out of Kadesh

I love snow. I know you northerners are like, yeah, eff you man. But I was raised in the south, and snow meant staying home from school or work and going outside in eight pairs of socks, four pairs of pants, and six sweatshirts and making snow angels and sad little snowmen that contained a lot of grass because really, there was only a half inch of snow to begin with. And that only happened a couple of times a year.

Even when Lance and I moved to DC, I loved snow. And there I learned how the snow reaches past your ankles and life doesn’t shut down, so you still have to go to work and you can’t stay home and drink hot cocoa, but unfortunately the snow plow pushed through the middle of the street this morning and your car was parked on the side of the street, and is now completely barricaded in a mountain of snow. So you have to get out there in your work clothes and heels and dig your tires out of it. Then when you leave your neighborhood and reach your destination you realize all the beautiful, soft white snow has turned to ugly, wet, muddy-gray sludge. But I still loved the snow.

I just love winter! I love frost on the windows and frost on the grass. I like looking out the window at an icy world while I drink a cup of hot coffee. I love a warm, crackling fire as the backdrop for a day of reading under a blanket. (Of course, at my house, a warm fire is the result of plugging in my electric fireplace and adjusting the heat with the remote control. The crackling comes from a wood-wick, fire-scented candle on the shelf above the heater. But it’s cool because I’m really good at pretending.) I love sweaters and jeans and boots and thick wool socks. I love thick soups and comfort foods. I love scarves and hats and coats. I love the way trees look without any leaves, and gray skies full of the promise of snow. I love seeing my breath when I’m outside, right before rushing into a warm coffee shop.

((Sigh.))

There has been no snow this year. There has been no frost. There have been one or two times when it was cold enough for a coat. Today is February 1, and it was 65 degrees. For the past three days Noah and I have spent the majority of the day outside in light jackets as the weather has climbed steadily upward from the high 50s. We took a walk in t-shirts today, for gosh sakes. (Well, Lance and Noah wore t-shirts. I wore a sweater because I was in denial. But I was wicked hot.)

It’s so depressing. I actually sat down (outside) to write a blog post about Newt Gingrich and what a dick he is with his pompous hypocrisy and his fucking moon base bullshit, but I got started about the weather and I couldn’t stop because I COULD NOT BELIEVE I was sitting outside writing a blog post on the first day of February. Sorry, Reader. Stay tuned for a long and glorious rant about the GOP candidates and my love affair with free, nationwide healthcare.

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.

1. There’s a load of diapers in the dryer that I haven’t folded and the dirty diaper bag is already full.

2. I look up directions to get somewhere and I have a full understanding of where I’m going and I still get lost.

3. Noah doesn’t nap.

4. Noah throws his food.

5. Noah throws his toys.

6. It’s cloudy, gray, and 34 degrees outside but it still doesn’t snow.

7. The sink is full of dirty dishes.

8. Noah is scared of a new place or new people.

9. I accidentally hear ANY of the asinine words that the GOP candidates are speaking.

10. I’m out of clean underwear.

11. The weekend is so booked it doesn’t feel like a weekend is coming at all.

12. The Zombie Rodents scratch around in the attic.

13. I’ve already had my allotted cup of coffee for the day.

14. Lance has to work at night.

15. Jon Stewart is on vacation.

16. We get mailed a Netflix movie that we put in our queue like four years ago and have absolutely no desire to see, and it sits on top of the mantle for three weeks before we give up and decide to send it back without even opening it.

17. Christmas is over and it doesn’t even feel like Christmas ever happened.

18. Leftovers are on the menu.

19. I forget about/can’t find an essential item when I go grocery shopping, and then I have to go back to the store another day before I make dinner that night.

20. The cat sleeps on top of the couch cushions, squishing the cushion with his fat ass and creating a nest of fur.

It’s 97 degrees today, and it might as well be 97 million.  I would rather drink a lukewarm coffee with 10 Splendas in it than step foot outside my air-conditioned house and INTO HELL, but my son is of the opposite opinion, which I do not understand. All his toys are inside in the nice cold air! What is there to even do out there? But he spends half his day going over to the door, banging on it, and looking back at me with a pitiful little face and a whine.

And I’m all, “But the MOSQUITOES.” And he’s all, “Henhhh?” And I’m all “But the HEAT.” And he’s like, “HENHHH!” And I’m all, “But the HUMIDITY!” And he’s all, “Listen woman, open this damn door before I break it down.”

So as I was sitting outside with Noah yesterday, swatting bugs away, miserably fanning myself, and dipping my feet into the kiddie pool WHICH HE WILL NOT GET INTO ALREADY, I got to thinking, there have to be SOME good things about this god-awful season. I remember liking it when I got out of school for two and a half months, but surely there’s something else to like about it now those days are gone. I came up with a short list for you, Reader. Maybe it can help you, too, make peace with the summer.

1. Summer thunderstorms, but only if they don’t bring tornadoes along with them (2011 SUMMER FAIL)
2. Fourth of July fireworks
3. Summer squash
4. Fried green tomatoes
5. Really, anything from the garden
6. The beach, for those summers we are lucky enough to pull ourselves together, drive approximately eight hours, and get to one
7. Breezy summer nights
8. Sangria (this should really be number One)
9. Fireflies
10. Lance’s birthday
11. Swimming/boating/snorkeling
12. Sundresses

I think that’s all. And as you can see, most of these are either water-related (which makes you feel cooler), or food-related (which makes me feel better). My WINTER list, however, would be endless. I think it’s a testament to how much I long for winter that I unwittingly found myself singing Noah to sleep last night with Christmas songs.

((sigh)) Five more months. I don’t think I’ll make it.

Noah’s been getting on my ever-lovin’ last nerve. (That’s a southernism, y’all.) I didn’t think he’d ever annoy me. See he’s got those big brown eyes and that dimple and those cheeks that just drip sugar all the time (another southernism for you). People told me it would happen; I was fairly warned that it would happen, yet I didn’t believe. My son? My perfect, sweet, wonderful baby boy? I thought, Maybe your son gets on your nerves because he’s not as awesome as my son. But yes, other mothers, you were right. He has found a way. HE HAS FOUND THE THING.

Our story opens every Sunday or Monday (or Tuesday, when I’m putting it off because I loathe what must be done oh so much). I sit down at my computer with various recipe books surrounding me and I painstakingly put together a menu for the week. I keep in mind things like ease of completion on Lance’s part on the nights I have to work, Lance’s and Noah’s likes and dislikes (and my own of course), variety, healthiness, and tastiness, and I come up with five or six meals that I feel everyone in the family should A) enjoy and B) be able to chew regardless of the state of one’s molars. I also try and incorporate one new dish in to every week. This week, for instance, looks like this.

Monday: Macaroni and cheese with cauliflower and roasted tomatoes, peas
Tuesday: Tempeh tacos, refried beans, guacamole
Wednesday: Black bean and quinoa burgers, baked fries
Thursday (make ahead because I have to work): Pizza margherita, kale
Friday (new recipe): Sun dried tomato, pesto, and roasted red pepper panini, sweet potato chips

I write this out so you will see A) how awesome I am and B) how much effort goes into this. I’m not like Monday: McDonald’s, Tuesday: frozen pizza, Wednesday: Chinese takeout, Thursday: leftovers, Friday: fish sticks and canned corn. You know? I just want you to be proud of me, Reader. That’s all I’m tryin’ to say.

After the menu is planned, I get a little note pad and pen and stare at each menu item until all the needed ingredients come to me. It involves walking back and forth from the pantry to the fridge back to the table to the cookbook to the freezer to the table again to make sure I have certain ingredients and how much, and if I need more. Then I rearrange all the ingredients into a comprehensive list since I so hate grocery shopping. I want all the produce together, all the dairy together, all the baking items together, etc, so I can blow through that hell hole without losing my sanity. I really can’t tell you what happens in the canned food aisle if I have to go down it a second time. BECAUSE NO ONE CAN PROVE THAT WAS ME.

Step whatever this is: The Grocery Store. (DUNH-DUNH-DUNH) Some days, like today, I’m lucky*. I convince Lance that it would be a good idea for us to eat lunch at Whole Foods so I can combine the looming, harrowing task with something I love, like eating. Then Lance can take his computer and work at the cafe while Noah and I do the shopping.

The only other thing about groceries I’ll say is this. Please don’t think I’m complaining because it is our choice to buy food from the local, organic grocer and occasionally Whole Foods and occasionally the Kroger Organic Market (which is one aisle and makes shopping a difficult compromise but at least over quickly). But it is part of the story, so here it is. Buying organic, healthy food is expensive. Like, whoa. Like, thankfully we are able to do it, but it does mean sacrificing in other areas. Just keep this in mind for later. Thank you.

After I have all the groceries I need, I start on dinner. We try to eat between 6:30 and 7 so Noah can go to bed around 8:30. Which means I start cooking around 5:30, or sometimes 5, depending on what I’m making and how long pizza dough needs to rise, etc. Sometimes I even start cooking early in the day, if it requires beans cooking all day or bread baking or something. But on average, 5:30. The kitchen looks crazy by the time I’m finished, but it’s the price I have to pay and I know Lance will clean it up. (Correction: I hope Lance will clean it up. Love you, babe. The dishwasher is empty, by the way. Ready to be filled. Any time anyone around here might want to fill it. Any time, yessir, just any old time. Whenever.)

We set the table and put all the food out and sit down to dinner and help Noah blow on his tiny bites which are on his tiny plate and being speared by his tiny fork in his tiny hand, and he happily eats somewhere in the neighborhood of ONE BITE, and from then on it just goes straight ONTO THE DAMN FLOOR.

And there it is, Reader, the thing with which I do not know how to cope. After every. thing. I. did. to. bring. that. boy. the. food. that. is. currently. being. gobbled. up. by. the. dog. Which would be a compliment coming from anyone WHO DIDN’T LICK HER OWN BUTTHOLE. It is just the most infuriating thing to me. It’s the waste, the money I could be wadding up and flushing down the toilet instead. It’s the time and effort it took me to plan for it and shop for it and cook it. And it’s also the fact that all that nutrition, all the food that needs to be growing his little body, is now down there on the rug and not bringing vitamins to his vital organs. It’s the stereotype of it all, too. You know, the kid covered in spagetti, sauce on the walls, meatballs stuck between his toes, noodles in his hair, noodles all over the mom and dad… it’s that funny little image we’ve all seen. Every parent knows it’s coming when they have kids. They joke about it. Ha! The kid will throw his food. Hilarious. Cute.

BUT IT IS TURNING ME INTO THE SHE-HULK. The stay-at-home, cooking and cleaning, 2011 version of Leave it to Beaver’s mom, friggin’ Hulk. I don’t know what to do about it. He’s too young to know better. To him it’s way more fun to throw food than eat it. I can tell him to stop all night, but it doesn’t mean anything to him. It’s just his developmental phase and I know it will eventually pass but in the meantime, I see a new FLEET of gray hairs popping up at my temple, and my left eye and a vein in my forehead are now permanently engorged and protruding hideously from the rest of my face. I had no idea I would be so utterly annoyed by this seemingly little and certainly normal thing, but for some reason I can’t figure out how to let it go.

Also, does anyone else find it horrifyingly ironic that we go to great lengths to feed our son healthy, nutritious, organic foods that he won’t touch other than to smash with his utensils and hands and that the dog eventually laps up off the floor, yet all day long I’m digging bits of toilet paper and crayon and dried up leaves out of his clenched jaws? WHAT GIVES, KID?

*What I mean is, lucky other than a few moments of blazing un-luckiness. Like A) the moment I completely lost my mind and decided since my hands were full of lettuce and kale I’d just push the cart with my belly, resulting in an out-of-control cart zooming across the produce section with Noah inside looking worried, which then crashed into the potatoes and gave my poor son whiplash and caused him to almost start crying, and I ran over and hugged him and told him I was sorry but I was sort of laughing at the same time, and some guy walked by and said “WHOA, that was a boom” and probably called child protective services on the way out. And B) the moment when Noah dropped his soggy, half-eaten orange slice from the sample bin onto the floor beside the bulk items and I casually walked away after looking around to make sure no one was watching. Oh, and C) the moment Noah coughed and spluttered Rich Aged English Cheddar all across the dairy aisle. And my personal favorite, D) the moment I gave him a bag of black beans to play with while I perused the umpteen varieties of yogurt and he threw it on the floor, it burst open, and black beans went EVERYWHERE, and I just decided, Screw the yogurt, and we ran for it. When we were hiding safely three aisles away I saw a special team of employees with brooms marching over to where the Black Bean-pocolypse had happened, and it was then I decided we’d done enough damage, and we’d better bounce before any other unlucky events took place.

Last night Lance and I were in a feverishly heated discussion about these articles I had been reading about abortion. (Not heated with each other, but heated on the same side against… THE ENEMY.) (Couldn’t think of another way to put that.) And abortion! It’s not like we were in a heated discussion about the merits of running vs. swimming for a healthy heart or the taste of sugary vs. salted peanut butter. Why I chose right before bed to read articles which I KNEW were going to infuriate me I can’t quite explain. I really don’t like feeling angry, even righteously so. Promise. And I realize it was particularly unfair of me to take my pile of pre-bedtime anger and dump it into my poor husband’s lap, but I didn’t know what else to do with it. I needed him to share the load. It’s not my fault! (Ok, it is, but don’t tell Lance.)

Actually, discussing it didn’t help. I should probably have just quietly smoldered with fury for a few minutes. Maybe my impassioned anger would have turned into sex, which definitely would have been better than the two of us, side by side looking at the ceiling, yelling about how stupid everyone is in the whole wide world. I should have. But I didn’t. And instead of halving my ball of indignation, I doubled it, because I still had mine and now Lance was all angry too. Really I tripled it, because discussing it actually made me feel doubly worse.

And you know how discussions go in which you feel super passionate, they just escalate. Like we start talking about one thing, which leads to how we feel about another thing, which leads to how defiant we are about this other thing, and every sentence ends with some variation of ANDJUSTWHODOTHEYTHINKTHEYARE!, so by the end we’re just furious and sad and feel sort of helpless.

I don’t know if you have ever tried relaxing enough to fall asleep after feeling your blood boil within your veins, but I am here to say that it is not so easy. So after a while Lance was like, “I’m depressed,” and I was like “I’m still SO MAD, like whoa.” I tried to laugh. I was thinking, maybe I’ll just laugh at that senator from Georgia who wrote a bill that demands each miscarriage be investigated to make sure it was accidental. It’s funny, right? I mean there is no way in hell anyone is going to let this bill be passed. And, I reasoned, maybe it is so crazy people will find other, milder versions of this guy also crazy. Which would be good! So I’m like, trying to laugh, and my laughter quickly turns maniacal, which quickly turns into more screaming at the ceiling. (In fact, I’m trying to type this paragraph faster than my brain can pay attention to what my fingers are saying so I don’t get REALLY FUCKING PISSED OFF all over again. Plese disregarrd all typoes.)

In other words, Lance was depressed at the state of the world, and I was ready to climb onto the roof with a megaphone so I could preach to all of East Nashville, and neither of those feelings are healthy for purposes of peaceful sleep.

So I go, “Do you know any jokes? I could really use a joke.” Lance turns onto his stomach and hugs the pillow sleepily and mumbles, “Three guys walk into a bar. You’d figure the second one would have ducked. And… uh… the third one? Um… was uh… blind.” I’m silent for a few seconds before I’m like, “That was the worst joke I’ve ever heard. First, it wasn’t funny. Second, you messed it up.” So he’s like, “Ok, ok, ok. A rabbi, a priest, and an… um… an electrician walk into a bar and the bartender says, ‘Is this a joke?’” And I’m all, “An electrician? That’s not the way it goes.” Lance is all, “Sure, it doesn’t matter what that third guy is.” And I’m like, “Chyeah, what would an electrician do in a joke? It’s supposed to go, ‘A rabbi, a priest, and a blonde walk into a bar.’” And Lance is like, “I think an electrician is just as arbitrary as a blonde.”

And I’m like, “You are no help at all. You need to learn some jokes and how to tell them before I read anything else.”

I just made this corn and chili chowder recipe I found from The Pioneer Woman, who I always think I can out-spice, and then I’m wrong and I suffer the consequences to my shame. I’m like a guy when it comes to how much heat I can stand; I can’t let anyone beat me. I’ll accept any challenge, too, and I’ll try and act all manly about it, not reaching for my glass of ice water even when my eyes are watering and smoke starts coming out of my ears. The Pioneer Woman said to put in two chipotle peppers, and I was all, I need to put in THREE chipotle peppers. That’s just how I roll, y’all. It’s my own fault really.

Just like that time I bought a bag of Habenero chips at my favorite deli. My dad was with me, and he got some too. I wasn’t even worried about it. After the first chip, my dad and I are like, “Oh yeah, that’s some decent heat! Yum!” Then the third chip hurt a little more, and my dad and I were playing chicken like, who’s gonna wuss out and grab their water first? The fifth chip blinded me for three days. Lance had rolled up his t-shirt and was patting out flames that were erupting spontaneously all over my body. My dad was openly weeping. It was a dark day in our household, y’all. It’s embarrassing, really. We were defeated by a bag of potato chips. And that bag of chips remains on a pedestal in my mind. In fact, at the supermarket the other day I reached for a block of “Habenero cheddar,” like a kid in a candy store, my eyes all aglow. I actually touched it with my finger before the memory of the chips reached out from behind it and slapped me upside the head. I backed away, slowly.

So I just made this soup, and I took one bite of it and my tongue exploded in flames. It was all we had for dinner, so I managed to eat the whole bowl, and I figured hey, I just lost my tongue anyway, right? But now I’m sitting here wondering if I should prepare myself for some major painful burning shits later on tonight.

And speaking of going to Hell…Dude. Church is hard.

Oh man, sometimes I make myself laugh, like just now. What a segue! I didn’t even MEAN to do that, it just happened so organically. Lordy.

Yesterday Lance, Noah, and I all got dressed up (which for us means we got out of our respective pajamas and work-out clothes) and went downtown to visit this church. It was the second time we visited an Episcopal church since Noah’s been old enough to really look around and try to talk to people. I really like the Episcopal church. I believe in what they stand for, which is really a blog post for another day, so I’ll just leave it at that for now. And they’re the only church that is openly accepting of the GLBT community, and that is very important to me. But the thing with Episcopal church is, they’re quiet. I guess the expectation is that people put their kids in the nursery, but Lance and I really are not ok with that yet. I don’t know those people, and they don’t know Noah. Maybe I’ll do that when he’s older and I can at least explain what’s going on: that we’re going to worship Jesus (yes, that one! The one that loves you!) in a place that kids are not welcome.

I’ll pause for the irony to sink in.

But for now, we just keep him with us. For those of you who have never been to a liturgical service before, let me paint a picture of what this is like for you. While I balance a squirmy baby on my hip, I have a hymnal in one hand and the program in the other. The program tells you what hymn, Bible passage, or prayer is going to be next. I find this difficult because the whole time I’m singing one hymn and trying to keep Noah from destroying the pages, I’m thinking if I don’t look back at the program to see what’s next, I’m going to be behind by like half a recitation and I’m going to look like a TOOL. So I’m like passing the baby to Lance, who has to pass him back, and I put him on the floor, and I’m turning to what I THINK is the right page in the prayer book only to realize what we’re reading now is in a different book altogether, and by that time I look back down at the floor and Noah is missing.

SHIT.

Where is he? I put down the 15 books that I’ve been balancing under my nose and find him crawling up the aisle toward the alter, so I reach down and scoop him up and head back to our pew and stand, but everyone else is sitting. So we sit, and Lance and I are sitting there like dipwads for like 30 seconds before we realize that everyone is actually KNEELING now, and that’s what it’s like until the preaching portion, when we have like 20 minutes of trying to keep Noah from crumpling paper, hollering, and throwing pencils at the backs of peoples’ heads. Then it’s sitting/reciting/singing/kneeling time all over again.

Just you know, for example.

The worst part is, you go to church to worship God. And amongst all of that, it occurs to me that very little actual WORSHIP is going on here for me. It begs the question, why am I even doing this?

So at the very quiet liturgical service yesterday, Noah wasn’t crying or fussing, just kind of talking. The thing is, all the grown-ups were talking too; he just doesn’t know when to say “And also with you” or “It is right to give Him thanks and praise” yet. So when the priest says “Let’s all be painfully, inhumanly silent for an unnecessarily long time” Noah is all like “DAA! DAAAA?” And it’s in a cathedral, so the sound of his little voice is like bouncing off the ceiling and all around the room. Which he isn’t used to, and which is very cool. So he does it again, only louder this time. It didn’t make me feel self-conscious at first, because there was a woman behind us with a kid who was just learning to talk, and had no concept of “whispering,” which is what she kept whispering for him to do. She’d be like “Whisper, baby, ok? This is a whispering place.” And he’d be all, “WHY MOM?” (And the echo follows: WHY! WHY! WHY!)

Yeah, they left after like 10 minutes. So then Noah was, I swear, the only child left in the whole building.

I read this quote one time that most young adults dislike children because they are, get this: selfish.

I’ll pause again, for the irony to sink in.

When I read that I about pissed myself laughing. What a bunch of bitches we are, right? And I was just thinking, while I was in church, how patient my little Bubbs was being. Just talking, looking around, not putting up a fuss or anything. I mean at what point did our society expect children to be quiet and still for something long and boring like church? Do you remember how boring church used to be when you were a kid, Reader? Do you remember how boring it still sometimes is?

Well, right before the Eucharist, during another wonderful opportunity of silence, Noah lets out an awesomely awesome raspberry, and this woman a few pews in front of us turns around and GLARES at us. Like, full-on lip curl and everything. Like, HOW DARE YOU interrupt the reverent reflection of my oh-so-sensitive freakin’ heart in this house of worship.

Again, I’ll pause. You know the drill.

I was so shocked I just smiled at her, and she turned back around. I gave the back of her head a barfing face (which I for some reason thought would make me feel better, but which did not) and then nudged Lance, and we left.

How much does this suck, Reader? I felt unwelcome at church because of my baby. And clearly, the mama behind us with the toddler felt the same. But just letting Noah make noise and crawl around is disruptive and, as some clearly think, disrespectful. So what’s the solution? Throw your kids in a germ-infested nursery with a bunch of other kids and adults that don’t know you from the man in the moon and only care about your kid insomuch as they feel it is their Christian duty to watch after him while you abandon him, confused and probably crying, so you can sit for an hour in relative silence? Or just don’t come until your kid is old enough to appreciate the sermon and the liturgy and not make wet fart sounds during communion? Both seem unfair to Noah and to us.

It makes me wonder what the New-Testament church looked like. I don’t recall any of Paul’s letters addressing the ever-so-offensive issue of letting children be children while his parents worship the Lord. It’s us who have evolved the Church into what it is today, right? Don’t you read about Jesus’ sermons and think maybe it wasn’t so quiet? Weren’t there crowds? Probably babies and definitely kids? Possibly even a flock or two of goats? I’m just thinking the noise level had to be pretty obnoxious, and I can’t see Jesus turning around and giving any mothers a nasty look, like, Can’t you keep that brat quiet!? I’m TRYING to tell the WORLD about being at PEACE with one another. SHEEEZ!

I mean is it just me? Or is it at all strange to you, too, that we have this man-made ritual that we call church, where we come for an hour or so on Sunday morning, sing a few songs, read a few passages, take communion, and listen to someone teach, but we consider children being themselves, just the way God made them: inquisitive, talkative, impatient… some kind of rude impertinence? Didn’t Jesus say the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to children and people who are like children?

But grown-ups are all like, stop acting the way God created you to act; you’re messing up my ability to worship God.

I would pause for the irony to sink in y’all, but I’m done here.

Well, I’ve kind of avoided this. This crazy thing happened to me last week and I kind of just want to put it behind me, which is why I hadn’t written it all down for you to gasp and ogle at, Reader. See, even though what I write is totally for y’all, it’s really for me. Some day when I’m old (and bored) I’ll look back over these blog posts, and there are only so many negative experiences I want to relive.

So I won’t tell you the whole story; I’ll sum up. Before I do, though, you need to know something. On the RAREST of occasions, I MAY have SLIGHTLY exaggerated a point or two on this blog, for the sake of humor. SO RARE, though. Really. Anyway, you should know that even I have a line. (You guys who have read about my sex life are going, “OMG, the rapture happened and I’m still here, I knew it.”) And that line would be crossed if what I am about to tell you wasn’t 100%, swear on my grandma’s grave, the God’s honest truth. Last week, my unbalanced neighbor came over and screamed at me OVER PARKING. He said a lot of things that start with the letter “f” and sound like FUCK YOU YOU DUMB FUCKING DEMOCRAT FUCKER I’LL FUCK UP YOUR CAR FUCK FUCK, and I was too shocked to say anything except “Calm down!” and “Shut up!” which in retrospect, I wish had been accompanied by a swift kick in the privates. It was crazy, and it made me angry, until he said, “I hope your son dies.”

[Built-in pause for gasping and ogling.]

You may wonder, as I did, how he knew about my political affiliation, and why he thought it was an insult to hurl across my yard like that, and you may further wonder who on God’s earth would say something so horribly demonic about a baby and what in hell point it served. My friends tell me it’s all because I drive a Prius. You may wonder, as I did, “Say whu-huh?” But there is no answer for you, Reader, nor for me. As my one friend put it, “This is how we know that meth is bad. It’s a good lesson for Noah.”

So I’m done telling you about that, except to say that my annoyance ended when he brought my baby into it. I considered it a threat, called the police, spoke to the guy’s landlady, and basically experienced a level of anger so intense I can only say it must be in the same realm as (or somehow the opposite of) euphoria. I’ve never been on the OTHER side of anger before, where I had no desire for instant retaliation. I wanted to sit on it, plotting my revenge so that it was evil and sweet.

I’ll let you know when I come up with something.

Just kidding.

No, I’m not.

Anyway, I was almost over it, y’all. I mean any time I think about it my eyes turn red and two horns sprout up out of the sides of my head, but mostly I was better and not fantasizing about running him over with my Democrat-Mobile, WITH WHICH HE WOULD NEVER HEAR ME COMING, but then today more Slime from beneath the Rock of Humanity slithered out and oozed all over us, and it just brought back all the negativity that The Incident gave me. We were just taking a walk through the PUBLIC GOLF COURSE that sits behind our house, enjoying the pleasant breeze and commenting on how many butterflies were fluttering around, and some guy took offense that he HAD to wait on us when he so desperately wanted to whack his ball RIGHT THEN. (PUN INTENDED, Y’ALL.) He went all crazy and started telling us we could walk around in another park, and he called Lance a jackass!

So now, on the second Asshole Day in a week, I’ve been doing some contemplating. Y’all know how I get. What is it in some people that receives a kind of self-affirmation by making other people feel bad? When that guy on the golf course yelled at us, I couldn’t help but wonder if he’s going through some kind of crisis in his own life right now. He was all alone; was he feeling lonely? Did his wife just leave him? Did he just lose his job? Or maybe it’s simpler than that; maybe someone cut him off in traffic, and it made him feel devalued. And because he was still dealing with that rejection, spreading his misery was the only way he thought he could get some oxygen. Same thing with my neighbor. What kind of stuff must he be dealing with that he found solace in wishing death upon an innocent baby boy?

When The Incident with the Neighbor happened, Lance mentioned that on top of everything else, it was inconvenient, and that is really true. We spent our entire day (and the rest of last week, really) dealing with him, and thinking about him and what he had said to us. It was demoralizing. And today, I realized the same thing was happening. As we walked away from the Angry Paunchy Putter, I realized even though my day up to that point had been perfectly lovely, he managed to put me in a foul mood. I felt defensive, angry, and hurt, and so did Lance.

And you know what they say, don’t you? You know what assuming does? It makes an ass out of you and… oh wait, no not that one. Hurt people hurt people. When you’re ugly to someone, it can change their attitude for, at the very least, the rest of that day. They are more likely to snap at someone else because they’re carrying around YOUR crap inside their head. You don’t want to do that to someone, do you gentle Reader? I mean, is it really that difficult to just smile at someone and say, “Hey man, I hope you have a really great day.” Maybe you want to say, “HOW DARE YOU CALL MY HUSBAND A JACKASS IN FRONT OF OUR KID YOU SON OF A BITCH,” run over to his pudgy ass and beat him senseless with his own golf club, but you don’t. Because you know that if you’re kind to him, maybe he’ll be kind to someone else, and someone else will be kind, and that someone else will end up being someone you interact with at the coffee shop, and that someone else will be kind to you.

Can we all just do this, please? Reader, can you do this for me? So I can bring up my son in a calmer, more loving environment? I’ll bake you some cookies if you’ll just love your neighbor.

And you should know that I bake awesome cookies. I’m not exaggerating, promise.

Just some thoughts I’ve been having lately, y’all. Humor me. Or skip this blog post if you’re lame.

I’m beautiful. I just realized it recently, I think when I was pregnant maybe. Somehow the flaws that always seemed so glaringly obvious, the acne, the gigantic nose, that one crooked tooth, the part of my butt that hung out from my panties… I guess they became muted by the glowing ember inside my chest that meant I was going to have a baby. Pregnant people are gorgeous; it’s just one of those facts of life. And this is true even though my pregnancy swole my face up like I’d just won first prize in a national Chubby Bunny competition.

So, I’m beautiful. Despite the flaws that still exist, and some new ones post-pregnancy, that yes, make me roll my eyes when I pass my reflection, I can honestly say that overall I’m pleased with my appearance.

I think this is so significant to me now because for about 25 years, my self-image was so damaging. I’d cringe inside whenever I hugged a woman smaller than me (this includes most of the female population, and I’m pretty sure all of my personal girl friends) because I felt like such an Amazon. Like, ARRRG I AM HUGE; HUG ME AND POSSIBLY BE PULVERIZED BY MY GIRTH. More importantly than the way I felt around women was the way I felt around men. Not only did I not think any guy would want to date me, I didn’t even think good-looking guys would want to be friends with me. It’s warped, I know, but it’s how much my identity began and ended with how I thought others saw me.

I wish I could go back. I’d tell myself never to listen to any guy who made me feel ugly by telling me to “lose the glasses,” or that I could never be a supermodel. I’d stand straight instead of hunching over, because my height is wicked-awesome! I’d stop believing I’m this ugly duckling that might one day turn into a swan. I’m no ugly duckling, and I think I’m no swan either. There are about a million varieties of bird to choose from, and thank God everyone doesn’t fit securely in one of those two categories.

I wonder how differently my life might have been if I had known from the beginning that 5′10″ is not too tall, and 150 pounds is not fat. I think I would have lived a lot fuller, if that makes sense. The good news is I figured it out, and I’m only 27, which means I’ve got the rest of my life to live with the knowledge that I’m beautiful. I bet some women go through their whole life never knowing.

Fuck the Ugly Duckling! I propose that there is no such thing. I hope you can see your beauty, Reader, and radiate confidence today.