He's definitely my son...

So, the Infant Fatale I.R.A. started solid foods today. Make that "solid" foods, as there's nothing remotely solid about the gluey gruel better known as Gerber Rice Cereal. I mean, as if it wasn't hateful enough that we've all been sitting around stuffing our faces with veal meatballs and mahi mahi steaks while the Spawn gazed longingly up from my boob for the past few weeks, but when the time finally comes to expand his breast milk-centric diet... we give him that shit?! Damn.

Actually, you would've thought it was pureed caviar on a mother of pearl spoon the way he inhaled that mess. And when I was too slow with it, he took matters into his own pudgy little hands. Literally. Spoon be damned, he was gonna get his fix even if that meant tugging it to his mouth and scraping off every delicious morsel.

Needless to say, he was totally into it. Sure his doctor was all, "We now recommend waiting until six months to start infants on solid foods," and whatever. But, A. the little binge eater's been giving the side eye to every loaded fork that enters his line of sight and bypasses his mouth for a while now, and B. I've been giving the side eye to his pediatrician ever since he suggested getting Ian on the formula when he was having some issues with the whole nursing thing-- the DAY after he was born. So, yeah, he can pretty much kiss my breastfeeding and rice cereal pushing ass. And in all honestly, I was starting to worry about being gummed to death in my sleep if I pulled one more handful of (insert food item that has no business being in a four month old's mouth) out of Ian's grasp. Um, he growled at his great grandmother today when she had the audacity to drink a glass of tea in front of him without offering any. Yeah, I know, the nerve. Anyway, It was shortly after that last display of food related aggression that I decided to try a little change of pace. All the books say that one of the biggest signs that your precious hellspawn is ready to try the whole solids thing is an noticeable curiosity in what you're eating. "Noticeable curiosity", "borderline desperate desire to cram into mouth"... potato, po-tah-to.

But before you know it, I'm going to be picking green flecks out of his pasta in restaurants and slapping together pb&j's like it's my job. So for now I'm gonna enjoy these lovely, simple times of breast milk and the occasional spoonful of vaguely food like sustenance before they're gone, because once they're gone, God knows I'm going to miss them.

...And besides, solid food poop is such a bitch to clean up.

With love and gruel,
a.

And now for a little showing off...

The Mister & The Spawn.
Good morning, indeed. Lucky bitch that I am, this is what I get to wake up to every morning. Well either this or a very tiny pair of feet wedged all up in my ribcage and a lightly snoring and totally useless husband sleeping through the first loaded diaper change of the day.

Action Baby on the move

Okay, so the while he's quite the competent little roller, the whole crawling thing is still a little out of his leauge. Instead, he prefers to do this bizarre face-plant-and-drag move that leaves his cheeks rosy and his mouth full of carpet fuzz. Don't judge. And anyway, who gives a crap when you look this good doing it? As Our Lady of The Runway, Ms. Banks, would say, "He's smiling with his eyes."



The littlest skeptic.

Now listen-- Nobody mention his (lack of) hair. It's been falling out for the past few weeks and I'm he's very sensitive about it. As a matter of fact, so has mine. Between the two of us, the sheets on our bed look like a barbershop floor. Ah well, so much for the Maddox Jolie-Pitt faux-hawk look.

It could be worse, I could've become a republican...

So. I just got off the phone with my first grade teacher. Nevermind how I came to be on the phone with my first grade teacher 1,000 miles away and thirteen years later in the first place-- I just was. And after exchanging about five minutes of catching up (yes, she's still married to that firefighter, no, I haven't gotten much taller) I hung up feeling warmly nostalgic and, truth be told, more than a little bit embarrassed.

Everything's relative, right? So if I was from some little podunk town in Kentucky where neither of my parents got much past tenth grade and everyone became a grandparent by 35, my being married and a mother at 20 with a quarter of a college degree under my belt and all of my teeth would be nothing to sneeze at. Hell, I might even be considered the "together" one in my family. But when all you're life you've been the smart one, the golden child, the award winner, the (insert braggy-type adjective here), the kid that everyone just knows is going to do something, be someone.... well marriage and motherhood just isn't all that impressive. Worse than that, it's downright disappointing. Sure, I knew my parents would be disappointed. I was ready for that. But what I wasn't ready for was the queasy feeling that I get every time I have to talk to somebody I haven't seen in awhile. Every high school friend, every out of touch cousin,
the guy at the dry cleaners, my old agent, and, yes, even my first grade teacher.

It's like regardless of how happy I am (very) or how sure I am in the decisions I've made (completely), I feel like all they see is a whole lot of wasted potential. Maybe it's just me projecting how I feel on some level onto everyone else, I don't know. But either way I still can't bring myself to get over it and introduce either the Mister or the Spawn with the wholehearted enthusiasm and pride that I really feel. There's always the traces of an embarrassed smile playing on my lips when I do, and the rush of justification and reassurances that follow along right after. People probably think the Spawn's name is "Ian-Rhys-it's-definitely-not-where-I-saw-myself-this-soon-but-I'm-really-really-happy-I-swear-and -did-I-mention-that-I'm-actually-married-to-his-father-too?"

Anyway, I really am fantastically happy and I really am proud of myself for stepping up to the plate and taking on all these new roles with all the confidence and enthusiasm I could muster. I just want to know how long it will be until I stop feeling the urge to apologize to everyone for being something other than what they expected.

I don't know. I'm working on it.

With love,
a.

Hot child in the suburbs...

Today, it is hot.  Hot hot.  Surprising damp spots in places you didn't even think had sweat glands hot.  Actually, it's supposed to be the coolest day this week, but a lot that means when you live in the bowels of florida and your air conditioner is on the fritz. 85 degrees inside might as well be 185 to people who never let the thermostat climb above 73.  And add on ten degrees for the poor souls like myself who spend at least half their day with a warm blooded creature suckling at the teat.  

Ugh.  

In my desperate attempts to keep the spawn and I from melting, I'm pretty sure I've broken just about every rule in the Mommy Guidelines.  They say you're really only supposed to bathe 'em every other day or so, right?  Which means, technically, Ian should be good on soapless cool water baths until well into next february.  They say you should aim to stimulate baby's senses with fun, age-appropriate activities.  Staring into the sole box fan we've had blasting on us all day and playing "moss" probably doesn't count.  "Moss", for those of you who don't know, is when you and baby compete to see who can lay completely still for the longest amount of time, only instead of taking it easy on a couple of logs, you stretch out on an unmade bed and stare at the ceiling.  In fact, I'm even letting him sleep on his tummy, which (this year, anyway) is the cardinal sleep sin.  SIDS scares be damned, the boy is happy and quite frankly it's too damn hot to have to cuddle him back to sleep when he wakes up screaming from my trying to roll him over into a more American Academy of Pediatrics-friendly position.  Yeah you heard me-- suck it, Spock.

Does this make me a terrible mother? Probably.  But for the time being, I'm a cool one.  So now I ask you, oh legions of child rearing readers (god, i love a good overstatement), what do you do to help your tiny folks beat the heat when frozen margaritas are, unfortunately, out of the question? Overheated minds are dying to know.

With love and a cool washcloth,

a.

Moo with me...

Breastfeeding, A Haiku.

Baby is screaming
Tits start leaking everywhere
Just call me Daisy

Oh, the magical bonding experience of having a squirmy, ten pound leech sucking the life out of you through your surprisingly stretchy nipples. Riiiiiight. Now don't go telling those La Leche League Nazis, but sometimes... breastfeeding kinda sucks.

Like when after the little man finally falls asleep after a 45 minute suck-a-thon and you finally get the chance to pee, throw his daily collection of spitup encrusted onesies into the washing machine, pull out a box of Stouffer's lasagna from the freezer-- aaaaaand he's crying again. What the hell?! Where two boobs-ful of milk can go in the hour and fifteen minutes since he last ate is one of the great mysteries of infancy. Either way, he's screaming like he hasn't eaten in a week and the two rapidly spreading wet spots on my t-shirt are telling me it's feeding time at the Anglim Zoo. Fabulous! Seriously, I don't even know why I bother with a shirt half the time. You know? I should just wander around topless, bambino swinging from one boob... very National Geographic.

Don't get me wrong, most of the time the whole experience is pretty sweet. He's awfully cuddly and I've been lucky enough to be spared some of the brutal horrors I've heard about from other new mamas. Cracked, bleeding nipples? Tiny gnawing gums? Yeesh. And on the bright side, I've gotten pretty damn good at one handed, well, everything. And by the time Ian's finally on solid foods and sippy cups I'm gonna be rocking Madonna guns! Sweet!

Just for once I'd like to feel more like a mommy and less like a freaking dairy cow. Ah, a heifer can dream...

With love and lactation,
a.

Blog, Interrupted...

It goes without saying that I am a completely shitty blogger. It's been over a month since the spawn arrived, and all I've managed is one measly little post consisting of one sentence, a photo, and an assortment of baby stats. Lame. But whatever, I'm a stay at home mum with an infant. And that's my newest favorite excuse for... well, everything. Couldn't manage to get my teeth brushed before three pm? I have an infant! Haven't cleaned out the refrigerator since my eighth month of pregnancy? Sorry-- newborn! Basically given up on ever finishing all these thank you cards? You get the picture.


Ugh. It's not that I don't want to write, it's just that when faced with the choice to either eat or write a 500 word essay on my labor experience, I'm going to go with the former every time. And anyway, I can sum up the whole childbirthin' experience like this: 1-7 centimeters dilated? Cake. 7-10? Murder. In fact, that gives me a really good idea. Since I'm working on borrowed time right now (never know when Mini Musselini is going to wake up), I'm just going to give single sentence opinions on a bunch of baby related topics and h

Labor: 19 hours of mild to moderate cramps, 2 hours of "kill me now" mind blowing agony.

Ian's first 30 seconds of life: "Eww-- He looks like an alien!"

Ian's next 30 seconds of life: "Oh, my God he's beautiful!"

My post baby body: Skinny again, but made of jello.

Breastfeeding: Huge boobs, happy baby, happier husband.

Diapers: From poop to powder, changes are now clocking in at under 60 seconds.

Sleep: Ha, just kidding.


And as for the baby himself, well... he's awesome. Like seriously. Great hair, good sleeper, high tolerance for unnecessarily loud voices. He can also already hold his head up, reach for toys and laugh. And he's figured out how to text message in his vote for Dancing with the Stars, but, you know, I don't want to brag. Personality-wise (yes, newborns have personality. In fact, wee man has more personality in one of his wet diapers than the entire cast of The Hills combined.), he's surprisingly mellow with the most expressive face I've ever seen. Who knew month old babies could emote "disgust" or "indecision" or "passion"? Okay, well "indecision" might actually be just gas... we're not exactly sure. Either way, he's endlessly entertaining (if you're into poop explosions and endless hiccups, like me) and even has a definite set of likes and dislikes. See below:

Likes

boobs, Dalí posters, headbutts, bath time, off track betting, the sound of the blender, rocking out.

"Sweeeeeeeeeeet."



Dislikes
loaded diapers, socks, the proposed gas tax holiday, car seats, Law & Order C.I. episodes featuring Chris Noth

"Where the hell is D'Onofrio?"

Speak of the little devil, I hear him now. And singing the opening verse of "Largo al Factotum", no less! I think. Then again, he might just be crying. You know us new parents...

With love and gloating,
a.

Ian Rhys Anglim

4.6.08 5:36pm 6 lbs. 4 oz. 20 in.

Updates and pictures to come.