Anything Said: December 2007

Wednesday, December 26, 2007

Stocking full of Ambien

Cletus the Former Fetus has rediscovered the joys of partying 24/7. For awhile there in December she was slacking off, taking the easy road, sleeping twelve hours a night -- but her zest for life CANNOT BE TAMED, people. For the past three nights she has been waking up at 3:00 AM and staying awake for upwards of two hours. She talks to herself, cries, kicks the wall, rakes her pacifier across the rails of her crib. She wants to rock and roll all night and party every day.

(By the way, until relatively recently I thought that the lyrics to that song went "I want to rock and roll all night and part of every day". Like, in the afternoons they just rested, because Gene Simmons was tired.)

I'm sure this will pass in due time, but it did result in our coming home from Indiana a night early. At my parents' place, the husband and Cletus and I all sleep in the same room. The same doorless room. Situated in the partially-finished basement, right next to the mess of pipes and pumps that clang and whir and swoosh all night long. Even when she's behaving like a normal person, Cletus has some trouble sleeping straight through in these conditions; when she's in a weird sleep-freak funk, forget about it. We figured if we just went home, at least she'd be Not Sleeping in her own crib, in her own room, down the hall from us. And like the awesome parents we strive every day to be, we could turn off the baby monitor when she started fussing. Which we totally did.

Christmas was good. Cletus' haul was ridiculous. I know it's to be expected, seeing as how she is a First Grandchild and all, but still -- her shit filled up the entire trunk of our car. I told my family that the child likes Sesame Street (which she does, whole-heartedly, adorably) and they shower her with a Sesame Street purse set (the appalling faux-lipstick was immediately discarded), Ernie and Bert bath toys, Cookie Monster books, and FIVE Elmo dolls. She got two new sets of blocks. A tea set. Puzzles. Clothes. A very strange dog/vacuum cleaner hybrid that we're not exactly sure what to do with. It's insanity, really. We live in an apartment. We are overrun with toys.

Don't email and tell me how ungrateful I sound. I already know. I also pulled the biggest bitch-out ever on Christmas day when I went all whiny on my mom over the Christmas brunch invitation she extended to my late uncle's wife. I was all "but Christmas morning is for OUR family" and "blah blah blah OUR traditions" and for the love of Mike, the woman is family and her husband died six months ago and she had nowhere to go on Christmas. Sometimes even I am astounded by what a dick I can be.

My cousin and one of my sisters are coming to town tomorrow to watch Cletus for a couple of days while daycare is closed for the holidays. Then my brother-in-law and his family are coming to stay for a night, and then the next day Rachel and I and our husbands will pretend to be young and try to put back more than one drink before falling asleep at 11:45 on New Years Eve. Happy ambiguously-extended holiday season to all!

Friday, December 21, 2007

Two ways to know the romance is still alive

1. You and your husband are sitting on the couch, contemplating watching a DVD. The DVD player is across the room. Your husband asks you if you would like him to "get up and put it in." You respond, helpfully: "No, I can do it." He giggles like a little girl, then blurts: "That's what she said."

2. Against your better judgment, you and your husband have been letting your dog sleep in bed with you a few nights a week. As a result, your husband now indicates his amorous intentions in the PM hours by turning to you and saying, "Hey baby. What do you say you go put that pug in a crate?"

It's pretty much an endless string of traveling and family for the next couple weeks for us. I'll try and pop in for a post if I can. Happy holidays, and let's not forget those poor souls in other countries for whom there won't be snow this season. I'm not naming names, but... do they even KNOW it's Christmas?

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Identity crisis

I enjoy receiving the December holiday card onslaught. Here's why: I never know to whom the cards will be addressed. My relatives can be very creative.

My husband and I have a hyphenated last name. We have shared said hyphenated last name since we got married four and a half years ago. Cletus the Former Fetus also boasts our last name, along with an added bonus: her first name (yes, contain your shock, her first name is not actually Cletus) is quite popular and widely-chosen these days, except that we have chosen to spell it a little differently than most in order to pay homage to my husband's Scandinavian heritage. Nothing freaky or Moon Unit-y or anything, just one letter exchanged for another. All these factors combined make for an enjoyable assortment of greetings from our holiday well-wishers.

The pack is usually led by a number of cards addressed to Husband and Melinda [Husband's Pre-Marriage Last Name]. This, while annoying after almost five years of marriage, is understandable; it's the way most folks roll, and I've come to terms with the fact that the majority of our more traditional family members will probably always refer to us this way. The first Christmas after we got married I was super offended, all "why can't they give us the courtesy of remembering blah and why can't they honor our choices bleh," but by now I've reached more of a "whatevs, next" point of view.

But then there are the relatives who continually address their holiday sentiments to a Mr. and Mrs. Husband [Husband's Pre-Marriage Last Name]. And not just the midwestern old people! (Sorry, midwestern old people, but you know you're totally guilty.) This, I cannot abide. These are relatives, MY relatives no less, who have known me my entire life, and who have somehow now decided that my first name is Husband. Unacceptable. Santa hates you.

This year we got to add to the fun the myriad interpretations of Cletus' name. There were spellings I didn't even know existed, several instances where relatives extended her name into a longer form, and one card addressed to Melinda, Husband, and "your cute baby." By that, I'm assuming they meant Frodo the Pug.

Poor unsuspecting Cletus and the life to which she has been condemned. Big old hyphenated last name, jacked-up first name, a veritable army of relatives who can remember neither, parents who keep a tally, and a dog who just puked up an orange crayon. This is why I refuse to make her sit on Santa's lap for a photo. The child has enough on her plate without bringing a big fat handsy stranger into the mix.

Friday, December 14, 2007

This is an order.

Let's say that one day, about a million years from now, I decide to ignore all the major mental & emotional health reasons for NOT having a second child, and on that day I decide to let my husband come within five feet of me for long enough to conceive additional offspring. And let's say that said additional offspring comes into this world a fully red-blooded American baby boy. And let's say that baby boy somehow survives infancy, grows strong and healthy despite my broken boobs that won't nurse and my tendency to swear a lot and my ill-advised desire to watch lesbian dramas on DVD while he's awake. Let's say he even gets old enough to be called a toddler.

Now let's say I take that toddler to the indoor playground a couple blocks from my house (the place where, incidentally, I took Cletus the Former Fetus earlier today). And let's say there are a whole bunch of other kids at the playground, frolicking, rough-housing, climbing and running as children so often do when frequenting playgrounds. Let's say that into the middle of those children I march, toting my toddler and a large plastic porta-potty. And let's say that I plant that plastic porta-potty right there on the ground, between the miniature merry-go-round and the teeter-totter, and I order my toddler to pull down his pants and sit.

With me so far? Now here's where you come into play. If you hear me shout toward my toddler: "Push your wee-wee down! Further! All the way down, honey! Push your wee-wee all the way down and go pee-pee! Let the pee-pee come down out of your wee-wee!" before hoisting him back off of the potty, removing a disposable liner-bag full of pee, and carrying the bag through the playground and past the other moms eating a snack over in the corner to deposit it in the bathroom next door?

I order you to shoot me on sight.

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Wintry mix

There is freezing rain falling outside and I am housebound. It occurs to me that all of the locations on my list of Places I'd Like To Someday Settle and Open Up My Little Feminist Book Shop (And Monkey Sanctuary if Laurie Decides to Give Up This Ph.D Stuff And Join Me) have horrible, snowy, just-shy-of-Arctic winters. Minnesota. Vermont. Iowa. Why do I daydream about these places? I fucking hate winter. I need to start thinking South. Or West. I think the husband secretly wants to move to Oregon. He has visions of himself being all Sierra Club-y, surrounded by nothing but green, wearing nothing but green.

I have to drive an hour to and from work every Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Last week we got all kinds of snow and ice, and the drive was just miserable. The roads weren't well plowed or salted and there were accidents everywhere, cars spinning out into ditches, drivers standing in the middle of the road next to their stalled vehicles. Every time I drove by a crash, I would say to myself "that could just as easily have been you," or "you had better keep your eyes on the road," or "you are quitting your job and never leaving the house again."

I have a lot of travel-induced anxiety. Really, I have a lot of life-induced anxiety. I've been seeing a therapist for a couple of months now, and one of the main things I'm learning is that the stress and panic that I've been attributing to postpartum crazies have actually been with me for a very long time; having a baby just kind of pointed a neon light on them and forced me to step on the brakes. Like, for instance, I've always had this feeling that I, or someone close to me, was going to die in some kind of horrible crash. I know. It's very Lifetime Movie. Maybe it's caused by Lifetime movies. I have no idea. But all I can tell you is that for as long as I can remember, every time I or someone I love goes on a trip AND/OR travels in inclement weather AND/OR is late coming home, I'm waiting the police to show up at my front door. I'm waiting for that crash.

In order to stop the crash from happening, I play games with myself. I go very OCD, I imagine the crash happening, I assume it's going to happen. And somehow from that assumption comes protection. If I'm thinking about it, if I've got my guard up, then I can keep myself, my friend, my family member, whoever is the target of the Crazy on a given day, safe. But conversely if I drop my guard, forget about all of the possibilities for harm and gloom and doom, I'm virtually ensuring disaster.

My therapist says (it's only been a couple of months and I already start paragraphs with "my therapist says...") that I must really love life, to want to work so hard every day to keep myself and everyone I love in it. But I think that's a very therapist-y way to look at the situation. It seems to me that if you love life, you live it -- you don't spend your days white-knuckled, trying not to lose it.

Anyway, I was given an assignment for this week, which is to observe the ways in which I am not kind to myself around this issue: for instance, when I yell at myself for paying too much attention to "This American Life" on the radio and losing focus on driving because - you never know - I could start laughing and miss a patch of black ice and leave my daughter motherless and alone, or when I scold myself for being angry with my husband over small, petty things because - you never know - he might get in an accident on the way home from work and die and THEN HOW WILL I FEEL about bitching over the mess he left in the kitchen? At first, my therapist proposed that, when I caught myself being self-critical and harsh like this, I should soften the blow with a self-directed "sweetie" or "honey," coddling myself. I think I must have responded to the suggestion with something between a blank stare and an incredulous eye-roll, because she quickly deemed me "not ready" for such tenderness and instead, directed me to simply note any instances of the behavior for future discussion. That I think I can do.

This whole post feels like an overshare and I may delete it and replace it with the words "In summary, I have issues."

Friday, December 07, 2007

Discomfort and joy

Cletus the Former Fetus and I went to the mall today. There are few places on earth that I hate more than the mall, AND YET? To the mall we flew. The child was crabby, the weather was freezing, and I work at a library so don't start telling me I should've gone there instead. Do you go to your office on your days off? I didn't think so. Plus, the library doesn't have a toy store upon which you can unleash your toddler and then spend the next thirty minutes chasing her from one narrowly averted disaster to another. Good times.

Anyway, our trip to the mall was eventful because it included Cletus' first patronage of McDonalds. Yeah, I fed my 14-month-old a Happy Meal, and now her poor pristine avocado-and-broccoli-and-banana-yogurt-loving tummy is forever tainted. She devoured that shit like the evil baby crack it is designed to be. She straight up sat at the food court table with me like we were out on a lunch date, which I guess we totally were, and shoved Mcnuggets and fries into her piehole. It was adorable despite its inherent wrongness. Before you know it I'm going to be foregoing dinner in favor of just pouring cups of sugar and clumps of butter down her throat.

In other news, the husband and I spent most of last weekend trying (ultimately fruitlessly) to take a Suitably Precious Photo of the baby and the dog to insert into this year's Christmas cards. We did not succeed. Here are a few choice rejects:

Above, Cletus the Former Fetus and Frodo the Pug convey that timeless holiday sentiment, "What the fuck are you looking at?"

...while in this companion shot, Cletus seems to have moved on towards "Don't bogart that can, man" territory, with Frodo taking a somber moment to reflect on global AIDS.

"I thought I had made myself clear: I will stand in front of this tree, but I will not embrace the sudden urgency for good cheer."

"Why hello there, you're a saucy fellow! Can I interest you in a half-chewed graham cracker and some juice laced with floaties?"

Sunday, December 02, 2007

Business as usual, part 2

The landlord drama is resolved, sort of. These people are shadier than shady, I'm telling you. They're all "we're so sorry" and "it somehow slipped our minds" and "how can we make it right?" And you know that all they're thinking is "don't sue don't sue we need your rent checks to finance our puppy mill and our baby seal factory." They're going to split the heat with us and throw in a second parking space at no charge (which, in my suburb, is pretty much like offering handfuls of gold).

But I say it's all "sort of" resolved because we have yet to sign any paperwork attesting to this agreement. So we'll see.

In the meantime the apartment is still for sale, and the parade of strangers and crazies through our personal space continues. A couple of weeks ago two HUGE Hasidic Jews came to look at the place. I don't mean to be all sizist, but I'm talking they could barely fit through the doorway, and when they walked into the living room Cletus the Former Fetus' jaw dropped to the floor. I don't know if it was the girth or the beards or the clothes, but the child gaped at them like she had never seen anything quite so amazing in all her fourteen months.

Yesterday a crew of about ten people came clamoring through the apartment, seven or so children of various ages and ethnicities, along with two elderly white women. The kids all called one of the women "mom," and they didn't seem to understand the boundaries that usually exist in situations like this: they stood around in my dining room chatting and laughing, they scratched my dog's belly, they commented on my furniture. One of the littlest kids, a boy of what appeared to be six or seven years old, pointed at my desk and asked the woman standing closest to him, "Mom, if we move here will that be our computer?" I tried to make myself disappear. It was just the strangest experience.

I have really come to fetishize home-ownership, I hope you all realize this.

My Magic Bullet is lovely and amazing and you should totally come over for smoothies. Or for salsa, pesto, guacamole, nacho sauce, marinara, grated parm, milkshakes, chocolate mousse, or muffins. Except that we'll have to make them when Cletus the Former Fetus is in bed, because if there's one thing that this morning's Mixed Berry Smoothie taught me? It's that Cletus is deathly afraid of the Magic Bullet. Like, hysterical sobbing and clutching my hand with an iron grip afraid. Clearly, it's because she hasn't yet seen the infomercial.