CLICK HERE FOR BLOGGER TEMPLATES AND MYSPACE LAYOUTS »

Sunday, December 30, 2007

Thank you 2007!

What a year 2007 turned out to be!
I remember sitting on the roof watching fireworks with the Bunny a year ago tonight not realizing that I was already pregnant albeit just barely.
So 2007 was that, being pregnant, probably for the last time. It sounds too jinxable to say in any surer tone that it was my final pregnancy so I'll leave that at that.

2007 was also finding an ever more solid support in my beloved Dingos. I am so grateful to have found them. I know what I'd be like without them and it would be like a time warp, me, on the same path but miles and miles farther back toward where I began.

DH and I have made such great strides toward that place where we are together. Much of the time it feels like we're there. Maybe just often enough I can feel that we aren't so that I don't get complacent, let it slip. But I think we both have a taste for it now and won't so easily forget ourselves.

The Bunny is growing every day. And growing is hard work. It isn't always pretty, it's frequently painful or awkward. Just tonight I held her while she cried again for our old dog. She still misses him viscerally, she feels his absence in a way that I do not any longer. She said that she can't get her happy thoughts, that her sisters have them. I encouraged her to start small, think about small happy thoughts, the fur of her tiger, the smile from her baby sister. But she said it didn't help and then she fell asleep. I don't know what to do, how to help her. And lately I haven't been very helpful at all. I need to take a lesson from my dingo sister DrJen and get some serious one-on-one time happening with her. We've been butting heads way too often recently and I think it is because she just needs more of me and is going to that any-attention-is-better-than-nothing place.

Ali G is growing too. She is a sweet little thing. She smiles a lot and really reminds me of the Bunny. Mostly calm and contented, except for when she's not. I am constantly surprised at how much joy I take in her blue blue eyes. It strikes me as ridiculously vain of me to be pleased with them, but I can't seem to help it. I guess it bothered me more than I wanted to admit that the Bunny looks so little like me. I suppose it's normal to be happy to see oneself reflected in one's children.
I do worry sometimes that I'm not as connected to her as I was to the Bunny. Like I somehow don't love her enough. It's always a little to easy to put her down, to let someone else hold her. Does that go back to my concerns over how she didn't smell right her first week? Is that some sad self-fulfilling prophecy? Are my expectations of maternal delight just unrealistically high for a subsequent child? Am I just feeling the pressure of the Bunny's need for me too much and transferring the anxiety onto the baby? Is it low grade PPD? I don't know, but it does worry me.

So things to work on in the coming year will be more or less the same I think. I want to find a balance of time with the Bunny and time with the baby and time with dh and time for me. For myself I've challenged myself to 12 weeks of fairly intense weight training and cardio work to get back to a comfortable fitness level. I feel too big, too achy and too old for my age right now so I decided to take advantage of the lifestyle here while it lasts.

So welcome 2008! I have faith it will be a year full of excitement, adventure, and challenges. I think we're all ready.

Saturday, December 15, 2007

Here's a picture my cousin sent me of me and Ali G that I thought was an honest reflection of how I feel these days.



Ali G likes to play with her dangling toys all by herself. It's weird. The Bunny was never into playtime that didn't involve another person.
One of her favorite toys is her Dingo rosary. How cool is that?

Thoughts on a facial

Before
After

Well, I don't know. A friend of ours just sold a spa in town to another woman who offered me a free facial. All I remember of the only other facial I've ever had
was getting a lot of glop mushed around on my face and then, after being lulled into a feeling of false secutiry by some nice warm mush on my forehead, the startling and excruciating experience of an unexpected eyebrow waxing. But for free? Sure, I'll go again!
It was okay. I thought a lot about women who make this type of thing a habit. How do they justify the expense? They must be those women who smell expensive and know what's fashionable and what's not. That isn't me. I smell like Secret, baby spit-up, onions and garlic, lavender lotion, sandalwood sometimes, sweat sometimes. Hmm, maybe I do need a new me!

No, I don't think so. I'm comfortable the way I am. I've made attempts in the past to get into the habit of applying makeup (real makeup, powder, liner, base what have you, not just mascara) and perfume. But I've never tracked down the perfume I really like (it's the one that smells fresh and outdoorsy, light, springy like freshly washed hair, not heavy and sticky and snooty like some patron of the arts). And I've never really gotten the hang of the makeup thing. I can barely remember to moisturize. I definitely identify with Picabo Street, a chapstick kind of girl.

Anyway, while I was lying on the heated table wrapped in a terry cloth towel listening to some vaguely Christmassy choir/classical/trance music and feeling fairly claustrophobic at the scrutiny I knew my pores were under I did have a flash of entitlement. Vanity. I try not to be vain. I don't want to feel like the world revolves around me. I want to have healthy humility. And this facial business on encourages exactly the opposite reaction. Why is it so different than a massage? I don't know. Only that when I'm face down on a table having my muscles squeezed I'm not led to think about how I deserve to spend I-don't-even-know-how-much on a face cream with more "active ingredients" (as my spa technician recommended I look into). I usually just feel grateful that I have access to someone who knows how to push the evil out of my arms and legs and joints while silently vowing to start stretching so that next time it doesn't hurt so much.
So now I know. Facials don't do me any favors. Even ones with muy baja frequencia electrodes or whatever that Ultimate Lift machine was supposed to have.

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

rrrgh

I don’t know how single mothers cope.

Dh has been in bed only for two days and I’m done. I thought I was actually doing pretty well, keeping it all going pretty smoothly up until I picked up the Bunny from school today. We have our piano lesson after school on Tuesdays. Today I’d arranged for Joan to take care of the baby while we had class. I was looking forward to having a chance to hang out and chat with her a bit when we picked Ali G up. However, when I reminded the Bunny that we had class she burst into tears and sobbed that she felt far too sick for that. It sounded a little fakey to me so I pressed her for her symptoms. Even though I don’t think she is sick or even getting sick, I was convinced that she’d be unreasonably difficult at a piano lesson, and since I didn’t know what else to do with two girls I canceled the class. I hate that. So I was pissed. Then I called Joan to cancel and she reminded me that she’s taking off for a couple weeks this weekend and then I wanted to cry. And that’s how I know that I’m fried on single parenting. And it’s been only, exactly, 48 hours.

Tuesday, December 4, 2007