The peak of separation anxiety has hit Pringles (9 months). At least, I hope this is the peak. She has begun to simultaneously crawl and cruise, so she’s constantly on the move. I cannot escape her. I bought a second 8-piece gate to create a Thunderdome in which to contain her. Despite my limited success with this idea when Viva was a baby, I believed it would solve all of my problems. Not surprisingly, little Pringles doesn’t want to be on the inside of any situation I’m on the outside of. There is so much whining in this house.
I’m struggling to get through this post while Pringles whines and frets and crawls around my feet.
Most of what I live with day to day is a delight and a privilege. She has learned to hold her arms straight up when asked “How big is Pringles?” to indicate SO BIG. Hand clapping started last week. Viva gets right in her face and shrieks, “PRINGLES! LITTLE, LITTLE PRINGLES! LITTLE LITTLE PRINGLES!” and sounds quite deranged. But the baby loves it. She loves everything her big sister does, except when Viva squishes her.
Pringles is amazing at making me feel special. Her face lights up when she sees me. She reaches for me and says “Mama.” Her smiles were made just for me.
Because she can say “Mama,” she calls for me all day and sometimes all night.
I started writing this morning, and now it is dark outside. Viva is asleep in the family bed with Odie. Little Pringles learned how to make a clucking noise with her tongue and the roof of her mouth and is therefore staying awake to practice it.
My back aches from carrying her around most of the day. My joints still pain me from my pregnancy. I have a condition where my joints stay loose and flexible (and painful) as long as I am breastfeeding. I have trouble getting comfortable to sleep and it takes me close to ten minutes to drag my creaking body out of bed in the morning. Four Motrin with my morning coffee are sometimes the only thing that gets me moving.
Today, Viva’s preschool teacher looked grave when I picked her up. She asked Viva if she wanted to tell me what happened.
“Barbara scratched me! Like this!” she demonstrated a raking motion across her face. Miss Ginny pursed her lips and asked Viva, “Is that the truth, honey?” Viva nodded emphatically that it was. The little liar. It turns out, her BFF had a toy Viva wanted, so she took it. When BFF protested, she got a scratch across the face. Viva even drew a little blood. I felt my stomach drop to my knees and my cheeks flush. I’d only ever been on the other side of this parent-teacher conversation, shaking my head with disgust at the antics of Monsieur Le Petite. It seems I have a Mademoiselle La Petite on my hands. I did that thing we parents do, where I responded to the teacher in the “family we.”
“We’ve been having trouble sharing lately. Sharing toys, sharing Mommy, sharing time,” I explain. I’m sure she’s just acting out. And, oh yeah. She’s THREE (in three weeks). Three year-olds are uncivilized. Even though my darling Viva talks like a five year-old, her emotional capacity is still quite on par with her age. I hope her BFF’s parents were cool about it and still want to have playdates. Odie is practically turning himself inside out with anxiety, as he’s wont to do. Poor guy only got 4 hours sleep last night after grading 180 midterms. That is absolutely the worst part of the job. Tedious, time-consuming, and thankless.
I just wanted to check in with you all and let you know what’s going on. We enjoyed Odie’s spring break immensely, taking our second day at Disneyland on Tuesday. We chose to spend our Easter with good friends instead of family this year because they were having lots of little kids and an Easter egg hunt. We dyed eggs the Saturday before and I made sure not to include for hiding the egg on which I’d written naughty love notes to Odie in crayon before dipping them in dye. I’m an Existential Theist and Odie is a contrarian (he doesn’t know what he believes, but what do you believe? Yeah, he thinks that’s wrong), so Easter Sunday isn’t a big deal to us. We’re charging forward trying to make our own family traditions, which is one of the best parts of being a parent so far.
I started this blog two years ago when Viva was the age Pringles is now. It isn’t amazing how time flies. It’s always done that. It is amazing how much I love them. And how hard it is to get any writing done with them around.
Remember, if you want to hear from me more often, I’m on Twitter @MrsOdie2. Twitter is less of a commitment, so I manage to “tweet” something most days. I’m having trouble concentrating with Pringles crawling around, refusing to sleep, babbling and trying to eat everything she finds on the floor. Stay tuned for some articles I’m working on about my incredibly funny and wise observations on some current parenting topics and some bitchy criticism of some other bloggers.
The Friendly Pedant by Mrs. Odie 
Thoughtful Thursday
Alec Baldwin’s engagement to Hilaria Thomas, 28 year-old yoga teacher, has me irrationally angry. Then I become angry at myself for being like my mother: irrationally angry.
One morning, my mom was at my house and the weather report was on. Our local weathergirl is petite and Asian with breasts the size of her own head. That is not hyperbole. Either of her tits could be placed on top of her neck and would approximate the size of a head. And if it were placed there, men would actually look in the direction of her face. I said something along those lines to my mom and she said, with no trace of irony, “I know and it makes me SO ANGRY!”
I rolled my eyes at her, a move I perfected at 14. Why waste energy being angry at such a thing?
Because she’s old and alone and no man will even look at her except maybe to say “Get out of my way, lady.” Because when she sees the buxom Asian woman on TV, telling us it’s going to be another sunny day in L.A., she knows that is what men want. Not her.
As a woman, you get to an age where you realize men are no longer looking at you. From the time your breasts budded, you have been enduring the lecherous, longing, or loving advances of boys and men. I remember when I was in my teens, that famous statistic came out that a single woman in her forties has a better chance of being hijacked by a terrorist than married. So, I guess she better hope that terrorist is single.
If my husband met me on the street today, he wouldn’t look at me twice. He’d probably think, “Cute kids,” and move on. I’m ready to be hot again, although I wish that sitting on my ass and eating ice cream were the keys to that kingdom. I know I will never be hot like I was at 23, but I will also never be that self-righteous or crazy. Everything is a trade-off.
Baldwin is rich, intelligent, handsome, funny, and famous. At 54 years-old, he is 26 years older than his fiancée. That’s not just old enough to be her father. It’s old enough to be her father who didn’t have kids too young. Why should I care?
I’m insecure. I was raised by someone who frequently comments on women’s beauty and they’re always the same kind of women: young and sexy. When I told my dad I watch “Game of Thrones” he mentioned that he knows one of the producers. “He’s married to Amanda Peet, so he’s doing pretty well.” His tone said, “DUH. What more could a man want?” Maybe Amanda Peet is an awful crazy bitch, though. Doesn’t matter. She’s gorgeous. I also mentioned I recognized the name of a woman he worked with in the 80s as the executive producer of a show I watched. “Yeah, I saw her recently,” he remarked. “She looked old and fat. She was wearing some caftanny thing.” Here he made a face as though he’d had a stroke. This is the attitude of the man who shaped my attitude about men.
As long as I am young and hot, my man is “doing well.” If I’m old and fat, he must be disgusted and miserable and paralyzed on one side of his face. Thankfully, I didn’t marry a man who thinks that. Or did I? Don’t they all think that? If Odie were rich and powerful and had young athletic women throwing themselves at his money, would I stand a chance?
Ultimately, the problem is me. These troubling thoughts are symptoms of a psyche that needs more healing. I’m running out of time, too. I’m still young and I don’t have a whole lifetime to work this shit out. I have many blessings. A flat tummy is not currently one of them, but a happy baby who just learned how to clap is. I think I made a good trade.
Alec Baldwin may be handsome, rich, funny, and smart, but he’s also a raging narcissist who called his own daughter a “thoughtless pig” because he felt rejected. I think he has no choice but to find himself a twenty-eight year old.
A fifty-four year-old woman wouldn’t take his shit.
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