Grape Did It

High praise indeed

Ella's new favorite song is Little Red Riding Hood by Sam The Sham and The Pharaos. She walks around the house talking about being a big bad wolf and it's a little creepy but, meh, no one ever accused our family of being normal. 

I began singing it this morning and she asked me to, "Please may you  not sing that?" She is particular about who and how her songs are sung. I told her that hurt my feelings and I wanted to sing it. So then I did and then she showed me how to sing it properly.

Then I sung another verse. She told me, "You did that kind of good."

Three months

Dear Truett,

Yesterday you were three months old exactly. Your father and I did not mark the anniversary with anything special - being that I am in DC and he is in South Carolina - but I did have a serendipitous moment while driving in the car on the way to your great-grandmother's house. I reached between the seats to plug in my phone charger and came back with a receipt in my hands. I glanced down at it because HELLO NOT IN BUDGET ALERT ALERT (yes, that is how sensitive my budgeting neuroses has now become all thanks to your dad) and I could not figure it out at first. Hm. Arby's? I never eat there. 

I looked a smidge closer and saw the date. THEN I GOT IT. It was July 26, 2009. Three months and two days ago. Do you know what day that was? The day we went into the hospital to give birth to you. TWO DAYS BEFORE YOU ACTUALLY CAME. One day  far in the future you will refuse to eat your broccoli and I will go grab that receipt and say TWO DAYS YOUNG MAN. Two days it took me to bring you into this world. Now eat that smelly vegetable. 

The receipt is for a milkshake because I was pretty sure I wasn't going to get fed at the hospital - this rule is something I find just awful about hospital deliveries. You are in there running the toughest marathon of your life but wait! Not allowed to refuel! And so I sat in the parking lot slurping down that milkshake like our two lives depended on it. 

I talked to your dad yesterday and told him the receipt story and it caught us a little off guard - how hard these three months have been. How much eye brow furrowing and WHISPERED-THE-BABY-IS-SLEEPING bickering we've done. The sleeplessness, yes, but more the lack of know-how that caught us upside the head. I had this belief that all the babysitting I had done over the years had TOTALLY prepared me. TOTALLY wrong. Ego much? Have a baby.

Last night I took you with me and your cousins and aunts and we all went over to Georgia's in-laws house. My muscles felt tense as usual as I imagined jumping up halfway through dinner to nurse. Or you fussing for no particular reason as I paced the table and apologized. Or. Or. I don't know. The house falling down around our shoulders because NEW BABY. 

Instead, your father-in-law once removed took you out of my arms and held you like it was no different than watching the leaves change in the fall and you completely passed out. He swung with you in a backyard swing and when I came to check he asked me if you have a lot of trouble with gas and fussing? When I eagerly replied yes he nodded and said that should go away in about a month or two and life will get easier. You will sleep better and be much happier. But, he added, babies aren't hard, they just need a few things -sleep, eat, love - then everything will be okay! He said all this in such a calm and reassuring manner, all the while rocking you like a limp dishrag in his arms, that I nearly burst into tears. He gets it! It will all be okay! Truett loves this guy! I can eat dinner! IT WAS SO EXCITING. And calming and wonderful.

Guess what Truett? It's all going to be okay! And maybe next year for your birthday we'll get you an Arby's milkshake.

Vying for favorite

When I arrived at Georgia's house yesterday, and after I greeted everyone, I bent down to hug Ella and say hello. She looked slightly shy before telling me she'd "like her toy now."

This is not her fault. The fault is placed squarely on the shoulders of my younger sister Georgia who showers that little girl with a gift every time she says boo. Which isn't often. Okay, every time she says, "Just joking," which is a lot these days. Girl can JOKE.

So I look at her all embarrassed and chagrined because your AUNT HOPE did NOT bring you a gift. Because packing up a car with a new baby and sixteen thousand other things I SWORE I would not bring  traveling with me when I became a mother (yeah, THOSE things) was enough for me. So. No gift.

BUUUT. Quick thinking! I whispered in her ear that I would take her to the store tomorrow and buy her a present. This morning, making good on the promise, we went to the drugstore and bought a small pumpkin sippy cup and a packet of M & M's.

Once we got in the car I opened them for her but told her only to have a few, we'd put the rest in the fridge for later.

"Well, I'm going to leave them in the car."

"No, we'll just take them inside and eat some later."

"Well. I'm going to leave them in the car so mama doesn't know we bought them. And then eat some later."

A glimpse into the head of a madwoman

"Lie back down."

"No,"

"Lie back down."

"No. I have to make sure he's breathing."

"Hope, lie back down, he's fine."

"You don't know that, I can't sleep until I've felt his back."

"This is the neurotic we've been talking about. You need to lie back down."

"I'll be neurotic until I check."

"Hope."

"Leave me alone."

Lots and lots of hand wringing and these ()

Sunday morning I leave for a trip up to DC for a friend's wedding and I am having so much anxiety over a long trip alone with Truett that it has begun to creep into my dreams. Well, scratch that, my dreams have been wacked out ever since I got pregnant but point is I'M SCARED. Nervous that he'll scream on the car ride up (I'm breaking it into three parts and staying with friends to hopefully avoid this nightmare scenario), nervous that he won't take to his babysitter for the wedding (my kick-ass friend Zaina who is coming down from New York for the weekend just to visit and help out. I love her more than I can say. Hi Zaina!), nervous that his sleeping "schedule" (as such) will get out of whack BLAH BLAH BLAH BORING MOTHERLY HOUSEWIFE WORRIES (unless you're of the "Real Housewives" franchise variety and then there is nothing boring about that. Engaged to a married man? Check! YANKING ON SOMEONE'S WIG? CHECK!)

The part (HA! As if there is only one!) of motherhood I was totally unprepared for was the anxiety I would feel towards my child's happiness. I used to roll my eyes (is this a theme or what? How obnoxious was I about motherhood pre-child?) at parents who wouldn't let their children cry (come on! In MY DAY we were walking to school by three months!), parents who began scheduling their lives around the little one (what choice do they have? I ASK YOU NOW AS A PARENT.) and the obnoxious list goes on and ON.

Now I cannot go a night without having some sort of mother bear dream where someone threatens my child's happiness and I'm all, I WILL DESTROY YOU. A bit dramatic, right? I KNOW. But I can't help it. My elderly neighbor suggested it was "okay for babies to cry a little" while we were on a walk the other day and so help me God it was all I could do not to pull her into a headlock and ask her to SAY IT AGAIN. I had a dream my mother tried to teach Truett to swim and there was water in his face and ho boy did I go kung fu on her ass (sorry mom! It was only my subconscious!). I don't think my shoulders have relaxed in three months and I am poised. 

Summer assures me this I Will Eat You If You Cross Him mentality will begin to abate over time, I mean, how long can you exist in this hyper-aware state? In the meantime, I am seriously considering signing up for karate.*

*I am not thinking of signing up for karate at all. 

The Scamp

Since posting about The Day That Blew, Copper has escaped roughly seventeen more times. We call him The Scamp around here.

This morning Bud and I both trudged around the perimeter of the backyard looking for his special little escape route but we can't find ANYTHING. Even after shoring up some of the weak spots in our prison-y like backyard (I mean, right? Is this why he keeps escaping? A huge lot full of trees and a creek? MUST SUCK.) we knew there was somewhere he kept getting out.

Why? Because this morning Bud let him into the backyard and then went back out several minutes later calling his name. He finally found him in the house. How? Because Copper had left the backyard - via mystery hole - and let himself back into the partially open FRONT DOOR.

Scampity dog, that one. 

Fall: the cruel gateway drug to winter

The crisp air laced with the smell of burning leaves, the image of big, fat pumpkins and gourds, sunny, cool days. And you're all, "Aaah, I LOVE fall," when BAM! winter hits you upside the head and you find yourself wondering, "When did I get so pale and pasty? Have my thighs always been this alluring shade of skim-milk blue?"

On Sunday Bud took us to the pumpkin patch - and I say Bud took us because he proudly planned a family outing, something I whine about him doing more of on a regular basis. Look how awesome he is! - complete with pony rides and caramel apples. You pay an ungodly admission fee but leave with one pumpkin per person. 

Pony rides. Weight limit 120 pounds. DAMNIT, JUST MISSED THE CUTOFF.

I am a chicken (or a rooster?) and I will peck your eyes out unless you toss some corn my way. Go on. Toss it now.

Oh fall, you tricky, tricky season. Looking all pretty and shit.

First wagon ride.

When I carve a pumpkin it usually looks like three triangles and a hack job for a mouth. Bud does much better.

Yesterday blew

It began with Truett's refusal to take a morning nap and cascaded into a really bad day, really fast.

Truett took two one hour naps yesterday. I don't know how to explain this to someone who has never had a new baby at the house, but those few hours of naps are the equivalent of your ENTIRE SALVATION FOR THE DAY, so when a baby skips or shortens them it, um, feels like the world is ending. Totally not logical. But totally how it feels. 

I called Summer. Ella answered. We chatted for a minute and then she began threatening to hang up on me. This is how the conversation went:

"Don't you hang up on me!"

"Giggle giggle giggle. Yes I will hang up!"

"Don't you hang up on me!"

"Haha, yes I will! Hope da dope who doesn't use soap! Hahaha!"

"Ella, no, seriously, quit saying that (that rhyme is thanks to her daddy),"

"Hahahaha Hope da dope who doesn't use soap!"

Click.

I went downstairs to do laundry WITH Truett in my arms because remember NO SLEEPING and bent down to grab some dirty clothes. When I came back up I completely failed to see that really hard beam above my skull and knocked my head so hard I had tears in my eyes. I am a little ashamed to admit this, but I spanked the beam. Like, twice. I was so mad.

I put Copper outside to play. I went back to check on him a few minutes later and he'd escaped through the tiny space left open in the fence. I spent the next half hour running around outside calling for him but staying close enough to the house because Truett had decided to take one of his little, bitty catnaps for me. Copper eventually came slinking back in through the OPEN GATE. No, he didn't squeeze through a bit of fence we have yet to enclose, he merely let himself out through the GATE. WIDE OPEN GATE.

Ella called me back. As soon as I asked her how she was doing, she hung up on me again.

I seriously considered crying.

Throughout the day my allergies made it impossible to go three minutes without sneezing fourteen times.

I weighed myself. Good news! I gained a pound and a half!

I put on my favorite pair of red jeans (thank you Georgia). They used to be loose. You should have witnessed the muffin top. It was more like over-sized chocolate chip muffin top.

I put Copper out again. This time I watched him escape through the little hole in the fence. I had to run through the neighbor's yard in my house slippers, apologizing for my dumb ass dog. 

Truett woke up.

I changed his crib sheet only to realize the Pack-n-Play sheet I put on my registry and received was actually a sheet for a much smaller bassinet and fits NOTHING WE OWN.

I asked God, why?

I tried putting Truett down for a second nap and he screamed in my ear for twenty minutes.

Sadie decided this was a good time to begin barking at the wind again. I appreciate her feeling better but please not when the baby is about to go to sleep.

The mail sucked. Twenty letters and all junk.

Bud got home and we had leftovers for dinner. Leftovers for dinner always depresses me.

Right before bed, I saw a cockroach crawl up the wall in the den.

Fin.

Digging the hole deeper

(Following a particularly exhausting day)

"You're such a good mom."

"Thank you."

"If you were in a contest for best moms you'd be..."

(Waiting for answer to contest results)

"In the top three, probably."

"Wow. Thanks, Bud."

"Well, I mean, the contest would have MILLIONS of mothers in it."

"Yeah. Thanks. Great compliment."

"Come on, that's a really good percentage."

The 30 Day Shred review

The moment you've been waiting for, The Shred review. Oh wait. You don't really care how I liked the video. WHOOPS. I thought EVERYONE cared.

I got the workout in the mail Tuesday but of course it did not fit into my daily routine since it was AFTERNOON AND ALL. MUST wait until the next day so I can mentally prepare to stop being a total lazy ass. MUST eat some more, preferably of the cheese and chocolate and ice cream variety. Quick! I'm trying to get in shape tomorrow! BRING ON THE JUNK.

Firstly, you are supposed to have two 5 pound weights on hand. I mean, please. Who has these lying around? Not me. Also, won't that make the video HARDER? Baby steps, people. So I chose to use my remote and telephone. Same dif. Today I used both telephones in order to distribute the weight evenly. I am serious about this.

Yes, the workout is hard. Even the first one that is the beginner level and even though I was pretty much copying the chicK who was doing the "easier" version of each move. Don't you love that? Jillian's all, "you can do THIS version of the workout. The HARD one. The one not for pansy-asses who aren't really worried about their jiggly stomachs EVER getting better. Or you can follow this chicK who is modifying her moves for you sissies. Good luck with looking better."

On the up side it really is pretty short so I can squeeze it in while Truett is napping and still get laundry done, dinner prepped, emails written AND ETCETERA which is so important considering how little time I have right now with out a baby attached to either my boob or shoulder. With drool. Have I told you he drools a lot? Well he does but lucky for him even his drool is cute.