Month: January 2017

On Joel and Howie

~ christine ~ 9 Comments

When Howie was younger we took him on a float trip with friends, and it was kind of miserable, because there was some midnight puking in the tent and a long bus ride to the river, after which Howie raced off the bus and humped another dog as they ran down the shore (who knew dogs could run so fast and hump so hard at the same time), and then Howie wanted to jump out of the raft or canoe or whatever we were riding, so he was whimpering for like seven hours, and we had to restrain him, and, most notably, because we were in the sticks of Missouri, apparently no one had ever seen a golden doodle before, so about 300 inebriated people questioned us (some from hundreds of yards away), “WHAT KIND OF DOG IS SHE?!?!” (One would have thunk we were floating down the river with a fucking Siberian tiger.) Continue reading →

Thoughts I should post on a baby loss forum instead

~ christine ~ 19 Comments

I’ve been having a difficult time lately. (You’re surprised.) I feel like I need to just write my thoughts in a stream of consciousness format to get them out of my head, and I should probably post them on a baby loss forum or tell them to my therapist, but instead I’m posting them here, because I’m strange like this. But most of these thoughts are rather dark and uninspiring, and I’m sure people will read them and think I’m a mess and then whisper behind my back, “She’s a mess,” which is kind of fair, as I sort of am a mess, but what in the hell do people expect? Continue reading →

“In the nicest way possible… God likes me more than you.”

~ christine ~ 17 Comments

So I kind of want to abolish the United States Postal Service for reasons mostly selfish. Howie hates their people, and they bring stuff that clutters up my house, which stresses me the eff out, and they bring lots of angst-inducing garbage, including, but not limited to, baby shower invitations, triggery family Christmas cards, and birth announcements… The latest and greatest thing they’ve delivered is a relative of the triggery family Christmas card, but it has distinct differences, so I’ll call it the triggery-family-Christmas-card-listing-of-all-of-the-miracles-and-answered-prayers-that-we-have-received-this-year-proving-that-not-only-does-God-exist-but-also-that-He-loves-us-and-by-way-of-deductive-reasoning-hates-you card. Continue reading →

On baby showers

~ christine ~ 26 Comments

So I’ve been meaning to write on this subject, and I guess the time is now, because on Matthew’s 18 month birthday/death anniversary, I received a baby shower invitation in the mail, which was so fitting considering that my life has been like one giant (albeit dark) episode of Punk’d ever since he died, but it’s disappointing because I have yet to meet Ashton Kutcher (although his doppelganger works at our neighborhood St. Louis Bread Company, so we took a picture of him while he wasn’t looking), which is probably because he is busy with his new baby boy, born on November 30, Mark’s birthday. (See what I mean?) Continue reading →

Squash moms have balls

~ christine ~ 7 Comments

This afternoon we ate at our local athletic club, and they were holding a squash tournament, so the restaurant was super crowded with middle school aged kids, all of whom had their heads buried in their cell phones, including the four kids sitting behind us, which resulted in one of their dads scolding them, “Could you put your fucking cell phones away?! No wonder you’ve been here for 40 minutes, and no one’s taken your order!” I was kind of appalled but not really, because I’m accustomed to the f-bomb, and it was sort of nostalgic, as it’s something I could envision my dad saying to me. Continue reading →

When you run into the plumber you haven’t seen in two years and you have to explain your family, and the interaction is questionable

~ christine ~ 16 Comments

Yesterday was New Year’s Day, and we went to the church we’ve been visiting, but we were 45 minutes late (by accident, but really, it was kind of a blessing), and then Joel fell asleep, and we wanted him to keep napping, so we drove through a buffalo farm, and there was a baby buffalo breastfeeding, so it kind of reminded me of myself, and the buffalo farm involved narrow roads with huge drop offs a la Colorado, except the cliffs were markedly less high (like feet versus thousands of feet), so I feared Mark would drive off the road, so I texted Mark’s sister’s husband, a paramedic-in-training who regularly sees fatal crashes, and asked, “Would you ever trust Mark to drive you through Colorado?” And he was like, “Is there a parachute in the car?” And I was like, “Oh, shit.” Continue reading →