Happy Halloween!

We told her to work on her scary face and that's the best she could give us.

Scary cute!

My sister found this little monster costume for her when she was here two months ago, and bought it because we call her our little monster. At the time I was like, "Oh my gosh, she's not gonna be big enough in two months to fit into that." Then two days ago I was talking to my sister on the phone and I was like, "I don't think she's gonna be big enough to fit into that." Then magically (witchcraft from Halloween?) I put it on her this morning and it TOTALLY FIT! My little baby fits into 3 month clothes now!!!

Cut to me spontaneously sobbing in the bathroom.

SHE'S GROWING UP SO FAST.

Ok, I can still palm her like a basketball, and she's only 11 weeks old, but still, pretty soon (if I have what's coming to me) she'll be stealing my makeup and lingerie and trying to convince me she never used the fake id, it was just for fun, then somehow I'll get talked into driving her to her friend's house where her boyfriend is secretly waiting to have an hour long make-out sesh with her precious little face, while I wait at home biding my time by reading her not-so-hidden journal and discover she'll have to be grounded until she's 30 but I can't tell her it's because of what I read in her journal because I'll respect her privacy, and because I want her to keep writing in it so I know what's going on, so instead I'll have to make something up like, "You're grounded for not finishing your homework" and she'll be all, "It's summer break.", and I'll be all, "Oh sure. Are you trying to tell me you finished every piece of homework assigned to you last year?", and she'll be all, "What?", and I'll be all, "That's what I thought! Now go to your room!" and then she'll go up there so as not to have to deal with me anymore, plus I'll forget that's where her laptop is, and she'd rather be all interneting with her other boyfriend anyway, and then I'll remember her computer is there, open the door and shout, "Turn that shit off!" and she'll be all, "Dollar!" and I'll have to put a dollar in the cursing jar again, and then she'll start crying and I'll ask why, and she'll explain about her two boyfriends dilemma (one is smart and funny in a Rushmore sort of way, the other is not so smart, but so smoking hot it ruins her brain when she's around him so conversation doesn't seem important with him) and we'll talk about it, and I'll guide her to the right choice (no boyfriend at all! join a nunnery!) (kidding, go with the hot guy, that rushmore guy is just gonna get more indie in college and if she's my daughter [which she is] she's gonna change her mind about 'her type' seven hundred times before she accidentally gets knocked up at 30 and winds up surprisingly with the love of her life she didn't even know she was looking for, and be totally thrilled because he's great, and her baby is great, great and just getting bigger by the second!)

*sigh*

Time goes by so fast.

Now, if you'll excuse me - I have to go hide all my makeup just in case.

10 Weeks!

Someone keeps dressing my daughter like a homeless person.



I mean, what the heck is going on there? And what about here?




Is whoever dressed her color and pattern blind? Or were they just drunk? I mean who did that!?

Oh, right. That was me. But to be fair. .. I was drunk.

Ok, no I wasn't but she didn't start off all Fisher King, she started out in a cute outfit and then proceeded to pee and or poop on pieces of the outfit one at a time until I've changed her into what can only be described as "an art student outfit". And I can say that because I went to school where the professors wore outfits exactly like the one's she has on. Except with more b.o.

Anyway, mismatched outfits aside, ten weeks is better than nine, which was better than eight, which was better than seven, and so on. People tell you that you'll love them more every day and as cliche as it sounds, it's totally true. It doesn't matter that you only get four hours of sleep (not in a row) or that you get pooped on at the same time every day, or that your nipples are so bruised and blistered and slathered with anti-bruise and blister cream that they resemble something out of a horror movie and you can't ever imagine that they'll be viewed in a sexy way ever again - the sheer joy you get from watching them do something as simple as wake up beats everything.

I mean. . . how can this not make your day?





Yes, she did poop in the middle of filming. Sorry about that, but I sorta only get one take.

Now, if you'll excuse me I have to go change someone's pants so that she looks like the lost member of Color Me Badd.

9 weeks!

So my little lady is nine weeks old now!

"I'm not sure why you keep dressing me like a flamboyant fisherman."

Because it's cute, that's why! She's right though, I love that hat but it does sort of make her look like a gay Popeye. Not that there's anything wrong with that, I just don't want to influence her career choices this young.

(Filling out insurance forms - Occupation: Popeye.)

(hahahahahahah)

Anyway, she's nine weeks old but doesn't even weigh nine pounds yet. Teeny, tiny porker! She weighs 8lbs 13oz, which is better than last time, but still pretty tiny for what she's supposed to be I guess. The doctor was kind enough not to let me know he thinks my boobs are defective. Yet. We're going to try another three weeks of guerrilla style breast feeding (wherein I feed her every two hours militaristically. If she sleeps through a feeding she has to drop and give me thirty push ups. I'm not running no sissy boob camp here girl!) and then weigh her again and see where we're at.

The unfortunate thing about the last doctor's visit, aside from the immunizations I already mentioned, is the fact that I went alone. And when I'm alone there's no one there to stop me from rambling, or just talking aloud in general. And sometimes I desperately need someone to stop me. Especially when talking to professionals.

Me: So she's not gaining enough weight?

Dr: Well she's small, but it could just be she's a skinny baby. I mean, you're pretty skinny.

Me: No, I used to be. Now I've got these folds, not even rolls, but weird folds right around here (**motions to my stomach area**) and here (**motions to my thighs**) (Not sure why I included thighs).

Dr: I just mean that you're tall and. . .

Me: Also, I have this weird line on my foldy tummy, that ends at the belly button, and then takes off on the other side of the belly button but from a completely different spot. Like whomever was painting the line got drunk, passed out, then woke up and started five feet away from where they should have started.

Dr: What?

Me: I don't mean someone was literally painting a line on me, I mean the line some women get from pregnancy.

Dr: I know what the line is.

Me: So, do you think my milk isn't fatty enough?

Dr: I don't know if. . .

Me: Because I can step it up with the donuts. I can eat the crap out of some donuts.

Dr: I'm not sure that's exactly how it works.

Me: Ice cream then?

Dr: You can eat all that stuff, but I'm not sure that's the problem.

Me: What?!

Dr: No! Not that there's a problem, just keep doing what you're doing.

Me: But what if the ladies are the problem? (I never refer to my boobs as 'the ladies'. Am totally unsure why I chose this moment to do so. In manner of totally sanity, stop myself from explaining I do not usually go around telling doctor's my boobs are my ladies.)

Dr: (has just said something, probably something important, but I do not hear it because I was stopping myself from being even more inappropriate.)

Me: Mmm. Hmmm. (Is standard response. Hopefully it makes sense to whatever he's just said.)

Dr. . . .

Me: . . . .

Dr: Are you doing ok?

Me: What?

Dr: Emotionally. Are you doing alright?

Me: Who, me? (no, the woman behind me) Yeah. No. Yes I mean. I'm totally fine.

Dr: You sure?

Me: Yeah. Yes. I am fine.

Dr: Ok.

Me: I mean I cry a lot, and I'm not sure if I put on clean socks or not, but I'm good.

Dr: Ok.

And then he sat with me for another minutes until I calmed down.

Clearly I'm fine!!!

He must see this a lot though, because he waited just the right amount of time before leaving. The right amount of time being just long enough that I wouldn't burst into crazy tears, and right before I burst into crazy tears.

Oh, motherhood! It's so fun!

But it really is. Especially because of that little half smile right there.

And this little girl summoning the waiter for the check.

She's been waiting for like a half an hour already!

31 and Pregnant Just Doesn't Have The Same Zing

My sister called me a "young mom" today which was totally not supposed to be a compliment, I think she just forgot I'm not 16 anymore. Which is a problem I'm having too. I'm just a normal aged mom, but in my head I'm totally eligible for 16 and Pregnant, and definitely not as old as my mom was when I was a kid - when I was a kid she was ooooooold. I remember her 36th birthday and how sad I was that she was getting old and we probably didn't have much time left.

And she was older. I think. In the mature sense of the word. I mean, she didn't sit around on a Wednesday eating a hot pocket directly out of the crisping sleeve and watching Selena Gomez videos on youtube while her kids napped. Not that she was old-old, but more mature? More organized? More inclined to veer away from awesomely bad teen pop? More apt to not draw a little mustache on her baby with eyeliner and move her chin up and down to pretend she's speaking in a German accent, ordering people around during bathtime, "Now you schnitzel, get ze zoap and vash me good or I'll have you excommunicated! Sproken! Mazeltoven unt volkswagon nine!"

I'm not sure why, but one of my favorite things to do with my baby is make her talk in a deep man's voice. Usually giving ridiculous orders. Right before this nap she, in a very movie-phone-guy voice, ordered the cat to wash her socks. Pronto! And yesterday she spent a good ten minutes complaining about all the traffic on the way to work. (She doesn't go to work. See? It's funny because she's just a baby!)

"Listen dog, let's say you and me hit the strip club after work. These ones aren't gonna throw themselves."

Oh James-Earl-Jones-sounding baby, dogs aren't allowed in strip clubs!

Yeah, I need to talk to more adults. I'm fully aware.

And so is Sean Connery baby.

Immuniwhyareyouhurtingmybabyzations!

Guess who got her first round of immunizations?

This girl!

And she was not happy about it.

Somehow I forgot that's what we were going to the doctor for, so I went by myself and her father went to work, and when I walked in the nurse is like, "I'm gonna stab your baby today and probably make you cry as well," (at least that's what she should have said) and I immediately thought, "I wonder if her father could run the fifteen miles here in time for this because I'm not sure I can handle it!"

Turns out he couldn't.

Watching someone deliberately hurt your child makes you want to punch them in the face, no matter how nice and sweet the nurse is (and she was very sweet) I still had the overwhelming urge to throw her away from my baby, grab the syringe and poke her in the thigh with it repeatedly yelling, "How do you like that? HOW. DO. YOU. LIKE. THAT." And I know it is for her own good, that a few moments of hurt is better than a lifetime of polio, or the plague - whatever it is immunizations are good for - but at the time I was ready to get in actual hand to hand combat with a woman who probably weighs a good hundred pounds less than me all because she was trying to protect my daughter against scurvy.

I don't want scurvy Mama!

So that makes two times in a row I've cried at the doctor's. Luckily he claimed he didn't even remember last time and said that, "crying moms tend to happen a lot" so he doesn't really keep track of it. And then he launched into a talk about postpartum depression but I didn't hear any of it because I was trying to distract myself from sobbing by noticing how much chest hair he had showing, (it was a lot) and then imagined what it would be like if he braided it (awesome) and beaded the braided bits (amazing) and then did a cabaret-like chest shake while he read off her height and weight percentages to me (like having a musical chest instrument), and then suddenly I was giggling, almost uncontrollably, while he tried to discuss with me the ways I can increase my milk supply, which probably makes him think I am like a twelve year old who can't talk about boobs without giggling my ass off, which is totally untrue, I can talk about boobs with the straightest face you've ever seen, I'm very serious about boobs, braided-beaded-doctor-chest-hair on the other hand is one of the best visuals I've ever had in my entire life, but there's no way I was going to tell him that because I'm pretty sure letting your kid's pediatrician know you were just imagining things about his chest hair could probably be taken the wrong way.

Yay chest hair!!!

So, for her next round of shots her father is coming with me. If not for emotional support then at least so I can have a second opinion on this chest hair business.

Maybe I'll just stay home from that visit guys. You can get the shots, I'll just practice being cute.

Remember Schmemember

This is how the baby helps me bake. By supervising my every move. Then pooping on the counter. How'd it get through both blankets to reach the counter? YOU TELL ME.

So you may remember I talked about Pregnancy Brain, a medical condition (probably) where you lose your marbles and suddenly don't remember who the Vice President is and wind up asking your friends and they look at you with total shock, and possibly distain, not trying to even hide it and placate you a little bit because they're your best friends - apparently knowing you for half your life means they don't have to sugar coat your stupid for you.

Well anyway, apparently it doesn't go away once you have a baby. It just gets way worse. ie; when you breastfeed you're supposed to start on the last boob you ended on. Since the little lady is eating every two hours right now, that means I have to remember back an hour and fifteen minutes and recall whether we were on the left or the right and 9 times out of 10 I stare blankly into space, with absolutely no clue which side she was on. I can't remember something from an hour ago!

So, last week my boyfriend was running a 10k and me and the Pork Chop went down to cheer him on a woman and her baby stopped to say hi, and ask how old she was and blah blah blah, so we talked about out babies and whatnot and then the lady said, "What's her name?"

And I said, "Uhm. . ." and looked at the lady as if she was going to tell me, because I kid you not, I had NO IDEA WHAT MY BABY'S NAME WAS. No clue whatsoever. You could have put a gun to my head and I would still be standing there frozen. And suddenly I started to panic. I looked down at my baby and thought, "Her. She's my baby." But that wasn't what the woman asked. She didn't ask me to point out my baby in some weird criminal-baby-line-up (Oh my god, how cute would a baby line up be?! "Ma'am tell us which one it was." "That one. Number three. She definitely puked on me." Ahhhhhhh! I want it!), she asked me what her name was. Again, more panic and suddenly I couldn't breathe. It was the closest I think I've ever come to actually living a dream - because stuff like that doesn't happen in real life, it happens in dreams and you freak out, and realize you're naked on top of not being able to recall what you named your only child, and then you wake up in a cold sweat, sigh and say, "Oh thank gosh. It was just a dream. Her name is . . . "

AHHHHHH! And then you scream because you still can't remember because it's not a dream!!!! YOU'RE TOTALLY AWAKE! I looked around slowly and said "Uhm. . . " again, hoping this would distract her. And I could feel my boyfriend's mom turn to look at me, and I could feel everyone else start to turn to look because who doesn't remember their baby's name?! And then suddenly, thank God, I sputtered, "Ad. . . Addi . . . Adeline. Her name is Adeline." And then gave a little cough hoping everyone would think I just had something stuck in my throat and that's why it took me so long.

*sigh*

So embarrassing.

To be fair I don't ever call her by her name. Unless she's in trouble.

Which is never because she's a teeny tiny baby!!!

But I have a feeling by the time she hits Jr. High I'll have that name down big time. If she's anything like me she'll be hearing it weekly.

Either that or I'll be yelling, "Missy Porks Chops Chubby Cheeks! You change that outfit right now or you're grounded. No buts! Just change it!"

Oh mom, you so crazy! I love you even if you never remember my name.

Thanks Chops.

Seven Weeks Old!

So our little monster got super monster-y all of a sudden. Very fussy, and upset all the time which could not be consoled, not even the night I breastfeed her for almost FIVE HOURS STRAIGHT.

You wanna see something scary? Go back to that night and peek in my window. It's me sitting on the couch, crying my eyes out because my baby is crying her eyes out, shoving my raw boob in her face, which (admittedly is totally fair) makes her start crying even more, which makes me start crying even more, which makes her father take one more step back away from the Duo of Crazy so that he doesn't get caught in the mix, all the while a glass of wine is staring at me from the coffee table, taunting me because it knows there's no way I'm ever going to drink it this night, not even if she stops crying and goes to sleep, because chances are, at that point my eyes will be so salt-soaked, and puffed together I won't be able to get the glass to my mouth before I spill it down my shirt slash fall asleep mid-sip, which of course it the trigger to waking a sleeping baby thus repeating the whole crying-feeding-saddest-looking-boobs-ever night.

So, of course I start wildly googling 'colic' and 'reflux' and 'fix my baby', and those sites led to me other sites, which led me to other sites, which scare me so that leads me to other sites, and somehow suddenly I'm on my sixth grade ex-boyfriend's facebook page reading all about his cousin's melasma and wondering why I didn't get melasma when I was pregnant. And also wondering how I ended up on Facebook since I don't even have a Facebook page.

Anyway, my point is - do not google stuff when you're worried about your baby.

DON'T DO IT.

Or you'll end up on the phone with your mom, sobbing for no reason, then will look down at your baby and see she's getting black splotches on her skin. Black splotches! That's it, you'll think, she's got a weird skin disease and we'll have to see specialists, and have treatments, and kids will make fun of her but that's ok because it will weed out the good kids from the bad kids and she'll make life long friends with real people who like her despite her black splotches. And then you realize you're sobbing. Right over her. And those black splotches? Those are mascara tears.

Oh the joys of motherhood!

At least I got mascara on that day.

So, I called the doctor the next morning and we brought her in to be looked at and lo and behold, she does not have the 7 million horrible things I thought she did - she just wasn't getting enough to eat.

Oh yeah, 'cause that's better. I'm not feeding her enough. She weighs 8 pounds now, only up a 1/2 pound from three weeks prior, and she should be up about a pound.

Cut to me crying in the doctor's office and he's like:

"It's ok, it's because she's sleeping so much. You might want to just try shortening her naps. No big deal."

And I'm all, " . . . **SOB**. . . "

And he's all, "You're very lucky she's such a good sleeper."

And I'm all, ". . . **SOB** . . " only even louder because I'm starving my baby.

And he's all, " . . . "

And I'm all, "I'll *SOB* try to get more *SOB* feedings in."

And he's all, "Yeah. . . you know it doesn't look good when the mom's walk out of here crying." And then he shot my boyfriend a look like - please can you make her stop. And the boyfriend shot him a look right back that said - are you kidding? Don't you think I'd be doing something about it the past ten months if I knew how?

And then I cried some more, and the Dr stayed with us for about 45 minutes, either because he's very caring and thorough, or because he really didn't want me walking out sobbing - either way it was very nice of him.

I'm not sure how her weight gain is going, we'll find out next week. But I am feeding her all the live long day. Every two hours to be exact. And this is what I get in return:



A sneaky little smile. Just between us.






And this, pure laughter.

You're welcome baby! Mama loves you so much. Raw boobs and all.