3 Months In

So I'm just recovering now from a visit from my mother. I love the dear woman but she's so critical of me that it can be hard to takem, especially now when I'm feeling so vulnerable on the spur of Geoff's affair. Like the other day, she made the comment that it looks like I'm still pregnant and carrying the baby in my ass. That stung a bit. And then I wonder why I have such low self esteem and why I was a "slasher" in high school and spent more time in the school counselors office than in the classroom. To be honest, I still do it sometimes- slashing. Well, mostly by accident, though. Like the time that I stepped on a piece of broken glass in the kitchen. That was a bad scene. A supposed accident, but who's to say what's an accident and what's done deliberately by a devalued subconscious? It's something that I should definately bring up with my therapist. There's some issues there, I'm sure.
All right, so that's not completely true. My mom never said that. I'm not a slasher. Never have been. Mighta been, maybe, were it not for the whole cutting thing. Sounds painful to me and you know how I feel about that. I still need that tetanus shot, but I ain't gonna get it. No way no how. I'll die of some obscure tetanus related illnessess before they stick a needle in my arm. And I don't have a therapist, although I'm not saying I don't need one. But I really did step on a piece of glass in the kitchen. And a thumbtack in the bedroom, too.
Anyways, the time does go by. I realize it has been three months since I started my maternity leave. Another depressing fact is that it has been almost a year since I first began sending query letters regarding my manuscript. I sent my first query letter November of 2007, eager and excited. Ten months later and the process continues. I sent out another query letter a couple of weeks ago, and am awaiting a response, but not feeling optimistic. After so much rejection it's hard to feel optimistic anymore. It's disheartening to say the least. There are only few agents left to try. I have started writing another novel, so then I guess the process will begin anew when I complete it.
As far as my maternity leave goes, it's been three months and I am starting to tire of it. Geoff is never here. The house is always messy. The dog is always yapping. Even Payton is always whining. It's very hard to hold it together some days. Sometimes I feel like having a temper tantrum right alongside the kids. Life isn't fair. You're telling me. All I have to show for my 8 years of University education is very small house, a very old vehicle and a very limited wardrobe of Joe clothing that is mostly ill fitting and stained. My mom has this magnet on her fridge. It says "A good mother has dirty floors and happy kids." Well, I have the dirty floors down pat. The kids, well they're happy. If you buy them a toy or bring them to McDonalds. Other than that they yell, they scream, they cry, they whine, they tell on each other insessantly for things that are SO stupid that it's absolutely pointless, like for example "mom, Payton pointed at my belly button",and on and on and on.
I love my life. I have to keep on repeating that to myself. I love my life. I love my life. It doesn't really help but maybe someday, eventually, if I say it enough times...
So amidst all this drudgery, I have found my imagination thinking of things that I otherwise might not have considered. Like the other day when I was at Superstore, and I saw a sign at H&R block to take a tax course. So I started to think "I should take a tax course!" Yes, a tax course is exactly what I need!! How cool would I be if I could do taxes! And then I could work for H&R block during tax season. Make a load of extra cash. Maybe get a cute pair of glasses and a power suit. Wouldn't that be fun! And then today, these people came to my door, campaigning for Nettie something or other for the NDP. I took a brochure. The fine print on the bottom caught my eye. "Join our campaign!", it said and it had a phone number. I thought "Hey- that's what I should do! I could just picture myself, life on the campaign trail! All cocktail mixers, dressing up, rooting for a cause, looking through papers with a very serious look on my face. Again, I would need a cute pair of glasses and a power suit. Let's get that bitch elected, I was thinking. But then I thought, well, I can't exactly show up to a cocktail mixer with a baby on my hip and puke on my shoulder. Unless the campaign was in Backwoods, Tennessee. And I can't exactly go to tax school and come home every forty five minutes to breast feed that bottomless pit of a baby.
I love my life.
I'll just keep saying it.

Random Thoughts

1. I love it when I'm brushing my hair and my kids all start to panic and say "Where are you going mom?" I say "I'm not going anywhere." And then they're like "But why are you brushing your hair?" Just makes me feel so good about myself.
2. I hate it when people pronounce the word frustrated as "fustrated". One time I was talking someone with this affliction and I was like "I'm getting frustrated with you not prounouncing the "R" in the word Frustrated. It's not like "February". The "R" isn't silent. I didn't say that, though. Inside voice.
3. Men suck. My husband(AKA the Devil) has a cold and I swear to you that he complained more in one day from a frigging sniffly nose than I did during my whole pregnancy, delivery and postpartum course with Lex. And then he's like looking for sympathy and I was like SHUT IT- again with the inside voice, though. And so then I said to him, I said, on another topic, "I was thinking that we could put Payton in daycare for one day a week." And he was like "What? Are you going to go back to work one day a week?" And I was like "well no, I'm going to stay home" and he's like "What, you mean like, to get caught up on the housework?" I was like "No, like to watch TV and paint my toenails." Obviously the idea didn't fly. My toenails shall remain chipped pink, so I guess I'll just have to learn to deal.
4. I think I may be bad looking. I know for sure I'm not like super gorgeous or anything, but I have always thought of myself as a good solid average. And I'm happy with average, believe me. I stive for average. But every single time I go out, the ugliest SOB in the joint will approach me. Lorrie can attest to this. Remember those toothless guys from the lake?? So these ugly dudes are always like coming on to me, and I don't mean ugly as in just slightly subpar. I mean like totally blitzed drunk, slurred words, no teeth, abnormally fat or skinny- I've seen both extremes- bad BO, the whole nine yards. And I think "Really?" "Really?" "You actually think that you are even remotely in the same league as me??" And then I have to wonder "which one of us is deluding yourself- is you or it me, becuase I'm pretty sure it ain't me, honey. If I didn't laugh about it I would honestly cry. It's pathetic.
5. I will never be hoity toity. I think that people who actually use the word "Hoity Toity" in a sentence are mostly destined NOT to be. But that is something I was thinking about today, for some odd reason- If I had money(and really, people, it's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when-- as soon as I iron out the kinks in the chicken farm idea, I'll be laughing all the way to the bank) I don't think it would change me. Oh, sure, I might buy a bigger house and maybe take a little VayK, but other than that- it would still be plain old me- average, as I said, is what I strive for. I just don't think I could ever justify paying $300 for dinner or $100 to get my nails done. I don't know. I have this spiel that I sometimes say (mostly with my inside voice, again) that the REAL beautiful people in my life are the people who work hard every day- like the volunteers at the food bank or the doctors who work a double shift to keep watch over a sick baby or the people who work with me in the core of the city- where most people would dare not walk- to extend a helping hand to some of the poorest members of our society. It's not glamorous, but it's beautiful. I don't know, that's just me. That's just my opinion. But that's what I'll always strive for.

Laundry Room Drama

Thus far, approximately 1/3 of my time is spent in the laundry room. Usually, it's pretty boring. Oh, once in a while I'll come across a quarter or a loonie, but that's about it. But today some rather dramatic events "unfolded" (I purposely used the word unfolded- rather humorous, isn't it- you know, because I'm doing laundry). Some of Geoffs khakis were in the laundry pile, I was going to just throw them in the wash when I noticed that the pocket area felt rather full. Thinking that this might be one of my lucky days when I find bills rather than just coins, I pulled out the wad. It was a notepad. Thinking it was just a notepad that he had hastily used to write orders on or something I gave it only a cursory glance. But it was a letter. Written in flowy script, with the I's dotted with hearts. So I read it. Seems one Ms. Wendy Waitress was writing Geoff a rather provacative letter. I asked him about it and he just told me to mind my own business and to stay in the laundry room and out of his business. So I don't know what to do. I guess I'm just making mountains out of molehills, like Geoff says.
Ha ha, ha. I'm so funny. I bet you were reading that, just getting ready to grab your torches and pithforks. No, no. It's untrue. I did find a letter, but it was like asking about days off and stuff, pretty mundane, I was actually wishing for something to get excited about. Sorry if that was in poor taste, but there wasn't anything really interesting to write about it so I thought I would weave a little fact with fiction. Writing fiction is what I do best. Well, actually I do it pretty mediocre, but if you count rejection letters a sign of success than I am plenty successful. OK. A sign of success they are not, but a sign or perserverance they are. And when it comes right down to it, in the end, perserverance is what it's all about. Tru dat you can't take it to the bank or buy your kids a Wii with it, but that's totally irrelevant. The kids are just as happy playing marbles. Well, if you count crying and cursing as happy.
No, the truth is that I don't often worry about Geoff cheating on me, even though he does work in a female dominated industry. Let's face it, Geoff isn't exactly the pick of the litter, so I think I should be OK in the affairsville department, even if I am slightly jilted in the romanceville department. It's a fair trade. Sorta.
Actually, Geoff and I haven't been seeing much of other. He totally could be having an affair. All the signs are there: the late night "meetings", reciepts from Days Inn which he claims are "business expenses", lipstick on his collar, annoying people coming up to me at Geoffs work, saying "Geoffs having an affair".
Kidding again, but he does work a lot. A fact which I have learned to live with. And more than that, recently I have discovered that not only do I tolerate it, I actually enjoy it. I like to have the house to myself. Watch Slice all day, have the house smelling like Vanilla Lavendar Glade rather than the smell of men- which is like socks and fart mixed together, maybe with a little bit of Old Spice in there. So then Geoff tells me that he's going to be off, OFF, completely OFF, for the months of January and February and half of December. So I feign my excitement. "Oh, great, we're going to spend so much time together!" and then sneak off to the bathroom to vomit. Is that wrong? Does that mean there's something wrong with our marraige? Or what? Well, truthfully, I didn't actually vomit. Just wretched a bit.
Oh, well, it will be interesting to say the least. And isn't that what it's all about, living on this big old rock in the sky?

Here's the skinny

Here's the skinny and it ain't me. That sentence doesn't make very much sentence grammatically speaking but the point is this: Yesterday I went shopping for jeans and YIKES. I thought that I was ready for this step: mentally and physically. I had thought that I was making a lot of headway in losing my pregnancy weight, but now it seems apparent that I was living in a delusional little bubble where the grass is always green and I'm still a size 8. I ended up with a size 12 and they still don't really fit properly at all. But then I have to put things into perpective. I look a the little face above and remind myself that it's TOTALLY worth it. Even if I was a size 22 or 32 it would still be worth it. I honestly think that he is one of the cutest babies EVER. I know its not really appropriate to brag about your own kid, and I'm not normally one to do that, but how can I help myself? He's breathtaking, and not in a bad way like the ugly baby on Seifeld. He is doing well and is weighing 12 lbs, 8ozs now. I enjoy him a lot. When he makes that little face, no matter how many times he does it, I just can't help but laugh.
So onto other matters. Life at home is good. I spend my days experimenting with Play Dough recipes, so as you can see my life is pretty exciting. I must be a loser though, because I actually AM really excited about this new Kool Aid PlayDough. It smells pretty good (But please note that it does not taste very good, a fact a wish I had noted earlier).
I went out the other night for the first time, and I must thank one Mrs. Nikki Straker for the company. It was good to get out. Geoff stayed at home with the kids. I was interested to see how he managed, and of course he says "oh, it was so good. The kids are so easy." Translation: "I don't know why you complain about it." But then I walk into my bedroom to find Payton awake and walking TV. And then I ask if Gage went to bed OK and he says "oh, I forgot." And then I look at the kitchen and it was a mess. I mean, OK, I guess it would be easy to stay with the kids if you put a football game on and just ignore everything else. Men. It's like they say, if you want anything done right you just have to do it yourself.
Speaking of which, something totally crazy just happened. When I was on the computer earlier, Payton came up to me, crying and saying that she wanted me to put her to bed. I thought she was just yanking my chain and just wanted me to get off the computer, but no. When we got upstairs she was all happy to climb into bed and she said, "I'm so, so tired, mom. Good night."
I cannot believe this is my child. Alien zombies must have abducted her in the night and implanted something in her.
Or maybe she is in there right now with a pack of matches that she secreted away at some point earlier today. She must have some ulterior motive. I will have to watch my back.
Okay, and since this blog is rather blah this far, I'm going to offer up something more interesting. It's not something that I like to tell everyone, but let's face it no one reads this dumb blog and I do it more or less to maintain my typing skills. So I have a baby, which you know, and he's breastfed, which you know. And all along I've been really curious about breast milk. You know, how it tastes. It looks pretty much like regular milk. And anyways, I had been pumping some milk and I had a bottle of it in the fridge. And I got tempted. Really tempted. So I dipped my finger in it. And then I thought, no. I can't. That's gross. But then I thought, well, what's one little nibble? What are you, chicken? I said to myself. Bock, Bock, I clucked to myself. (I'm not sure if that's the proper spelling of the word Bock. If it isn't I do apologize, it wasn't in the dictionary).
So then I had to do it, you can't walk away from a bock. So I closed my eyes and I tried it, and I have to say it's not half bad. A little shot of that in the coffee in the morning would be AOK. It doesn't taste really much like milk. It's more watery like, and really sweet. I don't know if it's just what I ate that day or what. But anways, there you go. Everything you ever wanted to know about breastmilk but were afraid to ask.
Free samples tomorrow at noon.

Here he is, my pride and joy! For some odd reason, this is the face he always makes whenever I dance or sing to him. Actually, come to think of it, a lot of people seem to make that face when I dance or sing. I don't understand why. I sing perfectly well. In fact, when I suggested that I try out for Canadian Idol, everyone discouraged me only because I would be too good for the show and put all the other contestants to shame, which obviously I wouldn't want to do. I mean, lets face it: not everyone can be of my calibre so I might as well let them have thier fun.

Anyways, Lex, though he looks rather disgruntled in the aforementioned picture, is actually growing into a very happy baby. He smiles a lot, and is sleeping well. Last night he slept from 10:00 til 5:30, so I was a very happy mama. Now, that doesn't happen every day, but every once in a while is fine with me. He weights 12 lbs, 2 ozs, which is pretty good for just eight weeks old, but it's kind of scary for me to see him growing so fast. I want him to stay my little baby forever. Obviously that isn't going to happen, though.

So, exciting news for me: one Miss Rebecca Bloomwood is coming to the big screen! For those of you who areren't familiar, Rebecca Bloomwood is the main character in Sophie Kinsella's Shopaholic series. When I saw that preview on the telly, I just couldn't believe it! I haven't been this excited since I emerged from the bomb shelter on Jan 1 2000 to find that civilization still existed. If you have not read the Shopoholic series you definately should. It is rather addictive, just like shopping itself. At first, I was a skeptic, too. The first time I read a Shopoholic book was at work. It was a cold, dark night and I was stationed to work right through until the daylight. Technically, at work you're supposed to do actual work, but I have always found that policy to be totally outdated and irrelevant. Work is such a buzzkill, so generally I try to read at work and intersperse it with bursts of work or work related things. But without a book to read, the night was going long and I was getting bored. A coworker of mine had a book that she had just finished and offered it to me. I looked at it, distastefully. Reluctantly, I took the book. It sounded stupid, downright frivolous. An entire book about a girl who goes shopping. But I had little choice. I needed to read to survive. So I read a page. And then another. And then I was hooked. I found myself the next morning, instead of going home to nice warm bed, out shopping, looking for Shopoholic books. Such is the appeal of these books. It's like crack on paper. Very addictive but less expensive, and it doesn't leave track marks which is good if you have kids. Well, I guess it's good all around. Track marks are so unsightly. So when I saw that they were making a movie you can imagine my excitement. The bad thing is that I have to wait until February for it.

February is such a stupid work. Why is there an "R" in it?

Anyways, that was just an aside. So that is the excitement in my life. Oh, ya, there are the kids and the husband. They're still around, well the husband, not so much. His work schedule is pretty hectic, so I don't see a lot of him, which isn't always a bad thing. The only difference between when he's home and when he's not is that there's football on the TV when he's here and Slice when he's not. Obviously, I prefer Slice.

Anyways, that is all for now.

Two Months In

It has now been just over two months since I started my Mat. leave. Pretty scary how fast it goes. It is getting dark out sooner, the air has that chill in it. The seasons are changing yet again, and tis the season for my birthday. Tomorrow is the day, that special day that they forced me unwillingly to enter this world. In retrospect, though, I think they made the right decision. I'm glad I'm here. Turning 31 is pretty OKish. Getting over that 30 hump was the worst, I think. I've accepted the fact that I'm getting old. No, not old. Oldish. For me, turning 30 was sad because I felt that my twenties were the best years, or at least, the most exciting: finishing University, getting married, having Gage and Payton, buying our first home. Lots of highs. And now it's all downhill: the excitement of the new house is now replaced with the reality of leaky pipes and mortgage payments. Excitement over the new marriage is now replaced with the reality of an overweight balding husband who gets more excited over football than me, and who has the incredible talent of seeing the negative side of everything. I mean, honestly. Yesterday I asked him if he liked having a stay at home wife. He replied "well, the money sucks." And I was like "but don't you love it that you're laundry is always done and put away (and vanilla meadow scented, by the way), the kitchen is clean at the end of the day (somewhat), your meals are prepared for you, the fridge just magically is perpetually stocked with groceries." I mean, honestly, I would be ecstatic over being married to myself. Really and truly, I'm not normally one to toot my own horn, but consider it tooted. I'm pretty freaking good in the domestic realm. I'm not Martha Stewart, for sure, but nobody can stand her anyways. And who wants pine cone tea cozies, anyways?? But Geoff, he just shrugged, said 'ya, I guess it's all right.' But I guess it's like they say, the grass is always greener on the other side. He probably thinks I have it easy sitting at home all day, not having to go to work. In some ways, he may have a point. Like today, they had this Project Runway Marathon and I got totally addicted to it and watched it ALL DAY. But he doesn't need to know that. That shall remain on a need to know basis and he does not need to know. But still... staying at home is no picnic. Sometimes, at the end of a long day I just feel like an old worn out cow as I roll over to feed my young. Put me out to pasture, I think sometimes.
Another example of him seeing the negative side of things: he refuses to consider my ideas in a positive light. First it was my comedy routine. You know I want to be a stand up comic, and I have a routine all worked out. You would think he would be supportive, right? Wrong. He says that my routine is "painful" and "difficult to watch" and that "I should try really, really hard to hang on to my day job for as long as possible." So then I 'hatched' a new plan: A chicken farm. Right in our back yard. I drew up a blueprint for a chicken coop, bought some chicken wire, crunched the numbers: If we could produce a dozen eggs a day and sell them at a dollar a dozen we could be making upwards of thirty dollars a month! Right away, he says that thirty dollars a month isn't actually very much money, and in fact we would be well below the poverty line. I said that it wasn't too bad when you consider the fact that the chickens are doing all the work. But no. He says it won't work and outright refuses to even try. So then last night, I had a brilliant new idea. The worlds most giantest taco. And he says that the ingredients would probably be really expensive. And I said but "you have to spend money to make money, right?" and he says "but we wouldn't be making any money off of it." And I said "of course we would: royalties from the Guiness Book of World Records". But apparently you don't get royalties from that, but whatever, I said. We would still be famous, anyways, and famous people are rich, aren't they? And besides, it doesn't matter about the money. If you're passionate about doing something you take that leap of faith and do it. I mean, did Van Gough make a ton of money when he painted 'Starry Night'? No, I don't think so. He cut his freaking ear off so I guess times weren't very good, but that certainly didn't stop him, did it? But Geoff just doesn't get it. And then it's like he gets mad at me, when I'm the one coming up with all these innovative ideas. It's like they say, "if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem". Dude, you're part of the problem.
Anyways, onto other issues. Lex is getting big, and he's doing well. It's a funny thing watching your children grow. The moment they are born you look at them and fall so in love and you think "I couldn't possibly love someone more than this" but then two months later they look at you in the morning and just give you this amazing smile, and you realize, you can. You just love them more and more all the time.
Until they start wearing the same socks for three days in a row and refuse to change them.
Then some of the charm wears off. But that's way down the line...