Phoning It In

I am phoning it in today, because I have spent a great day napping with the baby and now I'm playing Rock Band with my husband.  He is playing Medium, I am playing Easy and spending more time updating my hair and outfit than I am playing songs.  Every dollar I get, I immediately go and change my hairstyle.

So instead, here are some recent pictures of the baby:

Hello, my name is McScreamy.  I don't like that toy, no, not at all.

Top Chef is so prosaic, you know?

Random Thing I Thought Today

You have to stop crying before you walk into WalMart.  

That's TACKY.

Correspondence File: 1/13/09

Dear Lady at Target with the Open-Mouth-Coughing Kid:

Give me a break, lady! I've got a three week old here! One of the reasons we are at Target right now instead of Walmart is that I can't expose her to that level of degradation yet. And here you are with your kid that is coughing continually, open mouth and all. Just spewing all kinds of illness around everything, like a firehose of germs.

And you're following me!!

Like a homing missile petri dish, just everywhere I go I hear that KOFF KOFF KOFF and see your kid hacking all over everything. We are trying to keep out of your way, but the goddamn stroller turns like a palsied flamenco dancer* and this is our first trip to a store with the baby and we're one big cluster-you-know-what.

But seriously, get out of my baby's airspace or I'm going to full-body tackle you and your typhoid family and slather you with Purell.

In Good Health,
Salome

* turns out the stroller's front wheel was locked and I didn't know. I discovered this halfway through my first walk around our street with Auden. I reached down, fully prepared to bust the wheel in order to make it turn, and realized it had the lock set. Hee.

Musings

I am hopelessly in love with my daughter.

Every expression on her face.  

The way she jerks her head randomly.  

The way she does this huge squeak inhale.  

The way, when she's getting mad, she pumps one leg rapidly, like trying to start a tiny baby motorcycle.  The mad look she gets when we delay getting her food to her.  The blinking awake of this tiny life.  

I don't know how much of the behavior we're seeing now is an indication of her personality, but this newborn is goofy.  She's smart.  She's generally good-natured, but possesses a fiery temper. When she gets really furious she cries in a way that sounds like an angry duck.  WAH WAH WAH.  

I wonder if she'll ever know, 15, 20 or 30 years from now, how I held her in my arms and tried to keep my heart inside my body, tried to keep my emotions from pouring out of my skin and flooding the city I live in.  I so incredibly love this little girl, I am so completely and utterly charmed by this person, I almost can't stand it.  I look at her sometimes and I'm surprised my husband doesn't hear the pop of my heart as it swells beyond its borders. 

And she's not even smiling at us yet!  

Her tiny smiles, right now attributed to gas, or urination or the contentment of falling asleep, are enough to achieve world peace, they are enough to quiet my screaming heart.  They are enough for me, forever.  

They melt me, utterly.

For so long I have examined my life and my decisions with a critical air of disenchantment.  

I now look down at my sleeping daughter's face and I feel I've accomplished greatness.

She's Not Sleeping

She's not sleeping, and it has been five hours.

The Pope isn't feeling well, he retreated to his quiet guest room hours ago.

HOURS AGO and still, she does not sleep.

She is now fed twice, rocked three times, and jiggled in the way she likes many times, too many to count.  Diaper changes:   two.  She's been swaddled, she's been unswaddled, and the whole time she will not stop fussing.  She will doze, she will catnap, but she will not sleep.  

I am losing it, folks.  She needs to sleep, goddamn it.  

I will lose my fucking mind in a second.

In all of this, every time my patience just wears out and snaps, I look at my baby girl and love her more than I could possibly express.  I roll my eyes, I curse out loud and then I reach down and see her alert eyes, and I kiss her cheek, I kiss the soles of her feet, I whisper to her that I love her so much.  

What she does to me!

This kid is killing all the toughness inside of me.

Lucy picked tonight to need me again, after three weeks of being the most perfectly behaved cat I've ever seen.  Tonight, she is trailing beside my feet, winding her way in my walking path and yowling at me.   I love her dearly, so will not kick her, although the temptation is great.  She finally climbed up on the baby blanket and slept beside me.  

I can wash the blanket.  

I love the cat.

So, how are you doing?

17 days old

We're hanging in. I haven't worn clothes other than pajamas in three days and I'm not sure when I last showered. The days blur into the nights, and it seems like I have nothing to show for my hours awake. I'm sleeping fine, but today started crying about a $60 heating bill on our empty house in Seattle. Seems like someone set the thermostat up and left it like that, in our vacant house, with us having no jobs. $60 seemed to unwind me. I am now having a wee glass of white wine, to bolster my Irish heart.

Our daughter is LOVELY. The hugest joy of joys. My darling girl. If you've called, thanks for calling. I'm nowhere near wanting to be talking on the phone right now. It would be awesome if you want to reach me, to email me. The phone ringing right when I'm going down for a nap, or getting her down for her nap, really bothers me. I won't answer if I'm feeding her, and the answer to your question is I'm ALWAYS feeding her.

And now for the photos!!!