NOT TODAY, CHESTER

Last night, I was host to a heart attack.

At 10 at night, I got a text.
A text from a number I did not know.
Within the text was a picture.
Do you want to know what the picture was of?
It was a picture of my son.
There was NO follow-up text from the mystery sender.
Just a picture.
Of MY kid walking around in a park.

You best believe I promptly texted back with,"um, who is this?"
The answer I received read, "Your little bumblebee was at the park today."
Aaaaaand, that was it. THAT all they said.

........OK, so NOW I'm PISSED.
I text back, "YO, WHO IS THIS" really trying to choke down the urge to get ignorant with this mystery stalker.
The answer I received was another picture of my kid walking in the park, but from a different angle.

Okay, so at this point, I'm like utterly FURIOUS.

My husband is in bed with me like, "who the hell are you angrily texting? Why are you out of breath? Who are you threatening to call the FBI on? I'm talking to you, ANSWER ME, DAMMIT."

But I can't hear him over the roar of me cursing at my phone and angrily doing a reverse phone number search on google.  But THAT wasn't getting me anywhere. At this point I'm so enraged, I'm channeling Tony Montana, like YOU WANNA PLAY ROUGH? OKAY. So I do what I should've done several minutes earlier and simply called the mystery phone number. THAT would've saved us both a lot of grief, and restored the years that were taken off of my life with this unmitigated panic-attack.

My Step-Grandmother answers the phone, and she is laughing her ass off at my jackassery.

Relieved and shaken, I was like, "jesus woman, I WAS ABOUT TO RAIN A BARRAGE OF DEATH THREATS DOWN UPON YOU."
She says, "you still don't know who this is? why don't you have my cell number saved?"
I'm like, "you're 80-years-old, you're not supposed to have an iphone."

I only have the number to the crusty rotary phone she STILL has mounted to her kitchen wall since the 1970s. Then I text my mom the abridged version of the story, and she texts me back the "laughing so hard at your dumb-ass I'm crying" face. And she says, "you thought Chester the Molester was stalking Brandon at the park and taunting you with pictures, eh?"
I was like, "NOT ON MY WATCH, CHESTER. NOT TODAY."

dumbo's mom

So I decided to reacquaint myself with kid's movies now that I am in the charge of a kid, and it only took a few minutes for me to realize THEY MAKE ME UNREASONABLY FURIOUS AND I AM NOT EMOTIONALLY EQUIPPED TO HANDLE THEIR PROFOUND LEVEL OF SADNESS.
I decided to plumb the Disney vault of racist golden oldies in search of a heart warming, PG good time. Why? I DONT KNOW WHY, CUT YOUR JUDGING EYES SOMEWHERE ELSE, YO. I am aware that I could've literally picked ANYTHING ELSE. As I flipped through netflix's meager leavings of a movie collection, I came across Dumbo. Seemed harmless enough, right? Simple. To the point. Short as hell (forreal, it's like an hour long). An innocent elephant with a physical deformity has to make it through life without becoming suicidal despite his handicap and we all have a good laugh at his expense. Right? WRONG, SON. I wasn't ready to have my heartstrings manipulated to the point where I felt like I was watching Requiem for a Dream and needed to take a soul cleansing shower afterwards. When I was a lass, I was too busy watching gangsta movies with my dad like big trouble in little China or full metal jacket. You know, the foundation of any little girl's movie repertoire.
Anyway, let me introduce you to the players of this aspca nightmare:

 This total GANGSTA

This cross section of tubby old bigots

THIS LITTLE FRECKLE FACED BASTARD

And the titular character himself 

who has to navigate this stupefying technicolor maze all alone after being ripped away from his nurturing, protective mother after she gets thrown in the clink for protecting his adorable ass. This movie is a conglomerate of my worst anxieties, pressurized and refined into a cartoon nightmare diamond. WHY ARE YOU SO HELLBENT ON TRAUMATIZING EVERYONE, DISNEY? Granted, there is a happy ending, Dumbo and his moms are vindicated and reunited, BUT ONLY AFTER A LONG SERIES OF ONE INJUSTICE AFTER ANOTHER. And then you're supposed to just forget all the trauma at the end and be like, yay! They made it out alive! SCREW THAT NOISE. I DON'T FORGIVE, NOR DO I FORGET THAT EASILY, DISNEY. I had to take a Crying Game shower when it was all over, reassess my new rank as mother and really scrutinize how swiftly and/or mercilessly I would CHOKE another little kid for assaulting MY kid. OR ANY OTHER FOOL. There was an endless lineup of jerks waiting to take a shot at Dumbo for one flimsy reason or another, and I don't appreciate the fact that a mere cartoon has the power to drive me into a homicidal rage. I'm at an emotionally sensitive time in my life, and this was clearly the WRONG movie to watch.

I learn from my mistakes. I take inventory, and I move on. But not before I put a jabbering rant about it on the internet. 

Can I sue the company that makes The Pill? Probably not.

SOOOoooo...,
Looks like it's about to be ROUND 2 up in here.
My husband and his unstoppable bionic sperm pulled a fast one on me, once again.
After he snuck that first baby in there, I was like OKAY, YA GOT ME. But after all that being pregnant jazz was over and done with, he says to me, "Let's have Irish twins!"
I grabbed him by the lapels and yelled, NOT TODAY, SATAN. I WILL BE DAMNED IF I LET YOU KNOCK ME UP AGAIN, I AM NOT PLAYIN WIT'CHOO. And I marched straight to the doctor's office and got on the Pill, like expeditiously. I dug a moat around my uterus, and I even decorated the perimeter with the decapitated heads of my enemies just to send a message to his sperm that THIS PLACE IS CURSED AND THEY SHOULD TURN AROUND IMMEDIATELY. But his little gangster sperms were relentlessly testing my defenses for a weak spot, and once they found it, they raped it for all it was worth, and here I sit, PREGNANT AGAIN.

But, let me clarify: it's not that I didn't want to have another kid, I do. I just didn't want to have the second one RIGHT NOW. Because, duuuuuuude, I can't even fathom the idea of being pregnant ALL OVER AGAIN. Being the incubator for a little human is THE most metal thing one can do with one's body parts. Forget about tattoos and piercings and whatever the cool kids are doing to look tough. Whenever I see a pregnant lady walking down the street I think,"oh man, she's hardcore." 

Aaaaand I work retail. Walking 'round and 'round for 8 hours every day with my stomach skin stretched tightly over a basketball is kind of EXCRUCIATING.

Buuuuuut, today i got a glimpse into the future while watching Brandon frolic in the grass with other babies and toddlers. And I fully admit, it warmed my cold, icy heart. If today was any indication of the joys/horrors/highs/lows/nougat middles of raising TWO kids, we might make it out alive. Or not.

Whatever, LETS DO IT.

Can i get some damn sleep up in here?

Buddhists think that spirits chose to be born. In fact, they are shown a slew of copulating couples and pick the ones they want to be their parents at the moment of conception. In which case, what were you thinking, Brandon?!?

Now? You chose NOW? Have you been reading the news? Yeah, I thought not. If you HAD, you probably would've been like, wait hold up. Things ain't looking too hot on the earth right now, i'mma sit this one out. And me? You chose me? Duuuude, I am NOT financially stable, like not even a LITTLE. Do you know how much student loan debt I have? Yeah, those sallie mae fools own me for a GRIP, son.

This baby finally fell asleep in my lap after nursing, and right when I thought I could quietly slink away, his eyes popped open and he kung-fu-grippped my wrist like a killer in a horror movie after you THOUGHT they were dead but SUPRISE, they ain't.

Duuuude, we were all good like 10 minutes ago. Remember 10 minutes ago? You were sleeping HARD with my hooter in your mouth, all splayed out on the nursing pillow like a shameless drunk at a frat house party. I sent up a prayer of thanks to the lawd that you had finally passed out from the exhausting job of being a baby with 24-handmaidens at your beckoning. YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO BE ASLEEP JUST NOW. And you WERE. Now suddenly you're pop locking and doing cartwheels and you won't settle down. Oh no, you are NOT having any of that going to sleep jazz, and you will NOT be talked off that ledge. And now your father's getting an attitude with me like I'm in cahoots with YOU and it's a conspiracy to keep HIM from getting sleep. So, I do your father a solid and take you in the living room so you can unabashedly shout your little head off while I go through the old riggamarole of trying to figure out JUST WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU. You know, checking your diaper, trying to burp you and offering you a titty to try and quell your anger....oh wait....what's this....I've got you in a really awkward position and now you're falling asleep? Like this? Forreal? Oh right I forgot, you can only fall asleep if I'm equally as uncomfortable as you are comfortable. Brandon, you DIABOLIC.

And now, a poem that doesn't rhyme: Brandon, you are the Riggs to my Murtaugh

Even when you're screaming like a banshee, deep into the night, and probably waking up the neighbors,

You are the Riggs to my Murtaugh 

Even when you bite the holy living shit out of my nipple while nursing,

Even when you blindly reach down to grab your poop-covered junk while I'm changing your diaper,

Even though I constantly have to bend at the waist while holding an unevenly distributed 20+ pounds (YOU),

You are the Riggs to my Murtaugh 

Murtaugh was only days away from retirement, when along came Riggs, who rekindled that dying flame under Murtaugh's ass.

Murtaugh was too old for this shit, you see. But Riggs did not care.

Murtaugh just wanted to chill with his morning coffee and stare into space, but Riggs always had other plans:

What kind of mischief can i get us into? 

How many people will I kill today?

I wonder how reckless I can be with both of our lives this week?

These were just some of the questions Riggs would ask himself everyday.

And Murtaugh did what he could to keep his partner from getting himself killed, like all the damn time. And even though Riggs's shenanigans took years off of Murtaugh's life, he was always down for his homey. No matter what.

As I too, am down for you, Brandon. No matter what.

Because you,

Are the Riggs to my Murtaugh 

i can do impressions

here's my impression of my son:

Brandon - "You think you're finished feeding me for now? You think your nipples are going to get a moment to themselves to heal? You think this is a game?"

Brandon - "I see you've just changed my diaper. It would be a shame if someone were to rapid fire doo-doo inside of the new diaper that's been on my ass for 2.2 seconds."


Brandon - "Oh, it's bath time, is it? I disagree. Because while you're lowering me into that bath water you so carefully tempered to my liking, I'm gonna drop a massive, soupy deuce right in there. Like, directly in there. Now, clean it up damn you."

Brandon - "I see you've just finished bathing me. It would be a shame if someone were to shit on themselves, getting shit all over, including shit right in the palm of your hand, and now you have to bathe me all over again. Oh, and don't forget to swirl the shit covered towel in the toilet with your bare hands."

Brandon- "So. You'd like to do your hair, huh? Well, I hate to tell you this but, you work for me now. And as my employee, if you are not at my beck and call every second that I am conscious, I am going to scream bloody goddamn murder and make the other people in this apartment complex consider calling DCFS on you. And, you'll NEVER leave me in a room alone without having visions of me rolling myself up over the edge of my crib. Or worse things. All because you just HAD to do your hair.

Brandon - "Yeah, I'm taking a nap. But i'm not so much a peacefully sleeping baby as i am a TICKING TIME BOMB, and you'll never know what tiny innocuous sound is going to disturb my slumber, SETTING ME RIGHT THE HELL OFF.

Chicago Homicide: what is your problem with this slogan?

the other day on the red line I saw a plain-clothed cop looking dude wearing a t-shirt that said:

Chicago Police Homicide: Our Day Starts When Yours Ends.

......I'm sorry, WHAT.
First of all, the fact that the homicide department has such a grim slogan or a slogan AT ALL is a tad MESSED UP. And- what do you mean your day starts when mine "ends"? That might as well have said

Chicago Police Homicide: If You Live Here, You're Going To Be Murdered. We'll Investigate.
or
Chicago Police Homicide: You've Been Warned About Living Here. Anyway, We'll Totally Get To The Bottom Of Your Murder
or
Chicago Police Homicide: Rest Assured, We'll Catch The Person Who Murders You.

Alright look here, i don't need anymore reminders that my family and i live in the bloody murder-capital of the mid west, thanks. What, you think i wouldn't prefer to live in a place where the peeps don't constantly get capped? because that would be greeeeat. HOWEVER, i don't have the resources to just up and say deuces Chicago, I'm going to move to this affluent area real quick and hope i don't look out of place kicking it with a bunch of people who own instead of rent their cribs.

Anyway, get out my face with your pessimism, Chi P.D.

cooking, cleaning, telekinesis

I like to listen to old broadcasts of patrice o'neal on opie & anthony as i tidy up my dusty house. BUT, they employ heavy use of the entire curse word RAINBOW, and i don't want Brandon's first word to be 'cunt'.
So i'll listen to my wu-tang channel on pandora instead. Because i'd rather his first word be 'bitches'.

With all this round-the-clock baby holding whilst doing a plethora of OTHER jazz, never have i wished harder for telekinetic powers. Or a freakish but capable third arm to increase my efficiency by a respectable 25 percent. Especially with THIS baby, he does NOT  want to be put down. like EVER.

so i hold him with one hand and fold laundry with the other while we watch another movie on netflix. today's movie will be beverly hills cop because i feel it's important for Brandon to know what eddie murphy WAS in comparison to what he BECAME.

then i hold him with one hand while i whip up a dope meal for two before my huuuusband gets home from work. i feel it's important for him to behold the staggering amount of things i get done with one hand literally tied behind my back.
BEHOLD, SON.

guns, guns, GUNS

yesterday while Brandon napped on me, I watched that Pumping Iron documentary from the 70s about how Arnold Schwarzenegger (I can't spell "Schwarzenegger" but I live in a country where Schwarzenegger is already uploaded into Word spell-check) was training to defend his Mr. Universe title. 

Let me tell you something crucial about me:

I was raised on Arnold movies so I am a SUCKER for almost all things Arnold, particularly anything he was in from 84' to 94'. That 10-year span was, in academic terms: the most metal era in cinematic history, never to be re-created again.  

Terminator, Terminator 2, Predator, Commando, Total Recall, Twins, Red Heat, The Running Man, True Lies, Kindergarten Cop.... you get the point so I'll just stop right there.

And thanks to Arnold movies, I discovered the colorful spectrum of ways men could be creatively killed for my child-age blood lust. It also unearthed a bottomless well of questions about all the cartoonish ways a man can be killed. Do your eyes really squeeze out of your head if your helmet comes off in space? Can you actually snap a person's neck that easily? Can you really harpoon a man with a giant hollow pipe? With your bare hands? If you threw a table saw blade really hard at a guy would it really take a chunk of his head off? Why do you instantly die if you get thrown down a flight of stairs? If two big dogs were charging at you side-by-side, and jumped at you at the same time, could you really clunk their heads together? Liquid nitrogen is a THING that EXISTS? Can you really use a person's body like a shield so you wont get shot? If you shot a guy in the chest, would he just instantly die? 

And speaking of getting shot, it wasn't until decades later when I was learning how to handle my husband's handgun at the range, that I realized how wildly misinformed I was about basic handgun mechanics.  And I place the blame squarely on Arnold. 

Here's what I discovered:

I am waaaaay more noodle-armed than I thought. And the noodle-armed should never hold a gun with one hand. Or sideways. Or upside down. I DON'T KNOW, however the cool kids are holding their guns nowadays. An improper hold pretty much guarantees you're not going to hit your moving target: a morally bankrupt henchman, or the final bad guy now that you've reached the end of the movie. The kick back alone would make the gun fly out of your hand.  

And, oh yeah, guns "kick back".  You have to have retard-strength level of grip in your hands when firing a gun, otherwise that bad boy is going to kick back HARD, and you MIGHT bash yourself in the face.   

And did you know the shells that case the bullets get flaming hot when ejected from the gun as you fire? Did you know these hot bastards could ricochet off the nearest wall and tumble hilariously down the front of your shirt and get trapped in your bra? Did I mention they are as hot as the sun and will leave burn marks on your skin?  

And, were you aware that guns are loud as HELL? I don't posses the vocabulary to accurately describe how awesomely LOUD guns truly are. The general public thinks of guns as "air horn" loud, or maybe "police siren" loud. In reality, it's more like "standing in the wake of a jet plane" loud, but condensed into a split second.  I grew up on the west side, and dammit, I am no stranger to the sound of gunfire. But said gun fire was always heard from a distance, such as: from the end of the block while standing in within the confines of my house. Standing next to a firing gun is a whole 'nother level of experiencing the sonic-goddamn-BOOM they emit. There is no way to look cool and talk shit to the guy you just shot while your ears are bleeding.  

Also, has anyone told you that there is no need to cock your gun? Wanton cocking of the gun is not only unnecessary but also bad for the gun. Wanton gun cocking makes YOU look like a huge tool, but when Arnold does it, it's a punctuation to a timeless one-liner. 

Consider that a divorce CLACK-CLACK! 

See you at the party Richter CLACK-CLACK! 

It's not a tumor CLACK-CLACK!  

And proper aiming is the exact opposite of effortless, it actually takes A TON OF PATIENCE AND SKILL. My gun held 12 bullets, but I only counted 9 holes in that target practice sheet they give you at the range. The sheet couldn't have been more than 6 feet away, directly in front of me, and was not moving. Yet, I still managed to miss my target an entire 25% of the time. And I can forget about head shots. I'd be one of those broads that got eaten if this was the Walking Dead. Though slow and lumbering, zombies are notoriously bad at holding still while you aim your gun at their face. All these cold facts about REAL gun handling totally suck the sexiness out of guns and are some bullshit. 

Sleep regression: I stab at thee

And we were on such a good roll, too.

oh my god, go away, sleep regression. I didn’t even know you were a thing until last week, and now you're shaking my confidence in my ability to ACTUALLY BE A PARENT. you're making me want to throw myself through a closed 3rd story window. be gone, sleep regression.

 Since his grand entry into our material plane, Brandon has slept in the bed with my husband and I. Despite advice to the contrary by his pediatrician, I decided to walk on the wild side and co-sleep with my baby. Tangent alert: I didn't realize what an immediate threat my husband's habit of throwing bows in his sleep presented to Brandon's health (dude, could you not elbow our baby), but I also underestimated my own motherly instincts for detecting and deflecting those threats. Even in my sleep. I guess I'm just a bad ass momma-bear like that. One night, my husband was up to his old sleeping antics, probably dreaming about fighting crime or whatever, and threw an elbow that nearly connected with Brandon's head. Something compelled me to wake up a moment before this catastrophe almost happened, and I caught his elbow in my palm an instant before it made contact. I was like Neo stopping the bullets. Elbow my kid? Not on my watch, my dude. This scenario hasn't happened since. Everybody gets one. 

After Brandon hit four months old, I wondered if now was the time to start transitioning him into sleeping in his crib. Not entirely for his sake, but also for mine. Up until this point, Brandon slept directly on top of me and it was really starting to do a number on my back. I wasn't sure how much longer I could hack it as a borderline cripple trying to stankylegg my way out of bed every morning. And since I breastfeed, nothing is easier than rolling over and popping a boob in his screaming maw in the middle of the night so we can ALL get back sleep. Anyway, he was a textbook awesome baby about the whole thing, it took three days for him to get use to sleeping in his crib without getting all pissed off, just like babycenter.com said he would. That third night after he went straight to sleep without protest, i jogged around my crib humming the theme from Rocky, i was like YO I GOT THIS MOTHERING GAME ON LOCK, SON. You could set your watch to his napping & sleeping routine, because he was sleeping like a goddamned CHAMPION.

Then one day.... He was like screw a nap, MOM.
I was like, alrighty...
Then that night, he was like, SLEEP IS FOR THE WEAK. All night long. And into the next morning.
I was like, SERIOUSLY DUDE WHOSE BABY IS THIS?

Wash, rinse, repeat.

After the third night of his not-sleeping shenanigans, I jumped on the internets at 3 in the AM, trying to figure out what in god's holy name was wrong with my kid. The internet was like, sounds like sleep regression to me, yo.

Sleep regression is a thing that exists, no one told me about it, it is EXCRUCIATING, and all you can do is strap yourself in and ride it out until your kid snaps back to normal.

In other words, sleep regression is the Keyser Soze of baby phenomena. It shows up out of nowhere, messes your whole world up, and then suddenly POOF! It's gone...