Beauty Lessons

I've taken a break from my blog, mainly because after a move from paradise and a visit to one of my favorite places on earth (the Luangwa Valley) I've been sweating it out in hot Georgia with no ocean or Highland Fling II and have been a little miserable and very mental. So in an effort to keep from getting myself committed I've kept mum. I'm happy to say I'm starting to come out of my funk and be a grown up and deal with it.

About a week ago, in very grown up fashion I ran home to momma in Virginia. I realized two things: mom's do make things better and Sunday's without Highland Fling II do kind of suck.

So what do miserable/mental women do to make themselves feel better. Well, pedicures of course. It's amazing what you learn in the pedicure chair. Usually I learn about important things like the Kardashians. However take a baby with you and you'll learn all sorts of interesting things. Beyond the general parenting advice that everyone loves to dish out I did hear a "new" old wives tale. Apparently if your baby has one fat role on his or her legs your next baby will be a boy. If they have two fat rolls then your next baby will be a girl. More than two is anybody's guess...Now I wonder if this gender game applies to mom's thighs as well?

Confession

I'm not catholic so I don't go to confession...I'm a lapsed baptist, but really not much of anything these days which is becoming very uncomfortable in the Bible Belt as I've been asked about our 'church family' by everyone and I mean everyone. I had a 5 minute uncomfortable conversion experience when I tried to buy a night stand off craig's list. Somehow explaining the 'Church of Highland Fling II' might not go over so well in these parts...but I digress. I'm not catholic or religious but I've got a few things to fess up to or get off my chest.

We've been back in the States over a month now and I can't seem to settle in. I love my country but not sure I like living in it.

I hate K-mart I think it's run by rednecks and organized by the president of the trailer park association. It's disorganized and dusty (actually sounds a little like my house) and I can never find anything. I should love it for the people watching opportunities alone, but I hate it and I make no apologies.

I do however love Wal-mart as it has the same clientele but a tad bit smarter employee. I must look like a K-mart shopper though as yesterday when asking a Wal-mart employee where the face wash aisle was located she said , "cosmetics" and I said "thanks, where would that be" and she very slowly and deliberately said "that means make-up" and shook her head as if to say "go back to K-mart you ignoramus."

Other things I don't like about the South or the US in general are snotty stores. Today I had a job interview of sorts...which means I convinced the head of a department to meet with me, but she actually has no job to offer me. So, when this fake interview was lined up I scrambled to find a sitter. The fake interview then was switched to a new day but having asked the sitter to reorganize her entire schedule I figured I better not cancel.I used my two baby free hours to run a few errands and then wandered into one of those stores where everything is monogrammed. I'm southern. I like monogrammed things. I have a cheese platter a necklace and several bags with monograms so I've been into a few of these stores in my time, but I forgot what I dislike about them is the sales lady with the insincere perma smile and pearl earrings and the name dropping, social climbing clientele that these places attract. After my frosty greeting by pearl earrings I heard no less than seven times that  the lily pulitzer clad woman was there to pick up invitations for so and so, head of the junior league... and then I heard all about her fabulous condo in gulf shores. I couldn't help myself I just couldn't...I may have let it slip that we just moved back from the Caribbean and it was so hard to leave our "waterfront property..." While waterfront is not a stretch, the cement hot box with the gorgeous view that we lived in; I have to confess is not what I portrayed. Why I felt the need to compete with this woman I have no idea. I think maybe just because I found her so over the top annoying, but I should have just given her a steups (a brilliant Caribbean sucking sound that means piss off) and moved on.

Two of the Seventeen we saw

While I am confessing I also had no intention of buying monogrammed stationary for Charlie. With no job paying the sitter was going to be tight so the reason I didn't buy the overpriced stationary was not because "you don't have anything with giraffe's? she's loved giraffe's since she saw 17 on safari. " It is more because we have about 17 dollars in the checking account...

Speaking of jobs I am searching for one and I forgot how much I hate job searching. It's made worse by the fact I don't actually want one. Well I do, I want the money and I want something to do in addition to singing itsy bitsy spider several times a day but the thought of leaving my daughter causes me to break into a cold sweat and hot tears.

Last confession of the day is when visiting the anxiety inducing childcare facility last Friday I may have had a tiny hangover due to too many margaritas the night before.


Since I'm not Catholic there should be no penance. However, I've done mine. Watching a seven month old with a hangover was it.

Recycled

I posted this a while back but John made me take it down as he thought we might get kicked out of the country...now we are gone I'll post it again because my goal is to post more, however I am too lazy to come up with something new tonight. Maybe I should see if there are any openings in the immigration department...


Last week I had the pleasure of packing up Charlie and trekking up to the Botanical Gardens, which is a bit of a misnomer as its actually a badly planned concrete maze of hideously ugly government buildings without a flower in site. It is also the home of the always hospitable immigration officials. I have been dreading this trip since we landed on the island and the blank faced,money hungry immigration official at the airport granted Charlie and me a three month visa instead of the five month visa they gave John.

Last week our three months were up and it was time to pay the head blank faced official a visit. I can't really describe how nasty these people can be. They don't speak they really just bark in some sort of pigeon English, they won't look you in the eye, likely because they are on some level embarrassed by the abuse of their limited power, and they hide behind a beaten up metal door bearing a sign that says 'knock and wait." What the sign should really say is "don't bother knocking because we only open the door when we feel like it." On second thought it should just say "WAIT, we will open the door only after you've been sitting there clueless for hours and we've had our tea and made several long distance phone calls to the USA where our relatives are living illegally.  We will be prepared to harass, interrogate and abuse you only after your blood pressure has reached the boiling point and you are forced to speak in grunts through gritted teeth less you unleash your pent up aggression on us and we then will deny you an extension of your visa."

I was not looking forward to this experience and really could not bear the thought of doing it with a baby. I walked into to depressing govt. building A and saw the typical confusion. Bored and broken looking yachtys, students and peace corps workers were lounged all over the place. There was no line and the woman behind the glass counter was ignoring everyone. I filled out my forms and knocked on the scary door and a blank faced minion answered the door and, then the unthinkable happened. I thought to myself "is there a trace of a smile on this blank faced androids lips? Oh my goodness I think there is." I look at my daughter who is staring intently at probably the first emotionless human she has ever encountered.

Before I knew it we were whisked back to the woman in charge and this nasty, bitter, power hungry woman engaged in the most shocking piece of behavior I have ever encountered in an immigration office and started cooing at my daughter. I swear to you I almost dropped Charlie from the shock of some emotion coming from an immigration officer.

Now was the moment of truth. Would Charlie take after dad who has a long history of abusing public "servants." There was an incident at the Zambian border a few years back which involved threats of "languishing in the cell." Or, would she take after her mother who is so petrified of these people I bribed them with tubes of Colgate and bottles of red wine during my stint in Zambia. Inwardly I am thinking please smile at this woman whatever you do do not give her your 1,000 yard stare. She is extending the olive branch. Please, please smile.

And my girl is her momma's girl. Big grins prevailed. The next thing I knew we were being stamped , approved and I was looking at pictures of this woman's children. Who lived, you got it, in the USA.

So after four years living abroad, countless tubes of Colgate dispensed and a layer of enamel missing from my gritted teeth, I have figured out the formula for cracking the toughest of immigration officials. A baby. Charlie and I set a new record. The whole process took 37 minutes.

Goals

We are starting the long and daunting process of packing up our lives and preparing to move to the next phase. I'm not going to expound on my feelings about leaving. Will save that for another post but, to borrow a uniquely British expression. I am "gutted" to be leaving.

So back to the packing. It, to use a uniquely American expression "sucks." Enough said.

While packing we came across a list of goals that we made during our first week of marriage. I think the plan was to make goals every 6 months and have a sort of  "state of our union" meeting and check in with each other. Like most things that are started with the best of intentions; that first state of the union goal session was our last. But what was surprising was that most of the major goals we had set for ourselves have been or are on their way to being accomplished.  Some of course were not...and some we are a bit ahead of. Start family summer of 2011 can be crossed off! Some things on that list are funny...kind of what were we thinking when we wanted to do that, and some need extended deadlines and a few goals are lifelong works in progress.

Next goal. Stop procrastinating, get packed so we can move ourselves to the US via Malawi without losing our minds. "Please God." As they say in Grenada.

Wish for Motherhood

As a recent mother I am just figuring this whole thing out but with mother's day approaching thought I would put together a wish list for my journey through motherhood. So here goes...

If my child is not the star of the school play, little league team, debate team, little tumblers etc...grant me the good grace to sit through it with a smile on my lips and a look of feigned interest on my face.

If she is the star of the show let me display the appropriate amount of pride and hide the smug look confirming what I have known since birth...that my child really is head and shoulders above the rest.   

If the day comes that she does not make the cheerleading squad, first obo player or captain of the debate team let me comfort her with just the right words without turning texas cheerleader story mother...because I might just have a little bit of that in me.

Grant me the right balance of involved mom but, if I become helicopter mom someone shoot me down with a scud missile because everyone hates those parents.

When she is thirteen and doesn't want to be seen at the mall with me shopping for her first boy/girl dance outfit; grant me the patience to know that one day when we are shopping for a much more important dress she will turn to me beaming in white for approval and, I'll take her hand and cry when someone slips a veil on her head.

Grant me the good sense to know that being the "cool" mom is not as important as being a mom.

When she is old enough to have a drink with her friends and her mother, let me know when to call it quits. At no time do I ever want to have my name and Stifler's mom in the same sentence.

When my Friday nights turn into happy hour at family friendly restaurants let me know that I've been there done that and any club in NYC that would have me on a list now would not be worth going to anyway.

Give me the strength to let my child go and rest assured that if I have done my job right she will always come back.

Do not let my love for my child blind me. If I'm raising a mean girl I want to know.

Please don't let me raise a mean girl.

When my child comes home with someone special to her let me love him because she does and, remember that love comes in all sorts of shapes sizes and opinions.

Make me resentment free and at no time in the long journey that is motherhood let my frustration show. My inadequacies as a human should never be felt by my child. When they are give us both another dose of forgiveness.

Let me know when to ask for help and when I am strong enough to do it on my own.

In the wee hours of the morning when it's just the two of us let me cherish the time but,give me permission to know its ok that I think my child might actually be a terrorist trained in the art of sleep deprivation.

Give me a good sense of humor because at 3 in the morning sometimes laughter is the only medicine.

When I am tired and cranky and have had enough let me treat my husband with respect and love because how she sees me treat her dad will be how she treats others.

Let me remember that I was a wife first and if we break our marriage we'll break our daughter.

Grant us both a heaping dose of forgiveness. We will both make mistakes, often big ones but, if we can forgive we can learn and motherhood like life is nothing but a continual learning process.

I hope one day she'll feel the amazing awe inspiring love that mothers feel and somewhere in the first few weeks of sleep deprivation, angst and spit up she'll know what I know now. No one loves you like your mother.

Unexpected Similarities

They say a picture speaks a thousand words. Well....

This pose reminded me of this one...

Baby Essentials

Back When I read Vogue and bottle service meant something entirely different!

I'm struggling with this next post because it just seems so "momish" and feels a little bit loserish. As a side note I realize momish and loserish are not real words but, they were definitely adjectives I used when I was 25! Anyway, not sure when the transition happens but it has slowly been creeping in. I noticed it first at the magazine stand this summer I beelined to the pregnancy section and Vogue only came as an after thought. I know that action may be sacrilegious.... What to Expect When You are Expecting replaced the latest book off the NY Times best seller list. I have a lot (more than I would care to admit) of conversations about sleep, poop and eating patterns. But what I am about to do is totally uncool, very momish and when I was 25 I would have proclaimed myself a total loser!

Being a Mom is lovely.

A lot of my girlfriends are getting pregnant and starting that really scary and daunting process of registering. I've sent this list to a few friends and thought I would post it for future mothers. Things you'll need for the first few months. I know I had several anxiety attacks when trying to navigate Babies R' Us so hope this helps.











 BABY ESSENTIALS

Where you put all this baby lo

  













 
1) Swaddling Blankets http://www.adenandanais.com/  These are the BEST and you can get them at Target. I would also register at Target as well as Baby's R Us
2) The DVD The Happiest Baby on the Block. It teaches you how to swaddle and the 5's really do work for about the first month. Charlie lived as a burrito for the  1st month of life.
3) The Book Baby 411 It is awesome and so helpful. I would also get Expecting 411. I didn't discover it til my last few weeks so never bought it but read it at Borders and liked it better than What to Expect.
4) The soothie http://www.soothie-pacifier.com/ It's the one recommended for breast feeding moms and Charlie LOVES it. Also most hospitals are now recommending it and give them out.
5) A boppy 
6) A bath tub that has a shelf built in. Our whale tub had one and its really useful when they are little and slippery. http://www.target.com/Fisher-Price-Whale-of-a-Tub-Infant-Bathtub/dp/B0018Z8CN8
7) A bath mat to bathe the baby in the first few weeks til the stump for the umbilical cord falls off http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productId=3618616
8) towels and TONS of wash cloths - bath products. There are a ton out there and we tried some of the fancier ones but my fav is Johnson and Johnson, they smell the best
9) cloth diapers which are great for burp rags
10) the diaper genie
11) a portable changing mat http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2756998 this is a lifesaver. i just throw it in my purse and go
12) car seat - we got the graco snug and ride it's great and no complaints
13) stroller - i would just get the snap and go til the baby gets bigger and you can decide what you want then. for the first three months you never take them out of the car seat so anything else is pointless.
14) Pack n'play...whatever model you want there are a million. i would skip the bassinet and just use the pack n'play by your bed for the first few months
15) monitor - I would get one that has a video monitor
16) bouncy seat - Baby won't use it for the first few weeks but then they are really handy
17) swing - someone gave us one to borrow. charlie can take it or leave it so i don't think its a must have but some people swear by them
18) crib - whatever you like
19) changing unit - Some friends have converted a dresser into a changing unit...I think that is a great idea then it can grow with you.
20) High Chair - Can't recommend as we don't have one yet
21) activity mat - any one will do.
22) Sleep dresses - these are the BEST for the first few weeks. They are so easy when you have to do the middle of the night feeds and changes http://www.toysrus.com/family/index.jsp?categoryId=3251926
23) Glider - not essential but I loved mine and miss not having one in Grenada
24) Baby carrier - we have baby bjorn and the baby sling, Balboa Baby, and I like both. Some people prefer ergo baby so just check and see what you like
25) Secure Sleeper  http://www.amazon.com/First-Years-Close-Secure-Sleeper/dp/B003HD7SNY/ref=sr_1_3%3FSubscriptionId%3Dundefined%26tag%3Druyi-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3DB003HD7SNY
26) Good Girlfriends to have a glass of wine or two with and remind you that you are still you.

Now that I've posted this incredibly momish post I'm going to have to organize a girls night out to try and redeem myself or beg Keith and Suzie to hold a church service on Highland Fling II so we can wine!