All the Horrible Girliness: June 2006

In church, growing up, people would say sometimes that they were being tested. And I thought being tested meant they were going through a hard time. I didn't think of it like a test at school, where you were asked questions and forced to make choices.

This is the funniest picture ever taken.

So I am bleeding - if you're freaked out by that kind of thing, please see the title of this blog and fuck off - and it's a relief. Having almost a year and a half vacation from menstruation made me forget.

I believe a girl should know her craziness and lasso it as much as possible. I believe she should use her logic in the face of hormones. But when you're in the heat of it, your logic is a brave but feeble Frodo in the face of the PMS ring. Mister Aran has had to become my Samwise, has had to carry me up the steepest part of the mountain, even while I blame him, accuse him, or collapse all my weight on him.

Next time, I think I'll take the Midol. Maybe it will help. I'd do anything to not have to put him through that again. He doesn't deserve it.

It's been muggy here, and I use the air conditioning more than I'd like. With gas prices and electric bill prices, I feel like a rich person when the air conditioning is on. And when The Bug wakes me in the middle of the night, and I shiver in his room because the house is kept cold enough to make snuggling under blankets viable, I feel like an impossibly rich person. Like that bad guy in Tank Girl who has an actual fountain in his office, when the world is in a drought. Like Saddam Hussein, with the man-made lakes for his sons to speedboat in.

***

My dad, and people like him, get mad when they read about decadence. They hear about Middle Eastern royalty, their huge personal planes that cost millions and millions. Their spoiled children, who contribute nothing. If they died, no one would mourn them but, maybe, Lindsay Lohan.

People hate that, and maybe they think those rich people don't deserve to live. Maybe we think that way because of Robin Hood, as if the poor are more deserving. As if communism ever worked. It's the right way to think, though, the good way. But then I can't help but think about the rest of the population, the people who would think the way we live is ugly and decadent. Articles in magazines about shopping the perimeter of the grocery store in order to eat healthy must look ridiculous to someone who barters for fish and rice in a market, or stands in line for bread, or who gets a ration of meat only once a year, like in North Korea. Poring over which $20 bottle of shampoo to use is equally ridiculous, as is keeping the air conditioner on colder than it needs to be just because I like being under blankets when I sleep, or because the computer makes it hot in my room.

***

I read this article in Esquire written by a soldier who did a tour in Iraq. There were these freshly killed bodies blocking a road, and while they were doing cleanup or whatever, this woman with a child needed to pass by. There was no other way to get where she was going, so they had to wave her through. She glanced at the bodies, but kept moving. It didn't even seem to phase her. And I think, if I were that woman, walking through a war-torn shithole of a neighborhood with my Bug, and I heard that another woman in America spent her Sunday morning having pancakes dipped in chocolate sauce, wearing an outfit that cost enough to feed an Iraqi family for a month, I'd think maybe Americans needed a reality check, too.

***

It's become clear to me recently how imporant language is. That happens when you spend a year with someone who can't speak your language, and your full-time job is to take care of that person. Is he hot? Cold? In pain? Who knows? It's all guesswork. You go between begging him to learn to walk and talk, and begging God to make the time stop.

He seems to never be tired anymore. Even when he's yawning, and rubbing his eyes, give him a little milk and he's struggling to get up and go. He doesn't want to sleep, ever, and then suddenly he's asleep, and I don't know how it happened, so I can't replicate it. So I let him cry until he's tired. He doesn't cry himself to sleep often, but he cries himself to exhaustion, so that a little nursing will knock him out.

No expert, anywhere, recommends this.

It's gotten easy to think of The Bug as my monkey. He plays by himself but will come to me every once in awhile for a laugh, a full-sprawl thing of a hug, and a tug of my hair that makes me scream in a way he finds hilarious. He holds on to my arm or leg or shoulder and stomps his legs as if he can't quite control their force yet. If you tell him to dance, he will dance. Especially if there's music.

***

Ma tells me what she remembers best about mine and my brother's childhoods is, she would just get the hang of us, and figure us out, and we'd pick that moment to change. This is how it is with The Bug. For two weeks, he slept through the night, except for small whimpers that broke my heart from which he recovered in seconds or minutes. At four or five in the morning he would wake for milk and I would go to his room and nurse him, dazzled by the light creeping in through his vertical blinds. I would remember our first morning together, after he left me, when I showed him the sun and taught him about Earth and all the rotations and morning and night. It's easy to see him as a miracle after I've had some sleep.

Then, another molar started pushing up, and our routines were dashed. Not only can he not sleep for longer than two or three hours at night, now, he's also growing taller and taking shorter naps. I don't know if we have a parenting problem with routine or if he's just been in constant teething or growth spurts since birth.

I have this Good Mom / Bad Mom routine I play with The Bug which is screwing him up for life. It's a staunch routine that starts at 2:30 pm and ends at bedtime.

At 2:30 pm, The Bug fists his eyes and yawns and fusses so I know he's tired. Good Mom takes him upstairs, using her Speaking Clock (Suppernanny) to let him know what's coming: milk, a song, then a naptime full of dreams about bunnies and flowers which will take two hours and from which he will wake refreshed and pleasant. Good Mom does the nursing and the song, then The Bug, still behaving like a tired, grumpy old man, starts to thrash. Then, Bad Mom comes in.

Bad Mom puts him down in his bed, again letting him know that it's time for his nap: bunnies, flowers, etc. incoming. The Bug, seeing the bed coming, climbs up Bad Mom's chest to get away, but is thwarted. After depositing The Bug in bed, Bad Mom wishes him a good nap, then leaves the room.

Then, The Bug screams.

He barely had the energy to bring his bottle to his lips fifteen minutes ago, but now he's bellowing like someone is beating him. Bad Mom does a chore, determined to let him suffer it out; he's in a bad habit, this isn't right.

At 3:10 pm, Good Mom takes over. She picks up The Bug, rocks and soothes him, sings three songs, nurses again, then gently lays his sleeping body in bed.

What we're teaching him, I don't know. I have no fucking clue of what I'm doing, except that it's wrong.

My in-laws are packing up boxes for a three week trip to the Philippines. I'm the slightest bit panicky about this. They've been lifesavers since Gabe was born, not just because they babysit so often, but because they've been kind and helpful and supportive, with not a hint of drama.

But now I can let the kid cry a little without worrying about waking them, and I can walk around naked. I don't know if that'll make up for it, but it's a nice thought.

I don't keep up with Miss Snark much, as she reminds me of why I don't admit to being a writer anymore (not her specifically, but the business), but this post of hers was so beautiful and spot-on that I had to link.

All the Horrible Girliness

Monday, June 26, 2006

Sunday, June 18, 2006

Friday, June 16, 2006

Tuesday, June 13, 2006

Sunday, June 11, 2006

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