I’m hoping that I’m one of those people who likes to work and have a family. I can’t personally name any off the top of my head but I swear – I’ve heard some women say that they needed to go right back to work after having a baby because they didn’t like being at home.

Right now I don’t feel that way but maybe I will get to work and go, “Damn, I am so glad to be here!” I hope so.

The main thing I’m sad about it not being with Bean during the day. I love playing with her and feeding her and all of that good stuff. Sniffing her…Man, I love to sniff her and stare at her. I’d like to put her in a giant paper sack and huff her.

I’m also worried about what I’ll be coming home to every day. Being home, I’ve kind of been able to keep the house from looking like a pig sty and keep everyone in order. I’m imagining coming home at 8 p.m. to a crying baby, a wreck of a house, dirty dishes everywhere, homework to help with and a stressed out Sweety. He has done nothing to indicate that this is how things will be but we’ve never had a tiny human to tend to.

I’m also worried that I’m not going to be able to pump enough milk during the day to feed her. I have been hoarding milk the past week or so to give me a headstart. Of course, my tits have done nothing to indicate that they might not put out but I like to worry.

I’m also concerned that a tiny asteroid will hit the neighbor’s house while I’m at work and annihilate Bean. (Just kidding. I think.)

To get me and Bean used to being separated, this week I’ve been taking her over to the neighbor’s house for a few hours in the morning and even though I don’t go back to work until next Thursday, the plan is to take her over there all day on Monday and Tuesday as a dry run. Sweety thinks I am going to lose my shit the first day that I’m away from her and thinks I’d prefer to do it alone instead of at work. He told me to, “Go watch a movie..visit someone…out to eat…whatever and come home at 8 p.m.” I will need to find a suitable place to do these things where I can plug in a breast pump. Maybe I’ll just hide in the bedroom and not come out until 8 p.m.

This is a sign that Oliver is not the same psychotic dog we rescued from the shelter two years ago. He is a broken man. But, a very good boy.

In his eyes I think I see a silent plea for help.

I talked to my sister this morning. She got to Germany yesterday and she’s not being deployed with her unit. So my niece will be going over there sooner rather than later. This way, she will be able to go to school over there and hopefully make some friends before this summer.

I know she’s not my kid. But damn, in my heart she may as well be and I’m really not liking the idea of her being somewhere that I’m not able to hop in the car and drive to.

Sweety got me some kickass shoes a few couple of weeks ago and I told him to not get me anything for Christmas because that would be my gift. Sweety is an awesome gift giver. The lovely ring in 2007 and signed book and marshmallow gun of 2008 were real surprises. He’s also been great about having my friends and family come down to visit too. I was expecting nothing to open on Christmas morning but when things started appearing under the tree, I couldn’t help but wonder what they were.

I was super excited to see Sweety open his gifts because I’d been listening all year whenever he said that he wanted something (Even to his sleep talking. He gave me gift ideas in his sleep.) and I had found it all. All at good prices and some things that could only be found online.

Let me set the scene: This was the night of Christmas Eve. The previous week at work had been shit. Complete shit. Like, “here, let me cry at my desk multiple times while everyone watches” kind of shit. The last time Sweety had mentioned it, we were going to have to take the boys to the coaew on Christmas morning. On Christmas Eve (after I’m off work and we’re on our way out to eat with the boys in the car), it is brought to my attention that she’s picking them up around noon on Christmas Day. Which meant we could have had an early Christmas dinner instead of going out to eat after I got off of work on Christmas Eve. Perhaps I haven’t mentioned my extreme annoyance at the holiday scheduling of the boys? Officially, I was afuckingnoyed.

All night Sweety kept saying that he couldn’t wait for me to open my presents. But the manner in which he was saying it kind of alarmed me. It was like, “I can’t wait to see your reaction, muahahahahaha!” More alarm bells started ringing when Sweety and BB got out of the car to run into the pharmacy and LB spent the whole time telling me that he had been telling Sweety that my gift was a bad idea and that they should get me something else.

We got home and Sweety and the boys opened their presents first. Sweety wanted me to open mine last so they could watch me. (He was also kind enough to video it. I decided me telling you about this would make me sound like a big enough bitch. You don’t need to see the look on my face or witness me throwing a dusting mitten at Sweety.) They were all grinning at me like hyenas and I noticed that the boys had positioned themselves on the outskirts of the room. I was tired of the week and felt like my last nerve was coated in sea salt.

The theme of my gift this year was “from the clearance bin at the hardware store”. The best part was some of the items are totally useless in this house. Does anyone need tarp holder clips? I have no tarp or truck that I would use a tarp cover clip on. How about a mitt you wear to dust the furniture? Because I’m not a fan of dusting. It’s so much fun to doodle in the dust after its collected! A toilet paper hanger? Doesn’t fit either of our toilets. Some animal crackers that are most likely expired?

I’d put makeup on before leaving work to try and make my mood better. I laughed my crazy laugh for a good 30 minutes after opening the gifts and streaked my face up like a clown. Sweety cornered me in the bedroom and told me that I needed to quit laughing because I was scaring the children.

Sweety’s inspiration for this? I’d told him a few weeks ago about the Christmas where my Mom stuffed socks into toilet paper rolls and my sister and I had gone nuts trying to figure out what the packages were. We saved them to open last and were a bit disappointed. After I’d opened everything, Sweety asked me what I thought. Told him it reminded me of that Christmas and he beamed, “Yes! That is what I was going for!”

I kind of felt like I’d been the butt of someone’s joke all week long and now my family was laughing at me too. Maybe I was a little irrational.

Let me say that I’m happy:
To have a roof over my head.
That I have a bellyful of food.
To not be worrying about how to pay for utilities.
That we’re all basically healthy.

I know some people didn’t have any gifts to open and maybe their loved one is gone. I know some kids in Africa have flies skating on their eyeballs. I know that this makes me look like the biggest ungrateful bitch around.

Me, Sweety and the boys are all having laughs about it now. I did tell the boys if they have wives to never do this to them, especially if the wife is working at a crappy job and has had a crummy week.

Sweety was super duper nice New Year’s Eve and got tickets to the Merle Haggard show in February. I was planning on buying one ticket to go alone and sit in the nosebleed section (because Sweety is not a fan of crowds or live music) but he got them four rows from the stage! Sweet.

Here is some more meanness…

For the record, the very sound coaew’s voice touches something very visceral in me. That part that wants to kill things with my teeth. I was sitting on the couch in the living room on Christmas morning and heard her braying like a donkey yell a question to Sweety while he was standing in the garage. I immediately wanted to hop up, grab a stick, sharpen it and poke her eyes out while eating her neck. I went to the potty instead. (Yes, people, I call it “potty”. I like that word. Say it a few time. Potty. Potty. Pawteee.) It seemed to be a fitting thing to do while I waited for her to leave my yard.

Can I point out that if you’re sending your kids off during the day to do something sports related and you’ve known about it for months that it would be a good idea to have all of their shit together and a plan for things before children-swap-off-time on Christmas? I’m just saying. Sweety was running around like a chicken with his head cut off trying to get the boys’ stuff together and I hear that whore caterwauling about how she doesn’t know where to drop the boys off. I have an idea – Mapquest that shit and get away from my house.

Oh, and that stunned cunt had the nerve to call Sweety and suggest to him that we get LB an iPod Touch at our house because she was getting BB one at hers and LB was bent out of shape about it. I guess she asked them privately what they each wanted and LB named something and when he found out later that BB asked for an iPod and was getting it wanted to change his gift to that. Sweety told her that we’d already taken care of the boys’ gifts here and that LB wouldn’t be getting that from us. She ended up giving one iPod to both boys as a joint Christmas gift. A little birdie told me that their younger stepsister got an iPad. LB came in yesterday and was asking all sorts of questions about the iPad – how much do they cost? Are they really any good? What did I think of them? To make him feel better I told him that I thought they were overpriced and I’d much rather have an iPod that I could carry around and did some iPad bashing. (LB doesn’t know that I know what his stepsister got.) Of course, if I found an iPad laying around – I’d be on it like white on rice.

I managed to get the tiny bit of Christmas shopping that I was going to do done in plenty of time. Thanks to Amazon.com and eBay I got Sweety’s presents at a great price! The boys got their Christmas present (a new game system) when it was their birthdays in November and I took care of my nieces, nephews, and girls next door early in the month.

This is the first year that I didn’t get anything for any of my grown-up friends and I feel really guilty about it but I’m also pretty relieved to not have a huge worry of debt over my head.

I quit eating birth control pills a couple of weeks ago in anticipation of sprogging and I think I’m going crazy without my regulated stream of hormones. My face is breaking out, I cry at the drop of a hat (or the grouch of a hateful customer) and I’m tamping down feeling bitchy as all get out. I can totally see why Sweety would want to tap this. Ha.

How do I know I’m serious about a baby? (besides kicking the birth control pill habit) I actually downloaded an app for my phone to help me keep track of my period and when we have sex. I thought about writing it down on a paper calendar but didn’t want it staring at all of us from the kitchen wall.

If I don’t see you again – you all have fun wrapping up December.

This? My favorite holiday song. It doesn’t hurt that I find Robert Earl Keen rather delicious.

Got a call on Tuesday from the lady that I still call Granny. Even though I got divorced 10 years ago, I kept the inlaws. Telling me that my former mother-in-law was in the hospital with cancer and it didn’t look good. I guess she’d felt pretty bad for awhile and thought she’d get better so she didn’t go to the doctor. She went into the hospital Sunday night and they found out that she was literally ate up with cancer.

This morning I’m at work and see there’s a message on my cell phone from a Texas number. It’s my exhusband, telling me that she just passed away. I called him back and talked to him for a few minutes. She was always good to me and every year when I’d go to Texas, I’d go see her. Except for this year. This year, my trip was wonky and I didn’t find time to slide by her house. I told myself I’d go next year.

So I’ve spent all day at work crying. Awesome. I’m trying to not freak out too much around Sweety because I know he must find it odd that I still think so much of the family I married into before him.

The funeral is on Saturday but it would be damn near impossible to get up there for it. I feel especially bad for her grandkids (my niece and nephew). They lost their Mama a few years ago and now this.