You're crowding me, lady

This is what I feel like my son says every time I lean over and he starts kicking.  Speaking of feeling crowded, I have now arranged all the furniture in the nursery and…I freakin’ hate it!  The furniture is all on top of each other and it’s not set up for any kind of work flow and it SUCKS.  And I have a friend bringing over a glider and ottoman at some point, and there is literally not a square inch of space for this item.  Also, sorry N, but I hate the colors I picked.  Maybe it’s just the lighting, so I’ll give it a little time and maybe get brighter lights in the overhead light, but it’s just so dark and gloomy in there.  And I don’t think “dark” and “gloomy” are terms any mother puts on her vision board for her nursery!  Again, it’s not like it’s really his “room” like a real closed off room would be, it’s just a place to hold his stuff & change him.  But it’s bumming me out. 

What am I going to do about it?  Well, I’ll sit with the colors for a couple of weeks (no time between now and New Year’s to deal with this anyway) because I may change my mind.  But as far as the furniture – I think the only thing to do is sell my lovely 1930’s club set, whose sofa is taking up residence in there.  It takes up a whole wall, needs to be slip covered, and now with a smaller living room, the two chairs are also crowding the living room.  Ever since I stopped using this set as my primary seating for the living room, I’ve been shifting it around helplessly not knowing where to put it.  I love the thing but I just don’t have the space.  So now I have to figure out how to sell it.  A preliminary glimpse at Craig’s List and Ebay doesn’t yield anything at all similar I can base a price off of.  I bought it in 1997 when I started work at Paramount as a celebratory splurge piece.  Could I get a couple thousand for it…?  Maybe.  And if I get even half that it could just be the solution to my money problems.  So I will give selling it a shot after the holidays, and hopefully the freed-up space and money will give me a little breathing room.

In other nursery woes I picked up my 1940’s baby buggy yesterday and am having a bit of buyer’s remorse.  It’s a beautiful item, don’t get me wrong.  But it’s HUGE and HEAVY.  Again, takes up pretty much an entire wall in the nursery, and can’t be stored in the car or down near the street so I can actually use it.  Put together it weighs about 60 lbs; separated each piece is about 30 lbs which is already over the limit of what I feel comfortable carrying right now.  I wish I had it instead of the crib…but there you go.  For ten years I’ve had this problem of bringing things into this house thinking they’ll fit just fine, and discovering the house is infinitely smaller than I ever remember it being.  I’ll never forget my old sectional sofa that I bought because it was the smallest one in the store – I get it home and it literally takes up the entire living room, blocking doorways and windows.  What a nightmare!  I always forget that everything that comes in here has to be tiny otherwise it overwhelms everything. 

Anyway, don’t think I’m stressing out about this stuff.  It’ll all get fixed, and luckily I have plenty of time to change my mind about things and/or rearrange until I’m happy.  It just kind of cracks me up all the mistakes I’ve made around here over the years – I’ve made decisions about remodeling/decorating that have literally cost thousands to fix or undo, all just because they were bad ideas to begin with.  I guess this is why people hire professionals!

In other news, in looking at my baby ticker I can't help but notice I am now in the double digits as opposed to triple digits - woo hoo!

The Jig is Up

I decided to out myself on Facebook.  Not in any dramatic way, but I figured since everyone knows now anyway (and I certainly can’t physically hide it anymore) I could at least occasionally mention it, and post pictures of myself in my “condition” (as with the picture I posted on here yesterday).  I had two people private message me to ask if I was expecting, and one person text, and a handful of people give thumbs up (ha ha, thankfully there’s no “f-you button”…yet) and comment positively.  So, that’s that.  I don’t feel like I need to pretend it’s not happening, but I don’t have to announce it with some big fanfare, either.  Works for me.

Drove out to Agoura to pick up my 1940’s baby buggy today.  It weighs an EFFING TON.  I could barely get it up the stairs even in two pieces.  It’s in great shape, and is indeed a beautiful item.  But will certainly not be for every day use.  May not even be for non-every day use.  If it weren’t for the stairs, or if it could be stored in the car…but no.  Oh well.  It will look great in the baby’s room (color matches the blue walls) and I can always haul it down for special occasions.  But man is this thing heavy!

Yesterday I had my first actual conversation with my child.  Oh, I’ve said little things here and there, but always with a sense that I’m just being silly and feeling somewhat self-conscious.  But yesterday I was showering and he started moving around for the first time that morning, and I just reflexively asked, “Oh, are you awake?” I don’t know how to describe how this time it was different, but it just was.  I think movement helps you a lot to feel connected to the baby.  It’s the first time your baby can express an opinion about something – I don’t like it when you sit in that position, I like it when you eat that, etc.  And so his little personality is already asserting itself.  Which I think is fabulous. 

Painter guy returns today to start the dining room.  I hope it’s easier because there’s no peeling wallpaper…but it may be harder because there’s more wall space to deal with.  Can he get the walls peeled, sanded, primed and painted with two coats before Friday…?  I dread having everything all torn up around here again, but there’s nothing to be done about it…better now than later.  For me I have to finish the nursery walls so I can put everything back and get organized; half the nursery stuff is in the living room.  Yep, it’s a right old mess around here.  But still I feel so free when I think of all the broken appliances, unused books, and other crap I’ve managed to unload in the last couple of weeks.  Really I should do a big purge like that every year, as I do with my clothes and shoes…with a second person living here soon, this may become a necessity.  Because Lord knows that child is going to be positively showered with toys!

Been debating about the whole Santa thing, and appropriately enough, just about every talk radio show I’ve listened to this week has had an hour discussion on the topic.  You know what?  I think we’re going to do Santa.  I think all the enjoyment he’ll get out of the magic of Santa and Christmas will be far more important than any potential disappointment at discovering he’s not real.  As some friends pointed out, even if Santa is never mentioned in your household, it’s everywhere – every movie, TV show, song on the radio, mentions him, and then once the kid is in school, the majority of other kids will be into Santa.  So, why not?  I think it could be a lot of fun, actually, leaving milk and cookies out for him, making some presents from Santa and some from mom (and doing special wrapping for the Santa presents which some of the radio callers suggested).  I never really believed in him myself – my mother took a “well, maybe there is, and maybe there isn’t” approach, and I just kind of came to my own conclusion – but I do want to make sure my kid gets to experience all the magical parts of childhood.  So done, and done.   

So far here’s the Major Parenting Decisions Roundup:

Santa – yes

Veggie at home, omnivore everywhere else

No God, Jesus, or Bible, but certainly an awareness of these things, and in a non-judgmental way (I’ll keep my bitterness to myself)

First day on the nursery

So I’m completely over my crap mood, btw.  I was over it by the next morning.  I have to tell you, one of the most useful things I ever learned in this life was “just because you have a thought, doesn’t mean it’s your thought.”  Growing up as I did, I never learned nor understood just how much we as people (and women in particular) are affected by hormones and chemicals.  Sometime during my “I’m going to beat this depression” thing I discovered that hormones and chemicals can, in fact, make us think things that we’re not actually thinking.  Yes, ugly tuna fish sandwiches.  So even in the midst of my bitterness Saturday I knew it was almost entirely hormonal.  And based on the weird taste in my mouth, I believe this is true.  The next day despite almost no sleep I bounded out of bed and had a swell day.  So, there you go.

Speaking of the swell day, met my book club gals for brunch, one of whom recently had a baby, and I had to ask her the two big questions we had both had before she delivered – “so, do you have time to take a shower?” (in answer to the common myth that once you have a baby you “won’t even have time to take a shower”), and “Cry It Out vs. Rock To Sleep" (her baby is too little for this one yet – although so far she seems to be a good sleeper).  My friend assures me that yes, she does, in fact, have time to take a shower.  So that’s a relief.  And just for the record I have no intention of putting my baby down and shutting the door while he screams his lungs out in an attempt to get him to “self-soothe”.  But I have to say most parents I know admit that at some point you do have to insist on bed time and put the baby (or small child) down whether they want it or not, which I guess could be considered a version of Cry It Out.  I don’t know what the answer is, but I suppose this is just one of those case-by-case scenarios.

So here is a picture of me Saturday night at my gig in my fabulous 40s maternity outfit.  It makes me look HUGE, as if I’m about to deliver tomorrow.  The term “Omar the Tentmaker” comes to mind.  The actual label on the outfit is a super creepy “Welcome, Stranger” which also happens to be the title of a very sick short story I wrote years ago about a woman who accidentally smothers her sister’s baby.  This fact, however, did not make me not buy the outfit.  It’s pretty much going to be my standard gig outfit for the next six months (although I discovered with horror I’m already on the largest setting for the skirt, so I may outgrow at least the skirt part fairly soon.  Should be good for New Year’s, though).

After positively months of searching I at last found a perfect 40s baby buggy on ebay and bought it last night.  It had to have the magical combination of a) clean, not rusted or otherwise hazardous, b) functional, folds down, and c) local pick up, since often shipping these costs upwards of $100.  Again, I may never even use this buggy, but I still feel compelled to have one really fantastic vintage item even if it never ends up being anything but an heirloom.  I intend on having a modern one as well for practical purposes.  I also found a good high chair I’m going to bid on shortly.  This one had to be a) again, clean, not rusted, and fully functional, and b) red.  And again, may not end up using it.  But it sure will look cute in my kitchen.  Pictures to follow when these things arrive.

Yesterday one of my book club gals came over to help me paint the nursery.  We knocked it out in no time.  It’s funny how you don’t realize how messed up your walls are until you’re right up next to them – my walls, at least in that room, are a mess of non-flush angles and bumps and ancient earthquake damage.  My 106-year-old house, you’re showing your age, honey!  And when’s the last time a little kid lived here…?  Very curious about that. 

I have to admit the colors I picked came out a bit darker and more intense than I’d intended – I was picturing soft, muted, mid-century – but it’s cool.  I have no intention of re-doing all that, and again the room will probably only be that way for a year or so and then it’ll be all changed up.  So the whole area is temporary, and my son won’t really spend any time in there.  I’m just trying to make it cute and coordinated for my own entertainment, really. 

Having a Meh-rry Christmas

So I feel like absolute garbage today.  Why?  No reason.  I debated about writing anything about this at all, considering the challenges some of my fellow bloggers are enduring right now.  But then I remembered this is my blog and this is how I’m feeling right now, so, what the heck?

I’m sure I’ll snap out of this.  But I am just getting to that point that probably everyone is right now – I’m worn out, I’m broke, and I’m worried I’m not going to get all the things done that have to be done in the next week.  I spent ALL DAY waiting on lines in stores yesterday, and hauling heavy crap around, and then was too exhausted to go out to this caroling party I had agreed to go to later.  I texted a couple of people how tired I was and how I couldn’t make it, how I had tweaked my shoulder in yoga (true) and felt like crap, and all they wrote back was “boo” and “pfft”.  Not I hope you feel better, not take it easy.  Just the implication that I’m some kind of flake and am letting people down.  Is this my hormones making me more sensitive than usual?  Absolutely.  Still bothers me, though.

Things are randomly breaking and malfunctioning around here – just a bunch of little things, but enough that it’s making every day life just that much more complicated and difficult.  Things that now have to be repaired or replaced, all with money I don’t have.  Yes, even with not buying any presents this year, I am beyond broke.  And the expenses don’t end there – between all the birthday dinners and parties and things I have to plan and/or participate in, I am WAY off on my budget, despite my best efforts.  And now I don’t have a lick of food in the house, I am positively out of everything, which means probably a $200 giant grocery trip, which I also can’t afford.  So my money worries have been ramped up to high stress levels. 

I don’t think all of these little petty things would bother me so much, if I didn’t have the constant thought of, “if I can’t even handle this stupid little thing, how the hell am I going to handle this with a child?”  I think about the things that are annoying me today, and then I think how I’d feel if I had a sick baby in the other room, or a colicky one who hasn’t slept in months, or a toddler with special needs, or a baby with some worrisome health condition.  My hope would be that the petty concerns would just melt away and I’d be focused on the child, and I would just deal with that.  But I often chastise myself for being bothered by such unimportant shit when there’s about to be a kid around here, and I won’t have the luxury of being in a bad mood, or impatient, or depressed, or lazy.  Will I rise to the occasion and cheer the f up for the sake of the child?  Or will I be like my mother and mope around the house or lie in bed all day feeling sorry for myself?  Can I be better than her?  Sometimes I wonder.

Read a news item yesterday about how parents exaggerate the joys of parenthood to make their lives seem better, when in fact childless people test “happier” than their parent counterparts.  I often suspected this years ago; but now I kind of doubt it.  I mean, did the person writing this article or doing this research interview infertile women?  Because I would bet they’d be a lot happier if they had a child.  Just a guess, here.  Also I don’t think they take into account the levels of denial and defensiveness that childless by choice people can have – “no, my life’s great, why would I want to mess everything up with a kid?” when in fact they’re just going to work and then sitting in front of the TV like everyone else, not doing all the meaningful volunteer work and exciting travel they claim.  Also you can’t interview a parent when they have a screaming toddler about how much they love parenting.  Try interviewing that same person on the day their kid graduates with honors from high school, and you’d get a dramatically different answer.  Still, even knowing all this, reading that article kind of bugged me.

Also bug-worthy was a 20/20 about giving birth around the world, and Mexico’s attempt at encouraging people to have smaller families.  Now, I agree with this, absolutely – kids are most likely going to have a better quality of life in a smaller family, especially when the family is already poor.  But again it left me with the message of kids = unhappiness.  That children are a burden, your children’s childhoods are something to be “survived”, that as a parent you just go through the motions to keep your kids alive until they’re old enough to take care of themselves so you can “get back to your life”.  I find all of this incredibly depressing.  Mainly because this is how my mother was, and I SO don’t want to be like that.  I want to enjoy my son’s childhood, even the crappy parts.  I don’t want to just space out and go through the motions.  A woman I know recently who had a son later in life confided in me in a drunken state at a party that she “got an awful kid,” but assured me that somehow I wouldn’t, that mine would be different.  But that hers was “just awful”.  Good times!

I think about all these things, and then I remind myself that I’m not perfect, and no matter what I’m not going to be a perfect mother, no matter how I try.  I’m going to lose my temper, I’m going to not know what to do sometimes, I’m going to do or say things that aren’t the right thing to do or say.  Like it or not, there are going to be things I do to my son that are going to damage him, even though at the time it seemed like the right thing to do.  This terrifies me, but I know it’s just life, and nobody’s perfect.  I’m not going to bound out of bed every day of my son’s life full of energy wanting to cook a nutritious breakfast for him and make up games we can play and spend all day entertaining him without a thought to how I’m going to make a living to keep the roof over our heads.  I have to be mother, father, breadwinner, and housekeeper, and there are going to be times when one or more of these things is going to fall by the wayside.  Can I forgive myself for this?  Right now, I don’t know.