This was taken on her birthday last year
I made a set on flickr of Charlotte’s 5th year because I am too slow and loaded up with steroids to figure out how to do it in Vimeo or something better. You can check it out here.
At first I got carried away and did ALL FIVE years, which was nuts. If you really want to, you can check that out here.
fresh from the oven
I wish I had been more vigilant about writing more detailed developments in my little poop nuggets life. I am impressed that Heather has been so great about it. It doesn’t seem like the other day she was born, on the coldest night of the year, but it sure goes fast.
So today in Grace in Small Things, I will abduct it and use it to write about my kid. It is my blog.
Right now
Charlotte is LOVING old skool Looney Toons. Tweety, Bugs, Road Runner. Meep meep! and She knows the whole Tweety song – “I’m a tweet wittle birdie in a guilded cage….. etc”. It is hilarious.
The vortex of princessessses has grabbed her some, but I admit to dissuading it as much as I can without being a rabid Disney hater. I think Disney Princess culture keeps feminism back in the 50s, if not so much in plot, but body image. The crowns, the dresses, the PINK, the music, the princes, blah. Anyhow. We are tempering it with a good dose of other shit.
She has been neglecting her Sponge Bob right now, but when she is pissed about something she will stamp her foot and says “TATAR SAUCE!” which kills me.
She will sing the Ramone’s Blitzkrieg Bop and Nivrana’s In Bloom with Mark. They practice for when they play Rock Band. I wish I had the video of her with Mark’s noise reduction earphones on belting out, or in her wee voice, singing the Ramones. We need that video Mark!
She eats almost nothing. We joke that she lives in wind pudding and fried ice. Except for juice and milk and cheeseburgers, YES we feed her cheeseburgers! she would likely perish.
She can spin quite a yarn at bed time with her littlest Pet Shop toys where I must speak to them on a pretend phone and ask them questions. They always start with “mommy say how are you?” “ask them what they are doing”. Usually some incoherent rambling about how the chinchilla did something to the pig and how could that happen and ZOMG, etc etc.
She really wants to dress herself. She has been dressing herself. I usually only make one or two adjustments (no sleeveless sundresses in the winter), but I am trying to loosen up. I am probably more controlling about what she wears because I see it as a reflection of me, YES, I am that mom. I am trying to teach her how to MATCH things. I do not think I am ready for the What not to Wear rule of things do not have to match, they just have to GO. Maybe next year.
She gives nice kisses and lately has been butterfly kissing my arm and hand which makes me melt. It makes up for the YOU ARE NOT MY FRIEND ANYMORE comments which occasionally come up.
Last week she told both Mark and I to either “suck it” or “suck it up” depending on the occasion. We try not to respond, but lets face it, kids cursing, and doing it in context, is FUNNY.
She still wants me to play Christmas music in the car. I replaced that CD with ABBA for my little dancing queen.
xo
Well, I was. I had an anaphylactic reaction to a new medication: Allertec. It was meant to take away some of the crushing fatigue I get from the mood stabilizers and antidepressants. It didn’t work because I was STILL very tired after taking it for two days AND my face looked like this. If you checked out my twitter stream or my flickr stream I annoyed everyone with the initial diagnosis (made my me) of a reaction to a new face cream sold to me by a creamy faced nymph at Sephora. It was not the girl’s fault, it was my body’s. I am still returning the cream.
edited: i guess i didn’t mention i ended up in the ER for and IV containing drugs and a surly nurse for several hours, freezing cold, my blood sugar has not been checked, and tried the nurse call button twice and NO ONE ANSWERED. Medicine for all INDEED! The nurse did insert a wicked good IV though, impressive since I was so dehydrated and relatively veinless. Mayne in another few days and maybe I won’t look quite as sunburned and or puffy. Oh, ok, I mention is after the next photo. Good lord, maybe I’m allergic to smart.
This afternoon I looked like this:
Better, much better. VERY tired, taking steroids, and antihistamines every four hours. VERY ITCHY! and burny. I thought after the emergency room gave me IV meds I would sleep on it and feel great. NO such luck, so I am still taking it easy, even easier than usual.
With that – Grace in Small Things Version 3.
1. socialized medicine, with all its flaws
2. Benadryl
3. a good man (my husband is the one I mean here)
4. cold wash cloths
5. bejeweled
6. you guys
v.2
1. my kitty cats (i like Benoit the best, shhhh)
2. bubble baths
3. Mark snoring (glad he is sleeping, he works so hard)
4. my sleeping girl (who i am about to go peek at)
5. flannel sheets
Charlotte would be happy about teeny tiny bits and pieces of toys, Littlest Pet Shop, Princesses and ponies.
Part 1
1. Schmutzie
2. burning CDs for Charlotte
3. Polaroid Film not gone forever?
4. non poky bras
5. pens that feel good to write with
I cannot guarantee I will do this everyday, but I am sure going to try. Also, I can never spell “guarantee” right the first time.
In a lot of ways my life with my friends who I knew and know from non-internet sources is seamless with my online community of friends. Sometimes it is not. Lately it has made me feel isolated. I live far away from almost every lovely one of you fuckers. I cannot hop a plan and easily connect with people. I can call, I can text, email, blog, but c’mon, it isn’t the same. Social Media is a misnomer in that you cannot actually socialize with your friends over twitter. Twitter doesn’t hug you back. I have developed some amazing friendships via the internet, but it sometimes ends up leaving me a little cold and alone on Saturday nights. I have lost or did I ever know how to balance my married, with a husband and child and friends that DO live within driving distance.
Since I had Charlotte and stopped working full-time in a robust social and interactive environment I have become isolated and admittedly lonely. An admission that I can only make because my therapist suggested I was lonely and I cried like a baby a lonely adult woman. I don’t belong to a mom’s group. I know some people continue with that kind of thing well past their babies being babies. Charlotte will be 5 in a couple of weeks. Firstly, SERIOUSLY? and Second, SERIOUSLY? I have been living a largely solitaire life at home, writing some bits and pieces online, IM-ing, twittering, the occasional conference, a visit here and there to San Francisco, but day to day? I am mostly alone. I don’t know how to fix it. Yes, I know the suggestions. Volunteer. Get a part time job. Join a club, take a course. These are great ideas, but as lonely as I am, these ideas scare me more. I know, I complain and explain and I turn down these suggestions made to me by well intentioned people. At least the people in my head tell me to do such things.
I can’t go back to work full-time. This was a difficult realization after being diagnosed with Bipolar 2 back before Charlotte wasn’t even one year old. I am fortunate, I know how fortunate that I do not have to work full time to make ends meet as a family. Dash some guilt in there and you have Jen soup. It is difficult for me to manage a household day-to-day and take care of myself, let alone my kid and husband. Mark is more of an attentive parent than I am. I could NOT be luckier. A touch more guilt to the soup. I know the reasons my doctor says a full-time job would be difficult – the psychiatric drugs made me fatigued and I am still struggling with anxiety when I have no actual stimuli for anxiety like a work deadline or asshole boss. I won’t life, all of this makes me feel inadequate, half a mother, a wimp, weak. I don’t feel like a massive loser every day, but often or at least sometimes. Gah, this is starting to be such a blog theme. But there it is.
Other things, in the last several weeks that break my heart a little have been 2 funerals, a very close friend with marital problems, another very close friend whose mother has had brain surgery. Sickness and illness and despair are hard to shut out when you just want to stay in bed and read your fourth book on polygamy (current reading list, dunno why). When I say you, you know I mean ME right? I will also add that we have been locked in a asshole-ish cold spell and snow to my knees. We have had a good melt and sunshine for the last 4 days, which honestly DOES help. Maybe I need one of those SAD lights.
I am making a play list to workout to, I am also compiling one that makes me happy instead of the extensive one I have that makes me feel sad and sleepy and knifey. There you go! Happy song suggestions are welcome. Also, any advice is also welcome. I was happy and content I wouldn’t need it, but well, that ain’t the case is it?
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ALSO, please check out wecovet.com this week where I have gotten off my ass and posted some awesome stuff. I also have heard rumours of giveaways!
We spent the early hours of my birthday at the ER with Charlotte. She had a raging ear infection. Every feel TOO happy, go visit an ER and watch as a husband weeps for his wife who is having her third heart attack, or the poor people on gurneys in the hall way hooked up to IVs and drinking ginger ale. Charlotte is fine. No antibiotics. A numbing gel for her ear and Tylenol on the 4 hours. Poor little lamb. Weeping and crying and begging for medicine until we got to the hospital and she kept putting on her jacket and boots in the hopes we would go home. Ear pain be damned. Excruciating cold sucking all manners of wang.
I twittered a couple of times about a family member passing away. It was my Uncle Peter. Not really an uncle, but our neighbours for my whole 39 years. Not my godparent’s but the people in my parent’s will who would have taken care of us if they couldn’t. I loved them. Uncle Peter and Auntie Lois. She had my wedding shower. He was the ultimate child leg puller and I was gullible. He has an awesome dry sense of humour that never left him. Not after cancer, not after diabetes, not after Alzheimer’s, initially anyhow. He had a heart attack just before Christmas and was unconscious until his death on the 26th. He was a gentle, quiet, caring man who was always there to shovel our walks in the winter or even start our cars to warm them up in the depths of the cold before going to work. I don’t care if he was 80 and sick and lived a good long life. It sucks and I am sad. The funeral was yesterday. A long Catholic Orthodox affair with lots of inscence and Ukrainian sung by priests. Open casket, -32C internment at the cemetery, which I did not go too, despite my dad being a pall barer. A long lunch and short tribute afterwards that seemed to drain the family and especially my poor lovely Auntie. Luckily I now live about 9 blocks from my parents and can visit my Auntie. She is awesome. Just before Christmas she was shovelling the driveway in her fur coat, boots and a full head of curlers. I am lucky to have grown up with my adopted god parents and their three kids. Still sad.
What a couple of upbeat entries in a row, but this is where I am right now. I have spent the last hour or so looking at seeds, grow lights and raised garden beds set up. I lost my garden patch when we moved. I need it. I miss it. Lots of time before the snow even melts but I can have some tomatoes and cukes started on my windowsill soon enough. So, hope. New year, and the promise of better and progress. Really like every year, but this past year has given me lots, both good and challenging. Now, in my bed, looking at heirloom varieties of tomatoes? Hope.
