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Thursday, July 30, 2015

Belly laughs: The best parts of parenting toddlers

It's no secret that parenting toddlers is hard. They require CONSTANT supervision, they're mobile, they're fast, and they're always getting into things they shouldn't be. They often want to do things that are a pain in the ass for you (like go outside and play in the pool -- okay, just let me fill the pool, put you in your swimsuit and swim diaper, get all the pool toys out, get you the cup of juice that you're going to ask for twenty seconds after we get outside, cover you in sunscreen and put up the sun shade, put your hat on, get your shoes on, get my shoes on, go outside, put you in the pool ... oh, now you want to watch Elmo? NO YOU'RE PLAYING IN THE POOL GODDAMMIT AND YOU ARE GOING TO LIKE IT.), and they can be unholy terrors when they don't get what they want.

But they're also the best little people on the planet. Because Audrey makes me laugh like I haven't laughed in years.

Now, I'm not some unhappy miser with a shit life. I laugh a lot. But I'm telling you right now, the way that I laugh at a good joke or a funny movie is COMPLETELY different from the uncontrolled, boisterously happy laughter that comes out of me when I'm playing with Audrey.

So here comes a really happy post about some of the moments where I just completely lose myself in giggly belly laughs with my daughter:



When she tries to wash her butt

When Audrey takes a bath, she now likes to have the faucet running continuously while she's in there. I turn it way down to barely more than a trickle, but I let it run because it makes her happy and costs me very little. And she gleefully puts her toys under the faucet, and fills her Elmo cup, washes her hands over and over again, and accidentally turns on the shower and then gets angry when it sprays her head.

But I will never forget the first time she stood up and backed that ass up until the water from the faucet was running directly down her little buttcrack. 




It was hysterical.

The funniest part, I think, was the look on her face. She was not smiling or laughing. She was not doing this to be funny. She just wanted to wash her butt.

She then took it to the next level one hot summer day when we were out front playing bubbles. She had made a huge mess with the bubbles, getting bubble liquid all over both of us and various items in the garage, so I turned on the front hose faucet (which had no hose attached) and was rinsing off the soapy items under the water. Audrey came over and started sticking her hands under the faucet too.

For some reason, like a true idiot, I believed that Audrey would do her best to keep her clothing dry the same way you or I would when dressed in non-swimming attire. I don't know why I believed this -- I've seen her sit down in a swimming pool while wearing a normal disposable diaper and a dress -- but believe it I did.

So imagine my surprise when Audrey, wearing a t-shirt and basketball shorts, turned around and backed dat ass up under the hose faucet like she was going to wash her buttcrack again.




I lost it. I haven't laughed that hard in a long time.

Oh, Audrey. 



When she makes a Level 10 Five Alarm mess

There are messes that make you shout "NONONONONO!" because there's still some level of tragedy that is preventable -- like when something is in the act of spilling, or when tiny hands or feet are juuuuust about to smear the mess onto a much larger area.

And then there are the messes that are so vast and horrific that there isn't anything you can do anymore except laugh.

When a full plate of ketchup-coated dinner gets tossed off a high chair tray and hits the ground with enough force to coat the entire floor within a five foot radius, you laugh.

When a naked toddler running wild upstairs lets out a ten gallon pee all over your bedroom carpet, you laugh.

When a Big Gulp-sized cup is filled with bathwater and dumped all over you as you kneel outside of the bathtub, you laugh.

You have to.


The other day, we were at a party at my parents' house and Audrey was eating cupcakes. She is a BIG fan of cupcakes.

... and cake pops. Mmmmm.

When she decided that she wanted more cupcakes after dinner, she wasn't going to take no for an answer.

I told her no over and over again. She'd had way too much sugar by that point, and we needed to pack up and go home. We were taking a few cupcakes home with us, so I reminded her that she could have some cupcake tomorrow and then I set the box of cupcakes up on the tray of the high chair she was no longer sitting in. You know, where she couldn't reach them.

BIG MISTAKE. She stood on her tiptoes, reached up, and grabbed the edge of the box, flipping them down onto the floor. All five cupcakes fell out of the box. And all five cupcakes landed top-down on the hardwood.

I f***ing lost it. I stood there staring at the ruined cupcakes (seriously, the beautifully soft creamy cupcakes' frosting was little more than a series of splatters at that point) and started laughing so hard I had to sit down. I didn't make any move to clean up the cupcakes until the dog wandered over and started moving in on them ... at which point I scraped the icing off the floor, put it back on the cupcakes, gave a piece of one to the now-sobbing Audrey, and took the rest home for me and Jesse to eat.

We're not too good for floor cupcakes.

And all that icing turned Audrey's poop bright blue for three days afterwards.



When she accuses someone of pooping

Audrey does not fully understand that pooping and farting are different bodily functions. She often confuses them, which results in me and Jesse being accused of shitting ourselves.

I find this endlessly hilarious.

One morning, Audrey and I were puttering around in the kitchen when I farted. Yeah yeah, I know, I'm a girl ... but it happened. It was the only time in my entire life, I swear.

Audrey heard the fart, of course, and immediately ran up to me and announced "Mommy did a poopoo!" I giggled and corrected her that Mommy did not, in fact, do a 'poopoo' but instead had done a 'toot toot.'

Audrey took this information and thought deeply about it, looking at me with curiosity and concern. And then she said the words that I can still hear in my head, in her sweet little toddler voice: "Mommy did ... a poop? No poopoo but ... a poop?"

I died. That was it. I could live no longer. She just knew that I had shit my pants and was trying to cover it up by claiming that it was merely a fart. Maybe my crimes did not rise to the level of 'poopoo,' but surely at minimum a poop had occurred.

Surely a poop!


Jesse farted in the bathroom one day while Audrey was having a bath. "Daddy did a big poop!" she announced, and I laughed so hard I almost peed myself.

He farted in bed one morning while we were all cuddled up. "Daddy went poopoo in bed!" He proclaimed his innocence, to which she responded "Daddy pooped in bed!"


It's funny every single time



When we create a blizzard of bubbles

Neither Audrey nor I have any talent at blowing bubbles with a regular wand, so I bought a couple of battery-powered bubble guns that use fans to do what our stupid mouths apparently can't. 

When Audrey and I play with them, things get completely out of hand. Two people blasting bubbles out of bubble guns in the same area at the same time ... within seconds, the two of us are completely engulfed. Literally hundreds of bubbles floating around us like an insane snowstorm made of happiness and childish wonderment. Audrey gets excited and starts trying to pop the bubbles. Her excitement is absolutely contagious, and before I know it, I am laughing with pure joy too as the storm of bubbles begins to settle around us and pop.

Bubbles are just ... happy.

So I dip my bubble gun again, and I make more.

And my daughter squeals with laughter.

And I am so happy I could just burst.


Having kids is a lot of work, but man does it ever have its moments. If a coworker accused me of pooping my pants, or if a friend dropped an entire cake upside down on the ground, or even if Jesse and I sat outside filling the air with bubbles, it would never make me laugh like this. But add a touch of childish innocence to the equation, and we find ourselves in the land of belly laughs.

I love it here.



Tuesday, July 28, 2015

Why I can't give my kid the intials "TJ": A really mean rejection of a common nickname

37 weeks pregnant today, a.k.a "early term" -- in other words, baby is cooked rare, but still very edible.

And Jesse and I still don't really have a middle name sorted out.

The real issue is that we have a LOT of J-names in our family. Jesse and I are both J-names, both of our fathers are (technically) J-names ... so this whole thing would be a breeze if the J-name thing was an option.

But it's not. Because then his name would be Trevor J, and somebody, somewhere along the line, would be like "oh hey, your initials are TJ! We should totally call you that!"

And then he would be TJ. And that would be the end of my smart, ambitious, well-mannered Trevor. And the beginning of ... TJ.

What do I have against the nickname TJ? SO MANY THINGS. Every time this conversation comes up, I offer up a new story for things that I picture "TJ" doing that "Trevor" would never think of. And so I have decided to collect them all for you in one place, and come up with some more too.

If you know anyone named TJ in real life, please don't show them this. It's going to be really mean. I'm sure all your TJs are wonderful people whose brains work flawlessly 100% of the time, and none of this applies and I'm an asshole for even thinking of it.

So with that ...

____________________

TJ is the kind of guy who, at the age of 30, drives an ice cream truck and sells popsicles to neighborhood children. This is his career.

TJ does not own the ice cream truck outright, mind you. He rents it from an Indian fellow who he pays $1000 per month.

TJ thinks that this is a very reasonable arrangement, and is furious that we don't support him in his "business enterprise."


TJ living the dream.


____________________

TJ tries to reverse his car out of the driveway, but accidentally puts it into "Drive" and plows into the garage door instead.

The first time he did it, we dismissed it as an accident that could happen to anyone.

But by the third time TJ plowed into the garage door -- perfectly sober each time -- we began to wonder.


"How were you even driving fast enough to cause so much damage??!"
"I didn't see it."

____________________

TJ buys a huge box of single-serving cartons of chocolate milk like they serve to elementary school children, and gets angry when no one will help him make room for it in the kitchen refrigerator.

When asked why he decided to purchase such a large quantity of milk, TJ insists that it was "a great deal" and leaves it at that.

A week later, when all the milk has gone sour and has to be thrown away, TJ becomes angry that nobody helped him drink it, because now it was a waste rather than a good deal.

Perhaps the reason nobody helped him drink it is because he was charging $1 a carton for the privilege.


"Y'all are a bunch of idiots! Do you know how much these cartons cost when you buy them at the gas station? Way more than a buck each!"

____________________

TJ believed that giraffes reproduce by laying eggs. He held this belief until he was 26.


I mean, why wouldn't giraffes lay eggs?

____________________

TJ spent $300 on a computer monitor from a guy on Craigslist. The guy told him it was an all-in-one computer like an iMac, and TJ just accepted this as fact.

It was not.


I don't even think this was worth $300 when it was brand new. You know, back in 1994.


____________________

The following is a list of reasons why TJ has called 911 in the past:
  • He was locked out of his house
  • He got a flat tire on the freeway
  • His neighbor was drunk
  • A woman insulted him at Target
  • He thought his cat was missing. Turns out the cat was under his bed.



No TJ. Just no.

Thursday, July 23, 2015

How to tell the sex of the baby you're carrying based on the shape of your belly

I am, at this point, very, very pregnant. There's no pretending I'm just kind of fat, or that I have some undisclosed health problem. I'm pregnant, and anyone with eyes can see it easily. Even very small children will now ask me if I'm "growing a baby."

This condition lends itself to a bit of running commentary from strangers, which has taught me a lot about the art of guessing the baby's sex based on the shape and height of the pregnant woman's belly.

To give context to the rest of this post, here is a recent photo of the dramatic and somewhat hilarious current shape of my body:

Anyone else trying to reach into the picture and dust that mirror? 
No? Just me?

With this shape in mind, here are some excerpts from conversations I have had recently:

Chipotle cashier: Are you having a boy?
Me: Yes!
Chipotle cashier: A-ha! I knew it!
Other Chipotle employee: How could you tell?
Chipotle cashier: Because the belly is sort of high and sticking straight out! It only does that with boys!

CONCLUSION #1: If belly is high and sticking straight out, baby is boy.
CONCLUSION #2: My belly is high and sticking straight out.

________________________

Asian grandma at spray park: Are you having a boy?
Me: Yes!
Asian grandma at spray park: [grins happily] I knew it because of how low your belly is!

CONCLUSION #1: If belly is low, baby is boy.
CONCLUSION #2: My belly is low.

Waaaaaait, time out ...

________________________

Lady in line for bathroom at Farmers' Market: Is your daughter excited to have a little sister? [yes, people really are this confident with their guesses]
Me: I wish! I'm actually having a boy this time.
Lady in line for bathroom at Farmers' Market: Oh really?? I thought for sure it must be a girl, because your belly is so low and straight out in front like that!

CONCLUSION #1: If belly is low and straight out in front, baby is girl.
CONCLUSION #2: My belly is low and straight out in front.


This is starting to get really confusing.

________________________

Out of town coworker visiting the building: Okay wait, don't tell me ... it's a GIRL?
Me: Nope! Boy.
Out of town coworker visiting the building: WHAAAT? Really? It can't be! Your belly is so high and round, like a basketball! That has to be a girl!

CONCLUSION #1: If belly is high and round like a basketball, baby is girl.
CONCLUSION #2: My belly is high and round like a basketball.


To summarize:
If you are having a boy, your belly will probably be high, or low, and it will probably stick straight out in front, and it might look like a basketball but it might not.

If you are having a girl, your belly will probably be high, or low, and it will probably stick straight out in front, and it might look like a basketball but it might not.


I hope that this has been helpful.



Also, here is a nice comparison shot between my first and second pregnancies, taken at the exact same time (okay, one day of difference) in the same mirror at home. As you can see ...



... they look exactly the f***ing same. 


I even cut out the background and stacked them:

freeeeeeaky


The belly is a little bigger this time, which is almost certainly because this is not my first pregnancy. But the shape of the bump and its height on my body is not really that different. I think the size accounts for 95% of the lower-ness you see this time round.

... the lower-ness that strangers can't even seem to agree on.

This whole exercise has been pointless.

Tuesday, July 21, 2015

My kid loves bugs. No, you don't understand: she LOVES. BUGS. to DEATH.

Audrey's not really much of a girly girl, though she does know the word "princess" and knows who Elsa is. But other than that, her interests are mostly limited to bubbles, Elmo, and playing in the pool.

Oh, and bugs.

She LOVES bugs.


MOMMY IT'S A BUG!!!!

This whole thing is potentially my fault. Many months ago, Audrey earned a prize at daycare for helping to clean up, and at the time she was too young to choose her own prize from the bin so I picked a plastic green cockroach for her. I thought the interesting shape of it, with its long spindly legs, would please her. And please her it did.

For a while, the plastic cockroach was all the bug she needed. She quickly learned how to say "bug" with perfect clarity, and she would carry the cockroach around and make everyone kiss it. She would put it up to the characters on the TV screen and make kissing sounds. She loved that f***ing cockroach and assumed everyone else felt the same way about it.

... and then she discovered real, living bugs.

Here is how Audrey handles her love of bugs:


Her kill count is in the double digits

I think most people who attended middle school at some point in their lives have read the book Of Mice and Men. If you haven't, or if it's been a minute or two since middle school, let me refresh you: One of the characters, a guy named Lennie, is mentally impaired. You might even say that his brain function is similar to that of ... a toddler. And Lennie is a very large guy. And he loves small, soft animals like rabbits.

And he always kills them by petting them and cuddling them too hard.

They're just so soft and squishable!


Audrey has Lennie'd so many bugs.

It always happens the same way: she finds a bug and gets excited about it. "Bug! Bug! I see a bug!!!" She chases it down and squats over it, watching it walk around.

And then she tries to touch it.

I tell her not to, over and over and over again. "Don't touch the bug. Just look at the bug." And she resists, but then a second later she tries to touch it again. And I remind her not to touch the bug.

But she'll never be content to merely look at a bug -- her desire to cuddle the bug is too strong. She will always be overpowered by her urge to love the bug, to hold it and kiss it like her plastic cockroach ... and so she will poke it until it dies.

At this point, I'd say she's killed roughly 12-15 bugs that I was a personal witness to.

She just wanted to love the bugs :-(


She believes that bugs share her interests

It is well established that very young children lack empathy. Their whole world is their own brain, and they simply cannot conceive of the idea that other people/creatures might have their own goals, desires, and motivations.

This means that I get a binkie shoved in my mouth many times a day, because Audrey loves binkies so therefore Mommy must also love binkies.

And it means that bugs love bubbles, because Audrey loves bubbles and why would bugs feel any differently about it? Bubbles are great!

The bugs might disagree with this, however.

This past weekend, Audrey and I spent a LOT of time out on the back patio. It was hot, so we had the wading pool out there with a big umbrella and sidewalk chalk and some fancy new bubble guns. 

Bubble guns: for when you want lots of bubbles but lack the coordination to blow them with your mouth.

We were having a grand old time blowing bubbles all over the place through the battery-powered bubble guns when all of a sudden, a little bug landed on my leg, blown in on the wind. I let Audrey know immediately, since I knew she would be THRILLED that a bug had shown up to play bubbles with us.

I was right! She WAS thrilled!!

... so thrilled that she put her bubble gun two inches away from the bug and unleashed a storm of 30-40 bubbles directly at his little bug body. I told her that bugs maybe don't like bubbles, but she rejected my reality. "Bubbles for bug!" she informed me, reloading the bubble gun for another assault.

The second round of bubbles was powerful enough to knock the bug off my leg and into the wading pool. I immediately fished him out and held him on my finger as Audrey reloaded her gun for one more volley.

"BUBBLES FOR BUG!"

The third round of bubbles killed the bug.

The fourth round of bubbles, intended to reanimate him, was unsuccessful.

Y'all should have tried using bubbles to bring him to life.

As she loaded up for the fifth round of bubbles, I flicked the bug corpse off into the grass and told Audrey that the bug had decided to fly home. She nodded and spent the next five minutes repeating "bye bye bug!" while shooting more and more bubbles toward the spot in the grass where she assumed the bug lived.

RIP little bug. I guess you didn't really like bubbles after all. I don't blame you.



"Just look at the bug with your eyes" was not a good thing to say


Also this past weekend, Audrey and I went on a little nature walk in our neighborhood. We saw a bunch of birds, TWO different neighborhood dogs, and ... bugs. Bugs and bugs and bugs.

There was big ol' potato bug walking around our front porch. And then some ants in the driveway. And then we walked over to the leasing office, which has a lovely manicured flower garden out front, and saw flies and bees and spiders.

As usual, she wanted to touch every bug she saw. And as usual, I prevented her as best I could.

There was a spider in a web strung between two flower pots by the leasing office, so I picked Audrey up and brought her close so she could see it. "Look at the spider!" I told her, and she shrieked "spider! spider! spider!!!" while reaching for it.

She disconnected one whole side of the web, causing it to deflate and drift back over to one of the flower pots. Sorry, spider.

I put her down and told her to come away, because we had already done enough damage to the poor spider's way of life. But she kept reaching for it, trying to touch it. So I uttered the words I would immediately come to regret: "Do NOT touch the spider. Just look at it. With your eyes."

And she misunderstood. And tried to touch the spider. WITH HER EYES.



Now, I am not someone who is crippled with arachnophobia ... but nor am I the world's biggest fan of spiders. I'm cool with looking at spiders, and killing the ones that get inside the house without having to call A Man to take care of it.

But I am not cool with touching them with my eyeballs.


Audrey, you're a freak.

Stop killing bugs all the time. Jesus. You're gonna get a reputation.

Thursday, July 16, 2015

The deeply stressful life of a toddler

Theory has it that babies and toddlers have meltdowns over the smallest things because to them, whatever stupidity they're crying about really is one of the worst things that has ever happened to them. It's sort of hard to imagine after experiencing 30 years of pain, suffering, loss, and disappointment ... but for Audrey, when I broke her cracker in half and told her she could have the rest of the cracker later, that was on a par with the time someone rear-ended my car at 30mph on Valentine's Day. And she doesn't have 30 years' worth of coping skills to help her sort her emotions. She just surrenders to them and relies on those around her to help keep her head above water.

The result? A person who seems constantly in a state of extreme stress and worry. Over crazy things. Like, crazier than your anxiety-ridden grandmother who lies awake in bed worried that your kids won't be able to afford college in 20 years (you don't have kids yet).

Here are a few things that got Audrey so worked up I had to slip a Xanax into her applesauce:


The opening sequence of the movie "The Tale of Desperaux"


The Tale of Desperaux is an animated children's movie about some rats and mice that get into some sort of trouble. I don't know; I haven't seen the whole movie. But it came on TV one evening on the channel we always watch before Audrey goes to bed, so she sat on my lap and we watched the first 15-20 minutes together.

The opening sequence of this movie basically sets up the difficulties that the plot will have to resolve throughout the rest of the movie. From what I saw, the whole drama starts with a rat who tries to smell some soup and ends up falling off a light and landing in said soup, which sets off a chain reaction of human freakouts and the rat is chased through the kitchen by a gang of people trying to kill him.

I honestly don't know how I would react if a talking rat with pierced ears wearing human clothing and a cap fell into my soup. Mostly with befuddlement, I imagine.

Audrey could not handle this. Any of it. Starting about two minutes into the movie, she just kept repeating "oh no." By the time the rat fell into the soup, her agitation level was at least an 8/10. "Oh no!" And then, as the rat was chased through the kitchen by angry men with knives, she hit a solid 10 and was more like "OHHHH NO OH NO OH NOOOOOO!!!"

It was like watching a Skateboarding Fail Compilation video on YouTube with Marge Simpson. Fifteen straight minutes of "oh no!" 

OH NO!!!!!


She was just so worried about this rat! He fell, he landed in soup, the soup splashed and made a mess on the table, people chased him, he climbed up a chain, he had to jump from the chain to a windowsill ... Audrey is not in any way equipped to handle this kind of stress. This movie sequence was every bit as stressful for her as watching the live feed of the raid on Osama bin Laden's compound was for Obama and his team. 


"OH NOOOOO!"



No matter how many times I told her that it was okay, that it wasn't real, that the rat wasn't hurt, and that the soup mess would be cleaned up with ease, she just wouldn't accept it. She couldn't relax. Even after the movie was turned off and it was time for her to go up to bed, she still kept going on about the "mouse mess". I can only assume she had nightmares about it all night.



Spilled milk

They say not to cry over spilled milk, but what about working oneself into an anxious frenzy over spilled milk? As long as there are no tears, it's allowed, right???

Image result for spilled milk
OH GOD NO!

Audrey spills milk all the time. Constantly. She often spills it on purpose, actually, turning her sippy cup upside down and shaking it out onto the couch/floor/whatever other surface is nearby.

But as soon as that surface has droplets of milk on it, the guilt and panic set it. "Uh oh. Milk mess."

She will not rest until the milk mess has been cleaned up. She will try to clean it up herself by spreading it around with her bare hands, but she then realizes that this has only made it worse, and so her anxiety and stress increase. "Mommy! BIG milk mess!"

I tell her to leave it alone as I run to grab a rag or a wet paper towel to clean it up, but she cannot stand idly by while a milk mess exists in the world. She shouts at me, tells me to hurry. "MILK MESS MILK MESS MILK MESS!!!"

And once the mess is cleaned up?

... it still takes her forever to get over it. Pointing at the spot where the spilled milk once was, repeating "milk mess" and poking at it with suspicious fingers. She doesn't believe me that the mess is cleaned up. Just because you can't see it with your eyes anymore ... it must still be there on a molecular level, right? So how can anyone truly relax when they are surrounded by invisible, ever-present milk messes??

Hey, Audrey, here's an idea: STOP SPILLING MILK EVERY-GODDAMNED-WHERE AND YOU WON'T HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT THIS ANYMORE! Sheeeeeesus.




When someone other than her spills or drops something

If you thought spilled milk was bad, you might want to skip this next section because it could trigger your PTSD. At least, if Audrey could read, I'd certainly encourage her to give this section a miss.


As far as Audrey is concerned, one of the worst things that can happen in the world is that someone can spill or drop something, making a mess (as was her main concern with Desperaux -- that soup had splashed onto the table).

She'll spend a whole day worrying about it. 

And we're not talking about a Level 10 Disaster Zone mess here, like a whole bowl of soup being dropped or a can of soda being knocked down between couch cushions. That kind of shit stresses me out too. But no, we're just talking about small things: a few bran flakes missing the bowl and landing on the floor, or a single blueberry rolling to a stop in front of the refrigerator door.

Audrey loses it. "Uh oh! Oh no! Mommy MESS!" I pick up the blueberry and toss it into the sink. "Mommy MESS!" Five minutes later, when Jesse enters the kitchen. "Daddy -- Mommy made a MESS!"

It could be hours later, we could be out at the store, we could be playing bubbles outside on the patio, but eventually she will have flashbacks to the incident in the kitchen. "Oh no. Mommy ... water mess." (this, of course, being in reference to the time I got six droplets of water on the floor while unloading the dishwasher)

Do they have therapists for barely-verbal toddlers? Because I think Audrey would benefit from a few sessions on letting things go. Nobody should wake up screaming in the night worried about the time I dropped my phone from my hand to my lap while sitting on the couch

"Oh no! Mommy drop phone!"

(But if I bring up the time she threw my phone down the stairs? Not a single moment of concern there. Disasters are only disasters when they're caused by other people, in which case they are nigh on unforgivable.)

Can't get away with a goddamned thing around this house, I swear.


A cat that was outside


Pictured: Some random cat from Google images.

Three weeks ago, I opened the blinds and window downstairs when Audrey and I first got up in the morning, and we discovered a cat outside on our patio. The cat meowed repeatedly, and Audrey meowed right back while shouting "KITTY CAT!" over and over.

Three weeks ago.

Three. Weeks. Ago.


Since then, every single morning she has glued herself to that window when I open it, shouting "kitty cat? KITTY CAT??" out into nothing. There is no more kitty cat. The kitty cat has gone.

Audrey is so concerned about him, though. Does he have a home? Is he eating properly? Is he okay? What if he's injured? Why has he not come back? Did we offend him that day? Does he not like us? Is there something we should have done but didn't? Something we did that we shouldn't have done? Did I say something wrong when I was meowing at the kitty cat???

Audrey. Good lord. Pull it together.

These days, I'm actually worried that I'll open the blinds and find that the cat is back out there. My God, what a disaster that would be. She'd be thrust right back into the thick of her anxiety, desperate to know what made the kitty cat come back and what she can do in the future to get him to come round more regularly.

The only solution is to go No Contact with the kitty cat, Audrey. Getting some distance from your feelings is the only way to get them back under control.

I know you love the kitty cat.

But you need to do some yoga or something, because gurrrrrl your stress level is through the roof.

Maybe we could unwind by watching a bit of Desperaux together.


And then I could knock over a soda?

Tuesday, July 14, 2015

Weird things I've learned from searching baby name popularity

While we were searching for baby names for Trevor, I got kind of obsessed with this neat website that shows graphs of name popularity over time. The website is here and I got so hooked on it that I started searching absolutely everything that came to mind. Names I liked, names I thought were stupid, names of people I hated, names of celebrities ... no name was too silly for me to send through the statistical ringer.

All of this name research has led me to some rather interesting information that I thought you might find fun as well! For instance ...


"Meredith" used to be a boys' name


There was a battle from around 1900 until 1930, and the girls won it. 

Must be kind of a bummer to be a man named Meredith at this point. Born during the Depression, fight in WWII, and then get old only to be laughed at for having a girls' name.

Tough break.


People were actually naming their kids "Angle" for a while


Were they just misspelling "Angel" or did they really intend to name their kid "Angle"? I honestly don't know which is worse.


"Micheal" happened for a while too.


You ... you guys know it's meant to be spelled "Michael", right?

And look how high it peaked!!! .1% of all boys named Micheal?! How is that even pronounced? My brain keeps saying "Mick-heel" which sounds dumb as hell. This is not a good choice for a baby name.


"Latrina" isn't just apocryphal. It's a real name.


Ah, Latrina. Spanish for "toilet."

It's the kind of name that I wish only existed in jokes, but alas the chart does not lie. There are people out there, mostly born in the mid-1970's, named Toilet.

Toilet.


"Elmo". For real.


Now, we can't get too upset about this one, since Sesame Street didn't come on the air until 1969 and Elmo didn't join the cast until 1979. At that point, hardly any babies were given the name Elmo anymore.

Which is a shame. If Audrey had her druthers, that would totally be Trevor's name right now. At the very least, couldn't it be a middle name??

TREVOR ELMO? That's got a nice ring to it, doesn't it??!

However, we cannot in good conscience give the same sort of pass to this next name ...


"Adolf" ... even after the 1940's


Perhaps you are familiar with a man named ADOLF MOTHERF***ING HITLER??!?!?



All I can say is that I hope ALL of those bastards went to the courthouse to get their names changed the moment they turned 18. Adolf is no longer a good name. Parents should choose something different.

... not that any of us should really be too surprised. The US is full of assholes, after all.


Sigh.