Tag Archives: ybab

To train up a child

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Earlier a baby stopped draining my life force and whipped her head around to face the speakers when “Every Day is Like Sunday” came on the shuffle. Then she demanded to sit up and bounce. How many zillion hours of Morrissey did I expose her to in utero? That was probably more dangerous than all the wine*.

Now we have to go outside before we accidentally weep to death!

*It’s a joke. Joke. Close the email window. Step away from the computer. I mean “all the wine” is a joke. Well, an exaggeration. I certainly did drink a spot of wine here and there. Like they do in freaking Europe, after all the important organs are baked. But certainly more Morrissey was absorbed than alcohol. Certainly.

Fucktoberfest

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My October surprise? Something in the living room smells funny, and I can’t find the source. Dead animal? Spot of vomit? We may never know.

In other surprises, a baby has learned to drink out of a sippy cup*. She will attain four months of age on Monday. Now she reaches for my cup while sitting in my lap. Does this mean I have to stop drinking? What next, no more blowing lines off the unbreakable mirror in her play gym?

This whole post was just so I could use the subject line. It came to me on my ten millionth walk with a baby today. Yes, really, ten millionth. Balloons did not drop out of the sky, and I did not get a year’s worth of free groceries. I almost got run over by a Puerto Rican kid on a mini bike. Yes, he was Puerto Rican. I’m not just being an assumption racist. The giant flag on his shirt tipped me off. It was sort of like getting mowed down by Ralph the mouse, proportion-wise. Anyway, so I walked for the ten millionth time. Then I gave up on walking and stood by the railing at the edge of the river and bounced up and down so a baby would stay asleep in the wrap. Bounce bounce bounce.

*She gets mommy milk in her cup, not Dr. Pepper, so shut it, would-be drive-by-ers. No Dr. Pepper until five months.

Mommy drinks because you cry

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Today a baby went out of the house dressed like an Olsen twin yet again. Perhaps we will get better at matching when someone stops soiling various parts of her outfit so frequently. Until then, we remain “boho.” Or around the house, “naked and easily hosed down.”

In another two years, I expect to be able to discuss things that do not relate to a baby. That’s not totally true. If you’d like to discuss consolidating student loans or car insurance discounts, I’m your huckleberry. Would you like to talk about how my wretched, wretched condo won’t sell for what I paid for it? Also, I had a dream that I bought a bunch of bananas housing a tarantula.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, a baby is teething, so I have to put some whiskey on my gums.

Next stop: the bottom

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Ah, it’s that special time of the day when a baby slumbers. She slumbers her ass off while draped in my lap. Anything else yields an unpleasant talk about Feelings. I am working on developing the power of my mind to mix myself a drink and float it on over here. No luck yet.

We went to the library and signed up to get free stuff. I completely forgot about the existence of libraries. The barrier to entry is low: show up and say “I want a library card.” The librarian explained the policies very seriously. You can take out an unlimited number of items, except for DVDs and puppets. You may only borrow two puppets at a time. She underlined this part on the quarter sheet of pink copy paper devoted to policies. Puppets?

Puppets?

That made me want three puppets, of course.

Hi, I see from my notes that you’re crazy!

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Yesterday I got a call from someone at my health insurance company (“the home of the whopper deductible”). She pussyfooted around describing how their team of nurses helps manage chronic conditions without saying which one, but would I be interested in participating? Hmm, are they talking about my combination skin? My distaste for people who write checks at the supermarket? I’ll bite.

“Why are you calling me?”

“Uh…we see you’ve sought counseling in the past.”

“Well, I’m not actively depressed now, believe it or not. I’m slowly killing time until a baby is old enough to do my taxes, but unless you’ve got a time machine, I think I’m all set.”

Silence…scribbling…”We see you entered counseling again this summer.”

“Yes, having a child tends to throw one for a loop and require at least 3 therapy hours. Did you know babies are kind of passive-aggressive?”

“I see….”

“But I assure you, I know the drill about the depression business. It’s about as exciting as coming down with a cold for me. When I feel bad, I get help. I don’t enjoy being depressed.”

“Oh! That’s great! Some people do.”

Silence on my end….

“Well, the initial interview for this program takes twenty minutes.” A baby began to shriek violently. No, I did not pinch her. She probably needs mental health help more than I do. I think she must be bi-polar. I caught her emptying my savings account and buying tickets to Moscow last week.

I hustled the lady off the phone by putting the mouthpiece right by a baby. Yell your way to privacy! Maybe I will write them a nice letter suggesting that if they really want to help improve my life, they will opt to cover more of the crap that costs me money. No, clearly that is batshit nuts! Calling and poking around for personal information about non-critical situations is obviously far more effective.

Content…challenging

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I am a failure as a human being. I did not write a post yesterday. I started one, and it got erased. Nor did I vote in the Democratic primary today. The terrorists are winning! I should be more politically active than ever, what with having to hand this shitbucket of an earth over to an innocent child, but said innocent child is going through a phase not unlike the tortured adolescence of a Tasmanian Devil. This makes basic tasks im-fucking-possible. We reap what we sow. I guess. I also did not recycle. And I fired the babysitter. One day… a new record in didn’t work out. Reproduction…a supremely stupid idea. Er, I mean “it’s all worth it.” And it is worth it, for the five minutes of gummy smiling a day. But, you argue, you could hire an elderly homeless person if gummy smiling is your thing. I’m sorry, I am not breastfeeding the homeless. No matter how often that one guy on the third bench to the left of my house may ask. Speaking of breastfeeding, I was reading the “mystery diagnosis” column in the NYT magazine the other day, and a banner ad nagged “Babies were born to breastfeed.” I was already breastfeeding a baby right at that moment, and I got this mega defensive feeling, like “what the fuck more do you want from me, banner ad?” That banner ad wants to smoke a cigarette when it’s already smoking.

In closing, tits tits tits tits tits tits.

A baby shan’t attend college now

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A baby celebrated three months of excreting yesterday! Guess how she celebrated that. Just go on and guess. Keeping her alive all that time was approximately ten trillion times harder than keeping Sea Monkeys alive, and that’s hard anyway.

She’ll never learn to read because we can’t afford reading now. Mr. H toted up what his comic book collection would be worth, and we had a little moment of ka-ching! But then he called his parents and found out they gave it away at a yard sale recently. Oh, snap. Oh.

The locals on the Yahoo! Group continue to infuriate me. They are now calling pre-meetings for meetings. If I wanted to go to meetings about meetings, I’d have a goddamn job. There is an issue with flood insurance that may end in litigation with the management company, and one bokka booka crazy woman suggested that someone go to the registry of deeds and compile a list of people who actually owned when the flood took place, so as to exclude people who did not own at the time from the meeting. Yes, because PEOPLE LOVE TO GO TO EXTRA FUCKING MEETINGS THAT DON’T CONCERN THEM. People volunteer to attend meetings left and right, and it takes some super sleuthing to stop them. Everything is a conspiracy.

It’s nice to be reminded I have no idea what I’m doing

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A baby is feeling poorly. She’s having a growth spurt and sprouting some teeth. Perhaps she is also humilated because she wore a sleeper that read “Babys friends * Pets” the other day. These pet friends are a line art dachshund named Pascal and a bunny named Colette. At any rate, her psychic disturbance has netted me a day of screaming whenever she is awake and not eating. This coincides nicely with my house being torn apart from our rearranging binge of the past few days. I’m also supposed to be shipping my worldly possessions to Australia today, and if I don’t make it to the post office, I will get OMG negative feedback times a million! I’m going back to bed.

Second toughest in the infants

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I have recently discovered that a baby hates other children She screws up her face and glares at the sound of their shrieks and giggles, but she is happy to make eyes at adults. It’s a good thing she’ll be an only child. Hell is other babies, darlin’.

Mr H and I celebrated our anniversary with spaghetti and meatballs, like Lady and the Tramp. Since I’m a tramp, I guess he has to be the lady. He cooked, as a lady should. He also bought my love with a gift, which took me off guard. We never exchange gifts because we usually buy whatever we want as it occurs to us. Which is probably why we’re broke. Shiftless Americans!

It’s getting to be that time in baby ownership when it’s possible to pull one’s head out of one’s ass for brief moments. I’ve read several disturbing articles that all go something like CIA, Bush, torture, torture, and I wish I could put my head right back in my ass. Oh wait, I can take a nice long nap with the Suri Cruise photo spread draped over my face. That’ll work.

Alcoholics totally love babies

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This morning I went to the post office because I did something bad in my last five or six lives. I continued down to the village, and I had to detour to kill time because the hippie lunch hole wasn’t open yet. This took me past the bus station alcoholics who patrol the payphones for returned change. “Oh, shweet bundle of love,” they slurred, lurching towards me as if to paw the baby passed out in the sack I hang around my neck. The baby woke up, displeased, and we pepper sprayed the living hell out of the alcoholics. A passing police officer smiled and chucked the baby under the chin. “Saved me the trouble,” he said. Then I had an avocado wrap.