Posts Tagged ‘drunkenness’

i have yet to have “the spirit of christmas” enter my household. well, i did… until i found ADULT SIZED FEETIES!!! i haven’t been one to really decorate, put up a wreath, mini santas, reindeer pillows, snowman dish towels, etc.

confession: i have never bought a christmas tree.

… BUT I HAVE FEETIES!!!

of the 5+ years that paul and i have been married, our first christmas as a married couple was spent in texas at a family wedding. paul was deployed for christmases 2 and 3, so i kinda boycotted those christmases, hiding out in atlanta and spending “non-christmas” #2 drunk and then “non-christmas” #3 pregnant with the magoo.

our fourth christmas as a married couple was spent with a 6 month old magoo at my folk’s with paul actually in the states to celebrate with us!!! we were mid-move from jacksonville to annapolis and had moved in with my parents for a few weeks over the holidays with all of our belongings that could fit into paul’s tahoe and my VW hatchback, plus a baby and our 85 lb labrador.

… AHHH, THE FEETIES!!!

in my defense, i’ve really had no reason to get all decorated and holiday-ish, etc. and those two years that paul was gone, i scoffed at everyone who did get in the holiday spirit. i was the female scrooge and owned it. i even refused to receive a mini christmas tree from friends of our’s who send them each year, and requested a bouquet of fantastically exotic flowers instead (that arrived in a candy-cane stripped vase).

so here we are, on the 7th of december (happy 4th birthday sweet lily mae. or, i should say bon anniversaire, since you are now in france), and i’m READY to get my christmas on!!!

and yes, we’re spending it in atlanta, once again. this time we will be at my in-law’s place, which i am so stoked about for my husband because he has not spent a christmas at his parent’s home since we’ve been married. so we don’t NEED to decorate our apartment.

we won’t be here. this place is small. we have no space for a tree, unless it’s a table-top one. we don’t have many christmas decorations because i trashed the majority of them for the two christmases paul was deployed (no, i wasn’t bitter or angry).

but… we got our first snow over the weekend (i would attach a picture, but by the time i got around to getting my camera outside it was practically melted)… i have a cold that i am combatting fiercely with nyquil, dayquil, and the washing of bed sheets to rid myself of germies.

most importantly… I HAVE FEETIES!!!

so, i’m ready. these feeties of mine even have pockets, which ALMOST gets me beyond the fact that there’s no trap-door for pottying purposes, but i guess ya can’t have it all. there is a VERY strong possibility that i will spend the next 3 weeks in these feeties, with my beautiful boy in his own, having feeties parties and even decorating a bit. (shhh!!! don’t tell!!!)

come christmas in atlanta with my family and my in-laws, i will be wearing these feeties (if i have not already worn them out) while sipping egg nog and reading bedtime stories to my son who thinks that santa is “daddy” because santa wears a hat and daddy wears a hat to work every day.

now, if you’ll excuse me, i have to go take more dayquil and disinfect my apartment in my feeties.

ps: you can find said feeties at target. and yes, i am looking for a set of feeties for my 6’6″ husband. santa may have to help me out with that one.

yup… “sober drunks”… as much of an oxymoron as “woman-hating-feminist.” this will be our lesson for today.

feel free to close this window and open your browser to another site if you’re already finding yourself disturbed. no offense taken here, trust me.

***disclaimer*** i’m not one who typically uses my website as a place to preach or step up on a soap box and address a reasonably large issue. this is my place where i share things about me, my life, my family, and our experiences… oh yeah, and wine (i’ll get more into that in a moment.) i am most definitely not one you will find writing about how one “should or shouldn’t” raise their child, because christ almighty, if there’s one thing i’ve learned since becoming a mother it is this… what works for one family may not necessarily work for another. whatever you (as a mother, in this case) need to do to get through your day to care for and protect your children and yourself is your business and your’s alone.

that being said, there are plenty of websites and blogs out there with different agendas, some with hidden agendas (google them yourselves, i’m too lazy to link you too them all.)

one particular site, more specifically one particular post from this site has had me reeling for days now. and since this is my place, i’ve chosen to address it here.

i’m not a big name blogger. i’m not anticipating being deluged with the hate mail that some of my friends receive. but i am a voice. and i can’t not say something.

i’m disheartened at the moment with regards to blogging… and it’s really getting under my skin. this weekend, i found myself knocking on the door of complete pissed-offed-ness with regards to the hate that spews out of some people’s fingers as they type. what bothers me the most is that these people are women… women judging other women, women blaming other women, and women accusing other women…

diane schueler aside (i’m not touching that one with a 10 foot pole), women such as stefanie wilder-taylor (with whom i happen to correspond regarding our children and their feeding issues) has become a household name; but not because of her remarkable writing and successfully published books, not because of her own personal endeavors and life circumstances she lived through and has overcome, not because of her being a pioneer as a mother of three while juggling everything i just mentioned… but because she has made a personal choice to lay off the sauce.

whether the stars aligned when both stories hit the newspapers or not, both have been scrutinized in a way that saddens me as a woman and a mother. i applaud wilder-taylor, she knows i adore her, respect and admire her. and i cannot imagine what her day-to-day must be like… in the same way that she cannot imagine mine, nor can becky sharper who wrote (what i consider to be) this piece of garbage, equating alcoholism with anti-feminism.

sharper writes, “This kind of ignorant glorification of heavy drinking as a quasi-feminist, liberated act crops up in the mommy blogosphere too, including blogs like mommywantsvodka.”

that sentence in itself is ignorance at its best, and took me to my currently heated state of pissed-offed-ness, not only because i consider becky, author of mommywantsvodka, a friend, but because it just doesn’t make sense… “ignorant glorification of heavy drinking as a quasi-feminist???” quite honestly, as a woman… as a proud feminist myself, i’m offended by the grotesque judgment in this statement.

i have been publicly blogging for a short amount of time (less than 1 year even) yet within that amount of time, the community that i am a part of, have witnessed, befriended and embraced in the blogosphere is one that i’m proud of.

i think it’s fair to say that most bloggers, male and female alike, have found some sense of community as a result of their blogging. c’mon, people who share commonalities will most likely hang out, whether it be in real life, on twitter, or through commenting on writer’s blogs.

and yes, the masthead of my own website with a cartooned version of me holding a baby bottle in one hand and a glass of wine in the other has linked me to other moms i now consider to be dear friends… (some of them drink, some of them don’t but shh, don’t tell.) the fact that i have a “wine of the week” posted at the top of my link bar has connected me with people (who drink and who don’t but want to bring a bottle of wine to a friend as a house-warming gift… *gasp*).

you, sharper, have sadly succumbed to what the media wants right now… creating something out of nothing. only you have done so under the guise of being a feminist, which sickens me.

women and drinking… men and drinking… DUIs… alcohol and anti-feminism are two entirely separate entities, yet you argue that “because of the injustices and expectations of our patriarchial society, women are more likely than men to be stressed, depressed, in pain, etc. Society just wants us to pretend it’s not happening, the way they want us to ignore so many of the ugly realities forced upon women. If there’s any outrage here, it’s the outrage women should feel about the chauvinist image of mothers as household saints who couldn’t possibly be tempted by demon liquor, or the even more chauvinist (and sadistic) idea that a woman’s lot is inevitably going to be hard, so she should suck it up and suffer instead of seeking comfort in the bottle.”

once i finished laughing at the above quote, my husband and i began to candidly discuss this and he brought up a good point with regards to freedom of speech… he referred to the following analogy, “you can walk around and swing your arms all you want, but then you hit somebody… and it’s a different story.” but people like this (sharper)… see people swinging their arms, walk up, get hit… and then say “YOU JUST HIT ME!”

i couldn’t agree more with my husband. not only did sharper run into people swinging their arms, but did two things that disgust me… 1) created something out of nothing and 2) expressed ugliness towards women though referring to yourself as a feminist.

so before writing my own response to all of this, i went back to my own feminist roots… to betty. i honestly thought to myself “what would betty do?” (to answer, she would NOT have made a WWBD bracelet.)

in betty friedan’s The Feminine Mystique she writes (in reference to women’s magazine stories profiling the conventional), “And this New Woman, less fluffily feminine, so independent and determined to find a new life of her own, was the heroine of a different kind of love story. She was less aggressive in pursuit of a man. Her passionate involvement with the world, her own sense of herself as an individual, her self-reliance, gave a different flavor to her relationship with the man.”

“different” sharper… not better or worse… not him vs her… “different.”

a commenter by the name of ashley (you can find her blog here) posted the following, “Why not support other women in a positive fashion, by offering sincere commentary and offering to help when you see there is a problem? There are so many other ways human beings (and I’m not even going to dip into the feminism pool) can support and encourage one another. Instead, you chose – in this post, anyhow – to be vicious and negative.”

so with that… to ashley… to becky (mommywantsvodka NOT sharper)… to stef… i raise a glass to each of you, for finding what works for you as mothers, as women.

the following conversation took place in our bathroom this morning.  i was blow-drying my hair, paul was in the shower…

me: so i’m thinking of doing this week’s “wine of the week” as a beer cuz of the yummy dessert beer we had the other night.

paul: uh huh… (tone is entirely uninterested in what i have to say)

me: but i feel like i’m betraying my own kind, ya know, going from wine to beer…

paul: well, not really because your site is “My Bottle’s Up!” but you don’t specify which bottle. (tone sounds slightly more interested cuz now we’re talking his territory…  BEER.)

me: yeah, but this would be in my “wine of the week” section, like the sidebar, with all the other wines i’ve posted about.  i just feel bad, ya know?

paul: there is beer that is called wine…  seriously, it’s called “barley wine” and it’s a type of beer.

i stop my hair-dryer, roll my eyes dramatically at him since he can’t see me through the shower curtain and think to myself “ok smart-ass.”

me: ok, so how about we do this instead…  i’ll just write a post about the yummy dessert beer.  you can write it with me.  it’ll be fun.

paul: it’s not “yummy dessert beer,” it’s “stone imperial russian stout.”

(as if i should know this, like been taught it when i was taught my times tables in 3rd grade.)

paul: for the record, good beer is not something you buy in a case, or has the word “light” in it.

me: uh…  ok, so about the post…

paul: i’ll have to do my research and we can work on it while we drink the stone imperial russian stout tonight.

me: that works.

******

so take a looksie to the right, scroll on down, and check out this week’s “wine” of the week…

my appropriately titled post “something happened” comes from one of my many fantastic college roommates (you can stalk her here.)  she slightly harassed politely asked me to post about certain evenings of debauchery events that took place throughout the course of this past weekend.  i will refer to my roommie as “special c” and her hub as “special g” seeing as paul and i stayed at their home.  (ps- thanks again for your hospitality and abundance of hangover food.)

**********

once upon a time, special c and i lived in a house with a total of 7 (i think, somewhere i lost count) girls/women… some of us finishing our undergrad, some of us starting grad school, some of us just plain ol’ not wanting to leave our happy home that we had come to know and love.  (and yes, there was waaaaaay too much estrogen in this house.)

during the two years i lived in this house, as both a college and then graduate student, i spent many-a-night intoxicated.  those of us living in this house worked tirelessly throughout not only every semester, but through summers to accomplish the goals we had set for ourselves.  and dammit, some times (ok many times) we needed a bit of a reprieve in the form of “the wineses” (no, not just “the wines”…. but….  ”the winesES”.)

occasionally after nights that included the wineses, special c would emerge from her bedroom the following morning, slowly creep into the living room of our house (where a few of us would be laying on couches/each other with bags of devoured food from krystal) and say the following… “something happened.”  she would then proceed to the bathroom in search of tylenol.

all of us would bust into uncontrollable (yet painful due to our hangover) laughter and nod our heads in agreement.  and thus came the birth of the post-drunk night phrase “something happened.”

**********

lots of “somethings happened” over the last 3-4 days…  aside from hosting this amazing madness, with this amazing woman, i traveled yet again.

paul and i had a wedding to attend in birmingham for another one of my college roommates.  you will find her in all her spectacular wedding glory below…

we left early friday morning, after i had kicked off Blogher@Home thursday evening with a BANG, resulting in a really lousy hangover, which made for not so fun early morning travels.  my mom met paul, the magoo, and i in the atlanta airport where the magoo was transfered to said grammy, and paul and i took a car and drove to birmingham.

i slept off my hangover the entire 2 and a half hours in preparation for the rehearsal dinner we attended friday evening.  friends of mine have more appropriate pics from the rehearsal dinner than i do, so i will refrain from posting mine and wait until they have emailed me theirs to share with you all.  (sorry to disappoint.)

saturday morning, i was lucky enough to join the bride and maids in a candid photo shoot as she dressed, stressed, and prepared herself for her wedding day…

i guess it should be noted here that i chose not to take photos of the actual ceremony.  the sanctuary was so beautiful, the ceremony was so personal…  it just didn’t feel right for me to photograph that.  so…  on to the reception, which was held at a magnificent (but friggin hot) art gallery that refused to turn their ceiling fans on, so brace yourself for some sweaty photos…

some peeps and me (rockin out the boob-ige... yikes!)

(umm… ok, so apparently my bewbies decided to start peeling from the cruise i had been on the previous week.  dumb ass me decided to “cover up” said peel with tanning lotion.  so please don’t think i have some strange skin disease…  i just suffered from momentary dipshitness.)

wedding cake (which was entirely devoured)

me and a roomie, miss L

miss L and my hub bub (lookin mighty fine!)

special c and special g (our hosts for the wknd)

so special c and i look naked, what else is new?

my dance with the bride

paul was REALLY excited about playing with fire...

so he lit mine...

YEA BABY!!!

yes, special c, something in deed happened.

***in other news, since i was semi-working this weekend on Blogher@Home, pop on over there for some awesome info and see who won in the giveaways.***

i’m writing this post on Delta flight 1759, sitting in seat 24 A, next to my brother, brian (obviously seated in 24 B).  that’s right…  32,000 feet in the air, and definitely worth the $10 to obtain internet access, in my opinion.  this may perhaps be the smartest $10 purchase i make during this trip. *har har har*

and so we’re off…  from atlanta…  to miami, at which point we will board royal carribean’s majesty of the seas and spend the next 5 days island hopping through the bahamas, jet skiing, snorkeling, and enjoying a catamaran boat ride.  all of this gloriousness is in celebration of my kick-ass brother and this…

so yeah, b and i are off to the islands “yea mon,” to celebrate his overall awesomeness and completion of college.  (incase you’re wondering, he graduated with a bachelor’s degree in business administration with a concentration in risk management from the terry business school.

(anyone with full-time job opportunities for a stud like him, lemme know!)

over the next 5 days, while the magoo gets spoiled by his grandparents, b and i will island hop from nassau, to coco cay, to key west, and then back to miami on friday.  we plan to tan.  we plan to celebrate.  we plan to make memories.

(i, being magoo-less for 5 days, plan on sleeping…  A LOT, and waking up occasionally for an umbrella drink).

the magoo didn’t quite know what to think of b and i this morning…  our childlike joy…  our dancing around the kitchen…  our island accents…  and the suitcases.  he was a bit confused.

dudes, i’m stoked.  5 days with my bro…  just what i need…  just what i want.

life doesn’t get much better than that.

i failed my son today.  he fell out of a playhouse outside on the playground, and i didn’t catch him.  i was looking the other direction, talking to a friend… and for the briefest of seconds, i looked away.  and he fell.

on his head.

he’s 14 months and climbing everything he can possibly attempt to climb whether it’s the couch or the gate we have up to keep him out of the kitchen.  he climbs it all.  and today, when i wasn’t looking, he climbed out of the foot-and-a-half-tall window of one of those stupid-ass plastic fisher-price playhouses and fell on his head and onto a concrete curb.

other moms were there…  other kids…  it was embarrassing to be “that mom” with the injured child who was screaming at the top of his lungs, to the point of not breathing.  but for me, being embarrassed, was the farthest thing from my mind.

my son was hurt.

my heart stopped.

i scooped him up, fighting back tears myself, and soothed my son.  after about a minute and a half, he calmed down.  he was quiet, a little more so than usual.  but ok…  i guess.  after consulting some terrific mom-friends who were outside with me, i brought jackson inside, cleaned the scrape that was on his head and called paul at work.

he was coming home for lunch anyways, but the urgency in my voice brought him home that much faster.

we took jackson to the ER… (for the umpteenth time).  i was on the phone with jackson’s pediatric nurse (and on hold) as we drove to the ER with the magoo.  they went through head-trauma protocol with me over the phone…

“is he unconscious?”

“no.”

“is he vomiting?”

“no.”

“did he cry for longer than 20 minutes after the fall?”

“no. more like 20 seconds.”

“is there an active bleed.”

“well yeah, but it’s more of a scrape than an open wound.”

“ok… bring him to the ER and have him looked at really just to make you feel better, and follow up with Dr. ____ next week.”

“ok.”

so we park.  paul and i are silent.  i’m holding jackson as close to my body as possible (like that will do anything).  we go through triage, get his umpteenth ankle band for his hospital ID and wait.  we don’t wait for long because with a little one who has a head injury, i guess that puts you up at the top of the list.

BONUS!

the nurse was sweet…  a little too sweet.  i didn’t want her cooing at my son, trying to get him to smile.  i wanted her to do her job, get the info she needed, and pass it on to the dr.  LIKE RIGHT NOW.  but whatever, she had a good bedside manner i suppose.

while we wait, jackson acts just like the pistol that he is…  he crawls all over the hospital bed… pulls the sheet off and on… “vroom vrooms” his trucks all over it and then throws them on the floor.  he acts “fine,” seems “fine,” but…  in the back of my mind…  i know that sometimes things that seem fine are not fine.

so i’m scared.  and i twitter about it as we wait…

the response is overwhelming, and it really is a testament to the awesome community that exists out in this techy-world of our’s that we live in.  strangers friends message me stories of their kids… acknowledging my fears but comforting me at the same time… the tweets got me through the ER.  so THANK YOU.  from the bottom of my heart.  you know who you are.

the doctor was great.  he was prompt, personable, acknowledged the fact that i was ready to vomit on his shoes… totally sweet.  he thoroughly examined jackson and diagnosed him with a “closed head injury” basically meaning there was no internal bleeding.

apparently it’s a good sign if your kid develops a goose-egg post head fall.  it means all the blood vessels are moving towards the outer direction (obviously causing a bruise) and not inward.  he checked his eyes, ears, etc…  no broken bones, no internal bleeding and told us that he really did not want to subject jackson to the radiation involved in a cat-scan because he didn’t find it necessary to do so.

((((sigh))))

this is where i waver back and forth… and i imagine any mother would.  there was part of me that said, “are you kidding me?!  did you not see natasha richardson die post brain bleed?!”  and then there was part of me that saw this doctor as a father, and listened to him as he said, “my daughter had this same exact closed head injury and it’s ok.  this hurts you more than it hurts jackson.”  (which is so true because i was seriously wanting to down a xanax with a glass of wine at that moment because it hurt me that bad).

we trusted the doctor.  came home.  jackson had a bottle and took (sort of) an afternoon nap… he’s been a little more fussy than usual, but shit, if i went face first into a slab of concrete, i’d be fussy too!

so here we are…  it’s 7:51 pm and jackson is asleep.  my fantastic husband came home with a bottle of my favorite wine (amongst many other bottles just for kicks) to calm me down… and we’ll hang.  supposedly the 24 hours post- head trauma are the more critical.

will i sleep tonight?  i dunno…  would you?

am i over-reacting?  probably…  i have a tendency to do that?

will i drink a lot of wine to “soothe my nerves”?

absolutely.  tonight, my bottle is definitely UP!

 

 

 

 

 

more to come…  stay tuned…