Anything Said: February 2007

Sunday, February 25, 2007

To the extreme

I'm sorry. I fear that I'm giving this blog the same half-assed treatment I give to every other current endeavor in my life. As always, can I make it up to you by exploiting my child without her expressed consent?

Scenes in order of occurrence:

The meeting

The taste-test.

The abject horror.

It is disgusting and icy outside and it's making me depressed. I'm so sick of being stuck indoors. The husband always asks me why, if I hate winter so much, won't I let him move to one of the warm weather meccas he'd so like to explore, like Colorado (I know, it's cold there too, but somehow I always lump it together with, like, Arizona) or California? Sometimes I don't really know. I mean, I know -- family's in the midwest, familiarity's in the midwest, green bean casserole's in the midwest. But still. In other places there are mountains and sunny days and better Mexican food.

On Friday the husband's aunt, who's a pilot, was in town on a stopover during a flight to Germany. She took us out to dinner at a restaurant just a couple blocks from our house. I was sure that Cletus the Former Fetus was going to scream and fuss like a crazy person, as we don't normally take her out to eat. I was nervous and distracted during dinner. Was she getting too tired? Was she getting cranky? Did she want a different toy to chew on? Then the husband's aunt told us about how, when her son was a tiny baby, she and her husband packed the child into a small plane they owned and took a trip to Alaska. TO ALASKA, people! She recommended that we read a favorite book of hers called "Extreme Parenting." And I cowered down into the pleather booth and felt ridiculous about how timid I've become.

It's not like I consciously decided to become a nervous freak of a parent. I don't know if it was the colic that made me fear trying new things with the baby or what... but I've got to get over it, because this is not who I want to be.

And why the fuck am I reading developmental milestone charts? I HATE developmental milestone charts! I always swore I would never look at developmental milestone charts... and now I've got, like, 3 of them. They're practically laminated.

And also? Two nights ago Cletus woke up screaming - screaming - at 11:30 PM, and I didn't go to her. Now usually, if the baby's just crying a bit, we leave her alone and she works it out herself, often falling back asleep within a few minutes. But this time she wasn't crying, she wasn't fussing, she was screaming, as if in pain. And I didn't go to her. I let her scream, because most of the books and all of the moms in my moms group say "she's old enough and big enough to sleep through most of the night." And she kept on screaming. And I lay in bed, awake and upset. And finally I couldn't deal any more, and I went to her crib and picked her up and she collapsed, exhausted, in my arms, and I gave her a bottle, and she clutched and sucked at it like she couldn't get it fast enough, and I hated myself for not paying attention to the intensity of her cries. That's not who I am. That's not who I want to be. She's five months old. If she wants me at 11:30 PM, I'm there at 11:30 PM.

I'm not about to fly my child to Alaska, but all the same: I'm staging a self-intervention.

Tuesday, February 20, 2007

The post I wrote to distract myself from all the screaming while my baby lay (laid?) in her crib refusing to nap

Over the weekend, my cousin and one of my little sisters came from Indiana on the train to visit Cletus the Former Fetus. I went downtown to pick them up at the station. My family members are nervous about public transportation. About all things urban, really. I met their train and as we walked together from one station to another to begin the trip back to my apartment, we passed a residentially-challenged man who held out his gloved hand to us and very very quietly said: "I'll let you cut off my head and put it in your purse for $200."

Out of habit and without really listening, I shook my head and said "sorry." It wasn't until a few steps later that I realized what he had said. Dude. Is it wrong of me to find that a little awesome?

On Sunday we (the cousin, the sister, and I) took the baby to get her picture taken. The thought of this endeavor had terrified me for weeks. I packed a diaper bag the size of my car, full of spare outfits and semi-warmed bottles and Xanax. We arrived 20 minutes before our scheduled appointment so I could fill the child with formula. I steeled myself for disaster.

You're seeing where this is headed, right? She was an angel baby. Smiled, cooed, giggled, recited Shakespeare -- basically, acted like a complete and utter stranger. She even - dig this - peacefully drifted off to sleep in my arms while I sat with the photographer and chose the prints I wanted. The pictures (I swore upon entering the store that I would only buy one pose -- I bought five) turned out adorable and cherubic and I have NO IDEA whose baby was photographed but it wasn't mine. Mine showed up about thirty minutes later when we got home, screaming and kicking and scratching her way through the rest of the afternoon.

Did any of you catch Veronica Mars last week? With Logan and the little girl and the Nick Lachey long-distance dedication? Hee!! People, it's the best thing on TV. I just went on YouTube to try and find a clip of the scene to show you, but all I could find were a handful of those scrappy little homemade montages that 13-year-olds make, set to "What's Left of Me." Interesting, my little copyright-infringing moppets. But I was interested in something a bit more organic.

Also this weekend, I joined Costco. Now I have 18 yogurts and about 3,000 cans of Diet Coke. But no bread or eggs or anything I could actually, you know, eat.

Sunday night the husband and I went out for a late Valentines Day dinner, where we discovered that we are incapable of conversing about anything that's not related to either the baby or how much we hate our apartment. The food was good, though. We had an extremely diet-unfriendly meal of fried calamari, pasta soaking in cream sauce, and creme brule. And then we came home and watched The Amazing Race with our house guests and I read through the stack of Us Weeklys my sister had brought along on the train.

Right now, my Ipod is rocking the most fabulous mix of assorted bluegrassy women, all five Johnny Cash "Unearthed" albums, moralizing radio country story-songs and prom themes, Stevie Wonder, and the greatest hits of both Journey and Styx. It's the musical equivalent of macaroni and cheese, the kind you bake with crumbled up saltines on top.

Over the past hour and five minutes, my daughter has rolled over from back to stomach 4 times, each incident provoking a series of shrieks more special than the last. I keep rolling her back over. Should I stop doing that? I don't have a clue. But about two blog-sentences ago I gave the fuck up, put her in her swing (for which she now pretty much exceeds the weight maximum), and now she's asleep.

I'm going to go take a shower.

p.s. My blogfriend Dawn just had her baby! Stop over and congratulate her -- she's been cooking up this dish for many a month.

Saturday, February 17, 2007

Uninvited Water in My Apartment, A History Of

1. Main Street, Iowa college town. 1998-99.
The setting: Off-campus three bedroom, shared with two roommates, one of whom was on a jelly-beans-and-booze diet. Lived in what I would call college-appropriate squalor. The apartment featured crumbling front steps, a slanted floor, and the accumulated canned goods of many student generations before us.
How I got wet: A leak so massive in size that it flowed like a waterfall across the length of two doorways. In its prime this leak, left ignored by our slumlord for over a month, kept me and my roommates up at night in rotating shifts to "change the buckets."
Other Amenities Of Note: Bats.

2. 8th and E Street, Our Nation's Capital. 1999-2000.
The setting: Tiny one-bedroom on Capital Hill, shared with Laurie and a guinea pig named Pug Dog. I slept in what was essentially a closet. There was an all-night bus stop outside my window, populated entirely by drunks and crazies. Inexplicably, our tiny kitchen was outfitted with a washer/dryer.
How I got wet: A sudden middle-of-the-night gush of putrid water through our kitchen ceiling. Horrifyingly, this turned out to be standing water from the overflowed toilet of a peacefully sleeping upstairs neighbor.
Other Amenities of Note: Cockroaches.

3. Central Street, Greater Boston Area. 2000-2002.
The setting: Another one-bedroom, this time shared with the husband, who was then the boyfriend. We had wall-to-wall carpet and heat was included in the rent.
How I got wet: I didn't. This apartment was shockingly leak-free. It did, however, have...
Other Amenities of Note: Tiny fruit flies that got into all of our food, neighbors who routinely woke us up with their sex howls, and other building residents who, when I fell down the stairs and lay in the first floor entranceway with a sprained ankle, actually stepped over me without asking if I was ok.

4. Belmont Street, Greater Boston Area. 2002-2003.
The setting: Giant two-bedroom in somewhat Stepfordesque suburb, shared with the boyfriend and our friend R. This was a short-term gig.
How I got wet: The exposed pipes froze and burst, flooding the basement storage area with a tidal wave of icy water.
Other Amenities of Note: R's two cats who hated me and secretly plotted my demise when she wasn't looking.

5. Hancock Street, Greater Boston Area. 2003-2005.
The setting: Overpriced one-bedroom-with-office, across the street from Star Market and one block from the T. Building owner-occupied by awkward Chinese-American couple who lived in apparent fear of contractors and instead rocked "repairs" DIY-style with the help of a selection of For Dummies manuals.
How I got wet: Several ways, really. Mostly from a revolting and longstanding bathroom-to-bathroom (theirs into ours through a patch of barely-there ceiling) and kitchen sink to basement leak, but also through a ridiculous plumbing setup that resulted in fowl water and chopped up spaghetti from the garbage disposal finding its way up through our bathtub drain.
Other Amenities of Note: Fuses that blew on the turn of a dime. Paper-thin walls and ceilings. Landlords with boundary issues.

6. Current Apartment, Suburb of Chicago. 2005-2007.
The setting: Spacious two-bedroom on 2nd floor of duplex. Deceivingly attractive and shiny on the outside; dark secrets within.
How I am getting wet: Overflowing washing machine in basement (ongoing). Bathtub that doesn't drain (ongoing). Shoddy kitchen ceiling that leaks when piles of snow gathered on the roof begin to melt, allowing drip-drops of filthy sludge to water-torture me all night while my landlord refuses to return my calls, not that this is happening right now THIS VERY MOMENT or anything.
Other Amenities of Note: Mice. A heater that is so old that, apparently, there are no replacement parts available, so that when it breaks a heating specialist has to come out and try to "fix" it by jimmying gears and levers. Did I mention mice?

I am soggy. My apartment-living rites of passage have been rote. Can someone inform me when my ship is approaching?

Sunday, February 11, 2007

Naptime is SO three months ago

Can you imagine how awesome it would be if twice a day, every day, someone cuddled you for ten minutes, laid you down in a soft bed, and asked you to please take a nap? Yes? Then can you please explain this to my daughter? She doesn't buy it.

Cletus' naptime has become something that we survive, here in my house. We get through it; we come out on the other side and heave a sigh of half-despondent relief. And here is how we survive it: with headphones on. With music playing, self-medicating with junk food, or - in this morning's case - typing out blog entries with such force that the sound of the keystrokes partially block out the NONSTOP CRYING FROM THE BABY'S ROOM. The child hates to nap.

Nighttime sleeping is going fine these days -- so fine, in fact, that there's no way in hell I'm telling you about it, because I live in fear of the mysterious gnomes who creep around cyberspace and steal away your worldly pleasures the instant you detail them on the internets. But the daytime sleeping. Sweet Jesus, the daytime sleeping. She resists it like it's straight-up torture. Every morning and afternoon, we go through the same thing: Baby plays. Baby rolls around on the floor, drools, eats her hands, kicks the dog. Baby has a bottle. Baby's eyelids start drooping. Baby begins her patented "pay attention to me, fools" pre-fussing routine of grunts and whimpers. Mom picks up baby, offers pacifier, rocks, puts to bed. Baby flips the fuck out.

Whatever book you are about to recommend to me, I have already read it, I assure you. I have tried putting the child down asleep, drowsy but awake, wide awake and cheerful. I have tried rocking her, not rocking her, reading her stories, holding her upside down by her toes. I have anticipated her sleepiness and put her down early, I have waited for her to cry and put her down late. I have tried letting her cry, gradual extinction, 5 minutes in and 5 minutes out, and in moments of pure desperation, holding the child for the length of an entire nap, usually when she is so tired from lack of naps that she looks about ready to gnaw off a limb.

Lately, I have been trying on a loose nap schedule combined with some of my best heartless cry-it-out parenting. Twice a day every day, I rock the baby for ten minutes, then put her down in the crib whether she is awake or asleep. I smooch her goodnight, leave the room, and resolve not to enter it again until the child has slept or the child needs a bottle, whichever comes first. Most times, this routine brings about at least a short nap -- but almost always, only after 30 minutes or more of a last-half-of-Steel-Magnolias-caliber crying fest. Going in periodically and patting or comforting her only makes it worse. All the stupid sleep books talk about "nap-training" as some kind of linear process: your child will cry a lot for the first couple days/weeks, then she will cry less, and finally she will fall asleep on her own every time blessed by a cloud of self-generated angel dust. At our house? There is no such progress. My child has cried a lot for the first couple days/weeks... and she still cries a lot. Every time.

Last Monday, when I picked Cletus up at the home daycare she attends 3 days a week, her babysitter came to the door looking haggard and exhausted. Normally, this woman is as perky and sweet as the day is long. On Monday, she looked like she had just lost a leg on the battlefields of 'Nam. "She. fussed. all. day," the babysitter announced. "She didn't sleep. Have a lovely evening."

I feel terrible about this, not because Cletus' babysitter was tired (she makes more than I do) but because nobody wants their child to be That Child. You know That Child. She's the one the day care steels itself for, the one that prompts the babysitter to bring a shot of whiskey along when she takes her end-of-the-day bubblebath. I want Cletus' caregiver to delight in her, to bond with her, to have fun with her while I'm having fun in my cube with my ipod and my secret stealing of company time to check my personal email. And I want Cletus' days to be good, fun, and well-rested, not tired and tear-stained.

If any of you moms out there have naptime suggestions other than those sponsored by Drs. Weissbluth, Sears, et all, please share. And if any of you non-moms out there have suggestions for good middle-of-the-day cocktails, please share as well. Cletus' future sleep skills and my developing alcoholism thank you in advance.

Oh, and also? My period finally started, and it appears that it's trying to make up for about 14 months of lost time. Apparently I'm a woman now. Who knew?

Thursday, February 08, 2007

Here are some ways you can piss me off

1. Load a sheet of label stock into the staff printer. Even though this printer is used by all of your colleagues in addition to yourself, do not announce that you are loading said label stock. Then, thirty seconds later when one of your colleagues unknowingly sends a document to the printer, snatch the printout and call out, "Who's printing?" Upon identification of the party in question, huff your way over to her cubicle, slam the page down onto her computer keyboard, and bitch "You printed on my labels."

2. Send an all-staff email announcing an upcoming bake sale TYPED ENTIRELY IN CAPS. Nothing says "make some cupcakes" like a heightened sense of electronic alarm.

3. Introduce the new hire to me by saying: "We finally got you someone your age to play with!" Because it's either Depends or a sippy cup, and nothing in between.

4. Speaking of Depends, strap one on and drive to Florida to try and kill your secret boyfriend's other girlfriend. Wait a minute. That didn't piss me off; that was awesome.

5. Consistently outbid me when all I want, if it's not too much to ask, if a big fattie box of Berenstain Bears books for my child who is still way too young to enjoy them.

6. Do this. Seriously -- fuck you.

7. Request that your public library purchase a bunch of ridiculous, almost incomprehensibly right wing political manifestos written by hackjob congressmen, all of which have titles like "A Man of My Word" or "I Won't Let Arabs Eat Your Children". Also request lots of books about learning to love yourself, and $300 sets of exercise DVDs from 1997 that I will then spend half a day tracking down.

8. Log onto an online reference service, send the librarian-on-duty a question about World War II, and then, while the librarian attempts to respond to your query, suggest that she "EAT THIS!" and barrage her with smiley faced emoticons and random vowels.

9. Shit on the rug.

Sunday, February 04, 2007

People, can we talk about the cuteness?

Because seriously. What am I supposed to do with all this?

People kept telling me this parenthood thing would get easier. Those people totally lied. It's not easier: it's hard, I keep messing up, and OHMYGOD I am SO TIRED. But what it has gotten? Is so much more fun. Like, completely fun, sometimes for hours at a time. Awesome things are happening right here in our house. Take, for instance, the sort-of almost kinda sitting:

Clearly, the child is a Genius Baby Who Is Both Stronger And Smarter Than You. The mobility, people. It's staggering. She's only rolled over a grand total of twice (seventeen pounds is a lot to roll) but she scoots and kicks like a champ, plus, PLUS: she totally grabs stuff. Or at least she tries to -- sometimes she just ends up waggling her fat little fingers in the general direction of an object, misses, and then opts for some satisfying hand-sucking instead.

This afternoon, the two of us sat together in the rocking chair as I read her a book. About halfway through the story, the child reached out, grabbed the book, and brought one of its corners to her slobbery drooling mouth. She clumsily licked at a couple of pages, then looked up at me with the craziest shit-eating grin. My heart stopped. For months I've been reading her book after book, reciting lines of favorite stories to what seemed like no one in particular while the baby wiggled and writhed and fussed in my lap. Today, for the first time, she became a participant. She was a part of the action. She ate her first book. As a librarian, I couldn't have been more simultaneously proud and appalled.

Friday, February 02, 2007

Ice age

It is 10 degrees outside and we have no heat in our apartment. What. The Fuck?

Last night as I snuggled up under our brown corduroy comforter, the husband wondered aloud, "Is it cold in here?" He cranked the thermostat up a couple of degrees, got into bed, and we thought nothing of it. Fast forward to 5:00 AM, when Cletus the Former Fetus bleated out her early-morning call for a bottle. I kicked off the covers, swung my legs around, and brought my feet to the floor, where they promptly froze, decayed, and fell off within 10 seconds of making contact. It was like a sheet of ice.

I freaked, ran to Cletus' room and snatched her up. The wee babe sleeps bundled in pajamas and a fleece sleep sack, but her little pink handlets and teeny smushable face are left exposed, something that is usually not a problem seeing as how we, you know, heat our house. This morning, though, her hands and cheeks were cold and I felt about as awesome of a parent as Britney Spears. I wrapped the baby in a blanket and checked the radiators. Freezing, all of them. I checked the thermostat. Barely fifty degrees. I flipped the fuck out.

Our building has a maintenance company with an "emergency line" for tenants to call when something happens to threaten health or safety. We called. We got an answering service. They promised to have a maintenance worker call us right back. We gave the baby a bottle, put a hat on her head, and tucked her into bed between the two of us, holding her hands to keep them warm.

Fast forward again to 8:00. Color us surprised: there was no maintenance crew in sight, there were icicles hanging from the ceiling, a polar bear made tracks across the kitchen floor. We called the "emergency line" again. We got the answering service. Again. I left a message, basically saying "we have an infant in the house, bitches." Five minutes later, the phone rang.

Me: Hello?
Some Guy: IS THIS MELINDA???
Me: Yes.
Some Guy: THIS IS THE MAINTENANCE MAN!!!! WHAT IS PROBLEM??

What is problem? What is problem? The man on the phone had a heavy accent. My head swam with horrifyingly racist thoughts.

Me: The problem is that we have no heat.
Guy: OH. IS COLD???
Me: [silently: whatthefuckwhatthefuckwhatthefuck] Yes. It's very cold. We have no heat. And we have a little baby. And we called you three hours ago.
Guy: I JUST GOT MESSAGE TWO MINUTES AGO.
Me: But we called at 5:00.
Guy: TWO MINUTES AGO.
Me: Ok, whatever. Please come and fix the heater.
Guy: BUT I AM SO FAR FROM YOU!!!

All horrifyingly racist thoughts were replaced by "oh, i see, you're kind of a dick" thoughts.

Me: Seriously? We need you to come now.
Guy: YES, BUT I AM SO FAR FROM YOU! TEN O'CLOCK, MAYBE. I CANNOT JUST COME NOW. I AM SO FAR FROM YOU!!

And it went on like this, back and forth, for an eternity. WHY was he "so far" from us? Who knows? Apparently he's a maintenance man of the world. Finally, he promised he would come as soon as he could and I hung up and screamed. My fingers were popsicles. The dog was an ice sculpture. Cletus' daycare agreed to take her for the day, so I got dressed and left to deposit the child in a warmer climate.

When I came home? Still cold. We've got calls in to the landlord, and I'm making plans for a weekend stay at my parents' place in Indiana if this shit isn't resolved by evening. Because seriously, and forgive me for being repetitive: what. the. fuck?