humor

Random Review #1 “Goodnight Moon”

Kids books. It blows my mind what people will publish, and it’s even more confusing what becomes popular. In this weekly segment, we will randomly review a book Baby 1.0 picks off her bookshelf.

This week we will be taking a closer look at the old classic “Goodnight Moon” by Margaret Wise Brown, pictures by Clement Hurd.

Let’s start with the fact that this book was first published in 1947. 1947! World War II had virtually just ended. People smoked and drank with abandon. The only Spam you ever got from your Grandma was in the form of Sunday dinner. Yet 67 years later, this book is still so popular that we got multiple copies of it when Baby 1.0 was born.

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Upon first glance, one may just assume this book is a hodgepodge of random, semi-rhyming prose, with a bland color scheme and an unimaginative story line. And upon digging a little deeper, you will discover it is indeed just that, but in a strangely endearing way that kids apparently really like. Or at least that my kid really likes, as per her request, we read this book several times in a row, many days out of the week.

Some highlights. The book pays homage to many other children’s classics, with pictures on the wall of The Cow Jumping Over The Moon, and The Three Bears. There is also a picture of a bunny fly-fishing for another bunny with a carrot, which I found rather disturbing at face value until I realized it’s just a reference to another book by the same author, The Runaway Bunny. Actually it’s still kind of disturbing, but alas, I digress. The book is simple, and doesn’t have a bunch of flowery non-sense language, which I really like, because you can read it when you are half asleep, and it doesn’t feel like you are trying to solve the New York Times Sunday crossword puzzle.

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But the book brings up a lot of questions. Like, who is the quiet old lady and why is she letting the kittens wrestle if the baby bunny is supposed to go to bed? Kittens are loud! She better be saying “hush” to them, or better yet, just kick them out of the room. And take that string away before they swallow it and need surgery, unless you have $3000 extra dollars laying around for emergency veterinary care. Also, what is a bowl full of mush doing on the bedside table? If that sits there overnight, you might as well throw the bowl away because you are NEVER going to get that mush out of there. Even more importantly, why would you say goodnight to nobody? Now you are in my head, and I’m wondering “Oh crap, is someone here? Did I lock the door? Did I lock the other door? I should get up and check. But then I’ll get cold. But if I don’t check, I will lay here all night and worry.”

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All in all, for how much we read the book, I actually like it quite a bit. I was glad when she picked this one for our first Random Review, and I’d happily pass it along to another family someday so they too can wonder what the bunny parents were thinking when the selected a room with a fireplace for their nursery. I give it a 3.62/5.

 

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Cover photo:  en.wikipedia.org

Spam: http://www.hormelfoods.com/~/media/HormelFoods/Images/Brands/Product%20Shots/High%20Res%20Product%20Shots/spam-family-of-products.ashx

Goodnight Moon age 1: juneberry-lane.blogspot.com

Goodnight Moon page 2: exampleschildrensbooks.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/nobody1.jpg

5.5 True Facts About Newborns

Let’s just get something straight: newborns are weird. Now I’m not trying to take away from the magic that is growing another human in your abdomen for the better part of a year, but if I’m being honest, a fresh newborn is as close to an alien life form as there is out there. With their pointy heads, puffy eyes, spindly limbs and inability to communicate, they are about as mysterious as a Chupacabra, and about as scary, too. So let’s try to clear up some of that mystery. Here are some true facts about newborns.

1. Baby poop is not really poo-like at all, but instead is nearly the exact consistency and color as the liquid that always squirts out of the mustard before the actual mustard makes an appearance. It can travel great distances in short periods of time, and defy the laws of gravity. Much like the “magic bullet” that somehow (tragically) passed through JFK and Governor Connally but remained nearly unscathed, baby poop can escape the confines of both a diaper and a onesie, and make it all the way into your pants, all without soiling either the diaper or the onesie. Your pants, however, will be quite soiled.

I’m more of a dijon kinda girl myself.    

2. Speaking of doodoo, once your newborn achieves Fecal Magician status after getting their poop in your pants, you will discover that much like dogs and bees, wipes can smell fear. And when they smell fear, the all stick together thereby making it impossible to remove just one or two. Without fail, one semi-aggressive tug will yield 15 wipes in a string of unscented, cleanly dampness, further exacerbating the panic as cool poo dribbles down your thigh. So calm yourself before you ravage your wipe container. You are probably going to need an actual shower.

Alakazam! Check your pants!

3. Baby heads have a Go-Go-Gadget like ability to stick out a few inches more at a moments notice, like when you are walking through a door frame. Even when you think you have your perfect sleeping newborn all tucked safe and secure in your arms, somehow they find a way at the exact moment of crossing the threshold to secretly stretch their head out just in time to smack it on the edge of the door frame.  They then retract it, equally as secretly, leaving you to believe it was actually your fault for carelessly slamming their delicate skull into a solid piece of pine. Amid the shrieks of your discontented baby, you stop and look down to see how it just happened, and by all accounts, it shouldn’t have. But thanks to Go-Go-Gadget Concussion Spring, it did. So don’t feel too bad. It happens to all of us.

Babies are just like this, except the trench coat, top hat, and gun.

4. The amount of milk in, is not directly proportional to the amount of milk out. In a mathematical equation that rivals the classic “If a train leaves Provo at 2:00 pm going 56 miles per hour…” it is somehow true and factual that 2 ounces of milk in, is the equivalent of roughly 15 ounces of milk product out. It doesn’t matter what end it is coming out of, the ratio remains the same. And when you start solids, the equation is doubled. 2 ounces of pureed sweet potato in equals no less than 30 ounces of putrid sweet potato even a short time later. Don’t ask me how. It’s obviously science.

This little lady was given exactly 1/4 cup of milk, but with the help of science it becomes a full gallon. 

5. Newborns have a sixth sense that allows them to determine when you are hungry, thirsty, or have to pee. It is then, and only then, that they will fall asleep in your arms after refusing to sleep anywhere else. This sixth sense also allows them to know when you are planning on taking their picture, and gives them enough time to stop whatever they were doing, and instead make a face that looks like they just took a shot of Fireball.

Just enough antifreeze to keep it interesting.

5.5 Babies can possess you. Somehow, with all the barf, and poo, and peeling skin, and constant needs, you will still find yourself absolutely transfixed by this little being. Over a year later we still find ourselves staring at Baby 1.0, and reveling in even the most mundane of details with the enthusiasm of someone who just won the Mega-Millions jackpot. “Oh my God, baby, just look at her eyebrows! She’s getting eyebrows! Oh and the way her little elbow is just like ‘I’m a little elbow!’ I can’t take it!” If this seems unlikely, I will tell you that girl scouts honor, I was obsessed with watching her eyebrow hairs grow in. Why? Because she possessed me. Which will make it all that much harder in 16 years when she plucks 2/3s of them out, and inevitably spends a few years looking perpetually surprised.

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Cover image source: http://midatlanticgardening.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/et.jpg

The Big Bang: Thoughts On How I Became A Mother

For however different the birth of Baby 1.0 was compared to how I thought the birth was going to be, actually holding her tiny body and gazing down upon her perfect face induced a feeling I couldn’t have imagined I was capable of. While she was technically my first human child, she was hardly my first mammalian infant responsibility, as I’ve fostered enough baby animals to claim dual-citizenship with the animal kingdom. When they look up at you, their little paws clutching your fingers while you bottle-feed them, your heart swells. Or at least mine did. But when cradling our little babe for the first time, my heart didn’t just swell; it did the human equivalent of the Big Bang (the cosmological event, not the T.V. show, or the South Korean pop band). And from that explosion, a new state of being was formed: A giant emotional gas cloud composed of sticky, intoxicating love, a hefty smattering of fear, a few black holes of depression, and countless little glimmers of pure joy. This new feeling, which will henceforth be referred to as “Motherhood,” was completely and utterly life changing from the very first second she was set in my arms.

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thewestsidestory.net

This is my heart, exploding all over, making a big ol’ mess out of motherhood.

Speaking of which, from the very first second she was set in my arms, Baby 1.0 started crying. It was to be expected, in those first few seconds, or minutes I suppose. But it continued. For a long time, which is a story for a later post, but I’m mentioning it now  for the 15 people who read this regularly, so they won’t say “but you didn’t mention the crying after she was born!” She cried, y’all. From the get-go. Aside from the monsoon of baby tears, there were a few other unexpected discoveries right from the beginning. Perhaps one of the most shocking, our baby was born with what could only be described as troll toenails. They were tiny, or at least they had the capacity to be tiny once trimmed, but they were long and pointy, and caught me by surprise, literally. They would snag my very chic hospital gown when I was awkwardly maneuvering her about to give her the proper amount of “skin-to-skin”, or nurse her. Even with my new galaxy-sized mother heart, the feeling of them scraping across my abdomen was enough to gag me a little. “Learn how to trim toenails” was quickly bumped up to the top of the extensive list of ‘Things To Learn How To Do.’

Cute baby toes! I googled “Troll Toenails,” which I regretted immediately. Don’t do it. I dare you.

 Our two days in the hospital flew by. The nurses were extremely attentive, and would happily do anything from bring you a juice, to join you in the bathroom once you discovered you had peed and couldn’t get up. They offered a smorgasbord of great pointers, many of which contradicted each other, but at least then you always felt like maybe you weren’t doing it wrong. For two days we ooh’d and aww’d Baby 1.0’s every movement, and diligently recorded her meals and corresponding diaper deposits (turns out there is an app for that). We put up the requisite “Meet Our Baby” Facebook post, and received more well wishes than we knew what to do with. It was an idyllic time, minus of course, the crying. Our comfort level grew from fear on par with handling a dangerous snake, to a place where we could safely determine which end was up, and which end was most likely to spray liquid on us.

And then, just like that, our stay was over. At 11am on the dot, our nurses switched from caring best friend mode, to border patrol guards and booted us with the efficiency of a fast food line cook. It wasn’t until after I’d dressed in actual clothes for the first time that I wished I’d heeded the unsolicited advice of a client a few weeks earlier. “Bring baggy clothes to go home in,” she’d said, with a knowing smile. In my head I’d sneered and thought, “I will be skinny again then, you insufferable clown.” But after wrestling my bread loaf-sized combination ice-pack/pad into my yoga pants, I understood what she meant. We collected our things and waddled our way down the hall towards the car, half expecting a slow-clap, but instead being fully ignored. I’m not sure if maybe everybody there didn’t know I had just birthed a freaking human, or if they just didn’t care, but either way, I think at the very least, I deserved a slow-clap.

Put this in your pants. Or use it to make French Toast, but definitely don’t do both.

We walked out of the hospital into the hot, July, midday sun, and my mind was flooded with a wave of unexpected worry. The sun! Get her out of the sun! The pollution! Oh dear God, why do we live in a city? It’s so loud! WHY ARE YOU HONKING, ASSHOLE?! We got her in the car, and very slowly and very nervously drove away. My husband was at the wheel, admittedly more nervous than when he took -and failed- his first driver’s test (for the record, he is an exceedingly safe driver, and passed his test on the very next try). Fortunately, we lived about 4 minutes from the hospital, so our journey home was very short and uneventful, even when going 15 mph.

And then we were home, and we were three (or six if you count our three pissed-off cats, seven if you also include my mother-in-law who was staying with us for the week. Also we had a fish. Eight. We were eight). Just like the Big Bang, there was no going back now. Life as we knew it was brand new, and hurtling towards an unknown future at an immeasurable speed.

IMG_1015 Little Baby 1.0, pondering the meaning of life. Or pooping.

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I am not a science person, or at least in the sense that I know all the ins and outs of the Big Bang Theory. I’ve done a bit of googling about it over the last week, but I’m sure I made a mess of it when using it as a metaphor. Maybe the speed is actually measurable. Maybe black holes didn’t happen right away. I dunno. But just go with it. Or feel free to tell me about it.

 

“Give Me All The Drugs” And Even More Things I Thought I’d Never Say

Forty weeks and four days, at 98.6 degrees or so, was how long we had to cook our little turkey before she decided she’d had enough. After watching nearly every person in the world, have their baby, including Kate Middleton who was very obviously taunting me, I finally went into labor four days after our due date.  Baby 1.0’s birth is a tale of two stories: Act One is a story of bravery and courage, of one woman digging deep down into her prehistoric roots to birth a child au natural. Act Two is a story of when that same woman said “fuck it,” drove to the hospital and demanded “all of the drugs.”

Act One:

 I finally went into labor at 1am on a Friday. I woke my husband up and we laid in bed timing my contractions, steady at about 10 minutes apart. We waited, and timed, and waited, and wondered. By 7am the next morning, they were down to about 8 minutes, and we were down about 8 hours of sleep. We called people, brought our bags to the door, settled down on the couch and binge-watched season one of Arrested Development, which in hindsight is ironic because it was exactly the state I was in: 12 hours into it, and I had made virtually no progress. We called the midwife who cautioned this could be false labor, effectively crushing my spirits like a beer can on the forehead of a drunken NASCAR patron. While the contractions weren’t exactly curse-your-husband painful, they were uncomfortable enough to keep me from sleeping, which was quickly turning me into a curse-your-husband kind of person.

beer hat

This guy knows how I feel.

18 or so hours into it, we called off the parents and settled in for another long night. My contractions were still 8 minutes apart, but increasing in intensity which left me unable to relax. I wandered from the bath, to the couch to the air conditioning unit, feeling more and more hopeless and confused. So much pain! So little baby! Oddly enough, the only thing that brought some semblance of peace was listening to a Songza playlist composed entirely of whale songs. To be clear, these weren’t songs about whales, but rather the actual songs of whales, which makes perfect sense if you are tripping on Peyote in the desert, or, you know, having a baby.

24 sleepless hours into it, I called my midwife in tears. There was still no progress, but the pain was becoming more and more intense, and I was feeling very sorry for myself. She cheerfully suggested to just keep waiting, and said to call if the contractions got any closer. I hung up the phone, and angrily rolled around on a yoga ball while incoherently cursing at my bewildered husband.

30 hours into it, I gave up. My contractions were a measly 7 minutes apart, 2 full minutes away from where they recommend you come in, but after not sleeping for a full day and feeling like Chuck Norris was round-house kicking me in the uterus every few minutes, I insisted we go to the hospital and see what exactly was going on.

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Chuck Norris doing what he does best.

Act Two:

Well this is where things got good. I was ushered into a room where a magical, beautiful, kind midwife whom I’d never met, gave me two options: 1. She could give me some medicine to make me sleepy, then send me home to wallow in confusion, doubt and self-pity for even longer allowing me to follow my “birth plan,” or 2. She could give me drugs, admit me into a room to take a nap, give me an epidural, and then shoot for about an 8pm arrival of our baby. Before she even finished her sentence, I was demanding drugs. All of the drugs, to be exact, and after receiving some drugs, I quickly requested even more, like some kind of Hollywood starlet on a post-Disney career bender. IMG_0954

Me and my chins, just waiting for our next turkey sammich.

Drugs were given, and I was wheeled I up to my lovely, spacious, air-conditioned room overlooking the bay. Someone brought me lunch, fluffed my pillows, and I was finally able to lay back and relax… for about 4 minutes (or a few hours if you ask my husband), because then my water broke. One epidural, and a handful of pushes later, Baby 1.0 was born. She was beautiful, with a head covered in thick black hair, and blue eyes that sparkled. But because I have the maturity of a 13-year-old boy, even in the most important of situations, the first two things I said after the midwife alerted me to our daughter’s arrival were: 1. So it isn’t a kitten? (A lame inside joke used to deflect attention at work) and 2. Did I have the baby out of my butthole? (An even worse inside joke that started when an OB friend of mine drunkenly claimed she “knew my type”, and proclaimed confidently I would “have a baby out of my butthole” years before I became pregnant.) Having mentally prepared myself for living the rest of my life with the human equivalent of a cloaca, I was delighted to hear my friend’s prediction didn’t come true, leaving me to hope she never decides to ditch her current job for career in fortune-telling.

40 hours after it all started, my husband and I stared down at the newest member of our family. “She is absolutely perfect,” I thought as a cocktail of new hormones overtook my system. “Hang on here, there has been a mistake! These guys? These guys are amateurs! This should be interesting.” thought Baby 1.0. And away we went….

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The First Trimester, A.K.A. When I Became A 30-Year-Old Toddler

Remember when you were a little kid, and on one very special summer day, your parents would take you to the amusement park? You would get there early, and survey the scene like a conquistador on the shores of a far away land. The possibilities were endless. Sun-baked, and sugar-filled hours would fly by as you spun, twisted, dipped, and flipped your way through the park. And then suddenly, somewhere between the Gravitron and the Tilt-A-Whirl, it would hit you: Sheer exhaustion, coupled with cotton-candy induced nausea, and a fountain of tears as your parents spurred you toward the car for the long drive home. This was my first trimester in a nutshell, but rather than lasting one day, this was how I spent three glorious months.

On what would be the equivalent to the first ride of the day at the amusement park, it became clear I was something of a Joey Chestnut of morning sickness, except for every hotdog he would consume, I would produce an equal amount of morning barf. Most often, my walk to work would trigger my tummy troubles, where I would then deposit my breakfast in what I came to think of as a very hungry porcelain baby bird. “Here ya go, Buddy! I’ll be back in an hour or so!” The worst part wasn’t having to stick my head in a public toilet, but instead having to pull my head out of the public toilet, wipe my red, blotchy face off, and go interact with the public without tipping my hand that I just reverse ate an Eggo waffle with peanut butter. For the rest of the morning I’d be spending equal amounts of energy trying not to gag, and working to keep a 3 foot distance from anybody who may be able to detect the Eggo I’d just leggo’d.

Hot-Dog-Eating-Joey-Chestnut

This is Joey Chestnut, by the way. A competitive eater of many things, including hotdogs. Photo from http://www.worldofpctures.com/joey-chestnut/

The body-crushing, brain-melting, fall-asleep-while-standing tired didn’t wait long to settle in either. I punctuated conversations with horrible, drawn out, tonsil-exposing yawns. Yawns that inexplicably, were always accompanied by a single tear, as if opening my mouth wide enough to swallow a grapefruit was putting too much pressure on my eyes. In a confusing twist, sleep didn’t seem to help this hybrid monster of tired. I would wake up in the morning like the Swamp Man stumbling out of the murk, bug-eyed with a gaping mouth, garbling words incoherently. It was all I could do to get through the day before coming home to collapse on the couch, begging my husband for a bowl of cereal and 4 glasses of water. If there really is such thing as a sleep bank, building a baby threw me into the red faster than a freshman coed with daddy’s credit card.

And then there were the tears. Soon after getting pregnant, crying seemed to become part of my daily routine. While it would be gracious to assume the exhaustion and nausea were to blame, in reality I think they were second-tier contributors to a much larger problem: Being pregnant turned me into a 30-year-old toddler. Patience and understanding were replaced with frustration and confusion. Simple transgressions, like say, leaving 1/16th of an inch of milk in the carton and knowingly putting it back in the fridge, would send me into a tearful rage. Because why? This river of emotion didn’t take much to well over when I encountered touching stories, or kind words either. Songs took on a new meaning, and the card isle at CVS became a no-no zone. Even reading the words “To My Beloved Great-Aunt…” in some swirly, silver font could do it.

But with each passing week, we got closer and closer to the second trimester, and to be fair, it wasn’t all bad. We got to hear the babies heartbeat for the first time, which fell somewhere on the spectrum between unicorns singing, and successfully teleporting. We got to see the baby on an ultrasound, and while we couldn’t confirm it wasn’t actually a turtle, it did give us a sense of how real this all was. I also started to get an itty bitty baby belly, which prompted me to take my first ever (and possibly my only ever) selfie. And even more importantly, reaching the second trimester milestone meant: 1). Our risk of having a miscarriage dropped significantly, and 2). Pretty soon, we could post it on Facebook…

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It’s an itty bitty baby bump selfie!