Let Your Guilt Flag Fly

Oh my God, yesterday's post. I'm sorry. I fully own up to the fact that the last paragraph in particular got COMPLETELY away from me, with the dramatics and the...well, the dramatics. I went out to lunch with my nursing bra unhooked and I posted on my blog with my mommy guilt showing. Same diff. Kind of. Look, I plead sleep deprivation, both for the entry and that metaphor there.

So I was rehashing the entry a few hours later while nursing the baby (That's what I do while I breastfeed. I think about my blog. And drool. And hallucinate that I'm awake, lying in bed and breastfeeding, only I'm kind of asleep? Because I don't think there's a swimming pool in my bedroom?), and I blearily did the math that November minus June equals...five months. Five months without speech or occupational therapy. Even in the accelerated life of a toddler, five months is not (NEWSFLASH) really that long, or (NEWSFUCKINGFLASH) the end of the world.

So now I'm embarrassed about the whole "I LET MY CHILD DOWWWWN! I FAAAAAAIL!" tone I veered into, but grateful for all your lovely and reassuring comments, and sorry that I made y'all feel like I needed (or was fishing for) that reassurance, when really what I needed was:

1) a nap
2) a nice hard slap
3) some quiet meditative time of private and offline self-reflection
4) a fucking lot of wine.

Guess which one I actually got? Guess! Do you think the Internets will line up so readily to reassure me that I'm a good mother when I confess that HELL YES, I left both my children with a babysitter last night and went out a'drinking with my husband?

MAD COPING SKILLZ, I tell ya.

(And dudes, I'm totally doing it again tonight. Oyster Riot! Causing Amy To Abandon Her Five-Week-Old Babies Since 2005.)

(And semi-relatedly, if you are a breastfeeding mother who enjoys the occasional moonshine, these flat out rule.)

One thing I have absolutely NOT done is...well. Anything ABOUT any of it. No phone calls, no consulting of our insurance, no contacting anyone for audiologist recommendations or further researching our school district's policies for evaluations or anything like that. I am waiting until Monday. I can never seem to get stuff like that done on Friday. It feels wrong and pointless, like how I never started new projects at my old job on Friday either. Or...after 4 pm on any other day of the week. You know, lest I mess up the amazing MOMENTUM I set in motion by...dialing the damn phone. On a Friday.

Wow. That sounded a lot more endearing and charmingly quirky in my head. Now I just sound lazy and possibly insane and like I should retroactively be fired from that job.

Ahem! So, in summary. This was me yesterday:

Then I had some wine:

And then I calmed down and decided that everything was okay after all, oh who am I kidding, I'm totally just posting this next photo because OH MY GOD LOOK AT TEH TEN POUND CHUBBY CHUBKIN CHEEKS NOM NOM:

NOT FUNNY

So I think I've officially lost my sense of humor about this whole House of Doom and Germs and Fluids Leaking From Everybody's Headholes thing. Perhaps I left it at the pediatrician's office this morning. Perhaps I'll call and see if anyone has noticed the smell of death coming from their Lost & Found.

Today's photo, if I chose to illustrate our plight, which I won't, because it's fucking disgusting, would feature the red oozing eyes of both Noah AND HIS MOTHER, who are sporting matching cases of pinkeye. Noah is also covered in a horrible itchy rash, which I initially brushed off as a run-of-the-mill viral rash, but now appears to be an allergic reaction to -- get this -- the Method Baby detergent I bought for Ezra's clothes.

We typically use the Seventh Generation Free & Clear detergent for Noah's clothes, and YES I KNOW, I don't need special baby detergent, but that Method stuff smells so damn good I was helpless to resist it. (Seriously. That shit will make you LACTATE, it's so baby-fresh-delicious.) But my mother-in-law took control of the laundry this week and actually did laundry so often that she was able to COMBINE Noah's and Ezra's clothing TOGETHER, in one load.

(I am baffled by this concept, since I generally wait until the hampers reach Everest levels before doing anything about it.)

(Another result of this extremely proactive approach to laundry is that we are out of hangers and drawer space EVERYWHERE, since we no longer have half of our wardrobes languishing around unwashed as a space buffer. Huh.) 

Who in the world is allergic to baby detergent? WHO? Noah, apparently. And now we have to rewash his entire closet since no one can remember what's been washed when and with what detergent, because surprise! No one can smell worth a damn, thanks to our colds.  And by "we" I actually do mean "me" because my in-laws caught some kind of stomach bug and are totally puking.

Let this be a lesson to everyone who might think about offering to come help us out with the baby or Noah or laundry or whatever: COMING TO OUR HOUSE WILL PROBABLY KILL YOU. SORRY ABOUT THAT.

And if this weren't ENOUGH to make you grab your torches and pitchforks and circle our zip code while chanting UNCLEAN! UNCLEAN!...after Noah got sent home from preschool because of the pinkeye (don't blame me -- I KNEW that kid had pinkeye yesterday but was completely shouted down by my husband and in-laws who INSISTED that it wasn't pinkeye and made the call this morning to send him to school while I was busy hooked up to the breastpump, pumping milk for a mythical "dinner outside of the house without children" that Jason and I have been trying and failing and canceling reservations all week for), I took him to the pediatrician and was informed that hey! This kid has a raging bitch of an ear infection.

I stared at the doctor dumbly, because...what? Seriously? THAT TOO NOW? He'd JUST BEEN to the doctor two weeks ago and was fine. (Please note that Jason will yell at me for not taking Noah to the doctor over coughs, contact rashes and mysterious fruit stickers on the wang, but thought I was being completely ridiculous today over goddamned PINKEYE.) And he's still sleeping...and not tugging on his ear...and sure, he's had a cold for two weeks but...oh.

"Noah, does your ear hurt?" I asked in surprise after the doctor delivered the news.

"Yeeeessss." he wailed, and covered his ear with his hands.

"Well!" I said. "I sure am awesome at this."

So. We have an ear infection, two cases of conjunctivitis (but only one prescription for eyedrops, because fuck. that. shit. directly.), a really gross-looking rash, four really tenacious colds and two grandparents bravely trying to insist that it's only food poisoning, not a stomach bug, they're fine, really really fine, we should totally go out for dinner tonight, REALLY, they'll stay here in the House of Murderous Microbes with the children, RUN AND SAVE YOURSELLLLLVES.

Oh, and somebody had diarrhea all over the basement steps. Usually I'd just assume it was one of the pets, but at this point, nothing would surprise me, and everybody remains a suspect. Expect a thorough investigation, just as soon as I'm brave enough to emerge from the little fort I've made out of Clorox Disinfecting Wipes and bottles of hand sanitizer.

UPDATE: Noah is not allergic to the baby detergent. The rash is because apparently my poor father-in-law got confused and thought the (oh, God) Clorox Disinfecting Wipes we keep in the bathroom were the (oh, God) baby wipes. And he'd been using them on poor Noah (oh, God) all week.

Let's Just Call This One "Tuesday"

Yes, Internet, I fully and openly admit to coasting. Both emotionally and editorially. I have not updated since Thursday, greedily allowing the comments to build and build and pile up, checking in every hour or so to boggle at the number and inform Noah that OVER 200 PEOPLE -- WAIT 250! WAIT WAIT 271! -- give a rat's ass about the fact that he had a good day at the Mock Preschool For Children Who Can't Talk Good And Wanna Learn To Do Other Stuff Good Too.

Also? We've just been so good over here. Noah's little day of victory lifted us all -- even Noah seems to be happier and more confident, like...like he's some kind of actual human being whose quality of life is affected by his speech and sensory problems.  And here I thought all this stuff was dumped on ME for the sole purpose of pissing ME the hell off. Huh.

He's talking up a storm and busting out with some fairly random vocabulary -- I guess that one time we made mucus Christmas cookies made a fairly big impression on him, because he's constantly asking about the ROLLY PIN and COOKAYS. Mostly the COOKAYS.

"Cookay?" he'll ask sort-of hopefully, and then seconds later answer his own question, "Noooooo cookay."

And then again, JUST IN CASE HE WAS MISTAKEN ON THE COOKAY VERDICT, "Cookay?"

Anyway, it's been fun. With a decent chunk of the buzzing worry knocked out of the park, it's been a nice little honeymoon of a week, with lots of cuddles and hide-and-seek and maybe a couple living-room forts here and there.

(Oh, and one night of good-and-proper child abandonment, as we coerced the in-laws to come babysit over the weekend so we could go to Jason's company party and stay overnight in a hotel, which was also fun until 1) I was hit by the truck of What Do You Mean the Hotel House Label Chardonnay Was Not Exactly Top Shelf Wine at around three in morning, when I wanted to die, and 2) some asshole let their shrieking toddler run up and down the hotel hallway at six in the morning. Kids! They should all be kept in cages.)

It's also preschool application season around these parts, so we've been busy plastering big smiles on our faces, presenting our genius child who is a genius and...diaper? What diaper? Noooooo diaper. Please accept this check for AS MUCH AS MY COLLEGE EDUCATION COST AND PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE DIAPER.

(I told my mother-in-law how much the neighborhood preschools cost and she choked on her probiotic wheatgrass enzyme nugget and declared me to be talking much crazy talk. "Just find a little school run by a church!" she said. I told her that these ARE just little schools tucked away in church basements. But you know, NICE basements. One of them even had windows!)

(Her next suggestion was her all-purpose solution to All Our Problems: move back to Pennsylvania to live next door to them. I imagine Pennsylvania preschool prices have gone up since the late 1970s, but honestly, if we promised to move closer she'd probably be willing to start running her own preschool out of the garage. Grandparents! Their love is so easy to exploit.)

Wow. This is one hot mess of an entry. I go away for a few days and manage to completely fuck up the lovely narrative arc of my life story. (It goes something like this: Amy Faces Challenges, Amy Writes Many Words About Her Many Challenges, Amy Gets Meta About Her Challenges, Amy Either Conquers Or Gets Bored Of Her Challenges, Amy Gets Drunk And Falls Down. Repeat.)

Anyway. Us = good. Noah = outstanding. Preschools = uppity. Liver = shot. The end.

Life. Too Boring for Words.

Wow. I did...exactly not one interesting thing this week. I...unloaded the dishwasher a lot? I hid brussels sprouts in a fruit smoothie? I wore my cute new jacket from Target and bought Noah a new hat?

Yes. All this, AND MORE! In the span of five whole days! Man, life is a crazy buzz sometimes.

Yesterday Noah and I trekked up to Baltimore to hang out with this lunatic for a while a few hours longer than appropriate straight on 'til bedtime.

Tracey and I got into a very heated discussion re: megapixels, and our differences could only be solved by blinding each other with camera flashes while shrieking our heads off.

It made a lot of sense at the time.

We were both admittedly pretty jealous of M's stylin' pink camera, though.

The original idea was to sign some important business-y work-y type paperwork for mamapop.com (I'd rather not be sued for defamation by Britney Spears' busted-ass weave, you know? It looks litigious.) and let the kiddos work on their "sharing."

Noah got his first taste of the Barbie accessories catalog and Halloween Oreos.

Step One: Lick.

Step Two: Dilate pupils.

Step Three: RUN RUN RUN MUST CONSUME ENTIRE COOKAY NOM NOM NOM.

Anyway. That was yesterday. It was nice to get a little change in scenery and sit on a different couch for awhile.

Today? We're back to our usual routine of thrilling, intellectually stimulating conversation, with a hefty side portion of dimples.

choochoo from amalah on Vimeo.

Speaking of choo choos, next week Noah and I will be taking one to New York to visit my sister for a couple days. By ourselves. Because this seemed like a good idea once. Because I am crazy. May God have mercy on my crazy soul.

The Day After the Day After

So there was this one time when I managed to get myself linked to from Dave Barry's blog. That was incredibly cool and thrilling and I'm sure caused a few pinched bridges of noses over in the Typepad server room, but it also happened to be the same day I wrote about my spanking new thrush infection.

Yesterday I found out I am a finalist for Best Parenting Blog over at the Weblog Awards. The same day I wrote about vomit and posted photos with my bra sticking out.

I am possibly quite brilliant, or just the world's biggest jackass. I don't know. We'll see how the voting goes.

(You can vote once every 24 hours. Look! Here's a visual reminder!)

(What? Too much? A little ostentatious? How about this one?)

(Inside voice!)

I might be wrong, but I don't think there are any actual...prizes? Except for bragging rights? And Lord knows, if there's anything we parent bloggers need more of, it's things to brag about.

SPEAKING OF BRAGGING...

Noah was a freaking champion trick-or-treater. We had a little bit of a problem with him walking inside people's houses (at one house he barreled past the owners and made a beeline for the kitchen, and probably would have opened their fridge and helped himself to some milk and pie if I hadn't caught him) (hoods on Halloween costumes: a MUST!), but he caught on to the general concept pretty quickly. He audibly gasped at the first house that held out a candy bowl, then turned to look at us, to make sure this was okay, and really happening, and that nobody was going to try to touch his face with a duckie washcloth while he was distracted by the candy.

After about five houses he marched right up and asked for dessert. DESSERT? DESSERT? DESSERT?

The best part is that the kid has NO TASTE when it comes to dessert, which means he gets the gross stuff like the cherry-flavored marshmallow "OOZ'N EYEBALL" and I get all the fun size Twix bars.

(I am kidding, of course. Nobody is eating the OOZ'N EYEBALL. After all the eye infections poor Ceiba's had over the years I just want to douse the thing with some antibiotic ointment and set it on fire.)

Anyway. I am feeling much better today, obviously. I never, ever drink hard liquor anymore for just this very reason, and I was very stupid for not asking for full disclosure on the punch bowl ingredients. (Other than: IT'S YUMMY!) (You know what else is yummy? ROOFIES.)

I started feeling better last night, right around the same time Noah came downstairs with two mysterious bulges under his shirt, which turned out to be the silicone bra inserts I'd worn with my costume. He was super proud of himself. I was too, in between the howls of laughter.

Then, as if to remind me that yes, he IS still all boy, he came over and handed me a live squirming ant.

(Aaaaand we're back to bugs and boobs. Vote Amalah!)

Yo Ho Ho and Six Bottles of Rum

It appears I went to a Halloween party last night.

I drank what I thought was a perfectly responsible amount of what I thought was a champagne-and-cranberry-juice punch, only to later learn that there were also a half dozen bottles of rum in it too, which would possibly explain why I woke up in the laundry pile this morning.

Me, as either a cross-dressing Marie Antoinette...or a Sexy George Washington.

Jason, as Dick Cheney.

My wedding ring kept catching on the lace sleeves so I left it at home, thus making me and my bra very popular with two guys dressed like hot dogs. It was a proud moment.

Today I am trying my hardest to effectively parent my child without getting up from the couch, while thinking about how good it would feel to just go ahead and vomit already, my God.

UPDATE: I just did, and it was everything I dreamed it would be.

What We Do When We're Not Making Fun of the Dog

The distant future, the year 2000...

No more agriculture. No more war. No more racism.

No more fighting, squabbling, or rumbling.

No more...yogurt.

Robot 1: The humans are dead.
(Robot 2: Yes they are dead.)
Robot 1: The humans are dead.
(Robot 2: I confirm they are dead.)
Robot 1: It had to be done.
(Robot 2: They look like they’re dead.)
Robot 1: So that we could have fun.
(Robot 2: I poked one, it was dead.)

0000001! 00000011!

(Try this at home tonight! Supplies needed: wine box, scissors, toddler, and humansaredead.mp3)

Woke Up This Morning...

...and the original Broadway cast recording of Rent is in the CD player and there is a receipt from Ticketmaster in Jason's inbox. We're trying out the mezzanine this time.

I don't even know who we are anymore. But I do know there is something really, really wrong with us.

It Occurs To Me That Everything About This Entry Is Somehow Related To Gas

Whenever I'm on nitrous oxide, I always feel like I'm flying high above some magical land of magic. The land is different every time, and is usually inspired by whatever music is playing. (At the dentist's office, I should probably clarify. I gave up recreational use a good six months ago.) This has led to some really weird hallucinations involving Peabo Bryson in the past.

But this morning I was flying high over an animated land of rainbows, while cartoon characters with Afros and sequined yellow jumpsuits disco-danced to Shake Your Groove Thing. I was also 1) lying down with my feet up, and 2) officially off of diaper duty. Plus drugs! Let us not ever forget about the drugs.

And yes, I was also getting the very last of my fourteen zillion cavities filled, but that's really splitting hairs. I had a nice morning off! It was downright lovely.

Oh, and I received a brand-new bite appliance, for to be wearing at night so I don't grind my teeth down to little nubs of exposed nerves. It's sexy! I can't wait to put it in and whisper those magic words to Jason one of these nights.

"Hey baby, e'm ovulathing."

You okay, Mama? Why don't you stop twirling and sit down for a minute?

And now, for everybody who asked, I will destroy all illusions that I am your superior because I can open a bottle of champagne with a sword. Because it is so easy you are going to laugh. Laff!

(I'm not actually performing the trick in these photos, since we're down to our last bottle also, it's like 11:15 in the morning, people. That's way too late for mimosas. It's vodka time, baby.)

First find a very thoroughly chilled bottle of bubbly. Champagne, prosecco, sparkling wine, whatever. I have no idea if sparkling cider would work and frankly, do not care to find out.

Psychotic ninja glare not necessary, but it helps.

Then find a sword or something vaguely like a sword. It should be metal and extremely sturdy and (this is important) decidedly BLUNT. NOT SHARP. The back of a good chef's knife is perfect. The guy at the vineyard told us he's performed the trick with a tire iron. I'm sure MacGuyver could open a bottle with a crayon, some duct tape and a shot of whiskey, but I recommend you go with a knife the first time you try it.

Singing fridge magnets? I'm totally coming for you next.

Next, examine the bottle until you find the seam. It runs from the base of the bottle all the way to the opening. It's kind of raised so you can find it with your thumb.

The Seam: Your Roadmap to AWESOME.

Remove the foil and uh. Go outside.

Remove the wire cage thing. Hold the bottle with the seam facing up. And all you need to do is run the back of the knife along that seam until you hit the lip at the top of the bottle. That's it. Really. 

If you do it with enough force (which isn't even that much, considering me and my girlish weak arms can do it just fine), the top of the bottle will separate cleanly and the cork will go flying.  There may be some sharp edges, but no broken bits of glass.

Smile, bow, and try to remember that YES. IT'S A GODDAMN SWORD AND NOT YOUR INDEX FINGER, MS. HAND-TALKY McGESTURE.

That's it? Dude. What a rip-off.

Taking My a'Drinkin' Skillz to the Next Level

On the off-chance that our trip to New York and the fourteen million pounds of pizza we consumed there were not QUITE enough to sufficiently celebrate Jason's birthday, we continued the birthday blowout extravagaaaaahnza with a bus trip to the always gorgeous Virgina wine country on Saturday.

It was awesome. One person puked on the bus on the way home and another fell out of her seat and into the aisle and still did not wake up. Meanwhile I was engaged in a high-level discussion about racial profiling with a nice young man whose family bought his ticket for Father's Day but did not accompany him. He assured me he actually preferred it that way, and also, NO, the fact that he, Jason and I were relatively sober after consuming just as much wine as Ol' Pukey and Ol'FallOuty McDrunkAss over there was NOT a sign of serious alcoholism, it was a sign that I needed to pass him a damn plastic cup, he was opening another bottle.

Also: I learned how to open a bottle of bubbly with a sword, people. A fucking SWORD.

Wine Viking from amalah on Vimeo

Yes, I biffed it the first time, which made the wine foam when I tried again, but the cork landed in the hat I was aiming for, so: 1,000,000 FREESTYLE POINTS! RADICAL TUBULARNESS. YOU HAVE ACHIEVED DRINKING NINJA STATUS.

The trick also works with a chef's knife, as I demonstrated last night in our backyard because I cannot get enough of my new stupid human trick.

This could get expensive, and also somebody is probably going to lose an eye.

(Noah had yet another nice day with Grandma and Grandpa. They worked on painting Noah's Room Take 2, Big Boy Edition, Now With 100% Less Bunny Rabbits and 100% More Breaking of Mama's Heart.)