Filed under: Anna
Last night as my adorable husband and I were engaged in our normal evening ritual, sitting on our butts in front of the television & snacking on pretzels (I know, you were hoping for something a little more exciting, a little more exotic…..perhaps a bit naughty – sorry), our channel surfing landed for a brief time on the classic Christian Slater film, Pump up the Volume.
Expertly crafted in 1990, this epic 90’s drama chronicles the life and exploits of a shy and troubled teenager that happens to broadcast a raunchy rabble rousing pirate radio program in his spare time. The movie follows the stupid life of the Christian Slater character and the lives of his stupid high school cohorts as they rebel against the stupid adult authority, the stupid injustices and trials of teenage life, and generally raise a bunch of stupid hell.
While it is not difficult to see why the Academy chose to pass over Christian Slater for the Best Actor of 1990, watching this movie again for the first time since….oh, say 1990, did evoke some interesting evening conversation in the Baeten household.
Centered around the sentiment: “Good God! Teenagers are SO stupid! Do you remember how STOOPID you were as a teenager?”
Now that we have a daughter, we live in constant fear of teenagers. Every gum chewing, text message obsessed, Daisey Duke wearing, overly made-up girl that aimlessly wanders past us, oblivious to the world around her, sends a shiver of dread through our bodies. (As a side note: Said trampy looking teenage girl probably doesn’t even know who Daisey Duke IS. ARGH! Further evidence of both the stupidity of teenagers AND the inevitability of our own aging process.) It really is a good thing that a good 12 to 16 years of preparatory time is inherently built into the whole parenting process.
Here is a good thought experiment for you (especially if you have children who are or might someday become teenagers): Think really hard, and try to really remember what you were like as a teenager. That is some scary shit, isn’t it?
As awful as the teen years are for parents, I think that it is entirely possible that they are worse for the teenager. Your emotions are bouncing off the walls, your skin looks like crap, everything that you do is awkward, kids are MEAN, your parents are so OLD and out of touch with reality that they COULDN’T POSSIBLY UNDERSTAND!
On top of that, EVERYTHING SEEMS SOOOOO IMPORTANT! Your emotions are so real, so potent, and so completely unbuffered by the leveling effect of EXPERIENCE. So at sixteen, when you are in love and you think that you will never ever possibly in a million bazillion years love anyone as you love THIS BELOVED TEENAGE BOY! You really truly believe it, in the deepest depths of your little teenage soul. And when your heart is broken and you think you are going to die, you REALLY THINK THAT YOU ARE GOING TO DIE, that you will never ever ever recover. When you are snubbed or embarrassed at school, it feels like that emotion is going to last FOREVER. Add to that, the fact that most teenagers are completely enveloped in the cloud of THEMSELVES, and as Keanu Reeves brilliantly said, “Whoa.”
Hell, I have friends in their 30’s and 40’s that still behave and react that way.
It is all so very very scary.
Ruminating on this topic has inspired me to create this list:
Things that I believed in my youth (not necessarily limited to my teenage years), which I now realize are really STOOPID:
1. I am blessed with a relatively favorable metabolism; therefore, I can eat whatever I want without consequence. I don’t care how good your metabolism is at 20, for 99.9% of us this one comes and bites you on the hinder. The bite is of varying degree and intensity for each individual, but for almost ALL of us we eventually will rue the day we ever committed ourselves to this thought. I actually remember having a casual conversation with a regular couple that frequented the little restaurant that I worked at in high school. They had just come in from the gym and were talking with me about their workout/eating regiment, and I actually said to them something along the lines of, “I don’t really have to work out.” I honestly didn’t think anything of it. I wasn’t bragging or being snotty. I just thought it was true. The couple was far too nice to kick me in the head like I deserved, but OMG, SHUT UP YOU STOOPID FIFTEEN YEAR OLD TWIT! NONE OF US HAD TO WORK OUT WHEN WE WERE FIFTEEN!!!
2. The searing cancer causing rays of the sun will not harm me! While I was never a sun worshiper, I was recently reminded that I did in fact “lay out” with my friends from time to time as a teenager. A few weeks ago my 16 year old baby sitter and I took Emerson to the pool for her first “swimming” experience. We are sitting on our little lounge chairs and fair little white-as-white-can-be Kacy whips out her baby oil and starts slathering it all over her body. When she sees me ogling her with a look of horror on my face, she says to me, “I don’t really tan, so I like to make sure I get a good burn. It will eventually give me some color.” REALLY?!?!? WTF?!!? Then I realize, “Oh yeah, you are sixteen. Enough said.”
3. It really matters that you get a 4.0 in high school, are valedictorian, ace your SAT’s, graduate suma cum laude from college, etc. etc. Now don’t get me wrong, I fully realize the importance of these accomplishments in the short term. These things help to get you into the college or grad school of your choice, but I really do wish that someone had told me, “Once you get out in the real world, no one will ever again ask you what your GPA was or care that you got a B+ instead of an A- in Organic Chemistry II.” It would have taken a little bit of the self inflicted pressure off to know that by the time you no longer include your part time job at Wendy’s on your resume, no one gives a poop about your PSAT score. In fact, if you were to mention your GPA at all, even just in passing, people will silently make note of the fact that you are a LOOSER that hasn’t accomplished anything of import since high school.
4. I commit myself to only ever wearing cute panties, preferably of the thong variety, and almost always matching my bra. All I have to say about this one is: PREGNANCY. For those of you who have experienced it, the one word is explanation enough. For those of you who haven’t experienced it, somewhere in the second trimester there is an overwhelming and visceral need to travel to the closest Target available and buy many pairs of the biggest most comfortable 100% cotton underpants you can find. Notice that I said UNDERPANTS, not panties. My child is now 6 month old, and I have had no such biologically urgent need to return to my previous undergarment state – maybe for special occasions.
As for the rest of the list, the baby has just awakened from her nap, so I leave it to you, my handful of friends and readers….I am sure that we each have one or two things that is worthy of this list.
Filed under: Anna
So, in an attempt to distract myself from my crippling dog grief, last week I went out and bought a sewing machine. Martha Stewart, ya better watch out! The craftiness that is Anna is about to be unleashed! That’s all I have to say about that.
Who knew that there is SO MUCH TO BUY at JoAnn’s Fabric? Wow. I had no idea what a money sucking black hole carnival ride the fabric store could be. For those of you that have never set foot inside the fabric store, be warned! You wouldn’t think that it would be the mecca of retail therapy that it is, but IT IS!
My journey to craftiness all started with my desire to buy a new baby sling. I have the very expensive Baby Bjorn, which worked beautifully, until it became clear that we had begotten an adorably roly poly mini sumo, rather than a fine boned willowy Asian flower. For many weeks now, Emerson has been too heavy for me to comfortably cart around in the Bjorn, so I have been looking for other options.
My internet research finally brought me to the “Moby Sling,” which essentially is a big long piece of fabric that you wrap around your body six million times, enveloping your baby in a cocoon of slingy coziness. Because of the multiple layers of wrapping and the width of the fabric, the Moby sling is supposed to distribute the weight of the baby very evenly over the body and back of the mommy. Yay for things that are back friendly for mommies.
The official Moby Slings, from the Moby Sling website cost anywhere from $40 to $70. Now if you know me at all, you know that I am a little bit nuts, and a lot cheap (or is it a lot nuts and a little bit cheap – I can’t remember right now….). So I look at these slings and I think to myself, “Forty bucks! It is just a big long piece of fabric. I could totally make that for a lot cheaper.” (Here would be a good time to point out that I have NO IDEA WHAT I AM TALKING ABOUT! But also remember, that last week was not the best week for me as far as emotional health goes – so I guess I will use that as a little bit of an explanation and/or excuse)
So I do a little more online research, and I find a pattern to make said Moby Sling. Bingo! The pattern costs $3.60, and they will send it directly to my email as a PDF. Instant gratification. Brilliant.
The pattern people are true to their word, and in no time, a PDF is waiting for me in my inbox. Now the pattern goes something like this: Get a piece of fabric that is 5 yards long, cut it so that it is 20 inches wide. Ta Dah! You have your sling. Go to Mobysling.com to figure out how to tie it up. P.S. If you don’t want your sling to look like a hobo white trash trailer park sling, you might consider hemming the edges.
I kid you not. I paid $3.60 for that. Oye. I am such a sucker.
Off I go to the fabric store. As Emerson and I drive to the fabric store, I am further contemplating my brilliant home made sling idea,and I come to the conclusion that it is completely unacceptable for me to have a hobo white trash trailer park sling. My sling must have a hem.
We arrive at Jo-Ann Fabrics. We walk through the door, and low and behold, they sell sewing machines there, and a little old sewing machine sales lady to help you with your sewing machine purchase. After much sewing machine edification, I selected a machine. The entire time I am being seduced into the world of sewing machines, I am carrying Emerson, all 20 pounds of her sling-less…..and then she falls asleep…..the dead weight of my adorable little 20 pound sack of potatoes weighing heavily in my arms, further validating my sling quest.
In case you are contemplating a sewing machine purchase in the near future, just know, there is quite the spectrum from which to choose. You can spend anywhere from $50 to $9,000. I decide to go with the entry level machine of the higher quality brand, putting my purchase around $35o, excluding tax.
Then it is off (with my sleeping potato sack of sumo baby in tow) to buy my fabric and necessary accouterments. Now I didn’t really realize this (because I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I AM DOING), but five yards of fabric is A LOT of fabric. The first three fabrics I selected didn’t have enough on the bolt, so I was left with my fourth choice, an eggplant colored slightly stretchy soft cotton jersey. Then I had to buy all the accouterments: fabric scissors, thread, a measuring tape…….blah blah blah.
Anyway, long story short, we make it out of the fabric store, my left arm about to FALL OFF and my bargain priced homemade Moby-style sling coming in at about $450. Add to that that, the fact that my sling is destined to have a bootleg amateur hem – it is definitely turning out to be a steal of a deal!
Do you see? Do you see the crafty wicked ways of Jo-Ann Fabrics? Evil, I tell you. Evil.
Anywhoo. I got it all home and got to work making my sling, and low and behold…..I LOVE IT. It really does distribute the weight more evenly across my back and body. Emerson likes being carted around in it, and will even SLEEP in it a little! All in all, a successful, though expensive, craft experience.
Since then, I have made Emerson a pair of stripey pants that is too small (doesn’t quite cover up her big ol’ diaper butt) and an eggplant colored (can we say, left over sling?) dress that is much too big. But I am having fun trying to figure it all out. Who knows? Maybe I will learn to be crafty after all.
Saturday July 11, 2009
Dear Booda:
This morning we woke up to a thunderstorm and pelting rain, which we needed badly. I am sure that you remember; the back yard has been horribly dry and brown for the last couple of weeks. But I am so grateful that your last days were sunny days.
I have to look up all the “phases of grieving” because I think that there might be something to it all. I have definitely felt sadness, denial, anger, bargaining…..is hysteria one of the phases? I am not sure how many phases there are, which order they are supposed to come in, or what it is all supposed to mean. After time, I think that you are supposed to finally come to “acceptance.”
Well I can tell you, we aren’t there yet.
My goal for today is to not cry quite as much as I cried yesterday. That seems like a good goal.
The grief of your loss is overwhelming. I suppose I can feel lucky that I have not had much experience in grief. Perhaps that is why the weight of this grief seems so monumental – just my lack of experience. On the other hand, it is likely that just IS that monumental. Daddy feels the crippling weight of it too, and he has experienced more death and loss in his life than I have. In fact, I am a little worried about Daddy. He is in a lot of pain, and processing it in his typical quiet way. He said yesterday that he isn’t sure he remembers EVER being “sucker punched” like this.
I suppose that is the risk in truly loving an animal. You are so unconditional, and the complete unabashed adoration of your love gives your people permission to love you back in that same way. The walls come down, and the love has a pure holistic innocence that is often not seen in human to human love stories. That naked emotion leaves us unwittingly vulnerable. I don’t think that we, especially Troy, were conscious of or prepared for the ramifications of that vulnerability.
One of the things that I feel very strongly right now is a great frustration – I want everyone to understand what a BIG DEAL this is, what a BIG DEAL you are. It makes me frustrated and angry that very few people will really understand the incredible impact your loss is having on this family. That they don’t understand what a special and wonderful spirit you were, and what a monumental and tragic wound your death is to us – not just to us, to the cosmic order of things. It is just SO WRONG, and there aren’t capital letters big enough or words eloquent enough for me to appropriately convey the measure of the wrong-ness, the intensity of the impact.
We have several friends, fellow dog/animal Lovers (love with the capital “L”), whose words and deep empathy have been of great comfort to us – they GET IT. When I called Grandma to tell her, she immediately started to sob. The Rosases represent a long line of dog lovers. I felt bad that I had made her cry and I felt bad that she felt bad that she didn’t know what to say – really there is nothing to say, but she understood, and she cried with me. We cried for ourselves and we cried for you. Maybe that is how hearts start to heal.
I write to you for myself, as part of my grieving process. I write to you for Troy and for Emerson, so that our family’s memories are preserved. I write to you because maybe, just maybe – just in case, if I actively throw our love for you out into the cosmos, you will somehow feel just a little bit of it. And you will know that for this brief life, you were in exactly the right place, at the exactly right time – that you were born into this family. I write to you because my greatest fear is forgetting – forgetting some small, but ever important idiosyncrasy or nuance of you, something that will eventually become the impetus of a funny story or a cherished memory. I want to write down all of the things that we can remember, so we can always remember them.
One night last winter, when I was really pregnant with Emerson, you and Max got out of the back yard. Daddy and I were watching TV in the living room and you two were playing outside. When we realized that we hadn’t heard the appropriate amount of racket from you, we went outside and realized you were gone. Panic ensued. Daddy ran around the neighborhood like a mad man for several hours looking for you. Lesley and Jody came to help track you down. It was dark and the first really really cold snowy night of the winter. A lady two subdivisions down eventually called us about Max. She found him playing with her dogs in her invisible fenced in yard, but you came back ON YOUR OWN.
I was standing outside in the driveway, freezing my big pregnant butt off, and all of a sudden, there you were, a couple blocks down, your little black doggy silhouette trotting down the sidewalk towards the house. I screamed, “BOODA!” Daddy heard me, and by the tone in my voice knew that we had found you, or more accurately, that you had found us. I ran towards you, and for a moment you froze, like “Oh my God. I am in BIIIIIIGGGGG trouble.” Then when you realized that I was not angry at you, you started running towards me full tilt boogie. By the time we got to each other your Daddy was rounding the corner behind me. After greeting me with relief and enthusiasm, you barreled past me, sprinting the last half a block towards him, almost knocking him down in your excitement. “Thank GOD, I found my way home!” you seemed to say.
That night was one of the WORST nights. We were so worried, so completely panicked, so unbelievably grateful that it all turned out alright, that we got both of you back. But that image of you, running towards me at full throttle through the snow – so happy, so relieved, is one of my FAVORITE memories. It comes to me often, any time that I am pulling out of our driveway in the car and driving down that little stretch of road. Now I think about it all the time, that picture I have in my mind of you – of the three of us, reunited on the sidewalk.
(As a side note: You found your way home first, before the nice lady called about Max. When we brought you inside, you paced and paced the house – wondering where Max was. When we finally brought him home, maybe an hour later, you were ecstatic to see him and immediately stopped your nervous pacing.)
So I will keep writing, until I feel better, and I until I am sure that I haven’t missed anything important.
Love,
Mommy (Daddy, Emerson, & Max too)
I just wrote the title to this post, and already I am crying.
Yesterday morning, Thursday July 9th, 2009, our sweet happy little puppy died.
It was a tragic freak accident. I had gone to take a shower and left Booda and Max outside to play. Somehow, Max’s mouth got completely twisted up and stuck in Boo’s collar. I had only left them outside for maybe 20 minutes but by the time I found them, Max had stopped fighting and they were just lying together face to face in the grass. At first I thought that they were just eating something that they shouldn’t be eating (like poop or a branch from one of the trees). The collar was twisted around the bottom of Max’s mouth and one of his bottom canine teeth was caught in one of the collar rings. The whole thing was wrapped so tightly around both of them that I had to cut them apart with pruning sheers, and Max has a pretty nasty abrasion all around the lower part of his mouth. I didn’t realize that Booda was gone until I had gotten them unentwined, but looking back he never moved, and I am sure that he was already gone by the time I got to him.
I think that yesterday was the first time in my life that I have actually been hysterical. Now I feel really bad because when I called Troy at work I was so frantic and upset that he couldn’t understand anything that I was saying. Of course the first thing he thought was that something had happened to Emerson, which is such a horrible thing to do to a parent. Needless to say, Troy immediately came home.
We are all so incredibly devastated. It has taken me several attempts to even write this post.
I think that people that have never really loved an animal as a member of their family cannot really understand what it is like to lose one, especially in such a stupid and untimely way.
And Booda was such a sweet good dog. Troy and I got him when we were brand new; he was the symbolic and physical start of our family. He was our first baby, and we were so sure that he was going to live to be an old lazy dog. In fact, it NEVER even crossed our minds that he wouldn’t get the chance to be old. We were so sure that we were going to have to have talks about the ridiculousness of spending some ungodly amount of money to get his hip replaced or some other old age dog malady; although, there is no question that we would have paid it.
When I was pregnant with Emerson multiple people warned me to be prepared for my “changed” relationship with my dogs. Once your baby is born, they warned, your dogs will just be dogs, they won’t be your babies anymore. I didn’t find that to be the case at all. Of course, we had less time to “baby” our dogs, but they were still our babies. When Emerson was born we loved them just as much, we just loved Emerson too.
The thing I find strange about Love in general is that people seem so determined to quantify it. I suppose that is just a general trait of human nature, to quantify or rank things….. But I think that with Love (the kind of love with a capital “L”) it doesn’t really work that way. Once you fall in Love or surrender yourself to it, it just is. Loving one person or thing can’t make you love another less. It isn’t as if there is a finite amount of Love to be passed around your life. When you REALLY Love someone or something, you just DO, there isn’t an amount attached to the feeling. You may Love differently because the objects of your Love are different, but the ideas of more or less or rank are inconsequential.
Max keeps looking all over for Boo. It is horribly heartbreakingly tragically sad. He sniffs all around the place in the yard where Booda died, and alternates between wandering all over our house and back yard and lying on the couch. Nothing anyone will ever say will ever convince me that our pets don’t have awareness and feelings. People can tell me that I am anthropomorphizing, but in my heart I know that Max is sad, confused, and depressed. I am sure that he is mourning the loss of his brother and friend.
Booda, we are so sad.
We miss you so much.
Our hearts are broken.
We Love You.
Wednesday July 1, 2009
Dear Emerson:
FIVE MONTHS
I can’t believe that you are already five months old. It seems like you are growing up faster and faster every day. Just in the past week you have become so much more gregarious and animated. The following list details some of your noteworthy life accomplishments thus far:
EXERSAUCER:
You have begun really PLAYING with your toys. That is, if we can define “playing” as “the act of grabbing on to objects, banging them around, and trying to shove them into your mouth in such a way as to deposit the MAXIMUM amount of baby slime onto said object.” You love your Exersaucer. An Exersaucer is like toy crack for infants, the pure definition of gratuitous excess as it applies to persons under the age of one. Imagine an oversized lifesaver…..then imagine that Disney Land AND Candy Land threw up all over it….next imagine that it requires EIGHTEEN batteries to operate this “Land” of wonder and excitement…..and you are getting pretty close to the “essence of the Exersaucer.” You are currently trying to figure out how to put EVERY part of the Exersaucer in your mouth……even if it is much too far away to reach your mouth or far too big to ever fit. We will see how you do. Just for the record, I am putting all of my money on you; the Exersaucer doesn’t stand a chance.
SNAGLETOOTH:
Thanks to a surprise gift bestowed on us by Baeten genetics, you have treated us all with the joy of early teething! You have one little tooth and it is really out now. Despite the tragedy that brought it to us, it is undeniably adorable. You can see it when you smile, and you can DEFINITELY feel it when you chomp down, especially if that happens to be when you are nursing. This is a topic that needs some further discussion……there are some ground rules that need to be set…..some negotiating that needs to be done. According to the “literature” I am supposed to firmly and with sharp tone say “NO!” and remove you from my breast. When I first read this (in preparation for the days of teething) I naively wondered if I would be able to muster such a tone with my precious little darling. I assure you that the firmness and the sharpness of my tone have not been a problem, as they occur as an automatic reflex whenever you CHOMP DOWN ON MY NIPPLE WITH YOUR SNAGGLETOOTH DAGGER OF DEATH! My tonality is not the problem. The problem is your reaction, which is consistently a very large snaggletoothy grin. As if to say with great eloquence and clarity, “tonality message NOT received.” You seem neither startled nor dissuaded. Hmmmm….Still working on this one.
FEET:
You have officially discovered your feet. The first few times I helped you to grab them while you were on your changing table, and you were like, “Oh my God! What are these things….and can I..……get them to my mouth…….(grunt grunt)…… Hmmm….not quite yet, but definitely an intriguing and worthwhile life mission. I will continue to strive towards this worthy goal.” Now that you have perfected the “grabbing your feet on your own” skill, you like to grab them both at the same time and grunt as you rock back and forth (Perhaps in an attempt to roll over? If so, an excellent segue to the next bullet point). This of course is unreasonably entertaining to your father and myself, which I suppose is to be expected of new parents. You have mad foot grabbing skills little one.
ROLLING OVER:
However, the “rolling over skills,” need a bit of work. You are SO CLOSE! So close that every day I think to myself, “Today is the day!” But I have been thinking that “today will be the day” every day for several weeks. So maybe today won’t be the day, but SOON (and probably followed by an impressive display of fireworks & an award winning routine performed by the squad of professional cheerleaders that I have waiting on-call)! I have even made you watch YouTube videos of babies rolling over, in a blatant attempt to motivate and inspire you – but so far, the efforts have been for naught. In your defense, you really don’t spend a great deal of time on the floor. I try to be a good Mommy and make sure that you get a little floor time every day, but our two rambunctious puppies make it a little bit hard for you to spend a lot of time just hanging out on the floor. I am thinking that teaching yourself to roll over requires just the right combination of opportunity, practice, & frustration, which will then manifest itself in motivation & action (or maybe, I have just thought about this TOO MUCH, and you will roll over when you are DAMN WELL READY!). Whatever the case, it may require a little more “alone time” on the floor. Coincidentally, that is what you are doing right now, as I write this. Chilling out on your blanket next to the couch. Perhaps TODAY IS THE DAY!
Love,
Mommy
Filed under: Family
Gettin’ ready for de trip da Green Bay!
Gotta make shur ya’ membered everyting…..ya’ kno.
Lookin’ furward ta seen da family!
Don’t ya’ be callin’ Child Protective Services on us, now.
We put ‘er in ‘er carseat eventually….Geez.
