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the latest
waddle: good morning, wordpress - 10:36 a.m. , 2009-07-03 elaborate murder attempt - 2:56 p.m. , 2009-07-01 building a tractor in the basement - 10:42 a.m. , 2009-06-19 ask no questions tell just a few lies - 3:17 p.m. , 2009-06-09 my long lasting flavor really lasts long - 1:10 p.m. , 2009-06-04
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My day is all squiggly and spasmodic. I cannot get anything done, technology is against me, and I have one of those strange headaches where there is a dulldulldull thudthudthudding that is occasionally interrupted by a little pain zinger, like a cocktail toothpick stuck into my frontal lobe. I can picture the cocktail toothpick clearly---dark green and shaped like a little sword. Sword. Sword. Spell-check says it's fine but that sure does not look right. Ha! In your face, San Francisco! It has been one month since we first met Nora in person, and her little personality continues to emerge. I am quite serious about those drum lessons, she now beats on the table with both arms alternately and rhythmically. Every person who has spent time around a kid has many stories that are really just coincidences, let's not fool ourselves, but when the kid does the coincidental thing at exactly the right coincidental time it is hard not to think, "Now that's eerie." For instance, the other day she was doing her Tito Puente routine all stoppy-starty, pounding out a series of beats on the coffee table, and I was drumming along with her, imitating her previous sequence every time she paused. Nora thought this was pretty hilarious, until I purposely did it wrong. At which point she frowned, pushed my hand off the table, and drummed the exact same rhythm again. Coincidence? Almost certainly. But it did not make me feel any better to be reprimanded for my rhythm skillz by a nine-month-old. Even better, we had my friend Julie over recently. She is my most grown-up friend because she knows how to decorate her house and buy pants that fit, and she always looks freaking perfect, and she throws these Christmas parties that are actually kind of terrifying in their Martha-Stewart, handmade-party-favor, orange-slices-floating-in-the-champagne punch kind of way. Julie is moving soon, and I was making fun of her for admitting that she had seven full boxes of just glassware. "I bet you have the proper glass for every possible cocktail," I said. "One of these days I am going to try and stump you." "I don't think I own actual Tom Collins glasses," Julie said. There was a beat of silence, and then Nora looked right at her and said, "Heh." Like: "Loser." Again, a coincidence, but a funny one. Not much else is funny, let me tell you that straight-up. Maybe it is the headache, but I am feeling mean. I also have a work problem that I would like to just go away. I keep having these little fantasies that a wizard appears and says, "If you eat this magic chicken leg your work problem will disappear." I am a long-time vegetarian but this work problem is of a magnitude that I might be willing to eat a magic chicken leg, right down to its magic bone. Maybe even an enchanted steak. Octopus in toilet prank. Oh yeah. That's a classic. SIT DOWN, YOU MAKE ME NERVOUS 1. Did I tell you my friend Kat, mentioned many a time on this here website, had a baby? She did. Thea (the baby) is pretty in her own froglike newborn way, but I have to say that after getting to know and love the Nora, there really Ain't No Party Like A Nine-Month-Old Party Because A Nine-Month-Old Party Don't Stop. Newborns just kind of lie there and look a bit like larvae, which is a rather horrible thing to say but I just said it so go ahead and blame the headache or something. 2. I visited Kat, and although we are still trying to get over the fact of being mommies and not full-time drunken loudmouth girls falling off their Goldstar barstools, all was well and good in the conversation department. I was alarmed, however, when we were discussing various baby topics and Kat asked, "What method are you using?" "What method?" I asked. Does she mean for birth control? Or maybe joint vs. bong vs. pipe? Kat says, "You know, parenting method. I'm doing attachment parenting." There are methods? I mean, LT and I have each read some "what to do with babies" books, and I have my own ideas and instincts, but I would not say that our day-to-day with Nora approaches anything as scientific-sounding as a "method." I gave it a few seconds of thought and finally said, "We're doing 'Keep Her Laughing.'" 3. I am adjusting to life with Nora. When it's just me, her, and LT, I feel like everything is working the way it should, that I am taking good care of her and loving her and generally doing a decent job. Then I go talk to other mothers and termites start attacking my Basement Wallboard Of Confidence, because all those other women with kids seem to know things that I don't, or have concerns that I don't have.* Talking to these women, who have such obvious patience and wisdom and calm, who have read dozens of baby books and have subscriptions to parenting magazines and a theory on every aspect of kid-raising, makes me feel like a crazy person. I feel like these women are glancing sideways at me and wondering who let this cut-rate Dorothy Parker impersonator have a child. I feel like their personalities are open sunny meadows with wildflowers blowing in the breeze and white sheets drying on a clothesline, sort of like a detergent commercial, and my personality is a hooker in a torn leather coat smoking a cigarette on a fire escape, in the meat-packing district, and it's raining, sort of like an anti-drug educational film. (*For instance, I never realized how un-germ-phobic I am until I had a kid. Nora drops her bagel on the floor? And it doesn�t actually land in cat puke or an ashtray or a puddle of bleach? She gets it back. And the other day I let her sit on the laundry room floor while I pulled stuff out of the dryer. Contrast that with those women I have met who say they will not take their newborn ANYWHERE for the first three months because of the germs. This seems ridiculous to me, and unscientific, but to each her own.) NOW THAT MY CONFIDENCE IS BACK, I WILL MAKE FUN OF OHIO It is a good thing that They do not let me write the state mottos, since on Saturday I referred to Ohio as "fatty fat fat Ohio." This is because Ohio takes entirely too long to drive across, and I have many not-so-fond roadtrip memories of crumpling up in the backseat and moaning "WE'RE STILL IN OHIO." Okay. I feel slightly better now for venting about my mommy-alienation and work crabbiness. I think I am going to have a glass of wine and watch my little sex video again. Isn't this digital camera stuff great? You can share your kid's photos with a faraway grandma, sure, just like the ads say, but you can also make porn with your husband! Just be aware of which file you are sending! I still get a little thrill when I download that stuff off the camera. Not even so much from the sexiness but from the childlike, "Hey, that's ME!" ---mimi smartypants with dressing on the side. back/forward |
