Oh and How I Count the Ways

He plays guitar. I wake up some nights and he's gone from the bed, but I hear guitar music from across the house, in the empty room at the end of the hall , and I know he's there.
The next day, that song is in our heads and we sing it back and forth to each other.

Alone, But Not Really

The baby is on the floor, looking up at me and kicking his feet on the floor. Bonk. bonk, bonk. The fish tank is making it's "I'm peeing" sound and the computer is humming. Otherwise, the house is totally quiet now because I am home alone. I would go to the park, or the library or just for a drive. But the car is with H-Man and H-Man is up in the mountains working.
I'm thinking about mountains and how people used to consider them little more than large, dangerous warts on the surface of the earth. This was before modern vehicles and Sir Edmund Hillary, apparently.
When we were in New Zealand we were walking around Castle Hill, a place where giant bare rocks jut out of the earth. A little boy cam running up the hill and shouted "I'm Sir Edmund Hillary" and started to climb the rocks. What do kids say in America? "I'm Neil Armstrong"? I kind of doubt it.
I watched "The Right Stuff" not too long ago. Interesting how the space race was the most interesting and exciting thing in the world at that time, and today very few people care about or think about space travel. It was a good movie. I really enjoyed it, even though it had Dennis Quaid in it.
I was driving this morning and pulled up the stop sign at the bottom of our street. There was a sign there it said "Wait here for Pilot Car" So I waited, but there was no one around. No construction workers, not car, nothing. So I turned right, without this alleged pilot car , and pulled up to the stop light 100 yards are so away. There was a construction worker there, holding a slow sign in the middle of the street. He shouted at me "You need to wait for the Pilot Car at that stop sign" I responded "Where was the pilot car, I didn't see anything!" and he said "you just have to wait for it. But you can go now" I looked at the cross traffic speeding past and looked at him and said "the light is red and there are cars going, how can I go now?" and he said "you need to wait for the light to turn green" I considered suggesting that they could have hired a traffic cone to do his job of holding a slow sign and spouting ridiculousness, but since I'm not too clear on the union guidelines of traffic cones, I kept my mouth shut.

The Art of Spiritual House Wifery

So I'm a stay-at-home-mom now. After years of recognized employment as a photographer, a zoo keeper, shoe maker and ice-cream scooper, I find myself without independent income, all dressed up in my pajamas and nowhere to go. Fortunately I have the support of my other SAHMs. We get together, have nice lunches and all that grown up crap that I never saw myself doing.
Also, I have never worked harder in my life. 24 hour work, no pay and little appreciation, except of course from the man-child and H-man. But the benefits are far superior that health care and workman's comp. I get to be with my baby all day every day, and I wouldn't trade that for anything in the world. Why would I want to be at work when I could, instead, be with my little boy and see his first time crawling, or laughing or anything for that matter.
The house is mine for the caring. I clean and cook and play with the baby. I make H-man's lunches and have dinner ready for him when he gets home. I really enjoy this lifestyle, it makes me feel needed and appreciated.

Better Lighting,I Guess

Husbandman: "I'm going to go look at my thing outside"
Me: "..."
H-Man "my tomatoes, I'm going to go look at my tomatoes, outside"

Stella

Stella was obviously in pain, she was walking around the house yowling (more so than usual) and moving her mouth in a weird way. I managed to grab her and pin her and pry open her mouth and was met with a stench that could only be described as "god-awful". Her lower left canine was pink, it was actually pink and had green pus all around the gum line, also it was very very wobbly.
When I think about bad teeth I think about Al Bundy. There's an episode of Married With Children where Al has some tooth issues and has one of his kid's look at it. The kid, Bud? Kelly? looks at it and describes it as "fizzing". Stella's tooth was not fizzing, but it was disgusting.
So we took her to the vet and took out the tooth, and she got medicine. She smells a lot better now, and is gaining weight again. We chalked up her poor condition and weight loss to baby stress. We had no idea it was because of a horrible oral condition.
Later on that week, our friend was over visiting and he was asking about Stella. Husbandman says, "she really hates it when I try to stick anything in her mouth". Friend looks at him, silently. "He means medicine" I added.

6 months later....

So, it turns out that having a baby takes up a lot of your time. Even when he's asleep on my lap, the clickety clackety of the keyboard as I type wakes him up, so updating this blog has been difficult, nay, impossible until recently when the man-child began to sleep through the night. In his own bed.
Having not slept for six months, at least for more than 2 hours at a time, I can definitely say that sleep is a valuable commodity in this house. Many mornings I wake up with the baby, take him for a walk and run errands while Husband man sleeps in and gets ready for work. H-man, by the very nature of his job, doesn't get home, sometimes until 2 or 3 am. So bless his heart, he gets to sleep in. But often I find myself rolling over to my beloved husband and whispering into his ear,"I will give you a million dollars if you wake up with him today" before I collapse back into the warm fuzzy arms of sleep.
Motherhood is wonderful, of course, and our little Mr. Pants is the light of our lives and the center of everything that we live for. Also, he just may be the cutest baby who has ever existed in the history of the world.
Before Mr. Pants I never could understand why people talked about their kids so much. Now I get it. I used to not really care about babies, then I had one and I find myself "Oohing" and "Awwwwwing" over someones baby pictures or some baby at the store. It's rather disgusting, and startles people close to me to find out that I do, in fact, have a soul somewhere in this cold squishy body of mine.
Speaking of cold and squishy. If I read one more quote from a celebrity about how they lost all their baby weight by breastfeeding, I may lose it. I'm still at the the weight I was when I popped out the little guy, and that little guy eats more than you could imagine.

Ahhh, Love

I've been bugging the husband to shave for ohhh... about three weeks now. Jeremiah Johnson has nothing on him. We watched a video about a beard and mustache competition, I suggested he enter. We've gone to the supermarket and a woman approached him about his spectacular beard. It's really, really ridiculous.
Yesterday I had "Ferngully: The Last Rainforest" on as I cleaned up around the house. I noticed that all the "bad guys" had facial hair. In bed last night I commented on this.
Me: "You know in Ferngully, all the bad guys had facial hair, that means you would be a bad guy in a cartoon"
H: "Well, I guess that means you would be a bad guy too"

touche.

Stellar Communication Skills

In which H and I discuss a variety of topics.

Politics
H: Gavin Newsom dropped out of the gubernatorial race.
M: Hmm, why? I would have voted for him, he's hot, I mean I agree with his political views.
H: Something about not having enough time as mayor and family man.
30 seconds later...
M: So why did he drop out?

Household affairs:
M: I smeared some borax, salt and vinegar on that stain in the bedroom carpet.
H: okay, does it work?
M: I don't know, we'll find out later
30 seconds later H walks into the bedroom
H: Gah! What is this white crap all over the floor?

Culinary Skills:
H: Your dough looks, uh, a little gooey.
M: Shut up! Go away!
H: What does the recipe say?
M: It says leave me alone and shut up!

Time Management:
H: Hi Babe, what did you do today?
M: I did nothing, I played World of Warcraft for 8 hours straight.
H: Yeah, I thought the house looked pretty nice.

Child Rearing:
M: I love you, H-man, you're the best thing to ever happen to me and I adore everything about you. I'm so lucky that you married me.
H: What?

I Love my Husband

"You haven't got the pregnant 'fat-face' yet, a lot of women get a real fat face when they gain a ton of weight."

( to a friend we just had coffee with) "Did I tell you about the sex we're having? I mean the sex of the baby."

many more later

Blasto

Yes, yes. I'm pregnant.
I can't say it came as much of a surprise as we were trying to become pregnant, but I am surprised by the daily rush of panic, misgivings and nausea.
The official due date is December 17th. We think it's a boy but it' s, or course, still early to tell.
Wish me luck.
" So why the picture of the rough skinned newt?" you may be asking yourself, well, H-man is finishing up his projects for the school year and I got to go with him to check on live-traps up in the mountains. When I say I "got to go with him" I of course mean he dragged me out of bed despite my whining and nausea and forced me to have a good time, which I did. Now I have poison oak. See what having a good time will get you?

Brew

I almost forgot to mention that Husbandman won second place in the Co-Op Home Brew contest with his Stout. I should also mention that this was his first brew contest and his first brew from scratch via his own recipe.
What can't this guy do? On our trip to Oregon he helped a little old woman whose children had left her alone in the car at a beach for 4 hours, then yesterday when we were walking around town he helped a woman with her wheelchair. I have quite possibly married the most wonderful guy in the world.

Friday

Often when I'm talking to friends who I haven't seen in a while, and that generally means all my friends, I explain that I have been out of touch because I'm always at work. Actually that's not true. I wake up in the morning, catch the bus, walk up to work, work all day, walk down to the bus, ride the bus home, clean up around the house a little, eat, read, watch a movie, fall asleep. Lather, rinse, repeat. So a more truthful answer would be "well, I haven't been around because I'm either on the bus, walking, at work, or hanging out with Husbandman for the few precious hours before I have to wake up and do it all again." But then I would just sound like I'm wining, which I happen to be very good at thankyouverymuch, but try not to do too often.
A Bonus: Husbandman and I have the same job for the most part so we can switch shifts if the need arises. Today we had a conversation that went a little something like this:
Me: "So are you going to work tonight or do you want me to?"
Him: "What do you want?"
Me: "It doesn't matter to me, I can work or you can"
Him: "Do you want me to work for you?"
Me: "I don't mind working, really, but if you want to, that's cool."
Him: "Okay, I'll work, because you want me to."
Me: "If you don't want to work I'll do it, really I don't mind"
Him: "You want me to work so I'll do it"
Me, slightly agitated: "No! That's not what I'm saying! I'm perfectly cool with working today, I was expecting to!
All I was asking is if you wanted to work or not!"
Him: "Ha Ha Ha, I love messing with you, sorry, it's just so easy"
Me: "So are you working or am I?"
Him: "Yeah, I'll work, no problem"

It's a miracle we can get anything done without a minor stroke on my part.