Cold Mountain

Today we needed to do 400 things. But, as always, one of our main priorities was to get up and down or local mountain. I'm pretty sure mountain is a bit of an exaggeration. Ok fine! I'll check the definition.

In the Oxford English Dictionary a mountain is defined as "a natural elevation of the earth surface rising more or less abruptly from the surrounding level and attaining an altitude which, relatively to the adjacent elevation, is impressive or notable."


So great, in relative terms - land forms that rise 400' above Los Feliz should definitely be called a mountain. Or fine, it's a nice hill. And we go there daily to rise above it all, admire the smog-ee smogginess or just notice that all of those cars filled with angry people are really not going that far or fast, it's sweet how their nasty little honks can't affect us up there. It's a nice little bite of perspective on this sprawling city of angel sandwich.

In fact, getting up and down that hill has become so critical to my peace of mind that I call it sanity mountain. Which is dangerous because if I don't get there?

Yep. I'm total koo-koo-pants.

Sometimes I go up twice a day, like today. The first trip I pushed BHB up in the stroller. The 2nd trip he rode on my back. I know, I'm really, really special. And strong! But mostly, sane.

But the story I want to tell is the morning epic. In the AM cute hubs and I gathered our forces and our selves:  brown dog, a big-headed baby with big hair, and the set of weary parents. We galloped out the door. Ahem. Limped? After the 10 minute car trip, the stroller was being set up at the base of the mountain (yep, I'm sticking with this mountain theory), and the transfer from car seat to stroller was taking place, a deeply disturbing fact was uncovered. Well, two.

1. A giant, foaming, overflowing poo diaper was in play.

2. The diaper bag with the nice wipes, clean diapers and other clean pants was woefully missing from the car.

What's a hike-needing family to do? Well, I remembered that there was one diaper in the stroller basket. Sure it was sorta crumpled and a little shredded but clean. And it exists.

Then! I remembered there was a buncha wipes in the back where the dog hangs out. Sure they were dried out and furry, but, wipes nonetheless.

Poor BHB. Perched in the back of the car filled with dog hair, he yelped while his little bum was  swiped by dried out wipes. Yuck-a. And the fact that the pants were blown out with a smear of poo juice made us go:

"Forget it. Let's go home"

'Cause doing the white trash diaper only thing wasn't do-able, it was a cold morning.

So back the stroller goes into the car, dog coaxed back up, baby buckled in. However, upon spotting a cute striped long sleeve shirt on the floor of the car, I had a brilliant idea.

"Look! Upside down pants!"

I mean really. Why should poopy pants come between us and the mountain?

So, with a relatively clean butt, warm legs and the crows and distant skyline to keep him company, we took to the hill.
Mountain.
Hill.

Here is some of the fun with improv pants and the Ugg's we got at a shower that are clearly still too big.

Notice the far-away city...nothing that small can be that bad!

Checking out awesome boots. Witness the neck hole at the crotch.

The 2nd trip up looked like this. Mom = Sherpa

Improvisationally yours,

Poppy

Did you know that Poppy's require sunlight to open their flashy orange petals? And not just daylight, direct sunlight?

I didn't either. Last week as we were recovering from the shoot we wanted to do something special with Grandma before hubs went back to full time work. We went up to the Poppy fields not far from here and discovered the above fact. Sunlight req'd.

But I got some cute pictures anyway.


( I should also add that it was damn 45 degrees, no-one was prepared for that. Grandma held onto the boy to stay warm...)

Even closed they are pretty cool.

Flashy poppy love to you,

Fool's Rush In

Happy April Fool's Day!

Anyone do anything dastardly? I've never been good at this prank thing, I'm too chickensh*t for it. I don't like the suspense or worry that something will go horribly wrong or someone will end up hating me. When I was 12, my brother rigged a bucket of water above the bathroom door and waited snickering around a corner for me to walk under it. Unfortunately instead of the intended bucket dump, it slid off the top and landed directly on my head where it bounced before finally soaking the floor. A bucket full of water - whadya think? Maybe 15 pounds? It hurt like hell. I think it explains alot about my personality...

So, guess what!? We are in the final weeks before our film shoot. Y'all may remember that I've been yammering on about this thing for months and months now and that raised all of the money on ye old interweb. So we're finally going to be getting this thing done this month.

Ya-freakin'hoo!

I could wax on endlessly about how miraculous it is to be sitting where we are right now. Don't tempt me. But, let's just summarize by saying this:

*Last fall, we were told "You don't have enough money to make this film".

*Last fall, we asked the internet, our friends, our family, you to help us make this film.

*This winter, the fundraising succeeded. Incredible considering the state of the economy and the rest.

*This spring, we will shoot our short film. 10 days after the boy turns 1, a dream 5 years in the making will come true.
It is a miracle. Nothing short.

I gotta be honest, it's been hella challenging trying to balance the two big roles of Mom and Director. Well, three - also Executive Producer. It has somehow magically worked due to very patient, sweet producer's who meet over here a lot during naptimes or so he can play in the play-yard while we chat and sweat details. I've also been seen location scouting with him in the Ergo or driving neighborhoods looking for locations while he naps.

Here on the right you can see how excited he is to be checking out an office location....below we are looking for a convenience store.

I gotta say, I think he looks like a future star baseball pitcher in this shot. Facebook friends, sorry for the repeat - but comon', that is ridiculous cuteness.

Here we are working hard in our PJ's.  Not my proudest parenting moment, but a sleepy baby doesn't pound on your keyboard (I've noticed).

I'll leave you with the schedule of the juggle from today. Our lil guy was a total champ as we made our way through this day, this last hectic day before my Mom comes back to see us through the shoot....


8:00 am meeting with potential unit production manager in studio city. We negotiated his price while dad had kid in lap and feed him applefish.

9:15 hike with friends and babies and dogs (oh and one of the star's of our movie!) Boy learns how to clap! I guess the blue sky and black crows were just finally 'cause enough for applause.

11:30 go to hollywood - wait for place to open to get delicious seaweed salad while on call with producer.

12:00 next hollywood errand - find dinosaur costume for movie (hub featured sporting costume) get awesome discount due to extremely cute kid in Ergo!

1:45 BHB finally gets the nap he was denied all morning.

2:00 finally eat delicious lunch, awesome production manager hired - talk to location guru and friend about the key locations that we're missing, he has great ideas...

2:30 babysitter arrives

3:00 go to location, meet with DP (Director of Photography) to talk shots

5:30  home to relieve babysitter

6:00 play with boy til 7 including admire his new clapping skills and laugh hysterically with him at the antics of the peek-a-boo dad. Then bedtime routine.

8:30 eat our dinner watching 6 Feet Under Season One to get inspired by good shots, good acting

10:00 sucked into emails with producers and put up an 'update' for our backers on kickstarter.

11:51 still typing blogpost that swore I wouldn't stay up til midnight to do....

Right. Goodnight.


Yours in the crazy, happy, busy daze ~


PS - I name my posts after movies. I haven't seen the one this post is named, I know nothing about it. I just liked using anything with Fool for this day. I'm working on another post called 'Enchanted April'. Is this naming my posts after movies too ridic? You can tell me.

Out of Time

As I yelled about shared earlier this week, we are going into production on our short film. I'm officially, as of yesterday, damn busy.

And as I shared last week, the boy is moving faster now - impossibly fast. So when he is awake I'm watching him intently as he swims around on the floor like a pinball in search of the most points. Or in the kitchen he's doing laps under my feet as I do dishes and wish I am a fly with extra eyeballs.  Or mostly I've resorted to wearing him in the Ergo if I want to be in any room that he can't be scooting around in (most of them). So as of last week, I'm officially damn busy.

The boy on the move really presents alot of problems. And like everything else in parenthood when first presented with it, it seems pretty unsolvable and overwhelming in a throat-closing way. Okay now - Baby gates? Baby proofing? Little latches and plug covers and drape cord management systems? Most moms I know around here hire a professional to come in and do this thing and it's done, just done. So I imagine that these families fall asleep with sweet smiles and have good nurturing dreams and awake refreshed and happy to face another safe day filled with happy baby playing sounds. Unlike me with the soundtrack of my grinding teeth through the night. Awake to a new day of tiny boy chasing that comes with worry and wonder and discovery of the dastardly danger that lurks around every sharp corner.

you: Call the professional baby proofer.
me:  Harumph, this is not really in my budget right now.
you: Go to Target.
me: Harumph.

I mean I will and I am but I just hate to buy all of these plastic crap, plastic gates or other plastic things that require installing them. And oh crap, who's going to install them? The other day I put dog and boy into the car to go to the mountain and as I buckled BHB into the car seat I heard myself think, 'Whew, at least he's safe'. In a car. In Los Angeles. This can't be good.

Friends, what the hell do we do with the ficas tree that he constantly wants to shove his little baby hands into or eat the leaves with his little baby mouth? I LOVE this tree. I don't want to put it outside. Sure we live in California and sure it will probably be just fine but but but! I don't wanna! Perhaps this tree represents my last shred of individuality, the last little bastion of me, the sappy ass adult who wants a pretty damn tree in the room. I know, I know, it's going.

This lil play pen is the only true solution, we call it the baby hot tub.

As you can see he looks pretty damn happy in it, and thank god he is. Of course I read the RIE parenting books and they make me feel like a rotten terrible person because I haven't created the safe room that he can just be in. And the hot tub is too small.

But for now it's the best solution for the occasional trip to the bathroom.

Or the 14 minutes of dishes until we can strap him into the high chair where he'll be safe until we can strap him into the carseat where he will be safe until I can strap him into the stroller and push him up a hill until we can then strap him into...the shopping cart and then I will strap him onto my chest to walk to to the car and then. Thank god for straps.

Of course we do release him on the floor occasionally and then follow him around going:

 Oh well no honey um let's go this way and opps a cord and nope let's not do that and oh wow look at all of these big books at your level ready to tumble down on your sweet head or the stack of CD's that you really? Are going to pull the middle one out? And holy cats that cool antique tool box is built to hurt a baby have you ever seen anything more lethal oh boy, let's play with these super cool blocks made out of foam but oh man they are made in china? Uh-oh they are painted but sheesh please go ahead and eat these. Please little one, I'm begging you...sit down in one spot and gnaw on these blocks..

Google is going to have a field day with the ad's on this one, so much good crap to sell. Do you have any suggestions? Things that worked for you? A padded room I can borrow?

Yours in the 'whelm,



PS - I love this picture. You can tell he's really enjoying this hike. And that strap looks uber safe too.

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...

The Oregon Trail

Most hotels offer wifi now, and godblessthem for it. My eyes are all overexposed from the screen-light causing me to squint at these words. Thank goodness for the keyboard back-lighting as I sit here typing in the pitch dark next to snoring baby and hubs.

Hello from the Oregon coast! Or actually, factually, we are now on the northern California coast in Crescent City which sits right above the Redwood forest. But we spent the last two days more or less on the Oregon coast and boy was it yummy. In this moment I hear a lighthouse horn that should be more romantic sounding than it is and the churning humming of the mini-fridge that makes maxi-mum noise but that makes it sound bad but wait! I misrepresent. I'm peaceful, I'm content and actually a little sleepy from a sunburn thanks to an amazing hike through white dunes (see pic to right). But the main feeling running me now is that I couldn't be further from home.

We've been gone so long away from the smoke and madness of LA and in the meantime have gotten all woo-d by the beauty of the pacific northwest. If I hadn't already lived here before and felt the unrelenting sprinkling rain, low-flying gray and bone-chilling cold of the winters we would have already put in an urgent call to a moving company to pack our place. But September is Chamber of Commerce time for Oregon and Washington and I WON"T BE FOOLED DAMMIT! As tempting as it is. And do you want to know why this land is so damn delicious? It's the trees.

On the drive up we found ourselves going into the evenings more than once and the night we drove into Ashland well past the big-headed baby's bedtime. Thankfully he'd drifted off to some quality sleep in his car chair (aka the bucket) and I sat beside him in the backseat as we drove along in silence through the dense siskiyou trees. Now I'm going to risk you guys thinking I am nuts (oh really Jane? Like this is new?) but I am telling you these trees were talking to me. Or better said, stroking the side of my face with their gorgeous green, cool softness. Stoic and statuesque, they loved me from rooted solidarity in the dark. The moon was amping up the magic by providing back-lighting and ghostly suggestions.

Oh lawd I tried getting all poetic on you people. So sorry, but... don't hold back...do you think I have a future?

Anyway. I'm just here to tell you that if you take the 101 South through Oregon you will become a conservationist and get better at only using 3 squares of toilet paper or okay 4 but no more than 5 for a special day and only 1/2 a paper napkin with your turkey sandwich and god forbid ever print anything again. It's devastating to realize that we are all such giant consumers of these amazing creatures. You can see in this picture the thick gorgeous fringe of trees on the roadside. But what you can't see is that right behind them more often than not is nothing. Speeding along you can glimpse through the fringe a graveyard of churned up earth where trees used to be. It's land chunked out by clear-cutting or perhaps you'll see a little tiny army of baby trees on their way up.

I couldn't help but think of those one walled sets that you see on backlots in hollywood. It's a great looking storefront or what-have-you but it's literally one wall with empty nothingness behind it. I think these NW Chamber of Commerce troublemakers keep that one or two layers of trees by the 101 so we don't see the insidious tree-killing going on the back room.

What's a tourist to do. The world is so full of troubles but at least we got to eat ice-cream at Tillamook creamery, right? And while this trip has been such a reprieve from the banality of it all and I will readily admit magical Northwest has soothed my singed little self, it's best to tell you the whole truth. While I started this post with a big ol dose of contentment and yum we should probably round out those emotions with some serious paper guilt and a little bit of sadness for the trees.

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!