• Bug,  The Hood,  the laundry

    Fluff and Fold Baby

    Today was another day of laundry fun. The excitement is killing you, I can tell. Oh boy…. I thought if I did laundry every week instead of every other week, I’d have half as much laundry to do. That would make sense. I thought wrong. I still had too much laundry to take over in one trip in the bugaboo. Where is all this laundry coming from?

    One word: baby.

    This time Toby felt sorry for me and decided to take us to the laundromat in his van. It’s just across the street, but when you have to make four trips with giant over-flowing bags of laundry, it’s easier to drive. The plan was he’d take the laundry over and I’d walk over with the baby strapped into the sling. But then Toby had to go and get paranoid about us crossing the street. He’s a very over-protective first time dad. But he does have good reason to worry about us crossing Pacific Coast Highway. It is a major highway and there are a lot of morons on the road.

    I have to cross at a light and no matter how careful I am, there always seems to be somebody turning right and cutting me off either just as I’m about to step into the street or just as I’m coming to the other side. It’s scary out there when you have a baby. Everything seems like a potential life threat.

    So we did something even more dangerous. I rode in the van, hiding in the back with Baby Bug strapped into her sling. I didn’t put her in her car seat. I didn’t put my seat belt on. I pulled a Britney and broke the law!!! I felt horrible for it too. Like I was just asking for trouble. Toby said it was probably safer than crossing the street in front of cars that want to run me over. We were only going across the street but still, I felt like that time I had to drive home from a party and I’d had one glass of wine. (I hardly ever drink so I’m paranoid) I know I can drive just fine but watch me get pulled over for a fix-it ticket and then end up with a DUI. Call me a prude but I worry about these things.

    While Toby sang some song by Judas Priest about breaking the law, I cowered in the back and imagined a hundred and one ways that I could end up through the windshield with my baby. Of course we made it to the laundromat just fine and my worry was for nothing.

    Toby says, “why are you telling the whole wide internet about that?” Because I have nothing else to talk about. For being the best years of my life I have surprisingly little to talk about. I did laundry ALL DAY TODAY. I started at 11am and finally put the last matched and folded sock away at 7pm. What a life.

    Baby Bug was a very good laundry baby today. I call her my fluff and fold baby. I put her up on the counter where we fold clothes and she waved and batted at the bright sunlight coming in the window. She loves bright windows. When I carry her away from the window she cries.

    She likes shadows and lines of light. I figured this out because when we go on walks, she talks to the moving shadows that criss cross on the canopy hood that shades her from the sun. When we go under a tree or into the shade of a building, she cries because her friends the shadows are gone. It’s the funniest thing. I used to feel bad for her because when she is laying down inside the bassinet of the stroller and I have the canopy up, she can’t see anything but red felt. She can’t see the sky or the trees or the ocean. Going for walks must be awfully dull for her, I thought. But then I realized she’s fascinated with the moving lines of light and dark that reflect on the bassinet walls around her. Maybe she will grow up to be a graphic artist.

  • Bug,  illos,  the laundry

    You Do What You Gotta Do…

    I’ve been carrying around this blog post in my head for days. I hate doing that. I’ve probably forgotten all the funny parts. But lately I have to. This mom business takes up all my time! ALL OF IT!!! Between you and me, it’s kicking my butt. I started this illustration at six something this morning and just now, when Baby Bug is finally sleeping, I completed it. It’s 8:30 in the evening. Sigh… Can I do this?

    But then I remember, she’s only one month old! What do I expect? It takes time to be a super mom, right?

    Anyway, this illustration is me pushing my laundry across the street to the laundromat in the bugaboo. Reason number one-hundred-and-fifty-two: why the bugaboo rocks. You can use it as a wheel barrow! Rediculous I know. But I’m a bit stubborn and a marytyr sometimes. Toby said he’d help me with the laundry but I was at the point where the laundry had to be done and I couldn’t wait a minute longer. Neither me nor Baby Bug have enough clothes to go longer than two weeks. When every nursing bra practically stands up on it’s own from dried breast milk and Baby Bug doesn’t have any pajamas that aren’t soiled with poop, you know you need to do laundry no matter what.

    If that means you put the baby in the sling and you push two giant Santa Claus sized bags of laundry across the street in the stroller, then that’ s what you do. And if the people who are stopped at the light waiting in their cars as you cross in front of them on the cross walk, snicker and hide their smiles behind their hands… then you just grin and bear it. Because you’re a mom now and you gotta do what you gotta do.

    In other news: (or speaking of clothes…) The other day I tried on my fat jeans AND THEY FIT!!!! Well, sort of. I can put them on, pull them all the way up and I can button them! Woo Hoooo! You read that right, I can button them! I’m not talking any kind of rubber-bandy trick either. Never mind my stretched out belly that sort of rolls over the top and my granny panties that show out the back because my jeans are super low rise and I’m just not into wearing sexy thong underwear right now… This is big news!! First of all because I’m way ahead of schedule in losing the baby weight (take that Dr. Diaz who chided me constantly for gaining too much weight) and second of all, my mom scared the crap out of me by telling me that my hip bones would shift and I’d never be able to wear my old clothes again. You’re wrong Mom! My bones are fine… well, at least in my fat jeans.