It’s okay, babies, Alias Mother is right here

Don’t cry, it’s okay.  Stop panicking.  I’m right here.  I didn’t leave you.  I just stepped away for a second.

Even if I did leave you for a minute, you’d be okay.  There’s that whole list of good reads over there on the sidebar.  Don’t you want to go look at them?  Go on and look.  No, really, go look!  They are lots of fun!  Alias Mother isn’t the only blogger who can take care of you.  Those other bloggers are so pretty and fun.  Why don’t you go play with them for a while?

No?  You want to stay here with me?  Well, okay, but Alias Mother does need to work some.  Can you just sit here beside me and play by yourself for a bit?  Here, I’ll give you a blank entry to write in and you can pretend to be just like me!  Won’t that be fun?  No?

Oh, no.  Don’t cry.  You can’t sit in my lap right now.  I can’t work when you do…okay fine.  Here.  I’ll type around you.  Here’s my pen.  Would you like to play with my pen?  Careful!  No, don’t do that…OW!  Look out for my eye!

Don’t cry, don’t cry.  Alias Mother’s fine.  I’ll just put an eye patch on.  See?  Just like new.  Okay, here we go.

What’s the matter?  You want down?  Great!  Here you go!  Wait, why are you crying?  You said you wanted down.  You understand that if you want to get down that means you must physically separate from me, right?  I love you all very much, but I have to work.  I can’t sit around all day, cuddling with my readers.

I mean, really. I don’t know what is up with this phase, because you have certainly never been this clingy before and you’ve put with longer absences than this.  You all are going to have to learn to function on your own.  Alias Mother cannot be next to you every minute of every day.  Do you understand that?  Do you understand that you will have to learn to get along without me once in a while?

What?

You already know that?

You don’t care what I do or where I go?

But I thought…

Oh. Right.

It’s not you guys who face death by abandonment when I step away to get something on the other side of the room.

IT’S MY DAUGHTER.

(Seriously, send good thoughts that we all survive this phase.  Or vodka.  Vodka will help, too.)

Alias Romance

Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day and in celebration I thought I would share the secret of my marriage.  The Alias Father and I have been married for 5 1/2 years now, which in Alias time (calender years X (number of fights per day + items thrown)/ total individual irritating qualities) is 37 years.   Given that we are on our alabaster anniversary (ooohhh…fancy), I thought I would give a little insight into what makes this relationship tick.

You ready?

Okay.  Here goes:

We have the same fights.

Over and over and over and over and over again.

Do you know how much energy couples expend coming up with new things to fight about?  Tons.  Energy that could be better spent smacking each other in the butt with dishtowels or training the baby to say, “Dada? Pee-yew” or yelling at the writers of Lost for their complete inability to come up with a single, continuous plot point.  Well, not us.  When we find a fight that works, we stick with it through thick and thin.

Here’s a sampling:

The “That’s Not What I Said” Fight

Bless his heart, the Alias Father has many fine skills.  However, communication is not one of them.  In fact, he is a diagnosed poor communicator, since when he was in high school he was discovered to be dyslexic.  (Yes.  High school.  Explained A LOT about his grades, that did.)  Did you know that dyslexia doesn’t just affect how the person understands the written word, but also the spoken word?  Oh, yes it does!  So he frequently and stridently will insist that the problem is not that he did the wrong thing, but that I told him the wrong thing.

Example:

Me: Take a right at the light.
Him: Okay. *takes a left*
Me: I said “right.”
Him: No, you didn’t.  You said “left.”
Me: Why would I say “left”?  I’m reading from the directions, and they say “right.”
Him: But you said “left.”
Me: But the directions say “right” and I’m reading directly from them!
Him: Well, you said it wrong then.
Me: I did not!
Him: You did too!

And so on and so forth for a hundred miles.  Because, bless my heart, I have many fine qualities, but admitting that I am wrong when I AM ACTUALLY RIGHT is not one of them.

The “Stop Reminding Me” Fight

All I have to say about this is: if he doesn’t want me to remind him to do things, he should stop forgetting to do things.

Example:

Me: Did you check the woodstove?
Him: I always check the woodstove.  Stop reminding me to check the woodstove.
Me: Well, sometimes you forget.
Him: No I don’t.  I never forget.
Me: Yes, you forgot that one time.
Him: Did not!
Me: Did too!

And so on and so forth until the house burns down.  We have this fight because periodically the conversation goes like this.

Me: Did you check the woodstove?
Him: Oh crap.
Me: THAT’S ALL I’M SAYIN’!

The Waiting in the Car Fight

Look, I admit that I take longer to get ready than he does, okay?  I do.  When we decide to go somewhere, he can have his shoes and jacket on and be out the door in three minutes flat.  Whereas I usually need to change and brush my hair and find the shoes that go with my outfit and then decide to change my shirt which then means I need to change my shoes and then I need to change the Buddha’s diaper and then I decide to change her shirt and then I need to pack the diaper bag and then put her jacket on and then put my jacket on and then point out that if he’s in such an all-fired hurry he could do some of the baby stuff while I do my stuff and all of this?  This stuff I have to do before I leave?  It takes time.  And he gets impatient.  I get this.  Even so, when we have this conversation, it makes me want to beat him senseless:

Me: You’ve been sitting in the car for 15 minutes?
Him: Yeah.  You take forever.
Me: But I didn’t know you were sitting in the car. You didn’t tell me you were going to go sit in the car.
Him: Where’d you think I was?
Me: Out doing some quick thing.  So then I started picking up the kitchen while I was waiting for you to finish.  And after fifteen minutes I was getting pissed, which is when I realized you were sitting in the car.
Him: Whatever.  You should move faster.
Me: That is so annoying.
Him: Is not!
Me: Is too!

And so on and so forth until the Buddha grows up and moves out and starts talking to her therapist about why she refuses to get in a car unless specifically instructed.

This is what we do.  And having these same little fights over and over means that we don’t bother fighting about the big stuff.  In times of strife, we will always and forever have each other’s backs, because we’ve already worked out the petty irritations.  And that is how we’ve remained married for 39 years (sorry, we had another round of the “What do you want for dinner/Why do I always have to plan dinner” fight while I was writing this which tacked on a few years) and how we’ve grown fonder and fonder of each other through all of them.

So, on this day of pink and roses, what are your biggest fights?

I’m only asking this for a friend

When you read a book that is not an entirely new idea but instead is an updated, modern adaptation of a classic work (think Fielding’s Bridget Jones’s Diary as an update of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice), do you think:

a) brilliant!  I’m so happy that someone took that timeless tale and gave it a dose of modern reality, thus challenging my sense of classic literature and enabling me to see the themes and changed mores in a new light?

b) lame!  The whole point of a “timeless tale” is that is never needs updating, what with it being TIMELESS.  Uncreative loser.  How do these people get published?

Discuss.

An open letter to all those people I’ve referred to as “lazy” in my head

I know this will come as a shock, but occasionally, not often, but every once in a while like, oh, I don’t know, nearly every day, I can be a bit judgmental.  It’s usually just a few things (people who cut me off in traffic because they are so busy and important) that drive me crazy (people who drink super mocha frappachino caramel latte with extra whip and half-caf whatevers) and when I see those things occurring I think bad thoughts about the innocents doing them (people who wear fur).   I try to catch myself but sometimes (people who talk on their cell phone while driving and then complain about accidents) I confess to assuming that anyone partaking in activity I find objectionable (people who get plastic surgery, especially the stupid kind like calf implants) is a complete moron (people who wear stiletto boots in a snowstorm).  This judgmental side can occasionally bite me in the butt, especially when I suddenly realize that what they were doing was actually justified and I am totally, 100% in the wrong.

To wit:

I have always been very judgy about people who use drive throughs.  Especially (ESPECIALLY) when there is a huge line at the drive through and no line inside, meaning that if these people weren’t so lazy and would actually get off their butts and go inside they would save time.  I can’t even tell you how many times I have sailed in for a coffee and then back out again, walking by a line of cars that has barely budged, smugly congratulating myself on not being a lazy American.

Well.

Ahem.

Yesterday, I had to drop the Alias Father off somewhere an hour away from our house and drive back alone with the Buddha.  It was dinner time, I was starving, and I knew that while I could make it home without eating, I really, really, really didn’t want to.  So I pulled into a fast-food joint, looked in the rear-view mirror, and noticed that the Buddha was sound asleep.  “Well,” I thought, “Thank goodness for the drive-through!”

Head smack.

Oh geez.

Oh man.

OF COURSE.

That’s why you would use the drive through.  Kids.  Kids that are sleeping.  Kids that need to be corralled.  Kids that you simply cannot bear to haul out of that damned five-point harness one more time.

I’m an ass.

So, consider this my apology.  I’m sorry I ever thought mean thoughts because you wouldn’t leave your car.  I now know that it was the kids.  I shall humbly assume that everyone else who doesn’t have kids has some other sort of totally reasonable excuse as well (gimpy leg, iffy car that may not restart) and that, truly, I am the wrong one here.

So, so, so wrong.

*sigh*

Really, I still don’t get the calf implants, though.  Can anyone explain the calf implants?

If anyone needs me…

I’ll be asleep under my desk for the next 23 days.  It is February after all.

In theory, February shouldn’t be that bad.  The days are getting longer-ish (light until 5 PM!  It’s a miracle!).  The slide to spring is getting shorter-ish (only three months to go!).  It’s got fewer days to wade through than January.  That holiday-that-I-hate-but-which-at-least-provides-chocolate-so-fine breaks things up in the middle.  My birthday hangs out at the end, luring me with promises of cake and presents.  And yet…meh.  Blah.  Suckage.

I don’t like what the month of February does to me.  It makes me tired, the kind of tired that I can’t sleep off.  It makes me stupid.  It makes my normal procrastination 100 times worse.  Sometimes it makes me teary-eyed and sometimes it makes me angry and sometimes it makes me both at once.  It makes me feel like there’s not a funny, creative, or interesting bone in my body.  It makes me melodramatic (Internet: you don’t say!).  It makes me want to roll my eyes at my own damn self, except that rolling my eyes would require energy and who the hell has that kind of energy these days?

It’s not depression and that’s the part that’s hard for people to get, I think.  I’m not depressed in any real sense of the word.  I’m just tired and worn down and a little on edge.  I just need some sunlight and some warmth and to be able to go outside without wrapping myself in 800 layers first.

Oh, people, I just want to wear short sleeves.  Is that too much to ask?

So until I get a chance to wear short sleeves*, you will just have to bear with me.

Because it’s February.  And this is what I do in February.

Lucky, lucky, lucky you.

*Which will be the last week in February when I go to a warm place for my sister’s wedding and THANK HEAVENS she lives someplace warm.  Would you like to count down the days with me?

Notes on the Buddha: The “Don’t hate her because she’s beautiful” edition

The Buddha is now a full-on, 100% walker.  In true Buddha style, she waited until she was confident that she understood the full ramifications of this decision before letting go of furniture and going hands-free.  As she stood, one hand delicately placed on the coffee table for balance,  I could almost see her making a pro/con list in her wee little head (pro: no more sore knees, con: greater falling distance, pro: will be able to move while carrying stuff, con: Mom will make me carry stuff).  But eventually, she took a deep breath, let go, and walked.  And, again in true Buddha style, there has been no going back.  Crawling is, like, SOOO last week.

As all parents do, I have mixed feelings about this development (pro: she’s growing up!, con: she’s growing up!) and not least of all because she is now a Baby Ninja.  Before I could track the constant sound of hands slapping on hardwood floor all around the house.  Now she’s stealthy  It’s not uncommon for me to think she’s right behind me only to find that she’s actually off in the living room dropping books on the cat’s head.  Or, even worse, to think she’s off in the living room only to take a step and discover she’s actually one millimeter from my leg in the kitchen.  (I should clarify: that’s worse for the Buddha, not the cat.)

In addition to these trials, this walking thing has transformed what was a minor annoyance into an Issue of Import: the pants problem.

In case you are just tuning in, or you forgot, or you can’t be bothered to remember every single thing about my child’s life (and what’s up with that, yo?): the Buddha is tall.  She was born in the 99th percentile for height and there she has stayed, doctor’s visit after doctor’s visit, a constant upward arc on the growth chart.  I’m tallish.  The Alias Father is basketball-player freakish.  This was not a surprise.  She’s tall.  Cool.

But while she started out with a girth to match her height, ever since she began moving we’ve watched her get slimmer and slimmer, and now she’s down to about 50th percentile in weight.  So while she’s tall, she’s thin.  Very tall, quite thin, and yes, I hear you weeping for how difficult this will make the rest of her life.  Tall and thin!  How horrid!  Why not a third eye or a hunchback?  That would be so much easier!  Her twenties will be a nightmare.  She has blue eyes, too.  I should start saving some therapy money now.

But, regardless of how genetic-lotteryesque the tall and thin thing is, it does present the pants problem and if you yourself are tall and thin you are nodding right now because you know what the pants problem is.

There are actually two separate yet connected issues:

If the pants fit her waist, they are too short and she walks around in high-waters.  Aside from the dignity issue, when you live in the cold like I do, this has implications on the warmth factor of pants.

If the pants are long enough, they are too big for her waist and fall down and trip her.

This wasn’t as much of an issue for the crawling, because the bent legs kind of hid the shortness problem.  And while the too-big issue was present and I did spend some time hauling pants back up, at least she was only in danger of plumber’s crack, not a head injury. It’s a petty problem, this pants thing, I agree, but it is still a problem.

I see my future laid out before me: a life of complaining in children’s clothing stores, endless belts and drawstring pants, constant exhortations to “pull your pants up, please.”   All because she was sick of crawling.

And so now I have a walker.  A flood-pant-wearing, plumbers-crack-having, tall and skinny walker.

I think I should invest in some dresses.