Down, down, down it goes

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

This makes me very sad to look at, but at least I have a ton of crap to prove I was there, before it all went down.

Just to celebrate the shitty economy I insisted that Jelly Man buy me a proper winter jacket. Last year I bought a nice wind/cold resistant thing, only I’m so fat that I had to buy it in a man’s size, one size bigger than the one Jelly Man bought for himself. I am not tall, I am just fat, so you can imagine where my arms went. All in all it was a horrible experience. This year I wanted a real jacket and so Jelly Man drove us to the store and stuck some cash in my fist and told me to go nuts.

I know the economy is crap and that maybe saving is a good idea, like, ya think? But I was determined to buy something I can actually wear without feeling like I shrunk several sizes while still not being able to zip that fucker up in a comfortable manner. I nearly passed my absolute dream jacket because it didn’t quite amaze me on the rack, but you guys, I LOVE MY NEW JACKET! And it cost me a fortune! And I only feel marginally bad about that, because DUDE I CAN ZIP IT UP, I CAN ZIP IT UP GOOD!

It’s both a blessing and a curse that we don’t have a proper full length mirror in the house, I spend enough time doing unproductive shit as it is and standing in front of a mirror taking pictures of myself would be a little rich even for me. Just trust me when I say that the jacket and this cute little sweater I found to go with it were made for me, and so I bought them to the tune of more than I ever wanted to spend on a winter jacket. And now I feel guilty, so I think I better go scrub something…

Oh, and I cut Carlita’s hair. If you squint just right you can almost not tell at all. Now she no longer dons layers, which were remnants from her mullet period. Now it’s pretty even all around and slightly longer than to her shoulders, except her bangs which are right in her eyes because I don’t want to trim them again. Oh, my little bebeh.. I have already put a lock in one of her picture frames.

Am waiting for first week of November with great anticipation. Are we, or are we not?

No wax to blame

Monday, September 29, 2008

It’s hard to know what is “normal” when you have your first child. It’s especially hard for us because we don’t meet other families and experience their “normal” and so we have nothing to compare with - not that I want to compare Carlita to any other child by any means, but it’s hard to get a good picture of how she is doing developmentally when we have nothing but gut instinct to go on.

I’ve been worried about her reluctance to speak. If it is indeed reluctance, and not something that is hindering her. I’ve been wondering if maybe she inherited her father’s dry earwax and maybe can’t hear us too well and that is why the words she try to say are so shortened and, well, kind of distorted. But her 2 year well baby checkup that Jelly Man took her to didn’t show any problems, with wax or hearing, and so it is perhaps just reluctance to speak that is keeping her back.

Carlita will ask for juice, water, or a pie. She’ll ask about the kitty (she calls all three of them “kitten” because the youngest, which is now at least 3 or 4 years old and named Olivia, is still called Kitten by us and so by association they are all “Kittens”). She has taken to say “Bye!“ while waving, she will exclaim “Papa!“ when grandpa comes home and she will ask for “daddy”. She still does not ask for me, she has yet to say Mama, and yes, it hurts a little - but I console myself with the fact that we are in each others faces all day long and she never gets a chance to miss me - but still, it does hurt a little.

Now that we know that her speech is still in the normal range for a bi-lingual household I’m worried that I’ve been wishing for her to speak for so long now, that I’ve been focusing on it so much that I’ve been missing out on how awesome a person she is in spite of her non-verbal-ness. The longing I have for having an actual conversation with her that involves me asking her questions and her telling me what is on her little mind, or all the “WHY?“ questions she must have but is unable to articulate, has taken the place of what actually IS. A clever and funny little girl that is growing and thriving, following her own schedule.

And I worry, still, that she will never, EVER understand just how much I love her.

This is a hairy situation

Thursday, September 04, 2008

We saw this guy the other day and today we had to rescue it from being roadkill. OK, so I doubt this is the same caterpillar, but they were definitely of the same species. This one is fatter though, so unless it gained a lot of weight in a night it probably isn’t the same caterpillar, but whatever. It’s cute!

If it is some kind of sign of things to come then I’m totally stumped. I mean, the metaphor is right there, staring you in the eye, but it just doesn’t sit right with me. Not any of it. So right now it’s just a caterpillar, maybe even the one from yesterday.

* * *

I realized today while stacking in the frozen pizzas (oh. my. god! I’m trying to steer away from candy, so now I’m eating frozen pizzas. Not necessarily an improvement.) that we need to make room for more stuff, so maybe it would be time to make away with the placenta.

Yes.

The placenta.

It’s been in there for two years, and yes, that is at least 1½ years too many, believe me I KNOW. Some tree is going to get the pleasure of trying to grow on top of a really old placenta and wonder what it did to deserve that.

* * *

Carlita is just now frustratingly and painstakingly learning to put the right shapes through the right holes in her toy bucket. She never showed any interest in the toy before now, and now she can get really vocal when it doesn’t fit where she wants it to fit. If I help her too much or too little they know about it down the bend.

And defiant, oh my! She is currently eating a slice of toast as is, in favor of my spreadable cheese concoction, because the dry bread slice is from the lot of bread slices that she emptied on the floor from their bread bag, and I might have been a little stern when I told her how we don’t do that sort of thing, so now the slice that she snatched up will be her cross to bear because mommy was being mean and now I will suffer because she suffers, spreadable cheese be damned!

She and her father are alike in many, many ways.

Burnt out of my fingertips

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

I’m having severe blog-fatigue. That, and I don’t have a whole lot of time by the computer these days. Jelly Man will take control of the computer immediately upon his return to the nest in the afternoon, and since we cleaned the house from top to godbedamned bottom, I’ve had to put in time every single day to keep it presentable. It’s not even super clean, but it looks so much better (and feels twice as good), but argh, enough of all the dirty dishes and all that damned laundry that demands to be loaded/unloaded/stacked taking up precious time of my and Carlita’s lives that we’ll never get back.

But, I guess this is what being a “housewife” is all about, eh? And, well, I actually feel grownup these days. Imagine that!

* * *

I’m giving up candy for a year or so. Attempting, anyway. We are officially TTC these days, not just considering it. I’ve been pondering it since a good six months back, and thought I was absolutely sure we wanted to/could handle two kidlings, but now that the plan is laid and we’re actually giving it a shot I feel absolutely terrified. Can I possibly love another as I love her? (the blogosphere gives a unanimous YES to that question), and the thought of unintentionally loving one more than the other is just plain scary. Both Jelly Man and I are singletons in practice, so we just don’t know anything about sibling love and/or rivalry.

* * *

Carlita is being such a fuss about her naps. They have dwindled to next to nothing, and some nights she can will herself to be awake until 10pm, babbling to herself in bed. It drives me nuts and up the walls, it took me a while to figure out what was so infuriating about her inability to embrace sleep (something I am a champ at), but Jelly Man solved that one by pointing out how she is just like him about sleep. In other words, sleep is for the weak!

* * *

And lo and behold! The Jelly Man arrives. And so I must log off. There is more, but never enough time!