Mooo-ve over, human...or, You've come a long way, mama

Few days back, a group came over to my house for brunch. A college buddy who has a son about five months younger than Anonybabe asked if I'd weaned Anonybabe yet.

"Weaned?!" another friend piped in, "weaned? Is that the word you use?"
"Yeah, I think so," college buddy blushed a little and looked to me for backup.
"Weaned," I concurred. And looked at other friend a little perplexed.
She wrinkled her nose. "That sounds so...animalistic."

Yep. It does. It is. The moment made me realize how much more comfortable I am with my body since having a baby and nursing this long. I didn't even bat an eye when my male buddy brought up my breastfeeding routine in a room full of people who hadn't breastfed. I thought of it as normal breakfast conversation.

To that I can only say: Yea!

My community - I'm really, really sorry if I make you uncomfortable with my casual talk of boobs, my occasional whipping out of the breasticles, even now. But it is SO DAMN NICE not to worry about it anymore. And really, aren't all of our lives a little nicer with the introduction of a little casual nip?

I added Hathor the Cow Goddess links to my website - she's a chick who is gaga over whipping out her breasts. I used to find her a little too strident about it, but now I think she's right.

Happy holidays! Give boobs a chance!

So it's not just me?

Anonyhub threw a birthday party of sorts for me last week, the dear. This is not pertinent to the post, but I gotta pause here to give due credit: Anonyhub cooked like a fiend and the party had a delicious spread: meatballs with pineapple sauce, sweet & savory cookies with herbs on top and cut into wagon wheel wedges, grilled asparagus, spicy roasted sweet potato blocks...it was just delish. Unfortunately, I had one of those nights where the more drinking I did, the more I wanted to just be an introvert. My friends kept me rolling in laughter most of the night, but when things inevitably petered down there were some awkward silences and I just couldn't jump in to fill the void. Ah well...sometimes you feel like a party nut, sometimes you don't. I was really, really glad friends came over in the cold, snow and ice on a pre-Christmas weeknight and didn't want them to get the wrong impression.

Anypartypooper, we hired a babysitter to take Anonybabe off the premises during the party, but she was returned before anybody left, and surprised me by toddling around the room and talking non-stop. This led to some mild amusement amongst our guests. At one point, a partygoer made a joke and did it in the same tone Anonybabe had been using all night...the one I blog about here...the one that was driving me so crazy when she first started using it. I've gotten used to the way she talks now, for the most part, but when I heard my friend mimicking her spot-on, I thought, "Ah! So it isn't just me! When she raises her voice like that it is freaking annoying!!" There's a teeny part of me that feels like a heel for often cringing at the sound of my daughter's voice....but a big part of me that feels glad I'm not alone.

I'm going to assume she won't talk like this for the rest of her life, while simultaneously scouring Craigslist for Anonybabe's very own Henry Higgins. No slipper fetching required.

A, B, C, Delicious

Anonybabe really likes reading the Dr. Suess A-B-C book. And until this weekend, she really liked demanding that we sing the alphabet song to her when we opened it to a multi-color spread of the 'bet. Woe upon us if we sang the wrong version...there's the traditional "Twinkle twinkle" one and then another from a PBS show sung by Alpha Pig. "Aeee? Beee? Seee? Aaaah Piiiiiih?" means you better step proper to the mike, yo, lest you be "NO?!"ed off the stage.

In the last couple of days she ventured to sing her own toddler version, where she skips around to all the meaty parts and then ends with "ting wi meeee".

She'll also sing a fill in the blank version of Rudolph the Rednose Reindeer and Frosty the Snowman. To wit:

Anonymom: Rudolph the.......(healthy pause)

Anonybabe: (bobbing and swaying)...wed....waindeeee

Anonymom: Had a very........(healthier pause)

Anonybabe: Shy.....Noh!

Anonymom: And if you ever......

Anonybabe: (making a run for the dollhouse) Mama...pay...dah house....tooooooo?

It's fun to pull it out at parties...makes the roughly five thousand times in a row she asked that we sing it seem almost worth it. I'm worried it's going to lose its appeal before we get to pull it out in front of her biggest patrons, aka the grandparents.

Wine Oh

I am sorry to report that to counter the cabin fever brought on by four days of house arrest...house arrest due to the cold here, mostly...I've taken to drinking wine coolers during the day. Homemade wine coolers. Like, I forewent drinking some half-way decent wine in favor of mixing it with something sweet and fizzy. All while taking care of my toddler.

Am I drinking one now? (Cue husky voice) Why, yes...yes I am.

Baaaaaad mommy, on so many levels.

And what, praytell, is the evolutionary purpose of shame?

A dirty little secret concerning breast feeding? It is not entirely unpleasant to have someone sucking on your nipples throughout the day.

That is, once you can get over your hangups and accept that boob-to-mouth is probably pleasurable for just this reason and it is okay to enjoy it.

Now that Anonybabe is almost 21 months old and weaning is closing in on the horizon, I'm just about there.

Birthday bytes

I am wearing my come-fuck-me birthday boots tonight. I am hoping they adequately distract Anonyhub from my don't-touch-me leg hair.

Moon unit

Sometimes I think Anonyhub hangs the moon. Sometimes I think he can go hang himself on it. Today I am leaning towards the former.

We watched 2 days in Paris last night, a movie about a couple - she's french, he's american - spending 2 days with her family in Paris. They have a horrible time and their relationship teeters on the edge of extinction. The movie is funny and sweet and realistic. It made me aware again of the fact that I do love Anonyhub. That I'd like to laugh and play with him more. That even good relationships can take a turn for the ugly when it involves two thinking, growing, emotional people.

At the very least, I like the fact that we liked the same movie.

All for one, and one for all

Anonyhub and I are both disgruntled Protestant Christians. So disgruntled that we don't identify ourselves as such anymore. But we both want to continue to pursue god in our own time and way and want to give Anonybabe a spiritual lexicon so she has the vocabulary and framework to decide how and whether she wants to do the same.

This show was geared towards people like us.

Here's a quote from Rabbi Sandy Eisenberg Sasso, who is one of its interviewees, about everyday activities she thinks of as spiritual exercises:

“…We don’t usually think of reading as a spiritual exercise, but I think it is because in order to hear a story you have to quiet yourself. And you have to empathize with the characters in the story, and isn’t empathy part of the spiritual life? Isn’t quietude part of the spiritual life? And you also discover in story that you don’t have control. You might like the characters to do one thing and another. You might wish they would make one decision or another, but you can’t control the situation. And part of the spiritual life is learning that we are not always in control. And also if we are also truly listening, then all the details matter. It matters what the color of her hair is, or what he’s wearing, or what the time of day is, and paying attention to the details of life is part of a spiritual life.”

Blinded me with Science

So to keep Anonybabe occupied while I made dinner Sunday night, I gave her some carrots, an empty bowl, a bowl of water and a scrub brush and asked her to help me wash the carrots for our supper. She set to with great gusto, taking one carrot at a time out of the water, giving it a earnest swipe, and then moving it to the empty bowl. When she'd moved all the carrots to the dry bowl, she would reverse the process. Back and forth, back and forth.

At one point I started taking carrots and peeling them, letting the peels fall into the dry bowl. She started experimenting with the peels. Tasting one, putting one in her hair, moving the pile of peels back and forth, in and out of the water.

When she finally got bored with this, she dug in the cabinet under the sink and found some pop-up sponges...the kind that swell when you put them in water. So I got another bowl of water for her to put the sponges in. She liked watching them grow, and then liked carrying the soaking sponges to various places in the house and squeezing them so the water would splatter onto the floor. I kept her from doing this on the carpet, but let her do it on the linoleum.

I thought, "I don't really want to tell her that isn't appropriate, you're making a mess, the floor will get slippery, oh look at your tights you're soaked we're going to have to change you for the third time today." I was really jazzed that she was experimenting and observing. I toyed with a fantasy of never encouraging her to think of the practical consequences, to always push her to go ahead, try it, see what happens. "A scientist," I thought. "Oh boy."

I tried to push the thought of the boyish, eager, gee-whiz scientists who'd developed the atom bomb out of my head. They hadn't been bogged down by pesky things like the political/social/biological consequences of their research. They'd just wanted to get to the heart of the matter, to see what made the universe tick. Their open inquisitive nature was a beauty to behold. The soul-wrenching consequences were horrifying. Not that the scientists decided to bomb Japan. They just didn't worry their smart little heads over the fact that that's what their bosses wanted to do.

As I sighed, wondering if we could ever live in a world where we didn't have to be more watchful, Anonybabe slipped in her puddle on the floor, her feet contorted as she landed on them at odd angles. She cried as I held her, then calmed as I had her wiggle her toes and feet, relieved that my momentary fantasy of a world without consequences hadn't resulted in a twisted baby ankle.

Hee-haw

God. My last post - in which I more or less say "people are suffering though pain-in-the-ass pregnancies; too bad they aren't me, dahrling! Ah ha ha ha ha ha. Please pass the chardonnay" is a pretty good example of my inadvertant jackassery lately.

I've been feeling constantly inadequate and behind - as a parent and a friend. I asked friends who didn't really want to to watch Anonybabe this past weekend, and handled it about as poorly as I possibly could - asking at the last minute and in a really assuming way, and then backing out without really communicating when or that I was...ugh.

And the more I ask whether people had their own little "no" machines as children, I keep hearing that their kids may not have been sweetness and light, but could at least communicate their desire not to wear their green shirt today without yelling "no" repeatedly and loudly.

Once when I was in 7th grade I had a long blue jean skirt that had a little fly that zipped up the back. It wasn't until 5th period that Kimberlee Greenlee walked up to me from behind, her green Trapper Keeper a privacy guard and stage whispered "Your skirt is unzipped." I could see from the guffawing of the boys around me that she wasn't the only one who had noticed. A quick trip to the bathroom to see how much had been on display only made things worse - every time I'd taken a step my whole back section from butt to mid-thigh had flashed at my classmates behind me. I'd been wearing some worn and childish hot pink panties that should have been replaced long before and had a tendency to ride low. My ass had literally been hanging out. How I hadn't noticed before then is beyond me, I was helpless to make the slow burn in my face go away.

I feel a little like that about my friend/parenting skills lately. Like all of my silly inadequacies have been on display and there's not much I can do about it...not really.

Well, nothing except tell the pink panty story. It seemed so horrible at the time and now it's just a silly little funny. I can be as melodramatic as I want to be about my family's lack of social graces...but life will go on. Hopefully I will learn from my mistakes and wipe out the sting of my bad decisions by making a few dozen good ones in their stead. Spend time with my friends, laugh with them, give them silly gifts, send them funny emails, the like.

A fond look back

I don't necessarily plan on getting pregnant again, but if I do I won't expect it to be as breezy the second time around. A couple of friends are currently pregnant with their second, and their easy first pregnancies are now encased in a cloud of misty nostalgia as they fight fainting spells, nausea, horrible joint pain and constant trips to the bathroom. (Okay that last one isn't so novel).

It made me want to commemorate the good parts of my pregnancy with Anonybabe. No matter what, I only got to ride that wagon once. One thing I liked was how freaking good I felt about my body. I ballooned starting the moment of conception, steadily packing on over 50 pounds by the time I delivered. But I never felt so luscious in my life. I delighted in wearing skin tight shirts that accentuated my belly, and low cut shirts that showcased my swelling cleave. I felt like superwoman during the 2nd trimester, like I was constantly high on some really really good shit. I smiled a lot. I ate a lot. 2nd trimester and a positive birth more than made up for the constant queasiness of the 1st trimester and the lumbering heaviness, antsy nerves, and interminably sleepless nights of the 3rd. And I wanted sex all the time.

Sigh. Good times.

Chock o Lot

Anonybabe was extremely fussy yesterday morning. A condensed transcript of our day would ready something like this. "NO NO NO NO NO NO, Nooooo? NO!" A friend who kept her for a couple of hours dubbed her "Little Miss No".

Anonyhub and I both tried all of our tricks to get her to take an afternoon nap before our evening to-do, to no avail. We tried for something like an hour, which is both ridiculous and abnormal at the Anonyfam's.

She took a little power nap on the way to the event, then cruised and blabbed happily the whole four hours we were there. I was so enamoured with her relatively sweet demeanor that I caved when she asked for "chook cooo-keeee", letting her eat no-bake chocolate cookie after chocolate cookie. What? They were very small, sweetened only with honey, mixed with cocoa powder, peanut butter and sunflower seeds. "Protein!" I thought. "Fiber!"

Of course she didn't fall asleep on the way home like I thought, and of course she was wired until close to 1am in the freaking morning. The last hour of her marathon awakehood was spent crying and begging for food. Finally we fed her some banana and listened to her alternately giggle and whimper herself to sleep.

Anonyhub says she shat the biggest, seediest poop today, and has been little miss sunshine ever since.

Bad mommy.

Don't say

Put my foot in my mouth a lot this weekend. Rather, I wish I'd inserted it firmly before heading out to my events, although ultimately running at the mouth didn't seem to do me too much harm.

Yesterday took Anonybabe to a knitting group where I met a woman who seems nice. I have a recent history of wearing my neediness on my sleeve, so I bit my tongue when I learned she was a mother with two youngsters who lives near Anonyhub's work. "Give it a minute," I thought, after throwing a few giddy stories to the room at large that drew a few laughs and several forced smiles. "Self," I said, "the night is young; if you guys hit it off you may casually mention getting together." She instigated the play date talk though, and I proceeded to trap her by the cookie plate while I gushed on and on about how I'd love to find people for Anonybabe and I to hang out with, how I really need a local community while I figure out how the hell I want to parent, on and on and on. I all but slapped my forehead when she finally extricated herself and sat back down to knit. But it looks like she's as desperate for adult/child companionship as I am because she made an effort to come back and get my number at the end of the night. Joy!

Also might have blown the interview with another delightful couple at a brunch on Saturday. Saw them months back at a birthday party and really liked them. Have been pursuing them for months and we finally got together at their house for food. I still think they're fantastic, but the magic just wasn't in the air. I said a few things that fell completely flat, mostly jokes about parenting and Anonybabe.

What can you do when being yourself causes people to back away slowly? You sit and you wait til you find somebody you can spaz out on with immunity. My best friend and husband have taught me there is a weirdo out there for all of us.

Copy cat - Fffffft!

Remember how, like, two days ago, I was annoyed with the way my daughter's tone shot up at the end of every word? Like she was always asking a question?

Today we were on the bus and she pointed and said something and I repeated what I thought I heard in the form of a question. And realized that's pretty much the tone I use in every single interaction I've had with her from the time she started talking in earnest.

I'm sure this is the first of many times I'll get disgusted with her for things I am actively teaching her. Mirrors are only fun when you look nice.

Couldn't hurt

So I'm trying a little somethin' somethin' to help get me through Anonybabe's whiny selfish "no" phase with a little bit of my sanity intact.

I make her listen to lectures. Long (interminable for a 19 month old) ones where I explain why I want her to share, or to politely decline, or refrain from hitting me in the face when she gets frustrated.

I may be setting myself up to be tuned out forever, since she can't possibly know what the hell I'm talking about when I go into a three minute explanation of the golden rule. But I sure do feel a lot better after explaining to her/myself why certain behaviors just aren't acceptable. It's like I'm giving myself a pep talk.

It makes me feel a little less forlorn. A little less deer-in-the-headlightsy.

I heard an interview once with a woman who had some sort of non-traditional family situation. I think she and her husband used a surrogate. And even though her daughter was far too young to understand, she was already telling her. She said she'd been telling her since she was in the womb, and that it was mostly for her benefit. She figured this was a way to practice articulating why and how they did what they did and what it meant to her.

I like that. Explaining before it's necessary. For the practice. So you're comfortable with it. And because you never know how early something might stick, so might as well start tossing, just in case.

Imagination

This old Sesame Street clip is so sweet it brings a little tear to my eye:

Bedlam

Can I share some bedtime stories we've been cycling through as we try to get Anonybabe to lie down at night?

It' s more of a formula really: Anonybabe and Pooh Bear and Elmo generally go on adventures together.

Last night they went swimming in the ocean. Each one had a different colored swim noodle and soon some dolphins swam up and gave them rides on their backs as they proceeded to jump over and dive under the noodles. They patted themselves dry (helping each other reach their backs). Then they came home, ate some honey toast and took the bus to the library, where they got to fill up a green shopping basket with all kinds of books and then take the bus home, sit on the couch together and read them.

This story was intended to calm Anonybabe down, but it got her so excited that I thought she was going to explode.

The other night, in our story, they went for a walk in the woods and somebody decided to sing the "moon" song. Anonybabe shot up in bed and demanded that each character sing the song in his voice. "Ellllm? Moooooo?" So I would sing the song in Elmo's voice. "Poooh? Mooooo?" So I would sing the song in Pooh's voice. And so forth and so on until she finally flopped down, exhausted and blissful.

Just terrible

Do 19 1/2 month olds fall under the "terrible two" umbrella? Because Anonybabe has been saying "no" a lot lately. There was a transition period a few weeks back where she would default to saying "no" before thinking about what we'd asked and changing her answer to "yes". We got several "no-kay"s and "nyeah"s.

But now it's just "no". "NO MAMA! MAMA NO! NO MAMA! WAAAAAAH!"

For frig's sake. Just in time for winter. How do you hibernate through the debilitating cold with a bear who won't sleep?

What fools we mortals be

Dude. I was so excited to see a comment on one of my old posts this morning. In my gmail inbox was a notification that someone had posted a comment that simply said "good post". I was elated. I went back and read the post. I wondered what had drawn the commenter named Sylvia in. I was flooded with goodwill and went to check out Slyvia's webpage.

Only to find out she was spam. Like, insurance spam. Intended to lure affirmation hungry bloggers such as myself. I am both annoyed as hell at "Sylvia" and impressed. Somebody sure knows how to use the right bait.

Why Anonybabe wanted to watch Grover

This has been stuck in my head on a continuous loop since I saw it Friday night. Even so, I liked it until Sunday morning. A pretty good barometer of quality...if it takes 36 hours of constant exposure to get sick of something:

Bad Mommy

I think I need to start a "Bad Mommy" segment to this blog (inspired by the "Bad Parent" section of the Daily Babble magazine found at http://www.babble.com/ ...let's give credit where credit is due).

In it I can whisper secrets I can never tell my daughter, or the ones I hope Anonybabe never tells anyone but her therapist, or maybe her significant other in a moment of weepy vulnerability.

My first confession is this: the tonality of my daughter's voice is driving me crazy. She ends almost every word she says on the same high questioning note, particularly when she's demanding something. "Coo-keeee? Coo-keeee? Coo-keeee? Ma-maaa? Coo-keeee?" was one I heard a lot Saturday. She'll keep repeating her phrases, louder and louder, until I repeat them back to her, acknowledging that she said them. Here's a sample conversation:

Me, to Anonyhub: So, I was talking to...

Anonybabe: wa? guuuuuuuuh?

Me, to Anonyhub: ....Sarah about Obama's.....

Anonybabe: Wa? Guuuuuuuuh?

Me to Anonyhub: ....first cabinet picks......

Anonybabe: WA? GUUUUUUUH?

Anonyhub, from the other room: What? I can't hear you over Anonybabe.

Me, to Anonybabe: We're not going to watch anything right now, Anonybabe.

Anonybabe: WA? GUUUUUUUH?

Me, to Anonybabe: No, we're not going to watch any more tv today, baby girl; we're going to play.

Anonybabe: Noooo? No pay. Waaa? GUUUUUUH?

Me, to Anonybabe: What are you saying? You want to watch Grover?

Anonybabe: Yea! Yea mama, Okay. Okay, mama. Wa guh. Okay, mama.

Me: Fine.

Naive me. I thought that if I gave my baby enough attention she wouldn't clamour for it so much. Little did (or do) I know the vortex of need that Anonyhub and I created on that fateful July 4th weekend a couple of years ago.

So my confession is not that I try to fill my daughter's aching need for attention with television. I'm over that. Do it all the time. My confession is that at the moment I often hate the sound of her voice. It was all I could do to keep myself from mocking it the other day.

Bad mommy.

Sweet nothings

There's so much to talk about and so little I want to say. I've been retreating into myself lately. It's not a good thing, but sometimes these ebbs of generosity just have to be weathered. I'll just introduce a couple of things I wanted to talk about and write as much as I have the energy for.

Went to a homeschool association meeting the other night. I was floored; it was lovely. It was set up as a formal meeting, with minutes and a business section and such. But people brought materials to sell or give away, they chatted and ate popcorn that somebody brought. And there's always a topic of discussion; this time it was "the other" parent. Pretty much everybody talked about their setup as far as who the main educator was and what the other person did to support them. Some people loved their setup, some people hated it. Some people had hoed a long hard row to get where they were, some people had fallen into their roles easily. Most people who had been homeschooling a while had changed and progressed over the years. Everyone shared so openly, with only one person in a group of about 40 crossing the line into oversharing. I was buzzing with goodwill when I left, and again kind of hoped that Anonybabe wants to homeschool. That we're presented with a situation where she'll thrive if we do it. I like the idea of homeschooling, but can't get ahead of myself. There's so much to gain if there are good schools around. Or even just one or two good teachers and some decent classmates.

Another thing is I think I found something of a soulmate in a girl I used to babysit. We found each other on facebook. I think I friended her when I first started there; it's strange that I did, but at first I would befriend anybody and everybody I knew even remotely. She went to my church and just graduated from a Christian college and is pretty disillusioned with religion as she knows it. It was great to get to chat with her about life, god, and whatnot. Who'd have thunk that little button nosed girl would turn out to be someone I could unload the story of my college angst to, and vice versa?

Anonybabe must have burst into tears ten times today. "Today" being a five hour span, since she got up at 9:30 and went to sleep at 2:30. Holy crap, look at the time! I'd better go wake her up if I want to sleep tonight!

Boo-k

Ah. Indulged in a fried shrimp basket & Dr. Pepper today at lunch. Life, she is good.

So I feel like I'm at the whim of fate when it comes to my ability to enjoy my daughter. Some days, it's so easy. Just sit back and smile. Other days, I'm just so busy worrying over her that I can't seem to think straight.

I think tonight we will go book shopping.

The Natural

Seriously? I don't know what the fuck I'm doing. Mothering, I mean.

Do most people have...I dunno...visions of what they want their parenting to be like? Or goals regarding the kind of person they'd like their child to be?

Because I'm just winging it here. And I'm feeling a little ungrounded.

I mean, I guess if I sit down and think about it - make some sort of a list - I want Anonybabe to be patient and kind, or at the very least thoughtful. I want her to know peace. I want her to know joy and love. If/when she knows heartbreak I want her to know healing.

So what am I supposed to be doing to facilitate that?

I think one thing I might need to do is move us out to the country. We went to visit Anonyhub's parents in the sticks of Iowa, and Anonybabe just opened up there. She got to ride a tricycle. She got to pick raspberries and eat them off the bush. She got to throw rocks in the creek. She got to swing on a swing that was right outside their back door. She got to hold onto a weed and let some smelly pigs tug it from her hands with their huffing mouths. And she loved all of it. She only asked to watch television 2 times a day instead of her usual 675 times a day. And no wonder. She had better things to do, for once.

And even if she doesn't need more contact with nature, it's about time I admitted to myself that I did. And Anonymom-style contact with nature, the kind where you don't have to pack a lunch and organize a few hours. The kind where you roll out of bed and pad to the back door and pick your way around the back yard barefoot for a few minutes while your brain slowly starts to rev. The lazy, enveloping kind.

I'm a - how do you say? - a person who sort of flows with the strongest forces surrounding her. I could fight my nature, or I could move to a place where I'm at peace with the directions I'm being pushed. Position myself well in the river of life, so to speak.

F.A.

I've been lost in the world of facebook lately. Utterly, fantastically lost. It's been interesting to reconnect with old friends, and fascinating to find how quickly we revisit the way of interacting that made us drift apart in the first place.

I'm talking about a guy from college who I really like talking to but who ultimately gives me the creeps. We had one nice facebook chat - about being parents, and what he was teaching these days - and then he was suddenly coming cross-country to Chicago for a "pleasure and soul-searching" trip and he thought he'd really like to see me. I declined. It was reminiscent of what made me shy away from him twelve years ago: then I worked in the local grease spoon diner where he sat and drank coffee and studied. One night we got to chatting and decided to drive into the city for a drink. It was a nice night of conversation at a piano bar; but then he started showing up during my shifts at work a lot. One night when I asked how he knew I'd be working he said he'd gone to the house where I rented a room. The main door was open so he walked right in and up to my door. When I didn't answer his knock he walked into my room and checked my calendar and saw that I was working that night. When I told him I didn't appreciate him walking into my space without me, he didn't see what the big deal was. And here he is twelve years later, pushing my boundaries in ways I don't like.

That's a mildly creepy example, but there are also the high school girlfriends. Better than acquaintances but never good friends, I've reconnected with some very nice women. Almost too nice. I find myself the recipient of less and less of their chatter after making off-color (but funny, dammit!) comments about breast feeding. Or drinking too much. Or a combination thereof.

And then there are the college buds who always seemed a little out of my iq league. I see them chatting merrily back and forth about teaching and politics and books. I'm the one who heaves big sighs then; I'm simultaneously bored and jealous at people who can wax so eloquent over - say - the history of withholding one's vote as a form of protest.

I'm hoping this realization -- that everything new is old again -- will be the beginning of the end of my love affair with facebook. And that I can get back to a much more satisfying if lonelier brand of narcissism - you!

Mind in the gutter

So Anonybabe knows a thing or two about going potty. She knows that it involves sitting on the toilet. She knows that it involves picking up a book or magazine and looking at it for a mo. And so last night she decided to sit on the potty and take a gander at whatever was available:

All growed up

Anonyhub called today to say as Anonybabe was watching Sesame Street this morning, she was lying on her back with her stuffed cat Francis sort of entwined in her legs. She looked like a kid lounging in front of the tv.

Anonyhub says it was only yesterday that she could only sit how and where we put her, and now she can just plop herself down and make herself comfortable.

It's pretty cute and sweet.

Oh.

You know what else acts as an opium to the toddler set when they're teething? Other than the boob and the boob tube, I mean.

Mother flippin' Tylenol. The most obvious thing I could have done for her was one of the last things I thought of.

What is wrong with me?

Plug In Plug

I don't know how well I iterated this in the last post, but Anonybabe was horrid to be around Friday. So much so that when she finally fell into a dead sleep of a nap at 4pm, I didn't wake her at 5...or 6...and at 7pm I thought, damn the torpedos, I'm just gonna let her sleep until she wakes up. I went to sleep at 9pm to both make up for the previous two nights' sleeplessness and to prepare for the middle of the night waking I was sure would come. I was reasonably well-rested by the time Anonybabe woke up around 2:30am this morning, ready to eat and play. We ate some oatmeal, I snoozed while she got to watch her obsession - Winnie the Pooh - and we went through our day red-eyed but relatively content.

That was a lot of exposition to say I let Anonybabe watch almost as much tv as she wanted to today. We went for several long outings - to the park, to the grocery store and the library - so she got lots of activity. But I didn't have the energy or the will to fight her when she chanted "Wa Pooh!" "Wa Pah-ee!" "Wa Yo!" (Watch Pooh, Elmo's Potty Time, and Pinnochio, respectively) over and over and over again. For one thing, I glimpsed the thin layer of skin that was getting bludgeoned through by a dull, rock of a tooth, and it didn't look fun. I would want to be distracted from that too. And for another thing, I've gotten very little sleep in the last few days. If watching tv kept her occupied and quiet today, I was happy.

I don't plan on every day being like this. I plan on enjoying her, on doing stuff together. The older she gets, the more fun this is. I really liked going to the farmer's market this morning, buying a muffin and sharing it with her as she swung her legs from a bus stop bench. But days like today make me question my general disdain for television watching for her. I yearned for television when I was a kid, and I learned a lot from it. Some of the things I learned were good, very important to me, I'm happy to say they shaped my interests and sense of humor and opened me up to the world beyond the little one I was born into. But the best things I learned in life were not from a television; they were mostly learned by time spent outside, playing by myself or with friends. I learned about nature, my personality, etc, etc. So I guess I want Anonybabe to have a little of both things. It's probably no accident that most of her speech so far centers around getting us to play her shows on the DVD player. I'm not ready to cut her off from that (especially since I'm not ready to cut myself off from the pleasure of my favorite shows). I'm continually learning about myself from the shows I love...I don't know. Can't Anonybabe too?

It's always teething

I was going to write yet another what -the-hell-is-happening-to-my-daughter post. She's been sleeping horribly, waking up at 2am for two nights in a row, screaming and fussing. She's been throwing full on temper tantrums during the day, yelling "no" to everything we say, throwing and kicking, refusing kisses and swinging wildly at our faces, and sobbing with an arched back when we try to put her down for a nap or bedtime.

As she was wailing this morning, I got a good look at her top teeth. Two molars breaking through, a thin layer of skin covering the back halves, the front halves plainly visible. Ever since I've been way more sympathetic to her plight. I know kids don't just act shitty for no reason, but since I didn't know Anonybabe's reason I was about fed up. Amazing what a little empathy'll do. That, and the realization that it's safe to go outside and play hard because your daughter's temperature and runny nose aren't going to get any worse if you go to the playground.

Ugh to the bok bok.

Okay, now I want to hear your weirdest sex dreams. I know some of you sex deprived parents have them.

Last night I dreamed that I was pleasuring myself with a chopped up, bone-in raw chicken. It was all laid out in front of me on a tray like a set of doctor's tools. While I was having a conversation with someone about what our favorite chicken parts were for this kind of thing. The tone was as if were having a water cooler discussion at the office. "Yeah, yeah, I like the thigh pieces too. The backs? No, I've never tried the backs; I'll have to do that sometime!"

Dude. My erotic imagination is hurting. I need to get laid.

Kachangas

I like my breastfeeding rack. I will miss it after Anonybabe has weaned.

Boo completes me

Sigh. Facebook has me superficially back in touch with my college boyfriend. He's a guy that I still love after a fashion, but what a horrible train wreck of a relationship we had. I guess we both learned a lot from it. His parents sort of spoiled my expectations for in-laws, in that they were smart and thoughtful and gentle and well-educated and funny and nobody since has really been able to clear the bar they set. They were far from perfect but I admired them a lot. They didn't like me too much, and rightfully so. I was like a bull in a china shop with their son...or more like an unsupervised toddler with no impulse control and no way to articulate what I needed and wanted. I just raged & stomped on his heart while I tried to figure myself out. I cheated, I lied, I did him wrong. But I loved him...which only fucked us both over more than if I hadn't.

Was thinking about all this this morning when the song Anonyhub wrote for our wedding came on my ipod. Anonyhub and I had an incredibly rough beginning, with both of us wary and mistrustful and ready to turn tail and run at the first intimation of ugliness. And this wedding song is kind of about that.

Goddamn I love that boy for that. For making beauty out of our fear and pain.

Poor ex, I fault him for not being able to do that. Seems like he was victimized by me and I need somebody who can a) call me on my shit and b) articulate it for us.

Little People

Anonybabe got this DVD from her grandparents last Christmas, I think. It looked insipid as hell, so it's been stashed away in the DVD cabinet ever since. Anonybabe found it the other day and held it up for me to see "Wa!" she exclaimed.

"Sure, we can watch that," I answered.

And lo and behold, I was kinda impressed. It shows all of these claymations shorts of "Little People" going throughout their day in the requisite world of sunshine and rainbows. But I like this stripe of rainbow. The shorts are aimed at really young people but cover such topics as:

• Everything (plants, animals, people) grow at a rate that is intrinsically right for that being
• It's great to be helpful, but it's even better to be loving...as in, love is the most important commodity you bring to a friendship. (Hear that, Thomas?)
• When you love someone, sometimes it's hard to let them go, but if you do and they choose to come back of their own free will, it's sweet.

Not to mention a theme song sung by Aaron Neville that will have you humming "cocoa but-taaaaah" to yourself the rest of the day.

Contrast my new found love for the Little People with my continued disgust with Disney. Anonyhub picked up a copy of some new show that features Pooh and Tigger being super sleuths in the hundred acre wood. God, the story was bland. Until I thought about it, and then I decided it was downright infernal. Rabbit makes a supergrow potion for his pumpkin patch that accidentally gets on the little girl Pooh and Tigger super sleuth with. She grows into a giant and really enjoys all of the cool things she can do until she realizes that being big is a burden on her friendships - she is hard to feed, play with, and talk to. So she goes to Rabbit for a shrinking potion to make her small again. The subtext, as I see it? It's good to be like everybody else so you don't piss people off. Potions aka medical miracles can easily make you into whatever you want to be at a snap of your fingers. Ugh. Uuuuuugh.

Okay, let's cleanse our palette with the Little People theme song "Cocoa but-tah to the re-he-he-he-scue" :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mzJwv4cH5A

P.S. I found some older Little People cartoons that are a little effed up...kinda makes me like them more. You're weird Fisher Price.

Dreamy

I think I woke up last night cradling Anonyhub's face in my hands and kissing his forehead. I was confused to see his face because I thought I'd been leaning over to give Anonybabe kisses. But I may have dreamed it; it's all a blur.

Preemptive hi

Anonybabe is still standoffish if approached by anyone...hell, they don't have to do more than speak in her direction from across them room and she mums up and stares.

But she's miss social butterfly as long as she gets to start the interaction.

"Hi!" she'll call to every stranger we pass on the street. "Hi-ee!" And then if they say hello, she stops to soak in the pleasure of initiating a call & response, pausing on the sidewalk and giving a goofy little guffaw before moving on.

We went into a coffee shop on Friday, and drunk with the pleasure of saying hello, she called it out as soon as we got in the door before she could really find anyone to direct it to.

Some people seem annoyed, as if they don't relish having to talk to anyone on the street, but how do you not respond to a chipper little toddler? I try to withhold my "isn't she better than quantum physics with a side of creamy peanut butter" smile from those folks after they murmur a begrudging "hi" back.

Growing Pains

Anonybabe and I walked to the grocery store on Saturday. It's a long walk, probably half a mile. I picked her up several times to move things along, but in general I wanted to take our time, make it a leisurely stroll. Anonybabe did not want to hold my hand; she wanted to walk alone (all the while chanting "wa, wa, wa" for "walk, walk, walk").

I was surprised how stricken I was by this. I want my little girl to be independent; I do, I do, I do. Especially after talking with a friend about Anonyhub's family - whose style is to stay very enmeshed, vs. my family - whose style is to push you out of the nest with a cheery "buh bye!". My family can be a little distant, a little stand-offish, but by god are they gonna let you do your thing. They are impressed & pleased with people who can take care of themselves. I want to pass some of those values on to Anonybabe, because they have served me well. I don't think all families should be like mine; I know at least two of my exes were perturbed at the distance from which my family operates. But I was equally perturbed by their dependence on their parents' approval. So I plan on pushing what worked for me. I'm sure there's a happy medium, and it'll be up to Anonybabe to find it.

But I digress. She wanted to walk alone! And instead of glowing with pride, I felt sad. I felt lonely. I could beat myself up for those feelings, but I think instead I'll soak them in and let them pass. I can grieve being joined at the hip. And try to console myself with the hope that this is the beginning of a long passage into a different kind of relationship. The kind where I revel in her personality and not her proximity.

Potty Time

Anonybabe has peed in a toilet. Thrice. I would be more excited about it if she was into it, but she's thoroughly unimpressed with the process.

I have a feeling we're in it (and by "it" I mean manually extracting poop from Anonybabe's pants and hindquarters) for the 2 1/2 - 3 year long haul.

That in spite of her current obsession with this little ditty. Imagine me growling this to Anonybabe repeatedly if you're in the mood for a very weird pick-me-up:

Big Wheels

Okay, perhaps I was a wee bit melodramatic when I worried that Anonybabe was going to be a constant, Six-from-Blossom type blabbermouth. She's back to a reasonable rhythm of talking & silence. I think being on a trip and in strange places made her a little nervous, she echoed the background drone of her nerves with a constant sonar of talking aimed in my direction: "Mama? Mama? Mama? Whee! Yea! Nana? Baby? Mama? Mama? Mama!!" and so forth and so on.

Yesterday we all (Anonyhub and Anonybabe and me) went to the pediatrician for Anonybabe's 18 month checkup. After Anonybabe was stripped to her skivvies and the nurse had weighed and measured her, we had a long wait before the doctor arrived. A wait that we filled by having her Dorothy doll tap dance on the window sills, ride the doctor's rotating chair like a Merry-go-round, and slide down the heat registers. I sat on the floor next to Anonybabe, and at one point sang songs she liked to her. When we got to "Bicycle" by Queen, I circled my feet in the air to mimic cycling. Usually I sing that to her on the changing table and pedal her feet around for her. Anonybabe's eyes lit up and she pointed to her chest "Me!" she cried. "Mama. Me!" by which I knew she meant I should sing the song and she would do something. While I sang "I love to ride my bicycle" in my best Mercury falsetto, she sat on the floor and kicked her legs in the air.

But I'm mostly impressed with Anonybabe's response to shot-time. We got her two shots this go-round, and when the very gentle and sweet nurse walked into the room holding a tray with her gloves and the syringes on them, Anonybabe waved to her "Hi!" The nurse greeted her back and then turned to us, "Okay, we're going to be giving Anonybabe two shots today." "Bye!" yelled Anonybabe, which cracked the nurse up. She had me hold Anonybabe in my lap, squeezing her and her arms close to me, while Anonyhub held her legs in case she kicked. Anonybabe watched closely, not at all wary, while the nurse wiped a little alcohol on both thighs and then went in for the kill. She was finished quickly and Anonybabe just stared at her while she readied the other needle and plunged it in. It was only as the 2nd needle was coming out that Anonybabe started to cry, but after one long moan and a few tears she realized it didn't hurt any more and she stopped. The nurse asked if she'd gotten any stickers and when she brought over a box, Anonybabe peered in, curious and excited to see pictures of Pooh. As the nurse left the room she waved as if they'd just been two ladies lunching together "By-ee!" I couldn't believe how smoothly things went.

Doll Baby

Anonybabe has been playing with her dolls by herself lately. I'll look over at her to see that she's babbling to her Pooh and moving his arms. Or she'll mime that she wants her doll to do something, and when I ask the doll "oh, do you want some food?", she'll take a moment to position it in her hands so that she can nod its head, and say "mmm HMMM" in a high voice. Or get the doll's hands in her hands so she can help it make the sign for "more" or "please".

And her new obsession is our Elmo's Potty Time DVD. It is a truly disturbing and truly helpful special all about (insert every known euphemism for urinating and defecating here). Elmo's dad sings a song called Potty Time that Anonybabe requests loudly and often. On our way back from Denver I treated our seatmates to it several times.

The flight back home yesterday had me so incredibly crabby and exhausted, yet I'm delighted with all of the little games Anonybabe and I played. We found a picture of a guitar in a magazine and took turns pretending to strum it while we sang Potty Time. We had a Dorothy doll (of Wizard of Oz fame) slide down every imaginable surface, including Anonybabe herself, where she would stop regularly to blow zerberts on Anonybabe's belly. Pretty soon Anonybabe would lift the shirt herself and position Dorothy on her fat tummy and grin up at me. The doll closes her eyes when you lay her back, so when her eyes were closed I would snore loudly three times and then have the doll sit up and "wake up", very confused and jerking around as if in a sleep haze. Anonybabe caught on pretty quickly and would lay the doll back, doing her best heavy breathing and then jerking the doll around and smiling through her pacifier at me, telling me with her eyes to do sound effects. On the el coming back from the airport, she sat both her dolls one to a seat opposite us. It was incredibly sweet to see them looking small and forlorn in the big dirty clinical seats.

I take it all back

Know what I just said about worrying that my daughter is too much like me? Forget it. Horse shit. I just spent a weekend with Anonybabe and my best friend and her baby daughter and husband in Colorado. Anonybabe was incredibly comfortable there. So much so that she jabbered non-stop.

I wished she had an off button. I wished I could send her to my in-laws. I wished the thought of a little future blabber-mouthed Anonybabe didn't make me think longingly of boarding school. What if she talks like this all the time? I like my quiet. I will go insane.

Mirror Me

Was thinkin' this morning on the way to work (by the way, did your parents ever demand "don't think!" when as a child you did something that frustrated them, and then you explained why you did it with "but I thought..."? I got that a lot. If I ever do that to Anonybabe, please shoot me immediately in the gut.) how I didn't expect having a child with such a similar personality to be so hard.

I worried a lot that a child of mine would be my complete opposite, and that I would have a hard time relating. Instead I have a child who seems to be very very much like me, and I have a hard time accepting her as such. I've had 33 years to build up impatience and resentment towards the parts of myself that drive me crazy, so when Anonybabe stares blankly at strangers, or demands that I do something for her instead of doing it herself so that it can be done easily and "right", or yearns savagely to immerse herself in television, I get embarrassed. I get disdainful. Which never helped me as a child and sure as hell isn't going to help her.

I know I'm being a little melodramatic, but it makes me gulp hard to think that if I want to be a good parent to Anonybabe, I'm going to have to work on accepting myself as-is.

Business Time

I should probably reflect a little on whether I really want to blog about this before putting it out there, but what is a thin little cloak of anonymity for if not to talk about things your friends have no desire to know about you?

Anonyhub and I had sex last night. It still happens rarely enough that it's an event worth noting. Also worth noting was how relaxed and casual it was...like it was a part of the partnership package. I didn't feel the need to be sexy for him and as a result the whole proceeding lost a lot of that grim, let's-get-down-to-business vibe it's had lately. We were also a teensy bit creative for once. It was fun. Nothing over the top fantastic, but it was nice to weave something pleasant and bonding into the fabric of our work-a-day lives.

Here's something to cleanse your palatte of Anonyfamily sex talk. You're welcome:

a bitch AND a moan

Instead of listing all of the amazing things Anonybabe has been up to lately (walking exclusively, eating with a spoon and fork and patting her face with a napkin when she's done, repeating words), or the fun things we've been up to lately (camping in Indiana, driving to Door County, Wisconsin, having a par-tay), I think I'll bitch about the nominally bad night I had last night.

It was a work night for Anonyhub, so as soon as I rolled in at 7pm from my job, he left me at home with the mushpot.

We'd had a very nice party the afternoon before, which had ended at 8:30pm or so. Plenty of time to clean up, relax, and get some well deserved rest. Anonyhub went in to work for a couple of hours, Anonybabe crashed early because she'd skipped her nap, and I was so elated with the time alone that I took the opportunity to gorge on mental junk food. I watched Desperate Housewives, all the while thinking "this is horrible!", and then dove into Facebook for a couple of hours. When Anonyhub got home, we cleaned and played online Scrabble together. I finally climbed into bed at 1:30am, happy and exhausted.

Cut back to the moment I walk into the house to take care of Anonybabe...my lack of sleep had caught up with me and my fuse was so short. I thought I was going to kill myself if I had to watch Elmo with Anonybabe or help her dress her dolls while I fought boredom and sleep, so I decided we needed a walk. "'Tay!" agreed Anonybabe, but when I tried to get shoes on her, she wanted to put them on each of her dolls first. Pooh had on her brown shoes, The Count had on her green ones, and creepy garage sale doll aka "Baby" was outfitted in her black shoes. She only has three pairs of shoes, and if I tried to take a pair off of a doll to put onto Anonybabe, she would see the empty shoes and point to another doll. "Pooh!" and if I tried to put them on her instead, she would cry and complain, tears instantly pooling in the corners of her reddened eyes. I don't believe in forcing her to do anything unless I really have to, so I kept gritting my teeth and helping her redress her bear and trying to inch us toward the door.

Once we got outside, everything was fine. Great, in fact. But I'd hated being stuck between a baby-dressing borefest and a temper tantrum. It made me crazy that Anonybabe wasn't ready to do what I needed her to do for my sanity. It made me realize I need my sleep because I really need my patience.

Feedback

*tap, tap, tap*

Hello? Is this thing on?

Hey, there. Sorry about the long silence. I'd like to blame my new addiction to Facebook, or the fact that work has become so very work-y, but the truth of the matter is that I've been taking a blogcation. Anonybabe has been developing in leaps and bounds and the idea of chronicling it all exhausts me. Plus I think I might have been a wee bit depressed for a while. So a sabbatical was in order. I did so very enjoy blogging before that I hope I get back into the swing of things, but I don't want to make any promises yet. I'll just blog as the inspiration strikes and let the blog entries fall where they may.

God made the dirt

This morning Anonybabe and I took our breakfast on the lawn -- we ate a tomato and scrambled eggs and toast on a "t-shirt" quilt Anonyhub's mom made for him when he graduated from high school...it has nine squares that are the faces of his nine favorite t-shirts from high school. There are two that feature a gorilla and are about his summer corn detasselling job, one Escher tee, one extremely pixelated band t-shirt (his own), and some so embarrassing to Anonyhub that I won't include them even an anonymous blog.

From our breakfast blanket, Anonybabe crawled over to a freshly weeded corner of the garden and started flinging dirt. At first she threw it to the side, and then tried to throw it over her shoulder so that most of it landed on her back, and finally she stood up and started rubbing it all over her chest. Repeatedly. Chica loves earth. She also sneezed her pacifier out into the dirt and put it back into her mouth; when she spit it out again and let me brush most of the dirt off her tongue, she had a clown mouth of mud.

We have new neighbors moving in next door and they were back and forth from their house to the moving van in the alley. They could easily see us digging away in the garden, and I instantly became the white trash neighbor in my own mind. Muddy baby in a droopy diaper? Classic. Then I one upped myself by bathing her in her kiddie pool in the back yard.

Fanny

From Savage Love, July 29, 2004:"Judging from my e-mail, a lot of my regular readers, to say nothing of my fans, are out of their fucking minds."

I just created a facebook account, and was in the process of picking people I am a "fan" of: Dan Savage, David Sedaris, Margaret Atwood. Seeing the comments of other people who adored them reminded me that being relatively cool and talented doesn't ward off asshats who think you are the greatest thing since sliced bread. In fact, it just attracts them.

I luuurved David Sedaris essays for a few years now. I distinctly remember riding the el sometime in 2000 and looking around me at all of the people reading his books. They all looked like something out of American Psycho: well groomed and ready to snap at any moment. And I thought, is this me? Is this who is attracted to David Sedaris?

Maybe I am only attracted to douchebag magnets; perhaps I fit their demographic for a good reason, maybe fandom is just silly in general. Don't know. But it begs the question, when a person looks into the maws and eyes of their rabid fans, what do they see? A mirror? A need?

At Your Cervix

I clicked here to support this idea. It's a documentary about how med students are trained to do gynecological exams. They showcase an extremely wrong way: practicing on women who were under general anaesthesia for some other procedure without first getting their consent (I know, *gasp*, right?) And an extremely right way: women who are trained to train the med students...and then become the practice patient. Did you follow me there? A woman who is qualified to train med students how to do pelvic exams takes off her pants, climbs up on an exam table, and gives expert feedback on how to insert a speculum. It's just so insane and brilliant. So they can talk nervous med students through how to find their cervix, all the while putting the med student at ease and teaching the med student how to put future patients at ease. I can't for the life of me imagine being the woman teaching the med students with her legs spread, but I'm very glad somebody is doing this.

I'm no foodie, but I'm kind of a redneck

Okay, this isn't typical Anonymoms fare but it looked like fun - a personality test of sorts via food.

How the Omnivore's 100 works:

1) Copy this list into your email, blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Red any items that you would never consider eating.
4) Optional: Post a comment at Very Good Taste, linking to your results.

5) Also optional, I'm italicizing the ones I looked up.

MY OMNIVORE'S 100:
1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile (I think...I'm 80% sure I had this at the Grizzly)

6. Black pudding (I assumed this was blood pudding but wasn't sure).
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht (Really thick with potatoes is so tasty)
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari (The only appetizer my workmates can consistently agree on)
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes (Boones! And I've had dandelion wine, does that count?)
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche (I think...I mean surely I've eaten this although I couldn't tell you when).
28. Oysters
29. Baklava (Blech)
30. Bagna cauda (that sounds really good)
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi (also sounds really good)
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar (I've had cognac, and I've had cigars, but I probably won't have them singly or together again any time soon.)
37. Clotted Cream Tea (I was served this by a very condescending American Anglophile hostess. "Do you know what clotted cream is, Anonymom?"
38. Vodka Jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail (nope, but I used McCormick's Oxtail soup mix to make #9 before...and it was good.)
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects (Yes, but I assume this means prepared on purpose, not the ones I ate while riding my bike)
43. Phaal (I don't think so...I'm assuming this is beyond green curry hot).
44. Goat's milk (Raw. It was enough to turn me off of even goat cheese for a while).
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth $120 or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala (You know, I can't imagine that I haven't but I couldn't tell you when)
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin (Wait...maybe I had this in a sushi roll?)
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer (hmmm, I don't think so)
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal (no special sauce, please)
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine (mmmm, cheese curd fries; wanna try it!)
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. kaolin (Still don't know what this is)
64. Currywurst
65. Durian (woah. That's a cool looking fruit)
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings or andouillette (probably wouldn’t try these knowingly)
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost or brunost
75. Roadkill (my uncle hit a deer once on the way to my grandparents, so he strapped it on top of his jeep and they prepared it and stored it in the freezer. We had lots of venison dishes for our next few visits)
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang Souchong (I don't think so, although a Chinese co-worker was always passing around teas she brought back from her trips home while bemoaning the shittiness of American teas. Maybe she slipped me some.)
80. Bellini (Sounds good)
81. Tom Yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. 3 Michelin Star Tasting Menu
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate (don't think so)
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

So Cute it Hurts

Ever had your kid, or your significant other, or your friend or whoever, be so cute or nice or loving and all it does it get on your nerves?

Anonybabe babbles now; this sweet, dulcet-toned rambling that occasionally sounds language-like. It's adorable until it NEVER STOPS. Last night Anonybabe and I laid down to go to sleep at the same time and I guess she was only nominally tired because while I drifted in and out of consciousness, I heard an unbroken string of "ba boo da da" that lasted almost an hour before she finally gave in to the sandman. I would have almost welcomed a pissy cry or two just to liven things up.

And Anonyhub chose yesterday to be father/husband of the year; he wanted to spend all day hanging out with us when all I really wanted was a little mother/daughter time. Then when Anonybabe was taking her nap and I thought Anonyhub was off on a two-hour errand, he came back home in ten minutes and wanted to instead sit and talk...just talk. I was all ready to veg out and watch my Veronica Mars Netflix while he was gone and had to really will myself to listen to him without stealing longing glances at the tv. So I was miserable because I wasn't getting to watch my show and I was miserable because I had something far superior to tv sitting in front of me and all I wanted was for him to go away for an hour or so. Poor guy.

Babies from the Crypt

Anonybabe was eating beets this weekend and the juice got everywhere. I gave her a quick wipe down before taking her out of her high chair, but would then find red stains in creases: under her neck, at her wrists (yes, pudge muffin still has wrist creases). She looked like a baby suicide.

For those who are easily amused (like me)

Fashionazi

You know, I like the way Anonyhub dresses himself. It boils down to a pretty simple formula of jeans and band t-shirts and hoodies, but he picks things that flatter his stick figure form and he pretty much always has good hair. It was a relief to marry a guy who likes to dress himself, as my dad and many of the dads I knew growing up couldn't give a flying fuck what they looked like, but their wives did. So an understanding was forged whereby the one who cared picked the clothes for the one who didn't. I even saw girlfriends and boyfriends doing this during high school, and I knew it would never work for me. No matter how bad my significant other might look, I knew it would never drive me to pick up the wardrobe reins for them. Why the hell should I worry about the way you dress if you don't? I have more interesting (to me) things to worry about. (Please know that I'm not knocking you ladies who like to dress your honeys and you peeps who like to let your men or women pick your duds. If it works for you, great! But it always sounded like a chore to me).

Anyways, I like my husband's style, but he is really terrible at dressing Anonybabe. Like, worse than she is. He consistently dresses her in the most dowdy, goofy looking ensembles she has, making pieces that are individually cute as a whole just ugly. It's on my mind because he brought her to the office today, a rare treat whose joy was, as usual, marred by the fact that my co-workers are seeing my little girl at her least scrumptious. She had on three of my favorite pieces: her lemon yellow hand-me-down Freda Khalo t-shirt, still a bit big on her so that you have to pair it with something small. Instead she had on her baggy jeans with pastel embroidered flowers, wrong in size and color. And then some brown mary janes with polka dots. To top it off, Anonybabes Buster Brown haircut was parted down the middle making her look more like a kid who rides the short bus than an adorable waif.

Sigh. Feels like I can't win. When I really put some effort into dressing her, I feel like I'm being over the top. But when Anonybabe looks goofy I get embarrassed. No wonder I never wanted to dress someone else. Too much responsibility.

Commercials are sexist? Who knew?!

"The 15 Most Sexist Daytime Commercials" for your viewing pleasure.

I reserve the right to be boring as hell with this post

I have nothing much to "report" (a word my mom uses that drives me crazy. What's wrong with "sharing" or "chit-chatting" or "complaining"? But that's my mom for you - a woman who has already arranged to donate her body to science when she dies. Anyway).

I was feeling pretty low for a few days, and decided to blame it on a one-two-three-four punch of July 4th with my entire family, then a week-long visit with my dad, then reading a novel about a horribly sad and disjointed family, this last part while I got my period. It wasn't that long ago that I was rejoicing in the return to me-hood that my period represented. But for the last few days I've been steeped in a depressive side of me that I'd just as soon leave behind forever. I have at least one friend who talks wistfully about pregnancy as the most emotionally stable, happiest periods of her life. I just thought she was cracked out by motherhood. My mom talks fondly of how productive she was and how great she felt while she was pregnant. I chalked this up to my mom being my mom. But I'm beginning to see what the big deal was. It's hard to match the heady hormone cocktail that pregnancy and birth and round-the-clock breastfeeding bring about. They are all hard as hell, but as biology would have it, the memory of the shitty parts have faded and left me only with a longing for the euphoric, all-seeing highs. Sigh.

So Anonybabe, who has learned to say both "no" and "yes" with her head and occasionally her mouth, took to saying "no" a lot this weekend. She kicked and fought getting dressed, so I pulled out shirts one by one and let her toss them emphatically to the ground until she found one she wanted to wear: an atrocious hand-me-down with neon pink stripes and a kitty cat in a yellow dress, red necklace and strawberry-shaped handbag. "Mmm" Anonybabe nodded gravely as I pulled it out, and allowed me to pull it over her head and arms without a fight. We went through the same thing with pants; she "wah"ed and whined and yelled "no" to her little yellow shorts and red skirt, and pawed through her pants drawer until she found a pair of flanneled khakis that to my chagrin and her delight, have Micky Mouse embroidered on the bottom. She grinned and nodded when I asked if she wanted a bow in her hair like the kitty cats, and she let me put in one of the cute clips I bought at Target last week. Then when we were leaving she started pointing to her head "huh huh huh huh", and when I finally guessed "you want to wear a hat?" she grinned and nodded and eventually pointed to a clashing purple checkered hat near the door. I helped her put it on her head and whistled appreciatively at her ensemble. I gravitate towards cloths that have Anonybabe looking like a mini adult. I tend to hate things with cutesy animals and characters on them, and of course Anonybabe tends to love them. I don't buy them for her, but aunts and uncles and grandparents give them to us. When she falls in love with a neon blue shirt with puffed capped sleeves and a cartoony terrier with a bow on its head, pointing excitedly to the dog on her chest...well...I just can't bring myself to lose the shirt. Nevermind that Anonybabe looks like a poster child for the Wal-Mart shopping grandma set, nevermind that I look longingly at the toddler on the swingset with the chic little leggings and blouse, nevermind that I'm embarrassed to take her into the local coffeeshop in her garish neon ensembles. My desire to show her off is subsumed by her happiness in picking out things that delight her. Sometimes I still manage to dress her up like an Anonymom-approved dolly. Other times, I just have to suck it up and remind myself that she's the captain of her soul. And her wardrobe.

At 16 1/2 months, Anonybabe still isn't walking about. She's taken a few unassisted steps, and is cruising more and more. A couple of times this weekend we took painfully slow walks down the block where she toddled behind her stroller, hanging on to the handles for support. She would stop every few feet to drop to her hands and knees and pick up a leaf or a stick, hoist herself back to a standing position and put her find in the mesh bag attached to the back of the stroller. She would crawl around the vicinity for a bit and then when she was satisfied she'd exhausted that sidewalk square's treasures, she'd go back to pushing, with me holding on to the handles to make sure she didn't veer off into the neighbor's hostas. It was both enchanting and tedious as hell. It wasn't my idea to pick up sticks and leaves; I love that she thought of it. I'm excited that she's walking in any capacity. I wanted to give her the pleasure of her own self-directed half hour, and I'm sad that she doesn't get more. I grew up in the middle of nowhere and it was a child's paradise. Fucking sucks that she has sidewalks and a mom who is destined to corral her for a while.

Anonybabe ate some potting soil last night. I was planting some basil I'd gotten at the grocery store in a big Terra cotta pot, and Anonybabe reached in to scoop out big handfuls of dirt, as is her wont. "No, can you leave that in there please?" I asked. "We want to leave that in because it's food for the plant." As soon as she heard "food she shoved the hand full of dirt in her mouth. It took me a second to make the connection and I laughed and said no, we don't eat the dirt; the dirt is food for the plant and then we eat the plants. At which point she promptly picked a basil leaf and shoved it in her muddy mouth. We washed her mouth out with the garden hose and hoped she hadn't swallowed enough fertilizer to make her sick.

Anonybabe has also gone from silent and somber to chatty cathy, blabbing in a long uninterrupted string when she's comfortable. We went to see E.T. in the park with a friend of mine, and I hope we didn't bother the hell out of everyone around us. I didn't try to shush her or spirit her away; does that make me an ass? Fortunately the movie had subtitles.

Occasionally Anonybabe will copy my cadences: she's been saying "no" for a while, but she heard me say "no" to Anonyhub and it was funny to hear my southern accent parroted back to me by Anonybabe, the "no" drawn out to two or three syllables. Also we were walking by Trader Joe's the other day and she pointed to it in recognition. "Bye Bye" she said. "Bye Bye Trader Joe's" I vamped, which prompted "Bye Bye Da Doe" on her part. She keeps saying "Tito" for no apparent reason, and I keep asking if that's her favorite Jackson. "No-oo" she'll answer, shaking her head. "LaToya?" I ask, "Janet?" So far I haven't pinned her down.

"If I held you any closer I would be on the other side of you"

Anonybabe waggles her eyebrows now. Anonyhub and I can't get enough of it. It's as if we're the toddlers and she's the long-suffering adult.

"Again!" We'll call, and cackle with laughter when she obliges by wagging her almost non-existent brows. "Again! Again!"

Deepest darkest fears

Dios mio, mi amigas.

I'm reading this book: The Corrections, by Jonathan Franzen. I have a little book that I used to keep with me at all times. I would write ideas for songs in this book, or quotes I liked, and I had a huge running list of books I might want to check out. If a person mentioned a good book, or I heard an author interview I liked on the radio, or if some magazine came out with a list of great new fiction I'd jot it down there. I just so happened to have that list with me in a used book store last month, so I matched up a couple of names on the list with things that were actually on the shelves. The Corrections was one of them. Some of the books I remember why I wrote them down, or who referred it to me, but this one is a complete mystery. I went into it a complete and utter blank.

And I blame it solely for causing me to weep on my bed last night while Anonybabe lay on my chest in the dark (she mistook my heaving sobs for laughter and giggled merrily).

The book's just some novel about a dysfunctional family. Jesus fuck, how unhappy can one set of people be? It brought up all of these fears I have about Anonybabe hating my guts. Why wouldn't she? I've done my share of hating my poor parents' guts (still do, if you ask me at the right/wrong time). I've always kind of assumed that's just a part of growing up - nothing personal - just a necessary step towards independence. But the older I get and the more families I see/talk to/read about - I realize that although no families are perfect, some are relatively content, even happy. And I dared to hope that the little family I was creating had hopes of ending up the same way. Granted, some families were fucked up far worse than I could even imagine, but that didn't mean Anonybabe and Anonyhub had to end up like that. We might not even have to end up as unhappy and isolated as my immediate family. The worst possible outcome was no longer the only possible outcome in my mind. Lately I've been thinking happy parenting thoughts.

But this book is reminding me what a cesspool family relationships can be. And how utterly terrified I am that my relationship to Anonyhub and Anonybabe will somehow take a turn for the unbearable.

So I cried because at heart I feel like a joyless, fearful, parent. I cried because I fear I'm cursed to steep Anonybabe in the unhappiness I grew up in. I cried because at that moment it felt like the walls I've been putting up all my life to keep myself safe are too fortified to let this little girl in. Then I took some deep breaths and vowed to work really hard to avoid that fate. That's all I can do, right? If there's one thing I've grown hopeful about over the past decade it's this: that small concentrated bursts of effort, constant, steady work towards the things you want (including happiness) can make a huge difference. If I'm serious about having a good relationship with my daughter and husband and make that a priority and actually work at it, I can probably get that. No matter how fucked up or sad I may feel at the beginning of my journey.

Jesus, Anonymom; serotonin uptake inhibited, much?

Maybe I don't need to work at my relationships as much as chill the fuck out. I need "Enjoying Yourself for Dummies". Yep....jotting it down in my little notebook now....