More Secrets.

Sports: I quit playing soccer the same day I got my first period. Now that was weak. I was never much of a jock, being only moderately useful on the field, but always enjoyed kicking or hitting the crap out of something. I didn’t want to play the sport, mind you. Just wanted to wail on something. Badminton made me delirious: you could hit that birdie SO hard and it would just sail through the air beautifully, but wouldn't go far enough that you had to chase it down. You find one other kid that likes to whack the crap outta something and you're good. Can't find another kid? How about going to the handball court with a tennis racket and ball and whacking the crap outta that? It's brilliant, that is. I also enjoyed kicking the soccer ball up as high and far as possible, but then I had to chase it. I always wanted to be invited to the batting cages, but alas, nobody has ever asked me. And somehow, I never told anyone I wanted to do this. So I have never been. I think I might really enjoy it.

But back to my original point. I believed that once I was "a woman", I could no longer be the tomboy I had always been. I quit playing soccer that freaking day, and that is embarrassing. How did I get that idea? I have a degree in Women's Studies and the whole time I was in school I hid that little fact, fearing I'd be put out on the quad and admonished for being such a... girl!

This freaks me out now because I am raising a daughter. If my mom couldn't keep that correlation out of my brain, how can I keep it from Lily? It seems so impossible to rear children sometimes... like walking through a mine-field.

OH and kids come without a manual and they can't even form complete sentences for the first couple of years. Who thought that up?

OK, overloading here on the hugeness of being a parent. Will chill out.







Chilling.







Honestly.






Goodnight.

Boy, and I thought I had trouble.

Everything is fine here at home. And I have nothing to worry about in my life. I just found out that one of the women on my blog list (to the right, people) just survived a semi falling off a bridge and onto her car. I was wondering why she hadn't posted in a while. Oh yeah, and she's five months pregnant (due the same week as me). There's a great article on anna here. She's one of the moms I met on MDC. Am in shock and so amazed she's OK.

gulp.

My dog was freaking out all last night and I thought it was just because dh is out of town. I even reprimanded her for make such a ruckus. Today my MIL discovered that the gate leading to our lower courtyard (off which is my bedroom) was unlatched. AND NOW she just called me at work to tell me a helicopter is circling my house with a searchlight shining down.

I’m afraid to go home and even more afraid not to!

Little secrets.

I don’t have many and they are not earth shattering, so don’t be expecting much folks. While walking to lunch today, I just started thinking of these things and figured I’d put them to paper (or html… or whatever this is). This installment is about Lily’s birth.

My mom was in attendance but totally freaked out. She was convinced I was going to tear since I had no interest in an episiotomy. I tried to explain to her that they don’t even do them routinely anymore, but she was just freaked and stood there the whole time with tears running down her face. We thought she could maybe hold the mirror so I could get a view of Lily crowning, but that didn’t work so well… her shoulders were shaking with her tears and Mark had to keep getting her to rearrange for us. Consequently, the first glimpse I had of my daughters head, I thought she was coming out face first… but from the depths of labor land, it looked like she had this insanely small face in the midst of a huge head. I know now that I was looking at the top of her head, not her face at all, but it still kinda wierded me out. Thought I was birthing a freak.

My mom’s 2003 Christmas letter contained news of her first grandchild’s birth. I cannot remember the exact phrase, but she made a big deal out of me saying “wow, that hurts” when Lil was crowning and the whole ring of fire stage hit. I had felt so empowered and fantastic about my first birth experience until I read that. To me, her experience of it made it seem pain filled, which it was not. I felt like she had painted an image of her weak, scared daughter instead of the powerful mama I felt I had been. I’m over it now; I know it was her view of Lily’s birth from a place of fear. But dammit, it still pisses me off sometimes.

I was actually worried there was something wrong with me when I didn’t cry the moment I first held her in my arms. I kept searching for it… wondering if I was a total freak as every single TV show and movie I had ever seen included a tearful “hi, baby” moment. Worried that I wasn’t feeling what I should. I felt tired and hungry. A couple of days later found me gazing down at her sleeping form in my arms and blubbering like an idiot, so I guess I’m normal.

Crapity crapertons!

The other day we came home to find about a third of the contents of a pony-keg of Virgil’s root beer had exploded in our fridge. It was down the wall, in the veggie crisper, and all the way down sitting atop the freezer portion in a big root-beer popsicle sheet. I had to disassemble the freaking fridge in order to clean it up while trying to keep a toddler from getting into the mess. Not fun.

This morning, just after Mark left of course, I discovered a puddle of water in front of the sink. Opening up the cupboard under the sink revealed a vast wasteland of water and soggy cleaning supplies. The pipe running from the garbage disposal to the main pipe had decided to part ways. I guess they just couldn’t work out their differences… and this is not the first time they’ve had such a tiff. Can you get counseling for pipes?

It’s times like these that I do wish we had a landlord. A good landlord who was also a very board handy-man, just waiting for his tenants to call and ask for his help so he could upgrade, for free, anything that went wrong. Ah well.

OH, and the cat has decided that the rain precludes her from going out to the COVERED area to use the litter box, so she peed on the dog bed. I guess for her it’s convenient and makes a statement regarding her feelings towards that dog that tried to ruin her life.

In other news my Mother-in-law is visiting for the week while Mark heads outta town on a gig. I’m one of the fortunate few who have a nice MIL who respects our way of doing things, doesn’t criticize and is just really fun to be around. She’s great and takes wonderful care of our daughter. But it means no hubby for a week. Crapity crapertons! Someone say something funny and make me laugh. Please.

Lily can't believe her mom is such a nerd.

Proof I'm a nerd.

This made me laugh my butt off. I'll post a photo of Lily doing something cute to try to redeem myself.

Per KB's request, another belly shot (almost 23 weeks).

I hate panel pants… unless they’re really cool.

Let me tell you about panel pants. These are a mad concoction of some designer as an attempt to make pregnant ladies look like they are wearing regular cloths. They’re most commonly seen in jean format and the cooler kinds can be found at Gap or Old Navy. I however, don’t have any from there… I have hand-me-downs, which have their own redeeming qualities (i.e. FREE). For a visual on the panel, check out these bad boys from Old Navy.

They are not, in theory a bad idea. In practice, they can totally suck eggs. When wearing them (which I happen to be doing today) the bottom curve of the panel can dig in a bit, creating a half moon on your underbelly… forcing me to imagine the cesarean scar I might have if my life had taken a different path. The top of the panel sits high above your belly, resting oddly under the breasts and, if not wearing the proper top, giving you lines and creases that make you look odd (at best). If your shirt isn’t long enough then you end up with this odd look… it’s jeans but then fabric but whaaaa? Even Lily was looking at ‘em kinda funny today and kept touching the space where it shifted from denim to cotton.

So why am I wearing them if I hate them? you may ask. Put aside the hand-me-down issue as I actually bought this pair just last week on one factor alone. They are embroidered around the ankles. That’s it folks. I bought the suckers because of some fancy threads. You now know how shallow I am.

At least I got them resale.

At least I'm not nursing the cat...

Had my first birthing dream this pregnancy. I was at Dean and Elizabeth’s house and there was this pack of obnoxious blond six year olds that wouldn’t leave me alone. In the dream they were Dean and Elizabeth’s kids, but their actual children where nowhere to be found. I went into labor and we decided that instead of dealing with yet another nightmare drive with Mark trying not to hit any potholes or take any curves too fast that we’d just have the baby at their house. And after they ushered me into their newly remodeled bathroom, I was all over the idea. Now, they had managed to stick an entire roman bath like set-up into their cookie-cutter tract home. Don’t get me wrong, their house is awesome, but there is NO WAY you could fit a roman bath in there. It was like water birth heaven in there AND you should have seen the walls. Think 1950’s comic book pages painted six-foot high… big blonde bombshells in scenes of mock horror and Dick Tracy characters lurking under streetlights, all in bright vivid colors. Elizabeth had apparently painted these images on her walls in a weekend while corralling the half-dozen blonde terrors. She’s amazing.

So Mark calls the midwife and tells her she'll have to travel down there for the birth and she's cool with it, but wants to know if I have all my birth supplies. In classic GingerLane fashion, I've purchased them and left them all in the car, so low-and-behold Mark just runs out to the car to get them. The dream didn't continue through the actual birth, but it was cool none-the-less (except for the obnoxious blond freaks). It felt like a "problem-solution" dream where no matter what was thrown at us, we just dealt with it. Very nice.

With my pregnancy for Lily I just kept dreaming about nursing the cat. Trust me, this was way better.

This little dude has moved in. We discovered him hanging out under my boots, where he stayed for about two days while Lily pointed at him a screeched in joy at the top of her little lungs. Mark got annoyed at seeing my muddy boots sitting there and so put them away, therefore evicting the lizard. So, lizard dude moved under the umbrella stand where the dog spent hours trying to figure out how to get to him. Maya chased him off the porch once and almost captured him in the grass, but alas, he was too quick for our slow-ass dog. The following day saw him hanging out along the edge of the cooler; not at all a safe place for him. One would have to worry about the intelligence of a lizard that keeps coming back despite a screeching toddler, psycho dog and camera lady chasing him all the time. We actually haven't seen him in a day or so. He either wized up or was eaten by something. Crazy lizard.

Adventures in ticketing.

I got a call this morning at about 9:45am. The lead in our current production was vomiting and there was no way to know if he’d manage to stop before the 2pm curtain. I finished my cereal, gave my girly a kiss (cursing myself for sleeping in this morning… could have had more time with her), and headed out the door. At least I was already showered and dressed when the call came. It’s almost 7pm now and both shows have been cancelled. There is no understudy for this show, a cost that would have been justified with this kind of event, but often doesn’t pay off. There was rumor of getting the understudy from the bay area production down here, but he was actually in the bay area and proved to be unreachable.

My staff kicked serious ass. We rewarded them with lots of pizza.

I took a walk at 3:30 to clear my head and ran into my ex-boyfriend. He’s still juggling in the park, still doing the basic same show. He looks the same. It was nice though; the first time it wasn’t awkward and we’ve been apart for almost ten years. We caught up on the family and he noticed my ever expanding mid-region, congratulating me on the baby. It was surface, but nice.

I’m exhausted and missing my daughter. The day is almost over and she will likely be asleep by the time I get home. Or not… she’s been a little hellion about bedtime lately and fights us something fierce. At least she’s sleeping in a little in the mornings.

OK, things to finish up and other blogs to try to glance at before I go home and curl up with my man. What a day.

Happy with my hair (ignore the grey)!

Flavor Favor.

Why do people assume that if you have a child of one gender that when you become pregnant you MUST be wanting/needing/desiring a child of the opposite gender and will be crushed or compelled to keep having kids until you have at least one of each flavor? And when you tell them you don’t have a preference, why do they think you’re talking politics rather than telling the truth? I honestly don’t care a spit if this child kicking the heck out of me is a boy or a girl. I see the value to both outcomes. A boy would be cool… it would be a different experience, negotiating that penis thing and dealing with the differences between your boy and girl. But having a girl, that would be cool too. I already have some experience in that department, have a ton of girly stuff and would enjoy raising sisters. Whatever… it really doesn’t matter folks.

And then I always get, "Well, what do you think you're having" to which I like to reply "A baby, preferably human." Seriously though, I was convinced Lily was going to be a boy and was utterly and completely flummoxed when Mark announced the very clear lack of external genitalia. I don't want to go down that road again and since I see no medical reason for an ultra sound, we will have to just be surprised. To be honest, I like the surprise. There are so few really wonderful surprises in the world that I'd just rather not screw this one up. I totally get the idea of wanting to know, but it's just not for me. That's all.

On another note, I like my hair again. I'll see if I can get all the heavens to align long enough for me to get a photo and show you the progress it's made in the last week. Cheers!

Bye-bye

I’ve previously blogged on Lily’s word count. We’ve got another to add in and while it is not remarkable, the way she says it slays me. Lily very much enjoys closing doors while crooning “BYE-BYE!” But she doesn’t say “bye-bye” like a good Southern Californian would. No, she says “bye-bye” like a freaking southern bell. I think ChickenFlicken has been getting worked up over the missing twin and calling our house to speak like an excited Ya-Ya to our daughter, converting her adorable speech into something only heard in movies like Gone With the Wind. “Bah-bah” she hollers delightedly, closing the door and waving behind her. She can play this one for hours, folks. And Mark and I start cracking up every time. It’s one of those things you just gotta hear.

Attack of the camera-happy baby.

I realized I have a whole lot of photos of Lily attacking the camera. She loves the darn thing. Every time I take it out, attempting to catch some great thing she’s doing over there, she comes tearing towards me, arms out and wants to push all the buttons. She’ll smash her eye against the viewfinder, smear her sweet little nose across the lens or work furiously to get the lens cap back on… where it clearly belongs. Rather than get annoyed at all these ruined Kodak moments, I chose to share some of the highlights. Oh, and let me know if all the photos make it hard for the page to load, I’ll move them or something.

On with the show:

Only a few months old and she’s spied the camera


Getting closer


Even while naked


Gimmie


Notice the camera lens on the left side of the screen?

OK, well she is a cutie


Stop it, Mama… or give me the camera!


Is she cross eyed?



Hoodie girl


My personal favorite

BLAH.

I knew that sappy post from earlier meant something. Couple pregnancy hormones with this freaking cold and you have one very foggy, spaced out mama who writes the dribble below. I’ve left work early so I could go get an adjustment and then go to sleep. My boss actually told me I wasn’t worth much today… don’t get righteous for me, she was totally right. I’m a mess. I feel like my head is this balloon, attached only loosely to my neck and bobbing along somewhere up there in the sky while messages to my body (like, “hey, turn left or you’ll run into a wall”) take an inordinate amount of time to reach their various destinations, causing a string of bumps and bruises that will really be annoying when I feel less numb. It’s a wonder I got home alive.

Lily is hanging out with Grandma today and Mark is… gone somewhere. So, I shall hit the “Publish Post” button and take my sorry ass off to bed. Hope you all have a spiffy day.

Be warned: it’s sappy.

I complain about my husband on a fairly regular basis. Not because I don’t adore him, mind you. Because of the shear volume of time we spend together, he’s bound to bug me every once in a while.

But I want to point out one of the reasons that I love that man. In the middle of the night, when he is sound asleep and I awake from some bizarre “Jurassic Park” take-off nightmare, I know that I can snuggle up to him, whisper “I had a bad dream” and he’ll pull me in tight, kiss my sweaty hair and whisper back, “I’m sorry.” I believe he does this without really waking and so I don’t feel badly about bothering him in the middle of the night. He never complains, just holds me and makes me feel safe.

That and he’ll get up in the middle of the night to tend to a crying child or get up early if she awakes before it’s even light outside.
And he always puts the toilet seat down.
He’s silly and can get me laughing like a teenage girly-girl.
He doesn’t take himself too seriously.
He works with his hands (carpenter) and there is nothing sexier than a dirty man who smells like sawdust. Seriously.
Our daughter thinks he’s the most amazing man who ever lived… and most of the time, I wouldn’t argue with her on that one.
And even when I am most annoyed by some obnoxious thing he does, I still have never woken up the next day and wished he wasn’t mine.

Told you this was a sappy post.

This is what happens when the camera lens is foggy. Cool, huh?

Went for a haircut the other day and, um, I look like a mom. I didn't want a mom cut and yet, look at me!




It's better when wet, but come on people! This is so not cool. It'll probably chill out in a week or so, but for now, you'll find me popping into random kids soccer games so I can yell "run, Billy, run! You can DO IT!"

bite me... and other tales.

Went to breakfast with friends this morning and ran into another friends current boy (not boyfriend, mind you… just a guy she, um… enjoys). He was there with some friends who had a little girl about a month older than Lily. The mama was pregnant and I asked how far along she was. “The baby is due in May” she told me. “Mine too!” I replied.

Big pause followed by a somewhat icy stare directed at my mid-section.

“You don’t even look pregnant.”

“It was like this with Lily as well,” I explain, “I just looked fat until about 7 months!” I laugh, secretly thinking, BITE ME!

I don’t know about you, but I’d rather look pregnant than fat. I know I don’t look like a hideous white-trash girl, with rolls of fat bubbling over my ultra tight sweat pants and wife-beater tee, but I don’t know… I’d rather have people look at me and think, “awww… motherhood,” than “agggg! Eat a salad.” And what’s with the icy stare? Do you think I’m kidding about being pregnant? Do you think I’m one of those girls that looks instantly perfect after giving birth (I’m not, btw)? Do you hate me because I’m beautiful? What’s your damage?

I’m clearly reading too much into this.

AH HA! And that, my friends, is how you can tell I’m actually pregnant.

Or female.

Or PMS-ing.

OK, I got nothing.

MIA.

KB pointed out that I've been MIA lately, so I thought I'd take a moment to explain myself. Our cable provider sent us a new cable modem, despite the fact that the old one was working just fine. This one didn't want to obey. So, it's taken us a few days to have internet in our home again (thus my hurried posts as I check in from work the last couple of days). Then, my husband went out of town and left me with a suddenly high needs toddler, and then came back a sick boy. I woke up this morning with nasty cramping... something one isn't too thrilled about regularly, but even less so when pregnant. It's been... bothersome. Compared to some others out there, we're still way ahead, so no worries! But that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it. Here's some photos, so shut your pie hole! ;)

Lily's new (to her) shoes.

We broke out another box of hand me downs and found these gems in there. She LOVES them. Yesterday, while I was putting them on her, she started blowing kisses at their sparkleness. She runs with great confidence while wearing them, and therefore falls with great confidence. Cracks me up.

You see that? That's a BLUE sky behind us. Lily was thrilled to be able to spend some time outdoors and ran around like a crazy lady, sitting on walls, throwing a found ball and yelling at the dog. Then she came to the middle of our parking lot and asked me to sit down. She needed a break from all that fun in the fresh air and so, sat happily on my lap playing with the camera. We took this one together.

Comfort food.

I got home last night to homemade mac and cheese… really, made with real sharp cheddar cheese rather than out of a box with powdered cheese. Mark had decided that since it had been my first day in real maternity clothes (which I had to keep pulling up and rolling down the waist band, btw) then I should get some comfort food. He made some nice peas as well, which was all Lily would eat. She tried some of the mac and cheese and didn’t seem to find it offensive, she just was really digging the peas.

Which brings me to my next point. Mark’s little sister used to be affectionately called Amanda-Panda-Pee-Pooh. I took great delight in pointing out that tomorrow, Lily would be blessing Mark with Pea-Poo all day long! HA!

I kill me.

The latest in the belly photos. I'm about 20 weeks along (half way there!).

Daddy and Lily are so freaking hip.

What? I'm not supposed to play with the stove? Check out my daughters groovey style! The purple socks have been a part of her ensemble for days, the shoes she put on and the sweater is from Grandma Jan. Hair and make-up by nature.

welcome to the farm

We have some new words to add to the mix. Lily now says "Moo." And we forgot to mention that she has a couple of other animals down pat. She now can have this conversation:
Mark: "Lily, what does the dog say?"
Lily: "ARF ARF" (only it sounds more like she's been punched in the tummy)
M: "What does the kitty say?"
L: "Meow" (very convincing... I've been fooled before on this one)
M: "What does the cow say?"
L: "MOOOOOOO!"
M: "What does the frog say?"
L: *blink* *blink* as she stares silently at you.
I'm trying to get him to try duck with her, but he's a big fan of frogs, so I think this will be his angle for a while.

She also says a handful (ha!) of words using sign language. She can ask for num-nums, say please, thank you, more/give it to me!, water/food, and is on the verge of getting airplane down. She's pretty good at letting you know what she wants these days and gets very frustrated when she cannot make us understand. New words and signs are coming to her pretty quickly now and I don't know about the rest of you, but I find it thrilling. She has the cutest voice and I can't wait to see what she thinks about things. OH! and she was saying "Go" according to my mom, as in "let's go outside" or "I want to watch the mixer go." Haven't heard this one myself, but am looking forward to it.

Nothing else too exciting or interesting to add today. Am working at the moment; well actually, I'm eating lunch while typing, but AT work. Things are slow, but as long as we can bring in enough money to pay those working for me, I'll be happy (as will be the Marketing Director who is my boss). Anyone doing anything interesting?

Raisins anyone?

A co-worker of mine reminded me of a Lily story… one I am not terribly proud of, yet it’s worth including here as an example of how we can be bad parents without even knowing it.

First of all, you should know that I don’t care if Lily eats stuff off the floor. Especially our floor… but hey, I’ve let her eat off the floor of the airport and she’s still alive today. I’m one of those first-time-parents that freak long-time-parents out by my willingness to let my child learn about gravity by falling down, put foreign objects into her mouth, touch hot things, etc, etc. Some would call this neglect; we call it parenting by example (i.e. “wow, that hurt, that’s an example of what you shouldn’t do!”).

SO, my dear, sweet, wonderful daughter was enjoying a handful of raisins one day and it was the first time we’d offered her this dried treat. She seemed to think the shriveled little bits tasty and, in characteristic toddler style, dropped many on the floor, most of which was scarffed up by her shadow (the dog).

Her diaper that eve was amazing. The raisins had passed through her body completely unharmed… plump and beautiful looking even, despite the fact that they smelled like stinky toddler poo.

Some of you know where this is going.

A couple of days later I find a raisin on the floor and despite the fact that it is bigger than the ones I remember being in the box, I absent-mindedly offer this morsel to my daughter making the assumption that it was one of the many she scattered on the floor. My brilliant daughter refused to eat it and this is the ONE redeeming quality of this entire story. It was about an hour later that I realized where it came from and at that moment had to completely rethink my ability to parent. How many of you can say you’ve offered your child something she’d already eaten and that had exited her BUTT?

It’s a rare thing. I hope.

Just love this photo of Lily as we take a walk around the block while visiting Mark's family. Turtle nose!

testosterone poisoning

I’ve made a decision about our future.

Mark is never allowed to go out of town again. Not unless he takes any two of the following:
1. One of our children (admittedly difficult with the second as it is not yet detachable).
2. Our dog
3. Me
4. A divorce petition

Lily slept really well last night after the fight to get her to sleep. She went to bed around 10pm and thanks be to dog, slept all the way through until 8am this morning. I was dressed, groomed (this does not mean showered, by the way… I’m not that good), and fed by the time I heard her squawk. I had even checked my email. It was a thrilling moment in parenting. I even had a moment where I stood there in shock that there was no clingy, whiney toddler stuck to my knee. Oh course, as soon as I realized she was waking, I went right in, scooped her up and held her on my lap for a bit as she swam out of her dreams and into the world of the waking. As we’ve been having trouble with our cloth diaper covers, I had put her in a ‘sposie the night before. They don’t hold as much pee as one would hope and so when she was finally ready to get off my lap and have her mongo breakfast (traditionally two scrambled eggs, one or two bowls of cheerios, fruit, whatever I may be trying to eat, etc), my pants were wet with baby pee. Sometimes it just doesn’t pay to dress your self on time.

Overall though, things haven’t been going that smoothly. I found myself holding my cranky toddler in the middle of the night on Monday thinking: where would the new baby be? Would I have left him/her in my bed downstairs while tending to Lily? What if that took hours and just as Lily drifted off to sleep, new baby started wailing for his/her boobies? How do single moms do this? How do military mamas make this happen? I can’t imagine how genius these people must be to pull this off and not strangle their children or, more appropriately, the men who got them this way in the first place.

And my husband, that man that I so love so dearly; this is how he responds to my crazy ravings about him not being allowed to go out of town after the baby comes: “Well, I’ll just have to hope no gigs come along.” WHAT DOES THAT MEAN? Seriously, if you know, please tell me, ‘cause that just sounds hookey to me. Damn testosterone poisoning.

to sum up our holiday, please see below:

Screaming ensues

I’ve spent the last couple of days as a full time, stay-at-home, single by default, parent. Mark is away on a gig and (this may not come as a surprise to many of you) I’m not used to spending 24 hours a day in the company of my child. I work outside of the home 40 hours a week and whenever I need to take over care of Lily, it’s always a bit of an adjustment. The good news is that neither Mark nor I am naïve enough to think the others got it easy. We’ve both played both parts and so, we know what the others gripes are.

Needless to say, my daughter has spent a heck of a lot of time naked. Oh, and the tub… she’s had a bath every freaking day and let me tell you, this is NOT a sign of good parenting; just so nobody thinks I’m using this as some perverse bragging rights thing. This is just how things go:

In the most excited, happy voice I can muster: “Lily, time for a diaper change.”
Screaming ensues.
Wrestle baby on the changing table out of her diaper.
Once it’s off the alligator death roll, followed by the violent raise of her butt into the air, slamming it down so just when you think you can get a diaper under there, the access is denied.
Screaming continues.
I let her thrash while I get the wet diaper in the now rather fragrant diaper bag… right, have to wash those things.
Lily is now stripping herself naked and I figure, what the hell.
Abandon the new diaper in favor of utter and complete naked baby.
“Down! DOWN” she demands.
Fine with me, thanks.
Off she goes to pee on something and then into the bathroom to point at the empty tub and scream.
I turn it to hot, which is clearly an invitation to try to scald oneself or break a rib by flinging her body into the tub during the one half second I’m not paying attention to her because I’m cleaning up the new puddle of pee on the floor.
Get the water temperature under control, and stick her in, faucet still running and toys raining down on her from all sides.
Ahhhhh, now I can sit for about a half hour and type, read, whatever while she is the happiest baby in the world.
This was cut short yesterday when she drank too much tub water too fast and started choking so violently she almost barfed. Screaming ensued.

Ah, and today it was cut short because she suddenly and intensely NEEDED to get out of the tub and run around screaming while pulling socks out her drawer. She’s finally settled for trying on her shoes.

It’s not that I don’t think I’m a good parent, it’s just that I have so little patience for things that aren’t logical. And wouldn’t you know it, kids are not logical! How does one improve ones patience when you haven’t the patience to figure it out? And what IS the sound of one hand clapping?

Making Mountains...

We are all finally home from our “vacation” up North this fine holiday season. Mark made it back after 15 ½ hours on the road with a trailer towing a free hot tub, big ass ladder and a treadmill in the bed of the truck. About mid California the darn trailer decided it would be fun to throw all but two of its lug nuts on one tire and, had he not pulled over to check on something else, would have succeeded in its evil plan to toss the wheel and all the trailer contents on the freeway. Thus the added hours to his travel.

We had an uneventful flight home – which is more than can be said for our flight up – and Lily and I were home to survey storm damage by 1pm. Nothing too horrid: one of our trees came down on the shed, both canopies blew over (one made it a fair way down the canyon) and some glass doors we were storing in back of the house (under before mentioned, half-way-down-the-canyon-canopy) shattered. BUT the new roof did its job and we were thrilled to find that there was no water in the house that wasn’t supposed to be there.

Now I face the trip clean up and a mountain of laundry. Seriously, it’s a freaking mountain. I kid you NOT:


See the little mountain climber scaling the side of the laundry on the landing? At least the pile on the sofa is clean and just needs a severe folding. Mark’s heading outta town for a gig today so it actually all needs to get done if I don’t want to send him naked out on the road. Come to think of it, that might be funny. I guess I’m being dramatic though; some of that pile does belong to the girly and it doesn’t make a spit of difference if that gets done before or after he leaves us.

Lily has turned on the beat machine thing on the synthesizer and is dancing around the room, occasionally dropping by to bang on the keys. It must be music time. Oh, and I see that my dance card is full.

11 words...

So we counted. Lily now has 11 words that she uses consistently and (most of the time) correctly. Here they are in all their glory (and in no particular order -- the numbers are just to see if I can remember them all):
1. Mama -- placed first on the list despite the fact that it was not her first word... gee, I wonder who's writing this blog?
2. Dada -- I think this was actually her first, however (in all fairness) it was uttered to the dog, cat, chair, her toes, etc before it was ever spoken to mean her actual father.
3. Dog-Dog -- technically one word, but always spoken twice. Maya is a dog-dog, not just simply a dog.
4. Hi -- usually spoken into an improvised phone, like the remote control or her shoe.
5. Hello -- some may say this word doesn't qualify due to it's similarity to the word immediately preceding it. To those people I say "piss off and get a real job."
6. Lily -- this word is always coupled with the last. We'll hear "Hello, Lily" over and over until the child drops. She LOVES the sound of that phrase and since we are suckers, delights in our repeating it to her every freaking time she says it. Simple pleasures.
7. Baby -- at first we thought this was another one of her babbled double syllables as it comes across as "bee-bee" most of the time. Then she started bringing us photos of babies in ads or books and pointing at them while saying “bee-bee” so we’ve got it linked. Cracks me up.
8. uh-oh -- this has got to be one of my favorites and always used correctly. Today on the airplane she dropped a cracker and accidentally stepped on it: uh-oh. She then spent the next half hour trying to pick up the pieces, then brush away the crumbs... she's a freak.
9. Down -- you would think "up" would be on this list if "down" is. Not so much. She delights in pointing downwards in a rather violent motion, exclaiming "DOWN" like she's ordering around her subjects. "Down, Lily?" we'll ask, to which she answers:
10. Yeah! -- She LOVES this one and will sometimes holler it aloud for what we see as no obvious reason. I'm sure she knows why, but until she racks up some more words, we're just going to have to wonder.
11. No -- the first utterance of this one occurred on Christmas morning. We stayed over at my moms so they could give us a lift to the airport and as she sat eating her breakfast she came up with a single and very determined "NO." My step-dad thought that was funny and so he repeated it back. She has become VERY adept at this new word in the last week and clearly favors it. It's been... fun.

She also randomly comes up with full sentences, never to be heard again. She's said "I love you", "I'm cold", "I don't want to go", "I got it!", etc. Oh, and today she was pointing at a banana and saying "nananananana", so she was either taunting the darn thing or attempting to call it by name. We'll see if it sticks.