Urban Drool

I know I owe you all a vacation re-cap (do you want to hear about how I caught two sharks? Or maybe about how my father got stung by a jelly fish? How about how the Boy and I almost filed for divorce?)

I know I also owe you all a retaliatory post in reponse to the Boy's "Getting Myself in Trouble" entry over at andthentherewaspickle.blogspirit.com.

But...but....

I HAVE A CASE OF THE MONDAYS.


(I cannot believe I just wrote that. A bottle of Rufino Classico Chianti and a plate of my homemade chicken piccata to whomever can identify the movie which illuminated the above phrase.)


Today is my first day back at work (FIE!! I SPIT UPON YOUR GRANDMOTHER'S GRAVE!!! EEERRGGG!!!) and my poor, poor baby is sick. Or, at least, she is overly warm and has really sore gums and is just fucking ready for the weather to get below 70 degrees and for her teeth to cut already.

She was crying and crying and all she wanted was to be held. And what did I do? Did I hold and rock and soothe and comfort her? Did I provide for her every need and make her feel all kinds of better?

I did not.

I put her down in her swing and walked to the door and left.

OK, to be honest, I sat with her and tried to flip through the phone book to get the pediatrician's number, while yelling at the Boy that he was to drive all three of us there so she could get checked out and then he could take me to work but ONLY if she wasn't too sick and he said no, that she would be OK for the day and she didn't really need to go to the doctor, and I had to go to work and I put her down in her swing and walked into the kitchen and cried and told the Boy that I couldn't leave her and I could NOT go to work if she wasn't feeling well and he flatly told me I had to and for 3 seconds I hated him with the fury of a thousands white-hot suns for telling me I had to leave my baby while she wasn't feeling well and THEN I walked to the door and left.

And as I was driving to work (crying the whole way! GREAT!) a caterpilar crawled onto my neck and BIT me and I freaked out and tried to brush it off me and instead of brushing it of me I brushed it into my bra and GEE WASN'T THAT FUN!!

And the coffee sucks this morning.

And the pile of work that was sitting on my desk this morning was so high that I was positive there were giants living at the top.

But? Most of all? My baby needs me today and I am not there. And it hurts so bad that I cannot even hear.

Mama's going on vacation!

Lumi, the Boy and the Pickle will be heading here tomorrow...



we shall swim and frolic and you can bet your ass that we will be passing off the Pickle to adoring grandma, adoring grandpa, adoring aunt and/or adoring uncle at every available opportunity.

Do you know what we might be looking at here? For the first time in nearly six months? We might be looking at the chance to sleep for more than 4 hours without interruption.

Can I get an Amen?!?!?

See you Friday, July 28.

We are entering another He Said/She Said phase between UrbanDrool and …andthentherewaspickle.

If you are a reader of my boy’s blog, you should go over there tomorrow and read.

And then come back in a week (we are going on vacation) to read my rebuttal.

Have fun!

She was one of the first to read and comment on my blog.

She quickly took me to her heart as a cherished friend - mostly due to our mutual adoration of HBO original series.

She listened to my hysterical ramblings and blahlers - stuff that was sometimes even too queer to write about on my blog.

She was the first to know about my precarious pregnancy.

She was the first to know about the birth of Lucy - the first time we spoke on the phone - Cleveland, Ohio to the south of England at 36 hours post partum.

She introduced me to my most excellent friend, the incomperable Miss Molly. Together, the three of us willed away many a "working" day (HA!), swapping e-mailed pictures of our favorite Hollywood eye candy.

I cried with joy when her IVF was successful.

I listened and responded in kind to her own hysterical ramblings and general angst during her own pregnancy - honored to be able to return the favor.

She is full of wit, charm, snarkiness and warm, understanding empathy.

She is also in labor, even as we speak.

An early morning email from her today and a voice mail on my answering machine from her Baz later on confirms that, despite only being 35 weeks, we are indeed looking at a baby coming within the next day or so.

I am thinking, smiling, hoping and obsessively checking my email and listening for my phone.

I dearly want a happy, easy birth for her. I want a healthy, joyous baby for her - pink and chubby and full of charm.

I love you, my friend.

You can do it.


http://barrenalbion.blogspot.com will soon be the home of many a snarky and entertaining baby story.

YYYYYYYYEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!


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And now she's here! I don't know if Pru is going to use real baby name or not on her blog, so in the meantime I shall refer to my wee little "niece" as Glory.

Glory is here, safe and sound. She weighs in at a hefty 5lbs, 14oz, which is quite an impressive size, considering her early arrival.

Mom and babbo are doing well.

and so we have again with the YYYYYEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Lucinator and I went and visited my mom the other day, and her neighbor/great family friend took the opportunity to give me some pictures of me that she “just had developed!”

“Ooooo!” thinks I, “maybe she’s going to give me some snaps she took the other week when the baby and I were hanging out at her pool…or maybe from when my sister was here visiting in April.”

yeah…not so much. People, they were of my baby shower. My baby shower. The shower for the baby that is now 5 months old. She just had them developed.

At first, I just glanced at them and did a “yeah, there I am…crap I got really fucking huge there towards the end didn’t I - eh” thing and just threw them in my purse.

But today at lunch I opened up my purse to grab some change and saw them again. And I stared at them for 10 full minutes. And I started to feel so…sad?

angry?
bemused?
embarrassed?

Embarrassed. That’s it.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I had a nice time at my shower. Lovely ladies, lovely gifties – all in all it was a pleasant way to spend 7 hours of my life.

But the pictures reminded me of what I was like right before the baby came. What I was thinking, what I was feeling, what I was expecting to happen.

I was so sure that I knew what was going to happen – what life would be like. No matter how many times I told people that I had a birth plan but “I know that things usually don’t go as planned!” breezily assuring all that “we were totally ready to just roll with the punches” I never in my heart of hearts believed it. I never imagined that MY labor and MY birth would ever be anything but EXACTLY HOW I WANTED IT TO BE.

Because, you see, deep down, I knew. I knew it would go exactly my way. I was so confidant and assured. I was going to have a totally natural, intervention-free labor and birth and my first moments with my first baby would be the most wonderful heavenly nirvana most magical this is exactly how life is supposed to be happysqueebabyjoynothingtoworryabouthereblahblahweepycakes

So smug. So self-assured. So all knowing.

So naïve.

I am starting to see, as I try so very hard to work through this anger and depression and fear and crippling frustration, that the labor and birth that brought my Lucy to me was in fact, my first lesson in this, my new life.

You know nothing. You have control over nothing. You can be forced to go the scariest places your mind and soul have ever traveled and still remain alive and in one piece. You can, and will, sit upright and nurse your baby and care for your child and focus entirely on keeping this new being alive, even while your own body is half-paralyzed and your own life’s blood is rushing out of you. That is how important your child is, and that is how strong you are. You, and whatever you wanted, whatever you thought you were going to get, means nothing now. Fate is in total control, and you are just the hapless schmuck who is along for the ride.

You know nothing.

That girl in the pictures doesn’t know that. She doesn’t know that everything she wanted and expected about how her baby was going to enter this world would be smashed to bits. She doesn’t know that her body will be racked with nearly 3 days of pitocin and an emergency C-Section. She doesn’t know that she will nearly bleed to death, and that it would take a team of over a dozen complete strangers to make sure that she doesn’t. She doesn’t know that she will be unable to get out of bed for the first 48 hours of her first born child’s life. She doesn’t know that she will have to be back at work, 42 hours a week a mere 5 weeks later. She doesn’t know that her heart will go from breaking in pieces to swelling with a love greater then anything she’s ever felt to breaking in pieces at least 4 times every day.

And she doesn’t know that she’s going to survive it all.

If the Boy and I have another baby, I will read a lot about VBACs. I will see more than one doctor. I will be as informed as I can be. And I will try my very best to have as happy and healthy a birth (for all concerned) as can happen. And maybe it will work out for me next time – maybe I will get a birth a little closer to what I wanted. And maybe it won’t.

But I will know something then that I didn’t know before.

I will know that, even as prepared and informed and determined as I can be, the fates are still in charge.

I will finally know that I know nothing.

My little Pickle,

You turned 5 months old last Sunday, and per our agreement, you started kicking in your share of the room and board.

…no, not really, but wouldn’t that be nice?

Everyone is so impatient for you to grow up!! Grandpa K asks me all the time if you can “say the words ‘Tatoo’ or ‘Mazarati’” and your little cousin is so psyched for a young female relation with whom to share dolls and make-up tips that she seems almost disappointed that you are not as interactive as she wants you to be.

“when’s Lucy gonna walk?...will she talk to me yet?...I wanna play with her!...why doesn’t she smile at me?” are her plaintive cries as she shoves yet another toy approximately 1.2 inches from your face and waggles it around.

Good-hearted and patient soul that you are, you usually just stare at her bemusedly for a moment and then turn away to grab what you REALLY wanted…Mr. Crinkle Cow. Or occasionally, Mr. Duck.

What little cousin doesn’t see is how amazing and interactive you really have become. You have very definite wants and desires, likes and dislikes. You laugh! You talk! You have genuine playtimes and hold entire conversations. Sometimes with me, sometimes with papa, sometimes with your big toe.

I hereby present the Big List of Things You Like:

BLoTYL:

1) grabbing your feet and spreading your legs WAY open – ala Pamela Anderson. Or Paris Hilton. Or, you know, me on one of your Papa’s luckier days.

2) Car rides

3) Bananas (I don’t know why this particular fruit holds such power over you, but the night after you first ate ‘naners you pulled away from my offered nipple and HOWLED! “NOOOOO!!!!!! Woman, what IS this foul sludge which you offer me? Methinks it is akin to the most polluted pond scum to ever desecrate the universe. I need more NANERS!!!!”)

4) The marvelous singing Koala Bear that your Auntie Panda gave you

5) Tummy Time on the big blanket in the middle of the Living Room floor

6) Your best friend Mya’s pacifier. Or her shirt. Or any toy that she is holding. Or her hand. Any of the above are grabbed and go right in your mouth. But then she clocks you across the jaw and you grudgingly give them all back to her, bowing in grim respect to the 6 weeks of age, 2 inches of height, and 4 whole pounds that she has over you!

7) Mr. Crinkle Cow. Oh, my God. I shudder at the thought of the day when I will inevitably forget my brain and leave Mr. Crinkle Cow on some lone park bench, losing him to you forever. Your passion for him is so great, that I am sure that this would be grounds for immediate emancipation from me, your uncaring and brainless mother.

8) Food. And, food. It’s only been 8 days into the introduction of mushy-why-the-HELL-do-they-call-it-solid-food experiment and you already have the appetite of the average College football player.

9) My hair. My very long hair. Which you grab at any occasion and immediately entwine in a complex fashion between and around and through all your fingers. Um, ow.

10) The animals in the house. Any of them. All of them. You try and grab the cat’s tail. You laugh your ass off whenever the dog walks by. You even gaze at the fishtank for endless minutes with the most wonderful smile on your face.


And now, just to ensure that a fair and just depiction of your complex personality is presented, I feel compelled to create the Not Quite as Big List of Things You Really Hate:

NQaBLoTYRH:

1) Having your chin wiped. Which unfortunately has to happen quite a bit, what with all the sweet potatoes and ‘naners and spit up and dog hair and drool and all.

2) Being swaddled. Just the act of the swaddling itself. Once you actually are swaddled, and a nipple or some other object from the Lucy’s List of Approved Aids for Endless Oral Fixation is shoved in your gaping maw, why you are just as happy as a kipper on a cracker!

3) Sensing that Papa or I are going to be doing anything that even remotely feels like it might somehow in some capacity be in the neighborhood of sitting down. SITTING DOWN! You screech and protest most mightily when we are holding you (which is 99.9% of the time) and we start to try and kind of ease ourselves down from an upright, ambulatory position. It’s as if you are saying “Why? WHY DO YOU HATE ME SO, Oh WRETCHED PARENTS OF MINE? Why do you SIT me DOWN when there are THINGS THAT I CAN LOOK AT IF ONLY YOU WOULD CONTINUE TO WALK ME AROUND AND AROUND AND AROUND until you DROP?”

4) The stationary aspect of nursing. You still love to nurse, but you DETEST that it requires you to remain so still and miss something that might be happening JUST OUT OF YOUR LINE OF SIGHT! You are constantly twisting and turning around, taking a portion of Mama’s nipple with you (thanks!) to make sure that you are not missing anything important.

5) Sitting for too long in the Bumbo Seat. You will acquiesce to remain in the Bumbo for just around 5 minutes before you realize that it is so much better to be sitting up in either my lap or Papa’s.


Other big highlights of the past month include your first “meal” of avacados inside a swank little Sushi restaurant and the first of many, many, MANY shit-filled diapers that required assistance in clean up from the biohazard team at the local hospital plus extensive therapy for Papa afterwards.

The introduction of avocados, sweet potatoes, multi-grain cereal, ‘naners and carrots have made you very, very happy and allow you to sleep for the longest stretches of time in your tiny life. But it has also created the most foul looking and smelling substance that I have ever seen. Plus? It feels really gross on the skin too, as I found out the other night when some of it got smeared on your foot and you, in turn, smeared it on the inside of my left wrist (thanks again!)

Your smiles get bigger and your laughs louder and your eyes more beautiful and sparkly with every single passing day.

I spent all of last Saturday alone with you this past week and sobbed with utter joy three separate times while trying to sing to you. I’m sorry about that little bit of watery snot that got dribbled on your head.

I can’t wait to see you grow up, but I never want you to not be the magnificent and joyful baby that you are. Can we have both, please?

Thanks.









Warn sloppy kisses all over your belly,
Mama

First of all folks – YOU ROCK! I can’t thank you enough for the insights, suggestions, encouragement and ironic musings that my last post elicited. You are awesome. For the record, I thought about nursing at a restaurant on Saturday night (at the table!) but could not because of the weirdly-shaped, roundish table we were sitting at, with a table top that came up to my clavical. Erg.

BUT! I did nurse (multiple times) at my in-laws house yesterday with significantly less fuss than in the past. My little niece - who is all of 5 years old - came wandering into the room where Lucy and I were nursing and we had the following conversation:

MLN (my little niece): Whatcha doin?

Lumi: Feeding the baby.

MLN: Oh. (pause as she leans over my shoulder to gaze critically at my boob and the nursing baby) …does it hurt when you do that?

Lumi: Nope.

MLN: Oh. OK. So…wanna play monopoly?

Yeah. I’m thinking she was NOT traumatized by the whole thing.

It’s good to be right. Heh.

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I no longer have a baby girl.

I have what can be charitably referred to as a bottomless pit of never ending hunger.

She has become the world’s most adorable human garbage disposal.

About two weeks ago the pickle started looking very interested in our food, when we would sit down to eat.

…and then she morphed from “looking interested in” to “following the food with her eyes as it traveled from plate to my mouth with her mouth hanging open and dripping with drool.”

…and then she morphed from THAT to “whining and pitching teeny tiny little fits when we would eat.”

…plus there was the whole thing where I would nurse and nurse and nurse. And nurse. And then nurse. And then FINALLY put her down. And then? 24 minutes later? She would be fussing from hunger again.

So we kind of figured she was trying to tell us something.

This past Sunday the Boy and I treated ourselves to an early dinner out. While we were there, he asked the waitress to bring us a few slices of fresh avocado.


***mash mash mash…(mix a little bit of milk in)…mash mash mash***

And the avocado, she was shoveled into the gaping maw of the wee pickle-mouth. And lo, the pickle, she did swallow and then crow hungrily for some more.

EEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Since then, there has been organic sweet potatoes mushed up with breastmilk and wee bit of Gerber Multi-Grain cereal to give the whole thing a bit of an “umph.” The baby casserole, it has been well received.

We have been duly rewarded in the past 3 days for our efforts in the why-the-hell-do-they-call-it-solid-food-it-really-is-just-a-pile-of-slushy-mush-food arena with the following:

1. at least THREE fun filled poops per day! And holy shit does that shit SMELL

AND

2. sleeping from 11pm till 7am. Without interruption.

Wow.

I am personally very happy to see that the food has not deterred her from wanting to nurse. If anything, I nursed her more the past few days then before. At least, the nursing sessions were longer and she seemed vastly more contented at the end of them.

So…2-3 mini bowls of baby casserole plus all the milk I can store in the fridge for when I am gone during the days plus tons of nursing when I home and you see why I now call the pickle the bottomless pit…the human garbage disposal….

She is so very happy.

…but seriously? The shit?

Gagpukegaseousfumesohmygodicannotbeleivethisfoulnuclearwaste
iscomingoutofmypreciousbaby’sass!!!!

Horrid. Just…horrid.