I've been thinking back to some of my Halloween costumes over the years...the first and best one I remember is when I was Princess Leah when I was 5. My mother twisted two coffee roll buns out of my hair on each side of my head, and made me a little white robe that had a braided rope around the waist. It was genius.
The rest of the costumes come in a blur, sort of a montage of all the years mixed up, recalled from photographs burned into my memory. I was a jelly bean bag one year, with a clear plastic trash bag wrapped around by body, my head poking out of the top. Balloons filled the bag and my mother & I sat in church (did anyone else have to go to church on Halloween night - what the hell was that all about?!) and the balloons were periodically popping and I was horrified. Another year I was a smurf. I was in white pants and a white sweatshirt and a white winter hat and had this awful thick blue face paint which coated my face and smelled horrible. Another year I was Pac-Man. I forget how that costume came about - I think it was leftover from one of my cousins the previous Halloween. It was made of cardboard and painted yellow and it covered my whole body minus my legs and arms and face. It was awesome. Another year I dismembered a large bunny rabbit stuffed animal I had and pulled the stuffing out of the head and put it on mine and wore pink fuzzy pajamas with the feet attached. Oh yes, and one year I was Cleopatra; I wore this turquoise gown embroidered in gold (which was my mothers) and pounds of her gold costume jewelry on top of it. I had this matching headpiece that resembled a veil and more makeup on than any 6th grader should be allowed to wear. Another good costume.
I wonder why only some costumes stick out and the majority of them fall away into oblivion. I mean, I must've worn at least 15 years worth of costumes, right? I definitely wore a costume or two in my twenties too. But I don't recall those. How is it that only a select few exist in my mind?
Sean is going to be a spider for his first Halloween. His black costume has legs and everything. We're going to take him around in his stroller and get ourselves some candy! I fell into the Sears web (haha) again, bringing him to have his pictures taken and hoping to get out of there by buying the $9.99 package but no - couldn't choose one shot...lo and behold the pictures were all awesome and I had to buy them all. Damn those Sears photographers.
The spider costume surely won't be the one of the few that Sean recalls when he is 34, but he'll at least have his Sears pictures to remember it by.
xo
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Friday, October 10, 2008
cattle call
Today I became one of those mothers who stands in line with their baby for 2 hours trying to get them an ad campaign. Baby Gap was holding a casting call at the mall right down the street so I figured what the hell, take a chance! Tonight the pictures were ready to be downloaded. The "photographer" didn't wait for one smile from Sean, and cut his head off at the hairline in every shot! I can only assume that this is what he was going for, maybe to show what Sean would look like in a winter hat?!
I got there 1 hour and 15 minutes before the action began. At least I wasn't the first one there; I was 8th. It was actually kind of fun chatting with the other mothers while we waited and the excitement of our children's burgeoning modeling careers grew. Sean was well behaved. It was a good thing I got there when I did, for by 10 AM opening time there were hundreds of mothers and a few fathers with their kids ages 0-10 snaked around the entire mall. If I had arrived and seen that, I would've surely retreated to my car.
I wasn't taking any of it very seriously. Sure, I made certain that Sean didn't have food on him and that his hair wasn't sticking up. Yes, I was grateful he happened to not have any self-imposed scratches on his face. I dressed him in a comfortable dark blue Gap sweatsuit with bright yellow Baby Gap lettering across the chest (the photographer made sure to incorporate this perfectly into all 5 shots alloted). Looking around, I noted that some mothers were clearly insane, checking out the competition with tight smiles and darting eyes, holding their kid's outfits in plastic dry cleaning bags until the very last second.
It was our turn pretty quickly. I had to plop Sean down on a stool amid a set up that was lit brighter than the sun. I had to crouch down behind him (again, thanks to the photographer for getting my fingers in the shots!). The 5 frames were over in a second. I asked how Sean did; "real good" was his assistant's answer.
So, tonight it sinks in that we wasted 2 hours for 5 so-so pictures. We'll chalk it up to modeling experience.
xo
I got there 1 hour and 15 minutes before the action began. At least I wasn't the first one there; I was 8th. It was actually kind of fun chatting with the other mothers while we waited and the excitement of our children's burgeoning modeling careers grew. Sean was well behaved. It was a good thing I got there when I did, for by 10 AM opening time there were hundreds of mothers and a few fathers with their kids ages 0-10 snaked around the entire mall. If I had arrived and seen that, I would've surely retreated to my car.
I wasn't taking any of it very seriously. Sure, I made certain that Sean didn't have food on him and that his hair wasn't sticking up. Yes, I was grateful he happened to not have any self-imposed scratches on his face. I dressed him in a comfortable dark blue Gap sweatsuit with bright yellow Baby Gap lettering across the chest (the photographer made sure to incorporate this perfectly into all 5 shots alloted). Looking around, I noted that some mothers were clearly insane, checking out the competition with tight smiles and darting eyes, holding their kid's outfits in plastic dry cleaning bags until the very last second.
It was our turn pretty quickly. I had to plop Sean down on a stool amid a set up that was lit brighter than the sun. I had to crouch down behind him (again, thanks to the photographer for getting my fingers in the shots!). The 5 frames were over in a second. I asked how Sean did; "real good" was his assistant's answer.
So, tonight it sinks in that we wasted 2 hours for 5 so-so pictures. We'll chalk it up to modeling experience.
xo
Sunday, October 5, 2008
YAWN.
Things have reached epic proportions around here. When I say things I mean the fact that we haven't slept in nearly 10 months. When I say we I mean Sean & I. Eric just recently started losing sleep, for instead of waking up every hour and moving until I feed him, Sean has added crying out to the repetoire, which disturbs the whole queen sized bed. Before that, Eric slept through it all. We are all sick with colds and for the past few days I haven't been able to muster enough energy to play with Sean, much less lift him and change him and feed him. Don't worry, I'm still doing those things, but at a snail's pace. A really fucking slow snail with bags under its eyes and a headache that's lasted for days no matter how many pain pills it takes.
Sean was born in December. He started out in the bed because we were afraid he wasn't breathing right due to the congestion he had as a c-section baby. We had him propped up and everything. And from then on we kind of just kept him there. He liked being there and we liked having him there. But over the past couple of months it has ceased to be enjoyable. We used to laugh in the mornings and marvel at this tiny boy in our bed, but now we just growl at him when he starts talking in the darkness of dawn. I hate feeling this way.
Today I finally placed a request at my library for Dr. Ferber's book. I know a little about the method and have tried to let Sean cry it out for 3 nights but it was a disaster. Each night was worse than the last. We went for the gentler approach that I read in a book called Good Night, Sleep Tight that Sean's pediatrician recommended: sitting in the room while he was in the crib (yeah right - picture him reaching through the slats of the crib towards us, banging his head against the heavy wood, confused tears shaking in his eyes); we tried going in repeatedly, rubbing his back, anything (yeah right - this only upset him further, like why won't you idiots take me out of here?) Now, we are at a complete and utter loss. The few books I have read on the subject pretty much agree that sleep begets sleep. So you can imagine that since Sean doesn't get restful sleep, he doesn't beget any during the day. If I'm lucky, he'll nap for a few minutes in his swing, which I learned from a book is a crutch, not real sleep anyway, but as real as it gets around here. And he'll be outgrowing that swing in like a week. I have no idea what I am going to do then. Oh, and breastfeeding is a sleep crutch too. A crutch we both rely on to get him to sleep and back to sleep and to stay asleep. If only I could rewind time and ease him into his crib. My mother warned me about this. I had no idea how awful this would be. I'm going to read Ferber's book and see if I can agree with the method. It just seems so barbaric. The three nights I already put in turned Sean into a shaky, shuddering leaf of a baby. I swear he is still having residual clinginess and crankiness from those three nights.
I am so very, very tired. I want my son to be a well-rested baby. But he is not. He is cranky and tired and yawns all the time during the day and I don't know how to fix it. He fights sleep so willfully it is frightening. He wants to be happy, you can see it; he laughs and smiles but in a second it's tears and whines. I feel quite helpless. You might be thinking just stick him in his crib but we've done that. It is far more complicated than I ever imagined.
xo
Sean was born in December. He started out in the bed because we were afraid he wasn't breathing right due to the congestion he had as a c-section baby. We had him propped up and everything. And from then on we kind of just kept him there. He liked being there and we liked having him there. But over the past couple of months it has ceased to be enjoyable. We used to laugh in the mornings and marvel at this tiny boy in our bed, but now we just growl at him when he starts talking in the darkness of dawn. I hate feeling this way.
Today I finally placed a request at my library for Dr. Ferber's book. I know a little about the method and have tried to let Sean cry it out for 3 nights but it was a disaster. Each night was worse than the last. We went for the gentler approach that I read in a book called Good Night, Sleep Tight that Sean's pediatrician recommended: sitting in the room while he was in the crib (yeah right - picture him reaching through the slats of the crib towards us, banging his head against the heavy wood, confused tears shaking in his eyes); we tried going in repeatedly, rubbing his back, anything (yeah right - this only upset him further, like why won't you idiots take me out of here?) Now, we are at a complete and utter loss. The few books I have read on the subject pretty much agree that sleep begets sleep. So you can imagine that since Sean doesn't get restful sleep, he doesn't beget any during the day. If I'm lucky, he'll nap for a few minutes in his swing, which I learned from a book is a crutch, not real sleep anyway, but as real as it gets around here. And he'll be outgrowing that swing in like a week. I have no idea what I am going to do then. Oh, and breastfeeding is a sleep crutch too. A crutch we both rely on to get him to sleep and back to sleep and to stay asleep. If only I could rewind time and ease him into his crib. My mother warned me about this. I had no idea how awful this would be. I'm going to read Ferber's book and see if I can agree with the method. It just seems so barbaric. The three nights I already put in turned Sean into a shaky, shuddering leaf of a baby. I swear he is still having residual clinginess and crankiness from those three nights.
I am so very, very tired. I want my son to be a well-rested baby. But he is not. He is cranky and tired and yawns all the time during the day and I don't know how to fix it. He fights sleep so willfully it is frightening. He wants to be happy, you can see it; he laughs and smiles but in a second it's tears and whines. I feel quite helpless. You might be thinking just stick him in his crib but we've done that. It is far more complicated than I ever imagined.
xo
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
I missed it...
Sean has an interlocking playmat he spends a huge amount of time on. He figured out how to disassemble the mat the day after I got it and loves to chew on the probably toxic pieces. I'm forever putting the mat back together. Anyway, a plastic gate surrounds the playmat and lately Sean has been grabbing at the holes in the gate and getting on his knees, kind of holding himself up a little. So, I'm on the phone this morning and I look over and there he is: standing! Wobbly while grasping at the gate, but standing on his two little legs nonetheless! I could tell he was thinking: great, now what? I climbed in the pen with him to make sure when he came down it was a soft landing. If only they could all be soft landings.
xo
xo
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