Things That Bug

Dear Women In My Office,
If it is warm enough for shorts, it is too warm for your Uggs. If it is cold enough for Uggs, it is too cold for shorts. And neither of those things are office wear you fucking morons.

Love,
AB

Dear Woman I See Walking Nearly Every Day,
Your baby is beautiful and bald. Stop gluing that fucking disco ball thing to her damn head. It looks like a sparkling tumor. SHE IS A GIRL WE GET IT.

Love,
AB

Dear Baby Girl,
Oh you are the apple of my eye. Now let me fucking sleep. Getting Mama up every two hours is a good way to get yourself written out of the will which is tough to do when you are the sole heir and yet? You are managing. Get it together.

Love,
AB

Dear Head,
I know you are tired. And people are wearing seasonally inappropriate clothes and gluing weird shit to baby heads. But this migraine shit has got to stop. Six days straight you have been all hurty. Please stop. I beg of you.

Love,
The Rest of You

Dear Hair,
Please stop falling out everywhere. I find you on the floor, in the toaster, in my shoes, in the baby's diaper. It is all very upsetting. I am pleased that you are falling out because the thickness was asinine but could you do it in efficient chunks? Perhaps that fall automatically into the trash? Thanks.

Love,
Me

Four AM is Early Yo

Oh y'all.

I was doing so well. Not freaking out about being back to work (now work sucks but meh that is something else entirely), juggling the family, sharing baby duty with J. I was cruising. It was hard but I could do it.

The baby isn't sleeping. I mean she isn't not sleeping. But for a while now she has been sleeping in long chunks and getting up once during the night. But when I hit the wall yesterday I realized it has been a couple of weeks since she fit that pattern. Instead of getting five or six hours straight I have been getting three hours and it is melting my brain.

Crazed googling leads me to believe she is just having a four month sleep regression. And with any luck this will be over in a couple of weeks. But in the mean time my brain is hot molten liquid and I have a migraine that could take down an elephant. I would do just about anything to get eight hours at a time.

This is a lonely feeling. Even though J is going through it with me (he takes the early morning shift when I leave). Even though parents everywhere are all going through this right now. I just feel hopeless and sad and I know I just need to tough it out. But that would be easier with some goddamn sleep.

Wild Life

Mo and I spent last night with my parents. My mother was thrilled beyond measure to have the baby in the house (I am but a necessary accompaniment). I have to admit that the kiddo was in full charm mode--she can give a full bodied laugh now that is impossible to ignore. She wanted to stand stand stand all the time and belched like a trucker for my dad.

Of course she didn't want to nap all day (too much fun) and melted down hard core on the way home. At least she will sleep well tonight.

J is camping out at a concert festival this weekend. He has sent text messages and called earlier today and is having a grand time. Honestly, his squeeing about REM has pretty hilarious. He thinks that I should go with him next year, not believing me as usual that I have been to many many concerts at the Gorge and have no desire to camp out there again. It's hot, the porta-potties are always full and I do not need to be pretending to be in high school again. Those festivals are for serious music fans and kids who want to get drunk. I can get unburned and dehydrated at home for free.

Just the same I have had a lovely weekend so far, the weather has been beautiful and the baby charming. I am glad J will be home tomorrow and we can have a little family time. I have a feeling Mo and I have a baseball watching date in the morning. And possibly a walk around the neighborhood. After she milk-bongs her bottle in the morning.

It's a wild life.

Something No One Really Needed To Know

I am going to cause some people to shudder in horror but I don't use toilet seat covers.

I know. But I really can't get too worked up about germs on my butt. Many public space bathrooms are cleaned many times in a day and those that are not . . .well they are likely the kind of places that the Hover is required anyway. I don't know what kind of disease and filth is really intimidated by a little piece of paper. I wouldn't want to eat off of any of these seats but you know, it's not like my ass is germ free.

But what really skeeves me out is when I walk into a stall and the toilet seat cover is still there. Obviously no one cleans the paper and ew some one's butt was just on that.

I realize this makes sense to no one but me.

Changed

I don't think I am alone in the panic I felt while I was pregnant. Beyond all the Oh my god my baby is going to die panic, I also had a healthy case of the freak outs about never having a life again. There is nothing that people love to tell pregnant women (and their partners I assume) about how awful having a baby will be. How you will be fat and ugly and let yourself go. How you won't ever go out again, that you won't get any sleep. How life as you know it is over.

What I've found is that they were right. And wrong.

Life as I know it is over.

But the list of things about my old life is actually fairly small.

1. Sleep. Nobody was shitting about that. Sleeping in is seven am. There are times when I am tired down into the marrow of my bones and I am well aware that my baby is a good sleeper.

2. My weight is basically the same as it was pre-pregnancy. But nothing is in the same place. Suddenly I have the boobs I have been waiting for since seventh grade and well, the experience is over-rated. I can't figure out exactly how to dress this new body of mine without looking heavier than I am. Also, the stretch marks, they are not going to fade. I've seen my mother's stomach and EEEP it is on my damn body.

3. Eating in peace. Baby girl is good but she likes to be paid attention to and that includes during meals. J and I do the whole take turns bit and works out ok. But it's not leisurely by any means.

And that is about it.

I am a homebody by nature. J still goes out frequently for Happy Hours and golf days with his friends. This weekend he is going to a concert on the east side of the state and wow being alone with the baby for three days seemed a lot easier when I agreed to this months ago. But being a homebody has the advantage that J can keep up his social life without it being a huge deal.

I love my daughter. Love my family. There are many things that are not perfect about my life. I am struggling with the same work/life balance shit that every family in America struggles with. J and I rack our brains each night trying to find something. But we are lucky, our situation is actually pretty good and we will figure something out.

My life isn't the same. The little raisin sucking a purple binky down the hall made sure of that. And thank god she did.

One of Many Things I Have No Patience For

Today I was at Subway, just trying to buy a sandwich, when the cashier starts in about the Subway card. I don't have one, and despite her efforts to sell my on the benefits, I do not want one. Mainly because I never end up using them and I have a small wallet.

Of course she has to keep pushing and I finally tell her I will just lose it. She comments that I don't lose my credit card and I tell her that I do, that I am irresponsible.

Why the fuck did I do that? One, it's not true. Two, wtf really? I have no idea. I think I was trying to be polite? Or offer a reason that didn't say anything about her salesmanship? Whatever, it's just dumb.

Side note, I was in sales long enough that I have zero patience for pushy tactics of any kind. J was pricing windows the last few weeks and I made it through one demo. I just wanted to scream. Don't give me your speech just show me the window and tell me the price you ass!

This may be the reason that J got to sit through about ten presentations alone.

Happy Mother's Day

Tomorrow is Mother's Day and I am not going to pretend that this one isn't different for me.

Last year my heart broke a little. I had had a miscarriage and didn't know I was pregnant. I just kept thinking and spinning around in my head. I worried that J and I would never be a family.

This year I feel so lucky. There are a lot of things in my life that are not perfect but there is one thing that is. And she is sleeping down the hall from me right now (oh the cheese, it is like Wisconsin in here).

Now I understand my mother so much more. I understand how much she loves me, how much she loves my sister, all the things she did for us and why. I feel lucky to have my daughter, to be her mother.

Family Recipe

Buster and I are holed up in the bedroom. He is intermittently napping and fretting and I am eating stir fried green beans. The baby is (finally) asleep, the husband is playing softball and Darla is at the vet recovering from surgery. Fortunately, Darla will be fine, she had a non-cancerous tumor removed but yeah . . .he needs to fret and I deserve my green beans.

The first week back at work has been . . .work. Mostly it is fine, some things have been a disaster. Luckily, the baby has been just fine. My getting up at 4am means that I get home in time to spend some real time with her. I am tired as all fuck but then again I would be anyway. Spending four hours with her each night vs. one helps with the crushing guilt. If I had only one hour with her I would feel like I need to be at my very uber-Momness--something that can hard to do right after work (or ever). But with four hours, well no one's perfect Sunshine.

Mostly I just feel relief to be getting more of me back. I think that comes with an older baby in general. Your body comes back a bit, so does your brain. At this time last year I was already pregnant so . . .just being able to have a drink and some sushi once in a while feels like a vacation.

I didn't know what motherhood would be like. I suppose no one does, they just think of fluffy wings and fling themselves off a cliff. The first weeks are hard and you feel exposed and raw and flayed. Like a naked chicken being dipped in batter over a fryer. But now you are sleeping a little more and having adult conversations and wearing shoes with heels and the baby is smiling and laughing and it's still hard and you are still raw but it's not so scary. You get used to hanging precariously over hot oil.

I am not the same as I was. My body is different, my hair is oddly curlier, I care less what other people think . . .and I can't really remember the time before. It feels like a long time ago. J and I keep adjusting, fiddling with the recipe to get things just right. And I think we will get there someday. And hope that someday is soon.

Missed Her

Today was my first day back at work from leave. I survived. That is how it went.

I was smart, and started on a Thursday. Everyone was just glad that I actually came back (if they only knew) and it made it a little easier.

Of course after the three am feeding this morning I cried for an hour and then just gave up and went to the office. J was impressed because he thought I would cry all night. I guess I should stop making room for that badass badge on my Mama Sash because I am fooling exactly no one.

I feel so incredibly lucky to have had this time with her. I am not built for stay-at-home momhood, which I think is so hard, even if it were financially workable for us (it isn't) so I am glad to have this to remember. She needed me these first few months and I needed to do this to become a mom. It wasn't natural to me--I needed the bootcamp. I know that not everyone is able to afford this luxury (which is a commentary on our country, we honestly expect people to go back to work immediately after birth? this is good for anyone?). Mo won't remember any of this but I will.

The guilt is crushing though. My job is not family friendly. It is high stress. I has a long commute. It sucks my soul. And I can't do anything about it except bust ass and hope the recession never really hits us.

And cry. I suspect I will do a lot of that.