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!