I Have a Confession

Today I made a pretty major confession to Abby.  She and I (now that we're all roommates) gab often when we catch each other in the evenings.  We like to catch up and talk about girl things.  You know... the latest reality show junk, politics and how things are going down the shitter, sports (What? girls like sports!  Especially hockey!), and of course, Elly! 

We also talk often of our beauty regiments because honestly, we’re not getting any younger.  So of course, gray hair came up in the conversation.  I told her how every time someone cuts my hair, I request they check for grays.  Abby informed me that one of Bif's jobs is to be on gray hair lookout.  (Not really sure if he likes that job, but it comes with the boyfriend territory.  Prepares a man for much worse during marriage.  I'm just sayin'...)

His other job is to help knead the knots out of her ass. 

Yeah, you heard me right.  And no, it's not a sexual thing.  I have the same damn problem.  I make Stoofy help massage my flabby ass often.  You see, there's a pinched nerve deep in the fatty tissue that is my buttocks. 

I think I read a long while ago (maybe like 10 years ago in health class) that women commonly have problems like this because of the way their nerves run through their pelvis.  The shape of a woman's pelvis is different from a man's to make room for pushing a watermelon through her cu-ca during child birth.  Basically to sum it all up, shit gets pinched. (Note: I am not a medical expert.  If you try to use this as your own personal web-MD, I’ll laugh at you and call you a moron.  If you have a problem, go to the doctor dumbass.)

WARNING: the next part is going to get real, folks!

My ass has been acting up pretty bad this last week.  I got so desperate that I began to get creative with objects to help alleviate the pressure.  (Stoofy's been working long hours and has no desire to punch his knuckles into my butt.)  I found the most perfect thing in the whole house!  It's seriously an object no woman should ever be without!  (Especially if your man's not around to help!)

NO YOU PERV! Get your mind out of the gutter!

It's a spatula! 

Yup, I was so desperate the other day in the kitchen that I whipped open the kitchen drawers and looked for something hard but gentle, long but thick, and pointy enough to get the job done.  It just so happens that Abby has the most perfect spatula in her drawer and I snagged that bitch and immediately plunged it into the right side of my ass. 

And wouldn't you know, it did the trick!  That was the most relief I've had in days.  I finally got full feeling back to my leg, no pinched pain radiating from the deepest of my pelvis. 

After I was done, I did the right thing and threw it into the dishwasher to be sanitized.  Because even though I didn't do anything inappropriate and I had clothes on the whole time, it seemed incredibly necessary.

I also had no intentions of telling Abby.  Because even those she's seen just about every inch of my body while watching me give birth to Elly, and I've witnessed her changing her pants in the front seat of my car, there's still some things that should probably be left unsaid even amongst your very best friends.

Well.... until today.  When she mentioned that Bif was on butt patrol as well as hair lookout.  I couldn't help but fess up to her that if he's not around, the best tool to help with the pain was her spatula.  To which she busted up laughing uncontrollably because honestly, how ridiculous is it that your roommate just fessed up to using the kitchen utensil you use to flip flapjacks on their ass to also reduce pain and pressure?  It's pretty absurd. 

But I felt a lot better after confession.  And that's what's good about confessing things.  It gets it off your chest and now she'll understand why she just got a brand new spatula without my having to lie.  And I’ll know where it went to if I don’t see Bif around for a few days and there haven’t been any pancakes around.

Christmas Shopping

Now that it's November, it's time to get down to serious business... Christmas shopping.  Don't get me wrong, I will be celebrating November in all its glory all month long and I do NOT do anything Christmasy until at LEAST the day after Thanksgiving.

I'm very particular about this for a few reasons.  The most important is that my birthday is at the end of November and I have no intention of getting into the Christmas spirit until AFTER the best day of the year.  This year it rocks even more because while you're all eating your Thanksgiving dinner, I'll be eating my BIRTHDAY FEAST!  (In case you can't figure out the most obvious hints here, my birthday falls on Thanksgiving day this year. I can message you my address for birthday cards if you'd like! :-D ) 

But the one Christmas thing I do take advantage of during the last month of fall (my favorite season, which is another reason I try to prolong my love of November) is the Christmas shopping deals.  I have no choice because the damn retailers force you to think about Christmas starting in August.  (I wish that was a lie, but I saw Christmas lights at home depot in August.  I'm just sayin'... fucking corporate America!) 

This year is even more exciting because we have Elly to shop for.  This means more toys!  I say more toys because last year Stoofy and I got each other legos.  What can I say, we're big kids. 

We already got her the first of a couple gifts.  I have no intention of going overboard since she'll barely be 10 months old at Christmas.  What does she even know about getting gifts yet?  Plus, I need to take advantage of the few years I have before she can talk and then demand what she wants from Santa.  Plus I buy something for her nearly every time I leave the house.  To her, every day is Christmas. 

But to be honest, I was SO EXCITIED when the Toys R Us Christmas catalog arrived at our front doorstep!!!  I flipped through all of those pages making a mental list of all the things I wanted.  I mean I wanted to get Elly, you know, so I could play with her. 

There were oodles of baby toys, but I didn't stop there.  I couldn't help but love the Kitchen Aide all-in-one kitchen and matching refrigerator and washer/dryer set, the craftsman work bench complete with toy chain saw and tool belt, and the ultimate Barbie dream house and really everything Barbie.  (It blows my mind that the family camper is $75 by the way.) Plus thousands and thousands of Lego pieces all waiting for me to assemble into the most elaborate of creations.

I just kept making a mental note of all the things I wanted... for Elly of course.  And that's when I realized how happy I was to have a little girl.  Because she can have the tea set and the tool belt and we can play together!  (That and I can pass off all the toys I want to play with as toys for her.)

Like I said, I was super excited about the mega toy catalog.  Elly was excited too.... she had a blast ripping the paper to shreds and eating it.  Let's hope one day she enjoys picking out toys as much as I do, but not too soon.  My budget might not be able to handle that!

World of Wild Crafters

You know World of Warcraft? (Yeah, I don’t either. I've heard about it, but I really have no idea what it is...) Well, if you don't know about WoW, I'm almost sure you probably don't know about the WoWC!

WoWC is the World of Wild Crafters.  I know, you're thinking, how crazy could crafters be?  Other than the occasional hot glue gun accident or needle incident, there can't be too much to it, right?  WRONG!!!  The crafting world is filled with enough characters to write a spinoff of Harry Potter or Melrose Place (the original one). 

You've got your scrappbookers (they're a bunch of cutters), your cake and candy makers (they're usually my favorite because I never turn down food), floral arrangement ladies (I'm pretty sure they're all born in the spring and named April), wood workers (their slogan is "We do it against the grain"), painters and photographers (that's like a Hatfield and McCoy feud.  And the framers are stuck in the middle). 

There's the jewelry makers (who are easily distracted by all their shiny things) and the needle point girls (don't piss them off  unless you want a needle to the eye).  And don't forget the quilters out there.  (They are usually found in gangs they like to call guilds and they're like the Masons of Crafting.  Once you've made a rambling rose quilt with appliqué you reach the 33rd Degree and get a special ring.)

And then you have the knitters and crotcheter.  They're a tough crowd.  And you're usually one or the other.  No bi-craftials allowed!  (I don't consider myself bi-craftial.  Instead, I consider myself an ambassador between the two sides since I do both.) I know, I know.  You're thinking "Betty, I think you've finally cracked."  But honestly, this is serious business! 

You see, being a military spouse means you move around a lot just like your servicemember.  It's usually really hard to keep bouncing from job to job.  Not to mention the cost of day care is pretty much absurd.  So many wives find ways to keep themselves busy, and market their hobby as a means of extra income.  Shit, I'd do the same damn thing if I could.  I totally want to make money off of what I love to do, and was going to do anyway! (Isn't there a saying about if you're doing what you love then it's not really called work?)

Well, in the WoWC on a military base, you end up having many people that do very similar things.  It's inevitable.  It's not like there's one knitter or only one baker in the world.  I mean, we do live in America.  In case you didn't get the news flash, we support capitalism here (unless you're busy occupying Wall Street).

Turns out, when there's a little competition, some just can't handle it.  It's gotten so serious lately, people are starting to de-friend others!  I mean wow!  This is EXTREME!!!!  Whoever said crafters are a bunch of boring old ladies has no idea what they're talking about.  This shit is the makings of the next hit reality show!

And apparently the wives are involving the husbands as well.  When I told Stoofy about this, he scoffed. 

S: "You women find the most ridiculous things to bitch about.  You wanna know what those guys are saying? 'Dude, did your wife bitch at you when you got home? Yeah.  Me too.  Over crocheting? Yeah! FUCKING IDIOTS!'" 

When I explained this is serious business and there's now competition, he replied:

S: "Everybody's got somebody else!  McDonald's has Burger King.  PF Changs has Panda Express.  Everyone has competition.  Get over it!" (This is where I realized we’re both fat kids because we’re using food chains as an analogy.)

Me? Well everyone's got a blog in this world.  I just have to figure out what my gimmick is to keep hooking readers.  (Hahaha!  I said hooking! I'm now a pimp! You’re all my bitches!) Maybe if I can't hack it as a blogger I'll keep working on the script for my new pilot show Crochet Drama: Secrets of the WoWC.  Maybe Snooki would be available for the lead role?

Shoot Me Now

Yup, just go ahead and shoot me now.  I won't mind.  I'll even write you a permission slip to the cops saying it was totally ok and I actually asked for it.  Because honestly, I'm so sleep deprived right now, I'd sign off on just about anything! (Except Stoofy buying a boat.  I'd probably kill him if that happened.)

The problem is that Elly no longer sleeps.  And when I say no sleep, I mean screams for an hour at a time throughout the night a couple times a night, every night.

And she doesn't really nap.  And when I say she doesn't nap, I mean she takes three 20 minute naps a day, tops.  If I'm super lucky, every now and then, she'll sleep (in my arms because the moment I put her down she wakes up wailing) about 40 minutes.  But those days are rare.

I don't get it.  This has been going on for about a month and half.  She was like this before moving, so I don't feel like it's because of the move.  She has the same routine every day, I am a pretty routine girl myself.  She's been trying a few new foods here and there, but she's enjoying them and her system seems to be processing them just fine. (Output is working just as well as her input!)

She has the exact same bed time routine at the exact same time every night.  At 7:00 PM she gets a bath, rocks together with either mom or dad and gets a bottle.  She sometimes drifts off with no problems, sometimes it's torture. 

And then the hell begins.  She'll sleep for a couple hours, then wakes up with night-terrors.  (Or whatever the baby equivalent is to night terrors.)  She startles herself awake and just starts SCREAMING!!!!

It's flat out awful.  Because there's absolutely nothing that will stop the crying.  She's not hungry, she isn't sick.  She just doesn't want to sleep.  I give her teething tablets for any pain, if she's got a fever from teething, I give her baby Tylenol.  Nothing seems to work.

It kills me to no end that she doesn't sleep.  Not only do Stoofy and I not sleep, it kills me that she doesn't either.  But what kills me even more is that she wakes up early and is always chipper.  Like a cartoon chipmunk chipper. 

She's laughing and smiling and it's like nothing happened.  I kind of think a gremlin takes over her body after 6:00 PM every night, and then evades her body by 6:00 AM.  I really can't think of any other explanation because baby night-terrors sounds even more farfetched. 

I mean, what the hell could cause a nightmare for a baby?  Flashbacks to birth? What else could there be?  And at what point do you even start dreaming in life?  And if she's dreaming, what is she dreaming of?  It's not like she knows what the lottery is, so she can't dream about winning it the way that I do.  So I just don't get it. 

Just like I don't get any sleep.  It's time to start stocking up on coffee for mumma and baby Unisom for Elly.  (That's a joke, I'm not actually drugging my child... unless someone finds a legal loophole of course.  Like I said, I'd sign off on just about anything right now.)

Shake What Your Mamma Gave Ya

Before becoming a mom, I used to buy the loudest and most obnoxious toys I could find as gifts for all the kids I knew.  I did it knowing the parents would hate me.  I'm evil like that, because honestly, as a young single girl, what did I care?  I now realize just how awful of a human being I was for doing that. (I should probably make a trip to confession for it very soon.)

Because it seems as though every toy manufactured nowadays is loud. Very loud.  (Makes me wonder if this is China's master plan: drive parents insane and pounce when we're at our weakest.)  Every toy literally has a bell or whistle on it.  They all require batteries.  Half of them come with an option on which language your child learns. 

And yet, I keep acquiring the loudest toys ever.  By my own choice.  (Read: I'm a masochist.)

I just got Elly a new toy.  It's one of those Leap Frog activity tables and it's got a million buttons and makes millions of noises.  What can I say?  I'm a hoarder.  And it's a good thing, because she LOVES it! 

It's possibly her new favorite toy!  She's so entertained by all the flashing lights and songs.  She stands, clinging to the table, and bounces along to the songs.  (I also do my part in singing along with it.)  And as she keeps dancing, I can't help but think... dear God, I hope this isn't a sign of the future: table dancing!

Because as she's standing there in only her diaper (because I don't feel like wrestling her into her onsie right this second), shaking and dancing all over the place, I can't help but worry.  I mean, maybe I've been watching Dena do the Jersey Turnpike one too many times in Italy.  Or maybe it's the flashbacks I'm having of dancing at Clutch Cargos (Pontiac!!!  What up!) that worries me.  Either way, her dancing scares me.

As I watch my daughter grow, I can't help but to be amazed at how similar she is to me.  How her funny little personality is a lot like mine already.  And then it hits me, I'm raising me and that's just scary! 

But on the other hand, she's only 8 months old.  What does she know about the bootypop? Until then Elly, just keep shakin' what your mama gave ya!

Adventures from the Marine Corps Marathon

Sunday, Abby and her boyfriend Bif finished the Marine Corps Marathon.  Talk about exciting! I mean, 26.2 miles is just NUTS!  To willingly want to spend HOURS Running... well... we all know how I feel about that.  Abby and I have decided the next marathon she'll be participating in is a RHWOWhatever marathon.  And I'll be joining her with the ice cream.

Needless to say, I'm very proud of her.  It's truly amazing and it's one more thing she can cross off her bucket list.  (Here's a tip: don't try to play the one-up game with her.  She's been to war, been shot at, and now finished a marathon.  She can kick your ass!)

I was also really impressed with how many people came out to run the marathon.  People of all ages, shapes and sizes.  I saw a kid who looked like he was 12 running.  I think he was actually 14.  Still, that's just nuts!  I saw some very senior looking men running.  They clearly were older than my grandparents.  Unbelievable! 

I saw countless amputees running and cycling.  At mile marker 11, I was standing next to a family who was cheering on their dad.  He was a double amputee.  When he saw them in the crowd, he pulled over and dropped off his arm.  (Yes, he actually dropped off his ARM.) Apparently it was bothering him. 

And I saw at least 2 blind guys running with their seeing guides.  To see a blind guy running a marathon is pretty amazing.  If you aren't a runner and you already felt bad about the amputees kicking your non-athletic ass running, watch a blind guy pass you by.  You'll hit non-runner rock bottom right there.  (And then the 12 year old kid running will pass you by and kick you while you're down.)

I saw at least 3 penguins, a couple bananas, a woopie cushion, 3 guys in suits, 5 guys barefoot, tons in those stupid 5-finger shoes, one guy in moon shoes, plenty of tutus... on men and women (mostly on women though), a woman with booby tassles (the kind strippers at 'Gentlemen's Clubs' wear), a donut and Dunkin' Donut coffee couple, 3 hot shirtless guys, a couple bumblee bees and lady bugs, and TONS of running pumpkins. 

I saw a lot of funny signs too!  Abby's sign on the back of her camelbak said:

Needless to say, she's just as funny as I am, if not more.  (Side note: She's 90% sure that Drew Carey commented on her sign during the run.  She only got a glimpse of his profile, but she's pretty sure it was him.  If a professional comedian thinks you're funny, then you're definitely pretty funny.)

Other signs of note Abby and I saw during the day: 'You're one step closer to beer!' 'Staying up all night to make this sign was hard too.' 'Hey perfect stranger, you're doing a great job.'

One thing that I did see a lot of was good and BAD race spectator behavior!  Here's a tip, if you're going to cheer on at a race, then you'd better learn the dos and don'ts or be prepared for me to yell at you (like I did to the dad and his kids and the group of middle-aged women who kept standing in the street, clogging the path for the RUNNERS). 

Do NOT, I repeat, do NOT stand in the road and block the path for runners!  They've got 15.2 more miles to go and don't need to be tripped up by your dumb ass who can't get a good enough glance at the people running past you. 

Also, don't run in front of them to get to the other side of the road.  You wouldn't run in front of a speeding bus to get to the other side for a better look at it would you? Then why the hell would you run in front of a SWARM of stampeding people running at you? Unless of course you're practicing for Pamplona 2012. 

Do cheer on the runners.  But don't tell them they're almost there when they have more than 15 miles to go.  Even as a non-runner I know that.  Telling them that is like telling a fat kid that he can have an entire cake when you've really only got a mini-cupcake to give him.  Such a letdown!

The best way to cheer them on is to call out their numbers or for the cool kids who put their names on their shirt (don't worry, this is normal runner behavior.  It doesn't mean they should be riding the "special" bus.) you could yell RUN JIM RUN!!! (However, if you're one of those people with a crazy name because your parents didn't like you, maybe you should go with a nick name since morons like me can't figure out how to pronounce your name. Especially if you're speeding past me in a heard.)

I know the next time I cheer at a marathon (it won't be Abby's since she's vowed never to do it again.  She's going with the 'one and done' policy.  So we'll be cheering on Bif) I'm totally bringing a cowbell and a bullhorn... one with an airhorn in it.  Because I want to be so loud that you can hear my cheering you on the entire running course.  By the way, I'm available for all your cheering needs.  Just let me know when you're next sporting event is and I'll be there... with bells and a bullhorn!