If the bed's a rockin...it's probably an earthquake.

I woke yesterday morning to an earthquake. Crazy. At first I thought it was a semi driving by and then I figured I was dreaming. So glad I didn't investigate further. Glad nothing really dangerous happened...like the building falling down or something. My friend and her boyfriend were in bed. She said, "We woke up and he yelled 'Get out of the house'. I grabbed my pants and we ran downstairs." I didn't ask the details. Luckily, I had pants on. I sleep in pants and a tee shirt. Or a nightgown. I'm not a sleep in nothing kind of girl. I tried it a few times, but it weirded me out. I thought...what if there was an earthquake and I couldn't get dressed in time to leave the house? Well...now I know. If there was an earthquake, I'd just lay in bed and fall back to sleep. But if there's a bird outside my window, or a frog, I'd be up all night. I can sleep through a five alarm fire brigade driving by, but put one cricket outside my window...and I'd be up all night. I was a resident assistant in college and slept through a fire alarm. One of my residents mentioned the next morning how lucky I was that I wasn't home for it. I said, "Uh...yes I was. I didn't hear it."

Say What???

I ran into my cousin the other night. I took baby to the Zoo's Tunes and Blooms for a bluegrass concert. I haven't seen my cousin since Christmas. Talking to her made me realize something. I have completely lost all conversational skills. Living alone, with a baby, and working in silence all day long does no one any good. How many words is it women are supposed to say a day? 10,000? Men say 2,000? I need to get my 10,000 words out in the span of a few hours. I'm sure I drive my friends crazy talking a thousand miles a minute about nonsensical things that run through my mind while I'm giving massages. Like...what I should've said to the guy who dumped me years ago. Why are avocados suddenly too much for my system to handle? What new perfume should I wear if any, since my hormones are all out of whack and my old scent smells like crap now? Will Jennifer Aniston ever be happy? All of these things need to be worked out. I can't talk to my clients about them because I don't like to talk during massages for fear of saying something really inappropriate. And baby just doesn't care that I'm on Team Aniston. So until I either change careers or get a roommate (which won't happen) I'll just have to make do. I'll read the posts aloud to myself. And maybe even email comments to myself about them.

Wearing Falconers Gloves

Changing my daughter's diaper is what I imagine diapering a feral cat would be like. It is virtually impossible to get a diaper on that child. She rolls back and forth. Turns over. Sometimes when I think all is going well she'll just lurch at me, grab my arms and try to rip my sweater off and/or bite me.
This is also what it's like when I try to get the snot out of her nose.
I've never known a child who enjoys sitting in poo and not breathing full breaths of fresh air so much.

TMI

So, I've been having trouble pumping. No, not iron. Breast milk. Nothing is coming out. I used to be able to fill at least a bottle and a half. That may not be a lot for some people, but I did nurse the child nonstop the first four months of her life so I don't think there was a whole lot left to squeeze out. Which brings me to my first question...when in the hell do you pump when you're constantly feeding a child/holding them? I did start to pump on one side and nurse on the other. I am convinced that one day she will ask me if she used to be a Siamese twin or if she had a sibling that had a big nose and sounded like it was wheezing all the time.

Well, I went back to work right around the same time I noticed she would get a rash all over her body whenever I had milk or something with milk in it. So I cut out dairy, much to my doctor's chagrin. He informed me that, "It's probably just eczema." I replied, "I don't think so." He countered, "Babies get it." I say, "Well, this one only gets it when I eat dairy. As you can see she doesn't have it now." His response, "Hmm...." I remind myself it's the practice of medicine. And that I'm her mother and I know best.

Anyhoo...once I started working I wasn't nursing and pumping as much. I blamed the no dairy on my milk supply being cut in half. What had fallen to one bottle is now below half of one bottle. I'm so sad. It's heartbreaking. So I now believe it's a combination of the two. I'm going to stick with that. And stress worrying about her not having anything to drink when she's with a sitter (my mom or my friend).

I had to block time at work to pump. This really pissed everyone off. The owners and the head receptionist (I don't know if that's her exact title, but she's been there 18 years--don't ask me how--so that's what I call her...when I'm being nice) don't have any children. They seemed to get very irritated by my blocking out a half hour to pump. I finally said, "This is just as aggravating to me as it is for everyone else." They were always telling me someone wanted to come in during the time I had blocked off. This was after they were just giving me massages over my blocked time anyway. I finally had to say something. There is a hair dresser (I believe they like to be called 'stylists' now...too bad) who pumps. Her son is almost a year old. She has two sons. She is able to leave her client in the chair to process or whatever she tells them needs to happen to their foil covered head and go pump whenever she wants to. I cannot leave my client laying on the table during their massage and come back 30 minutes later. What would I say? "Oh, that is something I like to do. I like to leave and not touch you for a half hour just so you'll appreciate it that much more when I come back. Don't forget to tip." (Tipping is a post I'll save for another day.)

I was talking to the hair dresser who pumps and telling her my sob story. She summed it up for me. "Yeah. Your milk is drying up. You might as well just start her on regular milk. It will be fine. My son eats everything we eat right at the table. It makes them better eaters. Besides, you don't want her to use you as some weird attached pacifier thing. That's just creepy."

Um...hi...lady? Have you met me? I'm a massage therapist. I drive a 1995 Jeep something or other. I don't have any mascara on, let alone makeup. I shop at the thrift store. I don't know what the name of the color is I use on my hair that I haven't cut in six months, I only know what the chick looks like on the box. I don't care if my black shirt isn't the same shade as my black pants. And my child rarely wears clothes that match and I didn't stick her in daycare today like your client so I could go get a pedicure and lunch with my friends. I've nursed in Target, church, the grocery, a baseball game, parking lots, parties, and restaurants. We are not the same kind of mommy. I'll nurse her until she's 14 if that's what she wants. (Not really, but you see what I'm getting at.)

So now I'm jacked-up on four different vitamins and a tincture called More Milk. I don't think it's making a whole lot of difference for me (even though my friend had to quit taking these vitamins because she was making more milk than she could pump) because I'm still not pumping much milk, but my daughter still wants to nurse and I know she's getting plenty. She's gorgeous and growing so fast.

I'll continue to keep trying. And when someone else comments to me at work while I'm eating licorice "Do you find that the sugar keeps the weight on?" I'll just say, "I'm nursing and need to eat more calories. And oh yeah...I don't really care."

If I Had A Million Dollars

I'm back!!! And boy, am I tired. I guess the little one is teething, but who the hell really knows? I think sometimes babies just cry to be assholes. I have no clue what's going on in her little brain. Maybe she thought of something really sad. Like...Drowning Puppy Lake. Don't ask.

Anyhoo...I was eating my pretentious fusili pasta the other night and I was nearly finished when I discovered a piece of macaroni. I rushed to the garbage to check the bag to see if I'd won some contest. Alas, it was not the case. But I thought about how cool that would be if I had found the magic bag. Like when M&Ms had the allusive grey M&M. I probably bought that winning bag and ate the grey one without ever noticing. I tend to eat M&Ms without looking. Kind of the same way I drink my beers without counting, until the next morning.

If I had won $1 million in a Find the Macaroni Sweepstakes this is what I would've spent it on.

A cooking school vacation in Tuscany. $4565.00 w/round trip flight
35 cm orange Hermes Birkin $12,000.00 on discount site
Porsche Cayenne Turbo $93,700.00 without a full tank of gas
Ticket to NYC to stare at this townhouse I still couldn't afford $374.50 round trip
Peridot and diamond ring in honor of baby $715.50

Um...$111,355. Hmm....

Campus Frye boots $282.00
Acuvue Advance for Astigmatism $303.92 year's supply

Ugh...this is harder than I thought.

Monday trip to Target...$888,059.10

Done.

Britney's Got Nothing On Me

We went to our first Reds' game and they won. And my new shoes gave me blisters, dammit.

I went to Target today instead of church. Well, baby didn't go to sleep last night until 10.30 p.m. Normally she goes to bed at 8.30 p.m. But not last night. Noooooo. She didn't even THINK about going to bed until around 10.15 p.m. then she just crashed. I only cried once around 8.55 p.m. Soooo tired. So instead of getting up at 7.30 a.m. she woke up at 7 a.m. and was back to sleep at 8.30 a.m. And instead of going down for a nap at 9 a.m. and waking at 10 a.m. on the dot, she woke at 10.55 a.m. So we missed church.

Well, last time I went to Target and took her in the dressing room, the woman let me take my stroller in and all my clothes. I got nothing. Today, baby played in my purse on the floor and I tried on 6 things and liked them all. I can't believe how big she's getting. Sitting up by herself. Able to entertain herself. It will be so interesting to see her when she's older. To see if she's anything like me as an only child or if she'll be so completely different.

At the checkout, a man behind me said, "Your baby has a piece of paper in her mouth." I had her in the carrier facing out. I reached around and stuck my fingers in her mouth. She had what was left of a GIANT price tag. OMG She must've had it for a while because remnants were already dried to her little fingers. There were shreds of it in her mouth. Don't think I didn't go digging. I said, "Well, this is one of the bad parts of having her face out. Thank you." HELLO! Everyone else in Target??? You could've told me. I had no clue. And tons of people were smiling at her. WTH? Is this normal? Do other mothers let their children eat paper? I have no idea where she got it. Had she also possibly eaten whatever it had been attached to?

Imagine if I was famous and the paparazzi got a pic of that. Dear Lord. Front page news.

I took her out to the car and stuck my finger down her throat. She didn't care. I ran it around inside her gums. Didn't care. I buckled her into her car seat. Still didn't care. She even LAUGHED at me. Then I KNEW something was wrong. She HATES the car seat! She does what I lovingly refer to as The Frozen Banana. This kid is strong. You cannot get her to bend if she doesn't want to. I hoped she was okay and drove away giving Target the finger for giving my daughter some rare Made in China price tag disease.

She fell asleep immediately. So I decided to call a friend I don't talk to enough. She said, "Oh honey. She's fine. My kids eat dog food off the floor on a daily basis. Because they like it." I reached back and patted baby's head and I felt better. Then I reminded myself to never get a dog. And to mop the floor.

o.m.g.

I am so tired and by tired I mean really really really really really tired. That tired you felt as a kid after 8 hours in the swimming pool. Or the tired you felt when you went home from college on Christmas break that drove your parents crazy. Or that tired you pretended to be to get out of a horrible date. Really tired.

My daughter woke up three times last night. She went to bed at 8.30 p.m. Woke up at 11 p.m. Woke up at 2 a.m. Woke up at 5 a.m. totally ready to party. I can't remember the last time she woke up that many times in one night. Oh yeah I can...the first month of her life. OMG I don't think I've recovered from that still. I think I'm being punished for not having napped when I was pregnant. I only took five naps, none good ones. I've never been able to get up early in the morning. Well, baby changed that. Now I am up at 7.30 a.m. every morning. Argh. I don't know how she knows. I don't even have to set my alarm for work.

I can see now why the CIA uses sleep deprivation as a form of torture. At least they did on Alias. And I'm pretty sure that show was an accurate depiction. Except, of course, for the stuff that wasn't.

The hardest part about parenting, in my opinion, is when you're so tired you could sleep while changing a diaper (though I wouldn't recommend it) and the baby isn't tired at all. You never get used to not sleeping; you just get used to being exhausted. My friend told me that when I was pregnant. She was right.

So baby is finally asleep now, no thanks to the Reds. I'm happy they've hit two homers nearly back-to-back but those damned fireworks are disrupting everything. I guess she'll get used to it before September. Let's hope so anyway. I hope to hear lots more fireworks this season.

So, I'm going to go to bed now. At 9 p.m. and will probably be up in a couple hours.

She's so worth it.

Finding Happiness Amid Clogged Nipple Pores

Ever heard of a bleb? It's an actual thing. Read on:

A milk blister, or blocked nipple pore, is also called a bleb or nipple blister, or simply "milk under the skin." It occurs when a tiny bit of skin overgrows a milk duct opening and milk backs up behind it. A milk blister usually shows up as a painful white, clear or yellow dot on the nipple or areola (see photo), and the pain tends to be focused at that spot and just behind it. If you compress the breast so that milk is forced down the ducts, the blister will typically bulge outward. Milk blisters can be persistent and very painful during feeding, and may remain for several days or weeks and then spontaneously heal when the skin peels away from the affected area.

Doesn't that sound so awe. some. ??? Well, I have it and let me tell you...it hurts like a mother. Literally.

I also had to give a 90 minute deep tissue massage to my boss today because he hurt his back. Boo hoo. I haven't had a massage since 2003. I'd love to get a 90 minute massage while I'm supposed to be working. Oh well...too bad!

So, I've decided to actually make this post about something completely unrelated.

New York City

It was a year ago today that I was last there. It is my favorite city in the world. Here are some of my must-sees (with the help of yelp.com):

Moto
Grandaisy Bakery (formerly Sullivan Street Bakery)
Ruby's
McNally Robinson
Galanga

Housing Works Bookstore Cafe
Lily's Nail Salon
Paris Theatre
Strand Book Store Annex
Cafe Habana
MOMA Design Store Soho
Duck Duck
Potion Cafe
Chrysler Building
Washington Square Park