girlfiend

Howard the Cat is being so fucking annoying right now. I was gone for two nights- you’d think he’d been abandoned for months by the way he’s crawling all over me and digging in his claws. I love him dearly, but when he’s overly affectionate he draws blood. I wish I believed in declawing.

The trip to the shore went surprisingly well. Two nights and my mom didn’t insult me once. Instead, her friend did. Dan, an interior designer, looked at me and completely oblivious asked, “Oh, are you expecting again?”

I didn’t realize I look like I’m still pregnant. He tried to soften the blow by telling me how voluptuous I look. Then he told me that my arms were looking big. Thanks, dude. I look pregnant and I have fat arms. This is less than a week after Boyfiend accidentally told me that he loved my big ass. Not my cute ass, or my beautiful ass. He said he loved my BIG ASS. I know that the weight loss benefits of breastfeeding aren’t supposed to kick in for a while, but this is just fucking ridiculous.

This is a pretty accurate picture of what I look like right now. I know I’m still 25 pounds heavier than before, but I really didn’t think I still looked pregnant. Please, tell me I don’t look pregnant.

For comparison shot of how I looked a year ago. From the back. Note the absence of fat arms and big ass.

Compounding my foul mood is the lump I’ve discovered in my armpit. It could be nothing. It could be something. I won’t know until I can make an appointment with a doctor on Tuesday. It’s sort of terrifying, but it could just be an ingrown hair or a cyst or a blocked sweat gland. It’s the size of a pencil eraser. Maybe the size of a kernel of corn. But it’s a lump and I don’t particularly care for undiagnosed lumps. I can’t help but think of the worst. Everything’s been going so well. Something bad is bound to happen.

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graffiti in the park,
originally uploaded by sireia.

The Fiendling decided to get up early on the day we don’t have any coffee in the house. Now he’s napping and I’m wide awake.

We’re going to my mom’s shore house later this afternoon for the weekend. The Fiendling’s first road trip. It’ll be trafficky. Wish us luck. If it goes well (by well I mean the part involving my mother, not the part invovolving travel) it means we can spend more time there over the summer. If it doesn’t go well, we’ll be shit out of luck in our un-airconditioned house.

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DSC01023, originally uploaded by sireia.

Some time ago I read something by a father who wrote that your child will be the most fascinating person you will ever meet. The man was spot on. His end of the conversation may consist of vowel sounds and grunts, but every time my fiendling speaks it’s the most wonderful thing I’ve ever heard. And his smile? It makes my heart want to explode.

A few tidbits from the message board.

One woman wants to “find her husband and stop the divorce.” Color me nuts, but the “find” portion of her post makes me wonder if that’s such a good idea.

The next braniac titles her post “genital herpes?” She’s had one blister on her vagina (I hope she means her vulva) every other year for 5 years. She wonders if perhaps it’s herpes, but if it was why didn’t the OB/GYN tell her. The poor woman doesn’t realize she needs to see a doctor DURING an outbreak. More importantly, the poor woman is asking a message board about a blister ON HER VAGINA instead of going to the doctor.

This next chick is my favorite. I’m quoting her post in full, but changing a few identifying details.

Okay…I’m a bit confused haha. (Somehow this “haha” tells me that this post won’t actually be funny) I know about inplantation bleeding (I sure as hell hope this poor 18 year old kid isn’t knocked up again) but it didn’t happen to me with Kamrynne. This is the thing I’ve been on BC (I assume she means birth control pills, but based on her first unplanned pregnancy, it could just mean the rhythm method) and the past two days when I’ve gone to the bathroom and wiped…there was a little bit of blood. ( I like the ellipse for emphasis- I imagine she’s expecting the reader to hold their breath) Period has come and past and won’t be here for another two weeks. So I’m not sure whats going on. For the past week every time I get in the car I get sick. I don’t throw up but I get extremely nauseas. (heh, love the spelling) And WOW have I been having some weird dreams! Am I perinoid? (also love this spelling- peri, like perineal) Should I take a hpt? (I’m not due for a period for a while though) Should I keep taking my bc? EEK, just confused haha. (again with the haha)

Random news:

It appears that going to the gym is working. Although I haven’t lost any weight I’m pleased to announce it’s redistributing itself. I actually bought a pair of jeans with a real waistband. They’re even a size 6, which as you may recall is the “perfect” size of the Wakefield twins.

My sister-in-law is pregnant! The Fiendling’s going to have a cousin in December. Boyfiend is thrilled that the cousin factory is in business, especially now that I’m even less interested in having more than one child than I was before. I don’t know how people do it. Having one is hard enough.

And now, pictures:

My boy looks fabulous in a cowboy shirt.

He now sticks out his lower lip when he pouts, but I just can’t get it on camera.

Isaac really enjoys the Fiendling’s playmat. They pretty much ignore each other.

Boyfiend is encouraging the Fiendling to use his hands as he’s recently discovered he has them. He’s still not entirely sure what to do with them other than stick them in his mouth and hold on to other people’s fingers. He couldn’t quite hang on to the rattle.

Have I mentioned that I live around the corner from a pig? I love Philadelphia.

Yesterday was the sixth anniversary of our first date, an occasion Boyfiend and I used to celebrate. We missed it last year because our wedding was in March and this year because we’ve been a bit distracted by the 10 week anniversary of the Fiendling’s birth.

Boyfiend and I met in a bar. It was Palm Sunday- a fact which I was blissfully unaware of- and I was drinking alone as I often did in my first year of drinking. (Yes, I meant to write teaching, but first year of drinking is funny, so I’ll leave it.) I wasn’t an alcoholic, it was just that I had only been back in Philly a short time and I didn’t know very many people. I’d also been dumped by a guy in an email a month earlier, hated my job and was rather depressed by it all.

That particular Sunday I found myself involved in a conversation with a guy who bought me drinks. The more I drank, the more I realized he was creepy. He kept trying to touch me and I wanted no part of it, so when I saw two youngish guys with ponytails walk in I was relieved. They sat down, ordered a couple of beers and I walked over and told them a dirty joke. I then asked if I could sit between them and finish my drink. Boyfiend and his roommate were kind enough to accomodate my drunk ass. They even gave me their phone number and address before I left with the promise to invite me to a Cinco de Mayo party they were planning in a few weeks.

A week or so later I started seeing a 40-year-old British carpenter with a broken leg. Through him I met a 35-year-old Jewish cokehead and kayak enthusiast who had a recording studio and a possible case of the clap I had to hear about from someone else. (Looking back at the winners I was dating, my self esteem must have been pretty damn low.)The night of the Cinco de Mayo party I was with the cokehead. I’m pretty sure I emailed Boyfiend to apologize for missing the party. I don’t recall exactly and the emails- on my end anyway, I’m not sure about his- have been lost, but his response led to a few weeks of email flirtation (He quoted Joni Mitchell and I fell for it) before we arranged for an actual meeting.

I was nervous about meeting Boyfiend. He seemed so nice. I didn’t date nice guys. So we arranged to meet at the bar where we’d originally met and I had two friends there as backup. After the initial hellos and introductions we walked to a bar a few blocks away. We drank some beers, shared some fries and talked. Drunk, he walked me home. When we opened the door we found my roommate passed out on the couch in his underwear. I wanted to kiss him good night, but I didn’t want to wake Will, so we went upstairs, made out and fell asleep. At some point one of us woke up and he went home.

I don’t remember if he called the next day and I don’t recall how soon it was before we got together again. I do know that we really liked each other, and slowly over the next few weeks we each stopped seeing the other people that we were seeing. (I was unaware that he was actually seeing TWO other women- I was just seeing the cokehead, which was an easy relationship to end.) He planned to travel Europe for the summer with yet ANOTHER woman, but by the time he left we’d declared our love and a month into his travels I met up with him in Greece where we subathed nude and ate romantic dinners overlooking the sea. I was 22. And I met my one true love in a bar.

Some day in the future we’ll have to explain this all to our son. Yes my little Fiendling, we met in a bar. Your mommy was a drunk who told dirty jokes and your daddy was a playboy with a goofy ponytail and a stupid bandana.

Happy Anniversary Boyfiend. I love you.

It was a dark and stormy evening when Boyfiend, the Fiendling and I set out for Crossroads for my weekly knitting circle. But soon the clouds made way for some sun and with the sun came this:

Ooh. Pretty. The Fiendling enjoyed seeing his very first rainbow.

I started this blanket way back before Christmas. For a while I was convinced the Fiendling was waiting for me to finish it before he decided to vacate my uterus, but labor commenced before the blanket was complete.
Since noone else from the circle was there to distract me with conversation I actually made some progress.

The big bad baby blanket is practically finished. All I need to do is weave in the ends. It’s about time.

The Fiendling is relieved. He was so bored of watching me knit that thing. He can’t wait for a new project.

I’m not really a Mother’s Day kind of girl. I’ve never been one for getting excited about my birthday or holidays, especially those created by the retail industry. I buy cards and celebrate with others because I know they care, and I really like getting presents, but for the most part any “Day” is just that, another day.

But last night the Fiendling was full of milk and relaxed from his bath. Boyfiend and I were looking at pictures (of him, of course) on my computer and the Fiendling was on my lap. I looked down and he was looking up at me, smiling. His eyes were bright and shiny and when I smiled back his smile got even bigger. I stroked his face with my finger, and smiled at him, my beautiful, happy boy and thought to myself, “Happy Mother’s Day.”

As much as I want to pretend that I’m okay with the fact that it’s going to take a while to lose the extra weight, it’s impossible. I find the excess flab incredibly depressing. I’ve shrunken considerably, but there’s a huge roll around my belly that bugs the hell out of me. I can feel it when I bend. It hovers when I’m in down dog. It squishes over the top of my pants. I just want it to go away.

I wasn’t a fat kid by any stretch of the imagination, but I was tall and I wasn’t skinny. Around puberty, which unfortunately struck around my 11th birthday, I stopped growing and plumped up. I was heavy enough to be ridiculed by the shithead boys in my grade. They snapped my bra and chanted “THUMP, THUMP, THUMP,” as though I was an elephant when I walked down the hall. I was traumatized, stopped eating, and lost a ton of weight, which I regained and lost again several times until I turned 17 and lost my baby fat for good.

Back in 2002 I’d gained some weight. Boyfiend and I had been together for two years and I’d gotten comfortable and lazy. My pants stopped fitting. Utterly disturbed by the camel toe, I began a strict regimen of diet pills and exercise. That shit worked. After a few months I’d dropped 15 pounds, quit the diet pills and continued with the exercise. Except for when Boyfiend and I broke up for a while and my weight plummeted to 103, for the next several years I weighed about 112. Sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less, but it never fluctuated more than 2-3 pounds in either direction.

Then I got pregnant and gained almost 60 pounds. I’ve been hovering a few pounds below 140 since the Fiendling was 2 weeks old and I’m afraid it will stick. Intellectually I know it probably won’t. I know that I’m entirely too weight conscious and that I exercise and eat well and blah blah blah, but my body is holding on to this weight for now and it’s not budging.

I’m trying not to resent it, my body, since I’m still amazed by what it did. I had a baby. I actually pushed a baby out of my body and now my breasts are his sole source of nourishment. My breasts actually know how to produce enough milk on a daily basis to feed a baby. And he’s growing! And healthy! And beautiful! I don’t want to go on some bizarre diet or exercise plan and upset this delicate balance, but it’s depressing that 2 out of the 4 last items of clothing I’ve purchased in the past few weeks have been maternity. I cannot find a real, non-elastic-waistband pair of pants that doesn’t make my ass look I’m wearing mom jeans.

I’ve been adding pictures to Flickr like crazy, so if you want to see more of the Fiendling contact me through Flickr- if I know you from commenting I’ll add you to the friends list.

The Fiendling’s going to the doctor for his 2 month checkup in an hour. Check out the difference 2 months makes:

In the photo above he’s one week old.

And this morning.

Notice he’s actually playing in the second photo. Well, I suppose that it doesn’t look a whole lot like playing to the untrained eye, but I assure you that that face is his playing face, his little legs are kicking like crazy and he’s having a grand old time.