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The most intimidating creatures on earth…babies

November 19th, 2008

Tonight my group of tennis ladies had an end of season/early Christmas white elephant party since one of our out of town teammates is in town for a couple days.  It’s always so nice to get together with all the ladies.  The wine and margaritas were flowing freely and so was the chatter. When you took a look around the room you saw multiple conversations going on about who knows how many different subjects.  But the amazing thing was there wasn’t one person left in the corner by themselves.  Everyone had someone to talk to and everyone has the same room full of friends so no one was lost in the conversation.  I had to bring my daughter tonight because dear hubby was playing in our club tennis tournament.  She spent the evening being passed around from one lovely lady lap to another and was just the cutest social butterfly ever.  There isn’t a mama out there that is more proud than I am tonight.

As I made my way around the room chatting about everything under the sun I started talking to one of the ladies about having kids.  She’s about my age, married and is starting to consider going down the preggo route.  While I talked to her I saw a lot of my former self in her eyes.  Her doubts and fears were my own not so long ago.  Until I met my dear hubby I had pretty well decided that kids might not be in the cards for me.  I was one of these women who was completely intimidated by these little creatures.  I know, I know, all the women out there that were born to be moms and already had it programed in their DNA to be nurturers are all wondering how in the hell I could be afraid of such a cute little baby.  It’s easy.  They bite, they puke, they poop and pee and do any number of other disgusting things a person in their right mind wouldn’t purposely want to be involved with.  EWEWWWW!!  They cry.  REALLY LOUD!  They don’t let you  have personal conversations if they are in the room. They make your body look like you swallowed a watermelon while you’re pregnant and then like a deflated, flappy, good year blimp after they arrive.  Forget long showers, forget makeup, and simply forget remembering to brush your teeth everyday.  Sleep doesn’t exist.  Your deodorant will be your best friend but forget the perfume.  All it does is make your baby sneeze and get snotty, and it doesn’t cover up the smell of baby puke anyways.  Forget clothes without stains and eating a meal without it getting cold.  I could keep going but since this is a mommy blog and since most of my readers are moms I don’t have to. You know where I’m at right now.  I know all these things aren’t that bad but knowing that all these things come in one very small, very breakable package is SCARY!

These were all the things I had heard about before I ever decided to have a child and my thoughts were NO THANKS!   I’d rather eat toe jam.  Then I met my husband.  The man of my dreams.  He’s so adorable it’s hard not to think of what he looked like when he was baby.  And then I started noticing how great he was with all his nieces.  They LOVE  their uncle.  He makes them laugh and always has something cool for the to play with outside.  You know, because he still a big kid in many ways.  The idea of a little ankle biter started growing on me.  He made it seem like all the icky things I’ve already mentioned might not be so bad.  But first we had to get past the thing that scared me most.  The idea that my child wouldn’t like me.  I have always been the type of person who would make what I thought was a funny face at a child in a checkout line they would start screaming.  I intimidated kids as much as they intimidated me.  What would I do if my own child decided I was scary?  Again, this might seem ridicules to all the experienced, always meant to be a mom, moms but to me it was an honest fear.  But my hubby prevailed and convinced me that it wouldn’t be that bad.  That our own child would love me no matter what, and all the other funky stuff I could deal with too.  He’s a very convincing man.  It’s probably a good thing he’s made a career out of tennis instead of being a con artist. He’s convincing but not very sneaky, and I’m not much into the idea of conjugal visits.

Long story short, we got pregnant.  Had our beautiful little girl.   And do you know what?  She’s not afraid of me!!  And I’m not afraid of her!!  She’s the light of my life and I can’t understand why it took me so long to do this.  I do believe children have a sixth sense about people.  Somewhere during my pregnancy the kids in the checkout lines started not being afraid of me and some even started to smile back.  I think they sensed that I was a mommy (to be) and knew I was now part of that secret society.  It was kinda weird to all of a sudden not be that intimidated person any more.  Now I live in a sea of baby puke, pee, and poop and I wouldn’t trade one minute of it.  Not for all the diamonds in the world or all the ice cream at Ben and Jerry’s.

So to my friend who I was talking to tonight.  Go for it, if your ready to face the challenge. Don’t expect yourself to ever be completely “ready”  because until the screaming beast actually arrives you won’t know the feelings I’m talking about.  That’s comes on his/her birthday.  But what ever you decide to do I support you and you can practice with my little sweet ankle biter any time you want.

Smiles

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Love and Kisses!

I saw these today at my local get everything including a haircut, plunger, new tires and gas, grocery store.  What is the world coming to that we had to mess with mother nature in such a way?  This is not natural. This is not they way roses are supposed to look.  They didn’t even smell nice.  They didn’t smell like anything.   

Ladies and Gents, somethings in this world are just wrong!  Wrong I tell you!  Littering is wrong. Spitting on someone’s shoe is wrong.  Stealing change from your local homeless blind man so you can pay your bus fair without breaking a dollar is…well…that’s just theft.  Anyways, folks! What do you see in this picture?  I see poor tormented living genes that were fiddled with and mutilated into something artificial. I see starving cells fed with food coloring and not healthy water.  I see mother nature getting slapped with the ugly stick. Why did the manufacturers (I can’t say cultivators because these things had to be spawned some other way then the pure wholesome way) of this tragedy in rose form feel the need to play with nature like this? For shame!  You should have your green thumbs revoked!  That or just be fed colored food till your toenails start to turn blue, pink, salmon, yellow, green, and purple.  

Oh the horror, the horror!!!!!!!

I think I did pretty well in the midst of the minor crisis.  I never did lose it or make any phone calls to her doctor in the middle of the night demanding she fix my baby right now.  I have to pat myself on the back.  I took it all in stride. Even with the middle of the night freak out, on her part, that in turn caused us to eventually bring her into bed with us, helping me discover that she can kick like a mule when she’s asleep.  As that is a topic I really haven’t covered on this blog yet I’ll just say, co-sleeping wasn’t for our family.  While her parents were open to the idea of EJ spending the first few months of her life with us in the same room she had different ideas, refusing to sleep until she was tucked away in her own little space.  When you see me joke about the fact that she is 10 months, or what ever her current age is, going on teenager, you know why.  It started when she turned 1 month old with her demand to be left alone. “Go away Moooommmmm…you’re emmmbaaarrriising meeee!”  

Where was I??? Oh, ya.  I survived her misery without showing too much of mine.  I even got a nice cheap thrill out of the fact that all she really wanted was her Mommy.  Daddy would go to pick her up and snuggle her and she would tolerate him for only a minute before she wanted me again.  I am humbled by her need for me.  

She started feeling better mid-day today and had some time where she unglued herself from my chest and played, however sticking close to me and refusing to show off her new ability to walk to either of the guests that appeared for a short visit.  She’s stubborn like me, damn-it!   By this evening she was still running a small fever but nothing near as bad as the night before.  I can only guess she really is feeling better and was “over” the whole sick thing since she didn’t want to go to sleep tonight.  That’s where I’m at right now.  I just got her to finally chill out enough to sleep and that means I finally get to go to sleep.  If I stop trying to write for all of you….. Not that I don’t love ya!  But…see ya later snoozaroonies!

His personal style is rather easy to maintain. Shorts and tee’s in the summer.  Polo shirts and jeans in the winter.  He’s a nicely fuzzed kind of guy so he’s usually not needing sweaters or anything beyond a long sleeve tee shirt in the winter.  And tennis clothes are easy to mix and match for men.  Simple, not flashy, but looks great on him.  When I met him he usually dressed in very neutral tones and could blend in with the wall color but, as soon as the relationship police would allow, I brightened up his tee shirt selection with some colors.  I never really knew how seriously lacking his knowledge was of style and fashion.  I just assumed he picked his wardrobe out of comfort and not because you can’t mess up tee shirts and jeans. I also now wonder if, before he met me, his closet was also added to by previous girl friends and not really himself.  Now I understand why when I ask him how something looks on me or which shoes he thinks I should wear he gives me some noncommittal answer that only upsets me, and makes me want to change clothes 5 more times.  It’s not because he’s doing the “guy thing” and trying to stay out of trouble.  He really, truly, honestly doesn’t have a clue. 

Where am I going with this you might ask?  Well, we now have a daughter.  A small, beautiful, growing person of the female persuasion.  An American girl and God forbid, one day a grown up woman.  Someone whom I’m looking forward to teaching about makeup and clothes and all those girly things. Oh, and SHOES! Dear Hubby and I have split the duties of when we take care of our little bundle of joy.  I’m more of a night owl so I get bedtime which includes the evening ritual of her last bottle and sometimes waiting and watching while she burns off her extra energy, which can take sometimes several hours.  Dear Hubby has mornings since I usually still have my head stuffed under a pillow when EJ is ready to greet the world for the day.  What that means is she is dressed by Daddy most of the time.  Do you see where I’m going now?  I may have taught Dear Hubby how to match colors ok, except for the day he put her in hot pink pants and a red shirt, but I forgot to teach him about prints.

Dear EJ, I’m so sorry your Daddy is lacking in the genetic tissue to be able to dress you like the rock star that you are.  One day when your all grown up you will appreciate the effort he put into making sure you had warm and comfortable clothes on each day.  Even if the color combinations and the mismatching prints burnt your retinas.  I promise, when you get older and you start to care about your personal style I will make sure I’m the one up in the mornings.  I also promise until that time I will do my best to keep your “bad clothes days” inside our doors.  When we go out in public I will always try to make sure you at least have colors that blend with each other.  I love you darling, and one day you and I both will look back on this and laugh.

EJ is modeling her hot pink striped shirt with her gray pants with pink hearts all over, and her multi-colored zig-zag striped socks.

Lewis and Gilbert from Revenge of the Nerds.

I’m so glad that the only way she will remember this is from pictures.  And I’m so glad Dear Hubby doesn’t complain when I scoot into her nursery, when I hear over the monitor that its time to dress her, to pick out something too cute for her to wear when I know she going to be in public.   That way I can go back to bed knowing that I saved our daughter from another day of potentially getting the nick name of “nerd baby”.

Sniff, sniff.

My big little girl. 6 months going on teenager.

These are the little pink socks that drive me crazy! Click on the picture to read the whole story.

Tonight my group of tennis ladies had an end of season/early Christmas white elephant party since one of our out of town teammates is in town for a couple days.  It’s always so nice to get together with all the ladies.  The wine and margaritas were flowing freely and so was the chatter. When you took a look around the room you saw multiple conversations going on about who knows how many subjects.  But the amazing thing was there wasn’t one person left in the corner by themselves.  Everyone had someone to talk to and everyone has the same room full of friends so no one was lost in the conversation.  I had to bring my daughter tonight because dear hubby was playing in our club tennis tournament.  She spent the evening being passed around from one lady to another and was just the cutest social butterfly ever.  There isn’t a mama out there that is more proud than I am tonight.

As I made my way around the room chatting about everything under the sun I started talking to one of the ladies about having kids.  She’s about my age, married and is starting to consider going down the preggo route.  While I talked to her I saw a lot of my former self in her eyes.  Her doubts and fears were my own not too long ago.  Until I met my dear hubby I had pretty well decided that kids might not be in the cards for me.  I was one of these women who was completely intimidated by these little creatures.  I know, I know, all the women out there that were born to be moms and already had it programed in their DNA to be nurturers are all wondering how in the hell I could be afraid of such a cute little baby.  It’s easy.  They bite, they puke, they poop and pee and do any number of other disgusting things a person in their right mind wouldn’t purposely want to be involved with.  EWEWWWW!!  They cry.  REALLY LOUD!  They don’t let you  have personal conversations if they are in the room. They make your body look like you swallowed a watermelon while your pregnant and then like a deflated, flappy, good year blimp after they arrive.  Forget long showers, forget makeup, and simply forget remembering to brush your teeth everyday.  Sleep doesn’t exist.  Your deodorant will be your best friend but forget the perfume.  All it does is make your baby sneeze and get snotty and it doesn’t cover up the smell of baby puke anyways.  Forget clothes without stains and eating a meal without it getting cold.  I could keep going but since this is a mommy blog and since most of my readers are moms I don’t have to. You know where I’m at right now.  I know all these things aren’t that bad but knowing that all these things come in one very small, very breakable package is SCARY!

These were all the things I had heard about before I ever decided to have a child and my thoughts were NO THANKS!   I’d rather eat toe jam.  Then I met my husband.  The man of my dreams.  He’s so adorable it’s hard not to think of what he looked like when he was baby.  And then I started noticing how great he was with all his nieces.  They LOVE  their uncle.  He makes them laugh and always has something cool for the to play with outside.  You know, because he still a big kid in many ways.  The idea of a little ankle biter started growing on me.  He made it seem like all the icky things I’ve already mentioned might not be so bad.  But first we had to get past the thing that scared me most.  The idea that my child wouldn’t like me.  I have always been the type of person who would make what I thought was a funny face at a child in a checkout line they would start screaming.  I intimidated kids as much as they intimidated me.  What would I do if my own child decided I was scary?  Again, might seem ridicules to all the experienced, always meant to be a mom, moms but to me it was an honest fear.  But my hubby prevailed and convinced me that it wouldn’t be that bad.  That our own child would love me no matter what and all the other funky stuff I could deal with too.  He’s a very convincing man.  It’s probably a good thing he’s made a career out of tennis instead of being a con artist.

Long story short, we got pregnant.  Had our beautiful little girl.   And do you know what?  She’s not afraid of me!!  And I’m not afraid of her!!  She’s the light of my life and I can’t understand why it took me so long to do this.  I do believe children have a sixth sense about people.  Somewhere during my pregnancy the kids in the checkout lines started not being afraid of me and some even started to smile back.  I think they sensed that I was a mommy (to be) and knew I was now part of that secret society.  It was kinda weird to all of a sudden not be that intimidated person any more.  Now I live in a sea of baby puke, pee, and poop and I wouldn’t trade one minute of it.  Not for all the diamonds in the world or all the ice cream at Ben and Jerry’s.

So to my friend who I was talking to tonight.  Go for it, if your ready to face the challenge. Don’t expect yourself to ever be completely “ready”  because until the screaming beast actually arrives you won’t know the feelings I’m talking about.  That’s comes on his/her birthday.  But what ever you decide to do I support you and you can practice with my little sweet ankle biter any time you want.

Smiles