Recognize these, Ashley and Kristin? Sound like someone that I might have dated (and has, at sometime, insulted you, too?)

According to the revised third edition (DSM-III-R, 1987), someone had PAPD if he displayed five or more of the following behaviors: (1) procrastinates, (2) sulks or argues when asked to do something he doesn’t want to do, (3) works inefficiently on unwanted tasks, (4) complains without justification of unreasonable demands, (5) “forgets” obligations, (6) believes he is doing a much better job than others think, (7) resents useful suggestions, (8) fails to do his share, or (9) unreasonably criticizes authority figures.
-Cecil Adams, The Straight Dope

It all began innocently enough by being dropped literally on my head in a parking lot. Had I known then what was in store for me, I might have run away screaming, but then again maybe not, I have no idea. It’s just a good damn thing that Sliding Doors was just a movie.

All that I do know is that I love my first son with all of my heart and soul, but I cannot stand his father. I could try and wax poetic about all of the good times that his father and I shared, but it would all be a lie: when I dated him, I had very, very few good times, mainly just more tolerable bad ones.

I like to think of him as that one relationship that we’ve all had (albeit not with the same person, that would just be weird.) that forced us to compromise who we are at the core of it all in order not to drive ourselves insane. When it’s all over and done with and we’ve moved on with our lives, we look back and cannot believe how foolishly we behaved. Most of us, with this firmly in our rearview mirror are able to hate The Ghost Of Things Past without having to revisit it week after week.

Because week after week, no matter how angry I am, I have to not only deal with this person, I am frequently forced to bite my tongue and swallow my pride in order to maintain peace for our son. AND I SWEAR, I AM NOT SOMEONE WHO ENJOYS HAVING TO BITE HER TONGUE (I know, you’re suprised).

He is the guy that snuck off and had The Sex with another female while I was pregnant. It was his car that left many a patch of rubber in front of my parents house, angry that I had comitted such sins as feeding the baby solids before 6 months of age, and daring to laugh at his hilariously angry reaction. He was and is always so angry. When I dared wear too much makeup to a Christmas party, he spent a good 20 minutes telling me how stupid I looked.
For the past four years, he has attended not one solitary event at his son’s school, because “that’s more my realm.”

Did he abuse me? Well, no, not really. I mean, we got into several physical altercations over the years, but trust me when I tell you that he was the one that was I wiped the rug with. Not for nothing did I have an older brother: he taught me how to kick asses and take names. I guess he was emotionally and verbally abusive, sort of, but you’re only hearing MY side of it, which means that you aren’t hearing the horrible things that I said to him.

I suppose that you could say that we really brought out the worst in each other, because that would be the 100% honest truth of the matter.

He’s honestly a wonderful father, who loves his son very, very much, so I am unable to find fault in their relationship (plus, I’ve been assured over and over that having no contact with his biological father would mess the kid right up). I respect him for that, really I do. He leaves me to do nearly all of the parenting, which is a good or a bad thing, depending entirely upon the situation (good when I sign the kid up for music lessons and choose his school BECAUSE I AM IN CONTROL, bad when it means that no matter what I’m doing, he is free to change plans at his whim THEN I AM NOT IN CONTROL AND I HATE THAT.).

The most irritating part of our relationship now, as it stands, is that he is text-book passive-aggressive, with at least six of the above mentioned characteristics. I’ve long since given up on fighting about it because it’s just not worth it for me, so I’ve decided that two can play at that game.

I don’t do it frequently at all, but now and again, I do something completely passive-aggressive (or is it just me being an asshole? Don’t know and don’t care) and am able to gain an insane amount of satisfaction by it.

For example: last weekend, after stating a time that he would pick Ben up by, he called 10 minutes BEFORE that time and extended the time by an hour and a half. Which would be no big deal, save for the plans we had postponed PRECISELY for the pickup time. So we headed out to do our errands after this, and instead of heading home so that we would be home in time for the later pick up time, instead we went to Lowe’s.

And then stopped for a leisurely cup of coffee.

We finally rolled home about an hour after the pickup time, only to be met by an irrate Nat, WHO WAS FLAMING THAT HE HAD HAD TO WAIT 30 MINUTES (he was late, too). Oh, did I laugh, OH did I laugh.

Of course, he paid me back the following day by not answering his phone when I called, but you know what? IT WAS SOOOO WORTH IT.

So, Internet Lovies, dish to Poor Aunt Becky, who was up all night with a teething baby who has a cold (the baby, not me. Well, me too, but the baby is more insufferable about it than I am.) (Poor, Poor Aunt Becky!). Tell me all about your worst relationship, or if that’s too hard to talk about, tell me something hilarious about someone you were in a relationship with (they had a foot fetish, they could only wear the color blue, whatever).

I can’t handle visiting the zoo.

This may shock anyone whose been to my house and visited my own personal menagerie first hand, because it is completely obvious that my affection for animals often times rivals the affections I feel for people. Don’t believe me? I currently have living under my roof three cats, a dog, a leopard gecko, a rex rabbit, and a hedgehog. The number is only so low because we have recently taken a hiatus from fostering other animals for a local shelter in order to lessen the burden momentarily. Well, and Joey the Mean Hamster died shortly before Alex was born (no one was sad).

Before your mental picture of me turns into a person who happily has a revolving collection of fluffy kitten sweatshirts and drives a car with bumper stickers that read: The More People I Meet, The More I Love My Cat/Dog/Hedgehog/Rabbit, let me swear on all that is holy that aside from the ridiculous sweatshirt that my mother bought me several years ago that had a cat laying atop a pile of books and had the caption: “Books, Cats, Life is Good” (which was promptly donated to the Salvation Army, where I’m sure that it got a nice home with an old dotty woman who has doilies and knicknacks and a scrapbook devoted to her cats.), I haven’t worn a puffy kitten sweatshirt since the third grade (shut up. I also wore a banana clip AND french rolled my jeans. SO DID YOU!)

Needless to say (aside from my awesomely-awesome run-on sentence), I adore animals, and always have. The only reason that we don’t currently own a donkey or a goat is because we live in the city (well, and my husband might have me committed, even AFTER I assured him that the goat would function as a lawnmower), and it’s illegal here.

Maybe it’s the bleeding-heart part of me that cannot stand to see the animals confined to such small cages being pelted by rocks and hard candies by ignorant children, and knowing that this is the best it’s going to get for these poor creatures. It could be because it looks so damn boring sitting around their pens day in and day out no breaks except for eating and sleeping and crapping.

But I imagine that it’s something else entirely.

When I was about four or five, my family took a trip down to St. Louis to visit my aunt who teaches at the university down in that area. As part of the touristy stuff that we did (which did NOT include a trip to East St. Louis, I’m sad to say), we took an outing to the St. Louis Zoo. They have an amazing monkey house (no, literally here), and it was there where the adults began to jabber-jaw with each other, leaving me to sit down and drink a juice box in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows and wonder why on earth adults were so damn boring.

After a minute or two, I realized that although most of the primates were ignoring the slack-jawed pointing tourists, a small one, likely a child, had discovered me. She made her way over to me and sat down on the other side of the glass and began to gesture to me. I tried to give her a tug off the old juice box, but the glass blocked my way.

It was then when she (I am arbitrarily using “she” as my pronoun. I have no idea what the gender of my newfound friend was, and I was too young to do a penis check) and I began to play together. She’d stand up and jump up and down and when I did the same through the glass, she would clap her hands in delight. Because I was a child, I have no way of knowing how long she and I played together as it felt like forever, pantomiming each others’ movements, running back and forth along the glass. I already had it all planned out in my head, her name was Smurfette JUST LIKE MINE and she would come home and live with me, and sleep in my bed.

The adults watched in amazement, finally remembering that there was a child in their presence until they eventually had to pull me away from my new friend (as I was a late in life baby in our already teeny (even extended) family, there were never any other children for me to play with. Ever.). My dreams of having an ape for a sister were abruptly halted as the adults informed me that no matter what, I would not be able to take her with me. We tried to hug goodbye from either side of the glass, and she looked just as sad as I felt.

To say that I was devestated would be a grave disservice to my feelings, as I can never recall being quite so heartbroken again in my life. I wept on and off for the next couple of weeks, missing my new friend and saddened that she and I would never get to play together again, because she was in there and I was out here.

The zoo hasn’t been the same since, no matter what light I try to spin it in: the animals are happy and fed. They have no predators here, so they’re safe. The zoo is propigating the furthering of their species, who might have died out otherwise. I just can’t fool myself about it.

I admit freely that I love the holidays. It’s been well documented over the years, especially with the hugemongous collection of Christmas decorations that I acquire year after year (it’s threatening to take over my basement). It’s entirely likely that I will decorate the interior of my home prior to Thanksgiving, partially because I love the festive look but mainly because I have nothing else to decorate with.

Christmas shopping is one of the ultimate highlights of the holiday season, because nearly as much as I adore my (literally) 60’s white aluminium tree (admit it, you’re jealous of my awesome tree) and it’s festive blue ornaments, I love buying other people gifts. And then painstakingly wrapping them, and carefully arranging them under the tree. It’s like my own slice of cornball (mmmm, CORNBALLS) heaven.

I say bring on the blaring music from all of the speakers in each store, shit, I listen to Christmas music year round, if I’m alone (I’m slightly too ashamed to do this in front of my husband, who prefers whiny emo music BECAUSE HE LIKES TO FEEL SUICIDAL). I’m thrilled that Christmas preparations begin in the store sometime prior to Halloween, partially so that I can remember what season it is, and partially because Alex is entranced by all of the lights and colors, while Ben is thrilled to pieces about the upcoming holidays (whew, can we say RUN ON SENTENCE, KIDS? I know *I* can!). It’s instant Christmas-porn for my family, save, of course, from my darling husband who “didn’t like Christmas” before he met me. Now, I’m pretty sure, he’s mainly tolerating it for my sake (entirely similar to the manner in which I “tolerate” the piles of clean clothes that make their home on the floor, rather than snugly put away in their dressers. Oh, SNAP!).

Off the top of my head, there is only ONE thing, one LITTLE thing that drives me insane around the holidays: hokey jewelry commercials. Watching them is like listening to nails on a chalkboard WHILE stepping on a mad cat. They set my teeth on edge and make me break out into a cold sweat.

I promise it’s not that I’m jealous of the jewelry and am therefore upset and embittered that I am not about to recieve anything from their stores for Christmas, no way. The jewelry that I do wear (save from a few junky costume pieces) and recieve is from places that do not feel the need to advertise in places other than The New Yorker. Besides, from the looks of these commercials the vacant eyed looks on their faces of the people coupled with a collective IQ of about 94, I would never WANT to be like them.

I’m not sure WHY these commercials drive me straight to my bottle of vodka, truth be told. It’s not as though all of the other extremely contrived and corny commercials elicit the same visceral response from me, and they are no more or less hokey.

Maybe it’s because my marriage is not particularly artificial or wholesome, I’m more likely to be called “dude” or “ass” by my husband than “honey” or “sweetheart,” and I prefer it that way. Our way of showing affection is less “here honey, a piece of jewelry from that commercial” while we sit by a roaring fire discussing our feelings (while we both have great hair), and more an ass-smack while we allow the other one to eat the piece of pizza we’ve been coveting, while arguing about who was going to comfort the baby THIS time.

We’re absolutely the boring Part II of the romance that once was (one really MIGHT argue that we bypassed Part I entirely. It’s probably the case here), the part where we both get all boring and comfortable and pluck stray hairs from each other’s faces while complimenting each other on our burping prowess, but that doesn’t diminish our relationship one teeny bit. I mean hell, if someone can watch you expell a nearly eight pound child from your va-jay-jay and about a half an hour later confess that he’s dying to Have The Sex with you again, I’d call that love. Or stupidity. But I’ll go with love here.

Conversely, if he showed up on Christmas morning with a gift bag from the commercials and a vacant, wide-eyed look on his face, and said something schmaltzy, I’d wonder 1) if aliens had abducted him or 2) if he was having an affair. In the case of 1) I’d have him clean up his office as a test and if he did it without turning into the girl from The Exorcist, I’d keep him as a bonus CLEANING alien! We’d ALL win! If the cause for the jewelry was 2), I’d be inflammed that he hadn’t at least gone to Tiffany’s and instead, had cheaped out on me.

Hey, a girl’s gotta have her priorities.

So what annoys YOU about the holidays, Darling Internet?

To this day, I’m not quite sure what I did. I’m certain it must have been something completely unforgivable, but I would hope that if this were the case, I’d at least be aware of whatever sin I’d committed. Hell, maybe it’s so incredibly stupid that I’m better off not knowing, because knowing would inflame my already heightened sense of rage (Hi! I’m Becky, and I’m a Rage-A-Holic!)

(Hi, Becky!).

Let me back up for a moment.

I met Jenna when I transferred colleges in 2002. We were both on track for the nursing program, which meant that we were working for one year to fill the gaps in our credits before we began our clinical training. As fate would have it, we were in a couple of classes together, and fueled by a mutual love of nicotine and Diet Coke, we became fast friends.

She was exactly the sort to become one of my friends: she was both stunningly beautiful and cracked my ass up, like all of my female friends (You’re all welcome for the compliment. I know, I know I’m too kind. I’ll be checking my mail for extravagent Christmas gifts starting later this week, guys. In case you’re planning ahead, which I suggest that you do.). We had loads of fun together.

She wasn’t accepted into The Program with me, so she transferred to another college farther away, right around the same time that I started dating The Daver. We kept in touch, but between my insane rotations, my quickly growing son, and my new relationship, we grew increasingly distant.

(I admit to The Internet at large, when I began to date The Daver, I became more neglectful of each of my friends. While I am aware that just about everyone does this with a New Relationship, I am still sorry for succumbing to it. It’s not cool and it’s not fair.)

Whew. With that white elephant stuffed rightfully back into the closet, I shall try to get back to the point.

When I got engaged, I asked my best friend Ashley to be my Maid of Honor for several very good reasons: she’s as OCD as I am, she knew/knows more about weddings than I do, and she was around more often than Jenna was. She pretty much ran my wedding for me because I asked her to (damn you Dave, for not letting me get married by Elvis in Vegas, dance down the aisle to “That’s The Way, Uh-Huh, Uh-Huh, I Like It,” and insisting that our first dance NOT be “YMCA!” You’re NEVER going to live this down.) and she did a damn fine job, just as I knew that she would. If I can’t have good taste, I’m smart enough to know people that do.

Before I’d met The Daver, before I had a serious boyfriend OR the prospect of one on the horizon, Jenna and I had agreed to be each other’s maid of honor, something that I vaguely remembered when I asked her to be my bridesmaid. Honestly, between her clinical schedule AND living really far away from me, I was sure that she’d have been thrilled to have dodged that bullet. *I* would have been.

She was decidedly Not Happy, and the prospect of being a bridesmaid NOT a maid of honor miffed her until I offered that she AND Ashley share the burden together. Duel maid of honor to match the two best men on Dave’s side. Sweetness, I thought, this is going just swimmingly.

We all went as a big fucking happy family to get measured for our dresses together, as we were having them custom made, and drama was avoided. Everyone got along, which is saying something because there were eight of us that day. Dress designs were hashed out, swatches chosen, and pick up dates were established. Plans were afoot for a bridal shower, and life just kept on trucking.

A couple of weeks passed when I realized that Jenna was not returning my phone calls. Being as irritating as I can be when I cannot get ahold of someone (very, very annoying. Trust me), I continued calling. When I got no response, I started emailing. To all of her email addresses. I had Ashley email her.

Nada.

Becoming increasingly concerned for her well-being, as she was not the sort to drop off the face of the planet, I increased my efforts ten-fold. Twenty-fold. Finally, as a last resort, I had a mutual friend email her. She received an immediate response.

Fuck.

It was then when I realized that she was infuriated with something that I’d done and I was getting The Silent Treatment. Which is potentially the most horrid thing that you can do to me. Yell at me, berate me, pee in my mail box (please don’t pee in my mail box): fine, I can handle that. WHATEVER you do, don’t ignore me. I cannot take it.

Giving it one last shot, I sent one more email, and called one more time, explaining that I wasn’t going to be calling her anymore and apologizing for whatever it was that I’d done.

I’ve not heard from her since.

Now, I’m fairly certain that she had her panties in a wad (oh, the search terms. OH, the search terms!) over being asked to be a bridesmaid NOT a maid of honor, although this decision was months away from the dress fitting, and I’d heard nothing more about it since then. But I can never be sure, and maybe that’s why this bothers me to this day, nearly three years later.

I have a terrible time saying goodbye to just about anything, really. For being a fairly unemotional person, I’m incredibly sentimental. It’s one thing when a friendship grows apart due to the natural progression of things, but it’s something completely different when you are simply dropped without so much as a whisper.

Moreover, I just miss having her in my life. So few people really get me, and she happened to be one of those people who did. I frequently consider reaching out to her again, sending her a letter saying, shit I don’t know, whatever it is that you say to someone who goes from being one of your best friends to dropping out of your wedding. I’m sorry? I miss you? I am sorry and I do miss her, that’s for sure.

But has too much time passed? If this friendship could be salvaged, should it be? My anger has absolutely fizzled out, so it’s not as though I still have an axe to grind with her: she had her reasons for doing what she did, and mayhap they are good ones and mayhap they are not, but it’s ancient history now (aside from me still whining to Dave about not taking me to Vegas. That may never end.).

So Dear Internet, what would YOU do if you were in my shoes?

If I am to categorize everyone in my house (as I have done with my two children), 7 years ago I would have qualified myself as A Sleeper. The running joke in my family was that a bomb could blow up half of my bedroom, and when rescue workers would come to sift through the rubble, they’d find me completely asleep in my bed, furious that they had woken me up. I’d have easily given up food for sleep, had that been necessary (why that would be necessary eludes me, but hey, it sounds good, eh?).

When I had Ben, despite a pregnancy in which all that I could do was sleep, once he was born I completely lost my ability to sleep heavily. He had his days and nights mixed up, so I was up for most of the night with him (Lord, THAT was fun!). Once that was fixed, and he began to sleep (but not behave) like a normal human being, I still unable to fall into that “dead to the world” kind of slumber. Which broke my heart.

When I found out that I was pregnant with Alex, my sleep began to suck. It was a mixture of problems: I spent many nights sprawled on my 70’s bathroom tile floor (a lovely shade of institutional green + sickly yellow, a perfect compliment to HG), I was worried sick that something was going to happen to my ickle fetus, and my extended LOA left our finances a mess. Needless to say, it made sleeping damn near impossible. By the end of my pregnancy, I could wave a bottle of Benedryl around my face and it predictably would laugh out loud, at it’s utter ineffectuallity and my plight. Nothing worked. At all.

When Alex finally arrived, my sleep became disjointed, save from the days that I would take prescription sleeping pills, in which sleep, oh GLORIOUS sleep would take me away from it all (like Calgon, but with a much worse aftertaste). Then my MD told me, OOPS! You’re breastfeeding so you cannot have your precious Mother’s Little Helpers (like that actually helped Sir Alex sleep more. Har-dee-har-har-har), and I was left back at square one. I was no longer pregnant, but STILL could not sleep.

Months have gone hazily by, and I’ve tried various remedies, but nothing (save for the Valium I stole from my mother’s stash) has helped. I simply cannot relax enough to fall asleep. Most of this can neatly rolled up into a sweet ickle ball and blamed squarely on The Baby.

For months and months and months and months, nearly every time I would fall asleep, the baby would wake up and need, well, SOMETHING. Anything. And since Dave works, that something would fall to yours truly to figure out. And solve. He didn’t listen my promises of a Porsche when he turned 16 IF HE WOULD JUST FUCKING GO TO FUCKING SLEEP ALREADY, CHILD. It became a vicious cycle: I wouldn’t sleep because the baby would wake up and then the baby would wake up and I couldn’t sleep.

Oops, did I say months and months and months and months WITHOUT mentioning that this was still occuring? Every night? My bad.

7.5 months on this great planet, and my kid still has yet to become even a moderately successful sleeper. Which effectively means that his mother is a trainwreck. With puffy eyes and bad hair.

Save from taking prescription sleeping pills (which I cannot do. Damn you, breastfeeding!), I am at a loss. I can’t do chamomile tea or warm milk, because without a set bedtime on the part of the baby, it’s not worth it to try and relax. So how do I let this all go and start entering the Land of Nod without being kept up by persistant “I can’t sleep because the baby will get up” worries?

Is it too early for Baby Benedryl?

(scene, kitchen, about 5:47 pm on a Tuesday night, Becky is standing at the cupboard trying to determine what snack to pack for Ben’s lunch the following day. Deciding on a makeshift trail mix, composed of pretzels, Teddy Grahams and bittersweet chocolate chips, she begins filling a baggie)

Becky (to self): “Hahaha, well, they have trail mix at Trader Joe’s, so his school cannot find fault with mine. Why, these bittersweet chocolate chips are practically HEALTH FOOD. I mean, LOOK at the amount of fiber in them!”

(fade to black)

(Scene, the following afternoon, about 4:30 pm, Ben has come home with his lunch box and is now playing obliviously while Becky prepares to make another lunch for the following day. Opens lunch bag)

Becky: “Benny, what’s this?”

Ben: “It’s the chocolate chips. I wasn’t allowed to eat them.”

Becky: “Whaaaa?”

Ben: “Yeah, my teacher told me to eat around them.”

Becky: “….”

Becky: “….”

Becky: “….”

Becky (after picking up jaw from floor): “They told you that you couldn’t eat these…”

Ben: “Yeah, we’re not allowed to have chocolate. My teacher told me to eat it after school.”

Becky: “Dude, I’m sorry. I didn’t think they’d notice or care.”

Ben: “It’s okay. No one was mad at me. We’re not allowed to have chocolate.”

Becky: “…..I’m sorry, dude.”

(Scene ends with Becky staring astonishedly at the bag with chocolate chips in it.)

She murmers softly enough so that Ben does not hear her, “Fucking school.”

(fade to black)

I seem to possess the most uncanny knack for saying something, and then having to retract my statement at a later date. I’m not talking about my chronic Foot-in-Mouthitis here, although I am pretty amazing at doing that, too, no it’s something else entirely, and there’s probably a 50 cent word for it that I don’t know (but my husband will gleefully point out later while trying not to act gleeful about it. Ass.).

Since I am unaware of what it is officially called, I’ll give you an actual sample of a real-life event and it’s consequences:

Me: “Wow, I guess since it’s so late, I’ll take the expressway home. There shouldn’t be any traffic at THIS time of night.”

(note for reader: I steadfastly refuse to take the highway unless someone else is driving, because I can totally sit in bumper to bumper traffic on a surface road AND THEN PULL OFF TO GRAB A DRINK. The highway makes me feel trapped AND IF I’M TRAPPED, I CAN’T HAVE A DRINKY-POO. And what would life be without drinky-drinks?)

(45 minutes later, while sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic on the highway, me cradling my head in my hands as I realize that the highway is undergoing construction (um…when is it not? No, really.) AT 1:30 IN THE MORNING ON A TUESDAY.)

Me (to myself, as I am alone)“Guess I shouldn’t have opened my big fat mouth.”

Without knowing another word, I will now call this Big Fat Mouth-opathy. I suffer from it daily, as my family well knows, and will attempt to stop my trap from yapping about these sorts of things.

Me: “I’m going to go to the gy….”

Dave (furiously gesturing at me, covering his mouth comically)“STOP, BECKY, BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE!”

Me (completely oblivious to Dave, who merely looks as he does most mornings) “….m tonight/morrow”

Me (an hour later both children are vomiting and Dave has a migraine and has left me to fend for myself, covered in vomit and feeling nauseous as well): “Stupid fucking fat mouth. IDIOT.”

The Universe, it seems, never tires of doing this to me.

About a month ago, we were out to lunch with lunch with my parents, and while walking back to our respective cars, we were approached by two neatly dressed women about my age. Of course, they were Mormons, but we were leaving so we didn’t stop to chat, but not before my dad could throw a “I don’t want to be like ‘Big Love'” comment their way. Oh SNAP, Dad.

Dave spent the remainder of our ride home laughing his balls off (I am, afterall, my father’s daughter, so my sense of humor is remarkably like his. And Dave, who appears to have no discernable sense of humor (oh, SNAP!) finds me hilarious and my father even more so. Mainly because he cannot believe that people would ever SAY such things. Especially PARENTS.), while I mused OUT LOUD at how odd it was that when I lived across the river with my parents, there were always people trekking door to door to tell you about Jesus, or whomever, but on THIS side of the river, we’ve not had a SOUL come by.

Expecting that it was my jonesing-for-Wii-fix neighbor this afternoon (and trying to figure out how to delicately tell him that no, he couldn’t borrow the Wii today either, sorry.) when the doorbell rang, I was shocked to find two young women on my front stoop. Who wanted to do a Bible Study with me. When my jaw returned from falling down on my doorstep, I had to politely excuse myself.

Although I have read the Bible from cover to cover (can you believe it? No one ever can. But to be honest, it was for a class. In school. And I certainly don’t know it well enough to debate it. Nor would I.), I am not interested in discussing my religious feelings with anyone really, especially not two Jehovah’s witnesses. I couldn’t handle the thought of hurting their poor, sweet, wholesome feelings (dude, they were WHOLESOME LOOKING!) when I expressed that not only have I received blood products from a blood bank on a semi-regular basis, I HAVE DONATED BLOOD TOO. AND, I’m missing some organs (nothing too grand, though, don’t worry).

It appears as though the Universe is mocking me. Not maliciously, no, but absolutely reminding me that no matter what, you are not in charge. I’d mock back at the Universe, but I’m afraid of what will happen to (insert anything I care about here). Does this happen to anyone else out there?

So yeah, Universe, you win again. Now can you PLEASE call off the Jehovah’s Witnesses?

After nearly two years of constant badgering (like being pecked to death by an adorable chicken!!), I have finally given in and agreed to allow Ben to take music lessons.

It’s not as though I don’t see the inherent value of music lessons, of course I do, but I’ve never wanted to be one of those parents who overscheduled the heck out of their little kids, shuttling them back and forth to various lessons and sports, and not giving them a chance to be children. Soccer takes up a modest two days each week, and you know what? I admit that sometimes Dave and I get a little bitter about the imposition each and every Saturday morning, because who DOESN’T want to lounge around in their jammies on the weekend (okay, so that’s every day for me)?

Ben is thrilled, as I am not sure that any child in the history of children has ever loved music as much as he does. When we met for our parent-teacher conference this week, his teacher mentioned that he was “auditorially gifted,” which I’ve translated into “loving music” (mainly because people who mention in polite conversation that their children are gifted make me want to hurl. Remember when only the truly amazing kids were called “gifted” and not every player on a team got a trophy? I do. Hell, I still shudder when I see red ink!).

From the time that he was a wee babe, music has always soothed some savage beast within him. Having a tantrum? Put on music. Crying about having to eat *gasp* real food? Play some tuneage. All of his worries and cares vanished. I’m fortunate that things still work that way. This week, he’s gotten addicted to YouTube videos, which is nothing short of hilarious (mainly because I’ve gotten him hooked on “Electric Avenue” and Milli Vanilli.), and nearly as cute as his own renditions of “Ring of Fire” and “Jackson.”

My boy, he does love his Johnny Cash.

And The Beatles.

And The Rolling Stones

And Bob Dylan.

(My masterful plan of raising a child in my likeness is working! Cackle, cackle, cackle. Soon we will take over the WORLD!).

Interestingly (probably just to me), the only drama that we’ve had in this situation is between Dave and I. I cast my ballot for Ben learning to play the cello, not only because I played for a decade and a half, but because I OWN a cello (if I can get it back from my friend) AND it would be easier for me to teach him by myself.

(and I hate, hate, hate, hate, there are not enough hates in the world to describe the loathing I feel for the violin. Not only do I dislike it’s timbre and pitch, unless it is played extremely well, it sounds like teeth on a chalkboard. And I might argue, especially if I’m feeling superbitchy, that it NEVER sounds good. Maybe I’m a bit bitter from years of having to play the bass line, and therefore never playing the melody, but it’s the one instrument that I am not thrilled about. Oh, and the drums. Ew.)

Dave, on the other hand, PLAYED the violin for a couple of years, so is convinced of his own expertise with all things violin-related. Therefore, HE is not concerned about having to listen to squeaky-awful renditions of “Mary Had A Little Lamb” and “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star,” scratched out over and over again in our house. Nor is he the slightest bit upset about having to attend orchestra concerts FULL OF CHILDREN WHO CANNOT PLAY INSTRUMENTS AND THEREFORE MAKE MY EARS BLEED. Or maybe it’s simply because he works approximately 1,795 hours a week and thereby will not be home to listen to and direct said practicing of this instrument.

And as for me, I’m just going to invest in some industrial strength Valium (I should’ve named this blog Mommy Wants Valium or Mommy Wants Percocet.) and those huge Bose noise-cancelling headphones for both myself and Alexander. Then we’ll be set.

(is it just me who has to listen to other parents drone on and on about their “gifted” kids? I mean, I love my son with all of my heart, don’t get me wrong here, but I’m shy to use the word “gifted” on ANY of the kids I’ve met.)

“What do you do?” is a question that I get asked most frequently, and now that I am staying home, I don’t have a succinct answer. Somedays, it makes me feel somewhat useless, like being unpaid somehow makes me a lazy, incompetent person, but other days, I am just thankful that I don’t have to mention where I USED to work.

I won’t get into the reasons that I hated being a floor nurse, not right here, not right now (luckily for everyone, November is a long 30 days, so I just may do so at a later date). Suffice to say, that when I found an office job (sort of) using my degree, I was thrilled.

(cue ominous music now.)

It was working for an insurance company. A big one. You probably hate this one.

This made polite conversation with strangers nearly impossible, as every time I’d make mention of where I worked, the horror stories came a-rollin’ in. Strangers would practically spit at me, so enraged they would become when thinking of how horrid the company had been to them. I heard more horror stories than I ever would’ve expected walking into the gig. And I didn’t doubt that a single one was completely true.

Before you start sticking pins in a voodoo doll made in my likeness or burning me at the stake, like everyone else did, I was a good guy.

My job was to extend benefits for terminal patients who had decided against any further treatments and were only seeking to make their end of life experience as dignified and pain-free as possible. It’s called Hospice, and it’s a wonderful institution, one that I get behind 100%. They come into your home as often as needed, give pain medications, care for the patient and support the family during this hard time.

Some of the employer groups would give only a minimal amount of days for a patient to be covered by hospice (and since most people only would accept the hospice philosophy when the threat of death is looming, therefore only needing a day or two of hospice care, this is less heinous than you’d imagine), part of my job was to extend these benefits so that these people did not have to worry about cost of care during this time.

I also spent my time doing something similar for non-terminal but complex patients who needed a nurse to come into the home for many hours each day. I got report on these patients periodically, verified that these were skilled needs (vent care, etc.), identified then filled gaps in care, and would write proposals to keep these people in their homes (not admitted to the hospital where they could pick up something far worse) and well cared for.

I can all but swear that I never denied a single thing to these people, despite what the haters that I met thought of me. It had a way of getting me down, after awhile, I’ll be honest with you. Imagine that every time that you mentioned your employer, someone would complain at you for being part of the problem, regardless of which department that you worked in. It was discouraging.

When the dreaded hyperemesis began and I had to go on LOA, there was a shark circling my job. It was being moved to Texas, and I was to be transferred into a department that I had no desire to go to.

But sometimes I miss what I used to do. People were GRATEFUL for what I did and it made me feel like a better person (many days, at least), and I was doing something that I believed in. As much as I love staying home with the Sausage Factory, it’s not always as rewarding as a paid gig can be. I don’t get a bonus/raise/mad props for removing stains in record time, nor does anyone thank me for the great job that I did vacuuming today, and usually no one notices if I’ve put the clothes away perfectly or not. In fact, no one notices what I do AT ALL unless I haven’t done it.

I do admit, though, I don’t miss people making the sign of the devil at me.

(For those of you who read both of my blogs, this is merely a copy-and-paste deal. I was inspired by RockMomma to add this here. Because, really, who doesn’t sometimes need a bit of poo humor?)

I’m no stranger to a bit of doo-doo, in fact, I’ve always maintained that I could wipe an ass with one hand while eating a sandwich with the other (well, that would be IF I ate sandwiches, which I do not. But ‘œsandwich’ sounds better than ‘œchicken vino bianco.’). Overall, it doesn’t bother me to change Alex’s diaper (I initally typed Daver, which is all kinds of weird), nor did it really bother me to change Ben’s. Even when the turds would roll out of Ben’s diaper and be snapped up immediately by the dog (mmmm’¦doggie chocolates’¦.) OR when (like the monkey he is), Ben would shit into the bathtub then throw the floaters out onto the floor, I merely laughed.

But now something in our house is amiss. Afoot, even.

For the past couple of weeks, I’ve noticed some toliet paper stained with a brown substance sitting merrily on the sink. And winking at me from the back of the toliet. I assume that it was poo but will have to live my life wondering, because I JUST BARELY stopped myself from trying to smell it (before you judge, remember that my instant reaction to EVERYTHING is to put it to my nose and inhale'”insert cocaine joke here. I have to stop myself from sniffing my food before I eat it as it appears to be offputting to my fellow diners). Becky spells C-L-A-S-S-Y.

I clean my bathroom, on average once or twice per week. Said process involves a heavy-duty bleaching of all surfaces (and typically shocking myself on the bare socket in the process. Mental note, buy and install light socket cover thingy’s) and wiping up the stray pee drops on the floor (ah, the Sausage Factory). Since I am the only one who cleans the bathroom, I am, apparently the only one who notices when things go awry. Terribly arwy. Skidmarks on the seat sort of awry.

Someone who frequents my home is using my brand-new toliet seat to wipe their disgusting ass.

I’ve interrogated the usual suspects (myself, Dave, Ben) and no one is owning up to it (but to be fair, I will disqualify myself as I could easily just pretend that it is not there and make no mention of it). Unless one of the cats or the dog have not only taught themselves to dump in the toliet (which would be so, so, so sweet that I would completely overlook the skidmarks and make YouTube videos because that would be so amazing), I’m at a loss.

I could set up motion-sensitive cameras in each of the bathrooms, but I don’t think that I’d ever be able to watch the videos at a later date (Hello, YouTube!) because the image of my husband’s face whilst shitting would float through my head at all of the wrong times (and yes, I am referring to humping). Ben can’t remember what he did yesterday, so eliciting a confession out of him would be damn near impossible to substansiate (YES, Mom, I DID poop on the seat. When I was 3! HAHAHAHAHA! 6 also, apparently, has a terrible sense of humor.). And we’ve previously established that it is not my ass that is shitting on the toliet seat because it would make no sense (although it COULD be a fancy curveball’¦.). And Alex craps unabashadly into a Pamper (and sometimes with bonus leakage!!), so my gut tells me that it is not him.

So what do I do here?