Did you know that Jehovahs Witnesses don’t celebrate Christmas or any holiday for that matter?

Why the hell not? Because a lot of Christmas traditions have Pagan origins.

#justsayin.

I envy those damn JW’s because I do NOT like Christmas. Seriously. I want to stab it in the face until it is dead.

I figure that this year will be different since I now have a child and well, isn’t Christmas all about the kiddies? However, Peanut doesn’t get Christmas. I decided that even though we still haven’t unpacked most of our boxes that we should clutter up our living room even more by putting up the Christmas tree. While I strategically placed the silver balls (teehee. BALLS) and icicles on our six footer Peanut crawled around under the tree and whined because I was doing something other than holding her.

OH! The Horror!

My child is incredibly spoiled and will definitely get more gifts than she needs this year and probably every year of her childhood. The problem with this spoilery is that she won’t fully appreciate what a lucky little girl she is until she’s older and by then she’ll be a self-entitled little brat.

I really want to like Christmas. Maybe this year will be different.

I’ll just fake it for Peanut’s sake. After all, I don’t want to look like I’m suicidal in the pictures.

So, for the oil that should have only lasted one day (HELLO EVOO!) and for God’s chosen people, Happy Hanukkah. Or Chanukah.

Neil Diamond is Jewish. This gives your religion a hell of a lot of cred in my book. *fist bump*

**EDIT!** I am not Jewish. But I love Jews.

Every parent does things differently when raising his or her children. While I am not a fan of labels I do tend to fall into the attachment parenting bucket more often than not. I breastfeed, baby wear, make Peanut’s baby food from scratch, and co-sleep. I never thought that I would co-sleep. I didn’t want my child to still crawl into bed with my husband and me at the age of sixteen. We need our own space EVENTUALLY. My entire life is baby-fied including my marital bed.

NOT COOL, PEANUT. Children are the ultimate cockblockers.

So for the past eight-ish months I have been snuggling with my little bundle of spit and poop while getting very little sleep. She would wake about once an hour to comfort nurse. It was convenient for her to fuss just enough to wake me up so I could whip out my breast for her.

She is a smooth operator.

She wasn’t hungry. There was no fucking way that she needed to eat that much.

NO. FUCKING. WAY.

I don’t mind nursing her to sleep but I do mind her resisting until one in the morning. Babies need more sleep at night than what she was getting.

I swear I didn’t want to do it but I was losing my mind. I was not getting any sleep and I doubt she was feeling well-rested either. We needed to have some time apart. I needed my nights back. I needed ME time without a baby attached to me.

So I let her cry it out.

If I had tried it a month ago I would have felt like the worst mother in the universe. I was certain that there were things I hadn’t tried, methods that were still to be tested, the right lullaby, the right book, the right pajamas, the right room temperature.

I read the No-Cry Sleep Solution*. I tried the tips in the book. Elizabeth Pantley** gave me hope that good sleeping habits could be learned.

And guess what? NOT MY BABY.

Something tells me that I’m part of the majority on this one.

If I have ever made you feel bad about using the cry it out “method” with your child then I am sorry. A thousand times over I’m sorry.

SO VERY SORRY.

Get it? I’m apologizing.

It is hard to hear her cry. Luckily she falls asleep within thirty minutes so I don’t have to endure it for too long. When I go in to check on her she is sleeping on her stomach as if she fell asleep while sitting up and then just fell forward. It’s heartbreaking.

Well, not really.

She sleeps soundly and peacefully, get this…

ALL NIGHT LONG.

She usually goes down around nine and wakes up around nine the next morning.

She is a fucking rock star. The reigning queen of dream land.

And now I can get some sleep too. Or have sex with my husband. But probably mostly sleep.

*FTC disclosure: I did not get paid a damn thing for mentioning this book. Not only that but I even bought the book with my own money! In a real brick and mortar bookstore!

**Pantley is the author of the above-mentioned book. I have never met her nor have I corresponded with her in any way. We aren’t friends. Just so you know.

GUESS WHAT FOLKS?!

I am a fucking sheep. Baaaaaah.

Also? I will do whatever Aunt Becky asks of me. She offering up something or another on her blog as a prize if we fill out this questionaire thing but the truth is that I just love her so stinkin’ much that if she asked me to publish a photo of my ass hole on my blog I’d do it.

So here’s some effing questions and my effing answers.

1) Do you like sprinkles on your ice cream?
YES. Big fat chocolate ones.

2) If you had to choose one word to banish from the English language, what would it be and why?
“Tender.”

3) If you were a flavor, what would it be?
Something savory. Like pepper bacon.

4) What’s the most pointless annoying chore you can think of that you do on a daily/weekly basis?
Fucking laundry. FUCKITY FUCK FUCK.

5) Of all the nicknames I’ve ever had in my life, Aunt Becky is the most widely known and probably my favorite. What’s your favorite nickname? (for yourself)
Lolly. It’s what most of my family members call me.

6) You’re stuck on a desert island with the collective works of 5 (and only five) musical artists for the rest of your life. Who are they?
Metallica, Deftones, Black Sabbath, Opeth, Tool.

7) Everything is better with bacon. True or false?
YES.

8 ) If I could go back in time and tell Young Aunt Becky one thing, it would be that out of chaos, order will emerge. Also: tutus go with everything. What would you tell young self?
It doesn’t matter what others think of you, only what YOU think of you.

Head on over to Mommy Wants Vodka to participate!

Buying a house is a TOTAL pain in the ass.

We purchased a home from a builder so we didn’t have to deal with individual contractors. This is the way to go if you want to build a house and don’t want to deal with the minutiae of every detail involved in the construction process.

We signed our contract and paid our earnest on July 31st. We broke ground and had a slab in less than a month and then four days later the frame was completed. Then, our closing date was pushed up from the 30th of November to the 25th! However, that soon changed BACK to the 30th. MAYBE. We aren’t finished packing yet and our newest closing date is still up in the air.

Right now it is 1:30am on Monday, November 30th. We are either closing on the house in 12 hours or we aren’t. Unfortch we won’t know until the USDA decides this morning or whenever they get off their fat slow-moving government asses and do their jobs.

Seriously, federal government, you knew about this tax credit deadline (which has been extended just FYI) and yet you didn’t staff accordingly to ensure that loans were still handled in a timely manner? Or does the fucking federal government (I can feel their satellites shifting to target my apartment – HAHA suckers I have the blinds closed!) always take their sweet time and don’t give a shit about the people that are receiving the loan?

I’m sorry, FED, but when it’s all said and done my husband and I will have paid you A LOT of money. We are your customers. We are not being treated right. And the bank who we are getting the loan through has provided us with the worst loan officer in the history of home ownership. He was even recommended by the builder! Believe you me, once all of this is completed and we have signed our names forty gazillion times and our furniture is all moved in and the house is OURS we will be writing some letters. Things have not been handled professionally. We have received emails from our loan officer that are downright embarrassing. As in, I can’t believe he is actually saying things like, “we’ve been victimized” and calling it “drama.” OMFG are you serious? Someone get this guy a TEMPLATE! Do NOT under ANY circumstances let him free-write an email EVER again! In his attempts to empathize he came across as unprofessional and immature and we have little confidence in him. I’m not going to enjoy meeting him later today if we do in fact get to close on the house today.

Sometimes I feel like we’ll never be home owners. That the house will just sit there, beautiful and unoccupied. We’ll visit every Saturday like always, taking off our shoes as we walk into the foyer, opening and closing doors, flipping light switches, laying on the soft carpet. It’s OURS but it isn’t.

The cliche so close yet so far has never been more appropriate.