WARNING:

Men: you will not understand this post and may be grossed out by it.
Women: you will be jealous of me.

it has come to my attention (aka i just realized) that i have not gotten my period for... count it... A YEAR AND A HALF!!!

every woman reading this wants to be me.

is this not incredible? i haven't had severe cramps or bought tampons or had to deal with any of that bullshit in a lovely year and a half!!

then again, i did go through 9 months of pregnancy, push a 6.6 1/2 pound human being through my hoo-ha, bleed excessively for about 2 1/2 weeks, and had more mood swings (and chocolate) in a week than throughout every period since i was 12. even through all of that, though, i'm still thanking my lucky stars that my little enemy (i hate calling it my "friend." it's not my friend) has not yet returned. watch, i'm going to wake up with it tomorrow. damn you, life...


in other news (thank god, right) i will be headed back to good ol' tar-gay next week. daycare is still unsure, so i'll be working wednesday and friday nights and saturday mornings so john can watch her.

i'm pretty excited about getting back to work, although i'm having mixed feelings about putting the kid in daycare. she's only 9-months-old - my biggest fear is for her to take her first steps alone while there. when we do enroll her (which we eventually will, there's no way around it), i'm going to tell them that if she does have any major milestones to NOT TELL ME so i can be surprised when she does it at home.

you know, i'm realizing why i am so scared to put her in daycare. there's the whole milestone thing, but it goes deeper than that - my mom was always home when i was growing up. she'd put us on the bus in the morning, work as a telemarketer with the blood center a few days a week, get us off the bus in the afternoon, help with homework, make dinner, put us to bed, and then take night classes. she was like superwoman (or supermom) and i never realized how incredible she was until now. i feel like i'm selling the baby short, like i'm not providing for her well enough by giving her to strangers for a few hours a day.

i don't want to be melodramatic, but i always have this constant fear that everyone thinks i'm doing a bad job. i'm doing the best i can, but there are always those looks in older moms' eyes when they talk to me, especially because i'm so easygoing. other moms have their babies on strict schedules, while i let the kid do her own thing. older moms see too many datelines and 20/20s and read too many articles about recent studies in child safety, then admonish me for letting the baby sleep in my bed for so long or, after 9 months, letting her sleep on her stomach in the crib (she won't sleep any other way).

i know i shouldn't care and i know that i'm a good mom, but i also know what other people think, even if they don't say it out loud. i'm young and honestly not entirely prepared to raise a child, but goddamn it i'm doing it anyway.

okay... it's way late and i'm going to end this before i get too emotional. as my own version of supermom, i have been staying up until 4 or 5am doing schoolwork.

oh wait, cute anecdote: so last week john put the baby's pj's on (the onesie-thing with feeties) and after he left and i was putting her to bed, i changed her diaper. lo and behold, i found that he left her socks on under the feetie pajamas. i mean, honestly... who does that?? he's the cutest...

ok i'm going for true now. g'night (or g'morning) bitches.

new location. woo.

i'm coming to you now from my bedroom, where i have relocated the laptop in an ill-conceived and swiftly-defeated attempt at getting some work done while the kid refuses to go to sleep. it is now 3:07am and she is still awake in her crib, crying away. she's cried so much this past week that she's hoarse - my daughter is now the kathleen turner of babies. faboo.

so the baby is completely weaned now, and the boobs are in almost pre-baby condition. the good thing about my virtually non-existant boobage is that the girls are too small to sag, which is excellent.

total random sidenote - where was i a year ago today? here:






...all pregnant and fabulous. and rotund. and glowing, may i add.

i was thinking about my pregnant belly a few days ago and reminisced about how i used to love sitting back on the couch while watching tv, my feet up, pants rolled down, and my hands on either side of my bellybutton, waiting for a kick or elbow or hiccup. the kid was (and still is) quite a mover and a shaker so i was rarely disappointed. i loved being pregnant, seriously. despite the water retention, fatigue, gas and waddling, i really felt beautiful. i loved the kind smiles i'd get from strangers and when john rubbed and kissed my belly. the random cravings were fun and the fact that i could eat pretty much whatever i wanted in any amount and it wasn't frowned upon; many times it was encouraged.

as i write about all the wonderful memories of rainbows and unicorns running through fields of smiling wildflowers, the baby is screaming at the top of her lungs three feet from me. what a reality check. it's now 3:21am, ps, and she has not stopped crying since i began writing. motherhood........ what can i say.

oh, so i'm going to make a mix cd of calm, gentle songs for the baby. i don't want to do stereotypical lullabyes and classical music: i was thinking along the veins of joni mitchell's "case of you," coldplay's "green eyes," and billy joel's "goodnight my angel." ANY SUGGESTIONS?? feel free to email me songs (after my computer crashed in freshman year, i never regained the colossus that was my playlist of downloads) or just post suggestions. i've decided that my child will have stellar music taste, even if i have to ban Z100 and shit pop music from her innocent ears.

okay... the crying is ridiculous now. say prayers that i figure out some magical way of getting her to sleep on her own.

hooray for life

ok so people are actually leaving comments, which means that this blog is being read. kewl.

and laura - ask away, yo! after having approximately 5 strangers stare up my cooch as i pushed out a bloody human being, i've kind of lost all shame.

so the boobs: i've got two words for you - CABBAGE LEAVES. yes, that old wives' tale is true; cabbage leaves DO help with engorgement (that word is awful, isn't it?). i thought i'd feel odd sticking two gigantic leaves of cabbage into my sports bra but hell, after everything i've tried to heal the girls, this was the least odd. i wrote an extensive explanation of my current boob situation, but it was quite graphic and nasty. the basic story is that my nipples are trying to extract themselves from my body - let's leave it at that.

alrighty - lily is in her own crib now - well, really we're ATTEMPTING to get her to stay in her crib now. she's woken up about three times already and is screaming again. i'll continue the post later!

oh boobs...

i feel like writing an ode to my breasts. i mean, i wasn't that crazy about them before the baby - they were on the small side, but looked decent in a push-up bra. they didn't bounce around too much or made my back hurt, so we were on good terms.

then came the child.

now they're all stretch-marked (oh yeah, you get them there, too) and veiny. they're bigger, which is cool, but i have to hold them when i run up and down the stairs b/c they bounce around. i'm also afraid of the whole sagging deal - but i hear that won't happen too badly for a few years, so whatever.

let's move on to the nipples. we aren't speaking at the moment, but it's totally the kid's fault. SHE'S the one making them bleed and the skin peel off and constantly hurt - i keep trying to tell them that, but they won't listen. they've written me off months ago. i try to not think of them, but alas - they throb with pain most of the day, so forgetting is a bit difficult.

but back to the boobs. so we're weaning the babe and i developed a plugged milk duct, which soon became infected because of the broken skin on the nip. fascinating, correct? the other night, the top half of my right boob became hard as a rock and i had a fever of 103, complete with severe chills. now i'm on antibiotics and cursing life because i have mastitis. yes, infected clogged boob has a medical name.

ya' know, i think i should rename this blog "any woman who is even thinking about pregancy: READ THIS FIRST." ps to that, if anyone has questions about ANYTHING in the baby-making, -cooking, -popping out, -feeding, -etc.ing just ask and i'll write a lengthy and most likely disgusting post about it. i'm good like that.

okay, the kid is getting restless, so i'll end here.

john still claims to enjoy the girls (not like he's seen them recently)(poor guy...), so it can't be all bad. i'm back to wearing normal clothes, a.k.a. tank tops and bras that don't snap open at the boob like dominatrix-wear.

nursing bras: for the more mature sex employee. with a baby.

{sigh}.