I accidentally spent $50 on Amazon.com. You know that button that says “Buy Now with 1-Click?” Yeah. They mean that.

If you press that button there will be no order confirmation, no chance to change any of the details. Just a page that says “YOUR ORDER HAS BEEN PLACED. IF THIS WAS AN ACCIDENT, TOO BAD. IF YOU ARE STUPID ENOUGH TO PUSH THE 1-CLICK BUTTON OUT OF CURIOSITY, CONSIDER YOURSELF LUCKY THAT WE’RE SENDING YOU THE PRODUCTS INSTEAD OF JUST CHARGING YOU AN IDIOT SHOPPER FEE.” Or something to that effect.

I am a fickle online purchaser. I make my selections, carefully weed out my cart until it contains the perfect blend of absolute necessities. I proceed to checkout, enter my card information, then delete my entire cart and cancel the order.

It’s probably some kind of neurosis with a long scientific name that is easily treatable with medications, and I should probably see somebody about that. But those medications are probably expensive and cause weight gain as a side effect and frankly, I’d rather be crazy than poor and fat.

But the fact remains, when I don’t get the chance to confirm and cancel my order, it kind of unsettles me.

That, and that $50 came out of the “Christmas fund” so J is all pissed off now because a) we have $50 less to spend on family, and b) he was going to give those books to me for Christmas.

And you wanna know the really sick part? I could probably find a way to cancel the order before anything has been shipped. Yet somehow, I just can’t bring myself to do it.

Santa is totally bringing me coal this year.

• We went gift shopping this morning and about 10 seconds after we left the store I looked down to find that Button, while in her stroller, had managed to apply the 5-finger-discount to a pack of AA batteries. The sad part is, while we were returning the batteries to the store owner I was thinking, “I could have used those batteries.”
• I need a new camera. I need a new camera that won’t freeze at the most inconvenient moments, forcing me to forgo the photos completely to take the batteries out and reboot it. I need a camera that will take a friggin’ picture when I tell it to, rather than politely declining my request with the suggestion that we discuss it over coffee. And I need a camera that has SOME SEMBLANCE OF A CLUE about white balance and color accuracy. I need this camera.
• Unfortunately, one of the downsides about working part time is the complete and total lack of savable monies for things like Christmas presents and aforementioned camera necessities.
• Perhaps I should just send my daughter into the camera store and see what she comes out with.
• Button woke up from her nap today exceedingly displeased. As soon as I entered her room, I could see smell why. During her lunch, she had consumed 3 drink boxes of juice and a hearty amount of food - all of which had made its way through her during the nap. The clothes, the sheets, the changing table cover - all of it went straight into the wash.
  

  J:    You should probably put some bleach in there too to kill any of the germs.
  Me: I used Spray’N'Wash.
  J:    I doubt Spray’N'Wash kills germs.
  Me: Are you kidding? Have you ever smelled Spray’N'Wash?
  J:    …Good point. That stuff could probably kill a small animal.

When I was pregnant, we used to joke about parenting our child like we do our pets - a spritz in the mouth of Bitter Apple Spray when Juniorette wouldn’t stay away from the bookshelf, etc.

Button has recently started a yelling phase. When she’s done with her meal, when she’s bored, slightly discontented, or when she realizes she doesn’t have 100% of my attention at any given moment. It’s not at all the same as the crying she does when she’s really upset. It’s just flat-out yelling.

It’s driving me up the wall. Seriously, if it continues for much longer I just might drown myself in the bathtub. If I can get around all the plastic squirty toys.

I hate yelling. Raised voices make my blood pressure rise and my nerves implode. I can’t think, I can’t hear, it’s all I can do to continue breathing in a semi-normal fashion. The sudden but constant “AAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!!” that I have recently been subjected to on a daily basis is enough to make me start bashing my head into the nearest wall.

And yet, I’m unsure what to do about it.

According to BabyCenter, she’s too young to understand time out (and putting her in time out would undoubtedly increase the yelling and rush me that much closer to jumping off a bridge). She’s too young for spanking, etc - and even if she wasn’t I’m not sure that’s the best method of behavioral training for her. I’ve tried the slap on the hand when she’s reaching for something she shouldn’t be. It totally had the opposite effect. I might as well have said “Good girl, Button! Do it again!”

So the challenge of coming up with a negative consequence that she’ll understand and take heed of is a big one.

Yesterday morning she was laying on the bed after her bath, and I was trying to apply her lotion and diaper. The yelling began. I reached over and grabbed the squirt bottle we use for the cat when he’s being obnoxious and misted her right in the face.

She blinked. Then she looked at me like, “What the hell was that???”

But the yelling stopped. She didn’t yell for the rest of the day.

UPDATE:  As there has been some confusion, I feel the need to clarify that I spritzed my daughter with water - not apple/pepper spray. 

I’m being anti-social tonight. My brother and his wife are hosting a BYOB Costume Poker Party and I’m not going.

J is there now. But I don’t have any beer. Or a costume. Or any interest in poker. So I’m not there. I’ve been a little down today. So I’m not feeling particularly social.

I have ideals. Perhaps it’s the result of a fairly sheltered childhood. While the world has made me jaded on many things, I remain quite the idealist in most regards. When my ideals are challenged, I will hang on until the bitter end, refusing to flit about like a leaf in the wind based on an accusation or piece of evidence that is probably far from accurate.

Some might call it loyalty.

Refusing to lay down my ideals until I have weighed the facts and all of the facts and can draw no other conclusion than the resignation that these notions were… just ideas. Fiction.

Poof.

And every time that happens, a layer of my perception of the world is peeled away. Every time that happens, it cuts a little deeper. It hurts. And when it’s done hurting, it scars.

And I suppose wisdom is the culmination of the scars. Wisdom is jaded.

Sometimes I wonder if it’s worth it.

I spent a good portion of today cleaning the house.

Ok, that was a total lie. Those of you who know me or have read this blog for some time probably saw through that immediately. I spent a good portion of the day wasting time and playing with my daughter, and I spent SOME of the day cleaning. And not really CLEANING so much as STRAIGHTENING…the cleaning crew comes tomorrow.

I have embraced my inner slob and come to terms with the fact that, if left up to me, this house would never be adequately cleaned enought prevent foreign ecosystems from developing in the sink and carpet - so it’s more than worth the money to pay someone else to keep me sane and my family healthy by cleaning the house.

Now, before I got sidetracked by that confessional-turned-rationalization, I was talking about cleaning. One of the things I DID do today was empty the trash, but not before carefully sifting through it.

See, Button has developed this recent habit of throwing things away. And not things that SHOULD be thrown away. No, REAL TRASH only goes in her mouth.

She throws away things that are NOT trash, things that we miss once they are gone because they were there for a reason, things that we search high and low for in a frenzy because when we packed the diaper bag it contained enough diapers for a week and now we’re standing over the changing table in a public bathroom AND THERE ARE NO DIAPERS.

Today I found a dog toy, a stuffed animal, an unopened box of juice and one of those clicker thingies like in the Nick Lachey Axe commercials.

There’s an idea for a bad game show in here somewhere but it’s just not coming to me.