I had only one goal for being pregnant with Alexander. One stinking, flipping goal: not to become a total fatass as I had done with Ben. I ate well, occasionally indulging, of course, but overall, I grabbed a bowl of green beans over a donut every damn time. I guess the old “if you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans” really rang true for me as I still managed to gain roughly what I did with Ben, WITHOUT THE DELICIOUS CHOCOLATELY GOODNESS.

So I figured, so what, I’d be one of those women who breastfed and lost most of the baby weight. I was okay with being 10 or 15 lbs fatter when I weaned him, but things are getting ridiculous over here. I’ve been nursing for nearly 5 months, and when I first attempted to diet I GAINED 3.5 LBS. I’ve since lost that plus an additional 2-3 lbs, but it’s killing me over here. I saw a picture of myself taken last night and nearly wept, who IS this fat person that’s taken over my body?

I considered doing Jenny Craig, but it’s extremely expensive (ala $400 a month) and I freaking hate boxed meals. I’ve tried the eating tofu, egg whites, and veggies and still, it’s not coming off fast enough for me. I’m nursing, so I can’t do anything extreme like I’d like to do, so I’m thinking Weight Watchers may be my best bet as I’m obviously not doing something right. It’d be one thing if I’d been holed up on my couch with a bag of Cheez It’s and a 24 case of Coke, but unfortunatly I’m not.

I think what’s most interesting about all of this is that if someone came to me and complained about the same thing, I’d remind her to give herself a damn break, that she’d JUST had a baby and was essentially giving him the best nutrition possible and that she needed to let it go for awhile. I DID try to let it go, and it lasted about a week before I realized that I was STILL obsessing about it.

So here is my plea, dear readers (few and far between as you may be) WHAT should I do here? How can I either buckle down and lose this fat or let it go for another couple of months?

The child must know that he is a miracle, that since the beginning of the world there hasn’t been, and until the end of the world there will not be, another child like him. (-Pablo Casals)

Happy Birthday, big guy. It’s been a hell of a ride so far and we can’t wait to watch you grow even more (but seriously now, could you PLEASE stop growing so damn fast?!?).

I haven’t been childless in over 6 years. I’ve been married for 2. But I have been informed over and over about how much harder it is to be single than to be married. Not knowing what it’s like to be single and over the age of 20, I can only guess.

Opinions being like assholes and all, here’s my list of why it must be harder to be single and childless than it is to be married + kids.

1. All of those nights that you go out to dinner and HAVE to actually spend your night discussing days events and feelings and other bullshit like that. God, compare that to the screaming baby WHO ONLY WANTS THE TIT and having to constantly have your conversations interrupted with stories about Dora the Explorer. Sheesh, wouldn’t THAT be MORE relaxing?

2. You have to CONSTANTLY remind other people JUST HOW SINGLE YOU ARE and HOW YOU ARE NEVER, EVER GETTING MARRIED so that they never, ever forget it. Even if they don’t care at all either way.

3. You can use every available opportunity to remind your married + kids friends that no matter how much sleep they are not getting or whatever other bullshit they might happen to complain about to remind them that NO MATTER WHAT your life will always be harder. Because you are single.

4. The aroma of baby poo will NEVER fill your bedroom. Add a sleeping baby into the mix, and you won’t EVER have an excuse not to hump! Nothing gets you in the mood for sex like baby poo.

5. You will never have an excuse why you can’t just go to sleep after work and take the night off. Because if you don’t make it to run your grocery store errands, you’ll just have to subsist on takeout food. And Lord KNOWS that it’s more expensive to get takeout for one person than it is for 3 or 4.

6. Overnight, no one wakes you up demanding something that only YOU can provide. And if, by chance, a lover/boyfriend is over and wakes you up, you can roll over knowing that he can get whatever he wants for himself. Unless it’s sex, which you can’t avoid without the gentle aroma of rotting baby poo wafting through the room. It sucks not to be so needed!

7. You can constantly lessen the amount of work that your friends that do not work do by degrading what they have chosen to do with their lives. If you don’t work, and are (gasp!!) supported by someone else (double gasp!!!), what right do you have to complain about ANYTHING!?! Working a stressful job and paying your own bills by yourself makes you a far, far better person, and you should remind anyone else who does not do what you do of that.

8. Any messes that are made in your place are obviously made by you, which sucks because you have no one else to blame it on! If only you had a couple of other people to clean up after so that you could blame them!

9. Getting paid well, getting occasional promotions as well as the occasional “good job!” from the bosses are nothing compared to having nipples bitten almost off or the ever popular “I am not going to live here ANYMORE!” statement when you dare refuse the child something. That sounds like payment enough to me!!! Who wouldn’t feel good about themselves when their 6 year old is having yet ANOTHER tantrum about having to drink his milk!?! Being barfed on, or better yet, having the kid barf on the floor so that you have to then clean the floor too is BETTER than a promotion!

10. Running errands by yourself SUCKS! It’s so much easier to do it with an overanxious 6 year old who cannot keep his hands off anything and a baby that insists on being held the whole time! The shopping cart practically pushes itself!

But daytime TV, (shudder) now THAT’S scary.

In order to know what other moms think, I tend to lurk on some “mommy blogs.” It helps me not to feel so alone in the SAHM world, considering most of my friends have big girl jobs and no kids. It’s a hotly debated subject, the stay at home moms vs. the working mothers, one that I don’t have much to say about. Both are hard, and usually I relish that I have no hard deadlines and bosses that I can ignore if I need to.

Today, however, I want nothing more than to take a sick day. I want to pull the covers up over my head and take the rest of the day off. I want to be responsible for nothing and no one. Alas, I cannot as I have no backup.

I’ll keep on truckin’ as I always do, and tomorrow will be a brighter day, I just know it.

Ben starts school again in a couple of weeks, this time as a big old first grader, which is actually aging Dave more than it’s aging me (this happens to be a first). With the almost 6 year old age has come the almost 6 year old attitude which is_getting_old.

I actually found myself in an arguement with Ben recently regarding the actual need for roller skates in order to rollerskate. I was suprisingly pro, he anti. What was mainly interesting about this interaction was that I am all but convinced that I had partoketh in this converasation previously, with his father, the king of “Well, actually, Becky…” conversations. If I were to mention that the sky happened to be blue today, he’d come up with all kinds of charts and graphs to prove “Well, actually, Becky the sky is green.” Or yellow. Or motherfucking pink. Needless to say, I find this to be incredibly grating.

With the addition of actual school has come the need for school supplies, something I had expected to relish buying. Until I realized that Ben’s school has ALWAYS requested that we purchase things like “snorth-fibber queesile grinder,” in a delicate azure. Never an easy purchase, now made way more difficult than necessary by the school.

Of the approximately 105 item checklist, I have now only acquired a handful of items. The rest seem to elude me. Where exactly does one purchase a (and I am not kidding here) 3 subject, plastic cover, wide rule, red notebook? According to the worker that I enlisted to help me, they don’t have them in red. At least at Target.

I guess it’s a good thing that I started early, but I am seriously considering suggesting that the school purchase said items for us and WE WILL PAY THEM DIRECTLY. Hell, considering the extreme amount of gas I will have to buy to head to 1,984 stores to find their blasted MEAD BRAND ONLY!!!!! composition book, I’d be willing to pay more than retail price. And for a cheap ass like me to say so, it must be bad.

Howdy God,

I know that we don’t speak a lot, if ever, but seriously I’ve been trying to get ahold of You these days. I know, I know, I might not be Your most pious follower, but hey, remember a couple years ago when I READ THE BIBLE COVER TO COVER? I do. Sure, it was for a class (as an aside here, God, I know the teacher may have been a more God-loving person than I, but his class was basically just regurgitating whatever he interpreted to be the meaning of the Bible. It wasn’t very informational.), but still I READ IT. And yeah, I probably didn’t see what a lot of the people who make church unpleasant were getting at with the no abortions, no same-sex marriages, etc, but maybe it was just my untrained eyes.

Although maybe I wasn’t baptised, You must recognize that this was my hippie parents decision, not my own. See, I even GOT MARRIED IN A CHURCH AND STUFF! And I married into a Religious Family! So, I’m not all bad!

Okay, so here it goes: I need Your help. I have this baby, this high needs baby named Alexander, and I adore him much as I adore his brother. But this baby, cute and sweet as he is, does not sleep. Like ever. I have tried many different things to make him sleep, but to no avail. And God, I’m tired. Really tired. Dangerously tired. I’m not going to complain about the isolation, the inability to do anything fun anymore, or the constant needs of said baby, IF YOU HELP HIM TO SLEEP.

Please, please, please, let this kid sleep. No naps? Fine. Just allow me 3-4 sweet hours straight each night. This waking every 45 minutes to an hour is killing me slowly. Seriously, I’m about 4 hours away from a trip to the nuthouse. This just isn’t pretty.

If You help me, I’ll join a church. Just let me know which one is a good one. I’ll EVEN WAKE UP AND GO TO CHURCH EACH SUNDAY! For me, as You know, this is a Big Thing.

Semper fideles,
Becky

For the first time in over four months, yesterday Alex didn’t take a dump. God love breastfed babies, but they shit almost constantly. In fact, the shitstorm usually makes it all over the front of poor Daddy’s shirt (which is freaking hilarious, really) or at least ruins the outfit he’s wearing. But yesterday, be it from stress or from the addition of rice cereal and applesauce not a rumble was heard in his tumble.

At 4 am, Alex woke up and had a meal. He promptly (thank you Jesus) fell back asleep, looking less like the Spawn of Satan with each passing moment. About 2.4 seconds after I turned the light off, I heard the familiar sound of some nasty sounding farts, and after that, he began to whimper pathetically.

Thinking he might still be hungry, I whipped out the tit and grabbed the babe. Once in his immediate vicinity, I smelled it. Either some rotten eggs had gotten into his pants or he had taken a dump. I did the side check and everything looked okay. I checked his back, and nada: no green mess to be seen.

I pulled him onto the changing pad and removed said diaper. Then I saw it. The most disgusting, foul smelling huge dump I had ever seen come out of my Ickle Baby. It went from his penis to his shoulder blades. The outfit was toast. No way I was cleaning that. Had I had some industrial strength cleaner, I’d have sprayed him down no questions asked.

Just desserts, I’m sure Dave would say, for constantly laughing at his unfortunate shit-baths.

I am absolutely not a baby person. If my kids could come to me via FedEx at about 6-9 months old, I’d be a totally happy camper. This would spare me the life-sucking pregnancy period as well as newborn hell and I’d probably actually be able to shoot sunshine and flowers out of my butthole. At least in my mind.

In that vein, I always felt relieved that no matter how difficult Alex is during the day (read: screamy each time we try to do something out of the house or out of his routine) at least he slept decently at night.

Well, ha ha ha, looks like my ass was hanging out there.

Because starting at the beginning of July, he stopped sleeping a 5-6 hour stretch at night and began waking several extra times during the night. Which sucked ass. And I whined about it. Let’s be clear: 4+ months of constant sleep deprivation = you exist in a constant dream-like state. For example, I was trying to “beep” Alex’s nose the other day, and I kept hitting his cheek by accident. I finally stopped when I nearly missed “beeping” his eye. Needless to say, I try not to drive anymore. I’m dangerous.

So, yeah, instead of reversing his sleep regression, it’s gotten worse. Since Sunday, he has started waking up and having a difficult time getting back to sleep starting at 2 or 3 AM. I have tried using formula, rice cereal, applesauce, baths, tylenol, gas drops, and am soon about to try whiskey (likely for me, not him, but if he likes it…).

To say that I am upset is a gigantic understatement. To say that I am even more exhausted than I ever thought possible is an even bigger understatement. To say that I have seriously considered leaving the baby in his crib alone and running away to a motel is the damn truth.

I don’t know what to do here. The childcare books I have don’t have any good suggestions that I haven’t already tried. His pediatrition told me that “babies sleep when they need to” and couldn’t offer any suggestions. Taking shifts isn’t quite fair, as Daver does have to work every day. My mother comes each morning to watch Alex while I sleep, but 2 extra hours ain’t quite cutting it.

Like anything with children, I know that this too, shall pass, but seriously not soon enough.

If you had asked me 7 years ago what I’d expect my world to look like when I turned 27, I seriously doubt I’d have seen myself as a mother of two (!?!). Growing up, although my mother did stay home, “housewife” was a dirty word and something I’d never have wanted to become. But you know what they say, if you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.

Nevertheless, here I am. Degreed in a field I’ve always hated. Staying at home day after excruciating long day. Occasionally I am the person you glare at when you go to Target, complete with squalling baby and snivelling first-grader. Yes, I am aware of how obnoxious this is. Those bags under my eyes have been well earned, I promise. And no, I didn’t look in the mirror before I went out. Sorry about the smell. I’ll shower tomorrow.

Some days are diamonds, some are rocks, and all are unique. Well, almost all of them. Since Alex has been born, my life feels like one four-month long day. Want to expend some of my energy? Ask me what I had for breakfast. I HAVE NO IDEA. But I will die trying to remember.

Damn, I really need to take up a speed habit.

…is the song that we’re singing. Gotta love the happy horseshit of the Partridge Family.

So, yeah, I already have this blog, right? And I love it. Slowly, however, I realized that my readership was getting weary of my posts about my boob-loving new baby, my slightly (I’m being generous here) obsessive six year old, my workaholic (also being generous) spouse, my three neurotic cats and my sausagey-looking pooch. This fact, rather than allowing me to kick into super-interesting world of grown-up wordly observations stifled my urge to write.

But since I stay at home, thereby limiting the amount of conversations not about SpongeBob or blocked ducts, I realized that I had to keep on truckin’ into the blog world. Because, if you can’t say it on the Internet, where can you say it?

So here I go, back into the sorted world of blogging, where my posts will always be riddled with extra commas, and Spell Check will continually go unused, but the posts will always be real.