Baby, I’m amazed at the way I love you.
Owen. Owen, Owen, Owen. I can’t believe how beautiful and perfect you are. I can’t believe that I made you.
Every day, I love you a little bit more. Every day, I marvel at your awesomeness, for you are Totally Rad. I just love being your mom. I hesitate to admit this, but when I was pregnant, I wasn’t sure how the whole motherhood thing would hit me. But it suits me to a T. I love being your momma. I love that you love me, and that I love you, and that we love each other, and that we love your Daddy, too.
Every day, I’m astounded by our bond. I always thought “bond” was a crappy, cheap New Agey word, some shortcut to admitting you have feelings for somebody. But it’s not, at least not with you and me. You can’t talk [well, you can’t speak English, anyway, not yet], but you and I, we communicate. We have our own language, and it’s a true one. We understand each other. I even get your jokes.
People might not think that a four-month-old baby could make jokes, but you can. You blow buzzies at me, waiting to see if I “get it.” Oh, I do, little boy, I do. We have entire conversations in which the spit flies fast and furious, and you do your little hee-haw laugh thing. It’s adorable.
Every day, I’m floored by what you can do. Nobody will believe me when I say this, but it’s true: You know how to turn the pages in your board books. We’ll be reading “There’s a Woset in my Closet,” and I’ll say, “turnna page,” and your big fat chubby fingers will reach out, and awkwardly grasp the page, and somehow manage to turn it. One time? A fluke, I’m sure. But several times in a row? Well, that’s probably a fluke, too, but a mother can dream.
You know, “fulfilled” is a cheap sentiment these days, too, but that’s how I feel. Rich. Filled up. Infinitely lucky.
You make my world go ‘round, little man. Every day, you take a little piece of my heart, and every day, I let you. Nay, give it to you. Here, the whole thing.
It’s yours.
I love you.
I’m going to smear my freedom and democracy on you
Why do I still watch these things? Presidential news conferences, I mean. It’s a mystery. They’ve lost all their joy. I don’t even drink along anymore.
So I totally hurled my brains out on Tuesday. Guess all that praying to household deities didn’t do any good. Yech. But I think we’re done with this damn stomach flu now. I spent yesterday in bed. Well, as much as one can when one is taking care of a baby. Luckily he naps a lot. Iain’s even gotten most of his voice back; he no longer sounds like Tom Waits after a day of heavy smoking. Everything seems pretty back to normal.
Dare I say it? The Schedule even seems to be back on track. Jebus be praised.
Now I just have to disinfect the house and burn all the bedding. Hie you hence, foul harbingers of barf! Begone!
The schedule is taken forcefully away
OH yeah. Went right out the motherfucking window, it did. Owen skipped two feedings Friday, two yesterday and a half today [so far]. He’s been sleeping a lot, too. And he had more than his usual one poo a day.
I’m not worried about him, though. I had my panic yesterday, but he’s in a great mood when he’s awake, he seems fine, and he has been eating, sometimes voraciously. He’s just not that interested in some of his bottles.
And when you consider what Iain is sleeping off at present, I’m not surprised.
Shortly after dinner [which Owen politely declined, seeing as he was dead to the world inside his crib] Iain began making “Honey, I don’t feel so well” talk. I figured he ate too much Tombstone Pizza [2 for $6 at Mars, such a deal, we stocked up].
I should have been paying attention. At 10 p.m., his dinner came back up — violently — the same way it went in.
Color me terrified. I have never seen Iain barf like that. Not even when he drank a liter or two of Hot Damn, straight up in a juice glass, back in college.
At 11 p.m., his lunch decided the party was over, too.
At midnight, breakfast had had enough.
1 a.m. his stomach started casting around for yesterday’s meals and brought up what it could. By 2 a.m. I think I had passed out, but no such luck for Iain. I understand this little party went on until the wee hours of the dawn.
The baby, however, after 13 long, restful hours in his crib [IN HIS OWN ROOM, OH MY GAWD], was ready to play at 6 a.m. I haven’t been to bed since.
I’ve been too busy praying to whatever gods are hangin’ out above our house to please, please, please spare me. I’ve been a good girl. I even vacuumed under the stove.
Let the worst of it be over, OK? I am quaking in fear at the thought of taking care of a possibly sick baby and a torn-to-hell husband while I’m praying to a host of porcelain gods. Dear sweet Jesus, don’t let that happen.
Which is why I’m not worried about Owen. I think he succesfully fought it off the last two days, and only missed a few feedings, and then passed on the whole stinking misery to his dad.
Poor Iain. He can’t even talk today, he’s been stripped raw.
I’m going to go knock on some wood now.
Squealer’s Wheel
Owen sounds like a squeaky doorhinge. No giggles and coos; it’s more like the sound one would make if one fell off the lip of the Grand Canyon: “EEEEEEEEEEEEyaaaaahhhh!”
It’s motherfucking adorable is what it is. Very highpitched, yet conversational.
Him: “EeeeeeeyEEEEEEaaaah?”
Me: “No way, dude!”
Him: “Errrrgaaaheeeeee!”
Me: “I don’t even believe it! It cannot be true!”
Him: “Illgeeeeeeh!” [sound of spitup running into his ear]
And he’s been moved to the head of the class at “school.” Literally. He used to be stationed in the little-little infants room, which was actually just the other side of a low wall. Now there’s a new baby — two new babies, actually — and he’s in the front room with the “big kids,” the ones who are seven and ten months old, holding their own bottles and shaving their five o’clock stubble. He even sat by himself in an Exersaucer! With no one holding him up! Having a conversation with an older woman at least twice his age, with three times more hair. She was seated in the Exersaucer across from him. It was so cute I almost spit up on my own blouse.
He’s gonna be such a little Romeo, wooin’ all the ladies. I’m going to have to keep an eye on him.
And he’s been in a pretty good mood for most of this week. Very little of that inexplicable archy-backed, red-faced screaming thing he pulled last week, although his appetite today was alarmingly low. As Iain said, he’ll eat when he’s hungry, and sure enough he drank down his regular bottle plus an extra ounce before bedtime. I feel better about it, although I’m still picturing enormous bloodthirsty parasites living in his lower intestine.
Reading Stephen King every night before bed probably isn’t helping [I’m almost done with this damned Dark Tower series].
Let’s see … anything else to report? I know his Grandma is reading so I want to make sure she has all the latest information.
I guess the other thing he’s been doing lately is gripping my bottle-holding hand fiercely as I feed him, as if to say, “Look, woman, I ain’t having none of this burping business, so don’t you dare take my baba away from me. Keep it right there until I tell you otherwise.” What can I say, he’s the boss. And when he’s not got my hands in a deathgrip, he’s holding onto the bottle itself. It’s so amazing. I let go for probably a full minute or two this morning and he HELD IT ALL BY HIMSELF. And then he went deaf from all the squealing and praise I gurgled at him.
Little goober. I love him so much. As good ol’ Vince used to say, “Every day is a new and exciting adventure.” Say true.
No rest for the weary, bleary or teary
Long-term sleep deprivation makes one addled and scatterbrained, I find.
Last weekend I showed up for an event on the wrong day, and this morning I awoke to the realization that I had missed an event last night ALTOGETHER.
Sheesh.
He makes my heart go pitter-patter
This is a rare moment captured: not one of his hands is in his mouth.
Sometimes it’s one fist, sometimes both; sometimes one finger, sometimes four, reaching for the tonsils; but never an empty mouth.
God. I’m going to be one of those moms. “Push your hat up! Get a haircut! Take your fists out of your mouth, I want to see that beautiful face!”
Notes from the other side of the line
Being a working mom kind of puts a dent in your blogging time, I find.
“I know it’s not a friendly thought”: Doc, NOTHING that has to do with oral surgery is a friendly thought. In fact, I’d lay money on the fact that very few of your patients harbor “friendly thoughts” about you. Sharp metal objects against teeth tends to take the affinity out of a relationship. Gratitude for clean teeth — I will give you that. But no friendliness.
My heart’s a-Flickrin’: I am even more Flickr-obsessed. Yesterday morning I found a pro account waiting for me, given by a very cool blogger who made my day. Now I am going to go truly buck-nuts with the photos. THANK YOU AGAIN, very cool blogger.
The importance of a schedule: Owen and I, we had a talk, and we worked out a schedule that I can count on. Having a schedule I can count on is better than chocolate, better than another 40GB of hard-drive space, better than having every season of Sex and the City on DVD. It is pure joy. With a schedule I can count on, Owen gets the naps he needs, the food he needs, and the cheerful mom he needs.
Remember how crappy last week was, and how he cried and I just didn’t know what to do? That’s what life is like without a schedule I can count on. Guilt, paranoia and madness take over my brain because I don’t know what to do with my kid. This week, on the other hand, has been awesome. I go to work happy. I come home happy. Owen is happy. Our little family knows what to expect, and that makes everyone happy.
In the evening, I can relax when i come home. I know that he takes a little nap before he has his evening bottle. I know that he’ll have a bath after that, and then we’ll read him storybooks, and then at 7:30 it’s BEDTIME. Every night, bedtime! Like clockwork! Knowing when to drink in all my Owen time and when to put him to sleep, when I can watch America’s Next Top Model and when I have to put things on hold. This is the result of A SCHEDULE I CAN COUNT ON, one that Owen happily submits to, praise be to Jebus for ever and ever amen.
As my own dear Ma pointed out, however, I can expect this to last approximately one week before he gets bored and needs a new schedule. But that’s next week. For this week, I have a schedule I can count on!! Did I mention that yet?
I can’t stop nibbling on his ears
So I’ve been a cranky bitch. And I just complain complain complain. And woe, woe is me, I’m so sad, I have to work, I’m a horrible mom, I have guilt guilt guilt.
I’m sick of my own shit, frankly, so I’m gonna take a few minutes to tell you about my baby and why he is hands-down the world’s best baby since baby Jesus.
- He is delectable.
- His thighs have three delicious buttery rolls of fat each
- He has pudgy pudgy toes
- He has the softest arm skin any human has ever had
- His hair is as downy as … down
- His ears are soft and fuzzy and nibbly
- His elbows are chubby and dimpled
- He has the sweetest breath
- His fat pink cheeks are fat and pink and kissable
- His creamy round belly is perfect for blowing raspberries
- He is beautiful.
- He has brilliant blue eyes, like his “Voted Best Eyes Class of ‘96” dad
- He has a perfect mouth that, when he sleeps, pooches out and glimmers with drool
- He has long elegant fingers with perfect U-shaped fingernails
- He is so very smart.
- He is so very well behaved.
- He never cries at the grocery store
- When we put him down at 7:30 every night, and lay him in his cradle, he lies quietly and falls asleep.
- He barely pees on the floor when I change him at other people’s houses, and never on the furniture
- He is unbelievably photogenic, which he does not get from me.
- He is happy a lot of the time, and sweet, and giggly, and cuddly, and snuggly, and falls asleep right on your arm when you hold him as you’re watching The View.
I love you so much, little baby.
Goodbye, cruel internet
Well. DSL was an experiment in endurance, I’ll tell you that.
We rewired every jack in the house and called tech support fifty-hundred times in the last two weeks, but God tole me I have to go back to dial-up because I bottle feed my baby and put him in daycare.
Bad, bad mommy.
So intermittent, not-very-fast-at-all internet is being shipped back to its maker this week and i’m going to go back to never downloading anything larger than 200k.
What a pisser.
delicious
He’s on an all-hand diet now.
recent flickr
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my sewing tutorials
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