Friday, December 29, 2006

Today

Tuesday, I believed that I was acclimating to the lack of sleep. I was beginning to feel as though maybe I could deal with this, that perhaps one could convince one's self that sleep deprivation was a state of mind, and then talk one's self out of it. I did some dishes. I picked up some of the Christmas hurricane that still claims our living room. I made plans to go out later in the week. Tuesday was a good day.

Wednesday, all of that time that I spent feeling good about myself and doing things caught up with me. In fact, I think the entire past three weeks of baby feeding, shopping, holliday planning, and everything else that I was doing instead of sleeping caught up with me. Wednesday, I lay in bed trying to decide whether I was more tired or more hungry, and since the food was a lot farther away, I drank some water, fed the baby, and we both went back to sleep. Wednesday was over before I really knew that it started, because I never really went to sleep or woke up; I was just trapped in some mad, grinding, purgatorial nightmare in which a little elf demanded to gnaw on my flesh and refused to stop the squealing/grunting baby dinosaur fussing for a single instant.

Thursday, I recovered from Wednesday. I watched random things the TiVo had caught (yay TiVo for Christmas! We are so spoiled!), patiently saving the Venture Brothers marathon for Carl and I to watch when he came home. Which we did.

And Today, I bring you heartwarming tales of motherhood that include the phrase "grinding, purgatorial nightmare." The saving grace of this week is as follows: At the center of the all the haze and blur that this elf has made of my world, there is a bubble of clarity, where I am accutely aware of every tiny move that she makes, and greatful for it. I am greatful for her little fist earnestly clutching my thumb while she eats. I am greatful for the opportunity to watch her eyes change color from the murky mud-blue they were at birth to whatever they plan on being in the future. Right now, they are a beautiful, faceted crystal gray, ringed with the darkest indigo... Today is a better day.

Sunday, December 24, 2006

Hey!
Merry Christmas!

I hope yours will be as good as mine:
warm and squishy like a full diaper...
...tender and delicious like baby toes.

Saturday, December 23, 2006

I Love My Friends

Response from K-Dawgg:

"I could only image the zombie like states, but isn't that what you learned in college? How to function on minimal sleep? But I guess this project does not really have a due date. Well it did, but that was the draft print. You have to wait a few years for it to become self sufficient."

(To be filed under "Proof That K-Dawgg is Totally Geeking Out in H-Burg")

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Steph: It's okay. This is totally a free-be Christmas for you. You had a baby. Everyone knows that. You don't have to do anything if you don't want to.

Mo: Yeah, like, I could wrap up random crap from around my house, and people would just understand. 'Why did she give us a butter dish?' *shrug* 'It's okay. She had a baby.'

Steph: 'Yeah, but it still has butter in it!'

Everyone needs butter. Unless you are one of those people who doesn't like food to taste good. In which case, you need to loosen up...enjoy your life more, and butter is an excellent present for you. That or a nice pair of non-bunching panties.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
My one and only crossdressing friend from college: Holy crap! These are strange and exciting times. Way to go, kiddo!
Indeed they are, brother. Indeed they are.

Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Email Update To K-Dawgg

...I've had a stream of relative-type visitors. There's no way I'd be trotting out a newborn to tour the greater DelCo area, just so they could poke at her. That would be silly. And besides, there's this thing about giving birth; there is recovery time involved. And also, babies keep you up all night. Or at least, they wake you up three or four times a night, which makes for sleepy zombie-like days. Which makes one less inclined to go anywhere, do anything, or respond to emails in a timely fashion.

There is a rediculous Christmas outfit already. There are pictures. I will post them soon, I promise. ("soon" of course is a relative term. "soon" could mean by Christmas; it could also mean by Easter.)

The dog is sad most of the time that he can't come in the living room during the day, that he doesn't get played with as much as he used to, and that his bones have all been chewed down to nubs and no one has replaced them with new bones, as per the usual arangement. The dog is also very concerned about the sound the breast pump machine makes, and wishes to rescue us from it whenever it is turned on. He also wishes to chase kitties behind the Christmas tree, thus sending ornaments flying in all directions. He does not understand why this is not as fun for us as it is for him.


Christmas shopping so far has involved some online shopping that will probably not get here in time, a toaster from my mom, framed pictures of the baby, and inexplicable things from WalMart. I hope everyone likes random crap arriving four days after Christmas, cause that's what they are getting. Except for the baby pictures. They are not crap. They are good, and everyone recieving them will be overjoyed.....

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

In Which He Challenges the Spawn

Carl: haHA! I shall now change your diaper!!
*places baby on couch, whips bad old diaper off*

Wendy: *pees*

Carl: *Claps new diaper onto baby butt* Ha! I am swift and crafty! What else you got, huh?

Wendy: *smirks*

Carl: *tosses diaper #2 away, turns for diaper #3*

Wendy: *projectile poos at him*

And she got some distance on that one, across the couch and onto the floor. He had to pull a mad Matrix move to not get hosed with baby cheese. Honestly, I've never seen him so limber.

I heart you, Wendy. I heart you sooooo.

Thursday, December 07, 2006

Delivered

Wendy Skye
December 3
2:24 pm
7 lb 9 oz; 19 in

Saturday, December 02, 2006

Due

Six different people have called us since yesterday to find out if anything has "happened," how I "feel," and in the case of my Dad, "What the hell I'm waiting for."

Well, um....we finally put curtains in the bedroom, I feel a little hungry, and I'm waiting for my paycheck so I can go Christmas shopping. (Or if you are Dad, I'm waiting a whole week to tell you after I actually do give birth, just for that.)

No, friends and family, despite today being my due date, I am still the radiant, blooming vessel that I was yesterday. I'm simply festering with maternal glow. See the festering glow lines?

Aqualass is still blissfully reclining amongst my various organs and squiggly-spooches. She is happily oblivious that she will soon be expected to turn my "personal space" inside-out. She is so established in there, I am starting to think that she has no intention of making an entrance this week, next week, or really, ever. Of course, until she decides to do something like this:


...which, by the way, is her favorite thing to do. Though she is cozy and warm, and appreciates the chocolate milk I send her way, she sometimes feels a little cramped, and needs to assert her selfhood by way of jamming her sharp little feet into my ribs and shoving as hard as she can in the opposite direction, sometimes with her elbows. She especially likes to assert her selfhood just as I am trying to go to sleep. Right now she is doing it with complete disregard for my desire to blog, and entirely in support of her own desire for Thai food.

So, yeah. I'll get back to you on that. I promise.

Friday, December 01, 2006

Dukus Updatus

I haven't written enough here about Duke. Seeing as the fairies are about to pull a baby out of the cabbage patch any day now, I probably won't want to write about much at all for a while. SO here is a Duke update while I still feel like it.

While Duke is still my special Fluff-Fluff Marshmallow Head, he is no longer the little puppy-wuppy-wumpkins who could walk under the coffee table after cats without ducking or pick up single moms at Dairy Queen just by wiggling his adorable wumpkins body at them. At seven or eight months, Fluff-Fluff is growing into quite a respectable sized Dog.

Despite his monstrosity and dinasaur feet, Duke is still a puppy who CANNOT BE TRUSTED. This means he spends a lot of time gated into the kitchen, where he listens to NPR coverage of world events and covets things on the counter. Oh, how he longs for those forbidden treasures from above...




Sometimes, he is so overwhelmed with covetous envy (and concern for the developing crisis in Darphur) that he takes out his angst on his own belongings. Like his bed: a comfy, simple, fabric-covered piece of foam which inexplicably cost $45. BAD FLUFF FLUFF!

When he is not busy coveting or mulling over politics, Duke's leisure time is filled with such activities as chewing kitty heads, thwarting the effects of evil-eye from Mrs. Prissy-Pants Kayla via a wet nose up her butt, and convincing others to play his favorite game, "Disgusting Rope."

Disgusting Rope is a complex battle of strategy, wherin a very smart dog somehow convinces very silly people to hold the slime-coated stringy end of a purple rope while he gets to hold the drier, knotted end, and then pulls those people out of their chairs with it. This game can go on for hours. People in this house play Disgusting Rope differently. When presented with Rope, Erin usually flees the room, and I tend to throw it far away from me. Carl, however, has embraced Disgusting Rope as fun Man/Dog bonding time. The prospect of fun bonding time causes Carl to do strange things. Like place Disgusting Rope in his mouth. Why, Carl? Why? It is saturated in dog spit! You go brush your teeth now!

I can forgive this gross disregard for my tender sensibilities, because bonding time often results in adorable puppy piles. No, not the sexy 19-year-old-girl-filled kind of puppy piles from Victoria's Secret catalogs and our college days; the other kind. The wholesome kind, with actual puppies. Well, one actual puppy, and one grown man who loves his puppy so much that he acts like a ten year old, uses the puppy as a Fluff-Fluff pillow, and forgets that only an hour ago he was standing over the shredded kitty litter box, in a pile of cardboard and litter, demanding, "Why did we want a dog, again?"

While Making Out

"Mmm....we have garlic breath."
*kiss kiss*

"....mmm...yeah, we do..."
*smooch*

"...and by we, I mean you."

Italian food really does inspire that special kind of romance.