Water

After being absent for ten days I am back. It is an epic story of my leave. It included battles, laughter and fear of what a certain 6'3'' man would do to me if I had, in fact, broken his prize possession (mostly the last one).

It started off as any other day. I had found myself on the computer and proceeded to neglect my child for a few minutes. Of course this was after an hour of reading the same book ten times, offering three different kinds of breakfast and negotiating the removal of a poopy diaper.

Sitting happily at my husband's lap top, while I allowed the television to parent for me, I poured myself a tall glass of water. Breastfeeding makes you thirsty! It was placed securely beside me while I happily danced my fingers across the keys. They clicked with happy chatter, it was my happy alone moment.

Then suddenly an evil demon took over my body. I watched in horror as my hand tipped over my tall glass of water. Time slowed and water engulfed the happy keys. And dammit, there was a demon, I don't care what my husband believes! It had nothing to do with the fact that I am clumsy! That's my story and I'm sticking to it!

While holding the computer upside down to let the water slowly drip away from the keys and down my arms, my son walked over and said very seriously: Oh God. My thought: Your father is going to kill me... and he's going to make me feel really bad about pouring water on his computer...

Luckily, the computer just needed to dry out for a while, and I'm back! Ya!

Whodathunk?

I have just realized why I haven't gotten but four hours a night for the past three nights. Blaming it on the over tired monster just didn't make sense when after three two hour naps my four month old just won't sleep.

It would make a mechanical engineer say "What the fuck?" but us mothers just keep trying new things. Swaddle here, music there. Add a bit of light, make a black hole out of your child's room. Sway for hours, sing for hours, accompany your child's crying with your own whimpers. Then you give them pain meds and everything seems clear.

Teeth suck. Not only do I have an ill placed hatred of my own teeth I am now starting to hate the unseen teeth in my child's mouth! Half way through my two root canals and I just can't bring myself to say "I'm so glad I've spent years eating crappy junk food and forgetting to brush just so I can get two fake and perfectly white teeth out of it.", to be fair it wasn't my teeth's fault. But I am not above saying it was the high fructose corn syrup's fault!

What gets me about this whole thing is that I didn't even connect the dots from upset sleep and uncomfortable feeds to teething. I just assumed it was because she was tired. We all know that when we are tried we get upset easily and want nothing to do with nipples (at least my first boyfriend was that way).

My daughter is asleep, so why am I still awake, typing away as if I have had wonderful sleep for the past week? The answer to that is simple- because I haven't had any sleep in the past week. Everyone knows that you go insane with lack of sleep. Why would a sane person be typing right now instead of sleeping? That has no answer... good night.

My Bra

I have big boobs. They aren't gargantuan, they aren't tiny. My boobs are just big enough to drive my back crazy but not big enough to have medical intervention alleviate the pain. This is something I loath and love about myself.

I like that I have boobs, I like that they produce milk and I can breast feed my daughter. I like that they were never part of my self esteem deflation. Thinking about it now though, I'm pretty sure no matter what I looked like I would have hated myself as a teenager, don't we all? They were oogled, they were admired and they were misused on multiple occasions (Cheap birthday gifts, so sue me!).

As you can tell I have nothing against my boobs, (although plenty of men have wished they were!) but I do have a deep hatred of bras. Never have I gone bra shopping without it ending in tears. I don't care who you are, bra shopping is depressing. If you've got smaller then average boobs you try to find a bra that pushes what you got up and at em! If you've got different sized boobs you try to find a bra that hides this fact. If you have big boobs you try to find a bra that will support them enough so they aren't neighbors with that asshole of a belly button.

Of course if you are the person who goes bra shopping and find that every different style suits you and the biggest difficulty you have is deciding on the color, fuck you. You are either clueless and don't care or a figment of a man's imagination who wouldn't need a bra anyway cause your boobs would sit up on their own. I assume men imagine that women go bra shopping to 'help' each other tighten the hard to reach straps. This interaction turns into a hot afternoon of fun and experimentation. What really happens when women go shopping for bras together is moral support or having tissue on hand. Seriously, not sexy.

In short, my back is killing me and it's because my nursing bras support nothing. I don't know why they even market them as bras. They are there to keep the nursing pads in place, as the sagging is embarrassing enough, we would rather not leak all over the place as we are shopping for groceries.

The worst part about this whole thing!? I don't really have anyone to go bra shopping with. It's not really something my friends and I do. I have my husband. Who is the sweetest man alive and will let me spend far too much money on a bra while handing me tissues over the changing room door. He will then proceed to tell me I look beautiful, which gives me momentary relief... until I look in the mirror and he hands me another tissue.

The Tantrum

Every mother knows the terror of taking their child into a store and watching as they have a melt down. I'm talking about the worst melt down you can possibly have. Rolling on the floor melt down, kicking and screaming melt down, snot everywhere melt down. This particular melt down just so happened to us while my husband and I were going to Target this morning.

I'll admit Stan was getting close to his nap time and getting him to put shoes on was a big no no. So my husband reminded him that it was wear shoes or sit in the cart. Stan chose sit in the cart. Fair enough, he'd done it plenty of times before. Never asked to get down after we reminded him that he wasn't able to without shoes on. It was same as usual.

So, when we got into Target and Stanley proceeded to tell us where to drive the cart. We told him that we were going to go where we needed to and get out as fast as possible. I know two year olds don't totally get this logic but I thought I'd give him the benefit of the doubt. Next he pulled his shirt off. You can guess we were a bit taken aback. He was looking for attention. It was true but we were trying to get in and out as quickly as possible. He took his shirt off and we tried to stop him but instead we ignored it.

Then the real tears started. The high pitch shrill and the snot. Ooooh the snot. Screaming and yelling we pushed the cart passed the on lookers. There were looks of "What the hell" and smiles of "I've been there" but no one said anything. This is what normally happens when Stan gets loud in a store so I thought nothing of it.

Getting to the register the teller swiped the items we had picked up with a bit more speed then one would expect from a 60 year old man. We were yards away from the door when a woman called "Pick him up! That's what he needs! Pick him up for goodness sake!" I turned to the voice, confused. Had someone actually tried to tell me how to deal with a tantrum? Really? Woman, you have some balls! I had to walk away, but my husband shouted "You're wrong, Lady! Totally wrong!" We left the store and I was sure I would explode.

That horrible feeling of anger and sickness swirled in my stomach. At least one of us had said something! Then I realized what I should have said... "You pick him up, Lady! See if he calms down for you!" that would have been an epic ending to a small battle.... But what I wanted to say was "Fuck you, Lady." ... now that would have been the beginning of a rude back and forth. To be honest, every mother needs those back and forths, it gets us ready to fight with our teenagers.

Family Pets

It's strange to hear that your last family pet has passed. It feels like a little part of your youth has disappeared. Agatha was her name and she was a British Bulldog. In other words: Bossy and Stubborn as hell! We all loved her and she pretty much told us where to be when we needed to be there. So, since she lived life always for her family and herself I would like to reflect on how wonderful she was.

Agatha was a dog who told you when it was time to go to bed. I shared a bed with her when she was a puppy and man did she know how to hog the covers. I would wake up in the middle of a December night freezing because Agatha had pulled all the covers off the bed. It wasn't like she wanted to use them herself, she just didn't think they matched the decor of her pink collar.

When my oldest sister would return home to her husband, Dave, he would view the pictures and announce that the floors of my parent's house were lovely because the only pictures my sister would take were that of the dog. Agatha loved the attention and it seemed that she posed for these shots! She was always a camera magnet, even when she was snoring.

I spent a summer living in a one bedroom apartment all by myself. I started getting these weird phone calls so my parents sent me the best line of defense for a creep they had: Agatha. I learned that she snored worse as she got older. The few friends I had come over she would get up from her bed and slowly strut toward them. Eyeing them up and down. Then with just a simple sweep of her backside she would be sitting on their feet and refused to move. It didn't matter if you wiggled your toes or moved your foot altogether, she'd find a way to be on your foot the whole night.

With such a bossy and stubborn attitude one would think this dog wouldn't care if you were upset, but that's where the real Agatha would shine. Instead of just plopping on your feet she would sit with her back to you and turn her head around. Then very gently she would place her gooey chin on your knee and sigh, as if to say "I know what you're thinking, it's hard being you. I realize you are terribly upset and I'm sorry... But if you give me a treat I'll take your mind off it." And she always did.

Thanks Agatha, for giving our family such a lovely spirit to remember and such a sweet heart to keep.

My evenings

I can't really say I've done all that much for myself for the past few days except eat and drink. I haven't even had my needed beer after the kids go to bed. The days seem to be getting rougher for some reason and I couldn't put my finger on it until just about twenty minutes ago. My routine has changed.

I'm not talking about bringing a new baby into the house, I'm talking about my husband being home more often this week. Usually he works from 1pm until about 10pm. This is the normal routine in our house. We all get to sleep in as long as possible and then play until nap time, at which point Daddy makes his way out the door and the Mommy routine takes over. There are games, parks, zoo visits and dinner. After all the romping around town we finally have a bath, read a few stories and into bed. Nothing more, nothing less. I now have the house to myself and I can sew, take a bath, clean the dishes or meditate (Hell, I could watch porn and drink toilet water if I really wanted to and nobody would know!), it's pure heaven.

I'm not saying that my routine is better structured in the afternoons after my husband leaves but... it is. So, I am, in fact, saying that... which I have no apologies for (sort of). Let's just say I feel a bit guilty about loving alone time and wanting the hubby to work nights. Daddy only gets to see his kids in the morning. I'm sure that sucks from his point of view.

Being a father and sole breadwinner must be hard. Having to leave when all you want to do is play and protect all day. Let's be honest though, it's easier now then when we humans were some animal's dinner. Instead of having to be strong to kill a Saber-toothed Tiger, Dad's have to be strong enough not to punch their boss or kick their clients for being pricks, thus keeping their job. It's nice to know that we, as a species, have come so far.

So, I feel bad about this but it's annoying when Daddy's schedule becomes a 9 to 5 operation. My husband comes home from working all day not to the usual quiet, tidy house, the love of his life and left overs from dinner waiting for him but crap everywhere, a banshee and two children hitting that "I'm getting so tired I'm going to scream" stage. Welcome home Dad!

I should say that my three month old doesn't notice Daddy as much as all the commotion. It's not the fact that a 6ft 3in man has walked in the door that makes her go crazy, rather it's when my two year old realizes that it is in fact Daddy coming through the door there are squeals and screams. If I were her, I'd freak out too.

Anyway, it's getting closer to Daddy's vacation and perhaps that will help. I think my husband needs it after seeing what the house looks like at 6pm. And why do I find this 9-5 operation annoying? I miss my alone time because, seriously, when else can I get total control of the computer?