Bonnie M.O.T.

I'm only Interesting when I'm Reproducing

2009-05-08T14:37:00.005-04:00

I'm not sure what happened. We bought a house and Cargo started being a person and next thing I know I have all sorts of no time for blogging.

But here we are again, spring has sprung, and I have a dusty old blog and zero readers. But the reason I'm here this time is not to entertain, but rather to document and inform.

You see, Mot is pregnant. Yes, again. It's funny how the reaction of people to the news is so different when it's your third child and pushing forty. Well, I'll be 39 in July which is practically 40 so yeah. I do have to admit that many women who I tell are super thrilled, especially childless women in their early thirties who see this as a ray of hope that they too can comfortably (yeah RIGHT!) squeeze in three offspring before they hit 40.

So, anywho. I am now, sorry we are now 15 weeks 2 days pregnant with our third child. We know the sex but I'm not going to just blab it here on my pseudo anonymous blog.

Everything in the pregnancy has been normal. We got pregnant on the first try (hey, at 38 you have to be proud of the little things). Heartbeat showed up on time. All measurements and tests are good so far. The first trimester was a bit more queasy and I took a few more naps than usual, but at 13 weeks I emerged into the second trimester feeling healthy and energetic, ready to enjoy a summer of long walks and generally enjoying my last pregnancy.

So when I needed to plan a trip out west for my annual business trip to see my boss, I saw it as an opportunity to spend a week in a hotel, long stretches of uninterrupted sleep, dinners with old friends with no battles to make a toddler eat something other than french fries.

I flew out on a Monday, a horrific 9+ hours of travel due to the unfortunate lack of direct flights from Portland Me to SFO. But I got a great nights sleep and spent the first three nights enjoying some much needed down time while my husband and the au pair juggled the kids back home.

I told my boss I was preggers on Tuesday. He seemed un-phased. All was well.

Thursday I attended a company meeting which required a long stretch of sitting and awkwardly feigning rapt interest for about 1.5 hours. A meeting followed with more sitting. By lunch I was ready for a long walk around Union Square.

PREGNANT LADY TMI ALERT TMI ALERT>>>

I go to the ladies room before leaving for lunch to discover upon wiping that I was bleeding bright red blood. Fuck. I scurry back to my hotel room so I can cry in private and call Chris and generally panic. I get his voicemail and then call my OBs office.

The nurse on call settles my nerves and sayd if it is just spotting I am probably fine until my regular appointment on Tuesday, and they will add an ultrasound to check things out. I am ok to fly, if things get worse, go to the ER.

Things seemed to settle down, I see no more blood and I go back to the office for the rest of the day. I go out for a mocktail with some current and ex-coworkers. I leave to meet another dear old girlfriend for a thai dinner.

I'm standing on the streetcorner in front of the restaurant directing my friend via cell phone when all of a sudden I'm peeing my pants. Only I'm not peeing and I know its not good. I run past the hostess at the restaurant and into the ladies room.

Blood everywhere. I'm thinking "this is it, this is it, I'm loosing the baby." I know in my head I'm 14 odd weeks and that it is too late for your average miscarriage and that I would likely have to go through a very long and painful process to complete a miscarriage, if I would not in fact need a D&C.

I make do with wads of TP and run back to the street to find my friend. I tell her I'm bleeding and she asks if she should call an ambulence.

At that point I'm thinking, no, no, I'm losing the baby, what will they do in the ER? I just need some mega feminine products and to go back to the hotel so I can freak out in private. I am in shock and basically thinking this is the end and I don't know if I can even handle another pregnancy and generally thinking dark dark thoughts.

I call Chris and he asks immediately why I'm not on my way to the hospital. I explain my "all is lost" theory and he gets mad and starts googling directions to UCSF.

About seventy billion hours and a waiting room full of Swine Flu later, I'm at the ER, being checked in and fast tracked up to Labor and Delivery so they can check me out.

En route to the hospital I called my OB again. It was 10 pm EST so I got a call back from the on-call OB. She seemed convinced everything would be fine, and that this was probably just a small hemorrhage. If it was 1 cm I could probably fly, but if its "large" I should probably hang tight in CA until I stablize.

When someone finally remembers I'm in one of the examination rooms, they come in with the glorious Doppler and check for the heartbeat. Before my girlfriend and I can muster up sufficient suspense and worry she smacks it on my belly and THERE IT IS! A solid heartbeat. Holy shit, the OB was right. The baby is fine. 170 or something, and solid. Ok. Deep breath. Maybe it will be ok.

I've been to the restroom several times now and the bleeding seems to have tapered off. I'm getting that sense of optimism that Everything Will be Alright.

But I also know that even when faced with terminal cancer of a loved one, somehow we as humans are able to grasp that hope. Somehow it won't happen that way for my loved one. Yeah, I was gushing blood and that's totally not normal in the second trimester, but pshaw!, I'm sure everything will be just fine.

They then check my cervix. Fine. Closed, healthy. But I can't tell you how totally and utterly wrong it feels to have a pelvic exam while 14 weeks pregnant. My maternal instinct told me to rip the residents head off and drink her blood for getting near my womb, but I decided I could tolerate it for a few minutes if it meant determining that my cervix was still cooperating with this whole 40 weeks gestation thing.

Finally they wheel in a circa 1986 ultrasound machine and fire that thing up. they look, there it is, a healthy wriggling baby!

And they also see.....nothing. no reason for all the blood. In my half day of attending Google MD and my brief convo with the on-call OB, I think, "oh this must mean there is such a small hemorrhage that I am in the clear." They say there's no reason I can't fly the next day.

I also think back to the fact that I never really soaked pads. They're always using that as the benchmark for uterus related problems, "how many pads are you soaking in an hour?" Well, um, I think maybe one. And one over night.

Through all of this I am certain I have what is called a subchorionic hematoma or hemorrhage. I think hematoma is when it is old/bruised/clotted, and hemorrhage is used to describe that it is bleeding.

So fast forward to my office visit and ultrasound here in Maine. Of course not forgetting the intervening 20 billion hours of air travel (snarky) thanks to US AIR for cancelling the last connecting flight to Portland, and genuine thanks to my husband for re-routing me to Manchester NH while I was in the air oblivious to my lack of a way home from Philadelphia.

Ultrasound in maine shows immediately a healthy and active baby. Strong heartbeat. But ohhhh yeah... there it is, as clear as day to this technician - what looks like a "large" clot of old blood just adjacent to the placenta. It appears as though the placenta is mostly unaffected, the clot is more like an extension off one end. The clot measures 7+ cm by one measurement. But it runs along the elbow at the end of my uterus down by the cervix, so perhaps that is why it stretches along so much surface. At any rate it is deemed "large." FVUCK. I was expecting "Small" or better yet, "nothing."

Upstairs to OB's office where he tells me not to worry. "Most of these resolve themselves." BUT. BIG BIG BUT. He does want me on pseudo bedrest. Which means "no lifting, no bending, no sex (and no orgasms in case you were wondering), no cooking or cleaning." I think he may have ordered full bedrest if I worked outside the home, but he knows I can work in bed, so yeah.

He also added that I have "a mango sized ball of old blood in my uterus and it will have to come out." It may reabsorb, but don't be surprised if it comes out the other way.

So that was four days ago. I've been respecting the orders. We patched together child care help and in less than a week my kids have shunned me for my lack of picking them up. I hope they get over it. I am happy to see the chocolate sauce in my drawers as the OB suggested I might, because in my view of things that means its coming out. And the sooner the mango comes out, the sooner the whole thing can heal and then the sooner things will be just fine.

Right?

And now for the internets PSA part of my entry. I found so many different opinions on this whole thing, I've read conflicting studies, read personal accounts of people who are so woefully misinformed I wonder if their OBs are not just high school drop outs duping small town mothers across america.

So here's what I have found and personally believe to be true about subchorionic hematomas:

1. Seems like they are more common in first trimester. Some are attributed to implantation and something going wrong at that moment. First trimester SCHs "usually resolve by the second trimester."

2. They do happen in second trimester and no one knows what causes them. Personally, I blame 12 hours of air travel. I tried to walk around on the flight, but I can't see how something that might cause a pulminary embolism might not also cause a clot to form in your uterus, no?

3. The most solid evidence is that the size of the SCH in relation to the size of the fetus/gestational age is the most important factor in determining outcome. So you cannot just say, if its 7 cm it is BAD. or if its 2 cm its GOOD. Because a 7 cm SCH in relation to a 4 week old fetus is far different from a 7 cm SCH in relation to a 15 week old fetus.

4. Location matters. I believe, from my reading, that where the SCH is will have an impact on outcome. If it is directly behind the placenta, that is not good. If it is off to the side, that is better, and if it is no where near the placenta that is even better. It all boils down to the placenta and it's ability to adhere to the uterine wall and thereby support your growing baby. If the SCH interferes with that, therein lies the problem. Also, the greatest risk of a SCH seems to be that it will grow and ultimately dislodge the placenta from the uterine wall, which if it happens after 20 weeks is called Placental Abruption. I don't know what you would call it before 20 weeks.

My SCH is next to the placenta and does not seem to interfere with the relationship between the placenta and the uterine wall. I hope this is a good thing. It also looks like mostly old blood right now, which I assume means it is done bleeding and is on the mend.

I go back on Tuesday for a 1 week check up to see if it grew, got smaller, or stayed the same. I am hoping for one of the later two. I am hopeful. Everything will be just fine. Right?

Your Special Guest

2008-09-13T15:10:00.005-04:00

Things in the M.O.T. household are still in a bit of upheaval. We've moved into our "new" house. The problem is we kept our lease at the old place for a period of time after our move date, causing us to put off taking over all the miscellaneous crap that you don't really need, but have around, "just in case." So we've spent the last two weeks taking over a soap dish here, a bag of laundry there, a lamp, the silverware tray. It seemed like a good idea at first because we now have 90% of our stuff already unpacked at the "new" place, but the downside is we've made a zillion little trips with the car piled to the rafters with our shit and I'm really, damn tired of schlepping my shit around. If there was a movie about our move, it would be called: Lazy Man's Burden: The Move: The Movie.

Anyway, I came here to say I have nothing to say. But my good friend Toasty asked me to fill in for her as a guest blogger, and since that is the closest I've ever gotten to being asked to write for pay (it's the same, minus the pay part!), I am truly honored by this request. Unfortunately, I was struck with writers block and couldn't come up with anything witty to say. I guess it's better than nothing, which MY blog has been filled with for weeks now.... no wonder the rugs around here stink!

Here's my guest post:

Hi Everyone! Before you get excited for an update from your beloved Toasty, it's just me, Bonnie M.O.T. Most of you probably don't know me, but I am a friend of Toasty, whom she was foolish enough to honor with the request of a guest blog post. She cared enough about her dear readers (YOU!) to have me come by and fill in for her so you didn't get bored in her absence, kind of like a dog sitter.

Except when you're a dog sitter you don't have to come up with anything to say.

So this morning I was making the coffee trying to come up with something to say to entertain all of Toasty's witty and intellectual readers, and I thought to myself, "Why am I ALWAYS the one who makes the coffee around here?" I think this to myself pretty much every morning. Sometimes I even ask the question aloud.

To which my husband replies, "because you're an addict."

I'm the addict!? Well, he drinks the stuff too! And he's the one who always whimpers and whines about his mid-afternoon headaches if he doesn't have enough caffeine. So who's the addict here?

And as I'm thinking all this, my husband is hovering in front of me, his empty cup poised for the brown stuff before the brew is even done... And that is when it dawned on me: my husband is a moocher. He's that guy in college who showed up at parties and drank everyone else's beer, the guy who was always stoned but never once purchased weed. This is the guy who cannot be found before noon without a coffee cup in his hand, yet it never occurs to him to brew a pot himself?

Of course when he finds me in the kitchen cleaning out yesterday's grinds, he's all "Oh I was just about to do that!" Uh, yeah. Right. I must be psychic because every time I decide to empty the dishwasher, make coffee or put the laundry away, he was always "just about to do that." hmmm

Anyway, I never did come up with anything to write in my guest blog entry. But I didn't want to leave Toasty's blog unattended and have Toasty come home to find that you've peed on the rug or chewed up the ottoman. Have a good weekend everyone!

M.O.T. Vila

2008-08-21T21:26:00.008-04:00

The amazing thing about having children is that just when you think that you cannot possibly have less time in each day to do the things you want to do (like cook healthy meals and exercise), let alone the things you need to do (like brush your teeth and shower), you discover that you actually can cram more things into your life. You just move items from the need category into the want category, and then you chuck them. You really don't need to shower every day (especially if you telecommute). That gives you back at least 2 hours a week. Telecommuting really helps in this department, as I have had days when I have not so much as looked in the mirror (much to our nanny's and my husband's horror, I am sure).

And sadly, blogging is not a necessity, so when the shit hits the fan, the blog gets dusty.

The shit in this case is our new home. Or I should say our new Old home. Like a one hundred and eight years old. Yes, the M.O.T. household has entered the housing market, after sitting tentatively on the sidelines since my husband predicted the bubble was about to burst way back in 2001.

So every minute since our closing on August 8th (also Cargo's first birthday), has been filled with something house related. It doesn't help that we bought an old home that needs some immediate work. It could be much worse, I'll admit. But in the last three weeks we have become familiar with all things Bob Vila. We've already had quotes or sunk money into painters, basement dehumidification systems (including the French Drain, which isn't half as naughty or pretty as it sounds), mold mitigation, lead mitigation, radon mitigation (we don't actually need this), new paint technology (check out Benjamin Moore's new Aura line), tree maintenance and removal. We've learned how to remove moss from driveway stones, and all about Marvin vs. Anderson replacements windows. We've talked to the original window restoration guy (known as the individual with the highest blood-lead level in the state of Maine), and learned about modern radiator solutions (Runtal).

Oh, and we also went on a 4 night vacation at the lake. It was supposed to be a week, but we came home early because we had a wee short to-do list around the house...and it was kind of hard to relax with all this stuff hanging over our heads.

So there's my excuse. When I have time I'll come back and post some Before photos. I may have to change the name of this blog to MOT's Home Improvement blog.

P.O.S.

2008-07-25T08:13:00.004-04:00

This morning T-Bone woke up shortly after Cargo and I brought her into our bedroom while I gave Cargo her bottle. Afterward we (passive aggressively) piled into bed with Daddy (where he was pretending to sleep) so we could read books together.

T-Bone points to a large birth mark on my leg and says "Mommy you have a piece of shit on your leg." Thinking I had misheard her I ask her to repeat herself. She then says as clear as day:

"Mommy there is a piece of shit on your leg."

I'm flabbergasted because we talk about "shit" constantly, but we never use that word to apply to the brown matter that she currently thinks is clinging to my leg.

Trust me, we talk up poop in our house. In the hopes of encouraging potty usage we talk about poop, poopy diapers, poop nuggets, rogue poop nuggets (the tiny hard balls that sometimes escape in a diaper change, only to be confused for a raisin ten days later). But I am fairly certain we have never used the word "shit" to refer to the brown stuff that shows up in the diaper or the potty. Never.

I will admit, my husband and I don't censor ourselves too much yet. So we do use the word "shit," but never to apply to the brown stuff. So where did she get this? I asked her once again to repeat what she said. And as if I were a rather dull looking foreign tourist she just slowed it waaaaay down for me:

"Mommy, there... is... a... piece......of......shit......on....your....leg."

At that point any hope that we had misheard her was lost. And we had to explain that "shit" is not a good word to use. But we still have no idea where she learned that shit and poop nuggets are the same thing. We may never know.

What is Wrong With this Picture?

2008-06-05T21:14:00.007-04:00

I'm going to start a new series called "What is Wrong With this Picture?"

See if you can figure it out.

Seriously, does no one in the chain of processing this decal work know when to (or when not to) use a semi-colon?

This is not to say these people are ignorant or ill educated. My own college-educated father is guilty of severe comma abuse. I've received enough emails from him to actually figure out that he believes any group of names needs to be set off by commas. For example, he writes:

I was thinking, Mary and Jo-Bob, could come to visit in the fall.

I'm sure, Peter and Casper, are feeling better.

Maddening.

Thrilling News

2008-06-04T15:00:00.002-04:00

Apparently they've found the area of the brain that detects sarcasm (not to be confused with the area that generates sarcasm).

NY Times Article

Isn't it ironic that someone who is extremely sarcastic might not be able to detect it in others? To expand on the hurricane example from the article:

Man 1, in hurricane: "beautiful day today, mate!!" (hey, maybe they're Australian in my example)

Man 2: "for sure, wish I'd remembered my sunscreen!"

Man 1 thinks to himself - what the fuck is UP with that guy!?

I'm pretty sure that the ability to detect sarcasm decreases with each pregnancy. Or is reverse- corrolated to sleep deprivation. Because when my husband and I are talking, I am often left thinking, "what the fuck is UP with that guy!"

Praise the Lord

2008-06-03T21:20:00.003-04:00

Google Malaise

2008-05-27T20:49:00.008-04:00

A friend of mine queried me the other day "have you ever Googled someone from your past?"

It was my assumption that everyone has done this. Even before there was Google, back when you pulled up yahoo.com on your Netscape browser in 1996, one of the first things you did was search on your own name... So it has always been my assumption that everyone has Googled their ex, their high school BFF, highschool nemesis, childhood friends, teacher crush, that girl from across the hall in the dorm, their orthodontist, the eight year olds they babysat, and their co-counselors at the Calve Island summer camp...and most importantly, yourself.

I answered my friend honestly, "Of course. Who hasn't?"

She then continued with a recounting of events along the lines of "well, now he's married..." and she mentioned something about a magazine spread... and finally ended with "after I found out this stuff, I just felt sort of, I don't know, not so great."

Google Malaise *

It happens to the best of us. That generally insecure and somewhat dirty feeling we get when we Google someone from our past only to discover that they've recently been promoted, featured in a magazine spread, elected to public office, or run a 10k. Ugh. And what have we done? Well, besides sitting on our asses Googling exes and writing snarky blog posts?

But I think there's something we don't often consider - the only news that makes the internets is typically good news. Last time I checked there is no Nasty Divorce or Adultery section in the the New York Times. And anyone who has been sedentary for the last twenty years can safely assume their weight watchers failures will never, ever appear on the internet. And your high school classmate who really did end up like those anti-marijuana ads?, well he doesn't have internet access at his grandma's house, so there's no way he's showing up on a Google search.

And you also won't find birth announcements, tales of uneventful happy marriages, achievements in potty training, and years of service as a stay at home mom. These things somehow fly under the internet radar.

Anyway, I chalk it up to human nature. We are curious and it is there, so we Google. Nothing to feel bad about. And chances are, the snippet of life we can see on the internet is not the full story, and our private achievements are no less admirable.

* My spouse is one of the fortunate few who experiences Google Gloat. He has an ex who blogs about the excruciating minutia of her personal life (without anonymity, go figure) and sadly, very little she writes impresses him. But then again not much impresses him, so that's an entirely different post.

I got Medieval on the Svan

2008-05-16T13:48:00.009-04:00

I took that sucker apart and got all up in its crevices in an entirely inhumane way. And now it is done. It is expunged of all dried yogurt, cheerio dust and petrified banana. It is Clean.

Today is the first day in a long time that I have had enough time to take on a project like the Crusty Svan. You see, I'm home this week with both children, playing Stay-at-Home-Mom. Our nanny has the week off, so I took the week off as well - I am on "vacation" (ha! or as the kids say, ROFLMAO!).

What have I done this week? Well, for one thing I have Cleaned the Svan.... What else? hmmmm

No, I did not scour the house (but I did teach T-Bone what a dust-bunny is). I did not create a weekly shopping list, or even plan a single meal outside of our standard stir-fry/spaghetti and meatball/steak and veg rotation.

But I did help T-Bone make a bird feeder in art class. I did go to the playground and Storytime. I did schlepp both kids out for lunch with Dad, and we even went on a walk or two. I did make T-Bone laugh her little ass off with a manic singing dog puppet routine. And I did rock Cargo* to sleep in my arms for almost all naps and bedtime. (Before you get too excited, I do not recommend regular rocking of baby to sleep - especially if you have two, but this week she is cutting two teeth and she just couldn't get over the sleep hump without the assist.)

So what's my point? Well, I guess my point is that after a week at home I feel like I accomplished nothing, but at the same time, I accomplished everything. Cleaning the Svan was just my tangible goal for the week. That thing was filthy and no one else was going to do it. Arguably its the nanny's job - and she did ask, however weakly, if the pads were machine washable...Well, no they're not. The cleaning instructions simply say "Whole-lotta Elbow Grease"...Ultimately it was up to me, to get it done.

And it feels amazingly good to get that sucker clean again. And it feels even better to make T-Bone laugh her little (it really is itty-bitty) ass off and make up songs that she asks for over and over again.

I have always known that staying home with children is harder than working - when I go to work I go on vacation. I sit on my ass and read email, have blustery conversations on the phone. I don't have to carry 50 combined pounds of child up three flights of stairs, I don't have to scrub any crusty food.

But at work, no one is laughing their ass off. Quite the contrary. Yes I get paid more to sit on my ass and send emails, but maybe the laughter is worth more to me?

I'm not really coming to any conclusion with this, but you see where it's going....

to be continued...

*We'll call baby #2 "Cargo" for now, because she rides in the cargo-compartment of the double stroller....

Excuse me, I'm trying to Live in the Moment

2008-05-15T14:09:00.006-04:00

Since the birth of my first child, people have told me "enjoy it while it lasts, it goes by so fast!"

Well that first year with a baby didn't feel so fast at the time. But when we approached T-bone's first birthday, I knew what 'they' were talking about - that year flew by so fast our heads are still spinning. In fact the last 2 years are a complete blur.

The first years with small children are chock full of so many golden life nuggets its hard to savor any one moment. That, combined with the time-warp effect of sleep deprivation, make days, weeks, even months munge together and suddenly you're startled to discover that not only is winter over, but it's a year later and time marches on....

So yeah, time flies when you have kids. I think time flies in general as you get older, the relative length of one year being a smaller and smaller fraction of your overall life and what not...But does everyone, every stranger on the street feel compelled to remind me of this? Do I need to be reminded constantly that my children will grow up at light speed?

I used to be touched by these comments. If a man on the street said "they'll be off to college before you know it!" My heart would ache and I would respond with something meaningless but polite like "don't I know it!" And I felt thankful to be reminded to enjoy my children.

But today it occurred to me: I already am enjoying my children. In fact I was doing just that - enjoying my children - this morning. We were out for a pleasant stroll along the harbor when some guy brought me down like a lead zeppelin by saying "before you know it those girls will be back here with their boyfriends!" -- referring to the picturesque spot where we stood by the fishing boats.

It's kind of funny, but nine times out of ten it is a man that is giving this sage advice. Maybe that's because many men of older generations totally skipped out on their kid's childhood, and now regret not being more present when their kids were young, cats-in-the-cradle style? I don't know.

Well, today I decided I would rather not be reminded of the future, thank you very much. I am clearly enjoying my children as I snap their photo with the Pirates mascot in downtown Portland on a sunny Thursday morning. If they don't remind me that this will all be over before I know it, I might actually enjoy The Now even more.

If they really want me to appreciate my children while they are young, a simple "what adorable girls!" or "your beautiful children should be L.L. Bean models!" would suffice. Then I could just smile and say "don't I know it!"

Six Quirky Things About Me

2008-05-05T10:40:00.005-04:00

Shockingly, I have been tagged. Shocking because I think I only have one reader. Yes, I have been tagged by my lone reader, MyInnerTeen (aka Toasty!!!!). Of course if you are lurking out there, and you have a blog, you are hereby tagged.

Anyway, I think it is a breach of webiquette to be tagged and not follow instructions to some extent, so I will do my best.

Six Quirky Things About Me:

1. I LOVE TO WHISTLE! Sorry Toasty! And not only do I love to whistle, but I am damn good at it. I think I can whistle three octaves so you could call me The Mariah Carey of Whistlers.

2. I can't sleep unless I have two special pillows* - the Tempurpedic, and a body pillow for snuggling. This is a holdover from my first pregnancy, and somehow it stuck. I try to take both pillows when I travel.

3. I love to eat the exact same thing for breakfast every single day. And it's not just cereal or pop tarts or toast, it's a crazy concoction-o'health: Oatmeal with soy milk, cinnamon, honey, walnuts, sometimes blueberries if they are in season, and a drop of olive oil. You can't fit more Superfoods into one meal. The olive oil was my Grandma's idea. She lived to 100, so I'm going to take her dietary advice pretty seriously.

4. I hate sleeping with the bedroom door ajar. I guess this is some primal nesting thing, because it feels like I'm too exposed to breezes and whatnot if I leave the door open.

5. I have a lazy eye, or I should say lazy eye-lid, but it is only captured in photographs. Not sure which eye it is, I think it's the left one.

6. I am freakishly lucky when it comes to raffles and gambling. In my lifetime I have won: A Ten Speed Bicycle (a raffle), A Free lunch (guessing the weight of a giant wheel of cheese), other shit I can't remember, countless payoffs of $50 and up from the slots, and $15,000 in keno. It was the very first time I had played keno. My husband and I were on the last leg of our return drive across country (going West). We stopped at some random hotel on the Nevada border, and we sat down for a late dinner before heading to bed. Of course the hotel restaurant had slots and keno going around the clock. I figured, what the heck, I'll put a dollar down. When I won the restaurant workers got all obligatory-excited for me, but after 10 hours of driving I asked if we could finish our meal before claiming the prize! I used the money to pay off my Honda Civic.

*An alternate name for this list could be "Six Ways I am Practically Indistinguishable from a Freaking Senior Citizen"

The Rules:

1. Link to the person who tagged you.

2. Mention the rules on your blog.

3. Tell about 6 unspectacular quirks of yours.

4. Tag 6 bloggers and link them. This is where I crash and burn.

5. Notify taggees by leaving a comment on their blog. Well, since I have no one to tag in person, consider this a public notice that you lurkers are all hereby tagged!

PG 13 Produce

2008-04-21T10:07:00.011-04:00

I have always loved Whole Foods. Apparently I am not alone. There is a brand new Whole Foods here in Portland and it does not disappoint. It's located in a custom built building, the better to house it's obscenely abundant produce, comfortably wide aisles, super happy (if apparently a bit high) clerks, and sample stations at every turn. When I walked through the Portland Whole Foods for the first time, I knew I would love living in Maine (for that and many other reasons, of course).

Anyway, visiting Whole Foods for me is like being a kid in a candy shop. I could spend hours browsing, discovering fig spreads from Portugal or reading about the seventeen different root vegetables that are often confused with the Yam.

Last week, however, while perusing the grapes, my Whole Foods experience suddenly took a very dark turn.

I had my head down picking up grape bunches and showing them to my husband, "Can we eat this much?"

No more than 5 feet away was a couple also perusing the grape mountain. With my head down I could only see the couple from the waist down. They were dressed in standard Portland gear - neutral colored pants, rain jackets in muted greens. It could have been two women, two middle aged men, two large teenagers for all I could see.

But then I caught a glimpse of something that is now forever seared into my brain. One of the individuals started caressing the other's rear. At first I thought, "oh a little pat in public, we all get caught doing that now and again." But normally we giggle, blush, compose ourselves and move on. This couple had something else in mind.

I'm still keeping my eyes on the grapes, not wanting to embarrass the couple... but I soon realize they have no intention of stopping, nor do they care that my husband and I can plainly see what is going on.

The caress not only continues, but it becomes more insistent, until finally the guy has his hand pretty much wedged up between his partner's butt cheeks. It looks like he's about to bend this women over on the grape mountain right then and there.

At this point, I can no longer control myself, my eyes must be bugging out of my head and I have to look up to see who they are.

I feign focus on Chris "do you think these are seedless?"

I discover that it's an average looking fifty-something male and his wife. The guy is staring right at me, his hand still between the woman's legs. She is just standing there un-phased, contemplating green vs. red grapes. It's hard to tell if she truly doesn't notice what he's doing or if after thirty odd years she's learned not to encourage his randy ways with any sort of reaction. It is then that I realize the act is for my benefit.

Smarty is catching all of this too, but is no help to me regarding seed status and instead stares back at me with similarly bugged eyes. At this point we're frozen in shock, and we just stare at each other for a moment. All the while the groping continues in plain view just feet from where we stand.

I then realize my children are witnessing this too and I move into action. I throw a pile of grapes into the cart, and gas it (or more like slowly steer the barge of a cart with the kiddie-bus attachment).

I spend the rest of the trip with my eyes down, shopping quickly to avoid the creepy couple, but coincidentally they're also looking for bulk nuts, soy milk and organic frozen waffles... go figure?... we can't get away from them!!

The last time something this creepy happened to me I was eight years old. A man in short-shorts (hey, it was the seventies) got the attention of me and a group of school age friends and wanted to show us "The Birds Nest." This entailed him hanging from the jungle gym in a manner that exposed his ball sack to us. We were old enough to know it was a forbidden behavior, but we let him show us repeatedly and laughed our little butts off until we decided he was a dirty pervert and ran home to tell our mothers. Of course they promptly called the police.

But what were we to do now? File a complaint at customer service, have them send a warning over the PA? ..."perverts in produce..."

It sounds innocent enough, I know. There was no nudity. No ball sack. At 37, my morals are already fully corrupted, so what was the harm really? Even so, it felt dirtier than the Birds Nest. Perhaps because of the vacant looking wife? Or because my babies were right there, innocent to the weirdness in their midst?

Of course we did nothing. But I won't forget that guys face, and this is not a big city. He could be our plumber, accountant, or god forbid the fifth grade social studies teacher. Hopefully he's tucked away somewhere safe where we'll never run into him again, like a church.

Passive Aggressive Housekeeping

2008-04-14T21:07:00.006-04:00

This afternoon I found myself doing something that felt a little odd...I caught myself stuffing fistfuls of random unpaired socks and underwear into my husbands drawers, almost angrily, and I thought "if an outsider saw me doing this right now they'd think I was one weird bird."

Usually I think I'm pretty healthy, mentally. It's all those other crazy mofos out there with psychological problems that I have to look out for, right? Well, I'm sure there's a psychological disorder where the subject feels like the only sane person, surrounded by lunatics -- since pretty much every other state of being has been classified as a disorder. But generally I think I'm fairly centered.

Well, I used to drink more than I should. But now that I have children I realize that was just a symptom of having way too much free time on my hands.

Anyway, so back to the angry sock drawer incident.

My husband and I both work full time jobs. Thankfully he works only 9-5 (this year), and I telecommute so our work-life balance is quite nice these days. We share the childcare duties pretty much 50/50. Housework and cooking, well, that's pretty much 80% me. I'm not sure how this happened because I don't see how I have more time for it, other than that I telecommute. And we all know that even though I'm working from home that does NOT mean I am napping, doing laundry, grocery shopping, going to the gym, nursing the baby, or having playdates during business hours.

So yeah, I'm home each day which means I can stay in my PJs all day if I wanted to. So for that reason, I do the laundry. But I don't like it. And as a result I take it out on my husband in small but significant ways:

* I will not check pockets. Coins, chapstick, bills, identification, whatever he's got in those pockets is history. If its in the hamper, I assume its laundry-ready, even though I know there's a good chance he's left something meltable or valuable in those pockets.

* I will not turn inside-out socks back outside-right or whatever you would call it. Really, I just don't want to have that much contact with them.

* I will not pair socks.

* Underwear gets lumped with no consideration whatsoever.

* I only allow non-iron dress shirts to enter our household, and I am often hard pressed to remove them from the dryer in time for a truly "semi-pressed" look. After languishing in the cold dryer for a day and a half they often get hung on the back of a chair in our bedroom and not hangers.

I have often thought I'm a bad wifey and I should take more care in doing my husbands laundry. Sometimes I just think I'm a bitch. But really I just don't have time to carefully fold and sort. That being said, when I haphazardly stuffed that fistful of random socks into his drawer today, it felt distinctly demented. Crazed even. At the very least it was an act of mild aggression.

But then I thought, wouldn't it be even crazier if I spent twenty minutes of my already busy day neatly folding socks into pairs and placing his man-panties in neat piles in his drawers?

I'm going to run a marathon! (in ten years)

2008-04-09T10:28:00.006-04:00

One of my New Years' resolutions was "Get in Shape." I don't have very high aspirations -- my hope is to get rid of the belly that can no longer be attributed to just having given birth. When you're slinging a newborn, people understand the belly. But now at eight months post partum, people see my belly and think "my you've been busy!" Of course they are always too polite to ask when the new baby is due.

My other resolution was "Get Shit Done." Well, it's April and my shit is all over the map still, so last week I decided to join a gym.

The first day there was a bit of a downer. I'm uncertain why the elliptical machine needs to know my age, but as I pressed the age button up....beep beep beep beep beep .....BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEp beep beep beep beep BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BBBBEEP BEEP BEEP beep beep beep beep beep beep ... all the way up to thirty seven, it suddenly dawned on me: I'm Thirty Seven. THIRTY FUCKING SEVEN.

The last time an elliptical machine reminded me how old I was, I was only 34. Solid early thirties. Two babies and several years of sleep deprivation later and I'm thirty seven. Not thirty-something, not mid-thirties, but solid late-thirties. In fact I'm staring down the barrel of the big Four-Oh! WTF? Or as the kids say, OMGWTFBBQ?

And my next realization (a glimpse in the mirror helped me with this one): I'm a goddamn mom! I'm a mother. Of two. There's no hiding it. I have the trademark fleshy middle and the gray hairs. And now I've got the "who gives a shit" gym wardrobe to boot: blown out black drawstring pants, tech-company t-shirt, and black socks. Yes, black socks at the gym and I'm not German. The funny thing is, catching a glimpse of my dorked-out self in the mirror just made me chuckle. As I've asked before, can a woman who has given birth really be embarrassed by anything?

So where was I? Oh yes, being shocked at the realization that I am, in fact, OLD.

Like I said, I'm not running to the beauty counter, hair salon, or Dr. 90210. In fact, I'm feeling pretty OK about it. Maybe I'm just that secure, or maybe it's the mental justifications I've worked out.

Ways to feel better about your age:

there will always be obese, lazy or otherwise unhealthy twenty-somethings who are in worse shape than you.

there are people your age who are running marathons. So, theoretically, if you wanted to, you could still get in shape and be able to run marathons.

there are people older than you who are running marathons. So, theoretically, you could sit on your ass for a few more years, then get in shape and be able to run marathons.

and my personal favorite:

you could get hit by a bus tomorrow, so get over it and enjoy what you've got today, regardless of age. this argument also includes points like "I knew a guy who died in a tanning salon fire at age 19" (true story, stop laughing at that).

I'm not sure how the marathon points work once you've hit 90, 92 or so. I'm not sure how old the oldest marathon runner is. Gotta look that up.

Strap-on Nanny

2008-03-21T16:39:00.010-04:00

After all the nanny-cam stories that have been coming out, many families worry that even the sweetest nanny could be treating your baby like a sack of potatoes when you're not looking. When you leave your children with another adult, you would have to be blind and dumb not to at least consider the possibility that something bad could be happening when you're not around.

Thankfully, I work from home and I can either see or hear what the nanny is up to 90% of the time. The other 10% is when she is out with T-Bone at storytime, art class, or some other pre-approved activity. (Of course for all I know they're spending their time at the McDonald's drive-thru, eating donut holes and sucking lead paint off a happy meal toy). The baby is never totally alone with the nanny. So I don't worry too much about the nanny-cam stuff.

References and work history are sufficient to determine that your nanny is not a convict or a flight risk. But how do you really know what your nanny is made of?

When we interviewed nanny candidates, my husband would always do informal background checks by way of internet sleuthing -- it is amazing what kids will post on their myspace pages. One had a friend pictured with a gun (or a very realistic looking toy gun).. NEXT! One had photos of herself in drunken stupors (pretty much stock myspace stuff, but not something you want in nanny).

One candidate had this message displayed on her publicly available myspace page (names changed to protect the innocent slutty):

"hahaha oooooooh yes it was definitely FUN! i don't remember anything really, that shit was good. i was royally fucked up haha. :) i sent ashley a text message saying i wanted to fuck the shit out her with a strap on. what the fuck! lol oh dear, the things i say when i'm out of my mind :) love you girly!"

Well, long story short, strap-on girl is now our Strap-on Nanny.

In all other respects she was the perfect candidate -- solid live-in experience, references, sweet and personable. What she does with her friends in her free time does not impact her ability to make a PB&J, to drive or to change a poopy diaper. In fact in the 5 or so months since she's been with us things have been great.

Until last night. Every night my husband does a cursory check of the home computer history... He usually finds nothing of note. Photos of friends, emails about weekend plans. Even a cute photo or two of our own adorable children. But last night was different.

He came into the bedroom while I was putting the baby down.

He says "I don't know if I should even tell you about this..."

Of course then I'm immediately thinking jesus, tell me right now!

And he continues, "But I think I need you to look at it to verify something."

Me: "Verify what?"

Him: "Well, that it's an adult."

An adult what!???, should I be concerned for our children?

We go on with a bizarre form of twenty questions before I determine that while looking at Strap-on's email history, my husband discovered a photo of, er, how do I say this? A hairless va-jay-jay taken with a cell phone camera. Because it was hairless, my husband could not immediately determine if it was that of an adult.

Ok, so I'm a little dismayed that my husband cannot differentiate between an infant's vagina and some skanky ho's hairless hoo-ha. For that reason I did not panic, because I was pretty sure a child's private parts would be glaringly obvious.

So I put the baby down and we go to the computer together. He pulls up the photo. I look. And I look. I do have to look for quite a bit because, yes indeed it doesn't look quite adult. But then again, perhaps my perception is a bit skewed, but I digress. After careful consideration we both conclude that it is in fact the bald cooter of a grown woman. Further, we are fairly certain it is the vagina of our very own Strap-on Nanny.

For the next few hours we mull it over. We determined that Strap-on had taken the photo with her cell phone, at a location other than our home. She then sent it to herself at an internet mail address. Where she planned to send it from there is anyone's guess. Does that even matter?

I'll get to the punchline and just say we are not going to fire her. Again, there is nothing to indicate that this behavior interferes with her ability to make a PB&J (so long as she washes her hands first). We lived on the west coast long enough to be pretty hip with any shit people may be into -- in their free time and far away from our children.

But if we weren't moving in less than a year we would seriously be reconsidering our longterm childcare options. Who does this? Not just the hairless part, but the photo taking and sending part? I mean, is the straight up skanky-ho behavior, or is this what all the kids are doing with technology and the internets? If it's the later, then god help us when our daughters are grown....

Spitzer Sparks Debate

2008-03-15T15:00:00.002-04:00

Thanks Eliot. I was happily sailing into my seventh month post-partum with nary a peep from my poor, poor neglected husband, when BAM, the whole world is suddenly talking about $4000 sex with a 22 year old with three aliases.
And worse - the whole damn world is talking about salad tossing. What does all this have to do with my neglected husband? We'll get to that...

Over the last week or so since the story broke, everyone -- and by everyone I'm not just talking about the housewives of the Upper East side on urbanbaby.com -- every "news" source from rag to respectable has gotten in on this opportunity to discuss this imminently titillating event.

My observation is that the analysis falls clearly into two camps, answering one of two questions:

1) Why did he do something so Stupid!? These are the psycho-analyzers. The people who think that he has to be sick to do something so careless, cruel and self-destructive. I tend to fall into this camp, or at least I want to fall into it. Normally law-abiding, healthy adult males do not frequent prostitutes. And even if you won't give me that, normal, law-abiding, presidential hopefuls do not frequent prostitutes.

2) Can this happen to me? (with the other half of the partnership asking "why can't this happen for me?") These are the folks who just see the sexless marriage (we speculate), and human nature, men will be men, yadda yadda. For this group, Spitzer is a warning (or a threat). Don't let this happen to your marriage! And the corollary "This is what will happen to us if you don't shape up (or even more ominously --if you don't toss the salad)!"

So back to the MOT household. This is our problem: I am solidly in Camp #1, and my husband, poor misled soul that he is, is in Camp #2. What my husband doesn't understand, is that even if Camp #2 has it right, there are several key elements of our situation that distinguish us from the Spitzers.

1. I'm still breastfeeding. I am tapped out, no pun intended, as far as physical contact goes. For this reason, our drought is not the result of a broken, worn out marriage -- rather it is merely nature's way of protecting me from certain death that would come from a third pregnancy within 3 years. The result of a broken, worn out womb? Perhaps.

2. I'm still breastfeeding. The baby still doesn't even take a bottle. That means every 3-4 hours, 24/7. So, I'm pretty much tired all. the. time. See above re: drought.

3. My husband is not the governor. Not sure how this works for us. Arguably if he were the governor, that might jazz things up a bit, so perhaps this one doesn't count with respect to the drought.

4. We've only been married 4 years and 5 months. The Spitzers have been together over 20 years. So even if things were really, really bad, our drought could only be 4 years long, and since we have a seven month old baby, it could biologically only be 17 months long. So by my calculation, we have, oh, 15 more years before one of us can justify a Spitzer.

5. Our ATM limits withdrawals to $300 per day.

6. Did I mention that I'm still breastfeeding? Because that is basically the cause and excuse for pretty much everything for me and the universe, as far as I'm concerned.

So whether the warning/threat applies or not, couples all over the eastern seaboard, have Eliot to thank for opening up the airwaves for these important questions.... Would a healthy adult male frequent a prostitute? Wow, I didn't know the feds tracked large cash withdrawals?! How come you won't toss my salad? And maybe in some small way, couples will be better off, thanks to Eliot.

Anonymous

2008-03-15T14:16:00.002-04:00

This is my goal in life: to make a bazillion dollars, legally change my name to "Anonymous" and then make donations to Children's libraries across the country, with the condition that they change the name to the Anonymous A. Anonymous Library.

Most Embarrassing Moment, Really?

2008-03-10T22:00:00.003-04:00

Somewhere in the book called Script Writing for Reality Competition Shows, if it existed, is a chapter about having the contestants respond to the question: "What was your most embarrassing moment?"

Ok, I admit, that's just a creative way for me to get around saying, "Last night, on American Idol, they asked the contestants, What was your most embarrassing moment?..."

Of course when you hear the responses, "I tripped during my flute recital" etc, you start to think about your own blush-inducing life moments... Thinking of my own embarrassing moments always makes me chuckle. And then it occurred to me that I have a strange need to share my embarrassing moments at every possible opportunity, and in fact they aren't really embarrassing. Is that normal? I just find it strangely liberating, and because they always seem to involve poop, I find them downright hilarious. I hope you do too.

Oh, and in case you're wondering, you did not come to the wrong place. This is still a mommy blog, and not a fecal fetish site, or similar. No worries. I promise not to talk about poop in more than 20% of my entries; and at least 90% of poop-related entries will involve only baby-poop (not mommy poop).

So yes, if asked this question during my Reality Show Competition, my "most embarrassing* moment" would be:

Pooping in the delivery room with Baby #2 (gotta come up with a name for her!). Every woman facing childbirth for the first time knows that this is a possibility. I worried about it before and during delivery of T-Bone. I even fretted about it to the nurse, asking her to let me use the bathroom ten times before they hooked me up to the IV -- when I knew I would be peeing through a catheter and pooping on the table from there on out... But with T-Bone no poop was forthcoming. I was actually a bit disappointed. Well none that I know of.

Long, sordid story short, it happened with Baby #2, and I am certain of it. I could have missed it, but my husband was kind enough inform me in his own subtle way. During some of the more intense contractions, he looked at me with that wide-eyed inquisitive face that is usually reserved for the aisles of Borders and other public places to silently ask "Did you FART?" but in this case the facial expression was so exaggerated and fill with horror, it was clear that I had not only farted, but also shat right there on the table in front of a room full of people. And if the facial expression was not clear enough, he also added the ever-so-subtle wave of his hand as if to say P.U. Gee thanks for the update honey!

Of course at the time I could not have cared less, nor did I see any humor in the situation. I was just happy to have had my bladder finally relieved with some magical maneuvering of the baby's head to un-block the catheter, and whatever else was choosing to clear-on-out of there to make way for the baby, was A-OKAY by me. But looking back, yeah it's funny.

*Is this really embarrassing? Well, can a woman who has lived through childbirth ever be embarrassed by bodily functions?

SDIADLD (Sleep Deprivation Induced Attention Deficit Lethargy Disorder

2008-03-06T22:00:00.000-05:00

Oh for fucks sake I have just about had E-NOUGH of this sleep deprivation thing. Maybe that's why I didn't write for so long? A little sleep deprivation makes me punchy and funny. Well I make myself laugh, at least, which could be a result of the sleep-deprivation, but I digress.... A LOT of sleep deprivation makes me downright stupid.

We're now going on 7 months of sleep deprivation. Woah, wait, did I say "we"? Because there's really no "we" in the 4 am club at the M.O.T. household. Last time I checked, the baby gets plenty of sleep. And there's no one else awake, lurking in the bedroom at 12 pm, 2, 3 or 5 am. Yeah, I could play along with the whole "we're" having a baby, and in a pinch "we're" pregnant. I don't want to leave Chris out entirely, but let's be honest here about sleep. No one else is feeding this baby. I know, she should be taking a bottle from daddy. I know, I KNOW. We suck and are THAT lazy and somehow managed to miss the good windows for introducing the bottle. That and our tolerance for screaming baby is just that low. When you're that tired, tolerance of pretty much anything is limited.

So where was I? Oh yeah. Attention Deficit. The worst part about sleep deprivation, I've found, is that I can't get shit done. Not because I'm so bone-achingly fatigued (even though I am), or because I'm spending my days napping (I wish!). No, I can't get shit done because about thirty seconds into the project I forget: i) why I'm doing it; ii) how to do it; or ii) what the hell it is I'm even doing.

The most sinister part of this infliction is that while sleep deprived and mortally bonded to the 3-4 hour feeding cycle, you think of so many great things you want to accomplish in life... yet none of it has a snowballs chance in hell of getting done, at least not this year. The time and the attention span required just isn't there. So the least I can do is jot it down in a blog entry, and hope to come back to it someday.

Lifetime projects I will not get done this year:

* Pull out the guitar and brush up on those Police and CSN songs that my instructor painstakingly transcribed for me in 11th grade;

* Pick up knitting again (become wonderfully proficient at it; i.e., move beyond the scarf) and knit beautiful sweaters for the girls to wear and cherish for generations;

* write that novel!;

* finish, or in Baby #2s case, start the baby book;

there are more, but for the life of me I can't remember them now....So thank god for blogs, right? I can just spew my shit here and call it a body of work and feel like I've gotten something done, right?

2007: The Highlights Version

2008-02-28T23:00:00.000-05:00

Woah? Did you see that? It was the entire calendar year of 2007 flashing before my eyes.

Yup, it’s been over a year since I last wrote. Where did the time go? Well, lets see…. I got pregnant, gestated and delivered another baby. We moved to Maine. All that and keeping up with T-Bone kept us busy pretty much like, all of 2007. So sorry. I won’t bore you with a full recap, instead we can just cover highlights.

January: Attend Company Meeting in SF and make lame attempt to conceal embarrassingly rushed second pregnancy. This is difficult because I was showing at 5 weeks. Wear black, sip wine at dinner and feign drunkenness.

February through May: As matter of survival, force T-Bone, who turned 1 in January ‘07, to sleep through the night. Implement Self-declared Full Time Telecommuting, enabling me to further conceal pregnancy by not stepping foot in office for three straight months. Took to napping with my blackberry.

April: Announce pregnancy at work at 20 weeks.

May: Husband graduates law school. T-Bone, with stomach flu, poops herself moments after walking with husband to retrieve his diploma. Move to Maine.

May through August: Blissful summer in Maine. Beaches. Lobstah. Blueberries.

August: Poop on a table in front of array of medical professionals; Baby #2 Arrives! [Side note: Blog name dilemma. I am now Mom of “T” and “S”… so Bonnie MoTS?]

Sept through December: Sleep chasing. Interjected the phrase “Two under Two” into every conversation occurring between Aug 8th and January 16th.

So that pretty much wraps up Two Thousand and Seven. Hopefully I’ll be back sooner than a year from now, since there are no plans for Three [under Three], 2008 should be a little smoother.

Party Like a Mom

2006-12-19T15:00:00.001-05:00

I was reading one of my unmarried contemporary’s blogs the other day and marveling at how much action he can pack into a single day. Surfing at dawn (on a vicious hangover no less), a day of work and errands, partying again at night on the San Francisco social scene. Just reading it made me tired. How does he have the energy? Maybe I need to work out more, if only I had the time.

Then it dawned on me. We’re rocking hard here in the M.O.T. household too, harder, I would argue than any singleton in the Peter Pan city of San Francisco.

Think about it:

3 am we’re swinging a 25 pounder back to sleep. 5 am we’re negotiating a later wake up time. 6:30 am it’s no-holds-barred party in Mom and Dad’s bed (the best time of day I might argue). For Mom the rest of the day is non-stop. T-Bone takes a mini-egg omelet these days, Dad favors some sausage. By the time the nanny shows up we’ve put in a three hour shift. Then it’s time to log in for work. The next eight hours are rocking out some work stuff while occasionally dropping in on the baby for a visit. Evenings we’ve got dinner with the baby, splash fest in the bathtub, followed by a reading session with T-Bone, then more singing and rocking before bedtime for T-Bone at 7:00. Next up it’s dinner with Dad, squeeze in an hour or so more work stuff, maybe an hour to catch up on personal email and web stuff, then we’re crashing hard by 10 pm.

I would argue that if you took the baby out of the picture I’d be in better shape to party all night long than any well-slept, weight trained twenty-something. Seriously.

Dear Childless People: You are Not Tired

2006-09-23T15:00:00.001-04:00

One of the many things I have learned as a new parent is this: if ever I thought I was tired before having a baby, I was terribly, terribly wrong.

I hereby apologize to the universe for any time I gluttonously overslept and declared myself “so tired.” To be fair, I could never have known then what it meant to be truly, bone-achingly tired. And to any parents of two, or three, or more children, I know. I know you’re more tired than I am. Honestly, I have no idea how you do it.

During these eight odd months since having a baby, I’ve been continuously surprised by the new levels of Functional Fatigue that I’ve achieved. Yeah, pregnancy was tough. I had to pee at least three times a night (poor baby!). I whined about not being able to sleep without my pregnancy pillow (woe is me!).

Did I think I was tired that first night in the hospital after 9 months of pregnancy and 9 hours of labor? Sure. Did I think I was tired a week later after seven nights of all-night-nursing? Yeah. But that was nothing compared to two weeks of all-night-nursing. At 4 weeks post-partum I declared “I will die if I don’t get a good nights sleep!”

Guess what? I’m still alive.

Around T-Bone's twelve week mark things started to settle down. But then I had to go back to work, and the night feedings continued. And four weeks of sleep deprivation turned into four months, turned into six months, going on nine….

So you can understand I might get a little teeny bit annoyed when I’m on a flight from SFO to Newark — just an ordinary afternoon flight mind you, not a red-eye — and a twenty-something childless woman declares woefully to the stewardess “I absolutely must be seated next to my husband, you see, I need to rest my head on his shoulder, it’s the only way I can sleep!,” because, you know, as she says “I’m really tired, and I have to work tomorrow!”

If looks could maul…

So anyway, Childless People: You are not tired. Trust me.

A Sad Day for Curls Everywhere

2006-08-05T15:00:00.002-04:00

Mother of God the day I have feared most has finally come. A tragedy of haircare has struck the M.O.T. household.

You see I wasn’t always known for my glossy dark curls.

Once upon a time I was a homely child. My mother shorn my hair close to the temples — with uneven bangs no less — to tame my unruly mop. For years I was referred to as “that little boy over there.”

When I was old enough to shampoo and comb my own hair I insisted on growing it out to clearly establish my girlhood. Unfortunately I did not understand the nature of curly vs. straight hair or coarse vs. silky hair. So no matter how much I brushed and petted my mop it still stood in all directions.

I grilled my little girl friends with milky golden locks. “What do you wash it with?” One day I discovered Conditioner and I thought it was the secret to the universe. [Side note - did Conditioner even exist before 1978?] I applied more and more each time but the result was dull and clumpy mounds, but no milky tresses. How did they do it?

Over time my bushy mound grew longer and somehow around age 15 I discovered that my hair was not intended to be straight and milky, but in fact my massive mound was a pile of curls waiting to be set free. If I only stopped brushing the poor things into oblivion.

Around this time I discovered the Finesse line of hair care products. Quite by accident I believe. I probably picked up the first bottle because it was a clean blue color and I liked the smell. I then tried the Finesse Mousse. I discovered that the more mousse I used the better.

I carelessly tried other brands but by my freshman year in college I was a staunch Finesse Only Girl. Finesse Mousse is the ONLY PRODUCT ON THE MARKET that will form my curls into silky shiny ringlets without stickiness or weight.

In the late 90’s Finesse came out with Anti-frizz lines. Even better than the oririnal. Around 2002 they came out with a Soft Curls line (later known as Curl Defining) and I was convinced THEY WERE SPEAKING TO ME.

Women with curly hair ALWAYS ask me what products I use and when I tell them Finesse I can tell they aren’t going to try it because its a cheap drugstore brand. I pity them.

I estimate that from around 1987 through 2006 I have used somewhere in the region of several tons of, and spent in the thousands of dollars on Finesse Shampoo, Conditioner and Mousse. The Soft Curls Mousse must be a hot item because I have often found the space on the shelf where it is supposed to be empty, so when it’s in stock, I buy it in bulk. 2-3 “cans” of mousse at a time. When Soft Curls is out the Enhancing version will work almost as well.

Lately I’ve noticed the shortage of Soft Curls becoming more and more frequent. I’ve had to visit several different pharmacies to find one with FSC in stock.

And today my worst nightmare has come true. When I visited CVS this morning and scanned for the FSC products not only did I not find a the product, I didn’t even find the empty shelf space!

CVS had no Finesse products in stock, and if I’m reading the stocking tea leaves correctly, they have no plans to ever re-stock any Finesse products!!!!!!!!!!!

I rushed home to get on the internet to investigage, and lo and behold, Unilever, the EVIL company that purchased Helen Curtis in the mid-nineties has SOLD OFF the Finesse brand in May of this year. I can’t determine to whom it has been sold, but as far as I can tell this may mean that I cannot and will not be able to find Finesse products for some time, and when they come back they may not even be the same.

Right now I’m in shock, but at some point I’m going to have to come up with an emergency hair care plan. Its hot and humid outside, and August without FSC Mousse could be a very, very long month.

Editors Note: I want to say that I did snag some Finesse Curl Defining Mousse at Duane Reade yesterday, three cans. For all I know perhaps only CVS has fully phased it out. But like with the death of a very famous old celebrity, or the outing of a clearly gay but closeted celebrity, now I have my “Fairwell to Finesse” article pre-written if and/or when it does finally leave the shelves forever.

Would you....

2006-08-01T15:00:00.000-04:00

My Husband and I have this running conversation about picking up money from the street.

It goes something like this:

Husband: “If you saw a penny on the street, would you pick it up?”

Me: “No”

Husband: “If you saw a dime on the street, would you pick it up?”

Me: “No”

Husband: “If you saw a twenty dollar bill on the street, would you pick it up?”

Me: “Hell Yes!”

You get the picure. We go back and forth until we determine that both of us would probably at least hesitate for as little as a quarter, but no less. And if no one is looking we most certainly would pick that quarter up.

So this morning my Husband is changing Tess’s diaper for the third time. The diaper is only marginally wet and he mentions in passing that everytime we throw out a minorly soiled diaper we’re throwing out about twenty five cents. A quarter in the trash every time.

So I ask my husband: “If you saw a quarter on the street, would you pick it up?”

His answer: “Yes.”

I ask: “Would you pick it up if it was covered with shit?”

Bonnie M.O.T.

2006-08-01T14:25:00.000-04:00

Update: the blog name is now Bonnie M.O.T. Less pretentious, more Daughter of Scotia. What do you think?

Trust Me, I'm Objective

2006-07-31T15:00:00.000-04:00

I’ve finally come up a great money-making blog idea. It will be all about insanely adorable baby photos. Sort of like Cute Overload, Daily Puppy, or Hitler Cats .

Ok, so send me the cutest baby photo you can find, and I’ll post them.

I’ll call it “I’ll Be the Judge of That.”

Coming up for Air

2006-07-30T15:00:00.001-04:00

It’s been a while, I know. What is it now, July, almost August? And only now have I found myself with enough idle time on a Sunday morning to revive my yet-to-be-named MomBlog.

T-Bone is now 6 months old. Six months and two weeks to be exact, but we’ve stopped counting in weeks. Not that the weeks don’t make a difference, because they do.

In the two weeks since she turned 6 months she’s starting sitting up. Two weeks ago she was gagging red-faced on bananas. Now she’s smiling while she smears and actually swallows her bananas.

Work is still a distraction from Life with T-Bone. I don’t think this is any way to live — a full time job with an infant just does not work.

Anyway, let’s quickly recap the last three months. Since April 1…..

T-Bone became a crib napper. We hired Maggie, our nanny. Maggie learned the T-Bone routine which made Mom very very happy. T-Bone became a bottle drinker. She went from 2-3 oz per bottle up to almost 8 oz per bottle now.

I pumped at work. T-Bone was fed exclusively on breast milk until her 6 month birthday (July 16th), when we introduced formula and I had a mini-break down over it. I felt useless for about thirty seconds until I realized I have a bazillion other ways to be useful to Tess. I stopped pumping at work!

About a week and a half ago T-Bone got Coxsackie (along with half of the infants in New York City). We took our first rectal temperature. We took another rectal temperature, we took another and another and another until Dad accused me of enjoying it.

T-Bone tasted rice cereal and was not impressed. T-Bone tasted oatmeal and ate way too much, got sick and didn’t touch it again for three weeks. T-Bone tried banana and the world was never the same again. T-Bone eats avocado and banana in her Sassy Teether-Feeder and thinks she’s a big girl.

T-Bone learned to sit up. When she’s not sitting up she enjoys using her incredible thigh muscles (thank you exersaucer) to bounce like a jumping bean.

The dropped pumping sessions have apparently jump started Mom’s “system” and the result is not pretty.

The Two Hour Rule

2006-07-30T15:00:00.000-04:00

I came back to revive my MomBlog and in my Drafts I found this title, along with the following line:

sleep chasing. best advice, get started as soon as possible.

I wrote that back in early April, and I still feel like we’re sleep chasing. Only this last week do I feel like we’ve “caught up” with sleep. And yes, the advice still holds true. Use the two-hour rule as early as possible. We look at video and photos from when T-Bone was a newborn and we laugh at ourselves - why are we holding that sleeping baby?!!!

Try this one on

2006-07-30T14:22:00.001-04:00

I’m feeling out new blog names. I thought I found a good on in “My Mom’s Blog.” T-Bone would introduce me on her blog, super cute, yadda yadda. But apparently 80 year old Millie beat me to it. The young Millie looks strikingly like my own mother, but that’s another tangent for another day.

Then I threw around the expression “Mom of T-Bone,” but felt like there was something a little too Dr. Laura about that. But who am I kidding, it really is all about T-Bone. Right now I’m all about T-Bone, and being the Mom of T-Bone.

Mom of T-Bone.

M.O.T.

Bon mot. Pretentious?

Bon M.O.T. Better.

Le Bon M.O.T. Bad MOFO. M.O.T. Whatever. We’ll try it on for a while.

Let's Get this Party Started

2006-04-01T15:00:00.000-05:00

The point of this blog is to be completely honest about my experience as a new mother. I know of no better place to start than with this photo:

You may think — like I did — that after your delivery you’ll shower off, put on some comfy sweats, and start cruising around with your baby, minus the inconvenient pregnant belly.

The reality of the first week home with a newborn is not long strolls in the park. Its not even all fluffy blankets and cuddles.

The reality is Sitz Baths, leaking breasts, jumbo pads that double as ice packs (who knew these even existed, but thank God they do). You’re going topless. You’re leaking from both ends and you’re honeslty wondering if you and your baby will make it through the night. Your bedroom is a scene from Wild kingdom.

Actually, the photo is misleading. The nurse will tell you you to use the Sitz bath twice a day for twenty minutes, but you’ll be lucky if you can get one five minute session on that thing in the first week. The Sitz is a luxury, and if you’re spending your 20 free minutes on the sitz instead of sleeping you’re making a grave mistake.

I Hate Velcro

2006-03-26T15:00:00.000-05:00

On some days, even Velcro annoys me.

I thought I had done it, I thought I had captured the mysterious “sleep window” with T-Bone this morning. At 10 a.m. I put her down after seeing the subtlest of sleepy signs, and magically she didn’t protest. She lay cooing in her crib for a good ten minutes and I really thought we had made a breakthrough.

At 10:10 I peered through the bedroom door and saw her staring off into the distance — sleep was imminent. She still had her last few grunts and fusses to get through though. At 10:15 she sounded mildly distressed, but waaaay too sleepy to really make a fuss. Next thing I hear is Chris’s voice bellowing from the bedroom “Mooooooooom!” ARG. I give him an angry “Shhh” sign through the crack in the bedroom door, he returns a dejected look of shame and T-Bone responds with a louder fuss. I go in to explain the strategy to Chris, but by this time T-Bone is in full abandoned cry mode and I must pick her up. [Side Note: does anyone notice in this story that my husband is still trying to sleep in the bedroom while I’m up and about?]

Into the stroller she went. I angrily pushed her around the apartment - or as “around” you can get in 650 sq feet — all the while fuming at Chris and thinking to myself “this must be what it’s like to have two children, a baby and a toddler, Chris is my toddler. and we wanted three or more?” hmmmm

T-Bone sat grumpily slouched in the stroller fighting her yawns, and fighting the closing eyes, but eventually she was asleep by 10:50. Only a 50 minute process. This is progress right?

Once she was asleep I tried to quickly tidy the apartment for my friend Donna’s visit. Packed the diaper back — g-damn loud Velcro could wake an elephant.

My return to work looms over me now. I think it makes me that much more sensitive and angry about not having T-Bone precisely “scheduled.” What if she melts down with the nannny? Will I be able to work while that happens? Will T-Bone be permanently damaged? I just want to know that she can be made happy while I’m not around. Is that too much to ask?

Lawmomblog

2006-03-23T15:00:00.000-05:00

I have to set aside the UI issues here and just start writing.

Tess is almost ten weeks old and I’ve already lost precious nuggets of knowledge to a squishy sleep deprived memory. By the time anyone reads this I’m sure I’ll have Tess on a precision schedule (yeah right!). I’m sure I’ll be churning out witty entries on a daily basis, while meeting all of Tess’s needs, all on top giving 110% to my full time job. No Problem.

I’m here to share my observations as a new mother. I’m also here to create a much needed outlet from my “chosen” profession of the law.

You see many years ago, back in 1992 I realised I hated the law. That was my first semester in law school. I wanted to drop out even then, but various forces (mostly the horrid job prospects of the early nineties) kept me in school. I made another break back in 2000 when I quit my first legal job and attempted a career change. What I ended up doing was traveling for six months, taking a couple creative writing courses, losing motivation and taking the first job offer I got back in the legal profession.

I can’t complain. In the process of navigating my hated profession I’ve also learned many useless peices of information mostly pertaining to the business world and contract negotiation. I can sling business jargon like the best of them. I’ll spare you and “outside the box” jokes here, so 2001 anyway.

So where was I? This blog isn’t about law or technology, it’s about being a mom. But if it weren’t for my legal career I would not have met my husband, and ultimately would not be here as the Mom of Tess. So for that I’m thankful I finished law school.

The first order of business is to find a suitable name for the blog. I’m thinking lawmomblog, with a nod to Arrested Development, but do I really want to anchor myself with the law association that I’m so desperate to lose? We’ll see.