Urban Drool

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!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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.

1. Very happy about the results thus far of Plan “Beef up da’ Milk!” I have been taking around 3200 mgs of Fenugreek a day and double pumping at least twice (sometimes three times) a day. So far, it is rockin’ and sockin’ with regard to my general milk supply. The baby even seems to nurse more contentedly. My flow is better, maybe? Faster? And I am very full and tight and drippy in the mornings, which I have not been since I returned to work. All very nice. I am still not pumping QUITE as much as I would like, but it’s slowly creeping up there.
2. Excited because I took the first real step today towards finding a new job.
3. Stressed because I took the first real step today towards finding a new job.
4. Guilty because I took the first real step today towards finding a new job.
5. Excited because the pickle is going in for her 4 month check-up and immunizations this week.
6. Stressed because the pickle is going in for her 4 month check-up and immunizations this week.
7. Guilty and guilty and oh. so. horrifically guilty because I cannot be with the pickle when she goes in for her 4 month check-up and immunizations this week.
8. Pissing in my pants excited because the NEW SEASON OF FUCKING DEADWOOD STARTS ON SUNDAY, JUNE 11, 2006. THAT’S LIKE…6 ITSY-BITSY TEENY TINY LITTLE DAYS FROM RIGHT THE FUCK NOW.
9. Irritated with the Boy because he “lost” his cell phone for 11 days (and just found it today…outside in the backyard…underneath the dog) and also completely destroyed (we think) his iPod by leaving it where he should not (outside. in the backyard. in the pouring rain). And yet? It has somehow fallen upon MY shoulders to make both of these situations all better. Sigh.
10. Excited because I took a big first step vis-à-vis my last entry. I have…in the past 5 days…
a. Thought about Bare Minerals makeup
b. Or maybe Physicians Formula
c. Looked at cute handbags online at Kohls Department Store and thought about buying one of them.
d. Someday.
e. Went to the huge Bath and Body Works Semi-annual sale and bought hand cream.
f. And a face moisturizer.
g. And some yummy-smelling perfume.

And on that last note, let me say a big Thank You to all you ladies. There was a great deal of wonderful advice in your comments, emails and (where applicable) in person. With only a moderate amount of the poking of the fun at the Lumi mixed in. The general consensus seemed to be to make myself feel better and more confident, without necessarily trying to squeeze myself into a perfectly pre-determined, by society mold of what I "should" be wearing and doing.

I agree.

From now on, it shall be a goal of mine to strive for pretty-ness as I see it to be, with the confidence-ness and the feeling-good-and-girly-ness to follow.

But seriously, how lousy does it suck that I cannot be there for my baby's checkup and shots? It sucks. Oh, yes. It does indeed suck. And I'm sure I will cry about it once or twice this week. And to that I say...

Fucking work and their fucking rules about the fucking amount of time you can take off when you have already asked for your 5 day vacation time at the end of July and they grant it to you like you're asking for a fucking kidney and therefore any time from now until then you are going to be watched like a hawk and don't you dare be one fucking minute late in the mornings, either.

sigh.

For the past three days, I have been an ignorant, grossly clueless, shy little 11 year old girl.

For the past three days, I have been sitting and getting back up again with marked care, over-doing the casual-there’s-nothing-unusual-going-on walk while desperately fighting the urge to tug my shirt down in the back so that it covers my ass. (excuse me – my BOTTOM!)

For the past three days, I have been speed-walking to the bathroom every hour or so.

Ahem. Ladies? I have got my period.

And here’s the thing – I have, apparently, forgotten how to deal with it. Couldn’t you just die? It first reared it’s ugly little head on Saturday evening. I thought “Oh! How novel! How droll! How very 2006 it is to menstruate! I should…I should…um. Hm. Don’t I need…some stuff?”

I mean, really. I only had two periods (2!) in the early months of 2005 before I got pregnant. And so that means that it’s been…around 16 months?

But no problem! I’m sure I have something under the bathroom sink. Yes?

Well, no. Unless you’re counting the box of mammoth-size-of-a-Cadillac-hospital-issue-sanitary-pads I was sent home with after Lucy’s birth. You know…to catch the hemorrhaging and left-over placenta.

Thank you, but no.

A trip to the store was in order, whereupon I procured a box of tampons and my favorite brand of panty liner.

So why have I spent the past 48 hours ruining three separate pairs of underwear? Because I have been out of practice for so long, that I apparently cannot remember to use BOTH a tampon and a liner, not just a liner, that will cause icky-blood-horribleness in your unmentionables and by the way, you went to work today with no spare tampons in your purse didn’t you Lumi so that the only one you currently have is currently…in use?

Ha.

I have not been this fucking clueless about my period since I was 11. And caught in a white miniskirt. In geography class.

Not to mention…shouldn’t I have been allotted a couple more months at least, before I had to start dealing with this again?? I am nursing and/or pumping at least 6 or 7 times a day. Isn’t this supposed to be some magical period-repellant?

I mean…SERIOUSLY!!!

Erg. And also: Bah.

I still haven't decided how I feel about this...but...

the Boy found my blog, girls.

Shit!

Or, you know, not. Again...haven't decided.

One thing I did decide however is that I will continue to write as if he (or any other member of my family) never saw and never will see it. So, there you go.

A really interesting by-product of this situation is that he decided that he would create a blog of his own. I think it is high time that he did.

I also think that it is high time that anyone who wishes to go over and meet him.

http://andthentherewaspickle.blogspirit.com/

Read, enjoy many pictures and give him some lovin'.

Have fun ladies!