cranky pixels

Growing up in California (…mostly) we didn’t get to experience many snow days, but I still get a little frisson of delight every time it snows. Sky confetti! Festive! Plus, in Portland there’s very little chance that, for example, it will snow so long and hard that roads will be unpassable and I will have to trudge through a mile of knee-deep snowdrifts to get to work. (This is especially true now, given that I work from home.)

Today’s flurries aren’t even really sticking, but I have the shades open so I can watch the snow fall. I tried to interest Happy Fun Baby (“Look! Snow!”) but, surprisingly, he cares very little about something he can barely see or understand. Just wait until there’s enough on the ground for snowballs, that’s all I have to say.

Actually, the little one is feeling pretty punk. He woke up every hour or so last night wailing like the world was ending, arching his back and kicking, only somewhat mollified by the usual panacea of nursing. This morning he fell asleep sitting up in the comfy chair, but every time his head tilted back he’d choke a little and wake himself up. Poor Boo. I moved him to the futon and he’s curled up there now, sound asleep, with a look of displeasure on his face.

My diagnosis is a cold, which is probably exacerbated by the fact that he’s teething like a mofo. During our Santa Cruz trip he was regularly soaking through his shirts with drool, and when we got home he got serious about the biting business, going to town on his various teething implements. The odd thing is I can’t for the life of me figure out which tooth is coming through. I suspect molars. I dread molars. It can’t be time for molars yet, can it? (Note: denial. Baby cannot be turning a year old in two weeks. Is impossible. Next question.)

The snow is barely even coming down now, and all the flakes I photographed have melted. It’s okay. I’m still feeling wintry.

technorati tags:snow, portland, baby, cold, sick, sleep, teething

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(That’s “jiggety jig” in the “home again, home again” sense, not any sort of newfangled rap reference. If you were confused.)

We’ve been home since Saturday afternoon, but the last day and a half was spent laying around in a post-vacation daze. Home seems particularly small and cluttered after six days at Auntie Pep’s spacious abode, but also comforting and familiar. The minute we got into Portland I felt a bizarre sense of calm that couldn’t simply be ascribed to a break in my PMS. I guess that means Santa Cruz isn’t home anymore. Which is okay with me.

When I moved away from California the first time, everything I saw went through the Santa Cruz comparison filter. Sure, this cafe is nice, but it’s no ERC. Lovely view, but it’s no Seabright. I like this bookshop, but - okay, actually, Henderson’s bookstore in Bellingham left Bookshop Santa Cruz in the dust, but that’s about the only thing.

Portland was the first place I’d been that came out on top comparison-wise, so of course we had to move here. Even so, there were things. Salsa, for example. How could any salsa ever be as good as the salsa fresca from Planet Fresh? I’ve spent the last six months craving the salsa from Planet Fresh. The tomatoes, the green onions, the cilantro I always picked out and left in a careful pile at the side of my tray…my mouth watered just thinking about it. I had some on Monday, and it was…not as good as I remembered. I actually wished we’d gone to Baja Fresh. How depressing is that?

My grandiose plans to write thousands of delicious words while other people wrangled my baby were, unsurprisingly, never realized, although I did get to spend some time in the place I always think of when I’m picturing myself writing in a coffee shop: the back porch at Lulu Carpenter’s (which used to be ERC but isn’t, anymore). Ever since I was about 15, I’ve wanted to sit back there with a laptop (or “pen and paper,” as we called it in those days) and churn out pages of novel-related angst. Instead I sat there with my sister-in-law and niece and husband and baby and watched them playing together while Not So and I passed the camera back and forth. Which is like writing, you know, only not. There’s a lot of only not in my world right now. I might need to get that printed on a shirt.

Now we have Christmas shopping and sleep training and laundry and school and holiday parties and birthdays and doctor’s appointments and website building and business wrangling. And that’s just in the next two weeks! I’m glad we went, and I’m glad we’re home. Portland is my hometown now. And I only miss my old hometown a little bit.

technorati tags:santa cruz, vacation, portland, home, planet fresh, lulu carpenters

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Family and holidays: what could be better? And by better I mean worse. Ha! I kid. Or…do I?

Sunday kicked off a week in sunny Santa Cruz, which both Not So and I call our hometown. In the case of Not So, it’s actually the truth! I did go to high school here (well, not here, but nearby. Same county) so it sort of counts. My sister went to UCSC and instead of fleeing once she was done with college and ready to settle down, she and her husband bought a huge, lovely house and live a huge, lovely life amongst the huge, lovely redwoods. Are you noticing the adjectives? Because that’s the first thing that jumps out when one walks into Auntie Pep’s house: the hugeness of it, and the loveliness, second only to this place is a baby deathtrap OMG. Or maybe that’s just me.

We’ve managed to keep the small child from, in no particular order, electrocuting, drowning, immolating or concussing himself, and I am offering myself a pat on the back for that. Pat, pat. I can’t take all the credit; Not So’s been lovely and amazing, and the aunt and uncle-unit are nuts over the baby. It’s so funny to see my baby sister all gaga over an infant. She’s always been somewhat more career-oriented than maternal, but as far as she’s concerned, Ellison’s the best thing since sliced bread. Which is pretty reasonable, since sliced bread’s got nothing on my kid.

We survived a family dinner with at least 15 guests, if by survived you mean sat upstairs while the baby wailed and refused to take a nap and three generations of relatives clamoured for him to cheer up so they could play with him. Good times, good times. I’m not fond of crowds under the best of circumstances, but add together my mother, my grandmother, and a screaming baby? At least I’m so sleep-deprived that I can’t quite manage a full-fledged anxiety attack, that’s all I’m saying.

Aside from the exciting napping issues, Happy Fun Baby is having the time of his life, running through the hugeness that is the living room, toddling around the loveliness that is the newly-remodeled kitchen. I can only imagine that the return to our miniscule (but cute!) condo will be somewhat anticlimactic for him.

Plus, home will not involve Auntie Pep, who is Happy Fun Baby’s official Favorite Person Anywhere Ever. She fed him ham last night. You wouldn’t think ham would be the way to a baby’s heart, but you’ve obviously never met my baby. They chase each other around, playing hide-and-seek, singing little songs…it is a veritable cornucopia of cuteness.

Being childless (except for the new puppy, which is a lot having a child, assuming you’re the sort of person who’s comfortable leaving your child home all day while you go to work) my sister has time to do things like paint her toenails and shave her legs, which Happy Fun Baby finds fascinating. Each time he sees painted toenails he gets down on the ground to study them, fascinated, and then looks up at me like why can’t you be more like Auntie Pep? To which I respond by putting on a pair of sweats and sulking. Just like when we were kids!

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After my recent kvetching about my breastfeeding boobs, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention this story about a woman who was kicked off a plane for breastfeeding her child.

Take a moment to think about that. A woman. Kicked off a plane. For feeding her child. Why should that sentence be any different with the word “breast” in it?

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking “Clearly the airline thought those breasts could be a threat to our national security.” And I can’t argue with that. Breasts are obviously weapons of terror, and babies? Oh, don’t get me started on the danger of babies.

The only other explanation is that we as a society are so uncomfortable with breastfeeding that the idea of ejecting a family from a plane because the mother refused the suggestion of covering her baby’s head with a blanket while he nursed sounds reasonable because breastfeeding? Inherently immodest. Obscene.

“A breast-feeding mother is perfectly acceptable on an aircraft, providing she is feeding the child in a discreet way,” that does not bother others, said Paul Skellon, spokesman for Phoenix-based Freedom. “She was asked to use a blanket just to provide a little more discretion, she was given a blanket, and she refused to use it, and that’s all I know.”

FOXNews.com – Woman Claims She Was Kicked Off Flight for Breast-Feeding Baby – Local News | News Articles | National News | US News

And a mother should feed her child discreetly…why? Food consumption is allowed on airlines. Flight attendants regularly hand passengers food items, which they can consume at their leisure. I have eaten food on a flight in the past, and I do not recall ever being told that I must do so discreetly, under a blanket, to spare my fellow passengers embarassment. Does bottle-feeding require discretion? Do flight attendants demand that bottle-feeding children eat under cover?

And if it’s a breast issue, what exactly do we intend to do about women in low-cut blouses? Are they given blankets? (I’m entertained to no end by this idea, but that’s neither here nor there.) Even the most eagle-eyed fellow passenger, craning his or her neck to ogle the breastfeeding mother, can see no more exposed breast than is visible in your average tank top. Then again, we are a society who collectively panicked by the momentary glimpse of Janet Jackson’s nipple. Go, us.

Delta and Freedom airlines: feeding a child is not immodest. It does not require discretion. If a mother chooses for her own comfort to cover up while breastfeeding: fine. Some mothers do, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But it does not suggest that it’s a requirement.

Let’s all take a moment to tell Delta how utterly ridiculous this whole thing is. Shame on you, Delta.

technorati tags:breastfeeding, nursing, airline, delta, freedom

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I used to have great boobs. I did. At 30, I had the boobs of a sixteen-year-old cheerleader. I’m only mentioning this for informational purposes.

After the baby, of course, that all changed. Where once there was perk, now there was only sag. Bras became necessary, as opposed to decorative. I went from a 34B to a 38D, and was somewhat unprepared for the change.

For example: bras. At the time of Happy Fun Baby’s birth, I owned no nursing bras (believing that I’d need to wait until I was nursing to figure out what size I needed) and one bra that fit around my newly-expanded ribcage. When I started nursing, I got a couple of comfy, stretchy nursing bras that I could wear to bed as well as around the house. I also picked up one extraordinarily unattractive “traditional” nursing bra at Nordstrom. It was huge, white, and matronly; the brassiere equivalent of granny panties.

Until last week, those were my options: unsupportive but comfy or huge, white, and matronly. None of these options addressed the Nipple Issue, which hadn’t been an issue at all during the six months I was using nursing pads. Nursing pads, in fact, were quite adept at nipple hideage, but a layer of thin spandex, while great for quick nursing access, made me look like Headlight Central. Now, if I wanted to interact with the public, I had to either wear the ribcage-fitting pre-baby bra (two cup sizes too small and hardly ideal) or wear layers. Lots and lots of layers.

Last week I finally broke down and decided that a new bra was imperitive. I was tired of feeling like the cliche of the early-developing high-school girl who slouches and wears baggy sweaters. I missed my old boobs, and if I was going to be stuck with these, I at least wanted them to be tolerable. Also, they seemed to be descending ever downward in an unpleasant manner.

Finding a bra was somewhat easier said than done; almost all the bras in my new size had underwire, which, given the massive weight of my new boobs, dug unpleasantly into my ribcage. Finding a bra with molded cups and no underwire? Somewhat difficult. And molded cups were definitely in order.

Macy’s came through for me in the person of a desperately chatty saleslady who seemed as though her personal well-being depended on my finding a foundation garment that fit. I now own a sleek black bra that is neither matronly nor unsupportive. You may applaud at will.

And, oh my god. I actually look thinner. Having my boobs elevated and properly contained makes a huge difference. I almost look – dare I say it – cute.

If I’d known a bra was this important, I might have gotten one months ago. And…I probably should have.

technorati tags:bra, shopping, yay

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Since I needed socks, Happy Fun Baby and I went to Macy’s, which is in the old Meyer & Frank building and still has construction going on, like, everywhere. They’re having this crazy One Day Sale right now and I thought, what the hell, I have some time to kill. Plus, socks. It is boot weather, and all of my boot-length socks have holes in the toes.

So I bought socks (3 for $15, woo hoo!) and a hat (…on sale? 40% off? Is that a good excuse?) and figured, well, I’m here, I might as well wander over to the shoe section. Macy’s, as you may know, has the kick-assenist clearance racks on the planet. The wee red signs declaring 50% off of already reduced prices make my heart go pitter-patter.

On the way to the shoe section we were routed by various construction-related plywood mazes through the cosmetics section, and that’s where it all started to fall apart. An extremely lab-coated Clinique rep planted herself directly in my path. “Our gloss is on sale!” she said. Um. Yay? I may have been asking for it. I may have looked like a woman in need of gloss. “What color do you like? Pink?” she continued, while subtly but inexorably maneuvering me into a cosmetic-counter chair. She had a very pronounced…lisp? All of her “r”s sounded like “w”s.

“I don’t wear pink,” I said, uselessly, while she prepared a sample.

“Well, this isn’t really pink.” This isn’t weawwy pink.

I tried the sample, bemused.  It actually looked kind of good, but I had no intention of buying gloss. I don’t even wear gloss. “I’ll think about it,” I started to say, but she was already handing me an application for a Macy’s card.

“You know you’ll save 15% today when you get approved. It’s only two minutes.”

“Oh, I’m sure I won’t get approved,” I said, but the pen was in my hand.

“Two minutes. I’ll just put your number in the system and we’ll see. It can’t hurt to try, right?”

Five minutes later I had not only a Macy’s card but also a cunning set of Clinique glosses.

I got carded.

technorati tags:macys, clinique, credit, shopping, cosmetics

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My kid has a thing about taking his shoe off. Only one. He can often be found toddling around with one bare foot, gleefully clutching his shoe or sock and waving it around like a trophy. I have shown the shoe who is boss, he says. Other shoe: you’re on notice.

Today was going to be a supercool playdate at a place called Sydney’s, where, in addition to playing with other babies, we were going to get advice from a pro photographer who specializes in baby photos. Sounds fun, you say. Doesn’t it? We were all full of optimism and anticipation on Saturday, when it was all shiny and beautiful outside. Yesterday saw a marked decrease in optimism, especially after our coming-home-from-Target-in-a-rainstorm extravaganza. Sleeping babies, as it turns out, really do not like to be woken up by a face full of wind and rain. In fact, they are liable to scream all through the bus ride, and then continue screaming, at a slightly more hysterical register, on the dash from the bus stop to the house. It’s only a few blocks, but babies? No sense of perspective.

The forecast for today called for more rain, more wind, and more screaming, so we elected to stay home. Of course, when I woke up this morning, was it raining? It was not. It’s sort of sprinkling now, in a half-hearted way. Sure, the rain says. You couldn’t possibly go out in a light drizzle. It’s not like you live in the Pacific Northwest or anything. Loser. And I say screw you, rain, you’re just trying to make me feel bad and it’s not going to work. It’s not! Shut up.

So, home we are. I’ve got some toymaking projects to do (gifts for the niece and nephew, whom we will be visiting next week) but I think I need pins before I can do anything with fleece, since it is somewhat more slithery than felt. Pins. Who’d have thunk? Next you’ll be suggesting I work from a pattern or something. ::scoff::

technorati tags:rain, crafts, shoe, baby

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