YouTubing

Now, I'm no Shakira fan. I swear.

It's totally only because the baby likes it that I've played this like eight times since Jill posted it at Feministe.



Other things I use the baby as an excuse for watching again and again:

Dixie Chicks, "Goodbye Earl." She really likes the mandolin breakdown part at the end.



Kraftwerk, "We Are the Robots." She especially likes when I sink along dorkily in a robot voice. And when I brag about translating the Russian.



But right now, we are sick. All of us. Brian is asleep in bed having dosed himself with some sort of blue syrupy fluid. The baby and I are staring at each other going "unnnnhhhh," with snot running down our faces.

Please, somebody, bring me some soup.

Yes! Correct! I agree!

Word.

Waives lighter.

Renegade Evolution is awesome.

Just go read the post.

8 months

That's my little schmoops. Her face is really starting to mature, don't you think? She's losing the amorphous blobbiness little baby faces have. And her eye color still changes depending on the light.

5 things no one knows about me.

Okay, so I am tagged with a meme, which I think I did already, but I don't remember and am too lazy to look.

I'd kind of like to make it 5 deeply embarrassing things for some reason, so here goes:

1. I hate cockroaches. Completely, irrationally, phobic-ally hate them. So much that if I see one I kind of freeze and pretend that I don't see it, because to acknowledge its presence would be too awful.

2. When I was little, my mother used to joke with me that she had been abducted by aliens as a child. So, now I also have a slight fear of "greys." You know, the big, light bulb-headed, stereotypical aliens from the X-Files? Slightly terrifying if I think about them too long. This is very, very embarrassing to me.

3. Ever since giving birth I pee a little when I sneeze. I fear the coming allergy season. Kegels anyone?

4. Almost up until I graduated from high school, I didn't know you were supposed to tip people. Like, waitresses and pizza delivery guys and stuff. No one ever told me! I'm sure a lot of my food was spat in. Now, I over tip to make up for it.

5. Bored, alone, (Abbie is at grandma's house tonight,) I just painted my nipples with Benetint. It looks funny.

And there you go. I'm not tagging anyone, because that's enough shame to go around.

I had bad hair

I really wish my Italian mother had read this article when I was a kid.

Maybe my hair and I would get along better now.

Destroy all Duckies!

Abbie imagines her duckie is the stupid commenter from the last post...

Things that chap my hide.

Check out this post at babyfruit, where Aliza, mother to an 8-month-old, writes about luxuriating in a few moments to herself, pretending that there wasn't a baby in the next room about to wake up and want stuff.

I just took a long, hot shower. I even clipped my long-neglected toenails. And I found myself, in the early morning before NG woke up, pretending that I didn't have a baby.

Is that evil? Am I going to Mommy Hell for this one?

It is a relatively new thought - spending a little while, once in a while, imagining that I am unencumbered by a baby. I'm not saying that I forget I have a child and then fail to lock the safety gate at the top of the stairs. This isn't an act that is directly endangering my baby.

I just wake up some mornings and try to recapture the feeling when I didn't have to suddenly rush getting ready so I can be halfway put together and maybe even clean before baby wakes up. Standing in a hot shower for more than 2 minutes, getting to wash my hair, standing there quietly hearing nothing but the rushing water, I pretend I don't have a baby, and a feeling of relaxation flows through me.

This sounds ridiculously normal to me (also mother to an 8-month-old), like something a fake TV mom might do in an ad for Herbal Essence shampoo or something. It's not like she said she cursed herself for making a stupid mistake and ruining her life while holding a shrieking 6 week old (that was me), or left the baby overnight at grandpa's house, then went out dancing and pretending she didn't have a baby (that was me too).

Anyone who doesn't feel this way once or twice while parenting an infant (let alone sneaking a few minutes alone in the shower, for chrissake) is either lying or filled with so much pent-up emotion that they're headed for a nervous breakdown.

Or, as I suspect is the case for this anonymous commenter, they don't actually have children.

I have to admit that I was shocked when I read your post. I have been following your blog for a long time and today I am choosing to no longer read it. I am so sad that you aren't enjoying your daughter after your long struggle to have her. I feel sorry for her and for you... some day you will look back on this time with your daughter and realize you missed so much. Good luck to you. I hope you learn how to be grateful and happy.

And yet again the message to women everywhere, but especially mothers, is Shut Up And Be Grateful! You Don't Know How Good You Have It!

Well, as a woman who not only knows how good I have it but also all the seriously hard work I put into it, fuck you. And if you don't like the fact that sometimes women need a break, that we can't be bright and cheery and super-cheerful 24-7, then fuck you some more.

I know that's not a particular articulate response, but it made me quite angry.

My grandma

Doesn't she have excellently groomed eyebrows?

This is kind of apropos of nothing. Just thought I'd share.

Help tha Police!

Lol. Via Daddytypes.