Please Press or Say Mama Snee

It is like packing for a two-week vacation to get me and Bird out the door in the mornings these days. It is a good thing she's not big enough to start repeating words, because I dropped more than my share F-bombs this morning trying to get us up and off the homestead. And I will continue to do so throughout this post, so be fucking ready.

My Bag:
Wallet
Planner
Moleskin notebook for planner spillover
List-sized notebook for other notebook spillover
Makeup bag
Hair goo-paste from two hairdos ago
Book: Your Money or your Life
Latest issue of People (shut up)
Latest issue of Brain, Child (there, that cancels out the People)
Chap Stick
Hand balm
Mini first-aid kit
Business Card holder filled with business cards from last job
Borders Frequent Purchase card
Various Trash (not including the People Magazine)

Bird’s Bag:
Diapers, one ton of diapers
Three pre-made bottles
Blanket
Bib
Carrots/ spoon
Change of clothes
Diaper change pad
Wipes holder thing
My cell phone charger (probably, as that’s the only other place it could be because it’s not in my other two bags)
Pens
Menu from fancy sandwich place (no good reason)
Sunblock
Burp Cloths
Teething thing
Socks- hers
Socks- mine

My other bag:
Walking shoes
Socks (yes, more socks)
Large container of chili
Ziplock full of shredded cheese
Two cornbread muffins
Applesauce

Series of Events:
Trip one to the car: three bags.
Trip two to the car: Coffee with no lid. Fuck! Spilled.
Trip three to the car: Bird. Crying.
Trip one back into the house: Fuck! Cell phone.
Trip two back into the house: Fuck! Job Application.
Trip three back into the house: Fuck Fuck! Wedding ring left on the sink.
Circle the block and back to the house for trip four back in the house: Did I turn the coffeemaker off? Fuck Fuck FUCK!?

And I still forgot to put on my watch and bring a change of clothes for my lunch walk with Birdy, and I was 20 minutes late getting to the office. Fuck.

You know that job I was going to apply for that said “Punctuality a MUST” in the description? Yeah, I might want to go ahead and rule that one out.


Added Inconveniences
My car is like a bad intern, being “helpful” and “doing things for me”, like locking all of my doors when I put it in drive, but when I hop out of the car and run around to Bird’s side to drop her off at daycare, the damn doors are still locked and I have to go back around and unlock them from the inside. This feature is freaking awesome when it’s raining, too. “Hey Betsy, I locked your car doors for you, just in case you wanted them locked.” “Thanks, car, but it would be easier if you would just stay out of my way and I’ll still give you the semester credit.”


The Return of BO-BA
Birdy started saying BO and BA a couple of months ago, and then mysteriously stopped as suddenly as she’d started. We’d try to get her to say BO BA along with her standard THA THA THA DA, but she’d just laugh like the joke was on us. (Birdy: “BO BA. Ha! If only they knew what they were saying.”) But, in the last week, BO BA has returned, and I am so grateful. I love it, because the BO BA sound encourages more of that weird baby growling. And I really love it when she gives us the BO BA when she’s sleepy—it sounds like if you say BO BA slowly and with your bottom lip sticking out. BO BAAaaaa.

And the arm flapping! Geez! She’s a crazy screeching arm flapper. It’s like watching the All Blacks rugby team do the Haka, except with more screeching and more baby girl, less rugby players chanting and looking scary. And she’s so close to crawling, for which I am not exactly ready. For now, she just does a lot of nose-dives into the floor, banging her face on the one piece of carpet we have, coming up grinning and spitting with her fists full and face covered in dog and cat hair. Soon enough the pediatrician will refer us to a specialist to look at the layer of coarse brown and gray hair all over the her little biscuit body, which will embarrassingly be cured by a bath and a rubdown to remove the layer of pet hair that we don’t even notice anymore.


Please, Don’t Let My Baby Disturb You
So, the daycare staff person in the infant room was ASLEEP AGAIN when I went to drop off Birdy this morning, leaving the not-quite-competent and not-exactly-ambulatory Ms. J to do all of the work with the babies. WHAT?! I expressed my * ahem* concern re: this situation, and was told that her medications have been adjusted and that it will take a couple of days for her to get used to it. So if we could all just be patient.

Now, in the Work to Get Well vs Get Well To Work debate, I am always on the Work to Get Well side. It is none of my beeswax what she’s taking and for what reason, but I’m going to guess from previous work experience that we’re talking about psych drugs here, maybe seizure meds. But it doesn’t matter. The fact is, when she’s asleep, that leaves only one person in the infant room for 8 babies, am I wrong?

Also of note when I dropped Birdy off this morning: Little Manny in the bouncy seat wailing his little head off. I went over to him, coo-cooed at his level, and popped the pacifier back in. Problem solved, quiet Manny. Evil Ms J says “There’s nothing wrong with him. He just wants attention.”

Like this six-month-old child was making an unreasonable demand.

Are you with me here? What the fuck? Welcome to the infant room, Ms. J, THEY ALL NEED ATTENTION, which I realize you probably can’t give him because you can hardly walk across the room, let alone pick a baby up from the floor, and M. is out like a light and unable to help, which brings me to my previous complaint. I can’t sleep at my job, and I sure as shit am not paying anyone to sleep at theirs.


You May Not Have Fries With That Anymore
Apparently French Fries has moved out. He rented a room upstairs in this office to do some kind of marketing consulting, but he left a couple of weeks ago without saying much, which is weird, because he was known for saying things. He used to walk through our office to get to his and comment on SOMETHING, EVERY TIME HE WALKED BY. The kind of small talk for which there is no response, used in the kind of passing-by that requires the speaker be in the “passing by” state for an unusually long time, increasing awkwardness and irritation of other parties exponentially.

“Workin’ hard or Hardly workin’?
“Wow, Apples!”
“Why do you drive on a parkway and park on a driveway?”
“Hey, a Diet coke!”

And my favorite, when he’d pass by my desk headed for the stairwell: “Don’t get up.”
Don’t worry! Ha ha! I won’t get up! Ha ha ha this is so much funnier the hundredth time!

So he earned the name French Fries by having his behavior/ comment spot-on predicted by my office-mate (as in “here he comes. He’s going to say “French Fries!” and he said… okay you get it.)

So, French fries is gone, and he left literally 8 yogurt cups in the community fridge, half full, (howdaya like that optimism!) with the foil peeled back half way. Which I removed yesterday.

That's so gross, French Fries.