There are so many posts I haven't published here, and I really ought to, to keep the record for my kids up to date.
With Sarah Palin's resignation from the Alaska Governorship, I googled her, and Trig. Trig has his own little web site. What weird crap comes up.
All I know is that with Annabelle, the 3rd AJ, having Down Syndrome, I couldn't be more blessed. AJs 1 and 2, Angelina and Alexis, adore her. I wish the world had more contact with people like her. Special needs equals special perspectives, special love, special insights -- all of which I'd have missed out on without her.
At this point I could give a rat's ass about politics. I understand that if I, as a Mom, were to give up precious time with my family, it would have to be for a damn good reason. And being Governor, apparently wasn't a good enough reason for Sarah anymore. You GO GIRL!!!! And give that kid a hug and a cuddle for me.
Maybe someday Annabelle and Trig could be friends. Even folks who can't see auras would swear there's an almost-blinding glow about them. It's not seen as much as felt. I, for one, can feel it when the angels wings brush me as they envy my ability to hold and cuddle her. Sarah, we share that joy.
Evelyn
Friday, July 03, 2009
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Note to self -- Don't feed a toilet-training toddler a Nutella sandwich. Particularly if she, like so many three-year-olds is naked. One would think that you could reliably consider the brown smudges to differentiate at about the child's equator, but I know she left the table with a smudge of Nutella on her ankle and I'm not sure the smudge around her eyebrow was there when she left, announcing loudly "I've got to go POOOOOOPY."
She usually gets it right. It's the wiping part that doesn't always work, and sometimes it goes very wrong. The juxtaposition of Nutella and a pooptastrophe was something I hadn't foreseen. She always hollers from the bathroom "Mommy! I want you to watch meeee!" And often I will sit with her as she does her business. It's a delightful time to chat and hug and do nose kissies as I sit on the footstool before her little throne. This time however, her baby sister was in the high chair and since the little one figured out how to turn around and stand up, it wasn't prudent to go watch the three-year-old.
She came back, naked and smudged with brown stuff and I knew it wasn't all Nutella. But she was grinning that grin that contains all the sunshine in the universe, blissfully unaware that there was anything wrong. She was my child, beaming at me with delight and love and a soon to be disappointed desire to sit on my lap. I vacillated between being a bit grossed out and laughing out loud. Laughing won.
I've thought of her like that so often. How that's really how life presents itself to us. It's the uncontainable bliss of a child. It's the gift from GOD / THE UNIVERSE / whatever the heck you call the big unknown we're all connected to. But sometimes there's chocolatey goodness and sometimes there's something that stinks. And so often we lose sight of the DELIGHT that is ours in every moment. We lose sight of the JOY that is our birthright as spiritual beings having a human experience. Even if all you're experiencing is a sweet confection, there is still more delight under that. And if you're experiencing a little of life's crap, I can promise you, you can get rid of it very easily by focusing on the delight beneath.
If you've ever given a three year old a shower while fending off a crawling baby, you'll know there are suds and wiggles and giggles, and you'll all wind up wet, but with the arms of a child around my neck, and a tiny one pulling up to stand against my leg, life couldn't be better no matter what it's smeared with.
She usually gets it right. It's the wiping part that doesn't always work, and sometimes it goes very wrong. The juxtaposition of Nutella and a pooptastrophe was something I hadn't foreseen. She always hollers from the bathroom "Mommy! I want you to watch meeee!" And often I will sit with her as she does her business. It's a delightful time to chat and hug and do nose kissies as I sit on the footstool before her little throne. This time however, her baby sister was in the high chair and since the little one figured out how to turn around and stand up, it wasn't prudent to go watch the three-year-old.
She came back, naked and smudged with brown stuff and I knew it wasn't all Nutella. But she was grinning that grin that contains all the sunshine in the universe, blissfully unaware that there was anything wrong. She was my child, beaming at me with delight and love and a soon to be disappointed desire to sit on my lap. I vacillated between being a bit grossed out and laughing out loud. Laughing won.
I've thought of her like that so often. How that's really how life presents itself to us. It's the uncontainable bliss of a child. It's the gift from GOD / THE UNIVERSE / whatever the heck you call the big unknown we're all connected to. But sometimes there's chocolatey goodness and sometimes there's something that stinks. And so often we lose sight of the DELIGHT that is ours in every moment. We lose sight of the JOY that is our birthright as spiritual beings having a human experience. Even if all you're experiencing is a sweet confection, there is still more delight under that. And if you're experiencing a little of life's crap, I can promise you, you can get rid of it very easily by focusing on the delight beneath.
If you've ever given a three year old a shower while fending off a crawling baby, you'll know there are suds and wiggles and giggles, and you'll all wind up wet, but with the arms of a child around my neck, and a tiny one pulling up to stand against my leg, life couldn't be better no matter what it's smeared with.
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Cheetas and Dragonfairies
I took my three kids to the National Zoo and was pointing out all the interesting animals and exhibits. I came upon the enclosure marked “Cheetah” only to discover that there were none to be seen. As I was scanning the enclosure looking for the cheetah, the children looked into the enclosure and found that there was a small pond immediately on the other side of the fence. There were frogs in the pond, plenty of them! There were goldfish in the pond. There was a dragonfly that flitted from reed to reed. At the end of the day, with all the other exhibits they saw, the children actually spent the most amount of time at the “Cheetah” enclosure enjoying what WAS there without looking for what should have been, but wasn’t. They delighted in each new frog that was discovered. They enjoyed watching the fish swim about. The dragonflies became fairies about which they made up stories as they walked to the next exhibit. I found myself wondering how often I spent more time looking for the "Cheetah" when the frogs, fish, and dragonflies were there for my enjoyment. I looked in the rear view mirror – trained on my now-sleeping kids, not traffic – and wondered how often I looked for the Cheetah when it came to them. What were all the things a five year old girl should be? A three year old? A husband? A marriage? In particular I wondered about my darling one year old daughter who has Down Syndrome. I thought that perhaps the cheetah would have been impressive, but from now on, I was going to look for thing that weren't on the lable and enjoy frogs, fish, and dragonfairies.
Evelyn James,
Parenting Coach :-)
Evelyn James,
Parenting Coach :-)
Tuesday, October 03, 2006
Geez has it been that long?
You know you're a mommy if...
...…you pop out of bed to respond to a waking toddler…only to discover it was just your own nasty nose whistle. (courtesy of Karen H)
... your wildest dreams are no longer vacations in Tahiti but going to the bathroom without an audience.
... you've ever kept your infant in the Bjorn longer than necessary in a social situation 'cause the baby was covering up the stains on your sweat shirt.
... you change your whole menu plan to include spaghetti 'cause you need a bigger jar for the pet snails.
... you come home having to whiz like a racehorse, but stop to pick up the cat yak on the floor first. It's easier to wash your own pants than fish a fur ball out of a toddler's mouth .
... you press body parts up against the shower door to keep your kids entertained with a bouncing ass puppet show just so you can get a shower.
... despite the fact that it's KILLING your back, you'd rather stand awkwardly to cast your shadow on a baby you're trying to diaper in the sun.
Developmental stages: (in no particular order)
... they no longer want to be IN the stroller, they must be pushing it.
... if you have a girl -- it MUST be a dress, and it MUST twirl or no one can get out of the house.
... "Eleventeen"
... They discover that THEY can remove diapers and go exploring in the contents.
... "Mommy, watch me go poop!"
... After finally getting breastfeeding down, the baby goes into a stage where you're a jungle gym with boobs. At this point you decide that breastfeeding in public is no longer a viable option.
We had dinner with our dear friends Walt and Shauna. Shauna graciously offered to look after both girls if I ever needed time to do something. Shauna had helped pull my bacon out of the fire when Lexie was first born and in her scream all day mode by watching Angelina for a few hours every week. I was genuinely thinking I'd go nuts there for a while. It's gotten much better. Doug and I were talking about how nice it was of her to offer to watch both the girls when Doug wistfully said to me "I wonder if I could drop you off too?"
Oh, how our children teach us to be humble. Toilet training has been going on with varying degrees of success. I was being the ever vigilant mommy, sitting on a stool in front of Angelina with an appropriately sized wad of toilet paper in my hand ready to perform the wiping duties. Angelina was sitting on the throne, attempting to master the art of aiming INTO the toilet when, inevitably, an arc of pee went over the toilet seat and onto the floor. Of course I, wonder-mommy, bent down to wipe it up and was simultaneously reassuring her that it's okay, accidents happen, when she nailed me right on the top of the head with the next arc of flying pee. Now there's a peculiar sensation, popping back up to have drips of pee running down my scalp. Who says only boys need the pee guard? After that one I've learned to wait and clean up the WHOLE mess at once. Saves on shampoo.
While we were playing, Angelina said "You be the wind and I'll be the grass..." So we played at that, I blew on her and she wiggled. And then "You be the rainbow and I'll be (the sun)" I'm still wondering how I'm supposed to manage that one, but her creativity astounds me.
We were at the Dr's office for Lexie's 9 month appointment and Angelina's 3 year appointment. I'm so used to switching back and forth between English and German that I'm barely conscious of it anymore. Angelina just understands and complies (usually) to both languages. The Doctor, a new intern doing a pediatric rotation was really sweet. Actually tickled the girls and really made an effort to be personable at THEIR level. At one point he asked "What're you speaking?" Angelina and I replied at the same time. Angelina said proudly "I can speak Germans!" "Really? What can you say?" Angelina's response? Full of pride and obviously desiring to impress, she said "Gracias!"
We parents can be cruel at times, for our own entertainment. Doug informed Angelina that she had a pimple on her butt. This, of course, she had to come an announce to me while I was on The Throne. She twirled around and assumed the usual wiping position, butt in my general direction, grabbing ankles. Doug had to follow her, of course, joined shortly by Lexie who was delayed only 'cause she was crawling. So sure enough, the whole family was in the bathroom with me. Angelina complained that she couldn't see the pimple on her butt, so Doug told her that if she twirled fast enough, she could see her own butt. Now I don't know about you, but if anyone is going to warp the space/time continuum, it'll probably be a preschooler. Angelina had us in stitches twirling as fast as she could, but did not manage to twirl fast enough to stand behind herself in time to regard her own perfectly cute, pimple bedecked butt -- give her some time to practice.
Lexie's getting so cute. I'm just falling in love with her all over again every day. In the middle of the night, when she's nursing, she absent mindedly caresses me with her free hand. I swear there's no happier sensation than nursing a sleepy baby -- except maybe for actually sleeping. I taught her how to kiss. Now I say "kiss kiss?" and she comes at me with this open mouth slobbery kiss that never fails to make me laugh. Breastfeeding is such a joy. My body miraculously turns my love for my children into a liquid that nourishes their every cell. At night, when it's just me and my baby, and the whole world is asleep, I swear Angels watch us and smile.
On the other hand, we get back to my wildest dream -- to go potty without company. I thought it was bad enough that I have to keep Lexie from batting at the stream of pee as I'm on The Throne, but at least it doesn't take me that long to pee. Doug was saying that Lexie tends to whack at Thems That Dangle.
Angelina's going to Bug School (a wonderful preschool program at our local co-op preschool). What a howl! Obviously Doug and I aren't the only parents who are amused by giving our children disinformation. The first week it was Snails. We learned that they're called Gastropods 'cause their feet are actually their mouths. We learned that they have tentacles, two on top for seeing, two below for smelling. And so on... Angelina's biggest lament was that we weren't keen on her kissing her snail. I was greatly honored, however when the snail she caught on our walk had to be named Evelyn Grace. So Thursday I was working and at the closing circle time Teacher Sandy asked "What's another name for a Gastropod?" Aimee piped up "I know!!! I know!!! Another name for a gas-tro-pod is es-car-go!!!" Five minutes later the kids were asking me why I was still snuffing and a snorting with laughter.
Of course it's been a lot of fun to see how they get things charmingly screwed up. When it was switched from Snail week to Ant week, the ants apparently have ANTentacles. Someday she'll figure out that they're tentacles and antennae... but not today. She also must have figured out an important goof in her vocabulary. She's been saying "nail polish" all along when I occasionally paint her little toes pink, but when Teacher Sandy used nail polish to paint letters on their newly captive snails it became "snail polish" and has remained so ever since.
Lexie's "cruising." She's taken her first steps (9 months 2 weeks), but shows no great interest in taking more than one or two at a time. So she walks along any and all handy pieces of furniture. She's discovered that one of the great benefits of bipedal locomotion is that she can stand between the tub and the toilet and stomp in the cats' water dish.
Odd how we catch ourselves. Doug was derisively pointing out that something I had suggested was unlikely and used a creative phrase for it, telling me "That'll happen when pigs fly out of your ah, ah, ... uh, poh poh." I suppose I should be grateful that he didn't actually say ASS, but then Angelina's eyes got wide and she looked at me with an astonishment and reverence only a three year old can muster and asked "Mommy! Can you REALLY make pigs fly out of your poh poh?" I assured her that Daddy was just being silly, but it took a couple of weeks before she stopped looking at my butt with great expectation.
Gone are the days when I would try to put on a puppet show with one hand while I juggled a nursing infant with the other. Now I just pop out a boob and pop on the TV. At least there's a cute point to every episode of Dragon Tales and Berenstain Bears. I must say that I do force Angelina to watch my Tivo'd cooking shows. At least I get my nursing done and learn something new. If Alton Brown only knew. I've flashed him more tit than is usually seen at a New Orleans Mardi Gras!
Funny how kids'll follow you around. I pointed out to Doug that as I walked from one end of the house to the other, fully 50% of the population of the house went with me. For whatever reason, Lexie decided to follow Doug around for a while, probably 'cause I was in the kitchen standing still. All of a sudden I heard a loud expulsion of gas from Doug's general direction at which time he said "Oh, sorry Lexie. Daddy didn't mean to fart in your face." Her coughing fit did more to get Doug chagrined than all the protestations I've ever lodged when he pulled the covers up over my face.
Lexie's fully walking by now. She's about 3 weeks behind her sister. Angelina was storming the castle at 9 months. Lexie started walking at 10 months. Crazy looking at this little baby doing a Herman Munster lurch across the floor.
I suspect I'm going to come out of this parenting experience pretty darn stable. I've been whipsawed around in about a dozen ways. Angelina came up to me with her little chin quivering and gave me a big hug. She said "Mommy, I'm never going to let you die!" Are other three year olds obsessed with death? This topic comes up at least a couple times a week. We cuddled and hugged and I reassured her as much as I could without promising to get cryogenically preserved. Of course 15 minutes later she's sticking her tongue out at me for having had the temerity to suggest she clean up her own mess. Since sticking her tongue out at me is the toddler version of "Fuck you!" I don't put up with that. All this on a day when Lexie had the flu and was spewing at both ends. Either I'll be completely bipolar or I'll just take everything in stride. I suspect it'll be the latter.
I've been trying to get out of the toddler music, however discovered how difficult this would be. Just recently while listening to Enrique Iglesias, I realized I don't want her asking me what a "one night stand" is. Then there was Prince, one of my favorite artists, but somehow a song "You sexy Mother F*&(er" is just not something I'm going to let my 3 year old hear. Meatloaf's "Bat out of Hell" is right out. Finally I got out my Spanish music. I think it's called Margarita Mambo. I've also got Musica Del Sol and some others. They could be saying anything on that and we'd be cheerily singing along, utterly oblivious to the meaning of the words. At least Angelina won't be asking me "Mommy, why do bats want to fly out of hell?"
At least I've been able to curb most of my swearing, although Angelina did say "ScheiBe" in front of my mother who is one of the few people in Northern America who would know that it means "Shit" in German. We let that one slide by without comment. A friend of mine reported that her cherubic three year old had said "I'm having a fucking time with these socks!" She was, of course, utterly mortified but tried to hide it. The last thing we want them to know is that they can get a rise out of us. WOO HOOO! Keys to the kingdom when they find one of those buttons to push on a parent.
So on the day when Lexie was spewing at both ends, for some reason I got a little silly with the diaper cream and put a dab on Angelina's nose. Next came stripes under my eyes as if I were a football player -- except that Desitin is white. Pretty soon we were war painted out, all three of us with diaper cream in stripes on our faces. Thank heavens they invented Desitin creamy. At least now I can be silly and not smell like cod liver oil.
Manners do have their downside. Angelina's been getting hounded to say "Excuse me!" along with other social nicities. Mom did her best not to crack up when Angelina told her "Excuse me, but don't contradict me!"
"EUREKA" thought I as I found a way to keep the kids entertained while I was in the shower. I may have solved one of motherhood's most vexing problems: How the hell do I get a shower? (At all, much less regularly). I brushed my teeth ... with an audience, then swished with Listerine, having to explain in language a 3 year old can understand that it helps to clean teeth. I was trying to do the "cat bath" method in the sink with a wash cloth for the 3rd day an a row, and figured that just wasn't going to cut it. But then the question is how does one take a decent shower with a 3 year old and a now 1 year old? The answer came to me in a flash -- literally. Just a couple days before Doug had pressed his heinie against the shower door to show his opinion of what I had just said (long since forgotten) and Angelina had just howled with laugher. I figured I'd give it a go. I started with hands and feet. They both gamely patted the frosted glass door following my hands. This little puppet show was keeping them in stitches. I then started the bouncing ass portion of the puppet show. This was bringing down the house! I obviously got overconfident when I decided I could build in an intermission and shave some bits and pieces. I heard an odd coughing and asked Angelina what was happening. She calmly reported that she was cleaning her sister. I should have seen this coming. I got out of the shower only to discover that Angelina had poured Listerine on a washcloth and was scrubbing her strenuously objecting sister. We had to be out of the house in short order, so Lexie wore a slightly green sticky hairdo for the rest of the day. I'm back to taking cat baths. I'm afraid of what they'll think of next. If I'm gamey next time you see me, you'll know why.
Sometimes language is a tricky thing. In order to keep Angelina from getting too frustrated with Lexie, we wrote Lexie's Godzilla act into the Thomas the Train script. We'd get a track built and then scream with excitement "Uh oh! There goes Tokyo!" Except after a few months Angelina's changed it to "Uh oh! Pinocchio!" I just can't picture a huge Pinocchio saying "I want to be a real boy!" as he's stomping through Tokyo.
Then there's the famous Dr Seuss book "The Star Bellied Sneeches." Here I was thinking she'd get some wonderful lesson out of this not to judge people by the stars on their bellies. No. When we got home she was eating her snack nude as usual. What does she do? She took the strawberry jam from her toast and painted a star on her naked belly in jam. "Look mommy, I'm a strawberry sneech!"
Angelina and I were playing The Wizard of Oz. Anyone who's seen my hair knows I'm a shoe in for The Cowardly Lion. So she had her ruby slippers on and we wandered around the house while we played different scenes and each took different roles. Lexie quickly became ToTo. Angelina smacked my hand and I went into huge theatrics doing the cowardly portion of the Cowardly Lion's act. We were off to see the Wizard, but again things got charmingly mixed up. The Wizard apparently lives in The Emerald Island of Sodor. Of course the whole thing got derailed when Toto wanted to nurse on The Cowardly Lion.
...…you pop out of bed to respond to a waking toddler…only to discover it was just your own nasty nose whistle. (courtesy of Karen H)
... your wildest dreams are no longer vacations in Tahiti but going to the bathroom without an audience.
... you've ever kept your infant in the Bjorn longer than necessary in a social situation 'cause the baby was covering up the stains on your sweat shirt.
... you change your whole menu plan to include spaghetti 'cause you need a bigger jar for the pet snails.
... you come home having to whiz like a racehorse, but stop to pick up the cat yak on the floor first. It's easier to wash your own pants than fish a fur ball out of a toddler's mouth .
... you press body parts up against the shower door to keep your kids entertained with a bouncing ass puppet show just so you can get a shower.
... despite the fact that it's KILLING your back, you'd rather stand awkwardly to cast your shadow on a baby you're trying to diaper in the sun.
Developmental stages: (in no particular order)
... they no longer want to be IN the stroller, they must be pushing it.
... if you have a girl -- it MUST be a dress, and it MUST twirl or no one can get out of the house.
... "Eleventeen"
... They discover that THEY can remove diapers and go exploring in the contents.
... "Mommy, watch me go poop!"
... After finally getting breastfeeding down, the baby goes into a stage where you're a jungle gym with boobs. At this point you decide that breastfeeding in public is no longer a viable option.
We had dinner with our dear friends Walt and Shauna. Shauna graciously offered to look after both girls if I ever needed time to do something. Shauna had helped pull my bacon out of the fire when Lexie was first born and in her scream all day mode by watching Angelina for a few hours every week. I was genuinely thinking I'd go nuts there for a while. It's gotten much better. Doug and I were talking about how nice it was of her to offer to watch both the girls when Doug wistfully said to me "I wonder if I could drop you off too?"
Oh, how our children teach us to be humble. Toilet training has been going on with varying degrees of success. I was being the ever vigilant mommy, sitting on a stool in front of Angelina with an appropriately sized wad of toilet paper in my hand ready to perform the wiping duties. Angelina was sitting on the throne, attempting to master the art of aiming INTO the toilet when, inevitably, an arc of pee went over the toilet seat and onto the floor. Of course I, wonder-mommy, bent down to wipe it up and was simultaneously reassuring her that it's okay, accidents happen, when she nailed me right on the top of the head with the next arc of flying pee. Now there's a peculiar sensation, popping back up to have drips of pee running down my scalp. Who says only boys need the pee guard? After that one I've learned to wait and clean up the WHOLE mess at once. Saves on shampoo.
While we were playing, Angelina said "You be the wind and I'll be the grass..." So we played at that, I blew on her and she wiggled. And then "You be the rainbow and I'll be (the sun)" I'm still wondering how I'm supposed to manage that one, but her creativity astounds me.
We were at the Dr's office for Lexie's 9 month appointment and Angelina's 3 year appointment. I'm so used to switching back and forth between English and German that I'm barely conscious of it anymore. Angelina just understands and complies (usually) to both languages. The Doctor, a new intern doing a pediatric rotation was really sweet. Actually tickled the girls and really made an effort to be personable at THEIR level. At one point he asked "What're you speaking?" Angelina and I replied at the same time. Angelina said proudly "I can speak Germans!" "Really? What can you say?" Angelina's response? Full of pride and obviously desiring to impress, she said "Gracias!"
We parents can be cruel at times, for our own entertainment. Doug informed Angelina that she had a pimple on her butt. This, of course, she had to come an announce to me while I was on The Throne. She twirled around and assumed the usual wiping position, butt in my general direction, grabbing ankles. Doug had to follow her, of course, joined shortly by Lexie who was delayed only 'cause she was crawling. So sure enough, the whole family was in the bathroom with me. Angelina complained that she couldn't see the pimple on her butt, so Doug told her that if she twirled fast enough, she could see her own butt. Now I don't know about you, but if anyone is going to warp the space/time continuum, it'll probably be a preschooler. Angelina had us in stitches twirling as fast as she could, but did not manage to twirl fast enough to stand behind herself in time to regard her own perfectly cute, pimple bedecked butt -- give her some time to practice.
Lexie's getting so cute. I'm just falling in love with her all over again every day. In the middle of the night, when she's nursing, she absent mindedly caresses me with her free hand. I swear there's no happier sensation than nursing a sleepy baby -- except maybe for actually sleeping. I taught her how to kiss. Now I say "kiss kiss?" and she comes at me with this open mouth slobbery kiss that never fails to make me laugh. Breastfeeding is such a joy. My body miraculously turns my love for my children into a liquid that nourishes their every cell. At night, when it's just me and my baby, and the whole world is asleep, I swear Angels watch us and smile.
On the other hand, we get back to my wildest dream -- to go potty without company. I thought it was bad enough that I have to keep Lexie from batting at the stream of pee as I'm on The Throne, but at least it doesn't take me that long to pee. Doug was saying that Lexie tends to whack at Thems That Dangle.
Angelina's going to Bug School (a wonderful preschool program at our local co-op preschool). What a howl! Obviously Doug and I aren't the only parents who are amused by giving our children disinformation. The first week it was Snails. We learned that they're called Gastropods 'cause their feet are actually their mouths. We learned that they have tentacles, two on top for seeing, two below for smelling. And so on... Angelina's biggest lament was that we weren't keen on her kissing her snail. I was greatly honored, however when the snail she caught on our walk had to be named Evelyn Grace. So Thursday I was working and at the closing circle time Teacher Sandy asked "What's another name for a Gastropod?" Aimee piped up "I know!!! I know!!! Another name for a gas-tro-pod is es-car-go!!!" Five minutes later the kids were asking me why I was still snuffing and a snorting with laughter.
Of course it's been a lot of fun to see how they get things charmingly screwed up. When it was switched from Snail week to Ant week, the ants apparently have ANTentacles. Someday she'll figure out that they're tentacles and antennae... but not today. She also must have figured out an important goof in her vocabulary. She's been saying "nail polish" all along when I occasionally paint her little toes pink, but when Teacher Sandy used nail polish to paint letters on their newly captive snails it became "snail polish" and has remained so ever since.
Lexie's "cruising." She's taken her first steps (9 months 2 weeks), but shows no great interest in taking more than one or two at a time. So she walks along any and all handy pieces of furniture. She's discovered that one of the great benefits of bipedal locomotion is that she can stand between the tub and the toilet and stomp in the cats' water dish.
Odd how we catch ourselves. Doug was derisively pointing out that something I had suggested was unlikely and used a creative phrase for it, telling me "That'll happen when pigs fly out of your ah, ah, ... uh, poh poh." I suppose I should be grateful that he didn't actually say ASS, but then Angelina's eyes got wide and she looked at me with an astonishment and reverence only a three year old can muster and asked "Mommy! Can you REALLY make pigs fly out of your poh poh?" I assured her that Daddy was just being silly, but it took a couple of weeks before she stopped looking at my butt with great expectation.
Gone are the days when I would try to put on a puppet show with one hand while I juggled a nursing infant with the other. Now I just pop out a boob and pop on the TV. At least there's a cute point to every episode of Dragon Tales and Berenstain Bears. I must say that I do force Angelina to watch my Tivo'd cooking shows. At least I get my nursing done and learn something new. If Alton Brown only knew. I've flashed him more tit than is usually seen at a New Orleans Mardi Gras!
Funny how kids'll follow you around. I pointed out to Doug that as I walked from one end of the house to the other, fully 50% of the population of the house went with me. For whatever reason, Lexie decided to follow Doug around for a while, probably 'cause I was in the kitchen standing still. All of a sudden I heard a loud expulsion of gas from Doug's general direction at which time he said "Oh, sorry Lexie. Daddy didn't mean to fart in your face." Her coughing fit did more to get Doug chagrined than all the protestations I've ever lodged when he pulled the covers up over my face.
Lexie's fully walking by now. She's about 3 weeks behind her sister. Angelina was storming the castle at 9 months. Lexie started walking at 10 months. Crazy looking at this little baby doing a Herman Munster lurch across the floor.
I suspect I'm going to come out of this parenting experience pretty darn stable. I've been whipsawed around in about a dozen ways. Angelina came up to me with her little chin quivering and gave me a big hug. She said "Mommy, I'm never going to let you die!" Are other three year olds obsessed with death? This topic comes up at least a couple times a week. We cuddled and hugged and I reassured her as much as I could without promising to get cryogenically preserved. Of course 15 minutes later she's sticking her tongue out at me for having had the temerity to suggest she clean up her own mess. Since sticking her tongue out at me is the toddler version of "Fuck you!" I don't put up with that. All this on a day when Lexie had the flu and was spewing at both ends. Either I'll be completely bipolar or I'll just take everything in stride. I suspect it'll be the latter.
I've been trying to get out of the toddler music, however discovered how difficult this would be. Just recently while listening to Enrique Iglesias, I realized I don't want her asking me what a "one night stand" is. Then there was Prince, one of my favorite artists, but somehow a song "You sexy Mother F*&(er" is just not something I'm going to let my 3 year old hear. Meatloaf's "Bat out of Hell" is right out. Finally I got out my Spanish music. I think it's called Margarita Mambo. I've also got Musica Del Sol and some others. They could be saying anything on that and we'd be cheerily singing along, utterly oblivious to the meaning of the words. At least Angelina won't be asking me "Mommy, why do bats want to fly out of hell?"
At least I've been able to curb most of my swearing, although Angelina did say "ScheiBe" in front of my mother who is one of the few people in Northern America who would know that it means "Shit" in German. We let that one slide by without comment. A friend of mine reported that her cherubic three year old had said "I'm having a fucking time with these socks!" She was, of course, utterly mortified but tried to hide it. The last thing we want them to know is that they can get a rise out of us. WOO HOOO! Keys to the kingdom when they find one of those buttons to push on a parent.
So on the day when Lexie was spewing at both ends, for some reason I got a little silly with the diaper cream and put a dab on Angelina's nose. Next came stripes under my eyes as if I were a football player -- except that Desitin is white. Pretty soon we were war painted out, all three of us with diaper cream in stripes on our faces. Thank heavens they invented Desitin creamy. At least now I can be silly and not smell like cod liver oil.
Manners do have their downside. Angelina's been getting hounded to say "Excuse me!" along with other social nicities. Mom did her best not to crack up when Angelina told her "Excuse me, but don't contradict me!"
"EUREKA" thought I as I found a way to keep the kids entertained while I was in the shower. I may have solved one of motherhood's most vexing problems: How the hell do I get a shower? (At all, much less regularly). I brushed my teeth ... with an audience, then swished with Listerine, having to explain in language a 3 year old can understand that it helps to clean teeth. I was trying to do the "cat bath" method in the sink with a wash cloth for the 3rd day an a row, and figured that just wasn't going to cut it. But then the question is how does one take a decent shower with a 3 year old and a now 1 year old? The answer came to me in a flash -- literally. Just a couple days before Doug had pressed his heinie against the shower door to show his opinion of what I had just said (long since forgotten) and Angelina had just howled with laugher. I figured I'd give it a go. I started with hands and feet. They both gamely patted the frosted glass door following my hands. This little puppet show was keeping them in stitches. I then started the bouncing ass portion of the puppet show. This was bringing down the house! I obviously got overconfident when I decided I could build in an intermission and shave some bits and pieces. I heard an odd coughing and asked Angelina what was happening. She calmly reported that she was cleaning her sister. I should have seen this coming. I got out of the shower only to discover that Angelina had poured Listerine on a washcloth and was scrubbing her strenuously objecting sister. We had to be out of the house in short order, so Lexie wore a slightly green sticky hairdo for the rest of the day. I'm back to taking cat baths. I'm afraid of what they'll think of next. If I'm gamey next time you see me, you'll know why.
Sometimes language is a tricky thing. In order to keep Angelina from getting too frustrated with Lexie, we wrote Lexie's Godzilla act into the Thomas the Train script. We'd get a track built and then scream with excitement "Uh oh! There goes Tokyo!" Except after a few months Angelina's changed it to "Uh oh! Pinocchio!" I just can't picture a huge Pinocchio saying "I want to be a real boy!" as he's stomping through Tokyo.
Then there's the famous Dr Seuss book "The Star Bellied Sneeches." Here I was thinking she'd get some wonderful lesson out of this not to judge people by the stars on their bellies. No. When we got home she was eating her snack nude as usual. What does she do? She took the strawberry jam from her toast and painted a star on her naked belly in jam. "Look mommy, I'm a strawberry sneech!"
Angelina and I were playing The Wizard of Oz. Anyone who's seen my hair knows I'm a shoe in for The Cowardly Lion. So she had her ruby slippers on and we wandered around the house while we played different scenes and each took different roles. Lexie quickly became ToTo. Angelina smacked my hand and I went into huge theatrics doing the cowardly portion of the Cowardly Lion's act. We were off to see the Wizard, but again things got charmingly mixed up. The Wizard apparently lives in The Emerald Island of Sodor. Of course the whole thing got derailed when Toto wanted to nurse on The Cowardly Lion.
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
Letters to AJ
More 'You know you're a mommy when...'" You make your phone calls in the car 'cause that's the only place it's socially acceptable to strap your kids down.
Letters to AJ
More "You might be a mommy if..." You finally get a night out with "The girls" and you spend most of it wondering why you ever liked doing this crap, and wishing you were home in your pajamas snuggling with your sweet little baby.
May, 2005
More "You know you're a mommy when..."
The only reason it looks like you've had a french manicure is 'cause you've got diaper cream under your fingernails.
You figure your crunchy kitchen floor isn't actually dirty 'cause it's just cheerios flung about by your infant.
You've redefined "Good Sex" as when your husband watches the kids long enough for you to have a happy encounter with your shower massage.
You develop your own ratings for poop outs. Mine are based on movie titles. "Indiana Poop and the Diaper of Doom!" "A River Runs through it."
You know that you have exactly 1.8 seconds after you hand her a new toy to get a diaper on your crawler before she twists out of your grasp again.
You know you're on your second (or subsequent) child when you hear the baby crying* and you and your husband pause to do "Rock Paper Scissors" to see who'll respond. (*and you know it's just the frustrated cry, not the urgent I've-hurt-myself cry)
So I've been trying to find ways to motivate my temperature-sensitive daughter toward toilet training. Thus far not much has worked well. I've bribed with stickers and chocolate, but I think I've finally hit on a possible solution -- I'm going to start putting the wipes in the fridge! Of course even at room temperature she hollers at the top of her lungs "NO, MOMMY! NO MAKE MY PUSSY COLD!" I knew I'd regret using that word, particularly on a lovely sunny day when I have the windows open and her screaming can be heard up the block.
And while we're on the pussy theme. We took at trip to Disneyland and one night in the hotel, Doug went over to the other room to check and see if the kids were out. He was in his usual pajamas, i.e. his birthday suit. Not only was Angelina not asleep, but she asked, "Daddy? Where's YOUR pussy?" Not the kind of question he was expecting. His response? "I don't have a pussy, I have a pee pee. Now go to sleep!"
Of course his sister had the worst of it when she took her daughter to one of the HUGE public restrooms at Disneyland. Kristina had the good sense not to teach her daughter the word "pussy" but might have been wishing she had. Delana caught a good look at my sister in law and asked in that innocently loud voice only a 5 year old can muster "Mommy, how come you have hair on your butt?" Laughter arose throughout the restroom from all who had heard. Kris waited about 10 minutes before emerging. Then the question arose, did the other women think she actually had hair on her butt or did they recognize that Delana didn't know a better word to communicate pubic hair?
This brings up the question of language. I think we bring it on ourselves some times. At a playgroup of mostly girls recently one mom was changing her infant son's diaper. This became quite a spectator event for us moms of only daughters. I mentioned that I wouldn't have the first idea of what one does to get a boy clean. Another mom mentioned that it was actually easier to keep a little penis cleaned. The topic of foreskin removal came up. Someone was saying that it was actually easier to keep clean than the little labia. The little boy's mom gently grabbed his penis, pulled it up and pointed at his little scrotum and said, "Yeah, but you've got to get into the little wrinkles in his ball S-A-C-K." Now WHY after saying penis, foreskin, circumcision, labia and ball, did we need to spell sack????
Maybe it's a phenomenon of the firstborn or that I've become a bit more jaded now that I have two. Angelina will occasionally melt into a puddle of dramatic sobbing over some minor issue. I realized my fundamental attitude had changed when I'd picked her up and was dutifully consoling her and realized that if I patted her back just a little bit faster her wails kinda sounded like a motor boat. I'm still a neurotic mom, just a little less so. Sometimes I wonder if I'm caught in the parenting version of a Far Side cartoon.
She loves playing pretend. "You be Kiki, and I'll be Finn." (Two baby dragons from "Dragon Tails.") Then we'll baby talk each other and just be silly for a while. Then she changes the players and we assume the new roles. I realized she's pretty good at thinking outside the box when she told me "You be the cookie monster and I'll be the cookies!"
Man oh man do kids see through us! Angelina was doing her usual bed time routine: hop out of bed and sneak down the hall. Doug finally had had enough and went in to make good on his threat of spanking her. She offered up her heinie with resignation and Doug smacked it at about the level of polite applause. He realized she wasn't getting any effect from this and smacked her just enough to sting at which time she screamed dramatically "NO DADDY, not a REAL spanking!!!!" So what have all the others been in her mind, I wonder? I can just see that somewhere in her head she realized that we had this little social contract going. We parents used this lame form of spanking to convince her we were serious, but she knew we're both softies and wouldn't want to actually cause pain. She therefore dutifully offered up her little ass as part of this social contract, understanding that we parents just had to go through this ritual. If there's any reason to be consistent it's cause THEY'RE WATCHING US!
Angelina was sick a while ago. General malaise and something in her tummy. Doug and I have been blessedly well. This means, however that Angelina learned how to be sick from the cats; wanders around inexplicably agitated for a little while, then pukes on the carpet.
If you have a baby, fair warning, Angelina's obsessed with their ears. We started calling Lexie "Our little Ferengi." Of course it fits on a multitude of levels, 'cause all trekkies know that Ferengis didn't allow their womenfolk to wear clothes. Angelina would rather be naked than clothed any day of the week. Me? Naked? Let's just not go there.
Doug's been trying to encourage Angelina to undertake more challenging things. He'll tell her "I have full faith and confidence in your abilities!" That she didn't understand this, as if she would, was evidenced by her stomping one little foot and hollering back at him "I'm NOT a Billibees!" That rapidly became "Wildebeast," so for a while our conversations were "I need to nurse the Ferengi." Or "Could you get the Wildebeast a sippycup?"
Nicknames come and go, of course. Lexie's been waking up VERY early, and has been obviously done with sleeping. She's so perky it's painful to see when I'm that stoned with lack of sleep. She grins that brilliant toothless grin that involves her whole face and causes her to flap her arms with glee. Her new nickname has become Princess Sparky Sweetbuttons, but we just call her Sparky for short.
Toilet training has been an adventure. It's interesting to see how they reverse-engineer these things and don't always get it right. On those occasions when Angelina decides she has to go potty, she'll suddenly stop in the middle of what she's doing, announce that she has to go potty, pull her pants down to her ankles and THEN run to the bathroom in this hobbled shuffling step that makes me SURE she's going to fall and irrigate the carpet. In a couple weeks we'll get that sequence down. FIRST run to the bathroom, THEN pull the pants down.
I decided I needed to get on the toilet training. I'd been giving myself a pass since I had a newborn, but since Lexie's crawling backwards everywhere (and quite frustrated that she keeps getting farther and farther from the object of her desire) I just don't have that excuse anymore. Angelina brought this home to me when I knew she'd gone to hide and poop, but had forgotten and insisted that she sit down and eat her lunch. Of course her full diaper came back to me immediately when she said "Oooooh, that's squishy!" Okay Ev, (says I to myself) if she has the language abilities to say "that's squishy!" I think I better get on it. Since then I've tried stickers and chocolate as motivators. We'll have to see how the refrigerated wipes work.
There are days when I feel like all I do is clean up. I couldn't quite figure out why I was always having to pick up the hand towels from the bathroom which migrated to other parts of the house. I painstakingly re hung them on the towel racks repeatedly. I later solved the mystery when I discovered Angelina on one of her toilet-training, run-around-naked days wiping her pussy with the hand towel. Imagine my horror at realizing how many times I'd painstakingly re hung those. To everyone who's been to my house, I apologize and assure you it was mostly her "Hello Kitty" hand towel. We've since solved this problem and restored our house to its usual haphazard hygiene levels.
Doug keeps getting blow after blow to his ego. We like to cuddle with Angelina before she goes to sleep. It's just a time to leave the dishes in the sink and our cares at the door and really enjoy her. She always asks "How was your day?" and we discuss that. Her response to the same question is always "Pretty nice!" Doug was cuddling on a Friday night and told Angelina he was going to be home tomorrow, what would she like to do? "Spend some time with Mommy," she said with a wistful sigh.
Where do they get these things... Doug and I were spatting slightly as we regularly do, when Angelina hollered between us at Doug "STOP PISSING MOMMY OFF!!!!" Well THERE'S a conversation stopper!
Another conversation stopper came as I realized my ability to creatively cuss can only be topped by my darling daughter being even more, but innocently creative. We were tracing letters in her preschool curriculum book when Lexie woke from her nap. Angelina looked at me and says "Someone's awake, Oh Criminey Shit." How the hell does one NOT laugh at that? Is there a way to completely delete expletives from my vocabulary? After 14 years as a cop where "Fuck" was used as every part of speech, the fact that I've improved as much as I have is laudable. I've been trying to switch to "Aye Caramba." Of course now someone is going to tell me that that means "Go screw your pooch" in Spanish. Great. I'll be able to offend people in THREE languages.
It's so fun to see how they express themselves with limited language abilities. Doug was reading Angelina books before bed. As usual, he was wearing his hanging-about-home uniform of shorts that he's had for 10 years. Angelina looked at him and remarked "Daddy! Your boobies have a beard!" (Doug insists I include a disclaimer that he DOES NOT have "man breasts" and that she was referring to his well-developed pectoral muscles.)
God I fall in love with my kids all over again every day. I was waking Angelina up by laying in bed and cuddling with her when it occurred to me that I LOVE her little funky morning breath. She wraps her little arms around me all sleepy and sighs some morning breath in my face and I'm in love all over again.
Lexie, at not quite 8 months is pulling herself up to standing at every opportunity. She's started to crawl forward in just the last week or so. I'm sure she'll be an early walker like Angelina was, in part because she's seeing Angelina walk all the time, and it's all Lexie wants to do. Hold her little hands and she'll be thrilled to walk until your back is breaking. After her rocky start, she's such an easy baby now. Almost to the point that I wish she were more cuddly. They're babes in arms for such a short time. At least she still smells like diaper cream and spit up.
Send me your thoughts and YOUR mommy moments. I love to hear them. I'd love to keep up my list of "You know you're a mommy when..."
The only reason it looks like you've had a french manicure is 'cause you've got diaper cream under your fingernails.
You figure your crunchy kitchen floor isn't actually dirty 'cause it's just cheerios flung about by your infant.
You've redefined "Good Sex" as when your husband watches the kids long enough for you to have a happy encounter with your shower massage.
You develop your own ratings for poop outs. Mine are based on movie titles. "Indiana Poop and the Diaper of Doom!" "A River Runs through it."
You know that you have exactly 1.8 seconds after you hand her a new toy to get a diaper on your crawler before she twists out of your grasp again.
You know you're on your second (or subsequent) child when you hear the baby crying* and you and your husband pause to do "Rock Paper Scissors" to see who'll respond. (*and you know it's just the frustrated cry, not the urgent I've-hurt-myself cry)
So I've been trying to find ways to motivate my temperature-sensitive daughter toward toilet training. Thus far not much has worked well. I've bribed with stickers and chocolate, but I think I've finally hit on a possible solution -- I'm going to start putting the wipes in the fridge! Of course even at room temperature she hollers at the top of her lungs "NO, MOMMY! NO MAKE MY PUSSY COLD!" I knew I'd regret using that word, particularly on a lovely sunny day when I have the windows open and her screaming can be heard up the block.
And while we're on the pussy theme. We took at trip to Disneyland and one night in the hotel, Doug went over to the other room to check and see if the kids were out. He was in his usual pajamas, i.e. his birthday suit. Not only was Angelina not asleep, but she asked, "Daddy? Where's YOUR pussy?" Not the kind of question he was expecting. His response? "I don't have a pussy, I have a pee pee. Now go to sleep!"
Of course his sister had the worst of it when she took her daughter to one of the HUGE public restrooms at Disneyland. Kristina had the good sense not to teach her daughter the word "pussy" but might have been wishing she had. Delana caught a good look at my sister in law and asked in that innocently loud voice only a 5 year old can muster "Mommy, how come you have hair on your butt?" Laughter arose throughout the restroom from all who had heard. Kris waited about 10 minutes before emerging. Then the question arose, did the other women think she actually had hair on her butt or did they recognize that Delana didn't know a better word to communicate pubic hair?
This brings up the question of language. I think we bring it on ourselves some times. At a playgroup of mostly girls recently one mom was changing her infant son's diaper. This became quite a spectator event for us moms of only daughters. I mentioned that I wouldn't have the first idea of what one does to get a boy clean. Another mom mentioned that it was actually easier to keep a little penis cleaned. The topic of foreskin removal came up. Someone was saying that it was actually easier to keep clean than the little labia. The little boy's mom gently grabbed his penis, pulled it up and pointed at his little scrotum and said, "Yeah, but you've got to get into the little wrinkles in his ball S-A-C-K." Now WHY after saying penis, foreskin, circumcision, labia and ball, did we need to spell sack????
Maybe it's a phenomenon of the firstborn or that I've become a bit more jaded now that I have two. Angelina will occasionally melt into a puddle of dramatic sobbing over some minor issue. I realized my fundamental attitude had changed when I'd picked her up and was dutifully consoling her and realized that if I patted her back just a little bit faster her wails kinda sounded like a motor boat. I'm still a neurotic mom, just a little less so. Sometimes I wonder if I'm caught in the parenting version of a Far Side cartoon.
She loves playing pretend. "You be Kiki, and I'll be Finn." (Two baby dragons from "Dragon Tails.") Then we'll baby talk each other and just be silly for a while. Then she changes the players and we assume the new roles. I realized she's pretty good at thinking outside the box when she told me "You be the cookie monster and I'll be the cookies!"
Man oh man do kids see through us! Angelina was doing her usual bed time routine: hop out of bed and sneak down the hall. Doug finally had had enough and went in to make good on his threat of spanking her. She offered up her heinie with resignation and Doug smacked it at about the level of polite applause. He realized she wasn't getting any effect from this and smacked her just enough to sting at which time she screamed dramatically "NO DADDY, not a REAL spanking!!!!" So what have all the others been in her mind, I wonder? I can just see that somewhere in her head she realized that we had this little social contract going. We parents used this lame form of spanking to convince her we were serious, but she knew we're both softies and wouldn't want to actually cause pain. She therefore dutifully offered up her little ass as part of this social contract, understanding that we parents just had to go through this ritual. If there's any reason to be consistent it's cause THEY'RE WATCHING US!
Angelina was sick a while ago. General malaise and something in her tummy. Doug and I have been blessedly well. This means, however that Angelina learned how to be sick from the cats; wanders around inexplicably agitated for a little while, then pukes on the carpet.
If you have a baby, fair warning, Angelina's obsessed with their ears. We started calling Lexie "Our little Ferengi." Of course it fits on a multitude of levels, 'cause all trekkies know that Ferengis didn't allow their womenfolk to wear clothes. Angelina would rather be naked than clothed any day of the week. Me? Naked? Let's just not go there.
Doug's been trying to encourage Angelina to undertake more challenging things. He'll tell her "I have full faith and confidence in your abilities!" That she didn't understand this, as if she would, was evidenced by her stomping one little foot and hollering back at him "I'm NOT a Billibees!" That rapidly became "Wildebeast," so for a while our conversations were "I need to nurse the Ferengi." Or "Could you get the Wildebeast a sippycup?"
Nicknames come and go, of course. Lexie's been waking up VERY early, and has been obviously done with sleeping. She's so perky it's painful to see when I'm that stoned with lack of sleep. She grins that brilliant toothless grin that involves her whole face and causes her to flap her arms with glee. Her new nickname has become Princess Sparky Sweetbuttons, but we just call her Sparky for short.
Toilet training has been an adventure. It's interesting to see how they reverse-engineer these things and don't always get it right. On those occasions when Angelina decides she has to go potty, she'll suddenly stop in the middle of what she's doing, announce that she has to go potty, pull her pants down to her ankles and THEN run to the bathroom in this hobbled shuffling step that makes me SURE she's going to fall and irrigate the carpet. In a couple weeks we'll get that sequence down. FIRST run to the bathroom, THEN pull the pants down.
I decided I needed to get on the toilet training. I'd been giving myself a pass since I had a newborn, but since Lexie's crawling backwards everywhere (and quite frustrated that she keeps getting farther and farther from the object of her desire) I just don't have that excuse anymore. Angelina brought this home to me when I knew she'd gone to hide and poop, but had forgotten and insisted that she sit down and eat her lunch. Of course her full diaper came back to me immediately when she said "Oooooh, that's squishy!" Okay Ev, (says I to myself) if she has the language abilities to say "that's squishy!" I think I better get on it. Since then I've tried stickers and chocolate as motivators. We'll have to see how the refrigerated wipes work.
There are days when I feel like all I do is clean up. I couldn't quite figure out why I was always having to pick up the hand towels from the bathroom which migrated to other parts of the house. I painstakingly re hung them on the towel racks repeatedly. I later solved the mystery when I discovered Angelina on one of her toilet-training, run-around-naked days wiping her pussy with the hand towel. Imagine my horror at realizing how many times I'd painstakingly re hung those. To everyone who's been to my house, I apologize and assure you it was mostly her "Hello Kitty" hand towel. We've since solved this problem and restored our house to its usual haphazard hygiene levels.
Doug keeps getting blow after blow to his ego. We like to cuddle with Angelina before she goes to sleep. It's just a time to leave the dishes in the sink and our cares at the door and really enjoy her. She always asks "How was your day?" and we discuss that. Her response to the same question is always "Pretty nice!" Doug was cuddling on a Friday night and told Angelina he was going to be home tomorrow, what would she like to do? "Spend some time with Mommy," she said with a wistful sigh.
Where do they get these things... Doug and I were spatting slightly as we regularly do, when Angelina hollered between us at Doug "STOP PISSING MOMMY OFF!!!!" Well THERE'S a conversation stopper!
Another conversation stopper came as I realized my ability to creatively cuss can only be topped by my darling daughter being even more, but innocently creative. We were tracing letters in her preschool curriculum book when Lexie woke from her nap. Angelina looked at me and says "Someone's awake, Oh Criminey Shit." How the hell does one NOT laugh at that? Is there a way to completely delete expletives from my vocabulary? After 14 years as a cop where "Fuck" was used as every part of speech, the fact that I've improved as much as I have is laudable. I've been trying to switch to "Aye Caramba." Of course now someone is going to tell me that that means "Go screw your pooch" in Spanish. Great. I'll be able to offend people in THREE languages.
It's so fun to see how they express themselves with limited language abilities. Doug was reading Angelina books before bed. As usual, he was wearing his hanging-about-home uniform of shorts that he's had for 10 years. Angelina looked at him and remarked "Daddy! Your boobies have a beard!" (Doug insists I include a disclaimer that he DOES NOT have "man breasts" and that she was referring to his well-developed pectoral muscles.)
God I fall in love with my kids all over again every day. I was waking Angelina up by laying in bed and cuddling with her when it occurred to me that I LOVE her little funky morning breath. She wraps her little arms around me all sleepy and sighs some morning breath in my face and I'm in love all over again.
Lexie, at not quite 8 months is pulling herself up to standing at every opportunity. She's started to crawl forward in just the last week or so. I'm sure she'll be an early walker like Angelina was, in part because she's seeing Angelina walk all the time, and it's all Lexie wants to do. Hold her little hands and she'll be thrilled to walk until your back is breaking. After her rocky start, she's such an easy baby now. Almost to the point that I wish she were more cuddly. They're babes in arms for such a short time. At least she still smells like diaper cream and spit up.
Send me your thoughts and YOUR mommy moments. I love to hear them. I'd love to keep up my list of "You know you're a mommy when..."
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
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
Friday, April 29, 2005
050424
I've come to the conclusion that even if I were a taste tester for Ben & Jerrys (and for whom would that NOT be a dream job?) I'd probably want to go out for a steak every now and then. And the question then becomes why should I feel guilty about that?
So why is it that when I feel the need to ask for "time off" from being a mommy do I feel guilty? Angelina is 100% a mommy's girl, to the point that she looks at Daddy when he comes home from work wanting a hug, and screams "NO!" while hiding behind mommy. Unfortunately for her, she's just at the height where she's burying her face in my ass, and I always wonder why this would be more appealing than giving Daddy a hug. 'Course I don't mention that one to him, he's demoralized enough.
Then I was pondering how I could explain this to men... Suppose your 24/7 job was painting bikinis on super models. Wouldn't you still occasionally want a break to go watch a football game, be around people for whom you don't have to suck in your gut, and drink beer? Would you feel guilty about abandoning the now bikini-less super models for your ball-scratching beer bash? NOOOO. You'd boast about how perfect your job was and how much fun it was to paint perfect perky breasts. You'd be the envy of all the guys. You'd come back refreshed, and with the wonderful idea to paint a bikini top like two beer cans with the tops popped, and a bikini bottom like a bowl of chips -- the ultimate dream of just about every man. Enough with the artsy hibiscus blossoms! You'd win an award and the cover of Sports Illustrated -- precisely because you were able to go get some R & R.
Do you think men would "get" that? I wish. And why is it we so often have to ask, demand, wheedle and beg for our little breaks. Is it our fault? Do we sing the virtues of Mommyhood so much that they don't think we need our version of the beer bash? I'm happy with being able to shop at Rite Aid without having to piss off other shoppers by going down the exact center of the aisle to keep AJ from grabbing EVERYTHING and throwing it in the cart. How often can I calmly say "No, sweetie. We don't need _______________" fill in the blank with: incontinence pads, a bottle of tylenol, lipstick in purple, a garden gnome.
Listen to me. Sheesh. "Is it our fault?" What IS this? Are we PROGRAMMED to find a way to feel guilty. ARGHHHHHH. Or is it that men are just never going to be intuitive about what others need? It's the old "I can't read your mind" defense. But we women can. He pours his coffee, I hand him the cream -- did I read his mind or am I just aware? I love men, don't get me wrong, and Doug's beyond super. It's the purpose of life to keep learning.
A friend of mine is now pregnant with her third boy. When Daddy comes home, she might as well not exist for the other two. Another Seahorse who has a boy reports the same phenomenon, and was actually able to read several novels on a recent vacation. I vaguely remember what a novel is. On those rare occasions when I've read for entertainment, I've made sure it's in German so that I am at least refreshing the language while I'm "relaxing."
So then the question is, is it a gender thing? Does it switch? Am I going to have one on the breast and one on the hip come September? I'm almost looking forward to the mandatory post C-section five days in the hospital. Where else will I have help like that? And now that the ultrasound has shown that #2 will be a girl, I'll probably have two mommy's girls. And that will be absolutely wonderful except for those two or three hours a week when I've totally lost my mind.
How is it I can be completely charmed by her while she's lying to my face. She stands there with THAT look of concentration on her face and I ask if she's going poo poo. Between grunts she looks at me with big blue eyes and says "No, Mommy."
Angelina's a runner. And she hasn't gotten to the point where she understands, or should I say complies with "Come Here!" Since she did this on my 75 year old mom, I thought I needed to put a stop to it. I have one of those politically incorrect enough harness/leash combos for kids, but since I don't want to trust my daughter's life to velcro I went to PetSmart. She's officially -- by weight - a "medium" dog. I've gotten some weird looks but, as that brilliant philosopher Mr T. was fond of saying, "I pity the fool" who actually ever says anything since I've got my soapbox and speech about child safety in my back pocket at all times.
There have been a lot of boo boos lately that need kissing. Angelina insists on kissing OUR boo boos too. Doug was hopping around on one foot the other day, intently NOT cursing and Angelina insisted on kissing his foot. She'll bang her head on the table, gotta kiss the boo boo. She'll stub her toe on a toy, gotta kiss the boo boo. This was fine until she had a bad reaction to something she ate and wound up with diaper rash so bad she was arched up in her car seat, screaming. I got her in the house and was changing her when she sobbed "Mommy! Boo boo! KISS!" And of course, because it was my sweet baby's cute little behind (and because I'd didey-wiped the heck out of it) I planted little kisses on each cheek. What we won't do for them.
Angelina thought it was fun this morning to take little pieces of toilet paper and stuff them up my nose while declaring "Booger!" -- in German it's "poppel." Even more amusing for her was when I'd press on the side of my nose, closing the other nostril, and snort the TP out of my nose with as much velocity as I could muster. The hubby walked into the bathroom and declared this disgusting... This? From the gender who considers lighting farts a rite of passage? If it amuses my daughter I'll snort TP for hours. I doubt this will spare her a singed heiney if she winds up a tom-boy.
Peekaboo has become "BeeBOO!" It took me a while to realize what she was saying. Poor little thing must think I'm really dense. It was brought home to me again how careful we need to be with our word choices. Don't ask me what got into her, but just yesterday while I was in another room, she ripped off her diaper and sat on the potty -- and peed -- all by her ownsome. Wow! Was I shocked! Her reward of choice is to get naked and roll around under the down comforter in our bed. This being Pacifica, I only own flannel and it does feel good against the skin. She cheerily ordered "Mami, NAKT!" (Mommy, get naked!) and since I was dying to lose the bra anyway I complied. We rolled around, tickling and cuddling. She dug under the covers to get at the "Boobies!" and pretty soon we were playing BeeBoo, Boobies! I've made peace with my poor choice of words for the boobs, but then she was laying on her back, one ankle in each hand she said "BeeBoo Pussy!" Holy crap! Where did THAT one come from? Seeing my shock, and responding to my "What did you say?" she let go of an ankle, and unmistakingly pointed to her little privates and said with a proud grin "pussy, beeboo pussy!" She closed her legs together, then spread them again and said with an angelic little laugh, "beeboo pussy!" All it takes is a couple of times telling her during a diaper change "Hold still, Mommy's got to clean your little pussy" and the word is cemented for life. Oh well, I think it sounds nicer than "vulva."
I told Doug I was going to ask the Doctor if she could make a whole new incision for the next C section. Doug's response was something on the order of "Why the hell would you want another scar?" I told him I might get each tattooed with the baby's name. He just rolled his eyes. Never underestimate the maudlin sentimentality of a pregnant, hormonal woman, I told him. I'm sure Doug was wondering what the heck I'd have done with episiotomy scars.
So wish me luck, I'm starting week 20. I'm half way there and enjoying this pregnancy immensely now that the baby is moving around and letting me know she's there. What a joy this sensation is! What a blissfully happy time in my life. I'm so phenomenally blessed that at age 40 we were able to get pregnant again, the baby's healthy. Exhaustion is a tiny price to pay to be part of this beautiful miracle. My house is a mess, I never wear makeup, I look like crap but I'm blissfully happy. Copyright 2005, Evelyn James
So why is it that when I feel the need to ask for "time off" from being a mommy do I feel guilty? Angelina is 100% a mommy's girl, to the point that she looks at Daddy when he comes home from work wanting a hug, and screams "NO!" while hiding behind mommy. Unfortunately for her, she's just at the height where she's burying her face in my ass, and I always wonder why this would be more appealing than giving Daddy a hug. 'Course I don't mention that one to him, he's demoralized enough.
Then I was pondering how I could explain this to men... Suppose your 24/7 job was painting bikinis on super models. Wouldn't you still occasionally want a break to go watch a football game, be around people for whom you don't have to suck in your gut, and drink beer? Would you feel guilty about abandoning the now bikini-less super models for your ball-scratching beer bash? NOOOO. You'd boast about how perfect your job was and how much fun it was to paint perfect perky breasts. You'd be the envy of all the guys. You'd come back refreshed, and with the wonderful idea to paint a bikini top like two beer cans with the tops popped, and a bikini bottom like a bowl of chips -- the ultimate dream of just about every man. Enough with the artsy hibiscus blossoms! You'd win an award and the cover of Sports Illustrated -- precisely because you were able to go get some R & R.
Do you think men would "get" that? I wish. And why is it we so often have to ask, demand, wheedle and beg for our little breaks. Is it our fault? Do we sing the virtues of Mommyhood so much that they don't think we need our version of the beer bash? I'm happy with being able to shop at Rite Aid without having to piss off other shoppers by going down the exact center of the aisle to keep AJ from grabbing EVERYTHING and throwing it in the cart. How often can I calmly say "No, sweetie. We don't need _______________" fill in the blank with: incontinence pads, a bottle of tylenol, lipstick in purple, a garden gnome.
Listen to me. Sheesh. "Is it our fault?" What IS this? Are we PROGRAMMED to find a way to feel guilty. ARGHHHHHH. Or is it that men are just never going to be intuitive about what others need? It's the old "I can't read your mind" defense. But we women can. He pours his coffee, I hand him the cream -- did I read his mind or am I just aware? I love men, don't get me wrong, and Doug's beyond super. It's the purpose of life to keep learning.
A friend of mine is now pregnant with her third boy. When Daddy comes home, she might as well not exist for the other two. Another Seahorse who has a boy reports the same phenomenon, and was actually able to read several novels on a recent vacation. I vaguely remember what a novel is. On those rare occasions when I've read for entertainment, I've made sure it's in German so that I am at least refreshing the language while I'm "relaxing."
So then the question is, is it a gender thing? Does it switch? Am I going to have one on the breast and one on the hip come September? I'm almost looking forward to the mandatory post C-section five days in the hospital. Where else will I have help like that? And now that the ultrasound has shown that #2 will be a girl, I'll probably have two mommy's girls. And that will be absolutely wonderful except for those two or three hours a week when I've totally lost my mind.
How is it I can be completely charmed by her while she's lying to my face. She stands there with THAT look of concentration on her face and I ask if she's going poo poo. Between grunts she looks at me with big blue eyes and says "No, Mommy."
Angelina's a runner. And she hasn't gotten to the point where she understands, or should I say complies with "Come Here!" Since she did this on my 75 year old mom, I thought I needed to put a stop to it. I have one of those politically incorrect enough harness/leash combos for kids, but since I don't want to trust my daughter's life to velcro I went to PetSmart. She's officially -- by weight - a "medium" dog. I've gotten some weird looks but, as that brilliant philosopher Mr T. was fond of saying, "I pity the fool" who actually ever says anything since I've got my soapbox and speech about child safety in my back pocket at all times.
There have been a lot of boo boos lately that need kissing. Angelina insists on kissing OUR boo boos too. Doug was hopping around on one foot the other day, intently NOT cursing and Angelina insisted on kissing his foot. She'll bang her head on the table, gotta kiss the boo boo. She'll stub her toe on a toy, gotta kiss the boo boo. This was fine until she had a bad reaction to something she ate and wound up with diaper rash so bad she was arched up in her car seat, screaming. I got her in the house and was changing her when she sobbed "Mommy! Boo boo! KISS!" And of course, because it was my sweet baby's cute little behind (and because I'd didey-wiped the heck out of it) I planted little kisses on each cheek. What we won't do for them.
Angelina thought it was fun this morning to take little pieces of toilet paper and stuff them up my nose while declaring "Booger!" -- in German it's "poppel." Even more amusing for her was when I'd press on the side of my nose, closing the other nostril, and snort the TP out of my nose with as much velocity as I could muster. The hubby walked into the bathroom and declared this disgusting... This? From the gender who considers lighting farts a rite of passage? If it amuses my daughter I'll snort TP for hours. I doubt this will spare her a singed heiney if she winds up a tom-boy.
Peekaboo has become "BeeBOO!" It took me a while to realize what she was saying. Poor little thing must think I'm really dense. It was brought home to me again how careful we need to be with our word choices. Don't ask me what got into her, but just yesterday while I was in another room, she ripped off her diaper and sat on the potty -- and peed -- all by her ownsome. Wow! Was I shocked! Her reward of choice is to get naked and roll around under the down comforter in our bed. This being Pacifica, I only own flannel and it does feel good against the skin. She cheerily ordered "Mami, NAKT!" (Mommy, get naked!) and since I was dying to lose the bra anyway I complied. We rolled around, tickling and cuddling. She dug under the covers to get at the "Boobies!" and pretty soon we were playing BeeBoo, Boobies! I've made peace with my poor choice of words for the boobs, but then she was laying on her back, one ankle in each hand she said "BeeBoo Pussy!" Holy crap! Where did THAT one come from? Seeing my shock, and responding to my "What did you say?" she let go of an ankle, and unmistakingly pointed to her little privates and said with a proud grin "pussy, beeboo pussy!" She closed her legs together, then spread them again and said with an angelic little laugh, "beeboo pussy!" All it takes is a couple of times telling her during a diaper change "Hold still, Mommy's got to clean your little pussy" and the word is cemented for life. Oh well, I think it sounds nicer than "vulva."
I told Doug I was going to ask the Doctor if she could make a whole new incision for the next C section. Doug's response was something on the order of "Why the hell would you want another scar?" I told him I might get each tattooed with the baby's name. He just rolled his eyes. Never underestimate the maudlin sentimentality of a pregnant, hormonal woman, I told him. I'm sure Doug was wondering what the heck I'd have done with episiotomy scars.
So wish me luck, I'm starting week 20. I'm half way there and enjoying this pregnancy immensely now that the baby is moving around and letting me know she's there. What a joy this sensation is! What a blissfully happy time in my life. I'm so phenomenally blessed that at age 40 we were able to get pregnant again, the baby's healthy. Exhaustion is a tiny price to pay to be part of this beautiful miracle. My house is a mess, I never wear makeup, I look like crap but I'm blissfully happy. Copyright 2005, Evelyn James
Tuesday, April 05, 2005
050404
I inadvertently discovered an interrogation technique that I plan to use on Angelina (and, of course #2).
Doug came to me out of the blue and said "Is there something you want to tell me?" with an odd look on his face. At this point thoughts began flying through my head like lightning through a very muddy swamp. What had he discovered? What did he know that I didn't? Not that I'm confessing, mind you, but there is a technique for surreptitiously spending money where you make the actual check out to Nordstrom, but write "Safeway" in the check register. Couldn't be that, so I hedged.
"I think you already know I'm pregnant."
"Noooooo. I think you need to tell me something." He said again.
Again the lightning dragged its sorry butt through the muddy swamp of my brain. Not that I'm confessing, mind you, but there is the technique for concealing a minor fender bender by waiting for the perfect moment when you're both approaching your car in a parking lot then gasping theatrically and, with equally theatrical outrage pointing out that someone must have scraped your car while you were shopping. I actually learned that technique at work, and thank goodness the statute of limitations has expired. Couldn't be that... The swamp had consumed my thought process and Doug must have noticed that I was pitifully wracking my brain so he again asked "Something you need to tell me?"
"Uh," I hedged again "Now that Brad Pitt's single again, you're hanging by a string?"
I guess he didn't want me to smart ass further down that particular line of inquiry, so, with an amused but exasperated look on his face he prompted "The phone?"
Light bulbs suddenly flickered with all their feeble 60 watts in my brain as I recalled "OH! Your Dad called while you were in the shower!" He must have been letting the water warm up to have heard it, then checked the calls log.
On the other hand, I was pleased to realize that I had overcome my childhood tendency to be a compulsive confessor. I'm hoping it's a genetically dominant trait and that Angelina has this too. I must have been 8 or 9 when my younger cousin got her hands on a book of matches. Always the instigator, Debbie suggested we start a campfire in the hopes of making some s'mores. About 6 or 7 of us went out on my grandfather's back 40 near the creek (yes, I grew up in the country) and began gathering the ingredients necessary, wood chips, little twigs. Some adult, who must have had kids of his own, saw the huddle and heard his Up-To-No-Good-Radar go off. He hollered at us over the fence "What're you kids doing!?!" We all popped up, took one look at the guy and scattered like cockroaches that had seen the light. Flight is a defacto admission of some sort of guilt, but the guy couldn't possibly chase down 7 kids, all going in different directions.
This just happened to be the same day our boarder collie got peppered with buckshot in the hindquarters -- like I said, I grew up in the country. That evening I heard my mom ask my dad whether or not they should call the cops and I burst out into tears and wails and spontaneous confessions "We just wanted s'mores and it was Debbie's idea and we didn't really start a fire PLEASE DON'T HAVE ME ARRESTED!!!!!" Both mom and dad looked at their wailing daughter, thoroughly confused but they realized that there must be an issue here and with very little prompting got the rest of the story out of me. Only AFTER they got the full confession did they tell me they were going to report that our dog got shot. I swear when I left the room I heard them chuckle.
So with her genetic contributions and with Doug and I both having had interview and interrogation training, I'm thinking AJ doesn't stand a chance. Here's hoping
Do you ever look for talents in your kids? Aptitudes that indicate a possible future career? I know it's way too early but I can't help wondering. For example, she doesn't call me when she wakes up from her nap anymore. I hear rustling on the baby monitor, then I hear the sound of her laughter as she bounces up and down. Eventually she's having so much fun that she wants to share it and calls for Mommy. Every day when I get in there, she's thrown everything -- yes EVERYTHING -- out of her crib. That's the rustling I hear first. I'm wondering if this means she'll be a future rock star trashing hotel rooms. Hmmm.
Or worse yet, once she's done joyously bouncing, she runs from one end of the crib to the other and I SWEAR she looks like those silly wrestlers careening around the wrestling ring. I'm wondering if I throw another kid in there, will she pick him up and do the flying helicopter? Or maybe they'll do the super figure four leg lock. I have no idea, but for right now she's the cutest little giggling wrestler I've ever seen. Then I'm thinking the acorn doesn't fall far from the tree. The other day when we were leaving the house Doug grabbed Angelina and hollered "LET'S GET READY TO RUMBLLLLLLLLLLE" We'll leave the career choices for later, like when she's three.
One of the sacrifices of Motherhood -- I've given up wearing lipstick, as lately I've been having to kiss a lot of boo boos. I'm thinking of using Neosporin as lipgloss. Now that's motherly multi-tasking!
I've been talking about pregnancy with a lot of my buddies. Was interested to hear one gal say that her husband isn't all that disappointed that they can't get pregnant again as she was fairly well psychotic when she was pregnant. I had to think how lucky Doug is as I'm perceiving myself as fairly even keeled. I mentioned this to him -- big mistake.
This morning I was in the kitchen. Angelina was eating blueberry bread and I was giving Doug a haircut. Made me think of what a lovely scene of domestic bliss we were enjoying. Then Doug hauled out the vacuum cleaner and diligently vacuumed up the hair clippings. That would have been fine, except then he left it on, clapping his hand over the nozzle repeatedly so that it would make a different sound. I'm not sure if this was amusing Angelina -- his intent -- but it was annoying the hell out of me. I barked at my dear husband, as all loving wives do. Something on the order of "WILL YOU SHUT THAT DAMN THING OFF!" With the vacuum still on, he said, "Uh huh, you're not hormonal at all, and don't swear in front of my child." I know of NO woman who likes to be accused of being hormonal, even if it's true.
After a few moments of steaming, I decided I needed to make a point. Unfortunately the point I made was proving my hormonal status, of course that didn't occur to me until later. I took a pot and a spoon, and went to the bathroom where he had just lathered up for shaving. He didn't see me coming. I then began banging the spoon against the pot right behind his head. You can imagine that his reaction was to be seriously irritated and I got a spray of water and shaving cream flicked in my face for my troubles. In his shock, he said "What the HELL has gotten into you?!?!" I then said, in a voice that sounded a little smug even to me, "OH! So obnoxious sounds irritate you too? You MUST be HORMONAL! And don't swear in front of my child!" I wonder if there are support groups for men trying to survive their wife's pregnancy with any level of sanity.
We'll survive, we'll just be a little more twisted than before.
Evelyn Copyright 2005, Evelyn James. All rights reserved
Doug came to me out of the blue and said "Is there something you want to tell me?" with an odd look on his face. At this point thoughts began flying through my head like lightning through a very muddy swamp. What had he discovered? What did he know that I didn't? Not that I'm confessing, mind you, but there is a technique for surreptitiously spending money where you make the actual check out to Nordstrom, but write "Safeway" in the check register. Couldn't be that, so I hedged.
"I think you already know I'm pregnant."
"Noooooo. I think you need to tell me something." He said again.
Again the lightning dragged its sorry butt through the muddy swamp of my brain. Not that I'm confessing, mind you, but there is the technique for concealing a minor fender bender by waiting for the perfect moment when you're both approaching your car in a parking lot then gasping theatrically and, with equally theatrical outrage pointing out that someone must have scraped your car while you were shopping. I actually learned that technique at work, and thank goodness the statute of limitations has expired. Couldn't be that... The swamp had consumed my thought process and Doug must have noticed that I was pitifully wracking my brain so he again asked "Something you need to tell me?"
"Uh," I hedged again "Now that Brad Pitt's single again, you're hanging by a string?"
I guess he didn't want me to smart ass further down that particular line of inquiry, so, with an amused but exasperated look on his face he prompted "The phone?"
Light bulbs suddenly flickered with all their feeble 60 watts in my brain as I recalled "OH! Your Dad called while you were in the shower!" He must have been letting the water warm up to have heard it, then checked the calls log.
On the other hand, I was pleased to realize that I had overcome my childhood tendency to be a compulsive confessor. I'm hoping it's a genetically dominant trait and that Angelina has this too. I must have been 8 or 9 when my younger cousin got her hands on a book of matches. Always the instigator, Debbie suggested we start a campfire in the hopes of making some s'mores. About 6 or 7 of us went out on my grandfather's back 40 near the creek (yes, I grew up in the country) and began gathering the ingredients necessary, wood chips, little twigs. Some adult, who must have had kids of his own, saw the huddle and heard his Up-To-No-Good-Radar go off. He hollered at us over the fence "What're you kids doing!?!" We all popped up, took one look at the guy and scattered like cockroaches that had seen the light. Flight is a defacto admission of some sort of guilt, but the guy couldn't possibly chase down 7 kids, all going in different directions.
This just happened to be the same day our boarder collie got peppered with buckshot in the hindquarters -- like I said, I grew up in the country. That evening I heard my mom ask my dad whether or not they should call the cops and I burst out into tears and wails and spontaneous confessions "We just wanted s'mores and it was Debbie's idea and we didn't really start a fire PLEASE DON'T HAVE ME ARRESTED!!!!!" Both mom and dad looked at their wailing daughter, thoroughly confused but they realized that there must be an issue here and with very little prompting got the rest of the story out of me. Only AFTER they got the full confession did they tell me they were going to report that our dog got shot. I swear when I left the room I heard them chuckle.
So with her genetic contributions and with Doug and I both having had interview and interrogation training, I'm thinking AJ doesn't stand a chance. Here's hoping
Do you ever look for talents in your kids? Aptitudes that indicate a possible future career? I know it's way too early but I can't help wondering. For example, she doesn't call me when she wakes up from her nap anymore. I hear rustling on the baby monitor, then I hear the sound of her laughter as she bounces up and down. Eventually she's having so much fun that she wants to share it and calls for Mommy. Every day when I get in there, she's thrown everything -- yes EVERYTHING -- out of her crib. That's the rustling I hear first. I'm wondering if this means she'll be a future rock star trashing hotel rooms. Hmmm.
Or worse yet, once she's done joyously bouncing, she runs from one end of the crib to the other and I SWEAR she looks like those silly wrestlers careening around the wrestling ring. I'm wondering if I throw another kid in there, will she pick him up and do the flying helicopter? Or maybe they'll do the super figure four leg lock. I have no idea, but for right now she's the cutest little giggling wrestler I've ever seen. Then I'm thinking the acorn doesn't fall far from the tree. The other day when we were leaving the house Doug grabbed Angelina and hollered "LET'S GET READY TO RUMBLLLLLLLLLLE" We'll leave the career choices for later, like when she's three.
One of the sacrifices of Motherhood -- I've given up wearing lipstick, as lately I've been having to kiss a lot of boo boos. I'm thinking of using Neosporin as lipgloss. Now that's motherly multi-tasking!
I've been talking about pregnancy with a lot of my buddies. Was interested to hear one gal say that her husband isn't all that disappointed that they can't get pregnant again as she was fairly well psychotic when she was pregnant. I had to think how lucky Doug is as I'm perceiving myself as fairly even keeled. I mentioned this to him -- big mistake.
This morning I was in the kitchen. Angelina was eating blueberry bread and I was giving Doug a haircut. Made me think of what a lovely scene of domestic bliss we were enjoying. Then Doug hauled out the vacuum cleaner and diligently vacuumed up the hair clippings. That would have been fine, except then he left it on, clapping his hand over the nozzle repeatedly so that it would make a different sound. I'm not sure if this was amusing Angelina -- his intent -- but it was annoying the hell out of me. I barked at my dear husband, as all loving wives do. Something on the order of "WILL YOU SHUT THAT DAMN THING OFF!" With the vacuum still on, he said, "Uh huh, you're not hormonal at all, and don't swear in front of my child." I know of NO woman who likes to be accused of being hormonal, even if it's true.
After a few moments of steaming, I decided I needed to make a point. Unfortunately the point I made was proving my hormonal status, of course that didn't occur to me until later. I took a pot and a spoon, and went to the bathroom where he had just lathered up for shaving. He didn't see me coming. I then began banging the spoon against the pot right behind his head. You can imagine that his reaction was to be seriously irritated and I got a spray of water and shaving cream flicked in my face for my troubles. In his shock, he said "What the HELL has gotten into you?!?!" I then said, in a voice that sounded a little smug even to me, "OH! So obnoxious sounds irritate you too? You MUST be HORMONAL! And don't swear in front of my child!" I wonder if there are support groups for men trying to survive their wife's pregnancy with any level of sanity.
We'll survive, we'll just be a little more twisted than before.
Evelyn Copyright 2005, Evelyn James. All rights reserved
Friday, April 01, 2005
Dr Seuss Overdose
I read AJ books,
We don't watch much TV
To prevent her becoming
A cute pink zombie.
So we read books about Fuzzles
And books about Woozles,
And how one can best tame
A Hullabanoodle.
We practice our As,
Our Bs and our Cs.
We read books about counting
Our one, twos and threes.
These books drive me loopy,
They'll make me go mad
But I read and I read
'Cause it makes her feel glad
So I read and I read
And I read still more drivel
But when hubby comes home,
You can bet that I snivel
"It's YOUR turn right now,
Yes it's YOUR turn I think.
As for me, I'll go out
And I'll have a stiff drink
I'll forget Dr. Seuss,
I'll get loose as a goose
I'll drink 'til I can't tell a man from a moose!"
"It's wishful thinking," said he.
"It's wishful thinking, this drinking.
You're knocked up, you're pregnant.
You're with child, silly, see?
"A pedicure then, or a wax or a bob.
But I Must MUST go out." I said with a sob.
"She's an angel." I said.
"But this day's been too tough
And an angel we know, me?
Not so much."
I'm losing my marbles,
I've lost half my brain
My intellect I suspect
I will never regain.
So I ran out the door
As if I were chased
By the Cat in the Hat in some really weird race
A pedicure? A bob?
A quick trip to Reno?
I thought as I grabbed a San Pellegrino.
Barnes & Nobel, I thought,
As I dashed out the door.
Oh why had I not thought of that one before?
What a joy it would be just to wander the aisles
To browse and to shop with my odd little smile.
Kid free, thought I, YEAH!
No more reshelving books
Torn by sweet little hands
from their little book nooks.
Without chasing a toddler,
What books could I browse!
On knitting! On cooking!
On husbanding cows!
My time I enjoyed with decaf cappuccino
I gave up all thoughts of escaping to Reno.
So then I came home,
My sweet angel in bed,
And the hubby with more
Grey hairs on his head.
And what had I bought with the almighty dollar?
More parenting books 'til my husband did holler.
"How many more books can we have?" Questioned he
as I showed him one on the best use of T.P..
"Potty training's important!" Protested I.
(I should have bought him a book on how to tie flies.)
What he doesn't know,
What he doesn't yet see
Is the stash in the trunk
Of books, not for me.
A new book about Fuzzles,
And more about Woozles
And more ways to tame a Hullabanoodle.
A new book about letters D, E, and F,
And a video about a puppy named Jeff.
My sanity returned and we crawled into bed
I have joy in my heart, and thoughts in my head
That we'll read, and we'll read,
Maybe more than I oughtta
'Cause I really do love my sweet baby daughter.
copyright 2005, Evelyn James
We don't watch much TV
To prevent her becoming
A cute pink zombie.
So we read books about Fuzzles
And books about Woozles,
And how one can best tame
A Hullabanoodle.
We practice our As,
Our Bs and our Cs.
We read books about counting
Our one, twos and threes.
These books drive me loopy,
They'll make me go mad
But I read and I read
'Cause it makes her feel glad
So I read and I read
And I read still more drivel
But when hubby comes home,
You can bet that I snivel
"It's YOUR turn right now,
Yes it's YOUR turn I think.
As for me, I'll go out
And I'll have a stiff drink
I'll forget Dr. Seuss,
I'll get loose as a goose
I'll drink 'til I can't tell a man from a moose!"
"It's wishful thinking," said he.
"It's wishful thinking, this drinking.
You're knocked up, you're pregnant.
You're with child, silly, see?
"A pedicure then, or a wax or a bob.
But I Must MUST go out." I said with a sob.
"She's an angel." I said.
"But this day's been too tough
And an angel we know, me?
Not so much."
I'm losing my marbles,
I've lost half my brain
My intellect I suspect
I will never regain.
So I ran out the door
As if I were chased
By the Cat in the Hat in some really weird race
A pedicure? A bob?
A quick trip to Reno?
I thought as I grabbed a San Pellegrino.
Barnes & Nobel, I thought,
As I dashed out the door.
Oh why had I not thought of that one before?
What a joy it would be just to wander the aisles
To browse and to shop with my odd little smile.
Kid free, thought I, YEAH!
No more reshelving books
Torn by sweet little hands
from their little book nooks.
Without chasing a toddler,
What books could I browse!
On knitting! On cooking!
On husbanding cows!
My time I enjoyed with decaf cappuccino
I gave up all thoughts of escaping to Reno.
So then I came home,
My sweet angel in bed,
And the hubby with more
Grey hairs on his head.
And what had I bought with the almighty dollar?
More parenting books 'til my husband did holler.
"How many more books can we have?" Questioned he
as I showed him one on the best use of T.P..
"Potty training's important!" Protested I.
(I should have bought him a book on how to tie flies.)
What he doesn't know,
What he doesn't yet see
Is the stash in the trunk
Of books, not for me.
A new book about Fuzzles,
And more about Woozles
And more ways to tame a Hullabanoodle.
A new book about letters D, E, and F,
And a video about a puppy named Jeff.
My sanity returned and we crawled into bed
I have joy in my heart, and thoughts in my head
That we'll read, and we'll read,
Maybe more than I oughtta
'Cause I really do love my sweet baby daughter.
copyright 2005, Evelyn James
Tuesday, March 15, 2005
050315
Oh the things we do to pacify our toddlers in public. Yes, I'm barely into my second trimester, but yes, I am buying maternity clothes. I went to Sears for the president's day sale. I'm appalled to admit we left Sears looking like Hansel and Gretel had gotten a corporate sponsorship from Pepperidge farms based on the trail of goldfish left behind. (I could just picture little lederhosen looking like Nascar knock-offs with the PF Logos.) Why do they choose to throw all their tantrums in public, or is it just then that we notice how mortifying they are? It just doesn't feel very mature to be yanking back and forth on a zippy full of goldfish with a screaming toddler. Of course it's a lot LESS mature to just cave. "Okay, Angelina, you can have the zippy." Uh huh, really dignified to be on my hands and knees in the middle of Sears scooping up goldfish by the handful while AJ still had the zippy and it was raining goldfish on my head. This would by why I decided to let the Sears Janitorial service earn their keep with the Hansel and Gretel trail.
So my new mantra is "Don't cave, don't cave!" And here I am, dilligently speaking only German to her, studying German again myself (a very difficult language) and yet I'm not above resorting to English when I'm in public and have Angelina thrown over a shoulder after a chase where she careened through people like a pinball. "Sweetie, if you can't stay near mommy you aren't allowed out of the cart. Please stop screaming, sweetie." Not for her benefit, of course, but for all those people that I, the larger pinball, careened against in my attempts to catch her. And a giggling toddler has a level of charm that the chasing chubby 40 year old just can't match, so people are looking at ME as being the villan who intruded into their personal space ... and of course I AM. Needless to say my tone of voice to Angelina is saying "Do you really want to live to reach two?"
The day was not made better by a leaking Avent bottle. By the time I got home and up the stairs I realized that my chic black diaper back pack was leaking a trail of milk down my ass. Ev got a little grumpy. And then I imprudently went to Costco on a weekend. Doug and I had boycotted Costco there for several years after I'd been pinned at one end of the cart and Doug at the other by the eighth passing family of 10 or more in a crowded aisle. Doug left everything in the cart and got me out of there after I hollered to him "NOW I KNOW WHY RATS EAT EACH OTHER WHEN THERE ARE TOO MANY IN A CAGE!" So this time I was back, but I was definitely the aggressor rat. Ever have a day when you're just hoping someone messes with you? That last little gal who bumped my butt with the cart narrowly escaped with her life, at least in my imagination. At this point it's cathartic just to give someone a really dirty look. So is this finally a sign of maturity? That I'm not taking out my aggressor rat tendencies on perfect strangers? That I have some restraint and don't rip someone's liver out through their nostril just 'cause they bumped my butt?
God, I remember the days when I felt like a grown up. When I had a job and a life and boobs I could call my own. Talk about share ware. I was all nostalgic about weaning and missing nursing. I don't mind cuddling topless at her insistance, but does she HAVE to twiddle the nipples? Some days I really understand the women who think they'd go nuts if they were stay at home moms. I guess here's the secret. We SAHMs DO go nuts. It's just that working outside the home would have made us nutser.
I told Doug I'd been asked to write a column for the PMC newsletter. His reaction was a tepid "That's great honey, just leave me out of it." Now how can I do that? Particularly when he tells me that while I was at the PMC meeting he was getting ready to give Angelina a bath. We've never used the baby bath for her, Doug's always stripped down and gotten in with her. She could bathe by herself now (with supervision, of course) but it's their quality time. They splash and play together and it's just a delight to see. On the other hand, due to Angelina's penchant for eating cat food, we have all the cats' supplies in there. Every bath requires cleaning out the cat food and water, sweeping up the crumbs, etc. So Doug had Angelina prepared for the bath (i.e. running around naked) and was ready to get in himself (naked too) when he was bent over sweeping up kitty crumbs. Thems that dangle will jangle of course. Angelina must have seen the interesting view from the back, came up and poked the dangling pair with her little fingers. Doug popped up as if on a spring and turned around to see Angelina smiling and pointing, saying "Pee pee!" He got a little wiggy about it. It doesn't matter how innocent, NO man wants to see any female pointing and giggling. I was raised part of the time in Europe where nudity is normal, so I'd prefer to have her just think parts is parts rather than make a value judgement about them. He got under the suds as quickly as he could and they had a wonderful time.
I had a dentist appointment. I was worried about it because I tend to gag these days while brushing my teeth. Doug and I were supposed to switch roles. I was getting ready to leave the house while he was to be watching Angelina. Uh huh. I was in the shower, all shampooed up when I heard AJ come in to the bathroom. A little pink shadow passed by the frosted glass shower door and then I heard a gleeful "Pee Pee!" I looked out, dripping shampoo everywhere to discover that she was stirring the water in the open toilet with her pacifier. Horrified I snatched it out of her hand and soaped it up with some of the shampoo from my hair. I needn't doubt who taught her that snatching behavior that will probably show up at a playgroup near you. Where was Doug? Watching Fox News to see if we'd caught Osama yet.
We had another blissfully uneventful day. I was doing laundry and AJ was "helping." She found a pair of Doug's underwear and put them on. Both feet were through one leg and she had them bunched up around her waist. 30 seconds later they were off. I would put the wash on the dryer door and she'd "help" by pushing it into the dryer. Later I was on "the throne." (At what point in our mommyhood do we ever get privacy back?) Angelina was having so much fun hiding behind the towel on the towel bar and having me "find" her with tickles and giggles. I thought that these were the silly little moments I'd be missing if I were working. And I don't care if I still can't call my boobs my own. I don't care if I never have manicured acrylic nails again. I don't care if I look schleppy and have an oatmeal handprint on my sweatshirt all day. I don't care that I don't pull down a hefty paycheck anymore. I know other women don't have the choice or prefer to work. Bravo for the choices you make. I DO go nuts, but for me it's bliss to hear her say "Nackt, boobies HUG!"
Doug had oral surgery on Wednesday morning. He was pretty loopy from the drugs and hanging around with an ice pack on his face. Even so, he wanted to be a little productive and since I'm claiming preggo priviledge, he decided to clean the cat box. This is usually a two person job since it takes 100% of someone's energy to keep Angelina out of the cat box. Even TV isn't more fascinating than that. Doug finished and vacuumed and our house was blessedly free of that horrible odor again. I was fixing dinner. Doug decided to check e-mail. We've been trying to get Angelina to play independantly and as such, when she's occupied we usually just peek from around a corner and let her keep going. Since it's silence that makes us the most nervous, we weren't too worried as we could hear her pitter patter up and down the hallway. We failed to notice that our little Angel had found the large scoop we use for the cats' food and was industriously running back and forth between the cat box and the living room coffee table. I noticed when I poked my head out of the kitchen to tell Doug dinner was ready. There were about seven large piles of cat litter on the coffee table, which she must have figured was enough as she started pretending she had a little zen sand garden and was running her hands through the litter like a rake. To get seven piles, she had to pass the open doorways to the kitchen and the office 14 times. She appeared to be very proud of herself! I ran for the video camera while Doug ran for the vacuum. We thereby forgot one of the cardinal rules of parenting which is PREVENT FURTHER DAMAGE FIRST. Cleanup should be second. At least one pile wound up in the carpet. This was, of course, a lovely accent to the trail she'd left from one end of the house to the other schlepping the litter to the coffee table in the first place. We got Angelina corralled and everything cleaned up. I immediately called Doug's mom, just in case she still had some memories of days like this at his hands when she cursed him to have a child just like him. Doug swears it was the drugs that made him forget the doorstop.
Doug and I had a little spat. Nothing unusual. He gave up the ice bags last night. Concerned about the swelling, he came up to me and asked "Do I have any swelling?" Still peved I said "No, but I could fix that for you."
I caught myself calling an insulated coffee commuter mug a "sippy cup."
Doug and I took the Valentine's day sex tour at the zoo this year. Was sposta get us all interested and excited and we were supposed to go home and implement some of the tips we'd learned from the animal kingdom. Yeah right. I'm pregnant. What is it? Is it some sort of propoganda that human females are always receptive to sex? Who the hell leaked that particular item of disinformation. Dateline should do an expose to debunk the myth. Sometimes I feel like despite my intellectual interest in sex, all the hormones in my body are saying "BULLSHIT! he already scored and the bun is baking, NO SEX FOR YOU!"
To the serious side.
So I have a question here. Am I nuts or is it possible to give up "control" without giving up "authority?" Can I create a loving environment where the kids can relax because they get to have fun and I handle the grown-up stuff? I can't believe kids actually WANT to have complete control, despite their tantrums to the contrary. Are we speaking the same language as our children? I've noticed that for some kids asking politely means they utterly ignore what is being asked of them. Can one bark orders in a cheerful tone? Kids don't always understand adult language such as "You're hurting Mommy's feelings when you're not polite to grandma." Some kids couldn't give a rat's patootie about Mommy's feelings. What I'm getting through my various studies is that they're concrete thinkers and creatures of creatable habits. About 10,000 repetitions of "Say please" and "Say thank-you" can eventually be replaced by "what do we say?" and will eventually generate a moderately polite child.
Isn't it to our children's advantage to teach them how to function in society with social nicities amongst which are pleases and thank-yous? I know one child who never says a spontaneous please or thank-you and I am utterly uninspired to give this kid anything, ever. Can they be taught to be grateful without ever showing gratitude? I don't see how. I know that kid wants more goodies, but his behavior is not going to make it happen. There's a philosophy that these social lubricants are contrived and kids shouldn't be required to say things they don't really feel.
Is it our goal to have our children never feel bad, or is it on occasion an available parenting tool? Since when is "remorse" considered bad? It seems to me as though kids SHOULD feel badly when they've done a bad thing -- not that THEY ARE bad, but simple remorse. How else will they develop an aversion to the behavior we don't want repeated? How can they ever MEAN "I'm sorry" if they never actually FEEL sorry?
I used to be "Officer Friendly" and give lectures to kids. I had to study how the brain functions. Most of the pleasant feelings illegal drugs induce we can cause for ourselves if we choose to do so. If you're angry you can choose to take a bubble bath, or a long walk, or attack the stairmaster. If you're sad you can pet your cat, do something nice for someone else, or watch a comedy. You must consciously CHOOSE the behavior and engage in it before your brain will give you the happy neurotransmitter payoff.
So if we teach kids the behavior (Say "thank you" to Grandma) even though they may not FEEL like engaging in that behavior, they will get the payoff (Grandma smiles with pure love on her face, hugs them and brings more presents at her next visit.) Often times behavior comes before the payoff, and only then is the behavior is cemented. If we don't insist on the behavior they'll never get the payoff and never wind up internally motivated to engage in the desired behavior.
It may be "contrived" but at 21 months with minimal prompting, Angelina says Peas (please) Bitte (please in German) Genkoo (thank you) and Danke (thank you in German). I usually respond with "You're so very welcome, I love to do things for you."
Nothing is so polarizing as parenting philosophies. There are many roads to Rome as a friend of mine said, I just wonder if we're assuming that ALL roads lead to Rome, and they don't. If my thoughts offend anyone, sorry. Don't worry, I'm not raising your child, just mine. At least we all see eye to eye that we want the best for our kids. And I don't want mine clobbering yours.
I guess their therapists will determine how well we did.
p.s. I love hearing feedback. Let me know what you think, or tell me a mommy moment of your own. All rights reserved
So my new mantra is "Don't cave, don't cave!" And here I am, dilligently speaking only German to her, studying German again myself (a very difficult language) and yet I'm not above resorting to English when I'm in public and have Angelina thrown over a shoulder after a chase where she careened through people like a pinball. "Sweetie, if you can't stay near mommy you aren't allowed out of the cart. Please stop screaming, sweetie." Not for her benefit, of course, but for all those people that I, the larger pinball, careened against in my attempts to catch her. And a giggling toddler has a level of charm that the chasing chubby 40 year old just can't match, so people are looking at ME as being the villan who intruded into their personal space ... and of course I AM. Needless to say my tone of voice to Angelina is saying "Do you really want to live to reach two?"
The day was not made better by a leaking Avent bottle. By the time I got home and up the stairs I realized that my chic black diaper back pack was leaking a trail of milk down my ass. Ev got a little grumpy. And then I imprudently went to Costco on a weekend. Doug and I had boycotted Costco there for several years after I'd been pinned at one end of the cart and Doug at the other by the eighth passing family of 10 or more in a crowded aisle. Doug left everything in the cart and got me out of there after I hollered to him "NOW I KNOW WHY RATS EAT EACH OTHER WHEN THERE ARE TOO MANY IN A CAGE!" So this time I was back, but I was definitely the aggressor rat. Ever have a day when you're just hoping someone messes with you? That last little gal who bumped my butt with the cart narrowly escaped with her life, at least in my imagination. At this point it's cathartic just to give someone a really dirty look. So is this finally a sign of maturity? That I'm not taking out my aggressor rat tendencies on perfect strangers? That I have some restraint and don't rip someone's liver out through their nostril just 'cause they bumped my butt?
God, I remember the days when I felt like a grown up. When I had a job and a life and boobs I could call my own. Talk about share ware. I was all nostalgic about weaning and missing nursing. I don't mind cuddling topless at her insistance, but does she HAVE to twiddle the nipples? Some days I really understand the women who think they'd go nuts if they were stay at home moms. I guess here's the secret. We SAHMs DO go nuts. It's just that working outside the home would have made us nutser.
I told Doug I'd been asked to write a column for the PMC newsletter. His reaction was a tepid "That's great honey, just leave me out of it." Now how can I do that? Particularly when he tells me that while I was at the PMC meeting he was getting ready to give Angelina a bath. We've never used the baby bath for her, Doug's always stripped down and gotten in with her. She could bathe by herself now (with supervision, of course) but it's their quality time. They splash and play together and it's just a delight to see. On the other hand, due to Angelina's penchant for eating cat food, we have all the cats' supplies in there. Every bath requires cleaning out the cat food and water, sweeping up the crumbs, etc. So Doug had Angelina prepared for the bath (i.e. running around naked) and was ready to get in himself (naked too) when he was bent over sweeping up kitty crumbs. Thems that dangle will jangle of course. Angelina must have seen the interesting view from the back, came up and poked the dangling pair with her little fingers. Doug popped up as if on a spring and turned around to see Angelina smiling and pointing, saying "Pee pee!" He got a little wiggy about it. It doesn't matter how innocent, NO man wants to see any female pointing and giggling. I was raised part of the time in Europe where nudity is normal, so I'd prefer to have her just think parts is parts rather than make a value judgement about them. He got under the suds as quickly as he could and they had a wonderful time.
I had a dentist appointment. I was worried about it because I tend to gag these days while brushing my teeth. Doug and I were supposed to switch roles. I was getting ready to leave the house while he was to be watching Angelina. Uh huh. I was in the shower, all shampooed up when I heard AJ come in to the bathroom. A little pink shadow passed by the frosted glass shower door and then I heard a gleeful "Pee Pee!" I looked out, dripping shampoo everywhere to discover that she was stirring the water in the open toilet with her pacifier. Horrified I snatched it out of her hand and soaped it up with some of the shampoo from my hair. I needn't doubt who taught her that snatching behavior that will probably show up at a playgroup near you. Where was Doug? Watching Fox News to see if we'd caught Osama yet.
We had another blissfully uneventful day. I was doing laundry and AJ was "helping." She found a pair of Doug's underwear and put them on. Both feet were through one leg and she had them bunched up around her waist. 30 seconds later they were off. I would put the wash on the dryer door and she'd "help" by pushing it into the dryer. Later I was on "the throne." (At what point in our mommyhood do we ever get privacy back?) Angelina was having so much fun hiding behind the towel on the towel bar and having me "find" her with tickles and giggles. I thought that these were the silly little moments I'd be missing if I were working. And I don't care if I still can't call my boobs my own. I don't care if I never have manicured acrylic nails again. I don't care if I look schleppy and have an oatmeal handprint on my sweatshirt all day. I don't care that I don't pull down a hefty paycheck anymore. I know other women don't have the choice or prefer to work. Bravo for the choices you make. I DO go nuts, but for me it's bliss to hear her say "Nackt, boobies HUG!"
Doug had oral surgery on Wednesday morning. He was pretty loopy from the drugs and hanging around with an ice pack on his face. Even so, he wanted to be a little productive and since I'm claiming preggo priviledge, he decided to clean the cat box. This is usually a two person job since it takes 100% of someone's energy to keep Angelina out of the cat box. Even TV isn't more fascinating than that. Doug finished and vacuumed and our house was blessedly free of that horrible odor again. I was fixing dinner. Doug decided to check e-mail. We've been trying to get Angelina to play independantly and as such, when she's occupied we usually just peek from around a corner and let her keep going. Since it's silence that makes us the most nervous, we weren't too worried as we could hear her pitter patter up and down the hallway. We failed to notice that our little Angel had found the large scoop we use for the cats' food and was industriously running back and forth between the cat box and the living room coffee table. I noticed when I poked my head out of the kitchen to tell Doug dinner was ready. There were about seven large piles of cat litter on the coffee table, which she must have figured was enough as she started pretending she had a little zen sand garden and was running her hands through the litter like a rake. To get seven piles, she had to pass the open doorways to the kitchen and the office 14 times. She appeared to be very proud of herself! I ran for the video camera while Doug ran for the vacuum. We thereby forgot one of the cardinal rules of parenting which is PREVENT FURTHER DAMAGE FIRST. Cleanup should be second. At least one pile wound up in the carpet. This was, of course, a lovely accent to the trail she'd left from one end of the house to the other schlepping the litter to the coffee table in the first place. We got Angelina corralled and everything cleaned up. I immediately called Doug's mom, just in case she still had some memories of days like this at his hands when she cursed him to have a child just like him. Doug swears it was the drugs that made him forget the doorstop.
Doug and I had a little spat. Nothing unusual. He gave up the ice bags last night. Concerned about the swelling, he came up to me and asked "Do I have any swelling?" Still peved I said "No, but I could fix that for you."
I caught myself calling an insulated coffee commuter mug a "sippy cup."
Doug and I took the Valentine's day sex tour at the zoo this year. Was sposta get us all interested and excited and we were supposed to go home and implement some of the tips we'd learned from the animal kingdom. Yeah right. I'm pregnant. What is it? Is it some sort of propoganda that human females are always receptive to sex? Who the hell leaked that particular item of disinformation. Dateline should do an expose to debunk the myth. Sometimes I feel like despite my intellectual interest in sex, all the hormones in my body are saying "BULLSHIT! he already scored and the bun is baking, NO SEX FOR YOU!"
To the serious side.
So I have a question here. Am I nuts or is it possible to give up "control" without giving up "authority?" Can I create a loving environment where the kids can relax because they get to have fun and I handle the grown-up stuff? I can't believe kids actually WANT to have complete control, despite their tantrums to the contrary. Are we speaking the same language as our children? I've noticed that for some kids asking politely means they utterly ignore what is being asked of them. Can one bark orders in a cheerful tone? Kids don't always understand adult language such as "You're hurting Mommy's feelings when you're not polite to grandma." Some kids couldn't give a rat's patootie about Mommy's feelings. What I'm getting through my various studies is that they're concrete thinkers and creatures of creatable habits. About 10,000 repetitions of "Say please" and "Say thank-you" can eventually be replaced by "what do we say?" and will eventually generate a moderately polite child.
Isn't it to our children's advantage to teach them how to function in society with social nicities amongst which are pleases and thank-yous? I know one child who never says a spontaneous please or thank-you and I am utterly uninspired to give this kid anything, ever. Can they be taught to be grateful without ever showing gratitude? I don't see how. I know that kid wants more goodies, but his behavior is not going to make it happen. There's a philosophy that these social lubricants are contrived and kids shouldn't be required to say things they don't really feel.
Is it our goal to have our children never feel bad, or is it on occasion an available parenting tool? Since when is "remorse" considered bad? It seems to me as though kids SHOULD feel badly when they've done a bad thing -- not that THEY ARE bad, but simple remorse. How else will they develop an aversion to the behavior we don't want repeated? How can they ever MEAN "I'm sorry" if they never actually FEEL sorry?
I used to be "Officer Friendly" and give lectures to kids. I had to study how the brain functions. Most of the pleasant feelings illegal drugs induce we can cause for ourselves if we choose to do so. If you're angry you can choose to take a bubble bath, or a long walk, or attack the stairmaster. If you're sad you can pet your cat, do something nice for someone else, or watch a comedy. You must consciously CHOOSE the behavior and engage in it before your brain will give you the happy neurotransmitter payoff.
So if we teach kids the behavior (Say "thank you" to Grandma) even though they may not FEEL like engaging in that behavior, they will get the payoff (Grandma smiles with pure love on her face, hugs them and brings more presents at her next visit.) Often times behavior comes before the payoff, and only then is the behavior is cemented. If we don't insist on the behavior they'll never get the payoff and never wind up internally motivated to engage in the desired behavior.
It may be "contrived" but at 21 months with minimal prompting, Angelina says Peas (please) Bitte (please in German) Genkoo (thank you) and Danke (thank you in German). I usually respond with "You're so very welcome, I love to do things for you."
Nothing is so polarizing as parenting philosophies. There are many roads to Rome as a friend of mine said, I just wonder if we're assuming that ALL roads lead to Rome, and they don't. If my thoughts offend anyone, sorry. Don't worry, I'm not raising your child, just mine. At least we all see eye to eye that we want the best for our kids. And I don't want mine clobbering yours.
I guess their therapists will determine how well we did.
p.s. I love hearing feedback. Let me know what you think, or tell me a mommy moment of your own. All rights reserved
Monday, February 28, 2005
2/28/05 requested introduction
Introduction??? I'm a mommy. I'm 40, pregnant again. Losing my train of thought at least 8x per day. My beautiful little daughter is Angelina, 21 months old. My soul came alive when she was born. I was a workaholic. She cured me of that. I was an obsessively career driven cop for 14 years. She cured me of that too. So I decided to retire prematurely. I hope to teach Angelina to be proud of the fact that I once wore combat boots, although these days I'm looking for slip on sneakers as I figure I wont be able to reach my feet to tie anything soon. I was a woman in a man's field. There are still only about 8% of my fellow feds who are women. I have, as you all know, an odd sense of humor. Most cops do. Odd senses of humor can easily offend. After years of writing affidavits and "just the facts, Ma'am" stuff, I've wanted to write just for fun. Angelina gives me LOTS of material. Or should I say my adaptation to mommyhood has not always been a smooth transition. Being a woman in a man's field means I dealt with a million different and conflicting expectations and judgements. It's hard to hit a moving target so I learned to stop trying and be true to myself. I hope that has prepared me to be a better Mom in what I can teach AJ and #2.
I write these Mommy moments and e-mail them primarily to AJ. If for whatever reason I didn't distribute them anymore I'd still be writing e-mails to my daughter. I just thought they were funny and would resonate with other mommies.
When I was pregnant the first time I bought a sweatshirt from Title 9 sports that says "Life Is Good" on the front. I lost that baby at 10 weeks. I was wearing the shirt yesterday at the home show and a gal asked me "Is life really good?" I stopped and said an unqualified "Yes!" I told her "I'm pregnant, due in September. I have a beautiful and sweet 21 month old. I have a husband who's wonderful, although he annoys the crap out of me sometimes, so I have a blissfully NORMAL marriage. I'm forty, I'm fat, I have wrinkles and fluctuating hormones ... I like myself (finally) and I'm absolutely loving life." That kinda says it all.
There's the introduction. Thanks for being interested. All materials herein are subject to copywrite laws, Copywrite held by Evelyn James
I write these Mommy moments and e-mail them primarily to AJ. If for whatever reason I didn't distribute them anymore I'd still be writing e-mails to my daughter. I just thought they were funny and would resonate with other mommies.
When I was pregnant the first time I bought a sweatshirt from Title 9 sports that says "Life Is Good" on the front. I lost that baby at 10 weeks. I was wearing the shirt yesterday at the home show and a gal asked me "Is life really good?" I stopped and said an unqualified "Yes!" I told her "I'm pregnant, due in September. I have a beautiful and sweet 21 month old. I have a husband who's wonderful, although he annoys the crap out of me sometimes, so I have a blissfully NORMAL marriage. I'm forty, I'm fat, I have wrinkles and fluctuating hormones ... I like myself (finally) and I'm absolutely loving life." That kinda says it all.
There's the introduction. Thanks for being interested. All materials herein are subject to copywrite laws, Copywrite held by Evelyn James
Friday, February 18, 2005
2/18/2005
I was taking a nap over the weekend. Dad was on duty. I was awakened from my comfortable snooze on the couch by little fingers stuffing blue playdoh up my nose. I discovered that the reason she'd resorted to my nose was because she'd already exhausted the capacity of her own nose. Almost a week later I've finally gotten the last blue flakes out of Angelina's little nostrils. I'm not entirely sure my own are clear yet.
What is it about kids and exploring their orifices (orifi?) My mom reminded me of a phone call where I kept interrupting our conversation to tell Angelina to stop shoving blueberries in her ear. Mom said that it was okay as long as it wasn't a coffee bean up the nose -- my sister's trick.
A wise friend of mine assures me "it's a phase, it's ALL a phase." And this is one of the interesting ways in which our children are sent to us for the purpose of teaching humility. One day I was feeling annoyed with another child who kept snatching toys away from Angelina. Actually followed her around for no other reason than to monitor what toys she was touching and snatch them out of her hand. Angelina's always been a fairly even-keeled kid, and she just went off to the next toy. We decided to leave as it was obviously disruptive and unproductive to be there, and at the door our little friend hugged and kissed Angelina with genuine sincerity. I found myself thinking "Oh, you aren't a little monster child after all." Just a tiny bit of smugness on the part of a Mommy, and parental Karma will bite your ass! Not two weeks later Angelina was behaving in exactly the same way.
Another friend's baby, who is obviously brilliant, was getting easily frustrated and started hitting and pulling hair. We mommies were vigilant about refereeing playtimes, and no one got hurt. I'm absolutely positive that someday Angelina will be the hitter, hair-puller or biter. How do we keep the balance? I'm convinced that if I ever get smug or judgmental, even in the most backwater regions of my brain that parental Karma will have Angelina coming home at age 16 with 23 piercings and a positive pregnancy test. I guess by this confession I can be officially diagnosed as neurotic.
But on the subject of backwater regions of my brain... It seems as though the backwater has turned into a murky swamp about the size of the Everglades. Just yesterday I had prepared my lunch (leftover Outback steak and canned corn) and poured myself a glass of orange soda. I walked out to the sunroom/dining room with every intention of eating it when it seemed as though some unseen specter smashed the plate against my chest and spilled my soda all over -- No, we don't have a ghost, but it took me about 5 beats before I realized the damn glass door was closed and I'd just walked into it at full speed. Angelina was napping, so Doug had the good grace to stifle his laughter. I thought the effort would cause him to rupture his spleen! He picked up the phone and dialed Janine, our former au-pair to tell her what I'd done. I'd gotten a good chuckle at her expense when she'd done it a couple times over the year she was with us. And I was the one who closed the door! Again, careful who you laugh at 'cause the next prat-fall will be yours!
February 10th is a day that will live in ... Geez how do you decide? It was the first day Angelina didn't nurse. At nearly 21 months, I know I've done a good job by her. She's a healthy little thing, emphasis on LITTLE, however. I wouldn't have weaned her except that I'm pregnant again (YEAH!). So I'm glad she's weaned for the safety of this next pregnancy, and I'm so thrilled to be pregnant again, but I miss nursing. My brother always says that FIRSTS come in with trumpets and fanfare and lasts tiptoe through your life on quiet little kitten feet. First steps, first tooth, first word. When's the last time she had those baby hiccups? When's the last time she sucked on my pinkie as a pacifier? When's the last time she clutched on to my fingers while practice-walking? When's the last time she said "MAMA" and started saying a very mature "Mommy!" I know when the last time was that she nursed. She still hugs my breasts. Insists that mommy be "Nackt" while we're watching TV in the evening so she can cuddle up with my boobs. Yells "BOOBIE" at the top of her lungs while I'm on the phone until I expose them for a cuddle. You'd think I'd've taught her a better word for them, eh? It's comforting to know that closeness and cuddles continue unrelated to nursing. What an absolute joy it has been to successfully nurse my baby; to give her the best nutrition I could; to hold her close in the middle of the night when the rest of the world was asleep and I could swear I felt Angels surrounding us and watching with smiles of love and peace.
On the other hand, I think I'm suffering from oxytocin withdrawals (or is it the prolactin?). I swear I'm more impatient and irritable than I've ever been with her. Or am I just now turning back into a normal person. Exactly why did I put up with it taking about 1/2 an hour to get from up stairs to the car seat? Yeah well, that Madonna-esque crap is out the window now. I've decided walking can be considered a privilege and if I'm running late then I hoist her like a little sack o' taters and cram her in the car with a cheery "You want to see your buddies, don't you?" All this despite my desire to have her trained to be a little more independent. I really don't want to be carrying her a lot in trimester #3 (and since last time I went 42 weeks, I don't want to be carrying her a lot in trimester #4 either).
I drove home from a playgroup and Angelina fell asleep in the back. I turned off the radio to hear her snore. She comes by it honestly, I snore like a freight train. What a joyous little sound. We've never co-slept, so those rare occasions when she does fall asleep with me it's a very special occasion. Not long ago she fell asleep and HAD to be ON me. She flopped around like a landed mackerel, eventually landing on my neck. I was enjoying it so much I didn't want to move her. Of course I could barely move my neck for the next couple days, but it was worth it.
Another thing she comes by honestly is a fondness for coffee. Try going into a Starbucks and asking for a kid's steamed milk with 1/2 a shot of decaf espresso. If they don't look at you funny, you'll know I've already been there and broke them in for you. I used to give her a teaspoon full at a time in her little Ikea porcelain tea set during breakfast. This could go on for quite a while. One morning recently I didn't have the time for the ritual so I nuked her sippy of milk, added some brown sugar and a tiny scoop of decaf instant. Later that day she shocked me with her first four word sentence... she handed me the empty sippy and said "Mommy, milch, kaffee, holen!" This translates to "Mommy, milk, coffee, get-me-some." I comfort myself by recalling the time she got wired off her little @$$ from a child's cocoa. Decaf is MUCH better.
I'm now 56 days pregnant. Day 51 is when I lost the first baby, so day 52 was a big WOOO HOOO for me. All is well save for the death of more brain cells.
Evelyn All materials herein are subject to copywrite laws, Copywrite held by Evelyn James
What is it about kids and exploring their orifices (orifi?) My mom reminded me of a phone call where I kept interrupting our conversation to tell Angelina to stop shoving blueberries in her ear. Mom said that it was okay as long as it wasn't a coffee bean up the nose -- my sister's trick.
A wise friend of mine assures me "it's a phase, it's ALL a phase." And this is one of the interesting ways in which our children are sent to us for the purpose of teaching humility. One day I was feeling annoyed with another child who kept snatching toys away from Angelina. Actually followed her around for no other reason than to monitor what toys she was touching and snatch them out of her hand. Angelina's always been a fairly even-keeled kid, and she just went off to the next toy. We decided to leave as it was obviously disruptive and unproductive to be there, and at the door our little friend hugged and kissed Angelina with genuine sincerity. I found myself thinking "Oh, you aren't a little monster child after all." Just a tiny bit of smugness on the part of a Mommy, and parental Karma will bite your ass! Not two weeks later Angelina was behaving in exactly the same way.
Another friend's baby, who is obviously brilliant, was getting easily frustrated and started hitting and pulling hair. We mommies were vigilant about refereeing playtimes, and no one got hurt. I'm absolutely positive that someday Angelina will be the hitter, hair-puller or biter. How do we keep the balance? I'm convinced that if I ever get smug or judgmental, even in the most backwater regions of my brain that parental Karma will have Angelina coming home at age 16 with 23 piercings and a positive pregnancy test. I guess by this confession I can be officially diagnosed as neurotic.
But on the subject of backwater regions of my brain... It seems as though the backwater has turned into a murky swamp about the size of the Everglades. Just yesterday I had prepared my lunch (leftover Outback steak and canned corn) and poured myself a glass of orange soda. I walked out to the sunroom/dining room with every intention of eating it when it seemed as though some unseen specter smashed the plate against my chest and spilled my soda all over -- No, we don't have a ghost, but it took me about 5 beats before I realized the damn glass door was closed and I'd just walked into it at full speed. Angelina was napping, so Doug had the good grace to stifle his laughter. I thought the effort would cause him to rupture his spleen! He picked up the phone and dialed Janine, our former au-pair to tell her what I'd done. I'd gotten a good chuckle at her expense when she'd done it a couple times over the year she was with us. And I was the one who closed the door! Again, careful who you laugh at 'cause the next prat-fall will be yours!
February 10th is a day that will live in ... Geez how do you decide? It was the first day Angelina didn't nurse. At nearly 21 months, I know I've done a good job by her. She's a healthy little thing, emphasis on LITTLE, however. I wouldn't have weaned her except that I'm pregnant again (YEAH!). So I'm glad she's weaned for the safety of this next pregnancy, and I'm so thrilled to be pregnant again, but I miss nursing. My brother always says that FIRSTS come in with trumpets and fanfare and lasts tiptoe through your life on quiet little kitten feet. First steps, first tooth, first word. When's the last time she had those baby hiccups? When's the last time she sucked on my pinkie as a pacifier? When's the last time she clutched on to my fingers while practice-walking? When's the last time she said "MAMA" and started saying a very mature "Mommy!" I know when the last time was that she nursed. She still hugs my breasts. Insists that mommy be "Nackt" while we're watching TV in the evening so she can cuddle up with my boobs. Yells "BOOBIE" at the top of her lungs while I'm on the phone until I expose them for a cuddle. You'd think I'd've taught her a better word for them, eh? It's comforting to know that closeness and cuddles continue unrelated to nursing. What an absolute joy it has been to successfully nurse my baby; to give her the best nutrition I could; to hold her close in the middle of the night when the rest of the world was asleep and I could swear I felt Angels surrounding us and watching with smiles of love and peace.
On the other hand, I think I'm suffering from oxytocin withdrawals (or is it the prolactin?). I swear I'm more impatient and irritable than I've ever been with her. Or am I just now turning back into a normal person. Exactly why did I put up with it taking about 1/2 an hour to get from up stairs to the car seat? Yeah well, that Madonna-esque crap is out the window now. I've decided walking can be considered a privilege and if I'm running late then I hoist her like a little sack o' taters and cram her in the car with a cheery "You want to see your buddies, don't you?" All this despite my desire to have her trained to be a little more independent. I really don't want to be carrying her a lot in trimester #3 (and since last time I went 42 weeks, I don't want to be carrying her a lot in trimester #4 either).
I drove home from a playgroup and Angelina fell asleep in the back. I turned off the radio to hear her snore. She comes by it honestly, I snore like a freight train. What a joyous little sound. We've never co-slept, so those rare occasions when she does fall asleep with me it's a very special occasion. Not long ago she fell asleep and HAD to be ON me. She flopped around like a landed mackerel, eventually landing on my neck. I was enjoying it so much I didn't want to move her. Of course I could barely move my neck for the next couple days, but it was worth it.
Another thing she comes by honestly is a fondness for coffee. Try going into a Starbucks and asking for a kid's steamed milk with 1/2 a shot of decaf espresso. If they don't look at you funny, you'll know I've already been there and broke them in for you. I used to give her a teaspoon full at a time in her little Ikea porcelain tea set during breakfast. This could go on for quite a while. One morning recently I didn't have the time for the ritual so I nuked her sippy of milk, added some brown sugar and a tiny scoop of decaf instant. Later that day she shocked me with her first four word sentence... she handed me the empty sippy and said "Mommy, milch, kaffee, holen!" This translates to "Mommy, milk, coffee, get-me-some." I comfort myself by recalling the time she got wired off her little @$$ from a child's cocoa. Decaf is MUCH better.
I'm now 56 days pregnant. Day 51 is when I lost the first baby, so day 52 was a big WOOO HOOO for me. All is well save for the death of more brain cells.
Evelyn All materials herein are subject to copywrite laws, Copywrite held by Evelyn James
Tuesday, January 18, 2005
1/18/2005
Angelina has reached some major developmental milestone. I'm not sure exactly which category it comes under; cognitive, social, gross motor, fine motor control... I don't know. But she's realized that she can use her sleeves (or bare forearms) to wipe her nose. This monumentous discovery means that now I need to wipe not just her nose, but also the cute little slug trails she's wiped on her arms. Oh the joys of winter, eh?
Doug and I have been sleeping apart because I've been coughing. Angelina's been sick too, so she's been up several more times per night than usual so I've been tired. The other day I got her at 7:00. We cuddled in bed. The boobs are a self-service item now as she does her morning nursing without much involvement from me, and I can catch another five minutes of sleep. I just wanted a few more minutes of sleep, so I let Angelina wander around our baby-proofed house unsupervised. This lasted until she came back and wanted to show me her newest treasure. She gave me a handful of something soft and damp. Even sleepy I knew this couldn't be good and when my eyes could focus I discovered I had been presented with a hand full of cat puke. I should have realized that what Angelina had been saying was "Itty Pooh, Itty Pooh." If that doesn't start your day with a sense of anticipation for what's coming next, I don't know what would!
She's underweight. At 19 months, she's only 21 lbs and hasn't been gaining in ages. Because of this I have food at the ready for her constantly. On a recent trip to the zoo, I had goldfish, chicken nuggets, olives, sliced apples, dried blueberries, flat fruit, Ritz bits, juice, and dinosaur shaped gummy fruits. And what do I find her eating when we're in the middle of the petting zoo? Hay balls. The little hay balls we're supposed to be feeding the goats. A veritable smorgasbord I bring for her, and she's eating hay balls. I guess I don't need to worry about fiber.
I've come to the conclusion that chastity belts weren't actually invented by suspicious husbands who were off on some crusade du jour. No, they were actually invented by some frustrated mom who couldn't keep a diaper on her kid. Angelina has a great future as a nudist. She's actually developing interesting manipulative skills in that she knows if she stands by her potty and says "Pee pee!" that I'll take off her clothes and her diaper and set her on the potty. It's at this point that she makes a break for it and runs around the house buck-assed naked, flapping her little arms and yodeling. I don't know why the yodeling has to go along with most of the running, but even when she's dressed, running = yodeling.
Her favorite thing to do while naked is go play "night night" in our bed. She squirms under the covers giggling, and pats the pillow next to her indicating that Mommy should come play "night night" too. I guess she loves the feeling of the flannel on her naked little body. This lasts until Mommy gets a bit nervous about Angelina's bladder capacity. If it were up to her, she'd be naked 24/7. She's learning a new word an hour, it seems and her latest one is "Nackt" or "naked" in German. She'll tug at her clothes whining "Nackt! Nackt!" And while we're under the covers giggling, she usually starts pulling at my clothes saying "Nackt! Nackt!" There's just something beautiful about skin on skin contact with a giggling toddler. Absolutely unselfconscious other than the sheer joy of nudity. This is what the Garden of Eden must have been like.
Doug and I are trying to conceive (TTC) our second child. We've been trying for about 8 months now. I've been charting, peeing on little white plastic sticks, taking herbs and doing acupuncture. I'm basically doing everything short of praying for immaculate conception. I'm THIS close to sacrificing a chicken to the fertility gods. I hear Oxyclean gets out blood stains.
This procreation focus tends to take a lot of the "recreation" focus away from intimate encounters. I'm sure any of you who spent a bit of time TTC can relate. Of course trying to time intimate/procreative encounters during the holidays while the in-laws were visiting as well as working around Angelina's naps... uh huh, THAT's gonna happen. (Heading into Too Much Information land, fair warning) So over the weekend my darling husband was intent on having a recreation-focused encounter to make up for a distinct lack of intimacy over the holidays and during the visit of his parents. We've always been fairly open-minded, and Doug being the gentleman that he is always wants to ensure my satisfaction, however that may be achieved. In an effort to jump start things as well as give me a hint as to his intentions, he made some selections from our "adult toys and novelties" drawer and laid them on the bed. You know what I'm talking about. We all had one to cope with dry spells in our love life during college. For you it might have been the shower massage -- Whatever, go for it. It was shortly after this, and before anything got started :-( that Angelina woke up from the shortest nap ever.
As soon as she's awake we get into her routine. I prepare lunch while she plays with our large salad bowl full of potatoes on the kitchen floor. We could spend millions on educational toys and she'd probably still prefer her potatoes which, incidentally are always well-tenderized by the time I use them. She gets her chicken nuggets (pronounced "bawk bawk" in toddlerese) and pasta most days. After lunch she decided she simply had to be nude -- no problem, I keep the potty handy. She ran to the bedroom while I cleaned up the lunch dishes. By the time I got to the bedroom, what to my wondering eyes should appear? Holy crap. Angelina (buck assed naked, remember) was wielding a battery-operated simulation of male genitalia designed to inspire an inadequacy complex in your average male*. And WITH this realistically colored item, she was energetically bludgeoning the cat. I decided to put aside my concerns about the inappropriateness of her handling this object and focused on the fact that she should be nice to the cat. So I'm telling her to be nice to the kitty, she's going to give the kitty an owie and so on. Angelina is obviously incredulous at this, and proceeds to bonk herself on the head with the realistically textured phallic object as if to say "Mommy, this CAN'T cause an owie, see?" At this point I came to the conclusion that this was WAY too freakishly surreal, snatched her new toy out of her hand and locked it back in the adult toys and novelties drawer and figured the damn cat could fend for herself.
So how were YOUR holidays?
Evelyn
*can they even be obtained in a "regular" size? All materials herein are subject to copywrite laws, Copywrite held by Evelyn James
Doug and I have been sleeping apart because I've been coughing. Angelina's been sick too, so she's been up several more times per night than usual so I've been tired. The other day I got her at 7:00. We cuddled in bed. The boobs are a self-service item now as she does her morning nursing without much involvement from me, and I can catch another five minutes of sleep. I just wanted a few more minutes of sleep, so I let Angelina wander around our baby-proofed house unsupervised. This lasted until she came back and wanted to show me her newest treasure. She gave me a handful of something soft and damp. Even sleepy I knew this couldn't be good and when my eyes could focus I discovered I had been presented with a hand full of cat puke. I should have realized that what Angelina had been saying was "Itty Pooh, Itty Pooh." If that doesn't start your day with a sense of anticipation for what's coming next, I don't know what would!
She's underweight. At 19 months, she's only 21 lbs and hasn't been gaining in ages. Because of this I have food at the ready for her constantly. On a recent trip to the zoo, I had goldfish, chicken nuggets, olives, sliced apples, dried blueberries, flat fruit, Ritz bits, juice, and dinosaur shaped gummy fruits. And what do I find her eating when we're in the middle of the petting zoo? Hay balls. The little hay balls we're supposed to be feeding the goats. A veritable smorgasbord I bring for her, and she's eating hay balls. I guess I don't need to worry about fiber.
I've come to the conclusion that chastity belts weren't actually invented by suspicious husbands who were off on some crusade du jour. No, they were actually invented by some frustrated mom who couldn't keep a diaper on her kid. Angelina has a great future as a nudist. She's actually developing interesting manipulative skills in that she knows if she stands by her potty and says "Pee pee!" that I'll take off her clothes and her diaper and set her on the potty. It's at this point that she makes a break for it and runs around the house buck-assed naked, flapping her little arms and yodeling. I don't know why the yodeling has to go along with most of the running, but even when she's dressed, running = yodeling.
Her favorite thing to do while naked is go play "night night" in our bed. She squirms under the covers giggling, and pats the pillow next to her indicating that Mommy should come play "night night" too. I guess she loves the feeling of the flannel on her naked little body. This lasts until Mommy gets a bit nervous about Angelina's bladder capacity. If it were up to her, she'd be naked 24/7. She's learning a new word an hour, it seems and her latest one is "Nackt" or "naked" in German. She'll tug at her clothes whining "Nackt! Nackt!" And while we're under the covers giggling, she usually starts pulling at my clothes saying "Nackt! Nackt!" There's just something beautiful about skin on skin contact with a giggling toddler. Absolutely unselfconscious other than the sheer joy of nudity. This is what the Garden of Eden must have been like.
Doug and I are trying to conceive (TTC) our second child. We've been trying for about 8 months now. I've been charting, peeing on little white plastic sticks, taking herbs and doing acupuncture. I'm basically doing everything short of praying for immaculate conception. I'm THIS close to sacrificing a chicken to the fertility gods. I hear Oxyclean gets out blood stains.
This procreation focus tends to take a lot of the "recreation" focus away from intimate encounters. I'm sure any of you who spent a bit of time TTC can relate. Of course trying to time intimate/procreative encounters during the holidays while the in-laws were visiting as well as working around Angelina's naps... uh huh, THAT's gonna happen. (Heading into Too Much Information land, fair warning) So over the weekend my darling husband was intent on having a recreation-focused encounter to make up for a distinct lack of intimacy over the holidays and during the visit of his parents. We've always been fairly open-minded, and Doug being the gentleman that he is always wants to ensure my satisfaction, however that may be achieved. In an effort to jump start things as well as give me a hint as to his intentions, he made some selections from our "adult toys and novelties" drawer and laid them on the bed. You know what I'm talking about. We all had one to cope with dry spells in our love life during college. For you it might have been the shower massage -- Whatever, go for it. It was shortly after this, and before anything got started :-( that Angelina woke up from the shortest nap ever.
As soon as she's awake we get into her routine. I prepare lunch while she plays with our large salad bowl full of potatoes on the kitchen floor. We could spend millions on educational toys and she'd probably still prefer her potatoes which, incidentally are always well-tenderized by the time I use them. She gets her chicken nuggets (pronounced "bawk bawk" in toddlerese) and pasta most days. After lunch she decided she simply had to be nude -- no problem, I keep the potty handy. She ran to the bedroom while I cleaned up the lunch dishes. By the time I got to the bedroom, what to my wondering eyes should appear? Holy crap. Angelina (buck assed naked, remember) was wielding a battery-operated simulation of male genitalia designed to inspire an inadequacy complex in your average male*. And WITH this realistically colored item, she was energetically bludgeoning the cat. I decided to put aside my concerns about the inappropriateness of her handling this object and focused on the fact that she should be nice to the cat. So I'm telling her to be nice to the kitty, she's going to give the kitty an owie and so on. Angelina is obviously incredulous at this, and proceeds to bonk herself on the head with the realistically textured phallic object as if to say "Mommy, this CAN'T cause an owie, see?" At this point I came to the conclusion that this was WAY too freakishly surreal, snatched her new toy out of her hand and locked it back in the adult toys and novelties drawer and figured the damn cat could fend for herself.
So how were YOUR holidays?
Evelyn
*can they even be obtained in a "regular" size? All materials herein are subject to copywrite laws, Copywrite held by Evelyn James
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