Well, we are back from LA. Beanie pooed twice in 5 days. I am told this is normal. She's pretty regularly an every-other-day kinda pooper. I know, because I love to watch her face when she is doing her number. It's not exactly stealth bomber action, lemme just say. The squeezey face I am posting below is usually accompanied with a strange urgent grunting noise and her tongue poking out, like someone concentrating very hard...


In any case, we made it there and back alive. Pictures with my nana are adorable. Everything about my nana was adorable, even her lost mind. I miss her so much, I don't know what I will do when she's actually gone. My kid got to meet her, though. That's what is important. Today was my grandmother's 84th birthday. She's a grand old gal, truly.

The beanie hit 13 weeks over this Thanksgiving weekend. She's old hat at everything. She even "talks" to people and sits up (with a little help) and stands for long periods (with supportive leaning). I'm worried she'll be bowlegged with all her standing. I'm worried she's autistic because she doesn't grab at things yet and stares at things across the room. I'm worried she doesn't get enough tummy time and will have a fucked up neck because I'm too lame to MAKE her strengthen it even though tummy down is her least favorite thing in the whole wide world.

She does like Pat The Bunny though.

Anyone know where I can find a possum costume???

~Beanie's Silly and Ridiculous Mommy

I have the WORST time remembering the username and password for this blog.

Spent the weekend with the Beanie in SF. It was weird. I felt a little like some alien space creature. This is because BABIES ARE RARE in SF. Seriously. Everyone wants to hold her. Strangers. And I let them. I'm insane, I know. But I keep thinking "what could possibly happen? She's exposed to a new germ that I'm sure I have the antibody to; she could be stolen (but that's bloody unlikely with me standing there); she could be dropped, but that could happen no matter who's holding her; she could cry. A waitress at the Herbivore took her in back to meet the staff because she had a 6 month old boy and all the cooks had new babies. Everyone was thrilled. I sat at my seat anxiously thinking "how dumb am I? I'm not supervising someone with my newborn." And then the waitress brought back my grinning gummed beanie with a spoon in her hand. My kid is an interactor. It's already happening. And she interacts with people and I wonder if this magical thing is going to keep going or if she's going to have the normal response to strangers most kids end up with; the fear thing.



I heartily admit I'm a bit of an idiot, and don't intend to hand her off to the next waitress that comes my way. But I don't want to overreact. I'm in this weird quandary where I don't want to be insulting, but I don't want my kid swiped either. And I usually give in to the "go ahead and hold her" thing because really, how often DO kids disappear to stranger kidnappings? Nearly never.

But it scares the shit out of me. And I hate that I hand her off just to challenge my own discomfort.

She's being very cute lately. We stayed all weekend in SF and visited bunches of people and walked all over. And we bought some cheese.

Tomorrow we leave for a very long drive to LA to visit the Great-Grandparentals for TG. Should be interesting...


~Beanie's Crazy Mama

Beanie Weenie. She went to the bars with us last night.

Not really. Actually, we had book club at the Bonnlair and I took Beanie because she was with me. I had 2 sprites. Which is horrible, because they are loaded with sugar. But it was either sprite or diet coke, because they didn't have nonalky beers and I felt like a freak for wanting to order tap water.

I miss beer. But I cannot fathom the potential wreckage of my baby's liver if I were to say, drink a beer, nurse her, and then give her baby tylenol for her teething. It's too much for a little tyke. And I can't afford to fix her if she breaks, so I will keep away from the booze. But I can't say that I like the fact that I plan on doing that. Once she's weaned, I'm on the beer again. Sure, I drink it at night after she's asleep, because she won't wake up again to breastfeed for awhile. But I can't do the boob and booze and feel good about myself. I'd feel like a child abuser. And I guess I kind of would be.

I have been thinking a lot about parenting. I'm a good mommy. I know this. I'm probably better at the mommy thing than most people would be and/or are. I don't think I was born that way, but I definitely have the empathy for baby down. It's probably why I was so good working with nonverbal disabled adults. Anyone who can't speak english aloud and wears diapers, I can take great care of. It's me that is failing me.

I don't bathe that often anymore. And when I do, it's quick and to the point. I don't luxuriate in the tub. I don't have nice shower soap. Rarely do I find myself spritzed with perfume or rubbed with deodorant. I don't paint my nails. I don't floss as often as I used to. I don't even use laundry softener anymore. I scrub everything, rinse, and dry. Nothing much else happens. No plucking, no shaving, no primping at all. My hair is either dirty or clean, and no matter what, it's pulled back into two short pigtails. This is, by the way, my vision of asthetic hell.

I did force myself to buy some decent day cream with SPF 15, but only because I am getting liver spots on my face, and how icky is that? What is wrong with me...? I cannot seem to get it together to want to be "pretty" anymore. I hate that I feel that way.

This could just be because I'm a new mom who still only has the vestiges of her shit together. Or it could be (and this is terrifying to me) the way I live now. And forever.

Which means...

Hold on here...

That I'm turning into my MOM.

Jeebus strike me dead now, but that is worthy of suicide if true.

At least I have the beanie and she doesn't care how I look, but she does like her nunus clean and sanitized.

~Beanie Momma

Beanie is 10 weeks old. I can't believe it. It feels like I had her years ago already, but everything is still super new. I bet that feeling never goes away, even when she's 18.

One of my group list serves was discussing a prop for the special election here in CA on Tuesday. It had to do with abortion, and minors being forced to give parental notification if they are 13 years old (or younger, I guess.) I have a problem with ANY surgery being performed on my daughter without my explicit consent or knowledge, but I wouldn't STOP a procedure like an abortion. I can't imagine what would cause my 13 year old to require an abortion, and it's weird thinking about her little sex organs being pummeled by other sex organs (it's totally unconceivable, actually), so it's hard for me to relate. But as a woman, I know I want access to abortion if I need it. I want it safe, legal, and private. I don't want anyone who desires one to be denied one. It's not like liposuction or tonsilectomy. It's completely different than any of those things because it terminates a potential life. Frankly, I'm okay with that. Not all pregnancies need to come to fruition. Maybe I will go to hell for thinking that abortion is unpleasant but necessary and capital punishment is always wrong, but that's really okay too. I am ethically and morally all right with a woman making her own decision about baby making. The problem is, of course, that a child is not a woman. But again, what would make a 13 year old pregnant? Ignorance? Rape? Incest? Fear? All of these things are avoidable in a better society. Until that proposition says "Parent: your daughter has requested an abortion. If you deny her that option, she will be protected by the courts and put in protective custody", I will be against it. And I firmly believe that any crimes committed by a parent against their pregnant child should be punished to the full extent of the law. This includes abandonment, physical abuse, emotional abuse, and any other fun things crazy parents do to their poor kids to make them afraid. And I'm okay with kids who want to be parents, but I'm a little sketchy about why a little girl would want to be a mommy before she's fully developed herself. Maybe little girls who WANT to get pregnant haven't been mommied properly?? Or daddied properly? Maybe I read too much into the movie Palindromes.

Having a baby should be a joyous, remarkable, beautiful, wonderful, totally wanted, experience. It's not something you can completely enjoy when you haven't finished school, haven't traveled, haven't fallen in love with life and your own self yet. Having a baby is not completing the circle of life, it's continuing it. When you are a child yourself, it's impossible to give everything you are to a baby.

Then again, babies were born to young girls since time began. Only recently in history has it been "normal" to wait until the 20s and 30s to have a first child. Jesus was born to a 13 year old. Not that I'm advocating religion or anything. But I wonder, if abortion was available to Mary, if she'd been smart enough to ask for the right herbs, would she have? She was barely saved a stoning for god's sake, thanks to Joseph, who raised this kid as his own. It probably was, but that's just blasphemy. Right? Right.

Anyway.

Abortion always opens up rhetoric for debate on religion and I hate that. It's a physical thing, not a metaphysical thing, unless you are talking souls and I ain't. Cells are not souls. Wanted babies conceived during baby making sessions are a WHOLE different ballgame than a baby who is conceived during sexual intercourse, and there are no accidents. If you're having sex and you ovulate, barring all infertility issues, you can get pregnant. What it boils down to is what you're comfortable with. If you can live with an abortion, fine. If you can't, fine. But a 13 year old shouldn't have to carry a baby to term just because her parents are creepy fucks who thing a child should be forced to give birth. The reason so many girls had babies over history?? Because so many women died in childbirth, the marriage pool got younger and younger. Now that we live longer and have more value to society beyong dying during birth, we should be able to make more decisions about our own body's validity as well, and that DOESN'T end at the beginning of the uterine cervix.

Man.

My poor baby girl. I'm going to have to fight for her right to avoid being raped, molested, disabused, gawked at, laughed at, snubbed, AND abortion. That's right, I want my kid to avoid an abortion by having all the tools available to her, including kung fu. Crazy, non? I know. I'm crazy.

So I voted no. No, because I want her always to be safe, even if she ends up being secretive and possibly breaking my heart. And that's okay. Because I love her more than I ever thought possible. And nothing, nothing, nothing would ever change that.



~Beanie's Momma