HAIR!

April 23, 2009 By

The last time we visited my sister, I took one of my niece’s hair clips and stuck it in Meli’s growing hair. Oh my god she looked so freaking cute (and OLD!) that I totally plotzed and came home and bought a gazillion barrettes for her.


The one she’s wearing in the picture above is from Lil Chatterbox. I bought this one and this one. (I specifically bought the purple pansy one with Vicki in mind. I just know how she’s loves pansies.) I also bought barrettes from Baby K Designs, Tiny Sweets, and ElleBowsAndMore. I loved these from Baby K Designs so much I went back and bought a ton more from her store. And these wonderful birds from Tiny Sweets are so adorable I totally cried when I put one in Meli’s hair. And my absolute favorites these days are the dragonflies from Lil Sugarplum. They stay in Meli’s hair super well and are too too cute. (By the way, I found Tiny Sweets and Lil Sugarplum because they were recommended on Cool Mom Picks, a very nice product blog I follow. I’ve bought a bunch of interesting things through this blog and haven’t been disappointed yet.)

Meli totally has my hair. Or at least it’s a lot closer to my hair than G’s hair. It starting to flip up in the back and she’s got these really short bangs because her hair hasn’t grown over her forehead yet. Just like mine was when I was her age. I’m going back to my sister’s tomorrow and I’m going to have to take all the barrettes so I can show my niece. I just LOVE having a girl! I’m so not girly, not really, but my baby can be (and my niece is very girly so my sister, who’s more like me, are living vicariously!)

It’s been a really really rough week on all kinds of fronts. Personal, professional – you name it. We’ve barely had anyone come see our house which is really starting to stress me out. My husband works for a bank – although he’s NOT a banker (he works in corporate services) – lest anyone want to egg my blog – but really that’s all I have to say about that. Add to all this the fact that they start drilling outside every window in my house at 8AM and don’t finish until 5. Even when they’re not right outside my windows, the house reverberates with the noise (basically because they’re either above or below me.) I have a headache by 8:30. So we’re out of the house all day a lot of days (they don’t work when the weather’s bad, but that has it’s own stresses – like they’re never going to finish if it doesn’t stop raining!) and by the end of the day I’m so tired I can barely move.

Even with my complaining, I know things could be so much worse. Trust me. Stress still sucks. So I’ll be hanging at my sister’s for a while and there might even be another great date with my husband which would make us happy to no end. Cross your fingers we get some tickets. I’ll be back next week. L, C

Filed Under: Baby? OH BABY!, Life

Limbo

April 9, 2009 By

Well, the house is on the market. Now we get to wait and see what happens. Can you say INCREDIBLY STRESSFUL? I am by nature a messy person. There’s nothing I can do about it – it’s in the genes – but now I have to live on the edge. Anybody can call at any moment to see the house and it needs to be PERFECT. I’m trying really hard, but the truth is I feel like no one’s going to buy our place (not really any reason to think this – except maybe the economy and something my realtor said: when you’re done with a place, you don’t think anyone else is going to want it either) and that no one’s going to come see it and yet I STILL have to live like anyone could walk in at any minute. It’s a weird feeling.

Also weird is the fact that when we leave here this summer (fingers crossed we sell the place!!!) we will have lived in our building for EIGHTEEN YEARS! Can you believe it? That means that G and I have lived together for eighteen years. I only lived with my parents for seventeen years. Weird might not be the right word. Surreal? I think about it and I don’t get sad or nostalgic really, just incredulous. It doesn’t feel like 18 years.

I am getting nervous about the move. Not the actual physical part of moving, but being a new part of an existing community. Will I fit in? Will people like me? Will there be knitters? (Actually, the neighboring town has at least THREE yarn stores. The town we’re moving to has almost NO commercial activity, so you have to go to the nearby towns for everything.) I must admit I’ve had fantasies about teaching all the local moms how to knit and hosting knitting days at my house. See? I’m going crazy.

I’m also trying to work through some stuff with the baby. Nothing wrong exactly, but I’m seriously thinking about having to wean her. Not because she wants it and not because I want it either but because we’d like to try to get pregnant again at the end of the summer and that means hormones that are not safe to take while breastfeeding. I’m incredibly torn – I don’t feel like it’s an option to wait on another baby (I will be 40 in January and if the frozen embryos we have don’t work, we could be looking at an even MORE difficult time conceiving) and I am also absolutely HEARTBROKEN about having to wean my baby girl. I’ve read a bunch of stuff and talked to my sister (who nursed three kids until each was two) and I’m going to start slow – trying to cut out nursing sessions during the day offering up lots of snacks and distractions and eventually, later, when it’s not as trying because we don’t nurse so much during the day, I’ll tackle the nights. I dread night weaning. Pure dread. I feel better now, though, because I thought I was going to have to start with nights and last night I tried not to nurse her once, at around 2AM and it was a DISASTER. So day weaning for now – or cutting out sessions that are just habit – and the really hard stuff later on. Still, though, it’s been really sad for me even just thinking about it. We’ve been so fortunate to have had a fantastic time nursing – it means so much to our whole family – G included – that to end it feels so terribly sad.

I’ll ask you this – please be kind in the comments. I’m in a fragile state as it is. Thank you for your support. It’s really great that I have this place to come to and vent. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it.

PS – Thanks to everyone who voted for Gale. She made it into the top 20 which means she’s into the final round. Now it’s up to the powers that be. GO GALE!

Filed Under: Baby? OH BABY!, Life

Lost

March 24, 2009 By

All my yarn, except a couple of socks and the sweater I have on the needles, is in storage. And my house STILL isn’t listed yet. Before the weekend if it kills me.

I just want my life back.

Filed Under: Life

Rejuvenation

February 10, 2009 By

Meli and I were out for an hour and a half today – on a WALK! I can’t tell you the last time we took a walk – something we were doing just about every day for the first six months or so of her life. And here she is FOUR WEEKS from her FIRST BIRTHDAY!!!! (Sorry for the caps – but MAN! MY BABY is going to be ONE!)

It was overcast and probably not as warm as I pretended it was but we were outside and I feel like a new person! In the past, when she was a wee one, I sometimes had trouble on walks because she couldn’t fall asleep and was cranky and crying and there were many times I carried her home in one hand while pushing the stroller in the other. Today was like the total opposite. She was riveted! SQUIRRELS?! Who knew? And WATER! And CARS! It was absolutely amazing to see her little face peering out behind the canopy excited by everything and anything. Made the walk super fun and we even stopped off at the playground for her first swing! She protested a bit when I first fit her in, but when I pushed it she was like WHOA! What’s this? I can get on board with this! She didn’t laugh but she had a big smile on her face.

This past month – actually six weeks – has been really hard. We’ve been sick – all three of us – more than we’ve been well and that’s trying in the best of times. I knew my baby girl flipped my world but now I find myself hating winter. Longing for summer. Never in a million years would I think that would be the case but it’s true. Being cooped up in the house with a baby in freezing temps is not a lot of fun. Maybe even crazy inducing. At least for me. Your mileage may vary.

I think I’ve been feeling really isolated this winter. I don’t have any friends who have small children or even friends that are close by and my parenting forays haven’t yielded play dates – for adults or kids. I think we’re still a bit young for that right now. It’s okay. I’m getting through and being outside helped SO MUCH today. And every day we’ll get closer to SPRING! when we can be outside all the time.

I also think my experiment last month blogging on a daily-ish basis was a bust. It felt a bit forced to me – although the fact that I was sick a lot of the time may have contributed to that – and it wasn’t easy the way it’s been in the past. I’m sure it wasn’t that successful for you as well – in fact one of you so generously let me know that they were giving up on my whiny foul-mouthed self. Apparently I suck as a mother – compared to their successes, whine free, of course – and should just keep my complaining mouth shut. Yeah. I pretty much stopped blogging when that little beauty came in.

I know that I shouldn’t take these things seriously. It’s not like I haven’t had bad comments before – that’s the nature of the internet and blogging. But why do the bad ones always hurt so much more than the good comments feel good? Maybe I do whine too much. Maybe I complain all the time. Maybe I do suck as a mom.

Now, before you flood my inbox, I know that’s not true. My daughter is beautiful and happy and healthy and curious and I love her more than I could have ever imagined. I’d like to think that some of that is a directly affected by my parenting. We choose to have me stay home with our girl. It’s hard a lot of the time. Parenthood is hard a lot of the time whether you work outside the home or not. Whether you’re a single parent or not. Whether whatever. Just because I come here and talk about not feeling well and lash out a bit doesn’t mean I’m miserable. It means I have a blog and I get personal sometimes – a lot of times – and well, you can take it or leave it.

The day to day tediousness of parenting an almost toddler (my eyes need to be ON HER EVERY SECOND!) are supposed to make you a bit batty. Not to long ago I said to my guru in all things that I didn’t understand why I felt like bursting into tears when I’m the happiest I’ve ever been. She said you’re stuck home with a baby. You’re supposed to feel like crying. That and the fact that I’m exhausted. Exhaustion really fucks with your mind.

There are so many things to look forward to and I do spend a lot of my time looking forward. Every day we practice “Happy Birthday To You!” (replete with the hooray at the end and trying to blow out candles – pfew, pfew!) We sing songs and take classes and practice pushing the stroller. We kiss and hug and play and cry and our lives are perfectly imperfectly perfect. If I ever gave you the impression that all I do is complain, well, then I’m sorry. I’ve left out all the best parts.

Surprisingly, even with all the sickness, I’ve actually managed to knit the entire body of my new shawl collar sweater – back, fronts, and I even seamed the shoulders together (three needle bind off to be honest.) I’ve also started two new pairs of socks (because, you know, I don’t have seven others on the needles already.) I will get to knitting again soon – before I finish the sweater – I promise.

In the meantime, I’m going to go back to snuggling my daughter. I started this entry hours ago, when she was napping after our walk and now it’s late and my eyes are struggling to stay open. She’s breathing deeply by my side, smelling a little sleep sweaty, her hand buried deep under my back – always touching, never not touching – and I just want to kiss her until she wakes up. I pray for her to sleep and inevitably I miss her when she does.

I’m going to dream about our walk tomorrow. Maybe we’ll see some ducks.

Thanks for reading. I always appreciate the audience.

Filed Under: Life

Poem for the Fourth Annual Brigid Poetry Reading

February 2, 2009 By

Thanks to Deb for the reminder.

After Making Love We Hear Footsteps

For I can snore like a bullhorn
or play loud music
or sit up talking with any reasonably sober Irishman
and Fergus will only sink deeper
into his dreamless sleep, which goes by all in one flash,
but let there be that heavy breathing
or a stifled come-cry anywhere in the house
and he will wrench himself awake
and make for it on the run — as now, we lie together,
after making love, quiet, touching along the length of our bodies,
familiar touch of the long-married,
and he appears — in his baseball pajamas, it happens,
the neck opening so small he has to screw them on —
and flops down between us and hugs us and snuggles himself to sleep,
his face gleaming with satisfaction at being this very child.
In the half darkness we look at each other
and smile
and touch arms across this little, startlingly muscled body —
this one whom habit of memory propels to the ground of his making,
sleeper only the mortal sounds can sing awake,
this blessing love gives again into our arms.

Galway Kinnell
1980, 1993

For more information about the Annual Brigid Poetry Reading, go here.

Filed Under: Blog, Life

Sick…AGAIN!

January 30, 2009 By

I’m living in a freaking petri dish. Yesterday, at the doctor’s office, he was positively gleeful when talking about new parents and their illnesses. He even had the gall to say to me see you next week.

This week it’s fever and a cough which overnight turned into a cold. (It came on exactly two weeks after I spent twenty-four hours puking.) I feel gross. So far no one else has it and I totally blame the little girl in our music class who wouldn’t stop sitting in my lap earlier this week. Actually, I don’t blame her, I blame her freaking mother. The little girl (no more than 2 – probably more like 18 months) was obviously attracted by the baby, but she wouldn’t stay away from us. She kept trying to sit in my lap, whereby sitting ON Meli and I kept trying to deflect without seeming mean. And she must have sneezed on us a million times. I totally threw myself in front of the sneezes as much as I could. After class I wiped Meli down in hopes of sparing her.

Where was the girl’s mother you ask? On the other side of the room. Sure, once or twice she came over to collect her daughter, but mostly she just let her roam. I’m all for the kids walking around and dancing and socializing – it’s encouraged and expected. But when you see your kid bordering on harassment – and in the case of my baby – possibly doing harm – GET OFF YOUR ASS AND DO SOMETHING. If your little girl’s not going to sit down (which is FINE) then it’s your responsibility to get up and walk WITH HER.

In other news, slowly I’ve managed to knit enough on my sweater where it’s time to split for the back and the fronts. Not sure how that happened. Guess those at least two rows a day turned into lots. Last night I took out the pattern and remeasured my swatch and it’s not as perfect as it was the first time, but I’m going to ignore that. Also the idea that I had to do math made my fever come back and my head ache even more. I hate math.

One of these days I’ll take a picture. Right now I just want to feel better.

Filed Under: Life

Queen of the Supermarket

January 27, 2009 By

Today is a very bittersweet day. Bruce dropped a new one. I love this song and really like this song and I’m still feeling out the rest of the album. It’s hard when you alternate between kid’s stuff. Lately the kid’s stuff has been taking over the car. Meli has a hard time transitioning (from my arms to the stroller, from the stroller to the car seat, from the car seat to the stroller, etc.) When I put her CD on from our music class she instantly calms down.

And Bruce is on tour. Excellent. The last concert we saw was so fucking fantastic I still dream about it.

Anyway, I finally had a few minutes to get on the computer and I see that John Updike has died. I can’t tell you how sad this makes me. Harry Angstrom may be my greatest literary crush and I will always remember the summer I read all four Rabbit books with great fondness. (Rabbit, Run and Rabbit at Rest are my faves.) It will always make me a little bit sad that I can’t read them again for the first time. You know what I mean? I always looked forward to Updike’s inevitable next book – no matter how crappy it might be. Anyone who could write Rabbit could write another masterpiece, no? So I’m sad.

I’m also knitting. A lot. I’ve done very well with my sweater and I started a sock. My goals now include at least two rows on the sweater and at least one repeat on the sock. I hope to have pictures soon. Meli has begun crawling at warp speed and everything has become that much more difficult. I’m so tired, but I’m feeling okay.

Filed Under: Bruce, Life

Change Over

January 20, 2009 By

Today is a brand new day and I’m going to do my best to be positive. So far, I’ve had a little trouble, but I’m hoping to be struck by inspiration in a couple of hours.

Today is also the perfect day for the Shehecheyanu:

Ba-ruch A-tah Ado-noy Elo-heinu Me-lech Ha-olom She-he-che-yanu Ve-kee-ya-manu Ve-hi-gee-ya-nu Liz-man Ha-zeh

Blessed are You, our God, Creator of time and space,
who has supported us, protected us, and brought us to this moment.

May today bring inspiration and hope and a more positive outlook for all of us.

Filed Under: Life

Blue Monday

January 19, 2009 By

I read this and was like, huh. It all makes sense now.

Meli and I arrived home yesterday and apparently brought the plague with us, as G took ill last night. So none of the fun things we were going to do today got done. We did go to music class, and that was good, but Daddy couldn’t come with us. And my errands were pretty much a bust. Not to mention there was a fender bender literally every two miles.

I’m in a rotten mood, but I’m home. And I’m not leaving. I might even knit a little bit.

Hope your day is better.

Filed Under: Life

Ugh 3.0

January 16, 2009 By

Spoke to soon. The day got worse – much worse. A couple of hours after I posted my head was in the bowl and I puked for the greater part of the night. Really I jinxed myself because my sister and I were talking about my having another baby and I told her that I almost wished I would be sick like the last time because I barely gained any weight and it all came right off. She told me to be careful what I wish for.

I don’t know how I got through nine months of that. So gross.

The worst is that my littlest nephew woke up with the same thing this morning. It’s been ginger ale, cartoons and the sofa all day for us. Thankfully my sister and my mom are helping out with the baby.

Be back when I feel human again.

Filed Under: Life
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