And no, our baby name wasn’t Spot or Rover or something canine-like February 4, 2010
Posted by erinfrances in Kind of unreasonable.5 comments
We were test-driving a name on this poor baby a couple weeks ago, and even though Dave’s tepid response to it didn’t scream “I HATE IT,” it wasn’t exactly the fireworks display I was going for.
Still. It stuck for something like three weeks, which led me to believe we could quite possibly have a NAME. Whew — scratch that off the list. Next up, eliminating the waddle from my gait.
BUT. (Here’s where the joyous music stops. Insert the needle being ripped across and off the record here.)
But then today, we get a postcard in the mail from Mr. Big’s vet. The reminder cards are cute little snapshots of the dog on one side, with the list of treatments or shots it needs on the other, signed “We can’t wait to see Mr. Big!”
We mysteriously got two postcards today, however.
“Hey … This isn’t our dog,” I said, holding up the postcard, which was stuck to our dog’s card, of some stranger’s Dalmatian-like canine. I flipped it over to check the address; it wasn’t even close to our street. Peculiar … “We can’t wait to see (OUR BABY NAME)!”
“What the (expletive deleted),” I said, throwing it back at Dave.
“What? Oh … OH,” he said, laughing. Laughing. NOT HELPING.
So, what the hell am I supposed to do with that, Fate? Huh? HUH?
This photo’s cuteness factor may make your head explode February 3, 2010
Posted by erinfrances in That's Mr. Big to you, Toddling it.add a comment
I will trade emotional instability for sleepless nights, no questions asked. I mean, if there weren’t a third, less inconvenient choice February 2, 2010
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The arrival of the third trimester has smashed to pieces many aspects of life I hold dear: my center of gravity, hips that don’t pop when I walk, uninterrupted sleep, speed and agility. It’s also taken hostage my emotions, which seemed to violently alternate between “have you seen my emotions?” and “HERE, HOLD THIS BAG OF EMOTIONS WHILE I GO HAVE A BREAKDOWN QUICK. THANKS.”
The worst part is, I realize how irrational all the anger, sadness, weepy sappy crap is — but I can’t stop myself. And because I can’t stop myself, it just makes the situation worse. “STOP CRYING,” I’ll say. “I CAAAAAN’T!!!” I’ll whine, inside.
Oh, Dave? Yes, he’s fine, he’s fine. Having the TIME OF HIS FREAKING LIFE over here, I can assure you.
I also feel utterly stuck: It’s February in the grayest state in the union. The landscape is barren of greenery (Alice shrieked “FOOTBALL!” and pointed at a few tan blades of grass poking out from the permafrost. See, the last time she saw real, live grass that wasn’t on a football field she wasn’t yet forming long-term memories). My girth is flirting with ginormous and my self-esteem fell between the couch and the wall the other day and refuses to come out. THIS is the part of pregnancy that so painfully stuck out in my mind from two years ago — and the part I so willingly shed and ran from, saying “NEVER AGAIN!”
You know, before I went and did it again.
Yes, I feel stuck. Those hormones can make my heart flutter like a caged animal’s when I think of the rut in which we’re languishing. (Call it irrational, but remember I haven’t worn a pair of pants with real fly-zippers on them since, what, October? Zippers make you real people, people.)
But you, sitting there all nice in your real pants, thinking “JEEZ, cut out the whining, woman,” also realize how close this means I am to seeing this unnamed baby, this cause of all my messy emotional state and my fluffy belly — 13 weeks. These last 13 weeks are the most trying of all the trimesters on me as a person, as a wife, as someone you might be so unlucky to encounter; but at the end of all this I get a new baby.
Thirteen weeks. Then SHE can do all the crying and I can have that single glass of wine I so desperately need.
Thirteen weeks and I’ll be holding one warm, squishy-cheeked baby for whom I don’t even have a name yet. I don’t know her yet but I expect she’ll remind me it was all worth it. That’s the hope, anyway.
Had another ultrasound today … And yes, it’s still a girl January 28, 2010
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Alice, capitalizing on this moment: “No, no, no, wait. This one sounds like a nice family to adopt Number Two. Really! Do you want me to message their Facebook page or just give them a poke? Mama? Mom. Where are you going? I’m serious about this!”
Alice and Erin make an action flick, or ‘Avatar’ what? January 28, 2010
Posted by erinfrances in Being a mama, Toddling it.2 comments
More walls pop up now as I near that third trimester.
Like the wall Alice hits when we get home from work and the sitter’s: A couple nights a week, she’ll bawl and throw her tiny body on the dining room floor and wail into the floorboards, hands under her forehead like THE WORST DAY EVER if she’s just not feeling like sitting her booster chair. It’s a regular chair or nothing, Mama, she begs … only without words, which is in no way frustrating for her or me.
Or the wall I hit around 4:30 or 5 p.m., when I start telling myself “four more hours, four more hours” til I can go to bed.
Or the one where I look around and realize I have so much to start doing before the baby — and I can’t even focus long enough on sorting the mail. One second I’m flipping through envelopes and pizza coupons and the next I’m squatting on the kitchen floor, scrubbing the cabinet door, having totally blacked out for 10 minutes and the only evidence besides the clock that time has passed is the tiny piles of “stuff” sorted in my wake: Dave’s coats, tiny plastic dinosaurs, library books, bread crumbs and dirty cloth bibs. Nice, neat little landmines around the first floor, just waiting for my hormones to stumble upon them and unleash the wrath upon them.
Until I hit that wall — 8:30 p.m., usually — and it’s time for bed.
This pregnancy is just so much different than the first. I’m still behind on that pregnancy book. We still don’t have a baby name. I don’t get naps or time for yoga … So instead I’ve been just hanging out with Alice ’til her bedtime, because she’s the only thing I don’t want to rush through. Playing dinosaurs or having tea time with Buzz and Woody, or making ducks and dogs out of PlayDoh, or stacking Little People on top of their Little People house and laughing when they fall off … I could do that all night.
I’d love some cheese with my whine/wine, but I’d rather take a rain check on the wine and wait ’til May January 24, 2010
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One of my top complaints, short of a lack of world peace and why they sell yogurt in four- or eight-packs when clearly there are five days in a workweek or seven days in a week for God’s sake, is seemingly never seeing Dave.
But now I have more energy to focus on my yogurt problems. And world peace. Dave is no longer working on Saturdays.
Want some advice? Do not move three states away from friends and family, sell one car, get pregnant and take jobs where you have opposite shifts and work weeks, even if you work in the same building. Especially if you’re going to be working in the same building.
The situation improved last year when we got Sundays off together; I had someone to hand the baby to while I escaped to the luxurious chore of buying groceries.
But still … even the best of wives, which obviously I am, right? RIGHT, DAVE, NOD WHEN I TELL YOU TO NOD, would feel that rush of blood to the cheeks and that tiny fire of rage in her stomach when, last bite still not swallowed from dinner, he puts his napkin on the table and says “I gotta get back to work.” The awesomeness of that situation increases in intensity every day, Tuesday through Saturday. Lately, by Saturday nights, I — the hormonal pregnant lady, remember — was so annoyed I could barely speak. And then THEN, as he’s putting on his coat, he’s asking me questions about work, or talking about work. And on Sundays he’s talking about work, and it’s the same work I’ve been trying NOT to think about because it’s bad for my complexion, and ”AAAAAGGGHHHH, I MARRIED MY JOB, HOLY OOPS.”
Awesome, times 10. Get out the scrapbooks, friends — these are nights I don’t want to forget.
But, yes: there’s good news. Dave will no longer be the object of my annoyance on Saturdays. Now, I get to be his.
Yesterday was glorious: we re-hung plastic that had fallen off windows! He carried laundry upstairs and downstairs! He gave Alice a bath! He put Alice to bed! He was here! We went to the library! We made pizza! We watched a movie, like people do! Real people! Exclamation point! Unicorns, rainbows and puppy kisses!
It sounds trite even to me as I blog about it, but the difference between Dave working on Saturdays and Dave not working Saturdays is monumental.
I’m lonely here in Oshkosh sometimes in a lazy, don’t-have-a-car-anyway way, and in that pregnant lady way that says it’s not really that big of a deal because I go to bed at 8:30 p.m. I’m good at it — I love reading, I excel at watching PBS. But still. It’s less of a chore with him here.
Oh yes, she’s crying it out January 19, 2010
Posted by erinfrances in Being a mama.2 comments
If ever I felt confident about this toddler thing, Alice toppled that idea with her newfound realization that the binky’s not coming back. And oh jeezus help me, because I’m so close to digging that damn binky out of its place of exile.
Googling parenting questions is verboten because I have an overactive anxiety gene; every symptom would be a sign of a fatal disease, every lag in development would be a sign she’s going to be the unemployed 40-year-old playing “Tetris” on her laptop in my basement with a bag of Cheetos crumpled up at her feet. Supporting her junk food habit with my Social Security check. Still sporting her mullet. By choice.
Nope. I’m just not the Googling type. Call the doctor, call my mom, ignore the problem: But I won’t Google it.
Until Sunday night. Even I, ever so pragmatic now, have a breaking point.
She snapped out of her agreeable mood — or, more accurately, she shattered it into jagged little shards at her feet — and refused to lay down. Until last week, I lived in a fantasy bedtime world where my child would suck on her binky and lay with her hands behind her head while I read “Don’t Let the Pigeon Stay Up Late,” and then she’d nod off shortly after I walked out of her room.
Now, a few days after I took away the binky, after listening to her scream “MAAAAA” over and over for a half hour, she’s got me Googling “how long to let 19-month-old cry it out?” and “how many weeks til I can have a glass of wine?”
(And have you ever searched “cry it out”? O.M.Gee. Built-in guilt trips abound on this Interwebs! “Crying it out is cruel!” “You’re her mother! You’re supposed to be there for her! You’re scarring her for LIIIIIFFFFFEEEE!” “Serial killers’ mothers made them cry it out! I’m not judging but YOU’RE PROBABLY A HORRIBLE MOTHER! I BET YOUR CHILD EATS WHITE BREAD AND REFINED SUGARS TOO! But I’m not judging! LOL!”)
All I learned from my Web travels is, none of us knows what we’re doing. So I let her cry because I’m, well, rotund and not feeling up for kneeling next to a toddler bed, rubbing her back for 45 minutes. An hour after I left her room the first time, her cries dissipated into whines, which softened into sniffs and then nothing. Tonight, it was more like a half hour. I know this will pass, and I’m commending myself on not waiting until May to do this.
Of course if I waited until June I could have that glass of wine while I’m waiting for her to stop crying. Hmm.
Also, rate that mullet’s badness on a scale of 1 to 10; 10 being baaaaad January 16, 2010
Posted by erinfrances in Toddling it.1 comment so far
The b-i-n-k-y is g-o-n-e. “All gone!”, actually, which is what I’ve been telling Alice.
“So sorry,” I say, shrugging my shoulders. “It’s all gone!” Like I just happened to misplace it and now it’s gone forever and Mommy can’t ever get another one and no stores sell them. Lying isn’t something I set out to do, but guess what: IT WORKED. I’m just trying to think up an appropriate lie for potty training; saying “Your diapers are all gone” sounds too messy.
How long til she realizes she’s been hosed? January 12, 2010
Posted by erinfrances in Kind of unreasonable, Toddling it.1 comment so far
How one contraption of plastic and rubber could cause so much drama is one of the mysteries of modern parenthood.
And, confession: I am weak.
Case in point: When you’re in the grocery store and your toddler’s walking (as she screams in the cart because her little wings can’t be clipped, man) and she takes off to poke her finger in bags of rice, to squeeze all the bananas, to peel once-orange-but-now-brown price stickers off the floor, what should you do when you tell her “no” and she dramatically throws herself on the floor? A., Give her a binky, grab the bread and milk and just get out of that aisle, or B., I don’t know, because to me the binky is the only option when leaving isn’t a choice.
The binky has made me a bad, lazy parent. I know this. Judge me. Go ahead. I do.
Over the past few weeks binkies have started to disappear. The green one was run over by a car. The white one is under a spare bed in Ohio. We lost the orange one when she bit through it after falling down in a mall parking lot. I’d give you $1 to find the pink one.
That leaves us with two. So imagine my tired panic tonight when I realized the last time I saw either was in the car. The car Dave just took to work. The car Dave would not be reappearing with until after my own bedtime. The car I could almost hear screaming “HA!! GOT YOU!” as Alice thrust her arms upward and leaned against my legs, begging for her “Beee! Beeee!”
Oh, cue the shark music, someone.
“Let’s find Buzz and Woody!” I countered. Oh did I counter. I rattled off her toys’ names from the kitchen to her bed, bribing her into bed without her “beeeee!” thanks to Buzz and Woody, her bucket of dinosaurs, two baby dolls, one Glow Worm, one Ikea frog, two blankies, one Tigger, one Eeyore and a partridge in a pear tree.
It’s like the Toys R Us giraffe threw up on the floor around her tiny toddler bed right now.
But there’s not one binky to be found. “Beeee!” she asked after I ran out of toys to pile around her.
“Oh, binky’s all gone.” We stared at each other for a few seconds as she considered this. We could both hear my heart beat and I swear sweat was flying off my brow like a cartoon character. But I kissed her head and walked out and closed the door and that was that episode.
I haven’t heard from her since, about an hour ago.
Of course, I also haven’t been up to brush my teeth, terrified my footsteps outside her door would remind her I was still alive and lying to her about the whereabouts of her binky.
Mama 1, Alice 0 right now. A recount may be necessary at 3 a.m.
As seen on PBS January 12, 2010
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Off went the comforter. Off went the sheets. I grabbed the body pillow and slung it over myself, wedging it between my pillow and Dave. I grunted and sat up, then rearranged the sheets and laid back down on my side like a good pregnant woman.
“What are you doing?!” Dave asked, annoyed at my two-minute routine.
“Watch as the beached whale attempts to right ‘erself,” I said in my best British documentary voice. “See how she struggles to cover her corpulent body in an effort to stay warm.”
“Haaaha,” Dave laughed. “Stop it, you’re not a beached whale. Not yet.”
“Now watch as the whale kills her mate.”
Cranky and restless January 6, 2010
Posted by erinfrances in Holidays, Home, Kind of unreasonable.2 comments
The drive back to Wisconsin was like seven Indianas long (north-south Indianas at that), all with “Up” and “The Grinch” playing in the background on the DVD player. A one-hour nap, greasy-orange cheese puff residue in her hair, whiny, whiny, whiny rubbing her ears and coughing til her crusty eye broke open — ah, happy freakin’ new year.
Yes, that’s how the holidays were meant to be wound down, I’m sure of it. Jesus himself had a birthday party exactly like that, you know. Mary then blogged about it on her site, while Joseph complained that he was also getting sick. It started out well enough:
… But Monday we found out she had pink eye and an ear infection; Dave had a sinus infection and I had a case of the Need a Vacations. Now, I’m stuck trekking through the work week, wondering where the I put my motivation, and what could be so bad about certain cough drops that pregnant women can’t take them?
Meanwhile, slapping me in the face this time — because time away from work apparently makes me feel as if I’m being assaulted by emotions I don’t have time for — was both the desire to never leave the comforts of my Wisconsin home again and yet also to walk away from it, key in the lock and a note for the city to do with it what it will.
This house is beginning to annoy me with its lack of furniture, its lack of play space. I cringe at the laundry splayed on the bathroom floor, just messy enough in the cramped space that you sometimes step on wet towels when you walk to the sink. It’s got less-than-ample “ample” closet space, our neighbors have strange hobbies. But it’s mine; my house. What do I do with this annoyance?
But being in Ohio for too long can feel like a turtleneck that’s a size too small in an 80-degree room. Your sweaty hands pull and pull at the collar but there’s no relief — and everyone ignores that and reminds you how NICE it’ll be when you move back. And all you can think of is how HOT it is in here, and WHERE did you get a turtleneck? 1991?
I didn’t know that sometimes, parents don’t have a clue what’s next. I don’t know what I want, but I’m pretty sure I want everything. Except the turtleneck. And this restless feeling. It’s gotta be the January talking.
We’re either moving to Ohio or staying in Wisconsin and doing the 2010 holidays over Skype January 2, 2010
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Every hour Alice would wake up to cry and roll around in the Pack ‘n Play at the foot of the bed, snot dripping down her face and her left eye swollen and red.
We’d rock in the chair in my mom’s living room just long enough for my burning eyes to close, and then she’d wake up and repeat the process of loudly proclaiming her hatred of all things life-related. Around 5 a.m., a bed-headed Dave held her head still between his hands while I shoved the Tylenol dropper in her protesting mouth, her warm body squirming and kicking.
Ah, holiday memories.
Then I laid her down between Dave and I in the bed in the spare room, with the Tylenol still sticky on her cheek. She cuddled next to Dave, and I cuddled next to her, and the baby kidney punched Alice and Alice didn’t complain.
The holidays are great ’til you’re eight hours away from your own bed, and your toddler has dried goop around her nose and eyes, and it’s 5 a.m., and all you can think about is how many snot-nosed, whiny memories you’ll be cementing in that eight-turned-10-hour drive back to Wisconsin tomorrow, and the work you’ve got to return to Monday at 8 a.m.
Ah yes. Let’s have another child. And move somewhere far away. GREAT IDEA, ERIN AND DAVE.
The name-this-baby contest: $1,000 to enter, some restrictions may apply. See store for details. December 22, 2009
Posted by erinfrances in Being a mama, The baby.Tags: pregnancy
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She wasn’t very cooperative; starting out on her back, then rolling over to her belly, then facing my back. She bounced from one side to the other, and bent her knees at all the wrong times. She was absolutely adorable.
After our 20-week appointment with Alice we left with five photos in the paper frame they give you; this time the technician sighed and gave up trying to grab a decent frame after two, then went back for a foot picture that the baby kicked just enough to blur. Oh, baby.
No. 2’s nose appears to resemble Alice’s nose from Alice’s ultrasounds at 20 weeks. I appear to have gotten my girl (surprises pending?), but it also appears that if No. 2 and I are ever separated in a grocery store I’m going to have to do more than say “I’m her mother” when I collect her from the produce manager. She may look nothing like me. Oh, well.
And so it begins: Naming her.
“The problem is there are just so many cute girl names,” our nurse told us at our prenatal appointment today. Dave and I sighed.
“I just don’t like any of them,” I said. Thus, our problem: Our pool of baby names isn’t overflowing, unless you count all 25,000 in our book. No, this pool is littered with last week’s grass clippings, its plastic edges dejectedly folded in on itself.
Hotly debated names, passionate speeches in the favor of one over the other: Non-existent. “Do you like Mary?” “What about Miriam?” “How do you feel about Gwen?” “Julia?” We’re reading “The Baby Name Wizard,” the Social Security baby names page, the birth announcements in your favorite paper and mine — but so far any name either of us has volleyed to the other side of the net has elicited just a half-hearted, one-armed weak swing in response. “Meh.”
And so it continues … Stay tuned.
(Ultrasound decoded: That’s No. 2’s head on the left. Legs to the right, bent up. Belly in the middle, just like it’s suppose to be. Dave’s nose, in miniature version, appears to be at the top.)
The big news, in pictures December 21, 2009
Posted by erinfrances in The baby.Tags: motherhood, pregnancy
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“Alice! Look — see the picture of the baby!”
“Alice! Lookie! Who is that? Is that the baby?”
“Do you know what kind of baby mommy’s having? Is Mommy having a boy or a girl?”
“GUHHHLLL!”
“Yep, that’s right! Girl!”
The Santa photo I’d been hoping for December 20, 2009
Posted by erinfrances in Holidays, It's how we roll.3 comments
She’s got a ticket to ride, she’s got a ticket to ri-hi-hide December 19, 2009
Posted by erinfrances in Being a mama, Kind of unreasonable.Tags: motherhood, pregnancy
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Tomorrow we’ll open presents, just the three of us and the dog, and we’ll oooh and aaaahhh over her new MagnaDoodle and her new instruments. I’ll ooohh and aaaahhh over “alcohol removed” wine and pretend it makes the muscles in my shoulders relax and my face grow red and warm, just like the real thing. I’m a very convincing NA wine drinker.
Tomorrow night we’ll see Santa Claus and take the photo I’ve been plotting — the screaming, terrified kid photo, because I am that kind of mother — and we’ll eat pizza and probably watch “Rudolph,” because that’s what we do.
And then I’ll be expected to sleep, like normal.
Despite my low-key approach to this pregnancy — I have not Googled one thing one time, GO ME — I am nervously excited about Monday’s ultrasound appointment. Watching the image on the screen means I’ll find out if we’re calling this thing by our predetermined boy’s name or if there are phone calls with lawyers in our future over choosing a girl’s name. It’s also science’s way of smacking me in the face as if to point out that second chin I was growing? Yeah, that one, the one that goes so well with that beach ball I’ve been carrying around? It’s A BABY. A REAL ONE. With strong lungs and probably its own colicky temperament and likely a button nose put there by God so you sometimes forget about the colic.
Ohhh, a second baby is what I wanted, but if I were the amusement park type I’d likely describe this moment of life as that fear that gives you goosebumps before you step on the ride — the kind that makes your fingers grow so cold that when your shaky hands push back your hair, your fingertips feel like ice on your scalp. The kind that tastes like cotton in your mouth, and sits like lead in your stomach, because you know. Oh, you know: While there might be enjoyable moments when you’re hanging upside down (or after giving birth), there’s also a strong chance you’re going to throw up all over yourself and wish you’d stayed home instead (where you’d just gotten your daughter to pick up after herself and sleep til 8 a.m.).
But you paid for that ticket and it was expensive and so you’re riding the damn ride, and you’re going to SMILE when you’re doing it! WE ARE MAKING MEMORIES, DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?
And that, in conclusion, is what this is like for me.
Feeling a bit more, uh, emotional lately. December 16, 2009
Posted by erinfrances in Letters to Alice.Tags: toddlerhood
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Dear Alice,
Yes, another letter. I feel I owe you this letter. Lately I’ve been getting out of work later, so we eat later and play later but you go to bed at the same time as always. Twenty minutes to a half hour a day with you isn’t enough time — I know this. I sigh a lot; that helps some. When I see you at night I scoop you up and in my pregnant-hormone-induced state I press my lips into your chubby cheek and I say “I miss you, did you miss Mommy?” and you shake your head no ’til I say “yes,” and then you nod. “Yes.”
That icky feeling you have there is called “guilt,” and this tactic I’m employing is called “guilt-tripping.” You’re going to be great at it. Next week’s lesson: passive-aggressiveness. We’re going to show Big Bird just how inadequate he is using nothing but sour compliments! VICTORY WILL BE MINE!
Um. Where was I.
Our moments together now come in mini episodes instead of heavy, dragging chunks of boring time.
Had I waited a couple weeks to complete the questionnaire from the doctor’s office, I would’ve been able to check off a few more skillz: you climb up in bed without help. You walk up and down the stairs holding my hand.
Speaking of which, I let go of one of your hands to shut the door behind us Sunday, and you flipped backwards down three stairs, landing with a very definite thunk-and-scream on the landing. My heart stopped and I pictured myself rushing into the ER with you in my arms, all TV-movie like. “Shhh, shh, you’re OK,” I said when I realized there was no blood. “Let’s go get Mr. Big.” And it worked. HOLY CRAP IT WORKED, I remembered thinking. HOLY CRAP, I’m an awesome mother!
Over the past weekend it was just you and I, while Daddy and your grandpa and uncles went to watch the Bengals game in Minnesota. I didn’t share you with anyone all day. We slept in ’til 8:30 and ate our breakfast and went shopping, and we “sang” Christmas songs all the way home from Appleton because after holding your crap together all day in public you wanted nothing more than to be at home, watching “Rudolph” on tape. Me too. So we collapsed on the couch and you let me put my arm around you and when the Abominable Snowman came on screen you pointed and said “BOMBOMB!” and I said “Yes, that’s the Abominable!” and you said “BOMBOMB!”
Last night, I busted the finger paint out after a good nine months or so forgetting they existed in the drawer we never, ever open. You picked up tiny globs with your tiny tips of your chubby toddler fingers and made little dabs on the white paper I’d laid out. I tried to create one of those Hallmarky moments, but you quickly reminded me we’re not Hallmarky-type people when I smooshed your hand into the red paint and tried to get you to make a hand print. OH THE HORROR! OH, THE PAINT! MOM! You shrieked as if Elmo had died right in front of you and then half rose from the dead as a zombie muppet. Oh! The dog’s nails pounded on the hardwood floors under the weight and speed of a canine thinking he was about to get a sandwich you’d dropped. I imagine the red globs of paint you flung on the floor weren’t quite as satisfying as chunk of roast beef.
I keep having little episodes such as these, and I think I couldn’t love you more, and then you go and sing and I’m a weepy mess.
I’m basically just that — a weepy mess who misses you, a lot.
Hormones are a bitch, Alice. But I do love you.
Mama
Holiday cheer December 8, 2009
Posted by erinfrances in Toddling it.3 comments
Enough of that depressing stuff. Here, my daughter proves singing abilities do not have any place on our family tree, and is that a cracker I’m holding?
The “F” word (furlough) December 8, 2009
Posted by erinfrances in Kind of unreasonable.2 comments
I like to pencil in vacations for the whole upcoming year in December because I’m a goal-oriented person (read: neurotic) and I thrive when I have something to which I can count down (read: over which to plead ceaselessly with the gods of time).
But this time, the crisp pages of my spotless 2010 calendar just sat empty, because there’s just so much. On top of maternity leave and vacation time, we were handed another factor. Dave and I got an e-mail Wednesday that informed us we’d all be taking another week of furlough in the first quarter of 2010. Yes, I gagged a little bit.
The first quarter is not known for its sunshine, its abundant warm weather or its piles of cash (It’s not until about July that we have enough cash to just collect in garbage bags around the house). There will be no Billy Joel concert*, no party outside, no glasses of wine on a porch swing — the glimmer of our May 2009 furcation has faded. There’s about a foot of snow on its way here tonight; May seems a decade ago.
I’m trying not to mope about this: I should be reveling in my ability to coerce Alice to sleep until 9 a.m., and I should take every opportunity to do so before No. 2 debuts. I also have been whining about not having more time with Alice … Yeah, I know. I read my blog, too. Scout’s honor, I shall try to enjoy this one for what it is: time off. I’ll try to forget about that whole “not getting paid” thing.
But damn if it’s not a punch in the gut to hear that word again.
(*Truthfully, I briefly considered requesting my furlough for late February so I could make a pilgrimage to Kansas City, Mo., to see Billy Joel on tour. But Dave kindly reminded me how he’d rather get his right hand caught in the snowblower, twice, than ride in a car with a seven-month-pregnant wife. He’s honest. Give him that.)
Reading too much into it, because that’s what I do December 3, 2009
Posted by erinfrances in Kind of unreasonable, Toddling it.Tags: 18 months old
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Since my vacation in October I’ve been carrying around this brick in my pocket called “guilt.” The brick’s awkward and I have no idea how it got there or what I’m supposed to do with it, but what do you know; every morning I pull on my stretchy-waisted hot-mama (hot = not hot) pants and voila, I have mom guilt.
I miss my baby. No, my toddler. CRAP, the brick gets heavier when I realize how old she’s getting.
Tonight, a whole pallet of bricks (is that what bricks come on? Pallets?) arrived at my door in the form of a survey from the doctor’s office: the Ages & Stages Questionnaires for 18-month-olds. We’re supposed to make a game out of testing Alice’s abilities, and then bring it to the doctor’s in a couple weeks with our check marks all tallied up. I was an early-childhood development major long enough to comprehend all babies toddlers reach milestones at their own rates. But I have high hopes for this kid. She’s my own, see.
And this questionnaire’s activities, with its Clip Art-esque toddlers all over it kicking balls and drawing with crayons, make my palms sweaty.
I flew through the first few questions: Does she point to objects she wants? OH, DOES SHE. Does she go into another room to fetch objects when asked? Like getting Mama a drink? OH YES. But then my train of awesome-parenting derailed somewhere between “Does she use two-word sentences?” and “Does your child use two or three words that represent different ideas together, such as ‘Mommy come home.’”
“Mommy come home?” OH, YOU HAD TO GO THERE.
I didn’t think the questionnaire would let me count her many variations of “mmmmmmm” as a word. I was forced to fully darken the “No” circle. Waahhhn-waaahnnn-waahhhn (my bad-news-bears cartoon-like noise).
It just got worse from there. “Does she climb up on chairs?” What is this, a test? Am I supposed to let her climb on chairs? “Does she walk down stairs?” Walk down stairs? Her dad has problems with that.
These three yellow sheets of paper had me sweating out all kinds of guilt. My brick was walking over to the wall, stacking itself up and calling for the others to come join it. It looks really nice next to that Christmas tree. I’m just a few logs away from a full-blown brick fireplace. Quick! Someone remind me I’m having another child. Ohhh, yes. Get the marshmallows.
She walked at 16 1/2 months-ish — I know she’s not going to recite her ABCs tonight. But I’m scared I’ll miss teaching her how to climb a chair and then I’ll blink and it’ll be 2013 and the teacher will be telling Dave and I what a special little girl we have, but did we know she eats paste? Yes, Elmer’s white paste, right off the stick, cutest little thing. Probably nothing to worry about but, well, she eats A LOT of it.
And we’ll just smile and think ,”Paste! That’s more food-like than glue. OUR KID’S JUST FINE.”
The one in which I compare myself to a Weeble December 3, 2009
Posted by erinfrances in Being a mama.3 comments
I read “Your Pregnancy, Week by Week” religiously when I was carrying Alice. On the same night every week I’d pull it out of the nightstand and flip through it, hoping it’d tell me something important or at least remind me that the balloon full of Jell-o that occupied my mid-section was temporary and yes I look OK in those Spandex-waisted jeans.
This time, I was on week 17, but my bookmark was wallowing back in week 14’s highlights. I skimmed the best parts, skipped the part about not eating fish, glanced at the renditions of what my baby looks like. I caught up mainly out of guilt, mixed with a little relief in watching three weeks pass without my knowing.
I again have a feeling I know the sex already, but I’m not prancing around the house with anticipation of the ultrasound (8:30 a.m. on Dec. 21 for those who’d like to jump in and make a prediction). I’ll just know when I know. I feel so much calmer, in a way.
Since I’m not sure if this is the last baby I’ll have (did you hear that? It was my mother, running to get her rosary. Hi, Mom!), I’m trying to just enjoy it. Trying.
Such as today, when I was amid one of those three-minute crises at work. My hands were pulling back my hair from my face to cool off, and then I was jabbed. Jabbed by a little foot or elbow. I stopped and held my breath, putting my hand over my belly. And he/she kicked back. My eyes burned in that don’t-get-all-emotional-that’s-disgusting way, and I laughed in relief because that was the first time it felt real.
Beginning to resemble a Weeble doesn’t make pregnancy seem real. Getting kicked does.
Better than nothing November 30, 2009
Posted by erinfrances in Being a mama, Kind of unreasonable.add a comment
January, May, October and some of November: These are the months Dave’s managed to save thus far from our old computer by rigging it up to a hard drive and begging it for forgiveness. It’s very unforgiving.
I think it’s punishing us for watching Bob Dylan’s Christmas video.
I can’t underestimate how heartbreaking that is — my photo situation, not the Dylan video (that’s beyond adjectives). Three-and-a-half months is about a quarter of all the memories of Alice’s second year, a fact not lost even on my math-challenged brain. My stomach, if it weren’t being propped up with a baby, would be hiding in my socks.
Not to mention the baddest of my Billy Joel collection is lost, along with my Christmas music amassed without discretion over many, many years.
All that’s left is random photos. Better than nothing, but … not all I wanted.
Fully grown into the description of ‘toddler’ November 29, 2009
Posted by erinfrances in Letters to Alice, Toddling it.add a comment
Dear Alice,
In less than a week you’ll be 18 months old, an age reserved for tantrums in grocery stores (oh yes, that’s us pretending we don’t hear our daughter beg to be let out of the cart to walk on her own), the age of first words (not all of them approved for use outside the home), and “no.”
You give high-fives, you wiggle the tip of your nose when I ask “what does a bunny do?” These are the cute things.
Over the last couple of months we’ve been watching your real-person personality come out. You fake cry, then quickly recover when we suggest we turn “Rudolph” on. When you spilled water while opening Mr. Big’s crate, you walked and got a towel and dabbed up the puddle without my prompting. When I try to hold your hand in the store, you’ll bat it away. You say the “s” word.
Yes, that “s” word.
Other words you’ve said include puppy, more, no, Bengals, football, Santa, fork (I hope it’s fork) and bib. Those warm the heart, but none gets our hearts pounding like the “s” word. I plan on ignoring it and hoping it goes away. It’s a parenting skill I’m hoping also applies to the aforementioned tantrums.
My emotions have been teetering on unbalanced over the last two or three weeks, and when I catch you reading to yourself from “The Monster at the End of This Book” I could just pick you up and sob and kiss your squishy cheeks forever. But you’re READING TO YOURSELF, and that kind of autonomy doesn’t come often so I pull myself together.
Likewise, a Proud Moment in Parenting History occurred a couple weeks ago when not even your Elmo toothbrush could lure your defiant little frame anywhere near the running water in the tub. Those hormones felled me good. “FINE,” I said, hitting the faucet off. I could’ve sobbed then, too, but I was too busy lugging your toddler body into your big-girl room. You went to bed at 6:45 that night. I went at 8.
I compare you to this baby all the time, and I try to bring No. 2 up often. You’re very enthralled when we see babies in public or on TV, but the way you throw your plastic baby doll around gives me pause. I suppose I won’t be able to leave her/him with you while I go out. Bummer.
I hope the next five months are replicas of the best of the last year. After May, it might be downhill for a few months. We’ll talk about that later.
Happy 18 months, Alice.
Love,
Mama
You wouldn’t happen to know how to save files off an ancient iBook would you November 21, 2009
Posted by erinfrances in Kind of unreasonable.Tags: bad news bears
2 comments
The dude at the Apple store wasn’t even sympathetic, is the thing.
He couldn’t sense my pure, animalistic rage; he couldn’t tell how at any moment I felt like crying or leaping over the counter to yell at him “YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND HOW IMPORTANT THIS IS.”
He just stood there behind the counter, arms in his pockets like he couldn’t care less. HE didn’t lose all the files, now did he? Nooo, this wasn’t about HIM. He told us — the worried, panicked look in our eyes not registering to him – to bring our computer back next week when someone had the time to look at it, and maybe — just maybe — they could save all the content that I’m pretty sure has been lost to the gods of Should Never Have Waited So Long To Back Up My Files and WHY OH WHY.
We stood there quietly, old non-functional Mac in hand, Dave trying to be cool and me trying to name every single photo we’ve taken since our last backup in what, May? Furlough photos, gone. First birthday, sandbox, Halloween, mullet shot — all just gone. All gone.
And this calm and collected, non-invested old man just told us “And no backup, huh?”
NO, NO BACKUP. See me, irrational, emotional pregnant lady over here? I WANT YOU TO BE JUST AS UPSET.
So. Yeah, my trusty computer died last week. I’ve been blogless, Facebookless and general Internet surfing-less since last week. But nothing punches a mom in the gut with as much force as possibly losing all those photos.
I usually nag Dave to backup files all the time — OR AT LEAST MAKE PRINTS. Bt it slipped my mind because that stupid, silent Mac bearing the black screen of death over there is so old and decrepit we couldn’t make prints from it; our OS didn’t support even Walmart.com’s photo uploader.
Oh, God, WHY. Take my Billy Joel collection on iTunes if you must, but please let me keep the photos. PLEASE.
Pardon me while I go over here and scream.
Maternity clothes, frankly, suck November 10, 2009
Posted by erinfrances in Kind of unreasonable.Tags: complaining
3 comments
My fellow-mom friend once told me she loved being pregnant, and that she missed it, almost, after she gave birth.
I hope my face didn’t reveal the horror I felt at that statement.
I was reminded last Thursday of this moment of disbelief that anyone would miss the bulging waistline, the non-flattering way clothes drape — because that’s what clothes do to pregnant ladies; these yards of cotton (always too-worn cotton) don’t flatter, they drape — over puffed-out mid-sections … Ah yes. My second foray into maternity clothes was accepted with a certain amount of relief (12 percent), disgust (85 percent) and self-loathing (3 percent).
I did not go quietly into that Rubbermaid container to heave out the clothes no one, not even their makers, could love. I made Dave go fetch it from its place of exile in the basement, and I watched as Alice pulled out all the shirts and pants and tossed them aside. And I sighed.
Long-sleeved shirts were in short supply so I tried to rally around a shopping goal, but scanning the racks at a few stores proved fruitless. Who looks good in big, knotty sweaters that hang to the knee? (Let’s not kid ourselves — I’m 5-foot-1, it would hit my shins when I walk.) Why do these clothes have to be so … maternal? Why are the acceptable items so expensive? Why are there three racks at Target, crammed between the tank tops on clearance and the plus-sized clothes? Three racks for nine months. REALLY, TARGET. REALLY?
WHY I’m doing this is clear. I want another one of these:
I’m lucky to be pregnant, I’m lucky to have Alice. Of course. But elastic-waist pants and bell-shaped shirts take more getting used to than one might imagine.
OK, thanks. I feel slightly less angry now.
