So It's Come to This
May 05, 2006
Lists! Am writing lists! Oh my hell.
Highlights from my first day home included:
1) The babysitter never showing up. Awesome.
2) A creamed spinach raspberry blown square in my face, hitting my eye, which taught me the REAL reason they tell you not to add seasonings like onion powder to baby food.
3) A business call where the person on the other end asked, "Could you turn down the Baby Einstein? It's kind of making my teeth rattle."
4) Meeting a lead for MORE freelance work while walking the dog. Honestly, if I knew paid writing jobs were being handed out on the street like free shampoo samples I would have done this ages ago.
5) More mucus and drool than I ever thought possible.
While the appetizer of plastic fishballs is indeed delicious, Noah eyes the main course of sauteed ratdog and salivates profusely.
Spring Break 2006: Wet Onesie Contest 
Is it possible? De-lurking and first commenter? I'm very happy for you (and drool-covered Noah)
You stay home and you get a baby sitter? Forget Barbie, I want to be you.
That's awesome about #4. What if you get so many writing gigs, you start to think your old job left you with more freetime? Would that mean you have entered...The Twilight Zone?
Oh, and because I want to be one of 'those' posters:
"OMG, you put onyun powder in his food? Are you trying to kill him???!"
(I'm kidding, by the way. :D)
Woot for being paid to write! (and meanwhile we read your blog for free - we are grateful!)
Gah. He's so cute. I just die every time. He's the kind of cute where you forget that a human being can be that cute until you look at yet another picture.
This is me just dying for the day that I can be done with school and finally start having kids.
The glory of motherhood at it's finest!!! At least you are getting paid while you remove baby food contents from your eye. Congratulations on your new life! I'm thrilled for you!
#3 made me laugh out loud.
And, wait, writing jobs? Just handed out like that? I think I need to change towns.
Yay for it all!!!
I nearly shot diet coke from my nose at that Baby Einstein bullet point.
Love it!
Just so you know, I would totally show up whenever you asked me to.
I thought I needed to work more on my writing to help me get some freelance jobs... but maybe I should just get a dog instead?
Heather - Please quit your job and come babysit for a living. I offer a competitive 401(drool) plan and band-aids in case he bites you.
OMG - How have you not eaten that child for dessert yet. He looks so delightfully yummy and gooey!
Sounds like you are enjoying the fruits of your new endeavors - I am so happy for you!
Isn't creamed spinach a good face mask?
Throw in 40K and I'm totally in. And since it's come to this, I'm around all day Sunday.
Horray for freelance and lots of work!
Noah is too cute for words.
Never mind the onion powder...you gave that baby spinach? What's next? Liver?
Good Lord, what is the world coming to when a baby can't get a pop-tart?
GOD.
I'm so with Contrary - why the hell are you doing feeding that perfect little child something HEALTHY like spinach? Are you trying to make the rest of us who throw boxes of cereal at their kids and tell them to fend for themselves while you gulp down a pot of coffee and check your email look bad?
I don't want to start a feud or anything, but I bet my drooler would put your drooler to SHAME. There should be some drooling olympics, 'cause we'd take the gold.
Not that I'm bragging or anything...
LOL at the "fishball appetizers" and the "sauteed ratdog"...maybe Noah needs his own baby "Foodies" blog?
And where do they learn to blow raspberries, anyway? Seph won't stop that either, and I'm thinking of wearing a raincoat to meals. With nothing under it, of course. A SAHM/ wife has gotta multi-task, you know.
Hey, I hate to tell you this. Mr. Awesome is starting to resemble a Storch.
He is also going to have incredibly beautiful hair. But you already knew that.
Yeah right! Like anyone can be snarky when you post those adorable pics.
Now I need to find some cheeks to pinch.
My boy has that same onesie. As if anyone needed any reminder that he is a chick magnet.
Glad the plum writing jobs are practically falling out of the sky. That'll show the trolls... and pay the mortgage too, yay!
Note to self: get dog to walk in order to meet promising leads.
/eyes cat suspiciously and asks her when she is planning to start pulling her own weight around here.
Yep, you have discovered one of the first laws of parenting: children are extremely moist. With the first I bought those little terrycloth bibs that go over the head, so darling, but the second was such a champion drooler that we just let him go around in a diaper so he looks like a greased piglet.
He's adorable and would definitely win the wet onesie contest.
i want freelance work too. but i don't have a job to quit. does that mean i'm screwed? dammit i don't wanna be screwed. dammit.
wait is the his the curse word friendly place....
...confirming...
yes. dammit.
Baby Einstein is indeed teeth rattling. Thanks to those DVD's, one of the twins I nanny for cannot say "Mommy" or "Mama" but can say "canoe", "couch" and "timpani". Woo!
I just cant get past the creamed spinach raspberry.
Hey! I just read your Advice Smackdown over at the other place and saw the pronunciation guide to your pseudonym. Didn't know that...been "saying" it wron all this time....
He's a keeper, if supremely drooly....
Oh my.. and you get to see that adorable face when you wake up EVERY DAY? Bitch. ;) Glad to hear how well your first day went!
No snarks here, just admiration for one cute baby, his swiffering dad and totally awesome columnist mom. It's excellent -- we get Amy writing's in three places, Noah pics in two places. Can the web get any better? I think not!!
BAAAABBBBYYYYY.
He is so cute. Also: I would totally babysit for you any time except for the fact that I don't live in Washington, D.C.
I just want to tell you Amalah, whenever my day has taken a complete nosedive into the depths of hell, all I have to do is take a look at the daily photos of Noah, and a smile is put right back on my face. Thank you so much.
I need to nibble on Noah, so bring him over here. Cute pix. And welcome to the wonderful world of working from home. I had a babysitter flake out on me once when I'd been planning for weeks to go to a job fair with a girlfriend. Was v. excited, believe it or not. We had resumes printed, non-spit-up-on outfits picked out, and the babysitter calls at ELEVEN A.M. when she was supposed to be here at EIGHT. "I was, like, getting my coffee, and I thought, whoa! My clock was TOTALLY wrong! Sorry!"
OHMYGOD the one where his little feet are touching like they're feet-hands...I can't take the cuteness.
You DO know you have the cutest baby EVER! And he looks so like you. You've just got to love him like pieces, mieces.
We fed my son hot sauce (not just hot sauce, but hot holymotherofgodi'mdyingherei'mshittingfire sauce) beginning at age 6 months. He lived.
And? Honestly? Honestly? Good lord. THAT is one of the most handsome children I have ever laid eyes on. Writing? You should be pimping that kid out to model agencies. (But then, no...please. I love your writing!)
Okay, because I have poor reading skills, I thought you were feeding Noah creamed spinach AND raspberries. Which would be maybe less icky than just creamed spinach?
And? I once landed a position adjuncting in a very nice state university while unloading a UHaul truck. Good thing they didn't know about my poor reading skills.
ha! plastic fishballs! get it? GET IT?
plastic fishballs?
I don't know, you just seem so...happy, that there really isn't much I can say except say how happy I am for you. And ask for more of the drool wet t-shirt contest.
Happy Amy! Happy Noah!
OK Seriously? That is the most delicious baby alive! Happy Fridy!
And now I feel an overpowering urge to make some biscuits, so I can use one to SOP HIM UP off the computer screen. Love. It. Well, love NOah, and you.
My daughter blows raspberries with every food she hates. So far, I've taken in the eye: squash, sweet potatoes, peas, carrots, bananas, and I think that's it. Oh yeah, peaches! Peaches burn!
Hi - This is my first time to your blog, and I love it! I just read your "baby story" and you really have a way with words. Your boy is super cute! Anyway, I think our babies are about the same age - My daughter was born October 16, 2005.
Hu-what??? Freelance jobs are being given out in the DC area like a sidewalk vendor pushes hotdogs? Jeez. No wonder Texas sucks.
Jesus, I must be hanging out on the wrong streets. Noone ever gives me free shampoo samples.
Oh and Noah has a smile to die for.
Snark with that photo? You're joking, right?
Noah looks like he has red hair in the last one.
Congrats on the lead.
oh baby einstein. we are watching baby van gogh right now. how proud would vincent van gogh be to know that, generations after his death, babies are watching his paintings being created by a puppet named vincent van goat. because he's a goat. get it?
Sounds like a great first day at home!
I wouldn't get anything done at all, I'd be kissing those little feet all day long. That boy is so darling that my uterus is weeping. Mine are 13 and 6 and I barely remember them being that cute.
God Noah is so freaking adorable that it hurts. Seeing such cute babies makes me want to babysit. It was something I did all through college, but there is not so much with the sitting of the babies here in DC. What it DOESN'T make me want to do? Have my own.
there's nothing that says 'babyhood' like a plastic donut.
Noah is just SO darn cute I can't stand it :)
You're first day at home you were going to have a sitter?
You know how to do this right.
Dear Amy,
Kindly package said good luck and express post to Australia so I can catch some while walking my dog too.
Much appreciated,
Love,
Aly
Hilarious: Emails from last week yelling at me for being stupid and naive for thinking that I'd be able to get work done from home.
More Hilarious: Emails from this week yelling at me for being lazy and spoiled for hiring a babysitter for a couple hours so I'd be able to get work done from home.
Amy,
One quote from Judith Warner's book "Perfect Madeness" that I will never forget goes something like: as a mother you're allowed to talk about guilt, but you're not allowed to talk about ambition.
You go ahead and break that glass ceiling now!
Love,
Isabel
My god, Amalah, the crazies love to email you. My predictions:
Next week: You take extra street-hand-out freelance job and get emails saying "u should spend less time working and more time with PRESHUS BABY"
Week after that: You quit street-hand-out freelance job and get "If you carred about NOAH you would work hardir!"
You can't win.
Don't you just love being home with the baby.
malia
I absolutely snorted reading your list!
His smile is SO! adorable.
What a silly babysitter. She doesn't know what she's missing.
Love the pictures of Noah. The best is how he just looks like a little man. I love that.
Hooray for all the work coming your way.