"Looks like we made it..."

Yes, I'm here, I'm queer and I'm blogging. Alright, perhaps not the middle section, but I am for sure feeling quite gay at the moment. Why, you ask? What makes a mediocre mama so chipper at 10:00 on on Friday night? Well (a) the wine, (b) it's Friday night after a long-ass couple of weeks, and (c) the Captain Kid has completed stint with the hellacious babysitter. Yes friends, he's done, I'm done, and from hereon in it's a full day (8:25-6:00) at one school.

Let the good times roll...

But before normal life begins, a little interlude. On Tuesday the Dad drives the Kid up to Grandparent Land and I meet up with the Dad on Wednesday night, kid-free, work-free, ready to play, ready to sleep. Quite a treat for the mediocre mama. Especially seeing as how I'm still negative on personal time off, still trying to fill the hole from my little back surgery stint.

Calgon, take me away...

Mediocre Drama

I am starting to believe that the only thing more mediocre than my mothering skills are the mothering skills of the people I hire to watch the Captain. I have been at the end of my rope with the babysitter for some time and am counting the days til late-August when I can finally say hasta la vista (insert "Baby" if you must for emphasis).

Clearly, the real problem is that I've only been picking the Captain up from her place on Fridays, which leaves me wide open for attack. As I've mentioned before, she has a Neanderthal view of parenting and seems to save up her pent up bullshit for days when I'm on pickup duty. If it's a Friday, all the better; she gives me a tongue lashing for everything that happened all week. So, here, for your mild amusement, are my last two Fridays in a two Act mini-Opera. PS - I envision the whole thing sung in Spanish...

La niñera es un cunt

Act I - The Potty

Now, just a little setting of the stage, the Captain has had absolutely no potty problems for months. Not only will he go in strange settings, he's mastering standing up when a proper step stool is present and even made an entire road trip to New York without any accidents. And it, therefore, perplexed us, that the only place he seems to be having "issues" is at the babysitter's house.

Me - How is he doing on the potty?

Babysitter - He doesn't want to go.

Me - Well, does he ask to go?

Babysitter - No. Never.

Me - That's so strange, because he always asks, not just us and his teachers but friends too.

Babysitter - (in a snarky tone) You know, I'm not one to tell someone how to raise their children (the audience laughs) but I know this woman who used to force her child to go on the potty and the child turned out strange.

Me - (aghast) Well, how can I be forcing him if he's asking to go?

Babysitter - (in disbelief) Oh, I wasn't saying YOU were forcing him.

Me - Well, it seems to me that if he's going at home, at school, and everywhere else, that it's simply a game he's started with YOU.

Babysitter - Oh.

Me - I'll show you how good he is. Captain (to the Captain)? Do you want to go to the potty.

CK - OK

Enter potty stage right

Me - Okay, Captain, where's the potty seat.

Babysitter - Oh, I don't have one.

The curtain falls.

Editors analysis - now, could it be that back in February when we started potty training and we took the time to go out and buy her a potty seat and dropped him off at her house with it, only to have her hand it right back to us with her exclaiming, "Oh, I don't need one I already have one," that she may have been...lying? And what's more, WHY?????? Is she so hung up on her old Italian ways of doing it her way that she can't for one second contemplate that an early potty trainer (under 2-1/2) might be a bit intimidated by the big bowl and if it doesn't mean any extra cleanup or drama that it couldn't hurt just to put him on the mother fucking seat?

Act II - Your child hits.

Our background for this blog entry is that every time the Babysitter wants to make me feel like a shitty parent she tells me that the Captain sometimes goes over and hits other kids and that she's never seen a child behave like that. He really should be put in a petri dish and studied.

Babysitter - The Captain sometimes goes over and hits other kids and I've never seen a child behave like that.

Me - Well, you've mentioned this before. Did you punish him?

Babysitter - Oh no. I won't do that. I'm just telling you so that you can take care of it at home.

Me - (defensively) Well, Babysitter, I'm not really sure what to tell you. You've mentioned this before and since I don't have other children around the house it's difficult to correct behavior that I'm not seeing. They correct him at school when it happens...

Babysitter - Well, obviously they're not doing a good job if he's still doing it (yes, apparently she believes it is their job to fix and not hers)!

Me - ...and he's no longer hitting at school because of it. And if I'm ever around it I correct it, but if you aren't going to punish him when it happens here I don't see what else you want me to do.

Babysitter - Well, I never would have told you I knew you were going to get upset.

Me - (raising my voice) You told me and I'm telling you what you should do. If he lashes out at another child he has to sit out and not play because playing is a privilege.

Babysitter - Well, I tried punishing him a couple of times in the beginning (Editors note - ummm...the beginning was 7 months ago) and it didn't work so I don't punish him.

(changing the topic)

So, Mediocre Mama, have you lost some weight?

Curtain Closes. The end.

This woman is killing me every time I see her. I feel like I'm running from the living dead when I see her (Editor's Note - Zombie movies rock, fyi), like if I let her speak one word to me she's going to suck my brain out.

3-1/2 more months. Holy crap I might not make it.

Blogophobic.

I seem to have developed a bizarre and inexplicable fear of my blog. I have some theories going as to why this is the case, mostly I'm thinking it's similar to someone who avoids going to their shrink for fear of opening a can of worms.

We've been pretty lucky with the Captain over the last month. The potty training sorted (though still problems with the crazy nanny on this front, blog for another date), he's been invited to participate in the next level at school, despite earlier fears, and his speech is coming along smashingly (earlier today he asked if I could do him a favor and when I asked what favor he would like he responded, "Um, purple."). So all that being said, why fear the blog?

I think I'm on such overload between physical therapy and work and healing (or lack thereof) that I just don't know where to start when I get here. It's hard to detail all your mediocrity when your day is oozing over with it. Perhaps if you take time to address it you have to do something to fix it. Hmm. It hasn't stopped me before.

Maybe it's that I was a shut in for so long that I don't want to bog myself down with emoting my every hilarious move of my life. Although that hasn't stopped me from spending way too much time on facebook so I dispose of this theory as well.

I don't know why I stare blankly at it. Maybe it's that fucking muse who checked out on me again. But all things considered, I'd ask you to hang in there with me. I sort of feel like I'm getting going on a diet (which is why I'm blogging this bullshit right now). Sometimes you just need to start doing it, whether it's good or not, until it becomes routine again. So forgive this boring entry. I'm working on it.

Mediocre Mediator

You know that something has gone wonky when you are blissfully enjoying a shower and hear the Dad yell upstairs, "The Captain's tricycle is going to good will!" Ah shit. Nothing can destroy a perfectly good Saturday quite like a proclamation that involves good will, sales to gypsies, something about underprivileged kids in Africa, or anything involving eBay. All made the worse by the fact that you have that terrible reminder that your Dad's words are falling out of your mouth. Intersperse with that the sound of wailing and screaming and the visual effect of your kid lying on the porch with his head in dirty crushed leaves and a somewhat ailing Mediocre Mama trying to hold everyone together in the background. Boom, now that's a weekend.

I tried to intervene and had him and the Dad calm for a good 10 minutes, only to have it explode in my face when the Kid threw a plate of slice up grilled cheese sandwich so that it landed butter side down on the table. Fortunately we put him down for a nap, a parent's ctrl-alt-delete button for kids, and upon waking up he was a new kid and has been all weekend.

I never understood why parents went all crazy when their kids had off from school. But holy underwear, with the Captain hold up at the babysitter's place all week and some less than forthcoming information about how he did from the sitter, I think I'm coming to appreciate the dilemma. He gets so messed up when school is off on holiday and the Dread Pirate Captain Kid seems to come out in full force. So much so that I'm pretty ready to sign on board with all these school advocates who want year-round schooling, having absolutely nothing to do with the quality of the Captain's education. In my book, "no child left behind" means putting safeguards in place (like a regular school day environment year-round) so that I'm not tempted to leave my child behind somewhere when he's being awful. Is it just me?

The boy who pooped.

Remember when the Captain took off his diaper and ran around the house creating skid marks wherever he went?

Or how about the time he pooped in the tub?

And then my personal favorite, the time he pooped in his crib and I did a bad cleanup job and walked around an expensive department store with it smeared all over my shirt? I heart my life.

Well today, despite the odds (he's had a case of the runs since Wednesday) Captain the Kid dropped it like it's hot and actually pooped in the right place, the potty, three times already today.

It all went down as such because we put him in underpants today with no diaper parachute. Shockingly he took to it like a pig in shit. How long can we keep this up? Dunno. And with the babysitter threatening to diaper him despite our wishes I'm not confident that this is the end of this subject.

But I guess I'll worry about all that later. For today it's stickers and cookies, celebrations in the street, and kisses a plenty for Captain Kid, the boy who pooped.

The Babysitter's Club

I somehow feel as though I've been knocked over the head with a club, dragged around by my hair, and thrown into a cave to watch the children while Fred Flintstone goes out to do the hunting. No, not by the Deviant Dad, but by the woman who watches the Captain in the afternoon, who clearly comes from the school of the man is responsible for earning the money, the mother is responsible for taking all blame related to the rearing of the child.

Truth be told, she comes from a different era, a very traditional Italian background and, well, a different political persuasion from myself. One day she complained to me that her aunt has a couple of "Spanish girls" caring for her and they don't speak any English and don't know CPR. When I suggested that her aunt pay to send the girls for a CPR course she exclaimed, "How can they learn CPR? They don't speak English!"

Anyway.

Perhaps it's this discord that creates friction. But you would think that I would be immune from friction or confrontation, given that I haven't been to her house since my back went out nearly 2 months ago. Yet, somehow she manages it.

Yesterday, after our flogging in the principal's office, the Deviant Dad dropped the Captain off for his afternoon care and made an inquiry to get an overview of his behavior at her house, a synopsis of how he spends his afternoons with her, and just a general yet more specific sense of how his day at her home looks. The point being, if we are to change his "behavior issues" we need to have everyone on board. She politely answered his questions and then proceeded to call me on my cell phone five minutes after he left. What I listened to was a 10 minute rant of defensiveness and indignation, not to mention a lecture on the nature of children and how they all hit and throw things from time to time. I politely tried to get off the phone twice as I was driving on the Beltway and finally told her that the Dad would call her back. He did and she gave him two minutes of lovely and all was well.

From where I'm sitting, my guess is that she has a crush on my husband and just won't confront him. That or it's that Neanderthal perspective on the mother-father/woman-man dynamic and who should be held accountable for transgressions and malfeasance. Boys will be boys. Oh, men. ;-)

I was fuming. And not just because I was once again getting the back of her hand while the Dad got the batting eyelashes.

And once I got beyond the anger, the bigger questions started popping up. What if she doesn't want to work with us on this? What are we going to do about the fact that she refuses to help with potty training? Actually, when we brought up potty training she exclaimed that it could be done in a day and suggested we go to Dr.Phil.com. (Anyway.) And then the even harder question...do I need to, once again, torture myself into finding him a new nanny? As I'm sure you remember from the Nannycide episode, going through a transition to another daycare situation is less than desirable. But if it's a matter of helping to curtail his behavior and working with his teachers, who I know have his best interest at heart, well...how can I not make a change?

One of the most difficult decisions parents have to make is who will care for their child. When you find someone you trust, someone you know who isn't a deviant or molester and who has a generally good nature, it becomes too easy to stay with what is comfortable.

Moreover, the Captain loves her. So in that sense, contemplating firing her feels a bit like if Florence Henderson thought about firing Alice. Only an overbearing bigoted Alice who can't imagine that CPR classes are also administered in Spanish.

Nannycide.

Many have suspected and, yes, I declare now that it is true...I have dropped off the face of the earth. In a working mother's universe of "something's gotta give" I selected the blog, at least for now. Truly, it was this or sleep and I'd sooner be declared a Mediocre Blogger than a Mediocre Driver when I haul ass an hour back and forth every morning and every afternoon.

As much as I want to curl up under my sofa and not address the Nannycide, a good friend pointed out that I should do it for posterity, lest I decide to forget or block it out. So here goes.

As it turns out, I didn't have Mary Poppins watching my kid, it was more like Mary Shelley. After only one week of service I started to become suspicious. I walked in the door after 6 to find a stack of dishes in the sink and hardly a noticeable trace of activities she engaged in with the Captain. So I did what any suspicious mother would do and checked her internet history. Yes, I felt like the Mom from The Nanny Diaries and was mortified by my own distrust. But naturally it was all well founded. After only one week, she'd decided to use my computer to solicit new jobs, saying that she'd been nannying for a 2 year old but that was about to change. When the Dad got home he used his hacker-like abilities and discovered a string of e-mails she sent in support of her craigslist ads.

Though our first instinct was to call her out and blast her then and there, our more pressing concern was that we had absolutely no replacement for her and we were just stuck. What was worse was that we knew if we confronted her with our findings that we'd have to explain the e-mail sleuthing and then we'd really be up shits creak. We resolved to find someone quickly and quietly so that we could drop her asap.

As it turns out, Frankentrash did us a big favor. She called out sick the next two days, thus throwing up into nanny-hunt overdrive. Long story short, we found an in-home daycare person with all the inconvenience of location you could hope for, but with a long list of references and immediate availability. But it was only Wednesday and we were set, meaning that we could boot her the next day. Now the fun began.

I should back up and mention in all of this that Frankenbitch kept making fake overtures about wanting to engage Captain Kid in a "sensory learning activity plan" and that she would need supplies to start this bad boy up. For sure, there's nothing more amusing than when uneducated stupid people try to use big words to deflect from the fact that they are fucking you over. So I played along. What did she have in mind? What would she need to buy? She even told me of her plans to sit in on the Captain's Montessori class to observe so that she could be better prepared to play with him in a meaningful way.

All the while, the craigslist ads kept going up. Now it's Wednesday and she's advertising for the hours that she watches Captain Kid.

So I did what any savvy internet user would do...I created a fake hotmail account to solicit her services. Not only did I create a whole fake persona I used small words, misspelled words and let's just say that I forgot to capitalize all around.

And not only did she take the bait, she told me of her availability starting November 9th and how she'd just given notice to her current family.

And naturally this is how I discovered when she planned her last day of work. I followed up with another e-mail saying I was interested; could she please send me a list of references, including the current family she nannies for.

So now (and if I haven't lost you yet) this is where the story gets complicated. Simultaneous with sending the fake hotmail e-mails, I contact her through AIM. I ask how she and her poor baby are feeling and she tells me much better. I ask her to please bring back the little riding toy I loaned her so that I could bring it to New York the following weekend. I verified that she was feeling well enough to watch Captain Kid the next day. No mention is made of her giving notice. By all measure, she sounded positively pleased about returning to work.

Suddenly, I notice an e-mail arrives in my inbox from her. She says she's giving her notice, that she has found another position that would work much better for her at this time, and that she has truly enjoyed the time she has spent with Captain Kid (yes, if you were doing the math, 1 week). I promptly log off of AIM, sit down and write the following note:

Hi, Felicia!

Sorry the house isn't cleaner (it was a crazy couple of days without you). If you could load the dishwasher and run the laundry that would be great. Also, we'd like to know what you have in mind for these "sensory games/play" you have in mind. A budget would be great too.

I'm in meetings all afternoon tomorrow, so txt me if you need anything.

-A

PS - Sorry there's no computer today. We packed it up last night to send to Dell for keyboard replacement.

PPS - So Glad everyone is feeling better!

My reasons for the note were threefold.

1. I did not want this little witch knowing that I knew she gave notice. My desire was to make it as uncomfortable as possible when we walked in the door to fire her ass;
2. Since she had an e-mail sitting there from chicchica81@hotmail.com requesting the details of her current employer, my feeling was that I could get a good bit of housework out of her; and most importantly
3. I had to do the hardest thing imaginable the next day and leave Captain Kid in her care. I had no option - we needed to get his car seat back and, more importantly, our key. My feeling was that if she even got a whiff of discontent from me that she could take it out on him. I needed her to think that she had a lot to lose by being a bitch. And that is exactly how it went down...

On Thursday, after she picked him up from school, I called the front office to let them know that she was never to be seen setting foot near my son after this day. His teacher was in on it too. At 5:30 pm that night, Deviant Dad and I met up at a local parking lot so that we could walk in the door together. Our first order of business was to find out how the Captain did that day. Our next order of business was to get our things back and throw her ass out the door. I now offer, unedited, a transcript (or as close to it as my brain can recall):

Deviant Dad - How did he do today?

Felicia Miller - He did fine. Ate pizza, napped for 2 hours. Sorry, but I really have to be running to my next job (EDITORS NOTE - NO, SHE DIDN'T RESIGN TO US AT THIS TIME, EVEN THOUGH SHE BELIEVED WE'D NEVER SEEN HER E-MAIL AS EVIDENCED BY A NOTE SHE SCRATCHED OUT TO US SAYING AS MUCH).

Mediocre Mama - Great, well, we'd like your key back, the name tag to pick him up, the car seat and the riding toy, and we'd like you to never come back again.

FM - Ummm, okay.

MM - Felicia, we're not stupid. We've known what you've been up to since Monday. And the fact that you could even pretend to my face that you were creating some curriculum and planning to go to his school is just incredible.

FM - No wait, I was only just offered a job yesterday.

MM - That's because you've been soliciting jobs from my computer since MONDAY!!!

I ask for the things back and she confesses that she neglected to bring his riding toy. I said, fine, you bought it and deduct $30 out of her two days pay for the week.

DD - The fact that you lasted with us as short a time as you did is just unacceptable.

MM - Felicia, you've got a lot of growing up to do.

The Dad escorts her out to the car, gets our belongings and out she goes, both dazed and/or confused. Nary a craigslist ad has been posted since.

It's hard to say which is the biggest lesson we learned. Clearly, never trust a Sicilian when death is on the line, but we already knew that. Naturally we'll be more careful in the future blah blah blah. But the bottom line is you never know. And the truth is that many nannies shop around new jobs as though they're hopping from Wendy's to McDonald's. I wish I could say that Felicia learned something from us, but the truth is that all she learned is to use a blackberry to solicit jobs instead of your employers computer.

What it did show me is how decidedly non-mediocre I can be when someone tries to fuck with my kid. It also showed me that as much of a cynic as I am, I am decidedly too hopeful and trusting in my belief that others have intentions as good as my own.

I did a lot of babysitting as a teenager and was consistently told after I left that world that they didn't know how good they had it until I left. Maybe in my mind it was hard to believe that another young woman, in particular, a mother, could have intentions that were less than honorable. Or maybe I just thought, hey, she's a mom...she wouldn't fuck over another mom.

So I thank Felicia Miller for teaching me something. She taught me that under the proper circumstances, I too am capable of fucking over another mother.

Captain Kid now has reliable daycare. And though not ideal, it will do. For now, being a working mom is stable and the job is going well. So, with apologies, hopefully I can get back to doing what I do best here. Making myself look like an ass for the entertainment of others. Thanks for hanging in there with me.

How Mama got her groove back.

It's amazing how you can watch your own sanity slowly dissolve to the size of a pea when you live abroad, have no family to assist you and have a husband who's worked 30 days straight without a weekend. The simplest errand, the most mundane of activities that you count on suddenly come saddled with a 2-1/2 foot noisemaker, batteries included, some assembly required. And since the Captain is clearly cruising on the path to ADHD, I cannot count on him to sit still for a chiropractor appointment, a haircut or even a simple cup of cafe con leche with a friend. It is for this reason that I took decisive action last week while hanging out at the park.

A young and very fit young woman who clearly had never given birth in her life was playing with a little boy, probably a month or so younger than the Captain. From her New Zealand flag tattoo I decided she was an English speaker. From there, I started feeling her out. How long has she been a nanny? How much work does she have? What day is she free? Whoop, there it is.

So today, for the first time in months, I got out for 2-1/2 precious hours all by myself. I decided to trim the bird's nest on my head and even sprang for the half hour leave in treatment. I have no idea what was in it, but dang if it didn't seep into my head and relax my brain as well as my hair. All-in-all, a very fine day for the Mediocre Mama.

The only pill that was a tad hard to swallow was watching my 56 euro haircut go to 76 euros once I'd paid the babysitter. I also realized all the hidden costs of the leave in treatment as I got tabbed for a hair washing, twice. Leave it to me to get hit with hidden fees like a typical stupid American. Frankly, I didn't care. When you are overworked on motherhood, it's funny how your brain forgets how to do new math the minute someone brings a little relaxation on a silver tray.

No good time goes unpunished...

Apparently the Captain had some rather strong opinions about my leaving him with the babysitter all day, because boy did I get an earful. Here's how my evening unfolded...

• Arrived home at 7:30 to poopy pail. Shove babysitter out the door and the fun begins.
• Chased the Captain (who apparently spent his entire day snacking on sugar cubes, espresso and redbull) round the apartment, let him lock me in a closet, watched the meltdown building...
• 8:15, the meltown begins (Insert crying, kicking, screaming here).
• 8:30, put the Captain down for a quickie nap in hopes for a dinner out when Deviant Dad came home. Enjoyed a quick episode of Sex and the City and the first 20 minutes of Charmed.
• 9:15, Deviant wakes up the Captain to go to dinner and the meltdown continues. I send Deviant out with his sister for dinner.
• 9:30, attempt to feed the Captain some oatmeal, which he rebuffs.
• 10:30, after pacing, begging, tv-watching and bribery, realize I'm beat. Put Captain back down for the night, no supper in his tummy and curl up on the sofa in the fetal position awaiting the return of Deviant and SIL with my sushi.

Does this mean that I'm doomed to a life of buy now, pay for it afterwards with my child? I contemplated the pattern and it would seem that every time I get a babysitter there's a wake up in the middle of the night/meltdown scenario after the fact. It made me think that, although only 18-months, maybe the Captain is already making his gripe list and plotting his revenge. I ought to know - Deviant wrote his gripe list years ago.

Flashback to an evening, oh, maybe nearly 10 years ago. Deviant and I decided to shack up after college, much to the MIL's chagrin. She made us sleep in separate rooms when we visited and Deviant started on a rant about all the ways his parents wronged him growing up; and thus, the gripe list was born. It was long and to be sure I can't recall it all, but here's the shorthand on Deviant's upbringing:

• Until he was 10, they fed him carob and told him it was chocolate;
• They took him to Disneyland and told him he didn't need to see Disneyworld because it was "the same thing;"
• They fed him Blackstrap Molasses mixed with milk and told him it was chocolate milk;
• When his sister was small and whacked him in the face with one of those old metal seat belt on purpose (she admits), breaking his tooth in the process, they figured he'd done something to provoke her and took her out for ice cream;
• They gave him wheat germ;
• His Mom had a Buckaroo Kids small soft drink coupon for Roy Rogers. She changed the expiration date and used it until he was 16;
• I want my MT-wha? No cable until he was 22;
• For his birthday one year, his parents took him and some friends to see All of Me (a PG rated Steve Martin movie) for his 9th birthday. When they got to the scene where he spanks Victoria Tennant, she removed Mat and all his friends from the theater and left before it was over; and
• She also made him watch Yentl. Twice. When he walked out of the theater the first time because he hated it, she made him go see it again.

Ah, don't worry. We love the MIL and FIL to pieces. But it just goes to show you how a few bad choices could turn into a list you'll pay for the rest of your life. Oh, and just to give my parents fair play:

• They hired Mrs. Savoy to watch me while they worked. I probably could post a whole section on this, but for now, lets just say this: Lunch Lady;
• Knee patches;
• My boy hair cut that they told me was the Dorothy Hammil look. Check out my photo on the side and you tell me...;
• The Volcano project. Alright, repeat after me. A spray painted towel stapled to a board does NOT resemble a volcano;
• Sleep away camp; and
• After years of begging for a dog they finally break down and get one...for my sister.

Alright, better get the Captain to the park before he adds another one to his list...

Babysitting Bonanza

One of the fabulous things about being a Mediocre Mama is that you don't get too bunched when you're mediocre babysitter screws up. I grant you, I'm currently living in Spain, thousands of miles from grandparents or friends you can grub off of for a few peaceful hours, so I am truly not that picky. She speaks English, she gets herself to my apartment. Beyond that I really don't need much more. But after another day of babysitting foul ups I thought it proper to share some of the better ones.

First, in the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that when I was a teenager I managed to close a toddlers finger in a door while I was sitting. The finger made it and she's currently a 16 year old young woman, enjoying the many benefits of 10 fingers.

Alright, I've purged. Now onto my babysitter. Just so you know, despite all this I still think she's great. But it's funny how desperation for an outing reduces your standards just a little bit. He always comes out in one piece and I suppose I can't complain too hard, but I just figure I'd let you know what you get for 8 Euros an hour in Spain:

1. One night she put him to bed with his feety pajamas over his shoes;

2. On one particular occasion she left the side of the crib down and he did the big jump (I forgive this one, however, because I had that thought...hmmm, must check on side of the crib...instead passed out and woke to a thud);

3. One night he woke up at 2 am, literally in a puddle. This was the day that I learned what that Huggies blue liquid leak capacity is;

4. 2 weeks ago she put his rock-n-roll Ernie doll in the crib with him. I cannot tell you how jarring it is to wake up at 3 am after a lot of wine and a limoncello to "Splish Splash I was taking a bath"; and

5. Today, as well as every other time, she managed to put his stinky diaper in the wrong pail. I totally understand forgetting which pail to use. But what I don't get is that she is unaware of the odor. I mean, honestly, my house doesn't smell like shit when she walks in. It's just odd to me that she doesn't go, hmm weird...it smells like shit every time I leave here.

Anyway, at least it gets me out of the house...