Our remote is broken! We have to watch our digital cable the old-fashioned way: In real time, selecting channels by mashing the buttons. I had to watch fucking commmercials during Gilmore Girls!!! [gasp]
Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
Tragedy Strikes!
Friday, February 10th, 2006My Prince
Thursday, February 9th, 2006This morning, I awoke to coughing and chatter from Rollie’s room. He has a cold, but it is the functional type of cold that toddlers have – if you or I had the same cold, we would take to the couch with chicken soup and the remote, but Rollie wakes up like clockwork and is ready to start playing as usual at 7:15 am, cold or no cold. Rollie and Matilda usually wake each other up, so we usually all get up together at the same time, Todd getting Rollie changed and giving him breakfast, and me changing and nursing Matilda. This morning, for some reason, Matilda didn’t wake up when Rollie did, so i had the luxury of lounging in bed for a few moments before jumping up. This is a rarity for the moms and dads of the world, but even when we grab these precious moments, we are unable to drift back to sleep; the baby alarm was set in the first few weeks of their lives and there is nothing we can do to change it. Once we hear the little angels, we are awake.
I lounged in bed, listening to the sounds of Rollie’s constant chatter and then heard him say:
“Mama.”
I heard the shuffle of his feet in the hallway. He came into my room and said,
“Mama, wake.”
I peeked over the side of the bed to see him standing at the side of the bed, eye-level with me, with a huge, bright smile on his face. (F-ing morning people!)
Rollie said, “Hi, Mama.”
I said, “Hello, Rollie.”
He said, “Up, Mama. Downdairs.”
I said, “Okay, sweetie, I’m getting up. I’ll be down in just a minute.”
Rollie turned to walk downstairs with Todd, then, turned back to me and walked back over to the bedside, hand held out to me:
“Help. Help Mama.”
I take his hand, as I alight from the Royal Bed, Princess of the Morning.
Four Months
Wednesday, February 8th, 2006
Matilda, you are four months old today. I cannot believe that in four months, you have so irrevocably changed my life. Life with one child still gives you the illusion that you are new to parenting, that you still have one iota of coolness, that you still hang on to your carefree youthfulness. Having a second child changes that forever. You become a family. Of four. With a minivan.
You blow bubbles at me now to get my attention. You shake your head back and forth and yawn when you are fighting tiredness, which is always. It is as if you cannot stand to miss a single second of your oh-so-exciting life: “Look, Mama is cutting her toenails! MUST.STAY.AWAKE.” I try to get you to nap in your crib, but you fight it so much. You will cry and cry, then fall asleep for maybe 20 minutes, then you are back to the crying and waiting for me to come save you. You are different from Rollie in this way. Rollie was a great sleeper, great napper, and didn’t want to be held nearly as much as you do. I sometimes get exhausted from how much more attention you require, but I usually get over it in the moments when I have time to watch you sleep and reflect on my love for you.
And I always melt at dinner time: You are whining because you want to be held. Daddy comes in from the gym, and he takes a shower, then comes down and walks you around the kitchen while I cook. The entire time, you barely take your eyes off of me. When I look at you, you hide your face in Daddy’s chest, as if embarrassed at the look that has passed between us. Todd mentioned that maybe it was the breastfeeding that made you so attached to me, but I really don’t think that is it. i think it is that breastfeeding requires so much of our time to be together, whereas your Daddy and I spent much of our time splitting Rollie’s feedings down the middle. I guess it seems more than the act of breastfeeding, it is the circumstances of breastfeeding that require such closeness. I cannot pretend that I don’t eat up those loving looks at dinnertime. Daddy said it didn’t make him jealous, but i know that he would love for you to look at him that way. I think he doesn’t realize how much little girls come to love their Daddies and that he just needs to bide his time. You will be throwing your hairbrush at me as you yell, “I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!” soon enough.
In the mornings, you wake up like a shot! There is no languorous lounging in the crib. The minute the light wakes you, you let out a wail that wakes the neighborhood. We say you are zero-to-sixty in no time flat. You are, but as soon as i peek over the side of the crib, you let up and give me a big smile.
You are becoming a more efficient breastfeeder these days. You will eat ravenously for a few minutes, but now you become more distracted by your surroundings as you fill up, and you let go, not wanting to miss a thing. I am enjoying our breastfeeding experience more, now that it doesn’t hurt. I would be lying if I said I won’t be a little sad when it is over. I would also be lying if I said sometimes I can’t wait for it to be over. You eat every three hours during the day now, which works out to about five times a day, or occasionally a sixth feeding if it works out better for us to get out and about during the day. You wake around 7:30 and you go to bed about 8:00. We are trying to get it back another 30 minutes, but i am not complaining about 11 hours or more of sleep at night, even if you refuse to nap well during the day. I am working on the naps, though.
You are laughing now, especially when you watch Rollie running and jumping around. You think he is the cat’s meow. I hope you will always feel this way about him. Siblings are so precious. You also laugh when I tickle your feet, or kiss or raspberry your tummy. You laugh when Daddy holds you and i sneak up and say, “boo” or we pretend that i am chasing you and Daddy around the kitchen. Rollie usually gets in on this, too. Your laugh sounds a little goofy, but Daddy says he always found girls who snorted when they laughed attractive, so there is hope. Maybe one day, you will be lucky enough to marry your own band geek from Alabama.
You HATE tummy time. I insist you do about ten minutes every morning, but it usually ends in you crying so much that you spit up your breastmilk and then lie in it for about five minutes until i realize it. Sometimes I will sit with you on a blanket on the floor, watching you roll around, holding toys over your head, and making you laugh. You cannot roll over yet, but you do roll over on your side and lay there. Or if someone walks around you on the floor, you will crane your head back as far as possible trying to follow them with your eyes, and you will find yourself on your side. You are now holding your head up when we put you on your tummy, but sometimes you lose it and your head conks the floor. Kind of pitiful-looking.
You can kind of hold your weight on your feet when I hold you upright. You like that position, almost as much as your favorite, which is being held and walked, with the world moving by you as you watch.
You love Quint’s dog kisses almost as much as mine, Rollie’s, and Daddy’s. You laugh when he walks by your bouncy seat – he is right at your eye level.
You are starting to squeal and make more noise at us, and you will do it to get our attention. I can’t wait until we start having more conversations. I can’t wait until you can walk. But yet, I can wait. Because I know i will mourn these times when they are gone. I love you, Tiller!
Here are your four month well-baby stats:
Length – 26 3/4 inches (>97%)
Weight – 16lbs, 48 oz. (95%)
Head circ. – 42 cm (75%)
Love,
Mama
We Are So Proud
Tuesday, February 7th, 2006
This past week, Rollie said his first cuss word. It was, “damn.” We couldn’t be any prouder. Thankfully, his grandmother, rather than his parents, was responsible for modeling pronunciation of this one. In other Rollie news, he has taken to soothing his sister when she cries, modeling his mother’s favorite exclamation upon hearing Matilda start to cry: “Pipe down!” Finally, when asked what he was doing this morning, he told me, with a very serious face: “Pire Fuck.” Yep, that’s a fire truck, folks.
All mothers should be so proud.
The Robert Smith of the White House
Monday, February 6th, 2006I recently watched a History Channel documentary about Abraham Lincoln, entitled, aptly enough, Lincoln. Rather than studying just the facts of his presidency, it focused more on his mental state during his presidency, and the battle he fought with depression throughout his life. He had two nervous breakdowns in which he became suicidal. He lost his mother early in his life and had a difficult relationship with his father. He lost his first love before they were married. He lost both of his sons at an early age. He was married to a woman who is now believed to have been a manic depressive herself, a woman to whom he initially called off his engagement, for reasons unknown, but believed to be related to his love for another woman, his love for another man, or his syphilis. She was a detriment to his political status, an embarrasment to the White House. She threw tantrums on the streets of Springfield and Washington. She attacked her own husband. She threw lavish White House parties on the same days that thousands of American soldiers were dying on battlefields, as if she had no concept that the world outside of her world existed. She was also a very superstitious woman, who held seances in the White House, and asked her husband to attend. He did attend them to humor her. Stranger still, Lincoln, after the death of his son Willie, would actually remove the lid from his son’s coffin to gaze upon his face. He wrote poetry, including a poem about suicide. He also wrote a book about his religious questions, including his disbelief of the story of Christ. He had dreams of his son’s death, premonitions of his own death.
“I am now the most miserable man living. If what I feel were distributed to the entire human family there would not be one happy face on the Earth.” – Abraham Lincoln
The overarching theme I came away with was that this was a man constantly torn and depressed, our Goth president, our Robert Smith or Morrissey of the White House. Who knew?
Fun With Genetic Color Blindness
Thursday, January 26th, 2006For those of you who don’t know, my husband is color blind. I have determined over the 7-plus years that we have been together that he is very Brown/Green colorblind. If I ask him what color my decidedly brown sweater is, he will say it is a green. If I ask him about Rollie’s green shirt, he will say it is brown. He also has a little trouble with black/dark blue, dark purple.
This whole colorblindness thing can be quite entertaining (What color is this? What color is this? Hahahahaha) but also a little frustrating when Todd dresses Rollie. I also now watch Rollie to see if he can tell the difference between green and brown, but i have not caught him in any colorblindness yet. I know that there is a distinct possibility here, though: My first introduction to colorblindness in the Johnson men came while playing what I now call “Color Blind Trivia.”
Try playing Trivial Pursuit with 4 color blind men and their spouses and not using the Lord’s name in vain in front of your Baptist in-laws:
Todd:”What color are we?”
Me: “Green.”
Todd: “No, that’s orange.”
Me: “No, it’s not.”
Todd: “Yes, it is.”
Brother-in-law: “Pass me a pie piece.”
Sister-in-law hands him a green pie piece. “No, I got a green one.”
Sister-in-law: “That IS green.”
Todd: “Jesus.”
Father-in-law: “Watch it!”
Sweetie, I Love You, But. . . .
Wednesday, January 25th, 2006Please don’t teach Rollie to say, in a death-metal, possessed-by-demons, in-need-of-exorcism, guttural voice:
GEETT OUUT. . . .
And especially don’t send him to say it to me; It really creeps me out.
New Horizons
Tuesday, January 24th, 2006Last week, Matilda and I watched the launch of a NASA spacecraft called New Horizons. It was the beginning of a 9 year trip to Pluto and its moon, Charon. (Pluto may also have two or more other moons.) The rocket travels at 100 times the speed of a commercial airliner, the fastest craft to have ever launched from Earth, and will travel the entire solar system. In February 2007, it will get a boost from Jupiter‘s gravity, propelling it on to the outer reaches of the solar system. It will do a “flyby” study of Pluto and Charon, 3 billion miles from Earth, in July 2015. From 2016-2020, it will encounter the Kuiper Belts. The Kuiper Belt is a part of space beyond the orbit of Neptune, which is populated by ice dwarf worlds completely unlike our own. (Yes, I had to look this up. I had no idea how much the idea of our solar system had changed since I studied the planets in third grade!)
Matilda will be ten years old when New Horizons meets Pluto. I figure they will probably discuss it in her 5th grade class. I am glad that she will be able to say, “My mom watched the launch with me when i was 3 months old,” even if she won’t actually remember it.
Happy Birthday to Me!
Monday, January 23rd, 2006Okay, so my birthday was yesterday, but you didn’t think i was going to waste valuable birthday time posting to this piece of crap blog, did you?
I am 34 years old. Yes, self, you heard yourself right. THIRTY.FOUR. Jesus H. Christ, how did I end up in my mid-thirties??? As I told Todd and Lisa both yesterday, I still feel like I am 24. Ten years ago, i was a recent college graduate, with a brand spanking new job in the computer industry, staying out till 2 am on work nights, and dating a guy who seemed old at, you guessed it, 32. Poor guy, i was always treating him like he was going to break a hip any minute, and look where I am now.
As much as I still feel 24 most days, I am very happy with what my life is at 34. I have a wonderful husband, my family is healthy and well, and I have two wonderful children. I have maturity, and the wisdom of retrospect. Rollie even gave me my birthday cards, and said, “Happy Birthday!” to me.
All that being said, I also had a FUCKING KICKASS BIRTHDAY, WITH BARELY A CHILD IN SIGHT!!! I got up yesterday, and helped get the kids up, then my sister and I went out for the day while Todd watched Rollie and Matilda. Lisa and i were just going to hang out together for the day, but she surprised me with Bloody Mary Buffet Brunch at Front Page News with the girls (Robin, Vanessa, and Harmony, who turned 31 yesterday). Such a great surprise, and such fun! I had fried chicken and gravy and biscuits and grits! And a Grey Goose bloody mary. mmmmmm. We even participated in that much-sought-after-by-parents-of-little-ones activity known as lingering over a meal. It was heaven.
We then left the girls and Lisa and I went to Target to spend the burning-a-hole-in-my-pocket Target giftcard. It was nice to take the time to pick out a few things, and even try them on in a fitting room. Lisa helped me make some great purchases of new workout clothes (my old ones are the butt of quite a few jokes these days) and more t-shirts, my stay-at-home-mom (SAHM) work uniform. We then proceeded over to Borders, bought overpriced, over-sweetened coffees, and then browsed the books for about an hour. This kind of time-wasting is unheard of for the SAHM.
From there, we decided to head towards home, but as we were driving through the village, Lisa said, “I could go for a beer.” I agreed. We found ourselves in The Gravity Pub, an old haunt from my single, childless days. We went in, sat in a booth, and each had two pints while chatting away, discussing our lives, her recent marriage, our parents, our concern for friends of ours who are having a difficult time, and gossiping:
“Even after she lost that weight, she still looked fat to me.”
“She was totally so trailer trash.”
“Oh my god, she was.”
Ah, the relaxation of reminisching about old times and of being a bitch.
We left and it was on to phase II of my fabulous birthday experience: Dinner and drinks with my husband. Just the two of us. Out on the town, together. We left Lisa and Mark with the kids, and we went to one of our favorite restaurants, Ma Li, a Thai place in Virginia Highlands. We love this place. We used to eat there for lunch all the time when we first started dating. It is so not kid-friendly. So, now, it is our special occasion restaurant. We ate dinner and lingered over our beers, then left and returned to the village. We parked and stopped in at the local bookstore. I perused local history books while todd checked out the rest of the store. We then headed over to the EARL. Oddly enough, our waitress was the ex-girlfriend of a friend of ours, whose birthday it also happened to be yesterday. He and I were even born the same year. Odd that we both came out of a vagina on the same day in 1972.
Todd and I drank beer, and watched a little football, and discussed all of the shows that we had both attended before meeting one another. This is an ongoing discussion that we have, the thought that fate and rock and roll meant for us to be together long before we knew one another. All those Lollapaloozas at Lakewood. Fishbone with 24/7 Spyz at the Roxy (where Todd threw up in a trashcan and I had to have a ring cut off my finger after it was bent and cut off my circulation). Pavement. Guided By Voices. Janes Addiction (crutches and kisses? I can’t remember.) The Athens party that we both attended with the stupid big-ass hats. All of the people we knew in common – The Auburn kids in Athens, the Athens people that Todd knew in Atlanta, the weird ass association between Lisa’s best friend and the guy that used to live in Todd’s parents’ house. The night that the naked guy walked through the Fountainhead, carrying a drink and a cigarette. And the oh-so-close-to-one-another Radiohead show at the Masquerade, three days before I moved with my then-boyfriend and another friend to Colorado. I could have reached out and touched him, but I wasn’t ready for that yet. I had a couple more losers to date, a couple more doesn’t quite do it for me, but fun to hang out with boys to see. Such fun to talk about the what-ifs.
We decided to take pity on Lisa and Mark, to pay up and head home. We didn’t see our friend’s ex, the waitress. Todd asked another waitress for our check, and he looks at me and shrugs and rolls his eyes about the waitress being MIA.
Me: “She probably knows she will get a good tip from us, so she didn’t bother to wait on us that well. You know, I never really liked her that much.”
Todd: “She kinda rubbed you the wrong way.”
Me: “Yeah. Like she thought she was a little too cool for school.”
Todd: “Exactly.”
The 2nd waitress returns with our check: “T. took care of your last round.”
Todd and I look at each other sheepishly, having just badmouthed the poor girl.
Todd looks at the check, then says, “Wait a minute. She charged us for the whole thing. she didn’t take care of shit.”
Me: “I never did like that bitch.”
Rollie Makes a Liar Out of Me
Thursday, January 19th, 2006Wasn’t I, just yesterday, bragging about how I am instilling a love of books in Rollie? Yes, i was. Know what happens when one does that? Karma bites them in the ass.
Exhibit a: I go to get Rollie up after his nap, and he has torn Go, Dog, Go! into a million pieces, taken off his diaper, and pissed all over the torn pages.
[sigh]
As my mom says, “Kids will make a liar out of you, every time.”