Cause you know you wanna hear all the random shit that goes on in my life....

Here's a quick update on things here in the "belly blogs" household:

1. My belly is still larger than I would like, but I have managed to lose 2 pounds so far since the move.

2. The little monster is now attempting to stand on her own which means a lot more falling down, smacking her face and then crying

3. LM is still basically sleeping through the night....although the waking up at 6am has continued to my dismay

4. I am working on my photography and shot a wedding yesterday. The pictures turned out pretty well and I am happy with the results.

5. Today I cast a set of chess pieces in plaster which turned out very nicely.....yes, I am crafty. Just call be Martha Stewart minus the fraud...and about 30 years.

6. I unfortunately have started smoking again (don't ask why, I can't tell you) but at least I can get outside away from LM. Now I just have to start doing lots of cocaine and drinking and I can really show off my superb parenting skills.

7. Husband is leaving Friday to start the long drive to OR. LM and I will be flying over and joining him on the 1st of October.

8. *Random Tangent* Why is it that as soon as you have a baby people start asking about when you will have more? Slow down people. We are still trying to keep this one from killing herself on a daily basis, let's not get ahead of ourselves.

9. *Random tangent #2* My parents' neighbors have about 5 dogs that they have in an outdoor kennel at all times and the fuckers bark incessantly. WTF shitty neighbors. Don't have dogs if they aren't allowed to come int he house.

10. LM has learned to say "Doggie" (although it comes out more like "dogga"), unfortunately now anything with 4 legs and fur is a "dogga" whether it is canine or not.

11. I still have yet to find a job in Portland....yeah, we are being real responsible about this whole moving across the country thing.

12. We are missing Supernanny and are tyring to find her yet another new job since woman we found before we left turned out to be an insane nanny Nazi who walks around her house with the baby in high heels. Who does shit like that. Apparently she didn't really want a nanny, she wanted a maid and she rarely even lets Supernanny hold the baby let alone take care of her. So if anyone knows of some nice people who are looking for a nanny let me know.

13. On Tuesday I am taking Lm to her first mommy and me play group. I am both excited and nervous about this. On the one hand I think that LM will LOVE it. She adores other children and I think has been missing all her friends from the NYC playgrounds. On the other hand, I am not that huge a fan of people in general and the thought of socially interacting with people who I might very well dislike simply because we have spawn disturbs me. I am not your typical mother. Usually I am younger than everyone else at these things and I have a much more laid back approach to parenting (read letting baby chew on batteries....please don't send me nasty emails about this, it's a joke people!) Ahhh, the sacrifices we make for our crotch fruit.

14. *Random tangent #3* Why is health insurance so damn expensive? I mean seriously folks! Who's a girl gotta sleep with to get some coverage around here?

15. My grandmother is slowly descending into madness (well I guess it's more like falling really fast). Apparently now her big problem is that her shoes won't stay one her feet. But no one else seems to see the shoes magically leaping from her feet. Although I suppose this is better than the time she thought there were little children living in the nursing home that walked through walls (My grandmother does not have dementia or Alzheimer's. She is, however, 95 and completely off her rocker).

16. I am enjoying my time so far away from the city. At times I am already nostalgic for the lights and sounds of NYC, but then there are times like these where I sit in front of the fire pit out under the stars and can type and listen to the crickets. At times like these, I know I'm not missing a thing.

Farewell concrete jungle

Tomorrow we pack up and leave the city we have come to call home. It is a little strange, but I haven't had too much time to think about with all the packing, training my replacement, and trying to see friends and places we love before we blow this pop stand.
I have had enough cake in the last few days to send me into a sugar coma.....but I'm not complainin'.

LM has been a little better about her sleeping, but she is still waking up multiple times during the night. She has 4 teeth attempting to come in right now so we are battling that at the moment. I have mixed feeling regarding the teething biscuits. On the one hand she loves them and they seem to make her teeth feel better. On the other hand....they're probably the nastiest creation known to man. They get everywhere and they are cement-like in consistency....awesome.

Tomorrow night and most of Friday LM will have to live without me since my parents are flying back to the soggy midwest with her while Husband and I drive the 18 or so hours in the U-haul. We will stay there for a few weeks before starting out journey westward to Portland.

Although, I will no longer be a New Yorker, a piece of my heart will always be here and with the people who have made my time here special. I am proud to say that we made it here...and for the most part flourished. Even the hard times I wouldn't change.
I promise to keep the blog going even though it will be Sex, love, marriage, and kids, in the NEW city!

Wish us luck in our new adventure.

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.

Holy crap! I think I killed my baby!

After a difficult plane ride to WI and an exhausting week of car trips filled with screaming, I decided that something had to be done for the plane ride back to NY. MIL is a pediatric nurse so she suggested we give LM some benadryl to make her sleepy for the trip. That sounded fine since she had a cold anyway, maybe the meds would make her feel better as well as make her easier to deal with. MIL calculated the dosage based on LM's weight and we were good to go.

We had given her the Benadryl on Tuesday's car ride back from MN and it was a little better. She slept a lot of the car ride and there wasn't nearly as much fussing. So fast forward to Sat morning and we are waiting at the gate for our plane to board.

"Ok," Husband said,"we should give it to her now since it takes a bit to kick in."

And so we gave her the amount recommended by the medical professional and hoped that her cold wouldn't make this an even worse experience than the last time. We got on the plane and it took off. Everything was going smoothly, LM was getting sleepy, she hadn't cried during take-off and I was feeling optomistic!

Then, things took a turn for the worse. LM was asleep and she started coughing. The coughing led to gagging and soon I was covered in vomit. She had been eating during take-off to keep her ears from hurting so this wasn't that strange, but was certainly annoying given that I had to change my shirt. Luckily I had packed a little zippy sweatshirt. I left LM with Husband and walked down the aisle trying to hold my sweatshirt over my now puke covered right side when I encountered the dreaded beverage cart. Damn! I have to get through. The flight attendants were nice about it and tried to move over as much as possible to let my butt by. I finally got to the bathroom and changed my shirt. I went back to my seat (once again squeezing back between the beverage cart and other passengers' seats) and was happy to see LM sleeping peacefully on Husbands shoulder.

A few minutes later there was some more coughing, and gagging, and more vomit, which I luckily caught with a burp cloth since Husband did not have an extra shirt. LM was really out. each time she would throw up she wasn't really waking up and would pass back out right afterwards. I started to worry a little. Was she really sick? was the plane making her nauseaus? Then again! Cough, cough, and woosh...out came the larger gush of puke that has ever escaped the lips of a creature weighing 16 pounds!!! Holy crap! Husband and I both jumped back a little while Husband held a limp little monster in the air. I wiped furiously at the puke that was everywhere (even on the woman behind us - which I felt a little bad about, but at that moment, I just couldn't care).

My baby had just vomited enough to fill at least a pint glass (without even eating that much) and to top it off, we couldn't wake her up. we shook her gently, we called her name, we put ice on her lips and while she would react slightly (to the ice anyway) she would not open her eyes. I pulled up her eyelids an seeing that he eyes weren't rolling back in her head made me feel a teeny bit better, but not much. Her breathing seemed ok, but I didn't know what to do. I felt so helpless. We were on a plane, if she stopped breathing we couldn't even take her to the hospital. Oh God! I was panicking. It must be the Benadryl, what if I've killed her. I was freaking out. tears were starting to form at the corners of my eyes and I just sat there watching her, making sure that her little chest was still going up and down. That was all I could do.

She didn't vomit again and after about 1/2 and hour - 45 minutes LM slowly opened her eyes an looked at me sleepily. I was so happy I can't even explain to you the feeling of relief that washed over me. I didn't kill my baby! Thanks to a God I don't really even believe in!!!

30 minutes later we were on the ground and LM was pretty much back to normal, although a little cranky because now she was hungry after puking shards of her pelvis onto mommy, daddy, and the lady in seat 5C (sorry again!)

It was quite an adventure. One that I hope to never repeat. I don't know if I have ever been that scared in my whole life.