My Sweet Baby

No really, she's delicious. I keep seeing advertisements that say "Keep your baby delicious all day long!" Sounds good to me.



I'm wondering how she went from this . . .

. . . to this!

Heartbreak Hotel

I'm down at the edge of Lonely Street . . .

Okay, so after I decided on that title for this post, I realized it doesn't work: my baby didn't leave me, my hubby did. But don't worry, he's coming back. Tonight, in fact. Me and Bucket have been . . . well, frankly, we've been doing what we do most days. I just haven't been able to look forward to Napoleon coming home in the evenings. He's been off in North Carolina at a job interview, being wined and dined (or at least the latter) by a big financial company. I've been reading up on the area, since we might actually be moving there soon.

It didn't occur to me for an embarrassingly long time that North Carolina is in the South, very much so. And by South (with a capital s) I mean the seceding, grit-eatin' part, which to my mind does not include Florida. When it finally came to me, I thought "Holy cow, can I live in the South?" But within a few days I'd convinced myself that the South can't be all THAT different.

Enter the internet.

Yikes. Apparently there's this big North v. South feeling in North Carolina. Have you heard of the War of Northern Aggression? Yeah, apparently they're still not over that. Except now, instead of "You jerks, you're trying to take away our slaves and our states rights," it's "You jerks, you're bringing your rude Northern ways (which apparently include cell phones and yelling at your kids--who knew?) into our sweet Southern hospitable realm and jacking up the price of housing." Um, wow. So now I'm wondering if there's some big East v. West feeling as well. I'm from California originally, and I love the western part of the U.S. I've always described the east as a "nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there." Are they going to hate me?

The thing is, I probably wouldn't know it if they did. I didn't even know there was a big rivalry between southern California and northern California until I came to BYU. Ha! And I think it's ridiculous.

Ouchie

There's nothing like getting your baby immunized to make you feel like a rotten scumbag.

If I knew of something she wanted, I would totally go buy it right now. I'm wallowing in guilt. It's probably a good thing that she's not a material girl--for now, I've got everything she wants.

Honestly, why don't medical places treat people better? I think a sucker would have made me feel better about making my poor innocent baby cry. Or how about a sticker? It could say something like "I'm a Good Mom: my baby's immunized!" or "I Helped Prevent Polio!" Or how about one for the baby that says "Be Nice to Me, I Got Shot"? Please add your most clever sticker phrase in the comments. If it's REALLY clever, I'll send you some stickers. Seriously. Cute ones.

Blessings and Cursings

Don't worry, there are no swearwords in this post. At least not yet, but since this is only the second sentence . . . . Bucket's blessing went well, even though Napoleon's family was grossly underrepresented, due to a yucky attack of the flu in the Logan side of the family. I very much appreciate the fact that they didn't want to pass it along, especially since there were old people and lots of little kiddos, but it was still a bummer that they couldn't be here. Bucket slept through most of the actual blessing, but she did hand out some smiles during the evening. We had yummy pizza, and a good time.

The family reunion was also fun, even though we only made it to the evening activities. It's always nice to see family. We took a couple of cute pictures of Bucket and her cousins. We also got to hang out with my parents the rest of the week, including on a wacky Halloween cruise down the Provo River--VERRRRRY cheesy. I don't recommend it.

Something not so fun happened on Saturday: getting out of my parents' car, I opened the door too wide and dinged the car next to it, which just happened to be so new it didn't even have the plates on yet. Yuck. It was a pretty bad ding, and I felt really rotten about it, so I ended up leaving a note with an apology and my phone number on it. They called today and said they are going to get an estimate. I was hoping, since the car already had a few little scratches on it, that they would just let it go, but I guess if someone else was going to pay for the ding they did on my new car (jerks) I'd get it fixed too. Unfortunately for me, nobody owned up. So I get to pay the price for honesty and just hope these people pay it forward.

Random Snapthoughts

Well, you can all stop worrying about me: the repair guys came, spent about four hours plodding in and out of my house carrying various sizes of drywall, stinking up the place with paint, and blocking my bathroom. It's a darn good thing they didn't come when I was pregnant. Bucket was pretty good through it all, in part because she spent most of it outside. She loves being outdoors, which is tragic because we live in Utah, and even if she could stand the cold, her mama is a California girl and can't. To me, 75 degrees is cold. And oh look, the average high temp for where we live is BELOW 75 for eight months of the year. Yes, that is the average HIGH temperature, as in the highest point it hits sometime during the day, meaning the rest of the day is usually a lot colder.

Napoleon wonders why I don't want to live in Utah.

What was I talking about again? Oh yes, repairs. It looks like it's all done, and ok.

My folks are coming into town this weekend, for a family reunion and Bucket's blessing. It will be neat to have so many of us here for her blessing. Fun, but stressful. Does anyone else get stressed out when family comes to town? I can't really find a good reason for it. We have a little apartment, so we don't have to host everyone, although we've had people stay with us several times. Dad usually takes us out to eat somewhere nice, which is a fun treat. Nobody in my family is a compulsive liar, overtly manipulative, unbelievable obnoxious, or otherwise really difficult (unless it's me, I guess!). I think we're all pretty fun to be around, so I'm not sure why I always get stressed out when we're all together. I'm wondering if it's because I feel like I have to prove myself, that I'm all grown up now and not the silly little girl I used to be. That's hard, because I get stressed and therefore overly sensitive and more apt to cry when I hear something that I perceive as criticism, which makes me feel immature . . .

I still find it hard to believe that they let somebody like me just walk out of the hospital with a brand new baby. Okay, technically they don't, because they made me sit in a wheelchair, but that's not the point.

We're taking Bucket to get some photos taken today, by a friend of mine who wants some baby pictures as examples for her photography business. I sure hope Bucket has been saving up all her good behavior for Heidi, because she sure hasn't been wasting it on me.

I remember asking my mom, when I was in high school or thereabouts, "What if you love your kids, but you just don't like one of them?" Her answer, which I still have to chew on every so often, was "Then you need to repent."