Caption this

"Crawling is overrated. I quit."

"You are the one I want, Playmat. You are my love. Forget Donkey, forget Pat the bunny, and all the rest. There is only you. Let me cover you with my sweet kisses."

"Exhausted from bearing the weight of her giant head, the child set her burden down and rested."

The night before labor/delivery

I went to get my haircut for the first time since August P.V. (pre-Violet) yesterday, and talking with my haircutter/dresser/stylist reminded me of the night before I delivered and how contrary it was to my expectations.

I was admitted around 7 or 8 pm, and by the time I was actually put in a room, it was around 10 pm. The lights were nicely dimmed, the bed had the blankets turned down, and the only thing missing were candles and chocolate on the pillow. I was ready to settle in! Then my doctor came in and said, "we'll start your pitocin (magic stuff that accelerates contractions) now." "Now?" I said. "We're not going to wait till morning?" I am not sure what I expected, but I guess I thought this was like a hotel, for a work trip, where I would typically get in on the last flight of the night, go to sleep on a nice fluffy bed and start work the next morning. What's the rush? I got an "Um, no" in response, AKA "where do you think you are, a hotel? This is a hospital stupid."

I got in bed, and they stuck me with a needle the size of a watering hose, through which lots of stuff in bags dripped into me. They also slapped on the fetal monitors, which are basically two little discs that they wrap around your stomach to monitor heartrate, and the blood pressure cuff. After the nurse tightened the last strap, she said, "Everything ok?" I said, "Yes, great. Can I go to the bathroom now? Wait, do I have to bring all this shit with me?"

Note: Try to go to the bathroom before they tie everything on you, or else you will need to be helped out of bed and wheel half of the room machinery into the bathroom with you.

I settled back into my bed, and I noticed the blood pressure cuff tightening by itself. Ah, automated cuff, how sweet. It got tighter, and tighter, AND TIGHTER ANDTIGHTERANDTIGHTERANDTIGHTER. "WTF IS THIS!!!???" My sister, Dr. anesthesiologist, said, "yeah, that will happen every 15 minutes or so to make sure your pressure is ok". OK, wonderful, thanks for checking little cuff, but there is no reason why you have to squeeze that tight. It sort of feels like someone is slowly closing a car door on your hand, and they press it harder and harder and harder, until the door clicks shuts. On your hand. Totally unnecessary.

There was also a lot of beeping from the various machines that were attached to me. Why, who knows, because it's not like they could be heard by the nurses on call, who were monitoring from outside of my room. Only I could hear them. At 3 am. While I was lying in the dark trying to prepare for a human to rip out of my body.

Then the nurse came in to check on stuff at regular intervals. Checking on what exactly? I don't know. Maybe she was just walking in and out of my room for the hell of it. "Does your monitor say what I see that it says on monitor outside? Yes. Good. See you again in 30 minutes."

I think I fell asleep a little after 3 AM, and woke up around 6 AM, because Hurricane Irene was being a real loud bitch outside. Then all of a sudden, it was 9 AM, and time to have the baby. I got the "last chance to review your purchase before you place your online order" feeling, and the rest is history.

Drinking

I bought a bottle of wine in preparation for the Mad Men premiere on Sunday. Before la bebe, I used to drink, like, a lot. I would drink along with Don Draper, as in, whenever he had a drink on the show, I poured myself a drink, team spirit and all that, and I would end up crazy drunk by the end. Usually I had no memory of what happened that episode, so I would have to rewatch it before watching the next week's episode so that I would have a clue as to what was going on. So I have basically watched all existing episodes of Mad Men twice. Then the freaking show goes on a hiatus for over one year, during which time I forget everything again. Damn it all.

Any hoo, once I got pregs I didn't want to drink and the urge never really came back (covered infra). I cracked the bottle open today, just to have a glass, and WHOO I am near drunk off of one glass. Actually after the first sip my esophagus and stomach felt all nice and fiery. Ah, memories of high school when I first got drunk! I actually didn't know what was going on. I was at Daewon (Palisadium, in Pal Park NJ) with a group of older FOBs from my high school that I never ever hung out with before. I only knew one of them, and he had convinced me to come out with them that night. Stupidly I said yes. At the restaurant, the FOBs ordered soju, which they seemed to drink all the time. Not realizing how strong it was, I had three shots and I was drunk out of my mind. One of the FOBs I didn't know had to drive me home, and the only thing he said to me the whole night was, "don't throw up in my car." So I didn't. I got home, to be met by my mom at the door. "Oh you look pale," she said. "Yeah, I think I'm sick," I said. I wobbled up to my room and laid in bed and drunk dialed the guy I wanted to go out with. Winner!

Mormon women blogs

Have you seen these? If you google the phrase, I'm sure you'll find them. The blogs are written by these young, thin, stylish looking women with adorable, pink cheeked children and anthropologie-styled houses. They take fantastic pictures and write heartwarming things. They also happen to be Mormon.

*FYI my only exposure to Mormonism comes from: (1) the really nice but naive Mormon guy who was briefly in my law school study group, who referred to "The Heavenly Father" like I refer to my mom or dad, the mailman, the dood across the street, etc.; (2) Big Love (I cried during the finale and felt like I actually lost something--I heart you, Bill Henricksen); and (3) The Book of Mormon, the musical. In sum, I don't know much about it, it seems kinda weird, but the people seem nice.

An excerpt taken from one of these blogs:

hope your weekend was beautiful!

we stayed around the house for most of the weekend. josh made us a delicious brussel sprout and pancetta dish. some darling teeny tiny hunter boots arrived for miss eleanor (i couldn't help myself from ordering them since they were so marked down on gilt the other week). we went to church meetings on sunday (and saturday! hello stake conference) and took a long peaceful nap together as a family on sunday afternoon. josh and i stayed up late one night just talking. it's been a while since we've done that. and i don't think it's possible to count how many books little lady eleanor read.

josh and i also saw jim gaffigan's show over the weekend. i had gotten tickets for josh's christmas stocking back in early december so we had been anxiously awaiting february 24th for a long time! we really love that guy. but what's not to love when he's cracking jokes all night about raising babies, big families, hating the gym, taking 6,000 pictures a day of your life and then spends 30 minutes straight just on the topic of mcdonalds alone? a comedian right up our alley. ;) i mean, you've seen this, right? so good.



Hello, perfect life. My weekend is never like that. It's more like this:

As per usual, Jonker worked on saturday, so I spent the day with V careening around the park in our stroller trying to speed-walk the baby weight away. Our route deliberately goes right by the bathroom, so that I can go pee in there, and not leak in my shorts. Ah, the wonder of having carried a great weight upon my special lady parts for far too long--stress incontinence! I made dinner and Jonker and I sat in front of the television watching Gold Rush on Discovery channel, which is about a bunch of guys who are trying to mine for gold in Alaska. We had a conversation: he said, "These guys are f*cking idiots." And I said, "yeah." Then we went to sleep. Or he went to sleep, and I took a series of naps, courtesy of V.

On Sunday we trudged to his dad's church, where his dad preached in Korean words that I cannot understand, and I wondered what food they were going to serve after the service and whether it was going to be good. That is about as much of a live show that we ever get to see nowadays. My favorite performer, Eddie Izzard (British cross dressing comedian), hasn't had a show in NYC for a few years, but I can't wait to see him trot across the stage in his ruby corset and knee high boots once more. One day, I hope. One day.

Losing weight

Losing baby weight is hard. I lost 12 or so pounds right away after I gave birth. That left 20 (TWENTY!) pounds that I had put on in the past 9 months that I still had to lose. And that did not include the 30 additional pounds I've been carrying since 2007 (also known as the year in which the firm completely claimed my life and soul).

But I refuse to be a fat mom. Fat moms make me sad. They pant after their children. After a while, they just give up and sit down on their fat asses and watch their children run amok. They buy clothes that are supposed to slenderize but really only magnify the fact that they are fat, they know they are fat, they bought clothes to look less fat, and their efforts were futile.

But losing post partum weight is really freaking hard. I'm sure it doesn't help that I am in my thirties and no longer a nimble youth. Teen mom I am not. And post partum hormones may have something to do with it too. All this means I have to work at it like a m*therf*cker, and me no like!

I've been speed walking in Central Park with V, like from 107th St to 63rd St, and back for months, and I dropped like, a pound. What the FREAK is that about. I bought a jogging stroller, thinking jogging is just like speed walking but faster, but I was wrong. I hate jogging. I haven't jogged for over 10 years, and I had forgotten how much I hate it. The tightening in my lungs, in my legs, can't get enough air, throat burns, need to stop! Ah nice, I have jogged a whole 4 blocks.

I'm now back on the South Beach diet, which worked for me in 2005, and using a weight loss app to track everything I eat. The app wants me to eat 1200 calories a day. One walnut is like 50 calories. Let me nibble on thee, tiny walnut. Le sigh. There is an abundance of salads in my diet. Of course, I eat salads out of the bowl on the left, instead of like the normal sized ones on the right.

Yeah, that's a mixing bowl. You can't expect me to survive on a handful of grass.

Continuous sleep is but a fantasy

V typically wakes up twice during the night. Some babies sleep straight through the night. Not this one! There is no particular time she will wake up; I think she just guesses when I might be in my deepest sleep and decides that is a good time. Last night I went to bed at 12:05 am, which is exactly the time that V woke up. She started whimpering, so I gave her a mini-bottle. She usually knocks out after that, but last night was a special night, because she babbled, played with her hands, and then CRIED and SCREAMED till 2 AM. Then she fell asleep only to wake up crying at 5:30 AM. While I was giving her another mini-bottle, I noticed she had crapped her pants. UGH. Cue me, trudging through the apartment to find a diaper, wipes, etc. I changed her and she continued to cry till, what, 6:30 AM? My memory is hazy. Then she woke up at 8:45 AM AS CHIPPER AS A LITTLE BIRD. And no bags under her eyes, nothing. What is that? Meanwhile I looked like a zombie that had been kicked repeatedly in the head. At least I know why I sleep with two pillows, one to put under my head and one to clamp over my ears.

Being a baby is super fun!

Being a parent

Now that I am responsible for a tiny, squishy life, I have been thinking of what kind of parent I'm going to be. I know I don't want to be like my parents, who basically kept me locked up in the house until I broke out to do stupid things just because I finally had the opportunity. I don't want to be like jonker's parents, who were the opposite and let jonker do everything, which he did just because he could. So this is going to be new territory. My problem is that I'm not the most mature person, or reasonable person, and I very well might end up advising my kindergartener to do things like hit whoever is being mean to her. Ugh I'm going to have to read some books and stuff on parenting. It doesn't take a village to raise a child; it just takes Google.

One thing I have decided that I definitely won't do is to say, "Well if everyone were to jump off a cliff, would you?" Because let's think about that. If everyone you knew -- your family, your friends, your work colleagues, your schoolmates, your neighbors, the cops in your town, the church folk, your dog/cat/hamster -- zipped past you at full speed towards a cliff, I think you would think twice about standing still and saying, "nope, not gonna run just because the rest of the world is." Your natural reaction, and the most logical reaction, would be to say, "holy shit, why are they all running? Should I run too? Holy shit I'm running too." If there is a reason that the rest of the world is jumping off a cliff, you will most likely want to jump before you can find out what that is.

Argh

I can't help myself. I keep making headbands.

I am going to overdose. I can take one or two headbands, but ten, twelve of these? Who can handle all of this cuteness?

The things they make for babies

I got these as part of a gift from my work peeps. Crocheted baby shoes.

What I'd prefer however are baby shoes made out of rainbows and elfin hair. Maybe I'll find them on etsy.

Twilight: Eclipse

I finally watched this movie for the first time last night. Oh so bad. So so bad. I think the nerve endings in Kristen Stewart's face must have all died. How else can it remain so slack all the time? I can imagine the director saying, "Kristen! Show no emotion! NO EMOTION EVER!" And she nailed it.

But at least I made this while I waited for it to end:

I can't stop making headbands. Please someone take this glue gun away.

I hate yams

I have changed 3 poo diapers in the last two hours. Please stop.

It's yam poo. I fed the child one ounce of yams yesterday, and she is now expelling it with the angry ass power of a thousand suns. It seriously smells like a human body died and rotted in her diaper. I am covered in hand sanitizer and am wondering how much a hazmat suit would cost, and could I get one off of amazon?

2 minutes later...

Yes, amazon does sell hazmat suits. How could I doubt this? But perhaps even better is this gas mask which is $20, and 80% off retail price. According to the product description, this is "the gas mask issued to Israeli civilians when threatened with chemical attack by Saddam's Iraq. It has full NBC (neuclear, biological, chemical) protection, and comes with one sealed filter. Mask is new, unissued cond. and has hydration port (comes with drinking straw but not canteen cap)". Perfect.

I'm excited

because my bid is still the top (and only) bid for the Leapfrog Learn & Groove Musical Activity Table on eBay. It plays songs in English and Espanol!

WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO MY LIFE?

Our wine thing

I haven't used our wine thing in so long that I forget what it's called. Wine holder? Wine closet? Ugh I forget. Anyway I used to drink wine, a lot of it. Like, in such amounts that I personally could have funded a small winery. I used to worry about getting pregnant, whether I would be able to stop drinking cold or whether my child would have a touch of fetal alcohol syndrome. Turns out I didn't have to worry about it -- being pregnant made alcohol taste ad. And even now it still tastes a little weird, and the few times I've had a bunch of drinks, my child made me pay for it very early the next morning. (Tangent: totally worst thing for a raging hangover? Crying baby.)

So now instead of wine, our wine thing holds books for and/or about babies:

Wackadoo

The photos I like most are the ones that are kind of weird.

Like this duckface one:

Just before I snapped this shot, V was looking down at jonker, and it was going to be a nice, sweet father/daughter moment. At the last second she turned her head and made it unexpectedly hilarious:

Or this one where she's flexing her feet: