It was Father’s Day? I know I always record things a day after they pass but it’s pretty sad that here it is Tuesday (or Wednesday) and I’m just now saying something about Toby’s very first Father’s Day ever. Sad. Sad. Sad.

Not to mention I got him nothing (NOTHING) but a weekend full of pms. I tried really hard to be the perfect wife and not nag or whine or even cry… but I failed miserably. There were tears and yelling and lots of time spent in the baby’s room with the door shut. Don’t even try to tell me not to be too hard on myself in the comment box. I deserve to feel crappy. I have no excuse. I had all the time in the world to think up something sweet and sentimental and I didn’t. Not even a homemade card–which is what I planned on doing but didn’t because somehow I used her morning nap to do something else. I can’t remember what.

So I’m just going to say it today. Happy Father’s Day Toby! You’re a really great Dad, better than I even imagined. I love you. (And thank you for hugging me and telling me that everything will be okay in reality when I get back to it. It wasn’t funny then, but it is now.)

Baby Bug turned five months yesterday. She’s been learning a lot of new tricks lately but I wasn’t able to capture any of them on digital film. So we will have to be content to remember this time as the time she was a summer baby who liked to blow raspberries and eat her toes.

You’ll just have to imagine her squealing in delight over the cats as they brush by her exersaucer within inches of her wiggling fingers. She longs to sink them into their soft fuzzy tempting fur. You’ll have to imagine her little bird mouth opening and closing in desire as she watches me drink from a water bottle. When I give her a sip, half of the water comes right back out of her mouth and dribbles down her shirt but she wants more. She loves to drink water. She doesn’t want a sippy cup. She prefers to drink out of the bottle or out of a cup like mommy. Because she’s a “big girl” like that. She chases her lidless sippy cup around the tray of her exersaucer with sweeping gestures until it finally rides up over the lip and lands on the floor. Then she shrieks at it until I come and pick it up for her. It is a game that she is just beginning to see the fun in.

She’s also getting big. I watch her toes and then knees fly up over the edge of her bassinet. Soon she’ll figure out how to sit up and then I’ll have to grow up a little myself and give into the fact that I can’t keep her right next to me every minute of the day. I’ll have to learn to listen to the baby monitor and let her sleep in her crib like a proper baby. She needs room to stretch and roll about. But I’m just not ready. I’ve tried to put away the bassinet part of her stroller about forty-seven times and replace it with the toddler seat but it is in vain because I can’t stand her being alone in her room without me. So over and over I release all the velcro straps and assemble the bassinet all over again.

It’s hard to imagine that I’m going to be feeling this way for the next twenty years. I just don’t want her to grow up so quick. I think she’ll always grow a little faster than my heart can keep up.

And now the movie (2.17 megs, quicktime)

I put the baby’s pacifier back in her mouth when she woke up from her nap and guess what? She went back to sleep! I’ve been getting her up when she starts to rouse but now I’m thinking I should leave her in her crib more often and let her take long naps if she needs them. What a revelation!

Every day I learn new things about Baby Bug. She really is something else.

I’m looking at my big pile of bills and papers to file and miscellaneous projects to finish and then I look at the clock and the sleeping baby and say, phooey! I’m going to blog instead of “getting things done”. This is my downfall. I only have so much free time during the day and my priorities are thus:

1. clean the house
2. write a blog post
3. answer emails
4. read blogs and comment
5. tackle projects/work

I’m proud that I usually manage to clean the house but I’m sad that work is at the very bottom of the list. I lag lag lag on work. I guess my heart just isn’t in it anymore. What I really need is a big cup of coffee and then I could power through it in half a day. But I can’t drink coffee anymore. Or can I?

This is where I need an “Ask the Internets” category like Kristin has. I’ve been letting myself have a sip of coffee now and then (because I’m falling asleep sitting up and my eyeballs feel like scratchy balls of gravel) and I’m not sure if those are the days that Baby Bug is extra fussy and won’t go to sleep promptly at 8 p.m. like she usually does or if it’s just a coincidence. I am not very scientific in my testing and there are so many variables from day to day I’m often completely confused. So what does caffeine do to babies and does it hurt their development?

I really miss my coffee.

So what else is new? I’m loving having a new car. It’s so great to be able to get up in the morning and plan my day without having to negotiate with Toby and his photography schedule over whether or not he needs the van. Freedom is wonderful. It’s also scary. I’ve realized that my odds of getting in a wreck or hurting Baby Bug in some way have jumped exponentially. But I can’t just sit at home in a bubble all day. I must get out and go to IKEA and Target and Baby’sRUs! The possibilities for good old fashioned American consumerism are endless! Arg.

I hate it that half of my fun outings involve shopping for things that are going to fill up the landfill. Do I really need a plastic high chair that only costs $19? Yes, yes I do. It’s so much better than the monstrosity peg perego one that I got hand-me-downed from the kid’s I babysit. Ugh. Just thinking about cleaning rice cereal out of the nooks and crannies of the nylon cushion gives me the heebie jeebies. The new plastic high chair is so sleek and visually it takes up half the space because it is white and it blends right into the wall. I love that. If I weren’t worried about boring Baby Bug to death, I’d like it if everything baby oriented was white and invisible. I love color, I do. I just hate how it clutters up my house. But Baby Bug’s happiness comes first so brightly colored plastic things are a big part of our life whether I like it or not. We’ve already talked about that.

I watched a show on garbage the other day and it almost kicked me into being a raging environmentalist again. Not that I ever was but I did go to college in the bay area so some liberalism rubbed off on me. Speaking of environmentalism… there was a sticker on my new car that said fumes from my car could cause cancer and birth defects! Why is this world so depressing! Is the new car smell going to melt Baby Bug’s brain cells? I think I should ditch the car and buy a bamboo bike. But then I’d have to breath all the exhaust and break dust from all the cars that are whizzing by me and giving me the finger because I am causing traffic jams with my baby strapped to my back who likes to arch her back and cause me to weave about dangerously.

I guess we’re all going to die one way or another.

About the “towel spreading” that I mentioned yesterday… (as if you are all waiting anxiously to find out what that is about) Back in college I used to live with my best friend from high school and she had OCD. I’d never experienced this kind of freakish cleanliness before. As you know, I was raised in a MUCH DIFFERENT environment. I was in for a big education on how to keep things neat and clean. Daily, I got lessons on why I should not use hair spray in the bathroom. (The residue! The spots on the mirror! The smell! The air must be clean for the plants to breath! I had to go outside to spray my bangs into perfect submission. Or even worse not use hairspray! ) If I took down a message on the pad of paper by the phone, I had to place the pencil beside the pad in an exact way or else all hell would break loose. We had this little string that attached the pencil to the pad of paper and I remember the string HAD to be wrapped around the pad. You couldn’t just leave it laying any old way it fell. Sometimes I would on purpose make lighting bold shapes out of the string just to piss her off. Thankfully my friend has always had a great sense of humor about her wackiness.

So anyway, my roommate/best friend from high school also liked to spread towels on all flat surfaces so that she wouldn’t have to dust. This meant all the countertops in our tiny little apartment kitchen had towels on them. On top of the refrigerator, the microwave, the shelves in the pantry…towels everywhere. We had a lot of towels. It used to drive me crazy. I hated the towels.

But somehow her funny little quirks have stuck with me through the years and now in my old age I have towels spread about on things I never would have thought possible when I first met her. I have a towel spread on the back of the toilet and on top of the microwave. And just the other day I bought black towels for the passenger side and back seat floor mats of my car. I got tired of looking at the little white flecks of lint and dust. Until I find a small vacuum that will plug into my cigarette lighter, the towels are going to have to do the trick. “Biff”* would be so proud of me. I’ve turned into a fastidious freak.

*not her real name of course