Monkey Mama

New Blog Address

2009-04-16T06:54:00.001-07:00

We're on the go! Apparently it has been difficult for people to leave comments so I moved the blog to wordpress. The new address is:

www.monkeymamablog.wordpress.com

Please come see us there and bookmark the new address!!

Leave comments if you enjoy reading this and SEND IT ON TO YOUR FRIENDS!

I Surrender.

2009-04-15T13:09:00.000-07:00

I was welcomed home yesterday afternoon by a little box of compression love on my front porch. The timing was perfect as I had to stand on my feet for 5 hours while working today. The act of wedging my bloated self into the stockings was less than perfect though, I’m sorry to report. It took 15 minutes and almost an entire day’s reserve of energy before I had sufficiently compressed myself. The least they could do for $70 is send you a bottle of Astroglide or something. As I lie panting on the bed I had to count my fingers to make sure I hadn’t severed one of them off in the process. After I caught my breath and swung myself off the bed I gave them a little test waddle up and down the hall. I felt confident though that these were going to do an excellent job of compressing my vein. As an added bonus, they were also going to do an excellent job of relocating the baby, along with all my internal organs to my throat. Ahhhh, relief.

It’s been raining for days and Sam and I are both getting grumpy and antsy. He is not yet walking and I am growing larger by the second (in part due to growing baby, in part due to accidental overstocking of ice cream sandwiches). Picking him up and moving him around all day is killing my back. The thought occurred to me yesterday that in lieu of waiting for him to walk…I would just start crawling myself. Then when he crawled up to me, arms up stretched, I could just shrug and say…yea bud, it’s a bummer there is no one around to pick us up. A friend reminded me to find some knee pads first so I didn’t run my new hose! Good thinking Fran J

On Monday, the pregnancy-induced loss of brain cells caused me to take Sam furniture shopping again. What is wrong with me? Seriously.

You would think that after a year of “parenting” (which can be defined as getting your ass handed to you by someone a fraction of your size) I would know that I am NOT IN CONTROL OF ANYTHING. Nope…..they should give you this little white flag to wave on the way out of the hospital because sister, your life is no longer in your hands. Remember how they won’t even let you walk out of the hospital on your own, they have to wheel you out…..yep, that’s the beginning and you didn’t even realize it. Now, a year later and I’m still trying to do silly things like take a one year old shopping. I am no longer in control of when I get up, when I get to shower, when I get to pee (which I still maintain I’ve never done on a sofa) and certainly NOT of when I want to go furniture shopping. But, while the one on the outside is making me nuts, the one on the inside is making me stupid…..So I did it anyways.

Thankfully I had done my research and knew the sofa I wanted to investigate. It would be a quick run-in, run-out job. I might even carry Sam and forgo the stroller drama. So I fix snacks, load Sammy in the car and hit the road. We’ve made it to the end of the street before he rips his shoes and socks off and starts sucking on his shoe. This is standard protocol and I will blog later about the other dirty things I let Sam eat. As we near the beltway I can hear him getting a little antsy back there. The shoe is old news and it’s nearing lunch time. Luckily I am prepared with a small buffet of Sammy-friendly snacks. So I begin by handing him back a little PB&J bite. “Handing back” is really defined as arching my back as far as I can while thrusting the entire right side of my body into the backseat until I can reach him. He smacks my hand away in utter disgust and begins wildly fussing and pointing at something on the center console. I’ve now merged onto the Baltimore beltway. I grab the snack trap filled with cherrios and give that a try. Nope…..fussing louder and pointing more furiously. Here’s how the next 3 minutes go:

Oh..you want my glasses? Backbend into the back seat. Glasses smacked away and more fussing.

Oh you want this piece of paper? Another backbend and another smack.

Oh….how about your sippy? Um…no.

Do you want to listen to “The Ladybug Picnic” song? Puh…lease….

Shit how do I always get suckered into this game. I need to look at the road because some might construe it as dangerous to cruise down the highway at 65 mph while trying to climb into your own backseat. Plus, I’ve come to find out that there is very rarely a successful outcome to this game. It’s all part of the “making mama look like a circus clown” technique and I fall prey to it more often than I’d like to admit.

Well, about 30 seconds later I re-shift my focus to operating my enormous, totally un-sexy minivan when I hear this glass shattering, earth quake inducing primal scream. HOLY SHIT!!!!! While I was playing that stupid game with Sam I’ve hit something! I’ve hit something alive on the middle of the highway. OH MY GOD…I wonder if it’s a dog?? It sounds like a wild hyena. I swerve the car, narrowly missing the guardrail and brace myself has I slow down into the right lane. I glance in the rearview mirror to see if I can catch a glimpse of the wounded animal. I’m so upset I’m almost in tears.

And then, in my rearview mirror, I catch a glimpse of what does indeed appear to be a wild hyena. But he’s not on the road behind me. He’s buckled into the carseat. His eyes are red and he is foaming at the mouth trying frantically to arch his back hard enough to rip through the carseat straps…….Hulk style. He is shrieking at a decibel that I didn’t know existed and every nerve ending on my whole body is on fire. He is whipping his head side to side and pounding his little fat fists on the side of the seat.

It appears that the recent game of “what do you want” did have a specific outcome. One that I had clearly failed to present him with.

We have also, apparently, come to the point of no return because this Texas Chainsaw Massacre performance continues for another couple miles. We are almost in front of the store and I'm surprised the windows haven't blown out on the van.

And there I am, in the front seat, crying while “The Ladybug Picnic” sings along on the cd player. I guess this trip is over. No sofa for Mama. When will I learn??? I AM NOT IN CHARGE!

So we headed home to hang out on our ratty, stained old sofa. And we built block towers and knocked them over for 2 hours. And Sam was happy as a clam. What could be more fun ;)

But I’m sure I will do this again. In just a few days I will forget, or some need will arise that will require a shopping trip, and I will do this all over again. Sigh.

Happy Easter

2009-04-12T15:39:00.000-07:00

Happy Easter!

We spent the weekend with my in laws doing home improvement projects. You know...all very Eastery. But we got the railing built so I consider that a smashing success. I am FREAKING out about redecorating our house. FREAKING out! We tried to sell the house last year and had no luck. During that time I really didn't put any effort into decorating projects or, for example, purchasing a desperately needed new sofa because I envisioned us in a new house this year. But, here we are still and now the urge to do those things coupled with an insane hormone-induced nesting frenzy is really proving to be overwhelming.

I have been furiously shopping for a new sofa but Jeff has listed a bunch of parameters that he insists I adbide by (three cushions vs two, for example). SO annoying. So I'm not having a lot of luck finding something I like in our price range. Having lots of luck, ironically, in a much higher price range but isn't that always the case. So with my mother-in-law here this weekend we took a little trip out to see what we could find

So the quick backstory to this may not seem related but hang in there. When Sam was born he was frank breech. The means that he was not only breech but his little legs were folded straight up in front of his body. He was essentially staring at his ankles for a few months. Lovely ankle in my opionion....but perhaps not so comfie. This in-utero positioning lead to a severe tilt in his neck (callled torticollis) because the muscle on the left side of his neck was contracted very tightly. This, among other things, also contributed to a significant flattening of the back of his head (plagiocephaly). So, in the months since last summer we have seen numerous specialists to have this neck tilt corrected and a helmet fit to correct the plagiocephaly.

This may seem trivial and silly but it has always been my opinion that the nicer you look the more respect you garner and better service you receive in a professional situation. So when ever we would visit the specialits I would always wear nice clothes, jewelry etc (as opposed to the aforemetioned non showered, yoga clothes wearing disaster that I normally am). And Jeff would always have a suit on. This is my general habit for all professional services we seek. My one exception to this rule is when you FURNITURE shop. I hate furniture salepeople (sorry to those whom I've now offended). They follow you around the store like starving hawks salivating all over you. Yuck. So in an effort to thwart all the unnecessary attention I like to look as slovenly as possible. And yes, these days that is not so much of a stretch.

So my MIL and pack Sam into the car and head off to Lazy-Boy to see what they have to offer. I am wearing faded black cotton pants, a purple t-shirt with peas on it and one of Jeff's huge fleeces decorated in a unsightly amount of dog hair. In essence, I looked like I was homeless. Just the way I like to shop :)

One couch caught my eye and a very polite sale girl was bored enough to explain all the fabric choices to me. My preference is light blue which would be tricky to keep clean so she went on to tell me all of the stain protection options. At the very end of her little explanation she was listing all the things that their super stain protection goo protects the couch from and with a final pause, she end on "bodily fluids".

Oh.

What?!?!!?

Bodily Fluids!?!?

Do I look like the kind of person that has a problem with bodily fluids???!?!?! Ok...well I am sitting here in your showroom looking like I walked out from under an overpass.....but do I look like I would have a problem with peeing on my couch!?!? What is going on here? Do other people have a problem peeing on their couches? Is that a big selling point? The ability to repel pee from your couch? Is that why our other couch turned so yellow??? (ok..just kidding)

Ewwww.

So after that we headed home. I suppose I might need to rethink my theory on appearance :) But if you're in the market for a highly repellant couch that you can pee on ......Lazy Boy can hook you up. Then you will never have to miss any must see TV!

Just a quick photo op before I wipe spaghetti off every surface in the dining room and head to bed.....we did a little gardening this weekend. Sam did a little un-gardening for me.

And then a quick taste of his handiwork :)

Minor Misdemeanors

2009-04-09T17:15:00.000-07:00

While I love staying home with Sam, I would say that it has taken me most of his first year to settle into the role. For a long time I struggled with feeling unproductive and guilty about how little we accomplished in a day. Jeff would come home from work and I would feel the need to explain that while I did watch Oprah (duh), the TV was not on all day and Sam and I did engage in various enriching activities. I would list them out like a menu of “legitimate reasons that I do not work or produce income”. Then I would explain any purchases made that day in a similar menu of “legitimate reasons that I do not work and now spend your income “.

This was all very unnecessary though, thankfully, because Jeff truly does understand the value of a stay at home mother and has always been very supportive of me. In fact, our early months with Sam were so difficult because the poor little lamb had such bad acid reflux that he would kiss us good bye in the morning and literally flee for the serenity of his office. I think he is grateful that I am doing the daily dirty work because he is afraid he wouldn’t survive it. Plus, I don’t think he knows all the verses to “Wheels on the Bus” so clearly it wouldn’t work anyway.

To give you a completely fair representation of our life, though, I must mention that I have a small personal chef business. I work at most one day per week and these days those weeks are few and far between thanks to the recession. So for the most part I would consider myself a stay at home mom. Jeff travels extensively for his work too so there is also a lot of time when I’m flying solo. Right now for example. The whole thing has been an adjustment but I'm finally relaxing into a life of building blocks and walks around the neighborhood.

I was thinking last night, as I was trying not to flog our super annoying dog , that one of the most daunting aspects of parenting for me is the knowledge that Sam is watching my every move. He’s learning from me, mirroring me and absorbing my actions into his little personality. HOLY SHIT! I could have a real problem on my hands! I do take some solace in the fact that any emotional and social damage that might occur from my parenting will be in line with his true genetic lineage and not the result of a caregivers crazy baggage. But this is really a lot of pressure. Pressure to behave and actually think about how he is interpreting my actions. It’s like having the paparazzi follow you around all day. Now I know how Jennifer Aniston feels. Ok..well…if I knew how Jennifer Anniston felt I would not be hauling this king size caboose around all day but you get where I’m going here. I am not only someone’s role model….I’m the role model for someone who doesn’t know enough to know I’m nuts and ignore me! (On a side note….I do want to disclaim that we did not intentionally shoplift a bottle of Tums from Target today. They were hidden in the stroller after a lengthy “shake it baby” session and remained undiscovered until we were at the car. Clearly anyone with kids understands that I would far rather chunk away at my good karma than put Sam back in the stroller and wait in line inside again. And somehow the bottle has now gone missing so I got what I deserved anyway I suppose.)

In other news, the sausage casing has been ordered and thankfully when you lay down $70 big ones for pantyhose they give you free shipping. Yes folks, that is for ONE pair. You will be relieved to know that they are antibacterial. Oh sorry…did I just make you gag? I can also purchase something called an “arm sleeve” for when I am so swollen that I need casing for my fat arms too. What a relief!

I spent more time than I’d like to admit today contemplating whether you can retain water in your ass. Because here lately I feel like my heiney is becoming formidable competition for my belly. I keep feeling like someone is following me but I think it’s my ass shadow that keeps catching my eye.

Jeff comes home tonight and his parents are coming into town for the weekend. His dad is going to help him build a railing along the top of the steps to our third floor. We’ll be moving Sammy up there when the baby comes. Then hopefully the weather will be nice enough on Sunday for us to take a bike ride. Check out my little biker babes.

I’m not sure I will be able to maintain my breakneck blogging speed right now but I will at least put up a couple entries a week. You can subscribe by clicking on the little button up top.

Sausage Casings

2009-04-08T06:34:00.000-07:00

Last night at 2:30 am I’m lying in bed wide awake clutching a nearly empty bottle of Tums. My husband Jeff is asleep next to me and Sam is ASLEEP. Sam is ASLEEP and I am AWAKE. I hate this. I have such bad heartburn, undoubtedly caused by some microscopic little piece of onion that contaminated my dinner plate. Some nights I wonder if the heartburn will eventually burn a hole through my skin. Like a little skylight in my chest. And then the light will pour in and it will be peaceful in the land of my esophagus again. Sam loves the Tums bottle. He shakes is and pumps his knees and we sing “shake it baby, shake it baby, shake it like that!” I have a sudden urge to roll over and shake the bottle in Jeff’s sleeping face and sing him that song. Just because he’s sleeping.

Yesterday I made a brave late afternoon trip to Joann Fabric’s to find some rick rack for a dress I’m making. Sam was fundamentally opposed to the idea of shopping, as usual, so I thought I would try the sling today instead of the stroller. Sam HATES his stroller. All I see is peacefully little kids riding around in strollers munching on snacks and playing with toys. Sam is like a maniac, trying to noose himself with the shoulder straps while diving over the edge in an attempt to stop the wheels with is bare hands. So, despite my 6 month pregnant belly, I cinched him up in the hip sling and waddled into the store.

In my previous pre-child life (the one where I wore clean clothes, and more than one outfit a week) I could not consume enough alcohol to make me sing, alone, in public. Now I have been known to do a few group karaoke stints….but I have never, ever tortured anyone in public by singing alone. But I don’t live that life anymore, now do I? So here I am in the fabric store, standing in front of the trim, bobbing up and down at the knees, 6 months pregnant with a 25 pound one year old strapped to my chest, belting out “The Wheels on the Bus”. WHO AM I? And then I get stuck on the “doors on the bus go open and shut” line because I’m really trying to figure out what I need and can’t finish the song and think all at once. So now I’m just this crazy lady with a crazy kid doing squats in the trim aisle and yelling “open and shut” over and over.

And you know I left with the wrong goddamn trim.

Today is my 25 week check up with the OB. It’s also the day that I get my prescription for compression hose. Or, as I like to refer to it, my sausage casing. There are a handful of pregnancy symptoms that I had yet to experience in my 2 straight years of gestation so I guess my body is trying to catch up. It has rewarded me with a GIGANTIC throbbing varicose vein that runs from the top of my thigh to my calf. Sorry to be so graphic, but it’s really gross and I think you should have a full understanding of that.

So my hope is that if I diligently wear these hose until July, it will shrivel up and go away after the baby arrives. In fact, I think that that sheer act of wearing these hose in the summer with circus tent size maternity sun dresses ENTITLES me to vein free legs. But I’m not calling the shots anymore, right. Maybe they will make a swishing noise too when I walk. When my swollen, and now compressed, thighs rub together, it will make that little swishy, zippy noise. Because that is sure-fire way to feel good about yourself, right :)

Sam has just woken up from his nap. His new thing is the word “whoa”. It is very funny. When we’re going down the stairs he goes “whoooooaaaa”. I’m no pack mule honey….”whoa” is right. You had better hold on!

Heiney Eggs

2009-04-06T16:43:00.000-07:00

Please stop shoving the eggs under your heiney!!!! These were literally the first words that came out of my mouth this morning.

I am awake, it’s just after 6 am and I’m pleading with a one year old to stop shoving fistfuls of scrambled eggs between his butt and the high chair. Why?? Why does he do that? Why do I have to say those words outloud??? It’s like some weird primal foraging thing. Like he’s hiding them from predators. Like other sleepless one year olds that might show up in our kitchen and pilfer his eggs from right in front of him. They are SO obviously safer under his heiney.

And coffee would make this so much better….if only I could drink it….which I could if I wasn’t pregnant with our second. Our second little bundle of joy, due to arrive in July when Sam will be only 17 months. And no, this was not an accident. We did this on purpose. It was before Sam could crawl or even roll over. I didn’t know. I DIDN’T KNOW!!!!

I watched Oprah today about secrets that mothers don’t talk about. It was about the things that we think as mothers that we’re scared to admit to other people. The things that we do that we would never admit. I wondered out loud if any of those mothers had gone shopping for a couch today with a KIX stuck to their rear end. “Shopping” is actually a generous term for the 10 minutes we spent in the furniture store before Sam decided we were done. At least I didn’t find the little cereal nugget until we had left the store. At least then I could only be mortified about how I hadn’t showered, put on make up or even clean clothes….not because I was walking around with food stuck to my rear like some kind of bloated pregnant piñata busting open.

I was quickly distracted from that little drama when I walked outside and realized that I had left the lift gate of the mini van up. Yep, there was my car, sitting in the pouring rain in the parking lot with the lift gate wide open like it was saluting the other cars. As if to say "yes fellow cars, I know she's an idoiot...but she doesn't get much sleep" Ooops.

After protesting his afternoon nap for 45 minutes Sam and I are back downstairs. These are the things they don’t tell you, Oprah. They don’t tell you things like you will never sleep again. You will absolutely NEVER sleep again. Your one year old will STILL not sleep through the night. And every single little tooth that comes in will make you want to wring the tooth fairy’s neck because it will make your child wake up 5 times a night. Oh my god, I’m yelling at the TV. And waving my hands. And Sam is laughing. I have turned into a total lunatic.

But for real, for extra income (maybe to pay for a babysitter) I often contemplate contracting Sam to the CIA. They could use him to torture prisioners of war. They can shut down Guantanamo and use my house for their operations. Just bring them in and see how long they can function on the amount of sleep that Sammy allows. And if we’re in the middle of a good tooth…they will be sobbing and spilling national secrets in a matter of days!

I didn’t start this blog to complain. I started because I thought Oprah was right. Even though there is a big part of me that is so annoyed by her patronizing “understanding” of the topic when she doesn’t have kids. There are a lot of things they don’t tell you. And they don’t tell you because they can’t….you wouldn’t believe them. Just like I would have never believed how many times I would lift my face towards the sky (or ceiling) and yell…IS THIS FOR REAL!?!?! This is a picture of what my house looked like while I was attempting to watch Oprah, fold laundry and keep Sam out of harms way this afternoon. In fact, this is what our house looks like everyday.

But for now, as I’m just finishing this up, I’m watching Sam shove beef stroganoff under his heiney and crack himself up as he does. He must think he's so clever.