kdiddy.org

This post is part of the Mo’ Babies Shower Extravaganza. Catherine put a call out for posts reminiscing about the first days that people had with their babies as a gift for a few mamas who have new little ones getting ready to make their debut.

The first night that the baby and I were home from the hospital was probably one of the toughest nights of my life. I’d had a c-section and I was still in a lot of pain and somewhat immobile. The baby had slept for a long time in the days leading up to that and I vaguely hoped that we would have a smooth night as we adjusted to feedings and whatnot.

Nothing seemed to go right. He wouldn’t stay asleep no matter what we did. He was fussy and didn’t want to nurse. I thought my breasts might explode.

I can remember hobbling into our bedroom with him and plopping onto the bed. I finally sobbed and confessed to the husband (then the boyfriend) the thought that had been whispering in the back of my brain for nine months but that I was too ashamed to utter: “I don’t think I can do this.” I was sure that the night would never end, that I would never get any of the rest that I so desperately needed, and that I had made a grave mistake.

The husband looked at me and bluntly said, “You have to. You have to do this.” It wasn’t gentle and it didn’t necessarily make me feel any better. But I did it. I nursed him and soothed him and finally, as the sun was just starting to peek over the horizon, we fell asleep.

The husband woke me up hours later. My eyelids creaked open and I squinted at him through the pale sunlight. It was almost noon and he had to go to class. He asked me if I wanted him to put the baby in his crib. My brain was still scrambled from exhaustion and pain and I worked to interpret his question. “Baby? Crib. I was asleep.”

My eyes finally drifted from the husband’s face to the tiny boy curled up next to my chest. I think I forgot that he was real, that he was actually here with me and would be my son every morning when I woke up and every night when I fell asleep, forever. He was so small. He’d rejected his sleeper during the night and was dressed only in a diaper and an undershirt. His arms were only an inch or two around and his hospital bracelet worked to cling to him still until we relieved it of its duty. His hands were curled into fists the size of marbles and his chest rose and fell with his satisfied breaths.

“No, he’s okay,” I finally replied. The husband and I smiled at the baby. He finally headed to class. I pulled my child closer and went back to sleep.

*As a special bonus gift, I present to you the Pittsburghese pronunciation of “showers.”

Hi. I just got back from the doctor’s office and getting my breast ultrasounded. Everything is cool. I had to wait forever, but I really didn’t mind since I walked out of there relieved and I really can’t say the same for a few of the women that were also there.

I hopped on the bus back to work and after squeezing out of the crowded bus past a few Pitt students who were “from Philly” (read: King-of-Prussia, because if you’re from Philly, why do you look like you were just dropped into the middle of Baghdad when you’re only in Oakland?), I scrounged around my office for a little snack since I was starving. But since I had been at the hospital and on the bus, I didn’t want to just eat something without sanitizing my hands a little bit first.

Now, it’s no surprise to anyone that knows me that I’m a little immature and much of my humor is of the Beavis-and-Butthead variety. So, it’s really unfortunate that we use hand sanitizer that is “hand lotion formula.” What this means is that it has the same liquid consistency, but it’s a translucent white color. And it looks like…well, you tell me:

What’s really bad is that the cheap pumps on the hand sanitizer bottles tend to malfunction and squirt this substance on whatever or whoever is in its aim. Believe me. I’ve accidentally squirted this stuff on my shirt before and tried to hide both my snickering and my blushing, since I’m not sure anyone gets (or wants to get) what is so funny. This morning I got it all over the office couch which luckily has vinyl seats. It just looked rather gross when I wiped it up.

I’ve bitched about our neighbors before and, shockingly, I still hate them.

For whatever reason, they can’t get their act together enough and put their garbage out the night before, like you’re supposed to, or even early in the morning before the garbage truck comes. No. They wait until after the garbage truck does their half of the street and then they trot their crap across the street and put it with our garbage.

I really can not articulate how angry this makes me. It’s silly, I know, because garbage is garbage and whatever. I’m neighborly. But this is every week that they do this. And god knows what kind of shady shit they have in their garbage.

I think my rage stems from earlier this summer when they missed both garbage pickups and instead of just holding onto their garbage for a week, they put it on our curb anyway. Where it killed our grass and stank up the whole block because there was a bag of poopy diapers.

AND this week they have two bags of garbage in blue grocery store bags and let me tell you that this is a huge problem. The garbage men won’t take blue bags because those are the recycling bags and it is not recycling week. So help me, if I get home and those two bags are still sitting there I’m going to do something really immature.

Like, it’s not enough that these assholes forced me to listen to Creed for an hour one night and just generally seem like shitty people and don’t comfort their crying baby EVER. I have to be responsible for their trash??!?!?!?!?!? THIS IS SERIOUS DRAMAZ!

Last night, we watched the Steelers beat the Browns and immediately afterward, the power went out. Our windows were open so we heard the entire neighborhood go, “AWWWWWWW MAN!” It is indeed fortunate that the power went out after the game, as opposed to right in the middle, because then there might have been riots. But still: no post-game. Grr. We also didn’t get to watch True Blood, Entourage, or Mad Men and we didn’t get to finish watching The Seventh Seal, which we started watching the other night but we both fell asleep in the middle of it. I mean, it’s not like we knew what was going on, but it’s still awesome and I want to see all of it. I guess I never noticed how little I’ve heard Swedish being spoken, but it’s pretty rad since to my Latin-based ear it all sounds like gibberish and very…like…”I am Death-schnurgen. Do you play chess-schnurgen? Bork bork bjorn borg.”

I imagine that if I have any Swedish readers I’ve completely offended them and I’m sorry. But yinz talk funny, n’at.

The wind was pretty intense last night but I didn’t realize how much it messed things up until this morning. There was already a mess on the main street because a building that caught fire a few weeks ago partially collapsed, but now there were trees everywhere, no traffic lights, gutters and siding and shingles scattered all over. And the baby’s school had a 2-hour delay so we had to drop him at my mother-in-law’s house. But I wonder how people who don’t have family or trustworthy babysitters nearby manage when there’s something like a 2-hour delay and they CAN’T be late for work.

Oh, this is completely unrelated but we went to see Burn After Reading on Friday and it was pretty great. It’s been getting bad reviews but I think that’s because the Coen Brothers blew everyone’s minds so much with No Country for Old Men that people forgot that they make goofy movies all the time. Granted, Burn After Reading isn’t their BEST movie ever, but I can tell you that any time a whole, crowded theater cracks up at brutal killings…well, you got something special on your hands. Shit. I might make that into a Hallmark card.

*Okay, so, I know I’m a cornball but I am once again referencing Joe Rogan. He has a bit in his 2005 (a whole two years before Idiocracy came out, which is pretty wild since it’s basically the same argument) special in which he talks about how people are getting stupider, but we all think we’re smart because we use things that smart people have made. “If I left you alone in the woods with a hatchet, how long do you think it would be before you sent me an email?” Perhaps the best example he gives is what we do when the power goes out, which is just sit and wait for it to come back on. And last night, I couldn’t help but think about that, especially as the husband and I stumbled around breaking our toes on our furniture and downloading flashlight apps for our iPhones, for fuck’s sake. Totally helpless.

…and so you did. So fucking sad.

I got my hair cut.

Whenever I get my hair cut, I always ask them to blow it out and iron it straight, since they can get it all smooth and pretty. The last two times I’ve gotten my hair done, it’s been raining heavily by the time I left the salon. I really don’t understand why the universe has to conspire against me and my coiffure.

In other words, it was cuter a few hours ago.

Last night, I twittered: “on second glass of wine. Have ditched pants entirely. Onto the dishes.” Reviewing that now, I realized that it sounds like I ditched my pants physically onto the dishes, which is just not what happened. I poured myself my second glass of wine, removed my pants, and then started to do the dishes. I just really wanted to clear that up. I am a lady, after all.

Anyway, Jwan was over last night and we watched Platoon, crossing another movie off of my Fundamental 80s Movies list…which doesn’t really exist in any physical format and we should really write these things down before we forget and I go another 20 years without seeing Risky Business.

Afterward, I went to bed and fell asleep HARD and slept through three events:

– The husband woke up at 3 a.m. because he smelled something strange and realized that our house was filled with some kind of smoky fog (smog, I guess). He scurried around for a few minutes, trying to determine if we were on fire, before noticing some emergency vehicles a street away and realizing that there was some fire over there or something and that we were okay, fire-wise.

– The baby got up some time later and came into our room to tell us that he needed to go to the bathroom and started farting. I do recall hearing the husband say, “Do NOT poop your pants,” but apparently was not alarmed enough to see to any impending (literal) shitstorms.

– My alarm clock going off.

I told the husband that this obviously means that he, alone, is on save-the-family detail since I can’t really be bothered.

To be fair to myself, and it’s my blog so I get to do that, it’s a dreary, rainy day and I really think I should get an award for getting up at all. I also fed my child, dressed him, put him on the bus, showered and dressed myself all in under an hour. Actually, now that I think of it, I’m going to walk to Starbucks and reward myself with a Pumpkin Spice Latte. ‘Tis the season and I need to get started on my pumpkin-flavored-junk addiction.

If you’re a parent or a caregiver for a child, does your kid have a schoolmate or friend that you just CAN’T STAND?

I ask because, oh my god, the baby has this school friend that he’s just apeshit over and I really do not like the kid (henceforth: That Kid). I feel bad saying this for a number of reasons. That Kid is only six years old; it’s probably too soon to pass judgment on his character, but it’s really not looking good. That Kid has older siblings who are tweens/teenish and I’m sure that they’re infusing him with all of their assholish behaviors right at this very moment. That Kid’s mom is pretty nice. And I know that many women marry and/or breed with total dickwads, so it’s possible That Kid’s dad just sucks.

In other words, life is like that. I just don’t understand why MY kid has to associate with THAT Kid. They were friends last year and I vaguely remember the mom telling me that That Kid was moving to a different school. And we said, “Awww,” when we really meant, “See ya!” But, lo and behold, That Kid was there on the first day and (&#%*(&%(#()#@)*(!!!!

Since last year, my kid has picked up a number of really shitty behaviors from That Kid, including such gems as:

– making fun of the way Chinese (Chinese being, I’m sure, a generic term for all Asian people) speak, resulting in this totally charming My Little Racist routine full of really offensive shit that I probably don’t need to, and will not, spell out for you. This was especially awesome when we were on vacation and the Beijing Olympics were on. The baby, in front of my dad’s friends, would whip this out and I would just die right there. Shit. Just call him Tom Cruise and make him the Last Samurai.

– hating the Indian kid in their class FOR NO GOOD REASON. I know this is starting to sound like White Guilt Hour on kdiddy.org, but seriously, racism is never cute, especially not in little kids, and I’m really pissed that this pint-sized bigot is hanging around mine.

– Earlier this evening, the baby said, “Today, That Kid was doing this *gives me the finger*.” Dude, seriously? SERIOUSLY? Look, I know that I have a mouth but the baby KNOWS that he’s not allowed to swear yet. As far as I’m concerned, he has not yet earned the right to toss fuck yous around.

– The baby thinks That Kid is awesome. I don’t want to tell him who his friends should be, but the baby knows that I don’t really care for That Kid and I’ve encouraged (though not demanded) him to play with other kids more often.

Argh, I don’t know what to do. What I want to do is talk to That Kid’s mom, but like I said she seems pretty nice, which makes the whole, “The fruit of your loins is rotten,” conversation THAT much more awkward. And also, why can’t she just raise a non-sucky kid? BLARGH.

Please tell me that I’m not the only one with this problem…

So, I had a doctor’s appointment this morning. It was notable because when I called the office last week to see if they thought I should come in for this problem that I was having, their answer was, “You should be seen as soon as possible.” And that’s not always encouraging.

See, a few months ago, I noticed that my left, uh, “dirty pillow” was always really tender in this one spot. And it would get even more tender right around the time that my period would show up. I wasn’t sure what to make of that, but started poking around. I asked the husband to do the same and he said, “Hehehehe. Okay.” We both kinda felt…something.

“I don’t know. Do you think it’s Something?”
“I don’t know. I can’t tell.”
“Me neither.”
“I’d better check a few more times.”

Of course, WebMD was like, “YOU SO TOTALLY HAVE BREST CANCERZ! OMG!!!111,” but I was skeptical and my gut feeling was that everything was fine. Nonetheless, I knew it was important to get an expert opinion.

So, this morning, I had not one, but TWO very nice lady doctors go to town on my chesticles. Their verdict is that I’m a-okay, nothing feels out of sorts, the tenderness is probably due to some ligaments acting up, and that my tissue is just kind of lumpy…like oatmeal. I’m going to go get an ultrasound just to be sure, but I am relieved. Definitely.

I don’t like to lecture, but consider this your PSA: if something feels weird, go get yourself checked. Don’t worry about “wasting the doctor’s time,” or anything like that. And don’t explain things away if you’re actually worried, even just a little bit. Take care of yourself! Reassurance is rad.

That said, they had to weigh me and…well…fuck gravity. ANYWAY.

Enjoy this picture of me (looking slightly deranged from this particular angle) and my cat.

He was being goofy last night at bedtime, walking around my head and purring, before he plopped down on my head. He intended to sleep there, but I was laughing too hard.

Speaking of laughing (but in horror), I watched a little bit of Painted Babies 2 last night. And I know that it’s best to just say, “Well, it’s just a different culture and blah blah,” but seriously that whole pageant thing is just ridiculously fucked up. I don’t like it. I mean, mainly because it’s just messed the hell up to do that to a little kid, but also that whole scene is just SO CORNY and just not based in any kind of reality.

I was reading this article the other day that said something to the effect of “Cosmopolitan is like The Onion for feminists,” which is so true and I think pageants, particularly pageants for little girls, fall squarely into that category, too.