The Book of Love
You know what would be awesome? If I didn’t pee every effing time I sneezed. Even when I don’t THINK I have to pee, it sneaks up on me, like an insidious unwelcome visitor. These are the things no one warned me about before I had kids. To think, all those people wasted all that time telling me how I would never! sleep! again! (I’m sleeping now, bitches!), when they should have been warning me about the loss of bladder function. Oooooeee! What’s up with that? WHAT’S UP WITH THAT?
(Apparently my entire life is an SNL skit. It’s in my vernacular now so hard that I can’t stop it even if I tried. I find myself ding-donging and “OH REALLY”-ing and … well, OOOOEEEing ALL THE TIME.)
It seems I am the only parent in the universe who is in TLA with the DST. Dudes! My kid is sleeping until SE-VEN A to the M. She’s going to bed later, sure, but as a late to bed/late to rise person, this fits in to my schedule perfectly, and allows me to eat dinner WITH my child, rather than shoving food in her face, jamming her into the bathtub, and then scrambling to get something on the table for Adam and me to eat before 9 p.m. This eating-with-my-child thing is also new and weird, now that she’s a whole one year old and can eat what we’re eating for dinner. HELLO MINDFUCK.
I know this is in no way revelatory, as, well, this is what babies DO, but in one short year, my kid has gone from barely opening her mouth like a baby bird on my boob, to using her fingers to shove (SHOVE) pieces of chicken and asparagus into her gaping maw, and it’s BLOWING MY MIND. It’s like, dude, who is this small PERSON with opinions and food preferences — this tiny person who, when I offered her more blueberries, swept them all off of the table with her arm and said, “NOOOOO!” and glared at me like, Jesus, bitch, do I LOOK like I want more blueberries to you? Have you SEEN the amount of cheese I just ate?
Okay, then, kid, I get it! YOU ARE ALL DONE. FINE.
The other day I glanced over and saw her sitting on Adam’s lap, sippy cup in one hand, graham cracker in the other, acting like a TEENAGER waiting impatiently for me to turn on One Tree Hill. It’s … I don’t know what, but I tell you, I know I’m killing y’all with this mommyblogging bizness, but there’s something about having Samantha turn ONE that has me all like, WHAT THE EFF? I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love it — sleeping, for instance, is a truly fantastic thing. It’s that she’s becoming so big and SO fun, and while I wouldn’t go back to any other age — truly, not even for an instant — I can’t help but be a little sad because it’s all going so terrifyingly fast.
The littlest eater in the throes of cheesecake ecstasy on her birthday.
Hey, one last thing that will be interesting only to parents of small children: Sam is uninterested in eating anything she can’t pick up herself, which means things like yogurt and other puree-type things are out. HOWEVAH, my friend Meg tipped me off the other day that Cheerios mixed with yogurt are great for little ones like Sam. Messy as all hell, but also, awesome. And OMFG YES. AWESOME. Here’s the recipe:
Stir Cheerios in yogurt. Serve.
SO COMPLEX, I KNOW. And yet, GEEEEENIUS.
Finally, my friend Kate came over with her little boy today, and … well, honestly, I just love Kate. Down to earth, rational, chill and just … NORMAL, she’s very refreshing to be around. But what really gets me — what gets me about all of my mom friends, the good ones anyway (all, um, three of them), is that I love watching them with their kids. I LOVE hearing that Kate thinks her son is the cutest, and watching her kiss him and tell him what an angel he is. (She must have done this five times today, and by the fourth, I almost said something, for I was getting MISTY.) I love watching Meg hide a toy in her hands and laugh while her son giggles like crazy and tries to guess where it went.
It’s just … I don’t know, a completely unexpected joy of parenthood, not only watching and enjoying MY kid grow up, but seeing other good parents — my friends, who I love — who adore their kids in action. It sounds silly and a little shmoopy, but it reminds me that although this world is full of annoying, shitty assholes who do annoying, shitty things, there is so, so much love. It gives me hope.
Aaaand, on that completely out of character note, I hope you all have a great weekend!
*Peter Gabriel. Can you tell I just got Scratch My Back, and can’t stop listening to it? I have a Peter Gabriel PROBLEM. It’s OBVIOUS.
32 comments March 18th, 2010