Cockroaches and Spiders and Toilets, Oh My!

Great googally moogally. There be some big and scurry critters up in this place. If you follow me on twitter (which you should totally be doing, by the way. All the cool kids are doing it and you want to be cool, dontcha? DONTCHA?!? Peer pressure. Best.Invention.Ever.) Where was I? Oh yes, twitter. If you follow me on twitter, you would have seen pictures from my house of gigantic cockroaches and scary black Red Back spiders that have made me scream loud enough for my mom in New Mexico to perk her ears up in a, “HARK! My baby calleth! She must have seen a bug!” sort of way. Mommy-ears. I now totally get it.

TWO INCH FLYING COCKROACH!! I think it ate my cat.

ANYwho. The important part of that paragraph (other than the peer pressure you feel to follow me on twitter, like all the smart, good-looking, cool kids do), is that I am from New Mexico. No. I am not Mexican. Nor do I speak Spanish. Except for the two years I took in high school and the one semester in college that I took with My Mister when we were still dating so that we could have a class together. All together now: Awwwww.

Actually, that semester in college really came in handy for both My Mister and me when we were in Spain a few years back. We were with his parents and had stopped at a nursery for some long-forgotten reason. No- we were not trying to buy a Spanish kid- we could have done that in NM. It was the kind of nursery where you buy trees. Work with me here. 

All I remember is that I had to pee like RIGHT NOW and pulled out my, “Donde esta el

baño?” from my high school Spanish days. The lady behind the register told me it was around the side of the building and then continued with whatever she was doing. What she failed to tell me, and even I with my limited Spanish would have known if she had, was that you didn't need a key to get into the bathroom, but she had to give you the freakin’ doorknob in order to exit said establishment.

OH YES. The understanding. It dawns on you.

I did my peepee dance on over to el baño and thought it was weird that there was no doorknob but only hoped that nobody would walk past and look into the hole where the doorknob should be and see my, “This is how I spell relief” face. Once I was done and was ready to exit el bano, I then noticed that I WAS LOCKED IN A BATHROOM IN SPAIN.

I started looking around me to think of ways to MacGyver my way out if needed, but was hoping that someone would walk by and I could get their attention and not need to knock down the bathroom door. As if on cue, a car pulled up and my would-be saviors got out of the car. HOWEVER. I did not call for help. It was a car full of four, young Spanish guys and I decided I would rather die of starvation in the Spanish bathroom than die of embarrassment from calling them over. Egads.

About 10 minutes later, just as I was about to use the plunger to knock out the small vent on the bottom of the door, along came my Knight in Shining Armor. My Mister came along and was calling me. I guess he finally figured out that I said I needed to pee, not that I had Montezuma’s revenge which necessitated 15 minutes on the toilet. Besides- that’s from the wrong Spanish speaking nation. Not every Spanish speaker is from Mexico. Racists.

A few moments later, My Mister arrived with the doorknob and let me out of my Spanish prison.

After thanking him and kissing him profusely, I asked how he was able to get the door knob and he very proudly replied that he told the cashier lady, “Mi esposa esta en el baño y no puede abrir la puerta.” Which very roughly translates to, “My wife iz purdy but she sho’ iz dumb.”

ANYwho. That whole long digression brings me back to New Mexico where our first rattles come from snakes and giant wolf spiders, great big grizzly bears, and black widows are found in our backyards and we eat scorpions for breakfast. Hey. Anything with green chile on it is cool in my book.

That being said, I must say that I have only ever seen a black widow spider maybe five times in my entire life. They are very venomous- a bite can be fatal- but I never ever feared going outside barefooted and running through our barn or climbing trees, having rock fights, or riding bikes down stuckoed stairways on the side of restaurants. (Yes- I did do that. My 7th grade yearbook picture shows the large head wound I incurred from that not-so-bright decision. My brother still laughs at me to this day.)

THAT BEING SAID.

I am SCARED OUT OF MY WITS to go outside in my backyard and into our shed. The exterminator came by yesterday and found 3 Red Back Spiders (the Black Widow’s Australian cousin) on my backyard gate alone. There was another 2 that came out of hiding outside my living room window. I’ve seen five of those scary man-eaters in 10 minutes versus five Black Widows in my ENTIRE LIFE.

I feel a little safer now that my house has been sprayed down, but still. DUDE. If there was a Red Back Spider in that Spanish bathroom, I could guarantee that I would not have needed anybody saving me- I would have had that door down in a minute flat and barreled my way back home to NM where the chile is hot, the girls are dumb, and the spiders know to stay out of sight.

Red Back Spider from outside my living room window. ALL THE BUGGIES DIE!!!

Christmas Memories from The Grinch

I finally did it. It was under threat of family abandonment and after a flurry of increasingly urgent emails, but I finally did it. Last night, I made up my Christmas wish list. Whew!

At risk of sounding Grinchy, I have not thought a whit about Christmas and to say I do not have the Christmas Spirit this year is like saying Santa has Type II Diabetes due to eons of gorging on cookies and milk set out by greedy boys and girls around the world. Yeah- that's right. Go ahead and continue stuffing him full of cookies- what's it to me if he goes into a diabetic coma while flying over Sacramento? I'm the Grinch! And I like my itty bitty teeny tiny heart! BAH HUMBUG!

Ah dang- getting my Christmas villains mixed up. MUST.SLEEP.MORE.

This holiday season has been the farthest thing from my mind, especially since I know that Santa doesn't deliver sleep on Christmas morning. I spent way too many years as a kid forcing my parents' eyelids open so we could unwrap our loot to ever think I'd be able to sleep in on Christmas morning. One year for my birthday I received an AM/FM microphone where, with the correct frequency, you could turn your radio into your own personal record studio. I'm pretty sure my parents really regretted that present on Christmas morning when their bedroom radios were playing non-stop, "IT'S CHRISTMAS!! IS IT TIME TO WAKE UP YET?? IT'S 4:30!!!!" and then, "HOW ABOUT NOW? IT'S 4:35!!!!!"

Of the three of us siblings, being the oldest, it was my duty to get the ball rolling whenever questions needed to be asked, boundaries needed to be pushed, and presents to be discovered and covertly unwrapped/wrapped back up prior to Christmas morning.  I think the only year I was unable to locate our presents was the year our mom hid them in the barn. I always wondered why our gifts smelled slightly of animal poop. Dang- she was a genius.

I was a pro at sllllooooooowly pulling the tape off of the wrapping as to not tear it and then rewrapping it once we found out what it was. My sister, unfortunately, could not keep her 4-year-old trap shut and would rat me out if my mom asked her point blank if we found them. I remember being so mad at her and saying, "I told you you got Bianca the Mouse and you still told on me?? I will remember this and blog about it someday so that everyone in the world will know what a Christmas ruiner you are!" 

Ok, maybe I didn't say the last part, but it really was Bianca the Mouse- a detail like that is seared in my mind after such a heinous sisterly betrayal. And then my brother and I would shun her and she would cry and then my mom would get mad at us and take away our presents so that she was the only one who would have any since she was such a reliable rat so honest and pure.

As we got older, our love and impatience for Christmas morning never waned and we all would try to catch our mom filling our stockings in the wee hours of the morning and always just miss her. Each year promising that we would not attempt to wake them up before 6am and each year say, "Well, 5:45 is almost 6!" Each year dumping out our stockings so we could chew a piece of Double Bubble while sorting out our gifts into piles so we could count who had the most gifts and each year my bro and I would gripe that our sister once again had the most.

Those Christmas memories are some of my favorite memories and I must admit to being transported back to our childhood where we three were always cooking up something mischevious and fun. Ahh- to have the childlike love and purity during this season. That's what's been missing. I thought it was the weather that was missing- how can it be Christmas when it's 100 degrees outside? I thought it was the lack of Christmas music blaring in all the stores since October. I thought it was the lack of Christmas decorations since My Mister decided at the last minute to put all of our decorations into storage* which means we have no evidence of Christmas AT ALL in our house as of yet.

Yes, it is a little of all of those things, but it's mostly that I've grown up and have grown up worries and stressors and have lost my focus as I wearily stumble through my day. I just need a change of focus right now. Instead of being the little girl who tried catching her mommy fill the stockings, I'm now the mommy and will one day have stockings to fill for my Little Mister. So, even though I'm not currently bursting at the seams with Christmas joy at this moment, I do now have a little child in my life who will one day try waking me up at 4am to open up his gifts and who CANNOT.WAIT. for Christmas to get here. I'll get to relive some of my memories as he's making his and I must admit, that does fill me with joy.

So, for that chubby-cheeked, almond-eyed little boy, I'm not letting this Christmas sneak past me, no matter how warm the weather or decoration-less we may be. My wish list was filled with things for him (and a little for me- that greedy little girl hasn't completely disappeared) and it'll be fun to see him playing with the wrapping paper and taking pictures of him with bows on his head (no matter how much his dad may complain). We ordered a tree online and will hopefully get it this week. I've scored some decorations that were on sale while grocery shopping the other day, so we'll at least have a little evidence of Christmas fairly soon. And I've got the best husband in the whole world who has been mischievously giggling as boxes come in the mail since he hasn't forgotten about Christmas this year and has been buying me gifts for a while. (I know- how does a Grinch like me deserve a Who like him?)

So, with only 12 days left til Christmas, I'm going to try to bring back those childhood memories, starting with all of our favorite Christmas cartoons. Bring on Rudolph, Charlie Brown, Garfield, Frosty, and even The Grinch! I'll leave you with one of my favorite scenes from A Claymation Christmas- makes me laugh each time. :)



* Even though I griped at him when our stuff got here and I realized that we didn't have our Christmas decorations, I really can't blame him for this decision- Australia has some of the strictest import and quarantine guidelines in the world. We didn't have time to go through our decorations to ensure our stuff wouldn't be delayed because we didn't take out the wreath that had a pinecone in it. Also, our lights wouldn't have run without using a transformer, anyway, so we would have to buy new lights regardless. All this to say, we'll begin making new Christmas memories this year, which is a good thing.

Welcome Home

Thank you to all you fellow mothers who have been giving me encouragement during these sleep-less days and reinforcing the fact that these days only seem interminable but will in actuality eventually end... one of these days. One of these long, long, never ending days I will indeed get more than 1-2 hours of sleep at a time. The crazy thing is that, cumulatively, I actually get around 8 hours of sleep. However, the constant waking up and never getting into a deep sleep really takes its toll, ya know?

These last couple weeks have been some of THE.WORST. in the sleep department. Whenever I hear, "He's 4 months old and still eating every 2 hours? Really? My little angel was sleeping 12 hours straight at 3 months. *smirky smirk*" I just want to ever so maturely, in my best grown up voice, tell them, "Yeah. Well you're ugly and so is your kid." And then moon them.

Even though I've been the embodiment of The Walking Dead, these last couple weeks weren't as bad as they could have been. My in-laws came for a 10 day visit for Thanksgiving which ended up being a huge blessing. Little Mister started waking up at 6am and wanted to tell us all about the awesome raves he attended in his dreams- complete with all the dance moves he learned- and I would weep as I realized my baby had better dance moves than me. My Mister would take him to the living room and let me sleep for an hour at which time Little Mister was ready for his early morning nap. He would eat and then sleep until 9am. This is his longest nap of the day and the only time I can "sleep when he sleeps." (And, yes, I may be a new mom, but I do know that I should attempt to "sleep when he sleeps." However, he takes 30-60 minute naps during the day. As soon as I close my eyes or get into a deep sleep (which is usually the same thing), he wakes up and I get a pounding headache. I feel more groggy and less rested than if I had just stayed up. Argh.)

Once he and I woke up, I'd bring him into the living room and let Grandma and Grandpa play with and entertain him until the next feeding time. I was able to get a little "me" time and for that I was very thankful. It was also nice to have help in the kitchen to prepare the Thanksgiving meal. I knew it was going to be a challenge not only because of Little Mister being a new addition to the equation, but also because all of my kitchen stuff was still en route and I had to do the best I could with very limited tools. It was quite funny, actually. We had to use the same pot- including washing it in between each dish- to boil the sweet potatoes, the regular potatoes (for mashed taters), the spinach (for creamed spinach...which I ate a little bit and then paid for it with a humungous diaper explosion from Little Mister the next day), and the brussels sprouts. It was also funny planning out how to cook/bake everything in the little teeny tiny hot-box they call an oven over here. (For reals- I had to use my neighbor's oven to cook the sweet potatoes since only the turkey fit in mine.)

The day after they left, another huge blessing occurred- our household items FINALLY made it here!!!!  WHOOOO HOOOOO! For the first time in 3 months, we were able to sleep in our own bed and eat on our own plates and even use our own toilet paper. Yes. We shipped over some Charmin since we learned the Aussies are not privy to the opulent, spongy, cloud-like pleasure wiping one's butt can be. 

So, we've been unpacking all weekend long and are just about finished. I must admit that it's kinda fun deciding where our stuff should go and it was like an early Christmas as we opened up boxes and said, "Why did we bring this crap?"

The best thing of all is that my yarn is back home!!! YAY!!! Ahhh....How I missed my precioussss. However, I was very distraught to learn that not ALL of my yarn made it here. I have A LOT of yarn. A lot, a lot. But, I also know what yarn I have and I could definitely tell that some of it was missing. I had quite a bit of brown wools (used to make several of my purses) as well as a great stash of the pink yarn for my Felted Watermelon Tote. They didn't make it. (Well, some of the pink did, but not all of it.) Honestly, had it not been some of the yarn that I use most often, I wouldn't have been so upset, but those happen to be the two colors that I use the most. A.R.G.H.

Another HUGE bummer- one that I don't know if I'll ever get over- is that a selection of my favorite books did not make it. I had set aside a collection of my favorite books to be mailed here when we packed out of our house so that I could read them during our 3 month wait time. Well, due to time and weight constraints, those books ended up having to be shipped here. HOWEVER, much to my dismay, that box must have gotten mixed up with the boxes sent to storage and now I don't know when I'll see them again. Many of them were my comfort and escape books- ones I've read numerous times like Jane Eyre, Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings. I AM SO BEYOND UPSET ABOUT THIS.

As I contemplate how I'm going to survive without some of my best literary friends, I can take comfort in knowing that our new home is starting to truly feel like "home" now. It's weird seeing our stuff in new places- and I'll readily admit I became a little weepy as I was unpacking and picturing each item in its place in our old home- but it sure does feel good having some familiarity around me now.

So, as I'm off to face another night cycle of sleep-wake-weep, at least I can do it on my own bed, snuggling next to My Mister while holding our new baby. Welcome home, Gege. Welcome home.

Mommy Time

Sorry for the sporadic blogging as of late. It goes with my sporadic mental and physical capabilities, not to mention my sanity. Dude. How can such a little person demand so much time and energy? I've just spent the past 3 hours trying to get him to take a nap. I tried nursing him, rocking him, singing to him, downing a fifth of whiskey....NOTHING WORKED!

I know he was tired- it wasn't just my wishful thinking- yet he just refused to sleep unless it was in my arms. The kid weighs 19 pounds (yes, at 4 months- I wasn't kidding when I called him my Baby Huey. The kid can eat.) and I've got a crick in my neck from holding and jiggling him around for the past 13 months (heck yes I'm counting pregnancy! I'm not letting him live that down!)  Although I love him to bits and I love him when he's a happy baby (which, thankfully, is more often than not) and I enjoy playing with him and finding new tickle spots to hear him laugh with his gummy little mouth, I am ashamed to admit that I can't help thinking, "How can I knock him out so I can have some ME time?!?"

I have discovered that I am the most selfish person in the whole world and am obviously not cut out for the very selfless occupation of motherhood but it's too late to give him back and I don't think I can shove him back up the way he came down even if I tried. And then I think how precious he is and how much I love him and how the heck can I possibly think of going back to living without him in my life and I end up flogging myself for being the worst mother in the whole world. AND THEN HE STARTS TEETHING. Oh dear God the crankiness and the clingy-ness. I'm nursing around the clock to try and pacify him only to discover that he'd rather suck on my fingers than my boobies and I wish I would have discovered that before he started reacting in fear whenever I whip out a boob because even babies can get scared of the deranged topless woman chasing them about saying, "Just put it in your mouth and go to sleep!!!"

AND NOW HE WOKE UP! Three paragraphs! That's all I got out before The Cranky Wonder woke up from his "nap." More like a "I'll-close-my-eyes-for-a-minute-to-trick-her-into-thinking-she-can-have-time-away-from-me-and-then-I'll- yell-SURPRISE!!!-I'm-awake-and-there's-nothing-you-can-do-about-it!"

(I just placed him on his playmat so I can at least hopefully finish this blog post. I'm also ignoring his fussy "almost" cries but will leap into action when they turn into "for reals" cries.)

Oh crap. The "real" cries.

So much for Mommy Time.

A Sleep Disturbance In the Force

Ok. I’m back from my mini-blogging sabbatical. It was a necessary break, especially since I’m not sure if my fingers would have been able to get out any coherent words from my extremely sleep deprived brain. I wasn’t kidding when I said this lack of sleep thing was getting to me. I’ve been speaking to people and have been at a loss for words- common words like “book” and "the"- and have had a very difficult time keeping track of the days of the week. However, when Big Mister asked if I wanted him to hold Little Mister and walk him around since he was being fussy and not falling asleep and my reply was, “I don’t know. Just throw him in the river,” and then burst into tears, I realized that I REALLY needed sleep.

I’ve been “surviving” on one hour chunks of sleep at a time for the last (almost) 4 months. The crazy thing is that Little Mister has been a good sleeper; however he likes to eat. A LOT. He’s been doing great sleeping in his crib from around 7pm to midnight or so, but as I said before, I’ve not been going to bed until 11, so that is the first 1 hour chunk of sleep. Once I bring Little Mister back to bed with us since I’m so tired and groggy, he likes to eat every 1-2 hours until Big Mister’s alarm goes off. I AM DYING.

In a moment of lucidity, I wondered if the fact that I was keeping him in bed with us was part of the problem. I mean, he couldn’t really be STARVING every 1-2 hours, right? He’s just sleeping and bumps into me and realizes how convenient it is to have his food right there. Think about it- if you were sleeping and had a jonsing for a midnight snack but were too lazy to get up and get one so you turned over in your sleep and Hallelujah! There's a Snickers bar poking you in the eye! Wouldn’t you just thank your lucky stars, open your greedy little mouth, and chomp away? Exactly! So I can’t blame the little guy for eating all night long when my Snickers bars keep poking him in the eye every time he turns in his sleep. Light bulb moment, folks.

So, this past week I wised up and thought I’d go to bed at 8 to try to get in a good 4 hour chunk. As I laid in bed with my eyes closed and my brain refusing to shut down until 11, I couldn’t help but think of all the things I could be doing since I didn’t have a baby attached to me. (I also dreamt up many new designs…one of which I finished yesterday and am starting the second one to test the pattern. Kuddles- you up for testing sometime in the next couple weeks??). When I finally fell asleep, it was time to bring little Mister back to bed and feed him. He ate and fell back asleep and I put him back in his crib, hoping to cut off his Snickers addiction. I blearily got back into bed and was trying to fall back asleep when this horrendously loud snarling Tasmanian Devil war cry started reverberating around the room. How was I going to fall asleep with a warring faction of Tasmanian Devils on the loose in my room??? When my brain kicked in, I realized it was my Mister who was snoring like he was out to win a snoring competition.

AND INHALE *snort up living creatures and gargle with them* AND EXHALE *bark like a seal and blow raspberries on the windows*

OH DEAR GOD IT WAS LOUD.

I remembered I had bought some Breathe Right strips at the end of my pregnancy since My Mister said I started snoring at night. So I crept into the bathroom and dug around until I found them. I then tried to stealthfully ninja attack Big Mister’s nose with one of the strips. I peeled the backing off the sticky side, placed it on his nose and then pinched it with all the strength of millions of sleep deprived mothers everywhere. IT WORKED! The awful sound stopped! Big Mister jolted out of sleep scared out of his wits and was pawing at his injured nose. I swatted his hand away and stage whispered, “LEAVE IT ON! YOU WERE SNORING AND THIS WILL HELP YOU SLEEP!” because I’m a good wife and only care for his health and well being.

He must have believed me because he turned over and fell right back asleep. NO MORE SNORING! Score one for ninja nose pinching!

I crawled back in bed and finally started dozing off when Little Mister realized he didn’t have a Snickers bar in his eye. GAH!

I persevered this week, however, and continued to put Little Mister back in his crib after feeding him. It seems to be working- the last few nights he woke at 12:30, 4:30, and then 7:30. (!!!!) AMAZING!!!!

I’m not rejoicing just yet, however, since he’s done this before- had a “routine” for a couple days and then WHAPOW! Let’s change it up just for the heck of it!! HAHA! Sleep depriving mommy is fun! Teach her to take away my Snickers!!! MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Anywho…hopefully things will start to improve this week. I truly am an addled brained mess right now but I’m going to try and go to bed at 8 at least once or twice this week and will be back with my Weekly Meal Planning next week. (As an aside- this dairy free thing is working so well! No more bloody stools and even the frequency of Little Mister’s marathon pooping has decreased! Although, it might have been better when he pooped all day long rather than in just a couple bursts throughout the day since he’s now having diaper blowouts nearly everyday. Like this past Friday at my Friday Fibre Friends group. It wasn’t too terrible until I realized that I pulled my favorite noob mommy mistake and didn’t pack him an extra pair of clothes….AGAIN. When will I learn???!?)

Just because I'm wearing a cute beanie doesn't take away from the fact that I'm naked, mother.

* NOTE: Just because I know Big Mister will be mortified to know I told the world he sounded like a Tasmanian Devil in heat, I want to let y'all know that he does not usually snore. But when he does, he wins competitions. He's THAT good. (War cry...in  heat...same diff.)

*Double note: Cute green knitted beanie was made by new Fibre Friend Miranda who is one heck of a talented, crafty lady!