"Tee-tee in the pot-tee"

Go Dynamo!

This is your kid. This is your kid on Nickelodeon.

Two peas in a pod

Unbearable Whining

"Is there anything that you can think of that you need for our trip to St. John? I am going this afternoon to pick up a few things. That is, after I go get a muzzle for Carsten."

"He could still make that noise with a muzzle on."

"What if we shoved a sock in his mouth before putting the muzzle on?"

"He would still be able to do it."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"Damn."

Name that body part

Carsten is in this stage, and has been for a while now, where he wants you to name EVERYTHING... a million times. He points to something and looks at you as if to say, "What's this?" After you name it, he repeats the whole routine about 10 times... just to make sure he has a good handle on what it is. He is running out of obvious things to point at, so he points at the most random things... like a pot hole in the street that is filled with black tar... or the little strips of wood in the sidewalk or driveway... or the top of the lid to some water pipe in the sidewalk that is painted blue... What the hell??!! I don't even know what to call these things.

For a while now... like since he was in the womb (we have pictures to prove it) he has been very interested in his penis. Duh, he is a man after all. This kind of thing is in the genes. If he is naked his hand is almost constantly pulling, tugging, or squeezing it. Danyel and I are always worried that he is so rough with it that he is going to do permanent damage. Last week he started pointing at it. He finally realized that his favorite play thing probably has a name, too. We decided to call it a "Pee-pee"... cute, yet accurate enough. The pee-pee has become worthy of the double point... both hands angled down towards it pointing while he looks at us in anticipation waiting for us to say "Pee-pee".

This weekend he was into the body part naming game... the nose, eyes, ears, mouth, and of course, the pee-pee. He gets so excited waiting for me to ask "Where's your pee-pee?" that most of the time he just skips over all the other parts and goes straight for the good stuff. "Screw all the boring stuff guys! Look! Here's my johnson!"

Always too opinionated

There is a particular blog that I have been reading for a while now. It is not terribly interesting, but just something that I skim over for mild entertainment when bored. This morning after reading yet another post about her bad marriage that she is supposedly working on, I felt compelled to comment. I NEVER comment on strangers blogs, NEVER. 75% of her blog entries revolve around the topic that her marriage sucks and that her husband is a you-know-what. She takes husband bashing to a whole new level. Feel free to read for yourself... (rockstarmommy.com). Really, I didn't expect my comment to make waves... I just thought I would leave a little piece of advice that she would probably just read over and think "another crazy reader..." Shockingly, not 15 minutes after my comment was posted, she posted a reply comment in her defense. After reading her comment, I felt a little guilty. Obviously, it made a pretty big impression on her. I have never seen her reply to any of her comments. What if I made her feel bad? What if her day is ruined by my advice? But, then again, what if she took some of it to heart and it will help. Who knows. Really, who cares? I don't even know this person! Anyways, now all these people are leaving comments after her entry today damning me and my advice. I am hated and it feels good. :-)

I should really get a life.

Here's my comment and her reply.

I am not saying this to be mean, just a helpful piece of advice...

Maybe if you quit focusing on the negative and tried to be more positive about working on your relationship, it might actually work. I think it shows a lot of disrespect for your husband to continuously bash him on your website. I have a blog as well and no matter how angry my husband makes me, I NEVER advertise it to the world. My marriage is more sacred than that. How does it make him feel to continuously read all the banter about himself? I bet your therapist would agree that it is NOT helping the situation. I admit, it is entertaining, but at what expense?? I don't know the reasons behind your relationship troubles, but if you have committed to work on it together, I don't think that you are honoring that... even if the base of the problems are his fault. If you agree to work on things, you have to give it 100%. Otherwise, you are cheating yourself, Ty, and your relationship. Your anger deserves an outlet, but maybe a more private one... a friend or therapist, perhaps.

Sorry to impose... just thought I would offer my two cents of advice. Maybe it is not welcome, but I keep reading other people's comments who seem to praise you for Ty-bashing or make light of the situation and I think that that is irresponsible.

Cara,
I hear you. You're probably right. But, in my defense there, I have bashed myself continually about it also and fully admitted that I've got a ton of flaws, too. Not that it's productive in any way. It's really just more of an outlet than anything. I also posted on a pretty recent entry that posting all this negativity IS WRONG and that it's not helping things progress in any way and I do believe that.

I like being honest on here and I receive a lot of email from people thanking me who can relate, including men. I understand, though, when people don't really understand what I'm saying. I handle everything in my life with humor and sarcasm and that's not always embraced and it's definitely not the best way to handle everything either. But, that's just who I am.

I love my husband but we are going through a really rough time right now and when I decided to start talking about it on my site, I knew it wouldn't be the most popular of topics. But I think it's good, in a way, to show that we ARE working on things, but just because we decided "hey, let's work on this..." that it doesn't just magically get better.

Sometimes we move forward, but a lot of times we take 3 steps forward, 10 steps back. But I think that's normal and I'm not ashamed in any way to admit to that. I look forward to being able to write about taking 10 steps forward, no steps back.

But, I do get what you're saying about the negativity. But, like I said, it's just the way I handle shit. Which doesn't make it right.