A Day in the Life of a Weenie
So as it turns out, maintaining a regular blogging schedule is not that easy when you're adjusting to life as a mom.
Today I'm responding to a writing prompt from my writing group on Facebook, describing a typical day of my life. It's purely a writing exercise to force me to type words before my finger muscles atrophy to the point where I'm reduced to dictation, and I have no idea if it will be entertaining to you, dear reader, but onwards we must soldier.
My day gets off to a bit of a false start around 5:30 AM. This is the time when I'm either awoken by the tinny cries of my daughter through the baby monitor, or my own pounding heart because OH MY GOD why isn't she crying? Did she die of SIDS? Did she suffocate on one of the stuffed animals the American Academy of Pediatrics SPECIFICALLY told me to keep out of her crib? Was she kidnapped? I check the baby monitor and she's usually just starting to stir. I thank my Mommy Alarm Clock (which is like a regular alarm clock, except instead of waking you up at a predetermined time every morning, a Mommy Alarm Clock goes off at random intervals through the whole day and just makes you suddenly alarmed).
I change Poopy's diaper and momentarily consider trying to get her to go back to sleep in the crib, but decide against it. Sleeping in the crib is still pretty new for her, and I'm exhausted, and we're both feeling under the weather, so I just bring her back to my bed and let her nurse while I sleep. Sorry again, American Academy of Pediatrics.
I wake up next at 7:00, when my husband rolls out of bed and gets ready for work (read: blearily fumbles for the nearest pants-type-garment, gives me a sleepy kiss, grabs what is usually the correct set of keys, and stumbles out the door). Some days I might try to get up, since I'm already awake and feel guilty that he's off working while I lounge about like the queen of Sheba, but like I said. Under the weather. Plus Poopy is still fast asleep, tucked into my side like a little baby koala. I fall back asleep.
10:30 AM: I wake up for the third (and final) time, because Poopy is kicking the heck out of me and her little toenails are sharp. She grins ecstatically at me when I open my eyes, arches her back and shrieks with excitement. Poopy loves mornings. This can't be a genetic trait. Her father and I are both firmly planted in the night owl camp. Unless it skips a generation, and she inherited it, along with her red hair, from my mother. If so, I wonder what else might be genetic. I hope she might inherit her Nana's artistic talent and strong moral compass-- although if she has the same inherent loathing of swear words, I worry about her relationship with her father, who is the walking, uncensored embodiment of the dad from "A Christmas Story" fixing the boiler.
I am lazy, and would happily lounge in bed for a few more minutes, but Poopy is eager to be up. Also, her diaper is full again. I have to pee before I can change her. There was an unfortunate incident a couple of days ago involving an unexpected sneeze and I don't want to get into it, but let's just say I blame childbirth. You know those warnings in airplanes, where they say "Attach your own oxygen mask before attempting to help children?" I always scoffed at those. "No way!" I thought. "I'm absolutely going to make sure my kid has oxygen before me." Well, I was idealistic and wrong. Because if you don't have any oxygen, you can't help others. And the others are probably too little or impaired to help you. If you're standing in the nursery in damp pants, you're not changing any diapers, buddy. Secure your own oxygen mask first. Pee, dammit. You're not a bad mom if you pee first.
After getting her diaper changed and putting her in the cutest clean outfit in the drawer (very sophisticated decision-making process, there), I take Poopy into the kitchen and put her in her little bouncy jumper seat with the toys all around it. I don't know what it's actually called, but it was the first baby thing I got when I was pregnant. It was free on the side of the road and I thought, "Hey, why not." That was the best zero bucks I ever spent. She loves it. Thank you, generous neighbor down the street.
While Poopy bounces and pushes the little button that plays the William Tell Overture 50 times, I make us breakfast. Malt-O-Meal, 130 calories per serving. I'm counting now, trying to shed some baby weight (and let's be real... a lot of pre-baby weight, too). Now that Poopy's old enough, I make some cereal for her, too. I mix mine with cranberries, just a whisper of brown sugar, and a little bit of milk. I think wistfully of the days of heavy cream and heaps of brown sugar, but calories. Heart disease. Diabetes. Stay strong, Weenie. It's not like it's an egg-white and spinach omelette. I mix hers with some pumped breast milk from the fridge to cool it down and thin it out.
I eat mine first. Secure your own oxygen. Hers needs to cool down more, anyway. Her little pink rubber-tipped spoon is still turning white when I dip it in, which means the food is too hot. The cereal is thin and bland without sugar, but it's got the incomparable seasoning of nostalgia. Also cranberries. When I've eaten my breakfast and taken my handful of horse-pills otherwise known as "vitamins," I load up a spoonful and blow on it until the spoon turns pink. Poopy does not seem impressed by the cereal. She scrunches up her face and gags, hard. I'm getting used to this, though. Faces which in adults usually indicate severely spoiled seafood and imminent vomiting, in babies just mean "Huh, THAT'S new."
She spits most of it out and looks at me warily, as if trying to discern why I'm attempting to kill her. "More?" I ask, offering another spoonful. She opens her mouth and lunges at the spoon, then gags twice before swallowing. She might not like the flavors, but Poopy loves the part where she gets to slurp stuff off a spoon.
The cereal was not a big success, so I put the leftovers in the fridge to try again later. By now it's 11:45, still an hour before Prince Charming the Butthead returns from work. I should try to look busy, probably, I think, so I gather up some laundry and start processing it. Poopy starts wailing her little head off as soon as I'm out of sight, because separation anxiety is a really fun and special time. The next half hour is divided between trying to calm her down and trying to get the laundry moved from the dryer to a basket, the washer to the dryer, and the dirty basket to the washer. Sometimes I dream that the laundry comes alive and dances around me singing a slowed-down, macabre version of "Be Our Guest" from Beauty and the Beast, except instead of almost-feeding me French food, the dirty boxers and stained spit-up rags are trying to eat me.
Poopy lives up to her name and has three poopy diapers before noon today. I don't know if it's the flu affecting her little system, or a side effect of teething, but it is nasty and seems to be making her fussier than usual. Finally I decide that her clinginess means she's hungry, so we sit down and I nurse her. She falls asleep latched to my boob, her one little bottom tooth scraping against my areola. It's a different kind of thing, parenting. In normal life, when an action results in pain, we adapt and avoid that action. Basic conditioning. But in motherhood, we embrace pain. Pregnancy, labor, birth, breastfeeding, all of them hurt (no matter how much you try to call it "discomfort" or "pressure," it's pain). But I don't feel that usual sense of aversion. Instead I find myself hoping I'll get pregnant again as soon as possible, breastfeeding Poopy as much as she wants, running towards pain and loving it like some kind of masochist. Maybe it's the bonding chemicals the brain releases during breastfeeding. Maybe they override the aversion. Or maybe motherhood is a special kind of crazy.
Prince Butthead comes home around 12:45. Poopy is still asleep on me, so I am still on the couch, and so of course I'm watching HGTV because why fight it? Feminism is a beautiful thing but all I personally have ever wanted out of life is to stay home and watch HGTV. Part of me secretly thinks all women feel like this, but they say they don't and I believe them, and it's ok that they don't want what I want, and it's ok that I don't want what they want, and that's feminism. I get nervous when my husband walks in. I always expect him to be a little salty that he's been out working that 7:30-to-12:30 grind and I'm just here, lazing around between loads of laundry. He never is. He gets me.
He sits down on the couch next to me and tells me about work. Poopy wakes up at the sound of his voice like she usually does, and is at first annoyed to be awake, but then excited to see her dad. The next hour is a feat of juggling the baby back and forth between us, rotating her between toys, trying to keep her happy while we talk. Recently we've been debating the merits of moving vs. fixing up where we are (both completely theoretical, since we have money for neither, at the moment).
Midafternoon, Prince Butthead decides to give himself a haircut and bathe, so Poopy hangs out in her bouncy thing in the kitchen while I wash dishes and think about what to make for dinner. Thinking about dinner reminds me that I haven't eaten lunch and I'm starving, so I make myself a sandwich and some soup. The sandwich is a masterpiece of caloric justification. The cheese is high-calorie, but has protein. The lunchmeat is a processed meat which is a carcinogen, my sister has just informed me, but on the other hand it's low-calorie and high-protien. The bread. The bread is too many empty calories. I settle on one piece of sourdough torn in half, so it's more like half a sandwich. I add spinach. I go ahead and cook it in butter, since it's the same amount of calories as olive oil, and I recently read an article about how saturated fats got a bad rap and are actually linked with lower rates of obesity and heart disease. It helps that this fits in perfectly with what my mother has always said, that things like nonfat yogurt and cottage cheese are a bunch of weak-ass hooey, except she would never say "ass," and please don't tell her I said it, either.
Poopy is very unhappy that I'm attempting to cook or eat, as she often is. I try holding her, but it hurts my back and cooking with one hand looks better in 50s appliance ads than it feels. I strap her into her swing and give her a sloth toy to play with. She fusses when I go back to cooking, but I reason with myself that it's not really full-on crying, just fussing. Secure your own oxygen mask. She can fuss a little bit.
It only takes about two minutes before she goes totally silent. My Mommy Alarm rings. I turn down the heat on everything and rush around the corner to where her swing is. She's fast asleep, clutching the sloth to her. It's over her mouth and nose so I try to move it, to make sure she is actually breathing. She stirs, scowls in her sleep, and pulls the toy closer. Message received, child. You like a nose full of synthetic sloth fur. Fine by me.
In a rare moment of peace and the use of both hands, I am able to eat my lunch before she wakes up.
Butthead comes out of the bathroom and wants help checking his work on the haircut front. He actually made me jump about a foot in the air because I'd forgotten he was home. Good grief, all this time and he's still just cutting his hair? Do you know what would happen if I spent 35 minutes in the bathroom, fiddling with my hair? I mean, probably not that much, the baby would just cry, but still.
Hair approved, he goes to start his bath. True to form, Poopy woke up as soon as he came out, so now I'm playing with her on the floor, engaging in some educational activities and brain-building play.
Dammit, Weenie, be honest.
The truth is I'm absentmindedly jiggling a stuffed monkey in front of her while she plays on the floor, and scrolling through Facebook with my other hand. I know, I know, I suck. To my credit, though, I did actually notice what she was doing before she actually swallowed that giant ball of hair from the carpet. At least... before she swallowed that one...
That literally just occurred to me. I am now horrified.
At least I vacuumed later!
It feels like an eternity before Butthead finishes his bath. He comes out all clean and full of remodeling ideas. He's raring to go measure the house so he can draw house plans, but I'm about to lose it with Poopy, who isn't happy unless she's chewing on my finger, nipple, or chin with that very sharp little new tooth. I need help, and Dayquil, and to pee. So Butthead straps Poopy into the front carrier and totes her around the property with him, measuring walls. I take advantage of this new freedom to swap more laundry around, empty the dishwasher, and vacuum. Then I get greedy and actually attempt to start writing out this description of my day. Naturally, this is interrupted-- but this time, not by Poopy. No, it's my lovely husband, who has finished his measurements and is sitting on the couch, drawing plans. He keeps telling me confusing, technical-sounding ideas for the architecture of the house in a very excited tone, always followed with "What do you think?"
I tell him I think I'm trying to write. He says sorry, but he looks so darn sad, and I'm not good at letting him feel his feelings. So I let the writing sit half-done. There will be time later. I sit with Butthead and we talk about how many bedrooms we need, how many bathrooms, where the laundry room should be. We do this while we cook dinner together, while we eat, while we bathe Poopy and get her ready for bed. Halfway through dinner-- Mommy Alarm!-- we realize that it's no longer safe for Poopy to chew on even partially-cooked carrots, since she bit of a big chunk and turned pretty red trying to get it up. She puked it out eventually and she's fine, but that was terrifying. Warning heeded, universe. Purees only.
At bedtime Butthead reads her three books and then goes to the living room to play on his phone or whatever and I nurse Poopy and sing to her even though my throat hurts. She falls asleep on the boob and I let her nurse in her sleep for a while, playing a game on my phone, rocking in the rocking chair. I'm still getting used to her being away from me at night and I think I like this peaceful cuddle time as much as she does. Finally she pops off the boob, although she continues making little nursing motions in her sleep. Her face is all red and sticky from being smushed up against me and she is the prettiest thing in the world. Carefully, I put her in her crib, on top of the sheepskin she's slept on since a couple days after she was born. Yet another non-American Academy of Pediatrics-approved crib accessory. I turn on the baby monitor and shut the door to her room.
By now it's after 10. I eat one serving of lowfat mint chocolate chip ice cream (weak-ass hooey). 1/2 cup is a serving of ice cream, did you know that? 1/2 cup is a pitiful amount. But whatever, I want to fit in my pants, so 1/2 cup is all I get, if I want it at all. The price we pay for beauty, as they say. Someday I will have to teach my daughter about body positivity and self-love and that all bodies are beautiful and equal, but I'd rather be skinnier when I do it.
Butthead and I watch one episode of a show and cuddle on the couch, and then it's bedtime. I'm up twice in the night to put Poopy back to sleep, once at midnight and once at two. Then I wake up around 4 when my husband rolls over and crisply declares, "My wife... is a twelve dollar horse." (Except I didn't hear "horse.") Annoyed as I am to be woken up (and at being called a not-horse), I can't help it. It's so absurd. I start laughing out loud. Butthead snorts awake. "Whu-- whoa. What?" He is disoriented, as he usually is after talking in his sleep. "That's so weird," he says. "I was dreaming about buying a horse, but you didn't want to. You thought it was over priced. So I was telling the guy, 'My wife says it's a twelve-dollar horse,' like, because you didn't want to buy it."
Yeah, sure, Prince Butthead. You were dissing me in your dreams and didn't have the courtesy to keep it to yourself. I see through your flimsy ploy.
He snuggles up to me and goes back to sleep. Still wildly amused by this latest sleeptalking incident, I fall asleep with his arm over me, a smile on my face. It's not a bad ol' life, for a Weenie.
Today I'm responding to a writing prompt from my writing group on Facebook, describing a typical day of my life. It's purely a writing exercise to force me to type words before my finger muscles atrophy to the point where I'm reduced to dictation, and I have no idea if it will be entertaining to you, dear reader, but onwards we must soldier.
My day gets off to a bit of a false start around 5:30 AM. This is the time when I'm either awoken by the tinny cries of my daughter through the baby monitor, or my own pounding heart because OH MY GOD why isn't she crying? Did she die of SIDS? Did she suffocate on one of the stuffed animals the American Academy of Pediatrics SPECIFICALLY told me to keep out of her crib? Was she kidnapped? I check the baby monitor and she's usually just starting to stir. I thank my Mommy Alarm Clock (which is like a regular alarm clock, except instead of waking you up at a predetermined time every morning, a Mommy Alarm Clock goes off at random intervals through the whole day and just makes you suddenly alarmed).
I change Poopy's diaper and momentarily consider trying to get her to go back to sleep in the crib, but decide against it. Sleeping in the crib is still pretty new for her, and I'm exhausted, and we're both feeling under the weather, so I just bring her back to my bed and let her nurse while I sleep. Sorry again, American Academy of Pediatrics.
I wake up next at 7:00, when my husband rolls out of bed and gets ready for work (read: blearily fumbles for the nearest pants-type-garment, gives me a sleepy kiss, grabs what is usually the correct set of keys, and stumbles out the door). Some days I might try to get up, since I'm already awake and feel guilty that he's off working while I lounge about like the queen of Sheba, but like I said. Under the weather. Plus Poopy is still fast asleep, tucked into my side like a little baby koala. I fall back asleep.
10:30 AM: I wake up for the third (and final) time, because Poopy is kicking the heck out of me and her little toenails are sharp. She grins ecstatically at me when I open my eyes, arches her back and shrieks with excitement. Poopy loves mornings. This can't be a genetic trait. Her father and I are both firmly planted in the night owl camp. Unless it skips a generation, and she inherited it, along with her red hair, from my mother. If so, I wonder what else might be genetic. I hope she might inherit her Nana's artistic talent and strong moral compass-- although if she has the same inherent loathing of swear words, I worry about her relationship with her father, who is the walking, uncensored embodiment of the dad from "A Christmas Story" fixing the boiler.
I am lazy, and would happily lounge in bed for a few more minutes, but Poopy is eager to be up. Also, her diaper is full again. I have to pee before I can change her. There was an unfortunate incident a couple of days ago involving an unexpected sneeze and I don't want to get into it, but let's just say I blame childbirth. You know those warnings in airplanes, where they say "Attach your own oxygen mask before attempting to help children?" I always scoffed at those. "No way!" I thought. "I'm absolutely going to make sure my kid has oxygen before me." Well, I was idealistic and wrong. Because if you don't have any oxygen, you can't help others. And the others are probably too little or impaired to help you. If you're standing in the nursery in damp pants, you're not changing any diapers, buddy. Secure your own oxygen mask first. Pee, dammit. You're not a bad mom if you pee first.
After getting her diaper changed and putting her in the cutest clean outfit in the drawer (very sophisticated decision-making process, there), I take Poopy into the kitchen and put her in her little bouncy jumper seat with the toys all around it. I don't know what it's actually called, but it was the first baby thing I got when I was pregnant. It was free on the side of the road and I thought, "Hey, why not." That was the best zero bucks I ever spent. She loves it. Thank you, generous neighbor down the street.
While Poopy bounces and pushes the little button that plays the William Tell Overture 50 times, I make us breakfast. Malt-O-Meal, 130 calories per serving. I'm counting now, trying to shed some baby weight (and let's be real... a lot of pre-baby weight, too). Now that Poopy's old enough, I make some cereal for her, too. I mix mine with cranberries, just a whisper of brown sugar, and a little bit of milk. I think wistfully of the days of heavy cream and heaps of brown sugar, but calories. Heart disease. Diabetes. Stay strong, Weenie. It's not like it's an egg-white and spinach omelette. I mix hers with some pumped breast milk from the fridge to cool it down and thin it out.
I eat mine first. Secure your own oxygen. Hers needs to cool down more, anyway. Her little pink rubber-tipped spoon is still turning white when I dip it in, which means the food is too hot. The cereal is thin and bland without sugar, but it's got the incomparable seasoning of nostalgia. Also cranberries. When I've eaten my breakfast and taken my handful of horse-pills otherwise known as "vitamins," I load up a spoonful and blow on it until the spoon turns pink. Poopy does not seem impressed by the cereal. She scrunches up her face and gags, hard. I'm getting used to this, though. Faces which in adults usually indicate severely spoiled seafood and imminent vomiting, in babies just mean "Huh, THAT'S new."
She spits most of it out and looks at me warily, as if trying to discern why I'm attempting to kill her. "More?" I ask, offering another spoonful. She opens her mouth and lunges at the spoon, then gags twice before swallowing. She might not like the flavors, but Poopy loves the part where she gets to slurp stuff off a spoon.
The cereal was not a big success, so I put the leftovers in the fridge to try again later. By now it's 11:45, still an hour before Prince Charming the Butthead returns from work. I should try to look busy, probably, I think, so I gather up some laundry and start processing it. Poopy starts wailing her little head off as soon as I'm out of sight, because separation anxiety is a really fun and special time. The next half hour is divided between trying to calm her down and trying to get the laundry moved from the dryer to a basket, the washer to the dryer, and the dirty basket to the washer. Sometimes I dream that the laundry comes alive and dances around me singing a slowed-down, macabre version of "Be Our Guest" from Beauty and the Beast, except instead of almost-feeding me French food, the dirty boxers and stained spit-up rags are trying to eat me.
Poopy lives up to her name and has three poopy diapers before noon today. I don't know if it's the flu affecting her little system, or a side effect of teething, but it is nasty and seems to be making her fussier than usual. Finally I decide that her clinginess means she's hungry, so we sit down and I nurse her. She falls asleep latched to my boob, her one little bottom tooth scraping against my areola. It's a different kind of thing, parenting. In normal life, when an action results in pain, we adapt and avoid that action. Basic conditioning. But in motherhood, we embrace pain. Pregnancy, labor, birth, breastfeeding, all of them hurt (no matter how much you try to call it "discomfort" or "pressure," it's pain). But I don't feel that usual sense of aversion. Instead I find myself hoping I'll get pregnant again as soon as possible, breastfeeding Poopy as much as she wants, running towards pain and loving it like some kind of masochist. Maybe it's the bonding chemicals the brain releases during breastfeeding. Maybe they override the aversion. Or maybe motherhood is a special kind of crazy.
Prince Butthead comes home around 12:45. Poopy is still asleep on me, so I am still on the couch, and so of course I'm watching HGTV because why fight it? Feminism is a beautiful thing but all I personally have ever wanted out of life is to stay home and watch HGTV. Part of me secretly thinks all women feel like this, but they say they don't and I believe them, and it's ok that they don't want what I want, and it's ok that I don't want what they want, and that's feminism. I get nervous when my husband walks in. I always expect him to be a little salty that he's been out working that 7:30-to-12:30 grind and I'm just here, lazing around between loads of laundry. He never is. He gets me.
He sits down on the couch next to me and tells me about work. Poopy wakes up at the sound of his voice like she usually does, and is at first annoyed to be awake, but then excited to see her dad. The next hour is a feat of juggling the baby back and forth between us, rotating her between toys, trying to keep her happy while we talk. Recently we've been debating the merits of moving vs. fixing up where we are (both completely theoretical, since we have money for neither, at the moment).
Midafternoon, Prince Butthead decides to give himself a haircut and bathe, so Poopy hangs out in her bouncy thing in the kitchen while I wash dishes and think about what to make for dinner. Thinking about dinner reminds me that I haven't eaten lunch and I'm starving, so I make myself a sandwich and some soup. The sandwich is a masterpiece of caloric justification. The cheese is high-calorie, but has protein. The lunchmeat is a processed meat which is a carcinogen, my sister has just informed me, but on the other hand it's low-calorie and high-protien. The bread. The bread is too many empty calories. I settle on one piece of sourdough torn in half, so it's more like half a sandwich. I add spinach. I go ahead and cook it in butter, since it's the same amount of calories as olive oil, and I recently read an article about how saturated fats got a bad rap and are actually linked with lower rates of obesity and heart disease. It helps that this fits in perfectly with what my mother has always said, that things like nonfat yogurt and cottage cheese are a bunch of weak-ass hooey, except she would never say "ass," and please don't tell her I said it, either.
Poopy is very unhappy that I'm attempting to cook or eat, as she often is. I try holding her, but it hurts my back and cooking with one hand looks better in 50s appliance ads than it feels. I strap her into her swing and give her a sloth toy to play with. She fusses when I go back to cooking, but I reason with myself that it's not really full-on crying, just fussing. Secure your own oxygen mask. She can fuss a little bit.
It only takes about two minutes before she goes totally silent. My Mommy Alarm rings. I turn down the heat on everything and rush around the corner to where her swing is. She's fast asleep, clutching the sloth to her. It's over her mouth and nose so I try to move it, to make sure she is actually breathing. She stirs, scowls in her sleep, and pulls the toy closer. Message received, child. You like a nose full of synthetic sloth fur. Fine by me.
In a rare moment of peace and the use of both hands, I am able to eat my lunch before she wakes up.
Butthead comes out of the bathroom and wants help checking his work on the haircut front. He actually made me jump about a foot in the air because I'd forgotten he was home. Good grief, all this time and he's still just cutting his hair? Do you know what would happen if I spent 35 minutes in the bathroom, fiddling with my hair? I mean, probably not that much, the baby would just cry, but still.
Hair approved, he goes to start his bath. True to form, Poopy woke up as soon as he came out, so now I'm playing with her on the floor, engaging in some educational activities and brain-building play.
Dammit, Weenie, be honest.
The truth is I'm absentmindedly jiggling a stuffed monkey in front of her while she plays on the floor, and scrolling through Facebook with my other hand. I know, I know, I suck. To my credit, though, I did actually notice what she was doing before she actually swallowed that giant ball of hair from the carpet. At least... before she swallowed that one...
That literally just occurred to me. I am now horrified.
At least I vacuumed later!
It feels like an eternity before Butthead finishes his bath. He comes out all clean and full of remodeling ideas. He's raring to go measure the house so he can draw house plans, but I'm about to lose it with Poopy, who isn't happy unless she's chewing on my finger, nipple, or chin with that very sharp little new tooth. I need help, and Dayquil, and to pee. So Butthead straps Poopy into the front carrier and totes her around the property with him, measuring walls. I take advantage of this new freedom to swap more laundry around, empty the dishwasher, and vacuum. Then I get greedy and actually attempt to start writing out this description of my day. Naturally, this is interrupted-- but this time, not by Poopy. No, it's my lovely husband, who has finished his measurements and is sitting on the couch, drawing plans. He keeps telling me confusing, technical-sounding ideas for the architecture of the house in a very excited tone, always followed with "What do you think?"
I tell him I think I'm trying to write. He says sorry, but he looks so darn sad, and I'm not good at letting him feel his feelings. So I let the writing sit half-done. There will be time later. I sit with Butthead and we talk about how many bedrooms we need, how many bathrooms, where the laundry room should be. We do this while we cook dinner together, while we eat, while we bathe Poopy and get her ready for bed. Halfway through dinner-- Mommy Alarm!-- we realize that it's no longer safe for Poopy to chew on even partially-cooked carrots, since she bit of a big chunk and turned pretty red trying to get it up. She puked it out eventually and she's fine, but that was terrifying. Warning heeded, universe. Purees only.
At bedtime Butthead reads her three books and then goes to the living room to play on his phone or whatever and I nurse Poopy and sing to her even though my throat hurts. She falls asleep on the boob and I let her nurse in her sleep for a while, playing a game on my phone, rocking in the rocking chair. I'm still getting used to her being away from me at night and I think I like this peaceful cuddle time as much as she does. Finally she pops off the boob, although she continues making little nursing motions in her sleep. Her face is all red and sticky from being smushed up against me and she is the prettiest thing in the world. Carefully, I put her in her crib, on top of the sheepskin she's slept on since a couple days after she was born. Yet another non-American Academy of Pediatrics-approved crib accessory. I turn on the baby monitor and shut the door to her room.
By now it's after 10. I eat one serving of lowfat mint chocolate chip ice cream (weak-ass hooey). 1/2 cup is a serving of ice cream, did you know that? 1/2 cup is a pitiful amount. But whatever, I want to fit in my pants, so 1/2 cup is all I get, if I want it at all. The price we pay for beauty, as they say. Someday I will have to teach my daughter about body positivity and self-love and that all bodies are beautiful and equal, but I'd rather be skinnier when I do it.
Butthead and I watch one episode of a show and cuddle on the couch, and then it's bedtime. I'm up twice in the night to put Poopy back to sleep, once at midnight and once at two. Then I wake up around 4 when my husband rolls over and crisply declares, "My wife... is a twelve dollar horse." (Except I didn't hear "horse.") Annoyed as I am to be woken up (and at being called a not-horse), I can't help it. It's so absurd. I start laughing out loud. Butthead snorts awake. "Whu-- whoa. What?" He is disoriented, as he usually is after talking in his sleep. "That's so weird," he says. "I was dreaming about buying a horse, but you didn't want to. You thought it was over priced. So I was telling the guy, 'My wife says it's a twelve-dollar horse,' like, because you didn't want to buy it."
Yeah, sure, Prince Butthead. You were dissing me in your dreams and didn't have the courtesy to keep it to yourself. I see through your flimsy ploy.
He snuggles up to me and goes back to sleep. Still wildly amused by this latest sleeptalking incident, I fall asleep with his arm over me, a smile on my face. It's not a bad ol' life, for a Weenie.
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