I've spent the last couple of days getting ready for our guests. It's very difficult for me to not become obsessive about it. All I really need to do now is make the bed and do another load of dishes and we'll be all set. I think it's important to make a nice environment when friends come to stay with you. If you have affection and respect for them, you want to make sure when they step into your shower they don't go "Ick!". Especially if you want to communicate the fact that you're glad to see them and would like them to come back someday. Of course, we still have to live here while I'm trying to clean up and I end up having all these inappropriate resentful feelings: " Don't use a dish for your sandwich! I'll just have to wash it! " is a good example of how I can get. I don't say any of these things. I just think them. Then Scott keeps asking me if I'm okay and I say "Yeah yeah. I'm trying to get the house picked up." which, when you have a baby is an oxymoronic statement. After the house is in good shape I start to wonder "Do they use special soap? Should I ask? How about allergies? Should I have washed the sheets in a hypo-allergenic detergent? Is there such a thing? Are they lactose intolerant? What if they drink Pepsi instead of Coke? Should I get some of that too?" and so on until they actually arrive and then I start to have a good time.
posted by Amanda Snyder at 6:14 AM

Scott and I had our twelfth wedding anniversary today. I let him sleep in as he got up with Zoë at three in the morning. She's still waking up and needing to be rocked back to sleep. I remember talking to some moms in Diaper Gym who had done co-sleeping. They said that around a year old their kids started to get uncomfortable in bed with them. Well, I know we've been uncomfortable so I put her in her crib this evening. We've got a rocking chair in the nursery and I've nursed and rocked her in there with the same effect. My thought is, if I'm going to get up and out of bed anyway this is probably a good time to start her transitioning to her own bed. We shall see how this goes. Luckily, I don't have to get up in the morning. After Scott got up we had breakfast and vegged out for a little while. Then he had rehearsal with his bluegrass band and Zoë and I went to Border's Bookstore. I got a gift certificate from my friend Kathye for my birthday. I got this idea last night that I wanted to re-read "Flowers in the Attic". This awfully gothic romantic horror novel about four children locked in the attic of a big house my their mother. It's violent and sexual and melodramatic and I remember loving it to pieces when I was thirteen. There's an entire series about these kids and I've read 'em all. I swear they belong to they're own genre. V.C. Andrews died several years ago but books with her name on them continue to come out regularly. Don't read those one though, they just don't have that same feel to them. She was one sick puppy that V.C. We got back and Scott returned shortly afterwards. He held Zoë while she napped and I, as my husband would put it, flew around the room at the speed of light cleaning as I went. We've got friends coming in from Canada and I needed to get cleaned up before they get here. I still have some stuff to do but it's looking good around here. We went to my parent's for dinner and were home in time for me to watch "Sex and the City". I like Carrie's hair this season.
posted by Amanda Snyder at 9:57 PM

Zoë's sleep has been interrupted the last few nights. I've been making sure it's cool enough in the house and that she eats a good dinner. Two nights in a row she's woken up at around four in the morning and won't go back to sleep unless you take her downstairs and rock her. If you try and lie in bed with her she just flops around and makes noise. When you're trying to get her to sleep she lays on her back and kicks her legs up and down really hard. If you sit at the right angle she kicks you in the chest. She squirms and turns over on her tummy while she's nursing, stretching my nipple out and making me say "Ow!" Then I say really sensitive mommy things like "Will you knock it off!" Once she's out and her thumb has fallen out of her mouth you have to try and decide if she's REALLY asleep. If you think she's truly snoozing then you can take her upstairs and put her down. But, if she's still a little, teeny bit awake and you pick her up. 'POP!" She's up and you have to start all over again. Needless to say, this is pretty frustrating. I've tried sending the psychic signal "Go to sleep, go to sleep, go to sleep" into her brain but it doesn't seem to be working.
posted by Amanda Snyder at 10:32 PM

There's a huge street improvment project going on in an area about one mile north of our house. This particular part of California is known as "The Village of Claremont". Or, "The Village" to the locals. It's never "Village". It's always "THE Village". They never clarify which village. I guess it's assumed that if you're in the know you'll understand that they mean the Rhino Record store in Claremont and not New York City. Anyway, they're doing this big road construction and Indian Hill Blvd. is all torn up and there are detours. One of them sends you east one or two blocks and then you're supposed to turn north, making a left hand turn. The tricky thing is there's no left turn signal so traffic gets backed up waiting for the yellow light. Then there's all this honking involved. And swerving out into the right hand lane moving at 45 miles per hour so they can go to the next signal with no left turn signal and turn there. It's pretty bad in the morning as people are trying to go to work. When they come home in the afternoon they're supposed to go south and then turn right to go back to Indian Hill then south again to the freeway. Well, some drivers have discovered that they can just drive straight south turn right on San Jose street and save a couple signals. This takes them past my house. All these pissed off California drivers are speeding up and down the two lane residential street in front of the complex I live in. They're passing over the double yellow line and not slowing down to let anyone back out of their driveway and being rude in general. They're also just sort of meandering around in an angry manner trying to find the SECRET detour that takes you instantly where you want to go and they just KNOW that it's around here somewhere. When they don't find it they make U turns up one way streets or back up to get to the street they just passed. I thought I'd go look at the sign to see how long this is going to be going on and discovered that they're scheduled to be done in September! Oh gosh. Better brace myself.
posted by Amanda Snyder at 10:05 PM

Zoë and I had a moment on the 5th. We were on our way to music class that morning and I heard her throw up in her car seat. This made me frown some as she hasn't thrown up in a long time. I thought to myself "Well, we'll get there and I'll see how bad it is. We're almost there anyway." Just a minute later I heard her throw up again. I figured I should pull over and check on her. (I ended up pulled over in front of the house my friend William lived in when we were friends in high school. We were really good friends too. Then we stopped being friends and he started being friends with Kristi this nasty girl and I was sooooooo mad, sorry, I digress.) I popped out and opened the back door to look at the baby. She was covered in vomit. In the middle of this mess all over her chest was a june bug. A beetle about the size of a fingernail. I knew there was one in the house but I hadn't seen it in a couple days and had incorrectly assumed it has escaped under the front screen door. Now, we also saw her put something in her mouth that morning but didn't check to see what it was. I put all this information together and concluded that she eaten a dead bug and it made her sick. I got back in the drivers seat and called Scott to tell him we were coming home. She threw up again on the way home. I'd plucked the bug off of her chest to see what it was, then got grossed out and tossed it out of the car. As we were driving home I was thinking "What if I have to take her to the doctor? Should I have SAVED the bug? What if it had insecticide on it? Oh hell." We got home, she had dry heaves as I was taking her in the house. Scott said "Hey! You guys okay?" I didn't answer I just kicked off my shoes and headed upstairs. Scott, being the good guy he is, read this correctly and followed me up asking what I needed him to do. He gave Zoë a bath and got her into clean clothes while I changed my own clothes and went out to start to clean up my car. Blot up as much as you can, heavily cover spots with baking soda, vacuum up, rub down with vinegar and water solution to get rid of smell, rub down with lemon and water solution to get rid of vinegar smell, let air out as much as possible is a good way to clean up. How do I know this? I've only owned one car that either I or someone I know didn't throw up in and that one I crashed into an island divider. I wonder if there's a connection there? Hmmmm.. Anyway, Zoë was perky and fulla beans after her bath. I kept her mostly on breast milk and she seems none the worse for wear. Scott now calls her "Zoë the amazing bug eating girl" and talks of selling her to the circus.
posted by Amanda Snyder at 4:42 AM

Okay I had a pretty good birthday yesterday. Certainly a much better day than last year. We had a packed schedule. I got up with the baby at her usual time of seven in the morning and made coffee. I took off for the grocery store. When I got back the doorbell rang and I received the most beautiful roses from the Garcia family! I jumped up and down and danced around. I love to get flowers. We had a MOMS Club meeting at ten. They sang me "Happy Birthday" and Michelle, the club president, pointed out that I wasn't embarassed at all. Zoë went with me to get a Frappucino then she napped in the car on the way to Gymboree class. We had Gymboree from noon to one and then drove through for lunch (it was my birthday and I wanted a sourdough Jack from Jack in the Box). After eating and an episode of Teletubbies we left for my parents house. We talked to my mom as she got ready and I checked my voice mail. I had voice mail! My friend Dawnise singing me a very silly birthday song. My mom took the baby to her company party and I went to get my nail and toes done. This was a present from my folks. The shop sat me in a chair where they could do my hands and feet at the same time. I was done in 40 minutes. When I got back to my parents' house there was no one there and as I don't live there, no chores to do. I called Scott and told him I didn't know what to do with myself. I watched the GameShow network, which we don't get, until everyone got home. My parents gave me my present with was a really nifty jogging stroller I've been drooling over for some months. I got it put together last night and now I just need to inflate the tires. We went to dinner I took my dessert home and collapsed! After resting and getting the baby to sleep I waiting for Scott to come home to share my cake with him. I received birthday greeting from: my grandpa Art, Susi, Dawnise, Andrea, Paul and Beckett, Debbie, Allison, Jodi, the Garcias and the manager at Wolfgang Pucks.
posted by Amanda Snyder at 7:38 AM

I've been having a tough time the last few days. Firstly, it's been really hot. In the one hundred degree farenheit range. I think if Scott and I ever split up it will be over air conditioning. When I was growing up my parents rarely turned it on and when they did it was usually because they were having guests. I would beg and plead for air conditioning. They would tell me it was too expensive to run and to just open the windows. They do this today. Last year at this time I was home visiting from Washington and seven months pregnant. My father insisted that we could stay cool by opening the windows. He's got this indoor/outdoor thermometer that tells him the temperature downstairs but not upstairs. So, there I am all pregnant and not able to sleep because I'm hot. When my dad asked if I was comfortable enough to sleep I said no and he said "Oh, I'll go get you a fan today." Anyway, Scott is a big believer in air conditioning and you'd think I would be too. But, we get it running and I get paranoid about how much our power bill is going to be and end up fiddling with the thermostat. The baby sleeps better if it's cooler so when most folk are turning their AC off or down I'm cranking ours up to get it cooled off upstairs. The rule of thumb is if I need a blanket Scott and Zoë will sleep fine. So here I am sweating how much our electrical bill is going to be. Meanwhile, Zoë's developed thrush, a yeast infection type growth in her mouth, so I'm trying a homeopathic remedy and swabbing her mouth out with diluted grapefruit seed extract hourly. Oh, she just loves this! She's also been sleeping really restlessly for the last few weeks. When she wakes up she doesn't give her usual grunts but these incredibly whiny cries. It's driving me crazy. I get so angry at her. She'll only go back to sleep if she nurses so my left breast is pretty sore from her gnawing on me. And it's my birthday tomorrow and for some reason I always get depressed around my birthday. Maybe because I'm waiting for the big celebration of people to say "We're so glad you're alive!" and usually I get Scott telling me Happy Birthday the morning of before he goes to work. And maybe a phone call or two. But not much more. Last year I turned 30 and I spent the day by myself playing Everquest. My parents were out of town and didn't call me. Scott took me to dinner and was in a foul mood so he didn't talk much. Then we went and bought a changing table. Maybe tomorrow will be better.
posted by Amanda Snyder at 8:57 AM