Math nurd

When I send an email from my Blackberry it does a spell check before I actually send the email. Most of the time this is a good thing but whenever I write our sons name as Dex, it auto corrects it to "Sex". Do you know how many emails I've sent where I refer to how cute our little Sex is? "Oh, you should see Sex these days. Sex is nearly walking and Sex is chatting up a storm!" The best was when I sent an email to an old friend and signed off with, "Gotta go, Sex just took the biggest shit and I'm about to be elbow deep in it."
I really have to figure out how to fix that.
In other news, Dexter is 1 year and 1 month old. Yup, that's how I'm saying it. Here's the thing, everyone speaks in months, after their kid is a year old. "Oh, she's 17 months", someone will tell you. Well guess what? I was never particularly good at math and making me sit there and figure out 17 minus 12 is annoying. I don't even know my 12 times tables! Seriously I don't. I had measles that week and I honestly missed the time when we learned them and unless it's 12 times 12, I don't have an effing clue. I think we all need to agree to speak in years and months, after the babies are a year old, d'accord? I'll start the trend. Right now I'm just saying, "He's a little over a year." I'll continue to do that until he's a year and 5 months, and then I'll say, "He's a year and five months." I also feel the same way about the 24 hour clock. Please don't tell me it's 19:00. I am not British and it's not the 18th century.
A while back I wrote about a crazy week but I never got around to talking about the 2nd crazy thing that had happened to me. Spring fever is in the air in East York and I think the fever has turned scarlet because people are slightly more crazy than before. So I was heading to the pharmacy to get my prescription (by pharmacy I mean the LCBO and by prescription I mean red wine). So I'm heading down the Danforth when about half a block away I see, what appears to be a very old woman, collapsing into a young woman. There was another older lady looking on. I was pushing Sex in his stroller and started running, to see if I could help. I was right. The woman couldn't really stand up, she looked to be about 85, she was super hunched over and it was as if her legs were simply giving out on her. The girl that was helping was about 20 and was not doing a very good job holding her up. I said frantically, "Can I call you an ambulance? Are you having a stroke?" As if she could actually answer. So the old lady responds very calmly and clearly, "No, I'm fine,I just need to sit down. I know they have chairs in there, I just need some help to get there." She points to a community centre, the door to it just around the corner. The other older lady was standing there and said to me, "Don't worry, I'll watch the baby, you just help." Now I generally expect the best from people but for a split second, I thought I might be in some crazy granny kidnapping ring. Totally irrational, yes, but I smelled stranger danger and it smelt like old mothballs. Anyhow, I said, "Ok, just follow right behind us." My adrenaline was pumping and the 20 year old was useless so I literally put this old bird over my shoulder and proceeded to carry her to the centre. Remember I mentioned earlier that she was super hunched? So even stooped, she was slightly taller than me. I'm a leggy 5 ft 3 inches so if she could fully stand up, the old bird was probably about 6ft 2inches. She was one tall fossil. What I'm trying to get at here was that she wasn't a petite waif of a Granny. Baby had back...which was hunched, and full of what I thought was lead. Anyhow, as I'm carrying this woman, keeping an eye on my baby that another old lady is pushing beside me, I catch a whiff. A whiff of what? Oh, I would say it was a bit of vodka, maybe some whiskey with a beer chaser to get it all down. She was totally drunk. I was carrying an 85 year old waste case to the community centre. At first I thought, "Holy shit lady, it's Tuesday at 2pm and you're 85!" But honestly, I can't judge. I've been a total waste case at 2pm on a Tuesday afternoon so who the hell am I? Maybe when I'm 85 with nothing to do, I'll throw back some Jaggerbombs in between bridge and naps. Why the hell not? I figure if you make it to 85 you can do whatever the hell you want. Honestly, I might even try heroin if I make it to 85. Needless to say, we got to the community centre and as luck would have it, there was a doctor on site! I pretty much dumped her there, told them what had happened and left. She was in good hands. So there you go. Never assume an old person in distress isn't just having the best trip of their life.
Until next time.

Spring Fever

Dex had his first fever a couple of weeks ago. I would like to tell you that I calmly handled it and did everything right but I did nothing of the sort. I was using an electronic themometer that I put in his ear. The reading seemed pretty high and I had heard, from a friend, that if you take their temp up their butt you get a more accurate reading. Well, in my haste I just went and tried to put the ear themometer in his butt. Doesn't work like that. Lesson number one in taking a baby's temperature: Don't try to use your ear themomater up their butt. I felt kind of weird trying to put something up his butt anyhow. I mean, if he wants to do that stuff when he's a consenting adult, more power to him, but for now I'm sticking to the ear reading. I thought I would have been a bit cooler when he got a fever but I have to tell you, I was slightly hysterical. The problem is I read the newspaper everyday and I pretty much assume that whatever has happened to everyone else, is going to happen to me. I've been a wreck with the whole Omar Khadr debacle. It could happen to me, you never know.
I think we`re led to believe that when we become Mothers, suddenly we`re bestowed with this amazing ability to know what to do in ever situation that requires mothering. I think I have clearly disproved this theory time and time again. Secondly, I am not a nurse or doctor and have no medical instincts. Here are instincts that I have:
a) if a dog is chasing me, I instinctively run.
b) If I'm talking to a member of the opposite sex in a suggestive manor I instinctively make sure he's over 18. I won't make THAT mistake again.
c) If I take a sip of a beer bottle that has cigarette butts in it, I instinctively spit them out.

These are a few of my natural instincts. Knowing what to do when my baby has a temperature over 100 degrees is not an instinct that I had developed, at that point. Now that's it over with, I'll know what to do next time but don't feel bad if you're a lunatic when your baby has their first fever. At least you didn't sodomize them with an ear themometer.

So a few strange things have happened to me this week. There is something in the air in East York and whatever it is, it's laced with crazy.
I went into Tim Hortons after swimming lessons on Monday. The lessons are for Dexter. I am a world class swimmer as you probably can tell from my broad, strong shoulders. The woman who walked in before me didn't bother holding the door for me and it came crashing into the baby buggy. In her defense, she had a newborn strapped to her so who knows if she had even slept in the last 48 hours. This beast of a woman behind me yells."What the hell! She could have opened the door for you! Like you don't have your hands full or something."
"Yes" I reply as she holds the door for me, "she must just be lost in thought or something."
"Ya right" beast replies, "you need to look out for one another."
"Sure", I respond doing my best not to encourage her.
Now we're fully in line at the Tim Hortons and her voice is getting increasingly louder with every word. Did I mention that she had an INSANE mop of wild gray hair and her eyes were a freaky yellow colour? On anyone else, they would have looked amazing but on her they just screamed perscription-meds-overdose-waiting-to-happen.
I thought she was done but oh no.
"I mean especially as WOMEN. We need to look out for each other AS WOMEN."
As she's saying this, she's inching closer to me, but looking over my head at the girl in front of me, who is the one to whom she is directing this whole exchange. She turns around. She is a sweet looking girl with a tiny baby strapped to her that doesn't have a clue what's going on. Crazy looks at her and says, "You've got to watch out for each other. AS WOMEN."
Now she's kind of puffing her chest out, like guys do to one another when they're about to fight over me.
Holy shit, I think. Is this lunatic going to try to fight this woman with a baby over not holding the door open for me?
I say, "Really, it's ok, just leave it be. Please."
The young girl with the baby turns back around and crazy miraculously shuts up. Now we're just standing in line waiting for our coffee and I feel the need to keep talking because it's gotten quietly awkward.
"So" I say to crazy, "Have you won anything on roll up the rim to win?"
Why did I feel the need to continue to engage crazy in a conversation? If I didn't, what kind of blog would this be really.
Crazy responds, "Ya, I'm here to collect my free coffee."
I point to the sign that says there's been 10,000 winners at this particular Tim Hortons. I say, "Well, I guess they'll have to change the number to 10,001 when you get to the cash."
'Whatever", she replies, "That's just what they WANT you to think."
"Huh?"
"They want you to think 10,000 people have won here, so you keep coming but I know different."
Oh, is that right crazy? Have the CFO and CEO of Tim Hortons been in touch today? I'm sorry , I didn't realize. What a nut job. Who actually thinks there's a big Roll Up The Rim conspiracy? I don't even know why I'm asking that question. She was about to fight a young Mom with a baby over not holding the door open.
Anyhow, I have another crazy story that happened yesterday but I'm getting carpel tunnel from typing this blog. Ta for now.

Can you do it any better?

I think the most boring way to spend your time would be watching church on T.V. Church is so epically boring in real life, sitting and watching it on television would be my Guantanamo.

I tend to have a lot of conversations with cashiers. I don't mind, I'm a pretty chatty person and if someone wants to strike up a quick conversation, I'm up for it. It's amazing what people will tell you in a 3 1/2 minute conversation. Here are some of my most memorable ones:

Me: "Hey! You're pregnant! Congratulations."
Cashier: "I'm not pregnant"

Cashier: "My husband isn't a cat person but he likes mine if you know what I mean."
Me: "...............oh god."

Me: "So nice out isn't it."
Cashier: "I'm losing my eye sight."
Me: "ha ha ha ha ha....oh wait."

Anyhow, now that I have Dexter with me, I have even more conversations, only this time it's usually only about the baby.
A couple of weeks ago I had walked to the Metro with Dexter. It was pretty cold out so he was in his snowsuit. As I went through the cash, the cashier peered over and saw Dexter. She remarked on how cute he was. I responded, "I think you mean hot, not cute."
I didn't really say that.
Anyhow, she looks at him and says, "Oh ,it's so cold out. Is he ok?"
"What?" I respond, "Ok how?"
"Well, is he warm enough?"
I chuckle, thinking she's joking because he's wearing a GIANT snowsuit.
"I think he's fine." I reply
"Do you have something to block the wind from him?" she asks
"Yes" I respond sternly, "the Gortex snowsuit that he's wearing that is covering all 2 ft 5" of him."
It was like a baby snowsuit burka for eff sake. You could see his eyes, if you really looked hard, but other than that this baby was in full winter combat mode. He looked like a mix between Maggie Simpson and the kid from The Christmas Story who couldn't get up because he was in such an intense snow suit.
She looks at me and gives me this look that says, "you're freezing your sons tiny balls off and you should be ashamed."
Well, that's how I interpreted the look.
I was about 2 seconds away from lambasting this woman with a barrage of insults attacking anything I could but I really wanted my Airmiles so I kept my mouth shut. The woman behind me said , "He's fine, he's a good little Canadian boy." Thank god she said something because all I could think of was the f-word.
In other news, I took Dex to his first day of daycare the other day. There were a lot of tears, but Will's doing much better now. More on that later. I've gone out and gotten myself ANOTHER hangover so I have to go and eat dangerous amounts of bacon. Ta for now.

Happy Birthday to the baby and to my stretch marks!

I went into this kind of hipster coffee shop in Leslieville the other day. I asked the hipster working there if they had a highchair, for the baby. I only need a booster seat, cause I'm 5ft 3".
This girl looked at me like I had asked her where they sell their Nazi paraphenalia. The look of disgust on her face was so shocking I nearly apologized for bringing a baby into her den of douchebaggery. What the hell? I guess it isn't hip to have a baby and even less hip to bring that baby into a coffee shop where it's a prerequisite to wear skinny jeans if you're a guy, and your Mom's 70's poncho if you're a girl. This just in hipsters: Justin Bieber stole your hairdo and smelling like Value Village is so 90's.
Anyhow, in other news, Dexter turned a year old on Sunday. Woooooo! He's so cute it's ridiculous. He devoured a chocolate cupcake and it may have been the greatest thing of all time. He treated that cupcake the way I treat the teat on a box of red wine: with respect and a tiny bit of fear.
It really is crazy how quickly it all went by. I guess life just speeds up the older you get, because you just become way busier. Either that or you just start losing memory because you're old and your mind is going. I should technically be going back to work but I got laid off about 6 weeks ago because they sold the company I work for! HA! It doesn't really bother me. It was time for a change anyhow. Do you know that the longest I've ever had a job was my job back in highschool? I worked at Longo's for 4 years, and haven't had a job for that length of time since. I'm a real committment-phob when it comes to jobs.
I've decided to dedicate my time to finding the perfect cheese anyhow. I feel like this is something that will be both satisfying and a challenge.
Happy Birthday Dexter! You survived year one with me as your Mom and Will as your Dad. God speed young man, God speed.

Seemed Like A Good Idea

Being hungover, with a 1 year old, might be the worst punishment for bad behavior....of all time. In fact, screw Guantanamo, get all the criminals drunk on champagne, then force them to care for a litter of cranky-ass toddlers. I don't think you'll see many repeat offenders.
Thankfully Will didn't come out Saturday night. It was just me and 6 other girls, drinking like we were 23 again and looking for tail like we're 32. It was a fun night at this restaurant at Yonge and St.Clair but let me tell you something, champagne, red wine, desert wine and fois gras do not make for a pleasant-following-morning. And fuck-you very much for the time change too, by the way. That really helps.
Here's the thing. Just because you have a baby asleep at home doesn't mean that you don't like to occasionally tie one on. Maybe your occasionally is once a month,like your period, or maybe it's once a week, like your masturbation routine, or maybe it's once a day, like a teenage boys masturbation schedule. Whatever your "tie-one-on" scenario may be, the hangover is extra painful when you're awoken at 7am by the needs of another human being. It's not like when you were without kids and you thought, "shit, I should really stop watching Miss.Congeniality for the millionth time on showcase Diva. I should really do my laundry." But your laundry isn't going to suffer if it doesn't get done. Your child, on the other hand, requires a lot more maintenance. You have no choice but to get your disgusting hung over ass off of the couch, put the jacket on the baby, strap him into the car, and get yourself to Swiss Chalet or some other greasy joint to cure your ails.
Speaking of which, don't ever get the chicken sandwich at Swiss Chalet. It was like swallowing luke warm chicken flavored sand. Disgusting.
If anything happens to your baby, while you're in this state, the guilt is doubly as bad. I'm not naming names, but a certain first husband of mine (we'll call him Sharon) was in the hungover state and the baby did a major bonker on his head. He was screaming and crying and Dexter wasn't in very good shape either. I mean, Dex does a thousand head bonks a week, the pains of learning to walk, but the fact that he did a mega one on Sharon's watch, while hungover, just makes you feel like a real skid. God, what happens when you have two kids? Maybe by then I'll have grown up enough to have some will power.
Maybe.

Weird things of late

First of all, I've never watched The Apprentice before, let alone the Celebrity Apprentice but any T.V show that puts L'il John and Gary Busey together, is screaming for me to watch it.
So I feel like the winter is making everyone, myself included, pretty effing squirrly. Can we please just get to April already!?! This winter has been brutal and, like every other winter, I question why we live here. Then I read the paper and I realize why.
Then I go to Scarborough and I question my choices again.
I went to the Costco in Scarborough the other day. There aren't any in the city.To begin, you know you're getting old when you get a Costco membership for Christmas. No one says to a spunky 24 year old girl, "Here, Have a Costco membership! You can get all of your paper towels, cat food and diapers for so much cheaper than the grocery stores." I tell ya, if I had a Costco membership when I was 24 I would be getting giant packages of giant condoms. Cause I was getting so much. HI-YOOOOOOOO. I would probably have also gotten a lot of perogies.
Anyhow, I'm in the produce section when a woman who really had that Scarborough air about her approached me and Dexter. Dexter is going to be 1 in a few weeks so he is absolutely ridiculously cute and gets approached by a lot of people, cause he's so effing gorgeous. She says in a pack-a-day voice, "He's so cute, how old is he?"
I say, "Nearly a year." I look in her buggy and she has a car seat with a newborn in it. I look in and say, "She's so beautiful, congratulations."
"Thanks" she replies.
Then she leans in close enough so that I can smell mock chicken, Players extra light and semen. She says, "You'd shit yourself if you knew I had 6 others at home."
Wow.
I mean, seriously, wow.
You're right lady. I have just shit my pants right here in front of the ceaser salad sample lady. I don't know what's more disturbing; the tear you have tattooed down your cheek, the fact that you have 7 children or that you've just said to a complete stranger, "You would SHIT yourself". She could have said, "you would be surprised", or "can you believe" but nope, she went right for it. Anyhow, as I shuddered away from her I thought to myself, it's time Costco in Scarborough started to sell club packs of birth control.
Not that I'm some high-society flyer. I went up to Markham, baby in tow, to fight a parking ticket, this week.
Here's the thing. The parking ticket is only $30.00 but when you're getting them on a semi-regular basis, you have to fight the man. If you fight your ticket, there is a small chance you'll have to go to court. Most of the time they get lost and you hear nothing of them. It's a bit of effort to take them downtown to fight, but worth it if you're getting a lot of them. Anyhow, I actually had to go to court for one we got in 2009. We had gotten it on my father-in-laws car, parked in front of our house. Bringing the baby with me, I knew I would get attention and that I could treat the experience with a light heart. That's one of the best things about having a baby by your side; everyone is way nicer to you and you can get away with a lot more.
Here's an example.
As I was walking through security the cop asked me, "What are you here for?" I replied, fist pumped in the air,"JUSTICE!"
He laughed. Now if I didn't have the baby with me he probably would have thought I was a jackass and a weirdo. The baby is a great accessory for comedy. People assume, if you're a Mom, that you're a responsible, tax paying citizen. Little do they know.
So now we're in the courtroom, along with about 20 other people who are after justice. I was the first person up to fight for my rights. They say a bunch of stuff, and the judge looks at Dexter and says "Is this Michael Macky?" The courtroom giggles. Ok, cool, this judge wants to joke around. I think we all know that Dexter isn't the one who got the parking ticket. I say, "No, this is my lawyer." The courtroom laughs even harder than before. "ORDER IN THE COURT!" I yell. No, just kidding, I didn't do that. The judge didn't even crack a smile at my joke, I think he was pissed I got a bigger laugh. Anyhow, the ticket was reduced to $10 from $30. That's what always happens if you just plead guilty. Did I drive all the way up to Markham to save $20? Yup, and I'll do it again City of Toronto by-law a-holes.
If anyone wants me to go and fight a parking ticket on their behalf, let me know. I'm pretty much V.I.P up there.

Baby Proof my boobs

Dexter just turned 11 months old. Are you kidding me? What the hell is going on? He's doing great, nearly walking and learning quickly how to make a dirty gin martini for Mommy.
Here's something they don't tell you in pre-natal class, even though you're done breastfeeding,( I've been done for about 3 months) you still have some leftovers in there. Not quite the same as Thanksgiving leftovers, doesn't taste as nice on a sandwich. Your boobs really do take a beating after you've had a baby. I mean, we all hear (before we get pregnant) that they change and all that, but I really think we all think we'll be different. "Oh, I'll get my body back right away", we think quietly to ourselves. "My boobs will just get right back to their former glory." These subtle thoughts lurk in the back of all of our minds , pre-baby, right? I mean look at Gisele Bunchen or Brooke Burke or JLo. They're all just regular women and look at them. Right back to good in 3 months or under. That's going to be me. I'm here to tell you it's not. Listen, you get your body back, but it's a bit of a softer version. Genetics play a part in it of course, and I'm pretty lucky, I feel like I've done ok considering I haven't really done much exercise. Maybe you'll get super lucky and your body will be exactly the same, and maybe monkeys might really fly out of Mike Myers butt. Don't get too upset, things aren't too drastic. I mean you won't be able to touch your bellybutton with your (can't wait for that!)but lets just say that the girls become slightly dough-ier than they once were. Simply not as firm. When you first stop breast feeding your actual nipples are kind of funny too but I don't want to ruin the surprise for some of you so I won't reveal that amazing secret. And as for your belly, it obviously goes down but the fact is, your skin has stretched so much, it's pretty hard to get it back, unless you get some Goslin-surgery. Sit-ups and exercise and diet help but how do you reverse stretching skin? If anyone knows, please share it and if you're one of those people who got their flat stomach back pretty quickly, shut up and get a paper cut. I should probably care more, but I honestly don't. I refuse to stop eating cheese and that's that. Anyhow, I'm off to eat some curds. Cheese curds.