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.

Sudddenly, I’m very afraid.

What began as a bad birthday weekend is now shaping up to be a bad birthday week. Does anyone know how to rid yourself of a curse? Anyone perform exorcisms?

I still cannot see well. Things are almost completely blurry, which makes everyday living annoying if not entirely unbearable. Sound like I’m overreacting? Take the lens out of one of your glasses, or remove one contact and walk around for awhile: that’s how it feels. I spend several hours a day trying to remove long dark hairs out of Alex’s neck fat, diaper area, arm fat and hands (I heart you postpartum hair loss) not because the hairs are really that prolific (anymore), but because I can’t quite navigate exactly where the damn things are. And because of the complete loss of depth perception, I can’t drive myself to the doctor (or anywhere else, really).

On Tuesday, right before I was planning to go to bed early (foronceinmydamnlife), I heard the dog barking loudly outside. Because I cannot see (read: lazy) I sent Daver out to investigate, while I went to the sink to wash my hands. Then I smelled it. A combo of burning rubber and burning oil. Oh holy fuck. Shit.

The dog was tangling with a skunk.

Needless to say, I won’t bore you with the details about baking soda and H2O2 covering the kitchen, or how when the mixture reaches your skin in drop form your skin looks like you have vittaligo, or how truly awful fresh skunk goo smells.

Let’s just say that I didn’t go to bed early that night.

And the Vicodin, while awesome, leaves me an awesome, drooling, high as hell mess, which means that I cannot parent Alex. Dave = workaholic, who for obvious reasons, like our house is not the same as work is not here much. So I cannot take my precious pills. I wouldn’t mind being blind so much if I were high.

Ain’t that the truth.

Dear Rabbi Shmuley,

I am currently breastfeeding my three month old son. I hate it passionately, but I realized that somewhere along the lines, if I could give him what is best for him (and it is, have no doubt), I would do so. For a finite time. As parents who willingly brought a child into the world, we are not allowed to behave as selfishly as we might want to do, which is simply put, part of being a parent, like it or not. Had we not been prepared to put our children’s needs before our own, at least most of the time, we would have either prevented the pregnancy or terminated it.

There is nothing in the world I love more than my children, except for my husband. I might even go out on a limb here to mention that I do actually love him more. Unlike my children, I was allowed to choose exactly who he is before I committed to him. Maintaining my marriage is an extremely high priority for me, as I am aware that my children may or may not remember some instance in which I messed up in one way or another as their mother, my husband will. In 20-odd years, my children will likely abandon me for their wives regardless of what I do, whereas my husband (let’s hope) will not.

I’ve been lucky enough to have children with two different men (OOOOOOOO!! And one was not my husband!!! OOOOOOOO!) who were both very interested in watching our children born. As I am totally aware, having seen any number of births, it’s a messy process, and it is not for everyone. Which is why I would never have requested/required that either man watch it. Both chose to do so, and neither experienced any diminished sexual interest in me. In fact, I would venture to guess that both of these men were aware that this is what the vagina was designed for and were able to separate the birthing vagina from the sexual vagina.

Normal mothers do not breastfeed for the sexual feelings, nor do they deliberately use their children as a shield to not engage in sexual behavior and if they do either of these things, there are significant other issues that require addressing. I actually like sex. New mothers and fathers are likely to avoid sexual intercourse not because breastfeeding can get in the way of it (unsure how, but this is a point you make), but because they are simply too tired to enjoy it. Personally, as someone who was at one point getting 5-6 hours of sleep a night in 15 minute increments, a 20 minute nap was far more appealing than a roll in the sack. Plus, as someone who ripped hole-to-hole with my first born, my privates were a bit tender for longer than the six week recovery I had expected.

Let’s be clear with one thing here, Rabbi, my body is property of no one else. Perhaps they didn’t teach you that at Rabbi school, but here in WASP country, we women are not property of our men or our children. We occasionally share our body with others, but this is our prerogative when and where we do so. My breasts and vagina are mine to use as I see fit and not how someone else would like. I can choose to breastfeed and I can choose to have sex. I can even do both (altho not at the same time; that’s sick), when I want to.

I have mentioned choices over and over again here, and that is what this boils down to: a choice. I can choose to put my relationship with my children above and beyond my relationship with my husband or I can choose not to. While breastfeeding or in other ways. And I refuse to apologize to anyone about my choices to do what comes most naturally to my body and the choices I make regarding who and what can use it when.

Respectfully yours,
Aunt Becky

P.S. I really liked your show until I realized how antiquated you are.

I used to tell people that I wanted three children. Having had Alex now for almost 10 weeks, I’ve decided that I don’t ever want any more children. Which would be funny, except that it’s not.

You see, Internet, I’ve been lying to you: I’m not doing so well over here.

I gave birth to a child who on his best days could be described as difficult, and on his worst, hell-sent after a pregnancy that pretty much zapped my will to live. And now I am a prisoner in my home, chained to this baby who refuses to quiet for anyone but me. He rarely sleeps. Breastfeeding has turned from a ‘Hey, wow, this is cheap and we’re bonding and stuff’ to a virtual noose around my neck, tightening with each successive thing that I have to pass up because I cannot leave the baby for more than 2 hours.

I sit around day after day, surfing the Internets and watching shitty daytime TV while Alex alternately shrieks or breastfeeds, often simultaneously. For hours. I have no mommy-friends close, and my other friends live real big-girl lives that don’t involve diaper duty and cracked nipples. I’m so tired that I can no longer do simple math (let’s be clear here: I used to be able to do it) and I have no end or relief in sight.

There are even days that I question my choice to have had him at all. Of course, seconds later Mommy Guilt kicks in and I cannot believe that I could think that way. Alex doesn’t MEAN to be such an asshole, and being loved so wholeheartedly is somewhat flattering. But sometimes I wake up (or am still awake at 3am, so anxious that I cannot sleep) and look around and say ‘is this REALLY the life that I chose for myself, each day the same as the rest?’ and I wonder how other people do it.

I love him so overwhelmingly and I hate that I feel this way. It will get better; I know it will. My first was no walk in the park (he may have actually been worse as he was totally inconsolable) and I distinctly remember the day that life with him in it didn’t seem to be quite so long. However, in the here and now, I’m honestly picturing breastfeeding him through college. THAT’S how much he loves the boob and how trapped I feel right now.

Like an addict, I’m going to have to just take this one day at a time and hope for a better tomorrow, because losing my marbles just isn’t an option. And I am going to try like hell not to resume smoking, which is all that I can think about these days.

Mental note: going tanning in the super bed after a year long tanning exile is VERY not wise.

Burned nipples + teething (i.e. biting) baby = pure stabby badness.

Let’s just say it’s suicide for me…

….AGAIN