The End is Near.

They're collaborating. It's really just a matter of time til the Baby-Bodhi Takeover begins. All hail our incontinent overlords.

At least someone got a cheap thrill.

After mulling the idea over for awhile, I finally decided to try the whole "Site 2 Store" shindig that Wal-Mart's rocking out. I hate Wal-Mart. I hate the parking lot. I hate the aisles. I hate being there. It ruins my entire day, and I actually arrange my entire week's schedule to arrange for a Wal-Mart visit at the lowest traffic time possible. (Which is now impossible thanks to Christmas.) So hey, if I can shop for shit online, pay for it, and make one quick in-and-out deal out of it, I'm game.

It's confusing. And embarrassing. And I think I gave the sad, lonely Wal-Mart worker a hard-on.

Okay, so those of you who have dogs understand that panty crotches are like a magnet to dogs. Bodhi somehow finds ways, ways that defy physics and logic, into the hamper, where he proceeds to violate my dirty underwear and chew out the crotch. Earlier this week he got into the hamper YET AGAIN and destroyed the last of my non-granny panty underwear. So I took a chance and I ordered Wal-Mart lace hipsters and thongs. Because hey, Mommy needs laid, kiddo.

It was later in the evening (read: empty) when I went to pick up the order. First, there was nobody at the counter. I rang the doorbell, and I waited. And waited. And waited. About the point I nearly decided, "Fuck this shit," a hefty, red-faced, and obviously overstressed and overworked assistant manager came shuffling to the counter. It's Christmas time, at Wal-Mart. Poor guy was probably damn near at his wit's end. I can jive, turkey. I told him the name on my order. He took forever to find it -- but I'm sure probably a ton of people took the route I have. So I can't get mad.

My frustration is not at the process at all. It's really a sanity saver as long as you don't order panties. And here's why.

He found the package. Which, despite the 12 items on the order slip, it was a really small package. (Obviously.) Note: in the time I was waiting for him to find my package, a kindly little old couple got in line behind me to pick up their own package. Cute as hell. So he comes out with the package, looking a little confused, and says, "I'm not sure it's all in there."

I was sure it was all in there because lace panties, thongs, and hipsters don't take up much space. But I didn't exactly want to blurt out, "It's my sexy time panties!" So I smiled tersely and despite feeling my face get red, muttered something along the lines of, "I'm sure everything is there. Really, it's okay. I trust you guys. (I don't.)"

Oh no. No, no, no, no, no. In the name of quality assurance and thoroughness, and much to my horror, he proceeded to cut the opaque shipping bag open. Out came the panties tumbling onto the counter. He then went on to pick them up one by one and shake them out, so as to separate them, and lay them out to count and make sure every. single. lace thong and panty was accounted for. I could hear the old lady behind me gasp and I felt every blood vessel on my face popping wide open as I sunk further and further into mortification.

Sure, it's just underwear. And hell, with my low-cut jeans that I still insist on waiting despite the fact that it is no longer 2002 (and yes, I still wear my jeans from high school, BOOYAH bitches!), my underwear is usually hanging an inch or two out the back anyway. But still. My sexy britches are not to be on wide display on the counter to the giddy glee of the Wal-Mart clientele.

I hope he enjoyed it, though. Maybe the little old guy did, too. I do what I can. Community service and such.

Thankful

Or, "The Story of How2 and A."

I feel like, being Thanksgiving, I should post the obligatory "What I'm thankful for" post. I was thankful for the little jelly bean growing inside of me last year, and I'm thankful for the incredible little person she became and is becoming. I'm thankful for the person she made me grow up and become. That's probably what I'm most thankful for. But you know I love my kid. So I'm going to discuss someone to whom I've promised I would keep his exposure in this blog to a minimum -- I'm thankful for the love of my life, my best friend, my baby daddy. I'm thankful for my husband, A.

It's been years since we first met, working together at Old Navy. He was a supervisor for the shipment/stocking team. I was a cash register peon. I wouldn't call it love at first sight. Like I've discussed before, I kind of thought he was an asshole. He was cocky, arrogant, and because he was pretty much the only desirable guy on staff, had full pick of the Old Navy litter. And he knew it. It was only a half-joke when people would joke about which member of staff was his flavor of the week. I was warned about him, and I knew his type. I wasn't amused by it and despite his flirting (and despite my huge crush on him, which developed pretty quickly), I refused to be another notch in the Old Navy belt. We could be friends, but I would never let it go beyond that.

One day we were having a discussion about hugging. I'm not a hugger. I come from a long line of non-huggers. I told him this, and he found it bizarre. And knowing him, I kept talking about how much I hated it, just hoping he would hug me because he's an asshole like that. He hugged me. I swooned inside, but put on an incredible act of "Oh my God, you're such a dick! Get off of me, GROSS!"

A. and I could have bypassed over a year of pained concealed crushing if he would have gathered the balls to ask me out two days before he first tried. I was sitting in the breakroom one day and he came up to start conversation. He asked, "So what are you doing this weekend?" We were friends, good friends, and so I told him about this date I had with a guy from school who'd asked me out. "I don't really know where it's going, or if I like him," I told A.

Truth be told, had I answered that question differently, A. was going to ask me out on a date to a concert. And truth be told, if he had asked, I would have said yes and bailed on the other guy. But he didn't, and I wound up dating the "other guy" for a little over a year, while A. went through a string of girls that I found to be less than what I felt he really deserved. I hated his girlfriends, and I hated that he was wasting his time.

A. eventually quit Old Navy, and I did not too long after he did. We fell out of touch until I ran into him at a strip club a few months later. I was there with the "other guy" and my (female) friend J., and we were drunkenly stumbling to a bathroom when I ran into him and a bunch of his friends. According to A., we hugged, and his date for the evening flipped out on him later that night, telling him, "Well, it's obvious you're in love with her." I unfortunately don't remember any of this, I only remember trying to keep track of J. in the crowd because she's a whole 4'11.

Our first date, we went to see Borat and had dinner at IHOP. At the end of the date, he awkwardly asked me out on another date, to be his +1 at his cousin's wedding, and I happily obliged. We kissed in the front seat of his car. A. is the only guy I have ever kissed on the first date.

We'd been officially dating six months when I got pregnant with Punky. By then he'd already drunkenly proposed to me several times, but no ring and no sober proposal meant that it wasn't official. But while I was scared shitless when I saw that positive pregnancy test on the bathroom counter, I was never worried about us. When we were friends, I never considered A. to be anything but. But when we began dating, I knew it was something big. I don't know if I knew this to be "IT", but I knew it was bigger than anything I could comprehend. And it has been.

We got married after dating 11 months in a quickie Vegas wedding, and I've never looked back. I have my match in A. He can be an asshole -- I have no qualms admitting it, and he knows he is, too. He's an asshole. But I'm no shrinking violet, either, and somehow it works for us. All our individual bullshit that people couldn't stand, somehow we have inherent immunity to it from the other. It's like two piranhas in a tank. We don't go after each other with our "assholishness" -- we somehow cancel each other out. But put us in a united front against or toward something, and we're unstoppable.

He's my best friend. I don't know what I'd do without him hugging me at the end of a really rough day (now he hugs me just because, not because I challenge him), or patiently waiting through my OCD spasms of list-making, late-night bathroom scrubbings and constant rituals. He lets me be me. I let him be him. And somewhere in this process, we find each other in this strange chemistry that would probably destroy other couples, but somehow we thrive on.

He's an incredible father and I couldn't imagine raising Punky without him. He adores her. I see him every minute I look at her. His eyes, his smile, his attitude, his laugh. She is him. Being Punky's parents has been the greatest collaboration we've ever had, and she is such an awesome little person. I have had a hand in it, but so much of it is A. I see so much of him in her.

So that's what I'm thankful for. I'm thankful that despite my age, I managed to find my match. I'm thankful I have someone to curl up with in bed, someone to push out of bed and who doesn't complain that I steal covers. Someone to make fun of my driving, to bring me cookie dough and Mountain Dew, and someone who gets me. I get him, too. And I will always be thankful for that.

Black Friday

I read, reread and re-reread my shopping list this morning as I went out to Wal-Mart. Water, batteries, jigsaw puzzles, fabric for my next quilting project, flares, Kevlar vest... okay, I'm kidding about most of that. But I did go to Wal-Mart getting last minute things to prepare myself to barricade myself in the house from Friday through next week.

Because there is no way in HELL I'm going out in the Black Friday post-Thanksgiving madness. No fucking way.

Call it one of the perks of being a stay-at-home mom. I don't have to work and endure the insanity. I can just kiss A. goodbye as he leaves for work, lock the door, and wait for the madness to subside. While toting around a shamelessly adorable baby could hypothetically work in my favor in battling through the crowds -- really, who will challenge a mother with a wailing child? -- I really have nothing I need to get. Hate me now, but most of our Christmas shopping is finished. (I'm home all day. I have nothing better to than abuse my husband's credit card as I eBay and wait for the gifts to come to me.)

My aversion to Black Friday began at a young age. I believe I was a genetic experiment bred to be my mother's supreme Black Friday weapon -- tall and lanky with long legs to hurdle over slow moving obstacles and still see above most of the crowd, with blinding puma-like speed. My mom would map out the battle plan of Wal-Mart, Sears, and Best Buy, and tell me where to be and when -- then would unleash me at the doors and pray for my safety in the field of battle. I fought for Furby. I tussled for Tickle Me Elmo. By 12, I was a decorated Black Friday veteran. If there was a bronze star for Black Friday wars, I would have earned it tenfold.

But I really fully realized my hatred of Black Friday when I had to work retail -- Old Navy, no less -- on Black Friday. Holy shit. You go into those stores and you shoot brief looks of pity at the tired, weary cashiers' faces -- trust me, the look of exhaustion does the bearer no justice. I still remember the end of Black Friday, when the doors were finally locked, and the employees all stared at each other, then slowly turned our heads to face the chaos that remained for us to clean up. It was like the ending of Apocalypse Now. We lost some good cashiers that day.

No, really. It was like something straight out of Dante's Inferno. We're not talking about a few shuffled piles of sweaters. I'm talking, there was a gaping, fiery entrance to hell in the middle of the women's department. We started separate piles for "Sweaters Without Tags," "Trampled/Damaged Goods," and "Unclaimed Children."

And none of this is even touching on the behavior of Black Friday shoppers. It's like complete fucking anarchy. All rules of courtesy are out the door -- to fellow shoppers, and especially to employees. I don't care if the sign said 80% off -- first, this place has been such chaos that I'm pretty sure that coat was in the wrong pile. And second, look, lady, I've been up since 5 a.m. and it's now 2 p.m. -- and in the seven hours I've been working, I have had countless bitches just like you ripping me a new asshole over a matter of pennies for cheaply made shit made by sweatshop children. And trust me, nobody actually wants this shit anyway. I'm just doing my job, and I'm not even paid enough to deal with your tirade. Take your fleece pullover, which you're buying for your niece that you hardly know, let alone know what she likes, because if you did, you'd know that it isn't this cop-out of a gift, and shove it up. your. ass.

And in the madness of all the shopping steals and deals, would you really expect people to be trying things on? Yes. Yes they do. And apparently in the rush of shopping, many are unable to be troubled to find a bathroom, because working on Black Friday, I found human dookie -- grown man-sized dookie, not even small enough to maybe be pardonable as child-sized dookie -- in a fitting room. Black Friday was also the day of the year we were most likely to find urine- and feces-stained pants stuffed in random crevices throughout the store. I unhappily happened upon FAR too much human waste on Black Friday.

I lost what little faith I had in the human race on Black Friday, bit by bit, year by year. So when Thanksgiving wraps up, the leftovers are stuffed into the fridge like a tetris puzzle, and I pass out soundly in bed, visions of night terrors and angry mobs dance through my head. And because of that, I embrace my not-so-inner-anymore hermit, and barricade myself in the safety of my own home as I wait for A. to make his way home from the front lines of his record store...

... at which point we will sob over the destruction of the human race together, drink heavily, and watch some porn. Maybe. Who knows. The world is my oyster, because I don't have anywhere to be on Friday.

Baby shower shopping shenanigans.

I had to swing by Babies 'R Us today to pick up some last minute stuffers for a baby shower gift, and couldn't help but notice some auspiciously childless, far-too-fit women circling the store with the obvious baby registry gifts. And they all looked lost, bewildered, and confused. I just wanted to walk over, pat them on their backs and look them in their eyes, which don't have dark circles under them from waking up multiple times in the night, and tell them, "Here. Let me help."

I didn't have to shop for baby-related items much before I had Punky because at 23, I'm the frontrunner in my group of friends in the Great Spawning Race. But I think there's so much people don't know about giving gifts to an expectant mother -- especially a first-time mom -- that I feel like I need to intervene. (Mostly because I'm a pro at offering unsolicited advice.)

1.) Don't buy clothes. Seriously. I know they're cute and teeny teeny tiny, but trust me on this, don't get clothes. I kind of lost count how many gift boxes of shamelessly adorable baby clothes I got for Punky, and after nine months, I can think of maybe two or three instances that I bought her clothes. That's what grandma's are for. Trust me. When it comes to baby showering for the first time mom, it's all about the necessities, most of which first-time moms (or FTM's, if you wlil) never even think about. They're too distracted by cute clothes. I know the registry has a shitton of clothes on it, but trust me. Save that FTM from herself and just steer clear.

1a.) If you insist on buying something clothing related, get onesies in multiple sizes (at 9 months, we have like no onesies that fit Punky anymore, but we had an assload at 3 months), or socks. Those are two things a mom can never have enough of, and they're cheap.

1b.) And if you're still going to bypass my warning to not buy clothes, don't buy the itty-bitty sizes, like "Preemie" (what the fuck is that about? Punky might have fit those when she was an embryo. Cute, yes, practical, no.) Even 0-3 months is a stretch. 3-6 months are usually a safe size. I had to pack a lot of Punky's 0-3 month clothes before they'd even been worn because she'd outgrown them approximately 3 minutes after she was born.

1c.) And if for some reason after all this you really think you want to get clothes, consider seasons. Punky was born in February in the midwest, and yet she got 0-3 month sunsuits. I know, they're cute, but somehow I think CPS would have gotten called on me if I took her outside in that.

2.) Diapers, diapers, diapers. I know it's boring, but it's one gift you know will get tons of use. Diapers in multiple sizes. Go crazy. Instead of dumping cash on clothes and stuffed animals, just buy tons of jumbo packs of diapers and wipes.

3.) NEVER EVER EVER GIVE STUFFED ANIMALS. I know, they're cute, and they're right by the register begging for you to buy them, and wouldn't it be cute to see a baby with a teddy bear? Yeah, probably, but everyone who has never had a kid gives FTM stuffed animals. I have two garbage bags of stuffed animals for Punk that I'm just keeping to use as incentives and gifts between now and when she's like, 8. For awhile, though, I had no idea what to do with them, and since she was co-sleeping with us anyway, her stuffed animals wound up here:


(God, I can't believe she was that small once...what? I was writing a blog post? Oh yeah, anyway...)

4.) If you want a cute idea, get a baby bathtub (if it's on the registry) and fill it with the bath essentials, which are usually also on the registry. Baby body wash, lotion, wash cloths, towels, etc. And PS, babies don't need bath robes. Don't buy a baby a bath robe. That's just retarded.

5.) Desitin. Baby Tylenol. Mylecon. First aid kits. Did I mention Desitin? Buy these. They're not cute frilly outfits and they're not stuffed animals, but I can tell you exactly who bought me all of the above for my baby shower, because I owe them my soul. Along with people who bought diapers, who also read this blog, who are awesome photographers.

6.) Go in with a few friends and get something bigger, like a stroller, or a car seat, or something like that.

7.) If all else fails, just get a gift card to wherever the mom's registered. I know some people are really opposed to the idea of gift cards, but they helped me survive the first six months when A. and I were more or less broke, but still needed diapers, or random baby things we never thought about. I still have a little bit left of the gift cards. They're a life saver and they are way better for the clueless gift-giver than a teddy bear that will wind up in a garbage bag in the basement.

I'm sure I'll think of more. But these'll at least help you look a little less lost. And don't mind me staring daggers at you from across the store. I'm just really, really tired.

Hamster moments.

When I was a kid, I had a hamster named Izzy. I bought her from Wal-Mart with money I'd earned from winning a coloring contest. Surprises lay in store for me, as unbeknownst to us, we had purchased a pregnant hamster. A couple weeks after buying the hamster, she inevitably had babies. The babies didn't last long, as I came home from school one day filled with glee and excitement to see the babies again and realized they were gone.

In their place was a scene of carnage that no 8-year-old can quite process.

I understand now. Parenthood brings a lot of insight with it, and now I understand why Izzy ate her young.

Because they drive you batshit crazy with rage and sheer exhaustion sometimes.

Punky is cutting teeth --again -- and yet again, is making the entire process unbearable. On top of cutting teeth, she also currently has a cold bug that A. brought home from work with him. She won't eat because her mouth hurts. She won't sleep because... I don't even know why, she just won't, she just lays in bed and thrashes and screams and stands and screams and kicks the wall and screams. Man, I miss the pillbug days when I could wrap her up in her swaddling blankets and let her rock back and forth screaming until she tuckered herself out. But anyway... yeah. So my list of awesome now consists of:

1.) Teething
2.) Cold
3.) Hungry
4.) Tired

And there's nothing I can do about it except stare wistfully at the bottle of rum on the fridge and wonder if anyone would really judge me if I just gave her a tiny bit, just enough to knock her out... then throw back a couple shots of my own and we could both just pass out.

I mean, I'd never do that. Ha ha ha, that's only what the bad moms do, not me, nosiree!

In those brief moments of sleep-deprived insanity, I start wondering if it would really hurt so bad just to cut my vajayjay open a little bit and stuff her back in to cook a little longer til she can be civil again. And upon realizing that, and realizing A. won't be home for another FIVE HOURS... eating your young sounds like a viable, logical solution sometimes.

And people look at me like I'm crazy when I say I only want one baby...

Body bag.

I am so filled with relief and joy that I could probably plunk down and sob.

Our mission this weekend was for A. to finally, FINALLY install our new shower in the bathroom. And now, after weeks of waiting, showering in the body bag shower of death (and incidentally, showering about twice a week because I hated showering in it that much) and tolerating the temporary nature of the situation, I have a mostly-done shower.

Okay. So. The story goes like this: a few months ago we discovered a leak from the shower/tub, which was going directly down into the basement. Realizing this situation needed a remedy, A. promptly resolved it -- by "resolved," I mean he opened up a cooler directly beneath the leak and let it fill to the brim, then would empty it out, rinse, repeat.

So finally, after nagging and withholding incentives of the "business time" variety ("Flight of the Conchords," FTW), he finally agreed to hack into the plumbing behind the shower and fix the leak. This is where we get into my original beef with the shower. The old man who owned the house prior to A. (A. lived here for a couple years before I was in the picture) basically took every half-ass, cheap way out in terms of home improvements. The shower was no exception. The external plumbing was falling off, the "walls" were made of dry-erase board, and it was all in horrible disrepair. So I won't lie -- I wholeheartedly encouraged A. to hack into the wall, knowing a beautiful new shower awaited me as a reward for showering in the gross shower for two years.

The leak was fixed, and we ordered shower walls from Menard's. Special ordered. We were told they would arrive the following Thursday. That Thursday rolled around, and we ripped all of the old paneling (all three layers of it) and went to Menard's to pick up our shower walls that surely had arrived that day.

This is where it all gets sticky.

The shower walls weren't in at Menard's. The shower walls were completely torn apart at our house. We were told by an entirely too perky sales manager at Menard's that they were so so sorry, that our shower walls were going to be on the next truck, which would be arriving Sunday. Okay. So we did a quick fix, irritated as hell, and taped up black garbage bags over the walls in the shower to last us til Sunday.

Sunday came. The shower walls didn't. This Thursday, they promised us. This Thursday.

That next Thursday came, and the walls didn't. This is when I discovered that they were completely out of stock. The walls didn't exist. The order had been cancelled by Menard's and they failed to notify us -- and apparently didn't update their computer, or they flat-out lied to us. So we had to special-order another set of shower walls, and would have to wait two weeks for them to arrive.

By the time they arrived, we'd been showering in the black garbage bag shower -- which, if you have ever wondered what it would be like to hang out in a body bag, you should've given me a call and we could've hung out in the shower of death -- for a month. A MONTH, PEOPLE. Then A. ordered new fixtures (is that the correct word for it?) over eBay after finding the set we'd originally bought for about $80 cheaper.

We had the walls. That coming weekend we were going to install it, because surely the fixtures would arrive.

The fixtures didn't arrive.

So we had to wait ANOTHER week after A. eBay-battled to figure out where the hell the fixtures were. Five weeks in the body bag shower.

Finally the fixtures arrived, the shower walls were in our house and in our possession, and A. and his dad proceeded to spend two full days completely re-doing the internal plumbing (which, unsurprisingly was a complete fucking disaster, thanks Former Owner!) and installing the walls, and I now finally have my beautiful shower.

Til this evening when we discovered another leak behind the shower walls.

*eye twitch* *eye twitch*