The Big TV

Recently Husband and I purchased a ginormous television for our living room. I believe the Big TV has single handedly saved my marriage. Before The Big TV there had been a lot of arguing at our house, so much so that Husband and I were at our wits ends. Since Baby has been born and we have both gone back to work, life has become well...hard. Now when I hear about couples fighting who don't have kids, I think "what do they even have to fight about? They can sleep in!!"

Before The Big TV there was just the regular crappy TV. Granted it had all the fixin's-cable, Tivo, DVD player and it belonged to me. I'm the television junky in our house. I have all my shows that I regularly watch. I look forward to the fall season when there are new shows to be plucked from, critiqued and mulled over. TV is how I relax, and how I enjoy my week nights after a long day at work after Baby has gone to bed. I never really expected to upgrade the TV I have had since high school, since Husband only really watches a couple of sports shows now and again and otherwise is not so interested.

So when Husband suggested we get a new TV cause they were having a sale with no interest for two years, I was floored. Lets do it!! We came home with the Imax theatre of televisions and it... is... AWESOME.

Something came over the family after The Big TV came into our home. The birds started chirping, a gentle breeze started blowing and there seemed to be a general happiness over our household. Husband and I actually started watching TV together! After dinner he suggested that we watch True blood together on The Big TV with a glass of wine. I couldn't believe my ears! Husband wanting to actually watch TV with me and watch something that I actually enjoy?! Wait, you mean no Sports Center?! No baseball or basketball game?! You mean you want to watch one of my beloved vampire shows that I save and covet and enjoy so much that I look forward to it all week when the new Netflix arrives?! You mean that?! Husband was so casual about this plan that I had to play it casual too and not fall out of my chair. "sure" I shrugged, "I guess we could do that".

Since the Big TV's arrival we have been enjoying an episode of True Blood each night after dinner with a glass of wine. Husband liked it so much he went out and bought first and second season so we could watch it in fancy Blue Ray whenever we wanted, so we wouldn't have to wait on the Netflix arrival. Not only that we seem to be getting along better to because of it. We chat about the show and look forward to sitting down together at the end of the night for another episode...and people say television ruins marriages..puh they clearly don't own The Big TV.

Changes

I feel fall in the air-its my favorite season! My season to shine. Back to school, which equals back to school clothes, fall TV schedule, colorful leaves (except here we barely have that but still). Its time to bust out the winter wardrobe and see what I fit into. The fun part is getting to wear boots again. Now of course its not even close to really being cold here, but ya know the concept of cold is coming I can feel it. I am also very excited about using my new fire place!! HOW EXCITING IS THAT?! well for me it is totally exciting...

Change is in the air. Baby turned 10 months old this week.

Over night he has grown and become yet again a different boy. He is now crawling quickly across all floors, its more like a slither with a foot push, but whatever he's doing, its fast and he's in the cat food quicker then you can say "holy cat sh%#!!". He also for the last two nights (knock on wood) has slept through the night.

I have been actually waking up in the morning before him in time to take a shower and get dressed it has been ...a...miracle...sigh. His hair has also grown and does not lay down anymore.

His air in the morning looks like Beethoven on a bad day. He clearly has my crazy horse hair. We cant keep him still anymore and the dreaded annoyance of baby proofing the house has arrived.

Change is afoot people stand alert!

well its not always glamorous being a mother, this is a huge understatement to say the least. I know there are parenting classes, and books you can read, but nothing really prepares you for what its really like.

For instance, today while at the Salvation Army, I was looking for clothes for Baby who at 10 months outgrows clothes like the Hulk. I figured, at least they are cheap. While there I thought I would also look for Mommy. I also seem to Hulk out of clothes lately, the diet is coming soon people...Anyway I had gotten to the book section and thought I would look for some hard back books for Baby who loves the ones where he can turn the pages himself. Baby was in his stroller while I shopped. I hadn't strapped him in, because he was sitting forward playing with his rings and chewing happily. The tray was keeping him in...or so I thought. While I was scavenging through the worn and beat up books for something cute and not covered in invisible kid germs I was trying not to think about, I heard a Man at a near by book shelf exclaim with surprise "OH! " as if he had found a gem. That's when I saw that Baby had slid out from under the tray on the stroller and was now laying on the floor. The man seemed surprised but went about his business stepping over baby to reach for another book. I was horrified! Baby hadn't even cried. In fact he seemed pleased that he had finally escaped the annoyance of the stroller and was now able to freely roam the way he wanted. I scooped him up, this time strapping him in, and rushed to another side of the store mortified that I was such a neglectful parent and also so that I could squelched the tear that were emerging from the the laughter I was trying not to let burst out of me. I knew it would not be appropriate to laugh because seriously I was clearly an unfit parent. You live and you learn I suppose.

Mommy's Morning 9/1/10

...slept til 8:30am because my alarm clock was still sleeping. Must of been that bottle I gave him at 1am. I know Dr. said not to give bottle anymore, but after that deathly teething week, I am so desperate and shell shocked about not getting sleep I do what I can...After Baby got up we laid in bed watching terrible morning show with Cat.

Cat tried to claw and bite Baby while Baby tried to rip Cats ear off. All playfully and lovingly of course, however I'm always in the middle and know how expensive injuries to ether can be. "Be nice to Ra Ra" I tell Baby. Baby's eyes gleam whenever he sees Cat and squeals of delight emerge from his smiling face. "Be nice to Baby, No biting!".

Cat always wants to sit on my lap at the same time that Baby is sitting on my lap and this same battle always ensues.

This goes on for another 20 minutes before I actually wake up and realize Nanny will be here shortly, and I still have to get dressed for work.

I leap out of bed and begin the process of wrestling with baby to get him dressed, which he hates and cries as if I am torturing him. stepping over Cat as he jumps under my feet and yowls at me for getting out of bed is always part of the morning.

I try to make sure that I somehow pull my outfit together knowing I have a goodbye lunch with coworkers and a dinner with my boss.

Nanny shows up and gets on the floor to talk to baby in his room. I am relieved due to the fact that I am now already late and I'm not even dressed yet. While I try and squeeze into my spanks

in my room adjacent to Baby's room, Cat keeps opening my bedroom door revealing my donut like white stomach pouring over my spandex spanks as I hop around the room trying to pull a dress over my head. Nanny politely pretends not to notice as I kick the door closed again with my foot. This continues on with Cat until finally the last kick of the door actually latches and stays shut. Cat then sits outside of door with his paw coming from under the door sending me a warning message that if he feels like it, he can and will open the door at any time.

Meanwhile, the first dress I pulled on, my boob keeps popping out of, so I go to adjust the strap and it breaks.

3rd dress works (I'm not even going to go into how heinous 2nd dress looked) and I'm off and running to the kitchen to grab something to scarf down in the car.

Nanny holding baby swiftly picks up a block before I trip over it, she side steps to the counter like an elegant choreographed dancer knowing my insanity as I try and leave the house each morning. Once in the car I blast my new obsession, Edith Piaf's

pre world war 2 french voice fills my car- which makes me feel like two things:

1. a fabulous artistic creative genius in the midst of a life rich with culture and spontaneity, someone who might wear colorful scarves with each outfit and gracefully prances through life happily.

and 2... The weird old cat lady with lipstick clearly outside of the lip line.

I finally made it into work a half hour late, but luckily my boss also has a new baby and understands the crazy that is my life these days.

Kindness

This weekend Husband and I worked on the Parisian Cafe. We planted, put up lattice and reorganized the back patio a bit. Husband got so excited that while the sun was setting and he was polishing off his second beer he exclaimed "maybe we should have a second child!"

Wait what?!!

Baby was sitting in his little excer-saucer chewing happily, while I squatted next to the vine I just planted. "I d-duunnoo, I, uh, wait what?" I stuttered. I was sweaty, covered in mud and squinting into the sun. The thought of just getting Baby ready for bed in the next hour and half was starting to overwhelm me. Of course, the next day when it wasn't magic hour, Baby was screaming, and Husband was tired he was saying a different story..... but alas the Parisian Cafe bring out the Joy D Vie in us all.

While working on the house that same day Husband went down into the basement or the dungeon as I like to call it (picture a place where serial killers hang out and then amplify the creepy factor by 5 and you have our smelly dank dark basement). When he came back up he told me that he could hear new neighbor right up above in her bedroom, as if she were standing next to him. She was watching Sex and the City he said, he could even tell what episode it was. This intrigued me, because while we were slaving away on house and garden with Baby and doing our normal weekend madness, Neighbor was doing exactly what I used to do when I was single without child: laying in bed all afternoon watching DVDs.

In my current sate of motherhood, I feel often as if I get no down time whats so ever. My down time is getting my nails done during my lunch break at work. I realized that my life is more fast paced and non stop then it has ever been. I am amazed at the amount of things I do in a day. There has never been a time in my life where I have accomplished more in a day then I do now.

So my realization this weekend was that I need to be kind to myself. It hit me like a wave. Being kind is different then overindulging, its different then treating oneself to luxury, or being gluttonous. It just means quite genuinely, that I need to forgive myself for everything I'm not.

Its very difficult to be non judgemental post baby. There are many doubts. Doubts about being a good mother, doubts about being good at anything anymore. Not to mention body image issues and what happens to ones self esteem after gaining 30 pounds.

So I decided that I need to practice self kindness.

we'll see how it goes...

Chats at the Parisian cafe

So yesterday I took the day off work to take care of Baby since Nanny needed to deal with some immigration stuff. It was mostly nice except the part where it was 103 degrees and we only have air conditioning in one room of our house. I took this opportunity to try out having best friend #1 and best friend #2 over for dinner. It was a trial run before TV night begins at my house in the fall. TV night is when Best Friend #1, Best Friend #2 and I meet at one of our houses and drink lots of wine and talk loudly over our favorite TV shows. It used to always be at best friend #2's house, because she has a nice HD TV and a husband who will make himself scarce. Since I had Baby, I figured it would be easier to have it at my house, especially now that we moved and have Parisian cafe to hang out at before and after our TV viewing.

While sitting around the Penis fountain in the Parisian cafe Best friend #1 asked:

"Could you be a stay at home Mom?"

She asked this while at the same time looking at me and shaking her head "No" like she already knew the answer. With my feet propped up in the fountain, blue nail polish gleaming in the evening candle light, I pondered the question.

"well" I said, "probably not, because I am not much of a cleaner..."

I kept thinking of Husband coming home and remaking the bed earlier and washing the one bottle left in the sink. Have I mentioned that Husband has a cleaning issue? The problem seems to stem from the fact that I don't have a cleaning issue. I guess I don't mind if the house is messy, but Husband was apparently thinking the house would look like it does when Nanny is home with Baby. Did I mention that Nanny is also a clean freak? I'm doomed. I hate cleaning. I find it utterly exhausting. Especially while hanging out with Baby. I don't know how Nanny does it quite honestly. For this reason I'm not so sure being a stay at home Mom would work out for me, unless of course Husband got a lobotomy.

Later that evening while feeling sorry for myself and thinking about this during Best Friend #2's monologue about work, the girls upstairs pranced by. Lets not forget that the neighbor girls upstairs are all three: 20, in college, and hot.

Girls upstairs also have names like Isabelle, Shiloh and Natalia. Do what you will with this information, because I'm sure the mental images of collegic-esque bond girl bombshells come to mind, and no joke you would be pretty darn close to correct. So during best friend #2's rant about the injustice of why our boss thinks he can leave every other week to go back to Virginia to spend time with his family, even though our production is based in L.A, an assembly line of beautiful 20 somethings traipsed by the Penis fountain to head upstairs. It seemed that Isabelle was having a get together. The 20 somethings seemed to be confused as to where they were going and were under the impression that the three 30 somethings (me, best friend #1 and #2) were where the party was at. The latest to walk by was a size zero brunette who I could have sworn I'd recently seen on the cover of Lucky Magazines June issue. Best friend #1 gave me the "there's another one! Are you kidding me?!" look while best friend #2 went on business as usual with her work grievances. By the time the last of the 20 somethings walked by- a cute guy clearly gay and filling out the fabulous quota for the group, we were on our second glass of wine. So when Tyrone introduced himself saying it was nice to meet us, was Izzie around? I felt flattered that Tyrone thought us good enough to be part of the Isabelle entourage. I leaned back out of my lawn chair and slurred "Nice to meet you Tyrone!"

"The parties upstairs" Best friend #1 said through her smile. I looked at Best Friend #1 and #2 and felt proud. Here we were, three old middle aged married women being confused with Isabelle's hot friends, Hot Dog! This was turning out to be a great night after all! So what if I don't clean-at least I'm hot enough that in dim candle light around a penis fountain I may or may not resemble a 20 something party guest!

...It just goes to show, you never know what will happen at the Parisian cafe....

Boat Guy

As husband and I sat with our feet in the penis fountain enjoying a hot summer evening after work, we got to talking.

Husband: Found a boat magazine at work. Boats aren't that expensive.

Me: Huh.

Husband: $190,000, that's really cheap, I didn't realize how affordable it is!

Me: seems expensive to me.

Husband: compared to a house!

Me: I see where you're going, still seems expensive.

Husband: but ya know, for like a single guy to live on a boat, work half the year, then spend the other half cruising around the islands.... seems like fun right?

Me: not so much.

Husband: Really? seems like a great idea! Chill out on your boat, it would be small for one person, but do able. Cruise around. Doesn't it sound great?

Me: No..... Wait, you're having a man fantasy. You're having a single guy fantasy.

Husband: What? No, I just thought it was a good deal. Doesn't it sound great?

Me: No.... its definitely a single guy fantasy. I don't want to be stuck on a tiny boat. But I get it. You're "boat Guy". Weird, I never knew. I could see you being "beach guy", but I never really pictured you as "boat guy". Cause you know "beach guy" and "boat guy" are totally different.

Husband: "Beach guy" and "Boat Guy" are completely different, but I could be "Beach guy" too.

Me: Totally.

Husband: So that's not your dream?

Me: uh, no.

Husband: huh.

It got me thinking. Where was my single guy plan? Me, the person who had a fantasy for every possibility life could offer, yet I was stumped. What would I do in my new single life? Lately I was too busy formulating my Parisian cafe fantasy to be concerned with any other potential lives I might be living. Sadly Parisian cafe seemed to include Husband and Baby even if only on my terms, when they were both behaving. I was suddenly very jealous of husband, because if Baby and I dropped dead tomorrow Husband would be setting sail, hair blowing in the breeze with a complete single guy life plan in tact! While if anything ever happened, and I was suddenly single, I would be left floundering away trying to figure out what my single guy plan would be.

It was time to start thinking...

So here are some quick ideas I came up with if I were suddenly single:

1. Slutty Hollywood girl

I could prance about tits proudly forward crawling the night clubs

2. Chill Beach babe

I could live in Venice and ride my beach cruiser bike around

vintage shops and buy antiques and eat brunch all the time.

3. Executive lady

I could climb the corporate latter making my career top priority, stepping on anyone that got in my way until I reached the top making millions of dollars.

....Ugg sadly none of these really appeals to me right now. I'll have to put more thought into this....