Baby Spartan's Mom

VEGAS BABY!

2010-06-06T12:21:00.000-07:00

A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving. ~Lao Tzu

A little late with this post, but many life changes were (and are) underway that have prevented me from focusing on this blog. Plus, this is a looong one with lots of photos for you to enjoy. So without further adieu…

Baby-daddy and I took our daughter on her 3rd and longest road trip so far in her young life, and her first visit into the land of the overgrown id running amuck in what is known as “Disneyland for adults." AKA, Las Vegas! Interesting choice for a toddler…I know.

We didn’t know how well she’d do in the car…5, 6 hours I think? I was worried, but we got off to a good start with plenty of toys and snacks to occupy her time.

I packed enough for us to live for 6 months in the Andes rather than a week in Vegas. Less than a week. A few days really. Baby-daddy grumbled as he packed the car. I told him to get used to it. Especially if we have any more children. It will forever be his job to act as the family ass. Oh, you know what I mean. A donkey. A donkey hauls a lot of crap for people. I wasn't calling my husband-to-be a jackass. Tst tst. Please. Just a large hairy mammal capable of carrying 3 times their body weight.

Here we go!

Please pay no attention to the face devoid of any makeup and the crows feet creaking out of my eyes in the pic above…it was an early morning. Early mornings after 40 should be banned.

Lia was great – in good spirits and entertaining herself even after a few hours. We stopped at a park in Barstow to stretch our legs where Lia enjoyed some swing time.

I made the mistake of thinking her diaper would hold out until we left. I was wrong. While we dodged the sun under a picnic shelter (it was wicked hot), I suddenly felt a warm oozing sensation on my lap. My very relaxed daughter was relieving herself on my leg. I suspect she was getting me back for making her sit in a car seat for 3 hours. While I changed clothes in the cramped back seat, an elderly man sat in the car next to us staring straight ahead. Not moving. I wondered if he was dead. I was about to call 911 but then he started the car and drove away. Weird. I think he was trying to channel some aliens out there. That's where they go to pick up people you know. I don't think I could live in a place like that. I'd be too freaked out every night expecting to see a bald, green misshapen alien face with big black eyes peaking through my window while I'm sleeping.

{shudder}

Need some hand sanitizer Mommy?

And off we went.

Road trips are awesome. Did you know there is a road called “Zzyzx” that runs across the freeway in the middle of the Mojave National Preserve? We’re driving for miles through the middle of the desert and suddenly there’s a sign for "Zzyzx Rd." I mean, come on…that’s just lazy. Somebody was smoking too much peyote out there in the sun.

A little road side attraction that boasted "Old Woman Meteorite" drew my attention. I couldn’t resist. As Baby-daddy often says, I'm a marketer's dream. He pulled over so I could take a look at the gigantic rock inside.

It's over 6,000 pounds and dated at 4 ½ billion years old. That's older than the Earth. Can you imagine? Older than the EARTH. Makes you wonder where the hell in the universe it came from. And if they take road trips in outer space.

Looks like a giant pile of dog poop to me.

We climbed back in the car and a little later made our way across the Nevada border.

If you blink you'll miss this little blop of legalized gambling in the middle of the desert…

Only to discover that we had 41 more miles of nothingness left to drive through before Vegas.

And I mean NOTHING…

You know you're in the southern California desert when Joshua Trees start popping up all over…

Suddenly, Bono's "Where the Streets Have No Name" is bouncing around in my head. Joshua Tree is by far one of the best rock albums EVER.

The stark beauty of the desert is a bit surreal.

Suddenly, Shangri-la rose up like a space ship out of the earth.

We made it! We're in Vegas, baby!

We headed straight into the strip for a few blocks…

Turned the corner and immediately waved bye-bye to the chaos. (Nice family welcome, Ballys…)

And arrived at our sanctuary…the house of Baby-daddy’s business partner. Lia and I tagged along for a "working vacation."

Otherwise, I would have chosen to drive up to Big Sur. Gotta do that before California falls into the ocean.

The boys talked biz while Lia and I spread out in their enormous, very cool, retro style, rock-n-roll house. Apparently, the house where the movie “Casino” was filmed is the next block over.

I mean look at that GIGANTIC TV screen! It’s as big as my kitchen.

Lia made herself at home running from room to room all week.

And she quickly learned the artful craft of lounging by the pool…

Casino-style…

Yet another cool room…

I'm sorry I didn't take any photos of the Rock n Roll room ~ autographed guitars line the ceiling while shag carpeting and a very cool, curved red velvet sofa frame the big screen TV and martini bar in the corner. I can see Frank Sinatra AND Robert Plant feeling very at home in this room.

Mommy got a bad case of house envy. And then became a bit claustrophobic upon returning to her cramped little condo by the beach. Well…it’s actually a rather large condo considering the neighborhood, but when you have a child, you’re entire outlook on how much space you need to keep sane changes. I now understand why all my Chicago friends fled to the suburbs after having babies. I’m at the point where I’ll gladly trade my beach-side community for S - P - A - C - E (can you hear the echo?).

One random Wednesday night I grabbed some much needed girl-time by the pool with our gracious hostess and this fabulous bottle of "Bitch" wine I found at Whole Foods.

Later a few of our hosts’ international friends randomly dropped by…

That guy sitting on the chair in the back is a famed early rock-n-roll photographer who has worked with the likes of Led Zeppelin, the Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin…to name drop just a few. (Hey, if I can’t name drop in Hollywood, I can at least name drop in Vegas.) And that's a Kiwi holding Lia :)

So back to Whole Foods…I needed some basic baby supplies when we arrived so Lia and I toured the strip on our way to the new Town Square on the south end of town next to the airport (which is like The Grove on steroids…if you're an Angelino, you’ll understand that reference). I snapped photos with one hand while steering with the other…not the safest, but traffic is slow along the strip so no worries. None of the locals take that route anyway ~ just dumb tourists like me. That was the most interesting drive to a grocery store I’ve ever taken. I’ve been to Vegas many times but never took so many photos of the strip. I guess I thought I was too cool to stop and take photos before. I’m old. I’ve birthed a human. I’ve lost all sense of dignity.

Lia was entranced…

So pedestrian to have a CVS next to these gargantuan casinos.

But Lia quickly became bored with the scene…

Talk about a blast from the past…

Donny & Marie were my idols when I was in grade school. I can't believe they still have an audience. We used to dress up and sing songs from their variety show in the front yard using jump ropes as microphones. I always got stuck playing "Donny" as I was taller than all the other girls in the neighborhood. I hated that. Lia is already in the 90th percentile for height, which means she'll probably follow in my footsteps as the tallest girl in her class. But things have changed. It's cool to be tall now. I was just a geek that the other girls taunted on the playground in the 6th grade. They threw kick-balls at me while I tried to swing as high as possible and fly away…away from that little school playground in my little home town, and away from their small minds. Only to be brought back to earth as they chanted heinous made-up lyrics to popular songs, knowing that eventually the class bell would ring and we'd all have to line up and go back inside…together. That year was my hell on earth. I swear I will rip the hair off of any child that treats my daughter like that.

Ooh. Got a little dark there. Having my own child has brought back memories of all kinds from my childhood…the good and the bad. Still harboring a little resentment I guess to that bratty red-haired girl, the leader of the pack, who basically gang-raped my ego at the tender age of ten years old. Ah, but life goes on. What doesn't kill us makes us stronger, right?

Yeah, that's a load of crap.

How do I go off on these tangents?! Drives Baby-daddy nuts.

Anyhoo…in the parking lot of Whole Foods, I actually sat in the lot while Lia snoozed and timed the arriving planes at 3 minutes apart. At one point, I thought mall security was going to come and harass me. I don’t blame them. Who stands on their car and takes pictures of the planes arriving into the Vegas airport with a sleeping toddler strapped in the back seat? I’m sure people thought I was nuts…or a terrorist…or an angry suburban housewife chasing her cheating husband all over the world.

I get obsessed over stupid things like that. Especially when I’m trying to waste time so my sleeping babe can catch a few more Zzz’s in the back seat. Anyway, look how close the planes are to the buildings and trees. The airport is literally right next to the strip. It’s like RIGHT THERE.

Vegas is not a big town. And they want to make it as easy as possible to get people in the casinos and as fast as possible to empty money from their pockets.

Later in the week, we toured my fave hotel…the Bellagio. I love this place…always have to take a peek when I’m in town. So majestic.

Lia and Daddy pose in the lobby alongside the beautiful artistry of Dale Chihuly’s hand-blown glass poppies on the ceiling.

(Sorry big guy…I know you would prefer if I didn’t post photos of you in my little blog experiment, but considering the fact that I am the family photographer, approximately 99.999% of the photos I take of our precious daughter have YOUR face in the way. So get over it. Besides…I think you’re cute.)

Beautiful.

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That was Lia’s handiwork above. I walk away from my desk (aka the dining room table) for 10 seconds and she’s already trying to hack my computer. Loosely translated, it means, “Yes Father. You should always listen to Mother. She knows best.”

Playing in the whimsical garden area of the hotel…a la Alice in Wonderland.

On our way to see the giant water fountain show outside…my favorite part!!

The Paris hotel is in the background here – it’s across the street from the Bellagio.

We’ve taken our places and are waiting for the show to begin.

I love this…makes me feel like I’m one of those cool guys from the Oceans 11-12-13 movies. I wonder if we’re standing in the exact same place they ended the first movie. Great scene. They make thievery look glamorous.

If I were reincarnated as a man, I’d want to be Brad Pitt so I could look at myself all day in the mirror. Seriously. What a GORGEOUS human being. He and George Clooney are ridiculously hot. HOT. Yes Baby-daddy…I said it out loud. They are both on my “list”. That same list you put Milla Jovovich on. Yeah, that list.

Although, I don’t think I could handle as big a brood as Brad. My God, they’d have to put me in a straight jacket. Of course, Brangelina’s combined net income could afford them a small country. I can’t imagine their staff of nannies. They must work round the clock. So I’ll rephrase that…if…IF…I made as much money as Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt combined, I’d gladly birth the soccer team Baby-daddy wanted us to have when we originally discussed the idea of children. We’d call ourselves, THE SPARTANS…and I’d lounge on the sidelines under the shade of a giant, sweet-smelling Magnolia tree sipping pomegranate mimosas while servants massage my feet with essential oils and lightly spray me with cool lavender water as I cheer my team on to victory.

Can you hear the angels sing?

But then the fountain show ends and I come back to earth realizing {duh} that I have to navigate through masses of human beings with a stroller burdened with touristy crap and an oversized toddler, find a public restroom and change a poopy diaper.

{sigh}

The next day, Lia watched as the pool people went to work…

And as Daddy went to work out by the pool…

Then SHE went to work on terrorizing the two Himalayan cats…

You’ll notice I didn’t post a pic of the cats standing anywhere near Lia because they would never allow her to be in close proximity.

Playing with Mommy at a restaurant on our last night…

And behaving very well considering how late it was…

Finally it was time to go. I really didn’t rest much (even though Baby-daddy somehow thought that packing a toddler for a long road trip and a week’s stay somewhere other than home would be a vacation for me)… but it was NICE to be in a different environment for a week. And I do love road trips…the adventure of taking off in a car with a map gives me a renewed sense of freedom. Freedom is good.

Lia loved the cats, though they didn’t love her. And I loved the house…although after spilling water on the floor in the bathroom and mopping it up with a white bath towel only to set a basket on top of it causing the dye from the reeds to bleed out all over the beautiful white towel…I think our hosts did not love me so much. I’ll just never be the cool kid.

Here's the back side of the Bellagio on our way out of Dodge…

Adios Vegas!

Onward and upward to new and exciting adventures with my little family of three…

Can you spot Lia in this photo?

Soon our little adventurer was fast asleep.

But not for long. Wakey wakey, time for lunch!

We stopped at the infamous Mad Greek Cafe in Baker for some yummy gyros.

Such a crazy, touristy truck stop of a town in the middle of Death Valley.

Love the kitsch…

Later we visited the same park where the peeing-on-Mommy's-leg incident occurred.

And then some more nothingness for a few hours.

But getting closer to the beautiful San Gabriel range…LA is on the other side!

Soon enough, we are back in the smog-infested town of eternal traffic we call home…

The 405. Our public parking lot.

Home stretch!

Almost there baby…

Finally… Home Sweet Home.

Ahhh…so nice to be back at the beach.

Til next time…

It is only in adventure that some people succeed in knowing themselves, in finding themselves. ~Andre Gide

Ode to Mama

2010-06-01T08:05:00.001-07:00

Well, Mother’s Day came and went…like everything this month that I just glazed over – my niece’s birthday, my nephew’s high school graduation, my appointment to strangle the life out of Simon Cowell.

I honestly don’t know how some women do it. Like my mother. This amazing woman bore 7 children over the short span of 5 years. And she did it all by herself. There was no yelling at my father to change a diaper or feed the baby because she was losing her mind and needed to take a nap. Things were different back then. That was her job. And she loved it. Well…she loved us enough to suck it up I guess.

I just cannot imagine holding ME in one arm and breastfeeding while standing over the stove to have dinner ready at 5:30pm sharp when my father returned home from work, clearing all the toys off the floor and separating all four of my older brothers from a fight with her one free leg that is not the only appendage holding her upright and preventing her from collapsing into a ball of crazy exhaustion.

I feel inadequate.

Here’s the card I woke up to that day…

Lovely isn’t it? Baby-daddy even helped Lia write her own name.

So sweet is my little family of three.

Here is a silly little {belated} Mother’s Day tribute to all those women out there in the world who have somehow managed to keep it all together for the future of the human race…

Ode to Mama

With grace you clean our poop
With skill you twirl the hula hoop
You make our world so bright
Filled with an inner light
You wash away our tears
Sprinkling fairy dust over our fears
And when we scrape our knees
You swoop in like a light breeze
Sing a song or two
And quickly heal our boo-boo
Your intuition is quite keen
Especially when we turn sixteen
Strength is your guide
Always standing by your side
Patience never fails you
Well, it does…but forgiveness soon becomes the glue
When out to the world we solo…you certainly do not show…your own tears that flow
There are countless ways to call her name
It’s the magic word we all proclaim
Mama * Mother * Mom * Madre * Mum
She is simply the most marvelous, the most gracious, the most wonderful one.

Now I smell some funk. In my daughter’s diaper lives the skunk.

It is time for me to say adieu, and rid my nostrils of her poo-poo.

Tribes at War

2010-05-22T08:05:00.000-07:00

So...I'm in the bathroom trying to wake up and look like a normal human being this morning when my sweet daughter waddles in and hands me my cell phone.

The screen read, "Purchase Successful."

Apparently, she had grown tired of my "I Dream of Jeannie" ring tone and decided to change it to "Tribes at War" by Damian Jr. Gong Marley (apparently the youngest son of the prince of reggae, Bob Marley).

It also read, "Explicit lyrics."

Great.

So I download -- listen -- and it starts out as reggae -- pretty cool -- violins and bongos -- interesting mix -- love the reggae -- and it's quite a catchy little number -- I'm groovin' along -- then the rapping starts -- NOT a big fan of the rap -- feels like the record scratched out my moment of bliss.

But I might try it. It's cool in the beginning...the phone wouldn't ring that long to go into rap mode anyway.

So call me. We'll try it out. :)

But come on...seriously. TRIBES AT WAR? I admit, Baby-daddy and I have been less than conflict-free lately, but this is ridiculous.

Does our little munchkin actually have the uncanny ability to paint a portrait of my raw nerves like that?

She must be clairvoyant.

Of course she is. (She's a genius)

Just because...

2010-05-19T10:10:00.001-07:00

A little backtracking, just because she's so beautiful in this photo and I don't have time for a proper post.

Here she is chilling out with Daddy on a trolley we took on our visit to Ojai with my parents a few months ago.

Keep checking my blog...Coming soon is Vegas, baby!

The REAL Naked Chef

2010-05-12T09:15:00.000-07:00

...need I say more?

{Someday, she'll kill me for this one}

She’s a GIRL dammit!!!

2010-05-07T11:00:00.000-07:00

How in the hell does THIS darling little human look like a boy…?

A woman on the street was yapping on her cell phone, took one look at us and ignorantly said to her friend, “How cute! A mommy is walking by and her cute little boy is dangling his foot over the tray of his stroller!”

To which I replied over my shoulder as we passed, “Yes. SHE loves to do that. It’s very freeing for HER.”

You know, I always tell people it doesn’t bother me…that everyone on this planet since her birth thinks she’s a boy. Even if I dress her in a pink jumpsuit with a tutu. Some people are just retarded.

But it DOES bother me. There I confess.

In the slightly annoying, cell phone brandishing woman’s defense, Lia is not a girly-girl. And the Bettie Page bangs don’t really help.

Hmmm, on further introspection, maybe this defensive attitude of mine can be traced back to my own deep-seated insecurities resulting from the insensitive butthole that looked at me and my four brothers at the church fundraiser spaghetti dinner many moons ago and told my dad, “My what a fine looking group of boys you have there.” I wanted to crawl under a rock. I remembered hearing this from stupid adults before, but that was the last straw for little Annette. I refused to let my mom cut my hair after that incident and have had long(ish) hair ever since.

I think this is like my first or second grade photo…

Nice bowl cut.

So…my poor daughter inherited my Tomboy looks.

{sigh of resignation}

I guess it could be worse…she could have inherited her father’s Fred Flintstone feet.

Bang…Bump…Rumble Rumble…BANG BANG BANG…CRASH!

2010-05-02T08:02:00.000-07:00

That is the sound I woke up to this morning.

The sound of Baby-daddy in the height of frustration. Banging around the dresser drawers in search of the ever-elusive pair of pants and shirt to dress Lia after she woke up this morning soaked in pee.

After I arose from my stupor, dreaming that someone was breaking into the house after hearing all the crashing noises from 6 drawers opening and closing many times over, I found my baby dressed in a beautiful cream-colored pajama set. Ahhh, so pretty…

However, upon closer inspection, I discovered the PJs were on backwards.

And she was wearing purple striped socks.

Then he said to me, “Why are you up? I thought you were going to sleep in today.”

That’s the Daddy. 

Bettie Page Lives

2010-04-29T10:00:00.000-07:00

Baby-daddy let me take a nap the other day before he skipped town and left me alone with the screaming-all-night, chewing-holes-in-her-cheeks-and-bleeding-all-over-the-crib, teething monster…er…I mean, our beautiful daughter.

Thank God for that.

[The nap. Not the manic baby.]

But I woke up to a sink full of hair.

I know…you’re thinking the same thing I did…GROSS.

So after demanding he clean it up and not even bothering to ask him where it came from (it was dark so I assumed it came from his head, right?), my little angel walked around the corner and looked at me like, “What?”

If you look closely, you’ll see the evidence of her nasty spill on the playground concrete yesterday…cut lip, bloody nose, scraped chin, scratch near eye. I guess we wanted to complete the look of torture after she bashed her forehead by randomly falling on the bed frame in her room. (how she managed to hit that I’ll never know)

We had been discussing the need to trim her bangs again because they had grown so long since the first time I cut them and were constantly in her eyes. And if you know anything about a toddler, keeping barrettes or hair clips of any kind on their gigantic, over-proportioned heads is impossible.

Thanks to Baby-daddy going overboard practicing his machete skills, we now have a mini Bettie Page.

She takes after me I guess. Check out my 2-year-old-self about to blow out the candles on my birthday cake while my brother Rick looks on…wishing I’d hurry up already.

In honor of the real Bettie Page -- the legendary iconic pop culture figure of the 1950s, whose controversial and very turbulent, yet trailblazing life sadly ended at the age of 85, three days after Lia was born -- please enjoy this lovely non-pinup photo of the gorgeous Bettie Page. A moment of silence please…

Mug Shots of the Poor and Unknown

2010-04-20T07:59:00.000-07:00

So we finally got around to getting our future world-traveler a passport yesterday. But check out the photo…

Poor baby looks like a convict in a police lineup.

She was VERY unhappy with the VERY large woman who kindly took her sweet time, ignoring our pleas for a speedy snapshot as our little Spartan was getting very impatient, wriggling out of her stroller and THIS CLOSE to having a meltdown in the middle of the freaking Post Office. Did the government employee care? Not a bit. She was too busy chatting up her coworker discussing the very urgent topic of lunch. Like she needed it. (oops, did I say that out loud?). That’s our fine government employee for ya…in all her glory.

I guess it’s ultimately our fault for not bringing in our own photos, and I know Karma is going to bite me in the ass some day for that statement…but I can’t help it. The jokes about the United States Postal Service are cliché for good reason. Dammit!

Here’s a much sweeter photo to make up for the hideousness that we will have to endure for the next 5 years…

We’re baa-aack!

2010-04-10T17:49:00.001-07:00

Talk about living in the twilight zone…after a month of pristine snow-covered countryside and nights so quiet and so black you need a flashlight to make your way to the bathroom, here we are back in sunny California, where the street lights never fade, the neighbor bangs his frustration away on his piano keys at midnight, and the ocean eternally beckons (causing “Adult ADD-Momma” to forever procrastinate).

Ahhhhhhhhh, Home Sweet Home.

I took more time off than I imagined after reaching my deadline (no surprise there); which, btw, was a small piece I had written about my Dad’s life that was part of a larger documentary project in conjunction with the UCLA Extension Writers' Program called Old Friends Writing Club. The final event was March 13th and after I unloaded that 5,000 pound monstrosity off my back I crashed for a few days before we began our jaunt around LA -- me as Pied Piper leading the parental units from Ohio around La La Land. I love having visitors. Otherwise, I would never choose to go to Griffith Park, Hollywood Blvd, Ojai, the La Brea Tar Pits, Skirball Museum, etc etc…all in one week. Hosting visitors gives me an excuse to play ‘Annette la turista’.

One day, I convinced Baby-daddy to watch Lia and whisked my parents off to see a taping of Dr. Phil (not my first choice but Miss Procrastination waited until last minute to get tickets). After the show, we explored the heart of Hollywood just weeks after the Oscars. While standing in front of the Kodak Theatre marveling at the stars names embedded in the sidewalk under our feet, Superman (aka out-of-work, middle-aged actor with a bad toupee and a pot belly, wearing blue tights, a red cape and the look of desperation)…ahem… SUPERMAN correctly pegged my mom as a tourist. He seized the opportunity and enthusiastically explained how the red carpet blankets the street every year where the limos pull up bestowing sparkling celebrities upon us mere mortals for the Academy Awards. Right where we were standing. My mother was mesmerized.

My dad snapped this with his cell phone when he wasn't looking. Apparently, Superman does not have x-ray vision nor eyes in the back of his head. The poor guy kept checking over his shoulder for my approval. I was glaring at him like a panther, telepathically communicating to him…“Be careful dude. That’s my mom you got there. I’ll cut you if you so much as sneeze on her.”

I'm being too harsh ~ the man of steel was actually very sweet to my mom.

There is a certain odd charm about Hollywood Boulevard. It’s very cliché but true. Hollywood is like no other…it’s the place that teeters between heaven and hell, where one heart is broken and another’s wildest dreams come true.

I took this next photo of the sign from the Observatory at Griffith Park, which is why it’s angled. From Hollywood, it’s a straight shot but farther away.

And have you heard? Someone is trying to buy up the property to make a hotel out of the sign! Crazy people. Leave it be. We love our sign the way it is.

http://www.dailynews.com/news/ci_14871356

This line at the end of the article is pretty funny though:

But when tourists from other countries come to see the sign, they imagine a majestic structure. Instead, they see "plywood and white paint".

Hollywood Boulevard is like a caricature of itself in a sense. If you’ve ever been here, you know what I mean. Darth Vader, Superman, Michael Jackson and Marilyn Monroe all compete for tips on the Walk of Fame. Sadly, you can’t really tell what they look like until you get up close…the Marilyn I saw a few weeks ago looked more like Bette Davis in “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane,” than the beautiful young starlet she was impersonating.

On to more important babies…MINE.

Lia has learned how to climb up AND OVER the loveseat. In fact, after vowing to myself that I would sit down and finish this post and get on with my life TODAY, I ended up spending half an hour calming her down after she fell, and then another hour planning a new safety strategy with the Baby-daddy. We are going to strip down our furniture to the minimum. Our toddler now has full control of the living room. Soon she’ll be navigating her way through the entire house and it won't be long before she rolls her eyes at us when we tell her we love her as she walks out the door on her way to her first prom!

{sniff sniff}

But that’s 15 years down the road…I’ve gotten ahead of myself again.

Anyone want to buy a loveseat?

So much for the baby barricade. With our furniture and a baby play yard that looks like a giant dog pen, we were able to contain the little Spartan for the last few months…but no more. She’s standing on top of the coffee table now like a little warrior about to charge the valley below.

Gosh, so much since I last wrote…too much to catch up on today. Baby-daddy is waiting for me to move heavy furniture and purge all unnecessary tchochkes in order to create a safe haven for our little tornado.

At the end of this day we’ll all be sleeping like a baby…

Short Hiatus...

2010-02-27T12:02:00.000-08:00

I'm on a deadline so will be on a short hiatus from blogging for the next week. That and my daughter has a hideous cold making it impossible for me to get anything done. Good thing I dragged Grandma & Grandpa here to help.

Meantime, I will let you enjoy a friend's blog post featuring ME!

http://velovogue.blogspot.com/2010/02/venice-beach-vogue.html

That photo was taken last summer while Baby-daddy's mom was visiting...hence giving us the freedom to take a bike ride down to the beach and pretend we were once again footloose and fancy free!

Ahhh...the good old days of dashing off to carefree, impromptu dates. We'll never be the same exciting couple again.

Hold My Calls

2010-02-25T12:00:00.000-08:00

My daughter is practicing for her role as CEO of Lia’s World Enterprises Inc.

Hold all my calls please, I’m in a meeting.

Sorry about that…I really need to get a new assistant. You were saying?

Do I pay you to think? I said HOLD ALL MY CALLS!

Bye Bye Ohio

2010-02-24T11:06:00.000-08:00

We’re going home today. Really looking forward to seeing Baby-daddy again. It’s been a looong time this trip. The longest we've been away from each other since Lia was born. Boy has she GROWN since we got here and learned many new skills. Skills that make it harder and harder for mommy to keep an eye on her. In the past month, she’s morphed into a baby octopus with velcro for fingers and Nike wings on her feet. I swear some days I wish I had a full-time nanny. That would be a luxury. Of course, then I’d feel guilty about it. But what mom doesn’t feel guilty about something? Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think that is part of the job description for “Motherhood”.

Anyway, Baby-daddy is going to freak when he sees her. And probably cry. Since he rarely reads this blog, I don’t have to worry about him getting upset by that. And if he does read this…if YOU DO read this…I was just testing you, honey. We all know you’re not a crybaby.

{but really, if he does read this post and sees this photo… he’ll cry. I’d bet on it.}

She’s had lots of fun and finally embraced her snow gear.

Enjoyed shopping for new shoes at Grandma's shoe store.

After playing coy with the men in my family for weeks, finally made friends with her Uncle Mike…

Uncle Ricky…

Uncle Jimmy…

Had fun lots of fun hanging out with her cousin Jeremy who shares the same birthday.

Holding court with a few cousins

I couldn’t possibly show every photo of every family member she’s spent time with on this trip. There are just too many. My family is HUGE.

She’ll always know where she comes from. I’ll make sure of that. Family is important.

And finally, on our last day here we experienced "Wildlife Day". A gigantic hawk swooped down in the field behind the house yesterday and killed some sort of small, furry woodland creature. Probably that damn mouse behind my bedroom wall that has been driving me crazy at night. And then 10 minutes later 3 deer bobbed across the field, down to the creek and back up to disappear in the woods on the other side. All so very cool and very different from our LA existence. I will have to remember to take Lia out in nature as much as possible so she doesn't grow up thinking wildlife consists of skateboarding dogs and Paris Hilton-wannabes.

But as much as we’ve enjoyed our visit, we can’t wait to return to the land of sun. And we’re bringing Grandma and Grandpa with us!

Here's my baby helping mommy pack…"Don't forget all my new toys!". (I hope we don't exceed the weight limit for our luggage)

California here we come!

Musical Prodigy

2010-02-23T11:00:00.000-08:00

My daughter has become very vocal. Her voice is amazingly strong coming out of such a little body. I know this because when my parents let me “sleep in”, Lia’s voice travels down the hall like a freight train, foiling any attempt to catch extra Z’s.

Even with a pillow over my head.

My baby is no longer a baby…she is a very LOUD toddler.

My mom, after raising 5 children of her own, said to me the other day that Lia’s voice is louder and projects more than any of ours ever did.

I am afeared.

She has always shown an affinity toward music with a preference for anything percussion. She dances when I clap my hands in rhythm. Now, she’s actually humming along to the instrumental sounds coming from her toys. Quite charming.

I should look at the bright side, maybe she’s the future Beyonce or Pink (did anyone see her Grammy performance? BRILLIANT).

~ She’ll audition for American Idol.

~ Outshine any other competitor.

~ Win by a landslide.

~ Bag the best record deal in the history of music with the biggest record label of her time.

~ Become world renowned for her powerful voice and amazing emotional depth in her lyrics.

~ People will weep when they witness her perform.

~ Small children and animals will be drawn to her like Snow White.

~ Spontaneous miracles will occur in her presence.

~ She’ll make lots of money.

~ And buy her mommy a big mansion on the Amalfi Coast with a bathroom the size of a small house.

And I’ll be able to sleep in whenever I want…Hmmmm…

{snort} {grunt}

Oh, sorry…(wiping slobber off face)…fell asleep there for a minute.

Gosh, I had the craziest dream…

Catch Me If You Can

2010-02-22T10:00:00.000-08:00

Lia discovered the circle in her grandparent’s home as soon as we arrived. And she’s spent every day wearing a path in Grandma’s carpet since then.

It all starts with a look…

The challenge is set…

And the chase is on…

Our contender rounds the corner of the living room…

Easily slips past us down the hall…

She taunts from the laundry room, egging us on with her silly grin…

Her skills honed, she speeds into the dining room for the home stretch…

A narrow escape into the kitchen…

“You can’t catch me…” I imagine her saying with a sing-song in her voice…

Ha! Gotcha!

And I’m never letting go.

Fun with Grandma

2010-02-21T09:00:00.000-08:00

Learning about the importance of “bling”

Hear no evil?

I’m gonna get you!

Are YOU talking to ME?

Next stop, Vegas baby!

Grandpa's Little Helper

2010-02-20T08:30:00.000-08:00

She’s already a little engineer…

…helping Grandpa construct her play yard.

Little does she know this will prevent her from running up to the VCR and pressing all the buttons any time she wants.

Look at what she’s holding in her hand.

She’s obsessed with controlling all the electronic equipment in the house. And she knows which button turns things on and off. Seriously. She’s brilliant.

Takes after mommy :)

First Hair Cut!

2010-02-19T11:00:00.000-08:00

Before…

After…

(a little crooked but I never claimed to be a stylist)

It was really only one snip (well 2), which hardly qualifies as a “hair cut”, but I saved those little Dracula hairs nonetheless :) By the time she's 18, poor thing will have to unload an entire storage unit of crap I've saved for her.

I still have the crusty stump that fell off of her belly button.

Is that weird?

Winter Wonderland!

2010-02-18T09:00:00.000-08:00

What an amazing trip this has been to Ohio. I told my parents I was expecting them to provide snow for our visit…and it hasn’t stopped since the day we arrived! Yippee!

It’s been absolutely gorgeous.

Long after I moved away, my parents settled out in the country. It's a breathtaking view with all this snow.

Of course, we haven’t been out enjoying it much because Lia was getting over a cold when we arrived, then jetlagged, immediately followed by cutting teeth, and sadly suffering through yet another cold…so we’ve spent many hours by the fire gazing at the Winter Wonderland just outside the window.

Very calming actually.

Very peaceful.

Quite a diversion from the busy street we call home in Los Angeles.

My dad has been able to play with his snow blower almost every day. Lia loves watching her Grandpa push around the big noisy machine outside that makes geysers of white billow up in the air.

He always plows a path to the bird feeders, making sure all the living things outside are fed and happy during this cold, dormant season. Such a selfless and generous man. Lia is lucky to have such great role models.

We attempted to introduce her to snow again yesterday and she wasn’t thrilled with the idea. When we held her in our arms and walked around, showing her the bird feeder in the small tree in our front yard that we look at every day, she was pretty happy.

In fact, I think she rather enjoyed feeling the snowflakes land on her face.

However, when I put her feet on the ground, she would NOT let go of Mommy…

I know I complained for many, many years about the cold, heartless winters and couldn’t WAIT to move to sunny California. Now that I’m here again with my daughter, I remember how much I loved the snow growing up. Hearing the words “SNOW DAY, SCHOOL IS CLOSED” was like winning the lottery as kids. We’d go sledding, make snow men and snow angels, come inside and warm up with some hot cocoa, run outside again and lace up skates to tackle the frozen pond pretending we were Olympic figure skaters. Well, I did anyway. I can’t speak for my brothers – they were too busy trying to crack the ice and pee their names in the snow. Ahhh…the good old days.

I hope she gets over this fear and embraces it as much as I did. I think she will. She may be a California girl, but she’s got the blood of a Midwestern gal running through her little body. In fact, she may just grow up to be the champion figure skater I dreamed of…or snowboarder…or speed skater…or ski jumper…or bobsledder…

Yes, we’re watching a lot of the Olympics these days…just planting the seeds…

Happy Valentine’s Day Beautiful!

2010-02-17T09:15:00.000-08:00

Caught in the act…

…getting into her favorite cupboard…

…in Grandma’s kitchen on Valentine’s Day.

Hat Head

2010-02-15T06:30:00.000-08:00

After 25 years in Ohio and 13 years in Chicago, you’d think I’d remember how much static electricity there is during the winter…

[hee hee]

Baby Einstein Bad for Baby?

2010-02-12T07:50:00.000-08:00

My 14-month-old already knows the Walt Disney logo when her Baby Einstein videos come on. She jumps up and down, waving her arms in the air shrieking and clapping with delight. (Quite similar to how I feel when Daddy lets me sleep in on Sundays). I now understand why that company is the behemoth that it is.

The American Academy of Pediatrics recently denounced TV of any kind for children under 2…this is taken directly from their website:

It may be tempting to put your infant or toddler in front of the television, especially to watch shows created just for children under age two. But the American Academy of Pediatrics says: Don't do it! These early years are crucial in a child's development…

But I do have to interject here…who are these “Academy of Pediatrics”? Do THEY know what it is like to spend an entire day with a toddler? Do THEY understand the implications of trying to entertain a wee little brain for the entire day? My big adult brain would atrophy if I spent 24/7 catering to my daughter’s every whim. I see no harm in letting her watch a few minutes of a very well crafted set of videos that introduce her to art, music, and the basic concepts of becoming human.

Besides, I NEED to have that 30 minutes to 1 hour a day to stay sane. Okay, some days (like the week before I planned her birthday party) it was more than that. Way more. I admit it. I have used it as a babysitter. But before you judge me, PLEASE…we have to look at the big picture here people! I am now a stay-at-home mom. She gets TONS of quality time with me. I not only personally take care of her every need, she is developing the ability to play independently while learning to LOVE great music at the same time. Even if it is background noise while she’s playing.

My daughter is a very happy baby.

I know people will argue and say, “Well, you made the choice to stay at home.” Number 1) No, I did not. I lost my job last year if you remember correctly from my first post. And b) Now that I am home with her under this forced house arrest, I wouldn’t want it any other way. It’s remarkable watching her grow, learn and discover this world…isn’t a few hours of videos better than throwing her in daycare all week?

If I didn’t take advantage of this AMAZING resource my house would be a pigsty, I would never be able to get any work done on my projects, and no one in the outside world would even know I exist. Which…if you think about it, might not be a bad thing while I go through my wearing-pajamas-all-day-and-not-brushing-teeth phase of life. Who said motherhood was easy?

Besides, I’m trapped in a snow-infested land here for the next few weeks without a car. What else are we going to do all day while everyone else is at work? There’s only so much playing peek-a-boo, reading books, and watching birds outside in the feeder a woman can do without losing her marbles.

Happy Mama makes a Happy Baby.

See?

And she likes animals because of her favorite Baby Einstein DVD, World Animal Adventure. So there.

God Bless Baby Einstein!!!

The Bloody Crib

2010-02-04T19:15:00.000-08:00

Sounds like a cheesy horror film title doesn’t it? Well, this horror is my reality this week.

Lia cut her first molar and woke up crying (a very sad cry that hit me right in the gut) an hour after she went to bed last night. When I picked her up, her crib sheets were bloody ~ thought she bit her tongue again but realized after we changed the sheets and calmed her down that she had cut her first molar. Explains why she’s been so cranky and throwing up the past week. Of course, the jetlag didn’t help any…

Add a mouse in the wall scratching away at 3am scaring the bejesus out of me when I’ve only been asleep 30 minutes and you have the recipe for “Crazy Mama Stew.”

Movie Logline:

Jetlagged toddler cuts first molar while rabid mouse slowly eats away at mother’s psyche as she plots her escape...to the spa.

THE BLOODY CRIB

Happy Birthday, Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

2010-01-31T18:36:00.000-08:00

I know, I know...a little late and a lot long. Ready, set, go...

LIA’S FIRST BIRTHDAY!

December 8th it was. Very neurotic I was.

I had decided to host a simple “Open House” and let people drop by in the afternoon on Saturday the 12th. The original plan was to provide some snacks, make it low key and not overdo it…there will be plenty of time for that, right?

WRONG. I went off the deep end.

I actually baked two cakes that week, made the frosting from scratch and decorated them myself. (See below for the cake parade)

Bought all kinds of silly decorations after I promised Baby-daddy I wouldn’t,

Organized all her photos from birth, printed and framed a select few for display. This one is a retrospective of her 1st week, 1st month, 3rd month, 6th month, 9th month and 1 year…(I said I went off the deep end didn't I?)

Made lots of signs and party favors for the guests,

Actually created wine bottle labels – the idea was to make something cute to hide the fact that we were serving “Two Buck Chuck” to our guests…but I became a mother obsessed. I spent three days making these labels…

I got really clever with this I must say. Check out the front and back…

And then I created a fancy spread when I was trying to keep it simple and, more importantly in my hour of unemployment, economical,

I completely rearranged furniture to be in “party mode” and found fun things that haven’t been touched in months neatly hidden under the couch…thus bringing to an end my excuse for not working out,

Only to have Lia completely reject my beautiful birthday cake,

And then burst into tears when we sang the birthday song to her,

There were so many people there. She was completely overwhelmed. She’s only been on earth for one year, just getting the hang of being a little human, and her mother throws a huge bash for her complete with loud drunks and screaming children. It was like a family reunion really.

This is the point where I felt like a selfish mother. I did all this for ME. Not for her. She’ll never remember it…and if she does, she’ll probably ask me to pay for her therapy when she’s 30.

Did I mention it rained all day and we lost power? Yeah.

Actually, the party was very fun. :) A lot more people showed up than I expected…even in the rain! Of course there were candles burning all over the house which made me a bit nervous what with the children running amuck. But it was fine.

Now, I need to back up for a moment. First of all, we had a little celebration on Lia’s actual birthday (which was Tuesday) with her grandparents in Ohio via Skype. For this intimate soiree, I decided to bake a sugar-free, all organic cake with homemade frosting. Since she had never had sugar before I didn’t want to shock her system. I was trying to be the good mommy and make a baby-friendly dessert. The ironic part about this is that ONLY good thing about this sad-looking cake was the frosting, and that even looked tired. I used Agave to sweeten the cake…which I’ve discovered is splendid in my tea every morning, but tastes like ass in baked goods.

I mean look at that lumpy white blob! Cute birthday hat though. :)

Lia thought the frosting was fun…but she didn’t want to dive into the cake like most one-year-olds do. So we smeared it on her nose. To satisfy ourselves, of course…

Does that make us bad parents?

THE CAKE(s)

After the first attempt, I was determined to make the best cake ever and not disappoint and ultimately embarrass my daughter on her first birthday, ruining her for life. (Like she really cared.) So, I went to a cake store and bought two heart shaped pie pans, one smaller than the other. Then, found a recipe for the “best easy cake mix” online…which happened to be a recipe someone got from their kid’s grade school. How could I screw this up right? I totally guessed at the amount of cake mix because of my odd-shaped pans and threw them in the oven.

I baked two large hearts and one small. Why not make this even more challenging for the mom-who-doesn’t-cook by creating a 3-tiered cake? Of course!

But they survived my dilapidated oven. Hurray!

After the hearts cooled, I also learned on the internet a fabulous trick for spreading frosting. Apparently, if you spread a very thin, watered down version of your frosting over the cake (which was heavy cream whipped fluffy with vanilla and cream cheese) then freeze it overnight, it catches all the little crumbies and “seals” the cake. This is called “Crumb Coat.” See there…I taught you something today.

The next day, the frosting glides on the cake and you don’t have to worry about serving your guests a ghetto-looking glob of dough. Perfect!

However, to spruce it up I thought, “Hmmm, let’s add some strawberries in between the layers.” Not knowing what I was doing, I just winged it. It was a very tense moment, but I pushed bravely on and nothing fell apart!

I stuck my three-tiered, strawberry-filled, crumb-coated cake in the freezer and prayed til morning.

The next day was the morning of her party. Nervously, I took the cake out of the freezer. To my surprise, the crumb coat worked! I easily painted the rest of the frosting over all the layers and produced a beautifully frosted, crumb-free piece of art!

Added fresh strawberries, raspberries, a candle and voila! Look at my cake!

Yes, I was very proud of this cake. I even accosted guests trying to leave early from the party so they could peek in the freezer at my gorgeous cake. (I said I got neurotic, didn’t I?) Now that I look back on this I realize how crazy they probably thought I was. Oh well. Lia won’t realize how damaged her mother is until she’s well into college. By then, she’ll have her own problems to deal with.

So…the moral of the story is, if you plan to go bananas for your first child’s birthday (which trust me, it WILL happen), just be sure to protect the innocent. I.e., watch your neuroses around the Baby-daddy. It’s not fair if the night before the party you go decide to go bat-sh*t crazy and attempt to lure them in to your freak show of compulsion. You’re better off going it alone on this one.

Happy Birthday Beautiful!

CHRISTMAS

We waited until the last minute to make Christmas plans and ended up not doing anything. Which was just fine with me after spending weeks on her birthday extravaganza. I was exhausted. Truly. But then, surprise, surprise! We had a last minute guest who was orphaned for Christmas. So I entertained…yet again. I’m getting really good at making garlic mashed potatoes btw.

Basically, between her first birthday and Christmas, our daughter has accumulated enough toys to start a preschool...

Hope everyone had a beautiful holiday ~ however you celebrate this time of year. :) This pic is a house in the Venice Canals – can’t quite capture it in a photo. It’s actually two houses side-by-side that the owner decorates for every holiday.

Quite a spectacle with animatronic Santas, snowmen and giant helium filled balloons on the roof. I always wonder how the guy can afford it. I’ve heard this isn’t even where he lives all year round…that it’s just a vacation home. Then I remember, “Oh right, he owns 2 huge houses in the Venice canals. He's probably a famous actor or studio exec in Holly-weird. Duh.”

This is the land of the “haves” and the “have-nots.” Sadly, there are way more “have nots”. But that will change for us after Lia books her first Gap commercial!

NEW YEAR’S EVE

Lia played with the boys while mommy and daddy drank lots of champagne. Come to think of it, all her play dates are boys for some reason…takes after mommy I guess.

I love this photo…

Looks like baby boy #1 on the right is chatting up Lia, while baby boy #2 is making his move to get in on the action and push baby boy #1 out of the picture.

Lia looks like she’s saying, “You expect me to believe that? Moron.”

And I cooked. For people. Again! Yes, really.

Nothing like planning a last minute dinner party for New Year’s with other last minute parents. New-parent-syndrome I guess. All our kids are around the 1 year mark. No one wanted to get a babysitter. So we all landed at our place.

I rallied and Lia wore her new pretty blue dress for the occasion. Of course it lasted no more than 3 minutes when our guests arrived. She spilled water all over herself after freaking out because one of her boyfriends bopped her on the head. I told Baby-daddy to take this picture of us before something happened.

And I was right. I’m always right.

NEW YEAR’S DAY

Hanging out at home with Mom & Dad watching the Rose Parade on New Year’s Day…

I guess I should take the tree down now before people start to point and stare at us from the street.

Bye bye Christmas! See you next year tree! Adios lights! Arrivederci 50-year old claymation Rudolph! Farewell Vince Guaraldi Trio! See you next year Charlie Brown! See you next year…

And Happy New Year from Baby New Year!!!

p.s. What? It’s the last day of January. I can still officially say Happy New Year.
p.s.s. Can you tell I like Christmas?
p.s.s.s. {phew!} Is it going to be like this every year? Thanksgiving, Birthday, Christmas, New Year’s Eve…etc, etc… Guess I better get used to it.

{sigh}

I need a glass of wine.

List of Grievances

2010-01-28T18:08:00.001-08:00

Lia left a note for me today. I found it in her crib when I put her down for the night…

Dear Mother,

In the future, when making travel plans please don’t book our flight so early that it requires you to wake me before the sun rises. But if you fail to honor this request, do not expect me to maintain my sunny disposition for the rest of the day. Consider yourself warned.

And when you decide to keep me restrained in a stroller at LAX for two hours waiting to board the plane, don’t be surprised if I decide to jump around the aircraft shrieking like a spider monkey when you finally set me free. It also wouldn’t be wise to feed me lunch during air turbulence…I’m no expert here, but that just might be the reason I threw up all over the crib, then all over YOU last night before I finally collapsed into bed…at 1am.

And finally, I understand you grew up in the Midwest and love the snow, but I’m a California girl. Please do not force me to wear this god-awful getup ever again…I look like the Michelin Man. It is very unflattering.

Even when I turn to the side to make myself look thinner…

Nor do I appreciate 15 degree winds whipping in my face.

I apologize for losing my composure when you attempted to give me a bath earlier. But that was truly the last straw. You threw me into the biggest vat of water I’d ever seen, and there were white foamy things floating in my bath water! What were you thinking?! Who told you it would be a good idea to introduce me to a big person tub AND bubble bath at the same time in a strange environment after I’d been traumatized by a day of air travel? Tsk Tsk Mother…I’m growing weary of your lack of good judgment here.

Just remember… when I’m jet-lagged, you WILL suffer the consequences…

Capiche?

Peeing in Public

2010-01-24T17:53:00.000-08:00

So Friday, during Armageddon Week, I decided to venture out and run some errands while the rain was merely spitting on us Angelenos. BIG mistake. As I was driving down Ocean Blvd in Santa Monica, there were some major flood areas I had to circumnavigate…and as I was in the midst of some clever maneuvering…the deluge began. It rained so hard and fast I couldn’t see a few feet in front of me. It was like a white out in the snow for a few minutes…scary stuff.

Heart racing, I drove very slowly and very carefully, singing to Lia the entire time to calm myself, and we arrived safely at our destination. “We made it sweetie!” I called out to the back seat. But when I turned around to look at her, she was sleeping. And I had to PEE!

Then, it started to HAIL.

I wanted to cry. Instead I texted a few people trying to take my mind off of the urge to jump out of the car and drop my drawers right there in the parking lot. Instead, I looked around the car and spotted a water bottle with a pretty big opening. I was waiting for the right time to climb into the back seat and use the receptacle as a toilet. My mind was racing trying to figure this all out…all the while my baby was sleeping peacefully, which was rare this past week with her cold and I couldn’t stand the thought of waking her. At one point, I even considered digging out one of her diapers and using it! I was in PAIN. I felt as bloated as this hippo I saw yesterday at the Los Angeles Zoo…(yes Lia’s first trip to the zoo!)

Suddenly, right on cue, the heavens stopped weeping. So I did what every mom has guiltily done at some point in her mommy career. I woke up my sleeping, sick child, threw my jacket over her head and ran into the store, desperate for a bathroom.

But my plight didn’t stop here…

I was there to get the alarm tag removed from an article of clothing that they left on when we purchased the item. So as soon as I rushed in the door, with a heavy toddler draped over my shoulder, looking crazed and foaming at the mouth, the salesperson stopped me and said politely but firmly, “Can I help you?”

GREAT.

I had to wait in line and deal with the stupid tag! All the while I could feel my urine floating up to my neck and holding a (now) very heavy child who was half asleep. When it was finally my turn, I fumbled with about 60 receipts and couldn’t find the damn thing! I cursed at her father blaming him for every problem in my life. He wasn’t there to defend himself so why not? I was frantic. Doing a little two-step at the counter, I tried in earnest to make it look like I was soothing my child, who at this point was snoring – no soothing required. FINALLY, the sales clerk became very annoyed with me and said, “Don’t worry about it,” promptly removing the tag just to get rid of me. Thank God. As soon as she was finished, I asked her in my calmest tone with an undercurrent of anxiety (you know what I mean), “Where’s the bathroom?” As if I didn’t urgently need to relieve myself. HA. Why I cared what they thought, I have no idea. I should have just said, “If you don’t let me go to the bathroom right now, I’m going to pee all over this floor.”

So, I raced up the stairs not bothering to look for the escalator and ran around the entire 2nd floor before I found the toilet. All this, mind you, while carrying a heavy diaper bag and a 25 pound sleeping child. I had to wake her up when I finally got there and boy did she let me have it! But she forgave me (she always does) and we ended up having a lovely day together.

Lesson learned. A sick toddler, hurricane conditions and overloading on liquids before leaving the house are not a good combination.

I’ll think twice now before having that second vat of tea before I take her anywhere. And I DID learn my lesson!

Here’s another photo of her falling asleep in the car on the way to the zoo yesterday –I drove all the way up to Silver Lake and was able to sit in the car once I arrived and wait for her to wake up.

Very proud of myself. :) Look how cute she is with her twisted little hat.

We’re flying next week very early in the morning…I plan to stop my intake of liquids well before I go to bed the night before. I know it’s not recommended to get dehydrated while traveling by plane, but my need to avoid that fiasco again trumps any sense of healthy habits.

Ciao for now.

“Hi” and Armageddon. One Crazy Week.

2010-01-21T23:44:00.000-08:00

It’s NUTS in LA this week. Well, we all know LA is crazy. But I’m talking about the weather. Raining every single day since last weekend. And I mean torrential downpours with thunder, lightening, hail and even a tornado in Huntington Beach! I mean, what the hell? Is God punishing all the talent agents and producers in Hollywood? This kind of weather just doesn’t happen here. It was raining sideways today. SIDEWAYS. And it’s every day, non-stop relentless storms. It’s like the Terminator is in control of the heavens. Oh wait, that’s our governor, in control of our floundering state. But that’s another rant for another day…

It also sucks because this is the week I became a single mom. Well, not really. Baby-daddy is traveling. But I feel like a single mom this week. With a sick kid. And it’s my fault. I got her sick. Smart mom that I am decided to go for a walk in the cold last week when it started to sprinkle…wearing hardly anything for clothing, flip-flops and no hat…down by the beach no less where it can be freezing in the winter. Well, not like Chicago freezing. I spent 13 miserable winters in Chicago. Now that is cold. So cold and so windy some days that you can’t even breathe without turning your head to the side when you get off the train just to walk another 10 blocks downtown facing the lake in the direction of the wind where it whips through the streets as the tall buildings create a natural wind tunnel on your way to work every morning to a job you can’t stand, making you wonder why you ever crawled out of bed in the first place.

But I digress.

Try putting your sick kid to bed for the 5th time when hail starts banging against the window and scares the crap out of both of you.

{breathe Annette…just breathe}

{Don’t you think I would if I could? I have a head cold, dumbass.}

{Great. Now I’m having conversations with myself.}

{What do you expect? I’m sick and stuck in a house alone with a sick toddler who’s only word as of 3 days ago is “hi” (very cute btw), while Armageddon is taking place just outside the door, preventing us from escaping even for an hour to enjoy the beautiful Southern California weather that saved me from my frigid, Siberian existence in Chicago.}

{Now you’re just being dramatic.}

On the bright side, the weather people here are livin’ high on the hog. They actually have something to discuss other than their standard cheese shtick. I mean, how many creative ways can you say the forecast is “sunny and 70s”?

The ironic part is that Baby-daddy and I dodged a bullet this year. We were actually considering a move to La Crescenta, a beautiful little area at the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains in the Angeles National Forest. A bit farther away from the beach than I wanted to live, but they have the best public schools. Plus, you get more bang for your buck there. We looked at countless homes last summer but decided not a week before the Station fires started burning to bag that idea. Now, the entire area up there is evacuated because of the mudslides.

As I type this, another deluge of rain is blasting through…sideways! Not kidding. And the guy across the street is standing at his window looking out at the spectacle, again. I keep seeing this guy. All week long we’ve both been standing at our giant windows staring at the weather. Either he works from home, is a stay-at-home dad or is unemployed. Considering I’ve only seen him holding a cell phone and never a child, and the fact that California’s unemployment rate is at its highest since 1940, I’m guessing choice C.

Our power went out twice this week, which is does EVERY time it rains for more than a day in Venice (I think the city engineers need to take a field trip to Seattle). Annoying. Really annoying. This is the problem with living in a town that is full of bohemian hippies. Everyone is high. Even city council. Nothing ever gets done! Anyway, the rain came pouring in through the hallway ceiling, ruining some framed photos on the wall. So all week, I’ve had candles and flashlights sitting in easy-to-find places around our home, plus a bowl to catch the water dripping down the wall in the hallway.

Lia thinks this is fun. She keeps picking up the bowl, which is half her size, and carrying it all over the house. Here she is running away from me…

Whatever makes her happy right? Watching the news makes me reassess my standards for comfort. I can handle a little darkness, a little wetness, a little noise…my daughter is safe, healthy and happy. I couldn’t ask for anything more.

{Now go to bed Annette. The baby is sleeping. You go now!}

{Alright already! I’m leaving. Just as soon as I eat this piece of chocolate mousse pie I found in the freezer and finish watching the Friends rerun I’ve already seen 20 times.}

{Okay fatty. Such an exciting life you have.}

{Now that’s just mean.}

Narcissus, step aside!

2010-01-14T20:30:00.000-08:00

To fill my quota for posting this week as I have TRULY been very productive (I PROMISE), I decided to post this photo of me that was taken a few months prior to conceiving the little monster...er, I mean, my precious daughter. The manic in me decided to completely reorganize and back up my computer this week...which is like watching your own version of "This is Your Life".

The narcissist in me LOVES this photo. Reminds me of my fabulous, carefree, pre-Mommy days.

Today, I looked at myself in the mirror and saw some strange woman looking back at me. Greasy hair, check. No makeup, check. Sweet potato stains on shirt sleeve, check. Crazed grin plastered across face from finding diapers on sale at Toys R Us, check.

{sigh}

...and I love every minute of it!

Mommy has ADD

2010-01-09T16:55:00.000-08:00

I feel like a walking cliché when I say this…but my GOD, time flies when you have a baby. I started this blog thinking I could handle writing in bite-sized chunks every day, but it’s been over a month since my last post…the post that was supposed to make you laugh and explain my absence…the post that was supposed to redeem my tardiness…the post that was supposed to inspire me to be more on top of this whole blogging thing. Well, here we are, 37 days later and we can throw that out the window.

With Lia’s birthday, Christmas and then New Year’s Eve…I have so many excuses! The holidays are the perfect time to procrastinate. Who can argue, right?

I just rented Julie & Julia. (Of course, I should have been writing instead of watching a movie, but that’s another post on my blog called “Top Ten Mind-Numbingly Boring Things Annette Does to Avoid Writing”). ANYWAY…anyone else seen that movie? I loved it and could completely relate to Julie when she bubbled over with excitement after someone finally commented on her blog. But it turned out to be her mom. BTW…thanks Jimmy…you are so far my only fan. :) Jim is one of my brothers…I have 4 brothers…all older than me. You’d think that being the youngest and having 4 older brothers would make me one tough cookie. Not so my friends. I may act tough on the outside, but inside? I’m a weeping mess of insecurity and neediness. I crave praise. {Yes, that is a direct hint}

Hmmm…I bet if I tried to write something every day like Julie did I might actually develop a real fan base that would keep me coming back to my computer every day. Even “Twitter” sized “tweets”! I mean, how hard can it be? It’s all about self-discipline, right?

Hmmm….thinking, thinking, thinking...

Well, let’s be realistic, shall we? FAT CHANCE. This is ME we’re talking about. The mom who at this moment is looking at a pile of half-folded baby laundry (an endless and thankless job), the vacuum cleaner that never made it back to its home because she never finished vacuuming LAST week (might as well leave it out now), and the first birthday party decorations still hanging on the wall for over a month, including the very sad, partially deflated balloons that every few days pop and scare the crap out of the baby.

Maybe if I start my new year off with a promise to post on my blog at least once a week, I could handle that.

Yes, this is what I’ll do! So, you, whoever you are, will be my witness:

I PLEDGE TO POST ON THIS BLOG AT LEAST ONCE A WEEK FOR THE NEXT MONTH, STARTING TODAY.

Let’s see if I can stop being ADD for 30 days and live up to my own expectations. I’m nervous already.

Stay tuned…

Top Ten Reasons...

2009-12-03T10:27:00.000-08:00

…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.

The Connected Kid

2009-10-22T14:27:00.000-07:00

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.

Betty Crocker Croaks

2009-10-17T08:14:00.001-07:00

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.

Rejection Sucketh

2009-10-13T08:33:00.000-07:00

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.

She’s got stars in her eyes

2009-10-08T11:16:00.001-07:00

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?

What happened to me???

2009-10-07T09:17:00.000-07:00

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?

Edward Scissorhands Lives At My House

2009-10-05T08:19:00.000-07:00

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.

Water World

2009-09-30T10:29:00.000-07:00

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!!

What comes around…

2009-09-28T09:58:00.001-07:00

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.

People Watching

2009-09-20T07:39:00.000-07:00

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.

She said Mama!

2009-09-17T12:30:00.001-07:00

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”…

Trout, trout, pretty little trout…

2009-09-16T09:14:00.000-07:00

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.

A sad day…

2009-09-15T10:03:00.001-07:00

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.

Confession

2009-09-12T10:34:00.000-07:00

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.

Celebrity Sighting

2009-09-10T19:32:00.000-07:00

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!

2009-09-10T15:23:00.000-07:00

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.

Teething is not for the faint of heart

2009-09-09T16:29:00.000-07:00

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

The Fourth Tenor Discovered at the Getty Museum

2009-09-08T10:25:00.001-07:00

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…

Mommy’s Escape…an exercise in inspiration

2009-09-04T14:01:00.001-07:00

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!

Snot Sucking is an Art Form

2009-09-02T11:16:00.000-07:00

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.

Perspective

2009-08-31T08:49:00.000-07:00

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.

Fire in the sky…

2009-08-30T13:44:00.000-07:00

…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?

Facebook Regrets

2009-08-29T13:32:00.000-07:00

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.

Like I've Been Run Over By A Truck

2009-08-24T06:38:00.000-07:00

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…

The Life and Times of an Unexpected Mom

2009-08-23T15:00:00.000-07:00

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