I have a ton of shit I need to write about the zombie party, but for now I couldn’t resist posting these two pictures of Chooch because I like them so much.

The makeup was courtesy of Jessi. Thanks again, Jessi!

He was seriously in his glory.

Chooch got some sweet loot at his zombie party yesterday, including a remote control zombie and a Leatherface figurine, which he’s been playing with all day. He even took them with us to King’s for breakfast, where he and Bill (who, along with Jessi, was visiting from Michigan) raucously fought with them in our booth. Jessi and I were hungover from blackberry Manischevitz, but I wondered how much of our headaches were brought on from all the smiling we did after the Red Wings were eliminated from the Stanley Cup playoffs last night.

While at King’s, we also saw a woman in a camo jacket (“I literally can’t see her from the waist up,” Jessi marveled.

“It really works.”), a senile old man seemingly drunk from communion wine (Chooch told him he doesn’t have a mom), two dickhead fathers, and an old woman with Beethoven hair who wished us all a happy mother’s day (Bill was the only one who said thanks).

And our waitress, Jodie, admitted to me that she only just recently watched Dirty Dancing. This was after she served Jessi her “eggs Benny,” and said it in a way that made me believe it was an inside joke between them and it made me jealous! I’m very possessive of Jessi.

And my waitresses.

Bill and Jessi have since departed for home, and Henry and I are en route to Buttermilk Falls with a sleeping zombie in the backseat.

Happy Mother’s Day!

Do you know how often I hear, “Oh my god, Chooch looks JUST LIKE HENRY?” Too often. Too fucking often. In my Chooch Nostalgia research, I found this old comparison exhibit I made, because apparently when he was a year old, everyone thought he looked JUST LIKE HENRY, too. Maybe he looks like Henry when he’s blankly staring at shitty television programming or cupping his jock like all little boys (and men) do, but everything else is all Erin, OK? EVERY THING ELSE, right down to the attitude.

I like that at my new job, they have no one to compare Chooch to but ME because fuck if I have any photos of Henry on my desk. Henry has a photo of his nieces and nephews at his desk. His nieces and nephews. But not one picture of me. So I let people continuously ask, “Which one is your boyfriend?” when they see the picture of Chooch with Chiodos.

“All the way to the right, guys,” I answer every time.

(Ed.Note: He still makes these same faces when we’re together. I miss the days when he had no choice but to sit with me.]

[Originally posted September 2006]

Two and a half years. That’s how long it had been since I was last sick. Two and a half years. So it came as no surprise when I developed a cold the night before the baptism. Pair that with the fact that Brian waited until the eleventh hour to suggest that we just do the luncheon at his place (because he was too scared of my wrath to just come out and say that he failed at securing a room in the church), and you have yourself a Very Erin Baptism.

Figuring that most of the guests wouldn’t be willing to drive from the church to downtown, where Brian lives, I decided to just have the luncheon here, in my cluttered house. Which meant that Henry spent Saturday night and Sunday morning cleaning. He tried to use that as an excuse to bail on me, claiming that it would be more conducive if he stayed behind and cleaned some more. After inspecting the house, I realized that there was nothing left to be done, short of polishing the silverware and waxing the doorknobs, so I snapped my fingers and he reluctantly donned his I’m Playing Dress Up attire. After securing Riley into his slippery baptismal garments, we were ready to go.

Everyone arrived at the church on time, even Christy, who has tardiness ingrained in her nature. I was glad to see that she was already there, because she’s the godmother. And it’s important for the godparents to be at the church.

Once inside the church, the first thing that happened was Brian rushing up to me and giving me a huge, hearty hug as if this was common practice within our friendship. For the record, it is not. Wow, Church Brian is different than Street Brian, I mused to myself.

I was too busy willing my nose not to drip to pay much attention to the guests preceding the ceremony, which I feel bad about now. Except that I don’t feel bad for ignoring Janna, who flitted around me like a fucking fairy, telling me all about the trials and tribulations she endured when baking cookies for the luncheon. I think she might have expected a pat on the back, but I was like, “Bitch, I told you to just make chocolate chip cookies, not scour the Food Network website for the most ambitious recipe you could find.”

She repeatedly worried out loud that no one would like her cookies. “Do you think my cookies will be good enough?” she’d ask. I don’t know Janna, can my kid get dunked in water first? I delegated video camera duties to her, so that arrested her mind for awhile and gave me some peace and quiet.

In a happy turn of events, two members of my family showed up: my aunt Charmaine and Grandma Lois, on my birth dad’s side. That made me less embarrassed about the fact that my other family blew it off like it was simply a communal trip to the grocery store. Even my brother Corey let me down, but that’s OK — now I won’t have to go to his high school graduation. (Oh that’s right, I play those games.) I was happy to see that Christy’s parents were there, along with Janna, Brenna, Kara, Lisa, Carol, and Christy’s boyfriend Andrew. And of course Brian, the godfather and resident churchy person.

The cold medicine which I had coursing through my system made me oblivious to the fact that I was standing near an altar. Trying to dab my nose with discretion also helped keep me from erupting into giggles every time the priest spoke. Most importantly, I didn’t do anything stupid or childish.

I was chagrined, however, to learn that I would have to speak out loud from a baptism guide book. It was your basic “I do”s and “Amen”s, but still. That made my skin crawl a little, and it was hard to keep a straight face as I realized that Henry was intentionally not participating in his speaking role. He busied himself with the squirming Riley, so I don’t think anyone noticed that his lips were not, in fact, moving.

I spent a large portion of the ceremony flipping ahead in the booklet to see how much more speaking I’d have to partake in. I’m sure I appeared to be very grateful and pious.

At one point, Riley arched his back so extremely that I felt like if someone would have slid a set of stairs underneath him, he could have recreated the deleted scene in The Exorcist. That would have been a good time.

The priest, who was quite the card, anointed Riley’s head with some scented oil crap. He then closed his eyes and said, rather dramatically, “Oh yes, that does smell wonderful” and he encouraged Henry to take a whiff of Riley’s head, but Henry was still being a spoiled sport and ignored the suggestion. I, on the other hand, had a dire need to know what it smelled like, so I announced to the church, “Well, I want to smell!” and made a show of sniffing my kid’s head like I was a dog. I don’t know why I made such a scene of it; I could barely smell anything through all the sick in my nose.

God, I must have been so attractive, standing up there with red, sore nostrils, clutching a wilted Kleenex. When I looked in the mirror before we left for the church, I swear I looked semi-decent. Then it all unraveled in the car on the way to the church and I look like Throw Mama From the Train in every picture that was so rudely snapped of me, like the only thing that’s keeping me from looking like a true Cyclops is that I have an extra eye. I somehow managed to appear pregnant all over again. Sick or not, I’m just not photogenic and you would think that after twenty-seven years of scratching out my face with a Sharpie, I’d have come to terms with this.

But no, no I haven’t. It still makes me want to rip my face off.

After about twenty minutes, Riley was officially baptized and I hastily ran away from the altar so I could blow my nose. I don’t even think I thanked the priest. Now I kind of feel shitty about that. But no, not really. Not at all.

Back at my house, everyone lavished my kid with exorbitant attention (except for Brenna, who doesn’t like kids, and Janna, who was too busy staking out the perfect spot for her cookies) and he was in his glory. He cruised around the house in his Tot Rider, showing off for all who would cast a glance his way, until Christy’s dad decided that the only way he’d stay for the luncheon and enjoy himself without faking was if I turned on the football game.

So my son was soon forgotten and the baptismal luncheon quickly morphed into a football party, but I didn’t care. I was just happy that everyone was there and staying. Every time someone would approach me at the food table, I’d desperately cry out, “You’re not leaving, are you!?” Turns out they were coming to the food table to, you know, get food. I don’t get much company.

Lest anyone get too godly, Marcy came out of hiding and skulked around under a cloud of Satanism, seducing hands to pet her so she could suckle the blood that her claws were sure to draw. I could hear Christy in the other room, begging her dad not to touch Marcy.

“Daddy please don’t touch her! I tried to tell Ma once and she didn’t listen and that cat attacked her!” She usually punctuates her pleas by holding her hand against her chest, like a mom does when her child is about to fall off the monkey bars. Christy is the head of the Put Marcy Down Coalition. They have history, those two.

I dare say that Marcy was able to eclipse the football game, if only for a few minutes.

My Grandma Lois was happy to get an opportunity to give Riley a bottle. He started coughing at one point, and with a mouthful of cake, I feigned concern. “Oh. No. My son is choking. I hope he is OK.” I even craned my neck slightly in an effort to look like I cared. Then Henry called me out. “You don’t care about him; you just want to know if you have to stop eating or not.”

Come on, I was eating cake! I don’t know many people who are inclined to forsake a piece of cake in order to save a choking victim.

Did I mention that Janna made cookies?

I started to regret asking Janna to make the cookies in the first place.

Every time I’d see her talking to someone at the luncheon, I imagined she was filling their head with her stories of being a broken woman forced to bake cookies.

“Do you like those lemon cookies? Yeah? Did you know that it took me five billion hours to make those? Well it did. I even went to Egypt and excavated the jaw of a Pharaoh which I then used to grate the lemon rind to perfection. And the cinnamon on those Snickerdoodles you’re enjoying? It’s actually directly from a cinnamon fern in Asia, and it is very helpful with diarrhea.”

It would figure that Janna would be the last to leave, and she was still expelling sour air over her fucking baked goods. She wound up with a few leftovers to take home. I feel bad for her parents.

Riley was in a sound sleep in his crib by the time I realized that I had forgotten to take a picture of him with his newly appointed godparents, so a cute bottle of Mountain Dew served as a stand-in.

All in all, it was a good day. We laughed a lot and my kid was loved on a lot and he made me proud by being such a good sport about the whole manhandling by a priest situation. And that church was really pretty, too. I’m glad I let my aesthetic disposition prevent me from using the church across the street. Because that one is very plain. And you know, looks matter.

Ever since I got pregnant, I knew I would have the baby baptized, for the obvious reasons:

1. Babies dressed in uncomfortable garb while squirming under a deluge of water should be a spectator sport
2. The party afterward = food
3. Finally, a legitimate excuse to have Riley dunked (provided the church I choose goes that route)!

And also maybe I have some personal reasons as well, but getting into that would be bo-oooo-ring.

Henry, on the other hand, is quite opposed to this and has voiced several times that he doesn’t care what I decide to do, but not to expect him to support me. As a non-practicing Catholic, he said he’d feel like a hypocrite. Why? I don’t.

Surprisingly, this hasn’t sparked many blow-outs with us. If it were political, I’d have undoubtedly broken his glasses (again) with my right hook.

After discussing the situation with the priest across the street, he signed me up for the baptism class and recommended that I bring one of the godparents, since the class was going to be full of couples and I’d likely feel uncomfortable.

Wait, what? I had to go to a class? You mean I couldn’t just march the kid into a church and have a priest plop him into a fountain?

I couldn’t find anyone to go with me. I didn’t even want to go! Because really, church and me? Seriously? I would rather be pooped on by Henry’s gross ex-wife. But getting the baby baptized is surprisingly important to me, and I knew that by attending this class, I was proving that I was serious.

After spending two weeks moping around the house with a heavy bottom lip, I scored myself a side-kick for the class in the form of our very own Hoover. He was quick to reiterate that he was still not on board with the baptism, though.

At noon on Sunday, we slid into the second pew from the front of the baptism classroom and watched as the teacher–Cindy–began rustling through papers, making her last minute preparations. I immediately felt an urgent desire to laugh.

I’m one of those Inappropriate Laughers. I’ll erupt at a moment’s notice in the most solemn of places: churches, funeral homes, abortion clinics. I know I’m not alone in this, either. Henry gave me a toothpick to jab into my thigh to quell the giggles, although he first offered to do it himself.

The silence was stifling. I didn’t know where to lay my eyes. I kept staring at the pattern on Cindy’s dress, but she caught me a few times and I have a feeling she thought I was a lesbian and Henry was my skirt. Better than thinking, “Ew, that doofus sired her son? Poor baby.”

I wondered what the class would be like. I imagined there would be some Holy water flicking and maybe one of the couples would be a dear and come bearing homemade cookies. Simulated baby dunking, if we were lucky. But I would quickly find out that baptism class was really just a facade for Cindy to spend an hour beating into our heads just how fantastically in tune with Christianity her daughter is and how her son has a remarkably high IQ.

I picked at my cuticles for the next five minutes, and still no one else had arrived. Cindy decided to start without the others and passed over a sign-in sheet, which Henry refused to sign.

Cindy then asked her 10-year-old daughter Sophie to stand at the podium and start off the class by reading the Parent’s Prayer. Relieved that we weren’t going to be strong-armed into reading out loud with her, I got comfortable in the hard wooden pew as Sophie started reading. And stuttering. And fumbling over words. And completely rearranging the order of words. I wanted to slap her in the back of the head and yell, “SPIT IT OUT, KID!” Henry, sensing my annoyance and growing anger, hissed, “She’s only 10!” I didn’t care! I could read better than that when I was ten!

When she finally finished butchering the eight paragraphs (is that what you would call the individual clusters of Christlike adulation?), Cindy beamed and praised her for a job well done. I choked back the bile.

“I want to talk specifically for a minute about the one line of this prayer,” Cindy announced, still wearing her church-appointed fake smile. It was a line talking about teaching our children not to lie and cheat. Cindy pulled out the big guns in the form of an anecdote. Ooh, I was shivering with anticipation. “Just recently, we came back from Disney World. Now, while we were there, we could have lied and said that Sophie was only nine so she could get in at a cheaper admittance price, but we didn’t want to set an example of lying to get something we want. Right Sophie?” Sophie cocked her head and smiled tightly at us.

Oh my god, I really hated her.

Cindy went on to gush about Sophie’s work in the church.

“She’s filling in for an altar boy on vacation, so she’s really been able to see how mass works from behind the scenes, right Sophie?” Big deal. Sophie remained in the front of the classroom with her hands on her hips as her mom continued to stroke her ego.

What a smug bitch.

I wondered how much longer we’d have to sit here and watch their Happy Valley dog and pony show when a haggard-looking woman padded into the room. Henry gave me a squinted side-long glance as he noticed that she was alone.

Next, Cindy asked us why we wanted to have our children baptized. “We’ll start over here,” she decided as she looked at me.

What?! No one told me there was going to be a Q&A session.

“Uh…because I was baptized. And it’s like, the right thing to do?” I suddenly became aware that my answer would only have sounded worse if recited by Butthead himself.

I white-knuckled the edge of my seat, waiting for Cindy to shake her head sadly and say, “No, I’m sorry. Wrong answer; you fail. Now get the hell out of my class. Oh–and may the Lord be with you.” Instead, Cindy looked at me with the pity generally reserved for three-legged dogs.

“Yes, OK. So, because of tradition, right? That’s certainly not a wrong answer.” Then why was she making me feel like it was wrong? She turned her attention to Henry, who irritably mumbled, “I’m with her!” His reply was barely audible over all the hostility radiating from it. She skipped over him for all the other questions.

I rolled my eyes when she asked the single woman at the end of our row what her reason was and we had to sit through a veritable dissertation. I felt so out of place.

Soon, another single woman rolled on in. And another. And another. Henry’s scowl was deep-set and animosity was rolling in waves off his skin. Once again, I couldn’t stop laughing.

After getting the newcomers up to speed, Cindy decided to hurl another pop quiz our way. Something about what could we do as parents to instill faith into our children. She looked at me expectantly. I mumbled that I would take the kid to church.

Cindy gave me that look again and reiterated my answer in case those in the back didn’t quite hear just how lame it really was. Then she steepled her fingers and said that yes, going to church was certainly an obvious route to take. She was clearly digging for some profound spiritual example and I was unsure that she was going to find it within the motley crew gathered together that day.

I was wrong.

There was a woman sitting in the pew behind us, and when it was her turn to answer Cindy’s stupid question, she closed her eyes and said, “You know, I learn more about faith from my children than I could ever teach them myself. Every time my daughter hears a bell, she says a prayer.”

Don’t Erin. Oh god, don’t laugh.

Cindy stopped dead in her tracks and clutched the back of a pew. “That gave me goosebumps,” she announced, as though the woman had sung a hymn in the dulcet tones of an angel, rather than simply answering a question. Cindy rubbed her arms for effect.

This class was a piece of shit. I started to get restless and began to rifle through our handouts. There was a dated booklet about the religious aspects of being a parent and it featured pictures of real life families. There was a shot of one child with a bowl cut and thick-framed glasses who particularly tickled my funny bone. My body convulsed in amusement as I realized that the kid bore a striking resemblance to a young Hoover. Then I noticed the headline of that page said Raising Special Children.

Jesus, I’m a bad mom. No one wants to hear that their child resembles Henry.

Finally, the end was drawing near and Cindy’s husband Sam–who appeared to be running on the fumes of last night’s alcohol binge–ushered us into a classroom down the hall, where two rows of miniature chairs were set up in semi-circles. I was happy that I was able to successfully plant my ass on the chair without my cheeks dripping over the sides. Sam pressed ‘play’ on the VCR and we all sat back to watch Bishop Wuerl, circa 1988, walk us through a real life baptism. It was fifteen excruciating minutes of him narrating over top of scenes from a baptism, interspersed with shots of him in his Bishop-y costume, clasping his hands in front of a bookshelf which was no doubt filled with books about praying and swindling money from parishioners.

Quickly, I lost interest in that nonsense. Instead, I busied myself by taking inventory of the best educational toys from the ’70s, housed in ragged boxes held together by masking tape and stacked haphazardly on a shelf next to my seat. Maybe when I start attending church, my monetary offering will go toward upgrading the flashcards.

When I start attending church. I love saying that over and over in my head.

“…and then the priest anoints the godparents….”

The Bishop was on his ninth “and then.” I was waiting for the “…and then the end.” Would it ever come? That Christ-hugger Cindy said that it was a “short” video. To me, short is two minutes. Anything longer than that and I’m lost in a land of spittle and undulating hot dogs.

“…and then…”

Ooh, birdie outside the window!

“…and then…”

Jesus Christ, I couldn’t stop staring at Hoover’s head, which looked like the prize-winning gourd at the county fair.

“…and then comes the part of the ceremony where the priest performs an exorcism…”

Wait…what? Way to lasso my attention, Bishop Wuerl.

And so the video segued into the section about Original Sin and cleansing the soul. I was captivated as, over and over again, Bishop Wuerl said things like, “..expel the darknesssss.” This creepiness was certainly unexpected in a video about a fucking baptism.

“Darknesssss….”

The video ended and Sam presented us with a certificate praising us for completing baptism class. That almost made up for not attending high school graduation.

I ran for the door and as soon as my feet hit the pavement of the parking lot, my tongue tripped over itself as all the comments I had held back for the past hour came racing out past my teeth. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to distract Henry, who immediately began to berate me for dragging him to a class full of single women when he could have stayed at home and jacked off over his hair cut.

“Darknessssss.” Ooh, it still makes me shiver!

Later on that afternoon, while licking a soft-serve ice cream cone laden with crunchies, Henry said thoughtfully, “That lady—Cindy—was hiding something.” Like what? The fact that she didn’t really recite the Parent’s Prayer every night? Sophie’s on the pill because she can’t keep her legs closed?

Ever since the class, I’ve been dangling water bottles above Riley’s head so we can practice for the big day, but then Henry gets all, “OMG no!” on my ass and rips the bottle from my hand.

The baptism will be the first time I’ve entered a church since I was seventeen.

[Originally posted July 2006]

Hey look at me and my mommy blog!

I’ve been having conflicting feelings lately. Feelings that have made me want to seriously pack a bag and just go away, possibly never come back.

I suspect that maybe this is normal, that other moms probably feel this way at times, but it’s hard when you can’t find anyone to admit that, when you feel that just saying the words out loud will have you ostracized from humanity. Makes you feel kind of alone in it all. Lately, it’s seemed like Chooch and I fight with each other more than anything else and I hate that. I hate going into work with blood-shot eyes, trying to suppress that sniveling reaction your body goes through when you’ve been crying all afternoon. I miss being able to just enjoy my kid instead of constantly yelling at him and having him defy me over and over. Usually this starts as soon as he rolls out of bed.

I don’t hate my kid. But I’m starting to hate being a mom. I don’t want to hate being a mom. Last week at work, I overheard one of the analysts in her office, talking on the phone to her nineteen-month-old. And she sounded so happy talking to her son, praising him,  repeating over and over that she loved him and would be home soon. I remember those days, too. And they seem like they happened forever ago. When my co-worker hung up, she said to herself, “I love being a mother.”

Fuck you.

Most days I’m too stressed and disgusted to “enjoy” being a mother. The five hours a night I spend at my job, in a clean and quiet office, is what I enjoy.

And that makes me feel like shit.

So I’ve been looking at baby pictures. Reading old LiveJournal posts from when he was in his first year. It’s been helping. And he’s been good this weekend, like the old Chooch that I thought must have been devoured by zombies because it’s been so long since I’ve seen him.

***

Yesterday was really good though. He was actually sweet, cooperative, suggested going to the cemetery to take pictures. THAT’S the Chooch I used to know. I convinced Henry to give him a faux hawk because I haven’t been able to stand the way his hair has grown in from that horrible shearing Henry gave him last December. In my mind, his bad seed behavior can be traced back to that horrible buzzing his scalp endured.

“Ugh. I look like Jimmy Neutron,” Chooch said when he looked in the mirror. But I was like, “Well, I like it and that’s all that matters.”

I don’t know where Henry got those shorts for him. I don’t approve.

“And then JESUS….woked up from the DEAD….and saw a ZOMBIE! and then died again.”

Literally an hour later, he realized that his hair had been sculpted into a cement slab. [More photos here.]

***

I do love Chooch. That’s never changed. I just need to find a way to get back to loving my role in his life. Maybe I’m an asshole for having the audacity to admit all of this.

But hopefully, there are moms reading who maybe feel the same and now they know they’re not alone. Because god knows I know how much it sucks to feel alone.

[Ed.Note: Apparently, in the beginning, I tried extra hard to pretend we weren’t actually calling him Chooch 24:7. This post was originally written June 2006.]

Last week, I had Riley on the front porch and I noticed that he was staring at a bird perched above us on a telephone wire. Clearly, this meant that he is obsessed with birds so Henry and I took him to the National Aviary on Saturday. Because that’s how all infants want to spend a hot and humid Saturday afternoon, right?

We get him inside and I extract him from his stroller, in spite of Hoover’s pleas to let him wake up first, and began thrusting him at all the birds. Now, he’s not even two months old yet, and the rational portion of my brain realized that he wasn’t going to give a shit about an enclosure full of birds. But the child-like section of my brain is a large expanse of Legos and spit bubbles and it always wins when pitted against rationality and reason. So there I was, holding him up and saying, “LOOK AT THE GODDAMN FLAMINGOS! WHY DON’T YOU CARE ABOUT THE GODDAMN FLAMINGOS?” When he was nary a week old, I got all fed up and deflated because he wasn’t paying attention to his toys. “Make him wake up!” I would whine to Henry. Now I’m all, “For the love of God, make him go to sleep.” But I still get frustrated when he won’t take delight in the treasure trove of toys I totally splurged on when I could have been buying CDs for me me me.

I realized that Henry wasn’t capturing these riveting aviary memories so I barked at him to start videotaping for Christ’s sake. We now have a few minutes of Riley slobbering and staring blankly at everything but the goddamn birds, and then a few seconds of Riley bursting into tears at which point Hoover hurriedly turned off the camera because God forbid people know that our baby cries.

We sat outside under the protective cover of shade for a bird show, also not cared about by Riley. I looked around at the toddlers, who were squealing and applauding with expressions of pure fascination, and I wished Riley were older. But then we went into the gift shop and one of said toddlers was running amok and throwing merchandise off shelves and it really made me appreciate my little infant Riley, sacked out in his stroller. Please don’t grow up.

Then he arose and screamed bloody murder. He is not the happiest of babies. Henry said he has my temperament. Mine? But I’m a DOLL.

Oh well, at least we didn’t have to pay for him to not care about birds. But really, not even the parrots, Riley?!

Riley, enjoying life in the quiet sanctuary of his crib before being whisked off into a rowdy and humid pen full of bird shit and bellowing children

Two days earlier, I had wanted to dip Riley into a fountain at the cemetery we were at, but that was when I realized that I might have left the stove turned on. When I relayed my foiled plans to Henry that night, he breathed a sigh of relief and began lecturing me on dirty fountain water. It looked so clean and sparkling to me, though!

While we were there, I noticed a refreshing pond-sized rectangle of water down yonder from the aviary and begged Henry to let me dunk Riley in it. Maybe this particular receptacle of water would meet Hoover’s standards.

“Do you even know how filthy that water is? I don’t think so. And what’s with you wanting to ‘dunk’ our son in water?”

I can’t help it, he just looks so dunkable! I want to be dipping him in swimming pools, ponds, puddles, vats of molasses. I just want to be dunking him!

Yesterday, Henry compromised and let me dunk Riley in his little bath tub.

Thank you for dunking me in clean and sanitary water, Mom
At least it was clean and sanitary until he let loose with an explosive shit. I screamed and made Henry clean it. Anytime he protests, I viciously remind him that I’m breastfeeding. The breastfeeding card is just as good to play as the birthing card. I love this game.

That’s me who he’s smiling at, by the way. I was so excited the day he flashed his first smile, because it was 6-6-06. But then I realized it wasn’t so exciting because that was also Henry’s birthday. However, I noticed that while he does in fact gift Henry and I with his occassional smiles (which he usually follows with a scowl or blood-curling scream as he realizes that, “Hey, I’m being happy. There goes my reputation.”), the recipient of the bulk of his beams is none other than Robert Smith. It’s true. He’ll be staring off over my shoulder and I’ll follow his gaze straight to one of my many Robert Smith portraits. Maybe those nine months of rubbing my belly, playing the Cure and chanting “Robert Smith is your daddy” really paid off.

This kid is going to be so confused.

I guess Chooch turning four has really hit me harder than I thought it would. Not that I still considered him a baby, but goddamn, he REALLY isn’t a baby anymore. I was looking through some old pictures of him on Flickr and began reminiscing. It’s hard to imagine what life was like back then, when he couldn’t yet walk on his own, ruin my stuff intentionally, or call me a bitch when I follow his sneezes with a “bless you.”

This would NEVER HAPPEN now.

I think this will always be one of my favorite photos of him, because he looks like a cartoon. And I’ve been told that about myself more times than I care to recall.

Chooch and his doll Rot at the Uniondale Cemetery. Miraculously, Rot is still intact! Probably only because Chooch hasn’t learned how to set things on fire. Yet.

Robert Smith pins!

Oh my god, I wish he was still a baby. I did less fearing for my life back then. I think today is going to be the start of  Old School Chooch Week where I’ll post old stories from his baby days. DO YOU HAVE A PROBLEM WITH THAT?

I don’t know if I ever explained this yet, but Henry drives me to work every day like the good little jitney he is. I start at 4pm, and he doesn’t leave his job until at least 3, so for me to take (OMG) public transportation, he’d have to come home even earlier, forcing his boss to have a stroke. Plus, being poor folk, we only have one car and sometimes Henry actually needs it to go out and do things for me while I’m filing my nails at my comfy job.

The first two weeks of this went well. Henry is a seasoned pro at driving around downtown because that was his delivery route when he worked at the horrible Jewish meat asylum. So every day, we’d take a different route and I’d marvel at all the new sights of a city where I lived MY WHOLE LIFE. Put me in the center of town and force me to find my way home if you ever want to see me completely give up all hope and succumb to rocking back and forth with hugged knees atop a steaming sewer grate.

Then the cop incident happened, and that was sort of the impetus that took Henry from being all, “No, this is fine; I don’t have a problem driving downtown everyday” to “FUCKING DOWNTOWN OMG ANOTHER BUS I WANT TO BOMB THE BUSES NOW WHAT DOES THIS BROAD THINK SHE’S DOING?”

Two days ago, there were two young black guys yukking it up while jaywalking. I waited for Henry to slow down.

Henry did not slow down.

If I close my eyes, I can still the one boy’s lips beginning to hug the words OH SHIT as Henry nearly grazed his left side.

“WHAT THEY WEREN’T USING A CROSSWALK” Henry bellowed at me, and then approximately five seconds later we almost got t-boned by a bus.

Henry was flipping out. His nostrils, I’ve never seen them that flared, and come on – he’s lived with ME (Erin Rachelle!) for TEN YEARS.

“WHAT THE FUCK IS MY CAR INVISIBLE” he screamed out the window.

(Punctuation need not apply when quoting Chafed Hank.)

As he started to round the corner to drop me off, an older woman was attempting to cross the street.

“Watch—” I started to warn.

“I DON’T CARE I’LL KILL THEM ALL” he spat.

I was very happy when my feet touched my curb, because it meant I’m a survivor. Where’s my magnetic ribbon for the car?

[Side note: When I was shuttled to work yesterday, Chooch had chocolate frosting smeared like shit all over his lips, and was dangling a blown-up latex glove and one bare foot out the window. When you’re met with judgmental stares of homeless people and curb-dwelling wiggers, you can damn well be sure you just exited a Hillbilly Mobile.]

As soon as I got in the car last night, he started rambling about strippers. “They think because they’re strippers, they can just STAND IN THE STREET? I ALMOST RAN ONE OVER” He sounded so exasperated and disgusted, of course I was going to laugh at him.

A note to strippers from Henry: Just because you make him erect does not mean he won’t run you over if you walk in front of his car.

***

The UPS man brought Chooch a package yesterday. It was a Lego set. And not just any Lego set – but a SPONGEBOB lego set!

Spongebob is probably my least favorite cartoon in the world. Legos are probably my least favorite toy in the world.

OH WAIT, this is about CHOOCH. I keep forgetting!

“That’s mean,” I said to Henry, who had stopped home on his lunch break. “To get a kid Legos.”

Mean for the parents. Or, for the Erin, in this case.

But then I noticed on the invoice, it said it was purchased from his wish list. “That little asshole added it to his Toys R Us wish list!” I said to Henry.

“Yeah, because I wanted it,” Chooch butt in with his patented “no duh” tone.

Henry went back to work just in time for Chooch to start begging for someone to help him sort through 98,098 of the tiniest pieces I’ve ever seen – when did Legos shrink? Is there a growing dwarf population that Lego is trying to accommodate? Just what I wanted to do, spend an entire afternoon on the floor, tugging on my hair and blowing out steaming obscenities.

And then I heard Chooch snickering as he sat elsewhere, playing with less complicated toys that came already assembled by the manufacturer.

“Why are you laughing?” I asked angrily.

“Because you’re doing that all by yourself,” he giggled. “And you’re so pissed.”

Not ten minutes after I put the final dust mite-sized piece on the Krabby Patty Hell House, Chooch picked it up and five sections broke off, shattering as it hit the ground like pieces of a glass leper.

I firmly believe that Hell is carpeted with Legos, and everyone is forced to watch Spongebob ad nauseum while seated in chairs cushioned with the up-ended swords of the PlayMobile viking set.

FUCK TOYS.

But Chooch is happy with it, and my sister was nice enough to get it for him. And that’s all that matters!  I can say that now, because I got all my anger out yesterday after I punched all those orphaned babies and took a gin bath.

Look at me, being a grown-up!

Seriously though, I kind of want to just give him a cardboard box and tell him to use his imagination.

[ETA: After skimming through this, I realize I sound like an ungrateful asshole! I’m not, I swear! This was meant in good humor. I’m glad Chooch got a present – something he wanted, no less –  from someone other than me.]

More cards from the Chooch collection! We’ve sold a few over on Etsy and he just thinks he’s the shit now. And I split the proceeds with him.

So now he’s able to buy his own food.

Inside is blank, in case you want to write a haiku about your lovah’s frontal lobe.

Front

Inside. Prepositional rules don’t apply when you’re professing love.

And if your love-person has a penis?

Inside is the same as the girlie one.

They can be boughteded here: Non Compos Cards. Help Chooch survive!

Chooch turned four yesterday by rolling out of bed and colliding with the nightstand.

But it was all uphill after that!

Since he has a birthday party coming up in two weeks, we decided to just give him some small things for his birthday. I bought him (notice I said I – I’m the best parent; Henry is a deadbeat!) some Batman stuff; the Friday the 13th remake; Diary of the Dead; and a fucking viking PlayMobile set, over which I’m currently suffering stabbing pangs of buyer’s remorse. Fuck you, PlayMobile! The outside of the box said it included something like 40 pieces, but it didn’t specify that 3/4 of those pieces rival the size of ANTS. It’s some goddamn BULLSHIT. I kept trying to hide it from him all day, and every time he was on the precipice of forgetting its existence, asshole Alisha would say, “Gee, Chooch.

Where did your VIKING SET go?”

I actually had a nightmare about that viking set. Worst purchase ever. OK, maybe not quite as bad as the cream I bought eleven years that was intended to make you lose weight once applied to your wrists. (It did not make me lose weight, so I went back to the pills I bought at GNC that made me black out.)

Janna joined us later for a Vanilla Pastry Studio circle jerk. Chooch wanted cupcakes from Shop n Save, and at that moment, I actually saw a little bit of Henry in him: poor taste and frugality. The horror.

I was like, “Son, this is as much my day as it is yours, lest you forget. And I’ll be damned if we’re eating stale lumps of Betty Crocker mix out of a plastic grocery store bakery container.”

All day, Chooch kept asking, “Is it still my birthday?” and it was kind of adorable. Which is a new thing for me, because usually he’s being a holy terror.

Henry burnt himself no less than 18 times lighting these, which made me happy because he had previously spent a good five minutes haranguing me for buying “too many” candles. I’m sorry, what? There’s no such thing as too many candles. (If Henry were writing this, that would say “to many.”)

There were no complaints as everyone ate themselves into a cupcake coma. THAT’S WHAT I THOUGHT.

Look at her, thinking of ways to ruin my life. This was right before she extracted Chooch’s “bonus gift” from her purse….

A whistle! A motherfucking whistle! Who gives a four-year-old a WHISTLE? An asshole who hates the kid’s mother, that’s who!

Chooch REALLY likes knives. We were at IHOP last week and he asked to take his knife home with him. Chooch, giving new meaning to WWJD. (WHAT WOULD JASON DO.)

When Janna is around, Chooch is super good. She’s like a goddamn Chooch Whisperer. I keep trying to drop joint-custody hints around her, but I don’t think she’s quite picking up on it.

It was a good day. I think my favorite part was when he was watching his new Friday the 13th DVD, and very seriously said, “Whoa. She is really good at killing Jason.”

He was so well-behaved yesterday. I don’t think I had to lock him in his cage once!

Today is Chooch’s last day as a three-year-old. Here’s hoping he’s as charming and adorable as I was at that age, because if he continues down this path of petulance, I’m not so sure I can continue being his mommy.

You got that, Child Protective Services?

Pantsless zombie, the new fashion statement. It’s what I’m wearing to work on Monday.

This is either him emulating the undead or mocking me. I can’t decipher between the two anymore.

God help me.

If the two’s were terrible, then the three’s were a regular trepanning.

This was right as he was saying, “Zombies are fucking assholes.”

We are currently looking into homeschooling. Well, Henry is. I’m looking into a nice one bedroom apartment a few states away.

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Chooch will be FOUR (!!!) on April 25th so we’ve been all immersed in planning his birthday party. He’s still gung-ho about the zombie theme and I had big plans for the invitations. While I love my new job, there’s still that little bit of anxiety that comes with starting something new, and paired with the fact that I now have much less free time, the original invitation idea will have to wait for another year.

Instead, I thought it would be fun and simple if I just had Chooch draw a zombie. Then I scanned it, added an exposed brain, and digitally colored it. It was perfect, because my childish art skillz basically merge effortlessly with those of an actual child. It ended up being so cute and I was so proud of Chooch for his contribution, and we didn’t even butt heads! But it made me sad that only a few people would get to see it, so I changed the front to read “I want your brains” instead of “Chooch wants your brains,” and now they can double as note cards in case you want to send your pastor a note about last week’s sermon or tell your hair stylist that you’re cheating on her with the broad at Philip Pelusi.

Set of 5 on Etsy!

I refused to pay the exorbitant price that rip-off company at the mall charges for some untrained teenager to carelessly press a button on a camera while some unsavory character in a smelly fur suit forces my child to sit upon his questionable lap.

So I had an unsavory Henry slap on a smelly plastic rabbit mask, shrug into a blazer that hasn’t seen the light since 1989, and force our child to sit upon his questionable lap.

I think Henry could have tried a little harder, but what can you do. Besides make the rest of his night a living hell, which I fully intend.

Afterward, we had a lovely dinner at my mom’s house with Alisha, Henry’s mom and my brother Ryan. Corey is still in London and he was missed. We drank wine from real wine glasses this time, Corey! Post-dinner was full of HILARIOUS anecdotes (told by yours) and at one point I called Henry a spring chicken and we all laughed heartily. Then I pressured him about marriage, creating room for awkward and uncomfortable chuckles. Henry’s mom said something about it “just being a piece of paper” and I almost screamed, “I knew you didn’t want me to be your daughter-in-law!” but remembered I had just downed two glasses of very potent spiced wine and thought better of it.

Chooch showed Ryan the zombie games he plays online and they bonded over that for awhile, even went outside and played with a basketball, portraying a regular uncle-nephew scene from a Norman Rockwell painting and my head almost exploded. It was awesome. The bonding, not the near-explosion.

My mom said Ryan told her he was going to go home and check out more of the zombie games.Good job, Chooch! I kept suggesting to Ryan, “You should babysit him sometime!” and he kept laughing. But I wasn’t joking.

Alisha had stuffed cabbage for the first time and bragged a lot about Arkansas;  Henry’s mom and my mom talked about things; I piped up every now and then to remind everyone how lucky they are that someone as fantastic as me would even bother spending such a grand holiday with their ragtag asses.

Then Chooch fell and scraped his knee on the driveway and it has been a regular scene from Vietnam around here ever since. Everything is “my scrape!!!!” this and “I’M DYING!!!!!” that.

Next holiday, please.