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Tuesday, September 30, 2008

The Power of Christ compels thee!

We've emerged from the dark days of teething once again, and things are beginning to return to normal. Punky is now sporting her two "vampire fangs" (her upper lateral incisors for those of you too high and mighty to just call them fangs) with tear-drawing effectiveness, and is starting to warm up again to things once normal -- eating solids, happily playing with toys without writhing in agony, and sleeping through the night without waking up FIVE FUCKING TIMES. The dragon is gone, village people, it's okay to peep out of your hovels again... at least until the next round.

(As a sidenote, I don't understand why so many people frown upon the notion of using rum while the baby's teething. I drank damn near a handle of it during those two weeks and I felt just fine fine fine.)

One thing I noticed, though, is how bipolar Punk is during teething. She would alternate back and forth -- just about every two minutes -- between writhing, screaming in agony and thrashing and cooing, cuddling and snuggling. It was like the damn Exorcist. One minute: "FUCK YOUR MOTHER!!!" and the next? "Dami, why you do this to me Dami?"

A and I are very anti-religion and we even thought about calling a priest. Because after two weeks of angry teething possessed baby, and going through Baby Orajel, chew toys, wet wash rags, ice pops, Tylenol, warm baths, and did I mention all the alcohol?, to no avail, you're willing to try anything. I needed an old priest, and a young one. Let's go, padres, we got a teething baby to get under control, and mommy's offering blow jobs to get us there.

But we have survived, though I keep looking at teeth charts and refusing to believe we get to do this another...I don't even know? How many teeth are there? Like 30?... times. Punky looks dashing with her fangs (as we sing "Mommy's Little Monster" by Social Distortion to her ad nauseum), while Mommy has just realized she looks like a sallow, bloated man. It's amazing how once you start chasing a mobile infant around, you fail to actually look at yourself in the mirror. So I'm working on remedying that with a fresh dye job (accomplished yesterday) and a new hair cut (accomplishing tomorrow). And maybe I'll stop relying on multiple cases of Mountain Dew (no joke, ya'll, I go through a 24-pack a week) and watch my beautiful ivory complexion come back.

Who knows. I might just go crazy and get a 99 cent at-home facial kit from the Wal-Mart. Watch out for me, I'm gonna blow your mind!

Sunday, September 28, 2008

Stand in the place that you live.

Hatching a plan.


"Yes, this should work out quite nicely."


"Now is NOT time for pictures!"


"Check this shit out."


"Holy fucking shit, man!"

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Wipe out.

One thing NOBODY tells you about parenting: you never, ever, EVER clear your mind of the sound of your baby "thudding" on the hardwood floor as she takes a faceplant off your bed in slow motion before your very eyes. You never forget the sound she makes. You never forget that agonizing four hours it takes you to run in slow-motion over to her and that silence before you hear that hurt, pained scream -- which you will also never forget. And because you can't forget, you can also never forgive yourself for letting her tiny little self go catapulting over the edge.

I don't even know what happened. Punky and I had been laying together in bed while she breastfed, then she was crawling across the bed. I had hold of her around her calves, and it seems like in the blink of an eye, she lunged off the side of the bed at a remote on the bedside table (she loves remotes), and I didn't have a strong enough grip to combat 24 pounds feeling the force of gravity pulling her to the floor.

Everything goes into slow motion as my mind raced through all of these thoughts, in this order, in the course of about 1/100th of a second:

1.) OHMYGOD.
2.) Is she okay?
3.) Oh God that scream.
4.) She seems okay.
5.) Did A hear that? (A was in the bathroom getting ready for work.)
6.) Oh Jesus don't let A tell his mom.

Approximately two minutes later, Punky was quite pleased with her death-defying stunt, sitting on my lap smiling and laughing while I sat on the couch sobbing at my failure in parenting. And as a souvenir, she now has a tiny little bruise on her tiny little forehead, and I have a permanent movie playing and replaying in my head of her feet disappearing over the edge of the bed.

Momma called the doctor and the doctor said -- "No more Punky flying off the bed!"

Sunday, September 21, 2008

De ja vu.

One day while talking to my mom over coffee at my parents' kitchen table, shortly after Punky was born and only a few days after I had my IUD inserted, she said, "Well, I hope you don't regret your decision. I think having one beautiful child is definitely a gift, but I hope someday you don't decide you want anymore." My mom was (and still is, I think) convinced that the Mirena IUD was a form of sterilization. Because after all, she rationalized, that's why they prefer to only insert them in women who already have at least one child. So if you decide you want one, and now you can't, well at least you have this kid.

I had to explain to her that they prefer to insert IUDs into women with children because our cervices are all stretchy and used up after pushing a small Volkswagen out of our bagingo. Technology frightens my mother. Don't even get me started on her irrational fear of Netflix. But anyway.

Even if my mom's theory was correct (which, like her theory that Netflix is the devil's tool and her other crackpot conspiracies told by her god Rush Limbaugh *huge eyeroll*), I'm surprisingly okay with this. While I haven't made my mind up yet -- and I'm sure A's aching for a little boy, I saw the look of disappointment cross across his face ever-so-briefly at that fateful ultrasound where we saw a teeny tiny vagina -- I'm really okay with just one kid. Punky's beautiful and perfect. I had a remarkably uneventful pregnancy, an unremarkable delivery (besides the fact that it resulted in the Punky), and have a great kid. I don't feel the urge to tempt fate even more.

Some girls grow up with this innate urge, NEED, to be a wife and mom. I never had that. I never planned my perfect wedding in my mind -- which is probably why I did the quickie Vegas wedding which was perfect in regards to me and A. That, and I was knocked up and I didn't want to have a "real" wedding with everyone in the crowd staring at my baby bump and whispering, "So that's why they're getting married." (Even though it wasn't. We just kinda got ahead of schedule.) I've just never been wired that way. I was never of the small-town mindset that I *had* to marry my high school sweetheart (which I didn't) and that I *had* to pop out as many babies as possible while my reproductive organs were still up and running. I can respect women who want to expand their families. I'm just not in the mindset that I need to. I like where I'm at.

I mean, to be honest, I got the IUD so I could buy myself five more years before deciding to tie my tubes for good. (And maybe even salvage my career track.) That, and we've all seen how well I was doing on the NuvaRing.

So today I don't know if the magic fertility dust of Shaken Mama (whose blog you should read religiously and whose uterus you should send good, sticky, knocked-up vibes to) rubbed off or what, but I was sitting on the couch and I felt a bump in my stomach. Like something moved inside it. Maybe it was indigestion -- but it didn't hurt. It wasn't a pulsating feeling. It was just an occasional *bump bump bump*, just below my ribs on the left side. I just blew it off until I realized I knew that feeling. I remembered it. It was the same feeling as when Punky would kick around inside.

I doubt I'm pregnant again. I can't be. To FEEL a baby kicking? I didn't feel Punky kicking til I was probably 4-5 months pregnant. For me to be 4-5 months pregnant would require me to have gotten pregnant around April or May. And at that point I was still angrily thrashing away from anything even remotely phallic. Not to mention I still don't think I'd regained bladder control. And nothing says, "Hey, let's make a baby!" like, "Hold on, honey, these Depends are hard to get out of!"

Plus, I have an IUD. And am breastfeeding 4-5 times in a 24-hour period. I'd have to be the most fertile woman on the planet.

No. Just... no.

Saturday, September 20, 2008

Brain garbage.

There are a lot of judgments and statements I made in my assholish pre-child days that I wish I could suck back in my mouth and abolish from my head. Like, "WHY are they so slow with strollers?" and "Can't she just shut that kid up?" I've learned valuable lessons, karma has bitch-slapped me plenty of times, and I "get" it a lot more. Behind just about every tantrum-throwing kid in Target is a mortified mother who's doing her damnedest to just get out of the goddamn store ("Chips! I just need chips! And then we are DONE!"). Strollers are a whore to maneuver, especially in mall stores.

Before I had a child, I thought that perhaps normal, rational, maybe-even-really-cool human beings just instantly dropped their brains out with the placenta, because I hailed just about everyone with a child as idiots based on their public behaviors. After I had a child, I still regarded many of these people as idiots, but I rationalized that they must have just been fucking stupid before having kids, and having kids just exacerbated it. Because you know what, a lot of parents are fucking retarded. It is possible to go in public and see beyond your Speshul Snowflake and realize that the world is filled with people, still, despite the fact that you had a kid.

I get that. I still adamantly refuse to be "THAT" parent, shopping and sitting in the restaurant totally oblivious to the screaming child. (Note: I don't have a toddler. This whole rant will probably change in about two years.) I have become much more aware of parents with toddlers whose methods I respect and hail, and I smile approvingly at while taking mental notes.

But I think the real Parental Retardation kicks in when your child turns to television programming. Sometimes the only thing that works on Punk is to turn on Baby Einstein or Nick Jr. and just let her stand in her walker, mushy Cheerio's and sippy cup at her disposal. And JESUS FUCKING CHRIST the programming NUMBS MY FUCKING SKULL. Baby Einstein would be amazing if I could get high, but the rest just turns my brains to mush.

Today I was sitting and staring at The Backyardigans as Punky gleefully kicked and coo'ed, remembering when I was cool. I used to spend hours in coffee houses discussing political campaign strategy and dissecting campaign speeches. I used to use big words. I used to wear something slightly more put-together than Adidas gym pants and a Kappa Alpha philanthropy t-shirt. Now I sit here and wonder, "What's going to happen to Tyrone's tuba?"

This is why parents in public are retarded. Because children's programming, combined with MY LACK OF BENEFICIAL, BEAUTIFUL SLEEP eventually your brain turns to mush.

Blow job offer still stands.

Friday, September 19, 2008

An indecent proposal.

I will give a blow job to whomever can ensure me one, JUST ONE, night of deep, uninterrupted sleep. Maybe then I can stop storming through the house at 3 a.m. mumbling (okay, screaming), "Who in the big blue FUCK do I have to blow to sleep for four hours without being woken up?"

Be it a crying baby, the dog barking at the neighbor's dog, or my husband propositioning me just as I drift off to sleep, it feels like I haven't slept more than two consecutive hours at a time since my second trimester. Especially lately. In a play that will make any mother wince at my unfortunate lot, Punky is cutting not one, not two, not three, but FOUR teeth right now. Her two upper lateral incisors (the vampire fangs) have both cut through, and her central incisors feel like they will pop through any second. My poor little bunny.

If you've ever been around an infant for more than two hours, you know that any and all asshole behavior from a baby can be attributed to either colic or teething. I've never dealt with colic, but holy shit this kid's been unbearable since the teeth debacle. And I don't blame her. I feel absolutely horrible because she is fucking miserable. You name the teething remedy, I have done it. And still she spends 2/3 of her day sleeping, and the other third screaming, writhing, dropping drool everywhere, and chewing furiously on anything she can get her mouth on.

Add a fever and an ear infection -- which thanks to A's genetics, she's very prone to -- and it has been just an AWESOME three days.

But anyway. Blow jobs. Man or woman, I don't care. Kenyan night nurse. Whatever. One night. Just one night. And the fellatio is all yours. Hahaha, hehehe, haha, heeeeee...

Friday, September 12, 2008

Punky, Destroyer of Worlds

While there is an infinite number of things amazing about I Can Has Cheezburger, one of the most incredible and addictive is the LOLBuilder. It just results in me taking pictures like this and making them obscene:



A few points of interest in this picture:

1.) My child is evil.
2.) She had managed to pull her quilt into her crib from the chair next to the crib. And build a Punky Nest.
3.) I'm not particularly surprised she's evil.

But it's a cute evil, right?

Sunday, September 7, 2008

Getting strongerrrr...

Throughout the entirety of this post, it's imperative that you read it with the theme song from the Rocky movies in your head:
Boomp3.com

So as I mentioned last week -- complete with ketchup-laced YouTube video (which by the way, A and I eat ketchup on everything. That's like two months' worth of ketchup in our household) -- Punky is now crawling. And like the idiot first-time mom that I am, I assumed that she'd be content to crawl for a while. Maybe like, three years. Stupid, foolish first-time mommy. A mere six days after she learned to crawl, we spied her doing this:



And then she walked around the pop to this point:


Yes. She's officially begun "cruising." At six months, three weeks old. It kind of reminds me of trig class in high school. I didn't know what I was doing, I didn't know why I signed up for the class at all, and I didn't understand anything we were learning. Then I got a loose grasp on the Pythagorean Theorem, but before I even knew for sure if I totally understood it, we were doing advanced calculus.

Parenthood is a lot like that.

Either way... I'm so totally doomed.

Wednesday, September 3, 2008

You're gonna be a star, kid...

Would someone explain to me how exactly I was able to convince myself, in the sweet, quiet days of my idyllic pregnancy, that I was going to spawn a quiet, laid-back, placid, easy-going child? I mean, really. Where in the depths of my hormone-drunk mind did I think THAT was a possibility? It ranks up there with my Ronald-McDonald-red hair days and imbibing 21 shots of liquor on my 21st birthday on my list of "Things That Sounded Like They'd Be Totally Possible At The Time."

Basic math should have clued me in that my husband A and I -- both very opinionated, obstinate, aggressive personalities -- would spawn another hell raiser. When you combine things, they increase, not disperse.

That being said, it's amazing, at 6.5 months, how much Punky's personality is beginning to shine through. She's hard-headed and opinionated, spunky and outgoing. She finds something the wants, and she goes for it. When she has it, she keeps it. When she wants something, she lets it be known. I discovered she knew how to crawl when she started taking off after the dog. (Which is pretty similar to all those zombie movies, where the zombies are clearly more slow-moving than their victims, but somehow they still manage to catch up to the living and eat their brains.)

But don't let me be misunderstood. I have so much fun with her. She is smiley and giggles, she loves to cuddle up in the rocking chair or in bed with me, and pending there's nothing else she wants to pursue at the given moment, she's content to clutch on to my shirt, hook onto my hip, and go along for the ride.

So while A and I probably statistically CAN'T make a low-key child, I could think of worse things. Though I definitely fear the day she starts talking more than the day she starts walking. Mobile baby I can deal with. But baby spouting out anarchist rhetoric -- the world may not be ready for her out in mainstream just yet.

A million miles.

That's exactly how far Punky would crawl if left to her own resources, and possibly lured with ketchup.



(PS, ignore all the crap in the background, we'd just gotten home from grocery shopping.)

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

I'm one step away from patchouli.

This is what happens when women step out of the kitchen and drop the baby from their hip for five minutes -- they go on the Internet and read. READ!!! Horrible things about the preservatives and other crap in baby food that makes said Mommy totally paranoid. And so I hooked the baby back on my hip and wandered back into the kitchen.

I'm on this kick right now about trying to increase general family wellness and decrease needless spending, as well as my overwhelming paranoia about, "OMG WHAT IN THE HELL AM I UNKNOWINGLY SHOVING INTO MY KID'S BODY?" So I've decided that I am now going to make Punky's baby food rather than feeding her any more preservative- and filler-ridden store-bought baby food.

It's actually been a fun experience, and considering I am a woman who hates to cook, that is saying a lot. I started with summer squash, which she actually really enjoyed (although it warmed up really watery -- I added some rice cereal), and have since made my own banana baby food and sweet potato-squash combo.

So here's how it went, in a nutshell:

Started by baking the sweet potato at 410 degrees for about 45 minutes (or whenever I finally remembered, "Oh shit, there's a sweet potato in the oven.")



Mmm, sweet potatoey goodness...


Pureed into an appetizing blend of sweet potatoes and a few cubes of squash from my adventures the night before:



Scooped into ice cube trays and stuck in the freezer (that's a tray of bananas as well)...



Behold!!! Frozen sweet potato cubes, frozen in all their natural goodness!



Our freezer is now a colorful collage of oranges and yellows and greens. I may be a total hippie mom, but this is something I'm able to trust putting into my kid's tummy. I mean, I get it, the preservatives probably aren't BAD for her -- they wouldn't put the stuff on the market if it was seriously bad. But it can't be GOOD either. And if I can control her intake of that, and prevent her from taking in unnecessary crap into her tiny little body... well, damnit, I'm going to.

Plus ICE CUBES!!! Made of STUFF!!! Tell me it isn't cute as all get out.