heartbreaking job of staggering proportions

I've always been an excellent crier. I'd consider putting it on my resume if it was somehow considered a good thing to anyone at all besides me and waterproof mascara marketers. Growing up I always got the feeling my Mom didn't really like my cry-baby ways, and thought it was sorta mean of her and boy don't you know I took that to my therapy bank of childhood wrongs. In fact I featured her in a film that I made about this hot topic called "The Girl Who Couldn't Stop Crying".

Or for faster service, here it is:



So I imagine this won't the the last time I say this, but, I kinda get why my Mom was that way.

(space for emphasis!)

Because hearing that boy cry his little guts out makes me want to stab my eyeballs and run into traffic. It's freakin' devastating. Little dude has been on a bit of a crying jag at night, not so much during the warmth of the day where it's mostly cooing, gurgling and general good baby stuff. But when the sunset show starts and we rev up our bath, singing, changing, feeding and book reading routine, he looses it. I mean, whoa. Based on the screeching and wailing you'd think some terrible baby-hating person is hiding near by and shooting him with rubber bands. You laugh, but I check.

My usual PE routine is to hike either in the morning or evening just about daily. And boy-oh-boy don't you know these warm summer evenings are just cracklicious with the lingering light and cooling-down-the-city breezes. Just beeeoyutiful. But seeing as how we're supposed to start our "please baby go to sleep" routine around you know, 6 or 7 it's seriously cutting into my hiking time. Damn baby!

Tonight I went anyway, because I have a bad attitude clearly.

This is a shot from a recent hike, you can see how ridiculously cute the little bean is hiking along in the Moby wrap.

So anyway, the bedtime went late, the crying party started and that's my point I guess. As I was driving home the short distance from the mountain to my house he started up and it quickly escalated from 'huh' to 'what the hell!' to 'what the f is your problem lady!' and was so committed that he produced REAL TEARS. Oh people, really. At 3.5 months old, I really haven't seen this much yet and when I do it's too much for one heart to bear.

To try to appease his hysteria, I pulled over and changed his diaper on my lap. Unfortunately this little party trick is about to be done because he's just too damn big now. So while simultaneously kicking me in the milk machines, and doing a suicidal back bend, he screamed and screamed. Good times. So by then I'm crying hysterically and wishing I still drank alcohol, (ooooh, fun topic, stay tuned!) but instead carefully drove home to get some back-up from the father figure.

Because when he gets into that crying machine, with the punctuations of wails and thrashing, my heart turns inside out. You know how you bend a pomegranate in un-natural positions to get all the sweet little pods out? Like that. So my juicy little heart pods are strewn around my car and house tonight, and I am hard pressed to remember a time in my life that has been so bittersweet.

Btw - just want to give a little shout out to the followers that are now following. Hot damn! That's really cool and makes me feel just a little bit better about my existence. Thanks for slowing down this existential crisis!

ease n' grace

Sometimes I use this as a mantra. Or a wish list anyway. I would like do this thing (Mommahood), or anything, with some E n' G.

Walking onto set I am often mistaken for the craft services person, or the PA. Know why? Cause I'm nice. Directors aren't supposed to be nice, more often then not they are blowhard cap wearing', beard sportin', coke snortin' meanies who like to yell to make sure they still exist. Hello King of the World, you know who you are. I like to act tough in meetings so that agency or whoever is hiring knows I can kick some shotlist achievin' ass, but they'll find out soon enough, I'm sorta overly nice. Not completely in that desperate 'please like me way' there's a program for that but well, uh, you decide. Do I really have to strike up a conversation with the breakfast burrito dude before we get the first shot off? Probably not.

I guess my point is that Easn'grace that I am currently looking for is something I feel like I've found in my work. I can be my superfunohmygod jump-up-and-down-when-I-like-a-take girl there...

Yep, this is me jumping with joy at the sight of an excellent take.

I'm looking for her now around here.

But as you can see, I am mostly finding piles of laundry and the wear and tear of desperation to see that a nap is achieved. Wow, I'm airing my clean laundry here. See if you can find the carbon based life form in this pile.

I know, I know. He shouldn't sleep with all of that stuff around him. I KNOW!

ahem.

Whoops lost the EnG there. A little high strung from the lack o' sleep. Perhaps when the sleep becomes a little more, shall we say consistent...I'll find my inner joy light again. I do, I do want to because this little guy has tons of it.

Grumpy Bobblehead

According to one of the books I read to make sure I feel completely guilty and overwhelmed by the responsibility of shaping this young man's life, destiny, and huge therapy bills, the brain is pretty much built in these formative years. And so by doing the right stuff, like lots of face time and putting the iPhone Down you can affect IQ by 30 points or more. Apparently at birth 10% of neurons are linked and working and that multiplies to where 90% of the wiring is in by age two! So grow those synapse's little one - get 'em while they're hot.

This weighs heavily on me, and the books have differing opinions. Stimulate! Neurons need entertainment food, like Hulu for the drooling set. Or, baby needs sleep. Work your life around a nap schedule and Suck it up if you think you get to go out of the house for more than 60 minutes at a time or at night. If you don't sleep train him you'll suffer and so will he. If you do, the stress from the crying will kill all of that good face time and the IQ points you've worked so hard for are lost. So the books battle it out there on my bedside table and in my brain and basically the result is a delicious new feeling - Mommy Guilt. Oh it's yummy juice, part crushing shame, part low-level constant anxiety, add a dash of hormones for drama and a squeeze of lemon. (as in lemon in a paper cut)

So when the lil bobblehead is grumpy there are many reasons that he could be so - ALL of them my fault. I didn't catch the pre-nap stare and he's overtired. I missed my fish oil yesterday or god forbid I ate any of the b'feeding no-no's like chocolate, caffeine, tomatoes or you know, brown rice. Who knows what might piss off a little guy via milk. He's overstimulated? Under-stimulated. He needs to learn baby signs and oops I probably missed the window to teach him French. And thanks to my over-achieving control-freaky personality I'm obsessively trying to do this 'right' and as you can see, it's awesome!

I guess the best I can do is have a lil gratitude about the fact that the post-partum-depression fairy hasn't visited in while. Anyone else friends with that little bee-yatch? She's an odd one - she visits some of the momma's, not all of us. Just the lucky ones who get to endure the fawking hormonal-coaster from hell where all perspective is lost and no good yummy "I love my baby" feelings are to be found. I was lucky that while she did bitch-slap me pretty hard for the first weeks, it subsided around week 7. Oh the PPD fairy still does a drive-by here and there and I'm lost in the soup of self-pity and crushing despair, inadequacy and suicidal thoughts. And then I'm fine. And he's cute and I'm cheerfully trying to find the words to little bunny fu-fu so I can sing them to him. Of course I have to get the words right and I wonder if the lyrics are too dangerous for his little ever exponentially expanding mind. But! It does explain the big head.

Finally in my 2nd way-too-long post I want to give a shout out of thanks to Stefanie for linking me up. You are such a beacon of sanity and humor for all of us lost Mommies.

Motherhood - Take One

So yea. I'm a mom now, it's still even creepy to say that out loud, ok type it out loud.  Let's try it again. I'm a Mom.

Eeeps! I get a little squeamish. Even though I'm 3.5 months into this new gig, I'm not in total ownership and I think it's (no offense) due in large part to the other Mommy's that I meet.

It's like anything that comes on too strong. Like flavored liquor or even the most expensive perfume, too much of a great thing is still waay too much. And Motherhood seems to bring that out in women - the desperate over-achieving passive-agressive wackadoo hovering person who was not so long ago, reasonable.

For example...
1) Do we have to talk in a voice that's 14 octaves above hearing range? My dog thinks it's neat but my ears are bleeding. This is referred to in one of the 45 parenting books that I obsessively skim on a daily basis as 'parentese' and sadly, this voice is encouraged.

2) Can we PLEASE talk about something else? Let's be clear, I am saying this to myself as well - but the discussions about cracked and elongated nipples and sleepee sleepy-by schedules and the milestones like how amazing little baby is because she looked in the same direction for 14 seconds in a row is so booring. Boring. I mean I get it, but ohmygod, let's find a new topic. Like what happened in the last half of the 30 Rock season? I dearly and desperately miss Liz Lemon.

* I'm going to take a quick break from this mean spirited sounding list to qualify myself as a much nicer person. K. Well, since I need to say that I guess you can believe what you want.

3) How about we forgo the comparisons? "How old is he? And HOW much does he weigh? Wow, you've got a big one there..." 'Cause I don't know the percentile and I don't care. Or I'll pretend I don't anyway. "Does he hold his head up yet? Oh gosh that's too bad you know my little sugarface has been holding her head up since she was born...He'll get around to it."

4) And no NO. Nope, he's not sleeping through the night. He's not even 4 months old! (Dear Jesus... I don't talk to you much but if I could just stop by and ask you to please help me through this - that would be great....thanks ever so, amen)

I guess you can say I'm a procrastinator since I've waited until my 38th year to join this club, and you'd be right. I'm a procrastinator. And it didn't really seem to bother me 'cause I was busy building my career as a Director of things. Commercials, short films, webisodes, corporate blah blah videos, whatever can be written/directed and sometimes edited for money - I'm your gal. Or was, wait -still is! It's a confusing time when identity is on the line.

And I guess that's what hurts and why I rail against the monologues of the Mommy set. Who am I now? Am I still one of the relatively rare directors with boobs (only now they produce massive amounts of milk)? How is that I used to be able to run a whole set filled with big guys and their big gear and this little tiny guy can take me out with a few short screams?

When I was pregnant, I had such swagger. I said, Aw - it will be easy. Of course I'll still work, anytime you want. I know it's a full time job, hahhaha, of course I did. Ok People magazine, here's my confession that you won't care about to print. I didn't know. I really, really, really didn't know what I was getting myself into. It's impressive how not knowing I was of what we speak. How is that such a smartee pants director lady who has had her own production company for ten years and done stuff and more stuff could enter this new phase of life so cluelessly? Well, she did.

But I must say, I do love him. He's a big-headed beauty.
 Please to enjoy a picture from the second week of his life.