The Fly

*I planned to post this last night. Blogger was down (whatthehell!) so I was unable. Please ignore the one day-off-ness of it all....

Four days ago bhb had his first bite of solid food. He enjoyed the first few bites and then grabbed the spoon and shoved it in his mouth. Gifted child.

Three days ago bhb and I wrestled with gravity.

Two days ago I told the internet about it.

One day ago brown dog started blinking and looking miserable with his left eye. We’ve seen this all before. You may remember that he recently had to have surgery on his right eye.

Today we find out that indeed he needs surgery again. I worry that when you ask people who perform eye surgery if a dog needs eye surgery that you’re going to get the answer “He needs eye surgery”. Unfortunately the last time this happened and I wanted a different answer, I went to a holistic vet who said. “Well, there is a danger that the eye can explode.” Or was it implode? “Get the surgery.”

So we did.

My logic was, our dog has really pretty eyes. And he probably likes having both of them. And I’m not interested in exploding eyeballs. And here we are again, same story, but but now we’re looking at (get it?) the other eyeball. Cute hubs said to the vet:

"Thank god he's not a pet fly!"

Comon! You gotta give it up for the hubs on that one. Funnnnny. I laughed heartily in fact. The fact that we are joke cracking and guffawing is pretty impressive for people starting down the chute at another freakin' expensive event, and of course since it is Surgery (capital S) he has to go under - gak. Also here comes another three weeks of the cone of shame, putting goo into his eye twice a day and a cooped-up-not-hiking-frustrated animal who can vibe like no-body's business.

Tonight when we arrived home from a slightly contentious (ok...maybe it did get to us) trip up the local mountain I found myself having to convince brown dog to come out of the back of the Prius. He was reluctant. I took the muzzle-to-face opportunity to plead with him to stop manifesting these crazy-ass physical expressions of his emotional despair about having a new baby-person stealing away everyone’s attention. Ironically I said this with a hoarse voice due to the brutal and breathtaking cough that I currently have. And I leaned a little funny to the right because this morning I trashed my shoulder and neck by tweaking it during a coughing fit. The fact is that I have been in nauseating pain all day.

Guess I should listen to my own speech. Let’s try it. “Hey, Jane, stop manifesting weird physical shit that’s clearly the result of your emotional angst.”

Harumph.

Unfortunately the aforementioned contentiousness leaked into the house and as we were putting bhb to bed I stomped around here annoyed with it all. And I even tried to fold laundry angrily. Have you ever attempted this? Haughtily folding sweet smelling fresh laundry and slamming it down into neat piles is not very satisfying.

The worst part? I’ve decided to stop eating sugar. Again. For anyone who knows me, I’ve done this no less than 200 times. A few times I’ve been successful, like years-at-a time-with-no-sugar successful. I made sure our wedding cake had fruit on the top so when we did the obligatory stuff cake into each other’s faces I wouldn’t have to eat sugar. Can you say freak?

But.

I always feel so much better.

I always lose weight.

And I always cry at least a few times in the first few days.

The first five to seven days will suck-ass as I’m forced to feel my feelings and notice how uncomfortable I am. Well, damn. I’m uncomfortable anyway, might as well get rid of the ‘crack’ (that’s what I call the white devil). So I’ll keep you posted on all the fun I’m having.

Anyone want to join me? Comon’! It’ll be awesome. No, really.

Tonight I leave you with some pictures of our first born when we first adopted him @ 3 months old.  He's a ridiculously cool dog...

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.