Answer's to yesterday's birthday game:
- The ex-wife: Truth. We're having dinner with them next Tuesday.
- Piercings: Truth. Although now that I think about it, I guess maybe he maxed out at three ear piercings, and it's been a good long while since I've seen him with more than one earring. I remain mum on the subject of any additional body piercings.
- Shoe fetish: Lie. Chris owns maybe four pairs of shoes, and when they get dirty he tends to abandon them in the garage or on the back deck and eventually just buy a new pair. The story of nearly cutting off his own finger with a table knife and being thereby unable to self-bathe is, however, entirely true.
- Ozzy: Lie. We did have a major fight about Ozzy Osbourne during the first year we were dating, and it was the biggest fight we had had to date, but it has since been dwarfed by battles on many other subjects.
- Ugly plant: Truth. And I don't know what more to say about that.
Moving on, the early years of parenting contain a series of glory-hallelujah moments. The arrival of the last two-year-old molar, sleeping through the night, getting your boobs back for your own personal use, one would presume potty training, although I wouldn't know. One of those moments, certainly, has to be when your precious spawn learns to blow their own damn nose and ceases to keep you up literally all night long manning the nose-sucker. Yeah, Mia has a cold, although it is December and her first of the winter, so not bad. And there are few things in life more pitiful than dashing to your toddler's room at 4 AM to find her sitting up and crying and pointing to her red, red nose saying "boogies, Mommy, bad boogies." Yes darling, I know, now give Mama your snot and try to go back to sleep.
On a related note, one of the least glamorous moments of motherhood is when a runny nose finds you chasing your kid around after every sneeze to remove snot from her face, mouth, hair, shirt, and the stretch of floor where she was standing when it happened. Yummy.
And yes, I did take my sick child out to play in the snow for an hour and a half yesterday morning. You wanna make something of it?
(Ok, ok, #1 is a total lie, but wouldn't that make a great story if it were true? I am so pissed that just about nobody believed it.)
Comments (34)
You are just too funny!!! I was sitting here, just really floored that Chris was married before....then I got to the end! Too funny!!! and yes, blowing their own nose is really great, its right up there with potty training in my book!
Posted by linda | December 6, 2007 8:29 AM
Ha ! I was reading the rest of the post thinking 'and you think somebody exposes their life for the internet to read and then you hear about this...' Hilarious !
I think playing in the snow was good for her. You live pretty far south so how cold can it be ? Besides, all the fresh air would clear her poor little nose.
Posted by Heather | December 6, 2007 8:49 AM
Oh, I believed you! I was also pretty amazed - but you know, it happens. Or in Chris' case, or not!
Poor little Mia. I'm sure her stage still is better than the stage I'm at, which is where I have to wrestle with my little mongoose to shoot Benadryl down his throat.
Posted by Sam | December 6, 2007 8:50 AM
I am totally gullable - I totally thought that #1 was true until I got to the end!
Posted by Maggie | December 6, 2007 9:00 AM
Well you got me until I read the end of the post. I just could not believe how you could be having dinner with them.
A little snow never hurt a kiddo - maybe the cold air will freeze the snotty virus right out of her!
Posted by Steff | December 6, 2007 9:03 AM
You're a jerk! Got me.
Posted by JuJuBee | December 6, 2007 9:07 AM
Matthew has his 1st cold of season but until now it has been a wonderful congested nose cold. Hardly any thing coming out which is bad I suppose but good because I am not coated in a layer of goo by the time I arrive at work!
Oh and I would have taken my kiddo outside to play in the snow too cold or no cold! You just do not know how long the snow will last and I cannot imagine telling him NO when all he talks about this time of year s SNOW SNOW SNOW!
Ha, about Chris and the 2nd marriage thing. I was like 'no shit?!' though I have to admit it did not faze me which might be kind of odd I suppose!
Posted by Christina | December 6, 2007 9:22 AM
Having lived in Michigan for several years I can unequivically say that being cold does not give anyone a cold (otherwise everyone "up north" would always have colds!)or spread them, or make them worse/last longer. As long as Mia was bundled up correctly for the weather and she felt up to playing, I'd say go for it! My kids are grown up now and I always took the opportunity to let them play in the rare snowfalls! (They never lived in Michigan or anywhere north of Southeastern Maryland). Colds are just going to run their course, no matter what we do.
I say Mia is lucky that you let her play. I bet she had a blast!
Posted by 3jaysmom | December 6, 2007 9:31 AM
Oh, PLEASE!!! Four pairs of shoes IS the definition of a shoe horse where guys are concerned. And I still believe that Chris was married previously and that you're dining with them Tuesday...it's too good a story line not to be true. Are you going to sit there and try to tell me that you know your husband better than someone who's never met him? Pfft, WHATEVER!!
Posted by You can call me, 'Sir' | December 6, 2007 9:43 AM
Well, if it makes you feel any better, I didn't believe you until this post, and then I was shocked and totally fell for it.
Posted by Rachel | December 6, 2007 9:45 AM
I'm such a sucker - I totally thought #1 was true until the end. Maybe because I've met a couple of people who married young for brief amounts of time - it's just not that uncommon, I guess.
Posted by SpaceCase | December 6, 2007 10:05 AM
The two I thought were lies (1 and 3) I got right. I missed the other whopper though.
Posted by ann adams | December 6, 2007 10:13 AM
LOL You had me going. I got 1 and 3 right though.
I hope Mia feels better soon.
Posted by Maria | December 6, 2007 10:30 AM
Ditto Linda -- floored until the very end. I just kept thinking, how in the world has this never come up before now? So sorry about Mia's cold, it sounds like a miserable time over there.
Posted by Laura GF | December 6, 2007 10:53 AM
I totally hoped that Chris had been married before and I was loving that it might be true. Then I wouldn't be the only person on the internet that got married (and divorced) super young.
Anyway...fun times.
Posted by Isabel | December 6, 2007 11:08 AM
You can feel better now. The only one I seriously considered a lie was the shoe one. And even then I thought they were all true.
Posted by MoMMY | December 6, 2007 11:19 AM
You did good, Beth... on all counts. ;)
Posted by sue | December 6, 2007 11:39 AM
Well I believed #1 because I have 2 friends in nearly that identical situation--husbands married and divorced very young and then married their wife who is my friend (although they don't have dinner with the exes)--does that make you feel better?
As for the plant, I do practice "planthanasia" not sure how you spell that but when a plant is in decline I completely withhold water until it dies for reals and then I buy a new plant. Seems kinder than stringing it along.
Posted by Melissa H | December 6, 2007 11:42 AM
Oh, you are SO sneaky! I had stopped by to read the truth & the lies, got a phone call, and had to click away. So I actually spent a couple of hours believing that Chris had been married before, which had seemed so totally unlikely. and then I came back to find out I'd been had :)
Good luck with all that snot.
Posted by bad penguin | December 6, 2007 11:52 AM
I was totally ready to applaud your maturity and well-adjusted attitude re: Chris' wife. And it was a lie. :( Sad. I was really proud, though. I can barely handle my boyfriend's psychotic ex-girlfriend, much less a first wife he might have hidden!
Posted by Stephanie | December 6, 2007 12:36 PM
I'm really good friends with my husband's ex-girlfriend. I threw her a baby shower. She came over and brought Mike dinner recently, after he had surgery. Weird, yes. But it works for us.
Posted by She Likes Purple | December 6, 2007 1:53 PM
Haha I believed the first marriage thing mostly because it's not something I would come up with if it weren't true (if that makes sense?) But I did think it pretty weird that we wouldn't have heard about it by now - I've been reading you guys for a long time!
Posted by Heather | December 6, 2007 1:56 PM
Dude, I read number 1 and I was like, "Married? Really? But I thought..." and I ran through a series of things. I was half way through the post when I started accepting that Chris had a first wife.
Except he didn't. And now I feel silly. I knew better! It's like that stupid standardized testing. Always go with your first instinct...
Posted by Emily | December 6, 2007 2:06 PM
When my son was Mia's age, he had a cold for that whole winter. We called him "Boogs" cuz, well you know. He is now 29, and when I want to really embarrrass him I pull that one out.
Posted by joss is boss | December 6, 2007 2:45 PM
In my overly romantic mind, I like to believe that Chris was waiting for you all those years! So a first wife would have kept me from sleeping nights.
Hope Mia feels better soon!
Posted by Maribeth | December 6, 2007 3:04 PM
Wow, I totally failed at that. I guessed that only number 2 was a lie. I definitely believed the Ozzy one because big fights always start over something totally ridiculous.
Posted by FashionNoob | December 6, 2007 4:37 PM
Nice job with #1! I hope Mia feels better soon :(
Posted by Colleen | December 6, 2007 6:48 PM
I totally believed #1!!!!
Posted by E :) | December 6, 2007 7:37 PM
If it makes you feel any better...you told the story sooo well, I really would have believed it except I thought we would have heard about it before now. I got everything right but the shoes. He just looks like the type...no offense. Mine used to be the "everything must be meticulously ironed type" until he married me. I put a stop to that real quick.
Posted by Marcia | December 6, 2007 8:50 PM
I TOTALLY bought your lie! I mean 100%. I thought the piercings were BS. Wow. That's something! In a, perhaps, very wrong way, I will always wonder about that mystery piercing. Not that you needed to be more interesting (because I find you quite so!), but I now think you have more of an "edge" than I did 10 minutes ago.
Posted by Meegan | December 6, 2007 9:00 PM
WOW! you captured the runny nose thing PERFECTLY!!!!!
Posted by Haley-O | December 6, 2007 10:31 PM
I've read the posts on Rude Cactus about how you two met, so I knew #1 was a lie.
Posted by Carolyn | December 7, 2007 8:16 AM
OMG. i totally thought #1 was true! evil...very evil. but really funny.
Posted by kat | December 7, 2007 1:31 PM
I completely believed you, and thought that was cool about dinner, and even went so far as to incorporate it into my Beth/Chris mental file where I keep my composite image of what you might be like in real life--and then that last sentence! Oh, I am so gullible.
Posted by Swistle | December 11, 2007 8:06 PM