Khan vs. Hellbeast: A Story From Two Points of View

HELLBEAST:

Poor Hellbeast. Her life was going pretty well: she had a place to sleep, rent-free, bowls of food and water that magically refilled themselves, and two humans who would pet her or leave her alone, depending on her desires.

Then IT came.

IT was a miniature human with a huge head. IT lacked the ability to give Hellbeast treats or play with her. So she ignored IT. But sometimes, IT was really loud, and for some reason the humans gave all their attention to IT instead of her. Hellbeast occasionally approached IT with a quizzical look, but the humans would shoo her away.

One day, IT began to sit up. The humans seemed excited by this, though Hellbeast didn't think it was all that special. Then, ITS ravenous gaze fell upon her. IT bared ITS teeth, and from ITS mouth issued a horrible squealing noise, high-pitched and full of...glee.

After that, ITS eyes followed her everywhere she went. IT watched her all the time. Sure, it was unsettling, but at least IT was immobile.

Until one day IT wasn't.

Suddenly Hellbeast found herself in a constant race to stay ahead of ITS grasping, yanking hands. She became very familiar with the underside of the human's bed. Worse, IT began to interfere with her stuff. IT played with her toys, threw her food out of the magic bowl, and splashed her water everywhere. IT even tried to dig into her litter box. Hellbeast was living in a nightmare.

And that is where things stand today.

KHAN:

Hey kitty I like you I live you kitty you're cool let me pull your tail just once okay kitty hey let me chew on your ears come on kitty be a sport I love you and you won't feel a thing I promise just for a second kitty come on one second I love you kitty come here to me KITTY KITTY KITTY where are you going kitty? Why are you running away?

We're working on 'be gentle with animals', but until then I'm afraid Hellbeast will remain a creature of the night, venturing out only when IT sleeps.

How to Change a Diaper

Sorry I've been MIA; we ended up moving to our new house a week early (because The Scientist's friends were available to help then, and $70 for pizza and beer beats $400 for professional movers any day).

How to Change the Diaper of a 3-Month-Old

1. Lay baby on his back.
2. Take off his pants.
3. Remove soiled diaper.
4. Wipe bottom.
5. Apply diaper rash cream.
6. Put on clean diaper.
7. Put on baby's pants.

How to Change the Diaper of an 11-Month-Old

1. Lay baby on his back.
2. Grab arm of escaping baby, flip him over.
3. Repeat.
4. Remove baby's pants, dodging flailing legs.
5. Begin removing soiled diaper.
6. Grab escaping baby, flip him over.
7. Hand him a toy to distract him.
8. Remove soiled diaper.
9. Dodge toy as baby flings it at your head.
10. Grab escaping baby's ankle, drag him back, flip him over.
11. Wipe bottom, carpet, baby's legs, your hands, baby's hands, toy, and the cat.
12. Pin baby's windmilling arms with one hand and his thrashing legs with your knees.
14. Apply diaper cream.
15. Wipe excess diaper cream on your pants.
16. Begin putting on clean diaper.
17. Grab escaping baby's torso, flip him over.
18. Dodge well-aimed peepee.
19. Put on clean diaper.
20. Release howling, sobbing baby.
21. Consider putting on baby's pants. Decide it is best for everyone if you don't.

Writing Mommy

I’m an author. And a blogger. And a housewife. And a mommy. And a payroll specialist (I work from home). And a vigilante who dispenses justice when the legal system’s hands are tied. No wait, that last one is The Punisher. I get me and him mixed up all the time.

There’s only 24 hours in a day. I kind of have to take care of Khan, since he’s my kid and all. And dog payroll provides me with money. And I also kind of have to wash laundry and scrub the toilets, or the place would start to look like a frat house.
And trust me, that’s really gross.

So what suffers? Yeah, my writing.

Before the baby, I wrote every day for at least an hour. Now I’m lucky to find fifteen minutes, and this is usually broken up into one-or two-minute increments scattered throughout the day. It’s frustrating, to the point that I’ve considered giving up writing altogether, at least until Khan is in school. Finding time to write and worrying over my writing career- such as it is- is just more stress I don’t need.

But for me, like it is for most writers, writing equals breathing. Quitting is tantamount to suicide. And I’m not ready to kill myself just yet.
So I struggle on, writing what I can, when I can. It’s not easy, but neither is childrearing. And in the end, they’re probably both worth it.

Have a Happy...C-Section

I’ve heard stories about women who choose to have a voluntary c-section, either for aesthetic reasons (so baby’s first picture doesn’t look like a hot pink version of Mr. Conehead) or so the kid will be born on a certain date (because if baby shares a birthday with Great-Aunt Clara, maybe she’ll leave you some of her loot when she dies). I’m pretty sure these stories are lies. I had a necessary c-section, and it sucked pretty hard. I don’t think anyone would ever want to have their baby this way.

I had this whole plan for giving birth to Khan. Hang out at home as long as possible, get to hospital, bravely refuse drugs and pop him out, go home within 48 hours. Oh, yeah.

All of that went down the toilet four days before my due date. I went to my midwife for a routine appointment on Friday morning at 8 a.m. My blood pressure had shot up. Like, way up. Zombie movie arterial spurting-up. So the midwife shipped my cetacean butt off to the hospital right away. The hospital couldn’t get it down either, so they parked me in a room to be induced.

After being induced (which sucks), I went through 14 hours of labor (which sucks). Khan was nearly out when he abruptly turned his head sideways, necessitating an emergency c-section (which really sucks).

Luckily, I’d caved a while back and gotten the epidural, so Dan the epidural man (probably the most beloved employee in the entire hospital) just pumped more drugs into the tube. And here’s the really great thing about c-sections: they give you a ton of drugs so that you can’t feel anything. Kathy Bates could take a sledgehammer to your feet and you would never feel it. Then they give you more drugs that make it so even though you’re having major abdominal surgery, you don’t care. When the doctor held up my naked, howling child for inspection, the first thing I said was, “Wow, his scrotum is huge.” That’s how high I was (and for the record, his scrotum was huge).

So the actual c-section is okay, it’s afterward that sucks. You can’t get out of bed for 24 hours. Everything hurts. Hurts to sit, hurts to stand, hurts to walk. And this is despite the righteous numbers of painkillers the nurses dish out. When you finally head home (4 or so days later), it’s a little better, but it still hurts for weeks. And you still bleed for weeks; the bleeding is due to blood vessels broken when the placenta comes out, not vaginal trauma, so you don’t get out of that. And it hurts to have sex (not that you’ll want to for at least a year). And you have a scar, but that’s actually kind of cool. And you’ll be terribly constipated, you can’t drive for 2 weeks, and you might have a giant numb spot on your abdomen that may or may not go away. And pain in your shoulder blades. I have no idea what that’s about.

And here’s the absolute worst part of my whole experience: for 24 hours after your c-section, you can’t eat.

And when you’re being induced, you can’t eat.

And when you’re in labor, you can’t eat.

Between 7:30 a.m. on Friday morning and 6 p.m. on Sunday, all the nurses could give me was chicken broth, Jell-o and Sprite, and that ended at 5 a.m. Saturday morning. After that all I got was water and ice chips. By Sunday, I would have bitten the head off a live bat if one had flown into the hospital room. At 6 p.m. on Sunday, my brother-in-law brought me a Wendy’s bag and a large Frosty cup. I hope The Scientist never learns how much I loved his brother at that moment.

Now, unless you end up with the same unfortunate set of circumstances (watch your blood pressure, pregnant ladies), you probably won’t have to go almost 3 days without eating. But 24 hours is bad enough.

I know all this sounds really depressing, but Khan was worth every minute of it, even if I was ready to eat him, hamster-style, by Sunday afternoon. And if you have to have a necessary c-section, your kid will be worth it too. Because, well, the alternative is that you both die.

But if you’re thinking a voluntary c-section sounds like a good time, think again. Do you really want your child to grow up knowing his mother’s first observation about him concerned his disproportionately large genitalia?

Babies'R'Gross

By the time Khan was born, we’d amassed enough baby clothes to outfit an army. An army of babies. Which would actually be pretty useless, if you think about it.
I was aghast. It was too much; they didn’t fit in his dresser, or his closet. So many onesies and tiny pants and socks and little hats, all for one baby? Ridiculous.
He’d never wear them all!

What I didn’t count on was the fact that babies are completely and totally disgusting. I learned quickly that if Khan didn’t puke on it, he peed on it, and if he didn’t puke or pee on it, he pooped on it. This kid has an amazing ability to pee around his diaper, no matter the brand or size, cloth or disposable. And when he was really little, he made that very liquid-y breast milk poopie that managed to leak out of every diaper we tried (we were warned, after a fashion; The Scientist claims the first time he changed Khan’s diaper in the hospital, the kid peed all the way across the room. I was, unfortunately, higher than a hippie at Woodstock, so I missed it).

Combined with the diaper problem, Khan had a serious spitting up thing the first few months of his life. Not projectile vomiting or anything, but he threw up a lot. His day wasn’t complete until he puked in my hair at least once.
So Khan changed clothes more often than Lady Gaga at the Grammys. Three times a day, on average.

Finally the spit up abated a bit, to be replaced by long strings of clear, teething-related drool. Around the same time we began giving him pureed baby food, so the liquid poopie began to solidify a little.

Then he started to mobilize. With all the rolling and twisting and tumbling, Khan began puking again. Only this time, it wasn’t white milk-vomit. It was orange (sweet potatoes), greenish (peas) or yellow (squash). And with the introduction of real food, his poopie started to smell. A lot.

The spit up tide has ebbed a bit, but now Khan eats solid food, it’s more interesting. Today’s was blackberry-purple with tiny chunks of mandarin oranges. At least now he’s puking in complimentary colors.

Now he’s reached the grand stage of feeding himself, more or less, things are grosser than ever. Watching him eat pasta is enough to make me lose my appetite (I’m not complaining; maybe I can finally lose some of this baby weight). I’ve cleaned chunks of bananas off the wall, cereal out of the carpet, and applesauce off the cat. Since Khan discovered food, he’s come to believe that everything solid is food. I’ve removed from his mouth rocks, cat food, paper, and other kids’ toes. And these days, he only wants to hug me if he’s been eating (and smearing) something incredibly sticky and staining.

I know it won’t end once he’s mastered utensils. Khan is a boy. There will be ice cream drips and skinned knees and crushed worms in his pockets and mud in his hair. And someday he’s going to throw up a half-eaten hot dog in my lap.

But hey, it’s true what people say: you don’t care how gross a kid is, as long as it’s your kid. You know he smells, but it doesn’t matter. Most stains will come out (except breast milk poopie stains. Those are lethal). Oatmeal crusted in your arm hair will eventually wash out. Someday Khan will learn to wipe his own bottom and wash his own hands. Maybe I’ll even miss having puke in my hair.

Maybe.

Not Without My Nose

One day, before Khan could really sit up, he was lying on his back. I leaned over to talk to him, and he reached up and grabbed my face, pulling it down to his. Aw, I thought. He's going to give Mommy a kiss.

And then his mouth closed around my nose.

Khan has a thing about chomping on noses. A while back, he and a little girl at Story Time leaned toward each other. Khan's mouth opened into the predatory O I had come to know so well.

"Aw," The girl's mom said. "He wants to give her a kiss."

She probably thought I was a snob for sweeping him up and removing him before contact could be made. But at least it saved her daughter's nose.

The Sacrifices We Make

As soon as I realized I was pregnant, I told The Scientist, “Oh #&$@! I have to stop swearing.”

This is harder than it sounds. Somewhere in the first thirty years of my life, I developed the mouth of a sailor. A pissed-off, creative sailor. It just came naturally. There’s a rhythm in long strings of swear words that irresistible; the syllables roll off your tongue like sweet, sweet grape Kool-Aid.

I swore quite a bit in casual conversation, but it got really impressive when I played video games. There’s something about mushrooms with feet and pastel ghosts that just makes me want to insult them in the worst language possible. It helps that they’re little two-dimensional dudes and they can’t turn around and punch you in the face when you tell them to go %!@* themselves.

My favorite targets were the hapless half-demons of Mortal Kombat. One day, twelve weeks pregnant and beating the living crap out of Johnny Cage, I had a sudden premonition of my kid’s preschool years.

Teacher: “Sweetie, why did you call Billy a donkey-punching, pig-%$#@ing piece of *(&^$ &$#%sucker?”

My Kid: “My mom called Subzero that when she was playing Mortal Kombat.”

And that was when I became determined to quit for good.

I’m doing okay so far. I manage to confine the majority of my profanity to times when Khan is asleep and to e-mail (I can’t swear in my Facebook status updates because I am Facebook friends with both my mom and my mother-in-law; yeah, I knew that would come back to bite me someday).

Then, the other night, The Scientist made a comment that led me to realize I have a lot more work ahead of me. He said, astutely, that someday we’d see Lindsay Lohan ‘spit out by the bottom of the porn industry.”

Oh crap. We make a lot of comments that, while not overtly profane, refer to activities of a salacious nature. Things Khan won’t know about until he’s at least ten: sex, drugs, and Inside Edition. We have to cut the allusions to South Park and Mitch Hedburg. At least until Khan is old enough to sneak around and watch these videos behind our backs.

Man, being a parent is rougher than I ever expected. $%@#.

Overthinking Clifford

Khan isn’t allowed a lot of T.V. But he does get to watch half an hour a day, long enough for me to check my e-mail and wash the dishes (except on Saturdays, when he watches an entire hour of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles with Daddy). We don’t have cable, so he’s stuck with public broadcasting. At this point I’ve seen a bunch of PBS shows: Word Girl, Anne of Green Gables: The Animated Series (actually, I watch that one sometimes when the baby is asleep…nothing like nostalgia!), Dinosaur Train, Dragon Tales, Zooboomafoo, Curious George, Clifford the Big Red Dog, and Khan’s favorite, Sid the Science Kid.

And I have some questions.

How much food does Clifford consume? Even the cheapest dog food will add up when your dog is two stories tall. Where do his owners store all that food? And most importantly, who cleans up after him when they take him for a walk?

And then there’s Word Girl. Does her family really not realize their daughter/sister is a literate superhero? Or are they humoring her (for what it’s worth, I’m also skeptical that it took Aunt May forty years to realize her nephew is Spider-man…I always suspected she knew more than she let on).

And as for Curious George…he’s a criminal. Vandalism, breaking and entering, trespassing, burglary, breaking health code regulations…yet at the end, everyone laughs and shakes their heads. Silly monkey. Silly, silly, delinquent monkey. How much collateral damage do you think the Man in the Yellow Hat has to pay for, every episode? What kind of job does he have that he can afford it? Is he in the mob?

Sid the Science Kid. Sid attends a school with only four students, including him. And they only learn whatever he wants to study, which is always, of course, science. Now, maybe he attends a Montessori school. But then why don’t the other kids ever get to choose a subject to study? Don’t the other children resent him for obviously being Teacher Suzie’s favorite?

I’m probably overthinking this. They’re kids’ shows, after all. Khan certainly doesn’t care who cleans up after Clifford. But I do. I lie awake nights, wondering. I even discuss it with The Scientist (he thinks they hire a service to scoop and dispose of it).

Also, I am still waiting for that very special episode of Dinosaur Train where the pterodactyls see a meteor plunge to the Earth. So maybe they’re dinosaurs who ride a train…but that doesn’t mean the show can’t be somewhat scientifically accurate, right?

Yeah, I probably need a hobby.

How We Ruined the Wedding

To set the tone of this blog, here is a story about how Khan ruined someone's wedding.

Last month we attended the wedding of two of The Scientist’s friends. This was the first time several of his buddies had seen Khan, so we were anxious to show everyone what a Perfect Angel he was, and thus what Superior Parents we are.

Since The Scientist was a groomsman, keeping Khan corralled was all on me. I did pretty well during the rehearsal and the dinner, if I do say so myself. He spent most of the rehearsal attempting to electrocute himself at an unsecured outlet in the back of the church; I spent most of the rehearsal retrieving him with a firm-but-loving “No.”. Excellent, I thought. Surely everyone was impressed with my Supernanny-like patience and tenacity. The weekend was off to a good start.

At the wedding, Khan played quietly on the floor during the processional. I was getting his bottle out of the diaper bag just as the bride reached the groom at the front of the church. And at that moment, Khan lost his balance, tumbled over, and banged his head on the pew.

Now, Khan bumps his head on various surfaces approximately 2, 639 times a day. Usually he gets back up, blinks a couple times, and crawls off to wreak havoc elsewhere.

Not this time. No, this time, in front of 200 people, in a large church with awesome acoustics, during the most important moment in the lives of two people we care about, Khan screamed.

I’d never heard him scream like this before. I’d never heard anyone scream like this before. It was like every tortured soul in Hell joined forced with every teenage slut from every slasher movie ever made, and they all cried out with one voice.

I didn’t wait for the horrified glares. I grabbed Khan in one hand, the bottle in the other, and bolted. Not easy to do in strappy sandals and a floor-length dress.
In the vestibule I crammed the nipple into his mouth and sat on the floor. He sucked down the bottle, and then I made a doubly horrifying discovery: it was pouring rain, so I couldn’t take him outside, and I’d left his pacifier in the church. When the formula was gone, I resorted to let him chew on my fingers to keep him quiet (Khan was teething, and still is teething, and has been teething pretty much constantly since he was 4 months old).

After the ceremony, everyone streamed out of the church. And, to my surprise, no one glowered at me. No one chastised me for being a bad mom or accused me of ruining the couple’s chance at happiness. They were probably just too shocked by my fingers, which looked like they’d been chewed by a rabid shrew.

With shrunken ego and a throbbing hand, I navigated the reception (which consisted of three hours of me pulling Khan away from an unsecured electrical outlet…). And you know what? The wedding wasn’t ruined. Everyone who was supposed to get married that day, got married. And we all got cake, except for Khan because he was too little.

Your kids are going to surprise you, usually at the worst possible time. It’s not the end of the world. It doesn’t make you a bad parent. Just be prepared to sacrifice your dignity- and your fingers- at a moment’s notice.