Autumn at Oak Hollow

Where I am now

2008-07-08T14:14:00.001-04:00

http://www.autumnatoakhollow.com

Movin' on up

2006-06-25T23:14:00.000-04:00

I finally made the leap into my own domain name. That's right, I'm a dot com now. I've had a great time with Blogger, but I'm looking for something a little more...complex, I guess.

I hope you'll follow me over there.

That's heathernoah.com

DOT COM!

Dirty little secrets

2006-06-23T13:06:00.000-04:00

As I plopped Autumn in her swing to watch “The Wiggles” this morning, I was reminded of a question I asked Nathan a few weeks ago while we prepared our lunches for the day and Autumn squealed in response to “The Wiggles” dancing and singing on TV.

“Do you think these guys get sick of their personas and go on weekend benders with booze and women?” I asked.

“Probably,” Nathan said.

Just think about it. These are grown men, all in their mid-to-late thirties, singing and dancing to the most annoying kid songs ever composed. Granted, there is an educational component to these songs some parents might find valuable the first ten times they hear them. After that, however, the charm of these fellows wear off and you groan every time you hear the opening riffs to “Rockabye Bear” or “Rosy Tea.”

The worst part about the Wiggles gig has to be the concert tours. Night after night with Captain Feathersword and Henry the Octopus hogging the spotlight while Greg tries to keep it all together with his guitar and lovely voice, talents obviously meant for bigger and better venues.

How often have these guys longed to shake a hand that’s not sticky and covered with boogers? How often have the moms of these tots looked mighty appealing and wouldn’t the Wiggle guys just love to invite them backstage as long as they could give their kids the boot for awhile?

Oh, I’m sure there are stories to tell.

Just watch the show sometime and tell me Anthony doesn’t look a little saucy with those sideburns of his.

Hot off the press!

2006-06-22T23:05:00.000-04:00

More bars in more places

2006-06-21T13:00:00.000-04:00

Ah, the power of advertising...

As soon as these folks lined up for the picture I said, "Hey, you look like a Cingular commercial." I like those commercials. They're like a grown up version of Where's Waldo? No matter how many times you've seen one, you're convinced you missed something the last time you saw it. For Nathan and me, it's like a game show. "Oh the cabs! The dogs! The sushi! The window!" If you don't know what I'm talking about, Cingular has their little "raising the bar" logo hidden in everyday things in all their commercials. Tractors clearing a field, row houses in San Francisco, a family on the beach, glasses on a bar...

Anyway, that's Nathan, his brothers and their parents. From left to right is Roman, Dirk, Nathan, Darwin and Pam. I really have to hand it to my mother-in-law for keeping it together all those years because I've heard some horror stories that would make any parent cringe. Apple pie stains on the ceiling and using gasoline and a lighter to take paint off a bicycle are just two of the more prominent tales of the Noah boys' childhood. Thank God I have a girl.

Of course Dirk had to point out that his daughter was part of the gang of junior thugs out in the yard molesting a garden snake, so I may not be as safe as I think.

Lovely Ladybug

2006-06-15T13:15:00.000-04:00

A couple of weeks ago we had Autumn's 6-month pictures taken. This photo shoot went much better than her 3-month shoot. We didn't have to wake her and managed to get some good smiles out of her. We went to Target. Much, much cheaper than Sadie's and they let you download the pics if you sign up for their "Smile Station."

Here's to nine great years...

2006-06-14T22:17:00.000-04:00

Happy anniversary, hon!

He's nice, but he's no Spongebob

2006-06-12T15:07:00.000-04:00

My dad takes off on a road trip out west every year and is usually gone for over two weeks. He just returned from his latest trip yesterday and stopped by our house on his way back home. He missed Autumn and wanted to see her before he crashed for the evening.

He scooped Autumn up in his arms and sat down with her on the couch. Autumn has this annoying habit of only wanting to look at you if she’s in someone else’s arms and skillfully avoids eye contact by pretending to be enthralled with the lint on your shirt. I don’t know if it’s a baby thing or if she’s already developed issues with intimacy, but my dad had a heck of a time coaxing a smile out of her.

“Don’t you remember me?” he asked.

Autumn looked up at him with a blank, stoned look that may have had more to do with the 6 oz of formula she had just guzzled down than a failure to recognize her grandpa.

When she looked at me, I clapped and said, “Yay!” She loves when I do this and smiled at me, but the moment she looked up at my dad she dialed the smile back down to a benign look of disinterest. Dad turned her around so that she was facing him, but she craned her neck back in a motion most often seen performed by circus folk. She wanted to see what was playing on the TV rather than pay attention to her grandpa.

“Well, I guess she comes by that naturally,” he said. He sounded a bit sad and I did feel bad for him, but at the same time I have had entire conversations with my father during which half the time I had to ask, “Dad, are you listening to me?” because the TV was on at the same time.

As he was leaving, my dad stopped halfway down the stairs that lead to our garage and tried one more time to get Autumn to smile by playing peek-a-boo. That did the trick and she FINALLY gave him what he wanted by bursting into a wee smile that lasted all of two seconds.

It's tough to compete with the TV.

Earlier this afternoon in the ladies' bathroom...

2006-06-09T23:01:00.000-04:00

The tampon dispenser in the ladies' bathroom at work has been broken for I don't know how long and they're finally replacing it. I noticed today that some of the wall surrounding the dispenser had been cut away in preparation for the dispenser's removal. Later on this sign was put up to alert us as to what was going on:

In case you can't read that, let's get a closer look:

Since our entire staff is composed of women, we all got a big kick out of it. Word spread throughout the office rather quickly and we took turns visiting the bathroom and giggling like a bunch of junior high schoolgirls.

I'm betting someone on the facilities staff will be referring to a thesaurus before the next big project.

No Talent Ass Clowns

2006-06-07T22:12:00.000-04:00

Nathan and I love the movie Office Space, one reason being that it was directed by Mike Judge, the creator of “Beavis and Butthead.” We were big “B&B” fans back in the day, but we were also poor and stupid and had to cancel our cable because we had to eat and pay rent and stuff. We were cut off from The Great Cornholio as a consequence and were horrified when Mike Judge finally decided to end the series to concentrate on “King of the Hill.”

Another reason we like Office Space is because we both work in an office and the thought of taking a hated piece of hardware into a field and smashing it to smithereens with a baseball bat gets us all tingly. I’d choose the telephone and I’m pretty sure Nathan would do the same. We both spend a lot of time on the phone every day, quite often talking to the most unpleasant people ever put on this planet.

At one point in Office Space, the main character Peter discusses with his office friends how unhappy he is with his job but that he doesn’t know what else he would do. In high school he never had an answer when his guidance counselor asked him what he would do if he had a million dollars, the idea being that whatever he enjoyed doing was his path to a fulfilling career.

Now that we have Autumn, I started thinking that it would be nice if she could see one or both of her parents doing something they enjoy. Wouldn’t it be lovely to leave for work and actually look forward to the job? Instead of being berated by kindergarten teachers with attitude problems or business partners who copy the whole corporation on private emails and are incensed that you can’t help them retract the message, wouldn’t it be nice to come home happy and fulfilled?

So last night as we were getting ready for bed I asked Nathan what he would do if he had a million dollars or more and didn’t have to work. True to form, his first answer was a smart one. “Sleep,” he said.

“I’m serious,” I said. “I want a serious answer.”

“I don’t know,” he said. “Read a lot, I guess.”

Yeah, I suppose I really don’t know the answer to that question either.

Can you really be in your mid thirties and still not know what you want to do when you grow up? I mean I have a degree in English, but so far that has only served as a useful tool to irritate my husband. I constantly correct his grammar and it drives him nuts, though he’s proven to be very patient and hasn’t killed me in my sleep yet.

At different times in my life I’ve wanted to be a veterinarian, a teacher, an actress, a film maker, a computer programmer, a photographer, a web designer and a writer. Right now I’m looking at trying to pull together a few of the things I like to do the best and see if I can’t make a business out of it. I doubt many people would hire me to sit on their couch, eat their food and mess up their house, so I guess I’m feeling a bit lost. At least I can take comfort in the knowledge that I’m not alone.

So how will this aimlessness affect Autumn? Will she grow up thinking she needs to do just enough to get by or will she have the courage to take the risks her parents have avoided? Having a child has created a whole new set of dreams. Instead of wondering what I’m going to do with my life, I’m now wondering what she’ll end up doing with hers and also wondering if how I’m living my life now will affect her life when she’s an adult. I have now doubt it will.

Cripes, that’s a lot of pressure.

It's my house now. Mine, I tell you!

2006-06-03T17:17:00.000-04:00

I am taking over. Resistance is futile!

Cement shoes for the Sony

2006-06-01T09:32:00.000-04:00

Last week all our favorite shows ended for the season. I was kind of relieved because I know we spend way to much time watching television. Jack Bauer was kidnapped by the Chinese, sure to be tortured every day until we meet him again in January. Sydney and Vaughn happily settled in a beachfront paradise with baby Jack and future super spy Isabelle. All was good in the world and I was sure I’d be able to carve out some kind of life for myself and my family, at least until the fall season starts in September.

Last night, however, was a low point in my TV addiction. I was settling in to nurse Autumn for the last time before putting her to bed and was surfing through the channels for something to watch. For some reason there was a shocking lack of “Law and Order” so I was reduced to watching E! and their stunning creation, a reality show called “The Girls Next Door.”

We’re not particularly fond of reality TV. Nathan hates it with a passion unless the show involves fixing up a house or other people’s children behaving like sugared-up hell spawn. He scoffed when I started watching “The Girls Next Door” but became intrigued when he saw it was all about Hugh Hefner’s “girlfriends” living at the Playboy mansion.

That’s right. Hef’s girls have their own reality show.

Apparently Hef has downsized from seven girlfriends to three, so you know it’s not just corporate America suffering from a depressed economy. The Playboy mogul has had to make some concessions as well, poor guy.

So this show is all about Hef’s three girls; Holly, Bridget and Kendra. Holly is the alpha and the one who seems to be the most attached to Hef. Bridget, the oldest at 31, is the sweet and brainy one. She’s working on her second master’s degree. Kendra’s the wild one and the youngest of the three. She enjoys showing off the goods to just about everyone.

After a half hour of watching these three in various stages of dress and undress, I asked Nathan if he wanted to find something else to watch.

No, there’s really nothing else on.

So we watched another half hour.

“This doesn’t bother you at all?” I asked. “You have a daughter. How would you like it if, twenty years from now, she shacked up with some 100-year old geezer in a red silk bathrobe?”

Apparently it was the wrong time to pose this question to him because the girls were taking a shower together.

Along with the group shower, some of the highlights of last night’s episodes were:

Holly trying not to get ruffled as she sat next to Hef’s ex Barbi Benton as Barbi reminisced about bygone days of sex on the pool table with Hef.

Bridget trying to decide which was more important; making it to school in time to take her final exam or participating in one more photo shoot for the magazine.

Barbi Benton asking Bridget if “those are real or fake” and realizing she was referring to the plastic plants and not Bridget’s boobs.

Holly freaking out about missing Hef’s 9:00 pm curfew.

Barbi asking if Hef has met the girls’ mothers yet.

Bridget standing stark naked next to her sister as she examined Polaroids of her photo shoot.

We lost three whole hours of our lives to that show last night. Three hours we will never get back. Lord, help us.

So why is it that bad TV seems so good? Surely I don’t want Autumn growing up thinking shows like “The Girls Next Door” are quality programming. Ideally I’d like her to have a take it or leave it attitude where TV is concerned. Unfortunately we have a 160 pound behemoth sitting in our living room that’s bound to serve as her baby sitter from time to time. It’s just so easy to plop her down in front of “The Wiggles” while I get ready in the morning.

Maybe the TV could have an accident or something. If you can hire a hit man to whack a human being surely you can hire someone to take out major appliances.

I just couldn’t do it myself. It really is a love/hate relationship.

Parenting PSA #312

2006-05-29T11:20:00.000-04:00

If you choose to indulge in multiple pitchers of sangrias this summer, please remember to wait the appropriate amount of time before nursing your infant.

A drunk baby is no lauging matter.

Please state the nature of your emergency...

2006-05-27T14:27:00.000-04:00

We bought the flag in the above picture at a dollar store earlier this week. As I was walking back into the garage after hanging it, I caught Nathan staring intently at the flag as it waved in the breeze.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"I'm just making sure you're not in distress," he said.

"What are you talking about?" I asked.

"If you hang a flag a certain way it's a signal you're in distress. I just wanted to make sure you weren't sending out a distress signal.

I sighed. "Nathan, this is the suburbs. If we're in distress, we dial 911."

Garage sale stickers...$1.69

2006-05-26T17:03:00.003-04:00

Having your baby sacked out while you drag your junk out to the garage to sell...priceless.

Fortunate son

2006-05-24T12:53:00.000-04:00

Yesterday both of my parents spent some time with their own mothers. My mom went to the flea market in Shipshewana, Indiana with her mother and her mother’s friend and my father went to the cemetery with his.

I’ve not always gotten along with my paternal grandmother. It’s a long, complicated story that involves us not speaking to each other for five years. We both can be difficult and bull-headed. At one time we were like two rams charging at each other with neither one coming out as the winner.

Things are good between us now, thanks to Autumn. We’re much more relaxed when we’re together now that we can focus our attentions outside of ourselves. Grandma is so busy being in love with her great-granddaughter that she all but forgets about everyone and everything that irritates her, including me. It’s like in those submarine movies when the missiles are headed towards the sub and the captain yells “release the countermeasures!” and the little thingies spit out and shake in the water to deflect the blast away from the sub. Autumn is my countermeasure.

My father, on the other hand, is not as lucky. He hates conflict but often finds himself facing the missiles without a countermeasure in sight. Thankfully Grandma doesn’t seem to get mad at him as often as she does everyone else, but he still hates having to try and put out a fuse that’s been lit no matter who the target is.

So yesterday he and my grandmother visited my grandpa’s grave. Grandma brought along a wreath to place in front of Grandpa’s crypt. From what I heard, it was a very nice wreath complete with little flags to honor Grandpa’s status as a veteran. When they arrived at the crypt, however, Grandma was horrified to see the exact wreath she held in her hands already sitting in place in front of Grandpa’s name.

She instantly fingered my dad’s uncle, Grandpa’s brother, as the culprit. He had no right, she said. Grandpa was her husband and it was her duty to decorate his grave. She picked up the wreath already there and replaced it with her own identical wreath.

Grandma and Dad made the rounds, next visiting Grandma’s sister. Grandma, still fuming and still clinging to the offending wreath, decided to place the decoration on her sister’s marker. Since her sister wasn’t a veteran, she enlisted my dad’s help in plucking the little flags out of the wreath.

All the while my dad was becoming more and more uncomfortable. There they were pulling apart a wreath that, while identical to theirs, wasn’t theirs at all. Someone somewhere had taken the time and spent the money to honor Grandpa. Grandma, on the other hand, figured the party involved, obviously family, deserved to have his wreath taken apart for not respecting her place as Grandpa’s widow.

The last stop was to Grandpa’s parents, my great-grandparents. There my dad and grandma observed markers without decoration or flowers. It was at that point that Grandma started to question the origins of the other wreath. Had Grandpa’s brother placed the wreath at Grandpa’s crypt, he would have surely also placed something at his own parents’ graves.

“Oh. Maybe the VFW brought that other wreath,” Grandma said.

My dad learned a long time ago that it’s sometimes best to just keep your mouth shut.

The "n" at the end is silent

2006-05-22T12:51:00.000-04:00

After a three week absence, we finally made it to church yesterday morning. We decided to leave Autumn in the nursery this time because she's been getting a little noisy. She babbles, screams and farts very loudly to the point that we're not as quick to claim her as ours. Instead, we'll turn our heads from side to side with annoyed looks on our faces as though it was someone else's child making the rude noises.

Much to my relief, she didn't seem at all traumatized by her stay in the nursery. She had Conner (Ryan and Marla's boy) to hang out with not to mention a room full of brightly colored toys at her disposal.

When we picked her up after the service, I noticed the nursery coordinator had put a name tag on Autumn's back but the "n" at the end of her name was crossed out so that it read "Autum." I went over to the nursery log where I had signed Autumn in and, sure enough, I had misspelled her name.

Autum

The crossed-out letter on the name tag was evidence that someone knew the correct spelling of my daughter's name but that someone was not me. I do that a lot. I'll leave letters off words or insert them when they're not needed. I am totally spell check's bitch, but there's no such tool when you're checking your kid into the church nursery.

The lost "n" bugged me so I tore the name tag off Autumn's back and went over to the log to insert the missing letter. Even though we'd already picked her up, I couldn't let the church people think Autumn's mommy was an illiterate slob, or worse, some fruitcake who would actually name her daughter Autum.

Evidence I have not yet corrupted her little mind

2006-05-18T09:30:00.000-04:00

I hate peas.

I know I’ve mentioned that before, but I’ll say it again.

I hate peas.

I think this hatred stems from memories of being held hostage at the dinner table until every pea was eaten. I couldn’t stomach them and would gag obnoxiously with every spoonful I was forced to swallow. Eventually my parents told me I didn’t have to clean my plate all the time, but that was when I started getting fat and they figured forcing me to eat anything was probably not a good idea.

Yesterday the pediatrician gave us the green light to start feeding Autumn fruits and veggies. I’ve been buying little jars of food for a few weeks now in preparation for this. Considering how passionate I’ve been about my pea hatred over the years though, my mother worried that my attitude would filter down to my daughter, thus denying her the full rainbow of baby nutrition. I think Mom had visions of me sticking a spoonful of peas in Autumn’s face saying, “Yucky peas taste like poo. Blech!”

Since I didn’t want to be blamed for raising a second generation pea-hater, I decided we’d try Autumn out on peas first. That way if she actually ended up hating them, I would be vindicated but couldn’t be held responsible if she really did think yucky peas taste like poo. I could claim I tried to get her to eat them and spend the rest of my life content to know a single pea, pureed or otherwise, would never again enter my house.

Wouldn’t you know she just loves them? I wanted to gag as soon as I popped the lid off the jar, but Autumn seemed quite happy to consume many spoonfuls as you can see here in this video:

The first all-nighter

2006-05-16T13:12:00.000-04:00

Today Autumn is six months old. Hello! Are we in some weird time/space flux because I could have sworn I was holding a newborn just yesterday. I can now understand how my mother feels when she says “I can’t believe I have a daughter who’s thirty-four!” Mom? You can say that a little less often, thanks.

In honor of this day, I was going to re-tell Autumn’s birth story in more detail than I did just days after she was born, but I got a ways into writing and found the story to be utterly and completely boring. Part of that could be the way I was writing it, but when you’re robbed of the drama of telling your husband “its time” because your daughter doesn’t care to leave her cushy sac of amniotic fluid, there’s really no way to punch things up into an interesting story.

Instead, I want to tell the story of the first night Autumn and I were left alone together. It was Thursday night, the day after she was born. I told Nathan to go home and get some rest because neither of us had slept much since Monday night, so he picked up Molly from Ryan and Marla’s and went home to sleep.

He left about 9 pm, right around the time “Alias” was starting. It was the one where Sydney was on an op with Rene in Rome, all decked out in a leopard print coat and Marilyn Monroe wig when she runs into her professor from college who’s all “Sydney Bristow? What are you doing here?” Right about that time Autumn started crying.

What is it? Hungry or a wet diaper? Oh. Dirty diaper.

It was still very hard for me to get out of bed and nigh impossible for me to bend over. I waddled over to the plastic bassinet and loosened up the swaddled blanket to change her diaper and then tried to re-wrap her:

The nurses make this swaddling look so easy. Ok, start with that flap and cross over, pull up the bottom and then cross the other flap over. There we go! But wait, her little foot’s sticking out there. That’s not right. Try again. Now she’s crying again. I just changed her diaper so it can’t be that. Maybe she’s hungry. I’ll go with that.

Now how should we do this? Cradle hold or football? Or cross cradle? What about lying down on my side? Nope, that one’s not going to work, but oh it feels so good to lie down. Wait, don’t fall asleep with the baby next to you. Try the football hold again. Football is good for big busted moms who’ve had c-sections. Ouch! Ok she’s latched. I think she’s latched. No wait, she off again. Let’s stuff that Boppy under the arm here for support. Ok, let’s try that again. C’mon. It’s right there. There you go! Ouch!

At some point during all this I managed to knock the telephone over. Remember how I said I couldn’t bend over? Previous experience with the call button told me that a nurse would be awhile in coming, so I just left the phone where it was and hoped Nathan wasn’t trying to call. Yep, he tried to call. When he couldn’t reach me on the hospital phone he tried my cell phone, which was conveniently packed away in my purse and stuffed in a cupboard. So there I was trying to watch “Alias” while keeping Autumn latched on with the theme from Harry Potter ringing throughout the room.

Are you done? It’s so hard to get out of bed with you in my arms. I think I’ll just hold you for awhile. But I’m so tired. Maybe I can just shut my eyes and rest my head against the pillow. Nope. Better not. Don’t want to drop you. Better put you back in the bassinet and call them to take you to the nursery. I’m sorry, but I haven’t slept since Monday night. I know you can’t possibly care about that, but I’ll be a better mama if I send you away for now.

By the time a nurse came to retrieve Autumn, I had changed her diaper two more times and had my first “what the hell am I doing with a child?” moment when I tried to gently move the bassinet by pushing it with my belly and got Autumn’s foot caught in between my body and the plastic. She cried indignantly, probably wishing she had never seen the outside of a uterus.

I’m sorry! Oh, I’m sorry. Mommy didn’t mean to hurt you. Oh please don’t cry.

In spite of my exhaustion, I couldn’t fall asleep after Autumn was taken away. My mind was racing with thoughts of what my life was going to be like when I took my child home.

Do I have everything I need for her? When is my milk going to come in? What’s Molly going to think of the baby? Will I ever get to sleep again?

Eventually I nodded off only to be awakened about an hour and a half later by a nurse wheeling in Autumn in the bassinet. “Somebody’s hungry,” she said.

It was at that point I started to think this whole thing wasn’t going to be that easy. I wanted to call Nathan and beg him to come back. I didn’t want to be alone with this tiny little being who pooped black tar and didn’t understand that I really, really wanted to get more than 90 minutes of sleep. But she needed me. Even if she didn’t know who the hell I was, she needed me.

I guess we’re kind of stuck with each other, huh?

When I had finished nursing, I pressed the call button again for someone to take Autumn back to the nursery. Ten minutes went by. Then twenty. After a half hour I decided to seek out the nursery myself. It was the first time since I checked into the hospital that I walked more than the few feet from my bed to the bathroom.

Wow these lights are bright, aren’t they? Uh oh, someone’s baby is unhappy. Ok, where’s the nursery? You’ve been there, kid, give me some direction. Ah, there it is. Nope, that’s the door to a maintenance closet. This is the door to the nursery. Bye bye, sweetie.

I was able to sleep almost three hours before they brought her back to me for another feeding. By that time it was morning and the beginning of my last day in the hospital.

And you know what? I still have that episode of “Alias” saved on my DVR. I set it to record the night I left for the hospital. I just can’t bring myself to delete it.

Mother's Day, part deaux

2006-05-15T13:28:00.000-04:00

So yesterday was the big freak out. In light of my revelation that I suck as a daughter, I went out to the dollar store for another frame to give to my mother. I drove over there just after 10 am only to find that they don’t open until 11am on Sundays and 11 am just so happened to be Nathan’s desired departure time for the hour drive to his parents’ house.

Since a grocery store is in the same complex, I stopped in there, grabbed a cart and walked around the store hoping for inspiration. Nothing. I then drove to another store I knew would have picture frames but is undergoing a huge renovation. I couldn’t find anything. The dog food is where the pharmacy used to be and the pharmacy is now in the front of the store. The furniture is now where the toys were and I still can’t find the damn picture frames and we have to leave by 11 am!

I finally found the frames and picked out a nice one that was perfect for Nathan’s grandma. I raced home, printed out a picture of Grandma and Autumn and put the framed picture of Autumn that I was going to give Grandma in my mom’s bag, pulled out the Glade candles and replaced it with a nice Bath and Body works candle I had stashed away in a cupboard downstairs.

I was finally able to sit down and take a breath while I fed Autumn. Nathan was signing cards and assembling gift bags and asked, “Where’s my mom’s bag?”

I looked at him. “She doesn’t get a bag. She gets plants,” I said. We bought her a lilac bush and a hydrangea, both of which were sitting out in the garage waiting for the ride to their new home.

“She doesn’t get a picture?” asked Nathan.

Insert scream here.

After much arguing about who gets what and how much time we had before we needed to leave, I convinced Nathan to go to the dollar store and pick up another frame and a gift bag for his mom. He called me a few minutes after he left. “They’re closed for Mother’s Day,” he said.

How can a dollar store not be open on Mother’s Day? Don't they realize there are really cheap procrastinators out there who need to find a Mother's Day gift stat?

Needless to say, we scrapped the picture idea for his mom and vowed to give her one during our next visit.

The rest of the day wasn’t so hectic, thank God. Once at his parents’ house, Autumn was taken out of my hands and I was allowed to nap on the big leather sofa. Autumn fell asleep in the rocking chair with Nathan’s mom and was very put out when we pulled her out of Grandma’s arms when it was time to go.

We met my parents, my brother and my grandmas at Cracker Barrel later in the afternoon. Autumn was passed around the table like a plate of biscuits and didn’t even spit up after having nearly a whole bottle of formula. She sat on my dad’s lap for awhile, banging spoons on the table and dropping them on the floor. Each time she dropped one, someone would pass her another. The busboys probably hated us.

My mother ended up liking her gift. She’s not typically the type who puts a hit out on you after receiving a bad gift, but I wanted at least part of what I gave her to be something meaningful. Hopefully I succeeded with this:

Mother's Day

2006-05-14T08:53:00.000-04:00

I'm freaking out right now because I didn't plan my mother's gift very well. I asked her the other day what she wanted and she said she'd like the book A Girl Named Zippy by Haven Kimmel. So we got that for her and now I'm thinking...okay, what else? I bought this Glade Scented Oil Candle set at Costco because I had a coupon, but that just seems bad...bad. Candles are okay, but Glade candles? Why don't I just give her a pack of lottery tickets and a quarter to scratch them with if I'm going to give her something that says "grocery store shopping"?

This is her first Mother's Day as a grandma and I don't have anything truly special for her. We bought these cute picture frames at the dollar store for the great-grandmas and put a pretty picture of Autumn in it. I took the picture yesterday. Autumn's wearing a hat with a Gerber daisy stuck in it. Nathan did this cool Photoshop thing where he took the color out of every part of the photo except the flower. Did I think to get my mother a frame too? Um, no.

Crap. Crap, crap crap.

My Mother's Day is going well. Nathan gave me a Willow Tree figurine of a mama holding her baby and made me French toast for breakfast. That was nice.

Do you think my mom will be able to tell I bought her card at the dollar store?

CRAP!

Chick magnet

2006-05-13T11:41:00.000-04:00

Last night we were sitting at a booth at the Chinese buffet. Our attractive waitress would coo and smile at Autumn every time she stopped by our table to take our plates or fill our drinks. After about her third visit or so, I looked at Nathan and said, "You'd totally score if you were a single dad, wouldn't you?"

"Oh yeah," he said.

Say adiós to the Cottontail clan

2006-05-12T08:30:00.000-04:00

As I was upstairs getting ready this morning I heard a crash and a shout from Nathan. I rushed downstairs to see what was going on and was greeted by my scowling husband. "She knocked the damn screen door right off its hinges," he said, referring to Molly.

Ah, the rabbits.

I peeked outside just in time to see a small rabbit speed away to parts unknown as Molly attacked the foliage on the edge of our pool deck, obviously thinking she still had the scent and would emerge victorious. We ordered her inside and made sure we let her know just how angry we were.

I guess it's time to take some action. So does anyone know of a humane way to get rid of the rabbits? Perhaps a bag of carrots laid end to end and leading into my neighbor's yard?

Open season

2006-05-10T21:21:00.000-04:00

We have a colony of rabbits in our yard that have been making Molly go bezerk. She caught one last week and deposited it in front of our upstairs slider just to show us she has skills beyond sneaking pork chops off the kitchen counter when our backs are turned. Now she's all full of herself and thinks she can take down the others. All she does is sit in front of the downstairs slider, pawing at the glass door whenever the rabbits venture out to munch on our grass. Once in awhile we'll hear a yelp, which means she's spotted one and wants out IMMEDIATELY. I usually tap on the door before I open it, you know, just to give the rabbits fair warning of what's coming. They tend to ignore me and only skedaddle when Molly makes her appearance.

Those rabbits, though. They're driving everyone around here crazy.

Head trauma

2006-05-10T16:13:00.000-04:00

Last night I was dressing Autumn and had her sitting up on the changing table. She lost her balance and fell back, hitting her head on the edge of the table. There was an audible thunk and then her face turned bright red as she registered the pain. She alternated between a very loud howl and a silent scream where her mouth was open but no sound came out. I felt awful, of course, and tried to console her. She eventually calmed down, but I felt as though I had betrayed her by not making sure she was completely safe.

That incident was pretty much on par with the tone of the day. There seemed to be one mommy-inflicted trauma after another. If I wasn’t sucking boogers out of her nose with the nasal bulb, I was abandoning her on the floor so I could help make dinner and pushing spoonfuls of cereal in her face when she clearly didn’t want it. All fodder for future therapy sessions, I’m sure.

Yesterday wasn’t all bad, though. Autumn made her first trip to the library. This was kind of a big deal since Nathan and I both love to read. We hope to someday pass this love on to our daughter and have already collected some board books that will more likely get soft with baby slobber before they’re ever read.

As we opened the doors to the library, I let out an excited breath and, sounding very much like my mother, exclaimed, “Autumn, this is the library!” I could have said, “this is Disneyworld” and it wouldn’t have made a difference to her, but I thought it was a cool moment. As we walked in, that library smell hit me. The township built a brand new library several years ago so this isn’t the same building I visited when I was a kid, but it smells exactly the same. It’s one of those smells associated with very good memories of my brother and I spending our summer days there.

After the library, we paid a visit to my grandma, who happens to live about five hundred feet from the library’s front door. Autumn wasn’t quite feeling the love and busted out crying the second I put her in Grandma’s arms. She’s been very choosy about the company she keeps lately and doesn’t like being held by someone other than Nathan or me unless she’s in a really good mood (read: not tired, not wet and not hungry). After about half an hour and much soothing and cajoling, Autumn finally decided Grandma was not the devil and happily smiled and bounced on her knee.

Since both Nathan and my grandma love to talk, it was awhile before we got back home. We put Autumn to bed a little later than usual and went to bed ourselves a little later than usual. Autumn is coming down with a cold and we heard her wheezing through the baby monitor as we tried to fall asleep. Around midnight she started crying so I retrieved her from her crib and armed myself with the saline drops and the nasal bulb.

Yes, the abuse continues.