I wish shirtwaists and girdles were fashionable again. Why work out? I could be hiding this postpartum baby fat under a fluffy skirt and a good-fitting girdle. Damn you, youth culture, damn you to hell. You and your ridiculous Lycra t-shirts and low-rise jeans.
I belong in the 15th century, where my decidedly bottom-heavy figure would be appreciated.
*Trans. “Too much bad in the pear shape”
Florida Today interviewed my brother Matt about the Dad Vail Regatta in Philly and about rowing for his college crew team.
“It really is sad if you stop and think about it, because not only are you not going to row with your best friends for four years, but rowing in good eights is pretty rare outside the college scene unless you’re at an elite level,” [Matt] Murtha said. “So, from this point, it’s either you row and try to get on a national team or something, or you row with 70-year-old women.”
He’s on his way down to visit, actually, fresh off the regatta and on his way back to Florida. I hope he’s not embarrassed that I posted this.
☛ I’m working on a freelance project this evening, even though Ayun Halliday is speaking at Atomic Books right this moment.
☛ I got my hair cut this morning. I’m always a lava lamp of emotions when I get my hair cut. The bubbles of happiness at having a good cut float to the top, then drop back down to be replaced by blobs of self-doubt and hatred of people who wear glittery jeans.
☛ Owen still hasn’t rolled over. Not for lack of encouragement on my part; he just doesn’t want to. He loves sitting, though, and if I prop him up he’ll sit and drool on himself for giant chunks of time. And the drool. So copious. But it’s not teething, at least not yet. His pediatrician says that babies hit a drooling milestone at about this age, when their salivary glands mature. They just don’t know what to do with it all except choke on it or let it run off their lips.
His hand control is getting better every day. I think he still needs to work on hand-eye coordination, but overall he’s got a good firm grip and always goes after what he wants. His latest little idiosyncrasy is to play his hands over my face when he’s trying to fall asleep. Sometimes he reaches out to touch my cheek, my nose, like he’s a blind man trying to read my face. Other times he’ll grab hold of my lips and pinch my mouth shut. I think he’s trying to tell me to shut up already.
Today he went about five hours without a nap. It was ridiculous.
☛ On Thursday, I met another neighbor, a spritely 86-year-old woman in a straw hat, brandishing a broom. I was walking Owen in the stroller and she was sweeping her walk. She was wearing a SARS-style face mask. She talked at me for fully 30 minutes without removing it once. It disconcerting.
☛ I want to learn how to write my own Widgets. But I can’t think of anything useful to create. And it’s not like I have loads of free time, or anything.
Bleh. I’m feeling boring and apathetic again. I think I need to bake a pie, or something.
Editor’s note: I cleaned the bathroom, instead. And now my eyeballs are burning. From the chemicals. I think.
He only looks tough on the outside, friends.
Yesterday I splurged on this quarter’s issues of Bust [new one on the stands May 24, though] and Bitch. I don’t know why I don’t just subscribe, for Chrissakes.
Bust has a terrifically nostalgic interview with Francine Pascal, creator of Sweet Valley High [I still have #1, Double Love, on my bookcase] and the amazing Amy Sedaris as interviewed by Maya Rudolph, as well as a review of The Mommy Brain: How Motherhood Makes Us Smarter, which I really want to read. Bitch reviews it favorably, too. Bitch’s current theme is Masculinity, opening the door to articles on women’s facial hair, the triumph of the Bumbling Male [George Bush, anyone?], and a deep look at Wes Anderson’s films and the dichotomy between man and boy, father and son, mentor and protege. [I really, really have to rent The Life Aquatic.] Ever since I saw Bottle Rocket I’ve wanted to read a good, intellectual dissection of Anderson, both his style and his substance, and author Jim Burlingame comes through on the substance front.
Oh, and there’s something in there about Cock Rock. Haven’t read it yet, but am hoping it will explain my current obsession with Led Zeppelin, Guns ‘n’ Roses and The Who, among others.
To offset the intellectual, I’m reading an atrociously stuffy chick lit murder mystery called The Pact and a few back issues of Entertainment Weekly [see above re: subscribe, already]. And the other day I finished The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, pulled from Owen’s growing book collection, because I was absolutely out of reading material. You know, that book reads a lot differently at 25 than it did at 10.
In television news, Iain and I have turned off network TV and turned on the entire “Freaks and Geeks” series on DVD. Sweet Jesus, why the hell was that ever canceled? It’s brilliant. A little too reminiscent of my high-school experience; I’ve walked around in a self-conscious, nerdy, melancholy funk the last couple days because of it. [Remind me to tell you horror stories of Junior High sometime.] But it’s so deliciously awkward. And Bill Haverchuck is hands-down my favorite character. I admit at times it seems a little derivative of My So-Called Life, but since I loved that one too, I can’t complain.
In other unrelated news, I’ve updated my about page. In case you, you know, give a shit.
Big guy was a star at the doctor’s today. So brave. Four-month shots were the worst yet, because the light dawned in his eyes that his mother allowed this atrocity to go on. He didn’t just forget instantaneously, like last time. It took at least 10 minutes. And tears, real, heartbreaking tears.
My poor little guy! But I was calm cool and collected and didn’t even whimper.
So he weighs 15 pounds, 8 ounces and he’s 25 inches tall. He’s in the 50-75th percentile for height, weight and head. Big guy. Big head. Reaaaaally big head. [I should know.] Perfect reflexes, big marble blue eyes, a simply gorgeous specimen. And the Doc commented on how mellow and happy he is. “That’s the sign of a content, competent mom,” she said. I AM A GOOD MOTHER! MEDICAL EXPERTS SAY SO!
And all day long I’ve been listening to Acid-Washed Denim Rock. Styx, Journey, Rush, Springsteen. I can’t stop. My life is a classic-rock ballad. I think I’m counter-counter culture. I’m going to have to start shopping at Wal-Mart.
We’re going to the doctor in half an hour for Owen’s four-month shots. I’ve been telling him the last few days that we’re going to see The Doc, and that she’s going to give him a “vacation from disease.” I’m the queen of euphemisms.
I’m also looking forward to seeing how big he is now, because strangers keep coming up to me and telling me how big my baby is. A German women at the Superfresh the other day was asking my sister how old her baby was, and she was like, Ack! Not mine! Hers! and pointing. I told Germana he was four months old, and she asked how big he was when he was born, and I said Eight pounds twelve ounces. She did some math and said, “Humph, four kilos, is not so much. But is fat now! Must like the food, eh? Eating machine?” And elbowed me in the ribs. I wanted to tell her MY BABY IS NOT FAT. He’s beautiful. Shut up.
All day Saturday I kept saying “Four kilos! You are four kilos!” Even though he’s gotta be, like, 50 kilos by now, he’s so damn heavy.
He’s napping right now, even though he slept in. Maybe he’ll learn to nap for longer than 40 minutes at a stretch.
And maybe monkeys will fly out of my butt.
You never know.
Fuck me, it worked.
It’s 7 a.m., and not only is he alive and breathing [I had to check. You always have to check] but he’s quiet. And when I put his binky back in his mouth his eyes rolled back in his head, as they do, and I think he’s sleeping again. WOO HOO!
Why didn’t I try this sooner?
So Owen likes to start his day at 4:30 or 5 a.m., right? Sucks. Majorly sucks. I mean, that’s the time I used to go to BED. And he wants to wake up and start squealing like Tarzan. No.
So this week I’m going to try putting him to sleep in his own crib, in his own room, seein’ as how he’s a big boy now. Four months old, can you stand it? I can’t. Anyway. I put a new curtain on the [goddamn] east-facing window, and hopefully that, in conjunction with being in the Fun Crib, away from the Scent of Mom, will entice him to sleep later.
Tonight we gave him his bath, and read him his stories, and nestled him in the Big Crib with Mr. Woof and Big Puppy [I’m hoping he’ll adopt Mr. Woof as his “comfort animal”]. He’s put himself to sleep [so far], fondling Mr. Woof’s ear in a most delightful manner.
Let’s all pray to Buddha that — by some miracle — he’ll sleep until 6 a.m., like a normal early bird, and not awaken at the very buttcrack of dawn, because I’m going through serious sleep withdrawal and that makes me bitchy and apathetic. And nobody likes Bitchy, Apathetic MB.
Least of all Owen.
Man. I had a very cool week, but there’s never enough time to write about it.
Owen has started yodeling like Tarzan. It’s an ear-piercing good time.
Iain and I found a box of old photos. Whoa. Plus we rediscovered how cool our refinished attic is. That’s where he paints and I sew … soon as we can find the time.
My sister came up from Ohio for a visit. She brought Freaks and Geeks, Napoleon Dynamite and the rest of Curb Your Enthusiasm. We got about 20 minutes into the first disc of Freaks and Geeks, and then duty — who goes by the name of Owen — called. But it was great catching up with her.
Saturday we went to the library and got some kids books for Owen, including another Kevin Henkes classic. Sale books were four for a dollar! Super deal. I bought 5. Then we stopped by Starbucks to use a gift card and we got FREE STARBUCKS. No charge because their computer was down, man. Sweet. Free Frappucinos. And THEN we went to get gas, and a little old lady needed help at the pump, so I helped her. And she gave me a DOLLAR. I’m like, holy shit, we’re on a roll. Let’s go to the jewelry store while we’re still hot. But I saw that some good little Christian teenagers were having a car wash to raise money for a mission trip, so I gave them the dollar for good karma.
Speaking of good karma, Iain went home over the weekend to help his parents get their house ready for his little sister’s wedding in a few weeks, seeing as they came up and helped us with our house in the fall. That wedding is going to be our first road trip with the baby. I’m a little nervous. But before he left he gave me a mother’s day card! With a copy of Crosby Stills and Nash’s Greatest Hits, because I’m a big nerd but he loves me anyway. It was awesome, possum.
And then he came home in the wee hours last night to be here for Mother’s Day and we spent the morning mowing with the push mower and trimming around the hedges with scissors and raking up the clippings with a plastic rake. Sure, our equipment sucks, but the yard looks decent again, and we had fun doing it. PLUS we got to finally meet our neighbor, the one the old lady across the street refers to as “the colored man.” He’s got a green thumb and was good to talk to about lawn care.
Then I called my brother, who graduated college this weekend with a double major in Bio-something something and Molecular-something-something. He’s very smart. He’s going on to his PhD, but first he’s traveling Europe. I’m not jealous or anything.
And then I talked to my ten-year-old brother, who has e-mail, which is so weird to me, and my mom and my dad. And then I scanned in some old pictures from the stash we found on Thursday and typed this entry and here we are.
I feel much better now, for having been able to write it down, even though I’m stupid from lack of sleep and for having subsisted on Cheezits all day long. I still can’t believe how little time I get to myself these days, so forgive me if the blogging schedule seems berzerkers.