HIPPO BRIGADE

All teeth fall out

Every night I switch off the light, close my eyes, and make attempts of peace in harmony in my subconscious. I visualize lemon meringue pie and pink bunnies, and how amazing it would be to have bouncy, shiny hair. I visualize Jason Bateman in a speedo, and street tacos, and drinking Prosecco in Union Square.

But as soon as I drift off into sleep, I have an anxiety attack.

My body becomes an angry, dark place and all my muscles clench up like a butt-hole at a proctology appointment. My fists ball up, my spine becomes a crocked disaster, and my jaw gets insanly sore. It’s like my body is telling me, I hate sleep, and I don’t want to do it, no sir, I don’t.

And then my mind chimes in and says, you dumb-ass, sleeping is the most magnificent gift. It’s glorious, and it’s the one thing I look forward to all day. Stop F-ing this up for me!

And thus, a war is waged.

When I wake up in the morning, I’m like, what the crap? Why do my teeth hurt? Why is my arm all the way over there, that doesn’t seem natural. And why can’t I look left anymore?

I can deal with a sore body. That’s fine. I can do yoga or stretch to work the kinks out (although I never do). But my mouth is another story.

The teeth thing really bothers me, I have dreams of my teeth shattering and crumbling into pieces. Like those sugar sculpting tv shows on the Food Network. You know where they spend 8 hours making a 5-foot piñata out of delicate pink and blue sugar, and then they have to move the thing 20 inches in front of them to have it judged, and the whole thing shatters, and everyone is like, “OH SHIT!” but honestly, we all knew it was coming. Because it’s a piñata, made of sugar.

So, yeah. My mouth is like the shows on Food Network.

And my teeth are poorly built sugar piñatas.

I used to have a mouth-gaurd that I’d wear at night, but it mysteriously disappeared. I’m not positive, but all signs point to my dog eating it. The recent dry hacking, coupled with her repulsive ability to eat anything, especially if it’s thickly coated in my morning drool, was what ultimately tipped me off.

Thanks Zoey, now all my teeth are going to fall out, and it’s all your fault.

Plus, you owe me 400 dollars. Bitch.

**Totally unrelated note, Zoey doesn’t mind that I call her a bitch, because technically speaking, she is one.

So, why is my mouth so stressed out?

Or, better question, why am I so stressed out?

My life is pretty awesome. I don’t have a schedule that I have to adhere to, and my kids are so frickin’ rad. Seriously, have you met them? You need to, they’re amazing.

I get to do practically anything I want, which means my days are filled with going to the beach, the pool, and the mall, and hanging out with my best friends.

Although, I do touch a lot of poo within a given day, and I get yelled at by both my baby and 3-year-old, and on really special occasions, my mom. I usually have Hudson sitting on my left hip, so that I’m free to dole out snacks for Berlyn with my right hand. I am constantly cleaning up paint, play-doh, and Golden Puffs, meanwhile, my boob is in my baby’s mouth. Oh, and speaking of my boobs, they have lost all discretion, and have been spotted by 3 of my neighbors and at least 4 Container Store employees, and that was just yesterday.

Being a mommy is tough, and even though my mind is okay with it, my body is telling me otherwise.

If I don’t get a vacation from these kids soon, I’m going to end up toothless.

I feel like there’s a joke in there about my husband benefiting from me having no teeth.

But seriously, when all my teeth crumble and shatter into a million pieces like those sugar creations on TV, it won’t be funny.

Okay, maybe a little funny because I can wear one of these:

These are a few of my favorite things…

I’ve been shopping lately.

Online.

But instead of buying stuff, I’ve been putting things in my virtual cart, then I close the computer, and walk away.

AH-HA!

I’ve outsmarted myself.

See? That way I don’t buy something senseless.

I’ve already saved thousands of dollars doing this.

Gee, look at me, all savvy, and whatnot.

I guess since I’ve saved thousands of dollars, I could afford to buy something…

Here are a few of my favorite things right now.

What should I get??

Yeah, my vote is for the hippo wall hangers too.

Pieces of me

I had some moles removed today.

I miss them already.

Especially the hairs that grew egregiously out of them.

They were taken from me and then, against their will, put in tubes with tight fitting lids to be taken somewhere unknown.

**Test are being run.

Moles are being sliced open.

Hairs, strewn about.**

But then what?

Trash?

Incinerator?

KFC secret recipe?

I’ve had a few body parts taken; some organs, some teeth, and now some moles.

But where do these things go?

Does the doctor put my placenta in a doggie bag, double-knot it, and alley-oop it into the trash, on top of  a banana peel and used paper towels?

Or maybe all my parts go into a special collection?

Perhaps it’s metal drawer with my name on it.

My drawer would have stickers on it.

Or those bejewled crystals that spell out my name.

In pink. Naturally.

Maybe they store all my pieces in a big freezer, and one day, when they get enough pieces, they can make another me.

It’s like winning the Lottery!

Can you imagine? Two of me?

But the other me wouldn’t be as cute. She’d be all awkward, and globby. She have patchy skin, mainly comprised of discarded moles and old finger nail clippings. She’d have a toothy grin with a total of 6 teeth (4 wisdom teeth and 2 incisors), and her body would be two placentas and two umbilical cords cinching everything in place.

I mean, she’d still be hot.

Just not as cute.

How much alcohol is too much…for your baby?

I’m not a party girl.

I don’t like to get drunk.

I don’t like that sick feeling the next morning. Plus there’s always the inevitable drunk poo, and possible vomiting, and honestly, that’s just too many runny bodily fluids for me.

I do, however enjoy the occasional drink.

But because, I’m nursing Hudson, I have to be mindful of how much I drink.

I don’t want a drunk baby on my hands.

Could you imagine?

Wait–on second thought, let’s not imagine.

So I bought these alcohol strip thingies to test my milk before I give it to the Huds.

He appreciates that.

The other night I went out with a few friends, and had two glasses of wine. They were spread out over 3.5 hours, and I even drove home, but by the time I got home I tested my milk, and wouldn’t you know?

It said I was piss drunk.

I tried to reason with the strip.

“Listen here,” I commanded. “I’m not drunk. I had 2 glasses of wine and a heap of pasta. I’m totally sober. If I were drunk could I do this?”

I started to pat my head and rub my belly simultaneously.

“Or what about this?”

I touched my nose with my index finger while closing my eyes and tilting my head back.

“Hell–ooo? Check this out.”

I moon walked across the kitchen floor. I even threw in a lewd crotch grab, to really drive the point home.

Just then my husband walked in, “Who are you talking to? And what the hell are you doing? You’re totally sauced right now, aren’t’ you?I knew I shouldn’t have let you drive home!”

“No, no. Pat, don’t be silly. I’m talking to the milk strip, see?  I’m showing it that I’m sober. It thinks I should dump this milk.”

“Ludacris. Hey let me see that thing.”

Pat grabbed the strip from me.

“Oh Beckey, this thing darker than the chart! You’re totally drunk right now. You should proably lay down. Here, take some Advil. I’m going to dump this milk. It’s tainted with your irresponsibility.”

“Nooo!!! Don’t dump it. That’s liquid gold. Maybe we can make cheese out of it. Or if we dump it into the garden I bet a beautiful tree will grow. Or maybe you can drink it!”

“Seriously Beckey? A tree? You are totally drunk.”

“Fine. Whatever. I’m going to bed.”

Ew, so does that mean you touch your baby’s poo?

Disposable diapers are gross. Can I get an Amen?

They’re stinky, so you stick them in the diaper pail, which is all fine and good, until the diaper pail fills up, and then you have to empty the thing, which has now morphed into sweaty, stuffed kielbasa that weighs approximately one thousand pounds and smells like a truck stop urinal. And then getting it down the stairs has become a ginormous feat, but you feel good because you streched beforehand, but just as you got halfway  down the stairs, you swear the thing grew arms and legs, because oh crap, the sweat bag just decked you in the jaw.

Okay, so we know they suck, but we use them several times a day because they’re “easy” and the hospital loads us up with them, and all the parenting magazines advertise them, and that backwards R store has them coming out their backwards butt-hole, so we think they’re our only option.

But I’ve stumbled upon another option. Except when I say stumbled, what I really mean is that I sat for hours and hours in front of my laptop researching cloth diapers, while my older child relentlessly beat my baby over the head with a wooden toy.

Of course I would glance up every once in a while to make sure that there were no blood or tears, but a mom’s gotta do what a mom’s gotta do, right?

I’m ignoring you for your own good! I’d yell out from behind the computer.

I’m trying to be environmentally responsible!

I appreciate you!

I’d tell my neglected children.

I started off with ‘green’ disposables. I tried Nature Babycare, Earth’s Best, and Seventh Generation. But those aren’t any better than regular disposables, because the toxins that make them absorbent are still present, plus they still sit in landfills and oceans FOREVER.

And I don’t like the image of a baby walrus chewing on a diaper filled with my baby’s poo.

Nope, not one bit.

So then I looked into gDiapers, which is a cloth diaper with a flushable insert.

And they prepared me mentally, physically, spiritually for the next step, which was totally cloth.

I actually found gDiapers to be more work than all cloth.

There was all this tearing the insert open, and flushing, and plunging my backed up toilet, and ultimatly, I was not a fan.

So now I use BumGenius. They’re all in one, so I don’t have mess with an insert, I just take it off and put a new one  just like a disposable.

Zing- za-dan!

It’s so easy.

Seriously.

Plus no baby walruses have to eat my diapers.

It’s been a few weeks, and I really like it.

And so does Hudson. He hasn’t had a single diaper rash, and I feel good about the organic cotton against his skin.

Plus I’ve heard disposables lower sperm count in males, so his balls are pretty happy about it too.

Fo’ Sheezy, I’m Wheezy

I’m pretty snacky.

That’s the thing about me, I could always go for a snack.

Whenever I’m at some one’s house and they ask, “are you hungry, do you want something to eat?”

The answer is always YES. But because I’m polite, and don’t want to come off like a rabid beast that will eat all of their food, I generally say, “nah, I just ate, thanks. But is that Chex Mix on your counter? I’ll just have a small handful.”

Then an hour later, I’ve devoured their entire bag of Chex, drank half a liter of flat Diet Coke, and my gracious host caught me licking their plastic honey bear container.

And I wonder why I never get invited anywhere.

So last night, after we tucked the kids in bed, Pat and I turned to each other and romantically embraced.

No. Just kidding.

We both decided we were snacky.

But because the snacks in the house aren’t good enough for us, I went to CVS (or Cee Vee’s as we lovingly refer to it as) to score some extra delectable nibblets.

I was feeling super charitable, so I took Zoey along. Sometimes she can be a total turd in the car. She’ll run from one side of the car to the other, and start doing the Mexican hat dance on my uterus with her tiny paws because she’s so damn happy to be going on an adventure. But this time she was calm, and sedated.

Maybe it was because I was sitting on her head?

When I pulled the car up to the front of the store, there were about 9 teenagers sitting out front. They were all talking and texting, and whatnot, but as soon as they saw me they stopped and stared at me.

I started to feel nervous.

I don’t know why.

I guess it was because it felt like high school all over again. Except in high school I was cute.

And 20 pounds lighter.

And blissfully oblivious.

I got out of the car and felt the warmth of their eyes on me. Zoey was being wild and wanted to jump out and get some candy too. So I had to corral her back into the car with all the awkward clumsiness I could muster. I used my ass as a shield, and nearly closed her face in the door.

I could tell those pesky kids were laughing at me. Not only did I look like an idiot, but I was dressed like an idiot too.

I didn’t realize when I left the house, because all I could think about was pretzel M&Ms, but I was wearing my patent leather, neon yellow  running shoes, frumpy shorts with chicken fat stains, and an off the shoulder tee shirt that said, “I’m wheezy” with a picture of an inhaler, and it partially revealed my nursing bra that looks like it has the power to wrangle even a gorilla’s mammaries.

I had to walk straight though the crowd to get to the door of Cee Vee’s.

Gulp.

*Here I go*

I didn’t realize the power teenagers had over me until that very moment.

I almost got through the crowd, and then told myself, I can do this. I am a strong, confident WOMAN.

It felt like I was walking though one of those human tunnels that people do after you get married or something, but instead of throwing soft and beautiful rose petals, they were throwing me straight into an ambivalent spiral of anxiety.

And then one of them said, “Hi Weezy.”

Crap.

What is it about cocky 16 year-olds that make me feel like I’m in Mr. Tsuda’s algebra class all over again?

And why I’m wearing a dumb shirt with an asthma inhaler on it?

Seriously, I’m usually a very confident and secure human being.

I think it was the combination of low blood sugar and the flood of high school memories that gave those suckers such power over me.

And I can’t believe I was humiliated in front of my own dog.

I think I deserve extra candy for that.

Hudson’s 6 months old.

This is what you looked like when you were 2 months old.

Then 3 months old...

4 months

5 months

...and now you're 6 months old

Your personality is emerging and you’re loving, gentle, curious, and active.

Your giggles warm me.

And your bight blue eyes are astounding.

To celebrate your 6 months of being awesome, we fed you some goop for the first time.

I know is was kind of meh, but food gets a whole lot better tasting, I promise.

Your sister said it best when she said, “Oh, big boy now.”

It’s true, you’re not my tiny, fragile newborn baby anymore. Now you’re sturdy and very aware of the world around you.

Plus, you’re very active and you’re practically crawling now. I’m sorry for not putting you on the ground more. It’s for your own good. Well, it’s really for my own good, but same difference.

Way to go Huddy. Happy 6 months. You’re turning into a pretty awesome human.

The Backwards R

If you have a child, chances (backwards) R that you’ve been to this mega-sized baby mart.

It is the epitome of everything that is wrong with the world.

The minute you step in you’re greeted with the most insane florescent lighting, because apparently all the superfluous plastic baby gear looks better when the light bounces off it and partially blinds you. Even before your pupils are able to properly dilate, you suddenly find yourself face-to-face with a portly woman with a purple smock and adult acne asking you if you need help.

Once you find what you need, you second guess yourself 6 times because they’re are far TOO MANY CHOICES, but before your brain leaks out of your head, Purple Smock is back asking you if you need help, again, because you look like a moron staring blankly at the shelves.  You ask her for her opinion on diaper cream, and she has to radio in 3 co-workers on her walkie-talkie before she tells you she likes the one that her manager told her to sell more of.

You finally make a decision and notice that you’ve left your wadded coupons at home!!

FRICK.

You could have saved $3.23 on that diaper ointment, but then you realize that coupons are for turds who enjoy carrying a fat stack of crumpled papers around with them at all times, and instead you like looking into your bag and seeing order, not chaos, and you think, it’s cool. I’m totally fine with not saving 3.23, because at least my life is more visually attractive.

And before you are able to turn and leave the store, the cashier hands you a fistful of paperwork in the form of 3 receipts and a coupon booklet.

And you think, you know where you can stick your coupon booklet, and then you envision throwing the papers back in her face.

HA. That will show her!

But instead you polietly take them and shove them into your once visually attractive bag.

Maybe you know the store I’m referring to?

Well. I hate it.

From now on I’m going to patron stores with creativity and integrity. Stores that are mindful of their shoppers, and don’t try to assail them with coupons and marketing tactics.

But since there are no baby stores in Orange County like that, (except for milkalicious),

I’ll be shopping on Amazon.

Peace out Backwards R. We are offically over.

First Family Vacation

Where the heck have you been, Beckey? You might ask yourself.

Or you might be like, what? You went somewhere? Who the hell cares. What I want to know is how long is a hippo’s gestation? Can I find that here?

No, you can’t find that here.  But I have photos of our fantastic road trip where we traveled up and back down the California Coast.

It’s just as facinating, I promise. Or…it’s like those boooring family slide shows you were forced into watching when you were a youngster…you decide:

Here we are driving. There was a lot of that.

We visited San Luis Obisbo to watch my coolest bro-in-law graduate, then headed up to San Francisco.

Golden Gate Bridge

Then we went to Monterey.

Monterey Bay Aquarium

Carmel-by-the-Sea:

And took Highway 1:

Isn’t it beautiful?

Then, we went to Solvang and tasted wine…

Even Hudson got to taste some wine.  Everyone’s a winner!

There was an overarching theme to our trip. It was Bad Mood Berlyn.

Girlfriend was moody.

Here's Moody Berlyn at the quaint French cafe in the Ferry Building in San Francisco.

Moody Berlyn walking down the Embarcadero in S.F.

Moody Berlyn in our hotel room.

Moody Berlyn on a couch looking at a table of flames.

We then realized the cure to her bad mood was in the form of bacon, ice cream, lolly pops and wine.*

She perked right up.

At a breakfast spot in Solvang.

Eating ice cream while it was freezing outside at Ghirardelli Square in S.F.

Getting sauced at the Saarloos Winery/Enjoy Cupcakes bakery in Los Olivos.

*No, we didn’t really give her wine. I thought it would be fine, but Pat wouldn’t let me. He’s such a party pooper. Lame.

Sausalito

And that, my friends, was our family vacation.

Last week in photos

Here’s some stuff we’ve been up to.

We demo’ed the side yard.

I helped.

If you consider standing inside, watching from a safe distance helpful, then yes, I helped.

But we can’t take out that lattice behind Pat yet, because a mommy and a daddy mourning dove have built their nest there.

And they laid eggs.

Twice.

Yeah, as soon as we thought the coast was clear and they all flew the coup, they came back the next day and started laying more eggs.

Apparently momma bird thinks the world needs more mourning doves.

Except momma is kinda of a klutz, because she dropped one of her eggs.

Meanwhile, Hudson had a fever for 9 days.

And I pulled all my hair out and went to the doctor’s office just about every day.

But he didn’t seem too bothered by it.

Berlyn had a giant booger.

And in my opinion, the best part about last week was finding these suckers:

Nope, they’re not girl scout Somoas, they’re Keebler.

So now I don’t have to wait around for a 5 year old with a superiority complex.

I can eat them anytime I want.

But if I eat too many, it’ll give me an excuse to run in my brilliant new patent yellow trainers.

Zowie! They’re bright.

And that was my week.