Owen Wednesday #20: Just Another Day at the Office Edition

I recently pulled Mia's old exersaucer out of the basement and scrubbed all the old baby puke off of it and turned it over to Owen. And man, second only to lactation that is clearly the best thing I have ever done for him. He works his way through the toys like a high-powered executive muscling through his to-do list and occasionally barking at a secretary who is too slow at wiping the pools of drool off of his chin. Ok, so the comparison breaks down a bit, I admit.

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Results from yesterday:

1) True. College. Vodka shots. Just thinking about it still gives me a headache.
2) False. I've never had sex in a car.
3) Yes and no. Here's my tramp stamp:

In case you can't tell from that fabulous picture, it's a birthmark right where a tramp stamp would go. So sure, you may have chosen the "trampy" tat, but I was born that way. This is very visible in person, but barely shows up in photographs. Someone cue the creepy music. And don't get upset that I posted a picture of my ass on the internet - I know it looks like I should have cropped a bit more carefully, but I promise it is a trick of the light. It's low, but not that low.

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Finally, Mia wants all of you to have a kick-ass holiday weekend. At least, she would want that if her Mommy allowed her to say things like "kick-ass."

We leave for the beach on Saturday. 2 kids + 1 week at the beach = 6 different kinds of diapers. Lovely.

Game time

One of the following statements is true. One of the following statements is false. One of the following statements is both true and false, depending on how you look at it. Your job is to guess which is which and then vote. Why? Because I like voting. And here we go!

1. I've only passed out drunk once in my life. On a bathroom floor.

2. I lost my virginity in the back of a station wagon.

3. I have a tramp stamp.

Handy Tip from Beth

You know how you sometimes see those local news stories about how an astronomical percentage of car seats are installed incorrectly? I always thought there must be a whole lot of idiots around who can't figure out how to latch a couple of belts. But I just finished installing Mia's old car seat for Owen and found that for two entire years that Mia rode around in that thing it was installed incorrectly. So boo on us for not reading the directions more closely, but dammit, I had that thing inspected twice and it passed with flying colors both times. So, and you never though you would hear me say this but, boo on firemen too.

Anyway, you may all already know this, but when you are installing a car seat and applying all the muscle available in your girly little arms to try to get the straps tight and cursing up a storm and finally just saying well fuck feminism and calling your husband to do it, try sitting in the car seat and then pulling. Works like a charm. At least it does if your ass is as fat as my ass.

Also, golly gee willakers

Well heavens to Betsy, I think this is the first time I've sat down with five minutes to myself since Thursday. Please note that I have gotten roughly eight hours of sleep total over the past week, which may lead to being totally incomprehensible and also to throwing out exclamatory statements last in vogue a century ago. Let's catch up, shall we?

On Friday, my mom and I took the kids to a local farm to see the animals. Except that it was hotter than hell so we let Mia wander around for a few minutes and then bribed her with a popsicle so we could all go sit in the shade. We soon retreated to Target where my mom allowed Mia to choose any toy she wanted for herself, which is how I came to share my house with a really horrifying animatronic baby doll, since named Polly. (Hey, Firefox spell check doesn't recognize "animatronic." Seriously, spell check. It also wants me to capitalize "popsicle." I think spell check is fucking with me.)

Before we bolted the farm, however, I ran into an old friend who I haven't seen or spoken to in a year or so. It used to be that when a year passed you would catch up by finding out who had changed jobs or gotten a new girlfriend. But not it's more "hey, good to see you, and oh, I spawned again." Weird.

After Target, my mom watched the kids (I know, she's the best) while I went on a lightning round shopping expedition to find a bathing suit for the beach and some clothes for my bottom half that I wasn't too embarrassed to wear in public. And I am nearly impossible to embarrass, especially when it comes to anything to do with fashion because I just don't care, so the fact that I hated leaving the house in anything I owned is just an indication that literally every pair of summery pants or shorts in my possession had large holes, usually concentrated in the ass area.

Shopping is a very different experience after the kids arrive. I used to be very picky, sometimes even leaving something I liked in the store and going back to visit it again wearing different shoes. But on Friday, I just hauled piles of clothes into the fitting room and if I could button it, I bought it. Tried it all on again at home and lots of it is going back, but I ended up with two pairs of shorts and two pairs of capris, and frankly that is more than I need since we all know I will wear the same pair of pants continuously until somebody pukes on them. ("Capris" is also beyond the scope of my spell check. Am beginning to think my spell check needs an intervention.)

I did find a bathing suit. It has a skirt. I am officially unredeemably uncool now, aren't I?

Saturday disappeared into that time-sucking void that opens in the middle of your living room when you reproduce, lots of laundry and a trip to the pool, as I recall.

Then yesterday, my mom took me to see Mamma Mia (the stage show, not the imminent movie) (told you Mom's the best) and left both children in care of my husband for five hours. And nobody died. Nobody was even crying when I got home (I knew the kids would be fine, but half expected to find Chris in tears). It is so much nicer to come home and hear that everything was fine than to hear that Owen screamed for three hours straight. The show was lots of fun, but reawakened the part of me that has always wanted to do that. What? You didn't know that in my heart of hearts I really want to be singing and dancing in front of a couple thousand people? It seems a little silly to still be considering that as a possible career move as a 33 year old mother of two, but there it is.

And huh, yup, it seems that I am even boring myself here, so let's wrap up and I will explain later why there is no Mia Monday today, or last week, or next week, or anymore. Well, here's the short version: my little girl, she is growing up.

And, um, whatever. Kisses.

Brilliant!

Here is how I am going to get rich. I am going to start a company to provide Night Nannies to new moms. These will be lovely and charming women (who are also fatter and have worse hair than you, because who needs that sort of pressure?) who come to your house at midnight and care for your baby for a few hours. Like, when the baby starts screaming his head off 20 minutes after you fall asleep, your Night Nanny will go get him and say, in a gentle and loving voice, "Now now, dear, your poor mother just spent an hour nursing you and you cannot possibly be hungry, so let's just sneak away quietly and let that dear woman get a little sleep." And then Night Nanny will take said baby to the corner of your house furthest from your bedroom so you can't hear him fussing and you will get a couple of hours of uninterrupted sleep and suddenly there will be flowers and bluebirds and food will once again have taste and you won't have to lie in bed weeping from exhaustion at 2 AM begging the baby to please for the love of all that is holy go the fuck to sleep already. Not that I would know anything about that last one. No.

But brilliant, yes? And I'll make a killing, because right now I would happily sign over the deed to my house in exchange for two consecutive hours of sleep. (Not much sacrifice, really, since the bank owns more of the house than I do, but you get my point.)

On a related note, does anybody have any idea how to transition an, oh let's say four-month-old baby from sleeping swaddled to sleeping un-swaddled? Poor sweet Owen currently can't sleep either way. When he's swaddled, he wakes up all pissed off that he can't move his chubby, fat-dimpled little arms, and when he isn't swaddled he wakes himself up by jamming eight fat little fingers straight up his nose.

Owen Wednesday #19: Baby Got Back Edition

Things pissing me off

(What, you want content? Try another website, my friend, because you are barking up absolutely the wrong tree here.)

Anyway, things pissing me off right this very minute:

• The t key on my keyboard which only generates a t every third or so time that I hit it. Coming soon, the only blog in the internet entirely devoid of ts.

• My children. Yes, I love them more than my very life, more than air, more than chocolate, more than wine, but would it really kill anybody to cut mommy just the tiniest bit of slack once in a while? Why yes, apparently it would.

• My stomach. I am going to be at the beach in 11 days and my stomach is unfit for anything other than a caftan. Do they make swim caftans? Meanwhile, I am eating my weight in Hershey's Kisses while I type this. What? The t thing really stresses me out.

• Ditto my ass.

• Mia's gastroenterologist. Is that how you spell gastroenterologist? Who cares. Mia had more blood work done because two levels were low the first time, so last week the nurse called me and we had this conversation.

  Nurse: Well, this one thing is normal.
  Beth: That's good, how about the other thing?
  Nurse: What other thing?
  Beth: The other thing from last time?
  Nurse: Oh yeah, that's low too. Lower than last time, actually.
  Beth: Ok.
  Nurse: Ok.
  Beth: And what might that mean, exactly?
  Nurse: I don't know.
  Beth: You don't know?
  Nurse: I don't know.
  Beth: You are calling me with test results and you are unable to give me any inkling as to what the significance of those test results might be?
  Nurse: Well, there's a lab slip in here. I guess they are going to mail you a lab slip?
  Beth: I'm going to need a little more to go on here.
  Nurse: I'll have someone else call you.
  Beth: You think?

  So then the someone else calls, and we have this conversation:

  Someone Else: See, if it is too high it can be a sign of this problem. But it isn't too high, so that's good.
  Beth: But it is too low, right?
  Someone Else: Yes.
  Beth: And that means?
  Someone Else: Probably nothing.
  Beth: But it was too low the first time, and you decided to retest it.
  Someone Else: Yes.
  Beth: So there must be some significance, otherwise why bother with the second test?
  Someone Else: Um.
  Beth: So what I would like to know is, if it isn't nothing, what might it be?
  Someone Else: Well...
  Beth: Well?
  Someone Else: I'll just fax these labs to your pediatrician.
  Beth: So you don't know?
  Someone Else: I don't know.
  Beth: Fabulous.

• Our trash collection company. And I mean, I am in an absolute feud with the trash collection company. Good thing I live in the suburbs, because if I lived somewhere with mafia-controlled trash collection I would have had a cap in my ass weeks ago. (Is that even correct usage? I am so not up on my organized crime lingo these days.)

• I hurt my back on Saturday and can still barely stand upright. When did I get this old?

• My hair has started falling out in clumps, welcome to four months post-partum, but the grey ones never fall out.

• There is not a single brownie in this entire house. I checked. Also, no wine. Not that I would drink the wine now, understand, but it can be comforting to know that it is available for later, should the need arise.

• I went outside for five minutes and have 26 mosquito bites. Mosquitoes look at me and see one of those all you can eat 24-hour Vegas buffets. One is on my forehead. That's hott.

• The mailman. See, I live at 123 Rosebush Lane. There is a nearby house with the address 123 Rosebud Avenue. I frequently receive mail for the lovely people at 123 Rosebud Avenue, which I immediately return to my mailbox, sometimes with a helpful note regarding it's misdirection, so that it can be correctly delivered to my neighbors in a timely fashion. The mailman invariably takes this mail away and then returns it to my mailbox a day later. This is likely not really my personal mailman's fault, but he is the most visible representative of the vast, faceless mail delivery cabal, and therefore the recipient of my ire.