Friday, January 20, 2006

060120 Stripper dust & simon says

In the spirit of Jeff Foxworthy's "You might be a redneck if..."

You might be a Mommy if...

You discover the source of that funky cheese smell when you examine your infant's double chins.

Your kids are so talkative that you decide if the ever were to make a screen play of your life it would be called "Mom, interrupted."

The most communication you've had with your spouse in the last week is when you both holler "INDOOR VOICE" at the same time.

You go on week-long trip and don't even bother to pack a razor... hell at home you don't shave for a lot longer than that at times.

You wash your hair when you can't remember the last time you did it... and you don't remember what a blow dryer looks like.

You think back to how long it took you to get ready for work and wonder if you'll EVER have time to primp like that again.

You find yourself interrupting phone conversations with "Don't put the applesauce in the VCR." and only realize that's funny when the person you're talking to laughs.

You decide that peeing in the shower is just good time management.

Your wardrobe decisions are often based on who saw you in it yesterday, and are you seeing them again today? Your kids, on the other hand, always look cute and coordinated.

You put those blue tablets in the toilet tanks not because you're queen of domestic hygiene, but because you want to be sure what the source for your "tea party" ISN'T.

You've been to the butcher, the baker, and a playgroup and only discover on getting home that you've had a zit on your face the size of Kansas the whole day. In your previous life (pre kids) you'd have called in sick, or slathered on so much makeup that it looked like a science project. These days who looks in the mirror?


As you all know it's been a while since I've sent out a Mommy Moments. So this is longer than usual. I know everyone's busy, but I hope you find some entertainment here.

So I've been to the ragged edge and back. It's almost impossible to communicate how crazy making it is to have an infant who wont be put down, and even when she's being held cries constantly, and a toddler simply being herself. Add to this pain from nursing with thrush, a tanker truck full of hormones and sleep deprivation. I absolutely understand how women go nuts. I had Lexie in the Bjorn -- and she was still screaming -- and poor Angelina was playing in the kitchen sink as she loves to do, I was chopping up an apple and just holding a knife in my hand was scary. I would never do anything to hurt my kids, but the potential of that knife just scared me. I really felt like I was a gnat's eyebrow from going insane at points.

It's those damn hormones. One friend of mine refused to drive on any of the bay area bridges. She always saw herself and the kids drowning trapped in a car. Another friend would compulsively open the garage door before turning on the car just in case in that split second between turning on the car and pushing the garage door opener she died of a stroke or heart attack the baby would be safe from carbon monoxide poisoning. I guess we all get a little crazy. With Angelina I could never go down stairs with her in my arms and NOT see a mental movie of us falling ass over teakettle down the stairs.

Falling in love with Angelina...

Breastfeeding hurts. No two ways about it, it just hurts at first. And add to that the antibiotics of a C section and all sorts of imbalances will occur, usually resulting in thrush, a painful infection of the breast. I explained to Angelina that we needed to go to target to buy breast pads. I told her that Mommy had boo boos on her boobies and the breast pads would help. Hours later, I was nursing Lexie in Angelina's room and she saw me wincing. Angelina ran off inexplicably, and as I was busy doing lamaze breathing for the nipple pain, I didn't pay attention until she came back with two breast pads. What an absolute sweetie. She saw I was in pain, put together what there was that she could do about it, and ran off to get me the breast pads.

A couple of days later, she saw the same expression on my face and brought me the Lansinoh which I had also explained was cream for mommy's boobie boo boos.

Just today 9/19, the thrush has definitely set in and has gotten worse. The lamaze breathing was starting to sound like the huffing and puffing of a steam engine. Angelina never holds it against Lexie that she's causing me pain. She offers to kiss the boo boo, and although it's not exactly comfortable to let her do this, I just can't say no. Today she offered "You want a schnuller?" and ran and got me one of her pacifiers and stuck it in my mouth. Her schnullies are obviously a great comfort to her, and in her two year old little world, she offered me what she would have wanted for her comfort

National Geographic

I've always said that bringing a child into this world is one of the most dignified acts one can undertake. It is, however, one that cannot be accomplished with any sense of modesty. I've been battling Thrush, a pernicious infection common in women who've had C-sections due to the huge wad of antibiotics we're given. The antibiotics throw things out of balance and allow yeast to grow unchecked. This infects the nipples, milk ducts, baby's mouth, and sometimes baby's heinie. So now I've got cream for my nipples, cream for Lexie's butt, oral nystatin for her mouth and an anti-yeast pill I'm taking. The other recommendations are that the nipples remain exposed to the air as much as possible, and that they be bathed in a mild baking soda solution periodically. I've become convinced that National Geographic should do a spread on the lactating women of suburbia. I can just see what the caption would be for some of the photographs. "The women smear their nipples with a peculiar yellow cream. Anthropologists believe it's a cosmetic form of adornment to celebrate their lactating status." Of course running around topless works fine unless, like I do, you have your most used room with three walls made of glass.

Poopscapades

We've had another episode of the poopscapades. In rare form for nap avoidance, Angelina did her usual Houdini escape from her crib and was knocking on her door wanting to be let out. This usually happens after a two to three hour nap rather than the 30 minutes it had been. I opened the door to discover my little darling dashing about her room bottomless and looking very much awake. She announced that she had made a mess, a conclusion I'd come to seconds earlier as the smell of baby poop hit my nose. Why is it that they don't merely rip off their diapers -- something that I could quite thoroughly understand -- they examine the contents. In Angelina's case, she examined the contents and wanted to show all her little friends her accomplishments. To this end she stomped several of her happy meal toys through the accumulated feces, and then stomped them all over the carpet in her room. Other little girly girls have their dolls tiptoeing through the tulips, but NO, mine has her dolls tromping through the turds! Shark boy, and "Helping Sally" are soaking in a sudsy spa right now and will need to be more thoroughly disinfected, assuming I don't send them to their poopy grave with two other toys I thought were irredeemable.

Thrush -- again

I've come to the conclusion that if I were a Native American they would change my name to Leaky Purple Nips. "Dances with wolves, meet Leaky purple nips." "Thanks Flying Eagle." We have thrush AGAIN. This time we're trying the Gentian Violet therapy. For anyone who doesn't know, this is some sort of anti-fungal dye, purple in color, that we're painting my nipples with. Then Lexie's supposed to nurse which applies the stuff to her mouth. At least that's what I thought. And I didn't realize that I didn't have to paint the WHOLE areola. Of course it seems like with each pregnancy I gain a whole new letter to my bra size. I'm now a DDD. This means that Lexie wound up purple from her sternum to her eyeballs.

So as a result of the Gentian Violet, Lexie looks like she's cyanotic and needs artificial respiration, when she's only blue 'cause of the GV. She used to suck on my pinky and now either she's sucked blisters on it, or I have the same damn fungal infection on my pinky. It looks kind of like an athlete's foot out break. I dipped it in the GV and now I look like I voted in Iraq. I boiled all my bras, but didn't think about separating them by color. At first they looked just subtly tie dyed -- then of course the streaks of Gentian Violet have added a whole new motif. So much for bras at $50 a pop. I was feeding her in public on Sunday and the nipple started to bleed. Great, that's all I need is for some passer by to see me looking stressed, holding a blue baby who has a smear of blood on her cheek... The cops would be followed shortly by CPS and the folks with the white coats. ARGH. I would to pump and bottle feed for a while, but she won't take a bottle.

Simon Says

Doug's been teaching Angelina how to play "Simon Says." At this age, they're all Simon Sayses; she never gets it that she's not supposed to do what we tell her if we omit the Simon says bit. So they were at the beach kicking a couple balls around. We have a bright yellow one, and one that's red and black like a lady bug. They were standing about 20 feet apart, when Angelina shouted in her best outdoor voice, "Let's play Simon Says!" Ever game, Doug said "Okay!" and started hollering back some "Simon says... Touch your head!" Angelina wanted to be Simon, and told Doug so. Doug complied and Angelina started shouting "Simon says...put your hands on your knees!" and other similar orders. After a run of these sweet little orders, Angelina suddenly shouts "Simon says... put your hands on your cock!" Of course this is at the beach, the grassy part south of the flag pole, where people can be walking by on both sides. Doug was horrified. His response? "Let's play with the balls!" By this he meant the bright yellow ball, and the red one with black dots that looks like a lady bug.

Reindeer games

Angelina has been playing the name game ... After we see 101 Dalmations, I'm Pongo, she's Perdita, Lexie gets to be one of the puppies (or all of them, I'm never quite sure). We'll play act for a little while, then switch roles -- or more likely get confused, "Oh, YOU'RE Pongo now, eh?" So with the holidays lately, of course we've been assigned various reindeer names. One day I'll be Donder, then the next day it's "No, I Donder! Her Blitzen!" pointing to her sister. I was able to keep a straight face through out all of this and go along with the program until she declared "I Comet, You Puke-it!" I think she meant Cupid...

Sisterly Love

I took both kids into our not so hot hot tub yesterday. That was fun. After we came in and stripped off our bathing suits, I let Lexie lay on a towel doing "tummy time" naked, Angelina ran around naked while I walked about naked. That lasted until I saw my post partem reflection. I went to throw on one of the several sets of sweats I had laying on the floor by my bed, and when I came out I discovered that Angelina had been very busy stuffing goldfish in Lexie's ass crack until she looked like a little stegasaurus. I got the movie camera out and interviewed Angelina about this particular endeavor. She assured me it was an offering for the monsters.

Stop me before I pump again.

Breastfeeding has always been an adventure. I readily confess to being neurotic. If I feed Lexie a bottle (of previously expressed milk), I make sure I pump to keep up my supply. This was always an issue with Angelina as I had a fairly low supply. I suspect that's 'cause of the birth control pills as this time I'm not on them and I'm fairly a gusher. Don't kill me, but Lexie started sleeping through the night at about 3 months old. I don't mean the "it's sleeping through the night if she does a 5 hour stretch" thing, I mean from 9 p,m, until 6 a.m.. Like I said, don't kill me. Last night was from 6 p.m. until 5:00 a.m.. This is, of course a bit sporadic, and we have the sleepless nights interspersed there too. Yesterday she wouldn't nap unless she was sucking on my pinky. There are offsetting issues. Of course as I write this I'm watching the sun come up and pausing to entertain Lexie in the swing while the rest of the household is snug abed. 6:00 a.m. is bloody early!

So when she started sleeping through the night, I would be awakened by the vain attempt to sleep on my stomach with bowling ball stiff engorged breasts. I'd often wake Lexie up to nurse her on one bowling ball, then pump the other, just so I could get back to sleep. It's almost like being drunk when you're that asleep. I've discovered that my pump "talks to me" As I stand there propped against the counter holding the boob suckers on, I SWEAR the pump forms words. One night it was "arapaho." I don't know if that was the Indian tribe or some jealous Southerner saying something like "I wrapped dat ho upside da haid!" Back in the day when I pumped at work I would try to mentally chant "Milk for 'Ina, Milk for Ina" while looking at pictures of her. That works when I'm lucid and lucidity doesn't happen in the middle of the night. Just the other day my pump chanted "Mind control... Mind control..." Yeah, right. Who really had control of their mind at 3:00 a.m.

Glitter pants.

A dear friend of ours gave the girls matching adorable outfits. Pink glittery tops and glittery blue jeans. They look absolutely darling, and I expect it'll just look cuter when Lexie is able to sit up and they can hang out together more. I dressed them in their little outfits for a trip to the zoo. Doug had the day off so it was great to hang out as a family. Doug decided, however, that we didn't need the double stroller, so we put Lexie in the single and Angelina walked. As I expected this meant we didn't make rapid progress in any particular direction and I suggested to Angelina that maybe Daddy should let her ride on his shoulders, and suggested to Daddy that since he didn't want to take the double, transporting Angelina was on him. Both of them were game for this and it was really cute to see this angelic little girl in her sparkly pink, fur-trimmed hoodie up on Daddy's shoulders. Of course what we DIDN'T forsee was that the glitter rubbed off and on the way home from the zoo I noticed that Doug's head, face, and neck were covered in "stripper dust." He looked like some Triple D stripper had grabbed him by the ears and boob slapped him. The next day he took Angelina to the Sportsmen's show. I neglected to tell him as he walked out the door that the shower hadn't gotten all the glitter off, so he walked around the sportsmen's show, talking all sorts of manly stuff "How much for a guided Turkey hunt, and can I shoot with my black powder gun?" all the while sparkling like tinkerbell.

Evi the Good Witch

I always greet Angelina with enthusiasm when she gets up from her nap. I tell her I missed her and we hug and cuddle a little. I noticed a bunch of white spots on her sheets and asked her what they were, were they milk? She looked a little scared but fessed up that they were. I told her it was okay, did she think I'd be angry with her? She said "No, Mommy, You're a GOOD witch!" I obviously looked confused as I asked her "GOOD witch?" She assured me "Yeah, like a princess." And when you think about it, all the good witches she's seen are beautiful, and from her, with her sweet intent, "good witch" is a high compliment indeed.




Copywrite 2006, Evelyn James