Mine mine mine, all mine

slow

I'm going to steal this analogy from my husband; this morning's commute was like that scene in The Truman Show, where Truman is trying to leave the island and what seems like every car in the town pulls in front of him and grinds to a halt.

First, there was the school bus. It was a particularly slow school bus, and the double yellow no-pass line went on for miles and miles and miles.

"There had better be a school somewhere in our near future," Charles grumbled.

Then, there was the pickup truck with the Marlboro Man at the wheel. He was more concerned with lighting his cigarette than he was with driving. Still a double yellow line, too. Whee!

Then there was the woman who couldn't be bothered with actually looking at the road. Whatever that was on her floorboard on the passenger side must have been very interesting.

I love living out in the country, but we seriously need less double yellow lines and more passing zones out there. I'm not asking for a four-lane highway, for pete's sake. Work with me, here. The chronically late implore you. Have mercy.

On another note, it appears that Drew has inherited something from me other than my devilish charm and amazing good looks. I seem to have passed along my hay fever to him.

I love spring, I really do, but every April, until my meds start really kicking in, I spend about two weeks with watery eyes, a runny nose and it seems like everything itches. I get that terrible itch in the back of my throat - you know the one you can't scratch? Worst feeling ever.

Well, for the last few days, Drew has been sneezing, sniffling and waking up with his eyes glued shut with gunky yellow stuff. (that's a pretty image isn't it? At least I'm not making you eat a plate of lasagna while watching CSI. I made that mistake last night, and of course it had to be an especially grisly episode with lots of gore and random disembodied eyeballs and stuff.)

So, last night I found a bottle of something the pediatrician had given me several weeks ago - a pediatric antihistamine. Genius.

Oh, and look..."May cause drowsiness." YES! PERFECT!

Charles and I were both like, "Hey, it may not work on his hay fever, but it causes drowsiness!"

LET'S DRUG OUR SON!

Did I sound a bit too enthusiastic about that?

size what?

So I had this dream last night - in the dream, I was in some posh clothing store buying a new dress for some fancy occasion. (all of these elements should reveal to you that, yes, this was, in fact, a dream, as in real, waking life I do not A) go into posh stores B) buy new dresses or C) attend fancy occasions.

In the dream, one of the posh salesladies in the posh, overpriced store approached me, looked me up and down and said, with her upper lip curled up in an eerie Elvis-like sneer, "So, you must be looking for something in a size 24."

Size huh? 24? But...but...I'm down to a 14! Just an inch of waistline away from a 12!

However, in the dream, I happened to glance at myself in one of those full-length mirrors that dress shops insist on hanging RIGHT OUT IN THE STORE instead of tucking them away in the dressing rooms where nobody can witness you being mortified at the size of your butt....and what I saw scared me so badly that I woke up before I got a really good look at my dream reflection.

Upon waking, I had an insatiable urge for a chocolate chip cookie.

Seriously, this must be hormonal. My brain and my body aren't working together - they aren't playing nicely and sharing their toys.

Maybe this has to do with my husband's new exercise kick. In the past week, he's been jogging and lifting weights almost every day. It makes me tired to look at him, and it also makes me feel guilty, as the most exercise I usually get is when I decide to forego the elevator and walk up the three flights of stairs to my office.

Of course, some would say that carrying around an 18-pound squirming ball of baby is also exercise. Yeah! It's cardiovascular! That's it! And it's sort of like weight training, since he just keeps getting heavier and heavier.

Plus, I got this in an email today, from some quit-smoking service I signed up with:

Your Quit Date is:Monday, January 19, 2004 at 2:00:00 PM
Time Smoke-Free:455 days, 18 hours, 54 minutes and 51 seconds
Cigarettes NOT smoked:11,395
Lifetime Saved:2 months, 27 days, 1 hour
Money Saved:$1,995.00

Boy, do I feel better. I think I'll go have myself a cookie.

the one where I talk about my underwear with various strangers on the Internet

Today I'm going to write about what has become one of the most divisive issues between me and my husband after the birth of our little tax deduction.

No, it's not diaper changes or middle-of-the-night feedings or who gets to wash the pee-covered crib sheets.

It's my underwear.

I have found what has to be the most comfortable and wonderful pair of panties that God and Bali ever created on the face of this planet. These panties make my stomach look flat, my butt look smooth and they don't pinch me anywhere at any time.

These panties are also, according to my husband, the ugliest pair of undergarments he's ever laid eyes on - and he works in a nursing home. So yeah, that's pretty bad.

You know what, though? I don't care. I don't care how they look and I don't care if they aren't sexy. When you've had an eight-pound baby cut out of your abdomen, you tend to not want anything tight or binding around that area for a very long time afterwards.

I think all women, even those who aren't mommies, know that finding a pair of panties that make you look like you magically lost 10 pounds yet are still comfortable is almost as crucial as finding a bra that pushes up and supports without making you feel like your boobs are caught in a vise.

Charles has threatened to hunt down these panties one night while I'm sleeping and burn them in the backyard. I told him I will not be responsible for my actions should he do so.

This morning I was running a bit behind (as usual) and I asked him to iron my pants for me. He did, and then he laid them out on the bed, along with this teensy, eensy pair of lacy-cut-off-the-circulation-in-your-lower-extremities panties.

I eyed his selection, raised one eyebrow and said, "Where are my comfortable panties?"

"You mean the ones that make you look like my great-aunt Myrtle?" he responded.

"Yes. The great-aunt panties. I need them."

"I think I accidentally lost them in the wash."

"Give. Me. My. Comfortable. Panties."

"Amy. That underwear is truly horrendous. It looks like something my mother would wear. I can't stay married to you if you continue to wear them."

"I bet I could find another husband much more easily than I could find another pair of underwear this comfortable."

Speaking of clothes, who puts buttons on infant clothing? Someone who doesn't have to dress a 17-pound ball of rolling, squealing, grabbing energy, that's who.

You don't put buttons on a baby's clothes - you put snaps. SNAPS, dammit. I don't want to be struggling with trying to force a tiny little baby button into a tiny little baby buttonhole when my not-so-tiny baby is playing let's-roll-all-over-the-changing-table-until-we-fall-off.

You know what's even better than snaps? Zippers!

Just no buttons, please, for the love of all children everywhere.

disjointed and random crankiness

So, let's talk about one of the Daycare People who watches my son while I earn enough money to buy hideously expensive diapers and baby food.

We'll call this Daycare Person Jane.

Jane knows everything there is to know about Drew. She spends eight hours a day with him and therefore that qualifies her to offer advice on everything from what he's eating, how much he's spitting up and what size diapers he's wearing.

This week alone, and it's only halfway through the week, I've been informed that his diapers are too small (they're not) and he may have gastic reflux (he doesn't).

This morning, he spit up while I was changing his clothes and got some milk in his hair. Charles saw it and said, "Better clean that up or Jane will spank you." In the interests of keeping this blog G-rated (ok, PG-13, maybe), I won't mention my reply to that.

It's been quite the week at daycare anyway; I didn't realize how much losing one simple hour could throw off a baby's entire day. Every morning when I arrive to drop off Drew, it sounds like a zoo - every single baby is screeching and wailing while the Daycare People hop from crib to crib like mother birds.

It seems vaguely wrong to leave my baby amongst such clamor and vociferous caterwauling, but Drew, being a baby, is undisturbed by such displays. He finds other babies fascinating, whether they're cooing happily or purple-in-the-face-screaming.

So, I'll spend a few minutes carrying him around the room before I have to put him down, and we'll saunter from crib to crib, looking in on the occupants and discussing them intelligently amongst ourselves.

"Look, there's your friend Emma. See Emma screech? She must be hungry! Do you think she's hungry? I'm not sure why you find her distress amusing. Are you some kind of sadist?"

"And now we come to Morgan, whose mommy looks at me like I'm a bug. Yes she does! She's a big snob!"

"And here's Alex. We're not sure if Alex is a boy or a girl. Its mommy dresses it in neutral colors every day, so we just can't tell! No we can't!"

This morning, as I left Drew in his crib, he was the only baby out of the six infants in the room who wasn't crying.

I'm sure that lasted for about 2.5 seconds after the door shut behind me.

prunes and daylight savings time and various unrelated thoughts

Not trying to be graphic, but there's really no delicate way to talk about your baby's constipation, is there? Pretty much any euphemism I can think of is still, well, rather gross.

After spending much of Saturday watching him turn red in the face and make really hilarious straining, grunting, groaning noises (well hilarious to me, not so much to the people who were dining at the table next to us), I decided to call Grandmom, M.D. and find out what we should do to alleviate our son's obvious discomfort.

"Prunes," she said.

Ew. Ew. Ew. But OK, worth a shot. After all, I'm not the one who has to eat them.
Prunes. The one food we've found that Drew actually appears to dislike. I was beginning to think the boy would eat styrofoam if it was mushed up enough.

I will spare you the gory details, but let's just say the prunes worked. A little too well, if you ask me. I'm definitely never going to eat one as long as I live if that's what it does to your digestive system.

On a less disturbing note, I would like to go back in time and track down whoever thought of Daylight Savings Time and make them change my child's dirty diapers unto eternity as punishment.

I already don't get enough sleep, and now I'm losing a whole precious hour. 60 whole minutes of sleep, just gone, all thanks to some lawmakers in 1918, who were obviously drunk at the time they thought this one up.

So, OK, one of my New Year's resolutions was to be more optimistic. In order to avoid breaking this crappy resolution that I made after having my first tequila shot in 9 months, I suppose I shall have to come up with some good thoughts about Daylight Savings Time.

1. Daylight Savings Time saves energy. I don't know exactly how it saves energy, but that was one of the rationalizations for implementing it, so by God it must be true.
2. When I drive home in the afternoons, I'm heading west. In the winter, the sun is directly ahead of me and thus directly behind all traffic lights, which means I'm usually just guessing about whether that light is green or red since I can't actually see it due to the glare. Thanks to DST, I'll be able to see traffic lights on my way home, which dramatically improves my driving skills and thus makes South Carolina roadways a safer and happier place in general.
3. For the first couple of days of DST, I can easily justify morning crankiness by telling everyone that it's still really only 7 a.m., not 8 a.m. like the clock says, and therefore I should, by all rights, still be asleep or at least just waking up. This, unfortunately, loses some of its believability when you're still using it as an excuse in June.

There. My daily dose of optimism has been fulfilled.