Shit My Dad Says... The Hobo Equation

I don't think it needs to be mentioned yet again, but hey- you guys remember how my dad is like 87% hobo, right? In case you are wondering how I figured out that percentage, it's a very complicated Algebraic formula including the following variables:

v= number of days per year spent sleeping in your vehicle
c*= number of clothing items you own to the power of the number of layers you wear over each other, so as to be able to take one off daily and not appear to be wearing the same clothes as yesterday
s= stank (this variable has a direct relationship to c*)
g= number of gullible family members you can coerce into free living accommodations
t= number of teeth you currently have (Hobo Bill has the incredibly low score of 3 on this variable, drastically impacting his overall score)
f= your general ability to make even the most basic of financially responsible decisions.

Let's talk about factors v and f today. Vehicle and finances. I mean, I suppose when you're the type of person who prioritizes buying scratch-offs and foot long hot dogs at 7-11 over paying your rent, you can't really be expected to make sound financial choices. That said, one might assume that my dad's perpetual poorness would be directly reflected in his choice of vehicle. And for the most part, it has been. He's had a number of 200,000+ mileage metal shitboxes. Some he got for free. Some he "financed"- and by that I mean he talked a friend or family member into believing he would make payments on a car he wanted to buy from them, and then got pissed off when they actually, you know, expected him to make the payments.

There have been times when my dad has been without a car, but he's done a pretty good job of basically stealing cars from people over the years, and almost always has some sort of vehicle. The last car he had was something he was "making payments" on to some guy he knows. Last I heard, he still owed the guy $1000 or so of the $1500 total he was supposed to pay and was pretty pissed that the guy wouldn't leave him alone about it.

So. What do you do when you don't have money to pay the guy who sold you your car, you're behind on your rent, your car insurance check bounced and your car needs a bunch of repairs you can't afford?

I feel like you guys know my dad pretty well at this point, so I'm going to do this multiple choice:

   a) work overtime and get back on track (HAHAHAHA)
   b) panic as you realize you are in way over your head and turn to your old friend the lottery for   comfort
  c) trade in the car you still owe money on and finance a nearly brand new car for 7 years

Did you guys say b? You overestimated my dad's concience. He doesn't actually care that he can't pay any of his debts. Dear old dad somehow managed to trade in his car for a 2012 Ford Focus.

So now he has two cars to pay off. And he has to pay for full coverage insurance, even though the bare bones insurance he used to have lapses basically every time it's due. It's a weird thing, the way my dad thinks of his car insurance. Most people think of their policy in terms of years. My policy, for example, is valid from April 2014-April 2015. My dad doesn't do that. He told me that his new car is insured "I'm not exactly sure... I think it's for the next two months". He treats his car insurance like an about-to-expire gym membership.

I also have to say, I don't feel bad for anyone who finances him a car when they inevitably get screwed over. You don't even need to get into the black hole that is his credit report to know this is not a man you can trust to make timely (or any) payments. As I said before, he has THREE teeth. My infant officially has more teeth than him. I just think that when someone with three teeth walks into your establishment and tries to convince you that they can afford the payments on a spankin' new vehicle, you have to realize that if they can't afford plastic teeth, they definitely cannot afford basically anything. Except maybe applesauce.

In any case, my immediate reaction when he went into full-on bragging mode about his new car (I feel like it's important here to remind you that he's bragging about owning a Ford Focus), was to scold him for being an idiot:

Me: But dad, aren't you still paying off the other car?
Dad: Yes.
Me: Well isn't it a problem that you now have to pay off 2 cars?
Dad: It's a 2012.
Me: Yeah, I get that. Except for the part where it gets repossessed in 2 months and then you have no car at all and you still have to pay off your old one.
Dad: No, I'm going to pay it.
Me: HOW?
Dad: Well, my old car needed 2 catalytic converters. Those things are like $1000 each. I couldn't afford that. This car is NEW, so it won't need any repairs.
Me: So you couldn't afford to repair your old car so you just bought a new one?
Dad: That wasn't the only thing. My old car didn't have any gas in it and I didn't have gas money. This one came with a full tank.
Me: ::dead::

So yes. My dad thought it was a good idea to buy a new car because HE COULDN'T AFFORD GAS OR REPAIRS FOR HIS OLD ONE. I guess it's a good thing those Ford Focus's run on broken dreams.

A Dating Profile for Dear Old Dad

I'm dealing with some difficult shit right now. Rather than talk about it, I've decided to make fun of my dad some more. It's like meditation for me:

I've said it before and I'll say it again- my dad is kinda the worst. He's been calling a lot lately- and by that I mean when he has money to put minutes on his prepaid phone. Because he is a grown man with a prepaid phone. No offense to prepaid phone users or anything, but unless you're artfully dodging a handful of baby mommas/bill collectors/lawyers, a grown up should have, at the very least, a monthly cell phone plan. You ain't gotta be fancy and pay Verizon $100 a month. T-mobile will set you up for a cool $35. That's the part that makes it especially sad though. Despite owing so much money to SO many people, he WANTS them to call him. He wants to self-righteously rant at them about how he can't afford to pay and that is... somehow... their problem, apparently. In fact, this whole rant today started out because he had given out MY phone number to one of his bill collectors (again) and I'm annoyed about it.

Anyway. I've decided I need to find someone to take him off my hands. He hasn't had a girlfriend since my mom left him 20 something years ago. I think it's time to take him into the new millenium with online dating! I mean, sure he claims he's "tried it" before. But only when E-Harmony is having a free weekend. Because those other dating sites? Girls send him DIRTY messages and pictures of themselves dressed like whores! He's not that kind of hobo. In any case, honesty is important, so I think I'll take care of his profile for him. I mean, everyone lies on their dating profile, but you can't really trust a sociopath to be even close to honest. If I want to find him a lady life partner, I'm gonna have to lay his true self on the line:

Name:
Bill. AKA Hobo Bill. AKA Tubby.

Description:
Surprisingly young looking for 60. I suppose it's easy to get fewer gray hairs and wrinkles when you refuse to deal with any of your problems and dump them on everyone you know. One place where his lack of responsibility might show though, is right in the chompers. His teeth. He has none. I mean, fake teeth are totally expensive and he had some this one time but then he bit into a really hot slice of pizza while walking through a parking lot and accidentally spit them out onto the ground and then they got run over (what, that hasn't happened to you?). Clothes and feet are always sparkling clean with the scent of bleach though. Maybe a little faded, but it's totally worth it. Also, sometimes he wears multiple layers of clothing at once, so as to be able to remove the outside layer daily and have on a clean outfit. By the time he gets to that innermost outfit, he's fresh as a goddamn daisy.

Likes:

• Not paying for anything, ever
• Gambling
• Berating people who are just doing their job
• Sensationalized news stories
• Welfare fraud
• Talking about himself and greatly exaggerating absolutely every aspect of his existence on this planet as a human being
• Bleach
• Using the ER as a means to get his blood pressure medication
• Bahama Mamas (the giant hot dogs from 7-11, not the drink)
• Feeling 100% justified in stealing from his employer because "I had no money to eat with" even though he's totally getting food stamps

Dislikes:

• Paying for anything, ever
• The government- judges in particular because WHO DO THEY THINK THEY ARE, JUDGING HIM???
• Immigrants, because they are totally stealing all the CEO jobs he would have if they just went back to their country. And also because they get pissed when he sleeps in his car outside their 7-11 store.
• Gays. "I don't hate gay people. I just think they shouldn't be allowed to get married or have kids because then the kids will be gay because they will only see gay stuff and think that's normal"
• Legitimate welfare recipients. Oh, you think you're SO important just because you're not using this money to buy scratch-offs!
• AIDS (please see also: Gays. Because it's totally their fault, you guys).

What He's Looking For:
A lovely lady to take care of him. And by "take care of", obviously I mean fuel his gambling problem while providing a free place for him to live a life of luxury. He'd also really like it if you didn't mind him being enormously ungrateful for all of this. In fact, I'd say any expectation of graciousness on his part whatsoever is probably going to be a dealbreaker. He's also really like it if you wouldn't mind him sitting on your couch unbathed about 90% of the time, while he watches Fox News and dozes in and out of conciousness while loudly snoring.

So ladies, message me if you'd like to meet him, and I'll let you know when he has minutes on his phone.

Shit My Dad Says... About Welfare

We've established that I was really poor as a kid. Welfare poor. The major reason for this was my dad. My useless, transient hobo with a gambling problem dad. It took my mom quite a few years to come to the realization that being on her own with 4 kids would actually be significantly easier than staying with him and trying to take care of us.

That said, we were still really poor. Except that single mothers of 4 kids can get help from the government instead of just living in a van and eating dinner out of vending machines like we did when we lived with my dad. And so we were on welfare, and food stamps, and eventually we were able to get into subsidized housing. You know, the projects. My mom still worked- mostly for our landlord to pay off our rent in the many years while we waited to get into housing we could afford. And then cleaning bars and homes and stuffing envelopes for our (by then) ex-landlord and a handful of her colleagues for 2 cents per envelope. Guys? Doing anything for 2 cents a piece is basically slave labor. I remember my mom staying up 24, 48 hours straight- sometimes longer- and making a whopping $25 for 2 straight days of work.

My point is that my mom busted her ass. Because she had to and because she would do anything for us. Because my dad didn't pay a single dime in child support, basically ever (the occasions he managed to collect unemployment where child support was taken out- much to his dismay- automatically, were like bonus time in our family). Because she couldn't afford child care and so she had to work odd jobs for next to nothing just so we could survive. I've always respected how hard she worked for us. As a parent myself now, it's really jarring to look back on it and see it from her perspective. As a kid, I knew we didn't have much money. I knew a lot of times I couldn't have something I wanted because we couldn't afford it. Hand-me-down clothes were the usual. Nothing about it seemed particularly hard for me as a child because it was all I ever knew. But now, as a parent? I look at how much I stress about making sure I can afford things that are luxuries- DVR and Christmas photo shoots- how I don't want Caitlyn to miss out on those things that aren't really going to hurt her in the long run- and I can't help but imagine what it must have been like for my mom to not be able to afford food and milk and diapers. Because, as the poet Eminem once said "these goddamn food stamps don't buy diapers". Preach, brother.

None of this is really the point though. We've already established that I hold my mother in the same regard as saints. Probably higher, actually. My point is that, through all of this- through quite literally nearly killing herself because she was taking care of 4 kids alone- my father always judged our lifestyle. On the occasions he came around (it was much less so when we were kids- I'm assuming because none of us had couches he could crash on yet), he always had rude comments about what my mom wasn't giving to us. Nevermind the fact that he hadn't contributed anything of value for the entirety of our childhood. He couldn't believe my mom had us living in the projects (apparently sleazy motels were much better)! He looked down at his nose at her for feeding us with food stamps (Oh, how she enjoyed those 1st of the month, 3 mile walks to and from the grocery store!). He particularly hated the fact that she was on welfare. He always thought himself far too good for welfare. Or maybe it just especially annoyed him because he was more likely to end up with an arrest warrant for not paying his child support when the money was owed to welfare. My point is that he would show up, and he would judge us. He would promise to get us out of such horrible conditions (and back into the shitty motels/homeless shelters we deserved!). He treated my mom as though all she was doing wasn't enough for his standards. Ironic.

Anyway. My dad stopped by for a visit a couple of weekends ago. I could tell he had some money in his pockets, because he wasn't using what I like to refer to as his "kill yourself" tone of voice for everything he said. I didn't even have to ask before he started telling me why. You guys? He's on welfare. And food stamps. And he is inexplicably getting rental assistance which has been approved through AUGUST. He is a 60 year old man who has never held a steady job, has pissed away every dime he's ever earned through his gambling addiction, has abused the kindness and asked favors of every single person he has ever known (his own children included), and passionately HATES "the system" for ever pursuing him for his obligations to his 4 children. And yet, he is happily abusing it now (and trust me, abusing is the right word. He openly admitted to winning $2000 on the lottery- he spent his WELFARE money on fucking lottery tickets!).

The worst part isn't even that he's abusing a service that he frequently judged my mom for needing while he contributed nothing during my childhood. The worst part is that he bitched about how inconvenient receiving welfare has been for him. You guys? Welfare asks questions. Like whether or not you are looking for a job. So RUDE! Also, he didn't even WANT welfare. He just wanted food stamps and rental assistance but they totally insisted on giving him welfare too. Ugh. And then, omg he totally had to sit in the welfare office for TWO STRAIGHT DAYS- he was even the LAST person they took on his second day of waiting- before they gave him a fucking free ride for the forseeable future. Tacky, welfare. So tacky. The customer is always right, you know. And the customer shouldn't have to wait 2 whole days that they definitely weren't going to spend at work, waiting around for your free money. And food. And housing.

Anyway. I digress. It's just that sometimes you are going through your own personal struggles. Real struggles, scary struggles, and you find you have to pull yourself up and realize that, well, you got yourself into this mess and you're just going to have to deal with it now. You'll be okay eventually. And then some jackass who is just begging to be dead to you comes to your house and bitches about how inconvenient he found his trip to the welfare office, and you have to hold yourself back from punching him in the face. On the upside, he did give me a red plastic Solo cup full of change though. Totally makes up for that whole "absentee father" thing.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Divorce Court...

Actually, that title is a lie. Of course it didn't really happen on the way to divorce court. That would be just plain tacky. And I like to be enormously tacky.

So here is the thing. Remember how I started dating that guy? Yeah. That guy got me pregnant. And so, while it technically did not happen on the way to divorce court, I was absolutely a proper hoodrat about it and showed up to divorce court pregnant with another man's baby. Not that anyone knew. But I knew, and I felt the ghettoness of my roots in that moment. You can take the girl out of the projects, I suppose...

Anyway. Obviously you have some questions. Questions such as "are you really that stupid?" and "so, I guess you aren't having an abortion then?". Let's get in to that, as I'm going to find a way to blame this all on my ex husband.

As for the question of my intelligence, well, let me assure you, you aren't the first to ask. And rightfully so. I won't get into the messy details, but let's just say I had a lapse in judgment. Let's just say that I was so cocky about my knowledge of my cycles and fertility signs after multiple rounds of IVF and years of tracking and trying to get pregnant, that I simply got cavalier about the whole thing. I simply thought I knew too much to have an accidental pregnancy. So yeah, ok, I guess I'm kind of fucking stupid.

As for the abortion question. I looked to my past, to my struggles to conceive and my loss of a much loved and terribly wanted baby and I could not bring myself to do it. Even if it was the most logical choice. And I assure you, I do realize it was the most logical choice. Even now I sometimes find myself thinking "wow... I wish I could have been a bit more logical when I made this decision". It's not that I regret it, exactly. I just didn't really take as much time as I should have to think it through. Truthfully, I knew I'd never go through with it anyway, no matter how much I may have been able to convince myself that it was the best option.

And so, for the official record, today I am nearly 16 weeks pregnant. The future is murky and scary, but in the end I know I will love this baby no matter what else happens. I know I will find equal parts joy and challenge in being a single mother (and no, that doesn't mean the guy just dropped off the face of the Earth, but my reality is what it is and I have to be prepared for that). I know that when Caitlyn hugs my belly and tells me she wants a baby brother, who shall be named Pocoyo and who she shall paint blue, she will get an immense amount of joy from having a sibling to love. I know that we will be a family, in whatever version works best for us. I know we will carry on and love each other and support each other and be happy. As for everything else? Well, fuck if I know.

Middle-Aged Retail Employees LOVE It When You Talk To Them About Your Vagina

Sometimes, when you haven't been laid in a while (or when you are only having sex because omg fine, just shut the fuck up about it already), you let some of your grooming habits slide. Eventually though, you get to a point where you realize that your pubes are like 6 inches long and maybe you should do something about that. I had that realization a few weeks ago.

Usually I just shave the lady parts, but I decided I wanted to buy a trimmer. I work in NYC and there are at least 6 drugstores in a 4 block radius, so I expected to find exactly what I wanted rather easily. That was not the case. Apparently, the ladies of this great city prefer their pubic hair trimmers to be fancy, expensive, and much larger than is absolutely necessary (insert dick joke here).

This was clearly not something I needed immediately, so I didn't think much of it. I figured I'd find what I wanted in Jersey one day. Then yesterday I was taking a walk on my lunch break and went outside of my usual 5 block perimeter and came across a CVS I hadn't checked out before. I figured I would see if they had what I wanted.

To my surprise, they did have it. And at just $12, I knew I had finally filled my bush-removing needs. I went to grab it off the hook and realized that I couldn't get it off. The hook had a lock on the end of it.  Have you seen this? I mean, at Walmart in the electronics department, sure. I can understand why they might lock up expensive electronics items. But in CVS? For a $12 pube trimmer? Really?

At that moment, I had to make a choice. I could be embarrassed and refuse to ask for help and walk out. Or I could put on my big girl panties and ask someone to unlock it for me. Because it WAS a CVS, I told myself I would make one loop around the store. In the unlikely event that I found someone who actually worked there, I would ask for help. Right as I completed my loop, as I made my way back to the aisle I started in, an employee appeared before me. In fact, he was in the aisle unlocking a mustache trimmer for some other customer.

I marched up to this middle-aged man and told him I needed him to get something for me. He cheerfully asked "ok, what did you need?". I gestured toward the end of the aisle with the lady products and he followed me there. "This one", I told him. "And thanks for locking up the pube trimmers so I had to ask for help".

He laughed, so I probably only made him a little uncomfortable. On the upside, my pubes aren't 6 inches long anymore.

Dora and Diego are Pathological Liars. There, I Said It

Here is the problem. I usually blog at work, and work has been extremely busy. Even if you don't figure for the fact that my office moved last week and I've spent the last 6 work days inhaling paint fumes and cancer dust (because no one seemed to think finishing construction prior to our move was important), I've taken on a bunch of new responsibilities too. Responsibilities I'm currently ignoring so I can blog.

The thing is, I would theoretically blog from home. I've even tried it a few times. The way it usually plays out is that I get an idea, sit down at my computer and try to focus just enough so that it's mildly coherent. And then Caitlyn decides she wants to sit on my lap. I can handle that one of two ways: I can ignore her. This always ends with her pawing at me and whining and making me feel like an asshole because GOD, she just wants to sit on her mommy's lap, you fucking monster. And so I always arrive at option two within about 30 seconds, and I put her on my lap. She will then bang on the keyboard, insist we watch Youtube videos of Elmo or decide "I needa PAINT" (because my dad showed her how to use a paint document. And also because she never wants anything anymore. She always "needa".) and screech color choices at me until her masterpiece is complete.

Basically what I'm saying is that unless you want all my blog posts to be paint documents, I can't blog from home (what about when her dad takes her, you might ask next. Yeah. I wonder about that too. I'll let you know when it happens!).

Today I realized that it's been over a month since I posted anything, and yet, I still don't have more than 15 minutes to bang out a real post. It's annoying, actually, because I really do have a backlog of posts in my head. Anyway, consider this a fake post. Leave me lots of comments so I know you haven't all abandoned me.

The other night, a few of my Facebook friends and I decided to call out children's programming for all the lies they are telling our kids. We established the following creepy, weird or just plain outlandish lies our kids may believe based on what Dora and company are telling them (these aren't all me, so thanks to my lovely, funny friends, AKD, Mandy and Jessica):

• It isn't weird at all when inanimate objects talk
• 25 year old adults should still be attending school
• A co-ed group of 25 year old adults can share an apartment and no one is ever going to fuck anyone else (or get drunk)
• Baby jaguars make GREAT pets and definitely will not maul you at all
• Salt and pepper shakers are French, and produce cinnamon offspring
• There's nothing wrong with letting a 6 year old girl wander around completely unsupervised. Even when she's too dumb to get anywhere without a map
• 6 year olds can read maps
• All Latino parents don't pay any attention to their children and let them wander through alligator swamps and creepy forests with only a monkey for supervision
• Chinese children are raised by their grandparents, presumably because their parents are in a factory making Nikes 18 hours a day
• Little snotty bitch pigs are apparently endearing (there may have also been suggestions about making Olivia in bacon)
• EVERYONE WANTS YOU TO TALK ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS ALL THE TIME! EVERYTHING IS ABOUT YOU!
• All animals speak English and Spanish, regardless of what country or even CONTINENT they are on.
• "Gazelles are afraid of lions!" (No, gazelles don't want to get their throats ripped out. They  have absolutely no worries that the lion might jump out and say BOO)
• Medieval knights are selfish and whiny until their pet dragons remind them not to steal things
• Dino Dan "isn't" a paranoid schizophrenic
• Captain Hook is a little selfish about treasure, but if you ask nicely, he will totally share it with you. And he gets super butt-hurt if you don't invite him to your parties and shit
• If you are being mugged, saying the mugger's name 3 times and telling him no will make him snap his fingers and run away
• David Arquette makes a great parrot, and his career is doing JUST FINE
• If you put the absolute minimum amount of effort into finding something that has been deliberately taken/hidden from you, it will magically appear in the most obvious place ever
• Orange backpacks can bend physics and become anything you need them to be
• And purple backpacks contain anything you could ever need
• Your friends will just laugh at your whimsy if you have the most retarded ideas on the planet, EVERY SINGLE DAY
• You need a song for EVERYTHING
• People won't send you to a special school if you are mildly retarded and constantly step in buckets
• It's not even a little weird to wear the exact same clothes EVERY SINGLE DAY
• Or to dress your blue dog in pajamas, and to keep the same pedophilic haircut for 6 years
• Lance Bass didn't try hard enough to go into space. Pocoyo does that shit all the fucking time and he doesn't have astronaut training OR several million dollars
• Your friends won't make fun of you for trying and failing miserably
• Phineas and Ferb are independently wealthy children, or else their parents conveniently ignore the massive credit card debt they accumulate each day
• "Come inside, it's fun inside" doesn't sound sexual at all, Mickey Mouse
• Neither does "A bunch of bones inside me" (which I was pretty convinced was "I want your bones inside me" until my sister informed me otherwise... either way, really)
• Wonder Pets shouldn't die in a fire (really, we couldn't even say anything about how awful they are besides "should die in a fire", which, apparently children don't agree with).
• Uniqua is a name
• Uniqua and Tyrone would run with the same... let's say "group of friends" as Pablo
• UNDERWATER AIRPLANES
• You can only stalk someone and get away with it if you're voiced by Ashley Tisdale
• It is both completely normal to have a platypus as a pet and to lose him all the time
• Three kids on an island can play with child molester-esque men and there are no authority figures except a parrot
• Toot and Puddle is somehow not scat porn
• Your toys live inside your boombox, and come alive when you sprinkle magic on them (that's called an acid trip, DJ Lance)
• Orange spandex onesies are appropriate attire
• Trains with shifty, haunted painting eyes aren't creepy at all
• You should totally trust and be friends with people who look like giant butt plugs and dildos
• You can buy a new car for the bargain price of FREE, as long as you are willing to sing a song while you assemble it (and you can get 50 people to help as long as you give them a ride to the smoothie stand, which is exactly 50 feet away)
• All the pizza and smoothies are free, and somehow they are both thriving businesses (not to mention the fact that the pizza place is run by someone dumber than Twist)
• Siblings mostly get along except for minor annoyances
• Monsters are adorable, fuzzy creatures
• If someone is bullying you and you tell them they've hurt your feelings, they will be instantly remorseful and apologize
• You should reiterate absolutely every single thing you say at least 3 times (Seriously, kid. I'm not you. I don't have the attention span of a marble. I got it the FIRST time)
• Everyone will want to hug and be best buds after every disagreement. No hard feelings EVER
• Mommies and Daddies are always of the same race and the opposite sex. And happily married, of course

So, what did we miss? What lies are your kids learning?

Asshole, Dick, Fuck. In That Order.

Sometimes I get a little off-track with this blog. Half my posts of late have just been rants and ramblings that have absolutely nothing to do with parenting, and it seems like it's been a while since I actually wrote a post about the shit my kid is doing now. And there is so much shit she is doing now, I can hardly keep up. In fact, I wrote out a checklist of shit-she-is-doing points to hit in this post, so I don't forget anything.

Overall, I'd say the biggest change I've seen in Caitlyn over the past few months (besides, you know, the fact that she never shuts up, ever ever) is how she wants to do everything I do. I mean, obviously this isn't brand new or anything... pretty much everything babies and toddlers do is mocking on some level. The difference now is that she's not just mirroring me when I prompt her to anymore. She's started doing these things of her own accord.

The mirroring thing had hit a high point a few months ago, when she would try to do things like shave her legs in the shower when I did. That kind of mirroring is fucking adorable (you know, except for the part where she thinks she can play with my razor). Recently though, her attempts at being just like mommy have been slightly less adorable. For example, while we were on vacation, I was vacation-eating and it gave me the shits because my body had gotten used to me being pretty healthy of late. One afternoon I spent a solid 30 minutes in the bathroom with diarrhea (I know how you love these kinds of stories- you're welcome!). And in those 30 minutes, Caitlyn walked into the bathroom, oh, I don't know, let's go with 700 times. Shortly after the entire contents of my digestive tract had been forcibly removed, Caitlyn decided she wanted to use the potty.

This has actually also been a big milestone for us of late. It's certainly not consistent yet, but she pees on the potty at least once a day now. Which isn't my point at all. My point is that when Caitlyn says she needs to go potty, I immediately and enthusiastically encourage her. So was the case on the day I got the shits.

She finds it pretty novel, using the big girl toilet, so I never quite know what to expect when she says she has to go. Sometimes she pees almost immediately. Sometimes she insists on getting on and off the toilet 10 times. Sometimes she sits there for 2 seconds, declares she's "all done", then flushes the toilet 4 times. Sometimes she mostly just unravels the toilet paper. Her newest thing is the take the toilet cleaner brush out of the holder and dunk it into the toilet the moment she gets up. On that day though, her mission was clear. She was going to make fun of me. She climbed up onto the toilet (because GOD FORBID I help her up) and immediately scrunched up her face and made some fake straining noises. She then hopped right back down and said "mommy's turn!". Uncool, kid.

Since we are on the subject, though, I should say that during our vacation, and in the week since we've come home, there has been a great increase in using the potty. Two nights ago, Caitlyn peed on the potty 3 separate times. Then she pooped on there too. I've never been so excited about another person's bowel movements in my life. I'm hoping we can move on to underwear in a couple more months.

There is another area where Caitlyn is starting to hit her stride though, no longer just taking cues from mommy, but really owning it as her own. Cursing.

As you may remember, Caitlyn's first bad word was asshole. She was mistakenly under the impression that this was the dog's name, though, so I couldn't really hold it against her. After that she started saying dick. I will take 100% responsibility on that one, because it's not just that I said it to her once and she repeated it, it's the fact that after she repeated it I started laughing hysterically. And really, who wouldn't? When you are mad at your tiny 18 month old for some random act of attitude and she responds by beaming her best smile at you and confidentally, comically declaring "DICK!", well, just, how DON'T you laugh at that? You can't. It's physically impossible. I mean, you know, until the 30th time or so. Now I can actually hold a straight face long enough to tell her it isn't a nice word and that she shouldn't say it. And mostly she doesn't anymore, save for a rare occasion when she knows she's in a lot of trouble and she thinks her comic relief will save her from time outs (or beatings. I mean, probably beatings. I try to use a 70/30 beating to time out ratio).

The problem now, though, is that she isn't just using these words because she knows they will make me laugh. She's using them in context. Actually, "them" is inaccurate. "It" is more appropriate. Because there is only one bad word she regularly uses now. She doesn't use it in anger. This is not a tantrum kind of thing. She's absolutely not trying to get a reaction out of me.

The first time she said it, I hardly noticed. I sort of just glanced at Rodolfo, eyebrows raised, as if to say "did you hear that too?". He wasn't sure either, so we assumed it was some sort of toddler jibberish word that just sounded like the word we, as adults, would automatically hear. After that I started to notice a pattern though. She would always say it after some mild inconvenience. She would drop something on the floor or the dog would steal her last goldfish cracker, something like that. Nothing she would actually be that upset about. And it was always muttered under her breath. Not because she thought she might get in trouble, but because when I say it in the context she was using for it, I'd mutter it under MY breath. Then, at some point (that point being when she started lovingly embracing Swiper the Fox's catchphrase "oh, man!"), she started adding "man!" to the mix.

It went something like this: mild inconvenience, then exasperated sigh, followed by "man... fuck".

We are going to have to get that shit cleared up before she goes to Kindergarten.

I think I'll split this into two posts. More Caitlyn updates tomorrow-ish.

Tales from Vacation- Shit My Dad Fucked Up

I think I've made it pretty clear that my dad is essentially useless. There is a time, though, when his lack of a permanent address works in my favor and he can make himself useful. And by "useful" I mean he goes from full-on parasite mode to some sort of half-assed symbiotic relationship with the people he leaches goods, services, and nights on their couch from.

What I'm saying is that I asked my dad to take care of my pets while I was on vacation.

I should have known better. Do you remember that one time I went on vacation, and when I came home he informed me that he was kicked out by the relative he was staying with at the time and he had all his shit at my house and expected me to let him live there for a while? Yeah. I definitely should have known better.

Anyway. So my dad's current ... let's call it vocation ... is driving a taxi in tourist trap/Jersey Shore locale, Seaside Heights. He works overnights because that is when all the drunks want to be carted around, obviously. I didn't anticipate this being an issue. He told me he would come over in the morning and walk my dog and feed both of my pets when he got out of work. His taxi job is a solid hour and 15 minutes from where I live, but he always makes a show of how much he loves driving, so again, I figured it would be fine.

Cut to a couple of days into vacation. I had called him once or twice to check in, and he told me everything was fine. On this day though, he called me. We had the following conversation (and yes, in case you were wondering, pretty much everything I said, I was shouting at him, hence the all caps):

Dad: Hi Jaclyn. You really need to let your friend know not to lock your cat in the bedroom.

Me: What are you talking about?

Dad: Well, whoever else is coming here must have locked her in the bedroom and she pissed all over your bed (PISSED ALL OVER YOUR BED???????????????? FUCKING REALLY DUDE. THIS IS NOT SOMETHING YOU BRING UP CASUALLY AND WITHOUT A DROP OF GUILT).

Me: THE CAT PISSED "ALL OVER" MY BED? ARE YOU KIDDING ME????

Dad: Well I guess whoever was in here locked her in there.

Me: YOU WERE THE ONLY ONE THERE- NO ONE ELSE IS GOING TO MY HOUSE!

Dad: Oh, really? I figured you had Nadine or someone else coming too.

Me: NO!

Dad: Oh. Well, someone else was definitely in the house, Jaclyn. It wasn't me. The bedroom door was open when I left. Someone must have broken in. Did you leave your windows unlocked?

Me: SOMEONE BROKE IN, NOT TO STEAL ANYTHING, BUT TO LOCK MY CAT IN THE BEDROOM? ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?

Dad: I don't know. It had to be someone else though. Maybe it was the landlord. Maybe Joey was barking and he came in to check on him.

Me: NO ONE ELSE WAS IN MY HOUSE.

Dad: Well, Joey got out of the kitchen- he was walking around the house when I got there. Maybe he pushed the door closed. You know how he does that sometimes (bold-faced lie. I can't tell you of a single time when my dog pushed a fucking door closed. NOT A SINGLE TIME).

Me: JOEY DIDN'T LOCK THE CAT IN THE BEDROOM EITHER! MY MATTRESS IS LIKE 6 MONTHS OLD AND NOW I HAVE TO THROW IT OUT- CAT PEE STINK NEVER GOES AWAY!

Dad: Oh don't worry, it's fine. I cleaned it, and I'm going to wash your sheets and your mattress cover.

Me: Cleaned it with what (this was a legitimate concern, because his idea of "washing" anything means soaking it in bleach. Even his feet. I wish I were kidding)???

Dad: Oh, I took some rubbing alcohol and wiped it on the stain.

Me: REALLY? ARE YOU KIDDING ME? RUBBING ALCOHOL? MY ENTIRE BEDROOM IS GOING TO SMELL LIKE CAT PISS AND RUBBING ALCOHOL! WHY THE HELL WOULD YOU USE FUCKING RUBBING ALCOHOL?

Dad: Well, I figured you didn't want me to use bleach.

Me: MY MATTRESS IS RUINED, ISN'T IT?

Dad: It's fine!

I got off the phone with him and ranted to everyone for 10 minutes about what an incompetent douche bag he is. Everyone agreed, naturally. After that, I tried to put it out of my mind and enjoy the rest of vacation, but in the back of my head, I was constantly wondering what the hell I would be going home to. This was especially true a couple of days later, when April called him to ask about HER cat and HER house (because he agreed to catsit for her as well) and he informed her, completely ignoring her questions about her own home/pet, that my house was "a disaster" and that my dog had gotten out again and broken something. I was not exactly looking forward to going home after that:

The first thing I noticed when I walked in my door was actually the LACK of mess. My dad is a known slob and he doesn't usually have the courtesy, even in someone else's home, to not throw his clothes and garbage everywhere, so the fact that things looked relatively uncluttered surprised me. He must have realized how pissed I was about the mattress. Ah, the mattress. I needed to assess the damage and decide if I was sleeping on the couch tonight and how much I could afford to spend on a new one.

Again, I was shocked. "Pissed all over your mattress" is pretty definitive, I would say, to indicate that something has been ruined beyond repair, but surprisingly my mattress looked (and smelled!) fine. There was a small yellowish stain that smelled a little like the rubbing alcohol he used to clean it, but it looked like the mattress pad kept the pee from soaking through to the actual mattress surface. So far, so good.

The relief I felt knowing I wouldn't have to throw my mattress away disintegrated immediately when I walked into my kitchen and realized that, just 3 weeks after moving in, I could say for sure that I wouldn't be getting my security deposit back when I move out:

Me: Dad, what are those dark spots on the floor?

Dad: Oh, that's where Joey peed.

Me: I thought you said he didn't pee in the house. And why does it look like it seeped completely under the (very expensive looking) tiles? How long did you leave it there before you cleaned it up?

Dad: Oh, that was my fault. He peed on the floor twice, but those were the days I didn't get back here for like 20 hours or something like that.

Me: 20 HOURS? WHY DIDN'T YOU COME BACK FOR 20 HOURS?

Dad: Well I ran late at work.

Me: 20 consecutive hours late? Why didn't you tell me if you thought you couldn't do it every day?

Dad: I'm not saying I couldn't do it- I didn't mind- I just couldn't get here for a while!

Me: I could have sent someone else to at least take him out that day! That pee is under the tile and I'll never get it out. I'm going to lose my security!

Dad: Oh, come on. Your landlord isn't going to notice that!

Me: I noticed it the SECOND I walked in here!

Dad: I wouldn't worry about.

Me: Of course you wouldn't.

At this point, I asked about his "disaster" comment and he told me that the dog had knocked over Caitlyn's toy shopping cart and that the removable front piece came off. He realized after telling April that my shit was broken that it was actually completely fixable. It's sort of ironic. The two things he focused on- the mattress and a broken fucking shopping cart toy- were the very least of my worries.

Most of the destruction he caused was dog-related, but not in the way you might think. It wasn't the dog destroying things so much as it was him not paying a single second's worth of attention to the detailed instructions I gave him before leaving. For example:

• Joey had not been groomed in a while. He smelled pretty funky and his hair was too long with a few small knots that needed to be cut out. What can I say? I've been busy. Before I left, my dad insisted he was going to give Joey a bath. I told him that I appreciated that, but because Joey had some spots on him that were matted, I'd prefer he didn't. You see, I explained, when those spots get wet, then dry again, they tighten up and cause him pain, like his hair is being pulled, so I'd prefer to wait until I was able to give him a haircut before giving him a bath. "I'll give him a haircut!", my father insisted. Since I groom Joey at home, I directed him to the grooming kit I own and told him that he was more than welcome to give him a haircut if he had the time, knowing full well that he would absolutely not bother and hopefully just leave my poor dog alone. Of course, when I got home, he had given Joey a bath and no haircut. Which led to the next 5 problems on this list:
• Since I just moved, I had emailed my landlord a few days before vacation to let him know about a couple of small issues I was having, one of which was that my bathtub was clogged up, and also to let him know that my father would be at my house while I was away (it's a condo complex, and I don't know how nosy the neighbors are yet, so I wanted to let him know just in case anyone asked him who the old, homeless-looking dude was). He couldn't send someone to fix my tub until Sunday, the day after I left for vacation, which was fine, because my dad would be there to let them in. I spoke to my dad on Sunday evening, and he confirmed that all was well and that my bathtub was unclogged. Then he promptly gave my ungroomed, hairy dog a bath in there. He didn't even bother to wipe the dog hair out of the tub, despite claiming that he cleaned everything with bleach the day I got home (he made a point of telling me this because he wanted to prove that all my complaints about the overwhelming bleach smell I hate are exaggerated and that I wouldn't have even noticed if he hadn't pointed it out). My tub is now clogged again.
• I purchased a cute frog-shaped bath mat for my new house. It was only a few days old when I left. When I came home it was filthy and caked with soap and dog hair to the point of nearly gluing one of the frog's eyes shut.
• One of the first things I did after being home for a little while was get in the shower (to use my freshly reclogged bathtub!) and clear the road skank off of me. While in there, I noticed that half my bottle of body wash was gone. This was a brand new bottle. I believe I bought it on the same trip to Walmart as the bath mat. Anyone who uses body wash knows that a bottle usually lasts a couple of months, so I had to ask why so much was gone. Well, isn't it obvious? He used it to wash the dog (which also explains what was caked onto my bath mat)! Why would he use so much, you might wonder? Well, he was leaning over the bathtub and he couldn't really reach, so he just poured it onto him! Which leads us to...
• When I finally did get around to giving Joey a haircut last night, I found that, while the fur I was cutting off was certainly soft from the half gallon of body wash used to clean it, the stuff closer to his skin was matted to hell and covered in dandruff. Or maybe it was just dried up body wash. I also found a couple of scabs where he had clearly chewed his skin raw, probably because he had a reaction to the body wash, or, at best the fact that the body wash was not properly rinsed off of him. Oh, and the fur around his nails was pink, also seemingly blood-stained from him chewing them raw with itch. I also feel it's important to mention that I had not ONE but TWO full bottles of dog shampoo in my bathroom. One was in the medicine cabinet and the other was under the sink. But, I mean, who would look in literally the only two places I could store something in my bathroom for dog shampoo when there was a full bottle of body wash at his disposal! Vanilla and honey scented bloody paws are awesome!
• Another fun note from Joey's grooming last night- his dick was caked in piss. This has literally never happened before. I mean, I've certainly seem the remnants of drippage and the ends of his fur in that area, but I can't imagine a reason that the entire area was caked in a sticky, piss film. I have to assume leftover, unrinsed body wash was to blame because there is literally no other explanation. My POOR DOG!

And lastly, just to prove how deliberately he does things for spite:

• After the cat piss incident, he promised to wash my sheets and mattress cover. Which he did, but cat piss is a hard stench to get rid of, so my first thought was to smell the sheets, which he had left at the foot of my bed. "Don't worry", he assured me, "I put like 5 times more detergent than I was supposed to. The smell is gone". He was mostly right. The piss smell was gone. I can't say the same for the chemically Gain smell that I'm pretty sure I'll never get out (I really don't like chemically smells. I get unscented things whenever I can). And that is when I thought about it. I don't own scented detergent. Which wouldn't be that big a deal except for all the warnings and signs posted in the laundry room about the fact that the washers are high efficiency washers and using detergent that isn't labelled as such, along with using too much of any detergent, can break them. There are literally at least half a dozen signs specifying what kinds of detergent are safe to use, and noting that you shouldn't use more than 1/4 cup of even those high-efficiency detergents. So. Instead of using a reasonable amount of the HE detergent that I had, and maybe running it through the washer twice, he went out of his way to buy a scented detergent that wasn't safe for the machines in my laundry room and use it at 5 times the normal amount needed for a regular washing machine. He saw and ignored the signs, despite the fact that he must have realized that I would be responsible if he broke one of these expensive machines. Of course I asked him why he wouldn't just use the detergent I had, and again, he didn't see it (just like the dog shampoo). He saw the signs, he said, he just didn't bother to read them. Why would he? It's not like he's responsible for anything.

So. If you are thinking I should be more grateful, no matter how much of a bumbling idiot he is, that he was trying to help, maybe you need to read through this again. In fact, check here and here and here and here and here again too. I think I've learning my lesson this time. Nadine, you are officially on notice for dog sitting next time.

Tales From Vacation- Snack Attack (Which is Admittedly Weird, Especially Since There Was an Alligator)

Yesterday afternoon I got home after a week in Florida with my family. We had a great time and it was mostly drama-free, with a few noted exceptions. The first was car trouble. My youngest sister blew two tires on the highway on the way down, then inexplicably had a dead battery (not left-the-lights-on dead. Dead-dead. Needed a new battery dead) a couple of days later. She ended up shelling out nearly $400 in car repairs. Then Rodolfo's water pump died on his car when we were on our way back, an hour from home. That was also $400. So much for saving money by driving. The second mini-drama was related to my apparently calling my 2 year old niece morbidly obese or something and/or telling a grown man to stop calling a 13 year old boy a douche bag. Those blew over pretty quickly though.

The other little drama was snack-related. I'm sorry, did that last sentence sound as ridiculous to you as it did in my head? SNACK-RELATED DRAMA, you guys. Seriously. Let me take it from the beginning:

As I said, we were driving down. Myself, Caitlyn and Rodolfo in his car (yes, we are still separated, in case you were wondering), my mom, step-dad and oldest nephew in her car, our middle sister, her husband and their son in his car and my youngest sister, her boyfriend and their daughter in his car. 4 cars and 3 toddlers. So I decided to make little snack packs for all the kids. I bought ziploc bags and separated portions of goldfish, crackers, and veggie chips for each kid, then threw in a few packs of gummy snacks and juice boxes for everyone. I even made up a ziploc bag for each of them filled with some crayons and folded up paper so they would all have one more thing to keep them occupied for the long trip.

I'd thought of everything. The drinks were boxed, so no one needed to try to pour juice into a sippy cup in a moving car. The snacks were the least messy I could think of. I even provided activities! I was feeling very smug about the whole thing when I texted my mom and sisters to let them know that I'd provided snacks for all the kids, so they needn't worry about it. Obviously they were all grateful. Who wouldn't be?

The ensuing drama had nothing to do with the car snacks, honestly. Everyone loved my awesome car snacks. I only brought it up so you all know how incredibly efficient I am. Okay. Not really (maybe a little though). My point is that I had provided snacks, and I made everyone aware of that fact beforehand (a full 24 hours in advance, even, which is like an eternity in my procrastinatey family). That being said, when you have a toddler, you tend to plan for every scenario. I fully expected that my sisters would also bring snacks along, because what if my nephew decided he hated everything I brought? What if my niece... I don't know, fed all her snacks to an alligator or something (we actually had an alligator in our backyard and an old man standing at the edge of the swamp/lake just begging to be eaten)?

Anyway. We arrived Monday night and went grocery shopping for the week. It was just us girls at the store, and we decided to give Sammi a break, since she had all the car trouble, and split the bill between myself, my mom and my other sister, April (yeah. I'm just gonna use her name now. NO1CURR). So we went about finding what we thought we would need for the week.

Everyone had certain special things they wanted. I picked up some Kashi cereal bars I like, frozen smoothie mix for Rodolfo, and pickles for my burgers. Sammi wanted Fruit Loops and Ramen noodles. My mom... I don't even know, but I'm sure she picked up one certain thing that wouldn't have necessarily been on anyone else's list. Then there was April. Here is the list of things April needed specifically for herself and her family (I should emphasize that she did share if anyone wanted anything. It's not that she was being selfish in that way. She was just being selfish in the way that she made the rest of us split the cost of her excess):

Double-Stuff Oreos
Family Sized bag of M&Ms
Cheerios
Cinnamon Chex ("I need variety, Jaclyn", she responded pissily when I asked if we really needed 3 different kinds of cereal- "besides, I don't eat Fruit Loops")
Apples and Grapes
Coffeemate
2 boxes of frozen mini-pancakes (because despite the fact that we bought pancake mix, she insisted that her son would only eat the frozen mini ones)
Lysol Wipes (she insisted these were "for the house", even though everyone else thought paper towels were perfectly fine)

My mom and Sammi and I were annoyed, especially since Sammi, despite already being out $280 in car repairs at this point, had to practically be bound and gagged before she would let us pay for her fucking Fruit Loops and Ramen noodles. But it was April's vacation too. We all sort of rolled our eyes and moved on.

This is the point where you understand why I mentioned the car snacks I brought. Because when we got back and unpacked our groceries, everyone also started unpacking their personal stuff too. This is when we saw the stash of snacks that April had brought from home (please note that I don't mean she brought a few of anything. These were all regular sizes boxes of shit):

EL Fudge cookies
Chewy Chips Ahoy cookies
Teddy Grahams- vanilla
Teddy Grahams- chocolate
Wheat Thins
Assorted bag of Starbursts and Skittles (you know, those giant bags you buy to distribute for Halloween)

A full day passed before April became displeased with the "variety" of snacks available to her. I woke up Wednesday morning to see her returning from Target, where she bought:

Target bakery sugar cookies
Target bakery chocolate chip cookies
2 boxes of chocolate chip granola bars
2 family sized boxes of Pop-Tarts
Milano cookies
A giant bag of popcorn
A box of microwave popcorn
5 candy bars (these, she informed everyone, were just for her though- no sharing!)
a cheesecake
3 bags of assorted varieties of potato chips (family sized, of course)

If we had planned to stay for a month, this would still be an absolutely ridiculous amount of snacks. And we did actually buy food too! And soda. Seemingly gallons of it disappeared while we were there. I won't say I didn't eat any snacks or drink any soda. I certainly did, but if I'd had my way, I wouldn't have had all this shit sitting there for me to eat in the first place!

I guess my point is that I hope my sister doesn't get diabetes? Also, my mom reads this blog, so she can confirm that this is absolutely not an exaggeration. I actually wrote down the list of snacks because it was so ridiculous to me that I knew it would be a blog post on the very first night.

Anyway. There's lots of other stuff. I promise some pictures of me swimming with a dolphin and also another post about all the ways in which my dad fails at life (he watched my dog while I was away. Stop thinking "well, that was nice of him"- you haven't heard the story yet).

Shit My Dad Says- About Moving

I moved to a new apartment yesterday. I could write this post in the way you might expect. I could say I'm tired and that moving is bullshit and that I'm lucky to have friends and family that I can count on. But really, anyone who has ever moved anytime ever already knows that it's the worst thing ever (especially when you inflict it on people you love). In fact, I think that whole Guantanimo prison torture thing would have been a lot worse if they had made the prisoners help random, disorganized strangers move out of their second floor apartments as opposed to waterboarding them.

Anyway. I'm going to give you something a lot more entertaining than me just bitching about my sore muscles and vagina that decided to start bleeding at 1:30 in the morning the night before the move, when all my period-catching products were boxed the fuck up and my husband had already moved out and there was absolutely no way I was waking up my 2 year old to make a run to Walmart. I'm going to give you a new story about my dad:

When we last left my dad, he was an asshole, a deadbeat, and a hypochondriac, but I wonder if I've mentioned that he is also utterly insane and without a single drop of common sense. The thing is, I know plenty of people who lack common sense: they say dumb shit without really thinking it through and then feel embarrassed when you point out their huge faults in logic. Honestly, everyone has those moments. Sometimes you will think of something that sounds like the most amazing idea ever in your own head, and then instantly feel like a short-busser the moment someone calls you out on your dumbassery.

The problem with my dad is that logic doesn't exist in his world. All his ideas are the very best ideas and when you point out all the reasons you aren't going to do whatever ridiculous thing he's trying to convince you to do, he desperately clings to the ways you could make it work, patching up the holes with half-assed "solutions" that are just as illogical as the original idea.

I moved yesterday, a Wednesday. On Monday, my dad came over because he wanted to "help pack". This is the point where you wonder if I'm a complete dumbass who left myself only 2 nights after work to pack up my entire life. I absolutely had packing left to do, and was packing up right until very late Tuesday night/Wednesday morning (I was getting ready to go to sleep when Shark Week hit, actually), but by the time he showed up on Monday, around 85% of my stuff was already boxed up and stacked in my living room.

You know in cartoons when someone gets a good idea and a light bulb pops up over their head? It's always like that with my dad. I can see the nonsensical thoughts forming in his brain when he has an idea he thinks is brilliant. Except I always imagine a middle finger instead of a light bulb. Because fuck you, logic. Such was the case on Monday evening. He had been in my house for less than 10 minutes when I saw him looking around at my boxes, metaphorical finger forming over his head. Then he said it:

Dad: You know Jaclyn, if I were you, I wouldn't use these cardboard boxes to pack all your stuff.

Me: ... What do you mean? What else would I use?

Dad: Well, if I can make a suggestion... (Because he thinks the fact that he moves constantly makes him some sort of expert, despite the fact that he never moves anywhere permanently, so his worldy possessions always fit into a- his car or b- a storage unit that he won't pay the monthly rent on and will eventually lose. So basically he's always starting out with nothing to even move).

Me: Well dad, as you can see most of my stuff is already packed.

Dad: I'm just saying, if it were me, let me tell you what I would do.

Me: Oh boy.

Dad: No seriously. Think about it. You are just going to throw all these boxes away anyway. If you bought a bunch of storage trunks you could keep them and use them forever.

Me: I have at least 30 boxes here. I would need at least as many trunks. What the hell would I do with 30 storage trunks? Also, I'm not buying 30 trunks.

Dad: Okay but you can use them for other things besides storage. You could use them as furniture!

Me: ...

Dad: I'm serious!

Me: (at this point I've assumed he means I could use one as a toy chest and maybe a ghetto coffee table, because what the fuck else are you going to do with a fucking TRUNK? Well, friends, LOTS of things, as it turns out). Well... I could use one or two for a toy box but what the fuck would I do with the rest? Also? I'm NOT buying a bunch of storage trunks and even if this made any sense, I ALREADY PACKED 85% OF MY BELONGINGS!

Dad: Well think about this! You could stack a bunch of them and put cushions on them. YOU COULD MAKE A COUCH out of them!

Me: I HAVE A COUCH. Also? Constructing homemade furniture out of extra storage trunks is fucking retarded.

Dad: I think it's a good idea.

Me: Even if it was a good idea, you seem to be suggesting that I should not only throw out my current couch so I can... I don't know, hot glue a bunch of trunks together and put cushions on them, but that I should unpack everything I have already packed so that I can put it into trunks instead.

Dad: I'm just saying. That's what I would do.

Me: Of course it is.

These are the kinds of ideas he has all the time. Naturally, my mom and Nadine had a field day with this one in particular. Nadine suggested saving the boxes so he could make himself a house. My mom thought the cardboard would be great for dressers.

Seriously, you guys? I'm going to be so sad when I can't assemble a new couch out of my moving boxes. So. Sad.

Adventures in Shitting

I live in Northern New Jersey. It is not even remotely an exaggeration to say that I live within 10 miles of at least 4 different malls (and if we were to add another 10 miles, I could probably double the number of malls). I'm not a big fan of malls, generally, but sometimes I have to drag myself to one of them.

Any time I have to make a trip to the mall, I weigh the pros and cons and decide which one will get me in and out the fastest. When you spent 4 years of your life working in a mall, let me assure you that you don't spend a single second longer than absolutely necessary inside one of those motherfuckers. Let me break down the choices:

1. The Closest Mall: Also the rich people mall with the good movie theater that I will only go to on Sundays (when the rest of the mall is closed) because otherwise it takes half an hour to find parking. I generally avoid this mall like the plague, because I can't stand the traffic and the rich-bitch stores.

2. The Second Closest Mall: AKA the mall in the same town as the first mall, like 3 miles down the highway. A nicer mall, with less traffic, easier parking and significantly less hoodrats bussed in from the nearby ghettos. A fat girl store, which is convenient and Old Navy and Children's Place, so I can get inexpensive clothes for Caitlyn, that I will be less annoyed about when she stains them after wearing something for less than 5 minutes. Also, a little carousel that never has a line. This is my mall of preference.

3. The Third Mall in the Same Town: I'm not even kidding: This is an outlet mall with a Target attached. I only ever go here if I need something from Target, but I make an effort to steer clear of it because I don't need fucking discounted, outlet store Nikes, so it's basically a waste of my time.

4. The Mall Where I Used to Work: It's the ghetto mall of the 4, but I know the good spots to park and where all the stores are, so I never have to look for anything. There is also a Dairy (Diarrhea? What?) Queen and the place where I get my hair cut. Pretty much I go here to get my hair cut and never ever set foot in the store where I used to work, lest I have to waste 20 minutes talking to my ex-coworkers and pretending like I care about their lives.

So. I needed to go to the mall last week (At first I wrote "weekend" and then I realized that no, you literally could not pay me to go there on a Saturday). We ended up at mall #1. The snooty douche, traffic clusterfuck mall. I can't remember exactly why I chose that mall on that day, but it was, in fact, a weekday, so it was slightly less enraging than usual.

We did our shopping. I found a really cute dress to wear out for my birthday celebration this weekend. After that, we stopped by the food court and grabbed some dinner. Then I realized that Caitlyn needed a diaper change.

If there is one thing I will absolutely give this mall all the props for, it is that is has the nicest family bathroom I've ever seen. Actually, let me clarify. It's not just a bathroom. It's a family "lounge". There are curtained off areas for breastfeeding, a tv playing cartoons and toys and sinks and counter space galore. It's truly fancy. Adjacent to the family lounge is the actual family bathroom. And even that is cool. There's a regular sized toilet and a toddler sized one. They've truly thought of everything.

Anyway, Caitlyn needed a new diaper. And mommy had to take a shit. Off to the family bathroom we went! The changing tables are in the lounge area, so I decided to go to the actual bathroom first and take care of my needs first, for once. I locked the door behind me and sat down.

After a moment of trying to prematurely flush my toilet, Caitlyn noticed the little kid toilet. She's a pro at taking off her diaper anyway, so obviously she wasn't going to wait for me to be done to try this thing out. So she took off her shorts. And her diaper.

I'm wondering at this point, if I've mentioned Caitlyn's tendency to want to be completely naked while she lounges (please note that I did not say "uses") on her potty? The fact that we were in a public restroom did nothing to stop her determination to get naked for potty time. Once that diaper was off, she pulled off her shirt, then sat down on the floor next to me to pull of her shoes and socks. I mean, who PEES ON THE POTTY while wearing shoes and socks? Me, actually. I pointed this out to her while she stripped down, trying to reason with my 2 year old, who was now sitting bare-assed on the floor of a public fucking restroom. Did I mention that I was taking a shit? Yeah. There was nothing more I could do.

Just then, the door of the bathroom burst open. There I was, sitting on the toilet taking a shit, my naked kid sitting on the floor next to me, presumably contracting Public Restroom Floor Syphilis, in the fancy mall with the snooty people and the broken fucking locks. It was a middle-aged man and his probably 8ish-year-old son. Of course. Neither of them felt the need to close the door after realizing I was in there, in case you were wondering. Nothing makes a trip to the mall complete quite like having to lean over mid-dump to reclose the door of a room that smells like your ass in front of a couple of strangers who have absolutely no courtesy whatsoever.

Anyway. Caitlyn decided after that to spend 5 or so seconds sitting on the kid toilet, very blatantly NOT actually going to the bathroom, before she milled around naked while I finished my shit, and one other person (who DID close the door behind her, at least) walked in on us.

At that point, I wanted nothing more than to get some clothes on my kid and high-tail it the hell out of there. So I grabbed her, COMPLETELY NAKED, and walked into the lounge area with the necessary counter space to get her off the damn floor, trying to explain to the other families, including the second person who walked in on us, that I was not, in fact, a total weirdo who lets her kid wander around mall bathrooms naked.

I think we need to stick to the ghetto mall, where the bathrooms are just bathrooms, and no one is hanging around directly outside the door to witness your naked toddler/taking a shit shame.

So, You Think You are Having a Heart Attack

I should clarify. I didn't think I was having a heart attack. I thought that my MS meds ate through my aorta and my heart was about to explode. Or something. Anyway. Chest pains.

I know that logically, you should not wait 2 weeks to visit a doctor if you are having chest pains. I also know that my neurologist's office is a fucking pain in the ass to get on the phone. And Dr. Google always has good ideas about what is ailing me.

In any case, if you are wondering what you should do if you believe you are having a heart attack (or a mutilated aorta), I'm going to give you a step-by-step guide based on my experience (I feel the need to apologize in advance to anyone who finds this post through Dr. Google and is looking for actual advice. GO TO THE FUCKING HOSPITAL. THIS IS NOT WHAT YOU ARE LOOKING FOR):

1. Ignore. I mean, you have been working out a lot trying to reach your goal of losing 8lbs by your birthday which is only 2 weeks away. Your muscles are probably just sore from all that activity (I mean, it is kinda weird that the only sore muscle you seem to have is in your upper left chest, but whatever).

2. Skip the gym for a couple of days. This is the gold standard for heart attack diagnosis. If your chest still hurts after skipping the gym, you are obviously dying.

3. Decide you are obviously dying. God, not before the end of the work day though, you lazy bitch. This can clearly wait until after 5:00pm.

4. Send a nonchalant text to your estranged husband on the train ride home. Does he think you should go to the ER for "this chest pain thing"?

5. Make babysitting arrangements. Obviously you aren't dragging a toddler to the ER.

6. Stop at Wendy's on the way to your aforementioned babysitting arrangements. Do you realize how long you will be in the ER? It's dinner time, you are starving and you won't be home until midnight. Also? Do you even understand how shitty that "heart healthy" diet is that they will obviously put you on after your shredded aorta is diagnosed? Priorities, people. This is the most important step. You must stop at Wendy's (McDonalds or Burger King are fine too, as long as you are soaking up as much fat and sodium as possible before your big trip to the ER- you are going to need your energy!).

7. Chat with your brother-in-law for several minutes about his plans for the evening. Your kid LOVES spending time with her cousin and uncle!

8. Finally head over to the ER. Don't be discouraged when the woman behind the reception desk spends 2 full minutes ignoring you while she hole-punches name badges. Chest pain is like an express ticket to PROCEDUREVILLE and you will be on your way any minute!

9. Skip triage. Go directly to the place the paramedics bring their ambulance patients! You are rolling in style now (literally. They won't let you walk, so you have to make the 50 foot journey by wheelchair)!

10. Take off your shirt for that EKG. God, your tits are looking old! It's okay though. The other 3 people in the room don't seem to notice.

11. Your EKG is normal. Time to start waiting! It's been a busy day in the ER, so your gurney is rolled next to the food trays and refrigerator, directly across from the guy who picks his nose continuously, the entire time he is in your sight lines.

12. "Take deep breaths" for at least 5 different people so they can listen to your lungs. Tell the exact same story 5 separate times- did you think people WROTE THINGS DOWN in the ER? You silly girl!

13. It's been 2 hours and your chest is still hurting? Well you are in luck- PERCOCET!

14. Try not to doze off while listening to the woman next to you chatter on the phone about how she has no signal and she had to borrow the hospital's land line and she can only make local calls and the battery is almost dead on this phone, but somehow she has enough power left to make 3 more 20 minute calls after that, where she tells everyone she has ever known (with the exception of her sister and fiance, as she noted to one lucky caller, because she had not been in touch with them yet- WHO THE FUCK WERE YOUR FIRST 4 CALLS TO, YOU DUMB WHORE?) about how she can't BELIEVE her gynocologist missed her internally bleeding ovary-because- ISN'T THAT HER SPECIALTY??? Also wonder why she keeps pointing out that "several friends already offered to come, but I told them not to bother because I'm going to be SUCH bad company!". You know what, lady? Agreed. You are fucking terrible company. Also? I hope no one else in this fucking ER actually needed to call someone besides their top 5 besties- you know, like their husbands or mothers or sisters- because you've been hogging the only land line in this cell reception dead zone for at least 2 hours. Also, you are a cunt, which is probably why your ovary is exploding.

15. Since percocet has done literally nothing for you, and your heart and blood tests have all been normal, your doctor informs you that he suspects acid reflux and will be bringing you something for your stomach to see if that helps. "Is it pills or something nasty I have to drink?", you may decide to ask. At this point he will lie to you and tell you "It's a drink, but it actually tastes really good. I had to drink it once".

16. After another hour of waiting, they finally bring you your "GI Cocktail". The nurse informs you that it contains "Maalox, Lidocaine and... blah blah blah other stomach stuff". This is another lie. Based on color, consistency, volume and taste, I suspect the actual contents are as follows: Horse semen, shampoo, grape flavored Triaminic.

17. Spend 15 minutes trying to choke down your "cocktail". Gag repeatedly. Feel surprised that even after the numbing effects of the horse semen kick in, the taste and texture are still so blatantly revolting that you can barely manage to drink it at all. After making it through 90% or so, declare "fuck this" and refuse to drink anymore.

18. Wait around and find that your chest pain is starting to subside. Feel dumb that you spent the entire night in the ER for what amounts to heartburn and a really big fart.

19. Take your first full dose of MS medication (if you do not have MS, I suggest something equally likely to cause "flu-like symptoms". Maybe go around licking some of the other patients). You don't know this yet, especially since you've mostly handled it really well, but the 5 hours you'll have left to sleep by the time you get home will be considerably disturbed when you wake up shaking with chills from your high fever, and aching from head-to-toe.

20. Get discharged without so much as a prescription for Nexium or a suggestion to take some extra-strength Maalox. "Follow up with your regular doctor" or some shit.

Your heart attack is now complete. Enjoy being tired as fuck at work tomorrow (because really, you can't call out and say "well, I thought I was having a heart attack but apparently I just had a really spicy burrito, so I'm just going to stay home today").

Where I Try To Be Less Depressing, So I Write About My Biggest Insecurities (I swear it made sense at the time)

A few months back (and by a few months, obviously I mean over a year ago), I set a goal for myself for my 30th birthday that I would be under a certain weight (and no, I most certainly am NOT going to give you a number).

It started off okay. I joined Weight Watchers and lost 15lbs in a couple of months. Then I started to slack a bit and decided joining a gym would be the next logical step to get my ass in line. And I went to the gym pretty regularly, except that it didn't help much because I got REALLY lazy about my eating habits again. Then I got sick, gained back 10lbs and lost all my motivation.

And so here I am, less than a month out from my BIG, SCARY birthday and only about 5lbs away from where I started. I've been trying to get back on track, but it seems I can only manage to get to the gym for a grand total of about an hour a week. I am not going to get anywhere near my original goal.

I'll keep working on it though. Because in addition to the flat-out vanity of the issue, I'm also creeping closer to the age my mom was when she started having heart problems. And I have MS. And I'm going to be single. All signs point to "be less of a fat ass".

I find that when I go to the gym, I have a couple of distinct regimens I rotate between:

The first is the "Burn Fat, You Fatty Fatty Fatass" routine. I usually hit the gym on my lunch break which only gives me about 20 minutes of actual workout time. So I'm usually in this mode, which consists entirely of cardio. I'll jump on an elliptical and stay there until I have to go back to work. The do-only-cardio thing is usually what happens when I'm not being consistent enough about going to the gym.

Second is the "Muscle Burns More Fat than... Fat" routine. There are actually two versions of this one, but the idea is the same. I rotate cardio and weight lifting. The difference is in the weight lifting. My time is limited, so I can't ever do everything I want to do and so I have to choose which weight machines to use. In version one, I decide to make an impact where I think I'll see it the most. This means I focus on my arms and chest mostly. I figure I'll just hide my ass fat and linebacker calves and gut in baggy bottoms while my gloriously toned biceps and extra perky tits take center stage. Because my arms are certainly jiggly, but I do at least see a difference when I focus on them for a while (meaning, mostly that they are LESS jiggly for a while).

Then there is full on "Body Hate" mode. This is the other version of the cardio-weight lifting rotation. This is where I decide to focus on the parts of my body that I hate the most, which are my stomach and thighs. I'll push extra hard on the cardio, then do way more stomach and thigh exercises than is absolutely necessary and I won't be able to walk without aching for a few days. This never lasts long though, because I won't see any real measurable results and so I'll skip the gym for a week or two and go back to doing mostly cardio.

I guess I'm in a little bit of a rut. I need to get serious about the gym again, and, more importantly, about eating right. I tend to let things like parties and weekends and free snacks at work derail the shit out of my goals. I know I can do it, but being in the hospital earlier this year really fucked up my shit. I felt like I couldn't get back into the swing of things until just very recently. Having the goal in mind of my birthday helped to keep me focused at first, and now that I know I won't make it, I feel like I need another placeholder. Something arbitrary even. My goal is 25 or so pounds away. Someone give me an arbitrary deadline to reach that goal.

On Scrotums- MARINA!!!!

This is a parenting blog. I'm sure sometimes it doesn't seem that way, especially lately. But I still find it odd when I find search terms in my stats that imply that people were looking for a combination of childhood whimsy and porn. Basically, I'm trafficking mostly pedophiles, I think. The following are searches that led people to my blog (much to their disappointment, I'm sure):

Marina Fresh Beat Band Porn- Just no guy. Not at all. Though, I must say I'm not surprised. Once, Caitlyn and I were watching FBB videos on YouTube and I noticed that a large portion of the comments were dedicated to which Marina was hotter and whose snatch they would prefer to lick. Nice jobs, dads of young children.

Girl Gets Fucked By Trojan Twister- I suppose I deserved this one. I did write an entire post about the magnificent commercial and it's sexy appeal.

Moms Licking Scrotums Art- Guy? Can I tell you how much I love that you added the word "art" onto the end of this? Because there is a term for art where any group you fetishize (be it moms or grandmas or whatever) are licking scrotums. It's called porn, eternally classy guy. It's called porn and you don't need to be ashamed.

Lick My F***** Scrotum- This one came up at the same time as the one above, so I'm assuming it was the same person. Still keeping it classy, I see. You may have already noticed though that classiness is NOT the ideal way to find the porn you are looking for (oh, I'm sorry- art).

These are the ones I remember right now, but I've definitely had others, and they more frequently than not reference Marina. Which is just super gross. I'm sure this post is going to help immensely in increasing my traffic of people searching for porn.

In completely unrelated news, I am doing the AIDS walk in NY next weekend. I would really appreciate it if you would make a donation to the cause. Even $5 helps (especially since I signed up rather late and I currently do not have any donations)! Click this link to donate to my personal page! Thank you in advance!

Asshole Time 2.0

Back when Caitlyn was an infant, before I started this blog even, she had something Rodolfo and I referred to as Asshole Time.

Generally, we were very lucky. She was an easygoing, happy baby. But every night between 6-9pm, Caitlyn would be an asshole. She would cry despite not being hungry or wet or uncomfortable. Rocking her didn't help. Nothing helped. She would just spend at least an hour or two every night screaming inconsolably and we could never figure out why.

Asshole Time was fleeting. I'd say it lasted from the time she was a few weeks old until she hit 3 months or so. If you figure she hardly ever cried besides that, I probably dealt with a lot less crying than most new moms.

At the time though, it was very frustrating. I couldn't figure out what it was that was upsetting her. I couldn't make her happy. On days when Rodolfo was at work during Asshole Time and I was alone with Caitlyn, I would find myself at the very end of my patience. I would say things that you shouldn't really say to your infant. Things like "WHAT IS YOUR PROBLEM?" and "THERE'S NOTHING WRONG WITH YOU, STOP SCREAMING!" and "I WANT TO THROW YOU OUT THE FUCKING WINDOW" and then maybe I would also cry. Not because I felt like THAT big a failure, but mostly out of the frustration that builds when someone is screaming in your face for hours at a time and you can't just say "fuck you" and leave.

Looking back, it really wasn't so bad. Because right now, we are experiencing Asshole Time 2.0. Also known as the Terrible Twos. Also known as "Stop smacking your head into the ground when you don't get your way then crying because you hurt yourself" and "Mommy isn't laughing because you are being a dick" (side note: I accidentally taught Caitlyn the word dick this weekend) and "Don't hit me, asshole" and "Don't climb out of your crib. You are in time-out. Asshole" and "Keep your fucking diaper on" and "Snatching my phone and then throwing as hard as you can when I try to take it back is NOT cool" and, most of all "Stop fucking WHINING about everything". And it's so much worse. I'd take a hundred Asshole Times in exchange for Asshole Time 2.0.

My kid is funny and charming and adorable. So it's hard for me to deal with asshole Caitlyn. It's like she's possessed. By an asshole. Right now I'd say the split is about 60/40 in favor of her being an asshole. That other 40% is downright magical though. Her personality is so defined now. She does these unexpected, ridiculously charming things. Like last night, we were at a Super Bowl party and while the Super Bowl was on in one room, the Puppy Bowl was on in the other. She loved her some Puppy Bowl, let me tell you. Somehow, she understood that there was a connection between the two and would often walk out of the Puppy Bowl room, hands in the air and shout "TOUCHDOWN!". Shit like that makes it really hard to leave her in the woods to be raised by wolves until she gets her attitude in check.

Right now, hitting is the battle I'm fighting the hardest. Caitlyn seems to think that any slight, real or perceived, shall be dealt with by the merciless strike of her hand. She also seems to think that when I get pissed about it and put her in time-out, that kissing the spot she smacked me in should get her out of a punishment. Sorry, kid. It doesn't work that way.

The mood swings are really difficult too. She transforms from the smiley, cheerful girl I know into a screeching, whining, angry beast in a matter of seconds. She feels the need to exercise her will at any cost. And her will is to be diaperless and armed with an ice pop and my phone at all times. It's exhausting.

This is definitely a phase right? I often wonder about my parenting choices. I feel like I'm doing a good job, but everyone has an opinion about everything I do. My mom, my husband, my sisters, random dicks in the grocery store. And so I find myself questioning the kind of parent I am. Am I too easy on her? Do I give in too quickly? Am I mistaking Terrible Twos for my parenting style just turning her into a full-time asshole? I don't know. Tell it's just a phase, you guys.

Paradox

I have one.

A paradox, I mean. I think it's a paradox, at least. My brain is still a little fuzzy what with all the lesions.

I'm finding myself straddling a fence that is... what's a good metaphor here? Topped with barbed wire? No, I don't think it's that. It isn't that it's a scary, dangerous fence. It's that it doesn't exist.

I think it would be the equivalent of betting on a horse race where all the horses are dead. Or maybe just... that there isn't a race or you aren't sure if there is a race but you are putting money on it anyway?

Fuck. This is going to be fucking jibberish. I'm counting on all you fuckers (totally a term of endearment, by the way) who promised to read my grocery list to not immediately unfollow me.

Alright. Let me untangle this mess. Here it is:

This thing, MS. I don't know what to do with it.

On the one hand (fuck, why do I keep starting new paragraphs that only contain ONE sentence?), I can react in the expected way. I can be sad. I can cry and shit. And I did, just a little, when they first said they think I have it. But mostly I've been ignoring it. Even in the hospital, when you can't really deny that you are there for a pretty serious reason, I sort of just went about my business like usual.

The nurses were surprised how I was always moving around, walking the halls and playing with Caitlyn (who was the sweetest thing ever and I'm pretty sure she made at least a half dozen patient's days when she would walk by their rooms and say "HI!" with an enthusiastic little wave).

Nadine visited me daily and that really helped. She gave me a mani/pedi one day, despite my utterly nasty feet ("I didn't know white people could get ashy, Jaclyn"). She brought me the GOOD cupcakes (as opposed to my weirdo dad who showed up one day with a container of precut mangoes and grapes from a convenience store... for me to put in my hospital refrigerator, I guess?). It felt almost normal. We hung out and joked around and she would hover over me and say "WE WILL GET THROUGH THIS!" in a tone that clearly implied she was snarking all over my disease.

In other words, I did not get a pity party. Just lots of fun visits and delicious snacks. And it was better that way.

Now though. Now I am no longer in the hospital. No longer actively recovering from the holes in my brain. I'm still on steroids, and those fuckers are taking the wind out of me for sure, so I know I'll need a little time to recover from them. But I feel like I should be doing something already. Something to fight this shit. And I'm not even looking into it.

This is not like me. When I want to know about something, I want to know ALL about it. I Dr. Google my ass off on that shit. I write things down and make lists and ask questions. And the most I have done thus far is to ask my neurologist to see the pictures of my brain. Which is awesome when I have absolutely no frame of reference as to what those pictures even mean.

I guess my fear is that once I start looking into this, all the true horrors of it will come to light. I will realize I'm fucking doomed. I will have to deal with the fact that this isn't something you simply "cure". It's something you manage. At least when I thought I had a brain tumor, I figured I'd be fine once they cut it out.

So I'm straddling the fence. I'm somewhere between pretending like everything is normal, like I just had that stomach virus I was thinking of and missed a few days of work, and wanting to full-throttle attack this shit. But attacking means admitting. And I don't know if I'm ready for that.

Parenting for Dummies- Chapter One: Don't Let Your Kid Eat Glass

You know that expression about assuming? When you assume, you make an ass out of u and me. I've found this expression is doubly true when you have a toddler: Don't assume she wants to use the potty just because she's taken off her diaper. Don't assume she's hungry just because she said she wants to eat. Don't assume she wants you to hold her just because she's standing at your feet, begging a chorus of "up"s. Because she will make you look like an asshole every single time.

Monday was Christmas baking day. I had taken the day off and spent most of it making a delicious array of cookies. Caitlyn thought cookie baking day was amazing. Obviously. She wanted to help. She smiled and giggled as I gave her little tastes. She snuck up behind me when I wasn't paying attention and snatched cookies off the table. It was exactly what I envisioned when I thought of having a daughter. It was everything simple and joyful about creating little traditions together. Right up until we had to make a trip to the Emergency Room.

You see, I made an assumption. It was late and I had finally finished my baking. As I packed up my cookies, Caitlyn walked by me chewing on something. A cookie, no doubt. Except of course, it was not a cookie at all. It was a glass Christmas ball. She was holding it like an apple and taking bites of it. And chewing it. And swallowing it.

Really kid?

I can't quite figure out what is appealing about chewing on a piece of glass, but Caitlyn was downright confused when I freaked out and snatched it out of her hands.

I guess I should have seen it coming. She's been calling them apples ever since we put up our Christmas tree. Naturally I worried that one might break and cut her, which is why everything made of glass was very deliberately placed above waist height. I honestly can't even figure out how she got a hold of it. But she did. And she thought it was delicious.

A quick call to the pediatrician confirmed that we would need to take her to the ER for an x-ray. We were there from about 10pm till 1:30am. Which is way past Caitlyn's bedtime. I expected her to be cranky, but apparently the ER is the most novel place in the world if you don't actually feel sick.

Our 3 and a half hours in the ER broke down a little something like this:

10pm-10:20pm- Admissions and waiting room.

10:20pm-10:30pm- Caitlyn sits patiently (haha- PATIENTLY!) while a nurse takes her vitals and puts an ID bracelet on her.

10:30pm-10:50pm- Caitlyn tries to take off her hospital bracelet (she succeeded about 2 hours in)

10:50pm-10:52pm- Caitlyn is put in a hospital gown, which she promptly rips off and spends most of the rest of the night in her diaper.

10:52pm-11:05pm- Caitlyn turns the TV off. Caitlyn turns the TV on. Lather, rinse, repeat.

11:05pm-11:15pm- Actual interaction with a doctor. Many jokes about Caitlyn having "the Christmas Spirit inside of her".

11:15pm-12:00am- Caitlyn licks or kisses a surface which I do not deem sanitary.

12:00am-12:30am- Caitlyn runs squealing toward the door of her room. Rodolfo has to repeatedly block her from running through the halls of the ER.

12:30am-12:45am- Dora the Explorer DVD while we wait, followed by 2 x-rays where Caitlyn does a mostly awesome job of standing still and we get the front and side view on the first shot.

12:45am-1:00am- Caitlyn opens and slams shut the cabinet doors in her room. She tries to steal gowns and blankets. She catches her dad's hand in the door when he tries to stop her.

1:00am-1:05am: Another meet-up with the doctor. "Bla-bla-bla, don't let your kid eat glass and check in with your regular pediatrician tomorrow" (this sort of makes her sound like a bitch, but actually she was awesome and Caitlyn instantly loved her).

1:05am-1:15am- Get Caitlyn dressed and go the hell home.

Did you know that if you bring your kid home from the ER and she isn't actually feeling sick, she will be all fucking wound up like you went to fucking Disneyland or something and not want to go to bed till 2:30 in the morning? Also, she will sleep till noon the next day which you will appreciate at the time but not as much when you actually have to go back to work the following day and her sleep schedule is all fucked up and she wants to stay up till 2am EVERY night.

Stop smiling and go the fuck to sleep

Also, does it make me an awful parent that I thought she looked adorable in the hospital gown and during the approximately 5 total minutes she was wearing it I took a bunch of pictures?