Teeth

If you don't know about this movie, check it out.  (title of post) Hubs and I saw it at Sundance a few years ago, it's a quirky and dark film that was quite controversial. Here's the thing. I don't enjoy your basic gore n' horror films at all, not one tiny bit. Sorry. But! strangely I did like this film. The college trained feminist in me actually went for this crazy lil film about a woman who discovered she had a superpower that was, um, unnatural and set her up for a successful and apt revenge against a man who raped her. I will also say that the hubs was not having it one bit. Hated it as I suspect most men do. I'm going to make you click away to find out any more details about it because once again I've spent a paragraph justifying the title of my post and let's get honest, that's silly.

But you guessed it. Teeth are on the mind as one (singular, tooth) has just recently appeared in our life. It broke through the gums before creating too much havoc but either the process of it growing up further into the mouth and or it's lil tooth buddy next door is creating quite the stir and turning our otherwise perfect child into a neurotic manic-depressive with an oral fixation and a perma-grimace. Honestly his version of crabby is still pretty darn reasonable, but it made it very rough on my friends who babysat for us on Sunday. I don't know if y'all have been wondering....you may remember I was pretty excited about the date with the mister. Apparently our big-headed-baby cried inconsolably the majority of the time we were gone, which of course proves that I should never leave the house again.

Kidding.

Sort of.

So the march of time adds more body parts...hmm well since the tooth was hiding in the gums it's been here all along so perhaps I should say reveals more body parts. But it's also added more length to the lil dude. He turned 6 months old a few days ago and at the check-up clocked in at 95th percentile in length and only 25th percentile in weight. Damn, I wish those were my numbers. And I hate to start running down this road, but ah well, what would a mommy blog be without it?

So here goes. Everyone kept saying that nursing was going to just 'melt the weight off' and while I think it would be rude to call them all liars. Well. They are. And then of course I also heard 9 months on, 9 months off which I thought was just a charming way of saying that other women have a hard time getting the weight off, but of course it wouldn't apply to me. Because I'm special. And I have to say, it sucks not being as special as you are convinced you are.

When BHB was 8 weeks old we went back to Florida for my high school reunion. Which one you ask? Oh 10th of course. Ahem. We stayed with my grandmother who gave birth several times, the result was 7 kids and they came in pretty rapid succession. She wanted to share with me some stomach exercises that she used and still does to help me get my figure back. Great, I thought. Sure. And seriously, you gotta give it up for the 84 year old woman busting out the pilates moves on her dining room floor. The devastating part of this story was that I literally could not do the little routine of sit-ups and leg lifts she was showing me, there was absolutely no way. That is either just more awesomeness going out to her, or the opposite coming back this direction. Pretty sure it's the latter.

End of day I just hate being a cliche. New mom frustrated with baby-weight. Comon', it's way too obvious and pat. And it's really not too bad. I put on 45 during the pregnancy and 30 have come off so what's left is kinda like the freshman 15 right? And based on the amount of late nights and pizza I'm eating, it pretty much makes sense.  With this picture above I'm going back in time to 6 months on the other side of the birth, 3 months into the pregnancy. I thought I had such a belly then. Ha!

And since I was just telling a fabulous new friend and mommy blogger that I don't want to come up here and whine in y'all's general direction (which is why you haven't heard from me all week) I better stop while I"m behind. But let me leave you in a wake of pixie dust and tell you about a sweet moment that occurred this week...

While buckling the lil dude into his jump seat there in the back o' the prius I looked into his face and found that he was staring at me in the most amazing way. I don't know if I can give it deserved justice here, but the best way to say it was that he was just loving me. Rather than kissing his head and bustling on my way into the front seat to hurriedly go whereever the heck it was that I was going, I stopped. And sat there. And soaked it in. And he stayed there too, in that remarkably sweet space, holding my eyes and sending me love capital L. Honestly it was incredibly tough to sit still. Tears just rolled down my face as I held his gaze there in my back seat in the parking lot under a hazy blue sky. I saw his soul that day, his old soul showed through for a moment between all of the teeth growing and scream-finding and various-and-sundry confusions that must come from having a new body. It was a literal soul connection and I'll never forget it.

It used to really piss me off when people said to me "You can't understand how amazing parenthood is until you are in it." I'd be like, whatev's. I have a dog, I get it.

But now, I think I might be starting to understand what they were talking about. All respect to the brown dog too. In fact I'll leave you with a little montage of the BHB and the brown one.

Cave shadow drawing in Griffith Park.