When's naptime?

I've always been a little bit envious of co-sleepers. It sounded like such a nice way to wake up in the morning, with your precious baby's face just inches away.

My parents would be VERY disappointed to know that all that college and grad school money that they ponied up resulted in a Very Stupid Person.

Last night Bub woke up SCREAMING at midnight, exactly five minutes after I had fallen asleep. Nothing we could do would calm him down.

I was bleary eyed and desperate for sleep so I made the executive decision to bring him into bed with us.

BD is a roller, so he opted to sleep on the couch rather than squash his only son.

What I wish someone had told me about co-sleeping:

1. Bub will insist on sleeping either directly on top of me or squashed up against me.
2. Every single time Bub adjusts his position he will either smack or kick me in the face.
3. Despite being awake for TWO hours in the middle of the night, he will still wake up at his usual time. Or fifteen minutes earlier than the usual time. When it's still dark.
4. I will get less sleep than ever. The burning in my eyes is reminiscent of his newborn days.

Yawn.

Forgive Me

Dear Bub,

I'm feeling a little guilty after writing this, so it's important for you to know that you do a lot of things that I adore too. A few things I'll remember about you at nineteen months:

• Once you're halfway up the stairs, you turn around, wag your finger and shout, "Dit down now! Dit down!" in a perfect imitation of your mother.
• Your baby-ese. You call TV "teemee" and fruit "schloop." Come ON with the cuteness.
• You say "bye bye" to everything. The slide, the bath, your dog, Yo Gabba Gabba, everything.
• Your first two word combination was "I'm stuck."
• When you get mad, you look around for something to throw. Whatever is closest goes flying. For the sake of setting a good example I'll note that I shouldn't find this funny.
• There are moments, like today when it was just the two of us having lunch, that I'm so overcome with love for you I almost can't stand it. I want you to know this kind of love for yourself, but I'm prepared to wait. I'm holding on to now.

Love,

Mama

I want to quit the gym

Last summer I joined the gym.

This is not the first time I have joined a gym nor, I'm sure, will it be the last. Why I thought this would be different, I don't know.

I went faithfully three times a week for the first month. There were several classes offered at 7:30 that gave me plenty of time to kiss Bub goodnight and make it to the gym. I NEED a class. I'm very easily bored and am not motivated enough to stay an a treadmill, bike or elliptical for more than 15-20 minutes.

I haven't seen the gym since roughly, oh, JULY.

Every single month the credit card bill comes with a charge for the gym. Every single month BD's head nearly explodes as he asks "Do you want ME to call and cancel for you?" Every single month I reply, "No, I'm on it."

When a commercial for this particular gym comes on television BD snorts and mutters about how I should be on the commercial seeing as I'm their best customer.

This month I actually called. They told me I would have to print out a cancellation form and mail it in. Against all my procrastinating tendencies, I went straight to the computer. I was quickly met with a roadblock of the "enter the member number on your card" variety.

The card that was downstairs.

In the garage.

That was last week.

Shame

It started off slowly.

I bought this book.

You know, just to see what the hype was about.

I then, casually suggested to BD that if he wanted to purchase the other three books in the series and place them under the Christmas tree, that would be okay with me.

He did.

And I raced through read each book.

Then I found this. While I'm not quite devouring this as I did the others, (although my laptop weighs less than the books) I'm still reading a pdf PARTIAL DRAFT of a book that may never be published. Except that it already was. It's the same book! From a different point of view! And here I sit, whining that I might never get to hear the end of it. Except that I already did!

The final nail in my coffin came today, when I agreed to see the movie. It was okay. *cough*buying the dvd*cough*

I won't elaborate on my thoughts on the movie. I won't get into the fact that Kristen Stewart is all wrong for the part of Bella. I can't justify why an adult (I have only months left of my twenties) is addicted drawn to this story. But, so help me, I'm hooked.

Like eating a carrot after a cookie, I should probably start on something by Wally Lamb next.

Brownie Don't

Last night I had a craving for brownies. The craving had been building for DAYS and I had been pushing it away, but last night it wouldn't be ignored.

It was only after I had each ingredient in the bowl that I realized that I was out of vegetable oil. I had only two choices at this point: improvise, or toss. I figured I had nothing to lose by improvising.

What I should have done is google "acceptable substitutes for vegetable oil." It's possible I would have come up with something that I have right here in my kitchen.

That's what I should have done.

What I did was look in my pantry for the thing that most closely resembled vegetable oil.

Olive oil.

Oh, yes I did.

Let me tell you, olive oil brownies? NOT GOOD. Olive oil brownie batter? EVEN WORSE.

Also, there has to be a way to add chocolate chips to brownies without ruining the brownie itself. I've tried several times and always come out with a wrecked brownie. The chocolate chips all settle to the bottom of the pan rather than distributing themselves equally throughout the levels of the brownie. I don't want a layer of chips, I want a surprise chip every now and then.

This morning, the offending brownies are mocking me from the stove top. It seems wasteful to throw them out, but I'm definitely not trying them again. I could send them to school with BD and have them stashed in the teacher's lounge, but I don't want ANYONE knowing I was responsible for these atrocities.

AND? For some reason my kitchen smells like powdered donuts.

Which means, in addition to adding vegetable oil (well actually canola oil) to my grocery list, I now need to add powdered donuts.

And maybe pencil in some time on the calendar for the Wii Fit.

In Their Words

I want to remember today. I want to remember the surge of hope I felt this morning, knowing that today is a monumental one for our country. I want to put into words how I feel on this day, so that someday, when Bub is old enough to understand, I can tell him.

I have six hours of inauguration coverage waiting on my DVR. Even though it's naptime, and the house is quiet, I haven't turned it on. I'm overwhelmed.

The words escape me.

But they didn't escape her.

Or her.

I've printed those posts. I've put them away so I can remember how they so eloquently put my feelings into words.

I wonder if I'll remember that this is the first election in which I voted for a winner. The first election of my adult years in which a candidate spoke directly to the causes in my heart.

I know I'll remember this feeling. This knowing.

He can be anything he wants to be. He was born into a world where anything is possible.

These won't make it into the baby book

• On Saturday, Bub climbed out of his crib. He must have been in stealth mode because we didn't hear anything. BD went to get him after his nap and found him sitting on the floor reading a book. This has created a heightened level of anxiety for me because I feel that the transistion to a toddler bed means no more sleep. Ever. For now, we've turned his crib around so the raised side of the crib faces the room rather than the wall. This seems to have thwarted his explorations. For now.


• Bub thinks it's beyond funny to spit his milk out behind the kitchen table. He is encouraged by the dog who follows him around like his own personal Roomba. The only solution I can come up for this is to always give him his milk in his high chair, but for some reason that doesn't seem like the right solution. Also, between three meals and four cups of milk that's an awful lot of time in his high chair.


• Bub is an easy going toddler. He doesn't have separation anxiety, he plays well with other kids and he adjusts easily to new situations. That said, he has ZERO respect for authority. He laughs when I tell him no. He flatly refuses to sit in time out. He's not affected by any punishment, such as they are.
  
  
• Bub hits. He'll go from sweet baby boy, to the smack heard 'round the neighborhood. Tonight I was handing him off to BD for his bedtime stories and he reached up and smacked me in the eye. Hard. My eye was OPEN. BD laughed hysterically. Tears flowed.

Gabbatonic

I swore I wouldn't let him watch television until he was two.

A silly declaration by someone without children.

I still use it sparingly, but there's no denying the hyponotic effect of the Gabba Gang.

At least he's in good company.

P. S. Holy crow, my windows are all kinds of dirty

P.P.S. Yes, I know he has a mullet. BD insists we're waiting until he's two to cut it. I think that will be a very long five months.

Facebook Anxiety

I have a recurring dream, nightmare rather, that people logging in to Facebook are able to see ALL of my recent activity. Whose pictures I'm clicking through, whose friend lists I'm perusing, whose names I'm searching for.


The anxiety is almost enough to make me swear off of Facebook forever.


Almost.


I have friend requests idling in my inbox. Not because I'm drunk with the power of confirm or ignore. These people aren't my friends. Several of them I don't know at all and I'm not going to be anyone's road to their goal of 1000 friends.


One of them is an ex-boyfriend of the things did not end well variety. Of course I clicked through to his profile. Of course he's engaged. I'm not really sure I need to see updates about the wedding or the inevitable honeymoon pictures. Truthfully I don't much care. Really, I don't. But I know me, and I know I'll click through when I see that update.


My filter for everything is to ask myself if I would want BD to do it. Naturally, I would not want BD to be Facebook friends with ANYONE with an X chromosome, much less someone he used to be romantically involved with.


Still, it seems mean to click "ignore."


So the request sits.


And I nervously click through the lives of friends, and people I used to know.

Resolutions

I began 2009 with some pretty lofty goals.

Some were serious.

Some were silly.

Some went unspoken and uncompleted, like the resolution BD insisted I make to be more organized.

I'd say my success rate us about 50%.

I don't know if I'm being a better wife, but I am making myself more aware of how I act, how I treat him, the example we're setting for our son.

Drinking more water? Getting my laundry under control? Working out? Fail, fail, fail.

Yes, I realize that's about a 25% success rate, but I'm weighting the wife resolution a little more heavily. I get to do that. My blog, my math.

And there you have it. Thirteen days in to the new year and I'm already meh about my resolutions.

Realistically I do need to get the laundry under control, and I need to stop the ever expanding muffin top before I need a whole new wardrobe. But the year is young and I should probably be taking baby steps so I don't find myself self-actualized by May with nothing left to do for the rest of the year.

I finally stopped letting the new fancy camera intimidate me.

Hair uncombed. Dirt on his face. Unibrow.

Perfect.

Wishing it Away

When Bub was a newborn I was told to wake him every three hours to feed him, even at night. My alarm would sound at 3am, I would roll over, swear at BD's slumbering form and grudgingly drag myself out of bed to wake my baby, who was none to happy to be woken.

Certainly, this is the hardest part right?

It seems whatever phase we're currently in, it's the hardest.

This will be easier when he's sleeping longer.

This will be easier when he's more alert.

This will be easier when he can walk, rather than crawl on the disgusting ground.

After visiting my friend in the hospital, I mused to another friend Can you believe the size of those newborn diapers? Can you remember when they were SO small?

Not really, she answered, I was too busy wishing it away.

And isn't that the truth. Through all of Bub's nineteen months I've been looking forward, rather than living in the moment. I've celebrated first words, first steps, first bites of solid food, without taking a chance to think about what we're leaving behind.

As he grows before my very eyes, and we hurtle towards his second birthday it's becoming painfully obvious that he's more boy than baby.

I'm no closer to making a decision about baby number #2, but I do know one thing for sure, I would go back and do the baby thing with #1 all over again. Well, maybe I would start from about week #4.

Knowing I can't go back, Quantum Leap style, I'll have to settle for living in the now. All too soon I'll be saying things like Remember a time before he could talk back? When toddler gibberish dominated his speech? When his ultimate joy was chasing his dog? When he still wanted his mommy when he was scared or hurt? When he would let me rock him to sleep?

He won't always be a baby, but he'll always be my baby.

Send Help

Every season I tell myself it will be different. I promise myself that I'll keep the abomination that is The Bachelor out of my DVR.

Yet here I sit, wasting away naptime, guessing who won't even make it past the first cut.

There goes my Monday nights for the next two months.

Like a Blind Man Seeing for the First Time

Under the Christmas tree at my mom's house I found a brand new set of Cutco knives. And an ice cream scoop that my mom raaaaved about.

After having used my inferior knives during a recent visit to our house, she decided I needed to step it up a bit.

How have I been living without these knives? HOW? I want to write poetry about these knives. I won't, but I really want to.

She was right about the ice cream scoop too. If BD ever leaves me, he can have the house. I'm keeping the scoop.

Not the post I intended to write

I set out to write about our decision to have another baby... that's not exactly what happened.

Last night, a good friend of mine gave birth to an adorable baby boy. She has an older son around Bub's age and our boys are buddies.

This baby was not a suprise, obviously. I've known for roughly the past 32 weeks. We threw a shower. We bought gifts, both for the shower and for visiting the hospital.

Last night, a day past her due date, the texts began rolling in.

6:00pm At the hospital. And staying!

7:29 pm. Epiduralized :)

Then, a message at 10:29 pm. They're a family of four. After only two pushes. If I didn't love her, I would hate her.

And, while I'm overcome with happiness for this family, I'm also overcome with another, less attractive, emotion.

I'm jealous.

The thing is, I'm firmly undecided about having another baby. I had a wee bit of a scare last week and it became clear to me that I'm not entirely ready to travel down that road again.

Something about heading to the hospital, the same hospital where Bub was born, sent a sick feeling of envy through me. Walking into the room, everything was so peaceful. Baby was sleeping, mom and dad were twiddling with their iPhones.

And my friend, K, looks unforgiveably good, 16 hours post delivery. Again with the love/hate.

I was the only visitor for a moment, but soon the room was buzzing with aunts, cousins and friends. Having had a chance to snuggle the sleeping baby, I left K to her other visitors.

I can't quite figure out the source of my jealousy. Certainly these first days are hard. With Bub I was so overcome with anxiety that I didn't have much of a chance to enjoy them. And I'm certain I won't be jealous at 3am when I'm soundly sleeping. Still.

Feelings aren't always rational. But I'm nothing if not a great suppressor. I'll push the icky feelings away and replace them with joy for this new, larger family.

That has to be easier than wrestling with my own decision about expanding our family.