So stuff like this doesn't happen next door.
(Corner of Flamingo and Rainbow)
I took Bean to a toddler gymnastics class today. I decided that she needs a safe place to run and climb and jump (not that our house is a Burmese tiger pit, but I don’t have gymnastic mats and jungle gyms and stuff like that). I figured that it would give her something special and big-girly to do other than stare at me pay attention to her little brother. I was a little nervous to go to one of these Mommy-and-me places. I really wanted Bean to have an outlet to play Sophie Knievel, but I didn’t want to spend the hour with a bunch of Summerlin Silicone Moms gabbing about their Abercrombie and Fitch shopping finds and the results of the latest Botox party.
Bean had a BLAST. I had to peel her out of the ball pit when our time was up. She ran and jumped and climbed and swung like a monkey. Yes, I did have to suffer through Abercrombie discussions and the like, but not all of the women had plastic additions to their body. There were moms and kids wearing Target clothing same as me. I was the new mom, so no one really talked to me, but that’s just as well, I suppose. I wasn’t exactly chairing the social committee myself.
And at least I had the smug, silent satisfaction to know that people who pay lots of money to make themselves look different than what God gave ‘em still pass on their fugly genes to their kids.
I’m excited to take Bean back. She had so much fun, and it made me happy to see her so happy.
I'm going to kick myself for not Photoshopping out the stretchmarks.
One of my regrets in life is not appearing in many photos. I'm too self-conscious to have my picture taken, and as such, I have very few of me with my Bean. I wish Bean had more pictures of mama. I have only a few pictures of my first pregnancy, taken at my baby shower. They were taken with me turned square to the camera, which is the MOST unflattering angle possible for any woman, let alone pregnant ones.
I haven't gained any weight this pregnancy. I'm actually under by five pounds. We (Dim and I) went to see a nutritionist right before I knew that I was pregnant, and by and large I've stuck with her recommendations. (She recommended that I eat duck. Ewwwww.) I'm eating a lot healthier these past months. Between weight loss from giving up almost all junk food and weight gain from the pregnancy, I'm five pounds under my first prenatal visit for this pregnancy.
But girl scout cookies come out in a month or so, don't they? Mmmmmm, thin mints......
So the new BIG! GIRL! BED! The one that shits rainbows and unicorns it is SO COOL – is finally set up in her room. Only BIG GIRLS can sleep on it, and so calling my husband a big girl while he napped on it this weekend seems TOTALLY APPROPRIATE. It’s logic, people.
The first night we put her in it, we prepared ourselves to be up every five minutes chasing her back into it, but no. She conked out almost immediately and didn’t stir until 6 am. She normally wakes up at 7:30, so this 6 am business is more than a little annoying, but, all things considered, isn’t too bad.
By all things considered, I mean napping. I still have to put her in her portable crib for afternoon naps so that my head doesn’t explode from the frustration of chasing her into her bed a brazillion times.
She and I spent the morning cuddled in her bed reading the kittens book and playing in her little cottage. All was nice and Kodak-ey until the Great Blueberry Explosion of ’08. I changed her and sent her in to her father, who will never feel as grateful as he should for not having to chisel blueberries out of his daughter’s crack.
Nicole came over yesterday with her two-month old, Zane. I’m so glad that I have Nicole. She’s a shoulder to cry on and someone to smirk with. We share a lot of the same parenting philosophy. No, a handful of goldfish crackers will NOT hurt my child. Annoying, purposely noisy toys are RETARDED and UNNECESSARY, and motherhood is HARD, baby, HARD.
I’m looking forward to this pregnancy being over and meeting my son. It’s going to be a BIG transition for Bean. I’ve all but stopped carrying her up and down the stairs, both because it’s too physically strenuous on me and part of me knows that I need to wean her off clinging to me, and she almost always breaks into tears. My poor Bean, don’t you realize I’m growing a human being for you to torture and blame for sneaking Jell-o out of the fridge?
Guess who found pink paint pawprints on the carpet in Bean's new room leading from the closet to the door to the hallway?
The parent of one in-trouble cat, that's who.
The painter came today and painted Bean's Big Girl Room four VERY bright colors. I LOVE it. I lurrrrve it. The colors match the bedding that (big) Sophie bought for Bean for Christmas.
Here's the bedding:
Bedding
And here are all of the colors on the wall:
Big Girl Room
I love it. It's WILD, like my little Bean.
Okay, I admit it: I have a new love. I visit him every Saturday. And he gives me flowers. I don’t have a new man, I have a new grocery store. Fresh and Easy, the American branch of Tesco, opened a few miles from my house. I love it. The shop is smaller, and the aisles are wider than a traditional big box grocer, so it takes a lot less time for me to shop.
They also always give me a bunch of flowers when I leave. Okay, granted, they’re the older flowers that they can’t really sell, but HEY. Free sunflowers and daisies!
I also buy much healthier food and much less junk and impulse crap because, get this, they don’t have very much of it. There are no endcaps with bright signage and little logoed elves taunting me to buy their package of lard and high fructose corn syrup. There are only two kinds of ketchup to choose from, not thirteen, so aisles don’t stretch as far as the eye can see. I find that I buy much healthier foods when I shop there. That’s different than the Tesco I remember visiting in Ireland. Nestle had the entire place bent over at the middle. You couldn’t go down ANY aisle without the Nestle people shoving some sugary, processed product into your cart. It was a little weird.
The store brands of foods use as little packaging as possible, and don’t contain artificial colors or preservatives or weird stuff I can’t pronounce. Case in point: I bought a pack of Fresh and Easy Strawberry Jell-o. I got home, and tasted it, and discovered it tastes…different. And then I read the label. ohhhh. It’s made from STRAWBERRIES and SUGAR. No wonder it tastes different from regular Jell-o.
There are a few down sides, though. You really have to watch the produce, because it spoils much faster than the Smith’s stuff. Plus, they’ll sell produce up to and including its labeled “Best By” date, so you have to watch it. You have to dig in the milk cooler, because the stuff in front expires TODAY and the stuff father back expires in two weeks.
Also, F&E’s website mentions the desire to have their product lines match the neighborhood needs, which is a nice way of saying OH COME ALL YE MEXICANS, FOR WE HAVE CANNED MENUDO ON THE SHELF. Dude, you’re trying too hard. I’ve never known anyone who actually eats menudo, and, while I like seeing the Mexican pastries that I remember from my Southern California childhood in the baked goods aisle (conchas, orejas, bolillos), I think they’re trying too hard with some other stuff. Plus, I haven’t seen a Mexican in there yet.
Their prices are lower than Smith’s, so that’s nice. The employees are all very friendly, and even though the cashier’s area is supposed to be a self-checkout area, they always offer to help me scan and bag.
Even the lighting is better. They use a lot of natural light, which the Smith’s doesn’t use at all. The aisles aren’t as tall, so the sunshine really fills the whole store. It makes a difference. Plus, they have family parking and hybrid parking that’s better than the handicapped parking! And the carts are shallow, so you don’t have to bend your fat pregnant ass as much to load and unload your cart.
Well, maybe that’s a little specific to me, but you get my point.
Fresh and Easy is getting a lot of static because it isn’t unionized. As far as I’m aware, neither is Trader Joe’s, but Trader Joe’s doesn’t have moving billboards out in front of it protesting the lack of unions.
So Fresh and Easy is my regular Saturday date. I recommend a trip to one if you live here.
So my family has a history of setting things on fire.
Not on purpose (that anyone can prove), you see. Just a wee bit inadvertently pyro. It’s charming, really. Like the aunt who has one too many cats.
My mom set fire to her apartment kitchen as a newlywed trying to microwave (blech) a meatloaf.
My dad set fire to the stove by leaving a plastic carafe on the burner.
My cousin, the front lawn.
My other cousin, the back lawn.
My sister, oh where do I start? The back patio, her bedroom, a stuffed bunny…the list goes on. She’ll blame me for the stuffed bunny, and she’s probably right, but whatever.
So now I get to add my name to the list – me and my dryer.
But it wasn’t really my fault, and I think it paints too flamboyant (ha!) a picture to mix me in with those folks.
The dryer lint backed up into the machine due to a clogged vent on the roof. Now, it’s only my fault in the sense that I’m the only one in the house who knows how to operate the washer and dryer. The best Bean can do is crawl inside the barrel of the dryer and flick the light switch on and off. Dimitri eyes them suspiciously whenever he walks past them, but fears that his learning how to use them might actually (*gasp*) change my laundry expectations of him – as in, up from zero.
So some blankets came out smelling like a smoker, and the bottom of the dryer looks like a burned-out warehouse. BIG DEAL.
$270 later, I have a dryer that works and am not in any danger of burning down the house.
That is, unless my family comes to visit.
I am still here. I have been incredibly unmotivated to post anything lately. Call it the pregnancy blahs if you like.
My pregnancy continues. And continues. And continues. I’m starting to get to the phase where I catch myself thinking “hey, it’s cool that I’m not barfing anymore, but won’t this be over soon?” I mean, really, how many times can you buy Poise pads, Tucks pads, and antacids before the Walgreens lady is convinced that you’re some kind of sex pervert? (answer: two, and MAN am I way past that.)
I continue to be overly sensitive to people (plural!) questioning my parenting. Ahem. Maybe I should just start telling people that they need an upper lip wax because hey! I thought unasked-for advice is a two-way street. But that would be rude, and I try to treat others how I would like to be treated – like a Walgreens sex pervert.
Whatever. I know I’m a good mom. Fuck it, a GREAT one. Just because I don’t do the exact same things others did or are doing with their kids doesn’t make me Joan Crawford. Lay off, vultures.
Christmas brought all sorts of new toys to the house for Bean, and I’m happy to say that some of her favorites are the cardboard building bricks that I loved as a child. Most people were kind enough not to buy insanely annoying noisy toys.
Bean’s big girl room is FINALLY, FINALLY, FINALLY cleaned out and ready to be painted. I initially planned to have that done by the summer, but no such luck. Bean has slept for two nights in her new BIG GIRL ROOM, the room that is SO COOL that ONLY THE BIG GIRLS GET TO SLEEP IN THERE. Yes, I’m overselling it a bit. Shut up. She’s sleeping in a portable crib for now until I can get the twin mattress in the room. I still haven’t solved the conundrum of getting her to stay in a bed at night. I think we’ll start by putting the mattress on the ground and surrounding it with her cell block. After, I don’t know – a week? Two? - remove the cell block and gradually add the box spring and the rails.
Oh, and I apparently set the dryer on fire yesterday.
Yes, never a dull moment around here.