My husband has an unhealthy obsession with baseball.  Scratch that…with the Giants.  He loves to go to baseball games, watch baseball games, listen to baseball games.  You get the point.  I know nothing about baseball.  When we met I knew three strikes and you are out and that's about it.  

Whenever we went to games I would get excited because he was excited but mostly because the Giants never have a shortage of hot players.  I was constantly asking questions though which drove him nuts. So one year at a game he got fed up and told me this was my one free pass.  During this one game I could ask as many questions as I wanted but then I had to shut the hell up for the remainder of our lives.  He regretted that so hard.  I talked the entire game.  It was hilarious.  But I learned a lot.  I walked away from that game sure that I knew everything about baseball.

I was so wrong.

The last game we went to I had about 17 more questions (he didn't think I would actually stop asking questions did he) and he rattled off all of the answers.  I was confused.  How on earth does anyone remember all of this shit?  Some of the rules he spouted off to me made no sense or seemed pointless.  After learning the rules I've gotten more into the game.  I do have a small problem with cussing loudly at the TV and shouting at the players to run faster and I might be known to just start yelling gibberish when I have no idea what is actually going on but can tell it's something exciting.

Last night though I decided I quit trying to understand.  My husband was trying to explain to me, "tagging up." Something about when there is a fly ball you can tag the base right when the guy catches the ball and then you can run to the next base. I was stumped.  I thought if they caught the ball you were out.  He told me that the batter might be out but the guy on base could still tag up and run.  

Sensory overload.  Too much information.  My brain did not compute this at all.  Then he tried explaining to me what the  basemen are supposed to do during a pickle.  I shut down.  At one point I was so confused he offered to draw it out for me.  Then he started trying to tell me position numbers and I was done. At that moment I understood exactly why he didn't remember anything that we say during a fight, or important dates, or..ANYTHING.  How can a guy be expected to remember anything at all when they have all of this shit in their heads?  I mean I have a great memory but this is overkill.  When do they even learn this shit?  He said they start learning it in little league and I'm wondering if there is a direct connection between grades dropping and learning baseball rules.  Because I have no idea how anyone can be expected to remember algebra when their head is full of tagging up and pickle rules.  

I still love watching baseball but I've decided to accept that half of the game will just never make sense to me.  Because I am pretty sure I already forgot all of the position numbers he taught me last night.  I for sure remember how cute Brandon Crawford is, and I know that Brian Wilsons contract is up this year so there is a chance he won't be a Giant next year and I'll have to throw a fit about it but….fielders choice, and errors and base hits and…..JUST NO.   

I will keep this 

and this in my head

He can keep the rules.

Because I make some really really cute kids.  Think of all the hotties I'm depriving the world of now.

I know that no one likes looking at blogs about how cute other peoples kids are…but I just thought I would comment on the fact that me not having more kids was really doing an injustice to all the little girls in the world.  I mean, now the women of the world are all going to have to fight it out for just two of them.  

Thank God I never had a girl…the men would have never stood a chance against Rob's shotgun.

Not that the women will ever stand a chance against me.  What is it Monica said on Friends, "I'm going to love you so much no woman will ever be good enough for you?"  

That describes me perfectly.

Brandon's already got some 5th grader who has a crush on him and calls him "Peanut."  On one hand OMFGTHATSSOCUTEIWANNADIE.  On the other hand…Oh hell no little girl, dont' be giving my little man any cutesy nicknames.  You are not good enough for him!

I told him to jump over his instructors head…I guess it was my fault when he did this isn't it?

A few weeks ago a new pizza place opened and my boys were begging me to go.  We finally went but I made the mistake of going right at noon.  The cool thing about this place is you can order a whole pizza pie or just a slice.  We opted to order one slice each.  When we arrived the wait was 35 minutes for a slice and 45 minutes for a pie.  Finally after much waiting our slices came.  

HOLY SHIT.

They were huge.  Huge is an understatement.

We chose to sit at a family style table with about 6 other people sitting near us.  Brandon snarfed down his slice of pizza before I even got half way through mine.  Poor Codi took a while to eat because the pizza was so big he couldn't lift it off the table he could only slide it off the end and take a bite.

See…

It was all fun and games until Brandon started going off about being hungry.  I was flabbergasted.  How could he still be hungry?  This slice of pizza was huge.  I didn't know what to do.  By now there was a 45 minute wait for another slice of pizza and I was on my lunch break there was no way I could order him another slice of pizza. Then things got bad.  He curled up in a ball on the chair and clutched his stomach and started saying,

"But mom I'm starving and you won't even feed me any more food and I only had one slice of pizza and that's not fair.  I'm so hungry."

Then he started doing this weird grunting, whining noise and just totally losing his shit about being hungry.  I calmly asked him to wait 10 minutes for his stomach to process what he just ate and he would be fine.  I explained that there was no way I could wait 45 minutes for another piece of pizza. 

That is when it happened.  The lady next to me turned around and said, 

"Your poor little boy, he is obviously starving, should I give him half of my pizza?"

I died.

Before you accuse me of being an asshole please look at the size of the pizza.

I was dumbfounded at the lady.  But more dumbfounded when my son sat up and shouted, "YES I WANT YOUR PIZZA."

I almost died.  

I politely said no thank you and thought it was done.

It wasn't.  Brandon got louder.  He kept going on and on and on about being hungry.  Told me I was awful for not letting him have that ladies pizza.  Slid back down and clutched his stomach again and just started moaning.  The lady picked up her knife and actually started cutting the pizza in half.  She started telling me how she really didn't mind, and how she couldn't finish both of her pieces and that she just felt so bad to see this starving little boy.

Brandon again said YES.  

I wanted to bonk him with my paper plate.  

I again explained to the lady that no my six year old did not need her food, that we would be heading back to my work soon and I had plenty of food there.

Then Brandon started saying that his mother hadn't fed him all day.

I looked around at that point for the hidden cameras because this had to be a fucking joke right?

RIGHT?

I reminded him that I had cooked him eggs and bacon that morning, he had a gogurt, a lunchable, a cheese snack, juice, chocolate milk and chips.  

His response, "yeah mom, that is barely anything."

I finally gave in and gave him the other half of my pizza which he hoovered in about 2.5 seconds.  

Then he started up again.  

"I'm still hungry.  That's only one and half pieces of pizza, I can't get full on that mom. Moooooom I need more food."

The lady made one final offer and before I could reach over and smack her Codi got sick of listening to Brandon and finally told Brandon that he was full off of 1/3 of his pizza and that Brandon could have the rest of his.  

That one took him about 4 seconds to eat. 

I threw away all of the plates, made them wash their hands and left.

At that point I was drained.  I didn't know how to feel that was a huge slice of pizza.  Was I a bad mom for not ordering another? 

Then I heard it, "mom…I'm still hungry, do I get a snack now."

You guys, I swear to God I wanted to list him on Craigslist, "free to a good home, must have large refrigerator."

Was this child kidding?  I mean…in reality he had just eaten probably close to a medium size pizza if you combine all of those slices together.  I finally had to explain to Brandon that it was totally unacceptable to make a scene like that in public.  He didn't understand.  He said there was nothing wrong with his behavior, the problem wasn't him it was that I wouldn't feed him.  

From there we drove to my husbands work so I could drop off the boys for a minute and go to the DMV.  Seconds after walking in Brandon announced to my husband that he was hungry.

I quit.

The lady ended up laughing at me.  She said she had three boys at home and they would eat dinner, put their plate in the sink and then announce they were still hungry.  She also told me this would only get worse and this was only the beginning.  Either way, I felt like crap.  I felt like the whole table was staring at me thinking I was some terrible mom who didn't feed her child and couldn't even afford to buy another slice of pizza and who didn't even love her child enough to buy him another slice of pizza.  Followed by walking into my husbands work and having them all think I didn't feed him and just brought him to his office starving like a bad mom.

What would you do in that situation?  

Poor me.

Kids…sigh.

When we went to Mexico I was worried about one thing.  I don't speak Spanish.  AT ALL.  Not even a little bit.   I can say bathroom, and any word on the Taco Bell menu and that is it.  Luckily a friend told me about a translation ap so when we got to the house I had no trouble at all talking to the cook and people who took care of the house.

The grocery store however was a totally different problem.  You see, I didn't want to pay for cell data while I was in Mexico so unless we were at the house with wi-fi I had no way of using my ap.  I couldn't ask for raisins because I didn't know the word for raisin.  My mom ended up taking a stock boy to the cereal isle, pointing to a raisin on a box of Raisin Brand cereal and finally getting some raisins.

I had no idea if I was buying milk, or cream or what. I bought chicken tenders for Codi.  Chicken tenders that looked exactly like the ones I buy in America. So you can imagine my surprise when I popped them in the microwave for 45 seconds, gave them to Codi and watched him take a giant bite of RAW CHICKEN.

The greatest one of all though was when I bought my husband some hot sauce.  He loves Tapatio.  He loves it like I love chocolate.  When we got to the store that first day I just knew that he would need some Tapatio. 

So I wandered off to the hot sauce isle and found some.  It was in the same shape bottle, with the same shape lid and a similar label but it was written in Spanish.

I proudly carted my hot sauce home to my husband and hid it in the pantry.  When they served dinner that night the staff made sure to set out my hot sauce.

That is when I said just about the dumbest thing I've ever said, EVER!

"Look honey I found you Mexican Tapatio, can you believe they had it but just a different name."

I just looked at me as if I had just declared that I no longer loved Nutella and I never wanted to eat donuts again.

I was confused.

Wasn't he happy I had bought him his most prized Tapatio?

That is when he patiently explained to me that Tapatio in Spanish is T A P A T I O.  I was flabbergasted.  It took me a second and then I was like Joey on Friends when he got the joke 45 seconds later.  Well duh.  Of course it is.  Then I got scared.  What had I just bought.  We all passed the bottle around took a taste and it was like magic had hit my taste buds.  This stuff was amazing.  It wasn't fire on my mouth, it had a nice flavor with a hint of heat.  I was thrilled. 

Since then we have bought nothing but that.  Every time I see it sitting on the table I can't help but laugh at my "Spanish Tapatio."

But I guess the apple doesn't fall too far from the tree because my son just flipped his light switch and when his light didn't turn on he declared that it was, "out of batteries."  I had to explain for the billionth time that if the fan is on, we just pull the string on the fan and turn off the light.  He said, "no it's out of batteries."  I pulled the string, the light turned on and I explained that lights in the ceiling don't have batteries.  Which is when my other son yelled, "yes they do mom because one of my lights is out of batteries."  Turns out one of the bulbs in his ceiling fan burned out….I tried explaining that and as I type he is still arguing that I just need to put in a new battery and the light will turn on again.

You guys remember a while ago I was having trouble…a lot of trouble. Y'all suggested bubble wrap.  Perhaps a padded room.

I didn't listen.

Because a couple weeks ago when I just woke up and my finger was swollen, wouldn't bend and was in pain for 6 weeks.

Then there was the little mishap where I nearly sliced off all of my fingernails.

Which was immediately followed by me slicing off the tip of my pinky.

But since I wasn't being stupid enough I thought I would use my pinky finger to poke a hole in puff pastry that had "puffed up" and blasted my entire pinky with scalding hot steam thus burning my entire right pinky even managing to burn up under the fingernail.  Note to self: Puff pastry puffs up DON'T POKE IT WITH YOUR FINGER YOU ASSHOLE.

Then I woke up and my left hand was swollen and hurting above the thumb.  Any time I touched it there was pain.  All I did was GO TO SLEEP.  What am I doing to myself in my sleep?????

Then today I was just trying to walk home and somehow managed to eat shit and fall.  Not just a little fall, but a big full blown drop every thing in my hands, scrape my hand, crash into my knee and scrape it through the my jeans and now it's all bruised and painful.  

I. DON'T. GET. IT.

I didn't do anything, I didn't trip, I didn't stumble. I just fell, like a knucklehead.  

The request for bubble wrap still stands!

On top of it all I am low on vitamin B-12 which means I had to get a shot in my ass today also.  Add in that I'm so anemic my hair is falling out and I am just a huge hot mess.

Forget the bubble wrap.  Send me wine, a bubble bath, chocolate and some alone time.

But at least I'm not my husband…he came home from the gym saying he hurt his ass.  I've had a fun week watching him limp around holding his butt telling me his butt hurts.  I mean….at least I didn't break my ass right?

A few months ago when I declared that I was cutting a bunch of stuff out of my diet I assumed it would last a few days and then I would give in and discover I can't live without all things made of gluten.  I was wrong.  Cutting gluten out of my life turned out to be a game changer.  But the best game changer at all was discovering Digestive Enzyme pills and papaya extract pills.  After having my gallbladder out I could no longer eat peaches, avocados, plums or anything with a pit without spending a day or two doubled over in pain hating myself.  Of course since I'm an avocado whore I've spent a long time hurting….because I just don't learn.  

Here is the strange thing.  I lost about twelve pounds.  But after that my weight just kind of stabilized, the strange part? My stomach got flatter.  I have been really confused.  Imagine waking up, looking down, swearing you lost weight only to get on the scale and see you haven't lost a pound, or maybe even gained a pound.  It really fucks with your head.  I started thinking maybe I was just going crazy and I didn't really look different that I was just imagining it.  But then people started noticing.  I couldn't figure it out.  Getting smaller without losing weight doesn't compute in my mind.  But then I figured it out.  It was the gluten.  How did I figure it out?  I was working late one night and went on a bender slicing bread and ate about 3 slices of a baguette.  The next day I decided I just couldn't live without a slice of sourdough toast.  The next morning I woke up and could barely button my pants that two days ago were falling off.  I ran to the scale…no change.

I almost wanted to cry from confusion.  But then the realization hit that something in the gluten is making me…well, puff up.  It's not water weight like I get when I eat too much salt it is just…puffiness.  I don't understand it.  It's driving me insane but then when I go three days with no gluten suddenly my stomach is flat like I never had a kid.  

You have no idea how badly this is messing with my head.  I haven't had gluten since the bread Saturday, I woke up this morning to baggy pants again.

The worst of all, is that I bought new pants a couple weeks ago, they fit me perfectly.  Like, OMG those are the greatest jeans ever and no jean will ever fit this good again.  But then three days later….THEY WERE FALLING OFF.  No weight loss…just this whole gluten thing.  I was livid.  I didn't want to go down a size because I couldn't believe this was really the problem.  But sure enough the next time I slipped up thinking I could eat some soy sauce the following morning my pants fit again.  I'm getting whiplash from this.

Luckily I don't miss gluten as much as I thought.  I've been roasting spaghetti squash and shredding it into noodles anytime I want pasta.  I've been roasting Portobello mushrooms anytime I want bread.  I've been using nut crackers when I need some texture.  I still haven't went back to milk, I'm only drinking almond and coconut milk and managed to find a vegan, gluten free supplement to put in my smoothies in the morning that provides me some protein and iron.  I'm doing better then I expected.  I rarely drink coffee and when I do I don't use creamer anymore because it says it's non dairy, but if it's not dairy WHAT IS IT????  I still go grab a Starbucks here and there because I know they use real milk and not…"non dairy wtf is this stuff."  

On the upside my fancy new pills made it so I can eat stone fruits again (avocado, plums, etc) so I've been eating a lot of avocado and almond milk and strawberry smoothies for breakfast.  I was really having a hard time after I gave up eggs, but avocado is working nicely as a breakfast.

But can someone please please explain to me this puffy thing?  Because I really just don't understand it.  How can I wake up a size and a half smaller (or bigger) and have zero weight change????  It is just mind boggling.  

Please dumb this down for me…because it is driving me bonkers. 

By the way, I'm aware this is the most boring post ever but I'm really hoping somewhere out there can explain this to me. 

I can't wait to blog about how the rest of the little league season went.  It needs it's own post though because it would take a whole post for me to do all the personal horn tooting about how spectacular I am with getting kids to be good (not my own of course).  Plus I have to rave on and on about how I totally won at little league snack and how the kids even said their favorite snack of the season was mine.  So clearly you can see how I will need a separate post for that.  In the mean time I've been busy working both jobs and doing this….

Someday I'll tell you the story behind the tattoo.  But not now.

And of course, whenever I'm not working or working or mommying I'm busy with this….

Come on.  There is no way that all of the people around me in the last two weeks can tell me they didn't notice those two half in long black chin hairs dangling off me.  It's not possible.  So I want to know why not a single one of you chose to tell me????

Totally uncalled for.  You guys are my family, my friends, my SPOUSE.  You are supposed to tell me when you notice two chin hairs so long I should buy them furniture and name them.  

Not impressed.  Not impressed at all.

Thank god for the good lighting in my office bathroom or they would have grown long enough to braid.

You better watch it…next time you have food in your teeth I'm so not telling you.  ANY OF YOU!