Mmmmmm…. Smells Like Halloween

I just opened our bags of candy and dumped them in the big bowl I use every year. And the smell of chocolate mixed with the sweet, sugary candy hit me in the face. That is a smell that brings back memories of trick-or-treating trips, coming home and dumping out our bags for parental inspection, and then diving in face first.  Good times, good times.

Sadly I now have my bottom braces on and the pain is making me want to pull my teeth out of my head. I won’t be enjoying any left over candy. Which sucks because I got some good shit this year.

If There Was Ever Any Doubt

If there was every any doubt about who Bridget’s father is, it most certainly has been cleared up now.

I just offered this baby pancakes (the frozen variety - no, I’m not cooking pancakes on a Monday morning) and she inhaled them. I literally heard snorting noises out of her.

Like father, like daughter.

Only 57 Shopping Days Left

That’s right, Christmas is less than two months away.  And I am so freaking Christmas-y already, I can’t even stand myself.

I made two loaves of banana bread yesterday. Tomorrow, I am hoping to try out Swistle’s chocolate-crusted pumpkin cheesecake recipe.  And today, I ordered my first Christmas presents and my Christmas tree from L.L. Bean. (As an aside, I just discovered that there is an L.L. Bean store in South Windsor, CT. I’m hoping that someone can confirm for me that this store was not there when I lived there for two years or else I’m going to be really pissed at myself.)

I know it sounds nuts-0 to buy a Christmas tree online, but stick with me here and I’ll walk you through my logic.  First, I’m pretty sure that all trees get cut on the same day. So even if I bought one here on December 15, the odds are good that it was cut the same damn day as the one that L.L. Bean is shipping to me for practically the same price I would pay some carnie-type person in an RV in the Albertson’s parking lot, and they aren’t even charging me shipping. You can bet the carnies charge you for rope and to bale the thing. Second, we’ve had such bad luck with Christmas trees for so long that I just can’t bear the thought of another fugly tree. So much so that I seriously considered buying an artificial tree to avoid the cussing and hand-wringing when, after a week in the stand, we discover that the damn tree is not taking any of the water we have provided. But I can’t stomach the thought of a fake one. I need the smell. I need sap on my hands or else it’s not Christmas.   If this tree sucks, you can bet that ol’ L.L. is going to hear about it and my $75 will be promptly returned to my bank account.  Lastly, we are going out of town for Christmas this year. Which usually means we take the tree down before we leave to avoid fire hazards and pet damage while we are away. So if I am going to take it down on December 22 anyway, I want to put it up as soon as possible to get as much Christmas delight out of it as possible. I learned the hard way last year that not decorating for Christmas is one of the most horribly depressing things in the world. I won’t ever make that mistake again.  Yes, it’s a hassle, but it’s always worth it.

So tell me, is anyone else as nuts as I am? Who’s been shopping already? I want to hear holiday plans!

Obligatory Feminist Post

This morning I got my butt out of bed way too early for a Saturday and got ready, wrapped up my apparently sprained ankle per the doctor’s orders, donned my warm hooded sweatshirt, and got out the door. In the car, Karin called to tell me that she wasn’t feeling very well and had to beg off running this morning. “No problem!” I cheerfully replied. I was already on my way, and even though she hoped to be able to make it later in the day, that didn’t work as conveniently into my day so I would just go on as planned.

I got to the park at 7 a.m. and it was still dark. There was one other car in the parking lot. And I was afraid to get out of my car. I was afraid to go running by myself because the sun wasn’t up yet.  That other lone car made me nervous.  So I turned around and came home.  And I have to tell you, I am pissed off about that. Not about the running because I will work the run in later today, hopefully with Karin, even though it’s not as easy to do when the baby is already awake. I am mad about the fact that, because I am female, I have to worry about my safety at times and in situations when a man wouldn’t have to give it a second thought. No man ever crossed a dark parking lot and worried about who was lurking the shadows, fumbling for his keys so he could get into his car and lock the doors quickly. No man ever thought to check the backseat of his car before getting inside. No man was ever afraid to run in the dark because he wasn’t sure if some crazy killer/rapist was hiding in the woods around the park. I know this is a common complaint and there is nothing to be done about it. It’s just the world we live in. Better safe than sorry, and all that. But sometimes things are just so unfair that you want to lay down and throw a kicking, screaming fit about them. Today I’m not enjoying being a girl. Today being a girl feels like one more thing I have to find a solution to. Maybe that solution is an ankle holster for when I jog.*

*I’m really just kidding there. I will never own a gun. But sometimes it seems like a good idea.

Calling All Moms

I need an opinion. Or forty opinions.

What do we think about feeding fish (like tuna or fish sticks) to babies?

I’ve looked online and get conflicting information. Too much mercury? Good source of fat and protein?  I don’t really want Bridget to subsist on a diet of chicken nuggets or fish sticks and macaroni and cheese, but I am running out of ideas. With fish sticks, I can always pull out the fish and throw away the breading. Or I can feed her tuna if she’d eat it. I just don’t know.

What do you/have you guys done?

1983 Called….

…. and it wants its pants back, too. What is the deal with these 80’s brands coming back? First it was the Esprit pants (which I bought and still love) now this. Jordache jeans are back on the market. I wonder if they still have the big horse head embroidered on the ass like they did back in the eighties?

A New Diet Tool

I haven’t really written much about my braces because there hasn’t been much to tell. I haven’t had much issue with them after the initial getting acquainted stage. They hurt like hell for about a week and certain foods were off limits, but now I pretty much eat whatever. I don’t chew gum or eat a lot of sticky candy, but other than that, not much has changed.

Since I got them on at the end of June, I haven’t once had to have them tightened. This has annoyed Jake because he recalls excruciating visits to the orthodontist when he was a kid getting his braces tightened and adjusted or whatever they did to him. Not so much for me. Either the science of orthodontics has improved vastly in the last twenty years or I just have a different problem than he did. Every time I have gone in, the orthodontist simply looks at them, tells me he is happy with the progress (which in his defense, I can also see so I know he’s not blowing smoke) and just wants to wait a bit longer for more to happen.

Well, yesterday I guess enough stuff had happened. I got the spacers on my bottom teeth and will be getting the bottom braces next week. I had forgotten how awful those damn spacers are. They didn’t even bother me much yesterday after they were inserted in the afternoon. Not until last night when I took my first bite of dinner. I about jumped out of my skin, partly because the pain was bad, but mostly because it surprised me. For a moment I had absolutely no idea why all of a sudden my mouth felt like I’d been punched. And now the pain won’t stop. I took three advil before bed and it didn’t even put a dent in it. I tried to eat some cereal for breakfast this morning and it just hurt too badly to get very far. I guess I’m eating yogurt and jello until after the braces go on.

Freeze Frame

I am having a day. A guess a series of days. I wish I could go back in time to when Bridget could sit but not crawl and freeze it there. I am getting so frustrated yanking this baby away from things and situations that might kill her.

I know she’s an infant. I know she doesn’t understand. But it’s really frustrating to not be able to do a single thing unless she is safely contained in her play pen or her exersaucer (which she is tolerating again and I’m going to take it because it means she’s safe and happy for a few minutes while she’s in it). I feel like I am not giving her enough time to be on the floor doing her thing because invariably if I let her down, she heads straight for the one thing in an otherwise perfectly baby-proofed room that will kill her. I can’t remove all electronic devices. I can’t make her understand that the tablecloth on the side table in her room will not hold her up no matter how many times she tries. I feel like we are always just a nanosecond away from a major head trauma or electrical shock.

Hell, I am even wary of leaving her in her crib because she has taken to gnawing on it. She has actually uncovered wood beneath the paint. I often go in there to her and find little specks of black paint on her face. I really hope that fucker wasn’t painted with lead paint.

So between trying to keep her from a fatal injury and trying to figure out if she’s eating enough and the right things, I am not having a very good mom week.

Random

I’ve been sick and very tired lately so I haven’t had the ability to cobble together a coherent post. I probably should be saving my blogging energy for NaBloPoMo anyway, since I’ll need to come up with coherent posts every day for the entire month of November. Maybe I should start writing down ideas for that.

Yesterday I discovered (or she decided yesterday, not sure which) that Bridget is terrified of the vacuum. This could be a good thing, really. How can I be expected to vacuum when it sends my little Bridgie Bear into fits of crying and screaming?  Both the screaming and crying would be tolerable since the noise of the vacuum drowns them, were it not for the face she makes. The face which we call the Puppy Face, because to us it looks like the face she might make if someone killed her puppy. It’s the face she makes when she gets shots, in that pause between the time the needle goes in and the time she can work up the scream.  I tried everything I could to reassure her that the vacuum is not scary but finally after about four tries, I had to just let her cry while I vacuumed. My allergies demanded it.  She eventually worked through it. Damn!

Running has been derailed for a bit, as both Karin and I have had allergy/sinus crap. We were set to go on Sunday morning, and I woke up feeling like hammered dog poop, when she called to say she felt horrible and couldn’t go. I was never so happy to receive a phone call at 6:30 a.m. in my life and promptly went back to bed. We are going to try to get back on track tomorrow. No pun intended.

Last night I had the craziest damn dream. I dreamed I was pregnant with a boy. That is funny for many reasons.  The chances of me being pregnant again are slim to none. We are settling our minds around only having one child and surprisingly, I am ok with that.   Plus, y’all know I didn’t want to know the gender when I was pregnant with Bridget and I probably wouldn’t if I got pregnant again. Although honestly this time I might just because I am a planner and I would want to know if I needed to buy all new stuff or if I could use what I have (and stop giving it away). But then the dream got weirder. Or it could have been a whole new dream, it’s hard to say. I dreamed that I was walking around some event, probably NASCAR related (!) with Dale Earnhardt Jr. I know, I know. It’s crazy. I don’t even follow NASCAR.  I do think Jr. is hot. He’d be hotter if he didn’t talk but still, I find him very pleasing to the eye. The weirdest thing was we were at a NASCAR event and we were not being mobbed by fans. And I wasn’t hooking up with Jr, just walking around having a friendly chat with him.  I don’t understand but whatever. Oh I think my parents were there too and I vaguely remember something about losing my purse.

And my last random tidbit is that I made another Applesauce Spice cake, only this time I made it in a 9×13 pyrex pan because when I made it as a bundt cake last time, it broke. This turned out just as well, but I can’t remember how long I ended up baking it, unfortunately. I know I started checking it at about 28 minutes going by the baking instructions on the back of the cake mix box. Maybe I baked it for a total of 40 minutes? Sorry, I’ll have to bake another and note the time. Also I want to try it again with unsweetened applesauce, as I think the cake is still a bit too sweet. I iced it this time with cream cheese frosting (sort of like a carrot cake) but I thought it was way over the top  with the sweetness. I still  contend it’s better plain or with powdered sugar dusted over the top. I’ll keep you posted.

Eleven Months

It can’t be true. We simply cannot be one month away from Bridget’s first birthday. Crazy.

It’s been a big month for us in that she walked for the first time last week. She’s still not a dedicated walker. She prefers to crawl when she can because she can get there faster. That surprises me. I guess I just assumed it was like sitting up - once they figure it out, they do it constantly. But no, she’s still not sure she wants to be doing this whole walking thing.

I’m constantly amazed at how purposeful everything she does is. From choosing a toy, to picking up pieces of food from her high chair tray, it’s like there is an inner monologue going on in her head. “OK, now I’ll pick up that cheerio with my right hand, because it’s the biggest cheerio on the tray, then I’ll take that piece of cheese with my left.  After that, I’ll pause for a sip of water, then chuck the cup across the room and see how long it takes for them to pick it up for me…..”

Recently Bridget has started to cut down on her formula intake significantly which I guess is what she’s supposed to do, but it worries me. I never feel like I am feeding her enough of the right things. How often can I give her turkey and cheese? And buttered toast only goes so far.  She’s a great eater and has never turned down anything I’ve put in front of her. But how much of it actually goes into her mouth rather than into the dogs’ mouths is the big question.  I guess this is just how feeding is going to go for the next few months. I probably need to relax and let her eat more things but I am so afraid of her choking. In fact, she has often choked on goldfish and I’ve had to stick my finger in her mouth to pull them out. Those moments scare the hell out of me and I worry that if I cut her up a hot dog, I’ll just be fishing that out of her mouth too. What on earth do you people feed a baby?

Oh, did I mention that we are phasing out of two naps per day? She still goes down for two but one is usually significantly shorter than the other. I only wish if we were going to phase one out that it would be the morning nap. Thankfully she plays and babbles happily in her crib so I let her do it. My rule is always going to be that she’ll be in her bed for nap times. Whether she sleeps or not is up to her. We’ll see how that works at age two.

Bridget is genuinely a happy baby. She rarely cries and if she does, it’s not for long. I went out of town twice this month and I worried that the change in routine would be hard on her, but she didn’t miss a beat. I think that makes me happy and sad at the same time. It was definitely harder on me than it was on her. But I would always prefer for it to be that way.

We’ve also been experimenting with sign language. I guess she’s ready for it, since she’s been waving bye bye and for months now she’s been clapping when you say to her “yea!” or “good job!” I guess we’re successful but it does seem odd to see her make the sign for “more” when I am changing her diaper. What exactly does she want more of?  I’ve not figured that out exactly yet.

Anyway, all in all it’s been an exciting month, just because she’s so much fun to be around.  She makes me laugh and she laughs and waves to everyone, pets included. I love to hear her little voice babbling. She sounds like she is telling you a full story. I am still not sure if she knows exactly who “mama” and “dada” are but she says it all the time. And I love to hear her say it.

The next time I write this will probably be the last, as I vowed to do this for her first year. I’m in awe of this motherhood thing and I look back over the past eleven months and wonder exactly how I made it through to this side. There have been many times when I thought I couldn’t handle it. But I did and she did and all in all, it’s been the best time of my life.