Alex is on what the experts call a “nursing strike,” and despite my conflicted emotions about breastfeeding in general (I love it most of the time, but sometimes I do hate it) I am literally wracked with guilt.

Ah, guilt, the other primary emotion of motherhood. Guilt, guilt, guilt. What did I do wrong? How is my body failing me? Etc, etc, etc. Maybe it’s not strictly a maternal thing, though, maybe some father’s experience it as well, I’m not sure. I married a man who, God love him, is quick to reassure me that things that happen to or with either of our children cannot be classified as my fault, nor are they his fault. It’s meant to be sweet, of course, and most of the time it is, but sometimes there is a more banal part of myself that wants to scream at him that “YES, *I* did this to our kids! It’s MY fault that I cannot find a Mead ™ brand red plastic covered 3 subject notebook!!!” It’s not rational and it’s not fair, which is why I bite my tongue.

It’s interesting to note that ANYTHING that I did with/to Ben as a baby was my fault in Nat’s eyes. It was MY fault that Ben didn’t breastfeed (although it was later determined that Ben cannot stand to be touched); Ben was screamy because *I* decided to try solids on him too early, the icecaps are melting because I dared to not listen to NPR on an hourly basis. He was always convinced of my guilt before I even did whatever it was that I was to feel guilty about, although I never once saw him guilty about anything that he did.

Maybe it’s just me, then. Having grown the daughter of a bipolar alcoholic does happen to make a person rather guilt ridden. I’ve been known to feel guilty about things that I have had absolutely no control over. Take September 11, 2001, which was approximately 3 weeks after Ben was born: I FELT GUILTY ABOUT BRINGING BEN INTO THE WORLD DURING SUCH A TIME, as though I’d have been able to predict that would happen while unintentionally getting pregnant. Today, one of the cats pissed in the living room. I felt guilty about that, obviously I wasn’t fit to be the parent to the furbabies. I finished priming the bathroom last night and this morning I noticed that the walls were nowhere as smooth as I’d have liked them to be, especially considering the labor I put into them. This made me feel guilty.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t sit around prostrate with grief (although if I were prostrate with grief, I doubt I’d be sitting, I’d probably be laying somewhere dramatically) day in and day out. Overall, I’m pretty well-hinged and even tempered (somewhere, Dave is laughing silently, while weeping), but situations like this nursing strike tend to make me feel overly guilty about something outside of my control. He’s teething, the rational part of my mind screams, get over it, he’ll be back on the nip soon enough. Then I google “nursing strike” and Dr. Google reminds me that it’s somehow my fault that he’s not nursing: I’ve been drinking too much coffee, I’ve been eating something he doesn’t like, I’ve been snorting too much blow.

Seriously, 90% of material about pregnancy, breastfeeding and parenting place the blame for most poor behavior, including that of newborn infants squarely on the mother, which is interesting, because last I checked, children have a biological father somewhere, too, even if he’s not in the picture. He is, apparently, never to blame for anything whatsoever. I suppose that reading that kind of shit just reinforces what is inborn to mothers: you are to blame for most everything that goes wrong with your child.

I don’t know about all of this. All that I do know is that I am terribly, ridiculously sad right now.

Monday morning at Target while in the discounted school supply aisle, Ben is playing his DS in the cart, seemingly oblivious to his surroundings while Alex and Dave disappear into another aisle.

Me: “grumble, grumble, freaking impossible to find school supplies, I’ll show THEM next year…”

Ben (while not looking up from his video game): “Mommy, did you put on your bitter pants today?”

Me: “…..”

Me: “…..”

Me: “…..”

Me (suitably chastised): “Um….I guess I should take them off, huh.”

Unlike the previous owner of our old condo, I had no real beefs with the previous owners of our house. Sure, I hate all of their paint choices, and maybe the fake flowers planted (and thoughtfully left) in the backyard were pretty rank, but overall I couldn’t complain. There were no size 20 skirts in the closet and no spoiling milk in the fridge.

Until I started work on this bathroom. In a word, it’s been a nightmare, the likes of which only someone else who has removed wallpaper can appreciate. Let me give you a mini-primer on wallpaper removal should you ever be cursed with such a chore:

Wallpaper is made of 2 pieces of paper: the vinyl outer layer (in this case, 3 separate flower patterns) and the inner layer which is designed to glue to the wall. Removing the outer layer isn’t hard, but the glue bonds itself to everything in it’s path. Including drywall and the old paint from the walls.

After you scrape the bejesus out of the glue/paper and it comes off, you’re left with patches that weren’t able to be removed (so you have to sand it) AND in this case, bits of chipped wall paint. So now you have 2 choices (somewhat like a Choose Your Own Adventure novel, only less awesomely awesome): you can sand off ALL OF THE PAINT from the walls OR you can spackle the living shit out of the patches (because if you don’t, the painted wall will resemble the pockmarked face of a teenager with bad acne).

I chose to spackle, which is somewhat more satisfying but will THEN have to be sanded smooth. Then primed and painted (assuming I haven’t committed myself first)

Here’s hoping that it works, otherwise you may see the only recorded death due to spackling (considering the recent back injury, the tally is now Spackle: 1, Becky: 0).

I am currently in the running for dumbest injuries ever sustained.

1) I sprained my ankle walking down the stairs in my old condo. Walking leisurely, mind you, I was not running quickly nor was I saving any cute and cuddly kittens from a burning building.

2) I scratched my cornea doing absolutely nothing whatsoever.

3) And today I strained my back spackling the wall in the bathroom. SPACKLING a wall. And no, it wasn’t a wall designed to rescue cute and cuddly kittens from being crushed by it.

If this keeps going, I may soon injure my taint while sleeping.

For my birthday this year, instead of the earrings that I wanted, I got a newly remodeled bathroom. Wait, let me rephrase that: I got the stuff to remodel the bathroom.

When we moved in here, we did almost nothing to the house save from starting to live here. When I got pregnant with Alex, we painted the previously Disgustingly Pink ™ room a nice shade of yellow, and because we kind of had to (and really, we enjoyed it) we bought furniture to go in there. Then, in a fit of maternal guilt, we bought most of the stuff to decorate Ben’s room, but because I was hugely pregnant, no progress was made on it. This weekend, we finished Ben’s room. This makes 2 (almost) finished rooms (I still have to hang some stuff in Alex’s room).

After we had bought the stuff for the bathroom (read: beginning of July), Dave set on the nasty task of removing the 3 (!!!!) completely different wallpaper + ancient glue. No easy task. He promptly got sick of it (honestly, who could blame him?) and stopped working on it.

Several weeks ago, I decided that I was sick and tired of living with it, and rather than pay someone (read: I’m cheap), that I would finish stripping the glue and paper myself. I knew it would not be an easy or pleasant road.

Yesterday I began work on it and I’m guessing that it will easily be another month before it’s even remotely completed. The old glue has bonded to the drywall in certain spots, which makes me glad as fcuk that we bought the industrial sized can of spackle.

I supose that on the bright side of things, at least my best and worst quality will play a factor in finishing this project: I’m damn determined.

I must correct myself for a moment. The worst job in the world IS NOT taping for painting. It is removing old wallpaper.

I am so freaking mad right now. So mad I could cry.

Let’s back up a bit, and I’ll explain myself. I send Ben to a private school which I have previously mocked as far as their asanine stipulations for school supplies, etc. I love, love, love the education that he recieves there, it’s totally perfect for his temperment and ability level and I have no doubt that he will continue to flourish there.

Which is a fucking good thing, because year after year they make me feel like I must be the worst parent ever in the world ever. As my brain is so full of anger right now, I am unable to post except for in bullet form.

* I have gone to no less than *5* stores to get school supplies for him PLUS having to pay double for something that I could only find on the Internet.

* Most of these items are still incorrect because the stipulations placed on them are so asinie as to not actually exist in real life. For example: a three subject, wide ruled, non-perforated edged, PLASTIC COVER ONLY yellow notebook. It does not exist.

*Without mentioning it on the memo that was sent home, I needed to buy 2 pairs of shoes for him to have at school. I only had bought one, and had to run out yesterday morning to buy him a second (but completely different) pair of heavily stipulated shoes. On Day 1 of school.

* We were never informed as to what time school both began and ended, nor were we told that he would have to take a lunch. Luckily I had guessed correctly and sent him with one the first day.

*As a back-to-school treat, I bought him some packets of cookies to take in his lunch. Today, Day 2 of school he was sent home with a note requesting that cookies not be sent to school in his lunch. Why couldn’t that have been mentioned BEFORE school began?!?

*His father and his family pay for school, INSTEAD of paying regular child support to us, which has been the arrangement since he began to go at age 3. The bills are always sent to his grandparents. Year after year, they forget this and send home bills to me with wee nasty-grams on them so I must call and complain over and over about it.

I guess that the moral of the story is that I am angry that there is almost no communication between the parents and the school. While I don’t mind being proactive as a parent I feel that this is getting out of hand and I am part way considering transferring him to the public school system.

Phase One is complete, and I must share what I have learned today:

1) ABSOLUTELY WHENEVER I have something of import to complete the following day, Alexander will be up every 1-2 hours the evening before. I shudder to think of what tonight will hold, besides lots of vodka.

2) For some reason, the people who lived here before us loved to use the walls as tissues. For boogies. Yes, that’s right, I spent the morning cleaning old crusty boogers off the damn wall. Damn straight, my life is glamorous.

3) Instead of using the $2 sponge to wash the walls (because it sucked and smeared the dust around without picking it up at all), I used a Swiffer, which I almost never use what with the complete wastefullness of such a device. My parents are hippies, what can I do here (besides use reusable cloths to dust with on any other day).

4) Taping the walls is damn near impossible while hoisting a 14 pound baby in the Baby Bijorn. But wearing said baby in Bijorn while carrying a 25 pound vacuum up a flight of stairs IS possible.

5) Being without music while prepping the walls is torture. Especially since my internal record player has the entire collection of School House Rock on repeat.

6) The dog who neurotically follows me up and down the stairs each and every time I go to grab the screaming baby is actually protecting the baby, not me. He, like the baby, is extremely upset that I am deviating from my daily routine.

7) Taping the walls is possibly the worst job ever.

8) Ben has been living with a crustified cat turd under his bed for I don’t even know how long. This makes me feel very guilty.

9) It is approximately 900 degrees with 100% humidity inside Ben’s room today, which means that I smell horrifying. And I wonder why no one wants to come help me paint this weekend…

I can only imagine what tomorrow with all of it’s prime-y goodness will bring…

I’ve spent the last 6-7 months gearing up to redecorate el Benjamin’s room, starting when I realized how much time and energy we had focused on Alex’s room, which made me feel quite guilty. Alex has yet to spend even a single night in his bedroom (and his crib, OH his crib, it cost an insane amount. I’m considering sleeping in there myself, just to get my money’s worth) and Ben, well, he’s stuck in his room every night that he is home. In a toddler bed. With mismatched furniture.

We picked out the theme for his room, which had to be 1) approved by myself and 2) nothing too theme-y because that’s really not how I roll, and finally decided on this. It’s obviously not as awesome from Pottery Barn Kids, but hey, we didn’t have to take out a second mortgage to afford it, which is a plus and a half in my book.

After purchasing this in oh, I don’t know January, we decided that it was high time to finally do something. Which included buying a bed without a crib mattress, so when we saw the one we’d initially been casting our eyeballs on finally on sale, we sprung into action.

(as an aside here, who the hell knew that beds were so bloody expensive? Apparently, they’re made out of platinum and diamonds and the tears of wee babies.)

So this weekend, we (and by we I mean I) will be painting, which is awesome, aside from the fact that we had no paint.

Off to the happiest place on Earth I know (aside from Target, which ALSO happens to be the happiest place on Earth. How the two co-exist, I have no idea) we trucked. And as we pulled into the lot, we noted how nasty and black the sky was behind the hardware store.

We started to gather our supplies as the rains began to pound down onto the metal roof while remarking on our good fortune not to be outside during the downpour. As I was examining roller covers–something I’d never before cared about–an alarmed employee mentioned that there had been tornadoes seen in the area. Having lived in the Midwest my whole life, I found nothing particularly alarming about the statement.

I mean, there are ALWAYS summer tornadoes. Big deal.

This news set the WHOLE STAFF into a blind panic. We were not allowed to leave the store, and a frightened mass of employees gathered at the front of the store windows (um, duh. Away from the glass, folks. That’s dangerous) all chirping nervously away, occasionally one would sprint wildly–and aimlessly–around the store like Chicken Little causing general unease and out and out fear among the patrons. The power went off as we were looking at lights and when the emergency lights came up we decided that around glass was probably not a great place to hang out. Especially with Alex around.

Languidly, we strolled to the back of the store where a frantic employee had been trying to direct us, because apparently there was ANOTHER BABY BACK THERE, YES ALL OF THE BABIES NEED TO BE TOGETHER. We took a seat on some chairs and began to wait when I heard the unmistakable cry of a child about Alex’s age threatening to drown out the cries of his mother.

I went over and invited the poor woman who was almost hyperventilating to sit down, when I realized that the poor woman had 2 babies with her and she informed me THAT SHE HAD JUST MOVED OUT HERE FROM COLORADO YESTERDAY, where they do not experience weather like this. And of course, with the alarmist attitude of the staff (which was nearly hilarious, because seriously, hadn’t at least some of these people been through this before?), she was undeniably shaken to the core, imagining that the tornado was going to suck us all up.

The Daver and I calmed her down while we compared notes on what having babies was like. Overall, it was a pretty pleasant way to get trapped somewhere, even though the computers were down by the time that we were finally free to go (the light! I can see the light!!) and it took about 29,034 hours to get all of our myriad of stuff coded and priced.

And so the real fun begins: phase one of wiping down grody kid walls begins in the morning. With only one kid (as el Benjamin’s help would not actually be help at all, what with the constant redirection and likely spilling buckets of water onto the white carpet. Oh, white carpet, you are the bane of my existence) in tow.

The Great Taping Project will commence in the afternoon, after the walls dry and I soothe Alexander from what is sure to be hysterics stemming from GOING OUTSIDE THE ROUTINE, MOMMY.

Heh. Wanna come help?

I’ve always had a great amount of admiration for parents who look so at ease while out with their young children, sitting serenely at dinner with the babe happily gumming his hands while sitting in his car seat. If the camera were to pan to my table, you’d likely see my six year old hard at work on completing the kids menu games, my the top of my husband’s head while clicking away on the Blackberry and me, sitting with the baby on my lap while he attempts to fling my plate back to the kitchen. That wide-eyed look on my face: it’s not Xanex-induced euphoria, it’s fear.

You see, after having 2 extremely demanding/screamy/colicky/generally unpleasant babies, I have started to hate going out without reinforcements. Having been front and center in the Great Colicky Baby saga of 2001-2, including such highlights as Out At Dinner, Where’s The Damn Check and At A Friend’s House, This Must Be Better Than Birth Control. 2004-5 held such gems during public bathroom potty training as Mom, Where Is Your Penis And Is It Dirty Down There? and Dave, Can I Hold Your Penis? These days, I’m more apt to have to fight such battles as Dude, Where Is The Tit? and But I Waaaannnnnnnttttt It, Mommy!!!

I want to be able to suck it up and not get so damn stressed out by it because I genuinely hate sitting around the house day after day, as I know that the only behavior that can be changed is my own. Aside from Xanex, I have no idea how I can do it.

I just watched Alexander, my talkative baby have a full out conversation, complete with full belly laughs with my nipple.

Either he was laughing at the smell eminating from my armpit, or the nipples the size of Mount Rushmore.