Holiday Update

Yeah. You definitely thought this was going to be about the most recently passed holiday, Thanksgiving, didn't you? You would be wrong.

Because I'm desperately inefficient and a chronic procrastinator, I'm going to tell you about Halloween. Oh come on you guys, it's only been 29 days! Just because I'm going to pick out a Christmas tree this weekend doesn't mean its too late to talk about Halloween! Hey. You know what? FUCK YOU. I will talk about Halloween now just to spite you. Orange and Black, motherfuckers. You don't know me.

You know what I just realized? "My kid really likes candy" isn't a blog post. Maybe this is why I didn't write about Halloween sooner? I don't know. Okay. Let me put my game face on and get into this shit:

Caitlyn loved Halloween. LOVED. And obviously, the aforementioned candy was a part of that. But it wasn't actually the only part. She loved trick-or-treating even before I let her get all jacked up on sugar. Part of it is what a little attention-whore she is; she really enjoyed all the random strangers oohing and ahhing and telling her how adorable she is. She loved hanging out with her cousins. And oh-my-god did she love wearing her costume.

You see, last year I made a mistake. Last year, I put her in an awkward costume that made her sweaty and cranky. She was a hamburger last year, which was utterly adorable, but I spent $30 on a costume that she wore for no more than 20 minutes.

This year I got smart about it and picked something more practical. Caitlyn loves cats. So that is what she was. You want to know what a cat costume consists of? Black sweatpants, a black turtleneck and a headband with attached ears and an elastic band with a tail attached to go around her waist. Bam. Costume. It's been a month and she still wears those ears. And expects me to wear mine. And then we both have to meow. It's kind of adorable, actually.

Anyway, Caitlyn ran from house to house with the energy of a cheetah on meth. When someone would let her pick her piece of candy, she would hand it to one of her cousins because she's fucking adorable like that. Then I gave her a lollipop and that was her own personal Jesus Christ for the rest of trick-or-treating.

It was awesome, and Caitlyn spent the entire time giggling and running and having the greatest time ever.

Pictures you say? Of course there are pictures:

The Backwash Chronicles

So we've been over it a few times now: toddlers are disgusting.

But you already knew that. There is one area in particular though that gets me every time.


Backwash.


Last night we had pizza for dinner (because I'm a good mom and I definitely don't feed my kid shit every night for dinner- specifically, I certainly didn't feed her McDonalds chicken nuggets the night before). Caitlyn is a picky eater. This isn't news either, but she seemed to take a liking to pizza. Or PEE-AH, as she spent the next 3 hours wandering around the house calling it.


When I say she "took a liking" to pizza, let me clarify and say that she certainly did not sit nicely and eat a slice of pizza. Nope. I would guess the dog ate 3/4 of her pizza. What she liked, in particular, was sucking the sauce and grease off the pizza. I had taken off the cheese because I'm completely paranoid, so she pretty much just had the slice pushed up against her face while she licked it clean.


I'm used to this kind of stuff. She is naturally gross. But Caitlyn has this thing about having a drink after ever bite of food. She will entertain the sippy cup thing for about 5 minutes before "sharing" it with the dog by holding over his face and dropping it on top of him. And that means sippy cup time is over. Within seconds of dropping her cup, she will eye up my glass and give me her usual chorus of "puh-puh-puh" as she begs for a drink of my water. Because it is different from her water, obviously. Infinitely better, in fact.

At this point I usually try several times to give her back her sippy cup. You know how in movies sometimes a guy will sweep everything off a desk with one arm before throwing down the lady he's about to bang? That is what Caitlyn does with her sippy cup. Or pretty much anything else she doesn't want. She very dramatically sweeps everything off the tray of her high chair with one arm. It's fucking obnoxious. Anyway, after 2 or 3 times of her doing that, I usually give in and let her drink from my cup, otherwise she will refuse to eat anything else.

Which returns us to backwash. Like I said, Caitlyn's primary dinner last night consisted of pizza sauce and grease. And then I had to share my water with her. You know that thing grease does when it gets into water? How it streaks your water all white and slimy and its all you can do not to gag just looking at it? Yeah. Ask me if I was thirsty after THAT.

So I will end on this note: Dear Toddlers, DRINK FROM YOUR OWN FUCKING CUP!!! Love & Kisses, Mommy

A Pot to Piss In

As I've mentioned before, we recently decided to start potty training Caitlyn. She just turned 18 months this week, so it admittedly seemed a little soon, but my personal philosophy is to do things on her timetable and not my own, and she was showing signs that she was ready.

The primary sign was when she started taking off her diaper and pissing on my rug. The dog has really been enjoying this phase because Caitlyn leaves her diapers lying around where he can get to them (like how I just blamed my toddler for the fact that I'm a slob and leave her diapers where ever she happens to take them off? Yeah. Solid Gold Parenting, right there) and he has a delicious diaper feast.

I can't say I understand the lure of a piss soaked diaper, but Joey seems to find them exceptionally delicious. The problem is, I think it's going to make his intestines explode one day.

Have you ever seen a diaper that has been ripped open? You know how the guts are all grainy and disgusting and when they get wet, they bloat up and look like flesh-gorged maggots? Yeah. Imagine that, except in the dog's shit.

The first time he shit out diaper maggots, I about had a fucking heart attack. I was convinced he had some sort of wormy parasites, which is, by the way, like my worst fucking fear. Because worms are just... ick. Fucking icky, slimy, nasty motherfuckers. But then I realized it was just from the diaper he had eaten. And then he shit 5 more times in a row, because the whole purpose of diapers is to ABSORB and so they absorbed the FUCK out of his intestinal juices, apparently, and grew to at least triple the volume of what he had actually eaten.

Lets say he eats a diaper that is mostly dry (which is usually the case, as Caitlyn has a rug to destroy). The diaper maggots are small when he eats them, but then they bloat up in his intestines and he's sliming them out of his ass for the next half hour. I'm pretty much asking for a doggie intestinal explosion, you know? It's like the dog equivalent of Pop Rocks and soda.

Wow. This post has devolved really quickly. The intent was to talk about Caitlyn's potty training progress and somehow I've written almost entirely about the dog's anus. Time to get back on track? Unless you want to hear more about diaper maggots...

Anyway. So Caitlyn and potty training. She loves her new potty. And by loves, I do not mean she loves to use it for its intended purpose. She loves to use it as a stool next to the desk, so she can reach all the things I've put up there to keep away from her. She loves to dump it over and push the button on the bottom that plays music (which is intended to be a reward for peeing in it. So much for that). She loves to pull the little bowl out and hide it under the couch. She loves to lounge on it, fully clothed or not.

What Caitlyn doesn't love to do is pee in her new potty. She seems to understand that she's supposed to sit down when I tell her to use her potty, but she usually gets bored after a minute of sitting there and so she will get up and wander around until she's ready to pee on the rug.

I haven't been particularly bothered by any of this. Caitlyn's still young, and I have a dog, so I'm used to cleaning bodily fluids off of my carpet. And I didn't expect it to be easy. I HOPED that it would be, but I knew that was a long shot. And then it happened: a breakthrough!

The other day I was in the kitchen, making dinner. Rodolfo was in the bedroom... I don't know- not watching Caitlyn? He walked back into the living room where she had been playing and I heard him ask her why she was naked. That's when he noticed it. Pee. On her potty. Please note that I did not say IN.

As I said before, Caitlyn has a tendency to take the little bowl out of her potty and hide it. She does this constantly and she hadn't actually used her potty yet, so I didn't always bother to put it back right away. Until that day when, completed unprompted, Caitlyn took off her diaper, sat down on her potty and peed ... through the hole where the bowl should have been. I always put it back right away now. But obviously she has not peed on her potty since then.

We have a few kinks to work out as far as explaining how a potty actually works and what the purpose of the potty is (not pissing on my floor. That is the purpose, kid. Get with the program) but I was so proud of my little girl. I was sobbing like a lunatic at her HUGE milestone, so she probably thinks she did something wrong and won't use the potty again till she's 9, but I still felt so happy. Even as I scrubbed the piss out of my rug.

Things That Are Irritating Me

I'm feeling really annoyed today, for no good reason. And, to answer your next question, NO, I do not have PMS. And if you ask me again, I WILL cut you. Here is a list, in no particular order, of things that are pissing me off today:

• The dog. Why does he have to track his shit across the yard? No seriously. He spends 10 minutes finding the perfect spot to shit in, only to scootch along in his dump squat for an additional 5 minutes leaving me a trail of steaming nuggets to follow. WHY DOG?
• The husband. Specifically, the candy he has eaten from my... I mean, CAITLYN's trick-or-treat stash. I should probably mention that he neither tricked nor treated. The one who drags the toddler from house to house begging for free candy has FIRST FUCKING DIBS. I'm just saying.
• The people at the lollipop company. Because you know how Capri Sun is the best juice ever and its clear (what, I'm the only adult who still drinks Capri Sun? Fuck you guys)? In fact, I think the lack of artificial colors is part of what makes it superior. So why, lollipop guys, do you think every lollipop you make needs red or blue dye? Oh, because you love ruining my kid's clothes? FUCK YOU. You are all dead to me. Also, oompa-loompas.
• The people you send a Facebook invite to for an event you are planning and even though you have been ASSURED that they are coming, they just fucking let it sit in their notifications and NEVER respond (yeah, I'm looking at you MIKE). WHY CAN'T YOU JUST CLICK THE LITTLE BUTTON THAT SAYS "I'm attending"? WHY DO YOU HATE ME?
• And speaking of that last one, I might as well throw the year 2012 onto this list. The event I'm planning is a vacation thing for myself and my friend because we are both turning 30 next year and instead of killing ourselves, we are simply going to get drunk for a week straight and try not to drown in the pool.
  
• Chocolate. We have a love-hate relationship. I'd love to be someone's cat for a year and only have access to the food they give me, in the portions they give, so I do not have to answer to my dark master on the daily. Halloween, you are certainly NOT helping with this endeavor.
• People who can't answer a fucking text message. Because I just fucking hate you, okay. Stop being a dick and get back to me.