kiddo-based converstations

I have them. Even when I don't want to. I mean, in my heart, I am very excited that M now has six teeth and is taking a few steps at a time. But also in my heart, I know NO ONE REALLY GIVES A SHIT. Only the child's parents (or grandparents) actually care about mostly boring developmental milestones. But a co-worker or friend asks me, "How is Molly doing?" And suddenly I find myself divulging information about her runny nose or bowel movements. If she were aware I was talking about her that way, I'm sure she'd be mortified. And honestly, how is that even appropriate?

It happens though. All. The. Time. You ask someone about their kid, because, well, it's polite. (?) But no one really wants to know the answer. Barring major illness/injuries--the kind that have YOU stressed--I don't really care if they have the sniffles or are constipated. And unless they just memorized the fucking preamble to the US Constitution, don't waste precious seconds of our adult-together-time to tell me the latest word your mostly-normal developing and completely average child learned. Because it's probably boring. Like "dog," or "more."

Exceptions to this rule: when something is genuinely funny, like:
"My kid just pointed to the freestanding clock in the middle of a busy street and shouted, Look, daddy! a big cock!"
or
when your four year old daughter says something like "Why did the duck cross the road with only underwear and no top on?.. To get to the sexy cow" at a formal family dinner (quote Americanized).

Both of the above are real, documented, and most importantly, acceptable kiddo-based conversations. Don't get me wrong, I participate in unacceptable, boring, and time-wasting kiddo-based conversations all the time. Almost daily. Worse, I contribute to them. And everytime I do, the running commentary in the sides of my brain is stinging my scalp with alarms like WHY ARE WE TALKING ABOUT THIS. This is one of the few precious times I have with adults near in age and life experience to me, and we are choosing to talk about POINTLESS BODILY FUNCTIONS?? Below is a list of topics so much more worth our time:

• What the EU summit is going to do about Europe's shitty economic situation.
• The fact that tens of thousands of Egyptions gathered in protest of their own government a few days ago, something impossibly only twelve months ago.
• How football players were allowed to tweet during last week's pro-bowl game, alleviating the boredom of watching a game that involves very little aggression. I mean, why else do we watch football?
• Art + booze. Always a winner.
• Art OR booze.
• Why anyone would spend days and days filming a mountain of batshit:

But we never talk about those things, do we? Probably because I'm wrestling a 28lb human in my arms trying to launch herself across the room to get to the something shiny in the corner. Hard to ignore the most obvious topic of converstion. Next time I talk to you, I will probably tell you about M's headbutting me in her sleep. Or how she and the dog have become inseparable.

womp-womp.

reflections part 2: boobies apologist

How awesome are these things? AWESOME.  I've always loved my breasts, except when they first came in and I started panicking that my left one was a little bigger than the right and oh god was I ever going to even out and I'M DISFIGURED. My wise, venerable mother gently and knowingly told me I was normal. (....though I have since begin to question that pronouncement.) Having my normality reconfirmed, I began to love my boobies. For the longest time, I was extra proud of my left boob. Lefty had done a swell job of going the extra mile and being just a little bit plumper and luscious. But they both were FANTASTIC. Breasts are soft and cuddly and warm and sexy and POWERFUL and totally make up for the fact that having boobs means you most likely are a woman and thus deal with an less-than-pleasant outpouring of blood and tissue from your body each month.

Pretty sure gay men are the most deprived people in the world. They are the only group that doesn't (presumably) get boobie access with regular frequency. Hetero dudes get their gf's/wife's/lover's/second wife's (Arrrrrrizonaaaaa)/FWB's titties, and women--straight--get their own. Lezzies get their own AND their partner's. Damn. Now that's just the tits.

Anyway, having a baby makes your boobs like 1,000x better. (What? Es posible???) yes. yes and double yes. Breastmilk is about the most ingenius thing ever invented. You get this kid out of you that's been in safe-harbor for the last 40+ weeks and then you're like "Ohhhh shit. The world is big and hostile and you're so tiny and helpless. I really wish there was this built-in, no hassle, no worries way to make sure you got properly nutriented while simultaneously promoting feelings of security and wellbeing in this hostile environment." And then the lactation consultant barges in your hospital recovery room and whips out your already perfect boobie and starts mashing it (yes. this CLC lady really did this to me.) and being like "Tada. Your wish has been granted."

Things I've learned about breastmilk, only SINCE having Molly:

-there's foremilk and hindmilk. Foremilk is watery and quenches thirst and comes beFORE the hind milk. Hindmilk is thicker and creates fullness and tells baby it's time to stop eating.

-before foremilk is colostrum, which is super rich in nutrients and eases the transition into the harsh extra-utero life. It's also a laxative and gets out all that disgusting tarry black shit called meconium that's been in your kid's digestive tract and bowels when he was on the inside and swallowing his own pee in his little amniotic sack-home (THIS MEANS YES, YOU TOO ALSO SWALLOWED YOUR OWN PEE) so he can poop normally. And we all know how awesome a good poo feels.

-the little bumps on your areola that show up when you get cold are called Montgomery Glands and do AWESOME shit, including act as a little homing device for less-than-one-hour-old newborns to be able to find their way to the nipple.

-Boobies exemplify the perfect balance of a concept I struggled to understand in high school economics: supply and demand. Baby wants more, baby sucks more, boobies make more, baby gets more. Less, less, less, etc. In-fucking-genius.

-they can do this:

Photo of “Abundance” Fountain in Piazza Maggiore, Bologna, Italy. Courtesy of Flikr, by Gio.o.

-and so much more. The World Health Organization LOVES titties. 

The real question is: why don't we learn any of this super amazing stuff in school? Who the fuck cares about dissecting a worm. Wouldn't it be more useful (AND INTERESTING, especially for high school students whose hormones are all over the fucking place) to know what to expect from your body (or your future partner's, or someone's you know) should you end up with or near or peripherally involved with babies at some point in future?  Maybe I'm way off on the educational system comment here, but I'm pretty sure if you watlked into an 11th grade biology or health classroom and said, "Today, class, we're going to talk about titties," you'd have their full attention for the whole 50 minutes.

Also, if you work all day and have to pump for your little one back at home and put your milk in bags, the bags-o-milk are great temporary hand-warmers for those of us with poor circulation and perpetually cold hands.

reflections PART 1 (beware, my f-bombs begin with this entry)

New Years Resolutions blow. Let's all be honest with ourselves; how long do they last, best case scenario? February? I was born in February, and year after year, my birthday would come around and I would be watching all the adults around me curse their poor self-discipline for having already failed, which really put a damper on my bday parties, man. I'm this doe-y eyed four year old trying to enjoy the quarter-slot mechanical slow rocking plastic kid-sized horse that I just got slapped up onto at Pistol Pete's Pizza (the BEST place to have a birthday party in Lubbock in 1989), and all around me adults are grumbling self-deprecatingly about how much they suck at keeping their promises to themselves. Seriously screws with your ability to enjoy riding the plastic horsey in joyful childhool oblivion. The lesson I learned through these birthday-ruining resolutions? Fuck 'em.

Instead I'll go in for reflections. Mostly about the past year. My kiddo turns one in like 5 weeks (I just had a heart attack typing that) and I think I'm now able to look back and laugh on all the stupid shit I did/didn't do/learned/forgot/failed at within the past twelve months. Hell, probably futher back too.

Today's topic is co-sleeping.

I heart co-sleeping. Mostly because I'm poor and hate clutter. I had a crib, but I never used it, so it was clutter. Maybe if I were rich enough to live in a two bedroom place I'd send Molly on over to her own room, but I'm poor. So co-sleeping = great solution.

Co-sleeping is apparently very controversial.

When you first have a kid you get sucked into this kind of vacuum. I’m told it’s hormones and brain chemistry or some shit, but for the first few weeks, nothing exists for you outside of your little limp sack of rags that endears you to itself with its complete and utter helplessness. So here I am at home for three months straight, living with my newborn and my elderly parents and having a severely constricted social circle, and I get involved in a lot of facebook groups about mommy-ness (dear lord those bitches be crazy).  

I am totally one of those crazies. I want to have a chicken coop in my back yard and eat fresh eggs and kill my own chickens and grow my own vegetables and other hippie bullshit. The closest I have gotten is having a clothesline. I’m working on the old man to let us have a compost pile, but that will be a stretch. So yeah, I’m one of those psycho moms that don't let their kids drink cow's milk, and naturally the facebook groups I joined were all about that shit: co-sleeping, breastfeeding support, natural/drug-free/home birthing, blah bitty hemp-wearing stuff. Anyway, while MOST of the comments and posts were all supportive and lovey at each other, occasionally there'd be a random idiot follower who'd ignorantly question our clearly superior theories of parenting like a dipshit. "Breastfeeding in public is sexually explicit and all women doing it should be shunned. It just isn't natural." Uneducated fuckwits would sometimes post similar BS about co-sleeping.

But it's not just on facebook. Co-sleeping, or the practice of sleeping in the same bed as one's child instead of shoving them into a crib nearby or in another room, recently got a whole bunch of attacks for DANGER due to some controversial ad and the media fall out that circulated in Milwaukee. (I am pretty sure my comedian friend Lauren Vino could have a field day with this). Needless to say, M and I don't sleep with knives. I suppose if it ever did become an issue, I could utilize her predilection for dog-crate-play-pen to instate a make-shift crib. (don't worry, that cord is actually BEHIND the crate and thus out of her reach. Yes, I'm a fantastic parent).

Personally, I buy into co-sleeping. M wakes up in the middle of the night, I roll over, pop out a boob, she hooks up to it, and we both fall back asleep in seconds. It's how I have avoided a lot of sleep deprivation and gotten some good bonding hours in, especially once I started spending all day at work away from her. I have definitely gotten some criticism for this practice ("you'll make her clingy;" "she won't learn how to self-soothe;" "you won't get any sleep;" "she's gonna get jealous when you bring a man into the bed.") The last one is my favorite. "Move over kiddo! Mama's gotta get some tonight!" The thought of letting any dude get close enough to share our bed in the next one hundred years makes me guffaw with cynicism. (To read actual, documented benefits about co-sleeping, you can start here; or for those of you for whom Dr. Sears is too hippie, wikipedia presents some good points).

Thing is, now that Molly is almost one she moves and flops and struggles and kicks in her sleep. A lot. The other night I dreamed that I was a slave captive of some ancient Turkish king who, in his anger that I would not dance all sexy for him, struck me repeatedly on the back with his sword (WTF); I woke up and the little id-monster was kicking me in the kidneys. While it mostly makes me giggle with motherly loving devotion when I wake up and find her sprawled out in a star-fish shape in the direct center of the bed, having pushed me up toward the headboard, scrunched up against the pillows, occasionally it's crazy-making. Last night, having been sleeping on my side, I wake up pinned to the mattress, realizing that she has draped herself over my ass. I wonder at the fact that no mid-night farts have deterred her, but gotta hand it to the babe: at least the girl knows how to find the cushiest pillow in the bed.

random conluding thought: Netflix has done spelling nazis a dear favor with it's "queue" function. Now if only we can get some giant of web business to use "per se" in everyday fashion.

The Crossover Episode

I decided to resurrect the blog. Less emo*. No one really goes in for emo these days.

Shit, who am I kidding? No one ever went in for emo besides the whiny characters that I used to unwisely lust after, thinking "ooh he's a lonely-wolf-strong-and-silent-type," when really they'd turn out to be these emotionally infantile incredibly dysfunctional occasionally scary-with-their-episodic-anger-or-depression types. Kind of like adolescent Severus Snape, who let's face it--never really grew out of his adolescent crush-based resentment. Which makes for a GREAT plot advancer. Not really a lifestyle you want to keep up. So I say NO MORE EMO.

It turns out the best remedy for being trapped in emo is not the multiple anti-depressant regimens or years of therapy, or even a regular exercise routine (although that totally helps) but having a kid. It turns out, being wholly responsible for the life, health, and well-being (not to mention eventual socialization) of a tiny human being really makes one get their shit in gear. Fast.

Almost as fast as the little adorable stinkers grow, but not quite. Because for anyone who hasn't noticed, infants turn into kids who turn into people staggeringly quickly. The Mollster and I haven't gotten quite into the "people" stage yet; we're verging on kids. Somewhere between infant and toddler, and toddler is one of those nebulous phases that's not quite a helpless being that you met a year ago when your uterus decided it was time to shove her on out after living in a nice symbiotic relationship for ten months (yes. the 9-month thing is a lie. I'll come back to that another day). Anyway, the transition from infant to toddler is also like a slap in the face. One minute you're swaddling this helpless sack of rags, the next SHE IS EATING DOGFOOD AND LAUGING IN YOUR FACE. No matter how hard you try to keep the dogfood from her, you turn your back for 5 seconds and the toddler-super-power kicks in. You turn around, she's got a mouth full of kibbles and is grinning at you because she KNOWS she's not supposed to be there and is enjoying watching you bubble with rage and disbelief. And getting from point A (swaddled) to point B (dogfood-and-taunting) happens in like 4 days. True story.

Which is pretty much the most absolute farthest thing from emo.
I'm glad I've been cured. May we never go back.

(Then again: may we never go here, which is also pretty freakin far from emo):

*Disclaimer: I left all the emo shit up here, so if you're curious you can search the archives. I couldn't throw it away, since it is kind of still part of who I am/was/whatever. But it's not always pretty. You've been adequately warned.