Between a rock and a hard place....

...Is actually not that bad of a place to be.  We just recently were able to obliterate our debt after several years of carefulness.  That was the rock.  The hard place is the road ahead where we buy a house and again are the bank's bitch.  Right not the middle is actually pretty sweet.  Its a soft squishy place that is carefree and comfortable.  We get paid.  We pay rent and all that then keep the change.  

You would think it would spark a big spree of spending and shopping and lusting for material things that were out of our (easy) reach before.  Its actually seemed to do the opposite.  I have forgotten how to be decadent.  I've gone way too practical.  I threw caution to the wind and bought TWO bunches of tulips at Costco last week. Whoa.  Big spender. 

The dryer is shrinking our stuff...aka in denial that we're fat.

Realizing that you're fat is kind of like being the last person to know you've been walking around with your skirt tucked into your pantyhose ...totally obvious to everyone except you until you finally feel the breeze on your ass.  Well seeing a photo of oneself with a double chin and an un-sucked in gut is a little like that breeze on your ass.  

Its not like you get fat overnight.  

It starts with putting on a few extra pounds and thinking maybe you shrunk your jeans in the dryer.   Then, you go shopping in the store you normally shop and assume they have outsourced to an Asian country with little skinny seamstresses and mucked with the sizing.   (or is that just me).  Then getting pregnant gives you license to not wear a waistband for a year or suck your gut in at all and it all goes to hell in a handbasket.  Then its "just a little baby weight".  At a certain point, its time to admit that there is no such thing as a "smallish" size 14.  

Now that I have seen photographic evidence of the damage, out come the little plates, the sneakers and salad for lunch. Dub-ya Squared, here I come.  (Weight Watchers)

Things I see in a whole new light now...

Now that I have a kid I have some respect for some very specific situations....

1. A mother who is on time.  

200 Bonus points if the kids are with her.  

500 Bonus points if they don't have sticky hands, one pig tail falling out and the socks match.

2. A really young mother at the mall with a little one sleeping in the stroller and a well behaved toddler trotting alongside.  I used to maybe judge a little (too young, trashy pants, etc).   I now realize that this is the motherly equivalent to witnessing a miracle or watching one of those 8 year old Asian sevante kids play an entire concerto.  What's even more amusing is when five minutes later you see another frazzled 30 something have it all pleading and reasoning with their savages to shut up in Baby Gap so they can pay $40 for a t-shirt and get out of there.  

3.  Anyone whose body cooperates and spits the kid out in less than 12 hours.  I spent 36 hours in labour and nearly had to be sawn in half to get my kid out - after I spent many nights reading granola birth guru Ina Mae and hiring a doula. I also spent years rationalizing being sturdy and big boned hoping it would come in handy during childbirth, and it ended up being totally useless.  Yet some teeny leetle 1/4 pound french canadienne in zee next bed barfs out her kid in in five hours, orders pizza and makes some work calls.  Not fair.

4.  People who can get filter their own emotion enough to make their kids do stuff for their own good.  I am a total softie suck pushover.   I am trying to be a little harder nosed to accomplish some basic goals.  Like showering.  Spending some alone time with my husband. Leaving the house for longer than 45 minutes alone....  My kid hardly cries. Probably because he logs more time attached to me than a baby monkey, he takes up prime real estate in the king sized bed with us, he eats on demand (clearly a baby doesn't get to be off the growth chart at 4 months by missing meals) and who needs Baby Einstein when Daddy will sit you on his lap and put the aquarium screensaver on the 27 inch flat panel monitor and play Seal on the 6.1 Surround Sound for you?  

Cabin Fever...

I am so fucking sick of winter, snow, ice, cold, slush, coats, boots, hats, mitts, closed windows, long pants, socks, and leaving the house being requiring more prepwork than a 5 course dinner that I just might go postal.

That's it.

The view from maternity leave....

Alot of people have asked how maternity leave has been going so far.   Here's the scoop.

The first few months have been like a sick day that you really need to take, when you're actually sick and need to stay in bed, drink plenty of fluids and you're actua

lly not feeling or looking so great.  There is no chance you will be sneaking out with your friends that night, or enjoying some day time TV.  You're busy being sick.  

The first few months of mat leave have been kind of like that.  Busy being a Mommy, not exactly relaxing or filled with 'me time'.  I knew it would be work, but I thought I'd have a couple hours a day of peeking in on a slumbering infant while I puttered around, reading alot, sorting photo albums and catching up on organizing some drawers.  HA! 

My baby has other plans for me. 

He is incapable of sleeping on anything but a real live human who themselves is in a really uncomfortable position and needs to pee.  He also doesn't enjoy being put down, and by 'doesn't enjoy', I mean ear splitting screaming worthy of a housecall from social services, not a little infant mewling.  If I actually have time to read, its something like "Baby Whisperer" or "Contented Baby" or "Todays' Parent", not anything impractical or entertaining.

He also hates the car seat.  By hate, I mean he will scream until he foams at the 

mouth and you think he's going to choke.  So driving is a little tricky.  We bought a new carseat, I literally brought him into the store and put him in every single one until we found one he didn't instantly scream in and I didn't care how much it cost.  Sold.  He hates it 50% less than the old one.

Oh, and he won't take a bottle or a pacifier.  Not one, he won't even close his mouth with one near it.  I have pretty much every kind of pacifier on the market.  Nuby, Nuk Nuk, Soothie, even some weird 'kindersukken' (not real name) German one.  We also have 3 kinds of bottles on the go.  5 kinds of nipples.

On the up side, we figure he's smart and a man who knows what he likes and is willing to wait for it.    He's also devastatingly cute, so you can't even get mad at him for being picky and stubborn.

Just one look at this photo and you will see clear evidence of just how smug an infant can be when they have thus far been able to outwit, outlast and outplay the grownups at pretty much every challenge.