Matt and his mat

Husband is always taking the letters off the baby's mat and making up words with them as he gives them to baby. 

"Y! Y! Y!" he lifts the letter y, "Y is for YELLOW." Matt grabs the big letter y and chews on it, so I always thought, what a silly game. The baby will never really learn this way, until one day, when he was happily sitting in his car seat and I hear him say, "whywhywhywhywhyyyyyyyyy"

So I decided to play this game today, as he ripped the letters apart, crawled around, and touched other buttons, with an attention span of minus two seconds; something else he inherited from me. 

Here is how it went, as I picked letters randomly:

"V! V! V! V is for very, very hyper baby!"

"C! C! C! C is for coffee!!! Momma needs some coffee!"

"D! D! D! D is for DVD player, which you shouldn't touch!"

"N! N! N! N is for naps, which you no longer want to take, like ever!"

"A! A! A! A is for aggravated!"

"R! R! R! R is for Ritalin!"

The big elephant in the middle of the baby's room

There's one thing that NO ONE talks about or wants to talk about when it comes to having a baby.

Most of us rather post our idyllic pictures and videos of our idyllic lives on Facebook. It's easier to edit life online. The Internet makes new parents seem like we have it all together and photoshop can mask not only our flaws, but even baby acne. 

My friend Mary was the only one who really warned me about this one thing. Better yet, she gave me a book, called, "The Mask of Motherhood," when I told her I was trying to conceive.

At the time I thought this was a negative point of view of men, marriage and babies. However, here is the truth that I've found: when you have a baby, the shock of the shifting dynamic between a couple makes most women want to rip their husband's face off from time to time and may make men want to escape, whether through work, house projects, alcohol, hobbies, and transgressions. Some actually escape, like, in a car.

No one prepares you for this. In the book Mary gave me, the author mentions that the older a woman is when she has her first baby, or the more independent financially and emotionally... In other words, the more she knows herself, the more this new identity; the motherhood identity, shakes her to the core and leaves her humbled and somewhat lost.

Make that shock a little harder when woman no longer works and therefore "doesn't contribute to society." And, by the way, this is the most intense job I've ever had, because it never stops. Mothers don't clock out. 

My friends who work feel that shift in identity too, maybe even more than I, because even though they may work as many hours as their husbands, they are still a mother, and mother's got shit to do.

Now enters marriage and what is left of it. Thankfully I live in a generation where men actually want (and look forward to) helping with the baby. I am lucky to have married a super father. I can't imagine a man that is more hands on with a baby than my husband, but even then we headbutt often enough. The truth is: I think we're just tired.

Here are some insights on marriage that I've had of late, so my friends contemplating the whole package can enter it a little more informed:

- Marriage love is not linear. It has peaks and valleys, and the trick (and what is tricky) is to believe in the ebb and flow of the ocean when the wave is crashing. 

- It's better to stay together. 

- Living together is hard. Period. You could live with mother Theresa and eventually get annoyed with all her goodness.

- The closer we are to someone, the more we know what pisses the other one off, and in the power struggle we get pretty good at using it as weapons, consciously or not. That's just a fact.

- Don't compare your spouse to someone else, because that other person also has some other quality that would drive you crazy, and your spouse has a combination of qualities that most others dont. That's why you got married.

- In the negotiation of lifestyle, whoever compromises the most will resent the most, so doing something you don't want for the sake of the other person is often a good idea.

- If you say the "D" word often enough, your spouse may take you up on it. I learned this from my first marriage. 

- Find time for sex.

Dada

Me (to baby): say "MAMA"
Baby: dada
Me: no, MAMA
Baby: DADA
Me: mamamamamamamama
Baby: dadadadadadadada
Me: mama
Baby: dada
Me: MAMA
Baby: DADA!

Husband enters the room.

Baby: DADADADADADADADA!

:o/

Well, there goes nothing

I wanted to make a Christmas card with my baby playing with Christmas lights. I have everything I need: cool camera, christmas lights, reflective floor, and cute baby.

Here is what I had in mind:

Check out the first baby

I studied my dummy books on photography, feeling dumber by the page. You know that feeling, when you read a paragraph once and go, "say what?"

I did you tube, google, pinterest and picked my photographer friend's brains.

I went into the dark with Christmas lights, tripod, camera, books, and stuffed animals posing as baby. I tried every apperture, shutter speed, iso and other photography jargons of which I already forgot what the heck they are for.

I'm ready.

"Bring the creature!" I yell for husband, downstairs. "And undress him. He should look innocent."

Undressed, the creature is placed on the floor, and at the sight of said Christmas lights, he screams bloody murder. This is probably the most terrifying thing that ever happened to him. We try playing with the lights ourselves, forcing him to touch them, to no avail. He cries harder, tears running down his baby face.

We turn on the lights of the room and turn off the evil Christmas lights. Baby still stares at them, and then at me, hiccuping, with a face expression that says, "what the f was THAT?"

Now, how is it that professional photographers do it? It seems that if that was my career, it would be mostly of outtakes.

Anyone has a simpler, less traumatic idea for a Christmas picture?

Genetics (part 2)

Husband often says, "I dont know where he gets his big head from. Must be from your side of the family." "I dont know where he got those big cheeks from. Must be from your side of family." "I dont know where he got that nose, or those ears. Must be from your side of the family."

Yeah, it must be.

Daddy and Matt

He is such a baby

The competitive mom seems fairly nice at first. She will ask you matter of fact if your kid is doing this or that and, because you are used to comparing notes (I said, comparing notes, as in, is my kid developing ok kinda way), you answer. Competitive mom then unleashes her insecure, annoying, bitch of a monster and puts her kid all the way on his tiny, little pedestal, because he is the tallest, healthiest, smartest of the bunch. Lets face it: what competitive mom is actually saying is, "I'm better than you."

And what I'm thinking is, "who gives a shit?"

Although I have been guilty of comparing kids, mostly because I want to make sure mine is ok, when competitive mom says, "I can only imagine what my wonderful, God's gift to humankind child will be doing when he gets older. " 

Ok, she didn't say that, but that's how she sounds. I want to tell her, "he will be smoking pot to escape your living vicariously through him."

I look at her baby. He is slouched and lifeless, his head tucked in a way that his face makes three chins. He looks pretty blobby to me. Like a blob baby. Meanwhile my kid is trying to entice him. He bangs shit around and passes by blob baby screaming. Then he stops and looks at blob baby, as if to say, "come on, blob baby, follow me and let's get our fingers stuck inside the DVD player. It makes momma scream 'no' and she makes a funny looking face. It's fun!" Blob baby looks unphaser, so Matthew gives up.

Competitive mom is talking about blob's achievements that to me sound pretty standard. Like rolling over. Who gives a rats ass if your kid is rolling fucking over? He should have started it months ago, bitch.

Then she asks, "What is Matt doing these days?" I look at him and he is staring back at us, chewing paper. Where did he find it?

I want to tell her that he is walking sideways on his walker because he hasn't figured out that humans walk forward. I also want to tell her I tried to get him to clap his hands this morning while holding his little wrists. He clammed his little fingers shut, so the knuckles hit each other, which made him giggle. Maybe he is just not the clapping hands kinda guy.

I just say, "he is into biting furniture right now."

Competitive mom says a sympathetic, "oh."

Later on husband asks, "How is so-and-so and her baby?"

I say, "We can't hang out anymore. Her baby is going to fucking Harvard next year. Or maybe it's Yale? I can't remember."

"You need to stop cussing," husband says.

"...and meanwhile Matt is just sitting there, chewing shit."

"Yeah, he is such a baby!" husband laughs.

"I know!"