And then, When Good Holidays Go Bad about what a pain in the ass holidays become when you become a twosome (or, heh, a threesome).
Rounding it out is my interview with the person who stole my daughter, my friend, Mrs. Soup (our daughters look THE SAME).
———————–
Dude. Dude. Dude. DUDE. This is like having THE POPE guest post for you:
I asked Becky if I could do a guest post and she most graciously obliged. I am Lauren Leto from Texts From Last Night and TFLN has a book coming out on January 26, 2009.
We have all sorts of features in the TFLN book, most notably a “Relationship Timeline”, a “Choose Your Own Adventure” chapter and a “Hookup Flowchart”. Also, we have texts grouped into hilarious categories, such as “The Morning After” and “Grubbing Out”. Many of the texts have never been seen on the site before!
Best of all, for Mommy Wants Vodka readers, we have a category called “Don’t Let These People Near Children”.
Some of the funniest ones from that section:
(201): When my kids ask how I lost my virginity Im going to have to tell them of a mythical thing called “Myspace” and how strangers could lure you into their “den of love” thanks to clever quotes and graphics
(206): Sometimes I get depressed that my son is too young to understand how hot his babysitter is.
(404): In retrospect, pretending to punch a 9 year old girl in the face was a terrible analogy to use in a piano lesson.
(972): **i WaNt TO sLaP mY niECe wHO ThINks iT iS cUte tO WriTE LiKE tHiS**
(704): We’re pre-gaming then going to chuck e cheese’s.
(919): If you’re joking I’m going to be sad
(785): I wonder what percentage of toys r us merch ultimately becomes a sex toy…
(1-785): In my case? 100%
Some funny ones that I like from other sections of the book are:
(705): Fantastic night. drank beer from a wine bottle, danced on a van, chased a llama, and fell from a fence
(330): I don’t know where I am but the food in the fridge is awesome.
(215): i keep telling myself in the mirror “get undrunk”
Thanks!
Lauren Leto is the creator and co-founder of the site http://textsfromlastnight.com and http://momsmsgs.com
Last year, I sat on my couch wearing an ass groove into the cushions and going through the motions of the holidays while counting down the moments until it was all done. The only reason that I didn’t stay in bed entirely was because I had small children to care for and, well, they don’t give a shit how miserable and depressed you are, which is kind of the beauty of kids.
It was really out of the norm for me, someone who normally celebrates the magic of the season like a small annoying child, but I was very, very pregnant and on the tail end of a shit year. My friend had died in February, I’d suffered two miscarriages in April and May and while I’d gotten pregnant again in June, it seemed sort of uncertain for awhile.
August through October brought about The Daver’s Nervous Breakdown where he could barely get out of bed, which left me wondering how the hell I was going to support our family without selling pictures of my pregnant self for cash. By December, I was just done. I felt like a heaping pile of dog ass that peed herself when she moved, and really, there was no Christmas spirit to be had by me. I’d weep onto the top of Alex’s head as I rocked him to sleep at night, while my daughter kicked him from within and I’d wonder what I was going to do.
Obviously, January didn’t bring much better news. My daughter was born so sick and even after her surgery, things were so scary for so long. It took me so long to recover from all of that.
What’s shocking to me as I read back through the archives is that there’s not a whole lot of mention of this. Likely, I didn’t know quite what TO say, so I simply said nothing. Because I had no real concrete reasons to focus on and work through to be able to say “Hey Internet RIGHT THERE is why I’m so miserable” I just said nothing.
The skies didn’t really start to clear up for me until a couple of months ago when the PPD and the PTSD and all of those other fancy acronyms began to fade somewhat and in their place I realized what I had to do.
In all of these years, I’ve raised my crotch parasites and pushed them from my nether regions and paced and rocked and bounced and swaddled. And I’ve Wifed, by pushing Dave to succeed at a job that really, he does love and encouraged and listened and pretended to understand when he spoke in what may have been ancient Finnish and keeping the house running and organized and somewhat clean.
But what I’ve neglected all of this time was me.
Your Aunt Becky has been missing from this equation and this life. In all of the time that I’ve been Becky, Wifey of The Daver and Moooooommmmmyyyy of Benner, Alex (not Alexander–his declaration, not mine) and Mimi, Your Aunt Becky has been sorely neglected.
When I realized what I was going to do with the rest of my life–freelance, for those of you not playing along at home–or at least until I decide to actually inhabit my new house and become Lady of the House (Princess Grace Of Monaco) it was like I was finally seeing things as they are for the first time in years. I can be all of those things to my family and Your Aunt Becky too.
So this year, while my house is only haphazardly decorated for the holidays, it’s for a very different reason. I’m busily throwing myself into doing something for myself. Like my homie Pashmina has suggested, 2010 is going to be the year of ME (although, I think she means that it’s going to be the year of HER, because if she was taking a whole year to celebrate ME, well, I think that would be so awesome that I don’t even know how I would handle that. HEY PASHMINA, CELEBRATE ME! And, uh, BUY ME STUFF.).
2010 is going to be the year Aunt Becky Gets Her Groove Back. And hopefully, her fucking figure too.
I’m not sure how I’m going to keep you guys informed of what other projects I’m doing without ramming it down your throats, so any suggestions are appreciated. Maybe links at the bottom of posts like I do with my Toy With Me columns?
In that vein, I’ve started this: my boring professional website. It’s not done. OBVIOUSLY. It’s lopsided, but the picture plug-in is busted and I need The Daver to fix it. I’ve got some other things that I’m getting started on, but so far, nothing that I’m actually able to be all LOOKIT INTERNET, SEE WHAT I DID?
And come January, I’m going to incorporate and form a small company that will likely generate about $1 in income all year long. But because I need to keep my dollar separate from DAVE’S dollars, I need a company. Which means that I need a name. For a company. I’ll probably GO BY “Mommy Wants Vodka” but on the paperwork, I need something more professional.
LAST week I ran ANOTHER contest to give away my friend Stefanie Wilder-Taylor’s book, It’s Not Me, It’s You, which is freaking amazing. The book, not my contest. If you haven’t read it, or her blog, Baby on Bored, you really, really need to. And I’m not just saying that because she’s a BFF of mine or because she’s standing behind me with a gun to my head. The book rules, so does her blog. Also, don’t shoot me.
PLUS, if you buy ANY of her books (yeah, plural. FEEL FREE TO HATE HER) now at Comedy Film Nerds, you can get them signed and personalized. I’d suggest getting them made out to Yer Anus or Mike Crotch. Hehehe. I think I have some shopping to do. Hehehe.
The rules were simple, join my group Aunt Becky’s Band of Merry Pranksters over at Savvy Source (which you still can join me, even if you haven’t entered the contest, because it’s fun! The widget is on the sidebar) and leave a comment here. Random Number Generator was going to do the work for me because math is hard and I’m not a smart person. OBVIOUSLY. I’m a blogger. I don’t like to do REAL WORK.
And so, the winner-winner-chicken-dinner is…KARYN.
(also, because I am Captain Dumbass I have something I bought for The Daver that he already OWNS for the next contest. Now I’ll just have to write another interview because that was fun)
———————–
For something completely different, a reworked, awesome post from moi:
(ring, ring)
Aunt Becky (clearly jumping out of her skin with excitement): “Hey Fuckwad, I had a great idea!”
The Daver: “Yeah?”
(typing sounds resume in background)
Aunt Becky: “I want to buy a new house now.”
The Daver (warily) “Yeah?”
Aunt Becky: “I found a new one.”
The Daver: “What?!?”
Aunt Becky (talking faster now): “I mean, I know the market sucks but I just realized my dream house!”
The Daver (tiredly): “Where is this place?
Aunt Becky: “Well, you know that forest preserve that I love that we always pass on the way home that I always say ‘God, I love that forest preserve?'”
The Daver (warily) (wearily): “….yes…”
Aunt Becky (triumphantly): “I’ve decided that we’re going to buy the Cantigny Mansion. You know, the old McCormick house? I toured it once as a kid with my parents, and I LOVED it!”
The Daver: (feels the dull thump of a migraine coming on) “Becky, it’s not for sale. It’s property of the county”
Aunt Becky: “I KNEW you were going to say that! THAT’S why we have to go in with guns blazing! Give them an offer they can’t refuse!”
The Daver (rests head on desk) “Ohno.”
Aunt Becky (dreamily):“Think about it, Dave. We can be Lord and Lady of the house. I mean, I already changed my name to Princess Grace of Monaco when we got married!”
The Daver: “You know she’s dead, right?”
Aunt Becky: “So she won’t mind that I’ve taken her name. Plus, I won’t have to explain to people, I’m the OTHER Princess Grace of Monaco. See, I think of EVERYTHING.”
The Daver: “You got me out of a meeting for THIS?”
Aunt Becky: “DUH. This is IMPORTANT.”
The Daver: “Dude. You’d better get this freelancing shit going soon.”
Aunt Becky: “When I am Lady of the House, I won’t have time to write any more. I’ll be too busy trying on my vast tiara collection and ordering the staff to taste my food to make sure it’s not been poisoned.”
The Daver: “I’m going to call some people to see if they’ll hire you.”
Aunt Becky: “Good luck with that.”
The Daver: “I’ll make them an offer they can’t refuse.”
Tuesday brings me over to Toy With Me, where today I am bringing you the hilarious BEGINNING of my biggest insecurity. Shockingly, it’s not about my ass or jiggly post-baby belly. No, it’s something that was the subject of my SECOND column: my weird fear of my vagina.
While I was going through my archives, cleaning up my shitty grammar and the places where my computer lovingly substituted *#&@^@ for quotation marks, I discovered the birth of my neuroses. Which is actually kind of…well, full of The Awesome. It’s rare that you get to see where it all began.
Do I even have to tell you while I’m VERY proud of how this one turned out because it’s hilarious and bawdy and you need to read it, it’s REALLY not safe for work. Unless you have THAT kind of job, in which case, are they hiring?
Below, you have what ran in Canadian Family’s Blog as my first Guest Post over there. It’s VERY safe for work.
And, as if I don’t ask enough of you, The Daver is asking for your help on his blog. Like actual serious help.
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In hindsight, I don’t know what I was thinking. I really don’t know what he was thinking, but I don’t know what I was thinking either. The gigantic pizza slice costume was one thing, but this, this was something else entirely. But nonetheless, there I was, standing in the middle of the pizza restaurant where I worked, in a Santa costume feeling stupider than I’d ever felt before.
The customers you could tell, were even a little embarrassed for me. I looked like an idiot. But the district manager had gotten the inane idea in his head that for some reason having “Santa’s Helper” in the store for Christmas Eve would somehow bring flocks of customers in for lunch in droves. What he didn’t know could fill volumes. Sort of like the time he taken me aside, just as I’d gotten four new tables who were all waiting for me to get them drinks to whisper conspiratorially, “I think someone is stealing…cheese.”
But I needed the extra money because it was my son’s first Christmas, and as a single mother who was also in school full time, I took every shift that I could lay my grubby hands on. Debasing or not, it was money in my pocket. Shockingly, no one actually wanted to have their picture taken with “Santa’s Helper.” I’m not sure if it was the yellowed, fraying beard, or the fact that my pants fell down about every third step that I took, or that I was obviously female, but no one seemed interested. In fact, everyone seemed to avoid me, which was just as well. I used the time to get caught up on my homework. No rest for the wicked.
Finally, just before I was to go home to my son, some family agreed to have their picture taken with “Santa’s Helper.” Perhaps they hadn’t seen me. Maybe they didn’t like their kid very much. Or maybe everyone just had a fantastic sense of humor. Who knows.
All that I do know is that they thrust their tiny baby onto my threadbare lap. And all that the baby knew was that one minute, she was burbling on her mother’s shoulder and the next, she was shoved onto this stinky scary bearded lady in an saggy red Santa Suit. She did the only sensible thing to be done: she opened up her wee baby mouth and she bellowed. She screamed, she cried, and she wailed.
The picture was taken and a phobia of Santa was formed. This poor kid was going to grow up terrified of Santa. Jumping at holiday displays and wondering why the thought of Christmas always made her feel nervous and nauseous, always trying to get out of festive celebrations in favor of sitting in front of the television with her twelve cats and a pint of ice cream.
It would all be my fault.
Satan’s Little Helper.
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All right, o! Internet, my Internet, it’s time to bring Your Aunt Becky a bowlful of YOUR stories about Sandy Claws and how he terrified YOU as a child. SO BRING IT.
(I am pretty sure that you guys built The Daver up so thoroughly that he’s going to be fighting me tooth and nail to guest post on my blog. Which, hi, AWESOME. Except he’s WAY NICER than I am, so there’s that. Maybe I’ll make him blog on Saturdays for me after he’s done rubbing my feet and giving me a manicure and washing the floor with his tongue except OH WAIT HAHAHAHAHA!
That’s right, he barely posts on HIS BLOG!
If you bug him enough, maybe he’ll post here.)
Christmas in my house growing up was always a pretty understated affair. A simple candle in each window, popcorn and cranberries hung on the tree and tasteful ornaments hung just-so on the freshly-chopped-down-ourselves tree. It drove me bonkers.
If I’d had it my way, Christmas would have vomited all over my house, spewing tinsel and garland from floor to ceiling, the more, the tackier, the blinkier, the better. I admired the displays in the stores with something akin to lust as my mother pulled me through, always calling my choices “tacky.”
The one year that I saved up my allowance, snuck off to the store and bought tinsel to decorate the tree with overnight, she was FURIOUS. Partially because it was “hideous” but mainly because our stupid cats ate the tinsel and dragged cat turds around the house dangling from their buttholes like homemade garland.
It was fucking hilarious.
Watching her chase our indignant and semi-retarded cats around the house pulling those strands of poo garland out of their poo holes, man, that was comedy gold. Consider that mental picture my Hanukkah gift to YOU.
As I got older and started to have to decorate for Christmas ourselves, we’ve toed the line between broke-as-shit and we-don’t-give-a-shit. I’m not a huge holiday decorator anyway, because that would imply that I’m some sort of decorator in the first place, which is something I’m going to have to eventually hire someone for. I have no eye. I’ll have to pay to use another person’s eye.
We’ve always done two trees, though.
My sweet Blue Christmas Tree that they will have to pry out of my cold, dead hands. I got it from my sister-in-law’s mother, and it’s a vintage aluminum white tree. Fuck to the YES:
And then your standard fresh Christmas tree with the hokey ornaments. Generally without garland and always with the garish plastic balls. We have small kids, puppies and, well, The Daver. OBVIOUSLY. I’m pretty okay with fake everything else (read: boob job) but I’m insistent on the real tree.
This year we also have Mimi, who is a crawling machine that likes to chew on everything from dog food to batteries and, well, we decided that maybe a real tree or a tree that was made in 1960 was perhaps a bad idea.
I considered trying to put one of my orchids on the floor, but then realized that no one was going to sing, O! Christmas Orchid and besides, I love my orchids too much to put them on the floor. I DO have priorities. Then I thought that maybe I could dress up one of the kids as a tree and they could rotate who had to Play Tree today, but I realized that that was probably torturing them more than was necessary, so I scrapped that idea too.
Eventually, Dave and I came to the conclusion that the only way to do this was to buy another fake tree that wasn’t dripping with lead paint and other combustible radioactive bits for our baby to eat. So we did. We bought a cheap fake tree and all the garland I could find (except that I totally didn’t buy enough*) as well as some glittery snowflakes that didn’t require those metal hooks that were certain to pierce my daughter’s colon after she ate them.
The final result, well let’s just say that no drag queen will ever speak to me again, but my younger self is beaming proudly:
My children had a freaking BLAST decorating it, and what you cannot see is my daughter climbing around underneath it like a monkey. She was probably looking for an electrical cord to munch on or some plutonium to make a bomb from. 1.21 GIGWATTS! **
Better than the tree, though, is wrapping paper. New parents, HEED MY WORDS, AND HEED THEM WELL: IF YOU WANT TO BUY TOYS FOR YOUR CHILDREN, GO AHEAD, BUT THEY ARE MOSTLY FOR YOU. CHILDREN PLAY WITH RANDOM THINGS.
For example, rather than toys, my children will be seen playing happily with:
*Red Solo Cups, like you paid $5 at keggers. Yes. A bag of those.
*A Bag Of Straws (not even the wrapped ones!)
*Wrapping Paper (and not even the fancy ornamental pretty stuff!)
Yes, I know, Aunt Becky just ruined your Christmas. Sorry. You can return those gifts and buy yourself stuff. Or better yet, send ME the money! YAY!
Amelia says, “Mom, if that’s so true, why the hell do you have a stockpile of crap for us upstairs?”
After I smacked Becky with a Yard Of Shortbread today ( look at her twitter for details), I was informed that I needed to make up for my pigheadedness by answering some Go Ask Aunt Becky questions this week. So I broke in to her website and am shamelessly sharing my even-less-qualified opinions with you. Enjoy!
Dear Aunt Becky The Daver,
I started a short fiction site recently called Fiction Five Hundred. I was wondering if you could check it out, and maybe spread the word a bit to people that you know of that enjoy fiction.
I have run your Fiction 500 site through my own, carefully-calibrated, artificially intelligent Site Rating Software. It crashed horrifyingly, spewing electrons all over my desktop. In short, your site is so good that it literally blew my computer’s mind. I’m pretty sure it’s safe for people though, I’ve been reading through it and my brain hasn’t yet come squirting out of my nose. Bookmarked!
Dear Becky The Daver,
I’m trying to type this on the sly so my boyfriend doesn’t come stomping in asking me what I’m doing and catching me.
So, my boyfriend and I have been together for a year, and it’s pretty serious. We live together and all that awesome fun stuff.
I would like to take it a step further and become engaged. We’ve talked about this before, and so I’ve ruined the surprise and he knows I would say yes.
But every time we talk about it he says it’s too soon.
I don’t know if he’s waiting for a blow job or if I should propose.
I’ve been thinking about proposing, I figure it would prove I’m serious, and I’ve even considered a speech to tell him I love him and I want to spend the rest of my life with him and I’m in it for the long haul and just because we’re engaged doesn’t mean we have to get married now.
Anyway, my question(s) is/are: is it okay for me to propose, how should I propose, and do I give him a ring?
-Listener of Beyonce
Dear Listener,
I totally understand where you’re coming from — when something Just Works, it’s an amazing, wonderful, excellent feeling, and it sounds like you’ve found someone you feel ready to put your trust in, who you are ready to take the next step with. Each of those steps feels lighter and more giddy than the last.
But hold on to it! Being married has a whole lot of baggage associated with it; more than living together, sleeping together, having a joint checking account, or even having kids together. It’s a commitment that has to meet in the middle, with both people reaching out to each other for support, listening to and appreciating each other’s ideas & feelings. And sometimes, you’ll find that what you discover about your lover is not what you wanted to hear. Different people feel different pressures about marriage, and chances are his concerns aren’t anything like what you would think.
If you’ve talked to your boyfriend and he says he’s not ready, it could very well be that he is nervous about the commitment that goes into being married; most guys (at least, the good ones) wonder if they’re good enough, prepared enough, if they make enough money and if they can afford to take care of you; if they have their lives figured out enough to make a promise like this.
My advice to you is this: if you’re talking about marriage, he probably believes you’re serious already. Listen to him, give him the space he needs to work out his thoughts on the subject, and give him the support he needs to feel comfortable reaching his arm out to meet you in the middle.
It takes a maddening amount of patience to respect that someone else takes a lot longer to come to the same conclusion as you, but trust me — it’s good practice for marriage. Becks figures things out that take me weeks (I made her wait a year for a wedding rather than just heading to the courthouse!), and I figure things out that take her forever ( she was meant to be a writer! ).
If he’s a guy who’s worth giving your heart to, then he’s a guy whose opinions, concerns, fears, and ideas should matter to you. Treat him that way, and I suspect you’ll do fine. But I’d hold off on proposals and speeches and rings until you’ve had a good listen to what HE really wants. Then, if he’d dig being proposed to, go for it with gusto. If he wants to be the one to get down on one knee, then make sure the restaurant has a carpeted floor for him.
Dear Aunt Becky The Daver,
I have a huge problem – I can’t say No. Need something baked/sewn/driven/picked up/cleaned/organized/written – I’ll say Yes. Most of these projects aren’t five minute deals – they are HUGE. Why can’t I say No???
Dear Can’t Say No,
Can you babysit for us this week? We could use a break.
I tease! Saying No is a learned skill for a lot of people, including me. Most people who have a problem with it don’t like to feel that they are disappointing someone, or don’t take the time to think about the trade-offs. Try this:
Think about what you won’t be able to finish if you say Yes to whatever you’re being asked to do. Now, think about whether you want to say No to that person, or the person in front of you. You don’t have any other option, because that is what will happen when you can’t get done all the things you committed to: someone won’t get what they were asking for. (And, worse, they will be more hurt by you saying Yes and not doing it than if you just said No to begin with!)
And don’t let yourself think that you can just stay up late or get up early or push something back: all of those are saying No to being 100%, being healthy, being prepared for your regular life. If you aren’t 100%, then you have to say No even more!
It’s uncomfortable, but true: saying No now, or saying No later when you can’t get it all done, you MUST say No. The question is whether you say it up-front and save everyone time, or whether you say it later — possibly at the last minute, when they can’t ask anyone else, or possibly to yourself (!!).
Hope that helps,
The Daver.
Did I do OK, y’all? Becky always says to share your advice in the comments, so I say the same. ‘Cause it’s, like, my first time and stuff. Happy Sunday!
It’s time to pick a winner, for the FIRST contest where one of you won my friend Chris Mancini’s book: Pacify Me. The winner, per Random Number Generator/Comment-Thingy, was: Chris in PHX! The contest for Stef’s book runs until next week, so get a MOVE ON, yo. (you don’t have to be my friend on Savvy Source, just join my group and comment over HERE on the contest post.)
Now I’m going to have to start buying stuff to give you guys because that was fun. Dave is groaning somewhere.
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When I was in college, there was this big thing about gender roles and gender stratification in children and how we shouldn’t limit tiny minds by dressing boys in all blue and girls in all pink. Or buying little girls get in the damn kitchen and make us some motherfucking pie while we buy our sons mini-work benches and cars.
It makes sense.
And both Ben and Alex have dolls and a small dollhouse, and Alex had pink binkies (while he liked binkies) and if he’d had a preference for pink clothes, well, I’d have let him wear them. The only reason I dressed him in blue was because I got a little tired of telling people–even in head to toe blue–that he was a boy, not a girl. For some reason, they assumed he was a girl. Poor kid.
Anyway.
For Christmas this year, I’d bought my daughter this (for anyone who doesn’t want to click, it’s a toddler to preschooler kitchen set) not because she’s a girl or anything, but because I know that they’ll ALL go wild for it. Trust me when I tell you it’s not any sort of “women belong in the kitchen” because I can barely be bothered to order takeout. I live on cereal and coffee mostly.
Well, I’d ventured to the seventh circle of hell to try and buy it (see above link) but the only one that they had in stock was so janky that I ordered it online AND PAID SHIPPING, which normally makes my cheap heart hurt so much that I will go to any lengths to avoid it. It came in the mail yesterday in the box that cheerfully shows precisely what’s inside and, it being Ass Cold here now, I brought it inside with the help of my eldest yesterday.
(by “help of my eldest” I mean that I directed him to carry it inside. Heh)
I left it in the hallway to warm up before bringing it up to my bedroom for a couple of minutes.
In that time, my two boys swarmed the box like sharks, BEGGING me to open it and making me swear up and down that they would have the opportunity to play with it. I explained that they’d certainly be able to play once Christmas came, and they accepted that before they scampered off, wrestling hand-over-foot like a couple of puppies.
I cannot tell where one ends and the other begins.
So, while I’m certainly fucking them up when I laugh during sex talks and while I bare I my soul on The Internet, it’s nice to know that sometimes I do right by my kids.
—————-
I need more hilarious photoblogging ideas, yo.
—————-
*What that “something” is is to be determined.
**Also, Ben can live with here forever and be my cook.
I’m sorry that I know that I was a late in life OOPS baby and that I was conceived on Halloween* because really, what kid wants to know that stuff? The bonus to that, I guess, is that my parents weren’t exactly living in an abandoned barn by the time I was popped out, and while I didn’t didn’t have a safe full of golden coins and jewels that I could swim around in, I don’t remember going without.
My petitions, though, to build a safe full of golden coins and jewels were repeatedly denied as were my petitions to buy a Rolls Royce and re-carpet the whole house in mink. While they preferred teak and understated mahogany, I liked tinsel and glitter. I would have made an excellent glam rocker had I been able to tease my hair or have it ever hold a curl.
When I was 4 or 5, I decided that what my wee heart desired for Christmas more than anything else was actually something normal. Which, for me, is saying a lot. Instead of asking for a tiara with actual diamonds or my own phone line, I asked for a train set. A wooden train set.
My mother was a hippie tomboy and in hindsight, I’m shocked that she didn’t latch onto the idea and go running with it. I’d have thought that my normal requests of wearing princess dresses and patent leather shoes had left her weak-kneed enough that this should have been her cue to try and convert me to the Other Side, but no.
For some reason no.
Not for my birthday that July either.
Or for the next Christmas. Or my next birthday.
I’d play with the sets that they had at the toy stores that my mother brought me to, and sadly leave them behind when we left. By the time I turned 8, my grandfather bought me an electric train set which I fell in love with. But, I broke it because I am the reason we can’t have nice things.
Turns out that my mom has been feeling kinda guilty about not buying me that train set all of those years ago and I never forgot how much I wanted a train set. When Ben was younger, she’d bought him some parts of a train set, but he never really played, well, okay, I’m just going to say it because then you guys can shock and gasp, HE NEVER REALLY PLAYED WITH TOYS.
Okay, go ahead. The kid didn’t play with toys until he had a brother who played with toys. NOW they BOTH play with toys.
So now, for Christmas, they are going to wake up to this:
This is me, fulfilling my childhood dream through my children through my mother’s bank account.
Next up, EZ Bake Oven, which my mother claimed was stupid because it “cooked the cake with a light bulb**” and a Power Wheels. Because if I can’t live vicariously through my children, WHAT GOOD ARE THEY?
I mean, besides to make do the annoying chores that I don’t want to do myself.
Did you have any toys that you didn’t get as a kid that you plan on buying your own kids? Or are you a better person than I am that can rise above material urges?
Also, you should join my group Aunt Becky’s Band of Merry Pranksters (turns out you DON’T have to be my friend, just join my group) over at The Savvy Source and enter to win Stef’s book by leaving me a comment here. Because OBVIOUSLY.
*if I were goth, can you imagine how awesome I’d feel? I would SO rock the black eyeliner and be all morosely “it’s in my blood” when people made comments about listening to The Cure’s Disintegration for the 30th time in a row.
This week, in the vein of If You Can’t Be Awesome, It Pays To Know People Who Are, I am giving away a copy of my friend Stefanie Wilder-Taylor’s book, It’s Not Me, It’s You. I met Stef through her blog, Baby on Bored, which, if you’re not reading, you’re probably a serial killer, so go and read her. She sent me a copy right after I had Mimi and I stayed up all night one night reading it, which, if you have a newborn, you know is as smart as jabbing yourself in the eye with a dull pencil.
And YOU can win this book, o! Internet my Internet, very easily. This is what you need to do. Click on this link here (or the widget on my sidebar) and join my group Aunt Becky’s Band of Merry Prankster’s at Savvy Source. You can even log in through your Facebook ID (also, if you want to be friends through Facebook, my name is Becky Sherrick Harks).
Then come back here and tell me you did so so I can easily count comments and let random number generator pick out a number on December 16.
The way it was explained to me, it’s going to be kind of like a big chat room where we can talk about stuff-n-things and braid each others hair and eat virtual pizza and drink virtual vodka. I think it’ll be a lot of fun, although I’m kind of nervous because WHAT IF I’M DOING IT WRONG? I’m not an early internet adopter, so if I’m all a/s/l? to you, please, forgive me.
