1. I have given away both copies of the book I promised to the Tomato Nation Comment Army. Thanks for the interest and good luck to all! Once the NCDS is over, we’ll get started in earnest, yes?
2. I have been trying to ignore it, but apparently I need to re-organize my cupboards a little better. This morning, a bottle of Frank’s Red Hot Sauce fell out of the cabinet and splashed me in the face. Not an awesome way to start the day.
3. I made a big batch of waffles this morning. Ever since I discovered Jillian’s intense and burning love for all things leavened, I have been making waffles about every 5 days. I figure I have saved approximately $527.32 just this year alone by making them from scratch (ridiculously easy) instead of buying Eggo. The child can put away two of them each morning, no problem. She’s a machine.
4. While Freddie and I both have our own iPods, we share the iTunes. Therefore, EVERYTHING that is on the iTunes ends up on my iPod (18GB) because there is no way in hell I’m manually managing 5,000 songs. During the day, I like to put it on shuffle and let it go but today I found I may have to re-think that. Collective Soul came on. I mean, Collective Soul? On MY iPod? Ew. I do believe this is grounds for divorce.
5. I have a fairly eclectic musical palate. I’ll listen to most things, but there are a few things that make me want to stick rusty scissors in my ears. The Eagles come to mind. Collective Soul is another one – they were EVERYWHERE in the mid-to-late 90’s and I’m sick of them (still) on top of the fact that THEY SUCK. Freddie already had that CD in his music collection when we got together because I for sure didn’t authorize that purchase. Thank God he dislikes country as much as I do or I really would have to call my lawyer. If I had a lawyer, that is.
6. I… like the smell of Murphy’s Oil Soap. I didn’t used to – when we moved out of our last apartment and into our first house, I scrubbed the shit out of the hardwood floors in the apartment using the MOS. And for some reason, the smell of it was unpleasant to me, but in hindsight that might have had more to do with the fact that the whole apartment was kind of stanky when we got there. It smelled like the dumpster behind a Chinese restaurant – like old sesame oil. Hrm. Perhaps that’s why sesame oil still makes me heave a bit when I cook with it. Interesting. Anyway, I finally got fed up with the grody milk driblets all over my TV stand and coffee table (thanks, toddler!) so I busted out the Murphy’s and went to town. Much better.
7. Technology, which is sometimes the bane of my existence, is actually doing nice things for me these days. Via Facebook and MySpace, people are falling back into my life after long absences and I couldn’t be happier. As I reconnect with these people, I feel like the pieces of me that are connected with them are joining back up with the whole of me. It’s a nice feeling, even if talking about it makes me seem a little less than sane.
8. My little brother is coming to be our houseguest for a few weeks. This means I have had to shovel out the 3rd bedroom and make it habitable for him. I also needed to buy curtains, since the previous owners left little valances across each window which is fine when nobody is living in there, but now that there’s a tenant, he might want some privacy. So I went to Target this morning and picked up some curtains. For ONE window, despite the fact that there are two perfectly useful windows in that room, both of which need curtains. Because I am… how you say… RETARDED. Therefore, once The Jillian wakes up from her nap (blessed, blessed naptime, how I love you so), we are headed out to Target AGAIN. Because I’m a dumbass.
9. I wonder what kind of proof-of-address the library needs in order to issue me a card. We moved here last October and I only just recently got around to getting on the DMV website to change my address on my license. You can do it online and they send you a sticker to put on your license and thus saves you the immense hassle and ass-pain of actually GOING to the DMV. Yay, right? WRONG! While I might sit in the DMV with a speed-freak toddler for a few hours, at least I would HAVE MY STICKER. Because I did it online? Three to four weeks. Yes, WEEKS. For fuck’s sake.
10. But I need to go to the library. Small and dismal our town library may be, at least it has books. And I have read all of my books. ALL OF THEM. Even the shitty ones that I got for free at some of my various and sundry book-related jobby jobs. Most of the books I have read twice. Or three times. Or, in a few cases (Gone With The Wind), upwards of 150 times. I need some new books. That I do not have to pay for.
11. No, that’s not a typo. I have read Gone With The Wind more than 150 times. I got a paperback copy of it for Christmas (or my birthday, I forget which) waaaaaaay back in 1983. I was eight, and [duh] reading at a much more advanced level than most people are at that age. Books written for my age group: a) bored me to death; b) had stupid, condescending plotlines; and c) took me roughly 15 minutes to read. Since I wasn’t athletic (that’s putting it extremely diplomatically), I read. A lot. So the parents, pissed off at having to drag my nerdy ass to the library every two days, bought me Gone With The Wind in hopes that it would shut me up for a good long time. It took two weeks for me to read it that first time, and once I got to the end I promptly started it again. It’s my favorite book.
12. I don’t hate the movie, exactly, but it has so little to do with the book that it bums me out to watch it, even though I think I could rock a hoop skirt.
13. In knitting news, I am about done with my Big Ugly Sweater. I ran into a bit of a problem in that the sleeves are a bit longer than the body pieces will allow so I sort of have to do a little bit of hillbilly engineering to get them to look presentable. This problem will be fixed next time because I will knit the sleeves first and then make the body pieces fit. If there is a next one. I initially knit this in the ugly color scheme as a test run before I knit one for Freddie. The ugly color scheme doesn’t bother me at all but it will blind most people (wait for the photos).
…and there you have it – today’s brain mush!
Category Archives: Jillian
Fun-ish things (I like lists)
Everyone’s favorite: A list of random crap!
1. If you’re getting here via Tomato Nation comments, I apologize for making you read this drivel. I have one more book to offer – just drop me a comment and we’ll hash it out.
2. Nice job, USA track & field relay teams. Dropping the baton is a great way to go.
3. Ms. Prufrock called me cool (or awesome or something else nice, I forget what it was exactly) the other day so now I feel obligated to post and post brilliantly more often. This one’s for you, Pru!
4. I have approximately four Very Important Projects to work on, so naturally I’ve been spending far too much time on Facebook. I can’t help myself – between the stalking opportunities and Pieces of Flair, it’s a perfect place for someone like myself who… ooh, shiny!
5. The Jillian is starting to speak English with a lot more fluency these days. I can’t keep up with her sometimes. Girlfriend can even count to ten! I don’t know if she knows what it means, exactly, but it sounds good.
6. She’s ‘reading’ Snow White right now. I’m a little bit grossed out by Snow White and her desire to be saved by a handsome prince and all of that. So when I read it to her, I can’t help but interject my own commentary which is usually along the lines of “… because Snow White is a NINNY.” Snow White needs to get herself a clue and take care of her ownself. And for fuck’s sake – who doesn’t learn the rule about taking candy (or apples) from strangers? Does she have no Stranger Danger instinct at all? I think Snow White is a bit touched in the head, to be quite honest.
7. If it’s not obvious, can I just tell you all how much I am dreading Jillian’s absorption into the Disney Machine? I don’t mind the old-skool Mickey Mouse stuff so much, but the Disney Princesses make me want to hurt myself. But I will gladly put up with any amount of Princess crap as long as it keeps those Bratz dolls out of my house. Those things are truly scary.
8. So, I’m a little bit ashamed to admit this but I just read “The Notebook” by Nicholas Sparks. It suuuuuuuuuuuuucked. The movie was about 12 times better, and I don’t think I have ever said that about any movie made from a book. Mr. Sparks cannot write for shit, yet he is a bestselling author. Just goes to show that we live in a culture that doesn’t give a fuck about what it’s consuming (see also Cheez Doodles, McDonald’s, MTV). My mom’s dog can write better dialogue than Sparks can.
9. I probably had a real reason to post today but I’ll be damned if I can remember what it was.
10. Because ten is a nice place to end this.
Filed under Books, Jillian, Me Me Me, Movies, Other People, Stuff, Teh Internets
Lies!! All lies!
I take back all the nice things I said about my baby this morning. ALL OF THEM. See, the sleeping thing? While I wouldn’t trade it for the world and a cookie, the napping issue needs some work.
We trekked out to the farmer’s market today around 10:30. It doesn’t open until 11, and I knew I’d be cutting lunch/naptime pretty close but it was a risk I was willing to take for ultra-local cheese and the 50-gallon drum of half-sour pickles I bought (what was I supposed to do? The pickle guy was HOT.).
As I had feared, The Jillian fell asleep not 10 minutes from home. I tried reaching back around to poke her in the leg or pinch her kneecaps, but once she’s out, she’s OUT. This is generally a good thing.
I pulled into the driveway and turned the car off which woke her up, all “Whuh hunh?” Lunch was had, sorta, and then she was still sort of cranky/whiny, so I threw her in the crib and hoped for the best.
That was at 12:30, which is the time I normally put her down for her nap.
It’s now 3:30, which is the time I normally retrieve her from her crib after her nap.
She just fell asleep. And now she’ll probably sleep until 5PM, like she did one day last week and then she’ll be up until 9 or some ungodly hour like that which means Mama doesn’t get a damn break at all today MY GOD KILL ME.
Eh, it’s okay – she is hilariously cute. She spent the bulk of the afternoon talking to her stuffed animals and singing the ABC song over and over. She has never once tried to climb out of her crib (though now I’ve written that, she will start), and actually loves being in there quite a bit.
OH FANTASTIC. Now that she’s going to be awake and ready to go outside to “ride on sweet wheels” there is thunder. EXCELLENT. [eyeroll] ‘S okay. We’ll “draw wif crans?”
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Completely in character
So I’m a bit late with the Birthday Post. Jillian turned 2 yesterday, and promptly decided it was time to unleash the Terrible Twos on her poor Mama.
The happy, outgoing child I’ve been living with for the past two years has been replaced by a clingy, whiny mess of a thing. I’m pretty sure it’s PMS.
We’ll get through it. I’m hoping to blame all of the recent craziness on her two bottom canine teeth (those are the pointy ones, right? I grind my teeth so they’re all the same) coupled with the fact that the weather has been crazy-hot and insane-humid for oh, the past month or so. We can’t spend a lot of time outside since I am a malignant mole factory and Jillian’s skin is so pale, it’s nearly translucent. We’re both a bit stir-crazy, I think.
But she’s two years old now. At times, it feels like the blink of an eye. Other times, it feels like this has always been my life and I have trouble remembering just what I did in my spare time before I had a mentally-unbalanced toddler to chase around.
All good things. That child keeps me on my toes, mellows me out, and makes me laugh every single day. Upon waking, she says “Hi! Hewwo! Hiya!” And she is so cute, with her hair all rumpled and the imprint of her blanket on her face. The other day I said something was a piece of crap, and hours later in the car she started to giggle and say “piece of crap!” while we were in the car.
She has also said “shit” in context, so we’ve got proof she’s smart.
The past couple of months have shown a marked upswing in her verbal skills. Instead of one-word labelling sessions, she’s now starting to put together phrases and figure things out. And of course, we’re teaching her important things, like how to say “cheers!” and raise her glass. We got her a tricycle for her birthday and she refers to it as her “sweet wheels.” So the important things are covered. Freddie taught her how to make a rock-n-roll face when she carries her guitar around. It’s the funniest damn thing I have ever seen, and once I get a decent photo of it, I’ll share it with you.
I don’t really know how to construct a narrative that will adequately express how awesome my child is. I write hundreds, if not thousands of words every day about utterly trivial crap, so perhaps I’m out of practice when it comes to writing about the really important things.
From her inexplicably curly reddish hair to her chubby little toes, I am astounded that something so amazing was created by me. And What’s-His-Name.
Math are fun!
365 days + 365 days + 1 leap day = 731. On 7/31. Jillian has been around for 731 days! WEIRD!
That math is correct, right? My day is sort of upside-down today and I haven’t had coffee so the brain, she is not working so well.
A real birthday post later. If the universe allows.
Time, she flies
Exactly two years ago today, I waddled to the OB/GYN for my 38-week appointment. It was July (obviously), and the temperature was quickly ramping up to the 100-degree mark at which it would stay for quite a few days in a row.
I was feeling pretty good, if humungous, as I peed in the cup. I couldn’t exactly see what was going on down there, but my aim is good. I got on the scale and didn’t even wince when the numbers got really close to 250. Didn’t bother me! I was cooking a baby in there!
Got into the examination room and laid back on the table. Laying down was the only way I could get any relief those days, since there was what I thought was a giant baby knee tucked up under my rib cage. The doctor came in and took my blood pressure (fine), checked what my weight was (also fine, but then again, who is going to tell a woman who is 16 months pregnant in sticky July that she’s gaining too much weight?), and then she busted out the measuring tape to see where we were at.
“What’s this?” she asked, feeling The Lump.
“I think that’s a knee.” I had been seeing other small lumps rolling around in the vicinity that could have been feet, so…
The doctor looked a bit concerned. “Hm. When was your last ultrasound?”
“20 weeks.”
“I think that’s the baby’s head.”
“No, no it can’t be. That’s it’s knee!”
“Let’s go find out.”
So my giant, half-naked ass toddled across the hall to the ultrasound room and we looked. Sure enough, that was A Giant Baby Head lodged under my ribcage. Better still, it appeared that the umbilical cord was wrapped between the baby’s legs. As an added extra bonus, the placenta was anterior (on top)! This baby was pretty much in the exact opposite position of what it should have been for a normal, vaginal birth.
“Um, so what are we looking at?”
The doctor pointed out all of these things, and explained that even though she personally specialized in breech births, the position of the umibilical cord and the placenta were fairly precarious. Oh, and the amniotic fluid was getting sort of low, which meant that there wasn’t much room for Speck (that’s what we called it, since we didn’t know what flavor we were getting) to move around and that labor could start at any time.
“I don’t want to scare you, but if you attempt to have this baby vaginally, there’s a good chance that one or both of you will not make it unless you have a c-section. So, rather than start labor and put your body through the wringer and still end up with surgery, I am recommending that you simply schedule your c-section now. It’s the healthiest thing for both of you. However, there are a few things you can try to see if the baby will flip. It’s late in the game, and there’s not much room to move around in there, but you can give it a shot.” Then she listed a couple of things I could try, from drinking a very cold, very caffeinated beverage to propping my feet up on the back of the couch whilst laying on the floor. Face down.
Shock. Disappointment. More shock. My body was built to do this, and now I find out I probably shouldn’t? Shock!
“I… need to discuss this with my husband.”
“Of course, but I’m going to have our surgical nurse schedule you anyway. She will call you and let you know the date and time. However, if you start laboring between now and then, you absolutely must call me because you will need to be extremely closely monitored.”
“Um. Okay.” Shock.
I got dressed and left the doctor’s office. In the car, I called Freddie and explained things to him. He was understandably confused and upset, and since his natural tendency is to want to fix things, he started rattling off a list of things I should do. “Call this person, call that person, try this do this bzzzzzz……”
“Um. Okay.” Shock.
My first call was to Freddie’s boss’s wife. She is a Bradley Method instructor, and might have some ideas. After listening to a short diatribe on the stupidity of the medical establishment in New Jersey, she suggested I go to see her chiropractor, who has been known to ‘turn’ babies. So I called and made an appointment for the following day.
My next call was to Freddie’s sister-in-law, who had been an OB nurse in her former life and who might have some suggestions as well. She never ever called me back, but that’s because that was right around the time they all discovered my old blog and The Situation was starting to brew. I wouldn’t find out about any of it until nine months later, but that’s old news. So I got my huge cold icy caffeniated beverage, headed home, and put my feet up.
I called the instructor for the natural childbirth class we were taking and explained that Freddie and I would no longer be attending class since we were apparently not going to have anything that resembled a natural birth at all. She understood completely and wished us luck.
About an hour after I got home, the phone rang. It was the surgical nurse, who said “Your c-section is scheduled for next Monday at 9AM. You’ll need to go in to the hospital the day before for pre-admission testing et cetera. Try to get as much rest and sleep as you can between now and then, okay?”
“Um. Okay.”
I spent the next week figuring things out. My last day of working would have been July 28th anyway, since I wasn’t due until the middle of August and I thought I would have a good two weeks to just relax and get things ready for the baby. That turned into TWO DAYS. My last day ended up being the 27th. We had the crib delivered on the 28th, at which time we also went to Babies R Us and bought a whole bunch of stuff off of our registry. Since we hadn’t had a baby shower (…don’t ask), we had exactly ZERO baby things in the house.
I don’t remember much about that week, now that I am thinking back on it. I remember July 24th VERY well, and I vaguely remember my last day of work, but the rest of it? Not so much. I chewed up about six tons of ice chips, played a whole lot of Playstation Golf, and that’s about it.
I was pretty sad and upset that I wasn’t going to be able to have the Natural Hippie Earth Mama No Drugs Rock Star Birth that I’d planned, but if I have learned anything at all in my life, it’s NOT TO MAKE PLANS. I had to roll with it, so I did. Rolling was about the only way I could get around, since the baby was positioned in such a way that she never dropped and I was carrying her high and dry the whole time.
So… yeah. July 24th, 2006 was kind of a rough day.
Filed under Jillian
Here’s some random crap!
It’s not that I don’t love you, my four blog readers… it’s that, well, things are a bit of a tornado lately and there just hasn’t been time to sit down and write about how awesome I am.
So here’s some random junk.
1. WTF is up with my right foot? The sole of it is all hard and leathery and has cracked in places, which is uncomfortable at best and fucking painful the rest of the time. Getting a pedicure is out of the question at the present time, since I’m sure they want someone with oozing sores getting germs all around the place. I suppose I could maybe quit wandering around the backyard in bare feet and put some damn shoes on, but I probably won’t.
2. I managed to catch a cold. In July. At first I thought it was allergies, but after the initial early-spring pollen showers, I haven’t had any problems. Until this week, which brought on the sneezing and the sneezing and the sneezing. I think it’s going away now, but I still have that sunken-eyed feeling. Sexy.
3. My garden is quite a sight. The front garden was strewn with wildflower seeds in hopes that SOMETHING would grow there until I can actually sit and look at it and decide on a more permanent way of going on. It’s very pretty, with lots of blue and orange flowers that Jillian enjoys chewing on. Hope they’re not poisonous! I also have a few sunflowers that are still alive, which is a miracle to me since I have never been successful with those.
4. The back garden is… a tomato jungle. I planted sixteen pods with tomato seeds, thinking I was going to do it right and thin them before sticking them in the actual ground. I overestimated myself and ended up just putting the whole pod in. So now I have a veritable rainforest of tomato plants, which are being held up by a combination of cages and yarn. I need to stake them, like yesterday, but haven’t yet been able to carve out the time. I am hoping beyond hope that the hornworms don’t find us. Those things creep me out SO MUCH (more than soggy Cheerios, if you can imagine anything more horrifying than that) and if I see one, I’m busting out the Agent Orange.
5. The cantaloupe and the zucchini didn’t make it, sadly. It seems that buying plants from Home Depot is a bad idea – I have never done well with them, because they’re always diseased or something. The peppers I bought seem to be doing okay, and the eggplant… might live… but the others I bought DIED. DIED DIED DIED! Fuck off, Home Depot. Next year we’ll be more organized (ha ha!) and start zucchini and other fun things from seed.
6. I am trying to get Freddie to let me bust up the front lawn and put raised beds in there, but there is something encoded in his suburban DNA that makes him shrink with horror whenever I talk about NOT HAVING A LAWN. As it is, I refuse to water it no matter how brown and grody it gets because using fresh water on something that is ornamental and ultimately USELESS is so wasteful, it makes me want to barf. So… brown lawn. I did convince him to use a more or less ignored strip on the side of the house for next year’s veggie garden. We’re going to build the beds in the fall and hope that when spring comes, we’ll be able to grow stuff there.
7. My knitting projects are coming along nicely. I have finished the front of the Big Ugly Sweater and have started work on one sleeve. I might get it done by the time winter rolls around, but let’s not hold our breath. It’s my Aries nature – I love to start things, but the finishing… not so much.
8. Sewing is happening as well. Sort of. I am far too impatient to actually follow directions, so my projects tend to stall until I have some kind of brainwave that gets me through to the next section. Again – love to start things. I adore picking out fabric, but when it comes time to actually do something with it, I’m already bored and onto the next thing.
9. Tomorrow I’m heading up to Massachusetts to party with some of my Imaginary Internet Friends. I need some time away, badly. The last month or so of life here at The Butterfly Ranch has been extremely difficult, but I haven’t really been able to talk about it. It sucks, but that’s the way we roll here. I am thankful that I have my IIFs to vent to, or else this last month would have found me curled up under the dining room table, scratching at imaginary bugs.
10. Sunday Freddie and I are going to see the Mets! We weren’t counting on being able to get tickets at all this year, since it’s the last season at Shea Stadium, but thanks to his connections at work, we are using someone’s season tickets for this game. WHEEEE! Or, as Jillian would say “Yay Mets! Baseball!”
11. The Jillian is, as always, a constant source of amazement and delight. She is talking talking talking all the time, and putting words and sentences together left and right. Her latest obsession is airplanes, so every time we’re outside, we look up in the sky for airplanes. She is also a big fan of flowers, and after breakfast every day, she stands at the baby gate to the kitchen and says “Mama. Shoes. Outside, new flowers!” She also likes to learn new words and will happily repeat them all day long. Yesterday’s word was “greenies,” since she wiped some boogers on me and I said “Ew! Greenies!” So yesterday was all about “Mama, greenies in my nose!” And then she would cackle.
12. I fear the child has been cursed with my hair issues. I have cowlicks all over my head, which means the hair does not lie flat, ever. Jillian seems to have the same thing – her hair grows in about fifteen different directions and cannot be tamed. I am going to break down and get some barrettes to attempt to keep it out of her eyes, but I am not confident that this will help. Freddie is all for cutting her hair, but I refuse to allow him to do that! People just stopped telling me what a cute little boy I have, I’m not about to butch her up again!
13. I need to figure out what to do with this ridiculously large head of bok choy that I got yesterday. We joined a CSA, which, yay! But you get what you get, and a 2-pound (possibly heavier) head of bok choy was in the basket yesterday and… I’m at a loss. I know it’s related to celery and that I can use it in stir-fry and possibly also a soupy-thing (there’s a Naked Chef recipe that I have made before that was excellent), but other than that… I’m stumped. I tried last week’s [much smaller] bok choy in a tomato sauce over pasta, but I wasn’t thrilled with that combo.
14. I like the CSA. So far. We paid $350 for a 1/2 share, which looks like it’s going to be plenty. The farm is organic, and our farmer sends out a newsletter every week with little tidbits about what he’s doing and how he’s doing it organically. It’s very interesting. If I had the $$, I would love to buy a bigger plot of land out in the boonies somewhere and grow more food. I’m going to try, year by year, to take over more of the backyard.
15. And there you have it. Maybe, if you’re really lucky and you wish really hard, I’ll quit being lazy and post some pictures. Jillian’s 2nd birthday is coming up (I know – I can’t believe it either), so maybe I’ll post a bunch of her.
Inside jokes
Jillian seems to be starting what I hope will be a life-long love of words and phrases. She will hear something or say something and for whatever reason, it strikes her funny and she will repeat it all day long, followed each time by manaical laughter.
Any one of the following (or a combination thereof) can set off the insane giggling: cat food!
mulchy! tomato goobers! gnarly toes! beep beep! pruney toes! strawberries!
It’s hilarious, and quite encouraging since her speech has been pretty mushy up until just this past month or so. Now she’s starting to enunciate a bit more and put phrases together.
It’s getting a lot more fun, that’s for sure.
Gifts
My daughter is not what you would call affectionate. She doesn’t hug, and certainly isn’t a kissy person.
We’ve been working on her a little bit, with a small amount of success. If we say “Jillian, kiss the bear!” She’ll smooch him, complete with an “ummmmwah!” sound. It’s the cutest. Once she figured it out, she started smooching everything – stuffed animals, books, her shoes, whatever is at hand.
But she won’t kiss either of us. I can understand her not wanting to kiss Freddie – by the end of the day his face is all scratchy and who wants to smooch that? But me? She won’t smooch ME?
I’m okay with this. If she’s not a big fan of PDA, then she’s not. However, it would be nice, every once in a while, to get a hug or a kiss that isn’t also accompanied by a trachea punch, you know?
On Mother’s Day, Freddie woke up with Jillian and got her dressed for the day. She boogied into our room to wake me up, all “HEWWWO!” Freddie hoisted her up onto the bed and she crawled up to me and… gave me a smooch.
Completely unsolicited!
It was the best Mother’s Day gift anyone ever got, and is the major reason why I allow her to eat her weight in Teddy Grahams every day.
The laziest blog post ever
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