At this point, I'm pretty sure if you google "Constant Vigilance," you get a picture of me looking crazy

In some ways, becoming a mom has calmed me down.  I realize that some things are just not as important as I thought they were.  Like, my floors do not need to be cleaned EVERY DAY.  (Pretend you didn't read that if you are someone who cleans your floors every day.)  And sometimes if you aren't leaving the house, make-up is a luxury, and what I've come to lovingly refer as "outdoor" pants aren't necessary for days at a time.  And that's okay, because I get to see this smile:

But in other ways, becoming a mother has actually made me even MORE neurotic than I was before procreating.  I really didn't think it was possible.


You want examples, you say?  Excellent.  Here are some:


1.  Now that the baby is in the car with me, driving is INSANELY HORRIFIC.  I used to be a confident driver.  Now if someone is in the lane next to me and they DARE get one inch closer to the center line (and by extension, putting their thousands of pounds of metal that much closer to my innocent baby), I lose it.  I talk to other drivers so much.  "Really?  REALLY?!?!? You're going to VEER over toward the center line?  Where do you think you're going?  NO, seriously! *HONK*  Get over!  Yeah, you, asshat!  I don't need your incompetence near my child!  *HONK HONK HOOOOOOOOOOONK*.  Yeah, that's right.  You change lanes and get away from me.  Well done."  


I feel like I'm doing a community service, really.  I mean, how will people learn if they aren't corrected, right?


2.  CONSTANT VIGILANCE has taken on a whole new meaning in my life. Remember how strange I was before the baby came?  I'm worse now.  If I hear a sound in the house and I am sure I didn't make it, here is what immediately goes through my mind: INTRUDER!!  MAIM KILL DESTROY! MUST PROTECT YOUNG ONE!!!!


Jeremy has made the mistake of approaching too quietly and I greet him with a fighting stance and a wild, guttural scream of someone who is bent on destruction.  He looks kind of scared when I do this.


3.  My imagination has become even more wild.  The other day I was sitting on the couch with Jeremy, pretending to watch a movie and actually watching Josephine on the baby monitor (sorry, husband) when I thought I saw something by her face.  What was the first thought to enter my mind? Something logical?  No, it was this:  OH MY GOD IT'S A SNAKE! THERE'S A SNAKE BY MY BABY'S FACE AND IT'S GOING TO OPEN ITS EVIL MOUTH AND CLAMP DOWN AND BITE HER AND OHMYGODASNAKEOHMYGODOHMYGOD!!!

Then I leaned closer and realized it was just a piece of lint on the screen. Oops.  False alarm.  


Why I immediately assumed it was a snake and could actually visualize the snake biting my precious baby?  No idea.  Even more strange was the fact that I also immediately visualized grabbing the snake with my bare hands and killing it.  Number 1:  I don't kill animals.  Number 2:  I am so terrified of snakes that I seriously just peed my pants thinking about them (I'm not really serious though.)  (Or am I?)

What have we learned here?  Maybe nothing, except that if you don't know me in real life, you don't want to meet me, and if you DO already know me in real life ... maybe wait a few more months before visiting.  I need to get on some better meds.

THE STORY! And it's SOOO good. Totally worth the wait.

Before our story can commence, I must send a resounding "thank you" to all the mothers and fathers and sitters and godmothers (etc., etc.) who hit me up here or on facebook to offer advice and kind words.  Yes, my baby girl is still fussy and still wants to be held all the time, but we continue to have tiny victories day by day.  For example, I am typing this with BOTH HANDS and looking at the baby monitor while she sleeps IN HER CRIB, where she has been for an HOUR.  Holy crapballs.  Last night she slept for three consecutive hours in her crib.  What did I do?  Stared at the video monitor the entire time.  Because I am a fool.


Moving on.


Here it is, folks!  The story I have been dying to tell for ages and ages and needed both energy and two typing hands to tell.  Oh dear ... now I realize I've built it up way too much.  No matter.  It still involves ENEMIES and DANGER and HIGH DRAMA.  Prepare yourselves.


Okay, so it was 12:30 AM, and I was doing what I do -- sitting up in bed, rocking the baboo and staring at the clock with bleary eyes -- when I heard a huge CRASH right outside our window.  That was weird, because even though we live in one of those old city houses that is close to the street and close to our neighbors' houses so we usually hear EV-ER-Y-THING (yes, everything), it had just gotten cold enough to close the windows, so the noise was 95% gone.  The CRASH was so loud that I jumped and "eeep!"ed.  The crash was followed by the squealing tires of a car peeling away from in front of our house, and I turned around just in time to see the headlights of a car fleeing.


I headed downstairs to see what happened, figuring we had left our garbage can out and it was now road rash.  I went to the front window, and saw ... Jeremy's car ... on the street, and not in the driveway where it should be.  He had left it on the street so when I got home from work he could pull it in after me.  Obviously he had been too tired or forgotten.  


But, I seem to remember the car being parked in front of OUR house, not our neighbor to the south's house.  Hmmm, very curious.  It when then that I saw the front of his car, which was smashed to smithereens.  


PANIC.  Someone had smashed my husband's beloved Camaro convertible.  The car that represented all that was young and carefree about him.  The car he bought the DAY WE MET.  The car he loves so much he defends it up and down when I point out its bazillion flaws and beg him to buy a sensible car.  


All I could think was I am going to have to be the one to tell him his car has been violated.  I wanted the car out of our lives, but not like this, NOT LIKE THIS (standing in the middle of the street, directly under a street light, arms in the sky, head thrown back, screaming up at the moon).  


A few minutes later, the cops were in front of our house.  Our neighbor to the north had heard the noise and ran outside to find some neighbors across the street on their porch smoking.  They had seen the whole thing, and she called the cops to report it.  


GET THIS:  The witness-neighbors said they saw a green four-door sedan come flying down the street, then slam on its brakes right in front of our house, crank it into reverse, smash the car backwards 20 feet, throw it back into drive, and drive off.


Ummm ... I'm no scientist, but that doesn't sound like an accident.  The cops actually asked Jeremy if he had any enemies, and when he came back in to tell me that, I laughed and laughed and laughed, because I could never imagine Jeremy with an enemy.  He is easily the world's most likable person.  And then it hit me.  This hit was meant for ME.  


Who is the only person in our house who is likely to have enemies?  Oh, I don't know, maybe the sarcastic, bitchy, blog-writing, bad-grade-giving, grouch?  Yeah.


Jeremy was quick to point out that it was HIS car.  Well duh, but I had JUST convinced him that we should trade his car in towards a reliable and boring crossover.  You know, something we can FIT THE CARSEAT IN.  We were like two weeks away from that GLORIOUS moment.  So, number one -- my enemy knew I was about to get something wonderful in my life and they snatched it away.  


Number two -- I had JUST gotten the use of my car back, after it had died for the ten-millionth time and taken a week to get fixed.  I had only driven it to work and was looking forward to the next day when I could, oh, I don't know, actually LEAVE THE HOUSE DURING THE DAY for the first time in over a week.  But no, my enemy knew of this and wanted me to be trapped in my house with a crying baby who is easily soothed by riding in a car.  


Number three -- remember my suspicions that someone cut my brakes this summer?  (Okay, I just spent ten minutes looking for that post so I could link back to it, but I couldn't find it, so either I am overtired or I never wrote about it, but trust me, it totally happened.)  Well, obviously they started there, and their evil plan was foiled when my friend was nice enough to drive me to work and Bob at The Auto Surgeon fixed my car in one day.  It all fits.  


Okay, so I have a confirmed enemy.  One who is willing to injure things loved by ... well, not me, but my husband.  NOW WHAT??


I guess all I can do is fall back on my old friend anxiety and practice CONSTANT VIGILANCE.  And if you drive a green four-door sedan?  Sorry.  I'll be attacking first and asking questions later.  And if my enemy is a student who thinks if I am trapped at home then I won't be able to show up and grade their papers?  Oh, I'll always find a way.  ALWAYS.  


Please send binoculars and anti-anxiety medication.

The End of the Movie is like the Cream Filling in the Oreo

I was watching The Sound of Music the other day and wondering why I don't watch it like every week.  That movie is fantastic.  I also think I didn't take full advantage of it when I was young.  I'm guessing that it was too long for three kids with no attention spans, so we stuck to Disney most of the time.


ANYWAY, as I have gotten older, I have learned that a lot of parents stop the movie while everything is still happy and cut out out the scary running-from-the-Nazis ending.  My parents didn't, because it's the ENDING.  Watching a movie and not getting to see the end is infuriating. Plus, I always liked the music at the end of movies, so I totally would have been on to my mom if she just shut the TV off and claimed that was the end.  All those other kids must be totally gullible and stupid.  


I guess I just don't get it.  I mean, every single Disney movie I ever watched was traumatizing.  Someone SHOT Bambi's mother?!?!?!!  Ursula is going to eat the whole boat and Ariel and Eric will never get to live happily ever after???!?!?!!?  How will the Prince EVER get past that fire and dragon to save Aurora??!?!?!!!???  Same difference.  Pretty much every kid's movie has some sort of sadness and/or scariness so parents can use it as a teaching moment.  I can explain that sometimes there are bad people who want to do bad things to good people.


But, there are some things I can't really explain, so if I COULD skip a scene, I would skip the oldest girl in the orchard with her boyfriend singing "Sixteen going on Seventeen."  I can explain Nazis, but I do NOT want to risk them internalizing that stupid "I'll take care of you" line from that dumbass boyfriend who later becomes a Nazi and then sells them out at the end and almost gets them killed.


I mean, obviously I don't want my little girl(s) to think that a man will take care of them and then have them look forward to that instead of looking forward to taking care of themselves, and I don't want my little boy(s) to think they are Neanderthals. 


You might be thinking that ONE movie is not going to set my child(ren)'s psyche(s) in stone.  Well, I have read enough about serial killers to know that you never know what is going on in their little brains.  I can't take the risk!  


Also, I probably won't beat them with a rubber hose and encourage them to dress up in clown make-up and teach them how to bury things without leaving a trace.  It's better to be safe than sorry when it comes to raising a non-serial killer.

The Lost Art of Paying Attention to Details

I am a composition instructor for a private college.  You might not be able to guess it from this blog, but I am a stickler for details.  Grammar, punctuation, layout:  There are rules, and they should be followed.  


My students freak out when I walk past them and say things like, "Oops, you have an extra space between those two words" or "It looks like your margins are 1.2 inches; make sure you set them to 1 inch."  They are like HOW DO YOU DO THAT, YOU CRAZY WITCH WITH LASER EYES??!?! and I just remind them that I see HUNDREDS of papers every few weeks.


I obviously don't tell them that surface features are more important than content and development and originality and whatnot, but I tell them that once they have that content, they should pay attention to the surface and make it as pleasing to the readers' eyes as possible, because that is what makes documents professional.


I really try to model professional writing with my students at all times.  It's too bad my husband tries to sabotage that.


Back when we were dating, I was in my first year of teaching at Central Michigan University.  We spent a lot of our free time at my apartment because I usually had tons of crap to do and was always reading drafts and answering student e-mails.  Also, I liked my apartment better, but that is neither here nor there.


Anywho, one night, I was at Jeremy's apartment and I jumped on his computer to get some work done while he was watching a baseball game.  I had an e-mail from a student who was really struggling to put her paper together.  She had sent me a draft and asked for comments.  I spent a long time giving her ideas and pointers and comments.  At this time, I was using the comment feature on Word that adds little bubbles along the margins and saves it as a whole new document.  I finished, double-checked all my comments to make sure they made sense and had no spelling errors, attached the document to the e-mail, and sent it off.


After sending the e-mail, I decided to create a document to distribute in class the next day, and opened Word again.  As it was loading up, I just happened to notice the registration information on my lovely boyfriend's version of Word -- Author: Jeremy, Registered to: MY ASS.


PANIC.  I opened the e-mail I had just sent to my student and rolled over each of the comments.  Every time my mouse rolled over a comment, a little bubble appeared, announcing the same information -- Comment author: Jeremy, Registered to: MY ASS.


I screamed at Jeremy to come look at what had just happened, and what does he do?  LAUGH AT ME.  Ha ha, that's so funny that you sent that to your student.  Really?  REALLY?!?!  Get ready to be my sugar daddy when I get FIRED!!


Jeremy was quick to point out that had I noticed that BEFORE sending out the e-mail, I might have avoided the situation.  You know, by paying attention to details, like I ask my students to.


Eff that noise.  I didn't take into account that my loving boyfriend might SABOTAGE my career.  But now I do.  Oh yes, I always assume sabotage. My best advice: CONSTANT VIGILANCE, my friends.  You never know when someone might trick you into making an ass of yourself.  You can take that advice to the bank, people.

Yes, I Stopped Taking My Medication When I Got Pregnant. How Could You Tell?

It started out so innocently. A Girls Night with friends from high school. A Girls Night in which I could not drink, meaning there was a good chance I could maintain my rational thinking and dignity.  


It all took a turn for the worst when my friend Amanda, who just bought a Ford Focus, asked if my Ford Focus also had a funny little safety latch inside the trunk that included directions for a person to escape from a trunk.  

Jump from trunk and run to safety!  DO IT!

Yes, in fact, I have the safety latch and am very familiar with its location in the event that I needed to free myself from a trunk. Another friend, Ellie, started laughing.


"Why would you need THAT?" she asked, and I launched into a self-righteous safety monitor lecture. "Well, Ellie, what if you were being CARJACKED by an evil CARJACKER and placed in the trunk? What if you were being KIDNAPPED by an evil MURDERER-slash-RAPIST and being transported in your own trunk to the designated kill spot? Hmmm? What IF?"


So, Ellie, who is a nice and lovely person and did not even seem to mind that I was being an ass, was like, "We should definitely try it out in that case -- to see if you could actually get free!"


And we did.

A pregnant lady stuffing another lady in a trunk.  Pretty casual Saturday.

People were laughing, photos were being snapped furiously, and it was all well and good.  Then Ellie reported that it was VERY difficult to get out of the trunk.  

UMMM, WHAT? You were not able to hop like a bunny rabbit out of the trunk? Because that was part of my plan. Do you know what this means? I now have to re-evaluate my escape-from-a-trunk plan. Dear God. This will require weeks of research, test runs, night sweats, and vivid nightmares. But that is nothing compared to what is next.

All of my plans ... they must all be re-evaluated.  

I mean, everyone knows that the proper position for a bathroom door is OPEN and the corresponding correct position for a shower curtain is OPEN, even if you have an ugly green tub like mine. This is, of course, so a killer cannot use the shower as a hiding spot from which to spring and kill. But what have I overlooked?  

Yep, you guessed it. Even if the bathroom door is open, there might be a few inches of space behind it. What about SKINNY killers? He could easily slide his emaciated body behind my bathroom door, and then when I am all like la-dee-da, minding my own business and heading to the sink to floss, he will pounce and kill and then stand over me and ask, "Was your oral hygiene REALLY that important in the long run?" and with my last breath I will say, "You better believe it, you bastard. I got tons of compliments on my smile." Then I will smile and die and he will be like, Hmm, she really does have a great smile. I should floss more. Then he will probably steal my big screen TV. And my floss.  

Okay, I have lots of other plans too.  

Like, when I walk to my car, I always have a key in between my pointer and middle fingers, ready to STAB and then TURN like my dad taught me. More damage, he says. But ... I have never actually tested this stab-and-turn attack. And what is the best part of the body to stab?  My dad told me at the tender age of 11 that if I ever had to stab an attacker with a knife, I could disable him by stabbing in the thigh and turning the blade and he would not be able to chase me. But will a key work as well as a knife? Well, no. So how can I legally and ethically test this stabbing technique until I find the most debilitating stab location for a key? Because a pig carcass won't work, so don't even suggest it. I need a live subject so I can gauge the pain I am inflicting.

BUT, if I have to get that close to an attacker before I can fight back, maybe I should just go with my dad's number one move. He was smart enough to teach his little girl how to use her thumbs to pop someone's eyes out. Again ... I have yet to test it. I trust that it will work, because my dad is kind of like a ninja (the kind of ninja who is a retired shop teacher and has a bum knee), but I have no EVIDENCE, and if I am re-evaluating all my killer-killing skills, I need to be SURE.

What have we learned here?  

1.  I am crazy.

2.  I have a lot of spare time on my hands.

3.  I need to take my bathroom door off its hinges.

4.  I need an able-bodied man who is willing to endure multiple stab wounds and having his eyes popped out.  

I will be distributing a sign-up sheet for subjects. And if you also happen to be a killer or think you might begin being a killer in the near future, you are EXACTLY the subject I am looking for. I need to know this is a REAL test run, and not some person with an actual soul just phoning it in to make me feel better. 

Thanks for your time. Please do not send me e-mails with the names and phone numbers of psychiatrists (MOM).