Routine, Remix.

In the almost two years since I became a parent, the mundane routine of my life sometimes takes me down a dark and depressing road. But one of my favorite parts of the day is bedtime and immediately after. There's such a finality to the day, the first point since about 8 am that I've been able to inhale and exhale in the same second, and can stop and look back at another day down -- good, bad or ugly, it's done.

The bedtime routine itself is predictable and set. Diapers are changed, fish are bed, last call bottles are dispensed (yeah, she still has a bedtime bottle... we're working on it). Sophie Bears are summoned and snuggled into and last kisses are doled out. I turn on Nine Inch Nails on her boom box in her bedroom, a gift from her beloved Uncle Ham, and I shut the door behind me.

Then I breathe.

That's when my last routine of the day begins -- picking up her toys. It's something I find extreme comfort in. The blocks go back into their box. The blankets get folded up and put back on the chair. The babies go in specific order in her little chair, which she will go to first thing in the morning and kiss them good morning. Her little kitchen is lined up with the decorative boxes along the window, which store DVDs (and I replace the DVDs she's become obsessed with plucking out throughout the day). Her ride-on car is placed in the threshold of her kitchen. The dishes and big wooden spoon she uses for snacktime are rinsed off and replaced in the sink of her kitchen.

The dog hair is swept up and vacuumed. The baby gates are set to Security Level Green, which means they're open and I don't have to keep smacking my shins against them as I hurdle over them. The stereo is turned off as I throw up a middle finger at the thought of listening to Kidz Bop one more goddamn time. The TV is set off of Nickelodeon and onto E! or VH1 or whatever random mindless crap I plan to stare at and zone out to shortly.

The day's done. She's gone to sleep. The toys are picked up. It's done. I've survived another day in a job I never thought I wanted, let alone would be able to successfully complete every day. I live to fight another day.

Bring on the liquor.

Auntie.

As of November 5, 2009, I am now officially an undisputed, self-declared AUNTIE...

WELCOME TO THE WORLD, JACK JACK! I love you already and can't wait to meet you with your "cousin" and sure-to-be-partner in crime!

Jack Scott D.
November 5, 2009
2:17 pm, PST
20 in., 7 lbs. 14 oz.

Queen Bee.

I've been going through some yearbooks and stuff stored at my parents' house, since they've finally committed to moving out of the house I grew up in, and I met the ghosts of my past as I unpacked a box full of trophies from my youth. I wish I could tell you the trophies were from Cool Kid Contests, and sports, and Most Blowjobs for the Football Team, and other highly-contested titles, but unfortunately, my biggest congratulatory bling came in the form of spelling bee trophies.

I was awkward at best through my junior high years. I was made fun of mercilessly, called “Stinky Tuna” because I sat with my legs open (I was a tomboy, lay off) and wore baggy clothes to hide the fact that I had boobs because when I wore things that showed them off I was accused of stuffing my bra. The only time I ever felt like I fitted in was when those aluminum chairs were lined up, the microphone on the stand was hot, and I could out-spell even Hicksville Middle School’s brightest.

I was the Spelling Bee girl. It was my niche. It’s what I did.

I remember my first taste of spelling bee victory. Fifth grade. I beat out Tyler Turnbull, the teacher’s son, with the word “soothsayer.” He cried. I gloated. And I got a cool trophy that immediately made me the object of mockery on the bus ride home. But hey, the bus driver said I did a good job and that’s all that mattered.

Subsequent bees were inconsequential. I spelled. I won. I gloated. I was reminded I didn’t have boobs and wasn’t pretty and didn’t wear clothes from American Eagle. Time passed and I continued to be the most mocked female in the class, but on spelling bee day, God have mercy on all of them. I wasn’t invited to your birthday party. I was shunned from your sleepover. You asked me to be your girlfriend just so I would accept and you and your friends could laugh at me. But dammit. I was going to out-spell all those little shits.

And I did.

Pretty kids don’t win the spelling bee. The quarterback who will eventually get a bigger scholarship than you goes out in the first round. The weird stinky kids are usually in the top 10, but rarely win. The spelling bee isn’t made for the winners of the world like those who joined a sorority or became a CEO. (Okay, I became a sorority girl but that was a completely different story.)

The spelling bee is awkward. The spelling bee is braces, bad acne, scoliosis and coke-bottle glasses. The spelling bee is the kids who get paper wads thrown at them and get tripped in the hall.

For two or three hours, we were better than them. We were the cool kids, if just for a little bit.

Some of my best friends I maintained through junior high and high school were weird kids I met at the county spelling bees. Kids who were made fun of and tortured like me. If the spelling bee is good for one thing, it’s a place where all those weird kids could be weird together. Then it turned into a complete bloodshed once those stage lights were on. But it was glorious geek blood, and it just made us into an ordained blood order of nerds.

The popular kids had their slumber parties and sports practices. They had their intimidating cliques in the hallway. They had their gaggle of hyenas in the backs of classrooms. But us? We had the spelling bee. It was ours.

And last night, I remembered being one of them. Being as tortured and awkward and misunderstood. And knowing that while on stage, those weirdos and dweebs and nerds felt like they mattered, felt like they had something special that was just theirs.

The other kids had plenty of opportunities in life to feel superior. But for us, the geeks and dweebs and mockeries of junior high, we have the spelling bee.

Routine

Sometimes, when I'm feeling especially resentful of being a parent and really feel like I hate my life, I feel consumed by the mindnumbing routine of my days. I miss and long for the days when I'd sleep til noon, go get lunch where the whim threw me, hang out with friends, maybe go to a bar, maybe not; take time to study or something equally unlikely.

Parenting is routine. Sure, she may decide to take off her diaper and smear a Poop Pollack on her bedroom wall again, and that might break up the day, but really, every day is achingly the same. I feel like I'm trapped in Groundhog Day but I don't even get the benefit of Bill Murray's humor.

Every morning, I wake up to a cheerful little voice babbling in the bedroom. I ignore it for another 15 minutes before she becomes irate, screaming and kicking the wall, and I come in to get her out of bed. She has thrown all the blankets and stuffed animals and Sophie out of her bed, and upon coming into the room, she points at the floor as though to let me know, "NOW look what you made me do."

I toss the blankets and stuffed animals and Sophie back into the crib and before she can argue this turn of events and toss them out again, I pluck her out and change her diaper, which is soaked, along with her pajamas, because this child is a pee machine. She screams and thrashes because it's cold and I have to do a move that is not unlike a full nelson as I wrangle the first Huggies of the day on her. I usually get kicked in the face at least once, usually twice. And she laughs. Then I dress her as we go through the different clothing items and body parts. She has them down at this point. "HAM? (Hand) SOCK! CHOOS? (No shoes, kiddo.) SHIRT!"

Then I hold her for a minute and she hugs me. Her tiny little body melts into mine and she pats on my back with her tiny little nugget hands. She gives me a kiss on the check, and I stand and I savor my "good morning" from my sweet little girl. I hug her back and squeeze her little body into mine until she spies her goldfish, Anna Nicole Fish, and we feed Fish her breakfast and then Punk wags her tiny little finger at it and sternly tells it, "EAT YOUR FOOD, YOU FISH." (It's really just a series of angry sounding vocalizations, but that's the sentiment.)

Before the fish food can even sink, she's asking for breakfast. "BITE? BITE? JUICE? BITE?" I set up her little chair and table in the living room and I turn on Handy Manny on channel 172 (Disney Channel, I think... I don't even know, I can turn on Channel 172 without even being conscious anymore). I get her juice (V8 Fruit Fusions, because it's one of the few ways I can pile vegetables into her), which I pour into her sippy the night before, and I break up a Nutri-Grain bar into four pieces and put it in a bowl, and I deliver them to her to she can watch her morning TV, eating her breakfast and drinking her juice, as I get around for the day. I prop up the Great Wall of Baby to corral her in to the living room and I quickly dash to my bedroom, because if she realizes that I've left the room she will tear down door frames to follow me.

I'm not a morning person. Anyone who has ever lived, crashed, worked, or had one night stands with me can easily attest to it. (I'm kidding about the one night stands. No, really.) So the routine has become burned into my mind and my subconscious to the point that I really have gone through it with my eyes closed. The day continues at a similar pace of routine and predictability. And a lot of the time I really miss the chaos that was once my child-free life.

But then there's always that first hug of the morning. That tiny little body melting into me, the little hands gripping my back, a soft little breath on my neck. That's the point when I realize I don't really miss it. No. This is good, too.

Pork poke.

Like a good American, I've been in a mad panic over the clear and impending doom of the H1N1 (or the "hiney" flu as it's become known in Casa de los How2). I'd meant to get Punk vaccinated a few weeks ago, but the day before her appointment she came down with a nasty cold. So plans were put on hold, and by the time I was confident she was no longer a vat of Toddler Tantrums, Snot and Fail, the vaccine had run plum out.

So you can imagine the moment of panic and hysteria when I got word that a high school about 45 minutes away was hosting a free H1N1 Flu Shot clinic for children. Oblivious to just what I was about to get into, I piled Punk into the car and drove the 45 minutes to the school.

This is what I saw as I pulled in:


(Forgive the shitty quality, it was taken with my cell phone.)

That, my friends, is a line. That wrapped around the entire goddamn school.

But I had driven that far. And I was being guaranteed the line moved quickly. So I stood there with my toddler beside me in nothing more than a light jacket, since I'd assumed we'd be ushered into a gym soon, and I smiled and thought to myself, I'm an awesome parent.

Two hours later and we were still outside waiting. In the end of October in the midwest, where the minute the sun sets it instantly gets cold. Punk was a trooper as much as a toddler can be, but she was bored and tired and cold. So after two hours of standing and waiting, I no longer had my sweatshirt on and was standing in 45 degree weather in a t-shirt, with my sweatshirt wrapped around my tired, pissed off child, who I then held -- all 32 goddamn pounds of her, dead weight -- for another hour.

We got to the front of the line, through the doors of the school, where there was a gigantic flourescent sign awaiting us:

"[Insert County Here] RESIDENTS ONLY. HAVE IDENTIFICATION READY."

This is the point where I got a lot of hostile looks from parents around me as I said (unintentionally out loud), "Oh you have got to be FUCKING KIDDING ME."

I had been waiting 2.5 hours to find out that I couldn't get my kid vaccinated. I was cold, she was cold, we were cranky, we were half an hour late for her dinner time at this point, and we were both exhausted, and my biceps felt like they were about give out. No. I was not turning around. Fuck that shit with a big strap on.

So as I got to the front table to fill out the necessary forms, I got creative. I made up a fake address in the town we were in, and I lied through my teeth when they looked at my ID and I said we'd just moved to this town, and I hadn't gotten my driver's license changed yet.

I have never once in my life claimed to be a role model or an example for ideal moral compass. But I challenge anyone in that situation to just turn around and take your pissed off, cold child home. No. Oh hell no I wasn't turning back.

Punk finally got her Pork Poke, and I struggled to keep myself from having a complete nervous breakdown when they told me she'd need the second dose in a month. "Just go ahead and wait in the bleachers for 10 minutes to be sure she doesn't have a reaction," the nurse said.

Now, my daughter's welfare is constantly a priority for me. But at that point, after over three hours of waiting in the cold with a pissed off, hungry, cold toddler, I'd had it. Fuck it. She might have a reaction, but she probably won't, and that was a risk I was willing to take.

I walked out the gym doors, walked half a mile back to my car, and strapped Punk in. And what followed was something that my kid(s) will one day know is a situation where we don't talk to Mommy for a good long while, as I drove with Battle of Los Angeles on irresponsibly loud and stared blankly at the road, without muttering a word.

Mommy was done.

NaBloPoMo

I've been a serious asshole about this blog lately. It feels like every other post I am whining that I have nothing to write about and apologizing like a little bitch for it. Sorry, I'm busy, my life's a wreck, I have nothing funny to say, blah blah blah... you know the routine at this point.

So it's National Blog Posting Month again. I figure my G's are in so I may as well jump in -- if for nothing else but to challenge myself to get back into writing and stop being a dick to my blog and the few people who actually keep coming back to read. I can't promise it'll always be quality, or funny, or pretty, or even coherent, but at any rate, yeah, sure, I'm in.

So hey, let's kick this shit off with a Punky Halloween Picture. Because my kid's teh win.

Discovery Zone: Darwin's Law for Kids!

Every year in America, an average of 7.2 million children are born. In 1985, the year I was born, I was just one of 6,438,239 fertilized embryos. Of those six million plus, there are currently 5,166,952 of us. So what happened to the missing 1,271,287 that knocked off between 1985 and 2009?*

Two words, my friends: Discovery Zone.

Some children had Chuck E. Cheese (or Showbiz Pizza, for you old schoolers). Some children had the local playground. Some had Parcheesi. But for many of us, particularly in the greater Fort Wayne, Indiana area that I grew up in, there was Discovery Zone, which, according to Wikipedia, can best be described as having been “a chain of entertainment facilities featuring games, elaborate indoor mazes designed for young children, including slides, climbing play structures and ball pits.”

But for laymen, Discovery Zone was more accurately, Darwin’s Law for Kids.

Ask the scarred, crippled 20-somethings of today about it and many will shudder in terror at the simple memory of the horrors of Discovery Zone. It was impossible to leave the large building of tubes, ball pits, slides, and arcade games without some form of head and/or internal injury.

My brother has a considerable crook in his nose that I can’t help but credit to the time I kicked him in the face somewhere within the tubes.

Within the tubes, the social hierarchy was similar to Lord of the Flies. It wasn’t uncommon to find corpses littering the tubes. And naturally, if you were an especially agile child, you could move through the tubes with considerable ease -- until you came up behind the notorious Fat Kid who never moved at the speed you wanted him to, especially in a rousing game of tag, at which point you would either A) trample him, B) maneuver around him and then kick him in the face, or C) push him to speed him up until he kicked you in the face.

Children can climb through the tubes with relative ease, but parents could not, which was especially to my 11-year-old advantage when it was time to go home and I knew damn well my 6'8" father couldn’t possibly come in after us. I was lucky, though. Usually you’d see one or two especially irate and lost parents screaming for their children and these children could usually be identified as the ones pushing/trampling Fat Kid out of the way. Or, there was a worse fate…

The ball pit.

To this day, I still remember the feel of young, nimble, rigamortic bodies under my feet in the ball pit. There was always that special breed of children who didn’t really like to play and instead thought it a good plan to lounge in the ball pit. (Often this was Fat Kid, crying after having his nose broken for the fifth time that day.)

Physics is but a cruel mistress in the ball pit. Ball Pit Kid eventually sifted to the bottom where he was either trampled to death and never seen again or simply suffocated.

There was another breed of child within the depths of the ball pit — Scary Kid. This was usually someone on the outer cusp of the acceptable age for Discovery Zone, probably 13 or 14, and utilized his age and size against the other merry children enjoying their time. He did this by hiding in the balls and then jumping out and scaring people. This was also usually the kid that peed in the ball pit — the weird kid your parents wouldn’t invite to your birthday party because he might poop his pants or pee in the pool. That kid.

Injuries were Discovery Zone’s beloved concubine. It was to be expected that you would return home with third degree burns on your elbows and knees (because nobody wore the optionally provided knee and elbow pads unless you were the Hypochondriac Child, who was also usually Fat Kid).

Broken noses and concussions were common, too, especially if you were Idiot Kid who would go into the obstacle course and try to do it backwards. I for one remember the rolly-slide -– a horrible torture device that consisted of rollers, which was great unless you were a kid like me, a little bit bigger than most kids. My skin would get caught in the rollers.

Discovery Zone, or at the very least the concept of it, is simply the corporate way of executing nature’s will. Because Fat Kid, Scary Kid, Lazy Kid…let’s face it, it was probably for the best that they were trampled to death or died of asphyxiation or massive head injuries. It's that kind of people who grow into our president of the idiots of society.

I survived multiple trips to Discovery Zone and I am an intelligent, productive member of society. And my brother, well, I was forced to keep an eye on him once lost in the maze of tubes, so he slid by, by default.

Discovery Zone went bankrupt in 1996 with debts raking up to $366 million, which, when you consider the assumedly gargantuan amount of liability lawsuits, makes sense. Our grandparents survived the Great Depression. Our parents, well, they made it through the 60’s and 70’s with enough brain cells left over to reproduce us. But for the 20-somethings of today, we survived Discovery Zone.

* I completely made these figures up.