To break up the monotony of being essentially housebound all week, Janna and I took Chooch to McDonald’s last Friday night. I love Playland because, unlike Chuck E Cheese, I can actually sit and relax and have adult conversations while Chooch acts a fool up in the tubes.

Chooch has a routine at McDonald’s: he’ll crawl the course of the tubes, come down the slide, push a bitch or two, then run back to where I’m sitting in order to plug a nugget in his loud mouth like a rag in a Molotov cocktail. Janna sat there and talked while I eye-flirted with the single dad sitting across from me, which made Janna roll her eyes.

A few minutes into Chooch’s reign of terror, a young boy stamped over to me and shouted, “Your kid keeps calling me a baby and I am FIVE YEARS OLD.” Chooch stood there and grinned proudly and I was like, “Oh. OK.” Then to Chooch, I mumbled with little to no conviction, “Quit calling him a baby.” Dealing with kids is not my forte. Later, that kid stole Chooch’s Spiderman, and after his grandma forced him to return it and apologize, Chooch laughed and slapped the thief’s arm which aroused chuckles in the other parents sitting nearby. The kid tried to tattle, but his grandma laughed at him, so one point scored for Team Chooch.

My pretend boyfriend and I, after making friendly eye contact and laughing at Chooch’s antics together, graduated into innocent small talk. I made sure I tweeted about it so Henry would know that I had an opportunity to upgrade.

A few minutes passed and I said to Janna, “I haven’t seen Chooch in awhile, have you?” and she realized that she hadn’t either. I knew I definitely hadn’t seen him come down the slide, so I assumed he was still up there in the tubes, but it made me nervous to see that all the other kids seemed to be running in a pack that didn’t include him. I didn’t even hear his obnoxious taunts and devilish laughs.

So I approached my pretend boyfriend’s son and I ask him if he’s seen my kid. He climbed up into the bowels of Playland, returned almost immediately and says, in a horror-stricken tone, “He’s up there and he doesn’t have no clothes on!”

My first thought was, “FUCK, Henry’s not here so now I have to actually be a fucking parent, are you goddamn kidding me.” As I began climbing up (and fuck you, McDonald’s! I kept my fucking shoes on), the little boy loudly added, “I saw your baby’s penis!” As my heart banged away in my ears, I vaguely recall hearing a small uproar of parental murmurings as they overheard this, and at that point, it might as well have been me who was naked.

I got to the top of the tower and turned around to see my son, completely fucking nude, lounging in a yellow tunnel. A group of children surrounded him on two sides, taking in impromptu Anatomy 101 with wide eyes and mouths agape. Chooch, he was just grinning away.

I’d have preferred a smaller audience for the night my son chose to announce his new lifestyle.

“Get your ass over here,” I hissed in a low whisper, and when he scrambled close enough I grabbed his arm–not so hard as to appear abusive!– and yanked him the rest of the way. Scanning the area, my heart sank as I discovered his clothes weren’t anywhere near him. A girl who appeared to be around seven or eight fetched them for me. Then she goes, “Oh, and here’s his diaper. Ew.” However, I was relieved to see there was no poop in it.

Or smeared across the tubes in Satanic shapes.

I gathered all his clothes and perched him on a ledge, angrily stuffing his head through his sweater. It was hot as hell in there and stank of dirty feet, prepubescent B.O. and stale fries, but I refused to drag him back down in his present full-frontal state. Some of the kids expressed their annoyance at my presence, and dramatically asked me to please move. I snapped on one kid and growled, “You have plenty of room to get past me, are you kidding?” Fucking children.

My favorite part, I think, was when I could hear one of the McDonald’s employees talking about the super exciting action with some of the adults. “And the mother’s up there now?” she asked. “Oh, that is just so cute! How funny!” YES, HOW FUCKING CUTE. AND FUNNY, INDEED.

As I stuffed clothing back on his nude body, I asked Chooch why he took his clothes off, anyway.

“I wanted my socks off,” he replied nonchalantly, like it was as sensible as a salad with low-fat dressing for dinner.

Once he was decent, I made him go back down with me. Janna and my pretend boyfriend were standing there smiling, and I just lost it, totally fucking cracked up. Janna and I talked about it for a few minutes when I realized again that Chooch’s absence was lingering a little bit too long for my liking. Pretend boyfriend sent his son back in, and he came back to report, “Well, he took his shirt off. But then he put it back on.”

To his father, I laughed, “This is a new thing, apparently.” And then I defeatedly mumbled a sardonic, “Awesome.”

Right then, Chooch came shooting out of the slide with his sweater completely inside out, and you better believe I grabbed his little exhibitionist ass. I plopped him down at our table and began stuffing his little asshole feet into his shoes while he took a swig of his drink.

“I can’t like lemonade,” he announced with disgust, setting the cup back on the table.

“Oh, so now that you’re a nudist, you don’t like lemonade?” Then I tried to explain to him the virtues of  the “no shirt, no service” rule.

On our way out, some kid sitting with his parents pointed to Chooch and shouted, “That’s the kid right there! The one who took his clothes off!”

This is what I’ve been contending with every single night. Capn’ Cusspants of the Shit-Eating Grin Clan.

I’m not going to lie– he scares me sometimes.

As Week Two draws to a close, I have in my head a list of things I am thankful for.

1. Wine
2. Puzzles that occupy Chooch
3. Ability to shut Chooch out when he starts whining in frustration over said puzzle
4. iCarly, for being one of the few shows that can keep Chooch quiet for the entire episode
5. Janna, who has babysat me numerous times while I in turn babysit Chooch
6. CVS, for being in walking distance
7. Wine
8. That I don’t own a gun (thankfulness on this tip is debatable and changes by the hour)
9. the convenient way tablespoons are marked on butter wrapper so idiots like me don’t have to panic
10. Wine
11. MTV reality shows
12. “Annie”,

a. because I forgot how much I love to emulate the theatrical warbling of raggedy orphans

1 . and this in turn gives Chooch a taste of his own obnoxious-coated medicine

b. it keeps alive my dream that the sun really will come out tomorrow, and by that, I mean a rich man will adopt me and it will be all “Henry who?” and you will see me tapdancing into the sunset, my friends.

Did something amazing yesterday, I did. I made cornbread on my own, and I only had to text Henry once for help. I even added real life corn into the mix (which tastes real good, by the way, salmonella be damned) and then, oh you will never believe this, while it was baking in the oven (yes, I made sure all the extraneous cookware was cleared out first. I learned the hard way when I still lived at home and attempted to bake cookies while a bag of missed crackers still sat in the corner of the oven-turned-pantry) I even took it upon myself to mix my own HONEY BUTTER. When it was done, I swiped a finger through it and exclaimed, “I did that!

” which is the same thing Chooch says when he shits on the potty/Sharpies the wall/blows up the neighborhood with a homemade grenade.

And then of course, after all my slaving in the kitchen, Chooch was like, “Are you fucking kidding me, fool?

I ain’t eating that shit.” Even when I tried to say it was cake, he backed away in horror and said, “I can’t like that.” Even when I lied and said, “Daddy made it!” he was like, “Uh, no, YOU made it. I watched you, retard.”

When Henry came home last night, I begged him to try some. He kept giving me excuses like:

• I’m not hungry
• I’m allergic
• I don’t like cornbread
• Look, you’re missing the Real World, omg!

But finally he conceded.

“It’s good right?” I asked expectedly. “I even put real corn in it. It’s like an actual Mexican made it, Henry.”

He said it was decent.

“Although….”

“What?” he asked, cornbread mastication ceased in apprehension.

“Well, the expiration date was from a year ago. But that’s probably OK, right? I mean, it tasted fine to me.”

He quit eating it after that, but swears it was just because he was full.

Whatever. I used fresh milk and eggs, at least. Besides, it said it was a SUGGESTED date. My personal suggestion was to use it yesterday.

“Joke’s on you, mommy-asshole.”

Last night was relatively calm for the most part.

I was able to get Chooch interested in “Annie,” but I don’t think he was listening to my story about how I tried to orchestrate a reproduction of it in eighth grade and Jason Jones was going to play Punjab, but then my ex-friend Keri couldn’t take it anymore and kept deep six-ing my cast list. I think that may have had something to do with the fact that every time she would sleep over, I’d put the soundtrack on repeat.

My love for Annie runs deep, like a stream of piss in Hell’s urinal.

I had him in bed by 10:30 (early for him, believe me) but then Henry had to come in the house like a fucking bumbling burglar and Chooch was all, “Huh? Daddy’s home?” and then it was stomp-stomp-stomp down the stairs, at which point his mild mood completely mutated into whirling dervish mode and he started throwing toys and spilling apple juice. And I took no part in it. I stared emotionlessly at the TV and mumbled, “He was fine all night.

You  make him turn into an asshole. He’s all yours, have a ball, Daddy.”

I had scheduled a phone call with my new friend Jessi. When you’re raising a hellion, phone calls can no longer be fielded at whimsy. And it’s always fantastic when you have to tell people, “Don’t call me until after 11pm” because you know it’s going to sound like Oakland rioting in the house up until then. Fortunately, when Jessi called, Chooch and Henry had at least taken their screaming show upstairs, but the ruckus was still jarring enough that I had to strain  to concentrate on parts of the conversation. I could hear Henry shouting, “Get back in bed!” and Chooch answering from across the hall, “No way!” and then devilishy laughing and chucking what sounded like boulders out of his crib. Finally, it quieted down (apparently Chooch ended up falling asleep in our bed while I was still on the phone and Henry had no idea. We make a great parenting team) and I was able to enjoy a grown-up conversation with a really cool girl.

Today, I woke up and remembered, “Fuck, I promised I’d make French toast for breakfast.” I can’t remember why exactly I promised, what horrendous activity I was trying to bribe the child to quit, but I do know that he reacted well to the bribe and was, for the most part, a decent human being last night. And when I promise him things, I make sure to follow through because the last thing I want is to be like my own mother. (That song “Promises, Promises” by Naked Eyes? ALWAYS makes me think of her.)

So I google “easy french toast” and only 68798097 results turn up, oh lucky day. Quickly, I become confused. Every recipe is different. One says one egg and two slices of bread, another says 2 eggs and 6 slices of bread. I’m not even in the  kitchen yet and I’m in tears.

But I did it. Sort of. I mixed all the shit together and became mildly frustrated at the way the cinnamon melded into a curdled skin with the milk. I didn’t know exactly what “grease the pan” meant, because that was so vague.

So I wiped it with canola oil. That didn’t seem greasy enough, so I sprayed it with Pam. Finally, I caved and plopped some fucking butter up in that shit and marveled at the sizzle.

The first piece, thank God I tried it before serving it to Chooch, because it was wack. Totally raw. The pieces that followed were not much better, but I felt confident that the eggs were no longer raw. One piece actually had a little scrambled egg hanging off it like a breakfast dingleberry. It was cute, but tasted absolutely disgusting.

I let Chooch and myself ingest several bites. But I noticed that there was something terribly off with them, so I said, “Er, maybe we should not eat anymore, Chooch.”

And then Henry came home. Scraps of evidence remained on both of our plates, and Henry asked, “Did you cook it enough?” as he held up a piece tentatively between two fingertips, like he was trying to spy the contents of his cheating wife’s mail.

“I’ll tell you right now what you did, you used too much milk.” He said it in that superior “I watch Alton Brown” tone that makes me want to castrate him sometimes, with an Alton Brown-approved cutlery set. But then, sniffing the kitchen, he added, “You caught it on fire, didn’t you?” And then, upon further inspection of my damning trail, he yelled, “Tell me you did NOT use this metal spatula on my non-stick pan!!!!??”

Later, after he was sure that Chooch and I weren’t going to need our stomachs pumped of swirling raw eggs, Henry tried to reason with me. After eight years, he still tries this sometime. It’s kind of adorable.

“You know, cooking’s not that hard. Your problem is that you rush. You want it done NOW.”

“Well, duh. Why else would there be the high setting on the stove, if not to help me cook things as fast as possible?” And Henry did this thing where he holds up to his hands in a silent prayer, like he’s telepathically asking some entity to please provide patience.

Finally, I snapped, “Look, cooking is not fun for me. I DO NOT LIKE IT. I do not get joy from rooting around the refrigerator for ingredients, I do not like the way my head feels when struggling to read a sentence that contains words AND numbers, and I absolutely do NOT enjoy standing in front of a stove wondering when this shit is going to be done.”

I don’t care if I suck at this. I do not like to cook, not here not now not then not there. And if it takes me writing it out Dr. Seuss-style to get it through his head, then I will gladly work on that shit this weekend. That is, after I bathe in a tub of vodka and have a harem cater to me. “That’s right, you drop that tab in mama’s mouth, just like that.”

Chooch, looking forlorn at McDonald’s, moments before he befriended an autistic boy whom he dubbed “Hey Kid.”

When I was growing up, we weren’t a McDonald’s family (and the audience yells, “Then how’d ya get so fat, Erin?”). We’d go occasionally, but never actually eat inside. However, now that I’m a parent, I still don’t endorse the place but we do take Chooch there occasionally in the winter just so he can play with other kids. (Otherwise, his only play mate is his sixteen year old brother and that always starts out well but then Blake gets carried away and teases him mercilessly. Like an older brother should, in fact.)

It’s exciting for me to watch my kid interact with others, since he isn’t really around children his own age very much. (Alarmingly, I am usually the only parent who seems aware of what’s going on. One time, there was an againg wigger-dad who texted the whole time, only stopping to shout things like, “Get your ass over here and eat this!”)

The intricacies of child-interaction are pretty amazing to me, like being in the monkey house at the zoo. Interestingly, the older kids always seem to take him in under their wings, and they’ll even wait for him to catch up. When we were there last week, Chooch honestly had his own crew. He fucking ran that place and it was amazing to watch. He’s eithe rgoing to grow up to be a politician or a Blood kingpin.

I wasn’t like that as a kid. I always stuck around the adults, too shy to join a group of kids who had already established a clique. But not Chooch; shit, he dives right on it. And god only knows what goes on in those mysterious Playland tubes and tunnels, because at one point some small girl with a babydoll approached Chooch and yelled, “And don’t you hit me again, baby!” to which Chooch responded by laughing riotously in her face. You beat those bitches, son.

Thankfully, he stayed clear of the children who belonged to the table of washed-up strippers. One of the daughters was around 8 and totally not wearing any underwear, I fucking swear to shit. She’d bend over and her entire crack was smiling for all the see. Henry’s sister thought I was exaggerating, but later she goes, “Oh. Oh god. I know exactly what kid you were talking about.” She seemed scarred, as she should be.

On Wednesday, Chooch announced that he was awake from his afternoon nap by emitting a blood-curling wail. Running up the stairs, the only rational explanation I could come up with was that Marcy’s inner succubus had emerged and she was finally carrying out her plot to eradicate the bane of her existence. When I reached his room, I found him standing in his crib, tears and snot squirting out all over the place. He pointed next to him and sobbed, “LOOOOOK!!!” Oh my god, she tried to kill him and he killed her first, was  my first hypothesis.

“Mommy I PUUUUUUKKKKKKED!!” he wailed, and that was when I saw what he was pointing to was not the grisly corpse of a murdered cat, but an orange pool of vomit glistening and stinking on his mattress. Oh, yummy. I picked him up, tried to mask my disgust and horror so I could properly comfort him, when his body started racking and quaking and I had .0009 seconds to suspend him over the bathroom sink before he began projectiling.

This was his first kid-puke, as opposed to the not-too-rank baby stomach-spooge that consists of nothing more than liquid and perhaps some strained greenbeans. This puke, this delicious toddler puke, was not nearly as friendly and served as a billboard for everything he ate that day. It was seriously all I could do to keep myself from succumbing to the Vomit Chain. This went on for the next four or five hours;  Chooch burping up vomit in a bowl held by my shaky, clammy hands, to the melodious tune of strangulating “blarrrrrrrrr”s.

The first two or three times, as I tenderly rubbed his back  and tried  not to cry, I engaged in an inner monologue that went something like this:

Oh, poor kid. If I could puke for him, I would. Huh. What a completely selfless and maternal thought to think. I won’t even give that kid the cherry off my sundae, and now I’m wishing I could be his puking proxy?

Oh my god, I’m becoming a mother. I mean, obviously I’m a mother, but now I’m acting like one? I think that means I’m growing old. Time to add the best of American Idol, Celine Dion and Barbra Streisand to my playlist. Ok, I admit that Barbra’s already on there.

That album she recorded with the Bee Gees was so masterful. Do I have to cut my hair real short now, I wonder? Oh ew, he’s puking on my hand. Jesus Christ. No, not on the cat! Oh fuck it’s my turn to puke. I want Henry to get ice cream. No, pie. No…ice cream.

That kid is so fucking weird. Every time he’d finish expelling his stomach contents, he’d push the bowl at me and forcefully demand, “Put it on the table! I’m done. Wash my hand off! I playin’ cars.” And then he’d slide off the couch and play with his toys with the aggression of a kid who had NOT just been puking his guts up. Henry and I kept trying to coax him to sit on  the couch and relax, but he’d have no part of that. He wanted to go-go-go. So he’d play for a half an hour, and then proceed to fill up the bowl with more sick-juice like it was an everyday thang. After the second time, he managed to puke without even crying, which is something I certainly have yet to master. I mean, I puke and then proceed to curl up in a pathetic ball on the bathroom floor and pray for the demons to take my soul. Not my kid. He pukes with all the verve and determination of Rambo. I half-expected grenades,  nails and Clint Eastwood’s brass balls to be landing in his puke bowl.

That kid, he’s kind of my hero.

I always try to snap some shots of Chooch while he’s playing, because a kid enjoying a moment with his toys is like, pure embodiment of innocence.

Well, as long as you ignore the fact that he mutters insults at uncooperative trains, like “bitch” and “bastard” (which, when originating from Chooch’s lips, sounds more like “passerd”).

While Choocch ravaged the pile of gifts (I didn’t get one single thing and still, my bottom lip did not protrude), all the cats hid safely in the basement. Except for Nicotina (see also: Speck, Breakfast Nook) who was right up in it, playing with wrapping paper scraps and twist ties.

Because we’re stupid parents, nearly everything we bought required assembly. I attemped to master the instructions that came with an airport playset, but quickly found that drool was pooling in the corner of my mouth and my hands were beginning to curl inward. Henry took over and had it erected in a matter of minutes, but he left the sheet of stickers intact for my enjoyment.

And here is where Christmas quickly spiraled into a clusterfuck on par with being fucked by barbed wired dildos: I think I might have a mild form of OCD, I don’t know, but I found that the tiniest slight in sticker application was bringing my blood to a rolling boil. Henry kept saying completely insensitive things like, “What are you retarded? You can’t put a fucking sticker on properly?” and, as I was twisting my arm around Chooch’s fat head, trying to slap a sticker on the airport tower, “Here’s a thought: Why not wait until Chooch is done playing before putting the stickers on?” I couldn’t stop. In fact, I was about to get out a fucking level to ensure precision.

Then, to Chooch, he says, “Ignore her Chooch. She doesn’t understand that you just want to play. She’s a GIRL.”

And then this exchange happened: “Shut the fuck up! I’m more of a boy than you’ll ever be! Get back in the fucking kitchen you bitch!” And he did. Henry went right the fuck back in that kitchen and continued coddling the eggs he was was hardboiling for our picnic. He’s such a bitch I’m surprised he didn’t try to breast feed them, too.

And here is where I regressed to the emotionally undeveloped age of five: I noticed that while I was undergoing the diligent, steady-handed task of toy embellishing, Chooch was in the process of peeling off every sticker I had painstakingly smoothed on. And I lost it. Absolutely flipped my shit and shrieked, “OH MY GOD WHY ARE YOU DOING THAT JUST FORGET IT TODAY IS FUCKING RUUUUUIIIIINNNNEDDD!!!!” No exaggeration. I said that. In high-pitched, calling-all-dogs mode. And then I stormed off to my bedroom, where I slammed the door behind me and layed in bed, staring at the ceiling for fifteen minutes until the electrical currents stopped zapping my nerves.

And then the rest of the day was great! Really fucking good. No fighting, no tears.

I got Chooch an Edgar Allen Poe doll. Judging by his confusing expression in this photo, you can tell he just loves it.

“Great, Mommy’s projecting her interests on me again. I wish I could just get a shittin’ Elmo like normal kids my age.”

Then it was off to the Uniondale Cemetery (going to the cem on Christmas is kind of our accidental tradition, I guess), where we had a very fast and frigid picnic consisting of egg salad sandwiches, pretzels, cheese cubes, and frozen strawberries (per Chooch’s request). Yes, it was a feast for kings, to be sure. For the record, the shopping list I gave Henry the day before demanded things like “a delicious array of rich cheeses” and “hearty artisan bread for which to sandwich the delicious array of rich cheeses,” among other fine products you might find in a palace’s pantry. All Henry got was eggs to hardboil, bland wheat rolls that were so dry they sucked the mayo from the egg salad, and two packages of Helluva Good.But I didn’t complain. I guess I’m complaining now, but the point is that I didn’t complain THEN. As in, on CHRISTMAS. I kept my maw packed with picnic fixin’s and distracted myself with the camera.

The coldness kept us from enjoying a lingering tour of the cemetery, and Henry and I were desperate to leave after twenty minutes. Chooch had other plans and took off, slaloming through tombstones and whacking trees with sticks while chomping on a pretzel; probably I’m sure this is some nefarious sequence used to raise Samhain. Chasing him down, I panted, “Come on, we have to go home! The zombies are coming!” and he replied, “Aw, cute. Zombies!” None of my lies work on this kid.

Later, we stopped over my dad’s, where Henry presented him with a case of Faygo rootbeer in bottles. Apparently, this was a good gift because my dad got that nostalgic glaze over his eyes and began regaling us of the good old days when soda was a luxury and if your parents gave you a glass bottle of Cola, you damn well drank it to the last drop. Henry I’m sure remembers those days too.

Now, my dad and Henry haven’t spent much time together, and my brother told me that when Henry and I first got together my dad didn’t approve because of the age difference. But that case of old fashioned root beer just may have brought them together, as evidenced by the jolly way my dad was patting Henry on the back, offering him kielbasi and referring to him as “buddy.”

My other, less-mentioned brother Ryan was there too, but only emerged from the basement long enough to hit up the bathroom. “Did Ryan say hello to you?” my dad asked. And I said, “If a head-nod counts as a hello, then yes. Yes, he said hello to me.”

My dad’s house is always so warm and cozy. I should spend more time there. But instead, I only opt for the requisite holiday face-showing. I’m a horrible daughter. (Somewhere, my mom is cackling and rejoicing, “She admits it!”)

Back at home, we spent the rest of the night eating nut rolls and chocolate, and watching Chooch play with his Thomas train tracks. And I got drunk.

So maybe my family (Mom’s side) is a bunch of pathological nut jobs and so maybe we didn’t have a Christmas tree  and so maybe we didn’t even set out cookies for the fat man on Christmas Eve, but by golly I wasn’t going to let my Christmas go down the shitter. All that really mattered anyway was the Chooch was happy, and I’d be willing to bet that, based on the deliriously goofy smile that was plastered on his grubby face all day, he was pretty fucking delighted.

And oh, look who likes Poe after all!

I hope everyone had a lovely holiday/day off. Ours was mellow (meaning I only threw one tantrum) and overall ended up being a nice day. More later; I have a Thomas playset to project my OCD on for now.

Urgent. Will die without reading.

• 15:38 all i want for xmas is for armsbendback to reunite. get on that, fat man. #
• 18:37 a big heart is filling the April 5 block of my calendar.. #
• 21:53 It is weird seeing Henry in his natural habitat. #
• 23:51 Elmer Klump took a dump in his grandmother’s wig. #

• 11:23 Had a spaz attack trying to follow “sticker placement” instructions for a toy airport playset only to have Chooch peel them all off. #
• 11:52 The Thomas Carnival Adventure set comes with stickers adhered. I’m sending a thank you card. Maybe even a fruit cake. #
• 12:52 twitpic.com/wefe – FUCK YOU. Get terrorized, you piece of shit. #
• 14:35 Got Chooch an Edgar Allen Poe doll. His response was “Um. Oookay,” after which he dropped it in favor of, u know, age appropriate toys. #
• 17:08 Chooch is on this odd church-going kick. Whose kid is this? #
• 19:59 Well, if Henry really did marinate my tofu in urine, I’m only alarmed because I liked it. #
• 20:03 The trick to not overeating on holidays is to not have family who invite you over for dinner. #

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Thank god I get emails from Pampers telling me how many months it’s been since my son was born, or I’d have to continue telling people he’s two-and-a-halfish. So if I put my faith in Pampers, Chooch is 32 months old now, and pretty heavy into Nickelodeon sitcoms like “Drake and Josh” and “iCarly.

” I always know when he’s watching the latter by Henry’s boisterous laughter, which comes with a nervous  epilogue of “I mean, I’m only laughing because it’s so stupid and improbable.”

I don’t mind these shows, but I pray they’re not some sneaky gateway show into the stool-softening garbage on the Disney channel.

While he still gravitates toward the Cure and post-hardcore sundry (I melt when, from the backseat, he requests, “Pierce the Veil, mommy!”), he has taken a liking to Katy Perry. I’m not thrilled about this, but I can acknowledge that it could be much worse. Oh so much worse. Miley Cyrus? Jessica Simpson? NICKELBACK?? [Why are people still buying Nickelback records? I met them in 2001 before they were mainstream radio whores and Chad Kroeger had already been prepped and primed for douchehood.]

The other afternoon, I was getting ready for work while he was “napping.” (I use that term very loosely as he primarily uses that downtime in his crib to plot Mommy’s impending mental breakdown and pen possible meals he can make once he succeeds in slaughtering our cat Nicotina.) So in his room, I keep his radio on one of the variety stations, and the newer Katy Perry single, “Hot and Cold,” came on. Chooch got quiet, then murmured, “Oh. Katy Perry’s on!” Then he quietly laughed – pre-nap delerium – and cooed, “Ha, Katy Perry…” He knows the video by heart, and yells, “I do!

” at precisely the right moment during the wedding scene. Then it’s, “Dance, Mommy! Dance!” and I’m dragged off the couch and forced to run laps around the coffee table.

He still upchucks obscenities with the gusto of a Southern trucker but he, thankfully, has been good about it in public. We dropped him off at Janna’s on Saturday so we could finish shopping and she said he never swore once and was “really cute.” That explains why the car ride home was peppered with “asshole”s and “jackass”s then – he was like a clogged pipe.

But hey, other than that, he hasn’t committed arson or anything.

Having nothing better to do, we took a “family drive” down south yesterday. Henry even packed us sandwiches! All-American family we are! Can you stand it?!

Anyway, Henry and I managed to go ALL DAY with nary a conflict. We even ogled a waterfall and bonded over ridiculing some Georgian slutbag who had the great sense to wear stiletto boots for a jaunt down an icy snow-packed path. I hoped she would slip and plummet to a rocky, waterfall-y death. Alas, she did not.

Chooch slept for the part of the ride, and spent most of his awake time demanding to listen to The Cure’s “The Baby Screams.” Sensing my annoyance as I ejected the CD I was enjoying, Henry reminded me that, “Hey, it could be Disney music he wants.” So true, Henri.

The trunk of our car is becoming a treasure trove for serial killer disguises.

Then we came home and Henry buzzed those odd follicular wings right the fuck off of Chooch’s dome.

After giving Chooch a nice and even pate, Blake came over and we made fun of the lame Pittsburgh holiday parade that was broadcast on television for those of us who were too busy not giving a shit to bother watching it live from downtown. And oh, was it a good one. The singer from the Poverty Neck Hillbillies was performing, ya’ll!!! Oh, how I swooned. Then I hurried up and hit ‘record’ so Christina can see all the wonders of our townie parade for her own two eyes next time she visits. She’s not gonna believe how star-studded it was, oh no she’s not. I heard even Christina Aguilera was considering coming home for it, but opted to keep her prior plans of being suspended by her nipples over top a bubbling cauldron of Pete Wentz’s semen. I dare Cincinnati to come with something stronger. We had JOHNNY & THE ANGELS***, BEAT THAT CINCI.

***Johnny Angel & the Halos, even. They’re so awesome I couldn’t even remember their awesome name.

I don’t know what Henry did to this, but what mother DOESN’T want to have nightmares of their kid?

Anyhow, I’m on my way home from Buffalo. Christina and I were there for a show last night so expect some scene kid overload in the next few days. Fucking hooray, yeah?

Hey Henry – put some pants on. I’m almost home.

Burning a hole in my wallet were some free zoo passes, given to me by my co-worker Lindsay at my last job. Henry came home from work early yesterday morning and we decided to take advantage of the seventy degree sun, even though it had only been a few months since I last spat ire at strangers at the zoo. And really. is it ever too soon to go on another hate-mongering rampage, am I right? I swear, every time I go to the zoo, the majority of the people there looked like they were born from a white wine-influenced one night stand between the LL Bean catalogue and Ann Taylor Loft outlet store. I bet their Cabela-bought backpacks are stcoked with Evian and organic cheese sandwiches. I bet their kids don’t swear.

Immediately, I disliked this one broad with two kids (one of which plays hockey; I know this because we parked next to her hockey league-decal’d $50,000 Mom Van). She hogged the view of a young playing tiger from the rest of us peasants while she took shot after shot with her obscenely gigantic lens through a finger-print streaked glass window, like she was some fucking safari journalist. Then just as she was about to leave, some douche in a STEELER jersey (nauseating) took her place with his equally ridiculous camera and I just stood, mouth agape, and said to Henry, “Seriously? This is the Pittsburgh Zoo, not the fucking Outback. They’re taking pictures through GLASS. Snot-smeared GLASS. Go take your John Holmes lens to the goddamn STEELER game where it belongs, Hometown Hero.”

All I wanted to do was see a fucking tiger gnaw on his rubber chew toy. OK?? 

Chooch seemed more aware of what he was spectating this time and spent less time trying to climb under fences and pick up rocks. He ooh’d and ahhh’d at the lions and tigers and at one point was so overwhelmed and amazed at what he was witnessing, that he let out a wonder-tinged “oh shit” in hushed tones.

Luckily, none of the LL Beaners were around.

In the Elepehant House, Henry attempted to play the role of Educator by saying things like, “Look at the big ears on those elephants, son! And wow, what big eyes!” which was only negated moments later when I laughed, “Holy shit, Chooch, look at their BIG POOP!” Of course, that’s what Chooch chose to repeat. “Big poop?! EW!” he screamed, wrinkling his nose. “BIG POOP, MOMMY, LOOK, BIG POOP!”

“OK, let’s move on,” Henry mumbled.

Chooch highly enjoyed the monkey house this time around. laying on his stomach at each exhibit to get a better view.

While it’s awesome that Chooch is shaping up to be so independent, it takes twice as long to walk when a two-and-a-half year old insists on pushing his own stroller. And god forbid you should tell him which way to go. We ended up side-by-side with a couple whose young daughter was trying to push her sister’s stroller, as well. Her mother pointed to Chooch and said, “See how he’s pushing the stroller all over the place and running into people? That’s what you’re doing too.” Fortunately for her, her daugher quickly dropped the reins when she saw how out-of-control she must have looked. Thanks for using my reckless son as your example, Fellow Mother. Asshole.

Chooch took this picture himself, when the camera was resting on the dirty, flu-dispensing table. His pink-painted nails are so shiny.

I have to eat every hour or else I’ll die. Unfortunately, the only food place there that served something without meat products was closed, so my only option was french fries in a Dixie Cup. Supposedly they had salads, but they must have been tossed with that new lettuce from Argentina.

You know, the invisible kind. Because I didn’t see it. So while Henry and Chooch chowed down on chicken tenders and a cheeseburger, I sulked at the sticky blue table and ranted loudly for all to hear about how absurd it is, in the year 2008, for a ZOO, a fucking piece of shit ZOO, to not have any herbivore-friendly sustenance. FRENCH FRIES ARE NOT GOOD ENOUGH. I swear to God, the place that supposedly vends pizza has not been open once in the last six times I have gone to the zoo.

I AM WRITING A LETTER.

“I’ll buy you some Dip’n Dots,” Henry offered, trying to talk me down from the roof I was about to mount with my rifle. Fuck a Dip’n Dot, Mustache. I want LUNCH.

Henry gets nervous when I’m angry, and even more anxious when I’m hungry on top of that, so he ate without chewing and we quickly left for Denny’s, where I enjoyed a veggie burger and cottage cheese.

I might go back to the zoo in five years. MAYBE.

At work Friday night, I had finally begun to come to terms with  missing trick-or-treating. “My son will probably call people assholes or something, so I guess I’m glad I won’t have to dive in any bushes,” I said to my boss Dave, sitting with him in Dispatch. He laughed and said, “Yeah, but that actually sounds like it would be funny.”

“I know, right?!” I enthusiastically agreed.

Around 6:00pm, Sharon – the biller scheduled to work with me – arrived with a bright pink treat bag. “What’s this? To dull the pain of having to work on Halloween?” I asked sarcastically. But then I did a quick visual sweep and saw that there was some good shit in there so I thanked her genuinely.

As we billed several trailers, Sharon casually asked me some questions about Chooch, like what he was dressing up as. And then she asked how long it took me  to get home from work.

“I don’t know, fifteen minutes,” I answered. And then, as if the skies above had parted, Sharon said, “You know, I got this covered. You should go and be with your son. My kids are too old for trick-or-treating, anyway, so I’m not missing anything.”

Scrambling to get all of my stuff together, I officially dubbed her my favorite co-worker. I barely paused long enough to tell my boss that Sharon had dismissed me so I could take my son out, and he said, “Whoa, girl, you look like you’re going to CRY!” My eyes really had welled up with tears of happiness, I won’t lie. I’m not always a cold-hearted asshole.

I made it home by seven and didn’t even change out of my heels. I ran the two blocks to where Henry said he and Chooch were and I was so happy to be there that the analness in me didn’t even kick into gear when I saw that half of Chooch’s green Frankenstein face paint had been rubbed off. Apparently, he started crying immediately after application and Henry was too frazzled to give a shit. If I had been there earlier, I would have made it look much better, maybe slapped a slab of decomposing flesh to his cheek, but (BUT!) I was just grateful to be there at all.

Chooch and I had practiced the art of proper Halloween candy transaction all day, but by the time he realized what was going on, he dropped all pretenses and just asked, “CANDY?” when doors would open. My favorite moment was when he forcefully closed a door on an elderly couple after getting candy dropped in his bag.

This year proved to be more successful than last year, when he would pause every three steps to lay down in the middle of the street. He very quickly caught on to the process and didn’t try to walk into people’s houses and stay a spell like last year. In fact, he was in such a rush to make it to the next house that if it wasn’t for one of us holding his hand, he’d have Slinkied down a fair share of steps.

In addition to the loaded pillow case that Henry wound up lugging, Chooch also managed to acquire a bag of pennies (yummy, although in Chooch’s case it probably IS yummy) and a dollar from some lady who made a point to say several times that she wasn’t giving out candy.

I had fun making loud comments as we would retreat from houses, such as, “Wow, he was hot AND voting for Obama” and Henry was getting bristled I think. Then I talked about my new work-crush a lot too and Henry was like “Go get him then.”

We were out for about an hour and probably only passed fifteen other trick-or-treaters the entire time. On average, it seemed that only one in five houses was keeping dentists in business. I bitched about that for awhile until I realized that we didn’t put out any candy either. OOPS. I hesitate to be generous anymore in this neighborhood though. One Halloween, some bitch in a motorized wheelchair stole my entire bowl of candy.

Afterward, we stuffed Frankenchooch in the car and took him to see my grandma, who’s been in a nursing home for the past two weeks. It’s supposed to be temporary while she gets physical therapy, but I’m ever suspicious.

My aunt Sharon was there too, and had a bag of cookies and a car for Chooch (he probably would have been happier if every house gave him a car, to be honest). By this point, Chooch had sampled enough of his collection in the car to get a nice sugar buzz going. Add to that the large sugar granules he licked off the cookies at the nursing home, and we had one frenzied toddler. We only stayed there for twenty minutes or so, because my aunt gets so nervous that he’s going to break shit. I was glad to leave. That place was NOT agog with Halloween revelry.

Back at home, Chooch’s sugar level had increased significantly and he was now the owner of wild eyes and shrill outbursts. We let him crash his tricycle into the wall several times before he crashed himself  in his crib. The rest of the weekend has been full of demonic bellowing for CANDY! CANDY! Mostly by me.

My babe is 29 months old now. Twenty-nine fucking months, with the mouth of a teenager. He’s grown a fondness for belting out “Asshole parade!” in sporadic and inopportune intervals, but Blake and I have been working diligently to replace that with “bubble muffin.” Well, for a day, we tried. An hour. Whatever.

I may have accidentally tought him to lash out at objects that have hurt him. For example, he trips over a strewn shoe.

After brushing himself off, he approaches the shoe which has bullied him, he kicks the shoe, he screams “Bastard!” at the shoe, he fake-shoots the shoe.

I am horrible at this parenting shit. Thank god for Henry, unweaving the tangled and very inappropriate webs I weave. I like to imagine him lunging at said web with a machete, playing out his dream role in motherfucking ‘Nam. Hack that web, Henry. Do it for the USA. You patriotic fuck, you.

At least he’s not saying “Hey douche” anymore.

What else does my evil little spawn do. He craves high-fives for car line-ups he creates on the floor. If it’s a particularly remarkable car-train, he demands a coveted High-Five:Foot Edition, which is where the soles of our feet bro-up with each other, obviously.

He has a considerable amount of hair now, thank fucking god. However, he has two tendrils on either side that exceed the rest of his hair in length. Sometimes those tendrils, they curve up into the perfect Dairy Queen curl and he looks like he emigrated from Whoville.

And every day he begs to go to the “Ween Store,” which is the Halloween store for those who don’t speak toddler. We were at one last weekend, and when we aproached an excessive Halloween prop dragging its rotting cavity along the floor, Chooch grabbed my arm and, very earnestly, warned, “No, Mommy. Careful.” And no matter which Halloween store we’re patronizing, he always manages to find the mesh bag of plastic eyeballs and fills the store with his spoiled caterwaul when we tell him that unfortunately, a crack-addled hobo stole both of our wallets and now all of our money is being spent on Slim Jims and peg-legged hookers instead of bags of plastic optical party favors. Gosh darnit.

And while I love my son and his gigantor cranium, it is nice to have a job again, which affords me a few hours of peace at night.

 But I don’t tell Chooch that’s where I go at night or he’ll expect me to buy an acre of eyeballs. It’s better to let him believe Mommy’s getting shit-faced at the corner bar.