Levedy

Fancy Food and Flatulance

Last night was Athena's (my Sister-In-Law's) birthday. Five adults and two babies went to Rosemary's Restaurant for dinner. I had heard for years that Rosemary's was a good restaurant, but I didn't know it was hoity-toity food. I instantly felt out of place in my milk-stained khakis and my 20-hour hair.

But hey, at least Dim was wearing jeans, and Bean wasn't even wearing socks. If we were going to re-enact The Clampetts Go To A Fancy Restaurant, then at least I was the best dressed among us.

The food was excellent. The starter course was an asparagus bread pudding with crème fraiche and micro greens served on remoulade sauce. We also had prosciutto-wrapped figs stuffed with goat cheese and served with pesto and a basil aioli. For the main course, I had the grilled mahi mahi served on vegetables julienne (funny, tasted like CABBAGE to me) and plated with a Riesling gastrique and citrus supremes (thickened orange juice to Cletus and me).

The food was wonderful. The babies were relatively well behaved, although I did have to step out of the restaurant twice so the other diners did not have to hear Sophie's "Ode to English and Cantonese Vowels" she so often favors in the early evening.

The only exception to the wonderful dining experience came from Bean's cousin Earen. During a very brief lull in conversation not only at our table, but also at the other tables near us, Earen filled the silence with a rather loud, rather wet, and rather enthusiastic shit. The waiter came over and immediately offered directions to the restroom. I stifled my laughter as well as I could.

No matter how many airs of sophistication (big) Sophie tries to put on, she just can't escape being seen publicly with the Clampett's and Shit Boy.

The Democratic Process is Tiring

The Problem With Being Polite

I was waiting in the Honda customer lounge this morning for a courtesy van ride home this morning. Pacing back and forth in the lounge was a blowhard realtor, blabbing WAY to loudly on his cell phone for a long time about the Las Vegas market, how he was such a great realtor to be doing business with, how he knows the market better than anyone, yadda yadda yadda. If was really annoying, and I couldn't read the book I brought along because he was so distracting.

He ignored my meaningful glances to STFU or take his conversation elsewhere.

I sat myself in the kids lounge next door. There were no kids in there. I was all alone until two other women from the lounge came in and asked me: "Are you in here for the same reason we are?" "The blowhard realtor on the cell phone?" "Yeah! Can we join you?"

We lamented the total loss of etiquette when cell phones were involved. We chortled that no one really asked for an invitation to hear his half of a rather long conversation, and why didn't he have the good sense to step into an unoccupied room to transact business rather than us having to flee the customer lounge to avoid his too-loud blather?

The courtesy van came, and I excused myself to use the courtesy phone to call Dim to tell him I was on my way. The phone was next to where the blowhard finally sat. He told me "I heard what you ladies said about me in there, just so you know."

Now why do I feel bad that the blowhard got his feelings hurt? That's the trouble with living in The Land of Polites, as Jenny Smith calls it. You care more about rude people's feelings than they care about yours. It sucks.

Pain at the Pump

Dim and I are going to dinner and a movie on Saturday. As adults! With no baby!

Mom and Dad (Grandma and Daddoo) are going to babysit. (Dad: "Sure, I can come sit on your baby.")

Aaaaand, because you don't hear enough about my breasts, I have to start pumping this early in the week to set aside enough milk for us to leave the baby for an evening. I find it very interesting that my body can feed a child and keep her healthy, but the dairy-farm-grade pump I rented from the hospital can only get an ounce at a time out of me.

I've read that some women are good pumpers, and some are bad pumpers. I think I am a bad pumper who gave birth to an efficient little Hoover.

3 Months

Bean-

Tomorrow you turn 3 months old. This month’s theme has been “pooping in public.” You have created a hobby for yourself of not pooping for three days straight, and when we go out in public, you make up for lost time by…well…let’s just say I’ve had to provide Viking-style burials for several onesies.

You like to poop when your onesies feature poultry. Chicks, ducks, and parrots are all vulnerable to…erm…requiring Viking burials. Does it make me a bad person to intentionally dress you in feathered friends when you go to your Yiayia’s house?

You have a rough schedule that works out pretty well. On most nights, we give you a bath at 8:00, feed you, and pop you in your crib. You’re usually pretty good about going to sleep on your own by 8:45. Mom and Dad then have the rest of the evening to stare blankly at each other, trying to remember what we used to do in the halcyon days when sleep flowed like water.

You sleep until 8 or 9 in the morning (not uninterrupted, of course) and wake with the biggest gummy smiles and proto-laughs. You started laughing this month. Well, not laughing, exactly, you don’t have the mechanics down quite yet. It’s more like a smoker’s cough; but you only do it when you’re happy. So my guess is you’re either laughing, or sneaking in some Virginia Slims on the side.

Your first emotion was joy; something that pleases me greatly. But another emotion showed up this month which is not as delightful: anger. If momma has the gall to, say, continue driving home rather than stretch my boob over the center console, past the car seat, and into your mouth (don’t laugh, I could do it.) you get angry. This cry is different from any previous cry: you’re definitely angry. I wonder from time to time if Playskool has thought of making infant-friendly punching bags. You could use one.

You’re starting to grab at rattles that are suspended above your head. They seem to bore you, since they’re suspended above you, why go to the effort of grabbing them? They’ll still just sit there above your head. Ahhh...the birth of a cynic. You also love staring at yourself in mirrors. You smile and hack at that funny looking baby in the mirror, and stare contentedly at her as she stares back at you. It’s a bit like an infinite loop, like when two Japanese men bow over and over again at each other in cartoons. You smile, she smiles, you get wide-eyed, she gets wide-eyed. You can eat up twenty minutes with the mirror-girl.

You’re a very pleasant, easy-going baby. I want to remember these times when you turn 12 and know more than I do about everything. Every night I ask you to stay this size forever. Every morning, though, you wake up a little bit older, a little bit bigger, and your onesies get a little bit tighter. It's bittersweet: it makes me happy and sad at the same time. I love you Bean.

Love, Mama

Check out my boob on the web!

Not really. It's pretty G-Rated.

Tami, the lactation consultant, asked that I submit a thinger to her website.

I'd like it noted that I did not, in my draft, use quite so many exclamation points.

Tami's Site

(Scroll to the end)

Slow Post Day

From our trip to Greece:

I feel better knowing that fairies wear boxing gloves to clean.

Oh, and the Greek writing says Works wonders on burnt grease!

Playing with Photoshop

I'm slowly teaching myself to play around with pictures in Photoshop:

Look what neat trick I figured out with one of my honeymoon pictures:
Westminister Abbey Before

Westminister Abbey After

Ta-Daa!

Community Action

We must all hang together, or we will surely hang separately: sign this petition for the betterment of all.

Bloggers, please consider posting that link on your blogs as well.

Feeling Sheepish

Why is it that every time my friend Shaunna checks my weblog (about once every six months) the top post is something that contains overly foul language and/or sophomoric innuendo?

Shaunna is someone I admire greatly. She broke my bigoted stereotype of Mormon women: She’s both an incredibly intelligent, educated woman and a very devout Mormon woman; two qualities I thought were mutually exclusive until I met Shaunna.

She’s enough of a lady to look past the “fucktard” posts and comment only on my posted baby pictures.

Oh, and she made me this really cool sling.

Fucktard Asswipe Douchelicker

So I discovered that Earen, born two weeks after Bean, received his Social Security card two weeks ago. Bean has yet to get one. I admit that I got a little wigged about it since I read that babies are the #1 target for identity theft.*

That, and apparently Washington Mutual has sent me THREE MasterCards that I never received. Yipes.

So I go to the Social Security website. First off, the website looks like a fake website that some 12-year-old cooked up to make you think you’re on the right website, you know, like SocialSecurit.com or something like that. But no, my tax dollars are paying for shitty web design. I won’t even link it. The website was the digital version of the old “How to keep an idiot busy” card (Turn. How do you keep an idiot busy? Turn. How do you keep…)

No help there. I make the mistake of calling the SSA to ask a human what to do.**

The SSA has a super intelligent, Sky Net voice recognition system that is supposed to take care of your every need. I swear to you, the conversation between Hal and me went like this:

[it] Tell me what you would like to do.
[me] Check on the status of my baby’s Social Security card
[it] How many forms do you need?
[me] Zero.
[it] I think you said “zero.” Is that correct?
[me] Yes.
[it] Okay, then. Tell me what you would like to do.
[me] *sigh* Check on my baby’s card
[it] How many forms do you need?
[me] NONE
[it] I think you said “none.” Is that correct?
[me] Yes, dipwad.
[it] Okay, then. Tell me what you would like to do.
[me] Speak to a human.
[it] How many forms-
[me]AAAAAAAAAAGGGGGHHHHHHHH!
[it] I think you said “eight.” Is that correct?
[me] FOR THE LOVE OF CHRIST, GET ME A HUMAN, YOU BLITHERING BUCKET OF BOLTS!
[it] Hold please.

I got to speak to a human, who, no shit, asked me how many forms I needed so that I could walk into my local Social Security office. I asked him what, if anything, he could do over the phone for me. He confirmed that Bean’s SS card hasn’t yet been issued, so it hasn’t been yanked out of the mail, but that all he could do over the phone was arrange to SEND ME SS-5 APPLICATION FORMS.

I asked what going to my local office would accomplish, and he said that they could accept my SS-5 form to apply for a new Social Security card. I said “But I’ve already done that – oh, never-fucking-mind.”

Gaaaah! Where’s a hot poker when you need one?

*Here is another example of how the criminals in my community are far smarter than I. It would never have occurred to me to steal a baby’s SS card. I’d have eighteen years of unfettered access to pre-approved credit cards, allowing me to buy a lifetime supply of mail-order drugs. Genius!
**I also made the mistake of not having a hot poker to shove in my eye. I substituted the antenna on my phone. Alas, it was not sharp enough to accomplish the job.

Bean, Binky, and Lovey

With an earlier bedtime, Bean falls asleep much easier during the day. She sleeps about 11-12 hours at night (not in a row yet, dammit). I give her her a lovey, a stuffed bear head stitched on a little blanket, to associate with sleep time.

Too early to tell if it will work or if I've lost my mind.

She seems to like her lovey, though.

A day in the life

First: Brian hit it on the head with this, the thought process of a new dad. Except with Dim, instead of X-Box, it’s World of Warcraft (God help me. He quit for a while, but then it sucked him back in. I’m a WoW widow again.)

My morning starts (depending on your definition of morning, of course) at six am, when I haul the Bean into bed with me because by that time of the morning I cannot stay both upright AND conscious to nurse her. I plop her in the bed between Dim and me and flop out a boobie to feed her.

Note to the male (not including my dad) readers: I realize this is the unsexiest description of my boobage ever written. Watching women nurse is beautiful, but decidedly unsexy. Watching me nurse must be like watching a tipped Holstein feed a chimpanzee.

Note to my dad: Sorry for that mental image.

I leave her with her eyes rolled back in her head in lacto-ecstasy in the bed and go about my morning business. I check my email - No messages again? Damn. - read my daily blogs, Watch Ze’s Show, lament the fact that I haven’t blogged since the Clinton administration, and work the NYT crossword puzzle.*

I try to think of witty things to post about, but they all involve my boobs and/or the Bean. My single, kidless friends’ heads will explode if I discuss either of those any more.

And then I worry: Am I limited in my repertoire of witty banter to that which involves childrearing? What happened to my ability to discuss literature, politics, art, and fine dining? And then I realize: my boobs are leaking again.

BOOBS. BOOBS. BOOBS.

Note to my dad: Sorry again.

I go downstairs to fix myself some food and notice for the thirtieth time that there is dried spit-up crusted in the Graco logo of the Bean’s car seat buckle. *sigh* I really have to chip that out.

I’m two bites into a PB&J sandwich when she starts squawking again, and the process repeats itself. Still no messages. Man, I’m a loser.

So happy 4th all, and remember, above all else: BOOBS.

sorry dad.

BONUS: Here is the sign posted on the door for my July 4th BBQ guests.

*unless it’s Friday or Saturday, when I blink my blank, blank eyes at the sea of white squares in the puzzle and think to myself: what’s a five letter word for a foolish or stupid person?