Booby Boycott

So you know how I mentioned that pretty much my only saving grace in Punky waking up every three hours is the fact that I can quickly and painlessly nurse her and put her back to sleep quickly? Yeah. Damn those blog gods, because in a stroke of coincidence and irony, she has decided she's over the Almighty Boob.

I don't know what the deal is. She's not teething. She's not sick. It's not anything I ate or didn't eat, because as soon as I pump milk, she's cool with that. It's the boob. It's my boob. She's over it.

It started a few days ago when she decided that the only proper way to nurse was by RIPPING OFF MY TIT with her six RAZOR SHARP FANGS. And then she was demanding it less and less. Cool, I thought. And then over the course of yesterday and last night, she went on complete Boob Boycott. She is on strike. She has let me no in no uncertain terms to put my milkbags away. She's a picket sign short of entirely cutting off relations with my bosom.

Thankfully, she's not totally anti-nipple. After decrying The Bottle for over four months, she's now back to that method, and totally cool with it. So basically, I'm still breastfeeding right now, using the pump as a middleman because after going overnight without nursing, I woke up with Pam Anderson Boobs of Agony and a drenched shirt. Freaking sweet.

I'm sorry to probably 2/3 of my readers (that's 2 of the 3 people that read my blog) who really don't care about this, or my breasts. But smile and know that I think I'm going to get a little deeper than the usual poop jokes over the next month. WAHOO, NaBloPoMo!

Peer pressure, sleepless nights, and hey, a year!

After listening to my mom rant on the phone last night about how I am "so talented with words, like Tina Fey, it's a shame [I] can't find a way to capitalize on it," I've decided to try to actually get more involved with my blog instead of the occasional, "Oh hey, I still have that thing?" And what better way than to jump on board with that sexy Miss Nutcase and get involved with National Blog Posting Month? Sound groovy. It is. It's very groovy, baby.

So, though it's still a smidge early, I'm going to kick things off by announcing that Punky has begun boycotting sleep, thus quickly zapping my will to live. I think back with wistful fondness of my selfish college days where I'd pass out and sleep oh, I don't know, more than three hours in a row? Or sleep in past 8? Man. Those were good days.

I sometimes wonder if someday Punky will discover my blog, most likely when she's 15 and hating the world and me, and read everything I wrote about her and come storming through the house screaming, "YOU HATE ME!!! YOU ALWAYS HATED ME!!! I READ YOUR BLOG AND YOU CAN'T DENY IT!!!" So I'm going to take this moment to speak directly to Punky of the Future and tell her this: I love you more than life itself. You are the greatest love of my life and my life is so much better with you in it. But good god-DAMN, kid, I miss sleep.

The thing that sucks is that she's so damn sporatic about it. Some nights she'll sleep straight through til 8 a.m. Some nights she gets up every two hours like a freaking Swiss clock. Part of me almost wishes that if she's going to be up 3-4 times a night, at the very least she could just be regular about it because it throws my entire internal clock through the ringer when she does this.

And I'm not against crying it out. I'm not. But damnit, it's just so much easier to stumble into her room, whip out a boob, and let her get it over with and go back to bed -- all taking a grand total of about 10 minutes. Otherwise it'll be the routine of Screaming Tortured Punky for hours on end, while A and I both try to pretend to sleep while quickly stealing glances at each other of "Are you going to get her? Should I get her? We should get her." In the meantime, Punky is getting so upset and worked up that she then cannot fall asleep at all. And nobody sleeps. I've tried Crying It Out. It doesn't work for us. Not right now anyway.

She fights naps with a fury unknown to infants, but she does eventually sleep. I think my kid just hates sleep, further enforcing my belief that this is not my child. Paternity isn't even a question, since she's A's mini-me, but how could I spawn a child that doesn't like sleep? Doesn't she realize how amazing it is? Because I haven't had a solid night's sleep in over nine months, and I sure as shit miss it.

Seriously. Lack of quality REM sleep is killing my soul. Even more than my atheist rants.

And hey, tomorrow's Halloween, which means it's been a whole year since A and I took off for Vegas and got hitched in a tiny little wedding chapel on the strip (but tastefully done, thankyouverymuch). So of course I must profess my undying love to A, the greatest non-baby love of my life, my best friend, my baby daddy, my partner in crime. He doesn't read my blog, but I'm just putting that out there, too. It's been an amazing year with a man who is my greatest friend and an incredible father. I love you, you dirty old man.

Come and knock on our door.

As I have mentioned in past diatribes, A and I have some pretty interesting neighbors, ranging from Crazy Cat Guy to Kidney Boy, to Formerly Fat Guy (who did a lot of walking and lost a lot of weight, go him) to Single Old Lady. In case you're not noticing the pattern, we're terribly antisocial and don't actually know any of them, or their names. Sometimes we smile and nod at them, but I won't lie... we keep to ourselves for the most part. If A went crazy and killed me and hid my body in the freezer in the garage, we're the people whose neighbors would all tell the news reporter, "They were just really quiet, really kept to themselves..."

But it could be worse. It could be like my neighbors back in my broke college days at my old apartment, when all I could afford on my poor college student, part-time server wages was an apartment on the more... um... economical side of the spectrum. You get what you pay for, even with neighbors. I've tried to block out most of them, but when I really try, the memories come back. Unfortunately. There's a reason I drank heavily back then...

I was living by myself, and it was my first time really off on my own. On the day I moved into my apartment, I met Kevin, who would become known to me and my friends as Kreepy Kevin. Kevin was weird. When I remember Kevin, I always remember him in the same pit-stained gray t-shirt and gray sweatpants and house slippers. At all times of the day. I can say with a relative amount of certainty that I don't think he worked. Occasionally, I would catch Kevin walking around the apartment building muttering to himself. Sometimes he was angry, sometimes just chatting. But always muttering.

Kevin was a hoarder. Like, you know those documentaries you catch on TLC from time to time about those people who have just one tiny 6"-wide walkway through their apartment that's otherwise filled from floor to ceiling with newspapers, kitty litter, Rubbermaid containers, dreamcatchers and corpses? Yeah, that was Kevin. I only caught a glimpse of it once as I was walking past his apartment door when he'd left the door open, but it was staggering. Combined with the fact that I was pretty sure Kevin was a serial killer, it filled in whatever blanks I may have had regarding my questions of his mental stability.

Kevin was scary. The day I moved in, I smiled and said hello, and was met with an icy stare. That was pretty much the only response I ever got from him.

Then there were the Ethiopians who lived in the apartment above mine. There were like six adults living in a one-bedroom apartment (at least that I could keep count of... there were probably more), along with children whom I could never assign to parents. Living in cramped quarters can cause tension, as was noticed by their CONSTANT fighting. LOUDLY. On the balcony. In the bathroom (theirs was right above mine). In the bedroom (awesome when I had guests of the male persuasion over). In the hallway. In the parking lot. Constantly fighting in a loud, foreign language.

They'd get angry and scream and fight. They'd throw things off the balcony... which is how I attained the delightfully ethnic blanket that serves as Bodhi's bed now... and then they'd fuck on the balcony as loud as they fought. I'm not quite sure how that worked out, with all the little children running around the apartment, and I don't know who was hooking up with who. It was pretty much just all one big love-hate apartment.

My next-door neighbor, I'm fairly certain, was a hooker, and she was usually high on... something. I don't know what, but her apartment always smelled funny when I walked past. I'd often catch her sneaking into her apartment with some random unsavory gentleman, and then would hear them having sex. I think everyone in the immediate surrounding area was having sex except me, really. And then I'd hear the door slam, and hear the man leave.

There was the time the Hooker got really drunk and locked herself out of our building. This is when I was still relatively naive, and believed I could leave my balcony door open at night since, after all, I was on the second floor. Wrong. I woke up to Bodhi barking and I heard someone crashing through my apartment. Details aside, it was Hooker, who had climbed onto my balcony and was drunkenly/stonedly (is that a word?) stumbling through my apartment trying to get through to the hallway to her apartment. Freaked? Yeah, I was a little. I moved not too long after that.

Another really neat feature of my apartment complex that nobody told me about on the tour was the homeless woman who would pick through our trash, then ride away on her motorized wheelchair with a child (or was it a midget? Hard telling...) sitting on her lap. I would have left her groceries or something, but she had a fondness for screaming random strings of obscenities at me, calling my mother a whore, and then stumbling around mumbling incoherently. I really didn't want to fuck with her though, since there was a pretty strong chance that she'd key my car or something.

I mean, all of these experiences make you a better person, yes? It makes me thankful that the worst of my neighborly problems is that sometimes Kidney Boy blasts his music too loud, or Creepy Cat Guy's cats somehow mysteriously get in the house yet again. At least I don't share a building with them.

Just call me Susie Homemaker.

As A and I have been redecorating the house, I have had set visions of what I have wanted each room to look like. And, much to my husband's chagrin, I don't wander far from my vision. I don't compromise just because I see something "kinda sort close" at Bed, Bath & Beyond. I know what I wanted and damnit, surely it must exist, because it exists in my dreams of my perfect couch with perfect throw pillows and artwork.

But clinging so desperately to my dreams comes at a cost -- it usually means I stomp out of Pier 1 in the midst of a tantrum while muttering, "IKEA would have what I want!" and then whining the whole drive home about how I wish we had an IKEA here... Don't care how, I want it nowwwww... *falls down the tube*

So God bless my wonderful husband for getting me the greatest anniversary present ever -- a beautiful Brother VX-1435 sewing machine. So now I can finally make the throw pillows I've envisioned, the perfect curtains to finish my kitchen visions, and other household things I keep grumbling that I want. And despite spending almost an hour struggling to thread the sewing machine and angrily muttering at the inanimate object to "eat a cock" -- I finally got my projects up and running, starting with throw pillows for the couch:


As much as A grumbles that he doesn't understand why I kept all the decor from my old apartment, it paid off. I still had a shitton of throw pillows still in vacuum-sealed bags in the basement, so I just had to sew slip covers for them:


That's also our new couch, by the way. The Ball Stink couches are gone forever! It's insanely comfortable and the throw pillows make it perfect for crashing on.

Our other project this past weekend was carving pumpkins. Halloween is kind of a big deal in our house -- it is both A's and my favorite holiday, to the point that it also doubles as our anniversary. (Hey, it meant I'd never have to remind him of upcoming anniversaries.) So we hiked on over to the local farm market and picked out pumpkins:


And we got to carving. I admit, I used a kit, and I worked pretty diligently on it. I'm pretty proud of how mine turned out. A, however, apparently had a different artistic vision.


I married a child.

Tax dollars hard at work.

(Note: Addresses have obviously been changed, but are the same level of similarity to the real addresses used.)

*pounding on the door -- dog barks, napping baby wakes up, annoyed How2 trudges to the door, pissed that her morning nap has been abruptly ended. Police officer standing on the front step.*

How2: *opens door* Hi...
Officer: Yeah, we had a 911 hang-up from this address.
How2: I don't think that's possible, we don't have a land line, and I haven't made any phone calls on my cell phone yet today.
Officer: This is 4010 Helen Avenue, right?
How2: No, this is 4012 Hannah Avenue. Helen is the next street up.
Officer: There's no 4010 on this street. [Ed. note: Our house is 4012, the next house over is 4008. There is no 4010, that's correct.]
How2: Right. This is 4012 HANNAH.
Officer: *looking at me like I'm lying to him* You're sure?
How2: *looks at 4012 address numbers on front of the house* Yep.
Officer: *wanders back to his car*

Fall in the (sort of) City.

Today is Punky's 8 month birthday, and to celebrate I took her out to a local park and tried to pretend I was a real photographer, with my little point-n-shoot camera. A year ago, A and I shot our engagement photos in the same park with the same beautiful fall lighting. Okay, so Olivia Fey I am not, but give me a break, I lack the Nikon and was a one-woman photo-shooting, baby-entertaining show.

Place your bets.

A brief discussion between A and I this morning:

A (to Punky): "And maybe when you're a big sister..."
Me: "It's cute that you're talking about having more."
A: "Pshaw..."
Me: "I bet the next one'll be another girl, then you'll be sorry!"
A: "I think I'd be okay with that."

So where are you gonna place your bets?

1.) That A and I have another kid -- far, far off in the future if we do?
2.) That it will be another girl?
3.) That A will be eating his words in about 15 years?

The Ballad of the Ball-Stink Couches.

Me and A's wedding anniversary is coming up in just three short weeks, and to celebrate one year of marital mostly-bliss, we celebrated with early presents. I heartily gave A permission to get his Playstation 3 he's been whiiiiiiiiining about for over a year now, especially now that he got the 42" plasma screen TV for his birthday, because the graphics will, as I've been told many times now, "blow your fucking mind". (Anyone familiar with the "If You Give A Mouse A Cookie" story?)

And in return for tolerating him throwing his socks directly in front of the hamper, using my towel to wipe his face with after washing it at night, burping, making that goddamn drip sound with his mouth, and breaking into random old school rap lyrics... *inhale* for a year, A gave me full creative control of selecting new couches for the living room.

HUZZAH!!!

No. You don't understand. I HATE the current couches. They were here long before me, and even then, A got them for free. They stink like balls and stale beer, having survived his bachelor days. There's a board that makes laying on your back under limited stress extremely uncomfortable and bruises your back... (I mean, no, we didn't have sex on the couch!) They're ugly. They don't match my vision of the living room decor. I hate them. So when A told me to "pick a couch, any couch, here's the credit card" -- I made a high-pitched "SQUEEEEEE!" sound and did my happy dance with probably a little too much enthusiasm.

We're picking them up on Sunday. Which gives me two days to get rid of the current couches. And since city ordinance pretty much bars me from SETTING THE MOTHERFUCKERS ON FIRE, I did the next closest thing -- I put them on Craigslist.

Holy shitballs, people. I thought being a waitress led me to lose all faith in humanity, but no, there is Craigslist to set my bar even lower. I advertised the couch and love seat together for $60 and suddenly all sorts of freaks came out of the woodwork. Such gems I've received in my inbox have included:

"HI I WANT COACH N LOVESEAT WILL PAY 50 NO MORE TELL ME ADRESS WILL COME PICKUP."

(Punctuation. You haz none. We won't even touch on the absolute lack of manners. This guy's missing a period more than I was last June.)

"Wat time can I come look/pick it up?"

(That's it. That was the entire email message. The end. One sentence. Vagueness is not your friend! NEXT!)

One person emailed and asked for more detailed pictures, to which I happily obliged. I received this email in response to the pictures:

"Eew never mind."

FUCKING HELL, PEOPLE! It's a couch, and a love seat, both still in decent condition, solid construction, FOR SIXTY DOLLARS!!! You're not going to get luxury here. It is what it is. Beggars can't be choosers -- YOU emailed me asking about the cheapo couches! Fucking whore!

"Very Interested and could pick up on Sunday
would be 1 to 2 pm
would need address."

Would need to use subject verb agreement. Or any subject, really.

A has told me I'm being a judgmental asshole, and ya know, maybe I am. I mean really, what's my level of interaction with these people? They come look at the couch, nod and hand me $60, I count the money, and watch them load the couches and drive away and do a happy dance that they're gone. FINALLY GONE!!! HEEEE!!! So what does it matter that they are barely literate, or have no idea how to interact with people, even in a forum as unstructured as email? Am I an asshole? Probably. But we all already knew that.

In the meantime, I will sit with my feelings of empowerment as I decide just who is worthy of the Ball-Stink Couches.

Deathproof.

Shortly after I gave birth to Punky, back in the doldrums of staying up late boobie-partying til 4 am and hating the world because of it, just about every old lady I encountered would tell me, "Oh enjoy them while they're little, dear, because they grow up so fast!" And I'd smile and nod, while believing that lizards were sitting atop their little white heads and eating their clip-on earrings, because when you're only sleeping ten hours a week, your brain starts to dream up some crazy things, haha, hahahaha, haha, heeeee...

But somewhere amidst my sleep-deprived hallucinations, I scoffed to myself and thought, "Yeah, okay lady," thoroughly convinced that there was no conceivable end to the sleepless nights, the exhausting breastfeeding every 90 minutes game, the tiny little blob that really had no idea who or what I was besides a boob as she stared dizzily into space -- while I secretly loathed my husband and started regretting not just leaving the baby at the hospital and running, running, running...

And then you blink, and she's 8 months old, 17 lbs. heavier and six inches taller, charming and smiley, and you love her more than life itself. And oh yeah, now she's crawling like a pro and getting dangerously talented at cruising. That's the point where you suddenly have on a new set of lenses in your glasses as you look around the house and see DEATHLY DANGERS everywhere you look. Then you Google "baby-proofing your house" and realize that your fears were indeed real, according to the Internets, because clearly, everything in the house WILL KILL YOUR BABY in HORRIBLE, HORRIBLE WAYS. And you are a BAD MOTHER if you don't baby-proof every single conceivable danger in your house.

Up until this point, the closest I'd come to protecting an impaired, thrashing little person was putting my cell phone lock on and deleting my exes' phone numbers before I'd go out drinking. And having never been around babies aside from my little brother (five years my junior), I had no idea what was a bad, bad idea. Like my beautiful silk panel curtains. Didn't think about the issue there until Punky smoothly and quickly pulled them down. Our open, low entertainment center, complete with Gamecube, DVD player, and Dish DVR box all within two feet of the ground? Yeah, that has to go.

The pedestals holding up the speakers to our surround sound? Surely will bludgeon or impale Punk in one foul swoop.

All of A's computer cords strewn on the floor under his computer desk? Somehow make the best kind of chew toy.

The big handle of Jim Beam now full of spare change and probably weighs a good 20 lbs.? Yeah, she pulled that down and by the grace of who-knows-what, avoided smashing her fingers. Bye-bye Jim Beam.

Dog food dish in the kitchen? DELICIOUS.

And I won't even get into the obvious stuff like light sockets and door knobs and all that. Jesus. Like, EVERYTHING will kill your kid in one way or another. Thankfully, I take a lot of the parental warnings with a grain of salt, since most advisories cater to the lowest common denominator -- i.e., leaving your baby in the Bumbo chair on top of a table (on a table? Fucking serious?). Or letting your baby cruise on down the unattended stairs in her walker. Things that most parents, even if they're only vaguely and disinterestedly watching their kids, could stop them in time. Although you're hearing this sage wisdom from the chick who looks away and then glances back up from Perez Hilton to find her daughter chewing on power cords... AGAIN.

(Oh she's fine. A little shock'll just put some pep in her step, right?)

Really, though, I think parents should just ignore child-proofing and just let natural selection take place. I mean, hey, love ya kiddo, but if you think you need to keep licking the light socket... well, it's been nice knowing ya. Hehehe, I mean, I'm kidding, guys, come back, I was just kidding, put down the phone, don't call CPS on me. I wouldn't really let my kid lick the light sockets.

Besides, they're all plugged up with multiple cords to multiple appliances, computers, DVD players, and video game systems. Because let's face it, A and I can't even child-proof ourselves. If that were possible, I wouldn't be eating an entire bag of Doritos and cream cheese frosting for dinner. But I can, and I do, because I'm the mommy and I said so.

No.

I have a headstrong kid. Did you know I could/would produce a headstrong child? Apparently I'm the only one who doubted the possibility since whenever I tell people that Punky is headstrong, it's met with an unimpressed, unsurprised nod, and I swear a few times I've heard a few people whisper under their breath, "Karma."

At almost eight months, she has decided that being told "NO" is blasphemy. Some parents have laid-back kids who just ride along when told no. They find something else to do. "Preoccupy your child with another alternative," say the parenting books. Well a big hearty "fuck you" to the parenting books -- you don't know my kid.

She loves remote controls. That's a big no. Take the remote away, hand her a different toy. OH HELL NO, says the Punky. No matter how tricky I try to be, her big brown eyes follow exactly where the remote goes, and she goes right back after it. Like, I think she is a witch or something because I will hide the remote (the universal is her favorite) somewhere high and out of reach. I could put it outside in the CAR. Give it 20 minutes and she will have somehow found it and stuck it back in her tiny mouth.

Fuck this rattle shit. I want the damn remote, woman!

Even if you tell her "No" in a cautionary tone from across the room, she will freak out. When she goes after shoes, A or I will caution, "Punk... no no..." She sits up. Looks at us, gauges our face to see if we're serious, and upon realizing we are, will continue to sit, and scream. SCREAM.

THE PUNKY SHALL NOT BE CONTAINED!!!

She knows what "no" means, and she knows she wants no part in it. She doesn't know who in the big blue fuck you think you are, but she knows that SHE is the PUNKY. And the Punky does what the Punky wants. Your shoes? They'll be hers. That remote? Hers. That enticing-looking collection of electrical cords? Hers, hers, hers. Want to fight about it? Let's rumble.

Coming up in a related post -- childproofing. Not going so well, actually.

Happy Birthdayversarymas!

I've been terrorizing the internet, expecting and new mothers, and sorority sisters for a whole year now. How2In6 started up exactly a year ago today, as a place for me to vent and tell the tale of a nice girl from a nice family with a nice college degree who suddenly and unexpectedly got pregnant by her crazy red-headed boyfriend, and the hilarity that ensued.

A year later and the little jelly bean of that initial post has gone from this:



To this:



The crazy redheaded boyfriend known to all as A is now my husband and we are on the verge of our first anniversary, having made it a year (two years together) without successfully killing each other.

It's been a crazy year and I'm thankful for those of you who've been along for the ride (and those who've invited me along on their own rollercoasters), thank you for the comments of encouragement, laughing at/with me, and coming back to make sure I haven't died when I fail to blog due to the doldrums of teething. Here's to another year of craziness, obscenity, pissing off my sorority headquarters, and laughing about it all.