Urban Drool

I am a mom like ANY other mom in that, once that kid arrived, everything else, including myself, went right out the window. I had seen this scenario countless times with new moms and I would always think to myself “now, look at how shabby and frumpy she is! Why can’t she just take 5 minutes and a little bit of money and treat herself? She is really neglecting herself and she works so hard! She deserves a little something!”

I was such a schmoo. Just like all things, where you never really know what it’s like to be someone else until you have walked a mile in their shoes, I am now that frumpy, half-put together mom who totally neglects herself. Time being so limited and funds being so very, very tight, everything goes to the baby and basic household needs…and now the Boy and I are planning a huge addition to our house. This addition is badly needed, and when I say badly needed, I don’t mean “Oh, wouldn’t it be nice to have some more space for storage and a room for entertaining, etc.” I mean “That baby has been sleeping in our bedroom since the day she was born because it is the only bedroom in the house and gee I think it’s time a second bedroom and second bathroom were added on and we should probably do something about the utility room that is sinking into the backyard and making a great home for those raccoons that burrowed under there last spring!”

So, the addition is badly needed and has to be done. That means that there is going to be even less “play money” than before. So I thought it would be fun to truly torture myself and make a list of all the unnecessary but still really yummy nice things that I really want but cannot allow myself to buy.

Lumi’s wish list:

New pair of black boots (the kind I can wear to work or out at night…not the kind for tromping through endless drifts of Cleveland’s lake effect snow) (estimated price = $40)

Shampoo and Conditioner that is NOT Suave or White Rain and will NOT dry out my hair so that it’s the consistency of straw (and thus, costs more than $1.49 a bottle) (estimated price = $35)

The $68 gift starter set of Philosophy face care products from Sephora (thank you Amalah and your Advice Smackdown for making me dream of lovely girly products that I would love to have but cannot really afford!) (estimated price = $68)

A matching set of shower gel, body lotion and perfume spray of “Pure Seduction” from Victoria Secret. Serioulsy, I met this wonderful lady over the weekend and she smelled so amazing that I had to ask her what she was wearing. (estimated price = $25)

As since we’re at V.S., I would like to point out that I have worn the same two nursing bras since this past May. That would be May of 2006. And since a certain little someone is being weaned off my chewed up, size of a quarter nipples, I think the occasion calls for a couple new bras that don’t make my boobs hang down around my belly button. (estimated price = $80)

The starter set of makeup from Bare Essentials. I have wanted some of this makeup for almost a year now. Covet, covet, covet!! (estimated price = $50)

A pretty new bag. The Boy got me a great bag from a little arty boutique in our neighborhood, and it totally got me addicted. Now I would love a cute new bag for every flipping day of the week. (or at least an alternate so that I can give my one and only bag a day off now and then!)

A trim and shape up and split end removal treatment from Lance (remember him?) (estimated price = $55)

A manicure and pedicure (estimated price $60)

A HUGE bottle of Curel to help my poor skin, which was really and truly neglected this winter and thus has the feel of your average alligator. There are patches of my skin that are so dry and cracked that it resembles a drought-stricken Texas plain. Seriously. (estimated price = $10)  OK, so maybe this one is not so unreasonable and potentially do-able.

The deluxe set of TTapp exercise DVDs to get my fat ass in gear and in shape for my wonderful, dear, sweet friend’s wedding in December. I was honored when she asked me to be a bridesmaid and I am DETERMINED to look amazing for her big day. So, I got 8 months to drop 40 pounds and 4 dress sizes. (estimated price = $115)

Grand total? $558.

Wow.

Do you know what I could do with $558? That’s 3 weeks of daycare for Lucy. That’s 2 months of heating bills. That’s 6 months of our Dish Network TV service. That’s 225 gallons of organic whole milk for Lucy. That’s two months of student loan payments. That's a million billion diapers!

That’s also the price of a huge amount of pampering and an all-around self-esteem booster for me. Hmm…

So, that’s my list. I would actually love to know what you guys would put on your list. So, pretty please leave a comment and tell me what you would splurge on yourself if you had the time/money/freedom to do so.

I seem to have real trouble coming up with interesting/unique/eye-catching/at all relevant ways of staring an entry. This seems to be especially true for entries that contain actual-emotional-type-thoughts-and-emotions-and-stuff.

Important stuff.

That being said:

So! I am done nursing.

Done.

As in, all gone. No more.

I was all set to stop when the baby turned one year old. For no other reason than 1 seemed like a nice, round number and she was only nursing 2-3 times a day at that point anyway and I would kind of like my body back and etc., etc.

And then 1 year started to approach and she showed no interest in stopping and then 1 year passed us by and she still showed no signs of stopping. So, for a week or so I just let her keep on doing her thing. Admittedly, there was a part of me that was pretty content and smugly-smug about my sweet milk that my baby still craved and the general hippy-crunchy-granola-ness of it all. I was picturing a delighted 2 year old still needing me for the occasional snuggle and milk top-off. But this shiny little bulb of daydreams started to wane the more I took notice of two interesting facts:

Fact 1: My milk had dwindled down to almost nothing

Fact 2: This only made the baby nurse on me harder, faster and rougher than she ever had before.

-subfact a) a newborn’s gummy-gums ain’t nothing compared to the force that a frustrated 21 pound toddler and her 9 teeth can exert upon one’s teeny-tiny nipple.

Now, I can take the occasional nip and accidental nibble. But what I physically am finding it hard to endure is the constant chewing. I simply call it “The Chew.” At times, Lucy doesn’t seem to particularly mind that there is almost no milk there. She is cutting some serious back molars and simply wants to use me as a teething ring.

The Chew.

{Shudder}

The Chew has resulted in very badly bitten nipples, several tissues to wipe up the blood (yes, the blood) and one particular bite on my right side that is so bad that, 4 days later I still cannot put my bra on without wincing in serious discomfort.

So I thought about it and I read some stuff and I talked to the Boy and I talked to my mother in law and I talked to the baby’s pediatrician and then I thought about it some more.

And driving to work this morning I had to turn slightly to peer into my rear mirror and the steering wheel brushed against the bad spot on the right breast.

And the pain was enough to make me decide at that moment that Lucy and I were no longer going to be nursing.

This post has been written with a bit of snark and a bit of jest, but it is actually a very difficult decision to make. I am pretty emotional about it (hey! There’s something new!) and I have been told by some of my girlfriends who breastfed their children that the hormonal crash is going to be kind of bad.
But I still think it needs to happen. It might be hard on her, it might be hard on me, but I just think it needs to happen.

So, after 12 months, 1 week, 3 days and about 12 hours of feeding my child the best food I could give her I am stopping.

I shall cry (more than once, I am sure) and I shall be very angry with myself (more than once, I am sure). But then I shall also go out and buy some fantastic new bras for myself and take all the Advil and drink all the hard-core booze I feel like drinking.

Cheers.

Last night the Boy and I were getting drunk on some very nice red wine and watching “Moonstruck.”

Don’t snigger, it was Valentine’s Day, alright?

I think the breadth and shiny-ness of Nicholas Cage’s torso stunned the Boy into an introspective frame of mind and he and I began entertaining the notion that we would not have been attracted to one another and ended up together, had the circumstances surrounding our initial…assignation not been quite so dramatic and forbidden.

Put more simply: people want what they cannot have and jealously and forbidden fruit created a scenario where two people, who wouldn’t normally fall in love, fell in love.

(for the record, the Boy believes that this was the case with the two of us, and I vehemently disagree)

That aside, it actually started a train wreck of a stream of thought for me over the past 18 hours, and I find myself thinking a lot about the concept of envy. Jealousy. Coveting.

I am beginning to suspect that, at heart, I am a bitterly jealous person.

I want what I do not and/or cannot and/or will not and never will have.

I see a picture of a former law school pal on a website of a very prominent law firm. She’s a fabulously successful associate. I think to myself “I want that…LOOK at her. She passed the Bar and was able to get a snug little spot on the fast track to wealth and prestige.”

I chat on the phone with my good friend Mya’s Mommy, who works 3 days a week and is able to stay at home with her baby girl the other 4 days in a row and able to do a little shopping and go to Gymboree classes, etc and I hang up the phone and sit there and think “Damn, I want that awesome schedule where she can bring in some decent money for her household and still keep up a great stretch of days with her daughter every week.”

A friend from high school recently sent me her MySpace page and I found myself face to face with pictures of a girl who, despite the fact that she was way out of shape and much bigger than I in High School, is now a totally svelte and awesomely groomed hot chick. Single and living in Manhattan, she obviously has the time and money to spend on herself and DAMN it shows. I think to myself how awesome it must be to have that kind of luxury and to look that GOOD.

…and so it goes on. I envy moms with school age kids for not having to deal with screaming babies who insist on still nursing 23 times a night and can instead go to silly and fun 2nd grade Valentine’s Day parties, I envy brand new moms, complete with cracked nipples and unkempt hair, for being in that bliss-nirvana-dreamlike state of mind that comes with the first couple weeks after your baby is born. My sister, the Fulbright scholar, is living in Belgium for the year and spending time with International friends and drinking beer at a convent in Bruge and taking weekend trips to Paris, while I sit here in Cleveland, Ohio trying to figure out how to pay my electric bill. I envy my husband who spends his time refreshing his acting resume and talking on the phone with the Artistic Director of a regional Shakespeare Festival and planning auditions and networking and loving his career in the dramatic arts. I envy my friend here at work, who is single and goes out to cool bars and restaurants most nights of the week and can afford to spend money on funky jewelry and always looks so put together, when there is cat hair on my pants and my hair smells like the baby barfed up lasagna and grilled salmon on me last night (which she in fact did).

And I really hate to be so repetitious here about the whole “bad birth blah blah” thing, but every time, EVERY TIME, someone tells me about someone they know who “just had their first baby and MAN she was just in and out of that hospital! 5 hours of labor and she only pushed for 35 minutes! 9 lbs, 3 oz and she DIDN’T EVEN TEAR! ISN’T THAT JUST SWELL?!?!?!”

The hot little nugget of envy and anger, envy about someone else’s good fortune, just blooms up inside me and makes me see stars.

Nice, huh?

I think you get my point. It’s terrible to contemplate, really, but I am finding myself thinking the most uncharitable thoughts about folks who are doing nothing more than living their own lives. It’s not that I wish them ill in any way. It’s not even that I dislike the fact that they are so blessed/lucky/whatever you want to call it.

It’s just that, I want it TOO. I want to be a successful associate making $110,000 a year, who also gets to be a stay at home mom. I want to have a fun little 8 year old kid who needs to be driven around to Girl Scouts and soccer practice and I’m the cool room mom at her school who helps coordinate the holiday parties but I also want a newborn baby again. I want to travel through Western Europe and make my mark on the International scene but never have to leave the comfort of my home. I want to fit back into my size 7 jeans and have silky soft hair and skin and cool earrings and perfectly coordinated outfits, but still be able to eat a whole pizza and ½ a pan of brownies for dinner.

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Erg. I just went back and read what I have written, and damn. It seems a bratty little 13 year old girl has invaded my soul today and spewed all over my blog.

Sorry. I am now kind of embarrassed.

This whole think makes me sound really ungrateful and petty, and I don’t mean for it to be. I have an awesome life. I have a beautiful, healthy baby and a great husband and family that loves me and a house and good TV and a great espresso machine.

But despite all that, it’s really easy to fall into the mind-trap of feeling like you are constantly being shit upon.

OK, I feel better now. I’m going to post this monstrosity of an entry, even though I’m pretty mortified by my own thoughts.

The End.

I just got off the phone with my father, and he informed me that he had just polished off a BOX of Girl Scout Cookies (Thin Mints) and a pot of coffee for his lunch.

He also requested that I not mention this fact to my mother.

Heh.

I feel like I’ve been hit with a tidal wave. My baby, my squdge, the little girl that I fretted over, barfed into my bathroom sink for, lived in daily pain for, am blown away by my love for, is my very reason for existing on this planet, is one year old.

I want so much to write a delightful, tear-provoking, Oscar-worthy post about the past year and how she has changed and how she has stayed the same and how I feel, but I cannot get the words to come through. It’s like trying to describe the most fantastic rainbow or what a hug from someone you haven’t seen in 5 years feels or what it felt like the first time you swam in the ocean or someone you loved said “I love you.”

I do not have nearly enough finesse or a sophisticated grasp of the English language, of simple WORDS, to express my emotions and perspective on the universe in general these days. I find that I don’t even want to try, because I know whatever I do produce will not do my heart and soul justice.

Can I do a bullet point list (how very lame) of some of my thoughts, with the vague promise to try and pen a more substantial, eloquent post in the next week or two?...hey know what? It’s my damn blog and I say “yes.”

- her face is the Boy’s, but her smile is all me
- she loves to eat the oddest things, like a fresh diced tomato and garlic bread
- her continuous attempts at independence are very startling, like how she insists on feeding herself and will not tolerate anyone trying to feed her something on a spoon
- her skin behind her ears and on the fattest swell of her belly are the softest places on earth
- she has recently discovered the joy of banging on the piano. I cannot even sit down on my piano bench without her racing over to me and trying to haul herself up onto the bench next to me, so she can touch the keys too. Being a musician at heart, this makes my heart burst with pride and satisfaction
- her sunny smile when she sees my mom just slays me. I adore my mom, but she and I do have our issues with one another, and seeing my mom through my baby’s eyes is an altering experience. Amazing.
- My unending determination to find a job, any job, that would keep me closer to where she is, give me more hours to spend with her, and bring in more money to take better care of her is something that I feel and use every day
- The only thing the Boy does better than loving me is loving her
- I hope the top of her head always smells the way it has for the past year. It was the first part of her body that I was able to touch and kiss 40 minutes after she was born and it’s the part of her body that I smell and kiss every morning and night. Some primal mama-bear part of me needs to touch, smell and kiss her all over her head at least twice a day or I don’t feel…right. I wonder how long she will let me do this?
- I can’t believe the Boy and I ever lived a life without her. And I can’t yet imagine a life with any other children in it except her. The three of us together are like the most perfect-fitting pair of jeans that you have been looking for your whole life.
- Her favorite thing in world right now is the “E-I-E-I-O” part of the “Old MacDonald” song.
- She also loves to lay on her back naked, bring her feet close to her mouth so she can alternately fit one foot in her mouth and wave the other foot in front of you and say “Hi!” If you don’t answer her and say “Hi” back she will wave at you and scream “HI!” at you until you do.
- When she has had a hard day or isn’t feeling well, the only thing that will soothe her is to lay in between the Boy and I in our bed and nurse from me while reaching behind her to hold the Boy’s finger of a fistful of his hair until she falls asleep

I think you get my point.

I have been alternating between laughing and grinning like a jackal and weeping like a little wussy girl since last Thursday.

I am still in the middle of interviews and paying off bills and trying to get my shit together to really make 2007 be my year. I hope that when the dust settles and I come back down to earth that I will be able to devote more time to regular blogging and reading of blogs.

For the meantime, peace to you all. And thanks for still listening.

Today and tomorrow and the weekend that follows will be nothing but joy and wonder and giggles and tears of happiness and poop.

And cake.

Seriously, I ordered a whole lot of cake.

I know that some of these pictures have been posted before, but some have not. I wanted to post a slew of pictures from Lucy's first year. Today is picture day and hopefully tomorrow we shall have an "Oh my god my baby is one year old and here is a weepy funny post about all that she has done and is and ever will be isn't she the bestest thing EVER" post.

Maybe.

But in the meantime...pictures! Of my BABY!!!!!!!!!

Happy One Year Birthday, my little Pickle.

It has not escaped my attention that we are hours away (well, about 36 hours away) from my first child’s first birthday.

I fully plan on enjoying her “birthday weekend” (which I stubbornly call the next 4 days, because her actual birthday will fall on an actual day when I have to actually work – SUCK) with every ounce of my being. There will be kisses.

And cake.

And 45 people coming to love on her.

And balloon animals.

And magic shows.

And face painters.

And cake.

And a piñata.

And homemade pizza.

And endless squees of children and babies and tons of fun.

And have I mentioned the cake?


Anyway. From tomorrow morning onward it will be laa laa lee doo doo and happy birthday and loveangelbabyjoy and all that. I promise. I truly am looking forward to it and cannot wait to celebrate with everybody.

But for right now, this evening, please forgive an emotional, angst-filled Lumi and indulge her. Allow her a few hours and more than a few (hidden) tears as she pens a letter to herself, one year ago exactly right now:

Dear Lumi of One Year Ago Exactly Right Now,

Go home. PLEASE go home.

You just spent 24 hours tied to a hospital bed, with cervadil up your hoo-hoo and pitocin racing through your veins.

All for naught.

Your cervix is still 3 cm. You haven’t effaced for shit in the past day. And, just so you know, all that poking and proding from dozens of different fingers? And all those harsh and out of nowhere contractions which are slamming that 9 pound baby’s head onto your cervical tissue? Is making your cervix start to swell.

Please note: your cervix will be so swollen in 30 more hours that a drop of extra virgin olive oil would struggle to find it’s way through.

Your water hasn’t broken yet. You still have time. Time to unplug your wires and tubes, put on your clothes and go home. Rest and eat yummy food for a couple days. Please stop trying to force this child to come before she is ready to. You are only 10 days past your due date – you have a couple more days you can wait through.

Please note also: what waits for you in the next 36 hours is the most mind-boggling painful labor you could imagine, and endless frustration as you dialate to an 8 ½, see the nurses get all excited and bring out the baby bassinet and break down the bed and get everything ready for you…only to have your cervix puff up and seal shut like a blow fish and then…slowly…slowly…dialate back down to 5. An epidural will be administered, which will shatter all the pride you feel for laboring through a FULL DAY of horrendous labor without pain medication. An emergency C-Section will be performed. You will barely recall meeting your child for the first time. You will not get to be the first person (or even in the top 5) that gets to hold her.

And four hours after that, you will nearly die. Your uterus, frankly pissed off and exhausted after all this abuse, will decide to flush 1/3 of the blood in your body OUT of your body in an attempt to destroy itself. 5 IVs, a Hep Lock, 3 blood transfusions and a week in the hospital will be the result.

So seriously, please go home.

Just stop it with the weeping and the “I just can’t be this pregnant anymore!” and the impatience and the calling of the midwives and vainglorious determination to make this all about YOU.

I can’t be sure, of course, but there is a small possibility that if you leave now and go home and give it a few days time, this baby just might decide to come of her own accord. And perhaps you could avoid all this. And perhaps you could have the natural, intervention-free birth you have been dreaming about for months. And perhaps your uterus won’t be so compromised that any future pregnancies and deliveries won’t be in such jeopardy.

I wish you could hear me. Oh, how I wish. I wish my hindsight and experience could trump your naïveté and make you see how much better it would be if you stopped right now and give nature a chance to take it’s course.

But you can’t. Of course, I know you can’t.

So, all I can say is, good luck. Don’t die. And you will fall to pieces with love when you see her, you really will.

Two more things, that nurse in recovery is going to be a royal cunt and won’t want to give you a cup of water. Tell her to go fuck herself and have the Boy go get you some water.

And? For the love of all that is Joe Pesci, take the Percoset THE VERY FIRST TIME IT IS OFFERED. You will NOT win some kind of prize for pretending to be all brave and snotty and “Oh, my incision doesn’t hurt! Just a few Tylenol will be fine.”

You idiot.

Love,
yourself

Now I know.

Now I understand.

Never before did I really comprehend why women would spend hundreds of dollars and hours and hours of precious time going to high-end salons and getting high-end treatments for their hair, skin and nails.

Um, wow. Why did nobody tell me of this sooner? Was this some great secret of womanhood that, for some reason, was kept from me? (answer=very possibly. After all Lumi, are you or are you NOT a woman who will slap a little scented body lotion from WalMart on her face as a “moisturizer” when no face cream is about?)

My mother recently got me a gift certificate to a salon in a nearby town. This is a salon that specializes in the care of very long hair. In other words, right up my alley. I went there, a little unsure of what to expect or how to comport myself. Would they mind if (when) I yelled “Ah, fuck” when I stumbled over the artfully placed antique wooden sidetable with the zen healing water fountain spraying merry droplets of lavender-infused water everywhere?

But I arrived. Immediately upon my entering, Lance, the loveliest of lovely long-hair-care specialists, took my coat and purse and led me to my chair. And we had a long talk, he and I, about what to do with this unless horse’s mane on top of my head.

Tilting his head to the side and squinting with one eye he declared me in need of a 2 hour hot-cap treatment, followed 3-4 weeks later by a trim and shape up. I mutely nodded my assent. After all, you don’t argue with Lance.

He led me to the shampoo chair and told me to close my eyes. I entered a weird state of kinda-sleep-kinda-meditation, coming to only occasionally when Lance would quietly mutter in my ear what he was doing exactly.

“..I am first washing your hair with a clarifying eucalyptus cleanser…I am now using an orange and mango wash to prepare the hair shafts to receive the protein mud pack…

{heading back to my chair}

…now we are going to put on the mud pack…I’m wrapping your hair around itself on top of your head like a crown so I can fit the heated cap on top to ensure that the blah blah blah effectively blah blah dee dooo…”

What the hell did I care what he was doing? It felt amazing and I felt amazing and there was NO husband to entertain and NO baby to nurse or wipe sluge off of and I hadn’t felt this relaxed and pampered in almost 2 years. Lance could stuff my belly buttons with pimentos for all I cared, if it meant this lovely warm feeling spreading through me would continue.

I had to sit in a leather backed, uber-comfy chair for an hour (oh darn!) while the whatevers melted into my hair and did their whatevers. Lance brought me an assortment of Reader’s Digest, People, and Us. Did you know that Britney Spears went to a shop in LA called “Trashy Lingerie” and brought a little outfit for the benefit of her new boy toy? And, ironically enough, it’s considered “not at all trashy!!” ??

I did.

Lance asked me what I wished to drink. Bottled water? Hot tea? Coffee? Cocoa? He brought me a selection of different flavors of cocoa so that I could choose.

People, Lance brought me my cell phone when I heard it ringing and couldn’t reach it, for trapped in my leather chair was I.

Wow.

Sadly, my hour with the plant enzymes was over all too soon and Lance washed me, conditioned me, and used a “lovely avocado-based shine-booster rinse.” He blew my hair dry, one small piece at a time, sprayed my long tresses all over with something that smelled like a Caribbean vacation and then guided me over to the full length mirror and handed me a small mirror so I could see the length of the back of my hair and what he had accomplished.

Dayyy-um.

I walked out of there with instructions to not wash my hair for 72 hours to “allow the cuticles to seal” and to make an appointment in 3-4 weeks for a trim and shape up.

He recommends this 2 hour treatment to be done 3-4 times a year and you can bet that I’m counting down the days until I can have it done again.

Why did no one tell me? My hair looks incredible today. I have NEVER been able to get my hair to look the way it looks today. Now, I know in a few days, it will not look nearly as magnificent as it does right now, but I SO DON’T CARE!!

I am forever changed. I apologize profusely to all those women whom I ridiculed, either out loud or under my breath, for “buying stupid crap” and “going to snobby salons” just so they could “look like a million bucks.”

Know what folks? If I do indeed get a refund on my Federal Taxes this year, I am SO heading back to Lance and buying absolutely anything and everything that he tells me I need to buy.

…after I pay the electric bill and buy more diapers for the baby.

Sigh.

The End.