My Calgon is Broken

I have taken dozens of bubble baths over the last couple of weeks and when I open my eyes I am still sitting in my tub in my fucking bathroom. Want to know what else is in that bathroom when I open my eyes? A bunch of little people, staring me down, with questions or demands.

“What are you doing?”

“Can I take a bath?”

“Can I play on the computer?”

“Can I watch TV?”

“Will I have a big butt like you one day?”

“Your wine shakes all over when you cry.”

I can barely remember what it feels like to go to the bathroom without a captive audience.

My children can be completely occupied but they will drop everything and magically appear the moment I walk into the bathroom. They can be in a different room! With the door closed! They will appear out of thin air to demand snacks or kick my self esteem down a couple more pegs. I had figured out when Number One was a newborn that the sound of me relaxing caused children to go batshit crazy. It didn’t take me much longer to discover that children also have a psychic link to a mother’s bladder that compels them to her side anytime it is being emptied.

Number Four is adorable–light of my life and all that jazz. He has, so far, been the easiest baby of all four. It is amazing what he can sleep through, too. Number Three can raise hell, all four dogs can be barking at the suspicious presence of oxygen in the room, the television blaring, the vacuum running—none of it disturbs his slumber. Things that will wake my little angel from a deep sleep: my hand turning the bathroom doorknob, me lifting food to my mouth and the sound of me gently laying my head on a pillow. I shit you not. He will, however permit me to lay down and get some rest, so long as he is allowed to sleep at the breastaurant.. I have agreed to his terms.As much as I love Husband, I have fantasized about the part time privacy I would acquire through divorce. Ahhhh, a girl can dream.

The Justhadababy Diet Isn’t Working!

Number Four is six weeks old and I only weigh ten pounds less than I did the last hour of my pregnancy.  What the fuck?  Here is a picture of me naked:I have been so disciplined with my efforts to get back down to my fighting weight too!  I know all the dieting rules and tips.

  1. White food has no calories.  With that in mind, I have been eating a lot of bread and things like pasta with alfredo sauce, mozzarella and parmesan cheeses and things of the like.
  2. The calories in hot foods/liquids are burned up.  If I want a drink, I have stuck with hot chocolate and room temperature Dr. Pepper (it’s winter.  Our heat has been on inside the house.  It counts.) I like cheese but cold cheese would have too many calories so, instead, I have queso or grilled cheese.
  3. I like Oreos.  A lot.  But, I know better than just to cram the cookie in my mouth!  I break open the cookie and lick out the filling, which is white and, therefore, calorie free.  I throw away the cookie part or, if I want to eat it, I heat it up in the microwave.
  4. Wine burns calories.  Just opening a bottle burns 500 calories.  I drink wine several times a week.

Can someone please tell me, now, why the hell I am not already in my pre-pregnancy clothes?  Hell, I should be a fucking waif, given the level of discipline I have demonstrated!  What do I have to do?  Exercise?  That will be a cold day in hell.  Let me tell you something, if you see me running down the street, call the fucking police.  Rest assured, I didn’t take up a healthy hobby, I am in fear for my life.  Treadmills make no sense to me.  First of all, it requires you to run, which is bad enough, but to top it off, you don’t go anywhere.  The same goes for stationary bikes and stair climbers.  What kind of sick, twisted mind made fucking stairs that don’t get you anywhere?  But I digress.

I think I need to increase my wine intake.

The Hospital Gave Me the Wrong Baby

The jig is up, baby.  You managed to fool me for a couple of weeks but did you really think you could carry on this charade forever?  Sure, you are tiny and adorable but you had to know that wouldn’t be enough forever.  You had to know I would eventually see past your adorableness.

Number Four-Don't let that angel face fool you. He is a finely trained torture specialist, specializing in sleep deprivation methods.

I started piecing it together a couple of nights ago.  Up until then, you were sleeping 2.5-3 hours in a stretch at night.  I could live with that.  I even began considering giving you the official title of “my easiest baby”.  Well, that all changed a few nights ago.  Your cover is blown.  Now you are sleeping in one hour intervals, if I am lucky.  The first night, I chalked it up to just a fluke–a bad night.  Last night–night three–I came to terms with the truth that the hospital had OBVIOUSLY given me the wrong baby.  See, I love sleep.  I don’t just mean that I love sleep, as in I enjoy sleeping.  I mean, if sleep was something tangible, I would take it out to a nice dinner, buy it gifts, marry it and have sex with it 3-5 times a day for hours and hours on end.  So, I just know that if the hospital had given me the right baby, he would love sleep as much as I do.  I mean, that is just basic genetics.  I read somewhere that the sleep gene comes from the mother but don’t go look for that study because it was a super secret study and you have to know important people to get to see it.  They could kill me just for mentioning it.

Impostor Number Four keeps me up all. night. long.  He nurses and nurses and then he pretends to be asleep.  I lay him down and he waits until I lay down and get comfortable and then the moment after I close my eyes, he starts crying.  Sometimes, he even lets me get to sleep.  He will let me sleep for 30 minutes, sometimes up to an hour and then he starts wailing.  I feel and look like a zombie.  Then, just to add insult to injury, he sleeps for hours at a time during the day, knowing all I can do is watch.  His cruelty knows no bounds.  If he could laugh at me, he would and one day, he will.

I know what you are thinking.  Why don’t you report this to the authorities.  I should, I know.   I obviously have Stockholm Syndrome.  Whoever put him up to this trained him well.

Raising Girls vs Raising Boys

Some people refuse to acknowledge a distinction between raising boys and raising girls.  I want to point my finger at them and yell “BAD PARENTS” but sometimes I hesitate, thinking maybe they are just stupid.  I decided to put this all down in print, so there is no longer an excuse.  Take my advice and be a good parent, destined to meet every good parent’s goal of bringing up girls who are sure to grow into popular young women that know how to attract a good husband and boys who will undoubtedly develop into alpha males who get laid.  Keep your eye on the prize, parents!  It’s for the kids!

This process must start at birth.  Boys, from birth to adult hood, need their egos stroked.  When people come visit you and your newborn son or call to check on you, never miss an opportunity to tell friends and family or strangers in the checkout line that your infant son is packing an impressive hog and/or huge set of balls inside his diaper.  FYI, ladies–this ego stroke is two-fold since, for whatever reason, your boyfriend/husband will view you bragging about your newborn son’s junk in the exact same way he would you telling anyone that will listen that he has a huge dick. 

For girls, dress them in pink at all times, since it can be hard to tell the difference between infant boys and girls.  That doesn’t always do the trick, though.  Some people are really stupid and you can have your baby girl decked out in pink taffeta, covered in ruffles and bows and you are bound to run into one person that is going to approach and say “Awwww!  How old is he?”  Everyone knows that an infant girl, if mistaken for an infant boy, will be scarred for life.  It is imperative that you take any and every precaution to avoid a horrific, humiliating and traumatizing incident in which a stranger at the mall refers to your precious little girl as a “he”.  Of course doctors get a little weird when you inquire about plastic surgery to avoid such humiliation but you no one can tell you that you can’t poke holes in her ears, get a wig or even use some makeup to tell the world “I’M A GIRL, ASSHOLES!”  For some guidance, check out Toddlers and Tiaras.  Those parents know how to raise ladies!

As they get older, you need to put a lot of thought into appropriate recreational toys and activities.  Boys should be given trucks, cars and footballs.  It is okay if they play with stuffed animals but NEVER let them play with dolls.  What would people think?  You want him to grow up and think it is okay to hold a baby?  Boys should be encouraged to fight and wrestle as much as possible.  You wouldn’t want him, in later years, to be unprepared for how to handle some asshole trying to hit on his bitch at the local bar, do you?  What if he is at the gym and some guy looks at him, you know, “that way”?  You don’t want him just going on with his life!  No!  You want him to kick that mother fucker’s ass!  If he doesn’t, it is probably because you let him touch a purse as a child and now he is a friend of Dorothy’s. 

For girls, you want to get them baby dolls, kitchen toys and dress up gear.  Don’t let her climb trees or play in dirt, unless you are prepared to just give her a mullet cut now and can’t wait for the day that she brings home her life partner.  I would also suggest that you find your daughter(s) something that can be used as a dancing pole.  While you don’t want your daughter to be a stripper, you do want her to learn how to work the pole for her future days at the club.  You want her to be able to attract the attention of the guys, right?  Make sure she knows, real ladies don’t take their tops off for dollar bills, they take them off for plastic beads. 
Also, if you start noticing her eating too much in general or eating too much junk food or starting to gain weight, make sure to point it out.  Grabbing a fistful of her love handles will speak volumes.  You could also start making pig noises when you see her go into the kitchen.  Offer her some laxatives for dessert.  I would also suggest putting a scale in front of the refrigerator.  Remind her that most boys don’t like girls with fat asses.  Look, it will make it a lot easier for boys to objectify her if you teach her from an early age to objectify herself. 

You want to teach your daughters that only dirty whores have sex before marriage.  You want her to know that it is okay, even desirable, to look and act like a dirty whore but not be one.  Boys can respect a dick teaser, not a dick pleaser.   Her hymen is, in essence, the air tight seal that contains her value.  If that seal is broken, she is damaged goods.  For a visual, chew up a piece of gum and, after you are done with it, ask your daughter(s) if she would like your gum.  She will say, “no!  I don’t want it after you had it!”  Then you say, “and that is what the boys will say about you!”  You can tell people that you have taught your daughter to respect herself through these teachings. 

You want to teach your boys that their goal in life is to fuck as many girls as possible.  You want to teach them that girls are not “people”, per se, but things that are fun to stick their dicks into.  You want them to realize that girls that will fuck them before marriage are dirty whores but they should nail as many dirty whores as possible.  Let them know they will get cool points for referring to women as “bitches”, “hoes” and “sluts” and referring to himself as a “pimp”.  It is best to fool yourself into thinking that you can teach your son(s) this philosophy while, simultaneously, teaching them to respect women. 

Follow these guidelines and you are bound for success!  If your daughter ends up with an eating disorder and in an abusive marriage, give yourself a gold star.  Hey!  She is married, right!  If your son ends up with illegitimate children all over the city, pat yourself on the back!  Shows he was getting laid and, let’s face it, condoms are for wusses!!

So, You’re Building Your Baby Registry

Isn’t it fun?  They give you that little gun and you walk down aisles and aisles of crap, scanning every other item.  If this is your first, you think everything is a necessity and your registry will probably end up being 12 pages long.  Of the 487 items you have bogged down your registry with, you need about 7 of them but, rest assured, you will have soap, pacifiers, wash cloths and nipples coming out of your ass by the time the baby shower is over.

If you are expecting, I am going to tell  you what you are going to actually need and use as a mother.  Tell your friends that if they stray from the registry there will be hell to pay and the cake better be good.

Look, if you are having a baby, hopefully, you can afford to buy a few bottles of baby soap and some wash cloths.  If your friends and family are willing to shell out the cash to make life with baby a little easier, let’s tell them to put it towards some actual necessities.

  • Tile in the nursery-I am not talking about a tile floor, I am talking about tiling the entire room.  Top to bottom.  Make sure and include a drain in the floor.  You see, babies shit.  A lot.  As they get older, they find new and inventive ways to let you know that they took a shit.  Number three, for instance, likes to let me know by removing his diaper and smearing it across walls.  Fucking adorable.  If his nursery was all tile, I would just have to stand him in the middle and hose him and the walls and floors down all at the same time.  You could upgrade this further with a built-in sprinkler system.
  • Large kennel-Who doesn’t need a little “me” time?  Throw some toys or cheerios into the kennel and go read a book.
  • Electric wine opener-Look, drinking has never been as important as it is once you have children.  Most of the sunrises that my children have lived to see is due, in large part, to the existence of the nectar of the Gods.  When you are in the midst of a crisis or meltdown and you need wine STAT, you do not want to have to fiddle with a manual opener.  Hell, you can’t waste that kind of time! 
  • Noise canceling headphones- Whether it is the a wailing baby or the incessant “mom, mom, mom, mom, mom, mom, mom, mom, mom” from your older children, these will ensure that you get the quiet time you so desperately need.
  • Vasectomy gift certificate-To make sure that this doesn’t happen again.
  • Air freshener-Again, kids shit.  A lot.  Trust me, you are going to need to stock up.
  • A wig-Face it.  You will be lucky if you find time to shower.  Don’t be overly ambitious and unrealistic and think you are going to have time to wash AND fix your hair.
  • Steam Cleaner-Kids are capable of messes that your mind cannot imagine.  Just this morning, number three got a hold of pancake syrup and poured it all over the living room.  He is so fucking precious.
  • Childcare- Because you are going to need a break.  It doesn’t have to cost a ton of money!

Sure, sure, you need blankets and socks but you don’t need 50 of them and you don’t need 20 identical onesies.  Don’t waste your time on bunk items like a wipies warmer or a vibrating crib.  Get the items necessary for surviving parenthood.  You’re welcome.

I Have A Dream

I have been asked countless times, especially since being pregnant, “are you guys going to have more kids?”.  Fuck no!  That is my canned response.  Their automatic assumption leads to their next question of “Oh!  So, are you going to get your tubes tied when you have this one?”.  Fuck no.  That is my canned response.

First of all, why is the default assumption that women will or should be the ones responsible for birth control, permanent or otherwise?  I have yet to encounter one person that jumps to the conclusion that my husband will be the one going under the birth control knife.  Truth be told, even my husband, during my last pregnancy, assumed it would be me.  “If they are doing a c-section, they can just do all that then, right?”, he asked.  After I killed him a million and one ways in my mind and shot daggers at him with my eyes, I sweetly informed him that he was sorely mistaken.  I lovingly explained to him that we had three children and his junk had nothing but fun on the road to bringing them into this world.  My junk and the rest of my body, on the other hand, had been through hell and back during that journey.  Now, with the fourth one on the way, I think it is about time that his junk took one for the team.

As I have sought out someone to perform this procedure on my husband, I have discovered that dick doctors are a lot less supportive of family involvement than vagina doctors.  My husband has been allowed, even encouraged, to be in the same room with me during every step of our family planning.  When I have been laid out, spread eagle, in a hospital bed, being violated seven ways to Sunday, he was there.  When I pushed for over two hours to squeeze out a screaming human larvae, the nurse kept directing his attention to the upskirt view so he could have a front row seat to all the action.  When I was strapped down to a table having a child surgically removed from my body, he was there and was encouraged to peek over the curtain to watch it all.  In each instance, he was also invited over and handed a pair of surgical scissors and permitted to cut through the umbilical cord, taking an active role.  So, pray tell me, why are these dick doctors  being so fucking weird about me wanting to take a similarly active role in this part of our family planning journey?  Here is my vision, as I explain it to them when I call:

I want to be in the room with my husband when they do the procedure, from the first shot of dick numbing medicine to the last stitch.  I want to tell him “breathe!  breathe!  Can you feel that?  Does it hurt?  Oh my god!  YIKES!!  This has to hurt!  BREATHE!!!”.  I want to take pictures.  I want the dick doctor to hand me the scissors and let me cut the “cord”.  After the procedure is complete, I would like for someone to take a picture of me posing with his newborn dick.  I am thinking I want it wrapped in a blanket and me cradling it in my hands.  I want to have a hospital gown and I want the doctors, after the procedure, to rub ink on his newborn dick and press ball prints and maybe a mushroom print on my hospital gown.  I just want it to be special, dammit!!  Why is every fucking dick doctor so uptight?  Just because men refer to them as their “jewels” does not make it true.  They are dicks.  If my husband is allowed to shimmy up a front row seat in the birthing room, inches away from the baby cannon and then handed a pair of fucking scissors to start cutting shit, why don’t I get the same treatment from the dick doctor.  It is bullshit.

I am still looking for a doctor.

The Joys of Motherhood

Yesterday morning, I woke up to such a wonderful surprise: I was getting ready for the day when I heard a knock coming from one of the bedrooms.  I realized it was Number 3 and the sound of him knocking on his door meant he had learned how to climb out of his crib.  I thought that would the bad news for the morning but I opened his door and realized how wrong I was.  There he stood, smiling up at me, with those big, handsome eyes and then I  took inventory of the situation.  Not only had he climbed out of his crib but he had also removed his diaper and shit all over his bedroom floor.  Like most people, there is nothing I like doing more, right after getting out of the shower in the morning, than cleaning up fresh piles of shit from my carpet.

I know, I know, some of you read this and think, “DAMN!  How did she get to be so lucky?”.  Well, let me tell you my friends, I don’t like to brag but that is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the spoils of motherhood.

  • This is not the first time he has managed to get his diaper off after filling it up.  On more than one occasion, he has finger painted me beautiful murals across his bedroom walls, made entirely of paint he made himself, in his pants.
  • Number One, Number Two and Number Three are complete and total fucking pigs.  When George Bush was looking for weapons of mass destruction, he didn’t have to go to the Middle East, he just had to come to my house.  Even on housekeeper day (my favorite day of any week), these WMDs can destroy this house in no time flat.  I don’t know how they do it, either!  I swear, it will look like they have been watching TV for an hour and then I look around and every room in my house is a shit hole.  I know that they only explanation is that they have magical, destructive wizard powers.
  • Everyone always says, “you have to watch what you say in front of children.”.  What the fuck do these people know?  Certainly nothing about children or, at least, not my children.  I can pretty much say whatever the fuck I want in front of my children because they don’t fucking listen to a damn thing I say.  It doesn’t matter if I say “stop pulling your sister’s hair!” or “Gah-dammit!  Stop fucking pulling your fucking sister’s fucking hair!”.  I might as well be reciting a fucking recipe for pea soup.  It is like talking to toast.
  • Did you know that “Go clean your room.” actually means “Go fuck off in your room or watch tv.  Whatever you want.”?  Neither did I!
  • If mothers wore uniforms, those with more than one child would be wearing a black and white striped shirt and a whistle because a large portion of the day is spent breaking up sibling brawls and refereeing decisions on everything from what will be on the tv to who gets the last cracker.
  • When you have your first child, and every subsequent child, for that matter, you cannot WAIT to hear them say “momma” for the first time.  Give it a couple of years.  The sweetest sound you have ever heard is soon to become nails on a fucking chalkboard.  That sweet cooing of your baby first saying “momma” that melted your heart, soon evolves into the word that will make you consider drowning yourself in the mop bucket.  “Mom! Mom! Mom! Mom! MOOOOOOOM!!  MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!” will soon drive you to the brink of insanity.

  • Children, as it turns out, are equipped with some sort of sensor.  I haven’t determined where the sensor is located but it is there.  This sensor signals your child every. single. fucking. time. you are beginning to relax, when you are in the middle of an important conversation, when the automated system for the light/cable/water/internet/phone company is asking you to “please say what you are calling about so I can direct your call.”, etc.  They can be in the middle of anything and they will drop everything to run out and interrupt you, making sure that you re-tense, have to stop your conversation or have to repeat your issue to the computer twenty fucking times before it just hangs up on you.  I swear, the slightest sign of relaxation from a mother could wake a child from a fucking coma.

  • Do you have any idea how many times a day a kid shits?  Number three goes, at least, 341 times a day.  True story.  Also, for some reason, potty trained children cannot grasp the concept of flushing a fucking toilet.  It is like Christmas every day when I walk into the restroom and see the gifts my older kids left me in the toilet.

Don’t be jealous.

How to recognize people with a death wish:

  • You ring my doorbell-because only people who want to die a horrible, violent death ring the doorbell of a pregnant woman with a toddler.  You see, you doorbell ringing jackasses, sometimes babies SLEEP!  When you come and ring my muthafucking doorbell, not only does that “DING DONG” reverberate throughout my home but it also causes my fucking dogs to go batshit crazy and whether it was the “DING, DONG” or the yapping dogs that wake up my toddler, your decision to push that doorbell is the root cause of why the closest thing I get to quiet time has been interrupted and why I am staring down the barrel of a really pissy, cranky two-year old that I now have to deal with for HOURS, as he gets pissier and crankier until bed time.  Someone must pay.
  • You call me before 8AM and everyone is alive and well-because the only reason to EVER call me prior to 8AM is if someone is bleeding or dead.  Yes, most mornings I am up prior to 8AM but, on occasion, the baby sleeps past 8AM and I enjoy those days.  May God have mercy on your soul if you happen to call me on one of the days that my little, chubby alarm clock has decided to let me sleep late. 
  • You tell my kids you are going to do something and you don’t-because I realize flaking out on a little kid may not seem like a big deal to you but, for me, it is the seventh level of hell.  I am the one that has to listen to them obsess and prepare for the details of the plans you made with him/her/them.  I am the one that has to make up some bullshit excuse to cover your ass when they realize that you have sold out so that they don’t think you are a complete lying asshole, even though you are.  You will be punished.
  • You critique/correct my parenting -I really don’t give a fuck if you disapprove of me laughing so hard that tears are streaming down my face because I am telling my toddler to say “you fish” and he is complying.  You can kiss my ass.  Truth be told, I don’t give a fuck what anyone thinks of my parenting and, frankly, if I want to instruct my kid to say “shut the fuck up, bitch.”, that is my prerogative.  As it stands, however, my youngest child’s speech development just makes some every day, normal words, like “fish” sound like he is saying “bitch” and that is just good, clean fun.  Get the stick out of your ass and wipe that face off your head before I do it for you.
  • You talk during a movie-Seriously.  Shut the fuck up.  I don’t care what your predictions are on any surprise twist, who the murderer is or who is going to die next.  If you shut your fucking mouth and let me watch the movie, I will bet you a hundred dollars we will find out.
  • You come to my door selling shit-If you rang my doorbell, you already have one foot in the grave.  If you are selling shit, you better have made a will before you darken my door step.  You are a perfect stranger.  I don’t want to talk about how you are selling magazines to be the first person in your family to go to college.  I don’t want you to demonstrate your vacuum cleaner.  It is none of your business whether or not I have accepted Jesus Christ as my lord and savior.  You see and hear these kids running around like wild animals, screaming and yelling?  They weren’t taking precedence over the phone call I am currently on or the status update I was in the middle of posting, why do you think I am going to hang up or close my laptop for you?  Keep on walking.

This will probably end up being another series, much like the grammar entries.  It will give you bitches something to look forward to in the future.

Time out or a wooden stake?

He is so adorable and so chubby and sweet looking, I never saw this coming.  He runs over, staring at you with his big brown eyes, and at the last minute he opens his mouth and sinks in those teeth.  Yes.  It is true.  I can barely say it out loud but here goes:   My youngest child has OBVIOUSLY turned into a vampire.  At the slightest provocation, he is willing to sink his teeth into any exposed patch of flesh to satisfy his thirst for blood.

I have been doing some research, since coming to terms with my son’s transformation into one of hell’s minions but the information is conflicting.  One researcher says that vampires cannot go out in daylight or they will spontaneously combust or something similar, while another says that vampires can, in fact, go into the sunlight and their skin will sparkle as if they had their entire body vagazzled.  So, I am confused.  My son can go out into the sunlight without bursting into flames but he does not look like a fairy that was rolled around in a truckload of glitter, either.  Do you think he might have some form of vampire eczema that could explain this or do I accept the other research that says that the glitter skin is bullshit?

Most of the research tends to agree that vampires possess some degree of powers and some research indicates that they can hypnotize or “glamour” their victims.  He DOES possess this ability.  He can look at you and you will believe that he is going to approach you and hug you or kiss you and then, suddenly, he is going in for the kill!  I need to create some sort of warning system so that unsuspecting innocents can be made aware that he is a demon cleverly disguised as a little, chubby angel.  Don’t be fooled.
I have tried to time out and he continues to try to make meals of the family.  I am conducting further research on how to remedy or tame him.  I would prefer to consider staking as an absolute last resort.