Time for Some Real Talk. April 12, 2013

Some of the bigger posts on this blog have been a result of me experiencing something while I was pregnant or postpartum that I wished I had known more about before it happened. I usually felt like some of the harder or less pleasant experiences would have been made a little bit easier if I felt I had someone that could relate, or if I had more of an idea of what to expect. So, here we are again. I’d like to share the reason for my over one month long absence from writing.

 

Postpartum depression was not something that I realized could set in once you hit a certain point in your postpartum timeline. I don’t know what that point was, in my mind. But I felt like I had gotten far past it and was all in the clear. February was one of the best months I have had since August was born. I felt like I really knew my baby and that I had a pretty good handle on how to deal with the day-to-day of being a stay at home mom. I was also ON POINT with my diet and exercise. I was being active most nights a week and paying attention to what I was eating. I was seeing the results on the scale, in my clothes, and in my energy and strength levels. I felt productive, I felt accomplished, I felt confident, and I felt happy. February was fantastic.

 

Not far into March, all of this stopped. I stopped exercising, without much of a reason why. I stopped paying much attention to what I was eating. My sleep habits became very disrupted. I was waking up several times a night, worrying about things that 100% did not matter. Then I stopped doing the little things. I wasn’t making it out of the house very often. I was canceling plans and blaming a pretend stomach bug or headache or imaginary crazy day with an imaginary difficult baby. I started giving those same excuses to Adam when he would come home from work and I hadn’t changed out of my pajamas or brushed my teeth. I kept telling myself that it was my ADD, that I hadn’t been back on my medication since August was born and of course I was being lazy. It was just my inability to focus. But then the crying started.

 

There was a lot of crying. I would spend most of the day with a tight, anxious feeling in my chest. I was experiencing this bottomless sadness that would cause me to sob worse than I had in years. It was the kind of crying I had only experienced when a loved one died. And it would go on for hours. During all of this, I kept being afraid that I was going to have some kind of negative effect on August. I felt like it was inevitable that he was going to absorb some of this sadness. But at my worst, he would sit in my lap, smile at me, and hold his hand up at my face. And then I would cry harder, because this happy moment wasn’t giving me even a spark of happy feelings. I kept recognizing that I was experiencing happy things, but they weren’t giving me a happy feeling, or really any feeling at all. It became really difficult just to force the muscles in my face to smile back at my baby. I have never, in my entire life, felt such a flat, empty darkness.

 

My brain felt like it stopped functioning properly. Presented with a simple decision, like choosing between two restaurants for dinner, reduced me to tears in seconds. And it wasn’t even like I was having a hard time weighing my options. It felt like the two choices were coming from the person presenting them, flying towards my head, and hitting a wall. They couldn’t even make it in there for me to think about them. And I was having instances several times a day where I would be trying to complete a thought while speaking to someone, and completely lose track of what I was saying. And then more crying would happen because that gets really frustrating when it happens for the fifth time in one day. Doing almost anything took an enormous amount of effort. Just the thought of doing something as simple as getting dressed to leave the house would leave me sitting on the floor, feeling crushed under the weight of this simple task that wouldn’t take me more than five minutes if I actually got up to complete it.

 

Through all of this, I was still lucky. A lot of moms with PPD don’t have the will to do anything at all, including doing the basic things to take care of their baby. I did not experience that. August may have been in his pajamas with me, but he was always fed, changed, clean, and cared for. I wasn’t able to do much playing, but I could sit with him on the floor and change out his toys, shake a stuffed animal at him, or flip through a book. He never seemed distressed by the state I was in, and I am very, very grateful for that.

 

Another thing I am really glad that I was able to do, was that as soon as the ridiculous crying started, I made a lot of phone calls. I was sobbing hysterically, but I was dialing every person I thought could help me, because I knew this was absolutely not normal. I called my husband, my therapist, my mother, my sisters, and my doctor. My therapist and my doctor soon both diagnosed me with postpartum depression, and told me that PPD can set in as late as six months, and sometimes even later.

 

Then came trying to fix it. I could find Where’s Waldo in a sea of bespeckled hipsters in knit caps before I could find a psychiatrist that took insurance and could see me before May. Some couldn’t fit me in until July. And those were the ones that actually returned my calls. I would just like to raise a big, enormous, blinking-neon What In the Fuck about that for a moment. I knew that I needed medication, and wanted to start as soon as possible. I would have lit my hair on fire if I thought it would help me feel something good at this point. I’m still trying to find a doctor that can treat me, and may soon just tell my general practitioner to write me up some drugs because I don’t want to go through to all over again, ever.

 

But, just as my depression had faded in, it started to go away. I started to notice that on the days that I was able to get out of the house in the morning, I wouldn’t experience a big low for the rest of the day. So, I would push myself to make it out, even to just drive around with August during his morning nap. Before long, I was feeling happy feelings again. I wasn’t crying everyday. I was smiling back at my baby without having to think about it.

 

There’s not much else that I can write on this, beyond just my, in retrospect, very short experience. A lot of women experience much worse for much longer than I did. But this was a story I felt was important to share. Even if it isn’t a story that particularly reaches or helps anyone, it’s important to discuss. Postpartum depression is something I know that I should feel no shame over having gone through. But, it was a lot harder and scarier to write about than “Hey guys, I peed my pants again.” And, unlike all of my fluid stories, (those are great, I know) I want you to talk to me about this. If I know you in real life, if I have never met you, if you’re some weirdo that looks in my window to watch me put on socks. If you want to talk about it, I want to talk about it. I felt really lucky that I had a few people I could talk to openly. I really wish that wasn’t something to feel lucky about.

The Biggest Hair, Skin and Mostly Makeup Post of My Life and Your Life and All the Lives. March 5, 2013

I have been working on getting myself back to my pre-baby state. Not in a “uh, someone please take this baby” way, but in a way that involves not always wearing yoga pants and looking somewhat awake and maybe running a comb through my hair sometimes and usually brushing my teeth and putting on a bra.

 

Before I decided to fill my oven with an enormous bun, I worked in the beauty industry for about eight years and am a licensed cosmetologist. I have mostly worked as a nail technician and a makeup artist. And I am damn good at those things. But you wouldn’t have guessed it from looking at me during most moments of the past six months. Babies are weird and needy and want attention and to be fed and it kind of cuts into your babe-routine.

 

As a stay at home mom, with a limited budget and limited me-time, it hasn’t really been possible to buy or do some of the things that I used to. I’ve been running low on my makeup, skin and hair products for a bit, but it wasn’t in the budget to buy the salon quality things that I have used for years. So I went on the hunt. I have replaced a lot of my products, but not all, with cheaper versions that work just as well, some even better. I have read a million reviews of a ton of products, compared them all, and watched more YouTube tutorials than I thought could exist, so you don’t have to.

 

Yup.

 

So, without further ado..

 

What I Used Before.

Most of these are the products that I could not justify in my budget, and found good, sometimes better, alternatives to.

 

 

Moroccan Oil

 

I love this stuff. I put a little bit in my hair when it’s wet before I blow it dry, and my hair is smooth, soft, and shiny. Plus it smells amazing. It was great for calming down general fuzziness and giving a polished look when styled. But it is also around $40 a bottle.

 

 

Eminence Clear Skin Probiotic Cleanser

 

I have had ish skin since fifth grade. Can’t have brains and all the looks, I guess. During my pregnancy, it was pretty good, and it is better when I am on birth control. But it has always been prone to breakouts and a crazy mix of oily and dry. This stuff is like pretty soap. It left my skin feeling soft, smooth, although not always totally hydrated. But it got the dirt and the gunk off and my skin was better with this cleanser than any of the others I have tried. And it’s organic. And it’s from Hungary. Fancypants. And 32 dead prezzies.

 

 

Maybelline Define-a-Brow Eyebrow Pencil

 

This being in the “used before” column is kind of a fluke. Every Target/Walmart/grocer/pharmacy near me was out of these puppies. I don’t think it was due to high demand, but more because every makeup restocking person ever near me must be the laziest. Everywhere was out of a bunch of crap. But this was the only thing they were all out of that I needed. When I don’t fill in my brows, I feel close to the same as if I were not wearing my shirt in public. Okay. Maybe just not wearing a bra. Still. I have been using this pencil for years. It’s thin, has a little comb attached, and it’s self sharpening. You never have to sharpen that sucker! I can’t be the only one that can never find a sharpener when I need a sharpener. If I am, then screw all of you and your ability to locate your own shit. But whatever. This pencil is only about $6. But I found something better AND cheaper. So just hang on.

 

 

Benefit Bad Gal Lash Mascara

 

Okay. If I had to go back to using any of my “before” products, I would choose this. It really is just great mascara. I was using drugstore mascara and got a sample of this with a purchase at Sephora, and I immediately switched. I always thought mascara is mascara is mascara. Nope. This is it. I love this stuff. I miss it often. But I don’t $19 miss it.

 

 

Benefit Posietint

 

You can use this as cheek color or lip color, but I never like liquid cheek colors. As a lip color, it is great. It just gives your lips a little bit of a pink hue. I’m not big into lipsticks because I am a chronic lip-chewer. It’s cute. I don’t have to worry about getting a chunk of this on my teeth or ending the day with a ring of lip liner and naked lips. If you like a low maintenance, natural look, this was my go-to. But it is also $30.

 

 

What I Use Now.

These are the products I replaced my old products with.

 

 

Garnier Fructis Moroccan Sleek Oil Treatment

 

This is not as good as original Moroccan Oil. But it does a great job and I don’t miss my old product. It doesn’t have much of a smell, whereas I really liked the scent of Moroccan Oil. But I can go without the nice scent for less than $5. I can shove a dryer sheet in my bra and feel fresh all day. You also need very little at a time, so it lasts.

 

 

Castor Oil (mixed with  Extra Virgin Olive Oil)

 

This. Is. IT. As one enormous dirt ball, nothing gives me greater joy than to shout from the rooftops “I DON’T USE SOAP!” I may only not be using soap on my face, but let me have my moment. Anycrap, washing your face with oil is the best thing I have ever found. It goes like this.

-Make a mixture of olive oil and castor oil. If you have oily skin, 3:1 castor to olive. For normal or combination skin, equal parts. For dry skin, 3:1 olive to castor.

-Shake up your bottle before each use because the oils separate. Pour a quarter-sized amount in your hands and rub that shit all over a dry face. It even takes off your makeup, and the castor oil is good for your eyelashes, so go to town on that motherbucket.

-Wet a washcloth with hot, but not scalding, water. Wring out the cloth most of the way. Lay it on your face and give yourself a little face steam bath for a minute or so until the cloth cools.

-Wring the cloth out the rest of the way. Gently use the cloth to wipe the excess oil from your face. You’re gonna feel a little oily. Chill out, it’ll soak in. Olive oil has the same pH as your skin, so it soaks in and moisturizes you within an inch of your life.

 

You may be saying, “But what about soap?” Soap is stupid, that’s what’s about soap. It strips your skin of natural oils, and then you use a crapload of moisturizer to try to fix it. Don’t be dumb. Also, like dissolves like, so the oil is dissolving the bad oil from your face, but not stripping it. You get to keep the benefits of oil and lose the clogged up pizza face and then someone will finally ask you to the sock hop. You’re welcome. Price-wise, this ish is cheap. You can get EVOO in your grocery store, and if you can’t find castor oil there, just order some on amazon. Then send me a thank you card.

 

e.l.f. Studio Eyebrow Kit

 

Let me start off by saying this is three bucks. I am pretty sure this is less expensive than a Happy Meal, and you will actually be happy because you will have fantastic eyebrows and no McJiggle in your wiggle. Like I said, I wasn’t looking for a new brow product until mine suddenly disappeared from this earth. But I am so glad that no one restocked my old brow pencil because I am never going back. It hasa gel on one side that you use the stiff end of the brush with to fill in your brows with little strokes, mimicking little hairs. The other side has a powder and a softer brush to set the gel and kind of fill in your work. This is my new best friend. I love this I love this I love this and I swear to SHIT if I go to buy it next time and it is out of stock I will see you all on the five-o’clock news.

 

 

Covergirl Lashblast Fusion Mascara

 

I’ll say it. I miss my old mascara. I do. But I couldn’t justify it on a budget. So I found the next best thing. Let me be clear when I say these two products are not the same. But this is still really good mascara. It lengthens, adds volume, and it has pretty decent wear throughout the day. And at only $8, it does a great job.

 

 

L’Oreal Color Riche Balm

 

I have this in three colors. As someone who likes to have some color on their lips so I don’t look like a corpse, but still wants the easiest product I can find, this is it. I bought Rose Elixer, Heavenly Berry, and Calming Coral. Those names blow. The colors do not. They go on sheer, but still manage to have a lot of pigment. Plus, they are a lip balm, so it keeps my chewed up lips looking and feeling smooth and hydrated. This is everything I have ever wanted in a lipstick. Basically, for it to not be lipstick. It’s only six bucks a pop. Buy this.

 

 

Products I Did Not Replace

This is the stuff I loved from my old products, that I just cannot find a decent substitution for.

 

 

Bare Escentuals bareMinerals Matte Foundation

 

I have been using this for about eight years. I have strayed here and there, but I always come back. It is just a great quality foundation, with light coverage, and an excellent finish. As someone with less than flawless skin, I frequently get compliments on my skin when I have this on. And I totally pretend it’s just my skin and not my $26 makeup.

 

 

NARS Blush in Orgasm

 

My favorite blush in the world. Everyone else’s, too. I do not care. It’s the best. The color is gorgeous, the pigment is loaded, it lasts all day, and the product lasts forever. It takes me almost a year to go through one of these. That’s how I justify spending $27 on cheek color.

 

 

 

Products I Added to My Routine

These are the things I didn’t know I needed until I found them.

 

 

L’Oreal Studio Secrets Magic BB Cream

 

I had heard a bunch of business about BB creams recently, but didn’t really pay attention to them. Then a sample of one came in my Birchbox and it was good enough to pique my curiosity. This posting I found on Pinterest was a great resource for narrowing down which BB creams would be right for me. I love this one. It comes out of the tube pearly white. But once you rub it on your skin, these tiny beads of pigment burst and it adjusts to your skin tone. If I am rushing around and put no other makeup on, I use this real quick because it evens out my skin tone and freshens up my face. This needs to be used with your fingers, though. For some reason, it doesn’t work well with a foundation brush.

 

 

 

NYC Smooth Skin Bronzing Face Powder in Sunny

 

I am a fair-skinned chick. Reflective at times. And I tend to shy away from bronzer because it tends to look ridiculous on me. I also used to not be that into contouring. Get into contouring. What is contouring? Making your face pretend it is skinny by using darker makeup to shrink your chipmunk cheeks and fool the planet into thinking you have cheek bones. This bronzer is light enough that even Ol’ Whitey Whiteface over here can use it. I don’t know where this has been all my life. It is also around $4. Go team.

 

 

There you have it. Go forth, into the world, and be a babe on a budget, my children.

We Went On Vacation With a Five-Month Old and No One is Dead or All That Injured. February 21, 2013

Kicking yourself in the balls can be kind of effective. As of my last post, I’ve exercised most days, and have refrained from eating every single piece of food I see. I’m feeling good.

 

I’m feeling especially good because we embarked on something that has terrified me for the past almost six months: Vacation with a baby. And we did it almost all the way right? This is partly because I packed about half of the contents of our home.

 

Pretty accurate.

 

Every winter, Adam and I organize a trip to Deep Creek Lake with a bunch of our friends. This year, we invited 18 people, the most we have had so far. We rented a huge house that had a separate pool/party house. This part was fundamental in us being able to enjoy ourselves and even sort of behave like people that don’t have a baby for a couple hours. All the loudness and drunkenness and general merriment happened in the pool house, and the main house was left quiet at night and ideal for baby-snoozing.

 

We made one screw-up in that we forgot the charger for the parent unit of the baby monitor, but then all that community college I went to got put to good use and I became a super genius. I plugged in my iPod Touch in the nursery. By nursery, I mean closet. Get a room with a walk-in closet and you’re golden. Anycrap, I set up my iPod Touch and brought my laptop to the pool house, and then started a Google+ Hangout with myself. Well, with my old Google account, because I couldn’t Hangout with myself. But boom. Instant video baby monitor. I am the queen of the worldiverse.

 

Vacation also made us realize just how easy life can be when you have a bunch of friends that think your baby is cute and want to play with him. I barely touched my kid during dinner one night, because he was being a party animal with a small crowd of our ladyfriends. “Can I hold him?” Uh, hell yes you can. I’m gonna go pee and put on a bra.

 

 

August also got his first experience with snow. It lasted about three minutes, because it was cold as yeti balls outside, but it was three of the cutest minutes of my life. Small tip: If you are going to take your baby out in the snow and don’t live in the Arctic, just know that you will barely have your kid actually out in the actual snow. Snow is cold as shit and babies are real sticklers for comfort. Therefore, there is little point in shelling out big bucks for a snow suit they are going to be in for less time than it takes them to work out a banana poop. Buy that shit used. Most likely, the baby that used it before your baby only sat in it for a couple minutes, too.

 

I paid about $6 for this presh moment.

 

August also got his first taste of snow. We weren’t sure how he would like it, since everything he eats is warm, but he was all about some snow snacking.

 

He’s not mad. He’s just destroying that ish.

 

All in all, our first vacation as a family, plus 18 other people and four dogs, was a success. August woke up more at night than usual, but I suspect that we just happened to be on vacay during a growth spurt. He drank his weight before bed, and woke up demanding seconds and dessert. Having a walk-in closet was a big, unexpected help. We didn’t shut the door, but it was nice for him to have his own area and us to have ours. This is probably the only year that we will ever bring him on this particular vacation, though. There is something about having a small baby that makes you make responsible choices when normally you would just be drunk on the floor singing pants-related parodies of 90′s Jock Jams.

 

My swan song.

 

I wanna sing my song. Next year, August will be old enough to jump out of bed and snatch away my cheap champagne. Mommy doesn’t share booze, kid. Get your own.

Thanks For the Much Needed Kick in the Balls, Victoria. February 5, 2013

One of you beautiful jerks called me out for not posting. The worst part of being lazy is when someone calls your ass out for being lazy and you have to make a choice. Continue being lazy or get your butt in gear? Just having to make a choice is a step out of lazyness, so then I’m just like fiiiiine I will do some shit. Ugh.

 

Ugh is the word of the life right now. Things aren’t bad at all. Things are actually, mostly, really great. But it is also 230 in the afternoon and I am still in my pajamas and have had to repeatedly talk myself down from a jar of onion dip.

 

You try saying no to that gorgeous face.

 

My magical snoozer baby that I was all braggy about? Woke up a million times last night to eat or pee or hang out or talk about Homeland. He hasn’t done this since he was a teeny new baby. In fact, August is such a predictable dude that one night of wavering from his 10-hour sleepathon had me believing all last night that I was never going to get a full night of rest until he is 20. I know this is irrational, but it’s not like you guys come here for my level headedness and well-mapped thought webs, so shove it.

 

Now, I could pretend that 230 pajama standard time is out of the ordinary, but I’m just as predictable as my baby. I’m in a rut. Aside from taking care of August, occasionally showering and sort of feeding myself, I haven’t been doing much of anything since Christmas. It’s been way harder than usual to get going. I have a five-month old so duh? But it’s annoying. Especially when I know that if I just buckle down and get my butt in gear, I could get a ton done.

 

There were a couple days recently when I had all the energy of my amphetamine-fueled college experience, and I cleaned my whole damn house. And I cooked some fat girl foods for a little dinner thing we had with friends. And then I cooked a million fat girl foods for the Super Bowl, because meatballs are the only reason I have to enjoy football. And I decided shit, I own a glue gun. Might as well start an Etsy shop. And I cut myself some bangs because that’s a decision that no one ever regrets. I know, none of that crap sounds like a rut, but outside of those couple days, I’m in Rutville. That was just a little crack-fueled rainbow in the sky. And that stupid rainbow makes me even more aware of the fact that I can get shit done. I can get a lot of shit done. I just don’t.

 

That’s me.

 

The biggest areas where I have had trouble getting it together are exercising and eating right(ish). Pre-baby, I don’t think I ever willingly moved more than one mile at a time by foot. In middle school, I almost died when my gym teacher announced that we were about to start cross country running. I let him know that I don’t run across my street, let alone my country. Adam is a very active and physically fit dude. And I have asked him to help me exercise a million times. But I know that I can get out of it really fast by pretending that I think that he thinks I’m fat. I also stick to a strictly Buddy the Elf food pyramid diet.

 

This and chicken nuggets, really.

 

What I’m trying to say is that I’m not exactly helping myself lose the baby weight. And honestly, I could deal with some of the weight if my body wasn’t straight busted from that whole sustaining another human life thing. I look like a deflated balloon. Wanna know what no one told me your stomach looks like after you have a baby?

 

That guy’s bottom lip.

 

I started a certain diet plan that Ms. Jennifer Hudson endorses, back before Thanksgiving. It would work if I stuck to it. But I am really good at pretending that if I don’t track the points in that chocolate-covered cheeseburger I just ate, it doesn’t count. And while I’ve gotten comfortable with the elliptical and moved it into our bedroom so I have easier access to it and have managed to not turn it into a clothes rack…well, if I have to choose between exercise and sitting, sitting wins. And I give sitting a sleeve of cookies as a reward for being a winner. I made it to my first little goal in the beginning and I’ve been pretty much the same since then.

 

Now here is the thing. I’m not happy with how I’m living. And the only one that can change that is me. So, I’ve gotta start somewhere. Might as well start on the internet. I will see you guys next week.

How To Get Your Baby, And Everyone Else In Your House, To Get Some Sleep December 11, 2012

Thank all you dudes for your patience. So many of the posts I have been planning to do have either included a buttload of wordage from me, or pictures/videos that I need to remember to take before I sit down to write.

 

And this is how some blogging happens now.

 

August is three months/15 weeks old. I had to log in to Baby Center to find that out because I have lost count. Mom brain is possibly worse than pregnancy brain, but you get less fat and you don’t pee your pants as often, and there’s a baby, so it’s still better overall.

 

All that said, I bring you: SLEEP.

 

I was gonna call this “Get Your Loud Ass Baby to Sleep,” but I realized that when your baby sleeps, you sleep, everybody sleeps. So this is how to get everyone some sleep.

 

First off, August is an almost champ sleeper. Saying that probably gets me kicked out of some mom club by all the angry, tired moms. I’m trying to be helpful, so shut up. Adam and I have needed to implement the occasional trick here and there, but he was sleeping better than most when he was born. Probably before he was born. He never woke me up in the middle of the night with rude kicks when he was in utero. He saved them all for waking hours. So, thanks, little sir.

 

After August was born, his birth weight went down and the doc told us to make sure we fed him around the clock, every 2-3 hours. So we had to wake him up at night to feed him. But he pretty much never woke himself up to eat. The couple times that we overslept an alarm or just forgot to set one entirely because we were new zombies/parents, August would snooze right along with us. Without any of the following, he would sleep for a five-hour stretch at night. But what I am about to tell you is what has helped us get him to sleep, and helped him to stay asleep, for an eight-hour family snooze, every night.

 

Part One: Get That Loud Ass Baby to Fall Asleep.

 

Tell your baby to shut up because it is Thursday and you wanna eat some chocolate and watch Parks and Rec in peace. If that doesn’t work, try this stuff.

 

California Baby Calming Bubble Bath

 

 

This bubble bath is the baby equivalent of a crapload of rum. The bottle lasts a longass time if you are using one of those little baby bathtubs, because you just need a splash. A splash, I say! Unlike rum. It’s got this nice lavender scent, and it comes with a little wand so you can blow bubbles at your baby and make him think you are Criss Angel Mindfreak.

 

Hopefully your baby just thinks you are magic, and not a douche with a numetal soundtrack to your life.

 

We use this every time we give August a bath. Afterwards, he is dead to the world in ten minutes. I gave a friend of mine some of this to try on her 24/7 party animal baby, and she sent me a picture of him looking 15 beers drunk. The reason you only need a tiny bit is because it makes a ton of bubbles otherwise, which makes it a pain to rinse the soap off your kid when you are actually cleaning him. Also, word to the wise: Bring a space heater into your bathroom while you’re setting up, and heat that room up big time. It’ll help keep the baby from freaking out because the air is colder than the bathwater, and helps move him closer to drunksleep.

 

Now, I can’t give August a bath every time he needs to go to sleep, because some of those sleeps are naps, and I don’t have time for that shit. As much as he is a champ nighttime sleeper, he took his good ol’ time with logging some daytime snoozes. Which is why Adam came home to a wife who still had morning breath at 6pm for the first couple months of August’s life. August naps when he is in motion. He naps in a carrier/wrap, he naps in the car, he naps in the stroller, but he has to be in constant motion. I can’t just stick him in his crib and tell him it’s nap time and leave the room without getting my ears assaulted for being so foolish. This results in one of two things. I am either encouraged to put on some deodorant and leave the house for a while to go on a walk or run some errands so he can pass out in the car or stroller or wrap, or I put him in this.

 

Fisher Price My Little Snugabunny Cradle ‘N Swing

 

 

This swing is worth my weight in gold. I put August in here with his lovie and a blanket, and if he is sleepy, he is sleeping. If he isn’t tired, it’s still good for setting him in for 15 minutes so I can wash my face and maybe put on pants or something. It has a mirror he can look at himself in, and he digs the hell out of that. Dunno where he gets it. He also likes watching the birds in the mobile. One thing I really like, though, is he seems to understand what is going on by which music button I push. There is a really soft one I use for naps, and one that is a little more up tempo that I use when he just needs to chill so I can shove a granola bar in my facehole. It gives us a little unspoken agreement of what is going to happen when the music plays out. He knows he will either get picked up or he will be snoring. Short of driving my car in circles and plucking my eyebrows in the rearview mirror, this is how naps happen in our house and how I am able to wash myself and maintain some sense of human dignity when I leave the house.

 

Part Two: Get That Loud Ass Baby to Stay Asleep

 

This was a tricky one for us for a while. Babies come with a serious design flaw. When they are asleep, they punch themselves in the face and it wakes them back up. How do you fix this?

 

Make them like this.

 

We started out swaddling August. But, turns out, he is a David Blaine and wiggled out while Adam and I would be trying to get some ZZZZZs and I was not going to let some stupid involuntary face-punching get between me and being unconscious for 6-8 hours a night. So I searched the internet, and the internet brought me the Double Swaddle. I tweaked it by also zipping August into a wearable blanket, and we have never looked back. Some people feel uncomfortable with this because they don’t want their baby to feel like they are in a straight jacket. Here is how I feel about that: Unless you are some kind of weirdo, your baby is a stupid baby with no idea of what a straight jacket is. What your baby does know, is that they were comfy as hell in your duderus, and there was not much in the way of wiggle room in there.

 

Itty bitty living space.

 

Being bundled up is comforting to your baby, and being rested is good for both of you. So try this.

 

 

When you do a Double Swaddle, normal smallish swaddling blankets don’t quite do the trick. You need something bigger to really wrap your baby up and keep em wrapped. I super recommend these swaddling blankets.

 

Aden + Anais 100% Cotton Muslin Swaddle Blanket

 

These blankets are enormous. Plus, the fabric is very light, so it is great to use in the summer or if you are a heat-blaster. I received a four-pack of these as a gift from a friend, and it was one of the best things I didn’t even know I wanted. Regular swaddling blankets are just too easy to wiggle out of. And I’m not into the Miracle Blanket or anything like that because I mess things up and have to do them over usually, and having to undo loud ass velcro on an already sleeping baby feels like you are giving yourself a big kick in your own balls when you are just trying to get yourself to bed. If you’re not currently pregnant or don’t have a baby of your own and know someone who does, buy them these for their shower or birthday or Tuesday. They will love you forever.

 

Along with the swaddling blanket, I use a wearable blanket. We aren’t heat-blasters, because Adam is always too hot and I am too cold and apparently I don’t matter. This adds a little more warmth and an extra layer of security. If you haven’t taught your baby how to work a zipper yet, he won’t be getting out of this and you will be the king of sleep.

 

I hope that if you came here looking for a way to get your baby to sleep longer, that you found what you were looking for. If none of this worked for you, you can always try this.

 

For you, not the baby. Or whatever. Party on, Garth.

Babies Are Work and Stuff. December 5, 2012

So, maybe we can all just agree that trying to blog while constantly shielding yourself from baby puke is hard. I have been meaning to write my “how to get that little effer to sleep at night” post for weeks. But part of it requires me making a little video. Guess who has two thumbs and time to make a video? NOT THIS GUY, I only have two thumbs and nothing else to add to that. It is almost noon, August is taking a nap (PRAISE.) and I just ate a Starkist tuna kit as my first food of the day.

 

But just so you guys know, I’m not gone. I’m not dead. I’m not missing. I’m just unshowered and hungry and spit-up upon. And I miss you dudes. A lot of you are moms, and are probably all of those things, as well. So, solidarity, sisters. And there’s some aliteration for that ass.

 

As my offering to you, the readers, I offer some cute pictures of my kid. This will probably not be the last time that I use him to get me out of something. Sorrynotsorry, police officers of america.

 

 

Mean muggin.

 

 

 

It took me three days of screwing around with my camera that I have had for a year, but never learned to use, to get these stinking pictures. My advice to anyone trying to take holiday pictures of their baby: Just take 3569302 pictures. It will yield about 5 usable shots. And they are totally worth three days of yelling at your stupid shit camera. Also, bumbo with a blanket over it works some magic.

 

Holly jolly, guys. See you soon. I hope.

Great Exbeertations. A Classic Tale by Charles Dickens. November 13, 2012

Let’s take a break from stress and disappointment and butt issues. Instead, let’s focus on something happy and wonderful and fulfilling and oh screw it, I can drink again.

 

This is how my heart feels.

 

I’ve stuck to beer since I unpregnanted. I’m waiting until I can dump August on some poor, unsuspecting parent of some other kid for a night when he is nine or something before I return to one of my personal favorites, a $7 bottle of champagne, poured into some kind of ridiculous vessel.

 

An old standard.

 

I didn’t have my first beer until I was a little over three weeks postpartum. Nothing in my life has ever tasted so much like happiness and a nap.

 

Just look at that beautiful bitch.

 

I am still sort of breastfeeding. August is back to refusing my breast, and hasn’t taken it in a while. So, I try to pump about three times a day, and give him what I can in a bottle. This has inhibited my ability to booze a little bit. Probably as much as becoming a mother and having to take care of an infant would. When I was still breastfeeding, after I had a drink, I would normally “pump and dump” so August is only ever milk-wasted. Never wasted-wasted. Not until he is 12 like a normal person.

 

This is me, drunk-dialing as a baby. I won’t let August make my mistakes.

 

Now, being that I have so little breast milk to offer him, the last thing I wanna do is get Irish boobs right before a pump and have to pour it down the drain. So, I save the keg stands for the end of the night, after my final pump. I can sleep off my buzz and my milk is just plain ol’ milk by the time I wake up in the morning and pump again. Also, by the time I would have a drink, August is already fast asleep. I feel better when I remove the possibility of waking up the next morning with my baby in a dog crate and Beatrix in the crib.

 

And before anyone jumps all over my balls about me being drunk all the time and putting my son’s diaper on his head and stuff, cool your jets. Adam brought me home a six-pack the week we got home from the hospital. I just finished it last week, and he had two of them. I only drank half a beer one night, because just smelling beer gets me buzzed after going nine months without so much as a decent Robotrip. Give me some credit.

 

That all being said, I am highly anticipating some day in the distant future when Adam and I take a trip somewhere without our baby for the first time, and I end the night with a lampshade on my head.