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.

Catholic Guilt Only Works If You Are Catholic

Every time I'm about to post something that I think will be offensive to a lot of people, I like to preface it with a warning. It would seem, though, that those are always the posts my readers like best. Also, I suppose "a lot of people" is relative. Even if 50% of my readers were incredibly offended and started some shit in the comments, that would only be like 6 people, and that's closer to a bar brawl than the sort of viral, internet,  hate-filled shitstorm I keep imagining. Anyway. This is one such occasion. Consider yourself warned.

In my last post, I told you guys that I'm moving. Without my husband. The thing of it is, we have actually been separated for almost 3 months now, but as I also mentioned, he had refused to move out, so I went out and found a place on my own.

You would think after being separated for months, with him asking for a reconciliation more than once and me refusing each time during that period, that Rodolfo would not have been shocked when I told him I'd found a new place to live. But of course, he was shocked. It was a little over a week ago that I told him I'd be moving at the end of the month, which gave him a solid 2 and a half weeks until I left. It isn't a ton of time, I realize, but again, I'd like to reiterate how he should have not only been expecting this, but also preparing for it.

Rodolfo's immediate reaction was to tell me how much I'd screwed him over, and to heap on serving after serving of guilt about the financial and logistical ruin our break-up would cause him. He decided in less than 5 minutes that he would also need to move, because, despite making more money than I do, somehow he simply can't afford a 1 bedroom apartment. He informed our landlord the very next day that we would be leaving on August 1st.

Yesterday afternoon, Rodolfo called me to let me know that he had spoken to our landlord, who informed him that we would be losing 1 month of our 1 and a half months security deposit, because we did not give "enough" notice before our move. Now, I could absolutely go off on a tangent here about the fact that we signed a one year lease that did not have an automatic renewal clause 3 years ago and were never asked to sign a new one after it expired, which would make our current situation month-to-month. I could point out that even if we were basing it off the old lease, there is not a single word in that lease that specifies what our landlord considers "enough" notice. I could rant about the fact that he just arbitrarily decided to keep our security for reasons he made up right there on the spot. But you know, that isn't what this post is even about. I simply brought it up because I think I know the real reason he decided to keep our security, and it's definitely not about notice:

So. Last night comes and I'm making dinner. Actually, I had just finished making dinner. The dog was in his cage and our food was on our plates (our = mine and Caitlyn's. Rodolfo was at work), sitting on my kitchen counter. I had just set out to wrangle Caitlyn into her high chair so we could eat, when I heard a knock at my door. I ignored it. A minute later there was a second knock and I knew she wouldn't go away until I talked to her.

It was our downstairs neighbor. I should mention that our landlord is her son. She and her husband live in the apartment downstairs and their son owns the house. I opened the door and she asked if she could come in. I told her that I had been packing and my house was a ridiculous mess. "Don't worry", she told me. "I'm not here to look at your apartment, I want to talk to you". Ugh. Backed into a corner, I let her in. I should also point out that while I was distracted talking to her at the door, Caitlyn had let the dog out of his cage and so I spent the entirety of the ensuing conversation swatting him away from our dinner. I think it's important for you to have that as a part of this visual as a whole. This woman saw that our dinner was sitting on the kitchen counter, uneaten, and did not even offer to come back at another time. Nope. Saving a person is something you need to do right away, I guess.

Apparently, Rodolfo had mentioned to her that the reason we were moving is because I had decided to leave him. And when I say she was there trying to "save" me, let me assure you that I do not mean she came there with the intent of helping me get out of my marriage. There were no questions about my safety or finances or emotional well being. No. She had a different agenda. She was there to intervene on behalf of Jesus.

Her first words after she walked through my door, were to tell me how upset she was. "Feel my heart- it's racing", she insisted. At first, I thought she was upset because we had been friendly tenants, on good terms with them, and they always took the time to play with Caitlyn and Joey when they saw them. I thought, when she told me she was upset, that she was expressing some sort of sadness because we would be leaving.

Her next words, though, cleared that misunderstanding right up. "You know, 2 of my sons are divorced and it really hurts me. What religion are you- Catholic or Protestant?". Oh. None of the above, thank you very much, but I did make the unfortunate distinction that "well, my father is Catholic, but I'm not religious". "Well," she said, "if your father is Catholic, he's really going to suffer if you get divorced".

She then proceeded to ask me if Rodolfo and I had sought out the counsel of a priest to help deal with our marital issues, and when I made it clear that that would never happen, she suggested a non-religious counselor. I thanked her for her suggestions and even gave her a little hope so that maybe she would leave me the fuck alone "well, we aren't technically getting divorced yet. We are simply spending some time apart to see what our next step is". That was a mistake. She latched on to her mission to get me to stay with my husband, despite never having asked a single question about WHY I left (maybe he was beating me, lady. What if that were the case? Oh, that's right, Jesus still wouldn't approve of a divorce).

Once she thought there was a chance, she spent the next 5 minutes or so telling me how bad it will be for Caitlyn when Rodolfo and I split up. "Children who live with both parents are much better off- it's bad for them when the parents aren't together. Those children aren't as well-adjusted". That right there? The fact that I responded with a polite "well, my mother was a single mother, so I don't agree with that"- that might have actually proven to me the existence of a god. Because maintaining my decorum in that moment and NOT telling her to go fuck herself? That was patently miraculous.

After that she spent a few more minutes Catholic-guilting me. She explained to me how much easier it would be to fix this problem if I were religious, because "then you could just pray and God would help you". She told me that, when her son split with his wife, he wanted to go to counseling but she said no. Then, when she decided she wanted to go, he had already found another woman. Another woman who interacts with his children, even! Tragic, really. I mean, what kind of family values are those?

After each argument she made, she would stop talking for a moment and look at me expectantly, as if she was waiting for the moment when I would realize she was right and thank her for saving my soul from eternal damnation. About 10 minutes in, after repeatedly making it clear that she did not approve of my choice, no matter the reason or my own personal belief structure, she realized that, alas, she would not be able to get me into heaven, and finally left, obviously dejected.

I'm going to try to not turn these last few paragraphs into religion-specific hate. That being said, this is why I hate organized religion (Yup. Contradictory like a motherfucker). I managed to maintain my composure because she's a nice woman and I know she meant well, but in my head, I spend the entire time screaming "who the FUCK do you think you are?" at her.

Okay. And really, WHO THE FUCK DOES SHE THINK SHE IS???? She's not my fucking grandmother or my best friend or a trusted confidante. She didn't give a flying fuck about my reasons for leaving or my well-being. All she cared about was her own personal belief system, and cramming it down my throat as hard and guilt-riddled as possible.

And then it occurred to me. Is this why I'm getting screwed out of my security deposit? If my husband and I had found a house like we had originally planned, would it have been all sunshine and puppies and rainbows and prompt return of my fucking money then? I sort of think maybe it would have been.

I really wish I hadn't taken the high road during that conversation and instead shown her the exact same level of respect she showed me. You know, none. Nadine seems to think I should have told her I was a bisexual Muslim and I was leaving Rodolfo for another woman that I had been cheating on him with for the entirety of our marriage. God, that would have been so fantastic.

In a completely unrelated note, why did I spend half my train ride today thinking about "The Human Centipede", a movie which I have never seen and never ever ever want to see? I'm going to put it right out there and say I blame Jesus.

Time to Go

It's been a stressful couple of weeks. As you may remember, a couple of months ago, I decided to leave my husband. Since that point, we've had at least 4 or 5 conversations on the matter, most of which revolve around the fact that he would like to make it clear to me that I do not have the right to make this decision. He's called me selfish. He's begged forgiveness. He told me that he had no intentions of leaving the apartment we shared.

I gave it some time. I made it clear that I was not going to change my mind. When he insisted that he wanted to work it out, I pointed out to him that this was happening on my terms and if he really wanted to prove to me that he has changed, that he would need to stop fighting the inevitable. Still, he resisted. What he never seemed to grasp is the fact that the more he resisted, the more convinced he became that he could simply impose his will on me, the more he pushed me to get my ass in gear and leave.

Last week, I found a new apartment. On August 1, I will move on, really, truly and finally. I will be on my own for the first time in my life. And it feels great.

I'm really looking forward to not having to compromise on absolutely everything. I get it. Marriage is about compromise. Anyone who doesn't understand that should never get married. Generally, I'm pretty easy to get along with in that way. I have no problem compromising. With Rodolfo though, every decision down to the tiniest detail, was a power struggle. I could never simply decide anything, whether it was what time I should come home from a friend's house or the color I wanted to paint a wall. Everything was measured for my response. It seemed the more trivial it was, the more he insisted that I consider his "feelings" on the subject. And I mean, really, why does a grown man need to have "feelings" about his 30 year old wife coming home from a party past 11pm?

I spent the weekend bouncing around garage sales with Nadine, making simple decor decisions about my new home without having to consider the fact that Rodolfo doesn't like... let's go with anything. Or at least anything I might like. We found some really cool stuff. And can I say, on that note, why haven't I been doing this garage sale thing forever? I got a brand new box of glasses for $1. My budget will be better for garage sales.

The next 2 weeks are going to be jam-packed. I wasn't necessarily expecting to find a new apartment until September 1, but when you find the right place, you jump on it. I'll be sorting and packing and dealing with the sad reality that I'll need to get rid of most of Caitlyn's baby stuff, because I probably won't actually get around to giving her a sibling, as much as I would like to.

If you don't hear from me for a while, just know I'm super busy being awesome. It's not you guys, it's me!

Back From the Brink

Did you miss me? Oh wait, what's that? You didn't even notice I was gone? (I'm discounting you, Ninja, since you are the best stalker ever). Well, I WAS gone. Very gone. Very, very gone, in fact.

I was in the mountains at a bad ass cabin with an indoor pool and hot tub. You know, because I'm fucking fancy. But you know what they take away when they give you a hot tub? CELL PHONE RECEPTION. And Wifi. I think we all had a mini panic attack when we realized we wouldn't be able to check Facebook for 5 whole days. You know what I realized though? I needed to not check Facebook for 5 days. I needed it so hard.

 As for the actual vacation, I had the best time ever. I relaxed. I napped. I hot-tubbed. I got drunk every single night (though, I'm kind of ashamed to admit that my tolerance for alcohol is practically non-existent at this point. When I say I got drunk, I mean I had 2-3 drinks every night). One of the most enjoyable things for me was not to be overscheduled. I'm usually that asshole on vacation who has every minute of every day planned down to the potty breaks. I could blame Caitlyn, because having a toddler does make it kind of necessary to plan poop breaks, but we've only really been on one vacation with her. I guess I'm just a planner when it comes to relaxation. Because everyone knows that (despite my usual tendency to be late for EVERYTHING) being a militant asshole if anyone (RODOLFO) throws off my plans, is the one true path to relaxation and enjoyment.

Anyway. There were a few activities. We went horseback riding. We visited some local caverns and took pictures of particularly phallic stalagmites. We swept up dead bugs (and really. That was an activity. There were so many dead bugs. And live bugs, for that matter. All the bugs. All of them). Mostly though, we hung out and drank and read books and ate barbecue.

I think I mentioned it in another post, but for the record, this was a vacation I took with a group of my friends. My husband and child stayed home. I bring it up now because I had a pretty shitty revelation on my way home. As I mentioned before, there was no cell phone reception at all. None. There was, however, a house phone. I could not even get a text out to Rodolfo because I have pauper phone company, T-Mobile. Nadine, however, has Verizon so I could at least send him a text with the house number to have him call me.

He did not call me. Well, that's not exactly true. He called me the first night. Then I received daily calls from our babysitter (who I later found out he questioned every day to be sure I didn't call her, because he was convinced I was lying about not having reception). On our way back home, I figured I'd call him when we stopped for lunch, but he called me before I had a chance and was pissed that I was within cell phone range and didn't immediately call him, despite his ignoring me for 4 days.

 So that's when I realized it. The thing I needed a vacation from the most. It wasn't Caitlyn or MS or house hunting or even work. It's him. He is the number one stress factor in my life. So I don't know (I also don't know how this post went from "fun vacation stuff" to "maybe my marriage sucks"). That's it I guess. Not really sure where to go from here.

Rodolfo and the Art of Vagina Maintenance

When Caitlyn first started taking off her diaper, about half the time there would be pee in the diaper and half the time she would take it off explicitly for the purpose of pissing on my floor. Then, for a long time she was taking off mostly wet diapers. And she was really on top of that. She would drop a diaper and the pee would still be hot. Then, in the last few days she has gone back to pissing on my floor again.

None of that is particularly relevant. The point is that usually when Caitlyn takes off a diaper, it is because of pee. I find it funny, how offensive she seems to find the idea of sitting in pee for even a minute, yet she will sit in a shitty diaper for as long as it takes me to notice. I mean, in all honestly that isn't usually very long. Because her shits smell like a dump truck filled with decomposing bodies. Still, when it's time to change poop, Caitlyn always tries to run away. She is one with her shitty diaper. Usually.

The other day though, she decided to take off her shitty diaper. Bare-assed Caitlyn isn't an unusual sight, so I didn't react immediately. Then the smell hit me and I realized she was walking around my living room, brushing up against my furniture and sitting on my rug all while her ass was covered in shit.

Naturally, I called for reinforcements. Rodolfo quickly grabbed her so she couldn't run away while I found the wipes. She was still in the air, squirming her way out of her dad's arms, and it was my responsibility to clean her ass. I went straight for the problem area, obviously. Because it wasn't her vagina that had shit on it.

This is when Rodolfo stopped me. He wanted to know what I was doing. "You're supposed to wipe her front to back!", he exclaimed. Wow. I very nearly screwed that one right up! It isn't as though I've always had a vagina or anything. It's a good thing I had him there to offer his expertise on vagina maintenance. Summer's Eve ass motherfucker.

I'm a lady. And I do not do the whole "front-to-back" bullshit. It seems to me this is something we tell little girls so as to delicately explain the concept that they should not smear shit into their vaginas. So I understand why my husband might think that's actually how ladies wipe. But I've got to say, in practice, I just do not have the coordination. I find myself clearing the back end first, then switching up my TP and cleaning up the front. It is just me? Am I the only fucking weirdo on the planet who doesn't do the whole front-to-back thing? Because I'm pretty sure it's a myth perpetuated by douche companies to make you feel dirty.

Divide and conquer. That's what I say.

The Sickest Man Ever

You know how sometimes you get a cold and feel shitty for a few days but, despite your stuffed up nose and sinus headache, you realize you are not, in fact, dying?

If you are a man, and you just read that, I'm pretty sure your first thought was "on the contrary, Jaclyn. In fact I did nearly die". But lets be real here. Very few dudes read my blog, so lets talk some shit about what a bunch of pussies they are.

I'll start at the beginning. I picked up a cold from my mom last weekend. It started with some body aches, but within a day or two, it was mostly just in my head. I had a sinus headache and a runny nose and was sneezing every 8 seconds or so. Which was annoying, but I certainly did not claim to be on the brink of death. To make matters worse, Caitlyn picked up a stomach virus at the same time. On the bright side, at least I couldn't smell her diarrhea and vomit.

Rodolfo was unsympathetic. In fact, I got an attitude when I told him that no, I could not give him a blow job while unable to breathe through my nose. It was the first tragedy to befall him this week. The second was when he caught my cold.

Last night I started to feel better. My sinuses were clearing up and Caitlyn's orifices stopped exploding. We were both getting back to normal. Then it happened. Rodolfo announced that he was officially sick.

His top concern when I am sick is when he will catch it, so he usually spends most of that time asking me not to cough near him, refusing to kiss me and dramatically announcing that he thinks he is getting sick at least twice a day. Then the tide will turn, as it did last night, and he will start listing his symptoms. Are you wondering what they are? Let me break it down for you:

1. He is so cold. SO COLD. Am I sure it isn't like, 60 degrees in the house? Because he's really fucking cold. So cold, in fact, that it reminds me of that scene in the movie "Point Break" when the one guy got shot and Keanu Reeves is all "You're cold because all the blood is draining from your body. You're going to be dead soon. I hope it was worth it". And it makes me wonder if Rodolfo thinks our marriage was worth it, worth this painful and tragic end he is facing. I suspect not. In any case, he throws on a hoodie, wraps himself in a blanket and reminds me every 3 minutes that he is still extremely cold.

2. He thinks he is going to vomit. I'd like to point out that he never actually does. "I think I'm going to vomit" is a progress report, in case you are wondering. It starts with "my stomach hurts" then progresses to "my stomach really hurts" and "my god my stomach is really bothering me" and "seriously, Jaclyn, I'm so sick. My stomach is killing me" and finally culminates in "I think I'm going to vomit". Thanks for the constant updates on your intestines!

3. Body aches. Also known as "owww... my legs. Why do my legs hurt so much?". When you imagine him saying it, it needs to be in the same tone he would say something like "God, WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME???". His legs hurt all night. I know this because when I'm awoken repeatedly by his desperate whimpering, he reiterates his awful pain.

4. Oh yeah, he's sneezing and shit too. It isn't necessarily relevant to this particular post, but I had to teach him sneezing manners. Because he has this disgusting habit of just turning his head and sneezing (and he's a multiple sneezer) into the air without covering his mouth. I would constantly tell him how fucking nasty and rude that is and it finally stuck.

The most aggravating thing about him being sick though, is that, while he reminds me repeatedly how it's my fault he got sick, he is also adamant that I don't understand how shitty he feels. "YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND, JACLYN. I'M REALLY SICK". I can't tell you how often he says that. Probably at least as often as I tell him he's being a pussy. But really, the idea that I got him sick, yet have no idea how sick he is... well, it's kind of contradictory, don't you think? He doesn't get that. He has it worse. I got the easy version of whatever he has. Oh, and he never EVER has a cold. It's always the flu. Even if the symptoms are 100% quarantined to his sinuses. Nope. Still not a cold. It's sinus flu death for Rodolfo.

And then I have to compare. Because it wasn't just us. Caitlyn was sick too. She had her moments of being whiny when her tummy was hurting and she certainly wasn't 100% herself, but she complained less than her dad. Caitlyn, who vomitted a half a dozen times and had explosive diarrhea for 3 days straight. Caitlyn who is not yet 2 years old, smiled through it when she wasn't actively spewing fluids, as opposed to her 38 year old father who thought he was going to die on the couch because he was SUPER cold.

It makes me wonder what boy toddlers do when they are sick. My only theory is that they crawl back into your uterus and refuse to come out until they can be reborn into a world without germs. And you know what? I bet his mom would complain less about rebirthing a toddler than Rodolfo did about his cold.

Open-Mouthed Relaxation

Today we are going to play a little game. I'm going to tell you what she said and you are going to guess where I was.

"Relax and open your mouth a little"

Was I:

A) at the dentist.

B) on the set of a really bad porn.

C) participating in a hot dog eating contest (on the set of a porn about a "hot dog eating contest"?).

D) getting an EEG.

Let me start by saying that if any of you picked C, please just get out. Stop reading my blog. You don't know me at all. Jaclyn does not eat fucking hot dogs (I probably should take more offense to anyone who thinks I was on the set of a porn, I guess, but I REALLY hate hot dogs).

An EEG, for those of you who don't know, is when they hook up electrodes to your head and measure your brain activity. Specifically, for the test I was getting, my doctor wanted to measure the speed of my visual and auditory responses. So yes, another post about my fucked up brain problems. You're welcome.

To start, the woman performing the test measured my head and wrote all over my scalp and forehead with a red pencil to mark where to put the electrodes. Maybe you guys haven't noticed this about me yet, but I'm sort of chatty. So I tried to make conversation. I asked her if my head was freakishly large as I'd always suspected whenever I try to buy a hat. "Not really". Oh. Ok. Then I told her how we always have trouble getting shirts over Caitlyn's big head and how Rodolfo always tells her to "blame your mother". I think I got maybe a forced chuckle out of that one.

Clearly she did not think I was funny and she did not feel like making conversation. I decided to keep the rest of my thoughts to myself, especially the ones where I considered apologizing for the layer of dandruff she seemed to need to scrape through with that fucking red pencil. Or the fact that I knew they would be putting goop on my head so I didn't bother to shower before the test. It seemed perfectly logical at the time, but when it actually came down to it, I found myself pretty paranoid that I was being secretly judged for my greasy hair.

After the humorless head-scraper had cleared my scalp of any remaining dandruff (and skin), she began the test. For the visual part, I had to cover one eye and stare at a tiny red square at the center of a TV screen for like 10 minutes on each side. Which sounds simple enough. The problem was that all around that red square was a black and white checkboard that was constantly moving and flashing and it made it really hard to focus.

Head-scraper noticed this. Apparently my brain waves indicated pretty clearly that I was not paying enough attention. She walked over to the screen on more than one occasion and tapped her pen in the middle of the screen near the square and reminded me to "focus on the red square. Look right here in the center". Not all disciplinarian-like. She didn't smack her pen once and walk away. No, it was worse than that. She stood there for 20 or 30 seconds at a time, tapping her pen and gently reminding me to focus. I imagine she uses this same technique when she has to do this test on a 5 year old.

After we finished the vision test (and it couldn't end soon enough, I felt like I was fighting off a fucking seizure) we were ready to move on to the auditory test. But she had preparations to make.

She dragged a recliner into the room, put some headphones on me and told me how important it was for me to relax. The test would go much quicker if I was relaxed and, in fact, if I could fall asleep during the test, I should try to.

I tried to relax, really I did. But do you want to know what ISN'T relaxing? Trying to hold in a fart in front of a stranger who has already seemingly decided she kind of hates you. Also, when your husband doesn't understand what "I'm busy" means and keeps fucking texting you every 2 minutes except you don't have your phone right in front of you because you are super busy relaxing so you have to assume it's either him just being annoying or the babysitter trying to get in touch with you because there is an ACTUAL emergency (it was him, for the record). Yeah. Relaxing!

Again, my brain waves gave me away. I was not relaxed enough. And apparently, the default position for "relaxed" is to be slack-jawed. The test lady kept insisting that I open my mouth a little to assist in my relaxation.

You know those commercials for like, the Bahamas and shit? The ones where the actors are trying to convey how relaxing and enjoyable their trip is? They aren't telling you this, obviously, because then they would interrupt the serene-sounding voice-over saying shit like "The Bahaaaaamaaaaaas", all sing-songy. No, they are conveying this message via body language. They are frolicking on beaches. They are lounging on the balcony of their gigantic suite sipping cocktails.

My point is that they are obviously lying. Ok. Lying is a strong word. They are acting, poorly. Because they are smiling on those beaches and balconies. And everyone know that TRULY relaxed people do not smile. Truly relaxed people have their eyes closed and their mouthes open. Maybe they have a little bit of drool on their chin. Drool is the mark of true relaxation. Take note, Bahamas commercials: DROOL WILL SELL MORE VACATIONS THAN YOUR BEAUTIFUL BEACHES AND FANCY HOTELS! Also, I hear the comatose are extremely serene, so it would save you a TON of money in advertising if you just went to your local hospital and got some footage of a dude in a coma and be all "he just got back from the Bahamas". Yeah. I'm kind of a genius.

So my test took a while. Serenity is not my forte.

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.

All I Want For Christmas is Poo

Update: If you are Marlene, maybe don't read this. No wait. Definitely don't read this. Your son seems to think I will scar you for life. <3

Every year Rodolfo and I go through this. Every year I ask what he wants for Christmas and he says I shouldn't get him anything. What this usually means is "we can't afford what I want". The thing about Rodolfo is, when he wants something small, he just goes out and buys it for himself, but when he wants anything priced over $50 or so, he covets it for years before he actually makes a purchase. He's very financially responsible like that. He is the kind of guy who will always put responsibility before pleasure and he can never seem to justify spending a lot of money on something just because he wants it.

For this reason, I always try to get him something nice for Christmas. He works hard and he hardly ever buys himself anything he really wants. The last couple of years have worked out well. Two years ago, he wanted a new TV. I got a rather large bonus that year and lied to him about it so I could get his TV in secret. He was like a little kid when he opened that shit. Then last year, my mom paid for half of his PS3 because he had wanted it for years and she knew I couldn't afford it on my own. Also, because she is awesome.

This year I'm at a loss. All of my money went to Caitlyn. I didn't think ahead. I can't afford to get him anything that isn't shitty.

It gets worse. He is notoriously grinchy at Christmas. Not in that he doesn't always get me a present. He doesn't really mind that part at all. He's just never quite what I'd call "in the spirit". Last year, we didn't get our Christmas tree until less than a week before Christmas. Because he thinks its stupid. And a waste of money. He gets annoyed when I decorate. He hates the time I spend baking cookies and resents all the money we spend on people we "only see once a year".

This year is different. This year he is practically Santa Claus. Our tree went up on December 1st. He merrily spent $50 on it without complaining once. When I started shopping for Caitlyn in October, he never questioned how much I was spending. He asked me what kind of cookies I was making this year and even tried a few (Rodolfo doesn't like cookies. Yeah. WTF). On a particularly warm night last week, we walked around our neighborhood with Caitlyn, checking out the lights and decorations and general merriment. He's even had on Christmas music every time I've gotten into his car in the past few weeks.

It's been strange. But in a pleasant way. I'm all about Christmas, so it's nice to not have him Scrooging up my game.

I know Caitlyn is to thank for it all. Last year he felt she wasn't old enough to know the difference. This year he sees the joy in her face when we pass by a lighted house and the mischief in her smile as she snatches cookies off the table. Caitlyn really made the Grinch's heart grow three sizes and shit.

Anyway. Back to my point:

I'm going to have to take it in the ass for Christmas. I just know it. This is the only thing Rodolfo consistently asks of me for Christmas (and his birthday and our anniversary). And every time I tell him no. Because I fucking hate it. I can count on one hand the number of times I've actually let him do it. Even if I lost two of the fingers on that hand in some sort of horrific industrial accident. Yes. Now you know exactly how many times my ass has been violated. You're welcome.

But I'm not ready to give way to the Grinch again next year, and I feel like I need some sort of Pavlovian reward for his excellent behavior. But I have no money and no ideas.

Please. Someone save me from this. WHAT CAN I GIVE MY HUSBAND FOR CHRISTMAS BESIDES ANAL SEX?

I Bet Mud Huts are REALLY Hard to Clean

I'm a bit notorious for being a slob. In fact, when Nadine and I were roommates, I'm pretty sure she was plotting my death because she's a neat freak and my tendency to leave my hair on the shower walls was slowing whittling away her will to live.

My husband is Hispanic and he grew up in a proper Hispanic household in South America, where his mother did all the cooking and cleaning with the buckets of water she carried on her head back from the river. Okay. Not really. About the buckets I mean. But she did do all the cooking and cleaning. And so, before I married brown, I was not made immediately aware of the fact that this is what my new husband would expect from me.

When we first got together, Rodolfo seemed pretty laid back. It never really occurred to me that marriage would change the dynamic between us so drastically (yes, apparently I AM stupid). So when he liked it enough to put a ring on it (and, coincidentally, I liked it enough to put a green card on it), his expectations of my role became ... more defined? Let's say more defined. Sounds better than "he expected me to be his mom" or "he started acting like a dick".

My point is that Rodolfo expected me to clean and shit and I fucking HATE cleaning. It isn't that my standards for cleanliness are THAT low (shut up, Nadine), it's just that I have better things to be doing with my time. And when I clean, I tend to get all compulsive about it so it takes me an entire day by the time things are organized the way I want them to be. So mostly I wait till it's on the brink of shameful before I bother to clean up. And just to be clear, I don't mean "Hoarders" shameful. I'm talking like once a week cleaning. Unless it's changing cat litter. I put that shit off as long as humanly possible.

This has been a source of strain in my marriage but I can admit that I'm at fault on this one. While Rodolfo thinks I should be cleaning more, he's also come to realize that if he wants to maintain a certain standard of living, he's going to have to do it himself a lot of the time. Because even though that bitch grew up with chickens running through his mud hut, he really has pretty high standards for his living conditions.

Obviously I'm less slovenly now, mostly because I'm sick of picking dog hairs out of my kid's mouth, but Rodolfo still takes it upon himself to do the cleaning a lot of the time.

The thing of it is, he THINKS he is doing a super great job. He is not. That's the funny part. Let me break down a few of the problems for you:

Mops: Rodolfo does not believe in mops. I can't understand this. I'm all for making cleaning as easy as humanly possible, so I don't understand why he will not just let me buy a mop. You are probably wondering what he cleans the floor with (and subsequently expects that I clean the floor with). Does he get on his hands and knees and scrub? ABSOLUTELY NOT. He will take an old t-shirt, wrap it around the end of the broom, douse the floor in water and cleaner and push the dirt around with his not-absorbent-or-able-to-pick-up-dirt-pretty-much-at-all t-shirt. And then he will stand around proudly and admire the shit job he just did. I tried buying a Swiffer once, but he refused to let me buy the pads and simply wrapped his t-shirts around the Swiffer for a while.

Bathrooms: Rodolfo is a little weird about germs. Except he is weird about germs in a way that makes it clear that he doesn't understand anything about how germs work. A good example of this is how he is convinced that Caitlyn will get "diseases" (yes, plural) from petting the cat. Because cats have a multitude of cross-species diseases that we should worry about Caitlyn contracting through hand-to-fur contact. Same goes for the dog. So what I don't understand is how he insists on cleaning the bathroom with a sponge. Yes, the germiest thing on the planet. And he will use it to wipe down the sink and toilet then stow it all wet and disgusting under the sink for the next time. Are you wondering if he wipes down the bathtub with it too? Of course not... bathtubs don't get dirty and therefore never require cleaning. Obviously. It isn't like his WIFE is cleaning the bathtub!

Organization: When Rodolfo organizes, he puts things into two categories: "My Shit" and "Shit that Probably Needs to Go into the Garbage Already but My Wife is a Fucking Pack Rat for Keeping the Baby's Swing so Let Me Throw it in the Closet". This happens with everything. All the time. It's "I'm going to throw this away" and then "FINE. I'm putting it in the closet then". And by "putting it in the closet" he absolutely always means throwing it onto the floor of the closet never to be seen again. And then he gets mad when it takes me a day to clean out the closets. Because it only takes him 20 minutes to clean the whole house!

Rodolfo has so many weird habits when it comes to cleaning, but these are the most annoying because it means when I clean I have to do twice as much as he does because he doesn't know he sucks at it then he wonders why it takes me twice as long. But since we are talking about his weird habits ... let's get in to one more:

Rodolfo's mother once told him his head smells bad. This is not true. I know this not just because I sleep next to him every night, but also because she once said the same thing about Caitlyn when she was a baby. That's BABYSMELL lady. And it could be the best smell in the fucking WORLD. Weirdo. Anyway. So he has this paranoia about his head smelling bad, so he obsessively washes his entire head. Like multiple times a day. He will not leave the house, EVER, unless he has washed his entire head with soap, even if he took a shower an hour before. Note that I did not say shampoo. And he wonders why he has dry skin.

Anyway. That is all. Just making fun of my husband today.

The Teething Monster

You know how everyone tells you how you hardly get any sleep with a newborn? That you will be like a zombie mindlessly buzzing through the night and maybe accidentally breastfeeding the cat? Well, it wasn't like that for me.

When Caitlyn was a newborn, I had a pretty sweet deal. My in-laws were here from Peru for the first month of her life and every morning when they woke up, they would take care of her for a few hours and let me sleep, and when she would nap during the day, so would I.

That's not to say I didn't have a lot on my plate already... pumping every 2 hours was kicking my ass, but in the way of actual sleep, I wasn't doing too bad.

My in-laws left when Caitlyn was just about a month old and I was prepared for zombification. Except Caitlyn started sleeping through the night. She's always been a night owl, just like me, so it wasn't even a big deal that she didn't go to bed until midnight or 1am, because she would sleep till 9 or 10 the next morning. I was getting a few hours less sleep when I went back to work a month after that, but I still had a pretty sweet deal.

You know what no one warned me about though? That no matter how good a sleeper you have, once the teething monster shows up, you are FUCKED. You aren't ever going to sleep again. At least that's how it feels.

Teething is like Fight Club. Ed Norton and Brad Pitt are the same fucking guy. Teething Caitlyn and non-teething Caitlyn are the same baby. Mornings are fine. She wakes up bright as the morning sun, all smiles and rainbows and shit. She gives me a bit of trouble with eating, but she's always been a bit of a picky eater, so I roll with it. As the day wears on, she holds her shit together just fine. And then 8:00pm hits and she snaps and beats the shit out of my REM cycles for the next 11 hours.

Here is a breakdown of our night as we fight the demon inside of Caitlyn ('s gums):

7:30pm: Dinner time. This is when shit starts to hit the fan. Caitlyn spends half of dinner time begging for a drink and the other half feeding scraps to the dog. You know what the dog can't get out of my rug? Individual pieces of white rice. That shit sticks, yo. Which is probably why as soon as I give up on feeding her and take her out of her high chair, she gets on her hands and knees and tries to eat the food out of the rug. Because she's CONSIDERATE like that.

8:00pm: Climbing time - part one. This usually occurs while I'm cleaning up after dinner. Caitlyn will decide that there's something important that she MUST have on the dining room table. It's ironic that she almost immediately tries to climb up the dining room chairs after spending the previous 10 minutes reaching out for me and clutching my face, begging to be taken out of her high chair, but it always seems to happen.

8:15pm: Acrobatic feats of fearlessness. Last night was a doozy. My dining room table is roughly 6 steps away from my kitchen sink. I cleared the plates from dinner and took those 6 steps into the kitchen, spending an additional 10 seconds to quickly rinse the plates. After no more than 30 seconds, I walked back to the dining room to see Caitlyn standing on top of the table, all triumphant and shit (where was Dad, you ask? In the same room, facing the TV, watching football highlights. Fucker.).

8:30pm: Bath time. Wherein I remove a whining and defeated Caitlyn from her Kilamanjaro-esque glory to delouse her of the food, dog slobber and filth she's coated in (seriously, toddlers are the fucking filthiest creatures you will ever encounter).

8:45pm: I put Caitlyn's diaper on. She takes her diaper off. On. Off. On. Off. At the very least, she finds this exchange amusing and doesn't whine.

9:00pm: This is when Caitlyn is clearly overtired but refuses to go to sleep. Every exchange we have is me taking her off of something she's climbing or yelling at her for pulling the outlet covers off and sticking them up her nose and she responds by throwing herself to the ground in protest. I give her a bottle and put her in her crib, hoping she finally gives in, but alas, she finishes her bottle and cries until I pick her up (there are rare occassions where she will nap for 20 minutes, but this always fails as it rejuvenates her for at least 3 more hours). And I swear to god if I see the words "sleep training" anywhere in the fucking comments, I'm just going to snap. I'm a woman on the edge, motherfuckers. I haven't had a good night's sleep in months.

9:15pm: I pick her up. Obviously. She rewards me by throwing her arms around me and squealing with delight- "DADDY!".

9:30-10:30pm: Climbing time- part 2. Also? Pull things out of drawers time, because Caitlyn is kind of an asshole when she's overtired. This is also the point where I entrusted her to her Dad again for a few minutes and she managed to end up on top of the dining room table again. At least she was sitting this time. Drinking a glass of soda her Dad left there. Caffeine. Perfect!

10:30pm: This is the bedtime threshold at our house. It's finally late enough that we might get her to go to sleep. Except she doesn't go to sleep. She cries. Fuck. I iron my work clothes and try to ignore her. I do not succeed. You know who DOES succeed? Her Daddy. Because "she needs to learn to LISTEN". Jeez fucker, she's TEETHING.

11:00pm: Out of the crib again, because she's been blubbering inconsolably for 30 minutes now. Maybe 30 more minutes of play time will tire her out? Because mommy needs some fucking sleep and is currently willing to try anything.

11:30pm: Back to her crib. And she's crying again. MOTHERFUCKER JUST GO TO SLEEP KID. Give her another bottle, which she casts aside like a D list actress in Hollywood.

11:45pm: Take her into bed with me. Sing, stroke her hair, rock her. All to no avail. I finally decide that maybe she's hungry, since she hardly ate anything and bring her into the kitchen and feed her watermelon. This calms her down a bit.

11:55pm: Back to my bed where I finally manage to rock her into a fitful sleep. I put her into her crib and collapse into my own bed.

12:03am: Caitlyn wakes up. Again. I successfully ignore her and 10 minutes later, she falls back to sleep.

2:00am: Caitlyn wakes up screaming. I make her a bottle, which she refuses to drink. I check her diaper and find that it's wet. I change her and try the bottle again. She takes it for a moment. Just long enough for me to crawl back into bed. Then she starts screaming again.

2:10am: Hold down a sobbing Caitlyn while Rodolfo forces Tylenol down her gullet because she keeps dribbling it out of the side of her mouth. This has enraged her and her little face is bright red and tear-soaked. Which makes me feel like the worst parent on the planet.

2:20am: Continue to rock Caitlyn while Rodolfo makes her a juice bottle, which we hope will go over better than the milk. It does not. When he walks back in the room, she reaches out to him and begs for her Daddy through her sobs. Because Mommy is not good in a crisis, apparently.

2:25am: I decide an ice pop might soothe her gums. That's right. I gave my kid an ice pop at 2:30 in the morning. She refuses the ice pop at first, but also freaks out when I take it away at Rodolfo's request because she's got it pressed into his chest, all sticky and melty.

2:35am: Caitlyn finally calms down enough to eat her ice pop. It must have helped because as Rodolfo laid her in her crib, I heard him ask "what are you smiling about?". She finally goes to sleep for the night.

6:00am: Time to get up. Awesome. I feel SUPER rested!

This is the kind of shit I come up with when I don't have anything funny to say

Do yourself a favor and skip the entire middle section of this post. It is insane.

I've clearly been slacking on the blog posts. So I've promised myself all week that I would post something. So basically I'm warning you that I have nothing of substance to say and this is all going to be fluff and bullshit. Consider yourself warned and your time wasted.

Caitlyn... what has she been doing? Smacking me in the damn face, that's what. This started on Monday after I got home from work. She was in a mood. She had baby PMS. Every time she looked at me, it was to scowl and when I'd scowl back, she'd give me her best "whatchu talkin' bout Willis" look and smack me. Little jerk. According to the babysitter, she had been doing this all day. On Tuesday she seemed better, and she was her sweet, pleasant self for the babysitter. Then she got home and gave me dirty looks. It seems it's become something of a game for her. She isn't necessarily in a bad mood when she does it, she thinks it's funny. Obviously, I do not, and when I react unfavorably to her hilarious new game, then she does get pissed off and I get the scowl/smack combo platter.

As I had no real direction for this post to begin with, I'm going to veer off topic right here. The scowl/smack combo. It reminded me of something that I'm going to share with you. You will be better for it. Your life will never be the same again.

You know how sometimes, someone has offended you to your very core? Maybe it's your husband (usually it's your husband) and he's inadvertantly implied that you don't need a second Entenmann's chocolate donut. Maybe you are trying to discuss something important with him (or at least you will pretend it was important after it becomes clear that he has no idea what you just said) and he won't stop playing Call of Duty long enough to listen to your concerns. Maybe you've simply realized you hate his face.

My point is, you need to take action. You need to make it clear to him that these kinds of behaviors (and faces) are unacceptable. But how can you accomplish that? He's already ignoring you, and it only gets worse when you start to nag him. What can you possibly do to make sure you have his full, undivided attention? What will send the message that you mean business and that there will be consequences to his actions?

2 words, my friends:

FACEPUNCH/MOUTHFART.

And yes, I do consider it to be only 2 words. They are compound words, obviously.

The beauty of the FACEPUNCH/MOUTHFART combo platter is the many levels on which it is satisfying. First, you get the facepunch. A physical manifestion of your feelings. A call to action. The action of punching someone in the face. Don't feel bad, he totally deserved it (that donut thing? Yeah, he totally DID call you fat.). And it makes the second part of the platter so much easier to administer. Even if you've not been successful in knocking him to the ground, you've stunned him momentarily. He can't believe you just did that, you crazy bitch! And he surely isn't expecting part 2.

The mouthfart. This one isn't easy, and it rarely works more than once, because you only have the element of surprise on your side that first time. Pick your mouthfart moment carefully. You don't want to waste it. Also, nobody is going to stand by and willing let you fart in their mouth, so you have to be quick. Don't try to pull your pants down or some shit. That will put you in a vulnerable position and end your moment of triumph before it even happens. The mouthfart must be stealth for it to work. The elusive and unexpected mouthfart is the thing of legends. Make yourself a legend. FACEPUNCH/MOUTHFART will live on forever, haunting the dreams of your victim (husband).

Now back to our regularly scheduled program:

So Caitlyn is scowling and smacking. And besides that one day, it seems to only be directed at me. Last night, since time-outs haven't done a damn thing to head this off, I thought that maybe if I smacked her on her hand, just hard enough for her to realize it was unpleasant, maybe she would knock it off. I didn't do this unprompted, of course. I waited for her to smack me first. And when she did, I gave her a little slap on her hand to show her that hitting hurts.

And she smiled at me. And not just a regular smile either. She cocked her head to the side and gave me her best, side-eye "is that the best you got, bitch?" smile. She was unimpressed. Apparently hitting only hurts if your baby isn't a thug.

So I'm working on this. My mother thinks that maybe her time-outs need to be more than 90 seconds long. I wish I were exaggerating for entertainment value. 90 seconds is the absolute longest time-out she has ever gotten. So it's probably my fault for being terrible at disciplining my kid. It would probably be a little more impressive if I could wait a full 2 minutes or something.

So, any suggestions? Is my kid an asshole? Am I? Obviously she has decided to hate me from an early age since I'm the only one she's smacking, right? I thought I had till she was at least 13 before she hated me.

Do You Believe in Santa? How about Tylenol? Jesus?

Caitlyn is getting molars. I think. I mean, she's being an asshole and she's screaming a lot and won't sleep for more than 3 hours at a time. That sounds like molars, right? Fucking molars.

Last night was day 4 of Caitlyn's marathon screaming at bedtime. It was exceptionally bad because the screaming started well before we put her to bed. I frequently take showers with her as opposed to giving her a bath and she usually loves it. Last night though, she spent about half the time with her head on my shoulder while she shattered my eardrums with her wailing.

She screamed for another hour before bed, but she finally did go to sleep. For an hour. Then she woke up and cried for 10 more minutes before we all finally went to bed for the night. And by "the night" obviously I mean for another 2 or 3 hours.

The first time she woke up, she only cried for 5 minutes and dozed back off. Another hour after that when she awoke again, we figured we would give it a few minutes and hoped she would go back to sleep on her own. That was not the case. After 5 minutes of ear-shattering screams, I tried to console Caitlyn and gave her a bottle. She refused the bottle and nothing I did could calm her down. That isn't easy. When you know your kid is in pain and nothing you are doing is helping... man, you just sort of feel like an asshole.

About 25 minutes into this ordeal, Rodolfo and I were scrambling for anything that might help. I even took a teething ring out of the freezer at 4:30 in the fucking morning because I thought she might want it. She did not. Then I realized that enough time had passed and she could have some more Tylenol. In case you are wondering, it's really hard to find an bottle of Tylenol at 4:30 in the morning, because Rodolfo gave up after roughly 10 seconds and told me to find it.

I found the Tylenol and figured I had another 15 or 20 minutes till it kicked in, so I laid Caitlyn on my chest and tried to close my eyes. She continued to scream. By the time 10 or 15 minutes had passed I was exhausted and frustrated- especially since I was taking care of the baby while Rodolfo went back to sleep. He is working a late shift today (meaning he can sleep as late as Caitlyn does) and I had to be up at 6:30 this morning. I didn't point this out right away though, because he is usually really good about getting up with her at night. Until.

Caitlyn's crying had jarred him out of his peaceful slumber once again, to which he responded "I knew Tylenol wasn't going to do anything. I don't even believe in Tylenol". That's right, folks. He doesn't believe in Tylenol. And who can blame him? Tylenol is a Scientologist.

My husband is Hispanic. He is superstitious. Once, when Caitlyn was only a couple of months old, he was convinced that someone had given her the "evil eye" when I took her to the mall that day because she was being really fussy when we got home. He immediately got his mom on the web cam where she said some sort of prayer to... exorcise the evil eye, I suppose? And did I mention the part about the egg? He didn't do it, because he doesn't know the "right way" (is there a right way to do voodoo?) but his mother explained to him that he should take a raw egg and roll it up and down Caitlyn's body. When he is finished, if he has done it correctly, the egg should be cooked, which would indicate that the heat from the bad vibes have been removed from the baby and absorbed into the egg. I mean, if my baby's body is hot enough to cook an egg, I'm going to take her to the hospital because she probably has some sort of horrific infection, but I guess it could totally be the evil eye too. But really, who needs antibiotics when you have an egg. Did I mention that she didn't have a fever through any of this? Evil eye is stealth like that.

So as I was saying, this man decided that he does not believe in Tylenol. Because, fucking TYLENOL people. Science and modern medicine is total bullshit anyway. Except for that time he had thyroid cancer. And appendicitis. But seriously, those were isolated incidents. If his mom had been in the country, she would have just cured him with an egg or maybe with the cancer she would have had to sacrifice a live chicken or something. I don't know how that shit works. I'm not a (witch) doctor.

My point (if I ever decide to make it) is that the comment about Tylenol pissed me off. It was the one thing that might have actually helped Caitlyn feel better and let us get some sleep. And this dumb ass is telling me he doesn't believe in it after 10 minutes of waiting for it to kick in so his beauty sleep is no longer being interrupted. I rolled my eyes and made a snide comment about how he's a moron or something like that. And he got ridiculously pissed off.

And then we had a fight at 5:00 in the morning while Caitlyn screamed in the background. That's what happens when you don't get any sleep. You have irrationally strong responses to Tylenol and snide comments and you wanna murder your spouse.

And now back to work ... the work of trying not to fall asleep at my desk. Fucking teething, man.

Lessons I'm Going to Learn for You

So you thought that last post was pretty bad, did you? Well you are in for a treat. I've done something monumentally stupid. I taught my kid the word "asshole".

I'm kind of notorious for being a bit of a klutz. So was the case last week, when I bumped Caitlyn's head on a doorway. For the third time. Rodolfo made some jerky comment to the end of "Caitlyn is in danger every time she is with you", which probably doesn't sound THAT mean, but you see, I was PMSing. And Rodolfo is notorious for being an asshole.

Naturally, I reacted by telling him he was being an asshole. And then I turned to my 13 month old daughter; "Caitlyn, tell Daddy he is being an asshole". Caitlyn responded without missing a beat: "Asshole" (Yes, in fact, she DID say it with a capital "A". She's gangsta like that.). And so began the watching of my mouth.

Now usually when Caitlyn starts saying a new word, she needs to be prompted in some way to get her to say it. She sees the cat and says "kitty'. I'll sing a song to her and she sings back (doo doo doo, doo doo doo to the Rocky theme song when my dad started singing it to her this weekend, and the same while I made the "dun-dun dun-dun dun-dun" you-are-about-to-be-eaten-by-a-shark Jaws theme while we were in the pool). And Da-DEE. Oh how she loves to call her Da-DEE every time she sees him. So what, you might wonder, would prompt her to start saying "asshole" 25 times a day?

The dog. I'm starting to see a theme in my mommy failures. I have no choice but to take the credit for prompting her to say asshole, but my husband refuses to recognize his involvement in all of this. If I haven't mentioned it before, here it is: Rodolfo hates the dog. HATES. Really. Before Caitlyn's birth, he merely tolerated the dog, but now he constantly reminds me that I "don't have time for a dog and a baby" and presses me almost daily to find a new home for him. Whatevs dude. My point is that he has a little nickname for the dog. Can you guess what it is? Yup, that's right. He calls the dog "asshole". All. The. Time.

All of these elements led to one inevitable conclusion. With such an exciting new word in her vocabulary and the nearly constant prompting to say it (I mean, that's what Daddy says every time he sees Joey), Caitlyn has come to call Joey "Asshole". She seems 100% convinced that this is his name, which explains the capital "A", I guess.

I'm doing my best to correct her when she does say it, reminding her that, in fact, the dog's name is JOEY. But to no avail. And when she does say it, she says it like 10 times in a row. It's really hard not to laugh. Rodolfo is significantly less amused.

Lesson? Learned, my friends. Let me take this one off your hands for you. Don't tell your kid to say asshole, okay? Ever.

Ride or Die

Caitlyn's kind of a badass. At only a week old, she had her first trip to the pediatrician's office, and by extension, her first vaccination. She cried for about 10 minutes after that first shot and, at that point, it was the worst thing that had ever happened to her (well, besides that whole squeezing blood out of her foot thing at the hospital right after she was born. She was pretty pissed about that), so it was expected. I think it was more the shock that someone was stabbing her for no good reason that bothered her more then anything else, because since that time, she's never cried for more then a minute for any of her shots.

During her next visit, when she was a month old, she had to get 2 shots- one in each leg. She cried during the actual shots and maybe for a minute or two after, but that was about it. By the third set of shots at 3 months old, Caitlyn had decided that it really wasn't that big a deal.

I was prepared for the red-faced screaming, so I stood right next to her, so I could comfort her as soon as possible. She cried a little for each of the two shots she got, but then she did the funniest thing. She looked up at me, her eyes filled with tears and a puzzled expression on her face. It was as if it had just then occurred to her that "hey, this doesn't even hurt anymore, why I am still crying?". She stopped crying right then. And not even in that crying that dissolves into hyperventilating sniffles kind of way. She just dead stopped. I picked her up and she smiled at me.

Even her doctor is impressed with Caitlyn's indifference to pain. She's just a ride-or-die bitch like that. For her last two shots she didn't even whimper, let alone cry. I would venture to say she didn't even notice she got a shot at all. And it's not just shots. Her pediatrician commented once when she had to have her nose swabbed to check for the flu that most kids cried for at least 10 minutes after having that done. Not Caitlyn. She was obviously annoyed by it, and she definitely tried to get away from the swab, but she's just not prone to overreacting about anything. My point is that Caitlyn is hardcore. She laughs in the face of danger and wags a disapproving finger at all the cry babies at the doctor's office.

Keeping all that in mind made it especially traumatic when I accidentally maimed my kid's finger with a nail clipper and she screamed for 15 minutes straight. I knew better, really I did. I couldn't find the baby nail clippers for a week. And by couldn't find, I mean I looked for approximately 10 seconds every time Caitlyn accidentally scratched me with her crazy bird talons. So on that fateful day, I spotted the regular, grown-up nail clippers and convinced myself that it wasn't the worse idea I've ever had.

I have moments like that. Moments where I'm fully aware that I'm making a bad decision. Moments where I'll actively consider NOT doing something stupid. I've gotten better. Nadine once pointed out to me that all the stupid, klutzy things I do are probably proceeded by a moment of clarity when I realize I shouldn't do it (hello, microwaving an egg- I still have the burn scars!). I realized she was right and started listening to my inner voice- the one with common sense that reminds me when something is a terrible idea- and I've injured myself out of sheer stupidity significantly less since then. I slipped though, and this one was pretty bad.

I never wanted Caitlyn to be the victim of my stupidity. I made it all the way to her pinky finger before she started gushing blood and screaming inconsolably. It occurs to me now that she probably would have stopped crying a lot sooner if I hadn't been sobbing hysterically, begging Rodolfo to take us to the hospital. I, clearly, am NOT a ride-or-die bitch.

I was absolutely convinced she was bleeding to death. From her finger. Yeah. When 10 minutes had passed and I still couldn't stop the bleeding, I called my mother, thinking she would talk some sense into Rodolfo. "Babies are SMALL- they don't have that much blood!", she would caution. "Jaclyn's fear is completely warranted". That's not exactly how it went:

Mom: Well, Jaclyn, based on what you have told me, I've got to assume she's not actually gushing a life-threatening amount of blood from a nail clipper injury on her finger.

Me: (through hysterical sobs) YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND MOM- I'M COVERED IN BLOOD (maybe one of my fingers was?)!!!

Mom: Maybe you need to calm down, then the baby will calm down too.

Me: HOW CAN I CALM DOWN WHEN NOBODY IS TAKING THIS INJURY SERIOUSLY?!?!

Mom: Well, if you are that worried, why don't you take her to the hospital yourself?

Me: HOW CAN I DO THAT? SHE'S GOING TO BLEED TO DEATH ALL OVER HER CAR SEAT BEFORE WE MAKE IT TO THE HOSPITAL (which, for the record, is roughly 3 miles away)!!!

Mom: Sometimes it just takes a while for bleeding to stop. I think you need to calm down and listen to Rodolfo.

Me: :::CRIES:::

At this point, Rodolfo took Caitlyn away from me. He had made several attempts to take her before this, but I gave him the death-stare every time. I had practically amputated her finger and I needed to make sure she didn't bleed to death. Obviously I couldn't trust a sane person who was in control of the situation to handle that. But I was wiped out and defeated at that point, so I gave in and handed the baby over to her dad.

The moment Caitlyn made it into her dad's arms, she stopped crying and smiled at me. For some reason, that made me irrationally more upset. Like, in that moment I was convinced that she had only been crying to make me feel like a bad mother. I think I got that first period in a year and a half like a week later.

In the end, Caitlyn is obviously fine. Traumatized for life at the hands of her mother, of course. But physically she is going to make it.

Maternal Instinct! ...Paternal Instinct?

We all know that mom's just KNOW. Whether you needed a shoulder to cry on or you were standing in the kitchen with the refrigerator door open for the millionth time even though she always yelled at you for it, somehow, our moms had that instinct. That we needed her, that we were in trouble, that we were lying. It never made sense to me as a kid. Now that I'm a mom myself, I can see everything involving Caitlyn with laser focus.

At first, it's the hormones. Your body knows what your baby needs from minute one. If you tried to actually think about everything your baby needs from you from the moment they are born, your head would probably explode because it seems so overwhelming at first. The first few weeks of Caitlyn's life, I was surprised by the way my body just took over. My boobs went to work, gradually making more milk as Caitlyn needed it. They would leak if she cried, if I held her or smelled her. My boobs knew what their job was.

Even my sleeping patterns changed. Caitlyn was never what I would call a fussy baby, and even her first night home from the hospital she slept 4 or 5 hours at a time. But my body wouldn't let me go into a deep sleep. I was exhausted. I should have been out cold. Normally, I'm a heavy sleeper, nothing wakes me. But from the minute Caitlyn came home, just the sound of her moving around even a little bit is enough to wake me up. That actually surprised me. I feared that she would scream for hours before it woke me up.

Like I said, the physical changes were automatic and immediate. But now I notice a different kind of instinct. Maybe not even instinct necessarily. I think part of it is a hyper-awareness of every little thing Caitlyn does and wants and needs. Or maybe that's exactly what instinct is. My point is that I know her and I can anticipate her needs and moods with surprising accuracy. If she's fussy I can look at her or listen to her cry and know exactly what she wants. I notice the nuances of her personality and the subtlest things seem ridiculously obvious to me. I can even do it over the phone. If my husband or sister calls me while I'm working and tells me that Caitlyn is fussy, I can have them tell me what she did in the last couple of hours and pick up on what's bothering her in a second.

This is not a special talent or anything. I'm pretty sure every mom has it. The thing that I find odd is that my husband has no sort of paternal instincts, it would seem. I mean, the instinct to keep her safe and to love her are there, of course. But nothing else seems easy to him. When she cries, he doesn't know why or what to do. He doesn't even have an idea. If a bottle or a diaper change doesn't fix the problem, he's at a loss. And even when those things do work, he's pretty much just blindly trying to find a fix. He can't look at her and hear her cry and say "oh, she's hungry", he doesn't notice that she shields her eyes from the light when she's tired. He doesn't recognize her annoyed cry when nobody is paying attention to her and all she wants is someone to play with. And when he can't figure it out, he gets frustrated and gives up. His logic is "she is fed and changed and she is still crying. I've done all I can and eventually she will stop if I just leave her alone for a while". He actually does the same thing to me when we are fighting. He thinks if he ignores the problem it will go away. After 5 years, you would think he would realize that chicks just don't operate that way. Ignoring us only pisses us off even more.

And there are other little things I notice too. She's about to be 5 months old. Every aspect of our existence for the last 5 months has revolved around filling the needs of this tiny human being. Her needs are pretty straightforward. The bottom line is to keep her comfortable. That means fed, clean, amused and not in any pain.

The other night I came home from work and he tells me she's been crying for the last hour. I pick her up and she is sweating. It was one of those nights before the temperature dropped back down, when the humidity was super high and we were waiting on a storm front. It was roughly 80 degrees in my house. Caitlyn was in a long sleeved sleeper with a onesie underneath. Isn't that just common sense? He has this idea in his head that she's running like 10 degrees cooler than an adult for some reason. Even when I stripped her down to her onesie, flipped on the air-conditioner and had her calm and comfy within 5 minutes, he argued with me that she was "too cold".

And he doesn't know what kind of wipes to get her. I sent him to the store the other day because we were running out. I'm not particularly picky about most things, but I've consistently used the same wipes for the last 4 and a half months because most wipes give her a rash. So he comes back and he's got the wrong ones. "She will be fine, just use these". And now she has a rash, of course. I guess I don't understand how he doesn't know. It's been 5 MONTHS!

I don't know where I was going with this exactly. I guess I just find it sort of strange, because mothering my child isn't something I had to think about ever. It just happens. Is it just him, or is this a guy thing? Tell me my husband isn't just an emotional retard.

Breastfeeding is Hard

Today has been one of those days where absolutely everything is pissing me off to a degree that makes me think there might be murder charges in my future. I realized that it's been over a year since I had a period. I mean, obviously I bled after Caitlyn was born, but it definitely wasn't what I would call a period really, and certainly not in the way where my hormones go all rage-y, and I've been breastfeeding since then so I haven't had an actual period yet. I really feel like I'm going to be getting it back soon (I stopped at McDonald's on the way home from work and seriously considered buying 2 hot fudge sundaes and eating one in the car before I got home so my husband didn't know I bought 2), and it's going to be gloriously bloody and tragic. My ovaries are like a hibernating bear and they are NOT happy about being woken up. What's bothering me the most right now is that everything about today simultaneously made me want to quit breastfeeding and keep doing it until Caitlyn is 2 years old to spite everyone who is making it difficult for me.

The back story on why I'm so touchy about this is pretty relevant to why I got so utterly pissed off today, so here it goes:

To begin with, I married an idiot who has been pushing me to quit since almost day 1. First it was the fact that Caitlyn "didn't like" to breastfeed. And by didn't like it, I mean she would cry when I tried to get her to latch because she was jaundiced in the hospital and they convinced me to give her a bottle as opposed to taking her out from under the lights to breastfeed her. She got used to the bottle and was impatient at my breast so she would cry. When I tried to transition her back to breastfeeding after we came home from the hospital, Rodolfo (the idiot) would yell at me every time I even attempted it because she would cry. Even though our pediatrician repeatedly told him this was totally normal and okay and that she would eventually adjust, he would insist that I was causing the baby to suffer and discourage me from putting her to my breast. And I was new to breastfeeding, and didn't have a ton of support so I was feeling discouraged and made the choice to pump exclusively.



I told Rodolfo that I wanted to see how the pumping went so we would rent a pump for the first month then look into buying. Well the first month passed, and I wanted to keep doing it, but he was adamant about the fact that we couldn't afford to buy a pump because I was still on maternity leave. Fine. But now every month since then I have gotten the same bullshit about how we can't afford to buy a pump and what a waste of money the rental is and how we should bring it back and change Caitlyn over to formula (because apparently I didn't get the memo about how formula is cheap now).

Now, in just the last month or so the newest reason I should stop breastfeeding is that Caitlyn should be fat. Not that she hasn't steadily gained weight. Not because our pediatrician is concerned. Caitlyn should be fat because babies are supposed to be fat and Caitlyn is not fat like most babies. And apparently fat babies drink formula. I'm sure he has researched this data very thoroughly.

Caitlyn is thriving. She has hit every milestone. Physically she is on the smaller side, but her growth curve is perfectly acceptable and our pediatrician tells us at every single visit what a great job we are doing and how happy he is with her progress. And as much as I know that my breast milk is all that she really needs, I'm not really hardcore about giving her exclusively breast milk for any specific period of time. She's hit the developmental milestones recommended for starting solids and our pediatrician thought she was ready at her 4 month check-up. We had tried giving her a little rice cereal a few weeks before that, mostly because her poops were super runny and I thought it might help, but she didn't like it and just wasn't ready. A few weeks have passed since those first attempts, so I gave it another try with oatmeal cereal and fruit early last week. She's been doing really well, and I have been giving her oatmeal cereal and a little fruit each day once or twice for a little over a week now. In the last few days I noticed she has been having some trouble pooping, but I just assumed she needed some time to adjust to the solids.

So this morning I was pumping right before Caitlyn was due to eat. Usually, I have a few prepared bottles in the fridge so she doesn't often get fresh milk right after I pump, but she's been eating more and I haven't been pumping as often so today I had to give her the freshly pumped milk. It was still in the bottle that I pump into and I was playing with her, so I handed the pump bottle over to Rodolfo and told him to put it into her regular bottle so I could feed her. He came back a minute later and I noticed he was swirling the milk around before he gave it to me. I told him it was fresh milk so it wasn't necessary for him to swirl it around. Then he told me that he was just mixing in the cereal. Ummm... what?

Apparently, for the last month, every time he has fed her, he has been mixing rice cereal into her bottles. He went so far as to make bigger holes in her nipples to make sure the thicker milk would come through. This bugs the shit out of me for several reasons. First, his reasoning is that my milk "isn't enough" and that she needed more food. And second, even if his dumb ass was doing this before I officially started giving her oatmeal, why the hell would he continue to do it now? She's getting oatmeal and fruit twice a day most days and she's been having trouble pooping, it didn't occur to him for even a second that maybe that's too much for her stomach? And third, who the fuck just starts arbitrarily adding things to their baby's diet without consulting the person who is primarily in charge of those types of decisions? Assholes, that's who.

So now let's move on to the jerks I work with. I'm getting incredibly annoyed with the fact that my pumping schedule seems to be such an inconvenience for everyone there. There are 2 offices I regularly use to pump. The first is the loss prevention office. Our LP agent was in the middle of something today when I needed his office and the other office was being used so I got an annoyed eye roll when I told him I didn't have anywhere else to pump. Whatever. It bugged me but he didn't actually say anything. He just looked annoyed and left. And I prefer to use his office because half the time when I use the other office, someone walks in and sees my tits. Not because I was careless and forgot to put the sign on the door that says "PUMPING-DO NOT ENTER"- that sign was up every single time, but because they are morons and apparently illiterate. So after my boss walked in on me for the third time last week, she suggested I starting using a fitting room (I work in a retail clothing store) to pump. There are a few issues I have with that. First, the fitting rooms are dusty, filthy and uncomfortable. I'd prefer that the milk I'm feeding my child isn't full of dust bunnies or spilled all over the place because there isn't a clean place in there to set down the bottles. Then there is the fact that there is only one accessible outlet in the fitting room and after the one occasion that I did use it, someone stole my extension cord and the cord on my pump isn't long enough to make it without it. I'm surely not going to bring in another one after the first got stolen. So logistics in the first issue. The second issue has to do with time.

I'm officially entitled to 2- 15 minute breaks and 1 hour lunch. When I first came back I was taking the 2-15s together and pumping, then pumping on my lunch hour. But it's become difficult for me to maintain that schedule for reasons related to my giant, engorged boobs. So I started breaking up the 15 minute breaks again. Our company has an official policy saying that employees will be given an opportunity to pump during their breaks, and extra time beyond breaks if it's needed. I used to pump for 20 minute intervals, but I'm pumping more often now, so I usually pump for 15 minutes, which means I need an extra 5 minutes or so to set up and break down my pump parts and transfer milk to the fridge.

I had just come back from my lunch and my boss pulls me aside and says she (yeah, shockingly another woman is being a bitch about my breastfeeding. It would be less annoying somehow if it was a guy) needs to talk to me about my breaks. Apparently, another manager had come to her to complain that I was "taking too long" on my 15 minute breaks. She told me that she knows I'm allowed to take the time but that I should tell them when I'm going to be more then 15 minutes. Which would be a reasonable request except that I HAVE TOLD THEM FROM DAY 1 THAT I NEED AT LEAST 20 MINUTES TO PUMP! Am I supposed to circle the entire store and inform every single manager that I need an extra 5 minutes on break every day, twice a day? What is she, retarded? I was super pissed and it showed. I told her flat out "I'm not the person you should be talking to about this. I know the policy and have read the policy and am in complete compliance with the policy and am doing absolutely nothing wrong. You should be talking to THEM. You should make them aware of the fact that our company's policy allows me for as much time as I need for breastfeeding". I don't think she was expecting that, because she immediately started backpedaling and offered to send out an email to the rest of the management team to make them aware of the policy. That's right, bitch.

It certainly gave me a little satisfaction to see her get so completely throw off guard because she was expecting me to just take her bullshit. I calmed down after that and was explaining to her that I stopped taking the breaks together because my baby is eating more so I need to pump more often to increase my milk supply. Then she started asking really stupid questions- "well, isn't there any other way to increase it?" In my head I'm thinking "even if there is, I'm going to go out of my way to choose the route that is most inconvenient to you". Then she started to tell me "oh, well can't she start solids soon".... OMG bitch this is so not the way you should be directing this conversation!!! It just made me think this is why so many women quit breastfeeding so soon after returning to work. It's practically frowned upon and it's just a shame that more women aren't as clear on the laws and their company's own policies so they have all the ammunition they need if and when a confrontation arises.

My baby and my boobs are my priority and I'm sick of everyone else's opinions on when and why I should stop breastfeeding. You know, except for you guys of course :)