Is This Weird?

Posted by Anonymous.

If you'd like to use this space to tell stories/secrets/confessions of your dangerous maternal mind, anonymously or otherwise, send me an e-mail and you too can enjoy the refuge of the Basement.

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I love my baby (ok, maybe not a baby…more like a toddler…16 months) but who doesn’t? Every mom has their struggles. Why can’t I get baby to nurse? Why won’t this kid eat anything but bananas? When do I potty train? Why? When? How? Yes I’m a new mom. Yes lots of questions. I think I’m doing a fantastic job, and so is my husband. Our son's vocabulary is amazing…he counts…he’s charming…he rarely fusses…he smiles all the time…he really is a good baby. We are lucky. That doesn’t mean life is dandy in babyville…no wait…it is.

There is just this one problem.

Said baby likes to…well…it’s embarrassing...and…see…that’s the problem…well…he…likes to…HUMP! There I said it. My kid is a humping machine.

He doesn’t hump in public, thank god. He only humps at home. He humps in the morning. He humps at night. Sometimes he humps in the afternoon. Sometimes we go days without humping. Sometimes we go days on end with humping. What triggers the humping is unknown.

HUMPING: How does he hump? Well, he lies face down on the ground and sort of gyrates up and down. There is some moaning (as I’m sure it feels good). There is some mention of names (mama, bubba, grandma, dada). He does not appreciate when you intervene on the humping. Sometimes he holds the dog’s leg and humps…dog does not appreciate this.

Yes it is embarrassing. It makes me uncomfortable when people are over and he humps. Sometimes I can see a hump coming and I’ll stop it if the wrong people are around. Sometimes it makes other people uncomfortable when he humps. I can tell…there is this look in their eyes like…”this kid is some sort of perv. Why is he humping so much?” Mostly from people who don’t have kids. He’s not old enough to understand that this is a private thing to do. So it’s difficult to know what to do. Do I stop the humping?

I’ve tried to research the topic, and what information out there is that this is a common theme within that age group. They say it is not sexual, and they do it because it just feels good. Apparently, some kids hump stuffed animals…thank god he hasn’t figured out that he can do that yet.

I can say with absolute certainty that he is not sexually abused in any way. I know who he spends time with, and rarely is he without me (I know, I know, get a social life…really I have one…we entertain). When he is, he is in very loving arms. My family, my husband, or his family would NEVER hurt him. This thought never crosses my mind, but I know it may cross yours, and that is why I mention it.

This is where you come in. I need your advice. Is this weird behaviour? Is he some sort of sex driven child? Do I talk to a doctor? Should I stop him? Would you be concerned? Does your kid hump? Basically, what are your thoughts on the whole humping situation?

Yes…I’m being serious.

When The Past Returns

Posted by Anonymous.

If you'd like to use this space to tell stories/secrets/confessions of your dangerous maternal mind, anonymously or otherwise, send me an e-mail and you too can enjoy the refuge of the Basement.

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12 years ago, the man of my dreams left me. We had been together for 2 years and he was the one who was going to make it all happen. He was going to give me my happily-ever-after. He left me via phone.

He was the one. The one who I thought of daily for the past 12 years. The one who I longed for
soooo many years. Often wondering if he was happy, if he had gotten sent to Iraq, all of the thoughts went through my head for years.

He popped up again 9 years ago, and then popped back out. Over the years, loving him has brought me much heart ache. He's not a flake, he's not a bad man, he actually a very good man (hard to believe, I know, with all that I'm telling you.)

He came and found me again after all of this time. He tells me how much he loves me, how full he is of me! How I have been in his thoughts for so many years, dealing with the whole I fucked up so many years ago. Now he tells me all of this, now he tells me the things I have longed to hear for sooo many years. Now he tells me when i'm married with 2 kids. He's all I think about. I can still smell him. I'm driving myself mad. I have written "Dear John" letters over and over again and have yet to send one to him. Everytime I think about telling him goodbye it's as though my heart is going to crumble.

My husband's not a bad man, he's a good man, but I don't love him as I do the other. He has a temper that in the past has made me scared for my children. It's so sad to see that in black and white but it's so true. I go home and wish for time to stop so that I can get some kind of grip on the emotions swirling around in my head, and at the same time be a great mother and a
wife to the man I married.

Help me. Do I follow my heart and leave my husband? Or do I continue to run from the past and all the memories that it contains?

What's in a dream?

Posted by Anonymous.

If you'd like to use this space to tell stories/secrets/confessions of your dangerous maternal mind, anonymously or otherwise, send me an e-mail and you too can enjoy the refuge of the Basement.

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I know that you're not supposed to write posts about your dreams, but I hope that exceptions to this rule can be made in the Basement.

I've been having dream about men other than my husband. Not sex dreams so much, though sex is sometimes involved, but dreams about being in love with other men. Not men that I know. Men that are, or seem to be, figments of my imagination. Usually I'm much younger than I am now. Sometimes I'm aware, in the dream, that I have a husband somewhere. Sometimes the dreams end badly, where I end up losing the person, getting hurt, that kind of thing. But the basic theme is always the same - meet some guy, realize that I am in love with that guy, fumble around about being in love, often have that love end badly, wake up.

I love my husband very, very much. We have a good sex life. I don't fantasize about other men, I can't imagine thinking about running off. So the dreams are weird, and they feel weird. I can't figure them out. I don't know why I have them.

It's not every night. But it's a few times a month, anyway.

I can understand about sex dreams. But love? Why love? I have love, lots of it, so why do I dream about finding it somewhere else?

Any dream analysts out there?

Does This Stroller Make Me Look Rich?

Posted by Tania (Urban_Mommy)

If you'd like to use this space to tell stories/secrets/confessions of your dangerous maternal mind, anonymously or otherwise, send me an e-mail and you too can enjoy the refuge of the Basement...

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I’m here in the basement because I have a bone to pick with my sister and she, of course, knows of my blog. Thank God for The Basement.


I love my sister. She is one of few family members I can say that about, so I really do cherish our relationship. However. Over the years, she has become very judgmental of how I live my life. Or perhaps it is more accurate to say that when it comes to how we live our lives she has become very competitive.

When we were young, this was never an issue, we were very different so there wasn’t much to compare. But as adults, we both strive for success in love, in our careers, our lifestyle, our station.

As it turns out, I have done well in these pursuits. I have a great marriage, a fulfilling career, an interesting lifestyle and, well, as for what I am calling ‘station’, I really mean money. And yeah, I have plenty of that too. Which all seems to make my sister very pissy and disapproving.

It is, of course, her prerogative to dislike my choices. I haven’t a problem with that. What gets my goat is that she is always implying that my husband and I have somehow sold ourselves out in making certain choices, attaining certain things. She implies that one cannot possibly enjoy any job that comes with a hefty pay cheque and that having a good-paying job means that one must compromise one’s morals. It is total bullshit. By her reasoning, only low paying jobs can be rewarding, and that all low paying jobs are, because of their low pay, noble pursuits. I’ll say it again, total bullshit. Working at McDonald’s is not the same as working for Greenpeace. Low pay does not equal virtue.

Another favorite detail of my circumstance that my sister likes to judge is that my husband is really the one that makes the big cheque. (I, on the other hand, make a lucrative living, which is to say, when I work I get paid very well, but with the baby I don’t work that often.) Husband brings home the bacon, I am a SAHM/WAHM. She goes crazy with this. “When did you become so traditional?”, she asks. By which she means a backwards, anti-feminist, focus-on-the-family, twin-set-wearing dullard.

This all drives me crazy. Crazy, I tell you. Crazy! Because none of it is true. She knows perfectly well that my husband grew up in extreme poverty and for him to make a very good living doing something he absolutely loves is the best example of karma that she or I will ever witness. She also knows that he and I have ‘risked it all’ a number of times in order to stand by what we believe. As for me turning my back on my independence, she also knows, deep down, that it is not true; that I am a hard-core kind of feminist in many respects. But I have a 6-month-old baby and, call me crazy, I want to raise him for a while.

As I said, at the heart of all of this is competitiveness. I believe that she sees my happiness and success only in relation to her own. She is keeping score and any time she feels I’m pulling ahead by a large margin, she issues me demerits, herself some moral bonus points, and presto, she is back in the game.

It makes it very difficult to share my life experiences with her.

But I refuse to not talk honestly about my life. To me, if I downplay the good things then I really AM comparing myself to her. And being condescending. (Should I downplay because, you know, what I’ve got is so much better and how could she not feel bad hearing about all my fabulousness? How is this reasoning not insulting?) I refuse to do it. I don’t see why I should have to apologize or hide or dumb-down my life in order to make other people feel better about their life. I work hard for what I have. It is not a competition.

I believe that women in general feel too uncomfortable celebrating their successes. Too often we speak only about negatives – or worse, turn positives into negatives in order to talk about things openly. It is as if we feel like saying anything good about ourselves would be boasting. That is just wrong. But I think we feel this way because, really, this is how some other women - like my sister -often make us feel. And it is all because they are being competitive. And petty.

A good marriage is no small feat. Establishing yourself professionally is hard won as well. A great body, higher education, money, good kids – none of these things come easily. They should be celebrated if you can achieve them. Good on you! (For the record, I do not have a great body, I have a Bachelor of Fine Art aka Bachelor of Fuck All, some money, and the kid is in development. I’m hardly picture perfect; that is not my point.)

This topic is fresh for me right now not only because of a recent call with my sister but because I’ve seen some evidence of this attitude in recent posts and comments in the blogosphere. And I think we should call it out.

If you have a good marriage, feel free to celebrate it.

If you have great skill, training, education, go on and flex your brawn or brain.

If you’ve worked hard for your possessions and get comfort and joy from them, tell me about it.

I love to hear about rewarding love, insightful ideas and opinions, great travel, new gadgets, killer shoes, awesome strollers that glide over any surface and fold down into toothpicks. Tell me! It’s OK. I will not assume that with every sentence you utter that you are really saying that you are happier, smarter, more successful, or more beautiful than I am. Because I will realize that you are talking about you, not about me.

I wish people would just get over themselves. My sister especially.

Phew. Turned into a bit of a ranty-rant there at the end. But I feel better. Thanks!