Where were you?

A Retrospective of New Year Eves Past

1980 As throughout my early childhood, I would have been spending New Year's eve with Normal Olathe Grandma - snuggled up on the couch with her and my sister down in her family room, watching the ball drop on TV. I LOVED going to grandma’s house when I was a kid. Every Christmas day, we would go to my grandma’s and the whole clan would fill the house to the brim. At the end of the day, my parents would go on home for a Kid Free week and return New Year’s day to retrieve us. 1980 would have been the last New Year’s Eve my parents ever spent together - that year during their Kid Free week, my parents were packing our things so that my mom could move my sister and I out of the house and to a new town.

1985 My mother and step-father banish all kids from the living room, leaving us to fend for ourselves that evening. It was a long and lonely one.

1990 Asshole #1 and his roommates always threw kickass parties - with New Year’s being the king of all parties for the year. I don’t miss Asshole #1, but man oh man, those parties were the ultimate college parties. The special thing about those parties with the international crowd was that the music was great, the booze exotic and the patronage a mish mash of culture where homeland clashes were left at the door. I've never drank from a beer bong, but dammit, I knew how to do the lambada .

1995 I went to Westport with Really Nice Guy But Still Didn't Want to Marry Him. Really Nice Guy and I had an awesome, traditional New Year's Eve partying at the Hurricane.

2000 My first New Year’s eve with X. It was a low-key night spent at a friend’s house playing pool, drinking beer. A nice evening to mark how undramatic, calm and comfortable my life was to become.

2005 New Year’s eve will be spent snuggled on a couch in Olathe watching TV. This time, I'll be with my 2 favorite guys and have a bottle of freshly espressed breast milk in one hand and a glass of my very favorite champagne, Veuve-Clicquot in the other. I’ve done the wild nights, closed many a bar and drank more than my fair share of beer on past New Year’s eves.

I suspect this night will still top them all.

What happens when I don't proofread?

THIS:

This post is brought to you by the makers of the Baby Bjorn - the patron saint of happy babies and productive mothers everywhere...........

So many things, so little time to write them all down before Chimp Boy discovers that I am doing something that doesn’t involve HIM and then it’s all “Wah! Wah! What about me?” He’s so YESTERDAY - doesn’t he get it??? So dramatic..........

Anyway, still loving motherhood, but DAMN - the double whammy of the holidays and having a newborn have totally and utterly KICKED MY LILY WHITE ASS*. Also, I insisted on hosting Christmas because I couldn’t bear the thought of my 83 year old Normal Olathe Grandma hobbling around her kitchen with my my Fat Ass Lazy Shopaholic Hoarding aunt ** watching her and not lifting a finger. I was glad to have everyone over and I know the relatives that came appreciated it, so it was worth it. To add to all the mayhem, my sister gave birth to Only Niece the week before Christmas, so things have just been super crazy. It was a scheduled C-section and everything went fine, but she can’t lift anything over like 10 ounces and her super mongo Hagrid Worthy offspring (aka Older Nephew and Younger Nephew, aged 4.5 and 2.5 respectively) weigh like 100 pounds*** a piece so we are all taking turns hanging out with her to help out until she can start lugging them around again. Speaking of mongo kids - I may be on the way to having one myself. Arun is barely 2.5 months and has already outgrown some outfits sized 3-6 months leaving me to say “WHAT THE FUCK?”****

Speaking of clothes, it was quite distressing that I have been schlepping around a kid that is better dressed than ME, so I decided that must fixed. I went clothes shopping today for REAL clothes for the first time in over a year and half. I nearly cried. I am back to square one with my fucking SHORT LEGS. For whatever reason, I had no issues finding maternity pants in my size and lengh - a first for me. However, Normal Clothes manufacturers assume that someone in my size is a gigantic Amazonian with thunder thighs to match. Its a good thing that I don’t have a job now, because I am going to be spending some serious time trolling the mall for pants that fit these legs. Since I am not going to an office anymore, I need decent casual clothes (when I was working, I cheated the system by wearing skirts). I hate the mall. I hate shopping. I hate being amongst all the fucking suburban housewives comparing strollers and scouting the clearance racks at Gymboree and Baby Gap because it is a stark reminder that I AM NOW ONE OF THEM.

Sob....

* No joke! It REALLY is lily white!
**No joke! It REALLY is fat!
***Okay , that actually WAS a joke.
**** Not in FRONT of the kid. Well, maybe sometimes, but he doesn’t understand - right?

Naughty or Nice?

The Rancid le manse just experienced its very own Christmas miracle! For the first time ever, my boy's sphincter let all holy hell loose - right up his back! Yes, SIRREE - our very first Shitting up the Back episode. I had heard of this phenomenon, but had never actually lay witness to it. It was enough to make THIS mother cry.

Merry Christmas!

How many wrongs make a write?

Anyone who knows me remotely knows how much I like to be right. In fact, I have been known to go to great lengths to prove this “rightness”. As I have gotten older, I have tried to tame this obnoxious trait. Well, Internet, I have been wrong - a few times.......

All these months, every time someone tries to Ass-vise me about my 2-door, family unfriendly car, I’d snip right back that we would be just fine. In truth, we WERE just fine with 2 doors and could have easily made it to the Summer 2006 marker as planned. HOWEVER, it was indeed a pain in the ass trucking His Royal Highness around in it. Fortunately, life intervened and we found it necessary to purchase a 3rd car (X needs a car in Virginia now). So, last weekend we bought a 4 door, family friendly car. I have never bought a brand spankin’ new car before and I admit, it was quite a treat to drive it off the lot. I’ve also mentioned before that X is not the stereotypical Indian - even though he came to me sans Asian Head Bob and SingSong Accent, he did come with some stellar bargaining skills that would make his own mama proud. My heart did little flipflops as he wheeled and dealed our way into that car. So, Christmas came a week early for me and RidiculousTV has a new friend in the form of RidiculousCar replete with a boatload of Silly Features. The car does everything except make me a cup of coffee.

How else have I been wrong? Throughout my 20s, I fretted about having a baby as I had been told I might have problems in that area. Without going into embarrassingly graphic detail, today marks the day that X and I started "trying" for a baby last year. Little did I know that I would be peeing on a stick by early February and taking pics of my monkey under our tree a scant year later. My head still spins at how quickly everything happened, but I am very, VERY appreciative of how easy I have had it. I couldn't have asked for a better pregnancy experience and so far, the kid is pretty swell, also.

Sometimes - just sometimes, it’s not so bad being wrong. Maybe I should try being wrong more often.

How stupid am I?

Oh so very...............

I like to joke that not only did I give birth to a baby, but also to my brains. Tonight only proved how unfunny that statment is.

X missed his flight earlier this evening, thus ensuring he won’t be home until tomorrow. To cheer myself up, I thought I would light a fire via Duraflame, snuggle in with monkeyboy and watch a Christmas movie or two. Right away, I noticed the Duraflame didn’t burn as it should have, but I didn’t give it much thought at the time. This was at 5:30pmish. By nearly 10:30pmish, I was concerned - the logs usually only last 4 hours at the VERY MAX. I wanted to go to bed, but I don’t like going to sleep with anything left burning in the fireplace Fire scares the holy crap outta me, which of course, is precisely why I love it so. Anyway, since I’m not only a CPA, but also the proud owner of a Master’s degree, I decided with the infinite wisdom conferred upon me by my local state university that I would poke the damned thing apart to its death.

HUGE MISTAKE.

All the pieces roared to life creating a situation that Eddie Murphy’s Uncle Gus would have been impressed with. I wasn’t exactly panicking, but I wasn’t entirely comfortable with the situation. I didn’t want to tie up 911 phonelines, so I pulled out my phone book to look up the fire department’s number. Believe it or not, they were not listed in the F’s, as you would expect. In fact, they weren’t listed ANYWHERE. I gave up, called 911, apologized profusely for calling on a non-emergency and was transferred to the fire department. 5 minutes later a big ass fire truck pulls up to the house - at least they did NOT come with sirens wailing. Anyway, the guys came in to assess the situation and they quickly determined I was not in any imminent danger (at least not from fire. Mere Stupidity is not their area of expertise, apparently). So, while resisting to urge the question the validity of several “Rescue Me” plotlines, I watched the firemen poke and prod the fire until it died to a reasonable level. Then, amazingly they left me alone with monkeyboy. Meaning, after I displayed such a gross error in judgement, they left me IN CHARGE OF A TEENY TINY BABY.

Good grief.