Reflections on a Child Well-Cooked

When I was cooking Lo, I was intensely curious to see what she would turn out like. When she was born, I was pretty disappointed because, well, she looked like zillion other babies have and will look: small, scrawny and squished. She's slowly becoming her own wonderful person and one month and eight days before she turns two, I'm going to record some of wonderful Lolaness I've experienced and predict what I think will happen next.
Lola has this little button nose. Her nostrils are perfectly round, the perfect size to stick baby peas or candy buttons into. Having done this myself as a child, I know it's a bad idea but it's still tempting because her nose seems made for foreign objects. Both Tee's and my nose are long and lean (probably the only part of me that can be described as such) and my nostrils tend more towards a keyhole shape, although I have resisted the urge to insert keys in them, I have learned some lessons in my 23 years...

Lola has beautiful lips. She has a sunshiney smile that lights up her whole face and invites the viewer of said smile to give one of their own. Right now, her face has the tendency to look very serious or somber if she's not smiling, a trait I must've passed on. I do hope she outgrows this as I have people who tell me I was forbidding and hard to approach if I was quiet and unsmiling when we met. Oftentimes this is because I'm either uncomfortable, shy or hungover, but I don't like coming off as unreceptable to new people simply because I'm not smiling.

This somber tendency does have the positive effect of contrast though, for when Lola does smile, it makes her face light up, her eyes crinkle, her dimples peep out and her tiny pearly whites flash. It should be described more as shiteatin' grin than a smile though, her jaws slightly opened, that naughty gleam in her eyes....

Someday, her face will elongate and her high cheekbones (just barely visible now) will emerge from her presently round, fat cheeks. Her tiny rosebud mouth will spread wider across her face and her lower lip will gain a sensual curve.

Those dark, dark eyes with those ridiculously long, black lashes will stay the same, just a bit smaller than most with a tendency to "squinch" up when she laughs. She'll use those unreadable eyes to hold someone's stare when they try to intimidate her, she'll likely need glasses to correct their inheirited awful vision and she'll poke them with the dreaded mascara wand poke known to women (and some men) 'round the world.

Her wispy baby hair with its ringlet curls will thicken...and thicken... and thicken til its a truly unruly mass. Her mama will NEVER make her cut or brush it if she doesn't want to, but dreads are a definite possibility if such is the case.

As for her personality, Lo prefers one on one attention with her fans. She enjoys singing, dancing (swing and slow) and reading books (YEA!). She has a strong streak of goofiness that when she's "caught" doing something weird, she'll give a little smile that conveys "yeah, even I know this weird, but hey, I'm Lola..." She's snuggly at times, often suprising me with requests of "up, UP" just to cup my face in her little hands, look at me, smile and give an eskimo kiss, so cute I could barf.

She's got quirks that stink of OCD like rigorously cleaning ANY lint or dirt from between her toes, thrusting her entire arm down my shirt to squeeze, place toys between and shout at my boobs and constantly rambling on about and demanding kisses on "owww-ies" until the damn things finally heal.

This might mean that I'm raising a bedreaded, bespectacled, smiley button-nosed,cleanfreak, hypochondriac lesbian but I choose to think it's probably just one well-cooked kid.

PS. More pictures of this wonderful kid of mine after X-Mas, we hear Santa might be getting us a camera...

Ketchup, Mustard, Onions, Lettuce, Tomato, Garlic Mayo and a Whole Wheat Bun

Wow, long break.

Synopsis of busy time:

Went to Chicago, was sick, was COLD, was miserable...but I got a pretty cool purse that I'm not supposed to know about for X-Mas so it made it almost worth it. Missed Lola like a dull, constant toothache, glad to be home!

Shopped til I dropped, on several occasions for other people I love dearly.


Lola, Tee and I have been spending a lot of family time together, see shopping til we're dropping...


Lo now says "yeis" instead of "yeeeeaaaaahh" after my mom yelled at my brother for mumbling "yeah" all the time. It's so cute it crunches down on my tasty, crunchy exterior shell and melts my itty-bitty milk chocolate heart. Ok, I don't know why I referenced an M&M as my heart, it's been a weird day...

Went out drinking beer and Celtic Crossing with Meg and Roy one Wednesday night after school (on a truly empty stomach, STOOOPID) and barfed my fucking guts out. Did I mention this was a Wednesday night? And I had to wake up for work at 6am the next day? I will say that my new toilet bowl cleaner really gets the job done though, I'm sticking with this product.

School

Work

Lola

Tee asked me out on a date, I accepted (and was actually kinda giddy about it) but then we didn't have a sitter so Lo and I went to sleep at 9:30am and Tee went out with friends.

I guess that's all folks, all calm on the Midwest Front.

Material Expressions of My Holiday Spirit

Done

Nelly - DVD player, Chappelle Show, earrings

Dad - Mudcrutch CD, The Watchmen graphic novel

Lola - Boots, BabyLegs, book

Gray - Book, Shrek DVD, Bandaids

Jessica - Bakewise, Cowgirl chapstick

Megan - Record wall sconces, Malt Shoppe CD

Roy - the cutest ashtray in all the world

Mari - Zappa print

Pete - REI giftcard, My Ishmael book

Corrina - Virgin Chapstick, Dreamy socks, necklace that will come AFTER X-mas

NOT DONE

Chad - 1/16th, chillum, burn some "smokin' music"

Tee - 8GB flash drive, skull wristwarmers, get socks

Edited as of 12-18-08

Tropical Pirates In a Frigid Port

Holy backlog of silly, unpublished posts... Merry Early X-Mas present!

A WI List

* Pirates Don't Like Winter Because:

Waking up earlier to warm up the car
Falling on my ass due to hidden ice
The murky yellow color I turn that can only be achieved by 4.5 months of winter
Cold air makes my sensitive teeth twinge, ick
The slow decline into constant irritation due to lack of sunlight for days on end.
The glasses fog when entering a room
Neverending hum of space heaters
Packing a squirmy toddler in an enormous yellow poofy-coat into a carseat while snowflakes are attacking my exposed lower back.
Replacing the boots, mittens, hat, scarf and socks that Lola took off while in the car, every time we need to get out.
Car can't make it up the hill
The view outside the windows perfectly matches my boring white walls inside
Practical WI boots = ugly and cool ones = death
Fingers and toes go all purple and numb
We currently have 5" and showing no signs of stopping...make it stop, make it stop, make it STOP!



* Pro-pirate activities

Snow angels
Sledding and the Lola squeals it induces
Seeing Lo in a huge poofy yellow coat, snowpants, mittens and scarf, hat, he he, very Christmas Story-like
Easy to find animal tracks, feel like Strider from LOTR's
Smoke less
Can grow out leg hair
Vegetarian chili and root beer floats
Stay home (enforced by feet of snow) and watch movies
Snow days
Hot chocolate & Baileys
Hats

My Wonderful Kid

I've been doing a lot of thinking about being a mom lately and (obviously) specifically being Lola's mom.

Before Lo was born, I was worried I wouldn't be comfortable with being called Mommy. (For the record, I'm still not "Mommy" but I am a bonafide "Mama.") I'm sure I'm not the first nor last first-timer to have qualms about entering the realm of title vs the more familiar name, I still think it was a valid worry because I'm not so quick to accept change.

I can't pinpoint the exact moment when Mama become comfortable but I can tell you that I took me a long while before I could refer to myself as Mama without an inner wince.

Last night I found myself at Panera, alone for once because Tee's mother had Lo. I listened to a little girl calling her "Moooooooooommmmmm" to see what kind of soda to fill their communal cup with. Now I'm not prone to fits or faints or seizures or visions, us sturdy Midwesterners are stoically ANTI that sort of nonsense but I had this weird, dizzy disorientation while watching this child.

"Is that what Lola sounds like when calling me?"

"Is that Lola in a few years?"

"How do I identify with that woman, a mother?"

"Will that be me in a few years?"

I saw myself stacked amongst the rest of the worlds' moms, like still frames in a projector reel.

This got me thinking of images of mothers everywhere, all the same, same name, same post-partum shape, same weary way of responding "what honey?" I actually had to shake my head to dispel this uncomfortable train of thought and allow my rational side to take over.

I don't have to identify with that woman just because we're both mothers. Lola and I are a mother-daughter dream team no matter the parallels we have with others. Despite the fact that I DO carry the same title as millions of other women. I DO have a saggy mom-body and I DO have the habit of absentmindedly answering Lola's many queries with "yes baby...?"

I think I was worried about a loss of self way back when Lo was in utero and I was busy terrifying myself with "what-if's". I saw the similarities of the many many Moms out there but there was one thing I didn't, nay, couldn't have known yet.

While I do share many characteristics with many others, there's one thing I don't share with them... Lola. And this is a major difference indeed. Because Lo is so original in and of herself, I can indulge in some typical mom behavior like forgetting to care about things the used to matter (shaving of legs, styling of hair, clean clothes), having a horribly messy car (mooshed crackers, spilled juice), and looking wildly around a store when I hear a child shouting "MAMA, MAMA!" even when my child is in the cart in front of me.

Lo counteracts this by singing about everyday objects like newts, Nanny-Baby Kitty, Mama, ice and the moon. By being so contemptuous of banana anything that the offending food item will get an icy stare, how dare it be banana flavored? By sleeping with her mouth open, unabashedly snoring. By being Lo.

So I guess what I'm trying to say is that sometimes, a very small but key difference can save you from being just like everyone else. Mine is approximately 29 pounds and is the Lola half of the Lola and Mama dream team.

Borrowed "Humor"

Thanks MB!

Nothing too exciting to write so I decided to post a picture of me and my most favorite of redheads. This picture makes me smile. It also convinces me that I need to tone up my arms.