4 Months In To Motherhood: Life is very different

I've dragged his kickin' coaster into the bathroom with me in emergencies when we've been home alone. I'm surprisingly comfortable taking care of business while smiling and cooing at a baby. He doesn't seem to mind, either.

He likes Sesame Street. My mother-in-law introduced him and he fell in love. It's still delightful to watch and fun for the celebrity cameos. Linc really likes Elmo - there is a little segment called Elmo's World in which Elmo, a baby monster, talks about himself in the third person and is a fucking idiot and a simpleton. No, you can't go sledding in the spring, dipshit. He hangs out with this older guy, Mr. Noodle, who is clearly autistic and trapped in Elmo's house, and Elmo's always kind of making fun of the goofy shit Mr. Noodle does. So it's a simpleton ragging an imprisoned disabled guy and my kid is delighted by all this. He does love Big Bird, though, which I totally get. I used to be really into that guy, myself.

Lincoln also likes Westworld.

Having a baby changed the way I think about the world. Like, now all of a sudden, the idea of going to a bar seems like the most fun and exotic thing I could possibly do with my time - even though bars are fucking stupid and so is everyone in them (except you. . .). I've also discovered a couple of interesting things about other parents that you might find comforting. If anyone ever minimized anything in your life or what you were going through because you don't have children - now that I'm on the other side of that, I can tell you with surety that they are small-minded and wrong. Having kids makes you think it's the hardest thing ever and anyone without kids couldn't possibly understand or have it this hard, but that's because people with kids are incredibly self-absorbed, which I now also am. Now that I have one, I see how that happens. Also, anyone who chose not to have one (which we very nearly almost did), you aren't making a mistake. That's a pretty great idea, although kids are adorable and amazing and a miracle and blah blah blah--not having them is also kinda nice with the vacations and the not putting them through college and sleeping, etc.

We just celebrated our first Hanukkah and new year with a baby and he received a nice thick foam/rubber mat with the alphabet painted on it which has replaced my wool dhurrie area rug as the focal point of my living room. My ottoman was previously replaced by an exersaucer.

At least we are finally coming out of that survival mode phase. He cries less and we have a handle on meeting most of his needs. He is very entertained by places like the grocery store.

Having a baby has also been a great excuse to bury my head in the sand. I'm not tuned in to daily terrorist attacks, streams of refugees desperate for a safe harbor, and the looming crisis in the U.S. that is set to start on or around January 20th. I don't want to look at that stuff anymore and I have the perfect excuse because my baby has athlete's foot so I have to go out and buy a special cream and rub it on his toes twice a day. I don't have time to worry about what will happen to the economy when our biggest trade relationships are ruined. Oh yeah, Lincoln also has acid reflux and getting him to take liquid baby zantac twice a day is a big job, leaving me no time to ponder the state of the highest court in the land and how it will adjudicate for a minority opinion for the next two decades or so. My mom keeps calling it baby xanex, isn't that funny? And now you see how parents become so incredibly self-absorbed? It's so easy to just look at your own little family and then stop your gaze there. I won't be so selfish as to try to convince the rest of the world that this is actually the hardest thing, though, because anybody who thinks that, doesn't know very much about the rest of the world.

WRONG!

The Donald Trump candidacy is like an internet troll that isn't anonymous and that is running for president, right down to the mail order bride willing to suffer any pig just to have a better life. I like to refer to his supporters as the angry male TRUMPets because all they do is shout people down with nonsense, but I just can't stop being surprised by it all. I can't believe Trump has any female supporters left at all.

I'm mostly tuned out because a) I know who I am voting for and it doesn't matter who says what and b) I have a 2 month old baby and I don't have time or energy to get riled when I know Trump's going to lose, anyway. Also, there is no convincing anyone else. I'm not worried about the undecided voter - I'm convinced that is code for "I'm not really going to vote, but I don't want you to know that." I want the election over so Trump can crawl back into his golden toilet bowl with his mail order bride and we can be done with it.

I didn't support Clinton in the primary, but she has my sympathy. I'd be so pissed if I had to take the blame for everything my husband did - and to be honest, some of my friends already look at me weird because he likes to wear tube socks with shorts. Nobody side-eyes him for the inappropriate shit that I do.

Besides, he's a great partner to me. In 4 years of marriage, my husband and I very carefully avoided ever seeing one another go to the bathroom, but during childbirth, the nurses put in a catheter and drained my bladder without saying a word--before my husband could turn his face to the corner or pull his t-shirt over his head. He's still here.

After 40 hours of labor (25 unmedicated), the baby got stuck before I was fully dilated, so I had to consent to a c-section. All that hard work for nothing. Also, the anesthesia wore off during the procedure and I could feel the doctors slicing into me. I mean, even Hannibal Lechter got that right: slicing people up while they are conscious should be painless.

Why couldn't my anesthesiologist be more like this?

So now I have a baby and he's cool. I'm quite fond. I hope Trump doesn't get elected and end the world so that baby Lincoln can't enjoy it. In the beginning, we thought he was colicky, but it turned out he had some other issues that we were able to fix. At that point, it occurred to me that I could make billions by just inventing something for new parents and labeling it "anti-colic" - oh a painted yellow bat that is anti-colic for $49.99? I'LL TAKE IT.

I've already had to give up a couple of things. We started with a snuggle nest - a little tray that you can keep in your bed for baby so he's right there when you wake up and you don't roll over onto him during the night. I could open my eyes at any time in the night and see his little feet tossed over the side. My husband made me give it up because there wasn't enough room for him in the bed and he was curling up at our feet like a dog. After a few weeks, I finally agreed. Now he is in another room in his crib and I have to wonder if he is breathing, if his eyes are open and he is going to start screaming, or if a demon is lurking in the shadows of his room waiting to snatch him away to an unholy netherworld. Don't look at me like that, we all know it happens. I worry about weird stuff--like the chemicals used to make diapers, so I use the "natural" kind that aren't made with chlorine and weird gel and are biodegradable and it's basically like wrapping his ass in newspaper. He poops on my husband a lot. Meh, just laundry. He doesn't seem to mind.

A New Year, Same Opinions

It's been a while. I haven't blogged since June of 2015 - the start of the Christmas season - for a variety of reasons, top of the list being that once Presidential debates started, I elected to have a lobotomy.

Hillary's campaign is basically like "this time you have to vote for me, there is literally nobody else and you know it."

I like the idea of a Bernie Sanders presidency. Yes, put an old Jewish guy in the White House and finally end that predictable trend of a "first dog" who will, in all likelihood, be replaced by a goldfish with an anxiety disorder. Potentially named after Bernie's mother. It will have IBS.

The campaigning was overwhelming and really annoying. I ended up hating everyone and busying myself with other things, like practicing writing my name in cursive.

This year, my husband and I are expecting a tax write-off some time in the late summer. We joke about how he'll be pushing me around in a wheelbarrow like a giant walrus and dumping me into various swimming pools so I can cool off. The pregnancy started out as two tax write-offs, although, based on what I have gleaned from my doctor, that is not a guarantee as there is something called "Thunder Dome Syndrome" that affects multiples in the uterus, which is actually a mini thunder dome in which only one baby might emerge victorious and the other one just kind of vanishes. Or the first baby eats it. I guess I use the term "victorious" loosely here since they will be born to a troubled world of climate change and Hebrew school.

So far so good at the end of the first trimester. I am tired and a little pukey, which is really inconvenient. If I catch the faintest whiff of poop, I lose it. When not nauseous, I am like a hungry sweating sasquatch tearing through the kitchen on a dangerous foraging mission willing to strike down anything in my way. This is tough because I make sure there is no junk available, but the thunder dome seems to run exclusively on cheese, potato chips and horseradish. I am headed to first-name-basis-status with the kids who run the local Dairy Queen. I'm lactose intolerant, but that's not dairy, right?

Want To Teach Baby Valuable Life Lessons? Bring Them To My House

It's a death trap and a learning tool.

We could start small while I teach your baby that they don't need all of those expensive space-sucking toys when I've got a shin-high basket of wires they can get into. This is a great opportunity to learn about strangling and choking hazards, as well.

Let's say you have one of those really great babies who only likes small, inexpensive toys like the slinky. Well, there are stairs everywhere in my house

from this black hole at the edge of my
living room leading into my haunted damp basement

to the flight of crooked slats up into the master bedroom. Baby as human slinky is fun and teaches boundaries about avoiding concussions. There is so much learning opportunity here, we could almost skip the bathroom.



Actually, the bathtub is a great lesson because remember when Baby Jessica got trapped in that well and it was riveting, sad, scary national news until she was rescued? You can avoid all of that fear and risk with this classic 1971 blue sunken bathtub. There is no lesson quite like falling into a deep, dank pit after Mommy told you not to go in there. Baby needs to learn to stay away from deep, dank pits and holes in the ground. I can help you hammer that point home. My bathtub is truly terrifying.

Look how close that water is to my back deck - so serene, you could almost reach out and touch it - and if you're a baby, you can reach out and fall right off the deck onto the ground fifteen feet below. Those rails are very very wide.

Oh look, sweetie, a boat!

If you want your baby's birthday party to be a unique and insightful learning experience, giving them potential physical scars to serve as a constant safety reminder, instead of a tired regurgitation of some annoying movie about sisters and snow, reserve my home now. There are some party hats left over from something that are pointy, sharp, and could poke an eye when the elastic chin strap snaps into your baby's face as they rip it off their cute, sweet little noggin.

Sidenote: This is my adorable nephew, who helped me realize all of these things last night when he came over for dinner. Isn't he just the cutest little sugar-dumpling? He has a baby brother on the way in December.

"Gluten Free" Will Be Mentioned In My Suicide Note

The holidays are a tough time for sensitive stomachs. I made it through Thanksgiving ok because I don't like gravy or stuffing, but it was a bummer missing out on 5 different kinds of pie. I shamed the pilgrims in their graves, I'm sure.

Hanukkah is a fun family favorite for me. When I was little, my dad and my aunt would hide gifts for my brother and I around our home or my aunt's apartment that we'd have to find to open. Pulling a plastic Rainbow Brite doll out from under a sofa is one of my happiest memories. When we got older, succumbing to the inevitability that teenagers don't like anything, my father hid colored envelopes full of money around the house for us to find. Wishing to recreate the magic of my youth, I conned my husband into hunting for $3 around our apartment yesterday morning. I'd clue him with "hot" or "cold" when he got close to my purse until, after about two minutes, he decided he didn't want the extra cup of coffee that badly. Party pooper.

The best part of my holiday? We have a baby at the table for the first time in fifteen years. I'm no longer the messiest or loudest eater. He claps, laughs, wears cute clothes and grabs for things nobody wants him to touch. It's really fun. Almost everyone I know got on that baby train this year. I still really like giving them back after about two hours. That first cranky whine, or whiff of poo and I'm ready to move on to the next holiday activity. Trick or treating? Mopping the garage? I'm in if it gets me away from a crying poop monster. I'm just happy I kept a dog alive for a year. Look at Truffles ready for the cold weather wearing a birthday scarf:

Alive, healthy, and pooping in the street like your baby won't.