Glossolaliac

Livin' the life

Was just talking to a mommy friend about "the adjustment." The lifestyle that is, this being the biggest change in your lifestyle and you can't even imagine and nobody can explain it to you and you're just, I'm sorry, but you're just not going to understand until you're on the other side.

When I was pregnant, pregnant people told me and then I told other pregnant people how important it was to have pregnant friends and talk to other pregnant people because you need somebody who's going through it and who gets it.

So when you have the kid, it's like that, but in spades.

Yes, I miss my rock-n-roll lifestyle. But then again, sometimes I don't. And as we get more used to thinking of ourselves as Parents (capitalized, with the big P) mostly I just want to do what's right for the kid.

Plenty of time for tequila body shots later.

Day by day

This is what it's like. I'm doing my best to paint a picture of the joy and frustration and overwhelming emotion and it ought to be clear by now that this here blog here is my outlet for all of the above and everything in between. But I'm also reading Heather Armstrong's book, "It Sucked and then I Cried," some of which I deeply disagree with and some of which nails new mommyhood so perfectly that it would be stupid for me to write my own version. So, day to day, see what she said, page 137.

Motherese

So I read in the development books that baby brains are wired to respond to that higher pitched slow repetitive manner of speaking that they called "motherese." Also known as baby talk. They said that adults were wired to talk that way to babies too.

But I wondered. I even worried. I never talked like that to my friend's kids, and would have felt stupid for trying.

Well then. Turns out it's not a problem. It really does happen automatically when you have your own. And now I'm regularly refering to myself in the third person as "mommy," giving every bodily function a special heading - like "burpy times" - asking who the prettiest piglet is and doing it over and over again in a sing-song voice like I'm some sort of Bollywood retard.

Awesome.

Who's the prettiest piglet? Is it you?

Piglet

This kid is so squirmy she would burrow a hole to China if we put her down in the backyard. Add to that the constant snort grunt snortle snortle grunt grunt and the look of pure joy and delight when she sees and then cheerfully attacks the boob and we can't help but call her piglet.

No doubt leading to a self-esteem issue and eating disorder in junior high, but we'll worry about that later.

Me too

I have this urge to talk to parents, all parents, everywhere. Except that I forget that most people can't tell just my looking at me that I have a kid. So I have to make an effort to not be the weird girl at the supermarket who creeps everyone out by announcing to no one in particular that, "I have a baby!"

Childless meanies are keeping me from beer

Fuck you, childless friends.

Fuck you and your using two hands anytime you damn well please and your sleeping on a regular schedule and your being able to be wherever you want whenever you want. Fuck you and your not being here when you said you were going to be here even though I planned on you being here and I pumped and I got dad's permission to go to the beer garden with you and I've been alone with a baby all week including a Friday that was not just a regular Friday but a dad was gone all fucking day Friday and so I didn't get to shower or eat a real meal or do anything but soothe and feed the baby from dawn 'til dusk and well after that plus she was coughing and choking and I thought I killed her and that was stressful. Fuck you for not showing up so that I could go have just a few beers and a few hours of time without the baby and fuck you for waiting until now to tell me and fuck you for making me cry for fifteen minutes in the bathroom because I thought I was going to get a break and now I'm not getting one and fuck you for blaming it on some sorry girl who threw out her back and is on Demerol when I pushed a fucking watermelon out my vagina with no drugs whatsoever and she can't walk the four fucking blocks between here and the beer garden.

I was you. And now I want to throttle you. My every day is hard, it is a constant (and usually audible) challenge to get the most minuscule things done. Don't tease me with the opportunity for a break unless you mean it. Or I will throatpunch you and leave you for dead.

I'm having my own damn beer.

UPDATE 6/27/09 10:26pm: Ended up that I went to them (because if I didn't I just would have cried again) and so I did get a break and I did have a beer (or six) and I love love love (don't hate) my friends childless though they may be (for now) and I came home because I miss my little bug and my boobs are leaking. Goodnight.

Look ma, no hands!

Thank you Moby Wrap, which is called Cuddly Wrap in Canada, which makes way more sense than Moby, but whatever, who am I to judge. Anyway, thank you mommy friend for dropping off the Canadian version and thank you baby for getting into it and loving it and nursing in it and then falling right to sleep so that dad and I could go out to breakfast and I could type with two hands for the first time in three weeks and let's just pretend that the whole sling incident which you hated never happened and unlike in the Ergo baby I can see your little nose so I don't worry about the breathing and let's just walk around the house and pick stuff up and do it using two hands because we can.

Sometimes you ask for an angel

And the universe sends you a marching band.

I'll take that as a sign, because I was looking for a sign, and really, what better sign than a marching band. Not a sign of one thing or another, just a general reassurance that everything is as it should be and everything is going to continue to be okay.

So there we were, at the David Byrne concert at the Paramount, which was slightly different in setlist but not in concept from the prior concert at Benaroya, when he calls up a marching band. Having seen the show before, I knew this was not a part of the regular routine. They were from San Francisco, had been playing down the street somewhere, and marched in through the aisles dolled up in white fringe and silver pom-poms like glittery superstar angels.

Rather like the marching band that played at our wedding.

And to me, that means that everything is going to be alright.

Good morning sunshine

It's awesome when you wake up to gaze into the beautiful almond eyes of the little thing that has been snorting and kicking you in the stomach all night and she looks right at you and opens her mouth and a fat river of spittle falls out.

Boob, my boob, why have you forsaken me?

I'm listing to port.

If I lean over and let my boobs hang down like I'm in some National Geographic documentary (which  do, in the morning, in the mirror) my left boob is a full nipple length longer than the right. Also rounder when I stand back up. And definitely more full of milk.

Here's what happened.

For the first week or so of nursing, I religiously switched nipples at each feeding, just like you're supposed to. Then the right boob got hard and engorged and baby girl wouldn't take it - so I hand pressed it in the shower in the morning and pumped out an awesome 2-3 ounces each day in the afternoon when it started to hurt. I began to start her on the right side every time, but move her to the left when she got cranky about it. Now, she and I both have a learned preference for the left, and my right boob has stopped making milk. Not altogether. But damned near. So I started pumping every few hours to try to stimulate it - from which I get a measly half ounce or less in slow drops, and I'm sucking down fenugreek and Mother's Milk tea like it has whiskey in it. And maybe it should.

Meanwhile baby girl can only get a real meal from the left side and I'm in danger of walking in circles. This sucks. Pun intended.