Wild Thing

So here's where things get fun.

Last week I was at my baby land breaking point and started hiding under the kitchen table with a butcher knife to slice at Nick's Achilles when he got too close. Seriously, people - I was living in Bitchville. I can't pinpoint the exact reason but I think the number of times I read Little Pea is directly proportionate to my level of bitchiness.

I mean, really - how the hell can anyone enjoy hearing the same story over and over and over? But every time I open the book she breaks out in an ear to ear grin like it's the first time she's ever heard it. Therefore I read it.

So by Thursday Nick was practically pushing me out the door to blow off some steam at a kickin Halloween party with my friends Angie and Dan.

Of course I dressed as Snookie, complete with orange face paint that smelled very flammable. That also didn't wash off for like three days.


Sadly, my social agenda is such that it doesn't really matter if I have orange face. No one at the rapid scan safety and emissions testing place or the Taco Bell drive through cared that I had orange face.

The party is an annual event, put on by one of the companies I used to work with when I was still working at the advertising agency. Their parties are always off the chain but this year we were promised a performance by a Grammy award winning artist.

You can imagine why I had to screw my head back on my neck when I saw it was Tone Loc and Digital Underground. The two people who just that morning had been sending magical rhythms through my ear buds encouraging me not to vomit as I nearly jiggled to death on the treadmill.

And of course I had to rush the stage when Tone Loc sang Wild Thing.


Yup - that's me and Tone. That's what I call him now.


And yes, that's Humpty. I can almost see his fake nose hairs.

As I was rocking the crowd with all of my best moves including the running man in my Snookie costume I was like BABY WHO?! Little Pea... NEVER HEARD OF HIM!

It was quite a departure from where I had been just three hours prior - looking at the business end of a diaper and wondering when Ellie ate green peppers.

Anyhoo, being close enough to two of my favorite hip hop icons to get contact high from their clothing I couldn't help but think one thing - man these dudes look OLD! So I did the math (and then looked it up on Wikipedia) and Humpty is like almost 50. Holy shit! If he's that old then what does that make me?

But I didn't care. Even though I've heard their music almost every day for the past 20 years, I just danced my ass off with an ear to ear grin like it was the first time I'd ever heard the song.

Humpty Hump is my Little Pea.

Back to our regularly scheduled programming

Oh my lovelies - how I've missed you. Without the blog I've had nowhere to confess my deepest darkest secrets so I've taken to talking to myself even more than usual. In an effort not to look like a freak who talks to herself in public I've been walking around with a Bluetooth device in my ear.

I guess douche bag is better than freak.

The good news is that I made some great progress on my book. I'm about half way through the second draft and worked on it enough to never want to see it again which is pretty much what I was going for.

The bad news is that through my research I discovered that I'm not the only one in the world who had the brilliant idea to write a book. Most publishers have put a freeze on buying new manuscripts, especially those from new authors, so I've been looking into self-publishing.

Along with 4,000 other people a week.

That's how many books are self-published every week. Four THOUSAND. And of those the average book sells 150-200 copies. That's basically everyone who came to our wedding. So if all my extended family and college drinking buddies commit to buying a book then I'll be considered a roaring success.

In the midst of all this writing I had my 6 week postpartum check up with J.T. my trusty O.B. last week and he delivered the horrible news that I'd been dreading.

Everything looks great. Everything healed beautifully. I can resume normal activity.

The 11-month gravy train is over.

Uuuuuuuuuuugggggggggggg.

I'd forgotten how miserable it is to be held accountable for everything I ate, the overwhelming guilt the scale brings without a scapegoat and how dreadful it is to actually sweat at the gym vs. just showing up and walking around fishing for compliments about how wonderful I am that I'm at the gym even though I'm pregnant.

It's all awful.

But I have to say that I'm beyond ready to get this weight off. I never got down to my pre-Ellie pregnancy weight when I got pregnant with Lila, probably because I got pregnant with her when I was still recovering in the maternity ward.

So now that I've decided we're not having another baby until I'm 76 I have some time to slim down and have set five fitness goals for myself:

1. Don't vomit when walking up a flight of stairs
2. Get the skin on my stomach back to looking like normal skin rather than an elephant wearing a cheesecloth cummerbund filled with cake batter
3. Have one of those muscle defining lines separating my muscles in my shoulder and biceps so I'll look hot when I wear a sleeveless shirt
4. Lose 15 pounds by March 1, when Nick and I will be going on our first vacation in 500 years
5. Run the 1/2 marathon in the rock and roll marathon next October

But mainly just don't vomit when walking up a flight of stairs.

My MP3 player is loaded and I have new tennis shoes so white that Helen Keller could use them as a flashlight. Now all I need is just to get to the gym. Oh, and cut back on my box a day pancake habit.

Yup, just those two things. Two simple things.

Yup... ok, here I go. I'm going. Right... now. Going now... here I go.

Gone Fishin'

So as of last week I've had over 2,000 visitors to this blog and all I can pray is that only a small percentage of you people are pedophile kidnappers.

When I quit my job a few months ago I had envisioned that my life at home with Ellie would consist of us sitting around a make up table in our slippers with a couple of glasses of wine while we talked about boys. However, my first morning at home we stared at each other for about an hour until Ellie was finally like "ummm, this has been fun but I've got a thing" and hopped into the Escalade which had been idling outside leaving me lonely and alone eating pancakes and watching Maury Povich.

I quickly realized I was going to need a hobby. It was about negative fifty degrees outside which meant that sunbathing was out so I started writing. I wrote and wrote and wrote and before I knew it I had finished the first draft of a book. Walking out of Kinko's with the bound draft in my hand I knew one thing - that if I never laid eyes on the book again it would be too soon. I was completely burned out and needed to table it indefinitely.

But then I was left with the same problem I had before. Pancakes and Maury while Ellie was out flossing around town in the Escalade. So I decided to fire up the old blog I had started a couple of years before, never in a million years expecting that after only three months I'd be exposing my innermost secrets to thousands of strangers who are hopefully not pedophile kidnappers.

And it's been totally awesome. I can't tell you how much I love hearing from you all and knowing that I'm not alone as I fumble through Motherhood. That's the hard part - waking up every day thinking you're the only one in the world who has ever felt the way you do. At least now I know that my kids aren't going to be the only ones sniffing glue in the back of the classroom.

Anyhoo, long story short I think I'm finally ready to jump back in and tackle the second draft. Because my free time during the day is extremely limited and therefore I must multi task and type while I pee, I'm going to take a short break from the blog.

Don't worry... it's just for a couple of weeks. In the meantime, feel free to send wine.

Jackass

Have you ever had that dream where you spend what seems like days trying to get somewhere but there's an invisible force that keeps getting in your way? You spend the whole dream trying to get to where you need to be but after determined and relentless effort you look around and realize you're right back where you started.

Yesterday that dream was my real life nightmare.

The one thing I had to do was go to the mall to buy one of my Fancy Friends a new baby gift. The ONE thing. One little thing.

However, the moment we woke up our home became a non-stop stream of eating and sleeping and eating and sleeping and I was tethered to the house.

I would just like to take a moment and point out that none of the eating and sleeping was mine.

As soon as I would get one up from a nap the other would immediately fall into some sort of narcoleptic coma and the cycle would start all over again, usually ending with me Googling the maximum prison sentence for leaving your kids home alone while you just quickly run to the mall to buy a baby gift.

Finally at 4:00(PM!) I took control of the situation and woke Lila up from her nap and quickly fed her and forced everyone out the door. We made it to the mall but the quick feed came back to bite me in the ass because on the way home it sounded like someone had set off a smoke alarm in her carseat.

Nothing is more awesome than a 20 minute drive with a smoke alarm screaming in your ear telling you what a huge failure as a mother you are. At one point I considered pulling over on the highway, getting out, just cutting my losses and walking away.

The one thing that kept me in the driver's seat was that it was date night and if ever a date night were necessary it was last night. Nick was working all weekend which meant I was working all weekend and we both needed to go have a drink and watch Jackass.

Yes, I know - our life is filled with disgusting bodily fluids spraying everywhere and the first chance we get to escape it we go see a 3-D movie about bodily fluids spraying everywhere.

Speaking of bodily fluids, Lila hadn't pooped in two days and I was hoping that her number would come up while my in-laws were babysitting so I could dodge the bullet that would be her 48-hours of stopped up poop wrath.

When I got a text message from my mother-in-law in the middle of the movie asking where I kept my t-shirts I was hopeful that the demon had been exorcised but unfortunately it was only vomit. The demon actually came at 3:46 this morning with hurricane strength force. It was the stuff that legends are made of.

We made a unanimous decision last night not to clean it up and are living in a tent in the backyard until the house sells.

The Greatest Show on Earth

It was free balloon day today at the grocery store. All we needed was a chimp banging some cymbals to turn us into a bonafide traveling circus.

I think there's a baby somewhere in that cart.

Ghoulie

The first time your baby sleeps through the night is the single most terrifying moment of your life.

This morning was the first time in 11 months that I've woken up on my own accord. No screaming bladder, no screaming baby.

For a mili-second I was 28 again, waking up after a long and peaceful slumber without a care in the world. But then I wondered why my boobs had their own pulse and in an instant it all came flooding back to me that I had a baby and she had been silent for the past 9 hours and was dead and I was going to prison.

So I reached over and jostled her until she cried and then I felt better.

Of course the fact that I hadn't fed her for 10 hours presented another issue. It was like a caterpillar trying to take a sip out of a fire hose. At one point Nick rolled over and told me that it sounded like a Ghoulie was eating an elephant carcass over on my side of the bed.

That's the thanks I get.

The Good 'Ole Days

As I mentioned, last week I went to the maternity store to buy a new nursing bra where they measured me and promptly sent me straight to the Bass Pro Shop to purchase a two man pup tent.

As you might expect with a maternity store there were a lot of pregnant women hanging around. I'm guessing that most of the women in there were first-time Moms because by the second pregnancy the novelty of spending money on clothes you'll only wear for three months has worn off and you just wear gas station t-shirts and your husband's tighty whities.

Anyhoo, there they were, all fat and swollen and happy and basking in the attention that used to be mine.

As I stood in the checkout line sandwiched between bellies and talk of due dates and hemorrhoids and kankles I began to get very nostalgic. Ok... jealous.

I know - call me crazy. After weeks of searing heat so heinous that I could taste sweat in the swimming pool, the sensation that my hips were being cracked apart every night, the charlie horses, the heartburn... I was so jealous of these women it almost made me tear up.

Despite the complaining there were so many things I loved about being pregnant. Walking into any situation and immediately being the center of attention. The presents. Old friends who I hadn't heard from in forever calling on a regular basis just to check in. Eating anything I wanted. And oh yeah the incredible feeling of housing a growing miracle was pretty cool too.

But mainly the getting to eat anything I wanted and presents.

I remember having the same feeling after Ellie was born. It took us almost 17 months to get pregnant with her and getting pregnant had become such an all-consuming goal that once it was over I almost felt lost. Somewhere along the way the prize had shifted from baby to pregnant.

Hence part of the reason I was pregnant again 6 months later. The other part was that "Let's Rub Mommy's Feet" is really a three person game.

I'm not saying I'm going to do anything crazy like get pregnant any time soon. This morning's visit to the doctor where Ellie cried so hard she threw up and pooped her pants from seeing Lila get a shot pretty much made me want to sew my vagina shut.

All I'm saying is that next time I'm going to savor every charlie horse.

Aftermath

Yesterday was the Day 'O Bodily Fluids so I shouldn't have been surprised when I was mid way through negotiating carpet prices for our playroom at Becky's (I know, I know - I never thought I would go there either, but as they say - "Nobody beats Becky's!") and it sounded like a freight train ran into a lake somewhere in the vicinity of Lila's pants.

Both the sales guy and I continued talking, pretending to ignore it but it got louder and louder and then just to make sure there was no question as to what was going on she started producing a very exaggerated and unmistakable grunt.

And still the conversation continued, like nobody in the store was shitting their pants.

There was an internal debate as to whether I should change her there but the fact that Ellie was telling me she was done with the carpet shopping by screaming and banging her head on my chest made my decision for me.

Besides, Lila had brought this upon herself and she would just have to live with her decision. Maybe it would give her something to think about next time.

I knew when we got home that she had unleashed the beast but I was praying that the beast was at least contained in her diaper.

This is the front.



I would show you the back but I think this site would be flagged for inappropriate content. Besides, she blew a hole through the back of the car seat and I'm not sure what's even left back there.

Now if you'll excuse me I'm going to pour gasoline on the car.

Water Water Everywhere

This morning was pretty much the first morning in two weeks that I didn't seriously consider pulling the trigger on Plan B.

I can't disclose the details of Plan B but I can tell you that it involves cashing in a CD, a phone call to my friend Jamie, two plane tickets and a t-shirt stand in Key West named Hannah and Jamie's T-Shirt Stand.

Ok, that's pretty much all the details.

It started like any other morning - I woke up and Ellie's diaper had exploded. For those with children, you know exactly what I'm talking about. For those without, please allow me to explain. If a diaper becomes over saturated with liquid (in this case, urine) the diaper bursts open and a gelatinous crystal-like muck covers everything within a 2-mile radius.

I would consider this to be an important detail which was omitted from the baby class. Seriously - anything that would lead a person of average intelligence to believe that their baby was abducted by an alien life form in the night and returned just before dawn should probably be disclosed.

Anyhoo, the gelatinous muck is standard operating procedure these days and this morning the minute I walked in and discovered it was about the time Lila woke up screaming her balls off. Which was like a love song to my boobs who answered back with their own lovely lyrics in liquid form.

Which meant that Ellie got her a nice trucker bath there on the changing table with wet wipes and Oust. I had to run downstairs and get Ole Pumpy, which I still have to use because the crack in my nipple still looks like Jimmy Walker's mouth and every once in a while when I take off my bra it will yell "Dyno-MITE!".

So within 5 minutes of waking up Ellie was in her playpen smelling like urine and Oust, Lila was still screaming her balls off in the bassinet and I was sitting in the rocker mentally willing my boobs to hurry up and please for the love of god pump faster.

I finished and went to pick Lila up and realized that she too was covered in urine. I thought her head was going to explode from all of the screaming so I decided to feed her first. When I came back in the room with a new outfit I thought she had milk coming out of her nose but then I realized she had actually just spit up the majority of the milk I spent the last 10 minutes extracting from myself and her hair and upper torso were soaked. Which was ok because so was her bottom half.

Totally covered in fluids requires an actual bath. Immediately. Which was all for naught because soon after the bath she peed through her diaper onto her onesie and my lap.

So within one hour I had been covered in gelatinous muck, throw up and three rounds of pee. Both girls got baths and two outfit changes and yet here I sit... still smelling like ass.

I could go on and on... Ellie spent the morning playing "avalanche" (a cute little game where she throws every single one of her toys and books onto the ground), Lila had a huge poop blowout while I was on the phone with our investment guy, I left the referigerator door open and all the beer (and oh yeah milk and other stuff) got warm... but you get the gist. It was a hectic morning.

My point in telling you all this is that I think I have finally succumbed to the fact that this is my life. Not once during the entire morning did I freak out or mentally berate myself for my procreative life choices. It was almost as if I had been doing this forever.

Maybe when you don't expect to get through a morning NOT covered in bodily fluids then you won't be disappointed.

Or maybe I'm just learning to enjoy being a Mom.

Nice Shoes

Lately Ellie's feet have been smelling like ass. I mean, MAJOR ass.

It's so bad that when I take them off at the end of the day it's almost as I've been using her toes as toothpicks because I can taste the smell on the back of my tongue.

I'm sure it has nothing to do with the fact that I spring for the cheapest shoes on the rack but her feet are growing so fast that I refuse to spend a significant amount of money on something that's going to be obsolete in a few weeks.

Yesterday Nick came home early and the minute he walked in the door I tagged out and spent a glorious hour browsing the aisles of Target alone. I decided to buy Ellie some new shoes - this time some sparkly princess ones. Running shoes seemed like a step up from her current stink holes and I thought they might hold out a little longer before they start to wreak. And what girl doesn't like sparkly princess shoes?

They looked a little big but they're the next size up and since her toes have started to peek through the ends of her current shoes (which I let go because I looked it as aeration) I went ahead and bought them.

As you can see, they are huge. Unfortunately it's too late because apparently this is one girl who LOVES HER SOME SPARKLY PRINCESS SHOES.

Note the ski-like fashion she has to employ to turn around.

#NestingFail

Apparently I thought this baby was either going to stay 7 pounds forever or come out spewing bodily fluids nonstop because I went WAY overboard on the newborn diapers.

When I was pregnant every time I went to the store I would pick up another pack - it was like diaper therapy. At least I would have one thing covered when the baby came home.

Now that she has graduated to the size ones we have newborn diapers coming out our ears.

Oh, what's that? I can return them if I have the receipt? Yeah, that was my first thought too. I just spent 30 minutes sifting through all of my 2010 receipts and apparently I thought maybe that latte I bought from Bread Company last February might need to be returned someday but not the cases of diapers I bought.

I hate hate hate wasting things and Nick has pounced on my thriftiness and is trying to use this as a reason to have #3.

I have been busy finding alternate uses - snow hats, mulch, gutter cleaners, wrapping paper, place mats, kindling... the list goes on and on.

That better not be no wire hanger.

For the most part Ellie has been doing really well with the new baby.

By really well I mean completely uninterested, apathetic and indifferent. It's like the baby doesn't even exist. Doesn't she know I did this all for her?

Ok, really I did it for myself - giving her a little playmate means I get to watch more uninterrupted daytime TV. I'm just hoping this investment pays off sooner rather than later.

I'm not complaining because it could be way worse - aside from Friday's Day O'Tantrums she hasn't really acted out or sucked TOO bad. I've seen how quickly a kid can go from good to suck when you throw a baby in the mix and she's holding up pretty well.

But yesterday I had to lay the smack down. Which was a really inopportune time for her to start pushing my buttons because Lila has a cold and had been screaming for like a billion hours straight and there were several times throughout the day that I almost called the child abuse hotline on myself because I could literally feel her onesie leaving my fingers as I threw her out the upstairs window.

Anyhoo, every time I found myself incapacitated (mostly the moment the baby finally latched onto my boob) Ellie would toddle into the kitchen and open the party drawer. You know, the drawer that has all the party supplies - wine and bottle openers, lighters, matches, oxycodone, midgets, etc. The one drawer that's off limits and (not that I'm pointing fingers) the one drawer that Nick has yet to put the child safety latch on (again, not pointing fingers but PUT THE FREAKING LATCH ON THAT SHIT!).

Every time she did it I would follow her in there, take her hand off the knob, sternly say "no!" and she would merrily scamper off in another direction.

But yesterday... after hours of screaming baby and no lunch or bathroom breaks I was quickly losing touch with sanity and when I saw her run in there and heard the drawer slide open I decided it was time to break out the big guns. I had to peel the baby off and the subsequent screaming only fueled my fire as I stormed in there ready to put a hurtin' on.

I clapped my hands as loud as I could and screamed "NO!". Then I got down on her level and screamed "NO NO NO!" in her face. For a split second I felt guilty because I thought I had gone too far and scared her good and she would be terrified of me from now on. If anyone would have yelled at me like that at her age I would have shit my pants and gone mute for a year.

But that split second vanished when she looked at me... and laughed. Hysterically. Not only was she not phased but she was mocking me.

Oh HELLS no.

All I could think was WWSND (what would Super Nanny do)? She has those kids eating out of the palm of her hand by the end of every episode and I've never seen her beat one single kid's ass.

I remembered something about time out so I dragged her over to the corner, all the while she was cracking up. I set her on the floor where she happily sat for the entire time I fed the baby, missing the whole point.

How unfulfilling for me! How can she not be afraid of mad mommy? That was my trump card... I've got nothing left.

I guess it's time to make her go cut her own switch from the backyard. Pretty sure Supernanny would frown on that but I can't have her eating the party drawer peyote.

Mamma Jamma

Me: I need to get fitted for a nursing bra, please.

Nursing bra fitter: Sure! Ok... let's see here (pulls out tape measure)... you're a 36... E.

Me: Heh?

Nick: Kerplunk (faints on floor)

Lila: Scccchuuulp (licks lips)

Nursing bra fitter: You're a 36 E.

Me: Dear lord. Can't we just call it a 36 Triple C?

Nursing bra fitter: Uh, no.

Me: Give me the bra.

That's right. I am now joining the ranks of a stripper struggling with body dysmorphic disorder on her 5th boob job because she has no concept of what a functional human body looks like.

I'm just biding my time until I end up on the People of Wal-Mart website as I'm buying a gallon of milk. "oh the irony!" the caption will say.

The one positive is that I've suddenly become the most popular person in our house and I'm using that to my full advantage.

These things are manipulative.

Positive Reinforcement

Friday night was our neighborhood's annual fall festival. Hayrides, a band, carnival rides, chili, beer... it's basically restitution for the 5 bagillion dollars we pay every month in property taxes and I had been looking forward to it all week.

We were just finishing packing up the cooler when Ellie threw the Mother Tantrum - face down, screaming, kicking, telling me to go screw myself in backwards Latin - this time because the baby gate wouldn't shut just the way she liked. Without a word Nick and I decided to abandon ship and put her to bed and plans changed to wine and a fire in the fire pit on the patio.

Could be worse. A nice red... don't mind if I do. It had been a long and torturous day o'tantrums and one glass tasted so good that I had four.

Once we got inside I pumped and though my breast milk smelled like Mexico I decided to test it just to be sure. Basically anything that results in an off white or tan color means you need to discard it.

Anything that results in brown or black means you are going to be hating life more than anyone has ever hated life when that baby starts to cry at 2:30am and you will call in every favor to whatever god you pray to begging that if he just takes the pain away and please oh dear lord make the baby stop crying you'll never ever ever ever drink again.



Anyhoo, before the hurting set in that night I was feeling pretty proud of myself for putting my party pants back on so quickly and I wanted to share the proof that I still had it with Nick.

Me coming out of the bathroom waving the test strip: Check it out! How awesome is this?

The color immediately drained from his face and he looked like someone kicked him in the stomach.

Me: What? Oh, did you think this was a pregnancy test?

Nick, still silent, looks like he may vomit.

Me: It's just a breast milk alcohol test strip! How could you have even thought that? There's no POSSIBLE WAY I could be pregnant!

Nick: (mad but breathing for the first time in 30 seconds) WELL YOU JUST CAN'T BE COMING OUT OF THE BATHROOM WAVING TEST STRIPS AROUND! YOU'RE GOING TO GIVE ME A HEART ATTACK!

Me pulling the trump card: Are you calling me fat?

Nick: Hmmph.

The Newborn Identity

I'm so tired I may die.

I can actually feel the spot where my eyeballs attach to my brain and it burns like love lost. Ellie has thrown so many tantrums today that I think the neighbors called the police. Which is fine with me. I would welcome jail because there's a possibility that I could take a nap, shower, have someone bring me a sandwich and pee without anyone sitting on my lap.

The sleepiness is intercepting my thoughts as they make their way from my head to my fingers so I'm just going to leave you this Friday with a happy little video that if were on VHS would be worn to the threads from watching it over and over so many times the past seven months.

I'm going to get a milkshake. And put some bourbon in it.

Happy weekend.