Hard Knocks 101

First-time parenthood is not for sissies. Not for lazy romantics who romanticize laziness. It will kick you in the ass when you think you have no ass left to kick. Its main philosophy is that there is no better cure for whiplash than MORE WHIPLASH!!! Except you can't file an insurance claim against parenthood for rear-ending you, then get it to pay for your acupuncture treatments.

You start off fighting the way your life has completely changed. Praying certain things will go back to how they were before (i.e. lady parts). Then you accept it fully...You will be tired forever. Not cute for a while. Completely powerless at times. But full of this exquisite pain, and the kind of gratitude that can only occupy one who is presently standing in the former shoes of their mother, or father, or whoever...

HAPPY (early) MOTHER'S DAY ALL YOU MOTHERS OUT THERE.

Time In Flux

A week's worth of minutes blows right by. Yet I can't find the time to cut my nails.

4-22: Roaming Chinatown. Found Heaven. Contracted serious case of building envy. 

4-23: One Rufus Love Machine - saving my spot.

 

4-24: First day back in the studio. Oooo pretty buttons. How I've missed you.

4-25: Rufus - Babysitting

4-26: Swimming lesson.

4-27: To the sea!

4-28: Why I wake up when I really don't want to wake up.

4-29: Mine and mine all mine.

Proof That Dogs Aren't Color Blind

He doesn't like the green ones.

Great Expectations

Holy shit. Rufus, Sebastien and I survived our first trip to the market without a chaperone. After I fed Sebastien this morning - while Dave fed me...no seriously, he sat right there and fed me potatoes and scrambled eggs while I fed Sebastien...

Yes you are reading this correctly. This is the man that suffered me learning how to drive standard (while I was pregnant), works his tail off in a hot kitchen all day, puts up with my moody rants and babbles, and gets up super early to be Sebastien's butler so I can get a couple hours of real sleep. Then cooks me breakfast AND feeds it to me before going to work. Yes I know I'm lucky. Yes, I still complain sometimes.

Anyhow, while I was at the market, I had an encounter with a girl who was pregnant with her first kid. She saw Sebastien sleeping like an angel in his car seat, which I had propped up in the shopping cart (safe, or no?), and she immediately got goo goo faced and smiley over him. The look of pure excitement and anticipation was all over her body language...and all I could do was smile and say, CONGRATULATIONS!!! Yayeeee!...as my voice trailed off...

I should have told her how hard it gets. How lonely you can feel sometimes. How your plans and romantic notions about motherhood will be gutted by the reality that you have no idea what you are doing. How even though you'll have more help than you'd feel comfortable asking for, you'll still want to crumble into a million pieces if it means you can sleep for 20 extra minutes between each feeding. How you will reach a new level of exhaustion everyday, and then top it a hundred times over the next. How labor and delivery are the easiest part. But who wants to hear that? Who wants to SAY that? To a stranger. Who's pregnant and hormonal. And goo goo faced over your 5 1/2 week old sleeping angel. Not I.

Then again, I wish someone had told me. Just like that - in the raw. Even though I probably wouldn't have believed it...


There's no better preparation for your first child than your first child.


And they say it gets easier. For me, like most things people tell me, I'll believe it when I see it.

Ode To Rufus

Ever since Sebastien was born, Rufus has been threatening to run away with the circus. Here he is practicing his mouth-eye coordination. I told him he'd have to do better than this because even though it's a low paying gig, I hear the Chinese, and Vegas for that matter, both have very high standards.