HELL YEAH IT IS

Part of the reason why I didn't write much here was because I didn't have much to bitch about. Yeah, it sucked that three months into parenthood, I started getting these fucked up bald spots (absolutely no exaggeration here). It also sucked that my days of taking super long naps on Sunday afternoons between watching Lifetime movies and Lock Up was a distant memory. I also really hated washing bottles. Not just any bottles. Dr. Brown bottles. John counted. There are five pieces to wash for each bottle. Times that by eight feedings (initially) and the feat became a part-time job. (This is where breastfeeding mothers have the last laugh - until, six months later, they look down at their boobs in shock and say, "What have I done?!?!?!?")

But then I took a hit last week and even though it sucked, the outpouring of support from my homies is yet another reminder of how good I have it. My moping around officially came to an end last night when I got the best birthday present ever. Anne took me to see Neil Motherfucking Diamond. HELL YEAH.

To say that the man is a showman is an understatement. He is the epitomy of everything that is good about music. Friendly, charismatic, sequined, and soulful. He informed us, "The only rule is there are no rules." But he said it in that voice. He rocked all the hits. He even sang You Don't Bring Me Flowers. He destroyed (with love, because that's all that really matters) with Hell Yeah. And just when we thought we'd just seen a great show, it got even better when he closed the night with my favorite ND song - Brother Love's Traveling Salvation Show. Are you kidding me?!?!?!

Anne and I got matching pink concert t-shirts.

We finished the night off with Slurpees. It was pretty much a perfect night. Thanks, Anne. I love you.

P.S. No more Dr. Brown bottles! The dude's on a sippy cup now - only three pieces.

Blogs Are Low Class

So sayeth my mother.

Swimming Sucks

So my friend Anne is notorious for making slit-your-wrists music mixes and she's done it again. Jesus-Mary-Joseph, Anne, I'm already feeling low. Your Silent Face? Oy.

I'm just trying to stay afloat - that's what it feels like - but only for fleeting moments. Most of the time I'm fine. When Dally's awake, I'm fine. But it's night time right now and he's sound asleep. I was pretty OK today and then I went up to my office. I hadn't been up there since Tuesday. When I sat on my bed (yes, I have a bed in my office and no it's not a guest bed - it's my desk) I saw all the paperwork for the pregnancy. When it's confirmed that you're knocked up, you get this nice juicy packet from Kaiser containing info about how to manage morning sickness, how to eat well, how to sign up for Lamaze classes, etc. Apparently, Kaiser is all about the packets because with the miscarriage, I got some tasty material on dealing with grief, what a D&C is, and a slew of other things that I didn't bother to look at. I probably should. The dealing with grief one suggested doing volunteer work or making a career change - neither of which I have the energy for.

I said I was going do a triathlon after the next baby. Once upon a time, a marathon was the impossible. Now, the triathlon is. I've never been a good swimmer. I never made it beyond the beginning swimmer classes. I just wasn't good at it. Right now, it's a constant effort to stay afloat, to keep my breath, to keep moving forward. I hate that life was easy last week, and this week it feels like swimming.

P.S. Don't think the irony of the title of this blog has escaped me. What an asshole I am. I did fail at human reproduction. This time anyway.

P.P.S. Dally's been doing really funny things like grabbing my absolutely-off-limits phone and doing victory laps around his play yard like he's just scored the last Golden Ticket. Keep shit in perspective, M.

Follow up: I just received threatening words from Anne who probably will bow out of our Neil Diamond concert date tonight if I don't articulate what a FAAAAAAAAAAAAbulous mix she made me. And it really is. Just don't listen to it if you feel like walking in front of a bus. KIDDING. There's even a song on there called "You Are the Best Thing." Yes I am, and yes you are, Anne.

My Saving Grace

The other night, John hung out with me while I was in pre-op waiting to get cleaned out. It was a slow night so the nurse on the floor, Grace, kicked it with us. We showed her pictures of Dally. And Albert. And Scott. And pretty much all our posse. She said we were cool. She said we should spawn a baseball team. And even though it so wasn't her job, she wheeled me out of the hospital. She kept saying, "You guys better have a baseball team."

I thought it was a funny thing to say and this afternoon, it dawned on me, I bet she was saying that to make me feel better. It was her way of saying, "You're not a one hit wonder." I started crying.

We have her card. We told her we'd put her in our movie. She said she's single. I'm going to find her a husband.

Bye Bye Baby?

I think I'm having a miscarriage. It started around 10pm. I was in bed reading a parenting magazine. Suddenly, I felt like I wet my pants. I went to the bathroom and saw weird shit on my underwear - which was inconclusive because I was wearing red underwear. But then I happened to look down and I saw a redish mass in the toilet bowl - it was the size of a piece of penne pasta. I threw a bunch of toilet paper over it and I flushed it. I screamed to John that I thought I was having a miscarriage. When I got out of the bathroom, I grabbed my phone and called the one person who would tell me what to do. I have a friend that has been through this a couple of times. She half-joked about writing a how-to manual about going through the miscarriage process. I needed that manual RIGHT NOW.

She talked me through it and told me to go to the hospital or at the very least call the advice nurse.

I opted for calling the advice nurse who asked me a bunch of questions, put me on hold for awhile, and then told me to call the appointment line at 7am tomorrow morning and schedule a same-day appointment. She also wished me good luck.


I can't sleep. It's past midnight now and I will probably stay up until the appointment center is open for business. I did some research on the Internet and shit doesn't look promising. The fact that stuff came out, not just blood but tissue, and that more tissue just came out right now when I went to the bathroom again suggests my baby is gone.

The advice nurse told me to save the tissue. I flushed it. I might have flushed my baby, my little penne pasta, away. I don't know what's a better fate - a Kaiser petrie dish or the sewer.

As with Dally, I planned to keep this pregnancy under wraps until the first trimester was up. But because of big mouths and badly kept secrets, everybody knows. This fucking sucks. So I'm writing this in the event that this turns out badly. I'll point everyone to this graphic truthful statement about that one time I lost a baby.

Follow up: It's a done deal. There was no heartbeat. The D&C was performed Wednesday night. I'm OK. John's OK. We'll try again later.

Happy Birthday Little Dude

Dally turned one last week. As I was shopping for a truck for him the night before his birthday, I got choked up. It's been a whole year that we've managed to keep the dude afloat. So far, he's disciplined, well-mannered, and witty. Every once in awhile, he'll try to gauge your eyes out but who doesn't do that?

I'd like to take all the credit for what a handsome, brilliant, and clever fellow he's shaping up to be. But the fact of the matter is, we have an outstanding nanny - Norma. Aside from me, she spends more time with Dally than anyone else. She's his BFF. He's good because she's good.

Sometimes, I have nightmares that Norma will leave us.

Norma got married a month ago. She took a week off. Nasty rumors started circulating that she was gone and was never coming back. We managed to survive - and only SURVIVE - without her. It was a rough ride. Of course the one who felt the pinch was me, not John. His time with Dally consisted of taking him to Hooters to hang with Uncle Tony, or taking him to see his grandparents and play with Cousin Truman. My time with Dally consisted of feeding, laundry, story time, play time, bath time, more bath time, more bath time. I learned bath time makes the day go by faster. By the end of the week, I was beyond beat. John said, "See! We could do it without a nanny!"

Never mind that it took me a week and a half to catch up on my work.

I told John if he ever said that again, I'd file divorce papers. I have a new found respect for stay-at-home moms. That's a life that just ain't for me.

When Norma came back, it was one of the happiest days of my life. Peace was restored at the homefront. I went back to business as usual. But there was a lot of self realization going on when it was just the little dude and me.

I never thought of myself as the type that would get down on the floor and crawl around, and fake eat toes, and read Goodnight Moon five billion times, and smell butts for poop diapers, and say poop on a regular basis (I prefer the word shit). But that's the person that I am now. And I don't want to be the person I was before all of this became a part of my life. There's something to be said for a little guy saying MAMAMAMAMAMA.

Happy Birthday, Dally and Happy Anniversary, Norma. Dally was the best thing that ever happened to us. And Norma was the second best.

Happy Mother's Day To Me

I hadn't given much thought to it until John brought it up.

"Oooooooooooooooooo! Your first Mother's Day is coming up!"

So as the big day approached, my once nonexistent excitement gained momentum. The day before Mother's Day, I was super excited about our Mother's Day plans. My mom was going to have a brunch at her house and then our little family was going to go out to dinner. Lovely.

On Saturday, my mom was supposed to babysit Dally. Never missing an opportunity to show off the glorious wonder that is her grandson, she asked if she could take him to a little Mother's Day celebration for my grandma, my aunts, and other miscellaneous Mexicans. Here's some backstory. My mom is Mexican and therefore celebrates el Dia de las Madres on May 10, whenever the hell the day may land - which happened to be the Saturday before the Mother's Day for the country to which I swear allegiance.

I dressed my boy up in his tatoo art "Mommy" shirt and sent him on his way.

When I picked him up later that nght, I asked my mom what time we should come by tomorrow. She said, "Ay, I want to sleep in tomorrow." The subtext indicated there was to be no brunch.

It turns out she was all Mother's Dayed out.

I think she sensed my disappointment because she called me at the crack of dawn to invite us over, in our PJs, to have an improvised breakfast. Having nowhere else to go, we obliged.

Later that day, I realized John planned nothing and had nothing to give me. NOTHING. I carried his child for nine months. And when the kid came out, he was actually great looking. And I got nothing.

This really sucks because our nanny, Norma, went out of her way to do something special for my first Mother's Day. It involved hand-tracing and a photo shoot. There's a reason I love that woman more than most of my blood-relatives.

Later in the afternoon, as I continued to wallow in my self-pity, something horrible dawned on me. I had to go into the office the next day. GOOD GOD! People were sure to ask me what I did for Mother's Day! What John gave me for Mother's Day! And I would have to say "Nothing." What a loser.

So then I said this to John:
"You better go get me a present. I'm not going to show up at work tomorrow and say you didn't get me anything for Mother's Day. I don't want you to look like an asshole."

He made some lame excuse saying he had to go to Home Depot and when he came back, he had a nicely wrapped present for me and a box of (dark) Godiva chocolates. Dark, which is key because this means he really felt like an ass. Usually, he just grabs whatever, and whatever is usually milk, and I hate milk chocolate. But the biggie was the Magic Bullet. I've been wanting this thing forever but he said it was stupid. Not so stupid when he was desperate for a gift.

Like a little kid, once I got my Magic Bullet I forgot all about what a mean and evil man my Baby Daddy was. I ended the night making myself a rather delicious smoothie. Two words: AWE SOME.

And by the way... Being my first Mother's Day, I would have thought my dad would call to wish me a happy day. He didn't. He called a few days later and I said, "Hey thanks for calling me on Mother's Day."

"Oh my God, I forgot you were a mother!"

This was after he asked how the baby was doing.