Once you become a parent, the one thing you have to get over is poo. Because there is no escaping it.
When V was first born, her first few poos were like black tar. That apparently is normal; it's called meconium and it is all the crap that she was saving up in her body during gestation, that she was now giving to me as a "hi, nice to meet you, here is some black poo" present. I would swat at it with these flimsy, tiny squares of wet tissue they called baby wipes, and it would just morph into little black peaks on her butt. A spatula would have worked a lot better.
Then once V started eating, her poo got yellow/brown and liquidy. Liquidy as in the consistency of pea soup. And lots of sharting. I'd be feeding her in my lap and I could feel the heat of each shart against my leg. At first I'd run with her at the first shart and change her diaper. I stopped doing that once I realized that usually she wasn't finished with just one. I would open her diaper and there would be MORE COMING OUT, and I would shove more wipes, diapers, whatever was in reach under her butt to contain the ever continuing spillage. Meanwhile V would wriggle and kick, sticking her feet in her poo and waving them around, and I would throw wipes at her like it was a ticker tape parade.
Once I was changing V's diaper and she shat a stream of poo that landed on my hand, the wall and the floor. For three seconds, I froze. Time stopped. All was silent. And then chaos ensued. "DON'T PANIC!" I was yelling, "DON'T PANIC!" over and over. To who I'm not sure, since it was just me and V in the apartment, and she was clearly ok with the whole situation. It's times like those when you are grateful for the fact that the baby wipes seem to have all been glued to each other, so that when you pull on one, you get a whole string of them, because I needed all one hundred fifty of those suckers.
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Saturday, November 19, 2011
Working vs Staying at Home
At work, I dealt with unreasonable, irrational opposing counsel, who would angrily demand ridiculous things one minute and be suspiciously nice the next. I couldn't wait for my maternity leave.
And then I found out that my baby is the same. She is unreasonable -- you want to eat now, at 4 in the morning? I was sleeping woman -- irrational -- pushing my milk jug out of her face so that she can cram her fingers in her mouth and scream about their milklessness -- and possibly suffering from a personality disorder -- going from smiles to screams back to smiles in a matter of seconds.
One thing that work did for me was to acclimate me to a routine of just-enough-sleep-so-that-I-don't-die, which has continued since I took leave. Also responding to the unreasonable demands. It's like she is sending a constant stream of high priority emails but instead of emails they are high-pitched screams that grow evermore in intensity and frequency until they exceed the spectrum of human hearing and she is fully contorted, mouth open so that I can see clear down to her larynx (hello evil vocal cords) and dogs around the neighborhood are going mad. This week she has a sore throat so I can barely hear her cry. I won't lie, I am kind of enjoying it.
Babies do really look like this when they cry by the way:
It turns out that all those cartoons are very lifelike.
And then I found out that my baby is the same. She is unreasonable -- you want to eat now, at 4 in the morning? I was sleeping woman -- irrational -- pushing my milk jug out of her face so that she can cram her fingers in her mouth and scream about their milklessness -- and possibly suffering from a personality disorder -- going from smiles to screams back to smiles in a matter of seconds.
One thing that work did for me was to acclimate me to a routine of just-enough-sleep-so-that-I-don't-die, which has continued since I took leave. Also responding to the unreasonable demands. It's like she is sending a constant stream of high priority emails but instead of emails they are high-pitched screams that grow evermore in intensity and frequency until they exceed the spectrum of human hearing and she is fully contorted, mouth open so that I can see clear down to her larynx (hello evil vocal cords) and dogs around the neighborhood are going mad. This week she has a sore throat so I can barely hear her cry. I won't lie, I am kind of enjoying it.
Babies do really look like this when they cry by the way:
It turns out that all those cartoons are very lifelike.
Monday, November 14, 2011
Hey Fatty
You know you have to do something about your fat ass when your friend's 3 year old points to your stomach and asks, "Is there another one in there?"
Hi salad, you and I are now best friends.
Hi salad, you and I are now best friends.
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Breastfeeding
The word "breast" makes me feel uncomfortable. I never use it, and whenever I hear it, I simultaneously think of chickens first, then women.
But that is not my point. My point is that I know that God is a man. I know because when he was thinking about how human beings would nourish their children, and considering the infinite options (infinite because he is God and if he decided that women would feed their children from bottle attachments that would sprout organically from their hands, then it would have happened), he decided, "oh I know, they shall feed their children from their nipples, and milk shall flow from them". Why not our feet? Arms? Foreheads? Any other part of our body besides one of the most sensitive parts?
To put this in perspective, if men were the ones who had to feed the children, it would be like making them feed them with their milk-filled penis (penii?). Ouch, right? RIGHT.
Sometimes V will take my boob and SHAKE IT BACK AND FORTH BETWEEN HER GUMS like a dog shakes its prey to break its spine. Basically she is trying to kill my boob, and she is succeeding. It's been 10 weeks now, and a truck could run over my boob, and it's possible that I would just scratch at it like an itch.
But that is not my point. My point is that I know that God is a man. I know because when he was thinking about how human beings would nourish their children, and considering the infinite options (infinite because he is God and if he decided that women would feed their children from bottle attachments that would sprout organically from their hands, then it would have happened), he decided, "oh I know, they shall feed their children from their nipples, and milk shall flow from them". Why not our feet? Arms? Foreheads? Any other part of our body besides one of the most sensitive parts?
To put this in perspective, if men were the ones who had to feed the children, it would be like making them feed them with their milk-filled penis (penii?). Ouch, right? RIGHT.
Sometimes V will take my boob and SHAKE IT BACK AND FORTH BETWEEN HER GUMS like a dog shakes its prey to break its spine. Basically she is trying to kill my boob, and she is succeeding. It's been 10 weeks now, and a truck could run over my boob, and it's possible that I would just scratch at it like an itch.
Friday, November 4, 2011
Hello from the dark side
I finally got my first comment on my blog. I was so surprised that I thought I hallucinated, but no, there it was.
What have I spent my days doing? Mostly, feeding, doing laundry, staring at the mirror at my naked self going OMFG, cleaning poo--the normal mom duties.
I only do about 4 things a day, so it is weird that I seem not to have time to do anything else. Those things are: feeding, pumping, changing diapers and doing laundry. But it's because I do them in endless 2 hour cycles. And it's a challenge to get whatever I need done in a 2 hour cycle, so that I can start the next 2 hour cycle on time. It reminds me of Battlestar Galactica, when the humans start jumping through space to escape the marauding cyclons. No matter where they jump, the cyclons are able to find them exactly 33 minutes later, so the humans live in 33 minute cycles for weeks, and look increasingly greasy and shitty because they can't sleep, eat, shower, etc. It's like V is a baby cylon, chasing me in these 2 hour cycles. When those 2 hours are up and there isn't something producing milk in her mouth, THE SHIT HITS THE FAN.
When I'm not doing those things, all I really want to do is watch tv or read a book. But then I remember that I'm supposed to play with my baby and read to her and talk to her and shit, so that she, like, develops. Sigh. So I read little baby books to her. Sometimes I read my books to her. So she's heard some Jane Eyre, Hunger Games, Sherlock Holmes, etc. Either way I'm pretty sure I sound like the teacher in Charlie Brown. "Mwa wa wa?" I sing to her too, but I've realized that I don't know any kids songs. I know Old MacDonald, but I don't know a lot of animals or their sounds. Under pressure, I said things like "giraffe" or "hippo", and then realized that I don't know what sounds they make. But it was so boring to limit myself to ducks and dogs and whatever. So now there are all sorts of shit on the farm, like rocks (which say "rock") and drug dealers (who say "pssst"). I also put V on the farm. She says "waahh" or "fart".
I've lately gotten my shit enough together to go for short trips outside. For ex, I've gone to TJ Maxx and Whole Foods for fun. That's right, a trip to TJ Maxx is a treat for me. The other day I got a pair of $35 boots of the highest quality pleather. Yeah parenthood!
What have I spent my days doing? Mostly, feeding, doing laundry, staring at the mirror at my naked self going OMFG, cleaning poo--the normal mom duties.
I only do about 4 things a day, so it is weird that I seem not to have time to do anything else. Those things are: feeding, pumping, changing diapers and doing laundry. But it's because I do them in endless 2 hour cycles. And it's a challenge to get whatever I need done in a 2 hour cycle, so that I can start the next 2 hour cycle on time. It reminds me of Battlestar Galactica, when the humans start jumping through space to escape the marauding cyclons. No matter where they jump, the cyclons are able to find them exactly 33 minutes later, so the humans live in 33 minute cycles for weeks, and look increasingly greasy and shitty because they can't sleep, eat, shower, etc. It's like V is a baby cylon, chasing me in these 2 hour cycles. When those 2 hours are up and there isn't something producing milk in her mouth, THE SHIT HITS THE FAN.
When I'm not doing those things, all I really want to do is watch tv or read a book. But then I remember that I'm supposed to play with my baby and read to her and talk to her and shit, so that she, like, develops. Sigh. So I read little baby books to her. Sometimes I read my books to her. So she's heard some Jane Eyre, Hunger Games, Sherlock Holmes, etc. Either way I'm pretty sure I sound like the teacher in Charlie Brown. "Mwa wa wa?" I sing to her too, but I've realized that I don't know any kids songs. I know Old MacDonald, but I don't know a lot of animals or their sounds. Under pressure, I said things like "giraffe" or "hippo", and then realized that I don't know what sounds they make. But it was so boring to limit myself to ducks and dogs and whatever. So now there are all sorts of shit on the farm, like rocks (which say "rock") and drug dealers (who say "pssst"). I also put V on the farm. She says "waahh" or "fart".
I've lately gotten my shit enough together to go for short trips outside. For ex, I've gone to TJ Maxx and Whole Foods for fun. That's right, a trip to TJ Maxx is a treat for me. The other day I got a pair of $35 boots of the highest quality pleather. Yeah parenthood!
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