it's a bird, it's a plane

Why, yes, baby and I DID recently take a trip. On an airplane. Alone. And, oh, it was quite the adventure! It began early in the morning when I realized that OMG BABY, why do I need to pack so much stuff? This was a 6 day trip and normally I would have taken a carry-on and a backpack, but with a baby suddenly I was checking a car seat, stroller, jungle gym, playpen, crib, and ten suitcases.* My BFF, having no idea what she was getting herself into, drove us to the airport and helped to roll all our stuff inside. Thank you, Sleepy Wrap, for allowing me to be hands-free! And then Abe fell asleep as we walked to our gate, which was, of course, at the other end of the universe. He slept through security and getting a snack, and gate checking the stroller, and woke up just in time to board the plane. Yikes!

And because a baby makes things take forever, I was one of the last people to board. And because Southwest doesn’t assign seats, there were only middle seats left. Crap. I was so nervous about being THAT WOMAN with the crying baby that everybody on the plane would hate. But luckily, I sat between a reasonably friendly but uninterested woman and a very friendly, on her way to visit her grandbaby woman who chatted Abe up the whole flight. Luckily too, my baby is awesome and did not cry much. Mid-flight, though, he decided it was lunchtime and I nursed him! Awkwardly! In between two strangers! His custom as of late is to also empty his bowels during mealtime, and I was literally praying that this would not happen. But then I felt the rumblings. And my sweet, darling, precious son proceeded to have the longest, loudest poop known to man. My prayer quickly changed to just PLEASE let it all stay in his diaper. But no dice. I pick him up only to find a yellow crescent on my jeans. And because there was turbulence, I couldn’t get up to change him. For the rest of the flight. So there we are, sitting between two strangers, covered in poop, for the next hour. Hooray!

Then we had to change planes, which was fine. I had our schedule all planned out: after the immediate changing, feed me, play, feed him, put him to sleep. Just in time for the next flight! Which was then delayed! Luckily, he slept through most of it anyway, until the descent when he woke up crying probably due to ear pressure. I glanced anxiously around, hoping no one was giving me an evil stare. Instead, they gave me advice! Rub his ears! Give him a pacifier! Yay for nice strangers!

The trip back was somewhat better because 1) I knew what to expect and 2) there was a stop, but we didn’t have to change planes. But the poop escapade repeated itself (seriously, baby?), except we got to use the changing table in the tiny, gross bathroom. Which really wasn’t as bad as I’d thought it would be. The table was very sturdy. Then later, when the crying began, a flight attendant took him and walked him around the plane! Walking and being held are his two favorite things, so this worked out quite well. She even sang to him! It was pretty great, I have to say. Not only does it take a village to raise a child, it also takes a flight crew.

*Warning! This post contains a slight amount of exaggeration.

a chilling tale

Finally, the madness has ended. The beast, once garrulous and thrashing, now lies in repose, snugly curled in his Baby Bjorn. We sigh and smile with relief, feeling freedom trickle down our spines. We laugh and jest around the fire, secure that the hour is ours. Suddenly, amidst the merriment, I am struck--frozen in my tracks at the sight of a single eye peering ominously from the shadows. The beast, though still motionless, has awakened and prepares to take back what is his...our lives.

apparently I like sports now

Whoo hoo! First Super Bowl ever for them Saints! Is Super-Bowl hyphenated? All one word? Or did I do it right the first time? Also, what is a halfback?

rain, shower, and tears

This baby has been pooping all morning. I'm serious! It's like a game. Like Double Dare, where one contestant has to fill a cup up with kool-aid using a water gun while perched on top of a ladder while his opponents throw cream pies at him. Except in this scenario, the cup is a diaper, the kool-aid is poop, and the cream pies are also poop. This is probably the cause of his major grumpy pants today, as well as my own larger pair of grumpy pants that I started wearing in the middle of the night when I couldn't sleep even though el bebe was zonked out.

So to cheer us both up, I decided to go for a walk. Ham LOVES walks, more so if being held, but also in the stroller. And I'm beginning to think I'm more irritable when I don't leave the house all day. So a walk was the perfect remedy. Yes, Nashvillians, it is a rainy day. But it was not raining when we embarked on our sojourn. In my haze of sleeplessness and diaper fatigue, I ignored the obvious implication that, really, IT COULD RAIN AT ANY MOMENT. I think you see where this is headed. I could have just walked up and down our street, staying close to the house, but due to aforementioned haze, I went on our regular route down a side street. I was...oh...half a mile or something from our house. (I have no concept of distance. Does half a mile sound really far? Or too short? It was somewhere in between. Let's say I was about 7 walking minutes from the house.) And it starts to sprinkle. Luckily, the stroller has a cover, but since we're walking into the wind, that really only protects Abe's face. The rain gets harder and is getting all over my baby! I start running a little, but, friends, we all know, that lasted only ten seconds or so before my body slowed down in protest. So we did a little jerky walk-jog back to the house. Luckily, it rained hard, but did not pour, and had almost stopped by the time we got back home, so we are wet, but not drenched. Interestingly enough, Abe does not seem to care a bit.

He also does not freak out when he takes a shower for the first time, as I kind of expected him to. No, water does not make him cry. The tears came during the drying portion of the story. THEN he decides to Freak Out. He just doesn't understand that his neck will stink if I don't dry under all the fatty folds. Wow, that sounds really gross now that I'm writing it, but he is still adorable and clean, I promise. It's juicy baby fat, that's all!

Bananaphone: It's a phone with a-peel!

Kessel Run

Have you ever noticed that when you eat something spicy – I mean, really, painfully spicy, like the deadly but delicious salsa I made the other night – that even though it burns with the fire of a thousand dying suns and sends you frantically looking for something, anything, to put in your mouth that will stop the unholy flames leaping from your tongue, it also kind of feels good? Or is that just me? If I stop the immediate urge to quench the burning and instead just KEEP EATING the salsa, and then when I finally stop because I realize I have consumed almost a whole bag of chips, I let the spice overtake me, like some crazy hippie drug. My eyes water, my nose runs, and my whole head becomes feverish. Then there’s some sort of strange euphoric sensation that pours over my head and down my spine, making me want to roll my head around in catnip. Then the burning in my mouth stops and I’m left feeling just feverish and pleasant. I’m sure this is a real sensation that actually has a name, to describe why your body turns spicy foods into drugs. Survival mechanism?

Where There's Smoke, There's Dryer

As I’m sitting here in my kitchen busy working,* I suddenly noticed smoke right outside the kitchen window. I mean, RIGHT outside, as though the part of the house immediately below the windows was on fire. But, since I am incredibly smart and quick-thinking, instead of panicking, I immediately realized that I had just started the dryer in the basement, which vents below those windows, and since it is currently too cold to be alive, heat makes steam! Or something like that. So all is well.

…Or, I am incredibly dumb and cavalier about my family’s safety and sat writing a blog entry while the lower half of my house burned. I guess we’ll see which it is! Update tomorrow! (Still not going to check it out, in case you didn’t pick up on that.)

*playing on the internet

Most of us
         still
sleep
knees curled to chest
comfort womb memory
from our previous life.
What do we not remember
that
         still
shapes us?

it's the most wonderful ham in the world

So, just gotta say, too cold to be alive right now.  It's 18 degrees! Yikes! I could not cut it living in some northern state that actually gets negative degrees regularly. Nooo way. Of course, I would probably have a more efficient heating system if that were the case, but still. I am so unproductive when it's cold. I want to just stay in bed all day. And eat warm things.

In other news, Christmas was good. We traveled and introduced Baby to relatives he hadn't met yet. Yesterday was Anderson's first day back at work, and thus my first day alone with lil' ham in two weeks. I see now that our culture has it all wrong with nuclear families. Extended family living is the way to go! For two weeks, wherever I went, there were other people who wanted to hold the baby, play with the baby, change the baby. I actually got to take a shower practically every day and eat a few meals with two hands and for longer than five minutes! Pretty amazing. I wonder if that's why motherhood seems to be so difficult - you're doing a job alone that really requires many hands. If you want to stay sane, anyway. Luckily I have the best baby ever.