It’s Going to Be a Long Day

Today is Donny’s first day back to work. Kali’s in school. It’s just me and Jack.

As I type this I am topless, in panties, with Jack falling asleep against my left boob and a burpee pressed against the right one to catch any milk drippage. I disrobed because I thought I was going to be able to jump in the shower, but Jack had other plans. After I post this I will lay Jack on my bed. If I’m lucky, he’ll sleep long enough for me to shower and run downstairs and grab a cup of coffee and some type of breakfast.

Though I technically can’t diet, today is the day I start… well, scratch that, today is the day I STOP eating a bunch of crap. I gave myself six months to lose baby weight and I’ve wasted two of them just eating anything I wanted and working out sporadically. Today is the day I get serious. I can’t eat less, but I can eat better. (I went shopping yesterday and stocked the house in preparation.) During his afternoon nap I plan on hitting the Wii fit and elliptical machine.

But first, I need to wash my ass. So, if I can just…place…him…down…quitely…

You know, it struck me last night as I loaded the dishwasher that I am going to be a stay-at-home Mom for the first time in like five years. I stayed home with Kali until she started Pre-K. After getting laid off from MCI I went back to school always making sure that I took classes that allowed me to put Kali on the school bus and be home by the time she got home.

I’m not knocking mothers who can’t do it, but I feel like it’s so important to be home when your kids get out of school. I can’t explain it. Maybe because I didn’t have that. But, I think it sets a good familial tone when at least one parent is home when the children get out of school. To be there to ask about their day, prepare a snack, and supervise homework. And for the past few years my stay-at-home momminess (just made that up) was really just doing that. It’s hard to be a stay-at-home Mom when your kids aren’t at home, but rather in school all day.

Now, though, with Jack I AM a stay-at-home Mom. I’m scheduling my classes around being home with him ALL day which means online classes and/or evening classes.

Boy, I gotta get back on track. The old Nina, that stayed home with toddler Kali, would not be sitting here at 9am with her titties hanging out, hungry, thirsty, and smelling like breastmilk. The old Nina would have had breakfast, showered, and knocked out at least one chore.

I’ll find my groove. I’m just a little out of practice.

BIOBaby: What Did This Titty Ever Do To You?

Yesterday, Jack would not nurse from the left tit. He would either take a few sucks, and spit it out crying or he would just throw a fit when he realized I was positioning him for it. It got to the point where I’d be sitting there with my left tit’s nipple resting on his bottom lip as he howled crying, milk dripping helplessly from the nipple into his mouth where it just pooled there because he refused to stop screaming long enough to swallow it. He would only stop crying and eat when I switched him to the right booby.

In frustration I actually cried out loud, “What did this titty ever do to you!?”

At 10:30pm, after he’d been bathed and lotioned down I prepared to give him his final feeding of the night. I said a silent prayer that he would nurse from the left breast because it was full and ready to explode. When I presented it to him, he eyed it warily, yawned, and began to eat. It seemed this was due to boredom and sleepiness more than anything else.

Other Jack news… his man sized (and I mean old man sized) eyebrows have settled down. They’re still full, but a lot less bushy. And right around the same time he finally grew eyelashes! They are full and long and definitely passed down from his Daddy because whereas mine are long, they are not nearly this full.

He’s talking and laughing all the time. He shows definite recognition when Kali or Donny walks into the room. He doesn’t like blankets on him and will kick them off every time I try to cover him with them. He only remains covered when he’s sleeping and can do nothing about it.

Donny is trying to learn to hold him and do other things. He was holding Jack this morning and tried to call his mother, but gave up.

“I can’t hold you and use the phone at the same time, Jack.”

“Are you kidding me? I can hold him and write a blog, nurse him and IM my friends, I even breastfeed him while playing Halo!”

Amateur.

Every Year I Gotta Let a Bitch Know

Let me start by saying that I have a lot of respect for teachers. It’s a noble profession with very little appreciation. I couldn’t do it. Especially teaching very small children. I don’t have the patience. My math professor told me, after my fear of math turned into intense determination to get straight A’s in College Algebra and Precalc (I did), that from the way I learned formulas and principles, I should consider teaching it. No way. I told him writing and telling stories were my thing, thank you very much.

Anyway, I appreciate teachers. And parents, you know that during the school year, during the week, teachers spend more time with your children than you do. And because of that I sometimes feel like there’s a power struggle involved. Kali is now in the fourth grade and I feel like every year, at the start of the year, I have a situation with her teacher where I have to set the tone of our relationship. The tone being, “You teach, I parent, we coordinate, but don’t fuck with my kid or else I’ll jump in your ass.” In other words, “Don’t start none, won’t be none.”

And so, here we are two months into the school year and I’ve found myself in a situation…

Kali missed one day of school at the end of August because she wasn’t feeling well. I emailed the teacher that morning to explain Kali’s absence. Kali is attending a brand new school this year, and sometimes I have to remind myself that her teacher is no longer Mrs. A. from the third grade at her old school. I have to remind myself that the new teacher, Mrs. H., may do things differently.  When Kali returned to school Mrs. H. told her that I would need to send a note to excuse Kali’s absence. Since I was sure she’d received the email I knew she meant a handwritten note and that she wouldn’t be satisfied with printing out the email as Mrs. A. had been. No big deal. Except that I forgot to write the note. For about four days Kali went to school without the note until one day she came home and said…

“Mrs. H. said that you have to send in a note for me being sick or else you’ll go to jail.”

I was a little annoyed, but let it go. With adjusting to having a new baby in the house I figured I would just send in the note and leave it alone. So, I did. Flash foward to last week Wednesday evening and Kali complained all evening that her stomach was hurting and she was spending a lot of time in the bathroom, if you know what I mean. Thursday morning she wasn’t feeling much better so I let her stay home.

That day, Thursday, Jack had a doctor’s appointment at 11am and Donny had to go up to his new job to fill out paperwork and submit to a drug test. Normally, that’s not something we (the kids and I) would accompany him to, but because of the doctor’s appointment it seemed eaiser to take care of Donny’s stuff first, then head to the doctor. It turns out the Donny stuff took longer than expected and we had to reschedule Jack’s appointment.

I didn’t email the teacher on Thursday as I knew she’d be requiring a handwritten note. BUT, I forgot to send Kali to school with one on Friday. Monday evening I made sure to write a note for the teacher and put it in Kali’s folder for Tuesday (today) morning.  Kali came home from school today and said,

“Mrs. H. said that your note was a lie.”

Excuse me?

Kali said that the teacher asked her if she was sick the day she was out and Kali said, “Kind of.” Then she must have gone on to ask Kali what she did that day because Kali handed me her agenda (it’s like a day planner the kids use and the parents have to sign each day to ensure they’ve gone over the homework) and on Thursday’s entry the teacher wrote,

“Kali said she was out on this day to take her little brother to the doctor. That is not an excuse for being absent and in the future I’m going to need Kali here in school.”

I was so hot after reading that that I had to call my Dad to “talk me down”, as Rachel Maddow says, before sending the strongly worded emailed I pounded out immediately after it. Once he assured me that it wasn’t just me and that he was even a bit annoyed, I sent the email that went a little something like this:

Mrs. H,

Kali was absent last Thursday due to an upset stomach from the night before and continuing that morning as well as diahrrea. Kali was not kept home from school because of a doctors appointment for her brother although he did have an appointment that day we were unable to keep due to another appointment.  This must be what Kali overheard and relayed this misunderstanding to you.

However, in the future, I would appreciate it if and when you have questions or concerns regarding Kali’s attendance you address those directly to me before sending accusatory notes.

And I copied the principal.

Tomorrow should be fun!

Getting My Flirt On Thanks to Obama

Tuesday we finally found our way to the Obama HQs in our county. We’d hit up a few offices in towns near us, but we wanted to go to the HQs and see what they needed in terms of volunteering. We’d tried to go twice before. Once, we got to the area with only 20 minutes to spare before Kali’s school bus arrived so we had to head home. The next time we went over there without realizing we didn’t have the street number. On Tuesday, we got it right.

The guy running the office that day was a dead ringer for Stuart Townsend.

Tuesday we finally found our way to the Obama HQs in our county. We’d hit up a few offices in towns near us, but we wanted to go to the HQs and see what they needed in terms of volunteering. We’d tried to go twice before. Once, we got to the area with only 20 minutes to spare before Kali’s school bus arrived so we had to head home. The next time we went over there without realizing we didn’t have the street number. On Tuesday, we got it right.

The guy running the office that day was a dead ringer for Stuart Townsend.