No, you didn’t?!! Yes. Yes, I did.

You know how much I didn’t want to fill up my house with brightly colored baby crap. I dreaded it. I’ve babysat for kids who’s rooms you couldn’t even walk across because a two foot rainbow of plastic toys (that they didn’t even play with) blocked you at every turn. I wanted to retain some of my adult sophistication even though I live in an apartment that is falling down around me. I figured I could entertain a baby with my bright personality. Who needs store-bought gadgets that play music and give you a headache when you can make anything you want out of a toilet paper roll? The best toys are things you already have, right?

I had never encountered the era of the bored baby. The shrieking, the crying, the tears and the sad sad faces… I figured out that almost 90% of the shrieking was because she gets bored easily. She is her mother’s daughter after all. She yells if I don’t pick her up and walk around the house with her. She yells if I walk around the house in the same areas too long. She yells if we don’t take two walks a day. She yells when I am changing her diaper if I’m not tugging at the string that makes her parasol mobile flutter over her head. She yells if I don’t rock her fast enough or if I keep reading from the same page in a picture book too long. This baby has an Mtv attention span and she hasn’t even seen Mtv yet!

So I broke down and ordered a baby activity center. I ordered it last week and tracked it’s progress every day as if my life depended on it. I thought, as soon as the activity center gets here then all my problems will be solved. I’ll get to do the dishes again, pay my bills, organize my spice cupboard and maybe wipe off all the drips on the stove… Maybe I could finally get that big freelance job done and start working on cleaning up Toby’s office for him.

Ha ha ha ha ha HAH! I’m so stupid.

Baby Bug loves her activity center, she does. She loves all the funny dangling things and the music doesn’t even drive her crazy. I was so worried that all this stimulation would hurt her little brain but obviously I underestimated the capacity of Baby Bug’s little brain.

My new problem is she only likes it if I’m playing with her in it too. I try everything. Sometimes I pick it up and drag her across the floor in it. I stick my head in under it and we kick and play together. (She’s much more coordinated with her feet and legs than I am with my feet and legs.) I make up songs about the dingly dangly things. We dance to the peppy Mozart tune… It’s a lot of fun. But I’m still not getting anything done and there is still a lot of shrieking going on.

So what’s next? An exersaucer?

I might as well kiss my dream of being a minimalist goodbye.

I’m so tired, I can barely keep my eyes open as I type this. But I had to check in and let everybody know that the big day with Baby Bug was a complete success. Mostly because her Auntie Heather aka Comfortably Crazy worked her motherly magic on Baby Bug. My sister-in-law was meant to take care of babies. Some women are just like that. Not me. I think I’m better with bigger kids. I guess we’ll see…

The big photo shoot at the mall was great. Baby Bug rode around in the baby carrier on Auntie Heather while I dodged all the crazy shopping women and took a photo of every single vendor in the mall. Three floors of tables and displays of plants. Phew! If anybody has a green thumb I strongly recommend this show.

After the photo shoot, we headed over to my meeting and Baby Bug made me so proud. We carried in my big black presentation boards and of course everyone gathered around to see the baby and then you know what Baby Bug did? She smiled grin after grin after grin. Her cheeks were bulging and her arms were waving around like babies do when they get happy with their whole body. It was wonderful. No screaming, no quivering lower lips, no pterodactyl shrieks… just smile after smile! This kid always surprises me. The meeting was short and sweet and before we knew it we were back on the road and calling it a day.

Phew! Goodnight, I’m going to bed.

What a week! On Thursday (tomorrow) or Friday I’m going to take Baby Bug into the conference room of a small office in a big business park and present a whole year’s worth of direct mail marketing concepts to one of my clients. That’s partly what’s been stressing me out so much lately. I’ve been trying to finish this up for months. Through thick and thin, spit up and exploding poop, aaaaa-booooh’s, pterodactyl shrieks and mandatory trips to the park…we finally got it done, Baby Bug and I. And since she’s been such a part of my life with this project lately, she’s going to the meeting to present with me too. How about that?

My client wanted it that way. When I got pregnant, I told them I couldn’t really keep working for them because I was going to be a full time mom. They were sad and said they’d get along okay but asked if there was anything they could to do to change my mind. I hemmed and hawed because this client is a really good client. They always pay me on time and they almost always love my designs. I love easy clients who give me freedom to do what I think works best. We negotiated and they came back with some parameters I thought I could fit into. Deadlines were off. I could take as long as I needed to get things done. I could phone in my meetings and they would send couriers to pick up my designs. And they said I could bring my cute little baby into the office any time I wanted to.

I think that’s what sealed it for me. I get to take my baby with me. Obviously a mother is running the show over there. So on Thursday or Friday, my mom and sister-in-law are coming into town to support me and we are all going to get dressed up in our most professional duds and present my marketing concepts. If only I had an Ally McBeal suit for Baby Bug. After that I’m going to go shoot an event at the local big mall and my sister-in-law and my mom are going to push Baby Bug in the stroller. I told you it’s a big week.

This is all fine and good and I’m actually excited about it EXCEPT….I think Baby Bug has officially entered the “stranger anxiety” stage of her development.

She pulled a screaming stunt last night that surprised even me. A friend came over for some last minute graphic design help (I swear I should open up my own kinkos in my house) and I handed Baby Bug off to her while I worked on scanning in her images. I’ve handed Baby Bug off to this friend plenty of times. Never has there been any screaming. In fact, at one point I was actually jealous of this friend who was so natural with babies. My own baby fell asleep more easily in her arms than mine. Well, not any more. Baby Bug screamed bloody murder. And she screamed and she screamed and she screamed. I think the neighbors probably stopped eating their dinner mid bite and looked at each wondering where that horrible screaming was coming from. There was nothing I could do to calm her down. Even Daddy holding her made it worse. It wasn’t until after my friend left and I held Baby Bug tight, singing “This Little Light of Mine” off key forty-seven billion times that she finally nodded off to sleep from exhaustion. Phew!

I can just imagine how things will go down at my meeting tomorrow if this happens. I’m sure it will be okay. I can always just drop off my designs and leave. But I really want to talk them over. It’s amazing how opinions can go from bad to worse if you aren’t there to hype your own work. I need to explain my thought process behind each piece.

One way or another, we’ll figure it out.

I have so many theories about why Baby Bug might have lost it last night that I confuse myself. It could have been because I took her on a really really long walk and for the first time she actually stayed awake and looked around her, taking everything in. Maybe her little brain hurt from trying to figure out why the sky was blue. My friend came over at seven, which is when Baby Bug usually starts her bedtime routine. Maybe she was tired and over-stimulated from a big day. My friend had a glass of wine before she came over and she smelled funny. Maybe Baby Bug didn’t like the smell of alcohol mixing with her perfume. Maybe Baby Bug is just a mommy’s girl because I hold her 24/7 and I really need to be around more people so she gets used to it. Maybe it’s because I’m teaching her to nap in her crib now instead of in the sling… Maybe all these changes are just too much for her. I could come up with theories until my face turns blue. All I know is that I just have to roll with it as it comes and somehow my mother instinct will know what to do.

I’ll keep you posted on how our meeting goes.