Damnit

I had a wonderful post all written out. It was moving. It would have made you laugh, made you cry. But, right before I could hit the publish button, that damn error message popped up and shut down my window, deleting the most wonderful post ever written by mankind.

Okay, it wasn't that good, but you understand my frustration right? Here's a quick recap:

• my daughter is cute
• she also drives me crazy
• we've decided to start trying for number two
• I'm not crazy...really

more later...

Um, can you say ew?

Prunes. Who possessed Gerber to make prunes part of the healthy diet of a growing baby? I'm sure there are those who know what I am talking about. Prunes have the uncanny ability to multiply in a baby's digestive tract, and exiting said digestive tract with enough force to power a small power boat. My God.

Yesterday they seemed like such a great idea. I should have listened to my husband when he made some comment about old people and staying regular. I remember now how high of horse I climbed onto when I turned to him and said, "Gerber made it a baby food, we have a baby, so she's eating it." Famous last words.

Now, my daughter's bowel movements have been regular, no trouble there. She performs her duty (of should I say doody) every other day. Like clockwork. But, yesterday, oh yesterday was the day to end all days in the poopy category. She had a total of three (yes three!) dirty diapers. And they weren't your average dirty diaper. Oh no! There was poop everywhere. Everywhere. Did I say everywhere? After the third nasty diaper and her second bath of the day, I marched into the kitchen (after climbing off my oh so big horse) and promptly threw the prunes away. Enough is enough. I needed a bath myself after changing those stinky things.

So, thought Gerber says prunes are a great thing for baby, we will not be serving them in my house. Not until husband and I are old and needing to stay regular.

Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee

Move over Muhammad Ali, there's a new boxing champ in town. And she's a pistol. Baby's gotta new game, it's called "Punch whoever holds me as hard and as fast as I can." Lovely.

It started a few days ago. She has newly discovered her hands and boy! Does she know how to use them. Got a drink in your hand? Not anymore. Wearing glasses? Not anymore. Nice, thin lips? Not anymore. Well, maybe that last one is a good thing. I had been toying with the idea of collagen injections. I figure now with how strong my precious is getting, I will have that Angelina Jolie look for the next dozen years or so. I'll be a toothless Angelina, but that's just a minor detail we can work out later. Teeth are highly overrated in my opinion, I mean babies don't need them. I'll just eat through a straw. Might even drop a few pounds in the process. Call it the new heroin chic.

Seriously, I hope this is a development that fazes itself out. She hits everything. The dog won't come within 50 feet of her. My husband suddenly has things that need done right away. That leaves me holding the bag, er baby. Hence, the fat lip and crooked glasses.

So far, so good

My blessing turned 5 months old today. I am so patting myself on the back for a job well done. If you knew me, you would know I live in a constant anxiety ridden existence, where boogie men wait around every dark corner to jump out at me and ruin a fine day.

I am a complete pessimist. Not only is that glass half empty, there is a leak at the bottom of the glass and who's going to clean up that mess? Really? It's going to dribble everywhere. I just...Oh sorry, there I go again. Where was I/

Oh yes, pessimism. During my entire pregnancy I was convinced something Bad was going to happen. Capitol B.A.D. The fact that I had suffered a miscarriage the year before only fueled my fire. I kept my husband up many a night wailing and crying about how I was going to lose this one too. Then the second trimester showed up and the baby was fine. I didn't believe it of course. I now had new problems to worry over. Pre-term labor, stillbirth, fatal birth defects. You name I thought it. What's interesting though is how I deal with this type of fear. I suffer alone, well almost alone, I do drag my husband down into hell with me. But, not once did I call the doctor and demand to be seen because of how strong my feelings were. I didn't want her knowing just how crazy I was (am). I was afraid that then she would take my child away from me, deeming me unfit for parenthood.

This was the first thought I actually had when my healthy little girl was born. I looked into her eyes, fell in love, and immediately thought they wouldn't let me leave the hospital with her. I was not going to make it as a mother.

Five months have passed and I do still doubt myself every day. But when I look into my healthy, beautiful baby's eyes, I know that I am responsible for the smile on her face, the clothes on her back, the diaper on her butt, and the chubby rolls on her legs. Maybe I won't ruin her life after all. Maybe I can make it as a good mom.

You may think I'm crazy

We're trying to have another baby. I know, I know you think it's too soon. You think the sleep deprivation has finally killed the last two brain cells I had that worked properly. I'm not crazy, I swear. We just figured that it took us so long (about 4 years) to conceive our daughter (with two miscarriages along the way), that we should start trying now. Maybe then we'll have our second by the time the first* is in school.

What's bothering me though is how mixed my feelings are on this. Don't get me wrong, I love my daughter, but she wears me out. I can't imagine going through this again. On purpose!

She's going to be crawling soon, then walking, then getting into everything I don't want her to. Or so I've been told a million and one times by anyone over 40 in my family. I swear, if my mother-in-law says one more time, "just wait until she..." I will poke her in the right eye and scream. Just imagining doing that now fills me with a nice warm feeling. Maybe I won't wait for her to say it, I'll just call her over now. As you probably guessed it, I don't like the mom-in-law very much...But that's a different post for a different day.

As I was saying, we are back in the trying to conceive mode. So once again, I'm becoming obsessed with being pregnant. I have to physically hold myself back from peeing on those damn sticks everytime I go to the bathroom. They need a warning label on home pregnancy tests saying "WARNING: HIGHLY ADDICTIVE. SEEK MEDICAL ATTENTION IF YOU FIND YOURSELF PEEING ON MORE THAN 4 IN ONE MONTH" Not that it would stop me. But, maybe we could start an anonymous meeting club, like AA or something. "Hi, my name is Christina and I'm addicted to peeing on sticks." Sounds good to me.



*if you're wondering why I never use my daughter's name, it's because my family is big on googling other family member's names. This is how my cousin's weblog was found and now there is a prayer chain going for her. I know most of what I write is pretty tame, but why involve family when you don't have to.

Banana's and Cereal? Now I know I'm in heaven

I think I can handle this food stuff

This isn't what I signed up for

I've been a mother now for 4 months, 2 weeks, and 4 days (if you count today, which I do since it's past noon) and you'd think I'd be able to roll with the punches a little more right? Wrong.

Oh, I'm used to the spit up, the exploding poop, the drool that covers everything. But what I was and still am not prepared for are the strange and twisted things happening to my body. Suddenly, I have grey hair, I still get up three times a night to pee, and I have a rash. Yes, a rash.

I went to the doctor for it yesterday. He asked me "when did this rash first appear?" I thought it through and answered. "when my daughter was born." He just nodded like that answered everything. I wondered if the two were related and he answered that it's a definite possibility. That the stress and trauma from childbirth and of being a first time mom could be wreaking havoc on my immune system. What? What? What?

So, in essence, I'm allergic to motherhood. It causes me to break out in this red, itchy rash that I now have a nifty cream prescribed for. I could be a total downer and say I'm allergic to my kid. Isn't that lovely? Other people are allergic to cool things like peanuts, pollen, cats, and I'm stuck with children. The only good thing I see coming out of this is I now have a great excuse as to why I can't babysit a certain someone's kids. Because it's bad for my health, just ask the doctor.

10 reasons having kids rocks

1. Late to everything? Just blame it on the baby.

2. You can cut annoying phone conversations short by using the excuse "baby needs changing."
(sidenote: changing is interchangeable with burping, feeding, napping, bathing, smothering...)

3. Accidentally pass raunchy gas? Just blame it on the baby.

4. If you pinch baby's leg so she screams, people let you cut to the front of the line at the bank (not that I've tested this one, I'm just guessing)

5. Twice a week you get a chance to go to a store like Target or Wal-Mart with the excuse "baby needs diapers and formula." This gives you a chance to spend a little time and money on yourself. Just don't forget to actually pick up some diapers and formula or darling husband will suspect the truth.

6. Forget to bathe for a week? Just blame it on the baby. We know it's really because you've been watching soap operas all week.

7. Now you have someone you can dress the way you want and experiment on...Isn't that why you had the baby in the first place?

8. For at least the next 5 or 6 years, you are the coolest person on the planet.

9. Now you have a reason as to why you buy cocoa pebbles and fruit roll ups.

10. No matter how horrible of a day you've had, there is always someone little and sweet waiting for your cuddles at night.

Screaming Mimi for sale...Cheap.

My darling little girl has picked up a new habit, and it's about as fun as poking yourself in the eye with a sharp stick. Which, incidentally, is what you want to do once she's started. She screams. And she knows it will send me running to her in a heartbeat, which is why she does it.

The first time was yesterday. I put her down for her nap. Which I knew she didn't want, even though her eyes were rolling around in their sockets, trying to get her lids to shut. She always grumbles when I put her down. Well, this time about a minute and a half into her whining, she let out a scream so shrill, you would have thought world war three had just happened in her crib. I run in there prepared to find her limbs dismembered from her body, and she stops screaming, looks at me and smiles. She smiles! And it was a breathtaking smile. I checked her over just to be sure (you never know when those arms might have fallen off, always check), closed her door part way, stuck my eye in the crack and waited.

I didn't have to wait long. She looked around the room, stuck her bottom lip out, took a huge breath and let one rip. All this time she is staring at the door like she knows I'm going to be running through it at any minute. Wait a minute! How in the hell did she get so smart? She's only 4 months old, she doesn't even have any hair yet.  This is not good.

Since then she has been screaming for everything. Take her bottle out of her mouth to wipe her chin: she screams. Lay her down to change her diaper: she screams. Look away from her while she's in her jumperoo: she screams. Am I painting a pretty picture?

So if any of you would like to purchase this adorable screaming Mimi, please let me know. I promise, she's cheap. I'd sell her for 10 minutes of quiet if you want.

Um, about this rolling

So my baby is now an avid roller, as I've brought up numerous times. But, before you start picturing a chubby blur of rolling flash, let me get it straight for you. Yes, she rolls, but only in one direction and only from her back to her belly. So you know what that means. I am constantly being bleated at to flip her chunky self over. And I do, never once complaining (ha).

It's quite amusing during the day. Night comes and it's no longer funny. Just as I drift to sleep I hear it. The bleating that sounds like a goat that has his ass stuck in the air. I stumble into her room and find her beating the mattress with her tiny fists, bleating and drooling all over the place. The first time it happened I called in husband to have a chuckle. The second time it happened I smiled and flipped. The one hundred and sixty fifth time it happened I bleated along with her and cursed my ovaries. Why can they make such a beautiful child yet only produce one that can only learn to roll one way at a time? When will this end?

My mother laughs when I tell her and says "all in due time." Yeah, easy for you to say when you live 1000 miles away and get your 8 hours of sleep at night Damn you! She just laughs some more and I can hear her think it, payback in all it's glory.

So, what will I do? I know what I'll do. I'll keep stumbling into her room, in the dark and flip my precious baby over. And over. And over.

Maybe when she hits her teens will I be able to stop the nightly visits.

Anything you can do, my baby can do better

After reading this on a message board I post on, I got to thinking about just how crazy women act when their children are involved. And yes,  when I say women, I am including myself. Seeing how I qualify because 1) I have a vagina 2) I have a child and 3) I am so guilty of this. Oh, and I do know of a few men who do this, but for the most part it's us women who bring home the gold.

Imagine if you will a world where people talked like this about themselves. Like, for instance, in the workplace. "Hey Bob, guess what? I can totally roll over from my back to my tummy and not get my arm stuck. I've been able to do this for weeks now. I heard you've only been doing it a few days." Or, "Hey Sally, my husband smiled at me last night, what can your husband do?" Sounds pretty silly doesn't it.

So why do we insist on putting our own offspring through this? Are we really already living vicariously through them? Are our own lives that boring (well, yes mine can be sometimes) that we have to use our children's development as entertainment and a way to one up our neighbors?

I mean really! Who cares when baby rolls over, smiles, laughs, picks his nose, or farts intentionally in public all for the first time. All babies eventually do this, why are we so gung-ho to make sure our babies are the first among our friend's babies.

Think about it. The more our kids do, the more they are growing. And I've decided today that I don't want my kid to grow anymore. It's just to heartbreaking. She will never be that pile of drool that just lays there ever again. Now she can roll! And rolling is what she does best. She is a baby on a mission! She's got places to go, damnit! And nothing's going to stop her.

And that makes me really sad. 

 

Like a rolling stone

My baby rolled over today, from her to back to her tummy respectively. And I missed it. I was sitting right next to her and I missed it. There I was typing away at an email message while my little girl was grunting and straining to get her big head to roll over with the rest of her body. I heard her grumbles and muttered a few you're okay's and just one more second, and when I finally looked down I remember saying to her "oh, no wonder you're grumping. You're on your arm. Let me just....wait! You are on your arm! On your tummy! But I put you on your back!" I was so proud. For a second. Then the shame of bad motherhood swept over me.

How could I have missed such a pivotal moment in her young life. I pictured the future in a flash. Me painting my nails while she took her first steps, me yakking on the phone while she learned to ride a bike, me fiddling with my walker while she graduates from high school. Just nominate me for worst mother now. Instead of college, we should just save for her therapy. They blame it all on the mother anyway. Now I know why. All of those poor souls in therapy now are probably there because their mothers missed it when they rolled over.

I'll have to consult my baby manual on this one (HA! Did you seriously think I actually had a copy of this elusive booklet!), but I wasn't aware of the fact that your child decides to do all the cute, wonderful, new tricks when you aren't looking or even expecting them. So far, I've missed her first smile (given to her Aunt), her first laugh (given to Grandma), and her first explosive poopy diaper (thankfully given to Dad). I've decided that I must never partake in any extracurricular activity again. I must stay home and watch my girl 24 hours a day. Forget eating and sleeping. NO! I must be there to witness and record every glorious moment of my precious gift from heaven's life. Just think of how close that will make us in her teenage years.

I can hear the therapist counting his money now.