Henry had Chooch listening to A Skylit Drive at Hot Topic on Saturday, and lately he’s taken a liking to singing the Chiodos lyrics which are tattooed on my arm, complete with screaming into an imaginary microphone he fashions with his fist.  (And then at the end he dramatically says, “Oh, Chiodos.”)  He comes over to the computer and requests Bayside, Pierce the Veil, Isles and Glaciers, and The Used (which he refers to solely as Bert, because he’s on a first name basis with the singers of all of his favorite bands) and usually only needs to hear a few seconds of a song’s opening to determine who he’s listening to.

When he hears something new, he considers it for a minute and then says, “I’m gonna see them at Warped Tour.” I think this might be the most excited I’ve been since becoming a mother! Aside from Chooch (obviously), music is the most important thing in my life and to be able to share that with him is a fucking dream.

He had me repaint his nails yesterday (much to Henry’s delight), and when I was done, he fanned his fingers out and admired them, then blew on them slightly and murmured, “Just like Bert.”

I’m certain that Chooch will be fronting a post-hardcore band by the time he’s nine. Or at the very least, a metalcore outfit.

His current favorite video:

I love my kid.

Fuck. I love this kid.

I’m not really too much of a neat freak. Anyone who’s been to my house can testify that there is clutter on top of clutter on the coffee table, painting shit & packing supplies all over the dining room table, and toys emerging from every furniture orifice. But the one thing that really gets under my skin is a messy-mess. Play-Doh, the way it leaves trails of little colored turds all over the house. Pudding, the way it never makes it into my son’s mouth and falls into wet puddles on his clothes and the floor. I know that I can clean him off when he’s done, but it’s excruciating for me to have to watch the mess unfold right before my obsessive-complusive eyes.

Yet for some stupid ass reason, I decided (OF MY ACCORD) to squirt some of my paint on a pallette, slide some canvas under Chooch’s nose, and let him go to town. It was funny, because he gingerly dunked his fingers in the yellow and then he kind of just stood there, watching me suspiciously, as if he was waiting for me to freak out that he had sullied himself with the Devil’s art supplies.

But I breathed in real good (Blue’s Clues taught us to stop, breathe and think. It works well for Chooch, but mostly I still want to slaughter a hamlet, collect the eyelids of the citizens for pinata stuffers, and steal their crops for one last kick in the nuts) and reassured him that it was not a trick, that I really wanted him to paint.

And paint he did, for a good hour. And while I feverishly ripped off great lengths of paper towels and stopped him every ten minutes to wipe him down, I was pretty proud of myself for letting him go at it without getting too tightly wound. (And I’m pretty tightly wound to begin with.) And I wasn’t even too stage-mom about it!

Doesn’t he look exhausted here? Like he’s my little Etsy sweatshop worker. MORE PURPLE, YOU LITTLE SHIT! MAMA WANTS AT LEAST $100 FOR THIS SO YOU BETTER MAKE THIS LOOK BETTER THAN A POLLACK!

As he would smear the paint into patterns, he’d walk me through his process.

“This is a road. And this is Kara, and she’s standing with Janna’s parents.” I would like to make a note that my friend Kara hasn’t lived in Pittsburgh for about a year and a half, and though Chooch barely sees her he still includes her in his stories and art. Even after she broke his heart by getting married last summer!  I’m not sure if she should be touched or terrified, to be honest. He’s also obsessed with peeing in Kara’s potty, so now I’m worried that he’s going to grow up to be a serial killer with a penchant for leaving his mark in the toilets of his victims.

“I can’t believe she’s not bitching at me for making a mess.”

He seemed to really consider where he wanted to place each color, which impressed me. He’s much more methodical about it than I am. I’m just kind of spastic. He’s going to be so much better than me at everything. (I hope, anyway. Mama wants a beach house.)

I’ve been really stressed out lately so my Aunt Charmaine sent me some free zoo passes, assuming that taking my wild child out to a public place would solve all my problems. I never would have taken him by myself, because I’m not too proud to admit that I know how much I can handle, and that is not one of those things. Luckily, there were four passes and Alisha had off work on Friday.

Blake expressed interest so by Friday morning, we had put together a quaint little zoo expedition.

The only thing missing was Henry the Chooch-Wrangler, but I figured with three sets of capable hands, we’d be fine.

Yeah, right.

It was a rainy day. I hoped deep down that would deter most people from coming out.

Yeah, right x2.

It was more crowded than I have ever seen the zoo. So crowded, in fact, that we were banished to some gravel lot riddled with tall weeds, empty Newport boxes, and probably if we looked hard enough, a syringe or two.  I hoped Blake and Alisha would be all, “Fuck it, let’s go to a strip club instead” but no, they were under the impression that braving solid human walls was worth it since our passes were free.

Chooch refused to pose for this picture because we wouldn’t let him scramble to the top like he wanted. So he posed for this pouting shot instead.

0.5 seconds after this photo was taken, he kicked mud all over my shoes and ankles, which was very refreshing. My pink Converse looked so plain without wet sod splatters all over them, anyway.

Blake was super worried about his hair getting wet and washing away scene points, so he hid under Alisha’s umbrella the whole time. Alisha hid under her hood, while I braved the rain, allowing it to jeri curl my bangs. It wouldn’t have mattered anyway, because rain or not I’d have still been drenched with sweat from chasing Chooch around. Jesus Christ, that kid does.not.stop EVER. He’d approach an exhibit, glance at whatever was behind the fence, and say, “Aw how cute, OK let’s go” and then all we’d see was a flash of his shirt as he jettisoned deeper into the crowd.

And speaking of the crowd — sure, there were small pockets of people huddled together at each animal exhibit we came upon, but nothing as bad as I was anticipating, which made me wonder where the fuck everyone was because judging by the parking lot, half the city was out ogling wildlife. Of course, there were the obligatory fanny-packed wide asses that shove their way past and stand in just the right position to block your view with their frizzy heads.

Aside from all the people-ogling, I’d have liked to have stopped to gawk at the elephants a little but that wasn’t on Chooch’s agenda.

Running through the monkey house was, though.

That’s what Chooch looked like the whole time: a blur. Even with three of us, it seemed like all we did was bolt after him. It’s time to invest in a leash, a taser, and a straight jacket.

Blake spent $2 on a zoo key so he could jam it in the box, make some annoying animal song play in the key of 80s power ballad, and then walk away after twenty seconds of it. In this particular photo, he was lamenting that no matter what side of the key he plunged in, the box would only spurt out animal facts AND NO SONG. I bet if he was on Twitter, his followers would have felt tremors.

Later, when we arrived at the aquarium, it was clear that THAT’S where the contents of every parked car was. It took all the braun and crowded room-germ alert endurance I had within in me just to snap a quick photo of the penguins, and it was only dire to me because of the Penguins banner.

Chooch would have nothing to do with anything in the aquarium, yet later on when we asked, “Hey Chooch, what did you see at the zoo?” he’d spit out, “Nuffin’! FISH.” And then roll his eyes in disgust that we had the audacity to bother him with such asinine questions.

On the way out, Chooch walked ahead of us and I hoped that maybe that could be his new family. Like if I could just sneak him inside that woman’s bag.

As we were leaving down the steepest escalator in the world, Blake wistfully said, “I wish there was a CD with all those awesome zoo key songs on it” and no more then fifteen seconds later, a recording came on through the speakers in the escalator, informing us that a CD of the zoo key songs could be purchased in the gift shop. At that moment, I was so relieved that I wasn’t Blake’s parent and therefore under no obligation to take him back to the gift shop and fork over some exorbitant sum for a CD with songs about what zebras eat for dinner.

Why I continue to go to the zoo is beyond me. I mean, you think I would learn my lesson by now. [Ex.1. Ex.2. Ex.3.] I love animals, don’t get me wrong. But I don’t like people, and I don’t like humidity, and I especially don’t like these things while I’m chasing after my child, making sure he doesn’t become a snack for the lions or the Silverback’s new bouncy ball.

So at the end of the day, was I any less stressed out?

No. But I guess it was still kind of fun. A little bit. Hey, at least I saw a Penguins banner?

Chooch fell down the steps earlier this evening. Thank god he was nearly all the way to the bottom before it happened, but he still fell from a distance great enough to result in a full flip through the air and a sloppy landing into the corner of a bookshelf.

I was at the bottom of the steps when it happened. First, I saw his toy airplane hit the floor, and when I heard a second thump, I turned toward the steps expecting to see more of his toys being hurled, as he sometimes does to be a dick. But the second thump turned out to be Chooch himself, hitting the fourth-to-the-last step and then bouncing back into the air long enough to gain the speed necessary to acquire a gooey gash on the side of his dome.

It was a flash of his blue shirt, a sickening thud, and my heart was lodged in my throat.

There was blood.

Since it was a head wound, there was a LOT of blood.

I remember there was that moment when time just flat out stopped, and we stared at each other, him in a supine position on the carpeted landing, and me in a paralyzed lunge. And then I think we started wailing hysterically in tandem. I saw the blood and my legs went noodley and I began gagging which caused HIM to gag and he was crying so hard and I was just flat out in a state of motherfucking PANIC.

Every time my brain would start to churn out rational thoughts, my synapses would get clogged with the sight of blood. It would be like, “Call the doct—-BLOODOMGBLOOD.” “Get some ice from the freez—-OH HOLY FUCK THAT’S A LOT OF BLOOD.” “Chooch, sit down—-OMG HOW ARE YOU STILL ALIVE THAT’S LIKE AN ENTIRE PERSON WORTH OF BLOOD.”

And he wouldn’t let me touch it. He just kept sobbing “Don’t touch me! Leave me alone!” and he squatted under the dining room table and all I could think was that what if he hit his head so hard that his memory got all fucked up and his mind put together some horrible fable wherein I pushed him down the stairs?

It took something like 28 phone calls to Henry consisting of me screaming all helter skelter at him before Henry finally deduced that he should definitely not be at work and thank god for that man because he walked through the front door all calm-like just as I had gotten Chooch to settle down by putting on Silent Library, best show ever. Henry scoped out the gash as best as Chooch would let him, never once accused me of being a shitty mother, and very sedately announced, “OK let’s go to the hospital.” Just like that. He didn’t cry. His voice didn’t tremble. His knees didn’t quake. He kept it together and let me be the shaky, nervous, panicked, OMG-death-is-imminent parent.

It was slow night for emergencies so we were seen within ten minutes of arriving at the new Childrens Hospital.

After a nurse took his vitals (I wish she would have checked my blood pressure, too) we were deposited into an exam room, where an older woman in a black cardigan came in wielding a clip board. “OMG it’s a social worker, I’m being questioned, they’re going to take my son away from me” was what went through my mind. It turned out to just be someone from Reception, who wanted to verify our address and insurance information. I resumed regular breathing.

Every time I would close my eyes, I saw the accident happening all over again, and it turned into a video game where I try to control myself to get there faster and catch him. Henry kept drilling it into my head that it wasn’t my fault, but I was the one home with him. I had just been with him too — he was in his room, where he goes to poop, and I checked in on him. He said he wasn’t done, I said take your time. I came back downstairs and it happened a minute later. And in the midst of all the commotion, all the crying, and all the blood, all he wanted was for me to change his poopy Pull-Up.

We were blessed to have a young and pretty doctor, and Chooch set him sights on her immediately. He actually let her, without a fight, push his ringlets to the side so she could assess the damage. She ran through some standard tests, making him follow simple instructions like touching his nose, sticking out his tongue, and touching her fingertip, and gave us the reassuring news that she saw no need for scans and that he didn’t seem to have suffered any neurological damage. She left, and we were left to entertain him for twenty minutes while the numbing agent sat on his wound.

Of course, he was back to being a crazy ass, doing and saying all the odd things he’s wont to do and say, and I asked rhetorically, “But was he EVER neurologically sound?” It was also fun to tell him that the zombies were skulking about the hospital floors, searching for him, because they could smell his brain stench emanating from his glutinous scalp cleft. Henry scolded me, so of course I did it some more. What, Chooch LOVES zombies!

While the doctor was gone, Chooch started acting real goofy, walking in clumsy circles and talking with a protruding tongue. At first I was like, “Maybe he hit his head harder than we thought…” but then it hit me. “He’s acting like a kid with a crush,” I pointed out to Henry, who heartily agreed.

“This is how he was acting around the girls working in Kiddieland on Sunday,” Henry said, and we laughed as Chooch pressed his face against the sliding door of the exam room, eye-flirting with a nurse out in the hall. Then I had a fleeting vision of hm growing up to be the next Richard Speck and suddenly it wasn’t so cute anymore.

Chooch wound up getting three staples. The doctor came back with a nurse and somehow they managed to keep him prone on the exam table with him displaying nary a buck or struggle. He whimpered a little when his wound was being washed, and he definitely cried audibly during the stapling, but all in all I’d say he was much braver than I ever would have been in his position. I’d have been, “It’s OK, just let me bleed out, k, c-ya bye” if someone came near my head with a fucking medical stapler, bitch you better step off.

Chooch didn’t want to remove his patient smock, so the doctor let him keep it, along with the large syringe she used to squirt his wound with water.

We were in and out within an hour and a half. The new hospital is amazing and it was a much better experience than the last time we had to take him to the old Childrens Hospital.

 n of course, why should my night end quietly, all the neighbors were out when we came home so I got to tell them all about how I’m a shitty mother who couldn’t function when her kid needed her most. I just keep getting more and more awesome.

Of course, once we were home, Chooch had at least ten more near-accidents, four of which were on the steps.

The second week of potty training proved quite fruitful once we implemented a sticker reward chart. The first week I stupidly offered all kinds of extravagant rewards, such as ice cream for breakfast and a trip to the titty bar, to lure Chooch’s urine into the potty. Who knew stickers was all it would take.

The last few days, he’s been aware enough of his bodily functions to slip out of his Pull-Ups in time to drain his juice out on the pot, and today he’s officially graduated to underroos. He loves them, but did not love the sensation of dropping a deuce inside of them. Perhaps now he’ll understand the rewards of POOPING on the potty, too. He wasn’t too ashamed to run into the backyard and tell our neighbor Toya that “I pooped in my underroos and dropped it on the floor!” to which she hesitantly replied, “Okay, wow!”

Thank god Henry was here to clean that shit up.

I woke up Saturday feeling all sorts of socially anxious and testy. Nothing in particular happened, but I had a long week of potty-training and I think that combined with my usual stressors set off some sort of synaptical brush fire which desperately begged to be doused with wine. So I canceled all of my weekend plans and tried to shut off my brain.

Sunday morning, Henry suggested that I spend some time alone, since my biggest gripe is, “I NEVER GET ANY TIME ALONE, MOTHERFUCKER.” He whisked Chooch off and I did some shit on the computer, watched some embarrassing reality TV (seeing Hulk Hogan cry is even a little awkward for ME), and I modeled some clothes for the cats. Their stares were blank and peppered with undulating question marks.

I lasted three hours. No, two and a half. And then I was fidgeting and sick of being in the house and absolutely itching for something, anything, to do. Stewing in a mindless muck on the couch does not become me. Henry and Chooch were summoned home, and we went for a little Sunday drive thing.

We ended up in some country-ghetto park out near Ambridge, PA. All the roads had clumbs of weeds ripping through the cracked asphalt and I’m fairly certain it is THE PERFECT place to don a letterman jacket and rape a bitch and I kept getting little chills molesting my spine, up and down and all around.

We found an isolated pavilion that had a rusty, rainbow-painted swing set and a SEESAW which I swear to God I haven’t seen a see saw in fucking ten years. I begged Henry to ‘saw with me and as soon as he had me in the air, I mean THE VERY SECOND my feet lost their position on the earth, I was in hysterics and screamed loudly, “PUT ME DOWN PUT ME THE FUCK DOWN I’M GONNA DIE PUT ME THE FUCK DOWN I JUST PEED.”

There were several chained off, overgrown roads that were surrounded on both sides by dark woods nd practically calling out to us to uncover the murders that have happened out there. I kept voicing scenarios out loud, forcing Henry to constantly remind me that our three-year-old was with us but really it was because I was unnerving him.

I totally can’t remember the name of this sad park, but I would like to be having my birthday party there. My Simulated Murder Birthday Party. I guess that will be next year’s big fete. Oh boy.

I like the outdoors, but only for a few minutes because then wildlife things start making my nose itch and I thought I kept hearing a chainsaw firing up in the near distance. I mean, I let out a blood-curdling cry that would rival that of any Scream Queen’s because a chipmunk poked his nose out from the bottom of a collection of wildflowers we were walking next to. A CHIPMUNK, not Leatherface.

But Chooch, he would live among milkweed (Henry just taught me that!!#@!) and jagger bushes if we let him. He’s probably going to want to go camping at some point. I hate camping (I’ve never been camping, but I just know that I will hate it). So then Henry will be all, “Here son, I’ll take you camping and we can leave Mommy at home to bake bread and darn our socks” and I’ll be damned if they’re going to go someplace alone where the possibility that they’ll talk about me is VERY REAL. I will start thinking now of ways to sabotage their camping trips. Those fuckers.

Then we left and Henry bought me Gobstoppers, even though I wanted Jawbreakers but he was all, “I haven’t seen real Jawbreakers in stores in a long time” and I said, “Bitch, then you best walk your elderly ass into a movie theater, mother fucker” but he laughed because apparently he thought I was joking.

Earlier today, Alisha began whining about how she wanted Chinese food so badly that she had legitimate pangs of  soy sauce-lust shooting through her veins. Tired of listening to it any longer, Henry took us all to Silver Palace to eat amongst the elderly. I mean, there were so many old people there that Henry might actually have been considered young.

Seated right behind us were two archetypical old man. I know this because in the twenty-minute duration we breathed the same MSG-laden air, they referenced young people, arthritis, and “I’ll be right out, I have to take my pills.” They were so perfectly old that if we had gotten there a few minutes earlier, we might have been privy to some D-Day memories, and I can assure you with confidence that there is a handicapped tag dangling off the rear view mirror of the Lincoln in which they likely rolled up. The man furthest from me spoke in bombastic tones, making me shrink down a little in the booth. Once you pass 50, you’re awarded a license to speak loudly in public. I think you can get them at AAA and Bob Evans.

I couldn’t hear the man who shared the same back to the booth as me, but I imagine he must have danced into a liver spot diatribe at least once. Alisha swears she heard one ask the other if they felt like they could be in danger and proceeded to obsess over that for the next ten minutes.

The one closest to us blew his nose. It was crinkly and wet. Very wet. It seemed to reverberate all around us, hanging above our white-clothed table like a cloud saturated with nasal juice, reminding us of its crudeness. At that moment, I became very glad that my Color Wheel was served with a viscous white sauce, so as I ate, I could visualize what that old man shot into his hanky.

Like most people, the adults at our table (and yes, I am including myself in that) sort of hung our heads and closed our eyes. Alisha shuddered a little. Henry, well, I don’t know what Henry did because I was too busy anxiously awaiting Alisha to spooge stomach acid in cupped hands, because she is very critically snot-phobic. As in, earlier when Chooch’s sneeze left him with rivers of gelled waste trickling across his top lip like a babbling brook rushing over a felled log, Alisha had to bury her head in the crook of her arm. Like, one time I mentioned that I’m addicted to coughing up phlegm when I’m sick, and she did the dry heaving dance. I continued to tell her that I love how it crackles in my chest. I love how, if I breathe very forcefully and exhale past average limitations to the point where I’m nearly passing out, I can call up a tiny wheeze. Bronchitis? Love having it. I could play with chest congestion all the livelong day. I told her all of this and I think she seriously considered ending our friendship.

As I was saying….

None of us vocalized our disgust for that man’s clear lack of table etiquette, but Chooch doesn’t yet have the ability to not call a bitch out. So, very loudly, he shouts, “WHAT WAS THAT?” Because I mean, this man expelled his mucous so forcefully that he quite possibly blew out some bones, a treasure map, and the cure for cancer as well, all buoying about in a sea of nasal sick.

Chooch had abandoned the straw skyscraper he was erecting in his glass of watered ginger ale at this point (he doesn’t like the fizziness of the carbonation, although he pronounces it bizzy, as in “I can’t like that bizzy!”). He repeated his question, standing up slightly in the booth, eyes wide and darting around the restaurant. Collectively, we tried to assure him that it was nothing, but you know — that’s not an acceptable answer for a kid. Putting a hand behind his ear, he argued, “No, I heard sumpin’.”

And Chooch, he speaks in old men volumes. He doesn’t yet grasp the concept of table volume, so it became very public commentary to follow the very public nose-blowing.

It was one of those moments where I remembered how awesome it is to have a three-year-old. 

After they left, I exhaled and said, “My god, they were like old people stereotypes!” and Henry goes, “Only one was old.

“

I never did get a chance to see the nose-honker, so I asked, “Oh, the other guy was young? I didn’t imagine that he was.”

“He was probably only fifty,” Henry added matter-of-factly with a shrug.

And the incredulous look on my face asked Alisha, “Since when is fifty not old??”

Since, I guess, when Henry is only six years shy of it.

Orally fixated on balloons. But really, who isn’t. AMIRIGHT.

I hate that everything Chooch has is so much cooler than my own stuff.

I was using a Rugrats comforter when I met Henry. In fact, I had a Rugrats shower curtain too. Then he moved in and adultified everything, that no-fun-havin’ Zetterburg. At least Chooch gets to have a fun room.

“I can still sleep in your room though, right Mommy?”

Guest List

• Alisha
• Bill & Jessi FROM MICHIGAN
• Corey, my brother
• Janna & her mommy, her mom-mom-mommy
• Blake and his girlfriend Deanna
• Brenna
• Kara and her baking baby
• Dyanna
• Carol, my surrogate mommy
• Henry’s mom
• Henry’s sister and her caravan of five children, also her boyfriend
• Scott, Judi and Sam Robbins (Henry and I used to work with Scott)
• My aunt Charmaine & paternal grandma Lois 

Chooch’s birthday was April 25th, but I wanted to move his party up to May, figuring it would make for better weather. Too bad it was like 55 degrees and so windy that if Alisha had brought her broom, she’d have blown straight back to Oz.

Bill, Jessi, Alisha and Brenna came early to the pavilion on Sunday to help me decorate. I was still sick, perhaps even sicker than the day before, and Alisha had given me more debilitating poison from her purse. Because I was feeling under the weather, I couldn’t really be bothered with switching lenses and changing settings, so most of my photos came out looking like I used a ten cent disposable. 0wellz0rz.

I was thankful to have extra hands there to help me with all the HARD WORK, such as staple-gunning table cloths (I’m such a whore for staple guns now, the power surge is nearly orgasmic) and slinging streamers through rafters.

Jessi at one point stepped back and commented that it looked like homeless people had decorated. Then she wanted Henry to start a hobo fire in one of the metal trashcans. IT WASN’T THAT COLD! But I probably had a FEVER so never mind. Alisha had some body-warming potion in her purse but Jessi declined, which is good because that’s how Alisha date-rapes people.

Have I mentioned lately how overjoyed I am to be friends with Alisha again??

Lost Boys cake, obviously. Henry waited until we were standing above it before the party to say, “We should have Photoshopped Chooch’s face on it.” Yes, that would have been awesome. Thanks for thinking of that before I sent the order in. The cake was almost was a no-show, seeing as how Henry forgot to pick it up the day before and Bethel Bakery is closed on Sundays. Luckily, they made a concession for him and had someone meet him there the next morning so he could pick it up. That fucker, he got lucky. However, he conveniently forgot the veggie burgers at home, as usual. I’m screwed every time we have a cook out. EVERY TIME. I yelled at Henry that Jessi probably would have liked to have a veggie burger as well, and he was all, “Oh. Do they even have those in Michigan?” He made veggie kabobs though, but the one I had was terrible. Jessi said hers were good. Probably because Henry was all, “Here Jessi, have the one that wasn’t dropped on the ground. I’m saving that for Erin.”

Chooch and his eyeball pinata. He looks so sad, and I almost feel sorry for him, but then I remember how abusive he was to his older cousin Zac.

Blake was the only person who even attempted to kill the pinata. After Henry bought it, he realized we didn’t have a bat so he searched the house for an adequate substitution, and that is how I learned Henry has a night stick. Oh please, let’s use that for the pinata! Because our party isn’t trailer park-esque enough!  I asked him why the hell he has a night stick, anyway, and he got real shifty and said, “I don’t know, OK?? I’ve had it since high school.” Which translates into: My ex-wife had a thing for cop-domination, OK??

We ended up using some broken Vegas-themed pool cue instead. Classy.

What? Kara’s eating for two.

I swear these are real people that I know, and not homeless people! It wasn’t really a hobo party.

Oh the innocence!! This was taken right after she gifted me with a Now or Later bracelet which MELTED on my wrist and left me with a sticky candy poop smear.

Janna was so excited to be eating Kiefer Sutherland’s face that she practically tackled me as I walked by because she needed a souvenir photo. 

I’d also like to add that this was the first time in HISTORY that the important ordering of the birthday cake responsibility was laid upon my shoulders. I’m really surprised I was trusted enough. Now, my family has been patronizing Bethel Bakery for all their cake needs since before I can even remember. But they always get the same standard cake: half & half batter with the French buttercream frosting. And it’s delicious, it really is. But twenty-nine years I’ve been eating this same combination. Finally, the decision was in my hands and I would be lying if I said I didn’t feel like I was playing God at that moment, clicking the various cake components of MY CHOICE on the website.

In the end, I settled on almond batter, stuck with the French buttercream because they’re famous for it and it really is the best cake icing I’ve ever had, but in lieu of that same buttercream as a filling, I went with red raspberry. I walked around the party as everyone ate their cake and made it known that I had built that cake and that I should be praised for it, just as Noah was for his ark. It seemed to be a hit, so I was able to sneer in Henry’s face.

“What? I never said a single thing about it!” he cried in defense. Oh sure, as if he wasn’t lying awake at night, hoping I didn’t wind up ordering a foot-flavored cake.

Present opening. Boring. However, he somehow managed to walk away with three new Cars puzzles that he doesn’t already have, which is a small miracle. My favorite part was when he got to Corey’s unwrapped presents, casually laying inside a Toys R Us bag, and cried out, “I already have this!”  as he withdrew a small Domo plushie. I hurriedly corrected, “No, you have the HALLOWEEN one, so this is different!” It doesn’t really matter anyway, because I would like to have my own Domo and I think I’ll just take that one. Thanks Corey! 

 It was a really nice day and I’m glad that some of my friends were able to come out and celebrate Little Trucker’s third birthday. He even was pretty good about not swearing.

[So, this was supposed to be a post of just photos, but of course I had to fuck it up with words.]

The three of us were laying in bed last night when I asked Chooch to tell us a story.

“Ok um….I’mma put Daddy in the microwave, cut him with knife, eat him with a fork,” Chooch story-told with no hesitation. Naturally, he and I erupted into delirious giggles, hiccups eventually plaguing Chooch.

Henry didn’t laugh. Instead, he exasperatedly wiped his hand over his exhausted face and sighed, “This.

This is why I’m not taking any part in finding him a school.

That’s all on you.”

And of course, that only made Chooch and me laugh harder, until Henry ultimately left the bedroom and went downstairs.

“What kind of cake did you get, Riley?” our neighbor Ruth asked last night, as we hung out in the front yard. “Chocolate or yellow?”

“Raspberry ambrosia,” I answered for him.

Ruth made the universal “Oh Jesus Christ” face, presumably since the cake was only for a three year old. But when it comes to baked goods, nothing’s too gourmet for my kid. 

Then I gave her a piece and that shut her right up.

My favorite (CAKE) bakery churns out these majestic masterpieces of raspberry orgasms and caps it off with a proper powdered sugar ejacualtion and every bite is a money shot, I fucking promise. I have been obsessed with this cake for years. In fact, one year, I threw a birthday party for Henry (I know, wrap your head around THAT one — me doing something selfless for that man), and when I went to pick up his cake at Bethel Bakery (let me also add that I declined their offer of an iced inscription; it  said nary a  Happy Birthday), I bought myself a raspberry ambrosia cake. Yes, it was Henry’s birthday, but I was still the Queen. I will never forget gathering around the dining room table and explaining, “The plain cake is Henry’s, but that magnificent bitch right there is mine” and of course, none of my friends were fazed by this, but Henry’s sister and the one friend of his I bothered to invite looked a little appalled.

That night is still referred to as “The party where Erin bought herself the ‘good cake’.

“

So yeah, never mind, I guess the whole birthday-party-for-Henry thing wasn’t as selfless of a manuever as I imagined it was back then.

I sent Henry off on his own to retrieve the cake, and after the Easter pie debacle, I’m awfully relieved he didn’t come home with another contestant of the What Were They Thinking OMG Hideous Pie competition.

We also got a half dozen cupcakes from my favorite CUPCAKE bakery, Vanilla Pastry Studio.

As soon as the candles on the cake were snuffed out by his dirty trucker breath, he bypassed the cake and tore into a lemon cucpake. I guess he knew that cake was really for mommy.

 Thank you for being born, Choochie, if only to give Mommy another acceptable day to stuff her face with 16,879 sugar-crystaled calories.

Three years ago, on this very day, I was gutted like a fish so that my master could be born. My life has been under seige ever since, but mostly (MOSTLY) that’s an OK thing.  I just view all the bruises as accessories, and the chest pains are getting easier to ignore.

Happy birthday, Chooch! Here’s to many more years of a perpetually dirt-bearded face!

(Except not.) I  hope you can like today.

Thank god the weather has been getting nicer. Taking Chooch outside really helps break up the monotony of being pathetic housebound charity cases. Plus, Chooch’s obscenity arsenal always enjoys a nice change of scenery. It’s basically like he’s taking his show on the road. Yes, random person ambling past our house, this really is how my child always acts. Awesome, right?

It was warm yesterday, mid-sixties at least, yet he insisted on keeping his hood up. I think he’s embarrassed of this one patch of hair on the back of his head. It’s still super short, stunted almost, from him sleeping on his back, and so frizzy that it appears cinged.  It drives Henry nuts and at least once a day he threatens to shave it off, as though this poor, Charlie Brown-like follicular thatch is phycially assaulting him. It doesn’t bother me at all, though I do catch myself making futile attempts to slick it down with my saliva.

The rest of his hair has finally grown to a significant length. This is good because Henry and I have already decided that he’s going to Warped Tour with us this July so we’ll be able to style it accordingly. Unless he tries to wear a hood in spite of the ninety degree weather, for fashion’s sake.

I can’t express my gratitude to the person who invented puzzles, because they have been keeping Chooch’s wandering attention rapt for weeks now. He’s built up quite a collection, and thank god we upgraded to larger piece-counts, because it gives me some time to return a phone call in peace, read a few pages in a book, take a fucking piss.

Thank you Mr(s). Puzzle Inventor.

Chooch loves feta cheese, but he already knows he can’t like Swiss. His words, not mine. He’s put Lost Boys on the backburner for the time being in order to adequately obsess over Twilight. Henry apparently saw somewhere that they’re holding auditions for extra vampires and we want to take Chooch, since he already has the natural fangs. Seriously, I will be so sad if they fall out and aren’t replaced by an adult set. His fangs are fucking badass.

Chooch somehow always knows when I’m on the phone with Christina, without me telling him. I know this because he’ll take the phone and say, “I’m going to eat Jesus’s face!” He only says this to her, because he knows how much she loves that Jesus fellow and he gets great satisfaction from making her upset. She probably feels inspired to say the Rosary every time she talks to him.

He’s not saying “asshole” as much as he was, having graduated to the scathingly monosyllabic “bitch.” However, he was acting a fool the other day, and when I started to say, “Chooch, you’re such a—-” he finished it by saying “Asshole!” Not what I was going to say, but it effectively conveyed my point. So yeah — bitch. He loves it and says it with such detached ambivalence and blase that I can’t help but wonder if he’s been palling around with Paris Hilton. In fact, just the other day we went to visit my grandmother, whom he hasn’t seen since Halloween. (That in itself is a story for another day.) So, he walks right into her den, leans against the couch and goes, “Hi, bitch.” To my grandmother, who is offended by pretty much anything that I even had a remote part in.

But she laughed, the same lady who nearly had a heart attack when I announced my pregnancy and screeched “You weren’t meant to have children!” ad nauseum. This same lady laughed so hard I had to hiss, “Grandma, don’t encourage him!”

“But he sounded so casual!” she cried.

Indeed.

Christina and I had been going through a rough patch. I was ready to never talk to her again but then Henry morphed into Meddling Mother Hen mode and reasoned with me. Christina is lucky; I had big vengeful plans in store for her.

So she came to visit last weekend. It was the first time we hung out since November and what better way to torture her than by strapping clown shoes on her feet and forcing her to hike all over a cemetery.

At one point, I had her laying supine in front of a verdigris’d crypt, surrounded by piles of dead leaves, when an elderly woman idled by in her Oldladymobile and the look she shot at us was priceless. Her wrinkled lips were all a-twist in horror and disapproval. And then I almost careened head-first over the top of the crypt so we called it a day. I have more pictures, but my master doesn’t give me enough time to actually go through them.

Even though I hate Christina, it was one of the best weekends ever. Especially because Henry actually hung out with us. Usually he deems us “too gay” and juvenile and heads to bed with Chooch, but this time he came back down, got drunk, dropped his “I’m too mature for this” facade, and proceeded to put on what I can only describe as a public access sketch show. He was hilarious and animated, telling us stories from his drinking heyday and other inappropriate yarns.

In other news, Chooch has been playing one of those Jumpstart games on the computer so I’m allotted even less time on this thing. Stay-At-Home-Hell hasn’t killed me yet, but it hasn’t got much easier. There are some nights where Chooch is just a fucking asshole, like Tuesday night when Dyanna was here and all I wanted to do was hang out and watch the hockey game, but Chooch had other ideas in mind. Like repeatedly punching me in the head and doing a somersault off the couch and landing head first against the coffee table. I deducted some points for the sloppy landing.

But last night, he was like a dream. He even sat in my lap, threw his arms around my neck and said, with sincerity I swear to god, “I wub you, Mommy.” AND THEN HE STAYED LIKE THAT. For like, two minutes, he stayed in my lap, hugging me.

I almost felt bad for Googling adoption agencies the night before.

EDIT: Hours later, I glanced at this entry and noticed at least three words where it quite literally looked like I gave up on typing them out in their entirety. I’m fucking tired.