Good, because all those Dr. Phil episodes are cluttering up my DVR.

It's strange.

For months I thought the BassMaster and I were in big, big trouble. I stopped talking to my friends, stopped blogging, stopped calling my parents (because I have one of those moms. All she has to say is, "You okay, honey?" and immediately I'm blubbering about things that happened back in third grade).

We'd fight until I could barely see through my blotchy cry-eyes (and I am an ugly crier, trust me), and still we resolved nothing. And then, having resolved nothing, we'd have the same fight three weeks later. I dragged him to therapy once and he swore never to return. I couldn't talk to anyone about it, because everyone else had a blinding ray of sunshine that shot straight out of their asses whenever I broached the subject of spouses and marriage.

For months, I watched other couples kissing and holding hands, and I hated them. I didn't even know them, and I hated them.

And then this weird thing happened. I blogged about it.

Ever since I wrote this post, things have been on an upswing - sort of a slow, cautious one with lots of plateaus...but an upswing nonetheless.

What's more, it turns out I'm not alone. Those rays of sunshine? Totally staged, in many cases. Marital suckitude is downright rampant. I received "we're in the same sh*tty boat" messages from friends and strangers alike. They provided some much-needed comfort for my battered heart.

And I know the BassMaster reads this blog. I know he reads the comments. Actually, I suspect he loooves to read what I write about him.

For the most part, I really think we're going to be okay. A few days ago, he gave Kitt a bottle without a prompt from me. This past weekend, he got up with her at 6am, fed her and played with her until I dragged my ass out of bed an hour later. I heard him babbling to her through the door.

Let's be honest, it's hard to find a guy who will squeak like someone kicked him in the nuts just to make a baby smile.

She laughs for him. He holds her more. Until she pukes on him. Then he's all game-over-you take- her-dear-God-I-have-to-change-my-shirt-RIGHT NOW.

Of course, nothing is perfect, and occasionally we take two steps back. I still sometimes feel like a piece of old furniture in the living room of his life. Like deep down, he kind of wants to get rid of me, but keeps me around because I've become part of the landscape. I'm familiar. He's had me forever. And maybe he'll feel a little guilty if he just leaves me on the side of the road.

But overall, things are good. Just good. And for a long time, I didn't think I'd ever say that again. It was a scary place.

Don't get me wrong. This does not mean that I'm done blogging about you, honey him. He does dumb things. He does funny things. He does some things that make me throw up my hands and say, "GAH, I AM SO BLOGGING ABOUT YOU LATER."

But at least now I smile when I say it. It's sort of an evil, wait-til-they-hear-about-this-one smile...but that's a start, right?

Am Addicted to These Cheeks. And Facebook. But Mostly These Cheeks.

Random Tuesday Thoughts

I am so sick of Noggin. I miss regular, adult television shows during the day. What I wouldn't give to zone out in front of The Price is Right or even those crazy b*tches on The View. Sometimes I even consider carting the kiddies over to the YMCA just so I can hang out on the treadmill and watch something non-animated. Then I come to my senses and laugh at myself.

Speaking of Noggin, am I the only one who thinks "Handy Manny" and Kelly, owner of the local hardware store, are having a little fling on the side? I mean, the two of them are always poking around the store after-hours. And I've seen the look on his face when he says, "Kelly always has just what I need." Yeah, Manny. I bet she does.

I need to get out more. With other adults, that is.

I gained back a big chunk (like, literally, a chunk. Of fat on my ass) of baby weight when I quit nursing, and I've been brainstorming ways I might get rid of it without actually doing anything. Is it possible to re-lactate after three months and open up the boobie bar again? Because, y'know, that'd be SO much easier than exercising every once in a while. You might say I'm lazy, but I say I'm just thinking outside the box. Of Mallomars.

Am not excited about the prospect of another summer in Virginia. Gah, it's hot. Even the 30-second walk from the Wal-mart parking lot to the entrance feels like a death march.

One of the Shift keys on my laptop is stuck, so that whenever I try to type the "@" for an email, it comes up "2." It makes me yell at the screen often. Oh, the wretched inconvenience.

Did I mention that the Munchkin is potty trained? No thanks to the Bilingual Elmo Potty. He provided 15 seconds of entertainment in the very beginning, but overall he proved useless. Lazy muppet. When it's Kitt's turn I think I'll just dig her a hole in the backyard and send her naked butt out with a roll of toilet paper.

Thank you, Un Mom, for giving us a place to dump our incoherent babble. You rock.

Will Never Get Hooked on Co-Sleeping

We went away for a family reunion (the one that threw me into a culinary tizzy last year) this weekend, which of course has provided fodder for a week's worth of blog posts.

Except I'm too damn tired. All I can manage right now is this random thought:

How is it possible for me to share a king-sized bed with a person one-third my size, yet still wake every morning to find that said person has unceremoniously shoved me to the edge the mattress and stolen my pillow?

Clearly person does not appreciate the fact that I painstakingly packed her favorite pj's, her bedtime lovies (a frog and a bear, aptly named...wait for it..."Froggy" and "Bear"), AND HER DORA PILLOW so that she'd fall asleep quickly and give us some effing peace and quiet I might minimize the trauma of sleeping away from home. Is it too much to ask for a smidgen of space? Just enough for both my ass cheeks. That'd be fantastic.

And what, the fact that I gave her life, carried her for nine months and won stitches as a prize for birthing her isn't enough? She has to gank my pillow, too?

It seemed a tad violent to rip it out from under her. On a related note, her snoring perplexed me when I realized I couldn't treat her the way I treat my usual snoring sleep partner, which is to say that I couldn't punch her in the ribs and yell "ROLL OVER, GODAMMIT."

But actually, that was my only substantial complaint about the weekend. Gah, this means I might have to write something positive and uplifiting *shudders*. Maybe I'm losing my edge.

Nah.

But I do need to sleep. So stick that in your pipe and smoke it, and I promise to return with more tales of adventure later.

A Secret, Neither Kinky Nor Illegal. For Once.

I have a secret in my freezer.

No, not assorted body parts. Good guess, but I only dismember during the winter months.

Bizarre new bedroom toy? Not quite, although it does involve my boobs. (And I apologize to those who just gagged and lost interest in this post.)

It's a five-ounce bag of breastmilk.

I weaned Kitt onto formula about two months ago, and still there it sits, dated with an orange Sharpie. I reach around it to grab waffles for breakfast. I move it from shelf to shelf to make room for new groceries. In another month or so, it will spoil and I won't be able to use it, ever.

But I just cannot bring myself to get rid of it.

I'm effing proud of that five ounces, for one thing. Which admittedly sounds dumb, two months after the fact. But do you know what it takes to get that much out of tiny-to-begin-with boobs using a single pump with a dying motor?? Have you seen what a pump does to one's poor nipple? It ain't right.

But mostly, I can't bring myself to throw out the bag because who keeps frozen breastmilk in their freezer? New mommies. Mommies with tiny, helpless babies, and mine are growing so fast.

Too fast.

I know it's only a matter of time before they're slamming doors, rolling eyes and listing, in painstaking detail, the injustices committed against them and the many ways in which I have ruined their lives! FOREVER! The very thought of the drama that will come ten years (or dear God, maybe even five years? Two years?) down the road makes me want to stock up on aspirin and vodka right now.

And so, as pathetic and irrational and keee-razy as it sounds, I cling to this small reminder of new motherhood, of those gentle hours spent stroking a tiny head on a Boppy pillow and the sweet smell of milk on crib sheets. Pending a massive change of heart from my B-master, it will be the last bag of breastmilk I ever produce. The idea makes me so very sad that even as I'm typing this, I kind of want to run upstairs, scoop Kitt up in my arms and keep her small forever.

Kind of. Sweet Jeebus, don't you know you never wake a sleeping baby? I haven't completely lost my mind.

But still, I can't bring myself to toss it in the garbage or even thaw it and just give it to her, fer cryin' out loud. There's a solution, right??

I'm just not ready yet. I'm just not.

Wordless Wednesday: Alcohol-Related Casualty

Beer forgotten in freezer + basic laws of physics = badness and mess.
On the upside, at least we don't have to worry that the Munchkin will thieve 'em.

And They All Lived Happily Ever After, I Think

"I want to draw, Mommy," the Munchkin said this morning.

"You want to....draw?" I repeated. I didn't know if I'd heard correctly, since my ears were still kind of ringing from the "I WANT JUUUUUUICE! JUUUUUICE!" tantrum that had taken place about a half hour earlier.

She nodded.

I found her a pencil and a piece of paper. She tapped the pencil against her lips in a thoughtful way, and said, "Hmmm. Once upon a time....once upon a time....once upon a time..."

"What happened once upon a time?" I said. I figured a little prodding might help. Although I usually just whack her when she gets stuck like that.

KIDDING.

"Once upon a time..." she said again. She looked at me for help.

"...there was a little princess named The Munchkin," I finished for her.

Well. You'd have thought I told her that instead of a regular bath this evening, she'd be getting a tub full of chocolate lollipops. Her eyes lit up and she waved the blank page in front of my face while she jumped up and down.

"DRAW IT, MOMMY! DRAW ME LIKE A PRINCESS!"

"I'd LOVE to draw you like a princess!" I said.

She clapped her hands and squealed. "YAY!" she yelled.

I love this age. You can make their day by mirroring half their excitement over little things like like a pencil portrait.

I did a little sketch of her in a dress. "Once upon a time, there was a little princess named the Munchkin," I said. "And then what happened?"

"AND THEN DORA CAME! AND BOOTS! AND THE WITCH! AND THE PRINCESS IN THE HIGH TOWER!" she yelled, piecing together random bits of every "Dora the Explorer" episode we've ever seen. Uh, I mean, that she's ever seen.

"Umm...okie dokie," I said. I quickly scribbled a tower, a horrible rendition of Dora, and a witch that I drew too close to the top of the page, thereby cutting off her head.

"And WALL-E, MOMMY!"

I blinked at her. "Uh...what?"

"DRAW WALL-E!"

For anyone not up on their Disney movies, WALL-E is a robot, the main character from a flick that came out a few years back. If you're thinking he has nothing to do with the original princess story, you're absolutely right.

But of course, I drew him anyway. And I use the word "drew" very loosely. After all, I'm just the transcriptionist. I'm sure it all makes sense in her cute little head.

The final draft of the story included a "baby" (I'm guessing she wanted Kitt to have a cameo) and a couple of princess crowns. Although thanks to my wretched drawing skills, one of them turned out looking more like one of those Star Trek communicators. That's right, I wear my geek loud and proud.

The finished product:



Yes, I know the baby lacks extremeties and Boots is just a floating head. What do you want? She was rushing me.

But still, I can't think of a better way to spend a Sunday morning.

I know I'm going to forget that I wrote this and say to her, "Hey! Go visit my blog!"

People come and go in a big military city like ours, and I have a new neighbor across the street.

She is expecting her first child in December, and her husband is in the Navy. They've only been in town for about a week, and I can tell that ours could be a potentially great friendship. I'm talking great - as in, they could be the ones with whom I leave the baby monitor when I get a late-night craving for mozzarella sticks from Sonic.

Kidding. Kind of.

Anyway, our husbands have already swapped manly tools and probably sea stories. Today she knocked on my door to ask if I had a can of pineapple she could use for her crockpot recipe. I've always wanted to have that kind of comfy relationship with my neighbors, someone within walking distance who would happily oblige if I came to their door and said, "Hey, can I leave my kids here for the weekend because they're driving me up the wall and I desperately need to get away from them and just go sit in an empty room by myself for a couple of days borrow an egg?"

Like I said, it could be great. There's just one tiny problem.

While we were chatting outside the other day, she started complaining about a family on our block who parks their cars in front of her house.

"They have five cars!" she said, jabbing her finger in the direction of their driveway. "One for each parent, one for each kid. Then the Beamer, they just bought that for fun."

She crossed her arms, shook her head back and forth. "That," she said..."is such an enlisted thing to do."

And then I threw up in my mouth a little.

I've been Navy wife for a relatively short period of time, but I've been around long enough to know that nobody likes a wife who wears her husband's rank. I do my best to nod-and-smile whenever I meet them, and to otherwise avoid them like elephant poo on a hot summer day.

And now, the ironic part: I assume she knew - from the previously mentioned swapping of sea stories - that the BassMaster happens to be an officer. Yet she makes this crack about enlisted people as we're standing in my garage, flanked by both of the BassMaster's big yellow Ducati motorcycles. And yes, "motorcycles," plural.

The need for shiny things with motors isn't an "enlisted thing," it's a man thing, for crying out loud. No matter the rank, the fact remains that Men. Love. Toys.

And the snobby wives? They ruin it for all the other cool people. Y'know, like me.

In terms of Navy-wife politics, the BassMaster has told me repeatedly that outside his direct chain of command, he doesn't care whose social circle I choose to invade. So if you like chocolate too and don't mind if I occassionally drop the F-bomb, I will stand ouside yours with my face smushed against the glass and give you sad puppy-dog eyes until you let me in. Rank has nothing to do with it. We know others who believe otherwise - that, no matter what, a wife is an extension of her husband and blah blah blah fraternization blah blah blah.

Like I said, nod-and-smile.

So, I'm not quite sure what to do with this girl. Now that she knows I'm a fellow officer's wife, I suspect she wants us to be Best Buddies for Life. Gah. I would like to be friends with her, but I'm not sure how long I can suppress the urge to give her a swift kick in the ass.

I'll give it a chance. She does appear to like chocolate, at least. But I may need a backup plan for the late-night fast food excursions. And here I thought all my wildest dreams were coming true.

Dangit.