the smartmouth mombie - Weblog Archives

Weblog Archives

May 31, 2004

Sorry for the long absence, between great busy-ness, a nasty cold and general blech-feeling-ness I have not been up to writing. Not only does that mean that you were deprived of my pearls of wisdom (HA!) but I also missed announcing two important events.

May 21 - Melissa's Birthday! Congratulations and Celebrations, Melissa. I hope you had all the fun that you deserve (i.e. a HUGE amount) on the big day (and on subsequent days - more fun for everyone I say!).

May 26 - Angela's Convocation! Nice escape from university there, Ange. Congrats! And, may I say, you rock an Arts Degree.

Anyway, I'll write more later (I hope) but for right now I just wanted to get those announcements posted.

May 19, 2004

Another day, another essay! What's going on? I don't rightly know but here it is.

If you're a scientist studying toddler behaviour, you should have been here today to observe the drama prince (hell, if I'm the drama queen that makes my son the drama prince does it not?). Apparently I was breaking Geneva Convention rules by wanting to finish my toast before joining him in the living room to watch Dora.

I mean, I could see his need for dramatics if something important was going on, or if a crisis had befallen him but alas, my son, Dora's opening theme music will not stir a tired Mombie from her breakfast.

An interesting question (at least to me, because I find myself FASCINATING!) is why was the Mombie so tired in the first place? A) because she's pregnant B) because her toddler slept between her shoulderblade and her ribs last night preventing her from resting properly.

Yep, strange but true folks. The Boy managed to wedge himself firmly under my shoulder blade for the whole night. How is that even anatomically possible you ask? I have no idea but some how the little guy can instinctively bend time and space to his will, allowing him to fit into spaces no human should be able to.

And on that puzzling note, I am off!

May 18, 2004

Lo and behold, I have just posted a new essay! Will wonders never cease? I know it's short but it still counts. I think I have been too caught up in trying to post long, involved essays instead of posting the short rants that I am best at.

I have invented a flexible schedule for myself and The Boy to follow and I'm seeing how that pans out. Basically I've decided that I can spend X amount of time per day writing while he watches TV and I'm refusing to feel guilty about it. The aim is focus completely on my writing for those few short bursts and then spend the rest of the day with The Boy. Of course I have to do stuff like make supper or tidy the house while I look after him but those activities are a lot more interruptible than writing is. Hopefully this will help me avoid feeling torn between my two worlds all the time. Torn is not a fun feeling and it produces guilt at a rapid fire pace.

Of course, the real challenge is finding what parts of the day The Boy will be amenable to letting me work uninterrupted. Dora the Explorer is, after all, only so long.

If only The Wiggles came on after Dora. Or if I could teach The Boy how to turn on the VCR to watch his Wiggles tape once Dora is done. Perhaps I should devote some of my energy this week to training The Boy to use electronics?

May 16, 2004

I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop. I have been feeling okay since Friday at 1:30pm and it is now 7:30pm on Sunday. No nausea, virtually no dizziness, I'm all confused. In fact I feel so good that I'm having the irrational fear that something has gone wrong with the embryo. It's stupid but there it is. Luckily I recognize that the fear is irrational (and even if it isn't there's nothing I can do about it) so I'm not dwelling on it.

On to other things:

I really want to have a newspaper column. Well, actually, I want to get paid for thinking about writing, or maybe for writing in this weblog - money for nothing (and my chicks for free - no wait, I have no use for chicks, except maybe as babysitters. Now there's an idea!). But seeing as that's not going to happen, and I am not really so much interested in doing freelance work - profiles of local (non) celebrities or researching local news, I want to find a way to get published regularly, make some money and get my name out there. A newspaper column is my only route into that I think.

Of course that means I need to find something to write about that people would be interested in reading every week (or month or whatever). I'm working on it. I may in fact, launch a couple of ideas on my site here and see what I'm able to write about the most before broaching an editor.

The obvious thing for me to write about is my life as a Mombie but I already broached that with the Telegram last summer and they really weren't into it. I think they fear change. And the Express already has a mom column. I could try the National Post but I'm not that brave yet. Maybe soon.

May 14, 2004

Well the most exciting thing that has happened this week is that The Boy has weaned himself. Yep, in the early morning hours of May 11th (the day he would officially become two and a half) he didn't ask to nurse when he woke up. And he did that for the next two nights. Last night he did want to nurse but after I gently refused he whined a little then went off to sleep.

So I am now not a nursing mother and I've discovered that I like it. A lot. If I wasn't pregnant I would be getting a good drunk on this weekend. But I am a responsible person and I have an embryo to protect so I will just revel in the fact that my boobs have the next 7+ months off.

I don't know how long I'll nurse Newbaby, it's not like nursing The Boy for this long was a planned thing. It wasn't political or nutrition-minded, it was just the only way to get any sleep. I really liked nursing The Boy when he was a wee thing but nursing a toddler is no picmic (© The Boy 2004), they squirm and they poke and well, it's not relaxing at all.

I kind of feel that I owe Newbaby the opportunity to nurse just as long but then I realize that I am not going to be able to make their lives equal. So why set myself up for guilt from the start? Motherhood brings guilt by the bushel so I don't need to seek it. I'll nurse Newbaby for as long as feels right/works for us both and when those two conditions are no longer met, I'll stop.

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I've been feeling a lot of pressure lately because I know a lot of the people who read my weblog here, and they read it because they know me, not because they are also mothers or writers. So I feel this great pressure to be funny or to write about what they might find interesting, and that's really inhibiting. I guess I have to accept that I have to write about what I have to write about and I have no control over whether anyone else likes it.

May 10, 2004

So, first, an apology to my dedicated fan base. I have been really sick since last friday and writing was way beyond my capabilities. Luckily, I have managed to avoid puking so far but I have been dizzy and nauseated and that sucks. And not in the good way.

So I took the boy swimming on Friday morning (we went with the ever popular Krista and Dylan) and he was really freaked out by the noise level in the change room but he had a grand time in the water. In fact, when we got back to to the change room after swimming he begged me to go 'backin' and asked 'More fun, Mommy? More fun for me?'

I like it, I think that's going to be my motto from now on. More fun for me!

I mean, it's not like I'm driven by a protestant (should that be Puritan?) work ethic now but I think I could use more fun. Hell, who couldn't?

Yeah, that's all for tonight. I know it's boring but it's better than no entry at all, right? Right, guys? Guys? Guys? oops, I lost 'em. Oh well, maybe next time.

May 4, 2004

So I had started a big long entry here and then I realize, lo and behold, it could grow into a real live essay so I moved it to my essay page and I'm incubating it there. That leaves me with a big empty space to fill here, though. Just when I promised Mark that it would be interesting, I've got nothing to say.

That's not strictly true, I rarely have nothing to say. I may not have anything exciting or relevant to say but I can usually think of something. Some obscure fact to dredge up as a topic.

I read a blurb in one of my toddler books the other day and the mom in question was refering to her daughter, Heaven. I thought I had heard bad names before but that one just hurt my head. Heaven? Sure it's adorable, and I can sort of see the line of reasoning that led to it but then I think , no wait this is an actual person we're discussing here. A person who has to live in the world and call people and tell them her name and ask for a job. This is not going to go well.

You don't MEAN to be prejudiced against people's names but it happens. You hate all kids named Sam because Sam in fourth grade used to chew with his mouth open. Or you hate all girls named Cara because Cara spilled her drink on your sweater at the 8th grade dance. And you will not be able to take Heaven seriously, because her name is Heaven. She couldn't even work in a church for goodness sake (I ran through god's sake and heaven's sake before settling on goodness, I'm not happy with it but it'll have to do.). Imagine her answering the phone 'Hi, St. Peter's Parish Office, Heaven speaking". That's not going to fly folks, not...going...to..fly.

After I finished this rant (or part thereof) the first time, on the phone with Hilary, thinking I'd found the rock bottom kid's name, she topped me. Or would that be bottomed me? Now it sounds like I'm talking about S&M, which I AM NOT so I'll stop that discussion there. Anyway, she told me about how she knows this girl named Precious. PRECIOUS? Oh, for HEAVEN's sake!

Perhaps they can open a phone sex line, or a massage parlour or, hell, a escort service together.

Little hint folks: Don't give your kid a name that sex workers use as an alias. And I'm not demeaning sex workers here, they have a right to their names and their jobs and more power to them. But they CHOOSE those names, they don't have them thrust upon them.

Heaven? Precious? Why not call your kid Cutesie widdle baby or Dominatrix and be done with it?

May 3, 2004

If you're handing out free nap cards please send one my way, this embryo -growing is tiring work. I don't feel as tired as I did when I was pregnant with The Boy but I do feel sicker or at least more frequently sick. So perhaps there's a connection, either I need more sleep (duh!) or I slept through feeling sick last time. Or perhaps each pregnancy, like each child, is something beautiful and unique (GAG, yeah I couldn't even type that with a straight face. I'm going to get kicked out of the wry mommies club for that one!)

Don't get me wrong, I think kids are unique and pregnancies are unique, and I know mommies are but the people who spout that sort of 'precious jewel' business about their kids seem to me to be on drugs or so far removed from the dirty diapers and face wiping that I can't respect their opinions. Aren't I vehement today? Yay me! Vehement me is one of my favorites!

I fail to understand the need to sugarcoat motherhood. It can be great fun and full of excitement but it can also be the most depressing, mind-numbing job on the planet. Just like any long term project it has its ups and downs and it's hard to keep perspective on one when you're going through the other.

And few other jobs are as tied into your self-worth, a failed salesperson can start writing or something, a failed mother is a failed person, at least socially. And there are so many different ways to fail, so many things to screw up.

And so many people who think they know better than you who are willing to weigh in on your mothering. You wouldn't catch little old ladies berating bricklayers about their technique but you catch them sniping at new moms in the mall all the time. Even people who've never had kids have tons of opinions on how to raise them, and are pretty willing to tell you what you're doing wrong.

It's almost impossible to know what to do, all the opinions are so polarized and if you don't happen to have a solid gut feeling on a given issue then your research may not help. Grey areas are few and far between, there is very little fuzziness, information is presented as completely right or completely wrong and if you waffle you are failing your child. How the hell are you supposed to work from there?

You have to have a will of iron and be really hopeful and you have to have good friends to see you through when your resolve waivers.

Luckily I have all three of those things, so even when life sucks it still rocks in many ways. And one of those ways is that the same kid who makes me want to pull out my hair also melts me with a request to 'cudd-le' or by laughing uproariously at a moving hat on Blue's Clues (yum, Blue's Clues Steve - mom much? why yes I do!).

Yeah so for all the challenges there are upsides. No matter how gruesome my choices are at least I know they matter (hell, that's what makes them so gruesome). And I do have fun hanging out with my kid and I get to act silly in ways I had forgotten. I get to have a popcorn picnic on a rainy day - which I would never do it I was alone. And I've re-learned how to be excited about tiny things, like finding a dinky or getting some cheesies unexpectedly. And when it only takes that much to perk you up - it's not hard to turn around a bad day.

The very best part though has been discovering all the ways I was wrong about myself. Sure I've discovered 47 different ways to numb my brain but I've also discovered that I am pretty damn calm most of the time and that I have a lot of patience. And those aren't bad traits to have - I just never thought I had them. So, thanks kid and I'll get the rest of it figured out, leave it to Mommy!

May 2, 2004

Wheeeee, and then it was May.

I've decided to turf the daily quotes. If I find a quote I especially like I'll post it but otherwise I'm finding that I'm writing more about the quote than about what I want to write about. And what's worse is that I haven't written some days because I haven't been able to find a good quote. The last thing I need is another excuse not to write. And besides: quotes? They are sooooo April. And as I believe I mentioned above this is May.

So I've been feeling crappy this weekend. Not actually sick, just weak and trembly. It sucks. It's the kind of crappy feeling that makes you wonder if it would be better just to be sick. Of course it probably wouldn't but whatever.

And the fact that women who are ill in their first trimester are less likely to miscarry doesn't really do anything to make me feel better. I guess I can take comfort in the fact that at least it isn't 'all in my head' or is it? Perhaps I'm making myself ill so I don't worry about miscarrying. Perhaps this is not a useful line of inquiry since the fact remains: I feel ill and I don't like it.

And speaking of which, I think the language surrounding pregnancy loss needs an overhaul. I mean really, miscarriage? losing a baby? it makes the woman sound so careless and really, that's not fair. There needs to be more clinical term (and no, folks, spontaneous abortion doesn't cut it either) that is not laden with societal blame.

Well, any-way, on to cheerier topics (no this weblog can't all be clever and funny so stop asking). The Boy has been having a great time in the sunny weather lately, he always wants to 'get in' (read go out on) the patio and go out into the yard. So far, he's helped Krista blow bubbles, he helped The Man wash the car and rake the lawn and he has been for a big walk with me. And that's just since Friday. Aren't we good parents providing a variety of tactile experiences for our little boy? That's the kind of service you can come to expect here at MombieTheMan-ville once you arrive, little embryo. Oh wait, embryos can't read. No matter, I'm sure the little one can feel how enriching his or her life will be once s/he's external.

Yeah, enriching, that's what we're all about. If we don't have The Boy plunked in front of the Wiggles of course:) (yay, Wiggles!).

Actually, taking a long walk with The Boy was v. funny. I kind of miscalculated how long the walk I'd planned was and I ended up carrying him most of the way back. Unfortunately, he had splashed in a lot of puddles and his feet were v. wet so everytime his little sneaker hit my pant leg it left a damp spot. By the time I got halfway home it looked like I had peed my pants. Deee-lightful it was, a tired looking pregnant lady trying to balance a two year old and a 2L bottle of pepsi (in a bag) while trying to remain upright. We were a ridiculous enough sight without the bonus simulated pants wetting. It's all an 'abenture' isn't it?

September-October

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