out of Kadesh

It’s been a terrible, awful, no good, very bad… week. (It’s not really that bad, I’m just alluding to a great piece of literature here. Zero points if you can name that book!)

It started with my shitty hair cut on Saturday. I specifically asked for a trim, and I asked her to keep the sides long. I ended up looking like the mom from the Brady Bunch. It’s sort of like a short bowl-cut on the top layer, and a long flippy layer on the bottom. I can’t even put it all back in a ponytail. The sides fall down, which makes me look like a colonial soldier.

I found out at my last midwife appointment that I weigh almost 200 pounds now, which isn’t really that big of a deal to me, but now with my weird hair my face looks even more bloated than before. This pregnancy has given me a bad case of acne, but the weather has made my skin major dry. So I have weird hair that nicely accentuates my fat, acne-covered, flaky face. Try looking in the mirror at that and not bursting into tears. If you’re able to do it I’d love any tips.

Noah decided he never needs to sleep again. He can just whine and complain and cry and whine some more instead. Sleeping is for babies. Big boys piss and moan but stay awake. Big, whale-like mamas with zero energy plop their big boys down in front of Sesame Street while they catch up on their ass-sitting. (They also quickly switch over to Thomas the Tank Engine when they get an earful of pissiness at the lack of creepy talking trains in Sesame Street.)

He’s also decided I should be with him at all moments of the day. “MAMA COMING!” is his constant refrain. I’m all, “Noah, I’m using the potty, I’ll be out in a minute, ok?” And he’s all, “MAMAMAMAMAMAMAMAMAMAMAMAMAMA” until he opens the bathroom door, comes up to my knees, and says, “Mama hold you?” And I’m like, “Bubba, I’ll hold you in a minute ok? I’m kind of trying to poop here.” And he’s all like “Mama HOOOOLDYOOOOU!!!!” And I’m like, “Sure thing, just hand me those nail scissors so I can try and mortally wound myself first.”

This clinginess might actually be part of the not-sleeping thing. He finally goes to sleep around 10pm, after utterly exhausting himself. I stumble into bed and then, what feels like a minute later, he’s awake. It’s actually 5:30am, and he wants me again. So Lance brings him in bed with us, and if I’m lucky he falls back asleep with his feet in the small of my back. If I move or breathe, he wakes up and crawls on top of me, moaning “MAMAMAMAMAMAMAMA,” like I’m anywhere but buried underneath his head.

Then my stomach starts growling. Literally, growling like it’s an angry tiger who’s going to kill you. At 5:45 in the morning. What is it thinking?! And then the baby starts kicking my insides out, as if reminding me that my stomach is hungry and that means so is she, and can I please get up and start feeding her now?

If you want to put your marriage through the ringer, which I know EVERYONE wants to do, go a month without sleeping. Also, one of you be pregnant. Fights break out over things like, “Could you walk across the floor any louder? JESUS!” or “Did you just put that tissue in the waste basket? I JUST emptied it, what the hell is wrong with you?” You start tallying up who has had more sleep on what day, too. So when you’re 3 minutes behind your partner, suddenly everything that has ever gone wrong ever is his fault. He’s so well-fucking-rested, why can’t he just…?

And Noah is seriously TRYING to make me crazy. On top of not sleeping, he’s complaining more than ever, which I just really feel is unfair. Today, for instance, I told him we were going to play with his friend. He was all, Yeah! until he realized that entailed putting on pants and socks and (the last straw) SHOES. By the time I had his coat on and he was outside he was seriously pissed off. I’m like gently explaining that he’s being a baby douche bag and he should stop now, but he’s just so mad at me he doesn’t even want to walk down to the car. Also he doesn’t want me to hold him or touch him in any way. He just wants to stand still and scowl. When we’d waited a really long time for him to stop acting his age, and I’d tried every good-parent-who-reasons-with-her-toddler trick I know, I finally picked him up bodily and hoisted him down to the car and wrestled his angry self into the car seat. So now we were both really pissed off (and sweaty) (and my carefully pinned weird hair had come undone) and all I could think was, why is this the treatment I’m getting for taking him on a play date? It’s just not right, y’all.

The cat drank Noah’s leftover cereal milk this morning and then barfed all over the floor. So before I cleaned that up I threw him (jeez, not really, ok?) (nope, can’t lie, I threw him) out the door, then an hour later I let him back in, thinking he’d have gotten all that lactose out of his intolerant little body, but he sure enough barfed again once he was inside. JUST TO FUCK WITH ME.

Then the DOG is like, Let me out let me out! So I let her out and then she’s like, Let me in let me in! So I roll my eyes and let her in and she RUNS into the living room and gets muddy paw prints all over the yellow rug and I’m seriously one thing away from a long, drawn-out, eardrum-splitting scream that sends everyone in the house running outside in terror so I can get a nap.

What I’m saying, y’all, is I’m extremely white and I’m having some serious first-world-people problems here. This shit is real.

Why the heck don’t kids sleep? If someone turned off all your lights, put on some soft white noise, read you a story, gave you some milk, laid you in bed, and rubbed your back and hummed to you, would you not be all, SHIT YEAH IT’S DREAMIN’ TIME ? I think I would be asleep in point four seconds.

You know what my son is doing right now, at 9:49pm? Sitting on the rug, eating grapes, and playing with trains. Every once in a while he brings me the bowl of grapes, says “done!” and starts doing an energetic little Buffalo Shuffle across the room. And I say “Are you ready to go to bed yet?” and he says “NOPE! Mo’ gapes!” and sits back down with the bowl of grapes.

Do you know what we did for an hour before finally giving up and letting him come out of his room? PARAGRAPH A.

Now there are two schools of thought happening as you read this, and the two schools are currently having a competition to see who can out-judge my parenting. Before I assign the medal to the winner, you should know that I’ve already heard it, so you can cram it.

SCHOOL A) Attachment Judgement: He’s going through separation anxiety. He doesn’t want to go in a crib all by himself and be separated from his parents. If you lived in an African tribe, you’d be with him all the time. You would sleep in the same bed with him. You would never be apart. This is the natural way of things. SUCK IT, SCHOOL A. Noah HATES being in bed with us. He squirms and fusses and climbs me until I can’t take it any more and I say, “Do you want to go in your own bed?” and I hear a desperate, muffled little “yyyeeessss” from beneath the covers. The only time he’s remotely happy being in bed with us is at 5am when he dozes off and on, mumbling things like “bread” and “choca muka” in his sleep, until he wakes me up by putting his nose to mine two hours later. OR if Lance gives up and decides to sleep on the couch so that he can get a few hours without tiny feet up his nose before the sun comes up, and Noah takes full advantage of the empty space by imitating the shape of a starfish. Bubbs needs his space, is what I’m sayin’.

SCHOOL B) Cry-it-out (aka Self-Soothe) Judgment: I disagree with you. But I hear you laughing at me as your peacefully sleeping children snore in the next room, and my wide-awake-ass son begs me to play with his train table and rocks on his rocking horse and sings loud nonsense songs at 10:15pm. I HEAR YOU LAUGHING. (I’ll stand by my convictions, bitches!) (…For at least one more hour.)

The big problem is that as a stay-at-home-mom, I crave delicious alone time, where I don’t have to keep a toddler from harming himself or breaking things. The only time I get that is during his nap, which is shorter and shorter every day, and after he goes to bed at night.

The following is a list of things I can’t do when Noah stays up until 10:30:
1. Watch an adult movie.
2. Watch ANY MOVIE IN THE WORLD that does not feature Thomas, the Fucking Tank Engine.
3. Read a book.
4. Have nasty ass sex on the dining room table.
5. Have quiet, courteous, Christian sex underneath the covers.
6. Take a shower.
7. Eat a cookie.
8. Sit here and stare at the opposite wall in silence.

And now the problem is, Noah is so tired that he has started throwing fits over things like, his knee touching his train track or the dog looking at him. And I have to pick up that sobbing mess from the floor and carry him into his room and repeat Paragraph A for the fourth time tonight, and pray to God that this time it’ll take, not so I can do any of the eight items on my above wish list, but so that I can hurl my exhausted pregnant ass into bed and hope that dawn is somehow delayed by six hours.

Goodnight, fellow parents.

As you may or may not know, toddlers love to read the same book over and over and over and over and over and over and over and…. (elipsis indicates infinity) over again. And by “read,” of course, I mean sit in your lap while you read and stare at the pictures and point out objects that have nothing to do with the story, like “Sock!” or “Car!” “Baby eye!”

There are a couple of good methods for avoiding death by boredom as you read The Very Hungry Caterpillar for the seventh time in one day, and these I share with you today. Lance and I both have used them with great success.

1. Affect a Spanish accent. You can, of course, substitute your favorite accent (I recommend Russian or German for maximum entertainment), but Spanish is our favorite. What but an Antonio Banderas accent could make a statement like “Wake up, wake up, good morning! I’ll try my potty again!” sound sexy and alluring?

2. Replace the main character’s name with your child’s name. When “the Poky Little Puppy” becomes “Noah,” funny ensues.

3. Read the story backwards. Lance tried this method the other night. I admit it’s not one of my favorites, because it bothers me that the story makes no sense. From the kitchen I heard him read “Thank you! That would cheer me up! Then she will say… Would you like some of my ice cream? Then I will ask her…”

4. Read it like a play (partner required). As we read to Noah before bed the other night, Lance and I played the roles of the main characters in a story we’d read no less than 3,000 times in the past week. We got really into it, too. Lance does an amazing squirrel, not to mention a killer elephant with a broken trunk. And I do a mean pig, if I do say so myself. Not for nothing did I get that theatre degree!

5. Beg the child to choose a different story. I must confess, this rarely works. For instance, to my delighted surprise, I was able to distract Noah with a new book from the shelf last night. But as I closed the book and said happily, “The End,” he insisted on the backhoe book again anyway. But this morning he brought me the new, distraction book instead of the backhoe book! It might be a step in the right direction. At least, until the distraction book becomes THE book, and then I’ll be begging him to read the backhoe book, but this is the cycle. You pick your poison, is what I’m saying.

6. Don’t actually read the story. Just flip the pages and let the kid point at stuff and practice his vocabulary. This is a great one for early morning or when you need a nap. It requires very little effort on your part. Just close your eyes, lean your head back, say “Mmm-hmm” every once in a while, and don’t forget to turn the pages as often as you remember that you’re holding a book.

Well those are my tried and true methods. I hope they help you the way they help me. Now if you’ll excuse me, Noah is banging Can I Share My Ice Cream against my leg and saying “AH-GWEEN-BOOK!”, and I can feel myself beginning to channel a French accent already…

Dear Future Me Reading This in 20 Years,

Sorry it’s been so long since I wrote to you. (You’re looking great for 48 by the way. Those hips might be a little bigger than you ever imagined they could be, but don’t sweat it. And quit complaining about your saggy boobs and get a better bra. Simple.) The thing is, it’s been a little busy around here. First of all, we survived Thanksgiving. I know, it’s always questionable, but we did it. (And you can blame your flabby 48-year old belly on the 200 pounds of stuffing you ate over Thanksgiving weekend 2011.) Here is what else your 28-year old self has been doing for the past month. Look back and laugh.

1. Chasing mice. Possibly rats. We came back from a trip to visit in-laws in October to the smell of rancid dead, which waged a two-month-long war between us (the Humans) and them (the Zombie Rodents). There is no victor yet and the battles continue daily. We called an exterminator, who told us we should just set traps. We check traps every day to find them tripped, food gone, and yet the ZRs are not trapped. At night they scritch scratch in the walls behind our bed. We keep a broom by our bedside, which we have almost mastered the art of pounding on the walls without even really waking up. Lance spends his days searching for and patching holes with spray-insulation. We’re having a great time with it.

2. Finding out that you’re having a girl! You know this already, because she is now 20 years old. But here in 2011 you just found out, and it’s really quite amazing to feel New Baby kicking around inside and thinking to yourself, “There she is,” or “That’s my daughter.” I hope you are happy with the name you chose, because right now you have no idea what you’re going to name her. You think of a different name every week, but none of them is really something that sticks around. You roll it around on your tongue for a week and you start to hate the way it sounds and Lance can always think of someone he knew in Kindergarten that had that name who pooped her pants.

3. Watching your baby boy turn TWO. The day he turned two, he threw a huge tantrum because his friend tried to play with one of his birthday toys, and you knew that HE knew that he was supposed to start acting like that because he had just turned two. You should have lied to him and told him he was three. Or four. Then he would have felt mature and been like, “Oh, pardon me, would you like to play with the mini grocery cart that I just unwrapped? Allow me to step aside out of your way, and while you’re playing, I’ll cut you a piece of my cake.”

4. Gearing up for Christmas. You’ve done 20 more of these holidays by now and I hope to God you’re living in Paris where there is a cup of espresso and a croissant waiting for you down the corner where you can stop in for a stress-free holiday break. YES I SAID HOLIDAY, FOX NEWS. OBVIOUSLY I AM GOING TO HELL. But if you HAVE come to your senses and moved to France you might not NEED a stress-free holiday break, because you will be far away from all your judgmental and inconsiderate relatives, who would never dream of coming to visit you in Paris because what if they accidentally slip on the ice and sprain their ankle? I mean, dear God, they’d have to go to the ER and leave WITHOUT PAYING A HOSPITAL BILL, because the French are fucking dirty communists. But besides all that, this year is looking like a really fun Christmas, because, if you’ll refer to Item Number Three, Noah is two! He’s obsessed with Thomas the Tank Engine and when he sees that train set under the tree this year he is going to flip his shit, and you’re going to catch it all on video. (If you ARE still in America and feeling the holiday stress while you’re reading this, do yourself a favor and cheer yourself up by watching that video.)

5. FREAKING OUT about the GOP presidential nominees. You watch Jon Stewart to keep yourself laughing in hopes that the terror will subside, but NPR brings you back to reality the next day and you spend your days biting your nails and praying that God will protect the country from all of those nut-cases that are the next potential leaders of the free world.

6. Watching reruns of Felicity on Netflix. Don’t beat yourself up… you needed a break! Remember, you were pregnant and you had a two-year-old. It’s embarrassing, sure, but at least you don’t watch any daytime soaps, and what’s a stay-at-home-mom to do while she’s folding laundry, really?

7. Seeing some theatre. Lance gave you the amazing gift of going to see Memphis at TPAC. Remember that if he’s getting on your nerves, Future Me, because it was one hell of a date. He arranged babysitting and everything. You miss seeing Broadway theatre in 2011. I hope you are richer and have more time at 48 and you can get a subscription to your local traveling Bway house.

Well, you have to go now, because you have a pile of diapers sitting next to you that you have to fold, and an episode of Felicity waiting in your queue.

Love,
28-year-old You

1. New Baby is healthy!

2. There is ONLY ONE BABY in there, Mom and Aunt Renee. (And there was much rejoicing.)

3. When you’ve had one baby (with or without a humungous head), your cervix gets all crazy bent out of shape. Sometimes.

4. My cervix got all crazy bent out of shape.

5. When this happens to you, you get an early ultrasound to make sure you’re not going to need your cervix stitched. Ow.

6. They tell you they’re going to put a probe into your cervix to take ultrasound pictures. Ow.

7. The ultrasound place is like a spa compared to the nurse-midwives’ office.

8. The vaginal ultrasound device looks like a dildo.

9. This may or may not be awkward for your husband, who is sitting two feet away as the ultrasound technician explains that you are to put this into your vagina underneath the sheet that is currently keeping you modest.

10. Either of the following reactions to this dildo apparatus would be funny: “OH MY GOD, that thing is HUGE! It’ll never fit…” OR “Pshhh, please. After this guy, that tiny thing looks like a toothpick.”

11. Toddlers think ultrasounds are boring.

12. Toddlers think computers are cool.

13. Toddlers think you’re a piece of shit for not letting them get on that cool computer when they are so obviously bored.

14. My cervix is actually just fine.

15. But New Baby’s placenta is completely covering my cervix.

16. This is only a problem if it doesn’t move during the course of my pregnancy. If I’m in labor and it hasn’t moved, I’ll have to have a C-section. Worst case scenario, the placenta somehow ruptures pre-term, and the baby is in big trouble.

17. Most likely, everything will be fine, but I am to call if I experience any vaginal bleeding. I think I could have figured that out on my own.

18. When your placenta is on top of your cervix in such a vulnerable position, you are ordered to go on “vaginal rest.” In other words, nothing in the vagina. Like… no ultrasound equipment. And on top of THAT, no sexual intercourse until they screen me in two months to make sure the placenta has moved.

19. Breaking the news to your husband that you can’t have sex for two months is really fun.

20. Breaking the news to YOURSELF that you can’t have sex for two months is even MORE fun.

21. The following statement won’t help: “Don’t worry, we’ll have sex after the baby is born!” (FALSE.)

22. Despite all that, at the end of the day I’m feeling immeasurably grateful that I have one healthy baby, kicking and waving and tumbling around, inside my ever-growing uterus.

23. Having someone poke into your cervix all day makes your cervix sore. Which is a weird feeling.

24. Having a bored toddler at an ultrasound appointment makes you (and your husband) feel stressed out.

25. Making up for it later by deciding to bake something with your toddler may or may not be the stupidest thing you’ve ever thought of.

26. If you tell a toddler, “Ok, now dump this cup of flour into this bowl,” he will dump it onto the floor.

27. If you tell a toddler, “Stir up the pumpkin with this spoon,” he will hold the spoon, dripping with pumpkin, over his head and spin it around.

28. If you tell a toddler, “Stand here while I get the butter,” you will turn back to see him with a spoonful of batter containing raw egg about a centimeter from his open mouth.

28. If you decide to bake with your toddler, your kitchen will look like pumpkin bread batter exploded on every surface.

29. The bread will still turn out delicious, and your toddler will be really proud. And so will you.

30. If someone would have told me 2 years ago that I could love someone with the ferocity that I love my toddler, I would have thought it impossible and maybe a bit weird, but it happened. Which is how I know that even though I can’t understand it right now, I will feel the same way about New Baby as soon as we meet.

And by “the whole story,” don’t worry. I’m not going to tell you that I came out of the bathroom wearing lingerie and I had shaved my legs for the first time all summer. And no, I’m not going to tell you that I’d been tracking my periods so I didn’t have to take hormone pills as birth control. No, I’m not going to tell you how in that crucial moment, I whispered the words that every man wants to hear: “It’s cool, baby, I’m not ovulating! Don’t worry about a condom. IT’S FINE.” I’m not even going to describe to you the haste with which Lance tossed the wrapped condom aside and how he even almost completed the whole question: “Are you sure?” Yeah, so don’t worry, because I’m not going to tell you any of that.

(p.s. “The Rhythm Method.” Otherwise known as, my friend Amy told me, “Parents.”)

What I AM going to tell you is that all of this is Noah’s fault.

Ever since he was born… LITERALLY, since my water broke while we were trying to have sexy pregnant sex… every time Lance and I started giving each other, you know, the look, Noah has been there to put a quick stop to it. If I even THINK about my husband in a husband-and-wifely-duties-type-way, or if Lance like, throws the merest of glances at my boobs, Noah is suddenly awake, alert, around… whatever. It was so uncanny that Lance started calling it “Operation Prevent Siblings.” Which was very amusing since, of course, he was NOT going to be having siblings because we were NOT going to let Lance’s sperm anywhere NEAR my egg. (p.s. A brand new study proves that wearing a condom helps with that…)

People would ask me when we were having another one, and I’d be all, Maybe when this one learns to sleep. Which I have given up hope on happening before he becomes a teenager. Because y’all. I haven’t slept in TWO YEARS. My plan was to sleep for a full year with no interruptions before even THINKING about Number 2. No way was I about to get myself knocked up. NO. WAY. (p.s. CONDOM!)

It’s Noah’s fault though, because he slept while he was on the job THAT ONE TIME. And just like that, “Operation Prevent Siblings” failed. I don’t know what this means for his future assignments, but it does not look good.

After the initial shock wore off, though, I started feeling excited. And happy. And scared out of my mind. And so stupid. And really, really happy. This is gonna be great, you guys. My Bubbs is going to be the best big brother ever. I’m really excited. And scared happy. Did I mention happy?

But still. Today Lance told me, “You know I’m never going to believe you when you tell me I don’t have to wear a condom again, don’t you?” And I was all, “Are you kidding? I’m not even letting you NEAR me with that evil Pregnancy-Maker of yours until after the Vasectomy.”

The short version: I’ve been trying to wean Noah. It’s not going well.

The long version: Holy shit. My kid is more addicted to my titties than an old man with emphysema is to his cigarettes. Weaning Noah from breastfeeding is like taking one step forward and two steps backwards, EVERY SINGLE DAY. Which technically means I’m nursing him more now than I was when I started weaning, and that’s kind of what it feels like some days.

In all seriousness, I’m trying to do this as gently as possible so that no emotional damage and/or breast infection ensues. But there are times when I’m nursing him for the fourth time in the span of one bedtime routine, because he refuses to even let me put him into bed without waking up and crying AS SOON AS HE COMES UNLATCHED, when I think to myself, Dear God, I’ll be breastfeeding this little leech when he’s 25.

I AM JUST SO OVER IT. I have to step back and try to gain some perspective. Worst case scenario: I’ll breastfeed him longer than I intended to and he’ll continue to receive nutrients and antibodies and I’ll continue to bond with my son and burn calories.

Either that, or I’ll end up in a padded cell.

One of my favorite bloggers, Matthew Paul Turner over at Jesus Needs New PR, wrote a post recently and I was sincerely moved by this nugget:

“…how is it possible to seek truth when you’re convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that you already know it by heart? How can truth affect us, change us, make us into creatures that more resemble Christ if our truths aren’t in some ways fluid and capable of seeping into life’s cracks when we need them to?”

I read it to Lance, who raised his eyes and nodded, and said, “Whoa. Truth.”

And I was all, “Yes, exactly.”

And he was all, “I didn’t even mean to do that.”

Over the past year, some of the “truths” I thought I knew about my faith have been ripped away from me like they were sheets on a legal pad, crumpled into a ball and tossed into the trash, only to be picked up again, unfolded, and duct-taped back onto the pad, then ripped away again and torn into shreds, then picked up and taped back together, and on and on it goes.

A good friend of mine thinks ambiguity in faith is healthy; she says she feels like a place of questioning is a good place to be. I had a hard time with that at first, because of Noah. How do I teach my son the difference between right and wrong (or what I used to think was Right and Wrong) when I think everything is a gray area now? But my wise and laid-back husband has, through a series of difficult conversations, made me feel like that level of questioning might be healthier than if we were to attack our innocent child with a list of dos and don’ts, blacks and whites, rights and wrongs.

Maybe when he asks hard questions, it’s perfectly fine to stop pretending like we get it and be honest with ourselves and him and say, “I don’t know, but here’s what I think and why.” There are values on which we base our beliefs, and as long as we can say, “We believe what we do because we know that the Christ-like thing to do in EVERY situation is whatever is loving to other people,” I think we’re going to be ok.

And after reading that profound thought about the nature of truth, I know that’s the good and fair thing to do.

Good gosh a’mighty. The Bubbs is still babbling to himself in there, and it’s almost 10pm. But it doesn’t matter, because he’ll still be awake at 12, 2, 4, 6, and then for the day at 8. And that is how my life goes.

Lance and I were considering curling up on the couch together and watching Arsenic and Old Lace, because there’s this other part of my life called marriage where ideally my husband and I would spend quality time together, but that was like three hours ago and now it’s so late that instead I have to go bury my face in my pillow for my first two hour nap of the night.

A couple of weekends ago I was at an event for the theatre and I ended up talking to some people who have older kids. Once the subject of my son’s abysmal sleep habits came up, these nice parents all had sage advice that I’ve NEVER heard before, no not once not ever: “You just have to let him cry.” Their success stories followed of course, starting with the part where they cried along with their children those first few nights and concluding with the joyous part where they now enjoy 12 hour nights of silent, blissful sleep. Lance and I politely nodded and smiled, saying “Aw,” and “Wow!” in all the right places, but it inevitably ended with the usual shrug and glance at one another, like we were just now considering it for the first time IN 17 MONTHS, and we said something about it not being something we could stomach and we just weren’t into it. And that was that.

No, wait, first I was told with a sad smile and a condescending tone that sometimes I have to do what’s best for the baby and not what’s easiest for me, but then that was that. By the way dude, in case I forgot to tell you, THANKS FOR THAT.

I wonder what it is about parenting that makes us such judgmental dickwads. It must have something to do with how hard it is to raise a child, how frightening and lonely and frustrating and emotional and beautiful it is. You’ve poured everything you have and everything you are into what you believe is the absolute best for your little one, and if someone else is doing it differently then their way HAS to be wrong, by default. Because if their way is right or better than yours, then everything you are doing is only second best at most. So you decide you’re only going to feed your child organic foods that you painstakingly pick out, pay for, and prepare, and when you see someone feeding their toddler McDonald’s you can’t help but look down your nose because you HAVE to believe that what you’re doing is better than that. But the McDonald’s mom is just looking down her nose at you because you’ve been breastfeeding your baby for far too long and what if you give him some kind of weird repressed boobie memories later in life? And she has to believe that stopping breastfeeding at 6 months was best for her baby, because otherwise she DIDN’T do what was best for him, and as a mother she can’t live with that knowledge.

And while we’re on the subject, I think the same might be true for people and their religion.

I don’t know what to do about it, but maybe just acknowledging what it is when it happens, an insecurity within myself and not a problem with another person, is a good first step.

OR maybe the next time someone tells me the best thing I can do for my son is to let him scream himself hoarse with fear, in a dark room, all alone, while I sit on my ass eating bon-bons and not worrying my pretty little head with what my son wants or needs, I should tell them to MIND THEIR OWN FUCKING BUSINESS. And then I’ll turn my wasted brain’s musings into a complaint-ridden blog post for you, dear Reader.

Aren’t you glad you know me?