest of us to join them, one by one. That’s how I find comfort in her death: imagining a day when we can all be together again.

And sometimes, sometimes it makes me less angry that she’s not down here with all of us.

I remember sitting and clutching my squally infant son, born mere weeks before, as I watched the second plane fly into the Twin Towers. I remember holding him and crying myself, wondering how I could have been so awful as to bring a brand new baby into a world where stuff like this happens.

I remember crying for all of the parents and children who died that day, now knowing just how much they had lost. I remember being afraid, so very afraid, of what was going to happen next.

I remember now, and I wonder: what will I tell my son who was there with me that day, the two of us against the world?

What do you remember?

Three years ago today, on arguably one of the most disgusting days of the summer, my lungs so full of phlegm and on a day in which I infected half of the people whose dinner I was paying for, thereby earning the nickname Typhoid Becky, I got married.

I’d never been one for romanticizing weddings, I never had an idea for a signature cocktail or monogrammed napkins, I never really even wanted to get married. I’d rather have imagined my future life as an Army NINJA Commando or as The Crazy Cat Lady than as a wife. I wasn’t anti-marriage or anything, but it was something that only happened to Other People. Like children.

Ahem.

People who tell me that they Just Knew about someone or something like the Perfect House, The Right Man, or Which Flavor Baby They Were Carrying always annoy me. Really, they do. Not because I don’t believe that they MIGHT have known something ahead of time, but because seriously, how many of them confess to Knowing something that didn’t happen. Plus, they always say it with this I’m More Of A Creature Of Mother Earth Than You and blow a raspberry in my direction when I confess to not knowing I was even pregnant when I was. Or maybe it’s all in my head.

Sure it annoys me, but you know what? I Just Knew when I met Daver, after spending the night at his apartment for the first time, that this is the man I would marry. Like it or not, he and I were going to be together for a very, VERY long time. While I’ve never asked him if he had the same sort of revelation, which even if he did, I doubt very much that he would tell me, I think he had a pretty good idea of the same thing.

The day of my wedding was not the best day of my life. Honestly, it was probably one of the worst days, although I won’t get into my reasons there, and I wanted nothing more than to leave the party and hang out with my new husband. But every day since then has been one of the best days of my life.

Even on our worst days, when we can barely tolerate the sight of each other, when his throat clearing and my incessant use of nose spray annoys us both so very much that we could each scream, I know how lucky I am. I have never, and will likely never take him for granted.

He’s the man I didn’t know I was lucky enough to marry.

Sonnet XVII

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way

than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

-Pablo Neruda

Or a baby boy who will be super mad later. Becky asked me to post for her post US today as she is waaaaayyyyy too cool (or has a Dr’s appt and lunch with the B-day boy. Whichever you prefer). The baby’s brand is still undetermined. It is a bit too early to tell for sure, but apparently the tech made an eduacted guess that Becky is incubating a GIRL. The important thing is that there is a brain and a heart that both look healthy and normal. So, let’s all help Becky obsess over the superficial things like pink or blue for the next 3 weeks until she has a definitive sex, because we now know for sure the bigger worries can be put to rest (at least this set can).

Happy Birthday Daver!!!! Your balls are officially old.

Ashley

Today is a landmark day for us at Casa de la Sausage. It is my husband, The Daver’s 30th birthday.

I give Dave an awfully hard time, really I do, like how I’ve called him Old Balls since we got together 5 years ago (he is, after all 2 years older than me), how I constantly feel the need to grab his ball-bag as he sits on the couch next to me, or how I scream out things like “Hey Dave, weren’t you out of DEPENDS?” or “Hey DAVE, didn’t you want that New Kids On The Block CD?” when we’re out in public.

(Hel-LO run-on sentence!)

But as anyone who truly knows me knows, the harder time I give you, the more I love you. It’d be my family mantra if having a family mantra or mission statement wasn’t the stupidest thing on the planet aside from perhaps The Wiggles. Which may be dumber.

So, Happy Birthday, The Daver.

I’d say something cornier, but I’m saving it up for our anniversary on Wednesday. Good idea, you, with putting our anniversary right near your birthday, ensuring that you will never forget the day that two became one. Yeah, that’s right. I used THE SPICE GIRLS to describe our WEDDING.

HOW DO YOU LIKE THEM APPLES, OLD MAN?

——————-

Also today, at 12:30 my son Ben will be “thinking good thoughts” for me as I go into my Big Scary Ultrasound. All by my lonesome. That’s the kicker at my OB’s office: you have to go through the first (i.e. frightening) part of it all alone (it’s policy, not because I bring an entourage with me).

My mother has been making fun of me (along with The Daver) for being so worried about this US (and the one’s I had with the other kids) and I think my friend Andria said it best when she told me yesterday something like with her third, she couldn’t believe that after two perfect little boys, that she’d be fortunate enough to have another healthy one.

I’m paraphrasing, perhaps badly, but the point is clear: like her, I don’t believe I’m lucky enough to have something good happen to me again.

Why? I have no idea. It’s sick and it’s stupid, and as yet another friend of mine, Carlynn, imparted yet another piece of wisdom onto me this weekend (they make me feel SMRT). She said, “”Why not be happy now? You can be sad later. If it’s necessary.”

They’re both right. And while I’m going to try my best to smile and appear like I’m not ready to chew off one or both of my arms, it’s gonna be hard.

Fake it ’til you make it, right?

Will you hold my hand, Internet?