Her Brain on _____

Today I feel much better. I realize now that weekends are stressful, and this was a three day one. With Patrick and my mother home all day Dexee and I’s routine is completely thrown off.

During the weekdays we wake up between 8am and 9am…well she wakes up, I let her crawl around the bed and climb on top of me until half an hour later I give up and we get out of bed.

Dexee crawls around the living room for a while.

I heat up whatever puree on the stove. Today was blueberry, though it is too runny so I thickened it with baby cereal.  She eats it, sometimes I try to coerce her too much, forgetting that it’s not actually that important if she skips a meal. Unless I forget, she than washed everything down with a glass of water, most of which spills on her. I have to hold to cup and tilt it for her.

After that she usually crawls around the living room some more,I crawl with her.

We than go to the library or for a walk. Today we didn’t. Instead she continued to crawl around the living room, playing with her non toys, and occasionally glanced at a dolphin documentary I put on TV. (We usually don’t watch TV before Daddy gets home, but when we do, even now, I try to choose something educational).

Usually Dexee goes to sleep at 11:30, today she didn’t seem tired so I put her in the stroller and we went for a walk. At noon we got home and I nursed her down to nap.

I read a little until I realized that I hadn’t eaten yet so I peeled and cut and apple and paired it with peanut butter.

After only 20 minutes of sleep I walked back into the room and Dexee woke up. She usuaully sleeps for two and a half hours and than we wait for Dad to get home, but not today. So right now Dexee is crawling on the carpet and climbing on the furniture while March of the Penguins plays in the back round. I don’t feel bad about not doing anything productive with her right now, after all, she is supposed to be sleeping.

When Patrick gets home we’ll go for a walk if his knees aren’t acting like old men.

It will be a good day.

I still hate Northern Virginia.

When I was preparing Dexee’s bath I realized that after I go to sleep tonight I don’t want to wake up tomorrow.

Hopefully it’s temporary, but as of late, I am unhappy. I need a break from Dexee, and not just one break, more breaks. Other people hold her, watch her while I go to the grocery store, but I’m always back fairly soon. She hasn’t even had a bottle since the semester ended. It’s not because I practice “attachment parenting” by the way. It’s because of the lack of people in my life that I would feel comfortable leaving Dexee with. The only person is my mother, and she is busy doing her own things. Of course Patrick can watch her too but I enjoy hanging out with Patrick. Maybe I need to organize a girls night out with my friends. I’m too lazy.

I’m so tired.

I need to sleep.

But I just put Dexee to sleep so I’d like to enjoy my free time.

I am dating an old man. At least, he has old man knees.

I still love him, but not his knees and that’s okay because he doesn’t love his knees either.

Today we were a milisecond away from deciding to just move to Colorado this summer. Instead we decided to move when we save up $5,000 dollars.

I can’t talk to people without blurting out nonsense and feeling completely awkward.

I love killer whales.

Actually, I don’t think I love them I just hate that they exist in captivity.

I’m not much of an activist in general but I don’t believe in keeping whales and dolphins as pets. Still, every time I watch footage of that group of killer whales that beach themselves to catch seal pups and than play with them until they die…I can’t help but feel repulsed by the creatures. I know that it’s their nature and blah blah blah blah blah…but it’s hard to swallow. I forget which “amusement” park it was, but a while back a man hid in the park after closing and sneaked his way into the killer whale tank so he could swim with them. The man was found dead, no surprise. They think three killer whales tossed him back and fourth between each other, though he may have been dead at the while it happened, (it was two females and bull, the bull was the famous Tilikum, who later killed the trainer at Sea World). Obviously it was in no way the killer whales (fun fact, killer whales are not whales at all, but are actually a species of dolphins) fault.It just goes to show that those creatures are deceiving in their playfulness, a playfulness humans mistake as consent to captivity. That is one of the big problems with captive dolphins, they always look as if they are smiling, so we often assume they are happy.

Orcas repulse me when I see them torture seal pups, but than again, humans have done much worse. In fact, laws had to be put in place so that our own species wouldn’t torture baby seals as well.

Oh animals.

Today:

• Went to farmers market and bought some pickled stuff
• Went to Target and bought clothes that I didn’t understand how to wear until I got home and was relieved to find that I wasn’t actually the size I bought
• Picnicked at Great Falls and laughed as Dex stuffed her face with raspberries and mango
• Went to Taco Bell (enough said)
• Went for a walk to our favorite spot in the woods and chatted with the same Mr. Turtle for the third day in a row
• Hung out with Dex watching Blue Planet until she fell asleep
• And now to help Patrick organize the bedroom (he just took the bed off of the bed frame, hallelujah)

Good day.

Picnicking with Patrick and the babe at Great Falls today. Pretty freaking excited!

I’m wearing shorts and my legs are only moderately hairy so I feel sexy.

• Baby monitors freak me out. I finally whipped out the baby monitor we got for our shower and all I can think of is the clicking noises the aliens made in the movie Signs.
• I really want braces. I can get over the rest of my body and feel attractive and I can loose weight (well, not if I continue eating Taco Bell literally everyday. I’m just so in love with the crispy potato soft tacos…so in love). I can’t get over my front tooth. I had braces once. And when they came off my teeth were straight…but I didn’t believe the orthodontist when he or she (I don’t remember) told me that my teeth would go back if I didn’t wear my retainer. And now my teeth are as crooked as ever and yellow from those years of smoking and not brushing me teeth before I went to sleep. I am incredibly self conscious about my teeth.
• I really need to change blogs but I just can’t get myself to do it.
• I really want to delete my face book but transferring all of the photos from FB to the website I made for Dexee things is going to take forever, and is 100% boring.
• I just said I really three times.
• There is a spot Patrick and I (and Dexee) go to in the woods, we call it the beach because it is a sand bank on a creek. It is really beautiful (well for the exception of the disgusting water and the passenger trains that pass by…but it’s fun to wave and we usually get a wave back). Yesterday we went and met a turtle nomming on some leaves. Today we went back and our turtle friend was still there. Patrick thinks the turtle can read minds because it would “react” to everything he said. I had to point out to him that the turtle didn’t need to read his mind because he was saying everything he was thinking out loud. After that I caught Patrick looking at the turtle silently from time to time and I wondered what he was saying in his head. I would ask him what he was saying but he said he wasn’t saying anything. I wasn’t sure if I believed him but I thought it best to leave his connection with the turtle be.
• I feel a slight connection with turtles. Last week I was driving to a friends house when I noticed there was something in the road and I was approaching it pretty fast. I had to swerve to avoid what I found out at the last second to be a turtle. After I passed it I remember hearing or reading about turtle depletion in certain areas due to traffic so I felt obligated to turn around and go back for the turtle. I parked on the side of the road (Dexee was in the backseat) and after watching a bunch of cars avoid the turtle as well, I ran into the road, picked it up by it’s shell and brought it as far as I could into the grass while staying an acceptable distance from the car. It wasn’t very far, but at least the turtle’s chances of survival were slightly higher.
• I feel very juvenile after telling that story. I don’t mind. 
• I would never keep a turtle as a pet. Actually I did once, as a child when I lived in Guam. They were two little turtles that stayed in my mother’s classroom in the high school she taught at (biology teacher). I remember their funeral. A student of my mom’s went with me to bury them under a tree near the class room. We gave them tomb stones. Back to my original point, I would never again keep a turtle as a pet. They are meant to roam free. I’ve never seen the point in owning reptiles. That’s not true either, as a child I wanted to be a herpetologist and I loooooved snakes. I should say I now do not see the point on having reptiles as pets. They do not form attachments to humans and are meant to live in a much, much  larger space than a glass case.
• I might have to declaw my cat. It’s something I’m completely against and said I would never do…but we are moving in a month and have yet to find a place that will allow cats with claws. I would do it if it meant keeping her. She is an old cat and an old friend of mine. I would feel like one of the cruelest people on Earth having that done to her…but I mean, humans circumcise baby boys and don’t feel too bad about it so there’s that. De clawing sounds more torturous than a quick snip. I’m going to block this from my mind now.
• I’ve been grumpy these past couple of days. This is nothing new to Patrick, he is used to much more horrifying versions of myself…but it’s irritating to be irritated.
• I’m too tired for more bullets but there is so much on my mind.
• Like the fact that I finished the eleventh Sookie Stackhouse novel (turns out I had read more than half of it before Dexee was born). It was a nice novel to come back too and I never realized how much I love the main character until now. She’s nice, she’s a tad bit feminist, she’s simple, she’s complicated, and she’s confused. And she gets to have sex with Eric so there’s that too.
• The best part of being pregnant (other than debilitating nausea, back pains, lack of sleep, acid reflux, constant urge to pee, and sudden ability to smell literally everything) was how much I got to read. I wish I had all of that time again. People told me to make the most of the last time I would be able to do nothing all day so I did and I read my ass off.
• I was suppose to go to be a couple of bullets ago.
• Good night whoever was bored enough (or possibly even interested enough) to read this. I love you.
• It’s nice to be heard.

Tonight I was the baby food making queen! I usually just feed her the baby led weaning way, make a little bit of puree at a time, or just gave her bananas, apples, and avocado. Tonight, however, I went and bought several ice cube trays and pureed and stored blueberries, sweet potato, and broccoli (though I made the broccoli WAY to watery so I’m going to have to add some baked potato to thicken it. Maybe now feeding her won’t be as daunting.

Pureed papaya smells like Nair.

Gross.

I really need to get a new blog, one that I never, STUPIDLY, attached to Facebook so that I can blog about what just happened between me and Patrick without worrying about a family member reading it and feeling awkward. I also need to delete my Facebook. I hate Facebook, I really do, but I am on it every two fucking seconds. My excuse for not deleting it right now is to keep in touch with family. I just need to make a website dedicated to Dexee pictures and videos, send people the link, and be done with Facebook. I hate the way other people are on Facebook but mostly I hate the way I am on Facebook. Seriously, I posted “I’m not really sure why I watch American Idol”. Who cares? Well one person cared, but not the point! I know that I spend a lot of time on Facebook because I don’t get too much social interaction outside of it. I’m fairly awkward. Well, sometimes it doesn’t seem like I am, but I’m really just talking out of my ass, not really thinking about any of the words leaving my mouth. I say things that I don’t agree with all of the time. I made a date rape joke the other day. I wanted to die after I realized what I had said. I hate rape jokes. They are zero amounts of funny. A week ago someone was talking about how creepy it was for a three year old to breastfeed and I agreed with them. WHAT!? That is the total opposite of how I feel. And let me tell you, because I am currently breastfeeding people bring up long term breastfeeding to me all of the time! like “yeah, one of my friends JUST weaned their kid at 2 years old” (at least my response that time was, “yeah, that’s probably what I’m going to do”).

Oh my god my daughter is screaming bloody murder gotta go…

We’re having a thunderstorm right now and I love it. To me it’s mother natures way of saying “fuck you” to the suburbs…”I can go where ever please”.

I want to get out of here. I hate Northern Virginia. I want to be as far as possible from Washington D.C. I don’t want to raise my child here.

It’s void of beautiful things. Not completely…beauty is relative. But to me, every beautiful scene is spoiled by something in the back round. When Patrick and I go on walks through the woods, we try to find places that we can look far into, that seem endless…but we have to blur our eyes a little or we will see a row of town houses.

It took Patrick over an hour to get home today when it should have taken 20 minutes. The traffic is miserable. Completely miserable. Even when you go west where the setting is more rural and you can see the Appalachians…the traffic still remains. 

Everything here is so competitive. It floors me. People do all of these things for their children, like have them learn Spanish or an instrument as early as possible so that they can get ahead in life and get a scholarship to a great college. I want the same things for Dexee but not so she can get ahead of all the other babies I want it so that she will feel more fulfilled. (I’m not saying it’s a bad thing to want your children to get ahead by the way, not at all. Maybe it’s because I didn’t end up going to college like I thought I would. I have a different perspective. When my senior year came I never applied, I was in love. It was dumb from a mainstream perspective…but I’m glad it happened or I wouldn’t be here. It kind of kills me to think that I should be graduating with a B.A. or B.S. next year…but I don’t even have an associates. One day. Shit, one thing on my bucket list is to get a PhD. I figure I have a few decades to get that done).  

I want to be in a place where I can feel close to nature, content with my own pace of things, and far, far away from traffic. Far away.

Patrick and I think that we might move to Colorado as soon as we can. He has family out there and the state is beautiful. We have to wait until Patrick is marketable as an HVAC technician…which could be in 4 more years :/

Well…I guess that’s what you should expect out of a baby who hasn’t had a BM in almost 3 days.

Note to self: No more bananas for Dexee.

Just now I realized that I’ve lost myself. I lost myself spiritually and intellectually. I think Patrick is having similar problems too. Even as a mother I often feel lost. I feel like I shouldn’t want to pass Dexee off to the first person who will hold her all of the time, but I do. Not always…but a lot. Luckily she is pretty content playing by herself while I watch now, which is a huge relief. I’ve been reading at least. Although…that’s all I do in my free time. I’ve just finished Pride and Prejudice it was great, but of course I miss the raunchiness of most romances that read…so if I can get my Kindle to turn on, I’m coming back for you Sookie Stackhouse novels! I know in time this will all change. But I just feel lazy…all of the time. I’ve been neglecting my health, my mind, and my soul and it hurts. 

One thing I can say is that Mine and Patrick’s relationship is stronger than ever. Much stronger. I feel so connected to him on the most personal, intimate level. He really is my soul mate, my best friend. In any situation we are in, no matter how itching we are for change, for money, or for just something to do, we can laugh with each other, and that is enough to keep us sane.

Well there is sex too. We make sure that our sex life is pretty balanced because when it isn’t we tend to feel somewhat disconnected.

Actually, now that I think about it, the only time I get any real intellectual or spiritual stimulation is when we talk or debate with each other (something I am horrible at but he, irritatingly, is good at).

Probably the biggest thing Patrick has taught me, especially when debating, is too listen. It isn’t about being right, it’s about finding right.

I didn’t expect this to turn into me ranting about Patrick…but he is just so…for me. It’s crazy, it really is.

So, because I’m afraid of Dexee falling off of the bed again Dexee and I have been sleeping on a twin sized mattress at the foot of our king size bed, and will be until we take the king size mattress off of the frame.

Anyway.

Patrick and I were being intimate on the bed (I had put Dexee to sleep on the mattress) when Patrick told me to look. It was dark and when I turned to look where he was pointing, there was this little face looking up over the bed and it scared me so much that I screamed! Dexee had woken up, pulled herself up to standing position while holding onto our bed frame, and was staring at us! It was hilarious, and cute.

Oh babies.

I take that back about the walking before crawling. She literally decided she enjoys crawling 2 hours ago and won’t stop.

I am now 100% Dexee will walk before she crawls. She can crawl, but has zero interest in it. She spends most of her time trying to stand and can now stand without support if she gets herself balanced, though for never more than 5 seconds. Standing is more fun than crawling for me too haha.

I have to poop but the power is out in half of the apartment and pooping in the dark is scary :(

Does anyone else’s baby hit their head everyday!? Like multiple times a day? I am anxious all the time trying to prevent Dexee from hitting her head but it just happens. I can’t wait to move out of this tiny apartment to a place with more space. :(

So today Patrick worked a full day, came home and played with Dexee;cleaned the shit out of our bedroom, bathroom, and closet; went grocery shopping;cooked. And he’s attractive??? And he’s a genuinely good person??? Sorry lads and ladies I think won the relationship lottery…

Yeah, you just got chicken/baby/awesome spammed.

Love it goddammit.

Happy Mother’s day to all mothers! From every woman who wants a child to ever woman who has lost a child you are all awesome and I literally love you :)