And this, I guess, is a good reason to remain married.

No, no, we're not thinking of divorcing. Just have to say that up front.

But, whenever this happens, it tickles me because how do you find someone to share your life with that you can have moments such as these all the time.

Scene:

We're watching the finale of Project Runway. It's Leanne's turn to introduce her collection, and so the camera pans to her family. Her boyfriend is shown. He's a tad on the effeminate side and looks a tad, well, creepy.

Husband: Doesn't her boyfriend look like that scary dude?

Me: That's so mean.

Husband: But doesn't he?

Me: Crispin Glover?

Husband: See, you knew who I was talking about.

Me: Still mean.

My husband? He's a sucker.

Mateo opened up one of his Christmas presents yesterday. Granted, it was a gift from last Christmas, but it wasn't age appropriate, so he was going to get it again this Christmas. The present has been living in our bedroom closet since last December, unwrapped, and Mateo has seen it on occasion, sometimes emitting whiny grunts of anticipation since everything nowadays is "mine" to him.

Last weekend was his twin cousins' birthday (Happy Birthday, D & T!). They received presents from their grandparents and from us. Mateo, since it was not his birthday, didn't receive anything. I knew this was going to be a slight problem since he's not old enough to understand what a birthday means or why he's not getting cool things and those other two kids are getting things. He stood watching them as they opened their gifts, sometimes trying to help unwrap the gifts, and eventually trying to adopt a cool car his cousins received as his own.

His cousins are a year and a half older than him, so the toys appropriate for them are not really appropriate for Mateo, and I was afriad at one point Mateo was going to rip the door off the car he thought was his. So, being the evil Mom, I took it away. He flipped out. He got over it.

During the gift unwrapping, both my husband and I felt really bad for Mateo. Really bad. It stunk watching him stand in the middle of everything, not getting it and not getting a present. I almost brought something for him to open, but then felt that wasn't right - again, it wasn't his day. Not that I think his cousins would care too much. My Dad even said they should have bought Mateo something to open. He was so dumbstruck that all this fun was going on around him and he wasn't really part of it. (And really, isn't it all about him?)

My husband told me, as Mateo stood with his mouth hanging open in confusion, that we should give him the toy in the closet. The first thing I thought was, by the time we get him home, he's not going to remember any of this, so giving him the toy in the closet is just that - giving him a toy, and for no real good reason. Mateo's got tons of toys. He's going to get a ton of toys this Christmas. The boy doesn't need the toy in the closet.

So I ignored my husband.

This always works perfectly.

Then yesterday I decided to go through all Mateo's toys and pull the more "baby" toys so we can donate them. I put the pile of toys in the hallway, hoping he wouldn't notice them, but by golly, that child can spot a speck of dirt that moved since the last time he saw it.

When he walked out of his room after his nap, he immediately saw the pile and said "OH NOOOOOOOO!" in his drama king fashion.

I looked around and said, "Oh no, what?" Because I couldn't figure out what he was fixated on.

My husband said, "The TOYS!"

I grabbed Mateo's hand and gently persuaded him away from the pile and to come with me to the living room.

As we walked away, my husband said, "Can he have that toy?"

Sigh.

Like Mateo will understand why he's getting the toy (again).

I just gave up and let my husband drag the toy out of the closet, which of course made Mateo's day. The two sat in the living room, Mateo watching his Daddy untwist all those flipping twisty tie things toy makers use.

Now he's got a new toy with parts that will soon be dispersed throughout our condo. And whenever Zoe walks by it (a cat, by the way, who really does not care one lick about his new toy), he yells, "MINE!" at her.

Clear differences between our parental roles.

On average I can get Mateo to sleep in about 30 minutes. This includes teeth brushing, inhaler, milk, stories, some silliness and a lot of love. Once I know he's pretty much ready to sleep, I lay him in his crib, tell him I love him and to have good dreams, and I leave the room. Most times he's still awake.

Yes, I'm that good.

Well, now I am. It's taken months and months of toughening myself up and getting a solid routine going.

Then there is my husband. For demonstration purposes, I'll explain what happened last night.

Mateo's been sick these past few days, so getting him to bed early is top priority for me. Last night he was showing signs of being over the day around 5:50ish, so I started his routine. By 6:20ish, he was asleep in my arms. I didn't put him down because I knew my husband would be home soon and would want to at least see him, if not give him a kiss or two.

My husband opened Mateo's door, and I told him to be quiet but to come in. Then, like the idiot I am, I started talking to my husband in a whisper, and for whatever reason, this made Mateo open his eyes. To his amazement, his Daddy was standing there, and since he LOVES his Daddy, he wanted to get his little chubby hands on him as quickly as he could.

After we did a Mateo switch, the first thing Mateo did was reach up and touch my husband's nose, waiting for my husband to say "beeeep!" (By the way, he doesn't do this to me because I'm all business, most of the time and won't put up with nose beeping when it's time for bed.)

My husband whispered, "Beeep..."

Mateo giggled. And did it again. And again.

I said quietly, "He's never going to go to sleep if you keep responding to him. Lock up his arm."

Mateo has a favorite blanket, and when it's time for serious bedtime business, I have to cover his arm with the blanket and hold it so he doesn't keep octopus touching everything he can get to. If I let him do this, he would never go to sleep.

My husband put Mateo's arm under the blanket, and Mateo proceeded to cry in distress.

I gave Mateo a kiss and left the two to figure the situation out.

After a few minutes, my husband yelled for more milk. I went in the room to get the sippy cup, and found Mateo sitting up, all smiles and my husband looking guilty.

"You're right, he just thinks it's all fun and games with me," he told me. Mateo smiled.

He said that maybe I should take over because Mateo wasn't settling down.

"I already put him to sleep," I said. "Now it's your turn, good luck."

Then I said I'd be back in 10 minutes to take over.

Around 10 minutes later, my husband conceded defeat and yelled, "Mommmmmmaaaa!"

I walked in to find Mateo looking even more happy and awake than he was 10 minutes ago. We did another Mateo switcheroo, I got down to business, and he was in his crib within 10 minutes (still awake, but ready to sleep, because again, I'm that good.

"What happened?" my husband asked me sheepishly.

"Nothing, I just put him down."

"I tried putting him in his crib and all he did was laugh and clap," he told me.

"Do you leave after you put him in the crib?"

"No...," he said. "I tell him I love him."

"I do too! But when he's down, you need to walk out. Not sit in the chair or stand there, watching him. He thinks you're playing around."

And this is how our roles are defined: I am the no messing around, all business parent (which is why he eats, drinks, gets changed, has diapers, goes to his doctor appointments, etc.) and my husband is the all fun and games parent (which is why Mateo's face lights up so much when he sees his Daddy for the first time that day).

And so that's just how it is.

Bottle opener. Or, how we ate plastic fumes.

Last weekend my husband offered to make turkey burgers for us. Of course momma didn't raise a dummy and I agreed.

On weekends we tend to enjoy a few beers. While he was making dinner, I decided I wanted to have a beer, more because I need to start early since I can only drink tops three beers but most likely two, and after the first one, it takes me about two hours to finish the second one. And I go to bed early. That's really the more important part.

My husband, who was in the kitchen, and since our kitchen is tiny, got my beer for me, took the top off and handed it to me.

After a bit my husband decided he wanted his beer, so he got it out of the fridge.

"Where'd I put the bottle opener?" he said.

"Huh?" I said.

"The bottle opener, I can't find it."

We both looked and looked and looked. I even looked in the trash compactor. Every cabinet drawer, the freezer, the fridge, the table, the dishwasher were all looked through.

The bottle opener was simply missing. Just. Like. That.

My husband tends to do this a lot with things, so I figured it would show up again someday, and in the meantime, we'll fork over the two bucks to buy a new one. After some rummaging, he found some tool with 50 purposes, one being a bottle opener (in case you need a beer while working), and all was okay in the world again.

Yesterday I was putting the dishes in the dishwasher. Conveniently the broiler pan is always left for me to deal with even though my husband is smart and puts tinfoil down to catch all the grease and yuck and muck. I took the top part of the pan off, the part where the burgers sit, and saw something weird sitting in the tray part. I looked again. This is what I found:



As you can see, it's a bottle opener with a very melted plastic backing. It's also slightly browned.

My husband just walked out of Mateo's room after putting him to bed.

"I found the bottle opener," I said.

"I just closed the door when you said that," he told me. For some reason.

"That's nice. I found the bottle opener," I said again.

"Oh yea? Where?"

I pointed to it and said, "in the broiler pan."

"Oh.....Well, I guess it's good nothing happened to us."

"Except that we ate burgers full of melted plastic fumes," I said.

Ah, to be alone again.

To give some history. My husband used to work a nightmarish retail job where he had to be there basically from morning to evening, sometimes not coming home until 7 or 8 PM, and always working Friday and Sunday (and sometimes Saturday). I worked a normal "corporate" job, slinging loan documents about and causing havoc with my bad attitude. I still work a corporate job, but now I sling other stuff, and I still have my bad attitude, but it's toned down a lot since Mateo arrived and my meds kicked in.

Basically I was alone a lot. And when I say a lot, I mean, A LOT. I was lonely. I was sad. I was lonely and sad. I picked up some hobbies that kept me busy, but I was still lonely and sad. I was even more sad when my husband had a day off with me and would constantly be on his cell phone making sure his employees weren't burning down the store and fighting customers. I was probably at the loneliest when the phone would ring at 2 AM and the store's alarm company was calling to tell my husband (the first person on the list to call, of course) that some one just broke into the store, the police have been called, he needs to be there like 15 minutes ago.

Then he got a corporate job, slinging junk and making phone calls, and he has had a regular schedule (give or take days where he's a whopping 15 minutes late getting home, something I can definitely deal with), and is pretty much around all the time now. Well, at least on the weekends he is.

My loneliness is long gone. I have company 24/7, including two annoying and neurotic cats. Now I wish for solitude. I don't want to be lonely, just peaceful and alone. There is a difference.

My husband wanted to go out tonight after work with our work friend, and I was all for it. Why? Because when I got Mateo to sleep, I would have a couple of hours to myself doing what I wanted to do. This time last year, if he had said he wanted to go out after work, which meant I would have to go get Mateo after work, which meant I couldn't go as well, I would be very irate and a tad jealous. I wanted to go out after work too! I wanted to drink a couple of beers and shoot the breeze! I wanted to people watch and make fun of them! I wanted to have some fun with adults!

Then I realized that my tolerance for alcohol is pretty much zilch at this point (over 9 months of not drinking will do that to a gal), I'm tired, I shoot the breeze at work enough as it is, and why people watch when you can write about people...on your blog!

My jealousy soon diminished.

I was looking forward to tonight since the moment we agreed he should go out and I should pick up Mateo. I was going to get that little boy to bed way before 7 PM, have my luxurious two hours or so to read, watch the shows I wanted to watch, blog, fall asleep, listen to music, eat junk food (it is my foolish diet day) - whatever. But especially, I'd be alone. For the most part.

Mateo, of course, had other plans. He was perfectly fine after I picked him up from daycare. He even made a quick pit stop with me at the eye doctor's so I could pick up some contacts to tie me over until my appointment at the end of this month. But as soon as we got inside, he saw a sippy cup, decided he was dying of thirst, and needed water RIGHT NOW, so he flipped out. My time to get him fed and relaxed for the night was limited, so instead of trying to soothe him, I hurried to get stuff put away before I fed him.

Right when we stepped in the door, our phone started ringing. It was my husband asking me to call him back to tell him how Mateo was today, and then he added that he wanted me to look up the BART schedule to see when the last direct train to Fremont was leaving. "If you could do that for me, that would be great...... I love you," he said.

Okay, add that to my list of things to do tonight, I thought. Because trying to get onto my laptop to look up a BART schedule while my child was turning into a real grumpasaurus was not happening at the moment.

My normal routine when getting home is to go into our bedroom and change. When I walked into our bedroom I was greeted with two piles of cat puke. Since I had a screaming toddler on my hands, I couldn't take the time to clean it up.

I grabbed my clothes, went into Mateo's room, changed while he flopped about the floor, grabbed him when I was done, took him into the kitchen and gave him dinner. The food seemed to help him calm down, so when he was finished, I took him into the bathroom to wash his hands and brush his teeth. Then it was PJ time.

We watched Barney (he watched, I surfed the Internet), and when the show was over we went into his room to get ready for bed.

I thought it was going to be easy. He seemed tired. But with his cup of milk he turned into a toddler who just woke up from a nap. All he wanted to do was play and mess around. After a bit, I put my foot down and put him in his crib and left.

I went into our bedroom to write, and listened to Mateo mew. He mewed, then mewed louder, and louder, and then started crying. Lately he's been going poop after we put him down, so I had to go check to make sure he didn't need to be changed. I walked in and he was standing up, crying his little head off.

After a bazillion attempts at trying to get him to calm down, I gave up and gave him more milk. This did the trick and he soon passed out.

When all this was finally done, it was 7:45 PM. My lovely night relatively alone was shot. I wasn't too happy, but what was I going to do. My husband called at bit after 8 PM saying he was in Fremont and was picking up or dinner. Forty minutes later he walked in the door.

So I basically got an hour alone, which is better than nothing, but still.

The topper of the evening was my husband getting mad because I didn't want to watch TV for another 15 minutes and had requested that since it's taken us 20 minutes to watch 7 minutes of 30 Days (pausing to talk), we should just stop it for the evening so I could go to bed. After he got annoyed, I informed him that I can't have a nightlife because I have to get up with Mateo every Saturday and Sunday, and since I never know how long he'll sleep in (average is 5:30 AM), I needed to go to bed early so I wouldn't be so tired in the morning. If he wanted to stay up and watch TV, more power to him, but this lady was tired and ready for bed.

I still don't get the whole watch TV with me thing.

And yes, I cleaned up the cat puke.

Husbands and TV: A repeat.

I've written about this before. And I will do so again and again, including today.

Why do men get so weirded out when the lady (or man) in their life doesn't want to sit and watch an hour of recorded TV with them?

This week has been not too tiring, not too stressful, not too boring, dull, annoying, etc. It's just been...okay. And what comes with okay to me is being able to relax a bit after a certain time at night, which also means not being tied to the TV for an hour (which normally lasts much longer due to pauses for conversation or pee breaks or having to obsessively take care of something (both he and I are victims of such obsessions)).

Each night this week, we've started watching a recorded show, and I've either gotten lost in my laptop or just wandered off only to be eventually found and asked, "why'd you leave?"

Tonight we started the finale of Hell's Kitchen, but we both found out who won in the morning when someone blasted the winner on their Facebook status update. My husband started sweeping the floor while we were still watching, so I got up and started helping by cleaning up our dishes and TV trays. Then I said I was going in our bedroom.

"Don't you want to watch?" he asked me.

"But I know who won. I'm tired," I said.

About 10 minutes later I was followed in by my husband who started playing Scrabulous with me, which is just about the same as watching a TV show - it keeps me trapped until I say "NO MORE SCRABULOUS! This lady is going to bed!!"

Maybe I should hole up in the bathroom with a book for a good hour....

So I made this little shirt....

(I so was going to be good on Wordless Wednesday, but I just can't seem to shut up.)

One of my terms of endearment for Mateo is 'Monkey Love.' He's also called 'monkey' and 'monkey boy.' And various other things like 'booger butt,' 'sniggle snuggle' and 'grumpasaurus.' So I made a shirt to show off my love for my little Monkey Love, which is right below here.



I sent my husband the link to the shirt yesterday, and he responded with "that's cute."

Even though his response was via IM, I had a feeling he was slightly scared I might buy the shirt for Mateo. While it's not necessarily feminine or masculine, I don't see many fathers wanting their sons to wear it.

I posted the official Monkey Love shirt on Mateo's blog yesterday, and when my husband came home, he looked at Mateo's blog since I told him I added new pictures.

I walked into the bedroom to take my scratchy contacts out. He was looking at stuff on the Internet.

He turned to me and said, "I didn't know you made that shirt...."

"Yes, I did," I said.

The look he was giving me was some strange mixture of awe and confusion.

"I thought you just found the shirt. I didn't know you made it."

"You know I always call him 'Monkey Love," I said.

"I know, but I thought you just came across it. A coincidence," he said.

"No."

I'm still not sure what was going on in his brain. He knew about the Grumpasaurus shirt, so it's not like me making another shirt should be that weird to him. Maybe it's because I used a heart, and I'm so not a heart person.

Or maybe I could just ask him. There's a thought.

Why Moms can't get sick.

First reason, and the most obvious: The world....seems....to....just...fall....apart.

Poof! All common sense is gone cause mom's got a massive headache, sore throat and is completely disengaged from her body, mind and reality.

Second reason: The momless child simply won't eat. Why? Because mom usually takes care of this and so if she's off being sick, then momless child only gets slices of cheese for lunch.

Okay. I could go on and on, but why don't I just tell my little tale of me getting sick on Friday and how this drastically screwed up our weekend.

For some reason, me telling my husband that I had a sore throat, killer headache and swollen, painful lymph nodes wasn't enough of an indication that I was sick. He did tell me Friday morning he thought it was from the smokey atmosphere outside and that I wasn't really sick. I said I don't think my nodes would be hurting this much if it was just the air outside.

It wasn't until Saturday morning, when I finally dragged my sick and tired butt out of bed at 7:30ish (answering the screams and wails of my poor momless child), that my husband finally "got" that I was sick. And why? Because I sad I had a cold.

"You didn't say that yesterday!" he said to me.

I looked at him.

"What did I say yesterday?" I asked.

"You said you weren't feeling well."

"And what is the difference???" I asked.

Our poor momless child was acting like a complete wild fussy boy because my husband was trying to get him to take a nap. Seems Mateo woke up before 4am and my husband couldn't get him back to sleep. It was obvious Mateo was tired. But it was also obvious that something else was wrong.

"What has he eaten?" I asked.

"Eaten? Well....he's a had a lot of milk," he told me. He said this like it was something Mateo did on his own. Like it was his choice to drink a lot of milk.

He continued, "And a cereal bar."

Let's see. A lot of milk and one cereal bar. He's been up since before 4am, and it's now 7:30am. By now, if I had been up with him, he would of had a cereal bar, a banana and some yogurt. Not all at once, but definitely all three within three hours.

"He's acting this way because he's tired and hungry," I said. "There is no way he'll go down unless he's got a full belly."

"But he's tired," my husband told me.

"I know, but he won't settle down until his belly is full." I got up and went into the kitchen to get him some yogurt. I fed him the yogurt, and then we went into the living room to eat the banana. My husband was back in bed due to the lack of sleep. And yes, I know how it is because I do this same get up really early every Saturday and Sunday routine with Mateo, and I too am very tired after just a few hours of being up. So that's why, even though I was dead tired and sick and just wanted to go back to bed myself, I told my husband to go sleep and get some rest.

Mateo took a nice two hour nap after he ate all his breakfast.

Later my husband decided to take Mateo to the Mall and to return some things at Target. I had just woken up from a nap, so I didn't know what was going on during my sleep. Since the breakfast incident worried me, the first thing I wanted to know was if Mateo had lunch.

"Did he eat lunch yet?" I asked.

"Oh, yeah. He had two slices of cheese and a banana."

Okay. Two slices of cheese and a banana. While that might sound like a lot, that's definitely not enough food nor the right kind of food a growing toddler needs. Mateo was acting very similar to the way he was in the morning: feet stomping, body throwing, wails and cries.

"You might want to bring some snacks with you," I said. On second thought, I realized I couldn't send Mateo out into the world the way he was acting. I wanted to teach my husband a lessen that kids actually do need to sit down and eat, otherwise they act like complete brats, but I love my baby too much to let him out while hungry. "Actually, I think he's hungry and needs to eat."

My husband huffed, began washing the tray to his high chair, and I started heating up some food for Mateo. Mateo gladly sat down to his meal, ate and then declared himself finished by tossing food on the floor.

Today went much better even though I didn't do my normal things I do, like getting up with Mateo (while I did try, I was told to go back to bed), and feeding him, and playing with him, and doing the normal morning routine things until my husband was back from the gym. I think my husband finally got that Mateo needs to eat more than one item per mealtime with plenty of snacks in between.

I still don't get how the whole world seemed to fall apart because I wasn't up and doing my normal weekend stuff. I still don't get why I wasn't believed when I said I was sick. And I still don't get why when my husband is sick, he can lay around, watching TV or sleeping, but when I get sick, I'm a bother because I can't think straight and just need to rest.

With that all said, it's another good reason why we didn't go to Monterey this weekend. Sickness, fires and being stressed out are all fine reasons to stay home.

Nothing like a case of willpower to bite you in the butt.

While I was making dinner (as previously mentioned, hash browns and eggs in the nest...YUM!), my husband was putting Mateo to sleep. He slowly slipped out of Mateo's room at one point, leaving a mewing Mateo in his crib to fall off into slumber land.

Then the mewing got louder. And louder. Aaaaaannnnnnnd louder. It turned into full blown cry. I couldn't do anything because I had a pan full of tasty sizzling eggs in the nest cooking, so I assumed my husband was going to take care of Mateo's cries of displeasure. Since I had the vent on, I could hear Mateo, but I wasn't sure if my husband was in there with him or not.

After I was finished with our fabulous meal, I walked into our bedroom to find my husband.

"Did you go in there at all?" I asked.

"No. I'm letting him cry it out," my husband told me.

"Ooooohhhhhhhhhhh. You're tough. Tough and mean. So mean. He's in there all upset and you never once went in there. Mean, mean, mean." I have mentioned I'm keen on joking around at other people's expense, haven't I?

My husband looked at me. The poor guy looked guilty and sad and confused.

"Your dinner is ready," I said while I walked out.

During the first few minutes of our meal, Mateo started banging at something near his crib. Boing! Boing! Boing!

I said, "That's his way of saying 'you bastards!'"

Eventually he settled down and we heard no more Mateo peeps.

After watching Intervention where the parents of a guy got upset over and over about their son's crack addiction, I had to make a teary-eyed visit to Mateo. Pretty much anything on TV makes me think of Mateo and how he'll probably break my heart some day. Some how.

When I walked into Mateo's room, I could smell the familiar stank of Mateo poop. I went over to his crib. He was on his belly with one leg sticking up, held up by the crib slats. I did my butt squeeze inspection, which woke him up, and I was fairly certain he had a poop in his diaper.

He slowly stood up, and I picked him up and took him over to his dresser to get inspected and changed.

He had pooped.

Since I went MIA for a bit, I realized after I left Mateo's room that my husband was looking for me in our really big condo, and when he saw me, he said, "what were you doing in there?

"You want to know? You want some Dad guilt?"

"Huh?"

"You really want to know?"

"What?"

"Okay...get ready to feel bad. He had pooped!" I said.

"But he doesn't poop when he sleeps," my husband told me.

"He pooped."

"He didn't poop when I was in there," he told me.

"He pooped when you left. He pooped. You poop. Everybody poops."

"But I didn't know...." he said sadly.

"Well now don't you feel bad for not going in there. Poor little guy with poop in his diaper."

It's so much fun turning guilt onto someone else. So much fun.

Diaper rash ointment works wonders for all kinds of things.

My husband nicked the corner of his mouth while shaving and was complaining about how the little cut wouldn't heal.

I agreed, it sucks to have a little cut at the corner of your mouth that won't heal because of constant eating and yammering.

That night he asked me if we had anything he could put on the little cut to help it heal. He seems to think he's trained himself so he doesn't sleep with his mouth hanging open, and for some reason thinks sleeping with his mouth open is not a good thing, mostly because that means he's slobbering on his pillow. I've caught him plenty of times sleeping with his mouth hanging open and slobbering just as much as Mateo does while teething, so I'm not sure who he thinks he's fooling. I guess his plan was to put something on the cut, and since he sleeps tight lipped, the "something" will help his cut heal.

"I have some lip stuff in my basket," I told him. I have an extensive beauty supply that I hold in an Easter basket I got about 10 or more years ago. My beauty regime consists of foundation, concealer, powder, sometimes mascara, and chap stick I hardly use. What can I say, no fuss, no muss.

For some reason he didn't want to use chap stick.

"Don't we have petroleum jelly or something? For Mateo? Didn't we buy some?" he asked.

"Yeah, but I don't know where it is," I told him. "It might be in his room, but I don't know where."

I think I bought the jelly to put on Mateo's penis after we brought him home from the hospital. It was supposed to help the healing process or protect the wound or something. Then I found out you're not supposed to do that. So I don't think it was ever used.

"Do you think I can go into his room and look for it without waking him up?" he asked me.

I raised my eyebrows in question. "Maybe?" I said. You wake him up, you put him back to sleep, I was thinking.

He was in there for a bit, then came out and into our room.

"I didn't find it. But I figured I'll use his butt stuff since it's basically petroleum jelly and it's supposed to help skin heal!" he told me proudly. He's so...innovative!

I looked up at him.

"Are you sure want to do that?" I asked.

He looked at me. He had his finger pointed upwards with the jelly smeared on the tip.

"Why?"

"Can you be sure neither one of us has put some on our finger, wiped his butt with it, and then put some more on our finger, which would then contaminate the opening of the tube with his butt germs?"

"Oh."

He immediately turned around, went into the bathroom, and washed off his finger.

While he was in the bathroom, I remembered I had moved Mateo's miscellaneous medical stuff into the towel closet when he was old enough to grab things.

On our bathroom counter stands the petroleum jelly. I hope he notice if the surface was broken or not before he slabbed some jelly on his open cut.

Happy Bleeping Father's Day.

My husband came home with this on Friday:



Notice all the fabulous glittery goodness:



Not to mention the little boy's picture who just happens to be our child, the same child who was not sent home the Friday before Mother's Day with a bleeping Mother's Day card!!

For those who are storing this away in their memory bank (me):

• Husband = 2 Father's Day cards from Mateo, made while at daycare
• Mom (me) = ZILTCH

I warned my husband that I would be burning it. What 35-year-old man needs that much glitter?

Alaska Experiment, or why there is no camping in my life.

I got my husband hooked on The Discovery Channel's Alaska Experiment. If you're unfamiliar with this show, it's basically a bunch of people living in the rugged Alaska wilderness for 6o days while trying not to starve, die of thirst, go crazy (the "cabin fever" episode is really freaky) or get eaten by any one of the various animals that could easily take them down in two seconds.


While watching the "cabin fever" episode, three things were highlighted: one being cabin fever, two being peeing and pooping in a bucket in the kitchen in a cabin, and three being hallucinating while trying to hike 40 miles to visit another group of Alaska Experiment revellers. The hike, by the way, took 7 days. The hiking group thought it would take maybe 1 or 2 days and planned for that and only that (meaning they ran out of water, hence the hallucinations).

If this show doesn't sound even slightly interesting to you, at least watch the "cabin fever" episode. There is nothing like watching people lose their marbles, I tell you, nothing. It's really freaky. The couple in the cabin thought they heard noises and apparitions of people in their cabin (which, by the way, is only 200 square feet). My husband felt the man looked crazy, and kept telling me, "that's the face of a crazy person!!" I didn't quite see it that way. He just looked haggard and tired to me.

The people hiking affected me way more than the couple in the cabin. I watched a show about people hiking up Mount Everest, and it was explained how people hallucinate and lose it because of altitude sickness among other factors. The Alaska Experiment showed it. All three of them lost it, but were close enough to reality that they knew they were hallucinating at the same time. They thought they heard singing coming from the people they were going to visit (they were 2 miles away), and there was lots of maniacal laughter and just nonsense talk. And tons of ice eating, which is bad because it lowers your inner core temperature and you really aren't getting a lot of water to begin with.

And then there was the pee and poop bucket. One couple made an outside outhouse because they didn't want their waste inside their tiny 200 square foot tent cabin. In this episode, they decided to head on over to the ocean to try to get some more protein (clams) before the bad weather really set in. The ocean location they were heading to is where another group lived, a father and his two daughters (don't even get me started on the two daughters, boy howdy, if anyone deserves a few punches, it's those two girls), so when they arrived, the father invited them to spend the night with them.

The father gave them a tour of the cabin, including his own poop bucket setup, which he proudly showed, like he invented indoor plumbing or something. The production people grabbed the visiting man to get his feelings on the inside poop bucket, and he basically said if they want to have human waste right next to where they store their food and cook their food, then more power to them, but you can tell he was completely disturbed by the whole thing (remember, he's the one with the outdoor poop bucket). The kicker to the whole scene was that the visiting man was eating something when the father proudly showed off the poop bucket (which had a big jar of what looked like pee right next to it, so maybe the poop bucket is just for poop).

So because of 1. cabin fever, 2. poop buckets, and 3. hallucinations, my husband thinks he has even more fuel to his "people shouldn't camp" fire. He is not one for camping for many reasons, mainly because he doesn't have his own private bathroom and shower, not to mention butler and chef, and during this episode he kept telling me these were even more reasons not to camp.

I told him that 1. unless he decides to isolate himself in a small space, he's not going to get cabin fever while camping, 2. he would never be pooping in any bucket because I would never poop in a bucket while camping, however, I have used an outhouse, and while it's not pretty and you pretty much have to vie for space with all the flies, you do get used to it (and used to not breathing through your nose), and 3. unless he's taking drugs while camping, or eats some berries he's not supposed to, there will be no hallucinations on my watch.

Let this be a lesson to YOU.

Yesterday my husband came into the living room and announced, "I hate My Space!"

I asked why. It was particularly weird that he was even on My Space because he's not the type to network socially; in fact, all he does on Facebook is play Scrabulous with me all day long while at work.

He said he got a friend request, and so he went and looked, and the friend request included a picture of a baby, and so he thought, "I need to see what's up with this baby."

(No, my husband isn't a weirdo who likes babies, he's a parent and a father and just happens to have babies on the brain.)

So he went to the page and it immediately wanted to run some program, which then caused the anti-virus protection program to work overtime. Eventually whatever was being downloaded was removed.

Now my husband is refusing all friend requests, including wayward babies, and is mad at My Space for allowing such things to happen to innocent fathers and parents.

New tupperware set + husband = love.

Now that Mateo is eating regular food, our tupperware supply seems to have diminished greatly. So there I was in Target a week or so ago, and I walked down the aisle o' tupperware (not really tupperware, but it's easier to say that than "plastic containers with lids" over and over). I spotted a nice set of tupperware with really tiny containers up to regular-sized containers - with red lids!

Since I plan to make my kitchen a fabulous red kitchen some day, and have several red items already, I snatched the set up.

Little did I know that my husband has been waiting for such a set to walk into his life. Little did I know that he's tupperware crazy.

The reason I got this set was because of the really small containers, which are perfect for Mateo's leftovers. The first time I used one, I announced how perfect it was for Mateo's leftovers. Just perfect. Did I say perfect? Perfect!

Then my husband used one. Then another. Then told me that yes, in fact, the really small containers are quite perfect....for his purposes.

All of a sudden everything he needs stored is in a tupperware container. Most of these stored items are in the really small ones, which means there aren't any for Mateo's leftovers. Some have mysteriously disappeared, and I'm thinking he's taken them to work, never to be seen again. He's even gone so far as putting a half eaten cereal bar in a tupperware container.

And I know what he's doing; he's avoiding plastic storage bags like they are the plague because he is a recycling nut who doesn't always follow through with his recycling plans. Or the recycling rules, but now matter how many times I tell him he can't put certain things in the recycling bin for whatever reason, he still does it and insists it's okay.

So with all the small containers mysteriously disappearing daily, I think I'm going to have to buy either another set or the small ones separately (which would only cost more, I think). Father's Day and our Anniversary is coming up...Perhaps a set of 44 pieces would tickle his fancy?

We also have half a lime in a tupperware container. That's how bad it's gotten.

I may not have much dignity left, but I did get me some new PJs.

A month or so ago I ripped a big ol' hole down the butt seam of my PJs. I did this while trying to make sure Mateo could breath and wouldn't cough himself into puking the one night he almost puked on my head. I knew I my PJs ripped, but until I got more sleep in, I didn't care. My husband, on the other hand, had to inform me immediately that my PJs were ripped. He does care about these things, lack of sleep or not.

So after I had my nap, I threw them away.

One thing I must point out, since I doubt anyone knows or understands the state of my PJ situation, is that I don't have many summery bottoms that fit. I have a few. Just a few. I have maternity sweatpants that I still wear even though they're way too big, but they only work for me during the winter, and even then, I'm still sweating up a storm in them.

To lose PJ bottoms that did fit was a rather sad incident for me, but I wasn't going to run around with the butt seam ripped out.

My husband asked me one time if I was going to throw out my PJs with the hole in the butt. I told him I did. Then he went after my PJ t-shirts, which have little pin holes and worn hems, and I told him those stay.

This past weekend, I was wearing another pair of PJ bottoms. I used the bathroom, and that's when I noticed the butt seam was totally ripped out. Not again, I thought. I changed into shorts and threw the bottoms away.

I began to think of how many times I had worn those PJ bottoms, and how my butt was flapping around in the wind, and how my husband never once said anything.

Or did he?

So a day later I confronted him as to why he let me walk around with my butt out in the open. He said he didn't know, and that I wear shirts with holes in them, so he figured I didn't care. I informed him that I have no other PJ shirts to wear, so the shirts stay. However, no one should be allowed to run around with the butt seam of their PJ bottoms ripped. No one. Including me.

We went to Old Navy on Sunday, where I bought myself two PJ bottoms, which are perfect for my sweaty and slightly fatty ways since they're knee-length shorts, fit just fine, and don't show off my thigh chubs.

My Mom's Day Wish

I'm prefacing this post with a very loudly stated: I LOVE MY HUSBAND DEARLY. With that said, now I can complain...just a little.

My husband has this knack of never listening to me when I tell him exactly what I want for, oh let's say, Christmas or my Birthday or our Anniversary or Valentine's day and now...Mother's Day. He does a great, grand job of picking out gifts for me that I do love (like my lovely touch iPod, or iTouch iPod or whatever it's called, that I got for Christmas), but when presented with a short or long list of things I do want, like really really want, I never get them. Oh, I'll get them eventually, which is my own doing, but still.

And yes, I know, gifts are from the heart and the person who is giving the gift should be the one deciding on said gift, but come on. Would it hurt him to buy me that $10 book I listed? Every year I put a book on my Christmas wish list, and every year I don't get it, and every year I then go and buy it for myself, along with all the other books I want. But I feel so much less guilty about buying another book to add to my bazillion book collection if he bought it.

Okay, so back to Mom's day. Last year all I wanted was to sleep. This was mostly because I was staying home with Mateo every day and didn't get much sleep because he was still relatively young and had to be fed during the night. I was also breastfeeding, so I was basically the only one who could feed him. I rarely got more than an hour nap because Mateo was on a two hour feeding schedule and it takes me a good hour to wind down and finally fall asleep, no matter how tired I am.

And I did get to sleep. Not as much as I wanted, but that's because I guilted myself into not staying away from my husband and Mateo. Plus I think I wanted to be with them. And sometimes that need is more powerful than taking naps.

This year I asked my husband what I was getting for Mom's day. He said he didn't know, then followed up with "we'll just leave you alone." I said I didn't really want to be left alone.

Later on I told him I knew what I wanted to do. I said I wanted to go to Big Basin. He said, "I don't think Mateo can last that long in the car."

So now I'm hoping he said that in response to me because he has something really fabulous planned. And not just sleeping in and take-out breakfast and being "left alone." I haven't asked him or mentioned anything else I would like to do, so we'll see.

What are your wishes, my dear moms out there?

Sud.

My husband and I are hooked on Scrabulous. I hate to admit this, but he's better at it than I am and has won most games.

This is a conversation we just had while playing:

"Just cause these guys are from India doesn't mean they can't know 'sud' is a word," says husband.

(The makers of Scrabulous (yes, stolen from the game Scrabble) are from India.)

"Sud is not a word," says I.

"Yes it is! SUDS! It's a word!" says husband.

"SUDS is a word, SUD is not," says I.

I look it up. Sud is not found in any English dictionary. However, 'suds' is. I tell him this.

"See! It's a word!" says husband.

"Suds is a word, but you can't have just one suds, or, sud. You have SUDS."

"Whatever," says husband.

Week From H-E-L-L: 1, Husband: 0

This post has nothing to do with me. Really! Absolutely nothing. I just think it's pretty interesting to think about all the things gone awry for my husband this week. So, to memorialize them, I will list them for you to read:

1. Parked our car with baby seat in front parking lot of BART, did not tell me, so I went to the back parking lot and thought our car was stolen or towed.
2. Forgot to bring a mail scale to work - even though I told him fifty times AND right before I left to drop off Mateo at daycare to bring it, don't forget, bring it. And I had to endure eye rolls and "yes, yes" even though I knew he'd forget it.
3. Left my fabulous slow cooker lasagna meal out all night, so it and all its disgustingness was wasted. I really wasn't too heart broken about it.
4. Locked his keys in the car. Called me, but with a sleeping toddler and daycare opening up at 6:30am, I could possibly rescue him at 5:45am. AAA was called. AAA took care of him.
5. Left out my fabulous Mediterranean pasta dish, so it and all its grassy-tastingness was wasted.* I really wasn't too heart broken about it.

It's only Thursday. Can't wait to see what today and Friday bring.

*He insisted he didn't do this on purpose, and said, although I find it hard to believe, that he actually liked the meal. I said, "I didn't. It tasted too much like...." He cut me off, "...chicken?" (I'm really picky about meat and meat tastes and meat textures and meat funky bits) I said, "No. Grass. It tasted like grass."

He FINALLY came to his senses.

We've been having a harder and harder time getting Mateo to go to sleep sort of willingly at night. The little guy is just so excited about life that he doesn't want to sleep. He'd rather stay up and whine until I can't take it anymore. Whine and flop himself on the ground. And yes, Mateo's Grandmama, he is very much a crab apple at night. Unbelievable as it is.

My husband has spent many nights coddling Mateo and snuggling him until Mateo goes to sleep, even though I oftened stated we're creating a monster (cute one, at that), and that he's never going to learn to sleep well on his own.

The other night, Mateo was just not having the snuggling my husband was trying to give him, and I heard shrieks and cries and wails from the baby monitor. Then I heard my husband say something I never thought I'd hear him say: If you don't want the comfort, then you're just going to have to cry it out.

I smiled.

It's taken almost a year, but he finally gets it, I thought.

He left Mateo's room, Mateo continued to cry and wail and scream. I knew that Mateo had a total of three hours sleep at daycare, the second nap being right before I picked him up, so I was pretty sure Mateo wasn't tired. It was only 6:30.

I went in, turned on the light, grabbed myself a snotty whining Mateo and some books, and sat with him and read. He never once showed signs of being seriously tired. So we went into the living room and watched an episode of Teletubbies, and then he went off to bed after that. Sure, there was a couple minutes of crying, but he got over it, and so did we.

Yesterday I put Mateo to bed, and he was tired and whiney as ever. Putting his PJs on was a wrestling match (I won), and reading a book was impossible (until I turned to the page with the fuzzy bunny fur that he likes to manically touch, touch, touch), and after he had his bottle, he was restless in my arms. So I stood up, kissed him goodnight, told him to have good dreams, and put him in his crib. He had other ideas about that nonsense, and he immediately tried to stand up while wailing. I put him back down and told him it's time for bed, to go to sleep, have good dreams, etc..

Then I walked out. He immediately stood up and wailed at me.

Ah, I remember the days when doing that would cause an intense amount of guilt to flow through my body. Now it's nothing. Where's that second baby we need to have so I can prove to myself how easy it is to do such things when they're 4 months and older?

I digress.

When I closed the door, I saw my husband was in the bathroom, hanging laundry. He looked at me. I said that his crying shouldn't last long because he was tired.

My husband then said something that shocked me again, but even more so: He's got to get over it - he doesn't control everything.

Whhaaaat? I did a little tap dance and said, "YOU FINALLY GET IT!!!" He just stared at me.

I guess he finally realized that losing almost an hour while holding Mateo and waiting for him to fall asleep so that he won't cry in his crib as soon as he hit the sheets was getting to be a bit much, especially with the amount of work to be done around the house (not to mention the TV shows to watch).

And I was correct; Mateo cried for maybe 5 minutes and then went to sleep.

Baby proofing...

I've already wrote about my dislike towards baby proofing and how I'd rather be doing a bazillion other things than spending my time screwing in latches and tucking away wires. Well, that was the first and last weekend we baby proofed. Then, well, Mateo decided he wanted to crawl, and well, yeah, we had to finish.

After my husband told my co-worker that we were basically finished with baby proofing except putting up two more gates, I realized that unless I finished the baby proofing, no baby proofing would occur. That is, until Mateo totally hurt himself by opening a drawer or cabinet door and knocking something on his head.

(Side note: Last Saturday I asked my husband to watch Mateo for tops 5 minutes while I used the bathroom. Mateo was in his room, which is fairly harmless, but does still need to be tidied up for his safety. To seconds after I closed the bathroom door, I heard a crash and then a loud wail. When I went back in, I found out that Mateo had pulled all this stuff off of the bookcase and onto his head. Hmmm.)

So I spent a good chunk of Sunday sweating up a storm in the kitchen, screwing in latches on all the doors and drawers while my husband took Mateo off for a visit. Granted, I told my husband to do this, but still, the point being, I finished it.

Now today when my husband was in the kitchen, putting dishes away, he asked me, "Is this broken? Why do some work and some don't?"

He was talking about the latches.

I ignored him.

A minute or two passed by.

"Did you hear me?" he asked.

I nodded.

"So that's it? Are you going to say something? Are they broken?"

"This is what I'm going to say. I spent most of my Sunday screwing in latch after latch after latch, and now I'm feeling like you're criticizing me about how I installed them, and because of that, no, I'm not going to answer you and I'm going to ignore you. If you don't like how I did it, you can change it, but you better do it quickly."

He got the point. He no longer asked me if they were broken. And by the way, they aren't. I just opened the door he had a hard time opening, and you just have to push the latch down a bit. I'm sure I could have done a better job, but I was hot and sick of baby proofing, and the point is that Mateo can't get into the cabinets now, and if we, as adults, can't figure it out either, then that's our problem.

I guaranty that the latches will not be changed.