Shit My Dad Says... The One Where I Wish He Was Somehow MORE Catholic

When I was in my early 20s, I had a Catholic friend of mine tell me why she had only very recently decided that she didn't need to wait until marriage to have sex. "In Catholic school, they tell you that premarital sex makes your soul die", she explained.

She realized at a relatively young age that her soul wasn't going to die because of sex, but yesterday I discovered that there is a situation where sex is evil and ruins your soul. Specifically, my soul died a little when my dad decided to tell me about his sex life.

First, I want to apologize for even telling this story. It's kinda like The Ring. I can't unhear it or unknow it and the only way to mitigate the evil in my heart and shoulder the burden I now carry is to spread it to others. The people I've already told responded with sorrowful whimpers and guttural animal noises as I tortured their souls with this tale. I also feel that it's important to get this out on paper so that when I inevitably end up catatonic from the trauma, my family will have something to show the doctors to explain my condition.

Second, I'm going to recommend you gather a few things before you read the remainder of this post: First, Holy Water-for obvious reasons-, and then you'll need a few items for the lobotomy you're going to want to give yourself when you can't help but cringe as you imagine your own dad telling you about his sex life- I'd recommend a gallon of bleach, a melon baller, and a scalpel.

Here we go.

It's been common knowledge, and the source of so much comedy, that the last time my dad got laid was the night my 26 year old baby sister was conceived. In fact, my mom will swear to the fact that her 4 children represent the only 4 times she ever let him touch her. After they divorced, my dad was pretty convinced that Jesus was super mad at him because you know, Catholic. He was also always adamant that he did not believe in premarital sex and that my mother (ick ick ick ick ick) took his virginity and that he had not been with anyone else. I guess that sounds pretty fucking ridiculous in the year 2015, but my dad is just so fucking weird and gross that I've always believed him, because even if he wasn't the BEST Catholic, who wants to fuck a homeless guy anyway?

Anyway. A couple of months ago, my father informed me that he had started dating a woman that he met on the bus he drives. As you can imagine, I did not have high hopes for this relationship, because she has to be either the most fucked up person alive OR the most insecure. I met her a few weeks back, and it turns out she is the latter. That said, she's actually a really nice person, (which means my dad is going to ruin her life, but that's another conversation for another time) and he's brought her along the last couple of times he came to visit. . My point is that they are still together, and they recently moved in together.

My first reaction when my dad told me that he had a girlfriend was to jokingly ask if he was getting laid yet. He actually answered that question for some fucking reason and explained that, since they were both living with roommates, they did not have the privacy required to violate Jesus's code of conduct. After that, I realized that eww, my dad thinks this is information I really wanted to hear, and I vowed to NEVER EVER EVER ask ever again, Amen.

Yesterday afternoon my dad came to visit. I was surprised when he did not have his ladyfriend with him, and we had the following conversation (seriously you guys, last chance to close your browser):

Me:  Hey Dad. I'm surprised you didn't bring Susan along. You've had her with you every time you visit lately.

Dad: Well she had to work today.

Me: Oh, I gotch....

Dad: AND she's really mad at me.

Me: Oh god. What did you do?

Dad: Nothing, forget it.

Me: Well now you have to tell me, obviously.

Dad: She asked me not to say anything.

Me: Is it about money? It HAS to be about money.

Dad: No.

Me: REALLY? What else could you possibly have done to piss her off?

Dad: It's involves someone you know.

Me: Oh, what did you take her to Uncle Bobby's house and he made a rude comment or something?

Dad: No.

Me: WTF Dad.

Dad: Well...::leans in to whisper:: we were having an... intimate moment...

Me: OH GOD NO. NO NO NO NO NO.

Dad: And I accidentally...

Me: STOP STOP STOP. FORGET I EVER ASKED.

Dad: Well, it's about your mom.

Me: TAKE ME JESUS. I'M READY TO REPENT.

Dad: I accidentally said your mom's name during our intimate moment. She's really mad at me.

Me: IT'S BEEN 25 YEARS- WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?????

Dad: And then I made it worse because I was telling her how she reminds me of your mother.

Me: ::dies of self-inflicted wounds::


---------------------------------------BARF INTERMISSION---------------------------------------

You guys? Are you still there? Do you need an extra minute to get the vomit out of your hair and your souls back into your bodies?

I don't think I need to go into too much detail about why every single word he uttered was horrifying and traumatic for me, but let's do that anyway. First- "intimate moment". I'm pretty sure I literally choked back vomit when the words came out of his mouth. Who says that? It's not as though I was raised by him and delicate phrasing is something I'm used to. I just think it would have been exponentially less creepy if he had just said "sex". And then I go into the death spiral of thought where I start to wonder exactly what "intimate moment" means. Does that mean actual P in V sex? Was... was my dad... getting a beej? OH GOD BRAIN PLEASE STOP THINKING THESE THOUGHTS. And that inevitably bleeds into the train of thought that OH MY DEAR SWEET BABY JESUS- I NEVER WANTED TO KNOW THAT MY DAD IS A NAME SAYER (shouter? moaner? GOD MAKE IT STOP PLEASE) during his... ick... intimate moments. And then I find myself wondering, should I give him advice? What would that advice consist of? "Hey dad, maybe next time just tell her it feels good or just make noises that indicate you are enjoying yourself"? WHY IS THIS HAPPENING? WHY IS THIS MY LIFE NOW? WHY HAS EACH AND EVERY ONE OF THOSE THOUGHTS CROSSED MY MIND IN THE LAST 24 HOURS?

I'm pretty sure this is my punishment from God for all the premarital sex I had.

It's a TRAP!!!

Back when I was in my teens and early 20s, I remember being regularly annoyed by my brother's inability to do simple tasks. Actually, that's inaccurate. It was his inability to do "woman" tasks. The best example I can give of this was the time he asked me to make him a hot dog. Seeing as how he was a dick to me like 95% of the time, obviously I told him to make his own fucking hot dog. "But I don't know how", he said. And so I gave him a simple explanation for a simple task- "Put them in some water and boil them for a few minutes". But as it is with men, he put a fantastic amount of effort into trying to convince me that he literally could not figure out how to boil water. First, he poured water into a frying pan. Then, when I showed him which pot to use, he turned the faucet as high as it would go and held it under the water and let it overflow for several minutes before I finally snapped "what the hell are you doing?". "I don't know how much water to use", he told me. "Enough to cover the hot dog", I explained. And so he turned the water to barely a drip and held the pot there for 5 solid minutes, asking every few drops "is this enough?". It went this way with every step of the excruciatingly simple task of boiling a hot dog, until my sister gave up and made it for him.

At the time I refused to cave because of course you know how to fucking boil water, you imbecile. And then I got married and realized that my brother was a) simply not a good enough an actor to pull off "too dumb to boil water" and b) carrying on a long standing tradition of men making the task of ASKING THEM TO DO A TASK so infuriating, that you really would rather just do it yourself.

Caitlyn's last day of preschool was yesterday. Rodolfo is bringing his parents from Peru to spend the summer with us while she is out of school. In preparation of that, I've been toiling away, cleaning and organizing the house to be ready for their arrival this Thursday. And so last night when April told me she wanted to bring Caitlyn to a water park with her today, I asked Rodolfo to get her bag ready for the morning, while I organized some things in the kitchen.

I'm a seasoned veteran now when it comes to dealing with feigned stupidity, so I didn't dare simply tell him where she would be going and expect him to figure out what that meant in terms of "get a bag ready". I gave him a short list of what to include- a bathing suit, a change of clothes- including socks and underwear-, a towel, flip-flops, sunscreen, her waterpark pass, and money for lunch.

First he assured me that she did not have any clean clothes. Since I organized her closet 2 days ago, I knew this was bullshit. Still, I had to explicitly tell him what she should wear TO A WATER PARK and practically give him the longitudinal coordinates in her closet to find "any one of the 10 summer dresses hanging up in there". Then, he could not find her bathing suit. This led to a heated argument in which he complained that I had left a basket of clean laundry in her room that has not been put away, and maybe if I had done that, her bathing suit would have been easy to find. He then spent 5 minutes rifling through the DIRTY laundry, all the while complaining that this bathing suit was simply impossible to find. In case you were wondering, there wasn't ONE, but TWO clean bathing suits in that one basket of laundry that he would not check under protest of my not having put it into her drawers.

He managed to find the towel himself, completely forgot the sunscreen and water park pass, and then launched into another rant when he could not track down her flip-flops. I told him to check under the couch. They were not there. I told him to check under her bed. Not there either. Apparently they had evaporated into thin air. He decided she would instead wear sneakers. To a water park.

This entire process (during which I ended up finding literally every single thing besides the towel myself) took him around 40 minutes. To put a few things in a bag. Next time I think I'll just do it myself.

Mom Skills

My best friend and fellow blogger, Nadine, had her first baby a few days ago. She ended up having a rather unexpected c-section, so she's been in the hospital since her adorable new daughter's birth. I've made an effort to go see her as often as I can, and on Wednesday night, that meant dragging my own kids along.

The juxtaposition of being a veteran mom crowded in a small space with my own two children and a tiny newborn baby and her newly minted mommy cued me in to a few things I hadn't realized before.

Let's call them mom superpowers. It sounds better than "shit I can do without really thinking about it now that I've been chasing around rugrats for 5 years straight". Here are some skills I didn't realize I had until that day, in that room, with that sweet new baby:

Split-Second Decision Making: I guess I should be more specific. I have in no way mastered the art of making MOST decisions in any sort of highly effective manner. It's really just ONE extremely specific decision that moms with multiple children learn to master. The decision of who to drop (spoiler alert: it's always the bigger one!).

You see, there comes a point when your toddler is in the "reachy, grabby, HOLD ME ALL THE TIME OMG NOW" phase, and it always coincides exactly with your older kid's "who does that bitch think she is, I WAS THE BABY FIRST- HOLD ME" phase. And sure, you try to be fair. You try to hold them both (because obviously this is not an issue of fairly split time. It's about wanting to be held at the exact second your sibling is being held). But there will come a point, dragging your two kids around the house, where one of them starts to slip and you gotta make that decision. Who do you let slide out of your grip and ever-so-gently ... you know, drop on the fucking ground? Anyway, that day with my kids, holding a much tinier baby than my own, Alex got the drop for probably one of the first times in her life. Sorry kid. Maybe you should talk to your sister about your obvious feelings of betrayal.

Mind Reading: There are certain instincts as a parent that you develop about your kids. You become really familiar with their temperments, their personalities, and what you can expect of them in almost any given situation. For example, I fully expected it when Caitlyn started loudly sobbing into the microphone in the KFC drive-thru because her mean, mean mommy was getting chicken for dinner instead of the McDonald's she so desperately wanted and definitely deserved. I might as well have fed her the tears of her baby sister, for the way she reacted to that great injustice.

Anyway, I realized how fine-tuned this skill had become while we visited baby Elizabeth. Everyone knows you have to be really careful when you introduce a toddler to literally anything and everything even slightly more fragile than they are. Toddlers are gods of destruction and they are not to be trusted. That said, to call Alex a bit precocious would be a huge understatement. Alex is well advanced for her age and she can and does understand and follow direction most of the time. So while I was certainly cautious about letting her touch a newborn baby, I also knew I could explain to her that she had to be gentle with her new cousin. And she was. But as it goes with toddlers and impulse control, that did not stop her from getting momentarily distracted and forgetting the rules. It was a split second decision she made, to try to rip the baby's face off, but I saw it coming. My mom Spidey sense perked up and her little hand and inexplicably constantly razor sharp nails hadn't even made it halfway to the baby's delicate face by the time I stopped her.

And I've saved the most important skill for last, of course...

Ability to Tune Out a Screaming Child: In my loud, frantic world, I didn't even realize this was a skill I possessed. I suppose it's one thing to tune out an individual loud noise without it so much as interrupting your conversation. It's a little harder when you're getting it in stereo from two kids, while simultaneously being asked to resolve whatever the fuck is making them screech at each other in the first place. The little one snatches the big one's toy. The big one starts whining and snatches it back. The little one starts crying while the big one gloats at her obvious size advantage in the toy snatching game. The little one starts pawing and grunting at you because she's upset. The big one starts justifying- "but she took it from me first!"... and eventually you tell everyone to shut up and threaten to take all the toys away if they don't both knock it off.

But that's not really my point. In the relative quiet of a hospital room, where the big one was quietly playing with my phone and letting me coo at the new baby and chat with my friend, it was easy to ignore the little one, who was clearly jealous that I was holding another baby and screeching and whining and grabbing at my legs because she wanted me to pick her up instead. I barely even noticed it, until the new baby also started crying and Nadine- who was clearly exhausted, stressed, and trying to get to know her own baby's cues and needs, not to mention recovering from a c-section- gave me her best "please make it stop or I'm kicking your entire family out of my room" look. I picked up Alex and did manage to calm her down. But I couldn't help but think it was a little funny how I barely noticed it, while Nadine had clearly been pushed to the brink of insanity by the two babies crying in stereo. It's an acquired skill, I guess. You spend so much of the first few months of your kids' lives trying to figure out why/stop them from crying that it doesn't even occur to you that sometimes you can just pretend like you don't hear it.

I suppose I'll end on that spectacular piece of parenting advise- "if your kid is screaming, just pretend like you don't hear them".   

 

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.

Alive and Mostly Well

A while back I received an anonymous comment. This person simply mentioned that I hadn't blogged in a while and hoped that all was well. It meant a lot, to know that some lovely stranger on the internet was worrying about me, hoping that I was well, hoping that all the shit that's been weighing me down has somehow been resolved.

So, anonymous, I wanted to take a moment to reply. I'm ok. Alive. More convinced than ever that I have a superhuman ability to carry on through the absolute worst of times. Man, that sounds depressing.

Right now I'm still in a state of limbo. Still awaiting some sort of satisfactory resolution. But I will say that I've begun to find some sense of equilibrium again. I've managed to take the bad things and hold them out, on their own, away from the good. To not let those things taint the very amazing parts of my life. Because there are plenty of those too.

My girls are happy, they are growing. Caitlyn started preschool this year and she's doing amazingly well. She loves it. Alexandra, at just 10 and a half months old, took her first steps a week ago. She's smart and smiley and the nosiest child I've ever seen in my entire life. When they are together, interacting and in their own private sister world, I can't help but smile ear-to-ear. I could not ask for a better big sister for Alex than Caitlyn. They adore each other and watching that unfold on a day to day basis fills my heart to the point that I think it might burst and shoot out fucking rainbows and unicorns and shit. When I think about the mistakes I've made and the regrets I have, it's easy to get caught up in the could have and would have's. But then I'll look at my girls playing together, or Caitlyn feeding Alex a little bite of her snack or a little drink of her juice and I can't help but think it's worth every second of disaster I've invited into my life.

I'm hoping to have more resolution soon, but I'm finally starting to be able to put aside everything the moment I'm not actively dealing with it and just be myself again. I'm mending my relationship with Rodolfo. Our family feels good, happy, normal- at least most of the time.

I'm hoping that once I'm done being endlessly in limbo that I'll be back to posting regularly again. I have so much to tell. I won't make any promises for now, except for one: We will be ok no matter what happens.

Thank you all so much for being here, despite that fact that I have not.

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.

Baby Bunny: The Many Ways My Second Child Has Made Me Realize I Was Crazy When I Had My First

Baby Alexandra was born on December 3rd.

I have to admit, I wasn't really looking forward to having a newborn again. I know that sounds terrible, but it's true. In part, I blame my sister, whose new baby boy was born at the end of October and whose Facebook feed after his birth was a train wreck of miserable-sounding updates about how whiny and difficult her new baby was.

It got me thinking about Caitlyn's first few months on this Earth. I would never say she was a bad baby, but I do remember feeling overwhelmed by her needs. She seemed to always need something- a bottle, a diaper change, a burp, non-specific comfort. Add to that sleep deprivation and the fact that she wouldn't latch so I was pumping my breastmilk every 2 hours, and it felt like a never-ending cycle where I didn't even have time to take a shower. And I had help back then. Rodolfo and I were living together, and he brought his parents to stay with us for the first month after Caitlyn was born.

So I was thinking of all of this. Of the neediness. Of not having someone always around to help. Of having to do all that newborn baby, needy meatloaf shit while simultaneously taking care of my 3 year old. And I was a little freaked out.

And then my new baby came and I realized all that freaking out was for nothing. She's totally sweet and easy and mellow. Also? I realized that I was kind of a paranoid fucking crazy person when I had my first daughter. Here are some other lessons I learned:

1. Taking a shower isn't negligent parenting. No newborn baby ever died/was ruined for life because they woke up during mommy's 10 minute shower and cried for a few minutes while she was busy washing crusted breastmilk off her nipples and making sure her c-section incision didn't end up infected because she hadn't showered in a week. Also? That hilarious nonsense where I'd put Caitlyn in her bouncy seat and bring it into the bathroom with me just to be sure she didn't smother herself in her crib while I showered? No thanks. She couldn't even fucking move. What did I really expect was going to happen? And another thing about that- if the baby starts crying while I shampoo my hair, I'm not going to stop shampooing my hair out of guilt (and you can only really hear them crying if you bring them in the bathroom with you anyway). Wait 5 minutes kid, I promise you'll survive.

2. Everyone thinks you are a moron when you have a newborn. And I'm not just talking about well-meaning old grannies on the street who want to tell you all the ways in which your baby isn't warm enough. I'm talking about the very first people you encounter after having the baby- the hospital staff. Man, do they ever think you're an idiot. And the first time, they are sorta right. As a first-time mom, I remember listening so intently to every ridiculously obvious piece of advice they gave me at the hospital. Sure, a lot of it seemed like common sense, but in the same way, a lot of it was stuff that never even occurred to me to think about. This time? Did I really need to attend the "mandatory" class the hospital expects you to take before you leave? Thanks, but I already knew that I shouldn't leave my newborn on a counter and walk away. I already knew that I should burp her halfway through a feeding. And, presumably everyone attending this class has been tending to a vagina on a regular basis for a minimum of 15-20 years, right? What grown ass woman needs it explained to her that she should be "wiping front to back" when changing diapers? Because really, that's just a delicate way of saying "you know you shouldn't smear shit into your infant daughter's vagina, right?". WE SHOULD ALL KNOW THIS ALREADY!

3. Neediness of the baby variety is significantly less impressive to me this time around. As I said, with Caitlyn, it was a big transition going from doing whatever the fuck I wanted to constantly putting the needs of another person ahead of my own. It was overwhelming. Now? Well, I have to say, the needs of my 3 year old greatly outnumber the needs of my newborn. The baby? Food, sleep, fresh diapers. That is literally it. Sometimes she wants to be held and sometimes she's got a fart stuck in her belly that she's trying to get out, but other than that, she needs very little from me. Caitlyn, on the other hand, needs more than just basic life necessities. So in addition to having to make sure she is fed, clothed, and bathed, there are about a million other needs she has: Every single toy she sees on a commercial, for example (or Bulova watch on a billboard, for that matter. She's in an I-want-literally-everything-I-see phase). A glass of water the exact moment my head hits the pillow to go to sleep. Chocolate milk in her Happy Meal, even though I explicitly asked her multiple times and she insisted she wanted apple juice. And those are just some physical needs. Her emotional needs are endless and I'm expected to solve every existential crisis of her 3 year old life- why is the sky blue, what is that dog doing to that other dog, why can't I have a lollipop before dinner, why do I even have to eat dinner, why can't I look at my vagina in a public place, why does his mommy let him do stuff that my mommy doesn't let me do- WHY ARE YOU SUCH A MEAN MOMMY?? In the end, I'll do anything for my girls. That's what I signed up for when I signed up for being a mom. It's just funny in retrospect to think about how overwhelmed I was by providing only the most basic of needs for a cute, smooshy little meatball that couldn't even move (let alone throw a temper tantrum, or actively disobey me) when I put her down somewhere.

4. Sleep deprivation is another thing that was utterly jarring the first time around. Now? Well kid, I haven't had an uninterrupted night of sleep in 4 years, and you're out cold 20 hours a day. Come at me. I can handle it just fine.

5. They aren't as breakable as you think they are at first. Caitlyn's first few months were smooth sailing. At worst, I think she had a bad rash once or twice. I remember when she was about 6 or 7 months old. I had been clipping her fingernails, but I couldn't find the baby nail clipper, and so I made the poor choice to use a grown up one. You know where this is going. I clipped the tip of one of her fingers. Not like I clipped it off, but I cut it enough that it was bleeding pretty steadily for a solid 10 minutes. I spent those 10 minutes in absolute hysterics, begging Rodolfo to take us to the emergency room. And because I was clutching onto her, sobbing like a lunatic and cursing myself for being the cause of the first real pain she had ever felt- the "worst thing that had ever happened to her" by my own assessment- she was hysterical too. When I called my mom and asked her to please convey the seriousness of the situation to Rodolfo, she told me "maybe you need to calm down and listen to your husband. Because based on what you are telling me, I really doubt that you have to worry about her bleeding to death from the tip of her finger.".

I think back to that, to how laughable her "injury" was and how terrified I was that she wouldn't survive it without medical intervention, and I realize how far I've come. I was never really the hysterical type, and once Caitlyn started walking and injuring herself every 12 seconds or so, I really developed a "shake it off" mentality. In fact, Caitlyn will tell me she's shaking it off now if she gets a little bump or bruise.

I bring this last one up because of what we are going through right now. I don't think I could have handled it if it had happened to Caitlyn. I would have been writing checks to Jesus that my base faith level simply couldn't cash. Baby Alexandra, at 26 days old, got admitted to the hospital for pneumonia. She had some nasal congestion and was sneezing for a couple of days leading up to it, and I had brought her to the pediatrician, who gave me a nebulizer and saline solution to try to break up her congestion. And then a day or so later she spiked a fever and came down with a horrible cough. I followed up with a second visit 2 days after I took her initially, and got sent immediately to the ER. After a chest x-ray, some bloodwork, and a lumbar puncture, it was determined that Alex has RSV- a common respiratory infection that still would have sucked had she been a little older when she got it, but it probably wouldn't have ended up turning into pneumonia over the course of a day or two. So we've been in the hospital, and she was admitted to the pediatric ICU a few days ago, when her breathing got considerably worse and she wasn't able to breathe well enough to even eat. But we've made a lot of progress since then and we hope to be going home in a day or two. She's a tough little cookie, just like her sister, and she's fighting this with everything she's got.

So that's my update. I had that baby I was telling you guys about. What's that? Pictures you say? Why, of course there are pictures.

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.

Shit My Dad Says- Hobo Bill Strikes Again

My dad has officially worn out his welcome with every single member of my family except for me. I mean, he's worn it out with me too, but I'm too nice to show it as blatantly as everyone else does.

In particular, my sister April recently decided that she couldn't deal with him anymore, told him off in spectacular fashion, and ignores him like 90% of the time now. That being said, when she was invited to come visit by our uncle that my dad is currently living with, she decided to make the 2 hour trip to visit our extended family. My dad told me that April would be visiting, and asked if I would come too.

I really didn't want to go. And so, I layered a little bit of truth and a little bit of exaggeration on him. I told him I couldn't really afford the gas and tolls to make the trip. And I couldn't, really. I'm a recently single mother, thank you very much. Sometimes I'm broke.

It got weird when my dad called me a few days later, and then again another couple of days after that, asking about my money situation. If I was okay. If I needed any money. I responded with the verbal equivalent of shrugging my shoulders. "Eh, you know. I'm always broke". The thing about my dad is that he's like Willy Goddamned Wonka in the Chocolate Factory when he has money. And by "has money" I mean, "is currently collecting unemployment even though he hasn't had a real, on-the-books job in like at least 5 fucking years, wait, excuse me? Why the fuck do you get to collect unemployment, because you just almost turned me into a Republican when you said that?". He gets all manic and jolly, but with a certain uneasiness where you know the facade could slip away at any moment. But hey, he's there, and he's smiling and he's got lickable wallpaper so I guess it's better than the LSD boat rides he likes to take you on when he's depressed.

Anyway. This past Wednesday he came to visit me after work. He shuffled in and I noticed he was carrying a plastic jar.

Ok. Side bar on the plastic jar. When I say plastic jar, what are you imagining, exactly? Maybe an old water jug, or some sort of Tupperware container? I mean, sure, I didn't give you a hell of a lot of context on "plastic jar", but I feel like those are the sorts of things that are going to pop into your head. What isn't going to pop into your head? THIS:

Yeah. That is a one gallon drum, previously filled with the blue cheese dressing of his former employer. Are you wondering what it's filled with now? Change. Specifically, it contained $142 in an assortment of quarters, dimes, nickels, pennies, and- AND- most importantly, half dollar and dollar coins.

Let me explain. This is not a normal change jar. Even if you put aside the fact that he chose a vat of dressing as his piggy bank, this is not an accumulation of $142 worth of the everyday loose change from his pockets over the course of a few months. No.

You know how if you offer a young child a choice between a $1 bill and 4 quarters, they will almost always pick the quarters? Because even though the value is the same, the quarters SEEM like more money to them? That is how my dad is. Except that he is turning 60 this year and he's still eternally fascinated by change. He will take his real, grown-ass man paper bills (that he seriously needs to pay his real, grown-ass man neverending debts), and go to the bank and trade them in for change. He will specifically ask for half dollar and dollar coins, because he thinks they are OMGSOCOOLOMG. He will say to the bank teller "Give me as many as you have! I collect coins!" You know the problem with "collecting" coins when you are too poor to live? You run out of money and then you are the fucking weirdo at the Walmart paying for deodorant in change out of a gallon sized jar of salad dressing.

When he started telling me the exact value of each denomination of coins in his jar ("I didn't have anything to do this morning so I counted them"), I started giggling like a maniac at his utter lunacy. Then he showed me his "collection" of $2 bills. In his wallet (where else would he keep a collection of MONEY? Der.). $14 dollars worth of $2 bills. You guys? Math, ok. That is SEVEN $2 bills. That + $50 in quarters = money aficionado right there. He even had another $2 bill at home. I mean, he could have totally just been bragging, but I believe him. People like him don't need to lie about their accomplishments. He even gave one of the $2 bills to Caitlyn, and, I mean, if he was lying about that extra one at home, that would mean he only possessed $12 in $2 bills, and really, what the fuck is THAT? Nothing, peasants. $14 is the minimum to gain notoriety as a collector.

It came to a point where I had to ask (again), "Why, dad. Why do you insist on cashing in your money for change?". Naturally, he had infallible logic on his side, once again:

Dad: You know, those coins can be worth a lot of money

Me: ...

Dad: No really, there's a 1964 blah-blah-donkey-fuck quarter that's worth $2! (I may have paraphrased).

Me: Oh yeah. $1.75 profit. Big money. How many of those do you have, by the way.

Dad: Oh, well, I checked all these quarters and there weren't any.

Me: So none then, collector?

Dad: The $2 bill I have at home is worth $10.

Me: ...

Dad: Some of the half dollars are worth $2 too.

Me: We just discussed this.

Dad: And you know, those silver dollars... you put 10 of those in a sock and carry it around with you. Anyone tries to mess with you, you can smack them in the face with it (you guys. This is not embellishment for the sake of the story. He literally said these words and did not understand for even a moment why they were insane).

Me: Oh dear sweet baby Jesus, save me.

Then he proceeded to dump out his entire jar of change and count it in front of me. When I wouldn't stop mocking his salad dressing jar, he told me his big plan for Christmas. Yes. In fact, his "big plan for Christmas" involves 1 gallon salad dressing jars (JARS- plural). And change. Naturally. He has 4 of them in his car, you see. And he's going to fill them all up with change and wrap them up in paper and a bow, and each of his GROWN ADULT OFFSPRING, WITH JOBS AND GODDAMN BANK ACCOUNTS AND A MODICUM OF NORMALCY DESPITE HIS VERY EXISTENCE, WILL RECEIVE A STINKY JAR FULL OF CHANGE FOR CHRISTMAS. I mean, isn't that the "spirit of the season" everyone always talks about at Christmas? Being broke enough to pay for things in change and then dousing your stress in high fat foods? Yup. Nailed it, dad. Fucking nailed it.

Anyway. Then he told me, since he knows I'm super broke, that I could keep his $142 in change. And you know what? I absolutely fucking kept it.

Stormpacalypse

In case you guys didn't hear, it was all windy and shit this week in Jersey. And by windy, obviously I mean OMGOMGWEAREALLGONNADIIIIIIIE.

Generally speaking, I'm the person who just assumes the weather reports are an exaggeration and rolls my eyes at the people buying 20 gallons of water at the grocery store. Or, more accurately, the people I assume are at the grocery store buying 20 gallons of water because I'm definitely not at the grocery store buying anything. Do you know how crowded the grocery store is before a big storm?

Anyway. Maybe it was the fact that I have another human being to think about besides myself. Or maybe it has to do with being really and truly on my own and not having Rodolfo to depend on to think of the shit I might forget about. In any case, I decided Friday night that I should probably have some sort of non-perishable food in my house besides fun-sized 3 Musketeers and M&Ms and I went grocery shopping.

It would seem that everyone else in the tri-state area had this thought at least a few days before I did. I ended up coming home with some cookies, pre-cooked rice cups, one gallon of water, capri suns and a 12 pack of Pepsi (you know, essentials). I can't even say I worried too much about it. I was honestly more concerned about making my way to the craft store so I could finish up Caitlyn's Halloween costume.

Saturday afternoon, I did make it to AC Moore and picked up some blue duct tape and hot pink felt, like any good mom preparing for a disaster. After I got the IMPORTANT stuff, I strolled over to the candle aisle, you know, just in case, and picked up a few candles too.

As an aside right here, I think it's important to reiterate that I'm recently separated, with a halved income but just as many bills as before. Rodolfo, who makes more money than me, decided that he couldn't afford our 1-bedroom apartment when I moved out and found some random woman who was looking for a roommate, and moved in with her. He won't tell me what he's paying in rent, but I'd venture a guess at about half what I'm paying for my apartment. None of this is particularly relevant right here, but it makes this next part REALLY fucking obnoxious:

Anyway. Saturday afternoon before my trip to the craft store, Rodolfo picked up Caitlyn. He had decided to rent a hotel room, simply for the novelty of using their pool, and took Caitlyn there. Several hours later, I met him there when he wouldn't stop texting me about how cranky she was being (me: it's been 4 hours, have you fed her? him: uh, no.). I got her to eat a little bit and then she told me she had to go to pee. Except instead of pee, she had explosive diarrhea.

We (and when I say "we", I mean myself and my awesome babysitter) have been working on potty training Caitlyn. She has been doing pretty well, and she's been mostly in underwear (with just a few accidents) for the last 2 weeks or so. With explosive diarrhea added to the mix, though, I felt like I should go to the store to pick up some diapers (we won't even get into the discussion I had with Rodolfo after that, when he told me he was keeping an entire box of diapers at his house "just in case") and pedialyte. Luckily, the store had been somewhat restocked, so I was also able to get bread, chips, crackers and a few other non-perishable snacky foods too.

I spent Sunday toiling away on a Halloween costume that wouldn't even be worn (at least not on actual Halloween) and feeling pretty sure that I wouldn't have work the next day. On Monday, the storm came through. I had power most of the day, but by late afternoon, I had a few instances of losing my power, either partially or for just a few minutes at a time. Then, around 6pm, all the power went out for good.

Caitlyn had been handling the power outage remarkably well. She was fascinated by the candles I'd lit- she bounced back and forth, room to room, first repeating my warning that candles are "VERY DANGEROUS!" and then declaring how much she loved candles as she stopped at each one- "another candle in the bathroom! Another candle in the living room! ANOTHER CANDLE IN THE KITCHEN!".

Then, she very suddenly stopped running. She stood at the coffee table in our living room and declared "I pooped, mommy" and started sobbing. It wasn't just that she pooped her pants. It was that she had one of those exploding, watery poops again. And in case you don't already know this, having your mom clean diarrhea out of the folds of your lady business by candlelight is possible the most horrific, embarrassing, traumatic experience a child can ever have.

After several smelly, screeching minutes, I felt I had made my absolute best effort in cleaning her up. I no longer had hot water, so I couldn't even throw her in the bathtub. I just had to resign myself to the fact there might be some poop in her vagina. I decided that a little poop in her vagina was better than the possibility of her describing this scene to her therapist 20 years down the road if I kept trying to pry her legs apart to clean her up. Her underwear went straight to the garbage and within 5 minutes, she went back to running around declaring her love for candles. And, as luck would have it, the shit monster did not return.

After a VERY long, boring night, we packed up in the morning and headed off to Grandma's house, where there was power, hot food, and a super fun playmate for Caitlyn. I managed to convince Rodolfo to stop in and feed/walk my dog (he did so begrudgingly, and felt the need to prove that fact by sending me a picture of the dog's shit), so I was able to stay until Wednesday afternoon. It was a relief. A big part of the decision to pick up and head off to Grandma's was the fact that I had not only no signal on my cell phone, but no service on my house phone either. The stress of the "what-if" was too much with a sicky little toddler, and so we took off for the day. Caitlyn played with her cousin all day, and my mom made us a yummy dinner. It was a huge help.

Yesterday we went home, and I was really hoping I would have my power back. I did not. I totally had a bunch of dog shit on my floor though (also fun to clean up by candlelight, in case you were wondering). I fed my pets and walked my dog and cleaned up the filth and grabbed some pillows so we could crash at April's house for the night. She was the only person in the area who had any power, and she and my brother-in-law were nice enough to open their home to everyone they knew in need of a place to stay (this included myself and Caitlyn, her best friend, bestie's boyfriend and her 4 year old daughter, as well as my 13 year old nephew- with my sister, her husband and their son, that was 5 adults, 3 toddlers and 1 teenaged boy all crammed into their 2 bedroom apartment.).

Today I had to drag my ass to work, but shortly after I arrived, I got word that my power was back on. We were lucky, I know we were. There were people who lost their homes and cars and loved ones. And then there were thousands more who simply survived without power or hot food or showers. Some of them even had toddlers, I bet. As much as it was scary, and a true inconvenience, I have family and friends that I know I can always count on . Even the ones who drive me fucking insane sometimes.

On days when I'm feeling stressed or annoyed or sorry for my shitty situation, I'll think of those who were on their own. I'll try to remember that, while my situation is admittedly stressful and difficult at times, I do truly have a great support system, and unfortuantely, that isn't something everyone can say for themselves.

Anyway. I hope everyone is doing well and that no one else had a literal shit storm like I did.

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.

The Grandma Chronicles- Part 2

A while back, I promised you funny stories about my mom. Since I can't seem to write in the present tense in a way that doesn't make people want to jump off buildings, I think now is the time for another mom story. I also feel I should remind you that mom stories are the most politically incorrect stories ever. You may not want to read this if you are easily offended. Seriously:

I must have been about 14 years old. It was Christmas time. At 14, I was clearly old enough to know that Santa did not exist, or more accurately, that my mom is Santa (please note that I said IS and not WAS. I don't know that I will ever think of myself as Santa, even for Caitlyn. My mom is the best Santa ever, and she proves that point every Christmas).

Anyway. The point is that I was old enough to go Christmas shopping with my mom for Sammi, who obviously still did believe in Santa. She was 7 or 8, I think, and very into Barbie dolls.

Because we were Christmas shopping, the store was very busy and the aisles were crowded with people searching for gifts (apparently procrastination is genetic, because every single member of my family waits until the last minute to buy gifts. My sister didn't even hesitate to call me the night before Caitlyn's birthday party to ask what she should get her. She knows I wouldn't be offended that she waited until the last minute. Because she knows I do exactly the same thing). What happened next did not happen privately and I remember getting many disapproving looks from horrified strangers.

I can't remember if there was one Barbie in particular Sammi wanted. I simply remember roaming the Barbie aisles with my mom, looking for something. This was quite a few years ago, before stores needed entire toy aisles dedicated to Leap Frog ipads and "things that never shut the fuck up, OMG PLEASE LET IT AT LEAST PLAY THE WHOLE GODDAMN SONG AND STOP PRESSING THE BUTTON 5 SECONDS IN SO I HAVE TO KEEP HEARING THE FIRST 5 SECONDS OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN", so there was more than one aisle of Barbie toys.

I left the aisle I was in to find my mom and see if she'd found what we were looking for. As I turned the corner, I saw her halfway down the next aisle, doubled-over and giggling like a maniac. When I asked her what was so funny, she only laughed harder. She laughed so hard that she could not speak, she could barely breathe.

I walked over, confused, to see what had struck her so hilariously funny. And then I saw it.

"Look, Jac", she gasped through her hysteria... "this Barbie....hahahahaha". "Oh my god. This Barbie is in a.... haaaaaaaahahahaha".... "WHEELCHAIR". Tears now rolling down her cheeks from laughing so hard, she loudly christened the doll "CRIPPLE BARBIE".

Moments later, she informed me that we would need to go home. She had now peed her pants from laughing so hard at the misfortune of Cripple Barbie.

We may or may not be going straight to hell. If God's a big Special Olympics fan, we are pretty much fucked.

The Grandma Chronicles- Part 1

I am crass.

If you've read even a single blog post of mine with the exception of maybe that last one, this is not news to you.

In any case, I was thinking about it the other day. How my lack of a filter can sometimes be funny, sometimes offensive and sometimes REALLY offensive. And then I had another thought. I'm not really that crass.

Wait. I'm going somewhere with this! You see, in the whole "nature-nurture" debate, I really do stand on the side of environment playing a big role in who we become. I've always thought I was a lot like my mother, and I guess genetics play a part in that too, but I think actually growing up around my mother would have done a lot of good for a lot of people's sense of humor.

What I'm saying here, is that if you think I'm crass, you should talk to my mother.

I have so many stories. A big part of writing this blog for me, is that as an adult, Caitlyn might have a real sense of who I am as a person. I know my own mother very well, but I often wonder about the person she was before having kids. The person who made her become the mother she is.

Her stories of her own mother are always ridiculous to the point of caricature. But ridiculously awesome. I never knew my grandmother. She died when I was only a few weeks old. But I know the stories. They don't paint a picture of a pretty childhood, that's for sure, but my mom tells them with such timing and precision that you can't help but laugh so hard you cry. And maybe pee a little.

Maybe one day I'll tell some grandma stories. But today I'd like to tell you more about my own mom. Her stories. The hilarious ones I'll never forget. The ones that might make you wonder for just a moment if she isn't a horrible person. Don't worry. I'll be there to reel you back in and remind you that she is the awesomest person ever. So here goes:

I was young. Maybe 3. I couldn't have been older than that. We've discussed my shitty dad to death, so you won't be surprised to hear that my parent's marriage was not a happy one. But my mother, she took everything in stride. She made things fun. She was not one to just sit around and cry about how shitty things were.

So my dad had this habit. He would criticize my mom's weight. Yeah. He has no social graces at all, in case that was unclear before now. The irony, of course, is the fact that at the time he outweighed her by nearly 100 lbs. He would say she was too fat and tell her she should be more like his skinny sisters (seriously? Creepiest thing you could ever say).

And so it would come to be that my mom had a nickname for my dad, one she still uses to this day. She calls him Tubby. Which isn't so bad. But there was also a song. As I said, I was maybe 3 years old and a talkative 3 year old at that. So my mother decided that her revenge for all the comments about her (perfectly NORMAL) weight would be to teach me a song to sing to my dad.

"Daddy needs a diet, cause Daddy has a weight problem." That was the song. Just one line. But one perfect line, especially coming from a precocious 3 year old who was mocking you. I remember years of my mother instigating me to sing it to my dad. It was magic. It is the perfect example of how my mom deals with stuff. And it pissed him off so much, which made it all the better.

Maybe I'll make this a thing. Stories about my mom. There are so many great ones to tell. Stay tuned.