In my household as a child, I grew up feeling as though my needs/feelings/gushy crap were generally unimportant. When it’s a choice between Becky who has the stomach flu at age 6 and my mother who was threatening suicide, you can guess whose needs were made more important. It wasn’t always splendid as you may imagine and it has left me with a fairly large chip on my shoulder about such things. Overarchingly, I tend to be fairly sensitive about people negating my feelings on a particular matter but I also attempt to not play the Pain Olymics with other people. Your bad day MAY be worse than mine, and I’d be the first to admit it.

Ben had colic as a baby, and I admit that it was pretty severe. I can honestly say that it impacted our bonding while he was younger as well as causing me tremendous guilt for many years. What was I doing wrong? Why didn’t my baby love me? It’s irrational, I’m aware, but you can’t help but feel rejected when your cute little infant screams most hours of the day and you cannot do a damn thing to make it better.

I don’t have a lot of mommy friends who have kids around the same age as mine, so I didn’t have a lot of input on the subject of colic save from what my mother and/or Dr. Spock had to say about the matter. (Even now, I’m not sure any of my mommy friends had kids with colic. Maybe karma is paying me back for stealing that package that was delivered at Christmas time to the wrong house, I don’t know.)

Colic sucks and it’s hard and I hated every moment of it. Especially because I had had colic as a child myself, and my mother suffered tremendous guilt about it, even 20 years later. So much so that when I decided to wean Ben (hahaha, like he EVER latched on or breastfed), she began buying formula designed for premature babies (which Ben was not), in an effort I suppose to assuage her guilt about my colic. It’s basically already digested. AND it costs double what normal formula costs. Luckily for me, a lactation specialist intervened and convinced my mother that there was absolutely no need for this formula. Period.

Over and over I had to listen to my mother go on and on and on and on and on about what a horrible colicky baby I was, to the point where it basically negated whatever I was feeling. Sample conversation: Me: “Man, he is SO COLICKY and I WANT TO DIE.” Her: “I don’t know what YOU are complaining about! YOU WERE SO MUCH WORSE!”

Even now, 5 years later, she is still convinced that Ben was a much easier baby. Maybe he is, I have no idea (this affected me so much that I had to clear it with Nat several months ago and his answer was yes, Ben was a really hard colicky baby). I wasn’t around to take inventory over which was harder, myself or my son. All that I can say is that I am sick to death of having my own personal feelings pushed aside in favor of how much harder her life is. Yes, I am aware that it is partially my problem with my mother, a subject for another blog post (or prolly not)…or I was until Alex was born.

Alex, God love him, is not colicky, not one ickle bit. He had his own difficulties, just like newborns often have (like trying on a daily basis to crawl back inside of me), but he was never colicky.

My mother-in-law, I was aware pre-Alex, had had a colicky baby as well: my brother-in-law. When she’d call or stop by, we’d mention the difficulties we were facing with Alex (or show her, as the case may be) she would spend a good portion of her visit/call trying to convince either of us that Alex was just a colicky baby. Dave actually ordered some crappy Colic Be Gone or something snake oilish which didn’t work (BECAUSE HE DOES NOT HAVE COLIC) and stained the bejeesus out of everything it came into contact with.

To this day, whenever I see her, she tells me the same stories over and over about how colicky her first baby was. When I mention that Ben, too, was extremely colicky, it is brushed aside THE EXACT SAME WAY MY MOTHER DOES IT.

I guess I just don’t get it. I’m aware of the Mommy Wars (ala my baby is SO much better and more advanced and awesomer than yours could ever be) and the Pain Olympics (ala my life is harder than yours will ever be) but is it really so hard to admit that someone else both may have experienced a similar problem AND give them a little more empathy and a little less brush off (especially considering that these colicky babies that I constantly have to hear about are 27 and 34, respectively)?

Colic sucks, newborns mostly suck, babies are hard, kids are hard too, and I think it would be just a teeny-weeny bit easier if mothers (and non-mothers) just acknowledged the plight of other people, or in this case got off the damn cross because we newbies might need the wood, too.

For those of you keeping track at home, I may have set a new record for dumbest injuries sustained:

It appears that I have actually broken my toe while making a peanut butter sandwich.

That’s right, a peanut butter sandwich.

And not one for some cancer ridden child in a building that’s burning down, either. Just one for my son’s lunch. For tomorrow.

I cannot believe they let people like me breed.

On the way home the other day, Daver mentioned that he’d been posting on his “Twitter,” which sounded like he had yet another Internet Girlfriend to add to his collection. My knowledge about current stuff -n- things has always been lackluster at best, especially considering I only recently found out about this thing called “MySpace.” Come to think of it, I was amazed that this house actually had a microwave AND a dishwasher to boot!!

He explained that it was something you can post little bits of things here and there, kind of like a mini-blog. When I stopped laughing long enough to catch my breath, I promptly began laughing again.

Here’s the thing: I’d always found blogs to be incredibly self indulgent (keep in mind I have 2…what does that say about me?), useless, and boring, full of ramblings about what the owner thought about kittens and poodles and the like (although to be completely fair, I have found a TON of interesting blogs in the past couple months). Mushroom Printing was started as kind of an anti-blog blog, and I found I rather enjoyed it. We only posted when we actually had something either semi-interesting or semi-coherant to say (some may argue that this is actually never), and I’m pretty sure we never discussed at any length what we ate for lunch (unless there was a pube in it or something).

To me, posting about the minutae of your day sounds stupid and boring, only interesting if you were a teenager or an international man of mystery. If possible, this is MORE self indulgent than a blog. I’ll give you an example by writing what my day was like today, ala Twitter:

*Oh my God, I’m tired. WHY does Alex insist on waking up at 6:30? OHMYGOD did he pee a lot last night. AAAHHH! Why does he wait until I open the diaper to pee on me? Asshole.

*Ooooh. I’m hungry and my nipples hurt. YAY! I can eat a bagel now! I like bagels. I gotta hide these from Ben, or he’ll eat them all. DAMN, he spied my bagel and now he wants one. Guess I should’ve waited.

*Wow, the Internet is boring. WHY isn’t it interesting yet? OH MAN I GOT TO PEEEEEEE!

*That was a GOOOOOD pee. I feel SOOOOO much better now.

*Yum, bagels are gooooooooood. I’ve got to start Weight Watchers today. I wonder how many points are in this delicious bagel…OOOHHH I wonder how many are in a Monte Cristo sandwich. I’ve heard those are terrible for you, but ew, they sound nasty. Dave probably likes them.

*Am I really old enough to have a first grader? Damn, I’m old. But HAHAHAHA Dave is older. I should remind him of that.

*Hmmm…Dave sounds crabby. I guess he didn’t want to hear from me about how old he is at 8:16 am. I wonder why…?

*HOLY CRAP I’M THIRSTY! I need a Diet Coke STAT.

*That’s much better. I freaking love Diet Coke. I wonder if it’s addicting. It must be.

*NOOOO! Alex wants to eat again. The kid breastfeeds at least every hour. I guess it’s time to start the formula.

*OHMYGOD I have to PEE again. JESUS H CHRIST I GOTTA GOOOOOO NOW!

*Aaaahhhh. Better. I peed for like 20 minutes.

*Wow, the Internet is still boring. I wish people did cool stuff. And post on their blogs.

*Oh shit, soccer practice is tonight. So is Parent Night. Hahahaha, Dave has to go to Parent Night. I should remind him of that.

*Wowzers, he sounds cranky. I wonder why he’s cranky now? I didn’t mention how OLD he is, hahahahaha. Maybe it’s arthritis…CAUSE OLD PEOPLE HAVE IT!! HAHAHAHAHA. I should ask him if he has arthritis. And hemmorhoids.

*Man, he is UNHAPPY to talk to me. I wonder if he’s having a bad day.

*The basement smells like pee. It’s probably cat pee. Sometimes, I hate the cats.

*There are too many socks for me to sort. I hate sorting socks. Dave has this weird hangup about sorted socks. He got that from his mother. SHE is anal about sorted socks. I bet she doesn’t like it that my socks never match. Ever.

*Lunch is good. I like lunch. I had an egg white omelette and an english muffin and an apple. I wonder how many points are in that.

*WOW HOLY CRAP IS MCDONALDS BAD FOR YOU. LOOKIT ALL THOSE POINTS!!! I should tell Dave to not eat McDonalds anymore.

*Hmmm…he’s not answering his phone. I guess I should call back.

*Now it sounds like he answered but then the phone hung up. I should call back to make sure that he’s okay.

*Voicemail again. He must be busy. I’ll send him an email.

*HOLY CRAP THE BABY JUST FARTED ON THE CAT!!! HAHAHAHAH! Wow, that smells TERRIBLE. I wonder if he pooed.

*No poo this time. Maybe that’s why he’s so crabby right now. I get crabby when I have to poo.

*OHMYGOD I think I just heard a car pull up! Maybe Dave’s home from work!!! We can talk about being old together BECAUSE HE’S OOOOOLLLLDDD!!!

*No it wasn’t. Now I’m sad. Oh, I guess it’s only 1:30.

*FINE, I’ll go take a walk. I should move my fat butt.

*OH MAN!! I just got LAPPED on my walk by an old guy with orthopaedic shoes! MAYBE IT WAS DAVE!!! HAHAHAHAHA!

*I like my iPod, but I wish it was blue, not pink. I didn’t want the pink iPod, I wanted the green one, but they were out when I got this. Now I’m sad. Maybe I should break this one AND THEN I CAN GET A NEW ONE!!!

*Man, I’m HUNGRY. I wonder how many points are in a sandwich.

*Wow, that was a gross orange. It peeled well, but sheesh, it tasted like sawdust.

*I love our vaccuum. Especially because it has a motor. Motor vaccuums are awesome. I wish it were pink. I saw a pink one at Target and now I want it. Maybe I should go buy it.

*UHOH I gotta get Ben’s soccer stuff ready for him. I should totally get a skull tattoo on my arm so I don’t look like a soccer mom.

*THE BABY FARTED AND IT WAS HILARIOUS. It totally smelled like rotten eggs. I should tell Dave that.

*WHY is his phone now registering as disconnected? I should call back.

*Hmm, the phone company doesn’t know why his phones are all disconnected. MAYBE HE’S AT MCDONALDS AND HE DOESN’T WANT TO TELL ME. I’m gonna punch him for that. McDonalds is awesome and I love it.

*Holy crap, feeding the baby rice cereal is hard. It’s like peeing into a moving target at 20 feet. WITHOUT A PENIS.

*Man, the baby is soooooo cute. Too bad his butt smells like rotted eggs. He must get that from Dave. His butt smells rotted, too. Gross. Men are gross.

*WOW, I’m glad someone else is taking Ben to soccer. Practice is boring.

*OHMYGOD, I just accidently busted Ben for taking a dumpalump. I thought he was playing in his room when he was supposed to be getting ready for bed. I guess I’m a bad mother or something.

See, my life is BORING and DULL and you don’t care what I do minute to minute. Because it’s BORING!

At 5 months postpartum, I still am 38 pounds heavier than when I got pregnant. This fact makes me highly bitter, as I neither enjoyed eating while pregnant, nor did I eat myself into a stupor as I did when pregnant with Ben. Plus, I cannot avoid all of the “wow, I breastfed and lost 93 pounds in a week!” propaganda that LaLeche League puts out. I’ve been working steadfastidly at losing weight and STILL have only lost 7 or 8 pounds. That’s depressing.

I fear that the only way that I can go nose to the grindstone to lose this weight is to quit breastfeeding. Ah, breastfeeding, have I ever felt more conflicted about something? In short: no, no I haven’t. I share a love-hate relationship with it, more hate these days with the incessant biting that Baby Alex loves to do to my poor bedraggled nipples. I’m imagining some sort of gradual weaning taking place over the next couple of months.

So, what does someone as OCD as me do in this sort of situation? I make a plan.

I am going on the record here to proclaim that I plan to lose 15-20 lbs by Christmas Day. Considering how overweight I currently am, this may be a loftier goal, but come hell or high water, I’m going to give it my all. I could lie and say that I’ve been only halfheartedly sticking to my diet, and maybe it’s partially true, but now I mean it for serious.

It’s on fat, it’s SO on. You’re going to have to take up residence on someone else (like Dave, for example, he needs it more than I do).

The bathroom hates us. It totally, totally hates us. I suppose the same could be said for many home improvement projects, but this time I can’t help but think it’s personal. Maybe it liked the awful decor with the THREE different kinds of wallpaper, maybe the hideous testicle lights were really what made it feel special, perhaps the gigantic medicine cabinet is what it defined itself by; I don’t know.

All that I do know is that we have been thwarted at every turn. The walls are so fragile that when I removed the wallpaper tape, some of the drywall actually got damaged (which actually served to make me feel like somewhat less of a wallpaper-removal failure). Even with the approximately 65 pounds of spackle I carefully put onto each and every crack, the walls still look pretty bad. Which is accentuated nicely by the new light fixture. The medicine cabinet that I recently picked up (on sale!!!) had a crack in it AND was missing the shelves. When going to exchange it, we learned the reason for it’s reduced price: it’s extinct, well aside from the floor model, which we then bought.

The nice pedestal sink? Oh yeah, the damn sink doesn’t sit flush on the base, so it wobbles. When we took it back, it appears that ALL of them wobble. So after all of this we’re going to hire someone to install it.

(and yes, I DO realize that things could be worse. I never operated under the illusion that this job would be simple. Honestly, it’s all the things that I never would imagine would be hard that have proved to cause us the most grief)

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to weep into my towel rack.

It’s been a long two years, marked with such exciting events as “Why Becky Is A Sucky Pregnant Woman” and “Wow, We Need To Make Up Our Mind As To Where We Want To Live,” and in that time I’d like to think that I’m starting to learn a bit about this whole Being An Adult thing. And if not, at least I’m learning a bit about homeowning, or as I like to call it Why Lowe’s Is Heaven On Earth.

Over and over again, I sit around googling prices for things, because where I grew up, I never had to worry my addled mind about such things as lawn furniture and light fixtures. In fact, you might even say that I was oblivious to them, because I could not have cared less. Now that I have my own house, I am constantly struck by just how incredibly off my internal pricing is about the crap that you suddenly find yourself obsessing over. Like why shiny brass fixtures were so important to the previous owners. I mean, WHY?!?

Take for example lighting fixtures, which I, for good reason, never ever had chance to explore unless we were high and OOOOOHH!! a pretty light! I had always assumed that they were unbelievably expensive. Prohibitively so. In remodeling the bathroom, I’ve learned that holy hell, they’re actually pretty reasonable. Which makes me wonder why on earth my parents stuck with their pseudo Tiffany style, hanging fruit covered, stained glass monstrosity for so damn long. Illogical, and if you ask me, unforgivable.

Which brings me to nail guns. I’d always assumed that we’d acquire one during the bathroom remodel, because, hey, we’re putting in a chair rail (<-----don't I sound sophisticated!?!) and we have to replace the trim, plus they might be handy to use to threaten Daver with. Then I walked by the selection, and wowzers, they're SUPER expensive!! Who knew?!!? Why is lawn furniture so freaking expensive? The set we'd picked out cost over $2,000, which I wouldn't spend on ANYTHING (unless, of course, you mean bed linens, in which case I would and have), and most other stuff looks like it belongs in the same circle of hell as our old bathroom did, and even THAT is expensive as fcuk. Unreal, simply stated. I guess that I still have a lot to learn about this Adult Stuff, after all.

It’s Daver’s birthday tomorrow, and I’ve been wracking my brains as to what I could say about my darling husband to comemorate the year. He’s older than me, he’s always GOING to be older than me, and you can take that to the bank.

In honor of him turning 29 years YOUNG tomorrow, I am going to list 29 things that I have learned about my husband this year (and only a partial roast):

1. There exists 2 time zones in my house: “Real Time as designated by whoever designates such things” and “Daver Time,” which runs about 1-2 hours behind Real Time.

2. He can sleep through anything, including labor and a screaming baby.

3. While the house may be in complete shambles, The Internet will always function perfectly.

4. He is more apt to quickly celebrate a positive pregnancy test than I will ever be, and never think to exclaim “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

5. Despite what he may say, he hates Chocolate Brown.

6. While strapped for cash, he will drop a significant amount of money on an outfit that makes his pregnant wife “feel better.”

7. Although he’d never admit it, he loves it that I make a hugemongous deal out of holidays.

8. He’s more of a creature of habit than I am, as evidenced by the fact that we have gone to the Hideaway for the past 3 years for his birthday.

9. He’s too sweet to admit that the baby actually said “Daddy” the other day, despite having heard it while I wept into my hands sobbing “Mommy, Alex, SAY MOMMY.”

10. He allowed me to purchase Ben a Playmobil house for his 6th birthday because it was really what Ben wanted, without making a big deal out of it not being particularly manly. He also didn’t rub in the fact that I was overjoyed by said purchase.

11. Even after a hugely long day for him, every time he comes in the door and the children clamor for his attention, he makes sure to not let them see just how exhausted he is.

12. When thwarted by Marriachi music, he went and “camped out” on Ben’s floor because they’d been looking so forward to camping outside.

13. He’s not really a morning person, either.

14. Even after being up most of the night with a newborn baby, he trucked his sorry ass to each and every one of Ben’s soccer games.

15. To save his life, he would STILL be unable to put away his laundry.

16. After listening to me complain about being fat, he doesn’t rub it in if on my next breath, I ask for McDonalds.

17. For many months, he didn’t realize that I was not actually hand washing his special “not dishwasher safe” mug AND ACTUALLY USED IT DIRTY.

18. He fully accepts that I absolutely hate to cook and doesn’t complain about it.

19. Rather than make fun of my addiction to crappy TV, he plops down beside me and watches such shows as “Americal Idol” and “The Girls Next Door.”

20. He allowed me to get myself a pet bunny even though we had a baby coming in about 5 minutes.

21. Although completely justified, he does not often engage in “Why, Becky” conversations with me as much as he could. For example “Why, Becky did you bleach the Kate Spade pillow covers that cost as much as a car?” he just agreed that we needed to buy a couple more.

22. He didn’t rub it in my face that the baby who made me sicker than God looks just like him. Which I totally would have done had the roles been reversed.

23. Despite having the best intentions, he is almost utterly unable to complete a project once started because “oh LOOK, a BLUE car!!!”

24. He was so proud of the 8 week gummy bear ultrasound pictures of Alex that he took them into work to show them off. Even though you couldn’t tell what it was.

25. He never once (okay, ONCE) bitched at me over how sick I was when I was pregnant with Alex, nor did he complain about how me not working affected the finances.

26. Although I can beat him in arm wrestling and rub it in his face for the next 3 (ahem 8) weeks, he never complains when I make him carry the vacuum up and down the stairs for me.

27. He calls me “Shorty The Pimp” instead of “Sweetie.” ‘Nuff said.

28. He admitted last night to having boofed in a sock to me, which is a dangerous, dangerous thing to admit to me.

29. He puts up with me, year round, which should earn him a metal or something.

Happy birthday, Dick For, I love you.

I just turned 27, which for some, seems like I’m a mere babe in the woods, but unluckily for me, I am not “some” people and have wondered often why I am not getting the AARP magazine like I should be, and why those damn kids won’t get off my lawn, consarnit!

Things that I have done most recently that I cannot believe that I ever would admit to in public, but am now telling the Internet at large:

*Subscribe to Martha Stewart Living. I fucking love me some Martha, and in some sick way, am hoping to one day emulate her. Without the cooking of meals, of course, but with lots of baking. I guess I’m hoping that I become more of a decorator by osmosis because I can’t make a paper craft out of a coffee filter if my life depended on it (but thankfully I can use it to make coffee, however badly I may do so).

*Bought, in no particular order: Basic Home Maintence for Dummies, How To Clean Practically Anything, and Gardening for Dummies. Because, you know, I need to plan out my garden for next year and start planning. Who am I and what have I done with myself? Seriously now, this is just sick and wrong.

*Researched how to AND THEN ACTUALLY SUCCESSFULLY cleaned out the pee stains from the carpet. Which I had been trying unsucessfully to clean for 9 months. And no, thankfully the stains are not mine. I am (mostly) housebroken.

*Purchased my big son’s birthday gifts ONE month in advance. AND have bought an actual real live Christmas present. I am so incredibly last minute that I usually begin (and complete) my Christmas shopping at about 10 pm on Christmas Eve at Walgreens. You’re welcome for all of the enema kits and crappy glass tchotchkies.

*Have researched endlessly ways to organize the vast multitude of crap that we have (despite my best measures to eliminate it) and am now totally pining for both a wrapping paper organizer AND clear shoe boxes. My obsession with home organization is nearly rivaling my obsession with bleach.

*Coupons used to be something I scoffed at, miffed on and off by people in line ahead of me (usually when a child/ren are screaming like banshees and all that I want to do is GET OUTTA THERE), and now, now hell may be freezing slowly over as I admit that I use them. Not only do I use them, but I have bought a little coupon organizer thingie (again with the organization!) and carry it around with me. I feel gay, lets just leave it at that, mmmmkay?

I barely recognize myself these days.

Unfreakingbelievably, the bathroom is now completely painted, which ends my current foray into home improvements.

One half of the bathroom is a light blue and the other is chocolate brown, which Dave (btw–go visit that duder, he’s feeling lonesome) is too tactful to actually come out and admit that he hates. I reminded him that no matter WHAT we did to that room, it couldn’t be worse than it already was. The bathroom looked like a runaway from some stuffy old lady’s house who had died in approximately 1974. To give an example, we pulled down the light fixture from there and threw it into the garage where it is currently sitting. I may never part with it, because I imagine that anytime I am feeling sad or mad or whatever, all I will have to do is have a look at it, and I will burst into gales of laughter. Like blogging, it’s cheaper than therapy.

Ashley called it Testicleeeez (say it out loud, for once I intended to mispell something) whereas I happen to think that it looks more like boobs. Sweet Jesus, these people had no taste.

So YAY! bathroom is done. Well, I should clarify that: MY part of the bathroom is completed, and the ball is in Dave’s proverbial court (because we don’t ACTUALLY have a court here, dumbass), where I am sure it will remain for the next several months until I learn how to install a toliet tank and bathroom sink. I don’t know what is scarier, the thought of me installing a toliet by myself or the thought of having to sit on the couch, phone in hand while I dial 9-1 and wait for the screams before I hit the next 1. I’m thinking about having a Housewarming Party in my bathroom, providing I can clean up the blood in time.

To celebrate the possible demise of my husband by toliet, I give you a video:

(I SOOOO want to learn to do the robot.)

My relationship with Ben’s father has improved significantly over the years, which makes my life easier in many ways. No longer do I have to (constantly) bite my tongue while he insults me and my life, and aside from the occasional jab (comment today: “Wow, you still don’t dress to match, do you?”) life has become quite peaceful.

There are some things you just don’t think about when you find yourself unmarried and pregnant. Deep down in there, I think that I always knew that Nat and I would never, ever get married, mainly because he does happen to be a douche bag, but even after the whole “we didn’t get much SLEEPING done, Becky” fiasco, I wanted to give things a chance, if not for me then for my unborn babe. It was a battle royale, for sure, but I gave in and Ben’s last name matched his father’s (but his middle name is my maiden name). So on time marched. I got used to (but always hated) the accidental Mrs. Ben’s Last Name that I would get now and then, but things were all right.

Then school began. Suddenly birthday party invites would arrive at my house bearing Ben’s name with the postmasters scrawl next to it: ‘Here?’ they read. And then I got mad. Stark raving mad. Why is it fair that Ben get HIS last name when *we* were the parents scheduling doctors appointments, dentist appointments, and taking him there? (As an aside, each and every time that Ben has attempted to call Daver “Daddy Dave” Nat has become livid. He wants the glory without the responsibility which infuriates me).

The straw that broke the camel’s back arrived when I informed Nat of when Back to School night is, to which he replied “I’m not going. It was boring last time.” This on the heels of him not showing up to ANY of Ben’s school functions like Open House or Kindergarten Graduation, even after he promised to do so.

Boiling point reached. I called the school and informed them that Ben’s new last name would be a hypenation of His Last Name-My Last Name. As far as the Social Security office would be concerned, nothing had changed, but now, the postmaster will have no more doubts.

Ah, the things I wish I could inform those who get pregnant out of wedlock…see, as a baby none of this matters. It’s only as the years pass that it becomes a “God, I wish I’d not given in.”

And as for me, I am completely aware of the Battle Extrodinaire that will ensue from this, providing Nat ever notices, and for once, I feel perfectly justified.