Motherhood, Etc.

I hope everyone had a fantastic Easter! I know I did. Lots of great food (a tad too much…lots of extra workouts for this lady!) and wonderful company. We got to go to brunch on Sunday with my family and dinner with hubbys family after. So. Much Turkey.
I’d like to say that the weekend was as relaxing as it was enjoyable. I really would like to say that.
But I seem to have birthed the only child on the face of the green Earth who doesn’t want to spend his day watching TV. For ONE day. All I wanted to do yesterday was chill out, no park or swimming or extra curricular activities or even leaving the fucking house for that matter. I just wanted to sit on the couch in my track pants, snuggle with my kid and watch holiday cartoons. Is that too much to ask? Can a hard working mama not have ONE guilt-free day of vegetation in 364 days of insanity?
Apparently not, if it’s up to Conor. The kid cannot sit still to save his damn life. I wanted to scream “NO WE ARE NOT GOING TO VISIT ANYONE OR PLAY AT THE PARK, SPONGEBOB IS ON FOR THE FIFTH TIME AND WE ARE GOING TO SIT HERE AND WATCH IT NOW STFU YOU SQUIRMY LITTLE DEVIL!” a couple times. But I didn’t. We played board games and tickled and he ate much too much chocolate, wasn’t that good enough for him? Never. Never will anything be good enough for my little diva boy.

Instead of screaming though, I just said “Oh, Conor, I love you” which is Mommy Code for “You’re really very lucky that I love you and don’t want to spend my life in prison, you miniature monster”.

You can never tell your children you love them enough, superficially or otherwise. Even when the response is “Yeah, Mom, I know” or “Does that mean I can have chocolate now?!” it is still a beautiful moment when you are overwhelmed by your intense infatuation for their little selves.

But do you know what the best possible way to follow up an “I love you” is?  The only way, in my opinion. 6 words. So simple, so sweet.

“I love you! Have a good day at school!”

Thank God for the Tuesday after Easter Monday.

I love you, sweetie. Have a good day at school! I’m going  home to eat ALL your chocolate! That’s what you get for making Mommy’s skin crawl for the last four days! Karma is a righteous, PMSing bitch kiddo!

What is that I heard someone whisper? Was it “Wait until summer vacation”? Lalalalalalalalalalala I can’t hear you!

Sometimes in life, shit happens. We all know this. You make plans, you prepare yourself, but then shit happens and it all changes. You wake up and make a plan to spend your day relaxing in front of the TV with a cup of hot tea and your pj’s on, but then you remember you have kids, meaning you will probably spend your day washing glitter glue off of things/the cat/out of your hair and putting batteries into toys and googling “24 hour long children’s DVDs”. See? Shit happens.

If you’ve been following along for some time, you already know this. My husband and I are unable to have babies. Well, more accurately, I am unable to have babies but my husband loves me anyways, broken uterus and all, even though he could probably go find someone with a viable womb to procreate with and live happily ever after changing diapers and chuckling about baby vomit. What a guy.
Coming to terms with this wasn’t easy for either of us, but I think we have finally gotten to the point where we are saying “So, we can’t have babies? Meh. Shit happens.” I’m not saying we each don’t have our oh-woe-is-us moments, because by all means we are sometimes despicably woeful, but those moments are getting fewer and farther between these days.
Instead of having the brood of children we at one point dreamed of, we have replaced them with pets. Our pets are, each and every one, a part of our family. We have big, giant, soft, squishy, bleeding hearts around here. Or rather, I do and my husband hangs out on the sidelines and goes along with whatever makes me happy. He loves our “babies”, sure, but I’m sure he would trade them all in in a heartbeat for an uninterruped night of sleep. No really he loves them all in the same mushy-gushy way I do. We are the definition of the term “animal lovers”.

When we found Bella about 8 months ago, give or take a few crazy weeks, she was filthy, shivering, hungry and alone. We searched and searched for her previous owners to no avail, and after some time she just eased her neurotic little self into our lives and our hearts. She became a permanent fixure on my lap, at my feet and beside me in our bed. At night, my husband sleeps spooned up behind me, and I sleep spooned up behind Bella, with my arm over her and all. At first we were unsure of her, because she has some behavioral issues, but now we cannot imagine our lives without her. She may be overprotective of me and get snippy with others at times, but it’s ony because she loves me so much. I have never before met a dog so infatuated with a human as Bella is with her Mama. When I am snuggled up with her on the couch and I am watching her sleep so peacefully,I sometimes quietly thank whoever cruelly castt her aside, because if they had brought her to a shelter or re-homed her themselves, I would never have found her and fallen for her, as insane as she is. I may not be able to have more children, but as long as I have Bella, I don’t need any.

So being the way we are, and knowing more about Jack Russells now than I ever imagined I would, when we stumbled across another puppy a few weeks ago we were in a pickle. Do we leave him on the side of the vacant dirt road, hoping someone would stumble across him and know where he belonged? Did we take him to a shelter, where he may or may not get adopted to a good home or possibly spend the rest of his life in a cage before being euthanised for being “unadoptable”? Jack puppies are not always a typical persons first choice when bringing a dog into their homes, and it takes a special person or people with the patience and discipline required to own one. Older Jack Russells have an even harder time finding good, loving forever homes because already being famous for their mass abundance of energy, their aggressiveness and being difficult to train, one might look at a Jack in a shelter and think “There has to be a reason he is in here, and I don’t have the time to dedicate to a broken dog who is already so difficult in nature.” I couldn’t walk away, and I couldn’t imagine him spending the rest of his day in a cage, so we decided to take him home. We did what we could to try to find a previous owner, but again we had no luck. After a couple of weeks we started to think that maybe he would become a part of our family, as Bella had. The two of them got along famously, Milo (as we had come to know him) adored her and followed her everywhere. He would smother her with kisses and they would spend hours playing tug of war with her old rope. It took Bella a while to warm up to him, given her temperment, but she eventually came to enjoy his company as well. We were never concerned about leaving them at home together because they always had each other. At night, they slept side by side. They were adorable together.
Over the time he was living with us, we considered so many options. Perhaps he wandered away from home and went too far, not knowing how to get back. He had no microchip and no tags, so clearly whoever he belonged to didn’t care enough to take precautions to get him back should he ever go missing. Perhaps someone just abandoned him. Sadly, it’s a common reality for this particular breed, and although he was a well behaved and cute little dog in general we could see how a person could get frustrated and annoyed with him. It’s unfortunate that some people don’t take the time to train their dog properly, and in return the dog ends up being too much of a burden. It’s not the dogs fault, and those people should not have pets. I always urge people to consider how much a dog is like a child – they need constant care, and if you are unable to provide it then please do not get a pet. People like that are why the shelters are full to bursting and why dogs like Bella get dumped to fend for themselves. Such a shame. Either way, we started to accept him as our own. For weeks we fed him, bathed him, walked him daily without fail, let him sleep on our bed, let our child become attached to him. He ruined my carpet and my comforter because he insisted on peeing on everything, but I forgave him because he had clearly never had proper house training. It would come in time. We made him a part of our family, even though we knew nothing about him or his past, and though he was timid at first he loved us deeply. He had a strong bond with not only Bella but with my son as well.

A few days ago, we were on our way into Cambridge and my husband took a wrong turn. We ended up down a side road in Puslinch, and as we drove past a small fork in the road I saw a sign on the fence. On the sign was a picture of Milo, whose name turned out to be Bentley. Without hesitation, we pulled over and dialed the number below the picture. We made arrangements to meet this fellow later in the evening, and to return his dog home. It was very surreal, as we didn’t think we would ever find his owner, but we were happy to know that he would soon be reunited. We had a previous engagement at my sister’s house, and while we were there I decide to check out the Facebook page that I had seen on the sign. When it loaded on the screen, I was blown away at first. What a following! This man clearly missed his dog and was going to do whatever it took to get him home! I felt great that I hadn’t left him to an unknown fate and instead kept him healthy and safe and cared for until I found his family. It was worth it! Then I realized that it did not once say that the dog had wandered away from home, or that he had been lost by his owner. The man took no responsibility whatsoever for being irresponsible and allowing his dog to go missing, untagged and unchipped, and instead the puppy had been declared STOLEN. Yes, you heard me, the page declared that the last time the dog was seen was with a “young person” and that we had STOLEN his dog. Not only did thousands of people now think that we had taken this dog at will from his home and made him a prisoner, but there was also a NEWS CAST regarding this STOLEN dog!!!!!
I was shocked, appalled and hurt. Out of all the people on this planet, I am the very LAST person who would ever even consider stealing someones pet!!! I couldn’t believe that I had been publicly defamed in such a way, and I was completely engraged, as were all my friends and family who know how much we cared for this dog in his time of need.
But, I sucked it up and returned the dog to his previous “owner”, which I was not even obligated to do, but because I am a good, caring person I did it. After a certain amount of time, the dog was legally mine, especially as he had no solid proff that he had ever owned the dog himself. I know my rights, and under the circumstances I didn’t even have to CALL and return the dog I could very well have just ignored it and kept him! I didn’t, I put him in the car and drove him to the house we were directed to and we brought him “home”.
After some chatting with the man who claimed to own Bentley, we were convinced that was where he belonged and left. We pretended to be astounded by his efforts to find his missing pet, even though it borderlined on obsessive and the thought resonating in my head the whole time was if you care so damn much about this animal, why did you ever let him out of your sight in the first place? And why, in the name of all things sane, was he NOT tagged or chipped?! These people live in the country, anything can happen, and you always take precautions. The dog cannot speak and tell you that it has a home to go nto, so how were we to know he wasn’t abandoned in the middle of nowhere?!? Again, people this irresponsible should NOT own pets.

In the end, I’m inclined think some people in this world are just driven by an overwhelming selfishness. The man mentioned that there had been a reward offered on the web page, which we were unaware of until that moment. Then he proclaimed that instead of giving it to us, he was going to give it to some pet show or something. We agreed passively at the time, what else could we do? But after some thought, it is ridiculous that he didn’t even offer us something. Anything! We barely even got thanked! We gave his dog a home for weeks, spent money on him, took him into our HOME instead of leaving him to die, and he barely mentioned it. It’s not that I think I deserve monetary gain of any kind, nor supreme recognition. What I did was kind, caring, and selfless, and the only congratulation that I require is my own because I know that there aren’t many people who would have done what I did. I just don’t understand why the people who have been “searching” for this dog weren’t more grateful that we were such good people and returned him home safe and sound. On the Faecbook page (which you can view by clicking the link at the bottom of the page), it is made to seem like “Bentley” just miraculously made his way home, and that the reason he is home is because of the efforts of all the people involved. When in reality, it is because a kind young couple took a lost, helpless dog into their home knowing nothing about him and kept him safe until he was able to be returned. If we hadn’t picked him up, he may never have been found.

Sigh.

So now we are just going back to our lives as usual. Conor has the day off school, and Mommy is trying to focus on staying sane until tomorrow. My ankle is feeling better, so I went for a run yesterday before Easter brunch & dinner with the fam jams. Tonight I will be doing my ab and lower body workout, then tomorrow I run again. I’m going to need it with all the pigging out on chocolate I’ve done! Bella is rather depressed at Milo’s absence, but she is slowly recovering her fiesty zest for life. And now, I need a long nap.

http://www.facebook.com/MissingJackRussellNamedBentley

My new motto

I’m sitting here in dubious amounts of pain.
Not only is my ankle messed up, but my back muscles hurt like I took a beating with a pipe. Sometimes I forget that this is supposed to be good for me, even though I can’t turn abruptly or raise my arms over my bellybutton without crying.

Another reason why I’ve been so blog-distant lately.
I’ve taken up working out. You know, getting thin. In shape. Being healthy.

It hurts. I’ve lied about a lot of things, especially to my gynecologist but that’s a story for another time, but not about this. The cold, hard truth is that it hurts. It’s supposed to hurt. If it was painless and easy, everyone would do it.
I’m not everyone. Even if it isn’t always peaches and cream, I love it.

Well, it hurts less now than it did when I started two weeks ago. I could barely move then. I couldn’t even wipe my own butt, which was embarrassing to say the least. These are the real reasons we have children, and don’t let anyone convince you otherwise. I used to run, before I got pregnant the second time. I love running, it’s cheaper than therapy and it gets me away from my house full of people who need something from me every. five. seconds. Speaking of which, why is it that my husband thinks all that goes through my mind is what I’m going to cook for dinner? Is this just mine, or does anybody else’s spouse annoy the hell out of them too? Sometimes I want to scream “NO I don’t know what the fuck I’m making for dinner, it’s only 4 PM and I don’t have to cook it for another hour and a half at the most so I haven’t even begun to consider entering the kitchen yet. Contrary to your belief system, I don’t sit around all day contemplating what to cook for fucking dinner, and if you ask me when it’s going to be ready I’m going to make it NEVER. It will be ready when it is ready, and do you want to know how you will know when it IS ready? When I say DINNER IS READY and you can see it being placed on the table like I do EVERY FLIPPING DAY at dinner time! FUCK OFF!!!!!!!!” Not that I’ve ever yelled that…..

My goal is to be able to don a two piece bathing suit this summer, theory being that if I’m ripped nobody will notice or care about my billions of horrendous stretch marks, including me. This is only the beginning stages of a theory, so I’m not making any serious promises to myself or anybody else who is just DYING to see me in a bikini (aka nobody), because we all know that sometimes something works out in theory but in real life, not so much. Take communism for example. And not bribing your children to clean their rooms with candy and video games. I don’t care what I have to put on the table, I don’t want to clean that crap. I have better things to do and Dr. Phil is on so shut up and clean your room or you don’t get any candy and Mommy will eat it ALL and make you watch. Muahahahahahaha. Bring on the Skittles.

So in order to get my super sexy, slim, bodacious body (yeah I said bodacious) I have created a workout regime for myself. I’m calling it Amber’s Super Sexy Slim Bodacious Body Workout, as of right now. Along with a (kinda) strict diet (which includes the occasional donut and/or pound of suicide wings because what kind of diet doesn’t incorporate those things? A stupid one, that’s what…), lots of tea & water to cleanse my system (and also yogurt because them probiotics work wonders on your metabolism and banana yogurt is delish), a daily vitamin shake and cutting down on my caffeine intake, I’ve been busting my ass in the most literal sense. One day last week when I was doing a lower body workout I broke my butt. I had to lie down and then I couldn’t get up. It took me a good 24 hours to be able to sit properly again, and I’m not even going to talk about walking with an injury like that. It was not an option, let’s just say. It healed pretty quickly though, thank goodness, so I could go back to what I do best in between workouts – sitting on my rear end in front of my computer. Easier said than done with a broken ass.

I run three times a week for 20-25 minutes, do a pretty intense ab workout on those days as well, and on the days in between I have been switching it up until now. First I tried yoga, which is likely the all time stupidest exercise ever created. You can preach yoga all you want, I will never touch it again in my life. Number one, it’s immensely boring, and number two, I’m not nearly that flexible. I doubt I will ever BE that flexible. In fact, being that flexible should be considered weird and make everyone else as uncomfortable as it makes me. My joints ache just watching some crazy bitches do #8 and #20. If I could do #8 I would never need a man ever again is all I’m saying. 

Yoga was a huge bust for me. I probably could have strategically placed Oreos around myself to I would have focal points to make it easier, but that would have defeated the purpose of the yoga. As much as I love Oreos. I really really miss Oreos. Really really really really.

I also tried a few other workouts, but none of them were really intense enough for me. I like to push my limits and feel the burn, which could be one of the reasons why I have a sprained ankle and immense back pain. Could be. Anyways, I finally settled on a plyometric workout from P90X. Yeah, you all know P90X. The workout only insane people do when they have a death wish the size of Xtina’s new boobies. (You guys have seen those suckers, right? That’s the only reason I watch The Voice. Every single singer on that show sucks the big one, but watching Aguilera’s giant fake boobies NOT jiggle when she moves is too much fun to miss.) The whole P90X challenge is a bit much for me, and I really don’t want to look like a man (aka I’m a bit of a wimp), just have great abs and lose some weight, but the plyometrics are awesome. It’s basically a cardio workout & lower body workout all in one, and it’s intense enough that I break a huge sweat which is what I was aiming for. If you’re looking to lose some weight and have great legs and booty, I recommend that part of P90X, anyways. It’s part of the workout crazy people do, so it screams my name. I’m the craziest person I’ve ever met.

That’s my routine. Run 3x per week (once my ankle heals :’( I have to take a bit of time off. Boohoo. ), abs three times per week ( I do a variation of the Ab Ripper X workout from P90X on these days, but it’s a little less crazy because I have the weakest abs known to mankind. I know my body so I go at my own pace. i’m sure eventually I will be able to do it all, but for now, I like not ripping myself open.) and lower body plyo twice a week.

I think of all the workouts and health crap, the diet is the hardest. Yes, even over the P90X insanity. Like I may have mentioned previously, I really miss Oreo cookies a lot. A lot a lot.

But, I am going to be rock hard by summer. Eat your heart out, junk food. I officially kick you to the curb. As much as I want to enjoy cookies and ice cream, I want to feel & look great even more. It WILL be worth it. Even if it hurts like a motherfucker in the meantime.

Yes, exactly. This is what I keep telling myself. So far it’s working.

I’m feeling like Prince. Or maybe Jay Z. Can I get an encore, do you want more?

Hey. What’s UP? What have I been missing in the old blogosphere?!

This is what happened. I moved, which was kind of really crazy in itself (packing, unpacking, changing stuff, adjusting, yelling at everyone, etc.) and then when I finally, after what already felt like a million years, had a chance to sit down at my laptop and punch out some wicked awesome piece about how fun it was to move NOT, my laptop up and died. One second I was reading the Confessional at Scarymommy.com, the next I was on my knees begging the God of technology for one more day, take me instead, I will do anything! ANYTHING!

It was sick with a virus. I tried chicken noodle soup, hot water bottles and lots of daytime television. Nothing worked. The only cure for my poor computers ailment was lots of rest and a visit to the doctor. So, I was laptop-less. It was not an easy time in my life. I had nightmares where I woke up screaming and stumbled to my teeny tiny desk (that my laptop is rarely ever one anyways because I do all my best work with my butt planted firmly on the couch in front of Maury Povich. You are NOT the father! HahaHA Motherfucka!) only to grasp feebly at the empty space where the love of my life used to lie while I slept. Safe to say I’ve slept with it under my pillow since it’s been back. Never will you leave my side again, my love, my preeeciouuuussss….

Ahem.

I probably could have pulled a hardcore and busted out a blog post from my BlackBerry but I don’t think there’s enough Excedrin in the world to treat that headache. I don’t even like Googling anything from there anymore. When I first got my Blackberry, oh so very long ago when dinosaurs roamed the earth texting each other on Nokias and Motorolas, I used to basically shit my pants in glee whenever someone asked a question. I would be all “You need to know who invented Cheese Whiz? Don’t sweat it homie, I’ll Google that shit for you, on my BLACKBERRY”. Now my eyes get sore just thinking about reading teeny tiny ant words. This is why I pay a fortune and a half on my Rogers bill every month. I’m very techno-high maintenance. I need at least 5 gigs of data all across the board.

If you can recall from my very last post BC*, I moved from my hometown to a new town. We are only about 30 minutes from where we used to live but believe me it is more than far enough. Guelph is beautiful. Everyone is nice and dressed nice and nobody smells like the inside of a tin can or walks around tweaking out. I’m sure there are still drug addicts here, they just stay in their crack houses out of sight. Which I really appreciate. When I wake up in the morning, the sun is shining and birds are singing and I breathe deeply and it doesn’t reek like roadkill and dirty underpants, and I know that if I go downtown to the market on Saturday morning nobody will be already stumbling around drunk begging for change. Needless to say, I don’t miss Cambridge at all. You couldn’t pay me to move back there. I don’t even like visiting there, but I do love my friends & family who still happen to reside there so I grit my teeth and slip a shank in my purse, just in case. You don’t walk around un-armed in Lamebridge. Even the business end of your house key could come in handy walking around downtown. My mother taught me that trick. She grew up in Cambridge, ’nuff said.

Here is something everyone probably saw coming  – I managed to acquire another pet while my laptop was in the ICU. A Jack Russell named Milo. I am the Jack Russell whisperer. They fall from the sky into my life and I’m too much of a goddamn bleeding heart female to drop them at the pound and carry on with my life. If you have never had the extreme pleasure of owning a Jack Russell Terrier, I envy you in abundance. They are the most adorable dogs in the world. Very cute, intelligent, and incredibly loving. I’ve never had dogs who have been more infatuated with me. I feel like I have my love of bacon to thank for this. I probably radiate deliciousness to their sensitive little hunters noses. Either way, they are in love with me. And I love their love too much to kick them out of my bed, which means I don’t always sleep as well as I should. They may be small but they don’t sleep small. It’s like having two toddlers in my bed. I need to upgrade to a king sized just to get some fucking rest, because I know that I can kick them out but that does NOT mean they will let me sleep. They would both stand at my door and cry like the pathetic little assfaces they are. They won’t even lay down and sleep during the day unless I am with them. As we speak, I am seated on my couch with Bella beside me and Milo at my feet. If I got up and went into the kitchen, they would both follow me and whine at me. Yes, whine at me. Because they want me to go sit back down so they can sleep because they are tired, but they will not sleep if I’m not sitting with them. They will whine. Sometimes I wonder how much I could get for them on the black market. Only sometimes.

I have to go wrap my whole home in bubble wrap. My mother is coming to visit sometime this week and she is bringing her Doberman puppy. I’m seriously considering renting a fenced in park for the three of them for the week. Or a not fenced in park.

I know this was a really boring post. There are many more to come now that my computer has been revived, and I promise they will be more entertaining. I’m going to have three dogs in my two bedroom apartment shortly, after all. That shit is like comedy gold. Stay tuned.

BC* = Before Crash. Oh, teeheehee, this is why I can spend so much time alone and not go batty. I consistently amuse myself.

I am moving in two days. Well, three if you count today which I don’t because even though it’s only 10 AM this day feels half over when I look at my To Do list. I get vertigo just thinking about the amount of crap that needs to be done, and I have barely even made a dent in my packing. I blame this solely on the depression that set in when I had to take down the poster of Jacob Black, that I DO NOT EVER kiss goodnight, from my closet door. I had to reassure him through mouthfuls of chocolate that I wasn’t taking him down forever and that we would be together again soon. I’m so very sorry, Jake. Our new bedroom has a lot more space for you to hang out, no pun intended, and tons of lovely natural light to accentuate your beautiful features. *sob* See you in a few days.

My home is in a perpetual state of disaster.

There are boxes, some full of my stuff and labelled as such (“STUFF” is so helpful, right?) and some waiting to be filled while I sit on my rear end and blog, scattered pell-mell on each and every surface of my apartment including my bed. Last night I slept next to a wall of boxed office supplies and clothes hangers. Both of which I have too much of to be considered sane. As I discovered yesterday, I own four staplers and about 400 envelopes. I have a weakness for stationary, every time I go into a dollar store or a Staples I get all excited and blind myself with joy, and I end up walking out with shit I’m never going to use and therefore do not need. I do not mail things, I e-mail people. I haven’t even used a pencil in fucking years. I don’t understand it myself so I’m not going to bother trying to make excuses. Let’s just say I experience inexplicable amounts of happiness watching The Office. So. Many. Freshly sharpened pencils and Post Its.

I digress, but, like, what else is new?

The boxes and the poster-removal and the general chaos of “Oh, fuck me, I packed all the god damned washcloths last night and my kid just used the one I left out to wipe his butt, how did I not see that coming?!” is manageable. I can function accordingly under the mounting pressure of my Saturday deadline having only that to deal with. Except that it’s not only that. It’s so, so much more.

My animals have discovered that we are moving. I don’t know at what point it clicked for them, maybe it was a couple hours after the boxes appeared and they stopped jumping in and out of them long enough to wonder what they could possibly be for.
Maybe they overheard me speaking in whispers to my son about it trying to avoid these exact circumstances, I can’t be sure, but what I do know is that they have mutinied and they are trying to blow my blood pressure through the roof. Anyone who says that cats aren’t supremely intelligent has never had three of them. They work meticulously as a team to drive me completely insane, making elaborate plans in the dead of night to storm my pillows at 5 AM and see if they can all fit on my head at once. Cats also really hate moving, or at least mine do. All three of them are constantly moving. Every ten seconds, one of them is shooting like a rocket from between boxes or from within an empty cabinet or drawer that has been left ajar and flying across the tops of picture frames. They seem to think that acting like they got into my rock stash is going to help make this chaotic situation more bearable somehow. I know that didn’t happen, because either I hide my stash so very well (preaching the wonders of the female pocket, y’all) or I don’t have one at all, you decide. If I did have one, I’m pretty sure my dog would be calling dibs on it anyhow. The cats wouldn’t stand a chance. While my wicked little fluffies are busy staging a reenactment of the squirrel scene in Willy Wonka, Bella is running around bouncing off the walls and ricocheting off the furniture trying to bite them. Meaning that I spend my days screaming at her to “Stop biting the fucking cats, you little white psycho, before I pick you up, open the patio door and throw you javelin-style into next week!”

Since this is a madhouse, I decided to take a breather yesterday and go shopping for curtains. Which lead to being out and in stores, which somehow lead to me purchasing a new toy for my son. Because the giant overflowing toy box in his room that he never touches isn’t full enough. Fuck I have to pack that… Anyways, we stumbled upon this particular toy that was popular during my childhood. So, so long ago, when I was a young girl, they marketed these toys to my generation and we ate that shit up. Pokemon cards, Pogs, those giant Gobstoppers that made your tongue bleed, they had nothing on these guys. Every child would have killed in cold blood for one, and every parent despised them. Since I was on the previous end of the spectrum, the not-hating end, I only remember them being totally awesome and was all “SWEET! Yes, darling, you can have it! Let’s take it home and put batteries in it!” and all three of us skipped happily off into the sunset.

If you’ve ever done this, which I hope you haven’t because I like to have faith that most of the rest of the world is not nearly as much of a moron as I am, you know what happened next. I went home, searched through the mess that is all my worldly belongings, found a screwdriver, inserted 4 AA batteries into said toy, and died a painful, painful death.

All my fellow 90′s kids are going to know what this is. Prepare yourself.

As soon as I put batteries into it, my childhood memories came flooding back and I said to myself  ”Oh, for Christ sakes, I’m a dumbass.” Recollection hit me like a tidal wave. I remembered that when I was about 11 my mother finally, reluctantly (Hmm, I wonder why?) bought me a Furby. I don’t know how long it took before I realized that it was Satan in Gizmo clothing, but I do recall the terror I felt lying in my bed at night for what felt like weeks listening to its incessant dying chatter after I locked it in the darkest corner of my closet. These things do not go without a fight. They suck every single last drop of juice from those AA’s and they go from constantly talking nonsense in their high pitched Chucky-like voices to droning on in the tone of run-over-by-a-transport-truck. I brought this upon myself, like the aging memory-challenged fool I am. I wonder how many times my mother said that to herself? I know I apologize to my Mom a lot here, and this is no exception. Sorry. You should have gone with the nice, quiet, spring-like rainbow shoelaces that didn’t tie. Those were all the rage. I would have gotten over it.

As ruthless as this toy is on my sanity, it seems to be here to stay. Conor really enjoys yelling at it to stop being so rude when it burps and farts, the disgusting, furry little freak. Who makes a toy like that?! He left for school and it was talking to itself in Furbish or whatever their language is called, Braindead perhaps, I don’t know, but when I got home it was asleep. Or what appears to be sleep, I’m not 100% sure they do that, look at the picture and tell me what you think. I’m scared stiff that it’s just fucking with me and it’s going to wake up any second and start telling me to kiss its weird little beak-mouth. It is sitting right in the middle of my kitchen table, as you can see, and I’m not moving it for fear of waking the devil and having to explain to Conor why it no  longer has moving parts when he gets home at 3:30. You couldn’t pay me to touch this thing, in fact, I might pay my 5 year old NOT to. I may not even pack it. It’s most likely joining us for dinner.

The next time you hear from me, I will be a resident in a new town. No longer will you have the joy of hearing me wax poetic about the ghetto, I’m saying sayonara to this dump and moving to higher ground. I’m completely infatuated with where I’m going to be living, and I’m so excited to see what the future holds! Hopefully I can maintain some level of organization in this new place, it has way more closet space than here, but let’s not count our chickens, shall we? I have a ticking time bomb Furby on my kitchen table, four pets who are doing cannonball improv, and 200 Disney movies that aren’t going to pack themselves no matter how many sour keys I bribe them with. I’m just going to teeter precariously on the ledge of mental illness for as long as possible without falling in, and that’s good enough for me.