Another 2:30 am complaint

You know, sometimes the 2:30 feeding is really not that bad. Yes, it takes me 4 snoozes to get up. But once I wake up, it's not so bad to simply make a bottle, wake up the Turtle, force feed him some sustenance and then hobble back to bed myself.

But then there are the nights when waking up tears me from a dream wherein my husband was pulling my panties off with his teeth and I didn't feel like a deflated whale, and I want to smash my alarm into itty bitty pieces.

When can I start letting him sleep instead of forcing him awake every 4 hours?

Yes, those are tears.

It appears that all that I needed to kick my butt into reading gear was for God to strike me with a wicked headache and no relief from Excedrin Migraine. Or at least, it took 6 hours to kick in. In that time, I was unable to sleep and didn't care enough to leave my bed so I pulled out Firefly Lane by Kristin Hannah. I had previously read 40-odd pages but had been having trouble concentrating on when I could have instead be staring at my newborn or fighting with my toddler.

Turns out, it's really good. Turns out, also really sad. It reminds me of a cross between Judy Blume's Summer Sisters (which I love) and Kate Jacobs' The Friday Night Knitting Club (which I also love). And I cried. Only a little though - my husband picked the end of the book to come into the room and hang out with Turtle on the bed, and I hate to cry over a book in front of him. He seems to think I am emotionally handicapped because I don't cry at movies (except getting choked up at Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey, but how could you not? You don't know for sure that the old dog is going to come over the hill, and the boy is so sad, and then Shadow shows up!) ...

Ahem, a digression. Anyhow, C thinks it's funny that I do not cry at movies, but I get weepy at books. So since he came into the room, I stopped reading every couple of paragraphs when I felt my eyes getting glassy until the feeling subsided. Finally, I sucked it up and finished the book with only slight moisture and with a chuckle from C.

After that, I decided I needed something a little lighter so I picked up Bright Lights, Big Ass by Jen Lancaster. I had never heard of Jen Lancaster before Mama Fuss mentioned her books in passing - saying that she had yet to read them, but the titles were funny.

Oh, holy Jeebus. I had to leave the room because I was shedding a whole different kind of tears. I haven't laughed that hard in quite awhile. It's definitely not what would be considered "literature", but most certainly guilty pleasure reading. I keep reading aloud to my husband - I'm pretty sure he's not appreciating my interrupting his baseball game, but this is funny stuff!

If you need a laugh, especially following a gut-wrencher, I wholly recommend. However, if you are recovering from abdominal surgery please watch that you don't bust a gut.

Thank you; this has been a PSA.

**Update: I have not been able to get through the first of three Jen Lancaster books yet - 385 pages of what is ultimately a really funny blog posts start to drag on; however, still funny!

PS - my son is trying to suckle on my belly. Need to lose belly flab. Thus endeth.

In reel time

Over the past couple days, I've been watching movies. This probably helps to account why I haven't been reading as I'd like, but I haven't been watching movies like I used to either.

First movie that I watched was Rules of Attraction. Hmmm. Gratuitous masturbatory scenes and gay men jumping on beds. Then I looked it up on IMDB and realized it was written by Bret Easton Ellis, and all made sense. In college, there was this guy we hung out with (who I won't even refer to by his initials in case he somehow finds his way here) whose favorite writer was BEE to the point of being obsessed. And he was ... the Big Deal. "For his ability to insert melodrama into every aspect of normal life" (to quote a friend). And there was also his ambiguous sexuality, and his usage of his self-printed novel to get laid, and ... oh there's more, but you really don't want to hear about it. The point is, anything Ellis wrote just brings me back to college. Nostalgia at its most twisted.

Then I watched Post Grad, which I thought was cute and airy - exactly what I needed while I cared for two kids, did laundry and waited for my husband to come home from an interview. And Matt Saracen is in it, and that kid is so cute I just want to pinch his cute little cheeks.

Next movie ... Shutter Island. I pegged the ending of this movie from the previews, but it still managed to surprise me with the details. I'm terrible at spooky movies and horror movies, so there were a few times I averted my eyes Just In Case, but I enjoyed it ... even though it was impossibly long and we were watching it on the computer in the library which meant that I was sitting on the futon ... with no pillows and not too comfortably. Note to self: buy pillows for the futon. And an ottoman (not a Turk).

And finally, last night I started watching The Time Traveler's Wife. I'm pretty sure I'm supposed to hate this movie, but I really like Rachel McAdams and I just couldn't hate it. I didn't finish watching it, but it's now on my DVR to finish when C isn't around ... I can't see him sitting through it. Admittedly, I think I was supposed to hate the book too, but I read it on an airplane and distinctly remember getting choked up when I saw the ending coming ...

We still have The Hurt Locker from Netflix, and we've had it now for .... well, since at least a week or more before Turtle was born. I can tell you, I won't be watching it. Blood, gore, and war ... yeah, not my forte. I love a good action flick, but war movies are not for me, even if they di win best picture.

Bookin' it

I read like it's going out of style (which, if you read the reports, it is). I love books. I haven't yet switched over to the Kindle because I get most of my reading material from the library but I'm sure it's coming. Especially since I realized that you can load electronic resource books (that I can get from my library website) onto a Kindle. Be still my heart.

I read everything - young adult (if properly written - I think a good book should transcend age brackets, but some out there are just too young for me (but then, I was reading adult books at 10 years old, so that makes sense too)), straight literature, some classics (I admit, I've always wished I liked classics better than I do ... I buy them feeling that I should be reading them, but then they sit in my library wasting space), light chick-lit, vamp fiction, memoirs ... you get the point.

But right now I have a stack of books on my nightstand that is taller than my newborn son and I just can't get myself to read them. Non-fiction (Generation Me), Fiction (Jen Lancaster), Stephenie Meyer (The Host - thought it was worth a try), Firefly Lane (suggested by Mama Fuss and what I'm reading right now) ... you name it, it's there. I have plenty of time to read, despite having a toddler and a newborn. I make time to read. But lately I just stare at the words.

I find this sad. I miss my reading.

There was no point to this post. I just felt like complaining about my lack of attention span. Now that I've rambled, I'm off to stare at Phineas and Ferb for awhile.

Something to Gnaw On

People are always complaining about toddler's sleep habits, the hard time potty training, the tantrums ... and while a) we haven't had many problems with sleeping except the occasional climbing-into-momma's-bed-at-2:30am and the even more occasional no-nap-on-the-weekend and b) we haven't attempted potty training yet (yikes) and c) tantrums ... no one can prepare you for tantrums --- HOWEVER, why does no one complain or give advice on how to get your child to rinse their mouth out after brushing their teeth?

I can't see that it's possible that I'm the only one having this problem. The Boy (as he's generally known on Facebook, and therefore may as well carry on over here) has no problem brushing his teeth. However, he cannot understand the art of spitting out the toothpaste. I've tried to teach him, to show him - to do it myself and to pour the water in his mouth for him so he can let it dribble out. No go. We switched from baby toothpaste to toddler toothpaste with fluoride, but we then had to switch back because he was swallowing the toothpaste again (an aside: why do they make toddler toothpaste taste like bubblegum? Maybe if it didn't taste like CANDY it might be easier to get them to spit it out???)

He's 30 months old. Do you have any suggestions? How old was your kid when they switched to fluoride toothpaste?

2:30am

The 2:30am feeding is kicking my butt.

I could ignore him a few minutes until my husband hears the stirring and maybe he will get up. Since I'm already awake enough to start weighing those options, I figure I should just get up. Sometimes, like last night, Turtle will try to sleep through the feeding and I'll have to wake him up enough to get an ounce down his throat and then let him sleep until 6:30. Sometimes he'll wake up wanting it early and I'll wake up to this:


But sometimes, like tonight, I will be the only one to hear the alarm (to be fair, it is on vibrate on my side) and the only one to hear him stirring, and then once I convince myself to get out of bed and make a bottle, and FEED the Turtle, he doesn't want to go to bed; he just wants to lay on my lap and stare up at me sweetly and make me feel guilty for just wanting to sleep. God, he's cute.

This face

This face has inspired me to (maybe) start blogging again. Meet Henry Ellis, born Auguest 18, 2010 and henceforth to be known as Turtle. Maybe I'll put Yurtle in his crib - it's too perfect.

My pregnancy was hard, although not as hard as some. My postpartum was hard, although not as hard as others have had it. But my baby is perfect - absolutely perfect (except a weird hammer toe, but that also makes him unique, no?). I could stare at him for hours, except for the next 10 minutes when I'm stealing time to take a shower. He doesn't really cry, and now that we've switched to formula (no judgments please, you don't know what we went through there) he eats well. He has his daddy's eyes and his momma's shape (longer torso, shorter legs - daddy is opposite) and a little more hair than his big brother.

Here's his big brother now:

We need a nickname for him. He's gotten to be both a huge handful and a lot of fun. Before Turtle was born I really didn't think it was possible to love another human being as much as I love this little boy, and I was wrong. They are both so special, and I can't wait to see how they both grow up. And I hope the sibling jealousy subsides soon so that they can be as close as I was to my brother, or closer because they'll be more in the best friends age bracket than the substitute mother bracket as my brother and I were (10 years apart).

Anyhow, grabbing that shower now - toodles!