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.