Thursday, January 12th, 2012
So you know what gets more smiles from strangers than a dad carrying his baby daughter through the grocery store? A dad in uniform carrying his baby daughter through a grocery store. Honest to pete, my face is sore from all of the polite smiles I had to return trying to walk through Safeway the other day. All these people were glancing at Phil, looking back over their shoulders at him, nudging whoever they were with and jerking their head in our direction.
“Look! A man with a baby! A man in UNIFORM with a BABY!”
I GET IT, IT’S ADORABLE. HE FARTS IN BED, THOUGH. THEY BOTH DO. JUST SO YOU KNOW.
I’m not mad. I’m just bitter, probably. Whenever I take Penny through the grocery store, I get some smiles, but mostly a train a passive aggressive olds telling Penny to tell her mommy that her feet are so cold without sockies! So cold! Tell her you need some sockies! Sockies for those feet! Tell her, “Mommy, my feet are so cold here in the store! I need sockies for my feetsies!”
Phil, though? Phil in uniform? All smiles, no mention of sockies.
*****
I think I use Goodreads more than I use any other socially networky thing right now, but there is something that will eternally bother me about Goodreads. I think I’ve talked about it here before, but I’m talking about it again. What are you, the blog police?
Anyway, I had several false starts with using Goodreads (I’ve been member since 2009) and didn’t really get into it heavily until recently, because I got TOO OVERWHELMED. It’s a simple site, but I, like most people, have been reading books for about a berjillion years. That’s roughly 30 berjillion books.
So, I would start listing books that I’d read, and pretty soon, I’d become hopelessly overwhelmed with the task of adding EVERY BOOK EVER. I don’t think I ever even got to one berjillion. So I’d give up. If I couldn’t add them all, I JUST WOULDN’T ADD ANY.
Coincidentally, that’s very similar to the stance I have on eating potato chips, but usually goes the opposite way.
So the only way I was able to make Goodreads work for me THIS time is to tell myself that I would only list books from that point FORWARD. I have a couple of favorites listed, but aside from that, I WILL NOT fall down the rabbit hole of books that I’ve read since the dawn of time.
This makes me constantly self-conscious, though, that people will think I started reading at 29. I COULD READ BEFORE THEN. I just can’t allow myself to tempt insanity by remembering every book I’ve ever read, because I can’t just list SOME of the ones I read before I started using Goodreads. It’s none of them or all of them. That’s how it has to be. IT HAS TO BE.
Sometimes, someone I follow rates a book. A book I READ, pre-Goodreads attempt 47. And it’s right there. No searching necessary. It’s right there on the home screen. And all I would have to do is just pick a star rating. One click, and there it is. Added to my books. That’s not so bad, right?
EXCEPT IT IS. The only way I can use Goodreads at all is by telling myself that I have an UNDERSTANDING with the larger Goodreads population. We ALL AGREE that I read books before I started using Goodreads, but I haven’t listed any of them. We just AGREE that it HAPPENED.
If I go ahead and list one, the agreement is BROKEN. Now there’s one listed. And that can lead people to assume that sure, I read books before I started using Goodreads. Or, more accurately, I read BOOK.
No. No. I can’t add any of them. So they pop up in front of me, and instead of clicking, I sit here in front of the computer and worry that people are going to think I HAVEN’T READ THAT BOOK. Then I remind myself of the agreement. But I READ THAT BOOK.
You guys, I’m just saying, it’s hard being me.
*****
So I’ve been preparing for PJs@Tj’s, which is now in less than a month, and in my every waking hour, I find myself thinking about tiny details, which stack upon the other tiny details, which add berjillions of things to my mental to do list, which I haven’t actually started, other than cleaning out the pantry, and I don’t see why anyone would really be in my pantry anyway, so, right. I have not gotten very far yet in the whole “preparing the house for a pile of guests” thing yet.
But I’ve been thinking about it, which we all know is half the battle. And here’s something I’ve been thinking: a while ago, we got this hand soap we really liked. It was some kind of Soft Soap, and the smell was blackberry vanilla. Or black currant and pears. Or something and something. Anyway, it smelled great. Next time we were at the store, though, and needed soap, we just got one of those big old refill jugs, and we’ve been refilling the same bottles – one in the bathroom and one on the kitchen sink.
So, while the bottle says you’ll be washing your hands with a delightful mix of berries and puffy clouds, it’s actually just generic soap smell.
And I wonder, does that make the soap a lie? And, as a hostess, am I being rude with this bait and switch? This soap and swap? This scrub and… drub?
Seriously, I have 18 women descending on my house in less than a month, and this is what is keeping me up at night.
*****
We’ve made a plan. Well, not so much a plan as a plan to make a plan. We’ve decided that when Penny is about five, we’re going to take her on a Disney cruise and a stay in Disney World. We figure we’ve got to plan that far out so that we can save up the money, because I’ve always said that when we do take her to Disney, we want to go ALL OUT.
I mean, we want to stay in one of the hotels right there, so that we can go back to rest as needed. And we want enough days to do everything we want. And I want to take her to that place where they do her up like a princess. We want to be able to throw money around like we have it. Sure, you can have a $75 Mickey balloon! Oh, you let it go? That’s okay, here’s a $115 ice cream sandwich. Wipe your face with this napkin, it was only $5.
We’ve also emailed both of our families to extend an invitation to join us, because, why not? We’re planning far enough in advance that everyone can make it, if they wanted to.
But just today, I started thinking that there needs to be more to this plan than just saving the money and picking a cruise.
ONE – We’ve got to start watching Disney movies, post haste. This shit is not going to be even a LITTLE BIT MAGICAL if Penny doesn’t know who the hell Ariel is, you know what I mean?
TWO – I’m thinking that by the time she’s two, two and a half, I’m going to want to start working with her on developing a real allegiance to one of the princesses.
I know you’re about to get your Internet dander all up, what with the princess culture! And teaching appropriate values! And rabble rabble! And girl power! And all of that. And to that I say this: Look. Shut up. Because, come on. Did you grow up thinking that you were an actual princess? I mean, did you grow into the total warped asshole of a she-witch that the anti-princess culture people seem to believe will result from exposure to made up, cartoon fancy ladies? By the time you were of reasonable age, did you understand that your suburban town house bore little resemblance to a castle and no one cared when you lost your stupid shoe?
You did, right? You turned out to be a functioning adult? With only a moderate number of tiaras? AND managed to also enjoy Disney movies as a child?
Yeah, so, now that we’ve established that THAT’S possible… I’m thinking Belle. Or maybe Ariel. I mean, Ariel’s a pretty predictable choice, but come on. Obviously the superior princess.
THREE – We’ve got to concentrate on NOT raising an asshole at all, even more so now. Because we’re not going to tell her we’re going until we’re about to leave. You know, like all those YouTube videos? So, we’re going to want a really sweet, really genuine reaction of joy from her when she finds out we’re about to blow all of our money ever on a cruise and a trip. And then we’ll put it on YouTube.
FOUR – I probably have to get a passport.
FIVE - I should also probably learn to swim.
Anyway, I’m already excited. Four or five years is just enough time to build this up in my mind enough that I completely ruin Penny’s enjoyment of the whole thing by trying to force some FREAKIN’ DISNEY MAGIC on her at every turn.
*****
LASTLY, we are considering joining the YMCA. Which seems silly, you say, because there are 800 gyms on base, but look. I can’t go to those. I just can’t. I know people say, “Everyone is there to work out! No one is looking at anyone!” But come on. People look at people. It’s human nature. And while we’d all like to think that no one cares, just a few days on Twitter will net you at LEAST three people saying, “At the gym today… ” and commenting on someone they saw. It’s not always mean or even… anything… but it belies the “no one is paying attention!” crap. So while I’d like to be one of those, “Whatever, I’m above all that” people, I’m not. I cannot go to a gym on base, full of people whose job it is to be in great physical condition.
And I really don’t want any more of that “no but really, no one is paying attention to anyone else” stuff. I know you’re lying. You know you’re lying. There’s no point in trying to get someone to go exercise where they won’t be comfortable, because they will try it once or twice and not be able to stand it, and then, worse than the guilt of not trying, you have the guilt of QUITTING.
So is it silly to pay for a gym membership when you can go to a gym for free? I don’t know. I don’t think so. My mother has had a membership to the Y for a berjillion years, and there’s a gym in her office building. She wouldn’t go to that one. She wouldn’t be comfortable. So it’s the choice of paying for a place you’re comfortable, or not working out at all. So far, the choice for me has been “not at all,” so I’m beginning to be quite convinced that paying for something that is also available for free, in this case, is not totally ridiculous.
It’s not, right?
*****
I can’t think of where else I’m ever going to work these in, and I need more people than Phil to appreciate me, because he doesn’t laugh, he just says, “Yeah, that’s funny.” Even when I can see him TRYING NOT TO LAUGH. Won’t even give me the courtesy of a laugh. Anyway, two things I have come up with recently, regarding Penny:
1. Count Yak-ula.
2. She had a yak-cident.
Posted in daily BS, Penny, shameless consumerism | 67 Comments »
Monday, September 26th, 2011
So, if you follow me on Twitter, you are very aware (well, assuming that you follow me and give a crap, which is not necessarily the case) that my mother had been visiting up until last night.
I mostly just rolled my eyes and gritted my teeth and let her hold the baby as much as she wanted to, but there was this one point where I just snapped and I don’t think my head went back on straight for the rest of the visit.
We were getting ready to leave to go to a baseball game, and I had been walking around packing Penny’s bag and gathering everything we needed for the evening. Phil said to me, “Do you have the tickets?”
And, since I did indeed have the tickets, I said, “Yes, I have the tickets.”
And my mom jumps in and says, “Where are they?”
Is it not enough that I said that I had them? She needs to know the exact location of where I had them?
OKAY THAT DOESN’T SOUND LIKE MUCH BUT YOU GUYS. IT WAS A LONG VISIT.
I was annoyed. I was very annoyed. I was annoyed with everything I did being double checked, with being reminded of appropriate care of Penny, with the raised eyebrow and repeated requests to do things the way she thought they should be done even when I refused.
We were at IKEA at one point, looking at some shelves, and she read the warning next to the shelf – something about using the proper mounting screws for the wall type. When we got home and showed everything to Phil, she reminded him that the SIGN SAID to use the proper screws for the wall type. And again the next day. And then again when we were talking about the fact that we would eventually hang the purchased shelves. “Just remember, the SIGN SAID –.”
As if we need her to continually remind us of the sign’s instructions to hang the shelves properly. AS IF WE EVEN NEED A SIGN to instruct us to not hang shelves in OUR BABY’S ROOM in such a manner that they might FALL ON HER HEAD.
After the ticket thing, I said to my mom, “Do you realize how many things like that you’ve said this week?”
And she replied, “I realize that you’re hypersensitive.”
Excuse me?
Nothing makes me angrier (that’s just a saying, a lot of things make me equally angry or possibly angrier) than being put in a position where I have to JUSTIFY feeling a certain way. Putting someone in a position where they have to defend the fact that they have FEELINGS is not right. You shouldn’t do that.
Ugh. I’m too annoyed to even say a complete 500 words about it all.
*****
You guys, the visit totally wasn’t all bad, or even mostly bad. Yes, I was irritated a lot. Yes, I snapped at her, repeatedly. But we did a lot of fun things and got a lot of work done on Pennysylvania as well.
Remember when I asked you about my repurchasey obligations when returning wedding gifts? Well, we took the pots back to Macy’s, and I figured I’d get a few bucks and maybe we’d find, I don’t know, a throw pillow or something for Pennysylvania.
Except, when they rang the pots back through, they gave me a much fatter gift card of store credit than I was expecting. Like, “Here, have the MSRP of the pots that no one actually ever charges, plus an extra 10% because why not, and on top of that, here’s a little ‘Sorry we sold you exploding pots’ consolation money. Go nuts!”
We looked through the baby section and weren’t especially into anything we saw, probably because Macy’s sells Carter’s and we’d already completely demolished not only Carter’s, but the Kohl’s Carter’s section as well the day before.
We did, however, go back to the furniture section and locate the perfect mattress for Penny’s floor bed. My mom was insistent on buying it, telling me that maybe I should look for it at another place for a better price, or that maybe another store would charge less for delivery. That turned out to not be the case, but regardless, I had a gift card and there wasn’t much else I really had a need for at Macy’s, so I felt like it made the most sense for me to buy it. Not that I don’t appreciate my mom’s offer to buy things for Penny – I totally do. I just don’t see a reason for either of us to spend money that doesn’t need to be spent, and a gift card is basically pretend money.
With delivery charge, I ended up paying $32 out of pocket for Penny’s floor bed mattress. I think that once it’s installed in her room, I’m going to call it Martha Stewart Exploding Pot Memorial Island.
We went to IKEA the next day and it wasn’t until I was hauling our self-serve furniture off of the shelves and arguing with my mom about who was paying that she said that she was paying because she wanted to buy the mattress. She followed that with, “I wanted to buy the crib. Your grandmother bought your crib.”
So, basically, I accidentally flaunted a tradition she had wanted to continue or establish, first by not having a crib and then by paying for the mattress myself.
I feel kind of bad about that, I really do. I understand what she wanted to do now, but I don’t know that if I had known that to begin with, I would have done anything any differently. The floor bed is right for us, and the pots-I-don’t-use in exchange for a mattress scheme really saved a lot of money. My money, her money – whatever, money saved.
I’d like to think it turned out okay in the end, though, because she did buy out almost the entirety of IKEA and even though she was paying, she stuck very closely to my vision (over the top) and tastes (poor) for the room. She did draw the line at the carpet with the broccoli on it, but nothing is really stopping me from going back to get it.
Here’s a small taste of what is being installed into Pennysylvania over the next week or so:
Additionally, we got several different sets of shelves. There are some picture rails that we’re putting at low-ish points around the walls, to display board books within Penny’s (eventual) reach. Also, three plain square LACK shelves that will be hung high above the changing table, in view of the bed. I’m planning on putting some large photos of the dogs and Phil and I on those.
We grabbed another kind of shelf unit thingie that has six cubes of space in it (MY DESCRIPTIVE POWERS ARE VAST!), and that will either be hung low or placed on the floor and anchored to the wall. Small, safe toys and other items will be placed in the cube to help keep her room organized and give her a sense of everything having its own place. We’ll rotate a few toys in and out of those areas.
OH, and another thing – a clothes hanger in the shape of an octopus, like to hang a bunch of clothes to dry instead of a clothes line. I’m going to hang that from fishing line above her bed and use it to make a mobile. I’m not especially crafty, so it will probably consist of six pictures of Phil doing thumbs, a spoon, and some marker pictures drawn on toilet paper squares. I don’t know. I’m a big picture person, not a details lady. Let me know if you have any ideas about what to hang.
We also hit Target and got some deep purple sheets for her bed, as well as a sort of floor-rocker. One of those kid’s video game chairs, kind of? It’s like a rocking chair with no arms or legs. For now, we’ll keep it next to her floor bed for us to sit on to read to her or, more likely, read Twitter on our phones while occasionally insisting she fall asleep RIGHT THIS INSTANT. My mom snagged an owl-shaped pillow, and I grabbed another carpet – a rag rug that I’d been looking at every time we went to Target. I don’t have any place in mind to put it yet, but it was on clearance for $7.50. So. It was almost silly not to buy it.
I tried to put it on the floor in the living room, but Sheldon laid on it for a while and then tried to carry it away.
So. Construction of Pennysylvania is underway. Let me know if you have any fun ideas in obnoxious colors.
*****
Hey, remember when I said we went to a baseball game?
LOOKIT MY BIG FAT BABY, YOU GUYS.
Oh, the baseball game. Penny won the “My Parents are HUGE IDIOTS” Award for that one.
How did I forget how LOUD a professional sporting event is? You guys, she screamed and cried in terror every time the crowd roared, or they played walk up music, or ANYTHING HAPPENED AT ALL. We were looking for the exits by the second inning. And then? She fell asleep. She fell asleep and slept through a good inning or so of the game, and when she woke up, she was normal. Completely unbothered. As if the whole start of the game had never happened. A total 180. That didn’t stop us from leaving at the top of the seventh, though (the Diamondbacks had clinched all that needed clinching the night before, so it wasn’t especially suspenseful). Good thing we left when we did, as there was a power outage just minutes after we got there, followed by the Diamondbacks laying down a 15-1 asswhupping on the Giants, which would be totally awesome if I gave half a crap about either team at all.
*****
Anyway. Good visit. Good progress made on Penny actually having a space in our house, instead of just laying wherever we find room to put her down, with her belongings scattered willy nilly about the place. Good baseball game (courtesy of Operation Homefront AZ and Sanderson Ford Seats for Soldiers). Good… diet soda I just finished drinking. Good thing I’m going to the doctor this afternoon to attempt to start the process of addressing incredibly difficult post-partum anxiety. Good… uh… hey, I got into Pottermore! That’s pretty good.
*****
OH, I remembered what I wanted to ask you! Can you recommend some prints to go in Pennysylvania? I mean, it might be tough for you to match my discerning and elevated sense of style and decor preferences, but I have faith in you, Internet. I am looking for some awesomeness for the upper walls. Have you seen anything? Ideas for things to hang from the octopus tentacles to make an acceptable baby-stimulating mobile are also welcomed.
*****
PS. Penny has a tooth. A tooth-let. A harbinger of tooth.
PPS. I know you don’t think I went all week without some new diapers coming in to this house. Also, this one is on the way. Fun diaper stuff coming soon, if you’re into that kind of thing! Lame-ass diaper stuff coming soon, if you’re not into that kind of thing!
PPPS. OH ONE MORE THING ABOUT MY MOM. I would make baby observations, like “She isn’t rolling yet,” or maybe we’d see a baby walking around and I’d say, “I can’t wait until Penny can walk,” and my mom would jump in to DEFEND PENNY, going, “She will!” As if I’m maligning my dud of a baby. I KNOW SHE WILL. She’s not going to go to college unable to do anything but put her face into the carpet and shriek out her indignation. I’m just SAYING.
Posted in cloth diapers, daily BS, Penny | 85 Comments »
Monday, September 12th, 2011
Let’s just get this out of the way now.
1. Are you a person who says, “I’d like to come with you,” or “I want to come with?”
2. Are you a person who says, “That needs to be washed,” or “That needs washed?”
3. Are you a person who says, “Take 101 to whatever,” or “Take the 101 to whatever?”
I’m willing to entertain your responses and reasonings on 1 and 2, but if you’re not in my camp, I will forever view you through “says weird things” colored lenses.
Now, number 3, I am finally willing to admit is a kind of regional thing, though I refuse to ever quit taunting Phil about it. When we first met, I was all, “What the shit is this ‘the 10′ crap? Do me a favor. When we’re in Pennsylvania, tell my sister to ‘take the 81′ and see what she says to you,” because let me tell you, Internet, my sister is someone who is INCREDIBLY PICKY about the way that you say things. Yes, you. Well, mostly me. I can’t say the word “soda” or “phone” without her attempting to get me to repeat it for her correctly.
Anyway, Phil did say something to my sister about “the 81,” and predictably, she said, “What the hell is THAT about? It’s 81. Just 81.” Which is TRUE.
But I guess out here in the Westerny part of the country, it’s common to add “the” in front of highway numbers. In Pennsylvania and Maryland, where I have gathered all of my extensive data, there is no “the.” It’s simply, “Take 81 to 83″ or, “I take 270 to work” or, more commonly, “Hi, please forward my mail, because I’m going to be on 495 for the rest of my ever-loving life.”
Other ones? I mean, do you have any? I’m not really interested in pronunciation differences – I get that some people say “water” and some people say “wooder,” and that whole pronunciation video meme thing went around for a while and I didn’t watch a single one because who caaaaaaares. Some people say “ant” and some people say “auuuunt.” Got it. Also not interested in regional expressions. You know, like how Southern ladies say, “Oh, bless your heart,” when they really mean, “If I wasn’t such a lady, I would FUCK YOU UP.” I am more interested in regional differences in the way things are said, like the above examples. Please come up with some further instances of what I have illustrated above, so that we can all marvel at how weird other people are.
*****
I still intend to write my cloth diaper post, or maybe posts, I’m not sure, but I did want to get one thing out of the way.
It’s probably clear by now that I have about 7 jillion different kinds of diapers, and I think that some people probably find that a little intimidating. And it can be, I guess, but you should know that I eased into it.
Another perfectly valid approach to cloth diapering is to create an entire stash of diapers from just one brand. A lot of people do this, and it’s a very simple, uncomplicated way to do things, and you can also usually get really good deals on packages of diapers.
In fact, that was my original intention. I shopped sales and swaps before Penny was born and collected a couple of a few different kinds of diapers, intending to try them out and decide what worked best for us, sell the rest, and buy an entire collection of just one kind of diaper, like tons of people do. I did not do that.
But if you want to, you will probably end up going with one of the bigger “names” in diapers, because they are the easiest to obtain. If you’re interested in a hybrid system (one that will let you use cloth or disposable inserts as needed), you might like Flip, GroVia or GDiapers. (I do not use hybrids, so I cannot help you, but you’d still be making a nice choice.)
If you’re interested in pockets, you have probably mostly heard about BumGenius and FuzziBunz. Both excellent brands. If you were going to ask me, I’d say to go with FuzziBunz, because I like them better than I like BumGenius. But a lot of people like BumGenius, too.
Actually, if you were going to ask me, I’d say to go with Blueberry diapers for your pockets, because I don’t mind spending ridiculous amounts of your money right out of your pocket. (I am phasing out all of my pockets except for my Blueberry and newer FuzziBunz. But pockets are still an excellent choice!) But if you’re choosing between FuzziBunz and BumGenius, I’d say FuzziBunz. Unless you want to go with BumGenius.
You know. Whatever.
What I’m saying, in a completely unhelpful way, is that while the way I talk about cloth diapers and my personal collection of various types of pockets, AI2s and fitteds may be a little more complex that you (or Phil) are totally comfortable with, that shouldn’t discourage you away from cloth diapers, because JUST PICKING ONE is a perfectly valid (and probably sane) way to do things.
FuzziBuuuuuuuuuuuuuunnnnz!
*****
Left a little note for Phil to find before he left for work in the morning. <3
*****
Yesterday, we got into the discussion about whether you should ever consider having a second child for the reasoning that eventually you will be dead, and who will your kid hang out with? And also, after watching Vlogbrothers for so long, if you are robbing your kid of a special relationship in their adulthood if you don’t have a sibling for them, even if they hate each other growing up, and even if having a second kid (in your specific case) will make it so that you cannot raise either kid in exactly the manner you want, which you would be able to do with just one kid.
I don’t even want to talk about that shit, Internet.
*****
I know people do these all the time, but what are you reading that I’m not reading that I should be reading? I mean, I’m sure you read some really good blogs about exercise and healthy living, but I just celebrated There’s Chocolate Cake in the Fridge Day by having chocolate cake for breakfast. So. Realistically. Who are you reading that I should seek out and pester until they become my very best friend forever, or at least until they give in and agree to be my secret best friend, like Duck Face Walter was Stephanie Tanner’s secret boyfriend.
Who do you know who needs a Duck Face Walter in their life in the form of me?
*****
Internet, here are some choices we’re batting around right now:
1. Base of preference, standard list: We have a list of bases where we would like to live, on the East Coast, within reasonable driving distance of where all of my family is concentrated. We can put in a list (again) to let the powers that be know that we would like to move to one of these bases if space is available, and wait and see (and likely be denied, again).
2. Bade of preference, new list: If we can’t get one of the bases that’s within driving distance of family/people we know, it doesn’t really make a difference where we go, because we’d just be in the same situation we’re in now, so what does it matter where? This is known as the “anywhere but Arizona” idea.
3. Put in for overseas assignments as they become available, to places where Penny and I could accompany Phil. We’d be overseas for a few years, then have a better chance of getting a base of our choosing when we came back. However, not too many things we’re interested are opening up over the last few cycles, and they’re not even remotely guaranteed anyway, so we’d be sitting and waiting in AZ in the meantime.
4. A special job in either Montana, Wyoming or North Dakota for a few years. That would get us out of AZ, and also give Phil a little break from his career field, which is kind of needed right now. However, we’d be just as far from family as before, and it would be starting over, in a way, as Phil would have to learn a whole new job. His schedule, if manning was good in the position, would be 3 days on, 4 days off. Now, those 3 days would be three entire days, as in, at a different location, not home at night, Skype in for bedtime. But then, you know, 4 days off. Unless manning isn’t good. Which it isn’t always. Then just two days off at a time. A slight edge to this job is that there would be no deploying for four years, which is nice, but not a reason to choose it, as Phil and I are both of the belief that when you join the military, you do your share as called upon to do it. So. That would be nice, but we’d never choose something specifically to avoid Phil being sent overseas, if that makes sense.
5. An unaccompanied short tour for Phil. He put it for one recently and it doesn’t look like he got it. A common option for this is Korea, and Phil has already done a year in Korea, and is not super keen on the idea of doing another one. He’d go alone, and Penny and I would either go to Pennsylvania near my family for the year, or we would go to our follow on base if it was one of our top choices, again within driving distance of family. This is not really at the top of our list, because who wants to be away for a year? But it gives you an edge in getting a base you’d want after that year. But an edge doesn’t mean a guarantee. You could ask for New Jersey, Delaware or Virginia and they could offer you North Dakota, North Dakota, or North Dakota.
6. Do one more BOP round with our top bases. If we don’t get them, settle down and accept Phoenix living. The weather is great most of the year. There’s tons of stuff to do. Lots of concerts, all major sporting events, state fairs, good food. We’d look into moving off base in early 2012 into a Big Kid House, because base housing, while it met our needs when we really needed them met, is hard for me to see as a permanent home. Move into a nice house in the West Valley somewhere, with a block wall fence so Sheldon will stop getting away.
7. Listen, you. I already know your vote. MacDill. I got it. I tell Phil every time we discuss it. “Don’t forget to count the vote for MacDill.“
Reality: Oh, you guys. They’re never going to let us out of Arizona.
I don’t know why I laid all of that out. Do any of you have sway with the base assignments of the USAF? If so, WHY HAVEN’T YOU TOLD ME BEFORE? If not, well. We’ll be right here. In Arizona.
Posted in cloth diapers, daily BS | 114 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 »
