Mostly-Mommy

Five years ago today was a very good day for me. I was lucky enough to find the love of my life and best friend, then even luckier to get to spend the rest of my life with him.

Five years ago today Mike and I got married right here in Kansas City.

Five years ago was one of the best days of my life and to celebrate that we went to see “Superbad” (which was superfunny) then for dinner at McCormick & Schmick’s. Yum. It was a very good day.

(Thanks to mamasara for hours of free babysitting — you rock!)

Zoey went to the pediatrician yesterday for her four month check-up and first round of vaccinations. For those of you keeping score she’s in the 75th percentile at 14 pounds, 6 ounces and 25″ long. She also has the motor skills of a six-month old and kept her ped on her toes because she kept trying to roll off the table. We make strong babies!

(On a side note they tried to give her a Hepatitis shot by just drawing up a combo vaccine. They acted shocked that I didn’t want it and drew up a new one sans Hepatitis. Score one for me for paying attention. It makes me kinda sad that it is such common practice to give it now that they don’t even ask anymore. I had no idea so many babies were sexually active IV drug users. Kids these days…)

So after the shots she was a bit cranky the rest of the day but actually ended up sleeping really well last night. And this is where we get to “The Incident:”

At 2:30am I got up to feed the wee one, strapped on My Brest Friend and sat down in the rocker with her. After a few minutes I felt a little flutter on my leg which I attributed to lightly brushing up against the chair leg. Shortly thereafter I was shaken from my drowsy half-awake state when something skittered across my shoulder. I startled and flung my hand across my shoulder to knock it off. My hair was hanging there so I tried to chill out and convince myself that it was just my hair. It was working until a giant, hairy black spider skittered up the side of my boob, across my chest and down into my bra. I FREAKED OUT PEOPLE, I FREAKED OUT. I had the peace of mind to get over to the bed to put the baby down before somehow stripping off all my clothes while brushing imaginary spiders off my entire body and hair and yelling at Mike to “GET IT OFF ME! GET IT OFF ME! ARE THERE SPIDERS ON ME?!? GET THE SPIDERS OFF ME!” There were no spiders on me.

I got Zoey into bed and lay back down in bed next to my already peacefully sleeping husband. I lay there awake for the next two hours, until after the wee one woke up again to nurse. You might say I had some trouble winding down after “The Incident.” I may need therapy. I may need cases of bug spray. I may need a new cat that will actually defend our home against eight-legged invaders. Griffin can take out any mouse but I would far rather he could protect me against bugs because those are wayyyyyy more terrifying to me.

You don’t need to tell me I have issues, I already know.

“Bionic Woman” is kind of a stinker. I knew it would be for sure when in her very first line she couldn’t keep her accent together. I think my expectations are too high — I want every new show to be like the first season of LOST and it just isn’t gonna happen. Even LOST now can’t touch how LOST was.

Also I may be feeling a bit negative right now because I am a little on the sleep deprived side right now. Little one is just keeping up with the unrelenting night waking. Last night we decided to let her cry it out a bit to extend my hunks of sleep beyond 1-2 hours at a time. She screamed for an hour and a half. Not crying… well some crying… but mostly shrill, heartbreaking screaming. She is a persistent little thing, I’ll give her that. THANK GOD Nick is sleeping pretty well now — not napping has an upside which is that he doesn’t wake up with every squeak of a floorboard anymore. I don’t know how he slept through it because all I could do was lay there and feel like the worst mom in history. I learned a long time ago that there are two mantras of Motherhood:

1. The only thing you can expect is change.

2. This too shall pass.

I need some comedy right about now, how about you?

A two-year-old will eat more uncooked pasta than they will use on their craft project.

Zoey LOVES dancing.

Squirrels can live for 10 years. No wonder that one out back seems so old and crotchety.

Our crib is defective and has been recalled. At any point in the last 2 1/2 years our son could have been killed while sleeping in it like THREE OTHER BABIES WERE. Thanks Simplicity. Real nice.

Our son enjoys the same fashion sense as Elton John.

Having a baby makes for a really busy summer.

Pat is waaaaaaayy better at Scrabble than me (and Mario Party but whatever).

Nick can now open the basement door and go downstairs. Disturbingly, I found this out the hard way while I was down there doing laundry by myself… or so I thought…

I don’t have time for Facebook.

Nick is no longer interested in naps. Zoey is no longer interested in sleeping for more than 1-3 hours at a time. Both of these realizations have been brewing for quite some time but I am finally having to give up and accept both. Tonight I will record Zoey’s shreiking and squeeling to play for you all, and also to guilt her with later.

The “Bourne Ultimatum” is awesome. Probably better if the theater has air conditioning and doesn’t smell like pee, but still really good.

It is hard to keep my house clean and uncluttered. I never feel like I have enough hours in the day. Or at night — especially at night. I could really use more time to sleep.

NBC has some pretty good new things happening this season. “Chuck” surprised me and was better than I thought it would be, we’ll see how it goes. We’re excited for the “Bionic Woman” tomorrow but I don’t hold out much hope for that one — too overhyped.

Nick and I can share jokes now which I think is pretty cool. The best ones involve cats.

Well I think that about does it for now. I’m sure I’m missing a lot but a mama’s mind can only hold so much. The amount is directly proportional to the amount of sleep that… I, um… what was I saying again?

A while ago the Subaru started making a squeeling noise when I would back up and a scraping noise while I was driving. Not too troubling as we near the 60,000 mile mark we figured we needed a brake service. So I called Subaru and made the appointment. While it was in the shop I asked them to look at the “Air Bag” light which had been going on and off for probably at least a year. There was a service bulletin about it so we figured we’d just get it taken care of when it went in for its next service.

We were right about the brakes, no surprise there. However, we were NOT right about the air bag light. Turns out that all this time we’ve had non-functioning air bags on the passenger side of our car! The wiring harness under the front passenger seat had become loose and was not working. Yikes!

We got that all fixed but here’s the kicker. I am not feeling overly enamored with this vehicle’s design. This is now the second wiring problem we’ve had to get fixed because someone’s foot kicked it loose (probably mine but I won’t point any fingers at the jimmy legs among us). In general I am very happy with the car, especially in the winter, but it has some design flaws. One is the wiring locations apparently, and another is the excessively cramped back seat. We bought this car specifically for safely hauling babies around — at least is has the safe part as long as the airbags are working!

I thought I should put this all out there in case someone is Googling about the 2003 Subaru Forester. Perfect it ain’t but it’s ours!