Calm? I would like to go to there

No time for real post, too busy panicking about parental unit's impending arrival Friday and first born's birthday party Saturday. Please to enjoy photos of cute baby. Hum 'Banana' song if you wish for entertain you.

She was giggling to herself, and I turned around to see this. Delicious toes.

Ponytail gal

94 degrees and sunny - time to go to the lake!

Yep, she's a climber.

EDIT: 2 new videos in sidebar

Day Court: Five Things

For those of you breathlessly awaiting news of this morning's traumatic sojourn to the Wake County Courthouse, here are five quick points which nicely summarize the experience:

1. I didn't need to be there. I didn't get called on at all. Which was good, because then I didn't have to stand up, and have all the sweat that had pooled in my lined suit dump into my work heels. June 5th will be the magic day when I have to be called up.
2. Jellybean has to get served. SERIOUSLY?! This process is even more ridiculous than I previously thought. It's ok, though, because when she's 16 and thinks it's her first time in juvenile court, I'll let her know she received a summons for her first birthday. I hope the Sheriff delivers it, my neighbors will go crazy.
3. Juvenile Court is no fun. There are no clowns or balloons or cupcakes, just badly dressed Social Services workers and sad tired foster mothers giving updates on the drug-dependent babies they care for. And a mom who told the judge that her 14-year old would rather go to jail than school, and the judge said, 'Well, that can be arranged, tell her probation officer', and the mother said, 'Good, I don't want to miss any more work over this'.
4. At one point, the judge presiding over my case stopped and asked why his courtroom smelled like a Sausage Egg 'N Cheese McGriddle. Ok, no, this didn't really happen, but why am I such a fat girl that I thought THAT was a good idea on a nervous stomach?! Those things have some hang power.
5. The elevators totally blow. And Cousin J. totally rocks for going with me and trying to hold my sweaty hand. And for also snickering when the judge said Loud's name (he was the one who accepted the summons for Quiet). And she kept poking me and telling me to shut up when I could not stop hissing, 'Bow tie!' because there was a totally Southern portly lawyer in da house, and she most likely kept my ass from getting kicked out.

Thank you again to everyone for your words of comfort and support and comedy as I've melted down this past week. It's the weekend! One week from today, my family will be here to celebrate JJ's B-Day!

And remember kids, just say 'no' to larceny, because apparently it can get you 30 months in the slammer. People's Court was almost as awful as Juvy. It was NOTHING like the show. There was way more bad hair and body odor.

And Now For Some Healthy Self-Pity

Every once in a while there has to be a serious post. Y’know, because it isn’t all puppies and rainbows and lollipops, no matter what the feminine hygiene commercials promise us.

This week I’ve been thinking a lot about what I really and truly miss about not having a partner, a husband, and a daddy for Jennifer. I think it’s probably because I’m pushing down all the feelings of panic and anxiety about the hearing on Friday. Yep, you heard right – here in the good ol’ state of NC, where there are no laws for silly little things like ‘planned donor conception’, I had to serve a summons to the nice man who gave me my baby. I have to take precious time off work to attend two custody hearings, and pay a lawyer thousands of dollars, and the aforementioned nice man will have ‘child abandonment’ on his record for the rest of his life. Awesome, huh?

I know that the hearing should go smoothly, but this is a pretty conservative state, and they don’t take kindly to child rearin’ without a daddy in these here parts. Especially when it’s done on purpose by some uppity spinster (ok, really, I have no idea how anyone feels, but in my head the judge is going to be 90 years old and shake his head and say, ‘Tsk, tsk’ or use the words 'out of wedlock' when he sees me). The worst that could happen is that the judge could totally not understand the situation and decide to appoint a guardian to serve Jellybean’s best interests, which would drag things out and result in more fees. But still, it’s a custody hearing, and I’m still WAY freaked out about it, and none of my friends are in town to go with me and hold my wittle girl hand. Blergh.

So, yeah, what I miss. I’m usually too tired to miss any of the physical stuff that comes with having a dude around (I'm even too tired to point out the dirty joke there), although I do miss the emotional support and the ‘hi, honey, how was your day’ type of thing. It would be nice if I could share responsibilities of managing the house with someone (like, ‘here’s a hammer, go do your manly duty’). I see dads with their kids, and I wonder how Jellybean will feel when she’s old enough to understand that it’s something she doesn’t have.

What I miss most this week is that there’s no one to turn to when Jelly does something super-cute, or especially rotten, to say, ‘Omg! Can you BELIEVE our kid?!’. As Jellybean becomes more and more hilariously interesting, there isn’t another person who will see how special she is the way that I do. There isn’t someone to share the ups and downs of the day-to-day milestones who is legally and emotionally obligated to care. And there’s this big, gaping hole when she does something that is totally unlike me or my family, and all I want to do is ask her other grandma, ‘Did her daddy do that or make that face or pinch his mother in that annoying way?’.

I know there are all kinds of bad dads out there who are useless, and I know that there are all kinds of moms out there who used anonymous donors, so don’t know half as much about them as I do. I just get sad once in a while when I let myself think that our family isn’t whole and it’s my fault.

Don't worry, then I get a grip and imagine what a pain in the ass any guy who would marry me would be, and I feel much better about it being just the two of us.

8 Things

I got tagged!
A mother I love to read over here got me with the 8 Things tag. I feel like the unpopular girl who got invited to the party, only there’s no unhappy ending or buckets of pigs’ blood (not with the rampant swine flu striking down dozens, no siree!). I am too damn lazy to tag eight people though, so hopefully I will not be cursed with the Broken Chain Letter curse, whatever that may be.

Anyhow, here are mine:

8 Things I’m Looking Forward To
1. Jellybean’s 1st Birthday
2. The trip to Cincinnati the following week
3. Learning more about the person that Jellybean is becoming
4. Working on being the kind of mom she needs me to be, and seeing how I’ll continue to change
5. Christmas (I am ALWAYS looking forward to Christmas, what can I say – we’re almost halfway there!)
6. The trip to Canada this summer
7. Putting away all my winter stuff in my closet
8. Finishing this damn conference call

8 Things I Did Yesterday (Sunday)
1. Went to Wal-Mart
2. Sewed a ‘Muno’ for Jellybean’s birthday
3. Baby laundry
4. Ate 3 cobs of corn in 3 minutes (seriously, the first naked cob was still steaming when I finished the last one, Bean watched in horror and hid her fingers from me)
5. Watched the first half of ‘Beerfest’
6. Ate ½ bag of candy jelly fruit slices. I love those things. I’m a little white trash. And a little bit rock ‘n roll.
7. Emptied out assorted toxic diaper repositories from around the house
8. Picked shredded pink tissue paper out of my work shoes and Jellybean’s mouth

8 Things I Wish I Could Do
1. Read. Other than when I’m on an airplane.
2. Sleep in
3. Spend more time with The Bean
4. Lose weight
5. Make my budget work
6. Have more patience with my parents
7. Move closer to my family
8. Watch a movie in a theater

8 Shows I Watch
1. Law and Order – SVU/Criminal Intent
2. The Soup
3. House
4. How I Met Your Mother
5. The Locator
6. Family Guy
7. Good Eats
8. 30 Rock

A Perfect Mommy-Brain Weekend

Jelly's favorite TV-watching position

This weekend I SHOULD have had a fun-but-hectic Saturday morning, meeting up with my Dental team for a 10:00 am baby shower and then high-tailing it back 175 miles in the opposite direction for The Nanny's son's first birthday party. However, it went something more like this:

6:30 am - Get baby up and dressed in what ends up being only first of many outfits of the day. Shower and dress self in what is suppose to be first outfit of the day but ends up being only outfit of the day. Do hair. Throw in some laundry just from force of habit ('walk past laundry room, insert laundry into washer, wet clothes into dryer, dry clothes either onto bed or back into laundry bag, where I will almost definitely end up accidentally re-washing them')

7:30 - Give baby breakfast. Note how she cutely rubs scrambled eggs into hair. Change her clothes. Turn on electronic babysitting device, 'TV'. Actually apply makeup.

8:30 - Wrap shower gifts and birthday presents. Baby kicks holes in wrap and shreds tissue before devouring. Pink tissue paper is obviously much more delicious than scrambled eggs. Look at crappily wrapped gifts, sigh, and realize all skills are totally gone as a result of doing things with screeching baby constantly at elbow or on lap.

9:15 - Nanny generously picks up baby ON THE MORNING SHE IS GIVING HER SON'S FIRST BIRTHDAY PARTY so that I can leave for the baby shower. Nanny is a superhero. I will be in my underwear and tears and drinking martinis at 9:30 am the morning of Jelly's birthday party. Leave for baby shower.

10:00 - Arrive, ON TIME! at supposed location of baby shower. Parking lot is empty. Stare at cell phone and will it to magically insert useful phone numbers, since I don't exactly have my dentist's home number and the RSVP number was the (closed) office phone.

10:15 - Give up and drive all the way home, imagining scenarios in head where they changed the date or time or location and just didn't tell me.

11:00 - Arrive home. Check invite. Notice as if reading for the first time ever that there are two separate lines for 'Location' and 'Hosted By', which I somehow had mixed up. 'Hosted By' was The Office, which is where I was sitting in my car, crying with frustration. 'Location' was my dentist's home address. Angry at self because I still can't call anyone to tell them why I'm not there. Leave for birthday party, grumpy and sweaty.

11:15 - Arrive at birthday party. Yay, hot dogs and balloons and presents! Jelly smears all those things on her outfit, eats more than anyone else there, and passes out. I strip her to avoid wasting more precious clothing.

Yup, 'mommy brain' is the bestest thing ever. I was sooooo disappointed. Luckily I have an appointment Wednesday so can take the gifts and apologize for my stupidity.

Yesterday Aunt J. hung out for a few hours, which meant I could actually make a homemade present for Jelly, which was awesome. Yay, I accomplished something! I am not what you'd call a 'strong sewer', more like, 'someone who hates to follow directions and is too impatient for patterns or doing beginner stuff', so I basically just drew myself a picture of what I wanted to do and then, uh, started to cut. As a result, I didn't compensate for little things like 'seams' or 'feet', so the proportions are way off and it's definitely a handmade item that looks very little like what it's suppose to. But I love it! And it's enormous, so it should be fun for her.

Today I am on day one of a two-day conference call meeting, blergh. Fortunately this means I am able to write some posts. I got tagged, so I'll be posting my 8 Things here shortly.

Have a good week, everyone!

Uneventful Travel and Glad to Be Home

'Driving' the Nanny crazy. Get it?! I'm really tired, sorry. Don't they look BIG?!

I’m HOME! Yay!
Thank you to everyone and all your nice comments. After my sappy crying-alone-in-my-hotel-room post, things got a lot better. At least, there were donuts. I was too busy with work to really stop and feel sorry for myself, although I definitely looked at the clock throughout the day and thought about what Jellybean was doing.

The meeting at Corporate (which I was running with a coworker) went really well, and my boss was very happy. Yay, job security! I volunteered myself for a few action items, but they’re pretty manageable, and some interesting stuff, so it’s all good. I once again made tragic meal mistakes (as if I thought it was a good idea to eat a 1 ½ lb lobster? Sushi at the airport?!), but slept well and got to have Starbucks every morning, which is stupidly thrilling.

My boss is on the left, wisely covering her faceWe got along until the one on the right spilled his guts, then I wanted to barf at the smell of seafood for the rest of the night

Jennifer J. had a good week, except in the early evenings. Hmm, I wonder why she would start to meltdown at around 5pm every day, and cry through dinner and her bath? Apparently she is very in tune to the fact that mama usually comes downstairs from working every day around that time, so despite being happy and having a great time with Nanny during the day, she was looking for me when she knew I should be there. Kinda cute. And a little sad. She was very happy to see me when I got her up this morning, and I was pretty stoked to see her. She’s hanging out with The Ta for the morning, since Nanny is off for the day preparing for her son’s 1st birthday party tomorrow. So hard to only spend a few hours with her and have to ship her off again! I’m going to sneak out and meet them for lunch, though, and then see if I can get some work done with her hanging on me (yeah, right).

What is this runty little thing? Can I eat it? Jelly is more of a 'big dog' gal

Tomorrow will be busy; I need to put in an appearance at my favorite dental hygienist’s baby shower (have I already mentioned this? It’s not really as weird as it seems; I’ve been going to my dentist for like 11 years, and they knew all about my struggles to be a mom, and the hygienist was trying for years and doing fertility drugs finally and is now pregnant with TWIN GIRLS! So excited for her!), then driving a zillion miles in the other direction to go to the birthday party. Crap, must wrap all gifts sometime between now and then. Anywho, should be fun, and I think we’ll get to see Cousin J. on Sunday, which will be nice.

It was a weird feeling having the Nanny stay at the house this week. 13 years ago I use to house-sit/kid-sit for a woman, and I still remember how great it was – extra money when I was making nothing working in daycare, a fridge and pantry full of food, a huge comfy bed. I realized that I was that person for my Nanny this week, and it was weird because I feel like I’m still 24 years old most of the time. Especially now that I’m a mom, and I’m back to being in a financial and emotional crisis every other minute. I’m just glad, as Jelly’s first birthday rapidly approaches, that she’s had Nanny for her first year. As the savings account dwindles and I look around for things I can sell so I can keep her a little while longer (the Nanny, not Jellybean), I wonder what a different kid Jenny might be without her, and am glad I didn't have to find out.


BONUS:
Not one, but TWO new hit singles as invented out of desperation by Jellybean Mama!

‘The Banana Song’ (uh, not really sure of where I picked up this tune, I’ll get back to you. Or I’ll post a clip of me singing it, which would be much more painful for everyone)

Banana, banana, banana,
We eat dem all day long;
And when-a we eat-a banana,
We sing de banana song.

Oh, banana, banana, banana,
Banana make you strong;
When you eat-a banana,
You grow up big and strong.


‘The Car Song’ (sung to the tune of, ‘Baby Bumblebee’)

Oh, Jelly’s in the backseat of the car,
Crazy mama drivin’, we won’t get very far.
Oh, Jelly’s in the backseat of the car;
What’s – up – JELLY?!

(subsequent versus based on whatever the small unhappy child happens to be doing, for example:)

Oh, Jelly’s very grumpy in the car,
Listenin’ to her screamin’, we won’t get very far,
Oh, Jelly’s throwing her toys in the car;
What’s – up – JELLY!

Oh, Jelly’s drinking apple juice in the car,
If she pours it down her carseat, we won’t get very far,
Oh, Jelly’s very thirsty in the car;
What’s – up – JELLY!

Busy Week at Corporate Planned, All Thoughts on Jelly

How could I NOT miss a face like that?!

Back in Boston. I can't really complain, since it's been so long (since December!). But that's partly why leaving again was so hard. I'd forgotten that pang, that physical tearing as my car pulls out of the driveway. Plus she's older and such a different person now. Now she's, well, a person. I feel like this trip she'll really notice I'm gone for the first time.

I know she's in good hands, loved and cared for and doted on.

I know she and I both need to learn to deal with this, and that I need to toughen up so I can put up a brave front so that she starts to understand that it's no big thing, mama will be home soon.

I know it's technically only three nights.

I know I'm very lucky, in this economy, to still have this great job.

I know I miss my baby. Kisses for Jellybean from far away tonight, my first and only. Mama loves you.