As far as boyfriends go, Paulie Bleeker is totally boss: The condom broke part 5.

Justin met my mom and dad on our third date. In the Utah-iest location in Utah this is a normal and accepted practice. It doesn't mean things are serious, it's so Ma and Pa can perform shotgun and rifle cleaning on a regular basis.

My parents were naturally concerned with my date choice. I was still a teenager, albeit legal, and Justin was 23, fresh out of the Army. His best shoes were his Desert Storm sand colored combat boots. My dad asked Justin what he did...which is a loaded question coming from any father...but a bit more so when coming from my father. Dad is a worker. When he got home from his shift as a machinist at the steel mill, he put on his other work clothes and worked some more. Dad is a work perfectionist. Work hard, work long, work until it's done, and don't do any of it half assed.

How did Justin reply to Dad asking what he did? He spouted off with, "Nothing. I'm a lazy bum."

I wilted.

It would have been better for Justin to describe lewd sex acts in detail, sprinkled with plenty of profanity and a request for match to light his meth pipe, rather than to tell my dad that he was a lazy bum. If there was a wrong thing to say, that was it.

Even after three dates I knew Justin was for life. I knew it the same way you know you have a spleen even though you've probably never seen your own spleen. It wasn't a romantic notion either. Is a spleen romantic? No. It just is. Justin and I, just the way it is.

(No, I don't want to see pictures of your spleens. Perverts.)

How does your family not look at you like a boy crazy eejit after he owns his bumhood?

Thank goodness Dad swears that he doesn't remember Justin saying such a thing. He liked Justin. Justin was serious about studying in college. He joined the Army because he wasn't nearly as serious in high school. He figured if he was going to get anyplace he wanted to get to, that the Army, and then the G.I. Bill, was the path that was the most likely.

And though Justin knocked me up, my family put credit where credit was due, squarely on the both of us, and supported our decision to marry and make it right. If my parents had wanted to punch Justin in the wiener they never told me. Maybe I'll ask my dad when I see him next. Saying wiener in front of my dad ought to be hoot.

My marriage and life and family has it's base in the G.I. Bill and VA disability (for Desert Storm Syndrome). So many questions had answers because we had those resources and services available to us, even though you have to buy red tape in bulk to use them. Between veteran's benefits, scholarships, stipends and grants we were able to scrape by in those early years. We were poor, but we were able to live within our means, leaving college a few years later with only a couple thousand dollars of debt by way of a loan we took so we could move. We didn't even have a credit card until our 8th year of marriage. Our GPAs and credit scores were both excellent.

Those poor years... Those years where finding a five dollar bill you didn't know you'd left in your pocket was like winning the lottery.... Those years where I was darning socks and making baby clothes out of the best parts of Justin's worn shirts and pants... Those years where we were staggering classes, pushing the stroller back and forth from college to avoid daycare costs while we both attended... Those are some of the best years of my life. I wouldn't trade them for anything.

There are those that say that marriage is work. Family is work. Work as in ditch digging, sweating, muscle spasm-ing work. Lately I've been thinking differently on it. It's an occupation. It's work as worthwhile and as enjoyable as your priorities and your attitude towards it. Though Justin and I are a condom failure rate statistic, we were determined to work hard, work long, work until it's done, to not do any of it half assed and not become a young marriage statistic. This is it, just the way it is.

Our "baby" is 14 now. I make him shower and use soap. I talk to him candidly about sex, about condoms, about his responsibilities in reproduction...and about love.

Though, I don't know what girl would be after him if he continues to think that soap is arbitrary. At least he's stopped projectile vomiting.

Pregnancy... It can often lead to an infant: The condom broke part 4

I woke up, two days postpartum, nineteen years old, to find out that my A cup breasts had morphed into rock hard double D rockets.

I shoved Justin awake to show him. He refused to look at my episiotomy stitches but he was not going to sleep through the discovery of my leaking chest torpedoes. All the books and literature told me this would happen, but the reality of it is far different sitting on your chest than on the page. Nursing pads were a joke. I either put maxi pads in each cup or covered my arsenals with a bath towel. I smelled like sour cream for weeks on end.

I don't think I'll describe the joy that is going #2 for the first time after a first birth. It's nightmare material.

A pregnant teen belly marks you. It makes you a gossip topic. It makes you a social example. It has people questioning your values, your character, your maturity and the job your parents did raising you. The birth of a baby remedies this. It's baby powder scented hypnosis, like music, it soothes the savage breast. The people that looked at me from afar now wanted to look at my baby closely, hold him, coo at him. He healed the scowl just by his mere presence.

He was such a striking baby too. I'm not just saying this because I'm mommy but because it just happens to be true. He was born with black hair, dark eyes, and an overall calm demeanor. (And a wiry black hair in the middle of his chest...) He was a pleasant cuddler. He ate well, he slept well, and except for the occasional projectile vomiting, he didn't make much of a mess. I entered him into the town's baby contest, in hand me down overalls, and he won.

Because Justin and I had some foresight in talking about how marriage would still be a marriage after the baby come along, becoming parents while remaining newlyweds wasn't as difficult as it could have been. Our crappy apartment didn't become the land of baby, overrun with infant paraphernalia, which only gives the impression of success and love than actual success and love. Babies are simple and we lived simply.

It was also easier to procure birth control from that point on too. I was a married woman, a mother. No desk receptionist was going to call my parents and clear birth control with them. I had a Norplant inserted in my left upper arm, drawn to it's promise to protect me from conception for five years without having to remember much of anything. Offering to let people touch it was a an evil joy for me. The only thing I could compare that to today would be asking if you wanted to touch a wart with a curly hair growing out of it. You want to know what that feels like but, ewww, that's weird, ewwww!

There is happiness in not having to use condoms for sex when it comes to birth control. I'd learned a lesson, and besides, they chafe.

Tomorrow the last installment: "As far as boyfriends go, Paulie Bleeker is totally boss: The condom broke part 5."

The right person will still think the sun shines out your ass: The condom broke part 3

I'm sitting on a stack of three milk crates behind the register of the most coveted check out stand at Jim Beam's. (It's my name for the grocery store I worked at for four years.) It's coveted because the customers have to put their groceries on a belt to be scanned instead of just parking their cart by the checker's crotch and letting them strain their backs unloading it. I got dibs on that coveted checkstand because my 9 months pregnant belly keeps me from fishing cans of soup out of the back of the cart and I'm sitting on milk crates because standing makes me need to pee. The crates are surprisingly comfortable.

In the next checkstand over a customer is doing her best to ignore me and gawk at my belly at the same time. She is the mother of a girl I went to school with. Six months ago she had congratulated me on my wedding, being one of my daily customers and ever so chatty, but when I started to show and she did a little counting on her fingers, the chattiness ended. My checkstand was tainted. I was a bad influence on her children by my mere presence. It wasn't just the look on her face that told me so. It was that she outright told me so. The scowl was only gravy on her convictions.

Before telling my mom I was pregnant, and in turn she told my dad, Justin and I went through the usual round of decisions. Abortion was considered for about a half second, out of fear rather than something that was a viable option for many reasons, and besides, you couldn't get one legally in Utah. Adoption was also considered, but in the end, because of our ages and the fact that we did have some means, we believed that it would only serve to break the hearts of our families. We decided on a wedding in August, on a Wednesday. It didn't feel like shot gun to either of us since we had already been discussing marriage seriously before I had sprouted. It's just foreshortening the engagement by two years, right? In the next few days, before our families were let in on the surprise, we did two years worth of work and went over all the practicalites of marriage. We resolved any marital aspect that we could think of which might effect our futures, from finances, to schooling, to chores and how to fight. Amazingly, there was very little we didn't discuss that still isn't relevant now, fifteen years in. Those days were moments of grace.

That talk is why my husband and I have never called each other a name in anger, ever. I'm proud of that.

The first adult I told about my pregnancy was my boss. It was the last thing he expected to hear coming out of my mouth because he believed I was an all American teen success. He had good reason to think it. Most adults in the town did. He read the town paper, which sat in a stack at his workstation, and my photo had appeared in it at least once a month for the last two years with a story about some honor I had achieved. Becky grinning about Future Farmers of America awards. Becky grinning about marching band and flag successes, despite her inability to march. Becky grinning about arts honors. Becky grinning about being art Sterling Scholar for the entire school.

August came and there was no photo next to the announcement of my marriage in the paper. I wasn't ashamed, I considered it another honor, but I had gotten a very bad haircut the morning Justin and I were to sit for the photographer. Becky grinning with bangs that were to my eyebrows on the right side of my forehead angling up to being less than an inch long to the left side. I hated the photos. I looked like I had sniffed glue and there wasn't time to process another. My Mom still hangs one of the photos in her entryway. I need to steal it.

Details of my honeymoon HERE. (Link contains automatic play song file.)

Mrs. Scowl wasn't the only person to openly disapprove. There was a whole range of reaction since I was so visible. Some classmates and townspeople told me I'd ruined my life. Another classmate, who I in no way got along with before, gave me a hug. One person asked me who the father was with my husband standing right next to me. Another classmate asked to touch my belly, which I allowed until she attempted to pull down my pants so she could feel the head. She was an odd duck.

You can read an account of the birth HERE.

Next: "Pregnancy... It can often lead to an infant: The condom broke part 4."

I'm forshizz up the spout: The condom broke part 2.

I thought I was suffering from seasickness. I was on a houseboat at Lake Powell afterall, on vacation with my parents and the family next door. Being motion sick would have been par for the course.

By the time the vacation was over, my period was late.

I had just graduated from highschool mere weeks before. I looped tape on the inside of my mortarboard to keep it on my head because I didn't have enough hair to bobby pin the cap onto and they refused to let me order a better fitting male cap. My little sister's future sister in law walked in the ceremony with her pregnant belly obvious under her gown, newly married. Shameful.

There was a lot of talk about which girls in my class were leaving their highschool careers a little bit preggers. Today it's accepted (or at least tolerated) that there will be pregnant girls, but fifteen years ago, graduating from one of the Utah-iest highschools in Utah? Yeah...it was still very naughty.

In my senior psychology class an anonymous poll the teacher gave asked, among other social questions of interest to teens, if you had lost your virginity. What the hell, it's anonymous right? I ticked off that I had ridden the baloney pony. I had done a little Adam and Eve'n. I had crashed the custard truck. I had fornicated.

Out of 45 kids in that class it was revealed that three of us admitted to having once had sex. We all looked about the room, studying the faces we had grown up with, guessing at who, and how, and with whom. Some looked right at me. Some scanned right over my desk in the front row not even considering me capable. After all, I was brainy, nerdy even, unfeminine with short hair, and flatchested. I didn't fit into the typical loose date mold. Beyond that, anyone that was considered not a good follower of Utah's dominant religion was suspect. The church guidelines are specific on that point...keep your clothing on and your body parts covered, until marriage, after you've served your missions. I wasn't much of a partier.

Though the loss of my virginity to someone else was as irresponsible and impulsive and stupid as it gets, when I became intimate with my now husband we had discussed the what ifs. Not just putting on a condom and engaging in blind spermcide coated latex faith, but realistically looking at what our horny little butts were really doing and what that might lead to if we weren't careful. I suppose we could have done more, but there really wasn't anyplace to get the pill without the desk receptionist calling a parent and clearing it with them, even at age 18. Remember, this is still the Utah-iest location in Utah, Planned Parenthood had trouble setting up housekeeping at the time. Justin and I loved each other and we bought condoms. We used them. I remember one of them was blue.

It wasn't obvious to either of us that the condom had failed. Our condom never burst like a balloon. It didn't slip. It hadn't fallen off. As far as we knew everything was intact when it came to excitement, plateau, orgasm and resolution.

However, Houston, the eagle had landed.

I'm a condom failure rate statistic.

I called Justin when we got home from houseboating. We hadn't seen each other for three weeks, in between my seasickness and his summer obligation to the National Guard, so the phone call was supposed to be a happy event. We missed each other. Being told your girlfriend suspects she's pregnant wasn't on the agenda. Ring ring...Hello...My period's late.

I took a test later that evening. It was as subtle as our condom...that is, you couldn't look at it and tell one way or the other...which I took as a good sign. What I took as a bad sign was the continued nausea, the absence of any sort of menses, and the clearly positive test I took three days later.

You can't fool Mother Nature.

Stay tuned: Tommorrow presents, "The right person will still think the sun shines out your ass: The condom broke part 3."

It started with a chair: The condom broke part 1.

Months ago, when the Oscar buzz was still a buzzing, I was asked in an email if I had seen the movie Juno. This emailer had read my "100 things about me" post and ascertained that I was once a mumblemumbleteen-parentmumble because I said I had married straight out of highschool, giving birth to my first son six months after my wedding day. Logically, this means that I had engaged in mumblemumblepremarital-sexmumble. I was asked to write about my experiences on the matter.

I replied that I hadn't seen Juno but it was on my Netflix queue. Sure, why not write a post or two when the movie comes out on DVD? It might be better than writing about farts.

Instead of waiting on the U.S. mail and my queue to move slowly along, my husband bought the DVD two weeks ago. It brought back much of what I'd forgotten and left me with emotions that stopped being relevant over a decade ago. It hit me harder than I thought it would.

So, I've been putting off my post or two.

I understand I'm really under no obligation to relate my experiences with mumblemumbleteen-parenthoodmumble. I can't even spout off a good natured, "but I wanted to!" when it comes to these next series of posts. What I'm feeling is a wistful sort of "supposed to" but not for your sakes. It's for me. That's right. Me. Everything is about me.

Certainly my experience is not unique. I know this firsthand. My own parents, who have been married nearly 50 years, began their life together as teen parents. They were younger than I was in making the same choices but their story held more stigma in those days. They didn't even get to mumble through the subject. You just didn't mention it at all. You sent it away and hope it didn't come back fat or a delinquent.

When the age of Free Love came it sort of relieved the burden of being so hush hush. My parents didn't get into the whole hippie thing. Dad didn't grow his hair long. He kept himself employed, clean shaven and therefore he and my mom escaped being uncontrollable sex fiends. They were forgiven to a point and having a young family kept my dad out of the draft.

My husband had already been in the Army and fought in a war when I had met him. He wasn't ever a mumblemumbleteen-parentmumble. That changes my story somewhat, and lends to our success ultimately. I'll talk about that more later.

Tomorrow? Stayed tuned for, "I'm forshizz up the spout: The condom broke part 2."

Happy Mothers Day all.

Get a shovel...

I'd like to welcome my dear readers and other hangers on to my 500th post.

You know, that's a lot of bullshart I've strewn about the interwebs. They arrest people when they spout off similar bullshart on street corners.

I have some ideas about where I'd like this blog to go, bullshart not withstanding. Feel free to let me know what you'd like to see. What are you curious about?

Lay your own bullshart on me. I'm ready.

Aunt Bee Wannabe

Hi, I'm Becky...

...I used to have a mullet.

It was 1984. After a lean muscular chick in running shorts tossed a sledgehammer into our Wake Me Up Before you Go Go mentalities, my older high school aged sister took my ten year old head into the bathroom and gave me a haircut just like hers. Then she did the same thing to my little sister.

I did have lovely and long little girl hair. I ended up with lovely and long Joan Jett awesomeness.

At the time I didn't realize that my older sister, who really really really liked sports, didn't just have a mullet to keep her hair out of her eyes while she played. I just thought she was the neatest sister ever with her feathered front...better than sliced wonder bread and the box macaroni and cheese that my mom would never buy at the store.

I realize now that I only barely dodged the bullet of having band hair in my teen years. My older sister got old enough to be out on her own and and so I had to take my hair cues from a big book in a hair salon. I chose a short boy haircut at age twelve, leaving the mullet behind me forever. At one point after that I had a short tight poodle perm which I refuse to discuss. You just don't instantly get over trauma like that. Oh the nightmares...

Today I've got lovely long little girl hair reaching my waist. I need a haircut and I'm trying to resist taking hair cues from popular media. How do I decide on a do without also choosing a lifestyle? What does it mean if I choose a Sex in the City haircut? What kind of example am I if copy Marcia Cross? Can I get away with a Hannah Montana at my age?

Do I have to get a haircut that tells the world that I AM MOM? Absent Minded hairdo?

Sigh, my hair now hides the front poof on my Mom jeans when I sit down.