this is where time comes to die

3:59pm: I was working here for a while: 



It sucked.  We weren't allowed to eat or use the bathrooms while there were guests present.  Imagine living in a house where there are only "guest" bathrooms and only the "good" china.  Now imagine serving delicious food and not being allowed to eat between the hours of 4pm and 11pm.  Which is, of course, illegal.  Remind me to call that in at some point, though it may seem spiteful. The standards were high, which is good training, but I got fired for setting some plates on a chair for a second. 


Now I work here: 



It's a hotel.  Prince Edward stayed here last night.   The restaurant is more of a hotel bar, and we do a lot of wedding receptions in the other rooms of the hotel.  Last night I waited on a bride and groom in a private curtained area, and on 35 teenagers dressed for Prom. 

It's a job. 

Still pretending to study for the MCATs.  Clara is still running the show.  She can count to 10 and knows her colors.  She asked for "more ice cream" 75 times on Friday.  She's nearly off the boob. 

I'm exhausted. 

But it's not a bad life.  I have a job, a baby, a garden, and health insurance.  None of which I had two years ago. 
Now all I need is a degree. 

5:55pm: Still alive, 
Clara's awesome.  

She says such profound things as "I see moon," "appasauce" (applesauce), "Hi," "night night," "arms up" "all done", and so our talks have gotten a lot less one-sided.  It seems like she's learning two or three words a day now.  Vocabulary of about 50 words, can accomplish simple tasks like fetching something or putting something back where it goes.  It's amazing.  My little baby who used to just eat and sleep and poop is a little person I can have conversations with.  

She  keeps trying to help type, and so the page has refreshed several times and 
several buttons are already missing from her previous adventures in typing, before I just gave her an old keyboard to play with.  

Nursing while typing is actually easier than *not* nursing while typing, too, (apparently).  
Most frustrating thing, sometimes.  

Need to write more.  Can't turn my head off at night.  Not all of it makes sense, and writing -- just the logical flow of having to form sentences -- helps make sense of things, usually.  's why talk therapy works.  In order to tell someone something, you have to narrate it in a way that at least makes sense in terms of grammar, this happened, then that happened, because xyz.  

9:18pm: boob.
One year, one month, and one week of breastfeeding. Not exclusively, not perfectly, and not without quite a few painful moments. But literally no one I know personally, in real life (i.e. outside La Leche League meetings) has breast-fed past a few weeks. People kept asking me, at work, etc. when I was going to wean my daughter (Clara).

My goal was 6 months, and then when we hit 6 months, my goal was 1 year. Now I'm not sure I'll ever wean her. When she goes off to college, I'll just go along and stay totally out of the way, lol. Really, though, I figure I'll just keep going until she's 2 or 3, if she wants to.

I mean, they're just right there. It's so convenient. It burns calories. It's a bonding thing. And as much as I wish she'd leave me the f alone and take a bottle sometimes, it's about as often as I just get sick and tired of being a mother ENTIRELY. I try to think of nursing like I think of being a mother. It's something I've chosen to do, it's incredibly beneficial in a million ways, and while it might be extremely hard sometimes, it's not something I'd seriously ever give up.



The funny part is that she's started saying "boob." She knows 20 hand-signs, but only actually says "ball" and "mama". I've been calling it "boob" forever, only rarely saying "nursing" or "breast(feeding)". She just sort of bubbles her lips like a horse, but it unmistakeably means "boob," since she paws at my shirt front when she does it. Cutest thing ever.

Thanks for all the info and support, you guys. Three cheers for the boob crew!

3:29pm: quiet life
 A wise woman once said, "If your life is boring, then you're doing most everything right."  

Took me quite a while to get that.  It's true though.  If nobody is dying, if a tornado isn't slinging trees at your house, if you aren't having to run from a burning building clutching photo albums and pets... if going to see a movie is the highlight of your week, if you eat most meals at home with your family, if your biggest stress is that you've gained a few pounds... things are really, really good in the grand scheme of things.   Explosions and break-ups and sex and drugs are exciting on TV, but in real life, boring is good.  

It takes not having these simple luxuries to understand their value.  It takes not knowing where you're going to sleep on a given night to make you feel blessed in having a stable home.  Sometimes, it takes unspeakable loneliness and grieving over lost loved ones to make you value your family the way they should be valued.  It might take years of addiction and loss to make you understand just how incredible it is to be sober for a week.  

In a country that's at war, I don't have to worry about being shot or bombed.  None of my family has TB or AIDS.  Clara won't have acid thrown in her face when she goes to school.  Odds are, we'll never go without a single meal for want of food or money.   That puts us better off than about 3/4 of the world population.  It's hard to see this, sometimes, since everything about this culture says I should try to look like Angelina Jolie and compare my lifestyle with the top 0.001% (as if this were the norm).  


I'm just battling the Mommy-in-the-kitchen syndrome.  Little things add up, and I resent the dishes and vacuuming and cleaning up after a toddler.  I get depressed and mopey and bored.  I remember nights drinking on the beach until dawn, dancing and singing, battling wits with the brightest academic minds, juggling two jobs and a full courseload of premed classes at the hardest college short of MIT.  It's the hugest lifestyle change, and it's not likely to change back anytime soon.  So I should learn to like it.  

I refer to this entry quite often:  http://shinyobject.livejournal.com/155070.html  

I comfort myself reading strangers' blogs.  A random sample gives me mostly baby pictures, birthday parties, stress over job interviews, etc.  This is what most people's lives revolve around.  This is not boring, this is the important stuff.   And I'm doing what I've chosen to do.  

4:12pm: Ball's out.
So for some reason I had this idea that behind Clara's drooling, raspberry-blowing facade she was thinking some super deep baby thoughts. Sometimes she gets this furrowed-brow look of deep contemplation, as if she had the secrets of the universe and the end of human suffering. If only she could speak, she could impart this knowledge and save mankind from ourselves.

Now that she can speak, this illusion has been shattered even more thoroughly than that bottle of soy sauce last week.

Our dialogues go along these lines:
Clara: Ball!
Me: Yes, ball!
Clara: Ball! Ball! Ball!
Me: Yes, it is a ball. Where did the ball go? Go get the ball!
Clara: Ball! Ball! Ball!

From the moment she wakes up and whacks me in the face (to show me how much she loves me and is grateful for all the boob love I give her), to the moment she falls asleep on my boob, drifting off into sweet baby dreamland...

"Ball! Ball! Ball! Ball! Ball! Ball! Ball! Ball! Ball! Ball! Boob?
Ball! Ball! Ball! Ball! Ball! Ball! Ball! Ball! Ball! Ball!"

She knows and uses the signs for Mama, Grandma, Milk, Juice, More, Cracker, Hurt, All Done, Book, Bear, Up, Down, Car, Water, Wash Hands, Bath, Shoes, Hat, Diaper and Baby. We're almost there with Light, Flower, Tree, Bus, Play... once she figured out More, the rest came super quick. Verbally though, all she has is Ba[ll], Boo[k], and every now and then she'll say something resembling Ma[ma].

But she is amazing, and is showing great promise of becoming an Olympic gymnast/Pulitzer Prize-winning, world-saving doctor/soccer player/swimmer/singer/ballerina. Of course, I may be just slightly biased. It's true, though.
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This message has been brought to you by Ball.

1:10pm: and people wonder "if" machines will someday be our masters.

7:30pm: three guesses...
So since there's relatively little going on in my life, other than almost getting arrested again, this will be a Clara post. I.e., I will allow Clara to update what's going on in her life, since she is growing by leaps and bounds and learning new awesome skills every day. Here is what she has to say:

kn.,hjbkjkhiljlo;l;/l;mlk;kkkkkk;;;,.;liiiiiiiii.mmmmmmASSSSSSSAAAAAAAAAAAAAAZZZZZZ.

Perhaps I should just type what I think she means when she flails wildly at the keyboard while yelling "Aiiiiiiiiaaaaa! EEEEEEEEyaaaah ga ga GA GA GAH."

Here's my best guess:

Hello. My name is Clara. I am a baby.

My interests include Mommy. I like Mommy. She gives me milk. From her boobs.

I love Mommy's boobs. They are yummy. Also soft like pillows. She keeps them covered up most of the time. I do not understand this. Often, I go to sleep on one or both of them, and then when I wake up they are gone. I do not approve. When I go to sleep on a boob, I expect to wake up on that same boob. This is not difficult. All she has to do is never leave me ever. EVER.

I also enjoy nummy nums.

My favorite things to do are:
1. Boobtime
2. Naptime
3. Destroy things
4. Fling things
5. Whack things against other things.

Mommy talks to me a lot. I talk to her too. We don't always understand each other. But we're working on it.

Mommy always wants me to have clean pants. I make her presents in my pants, but she always throws them away. She says when I learn how to make presents with my hands, she will like them more.

I have already learned how to sit up all by myself, and to stand and walk holding on to things. I like to eat books.

That is all for now. Mommy says it is time for bathtime. I like bathtime. Splashy splash and Ducky! Ducky lives in the bucket.

10:42pm: letting the perfect become the enemy of the good. Also, ppl being stoopid.
Lol, what do you get when some self-righteous extremists get all panty-bunched over the possibility of their plastic-wrapped tofu not being vegan anymore?

Hilarity.

vegetarians are apparently getting all riled up about the idea of plastic being made from chicken feathers. This is stupid on so many levels. To paraphrase:

OMG so instead of making plastic from the remains of animals that died millions of years ago, which is then drilled out of the Gulf of Mexico (btw this hardly ever explodes killing 11 people and hundreds of dolphins and endangered baby turtles) or bought from child-labor factories in China and shipped across the ocean, where it then lasts for EVER in a landfill, now they can use a natural byproduct of chickens to produce biodegradable plastics domestically, but I'm against it because CHICKENS ARE PEOPLE TOO and they, like, totally care what happens to their feathers.

Got news for you: It never was vegan. Unless you grew the fucking soybeans yourself without using any motorized farm equipment, in your own backyard, and then processed them with a mortar and pestle, and then ate it raw, STFU. Just keep driving to the supermarket and buying tofu made from soybeans that were factory-farmed 1000 miles away, transported by refrigerated diesel trucks, wrapped in plastic and then cooked on a gas stove, and calling it vegan and green.

Eating less meat and more plants is one of the best things, in general, that you can do for your health and your wallet and the environment. But this community has so many holier-than-thou, all-or-nothing "veg*ns" it's infuriating. The idea that I can care about animals and EVER eat meat or wear leather shoes, or even use fucking wool just does not compute.

Try cutting all plastic out of your lives, never driving anywhere, and eating only locally grown raw food, and then see if you can stand there and call me a liar and a hypocrite for eating a free cheeseburger when I'm pregnant and haven't eaten all day and have exactly no money.

Fucking idiots.
If they ban me before I start cussing, I'm eating meat every day for a month.

4:52pm: radical honesty
So in my various vocations, I've learned to lie quite easily. To lie easily, I mean, learning to lie was less easy.

In restaurants, I was paid based on how convincingly I acted as if I was happy to serve people, most of whom I either disliked or didn't care about. Raising money for UChicago, I acted as if I loved everything about the school. Every single interview in which I professed my heartfelt intention to stay in some craptastic job for ever and a day. At school, I played up my knowledge and downplayed my weaknesses to be competitive. Even in friendships and romantic relationships, the lies piled up. "There's nothing going on with her..." "It's okay, I forgive you..."

This is a way of life I'd gotten so used to, that the idea of massaging facts to fit an agenda didn't even seem wrong anymore. I mean, isn't that what everyone does? They flatter, politely ignore truths anyone can see, keep secrets, play dumb.

The difference between me now and me then is Clara.
I need her to trust me, or else who's she going to believe when it comes to sex and drugs and all that? Me, or her preteen friends? Me, or some idiot hormonal boy with an agenda of his own? The odds are stacked against me as it is. The last thing I need to do is start abusing her trust before she can even think about making decisions on her own.


It's hard to tell the truth, but it's probably the most important thing I can do as a parent.
To keep small promises, such as making a habit of coming back (or leaving) when I've promised to.
To avoid empty threats, even small ones like "You'll be cold if you don't wear a jacket," because I need her to build trust in me for the big things like "You can get herpes even if he wears a condom."

I remember being lied to as a child and really resenting it. Learning to mistrust everything adults said to me, since they were known to lie about such things as "If you have sex before marriage you will get AIDS and DIE and go to HELL and DIE." Or even, "I have eyes in the back of my head," and "If you get good grades, you will get a good job."

Mostly I want to be a good example, since that's about all that matters with children. Before they understand "stealing is wrong," they hear parents talking about messing with their taxes. They hear "tell the truth," and see ads that say "If you drink this you will be beautiful." And everywhere in the news, there are lies, damned lies, and statistics.

I'm still going to tell her she's the prettiest baby in the whole wide world, though. Cause she is.

6:57pm: At the risk of becoming one of those women who exclusively posts news about her offspring, who (it's sad but true) are slowly beginning to regard her as obsolete, here's what's going on with Clara.

Crawling. Speeds up to 0.5 mph. Boob-seeking missile with long-range capability of almost 20 feet.

Standing. Still has to hold onto something. Falls down a lot. Still immeasurably proud every time she attains verticality.

Pride is expressed in a velociraptor-like shriek of happiness. She has also mastered the "fake cough" wherein she coughs very ladylikely: "Cough-cough-cough. Cough-cough-cough." As in, "Excuse me, I'm not sure you've noticed that I am *standing*. All shall love me and despair."

Walking with assistance. Bouncing. Dancing. The baby boogie.

Teeth. Plural. Just the bottom front ones. Still I am afraid. She hurts me in my special places. I am afraid of her in ways I am ashamed of. Remember that scene in Jurassic Park?

"You keep still, because you think
maybe her visual acuity's based on movement, like a T-
rex, and she'll lose you if you don't move. But no. Not
baby. You stare at her, and she just stares right back."



Other than the whole she's-still-eating-me-alive thing, the only immediate danger I see is that 17 years from now when she moves out I think I will still be finding cheerios in the couch cushions. Also, baby socks. I bought several dozen pairs, and now she has like 7 socks. Where did they go?!?

11:20am: Mike Huckabee making an ass of himself. Again.
My comment: As a single mom, I find his comments highly offensive. I might not be making millions of dollars, but I AM educated and my daughter is NOT about to “starve to death” without government assistance.

Also, being married doesn't mean being wealthy, or even off welfare. I grew up raised by married parents, on food stamps. A husband who is abusive, can't keep a job, and spends what money he does earn on himself-- how is that better than no husband at all? WTF, Mike, how about giving some props to the thousands (millions?) of single moms around the world who are supporting their children by working their asses off, not criticizing Natalie Portman (an example of an intelligent, independent, beautiful woman) because she also happens to be not yet married to her fiancee.

This guy knows nothing about single parenthood. All he’s doing is taking shots at an enormously successful and popular actress who is choosing to live her life in a way he disapproves of.
Huckabee is making himself look ignorant and old-fashioned. And he just lost the vote of every single mom in the country.


Natalie Portman Criticized by Mike Huckabee,
Caroline Lorraine
Mar 4, 2011, 12:58

Natalie Portman, the 29-year-old Oscar winning pregnant actress, was criticized by former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee for giving a "distorted" image of parenthood due to having the baby out of wedlock.

In an interview with radio host Michael Medved, Huckabee said: "One of the things that's troubling is that people see a Natalie Portman or some other Hollywood starlet who boasts of, 'Hey look, you know, we're having children, we're not married, but we're having these children,' and they're doing just fine.

"But there aren't really a lot of single moms out there who are making millions of dollars every year for being in a movie. And I think it gives a distorted image that yes, not everybody hires nannies, and caretakers, and nurses. Most single moms are very poor, uneducated, can't get a job, and if it weren't for government assistance, their kids would be starving to death and never have health care."

In her Oscar acceptance speech, Portman thanked her fiance for giving her "my most important role of my life."

A source said: "They've only told a very small group of family members and friends that they're expecting a son. They are so excited. Benjamin cannot wait to be a father."

Huckabee is said to be considering a run for the GOP presidential nomination in 2012.

10:55pm: Book learnin.
 I like to read.  I get lost in novels, absorbed in biographies, etc.  

But especially I love newspapers.  You get so much information for 50 cents or whatever.  And then there are puzzles, obituaries, weather... I get excited about the weather.  I'm a geek.  

Clara seems to be well on her way towards following in my wandering footsteps.  Although at this moment she is sitting happily in the armchair, voraciously tearing through the local current events reader.  Literally, tearing.  Ripping, grabbing and flinging, occasionally tasting... mmm, yummy yummy corruption trials.  Occasionally she offers her unique insight and commentary:  "Laaa waaa oooh.  Aaaawwwaaaaa gaaaaaaa.   BaaaaaagaAAA."  Which I interpret as:  "A bit presumptuous, but eminently palatable," which (oddly enough) is also her take on banana mush, applesauce, sweet potato, pillows, her toes, and my face. 
 
And now she's stuffing the "weird news" section into her diaper.  She is definitely her mother's child.  
<3 

7:00am: christmas is magic
 I've eaten pizza for breakfast every day for the last week, averaged about 7 christmas cookies per day, gone to an all-you-can-eat barbecue place, and been driven everywhere in a minivan.  Yet I have lost two pounds since I've been here.  

Being a mom is the best workout program ever.  Breastfeeding is the best weight-loss secret ever.  

And my boobs are bigger than they've ever been.  

Merry Christmas, everybody!  

7:55am: jobby mcjob job
Brisket. Fried chicken. Mashed potatoes, whole wheat mac n cheese, ribs that take 5 hours to cook...
Goose Island on tap. The servers do the drinks, so I'm gonna learn mad bartending skillz. I finally learned what's in a cosmopolitan. So it's Southern, comfort food but done really really well, and served to the Lincoln Park crowd who don't mind paying $5 for a beer.

Also, everything is not too expensive but we're still talking $12 burgers. 20% of a $50 check is $10, times 10 tables is $100. Not that I'm counting my chickens or anything.

and I'm on the schedule for Friday and Saturday nights. Anyone who's ever waited tables knows that these are the mad money shifts.

So, now I have a job where I have to iron things, wear a tie, and if I call in sick I'm fired... but they're ok with me taking a 10 minute break to pump breastmilk! The owner even hooked me up with an extension cord!
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And the earliest I have to go into work is 11:30am. I could get back into school, as soon as I get caught up on the other things I need to spend money on (phone bill, contact lenses, my own place). Childcare is working out, my neighbors can watch Clara for the first few days. Lizz can watch her Friday and Saturday nights. And then when she's 6 months old I can get her into the DCFS-licensed daycare that's *right freaking next to* the restaurant.


Oh I'm so glad I don't have to move back to Alabama. Hopefully I will get to go home for a week or so around Christmas... so my mom can see her grandbaby...

things are working out.

8:57am: You know what would really be nice right now?

Someone paying me to write. Or just type, transcribe, etc. Or do anything on a computer.

Because I can type 80 words per minute, accurately, while nursing. Then I could telecommute and earn cash money dollars while my baby sleeps happily on my lap.

I'm having trouble because I think we've bonded very well, so well in fact that it's physically painful for me to leave Clara. The first fifteen minutes are great, I feel light and free as long as she's with someone who's trustworthy and capable. And then I feel like there's something missing. My arms feel empty, my lap feels unoccupied, and I find myself talking in the Mommy voice when it's not really appropriate because I'm so used to Clara always being right there. When you spend all day every day saying things like,

"Okay! We're going to have bathtime now! yaaaaaaaaay bathtime! Widdle rubber ducky goo goo who's the prettiest baby in the whole wide world?? You are! You are!"

it's sometimes hard to transition instantly back to talking with adults.


And then there's the leaking boobs. To quote Anne Lamott, I look like I'm wearing a wet bikini top under my clothes. I guess just a more convenient way to carry the breast pump would be the answer... though I did learn how to milk myself one afternoon when Clara slept for 4 hours straight.
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I'll just leave you with that image.

12:13pm: on my relationship with my daughter.
I love my daughter with all my heart and soul.  I love her with more love than I ever thought I possessed. 
But imagine, if you will:



Dear Abby:

     Man, this girl... she's totally taken over my life.  First of all, she just shows up one day without a word and moves in with me.  Doesn't pay a dollar towards rent, food, nothing.  She doesn't even clean up after herself!  And I mean, I know she's not that good with English yet, but does she have to literally scream at me whenever I do something she finds annoying? 
     And she's so emotional.  I never wanted to live with a girl, they're so... it's like, one minute she's totally in love with me and can't bear it when I freaking leave the room for one minute-- and then all of a sudden she's crying like her heart will never heal! Of course, the nxt minute she's asleep (loudly, like a little drunken angel [Anne Lamott]).  She's like, so codependent.  I don't know what to do. 
     We've talked about her getting her own place, but she's like, "I NEED you, don't leave me!"  And she's, like, the cutest and most wonderful person I've ever met, and so sweet when she's in a good mood... At some point though, I start feeling really used and unappreciated.  Also, she punches me all the time!  It's not like it hurts, and I've never retaliated (I just have to leave the room for a minute and count to ten sometimes), but this is not ok.  -sigh-  What should i do?!

Sincerely,
LJ in Chicago


Since it's cold, cloudy, and windy as a C-list politician today, here's a picture of Clara looking cute and me looking proud and happy on a fun, sunny day.

5:28pm: I don't even want to *know* what this company does.
best of craigslist > new york > WE NEED A SMART PERSON
Originally Posted: Thu, 11 Feb 13:10 EST
WE NEED A SMART PERSON

Date: 2010-02-11, 1:10PM EST

We need a smart or more person to help un with our Company.

it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests
PostingID: 1596308401
Copyright © 2010 craigslist, inc. terms of use privacy policy feedback forum

2:06pm: got a job offer! Too bad it wasn't real.
Hello Mr. Taylor,
Thanks, but I'm trying not to get into any money laundering right now.
Sorry if you're actually legit, but I've heard too many stories about people taking jobs just like this and it turns out that they're actually receiving cocaine or heroin and unknowingly becoming accomplices in a drug ring.

So thank you for your consideration, and again, apologies if you're actually a legit businessman. But I'd rather make $10/hour doing boring phone interviews than get sent to prison. Good luck with your "clothing and electronics stores", and I wish you all the best.
Laura



On Thu, Sep 23, 2010 at 12:03 AM, Lawrence Taylor <precisioncasincorporations@gmail.com> wrote:

Hello,

Thanks for your response. My name is Lawrence Taylor. I live in US but presently in London on a business trip and I need a part time personal assistant urgently to run my errands until I return back to the US by fourth week in December. I own an electronics and clothing store in London, United Kingdom. Here below is the job description.

1. You will run errands for three times a week and two hours each day.
2. You will do my business shopping.
3. You will receive my packages which will be shipped to the nearest UPS office to you. You will go to the UPS office and pick up the packages. The content of the packages are electronics, clothes, my business and personal letters. You will open the packages and confirm the contents for record purpose.
4. You will ship out some of the packages where I want them to be shipped to. (You don't have to pay for the shipment. All expenses and taxes will be covered by me)
5. You will receive payments from my clients on my behalf which will be written payable to your name so you can cash them at your bank. The payments will be in either check or money order. The payments will be for the services you will be rendering and to do my business shopping.

Job Requirement
1. You must have good communicatin skill.( read more )

11:12pm: So thanks everyone (will thank individuals individually) for helping with my crisis.
I promise it won't happen again.

In related news, we still have to move in a month.
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short version:

Aaron: I just don't want to live with you anymore. It's stressful. I thought you would be a nice, smart, quiet, low-key roommate. You are very intelligent...
Me: I was 6 months pregnant when we met, and you thought things would be quiet even after I gave birth?
Aaron: No, I just thought you were fat.



Such is life, and though it sucks that I've gotten really used to/dependent on having close friends just a few stairs away, it wasn't meant to be a long-term thing. A bachelor pad and a baby are hard to reconcile, and there's no way I could keep the place clean enough for Clara to crawl around and not die.

I just needed a cheap, stable place to live while I dragged myself back from the dark places. I needed to not live alone while I got my mental health in check. I needed a place where there was already furniture, kitchen stuff, books, and music (since I lost all of mine last year).

When the bone has mended, the cast must come off. I need to set up my own place now. I'll start small.
Baby steps.

2:01am: So I'm not part of the community of smokers anymore.

But that's ok, since now I'm part of the community of moms. Which is, apparently, most women over age 30. And then there's women my age who want babies and teenagers and little girls who just want to go "Awwww!" and, I guess, instinctively want babies. I try not to let them go away thinking babies are like dolls that smile and gurgle and love you. I try to toss in a mention of the endless poop and occasional car-alarm-esque screaming.

And of course, opinions and advice on how to mother are flying around like the motherfucking mosquitos and are sometimes just as annoying. I'm all for advice and personal experiences, but sometimes I have to remind myself that my own experience and opinions are perfectly valid too. '



But man, I am loving this. I feel like now we've more or less got the hang of it, I've regained a lot of myself that had been set aside in the first few weeks of Clara's existence, or lost in the depression that was the 9 months before that.

I'm reading again. Reading to Clara, not just baby books but whatever interests me. I couldn't concentrate worth a damn while I was depressed, only read about a book a month which for me is pathetic.

I'm hanging out, socializing, going to libraries and parks and coffee shops... which I had totally stopped doing.

A big thing I want to emphasize is that, although having a baby has been enormously good for me (I'm 100% less of a fuckup than I was before her), all these great changes are NOT a good reason to have a child. Feeling lonely, lacking purpose in life, or wanting to live out all the things you wish you'd done with your own life through a child are NOT good reasons to have a child.

But, that said, there are some truly great side effects OF having a child. A friend told me recently,
"...and one day you'll start to cross a street with her, and you'll be texting or distracted, and she'll say, 'Mom, there's a car coming!' And you'll think to yourself, 'God, this child who I've known since was this big just saved my life."

Clara already saved my life. She saved my life the moment she was born.

5:34pm: Oh, and the funny Clara stories:

Clara has not yet learned that not everything is a boob.
I was paying for coffee, and she was hungry so she starts sucking on my arm. I let her suck on my arm while I finish the transaction since I'd rather her suck on my arm than start screaming.

My daughter gave me a hickey. It looks like I have some kind of weird arm fetish.
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She also has this wonderful concerned, troubled expression sometimes when a male person holds her-- scrunched up eyebrows, set lips... I call it her Darth Vader "I find your lack of boobs... disturbing." face. Goes well with her little baby death grip, ("Please let go of Mommy's hair. Please let go of Mommy's hair.")
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.
.
and yes, I now refer to myself in the third person as "Mommy."
The first thing I say in the morning is usually along the lines of "Oh who's a pretty girl! Gurgle gurgle gurgle! Gurgle gurgle gurgle prettiest girl in the whole wide world!"
I make sure to have at least an hour or two of adult conversation every day, just so my brain doesn't completely turn to mush. It's working pretty well, since she still sleeps 15 or 16 hours a day.


Well, all for now. Clara says "gurgle."

4:55pm: why I didn't say anything before
Yesterday I went to see my friend Sam. I had stored several boxes in her building's basement in January, when I had to move out of my studio and go crash on my mom's couch in Birmingham for a month. These boxes stayed there after I came back to Chicago, found a job, but continued to crash on couches until I earned enough for a month's rent.

A few boxes stayed in her basement even after I moved to where I am now, because I had no pressing need for books or kitchen things since my roommate already has the kitchen set up very nicely and also has 1,000,000 interesting books.

Sam's basement flooded two weeks ago, during a thunderstorm.
All of my books are gone.


I feel especially bad for Sam since she also lost a lot of books, but also boxes of photographs and who knows what else. But it didn't really hit me at the time, just slowly hit me at various points yesterday that:

1. My diaries are gone.
2. All my textbooks are gone.
3. My ASMS yearbook, with all the things people wrote in it, is gone.
4. My notebooks full of lists and plans and dreams are all gone.
5. All my books that I've kept through 6 or 7 moves, that survived my super purge of everything I thought unnecessary, the books I wanted to keep so I could lend them to people because they changed my life, that I wanted Clara to read--
6. A bible that had belonged to my grandmother, a small leather-bound super-thin paged Bible that I kept even through the decade when I didn't go to church or believe in God...

I mean, it's just *things*. I've experienced much worse losses, losses of innocence and of friends, of respect, of a child that I wanted to have and raise and who I told all my friends about before he or she died inside of me. Things can be replaced.
.
.
.
but my diaries from when I was 12, 14 years old-- those can't be replaced. This, this journal that I've kept since I was 16, can't be lost in a flood. I could download it and back it up in five different places and it'd take me all of an hour.

Just saying.


...In Clara news, we're now cosleeping and it's meant a solid 6-8 hours a day of sleep for me, which is amazing. I feel like a human. When she starts fussing and needs to nurse, I can just shift slightly, pull out my boob, and doze off. As opposed to having to get up and get her from her crib and lie awake worrying after she goes back to sleep, and finally frustratedly getting up and puttering. At first I worried a lot about, you know, her smothering in a blanket or me rolling over on her and killing her, but it doesn't work like that. She falls asleep on my chest, and it's a weight holding me down. I sleep in the middle of a queen sized mattress which is maybe a foot and a half off the floor, so even if she did fall off somehow it'd be ok.

She also wakes up and cries a lot less when she sleeps with me. As in, not really at all now. Apparently the research shows that cosleeping will help her not become a drug addict. Score!

And I have a sling now, which means I can carry her all over easily and use not one, but two hands to do things around the house! Amazing! I am free to go get coffee, and by coffee I mean iced herbal tea and only sometimes coffee, and socialize and get outside the house not just once a day (the minimum for my sanity) but often twice! We go to the park, I read in coffee shops, we go to the store two blocks away and it doesn't exhaust me. She loves the sling, she'll fuss when I put her into it but is out like a light five minutes later.

...and now it's a beautiful day, we went to church (more on that later), and I think it's time for the park.
Loving this life so hard, and milking it for all it's worth before she starts teething or some shit.

12:32pm: Clara (what else is there?)
Clara will be one month old on Thursday. It's felt like a year, and at the same time like a week, you know? I feel like I've aged at least five years, tell you what.

She's gained almost two pounds since she was born. She was 7 lbs 6 ounces (the perfect weight, if you ask me), and now she's 9 pounds.

I've lost 33 pounds in the last month. Don't know how much of that was just Clara and amniotic fluid and placenta and all that, but I feel awesome. Still with the stretch marks and all that, I'm not going to be rocking a bikini any time soon, but I'm in pretty great shape overall what with all the lifting and walking and carrying I've been doing. I ate a lot of fries and hot dogs while I was pregnant (don't judge, when herbal tea and granola makes you vomit you eat what you can), but now I'm on a super health kick. I still eat pizza and stuff like that a couple times a week, but now I'm solidly hitting all the food groups and watching my saturated fats... it's like I'm an adult or something.

I'm even down to 100 mg or less of caffeine a day! And some days I don't have any and I'm fine! That's a solid three addictions I've beat in the last year.

blarg. gotta go deal with poop now.
such is life.
later

9:47am: If you Googlefight Google vs. Microsoft, Google wins decisively with 306,000,000 to 33,700,000. 


But if you search Bing (Bingfight, anyone?) for the same two terms, Google loses 205,000,000 to 262,000,000. 


Guess it depends who you ask. 

10:47am: Saw that car commercial during the SuperBowl?
You know, the one where men are all like "I will eat fruit with my breakfast and pick up my socks, and in return I will get my balls back by owning a car that's big and black and goes VROOM VROOM! (unlike certain other things...)"?



P.S. Go Saints!
Chicago loves you for beating the Colts. Plus NOLA needs excuses to party... I mean, inspiration and hope and all that. Yeah.