Talk to me, woman July 7, 2009
Posted by erinfrances in Being a mama, Toddling it.Tags: 13 months
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She’s got opinions, and she doesn’t care who knows it. Actually, it’d be more beneficial, she thinks, if you all knew it.
That’s the latest in Alice’s life. The easy-going baby of yore has given way to a real person, it seems. A real, opinionated person.
Because her vocabulary is limited to jumbled consonants and oddly grunted vowels, her statements are less “No, thank you” and more “AUGGGGGGGHHHAMMMMAAAA.”
It’s really darling. Her legs go rigid, her big eyes crinkle up, her thumbs tuck inside her angry fists.
And lately, her arms flail to hit. Yes, hits — my 13-month-old, my baby, hits. Uh-uh, Dudette. That’s not how we roll, I say. But I, the communication major who once majored in early childhood, have zero idea how to convey “no” to someone who seems to have a baby stroke every time I suggest she not eat dog food. Or stick her finger behind the electric socket baby-proof plastic cover. Or, you know, hit me.
Bad mama.
Oh to be 13 months old July 3, 2009
Posted by erinfrances in It's how we roll, So married.Tags: jobs, marriage
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The sunny day off work, tossing a kid in the air in the back yard, belies what’s been going on.
There won’t be any more furloughs, but of course that doesn’t mean anyone’s handing out extra $20 bills at work. I won’t say more, except to say that being married to someone who’s in the same boat as you isn’t as cozy as you’d think when you hear whispers about Titanic metaphors. It never goes away — I can leave work, but he’s still there. So I’m still thinking about it.
Doesn’t make for very creative blogging.
But, that’s it. That’s all I’m saying.
We’ve been keeping our heads down because we don’t know what the next year (or six months) will look like. We’re painting the porch (and by we I mean Dave), we’re picking out colors for the family room (and by we I mean I). We’re planting perennials and forgetting to water them and growing jalapenos because the neighbor gave them to us. We’re going to Sawdust Days for an elephant ear and we’re going to BBQ with some friends. We’re going to Gallery Walk and maybe, just maybe, we’ll see some fireworks.
And we’re going to have a glass of wine. Gonna do that, too.
To grandmother’s house she’s going July 1, 2009
Posted by erinfrances in Being a mama.Tags: parenthood
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“Alice, in a couple weeks you’re going to Grandma’s!”
“And Mommy and Daddy’ll live like they did before they had a kid.”
“YEAH. Late nights, going to shows, staying out late …”
“Or absolutely nothing different.”
“Yeah, we’ll just sit at the table and not talk and say how much we miss you.”
“This might not be very awesome.”
His face when he walked in the room said ‘First-timers; Gotta be first-timers’ June 26, 2009
Posted by erinfrances in It's how we roll, Toddling it.Tags: age 1
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“Roseola.”
Our heads tilted in an all-knowing-without-Googling manner at the sound of that diagnosis.
“Yeah, it comes after a fever. (*First-time, I think he meant to say here*) Parents think they’re out of the woods and then it’s like ‘bam,’ someone’s got strawberries on their body.”
“Ah. She thought that might be it,” Dave said. The doctor grabbed his clipboard and laptop and started toward the walk-in clinic door.
“Yes, the moms always know. My wife always knows. I’m always wrong. Well, have a good night.”
“Yeah, thank you.”
“Wait, Erin. If he’s always wrong, shouldn’t we ask to talk to his wife?”
Wasn’t cut out to be a nurse June 25, 2009
Posted by erinfrances in Being a mama, Kind of unreasonable.Tags: 1 year
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We were just walking around our house in our white-trash-like, summer best to avoid turning the air conditioning on. Between flapping our shirts and standing in front of the fridge, we noticed Alice was ticked off. And hot.
Really hot. So we turned on the A/C, telling a whiny Alice that the next power bill would be coming out of any college fund we may or may not be able to afford to throw pennies at years from now (we operate on the
assumption that college debt makes you stronger. It’ll also be 17 years before our college loans are paid off. We’re damn strong).
But even after the house boasted a manageable, humidity-free 72 degrees, she was still burning. Oh, crap. Crap, crap, I believe was my reaction. Followed quickly by: NOT AGAIN. IF SHE VOMITS, I AM SO OUT OF HERE.
But that was Monday night.
No, there wasn’t vomit.
But there wasn’t anything else, either. Just 6:30 p.m. bedtimes, not eating much, nothing the doctor could find, nothing but an occasional low-grade fever.
And here was my horrible mistake: Google.
Do not Google these symptoms and the words “baby” or “teething” or something. You run across not helpful sites, but crazies in forums on Web sites from the UK, and you sit there trying to decipher and diagnose and pretty soon you start to recognize the strain in their voices — because the strain’s in your voice — and then you realize: YOU’RE IN IT. You’re so complicit in this. You ARE a crazy.
That’s why I closed the Web browser. I’d rather not know. This new method of parenting, online … I can’t. I can’t do it.
Busted June 22, 2009
Posted by erinfrances in It's how we roll.6 comments
“Dave?” I asked, calling to him — in the family room — from my spot holding the world’s most ticked-off baby.
No answer.
Tender Heart said something on TV, blaring from the family room, left on from my attempt to distract the baby. (No. 1 parent, over here.)
“Dave?”
“What?”
“Are you watching the Care Bears?”
Pause. Pause.
“Well I had to know if they made it out OK.”
“Oh, Dave.”
For the record, that’s Dave’s leg June 20, 2009
Posted by erinfrances in Being a mama, It's how we roll.Tags: too hot to blog
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And the award for best use of a Saturday morning/early afternoon goes to Erin and Dave and Alice.
Lunchtime at the park June 17, 2009
Posted by erinfrances in Being a mama.Tags: 1 year old, menominee park
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The thing about toddlers is, they can show you they like you. They can crawl over to your legs, pull themselves up, pat your thigh and peer up, shrieking to be picked up. They can crawl to you on two legs and one arm, the other outstretched with a book they’ll only sit and listen to for exactly two pages.
They can also tell you how awful you are, like when you as the mama decide it’s time to go home, it’s time to stop swinging, and your cutesy toddler squeals so you can see all her six-or-so teeth, and she does the move where she goes so stiff you could use her as a prop to hold a door closed.
Yeaaah. Toddlers are special. Very special.
(Also, please disregard my Wisconsin-white arms. Eep.)
Optimism, because she doesn’t understand our language June 14, 2009
Posted by erinfrances in Toddling it.Tags: jobs
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Our life is on hold now, waiting for any kind of bad news at work that may or may not be coming for the third quarter. While we wait, wondering why we couldn’t have diversified a bit in the ol’ career game, she wants a hot dog. While we make bad jokes about living in our parents’ basements in Nowhere, Ohio (no offense, Ma), she giggles at what we can only imagine is our unmatchable wit.
So thanks, Alice.
A nightly occurrence June 12, 2009
Posted by erinfrances in Bad ideas, Being a mama.1 comment so far
Eating’s never been the problem. When food gets put on her tray, her arms go straight out like a scare crow’s, her gums get clenched together and she, for lack of an appropriate verb, bops in her high chair with, for lack of a less geeky word, glee.
Kid loves food.
Kid doesn’t love waiting for said food, and this is where my lack of parenting skills comes in.
Did you know, dear reader, that there are people who teach their kids how to speak in sign language? These kids want milk, they make some weird sign that says “Excuse me, Mother? When you have a second, I’d like some milk. No rush! Just whenever you have time.”
That’s preposterous.
My 1-year-old doesn’t know the difference between “mother” and “nose.” (She’ll grab for the dog if you say “Where’s Big?”, but if you say “where’s Mom?” she’ll hit her head … Babies are strange.)
Anyhow, instead of a polite little sign, Alice likes to whine. She’s perfected the constant drone, the series of short grunts, the fake cry. She’ll start somewhere around T minus two pieces remaining on her tray, and crescendo when her tray’s empty, and continue with her animal-like wail til there is again soggy, shredded up food she can hide chipmunk-style in her cheeks.
Once, I tried teaching her the sign for “more” using some inane mailer with an overpriced diaper’s cheap coupon that promised something like “enhance communication between mother and baby” (which is crap, apparenly). “More?” I said, and showed her the piece of hot dog in my palm, and then the sign from the pamphlet. Dave did the sign, and I gave him “more.” We continued our monkey-see game til the dog was even grasping the trick, but Alice sat there in her high chair and wailed.
“Mmmmmeeehmmm-aaahhhaaaa-MMMMMMM! EHHHHHH!” Meaning, of course, “HOT DOG. NOW. MOVE IT.” So we gave her the hot dog and ate our own, and watched as the dominos resembling years of bad parenting fell in a line before our perplexed eyes.
Is this a problem? I don’t know. Did I just lock in a sweet deal for a pony in a few years? I’m afraid we may have. Whoops.
And I ran, I ran (not) so far away June 12, 2009
Posted by erinfrances in Uncategorized.Tags: Posted by Dave
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You can thank me later for putting that song in your head all day.
But yeah, I ran today. For the second time this week. Which is big and well not that big at the same time. It’s big because since the pregnancy (oh those 9 months!), the birth and the first 12 months of the child’s life, I “forgot” how to run. Or forgot to run. Or felt the need to start a contest with Mr. Big to see who could get pudgier (finger food from Alice are not doing him any good.)
But it also isn’t that big because a little more than a year ago I ran the Oshkosh Half Marathon. All 13.1 miles of it. Which should mean that the mile or so I run now should be a piece of cake. Yeah, should is the key word there.
Why am I running again. Well for one, it’s bikini season. For two I am getting a bit pudgy and the fat jokes from Erin are starting to feel like daggers.* And three in a weird sort of way, it is somewhat enjoyable. Now only if I can keep it that way ….
So here’s to running and letting the damned dog win that contest.
*For the record, I tell her to call me that. It keeps me motivated. And she says them in good fun. She doesn’t really mean it. Ummm, I think that is.
We may start making her brush her teeth twice a day too; what horrible parents are we June 7, 2009
Posted by erinfrances in It's how we roll, Toddling it.Tags: 1 year old, shopping
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Remember that time you were in Target, checking out some shoes? Maybe you had some time to kill before work, or you had a free Saturday and you just wanted to feel some questionable leather-like canvas against your feet.
Then some child’s piercing wail disturbed your moment; you swore you could feel your eardrum vibrating. Eeee-gad, SHUT THAT KID UP, you thought.
Yesterday, that kid was, uh, mine. Hi! Just us over here, forcing norms on our 1-year-old in Target. Wearing shoes in public? WE’VE GONE CRAZY!
The thought of us getting escorted out of Target made my shushing all the more shrill, just contributing to the speed at which we three cleared out that section of the store.
She wailed. With purpose. With anger. She threw her head back, bouncing off the back of the cart’s seat she was in. Her hands hit the cart’s handle, her feet thrashed like a cat’s in water. Her response to my cramming her chubby feet into some shoes was not dissimilar to a cat being tossed in water, actually, now that I think about it.
Ah, her first tantrum. Cute.
She had no interest in trying on shoes, wearing shoes, talking about shoes, looking at shoes. She’s never, ever worn shoes, and she finds socks offensive. This, therefore, was child abuse in the first degree, in her toddler vision.
I’ve got a few buckets of pounds on her though, and Dave’s got a Dad’s voice, so yes, that crazy couple you saw wrestling on the ground with a newly mobile toddler? Do know that we did manage to get a pair that fit. We did manage to pay for them, lock her in her car seat, slide her feet in there — all while she’s protesting and calling our mother’s all sorts of names — and wait for her to rip them off.
As the second shoe she threw hit the back of the passenger seat I’d occupied, I made my choice.
“Yes. LET’S HAVE ANOTHER!”
And on the 365th day he said let her walk June 3, 2009
Posted by erinfrances in It's how we roll.1 comment so far
There we were preparing dinner. And here she was preparing to blow us away with her technical toddler acrobatics. Maybe she was hungry. And maybe she wanted to expend some more energy to make more room to eat not only her portion of dinner, but most of Erin’s and mine as well. Maybe she, on the day of her first birthday, wanted to yell at or show us: “I’m one dammit, now stop treating me like such a baby.”
Whatever her motivation to try walking on this day, it came out of nowhere and totally made my rather ho-hum day.
Her birthday, a happy birthday indeed.
And my first words were something like “Holy crap, I just had a baby!” June 3, 2009
Posted by erinfrances in Being a mama, The baby.Tags: first birthday
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The scariest moment was when she didn’t wail, didn’t gasp, didn’t cry. I was expecting to hear the sound that would — unbeknownst to me then — fill my waking hours for the next five months. That shrill, throw-me-out-a-window sound wasn’t as horrid as the silence. Of course they don’t tell the mom, all hunched over and gross, that the baby was born with the cord around her neck. So the fear was amplified later, in my memory. Holy crap, I remember thinking the next day. If I were a pioneer woman, we’d both be dead. Science is cool.
The only semblance of love on that June 3 was feeling her elbows and her legs curled up under the hospital blanket. I already knew what they’d feel like before I rubbed my hand over them, because they’d been cramping my style for the last few months.
She felt like a stranger. A beautiful stranger, one I’d kill to protect … but a stranger nonetheless. I didn’t have that Parents magazine-like feeling of gushing love and emotion. My heart beated just the same, Dave looked just the same. We just happened to have a baby in our arms. I think they call it “shock.”
The love came later, after the touch-and-go period of colic ended. Honest. I loved her like a mama, but I wasn’t incredibly in love with her for a little while. Early parenthood sucks.
Obviously, as I’m the happiest I’ve been in coherent memory, that’s not the case now. I’d do it again. I guess.
Happy birthday, Allie Bear.
I do solemnly swear to stop talking about this concert … after this post. May 28, 2009
Posted by erinfrances in Kind of unreasonable, Pesky memories.Tags: billy joel, elton john
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A week ago I was sweating and doing the 1970s shoulder shrug dance move to “The Bitch is Back,” and tonight I’m using my four fingers to scrape humid dryer lint off the dryer door.
In case you didn’t catch the school-girl crush sigh in my voice, the concert was a word more incredible than incredible. Forty-five minutes of Billy and Elton, then 45 minutes or an hour of Elton, then an hour or more of Billy, and then another hour or so of both of them together — with no intermission. These two dudes can rock.
The sound was amazing, reading off their teleprompters with binoculars from our box (true story) was amazing, dancing with my cousins and the fam … Worth every ounce of fuzzy fatigue my body snuggled up with the next day.
Elton may have caught my attention with “Your Song” while we were sprinting to our seats (late, as always), but it’s Billy I didn’t sit a second for. Elton lost me for a minute during songs not included on the three albums I have (busted with the “Greatest Hits”). But Billy … My eyes didn’t leave his; he said “Here’s a song for those of you old enough to know what an (air quotes) album cut is.” AND I KNEW IT.
(Confession: I once sat with my finger alternating between “stop” and “play” on my tape player while reading an encyclopedia to memorize “We Didn’t Start the Fire.” The soundtrack to my Barbies’ lives was “52nd Street.” I told a fellow grade school friend “don’t come bitching to me” because no one told me that Billy Joel would say anything I shouldn’t repeat. I was the Catholic girl who had no idea what “Only the Good Die Young” meant for years after Dad made me a tape.)
Elton didn’t wear feathers (damn), an amphitheater full of adults will collectively squeal over Billy breaking into “Old Time Rock ‘n’ Roll” after that long pause three-quarters of the way through “River of Dreams,” and yes I’m on a first-name basis with both of them.
My spoiled little American dream before I knew I had a ticket to the show was solely to see Billy Joel in concert — screw a cure for diseases, saving dolphins or reforming Social Security. Out of my life would come nothing but a concert. Aim high — that’s my motto.
My stomach tightened for a few minutes last week, worried that I was going to be caught in a ball of flames and steel in Detroit after the show because I’d told God that was all I wanted out of life. But God and I worked something out … My new dream is just to go see him again.
Their “Face to Face” tour is coming to Chicago in July. I’ll honor anyone who buys me a ticket with a month-long text-alert trivia contest.
*Thumb to my ear, pinkie to my mouth* Call me.
Just for fun …
The beginning of a beautiful relationship May 27, 2009
Posted by erinfrances in It's how we roll.Tags: Posted by Dave
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When this started happening yesterday I almost couldn’t believe. This from the dog who still gets jealous about Alice’s existence and tries to stage a “playtime coup” every time you play with her. This from the dog who gets bopped by flying sippy cups and toys when riding next to Alice in the car. This from the dog that is so particular about his food that he once wouldn’t eat because I had the audacity to put a pretzel stick on top of his food.
But then again he is smart enough to stand on his hind legs when Alice is eating to get her to throw food off the side of her high chair. So maybe this is just a natural evolution — “You feed me your food” morphs into “You can feed me my food.”
Furloughs: Bringing families together since Jan. ‘09 May 25, 2009
Posted by erinfrances in Home.Tags: furlough
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“Is this what you guys do when we’re not here? Do you get together and eat cake and go to baseball games and hang out all the time?” I asked my two brothers and my sister-in-law while working on my sunburn at the Cincinnati Reds’ stadium on Sunday afternoon. We’d just spent a few days together, me listening to jokes and one-liners I didn’t help cement into the family lexicon.
The whole week had been perfect: a late-night chat with my mom and some zinfandel, a BBQ at my in-laws’ house, a giddy-funny fast drive with my family to Detroit from Cinci to make it to the Best Concert Ever a half-hour late (whoops), a day in the sunshine with Alice and her cousins in the kiddie pool at Grandma’s, a birthday party with ladybug cupcakes, bouts on the swing, baby bathing suits, the scent of SPF 70 on my shirt, $7 beer at the ball park.
It’s enough to make the eight-hour drive feel like an ocean separating us.
“Uh, no, not really,” my brother said, rubbing his ear.
Well, then. The good times and the guilty feeling over living in Wisconsin must have been the furlough talkin’. I’m going to miss these poor-woman’s vacations when they’re through.
Hello, strangers May 20, 2009
Posted by erinfrances in Something to do.Tags: blogging, furloughs
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My lack of blog posts is a side effect of my furlough.
While we’re fighting to put sunscreen on her neck, I’m not thinking about blogging. While I’m eating ice cream, I’m not blogging. While I’m riding a bike around the yard, I feel vaguely aware that in another state at another time, I might have been blogging. While I’m digging through a box of stuff my grandma set aside for a garage sale about 15 years ago and never got back around to worrying about, I couldn’t care less about blogging. Sorry, fellas.
In all its wish-I-were-getting-paid-for-this glory, this week’s going too fast. I’m a day away from Billy Joel, three away from a birthday party, four away from a baseball game, and five away from going home.
So, I’ll be welcoming a guest blogger here in a bit. Stay tuned.
A furcation, or a vacurlough … Not sure which I’ll use when I lie to myself May 14, 2009
Posted by erinfrances in Bad ideas.Tags: furlough
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Furlough is to 2009 as French-rolled jeans were to my fifth-grade class. Everyone gets to join in the fun. But maybe just as scary as a classroom full of 10-year-old fashionistas is the fact that next week, at the same time, neither of us is going to be earning anything other than an unemployment check.
As much as I’m trying to forget about that part and just focus on Billy Joel, a Reds vs. Indians game and Alice’s first-ish birthday party, it still makes me dig through my coupon folder til the inky scent lingers on my fingers, looking for nickels and dimes and free ketchup.
I’m employed; I’m lucky, I know. We’re just two of thousands who are doing the furlough dance. I just never was one for dancing, though.
I just long for the day when I can ask Dave to pick something up at the store without threatening him for even toying with the idea of going off-list or forgetting coupons.
Eleven-and-a-half months May 12, 2009
Posted by erinfrances in The baby.Tags: 11 months
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In about 10 days, ladybug cupcakes, burgers and presents will serve to remind me the lines at the corners of my eyes aren’t likely temporary, that my soft belly is just the cherry on top of the whole situation, and that my baby’s days as a baby are dwindling.
Sigh. My baby.
She’s got a new game, where she wants to be read to. This book — “Big Little”! No, “The Pigeon Loves Things That Go”! No, no — just the first few pages of each, til another board book catches her eye. “THIS ONE.” She’ll hold the book up, in front of your face, til you read it. But just the first few pages. All sorts of unresolved stories, but that doesn’t matter. It doesn’t. There’s no time for finishing books. “Godddddd, there’s so much to DO, Mom.” I know. Oh, I know.
Mother’s Day Eve May 9, 2009
Posted by erinfrances in Being a mama, Kind of unreasonable.1 comment so far
“Sleep when the baby sleeps,” my mom and my mother-in-law told me and Dave when Alice was born.
Then, that was more of a cutesy phrase than a possibility, because despite my new-mom status, I still enjoyed daily showers, eating warm food and having clean dishes. Now, though, I can do dishes while she eats Cheerios in the high chair. I can eat warm food as long as I share it with her. Daily showers aren’t at risk of being passed over for a colicky baby.
So today at 1:30 when she laid down to take a nap, I grabbed a book and laid down. “It’s Mother’s Day Eve. I deserve this.”
But just like that nauseous feeling that creeps into my throat when I’ve eaten a big second helping of brownies (whoops), the warm, fuzzy feeling about my Mother’s Day gift to myself tapered off when I picked my laughing baby out of her crib and walked downstairs … At 5 p.m.
Ugh. Guilt. Great. That is EXACTLY what Mother’s Day is for.
For the record, I was kidding May 8, 2009
Posted by erinfrances in It's how we roll, So married.add a comment
I knew I married a man with an obsession; I mean, he worked at an indie record store. “Music snob” doesn’t begin to describe his affinity for oddball sounds that some like himself describe as music.
I accepted this collection of CDs he’d amassed because we had a cramped, dingy little “office” that I let him put the CDs in, close the door and forget about.
Well. Til I got the brilliant idea that we didn’t need an office — we needed a spare bedroom. Since we’d gutted the room, painted the walls and made it look less like a place you’d maybe hide a body or expect rats to reproduce and more like a room where a kid would sleep, the CDs had to go.
I didn’t ask. I didn’t tell. I just sat there at my desk one day at work when he came in to tell me: “I’m going to tell you something that’s going to make you very happy. I’m getting rid of my CDs. SOME OF MY CDs, just some of them.”
Inside, I beamed. Outside, I kept my face straight. Best not to have him get rid of some CD and then regret it, blaming me for subtly conniving him to pry his fingers off that CD that sounds like crickets chirping and frogs croaking (not making this up).
So last weekend, he dragged two copy paper/office boxes and an Adidas bag full of CDs and went to work. I silently watched, silently pleased.
“Why am I doing this? What did you do to the old Dave?”
“I changed him.”
“But you married me because you loved me.”
“No, I married you because I saw how pliable you were. I loved who I wanted you to be.”
“You’re not kidding are you?”
“Yes, I am.” No.
Well. Either way, he’s about 200 CDs shorter. Does it really matter how we got here?
Don’t be silly.
Gimme your cheeseburger May 5, 2009
Posted by erinfrances in Kind of unreasonable, The baby.Tags: 11 months
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She’s been sporadically, half-heartedly sipping her vitamin D milk from a sippy cup. She’s down to two or three bottles a day. She eats Cheerios by the bucketful and — oh, are you going to eat that? THEN GIVE IT TO HER, for the love of all holy objects, GIVE IT TO HER.
That’s what’s changed since month 10’s first day to month 11’s. Sure there was crawling, there was “where’s your belly?”, there was saying “mommy.”
But our lives changed the most when I realized I couldn’t take her grocery shopping without a snack, because the sights and smells of the plethora of food that sits waiting in America’s Favorite Big Box Store is enough to elicit hunger pangs and salivating from this child.
Who is this child? This baby with a personality, and needs and wants and more wants? She wants. She wants, wants. She can’t talk yet, but oh does she know her American right to want more, more.
AHHHHHHH, SAND! May 4, 2009
Posted by erinfrances in Kind of unreasonable.Tags: just for fun
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The city of Berlin by way of our uber cool, legitimate Oshkosh friends, provided us with a couple tubs of light, clean play sand for free (my favorite number).
We, as uber cool (first-time) parents hooked up Alice with a giant green turtle sandbox, picturing sandcastles with unicorns flying around the spindles and a moat made of milkshakes.
She had other ideas.
Namely “I will go nowhere near this box of dirt.”
I should’ve known; this is the child who picks specks of fuzz off the carpet to hand to me. The child who doesn’t like anything on her feet — socks, toys, blankets, hands, lotions, etc.
But I am steadfast. And I had fun, anyhow.
That’s my Sunday hair. Don’t judge me.
