Last Friday, my brother Corey swung by our house before work to gift Chooch and me with a talking Pee Wee doll that his awesome girlfriend Danielle found for us! Chooch was so excited, he had to stay home from school. (Supposedly his “stomach hurt” but I’m pretty sure I was duped.)

Chooch is still pretty stoked about emailing people! He randomly emailed me, Barb, and his brother Blake, asking if we know who Dr. Who. He was quick to spot the typo in Blake’s reply and on went the Spelling Dick hat.

Blake got all defensive and cried, “It was a mistake!” (I imagine he cried, anyhow.)

(Barb replied and said, “Yes, Dr. Who is a TV show. Why do you want to know?” to which Chooch replied, “I know that. I just wanted to know if you knew.” This is how titillating it is to email with a six-year-old.)

And then he went on to write a review for Minecraft, WTF! I didn’t even know he was doing this until he asked for help submitting it because he needed two more words.  It’s just so unreal to me to see how much he’s learned in such a short period of time. Yay for school!

(Janna was so proud when I sent her a picture of this review.)

Snocone or clown weener!?

(I can’t even think about snocones now without immediately reflecting back on the Great Rainbow Flavor Debate at the flea market last year. God, that was such an irritating conversation.)

LATER THIS WEEK:

• Fruit foraging update! I got new fruit! It’s apparently not ripe though.
• Trolley Adventures! Henry made me ride the trolley when it was 2 degrees out! My bowling ball toes got frostbitten on the walk to the trolley stop and my compass blew clear out of my hand!
• Probably something about Henry! Maybe something where he answers questions begrudgingly!
• Something about how I found out that SOME Wacky Worms have APPLE TUNNELS! Except I guess that’s all I really needed to say about that.

Alternately titled: It Was All Henry’s Fault

Redbox Warriors

Chooch and I decided to be strong, independent humans Sunday evening, so we ordered a movie from Redbox (“Possession” — we also wanted to be scared independent humans) and then declared to Henry that we were going to walk to the Redbox a few blocks away outside of CVS to retrieve it all by ourselves.

“And I’m even going to buy TOILET PAPER while we’re there!” I decided, noting that we were down to one roll. (I shudder to think what goes on in the bathroom when it’s occupied by Chooch.) Henry seemed bemused by this, to say the least.

However, I failed to note that it was about 10 degrees out there. Chooch at least had a heavy coat and hat on so I figured I was probably still within the child abuse margin of error. Although, we had to walk kind of slow because there was ICE EVERYWHERE.

Chooch and Erin against the elements — a scary thought.

Then! Then we stumbled upon a DEAD BIRD on the sidewalk and let out a collective “awwwwww!” We almost retreated after that, but I really wanted that fucking movie.

“What kind of bird do you think it is?” Chooch asked, after hypothesizing on how it died (his theories were way more violent than mine).

“I don’t know, who do you think I am? DADDY?!” And then we started shit-talking Henry, because that is what we do best.

Faces chapped and burning from the icy wind, we had finally made it to the Redbox outside of CVS. It took me three attempts to swipe my credit card because my hands were frozen flesh bricks at this point. After the final swipe, my credit card flung out of my hands and what a real parlor trick that was, trying to pick it up back up with fingertips I could no longer feel. After all of that, Kiosk B said it had no such record of my reservation so we moved on to Kiosk A, which didn’t acknowledge my now-violent credit card swiping AT ALL. (And yes, I was swiping it the correct way! Ask Chooch!!) By this time, there was a small crowd of people waiting for their turn, so I freaked out and announced, “JUST FORGET IT. THIS IS ALL DADDY’S FAULT ANYWAY!” and drug Chooch inside CVS to hopefully purchase toilet paper without incident. I was totally acting like Splintered Chooch.

Here is a helpful piece of background information: While I have reserved tons of Redbox movies, I have never actually used the machine-thing, except for one time a few months ago, when I thought I would be Really Helpful and walk to the very same Redbox one day and return a movie, but it kept rejecting it. Some woman was standing behind me, causing me severe performance anxiety, and I finally yelled, “FUCK IT!” and went inside to spend money on makeup to piss Henry off, because THIS was all his fault TOO!

Turns out, it was rejecting the DVD case because the DVD wasn’t inside. HENRY’S FAULT FOR NOT PUTTING THE DVD IN THE CASE!!

I called Henry from the toilet paper aisle and completely berated him (in hushed tones, I hate talking on my cell phone in stores!). “This is all your fault! I looked like a complete asshole out there! THIS IS WHY I WANTED YOU TO COME WITH US!” Then I hung up on him.

OK. The part about me and Chooch wanting to be independent humans? That’s not completely accurate. The truth is that HENRY didn’t want to walk there with us so we sort of had no choice but to go alone.

Henry called back. “Were you at the right kiosk?” he asked innocently, which made me see the bloodiest red that ever redded.

“I’m not an idiot!” I hissed, still extremely cognizant of the people around me and God forbid I should start fitting the Brookline stereotype of broadcasting my domestic disputes. And then, “Since this is all your fault, why don’t you just come here and do it yourself!” And END CALL.

In the checkout line, two guys in dirty beige coveralls stood behind me, hawking up a storm and being your basic white trash Yinzer pricks. The guy closest to me took a call on his cell and literally it felt like he was standing inside my ear, showering me with this terrible Pittsburgh cachinnation and coating the back of my head with the essence of date rape and Steelers. I kept inching forward but there was no escaping his grating voice. Meanwhile, Chooch is looking at the fronts of all the gossip magazines, asking me, “Who’s this broad? Who’s that? And her? And him?” because if it’s not someone that’s on the cover of Alternative Press, he’s clueless. But every question made my heart race faster and faster because MOMMY IS IN A BAD MOOD, OK SON?! Commotion was all around me! I just wanted quiet!

“How’s your evening?” the young cashier asked when it was our turn to check out.

“Fine,” I said.

But at the same time, Chooch, in his typical high-pitch, shouted, “MOMMY’S CREDIT CARD DIDN’T WORK IN THE RED BOX SO NOW WE CAN’T GET OUR MOVIE!” And of course, he would pick the moment when Pittsburgh Asshole put away his cell phone and approximately 12 other people had joined our line. And of course, I hadn’t paid for the toilet paper and his fucking apple juice yet so the cashier was kind of looking at me like, “Bitch, if you can’t afford a $1.50 movie from Redbox, you might not be wiping your ass tonight.”

“That’s not why!” I snapped at Chooch, while swiping my credit card. At least CVS recognized the existence of my credit card! “It’s because Daddy is an idiot!”

I don’t know how this was Henry’s fault, but give me time and I’ll write a manifesto.

I snatched the CVS bag off the counter and stormed off outside, where Henry was waiting for us in the car. He took my credit card and JUST LIKE THAT the movie was in his hands.

“I SWIPED THAT MOTHERFUCKER A MILLION TIMES! CHOOCH, TELL HIM!”

Chooch actually agreed! He usually likes to pick these moments to be infuriatingly contrary.

“I believe you,” Henry sighed. “Now get in the car.”

“FUCK YOU! I’M WALKING HOME!” I cried, a little confused about why I was still feeling so much anger but still certain it was all Henry’s fault.

Henry just laughed (HE LAUGHED AT ME!) and patiently said OK.

A block away, Chooch and I lost it and started cracking up.

“I bet daddy’s going to be so pissed that we didn’t get him a drink!” Chooch giggled, which made me giggle to the point of tears. Henry has this thing where he HAS TO BUY A DRINK anytime he’s at a store, no matter what store he’s at. Bonus points if they sell those nondescript jugs of iced tea. And anytime I happen to (rarely) go to a store without him, he acts like I cheated on him if I come home beverageless. Bitch works at a fucking Faygo plant! Bring your own shit home! And really, in 12 years, when have I ever thoughtfully picked something up for him at the store without being told to first? He’s lucky I’m courteous enough to order a drink for him at restaurants when he’s in the bathroom.

Everything we went through and that movie wasn’t even all that good. But at least the new episode of The Walking Dead was on right after.

Chooch and I talked A LOT about that dead bird and how fucked we’re going to be if Henry dies/leaves/quits doing shit for us.

Yesterday I went to castle blood for their valentine show and there were a lot of pop-up monsters and Janna’s fortune didn’t love her and daddy peed his pants! Daddy got yelled at for not turning off his phone and mommy was not awesome the whole time. I was awesome the whole time and I got to rip a heart out of a monster and it said I never loved you any way! Katelyn (my frenemy) gave me cookies and love potion.

Today Mommy had to get her dumb fruit and Daddy acted like a idiot who is at work and he knows everything about the weird Asian market and it smells like fish in there

They still won’t let me get a durian!!!!!

I got a splinter and blah blah Daddy hurt it really bad. i wish i never had a splinter…it felt really bad…daddy had to use a pin and tweezers…he was torchering me.

—————————–

Erin’s 2 cents:

My favorite part was at the very beginning of this incident, where Chooch learned that he had a splinter in his foot. He very casually said, “Huh. My foot kind of hurts. Did I step on something?” As soon as I said the “s” word, he fucking FLIPPED HIS SHIT. He’s never had a splinter before so I’m not sure how he knew that this was going to turn from mildly irritating to OMG I’M BEING KILLED. Maybe it was a lunch table topic one day at school.

He just stood there yelling in front of me, so I said, “Um….go upstairs and tell daddy.”

Which loosely translates into “Tell your dad to deal with this shit.”

Moments later I heard this ungodly, high-pitched shriek so I ran upstairs to spectate. I mean, Chooch + Splinter + a tweezer-wielding Henry = Must See TV.

What I found was a red-faced child flailing on my bed. Henry, ignoring the melodrama, held him in one place with one hand clamped around his ankle, the other hand scraping away at the dead skin around the splinter. He looked so patient, his mouth pursed in quiet concentration. I don’t know Henry does it!

Meanwhile, Chooch’s head was tossed back, one hand draped across his forehead, and he was screaming, “I HATE YOU DADDY! I WISH THIS NEVER HAPPENED! DADDY YOU’RE HURTING ME!!!” It was the performance of a lifetime.

I’d like to take this opportunity to remind you that we live in a duplex and our neighbors were very much home. I had to counter with my own yells: “IT’S JUST A SPLINTER! DADDY IS JUST TRYING TO HELP! PLEASE NEIGHBORS DON’T CALL THE POLICE!”

Moments later, the splinter had been extracted and Chooch’s tear ducts miraculously plugged themselves. After all that. Life went on.

An hour later, we were watching a man writhing in pain post-zombie attack on The Walking Dead. “He looks just like me after I got a splinter,” Chooch observed sadly, without an ounce of sarcasm.

The next morning, we were walking to school. I still had a limp from the Big Bowling Ball Boo-Boo, which Chooch noted and scoffed, “My limp is worse than your limp.”

“It totally is not!” I cried.

“Yeah, it is. My foot injury is way worse than yours,” he argued.

“You had a splinter. I had a BOWLING BALL DROPPED ON MY FOOT!!”

“Yeah,” he replied smugly. “And the splinter was worse.”

Yeah well….I wrote more sentences than him!

The weather was way too nice on Sunday to sit around crying about my club foot, so we went to Jefferson Memorial for a family walk (Henry is not a fan of these). The subject of Bloody Mary came up and Chooch just kept pressing me for more and more information. I was like, “I don’t know! She’s some bitch who comes out of the mirror and scratches your face off! What more can I say!?” So then he took my phone and emailed Andrea, figuring she would have some sort of greater insight on the matter.

(Andrea, aren’t you pleased to know that you’re the go-to girl for these things?)

“Chooch look! It’s a woodpecker!” Henry cried, swiveling on his heels and pointing toward tree tops. I started to groan. “What?!” he snapped.

“Oh nothing, just acknowledging that you’re being a know-it-all as usual,” I said with a fake yawn.

“Sorry if I want my son to learn about things other than Bloody Mary and Minecraft!” Henry retaliated. Hey, I’m not the one who taught him about Minecraft.

Some older man was sitting in his car with the windows down, watching Chooch’s antics and laughing. I knew, just KNEW, that he was going to try and engage us with words as we walked past. I was right. He was saying something about how don’t we all wish we had that kind of energy, and I almost said, “I DO, but some motherfucker broke my entire will to live with a bowling ball yesterday!” Instead, I just smiled and told him to have a good day.

“That was weird that he was just sitting there!” I whispered (loudly) to Henry after we passed the car.

“Maybe he was parked next to his wife’s grave!” Henry snapped, all defensively. God, maybe they belong to the same beverage cult or something.

Henry didn’t notice this plane in the sky, or else Chooch and I would have choked on an ear sandwich about what kind of plane it is. You know, since Henry was in THE SERVICE and loves talking about PLANES.

Look at my poor, broken Big Green Glasses in the background. :( They’re missing an arm (is that what you call the part that goes behind the ear?) but I still wear them even though they’re lopsided and give me a headache.

Elsewhere, Henry and I have been on a roll with these pendants! I’m hoping to have a good stock built up for that Crafts in the Crypt show next month, and then who knows what. I really don’t want to get into selling these on Etsy. The greeting cards are one thing, but Etsy is a bitch to deal with. Henry was supposed to set something up LAST YEAR so I could sell shit on my own site, but that was project #879 that fell between the cracks.

If you’re interested in any beforehand, let me know and we’ll figure something out!

This is not the best picture, but the image is part of mural inside the Bayernhof Music Museum. When I was there last November with Corey and Kristy, the curator caught Corey and I giggling over it and said, “They’re SHOEING A HORSE,” with an exasperated sigh.

I mean, there IS a horse in the picture….

My friend Sean wanted a Frown of the Day pin, so we made him this fabulous Cafeteria Anger Frown. He put it on immediately and people at work were like, “OMG I WANT ONE!”

That’s a lie. No one said that.

Silly Willie* Silhouette.

(*Willie is actually short for Wilhemina. She’s Marcy’s daughter and has zero personality so I don’t talk about her much.)

My friend Brandy found this Chiodos shirt when she was thrifting and sent it to me! I almost died! It’s too small for me, but it fits Chooch perfectly and you better believe he rubbed it in when he wore it to school yesterday.  And apparently, after he taught his entire first grade class about Bloody Mary, he went on to teach them about Chiodos, too.

Thank god his teacher likes him. (He’s a joy to have in class, she said. HAHAHA.)

This is me, your host of Oh Honestly, Erin, modeling the Malachi pendant.

I gifted the rosary I stole from the hospital chapel to Apple Head. It was too small to fit over her big ass dome, so I had to help her step into it last night.

I think that’s about it. Except for another foot injury that happened on Sunday night, but I’m waiting for Chooch to write his part of it first. He’s as averse to guest-blogging as Henry is, though.

Chooch has been reading some of the Walking Dead comics on his Kindle to get his fix. That seemed like the longest mid-season hiatus ever, OMG.

Not to be one of those moms who totally brag about their kids, but OMG I have to brag about how well Chooch has been doing in school. 4.0, bitches! He’s been getting a 100% in spelling and grammar on every report card, which has me incredibly relieved because hello, you know who his father is, right? The Dunce of Two To Too Your/You’re Street. (I can’t wait to see how many typos I make in this post now after I wrote that.)

He is really proficient at reading and, since he has a Kindle Fire now, I thought it would be pretty fun to set up an email address for him so he can write back and forth with some of our friends. It has been a huge source of amusement for me so far. Naturally, Chooch’s responses are hyper-succinct, almost Henry-esque in their abruptness. But, he is 6 after all. And I’ve watched him type before. It’s no wonder he doesn’t want to go anywhere beyond “I’m good thanks. Love Riley.”

Andrea was smart and sent him a picture of her cat Vince, and he wouldn’t stop talking about that when he and Henry picked me up from work last night. He replied and told her that he wants her to visit “on March.” He says that about months. It’s always “on” a month. Never “in.”

He replied to Jessa something to the effect of, “MY MOM TOLD ME YOU HAVE CATS. SEND ME PICTURES.” He knows to use all caps when making demands.

I gave him Janna’s email address and he immediately sent her an email saying “When can I come over your house?” So they went back and forth about this, with Janna telling him he’s welcome anytime, but that she should talk about it with me first. He didn’t like that, so he emailed back, “How about Sat Feb 1?”

I guess he’s not THAT smart, because Saturday is February SECOND. God, Chooch. Learn to use the stupid cat calendar Dumb Daddy got you for Christmas.

Janna and I were texting each other about this, and I said to me, “Janna wants to know if you want to go over her house on Sunday” and he said, “What the hell, you’re talking about me behind my back!?”

He hasn’t replied to me at all today. And I even sent him a precious picture of me and Marcy watching “Homeland”!

Chooch painted a close-up of our cat Marcy’s fur for me. I’m really glad he didn’t have me guess what it was supposed to be.

I was kind of on edge yesterday, but really – how can I be in a bad mood when I live with a kid who pulls impromptu faces like this? He’s my motherfucking Valium, you guys.

(Except for when he’s causing me to need motherfucking Valium.)

Janna and I took Chooch to the Mattress Factory when he was around 9 months old. There were acres of dangerously sharp metal installations just waiting to lacerate his precious motherfucking baby skin, but Janna watched out for both of us.

Thank god.

We were just scouring Goodwill for photo shoot props, when Chooch dragged this huge blue bunny rabbit over to me and in his typical high-octave, shouted, “MOMMY! I HAVE A GREAT IDEA! For the next photo shoot, we can tape a KNIFE to his hand and pretend like he’s trying to MURDER ME!

”

There were unlimited old people all around us in every direction, dropping their jaws like dominos, so I adopted a hoarse whisper and throat-slashing motion to get Chooch to can it.

“WHAT?? THAT ONE TIME YOU DRESSED ME AS A RABBIT AND PUT BLOOD ALL OVER ME!!”

This opened the door for a nice conversation about how sometimes, the things that are normal to us are things that other people don’t understand or think is “weird.” And also made me realize that I really go for the rabbit theme a lot.

But other than that, I really enjoyed the hairy eyeballin’ I got from all the elderlies.

It was either write about my kid or my long-standing, vitriolic Katy Perry-surpassing hatred for Lance Armstrong, but the vein in my head has thrummed enough this week so you get a Chooch report instead.

Chooch is totally into the weird fruits we’ve been buying. OK, he’s definitely not at all into the weird fruits we’ve been buying. He acted like the tiny piece of dragonfruit we gave him had tiny needle-covered elves inside.

I’ll tell you what he’s really into. You know those videos that people post on YouTube that are literally nothing more than just them playing video games?Chooch loves those. In fact, there is one guy who posts videos of himself playing Minecraft that Chooch loves so much, he asked Henry if he could post a video response telling the guy that he makes good videos.

He’s also really into watching Slender Man spotting videos, but he stands really far away from the computer when doing so.

If I had do a guest post, it would probably go like this:

today I watched Minecraft videos while dum daddy fell asleep on the couch in his underwear watching criminal minds but then i woke up him after I screamed and cried while watching a Slender Man video. And then I played Happy Wheels and jacked up the computer even more while daddy answered personal ads on his phone.

It’s all he wants to talk about when I get home from work! I can’t take it! I don’t want to hear about Minecraft. He doesn’t even PLAY Minecraft!

But if he makes a You Tube video response, I’ll totally post it for you guys. And then put it in the “To Show Future GF” file post haste.

Last night, part of his homework required him to draw his family. I was angry because Henry looked exactly like Henry (a cross between a hobo serial killer and Andy from Pee Wee’s Big Adventure), but I looked all frumpy and ugly. I called Chooch out on this and he said, “Well, I WAS gonna draw you EMO,” like I should be happy he went with ugly instead.

OMG and last week his teacher told him he has swag.

I am so ready for this three day weekend.

A few weeks ago, Chooch unearthed his very first Halloween costume in his closet, put it on and then surprised me with it. I almost died laughing, seeing his big head shoved through the small opening of a fabric ice cream. It pleased me because he was 6 months old that Halloween and it poured down rain so aside from a quick photo op at my grandma’s house, that costumes was totally wasted. I even considered putting it up on eBay a few times, or giving it to someone who has a baby, but now I’m really glad that I didn’t, because nothing is funnier than someone wearing something that they’re too big for.

One day, he wore it in the backseat of the car and waved to people at red lights.  He’s even considering wearing it for real next Halloween and I will fucking die if he does because I love this costume so much, so yes — PLEASE WEAR IT!

In the meantime, I wanted to do a little photo shoot with him wearing it. The weather was so amazingly warm this weekend, and I couldn’t stop picturing him eating an ice cream cone while wearing an ice cream cone. There’s an ice cream place right down the road from the abandoned building we use for some of our pictures, but we didn’t learn it was closed until we drove all the way out there (only like 30 minutes, but still — Henry’s frown is in full effect over things like this).  We figured McDonald’s was probably our best bet at that point, and remembered that there was one down the street from the closed-down ice cream shop we took pictures at last September.  Even better!

“But does McDonald’s have rainbow sprinkles? No, I don’t think they do. You’ll have to stop at a grocery store on the way and buy some, just in case,” I said, planning ahead.

Henry glared at me.

“What? There HAS to be rainbow sprinkles! I can’t do it without the sprinkles!” I cried. EVERYTHING IS IN THE DETAILS, OK?!

So that was another 25 minutes in the car with Henry who had almost completely shut down verbally by then. I even tried to calm him down by ironically holding his hand. He wasn’t amused.

Rainbow sprinkles procured and a vanilla cone in hand, we drove back to the Twist behind a partially disabled elderly man who cruised along at a pace of about 18 mph, melting the ice cream and our patience.

But we made it with the cone mostly intact! I jumped out of the car and poured the sprinkles on while Chooch stuffed himself in the costume cone.

I positioned him in front of the closed-down ice cream shop and handed him  the severely-dripping cone.

“Vanilla? REALLY? VANILLA? You knew I wanted CHOCOLATE!” he cried.

“Well, McDonald’s only has vanilla,” I muttered, but really — he was getting vanilla no matter where we went. It had to match his costume!

And the rest of it panned out smoothly! Henry and I didn’t even argue. We were only there about 5 minutes before I got what I needed and Henry got to finish Chooch’s cone.

This was right after 2 teenage girls walked by and giggled at Chooch. He was totally angry with me.

He even DANCED for me at the end. You know why? Because that little sucker got paid to do this. I have found that giving him a few bucks is a small price to pay for cooperation and amiability in front of the camera.

God, Henry is totally going to start asking for payment now too.

<3

I had Chooch design our Christmas cards this year because that’s one less thing I’d have to worry about.

Welcome to the dictatorship, son! Henry’s been keeping a spot warm for you.

Zombiehead Tree.

Santa’s Jolly Entrails

Rudolph’s Bleeding Ass

This one is my favorite. I caught Chooch on a good day when I asked him to draw “just one more,” so he gave it his best effort with minimal mouthing off.

If you didn’t get one from us, it’s not because I don’t like you.

My Christmas card list is about as disorganized as everything else in my life. I mean, I had planned to give some to Henry’s family on Christmas Eve and completely let it slip my mind. And I LIKE Henry’s family!

I think next year, I’m going to offer them in boxed sets and give the proceeds to some sort of kid charity.

I wanted to visit Speck and Don at the pet cemetery on Christmas before stopping by my dad’s house, so we decided to find a cemetery in between to have our traditional Christmas picnic.

We wound up at some small, creepy church on a hillside (back when my mom actually gave a shit about Christmas and put up lights, you could see our house at night from this hill, so you would think that the location would kind of harbor some sense of nostalgia or childhood warmth but NO. This place held nothing of the sort, it felt wrong, it felt cold, and Chooch and I fought like cats and dogs because god forbid I had the audacity to offer him some cheese from our picnic spread and then try to take his little bratty picture.

“My Mommy is the worst!”

I finally surrendered and we drove all the way back home and went to our favorite cemetery. It was actually Henry’s idea. Oh, I know. Henry had an idea!?

Once we arrived at Uniondale, we were all at peace. That cemetery just rules so much. Chooch was in a better mood, he cooperated with the camera, and Henry stayed the fuck out of our way.

I really hope he’s in a band someday.

There’s a noticeable difference between these pictures and the ones from the initial cemetery.

Cemeteries are seriously our favorite places. (Probably not Henry’s, but it’s not like he gets to have any of his own favorite things anymore.)

This picture is relevant because Chooch got his very first concert ticket inside his Christmas stocking!

This might be a disaster, but oh well. It’s Pierce the Veil! Chooch always says that Vic Fuentes is his favorite singer, so hopefully he will love this.

(Yes, the scratch offs are his too. He loves scratch offs and cats: my son is an old lady.)

Chooch made us this card in school and it’s the best thing ever. Henry and I try to take him to as many cool places as we can and it’s nice to know that it’s not gone unnoticed. I just want him to be able to look back on his childhood and feel happy about it.

I love that kid so much.