New Addition

Please welcome the newest addition to the family. Husband's sister just had a little girl. A little girl who has the unfortunate distinction of being named after a certain character from LOTR (who will hence be called frodo)....'nuf said.

And so begins the SIL drama. So you know how SIL is always on our case about not keeping in touch (we just suck at making phone calls...please don't count the number of times you have called us in a month and then report said number back to us in an attempt to guilt us into communicating with you. That just makes us realize how crazy you are.)....

Well, since SIL was well overdue she was supposed to be induced Thursday if nothing was happening with her lady bits. So Thurs AM rolls around and we have heard nothing so we call MIL who had arrived at SIL's on Tuesday. We leave messages and wait. A few hours later we get a call from MIL telling us that 8 hours earlier the baby had been born after a long labor the day before (Wednesday). So no one thought it was a good idea to call us and let us know SIL had gone into labor, let alone that the baby had been born??? WTF people. Now it is understandable that the person who has just pushed a large human being out of her hoo hoo will be a tad preoccupied and wouldn't have time to call everyone, but MIL and BIL were both there and neither of them pushed something out of their hoo hoo. I suppose this normally wouldn't bother me so much, except for the fact that if we had done that when LM was born the shit would have hit the baby fan. And for the record we not only called them all when LM was born, but kept them updated throughout the labor. So I am officially on a boycott of Husband's family right now. Not to mention that we only today received picture of the new edition....ugh!

We'll see if I get on a 6 hr plane ride with a newly 1yr old LM to see them come X-mas....I don't think so. I am a vindictive bitch sometimes...it's only one of my many charms.

The evil eye

MIL's husband is from Mexico. He is a really great guy and is totally getting into this being LM's grandpa thing even though he married MIL when Husband was in his 30's. Husband does not speak to his father so MIL's husband is the closest thing LM's got to a paternal grandfather....and trust me, he is a much better candidate for that role than Husband's father. anyway, he and LM quite enjoy each other's company so hopefully either she will learn Spanish or he will learn English better by the time she is old enough to talk.

Sorry, back to the point of the story. When we went to visit SIL, MIL, BIL, and GMIL (that would be grandma in law) in July LM was not having a good week. She got sick and was teething and was altogether not always a happy-camper. So one afternoon when she was having a particularly crabby period (complete with uncontrollable whining and mommy-clinging) MIL's husband walked by muttering something about "the evil eye" and how the baby must have it. The what? I asked.

"the mal ojo," he said..."Bad vibes" MIL explained.

ok. Apparently, in Mexico it is widely thought that a cranky baby is often suffering from the evil eye. The evil eye are bad vibes transmitted to the baby from the adults around it. Parents who are angry, unhappy people, jealous admirers, etc (after a little research I found that Turkish women often keep their babies under wraps for 40 days after their birth to keep them safe from jealous eyes). He continued to explain hat in Mexico they do a little ritual with an egg and some alcohol to cure it.

"Ok," I said. "It will make her stop this whining?....Do it!" Hey I'm an open-minded kinda person and who am I to say that a folk ritual done with an egg can't make my sick/teething/cranky baby feel better.

MIL's husband agreed that he would do it and sent us off to fetch an egg, some rubbing alcohol and a glass. We did as we were told. Once he had all the ingredients, he rubbed some alcohol on the egg (still not sure what that part is for) and then rubbed the egg over LM's forehead, chest, arms, and legs making crosses and circles. Then he acted as if he was brushing something off her body and.....that was it, done. We waited to see if this magic would work. MIL's husband cracked the egg in the glass and proclaimed that the evil eye LM was suffering from wasn't that severe. I asked why and he said that in extreme cases when the egg is cracked into the glass it will be a funny color, sometimes black.

Now I don't know if I believe in magic and the like, but I swear 5 minutes later LM was happy as a clam. I don't know who put the evil eye on my baby....but I have my suspicions.

And we're back folks!!!

Well here we are vacationing in the Midwest and we are doing our best to relax. Unfortunately, it is difficult to travel with a baby and I am trying to chill out as much as possible. Given that I haven't really had internet for the last few days this may be a long one.

We flew in Friday evening. LM was ok on the plane, but was restless and didn't want to go to sleep. We finally made it back to my parents house after about 2 hours of driving and listening to baby screams for a good 1/2 hour.


Saturday Morning we had brunch with family and friends at the restaurant where Husband and I used to work/met. The food was good and it was nice to be in the old neighborhood again. We saw lots of old friends/co-workers and it felt weird to be around people who are still doing the same thing and existing in a life that you left behind so long ago. It made m happy that my life has changed so much....like I'm on the right track and not just doing what's easy and comfortable. I am getting more and more excited about the move to Portland and I think both Husband and I are in need of a new chapter.

Later Saturday we left for Minneapolis to visit Husband's family at SIL's house. The trip was trying and LM was not having the car seat. She hasn't been in cars much in her 6 months of life, but still I was a little surprised at her fits. We finally arrived in Midwestern suburbia around 6pm and said our hellos to the whole fam. In the past SIL and I have had our issues, but for some reason she is much easier to deal with when her husband is around....he and I get along great and he is hilarious. How he deals with her, but as guru says, every pot has its lid.

Now that SIL is finally pregnant she is a little easier to be around (and I can stop feeling guilty that my ovaries work better than hers), but at the same time she is somewhat annoying with her pregnancy perfection. She is one of those people who follows every pregnancy warning religiously no matter how minuscule the risk and you have to know all about her sacrifice. I guess it is partly because it took her 2 years to get pregnant, but still....when added to her judgemental, OCD personality it gets a little overwhelming.

Conversation we had during her last visit to NYC:
SIL: "I'm hungry"

Husband: "There's a hot dog stand. You want a hotdog?"

SIL: "I can't eat hot dogs!"

Me: "Really? Why?

SIL: "My midwife told me not to eat them because of the risk of _____(some very rare condition/disease related to eating bad pork).

Me: "Really?! I never heard that. I ate many hot dogs when I was pregnant."

SIL (in snotty voice): "Well, I'm older than you are and it took me two years to get pregnant, so I do what my doctor tells me!!!"

ok! jesus! Now I'm supposed to feel bad that I was born after you (and decided to start my family before 30 while you spent your 20's drinking yourself into oblivion) and that I have super ovaries? And I especially like the insinuation that I don't do what my doctor tells me because I am such a reckless mother....maybe I should have my baby drink some hand sanitizer to keep her germ free!

Sorry about that little outburst.....as you can tell, I have a little pent up aggression about the situation.

Anyway, the visit in Minneapolis was fun overall and it was nice to have LM spend time with MIL and GMIL (who was meeting her for the first time). We left Minneapolis on Tuesday afternoon trying to outrun a large storm coming in. We didn't quite beat it and had to pull over at one point until the rain let up a little. Eventually we got back on road just in time for LM to wake up and scream for the next 30 minutes. We arrived back at my parents house in time for dinner and have been relaxing and eating our way through my home town....I know that it seems weird that living in NYC, I miss the food from a city with 250,000 people in it.

More to come...

Conversation with my mother......alternative post title: The Grandma Wars!

Mom: "I am so glad that ____(SIL) is having a baby in November!"

Me: "Oh yeah?"

Mom: "Yeah, then ____(MIL aka FL Grandma) can have her own baby!"

Oh mom....so evil. So obviously related to me!