I need to devote a blog entry to something I lovingly call the Facebump. But first, I should explain what the Facebump is. Back when I found out I was pregnant, I stumbled across a website called thebump.com. It was all about babies and pregnancy, and since I was clueless about both, I joined. I settled into a group where all members had due dates in September.
It was really nice, as we were all going through the same things at roughly the same time, and a nice comradarie developed. Over time, we stopped posting on the bump and started posting as a private group on Facebook.
This private group was called September Sweet Peas. We had our babies and have become a wonderful support for each other.
The 294 members of the group come from all walks of life, are scattered across the country, are a mixed bag of races and religions, and have wildly different opinions on all topics. Despite this, and this is not to say that there are not personality conflicts and that everyone shits rainbows, we come together when it counts.
Out of a group of strangers, real relationships have developed. I have been fortunate to live close to a few of the girls and have hung out with them, not just as moms, but as friends. It is not just us girls that live on Long Island that have met up. Girls have been meeting each other all over the country. There is even a giant get together planned for this summer in Chicago.
We know each other's secrets, we know each other's strange dreams, we have shared advice, asked for help, vented, raged. We talk about every topic under the sun, nothing is off-limits. Sex...check, religion...check, politics...check. Oh, I should mention that we do, from time to time, fight with each other. Sometimes the fights are with love behind them, sometimes it is between girls that really do not like each other.
There is a lot that I could say about what the group means to me. They rallied around me and supported me completely when were told that our daughter was going to be born with a possibly fatal genetic condition. It wasn't just "So sorry, thinking about you". It was "So sorry, thinking about you." followed by days of concerned questions and follow up questions and offers to be my sounding board if I should need one.
Then my daughter landed in the hospital before she was even 2 months old. Once again, my girls raised me up with their genuine concern. These women, most of whom I have never met asked for updates about my daughter all the time. Their collective concern for my child was overwhelming and helped give me the strength I needed.
And, it is not just my child that this love and concern is shown for. Everytime a difficult situation arises for one of the group members, we are there to help lift that person up. And when one of the moms experienced the loss of her child, we did what we could. I am not going to get into the specifics because that story is not mine to tell, but I will be forever touched and in awe of what transpired within our group after that tragedy.
It is such a shame that girls are not shown examples of positive female relationships. TV shows and movies show womens' relations as such a negative thing filled with jealousy, cattiness, and disloyalty. I like to think that we are an example of the best of womens' relations. We are supportive, loving, real. I wish girls could see what we are. I wish girls could see that, even though not everyone is best friends, even though there is some bickering, women can have positive relations with other women. More girls need to see this.
So, to my Sweet Peas...thank you
XOXOXO
Thursday, December 22, 2011
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
babies are weird and gross and cute and some things non-baby
While Evangeline sleeps, I want to get down some of what has been going on.
1) My daughter likes to beat the shit out of her face. Seriously. She has this nightly ritual that she does when she is going to bed and it culminates with a nightly face-beating. It begins innocently enough. She starts moaning and whining a little and rubbing her face into me or Alex. That is our cue to put her to bed. Once in bed, she brings her hands her to her mouth and yells at them. Her eyes will be closed the entire time. It is pretty funny. I don't know what her hands did to offend her, but there must have been a serious transgression there. After her hands have been properly chastised and she has stopped yelling, it becomes time to beat herself up. She flails her arms about pretty violently and whacks them onto her little face again and again. At first, we tried stopping this, but we learned soon enough that this is what she had to do to fall asleep. But, make no mistake, that shit hurts. I have put my face next to hers while she is doing this and have taken a hit from her arms. It's no joke man, she is a strong little stinker.
2) Evangeline seems to develops grosser and grosser habits with each passing day. Here are two of these gross habits. The first is drooling. Now, I know that it is just because she has started the teething process, but it does not make it any prettier. She drools constantly. I would not be the least bit surprised if she drools her body weight everyday. We are talking continual streams of drool. She is like a St. Bernard. Secondly, she has realized that she can lift things up to her mouth. She has also realized that it is fun to shove things in her mouth and chew on them. The two of these put together have made for some interesting moments. She loves to chew on her fists and her blankets. However, my daughter does not discriminate. Whatever she can grasp is fair game. So, she has chewed on stuffed animals, a Xmas ornament, my scarf, my cat's tail (don't ask), my hair, you name it. What makes it even nastier is that she shoves whatever she has in her hand, so far down her throat that she gags. She will take her hand out and wait until the gagging subsides and shove it back in again and gag again. It is like a game to her. It is a game that has ended in vomit more than once. Fun for her, I guess. My baby is just a gross weirdo.
3) I joined Weight Watchers online. It sucks. I hate it. I am hungry. I have lost 4 lbs in 3 days, so I am going to stick with it. But, I will bitch about it every chance I get.
4) Malls are really the armpit of commerce. Since I am not a shopper, I do not frequent malls, but I know that will be changing now that I have a baby. When it is too cold to do anything else and I need to get out of the house, I will go walk the mall. But it doesn't mean I have to like it. This is what I don't get about malls: when did the marketers decide that assaulting shoppers sense of sight, hearing, and smell is good business sense. I went yesterday to pick up a few things that I absolutely needed. I went in and went out and was done within an hour. But, the headache I got while at the mall lasted all day. First, the music that blasts out of every store is way too loud and is awful. It is all that fist-pumping crap. Like, if you are going to blast music, pick something good at least. So, my hearing was assaulted. Next, I had to deal with the smells. I assume that the amount of putrid cologne that wafts out of every teen clothing store has a purpose. It cannot possibly be to lure the customer in because of how awful the smells are. No, it must be something else. I have a theory that the strength of the scent makes the shopper dizzy and disoriented and more likely to make unwise shopping decisions. Whatever the reason, now my sense of smell was attacked. Finally, enough with the neon lights and dancing light beams and high intensity ceiling lights. It hurts the eyes and does not make me want to look at the merchandise. With my senses completely beaten up, I left with a raging headache and a pissed off baby that woke up every time we passed a store playing that techno shit. Malls suck.
Anyway, the tanks empty, that's all I got for now. Later.
1) My daughter likes to beat the shit out of her face. Seriously. She has this nightly ritual that she does when she is going to bed and it culminates with a nightly face-beating. It begins innocently enough. She starts moaning and whining a little and rubbing her face into me or Alex. That is our cue to put her to bed. Once in bed, she brings her hands her to her mouth and yells at them. Her eyes will be closed the entire time. It is pretty funny. I don't know what her hands did to offend her, but there must have been a serious transgression there. After her hands have been properly chastised and she has stopped yelling, it becomes time to beat herself up. She flails her arms about pretty violently and whacks them onto her little face again and again. At first, we tried stopping this, but we learned soon enough that this is what she had to do to fall asleep. But, make no mistake, that shit hurts. I have put my face next to hers while she is doing this and have taken a hit from her arms. It's no joke man, she is a strong little stinker.
2) Evangeline seems to develops grosser and grosser habits with each passing day. Here are two of these gross habits. The first is drooling. Now, I know that it is just because she has started the teething process, but it does not make it any prettier. She drools constantly. I would not be the least bit surprised if she drools her body weight everyday. We are talking continual streams of drool. She is like a St. Bernard. Secondly, she has realized that she can lift things up to her mouth. She has also realized that it is fun to shove things in her mouth and chew on them. The two of these put together have made for some interesting moments. She loves to chew on her fists and her blankets. However, my daughter does not discriminate. Whatever she can grasp is fair game. So, she has chewed on stuffed animals, a Xmas ornament, my scarf, my cat's tail (don't ask), my hair, you name it. What makes it even nastier is that she shoves whatever she has in her hand, so far down her throat that she gags. She will take her hand out and wait until the gagging subsides and shove it back in again and gag again. It is like a game to her. It is a game that has ended in vomit more than once. Fun for her, I guess. My baby is just a gross weirdo.
3) I joined Weight Watchers online. It sucks. I hate it. I am hungry. I have lost 4 lbs in 3 days, so I am going to stick with it. But, I will bitch about it every chance I get.
4) Malls are really the armpit of commerce. Since I am not a shopper, I do not frequent malls, but I know that will be changing now that I have a baby. When it is too cold to do anything else and I need to get out of the house, I will go walk the mall. But it doesn't mean I have to like it. This is what I don't get about malls: when did the marketers decide that assaulting shoppers sense of sight, hearing, and smell is good business sense. I went yesterday to pick up a few things that I absolutely needed. I went in and went out and was done within an hour. But, the headache I got while at the mall lasted all day. First, the music that blasts out of every store is way too loud and is awful. It is all that fist-pumping crap. Like, if you are going to blast music, pick something good at least. So, my hearing was assaulted. Next, I had to deal with the smells. I assume that the amount of putrid cologne that wafts out of every teen clothing store has a purpose. It cannot possibly be to lure the customer in because of how awful the smells are. No, it must be something else. I have a theory that the strength of the scent makes the shopper dizzy and disoriented and more likely to make unwise shopping decisions. Whatever the reason, now my sense of smell was attacked. Finally, enough with the neon lights and dancing light beams and high intensity ceiling lights. It hurts the eyes and does not make me want to look at the merchandise. With my senses completely beaten up, I left with a raging headache and a pissed off baby that woke up every time we passed a store playing that techno shit. Malls suck.
Anyway, the tanks empty, that's all I got for now. Later.
Sunday, December 4, 2011
next time will just pay for the pictures
As part of our austerity budget, we decided to forego paying someone to take pictures of our daughter for Xmas cards. How hard could it be to get a nice photos ourselves, right?
Wrong.
I googled 'baby christmas picture ideas' and got inspired by all the cute chubbers. I particularly loved the babies that were surrounded by xmas lights. The pictures looked so dreamy. I thought 'I can do this'.
So, first I set up a shoot that used a red blanket as a backdrop, had a nest of white lights, and an xmas teddy bear. I took a practice shot with the teddy bear to see how it would look:
I liked this very much, I was very excited. Unfortunately, I did not account for the big difference between the stuffed animal and a baby. Yeah...the baby moves. Oh, and the baby was a cranky fuss tonight. The best photo I was able to get with this idea was:
That was not gonna do. I next decided to try to put her in her xmas dress and use a white backdrop. My daughter hates dresses and decided that the best course of action was to eat the dress in protest. The best shot from this stroke of genuis:
Running out of patience, I went back to my original idea. My daughter started cooperating and almost seemed to pose for the pictures. The downside was the lighting. When I took the flash off, the pictures were great, except for her face. Her face was all shadow. When I put the flash on, the xmas lights and dreamy quality I was looking for disappeared. This is what I got:
So, without a good shot, and with only a few days left before we HAVE to get out cards out, I am going to have to try this again tomorrow. Wish me luck.
Wrong.
I googled 'baby christmas picture ideas' and got inspired by all the cute chubbers. I particularly loved the babies that were surrounded by xmas lights. The pictures looked so dreamy. I thought 'I can do this'.
So, first I set up a shoot that used a red blanket as a backdrop, had a nest of white lights, and an xmas teddy bear. I took a practice shot with the teddy bear to see how it would look:
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