Daredevil Evil Genius ‘Baby’

I gave birth to a daredevil evil genius child.

While at yoga on Saturday, I get a text from Boof with this picture. Apparently he turned his back for a few minutes (my guess is he was in the bathroom) and he heard a lot of rustling in the living room…came out to find this scene before him.

Whoa, gotta get a leash for that kid, right?

Is the drive to climb things a leftover evolutionary trait from our life in jungles past? Because I don’t really see any necessity to it’s use today, except to get cookies off the counter. And he’s taken to climbing the changing table, and the TV console and possibly soon the bookshelf. I know that my biggest task is going to be to teach him how to climb DOWN so that he’s remotely safe and self-sufficient, but I really don’t like him doing the high chair balancing act on our coffee table.

There are some people in my life that are pretty judgey about my ‘letting’ Potamus climb on things. These people aren’t parents, though, and have no idea the exhaustion that would result in constantly telling him ‘no’ and making him sit still like a doll. And Facebook trolls friends on Boof’s profile had the nerve to write, in response to Boof’s caption ‘hopefully he will use his genius brain for good and not evil,”

“He will use his brain for both…..but a wise parent will instruct him how to shun evil and cling to what is good! This is not evil, however (unless he was told not to do this). It was brilliant!”

Which makes me want to throw up in my mouth a lot  little, and rage against the whole Christian machine because seriously? The sort of Christian drivel being spewed in Facebook posts makes me want to a) give up Facebook altogether, or b) teach Potamus about EVERY DAMN RELIGION OUT THERE out of spite. He’s not climbing onto the coffee table because of original sin motherfuckers.

But I digress.

How do I channel my son’s physical need to climb in a healthy and positive way? We don’t have the resources yet to buy a Big Toy climbing thing for the backyard, and the weather is crummyish outside, so going to the park after work (or on the weekend) isn’t as much of an option. When it’s nice, like yesterday, we took him (sans coat even) and he tromped down the sidewalk and hit things with a big stick. He’s definitely a physical kid and I want him to be encouraged to be physical in a way that’s safe for him!

What crazy dangerous cool things have your kids done that made your hair turn a little bit gray? How do you handle douchecanoe comments from friends and family members?

What it’s like to get an IUD with a toddler sitting on your chest…

he wasn’t wearing fatigues and no choking was invovled, but this is what my exam experience looked like…

Potamus walked proudly into the doctor office with me, but as soon as we started heading back to the room he began having a meltdown. He completely lost it, sobbing uncontrollably, when the nurse put the blood pressure cuff on my arm. No amount of cajoling him (‘hey, it’s like your doctor kit at grammy’s house!’) got him to calm down. So he sat facing me all snuggled in on my chest. The nurse asked, (naively in my opinion) if I thought he’d go with one of the nurses while I got my procedure done. Hardly, my friend, hardly. But never worry, I, the ever resourceful mother, had planned to either let him sit on my chest, or was prepared for him to sob on the floor while the procedure happened.

Thank God the latter didn’t happen, because it turned out to be a 30 minute ordeal.

Perhaps I should have gotten a ‘babysitter’ (aka asked MIL to do it), but she’s watching him tomorrow for a few hours, and watched him on Tuesday. Plus, I’m a little bit masochistic or martyrish in that way. Like I get special brownie points for making a doctor visit even harder, more painful, then just having a copper T shoved into my cervix. But also, Potamus wasn’t feeling well today, and he’s coming off his first four full days at daycare this week, and I thought it’d be good for him to just spend some more time with me.

And also, it’s a good reminder of why I’m in the office. To prevent having to go to the doctor toting two tots together (say that twelve times fast).

The doctor seemed apprehensive of my plan, but Handy Manny on my smartphone is a pretty sure bet. And he doesn’t weigh more than 30 lbs, so I dropped trou, scooted my bum to the end of the table and hoisted Potamus up onto the top of my belly, lower part of my chest. With my feet in the stirrups, and my kids feet in my face, straddling me, and my smartphone nestled under my chin, I realized that yoga is possibly the best preparation for such an awkward experience.

I barely even felt the procedure, though the doctor managed to horrify me with some crime scene cleanup since she had “hit a blood vessel.” Nothing like gushing all over your doctor’s shiny clean floor. And the whole while she kept asking if I was doing okay and if I felt any cramping. I didn’t. Probably because a 30 lb toddler had me in a body slam choke-hold on the exam table. Also, I have a high pain tolerance. And a good grasp of breathing and relaxation techniques. Also, it wasn’t quite like labor, ya know?

 

Any awkward experiences that have been made even MORE awkward with your kid present?

Friday Funnies

The Halloween section of Value Village was calling my name. And Potamus wanted to try on all the wigs and hats. I couldn’t stop laughing when we put them on. So funny…and I remembered how much I love having Fridays off.

Crazy clown

Sad anime baby

If i had a brunette

Bed head?

Thoughtful purple head

He couldn't stop laughing

How Fallopian Tubes are like Holocaust Cattle Cars

Trying to conceive is a strange experience. The more I learn about my body, the more I realize that junior high and high school health/biology class are severely lacking in the information department. Or maybe I was too busy doodling the name of my dreamy crush on my pee chee. Or both.

But seriously, it was only this week that I learned how…um…dumb (for lack of a better description) the whole getting pregnant thing really is. I mean, you have unprotected baby making sex, hopefully at the right time for the stars to align, and when you’re finished you go and get a drink of water, or take a shower or eat a sandwich. And meanwhile, if you’re the lady, there are are these microscopic swimming things just…oh you know….hanging out inside you. I mean, that’s like something from a B level Science Fiction movie…from the late 80’s.

So there they are, microscopic swimming things, who we’ve all thought of as swimming as fast as their little metaphorical hearts can go to get to the PRIZE of that glorious golden snitch bursting from the ovary. But in fact, it’s a lot less Olympics or Hunger games, and seems more like a really slow, drunken frat party. Because, according to one website’s description, the sperm (which can hang out for a few days inside, waiting…um…creepy…) just ‘bump into’ the egg and thus fertilize it.

Wait. You mean to tell me that my son was born because some sperm just randomly bumped into the egg? It wasn’t even like “oh hey baby, you’re so fine, come over here and let me fertilize you.” It was more like the egg stumbling on the way to the bathroom and being forced to marry the first dumb jock frat boy who bumps into her. Talk about fate. And kind of a dumb design if you ask me. Couldn’t they (being God, or Supreme Being, or hell, evolution) come up with a better idea than THAT?

Then again, it does seem to be working, as our Earth is teeming with human bodies.

But, all of this enlightenment about how the sperm that actually fertilizes an egg, got me thinking about the rest of the experience. Like, how sucky would it be to be trapped in the fallopian tubes for up to 3 days. It seems dark, and crowded if you ask me. And you’re surrounded by a bunch of millions of other like-minded microbes, who really just want to survive and meet that egg, but are most likely going to end up on the wrong side of Fate’s hand. And I’m not one to throw out Holocaust metaphors, but that dark, cramped fallopian tube, with millions of sperm that will eventually die, seems like those cattle cars the Nazi’s used in WWII. And I wonder, do the sperm know the chances that they will end up alive at the end of the whole ordeal? Are they blindly optimistic to the chance that they will somehow live on? So every time we have sex millions of sperm die…in my body….gross. It’s basically the Nazi regime all up in my lady parts.

Have you ever been surprised to learn something that you were supposed to have been taught in high school?

Death of the the Easter Bunny

our juniper bush murdered the Easter bunny

“Hey! After much research on the internet, I think we’ve figured out that the skull from the juniper bush was a rabbit! I think it was the Easter bunny!” I said loudly to my in-laws on Sunday.
“Well, better than Santa Claus,” my mother-in-law retorted.

She’s referencing my childhood that was void of all things Santa, but seriously, yes, a human skeleton of any type, let alone the jolly old elf himself, showing up in my backyard would be creepy as hell. Especially since we know that one of the owners DIED in our house. She was old, though, and not related to Santa in any way. So, short of having some human burial ground in our backyard, coming across an animal skeleton was a step better.

Though, typically, dead animals freak me out.

I mean, really freak me out.

Like I have a 6th sense for taxideried mounts and have yet to be disproven by my proclamation “there’s dead animals here.” Usually Boof looks at me like I’m crazy, but then sure enough the person’s house or the antique shop or the random restuarant will, in fact, have some type of taxidermied animal on display (or chucked in a bin with antique dolls and old shoes), and I will proudly exclaim “told you so,” to my scoffers. I’m pretty sure I was the only child who listed “dead buffalo” as a fear. Not live buffalo. Dead buffalo (who, coincidentally I believed haunted our hallways, though taxidermied animals had never ‘set foot’ in our house).

So, coming across a skull, in my backyard would normally leave me screaming or crying or feeling a sort of panicky-can’t-get-my-breath moment. For some reason, maybe wanting to be strong for my toddling son, I became fascinated. And I pulled the skull out of the pile of decaying juniper needles, dug around and found a few more bones, and placed it on our deck to research later. Because, it makes a difference, right, if it was a large rat (Boof’s first guess) or a gopher (my guess) or…The Easter Bunny.

I wasn’t allowed to believe in Santa Claus as a kid because my mom’s parents had let her believe until she was about 12. And then she thought they were liars and then she had a crisis of faith wondering if GOD existed because she couldn’t see Him and maybe he was just like Santa and the whole thing was a sham. Boof, on the other hand, has fond memories of the Santa presents and the whol rigamarole that surrounded it as a kid. It might cause us to get a divorce because I am staunchly anti-Santa and he is marginally pro-Santa, but my in-laws feel judged and sad that I am so anti-the-whole-thing. They also say I’m a hypocrite (in not such nasty words) because I’m fine with believing in mermaids and fairies and the Easter Bunny. And they don’t understand why my parents encouraged Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy beliefs but were so staunchly anti-Santa.

At any rate, after much googling, it appears the skull is more on par with a rabbit than a rat (phew) or gopher (meh). My mind begins to wonder, though, if the rabbit lived in our backyard and died of old age? Or did he get scared and find shelter under the junipe bush and then it MURDERED him with its insidious juniperyness? Or maybe it was injured and suffered because of a dog-bite and died a mere few feet from where help could have potentially saved it. Or maybe it was so outraged by the Cadbur Egg prices this year that it had a heart attack.

I’ll never know the true story, but…what if? What if it was the death of the Easter Bunny? What if my backyard is a burial ground for other things, too? Eek!