Mother’s Day despite having “mother” in the name (which I am) and “day” in the name (which, come on, it’s on a DAY–because what isn’t?) has always been sort of a sore holiday for me. I’ve moaned and pissed about how annoying it is to have to be the one in charge of making sure every other mother is happy while I am quietly forgotten about. I know, right?

Get back up on that cross, Aunt Becky. You need another nail pounded in.

The problem begins with and ends with one person, a person who I have pledged to love, honor and obey repay until The Deal Is Done. That person is, of course: The Daver, my one and only (therefore best) husband. Daver is a sweet guy, I swear he is, but he’s the least thoughtful person on the planet. He’s never, ever bought me a gift for a holiday without me loudly complaining and it always hurts my feelings.

This year for Christmas I’d elaborately bought stuff for everyone’s stocking–shopping weeks in advance for everything–and on Christmas Eve Eve (it’s a custody thang) when I huffed upstairs to grab the bags of stuff neatly sorted into brown paper bags and Sharpie’d with the recipients name, we began to fill the stockings.

The last one to be filled was mine. Which had…wait for it, wait for it….

Nothing.

A handful of candy that was leftover from the other stockings. And nothing else.

Being pregnant, hormonal, and generally feeling sorry for myself, this made me burst into tears. I cried for much longer than was really necessary, but hey, I was pregnant, hormonal and feeling sorry for myself.

(I don’t need to tell you that he’d bought me exactly nothing at all for Christmas at that point. Nor was he planning to. Until he saw that he might be murdered while he slept if he did not.)

This is the case for every holiday. It’s a cycle. You’d think I’d wise up (or he would) and just not expect him to remember or celebrate, but every holiday that passes (including the Day After Bastille Day. Also known as the Day The World Was Lovingly Gifted Aunt Becky. Also known as my birthday.) without any acknowledgement makes me upset.

Mother’s Day last year was no different. I realized while we were at the mall getting shoes for a very, very crabby Alex that this was the extent of the plans for the day: shoe shopping for a toddler. What compounded my emotions was the 2nd miscarriage in a row I was suffering through, so I promptly cried like a fucking pansy. When he tried to make it better by taking me out to lunch with my wee beasties, we had to take our meals to go after we waited an hour+ to get my salad and his chicken.

I got home and was hysterical. It was probably one of the lower points of the hormonal roller coaster (the lowest being the hospital visit to confirm miscarriage #2) and I promptly did one of the stupider things I could have done: I begged Dave to take me to go get a kitten.

He did. And instead of a kitten, we got Auggie. An adorable bundle of fluff ball. A Shiba Inu and Chihuahua mix.

The absolute worst impulse buy EVER.

I’m not much of a dog person, truth be told, and was pretty content with Cash, our end table of a dog. He sleeps, lumbers around to eat, then goes back to the couch and sleeps some more. It’s really my ideal life and I’m more than a little jealous.

No, no Internet, I promise you, he’s not dead. He just looks that way.

But Auggie was cute and cuddly and I was hormonal and sad and I just couldn’t bear the thought of going home without something that cute to snuggle with. A stupid fucking reason to get a dog, but whatever, we were stuck with him.

I have threatened I don’t even know how many times to take him to the shelter, put him up on Craig’s List, donate him to test products on*, let him loose on the highway, let him loose in my parents neighborhood after removing his sparkly heart name tag. I’ve screamed at him, fantasized about punting him across the room, imagined running him over with my car and tried desperately to pawn him off on everyone I know.

(no one will take him. I wonder why…)

Puppies suck. Hard. I knew it before and trust me, I know it even better now.

He turned 1 in March and he’s still alive, still here humping Cash’s face, still sprinting to Cash’s butt when he takes a dump because he likes to eat shit right off the tap (SEE!! Internet, now I don’t sound so cruel!), still ripping up tissues and eating cat turds out of the box (side note: awesome. One less job for me**) as a tasty, Cat Box Crunchy.

Is he eating poo? I JUST DON’T KNOW.

Only I don’t quite…hate him anymore. I almost…like him! He’s calmed down quite a bit, he no longer pisses on the carpets, and while he eats shit, I like to consider it organic of the highest degree (apparently there isn’t anything you can do about this habit besides put him in a home with no other animals). Auggie is obviously advanced, you see. Plus…

Meet his best friend:

And his other best friend:

And anyone who loves my kids that much can’t be all bad. We have reached peace, Augs and I. I can say that I (mostly) like having him around. Honestly. And I’m not just saying that because I heard somewhere that if you repeated something over and over you’d eventually believe it.

Much.

All right my pretties, spill. I want to hear about the worst impulse buy you’ve ever made.

*You haven’t lived until you’ve cleaned up dog vomit before breakfast. That’s composed of dog shit. I tell you, awesome stuff. And yes, it did make me throw up too. Oh happy day!

**Sadly, while this sounds like an ideal situation, I cannot condone my dog cleaning the cat box with his mouth. Much.