Archive for the ‘TJ + Phil’ Category
Wednesday, November 2nd, 2011
Failing NaBloPoMo on the first day really takes the pressure off for the rest of the month.
*****
LET ME JUST GET THIS OUT OF THE WAY.
Penny was a duck/chicken (chucken?) for Halloween.
Do you love it? I love it. I love it so much that when we have her 6 month portraits taken this weekend, instead of being suckered into the “Holiday” backdrop they are pushing on me so hard, Penny is being a duck-chicken. A dicken. A 6 month old dicken.
*****
I haven’t done Penny’s 6 month post yet, but here’s a brief synopsis: she yells, she’s pleasantly fat, she can roll back to belly and shriek mightily once she arrives there.
She has a test at Phoenix Children’s Hospital tomorrow, one we fully expect to come up negative, but we like making her miserable, so we’re doing it anyway. You should just have us arrested. We’re terrible parents.
Don’t worry about Penny, though. She’s never had good parents, so she doesn’t know any better.
*****
You know, I haven’t been around here too much lately, and you know what it is? I’m enjoying spending time with my kid, which tells me that I’m finally starting to arrive in the time I’ve been looking forward to.
Noemi talked about this the other day, and I feel the same way – ending breastfeeding has really improved my relationship with Penny. Ending it was the right choice for us for a lot of reasons, and while I definitely don’t speak for everyone, it has really turned out to be extremely beneficial in a lot of different ways. The main one being, of course, that I actually ENJOY PENNY a hell of a lot more than I did previously.
With no struggling to feed her, no watching the clock for the pumping schedule, no washing pump parts, no waking up in the night to deal with any feeding-related activities — well, you know, it’s just better. Phil splits the feedings with me. I can leave the house without Penny and not worry about rushing back. I can leave the house WITH Penny and not wrestle with feeding her in public – like Noemi, nursing was never graceful or easy, positioning-the-baby-wise for me.
So, while I do believe that breast milk is certainly the best choice for a baby if it is available, not breastfeeding has been just about the best thing to happen to me since this damn wiener child was born.
*****
A few days ago, Phil accidentally left the lid of the washer up with our bedsheets sitting inside soaking in fabric softener. He asked me if soaking too long in the fabric softener would ruin the sheets, but I wasn’t sure – mainly because in my entire life I’ve caught the rinse cycle in time to add fabric softener about four times, so I don’t have too much experience in the field of softening.
He put the sheets on the bed and made up the bed for the one time it gets made each week and I didn’t noticed anything until the next day, when the blankets were pleasantly running amok and askew, as is my preferred state of the bed. On my side, right about there my butt usually is, the fitted sheet had a different texture than the rest of the surface. On closer inspection, it was full of tears, kind of like a run in pantyhose.
“So, it looks like the fabric softener did ruin the sheets. It really seems to have damaged the more worn spots – I’m pretty sure we’ll have to throw these out.”
“Oh, that’s where your butt goes. Your butt must have put extra wear on the sheets.”
“No way! My butt didn’t — wait, can that happen?”
(You’ll understand that here, of course, I had a moment of insecurity – see: double pear, Two Butt – and, okay, I had a bit of a gassy pregnancy, but not any more gassy than – okay, maybe SLIGHTLY more gassy than the average person, but could that really RUIN the SHEETS?)
“Yep. Your butt put a weak spot in the sheets.”
“WAIT a second. If you flip the sheet around, this spot is where your disgusting, scaly MONSTER FEET would be.”
“Oh. Huh. You’re right.”
“Ha!”
“But your butt finished them off.”
*****
I’m planning something and it’s kept me pretty busy lately, and I expect it to keep me busy for a while longer yet. I’m pretty excited about it, but as with everything I do and cook, there is still the possibility that it will all blow up in my face or otherwise go terribly wrong, so I’m not quite ready to share all the details here yet. If it appears that all is going to go well with my small test group, I will, of course, let the rest of you know about it. Once danger of explosion has passed.
I hope it works out, though. It’s one of those things that I talked about the last time I got around to writing something here. One of those things that you think is something that only other people do, but it suddenly dawns on you that you could do it to, if you wanted to. So, aside from the silly stuff like getting married and having a baby, this is inarguably one of the “biggest” things I have ever done. And if it goes wrong, it will be the biggest thing I’ve ever fucked up. And if it goes right, I AM A HERO.
Well, not a hero. More likely briefly, but SIGNIFICANTLY AND SINCERELY celebrated. Which is probably as close to hero as I will ever get, unless someone who weighs very little needs to be awkwardly rescued from an extremely and freakishly slow burning building and there’s really just no one else at all around who can handle it.
Posted in daily BS, Penny, TJ + Phil | 29 Comments »
Monday, September 12th, 2011
“Oh my GOD, this BABY.”
“Anything I can do to help?”
“I just! Need! A minute! Alone! I just want her to be put down!”
“I’ll put her down. Hey, Penny! You’re small! And you smell bad!”
Posted in TJ + Phil | 10 Comments »
Saturday, September 10th, 2011
“Auughh. My foot. Help! My foooot.”
“What’s wrong?”
“My foot fell asleep on the toilet!”
“Well, that’s why you shouldn’t sit there that long.”
“Look who’s talking!”
“I’ve practiced.”
Posted in TJ + Phil | No Comments »
Tuesday, September 6th, 2011
“Hey, did you know that I’m hilarious?”
“You’re pretty funny.”
“I know! Sometimes, someone says something that I said and they say that I said it, but I don’t remember that I said it, so I’m all, ‘Damn, I’m funny!’”
“Yes, you’re funny.”
“Anyway, so I was reading Sarah’s — you know, LG’s mom? LG? Her mom? The one who sent the matching outfits for LG and Penny and Olivia? Olivia is Noemi’s — hey, are you listening? — Olivia is Noemi’s baby. We sent them Penny’s clothes? LG sent some, too. Well, Sarah sent some of LG’s clothes. Hey. HEY. HEY ARE YOU LISTENING?”
“Yes. YES. Sarah. Olivia. LG.”
“No, Olivia is — okay, whatever. So I was reading Sarah’s blog, and in the comments, you know PinkieBling? She sent the burger diaper? You know her?”
“Oh my god.”
“So, I was reading Sarah’s blog and in the COMMENTS, PinkieBling said something like — wait, I can go look it up — okay, never mind, I’ll just say it. She said something like, ‘I like Temerity Jane’s approach – if you’re not laughing, you must not have heard me correctly.’ And I read that, and I was like, ‘I said that? That’s funny!’ Hey. HEY. HEEEEY. ARE YOU LISTENING?”
“YES.”
“She said that I said that if you’re not laughing, you must not have heard me correctly!”
“Yep.”
“That’s funny! I said that one time, I guess. And then PinkieBling repeated it, so I was like, man, I forget some of the funny stuff I said!”
“Mmm.”
“It’s funny. Because if you’re not laughing, you must not have heard me correctly.”
“Mmm.”
“HEY. HEY. DO YOU GET IT?”
“I get it.”
“You’re not laughing. Let me explain it again. So on SARAH’S — wait, come back!”
Posted in TJ + Phil | 15 Comments »
Monday, August 8th, 2011
I spent the entire weekend in my Butt Rust clothes – giant 2XL undershirts that have suffered the consequences of my inability to use a fork like a normal person, and huge athletic shorts from the dude section of the BX that were not only big to begin with but lost a little bit of the snap in their waist after a couple of months of being called upon to circle The Hut. Normally, on the weekends, I put on grown up clothes at least for a few hours, and I did try this weekend, but it only lasted about 25 minutes before I needed to get back on the couch with the baby, and if you’re just going to be hunched up in a corner of the couch for hours on end, either feeding a baby or holding her while she creates a spreading drool-spot all over the front of your gross ugly shirt, you might as well wear your floppiest pants and grossest, ugliest shirts.
I’m very tired and very resentful in ways that can’t be described due to the ability of the general Internet (not you, the rest of them) to laser in on such posts to leave comments about what terrible, ungrateful parents anyone who posts such things must be, so let’s just leave it at that. Tired, resentful, willfully deaf to any crying that doesn’t sound urgent enough, at least for just fifteen goddamn minutes PLEASE.
*****
You know what else I found myself kind of resentful about this weekend? Breastfeeding advocates, specifically on the Internet.
We’ve talked about this before, I am all for breastfeeding. I’ve even made myself aware of a lot of the ridiciulously named “booby traps,” things people and doctors and society and whoever say and do to prevent, hinder, or otherwise discourage breastfeeding.
However, a lot of the “breastfeeding at all costs” type of information being given out has really obscured a lot of necessary information I was trying to find this weekend, and I am pretty cheesed off about it.
Now, I am about to give examples, and they are examples of the situation, not questions I want you to answer in the comments, okay? Please do NOT talk about my boops in the comments. I like you, but we’re not that close. Seriously, please don’t, because I will probably not be able to stop myself from responding, and it will likely be really bitchy, and you’ll be all, “I was just trying to HELP, I am never coming here AGAIN” and I honestly WILL NOT CARE because I am holed up in the bedroom right now while Phil is home for lunch and in a few minutes I have to go back out there to that baby and the drool mark on my shirt won’t even be all the way dry before she redampens it and I JUST CAN’T TAKE IT TODAY.
There’s some pretty common questions, I think, that new mothers tend to ask – how do I know if the baby is eating enough? How do I know if I’m making enough milk? I think they’re pretty common, at least.
Which is why it’s so weird that it’s almost impossible to find real answers. I understand that a lot of women think they can’t make enough milk, or are told they don’t make enough milk, and that it’s not true nearly as often as it is said. And I understand that a lot of new mothers are worried when their baby shortens nursing sessions, and that’s just a thing that babies do. Yes, those things are true.
But when you are looking for the answers to these questions, it would be nice if they were actually THERE, in addition to the standard “DON’T LISTEN TO WHOEVER IS TELLING YOU THAT!” reassurance. Without fail, even on LLL sites, all I come across are answers like, “It’s normal for a baby to eat for only a couple of minutes” or “As long as the baby is nursing often, you’ll make enough milk,” or the very common, “If there are an adequate number of wet and dirty diapers and the baby isn’t losing weight, you’re fine!” And nothing beyond that.
Except sometimes? The baby IS losing weight. And sometimes, someone is asking how to tell if their milk is drying up because IT JUST MIGHT BE, not because some horrible outside force is trying to convince her to supplement with the evil formula. And sometimes a lady is familiar enough with her own goddamn baby to KNOW it absolutely IS a problem that she’s only nursing for a couple of minutes per side and NEEDS TO KNOW WHAT TO DO.
Yet all this information is hard to find on the Internet, buried beneath tons of “IT’S FINE! DON’T LISTEN TO ANYONE WHO SAYS IT ISN’T!,” if it’s even there at all.
I’ve written before about breastfeeding “experts” (and I use quotes to indicate not that I don’t think such a thing exists, but that among the true experts, there are many people who are in-quotes experts) and a couple of situations in which I felt their failed to properly push for and advocate for breastfeeding by providing ALL the relevant information, correctly. And now I find myself almost on the opposite side, looking for these people who are supposed to have ALL the information, not just the information relevant to their almost political-ish opinion on the necessity of breastfeeding, crowding out the whole of my search results with “It’s fine, it’s fine, it’s fine!” with no instruction or help on how to figure out if it’s actually NOT.
And we ARE working with a doctor and I KNOW I can go see a lactation consultant in person and a whole host of other solutions, I’m just expressing my annoyance that the information I need is seemingly not available on the Internet – instead, there’s a whole lot of “don’t trust your friend who said this, don’t trust your doctor who said that, don’t trust your instincts that say whatever,” if “this,” “that,” or “whatever” are at all indicative that maybe breastfeeding should stop or maybe formula supplementation should start.
Again, I’m not really looking for help on my issue, I’m just annoyed all over again at what a goddamn mess just trying to do the right thing by your baby ends up being a lot of the time.
*****
Phil doesn’t really talk about his past or growing up a lot. He doesn’t really have a great memory in general, and isn’t really the type to recount his whole life to someone. I know him now, and I know the vague outlines of his past, and in day to day living, it’s easy to kind of forget, in a subconscious way, that I don’t really know everything there is to know about him, or at least, his life and what’s gone on in it, until he reminds me in a hilarious manner.
Phil’s the type of person who doesn’t really always remember that not everyone is aware of what’s going on inside of his head or privy to all of his thoughts at all times. He’s the type that just picks up in the middle of a conversation and is kind of annoyed by your blank look, until you point out to him that the first 15 minutes of the conversation took place entirely in his head and it would be nice to be brought up to speed before being expected to give a response.
This whole “not everyone just knows everything” is especially funny when he throws out some random memory or experience from his childhood or past like it isn’t even a THING, and is surprised when you’re all, “Wait, WHAT? Did you just say, ‘Well, that time I got hit by a motorcycle…?’ Seriously? You’re just going to drop that out there and act like it’s not even RIDICULOUS to just SAY?”
In a way, it’s almost more fun to NOT ask Phil about his past and then just sit around and wait for the rare moments he decides he’s going to talk. Like yesterday, when Aerosmith came on my Pandora station.
“When I bought my first CD player, I bought this CD.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah. And then the first chick I ever did it with stole my CD player. It was a boom box.”
“Were you mad?”
“Well, kind of, but that’s not even the weirdest thing that happened with that girl.”
“Oh?”
“Nope. The weirdest thing was that I had sex with her twin.”
“You did WHAT?”
“And she was watching from the closet.”
“That HAPPENED?”
“She said it did. And then suddenly she was a triplet.”
“I don’t even –”
“This is the one I met when I worked at Baskin-Robbins, because I called a radio station to request a song while we were closing up and then she called the store because she heard me on the radio.”
“I DON’T EVEN –”
“She also faked a pregnancy and that was a whole other thing. Hey, do you want lunch?”
*****
I would normally put a picture of Penny about right here, but I don’t actually have any. Just take one of the pictures you’ve already seen and draw some angry, Oscar the Grouch-style eyebrows on it, and maybe some rage lasers shooting out from the general facial area, and then find the most grating sound you can and crank it up to full volume.
Enjoy.
*****
Hey, I am going to The Blathering, and there’s still 10 spaces left, I think, so. You know. Think about it.
*****
We are so sick of Arizona and so sick of our every attempt to get out of here being denied that we are at the point that Phil is seriously considering putting in for an unaccompanied short tour – Korea, or Diego Garcia, or something like that. He’d be gone for a year, without us, as the word “unaccompanied” implies. Before he even left, we’d know where we were going next, and people returning from short tours or overseas or whatever get a slightly higher preference on the base of their choosing. Of course, the base of their choosing is “chosen” from a list of what’s available, which is not guaranteed to not be even more hateful than where we are now.
And here’s the thing with doing a short tour – does he go now, and miss a year of Penny’s tiny babyhood, in hopes of getting us where we want to be, or does he wait and miss a year a little later on, one that Penny will remember?
Or, we can stay here in Arizona and keep requesting a Base of Preference, knowing that as long as we stay here, we’re likely stuck here for who knows how long, but as soon as we move, Phil will be right at the top of the list and will likely deploy to Afghanistan or Iraq pretty shortly after our arrival? (Don’t get me wrong – everyone deploys and we know that Phil WILL deploy at LEAST once in the remainder of his career and we KNOW that and we accept it, but it’s not something we actively WANT.)
I don’t know. Arizona itself isn’t THAT terrible. It’s just not the life we want to be living right now.
*****
Imagine I said something else right here, some long, elaborate description of a problem that you can’t actually help solve, so we can just make this whole package a nice, round downer.
Posted in daily BS, Penny, TJ + Phil | 46 Comments »
Sunday, July 31st, 2011
“This isn’t my phone. Why do you keep charging this phone? Are you even using it?”
“I charged yours. And yes, I’ve been experimenting with it.”
“I’ll experiment your FACE.”
“Your face IS an experiment.”
“Yeah, of AWESOMENESS.”
“That failed?”
“Auuuughhh.”
Posted in TJ + Phil | 1 Comment »
Thursday, July 21st, 2011
I think that the next time I want to tell you how wrong Phil is, a la many of the Settle This posts, I am just going to sit us down in front of the computer and record the whole conversation. That way, he can tell you how wrong he is in his own words. When I write those posts, I feel like I need to cut him some slack and soften his wrongness a bit, because we’re married and that’s my job as a wife – to prove him wrong constantly, but gently. If he digs his OWN hole, I have no such obligation. And then you will see. You will see what I live with, when you’re all so busy heaping him with praise for dealing with me.
You two assclowns deserve each other.
*****
Speaking of times Phil is wrong, I want to recount the argument in rhyme Phil and I had last night, but I am pretty sure he won, so that has no place here on my blog. Also, I have a suspicion that you wouldn’t be so much awed by our verbal skills as you would be kind of repulsed.
Though, while he may technically have gotten the last word, I do think that rhyming “socks” with “fart box” was slightly more brilliant than his pairing of “face” with “cock mace.” Because a cock mace isn’t even a thing.
My first word is going to be “emancipation.”
*****
You know what’s terrible? When you get a new notebook (of course you not only have plenty of half-used notebooks and also don’t have a specific purpose in mind for a new notebook) and it gets ruined.
You take it home and decide on its specific purpose, and how it will only be used for that purpose. And how you will use the new pens you bought, because of course you got new pens for your brand new notebook. Nice pens.
And for a couple of days you use it for that purpose, and then you have to SCRIBBLE SOMETHING OUT, because of course you were writing in pen – you got NEW PENS. So you rip that page out and write the whole thing over, EVEN IF it was 3/4 of a page and only one tiny mistake.
And then you’re on the phone or something and accidentally jot something down on one of the pages, and you can’t rip it out, because there’s other stuff on the page, the stuff that is supposed to be in your new notebook. So you rip out that corner.
But then you have to write a shopping list, because there is suddenly NO OTHER PAPER IN THE WHOLE DAMN HOUSE, and you flip to some random blank page in the notebook to write it. And then a couple of days later, you flip to some random blank page and write another list. Maybe a to do list.
And then you have another HALF USED, RUINED NOTEBOOK littering up your house, and they’re EVERYWHERE, except none of them will be anywhere close at hand when you need to jot something down while you’re on the phone or write a new shopping list, and you will ruin your NEXT brand new notebook.
Yep. That’s terrible.
Let’s be honest – a headband on me is like tits on a bull.
*****
I’m tapped out on content right now, because Sheldon is standing at the back door and YELLING, I am not even kidding you, and I can’t even think of any words that aren’t “Goddamnit Sheldon!,” but I do have one last picture of Penny and no unrelated block of text to pair it with, so here it is.
Posted in Brinkley + Sheldon, daily BS, Penny, TJ + Phil | 26 Comments »
