Notes From the Exersaucer

Dear Mother,

I know what you are trying to do and I am hereby discouraging you.

I will not take a bottle. I know I have in the past. I know you have fed me breast milk via a bottle since I was a wee 2 weeks old in order to avoid this problem, but I’m on to you. I know what you’re trying to do.

Dr. Sears suggests child-led weaning and this kid ain’t leading. In fact, to help you figure out that I only want the boob and not some badly flavoured formula I will now wake up every other hour in the night to eat. This will not only drive you crazy with sleep deprivation, but if I keep it up for a while, I will succeed in making those gigantic boobs bigger. Do you want that, Mother? Do you?

My technique of latching on hard then moving my head swiftly to the side thus breaking the seal. Well, it could be worse. Do you want that? You say you started the weaning because of said behaviour, well, let’s just see how that goes.

I’ve scheduled a growth spurt next week and plan on keeping you up feeding that spurt. I will become clingy and needy. You will wreck me irrevocably. I will feel rejected and abandoned. These feelings will follow me for the rest of my life because you dare to wean me before I want to be weaned. Are you trying to pack my emotional baggage this early?

Stop with the attempt to get your body back. You are my mommy and will do as I wish. And I wish for a minty momma cocktail.  Pronto.

Love,

Max aka Vindaloo Boo Boo and all those other inane nicknames.

P.S. Stewie from Family Guy and I have been communicating. Don’t make me go there.

P.P.S.  I need more kisses and snuggles.  I’ve only received 897 kisses this morning and it’s already 9 am.  Get on it, lady.  More kisses.  More snuggles.  More Giggles.

P.P.P.S.  I’m digging The Beatles.  More please.

Maximus – Made with Love

My Dad and brother will be here Thursday morning. I can’t wait.

They are coming to see Max.  I have nothing to do with it other than I’m still his primary source of nutrition so I HAVE to hang around.

Kim gave him that shirt.  It is so adorable, but he will not sit still so I can get a clear shot.

I have 14 wint-o-green mints left.  14!! Jeff is bringing me my fix.  I’m not sure I’m gonna make it.

Max doesn’t care.  All he cares about is playing and boobs and playing and boobs and carrots and boobs.

I’m working on the boob thing.  We are starting the process of weaning, but that is another post for another day. Let’s just say I can’t find a formula that has that hint of mint that my breast milk seems to have.  I have no idea why my breast milk has a hint of mint, but Max seems to dig it.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Sparky just left with my baby to go visit Mutti.  I’m lost and bereft and joyous that I can organize my desk without listening to the Muppets. I’m worried that Sparky won’t be able to handle it. I’m worried that Mutti will do something like feed him blood sausage because it’s good for babies.  I’m afraid Max will start crying and no one will be able to soothe him because we’ve rarely been apart from each other and when we are I come home and he’s hysterical.

Motherhood is a complicated beast.  Fuck.

I’m going to go clean, listen to Rachel Maddow and try not to think about the horrors Max is experiencing without me there to intervene and protect him.

Scrunchy just jumped on my empty lap looking for love.  Perhaps I need to snuggle a bit before i start that cleaning.

Heavenly Sale

This is for all those expats who want an American bed.

The Westin is having a 25% off sale.

It’s a bit pricey, but so worth it.  We I was considering a Haestens* because he thinks I’m a luxury bitch I hate the typical euro bed.  Sparky said a big fat no to the idea of a Haestens.  Not that we could even afford it, but to say no to an idea?  Come on.

I haven’t slept well in over 6 years.  I think that is long enough.

Now that we’ve ordered the Westin Heavenly, I’ll have to be in a better mood.  I’ll no longer get to bitch about having to spend three hours of precious Max-asleep time trying to get comfortable and fall asleep myself.

Shit. I’m gonna have to be nice.

Well, I’ll worry about that in 9-11 weeks.

Heartbeats

I’m boring these days.  GBF e-mailed me about Folsom Street Fair and Dutch penii. I used to have such a well, interesting life.  I remember way back when, like a year ago, August 3rd was the last day to be exact, when Sparky and I were all free to be you and me.  Now, it’s all about the heartbeats in the house and how I care for them.

Cats are continually sick.  Sparky is on the road and Max, after his first play date, caught a cold that I have been nursing for the last few days.

Back in the bubble for that kid.  No more babies until he’s at least six months old and I’m no longer living every night as if SIDS is going to take him. I haven’t figured out how to stop worrying, just how to live with the worry and a smaller amount of sleep checking on him. I have this fear that it’s just too good, he’s just too perfect, my love for him is too great – he’ll be taken away.  I know, get thee to a therapist.

Sparky picked up another light-hearted film for us to watch over the weekend – The Wrestler.  Yeah, I know.  Not quite a rom-com, is it?  The last time he brought home Slumdog Millionaire.  Apparently the musical number at the end had him convinced it was going to be FUN!  I turned it off after the mother got it with a cricket bat.

He attempted to rent The Reader to which I said a big fat no unless we went for the full Monty and rented Schindler’s List, Sophie’s Choice and for dessert, Life is Beautiful.  Really, go big or go home, right?

Since Max something changed within me.  He opened this door of softness and sensitivity that I cannot close. Unfortunately, he’s not the only one that gets in these days.  He must have been born in a barn or something because he left that door wide open, damn kid.

Not that I was ever that hardcore, but I could watch movies, mostly.  These days if it’s not a Queen Latifah comedy, well, forget it.  I know those are good movies, I just won’t be able to stop crying my little heart out and I hate crying.  Just ask Sparky, I’m not a cryer.  I cried in Wall-E when Wall-E left his little cockroach friend for Eva.  See what I mean? It’s pathetic.

In other hopefully non-cry-ey news, our Kablooey room under construction.  It’s really the laundry/storage room.  I call it the Kablooey room because between the heat from the dryer and the chemicals, I fully expect to blow the roof off the mill some day. Kablooey!

We’re installing cabinetry to prevent Max from fully exploring his range of tolerance for cat litter and chemicals and life endangering crawling scenarios.  I have cleverly scheduled this around my Dad and brother’s visit.  Nothing like a Honey-Do list for my Dad’s visit.

Which brings me to the next point.  When my Dad and Bro are here, blogging might take a far backseat (if life were a mini-van) to the visit.  They only come ever five years or so and this time I actually had to go through childbirth to get my brother on a plane.  Not planning on that again anytime soon so I have to cram all my family time in.

Here is a new picture of Max.  He is four months, four weeks and a day old today.  Little guy is growing up way too fast. I asked him to stop.  He just giggled in response.

An Old Identity

I changed my last name way back when. It was a few years after Sparky and I married because I just couldn’t bring myself to do it.

I had worked hard to become who I was and had a real problem with losing that name for a name that wasn’t mine.

Well, so I changed my name to his and in a way, tried to change me to fit that name. It never worked. It just felt wrong.  Not a little wrong, a lot wrong. I felt I had betrayed myself in some way.  Sparky is my husband and I love him, but my name was and is who I am still, years after I moved here and we married.  In my head, I will always be Massana.

It has absolutely nothing to do with Sparky or my love for him, but rather the love I need to have for myself.

I changed it back.

I stuck in a hyphen so I can be Max’s mom when needed and I can be me all the other times.

Last week I got my new passport card.  Massana right there all official.

I felt like I had come home.

Change Your Hair, Change Your Life

Well, perhaps not, but the gray is harder to see and I feel like I can be seen in public again.

Three Men and a Baby

Dude, it’s been so freakin’ busy over here at the House of Flying Cats I can’t even tell you what we’ve been up to.

I don’t know why we have cats that require so much attention.  I have a cat without a penis, a cat who is allergic to cats and then there is Ollie.  He is a cat unto himself. He’s more of a hybrid – a cat/dog/gremlin hybrid. We no longer feed him after midnight. NO MATTER HOW HARD HE THROWS HIMSELF AGAINST THE DOOR.  Between opening locked doors and insisting on snuggles regardless of the baby in my arms, he also has an anal sack issue.

Last Saturday night at 11:30 pm, just as I was laying down to sleep, the fucker opened said locked door and jumped on my pillow.  I gently smacked his red-headed ass to push him off my pillow and for my efforts was rewarded with stinky cat juice all over my hand, headboard, pillows and sheets. Not only did i have to completely re-make the bed, clean off the fabric headboard, but I had to, uh, empty the rest of the mess from the source.  That’s fun.  Squeezing cat ass at midnight.

That’s how it’s been lately.

I finally got my hair cut and colored. I asked Sparky if I needed to color my graying locks and he said no. He sees a lot of moms with dull hair and I looked fine.

See what I mean?  Anal sack all over the place.

Anyway, I’ll post a picture of my hair – before/after if I can find a moment to take a shower and actually style it.  It’s not bad if  I do say so myself.  It had gotten so long my ears poked through and let me tell you, that is too long.

It’s short now.  Above my shoulders.  And I like it.

Max hit his fourth month which means real food!  I was so excited and video taped everything with my fancy pants new video camera.  Carrots were his first meal.

What I didn’t tape was the two days of intestinally stored carrots that showed up all at once.  And oh my god did it stink.  I totally blamed Kiska, the farting cat, for the odor because as a breastfed baby, his poop doesn’t stink. Well, until now, that is. Holy crap, Batman.  And I know it is only going to get worse.

I got that video camera for my birthday.  It was a birthday that had such potential for sexiness, yet not.

Tilman flew back from Qatar and had coffee with me that morning.  Remember, if I were Tilda, Tilman would be well, Tilman. He showered me with gifts, coffee and conversation while Sparky worked.  Sparky was a little upset because Tilman’s gifts set a high bar. Lucky me.

Then Elijah showed up and cleaned my house barefoot to the tunes of Patsy Cline. His choice of music. I love Elijah.

Then Sparky took me to a hotel in Frankfurt to try out a bed where I was gifted with room service and champagne and a huge bouquet of flowers and a birthday gift of this super duper video camera.

So, between Tilman, Elijah, Sparky, the Hotel, the bed and the video camera, it had porn written all over it.  At least in my head.

This is where the baby part comes in.

Remember way back when I was all concerned about getting Max his crib and bassinet before he was born because I didn’t know where he was going to sleep?  Yeah, well, he has yet to sleep in his crib – he plays in there in the morning.  The cats have slept in the bassinet more often than Max.

Our bed?  Our double bed (American double, not euro double) which was so nice when we were, as Tilman puts it, a fresh couple, is so small that Sparky’s preference for sleeping opposite me now has a function.  We don’t all fit in the same direction.

We went to the Westin to try out the king sized Simmons that we are ordering after 6 years of sleeping on a crappy ass euro piece of anal sack.

And I have a little guy who takes up prime mattress real estate.

And he did my birthday night too. We found out the bed is big enough and comfy beyond my hopes and is in process, so by January I should have a beautiful large comfy bed.  Thanks, Global Librarian, for the info and the links.

No sexiness was had in the making of the birthday.  Damn.

Shit.  Max is up from his 30 minute nap and my free time is ovah.

Gratuitous Elijah Shot – taken on the down low…

Later Gators