Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Giving Up on Transitions

Anecdote 1: I Bred a Street-Fighter.
The other day I was bent over Miss Thang, making silly noises in an attempt to get her to smile. Apparently she had had enough. She grabbed a fistful of my hair right by the roots and then kicked me square in the jaw when I couldn’t move. Note to self: even babies hate your singing. Perhaps it’s time to turn on a CD.

Anecdote 2: I Care Not for Germs.
My shower puff fell apart the other day while I was using it, thus indicating I was about three months late in buying a new one. So I grabbed one off the shelf at the supermarket when I went grocery shopping. The checkout woman scanned it, then proceeded to throw it at the pimply-faced bagger. She missed, and the poof landed on the floor and rolled away. She retrieved it, only to flirtatiously try to throw it at the guy again. I debated throwing a frozen pack of ground beef at her. How does she not realize that my intent is to use this thing for cleaning myself? I am not really interested rubbing grocery store floor germs all over myself. Thanks anyway. Asswipe. Please hold my place in line while I go grab a bottle of bleach to add to my purchases today.

Anecdote 3: I Do Not Appear to Have Much Left in the Way of Muscles
I realized it’s probably been about a year since I last exercised. A year. So I decided to go jogging over the weekend. A woman from the nearby senior center with a walker almost passed me on the path around the lake. I. Am. Out. Of. Shape. But! Hey, this fresh air stuff is pretty awesome. I had kind of forgotten about it, what with hibernating with my baby this winter.

Anecdote 4: Fantasy Olympics. Because We're Cool Like That.
Some friends have decided to do a fantasy Olympics this year. The draft is tonight. (We are only drafting countries. Once we know our countries, we can start caring about individual athletes. This is not a high-stakes kind of fantasy league so much as a contrive-a-way-to-make-ourselves-get-more-personally-vested-in-the-luge-type league.) I drew sixth place in the draft. Out of six people. The odds are not good that I will get to draft Norway, despite my protests that I should just automatically get it, given my personal ties, plus two other picks. The powers that be remain unmoved by my pleading. Note to self: Learn to plead better. Maybe I should try singing to them. It seems to inspire reaction.

Anecote 5: Miss Thang has had some serious reflux issues. My clothes all carry a permanent eau de milk puke scent on them nowadays. In an attempt to see if it will help, I am trying to cut dairy out of my diet, because apparently a lot of babies have cow’s milk allergies to varying degrees. All I can say is my world is rather bleak without cheese. And ice cream. Leading me to be kind of cranky and whiney in general. See: this entire post. In better news, I learned my local grocery store carries coconut milk! Who knew?

Thus a very disjointed blog post. As you can see, I’ve got some ADD going on. I have things to say and do, and then, whoa, look at that pile of laundry! And as the laundry is being added to the dryer, Miss Thang cries, and when she’s semi-soothed I realize I am dying from thirst, and as I’m pouring water I trip over Tatum who’s trying to tell me his dish is empty, and so I go to give him water and see his food bowl is empty too, so I go to feed him and spill food everywhere so I grab a broom and while I’m not paying 100% attention to her, Miss Thang barfs on me and everything else within a 50-foot radius and so I go to change her and as I throw her wet onsie in the laundry I’m like, HEY! I can add that to the load I started twenty minutes ago since I don’t think I actually remembered to turn the machine ON. And what was I saying...ADD much?

I can haz ice cream now? PLEEZ?

Saturday, January 16, 2010

Dors Bien Ma Cherie

I don't really know what to say in light of the disaster in Haiti. Since becoming a mother, I've found my heart can break pitifully easily and it has been broken over and over seeing the images and hearing the stories coming out from Haiti. I made my donations, but it doesn't feel like enough. For some reason I've always had a soft spot in my heart for that island, though I've never been there. Sesame Street played its part. This was my introduction to Haiti:

Thursday, January 07, 2010

MEEEEP

http://www.nrk.no/nyheter/nobels_fredspris/1.6907010

All sorts of things I love so much. Hip-hop meets Norwegian royalty.

The Princess is HERE, Wyclef, I'm so here....

Where the Wind Takes Us

Hi. I know I keep disappearing. I don’t know what has happened to my life. Sometimes I look at it and think, Whose life IS that? Certainly it isn’t the one I planned on. By thirty I was going to be sipping Bordeaux daily on the balcony in my chalet in Switzerland, responding to fan mail about my most recent best-seller over Audrey Hepburn-esque sunglasses, listening to my little goat herd bleat below.

I realize that’s fairly specific. I’d certainly have settled for France or Norway or something. I’m not unreasonable.

sigh

To be honest... I’m actually digging the whole mom-thing, but I am almost scared to admit that for fear of jinxing the little glimmer of hope that has appeared in the back of my mind’s eye. Miss Thang sleeps through the night (ish [not counting the regular 3:45 AM feeding, but she does go right back to sleep]) and it’s amazing what a little sleep will do for all of us. She also is seeing the world much more clearly, and spends a lot of time looking around taking in the very interesting doorknobs and couch covers in our house instead of screaming. Which has done wonders for my nerves. She's also unearably cute and has cheeks that I fantasize about gnawing on.

I started back at work this week, and we did find a nanny. She’s kind and teaches piano so there’s some hope for Miss Thang’s musical development despite her parents’ complete and utter lack of ability or knowledge in anything musical-y at all. (Her father’s unnatural fondness for a capella does NOT count.) So the nanny is awesome, but I miss my baby terribly, which is silly because she is just downstairs and I find plenty of reasons to go peek on her throughout the day.

The next step is getting back into the rest of my life. I have yet to figure out how to get to book club when Miss Thang’s bedtime routine involves needing certain pieces of my anatomy to be present at home, and I am not yet sure there’s a reliable way to ski with an infant attached. I remain optimistic, for I am getting sleep.