So Betty and I were doing our usual daily thing of walking to the cafe to get a sammich. Such a nice pretty day. Mmmhmmm. We were walking and nodding as usual to the people who smile at us, which is everybody because babies are just crazy cute. It's amazing how even tough, gangsta lookin' dudes will look all Hard and as soon as they catch sight of the baby they're all like "whuuuhuhuhu. Bay-bee. How's that baaaybeee?" It's like encountering the Cowardly Lion on a daily basis.
We got to the cafe which is owned by a Japanese guy who speaks veyr good but heavily accented english and always says "Hellloooo. Two-months Baby! Hello Two-Months Baby!" It's great. We've met cops and manual workers and old ladies and young irritable people at the cafe and well hey love the baby. We've encountered people from Africa, Australia and Iowa and they all fawn over the baby. It's partially because now she looks at people and stares at them and loves them. Loves Them. I swear if she could talk she'd be saying "Mom, I love this lady. She's such a pretty lady. I want to take her home and play with her because I love her Mom." So Hooray the cafe and now we're walking home.
On the way home there is a dude lying down on the sidewalk. I don't have to step over him or anything but I walk by him and I actually think "That looks nice. If I could just nap in the sun today, I would totally do it." And then I realize I caught sight of this dude and he had been sitting up in the Bus Stop shelter. I see a bus driving coming the opposite direction look at him and look at me and I turn around and go back. I have the baby in the belly pack which makes bending over difficult and wierd and I say, as you might expect, "Sir. Sir, are you okay?" Nothing. Louder, "Sir, wake up! Are you okay! Wake up!" Nothing. He's breathing and his color is okay. I shake him doing the whole "Sir, sir are you okay?" thing. I pound on his back and shake his shoulder again. Nothing. A busload of elementary school kids spills out of a bus. I look up at the bus driver saying loudly and motioning obviously "A Phone. Do you have a phone? Do you have a phone?" He's looking at me like I'm asking him if he has a Flamingo. Do you have a Flamingooo? A little tiny girl walks up to me and says, "I have a phone." I say, "Call 911, please." She does and hands me the phone. I do the needful as they say. They dude asks me where I'm calling from and I say "Actually I'm calling from a little girl's phone. She was just passing by." I hang up the phone and wait. There is a little crowd of kids still looking at us. One boy is saying, "He just drunk. He drunk. He hungry. Say 'bacon' and he wake up for sure." I said I thought he was more than drunk. I honestly thought he was a junkie and nodded out.
The kids go home and then a new stream of people come out. They come up and just look at the dude and go back home. The fire engine shows up and they fire people come on out. Including one of those stereotypical 5 foot 11 amazon ladies who looks like she could snap you in half. There must be a class in waking people the fuck up that they take. It was amazing. They're shaking him and pulling him around by his clothes and shoving him and say "Sir! Sir! Wake up, sir! Can you hear me? What's your name? Do you know where you are?" After some very aggressive shoving he finally opens his eyes. Slowly. "What's your name, sir?" "Immmhhnow." "You don't know your name?" "Nah." Can you sit up? Let's get you sat up, sir."
Turns out he's just drunk. Drunk in such an extreme way that I can see how I'm sure my jostling and thumping probably felt like "Oh, That's nice. Thump thump, thump." Also there's a young fireman dude who keeps saying "Thank you." to me. At first it's like "Thank you for calling us." And then I'm not sure so I turn to another fireman and say "Do you need me for anything? Like a report or anything?" And he totally ignores me. Finally after much manipulation of the drunk dude the young guy turns to me and says "Thank you." in a way that is "Thanks, you can go." "No problem." And Betty and I go home.
The sammich was surprisingly bad. The cafe has such good sammiches I'm more than usually let down. I'm Very Sorry about it.
Then Betty starts to scream her head off.
Uuuuuggghhh.
A bad moment for me today... Nothing unusual was happening. No wierdness, no difficulty. Nothing much a'tall. I woke up with the baby as usual and she played and smiled and did all the new cute things she does. And we're having a grand ole time and then she does something that she has in fact done before. She starts to cry. And the manner in which she starts to cry is also something I've seen before. It's almost like someone stabbed her or burned her or something. She's playing and smiling and then "Aaaauuuuggghhh!Waaah!" So she's crying and shrieking and I check for obvious signs of assault. Nothing. So we try nursing. Nope. Ok. Bouncing. Nope. Again we're not in unfamiliar territory here. Walking around the house. Still she is inconsolable. So I take her on a walk. I walk with her facing out which is new and a little scary for me. They say you can't face them out in those belly packs until they can sit up. But she's already started to protest about being faced in. Booooring. So I face her out and start walking. Down to the cafe. Here we go. She is pretty quiet until we're about a block away from the cafe.
Now I'll interject here with a little bit of "Fucking fuck fuck shit and fuck". Because I feel like I've been spoiled by her up until a coupla days ago. She and I and Dad were having a pretty good time of it. Sleeping and nursing and eating and playing and all. And then we went to the Reunion for our Childbirth Class. Hooray!
I really wanted to go. And here's where I suck as a person. As a human fucking being.
I wanted to go because...Becaauuuuse, I hated them. I hated them all so much. They were all having a grand ole time being pregnant, and I was soooo not. And I wanted to show them. SHOW them my beautiful baby. Say HAH! to them. Listen to their labor stories and look at their babies and say HAH! We got this cute and precious baby and Nuts to you! Nuts! She plays and talks and smiles and even stands! She loves looking at new people and blows spit bubbles!
Long Story Short. She cries almost the whole time we're there. Unless she's in the presence of Paul the Baby. Paul the Baby was born three days before her and was an ounce lighter than she. He now of course is almost a pound heavier than she and is super mellow. He simply can't be bothered. To coo to cry to sit to do anything except be mellow and beautiful. Oh did I mention He Is Beautiful. And his dad barely speaks english and is nice and super friendly and his wife is nice and super friendly. And boy do they love that baby. Betty was simply and perfectly not into it. She cried and was fed. She cried and she was changed. She cried and she got to suck on Dad's fingers and she cried and fussed and cried and fussed and wanted nowt to do with anyone. She didn't babble or razz or stand or sit or play. So once the final group picture was snapped, we went our way. We stopped by Safeway to get a can of Formula and she was totally thrilled. She stopped all that wacky crying fussing crap and lit up like a goddam lighting up thing.
What I took from this is a very clear statement of fact. In the words of Jon Stewart, "No, no. I am not your monkey."
Anyway, back to today. We get to the cafe and she starts really yelling her head off. And the whole way home. Nothing, and I mean nothing, is helping this baby. Soothing this baby. For the first time with all her crying and fussing for hours and hours and hours, I felt bad. Like really bad. Like I was failing and sucking. And I was angry and frustrated. I wanted to just lay face down on the floor and give the fuck up. I'm beginning to understand certain types of crazy people. The ones that just repeat things like "I've been here the whole time! You don't know. You don't. No one knows."
Someone left them with the baby for too long.
SGNP said the other day while trying to calm Betty, "It's time to bring out the Big Guns." To which I rejoindered, "So we can shoot the baby with them? It might make her stop crying."
Baby Betty is two months old and 8.2 pounds. She is super small and crazy cute.
What happens when your baby is two months old is this: They give her five shots all at one single doctor visit. And you have to watch and help hold her down so she doesn't kick while the needle is in her thigh.
What happens when I hold my baby down while she is getting shots is this: I cry and cry and cry. And so does the baby. The truly heartbreaking part is the look of absolute shock when the needle goes in. All five times. Shock, horror, pain, wailing, crying. Betty's sobbing. I'm sobbing. After the shots are done, I pick up Betty and hold her and we cry together and Dad hugs us both. We sit down and I nurse her a little bit. She was crying so hard that for the first time in her little life she's doing that little kid "Hu-hu-huuuh" thing when they've been crying so hard they can't quite get their breath.
It was terrible.
On a lighter note, we've passed over some sort of hump in our lives together. We've settled in. She's is really happy and likes to spend most of her time napping or looking around and playing. She likes to talk to us and look at our faces and imitate and play with her hands. The greater part of her crying now is more conversational than it was before. She "Waah"s but slowly and varies her pitch and mixes it with other sounds. She isn't crying and screaming and that kind of thing very much at all these days. She is the best thing ever. Ever. Ever. Ever.
Betty has discovered her hands. As in visually discovered her hands. She tries to watch them when she puts them in her mouth. It goes something like this:
"Moooommm. Moooommm! I 'm so upset! I'm sooo ups- Ooooo hands. Hands hands hands hands hands. Hands have fingers. Fingers go in my mouth, in my nose, in my eye- Aaaaahhh! Moooommm! I'm soooo upset! I'm so ups- OOooo hands. Hands hands hands hands hands..." etc.
When her hands get close to her mouth she crosses her eyes really hard trying to keep looking at them. Hehehe.
You could be Kelly Preston.
I'm married to John Travolta! We have kids together, for L.Ron's sake! And yet I'm doing commercials for L'Oreal foundation and Neutrogena foot repair cream. I don't think it's fair to charge me rent, when your flight instructor gets to sleep here for free... I just don't. I let you name my firstborn "Jett". I've gotten a handle on my "squirrelling". Give me a freakin break!
My mother keeps reminding me that many babies have survived First Time Parents.
I had one of the most horrfying experiences of my life yesterday. I actually felt somewhat traumatized after it.
I went out with Betty to pick up SGNP from work as a surprise. I had no gas in the car and knew we would make it to the gas station but not much further. When we got there all the outside debit card things were broken. This is the Arco where they only take debit or cash. I then had to go into the gas station to pay which would have been bad to begin with. Leaving Betty in her car seat in the car for a moment seemed reasonable. You can see all the cars from the inside and I thought it would be better just to leave her for that few moments than to take her out and blah blah blah. This is where I'm an Idiot and why all those parenting books tell you never to leave the baby by themselves. You think it'll take a second and that you know everything will be fine for a second and statistically speaking babies left in cars for a second generally don't die or anything. But then there I was getting out of the car and going inside. I knew as soon as I stepped but three paces from the car I had made the Wrong Choice.
Enter Crazy Begging Lady. She walks up to me and stares past me into the car. Now I'm on a mission in my own mind to get in and get out of the gas station and I also have this weird desperate feeling that I can only ascribe to fatigue. Otherwise, I have to imagine I would have been more sensible and just popped Betty's seat out and took her inside. CBL asks me how old my baby is and I tell her. She asks me something about wanting money that I'm not hearing because I'm On A Mission and as I'm walking into the gas station I hear her say "My baby died." Holy crap. Do I turn back around and go back to the car? Do I take Betty inside with me? Do I just get back in the car and wait until CBL is gone? Do I even just tell CBL to get away from me and the car?
No.
I go into the gas station and stare at CBL who is at the back window of my car looking at Betty and ask for ten bucks on Pump 2. Which seems to take FOREVER for the guy to put through the card machine. As I'm waiting and staring and shifting from foot to foot ready to run outside if CBL does anything crazier than she's been doing some dude comes in and announces loudly "Wow, whoever left the baby in the car is sure brave. Did you see that crazy lady out there?" So now I feel positively sick, and stupid, and just awful and hmmm awful. Seconds later I'm sure though it felt like a half an hour I get my receipt and run out to my car. CBL is still staring at the baby and starts talking to me as I pump the gas.
CBL: How old is she?
Bad Parent: about 7 weeks. Almost two months.
CBL: She's beautiful.
BP: Thank you. She sure is.
CBL: She's crying. Did you know that?
BP: Yep.
(The guy who made his announcement inside is filling up his truck now opposite me. We lock eyes and I am just staring at him like "Oh God Help Me Please")
CBL: Why do babies do that?
BP: Why do babies cry?
CBL: No. She's looking at me like she knows me. Why do babies always look at me like they know me?
BP: (on the inside) Aaaaaahhhhhh!!!
BP: (on the outside) Uuuuh.
CBL: I have three kids. They don't talk to me. Are you married?
BP: Yep.
CBL: You're so lucky.
BP: Yes I am.
CBL: My kids don't talk to me.
BP: Huh.
I run around the car and jump in. The guy who was filling up the truck comes over to my window and starts talking animatedly. I roll down the window.
Truck Guy: Are you okay?
BP: Yeah I... I wouldn't have left her. I needed to get gas.
TG: Yeah. That lady. I thought she looked you know crazy and I saw her looking at the baby.
BP: I wouldn't normally leave her. I thought it would take a second.
TG: I've seen her around. She seems... in pretty bad shape and she was looking at your car... As long as you're ok.
BP (as I'm rolling up the window and pulling out): I'm OK. Thank you so much.
It took me a while to figure out what had happened. I had the whole thing in my mind. How exactly it would go. I would go to the gas station and put my card in the debit machine and pump the gas and go. When I got there and the machines were broken, my mind like slipped a gear. I couldn't figure out what to do, even with CBL standing right there. I still Had To Get Gas and I was only changing the Plan to suit the minutiae of payment instead of the HUGENESS of protecting the baby.
Lesson Learned.
In case you needed a purpose in life and just weren't sure you could own anything, name anything, lay claim to anything. I have something for you. Just for you. Oooh, do I have it. And here it is:
www.makersmark.com/mybarrel
Suck. Sess.
The baby sort of hates baths. She hates being naked and being naked is an important aspect of bathtime. So I haven't been bathing the baby everyday or anything. In fact she's had about a bath a week, but this was a bad week for her. She was really fussy and stayed up for 24 hours crying and hollering one day. I thought she was getting a cold cause she was extra snurgley. So how do you know when the baby NEEDS a bath. I mean she isn't like getting into things or anything, and I'm not personally a fan of torturing the baby for no reason. HOWEVER:
You know the baby needs a bath WHEN the baby smells like stinky cheese.
Very stinky cheese.