Friday Poundings: Being unsupervised in someone else's house

I recently had occasion to look after my 7-month-old niece for several hours. She was my "practice baby" and we had a lovely time together, except that she squirms and rolls like a motherf**ker during diaper changes and good lord, if you have never changed a diaper before, that is NOT the way to be introduced to it. (I thank the good lord that she didn't have a big ol' poop while I was watching her, because that probably would have ended with us both naked and crying in the backyard while I sprayed the baby with a hose)

I went over to my sister's house to watch her, and stayed until my sister got home, and so the whole thing ended up being eerily reminiscent of all the babysitting I did when I was a teenager. And while there are a lot of things about babysitting that suck (like, for example, you have to take care of someone else's kid without maiming/killing that kid or spraying poop off them with a hose), there are also some things that are pretty awesome that I had forgotten about: mainly, that you get to be totally unsupervised in someone else's house.

First, there are the entertainment options. My sister and her husband have a whole movie collection and I hadn't seen a whole bunch of them. Of course, I didn't actually try to watch any of these movies, because I knew that working their DVD player with the universal remote was just going to be an exercise in frustration, but that's not the point. The point is, if I'd been willing/smart enough to figure it out, I could have watched all those movies. I used to trick the kids I was babysitting into watching all kinds of shit they didn't really want to watch just because I hadn't seen it before. Manipulating children is easy.

I think the best thing about it is that other people's houses have different snacks than your house, and since nobody is there to see you, you can totally eat whatever snacks you want. At one point during my baby-watching adventure, I got a little hungry so I went to the pantry and DUDE -- MY SISTER HAD FRUIT SNACKS IN THERE. Holy shit. I love fruit snacks. Why don't we have fruit snacks at home? This is madness. I am going to buy some next time we go to Costco. Those fruit snacks were so delicious I ended up shoving like half the bag's worth of gummies into my mouth at once. I could barely chew them. It was amazing.

She also had what looked like homemade blueberry muffins in the pantry. I wanted one. I wanted one bad. And even though she said "help yourself to anything," as she left, part of me felt like those homemade blueberry muffins were off limits. So I washed all the dirty dishes on the counter, hoping that with this act of altruism, I could assuage any guilt I would feel about eating one of the muffins. But then by the time I was hungry again, it was nearly time for her to get home, and I didn't want to get caught right in the act of jamming an entire muffin in my mouth. No amount of permission can absolve you of the guilt you'd feel if you got caught shoving something into your mouth and trying to swallow it whole before anyone saw you. Trust me -- I have done this before. Lots of times.

The point is, perusing other people's snack collections unsupervised is pretty much just the greatest.

I wonder what anyone would think if they tried to find a snack in OUR pantry ...

There is an ice cream cake in our freezer, though. It's been in there ever since I got a craving for ice cream cake when I was like 6 weeks pregnant. I'm now almost 22 weeks. I don't think anyone's going to eat the rest of that ice cream cake. Would you like to babysit for us?

"Help yourself to anything in the house."

Then again, ice cream cake seems like the kind of food you'd feel really awkward about eating at someone else's house. The kind of food you feel like the blanket permission to "help yourself" doesn't really apply to. You'd have to take it sliver by sliver, hoping to avoid making it look like you actually cut a whole piece. And you'd have to do it right by the open door of the freezer so that if you heard a key in the lock, you'd have time to shove the cake back into the box and the box back into the freezer.

I'd probably come home and find you like this:

You know I would. Because you're just as bad as me, and that's what I would do.

And this is why nobody invites us anywhere.

Also, I think my sister owes me a blueberry muffin now.

In fact, I'm pretty sure of it.

I mean, look at what kind of crap I had to put up with? An adorable baby sleeping on my lap for hours with her arm over her head? Ugh, where's my muffin?!?! You can tell how annoyed I was because I took this picture (and a bunch of others) and sent them to like everyone I know.

Stupid Phobias: the return

Here are some more phobias I found on a list that I think are ridiculous. I will attempt to draw them in a way that will make us ALL feel just a little bit more afraid, though. Because it's important to be afraid all the time; otherwise you would get killed probably.

Agyiophobia: The fear of being in the street

How can anyone be afraid of being in the street? That's ridiculous. The street is just how you get from Point A to Point B.

Unless ...

Hmmm, maybe the real problem here is

 Cyprianophobia: The fear of prostitutes

A perfectly reasonable fear.

Defecalgesiophobia: The fear of painful bowel movements

Dude ... eat some fiber. Seriously.

Gymnophobia: The fear of naked bodies

Ahh!

Kathisophobia: The fear of sitting down

Haha what an IDIOT. Do I look like this when I sit down? TELL ME AND BE HONEST. I'll never sit again!

Lachanophobia: The fear of vegetables

GET OUT OF HERE TOMATO YOU'RE A F**KING FRUIT.

Melissophobia: The fear of bears

You guys, how could ANYONE be afraid of bears?!?!?!?

OH MY GOD don't ever do a Google image search for "bear attack."

I'M F**KING SERIOUS DON'T EVER DO A GOOGLE SEARCH FOR THAT.

EVER.

It's just ... I can't ... oh god.

This blog post is over. I can't stop picturing that busted-ass leg. Jesus.

WHY DID I LOOK AT THAT.

WHAT DID I THINK WAS GOING TO HAPPEN.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

Happy Memorial Day, 'Merica!

Happy Memorial Day to you all! An especially happy Memorial Day to my dear husband Jesse (an active duty soldier in the US Army), and to anyone else who has served in our Armed Forces :-)

In typical PP holiday fare, here are a few really bad Paint drawings that I think truly capture the spirit of the day:

US Flag Elephant holding a firecracker in its mouth (okay that looks more like TNT but either way, this picture will not look very good in about 30 seconds):

The flag pattern was a pain in the ass. Don't expect such excellence from the rest of the pictures.

Patriotic Camel holding a firecracker in its mouth:

Jesus this one is just awful.

Patriotic Donkey holding a firecracker in its mouth:

I got a lot of practice drawing donkeys the other day. As you can see, that helped me not at all.

Patriotic Duck holding a firecracker in its mou-- errrh, beak:

Fugly as hell.

Let's try something a little different, since I'm obviously not on top of my drawing game today (but I totally was the other day):

F**king FABULOUS.

OH WAIT ------ THERE IS ONE THING MISSING:

Look, I don't wanna be a dick and be like "I told you so," but seriously, you shouldn't hold fireworks/TNT in your mouth. That's f**king fireworks safety 101.

Have a great Memorial Day, everyone!

Love,

PP & family

Making gift registries is not as fun as it sounds

Making a gift registry, whether for a wedding or a baby or whatever else people have decided is registry-appropriate these days, sounds like it should be fun. I mean, it's like making a big Christmas list of cool stuff that you want, and that friends and relatives are excited to buy for you! How could that not be fun??!

But here's the thing: it's not fun. IT IS NOT FUN. Allow me to rant about this, if you would.

WEDDING REGISTRY

Before our wedding, I got down to the business of making us a wedding registry. I decided to make it on Amazon.com because I am way too lazy to actually go walk around a boring department store with a pricing gun in hand, and because Amazon lets you do a "universal registry" where you can add anything for sale online from any store anywhere. 

Just normal stuff, you know, the kind of stuff every married couple should have.

Amazon also suggests a bunch of stuff for you, which is great when you get registry writers' block and need some help! Thanks, Amazon!!

Like these fancy napkins and placemats. Oh what, you thought your guests were fine wiping their faces on paper towels? YOU F**KING ANIMAL.

But quickly, I started to realize that this wedding registry was really just a catalog of my failures as an adult. You see, I had been living in an apartment since the age of 21, and Jesse and I had been living together for two years. Since we hadn't managed to die yet, I figured that meant we pretty much had everything we needed so this whole registry thing would just be a list of neat house toys that were more wants than needs. 

NEED.

I thought I was a functioning adult with a functioning home -- one that maybe needed an upgrade here and there, but was otherwise totally respectable.

I WAS WRONG.

As soon as I started clicking around through Amazon's recommendations, my world started to fall down around me. Here I thought we had this well-put-together house with everything we needed ... but then I was forced to notice that my cutlery drawer featured a cracked plastic utensil holder with four different categories of utensils in it: the ones I stole from the university dining facility, the ones I bought at IKEA four years ago that were the cheapest ones they had, the ones I bought at CVS (yes, the drug store CVS) to augment the ones I stole from the university dining facility, and then a mysterious fourth category of forks, knives and spoons that I did not recognize and whose origins would never be known to me (I mean, obviously I stole them, but from where?!). Okay, no big deal -- register for some decent flatware.

Then I noticed Amazon was recommending that I buy sheets. Oh, what, the mismatched set of fugly $25 sheets we've been sleeping on for years won't do? Yeah, I only owned one set of sheets -- I had to be smart about doing laundry to make sure that the sheet set could be stripped, washed, dried, and then put back on the bed in the space of one day. The fitted sheet didn't match the rest of the sheets because the original fitted sheet ripped years ago. Okay, so ... I guess I'll register for some sheets.

And then this continued and continued, as I looked around my home and realized all the things I'd been half-assing all this time. Instead of an end table, I had a cardboard box with a sheet over it. We had so few bowls that I often hand-washed and reused them while I waited for the dishwasher to get full enough to run. Several of these bowls were also stolen from the university dining facility. No big serving bowls? It's okay; dinner guests won't object to the cooking pot itself (which cost $9 at Safeway and was made of such thin metal that its favorite pastime was burning everything) being plopped down in the middle of the table. 

I never realized what absolute crap my home was until Amazon started reminding me that maybe, just maybe, I should consider owning a few things that WEREN'T stolen from a university dining facility. Amazon wanted to put this as gently as possible, but Amazon was worried about me. Amazon wanted me to have the best of things. For god's sake, you're opening bottles of wine with a corkscrew on a keychain that you got for free at a parade. It's time to grow up, Amazon said with a knowing look.

"Won't this be better ... for everyone?" Amazon asked, patting me gently on the back. And then my eyes welled up, remembering the time I wasn't strong enough to manually rip the cork out of a bottle of wine with no leverage and Jesse wasn't home and so the bottle of wine sat on the counter with the keychain corkscrew hanging off of it and I couldn't drink the wine and I was so upset I actually cried.

So I faced my failures and made the registry, and people bought us things from it, and then I used some of the money we got at the wedding to buy more of the stuff from the registry, and now we have like four sets of sheets AND I haven't cried because I couldn't get a bottle of wine open, AND we don't have anything that was stolen from the dining facility except for one bowl and some cups but I really like them so shut up about it okay?

BABY REGISTRY

So now we have a baby coming. And that puts me squarely back into registry land. This time, I at least went in KNOWING that I had nothing that I needed. But did that make me feel any better?

NO IT DID NOT.

Babies need so much shit. Like, they need so much shit. And thus, your baby registry isn't a fun list of presents you hope people get for you -- it's an enormous shopping list of crap you need to make sure that you own before the baby is born. I mean, sure, you could get by without SOME of the stuff on the registry, but not much. As my brother-in-law said, "yeah, you don't NEED to have a wipe warmer ... if you like hearing your baby scream like a fire alarm every time the freezing cold wet wipe touches her, which is like 25 times per day." So really ... you kind of do need it.

But herein lies the real problem with baby registries: most of the stuff you really need is either boring, disgusting, or both. "What?!" you say, incredulous. "Shopping for babies is the best! I don't even HAVE a baby, and I still always wander through the baby section of Target!" And this is true. But tell me this same thing that always happens to me when I look through baby registries doesn't always happen to you as well:

If someone buys me a Snotsucker, that is 100% absolutely what their thank-you card is going to say.

Bras touch people's boobs, y'all. Are you really that close of friends/family? Boob-touchingly close??

They're not tampons, dipshit. They're more like ... maxi pads. For your boobs. Derp.

So then you decide to venture off the registry altogether, because none of that shit was inspiring you. And you find this:

And this:

And then this:

So then you eventually calm down, go to the baby shower with your little gift in hand, and two weeks later you get this in the mail:

Trust me, the baby is going to thank you for that Velociraptor fossil someday. Unless s/he's some kind of a f**king asshole.



Meanwhile, I'd like to take this opportunity to point out that one of the blog's loyal readers has come up with a novel solution to the "this is a boring registry gift; I'm going to get them a remote control helicopter instead" problem. Yes, yes, everyone WANTS a remote control helicopter (OMIGOD I WANT ONE SO BAD NOW), but if they're sleeping on fugly-ass $25 mismatched sheets (of which they only have one set), then maybe a set of sheets is the more reasonable gift. BUT SHEETS ARE BORING! That's why instead of just giving your friends a set of sheets, you give them a FORT BUILDING KIT!!!!! 

The kit instructions are here, and she's got lots of other kickass gift ideas on her site too, so check it out if you're agonizing over what to get for someone who isn't into fossils (assholes, basically). She's at uniquegifter.com

Now, Anne, if you wouldn't mind ... could you maybe come up with a product I could use to trick people into buying me boob-maxi-pads? I'd really appreciate it. I already blew my whole baby budget on reproduction dinosaur fossils :-(

THIS ONE IS ONLY $5,500 YOU GUYS THAT'S PRACTICALLY F**KING FREE.

Things I wish the baby couldn't hear

So, you may recall a few weeks ago when I discovered that the baby is now developed enough to hear the outside world. Knowing this, I try to talk to her sometimes, maybe sing to her a little, get her used to my voice, etc.

But now I also feel like she is spying on me. I'm never really alone, am I? There's always someone along for the ride, listening to everything I do, silently judging me (probably).

Oh, fetuses don't have the ability to judge their mothers? HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT?? YOU DON'T. THERE'S NO WAY YOU COULD POSSIBLY KNOW THAT. What are you, some kind of Fetus Whisperer? Oh, look out guys, Cesar f**king Millan the Fetus Whisperer is here to tell us what fetuses can and can't judge. Sheesh, get over yourself for a second. Just because her eyes are still fused shut, doesn't mean she's not constantly rolling them, thinking about how stupid and embarrassing I am.

SHE'S IN THERE RIGHT NOW, JUDGING AWAY.

Here are a few of the moments where I really wish she would just look away or something:

1

When I sing in the car

The great thing about singing in the car is that it's really the only time when I can sing as loud as I want and I don't have to worry about anyone hearing me. It's like my own personal karaoke bar, and I like to crank up the volume and screech to my heart's content.

Now, I'm not a bad singer -- I play guitar and sing along decently enough to impress many a drunk person. However, my vocal range is very limited, and the songs I choose to learn on guitar are carefully selected to make me sound as good as possible. In the car, I just sing along with whatever comes on, including songs I have absolutely no business trying to hit the high notes of.

But hey, who cares, right? Nobody can hear me!

OH WAIT.

She's lying -- she doesn't have $5000.

Now I'm all self-conscious. Whatever, Gizmo -- you're no Carrie Underwood either.

Well, time to start Ace-bandaging a giant pillow around my belly before I drive anywhere. CAN'T HEAR ME NOW, CAN YOU?

BAM. That's how you win, guys.

2

When I go to town on something unhealthy

Ah, is there anything better than chowing down on something TERRIBLE when you know nobody is going to find out about it? You buy a box of those little Entenmann's chocolate-covered donuts and just eat every last one of them yourself?

Soon, my darlings.

This wasn't thrilling in the least when I lived alone, but now that Jesse and I are all up each other's asses all the time, it's a lot harder to get away with something like eating a whole pint of ice cream in one sitting and then putting the empty container in the outside garbage underneath something gross so nobody will find it (don't tell me you haven't done this, because you have done this).

Jesse and I are insanely healthy eaters, though, so it's not very often that I just want to go wild and hit the McDonald's dollar menu or stuff a whole chocolate bar into my face. And since I eat so healthy most of the time, I feel like it's okay to indulge every so often. But you know who sees me enjoying my indulgences, and judges the shit out of me for it?

I mean, have we forgotten what happened when I ate a giant plate of crepes in Las Vegas? Gizmo was in a frothy, violent, sugar-induced rage afterwards. I can't get away with ANYTHING anymore.

This was before her hair came in.

3

When I freestyle non-curse at other drivers

When someone on the road does something stupid and surprises me, my brain doesn't have time to formulate meaningful angry sentences -- I just start shouting words while I swerve to avoid certain death or minor bumper damage.

Like singing in the car, however, I never felt any shame about these outbursts of mental illness, because there weren't any witnesses. All that has changed now ...

WHATEVER KID IT'S GONNA TAKE YOU LIKE A YEAR JUST TO BE ABLE TO SAY "DA" SO SHUT IT.

4

When I cut my workout short because mehhh

You guys ... I swear ... I am really good about working out. We have a home gym with a treadmill, weight bench, and full weight set. I was a distance runner before I was pregnant, and I still run (though not as fast, far, or nearly as gracefully). But sometimes? I'm just not feeling it. I'll put on my workout clothes, torture myself through a slow two-mile jog, do like two sets of bicep curls, and then just realize I'm not feeling it and decide to quit.

And it's okay to quit sometimes. You're not ALWAYS in the right mood for a killer workout.

... UNLESS YOU'RE OLIVIA NEWTON-JOHN

It's especially okay to quit when nobody sees you do it, and then you can just tell everyone later how you had a great workout and felt the burn and MAN are your legs sore today!

AHHHHHHHHHHHH SHE'S ONTO ME!!!!!