Thursday, December 3, 2009

Top Ten Reasons...

…Annette has been MIA from her blog for almost 2 months:

10. She spent too much time making panda ears for Halloween and got carpal tunnel.

9. She went on a TV bender and watched seasons 1 thru 4 of Showtime’s Weeds on DVD, back-to-back.

8. To make up for her sloth-like behavior, she scrubbed the top of the refrigerator for hours like a Polish maid, turning her hands into bloody stumps. (you can’t type with bloody stumps)

7. In her pursuit to become the household dictator, Lia squeezes her fists into tight little balls, grits her teeth together and grunts so loud and so hard that she turns red…doing her best impression of a miniature Heat Miser whenever Mommy doesn’t focus ALL attention on Her Highness. (which makes it impossible for Mommy to even take a shower...much to the dismay of the Baby-daddy)



6. After sleeping off the 20 lb turkey she made for JUST 2 PEOPLE in an effort to prove she could “Do Thanksgiving” by herself, she went shopping on Black Friday and got sucked into the vortex of hell...otherwise known as crazed masses of humanity running over each other with their shopping carts in their quest to max out their credit cards as "Buy One Get One Free!" supersedes any sense of normalcy.



5. She spent three days shopping for and setting up the Christmas tree last week, which today is still a naked tree with lights…no decorations, just lights. (Lia will one day ask her parents why we are the only family that still has their tree up in June…no decorations, with half the lights burnt out and the other half flickering like a sad neon beer sign, Charlie Brown-style)

4. She wasted many hours creating this Santa’s Helper avatar of herself. (too bad I stopped breastfeeding…my boobs will never look this good again)




3. Aliens abducted her and left a Stepford wife in her place. (wouldn’t that make the Baby-daddy happy)

2. She’s in neurotic first-birthday-planning mode, obsessing over something the guest of honor will never remember.

And the NUMBER ONE reason Annette has been MIA from her blog…

1. In an effort to baby-proof, Annette pulled everything out of the cupboards and got trapped somewhere between the stale Cheerios monument and the landslide of baking soda she was hoarding under the sink. We may never see her again. (my shopping expenditures at Costco alone should turn around this freaking recession…what have I turned in to?? Next thing you know I’ll be wearing pajamas to Wal-Mart.)

***************************************************************

Truth is…I can’t stop squeezing my cute little peanut long enough to sit at the computer and write! And did I mention she’s walking now???

So weird to see a 2 foot tall little person scampering across the floor. Reminds me of that Bugs Bunny episode where the drunken stork accidentally delivers a giant baby to an average Brady Bunch-type household instead of the “Giant” family at the top of the beanstalk. Took me a while to find this…anyone remember it?



And if you have a few minutes, watch the episode here…the part I think of whenever Lia stumbles across the room into my arms is around the 4 minute mark when the giant baby is learning to walk -- he falls over and squashes his father:



Hope everyone is having a happy holiday so far! Take some advice from me…do NOT let yourself get caught up in creating perfect holiday moments…it’s too easy to get sidetracked with Martha Stewart compulsions when what is truly important is sitting right in front of you, reaching out her tiny hand, just wanting a little piece of your heart.



Peace.

Thursday, October 22, 2009

The Connected Kid


My daughter already knows how to use a BlackBerry, navigate Facebook and Tweet like a pro.

She’s 10 months old.

I get overwhelmed by this stuff. I used to be on top of everything, but somewhere along the way I became an old geezer. I blame it on the technology explosion of the last few years.

That and giving birth.

I think part of my brain stayed in the hospital to enjoy a nice little respite from servicing me. Poor thing was simply exhausted. However, I’ve recently received a report that she’s recovering nicely now. I think she’s somewhere in the south of France. She sends postcards from time to time. Not sure if I’ll ever see her again ~ probably best this way…I was growing weary of her demanding nature.

{I digress}

I used to be the “tech guru” at work…I could fix anything. But this was when fax machines, typewriters and large industrial-sized printers were still the norm in offices. Not personal computers…let alone cell phones that do everything short of going on blind dates for you, all the while fitting neatly in your back pocket. Very Star Trek if you ask me.

This is what I get for making fun of a coworker in the early 90’s when she asked me why the fax machine wasn’t working because her paper came out the other side of the machine. “I keep putting it in and it keeps coming right back out!” She expressed to me impatiently. As if the fax machine magically vaporized the paper and transported it from Chicago through the netherworld and out to the recipient in Texas.

I enjoyed a nice hearty laugh about that for the next six months at her expense, repeatedly recounting the story to anyone who would listen.

Karma sucks.

Saturday, October 17, 2009

Betty Crocker Croaks

Words of advice when making your own babyfood…

Number 1. Don’t forget to turn off the oven when you leave the house to get your hair done. You just might ruin the organic squash you were cooking up for your little love bug. (Not to mention it’s a fire hazard.)

B. Avoid leaving the carrots sitting out in the food processor overnight. And…if and when you DO leave them out, remember to take the blade OUT of the food processor before tossing said carrots in the trash the next day. This will force you to use a blender to process your baby food the next time. Which I don’t recommend. It’s a pain in the @!#.

3. It might be wise to refrain from biting off the head of the Baby-daddy for “carelessly” throwing out said food processor blade while cleaning the fish tank, before retracing your sleep-deprived steps to remember EXACTLY when you made the tragic error yourself.

{sigh}

Oh well, it was a good run. Back to jarred food for now.

Some people are just better at this stuff than others I guess…I’ll always be one of the "others". Thank god my daughter doesn't judge me for being neurotic mom.

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Rejection Sucketh

My daughter no longer wants the boob in the morning. I am devastated.

It is such an intimate act ~ nourishing my child with my own body. Think about it. It truly is a miracle. How our fleshy bag of bones “knows” how to do anything at all is a mystery. I’m really going to miss that cuddle time with her before getting out of bed.

We came a long way though. When she was newborn, she didn’t latch on at all. I spent hours crying and feeling completely worthless as a mother. Combine that with the overwhelming surge of postpartum hormones, lack of sleep resulting from a two-day labor and the inability to sit down without feeling like my chair was a medieval torture device…and you have the perfect ingredients for a complete meltdown. I couldn’t understand WHY my baby wouldn’t take my boob. Was it my bad breath? Ratty hair? The fact that all I wore in those first few insane weeks was a bath robe? I blamed myself. Then I yelled at her father.

After breaking down in the lobby at the Pump Station, a lactation consultant who was passing by in an attempt to exit the premises immediately turned around and whisked me into a private room…I suspect to prevent me from horrifying any of the preggos wandering around the store lest they hold on to the fantasy that becoming a new mother is going to be all sunshine and puppies in a basket.

She was AMAZING. Spent 10 minutes with us and changed my life. I thought babies popped out with magical powers: knowing how to breastfeed, bathe themselves and change their own diapers. Apparently my daughter was traumatized as much as I during the birth experience because she didn’t know anything when she came out. Baby horses (otherwise known as foals) walk minutes after birth. What is wrong with us? Humans rely on their mothers longer than any other species for survival. Turns out, some babies have to LEARN how to breastfeed. Yeah. Who would have thunk it? I was so jealous of my friends who never owned a pump. Breastfeeding was so “easy breezy” for them. {Grrr}

Anyway...Lia didn’t breastfeed for every feeding, but we eventually got into a nice little groove. She was on breast milk for 8 solid months (mostly by pumping), but since then my supply has slowly dwindled to nothing. I gotta say…pumping was a pain in the arse and I expressed my displeasure openly to the Baby-daddy any chance I could get. I’d really grown weary of it. There is no joy in hooking yourself up to a giant suction machine 3 to 5 times a day. I felt like nothing more than a cow in slippers. But now that I have my freedom again...I’m very sad. Oh the irony.

So here we are 10 months later. My baby girl is already growing up so fast and showing signs of independence. While I packed up my pump equipment today, I had a little panic attack. It’s really hitting me hard. I can’t imagine what it’s like for women who actually get to breastfeed the entire time when they wean. I guess everyone is different though, so my feelings are not going to be the same as the next mommy. But it’s pretty intense for me.

{Big Sad Face}

I guess I better get used to it. Before long she’ll be going off to school, then to college, overseas adventures, and probably to the moon by the time she’s 25.

And there’s nothing I can do about it…but watch her, guide her, comfort her, celebrate with her, and be the best mom I can be.

Thursday, October 8, 2009

To make myself feel better for yesterday’s bra incident…I let my inner rock star out of hibernation.

Mini-me and I donned appropriate attire and rocked out to Juke Box Hero this morning.

I feel better already...

















Yo...'sup?

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

What happened to me???

Have any other sleep-deprived moms out there ever gotten dressed only to realize that they’ve put their BRA on inside out? Seriously, I need to know if this has ever happened to anyone else…I feel like I’m losing my mind some days. People put socks on inside out all the time…tee-shirts…I’d even go so far as to say underwear…

But a BRA?!? I mean…WHO does that?

Come on!

I used to be a pretty cool person. At least I thought so. But what have I turned in to??? I go to bed at 9pm, perpetually wash baby bottles, spend my days singing “Itsy Bitsy Spider” to a Lilliputian who is not a very discerning critic (she would squeal with delight and wildly applaud if I acted out the Gettysburg Address) -- and now I’ve deteriorated into a woman who wears sweat pants all day, suffers from perpetual “bad hair”, and straps on her oh-so-attractive nursing bra inside out.

Mmmm. That’s sexy. Baby-daddy is one lucky fellow. Yessiree Bub…I’m SMOKIN!

Is there a support group for this disorder…Chronic MOM Disease?

Monday, October 5, 2009

There has got to be an easier way to keep my daughter’s fingernails neatly trimmed. She squirms like an octopus in heat whenever I try and I end up making them worse! At 9 months, with her newly developed vice-grip hands and tiny razorblades at the end of each finger, she turns my arms into hamburger meat…and sometimes her own face, which freaks me out when she wakes up from a nap with a fresh, self-induced wound next her eye. I hate to leave the house for fear someone will scream “Abuse!” Causing me to run down the street like a madwoman while Lia bounces up and down in her stroller, giggling like crazy, thinking “Weeeee! This is fun Mommy!” All the while smiling at me with her four teeth and prizefighter eye. Poor thing.

I wish I could take her to a "Baby Groomer." How easy would that be? Just like dogs! Once a week: shampoo hair, trim nails, brush teeth…hell, you could even throw in a couples massage and make it a spa day for mommy and baby. That would be a great business.

Wait.

That is just wrong on so many levels. It’s 8:00 am and I’m already exhausted.

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Water World

After observing the lives of fish for the past few months, it has become very clear to me that they are not too different from their human captors who have imprisoned them behind glass.


There is a very pregnant red Molly in our tank ready to burst – mostly hiding from her male counterpart, desperately swimming up and down the side of the tank looking for an escape. The male Molly chases her. Always has his eye on her. Traps her in the corner. Head butts her if she doesn’t behave the way he wants her to. He’s terrorizing her!

Dolphins are like this. As much as I love dolphins (have a tattoo on my back, swam with wild Spinners in Hawaii…can’t wait to go back…love to watch them play with the surfers when I go to the beach…yada yada)…this behavior shocked me when I first learned about it. Basically, when a female dolphin is sexually receptive, 2 or 3 males will trap her and hold her captive for up to a month, brutalizing her if she tries to escape and repeatedly gang-raping her! It’s horrible.

Anyway, I feel for the poor little preggo in our tank. She just wants to be left alone! I want to slap the stupid male and scream at him in fish-speak, “Stop harassing her! She’s pregnant for God’s sake! Stupid man...put your penis away!!”

Look at her…the photos are a bit blurry (camera not good for taking action shots indoors) …she’s the bulging red fish. The little red a$$-hole constantly stalks her. Never leaving her alone. Incessant, freaking torture...




GET OFF OF HER DAMMIT!!

Monday, September 28, 2009

What comes around…

We enjoyed more touristy things this weekend…LACMA, La Brea Tar Pits and Abbot Kinney Festival.

Abbot Kinney Fest was fun ~ introduced Lia to a LOT of sights, sounds and a few unfortunate smells (which happens wherever masses of humanity gather). She’s becoming less sensitive to over-stimulation. Yey! Just a month ago, when I sneezed she would cry. But she happily let us drag her around all weekend...thank God. I was beginning to worry that she wouldn't enjoy her first Led Zeppelin reunion tour. Of course, Page & Plant will be performing from their wheelchairs by then...

Funny thing about the Tar Pits, I used to work in an office next door when I first arrived in LA. Bored to tears of course. Yet another temp gig in the unstable career of a creative soul. But I was working in Entertainment! Should have felt lucky, right?


At lunch time, to escape from my atrophying brain, I would sit and stare at the animatronic mastodons, conjuring up their inner monologues --- most days they were plotting to liberate themselves from their liquid asphalt prison so they could terrorize everyone in the park and eat all the screaming little children that had been throwing stones at them all day through fence.

Then I made the mistake of texting these thoughts to my friends I had just left in Chicago. They thought I was going bat-sh*t crazy and were discussing an intervention.

I told them not to worry, I was simply living vicariously through my animatronic friends while plotting MY liberation from temp hell.

Now...here I am almost 3 years later bringing my screaming little child to visit those same mastodons still trapped behind their fenced enclosure. Only this time, it was a very bitter sweet reunion. Gone was my acidic sarcasm, and in its place…

complete joy

wrapped up

in a little
19 pound

ball of love

we call Lia.

Sunday, September 20, 2009

People Watching

Even though the little love bug gets me up at the ass-crack of dawn every day no matter what time she goes to bed {ugh}, there’s something quite lovely about sitting out on the front deck enjoying a cup of tea with my favorite little person perched on my lap babbling away at the trees, the birds, the cars, the boys on skateboards, the homeless person and his shopping cart (this is southern California), the gargantuan spider that has woven itself a home overnight between the trees below…just watching the world go round.

Who needs the rat race?

I’ll settle for people watching with my daughter any day.

Thursday, September 17, 2009

She said Mama!


A breakthrough in human communication occurred in our household this morning!

When I held our wee bundle of joy high up in the air above my head…she babbled away in a very sweet, high-pitched little voice. Suddenly she paused, looked down at me with those intense dark green eyes and said the magic word…

“MAMA”

I cried. Tears of joy streaming down my face!

Of course…we have no way of really knowing if she consciously linked her verbal musings to the woman who gives her boob every day. But in MY mind, she’s a BRILLIANT orator!

I’ve got her future all planned out...

  • After her rapid advancement through grade school, jumping several grades a time, she’ll graduate top of her high school class at the age of 12, delivering the most memorial valedictorian speech since Weird Al Yankovic.
  • She’s accepted into Yale Drama School and minors in Linguistics and Fine Art.
  • Graduate school will consist of Political Science, Geology and Biochemistry.
  • Upon graduation, she will travel the world enjoying a fabulous career as an actor/director/writer/photographer/painter and is the first woman to sweep all categories at the Academy Awards for her work on a single film.
  • She’ll then shift into politics, focus on world policy and wipe up the mess we’ve created all over the planet.
  • Reverses global warming.
  • Finds a cure for cancer.
  • Is honored by the World Health Organization for highest achievement EVER in medicine.
  • Takes time off to write and grabs the Pulitzer in Literature as best novelist of all time.
  • Humbly accepts the Nobel Peace Prize.
  • Becomes the world’s richest woman.
  • Gives all her money to charity.
  • And to her mom.

I guess I should start working on getting her to say “Dada”…

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Oh happy day!! Daddy made it all better. Went to the fishy store and bought new fishies! Cleaned the tank and baby is happy again! Well…mommy is very happy. Baby is still at that clueless age.

Anyway, trout reference…remember this video? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhZip41FAec

…or does this date me too much? Anyone who grew up in the 70’s knows this Bugs Bunny episode. All of the Bugs Bunny musicals are brilliant. Just explore them on YouTube…you’ll see.

Bugs Rocks.

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

A sad day…

We have fish. We used to have lots of fish. Simple fish in a simple tank. Nothing fancy. But Lia loved the fish. We loved the fish. The tank sits right next to her high chair. She’s been mesmerized by those fish since her daddy brought them home 6 months ago. They calm her. They soothe her parents.

Now, there are no more fish. All the fish died overnight. Daddy cleaned the tank before bed. Not sure what happened, but it hit me hard this morning when I found them all lying in the bottom of the tank.

I cried.

Insomnia and PMS doesn’t help. I’m just glad I don’t have to explain mortality to our daughter yet. She’s too young to know why there are no more fish.

It’s a very sad day in our household.

Saturday, September 12, 2009

Confession

After another sleepless night, I made myself some strong black tea, stirred in a little honey…just seconds away from bliss…and when I poured milk into the cup…it curdled!

CURSES!

I was desperate for my morning jolt. After scouring the kitchen for soy milk, ice cream, whipped cream, ANYTHING that resembled milk, and coming up empty-handed…I succumbed and used my daughter’s formula as creamer.

Since my milk supply is dwindling and we now have to supplement, I recently bought the very expensive Enfamil Lipil thinking no expense would be spared for my daughter.

HA…joke was on me.

The Little Monster, er…I mean, our daughter, rejected it! She refuses to drink it. Absolutely R-E-F-U-S-E-S. Throws her head to the side in disgust and pushes the bottle away with her hand as if to say...

“DO YOU NOT KNOW WHO I AM? Do you expect me to consume that putrid swill?!? I could have you drawn and quartered for that you peasant! But I suppose that wouldn’t be very befitting of a princess…you did, after all, give birth to me.”

But I don’t blame her, it tasted bitter. Jesus. Poor kid. So, I thought I’d try the Kirkland brand from Costco, and it does taste sweeter - like real mother’s milk. And bonus, it wasn’t too shabby in my tea! Just think of all the vitamins I’m getting.

Plus, it’s a HELL of a lot cheaper.

Thursday, September 10, 2009

Celebrity Sighting

My OB/GYN was a guest on a talk show this morning. She’s actually got her own daytime talk show. I learned about that show by accident when I had to see an on-call doc during my pregnancy because of her “shooting schedule”.

“What shooting schedule?” I asked the nurse.

“For her show.”

“She’s got her own show?”

“Yes, didn’t you know?”

“Well, no…I didn’t. I’m not a pop culture whore nor did I expect that someone else might deliver my baby because she’s busy getting her makeup done.”

[Silence]

That office visit didn’t go well.

Anyway. I have a celebrity doctor. A celebrity doctor delivered my baby.

Just another day in Hollyweird…

Betty Crocker Lives!

Well, not quite Betty Crocker (if she were an actual human and not an invented personality, she’d be rolling over in her grave). Which, by the way, was very smart of General Mills but very disappointing to me when I realized as a young adult she wasn’t real. Makes me think of the TV show, Madmen. GREAT show. But man, those ad guys were professional con-artists-slash-spin-doctors back then. You don’t have to like it (in fact, it’s appalling), but what they did for the cigarette industry was nothing short of brilliant.

ANYWAY >>> I did, however, have a little spurt of domesticity the other day. Must have been the full moon. Ask my mom…I was born wearing pants in a family of 5 men.

So, this is what happened during my manic mommy phase…

I bought some organic veggies & fruit and made baby food!!!


It’s so very simple. And trust me…if I can do it, ANYONE can. It’s easy to buy organic jarred food from the store (I always try to buy organic…Earth’s Best is my favorite, but Gerber has an organic line as well); however, the truly Eco-friendly moms cook their own. (Disclaimer: I am in no way, shape or form claiming that I am an “Eco Mom” raising an “Eco Baby”.) I DO TRY, but I fail. {sigh} I am the mom that shows up at the eco-friendly mommy groups and changes my daughter’s Huggies in the corner so no one can see that I’m using disposable. I don’t have my crap together yet to spend that much time on my daughter’s butt. I was a bit overwhelmed at becoming pregnant at 39. Yes, that's an excuse. I know. Maybe if I had a Nanny…

Okay, back to COOKING ~

Pears were ridiculously easy:

1. I cored and pealed 2 pears.
2. Steamed them until soft.
3. Put them in my cheapo $10 food processor I bought from Target.
4. Pureed them until they were nice and smooth.
5. Spooned them into my little Earth’s Best baby food jars that I ran through the dishwasher twice to disinfect.
6. Put them in the freezer!

See, I told you…easy breezy :)

For the yams, I peeled and cut them up into chunks, stuck them in a covered Pyrex dish with about a half cup of water, and baked them at 350 degrees (I rarely cook so my oven experience is slim to none…350 seemed logical to me since every frozen pizza I’ve ever made seems to be cooked at that temperature. Plus, I was just too lazy to look it up). Don’t ask me how long I baked them, I just kept checking until I could “stick a fork in it and call it done” (said with a Southern drawl…not sure why, just sounds good). When I pureed the yams, I had to add more water to get the consistency I wanted, unlike the pears which naturally have more water in them.


You can see in the picture how lazy I was about labeling…if it didn’t completely fall off in the dishwasher, I just wrote over the existing label with a Sharpie. I'm so ghetto.


Bottom line: 2 regular sized pears made 2 jars. 1 regular sized yam made 6 jars. I saved a few pennies with the pears, but the significant savings were the yams. I paid $1.83 for two pears (at $2.99 a pound, this was a splurge for me) ~ so at $.89 to $.99 a jar, it wasn’t that much. But, I paid $2.39 for the yam ($1.99 per pound), which saved me about $3.00 in the end! Plus, there is no negative environmental effect, it’s healthier for my baby and I get to brag that “Oh Yeah, I make my own baby food”. Of course, I pulled out jarred food for her lunch today because I forgot to thaw the yams and pears. My role as a mommy is a work in progress.

Oh, and a word of advice, don’t forget to leave some space in the jar or they will explode in the freezer.

Also, tip number 2 ~ it might help to check if your garbage disposal is working before peeling all these healthful fruits and veggies into the sink, otherwise, you’ll be sticking your hand down the drain while images of a horror film flash through your mind: the disposal mysteriously turns on with your hand in it and the sink devours your entire body then spits you out of some other portal in your home as a big chunky mess of blood and guts, all over your husband.

I didn’t say that happened to me…I’m just saying…

I need a nap.


Wednesday, September 9, 2009

I now understand why sleep deprivation is used as a form of torture.

Tuesday, September 8, 2009


While introducing my daughter to the Getty Museum this past holiday weekend, she became very inspired by the masters in the impressionist room to practice her vocal projection and duration, much to the dismay of the other guests. This is when we relocated her powerful lungs to the garden area outside where she could shout in the wind to her heart’s desire.

As my mother would say, she gets it honest. I just made a trip to the store by myself, rolled up the windows and rocked out to Joan Jett. I can only pray the Lilliputian doesn’t inherit her tone-deaf mother’s vocally challenged genes…

Friday, September 4, 2009

I played hooky from being a mom today. While grandma babysat and baby-daddy slaved away at his computer, I ran away from home.

I live in Venice Beach, California. And unless you’ve ever been here, it’s hard to describe. It’s a great little artsy, bohemian beach community just west of LA with as much eclectic architecture as people. I love the vibe. When my parents visited me for the first time after I moved out here, I asked my dad what he thought of our walk along the boardwalk. He said, “Interesting, but I never need to do that again.” I admit, it can be a bit overwhelming if you don’t enjoy masses of humanity.

I live in a great area away from the chaos. But all I have to do is hop on my single-speed, purple beach cruiser, ride a mile west and I’m ocean front. It’s lovely. There are quieter, more serene areas, but the crazy stretch of the boardwalk running from Venice Blvd on the south end, north to Santa Monica is filled with music, street performers, vendors, artists, drum circles and every imaginable age, shape, culture and ethnicity of humans you can find. It’s a melting pot of curiosity seekers and originality.


The video below is not that clear…took this with my cell phone while riding my bike. It’s just a snippet. Can’t possibly capture the experience with 30 seconds of video. Just to give you an idea, I was riding up the path and there was a film crew set up by one of the volleyball nets ~ girls in bikinis and a very tall man wearing a tuxedo on stilts. I’m guessing this was the dream sequence of some movie or TV show…oh, yes, film crews abound here. I love watching shows like Private Practice, Californication and others that shoot all over LA in locations I’ve been to…especially on the west side. I’ve become a sort of beach snob. Driving up to Hollywood or even east of the 405 is a journey to another planet. I prefer to stay beachside where my daily uniform consists of sundresses and flip-flops.



While enjoying lunch (and yes, a beer dare I admit it), I watched as a local girl twirled her hoola hoop on the beach for no less than 20 minutes straight, jogged down and hopped in the water, then twirled for another 20 minutes straight! The sense of freedom here is palpable and highly contagious. :)

So to all you mommies out there who feel guilty leaving your child to do something selfish…something just for YOU with no value other than stealing a little freedom…

SNAP OUT OF IT!

I feel refreshed, rejuvenated, reborn…albeit a little sunburned. Commercial Break: Incidentally, Hawaiian Tropic makes an amazing burn relief gel with Lidocaine.

It’s worth it to get out and treat yourself to whatever gives you new life. I happen to love where I live, so a bike ride in the fresh salty air is all that I need to lift my spirit. And interacting with all the energies along the boardwalk feeds my creativity.

What are you waiting for? Get out there and find your inspiration!

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Snot Sucking is an Art Form


How in the world can something called a “bulb syringe” actually remove slimies from an infant nostril the size of a pea?!? I am so freaking frustrated with these things…ARGHHH!

The best one I’ve found is from Little Remedies, called Little Noses – comes with the package. You slop some saline up in there (if you can get past the baby octopus blocking your path…I suggest a helping hand with this…no easy task), wait a minute or two then suck the snot out with the bulb syringe.

They have a pretty good design though ~ works better than the one we got from the hospital. Still…when there’s a lot of goop up there, just the tip of the iceberg gets pulled out and then you’re left wrestling with The Blob.

Poor baby.

Monday, August 31, 2009

Perspective


Two firefighters are dead. Many others injured. Dozens have lost their homes. The fires rage on.

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Travel/story?id=8451478
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngOTx4Yb5ks

My troubles are a pimple in comparison. I feel guilty for complaining about anything at all lately.

I am truly blessed to have a beautiful, healthy daughter whose only troubles at the moment are incessant gas and emerging teeth.

This country is full of cynicism, narcissism, greed. The sense of entitlement is destroying us. Look around. We are incredibly lucky to have the opportunities offered us and the freedom to pursue our hearts’ desires.

Don’t throw it away. Be grateful for what you have as a birthright and what is possible with a little effort. Life is not a dress rehearsal, it’s the main event.

As I watch her peacefully sleeping, I make a vow. My daughter will know how fortunate she is...I will raise her to be a generous, thoughtful and inspired contributor to the human race.

Peace.

Sunday, August 30, 2009

Fire in the sky…


…smoke on the water?

Currently, we live in Venice, California and were seriously considering renting a house in La Crescenta to save $$. That is, until we could see the smoke from the fires billowing all the way up above the hills from our second floor deck this weekend. So now what?

As George & Louise Jefferson would say, “We’re movin’ on up!” …to the Valley, that is.

When we pack our bags and head for 30 degree hotter weather, away from the sand, seagulls and salt air breezes, into the land of perpetual air conditioning, I’ll be crying on the inside.

Our days at the beach are numbered and I’m counting them down…woefully. Yesterday, Baby-Daddy cheerfully said, “Our daughter will be a ‘Valley Girl’ now.”

OVER MY DEAD BODY.

She’ll always be beach baby to me. AS GOD IS MY WITNESS…we WILL get back to the beach. She WILL grow up surfing & playing beach volleyball, and we WILL live in the land of perpetual sand...in our clothes, in our car, in our house and in our hearts.

Anyone want to invest in my screenplay?

C’mon people. I live in Los Angeles, what did you expect?

Saturday, August 29, 2009

Facebook Regrets

Last night we went to a surprise birthday party for a friend. I’m sure I easily consumed at least a bottle of red mine all by myself. I fear haven’t been to a party where the guests are over 2 feet tall for quite some time and may have regressed a bit. (But don’t worry, we walked over...no driving was involved.)

Anyway, around the witching hour, something told me it would be a good idea to dance around the living room like a maniac and “spank” my friend in celebration of her birth…as the flashes went off, a little voice inside my head said, “Annette, what are you doing? You are no longer a care-free single woman, you have given life to a little human that will someday ask questions like, ‘Mommy, why won’t my friends come over anymore?’” That is when I heard someone shout, “This is going on Facebook!”

Great…can’t wait.

Monday, August 24, 2009


These are the days I wish I could hang my ‘mommy hat’ in the closet and just sleep all day. This cold is knocking me on my arse. At midnight when the little Spartan decided it was play time, I had to relinquish my duties to her father. I couldn’t stand up without feeling like I’d pass out. NyQuil is a beautiful thing when you are sick, but I don’t recommend taking it if you are dealing with a sick child alone. Thank god for Baby Daddies. :)

Btw…for those of you wondering…yes I’m still breastfeeding at night and in the morning, but she was given a bottle at midnight and has yet to request her breakfast. So…no worries about poisoning my child with NyQuil...which is the ONLY reason I got any sleep last night.

At least someone is feeling better this morning. Right now, she is chattering away in her Baby Bjorn Travel Crib (most fabulous babysitter # 2), completely unaware of how much her mother just wants to crawl under a rock until the next full moon…

Sunday, August 23, 2009

Hello out there~

If anyone is reading this (and I'm not even sure I want anyone to read this...it might incriminate me in some way 16 years from now when my now 8-month-old daughter screams at the top of her very healthy lungs that I'm stupid, that I don't understand anything, that I am ruining her life...you get the point). If ANYONE is reading this, welcome to my blog about being an unexpected first-time mom at 40 and truly loving every minute of it! (Well, maybe not every minute…but who’s counting?)

As I type this, I’m running on no sleep with a sore throat and sniffles while my daughter happily bounces away in her Excersaucer (aka cheap & fabulous babysitter ~ thank you Evenflo!). Sadly, she is also sneezing & coughing, suffering from her first cold. Yes, the Baby Daddy got us both sick. Although I really should stop calling him that, after all, we are engaged. But that’s another blog. I have rewritten this intro about a dozen times since my first attempt several months ago. My intentions were to launch a literary account of this fork in my path during pregnancy. When that didn't happen, I SWORE I would pick it up after we returned home from the hospital, after all, I'd have all the time in the world right?

HA. HA. HAAAAAA. That is an outright GUFFAW.

What a cruel joke Mother Nature plays on us unsuspecting preggos. After 9 months of battling fatigue, morning sickness (at all hours of the day), constipation, embarrassing gas, heartburn, back pain, water retention, swollen cankles, teenage facial acne, and hormones that make PMS look like a spiritual retreat…and top all those pleasantries off with 2 days of unimaginable labor pain…we working mothers stupidly believe that since we endured all of the above and are now blissfully at home with our precious cargo that we'll have not a care in the world but nurturing our little babelet and tackling that giant "to do" list that has built up over the years…in our copious spare time...

G-U-F-F-A-W.

Or maybe I was alone in that faux pas. I guess I didn’t read the fine print. I do regret that I didn't have the energy or my wits about me to recount the day-to-day, round-the-clock feedings and diaper changes for those first very intense, very sleepless months. You really can't understand it until you become a parent yourself. After the first 3 months of her life, just when I thought I couldn't get out of bed one more day, I went back to work. Cheerfully of course as I was actually going to shower and leave the house wearing more than a bathrobe to socialize with other sentient beings. Although, considering my brain had atrophied a bit while on leave, I was off to a slow start. At this point, I ask ANY OF YOU -- Who has time to get up 2 or 3 times a night to nurse, again at 5am, get ready for work & pump (all one-handed with a baby in the other), wake up the Baby-Daddy to take over at 8:30am, work 9 to 10 hours a day (pumping breast milk in the conference room 3 times a day while still taking phone calls, explaining away the distant hum in the background as the copy machine), crawling home exhausted to feed baby, bathe her, get her to bed, prepare the next day's meals, maybe feed myself, take a shower and then feebly attempt to nurture a relationship with the man that helped create this little human who took us by surprise (and immediately stole our hearts)...sorry, I digress. So…who out there also has time to write a daily blog about the whole experience? Not me. I was a 'Type A' in my 20's, but now it’s all about survival. If at the end of the day, everyone is clean, fed and safe, it's been a good day.

Fast forward to a few months later...

I now find myself unemployed like the rest of the country and decided this would be the perfect time to embark upon this writing experiment. Yes, somehow in my 40 years, procrastination has taken over my identity leaving the ambitious me gasping for breath in the driveway ~ something I'm not proud of and a trait I pray my daughter does NOT inherit from me. However, better late than never right? Isn’t that what they say? (btw…who is “they” and what makes them the experts???)

My daughter is 8 months, 15 days, 19 hours and 45 minutes old. I am finally climbing out of my ‘baby bubble’ and ready to share in black and white my adventures during this ridiculously enlightening time. The ‘Mommy Nest’ (the love seat I nursed her in 8 times a day when she was just a baby blob) is now blocking the kitchen from the living room where we have set up one big play area. She now crawls over to the seat and pulls herself to standing. Amazing. The growth of a little human at this young age is astonishing to witness. I’ve been told to pay attention and not blink, because before you know it, they are 18 and leaving the house. (Someone once told me during my daughter’s early, colicky days, “Better a colicky baby than a colicky teenager!” Those days already seem like a distant memory. Now asleep, I listen to her snore thru the baby monitor (a trait she tragically inherited from her father, intensified by her cold) and I can't help but wonder, “What in the world am I going to do when she grows up, leaves me and goes to college?” Wait...what is wrong with me?? Why am I thinking this already you ask? Because over a year ago, I never would have imagined my life filled with diapers, drool, nursery rhymes, and falling helplessly in love with the little creature we call Lia. As tired as I am every night when I collapse into bed, I can't imagine sleeping in past 6am, I can't imagine not waking up to the sound of her sweet cooing, and I cannot imagine never seeing her eyes light up and her beautiful smile when I walk into the room. It's magic.

These are the life and times of becoming an unexpected mom at 40...and there is no place I'd rather be. Welcome to my journey.

peace
~Annette

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