Untitled babble

Tuesday, July 08, 2008

Every day I have the urge to sit down and write stuff - I’ve got a whole lot of thoughts churning in this fat head of mine - but it’s vacation (OH MY GOD! I still can’t get over that), and we are either doing something or Jelly Man is using the computer, and so my thoughts are running around in that hamster wheel of mine. Whenever I do get a moment to sit down the thoughts seem to scramble away and I just sit here, staring at the screen, fingers tapping impatiently at the keys.

(For example, right now I pondered getting up to bring Jelly Man coffee in bed, but then had a change of heart because when will I get to sit down again uninterrupted? Exactly!)

First off, Carlita’s speech, or indeed lack thereof. I’m getting slightly impatient about this, but I know that for now there isn’t much to do but wait. We’re scheduling her 2nd birthday well baby visit around her birthday, and I’ll bring it up with the doctor then, if they don’t bring it up first. I don’t know what to expect from this just yet. I’m slightly nervous about her getting labeled, but I also realize that if there is something abnormal about her development in that area it’s most likely due to us as her parents, and not something that is “wrong” with her. And even if it were, that would not mean the end of the world.

And I understand how this came about, too. I felt awkward chatting to Carlita when she was smaller. It is still hard for me to let my mouth run while we go about our daily business, but from the interaction we have it’s clear that she understands a lot of what we say. She just isn’t very good at forming words. The ones she do say are badly butchered, bay for bird, bai for bear, shuz for shoes, buh for ball and so on. But since I moved from the land of Danes at 10 years old I haven’t really had a mother language. My danish sort of trailed off the longer I spent in the land of Swedes (and Swedish remains my favorite language still, but by now I really suck at that too), when I moved to Funland I started using English as my primary language. I feel like I have three handicapped languages to work with, and how on earth is that a good foundation for Carlita to learn how to speak on?

Second, we will be expanding. In fact, we have had unprotected sex and I might already be hosting a fertilized egg and OMG *spazz*. We’ll know in about a weeks time. A week or so ago I asked Carlita’s godmother if she might have a suggestion as to what astrological sign we should go with (could we be any more of a mish mesh family with an Aquarius, Scorpio and a Leo? How about a Virgo, so that no element is discriminated?) and I’m kinda hoping she’ll recommend an Aries. Except, we’ll see.. in a week or so!

Third, this brings up lots of questions regarding my body and whether I am healthy enough for another pregnancy. I feel pretty good about the fact that we waited those two years, and I feel more normal, body wise, than I did a year ago. It’s just too bad that this body is in much worse shape than the one I had two years ago. Regardless of me being pregnant or not I need to look after myself better. Junk food eating has been cut to a minimum, but I’m still a sucker for pop and that needs to change. I need to get my ass back on the exercise bike.

* * *

I went out in public without a hat on the other month. Shaving my head has been one of the most freeing experiences of my life, although freedom doesn’t feel quite as free when one feels the need to always wear a hat in public. So I went without. And, well, I got a lot of stares. But, you know, growing up with dark hair/eyes/skin in a place where there are lots of blond/blue eyed/pale people make you kind of immune to the stares. It didn’t bother me one bit, I might even have felt a little proud for plowing the way for teenage girls who secretly want to shave their head but never dared to - however many that might be. Now I’m planning to send all my unused Renbow and Manic Panic hair dye to my not-quite sister in the land of Danes - her mum is going to LOVE me…

23 Months Old

Monday, June 30, 2008

I feel like I’m having to struggle to recall anything remarkable about you, or us as a family lately - but I think it’s because it has all been remarkable, and all of it worth remembering. The purpose of all these letters to you have been to document your early life, from me being pregnant, to giving birth, to raising you. I wanted to document your transition from newborn to baby to toddler to child. Sitting here now, I feel like I have failed utterly because it was just yesterday that I was fretting about you taking forever to roll from your stomach to your back, or from your back to your stomach (you should know, your mother is not all that picky), and now I’m having the same internal dialogue, and slight worries, about your speech.

Somewhere along the way I went to sleep next to a baby and woke up next to a child, and it’s confusing. I don’t know how to feel about that. I miss my baby, and yet it’s all consuming and exciting to see the person you are becoming. But one thing I know for sure is; You make me a better person, merely by being in my life. Right now your dad is reading The very hungry caterpillar out loud to you, and if you’d known your dad as long as I have, you’d know as well as I do that that is proof you make him a better person, too.

One thing that is becoming more and more apparent is that you like rules. We are a pretty lax household, but I do set limits, and to my surprise you tend to follow our rules pretty well. For example, you can now open the front door if it is not locked - you have actually been able to do this for a couple of months now - but you don’t. You don’t just wander away on your own. Except if I help you get your shoes on, then all bets are off, cause shoes means we are going out, right?

You are also good with utensils. You have been able to feed yourself with a spoon since you were 1, and you seem to be very serious about the usage of forks and spoons with your meals. If I sat you down to eat soup with a fork or gave you a steak and a spoon, you’d probably look at it for a while and go ‘OK, so lets figure out how to do this..’ And since we are on the topic of food, I might as well tell you that you haven’t inherited your dad’s love of my cooking, and that anything out of a jar is better than any of my blood-sweat-and-tears three course dinners any day. Can you please explain this to me, little lady?

Also, your hair is getting longer. You still sport somewhat of a mullet, but ponytails and pigtails are now a possibility, and I take full advantage of that. You don’t seem to mind my combing your hair and pulling it this way and that, as long as you get to watch some tv at the same time.

And lastly, your sleeping habits are pretty awesome by now. You are down to one nap in the afternoon, but it’s short. You still need it, though, and I’d be slightly panicky if you decide to drop that too. Night time is what is really amazing, and it took around six months to get to this point, but we now have a routine where we all spend some time on the bed (or if your dad is working late, you and I do it alone) and shoot the breeze for a while. Read a few books (except not - you are too impatient to sit through a story - around page 3 you pull the book out of our hands and start leafing through it yourself) and then we shower you with kisses, tell you we love you just about a million times and then we leave you to fall asleep on your own. For months I’d have to go fetch you from the guinea pig’s room and put you back in bed many times each night, but now you stay put. You even put the lights out yourself when you are ready to sleep, which, wow…

Carlita, there are hardly words for what I want to say to you. How do I describe what I feel when you put my face between your hands and pull me close to your face so I can give you a kiss? How do I explain what it’s like to feel your little arms being shoved in under my body in the middle of the night when you want a little closeness? Love is just a little four letter word, but you, you are so much more to us than that. You are our love personified and there are no words in this world that could do you justice.

It is official

Sunday, June 29, 2008

I have had my Paypal account since 2004, and yesterday they notified me that my account is under review because I have, to date, received 1000€, and they want to make sure I’m not laundering money. Wow. 1000€ in four years make 250€ a year! I am so totally cashing in! If only someone would have bothered to let me know I’m rolling in dough, because somehow it has escaped me. (Except not really - I might not be the most sanitary of people, I know that, but I can’t stand the smell of money. That dank smell of people’s past greasy meals and toilet visits give me the shivers in the worst possible way ever. If I’d been rolling in money, I would know just from the smell.)

Also, they are not TAKING my possibly laundered money, at least there is that. I can even withdraw funds while my review is underway. I guess that means I can put a roll on that 80€ I have in there and spend it all before they realize they are dealing with a columbian drug lord and take away my fortune.

Jelly Man’s vacation doesn’t actually start until tomorrow, but he skipped Friday and so we’ve been dilly dallying around for the past weekend. Yesterday was kind of boring, so we were channel surfing like gnats on a sugar high. Sometimes Funland has a gem up its sleeve, and sometimes it even takes it out and twirls it between its fingers for all of us to see and hem and haw at. Yesterday we came across an accordion competition while manically switching between channels.

My grandpa was an accordion player. It’s just about the only thing I remember about him. The accordion and his black beard. And that one time where he pressed my cheeks while my mouth was full of juice, and so successfully turning me into a juice fountain.

We watched some accordion competition there for a while. Did you know that a great big chunk of today’s accordion players are hunky early-twenty-somethings? With glorious tanned complexions, except for that Russian guy who looked slightly vitamin deficient and that other dude who looked like Bono, and you could totally imagining them picking up a sax and tearing it up - except they did! With an accordion! Tore the place right up, they did!

And you could tell, you could no more take two musicians and make them switch accordions any more than you could tell them to detach their legs and switch with each other. Each accordion was its own masterpiece, big, small, glittery, classy and just slightly over the top, an extension of its owner. And in typical musician fashion they all looked constipated and twitchy while they were jamming it up. So, there you had a handful and a half of, mostly, hunky young men doing their thing with an accordion strapped to their front. Accordions approximately the size of a really healthy infant..

Oh.. Right!

NOW I GET IT!

So, yes, I have the dreaded baby fever.

Will approve of sibling for X amount of ice cream.

I want to be richer

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

We are so totally set!

Things have been looking a little bleak lately - funny since my energy levels have been way up, and I’ve been pushing Carlita out of the way to do the vacuuming. Practically unheard of! - and for a while there we thought that we were going to have to skip summer this year, as if Santa forgot to bring us summer vacation, you know, if Christmas was in the summer, like down under (those freaks!)

But it appears we’re catching a much needed break. I can hold on to my road trip fantasies, which include a car stereo we don’t yet own, and a toddler who just loves to drive for hours on end - which I’m sure is why it’s called a fantasy. I am also fantasizing about the route I would pick out for us, were I to actually bother to do anything of the sort, but we all know I’m not, and so it will surprise me greatly if we actually make it out the driveway for a trip further than to the mall. The route would the scenic, with lots of opportunity for photo-taking.

There has also been much talk about “dumpsters” being “hired” to take away all the overflow of junk that is threatening to burst this house at the seams. As a sort of side note to that fantasy is the one where we also clear parts of the old chicken house to make room for a future studio for me. But then I AM big on dreaming.

And then, then there is the one fantasy where I make sweet love to my husband. The one where I feel the force of life growing, once more, inside my belly, until I burst in agony and joy.

We don’t know if, we don’t know when, but it is the guessing that keeps me going.