And she's one.

Today, at 9:42 a.m., my kiddo turned one year old.

The BabyCenter emails I receive weekly have changed from a subject line of, "My Baby This Week" to "My Toddler This Week." That stinks. I think I'll unsubscribe from those emails.

She opened her present of books, a drum and a coat this morning. As expected, once she tore through the tissue paper, climbed over the drum and chewed on the books, she has moved on to pulling magazines down off a shelf she has only recently been able to reach, and trying to pry open the one DVD case we forgot to move out of her reach.

The dog and cat prepared a little something for her special day - from the dog it was/continues to be full facial licking, and from the cat it appears to be a resolve to not run away immediately.

The day has only just begun; we have plans to visit our midwife with homemade brownies in tow and to buy a child bike trailer as a one-year gift to ourselves.

Last night, before falling asleep, I read her birth story...at least, as much as I have written down. It may have happened 365 days ago, but I feel more ownership and more deep pride at her birth than ever before.

Happy birthday to me.

Weird Mother's Day

I feel a bit weird about this coming Mother's Day.  It's always been an awkward day for me.  Also, I don't much care for flowering plants.

This year is the first year that there is visual proof of my momness, so I am pretty sure that this Mother's Day applies to me.  And that's weird.  It makes me feel old.  And soccer mom-ish.  And minivan mom-ish.  And flowery cards with some lame missive inside-ish.

Which is weird because I think being a mom is more like Rosie the Riveter-ish, or Lara Croft-ish.

Anyway, I guess this is all just to say I don't like flowering plants if I can't eat them.  

Chameleon

Spent the afternoon in Seattle today.

Had sushi.  I went to get my hair did while hubs and baby kicked around Fremont and Wallingford (Freford? Wallmont?  Whatever.  Anyway, both neighborhoods have way more people and cars than I remember).

After the hair cut we all went up to Molly Moon's on 45th for some ice cream to tide us over on the ride home.

Baby wore her hat that is made out of an old wool sweater, the hat that we bought at the Bellingham Farmers' Market for probably too much money but it's local and made of recycled sweaters.

Down in Oly, and up in B'ham, the hat on her head makes me think of workers and revolution and fists raised.

In Seattle it made her look uber hipster with obviously hipster parents because look at that too stylish hat perched rakishly atop her sweet head.

I like to be able to slip in and out of situations and places and be comfortable no matter where I am.  Glad to know my kid is following in the same footsteps - be they made in ballet flats, peep-toe heels or Converse.

But not in Birkenstocks because those are ugly.

Rope. End.

I love my kid.  Most of the time.

However, you wouldn't know it today when I yelled at her (maybe more like raised my voice) on my second attempt to get her down for a nap.

And you know what she did?  She kissed me.  Okay, for her it is more like coming at me with her little cute mouth, probably hoping I'll feed her some sort of yummy snack that I have hidden in my pocket because big people always have delicious solid food snackies with them, but it looked like she was coming in for a kiss and so that is what I did.

And then I asked for forgiveness from whom or whatever gave me such a good kid that when something goes wrong I don't know what to do so I act like a damn idiot.

That felt awful

Was out walking around my neighborhood yesterday (literally around - it is a loop and I know that if I do five loops it equals two miles).  Anyway, out walking, had the baby and the dog with me.

Loop one: walked past neighbor leaning on his car, calling for his son to hurry up and come outside.

Loop two: neighbor and son are in the cul de sac, tossing a football back and forth, looks to me like they know what they are doing.  My dog tries to pull me, the stroller with the baby and himself over to investigate and possibly take the football and run off.

Loop three: neighbor asks me if I am new to the neighborhood.  No, I have been here three years.  Really, says he, wow.  I don't know what to say to that so I reiterate the three years bit.  Plus, I walk around the loop A LOT so it's on him for not seeing me before.  Where do you live, he asks.  I point, he asks if we have the yellow Beetle, I say yes.  He asks what I do.

I say that I left my job to stay home with my baby ohbutIalsoamacommunicationsconsultantfromhome.  Before I can rush that mouthful out, oh, says he, and asks what my husband does. 

I head off on loop four, alternating between mentally hitting myself in the head for saying that I stay home with my kid and drowning myself in guilt for feeling like that was totally lame.

But he was the one who acted all dismissive when I said that, so he shouldn't have made me feel badly.

But I am the one who felt badly.  

So again I ask you, why do we hate mamas?  

The new reality

Turns out, I've been sleep deprived for going on nine months now.  I've grown accustomed to the familiar feeling of choosing to only pay attention to six rather than nine things at once because that's all my gasping brain can handle, to the constant race I am in to drink enough water to stay one step ahead of the ever-looming exhaustion headache that has taken up residence in the back of my brain.

But I guess it's not supposed to be like this.  Oh, it is for new parents, don't doubt that, but for the general population - no.

I went to sleep much too late last night (a stupid recent trend, I'll admit) and was awoken a glorious 90 minutes later to the sound of a crying baby.  Now this baby, she never cries at night.  When she usually wakes up after eight hours of sleeping and is hungry, she starts to stir and make grunty noises.  I get up and get into her room before things escalate to the point of actual wakefulness or sadness.  I do this every night, on my own, while hubs slumbers, peacefully undisturbed.

So when she cried last night, I knew it was his time to get up.  He didn't, not right away, anyway.  Anyway, that's a story for another post.

When the kiddo is back down and getting dozey, I find that I have been awake for two hours and can't fall back asleep.  Pre-baby, this would really freak me out.  Post-baby, this has happened more than I care to admit.

When hubs' alarm went off three hours later, I dutifully climbed out of bed, got dressed and combed my hair.

The kid woke up not long after, which is to say WHY IS SHE NOT TAKING A NAP RIGHT NOW?

I am hoping that by continuing to leave her in her room she will magically drift off to sleep.  I am also hoping that someone else will show up to take care of this.

Peevish

There are a few things in this world that really, and I mean *really*, rub me the wrong way. Try as I might I just can't get over my annoyance when these little thorns pop up.

In no particular order, a few of my least favorite things...I feel like I've written this before...

* When you are filling out a form, be it an application, a survey, online or in hard copy, whatever, and you are asked to select gender, why is it that "Male" is always listed before "Female?" Alphabetically, it doesn't make sense and if it's just random, well, those are pretty great odds to come up male all the time. I think we all know the answer to this one - it's so entrenched that we don't realize it anymore, but it's because men are thought of as superior to women. I really hate that.

* When people find out I gave birth to my healthy daughter at home they immediately ask one of two things: a) how far away do you live from the emergency room (because birth is an emergency, right?) or b) what was your backup? I want to say my backup is my midwife who was there by my side. (I've had to delete the rest of this paragraph because apparently I was feel pretty rageful when I wrote it and not only was it snippy, it didn't make as much sense as I thought it did).

* When people don't wave when you let them in front of you while driving. I just don't get this. I wave emphatically and have even been known to flash the peace sign for an exceptionally kind let-in.

* When people try to hook up my kid. No, she doesn't already have a boyfriend; no, I don't want her to meet your strapping eight-month old lad. She's a BABY. Let's let her be one, shall we? I'm not pimping out my daughter.

* Myself when I don't get back to a good friend. I hate it when I do that.

* Bad spelling and poor grammar, because I am a nerd. Although sometimes these are the things I find the most hilarious, because I am a nerd.

Here come yum yums!

For Christmas I received "A Homemade Life," written by Seattle's very own Molly Wizenberg. I have to admit to a bit of a girl crush, here, as Molly, at least what I know of her through her writing, is the type of person I thought I would end up becoming. At the very least, I know we would become fast friends were we to ever meet.

Anyway, I finished the book a few days ago (I don't get much time to read these days). I get most of the recipes I make and my ideas for meals from magazines and books. This book has already found it's way into heavy rotation in my kitchen.

In the last three days, I have made from this book the red cabbage salad with lemon and pepper, the tomato soup with two fennels and the mega-yummy custard-filled cornbread (hence, the photo of the half-empty pan).


The cabbage salad? Gone. The soup? We've had it for two meals and I see a revival for dinner tonight. The custard-filled cornbread? Well, we had it for breakfast this morning and it's already half gone, so I don't think it's long for this world, either.

Before the baby was born, we cooked and baked ALL. THE. TIME. We made our own bread all the time (like, for realsies - we did not buy bread at the store for anything, sandwiches, toast, whatever). When baby showed up, the cooking (and for that matter the regular meals) kind of went by the wayside. We'd dappled here and there in cooking, but once she turned six months old I had an epiphany/breakdown. The baby honeymoon time of screwing around, not cleaning the house and eating like garbage was over and it was time for us to start making meals that normal people would recognize. And that would go onto a plate before going into our mouths.

Although she'll never read this, I would like to send up a heartfelt thank you to Molly Wizenberg for the kick in the pants I needed to start looking forward to meal prep and grocery shopping again. For me, cooking and baking are where I feel creative and sane and I'm pleased to have both back in my life.

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Okay, so what is with me being all serious for an entire blog post?

How I am

Any time in my life I have tried to keep a journal it goes fairly poorly. I won't write in it for months and months and then, when I get a hankerin' to jot down my thoughts, I open the journal, realize I've been negligent and attempt to write down everything of significance that's happened since I last wrote. Once I finish that, I'm overwhelmed and my hand hurts so I put the journal back down and don't pick it up again for a few more months...wash, rinse, repeat.

So I'm going to avoid the urge to cover the happenings of the past five and a half months in chronological order and just go forward from here.

In online, too pressed for time to type out the whole thing, soooo 2010 parlance, I am now a SAHM (stay at home mom). In fact, when we bought our new car recently and *I* was filling out the loan application, the car seller guy told me to list my husband first because I was a HOMEMAKER.

I almost became a dealership burn downer after that.

To be fair to myself, I am just starting out on my own as a "contract communications consultant" (I came up with that term in order to be prepared for all the cocktail parties I am going to these days). I have already completed a few jobs and am looking for more. So I will be making some money.

Just not as much as I used to.

Which means that we have a whole budget situation to rejigger.

When the bacon arrives in the bank account, do we each get a bit that we can spend on whatever? Does it all go toward shared expenses and we no longer get to do the whatevers? Does hubs only get to do the whatevers now that he is the one bringing home said bacon? How am I going to pay to get my hair cut?

What about when I buy stuff for the baby during the day, or go grocery shopping? Do those purchases need to have pre-approval because I am not the one who gets the paycheck?

How do people work this out? More importantly to me, how do smart, professional, forward-thinking, similar-minded women who are in my boat (because I know there are a lot of them, more than you would think) work this out?

I am used to having my own money that I can spend on my own things - if I buy new mascara because I read about it in a magazine and then it makes my eyes water, I don't want to feel bad about buying a different tube of mascara the next day. Nor do I want to suffer through and wear the eye-watering mascara.

So what do I do about the mascara now?