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She Drives Me Crazy! Oo! Oo!

Ok, before you read this post please go back and sing the title to the Fine Young Cannibals song from like, 1991 or whenever. Ok, did you do it? Good! Now proceed with your read.

Most of you know that in addition to my three-and-a-half- year-old-son Joshua, I am also the proud mommy of a nine-month-old girl, Sophia.

(It will fit well with the rest of this post to tell you that it’s been 35 minutes since I wrote that last line, because Sophia has been distracting me from my writing by being a total stinkpot.)

What you may not know about Sophie, however, is that girlfriend is crazy. Cra-ZEE. Crizz-azy, some might even say. And she’s driving me crazy. And wearing me the heck out. She’s sassy and funny and fearless and just crazy! She’s so different than her older brother in every way that it just boggles my mind over and over again. He was just too easygoing, and she is so…high maintenance! I mean logically when you have a second child you know they will be different than the first, but I really cannot believe how different her babyhood has been. She exhausts me! Her exuberance is adorable yet draining. She’s playful yet picky, sweet but stormy, and cute but conniving. She won’t let me relax for a second, and I’m constantly saving her from herself. A few seconds ago, she almost took a dive off my lap – I barely caught her in time! I have to dig STUFF out of her mouth every 10 minutes as she’s always on the hunt for foreign objects, and no matter how carefully I vacuum and pick up, she finds something bad to eat. As a matter of fact, I think she has a secret deal with her brother and/or the cats to bring her bits of contraband. Cat hair, pine needles, bits of food Joshua drops off his plate…it matters not! If it looks interesting, she’ll make it hers.

There are things I love about her craziness and things I really, really DON’T. For instance, I love one of her new crazy tricks, which is shaking her head and long hair side to side with a wide open mouth over and over again and making herself dizzy. It’s pretty stinking hilarious! Her other new crazy trick which I don’t love so much, is trying to gouge my eyes out. Any time I am holding her (which is like, you know, all the freaking time basically), she goes for my eyeballs with those stay-sharp fingernails (they are like razors no matter how often I clip them!) and I just have to close my eyes and try and bat her hands away with my free hand, while she tries to pry my eyelids open. When I am finally able to put her down and stop this game, she screams uncontrollably for awhile until some other potential act of mischief catches her eye.

Shew! Just writing about that wears me out.

Her other new favorite activity, which is both hysterical and annoying, is to try and get up on all fours while she’s nursing and latched on. Like she thinks I’m a drinking fountain or something! This does NOT work well when nursing in public. She’s also very into “grab-the nipple” these days – she has to have her hands in and on everything!

She takes short naps, screams when she hears the word “no”, gives me the hardest time about eating baby food, and hates to be confined in any way. And even though she’s been eating solid foods for over three months, she still finds a way, at least once a day, to poop up & out the back of her diaper. Not squirty breastmilk poops, people. Solid food poopie. Which I realized about 30 minutes after changing her one day last week, I still had on my forearm. Ick!

Right now as I write this, she is standing in her pack-n-play, alternately fussing and smiling at me, trying to decide which is the better tactic to secure her release. The smile is working on me. It is truly irresistible (and still toothless at 9 months!) Oh – she is a crazy girl, but I know if, just if I can survive her infancy and toddlerhood, we will have a whole lot of fun together.

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Mom’s Market Mayhem

Saturday morning was the “Mom’s Market” consignment sale in a neighboring town. Jenny and I had gone last year for the first time, not really knowing what we had gotten ourselves into – she was hugely pregnant and I had the mistaken idea that it would be an appropriate place to bring my daughter. It turned out there was room for neither Jenny’s belly or Kate’s stroller. We were also unaware at the time that if the sale starts at 9:00 a.m., one must in fact be in line long before that. However, tons of gently-used, high-quality, low-priced baby gear, toys and clothes were there for the taking. We were in love.

This year, I searched high and low for information on when this Prada sample sale was going to take place so I could mark it on my calendar. Unfortunately, by the time we uncovered the secret time and location, Jenny was already booked for that morning.

So, Saturday finally arrived. I was pumped. Kate had spent the night with Papa and Nana the night before… so on the one day in history that it was actually going to be possible for me to sleep in, I set the alarm for 7:15. I rolled out of bed, threw on some jeans, ran a brush through my hair and hit the road. (The other moms were loving comparing themselves to me that morning).

I arrived at the sale location just before 8:00 – I was an hour early and still the line already contained 50 or more people. Had they camped out? Ugh! For some reason, I thought I should get my Visa out and ready to go at that point… and I couldn’t find my wallet. I thought I had left it in the other car. I dumped everything out of my purse, hoping to find a renegade credit card or at least my checkbook, but to no avail. I called Andy (and woke him up on the one day he could have slept in) and was on the verge of tears telling him what was going on. He told me to calm down that he’d bring me my wallet, bless his heart. But then I thought to check the floor where my purse had been sitting and sure enough, my wallet was laying right there. Crisis averted.

I went to get in line with all the other crazy moms. I was feeling pretty smart because I had thought to bring a book and a half-read magazine as a way to kill time. However, being the genius I am, I picked up Harry Potter number one, when really I am on book two in my quest to become the last person in the universe to have read these books. So much for that. I read the rest of my magazine, but that only bought me about 10 minutes of entertainment.

So instead, I started people-watching. I got a closer look at the moms in the front of the line, with their lawn chairs and three-course breakfast. I was pretty sure I saw remnents of the campfire they had built the night before. I heard the woman behind me saying that her husband was going to join her shortly, and that she purposefully had her in-laws come into town each year the weekend of this sale, so they could watch the kids. Hey, whatever it takes, I guess. Then there was the mother-daughter team in front of me – I think they should try out for “The Amazing Race” because if they can map out a plan to attack that sale the way they did, they can definitely win a million on that show.

Finally, after an hour that seemed like a day, they opened the door. The stampede began. I was getting caught up in the excitement myself, I will admit. I headed straight for the gym (it was at an elementary school), where I thought the strollers would be. Unfortunately, they weren’t in the gym, and by the time I had figured that out, made my way back to the door and asked for directions to the strollers, I was mad that I had wasted at least four precious minutes.

I struck out in the stroller department, so I went to the clothes. The clothes were hung up on long racks that lined the hallway of the school. They were so jammed together that it was hard to see what was there. I was apparently not moving quickly enough, because the mom behind me was all up in my business. I was relieved when she sighed loudly and then finally went around me. I heard one mom say, “I am so mean when I come here!!” Yikes.

I actually found some really great stuff – I bought a lot of Gymboree and Gap stuff that I would have never paid retail for. So it was worth it. But by the time I got in line to pay for my loot, I felt like I had just run a marathon. I was completely physically and emotionally exhausted!

As I headed to my car, I saw a dad emerge from the madness. He looked at me and said, “That is the scariest place I have ever been in my life.”

I had to agree. But you can bet I will be there again next year!

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Mom-Watching

Last night Bobby was at a work thing so I took the kids to the mall because my birthday money was burning a hole in my pocket, and I’ve recently ruined a couple of shirts that I wear for everyday mommin’, so I thought I’d see what I could find for myself and then let Joshua play at the play place.

After some semi-successful shirt shopping, Sophie and I settled in at the play place while Joshua ran around and had fun like a crazy kiddo. Before long, I couldn’t help myself, and I did what I have found myself doing often since I became a mom, and especially in the last few months since I became a stay-at-homer. I started watching the other moms, and comparing myself to them. I’ve been doing this a lot lately where there are mom-types gathered: the mall, the grocery, the park, the bookstore. I look at what they’re wearing, how they’ve done their hair, their makeup (or lack of it). Then I compare myself to see how I measure up. I remember one day after I had first started staying at home, I took both my kiddos to Babies ‘R Us. I had the no-makeup-and-ponytail look going on. Not cute. I saw two moms there whose eyes I wanted to SCRATCH OUT they looked so PERFECT! One was prego and “all belly” with perfectly cute maternity outfit and blown-out hair, lovely makeup, and well-dressed first child in the cart. The other mom was in ripped jeans, tight tank top, and also had the perfectly blown out hair and makeup, as well as killer manicure and adorable child. I had the adorable children and not much else. I slid out of there feeling pretty low.

Tonight I fared a little better. I had on a pretty ho-hum outfit – denim capris and a t-shirt, and I was again rockin’ the ponytail, but I had a respectable makeup job. And there were a couple moms at the play place rockin’ the TUBE TOP who really shouldn’t have been. But really, what does it matter? WHY can’t I go anywhere without comparing myself? Why is it important for me to look pretty, hip, cool, trendy, etc?

Anyone got an answer for me?

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