Summertime...

And it is getting hot. I always seem to forget how quickly the pleasant May weather (mid 70's, nice ocean breezes) evolves into that back of the leg sweat kind of hot- you know the kind, when your jeans actually start to stick to your legs, or if you're wearing a skirt, the sweat just drips down the back of your legs....
Anyhow, this past weekend I went up to Highland Park to the Oilcloth International sale (next one is in November), and it was just HOT. I was sweating and carrying M around was so warm. It made me remember the weekend last year that I found out I was pregnant with M. I was in Highland Park, visiting my friend and her husband, who had recently found out that they were expecting. She teased me that I was probably preggers too, since I kept sucking down water and peeing constantly. I thought to myself, hmmm. I suppose I could be..., as I stood in their kitchen with sweat dripping down my legs and soaking the heels of my cork espadrilles.
So, the sale was relatively successful, though I thought the selection wasn't as good as last years'. I still managed to part with a few dollars.
The interesting part, though, was that as I was walking from the porch of my friends' bungalow into their living room, I got stung by a bee. Now, I suppose the more outdoorsy stypes are totally unimpressed by this, but I have somehow made it to my late twenties without being stung by anything. I felt like maybe my diaper bag's corner was stabbing me in the arm, so I looked down and there was a BEE on my arm. I have a serious phobia about flying inspects in general, although honey bees have actually never been on the list before. I was holding M in her carseat, so I finally managed to flick it off of my arm and get into the house. I closed the door, and asked my friends- what do you do to get the stinger out? I was never a girl scout, and I have never earned any sort of outdoorsy knowledge contest. I Google, therefore I am. I just know how to look things up online- so when I have no laptop in front of me, I become basically an idiot. I called R at work and asked him, since my friends didn't seem too sure. R was a boy scout, so he probably had earned a badge for something like this in his childhood. He told me it didn't matter how you get the stinger out- just to do it fast. I borrowed a pair of tweezers and pulled it out, then cleaned it with an alcohol swab. I watched it for an hour to see if I developed any kind of crazy reaction (just a dime sized welt and a red splotch on my arm around the area) and put on a Strawberry Shortcake bandaid on it.
I mean, I am running up on thirty- doesn't it seem possible that I should have been stung earlier- like when I was a kid running around playground in the spring time? Barefoot, for crying out loud? Not just walking into the house! That just seems lame.
Writing this down makes me somehow remember when I was in fourth grade, our house became home to a colony (is that the right word?) of carpenter bees. They made a nest (hive?) in the corner of our roof that met at an angle, and my mom had to pay some guy to trap them inside with a metal mesh thing. The trouble came when they found their way out through our attic into the only was out they could find- the small crack between the top of our kitchen ceiling fan and the actual ceiling. My friend, S, who I've mentioned just caught up with me via Google, and I were sitting at the kitchen table doing something together when a half dead carpenter bee fell onto the middle of table, writhing with I am sure the agony of being halfway torn apart in the act of pushing through the crack. It was completely terrifying. We screamed and ran, and I suspect my grandmother must have been the one to seal up the ceiling and dispose of the bee, because I don't remember anything else happening...
Odd, then, that my phobia of flying insects is restricted to moths, butterflies (they are really just fancy-colored moths), and grasshoppers. Yuck. Even typing the g-word gives me the willies.
Well, I have to run and get things done before M wakes up. I should probably peel off my Strawberry Shortcake bandaid and get moving.

A Funny Thing Happened to the FCC

I love Mark Morford.

Melty Melty Goes My Heart

So M can now make raspberries in response to my raspberries. Awwww. And she can suddenly hold her head up like, way high during tummy time. She's growing up so FAST! Next thing you know she'll be writing how much she hates me in her diary. Which will be on some sort of electronic gadget I'll be too dumb to understand. Sigh.

Ok, so Bobby Brown has problems. I don't really think that Osama is his main one, though...

I'm excited- I'm going to the oilcloth sale in Highland Park this weekend. Yay! Cheap stuff! I'm gonna get me some stuff, wholesale and even cheaper! Check out some of the stuff that this company makes for Land of Nod: splat mat, bibs, aprons...

Last summer at their last sale, I got a few bibs (all very cute- I gave away some as part of a shower gift) and a KitchenAid Mixer cover. So cute- it has strawberries on it, and it keeps the dust and schmutz off my mixer. This time I want to get a few cosmetic bags with zippers to use for Peanut's diaper bag- for her spare outfits and one for dirties. And I have small diaper packs in the stroller baskets, which I would like to put into oilcloth bags. Also one for my Hooter Hider would be handy. I also want to get a couple of splat mats, if they have any. If not, then I think I'll buy some yardage to make my own. We have crappy wood floors that don't need to get any more crappy, and the splat mats are cool for picnics and for crafts, too. I mean, once M can sit up on her own and eat solids. Eventually. :)
I am excited about the fun stuff they are gonna have, which is OMG so cheap. I need to resist the cute aprons- they almost got me last time. But I have a ton of aprons and the only one I ever actually use is the red Williams Sonoma one I got for my anniversary from my aunt- it is so thick and lovely and washes up so nice. Also good for baby bath time, actually. You can see what kind of stuff they make on their website, OIlcloth.com. Click the "Sewn Products" section to see pics of their goodies. Which reminds me, I want to get a couple of totes to add to my reusable grocery bags supply. It's funny, but at the healthy organic markets (like Trader Joe's) the baggers always smile at your reusable canvas bags. At Stater Brothers, they just look at you like you're annoying and should bag your own shit if you want to use hippy bags. Well, it's late (as always) and I think I need to make my way to bed.

Deep in the Heart of Texas....

Is a town called Bullard where we might end up moving if R's job ends up there. I could be a stay at home mom, which would be cool. BUT.....In FREAKING Texas. I am an atheist liberal nut job. I hate guns. I hate the President and all his nonsense. So.... Texas? Yeah, Texas.

Ack.

I gotta look into a pickup truck that'll fit a car seat, maybe.... Do they make decorative gun racks? You know, to hang your umbrella from or something?

Oh, yeah. I think Bullard, Texas is in a dry county. It just gets better and better.

R said I could get a pony, though. Hmmm...

I've Been Googled...

Well, my best friend from growing up has found me again. Via Google. I have been Googled. Huh.

I probably kept her up far past her bedtime, babbling on and on. She is the one friend that I can fall into an immediate rhythm with, no matter how long it has been since we've talked. (I think it has been at least three years). We were pregnant at the same time, which is weird. Even weirder is that she had her baby on Valentine's Day. She is the third person I know who had a baby on Valentine's Day 2007. That's weird. It was her fifth baby, and she says she's done now. On the phone, it sounded like barely controlled chaos- in a very fun way. It was neat to catch up with S.

S said that she found it difficult to picture me as a mom. I am considerably less willing to completely let go in front of people than she is- I am definitely the prissy one. So, I was telling her about my "mummy moments"- those moments I would never have imagined before M. For instance, once during a diaper change when M had her diaper off and sneezed- she shot little poop-bullets three feet out of her little butt. She almost hit the wall opposite her changing pad. Or, the first time I actually saw poop being squeezed out of her little butthole. I had never seen a human butt in action before. (Call me sheltered). Or when she farted on my finger as I was putting on some diaper rash cream. She vibrated my finger with her butt. In all cases- I didn't have a breakdown or cry. I just laughed.

Yes, I am officially a mother.

Method Baby Laundry Soap

Ok, so I've been to three different Targets looking for the Method Baby laundry soap and they're out, or they aren't carrying it anymore. The smell of that stuff is like crack to me. Apparently, I'm not the only one who feels this way. It is sort of an amazing scent, as that blogger wrote- very hormone inducing for some reason. Between that and the smell of Johnson & Johnson's All Over Baby Wash, I'd let R knock me up every summer. (Don't tell him that).
I hope that the people at Method aren't planning on discontinuing it. I haven't smelled anything like it before.

Reading My Old Posts....

I was just reading a little bit of a couple of my older posts, and I was smiling over my pre-M posts, where I was describing cooking French food in 80+ degree weather. It made me remember how gianormous my ankles were at that point (which continued until about 10 days after M was born). When the swelling went down I felt so much thinner right away, even though it had nothing to do with my own efforts at losing weight. I need to remember how big I was before M was born so I don't feel as yucky about how big I still am. I'm working on losing the baby weight now, and I need to remember exactly how big I was so I don't feel as big now. I know (logically) that I've lost a fair amount of weight, but it's hard to see myself in pics now (such as during our recent trip) and not feel bad.

I just had to get up and prevent my hubby from drinking cold coffee from the fridge at 1:35 am. He woke up (he has to work tomorrow at 8, so he has to be up at about 6:30 in the morning) and went to grab something to drink. He pulled out the glass pitcher of coffee that I chilled to make iced coffee with and began to pour. I asked him what he thought it was and he answered "brown juice". I'm not sure what juice would be brown, but I would think that soy milk or water would be more appealing, but whatever. I should have let him drink it. That would have been sort of funny when he woke up wired in an hour. But mean. So I didn't. I gave him a cup of o.j. and sent him back to bed. He's occasionally like a really big toddler. M seems to be staying asleep so I think I am going to risk going to bed.

An old friend e-mailed me today. Oddly, we have babies that are about a month apart in age. How weird is life, huh?

Sleepy-time and the vote for antichrist...

I'm up waiting to see if M is really going to sleep or if she is just messing with me. I find that if she sleeps for more than 30 minutes at night, she really means it. She literally just squeaked over the monitor as I typed this. Maybe she really loves Cuba Gooding Jr., who is making his entrance onto Late Night with Conan O'Brien right now. I really hope not. Is good taste genetic? I hope so.
Watching Conan makes me feel sort of nostalgic- I used to watch him when I first moved out on my own, when I worked swing. I'd get home at 11p, make dinner and watch Late Night. Then I got a day job, couldn't stay up as late. Andy Richter left, and it hasn't been the same since.
M decided to wake up again; I think she's beginning to teethe. She's suddenly drooly and obsessed with eating her own hands. Poor little Peanut. It's now 1:42 am. Hopefully this bed-time is for real.
Mark Morford over at the SF Chronicle explains why Lindsay Lohan might be the antichrist and why John Stewart isn't. Very funny. Although I would like to nominate the Justice Department for antichrist, if I may. Oooh, let's do that- kind of like voting for homecoming queen, except for antichrist being just a little more mean and less about being pretty and slutty, right?