57: gallons of baby yogurt Amelia eats per day

2: times I’ve wondered if I could actually *make* baby yogurt before reminding myself that I am, in fact, the same person who ruined jello and has destroyed multiple muffin tins.

98,493,003: times I’ve wondered if people were actually bragging about their babies height/weight percentiles.

98,493,003: times I’ve decided that yes, people will find ANYTHING to feel smugly superior about

3: times that I’ve decided to feel smugly superior that my dog eats his own poo. Because, you know, he’s EFFICIENT and GREEN.

9,330,287: times I’ve considered donating him to the next motherf*$%ing person who wants to talk to me about being more EFFICIENT and GREEN.

2,220,128,203,494: times I’ve considered taxidermy instead.

89: prediction of trolly comments about what a POS pet owner I am this will evoke over the next 6-12 months.

7: bonus points for each use of the words or phrase: “irresponsible” “lawn” “neighbor” “pet shop” “puppy mill.” Double points for anyone who uses guilt, like there is anything I can do about it NOW.

36: syllables my middle child can currently stretch “Mooooooooom” out into

4: times each day I want to grind out my ear drums with a red hot poker so I do not have to listen to aforementioned version of “Mom.”

Super Great: on a scale of 1- 10 how awesome I am.

16: orchids I currently own, making me officially 2 steps shy of the crazy cat lady, only with orchids

2: times I’ve said to myself, “well, at least the orchids don’t get me UP OVER NIGHT” officially making me MY MOTHER and therefore warranting a scrubby bath in bleach

0: current number of television husbands

4: current number of possible candidates, all of whom are flawed in some way or another. Momma’s still on the prowl for a new leg to hump.

4,329: squirrels in my 3 x 5 foot backyard currently trying to find AND hide nuts for winter.

56: times I’ve maturely cackled at the term “hide nuts for winter,” because OBVIOUSLY.

207: times I’ve craved a potato in the past two weeks reminding me a) of the time that Dan Quayle misspelled that word (which, who am I to talk?)(answer: nobody) and b) being pregnant (which who am I to talk?) (answer: not pregnant)

79-ish: comments roasting me about my delightfully tacky cellphone cover, all of which made me laugh so hard that I cried. You guys, YOU I love.

79-ish: times I was equally grateful that while although you guys rake me–justifiably–over the coals, you seldom get all Grammar Police on me.

——————

So, wanna make out?

And, more importantly, should I make my kid be the Land Shark for Halloween and knock on doors and say “CANDYGRAM” instead of “Trick or Treat?”

And really, threaded comments (the ones that you get an email reply to)? As awesome as I think they are?

Gather ’round Aunt Becky’s knee, Internet, because she’s gonna give you today’s word of the day.

Tacky.

Bejeweled.

Unrefined.

Be glad that you’re not ACTUALLY related to me so I don’t whip THIS out in front of your friends or family:

Behold my old cell phone, which not only was delightfully bejeweled, but also weighed about 3.6 pounds.

Happy Wednesday.

Today is Tuesday, which means that it’s Time For Beaver Talk with Aunt Becky over at Toy With Me. Today, I’m talking about songs to hump to, which is surprisingly safe for work. Totally interested in seeing what gets other people in the mood, since all I could come up with was either pop music or O! Canada.

Click the smiling beaver below to be taken away:

But for those of you who prefer not to think about me having sex, which I COMPLETELY UNDERSTAND, I’ve pulled yet another one from the vault to amuse you. Or annoy you.

1. It should come as no shock to anyone who has seen me dress myself that I am actually color blind. I’ll take a moment here to let those of you who have seen my fashion sense (or lack thereof) collect yourself from the gut-busting laughter. Try not to pull a muscle, mmkay?

…

…

…

Done, now?

Fuckers.

See, it’s actually pretty rare for women to be color blind as it’s an X-linked disorder (meaning both of my chromosomes must have it). I’ll avoid going into further details so that you are not forced to gnaw your arm off with boredom.

It has been the cause for many a (stupid) marital dispute over the shade of a particular color. In the end, I’ve learned to rely on Dave’s opinion (smart as that may not be) about certain shades.

My kids are going to have to get used to looking as though hobo’s have dressed them, eh?

2. I have an intense phobia of canned fruits, in spite of my unrequited love of fruits in general. There’s something about canned anything, floating happily in a goo sauce that completely freaks me out. Ditto for Jello molds.

This may be a throw back to the dissection craze of my 5th grade teacher, who, in all of her glory, decided to spend a large portion of the year showcasing the various creepy jars full of deceased animals suspended in Formalin (or the famous carcinogenic Formaldehyde, it was the 80’s, after all) to us. Now, I loves me my dissections (seriously), but seeing floating suspended baby chicks in glass jars was enough to give me nightmares.

I think this is where the phobia stems from (that, and my hippie mother would likely rather have eaten her own feces than served us something suspended in SUGAR.), but I can’t seem to shake it, EVEN IF I LIKE THE FRUIT IN QUESTION.

3. When I was in my first semester in college, I took an introductory biology class and one of the tasks that we were required to learn was all of the organ systems of the fetal pig (which are similar to the layout of a human).

While half of my class was left gagging into their Bunsen burners, I took to the task like a pig in, well, shit. The instructor insisted that we learn this inside and out (oh pun, pu-pun, pun, PUN), and suggested that we take ours home to study (due to limited laboratory time).

Well, I took it a step further and named mine. It’s the same name as my former heating pad boyfriend: Stu.

To maximize the shock value to my mother (and to ensure that the dogs did NOT have a tasty snack while I wasn’t looking), I decided to casually slip Stu into the meat drawer and then leave the house, knowing full well that she’d discover him in my absence.

She was underwhelmed.

4. Because in the academic realm, I am 110% An Annoying Overachiever, I became a TA for both Inorganic and Organic chemistry as well as a tutor for Anatomy and Physiology I and II.

It was only then that I developed a complete and total appreciation for teachers. Wow. Some of those students were not the brightest bulbs in the sconces.

5. Despite the fact that I blog like it’s going out of style (isn’t it?), I have never in my whole life written for fun. Ever. This includes journaling of any sort. Mainly because, what the fuck would I ever journal about?

In high school, I would occasionally try to write in a journal but it always ended up something like,

“I really like Shawn X. He sat next to me in Brit Lit and I swear he smiled at me. Oh, I don’t know WHAT I’ll do if he doesn’t ask me to Homecoming!”

And then I would look back on it and be embarrassed FOR myself.

6. One of the things I hate most about being a grown-up is that the older we get, the more PC we have to become. As someone who has never NOT laughed at a dick-n-fart joke, and whose all time favorite word is fuck (I actually gave it up for Lent one year DESPITE the fact that I am not Catholic. Maybe it’s better that I’m not Catholic, because I didn’t do a very good job of it.), I hate having to be all conscious of what I say in public and to other people.

I hate having to worry about offending people if I tell them what I think, and I hate offending people even when I’m not trying to. I use certain words to be humorous, not to be offensive (because I promise The Internet that if I am actively trying to offend someone, I will do so), and I hate having to censor myself in order to maintain the peace.

7. I genuinely believe that everything tastes better with bacon.

Now, here’s the catch: see, I’m supposed to tag a couple of people to do this meme, but I’m pretty sure everyone who has a blog has done it and is probably not as full of weird things to do it over and over again.

So I am tagging anyone (this means YOU! LURKER!) who reads this to give me a weird fact about themselves in the comments (use a fake name if you must). Because seriously, the comments are high-freaking-larious and might just help with poor, OH POOR Aunt Becky’s blinding headache.

Laughter IS the best medicine, after all (or so Reader’s Digest tells me, AND WHY WOULD THEY LIE TO ME?).

Now, before a zillion of you click away disgustedly, this won’t be another boring ass garden post, well, okay, it won’t be TOO MUCH of a boring ass garden post. Because sometimes, Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch, I can’t help myself.

*ahem* Fantasy Football posts *ahem*

Besides, most of you read me in a reader (when the reader is working properly *angrily shakes fists at the sky*) and that ‘mark all as read’ button is just so damn handy.

After I got a house, I got a dog. Well, no, let me rephrase that. I got a dog that is actually a ficus in dog’s clothing. Sure, he may LOOK like a corgi/beagle mix/stuffed sausage, and his breath may smell EXACTLY like a vagina, but I assure you, o! wise, Internets, he is a house plant.

May I present to you Exhibit A (I’d add more shots here, but the only things that change are location and the length of already insanely-long page load time. Which I do not know what to do about):

Before you alert the authorities, Internet, let me assure you that this is not a dead, taxidermied dog that I’ve inexpertly displayed on my couch. No, this is how Cash lives, 98% of the time: he naps on the couch, suns his belly, licks his pooper, and then rounds it out with a snack and another nap.

So to all of you Dog Trolls who drop in to critique my Crappy Dog Skillz, let me assure you, Cash pretty much has a life that I want.

No intruder is going to be terribly deterred by the rancid vagina smell coming from his mouth or the awesome way he can totally nap while laying ALMOST entirely on his back, so yeah, I had to come up with another strategy.

The cats, although fiercely annoying as they yodel and scream hello to anyone and everyone and occasionally just for the hell of it–often scaring people into thinking that I have small children trapped on various floors of my house–which yeah. They might end up tripping someone in a desperate plea for attention as a potential Bad Guy (or Girl, let’s not be Sexist Here)

Then we got Auggie, The Most Feared Dog in all of The World, and by “most feared” I mean, he’s effing adorable and if you saw him you’d be all “squeeeee! Lemmie take him home!” and I’d be all “BE MY GUEST!”

And as you were leaving with him, I’d say all ominously, “You do know he eats poo, right?” and then you’d take a scalding water bath with a brillo pad and refuse to take my calls. But he’s cute and he weighs 16 pounds, and his only real defense tactic is that you don’t want his tongue on your person because it has recently eaten poo straight out of the butthole of another dog.

That’s right, he likes his poo ON TAP.

But, awww!

And The Daver, God Bless him, isn’t here very often, and let’s not forget the curious incident of The Thing In The Garage In The Night-Time, shall we? Dave weighs all of 45 pounds soaking wet (knock off the Jack Sprat jokes, people, I’m losing the mother-fucking weight) and, well, he’s as intimidating as a wee baby sheep. Actually, I take that back, a baby sheep is probably scarier.

So I did what any average suburban housewife with waaay too much time and science background and radon would do!

I grew ATTACK ROSES!

Naturally, The Devil was in the mother-effing details and I planted them in the BACK of my house instead of the FRONT of my house, but, you know, those wily burglars can come from any given angle, right?

You can see that my ATTACK ROSE has already eaten a soccer ball, a hose, and is working it’s way both towards a kiddie pool AND a Smoky Joe. It’s THAT full of Desire To Maim And Destroy.

(if you look closely, next to it is another rose, the Attack Rose of DANGER! is pink–naturally–which is thumbing it’s nose at the autumn weather and blooming like crazy. That rose, it has spunk)

Why sure, it has been pumped full of radiation:

But really, it’s not actually (read: sadly) been genetically altered. It’s a climbing, “rambling” rose. Which, for someone like me, whose favorite song was once The Dead’s “Ramblin’ Rose” makes me very happy.

It is also a HELL of a lot cheaper than a personal home security system. I guess this means that we can return Auggie, eh?

———————

How was your weekend?

Hey Aunt Becky,

My husband hates my pets. I have 5 smelly guinea pigs and he is always reminding me of how smelly and worthless they are. I love them, of course, so I am not sure how to find that perfect marital compromise with this situation. What is a lowly hog-keeper to do?

And yes, I know they are delicious food animals but we are not yet in *NEED* of eating them.

Yet.

Okay, so I added the “yet” in there myself because it felt good, but I should tell you, my Internet friends, that my delicate reader is not in any danger of eating her darling guinea pigs. Which, I would say, are probably not edible. I mean, *shudder, shudder* I can’t eat meat that looks anything like what it did when it was alive, so there’s that, but moving away from MY neuroses.

This, Gentle Reader, is a tricky situation indeed.

Obviously, your husband knew about your pets when he married you in the same way that I knew that The Daver had a roaming colony of socks that follow him wherever he goes (Oh LOOK! They had TWINS!!), but that doesn’t mean that I have to like it or cherish it or worship it and the socks, one would hope, aren’t alive. So, he knew, but it annoys him, that’s fair.

What’s also fair is that your husband is also not, I presume, perfect either.

Something that I would probably remind him of when he is harping about your annoying guinea pigs. Providing that you are not making him take care of them, which is NOT fair, and that you ARE taking steps to reduce their…annoyingness (I truthfully find guinea pigs adorable, but I know nothing about their odor or what living with one is like. I asked Dave and he informed me that they are “cool pets.”).

I might, if I were you, keep a detailed list of things that you can refer back to when he prattles on about your precious pigs, not to be HURLED HORRIBLY at him, just as a gentle nudge like a soft puff of air to remind him that we all have annoying hobbies.

If you need proof of this, ask The Daver to do a guest post about Tate, the world’s SHITTIEST hedgehog.

Marriage and compromise, she says with gritted teeth, go hand in motherfucking hand.

————–

Dear Aunt Becky:

I am a nursing student. But, hey, I actually want to be there. I could tell you long stories about mishaps as an office manager and my tearful story of being laid off, but…I’ll refrain. For now.

My question (even though you aren’t a fan of nursing any longer) is: LPN or RN? Should I stop in 10 months with my LPN, or go straight through and finish with my RN diploma?

I’m tired of teachers and professors and nursing school deans (aka salesmen) who, natch, want that rest of my poor poor wallet and student loans and would rather get the opinion of the ‘been there, done that’ crowd.

This would probably depend on where you’re living, but if you’re in the US, get thee your RN degree and DO NOT STOP WITH YOUR ASSOCIATES DEGREE IN NURSING (the associates degree, for those of you playing along at home, is the 2 year degree offered at many community colleges) if you can swing it. If at all possible, get your Bachelor’s degree (RN-BSN).

I know when I left the field, there was a lot of buzz about hospitals in my area hiring ONLY Bachelor’s prepared nurses. It will open up far more doors for you, although, to be fair, the associates prepared nurses I met had much better clinical experience that we did coming out of the bachelor’s programs. Many hospitals do offer programs for employees now, though, to turn their RN’s into RN-BSN’s, so keep that in mind as well.

Where I live, LPN’s mainly work in nursing homes and assisted living facilities, so if that’s what you want to do, then, that’s what you should get, but if you have the wherewithal to get through nursing school, DO IT.

And I happen to know a Super Overachieving Retired Nurse who used to TA for Organic, Inorganic, Biochemistry, Anatomy AND Physiology AND Pathophysiology* who lives in the computer and now goes by Aunt Becky, RN, BSN who’d be happy to help you out.

*Told you I was Super Becky, Overachiever

————————

What, exactly, is dark matter?

How the fuck should I know?

—————————

Why does the rabbit have a mirror on a chain coming out it’s arse?

Wait, don’t you store your watch in your colon? Because I totally do.

I also store my car keys (well, one set of my car keys), one of my children (this varies), my iPhone, a wallet, my AmEx, a 12 pack of soda I picked up on sale for The Daver now that I can’t drink it any more *sobs*, a pack of mint gum to soothe my stomach, a pen I stole from a waitress at the Thai place down the street last week (the Pad Thai is phenomenal, you should try it!), a pack of salami just for kicks and some soap.

Because you never know when you’ll need soap. DO YOU?

——————

As always, please submit your questions to my dwindling stack (I’m making a neat stack of questions to be answered in kind of order!!!)(note the added exclamation points for added emphasis) of questions through the link on the sidebar because I’m not clever to comb through the comments.

If you feel kindly enough and you heart me, I have some awards I’m up for on my side bar that I would be ever-so-honored if you voted for me. I feel like a douche asking, but you know, I’d feel like more of a douche NOT asking, so, you know, obviously I do NOT win at life any more.

I know I wrote a love letter to my new BFF Topamax at some point recently. I’d go through my archives but all of the punctuation looks wonky when I do that and then I get stabby because the only way I know how to fix that is to do it by hand. For all eight hundred of my posts.

Like I don’t have anything better to do than, you know, that. I’d rather pluck my leg hairs with my teeth, thankyouverymuch.

And I do loves me that drug, trust me. Today, for the first time in 5ish months, I haven’t had to take anything for my head and that, trust me, is something that kind of makes me want to pop a celebratory Vicodin.

I’ve been sort of downplaying the side effects though, because if there’s one thing I’ve learned in my life it’s this: the more attractive you are, the crazier you are, cheese in a can isn’t natural, hot dogs are proof that God loves us.

The only thing we can control in life is how we react to situations we’re put into.

I can, for example, choose to take my fucked up childhood and use that as a crutch, as a means to justify my bitterness, my feminism, my hatred of the world, the reason no one loves me or the reason that I hate addicts or people who mock addicts or people who are successful where I am not.

Or I can say, WOW, that was fucked up, have a good laugh, try to remember that at the end of the day we’re all–even OUR PARENTS–only human. And human beings? They fuck up.

But the Topamax is slowly eroding my memory, which, while it can be the butt of many jokes at my expense, and I’m certain it will be, because OBVIOUSLY, and I do expect to get it back, but for now? I can barely remember to wipe my ass. Come to think of it…

Anyway.

The problem with this isn’t that it’s now making me a total nutter with the attention span of a gnat, it’s that no one expects it from me. It’s like going to a steak house, ordering a fillet, and then getting served a stir-fry (this was, come to think of it, the same analogy I used to describe my BlogHer experience!). Totally unexpected.

You can call me a lot of things and make most of them stick, hell, I’ll HELP you call me a lot of things, but absent minded is nowhere on that list. Self-deprecating, fiercely loyal, unable to use a comma to save my own life, totally self-absorbed (dude. I write a BLOG), all of those fit, but having to adjust to having a memory bank so full of holes that dust is pouring out, now, I barely know how to handle it.

The symptoms, the doctors say, will subside. And I’ll adjust. I’m getting a real! live! day! planner! because I cannot fucking stand having a calendar on a PDA/phone/computer, no matter how many times I’ve argued this with Dave. Running tally on this particular argument is 597 and he’s STILL not convinced me.

I’m also making folders in my Google Reader because I realized with 464 feeds (and counting) there is no way I can possibly keep up with everyone every single day and still manage to stay sane. Well, okay, so there’s a good debate there as to if a person who calls herself “Aunt Becky” can ever call herself “sane,” but you know. I do want to stay connected to all of you, but I need some tips as to how.

So, this, my Internet friends, is where Your Aunt Becky turns the tables neatly and asks you how YOU manage to do it all? Do you have any tips for me on how to get and stay organized?

When I was a kid, on the list of things I would have happily gnawed off my own limbs for was a sibling. A whole MESS of siblings. Didn’t matter which brand–Japanese mushroom or cheeseburger–I just wanted more.

I had a pack of neighborhood kids that I chummed around with from sun-up until sun-down during the summer and after school most days (I don’t remember having as much homework as my kid gets) and that was all well and good, and I even was always pretty well liked in school. But I wanted a pack of siblings. A HUGE family.

My tiny nuclear family, well, most of them ignored me and I was a really lonely kid. I did have an older brother whose attention I vied for like an overzealous puppy, always shocked when he kicked me away, but eager to try again. Even at age 8, I was nothing if not persistent and shockingly transparent in my desire to be liked.

Luckily, while I didn’t outgrow my persistence, I did outgrow the gene that made me care if people liked me, but I never did outgrow the desire for a big family.

If you haven’t poured through my archives with a fine-toothed comb to discover that *gasp* my eldest was born *gasp* out of wedlock *gasp* and sired by another *gasp* father, well, he was, but if you haven’t, it’s because we don’t make a big deal out of it here at Casa de la Sausage.

Anyway. It’s not a dirty little secret or anything, it’s just not that important to us, because, really, it’s kind of old news now. But after I was pregnant with him and before I had met The Daver (this was a shockingly narrow window), I knew that I wanted to have more children, and, being the planner that I am, I wanted to have them closer together than my own brother and I are.

Part of the problems (but really, only a small part) that my brother and I faced were that we are ten years apart. What do an eight year old and an eighteen year old have in common? Fuck-NOTHING. The other problems are farther below the surface and much more purulent, so let’s just stick with the age difference, shall we?

Luckily, The Daver came along before I had to think about begging my male friends for a shot of their Man Juice–can you imagine the awkwardness? Because I can’t–and I would happily have dropped trou and tried to start makin’ babies well before I was Mrs. Aunt Becky Sherrick Harks.

The Daver is more traditional than I am (I know, you’re shocked), so we waited until after the wedding to cook up a couple of crotch parasites. I got pregnant with Alex as we were nearing our one year anniversary and Amelia as we were nearing our third. And no, to clear up any pesky rumors, we have no affection for the letter “a”.

I mean, it’s a good letter and all, and it’s a vowel so that makes it awesome by association, but if I had to BE a vowel, I would be “sometimes y”. Wouldn’t you?

It was weird the amount of ominous flack I got from people as I lugged Alex and Ben around, largely pregnant with my third.

“You’re going to be busy…” people would cluck meaningfully at me, obviously disdainful of my “delicate condition”

“Wow… you have your hands FULL,” others would sort of sneer, as I heaved a box of diapers and Alex, never offering to lift a finger to help.

While I appreciate that everyone is entitled to have an opinion on everything, and what comes out of (or, apparently, goes INTO) my vagina is no different, this was really not their call to make. They never liked to hear it when I told them as much, but come on, how rude could you be. I had 3 kids, not thirty. My uterus wasn’t exactly a clown-car yet.

But no, thank YOU, Mr. Fuckface, I appreciate you loudly judging me in front of my children, I have it under control. And you know what, I do. I still have it under control even now that I’m only pregnant with a burrito baby.

I sit in the other room sometimes, the baby banging merrily away in her saucer, gnawing on a pair of metal measuring spoons that were her older brother’s favorite toy too, screaming joyfully, her voice echoing against the glass door and bouncing back again.

Mingling with it are the indistinguishable voices of her older brothers, who have–5 years apart–the same tone and timbre of voice (without the words, I cannot tell them apart) as they scream delightedly together, piling on top of each other like squirmy puppies.

They are happy. My children, they are happy.

And I smile quietly to myself, as I sit there listening, knowing that if I do nothing else right for the rest of my life, I have done this right.

My children, I have done right by.

In a stunning fit of anal-retentiveness rivaled only by the time I found Bath and Body Works doing a 5 for 10 sale on antibacterial soap, I went through my blog roll the other day when I was having a particularly dreary, maudlin day. I don’t know if you have one, a blog roll, I mean, not a maudlin day, because, let’s face it, I think that emo music exists for a REASON, but blog rolls are a total annoyance.

I’ve operated thus far, as you can, by the length of it, tell, under the assumption that they are worth the hassle of upkeep of it. But, when I update it, I inevitably delete someone by accident. Mainly because I am stupid and also because I am dumb.

SO. Here is your chance, my band of merry pranksters, so gather ’round Aunt Becky’s knee: please, if you care to, go to the side bar, and click on the link for “Aunt Becky’s Band Of Merry Pranksters” (I’d link to it, but it gives YOU a dead link if I do that because of the aforementioned stupidity on my end). IF you are not listed AND you are a friend of mine (you comment here, you have me on your blogroll, etc, etc, you make me cookies, I wash your car for you, we make out, whatever):

SEND ME AN EMAIL and SEND ME THE LINK WITH YOUR BLOG NAME.

Do not leave it in a comment or I will forget it.

Currently I cannot remember the last time I gave Amelia Motrin for her fever, let alone to go back and try and piece together anything greater than two words. And I will obviously be too busy cross-stitching all of your comments to remember to add them to my blogroll. So shoot email to aunt.becky.sucks (at) gmail (dot) com or auntbeckyrules (at) gmail (dot) com.

(I’m always torn on the whole HAVING a blogroll thing. Is it worth it? I really don’t know.)

——————–

Some of the links that you have subscribed to are broken. I do not know what this means other than some of you that have subscribed via Google Reader or Bloglines have told me about this. I do not know what to do besides gnash my teeth and wring my hands and occasionally pace around the room.

I have been told that you can unsubscribe then REsubscribe and that fixes the problem. Beyond that, I am bewildered.

——————

The first thing that I was told after I pushed Alex rather quickly from my nether bits was that he was “beautiful.” Upon first glance, I thought he kind of looked like a wet rat, and even after he was toweled off, I wasn’t entirely sure I was off base in my assessment. I didn’t CARE, mind you, what he looked like.

The older he got, the less rat-like he looked and the more frequently I was stopped by strangers so that they could admire my child. I never really thought of him as beautiful, in fact, the only adjectives I could think to describe Alex were “devilish” or “payback” because he wouldn’t let even his own father lay so much as a pinkie finger on his delicate ass without him screaming violently.

(as an aside: Alex is the only child of mine whom anyone has stopped–often–us for to comment on. When he was younger it was all.the.time. And I mean all.the.time. It’s not that I don’t think Alex is cute, he is, but…I don’t know, he’s not THAT cute.)

(As an aside TO the aside: If you are going to stop a family that has 2 children, one who is a baby and one who can not only walk and talk but is talking TO YOU, why don’t you fucking pay attention to that child instead of the fucking baby who hates you because you are not his mother and you’re in his face?

Poor Ben. Seriously, poor Ben.)

Alex was a Momma’s Boy.

A Momma’s Boy who, according to the people who stopped me as my son was dressed head to toe in blue, looked like he sported a vagina.

I may have a mullet because my mother refused to cut my hair, but I do not have a vagina, people. Thank you.

The other thing that I heard with such alarming regularity that it started to make me want to rupture my eardrum with a red hot poker is this: “WOW! He looks just like Dave.” Which, he does. Sort of.

After 9 months of pure pukey torture, 12 months of being attached at the nipple, the kid could have had the common courtesy to at least SORT OF look like his mother, you know?

But no. He doesn’t LOOK like me. But he IS me. From the tippy top of his hard headed I-will-get-my-fucking-way-if-it-kills-me down to his I-will-cut-off-my -nose-to-spite-my-face butt.

I didn’t KNOW that anyone on the planet could possibly be as stubborn as I am, but yes, Internet, I am here to tell you that not only it is possible, it is currently upstairs, refusing to say “I’m sorry” not because it is not sorry, but because I insisted upon it. Had I NOT insisted, he’d have done it, but because I had, he won’t.

Did you catch that?

If I say, “Hey Alex, you say, “THANK YOU, BEN,”” he will dig in his heels, and refuse. No length of time out will persuade him to do something that naturally he will do–it isn’t the thanking his brother part that he’s refusing, it’s because I told him to.

Dinner Time has become an equally shall we say hair-raising event, if “hair-raising” is code for “makes me desperately want to tongue a bottle of Nyquil” and then cry hysterically to someone who won’t just tell me “eventually, he’ll eat.” Because, wow, the kid is WILLFUL.

Alex, he used to be my eating child and it was so lovely after having a child with bona fide food issues relating to his autism. Ben would happily live on a steady diet of saltine crackers and lukewarm tap water and Alex would have–at some point in his life–eaten food that would sustain more than an ant.

No more, ickle grasshopper.

But Ben eats now, mostly, now that getting Alex to do anything he doesn’t want to do is akin to backing a wild boar against a metal wall, so we just choose our battles and remember that multivitamins, like beer, are God’s way of reminding us that he loves us and wants us to be happy.

While Dr. Spock would probably call this a “phase” and tell me that Alex will “grow out of it,” Alex and I both know this is pure bullshit. The only way Alex is going to change his nature is the only way I’ll change mine: traumatic brain injury. Which, God willing, won’t happen.

So, until then, Alex and I will put on our boxing gloves and get into the ring to fight to the bloody end every time we need to determine who gets the last packet of barbecue sauce.

Good thing I still outweigh the SHIT out of him.

• I am pretty sure that showing remarkable restraint by waiting until ALMOST like, the last week of September to listen to Christmas music makes me Super Awesome.
• That fact alone nearly negates the dorkiness that I love Christmas music like it was my job.
• And no, I do NOT own any gaily decorated, bedazzled Christmas sweaters with any of these: rhinestones, pearls, dancing snowmen, bells, Christmas trees, snowflakes, or whimsical gingerbread men.
• Also, no matter how it now sounds I am not a crazy cat lady.
• My cats, while they are still walking around and not being turned into coats for very small people for waking up the baby AGAIN, are named “Charlotte” and “Peekachoo.” I named neither. But if I had, they wouldn’t have been “Snooky” or “Mr. Snugglesworth.” They would have been, “Vlad the Impaler” and uh, “Chuck.”
• Okay, so the last cat that I did name was “Little Cat” because, well, she was a little cat, but she was a foster cat and I barely saw her anyway. I think that such a pathetically stupid name helped further her adoption process along anyway.
• Sometimes I miss fostering cats until I remember that Little Cat brought us all giardia parasite that she ejected from her butthole at the exact same time that I brought us all home a crotch parasite that I ejected from my lady bits. Then I don’t miss fostering cats any more.
• That’s sort of how I feel about my stats program.
• I can no longer laugh at all of the weird ass searches that bring people here, but then I don’t have to look at all of the sick Uncle Pervy crap that people search for and bathe in bleach and wish that I could somehow scour my eyeballs.
• I am alternating between being thrilled that tonight is Glee Night, which, dude, on a scale of one to awesome, that show is super great, and being in full out dread mode, because today is also Dosage Increase day for my Topamax.
• On a scale of one to lousy, that is super craptacular because I will be sick for the next 4 days.
• I sometimes worry that I will become one of those insufferable people who thinks that the entire world is fantastically interested in the most mundane symptoms of an illness.
• Maybe I should start sending out press releases to my imaginary legions of fans describing in minute detail how I feel every hour, rather than putting together a power-point for the holidays. I just KNOW my family wants to hear about it.
• I have been informed that if I want to make my blog more PR friendly, I should refrain from using colorful language, especially the eff word.
• I have some of my own words to say about that.
• Fuck, shit, cock-bag, motherfucking, asshole, bitch, shithead, fuck-wad, dick, meat curtains, ass-bag. Oh, and fuck.
• I trust PR driven blogs ALMOST as much as I trust that the people on television who tell me that that their product really!! works!!! have MY best interest in mind.
• Pretty sure that’s how to lose advertisers and not influence people.
• Anyway. LOOK! My daughter is giving me the stink eye so YOU DON’T HAVE TO:

• What’s on YOUR mind today?

First, this is the post that I am the most proud of, and, of course, it is not here. Which makes no sense, but, you know.

Today is Tuesday, and all of you brilliant and gorgeous readers (wait–have you lost weight? Your looks hot as hell!) readers know what that means: Beaver Talk With Aunt Becky, over at Toy With Me.

Thank you to anyone who has come by to support me over there. I’m still getting my sea legs and feeling a bit wobbly. All of your comments are cherished and loved and crocheted into tiny wee plaques that I hang onto my walls. Or maybe just really, really appreciated.

For anyone who–understandably–does not want to hear me talk about my lady bits, I am rewriting a (probably) unread old post from the vaults, written shortly after Alex was born, and airing it below.

—————-

I weighed myself this week.

This is kind of a masochistic big deal, considering that I had no earthly idea what kind of poundage I put on with this crotch parasite. After I continued gaining weight WHILE BARFING MY BRAINS OUT, I decided that maybe I just didn’t need to know just how efficient my metabolism could be.

Turns out, you don’t have to look when you get weighed in.

I mean, I gained a bunch with my first and all, but I ate garbage nonstop, so yeah, of course I got fat. Well, this time, I did not. And yet I STILL got fat. I feel loftily sure that I would kick some major ass in a famine, but now, my dimpled white ass needs some major work.

Let’s just say that I have my work cut out for me.

Operation Remove My Fat Ass has begun.

So after I got my good cry out, I decided to get productive and go on a walk as I have not been cleared to lift anything heavier than the baby, a walk would be nice and low impact.

I bundled Cletus the Former Fetus (ed note: Alex) up into my fancy stroller, threw my iPod over my ears to drown out his indignant “I can’t believe you’re not holding me to your breast Slave Woman! Where is my nipple? It’s not in my mouth where it belongs, you bitch!” screams, and began to enjoy the motherfucking scenery.

(as an aside, I can only imagine the horrible mother that my neighbors thought that I must be, letting my child cry like that while I grimly, determinedly walk on. I CLEARLY do not deserve to be a parent.)

As I rounded a corner, I saw the strangest thing. For the *second* time in my life.

There was a dog on a roof.

There was a (motherfucking) dog on the roof of a (motherfucking) house.

He just stood there, staring back at me as thought it was the most normal thing in the world for dogs everywhere to lounge about on tops of houses reaching two stories high.

Having had to run on no appreciable sleep for the past six weeks, I many had problems deciding how to react to the situation.

Do I call the dog? Do I keep walking? Do I want a tuna sandwich? Do I EVEN LIKE TUNA? Slowly but surely, my memory banks began to cross reference the situation: where had I seen this before? A whimsical romantically comedy? Possibly a dream I had when I was a kid? Do I even like tuna sandwiches?

And it dawned on me: several years ago, my neighbor called me outside to bear witness a dog sitting on the roof of a house across the street. A couple of us gathered out there, discussing the dog, who looked as befuddled as we were, unsure as to how it got up and as to how it was going to get back down again.

Somebody needed to do…something. If this was a made-for-TV-movie, a hot-as-hell fireman with twinkly green eyes would rescue the dog and maybe he and I would fall in love. And live happily ever after.

I offered to call the fire department, since my neighbors all seemed more interested in gawking and gaping than the poor pooch who was stuck up on the roof.

Figuring this was my shot at my one true love, I did. They directed me to animal control. Who directed me to the police. Who directed me to public works. Who told me to call the fire department.

I’m pretty sure they all looped to the same person, because I had the same fucking conversation. Either that or it was my own version of Groundhog Day:

Me: “Hi, my name is Becky Sherrick and I live here. My neighbor has a dog on his roof.”

Pick One (fire dept, animal control, police): “What?!?”

Aunt Becky: “I *said* that there is a dog on my neighbors roof. A big one.”

Public Service Official (incredulous): “You’re kidding me.”

PSO (to coworkers): “This lady is calling in a dog on a roof! Bwahahaha!”

Aunt Becky: “Why would I joke? I’m seriously afraid it’s going to jump.”

PSO (to coworkers): Now the dog is suicidal! Bwahahaha!

PSO: “Well, there’s nothing *we* can do about it. Try calling (choose one: fire dept, police, animal control, etc).”

(click)

Me:”That’s what (fire dept, police, animal..) said. oh NEVERMIND!”

Finally remembering that the public works in town have absolutely no idea what to do with a (motherfucking) dog on a (motherfucking) roof, I decided that the best course of action was one of complete inaction.

I just kept on walking, the dog and I eyeballing each other warily as Alex wailed for his breast, bitch.

And then, just like that, like a bolt of lighting out of the clear blue sky I remembered that I loathe tuna sandwiches.

—————–

What’s the weirdest thing you’ve come across lately?