Puke for Thought

It's bad enough to have a sick child, but it's a real bummer when you're sick as well. I have a funny feeling that soon I will discover that one does not happen without the other. All you moms of older children are sitting at home laughing your asses off at me. Don't try to hide it. You know you are.The cold sucks, but lately I have developed nausea as well. Today as I am about to puke into the toilet, I am thinking "Who can I get to come over and take care of us?" I then proceeded to run through the list of all my friends trying to think of who could come and save us. While I was about to upchuck, this is what I am pondering. And then all I could think about was how grateful I was that Maricruz had just come that morning and cleaned the toilet. When I was pregnant and often kissing the porcelain, it was no god, let me tell you. More like an old, neglected, smelly relative. If I wasn't quite ready to vomit, the sight and smell of that disgusting toilet worked better than a finger down my throat. Luckily, the nausea passed. And no, I AM NOT PREGNANT!

First Cold

Ben has his first cold. He sounds so pathetic when he coughs. It just breaks my heart. I want so badly to make it all better. I don't know how parents handle it when their children get into real trouble that they can't easily sort out for them. If I feel this impotent over a little cold, imagine how I will feel when real trouble comes along.He has learned to see me coming from a mile away with the aspirator. It has come to the point where both Josh and I need to hold him down in order to get the snot out of his nose. He acts like we are toruring him slowly and methodically. I try to explain to him that I just want to help him breathe more easily, but he's not buying it. He can smell a fibber a mile away. Such a smart little bugger. He makes a mommy proud.

Are the Ends Supposed to Meet?

Just about once a month Josh and I have the same conversation. Should we continue living in the Bay Area and struggling to get by? Or should we move somewhere more affordable, even though we love it here and all of our friends and my family are here? It seems that many people in the Bay Area are struggling with the same questions. And for as many people who say move, just as many say stay.My parents moved to Palm Springs four years ago for exactly the same reason. They left their friends and family and moved to a place where they could get a better bang for their buck. And they have a beautiful house down there and much more space. But now my mom wants to move back to the Bay Area because she is lonely there. She wants to be closer to her family. We have just one go around and it's so hard to choose a path to take. Would our lives be better if we moved to somewhere more remote and cheaper, but knew absolutely nobody? And then there's the fact that Josh says he will only consider moving to the Northeast. That limits our choices exponentially. It's so hard to know what to do. Why don't the Chinese takeout places offer fortune cookies with these kinds of predictions? It would certainly be more useful than 'you have many friends'—well, duh.

Good Conversation

My favorite thing in the world was always to go with a good friend and sit in a café and talk. And talk. And talk. I always found that there was an art form to a good conversation. It relys on subject matter, of course, but also pacing, environment, level of enthusiasm and continuity. I was always an avid, if fledgling, participant. I rarely ran out of material.This is no loner the case. I can barely have a conversation that lasts more than 2 sentences. Okay, 2 words. I am so tired at night that all I can squeak out is "TV. On." We went on a picnic last Sunday with my friend Molly and I could not think of ONE thing to say. This is no reflection on my relationship with her. It is with EVERYONE. I used to pride myself on my ability to make small talk with just about anyone I came across. Now I fumble and bumble and then finally get out what I think is a witty remark and as soon as it eeks out I think, Holy Shit. That person nows knows I am an idiot. In fact, they probably think that I am mentally handicapped. They are going to call the local institution and have me carried away. At least I'll get some rest there. But I miss good conversations over coffee or red wine. Sitting at the table after a delicious dinner has been consumed and laughing until your sides split. The conversations I now have consist of "Doo-doo Daa-daa", which is splendid if you are seven months old. Not so fulfilling if you are 38. So now I have resorted to reading blogs, so that I can read other people's conversations. I know that the joy of conversation and I will cross paths again. And until then, it's going to be a doo-doo daa-daa world. And wouldn't the Dadaists be proud.

Contradiction v.02

I spent a good deal of time this morning figuring out what Benny should wear. He always looks so dapper. Gues how much effort I put into my outifit? Yep. None. Less than none. I am wearing my uniform of sweatpants and tee-shirt post-pregnany gear. I know I should not do this. I know I would feel better if I put some effort into it and bought some new clothes. But let's face it, no one is looking at me anyway. We all know who the main attraction is.

Procrastination

I have no idea why I procrastinate. But I do. Again and again. Even though I know it is bad for me. There's this great AA analogy which is that we walk down the street and all of a sudden we have fallen down a manhole. Then we become more mature and self-aware and we see the manhole, but we fall down it anyway. The goal, of course, is to see the manhole and walk around it. But boy have I been stuck in the 'seeing it and still fallling flat on my ass' stage. And knowing about it beforehand makes it even worse. Ignorance is definitely bliss.If I gauge my sanity on Einstein's definition of crazy being the ol 'repeating the same thing, expecting a different outcome' model I am LOONY TUNES. Ready for the institution. So anyway, back to procrastination. I am even procrastinating from writing about procrastination. I have had two big monkeys on my back for the better part of a year or more. They were two projects that required very little actual work, but for some reason I put them off and off and off. And the longer it had been, the worse the idea of them became. But today ladies and gents I GOT THE MONKEYS OFF MY BACK! And I am so pleased. A monkeyless back is a good thing. Of course there are still a couple hanging on.

Who Gets the Kid?

There cannot be a conversation more strange than the ol' "Who will raise our child if we die?" one. I have been thinking for some time that Josh and I needed to have this conversation. Ever since we saw the 'Law and Order' episode that dealt with guardianship issues. It was right after the one where the little girl was really a little boy whose circumcision had gone awry. Try to keep up people! As I was explaining about how all of my most important life steps are dictated by television...So I had been meaning for weeks to get on it and get a will going for Josh and I. What if we died tomorrow? Who would get to pay off all of our debt? Not to mention the large collection of dog fur that we own. We don't want our friends and family to be fighting over that now, do we? I saw a financial consultant on Wednesday as a first step in many to try and act like an adult (my parents are currently shouting "FINALLY!") and she informed me that if Josh and I died today with no will that Ben would be placed with Child Protective Services for a minimum of 30 days. Well, this just put the fear of God into me. She made me feel better when she informed me that I could handwrite a document that, if we kicked the bucket, would suffice until our will is completed. I could not get the pen out fast enough. I had such a sense of urgency that I told Josh he had 5 minutes to make up his mind and that the following was a list of candidates for guardianship and he should just PICK ONE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD RIGHT NOW BEFORE OUR PRECIOUS BABY BECOMES A WARD OF THE STATE! Needless to say he wanted to have a bit of time to think it over. Men! After the initial panic had subsided, we came up with a plan that I think we are both happy with. After all, it's just about picking the people that you think are least likely to screw up your kid. Easy peasy. Now..who will we get to take the dogs? Anyone?

A New Kind of Tired

I thought I knew tired. In fact, I proudly considered myself an expert on fatigue. But now, post-baby, it's a whole new ballgame. I am asleep most nights by 9:00. I need twice as much coffee just to make it through the day. Now I know why people have their children young.

Language is Arbitrary

Well, I am ashamed of myself. I was dreading going to my birth father's funeral and people could not have been more loving and accepting of me. I am a officially a schmuck.When I started the search for my birth parents, my parents had a hard time with it. And I kept reassuring them that they will always be my parents and that no one could replace them. I reminded them that we, as human bengs, are capable of an infinite amount of love. When Bob was coming towards the end of his life, I sent him an e-mail teling him that I was not really sure how to deal with him being ill, that I was unsure of my place in his life. He wrote me a reply saying that I was his daughter no matter what and that his arms would always be open. I felt his reply was overly simplistic. But now that he is gone, I realize that he is right. The love I have to give is infinite, and I should not have been so stingy with it. Now that Bob is no longer on terra firma, the titles seem meaningless. Was he my dad? If he is my dad, then what is my father who raised me? People at the funeral would ask about my mom and I would suddenly realize that they were talking about Tahme, my birth mother. And I remembered that language may be arbitrary, but it is still necessary to prevent total confusion. But for Robert, I think it was very important for me to think of himself as my father. And I wish that I could have given that to him before he died. I was feeling total denial about him being gone, but since yesterday I feel sad. Sad for what could have been. I kept expecting him to walk through the door. And I wished I had left things better with him. I wish I could have seen him and spoke to him before he died. I will always miss his hugs. He gave the best ones.