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The Thirteen Month Rashies
Wow. She’s thirteen months now. Not really a “baby” any more, though I call her that all the time. I also call her “silly bear” and “snuggle bear” and “cranky bear”… but hardly ever “Baby Bug”… funny how that works. But she’s still Baby Bug. She’ll always be Baby Bug. My little Bug.
So I got her these pink skull and cross bones pajamas the other day, thinking she’d be a “hardcore rock n’ roll” baby but then when I put them on her… I kinda got the creeps. I thought bad thoughts like, what if she died in these pajamas and the death symbol was some kind of evil omen?!! What am I doing with my child? Trying to make some kind of scary movie poster?
Then I got over it and decided they were cute anyway. Cute in a scary pirate kinda way. Arrrrg!
Thirteen months rocks. I love this stage. I love every stage better than the rest. She’s just so much fun now. Every day she amazes me by being smart. I love a smart baby. She’s still not walking yet but she’s taken a few steps. She stands up all the time. In fact, standing up isn’t so exciting any more. I’ll turn around and there she is, standing up again. All the time standing up. We still clap and say “Yaaaaay,” but standing up is old hat.
It’s funny, the other day I was at the beach with my cousin and her four month old. I held him for a minute and I felt so awkward. He wiggled so differently than I remember Baby Bug ever wiggling. I tried to comfort him the way I comfort Baby Bug but my movements were all wrong and backwards. He didn’t cry but I could tell he just wanted his mama.
It’s amazing to me how babies and mothers grow up together. I learned how to take care of Baby Bug on the fly and she learned that the way I take care of her is the right way for her. We move together so seamlessly. She knows when I rock her, it’s time to go to sleep. She knows when we go to the beach, I’ll play with her in the sand. When I pick her up and run down the shore, she laughs with the same glee I feel inside. I’m probably not putting this in words properly but I never realized how perfectly this motherhood thing works until I was run over by it. I’m hopelessly in love with my Baby Bug.
Even if she is Miss Rashy McRashy Face. Look at that face. It’s a face only a mother could love. She drools all the time and the moisture makes her skin break out and peel. It’s horrible and red all the time. I asked the doctor about it, worried that she had some kind of yeast infection, but the doctor said it was normal and nothing to worry about. She said it’s just due to moisture and until her face is dry, it won’t go away. So the rash comes and goes and some days I’m horrified by it. Other days I just ignore it. She’s still adorable to me. I don’t even mind kissing her rashy McRashy face.
She also has some kind of itchy rash on the back of her neck. What’s with all the skin problems? How am I going to enter her into any kind of beauty/talent contest if she keeps breaking out in red spots? Don’t worry, I’m not entering her into any contests but I have had a few people ask me if I was going to. My answer is “no”. For now anyway. Maybe someday I might be tempted. But between the clogged tear duct that makes her one eye cry all the time and the rashy face and the hand always behind her head itching the back of her neck…she’d be horrible in a photo shoot. Unless of course the photographer is me and in that case there is no problem.
I took these rashy pictures so I could show the doctor what it looked like. (Because invariably, on the day we actually go to the doctor, her skin clears up and there seems to be no problem.) But I actually had a hard time getting the redness to show up on camera. It’s way worse in real life. I guess it’s a blessing that it doesn’t show up that bad in pictures. I’d be super bummed if it caused me to stop taking pictures and giant patches of her life went by unrecorded.
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Nothing a little cold water can’t cure…
Something happened today that really got me down. Like down in the pits, down. In the scheme of things, it’s not really that big of a deal. Maybe it got me so down because everything has been going so great lately. Conference, Christmas, Chuckie E. Cheese, Baby Bug’s party… it’s just been fun fun fun non-stop. So maybe I’m feeling a little bit anti-climactic. There isn’t any real big event on the horizon that I’m looking forward to. BUT there was something I was really looking forward to. One more big thing.
Today was supposed to be Baby Bug’s first day with a babysitter. I finally hired a girl that looked so perfect on paper, it was silly. She’s an intern at the local hospital in the labor and delivery unit (babies!), TB tested, CPR certified, background checked up the wazoo, a pre-med student studying to be a pediatrician at a local prestigious college AND she teaches art to kids at a local art store. Could you find a more perfect babysitter? I don’t think so. Maybe she could be a chef too.
So what happened? Well, she didn’t show up. She emailed me an hour before our appointed time and said she was sick. Being sick is a really good excuse not to babysit but it just bummed me out to the core. I was really really looking forward to tackling my mountain of freelance work. Not to mention, I need to pay some bills. I’ve been putting things off for months, knowing that help was on the way.
She said in her email that she called and my phone says I have one missed call so she’s not lying… but she didn’t leave a message. She should have left a message. Why didn’t she leave a message? Why didn’t she call yesterday and say she was feeling punk and she was worried she shouldn’t come… I feel so betrayed and I shouldn’t. College kids can be flakey. Lord knows I was. I can remember lots of times I bailed out of commitments just to go ride roller coasters on the boardwalk with my friends. Being sick is not that evil. Why am I so upset by it?
I’m just bummed because I feel like a lot is resting on this and I feel like my whole business plan has been flushed down the toilet. How’s that for all-or-nothing-thinking? How am I ever going to get back on my feet with my little company if I’m relying on a babysitter who could just get sick at an hour’s notice? What if I had a meeting or a press check? Or I had to get a disk in the mail before a fed ex deadline? What would I do? Haul Baby Bug with me? I guess so. I guess this is what single mom’s deal with all the time.
The thing is, I don’t have to work. Toby provides for us. But I want to work. I splurged on Baby Bug’s party, knowing I could earn the cash in a month to pay off what I put on my credit card. I don’t want to have to ask Toby for more money. He doesn’t understand things like ordering a custom stamp of your kitty design so you can stamp the paper cups but it didn’t work out because the cup surface was too slippery and the stamp just smudged. He doesn’t want to know about wasting money like that. So I don’t tell him. I just earn my own money on the side and waste it the way I want to waste it. But how am I going to earn money if I can’t depend on a babysitter?
Not showing up for one appointment isn’t really that serious. It’s just that it was our first appointment and it feels like a bad start. I’ve been really nervous about this anyway and now I feel like it’s never going to work out. I have to start the whole finding-a-babysitter-process (which took me what—three months?) over from square one. I haven’t written her back yet. I don’t know what to say. I’m afraid if I tell her the truth about how disappointed I am, I’ll just give her a guilt trip and where will that get us? No where. Maybe I won’t write her back and I’ll leave her hanging like she left me. I have the other seven applicants I can call up and see if they’ll take the job even though they know they’re sloppy seconds.
They really aren’t sloppy seconds. They are all fantastic girls but when I wrote them back to say I had hired someone else, I asked if they would be interested if my first choice didn’t work out and only one of the girls wrote me back saying yes. What happened to the other six? I don’t know. I guess this is why everybody says it’s so hard to find a babysitter. Everybody looks great on paper but when it comes down to the knitty gritty, they flake. Why am I being so harsh? It’s not like my whole life depends on this. It just feels like it.
This is going to be a long blog post. I can feel it. I apologize. I haven’t had anyone to talk to for the last two days. Toby is out shooting in the desert and he won’t be home until tonight. I think that compounded my bummed-out feelings. I can’t think of any better companion than Baby Bug but she doesn’t really want to hear me hash it out. We’ve had a blast just the two of us hanging out being bachelors. But when the babysitter didn’t show up, I felt like crying and I HATE it when I cry in front of Baby Bug. I don’t want her to ever know there is any sadness in the world. Silly Brenda. Crying over a no-show babysitter. You’d think I have pms or something but I don’t. I checked.
I toughed it out and packed up Baby Bug and went to the grocery store. Nothing like distraction. Then after lunch, in an act of rebellion, I unfolded my futon on Baby Bug’s floor and took a long two hour nap with her beside me. She never takes two hour naps. I never take naps with her. I have too much work to do. Maybe we both needed a long nap. It was nice. There is nothing sweeter than snuggling with a cuddly baby. I don’t think she even knew I was sad. Or maybe she did and that’s why she slept right beside me with her little hand on my arm.
When we woke up, I forced myself to go down to the beach so Baby Bug could play with her new sand toys that she got for her birthday. It was kind of a cold windy day but not by any means not a beach day. Going down to the beach was the best medicine. There’s something about forced fresh air and icy cold waves at your feet that demand you get over your woes. The surf is like a freezing cold reality check. It just wakes you right up out of any stupor you might be in.
As I gathered up some sea water in Baby Bug’s small pail, I shook off the cruddy burden that was weighing me down and flung it into the wind. It’s just one small little blip in life. I’ll get my business up and going again. I’ll find a babysitter. I’m not going to let one little no-show stop me. It’s just not going to be as easy as I thought it was going to be. Not everything is easy peasy. Duh.
