Now, although I’ve been a mother for nearly 7 years (holy shit) I’m completely clueless about this whole “toddler-thing.” As previous exhaustibly documented, Ben was a pretty odd duck when it came to toddler-dom, so I can’t use my vast knowledge of how to treat BEN as a toddler on Alex. It just wouldn’t apply.

So this whole mimicking what I say stuff that toddlers apparently do is totally foreign to me, but is making me rethink taping my damn mouth shut for the next 4 or 5 years (somewhere Dave is frantically nodding his head “yes”) so as not to teach my kid more stuff he doesn’t need to learn yet.

Just so you know, I’m that freak-a-leak at the store that holds a one sided conversation with the baby, not because I really can’t shut up for that long (okay, maybe that’s part of it) but because it was one of those things that we were taught to do to teach Ben to speak. This means that although Alex’s issues are not the same as Ben’s, I still have it engrained in my mind to obsessively explain to Alex whatever it is that I’m doing at any given time.

I probably look insane, but I really don’t care.

But this is how I taught Alex to say “penis.”

In my house we have “penises” and “vaginas” and “uteruses,” but we also take dumps, lest you worry that I passed on my parents insistence that we call taking a dump a “bowel movement” and in the past tense a “defecation,” or the ever-popular “urinating.” I did, however, have to stop myself from calling testicles “balls” when explaining it to Ben. I guess that’s just what I think that those dangly sacs SHOULD be called.

So during diaper changes, Alex would grab his penis, giggle and I’d say “That’s your penis, Alex.” And he’d squeeze it and poke it and laugh (just like a real man) and I would repeat myself. Rather than learn “that” “your” or “Alex” he picked up the most hilarious of them all: penis.

Last night, we threw the kids in the bathtub together and they had a blast, splashing the shit out of me, playing with each other and generally being mischevious. Once Alex realized that his weenier was out of it’s diaper, he became very, very excited and began delicately poking it with one finger:

“Penis,” he’d say happily.

“Yes, Alex. Penis,” we’d all echo.

“Penis!” he’d say.

“I have a penis, too!” Ben told his brother. “And so does Daddy! But Mommy doesn’t.”

“You’re right Ben, I don’t have a penis.” I choked out between laughs.

“Mommy has a uterus. See?” he gestured to my left boob. “It’s right there.”

If you look closely, you can see the water droplets making a shadow on his back. It’s really, really weird.

Trying (and succeeding) in soaking me.

Before I get into the post, I gotta tell you all that you’re gonna give me a big head with all of your compliments! All I can say is that I’m not worthy of all of you. I see other people and their blog rolls and I know that my blog readers can beat THEIR blog readers in a fight, and that makes me proud to know you all. Thank you from the bottom of my heart, thank you.

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When I was a grade-schooler, the playground for my school (well, one of the playgrounds) had this gigantic wooden bridge leading to the metal equipment. I can’t remember what we called it exactly, but it was a deliberately wobbly bridge, flanked on either side by rusty (probably lead) chains that made the pattern of squares. I suppose the squares were there to hold kids back from falling down below, probably a 5 or 6 foot drop.

A forbidden game for us was “Bridge Tag” and as such, at every possible opportunity whenever the playground supervisor had her back turned, we played it. The rules were simple: two teams, one on either entrance to the bridge, and a fraction of those on either team would gravitate towards the middle. The object of the game was to get from one side of the bridge to the other.

One day when we were furtively playing this game, on my way across the wobbly bridge, I got seriously denied by another kid and ended up falling between the rusty chains onto the ground below. Square on my head.

This knocked the wind out of me, which frightened me enough to go and seek the playground monitor so that I could go to the nurse. When I found her, glowering and smoking a cigarette in front of the school, yelling insults to the kids in her physical proximity, I told her in deep hiccupy sentence fragments what had happened. Instead of whisking me off to the nurse, she put me in the penalty box for playing Forbidden Bridge Tag, and I stood there, still trying to catch my breath while my head throbbed uncomfortably.

Obviously, save for a few missing brain cells (probably the one’s responsible for spelling words properly and knowing when NOT to use a comma) I was fine. I’m here today, have no neurological issues (shut UP!) and had forgotten about it until I was talking to my friend KC last night.

But can you IMAGINE what would happen if this happened today, 20 years later?

That monitor would have been fired well before she didn’t send me to the nurse and instead punished me for my misdeeds, if not for the smoking in front of kids (oh the HUMANITY!) but for the fact that she routinely insulted us about nothing. She was not, as the French say, a Kid-Lover.

The school would have been sued for having such a dangerous playground, and the principal would probably have been sent to prison for…something.

I mean, I’m all for keeping my kids safe, really I am, but I tend to think that this whole safety thing has just gone too far. There’s a point somewhere where you really need to allow your kids to be kids and not be mini-adults.

I recently had to sign a waiver allowing my big son to attend a school birthday party at which some dude brought in a number of reptiles. Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t want the kid to get salmonella or something, but I am pretty sure that this is the awesomest idea for a birthday party ever (hint, hint, The Daver) and that I trust that my son will wash his hands after handling it.

When I scoffed at The Daver’s insistence that Ben get a helmet for riding his bike, I was promptly rebuked by him for ignoring obvious safety issues. While I have any number of scars on my body from falling off bikes and such, I am pretty fond of them overall. They each tell a story. And Ben’s head? On his peewee bike? Not very far from the ground. I’ve watched as both of my macrocephalic children use their heads as battering rams and frankly, I’m not too worried about Ben on a bike. Especially since he’s going 3 feet/hour.

Not exactly a cyclist, right?

I don’t know, but I think I’m in the minority here: day to day, I’m not overly concerned for my son’s safety. He’s bright enough to look both ways before he crosses the street, he knows not to go anywhere with strangers, and if he breaks his arm falling off a trampoline?

That’ll make a kick-ass story for him to tell later in life.

April is Autism Awareness month, and I have a vested interest in researching this disorder. Meet my first son Benjamin.

No parent ever wants to hear that something is wrong with their child; that their offspring is not completely perfect.

Realizing the magnitude of being entrusted to care for, nurture, raise and eventually let go of a new life is both mind-boggling and awe-inspiring as well as terrifying. Before my first was born, I could barely be considered responsible to care for an aquarium, and rightly so: I am an idiot.

Having had no experience with babies, I had no idea that mine was abnormal. He hated human touch, he preferred to watch his mobile spin around to looking at faces. His first word was not ‘œMama’ or ‘œDada’ or even ‘œBaba:’ it was ‘œtock-tock.’ His phrase for ‘œtick-tock’ referring to the grandfather clock in the hallway which he adored. I’d be lying if I claimed that I wasn’t devastated by his total lack of interest in me and his distain for my touch, but I assumed that this was just the way he was.

Different strokes for different folks and all that happy horseshit.

Shortly after his first birthday, he was introduced to the planets through a Baby Einstein video. Before he could recognize emotions, he knew 4 of the moons of Jupiter and could identify them from different angles. *I* couldn’t even do that.

Rather than wanting to read Goodnight Moon, I took him to Borders and he picked out an encyclopedia of the solar system intended for adults, which he memorized cover to cover. He could spend hours at the Planetarium but screamed bloody murder at the zoo. I’d come home from class to several different ‘œsolar systems’ he’d created out of balls, each true to form. His depth of knowledge was amazing and freakish and I have no real way to illustrate that to you here.

This was all before his second birthday.

I had realized, of course, that he wasn’t speaking as much as What To Expect During The First Year said that he should, but considering the authors militant stand about their stupid pregnancy diet in their stupid pregnancy book, I wasn’t too worried. I just assumed that he was developing at a different rate than others his age. I mean, what 17-month old can tell you what Pluto’s moon is? (mine could). I had also figured that no one had really encouraged his speaking abilities, being the only child/grandchild, we all spoke for him.

At his 2 year check-up, his regular pediatrician was out and his partner told me in no uncertain terms that not only could he not understand him, but that he would be writing a referral out for an evaluation from Early Interventions. I left that appointment not only upset with the manner in which the doctor had spoken to me (‘How dare he talk to me like that?’) but by the fact that I hadn’t even thought anything was wrong.

Several times, different evaluators came out to our house to observe him and speak with me about his behaviors. Many of the questions provoked light bulbs in my head, a ‘œso THAT’S why he does _____! (only eats 3 things, becomes so overwhelmed by touch that he screams inconsolably, lines up his toys by color on the stairs, has an insane fascination with spinning things, knows WAAAAAYYY too much about the solar system, flaps his arms whenever he’s excited”) which really only made me feel worse about the things I had never noticed, or had noticed but considered quirks.

I drew the line at receiving a formal medical diagnosis however, because as a nurse and the daughter of a mentally ill mother, I am completely aware how these things follow you for the rest of your life until you can only define yourself by them. Does that make sense to you?

Let me give you an example: I (myself here) am dyslexic, have Crohn’s disease, and have a latex/iodine/shellfish allergy. But does that make me who I am? Not one bit, but not only do I catch myself excusing away things based on this, it has become a teeny tiny but integral part of my self image. And I do not have any behavioral problems to excuse away (i.e. ‘œI’ll never be able to sit still because I have ADD, therefore I won’t even try.’)

Without a totally formal diagnosis, he was explained to be on the autistic spectrum and speech and occupational therapies began immediately. For almost two years, he recieved both therapies and began to make strides toward more normal behavior. He began to speak more frequently and clearly in addition to being able to deal with more and more textures, consistencies, and tastes. His more interesting quirks remain to this day, thankfully, as they are part of what makes him who he is.

My soon-to-be husband and I enrolled him into private school when he turned three to enrich his social skills, as he had no children his own age to play with at home. I’m not sure that these social skills will ever be what is considered totally normal, but they have improved by leaps and bounds, possibly to the point that an innocent bystander would not realize how much he had once struggled to do something as simple as recognize basic emotions.

I have still struggled through numerous thoughtless comments from both parents and non-parents alike (‘why won’t he eat anything but junk food?’) who have somehow gotten it in their head that his problems are little more than an issue of bad parenting. I have suffered through years of guilt and regret (had *I* done something to cause this?) I have spent cold meal after cold meal coaxing him to eat something that looks different or *is* different.

I continue to worry about what his life will be like as he grows older and begins to interact more with the general population: will they be gentle and understanding of his uniqueness or will they tease and mock him mercilessly?

Have we done enough to prepare him for the world?

I have spent hours upon hours reassuring him that completing a ritual out of order was just fine, and comforting him from afar while wanting nothing more than to sweep him in my arms and kiss his tears away.

I have had to accept that my child is not perfect in any text book sense.

Is this the worst thing that could happen to a mother? Certainly not; he’s happy, he’s healthy, and above all else he is loved unconditionally. Having seen babies born without brains and hearing them cry (possibly the worst sound in the world), I am aware that I got off pretty easy here. But competing in the Pain Olympics isn’t why I wrote this post.

As you all know, I am not one to use this blog as a political forum, nor am I likely to spend time talking about my feelings here, or elsewhere. But this is an issue incredibly close to my heart: he’s part of my heart, he’s my son.

We all have hopes for our children.

As for me, I just hope that he knows how much I have loved him.

When I got pregnant with Ben, I used it as an excuse to indulge in all of my favorite crappy foods. Cheese sticks, pizza, Steak -n- Shake, ice cream, McDonald’s, you name it, I ate it. And loved it.

In my defense, I was 20 and able to eat pretty much whatever I wanted anyway, so it wasn’t a stretch for me. What was a big surprise (to me anyway) was that I then gained about 70 odd pounds. I don’t really know the precise number because I eventually stopped looking at the scale go up when I’d go in for my weekly weigh-in’s torture sessions.

10 pounds of that was water weight (I was swollen like my pre-eclampsia sisters) because it was damn hot that summer, and 8 lbs was baby, but the rest? Fat. All fat.

For the first couple of months, I tried desperately to lose the weight: I joined a gym, ate better, you name it, I tried it. And the scale moved upwards again by about a pound. This was enough to throw me over the edge and I gave up. Eventually, my metabolism kicked in and I lost most of the pounds, and dieted away the rest of them.

Then my thyroid went wacky, but was undiagnosed, and again, I couldn’t lose the weight no matter how many hours I spent at the gym. In fact, the scale moved up again and I was beating my head against the wall trying to figure out what the hell was going on. Despite both of my parents having thyroid issues, it never dawned on me that I could have the same problem. Because I am brilliant.

By the time I got pregnant with Alex, several years later, my thyroid issues had been diagnosed (thank GOD I was suffering from an inability to get pregnant, or it would never have been picked up. Doctor’s don’t seem to be overly trusting of women who are “tired all the time” and “gain weight easily.” I’m altogether certain that my own doctor would have told me to “eat less” and “exercise more”–not bad advice, medically speaking, but I already WAS doing this) and I was down to what I weighed when I got pregnant with Ben.

Because I am (as previously mentioned) an idiot, I never thought to get an endocrinologist at this juncture, assuming that my OB would monitor this closely. Oh! how wrong I was, and Oh! how the pounds packed on no matter how often I was christening the porcelain god.

The thing is, when you’re either a) getting fatter or b) pregnant, people always assume it’s because you’re eating like a teenage boy. No matter how much you don’t eat or how well you do eat when you’re able to hold it down, people don’t believe you when you tell them what’s going on. They think you’re hitting up Krispy Kreme’s all day, every day. For example, when I was at one of my sicker points from about 6 to 9 weeks (I heart you hyperemesis! Can we be BFF?) I gained 11 pounds in 3 weeks.

Seriously.

I’m pretty sure that the only person who believed me was The Daver, because he knows that I wouldn’t lie about that stuff. If I was eating garbage, I’d have owned it. I have no reason to deny it to anyone else. I heart junk food, and would eat it more often if I could get away with it and still fit into my size 8’s. I loved him for that.

So again, after making a huge effort to eat well (although exercising was out of the question because at about week 10 into Alex’s pregnancy, my hips stopped, well, working and walking became excruciating) I found myself at the time of delivery at about exactly what I weighed with Ben, minus 10 or so pounds of water weight.

I resolved to breast feed those pounds off, just like La Leche League said I could! And nurse I did: 10, 12, 17, 20 hours a day, all while eating about 900 calories a day FROM DAY 1 POSTPARTUM. I joined a gym 6 weeks after he was born and went for at LEAST an hour a day 5 days a week. I wasn’t hungry, so I didn’t force myself to eat, and you can guess what happened to the scale, right? I gained 4 pounds.

I gained 4 pounds and my heart was shattered (to be fair, I had a bout of PPD issues that I was dealing with too and was sleeping very, very little.) I felt like a failure, like I was destined to be a fat chick for the rest of my life, and ended up crying my eyes out in the Gap when I went to buy non-elastic pants: I’d gone up 4 sizes since I last wore real pants.

All I wanted was some external validation from someone outside of my head to tell me that yeah, dude, this isn’t your fault, and I couldn’t seem to get anyone to tell me that.

My validation came many months later, in October of last year when I went into my OB’s office to have the PA look at my boob (not mastitis, it turns out, but a spider bite.) and she drew some labs to check my thyroid. Turns out where normal range is something like 0.4-2.0 (for people with previously diagnosed thyroid issues) and mine was….

….19.85

Um….yeah. No wonder I wasn’t doing well, even though I was on Weight Watchers.

Since then, I have been in titrated treatments and have finally found a decent dose for me (although I need a repeat blood draw soon) and have lost 21 of the pounds I’d gained, and that coupled with a 16 pound loss after Alex was born, means I’ve lost….simple math, Becky, you can DO it, 37 pounds since last March.

I hit a plateau in Weight Watchers in November, so I went off it in January (because why fucking bother?) and lost a couple more pounds.

Last week, after 2 weeks of going to the gym 3-4 times a week, I started back on Weight Watchers, telling myself that if I didn’t lose even a pound in 3 weeks, that I wasn’t going to bother. The scale had to move in the right direction if I was going to measure every damn thing I put in my mouth, right?

Today was the first day that I had to weigh in, and I wasn’t expecting much to happen. I’d been working so damn hard for so damn long to see results go in the wrong direction, and that’s just so fucking discouraging.

After months of no real progress, I have now lost 2 pounds. In a week.

What’s interesting to me right now is how much better that makes me feel. It’s such a minor change, really, in the grand scheme of things. It’s not like I lost 20 pounds in a week (although that might be cool, too) and it’s not like I’m not aware that the first weigh-in is typically the one where you lose the most.

It’d be one thing if I’d gained the weight the old fashioned way (eating my brains out) and I would say things like I did after I had Ben, “Damn those cheese fries we’re easier to put down than to take off!” and feel like at least I enjoyed the hell out of eating like shit.

Remember how fun it was, Ashley?

Maybe I can get the rest of this weight off before Alex’s 15th birthday, right?

37 lbs down, 17 to go.

Now if I could only tell my body to remove some of this booby fat, I’d be thrilled. My enormous breasticles seem to be my children’s gift to me, but I want to exchange them for a slightly smaller size now. They’re ridiculous.

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So what can buoy you out of the depths of despair and give you a sense that the Universe sometimes does really like you?

I’m suffering from a major bout of The Crankies and every time I go to write a post, it sounds like I’m just being a whiny damn bitch. Mainly because that’s exactly what how I’m behaving. Rather than bore you with the things that are annoying me (the oatmeal took too long to cook, the cats are following me around, people who stand over me waiting for my machine at the gym make me want to bash their heads in) I am going to post some damn pictures.

Maybe I’ll get over myself this afternoon and put something real up later.

Here is my bomb-diggity wedding cake, which happened to be the only successful battle that I won over The Wedding That Ate My Life.

These are my Metal Heads, and some of my oldest friends. And interestingly, although this was obviously at my wedding, my husband is nowhere in sight. Maybe he was fixing his makeup.

While it looks like a) I’m pregnant and b) that we’re having a moment, what The Daver is doing right now is reminding me that I cannot leave my own wedding. Pretty much most of the wedding I spent begging The Daver to let me go. Oh, and I’m not pregnant, it’s the pouffy thing under my dress making me appear this way.

(see Benner in the background?)

I know you’re probably all “what the hell is up with this chick and the pictures of her wedding?” And I would be too. It’s not like this was the best day of my life or anything (it wasn’t. Seriously.) and I want to relive it over and over.

It’s a matter of being Cranky AND Lazy. The rest of our pictures are on the computer downstairs (my house has about 4,874 computers. Seriously.

Aunt Becky done graduated.

Isn’t my face sexxy? I wish that were my driver’s license photo. Then I’d be beating dudes off with a stick. Both the kids are in this photo, but one of them is quite invisible.

Alex says “Get me away from all of these 6 year olds. They scare me!”

Thank you to everyone who complimented my site design! It was done by a special ickle guy I call “The Daver.” Honestly, it was a template that he set up for me, not a design I paid someone for. I’m not opposed to that, and Dave swears that he can do it for me, but I am not smart enough to know WHAT I’d like to do with it. I have no mental picture about what would be flippin’ sweet, so I go with pre-made templates.

That may have been the most boring paragraph I have ever typed. Well, aside from when I had to write research papers on research methods. That was far more boring, as I’m sure you can imagine.

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What the fcuk is the deal with the whole Hannah Montana thing? I saw what’s-her-face on Idol Gives Back, but I just didn’t quite get the appeal. It’s not as bad as the Bratz dolls or anything equally hootchie, but I don’t see why kids go insane for her.

Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Anyone?

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All last week I’d been looking forward to getting down and dirrrty in my garden over the weekend when I have another parent to watch the wee one, lest he climb into a bees nest or something thinking that it was A Ball! In typical form, it was either rainy or cold both days.

And it’s supposed to freeze tonight.

*headdesk*

I am so totally moving somewhere else.

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The Mommy Wants Vodka request line is open and ready for business.

Want me to tell you the story of…something? Give me a holler and I’ll do what I can. The only stipulation is that it has to be the story of something that actually happened, not some elaborate fantasy. My fantasy story would involve lots of prescription pills and naps. Not very exciting stuff, indeed.

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Is the prospect of taking 2 kids to Disney World while The Daver is in meetings all day totally brilliant or totally stupid? Oh, those 2 kids are MY 2 kids, not random kids.

Anyone want to come with and help?

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All of you lurkers who have come out from the shadows and said ‘Howdy’ to me have totally made my week. You people rock.

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After a couple month hiatus from The Diet, I am back on the wagon and hungry as hell. Without those 10 extra nursing points, I’m damn hungry. Suddenly all of the foods that I cannot eat sound positively lovely because, well, I can’t eat them anymore. I’ve got about 20 lbs to lose before October, when my best friend gets married (Hi Ashley! Want to bring some stuff over for me to take to the Salvation Army? I could use a good pee-stained mattress or some cans of paint! It would make my garage sexy!).

Before you tell me that I can DO IT! Let me remind you that my thyroid hates me with a vengeance and would prefer that I were about 10 pounds overweight at all points in time. It’s like an insecure lover, trying to fatten me up to keep me all to itself.

I’m gonna try, but I can’t promise that I will be able to do it. Sorry, Ashley, I may be your pudgy bridesmaid after all. I’ll try to get some acne in the meantime so I’ll be the ugliest bridesmaid ever. You’ll be apologizing for me for YEARS to come!

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After making a huge fuss over how stupid I thought Twitter was, I’m considering signing up. It will either be a glorious mistake or a great idea.

What do you think of Twitter?

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I hate rainy days.

When my brother got a divorce 12-odd years ago (he’s 10 years older than me) the catalyst was the puppy he’d bought. I think this stuff is fairly common, you know, it was one toke over the line (Sweet Jesus!) and his ex-wife had enough.

(She was also a scathing bitch, so I was more than happy to see her go and reclaim my name. Her name was ALSO Rebecca and she took my last name when she married my brother. This effectively meant that there were two of us in the family, and she was the far nastier one).

The puppy was a German Shepard who came with a high pedigree, with both of her parents police pooches and my brother adored her. But he travelled a lot, and without a wife-y at home to help with the dog–Stanzi is her name–he couldn’t care for her. So, as many animals that my brother and I adopt, she moved in with my parents.

She grew from a neurotic puppy into a highly insane dog, climbing onto my mother’s lap–all 90 pounds of her–at the vet’s office and during thunderstorms, hiding from me whenever I’d come home, and playing ball with a devotion I’d never seen before. Our previous dogs had always been of the sweet but stupid variety, but not Stanzi, no never her. She continues to be freakishly clever and my parents have had to take all balls (except those attached to family members, of course) and hide them from her. Because if given a ball, she will play it relentlessly and obnoxiously.

If a ball is not available, she will bring whatever twig, rock, or toy over to you, sit down in front of you patiently waiting, her eyes darting back and forth between you and the ball, anxiously waiting your toss. I found out recently that this is a hallmark of Shepards, the police dogs are given not treats for good behavior, but ball-time. Something in their brain is hardwired to love this simple game at all costs.

It seems that however unlikely this may be as I don’t have The Sex with dogs, that Alex was born with a couple of these Shepard genes. While Ben also loved balls when he was a toddler, he would merely line them up exhaustibly, becoming mad and frustrated when the balls moved out of line (why he didn’t choose something less, oh I don’t know, ROUND, is beyond me).

Not Alex, though, Alex loves balls with an intensity I’ve never seen before. Maybe they remind him of his days at the boobs, or maybe he’s just destined to be a rugby player, I don’t know. What I do know is that I have a miniature Stanzi living in my house, bringing me balls pretty much at all waking points of the day.

He’ll crawl up to wherever any of us are sitting and depending on the size of the ball, it will either be clutched in his hand, making a twack noise–he looks like a wee pirate– when he determinedly crawls to wherever a Ball Player sits, or pushed in front of him as he crawls, bringing it dutifully to one of us. Alex then hoists himself up on one of our legs, ball in hand, or next to him and throws it in our laps.

Once we have possession of A Ball! he sits down with a diapery-plastic thump and crawls about three or four feet back, turns around, opens his legs and yells “BAAAAALLLLL!” The joy oozing from him at this point is palpable and honest.

Whomever his latest victim is will, depending on the ball size and weight, gently toss it to him or roll it towards him. He will scoop it up, hoist The Ball! over his head and whip it at us. This game of catch continues until Ben, The Daver or I get sick of playing, or until he has to go retrieve another ball (he has many). Then he will find his next victim and play with them until they are tired of it as well. Rinse, repeat.

What shocks me the most about it is that he’s actually really good at this game. The child born of a mother who has, in the past year alone, fallen through a door stone cold sober, broken a toe while making a peanut butter sandwich, sprained her ankle while walking down a flight of stairs. It’s safe to say that I am not coordinated. Nor, really, is my eldest (although he’s better than I am, but not by much) and The Daver is not exactly a ninja himself (sorry The Daver).

This leaves me with two viable opinions as to how Alex got to be so coordinated:

1. He’s actually someone else’s child and there was a horrible mix up in the nursery. Someone else has gotten my child who now stumbles into walls, crawls in horrible pathetic circles instead of a straight line, and pretty much will always look drunk.

2. Some previously unexpressed bundle of genes has expressed itself in Alex, and he may grow to be some sort of sports player (and not on the Special Olympics, which is probably the only place that the rest of us would qualify for. And I assure you that even there, we’d all get our asses kicked).

I’m not quite sure which of those options is correct, but since Alex wasn’t out of my sight much during his hospital stint (his insistence, not my own), I’d venture a guess that between this fact and the fact that he looks almost exactly like my father (shut up! Ew!) he’s probably my son.

Which means that I have quite the future ahead of me sitting on the sidelines (freakishly like my past!) and watching as my youngest plays all types of sports.

Maybe I’ll never understand his love for sports, maybe it doesn’t matter because I love him and that’s enough for us all, but hey, at least I’ll get a good tan.

Every Spring, Saint Charles does a junk-day in which they pick up (for no charge!!!) all household materials/crap hidden in the unused part of your basement that you’ve been saving for God knows what. I don’t know if this is more of a universal thing, it probably is, but since I am quite boring and have never REALLY lived anywhere else, I don’t know.

The week before the stuff is collected, people tend to start putting their stuff out on the curb. When I was younger, this made for some most excellent garbage picking. The neighborhood gang and I would traipse around the blocks looking for, well, stuff and things. I’m not sure that my parents were overly thrilled the years I brought home an earwig infested dog-house or the gallons of paint I found, but to their credit they never said a whole lot about it.

Once I hit the teenage years, the prospect of garbage picking was deemed “lame” mainly because I’d discovered this really neat thing called “money” which you could use to exchange for goods and services. My allowance was hefty so I had no need to rummage through other people’s stuff anymore.

This is not to say that I don’t like scouring thrift stores: I totally do, but there’s something different between standing in full view of whomever threw the stuff you’re looking at out and being able to examine it on your own. As with most of the stuff people tend to leave on the curb, there’s always the wonder of WHY they threw it out in the first place that makes me not really want it.

Guess I’m becoming an adult.

So, last Sunday Alex, The Daver and Benny were playing outside with the throng of neighbors that I am fortunate enough to have and love and I decided to get a start on moving our crap to the curb. I really only put out the bigger stuff because the bags ‘o’ crap get shuffled over to the Salvation Army (pretty much weekly). I do most of the manual work around the house, which includes checking for critters that may have made their way into our garage. I don’t actually have a penis, but this sometimes surprises even me.

Our junk day is tomorrow (Saturday) and this must be marked in the datebooks of each and every junk collector within a forty-mile radius, because by that time (last Sunday afternoon) the scads of pickup trucks with makeshift sides on their truck bed were out in full force.

This pleases me me greatly, of course, because I am somewhat of a recycling nerd. I’m thrilled by the green aspect of all of this (and I was long before it was hip to be green) and I love knowing that whatever I put out will (mostly) go to good use.

No idea what the use is, but I’m sure it’s better than sitting in my garage night after night. Pretty much anything is better than that.

While I am in the process of hauling stuff out of the garage and onto the curb, some dude missing most of his teeth and genes (mayhap the missing link?) comes screeching to a halt at my curb and starts vigorously going through our stuff. I have no problem with this, save for it being mildly uncomfortable because here I am, teeth and genes intact, dropping my crap on the curb for someone else to take.

What annoys me the most is that while he is shuffling through some of the boxes I put out (electronic stuff that even I don’t understand) the papers and plastic that are in these boxes drift lazily down to my grass where they remain until he leaves and I pick them back up. I’m cool with you taking my stuff, Mr. Missing Link, I’m not cool with you spewing the trash about RIGHT IN FRONT OF MY FACE.

*ahem*

I’ll never really know where these people come from although I’d guess either Middle Earth or Aurora (made famous by Wayne’s World), and while I’m glad that they are saving stuff from rotting (or not) in a landfill, there’s something about them that makes me sure to lock my car at night.

The most HILARIOUS email exchange I have ever had the pleasure of joining in:

Becky

Seeing that our significant others will be accompanying each other on a
pedal-filled rendezvous this evening, I hear (through an astonishingly
tall, brown-haired, Italian grapevine) that you had an idea to counter this.

So you say that you and I should hang out tonight to balance the
universal scales? So be it.

Give me the info: will you be in the city tonight, and if so what time?

Don’t feel that we have to get together tonight. We can pull this card out any time:
‘œBut you went out biking with Barb/Dave! That totally gave us license to have a torrid, passion-filled love affair at a hastily reserved motel that rents out by the hour!’

They will have no choice but to agree. And so our master plan gathers momentum.

MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

RS

And my reply:

RS'”

My love, my life, my only true one’¦ Of course there will be a
passion-filled evening (well, okay, 30 minutes'”but it’ll be a HOTT 30
minutes) at a roadside motel so long as I may indulge my craving for Spicy
Red-Hott Cheetos at the same time’¦so burn-ey, so good-ey.

I will be in Oak No-Park this fine evening and am looking for a swarthy,
hair-covered manly man to fufill my deepest desire'”to rub petrolium jelly
all over my naked body and slip-and-slide across the hardwood floors of
Dave’s apartment. Butt naked.

I will be available sometime after 8:00 this beautiful nippley spring day,
so that we may consumate the hardwood floor with our glistening bodies.

God, I need to write romance novels.

I will call you this evening in preparation'” we’re gonna need.

*10-12 lbs cotton balls (the blue-colored ones ONLY)
*4-5 rooms Vitamin D milk
*Osco (possibly Savon) brand petroleum jelly- 50-60 kgs
*A socket set (silver)
*5 gallon jug of Crisco (NO SUBSTITUTIONS)

And so the master plan is set in motion’¦

Becky

And his:

My love, my joy, my sweet ecstacy’¦

Firstly, I was thinking along the lines of twenty-five minutes of HOTT
LOVIN, but for you I try and hold on for those last five minutes.

Your list of supplies, while a good start, is missing a few standbys:

-An unopened package of Depends undergarments (we will place this on a stool
in the corner and continually laugh at it, for they are diapers’¦for
grown-ups)
-A 40 pound bucket of orange juice concentrate (because, as we all know,
orange juice is very, very healthy)
-Two sharpened broadswords (the huns are coming and they’ll be taken off
guard when we unleash the might of our weapons)
-A Prince CD (preferably Purple Rain, but the Batman sountrack will do’¦I
guess)
-Anal Cum Leakage (My favorite porn about men who can’t stop cumming’¦and
the women who wouldn’t have it any other way!)
-A soccer ball full of banana cream (Because, obviously)
-the spare tire from a 1981 Dodge Pinto (Guess where this is going to go. No
really, guess.)

I also think that we should send out an e-mail to invite a chosen few to
watch. We should entitle it: ‘œYou’re invited to cum to our orgy!’ Look but
don’t touch.

Hehehe.

RS

Oh and as always, the request line for you to tell me something you’re dying to know more about is up and running. Holler in the comments if you want me to tell you the story of whatever burning question you might have for me.

—————

The running joke here at Casa de la Sausage has always been that Alex is trying to kill me. We’ve joked about it since I was pregnant with him, and I think it’s pretty apt. Alex’s aggression makes me look like a wee pussy-cat (not a Pussy Cat DOLL, however) and makes me giggle, since I’m still bigger than he is. FOR NOW, I must remind myself.

This was proven to be completely true last night. But, because I am a nice Aunt Becky I’ll start at the beginning for those of you playing along at home.

When I was pregnant with Alex, I was sicker than I’d ever been before from Crohn’s, from hangovers, from anything else ever. I had a condition called hyperemesis gravidarum, which I had not had with Benner or I may not have had another one. I was very, very sick.

Finally around 20-odd weeks later, during the glorious second trimester, it abated somewhat, and was replaced with such severe depression and anxiety that I could barely function. I also ended up in L and D because I thought that my water had broken.

Turns out that thankfully I had just peed my pants, which may not be the most glamorous diagnosis, but I assure you that my mortification was very, very minor when I got this diagnosis.

With the third trimester came a whole new set of problems. Did you know that sometimes your ribs spread when you’re pregnant? I sure didn’t. But it hurts like a fucking bitch. It also made sitting up for any stretch of time completely impossible, so I spent much time laying on my side.

At 32 weeks, I gracefully did the splits when I was washing the kitchen floor, something I have never, ever done before and wound up again in L and D for monitoring. Then my Crohn’s kicked in and I became possibly the most miserable person on the planet.

35 weeks found me back in L and D because I thought, once again, that my water had broken. Again with the peeing of the pants. Suddenly the old castor oil induction started to sound pretty damn good. As did a coat-hanger (to break the amnionic sac).

36 weeks found me back in L and D because my darling son had, for once in his uterine life, taken a nap. This child was so active that I could fulfill my hourly kick counts in about 10 seconds. He just never stopped going.

Finally at 38 weeks, I called and begged my doctor to induce me. My Crohn’s was acting up majorly, my ribs hurt every time I took a breath (I would guess in my professional opinion that he actually broke a couple of them). The pain went above and beyond a minor inconvenience.

When he was born, he was quite a demanding asshole. He nursed 14-20 hours a day, sometimes as much as 18, and while that sounds awesome to someone like me who had convinced herself of her inability to breastfeed, I assure you that it got old very, very quickly.

In fact, until he was 10 or 11 months, I couldn’t safely go anywhere without him for more than an hour. I’d go out only to get called back by The Daver who couldn’t take him screaming for me anymore.

Until he was 11 months old, his intense need for me to be at his beck and call like a wee ickle dictator who poops his pants persisted into the nights. Where he would be up every 1-3 hours looking for a breasticle snack.

Alex’s first year and all his time in the womb I consider to be a write-off. Great kid, sweet personality (mostly), you really don’t want to get on his bad side or you will hear about it for the rest of the day. I love him fiercely and would gnaw off my own arm if I needed to for him. He’s great, really, he is.

But last night, last night he proved to me once and for all that this bitch better start watching her damn back.

I’d gone up to bed around 11pm and was laying there reading with the fan blowing in the mostly cool spring air (I have this thing about needing air blown onto my body while I sleep. And since I can’t hire someone to do this, I’m stuck with a box fan), when I started obsessing about something I had needed to get done on the main floor. I knew that I’d probably done it, because I almost always do it, and I’ve never found that I’ve forgotten to do this, but I just couldn’t stop thinking about it.

Eventually I realized that I had better go and check to make sure I’d done this task or I wouldn’t be sleeping for awhile, as my mind would churn like a broken record until I was certain. You thought I was being funny about this OCD stuff, didn’t you?

I heaved my aching calves (not the cows, dumb-ass. I’ve repeatedly petitioned for a calf of my own, but Dave won’t hear of it. Nor will he hear of a baby cheep–chick–, a goat, or a parrot) out of bed and when I opened the door to our bedroom, I was hit by a wave of…something.

It smelled like…something familiar. But what was it? I trouped downstairs sniffing the air (I have an amazing sniffer) and began prowling through the main floor. Not coming from the garage, the garbage can, outside. While I was sniffing and trying like hell to place the scent, it dawned on me.

What I was smelling was gas! Not farts, I wouldn’t have gotten out of bed for farts, but natural gas.

My house reeked of natural gas!

I hurried over to the stove (the one source of gas on the main floor) and sure enough, one of the burners was tipped slightly on, which over the course of several hours had filled up the house with natural fucking gas. I hadn’t noticed it sooner because I’d been sitting in it, so my nose had acclimated to it, but since our bedroom had been well-ventilated and I’d come from there, the smell had bowled me over.

Who the hell had been so stupid as to leave the burner partially fucking on?

My darling son, Alexander, who pulls himself up on the oven door and fiddles with the knobs is who. I didn’t realize because I am a complete moron, that he could actually tilt them to do anything at all.

Needless to say, there are 4 large knobs now sitting on my counter, only to go back on when we need to use a burner.

I’m thinking that the dog kennel that we have in the basement, unused by the dog that lives with us, is going to come in very, very handy. Until he hits puberty.

—————-

Any of you have near misses like that? Anything that you should have probably kicked the bucket for but somehow escaped unscathed?