There’s this really annoying phenomenon where kids act like having their face washed is akin to being splashed with acid and asparagus-steeped urine. WHY IS THIS? Do little girls pull this shit, too, or is just asshole boys like my son? He bucks and screams like he’s being shivved in the prison yard over a stolen eight-pager.

My job would kind of not be so bad if it weren’t for him acting like he’s being exorcised every time a wet washcloth contacts his cheek.

Or maybe he really is being exorcised. Then that’s pretty cool.

On Henry’s watch, Chooch rummages through dumpsters, looking for a discarded pencil with which to stir his gruel. Also, he may or may not swallow small coins; Henry’s not sure. Happy poop-sifting, Henry. You asshole.

(Seriously, I have vivid images of those two wallowing in filth while I’m at work.)

There are few things my child could do to make me want to disown him. I was willing to turn the other cheek when he flung a forkful of noodles ala ketchup at me in protest. That’s one of my favorite meals, my signature dish. Nothing beats a bowlful of al dente egg noodles drenched in a sauce of congealed and lukewarm ketchup.

It took some time, I won’t lie, but I healed. I moved on. I continue to enjoy ketchup’d noodles alone.

I didn’t think he would find a way to hurt  me more than he did that day. Until this morning. I slaved over slathering the perfect marriage of peanut butter and Marshmallow Fluff onto two slices of bread. I painstakingly cut the sandwich into tiny, bite-sized cubes, perfect for popping while enjoying an A.M. viewing of "Blue’s Clues."

I set the plate down in front of him. He grunted. I pushed it closer and he gave it some consideration. Then he grunted again and pushed the plate back at me. I tried to sneak a tiny morsel past his lips, in between chews of Goldfish. He crinkled his nose and his lips transformed into an iron barrier against unwanted edibles.

My asshole son doesn’t like Fluffernutters. I’ve been stabbed in the heart. Stabbed with a forkful of Fluffernutter hateration. How could he betray me like this? I’m running out of meal options for him, things that I’m capable of preparing and/or assembling, and if he keeps turning his nose up at my creations he’s going to be subsisting on crackers and Pringles every day until Henry comes home.

Maybe I can eventually get over this latest rejection. But if he doesn’t learn how to dance like the Jabbawockeez, I’m returning him to the hospital. Maybe I can exchange him for Lasik or get a voucher for an organ transplant. Or maybe they can just give me an organ if I’m in no immediate need of transplantation, to fashionably display outside of my body. "What? Is it my kidney brooch you’re admiring?"

Chooch. Sweet, little, fucking weird Chooch. This morning, he and I were sitting together on the couch. Everything was fine, tranquil. I was reading a book and paying marginal attention in case Chooch decided to crack his cranium or turn his nose into a blood hydrant.

In the middle of watching "Blue’s Clues," some kind of emotional duress struck him and he turned to look at me with his face all seized up in his signature scowl. His eyes flickered down to my leg and he grabbed onto my jeans with shockingly strong curled fingers. Unable to find the words he was looking for, he relied on primordial grunting to convey his frustration.

The tugging got more violent and urgent by the second as he grew agitated by my inability to translate his grunts.

"Am I wearing the wrong jeans?" I asked irritably. "Do you prefer Apple Bottoms?"

Looking thoroughly disgusted (I know I’m going to be his first victim when he turns serial), he slid off the couch and walked to the other side. I was sitting pretty flush with the arm of it, but he forced himself in, creating a tiny human wedge. I moved over to the right so he could sit properly and not on his side like he was, and the grunting stopped. He rearranged his blanket so it was horse-shoeing around his waist, grabbed his bowl of snow (which he eats by using a small toy car to spoon heaping snowballs into his mouth), and laughed at me.

"That was it? You didn’t want me sitting on the left side of the couch?" He laughed even more deviously.

I called Henry and recounted the events to him. "Were you sitting on the left side?" he asked. When I confirmed, he feigned a grave tone and said, "Oh, he doesn’t like that at all. It’s his new thing."

We tried to offer him as part of our down payment on the car today, but it didn’t work.

I don’t like playing in snow. I don’t like feeling like I’m going to lose my fingers and toes and I don’t feeling like I just scrubbed my face with a Brillo pad studded with Flava Flav’s missing teeth. But Chooch has reached that age where laying snow is like a sheath of irresistible cotton candy and he must be eating it constantly. At first he was content with me taking his ladybug cup outside and packing it up with freshly fallen clean snow. He’ll sit on the couch, smile, and say, "Snow!" while he shovels quickly thawing morsels into his mouth. Then my cat Nicotina comes over and they fight over it. She really likes to eat snow, too. She licks it off the bottom of Henry’s boots when he comes home from work. I think Henry mistakes it for a show of adoration.

Even though I abhor the cold, I looked at my son today, sighed, and battled with my selfish side to be a good mother. Finally, I surrendered and pulled out Chooch’s snow suit which he’s never before had a chance to use. Twenty-five minutes and a lot of sweat later, I had him all snug and sardined in his blue puffy suit, hands in mittens and scarf wrapped tightly around his tiny neck. (I don’t know how that tiny neck supports that huge head.) I put on my young heart-and-skull rain boots, battled the zipper on my coat, and forgot to grab gloves.

I thought Chooch would freak once he was sausaged inside his suit. I always did when I was a kid. I hated a fucking snow suit. The padding always made me feel incapacitated and I somehow always managed to get snow up and inside the legs. Not my son though — he loved it. He didn’t even fight to remove his mittens. I placed him in the snow and he proceeded to march around everyone’s front yard like a snow king.

Me, I was freezing. I bitterly trudged around behind him, putting him back on his feet when he’d fall on his ass. He stomped around, laughing so loud he was screaming.

Then Henry came home from work and ruined the easy flow. As soon as Chooch saw him pull in across the street, he screamed, "Daddy! Juice!!!" and tried to run out in traffic. (Henry has been driving home the Everfresh Juice van and Chooch likes to get up close and admire the fruit on the side of it.) We stayed outside for a few more minutes but Chooch’s face was all wind-burnt and frosted. Henry had to drag him into the house because he wanted to stay outside forever and ever and ever and that’s fine, but until we build him his igloo, he’s stuck living inside our dumb old house.

I think my flowers might be dead.

Cry, sucker. Cry!

I wish I had listened to everyone when they said things like, "You’re not going to like it. You’re going to be bored" and "You’re going to be angry that you wasted your money. You won’t get anywhere near John Black" because those wise ones weren’t too far off the mark.

Henry had the good sense to park in a garage a few blocks away, where we’d only be robbed of $5 instead of the $10 that the Convention Center overlords would collect at the end of the weekend and probably use to buy a few thousand Ukrainian sex slaves, and I’m not sure I’d feel too comfortable having my cash play a part in that.

When we got inside and went upstairs to pay, I was relieved that it wasn’t as crowded as Henry warned. He always tries to play off my inherent hate for packs of humans when he’s trying to get out of stuff. Like concerts. We got in line, with only one family in front of us, to pay. I mocked dramatic sadness when I saw a sign that said Henry Winkler wasn’t going to appear due to illness, but the older man behind me was acting from the heart. "He’s not here? Then let’s go." I don’t think they ended up leaving, but the corners of his mustached lips were hanging flaccidly after that discovery.

A deep booming voice looped over the sound system, getting everyone pumped up for the Happy Days reunion (if Erin Moran and Cindy Williams constitutes a reunion), Mater from "Cars" (we made Chooch pump his fist, but he didn’t give a shit really) and Drake Hogestyn from Days of Our Lives. I was shocked to discover that I had been mispronouncing his last name for the past twenty years. Henry called me a re-re (his new name for me, thanks, I’m honored) but seriously, I’ve never heard his name spoken before; it’s not like Soap Opera Digest reads itself aloud to me.

$26 dollars later (RIPOFF) we were armed with our tickets and stumbled around blindly looking for the entrance. An older red haired lady stood next to the entrance and when she took our tickets, I pointed to the turnstile next to the large open entrance and asked, "Do we have to go through there?" She scoffed and said no, but I kind of wanted to. Turnstiles make me feel important, like my admission counts. Because it counts my admission.

Even when we crossed the testosterone-coated threshold, I still didn’t think it was all that crowded. I was somewhat amazed to see that there were regular-looking people there, but comforted when my expectations were met when I spied a steady flow of Nascar-jacketed indigents. Some of them wore bandannas on their heads and I think it tugged at Henry’s lower-class heartstrings. He used to wear bandannas, you know. There were also many men who appeared to have come there straight from huntin’.

Within the first minute, we found a small stage with a large banner that read Meet Drake Hogestyn, John Black from "Days of Our Lives" and the tugging of Henry’s arm began. There was a line of about fifty people waiting for his emergence. He was 45 minutes late. Henry took charge and said we should get the whole Mater thing out of the way.

After pushing past a bunch of orange-faced broads with hair so over-bleached it crackled and squeezing past acne-faced teenage boys looking at a table full of shiny car thingies (I think people in the know call them "car parts"), Mater loomed off to our left. Chooch was like, "Yay Cars!" but his face fell when he realized it was just Mater and not Lightning McQueen. Kind of like meeting the Cure but only Lol shows up and not Robert Smith. I wonder if Lol is excited that his name means ‘laugh out loud.’ I mean, the kid was still marginally happy and tried to crawl under the ropes while snot-faced creek-swimmers were getting photographed. We went to stand in line and soon found out that they wanted five fucking dollars for some gayblade to take a picture using a tiny point-and-shoot on a wobbly tripod. Henry, wanting to retain some semblance of the bread winner even though he makes me pay for everything because he blows his money on computer shit and truck porn, actually took it upon himself to go to an ATM and take cash out of his own account. What a fucking man.

While we were in line, a woman over at a near-by podium announced that a boy named Evan had lost his family. I looked at him, and I looked at Chooch who was desperate to break free of Henry’s clutch and visions of the next ten years polluted my once-happy thoughts. My child tried to get kidnapped about eighty times.

We ended up losing the crappy picture in the crappy cardboard frame that they gave us but it didn’t matter because we were allowed to take our pictures too, after we fed them their damn five bucks.

I love that there’s a gigantic can of Skoal hovering above Mater. Very subtle. Hey kids, love Mater? Now you can have teeth like his, too! Come get a free sample.

Around this time I took a good look around and realized that I was horribly overdressed and wasn’t showing any cleavage like all the other hotties and mulled over the idea of plopping out a boob. I hope someday my skin gets that beautiful sun-weathered crisp that they all proudly bare. I saw a lot of B.U.M. Equipment sweatshirts. It brought back memories of middle school.

I stalked this man while he cruised the entire circumference of this bad boy. (The truck, not the actual boy.) Henry caught on quickly to what I was up  to and said, "You’d make the worst spy. You look right at the person and laugh" and then he hurried up and walked away so he wouldn’t be seen carousing with me. After I took this picture, he looked at me, ducked, and said, "Oh ha-ha, I’m sorry!" I told him it was OK, and then under my breath I mumbled, "This is right where I want you, anyway. Snap."

In between all the car showcases were long tables over-stocked with various car products. My first thought was, "But it’s all car stuff." We walked past one table and I excitedly yelled, "Oh I need one of these!!" to Henry, which made the vendor look up. "You don’t even know what that does," Henry snapped. I laughed and said, "I know." Those were the days.

We made it back to the John Black stage right as he made his grand appearance. The crowd was going nuts. Kind of. Not really, but there was some applauding and few of the hardcore female fans swooned loudly. The line was much longer by this point, so instead of going to the end of it, I accepted that Chooch wouldn’t last that long standing in a line so we stood on right up front near the stage, but out of line. It was a decent trade off, because he took some time before signing autographs to field some questions. I wasn’t expecting him to be so personable and funny! Every once in awhile, I’d glance back at Henry, who was cheekily smiling like a gaybo. He tried to act like he couldn’t be bothered after that, but I know deep down he couldn’t wait to call his mommy.

It was cool seeing Drake "John Black" Hogestyn, but seriously, I’ll never go to another car show. It was dumb. Where was the nudity? Maybe at the Gun Show.

There’s something you need to know about me: I’m still the fifteen-year-old girl who turns to music when a boy breaks her heart. I’m still the sixteen-year-old girl who locks herself in her room and blares the stereo after fighting with her parents. I’m still the nineteen-year-old who sobs into cherry wine while listening to The Cure. I’m still the seventeen-year-old girl who thinks every emo song was written for her.

I’m the twenty-eight-year-old girl who gets in a fight with Henry and runs off to the cemetery to scream along to the lyrics that your little brothers and sisters are cutting themselves to.

Not too long ago, someone asked, "Aren’t you a little old to be getting excited about this kind of music?" If I ever stop getting excited about it, stop feeling it in my heart, then I’ll know I’m dead. Exactly what kind of music is someone elderly like me supposed to be listening to, anyway? Should I be donning loafers and sitting back with some John Mayer?

Last summer, when Henry and I were going through a rough patch, Chiodos was there to keep me alive. Their music inspired me to paint again and their lyrics inspired me to keep writing when I really wanted to give up. When I missed their set at Warped Tour, I didn’t care that I was essentially the mama amid a churning sea of other surly fans who missed them due to an unusually early start time.

Yesterday was going to be my first time meeting them. For me, it was worth the three hour drive to Columbus. I wanted to thank them for doing what they do, for making music that means so much to me. But by the time we arrived at Magnolia Thunderpussy for the in-store signing, my heart felt weak and my legs were spaghetti. (Marinara sauce, please.) Very few people were there; I anticipated a line full of unwashed hair and star tattoos serpentining out and around the store, but there were only a handful of messy haired kids loitering quietly among the racks of CDs.

I sat outside for awhile. I was thirty minutes early and Chooch was unable to be contained within the tiny record store. Henry let him play in snow while I tried to make idle chatty with two young people who sat on a retaining wall.  I admitted to being freaked out, hoping to bond with the girl of the pair. She laughed, but it wasn’t the encouraging kind. I think she was suspicious that some old broad was trying to make convo. Later, she asked me if I had come by myself, and I took that as her way of including me. She kind of looked like Rachel Bilson. Then I started thinking about The O.C. and realized, "Holy shit, I really am young……Oh well."

Inside the store, I was mindlessly flipping through used CDs when I looked up and saw three of the band members slipping behind the counter. There was no grand announcement or applause — they managed to slink by unnoticed by most of the kids. A short trucker-capped employee with a voice too husky for a girl came out and determined where the start of the line would be. I had the good fortune of being close by, so only fifteen or so people managed to be ahead of me. Henry and Chooch were still at the front of the store; the growing covey of fans made a barricade that he wasn’t trying to attempt to break through.

I turned around and wheezed, "I think I’m going to die!" to the girl behind me. She laughed. I liked her. She had nice glasses and she let me cut in front of her when I got caught up in the mad scurry to get in line. But I wasn’t kidding — my palms were getting sweaty and I was seeing double.

A trio of tiny girls wearing varying shades of grey and black and olive green huddled in front of me, giggling about what they were going to say to the band. One of the girls never removed her oversized black sunglasses from her pale face. Another had braces. The third looked around and disgustedly observed that there were so many scene kids there. "Oh wait, I am one," she added with a laugh. I wanted to punch her. I wanted to punch her and say that I liked Chiodos more. Then I wanted to steal her purse. Not because I liked it all that much, but because maybe it seemed like the right way to end things.

It was my turn way too quickly. I was barely prepared and my hands shook a little (a lot) as I unrolled my poster and slapped it down on the counter. The first person in line was Derrick, the drummer. He gave me a friendly smile and I felt slightly brave enough to speak. I started to tell him that I had come from Pittsburgh, but the girl in front of me had made it to the end of the line and wanted a picture of all of them. He held up his finger to me and moved in close to the rest of the band. But by the time he turned his attention back to me, I had lost my nerve and started to slide my poster down to the guitarist, Jason. I could have told him that I used a magazine clipping of his eyeball for one of the paintings I made last summer. I could have told him that there used to be a bar outside of Pittsburgh called Chiodos and my mom beat the shit out of the Chiodos daughter because of a guy. I could have told him these things but I didn’t because it probably would have come out sounding like something articulated by Corky.

Henry was standing off to my right, behind a wall of posters. I silently hoped that he wouldn’t embarrass me, because if those guys thought I was old….

Henry chose that moment to release Chooch who in turn came running toward me. Derrick shouted, "Aw, look how cute he is!" When Chooch reached me, I used him to my advantage and picked him up so they knew he was with me; it suddenly didn’t matter that I was "too old" to be there or that I couldn’t find meaningful words to say to them.

The band collectively said things like, "He’s adorable!" and "I like your shirt, little man!" Derrick looked at me and said, "You know, we need a mascot…" Everyone laughed and then he gave Chooch a high five. Even the scene kids in line broke down their steeled pretensions long enough to say "Aw."

Henry doesn’t like Chiodos at all. I mean, he wasn’t glaring at them and flashing Crip signs from behind the protective cover of a rack of Ramones t-shirts — he just doesn’t like their music. I thought that maybe after meeting them he would change his mind. Maybe their boyish charm and ruffled hair would inspire him to give their music another change.

"Do you like them now?" I asked, once we left the record store. (I’m kind of like the Verizon Wireless Guy — I re-ask him with every disc rotation.)

"No! They didn’t do anything but stand there." His standards are too high.

Thank you Chooch, for revitalizing some of my maternal courage and giving me another reason to add to the "no" column of "Was Having a Kid a Mistake?"

Then we went back to the hotel where Henry started snoring and I made him sleep in the car.

Sorry for getting all serious. I promise to resume my regular asshole-y writing style in time for the next entry.

Chooch is sick. He’s been dipping in and out of fever-land since yesterday but he won’t rest. Henry tries reasoning with him by saying things like, "All the other babies SLEEP when they’re sick" but Chooch would rather pace the house in a zombie-gait, whining things like "Uh uh uh uuuuuhhhhhhhhhh" and "Wah wah sniff sniff ARGGGGGH" all while his eyes water and his lips curl up into a snarl. Then he does this really thing where he latches on to our legs and slams himself into our shins until we pick him up and ask him what the fuck he wants a dozen times, fighting to be heard over his death song.

"He’s exactly like you when he’s sick," Henry said angrily. "God forbid he should stay in his crib and rest. No, he has to sit down here and annoy the shit out of us." I’ve never been one to hole up in my room when sick. I might miss something! Staying bed is bor-ing. I’d rather take over the couch and watch home improvement shows on TLC. Carpentry makes me feel better.

Henry just walked past me, holding a sniveling Chooch. "Come on, Little Erin," he said exasperatedly.

Happy Valentine’s Day! So far, Henry hasn’t made me want to kill myself. I finally got to present him with the Vietnam Veteran belt buckle I bought him from etsy. It’s flooding with gold-plated hokeyness. When it fell out of the bag and into his palms, he kind of stared at it with that amazing brand of disbelief that you hope every gift recipient is addled with, and then he looked at me, his mustache creeping into a confused smile, and he said, "But I wasn’t in Vietnam….?"

"But you were in THE SERVICE! Same thing." I was still standing there, waiting for him to attach it to his belt.

"No, if this said Air Force, that would make sense. Then it would be the Service…" He flipped it over to look at the lavishly coated back.

"Well, just wear it. No one will know you’re not a Vietnam Vet." I was getting annoyed, and I really wanted MY present.

"Yes they will! I’m like, twenty years too young!" And then I couldn’t stop laughing, imagining Henry being "too young" for something.

"Like I said," I repeated, "no one will notice!"

And then he realized he doesn’t have the right kind of belt for a buckle, but I think he was trying to just get out of wearing it. I knew I should have bought the rainbow one that had "JESUS" emblazoned on it.

Then UPS hurled my present against the front door. Henry, further enabling my wanton lust for living in the past, gifted me with a bottle of Versace Red Jeans, one of my favorite scents as a young slut. The gift box was adorned with an elastic red ribbon, which is now being worn as a headband, so I’m pretty content right now.

And we’re going to Columbus next weekend! This sure beats the time he bought me a Fossil watch for Valentine’s Day, using a gift card my mom got me for Christmas.

My new favorite picture of my son, taken by Photog Extraordinaire, Cynthia Leigh. She works at Olan Mills now and is very irritated that they won’t let her offer these types of poses. I’d prefer this over Chooch propped up against a large plastic number, that’s for sure.

That fleck on his nose is his battle wound after a particularly lame bout with a box.

Chooch and I were sitting in the upstairs hallway, looking through photo albums. I pointed to a picture of my grandfather and said, "Lookie, here’s my pappap." Chooch mimicked my pointing, looked at me and said, "Pap-pap." My heart promptly melted into a sticky love stew.

I just wish they could have known each other. My grandma says she dreams every night that the three of us — my Pappap, Chooch and me — are always together, hanging out, being mischievous. I wish I had those dreams.

The eye-watering viewings of "Cars" have quietly dwindled down, being replaced by less frequent demands of "Blue’s Clues." I’m happy for this. He still plays with his cars though, which I support because it’s cute to watch him ram and crash them into Marcy’s fluff. However, the past few days he’s insisted on toting around a can of "Cars"-edition Campbell’s soup. Today he even held it out to us very urgently when we were about to leave the house, so Henry had to unzip Chooch’s backpack and let him plop it in. I mean, whatever makes him happy, but I’d prefer he’d stop playing with canned goods because those hurt much worse than plastic cars when chucked at your head. Also, he had a check-up yesterday and is now nearly three feet, placing him in the 95% percentile. Underneath his weight, the nurse wrote "uncooperative," which makes me laugh. He fucking hates that scale. Life can never be dull with Chooch in it.

"Caws? Caws? Caws?" First thing this morning. "No, there are no more Cars. They all died at the end of the movie. What? I guess you  missed that part. They all drove off a cliff because gas prices are so high and then God got all pissed off because you know, that anti-suicide clause he has to make it harder to get into Heaven, so he banished all the Cars to Hell and now they’re down there waxing Satan’s ass and getting all rusty because the hermaphrodites won’t stop peeing on them and I think I heard that Satan himself took Sally as a reluctant lover and Mater was incinerated and his remains were turned into confetti for the next Hell’s Kitchen finale party. I’m pretty sure Elmo is down there too, just in case you were thinking about developing an unhealthy infatuation for him too, in the future." He stared up at me expectantly. "So yeah, no more Cars." I felt kind of guilty I guess, but he didn’t cry and I was able to get him to watch a few minutes of the second Harry Potter movie before he caught a glimpse of the remote and started chanting "Caws? Caws?" with the incessant determination of a minah bird. I cursed silently and pressed play.

****

When my youngest brother Corey was around two years old, he was super attached to our aunt Sharon. The first thing he’d do each morning was cry, "Shar! Shar! Call Shar?" My mom usually delegated this daunting task to me. I’d have to dial the phone and then hold it up to his ear while he babbled incoherently.  It was annoying because I had more important things to do. Like draw hearts around the name of my crush and prank call people I hated.

After awhile, I began saying that Sharon was dead. "Oh Corey, you don’t know? I’m so sorry, but Shar’s dead. DEAD." He would cry and cry and cry and cry as though someone had, well, died. I started doing this every day to the same reaction. But then one day my step-dad caught wind of the psychological break I was threatening to create within Corey’s mind and he put an end to that real quick-like.

I always said I would never tease my own child that way, but holy shit, old habits die hard.

(Unrelated: I’ve been fighting the urge to call everyone "Dolly" lately. I have no idea where this is coming from, and I can’t figure out if it’s more or less annoying than my previous struggle with calling people "Babe," a habit I picked up from sitting too close to Eleanore.)