Do you think this is cute?
Or this?
Maybe this makes you swoon?
How about this one?
Or maybe this is your cute cup of tea?
If you think any of these images are cute… well I’m so sorry to inform you that you have no idea what cute is. My baby is one hundred times more cute than any ol’ furry baby bunny.
Happy Easter Everyone and thanks to the fun website Cute Overload for these images.
I’ve been trying to finish up some Dow Gardens work today. It’s long overdue but I feel like my priorities have changed so much that I let anything other than my baby’s care and the basic care of my house go undone without a second thought. Of course when I say basic I mean very basic – keeping up with the laundry, taking the trash out just often enough so the house doesn’t get smelly and sweeping the kitchen floor when chunks of crumbs start to gather. I hope my housekeeping standards aren’t damaged forever and that this carefree messy atmosphere is temporary. Of course it doesn’t help me get things done any faster when I’m addicted to reading Confessions of a Pioneer Woman. I read blogs on Brian’s computer while I wait for my pokey computer to do its computing. I just can’t stop reading blogs. I think it’s because I find myself laughing out loud when I read things like this: (the butt climbing comment hit home – so sad)
Fortunately, I have my physical body to remind me of what my mind hasn’t yet accepted. For dadgum example, I find I can no longer eat whatever I want without consequence. Fancy that! I can’t wear the fitted, light-colored t-shirts and snug ribbed turtlenecks I used to wear with equally snug jeans without also wearing a vest or jacket to hide the Michelin demon residing around my midsection. And my butt hasn’t fallen—it’s climbed. And it seems to be getting higher on my back with each passing second of my life. Soon I’ll have a crack on the back of my neck and it won’t be at all attractive.
Right now Bea is sleeping in her crib.
The sun is shining into the office so I put her pink afgan (from great grandma Dice) over the end of the crib to block the sun while she naps. She has a lovely pink glow all around her. She seems to make a lot of movements and noises while she naps. I’ll look over and she’ll be grunting and lifting her little legs and butt up off the mattress. Or she’ll let out a little mew and stretch her arms, arch her back and pucker her lips. Or she’ll make funny little sucking sounds and hum as she breathes in and out. The lamb that is sitting by Bea’s head is our new best friend. He’s called the Sleep Sheep and he makes four types of white noise: heartbeat, rain, ocean and whales. I bought him because he’s cute, but I had no idea he would actually do the trick and help Bea sleep. Pretty cool.
Here’s a picture of my office area where I’m typing right now. I’d like to clean the office sometime but as I said it’s just not a priority right now.
Especially when there is more pink laundry to do.
Today I resumed my daily walks down by the lake. Last time I was able to do my walk I had trouble making it without stopping to pee (thanks to the baby in my tummy). Today we saw robins, ducks and a red-wing black bird; there were early bulbs coming up all over the neighborhoods; we saw the skyline of the city in the distance; and we watched dogs jump around at the dog park. All of these things I enjoyed before Bea came along – it felt wonderful to be out again.
Bea seems to fluctuate between bad days and good days so I’m still a little on edge whenever we go out and I’m especially relieved and happy when we have a sucessful outing. She seems to struggle a lot with digestion and there are times when she cries a lot and I feel like we’re just surviving until she grows out of this phase. Each night we experience the witching hour around 7:00 and the wrath of unhappy baby decends upon the household until we can sooth her and get her to sleep. But then she’ll have moments where she is alert and expressive and fun. Like yesterday when she lay on the floor looking at the plush soccer ball I bought her. She is starting to get a voice and she would once in a while let out an excited little coo while she kicked her legs wildly.
Last week mom stayed with us while Brian was in Singapore. I sure miss getting up in the morning and handing Bea off to mom so I could have a leisurely breakfast and shower. We had such a nice week and did so many things. Now Bea and I have to get used to just having each other during the day again. We miss grandma!
Unfortunately I don’t have any photos of the fun week with grandma Johnson because Brian took the camera to Singapore. Here’s a photo from just a few minutes ago. Ahhhh peace is a napping baby after a fussy spell. Stay tuned for Brian’s Singapore photos.
On the plane on my way out to Singapore for a week, I’m already conscious of absence. I’ve been to the Asian area something like 26 in the last two and a half years or so but it seems different to head out now. She was sleeping in the back seat soundly as I left, more soundly in fact than she seemed to do all night last night. That’s not true – she was actually pretty good, a fact I am thankful for since I really appreciated the sleep before a 26 hour flight.
Right now, her mental capacity is little different from a beloved pet, one you love to snuggle and occasionally curse for scratching your furniture or tracking in dirt. But leaving for a week and kissing her on her sleeping forehead, I realized that by the time I get back, I will have skipped out of 20% of her young life to deliver a sales management training to a pharmaceutical company in Singapore. Worth it? I guess only when I try to convince myself that this is how we pay for her 800 dollar stroller and eventually, some college somewhere or a semester studying abroad or whatever else she asks for as long as she never gets any strange piercings or tattoos. And I mean the part about the tattoos, Bea.
Last time I was in Singapore, it was about 80F and pleasantly humid. I’m sure it will be the same since it is about 80 miles north of the equator and two months closer to summer in the northern hemisphere. Last time I went for a run nearly every morning and probably packed 35 or 40 miles under my heels. This time, there should be even less work to get prepared in the evening and, except for a spurious teleconference or two, I should be more relaxed. I am vaguely hoping for a trip to the Botanic Garden or the Nature Preserve or maybe something cultural. Speaking of cultural, how can you beat a procession of thousands of pierced Indians, including one guy who dragged a cart with a person in it behind him with large metal rings hung through the pierced flesh in his back. Thaipusam, I think it was called.
So that was last time. What other cultural treasures await me?
I’ve been reading a blog called Confessions of a Pioneer Woman and it’s just about the funniest, most charming and witty mommy-type blog I’ve ever read. The woman really does live on a ranch with her children and horses and cattle. She calls her husband Marlboro Man. She calls her male children punks. And when she likes something she gets ” hiney tingles”. If you’re looking for some escapism and some laughs check it out.
It may not look it in some of the innocent pictures on this blog but there’s a struggle going on for our young daughter’s soul. It is a battle of biblical proportions, one the world hasn’t seen for many centuries. Goethe only imagined such a colossal confrontation when imagining the Faust legend. And our little Bea is in the middle of this maelstrom.
The protagonist, and I hope you don’t mind me assuming that you the reader will eagerly take my side, is me. This isn’t a matter of whether or not my mom decides to dunk the kid in the kitchen sink to try to make her a good Catholic. She often has dried milk on her face and could use the bath anyway. No, this is serious stuff. If you pass by our place and hear opera outside kind of loud, you’ll know the battle is raging. You’ll know that I am trying desperately to inoculate her little soul against the evils of the world. My theory is that once a brain has had a taste of the real thing, the immensely satisfying complexity of classical music, you can’t go back. That nip on the proverbial fifth of Beethoven will swirl in the mind until some silly Beach Boys song about a surf board is an insult to all five senses. One night I shot straight upright in bed, awakened no doubt by her crying but perhaps also by the horrible thought that my own flesh and blood could grow up some day to love smooth jazz. Jazz. People, we’re talking life or death here. What if I lost her head to hip-hop or the putrid mist of metal were to penetrate her mind? I would never forgive myself for the loss of her soul.
So far, I have good news to report. We are making progress in the battle against evil. Twice we subdued the beast with Beethoven; the late string quartets seem to do the trick. Twice in fear of the ferocity of her malcontent, I brought out Bastianini in Verdi. The serious operas of Donizetti, especially the sweet bel canto tenor arias, offer promise. We haven’t tried Mahler yet (one doesn’t want to overwhelm a fragile mind quite so early) but we’ll be there soon. My friends, there is so much work to be done. Kathy thinks that she would stop to listen to nearly any music and since she often cries and just wants to be held, the fact that I am playing loud music while rocking her is fairly immaterial. Just like nobody is an atheist at their best friend’s funeral, I don’t subscribe to such discouraging theories. We’re getting through to her my friends. Take heart. Ah, but there is so much work to be done!
Bea and I had our first movie night yesterday while Brian was away in California. We watched Marie Antoinette – directed by Sofia Coppola. I loved it. I thought it deserved a lot more attention than it seemed to get. I loved that it wasn’t like other historical films that try to depict the time period exactly. It was a stylized, lush, beautiful to look at film. And it was surprisingly modern. The way that it was done – with a sort of hyper focus brightness gives you a better idea of what Marie Antoinette’s life and personality were really like than if the film had been a stiff reproduction of all the historical details of her life.
I recently read Abundance, a historical novel about Marie Antoinette. The book was enjoyable but didn’t seem to have much substance. I think I enoyed the movie more because I had read the book and knew a little of the story going in. The movie is based on another book. I’d kinda like to read it but it seems like Marie Antoinette overload at the moment.
The other movie that we’ve seen and loved by Sofia Coppola was Lost in Translation. I love a movie that leaves us talking and laughing for a long time. Here’s a quote from Lost in Translation and a photo of a delightful little person.
“The most terrifying day of your life is the day the first one is born. Your life, as you know it… is gone. Never to return. But they learn how to walk, and they learn how to talk… and you want to be with them. And they turn out to be the most delightful people you will ever meet in your life.” – Bill Murray as Bob Harris in Lost in Translation
Brian tried to wake Bea from her deep sleep by dancing to some Led Zeppelin. An attempt to teach her that day is for being awake and night is for being asleep.
Bea turned three weeks old yesterday. It was also the first day that I was able to go out and meet Brian for lunch since before Bea was born. It was also an absolutely beautifully warm sunny spring day. Bea was perfectly behaved in her stroller while we had a nice lunch.
Last week there was an article in the Wall Street Journal about “Million Dollar Children” – a trend of children that have every expensive luxury and end up costing a million dollars to raise instead of the 2 or 3 hundred thousand dollars that the government estimates. Well, the article listed a bunch of the luxeries that parents are buying and one of them was Bea’s stroller. Today I’m still balking at the idea that Bea is a spoiled million dollar baby. The stroller was the one thing we splurged on. We didn’t get a new, more practical car, we didn’t move to a house so Bea could have her own room and I didn’t go nuts buying clothes and toys. I admitedly get taken in by well-designed items but it was for a good reason whan it came to the stroller. The stroller performs beautifully and I do a ton of walking here in Evanston so we’ll use it constantly. We go to exercise and get fresh air along the lake and we get groceries, go to restaurants and do many other errands. Plus… did I mention that I can sell the stroller for $500 on EBay when we’re done with it.
So things have been going well and we’re dealing with the huge change of having a baby. Brian is busy at work and it’s made worse because he can’t get a good sleep at night. I feel bad for him in the mornings heading off to work and he says he feels bad for me staying home all day with baby. But I tell him my days are great and I’m enjoying myself. He sees me at my worst – in the evening when I’m feeling tired and grumpy. I’ve been glad we are still able to keep our dinner routine and we try to give each other a little time while we prepare a meal and then scarf it down before baby insists on being the center of attention again.
The part that has been hardest in these first weeks and the part that I didn’t imagine while I was pregnant was how frustrating it is to be slowly recovering and feeling weak. Having stitches down there isn’t like having a cut on your arm. I still have some pain and my muscles feel really weak. It makes me squeemish to think about it and I’m just ready to feel back to myself.
I’m not bothered too much by how little I’m able to get done during the day or by the big band of dust bunnies that have formed around the house. And any frustrations that I have slip away when Bea is looking into my eyes and I hold my breath waiting for a fleeting practice smile to appear among her funny faces. How amazing is it that two little upturned corners of her lips can mean so much. Here are some photos of the few things we manage to get done these days.
Laowai 
