G is for Green beans (and also, Gag.)

We got the OK to start solids.

Happy O last week, sitting in her bumbo...

Hmmm...what the hell?!

nom...nom...nom...
YUMZ GIMMEH MORE!

Rice cereal was a big hit.

Green beans?

Not.So.Much.

Yum! More Rice Cereal! Ahhhhhhh.....

Wait...this isn't right...

WHAT HAVE YOU DUNZ?!!! HATE GAG VOMIT WOE!!!!!!

I made it up to her the next day with some delicious oatmeal. She was too pissed to smile, though.

Alright...maybe just one smile. For Daddy.

Mommy is an evil vegetable humper.

It is entirely possible that I've lost my marbs.

Olivia has decided that she doesn't want to sleep. Ever. At all. Even a little. Especially not AT NIGHT! Heavens no!

Lack of sleep makes me a special combination of bitchy and delusional.

For example. I went to the mall this week. Because I hadn't been to baby Gap in days and the skin around my neck was starting to itch from the itty bitty baby retail withdrawal. I was looking a little like Tyrone Biggums*, except my mouth was lined in powdered sugar and I mumbled "gap" in my sleep instead of "crack".



I like to park at the food court. I love the mall food court...

Which reminds me of the time that my grandpa called my grandma a cafeteria chow hound, for whatever reason, and I enjoy that phrase because it is funny and I think it kind of runs in the family. I was always a huge bitch in high school whenever someone would cut in the lunch line. Because there were only so many tater tots and peanut butter squares, and if I missed out on one because of some line-cutting bastard? Well, let's just say I'll cut a bitch if a peanut butter square is on the line.

So. Anyway. I parked at the food court, which leads directly to baby Gap like some sort of delicious smelling yellow brick road. Kizmet? I think so.

However.

Much like Dorothy, I have to make my way through a crowd of assholes just to get to the itty bitty clothes for my sleepless little preshus. At the mall food court, there are these people! Who are trying to give out samples! OH MY GAH! Chinese food! Steak sandwiches! Pretzels! PIZZA!

The guy at the Chinese place must have been feeling particularly snarky that day and decided from the second that I walked in through the sliding doors that I was going to eat a god damned piece of chicken if it was the last thing he accomplished on this earth. Like a suicide bomber in the Chinese restaurant niche. Either that, or he had a competition going with the other sample people.

Chicken Guy: Hey! Free Sample!

Me: (smile) Oh, no thank you. (stares directly at baby Gap; eye on the prize.)

CG: Yes! Sample! Is delicious!

Me: ..... (rage)

CG: Free!

* at this point, I have passed him, and now every time he talks to me, I have to turn around to tell him to shove his chicken up his ass. *

Me: No? Thank you? (preshus baybee onezeez NOM)

CG: Ah! Try this chicken! Meal for $5.99 includes rice!

Me: NO! THANK YOU! SERIOUSLY! (LOSING SHOPPING TIME!)

CG: Hey! Sample is free! Just try!

Me: (Considers walking back and slapping the bottom of his tray so that the free chicken flies in his face. Best case scenario? He gets a toothpick lodged in his cheek. Worst case scenario? He presses charges for toothpick injury, and I go to jail. Probably a bad idea, then.)

Me: (Wait! Jail wouldn't have babies. I could probably sleep. Perhaps even be someones bitch and get some uninterrupted cuddle time! Hmmm...this might not be bad. Decisions, decisions.)

Me: (OMFGZ! Is that a sign for 25% off sale prices at Gap?! This guy is totally lucky right now. I should tell him to play the lottery, except I hate him so I won't.)

Infuriating. But I did get a dress, a onesie, and three shirts for $15. You know, so I can dress Olivia up all night long while we are awake! A gal has to always look her best, right?!

----

I am totally drinking the Wonder Weeks kool-aid right now, because it is the only thing giving me hope that my little preshus will cut this sleep strike shit out. I need to review this book because it is AWESOME, another one I wish I had read before baby. It just tells you what is happening developmentally, and what to expect.

I think we're coming up on big week 24 - sleep problems, rolling all around, crying when I leave the room, a little bit of stranger danger, teething. Knowing this doesn't help anything, but it feels a little better to know there is a reason for my soul crushing exhaustion and satanic bitchiness.

We started rice cereal this week. Olivia is totally going to be a cafeteria chow hound, like many generations before her.

*God, I miss Dave Chappelle.

When did I get all growed up?

Five years ago, when I was young and incredibly smug, I fell madly in love. With my husband.

Alright, so I wouldn't say that we fell madly in love. Mark and Me? We aren't really the fall in love madly types. It was more like, "Oh, there you are! I've been looking all over for you!" It was all just very...easy. It was a perfect fit and really didn't require any effort. It's still kind of like that for us.

At the time, I was working as a banker (read: bank sales slave), and I hated it. I think that it takes a crazy person to enjoy working in sales. And while I am crazy, I am not that particular flavor of crazy. So I was applying for jobs and having all kinds of luck.

Somehow I had two job offers at the exact same time. That does not mean that I am awesome, that just means that I have a generic business degree and am qualified for a slew of entry-level jobs.

But. Two job offers all the same. One paid more than the other, but I just had a gut feeling about the latter. So I took the job with a lesser salary because it felt like a better fit.

Five years later, I'm still with that company. And while my self-indulgent, irresponsible 24 year old self would have never guessed that her gut would lead her in a direction that was SO RIGHT? My 29 year old, jaded, more grown up yet still feeling like a kid self is glad that she made the right decision.

It never occurred to me back then to check my insurance for an infertility rider - nor did I know such a thing even existed, because hello?! That would never apply to me anyway. Yet, luck would have it that I took this job at a company that is forward-thinking enough to purchase an infertility/IVF rider in a state that does not mandate such coverage.

Total dumb luck.

I was thinking about this during an hour-long car ride. Just me and a sweet, sleeping Livi. On our way home from breakfast and shopping with a friend, during which Olivia was sweet and charming and all heart melty. All the events that had to line up for her to be here - it's amazing.

It seems strange that I'm old enough now to start seeing how my life decisions have caused a chain of events that define the way things are for us now.

What's weird is that I still feel like a "kid." My house, my mortgage, my job, my baybee, all of my responsibilities - it all just feels like I'm living a life of someone much older. When I see old high school acquaintences on Facebook, I automatically think: Wow! He/she is married, and has kids, has an awesome job. Like those people are frozen in my mind as immature kids who flung pudding at cars or skipped class to go to the Hot Dog Shop.

Like my accomplishments are amazing feats: tricking a fantastic man into marrying me and agreeing to reproduce with me. How could anyone manage to accomplish these things? HA!

It seems like one day I woke up and realized that I am a grown up - which is awesome sometimes but sometimes it also sucks an amazing amount of ass. And everyone else I know? Is grown up too! Some of us are better at it than others, but we are all adults now. For some reason it just takes me by surprise.

I wouldn't say that I am insecure as a parent. I'm figuring it all out. But I see other moms, and the seem so much more...mature? No. More...capable, maybe? Like, they would know what to say when their child asks, "Mommy, what is sex?"

(My answer: It's bad, is what it is. Yucky!)

(Actually, that phrase could be used to answer a long list of inquiries - balls, penis, vagina, the tax system, the word panties? Bad. Yucky.)

And Olivia is growing up, too. It's like one day she doesn't do something, and then one day she wakes up and all of a sudden has this cool new skill. And that sounds stupid, like saying that you found something in the last place you looked. But sometimes I just think about the little, floppy, helpless newborn that we brought home and wonder, where did she go?

Thinking about the big impact that these small decisions have had makes me nervous. Will I screw up some small thing? How will I know the right moves to make now that I realize how big of an impact something can have?

Last night, we spent at least two hours making Olivia belly laugh.
One of my finer moments as a grown-up. Hands down.

Now That I'm on the Other Side

This question was left in my comments:

“I was wondering if you would be willing to share your thoughts on infertility now that you have had a baby? Do you feel that it has erased the bad feelings associated with the last few years of TTC? When do you think you will try again for #2? Will you go back to the RE right away or try on your own for a while?”

I’m always scared to write about infertility now.

While I was pregnant, I wrote about weight gain anxiety, and was summarily ripped a shiny new gaping asshole.

And maybe you’re thinking that I exaggerate.

I moderated two comments, and also got a handful of HATEFUL emails. Calling me a train wreck, narcissistic. Calling me pathetic.

All of those things are somewhat true, but hey! I don’t need to hear it from people because I already know. I was accused of being a piss poor infertile for talking about…pregnancy? I guess?

(I do fully realize that I am a narcissistic pathetic train wreck, but at least be accurate. I mean, I like Britney Spears and watch The Hills. And I have a blog, for the love of the sweet baby jesus.)

So what I’m taking way too long to say is this: I am going to answer these questions. And you are welcome to disagree with me. Welcome, I say! But if you plan to disagree with me via Blogger comment, then do so respectfully. Don’t hide under the cloak of anonymity and attack me personally, because you are only making yourself look stupid and I will reject it anyway. I already know that you think I am lame and that my ass looks fat in these pants….

(…and all pants, if we’re being totally honest, because I have developed a very serious case of shovel butt.)

(Like someone smacked me in the ass with a huge shovel?)

(Flat and smooshy.)

Do you want to know what I think about infertility? I think it is unfair. I think it sucks. I think that people are so ignorant about infertility that it makes me wish that I could breathe fire. I am tired of the only public examples being Jon and Kate Gosselin and Nadya Suleman. And Michael Jackson.

I think that I need to calm down, because my bitterness is showing in the most unflattering Tara- Reid-Boob-Exposure kind of way.

* Ahem*

No. Having a baby hasn’t erased all my bitterness toward the overtly fertile. Dulled it? Perhaps. But I still have inappropriate reactions to unplanned pregnancies. I cannot be the person who will feel bad for you or agonize with you when you are not using birth control and are SHOCKED! when you have sex and * gasp * get pregnant.

I cannot be the person who feels bad for you because you have been trying to get pregnant for three months and it is upsetting you.

I have a bit of a hierarchy of happiness, if you will, when it comes to being able to relate to people who are trying to get pregnant. Kind of like a second grade math type of thing…

Trying to get pregnant for 3 months
is less than…
Having to do a cycle of Clomid,
which is less than…
Clomid with IUI,
which is less than…
IUI with injectibles,
which is less than…
IVF,
Which is less than…
Multiple IVFs,
Etcetera.

I have a strange, stalkeresque feeling of instant friendship with anyone who has done IVF. Like, I feel the need to instantly overshare about my vagina and Mark’s sperm. More than I feel the need to overshare about that on a regular basis, anyway.

We do want to have another baby. At least one, I think. We’ve got 11 frozen babies waiting for us at the Cleveland Clinic – I wave to them when I go to the mall next door to the Clinic. “Hellewwww ice baybees! Mommy needs some new shoes!”

I’m pretty sure I’ll never do another fresh IVF. If these frozens don’t work, then I’m done with the drugs and the stirrups and the vag cam. That entire experience was hard on me, and I’m enjoying it’s fading from my memory too much to want to bring it back.

I’m way too busy trying to (unsuccessfully) bring sexy back, anyway.

I don’t know that we will ever “try on our own.” When I decide it’s time to try again, I’ll go to the Clinic and have them load me up. We will not be using birth control, though.

But if one more person tells me just how fertile I am right now, my head will probably explode because seriously. My giving birth has nothing to do with the state of the sperm.

What do you guys think? If you have been through infertility, how would you answer those questions?

It's Aunt Jemima for the Next Generation

Pancakes, Anyone?

4 Months: Olivia Jones and the Milestone of Doom

Over a month ago, when Olivia was just a tiny baby, she learned to roll over.

Belly to back.

It was less of a "milestone" and more of an alternative to shaking her fists at the heavens in protest to tummy time. Because how can one shake her fists at the heavens when her fine motor skills have yet to fully develop?

She is a baybee, after all.

So Olivia was rolling belly to back and all was well with the world.

But now? NOW?! Whooooo boy! All is not well with the world.

You see, Olivia has figured out how to roll back to belly. And this sounds fantastic, right? Genius baybee! Huge, giant, practically growed up baybee!! Strongest, smartest baybee Alive!

Hmmm...

It seems that Olivia has forgotten her belly to back trick, now that she is practically a teenager and rolling back to belly. It's, like, so lame and buy me a cell phone and some designer jeans mom and oh by the way I PIERCED MY NIPPLE.

Olivia: Oh, hai. I have rolled to mah belleh from mah back. Am speshul and awesum.


Olivia, 5 Minutes Later: Hmmm...am slightly dissatisfied with life at the moment. I wish there was some way to move from mah belleh to mah back...alas! Iz impossible.
No baybee in history haz ever moved from belleh to back, especially not me last week or anything...



Olivia: SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! I did it! Oh, let me just eat that camera real quick...


This is all very adorable during the day. Especially when the baybee is wearing plaid Gymboree shorts, and after Mommy has consumed an entire 10 cup pot of coffee.

This is all not so very adorable all.night.long. when Olivia cannot stop herself from rolling onto her belleh in her sleep. Because OMG I AM ON MY BELLEH WOE AND SCREAM AND MURDER!

Oh, but she is adorable. I make it all sound so awful, don't I?
It isn't awful at all.

The things she does just make me all melty - smiles and laughs, and recognizing mommy and daddy. And playing with toys, for real. Not just looking, but grabbing and examining. And slobbering on. And the squeals and babbles.

She makes a really good attempt at holding her bottle. I mean, she usually ends up ripping it out of her mouth and squirting formula in her eye, but still. And speaking of ripping? She loves to rip my hair out of my head, and rip my glasses off of my face.

She has her first two best friends...Baxter and Milo. She watches them and touches their fur (and grabs it in hunks). Baxter cries when Olivia cries, and if she cries too long he runs up to us like TAKE CARE OF THAT BABY, YOU MORONS. Milo lays next to Olivia so that his entire body is touching the side of her body.

She is getting so big.
Well...so much bigger.
At her 4 month appointment, she weighed 11.2 pounds, and was 23 inches long. 5th Percentile for both.

In a week? She will be 5 months old.
Sometimes, when I am rocking her to sleep, I look at her and get all panicky. Like, Her FEET! I need to take a picture of her FEET because I want to remember them exactly like this FOREVAH! And her chubby little THUMB! Must Photograph!

I bought a camcorder, so now I have about 30 shaky, off-center videos of her just sitting there doing nothing. Because chewing on linkadoos is advanced and amazing for a baybee and must be documented on film so that future generations may witness her astounding skill and ability.

It should be just a matter of weeks before she starts blogging about how ridiculous I am.
(Don't worry, I'll give you the link.)