piecrust promises

The Spaghetti Incident?

Amelia has been charged with a crime...a very serious felony charge.  Meatball murder.  I don't know why they think she's guilty...what evidence do they have that such a sweet, endearing child could commit such a heinous crime?!

Oh...that evidence.

And on a somewhat separate news story...I am simply delighted that people searching for Guns N' Roses' fifth (and worst) album (sorry! It's a cover album people...COVER ALBUM!  COVERS OF CRAPPY SONGS FROM GLAM ROCK!  GLAM ROCK PEOPLE!) will stumble upon a meatball murderer. (Allegedly!) But at the same time...her Mama is now worried that the two readers will think she's some sort of Guns N' Roses superfan...and that simply isn't true. I promise!

And no...there isn't going to be a Monday Night Confession about me lurving freaking GNR...it was a clever title!  Get over it!  Geesh...maybe you should stop obsessing over it and help me clean up this baby.

(Incidentally...she got a hold of the dogs right after this picture was taken...I think she was trying to frame them as accomplices.  Just saying...)

WTF GOOGLE!

JOHN MCCAIN ADS?  Are you serious? 

Google! First it was all the Asian "dating" sites...now this. 

Do you even read this blog?  Maybe just a casual glance over here to the the left every now and then? No?  Well maybe you should start...what in the world would make you run ads for JOHN FREAKING MCCAIN?!?

Couldn't we get a little Obama action over here?  Hell...I'll even take some Hillary...just NO MORE MCCAIN.

Disaster!

After three years of loving service...the iMac G5 is no more.  It survived two moves, getting poked at by a former PC user (Joel), severe neglect when the baby was born, and it had to suffer through the indignity of having to share a room with said baby for nearly six months.

It's been acting funny for the past couple of weeks...I blame this on me using it to look at newer models...and the baby using the keyboard as both a teething device and a musical instrument.  And then one day...it just stopped and didn't want to start again.

So back to the mothership we went (aka...the Genius Bar at the Florida Mall).  And the diagnosis was just not good...it needs a whole new hard drive...a hard drive that would cost more than the computer is worth...but that also means a glimmer of good news...it means that Mama gets a new computer!  Hell yeah people!

 

Now...as some of you might know...I am a former Apple employee...and dear lord do I ever miss that damn place.  Getting a job there was like finally finding my field of bees (obscure Blind Melon music video reference)...and to famously quote Jason from our opening day, "This is more than a store, this is more than a job...I love each and every one of you...now get out there and sell some shit!"

 

*Wiping tears*

 

Anyhoo...so I am getting a brand spanking new computer...now the only thing left to decide...what to get.

 

Do I get another desktop and spend an obscene amount of time chasing the baby away from it...or do I get a laptop that I'll spend an obscene amount of time holding above my head so the baby can't get to it.

 

And fingers crossed people...I was smart enough to do backups of the iMac...but not quite smart enough to remember when the last time it was that I had a backup scheduled...so here is hoping that I still have 15 months worth of baby pictures...including ones showing her torturing the now defunct iMac...ahhh...memories.

 

 

Famous!

Finally!  After submitting three hacks that all turned out to be previously submitted (so much for all that pride in my own personal originality) I got a hack approved and posted on Parent Hacks!

It's like I'm officially an intelligent parent now.

Vindication!

Plus...Parent Hacks is one of my favorite parenting sites...it's saved my hiney on more than one occasion.

(Yes...I used the word "hiney" I've got the worst potty mouth...and I'm afraid that either "crap" or "shit" is going to be the next word Amelia says...so I'm trying to clean it up around here...all part of those official intelligent parent duties.)

Go!  Check it out!  Be excited!

UPDATE!

I just checked the site and it's up.  I literally squealed and pushed Joel off the bed with excitement.

You'd think I was on the cover of freaking Time Magazine the way I'm acting...

Monday Night Confessions...the late edition.

Alright...this Monday Night Confession is either really late or really, really, really early.

For once in my entire life I'll be an optimist and say it's nice and early...ha...look at me...getting a jump on next week!  So organized!

So here it is...tonight's Monday Night Confession...I hate children.

Well...I don't hate all children...just ones that aren't mine...or ones I don't know. Hell...I even like ones I only pseudo know.  I think Noah is the cutest, I've already pledged Amelia's hand in marriage to Hank, I've watched Leta grow up, and lord oh mighty...if Emme was any cuter with all those hats I'd just eat that child alive.

It's stranger's children that I hate.  Their whiny, high-pitched voices, their sticky hands and drooly chins. Their running and jumping and knocking things over.  Their tendency to droop over the sides of shopping carts and throw food in restaurants.  And their questions...god help me...their questions.

We go for a walk around the neighborhood every weekend.  Amelia in the stroller...pacifier firmly in mouth, sunglasses and hat fashionably askew.  Dogs with harnesses and leashes...not the best walkers...but exuberant with their freedom.  Joel wields the dogs and I bump the stroller along.  We cannot get through one of these walks without being assaulted by children.  Children everywhere.  We've had children run across busy streets, through parking lots, up and over parked cars to come up to us and ask (in high squealing voices) to pet the dogs.  HOW OLD IS THEY?  WHAT HER NAME?  I HOLD?  I WALK HIM? MY DOGGY?  EEEEKKK!  I yell at every single one of these children...but more importantly...I yell at their mothers.

Yes, that's right.  I've handed over the stroller, taken a future vagrant by the sticky hand and led them right back to their gum popping, cell phone distracted, eye rolling mother.  "Does this belong to you?" is generally how I begin the conversation...and then my polite voice generally takes over my rage...knowing that it will only infuriate this woman more...and that's when I profess my deep concern over the fact that little Billy was not only galavanting in traffic...but coming up and talking to people who just might be crazy child eaters.  I relish these people's horror.

We live on a side street...and every afternoon I have to battle my way through a group of about a dozen 8 to 10 year old boys.  Boys armed with Nerf guns and bad attitudes.  And they WILL NOT MOVE.  You have to beep your horn and roll down your window to yell at them to move...and the other day I just lost it...I may or may not have yelled something out my window that could have involved gratuitous use of the f- word...and there might have been a few "little bastards" in there...I can't exactly remember.  These children bother me even more than regular little brats...simply because their parents have deemed it acceptable for them to run out in the streets unsupervised and untamed.

Is it too much to ask for to have well-behaved children...or better yet...well-behaved parents?  Now I'm not talking about the kid who is way overdue for a nap and a snack who happens to be having a meltdown in the middle of the Target...because I've been there.  I give those mothers the sympathetic face whenever I see them struggling to keep it together.  It's the mothers who are glued to their cell phones or picking at their overly lacquered nails with children dumping boxes of cereal and squirting shampoo all over the place that kill me.

I'd like to change my confession...I don't hate children...I hate crappy parents.

I think the Oompa Loompas said it best..."Who do you blame when your kid is a brat, pampered and spoiled like a Siamese cat...blaming the kid is a lie and a shame...you know exactly who's to blame.  The mother and the father."

Monday Night Confessions

New! Improved! Blog! Now with Monday Night Confessions! That's where I confess to some embarrassing/socially unacceptable/kooky personal habit! It's blogging at it's finest! Thank goodness no one reads this!

So here it goes...the maiden voyage of Monday Night Confessions...

I like to dance in my underpants to Britney Spears. (That was less freeing then I thought it would be...especially now that I just remembered that I told several co-workers about this site...hi co-workers! Just kidding about the underpants part...ha Dana makes the jokes! And the Britney part...really! See you tomorrow! Professional! Professional!)

While Britney is generally my preference any bad dance/teenybopper music will do. Britney is my number one choice because her choreography is truly not that difficult but is challenging enough to be interesting...yes that's right...I know the actual moves. Like I spend an obscene amount of time on YouTube researching these things. (I won't even get into the dance related movies...you know the ones...Center Stage, Step Up, Dirty Dancing...I own them all. And don't get me started on any sort of dancing related reality show...it's freaking kryptonite. I know...I know...I'll hang my head in shame now.)

But here's the clincher...I can't dance in front of anyone else...anyone else in the room...and suddenly I'm the white girl who might be having a seizure. The only person who has seen me dance is the baby...yes that's right...the baby has seen Mama dance like a slut. I think of it as making sure her therapist gets to send all of his kids to college...or at least gets to put new carpet in the office.

Well...saying the baby is the only one who has seen me dance (in a good non-seizure kind of a way) is only mostly true...back when Dana was young and when there might (or might not) have been some chemical assistance involved...Dana could dance...oh and did she ever dance. (Maybe I'll start referring to myself in the third person all the time...Dana might like that....or maybe not...Dana's allowed to try new things damnit!) (Did I just admit to past drug usage?!) (Hi co-workers! Still reading huh? Don't have anything else you should be doing? Hmmm...well alright...at least try and look busy. I think there might be leftover meeting food in the kitchen...you should go check that out.)

Back before I was married and lived alone...this was a nightly occurrence...I'd come home...eat a microwaved meal...strip down and live it up for an hour. It was my answer to the gym. But now that I've got the hubby and the very small house and the baby that screams whenever I leave the room...finding time to dance in my underpants just hasn't been happening.

Joel knows all about the underpants dancing...and even after 3 years of marriage...he still has yet to see it...and he never will. But he puts up with me walking around the house saying, "It's Britney, bitch" far more often than he should probably have to. But this past weekend I got some time to myself...and after weeks of staring at all of the other people on YouTube dancing to it and having it on repeat play on the iPod...I finally got down all the steps to "Gimme More" and finally got to dance it out...in my underpants.

Now that's freeing.

Conversations with inanimate objects

So I step on the scale this morning...plus one pound from where it was last week...I look down at the scale with a look of disgust and say with completely bitter sincerity, "Why do I even talk to you?"

Fired!

Or I will be soon if I don't learn how to think before opening my mouth.

Observe! Exhibit B of how this job is killing me and completely making me lose my mind:

At work by the soda machine, very Important Corporate Type comes up, asks, "How's the new job going?"
My response? "It sucks ass."

Observe! Exhibit C:

Sitting at desk, typing a mind numbing contract, answering a phone that never stops ringing, contemplating how best to gouge out own eyes...another very Important Corporate Type comes up, says in a very cheery voice, "Oh! Look at you...Admin EXTRAORDINAIRE!"

My response? "I'm not an admin."

Important Corporate Type, obviously taken aback at the notion that I would not appreciate being called an admin, "Oh...well I was only joking with you."

My response? "Well that's not a mistake you should make again."

It's like I just can't zip it fast enough.

Evidence of the tired

Exhibit A of how tired and completely out of it I am now that I have this new job:

I got into my car this afternoon, shut the door, put on my seatbelt, and started the car...then I sat there for at least two minutes trying to figure out if I was coming to work or leaving. And then when I decided that I was leaving I was super paranoid that I was wrong.

I mean seriously.

Must take nap.

And speaking of naps...Amelia is getting transitioned to the toddler room...and today...the child slept on a mat at naptime. A MAT! I can't even get her to sit on my lap for 30 seconds and these people got her to SLEEP ON A MAT. UNCONFINED. NO CRIB. FREE TO WANDER YET SHE CHOSE SLEEP. ON A MAT.

Those daycare people are magic.

Now if only they could give me a mat to nap on...

Nevermind on the nap...

Must make dinner.

Mother's Day Edition

So I've never made it a secret that I'm not exactly "mother-of-the-year" material. These last 14 months have been some of the most exhausting, defeating, stressful months of my entire life. Throw a healthy dose of postpartum depression on top of normal new mother worry, fear, and self-doubt...and you've got a mama who doesn't feel like she's done that great of a job...hell...you've got a mama who has wondered how long it will take Child Protective Services to find out about the crappy job she's been doing.

Luckily...the fog has been lifting in recent months...and I'm finally starting to connect to this little person...something I had been ashamed to admit...that I was having trouble feeling anything for my own child...that I felt more like a long term babysitter than a mother.

But slowly...Amelia and I have started to find common ground. Maybe it was because of all the time that she had to deal with some weepy lady who spent more time looking at her fearfully from across the room...or maybe it's because the child is so damn like me...but Amelia has never been a cuddly baby. From the very beginning...she would only tolerate a few minutes of of being held before starting to wiggle free. And the bigger she's gotten...the more insistent the wiggling. Even when she's hurt...she doesn't have time or patience for kisses...she's right back at it...trying again...doing it alone.

Last night was the first night without a night bottle...we've finally been doing good all day with her sippy cup...and it seemed like the time was finally right to say goodbye to it.

She and I went through our normal routine...bathtime, jammies, brushing our hair, bedtime story. But then we went downstairs for a few final minutes of playtime and goodnights and what was now to be a bedtime snack rather than a bedtime bottle. I handed her that cup and immediately she gave a shriek of indignation as if to say, "What is this crap woman!?" And then the angry tears started.

And with far more patience than I thought I had at the end of the day, I explained that there was no more nighttime bottle, we just had our cup...I told her that growing up is hard...but that I loved her and that we would do this together. And she looked right at me...tears now silent...still a look of complete anguish on her face at the thought of having to say goodbye...and I knew that she understood.

Without another sound...she climbed into my lap...and for the first time in 14 months...she let me hold her for longer than a minute.

Here was this little girl who is normally so independent...finally making me feel like a mother.

Joel came back from his nightly run thirty minutes later to find Amelia snuggled in my arms...both of us silently weeping...her over her beloved bottle...me over finally getting to experience what most women experience in the delivery room...an insane amount of love and hope for a tiny soul.

Happy Mother's Day.