See you next week!
Wednesday, August 31, 2005
Tuesday, August 30, 2005
Just a Thought for Today.
This has been painted on the wall at the park for some time now.
This morning I was particularly happy about something - a week ago Friday, Josephine said her first "Please", albeit with some coaching - about eighteen months of it. Now they're coming spontaneously, and it's just so darn nice to hear them. So when she asked to leave the splash pad area to go and see a dog with a great big "prrrrreeeeeeeease?", of course we did. And it gave me the chance to notice this again. Sometimes the graffiti in this city is ugly and depressing. And sometimes, it isn't.
Friday, August 26, 2005
Sweet.
Thank you all, most sincerely, for your kind words of support. Hello people I've never heard from before - some of whom came from Mamazine. What a way to meet me! You all should know that I feel better, and so does Josephine.
Yesterday was a much better day. Josephine was much calmer and more comfortable since the upper canines came through. And even if she wasn't, since I dressed her in an outfit that was WAY cuter than the one she'd had on during the most hellacious day ever, I felt more sympathetic and loving toward her. When and if she fussed, she appeared more charming just because she was wearing a cute dress. I highly recommend that tactic to any other mother! Grubby play clothes and a dirty face don't evoke compassion! Adorable sundress = tender feelings! See?
She spent the morning puttering around and looking at her "booksh".
When I look at this photo I think "Awww", and "Should I make Steve paint the blanket chest and closets in the dressing room a nice creamy colour? The wood really isn't very nice."
I was even feeling so patient and kind and loving that it was decided that we should walk to work. She was so sweet - she stopped and smelled flowers and kissed trees and charmed very pregnant women and waved at our friendly neighbourhood shopkeepers.
While we were waiting for the light to change, she got stung by something (perhaps her hand was still sticky from her banana?) and had a bad reaction. Her hand puffed up immediately, her forearm turned beet red and swelled, and a red area began creeping up toward her shoulder. Thankfully, she'd gotten in a lot of screaming practice the day before, so the pump was primed. The outraged and pained screeching stopped traffic. I stole a freezie from the nearest corner store explaining that I needed an ice pack for an emergency and called our doctor. There was no trouble with her breathing, but Dr. K. was concerned and so we'll be seeing an allergist ASAP.
We were instructed to avoid being stung by anything until next week Monday when we can get an Epi-pen. I think we'll be safest indoors. Perhaps the SureFit Slipcover Factory Sale would be a good wasp, hornet and bee-free place to hang this weekend?
Yesterday was a much better day. Josephine was much calmer and more comfortable since the upper canines came through. And even if she wasn't, since I dressed her in an outfit that was WAY cuter than the one she'd had on during the most hellacious day ever, I felt more sympathetic and loving toward her. When and if she fussed, she appeared more charming just because she was wearing a cute dress. I highly recommend that tactic to any other mother! Grubby play clothes and a dirty face don't evoke compassion! Adorable sundress = tender feelings! See?
She spent the morning puttering around and looking at her "booksh".
When I look at this photo I think "Awww", and "Should I make Steve paint the blanket chest and closets in the dressing room a nice creamy colour? The wood really isn't very nice."
I was even feeling so patient and kind and loving that it was decided that we should walk to work. She was so sweet - she stopped and smelled flowers and kissed trees and charmed very pregnant women and waved at our friendly neighbourhood shopkeepers.
While we were waiting for the light to change, she got stung by something (perhaps her hand was still sticky from her banana?) and had a bad reaction. Her hand puffed up immediately, her forearm turned beet red and swelled, and a red area began creeping up toward her shoulder. Thankfully, she'd gotten in a lot of screaming practice the day before, so the pump was primed. The outraged and pained screeching stopped traffic. I stole a freezie from the nearest corner store explaining that I needed an ice pack for an emergency and called our doctor. There was no trouble with her breathing, but Dr. K. was concerned and so we'll be seeing an allergist ASAP.
We were instructed to avoid being stung by anything until next week Monday when we can get an Epi-pen. I think we'll be safest indoors. Perhaps the SureFit Slipcover Factory Sale would be a good wasp, hornet and bee-free place to hang this weekend?
Wednesday, August 24, 2005
Tra La La. Sniff. Straighten Up And March.
It's going around. I have read more than a few posts lately (at DotMoms, at Beanie Baby, and at Postcards From the Mothership) that have hit home. While I'm glad it's not just me, I'm sad that it's not just me.
You see, this parenting fatigue that I've read about - it's worse than you think. It's not like a spit up stain on your favourite shirt that you can laugh about. It's like wetting your favourite pants just a little some days and hoping no one knows about your hot, wet, stinging secret. Even though other moms feel it too, it doesn't feel better to share. It's shameful and dark and we are each alone in our particular style of failing and soiling ourselves somehow.
Yesterday, I was tired and feeling quite burnt. I have found it very hard to be Josephine's mom these last few days. One of those reasons is that I've fallen out of love with breastfeeding. In fact, I advertised it during the course of private correspondence to a dear soul, who despite being the nation's leading parenting AUTHOR, didn't fault me for writing this:
"But I will add a comment to the sleep thing - or, since I'm still under the deadline for comments for that article on the unique stresses of blah blah blah -
The continuous low-level stress of feeling you almost always need to be kindhearted and sympathetic to your baby - your sweet, innocent needy baby who NEEDS you - will evaporate in time. When that demanding toddler who has been tap dancing on your last nerve for a few months ups the ante by gradually creating a newer, more demanding status quo, and you realize that you've had to work harder to achieve the same results that the formerly affable baby used to give willingly - you'll toughen up and logic will kick in. "I'm officially being manipulated" you'll think. "She's FINE. She just wants more because she thinks she might get it, and she'll be FINE without my jumping through higher hoops with bigger flames." This is not to say that a toddler doesn't have different needs that must be met somehow - but it does mean that one of those needs might just be to know Mommy's limits.
Oh wait - that was supposed to be hopeful and helpful, not depressing or bitter or threatening.
I'm now a correspondent in the the Case of the Altered Naps - docket number BS-418 also known as "You're Napping at 10 AM Today? This Had Better Not Be The Only One, or I Quit".
But I'm getting rid of my stress by writing a song, called "You'll Be Weaned By Labour Day, Tra La La"
It goes like this:
You'll be weaned soon
Tra La La
And you won't know what hit you
Tra La La
It's partly because you won't let me cut your fingernails
Tra La
And your scratchy little fingers are annoying me
Tra La
How would you like it if I latched on
Tra La La
Then crinkled my eyes and bit you?
Oh, you'll be weaned soon. You asked for it my tot.
Because it hurts be pulled on really hard
Then to snap back like a balloon knot.
Tra Laaaaaaa!"
In fact, she wrote a rather humorous reply, including a song that I can readily imagine as a Delta Blues style number done by that guy "Calhoun" from In Living Colour. My song is more of a tap dance/shuffle that you'd see the staff of the Love Boat do in a variety show.
And yesterday I thought I'd blog about it in the form of a "Dear John" letter. I fell asleep thinking it would go like this:
"Dear Josephine,
We're breaking up with you. It's not us, it's you. You see, you're kind of a pain lately. First, we know darn well you know your way around other beverages. We've seen you have your way with a sippy cup. And the way you went at that cous cous the other day - well, we were surprised you came back to us at all. But besides that, you're a little hard on us. Your new friends, the teeth? They totally bite, dude. Especially when you fall asleep, and they take the opportunity to clamp down like a puppy on a pork chop? Not cool. And we're surprised you care for us at all, when you're so easily distracted by the TV, the dog, the garbage trucks on Friday mornings...this on again off again stuff sucks. Literally. Sometimes it seems you're just using us - or that we're an old habit, chosen out of laziness. Other times, we're sure you're a manipulating, calculating, devastatingly charming child who thinks that pointing and asking for us with the big eyes will spare you from being taken away from whatever it is you aren't supposed to be doing.
We've read that you might wean yourself. We've also read that if you haven't weaned yourself by eighteen months, you probably won't. Who do we trust? Well, we're going to have to make an executive decision.
And so, we wanted to let you know that we're packing our bags. We'd still like to be friends, but we don’t want to be your enablers any longer. We view Labour Day as the end of our Labour. Please be notified that your mom will be available for kisses and cuddles galore - and will make you delicious and nutritious meals and snacks and drinks - but we will no longer be open for business.
Sincerely,
Lefty and Righty
And that was cute - until today.
Today was HARD.
Which was even more difficult to bear, because yesterday was so wonderful. After a morning of getting lots done with only a modicum of whining and fretfulness, we went to Riverdale Farm. There, you charmed everyone with your animal noises, recently perfected at the EX. I got to snark at someone's Grandpa who was feeding the horses carrots (a No-No!) by saying "You're setting a bad example for the kids. Besides, you would have made us follow the rules when WE were little, but now that you're grandparents, you think you can do anything!"
Then, we went to the organic farmer's market there and bought GORGEOUS stuff - heirloom cherry tomatoes coloured in purples, reds, oranges and yellows. Olive tapenade. Sheeps' milk cheese. Funky squashes. Yellow watermelon. Wild blueberries (at eeps $6 a pint!). Everything was so good! Josie got to splash in the wading pool because I'd remembered to stuff a swim diaper and a spare suit in the bag, even though I had to dry her with my socks because I forgot a towel. She was sweet all through Chinatown on the way home, eating Pocky and a banana. For dinner, the fresh goods and unfortunately, meat flowers again because something was wrong with the sausages. She went to bed just fine. I went grocery shopping, and didn't forget one thing. I felt revived. I was in bed by ten, and fell asleep reading a New Yorker article that started out interestingly about bird watching and the agony of misidentifying one in front of other birders due to being tongue-tied and then it degenerated into some long-winded thing about the guy's sucky marriage. Josephine's first wakeup was at eleven-thirty.
She woke up many many many times during the night. She was restless when I finally brought her to bed, and I spent hours contorting myself around her. She wanted to nurse, and suckled from six until the alarm went off at seven. Steve needed to sleep, because he's been working twelve hour days under the Ultimate Supreme Head Honcho C.D., and he's been nervous. (When a guy like my husband notices that a woman has "expensive skin and teeth", she has reached a level of maintenance that requires maintenance!). We all woke up tired.
But worse, Josephine was on a destructive streak. Everything had to be upended. There were too many wild blueberry poopy diapers. She wanted to nurse constantly. We got to work late, and there she went berserk, sweeping things off shelves, mashing her food, and scribbling everywhere with any implement she could find, including a nail on the chalkboard. She would not nap. I'd already glimpsed that the upper canines had just poked through, but identifying the source of the problem as teething did not make my job any easier. She bounced of the rim of her play pen like a WWF wrestler. She threw things. She grabbed me hard on the arm many times. She would grab my face to make me look at her, and grab my lips to make me stop talking on the phone. It has been difficult lately to get her to be still for trimming even one fingernail at a time, but I did manage to do them all the other day. Nonetheless, they were all as scratchy as can be by today. When she nurses, she claws at me and twists my shirt and tugs my earrings and traces my face with her fingers. Today, she wanted to nurse more or less constantly, and yet it did not put her to sleep. Neither did reading, rocking or pleading or hoping.
Today I was so tired my skin hurt. You could touch a seemingly innocent area - the side of my hand, the part where my neck meets my shoulder, the place above my knees, and I'd wince. Everything caused me pain, and that pain and the tiredness and the frayed nerves combined to make me the most miserable I've ever been. She jumped on my foot once so that the edge of her sneaker really scraped my arch. She does this thing lately - during diaper changes, when she's on her back, she bucks like a bronco. Today she kicked me in the chest with one foot and the other caught my nose. It was like being sucker punched. Usually, I check to see that she won't hurt herself and walk away. Today, that meant she smeared blueberry poop all over her play pen. So I had to let her run rampant in the store while I cleaned that up, then clean up the messes in the store. She pulls the fabrics out of bins, upsets a dish filled with beaded bracelets, knocks the journals off the shelves, spills the cards out of their holders and then whips the pillows off the chairs and onto the floor on a regular basis, and I follow behind and offer distractions. Usually, when this has been done over the course of the day, I take it in stride. Today, in one fell swoop - well, it made me cry and call Steve.
A customer walked in just as I'd grabbed her hand to keep her from spilling the business cards out of their tray for the gazillionth time. I was saying "STOP IT" in a mean voice, and quickly changed it to a "StopitstopitstopIT" in a weary, grinning-grimacing over-the-top frustrated-in-a -cartoon-way (there was a sale on hyphens today) with a silly handshake and moved her away firmly but more gently than I otherwise would have. But I was close to doing a bad mommy thing there, and I still feel crimsoned by the flush of rage.
I do not have endless supplies of patience. This is hard for me because I am undisciplined myself. But I have clearly identified what would make the whole situation much better for me. I am exhausted by the demands on my body. I would like to breastfeed only once more, in order to say goodbye to it and then stop. Of course that can't happen, and I'm working on it gradually. It's going to be a long couple of weeks.
I look back and realize that every single day since I gave birth, I have been hurting in some way. First, the soreness and the healing down there. Then the pain of poor latching and engorgement and unaccustomed frequent nipple action during breastfeeding. Then joint pains, and uterine contractions. The headaches from sleeplessness. As if those weren't enough chances to hurt, there came the hair pulling. Then there was the period where she would kick my thighs hard as I curled into her, as I nursed her on our sides. There were bites as the teeth came in, and then she learned to pinch. Toys got thrown or dropped, and the Little Tykes Tool Box is surprisingly heavy and who said to give kids hammers? All through it, the soreness of sleeping in awkward positions, the stiffness from getting older, and the injuries that come from being stupidtired. You know, when you cut yourself on the web between your thumb and forefinger slicing a bagel or get a paper cut on your tongue from licking an envelope because you're rushing and clumsy and fighting off a clingy and grabby toddler.
I feel like an abused woman, and my daughter is the culprit.
I've read about how the overabundance of touch can fatigue a mommy, and I have fallen prey to that syndrome. I had one of my old favourite relaxation opportunities tonight before writing this - a bath and a bourbon - and couldn't stand the water on my skin. I want a massage, but I don't want someone to touch me. I want a hug, but without arms. And I want to never dread my daughter's touch again.
Steve picked her up from the store, and took her to the park. She saw some derelicts having freezies, and wanted one. She had a tantrum when Steve wouldn't let her go down the slide with her popsicle, so she is officially being a bitch - it's not just me. Where was I? Sitting in the store for an extra twenty minutes with a newly pregnant woman telling her about how having a baby felt more like a bowel movement than I ever thought. Like having a concrete pot roast wrapped in heated barbed wire come out of your bum sideways. But it's worth it. And that though she wants a home birth with no drugs, she shouldn't be afraid to cave. Because no one gives awards for how you do it - and that the only rewards are the good times afterwards. Thankfully, those are good enough that I have hope for tomorrow, and the next day, and the rest of our lives together. Josephine really is a prize - she just needs some polishing lately.
I forget that what is NORMAL changes, and there is then a new normal. I forget that I have to instigate change sometimes; that I can't always only be responsive. I find it amazing that I have an incredibly physical child, who does not stop moving. Ever. Really. She is only still for brief moments in sleep - and in her sleep has many dreams where she shouts for me or Steve or apple juice. Josephine is now more of a person than ever, and she and I have to negotiate a way to live with each other.
And so, I am making this change because I have been pushed. We tried breastfeeding until she weaned herself, and I am already part of that very small statistic - only a small percentage of children in North America are breastfed after 1 year of age. I don't get a prize for that. Despite the excellent information offered HERE, I feel strongly that I need to wean Josephine. She has derived many benefits from this extended breastfeeding and so have I, but now I think she needs the gift of independence; but I need it more.
I am also going to work harder to keep her in her crib all night. We co-slept for a year, then transitioned to her crib in our room, and now she needs to stay there all night. I'll miss the ease of keeping her quiet that way, but we can still nap together sometimes until she's older and thinks I'm gross.
These two factors are both huge and small at the same time, but they will hopefully make an immeasurable difference in my ability to be a good mother to Josephine. Today, I was not a very good mom, and I don't like myself tonight. Considering I'm still feeling guilty about the time I spanked my old golden retriever Seamus for chewing up my stuff when I was in like, fifth or sixth grade, I expect to feel tainted for quite some time by today.
While I can't say it as elegantly or briefly or as well as some, I'm saying it because I need to.
In order for the fabric of our relationship to be as closely woven as Josephine and I would both like, we have to have a little rend. And then mend. And aren't mends often stronger than the original weave?
You see, this parenting fatigue that I've read about - it's worse than you think. It's not like a spit up stain on your favourite shirt that you can laugh about. It's like wetting your favourite pants just a little some days and hoping no one knows about your hot, wet, stinging secret. Even though other moms feel it too, it doesn't feel better to share. It's shameful and dark and we are each alone in our particular style of failing and soiling ourselves somehow.
Yesterday, I was tired and feeling quite burnt. I have found it very hard to be Josephine's mom these last few days. One of those reasons is that I've fallen out of love with breastfeeding. In fact, I advertised it during the course of private correspondence to a dear soul, who despite being the nation's leading parenting AUTHOR, didn't fault me for writing this:
"But I will add a comment to the sleep thing - or, since I'm still under the deadline for comments for that article on the unique stresses of blah blah blah -
The continuous low-level stress of feeling you almost always need to be kindhearted and sympathetic to your baby - your sweet, innocent needy baby who NEEDS you - will evaporate in time. When that demanding toddler who has been tap dancing on your last nerve for a few months ups the ante by gradually creating a newer, more demanding status quo, and you realize that you've had to work harder to achieve the same results that the formerly affable baby used to give willingly - you'll toughen up and logic will kick in. "I'm officially being manipulated" you'll think. "She's FINE. She just wants more because she thinks she might get it, and she'll be FINE without my jumping through higher hoops with bigger flames." This is not to say that a toddler doesn't have different needs that must be met somehow - but it does mean that one of those needs might just be to know Mommy's limits.
Oh wait - that was supposed to be hopeful and helpful, not depressing or bitter or threatening.
I'm now a correspondent in the the Case of the Altered Naps - docket number BS-418 also known as "You're Napping at 10 AM Today? This Had Better Not Be The Only One, or I Quit".
But I'm getting rid of my stress by writing a song, called "You'll Be Weaned By Labour Day, Tra La La"
It goes like this:
You'll be weaned soon
Tra La La
And you won't know what hit you
Tra La La
It's partly because you won't let me cut your fingernails
Tra La
And your scratchy little fingers are annoying me
Tra La
How would you like it if I latched on
Tra La La
Then crinkled my eyes and bit you?
Oh, you'll be weaned soon. You asked for it my tot.
Because it hurts be pulled on really hard
Then to snap back like a balloon knot.
Tra Laaaaaaa!"
In fact, she wrote a rather humorous reply, including a song that I can readily imagine as a Delta Blues style number done by that guy "Calhoun" from In Living Colour. My song is more of a tap dance/shuffle that you'd see the staff of the Love Boat do in a variety show.
And yesterday I thought I'd blog about it in the form of a "Dear John" letter. I fell asleep thinking it would go like this:
"Dear Josephine,
We're breaking up with you. It's not us, it's you. You see, you're kind of a pain lately. First, we know darn well you know your way around other beverages. We've seen you have your way with a sippy cup. And the way you went at that cous cous the other day - well, we were surprised you came back to us at all. But besides that, you're a little hard on us. Your new friends, the teeth? They totally bite, dude. Especially when you fall asleep, and they take the opportunity to clamp down like a puppy on a pork chop? Not cool. And we're surprised you care for us at all, when you're so easily distracted by the TV, the dog, the garbage trucks on Friday mornings...this on again off again stuff sucks. Literally. Sometimes it seems you're just using us - or that we're an old habit, chosen out of laziness. Other times, we're sure you're a manipulating, calculating, devastatingly charming child who thinks that pointing and asking for us with the big eyes will spare you from being taken away from whatever it is you aren't supposed to be doing.
We've read that you might wean yourself. We've also read that if you haven't weaned yourself by eighteen months, you probably won't. Who do we trust? Well, we're going to have to make an executive decision.
And so, we wanted to let you know that we're packing our bags. We'd still like to be friends, but we don’t want to be your enablers any longer. We view Labour Day as the end of our Labour. Please be notified that your mom will be available for kisses and cuddles galore - and will make you delicious and nutritious meals and snacks and drinks - but we will no longer be open for business.
Sincerely,
Lefty and Righty
And that was cute - until today.
Today was HARD.
Which was even more difficult to bear, because yesterday was so wonderful. After a morning of getting lots done with only a modicum of whining and fretfulness, we went to Riverdale Farm. There, you charmed everyone with your animal noises, recently perfected at the EX. I got to snark at someone's Grandpa who was feeding the horses carrots (a No-No!) by saying "You're setting a bad example for the kids. Besides, you would have made us follow the rules when WE were little, but now that you're grandparents, you think you can do anything!"
Then, we went to the organic farmer's market there and bought GORGEOUS stuff - heirloom cherry tomatoes coloured in purples, reds, oranges and yellows. Olive tapenade. Sheeps' milk cheese. Funky squashes. Yellow watermelon. Wild blueberries (at eeps $6 a pint!). Everything was so good! Josie got to splash in the wading pool because I'd remembered to stuff a swim diaper and a spare suit in the bag, even though I had to dry her with my socks because I forgot a towel. She was sweet all through Chinatown on the way home, eating Pocky and a banana. For dinner, the fresh goods and unfortunately, meat flowers again because something was wrong with the sausages. She went to bed just fine. I went grocery shopping, and didn't forget one thing. I felt revived. I was in bed by ten, and fell asleep reading a New Yorker article that started out interestingly about bird watching and the agony of misidentifying one in front of other birders due to being tongue-tied and then it degenerated into some long-winded thing about the guy's sucky marriage. Josephine's first wakeup was at eleven-thirty.
She woke up many many many times during the night. She was restless when I finally brought her to bed, and I spent hours contorting myself around her. She wanted to nurse, and suckled from six until the alarm went off at seven. Steve needed to sleep, because he's been working twelve hour days under the Ultimate Supreme Head Honcho C.D., and he's been nervous. (When a guy like my husband notices that a woman has "expensive skin and teeth", she has reached a level of maintenance that requires maintenance!). We all woke up tired.
But worse, Josephine was on a destructive streak. Everything had to be upended. There were too many wild blueberry poopy diapers. She wanted to nurse constantly. We got to work late, and there she went berserk, sweeping things off shelves, mashing her food, and scribbling everywhere with any implement she could find, including a nail on the chalkboard. She would not nap. I'd already glimpsed that the upper canines had just poked through, but identifying the source of the problem as teething did not make my job any easier. She bounced of the rim of her play pen like a WWF wrestler. She threw things. She grabbed me hard on the arm many times. She would grab my face to make me look at her, and grab my lips to make me stop talking on the phone. It has been difficult lately to get her to be still for trimming even one fingernail at a time, but I did manage to do them all the other day. Nonetheless, they were all as scratchy as can be by today. When she nurses, she claws at me and twists my shirt and tugs my earrings and traces my face with her fingers. Today, she wanted to nurse more or less constantly, and yet it did not put her to sleep. Neither did reading, rocking or pleading or hoping.
Today I was so tired my skin hurt. You could touch a seemingly innocent area - the side of my hand, the part where my neck meets my shoulder, the place above my knees, and I'd wince. Everything caused me pain, and that pain and the tiredness and the frayed nerves combined to make me the most miserable I've ever been. She jumped on my foot once so that the edge of her sneaker really scraped my arch. She does this thing lately - during diaper changes, when she's on her back, she bucks like a bronco. Today she kicked me in the chest with one foot and the other caught my nose. It was like being sucker punched. Usually, I check to see that she won't hurt herself and walk away. Today, that meant she smeared blueberry poop all over her play pen. So I had to let her run rampant in the store while I cleaned that up, then clean up the messes in the store. She pulls the fabrics out of bins, upsets a dish filled with beaded bracelets, knocks the journals off the shelves, spills the cards out of their holders and then whips the pillows off the chairs and onto the floor on a regular basis, and I follow behind and offer distractions. Usually, when this has been done over the course of the day, I take it in stride. Today, in one fell swoop - well, it made me cry and call Steve.
A customer walked in just as I'd grabbed her hand to keep her from spilling the business cards out of their tray for the gazillionth time. I was saying "STOP IT" in a mean voice, and quickly changed it to a "StopitstopitstopIT" in a weary, grinning-grimacing over-the-top frustrated-in-a -cartoon-way (there was a sale on hyphens today) with a silly handshake and moved her away firmly but more gently than I otherwise would have. But I was close to doing a bad mommy thing there, and I still feel crimsoned by the flush of rage.
I do not have endless supplies of patience. This is hard for me because I am undisciplined myself. But I have clearly identified what would make the whole situation much better for me. I am exhausted by the demands on my body. I would like to breastfeed only once more, in order to say goodbye to it and then stop. Of course that can't happen, and I'm working on it gradually. It's going to be a long couple of weeks.
I look back and realize that every single day since I gave birth, I have been hurting in some way. First, the soreness and the healing down there. Then the pain of poor latching and engorgement and unaccustomed frequent nipple action during breastfeeding. Then joint pains, and uterine contractions. The headaches from sleeplessness. As if those weren't enough chances to hurt, there came the hair pulling. Then there was the period where she would kick my thighs hard as I curled into her, as I nursed her on our sides. There were bites as the teeth came in, and then she learned to pinch. Toys got thrown or dropped, and the Little Tykes Tool Box is surprisingly heavy and who said to give kids hammers? All through it, the soreness of sleeping in awkward positions, the stiffness from getting older, and the injuries that come from being stupidtired. You know, when you cut yourself on the web between your thumb and forefinger slicing a bagel or get a paper cut on your tongue from licking an envelope because you're rushing and clumsy and fighting off a clingy and grabby toddler.
I feel like an abused woman, and my daughter is the culprit.
I've read about how the overabundance of touch can fatigue a mommy, and I have fallen prey to that syndrome. I had one of my old favourite relaxation opportunities tonight before writing this - a bath and a bourbon - and couldn't stand the water on my skin. I want a massage, but I don't want someone to touch me. I want a hug, but without arms. And I want to never dread my daughter's touch again.
Steve picked her up from the store, and took her to the park. She saw some derelicts having freezies, and wanted one. She had a tantrum when Steve wouldn't let her go down the slide with her popsicle, so she is officially being a bitch - it's not just me. Where was I? Sitting in the store for an extra twenty minutes with a newly pregnant woman telling her about how having a baby felt more like a bowel movement than I ever thought. Like having a concrete pot roast wrapped in heated barbed wire come out of your bum sideways. But it's worth it. And that though she wants a home birth with no drugs, she shouldn't be afraid to cave. Because no one gives awards for how you do it - and that the only rewards are the good times afterwards. Thankfully, those are good enough that I have hope for tomorrow, and the next day, and the rest of our lives together. Josephine really is a prize - she just needs some polishing lately.
I forget that what is NORMAL changes, and there is then a new normal. I forget that I have to instigate change sometimes; that I can't always only be responsive. I find it amazing that I have an incredibly physical child, who does not stop moving. Ever. Really. She is only still for brief moments in sleep - and in her sleep has many dreams where she shouts for me or Steve or apple juice. Josephine is now more of a person than ever, and she and I have to negotiate a way to live with each other.
And so, I am making this change because I have been pushed. We tried breastfeeding until she weaned herself, and I am already part of that very small statistic - only a small percentage of children in North America are breastfed after 1 year of age. I don't get a prize for that. Despite the excellent information offered HERE, I feel strongly that I need to wean Josephine. She has derived many benefits from this extended breastfeeding and so have I, but now I think she needs the gift of independence; but I need it more.
I am also going to work harder to keep her in her crib all night. We co-slept for a year, then transitioned to her crib in our room, and now she needs to stay there all night. I'll miss the ease of keeping her quiet that way, but we can still nap together sometimes until she's older and thinks I'm gross.
These two factors are both huge and small at the same time, but they will hopefully make an immeasurable difference in my ability to be a good mother to Josephine. Today, I was not a very good mom, and I don't like myself tonight. Considering I'm still feeling guilty about the time I spanked my old golden retriever Seamus for chewing up my stuff when I was in like, fifth or sixth grade, I expect to feel tainted for quite some time by today.
While I can't say it as elegantly or briefly or as well as some, I'm saying it because I need to.
In order for the fabric of our relationship to be as closely woven as Josephine and I would both like, we have to have a little rend. And then mend. And aren't mends often stronger than the original weave?
EX Marks The Spot.
We went to the CNE on Sunday, and had FUN!
Josie played the most can't losingest game ever, and for $2 won a stuffed fish that looks like it's made out of old nylon stockings dyed blue. She adored this, and hugged and kissed it all day.
In my "Charlie's Angel" mode, I won nothing, but looked fabulous. Soon after, with incredibly bad pub dart form, I popped three balloons and won a rather cute duck she decided she hated immediately.
But the best part of the day was the petting zoo, where all those hours of baa-ing and moo-ing and clucking and quacking really came into play. She got every animal right.
But I'm going to have to crop the guy in the brown shirt out of this picture. Because I can't look at the image without thinking of how the dude is probably trying to negotiate with his wife how soon he can dump the family and hit the beer tent.
Josie played the most can't losingest game ever, and for $2 won a stuffed fish that looks like it's made out of old nylon stockings dyed blue. She adored this, and hugged and kissed it all day.
In my "Charlie's Angel" mode, I won nothing, but looked fabulous. Soon after, with incredibly bad pub dart form, I popped three balloons and won a rather cute duck she decided she hated immediately.
But the best part of the day was the petting zoo, where all those hours of baa-ing and moo-ing and clucking and quacking really came into play. She got every animal right.
But I'm going to have to crop the guy in the brown shirt out of this picture. Because I can't look at the image without thinking of how the dude is probably trying to negotiate with his wife how soon he can dump the family and hit the beer tent.
Thursday, August 18, 2005
Wherein I Call Fate A Jerk.
Something happened last week that caused me to get all active on my clutter. God help you all - the spewing of brain overload in this post could choke a horse.
When I picked up Beauty from her "slumber party" at Grandma Joan and Papa Glen's house (ix-Nay on telling her we went to a ottage-Cay, for the record we were visiting our friends the Veterinarians to get our toenails cut), Papa Glen mentioned that they had been cleaning out their crawlspace and had found a box of Steve's things. Now, this means that either there has been an application of cat pee on something and they've had to move things to assess the damage - or that once again Glen is making an improvement to an area of the house other than one that Joan wants an improvement made to. He suggested that I tell Steve to take it soon, or he'd pitch it. So, envisioning some precious childhood memories, or another collection of his valuable childhood comics (He has She Hulk #1!) in their sticky yellow plastic bags, and Steve's psyche being shattered if they were disposed of callously, I suggested that Glen just put it in the trunk and we'd deal with it at home.
When we opened it, it was scary - because most of it wasn't Steve's. Oh, he could identify it all readily enough. A Herb Alpert CD. A Louis Armstrong collection of CD's from Reader's Digest. A New Order tape. Old broken telephones. And clothes - a Desert Storm t-shirt, and a Far Side t-shirt too (the one about how they really get whipped cream from cows). More t-shirts, some with (gack) shoulder pads sewn in. Ripped sweat pants. A baby's undershirt and sweater (which Steve recognized as coming from his niece who is now sixteen). A VCR tape rewinder. Steve could place most of these items in his memory, and guessed that the box had been sealed and placed in storage about eight years ago, maybe ten. The plastic tub was most definitely a shade of blue Rubbermaid hasn't produced since the Eighties. It faintly reeked of cat spray (and that would be from Flaquito, who was once Steve's and who now lives with Joan and Glen) (Thank all the Gods - he is the reason they've built Formica shields around their furniture. He's a nice cat, or would be if he didn't spray. And he has been fixed and he did spray before living with other cats. He's just kind of a jerk that way.) (Which is why he's been living there for about twelve years.), and each item had its own gritty, tired, plasticky period lack of charm. There it was, and there it had been, taking up about five cubic feet, for nearly a decade. I rescued five buttons off the baby sweater (cute yellow pansies off some of that nasty acrylic old ladies used to knit with) and the Herb Alpert (nice "up" shopping music for the store - although in my mind now Homer Simpson sings "Spanish Flea"). I decided to top it up with a few things, and send it off to the local thrift store.
Don't get me started.
We collect. I've talked about this before. And we are not sick hoarders, like that episode I regret missing on Oprah. Other people in our lives are worse than we are in how they keep stuff around, be it useful or not. Steve's dad tends to keep tools and bits and washing machine timers and fuse boxes around "just in case". Steve's mom can't not take in stray cats. My dad's problems have been mentioned. My mom can't let go of what people have given to her, because she thinks they'll KNOW and bitch about her behind her back.
Steve and I have lots of books and more in the basement, waiting for us to decorate the living room like grown-ups and put them in proper bookshelves. Steve has CD's, records, music and illustration magazines and vintage clothes. I have...stuff.
And, we have to bring it under control before we corrupt our daughter.
We've already sicced a huge collection of rubber ducks for her baths on her. I cannot not buy her books for me to read to her, or for her to read when she's older! People have been generous with toys, and well, babies just have STUFF. Her corner of the living room looks like Romper Room. I used to be one of those "I'll never have baby crap everywhere types" - and then, I had a baby. A baby who became a toddler. A toddler who will one day become a kid who will thank her lucky stars that one day someone I love and respect pointed out to me why her house has her kids' things everywhere -- because "They live here too." (That is part of the reason this person will be one of the people who will care for her if something should happen to us.)
But that mishmash of meaningless crappiness in that Rubbermaid time capsule? It was sent to us as a warning, I swear. Oh, all of you other bloggers who have been de-cluttering and fixing and repairing things and being all productive and stuff - I was able to disregard those little nudges. But a container of absolute crap placed directly into my hands? It was like the clouds parted and the Fingers of God came down and beamed upon that Willie Nelson mix tape Steve made for his dad three or four cars ago and I saw in big black capital letters with shadows coming out right where Pancho and Lefty should have been written:
"And ye shall go forth and walk the walk - or boogie the boogie. Whatever."
And so, in the spirit of that wonderful venture "FlyLady", I did a 27 Fling Boogie. Of Josephine's things:
Hahaha! That was easy!
No, it was hard. Those were some of her BABY things. Expensive things we bought because we thought they'd stimulate or comfort her, or soak up drool or would get teethed on. Things we were given to her by well-meaning people with bad taste. Things made in foreign countries for children by children. Thing 2's that came in packages with Swiffer products! Things that remind me that you can't eradicate matter, you can just move it around.
It is a HUGE responsibility to be the keeper of someone's memories. What stays? What goes?
And so, one box of crap begat DAYS of de-cluttering my own stuff and re-evaluating how I feel about the things in my life. And her life. Our lives. Whatever.
Thus, notsomuch with the posting this past week. And you have another long, illustrated and linkful post full of de-cluttering Marla's world-focused navel gazing to look forward to next week. And I'm going to institute a new feature called "Should It Stay Or Should It Go?"
How's that? Can you STAND the drama in my life?
OH, and a Great-Aunt of mine died. It made me sad, but mainly because I don't think that it's fair that a husband should find his wife dead on the floor after coming in from mowing the lawn. Even though, if I can say it, that I heard he mowed someone else's lawn for a good twenty years throughout the course of their marriage. And that after seeing me for the first time as an adult a few years ago he told my mother "You're daughter's pretty good lookin'. If I were twenty years younger I'd chase her!" (Um, and not my Uncle?!). But even so, my Great-Aunt was a lovely woman. She had been sick and had been living with an aneurysm, but she told him she felt fine that morning, just before he went outside. Just picturing the scenario in my head - so sad. This reminder of what a bitch mortality is served to remind me to...oh, do a lot of things better and more. I'm not going into all that.
What I'm saying is, although it's not all about me really (I'm referring to the world - this blog certainly is all about me), I can believe if I want to that FATE sends me both direct and indirect messages reminding me that it's got an index finger on the pulse of my predetermined future. Sometimes it sends a reminder, in the form of a pile of crap on my doorstep - telling me to clean up my act. But it didn't have to be so cruel to some old people in my life as a reminder to love Steve and Josephine with everything I've got as long as I've got them.
Fate, sometimes you're a real jerk.
When I picked up Beauty from her "slumber party" at Grandma Joan and Papa Glen's house (ix-Nay on telling her we went to a ottage-Cay, for the record we were visiting our friends the Veterinarians to get our toenails cut), Papa Glen mentioned that they had been cleaning out their crawlspace and had found a box of Steve's things. Now, this means that either there has been an application of cat pee on something and they've had to move things to assess the damage - or that once again Glen is making an improvement to an area of the house other than one that Joan wants an improvement made to. He suggested that I tell Steve to take it soon, or he'd pitch it. So, envisioning some precious childhood memories, or another collection of his valuable childhood comics (He has She Hulk #1!) in their sticky yellow plastic bags, and Steve's psyche being shattered if they were disposed of callously, I suggested that Glen just put it in the trunk and we'd deal with it at home.
When we opened it, it was scary - because most of it wasn't Steve's. Oh, he could identify it all readily enough. A Herb Alpert CD. A Louis Armstrong collection of CD's from Reader's Digest. A New Order tape. Old broken telephones. And clothes - a Desert Storm t-shirt, and a Far Side t-shirt too (the one about how they really get whipped cream from cows). More t-shirts, some with (gack) shoulder pads sewn in. Ripped sweat pants. A baby's undershirt and sweater (which Steve recognized as coming from his niece who is now sixteen). A VCR tape rewinder. Steve could place most of these items in his memory, and guessed that the box had been sealed and placed in storage about eight years ago, maybe ten. The plastic tub was most definitely a shade of blue Rubbermaid hasn't produced since the Eighties. It faintly reeked of cat spray (and that would be from Flaquito, who was once Steve's and who now lives with Joan and Glen) (Thank all the Gods - he is the reason they've built Formica shields around their furniture. He's a nice cat, or would be if he didn't spray. And he has been fixed and he did spray before living with other cats. He's just kind of a jerk that way.) (Which is why he's been living there for about twelve years.), and each item had its own gritty, tired, plasticky period lack of charm. There it was, and there it had been, taking up about five cubic feet, for nearly a decade. I rescued five buttons off the baby sweater (cute yellow pansies off some of that nasty acrylic old ladies used to knit with) and the Herb Alpert (nice "up" shopping music for the store - although in my mind now Homer Simpson sings "Spanish Flea"). I decided to top it up with a few things, and send it off to the local thrift store.
Don't get me started.
We collect. I've talked about this before. And we are not sick hoarders, like that episode I regret missing on Oprah. Other people in our lives are worse than we are in how they keep stuff around, be it useful or not. Steve's dad tends to keep tools and bits and washing machine timers and fuse boxes around "just in case". Steve's mom can't not take in stray cats. My dad's problems have been mentioned. My mom can't let go of what people have given to her, because she thinks they'll KNOW and bitch about her behind her back.
Steve and I have lots of books and more in the basement, waiting for us to decorate the living room like grown-ups and put them in proper bookshelves. Steve has CD's, records, music and illustration magazines and vintage clothes. I have...stuff.
And, we have to bring it under control before we corrupt our daughter.
We've already sicced a huge collection of rubber ducks for her baths on her. I cannot not buy her books for me to read to her, or for her to read when she's older! People have been generous with toys, and well, babies just have STUFF. Her corner of the living room looks like Romper Room. I used to be one of those "I'll never have baby crap everywhere types" - and then, I had a baby. A baby who became a toddler. A toddler who will one day become a kid who will thank her lucky stars that one day someone I love and respect pointed out to me why her house has her kids' things everywhere -- because "They live here too." (That is part of the reason this person will be one of the people who will care for her if something should happen to us.)
But that mishmash of meaningless crappiness in that Rubbermaid time capsule? It was sent to us as a warning, I swear. Oh, all of you other bloggers who have been de-cluttering and fixing and repairing things and being all productive and stuff - I was able to disregard those little nudges. But a container of absolute crap placed directly into my hands? It was like the clouds parted and the Fingers of God came down and beamed upon that Willie Nelson mix tape Steve made for his dad three or four cars ago and I saw in big black capital letters with shadows coming out right where Pancho and Lefty should have been written:
"And ye shall go forth and walk the walk - or boogie the boogie. Whatever."
And so, in the spirit of that wonderful venture "FlyLady", I did a 27 Fling Boogie. Of Josephine's things:
Hahaha! That was easy!
No, it was hard. Those were some of her BABY things. Expensive things we bought because we thought they'd stimulate or comfort her, or soak up drool or would get teethed on. Things we were given to her by well-meaning people with bad taste. Things made in foreign countries for children by children. Thing 2's that came in packages with Swiffer products! Things that remind me that you can't eradicate matter, you can just move it around.
It is a HUGE responsibility to be the keeper of someone's memories. What stays? What goes?
And so, one box of crap begat DAYS of de-cluttering my own stuff and re-evaluating how I feel about the things in my life. And her life. Our lives. Whatever.
Thus, notsomuch with the posting this past week. And you have another long, illustrated and linkful post full of de-cluttering Marla's world-focused navel gazing to look forward to next week. And I'm going to institute a new feature called "Should It Stay Or Should It Go?"
How's that? Can you STAND the drama in my life?
OH, and a Great-Aunt of mine died. It made me sad, but mainly because I don't think that it's fair that a husband should find his wife dead on the floor after coming in from mowing the lawn. Even though, if I can say it, that I heard he mowed someone else's lawn for a good twenty years throughout the course of their marriage. And that after seeing me for the first time as an adult a few years ago he told my mother "You're daughter's pretty good lookin'. If I were twenty years younger I'd chase her!" (Um, and not my Uncle?!). But even so, my Great-Aunt was a lovely woman. She had been sick and had been living with an aneurysm, but she told him she felt fine that morning, just before he went outside. Just picturing the scenario in my head - so sad. This reminder of what a bitch mortality is served to remind me to...oh, do a lot of things better and more. I'm not going into all that.
What I'm saying is, although it's not all about me really (I'm referring to the world - this blog certainly is all about me), I can believe if I want to that FATE sends me both direct and indirect messages reminding me that it's got an index finger on the pulse of my predetermined future. Sometimes it sends a reminder, in the form of a pile of crap on my doorstep - telling me to clean up my act. But it didn't have to be so cruel to some old people in my life as a reminder to love Steve and Josephine with everything I've got as long as I've got them.
Fate, sometimes you're a real jerk.
Vegetarians Might Want To Turn Away...
This is one of the reasons I love Steve: He makes me laugh.
For days and days after he says one funny thing. Um, funny to me, that is.
For example, the other night, the pork chops smelled wonky and so he ran to the store to get something to throw on the already preheated grill. These burgers were the best option from the drugstore near us, which has a small grocery section as well as most of our important daily needs like dark chocolate Kit Kat bars, baby things, a post office; all of it SO convenient once you get past the rotating guard of panhandlers just outside the door.
When I pointed their funny shape out to Steve, he looked at them and said happily "They look like meat flowers!"
He's always been a romantic sort - it's just that now, with the kid and all - it's kind of different.
But I gather my flowers where I may.
For days and days after he says one funny thing. Um, funny to me, that is.
For example, the other night, the pork chops smelled wonky and so he ran to the store to get something to throw on the already preheated grill. These burgers were the best option from the drugstore near us, which has a small grocery section as well as most of our important daily needs like dark chocolate Kit Kat bars, baby things, a post office; all of it SO convenient once you get past the rotating guard of panhandlers just outside the door.
When I pointed their funny shape out to Steve, he looked at them and said happily "They look like meat flowers!"
He's always been a romantic sort - it's just that now, with the kid and all - it's kind of different.
But I gather my flowers where I may.
Friday, August 12, 2005
Flies on the Wall.
Just in case you think Steve and I sit around and have animated conversations full of obscure cultural reference points illustrated by quirky turns of phrases - well, they'd be as rare as rocking horse poop around here.
This morning, as I was trying to remember to give Steve a big proper kiss goodbye as he left for work, he turned to me and said, "I can't wait to go to bed tonight." and I said "Me too.". See! Hahahaha!
And Wednesday night after dinner, when he said "I'd like to go into the living room and let Josie watch TV while I finish my gin and tonic, okay?" and I said "I'd like to lie here with my forehead on the kitchen table a little while longer, okay?" - I tell you, we were ON.
Tonight? We plan to reminisce about what it was like to stay up past ten o'clock on a weekend. In bed. At nine.
Goodnight Gracie.
This morning, as I was trying to remember to give Steve a big proper kiss goodbye as he left for work, he turned to me and said, "I can't wait to go to bed tonight." and I said "Me too.". See! Hahahaha!
And Wednesday night after dinner, when he said "I'd like to go into the living room and let Josie watch TV while I finish my gin and tonic, okay?" and I said "I'd like to lie here with my forehead on the kitchen table a little while longer, okay?" - I tell you, we were ON.
Tonight? We plan to reminisce about what it was like to stay up past ten o'clock on a weekend. In bed. At nine.
Goodnight Gracie.
Tuesday, August 09, 2005
There Was Definitely Sand In My Craw.
Sigh.
What a lovely weekend. I'll spare the details, but you can be sure there were delays and vomiting in the car and a stop at a charming town for a great lunch and then to the cottage and friends friends friends. Food! Cake! Happiness! Toddlers! Cake for breakfast! A great ride home,then out to see the Knitters and Josephine behaved for the only sitter we have who isn't over 74 or under 16! Who could ask for more?
What a lovely view.
What a lovely sunset in that view.
The STARS! Zowie! The STARS that night!
What a great time at the beach Saturday night. Fireworks (shh, they were slightly illegal)! Bonfire (possibly illegal as well!) Stories! Arcane references!
And Josephine was wonderful, and had a great time.
And, for the record, what I am, is skewbald, not piebald, according to an expert.
Still.
Sigh.
What a lovely weekend. I'll spare the details, but you can be sure there were delays and vomiting in the car and a stop at a charming town for a great lunch and then to the cottage and friends friends friends. Food! Cake! Happiness! Toddlers! Cake for breakfast! A great ride home,then out to see the Knitters and Josephine behaved for the only sitter we have who isn't over 74 or under 16! Who could ask for more?
What a lovely view.
What a lovely sunset in that view.
The STARS! Zowie! The STARS that night!
What a great time at the beach Saturday night. Fireworks (shh, they were slightly illegal)! Bonfire (possibly illegal as well!) Stories! Arcane references!
And Josephine was wonderful, and had a great time.
And, for the record, what I am, is skewbald, not piebald, according to an expert.
Still.
Sigh.
Friday, August 05, 2005
That Sucking Noise You Hear is Not Just the Sound of Time Being Wasted Around Here.
Even I can't stand looking at the same post for over a week. But I've been so busy! Where do the days go?
We've had fun days and crazymaking days. Josephine is teething (again, more, still, as usual) and that means diaper rash and sleeping less at night - yet napping more at inconvenient times during the day after severe meltdowns. There have been marathon naps from 3-6 for the past week, but I know that's written in sand.
Otherwise, last week Saturday was my birthday (belateds happily accepted, age revealed to present-givers only). In this household, one of us spent the day whining and clinging, one PMSing something awful, and one of us just hovered nearby panting and looking anxious. This left the as yet unmentioned family member um, a bit touchy, and not appreciating "I shouldn't have to clean up anyone's poo on my birthday" comments. Not when I got the one of the best gifts EVER:
Look at it! It's @#$%ing PINK! Pinky pink pink! Pink as a rooster's di...
AND I didn't even have to photoshop it to put the twinkles on it. It's all shiny and new and MINE.
Okay. That wasn't the most romantic gift ever, but you probably guessed that because I have been known to pull your leg.
The Cutest Vacuum EVER was my gift from Steve's parents - pet and former child owners who know the value of suction. And of on-board tool management, power cleaning heads, twenty-foot retractable cords, six foot hoses and other motor type businessy important stuff.
I have always told people that the best gift is a new and improved version of something I already own and love. So for Christmas two years ago when I needed a new wallet desperately, and Steve found the exact same one I'd had for years but in red faux Crocodile vinyl instead of black nylon with leopard print (by Guess, not that I'm dropping names but it's not like it was from a dollar store even though it sounds like a tacky wallet)(What, you don't care and get on with it?), I was ecstatic. Because, you see, part of owning that wallet was the daily pleasure in having one that was exactly right. Part of not wanting a new one, even though my old one barfed change all the time, was my hatred for perhaps losing my hands' cell memories of how it worked. You see? Wallets are a personal choice, and get frequent use (if you're me) and a new one is a treat - but not if you hate it.
But Vacuums! I've never had one of my own. My parents, of course, had one that they got for their wedding and it lasted until I moved out of the house or later. One day I went for a visit and the new one was there and people other than me don't usually announce these things. Whenever I've moved in with someone, there's always been one there. The one Steve and I had was purchased new by my old roommate, and she sent it along with me when I moved out. It worked fine - it sucked. But a few months ago, it started to fall apart. The tool holder cracked off. The recline button stopped working. The hose wouldn't stay screwed into the gasket that held the tools. Then the cord frayed, and some dipshit teenager at Home Despot sold me a too big bright yellow replacement cord that weighed thirty pounds and twisted horribly. Steve's dad installed it with a new plug anyway, and still I barely grimaced as I lugged it around, hanging over my shoulder like a roadie with its knee length loops. The weight of it caused the vacuum to fall over constantly, and then the handle broke off and had to be duct taped back on. Yet I still used "Frankenvac", proud that I didn't discard it when it became ugly and battered. I really hate items with planned obsolescence. But, just as Josie's been a little hard on Beauty and on her folks - the cous cous and rice cakes and dog hairs took their toll on the Bissell. It coughed and wheezed and clung to the door of the closet and mouthed "Noooooo" each morning at vacuuming time, and so I realized I'd better start shopping around.
At the yearly garage sale extravaganza that covers three main streets in Riverdale, I bought a Dirt Devil upright for $10 from one of the mommies in my playgroup. She was mortified that it was a filthy piece of crap machine that her husband had put out, full bag and all; and more that it was me that bought it. It had no tools left, no extra bags even, and she mentioned that her housecleaner (right, that was my sniff that you heard) found it too hard to push (la di da motions here) so she preferred their other one (again with the sniff). (I'm sincerely jealous, you know.) I had to explain that it just had to last until July. That she couldn't understand the decrepit condition of my ten year old Bissell, and that good fortune had made us cross paths in our Mommies Group all those months ago for the very reason that I now needed an intermediate vacuum, just until my dream vacuum came along. And the Dirt Devil worked kind of okay, and the pushing problem was just a finickyness involving the seven (which is four too many) height adjustments.
And so, as a compulsive researcher, I was compelled so surf for vacuum cleaner information. Yes, that is why I haven't been blogging. (That and I'm figuring which blogs I should maybe bounce from my list and please don't make me stop reading Celebrity Smack!) I've been reading countless pompous Epinions and tantalizingly brief consumer reports. I looked for the negatives - with the bagless, it's a mess to clean - could I live with that? Men wrote comments on Amazon describing attachments as "brittle" and said they were afraid they'd break them (is that like being afraid that with their whole four and a half inches they'll hurt vaginas that squirt out eight pound humans?(I am absolutely NOT talking about Steve - I am just being generally sarcastic this time.). And finding the answers to the most important questions, such as "Why do vacuums all of a sudden cost like a used car" and "What is the headlight for? Nighttime sport vacuuming?"- and OH! the Canister versus Upright debate. Hours, people. Hours I spent questioning and then deciding.
And I decided the new vacuum in my life was to be a canister. And that it should have a bag. And that I wanted very much for the cord to retract. And the hose must swivel. And that the cleaning head should have a low-profile, and be powered. And that I didn't want to spend a minute of my life looking around the house for a crevice tool (insert your own smutty joke here - this is already too long) and so the accessories needed to be stowed on-board. And that a compact was not an option, no matter how tempting slinging and eleven pound Eureka Mighty Mite around on its shoulder strap sounded (thus saving me from singing the Mighty Mouse song every time I vacuumed too). As is important to me when something is going to be a part of my life every day for the next ten years, I had to know WHY I wanted something more than that I just wanted it.
And so, to save you time - if you have nothing better to spend over a thousand dollars on, buy a Miele (but not one of their "starters" - the good one, like a Red Velvet. I would have, if I didn't need a new wardrobe, redecorated kitchen, personal grooming, a college education for my daughter (or a good trade school!), one of those French Bulldogs, nicer footwear, dental work, groceries and window cleaning. Or buy a Bosch (however they're spelled), which would leave room in the budget for dinner out. Or, as recommended by people who actually use and like their vacuums, buy a Kenmore. They just plain work well, and their owners really really like them and would buy them again.
I can't say that I put as much time, care and research into choosing my dog.
So, on Tuesday, a dear friend and I trekked over to the Sherway Gardens mall, because Josephine needs new shoes (again) and had to be properly measured in the Choo Choo train with the scanner. Um, raise your hand if you know of any other seventeen month olds with size 8 to 8 1/2 feet. (crickets) I thought so.
After a tantrum from said toddler at the Bay (that was us - by the brown sofa and tippy chrome coffee table, her shrieks melting the makeup off the perfume snipers), and my own hissy fit at a coffee shop where there were no less than eight people behind the counter and twenty people in line behind us, and we were stuck behind one guy who was dithering about what kind of sissy coffee to order (and I believe I said to the counter nerd "Don't you realize you can't give some people choices?!!") we found the vacuum cleaner section at Sears. Then Josephine had the poopiest post lunch with beans diaper you could imagine; and the only salesclerk in the province was busy selling a five hundred dollar vacuum to a lady who wasn't going to use it herself. So I wandered around, found the ones that fit my criteria, and realized that the one that did best was PINK. And on sale for fifty dollars off until August seventh! Putting it in the price range! (Happy Dance, then off to change poopy diaper.)
But PINK?
Vacuums are no longer stealthy black or navy industrial looking power tools that say "I will suck up your messes with power and pleasure and minimum of fuss, Madam". They are now curvy and soft, and come in fun colours like yellow (didn't want this one even though it has a seven foot hose, twenty-six foot cord and 14" head - because it's not how big it is, it's how it moves around, you know), and they come in stunning retro seafoam green, and satiny red metallic and lime and orange and purple and blue. They say "Hey! Let's vacuum a little then have a tickle fight and maybe paint our toenails!" What, have men stopped vacuuming? When did this happen? They're certainly good looking, and I'm all for fun colours. I rather like the perverse notion of Steve vacuuming with a pink machine. It seems like it's a long time to be committed to something in a colour that might date itself very quickly. But I went against my instincts to go for the staid gray one whose colour I had no reason to question and who was saying in Bob Newhart's voice "I just do my job without bells and whistles and OPI tints, Lady.". Because it's my first vacuum of my very own, and even though I have myriad issues with the targeting of women's buying power in this way - it is a really really cute vacuum and I love it. I actually got a bit teary and upset when tonight Steve did that guy thing of opening up the box and putting it together and turning it on without reading the instructions and filling out the warrantee first like I would. The heathen.
But really, enough about my vacuum. For now, I mean. Because I'm sure it will come up from time to time, what with the cous cous and all.
I must say that because of the vacuum being a gift from the in-laws, and because my parents bought me not only a new front door for my birthday, but my mother bought me a screen door as well - I was not only doubly and triply blessed - but um...(looking around for increment) multiply blessed. Steve was going to buy me the screen door for my present, since even though we thought we could live with the old one for a while, it really looks like braces on a stripper. We were kicking ourselves for breaking that rule that couples make when they're young and in love and work near Tiffany's. You know the one - "WE'LL never buy each other washing machines for Christmas because we are SO romantic for ever". Last year, Steve wasn't working and he made the most beautiful card for me, expressing his regret at having initiated a pace he couldn't always maintain for gifts and promising to do all the rotten "honey do" tasks and stuff instead. I told him he'd already given me the best gift ever, which was Josephine and that I never really needed another silly present. And I meant it.
And then I saw this in the window at Fabric Hound within an hour of Skeeter's lugging it there, and well, I just wanted it:
(the garden statue, duh.)
Josephine is getting to be such a big girl already. I never quite grasped that she'd grow this much so quickly. Okay, I also didn't expect to have a child in the ninetieth percentile for height and weight at her age. Most people at the park think she's a stupid two year old. This statue doesn't even look like Josie - although blond wisps of hair that look like fibreglass from old Christmas displays would be hard to cast in cement - but it reminds me of how she is. Was, I mean, three or four months ago when she was that size. The wrists, the shape of her arms, the curves of the body - it was there in her. Now Josephine is sturdy, with cankles and bruised shins and that toddler belly. She stomps around like her ankles don't bend, and her size 8s actually flap on the floor. She is active and she is fearless and she is quick and boisterous. When she has tantrums, she is huge with her energy. When she sleeps, she is peaceful, but still a goodly size. But for me, this statue captures this time somehow, where she is now small enough to sleep on my lap, as she is doing right now. I can still carry her for blocks, although I'll suffer for it later. She has traces of baby clinging to her, but I have to work harder to catch whiffs of it as each day passes. And blurs.
And so, thanks to the people who will never see this particular thank you. Steve's parents, for the perfect gift in the pretty and practical sense. And to my parents, for the same reasons. But to those two sets of parents, without whom we'd never be here and be Josephine's parents, I owe thanks for something that seems odd. It's a thank you for buying me the types of gifts I don't really want to receive from my husband. They let him be a hero, and give his silly wife something that made her get all teary and go "Be cah-cah-cah-cause Josie does that with her ha-ha-ha-hand".
Oh! And dinner at Tomi-Kro was excellent too, although I had to walk home barefoot because my strappy sandals hurt; and we were in bed by ten.
Now, really I must be off. This weekend we're off to a friend's cottage at Sauble Beach; and my biggest wish, aside from a chance to gab with people I don't see as often as I'd like to even though I really really like them, is to work on tanning my shins.
It's horrible! I'm so splotchy! My feet, except for my toes, are tan from wearing ballet flats and and cuffed jeans. My forearms and chest are tan, my face a little. The rest - white as bleached tripe. How did this happen? I became a grown up and started wearing more clothing all summer long and now I'm piebald. It's not that I think tans are good or better. I don't mind paleness. An even, pasty Gothic paleness was something I once cultivated. I care for neither extreme. But oh, to be one colour again.
We've had fun days and crazymaking days. Josephine is teething (again, more, still, as usual) and that means diaper rash and sleeping less at night - yet napping more at inconvenient times during the day after severe meltdowns. There have been marathon naps from 3-6 for the past week, but I know that's written in sand.
Otherwise, last week Saturday was my birthday (belateds happily accepted, age revealed to present-givers only). In this household, one of us spent the day whining and clinging, one PMSing something awful, and one of us just hovered nearby panting and looking anxious. This left the as yet unmentioned family member um, a bit touchy, and not appreciating "I shouldn't have to clean up anyone's poo on my birthday" comments. Not when I got the one of the best gifts EVER:
Look at it! It's @#$%ing PINK! Pinky pink pink! Pink as a rooster's di...
AND I didn't even have to photoshop it to put the twinkles on it. It's all shiny and new and MINE.
Okay. That wasn't the most romantic gift ever, but you probably guessed that because I have been known to pull your leg.
The Cutest Vacuum EVER was my gift from Steve's parents - pet and former child owners who know the value of suction. And of on-board tool management, power cleaning heads, twenty-foot retractable cords, six foot hoses and other motor type businessy important stuff.
I have always told people that the best gift is a new and improved version of something I already own and love. So for Christmas two years ago when I needed a new wallet desperately, and Steve found the exact same one I'd had for years but in red faux Crocodile vinyl instead of black nylon with leopard print (by Guess, not that I'm dropping names but it's not like it was from a dollar store even though it sounds like a tacky wallet)(What, you don't care and get on with it?), I was ecstatic. Because, you see, part of owning that wallet was the daily pleasure in having one that was exactly right. Part of not wanting a new one, even though my old one barfed change all the time, was my hatred for perhaps losing my hands' cell memories of how it worked. You see? Wallets are a personal choice, and get frequent use (if you're me) and a new one is a treat - but not if you hate it.
But Vacuums! I've never had one of my own. My parents, of course, had one that they got for their wedding and it lasted until I moved out of the house or later. One day I went for a visit and the new one was there and people other than me don't usually announce these things. Whenever I've moved in with someone, there's always been one there. The one Steve and I had was purchased new by my old roommate, and she sent it along with me when I moved out. It worked fine - it sucked. But a few months ago, it started to fall apart. The tool holder cracked off. The recline button stopped working. The hose wouldn't stay screwed into the gasket that held the tools. Then the cord frayed, and some dipshit teenager at Home Despot sold me a too big bright yellow replacement cord that weighed thirty pounds and twisted horribly. Steve's dad installed it with a new plug anyway, and still I barely grimaced as I lugged it around, hanging over my shoulder like a roadie with its knee length loops. The weight of it caused the vacuum to fall over constantly, and then the handle broke off and had to be duct taped back on. Yet I still used "Frankenvac", proud that I didn't discard it when it became ugly and battered. I really hate items with planned obsolescence. But, just as Josie's been a little hard on Beauty and on her folks - the cous cous and rice cakes and dog hairs took their toll on the Bissell. It coughed and wheezed and clung to the door of the closet and mouthed "Noooooo" each morning at vacuuming time, and so I realized I'd better start shopping around.
At the yearly garage sale extravaganza that covers three main streets in Riverdale, I bought a Dirt Devil upright for $10 from one of the mommies in my playgroup. She was mortified that it was a filthy piece of crap machine that her husband had put out, full bag and all; and more that it was me that bought it. It had no tools left, no extra bags even, and she mentioned that her housecleaner (right, that was my sniff that you heard) found it too hard to push (la di da motions here) so she preferred their other one (again with the sniff). (I'm sincerely jealous, you know.) I had to explain that it just had to last until July. That she couldn't understand the decrepit condition of my ten year old Bissell, and that good fortune had made us cross paths in our Mommies Group all those months ago for the very reason that I now needed an intermediate vacuum, just until my dream vacuum came along. And the Dirt Devil worked kind of okay, and the pushing problem was just a finickyness involving the seven (which is four too many) height adjustments.
And so, as a compulsive researcher, I was compelled so surf for vacuum cleaner information. Yes, that is why I haven't been blogging. (That and I'm figuring which blogs I should maybe bounce from my list and please don't make me stop reading Celebrity Smack!) I've been reading countless pompous Epinions and tantalizingly brief consumer reports. I looked for the negatives - with the bagless, it's a mess to clean - could I live with that? Men wrote comments on Amazon describing attachments as "brittle" and said they were afraid they'd break them (is that like being afraid that with their whole four and a half inches they'll hurt vaginas that squirt out eight pound humans?(I am absolutely NOT talking about Steve - I am just being generally sarcastic this time.). And finding the answers to the most important questions, such as "Why do vacuums all of a sudden cost like a used car" and "What is the headlight for? Nighttime sport vacuuming?"- and OH! the Canister versus Upright debate. Hours, people. Hours I spent questioning and then deciding.
And I decided the new vacuum in my life was to be a canister. And that it should have a bag. And that I wanted very much for the cord to retract. And the hose must swivel. And that the cleaning head should have a low-profile, and be powered. And that I didn't want to spend a minute of my life looking around the house for a crevice tool (insert your own smutty joke here - this is already too long) and so the accessories needed to be stowed on-board. And that a compact was not an option, no matter how tempting slinging and eleven pound Eureka Mighty Mite around on its shoulder strap sounded (thus saving me from singing the Mighty Mouse song every time I vacuumed too). As is important to me when something is going to be a part of my life every day for the next ten years, I had to know WHY I wanted something more than that I just wanted it.
And so, to save you time - if you have nothing better to spend over a thousand dollars on, buy a Miele (but not one of their "starters" - the good one, like a Red Velvet. I would have, if I didn't need a new wardrobe, redecorated kitchen, personal grooming, a college education for my daughter (or a good trade school!), one of those French Bulldogs, nicer footwear, dental work, groceries and window cleaning. Or buy a Bosch (however they're spelled), which would leave room in the budget for dinner out. Or, as recommended by people who actually use and like their vacuums, buy a Kenmore. They just plain work well, and their owners really really like them and would buy them again.
I can't say that I put as much time, care and research into choosing my dog.
So, on Tuesday, a dear friend and I trekked over to the Sherway Gardens mall, because Josephine needs new shoes (again) and had to be properly measured in the Choo Choo train with the scanner. Um, raise your hand if you know of any other seventeen month olds with size 8 to 8 1/2 feet. (crickets) I thought so.
After a tantrum from said toddler at the Bay (that was us - by the brown sofa and tippy chrome coffee table, her shrieks melting the makeup off the perfume snipers), and my own hissy fit at a coffee shop where there were no less than eight people behind the counter and twenty people in line behind us, and we were stuck behind one guy who was dithering about what kind of sissy coffee to order (and I believe I said to the counter nerd "Don't you realize you can't give some people choices?!!") we found the vacuum cleaner section at Sears. Then Josephine had the poopiest post lunch with beans diaper you could imagine; and the only salesclerk in the province was busy selling a five hundred dollar vacuum to a lady who wasn't going to use it herself. So I wandered around, found the ones that fit my criteria, and realized that the one that did best was PINK. And on sale for fifty dollars off until August seventh! Putting it in the price range! (Happy Dance, then off to change poopy diaper.)
But PINK?
Vacuums are no longer stealthy black or navy industrial looking power tools that say "I will suck up your messes with power and pleasure and minimum of fuss, Madam". They are now curvy and soft, and come in fun colours like yellow (didn't want this one even though it has a seven foot hose, twenty-six foot cord and 14" head - because it's not how big it is, it's how it moves around, you know), and they come in stunning retro seafoam green, and satiny red metallic and lime and orange and purple and blue. They say "Hey! Let's vacuum a little then have a tickle fight and maybe paint our toenails!" What, have men stopped vacuuming? When did this happen? They're certainly good looking, and I'm all for fun colours. I rather like the perverse notion of Steve vacuuming with a pink machine. It seems like it's a long time to be committed to something in a colour that might date itself very quickly. But I went against my instincts to go for the staid gray one whose colour I had no reason to question and who was saying in Bob Newhart's voice "I just do my job without bells and whistles and OPI tints, Lady.". Because it's my first vacuum of my very own, and even though I have myriad issues with the targeting of women's buying power in this way - it is a really really cute vacuum and I love it. I actually got a bit teary and upset when tonight Steve did that guy thing of opening up the box and putting it together and turning it on without reading the instructions and filling out the warrantee first like I would. The heathen.
But really, enough about my vacuum. For now, I mean. Because I'm sure it will come up from time to time, what with the cous cous and all.
I must say that because of the vacuum being a gift from the in-laws, and because my parents bought me not only a new front door for my birthday, but my mother bought me a screen door as well - I was not only doubly and triply blessed - but um...(looking around for increment) multiply blessed. Steve was going to buy me the screen door for my present, since even though we thought we could live with the old one for a while, it really looks like braces on a stripper. We were kicking ourselves for breaking that rule that couples make when they're young and in love and work near Tiffany's. You know the one - "WE'LL never buy each other washing machines for Christmas because we are SO romantic for ever". Last year, Steve wasn't working and he made the most beautiful card for me, expressing his regret at having initiated a pace he couldn't always maintain for gifts and promising to do all the rotten "honey do" tasks and stuff instead. I told him he'd already given me the best gift ever, which was Josephine and that I never really needed another silly present. And I meant it.
And then I saw this in the window at Fabric Hound within an hour of Skeeter's lugging it there, and well, I just wanted it:
(the garden statue, duh.)
Josephine is getting to be such a big girl already. I never quite grasped that she'd grow this much so quickly. Okay, I also didn't expect to have a child in the ninetieth percentile for height and weight at her age. Most people at the park think she's a stupid two year old. This statue doesn't even look like Josie - although blond wisps of hair that look like fibreglass from old Christmas displays would be hard to cast in cement - but it reminds me of how she is. Was, I mean, three or four months ago when she was that size. The wrists, the shape of her arms, the curves of the body - it was there in her. Now Josephine is sturdy, with cankles and bruised shins and that toddler belly. She stomps around like her ankles don't bend, and her size 8s actually flap on the floor. She is active and she is fearless and she is quick and boisterous. When she has tantrums, she is huge with her energy. When she sleeps, she is peaceful, but still a goodly size. But for me, this statue captures this time somehow, where she is now small enough to sleep on my lap, as she is doing right now. I can still carry her for blocks, although I'll suffer for it later. She has traces of baby clinging to her, but I have to work harder to catch whiffs of it as each day passes. And blurs.
And so, thanks to the people who will never see this particular thank you. Steve's parents, for the perfect gift in the pretty and practical sense. And to my parents, for the same reasons. But to those two sets of parents, without whom we'd never be here and be Josephine's parents, I owe thanks for something that seems odd. It's a thank you for buying me the types of gifts I don't really want to receive from my husband. They let him be a hero, and give his silly wife something that made her get all teary and go "Be cah-cah-cah-cause Josie does that with her ha-ha-ha-hand".
Oh! And dinner at Tomi-Kro was excellent too, although I had to walk home barefoot because my strappy sandals hurt; and we were in bed by ten.
Now, really I must be off. This weekend we're off to a friend's cottage at Sauble Beach; and my biggest wish, aside from a chance to gab with people I don't see as often as I'd like to even though I really really like them, is to work on tanning my shins.
It's horrible! I'm so splotchy! My feet, except for my toes, are tan from wearing ballet flats and and cuffed jeans. My forearms and chest are tan, my face a little. The rest - white as bleached tripe. How did this happen? I became a grown up and started wearing more clothing all summer long and now I'm piebald. It's not that I think tans are good or better. I don't mind paleness. An even, pasty Gothic paleness was something I once cultivated. I care for neither extreme. But oh, to be one colour again.
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