Apparently it's not a merit system...

How is it that a smart, insightful, legitimate journalist is gone too soon?

And yet pompous egomaniacal piece-of-shit worthless windbags live on and on and on and on...

Lestat said it best "God kills indiscriminately, and so must I."

*SIGH*

Bad Gifts: Redux

Holy Wrong-Size-Lingerie, Batman! That last post was near-and-dear to many! I’ve gotten several emails from folks telling me tales of gift-giving-gone-awry that make my venus fly traps look like the Hope diamond. And apparently I’m not the only one to have a horrendous gift prompt a sort of revelation about the relationship.
I had to share a few snippets of these stories with certain names, details, and other information deleted to protect the gift receivers. (The givers will get their comeuppance- karma is a beeyatch and whatnot.)

Here are some of my favorite quotes regarding these gifts and the relationship changes they prompted:

“A man who brings PBR to his first dinner with my parents will not have a second dinner with my parents.”

“An IOU coupon for sex should not have an expiration date… and should have clear terms for when it will and will not be honored, especially if the terms are NEVER.”

“Giving my daughter a ton of clothes loses something when you announce to the entire family that you bought them because you know I never do laundry…”

“He gave me a Valentine’s card in Spanish- a language I don’t speak. He thought it was funny. I’m not sure if it was funny because I DON’T SPEAK SPANISH.” *Editor’s note- my dumbass ex did this too- WTF???

And my favorite….

“Enlightenment had come in the form of a 9” hot pink plastic dick.”

Yes, you read that right. I’m still laughing.

And I’ll add a sad gift story to this lot…
Early in our relationship, the ex bought me a long-handled ice scraper. I was touched because he was so thoughtful, you know… realizing I was too short to reach the center of the windshield with a regular ice scraper. For years, I held that ice scraper up in my head and to others as a sign of how the ex as really quite thoughtful, just a practical salt-of-the-Earth (as he liked to call himself) kind of guy.
As our marriage wound down, I realized I didn’t have much, if any, evidence to add to that ice scraper… after almost 9 ½ years. I’d been holding on to that one thing for way longer than it was worth.
Even worse was when I shared that revelation with my Girlfriends and one of them offered up this moment of alcohol-induced honesty:
“He didn’t get you that because he was being thoughtful… if he was REALLY being thoughtful, he would have gotten his pathetic self out there and scraped the windshield himself. He was just making sure you could do it and his lazy ass wouldn’t have to!”

Shit.

Told you I was missing certain skills of deduction.

Ah, young love…

One step below a Chia pet...

Earlier today, I received a request from my one, er, I mean, one of my readers. She got the idea on another blog site. And since I would never alienate a (the) reader, I will oblige. Keep in mind this requestor already knows the story. She is a girlfriend of mine and got the real-time you’ve-got-to-be-shitting-me phone call. Girlfriend’s request was this:
“You HAVE to tell the story of the worst gift you ever received!”
Okey-dokey, buckle up kids…

I was newly divorced and newly dating. Please to remember that I had been with the ex since I was 18, so there were certain survival skills I was missing. In those precious formative years when my girlfriends were learning how to weed out the self-centered asswipes, I was stubbornly sticking with the same self-centered asswipe to the detriment of my own development.

I’d been seeing this man child we’ll call Walter, after the farting dog. (And this guy would fart. In front of me. BIG mistake.) He could hold his own in a conversation and be snarky about dumb people, so we had some fun. Unfortunately he was also whiny and insanely narcissistic. Case in point: after I had worked a 9-hour day, only to immediately go and teach for three hours that evening, I arrived at his place exhausted. (As a side note- he never wanted to go to my place. Allergic to cats and “didn’t like taking medicine”. What-ev.) I offered to pay for dinner if he would only go and pick up said dinner so that I might have 15 minutes to decompress. Cue the hissy fit about how he didn’t want to do that because he “expected to be spending time with me”. Seriously. Yes. Another case in point: he called to ask me about my favorite restaurant- a nice place, nicer than any place we’d ever been… so he could take his FEMALE FRIEND there because she “needed an excuse to get dressed up and go out”.

At any rate, even despite my deficit, I knew this particular fella wasn’t “the one”. He assumed from the get-go that we were exclusive, but really? Do I need to explain why I didn’t feel like investing the emotional energy in telling him that not only was he not “the one”, he was one of about six that I was dating/canoodling/otherwise cavorting with?

He’d started doing things like asking if I’d consider raising my kids Jewish (I answered with an abstract ponderance on religious tolerance) and then he said “I love you” on the phone… to which I responded “OK...bye!” So imagine the fear that crept into my heart when he called to say he was on the way over with a surprise for me- and sounded so genuinely pleased and excited. I paced the floor praying to Our Lady of Ann Taylor that this dumbass wasn’t going to propose. He was about to leave on an extended trip and I could just see him wanting to lock me in before he left… I think I threw up at least once, but that could have been the eight vodka shots- I mean, glasses of water I drank to get rid of my nervous hiccups.

He arrived with… (sit down… trust me)
TWO VENUS FLY TRAPS.
Yes, the plants. The ones that eat flies. One for him and one for me. Aren’t you just swooning from the romance? No? Cynic.
Lest you think me some materialistic snob, you should know that I would indeed have swooned over say, a bar of dark chocolate or good paperback- either of which would have cost him less than those … things.
That was the point- this “gift” (term used loosely) demonstrated that not only did this guy not know a damn thing about me, he didn’t care to even try. I make no secret of the fact that I am the evil black thumb of death to all plants. I also don’t try to disguise that I am in no way shape or form an “outdoorsy” type of chick who might put carnivorous botanicals on her amazon.com wish list. If you insist on bringing flora of some kind, I am the type of woman you bring cut flowers intended to look lovely with no expectation of long-term of survival.

The kicker of all this? Dear Walter would like me to keep these atrocious little beasts while he is away on his trip. Yes, he wanted me to FEED the damn things. And let them live in my space. With my cats. This was, as they say, the venus fly trap that broke the relationship’s last straw nerve. I put them on a windowsill in my office and dumped some flat diet coke into them when I remembered. Oh, and I let my student worker stick her pencil eraser into their little jaws every so often just for shits and giggles.

When Walter returned two weeks later, I picked him up from the airport as promised. (I should note that I met Husband during those two weeks. And I DID know he was “the one”. J) In the cup holders of my car were the sad wilting remnants of Walter’s love offerings. We had a 15-minute car ride to his apartment which was just enough time for me to rattle off my “this just isn’t working out… and oh, by the way, sorry… don’t know what’s wrong with the plants” speech. I don’t think I let him get more than about three words in before I pulled in the parking lot of his apartment complex and evicted him, his luggage, and those wretched plants. I’m pretty sure I didn’t even put the car in park- again, it just seemed like too much effort for that relationship.

So that, my friends, is the story of the worst gift someone ever tried to give me. Let this be a cautionary tale: venus fly traps are the sort of present you should give VERY selectively. Really, it’s a very niche market for venus fly traps suitable for gifting. Chances are, if your lady friend shaves her armpits you should choose something else.

Husband arrived for our first date with M&Ms, which I had mentioned in passing on the phone three nights earlier. Hence the marriage and allowing him to impregnate me.

How about you? Worst gift? Best one?

Funny Husband!

*Sitting at the dinner table by front window*

Me: Hey, some kind of little critter just went skittering down the front walk...

Him: What was it?

Me: Not sure- bunny, squirrel, neighbor's cat...?

Him: Fraggle?

*Sitting on the couch playing with his new Blackberry*

Me: Oh, hey, watch this... I can update my Twitter from our phones!

Him: ... does that hurt?...

Me: Not as much as you'd think.

Surfacing

Wow… it’s been over a month. Let me begin by saying I have missed writing and posting here desperately- it’s not for lack of desire. But you know the saying… “life gets in the way”. Well, it has. And certainly not necessarily a bad kind of in the way… just in the way. I am pretty well full-steam-ahead-damn-the-torpedoes from about 5:30 a.m. until the baby beds down at around 8:00. Then I try my best to keep my eyes open long enough to spend some time with Husband. (And let’s face it.. if I’m conscious enough to be up, we’ll both want to have sex- I mean, How I Met Your Mother is a good show.. but not that good.) Then I’ll need to wake up with Baby Girl anywhere from 2-5 times over night. Lately it’s been more like 5. (We’ve had our first experience with the fabled ear infection. That bacteria made me it’s bitch.) And there’s what whole work thing, blah, blah, blah… What’s that? You’re sick of hearing me moan about my great Husband, adorable baby, and good job? Me too. So I’ll quit.

We started the kiddo on rice cereal. Yes, she’s still breastfed. No, I am not supplementing with formula. I try hard to avoid being judgmental of anyone (except for Republicans) but for a relatively well-educated suburban privileged person to have a baby and then not breastfeed even when they are capable of doing so? Well, I think it’s pretty crappy. Even the formula companies, who have a blue bazillion dollars tied up in you using their product, cop to the fact that breastmilk is the absolute best thing for your child. We’re not talking about parenting style or lifestyle choice or anything intangible like that. (Yes, breastfeeding has intangible benefits for bonding, etc. but let’s not even go there.) If we talk just in terms of SCIENCE, of what can be tested and proven beyond doubt, breastmilk is the best thing. Obviously folks will have medical conditions that will prevent breastfeeding- I’m certainly not suggesting someone should endanger their own health to do it. The kid needs you alive and healthy. And it would be insanely obtuse of me to say that a single mother working an hourly shift job in which she only gets two 15-minute breaks a day (or someone in equally difficult circumstances) can do what I’m doing with the pumping every two hours, etc. And having multiples complicates things- especially if we’re talking triplets, quads, etc. I’m just saying that if your circumstances are like mine (meaning none that would really prevent you from breastfeeding) why the hell wouldn’t you except for plain selfishness? As long as my body will comply, there will not be any formula in my daughter’s diet. Does that mean I’m pumping constantly and taking fenugreek and drinking mother’s milk tea and cutting out caffeine and drinking enough water to rehydrate Southern California? Yep. And do I think it makes me a better mother? Damn skippy.

You know, now that I think about it, being a Mom has made me pretty judgmental on a lot of fronts. I guess you get to feeling like you have a right. That’s probably dangerous, but I’m too damn tired to care. So while I’m on this bitchy sanctimonious rant, let’s talk about “crying it out”. If I hear from one more person that I have to let my daughter cry it out so she’ll “learn to sleep on her own”, I may punch them in the damn face. The cry-it-out approach is, in my book, borderline neglect. Letting a helpless infant who is dependent upon you for everything and doesn’t yet fully understand the world around them cry themselves to exhaustion out of fear and loneliness is not “teaching” them anything except that they can’t count on you and they’re right to be afraid and lonely. They’re not learning to self-soothe, they’re learning to give up because it doesn’t matter how much they need you, you don’t give a damn. Yes, they’ll get older and learn to work the system a little bit, and you’ll have to start being firm about things. But before they can even talk? Not possible. There are, of course, modified approaches in which you don’t just abandon them completely to wail until they collapse from the exertion. I find those more palatable. But just straight cry it out? Not at our house.

And speaking of shit I’m tired of hearing about, let me say this: MY BABY SLEEPS IN MY BED. GET THE FUCK OVER IT. But more on that for another time. I’m too grouchy to write a tirade about the anti-co-sleeping zealots.

Ahem.

On to things non-baby-related. Miley Cyrus, to be exact. Miley has been apologizing a lot for those Vanity Fair photos. Miley, sweetie, please stop. Because you, Miley, are the only person whose judgment in this whole debacle was age-appropriate. What 15-year-old girl, newly cognizant of her sexuality (and the power contained therein) and wanting desperately to be a grown-up wouldn’t have agreed to those photos? Poor judgment? Yep, but she FIFTEEN. It’s her job to have relatively poor judgment and to try to be too big for her britches. Now… Annie Leibovitz? She’s an edgy artist, true. And this is her “style” blah, blah, blah… but she’s also a woman. And I expect better out of women for other women, particularly for young women. This includes creating art without turning Hannah Montana into Lolita before she’s even old enough to have READ Lolita, much less comprehend the implications. I think there’s an argument to be made here about consent. If we agree by most courts’ standards that she’s not old enough to consent to sex, shouldn’t we also agree she’s not old enough to consent to having her sexuality splayed on the pages of a magazine read largely by folks too old to date her legally? Vanity Fair? Completely in the wrong to print them- but did you expect less? They’ve got a product to sell. Not an excuse, mind you, but predictable. This brings us to the people who I think should be strung up on a line by their toenails- Mr. and Mrs. Montana. AKA, Billy Ray Cyrus and whoever the hell her Mom is- Tammy Lynn Cyrus? (I don’t know- seemed like a good name for her.) My point here being, her damn father APPEARED in some of the pictures. He and Mama should have been front-and-center demanding editorial and artistic authority and USING IT. The sad part is, they seem to have a product to sell too, and that took precedence. Oh, and Disney, please stop tsk-tsk-ing at Vanity Fair for “exploiting” Miley. Your big concern here is that their marketing strategy was wildly different than yours- and you feel like you’ve got a bigger ownership stake.
*SIGH*- see? Judgmental.

Coming soon... my brush with blogger fame and why I nearly peed myself with excitement while reading this guy...

Worry not!

I am not dead. Just working and Mom-ing and wife-ing and trying hard to lose some baby weight. And we have termites. And .... well, you get the picture. Nothing earth-shattering- busines as usual, just that business is very heavy right now.
Baby Girl is magically delicious as ever.
Back soon with real actual non-baby-related thoughts.

Sadness: Amelia Grace

You may remember a few weeks back when I asked for thoughts and prayers for my sister who was pregnant and in kidney failure.
Yeah. I said "was" pregnant. :( So you know where this post is going...
Amelia Grace was stillborn last night as a result of a placental abruption. She weighed 9 oz. and I'm told she was positively beautiful.
I am heartbroken for my sister and for our whole family. Amelia is another in a long line of pregnancy losses for this family, and the third stillbirth in just my immediate family.
Send some love my sister's way- because as she begins mourning for her daughter, she's also starting the long road of a kidney transplant.
Fare forward, little voyager Amelia....

Three Months

Dear Viv,
Your Daddy and I are trying hard not to blink these days, because if we do, we will surely miss one of the 10,000 new things you’ve started doing lately. Someday when your own children are born, people will say “oh, they change so quickly”. And while I hope I’ll have raised you well enough that you won’t roll your eyes to their face, it will sound terribly cliché to you. It did to me. But just FYI, they’re more right than you’ll be able to imagine. There’s a reason grown people will sit and stare at their sleeping babies- it’s because they know that sleeping baby is changing right in front of them and will be different by the time the nap is over. (That and they’re paranoid the kid will quit breathing- but you’ll learn about that when your own baby is born, too.)

The last three months have been the most breathtakingly amazingly beautiful of my life, and at the same time the most exhausting and difficult. You have changed me, Baby Girl. You have changed your father. You’ve changed our marriage, our families, our life… Your Dad and I were a little older than most of the first-time parents we know. I was 31 and Daddy was 32 when you were born. We were pretty complete people with a little living under our belts. Or at least we thought we were. See, we knew intellectually what we were getting into. You were very much planned for and desperately wanted. We read all the books and asked 45,000 questions of every medical professional and experienced parent we could get to hold still. (Don’t worry- we didn’t use force. Much.) But deep down, we knew that despite all our planning and research, we were in for the ride of our lives. And Viv, you have very much lived up to that prophesy!

In the past three months, you have transformed from a snuffly, grunty little blob who pooped every time she ate to a juicy, round, pink-cheeked little Buddha who smiles and laughs at her goofy parents’ stunts. (And who only poops every 3-5 days. Can I thank you for saving that up for Daddy the last two times? Love ya, kid!) I can’t explain it quite fully, but the way I love you has changed. When you were first born, I loved you with a fierce protectiveness for your physical well-being. You slept most of the time, as newborns do. The first weeks of life can be a bit unfulfilling for a new Mom in that a newborn is so… disconnected. You didn’t really need ME (aside from my breastmilk) in particular, you just needed to be held and kept warm and fed and generally to finish gestating for a while. You weren’t unconscious, but you weren’t really in a relationship with us yet. So the only way I could demonstrate the enormity (look it up… I’ll wait…) of my love for you was to do my absolute damndest best to see to your physical and functional needs. I fought hard to breastfeed you- I was simultaneously smugly victorious and incredibly relieved as you gained weight. I worried obsessively over you being warm enough, a practice which drove your father into an enormous sleep deficit during your first few days. When you became jaundiced, I stepped up the breastfeeding and adhered to the bilirubin blanket instructions as though they were handed to us by Jesus himself. Your Dad and I probably used enough Boudreaux’s for a sumo wrestler’s tushie, because dammit, our baby wasn’t going to have diaper rash. When I first went back to work, I drove over to the daycare every single day at lunch to breastfeed you to keep you from getting one more bottle. You slept, as you still do, curled against me on your side, where we can breathe in tandem and you are never far from the sound of my heartbeat. And I’ll be honest, Viv… I thought myself a good Mom because I was always prepared with a binkie and a change of clothes. But sometimes… like when I couldn’t make you happy at 3 a.m… I didn’t feel like YOUR Mom. Sometimes I felt like an imposter just trying to do right by this gorgeous wonderful little baby until someone who knew what they were doing was going to show up. I loved you tons… it was just that sometimes I wasn’t sure it was enough for you.

Gradually, over the weeks, we got to know each other. And you woke up from your newborn sleepy snuggly coma. You were slow to the social smiles, no doubt because you were premature. But Viv, the first day you looked me in the face and smiled ON-PURPOSE-AT-ME-BECAUSE-I’M-MAMA…oh, sweet Jesus… I was completely and totally overwhelmed. You know those tons I loved you before that? Add about a hundred million of them. It was finally there- the recognition, the look on your face, the happiness to see me, the instant calming effect of me just picking you up. Finally, you knew… this is Mama, she loves me and she makes it better. (And she has the breastmilk… but I’m sure that’s entirely ancillary.) It was then, sweet Baby Girl, that I quit feeling like an imposter. I started trusting my instincts more after that and you seemed to relax as well. Now, I feel as though I know you almost as well as I know myself. I guess that makes sense, really, because you were so recently a part of me quite literally. You are this person, this little girl, and you clearly understand who I am to you and that makes you happy. It makes it all so incredibly sweetly worthwhile. All the long nights, all the frustrations, all the panic, all the hard work of trying to make certain you knew me and could trust me to do everything within any power I’ve ever had to make sure you’re safe and happy- they’ve resulted in this adorably joyful baby who lights up when I walk into the room. I am so grateful to get to be your Mama and I promise you I will never quit using all my powers (and maybe some other people’s too) to keep this bond between us.

Shortly after you and I got right with each other, you started responding to your Daddy’s goofy self the same way. I can’t even begin to tell you how happy you make your father. He was born to be your Daddy and he absolutely lives to make you smile. I know he struggled at bit at the beginning much in the same way I did- loving you more than he knew what to do with, but unable to do much except see to your most basic needs. Vivi, please write this down and tuck it away for later- if you choose to marry a man, MARRY A MAN LIKE YOUR FATHER. He will never ever be the Daddy who “babysits.” He has, from moment one, been my full and complete partner in parenting. He’s quite often even better at this gig than I am, and I’m thrilled by that. He loves you (and me) in a way that puts no limits, no conditions on what he will do for us. I mentioned you’ve changed our marriage and I want you to understand that it’s for the better. Seeing your Daddy with you, how he anticipates your needs and thrives on your joy, it has only made me love him more. And while our time alone is shorter and … um… less adventurous maybe (I know- EWWW, Moo-om!) I know neither one of us would change a thing. He is the best kind of person and the best kind of man. One of the smartest things I have ever done was picking him to be your Daddy.

So, at the end of three months, we’ve gotten into a nice little rhythm at our house, you me, and Daddy. Part of that comes from you settling into a more predictable routine just as a matter of being an older baby. Part of it is the result of the hard work your Daddy and I put in. We read a lot in the beginning about “attachment parenting”, and to us, it just felt like what we would have done instinctively, so we went with it. And it seems to have paid off. In the most basic terms, you’re attached to us, we’re attached to you, and we’re more attached to each other. We’re in a relationship now, the three of us. A very good healthy relationship- called a “family” I believe.

Love you,
Mama

Just call me Lady Hussein Liberal!

The Momocrats, in their infinite wisdom, have started Just Call Me Hussein Day in response to fools like Bill Cunningham who is obviously still seven years old.
See, seems some of the conservative pundits having not been able to find any LEGIT way to discredit Obama and being incapable of debating him on the merits of his policies, have begun referring to him as B. Hussein Obama or Barack Hussein Obama.
Now, to most of us, the slimy tactics here are clear. The only Hussein known to the average American (the ones watching E! for their "news") is Saddam. They're aiming for a subconscious connection and a manipulation of the average American through what amounts to (at best) junior high psychology. It's insulting. It's disgusting. And it's underhanded.
Personally, I find this amusing. Because nothing says "holy shit, we're in big trouble- 'cause even the people we think are stupid are catching on" like resorting to something like this. And because, as the Momocrats put it, bitch is the new black, I am declaring myself a Hussein today. I hope you will too. Visit the Momocrats site and catch yourself a fancy new button for your blog and join up with Obama as an honorary Hussein!
Oh, and I'm supposed to tell you an embarrassing story about someone making fun of my name. My name is pretty benign. My maiden name is a little unusual and hard to pronounce, but doesn't easily rhyme with anything kids would seize upon. But my initials? LG or LRG more specifically. You can only imagine what kids did with that and you can only imagine what that does to the body image of an already overly-self-conscious pubescent girl. 'Nuff said.
Happy Just Call Me Hussein Day!

Why he's been my friend for over 20 years...

Email conversation with my Friend, J...

Me: I'm running away to join the circus. Care to join?

J: I thought you already worked there.... I know I do... but, pray tell, why are you running away?

Me: I'm running away because there are no good jobs outside the circus in which I can wear a tiara and tutu full time. (Trust me... people here look at you funny if you try.)
That and I want a career where I can stay drunk with carnies. Much more interesting.

J: LOL! Tiaras, Tutus and Beer, oh my!

From the "WTF????" Files

Congress Asks for Clemens Probe

Seriously? We’re going to waste even more federal resources on this bullshit? I mean, not like we have a WAR on or an upcoming election for the LEADER OF THE FREE WORLD… let’s have the government worry about whether Roger Clemens took a needle to the ass and lied about it! Folks, I’m sorry, but this is A) not the government’s business and B) not really what I’d call a priority even if it was the government’s business.
“But the integrity of our national heroes is coming into question!”
I have a couple of problems with this. One, sports figures shouldn’t be heroes. They’re just sports figures. This is the big mistake we make- assuming that people with athletic ability are somehow more valuable than the rest of us and can be assumed to be good people. Not true on either count. This whole practice of deifying pro athletes puts tremendous value on something (the aforementioned athletic ability) that hasn’t really been especially beneficial to mankind since we quit having to kill large wild beasts for sustenance. (So please explain to me why they get $7 million a year to throw a ball and I get my considerably smaller salary for protecting healthcare for the elderly?) There are some really crappy people in pro athletics, just like there are some really crappy people down at your local mega-mart. And vice versa- good folks in both arenas too. When we expect someone to be a better person just because they can hit a lot of homeruns, we’re setting ourselves up for disappointment. There’s nothing altruistic about being a pro athlete- you play a game you love for a buttload of money. I’m not knocking it- would that I could have such a career, with the loving and the buttload of money. But it still wouldn’t mean I’m worthy of someone’s respect or admiration. Before you point to all the “community service” performed by athletes, let us note that A) most of them do it as mandated by a team, league, or US court system and B) it is not typically their life’s mission. I’m not saying that makes them bad people- just not heroes. They’re entertainers, nothing more. If you were expecting heroic integrity from Roger Clemens or any other athlete, well, you’re kind of an idiot in the first place. So Congress, for the love of God, just let the damn players get all ‘roided up and hit balls to the moon. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter to anyone except the women who will be sorely disappointed by the state of their testicles. Get back to trying to keep soldiers alive and making sure my next President isn’t a lying war-mongering zealot.

Too Pretty To Fly
OK, again… seriously?? “Um… see… like… we’re young and cute and these flight attendants, they were just all hatin’ on us! ‘Cause we’re pretty! And we didn’t do ANYTHING!”
Did anyone else catch the part where one of them got into a profanity-laden heated dispute with another passenger over the restroom? Methinks that might have been what got you into trouble. Perhaps before your ego eats the rest of your capacity for responsibility and reason, you should take some time to reflect.
I’m mean, REALLY! The arrogance! And what’s worse is that CNN picked it up! Shame on you, CNN… I expect this kind of crap from… oh, I don’t know… TMZ… or FoxNews… but you?
Oh, I know… I’m just mad ‘cause you’re so pretty.

I have to go get my rage under control before Congress asks me to testify. Here- my cute child should help:

Jesus & Vivi: Both treated reverently....

First, thanks to my sis, Erin for the best laugh I've had this week. I present you, Jesus of the Week! Appropriate to my last post, there's even a 90s Hipster Jesus featured!



Oh, and here's something else to make your whole week...

















I know... I've already thrown down my wallet and car keys in surrender...

Venti Latte with a side of Skoal

This weekend, my Beloved shooed me out the door with strict orders to go, go now, and not to come back until I’d had a couple of hours to myself and a cup of coffee. (And later that night, my sex drive showed up to the party… coincidence?)

So I nursed the baby, promised to actually come back, and split for Starbucks. Mmm… Starbucks…nothing says having some “me time” like a $4 cup of joe. I love Starbucks- I love it for its overpriced coffee and pseudo-pretentiousness. I love it for the smell of freshly ground fair trade beans soothing away the yuppie guilt of patrons eyeing up the latest adult alternative compilation cd. I love the little sleeve on my coffee that simultaneously keeps my hands cool and generates more paper waste. I love the case full of trans-fat-laden scones and cookies arranged to look like the local organic bakery dropped them off (off a truck from an Atlanta warehouse?). I love how early-90s-poser I sound when I order my grande-skinny-mocha-no-whip. It is a place where I can harken back to 1994 when I was in college, coffeehouses were social centers, and throwing around words like “living wage” and “social justice” would get you laid.

I sauntered in, wearing my clogs and looking all hipster-granola-mom. I got in line and started to slip into Starbucks bliss. That’s when the illusion began crashing down around me. Here are the top ten signs that while you may be in Starbucks, you’re still in South Cackalackey…

10. The Starbucks is in the Target. And it’s not a Super Target. And it’s the only Starbucks in town.
9. Taking into account the clientele, the employees have added scraps of paper to the “tall, grande, venti” signs to read “small, medium, large”.
8. The boy in front of you is wearing (I kid you not) camouflage from head to toe. And it’s not Halloween. And those are his real teeth.
7. The girlfriend of camo boy has just requested “one of those chocolatey coffees”.
6. When the Starbucks employee says “a mocha?”, the girlfriend says “yeah- that’s it! I didn’t know how to say it right…”
5. And then she asks for a straw. (No, it wasn’t iced.)
4. The tip jar is empty save for a cigarette pack wrapper.
3. The barista says “I have a non-fat latte, no foam for Earlene!”
2. One of the patrons orders her coffee “without the Cool Whip”.
And my favorite…
1. There is a spirited discussion going on at one of the tables. About the irrelevance of the electoral college in the modern election? The wage inequities for creative professionals that led to the writer’s strike? Heck no….
ABOUT NASCAR. Yes, that’s right. An entire table full of raised voices and passionate discourse about Tony Stewart. Over lattes.

*SIGH*
Didn’t matter. I got two hours alone. And a large chocolatey coffee. With Cool Whip. Yee haw!

Asexual milk machine seeks guidance...

Despite every book that told me as much would happen, despite all the warnings from girlfriends, I find myself completely and utterly taken aback by how disinterested I am in sex. This is NOT like me… I love sex. I enjoy sex. I am not shy about loving and enjoying sex. But here I am- quietly and irrationally resenting Husband for the awful crime of… *gasp*… being attracted to me and loving me enough to want some.
There are the usual reasons for my lack of zest, of course. I am tired from trying to find time for a full-time job, a marriage, and oh yeah, that crazy little gal I call my daughter. I am still trying to come to terms with the new physical version of myself. That’s a big one. And it’s not just the changes from pregnancy and birth, but things like the absence of pedicures and frequently shaved legs- little things I would never have neglected prior to the baby. It’s tough to find your inner vixen when she’s been driven away by the constant smell of breastmilk puke.
There’s also the state of my relationship with Husband. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still an excellent and healthy marriage. But it’s also still a marriage with a newborn. It’s easy to switch on for to make the sexy time when you’ve had ample time with your partner for connecting, communicating, just being together. Husband and I hadn’t slept in the same bed for a couple of weeks up until we figured out this reflux business. Our time together, our conversations, they focus largely on our daughter’s needs. That’s appropriate, obviously. We are putting her first and working together to be good parents. But it does leave you feeling sort of… I don’t know… far away from your partner. Definitely not as intimately and profoundly in tune with one another as you were before baby- you’re too busy being in tune with the baby.
But I think the biggest obstacle has been my state of mind. The only way I can describe how I feel is … well… utilitarian. My body and my very self seem to be in a constant state of producing/providing/procuring to meet someone else’s needs or demands. The baby needs a ton of care on a daily basis, but I have to give credit that Husband has done his half and more. Beyond that, she requires my body to produce her sustenance. Which means almost every other aspect of my life is in some way ruled by how it will affect her milk. My sleep, my diet, my clothing, my schedule, my appearance, my exercise… all are modified to meet her needs. And I’m back at work- so there are a myriad of people who need things of me here, and a lot of pressure to meet the needs of my internal clients. Then there’s all the things I should be doing for others and feel guilty for not getting to- the unwritten thank you notes, the unreturned phone calls, the family and friends who want to see the baby, the meals I never cook, the house I cannot seem to clean…
So by the end of the day, the prospect of sex sometimes feels like one more demand, one more person who needs something to be given of my most basic self. Like, I can barely find time to eat during the day and you want the last bit of my energy to get your rocks off? It feels like one more way in which someone needs to use my body, even when I have no time or energy to use it for myself. It’s a completely irrational and unfair way for me to feel, too. Husband is a wonderfully giving and attentive lover- he wants to make love for the feeling of connectedness and for my pleasure as much for his own fulfillment. He has never pressured me. And in my more rested and rational moments, I want sex as much if not more than he does. I mean.. he’s HOT! And good at it! (Sorry, Mom…) But when I have not been alone in weeks except to go to Target (to buy things for the baby) and I can’t wait to get to work so I’ll be able to pee whenever I need to… well, not so much on the sexy time. Now enters the guilt for how this must make poor Husband feel. I don’t for a single second want him to think he is not desirable and wonderful and amazing. Because he is- it’s the ultimate “it’s not you, it’s me”.
So veteran Mamas… any advice? Scratch that. Advice I’ve got- all of it impractical shit like “make time for yourself… take a long bath…get away for a few hours…” which I’m sure you all got too. How about just some reassurance and a hang in there or two? Anyone want to be a wet nurse /body double for about 24 hours? I swear that’s all I’d need…

One Part Mama, One Part Detective, One Part Amateur Nurse...

Want to know the single greatest discovery made by modern humans? Maalox. Without a freakin' doubt- screw space travel, refrigeration, computers, all of that... Maalox is the most beautiful gift ever given to the human race. For it was Maalox, just 1/8th of a teaspoon, that gave me five hours of sleep. In a row. TWICE. And it was Maalox that transformed my grumpy, fidgety, unhappy baby into a chubby cherub with a sunny loving disposition. I heart Maalox. I'd marry it if I could. I'd have little Maalox-bottle babies.

As you might have guessed, we've had a little bout with reflux at our house. But this was so called "silent" reflux. (Which is a crap name because babies who have it are anything BUT silent.) Our little dolly didn't spit up often and had only gone all Exorcist-child with the vomit twice. But she was only sleeping 1 1/2 hours at a time and feeding as often as she woke up. And she only slept decently when I held her while I was sitting up. She had hiccups all day every day and a runny nose. Oh, and this "silent" reflux came with a God-awful grunty/throat clearing sound. Top that off with a bad case of the heinous fussies and you get two parents who are at their wits' end. IT. WAS. AWFUL.

But thanks to Mama's astonishing Internet research skills, we've figured things out. The good doctor has concurred and written a prescription for Zantac, bless him. It's like having an entirely different baby- one who sleeps and doesn't seem pissed off about being alive. And now she comes with functioning non-zombie parents!

So... good times at our casa. Now I leave you with a photo of Her Refluxness in her Sunday-go-to-meetin' clothes. (Those are church clothes, for the Yankees...)

Now with 50% less yawning!

Praise be to God, Allah, Mohamed, Jesus, Mary, the Saints, Mother Earth, and any other spirit/deity involved...
The baby? She slept. 3- 3 1/2 hours in a row. Three times. IN ONE NIGHT.
Mama feels like a new woman!

In other news...
I got this fun phone call at home yesterday. Seriously... I can take attacking candidates on voting records, issues, even things they've said on the campaign trail. But this was a 2 1/2 minute message in which this guy (no joke) accused Hillary Clinton of slashing tires, killing a cat, and making "false promises to adopt an orphan" despite knowing Bill had a "harem" in the White House.
If I want that kind of shit, I'll buy the Enquirer. And how threatened, how desperate, how tiny-dicked does a guy have to be to hate her so much?
I love living in the South, but sometimes the politics just kill me. An ignorant, overwhelming, knee-jerk fear of all things not extreme Bible-banging right wing is not being a good conservative or a good Christian or even a smart human being. It's ignorance and a patent refusal to think. People down here will believe just about any damn thing no matter how wild if it's told to them about a Democrat or a supposed liberal. I could send out an email claiming I saw one of the Dem candidates bludgeon an old lady to death with a baby wrapped in the Chinese flag in front of a 100 foot tall burning cross on a swastika-shaped stage. Within hours, it would be "truth". And people would use it.

Oh, and hey... my condolences to Matilda Rose. Heath Ledger may have been eye candy to the rest of us, but he was your Daddy. Lots of love, little one.

And while you're thinking about people, send some Internet-love to my sister. She's 13 weeks pregnant and just got a diagnosis of kidney disease and possible lupus. It's going to be a long road with a certain premature delivery of this baby and a kidney transplant in her future. Makes me want to quit whining about my sleep and go hug my baby. I think I will.

Ciao!

WARNING: May Induce Diabetic Coma

I know, right?

Could you not just eat her cheeks with a side of chocolate sauce?

Just went back to work- more on that later.

She's still cluster feeding and not sleeping longer than 2 hours at night. More on that later as well.

But I leave you with a Funny Husband moment.

Scene: 12:30 a.m., our living room...Baby Girl has been agitated and screaming since 9:00. Mama has just handed her off to Daddy ten minutes ago.

Me: Is she SLEEPING for you? Just like that?

Husband: (in a desperate stage whisper) go!.... save yourself!..... just don't forget me........

(Insert dull hum here...)

Can't write.

No words.

So tired.

Must blog.

Here... very very very awake baby cutness...

Observations

Childbirth is both harder and easier than you think. Epidurals are beautiful.

Nursing a newborn is exhausting. Lovely and sweet at many times, but exhausting.

If I had known I could function this well on this little rest, I could have done SO much more in college…

Getting out the door with a newborn is on par with a full-scale military maneuver. It involves planning, equipment, and strategy that would make Patton himself dizzy.

However far you think a newborn can projectile vomit, add 5 feet.

When you are home with a newborn, there is no shame in being unshowered in your jammies at 5:00 p.m.

Breast milk is sticky. And stubborn. And EVERYWHERE.

Keeping a stranger's grimy hands away from your preemie's face will bring out your inner ninja.

Even the best baby (i.e.- mine) has her meltdowns. Resistance is futile. Steve Winwood was right- roll with it, baby.

Labor and childbirth are worth it a thousand times over for the look on your sweet Husband’s face when he’s with your daughter.

Happiness is...

Vivian Mae
2:44 a.m. December 6, 2007
6 pounds, 12 ounces (5 weeks early…wow…)

She’s a good baby, quite the sleeper and a champion breastfeeder.
But she’s still a newborn. And a preemie who arrived after a huge last minute push at work, some pre-term labor, some bedrest, and other crazy things.

So forgive my absence, but I leave you with all this smooshy-faced cuteness.

I am the happiest I have ever been in my life.