girlfiend

is this thing on?

2011-08-19T15:01:00.003-04:00

I have stage fright about posting on the other site right now since it's been so damn long. I don't know if I have anything to talk about, but I really need to get back in the habit of writing before i forget how. I feel like motherhood has sucked everything interesting out of me and I call I can talk about is diapers and car seats. I don't want to write about the kids, but I also don't want to forget about the details, how awesome they are right now. Even when they are not awesome.

so i don't know. Maybe I'll try this for a while until I get it all going again.

I am not nice

2009-05-26T15:33:00.003-04:00

More proof that I am a terrible, mean-spirited person:

My SIL was scheduled for a C-section because her baby was breech. About 6 or 7 weeks ago she told me the news, quite depressed because she did not want a surgical birth. I asked a friend who had successfully turned a breech baby for some info and forwarded it to my SIL along with with a few other recommendations for non-invasive ways to turn a baby. I am aware that not everything works. Some babies turn and others don't. But I thought she'd rather try to turn the baby naturally than have major abdominal surgery. My SIL decided that taking a prenatal yoga class, seeing a chiropractor, or doing handstands in a pool was too much work. And of course her OB, who is a surgeon and gets paid more for surgical procedures, told her it probably wouldn't work anyway. So she did nothing and scheduled the surgery.

She had the baby this morning. Now she's in a lot of pain. 8 hours after the surgery she was still in the recovery room, not yet on the regular floor. She needed an IV drip of pain meds because the pills they gave her weren't working. My first thought was that she should have done the goddamn handstands.

bitter and petty

2009-05-25T22:06:00.001-04:00

I am now going to be bitter and petty for a bit.

First of all, T had croup over the weekend. It was a mild case, and he's fine now, but we were at my mom's until yesterday and I haven't had a decent night's sleep since Thursday.

My SIL is having her baby tomorrow morning. Yesterday I asked B what time we were scheduled to go over there today for her farewell visit. He didn't know what I was talking about. I assumed that because she is who she is she would have summoned her family for a last meal before the big day. Sure enough, this morning we get a call from B's brother Mike inviting us to lunch at her house. Why he invited us, and not his sister or her husband I didn't know, but it came from him.

The Memorial Day parade goes past our house and BIL came over to watch. He had been at SIL's and his wife and daughter were still over there. He told us that his parents weren't there yet and that they needed B to help them finish some flooring they're putting in in the breakfast room but that SIL didn't want the kids there because T had been sick and she doesn't want to be around them because she's having surgery tomorrow.

So basically she uninvited me. The whole family is gathering for lunch, and even though B (with his runny nose and itchy throat) is just as contagious as the kids and I are, he's invited and I have to stay home with the kids.

I was livid. It's just so typical of her to inconvenience and exclude me (I don't know if you remember the wedding stuff from last year, when I was completely excluded from family pictures until an hour before I needed to be there, but it was infuriating and just one of many inconvenient, exclusionary things.) I don't even think it's intentional, she's just so goddamned self-centered it doesn't occur to her that perhaps I might want to spend time with my husband on Memorial day and not lose him to the floors that they should have started months ago, not in the middle of last week. If we're not invited we should all be uninvited, not just me.

And on top of it, she's having her baby tomorrow. And of course that means we have to go to the hospital to see her. Even though we're still contagious. She'll be mad if we don't.

Back to the bitter and petty, last year right around this time she wasn't even speaking to us! She blatantly ignored us for a week after T was born because in our sleep deprived haze we were surprised her husband would give up practicing as a PA at a great hospital with great benefits to teach in a brand new PA program with terrible benefits. They didn't talk to us for a week and we didn't even know why. We just knew we asked for an hour of her time and she said no because she was going to be drinking coffee with her mother. And the next day she'd be drinking Manhattans with her mother. So even though F was breaking down completely and I was knee deep in newborn haze, she couldn't be bothered to even tell us what made her mad. And her parents were so busy making meatballs for her stupid wedding shower that they didn't call us for a week either. B's parents! My children's grandparents. People who I thought I could depend on completely abandoned us when we needed them most.

And today I was uninvited to her house but she needed my contagious husband so he was okay to be there. Of course he offered to stay home with me, but then I look like an asshole for saying no, you can't go help them the day before she has a baby.

test

2007-09-18T19:39:00.001-04:00

test

Full Disclosure

2007-01-19T19:41:00.000-05:00

I guess it's really not full disclosure, since I'm not actually posting this on my regular everyday blog, but because I'm sick of caring, here it is. Boom, I read your blog. I found it shortly after you changed the url and your user name so I wouldn't find it. It took about 20 minutes of googling one night. I couldn't help myself. Your IP address isn't a number, it's the name of your place of employment. It drove me crazy that you, who didn't want me reading yours, were still reading my blog regularly so I read yours. When your IP disappeared from my stats I stopped reading, but when it showed up the other day I checked in and saw that you'd written about us again.

You write that I thought you were going after him because you called me crazy. Wrong. I thought you were going after him because you'd been sending him emails about what could have been for years. (I wrote about it in depth here. )You were constantly questioning why you hadn't given in to your feelings. You called him your soulmate on your blog. You wrote to him, "despite being in love with other men at other times, it's always been you. For my entire adult life, it's been you."

Say what you will, I don't believe that you weren't going after him. Sure, hindsight is 20/20 and you were in love with an ideal, but at the time? You wanted him. He and I were broken up and you had no idea that we were working on our relationship. It wasn't your fault, but still, let's be honest. Even with your live-in boyfriend, you were after him.Your words, (not his, not mine) clearly state that you wanted him. He may have flirted with you and made you feel good but he did not pursue you the way you pursued him.

I'm sorry your friendship with him was ruined. The whole thing could have been avoided if just once, rather than meeting solo for drinks the two have you could have invited your significant others along. Instead you (plural) made your relationship private, secret. If he was such a good friend I'd think that you'd have wanted to meet his girlfriend of five years.

I know that Boyfiend was never honest with me about your relationship just as he was never honest with you about ours. I'm sure that what I envision and the truth are far removed. Of course he complained to you about me. You were his outlet, just as I have friends that I complain to about him. It doesn't matter Boom. We're happy and we're married. No matter what you might think, no matter what I may write about on my blog (because remember, I'm telling stories when I write and the happy ones are generally the boring ones) we are happy with our lives together.

And because I'm directly addressing the issue here, yes, occasionally I look people up on myspace. I misread a page and typed in an email address, your friend's, thinking it was a search. It was, embarrassingly an invitation. I'm not a stalker, I was just curious, the same way I look up people from high school and college, the same way people look up my page. That's all.

So please stop reading my site from work. I'd rather not know when you do. At least read it from home so I don't recognize the IP. I don't want to have to think about this anymore. I don't want to think about you any more. It's over.

Moving

2006-11-04T13:00:00.000-05:00

Go say hi to the new, not-quite-the-way-I-want-it-but-better-than-nothing girl-fiend.com and update your bookmarks. New content coming sometime. I swear. See you there.

All done

2006-10-06T09:59:00.000-04:00

Hi. I took some advice from Oz and Sarah and S. and moved everything to wordpress. You were right. The import process was very easy.

I will probably move everything to the domain I bought (almost 2 years ago now) in the next week or two, but hopefully that will be a smooth transition without stupid spam robots attacking me. http://girlfiend.wordpress.com/

only slightly more irritating than comment spam- update

2006-10-04T09:50:00.000-04:00

Maybe it's a flaw in the template? Switching back to see, since stupid blogger hasn't yet responded to my help request. At least the titles of the posts are amusing. Cash register psycho, indeed.

Motherfucker, they've done it again. Obviously the template has nothing to do with it.

In case you've missed it, they just posted some sports article from y@hoo news. They. Who the hell are they and why are they targeting me?

I don't know what to do.

Pesto

2006-10-02T20:56:00.000-04:00

Boyfiend's father gave us an entire basil plant uprooted from his garden in a bucket on Thursday. After days of staring at it, hoping it would take care of itself I sucked it up, submitted to the mosquitos and sat on the porch and picked off all of the leaves that hadn't wilted over the weekend. I had about eighteen loosely packed cups of basil leaves so last night I made nine batches of pesto. It filled four jars and a 3.5 cup rubbermaid container. Today while weeding our long neglected (though not as neglected as Boyfiend's blog) garden ( at last count I filled four contractor size garbage bags) I reeked of garlic.

Last night, after a late dinner of pasta, bread and (duh) pesto I nursed the Fiendling to sleep. The minute he hit the crib he woke up screaming. This went on and on for hours before frustrated I said to Boyfiend, "Just put him in the crib. I'll get him in 15 minutes if he's still crying." Boyfiend fell asleep immediately while I listened to the wailing. After five minutes it stopped. Then it started again. At the 15 minute mark it stopped again. And stayed stopped. I went in. He was asleep on his tummy, thumb firmly inserted in mouth. He slept for seven hours. Right now I'm watching TV pretending I can't hear him wailing in the next room. If it doesn't stop in nine minutes I'm going in to get him, but I hope he falls asleep again.

Speaking of the Fiendling, I'm not kidding about the crawling. He's fast when he wants to be, especially if cats, phones, remote controls or wires are involved. Today, out of nowhere he figured out how to sit up by himself. He's been sitting unsupported for more than a month, but today he pushed up from his belly to sitting all by himself several times and that's the beginning of the end. My life of leisure is officially over.

Five more minutes until I go get him.

One more minute. How do people do this? The shrieking is heartbreaking.

Time.

Shout out

2006-10-02T11:08:00.000-04:00

Boyfiend, aka Frank, just posted something about sailing to his long neglected blog and asked shamelessly for a shout out.

shorn

2006-09-30T20:35:00.000-04:00

before

after

and one more

One more

2006-09-30T14:09:00.000-04:00

If I get hacked again I think I'm going to have to move. Add this, my never been posted to vox blog to your bookmarks just in case.

ugh

2006-09-30T00:22:00.000-04:00

In the hopes that someone at blogger will have some advice, I'm going to leave the post below where it is for the time being.

bleh

2006-09-29T10:37:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I was all cocky about being well-rested. Today not so much. I went to the podiatrist last night for a plantars wart that's been on my foot for years. I only realized it was a wart, not a callous of some sort, a year ago when Boyfiend's brother pointed to my foot and said, "You have a plantars wart. I get them all the time." He was obviously relieved that he was not the only one, but he sort of made me feel bad about it. Ever since then I've been nervous about pedicures because I don't want people to look at my foot and be grossed out.

I tried over the counter stuff which didn't work then went to the doctor who told me to use over the counter stuff and gave me the number of a podiatrist just in case. The over the counter stuff, used for the past 4 months, did not work, so off to the podiatrist I went.

My mother-in-law was watching the Fiendling. Horrified by the state of my rash she said I should ask the podiatrist to give me medication for it. I didn't think he would, but by the time I got to the office my arm had begun to ooze from the blisters. I was not prepared for this side effect. The poor nurse took my blood pressure from the oozing arm while I held a tissue to it. The podiatrist treated my foot and I asked, "Um, I know you're not the right kind of doctor for this, but, um, is there anything you can give me for this poison ivy?" He said, "No, but I'll give you a Medral pack for your feet." wink wink.

So I'm on steroids. And some kind of hard core topical ointment. My sister-in-law and her boyfriend tell me the steroids should have made me feel better immediately. High, even. But they've not yet had that effect. And I'm still itchy, but not rip off my arms itchy, so that's a step up. But still, I couldn't sleep until after three last night. Each time I felt drowsy I was disturbed. First the Fiendling was snoring. Then Boyfiend was snoring so loudly he woke himself up a bunch of times. Then I was itchy. Then the cat was knocking on the door to come in. And now I'm tired. Very tired. But less itchy than before. And my foot hurts.

Huh

2006-09-29T10:29:00.000-04:00

Someone hacked into my blog. I just deleted two strange articles. One was not in English. One was about the War on Terror. I don't know where they came from. Seems okay now. Carry on.

Looking back

2006-09-28T12:20:00.000-04:00

In retrospect, this was not my first reaction to a plant containing urushiol. Last time I got a rash from a dog, and now that I think about it, I'm almost positive my only contact with poison whatever would have been from a dog I pet in the park, a dog who coincidentally was also named Fiendling, only not Fiendling, the Fiendling's actual name. So there you have it.

Still itchy

2006-09-28T11:00:00.000-04:00

I have a solution of 8% calamine and a solution of 14% calamine. The problem with the calamine is that it rubs off. All over the baby.I learned the hard way that it's best to nurse him before applying the lotion. I fear his pajamas will be stained sickly pink forever.

Yesterday, while the Fiendling napped FOR THREE HOURS!! I found that my newest neurotic cleaning obsession (scrubbing the kitchen floor on hands and knee with a bucket of hot water and pine sol) was also a bit of a relief. I wonder if it's the pine cleaner or the hot water or a combination. Or maybe it's just that it took my mind off the itching, because I didn't itch at yoga either.

Today on a trip to my favorite superstore I'll pick up some Aveen0 or oatmeal and perhaps the Fiendling will nap and allow me to take a bath later this afternoon before I go to the podiatrist. (Because my doctor's appointments, like my illnesses are nothing but ill-timed. I mean, seriously, couldn't I have gotten poison ivy when I had a dermatologist appointment scheduled?)

The good news is that the Fiendling slept all night. He went to bed late, around 11.30, but he didn't wake to eat until close to 7, then went back to sleep until close to 10. I may be itchy, but I'm well-rested and itchy and I'm grateful for that.

Even when he hasn't been sleeping (I scrubbed the kitchen, mopped the downstairs, vacuumed upstairs and did three loads of laundry during his nap yesterday), he has been delightful these past few days, talkative and smily and laughing for no reason. He's not officially crawling yet, but he's so close it's ridiculous. It's amazing to get glimpses of the little boy he'll become. Fiendling's playing so intently right now, rearranging his toys, eating Big Bird's beak in his pop-up book, moving in circles, that it's hard to remember when he was just this lump who didn't do much of anything. I remember when playing meant lying on his back and staring. I remember when he added flailing to the mix, as a precursor to grabbing. He's so big now. He'll be talking back in no time.

For those of you who've had it (Lori), how long does poison ivy take to go away? When do the blisters disappear and how long until the itching stops? Will it be this bad for two whole weeks?

Itchy and scratchy

2006-09-27T08:49:00.000-04:00

If you never hear from me again it may be because I've ripped my arms off and can no longer type.

Those bites from yesterday? Poison. Poison ivy, oak or sumac to be less than exact. At three in the morning, when the itching was so unbearable I went downstairs to rub vinegar on my arms because the hydrocortisone cream wasn't working, it occurred to me that health/bodywise I just can't get a break. Now I smell like a salad and just want to scratch my arms off. I've even been fantasizing about how I'd adjust to motherhood sans arms.

When does the itching stop? Who knows home remedies that work? Anyone?

bites

2006-09-26T10:17:00.000-04:00

Last night something got me and it got me good. My arm has two enormous welts around the elbow. Spider bites, perhaps? Either way, it's so itchy it hurts and the hydrocortisone cream isn't helping.

The Fiendling is lying on his tummy babbling to himself and the carpet. He's taking a break from his crawling practice. These days he's moving forward efficiently when something he wants- cell phone, cordless phone, remote control, shoe, water bottle, laptop- is in sight. He gets up on his hands and knees, lunges forward, collapses to his belly, then rises up and and lunges again. He's surprisingly quick when he wants something. We go to the playground every day where he watches the other kids move. Most kids there are walking, but some are still so new at walking that they crawl. The Fiendling stops and watches, putting it all together.

My hope is that it's the crawling that's making it so hard for him to sleep and that he'll figure it out soon and sleep again. Aside from the other night when he didn't perform his function as an oven timer he's been waking in screams hourly unless he's in bed with us. So he's been sleeping with us, waking me every hour by whimpers that would turn into screams if I wasn't there to soothe him immediately. It's really taking its toll on me. He was such a good sleeper for so long and now it's so exhausting. Maybe it's another tooth that's taking its time?

For those of you who asked, Rosh Hashanah was great. My family visited in two shifts. The first shift in the afternoon was Aunt Bea, cousin Paul and his wife Sarah. They stayed for a little more than an hour and were delighted by my little Fiendling. When they left, we still had several hours before our dinner guests arrived so we had a few drinks on the porch before I began fixing dinner. Aside from my parents and cousin Meg, all of our guests were friends so the night was enjoyable, not at all stressfull.

This was my second large dinner party. We served ten adults and one Fiendling and there was plenty of food. We started with matzoh ball soup, which I nearly screwed up. Traditionally the matzoh balls are served in chicken soup. On Friday, three hours into simmering, I discovered I'd inadvertently made turkey soup. After straining it over and over again using an entire package of cheesecloth and several coffee filters I decided to serve it anyway and no one seemed to notice the difference. Mix gave me the recipe for his salad, which is hands down the best salad I've ever eaten. The brisket was perfect, despite the extended cooking time, and the honey baked chicken was good, though I'm glad I listened to the reviews and altered the recipe. Junkiegirl brought a spinach potato kugel, Ellen brought Challah, and for dessert we had the apple cake I baked, macaroons, chocolate covered strawberries and fresh fruit.

The new year is looking good.

Pizza the night before Rosh Hashanah

2006-09-25T10:01:00.000-04:00

Every season we get a coupon book in the mail filled with advertisements and small discounts for local businesses. They come pretty regularly as we were lamenting the fact that we'd hardly used any of the coupons this summer and they were days away from being expired just the day before the new one arrived. Most businesses are pretty straightforward about the coupons, offering a dollar off or 10% your total order, but other businesses are a bit shady in their offerings. For example a local tree service offers $100 off tree removal or 10% pruning, but you must present your coupon before they give the estimate. I wonder how much they jack up the prices if you have a coupon.

Anyway, on Thursday I had a doctor's appointment in the morning, I shopped for Rosh Hashanah dinner, cooked the first of two briskets, had a small lunch with the Fiendling and my mother-in-law (who babysat while I went to the doctor and stayed to visit), went to a yoga class, visited with my mom for a bit, then came home to have dinner with Boyfiend who'd gotten home late from an inservice after work. We decided to order a pizza while I cooked brisket number two. I browsed the coupon book and decided to order from a new place.

About 30 minutes later our pizza arrived. Boyfiend paid while I got the brisket into the oven. I felt a bit harried and rushed as I sat to dinner around 9p.m. and, realizing I hadn't eaten much since my half a sandwich lunch, took a huge bite. It was fine, greasy, but pretty good. After years of Greek style pizza in Fairmount moving to Roxborough where Italian style pizza is the norm was a pleasure. Boyfiend said something about the box and I nodded thinking that it had an interesting design. As I finished my first slice, something caught my eye.

Huh. "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith- and this not from yourselves... Ephesians". Interesting. Then I looked at the the top of the box. The design that I'd thought was so interesting was, well. Have a look for yourself.

The pizza box not only presents us with valuable information it tells us the order in which we should read it. The first section, truths for life, concludes by telling us to receive Christ and be saved. Um, okay. Section two tells us how to receive Christ and leads us to section three, a sample prayer. "Dear Lord Jesus, I know I am a sinner. I believe you died for my sins. Yada, yada, yada..."

The more I examined the pizza box, the more offended I became and the more I lost my appetite. Another side of the box offered more concrete suggestions for how to be saved, including reading the bible, talking to God in prayer, and my personal favorite, "Tell others about Christ." My pizza box was proselytizing. If I'd known I was in for a conversion attempt I would've refused delivery.

Later I went to my local message board and asked if anyone else noticed anything funny about the pizza box at this particular restaurant. No one seemed to know what I was talking about, but I was told about the rats, bugs and nearly inedible wings. The restaurant loves Jesus and rats. Good to know. Boyfiend suggested I should join the social committee of a nearby Synagogue and order the pizzas for an event just to see what kind of hijinks would ensue. Hijinks or not, I don't want to give them my money. If I wanted religion with my pizza I'd stick with subtlety of Shalom pizza's kosher, meat-free environment. I'm going to go out on a limb here, and risk offending some readers. Proselytizing Christians are nuts.

Comments

2006-09-24T22:47:00.000-04:00

What do you do about comments on your blogs? I know Fraulein N responds to comments in her comment section proper. Others respond directly, via email. Others don't respond at all. I generally have a non-response policy, unless it's a direct question. Sometimes, depending on the nature of a comment and if the commenter leaves an email address, I may respond directly through email, and I have on occasion responded by leaving a comment on my blog.

What's your preference? As a reader, do you check back to see if there's a response to your comment? Do you like to be directly engaged? As a writer do you email commenters individually? Just curious. Sometimes I feel like I should be, I don't know, friendlier?

Happy New Year

2006-09-22T10:31:00.000-04:00

I started cooking for the Rosh Hashana dinner I'm making. I baked an apple cake on Wednesday and yesterday I made a brisket. Later in the day I realized that the brisket was kind of small, so even though I'm making chicken, Boyfiend went out and picked up another. I figured I'd start it last night and finish it today so I'll have to do tomorrow is heat it up, sliced, in the gravy.

Today I have to make chicken stock and the chicken because I can't actually cook anything tomorrow. Instead of coming to dinner, my cousin Paul, his wife Sarah, and crazy Aunt Bea are coming to visit around lunchtime which means I'll probably have to pick up some food for them too. Some of you may recall that my family's crazy dysfunctional. Because of their lunacy, when I called Aunt Bea to invite her to Rosh Hashanah dinner she told me that I'd called too late, she already had plans. Boyfiend responded, "Plans more important then her family?" Later, when I called Paul to invite him, Sarah answered the phone and responded to my invitation by informing me that they'd be in Philadelphia, only they'd be having dinner at Bea's house. I should have known she was lying and just didn't want to tell me she was having dinner and I wasn't invited.

So now I know and they're coming to visit in the afternoon to see the Fiendling. If Bea joins them, which I'm assuming she will, it will be awkward because I'm pissed that she lied for no reason, but I'm sure it would be slightly stilted and awkward anyway, because Paul's still furious with my mother, who's still furious with him. My mother was planning to come over earlier on Saturday to help me get stuff together, but that's not an option since their paths cannot cross. Their visit will be short and uncomfortable, but they haven't seen the Fiendling since he was two weeks old so I'm going to deal with it. What a hassle.

Back to the brisket. I put it in around eight last night and it needed to cook for about five hours at 325. When we went to bed I figured I'd just turn down the heat and turn it off when the Fiendling inevitably woke me up two hours later. I turned the heat down to 225, and threw in a Coors Light no one's ever going to drink for extra moisture. Well, as luck would have it, the Fiendling actually slept through the night. I woke him up at seven this morning to eat because I needed the relief. Then, forgetting about the brisket entirely we went back to sleep. When I woke up at nine the brisket smelled delicious and I realized what I'd done. I ran downstairs, flung open the oven door, grabbed the pan and ripped off the foil. Surprisingly, it was still there, and not looking too bad. The gravy is perfect. It's cooling now, so in a few hours I'll slice it and see how it tastes. Tomorrow I'm just going to throw it in the gravy anyway. How bad could it be?

If you're coming for dinner tomorrow pretend that you haven't read this. Or eat the chicken.

Brisket

5-6 pound brisket
4 onions
4 potatoes (optional)
1/2 pound of baby carrots (optional)
large can beef broth
2 cups of red wine
2 tablespoons tomato paste
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
4 cloves garlic
salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 325. While heating a large pan on the stove, salt and pepper both sides of the brisket. When the pan is hot, add the oil. After the oil is heated, sear the brisket for a few minutes on each side. While the brisket sears, chop the onions and potatoes and place them with the carrots around the edges of a dutch oven large enough for the brisket, or a deep roasting pan. Leave a few pieces of onion in the middle and rest the brisket on the onions in the middle. Mix the liquid ingredients together and pour over the brisket. Cover tightly and roast for 4 to 5 hours (NOT OVERNIGHT), adding more liquid if necessary.

Remove the brisket when the edges fall away easily when prodded with a fork. Wrap the meat in foil and let it cool completely. Set aside the onions, potatoes and carrots. Leave the gravy in the pan, or if letting the brisket cool overnight, refrigerate. When the brisket has cooled, slice on an angle against the grain. Add three cups of water to the gravy and heat until hot. Pour over the sliced brisket and vegetables in an ovenproof pan and cook for 30 minutes.

misogynists

2006-09-21T16:21:00.000-04:00

Products like this make me want to scream. Why are they creating yet another product specifically to make women feel worse about themselves. Aside from the fact that attaching an individually wrapped wipe to an individually wrapped pad is wasteful, it's insulting. Even if this was created by women, it's only because society tries to convince us we're all a bunch of dirty, filthy whores.

Aren't I in a good mood today?

Miserable

2006-09-21T08:50:00.000-04:00

I haven't had a good night's sleep in I don't know how long. When we stayed with Boyfiend's parents in Ocean City the Fiendling slept for 8 hours straight, but since then it's been two hours at a time again. I'm tempted, as always to just let him cry it out, but when it gets to the part where he's actually crying I can't take it and just cuddle him, nurse him or rock him back to sleep.

I'm avoiding the subject. Every year when Boyfiend goes back to work he gets stressed and depressed. This is normal. Most teachers do. But Boyfiend tends to fall into deep depressions that he refuses to acknowledge. This year's not as bad so far. He says his kids are easy, which is great. But he still has to get up at six every morning after an interrupted night's sleep, so when he gets home in the afternoon he's tired and cranky. So am I. There's too much to get done when the Fiendling naps so I don't sleep and the only time I spend without him is the time I spend at the gym.

The Fiendling has a wonderful temperament, but he's still a baby who doesn't take naps like the books say he's supposed to. Yesterday Boyfiend took his class on a field trip to the park near our house. I walked up to meet him there at 12.45. The Fiendling fell asleep in the stroller on the walk up, his first nap since getting up for the day at 8. Coincidentally, he was asleep when Boyfiend got home. He'd only fallen asleep after fussing for an hour, faceplanting on the floor while trying to crawl, crying then nursing. I should have taken a nap, but instead I baked a cake for Rosh Hashana dinner.

When Boyfiend walked in I was cleaning up from the cake. I asked him to finish the last few dishes while I changed the cat litter ( a chore he despises since they're not his cats anyway). He was obviously put out about it, but started to anyway and when the Fiendling woke up crying he went up to comfort him so I could keep cleaning up. I finished changing the litter, swept the laundry room floor, disinfected the countertops, finished the cake cleanup then scrubbed the kitchen floor on my hands and knees, and finished the laundry, folding only the items that would wrinkle if they sat for too long. I went upstairs and picked up toys and moved furniture a bit so I could vaccuum when I saw that it was time for me to leave for yoga. I asked Boyfiend to vacuum if he got a chance and to finish folding the laundry.

While I as out, he started to fold the laundry but got sidetracked by taking out the trash, emptying the dehumidifier and watering the plants so when I got home I vacuumed and finished folding the laundry. Then I made dinner. After dinner he gave the Fiendling a bath while I cleaned up then I nursed him to sleep while Boyfiend watched the Phillies. We relaxed for a bit- him watching baseball, me dating photos with the help of Picasa, and shortly after Boyfiend poured me a drink and logged into his laptop the Fiendling woke up. It was after 10.

I rocked him back to sleep and when I came back into the room Boyfiend had taken my seat, shut down his laptop and was using mine to trick Craigslist into letting him post the same ad in two different cities. I was annoyed that he'd moved into the spot I'd vacated only minutes before and told him so when the Fiendling awoke only a few minutes later he said something to the effect of 'it doesn't matter anyway because you have to take care of him' which annoyed me even more. I told him to finish my drink, which was getting watery anyway. The Fiendling wasn't going back to sleep this time, so I came back into the room with him and asked Boyfiend to get me fresh ice since I didn't want to make too much noise with the ice machine, but instead he gave me my watery drink back.

Small, boring details, I know. Boyfiend was all pissed off at me because I was annoyed about the laptop and decided to go to bed, or maybe I told him to go to bed, but I got out the yoga ball and tried to bounce the Fiendling back to sleep so I asked again if he wanted to finish my drink since I couldn't bounce and drink at the same time. Boyfiend said no and the Fiendling started bouncing with me so I turned on the TV and put him down on the floor to play for a while. Boyfiend said that I seemed annoyed so he'd take him to bed. I didn't know why he'd take a wide awake baby to bed. He said he could sleep through him fussing and moving so I said take him and I'd sleep upstairs. Then he said that he was going to take him so I could sleep in bed with him. I told him that was ridiculous because I can't sleep through him fussing and moving and I'd be awake anyway, so why would I go to sleep in there.

We bickered a bit more, then Boyfiend really started in on me, telling me that I make him miserable and always give him a list of things to do and he never does anything right and every day at work, which is bad enough already, he worries about what he's going to do to make me mad. Then he really pulled out the big guns and told me that soon enough I was going to make the Fiendling miserable too and he'd worry all the time about what he'd do to upset me. That made me angry and really hurt my feelings and I felt all wounded because I didn't even remember complaining about something he hadn't done and half the time when he thinks I'm He said he was going to bed. I yelled that I thought he was taking the Fiendling with him. He yelled at me for continuing to fight when he was trying to end it. He wanted me to apologize. I refused. He asked me to apologize and say goodnight again. I said goodnight, but I probably didn't apologize because I'm too stubborn when I'm mad. I went upstairs with the Fiendling.

A little while later he got out of bed and asked where I was. I told him upstairs. He asked why. I told him because if I was going to be exhausted and awake I'd rather be exhausted and awake in bed. He went to sleep. I didn't tell him that he'd hurt me deeply when he insinuated that I was a bad mother. I didn't tell him how sad I was that I make him miserable. I didn't tell him that I didn't think I deserved his outburst just because I acted huffy about the computer. I didn't tell him that I was sorry and tired and just wanted the Fiendling to go to sleep at a reasonable hour so we could be well rested and less likely to argue. Instead I stayed up until the Fiendling was still then went to sleep sad and lonely without my husband. I could have gone down and climbed into bed and put my arms around him and I wanted to, but I didn't.

When I woke up this morning and heard him moving around downstairs I wanted to say something but didn't. When I made it down to the kitchen and saw he'd put the coffee in a thermos for me, but didn't add sugar and milk like usual I was more sad than I thought I'd be. I should have just apologized.

I stopped writing about things like this a while back because a certain woman's (who's probably still obsessed with Boyfiend) IP address still shows up in my stats pretty regularly (like yesterday), but I need to know if this is normal. Do other people fight over nothing? Or were the anonymous assholes who told me I shouldn't get married right? I mean it's a fight, we'll get over it, but he told me that I make him miserable. I make him miserable. Every day, I make him miserable. Every day he worries about how I'm going to make him miserable that particular day. Maybe I just shouldn't speak any more.

Yet another post about my weight, so if this bores you as much as I think it does you can just stop now.

2006-09-19T10:26:00.000-04:00

The Fiendling still owns my body which becomes more and more clear the older he gets. He's big enough to tug at my shirt when he's hungry and tug he does. He knows where the milk is and he'll claw at my shirt to get to it and even squeeze to speed up the flow when he's hungry. When I started nursing I really didn't know just how much of a commitment it is- I completely belong to someone else. The solid foods are just practice. We're not replacing any nursing sessions with real food right now, so I don't have any more freedom now than I did six months ago. I'm still tied to a two hour schedule.

Yesterday I decided that I'm going to switch up my workout schedule. Rather than do 20-30 minutes of cardio and lift three days a week, and go to yoga once, sometimes twice a week if I'm lucky, I'm going to lift once a week and take a yoga or pilates class three days a week. I'm thinking there's really nothing I can do about the weight. It's going to come off, or not come off, but the more I do yoga the more my limbs shrink back to original size, and the lifting, while useful and in some ways enjoyable, doesn't have the same all-over effects.

Somehow I've managed to lose another four pounds since I last posted about my weight. I don't know what, if anything, I've done differently, but I imagine this is what they mean when they say that the weight just falls off when you breastfeed. Of course I still have 12 pounds to go before I'm officially down to my pre-baby weight, but I think that another 5 would probably be enough to get me into the jeans. And when I say into the jeans, I actually mean out of the house in the jeans, not actually in them because I fit into all of my pants now, I just look like a slightly pudgy, skanky teenage girl in them.

My legs and butt are small enough to get into my size 2s and even the occasional size 1 pants, but my top half is a joke. My stomach's flat again, though slightly wrinkly at the bottom, but trying to fit my breasts in any of my size small button-down shirts is a joke. Some won't even fit over my shoulders, I'm so broad these days. The ones that do get on my arms strain at the buttons and the fabric creases oddly in the middle of my chest creating a bizarre boob shelf. Even wearing them open they're too tight.

But I'm smaller, and the smaller I get, the more I stare. My body was unrecognizable for so long and now it's looking familiar, albeit heavier, once again and I can't stop looking at it. I think I'm looking for glimpses of what used to be. I look from different angles and in different reflective surfaces. It's incredibly vain, but it's all I have. When I see myself I remind me of what I once looked like and every day I look to see if I'm any thinner or prettier or less matronly.

Basically what I'm getting at is that in April, when I was hopeful and naive I wrote, "By September I'll be within 8 pounds of my pre-pregnancy weight and I'll fit into most of my pants. By next March I'll fit into all of my pants." I was idealistic, indeed, but only about 5 pounds off.

Weirdo

2006-09-18T22:33:00.000-04:00

I have become one of those weirdos who keeps threatening to eat the baby because he's just so goddamned cute and delicious.

Is it just me?

2006-09-18T09:51:00.000-04:00

While walking to the flea market at Gorgas Park

Me: It smells like Dunkin Donuts
Boyfiend: It smells like latex paint

We pass a painter's van and painters at work in the new construction.

Boyfiend: So what are the ingredients in Dunkin Donuts that make them smell like latex paint? Is it the ammonia?
Me: Shut up. It did smell like Dunkin Donuts.

Yoga

2006-09-15T10:24:00.000-04:00

I love yoga, but I love it for all of the superficial reasons, not for the spiritual, earthy reasons I'm supposed to. I love it because when I practice yoga regularly I get strong, my body gets toned, and I can do strange arm balances I never thought I'd ever be able to do. Because of my superficial love, it's odd that my favorite yoga instructor is one of the most spiritual instructors I've ever had. And she's really, really spiritual, not the fake kind of spiritual. When she Oms you know she means it and her readings are usually relevant, not trite. Sometimes it's all I can do not to roll my eyes.

She's one of the only reasons (besides my locked in $35 a month rate) that when I moved last summer I didn't switch gyms. When the Fiendling and I took Mommy and Me at a different yoga studio we went because she was the instructor. When I start to feel stronger and the Fiendling's less dependent upon me for food, I'd love to try getting to her hardcore Saturday morning class that supposed to be an hour and a half but usually stretches to two. She's that good.

Good or not, the first few times I took her class she annoyed the shit out of me with all of her loud, toxin-releasing sighs, irritating, crunchy metaphors, chants and stupid music but the more I practiced with her the more I began to appreciate her approach. She's one of the few instructors with whom I've practiced that has the ability to explore the dichotomies of yoga in all of her classes. Each class is incredibly challenging, yet I leave feeling calm and relaxed. Her voice, when I'm able to tone out the non-instructive yoga filler, is incredibly soothing, and her adjustments are sublime.

If you haven't taken many yoga classes, or have only taken "power yoga" type classes, you may not be familiar with crunchy, granola, spiritual yoga filler. The filler is the talk during the various postures, or asanas. For example in pigeon pose the instructor tells us to "let the earth support you." In virabhadrasana 1, or Warrior (I'm using the sanskrit names because she uses them in class I always wonder how the hell they're spelled), we're told to "shine your heart to the sun and shoot stardust from your fingertips." In tadasana we're supposed to be both grounded and uplifted. In ahdo mukha shvanasana or downdog we're encouraged to explore the pose, to pedal our feet and "wag our tails."

In many asanas we're instructed to use the bhandas, or body locks to strengthen the pose. Mulabhanda is the root lock. If you're pregnant or ever have been you might know this bhanda as a kegel. If you have no idea of what I'm talking about, mulabhanda is like when you try to stop the flow of urine when you pee.

So yesterday we were in downdog wagging our tails and she told us to tilt our pelvis downward and point our tailbones to the wall behind us while engaging mulabhanda to strenghten the pose. As we all made those minor adjustments she told us, "As you engage your mulabhanda, visualize a flashlight shining from our perineum. Imagine the light shining up your spine and out through the top of the head, a beacon of light, shining above. " Huh?

Dude. She lost me a perineum. All I could imagine was a room full of people in downdog, asses in the air, with flashlights sticking out of them. How is that image inspiring? It took me several rounds of sun salutations before I could stop chuckling to myself. A fucking flashlight in my ass. I love yoga.

Three things

2006-09-14T15:46:00.000-04:00

1. New template, courtesy of Miss Zoot

2. A woman had a 14 pound, 13 ounce baby. Holy shit. The woman must come from some hearty stock. She previously had 8.5 pound twins. Not 8 pounds combined, like most people- 8.5 pounds apiece.

3. Because my immune system's shot, I am now the proud host of a common cold. The fever's gone, the infection's better, but my nose won't stop running. Bleh. I knew this kid Matt in 9th grade who for reasons I can't fathom used to put me on the phone with his mom. During one of my bizarre conversations with Matt's mom she noticed I was a bit sniffly. She must have been a real lover of alliteration because she called me a flamboyant flaming phlegmball. That's how I feel right now.

We're a mess over here

2006-09-13T11:04:00.000-04:00

Because our timing is nothing but perfect, the Fiendling happened to get his first cold, his first ever illness, just as I developed mastitis and as Boyfiend's brother bought a house, requiring Boyfiend's help every night this week. The first night of his cold, the Fiendling kept waking because he couldn't breathe through his nose. The saline solution and snot sucker work, but only for so long. My excruciating pain and feverish delirium meant that I couldn't cuddle him, so he slept on Boyfiend's chest all night long. If I hadn't been so sick I would've been utterly charmed by how sweet they looked.

Last night was better. I'm still in pain and infected, but the fever didn't return. I propped his mattress up with a pillow and it seemed to help because, after 2 hours of false starts where he woke up minutes after being put down, the Fiendling slept for about five hours before waking.

Pretend this is a transition.

My biggest worry right now is the cats. The Fiendling LOVES the cats. He laughs out loud when he sees them and lunges for them when they pass. He loves to pet them, and by pet them I mean grab onto their fur for dear life and yank out huge clumps. The cats who are extremely good natured don't always react, but sometimes, when he gets them just right they snap. Because Isaac's the friendliest of the bunch he's always cuddling up to the Fiendling and always getting the brunt of the Fiendling's attention. He's usually good about it, but last night after a particularly violent tug on the tail he snapped, scratching my little baby boy right above the eye. He has a scratch on his eyelid which kills me.

Here he is, scratch on the eye, snot hanging out of his nose and stuck under a chair, because he's mobile, but not very good at it yet.

I feel like the worst mother in the world and I'm pissed off at Isaac, but he's a cat, he doesn't know any better. I don't know what to do. I want to declaw them, but I won't because it's cruel and I want to keep them away from the Fiendling, but I can't because that would mean keeping them away from me. Now that the Fiendling's so mobile I'm just going to be hyper vigilant which is especially hard right now because I still feel like crap and I'm on duty until Boyfiend gets home (last night at 11) from his brother's house.

And as I'm writing this Isaac keeps creeping closer and closer to the baby and I keep pushing him away. I try to get him to cuddle with me, but he wants baby love and the Fiendling keeps trying to grab ahold of his paws. I really hope the Fiendling loses interest in them soon.

Did I mention my Fiendling turned six months old last week? I love him so much. I baked him half a cake to celebrate his half a year.

Warm compresses and antibiotics

2006-09-12T18:18:00.000-04:00

I hate when I have a fever and I'm freezing and I can't get comfortable because I'm scrunching up my whole body to stay warm and I feel stiff and achy and delirious because I want to sleep but can't. I have mastitis and last night I had a fever and my whole body ached and when I got up to go to the bathroom I could barely walk and I ended up sleeping on the floor of the parlor because I didn't think my legs would get me back to bed and I knew that crawling back would take even more energy than walking.

I hate that I always cry when I'm sick.

I hope the fever doesn't come back tonight.

Memory Lane

2006-09-08T08:22:00.000-04:00

Last Saturday morning my dad called and said he had some stuff for me, could he come over. I said sure and maybe 15 minutes later he was here with a stack of Girlfiend memorabilia. He had the settlement papers from my old house, playbills from shows I'd acted in or directed, the program from my college graduation, transcripts from my sophomore year of college, and teacher comments from tenth grade. In tenth grade I was at the height of my wannabe drug addict rebellion. I say wannabe because as much as I tried, I was too uptight to really let loose. I took a number of drugs in addition to the pot I smoked every day, but despite my desire to disappear into the underworld I still maintained an A average. So hardcore.

These comments with my final report card crack me up.

This first one, from my math teacher shows that while I failed miserably at being a full fledged druggie, I did not fail Algebra 2. In fact, I was the head of the class.

Girlfiend finished with the top average in the class. She was unbelievably consistent in all of her work both in class and on her homework

And I thought I was so subversive.

This one may be my favorite. I'd taken biology in ninth grade, but transferred to a school where I had to take chemistry. I ended up having to take both classes again which I found infuriating. In tenth grade I was in a ninth grade biology class and felt incredibly superior. My crazy, hippie, mushroom loving teacher wrote:

At the beginning of the year Girlfiend was pretty sure she'd be getting A's without doing any work. She quickly found that wasn't true so she did something many students would not have done. She started working. It obviously paid off, and she found in the process that the course "wasn't completely worthless." I take that as a very high compliment and must say I was also very glad to have her in the class.

Can you believe that? I was so ballsy. I told the guy his class wasn't completely worthless and he took it as a compliment.

I really liked the woman who taught Shakespeare. Most of class was spent reading the plays aloud, which in my opinion, is the only way to teach Shakespeare to high school students. She used to try to explain Shakespeare's humor to the class, but most of the kids were disinterested. I wasn't. I loved that it was so dirty.

Girlfiend is as good an audience for Shakespeare as she is for me, thank God. I get depressed when people don't get the Bard's jokes and sexual innuendos. It is a source of comfort to me that Girlfiend will be with us next year, but I will be desolate if she doesn't turn up in any of my classes.

I can't believe the teacher used the phrase "sexual innuendos" in an academic report. I really respected that woman, and I didn't respect too many adults at that point in my life.

Drunk Ben Affleck

2006-09-08T08:14:00.000-04:00

The Superficial posted this awesome 2004 interview of a drunk Ben Affleck groping a TV host and talking about her tits. Ordinarily this kind of thing would annoy me and probably make me spout feminist theory about what an arrogant, woman-hating prick he is, but for some reason his drunken flirtation and bad French accent just make me like him. The host is totally into it, which is probably why he doesn't come off as a rapist. I guess it makes him seem more real. He might be a dick, but he's funny.

Good Morning

2006-09-08T07:57:00.000-04:00

For the first time in two weeks the Fiendling let me sleep for five consecutive hours last night. He went down around 11.30, woke up screaming shortly after 2.15, went back to sleep and didn't wake to eat until 7.30. Now he's back in bed and I'm wide awake, but the well-rested sort of wide awake, because after sleeping in two hour intervals, five hours is heavenly.

I'm not sure why he hasn't been sleeping. He was showing signs of teething- general fussiness, crying when nursing, refusing to nurse, BITING MY NIPPLE, sucking on frozen teethers- but the tylenol didn't seem to help, he wasn't tugging on his ears with any regularity, and the signs have all but disappeared. The sleep disruptions could be because he's hungry. He's been more active lately, what with the creeping across the room and all, and nursing less, but he nurses for longer when he eats and doesn't always want to eat when he wakes at night. I can usually cuddle him back to sleep.

But last night I slept for five hours in a row. And I feel fantastic.

trouble

2006-09-07T10:23:00.000-04:00

He's not even six months old until tomorrow, but right now, the Fiendling, who was playing on his tummy on his playmat right next to me, has scooted more than five feet away. He moved there backwards and is now trying to get back over here. The child is mobile. Slow, inefficient, backward, but mobile. I am in big trouble. Uh-oh. I must now wrest the phone cord from his hands.

The cook at work- failure ahead

2006-09-06T10:09:00.000-04:00

Jennifer requested to see a picture of something I cooked. Because I'm insane, it's taken weeks for me to follow through. First I was going to post a picture of ribs I made. But the pictures didn't look so hot, and honestly I didn't really like the ribs because I made a rub instead of making a sauce, and I prefer sauce. Classy, shirtless Boyfiend, however, loved the ribs.

Then I was going to post a picture of these porkchops with blueberry sauce. The recipe is from the Silver Spoon cookbook which is absolutely amazing. But mine are actually porkchops with blackberry sauce since I didn't have blueberries, but I had blackberries. The sauce was delicious, but the porkchops were dry. And I don't like pork. I like ribs and bacon and sausage, but just plain pork? Not so much. Then to make matters worse, the sauce looked horrible on the plates. So I didn't want to make this one my photo request.

One of our wedding gifts was a pasta maker with a ravioli attachment. With the move and the pregnancy and the baby I never got around to using it, so I figured why not use that as my photo request post. What a stupid idea. The three hours I spent making ravioli were some of the worst hours in recent history.

The recipe called for 3.5 cups of flour and five large eggs. I followed the directions and shaped the dough into a mound on the counter and made a well in the center. I broke an egg into the well and saw that there was no way I was going to fit all of the eggs in the well. I broke a second egg into the well and like the directions said, I beat them lightly. As soon as the fork hit egg, egg whites began to leak from under the mound of flour. I tried to keep the egg contained by reshaping the mound, but my efforts were fruitless. I quickly broke the remaining eggs into a bowl, beat them, then poured them into the well. The directions wanted me to slowly incorporate flour into the eggs with my fingertips, but slowly was not an option with the egg leakage. I skipped that part and began to knead. The recipe said it would take about ten minutes for the dough to take on a satiny elastic quality. The recipe lied. It took forever to get the dough kneaded and though it was elastic, it never quite took on the satin quality the recipe suggested it should.

At this point I'd been at work for maybe 45 minutes. Boyfiend and the Fiendling came in to see how I was doing. I'd originally called for dinner at six. It was ten 'til. I separated the dough into eight balls and Boyfiend clamped the pasta maker onto the counter while the Fiendling had some milk and fell asleep. I handed the Fiendling back to Boyfiend and began to roll out the dough. The pasta maker had incredibly shitty directions. By the time I got the hang of it I was close to an hour into the process had only rolled three of the eight balls of dough and realized I could have used a rolling pin and been done much sooner.

rolling the dough

It was time to move on. I made the spinach and cheese filling, which was a pleasure compared to struggling with the dough. I sauteed a sminced onion in a tablespoon of oil, added two cloves of minced garlic for thirty seconds and added a bag of cooked, finely chopped spinach. After the mixture cooled I added 8 oz of ricotta, 3/4 cup of grated parmesan, 2 tbs of toasted pine nuts, and seasoned the mixture with nutmeg and black pepper. After it was nutmeggy and peppery enough I mixed in a lightly beaten egg.

Inflated by the success of the filling I hooked up the ravioli attachment. The directions for that piece were even worse than the ones for the pasta maker itself. I put in the first folded sheet of pasta then added 2.5 tbs of filling. I cranked. Nothing happened. I cranked again. Nothing. I removed the dough and filling and stared at the machine. I read the directions again. I put in another sheet of dough and 2.5 tbs of filling and turned the crank again. Nothing. After half an hour of fiddling, cursing, reballing and rerolling sheets of dough I'd messed up in the ravioli maker I had to take a step back. I returned to the five balls of dough patiently waiting beneath a large bowl and rolled them out in the pasta maker.

With the filling done and all of the dough rolled and waiting to be filled I tried to make the ravioli maker obey my commands again. Its will was too strong. After a lot of cursing I threw out fistfulls of dough and angrily began to make the ravioli by hand. I put spoonfulls of filling on a sheet of dough, topped it with another sheet, trimmed to size, and crimped the edges with a fork. It was a quick process. I'd thrown out so much dough I had more than half the filling left over. The Fiendling was hungry yet again, so I fed him while Boyfiend put water on to boil.

Boyfiend, a huge mess and the handmade ravioli on baking sheets before boiling

When the water reached a boil I added the raviolis and reduced it to a simmer so the filling would stay inside. After just a few minutes the ravioli was ready to eat.

cooked!

I quickly steamed some broccoli and threw some sauce I made earlier into the microwave to heat. We sat down to dinner.

Dinner is served. Spinach and cheese ravioli with homemade sauce and steamed broccoli

Not what I was hoping for. The filling was good, but the pasta was sort of crunchy. I imagine it was because between the struggles with the pasta maker and the ravioli attachment the whole process took too damn long and the dough dried out. Three hours. Boyfiend thinks I should try again, but I'm not so sure.

Here's a video of me in action. Rolling pasta and cursing the pasta maker and the stupid Italians who made it.

(The sauce, though, was awesome. I'd made it a week earlier. I sauteed a chopped onion until it browned then added several cloves of minced garlic to the pan and took it off the heat. I threw the onion in a pot with 4 Jersey tomatoes, seeded and peeled, with a pinch of sugar and a pinch of salt and cooked over a low flame for 30 minutes. I added enough tomato paste to thicken the sauce a bit then remembered I had meatballs made using my meatloaf recipe in the freezer. I quickly defrosted the (cooked) meatballs and threw them in the pot and let the whole thing simmer for an hour. I added a bunch of fresh purple basil and Italian parsley to the pot for a few minutes and it was ready to serve.)

Yum

2006-09-05T10:12:00.000-04:00

Before I even had the baby I did a lot of reading to prepare myself and stumbled across this article Guidelines for implementing a baby-led approach to the introduction of solid foods on Borstvoeding.com. Scary, Dutch title aside, the article is simple, straightforward, and made a ton of sense. I planned on using it as a guide when it was time for the Fiendling to eat something other than milk. But of course I lost it and couldn't remember the name of the actual article, and since Borstvoeding isn't exactly easy to remember, I didn't find it again. When I began to freak out about solids a month ago, I went with my instincts and held off. Then I re-discovered Ask Moxie, the best parenting advice column I've ever read.

After reading Moxie's Q&A on Introducing Solids I chilled out entirely. Her primer makes more sense than anything else I've read and links to the Borstvoeding website. Her advice, and I'm really simplifying here, is to relax. It's just food. The Borstvoeding site's deal is to let your baby feed himself. So that's what I've been doing. When we eat dinner I put some food on the Fiendling's tray and let him do what he wants, sometimes sneaking in a spoonful to see if he'll swallow.

Avocado, while fun to play with, wasn't as delicious as breastmilk, but he ate what we fed him and swallowed any bits that ended up in his mouth. Sweet potato he played with a little, but most of it was smeared on his shirt. Sweet potato mixed with breastmilk he completely refused. His favorite so far? My Fiendling can't get enough of peaches. Inspired by the picture of the cute baby eating a pear on the Borstvoeding site (mamas read the article, it's interesting, but for those of you who just like pictures of cute babies, scroll down to look at the picture, it's adorable) I didn't mash, chunk or puree, I gave him a peach and let him eat.

The jeans

2006-09-03T10:14:00.000-04:00

In the morning I'm thin again. The rest of the day it's easy to see that I'm slowly, slowly getting back to normal, but I puff up a bit after lunch and by bedtime my belly is bloated and hard for me to look at. Even so I'm shrinking, little by little.

After an extended absence (the doctor told me not to work out so the bronchitis would leave my system and it took weeks for me to stop hacking) I returned to the gym. When I was done talking baby with the new dad who used to manage the gym and now just fills in when they're short on staff, I decided I'd only stay for a short workout; I arc-trained for ten minutes, lifted weights for twenty, then crunched and stretched for another ten. In the locker room I took off my sneakers and slowly stepped on the scale. I moved the big marker to the 100, and the smaller one to 30. Too heavy. I moved it to 29, then down another half notch to 28.5 where the balance was, well, balanced. Convinced the scale was wrong I got off, zeroed it, then stepped back on. 128.5 again.

My mother's scale at the shore pegged me at a solid 130, but it's cheap and unbalanced so I didn't stress. Back at the gym after yoga on Wednesday, this time wearing pants, not shorts, I weighed myself again. This time it was 128 and I was confident that my weight had finally dipped back below 130.

I don't know if it's the number that's convinced me I look smaller, or if it's the fact that two pairs of pre-pregnancy pants have made their way back into my wardrobe, but I'm feeling better about how I look. Now when people say things about having another baby I'm less horrified, and I know it's selfish, but there's no way I'd have another without getting my body back after the first because if you don't lose it the first time it's even harder the second time around and I don't think I could handle the insecurity of knowing the weight might never come off.

I'm getting ahead of myself though. I still have 16 pounds to lose to get back to my official starting point and 16 pounds is a lot of weight. In my dresser I have a drawer that's filled with pants that no longer fit. A pair of size 2 Abercrombie capris I bought at Marshalls last spring fit, but squeeze the gut unflatteringly. A pair of small pink pants I bought from Target last summer when my clothes still fit, but fit too tightly for comfort now slide on and off easily. A pair of size 2 Ann Taylor jeans I stopped wearing a few years ago because they were so high-waisted it hurt to sit down in them fit just a little tightly in the butt. I haven't even tried a pair of size 1 low-rise khaki capris from Old Navy, because I know that 128 pounds won't fit into a size 1. But my jeans? The ones Pigs requested to see? The Sevens that cost way, way, way too much money? I can put them on again and zipper them and even button the top. Of course there's a muffin top issue, so I won't be wearing them for at least another ten pounds, but they fit over my ass for the first time in close to a year. Just pulling them all the way up my legs, which I couldn't do at all in July, tasted like victory.

The picture I've posted is somewhat intentionally fuzzy. You can tell I'm wearing them, but you can't really get an idea of just how fabulous the jeans are and you can't see how unfabulous I look in them. Here's a photo of my "goal worthy" size 26 Seven For All Mankind A Pocket skinny jeans lounging sexily without me on my sofa.

They currently look much better without me in them, but it's still hard to get a sense of just how perfect they are. I don't know that these are the exact jeans, but here's a similar pair worn by a model who hasn't recently had a baby.

The contents of my purse- photo request

2006-09-01T09:32:00.000-04:00

All right, Fraulein N, and I certainly hope it was the real Fraulein, not some imposter, here's the contents of my purse. Starting at the top going clockwise, is a wallet which was a gift from Junkiegirl, the ticket stub from the Philadelphia Flower Show from the night I went into labor, a gym-ready iPod, spare batteries for the digital camera, a bunch of pennies, my membership card for the gym at the shore with my name covered by the post-op instructions from my mole removal, gift certificate for Phillies tickets, hand lotion, a letter from the bitch who no longer cleans my house, a pen, SPF 30 sunscreen, a biohazard bag filled with sunscreen samples from the dermatologist, cell phone, and a pile of receipts and coupons.

Solids, take two

2006-08-30T23:19:00.000-04:00

Over the past few weeks the Fiendling's "shared" peaches and nectarines with us. He mostly just grabbed them with his hands and sucked on them, but I'm fairly sure he actually swallowed a good amount of peach one day. Tonight, for no reason other than because I felt like it, and I wanted to eat dinner without a fussing baby, I mashed up some avocado, put it on his tray, and let him go to town. He ate a small portion and smeared the rest of it on his shirt.

I let him feed himself, except when he threw the spoon on the ground, I picked it up off the floor, scooped up a teeny-tiny bit of avocado, and put the spoon in his mouth. He made a face, then swallowed. Boyfiend didn't realize babies have small mouths and accidentally gave him way too big of a spoonful. After spitting it out and making a very, very unhappy face, the Fiendling went back to smearing avocado up his nose.

After dinner, Boyfiend interviewed the Fiendling about his experience.

Just throwing this out there

2006-08-30T22:14:00.000-04:00

When I was little I loved Kids Incorporated (K-I-D-S!) and Rags to Riches. I was also a huge fan of Parker Lewis Can't Lose. There was a short -lived series called Spencer that I enjoyed, though I may have been the only one. Voyagers! was another of my favorites. I sometimes watched it twice in a row on two different channels. I had a bizarre crush on Meeno Peluce, who I later learned was Soleil Moon Frye's brother. Speaking of Soleil, I was also an avid Punky Brewster watcher, though I couldn't stand the animated series. It was on Sundays, either right before or right after Silver Spoons, another 80s classic.

I'm sure they were all terrible, but I loved them nonetheless. Except maybe Parker Lewis. I was older then, and I'm pretty sure it was good-good, not just little kid good. I wonder what crap shows the Fiendling will enjoy and inflict upon me.

The rain is appropriate

2006-08-30T10:13:00.000-04:00

It's official. Boyfiend's back at work and summer is over. I'm really going to miss having him around.

roadtrip

2006-08-25T14:23:00.000-04:00

After the funeral last week we stopped at Bushkill Falls to improve our moods and enjoy "nature." Nature is in quotes because Bushkill Falls is not advertised as the Niagara of Pennsylvania because of the beautiful, scenic waterfalls, but because of that fact that it's a crowded, overpriced tourist trap. The "nature center" was little more than a hot, stuffy room crowded with stuffed animals. Not the cute, cuddly kind, the beady-eyed, once-living-now-dead kind. My favorite was the dead fox with the even deader rabbit in it's mouth. After handing our tickets to the collecter we looked at the map and chose the long route, the 2 and a half hour red trail that's advertised as being for serious hikers only. We had an infant with us, and I had to stop several times to get my coughing fits under control, but I'm pretty sure that 2.5 hour route didn't take us much longer than an hour to complete.

Many of the other tourists were orthodox Jews with the wigs and the beards and the talles (tallises? tallet?) hanging out of their shirts, and because we were in the middle of nowhere, where I didn't even know that had Jews I kept wanting to stop and say, "Hi. I'm Jewish too. " But Orthodox Jews aren't so much into talking to strangers, especially the menfolk who aren't supposed to look me in the eye, so I kept my enthusiasm to myself. It was a good time, but oddly disconnected to nature with the stairs and the crowds, and I'm sure the waterfalls are more impressive in the spring, as water in Pennsylvania is usually pretty low by the end of the summer. Nonetheless, we were inspired by our post-funeral outing and decided to take another roadtrip.

We left Sunday morning and headed to Hazleton, PA to visit with Boyfiend's great-uncle for a bit before reaching Pottsville, our final destination where we planned to visit the Yuengling brewery and nearby Hawk Mountain. We got to the hotel in the late afternoon, hung out for a while, then had dinner at the Dutch Kitchen in Frackville. The Dutch Kitchen was basically Cracker Barrel without the chicken fried steak. Boyfiend wanted to order the croquettes and the waitress told him, "No. You don't want them." Boyfiend told her he did, but she said, "No. They're dry. Get anything else on the menu, but not the croquettes." I pointed to the description on the menu that proclaimed them moist and delicious, but she informed us the menu was wrong, so he ordered the sausage instead. We went back to the hotel after dinner, swam in the indoor pool, then retired to our room for the night.

Boyfiend's big plan for the following day was to do the brewery tour in the morning, eat lunch in Pottsville, go back to the hotel for swimming in the afternoon, then return to Pottsville for dinner. The brewery tour was surprisingly fun, but kind of bizarre at the same time. As you walk through the brewery you're actually walking through the brewery. People are working around you and there's beer being made where you stand. The last stop on the tour is the bar where everyone's given two samples. They serve the children and non-drinkers birch beer first, then they serve the real beer drinkers. I had the Premium and the Black and Tan. It was nice to get a free drink (the entire tour is free) but the samples weren't especially exciting because when we have beer in the house it's usually Yuengling anyway.

After the tour we drove up the hill to where the mansions are and walked around a bit then headed back into town for lunch. Boyfiend unfortunately didn't realize Pottsville has absolutely nothing going on. The two main streets had some businesses open and a few delis and pizza joints, but the only decent restaurant was closed and the bars, which I'd imagine were smoky, didn't open until after lunch anyway. We ended up at Roma Pizza, which was pretty good, but the Fiendling was all sorts of cranky so we left before I got to finish my sandwich.

Since we'd seen all that downtown Pottsville had to offer, we decided to go to Knoebels for the afternoon. That place is amazing. I have never been to such a family friendly amusement park. Because we were traveling with the Fiendling, we weren't really able to take advantage of the rides, but admission was free, parking was free, and most rides were priced at under a dollar. They have an enormous pool, and the biggest wooden roller coaster in PA, which costs only $1.80 to ride. It was such a refreshing change from Great Adventure, where you have to wait in line for two hours to get on a roller coaster. Walking through the park is like stepping back in time. I don't think I'll ever go to Dorney or Hershey or Six Flags again after spending a few hours at Knoebels. Check out the website. It's awesome.

Tuesday we went to Hawk Mountain Sanctuary for a hike. It was lovely. We hiked up to the North lookout which had panoramic views of close to 70 miles, and took the escarpment trail back. When we chose that particular route we were unaware that escarpment basically means steep and rocky. We were bouldering with the baby in a backpack. Probably not what the makers of the backpack intended, but it was a lovely afternoon. In fact, the whole trip was lovely.

This Sunday we'll be pressing our traveling luck by heading back to the shore. It will be our last trip of the summer. I'm feeling nostalgic for the summer already.

blah

2006-08-24T23:43:00.000-04:00

I've been a wreck lately, and for once it's physical as well as emotional. In the past few weeks, in addition to the sad, sad funeral I attended, I've had bronchitis that wouldn't go away, a suspicious mole removed, and last night I had a slight fever and a sore breast which better not be mastitis waiting to happen. Because the bronchitis made me cough up chunks whenever I exerted myself, I haven't been to the gym in two weeks so I feel like a slug on top of everything else. Blah.

DSC02045
Originally uploaded by sireia.

Speaking of blah, the Fiendling has been learning all sorts of new things these days. I don't know if I ever mentioned that he's been sitting unsupported for the past month and he's starting to pull himself up a bit, though thankfully he's only figured out one leg, not both. I'm not at all ready for full-blown mobility. He's also added blowing raspberries and a number of new sounds to his cute baby repetoire. Now when he cries he doesn't just make a sad baby coughing sound. He says, "Mama. Mama. Mama," with tears running down his face which is heartbreaking. Luckily he also says "mama" when he's happy and when he's looking straight at his dad, so I know he's not really calling my name. The other new sound of note is his "bwah" sound. He babbles, "bwah bwah bwah bwah bwah," which ends up sounding like, "blah blah blah blah blah." He's so cute it kills me.

Fiendling Photo Requests

2006-08-20T09:21:00.000-04:00

Here are the photo requests from S and GinaMarcela. (Erin, the one baby thing I could not live without isn't quite a baby item, it's the king-sized bed. The picture is here. But I suppose our stroller is a close second.)

The Fiendling's favorite book doubles as a chew toy. It has crinkly pages as well as a squeaky page. The Fiendling never seems to get sick of One Sunny Day, though he spends more time chewing on it than reading it. It's a counting book in English, Spanish and French. The ending, five, is predictable.

This is the playmat, the Fiendling's most used play item. Just recently I noticed how odd it is. On the top left we have a rabbit waving hello, who's inexplicably wearing a bowtie and buttons down his fur. He's next to a lizard (that looks just like a frog) wearing bifocals and holding a feather quill. I suppose he's the smart one of the bunch. On the right is a cow wearing her bell with her hands on hips. I like that her tail has made it's way into the lizard's box.

In the next row is an Elephant wearing a fez. I suppose the elephant is Moroccan, or perhaps he's a fan of Matt Groening's Akbar and Jeff.In the middle we have a happy sun with the words "Animal Friends." Why they've chosen a smiliing sunshine for this center square, I do not know. Next to the sun is a duck. The duck, who looks as though he may be homosexual, is wearing nothing but his duck suit.

On the bottom right is a male cardinal. Like the duck, he's not wearing anything but feathers. Perhaps it's an avian thing. Next to the cardinal is a cat with a collar, who does not seem interested in hunting the bird or the mouse on his right. His lack of interest in hunting could be because he doesn't recognize that she's a mouse. She is holding binoculars and wearing pigtails and overalls. If it weren't for the whiskers and the fact that she's labeled "mouse" I wouldn't be sure what she was either. I like that the bow on her tail matches the bows on the pigtails in her hair. She's a very well dressed mouse.

These are the Fiendling's toys. Many of them spend most of their days hanging from the playmat. from the top, then each row from left to right, favorites in bold

Picture of himself- he adores looking at pictures of handsome babies
Blue puppy dog- a favorite. The tail and ears fit perfectly in his mouth

Dog, cat, pig- From the playmat. On the back of each disc is a picture of the real thing with the names in English, Spanish and French, Hand with rings- an excellent teether. Windchime lion- he likes chewing on this one, and loves the crinkly mane but he's not too into the sound, ladybug rattle- from the playmat, Squeaky bird- he loves, loves, loves the squeaky bird

Joshua giraffe- from another playmat thing, squeaky duck- just like the squeaky bird he loves this thing, Baby Einstein musical rattle- I hate the song, but he loves this toy. Frog rattle- there's a mirror on the back and it makes an annoying frog noise when you press on the top. I hate it, he loves it. Are you sensing a noisy toy theme here? I think that swirly one on the right is called a giggle ball. It's big and good to chew on.

A rattle with shapes, circular rattle- good teether, Whoozit- a favorite, frog rattle/teether- usually hangs on the stroller to keep him occupied during long walks. It has a little mirror in it, Dragonfly teether- incredibly annoying. It lights up, has a rattle, and makes laughing, boing, and woo-hoo sounds. Of course, it's a Fiendling favorite. Big plush flower- has a mirror under the face, crinkly leaves, and sings Toyland when you pull the little stripy guy on the stem. This one really keeps him occupied on the playmat, but it's not quite a favorite.

And here's the nursery. On the left is the glider and crib. I love that the fan is painted red. You can also get a glimpse of our kickass elephant border. The middle shows the door, his shelves and a picture we havent' gotten around to hanging. On the right is the changing table, shelves, and a small part of the built-in closet. We're slackers. There's still nothing hanging on the walls, and the picture frames on the boxy shelf thing don't even have pictures in them. There's not even a curtain or shade on the window. But in all fairness he just started sleeping in his room a couple of weeks ago. He doesn't mind the lack of decor.

2006-08-17T12:47:00.000-04:00

He was my first friend at college. I met him the summer before it started, briefly, while visiting a friend who was in the summer session for incoming freshman who had to pass the summer session to be admitted. Jesse, wearing a wife-beater, wrap-around sunglasses and big, baggy skater jeans with a wallet chain was tossing oreos into another guy's mouth and catching oreos tossed in his. He was tall and handsome and he had a gleam in his eye and a wonderful smile. I met him again a month later at orientation and we were friends right away.

We both auditioned for the fall mainstage and both got parts. We went to academic affairs together to declare theatre as our majors. I knew he'd struggled with heroin addiction in high school and gone to rehab before college, but small town New Hampshire, while famous for its kind bud, didn't have much to offer in the way of narcotics and he stayed clean for a long time. The thing about Jesse was that he could function. I remember a time when he didn't look so good. He was grey and his eyes were dull. He didn't smile as easily and he told me he was going through a rough patch, but he didn't say much else. He was still around though. He went to class and rehearsal- he never dropped out completely. But I vaguely remember that he was spending time with Poppy, a girl who'd moved back to the area and didn't get her nickname for nothing.

The funeral service was lovely. A number of people spoke about what a sensitive, charming, kind, and gentle man Jesse was, despite his struggles. And he was funny. I remember how he made me laugh and laugh, and he was honest. I'm not sure why this story is so memorable for me, why this is the story I want to tell, but freshman year I had an affair with a guy named Dave. We slept together and no one really knew except his roomate. Dave and I kept the affair going sporadically through sophomore year and discussed actually having a relationship. I wanted a relationship, but it never materialized and on drunken nights I'd show up at the apartment that he and Jesse shared, looking for some action. One night he was with another girl and even though we weren't a couple it shattered me and for a while after that I made a fool of myself with him, drunk dialing, leaving notes, harassing him in bars and people kept trying to stop me and I didn't listen. One night Jesse took me aside and said, "Dave is not your man," and he was right. Dave was not my man, but I didn't believe it until Jesse told me. I didn't believe anyone else, but Jesse said it so simply and softly that I went home and cried and cried and got Dave out of my system. He was a good friend.

Dave was at the funeral. I hear he's a funeral director himself these days. He got fat. Everyone else was at the funeral too. All of my friends from college including the stoners, the skaters and the theatre crew. Jesse was friends with everyone. People genuinely loved Jesse because Jesse was real. He was silly and goofy and insisted on snowboarding and skateboarding when he was in a play (even though he wasn't allowed because it would look awfully silly if Oedipus had a broken leg) but he was also quiet and sensitive and serious. He was gentle, which was unexpected from a handsome guy of 6'3 with enormous feet and a huge grin.

We got to the cemetary on time but Boyfiend didn't want to wait in line with the rest of the cars to park so he ended up parking way up a hill which annoyed me to no end. I walked down to the grave site with the Fiendling and immediately saw Joe and Pony and Alex whose name used to be something else, but she changed it after college. Then I saw Mac and Marty and Jim and Page and Dave who got fat and Turtle and Christian a couple of girls whose names I didn't remember and Johnna whose name was really something else, but it got pronounced wrong once and she never bothered to correct anyone, so Johnna it stayed. Everyone was there and we hugged and made small talk for the few minutes until the service began. Boyfiend took the Fiendling for a walk when he started to make noise so I stood there alone for a while, crying, listening to Jesse's mom and sister and ex-girlfriend and family friends talk about how wonderful he was, and how he struggled, and how he was in recovery but the struggles were too great. Mac was crying too and, even though we stopped being friends when he divorced his wife, when he put his arm around me I leaned on him and for a moment we cried together.The rabbi talked about his demons and biology and how maybe 10 years from now there will be some sort of cure for his struggles and demons and his sister said that her solace was that at least his struggle was over. No one said anything about drugs or overdose, so I'm only assuming. It could just as easily been suicide, but when you're 29 years old overdose and suicide may as well be the same thing.

After the service, after I threw a shovel-full of dirt on the grave, we went back to his parent's house so I could spend a bit more time grieving with my friends and pay my respects to his parents who used to say we looked like we could be brother and sister. Boyfiend was wonderful and stayed with the Fiendling who was also wonderful and people congratulated me on my baby and we made small talk about where we've been living and what we've been doing. No one really talked about the specifics, where he died and how he died, they just spoke of how sad it is that someone so young, someone we loved, is gone.

Last night I slept on the floor of a hotel bathroom

2006-08-16T23:33:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I checked my junkiemail, an email account I don't check daily, to find I'd received a myspace message from a friend from college, Joe. I'm not a myspace person, I mean I have a myspace profile, but I haven't actually customized it beyond posting a picture and filling out the profile information and I haven't even updated the profile info for years. But Joe, who isn't a myspace friend or contact or whatever myspace calls them, sent me a message, so I logged in to find that a friend from college died.

He died. Jesse died. Jesse, my first friend at college, my first stage kiss, died. He died. I called Joe and left a message then called Mel, who hasn't spoken to me in more than two years, to tell her that Jesse was gone. I called Mandygirl and Mix then went out to meet Doodlebug and Baby Doodle for water ice at Nevaeh's.

Joe called back when I was at Nevaeh's and confirmed my suspicion that Jesse died from an overdose. He told me the funeral was to be held tomorrow, Wednesday, at 10.30 a.m. in Jesse's hometown in the-middle-of-nowhere-pennsylvania. I told him I'd see him tomorrow.

Everything got a little screwy. Boyfiend was disgusted that Jesse had overdosed and I was disgusted by his reaction. We fought over whether I'd go to the funeral alone or with him- I wanted to go solo, he wanted to join me. A few hours later we decided we'd go together and we'd go that night, last night, before the funeral so we wouldn't have to drive 130 miles in the morning. The drive was fine for a while, we listened to Stern, but then the Fiendling started crying and things got tense all over again. We stopped at a diner for dinner and I got sick, the go to the bathroom three times in less than an hour kind of sick. When we arrived at the hotel the Fiendling was out for the night and my stomach was better so we drank some whiskey and went to sleep.

At three I woke up coughing. (I haven't yet mentioned that last Friday I was given cough medicine and antibiotics for my bronchitis.) My coughing woke up the Fiendling so I fed him again, but an hour later I was still coughing. I was afraid to wake him again, so I sat in the bathroom for a while, then got the pillows from the bed and eventually awoke on the bathroom floor at 5.45 and returned to bed.

I'm going to write about the rest, specifically how the funeral service was sad, I saw a ton of friends from college, we stopped at Bushkill Falls on the way home, I talked to Mel for 3.5 hours and never addressed why she's not spoken to me for two years, but not tonight. I'm really, really sad right now.

Picture request

2006-08-13T17:37:00.000-04:00

This second post for the photo requests is embarrassing, so I may not leave this up for long. Nervous girl asked to see a picture from my dyed and pierced days. Though I have many pictures of me with a nose ring and little silver hoops up and down my ears, I don't have a single picture of me with dyed hair. I'm sure someone I know has to have one, but in all of my albums the closest I could find was a picture of me with dark reddish-black hair from when I dyed it to be Cher for famous person's day in 8th grade.

So here's a picture of me on my 15th birthday. With really bad, fuzzy braids and dreadlocks. Don't judge me. I was young and didn't know any better. This definitely qualifies for Hokie Erin's request for the one thing I'd hoped no one would ask to see.

And then there were two

2006-08-12T21:55:00.000-04:00

The Fiendling was up slightly earlier than usual this morning and took a nap slightly later than I would have liked. Later in the afternoon, after a long walk in the park, he fell asleep in his stroller for about half an hour. When he woke from this nap, probably around five, he wasn't quite himself. He was smily and whiny all at the same time. At dinner, three hours later, I peeked his mouth. And there it was. Tooth number two. It hasn't been fully liberated from the gum, but it's there, poking through the surface.

Where the Fiendling sleeps

2006-08-10T23:58:00.000-04:00

This is the first of the photo requests posts. Pigs asked to see a picture of where the Fiendling sleeps. I'm getting to this one first because it's been sort of a milestone week.

First, the picture. The little pack 'n play at the foot of our bed is where the Fiendling starts the night. After a few false starts, I nurse him to sleep and we put him down in the pack 'n play. He usually sleeps for about 7 hours before he wakes to eat around six. I stumble over to get him, then I nurse him in our big, king-sized bed. He falls back to sleep on my breast, and since I'm too lazy or too asleep to get up again, he stays in our bed until we get up for the day.

Boyfiend put the Fiendling down in his crib, in his own room, the other night. He moved the baby monitor and a fan in, and a few hours later he was still asleep so we went to bed in our room without him. The next night it was too hot, and he slept in our air conditioned room in the pack 'n play, but since then he's slept in his crib. I'm not positive, but I think he might be sleeping better without us. This morning he didn't wake until close to seven, a full hour later than usual. I'd thought he might be frightened waking up in a room without us, but so far it hasn't fazed him. He doesn't even cry, he just rustles around until I hear him on the monitor. Then I go to his room and bring him into our bed to nurse, just like before, only this time I have to travel a bit. I like that we still get to cuddle with him in the morning. I think because he sleeps with us for a few hours in the morning the transition hasn't been too hard for me.

I remember freaking out about sleep not too long ago, yet it seems like it's been eons. It's amazing how quickly we've adapted as the Fiendling has grown. Twice today, the Fiendling napped in his crib, and during both naps I thought about how hard it was for me to let him sleep when he was first born. Those first few weeks, months really, I kept peeking in to make sure I could see the rise and fall of his chest as he breathed. Many nights I'd lie awake, listening to the sounds he made in his sleep. One night I didn't hear him, and even though I could see his chest move and knew he was fine, when Boyfiend said, "Just bring him in bed with us," I did without hesitation because I knew I'd sleep easier knowing he was that much closer.

Last week's visit to the shore

2006-08-09T12:20:00.000-04:00

Our trip to the shore during last week's heat wave was, thankfully, uneventful. We arrived on a Tuesday and, after my mother tried to get me to try on a size 2 swimsuit because my maternity suit isn't sexy enough, we spent the day in the ungodly heat on the beach, which was slightly cooler than the ungodly heat in the city. While my mother played with the Fiendling, Boyfiend and I got to spend an hour or so in the water. I couldn't stop myself from staring open-mouthed at a ten or eleven year old boy and his mother splashing in the water. The mother was wearing a white string bikini. It was clearly lacking a liner, as evidenced by the outline of her racing stripe through the bottom. For the first time in a while I was able to favorably compare my mother to someone else's.

After a shower and dinner I went out to search for a new, sexier, swimsuit. The shopping trip was a failure purchase-wise, but a success because I got out of the house long enough to not fight with my mother.

Wednesday we went to Ocean City to visit with Boyfiend's family and the Fiendling got to play with his cousin.

Again, we spent the day in the ungodly heat on the beach, but this time we had good company. At least thirty people were in attendance for dinner and we didn't head back to my mom's until after eleven at night, where we found her sweating in the un-airconditioned family room watching The Daily Show. She greeted us then recruited Boyfiend, the best son-in-law in the world, to install a window unit in the room for her. I tended to the Fiendling while Boyfiend worked. When I looked in on them I saw that my mother had Boyfiend bring down a unit that was too large for the window after he told her that the unit was too big and she insisted it would fit. He brought the unit back upstairs and returned a short while later with a smaller one.

While he installed the second air conditioner, my mother began to complain about her neighbors. My mom's house is on the corner. She has a front yard and a side yard. The house behind hers has no yard at all, just a driveway leading to the garage. As I was drinking a much-needed glass of wine Wednesday night my mother told me she didn't like these neighbors because they were trashy and loud and they threw their trash in the street. She explained that they were trashy because they threw parties on the sidewalk, and who the hell throws a party on the sidewalk. I replied that when we were down a few weeks earlier they'd thrown a party in their driveway, not on the sidewalk, and they don't have a yard so where else would they throw it. She conceded my point, but insisted that their music was too loud, too late at night, and they listened to rap, the kind of rap that's all "motherfucker this, motherfucker that," which she stressed by moving her head forward and back like a chicken. I asked if she called the police for a noise complaint. She hadn't because it was only nine o'clock. Then I asked if she'd asked them to turn it down. She hadn't because she didn't want to interfere with their party.

We went back and forth for a while as I tried to tell her that asking your neighbors to turn down their music, especially if they're playing it outside is perfectly normal. But she didn't want to ask them to turn it down because she plays her music loudly, too, and the music wasn't the problem so much as the trash. While we were in Ocean City she went out to water her plants and saw that the cans and bottles from the neighbor's party had tipped out of the paper grocery bags they'd put them in and blown into the street. She cleaned them up. Later when she went out to turn off the water she found that they'd blown over again, so she put their recycling into her bin because she was afraid she'd get fined for their trash. This was especially unfair because they had two recycling bins, one of which they'd stolen from her.

She told me that during the school year, when she was only at the shore on the weekends, she left her trash on the sidewalk when she left on a Sunday so it would get picked up on Wednesday. She got a letter telling her that this was unacceptable and she'd be fined if it happened again. From that point until the summer she saved up her trash and recycling in the storage space. She needed an additional recycling bin so she called and asked for one to be delivered. The following week when she returned to the shore she noticed her neighbors now had two recycling bins and she only had one. A different neighbor confirmed that the recycling bin had been left on the sidewalk and taken in by the neighbors who promptly painted their house number on the side. They stole her recycling bin and now they don't even use it, they put their trash in bags, which blow over for her to pick up.

Right around this point in the conversation Boyfiend returned from installing the air conditioner. He hears my mom complain about the trash in the street and responds, "Wait, you mean the neighbors whose trash can you have? The trash blew into the street because YOU have their trashcan." It seems my mother stole one of their trashcans, which was immediately obvious to Boyfiend because they'd painted their address on it, just like they did on their recycling bins.

Really, she's nuts. I do not exaggerate.

The following morning she left for the city and we got the house to ourselves for a night. We drank cocktails on the porch and without the constant drone of my mother's voice we were able to relax.

Solids

2006-08-07T23:28:00.000-04:00

I had no expectations initially, but after it stopped hurting and the milk slowed down I had grand visions of nursing exclusively until the Fiendling was old enough and developed enough for finger foods. Why start with cereal when I could wait a bit longer and start with something yummy like avocado or sweet potato? Why try to spoon feed when I could let the Fiendling experiment and control what goes into his mouth?

While the AAP recommends starting solids between four and six months most of the breastfeeding literature I've read suggests that the longer you wait, the better off your child will be. Starting at four months is fine, but waiting until six is better for exclusively breastfed babies. Babies are less likely to develop food allergies, their digestive systems will be more mature, and they'll have more protection against illness if starting solids is delayed.

But at our four month appointment when the pediatrician gave us the green light to start solids I began to wonder if my grand visions were too grand. Nursing exclusively, while incredibly rewarding in more ways than I can count, is a huge pain in the ass. Even though Boyfiend's home for the summer I still only have two hours at a time to myself. He can go out alone with a friend for a day, but I can't because the Fiendling still eats every two to three hours and even if I left a bottle I'd have to pump and what fun is that? Solids started to sound appealing. And it suddenly seemed like the Fiendling was interested in what we were eating. In the past few weeks he's started to watch everything that goes into our mouths and grab for whatever it is we're eating or drinking. It looks like he's ready for some real food.

I decided to split the difference and offer the Fiendling cereal at five months. In preparation, I went out last week and bought a couple of rubber tipped spoons and a box of rice cereal. But then I got home and read the ingredients. I was completely grossed out. I'm an adult and when I have an urge to eat something bad for me, like candy bars or cheetos I know exactly what I'm doing. But more often than not I try to eat foods that only contain ingredients I've heard of. Sure, many of the ingredients on the box of rice cereal were vitamins and minerals, but some of them, higher up on the list were not, and if I wouldn't want to eat it, I sure as hell wouldn't want to feed it to my son.

I chickened out. I waited for a few days, I bought the book Super Baby Food and I returned the nasty box of rice cereal to the store and gave the Fiendling the spoons to play with. I know that there are better commercially prepared rice cereals, like this one, but if I've waited five months, he can wait another month to start solids for real. So despite my moment of hesitation I'm going to stick with my vision. I'm waiting.

Photo Requests

2006-08-05T19:40:00.000-04:00

Everyone else did it, so now it's my turn. Make a request of a photo from my life you'd like to see and I'll do my best to post it. Perhaps I'll even provide commentary and make it a real blog post instead of just a picture. Now get to it.

When you least expect it

2006-08-03T18:59:00.000-04:00

Sometimes the world is kind, and your mother goes to the city for the night leaving you and your family to enjoy her shore house. And sometimes on that particular evening the weather changes and a cool breeze comes in shooing the ankle eating flies away.

After a shower cocktail hour begins. The Fiendling says hi.

Strings

2006-08-01T08:34:00.000-04:00

My junior year of college my mom decided that my car, a 1986 Toyota Corolla, was no longer safe enough for New Hampshire winters. Why she decided this I do not know, as it had served me well the two previous years. I loved that little car. It was a hideous shade of a yellowy beige with a thick black rubber bumper covered with carefully chosen stickers- I heart Hardwick (which sounds dirty, but it was just a town in Vermont), I heart machine guns (it was between that and and I heart assault weapons)- and several others I can't quite remember, a huge yellow, red and orange sun sticker on the back window, and ducky and bunny window clings on the back vent windows. I'll have to scan in a picture some day if I can find one.

Anyway, my junior year I'd decided not to go home for Thanksgiving. Instead, my parents came to me for a long weekend. The Saturday after Thanksgiving we took a ride into Concord to a Honda dealer and she bought me a CR-V. I was sort of excited because it was a new car, but I'm not really a car person, so I sort of didn't care. If it were up to me I never would've chosen the CR-V, but she was pretty adament about it, and even though I loved my Corolla she was convinced it was unsafe. My dad had nothing to say about it, so the CR-V was mine, only she didn't actually buy it, she leased it. And it was in my name, not hers. That Saturday, as I signed document after document those little details didn't really mean much, but a few months later when I got the bill for the $250 payment I realized what had happened- at the tender age of 19, as a full-time college student with only a crappy work study job for cash, I was responsible for a car payment.

I called my mom and she told me to ask my father for the money. My father was already paying for school, my apartment, my books and any incidentals. She'd probably gotten him to pay the down payment. I felt terrible and started to hate the car. Stupid SUV.

I know I probably sound like a whiny brat- Waaah, my mom leased me a new car- but it was just so unnecessary. It got worse after I graduated. I moved back to Philly and my insurance more than doubled. So I had that and the monthly payment. As the time on the lease neared the end I realized that I was also fucked on the the mileage. Driving back and forth from Philly to New Hampshire had taken its toll. With two months to go on the lease I was within 10 miles of going over and being charged something obscene per mile. Since I had a teaching job at that point, I extended the lease for another 6 months to even things out.

At the end of that extra six months I was done with new cars. It had a few dings and dents which cost me an arm and leg to settle and I was just relieved to be done with it. The CR-V was small as SUVs go, and it had great gas mileage, but letting my mother lease it for me was the stupidest thing I ever could have done and my father was stupid for letting her push me into it. Now I drive another Corolla, from a previous decade that's hideously teal, but it's reliable and paid for and those two things are all I look for in a vehicle.

I don't know what made me think of this, except for that later this morning, when Boyfiend finally wakes up, we're leaving the sweltering heat to go back to the shore. I know. I'm asking for trouble, but it's hot, she's been asking us to come back, we have stuff there we need to bring home, and we're only staying for two nights. And this time Boyfiend's aunt and uncle are at the shore for the week, only ten minutes away, so though we won't see them today, we're spending the day there tomorrow, and only plan to return to my mom's tomorrow night to sleep. On Thursday we'll probably go back to the beach with Boyfiend's family and leave directly from there, so the time spent with my mother should be minimal.

Minimal or not, I'm feeling a bit edgy. We haven't really spoken since we left two weeks ago. Most of her contact has been with Boyfiend. I've decided that for the sake of my family that the minute I become angry or miserable we're leaving. But I hope I can make it the two nights because the heat here is not supposed to break until Friday and I do miss the beach. It sucks that I can't just enjoy the shore without all of the added stress. My mother seems to want to do nice things for me but they always end badly. Everything comes with strings. Anyway, wish me luck.

3 down

2006-07-31T12:23:00.000-04:00

In the past week, possibly because of the return of my womanhood (obnoxiously referred to as AF by the crazy messageboard women- 5 points to the first person who hasn't been pregnant or on baby boards who guesses what AF stands for) I've lost a few more pounds. I now have less than 20 pounds to go. 19.5 to be precise. I'm pleased that it's less than 20, as it sort of seems like a milestone, but I think I'll be even more pleased when my weight gets down under 130.

Of course knowing me, if I ever reach that milestone I'll probably say that I won't be happy until I'm under 125. Then 120. But for now, I've got less than 20 to go. Sweet.

Because I haven't written about it enough

2006-07-28T19:36:00.000-04:00

With all the debate about public nursing, and although Lawmummy probably said it better than I will, I wanted to make sure my opinion was clearly stated. I feed my baby whenever and wherever he's hungry. I won't feed my baby in a public bathroom and I refuse to be homebound because I might be offending someone. If it means I have to feed him at a park, in a restaurant, or in the seasonal section of Target sitting in patio furniture, so be it. He's a baby and he gets hungry about every two hours during the day. Though I prefer not to feed him in public, I usually have to when we're out. Since my overproduction debacle I've had serious difficulty pumping to the tune of not being able to pump anything at all, so bottles aren't so much an option. But I don't see how breastfeeding is any more of a liability than giving your kid a bottle or a sippy cup. (Even when my breasts were flowing like a waterfall I didn't make puddles where I sat.)

The cover of this month's issue of Baby Talk magazine did not offend me. It's a baby eating. There's nothing sexual about it. Let me repeat: There is nothing sexual about it. I've never felt less sexy than I have these past few months. I felt more sexy when I was pregnant and sixty pounds heavier than I do now that I have a baby attached to my breast. Breastfeeding isn't sexy. There's nothing hot about it. My breasts are not as cute and perky as they once were, and when I'm full of milk they're lumpy and weird. I don't want people looking at them, and when I feed the Fiendling in public my intent is not to draw attention to myself or titillate. I don't know any nursing women who intentionally show off the goods while the baby's having a snack.

I've found that being discreet isn't all too difficult with a hooter hider or my sling. I can generally nurse without visible boobage if I'm in mixed company. Around close friends and family I don't care, but in public, I don't really want people looking at my boobs. And that's the way I'm pretty sure most nursing mothers feel.

I nurse my child because it's the best thing for him. If formula was a better choice, I would love to have the luxury of mixing up a bottle and going out for a night on the town without worrying about my two hour window. But it's been proven over and over that breast is best. Even my father randomly calls me to tell me about some article he's read about how great it is. My mother-in-law is in nursing school and she's all excited about the breastfeeding facts she's learning.

So far I've been lucky. Everyone has been incredibly supportive of my choice and only once has someone obviously been offended by my baby's lunch. I was feeding the Fiendling at a chain restaurant and an older couple, probably in their seventies, stared. The woman stared at the Fiendling's feet hanging out of the hooter hider and mock-whispered, " I can't believe she's nursing her baby right here." They left shortly thereafter.

My best experience was at the place I'd least expect- Cracker Barrel. The Fiendling was still teeny-tiny and I'd just fed him in the car in the parking lot. But he was still hungry. So I fed him right in the booth. I felt embarrassed because I didn't have anything big enough to hide him completely and when the waitress walked by and looked right at me I was afraid she was going to say something negative. Instead she smiled and said, "Aww, how sweet." I left a big tip.

There's no question in my mind that breastfeeding is the best choice for me and the Fiendling. I understand that it just doesn't work for some women and that's a shame. Whether it's by breast or by bottle, babies need to eat when they're hungry, not when it's convenient. Any person who feels that nursing publicly is offensive, shameful or sexual is an idiot.

Obviously the boy wasn't hungry

2006-07-27T23:55:00.000-04:00

The Fiendling bit my nipple tonight. Oh. My. God. I had no idea that the bite from one tooth, a tooth that's not even all the way out of the gum yet, could hurt so much. I didn't want to scare him, so I did my best not to cry out, but man is that thing sharp.

Though I most certainly did not enjoy being bitten, it's not something that will deter me from nursing. I was reading some random posts on my crazy lady message board and saw a few from mothers who weren't deterred by a few pesky teeth either. It appears that they have been nursing nonstop since the beginning of time. Well perhaps 34 and 40 months ago isn't exactly the beginnning of time, but as the mother of a four and half month old, the idea of nursing him until he's three years old makes me feel a little queasy. I don't think there's anything wrong with nursing for that long, but I don't know that it's a choice I'll make.

Speaking of nursing, Doodlebug wrote about breastfeeding last week. I hate to be smug, but I agree with what she has to say about being dedicated. But 40 months? That's one hell of a commitment.

Weighty issues

2006-07-25T22:19:00.000-04:00

First, a guest entry from Mix.

I have hijacked girlfiend’s blog once again.

I am at home recovering from weight loss surgery, which if you were wondering is a bitch. I got a new scale that also measures your percentage of body fat.

Being the ever so supportive friends they are, Boyfiend, Girlfiend and The Fiendling came to visit me. Within minutes of being in my place girlfiend noticed the manual for the scale. In all fairness I should have seen that coming. Anyone who spends anytime with girlfiend will notice that she reads EVERYTHING. Signs, flyers, or even a coupon dropped on the floor. It ‘s actually pretty amazing when you pay attention to it. She seems to file these little bits of information away for later use. I never realized how unobservant I was until I noticed her superpower.

Upon seeing the manual she immediately started reading and before she got to page two she was off talking about body fat. Boyfiend sprang to his feet to weight himself and find out his body fat, but having not reading the book, did not know how to program. Girlfiend to the rescue, boyfiend returned to the living room to watch the fiendling, and girlfiend headed to the scale. After a minute of beeping she had the scale programmed with her height, sex, and age. She returned wearing one less shirt. I asked her why she took off her shirt, and she said she didn’t want the shirt to impact her weight. Then she mentioned that she also took off her pants and contemplated getting naked.

After reading the body fat percentage chart she concluded that both hers and her husband's body fat is normal. I then mentioned that a clear sign of her being obsessed with this is that she was thinking about getting naked in my place to find out what her weight and body fat was.

Fully aware she replied, “This is why I don’t own a scale.”

I hope no one ever buys her one.

Look, there's no question I'm obsessed with my weight, but really, as soon as I can once again fit into my Seven for all Mankind jeans, the ones that make my ass look great, I'll be fine, even if I weigh more than I did before. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I just want to be able to fit into my pants. And I mean fit. No muffin top or cameltoe. Squeezing doesn't count. And the naked thing? I weigh myself at the gym. I have no interest in taking off my clothes to get a completely accurate weight there. Besides, I doubt it is accurate. Mix's digital scale has decimals. When I took off my top layer I was down .2 of a pound. I just wanted to see how much difference my pants would make. But I didn't.

Boyfiend's even stranger than I am. He weighed himself before and after he peed. He lost a pound.

What Tony's been up to

2006-07-25T00:37:00.000-04:00

I was lucky enough to chat with my friend Tony (whom you may recognize from Tony's China Blog or some another blog that started with Ompha* that I lost the bookmark to when I upgraded to a newer version of Firefox) online the other day. I like Tony. We used to teach together but then he moved on to bigger and better things, like getting married to Erica, honeymooning in South America, teaching in China, moving to Berkeley, making his own pork products and growing a beard. He's a good guy. Now he's applying to medical schools and working as a blogographer. His new blog, Leina's Life (by Tony), is a semi-authorized biography and a great read.

Here's the second entry, from the December 2005 archive.

Going South

Today is not completed yet, but for those interested in what Leina might be up to at this moment, I believe she has gone to Mountain View or Redwood City or one of those ridiculously named cities south of San Francisco to visit with/support her friend Miki, whose mom is sick with a tumor and I think she is having brain surgery today. So we all hope that Miki's mom is okay, and thank Leina for being a supportive friend and spending some time with Miki during a really stressful time.

That is a theme you will notice with this blog. Leina is super supportive and always doing nice things for other people. Even if they don't deserve it (though Miki definitely deserves it).

And for breakfast she probably had shredded wheat and some melon.

I've only read the current entries and those from December, but I think Tony's really on to something here. Boyfiend thinks he'd make an excellent biographer as well. He may be right, but I don't know if he'd be able to find a subject as ideal as Leina.

*I just looked back at an email and found that the "Ompha" blog I referred to is Omphaloskepsis. The blog appears to be on hiatus, but Tony did write about making his own scrapple. He sure eats a lot of pork.

Too soon

2006-07-24T11:36:00.000-04:00

See that? He's teething. And not just drooly, shoving things in his mouth, a tooth may arrive sometime in the next few months teething- there's an actual tooth pushing through the surface. His gum has split and you can feel that fucker. The Fiendling, brow furrowed, can't stop poking at his sharp spot with his tongue. He wants to be his usual happy-go-lucky self, but that shit hurts and he's got the middle-of-the-night waking and tugging on his ears and scrunching up his face and whimpering to prove it.

I blame it on Boyfiend. Though she can't remember when he got his first tooth, his mother tells me he had eight teeth by six months. Eight. Most kids don't even get a tooth until after six months, but Boyfiend had to go ahead and be an overachiever.

So yesterday, while Boyfiend helped his dad cut up a fallen tree, his mom stayed with the Fiendling so I could run to Target and pick up some teethers. Every single one of them said not to put it in the freezer. I'd already given the Fiendling one frozen rattle which he seemed to enjoy immensely, but because I'm cautious I put the new ones in the fridge. Useless. Even though it's cooler here than it has been in weeks, as soon as they left the fridge they were room temperature. So now they're all going into the freezer. And if they explode and the Fiendling ingests some of that weird gel I'll probably win some kind of award for the worst mother of the year, but at least he'll get some relief in the meantime.

Jews for Jesus?

2006-07-22T20:35:00.000-04:00

Saw this sticker on our way home from the shore. Weird, right?

Done, Sort of

2006-07-20T13:01:00.000-04:00

Last night we sort of decided that we're done with going to the shore. As much as we love the beach it's just not worth the trauma or drama.

When I was down last week when Boyfiend was away things were fine until I walked into the kitchen around 5.30, cocktail hour, to find her smoking. Furious, I immediately packed up and left without saying goodbye. Oblivious to the fact that I left in a rage my mom called a few hours later to ask me to give the Fiendling a kiss for her. I calmly explained that I'd asked her not to smoke in the house when I'm there with the baby. She swore up and down that she was just lighting her cigarette off of the stove and she planned on going outside to smoke it. She said it would never happen again. Annoying as it is that she'd smoke in the house after promising not to three times, it's not a deal breaker, so Boyfiend and I went back Monday to escape the heat.

I'm not entirely sure what happened this time, but by the time we got to the point where my mother got us sandwiches I was on edge. I admit that my reaction was overdramatic and uncalled for when I totally threw a hissyfit and acted like a baby. But my mother, knowing full well that I don't like mayonnaise and raw tomatoes and never have, bought me a turkey hoagie with tomatoes that was dripping in mayonnaise. I lost it. It took me close to two hours to control my rage. It was just a sandwich, and I should've just let it go, but no part of the sandwich was salvagable, it was so covered in greasy, disgusting mayonnaise. It wasn't even just on the bread, it was on the turkey, the lettuce and the tomatoes. I didn't yell at her or anything, I even told her it was nice of her to get the sandwich, but it was obvious that I was disgusted and furious.

On the beach she asked Boyfiend if I acted that way in front of his family. He honestly told her no, that I only act that way with her. Later, at home, after we'd gone to bed and the Fiendling decided to wake up, Boyfiend took him for a walk and busted my mother smoking. I was sound asleep by the time they got back, so I wasn't privy to this information until later.

The next day when I apologized for being such a bitch, rather than accept my apology my mother told me that I was a good mother but I'm a lousy wife and a lousy daughter. She told me that she's disappointed in me, that I'm going to lose Boyfiend, and that she raised me better. I somehow managed not to mention that I reacted so poorly because I'm her daughter and because that's how she raised me. Boyfiend, upon hearing this commented that the majority of fights we have occur because I'm acting like my mother.

So we're taking some time off. At least a week, probably more. It's hard for me to be there without being angry, and there's really no solution. As soon as my mom opens her mouth she inevitably says something that makes me feel bad, like, "See her? That's how you should dress. She's wearing a bikini top and a sarong. I don't like what you're wearing at all." And sure, I can ignore that, but when she tells me that she's not of the eaters and I am, and she says it as though eating is this bad, dirty thing, and Boyfiend's an eater, and I'm an eater, but she's not, she's a grazer and being a grazer is somehow more virtuous, it makes me feel even worse than I already do about the 20 pounds I still haven't lost.

Then she tells me that I need to adjust my gym schedule, because going in the morning doesn't work for her, even though I go in the morning because the Fiendling sleeps until 9.30 or 10 most days, and I wait until after his next feeding to go to the gym because I don't really want him on the beach at the height of the midday sun, so if I go to the gym around 11.30 or 12, we don't get to the beach until 2 or 3, which is perfect, because then we can stay until 6 or so. But of course that doesn't work for my mother. For some reason she thinks I should wait until 5 to go to the gym and it's a shame, but if it means I can't get to the beach, so be it. And she's not even involved at all. When I work out, the Fiendling's with his dad. Why does she even care?

So yeah, did I mention I need some time off? I wish there was a solution, but the truth is that she doesn't respect me enough not to smoke in the house, and I'm not strong enough to ignore the shit that pours out of her mouth. And it is shit. She says all the time that she lives alone and talks to hear the sound of her own voice, so most of what she says is just shit and means nothing to her. It's meaningless, yet she's incapable of listening to me, and understanding that the shit she says hurts. It hurts and she doesn't care, so I'm the one who feels like a fool when she says I should be wearing a bikini top and a sarong, and she's bought me a sandwich, only it's dripping in mayonnaise so obviously she didn't care enough to get me something I'd actually eat which probably means she doesn't want me to eat at all, because she's not of the eaters, so I shouldn't be either. Still, deep down in the back of my mind I believe that even going down to my pre-pregnancy weight, 112, isn't nearly thin enough, because she's told me on numerous occasions that I'm supposed to weigh 108, which I only ever weighed when I flirted with anorexia and when Boyfiend broke up with me and I was physically unable to eat for a few weeks.

So we're done. Sort of. We have a ton of stuff there, like clothing and a kayak and toys, and there's still more than a month left in the summer and we both love the beach and wish there was a way to make things work. So we'll take some time off and hope that when we visit again things won't be as bad. Because the last visit was bad. Really, really bad.

It's hot

2006-07-16T21:21:00.000-04:00

things you don't want to hear from your mom

2006-07-10T19:16:00.000-04:00

I should work out, not you. My joints are getting bad. My knees hurt. I can't even get up from giving a blowjob. (laughs hysterically) Why did I say that? That was so crude. Pretend you didn't hear that, Fiendling. (to me) Do you want some coffee?

On an entirely unrelated note, I left for the shore with all three of my cats locked in the basement. It's a good thing Mix was pet sitting this time around. If it were anyone else, they'd probably still be down there.

I'm dreading the hits I'll get from this post

2006-07-08T23:59:00.000-04:00

I have no problem with nudity. When vacationing in a place where it's socially acceptable I take advantage of the opportunity to avoid tan lines up top, and when we vacationed in Greece a few months after we began dating Boyfiend and I bared all on a nude beach or two. We skipped the nude beach on our honeymoon but that was more because the people on the nude beach weren't exactly eye candy than because we're shy.

But Pam Anderson hanging out topless on a boat with a friend and her kid? There's just something about those knockers that just make it seem wrong. In theory it should be fine. Silicone or not, tits are tits. But my tits are a food source. Hers are masturbation material. I shouldn't be weirded out by her hanging out topless in front of her son, but I am.

It reminds me of a nude beach in Greece. For some reason Germans love lettin' it all hang out. Even the teenagers. Boyfiend and I witnessed a naked German family frolicking on the beach. It was fine until the dad and the teenage boy, both nude, started wrestling. Then it got really creepy.

I don't think I'm being prudish when I say there's something wrong about a father and son wrestling naked. But am I being prudish about Pam Anderson?

At this point I'm probably just asking for it

2006-07-05T23:17:00.000-04:00

Our last trip to the shore was rather uneventful. Boyfiend, the Fiendling, my mother and I were joined by Boyfiend's sister and boyfriend for the weekend. Everything went swimmingly. The Fiendling enjoyed the beach and my mother didn't pick any fights. We'd planned on leaving either Sunday night or Monday morning. By the time Sunday afternoon rolled around I figured we'd be good for another night.

My mother had other plans. Seemingly out of nowhere, she very cheerfully told Boyfiend and I that she'd had it. She was through. We had to leave after dinner. Of course if we'd known this ahead of time, we wouldn't even have stayed for dinner. Boyfiend had already bought food and drinks for dinner, so we were sort of stuck staying, especially since we didn't want his sister and her boyfriend to know we were being kicked out.

Her desire to get rid of us didn't bother me. My mother is unpredictable and I figured she just wanted us out of her hair so she could smoke cigarettes freely. Friday night, while we sat and talked on the front porch, she'd gone around the back and smoked a cigarette while sitting in the Fiendling's stroller. Saturday night, she waited up until 2 for us to go to sleep so she could smoke in the house. I wasn't surprised she wanted her space back. Boyfiend, who comes from a nice family, comprised of individuals who would never dream of kicking us out on a holiday weekend, was offended.

Later that afternoon, after we were back from the beach, Boyfiend asked, Does your mother have someone else coming?

No, why?

Well, don't you think it's weird that she's suddenly so insistent that we leave?

What do you mean?

We were on the beach having a nice time. She got a phone call. She walked away and when she came back she told us we had to leave.

I hadn't actually thought of it this way. Everything he said made sense. We hadn't fought. She hadn't embarrassed me in front of Boyfiend's sister. Why was she so keen on us leaving immediately? Boyfiend and I concocted a plan to see how serious she was. We decided we'd make up an excuse for why we had to stay and see how she'd react.

It turned out we didn't even need to make up an excuse. By the time we'd finished dinner, the Fiendling was exhausted and fussy. As Boyfiend's sister was leaving the Fiendling was crying hysterically. I told my mother I wanted to stay because I didn't want to drive home with a screaming baby. She said, Go home. He'll fall asleep in the car. I said no, he won't fall asleep if he's hysterical, he'll just keep screaming. She said, Go home. He'll be fine. We packed up the car just as thunder struck and lightning flashed in the sky. I told her that I didn't want to drive home with a screaming baby in a thunder storm. She said, Go. It's probably fine in the city. It will be clear in no time. I'll see you when you come back on Wednesday. We got into the car. Drive safe. I love you. See you Wednesday.

So we left. The Fiendling was fine and we missed the storm. The storm hit the city far worse than it hit the shore, but luckily we missed most of it. We got home in under two hours, but the damage had been done and this time I wasn't the one damaged. Boyfiend was absolutely horrified that my mother would kick us out of her house. He was angry and hurt. He couldn't understand why my mother would kick us out of her house after nine on a Sunday night. I don't think she had any other guests arriving, I just think she wanted to be able to smoke in the house without having to feel bad about the baby.

We're going back tomorrow. The plan is to stay until Saturday- Boyfiend leaves for his sailing trip and I need to get back for Baby Doodle's christening on Sunday. We'll see if we make it that far now that I'm not the only one leery of my mother.

2006-06-29T18:45:00.000-04:00

My laptop is in the shop again (people, it is foolish not to purchase the extended warranty, as the next time it goes in because of overheating or a faulty power supply -and I truly believe that there will, indeed, be a next time- I'll probably get a new one.) so updating sort of sucks. I can either use Boyfiend's slow work laptop or my old slow desktop and I'm way too impatient for that.

But life is good. The Fiendling is getting cuter and more grown up every day. The other night he fell asleep and I put him in the crib in his room, not the pack 'n play in our room. I planned on leaving him there for night, for the first time. As we got ready for bed, Boyfiend asked, "He's not sleeping in there is he?" I said that I'd planned on it. Boyfiend wasn't too keen on the idea. He went into his room and brought him back into ours, which was good since he uncharacteristically awoke twice that night. He's slept in our room ever since, and even though it will be nice when he sleeps in his own room I'm really glad Boyfiend wasn't ready, because I wasn't ready either. It's good to have him close.

He's getting more coordinated too. He can roll over from his tummy to his back and he's gotten much better at holding onto things. Occasionally he even picks up a toy that he's dropped. He sits up really well if he he's propped on a pillow or if he has a hand to hold onto. Sometimes if I let go he doesn't keel right over- he sits unassisted for a moment before slowly sinking forward. He plays for much longer periods of time, on his play gym or in the exersaucer. He's also more interested in his surroundings. He's content to sit awake on someone's lap, just looking around.

Oh, and he giggles now. Once after a burp, a few times after kisses right below the ear. Last night he giggled in the shower. Was it the water or his dad's naked body that was so funny? We are so lucky to have such a happy baby. Really, incredibly, indescribably lucky.

Tomorrow morning we're heading back to my mom's (for two nights, no longer) and we'll be back here in the city for the 4th of July. AFter that we'll probably go back to the shore for another night or two, then Boyfiend leaves for a sailing trip. That will be the first time I'll be on my own with the Fiendling 24/7.

Random plug: For all of the parents reading or for those of you who have a baby gift to purchase, Babygadget is a kickass site.

Four nights

2006-06-25T18:41:00.000-04:00

Four is the number of nights we managed to stay at my mom's before we couldn't take it anymore. Well, before I couldn't take it anymore. The french fry thing was bad, but when she made me and the Fiendling go for a trip to Sam's Club with her, only she didn't know where it was, it was kind of the last straw. It's bad enough going to that hellhole, but after I'd gone in a 45 minute circle and we weren't there yet and the Fiendling was crying and I was starving I thought I might kill her. I didn't, even after I was forced to nurse the Fiendling while walking around the store. (Have I mentioned I'm good at multitasking?)

Then last night we watched My Date with Drew and I somehow managed not to kill her even when she spent the entire movie complaining about how creepy the guy Brian, who wanted the date with Drew was, even though he wasn't creepy, he was just a big dork. The woman did not shut up for the entire 90 minute movie. Her voice makes me shudder.

Last night I overheard her complaining to Boyfiend about how unsophisticated my eating habits are because I didn't like her cold cream of broccoli soup. Only I never said I didn't like the soup. I'm sure she knew I could hear her, which is why she started whispering after she used the word unsophisticated. Such a bitch. Boyfiend insisted she didn't say anything else, but I don't know that I believe him. I just think he was trying to keep me from telling her that I'd hardly call her microwave cookbook recipes sophisticated.

I'm going to have to learn how to build up my resistance. She talks to hear the sound of her own voice and says the most ridiculous things which she immediately contradicts. And she's mean. She picks fights. "Remember when you went on that bike trip? They called me and told me you cried because it was too hard. You were such a baby. Waah waah waah." Um yeah, I remember that when I specifically said I wanted to stay home for the summer you sent me away on a bike trip when I hadn't ridden a bike in five years. Remember that? I do. I also remember that it took about a week before my body got used to riding 30 miles a fucking day and it was hard enough being an adolescent girl without being the adolescent girl everyone else on the trip had to wait for at each stop. And why would you bring this up fifteen years later at breakfast?

So four nights, ended up being two nights too many. We'll go back later next week but we'll only stay for two nights. I think that keeping the visits short and sweet may save me. I can only keep from fighting back for so long.

Wet t-shirt contest

2006-06-23T09:40:00.000-04:00

I'm sitting in bed at my mom's house in a wet t-shirt. This is rather unusual, as I can't actually remember a time I did this on purpose. But alas, my breasts were the size of cantaloupes this morning and I needed to apply a cold washcloth before going back to sleep. I woke up sort of cold and wet, but the Fiendling hasn't eaten and my right breast is still the size and texture of a softball. I really hope this morning's engorgement is not indicative of another overproduction issue. Because that stretch of time, which took more than a month of recovery, really, really sucked.

You know what else sucks? My mother telling me I need to diet. When she said I shouldn't have an English muffin with breakfast, that I should stick to the protein of eggs and bacon I got a little annoyed. When she made shoestrings for dinner (my mother, though she deep fries them, refuses to call them french fries. They are shoestrings.) she only made enough for herself and Boyfiend, I got really annoyed. Though I wasn't on one, she inflicted a diet upon me. My mother decided I was on a low carb diet and shouldn't eat fries. Sweet.

Yes, I want to lose weight. Yes, I still have 22 pounds to go before I'm back at pre-pregnancy weight. Yes, I am exercising and not eating cheesesteaks for dinner every day. But I exercised and watched what I ate before I even got pregnant. I eat junk food sometimes, but mainly I eat pretty well. I generally avoid stupid carbs, like processed white breads and stick to whole grains and whole wheat bread and crackers. But fries with dinner one night? It was so insulting.

I have lost a few more pounds. Not many, but I'm now at my fattest pre-pregnancy weight ever. I now weigh what I did when my mother sent me on a teen tour for a summer because she didn't want me around. I sat on a bus and ate for a month and gained 15 pounds. We were at an amusement park and we played one of those games where the guy has to guess your weight within 2 pounds. I didn't believe him when he guessed mine and I was mortified when I stepped on the scale and weighed 134. That's what I weigh right now. At least it's not 165.

I can fit into a few pairs of my old pants. They button and zip, but because of the squeeze factor and resulting muffin top, I don't plan on wearing them for another 5 pounds. I'm just pleased they fit over my ass again.

bald and beautiful

2006-06-20T15:15:00.000-04:00

So drooly. So cute.

Recipe by request

2006-06-19T10:08:00.000-04:00

Meatloaf

One lb meatloaf (pork, beef, veal) mix
One lb ground turkey (white meat or 7% fat)
Half a large vidalia onion or one small white onion chopped
one cup breadcrumbs or rolled oats (you can substitute a slice of bread torn into small pieces)
2/3 cup ketchup
3 large eggs ligthly beaten
fresh herbs- maybe a cup?
salt and pepper to taste- maybe half a teaspoon of each

knead with your hands to mix all ingredients- don't overmix
bake in a nonstick or well greased loaf pan (free form works if you don't have one)at 350 in a preheated oven for 60-75 minutes or until meatloaf reaches 160 degrees
drain fat and let sit for a few minutes before serving (serves 8)

That's the basic recipe- you can experiment from there. I change and add ingredients every time I make it depending on what's in my house at the time. You can use any combination of ground meat. I use half turkey to make it slightly healthier. I like the meatloaf mix, but if I only have ground beef it works just as well.

The most important thing for me is the fresh herbs. I usually have fresh rosemary, cilantro, parsley and basil in the freezer (yes I know that's frozen, not fresh but it's not dried) and I'll throw in enough so it looks like every bite will have some green in it. You can substitute with a few teaspoons of dried- any combination of basil, thyme, parsley or Italian seasoning will do- but really, fresh is better.

I throw in some parmesan cheese or mozzarella if the meatloaf's heavy on Italian herbs.

You can also put a few strips of uncooked bacon on top before baking- Boyfiend loves it because of the bacony goodness and I don't because it's not crispy, but it does add some flavor. If you're going that route you can make a ketchup/brown sugar glaze on top (1/4 cup ketchup mixed with 1/8 cup brown sugar or barbecue sauce if you're lazy). It's not my fave, but Boyfiend really likes it. I prefer savory to sweet.

Once you've made it a few times, you'll get a feel for how you like it. Before then, you can take a spoonful of your mix and fry it quickly to see if you like how it tastes and adjust from there. And if you don't want to cook inside you can make it into patties and grill it outside, like burgers.

While I'm at it, here's a guacamole recipe. Not related, but it requires no cooking and it's delicious.

Guacamole

3 ripe avacodos, halved, pitted and peeled
one small onion, chopped
3 jalapeno peppers, seeded and finely chopped
one small tomato, chopped
juice of 1 1/2 limes
slightly more than half a cup of fresh cilantro, cut into smallish pieces (Do not substitute with dried. Yuck.)
salt and pepper to taste

Mash the avocado with a potato masher or fork then add the remaining ingredients, mixing until everything's combined. Serve with tortilla chips.

Philadelphia is really small and sometimes good things happen to people who might not be so good. And some shopping.

2006-06-16T09:36:00.000-04:00

Part I

Philadelphia, while geographically large, is a very, very small city. Starting when I was 14, to the annoyance of many of my friends, I couldn't go anywhere without running into someone I knew. It's not just me. Philadelphia's just that small. You'll run into a kid you made fun of in middle school in the grocery store, a friend's creepy boyfriend from high school in line at the movies, and a person you had a mad, embarrassing girl crush on at a party. When Boyfiend and I were broken up he was sighted on two separate occasions by two different people out with another woman. I even ran into him in a bar drinking with the "I like purging things" girl he'd known years earlier. Ouch.

The internet makes Philly even smaller. Some time last year at the gym I couldn't stop staring at a woman on the elliptical machine in front of mine because I recognized her from pictures on her blog.A few days ago Chris Lehmann left me a comment. Here's the part that's pertinent to this conversation:

As an aside, I was walking to work / Jakob-day-care-drop-off today when a couple and young child that looked remarkably like y'all wandered by. I thought, hm... maybe they're up in their old neighborhood... so I asked if they blogged.

It wasn't you.

Later that very same evening I was eating dinner outside at Rembrandts with my mother, Boyfiend and the Fiendling. I saw a guy a few tables over with a small child. He looked familiar. I noticed that he was looking at me as well. Eventually I placed him- It was Chris and his cutie-patootie son Jakob. I walked over and said hello. Sure it's not unusual for people to run into bloggers in real life, but on the very same day as a comment like that? Only in Philadelphia.

Part II

We all know I'm not that great of a person. I'm not bad, but I can be bitchy and snarky and obnoxious. I'm nosy and a gossip. I tell insensitive jokes and listen to Howard Stern. Before my pregnancy I was a bit of a lush and smoked. A lot. I'm sure if I were to take more time I could add plenty to this list, but for now I'll leave it be. Anyway, shortly after I wrote about the ketubah incident, the ketubah artist's husband found the post and left a comment:

Hi,

I'm Nishima's husband, Alon. I happened across your post - we had no idea that your Aunt had ordered the "wrong" ketubah.

We would be happy to make "Summer of Joy" for you at no cost. We still have all your information on file.

I was flabbergasted, and really how often does one have the opportunity to be flabbergasted? I was also a bit embarrassed. The whole saga seemed embarrassingly overdramatic and silly. And I wasn't sure if I'd used the F word in my post. But I called. And Alon and Nishima Kaplan came through. The mailed me the "right" Ketubah a few months later. It's beautiful and exactly what we wanted. If you need a ketubah, Art Ketubah is the place to look. Good things do happen sometimes.

Part III

Target.com has better customer service than the actual store. Sometimes. I ordered a swing for the Fiendling and used a gift card. However instead of using the gift card, they charged my credit card instead. When I called, the customer service representative couldn't uncharge my card, but she applied a $15 credit to my account. Unfortunately, when the same charging-my-credit-card-not-the-gift-card- scenario occured a few weeks later I was not so lucky.

Speaking of customer service, Fisher Price kicks ass. The swing stopped working after 3 days. I called customer service and within a week they'd sent me a brand new motor and the swing was back in swing.

I've also been buying a ton of baby gear to leave at my mom's shore house because anyone with a child can attest to just how much of a pain in the ass it is to shlep the bouncy seat, the playmat, the stroller and all of the other 900 items you need when you travel. Craigslist has worked out really well for me. Everyone's been so nice and honest and easy to deal with. Except for the asshole who told me to be at his house Tuesday at 11.30 am and sold the damn stroller to the person who was there 20 minutes before me to buy the changing table. He told me when to come. I said I'd be there. He said okay. When I got to his house, a crying Fiendling in tow, he shrugged and said, "Oh. You're here for the stroller. I wasn't sure if you'd show up so I sold it." Dick.

More fun than impotence drugs

2006-06-13T19:10:00.000-04:00

This, the best subject line ever, somehow evaded the spam folder: A miserable person is one who truly enjoys a fart but can't

Girlfiend's random, rambling thoughts

2006-06-12T09:14:00.000-04:00

I sent my mom the link to my flickr site the other day, where the name "Girlfiend" is prominently displayed. I'm thankful my mother's computer savvy-ness stops short at eBay, because my mother suspects I have a blog, but doesn't know exactly what one is or how to find one. Obviously my mother does not read this blog. I'm sure that a day may come when she finds it, but I hope that if she does I'm not around.

The other night I dreamed that my mother did find my blog. She discovered it by searching for girlfiend and saw a picture of the Fiendling on the front page. I was in the room, as she scrolled down the page and read, then as she began to explore the archives. I was waiting for her to find something that would upset or anger her, but my crazy Aunt Bea was around and I was supposed to take her out. I knew I was in trouble and I knew the link would be passed around to the rest of her family and friends. It was a terrible dream.

By the by, I've been kicking around the idea of changing the name over here. While "I Like Purging Things" really amused me at the time, I'm sort of over having the blog name acting as a big middle finger to a girl Boyfiend used to fool around with( a girl with a live-in boyfriend who sent him an email telling him he was her soulmate with the words, "I like purging things" explaining why she was telling him all of this 10+ years later.) Any suggestions? Suggestions with the words rambling, random, or thoughts in title will be ignored.

Three months

2006-06-09T07:36:00.000-04:00

My little Fiendling was three months old yesterday. He wears overalls now, not just baby suits with feet.

He's grown up so much in the past week. It's incredible how quickly he learns how to do new things. All of a sudden he discovered that not only does he have hands, but those hands can grab and hold things. He went from flailing to grabbing in the space of a day and now he's fascinated by his toys instead of just mildly amused.

I love that he holds things and plays with them now instead of just staring at them. It's hard work, but he's learning how to coordinate his hands and feet to shove his toys in his mouth.

He was so little when we brought him home. Scrawny. He screamed from hunger before my milk came in and we were exhausted and scared. I was terrified I wouldn't be able to feed my baby and terrified I'd never sleep again. Now look at him.

He's such a little meatball, all pudgy and delicious. He has dimples on his hands and his elbows and michelin man thighs. And he eats so much he sleeps. For six, seven or eight hours in a row. He's sturdy now. A real boy. My Fiendling's a baby, not a newborn.

I am so happy.

Oy vey, indeed

2006-06-08T21:42:00.000-04:00

Look at the shayna punim. See how cute she is? Now go to her fundraising site and help her get to Israel. Every good Jewish girl needs to visit the wall at least once, and she's shamelessly begging for your help.

This is all over the place

2006-06-07T08:31:00.000-04:00

A few months ago, before the Fiendling was born, I emailed Lawmummy asking what she and her husband were considering for school options for their children. At the time they were anticipating sending their girls to a local public school. When I read on her blog that her daughter was interviewing at private schools I started following some of the links and reading some of the archives.

Right around my due date I began to panic about our decision to buy this house. I should preface this by saying that it's everything either of us want in a house. We both wanted a big house that wasn't too big. We wanted a house that was old and charming, not new and McMansiony. We wanted a yard with trees and Boyfiend was insistent that we have a garage where he could build things and repair cars. We needed a house in a neighborhood, where we could interact with people and walk places. Our old neighborhood, Fairmount, was perfect in many respects but unfortunately we couldn't afford a larger house, especially one with a garage. So when we found this house, a beautiful Victorian, with wood floors and crown moulding and leaded glass windows and a second floor parlor with a wood burning stove and a beautiful yard with a detached two car garage in a neighborhood where we can walk to bars, restaurants, the supermarket, coffeeshops, the little Italian bakery, Bob's Diner, Main Street Manayunk and the Wissahickon, we couldn't resist. We put in a bid and it was accepted. Then I found out I was pregnant.

Everything sort of happened all at once. I was nauseous and tired and packing and moving and painting and unpacking and then after a short week in the house we went away to the Outer Banks for two weeks and then we were home, here, in our big beautiful house where we planned to raise our first child. Only the house is in the city. And the schools here? Not so hot.

When you live in the city you can either hope your child gets into one of the few good, desirable public schools, send them to Catholic school, or pay lots of money for private school. Catholic schools for me are not an option. I went to Episcopal as a kid and the stigma of being Jewish was too much for me to take by the time I hit fourth grade, so unless it's a Jewish day school like Akiba, I'd be uncomfortable sending the Fiendling to any school with a religious affiliation. The private schools around here, especially the Quaker schools, are wonderful, but they're expensive, up to $20,000 a year by high school plus an annual contribution. It's crazy. And as for the public schools? I worked in Philadelphia public schools and it wasn't pretty. I know not all of the schools are as a bad as the ones in ghetto North Philly, but frankly it seems risky. And for each of the sweet kids in the neighborhood, there's a gang of teenage boys spitting and cursing and throwing rocks at Doodlebug's car window.

I panicked. I spent days researching schools like crazy and trying to figure out if we'd be able to move to the suburbs by the time the Fiendling was school age. If we started him in public school in the city we'd be screwed if we didn't move soon after, as most of the private schools don't have openings after pre-kindergarten. It seems ridiculous, but it's true. Getting your kid into private school is harder then getting them into college these days. Each grade level has just a few openings each year with hundreds of parents fighting to get their kids in. At Episcopal there were only a few "new kids" each year. And Philly schools aren't terrible in the early elementary years. The balanced literacy program is actually pretty good, but after third grade things get kind of scary. When I taught sixth grade I had a gifted ten-year-old and a sixteen-year-old in the same class. That's just not safe. But moving? I don't want to move, I love this house, and Boyfiend really doesn't want to move. More than anything else he's against the idea of packing up all of our stuff.

After reading Lawmummy's posts on Phillyblog I decided I trusted her opinion, so when I learned she was considering the local public school I figured it couldn't be that bad and basically stopped panicking. But reading about her daughter's private school interviews made me feel a little less sure of myself. I only have four years if it's going to be private school, so if we're going to have another kid, which Boyfiend wants and I'm not so sure about, we'd have to start trying next summer and I'd have to go back work probably before the second child is school-age so we'd have money, which opens up a whole other can of worms.

It's all a lot to think about, especially since I initially started this post because I wanted to write about my breakfast- frozen Kashi waffles- because somewhere in her archives Kelly wrote that she didn't understand frozen waffles, and frankly I don't either. Usually I eat toast and fresh fruit for breakfast during the week (on weekends Boyfiend makes bacon egg and cheese on English muffins for us or sometimes pancakes) but I bought these stupid waffles on a whim months back and they've been in my freezer taking up space forever so I decided it was about time for me to eat them. I tried them back when I was pregnant, but they were gross with syrup and butter, so this morning I decided to experiment. I ate the first with apple butter (christ, I made that all the way back in October, it's about time I ate some) and blueberries and it was surprisingly good. I ate the second with peanut butter, strawberry jelly (made by my father-in-law) with more fresh blueberries and that wasn't so bad either.

Helper

2006-06-04T19:25:00.000-04:00

The Fiendling just helped me vacuum. By helped, I mean he slumped like a dead weight in the baby carrier as I lugged the vacuum from room to room on the first and second floors. He's such a good helper.

Dysfunction at its finest

2006-06-01T09:10:00.000-04:00

My cousin Meg called yesterday to say hi and see how the Fiendling's doing. Meg, here from New York for the day, came over to visit on Mother's Day. She thought she'd see me, as my mom and I and her sister and her kids usually spend that day together, but my aunt (you may recall her from the ketubah incident) and my mom are in yet another raging fight. They haven't spoken for about a month now, and there's absolutely no sign of them making up any time soon. Check out this insanity.

My cousin Paul got married a few days after the Fiendling was born. His wife's from Arizona so they got married there, which means that going to this wedding cost everyone at least $1000, including airfare, hotel, present, etc. Before the wedding my aunt Bea, who lives in the same building as my mom, was at her apartment and my mom showed her the dress she planned on wearing: vintage couture- Valentino I think. Bea saw the dress and said, "I must wear it." My mom, knowing how important Paul's wedding was to her said yes, but made her promise not to get it altered.

The wedding was held at the Sanctuary, a beautiful, expensive mountaintop resort. My mother saw the prices of the rooms were around $500/night and started looking around for other places to stay. Bea told her no, she had to stay at the Sanctuary. My mother assumed that everyone else would be staying there too and she wanted to be where the action was, knowing that people generally meet up in the bar for drinks after the wedding is over. Unfortunately no one was staying at the Sanctuary, except for my mother, Bea, Meg, and Paul and his new wife. My mom was disappointed and slightly annoyed to learn she was paying a ton of money and missing out on the fun, but she still enjoyed herself and came home to tell me what a beautiful wedding it was.

Here are a few of the fights surrounding the wedding:

Bea was paying for a portion of the rehearsal dinner. She was annoyed that Paul didn't arrange for her transportation from the airport to the hotel. She was also annoyed that she was on her own getting to the rehearsal dinner. Paul ended up driving both my mom and Bea to the rehearsal dinner. Because I'd just given birth the discussion of what my mom wanted the Fiendling to call her came up. My mom does not want to be a Grandma, a Bubbe or a Nanny because they all sound too old to her. She's decided to be called DeDe, a diminutive of her name. Bea said, "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard." My mom bitchily responded, "When your children give you grandbabies you can decide what you'll be called." Paul, nearly 40 and getting married after nine years of dating Sarah, said, "Mom, she's got a good point."

Meg, although she was never asked, assumed she'd be in her brother's wedding. She was furious to learn she was not. Bea was pissed to learn Meg wouldn't be in the wedding. After tears and arguments Meg ended up walking down the aisle with the wedding party. But the damage was done.

Paul and Sarah were married by a rabbi even though Sarah's not Jewish. During the ceremony they honored their deceased grandparents while Ave Maria played. Bea was outraged that Paul would honor her dead mother with a Christian song.

During the cocktail hour, Bea took Paul aside and started telling him how inappropriate it was to play Ave Maria. She also told him that Sarah's mother was ugly, her sister was fat, and her whole family was a bunch of hicks who didn't know how to behave. Paul's best man tried to tell her that perhaps this wasn't the best time to pick a fight with her son, but Bea kept going. She yelled at her son at his wedding reception. Nice, right?

Everyone returns home and pretends things are fine, but really they're not. Paul and Bea make up and to smooth things over Bea tells him that my mother had a miserable time at his wedding and did nothing but complain about how expensive it was. Paul was upset by this. To show just how upset he was, he wrote my mother a nasty note and included a check for $1000. My mother sees the letter and the check and was rightfully pissed off. While she did spend more money than she'd planned on this wedding, she didn't complain about it. And she's a complainer. I was surprised when she told me how beautiful the wedding was and what a nice time she had, so for once I can actually vouch for her. Rather than simply ignore the letter she cashed the check.

Paul was an idiot to send her a check. He should know by now that his mom's a shit talker who picks fights. He could have called my mother and confronted her about her supposed complaints, or he just could have been a man and ignored it. But he didn't. He sent her a check.

My mother should have torn up the check. Paul acted like a child, but rather than ignore him, my mom fed into it and further exacerbated the situation by spending his money.

This story is already insanely long, but it continues.

The check and the shit talking was not what finally prompted the big fight between my aunt and my mom. Even after all the shit about the money and the check everyone was annoyed but still talking. The straw that broke the camel's back was the dress. Remember the dress? The vintage couture Bea borrowed? She had it altered. Her tailor cut 6 inches off of the hem. This was it for my mom. You don't fuck with couture. Now Meg and Paul are just barely speaking, Paul's pissed at my mom, Meg, single and unhappy at 43, is convinced her life has been ruined because of her mom, and my mom hasn't spoken to her sister in more than a month. They live in the same building ahd haven't said a word to each other. Bea actually uses the back entrance when she and my mom get home at the same time. Pretty sweet, huh?

I am so glad Boyfiend's family is normal.

2006-06-01T08:03:00.000-04:00

I've just spent the last hour reading the book Baby Signs and crying. It's about teaching your baby simple signs to communicate before they're developmentally able to speak. It's no laugh riot, but it's not a tearjerker either. I guess the anecdotes about little Suzy telling her mom she's got a fever by repeatedly making her sign for hot is too much for my delicate post-pregnancy ego.

Speaking of my delicate ego, thank you for telling me I don't look pregnant. I don't expect to be a size 2 again any time in the near future, but hearing I look pregnant was just a little too much for me. And the part about my fat arms? Really put me over the edge. It certainly didn't help that I was feeling pretty good about myself that day. As we left to go to the party I thought I looked good. I wasn't wearing a single maternity item and my shorts actually had a zipper in lieu of an elastic waistband. My gut wasn't even hanging over the top. So yeah. Hearing I was mistaken about how good I looked was not what I needed to hear.

You know what else I didn't need to hear that night? My mother saying the word "rimjob" repeatedly. I'll leave it up to you to guess how that one came up.

2006-05-29T00:28:00.000-04:00

Howard the Cat is being so fucking annoying right now. I was gone for two nights- you'd think he'd been abandoned for months by the way he's crawling all over me and digging in his claws. I love him dearly, but when he's overly affectionate he draws blood. I wish I believed in declawing.

The trip to the shore went surprisingly well. Two nights and my mom didn't insult me once. Instead, her friend did. Dan, an interior designer, looked at me and completely oblivious asked, "Oh, are you expecting again?"

I didn't realize I look like I'm still pregnant. He tried to soften the blow by telling me how voluptuous I look. Then he told me that my arms were looking big. Thanks, dude. I look pregnant and I have fat arms. This is less than a week after Boyfiend accidentally told me that he loved my big ass. Not my cute ass, or my beautiful ass. He said he loved my BIG ASS. I know that the weight loss benefits of breastfeeding aren't supposed to kick in for a while, but this is just fucking ridiculous.

This is a pretty accurate picture of what I look like right now. I know I'm still 25 pounds heavier than before, but I really didn't think I still looked pregnant. Please, tell me I don't look pregnant.

For comparison shot of how I looked a year ago. From the back. Note the absence of fat arms and big ass.

Compounding my foul mood is the lump I've discovered in my armpit. It could be nothing. It could be something. I won't know until I can make an appointment with a doctor on Tuesday. It's sort of terrifying, but it could just be an ingrown hair or a cyst or a blocked sweat gland. It's the size of a pencil eraser. Maybe the size of a kernel of corn. But it's a lump and I don't particularly care for undiagnosed lumps. I can't help but think of the worst. Everything's been going so well. Something bad is bound to happen.

Friday

2006-05-26T10:28:00.000-04:00

graffiti in the park,
originally uploaded by sireia.

The Fiendling decided to get up early on the day we don't have any coffee in the house. Now he's napping and I'm wide awake.

We're going to my mom's shore house later this afternoon for the weekend. The Fiendling's first road trip. It'll be trafficky. Wish us luck. If it goes well (by well I mean the part involving my mother, not the part invovolving travel) it means we can spend more time there over the summer. If it doesn't go well, we'll be shit out of luck in our un-airconditioned house.

Smiley

2006-05-24T15:20:00.000-04:00

DSC01023, originally uploaded by sireia.

Some time ago I read something by a father who wrote that your child will be the most fascinating person you will ever meet. The man was spot on. His end of the conversation may consist of vowel sounds and grunts, but every time my fiendling speaks it's the most wonderful thing I've ever heard. And his smile? It makes my heart want to explode.

White trash mamas

2006-05-22T22:13:00.000-04:00

A few tidbits from the message board.

One woman wants to "find her husband and stop the divorce." Color me nuts, but the "find" portion of her post makes me wonder if that's such a good idea.

The next braniac titles her post "genital herpes?" She's had one blister on her vagina (I hope she means her vulva) every other year for 5 years. She wonders if perhaps it's herpes, but if it was why didn't the OB/GYN tell her. The poor woman doesn't realize she needs to see a doctor DURING an outbreak. More importantly, the poor woman is asking a message board about a blister ON HER VAGINA instead of going to the doctor.

This next chick is my favorite. I'm quoting her post in full, but changing a few identifying details.

Okay...I'm a bit confused haha. (Somehow this "haha" tells me that this post won't actually be funny) I know about inplantation bleeding (I sure as hell hope this poor 18 year old kid isn't knocked up again) but it didn't happen to me with Kamrynne. This is the thing I've been on BC (I assume she means birth control pills, but based on her first unplanned pregnancy, it could just mean the rhythm method) and the past two days when I've gone to the bathroom and wiped...there was a little bit of blood. ( I like the ellipse for emphasis- I imagine she's expecting the reader to hold their breath) Period has come and past and won't be here for another two weeks. So I'm not sure whats going on. For the past week every time I get in the car I get sick. I don't throw up but I get extremely nauseas. (heh, love the spelling) And WOW have I been having some weird dreams! Am I perinoid? (also love this spelling- peri, like perineal) Should I take a hpt? (I'm not due for a period for a while though) Should I keep taking my bc? EEK, just confused haha. (again with the haha)

Photo Friday

2006-05-19T09:35:00.000-04:00

Random news:

It appears that going to the gym is working. Although I haven't lost any weight I'm pleased to announce it's redistributing itself. I actually bought a pair of jeans with a real waistband. They're even a size 6, which as you may recall is the "perfect" size of the Wakefield twins.

My sister-in-law is pregnant! The Fiendling's going to have a cousin in December. Boyfiend is thrilled that the cousin factory is in business, especially now that I'm even less interested in having more than one child than I was before. I don't know how people do it. Having one is hard enough.

And now, pictures:

My boy looks fabulous in a cowboy shirt.

He now sticks out his lower lip when he pouts, but I just can't get it on camera.

Isaac really enjoys the Fiendling's playmat. They pretty much ignore each other.

Boyfiend is encouraging the Fiendling to use his hands as he's recently discovered he has them. He's still not entirely sure what to do with them other than stick them in his mouth and hold on to other people's fingers. He couldn't quite hang on to the rattle.

Have I mentioned that I live around the corner from a pig? I love Philadelphia.

The sixth anniversary of our first date

2006-05-18T09:12:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was the sixth anniversary of our first date, an occasion Boyfiend and I used to celebrate. We missed it last year because our wedding was in March and this year because we've been a bit distracted by the 10 week anniversary of the Fiendling's birth.

Boyfiend and I met in a bar. It was Palm Sunday- a fact which I was blissfully unaware of- and I was drinking alone as I often did in my first year of drinking. (Yes, I meant to write teaching, but first year of drinking is funny, so I'll leave it.) I wasn't an alcoholic, it was just that I had only been back in Philly a short time and I didn't know very many people. I'd also been dumped by a guy in an email a month earlier, hated my job and was rather depressed by it all.

That particular Sunday I found myself involved in a conversation with a guy who bought me drinks. The more I drank, the more I realized he was creepy. He kept trying to touch me and I wanted no part of it, so when I saw two youngish guys with ponytails walk in I was relieved. They sat down, ordered a couple of beers and I walked over and told them a dirty joke. I then asked if I could sit between them and finish my drink. Boyfiend and his roommate were kind enough to accomodate my drunk ass. They even gave me their phone number and address before I left with the promise to invite me to a Cinco de Mayo party they were planning in a few weeks.

A week or so later I started seeing a 40-year-old British carpenter with a broken leg. Through him I met a 35-year-old Jewish cokehead and kayak enthusiast who had a recording studio and a possible case of the clap I had to hear about from someone else. (Looking back at the winners I was dating, my self esteem must have been pretty damn low.)The night of the Cinco de Mayo party I was with the cokehead. I'm pretty sure I emailed Boyfiend to apologize for missing the party. I don't recall exactly and the emails- on my end anyway, I'm not sure about his- have been lost, but his response led to a few weeks of email flirtation (He quoted Joni Mitchell and I fell for it) before we arranged for an actual meeting.

I was nervous about meeting Boyfiend. He seemed so nice. I didn't date nice guys. So we arranged to meet at the bar where we'd originally met and I had two friends there as backup. After the initial hellos and introductions we walked to a bar a few blocks away. We drank some beers, shared some fries and talked. Drunk, he walked me home. When we opened the door we found my roommate passed out on the couch in his underwear. I wanted to kiss him good night, but I didn't want to wake Will, so we went upstairs, made out and fell asleep. At some point one of us woke up and he went home.

I don't remember if he called the next day and I don't recall how soon it was before we got together again. I do know that we really liked each other, and slowly over the next few weeks we each stopped seeing the other people that we were seeing. (I was unaware that he was actually seeing TWO other women- I was just seeing the cokehead, which was an easy relationship to end.) He planned to travel Europe for the summer with yet ANOTHER woman, but by the time he left we'd declared our love and a month into his travels I met up with him in Greece where we subathed nude and ate romantic dinners overlooking the sea. I was 22. And I met my one true love in a bar.

Some day in the future we'll have to explain this all to our son. Yes my little Fiendling, we met in a bar. Your mommy was a drunk who told dirty jokes and your daddy was a playboy with a goofy ponytail and a stupid bandana.

Happy Anniversary Boyfiend. I love you.

Rainy Monday

2006-05-15T21:44:00.000-04:00

It was a dark and stormy evening when Boyfiend, the Fiendling and I set out for Crossroads for my weekly knitting circle. But soon the clouds made way for some sun and with the sun came this:

Ooh. Pretty. The Fiendling enjoyed seeing his very first rainbow.

I started this blanket way back before Christmas. For a while I was convinced the Fiendling was waiting for me to finish it before he decided to vacate my uterus, but labor commenced before the blanket was complete.
Since noone else from the circle was there to distract me with conversation I actually made some progress.

The big bad baby blanket is practically finished. All I need to do is weave in the ends. It's about time.

The Fiendling is relieved. He was so bored of watching me knit that thing. He can't wait for a new project.

Mother's Day

2006-05-15T09:55:00.000-04:00

I'm not really a Mother's Day kind of girl. I've never been one for getting excited about my birthday or holidays, especially those created by the retail industry. I buy cards and celebrate with others because I know they care, and I really like getting presents, but for the most part any "Day" is just that, another day.

But last night the Fiendling was full of milk and relaxed from his bath. Boyfiend and I were looking at pictures (of him, of course) on my computer and the Fiendling was on my lap. I looked down and he was looking up at me, smiling. His eyes were bright and shiny and when I smiled back his smile got even bigger. I stroked his face with my finger, and smiled at him, my beautiful, happy boy and thought to myself, "Happy Mother's Day."

2006-05-12T15:24:00.000-04:00

As much as I want to pretend that I'm okay with the fact that it's going to take a while to lose the extra weight, it's impossible. I find the excess flab incredibly depressing. I've shrunken considerably, but there's a huge roll around my belly that bugs the hell out of me. I can feel it when I bend. It hovers when I'm in down dog. It squishes over the top of my pants. I just want it to go away.

I wasn't a fat kid by any stretch of the imagination, but I was tall and I wasn't skinny. Around puberty, which unfortunately struck around my 11th birthday, I stopped growing and plumped up. I was heavy enough to be ridiculed by the shithead boys in my grade. They snapped my bra and chanted "THUMP, THUMP, THUMP," as though I was an elephant when I walked down the hall. I was traumatized, stopped eating, and lost a ton of weight, which I regained and lost again several times until I turned 17 and lost my baby fat for good.

Back in 2002 I'd gained some weight. Boyfiend and I had been together for two years and I'd gotten comfortable and lazy. My pants stopped fitting. Utterly disturbed by the camel toe, I began a strict regimen of diet pills and exercise. That shit worked. After a few months I'd dropped 15 pounds, quit the diet pills and continued with the exercise. Except for when Boyfiend and I broke up for a while and my weight plummeted to 103, for the next several years I weighed about 112. Sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less, but it never fluctuated more than 2-3 pounds in either direction.

Then I got pregnant and gained almost 60 pounds. I've been hovering a few pounds below 140 since the Fiendling was 2 weeks old and I'm afraid it will stick. Intellectually I know it probably won't. I know that I'm entirely too weight conscious and that I exercise and eat well and blah blah blah, but my body is holding on to this weight for now and it's not budging.

I'm trying not to resent it, my body, since I'm still amazed by what it did. I had a baby. I actually pushed a baby out of my body and now my breasts are his sole source of nourishment. My breasts actually know how to produce enough milk on a daily basis to feed a baby. And he's growing! And healthy! And beautiful! I don't want to go on some bizarre diet or exercise plan and upset this delicate balance, but it's depressing that 2 out of the 4 last items of clothing I've purchased in the past few weeks have been maternity. I cannot find a real, non-elastic-waistband pair of pants that doesn't make my ass look I'm wearing mom jeans.

Big

2006-05-10T12:21:00.000-04:00

I've been adding pictures to Flickr like crazy, so if you want to see more of the Fiendling contact me through Flickr- if I know you from commenting I'll add you to the friends list.

The Fiendling's going to the doctor for his 2 month checkup in an hour. Check out the difference 2 months makes:

In the photo above he's one week old.

And this morning.

Notice he's actually playing in the second photo. Well, I suppose that it doesn't look a whole lot like playing to the untrained eye, but I assure you that that face is his playing face, his little legs are kicking like crazy and he's having a grand old time.

25 pounds

2006-05-08T13:03:00.000-04:00

I still have 25 pounds to lose. Surprising? You be the judge.

Breakfast: 2 slices rye toast with butter, 1 cup of coffee with cream and sugar and a small mango

Lunch: 4 crackers, 2 slices cheddar cheese, 1 chicken drumstick, 1 orange, 2 chocolate cupcakes

The cupcakes were necessary. It's the Fiendling's two month birthday today. He's rather excited about it.

Photo Friday

2006-05-05T10:34:00.000-04:00

Happy Cinco de Mayo. There's a 2 margarita lunch in my future. I am looking forward to it.

I've finished a bunch of books, but I haven't gotten around to writing about them so I posted some pictures of the books in my house over on the book blog.

To answer Dawn and Ricky's questions: The bedding is from Dwellbaby. I believe they're still having a crazy sale which made the Fiendling's bed set cheaper than a set from Target. Yay for sales!

At the last weigh-in at his six week appointment the Fiendling was 10.5 pounds. He's been gaining pretty steadily so I imagine he's around 12 now. He has another round of shots coming next week so we'll find out for sure then.

I don't know who the yellow car belongs to. It's usually parked a block away from my house. I just thought the notes from the neighborhood punks were pretty damn funny. The car is indeed too yellow for that block.

And for your Fiendling photos of the week:

Looking dapper and sophisticated

Looking decidedly unsophisticated. He may hate me for this in the future.

Our little slugger

My high school soundtrack

2006-05-04T14:36:00.000-04:00

I wasn't going to do it because it's so hard to get shit done these days, but I signed up and made a mix of the music I listened to from '92-'95, my high school years. Unfortunately, none of my CDs are in the right cases and I don't have a whole lot of music on my computer, so it was really hard getting this together. Do you know what I'm talking about? You open the case for a Breeders album, but instead find a crappy Steely Dan disc, so you go to put Steely Dan in its case and find a terrible classic rock anthology. It's a nightmare. And you want to fix it, but there's a baby crying and a rug to vacuum and cat litter that needs scooping, so you leave it for later only to find the case that should hold Miles Davis has that lousy soundtrack Columbia House sent you that you were too lazy to send back.

(At the end I'll list songs that didn't make the cut because I couldn't find the discs and I was too cheap to buy songs I already own. Even without a few of my high school favorites, I'm still really into this mix.)

1. Here Comes Your Man/The Pixies/ Doolittle
I think I first got into the Pixies when I learned that Wave of Mutilation from the Pump Up The Volume soundtrack was a Pixies song. Then I really got into them in 9th grade. In the past several years I've been lucky enough to see both the Pixies and Frank Black. Frank Black played the North Star, a tiny venue. Junkiegirl and I couldn't get tickets, but the guy at the door eventually wore down and let us in just in time to hear him do a bunch of Pixies songs.

2. Tiger Trap/ Beat Happening/ You Turn Me On
I love this guy's voice. Lugubrious. I had this song on a bunch of mix tapes.

3. Summer Babe (Winter version)/ Pavement/ Slanted and Enchanted
I went through a lengthy Pavement phase where I listened to this album nonstop. I think I saw them 3 or 4 times in high school.

4. Soul and Fire/ Sebadoh/ Bubble and Scrape
I was on the prom committee and I fought for Soul and Fire to be the prom theme. I almost got it, but was denied when the rest of the committee actually heard the song. (My second choice, Blue Velvet was selected. Luckily, no one saw the film. I think Dennis Hopper would've scared them off) I still love Sebadoh. Screw the prom committee.

5. Pack Yr Romantic Mind/ Stereolab/ Transient Random Noise Bursts With Announcements
This entire album kicks ass, as much as melodic Moog music can be asskicking. This is one of many amazing Stereolab albums, but since it was the first I fell in love with it's my favorite.

6. Changes/ Sugar/ Copper Blue
I wasn't a huge Husker Du fan, but I really got into this Sugar album. Many catchy tunes.

7. Wanna Be A Vampire Too Baby/ Helium/ Pirate Prude
Mary Timoney is coompletely devoid of emotion when she performs. At least she was when I saw Helium play in '93. It was awesome, yet creepy.

8. Black/ Pearl Jam/ Ten
Pearl Jam was cool in the early 90's. Eddie Vedder's pretty hot, too. This song is some live acoustic version, since I couldn't find the Ten CD. This may be the only song that Mix likes too.

9. 100%/ Sonic Youth/ Dirty
I saw Sonic youth play at Penn's spring fling my senior year of high school. (Parliament was there too which I thought was a brilliant combination.) I had a mad crush on both Thurston and Kim.

10. Ariadne and 11. Saldek/ Dead Can Dance/ Into the Labyrinth
I had a lot of stoned sex while listening to this album.

12. Love Song/ Th' Faith Healers UK/ Lido
I love the way the lead singer wails and shrieks. She's so cool. I've been listening to this song over and over since I started the mix.

13. See You In The Next One (Have A Good Time)/ The Verve/ A Storm in Heaven
So pretty, so melodic. WILL left two albums by The Verve at my house and I liked them so much I never gave them back. I also didn't give them back because I didn't see him for a number of years and by the time we were hanging out again I decided time for him to reclaim them had run out. Sorry Will. Mine.

14. Dry/ PJ Harvey/ Rid of Me
Polly Jean Harvey is so oddly compellingly sexy.

15. Under The Surface/ Bettie Serveert/ Palomine
A very likeable album that I used to listen to when I was falling asleep.

16. Cut Your Hair/ Pavement/ Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain
A fun song.

17. A Forest/ The Cure/ Seventeen Seconds
If I knew where all of my CDs were I probably would have chosen something a bit catchier, like Boys Don't Cry, Just Like heaven, or Love Song, but I couldn't,and I couldn't leave off The Cure so A Forest it is.

18. Professor Booty/ The Beastie Boys/ Check Your Head
This song is just a good time. The whole album is a good time. I heart the Beastie Boys.

I really wanted the mix to start with Happiness is Warm Gun from the Breeders Pod album, but I couldn't find it. I also searched for Janes Addiction, The Dead Milkmen, and Mercury Rev albums to no avail. I really need to organize my CDs. At one point they were even alphabetized, but it's all gone downhill.

I almost included Liz Phair's Divorce Song, but it still makes me cry so I skipped it. I left Mary's Danish out, because I thought that I listened to them more in middle school, but remembered later that I got to meet them backstage at concert at the TLA in high school, which was one of the best groupie experiences ever. They offered me Krimpets and I was too shy to take one. I would have put on a song from Circa. I should have put on a Phish song, but I can't actually stand them anymore so I didn't. I inadvertently left off Hit by the Sugarcubes, but Tamara who was in my group had it on hers so I don't feel so bad. She also had a Smashing Pumpkins song, a group I'd have included if I didn't think Billy Corgan was such an ass.

All in all I'm pretty pleased with my mix. I was so much cooler then.

Happy songs

2006-05-03T16:29:00.000-04:00

Right now the Fiendling is asleep on my left breast. His chin rests in a small puddle of milk that trickled out of his mouth and threatens to drip down his neck and onto my belly. I only have one hand free to type.

Earlier, after a walk up a large hill he started to fuss and cry. I put him on my lap and sang, "Be happy. Stop fussing. Be happy happy happy," and I poked his nose to punctuate the happies. It worked. He grinned and grinned. I love this kid.

Yellow car

2006-05-01T13:48:00.000-04:00

You have problems
your car is yellow

your car is too yellow for this block

Photo Friday

2006-04-28T10:43:00.000-04:00

So big.

Hating tummy time.

Taking a nap in his new bed.

Playing at this stage in his development involves staring, cooing and flailing about.

His nightgown clearly identifies him as a baby. This was the best picture I could get of a smile. He stubbornly refuses to smile for the camera, although he will smile for me.

Jerk face

2006-04-27T19:11:00.000-04:00

Anonymous said...

What's your plan for the 25 pounds?

Anonymous, yet again, I can't decide if it's a valid question or if you're just being a big jerk and rubbing it in my face.

I'm only 7 weeks post partum, for chrissakes, give a girl a break. I don't have a plan. I'll lose it the same way I always lose weight, by eating normally and exercising.

I got the okay to go to the gym 2 weeks ago and I've been going for long walks since the Fiendling was 2 weeks old. My neighborhood kicks ass for walking uphill. I could skip the gym and still lose weight by walking down to Main Street then walking up to Ridge on Green Lane with its 12% grade.

Since Monday I've gone to the gym twice. Once I did 30 minutes of cardio and lifted upper body, the second time I did 25 minutes of cardio and lifted lower body. Today I went to Mommy and Me yoga for an hour and a half. Every day I've taken a 2 or more mile walk with the Fiendling in his stroller, and at least one of those miles has been uphill.

Sure I've stopped for a free cone at Ben and Jerry's, split a doughnut and a piece of raspberry cake with Boyfiend at the Italian bakery, and eaten a Mango gelati from Nevaeh's this week, but I've also eaten plenty of veggies and fruit. It all balances out.

So the weight will come off when its ready. Everything I've read says the weight loss benefits from breastfeeding kick in after 3 months. I still have more than 5 weeks before I get there. By September I'll be within 8 pounds of my pre-pregnancy weight and I'll fit into most of my pants. By next March I'll fit into all of my pants. And then Boyfiend will start harassing me to have another one, and if I agree the cycle will start again.

Losing it

2006-04-26T11:01:00.000-04:00

Good news: I've lost more than half of my baby weight. I can button one pair of very, very low rise jeans.

Bad news: I still have 25 pounds to lose. My belly hangs over the button of the very, very low rise jeans.

Speaking of losing it, some of the white trash mamas on my message board have been desperately screwing their boyfriends, trying to keep them from leaving them and their "withdrawal babies" since they were in the recovery room at the hospital and say their hoping they're not pregnant again. Others are waiting until their new IUDs are successfully installed. For all you mothers, fathers and pregnant people out there, how long did you wait, or how long do you think you'll wait to reconvene the procedure?

More about sleep

2006-04-25T21:32:00.000-04:00

Based on the comments from yesterday's post I realize I should have explained more.

Aside from the other night when the Fiendling kept waking to eat every two hours I'm not unhappy with our sleep situation
In fact I'm pretty pleased with the sleep situation.
Even last night when the Fiendling cried until I brought him in bed with us I was fine with the sleep situation
He slept for 5 hours straight once I let him fall asleep on me. I like that in a baby.
I am not afraid of spoiling my infant
I'm not afraid of rolling over on him
I'm also not afraid of him suffocating in our blankets or pillows
The Fiendling won't sleep in his crib until I want him to
He sleeps in our bed when he cries because I want him to feel safe and because I like to sleep and can't when he's crying. He's also pretty cute and cuddly
He sleeps in his own little pack and play because my husband is also cute and cuddly
SIDS is terrifying no matter where he sleeps
The mixed messages by people who write books about sleep frustrate me
I think Dr. Sears has a lot of good ideas, but I sure as hell don't want the Fiendling sleeping with us when he's four years old
Ferber's whole crying it out thing makes me feel slightly nauseous, but perhaps someday, many moons from now, if we're having major sleep issues, it won't
I don't actually think an infant can manipulate an adult which is one of the many reasons I refer to Tracy Hogg as the Baby Whispering bitch
The Baby Whisperer is a stupid whore

Now I feel better. Thanks for the encouragement, but I was just tired and thinking about stupid baby sleep books.