Love is Blind

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• Sorry and the apologies

  Today, like any other day, GiGi hits me.  She flails around or smacks me (along with the bed, books, chair, doll, etc) out of frustration and a myriad of other reasons Im not quite sure of.   I am 100% positive that this is just some sort of a toddler phase that we will outgrow soon.  In the meantime, GiGi has decided to pick up on the word “sorry” to make up for all the hitting she’s doing.    I started teaching her that when we hit (we meaning her) that we need to say “sorry.”   She caught on abnormally quick to the right moments for the correct opportunity to say “sorry.”  The first 40 times she said it, it was heartfelt and I think we both cried during the apology.  Recently, she has begun to say it, fake cry, and then hit again.   Somewhere along Read More... Posted Jul 22 2009, 01:31 PM by Megg with | with 6 comment(s) Filed under: toddlers, kids, childrenns hair style, apologis, sorry, faker, Im sorry, faking it, fake cry

• Going Solo

  I remember the times when I would lay my sleeping babe in the middle of my bed and create a wall of pillows around her so that we could both rest and relax in peace while she napped for a few hours.  We never had the need for a monitor because I was glued to her.  In the beginning, I had a larger studio but still yet – a studio apartment.  In a studio you can pee, do dishes, and rock the baby to sleep all while watching TV and occasionally answering the door all in the same location.  That said, leaving her alone wasn’t ever really leaving her alone if you catch what I’m saying.  When we moved to our current location, I checked on her as she slept.  I was a nervous, messy, wreck of a mother with custody and medial issues for GiGi, so I didn’t really give her much space in the beginning.  GiGi + Playing = me right there.   As she got older and started  hitting the milestones,  like sitting up, I started backing off.  She was and is, a late bloomer/ milestone maker/ going at her own pace, and so it didn’t really bother anyone to let her play in my room while I ran to the bathroom or needed to get lunch, do laundry, etc.  She simply didn’t  move, not even really ever attempting to roll over, so letting her have some short time alone wasn’t an issue.    Now that she’s older, and is a super walker, things are the same.  The house is pretty safe from big scary falling objects and the hazardous chemicals are locked up.  Doors are shut and gates are up.  I don’t like to squash her independence or smother her with inane mommy ideas that repulse her. Case in point – today I pulled out these awesome bristle blocks that she got for her birthday, and I started to build things.  Engaging yet not so pushy, there I sat under a heap of blocks and there she went…to play by herself.  “No no!” she says.    It’s not the first time I’ve tried to play with my daughter, I promise, it’s just that we interact with one another in such a sometimes-odd manner.   We do things together you know?  We... Read More... Posted Apr 21 2009, 02:21 PM by Megg with | with 8 comment(s) Filed under: kids, toys, games, playing, going solo, bristle bloks, Im a grown toddler, independent, anti-social?, solo, playing alone

• Kid On a Leash

  Raise your hand if you have ever stared at a parent in some public place or another, with their hand nestled a foot thick under a soft looking leash attached to a toddler.  Go ahead. Raise it.   Now raise your hand again if you’ve ever silently vomited and swallowed it back down again, at the idea of EVER using one with your own child.   I raise both hands, to both cases.  I have been Senora El Judge-y in the past, numerous times, and I’ll bet that I’m just asshole-enough to have made a comment ever-so-quietly-yet-audible-to-the-parents who held leashes.      My reasoning in the past was solely based on aesthetics alone.  There is a CHILD on a LEASH. How wretched. How lazy.  How on Earth can you wake up one day and say, “fuck it, let’s put the baby on a leash today and forgo the hand holding and actual watching of our child.”  I gave unintended dirty looks formed out of a single twenty-something mentality and a mild fear of babies.  I created this Karma that has now come back to bite me on the ass as I wrap my hand around a brown “tail” attached to a monkey that sits atop GiGI’s back. Read More... Posted Apr 11 2009, 11:51 AM by Megg with | with 24 comment(s) Filed under: gigi, kids, gia, glasses, judgemental parenting, leashes are awful, bad parenting, toddler leash, safety, karma, ew, safety devices, child leashes, I still hate ann coulter, leash

• Happy 2nd Birthday, GiGi

  Dear GiGi,   You came into this world at 8:56 am on a Saturday morning in the hospital we picked out in Berkeley, CA.  It was barely warm outside on the afternoon before, when I entered the hospital for a routine check-up before you were to come into the world the following week.  I wore a sundress in, with an aqua hobo bag on my arm and the doctors kept me.   You were due on April 3rd, and I was scheduled to have you on April 10th.  You arrived on the 7th, the day before Easter.    Our doctor gave me something to help you along since there was a dangerous amount of fluid left to protect you.  According to her, you would be here at noon the next day.  She left our room late that evening.   …and two years ago today, at this exact moment in time, I sat in a hospital bed in Berkeley and complained  “I think I have some cramps,” with a puzzled face and heart full of nervous happy.   I stepped into the restroom - My water broke - I barfed.   I cried in your daddy and nurse Suri’s arms and walked back to my bed with paper towels under my feet and gross on my toes, scooting, like they were ice skates.   When the nurses said “the baby will be here in an hour,” you came out 15 minutes later.   From the first of the five pregnancy tests that I took came out positive, my eyes filled up with a thousand tears at the thought of actually having to give birth.  The test was positive you were in my belly and I was positive that child birth would kill me. I was scared. I was petrified.    Right before the doctors came in and I was about to push you around, into this world, I asked if I could take a nap.  I was comfortable and coherent and otherwise pleased that you were coming.  Labor was not painful, and I wasn't scared at that mment, and no....childbirth didn't kill me.   I said I was having a boy and would name him Wolfgang Oliver, and alas you were, and are, a little girl.   The doctor said “We have a healthy baby!”   Your dad said “I told you so!  We have a little girl!” and placed you on my chest.   We took one look at you and he said “She’s no Luka. That’s not her name at all.”   We were all planned to name you Luka Lorraine, but you ended up with Gia Lorraine instead.   He thought of your name and I agreed, only because I would be able to call you Gia.     Newborns cry all the time, at least that’s what I had read and heard, but you couldn’t have been a more different baby than those in the articles.  You were the most quiet and calm baby in the world.  Everything that could be said to me about babes in belly and babes fresh out of the womb, couldn’t have been farther from who you were and what you were about.   I don’t know how it’s possible, but with every fear I had and still have, you comfort me in the most simple way. YOU take care of ME whether you realize it or not, and I love you for many reasons including that one. We’re a team.   Two halves that make up an insanely silly whole.   We fumble along at times, but get through everything singing, and dancing when no one else is.....   (memory lane pics after the jump) Read More... Posted Apr 07 2009, 05:07 AM by Megg with | with 16 comment(s) Filed under: gigi, berkeley, toddler, kids, baby milestones, gia, age two, life, celebration, birth, birthday

• Love Wears Glasses

  I had a few post all lined up about various things going on in mine and GiGi’s life.  Places we went last week and new people we met.  All of those posts are sitting in my Babble folder with their little jaws dropped at this post I’m writing now.  Those posts have nothing on the news I have now.   My alarm was set for 4:30 am on Wednesday morning.  In case you all weren’t aware, 4:30 is an “a.m.” too.   I thought I would let GiGi sleep and then I would put her in the car in her pajamas and just change her at the pediatric ophthalmology office once we arrived.  Fat chance.  She woke up once we hit the cool morning breeze outside and smiled over whatever it is that GiGi smiles about when the wind kisses her cheek (natures affection?).  I was glad that she had a sunny disposition  so early in the morning, especially since she is nearing two year old and it’s an every-five-minutes toss of the dice which way her mood  leans.   I was in a bad mood.  Terrible in fact.  Tuesday went downhill, slowly, and I ended the night with ice packs on my poor head and TUMS in my tum.  The prospect of a doctor visit to an office that  had recently yelled at wasn’t making me feel any better.   The receptiawench had left a message on my cell phone – on a Saturday – to say that GiGi’s appointment was cancelled.  I cried, punched y pillow, and then vowed to sleep on the news before I called back.  Monday morning I gave the wench a ring and no answer.  After the fifth phone call I left a message saying, “Hi, this is GiGi ****’s mother and I got a call saying that her appointment was cancelled. I just wanted to confirm that the appointment really is cancelled, because this visit is WAAAAY overdue and if we really aren’t getting in, then I might just pass out.  But when I regain consciousness Im afraid I might just punch your office in the face.  So, um, can you call me back at ***-3**-04**.  Thanks”   Beep   She called back five minutes later, a little shaken up, and said “oh no, Miss Lasswell, we just want to confirm her for an EARLIER appointment, will that be okay?”   I absolutely thought that they were luring me there to arrest me for the punching in the face comment.   So then, where was I?  Oh yes, post-migraine, feeling barf-y, and worried about the possibility of being citizens arrested by a receptiawench, I got into the car and headed to the bay area. Read More... Posted Apr 02 2009, 02:09 PM by Megg with | with 46 comment(s) Filed under: optic nerve hypoplasia, blind, onh, gigi, children, toddler, kids, gia, pre-cane trainer, white cane, no cane, walking unassisted, toddling, blindd toddler, glasses

• Get Up and Go

  GiGi has been totally dependent on her shopping cart since the day she was introduced to it.  It was pretty much a whole and perfect union for months and months. In fact, I have one in the trunk of my car, always ready to lend a helping hand to GiGi at any given location we roll into.  There is a shopping cart at home also, and she spends almost all her waking moments pushing it in the same pattern around the house.  I was positive that the same exact travel pattern  - every day all day - was a direct result of GiGI inheriting some sort of obsessive compulsive gene from me (or let’s face it, her father), but it turns out that it has proven to be her best practice technique.   In my last post I shared my joy over her latest success in walking, hands and pre-cane trainer free.  Since Monday, she has become increasingly ill with a nasty cold, and more determined to walk alone than I’ve ever seen.   Yesterday, I felt like I was at my wits end with GiGi.  The constant crying I can understand, because she genuinely doesn’t feel well (we have a doc visit set for today), but the tantrums and hitting I can’t get on board with.  She wanted to be near me at all times, even if it was to hug me or throw a fit.  I seriously felt like we were having a horrible sick day that wouldn’t end, until she took a break from me and crawled from my room to the front room to greet my mother.  I could hear my moms excited tone so I walked down the hallway to find my tot walking on her own.  According to my mom, she just pulled herself up to her and started walking.  Now, anytime she decides to walk alone, I’m proud.  Since my last post she has actually done it so many times I can’t really count.  Usually a walk initiated by me, my sister, and of course my mother.  The walks were shorter distances but she seemed to be getting a little more confident.   My mother and I were watching her walk and commenting on how happy GiGi will be once she figures out how to stand up on her own.  She’s tried a few different ways to stand up, but they all just sort of seem like downward facing dog poses from a yoga class I wasn’t aware she was taking. Until yesterday... Read More... Posted Mar 13 2009, 06:28 AM by Megg with | with 10 comment(s) Filed under: optic nerve hypoplasia, blind, onh, gigi, children, toddler, kids, gia, pre-cane trainer, white cane, no cane, walking unassisted, toddling, blindd toddler

• zZz...Big girl bed...zZz

  There is a room next to mine with toy boxes marked “Noise” and baby blankets galore.  There is a hot pink rocking horse that my sister made for GiGi  to celebrate her first birthday, and there are mountains of clothes.  There’s also a small lamp that casts a very faint shadow on the wall of my toddler sleeping in her bed at night. Her two pigtails were nestled deep into a new pillow sometime after 7 pm.   And for 5 hours and 7 minutes, I got to have my room all to myself.   I never planned on pushing the whole sleep-in-your-own-bed thing, because let’s face it, I don’t have enough memories to count on one hand of the times she slept in her crib. Something wacky about the relationship between my daughter and I just allows for a sense of “ah-ha” at random moments.  About three weeks ago, I was cleaning her room and I just decided to turn her crib into a toddler bed.  We bought one of those handy 3-in-1 conversion cribs so I thought it would be easy as pie to assemble.  I was dreadfully wrong, and that little warmer colored wooden bitch took skin, sweat, and many-a-foul-word from me.  It was not as easy as I thought so I went back to my room to search through my now meticulous files to get the folder titled “MANUALS.”  Of course, it wasn’t there.  So I went back to the crib, wrote down all info (not that there was a lot) and googled my ass off.  Long story short – it took me four phone calls before I reached the person in charge of emailing me an instruction manual.  As I read the instructions with the crib company woman, I noticed that there was a sack of parts I should of kept, so that I would be able to convert the crib to a bed.    Oops.    I actually think that I have it packed away somewhere but my finding it would cost more than having it shipped.  “Those replacement parts will be $10. Shipping will be $12.99,” crib rep. crazy person said.  Since I am not a fan of being bent over and having my money taken from me by a sweet southern accented woman, while I scream “Hoooow Muuuuch,” I opted to find them at a hardware store.  Plus, I’m not known for my patience, and waiting in the mail for a screw would be agony (insert joke here). Jackpot!   Of course I looked like a jackass trying to describe what I needed over the phone.  I had one of the screws I needed in hand and it involved a lot of thingamajiggy and hang-on-let-me-get-my-ruler talk to get the part correct, but I did and I walked away spending $5 and even bought spares.   Bolts in hand, Directions on laptop screen – I went to work, with a toddler crawling all over me and wondering what I was doing.  I find it annoying that it was harder to change this to a toddler bed, than it was to make it a crib, by myself, at nine months pregnant.   I told GiGi her crib went bye-bye.  It seemed like the proper thing to do since it isn’t a crib anymore AND…she hated it.  I told her she had a big girl bed now and that she was going to sleep in her room when she was ready to.  I’m sure that she didn’t understand everything that I rambled on about that day, but I keep reinforcing it.  I tell her that she can go at her own pace, like everything else in life, and I won’t push her.    We bought new sheets, white with little pastel polka dots (yes, I said pastel, and yes I picked them), and got a new pillow with a pink pillow case.  I know that I am the one who looks at these things, but... Read More... Posted Mar 05 2009, 07:20 AM by Megg with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: gigi, kids, toddler bed, beds, routine, g crib, night time, converting a crib to a toddler bed, sleeping, big girl beds

• Toddler Bowling.

  This morning at our weekly in-home visit from various teachers, including GiGi’s Orientation and Mobility Teacher, I watched faces twist themselves from smiles to looks of pain when I said, “So I took GiGi bowling this weekend!”  Their faces mirrored my feeling on Sunday afternoon as I sat in a little gray nailed-to-the-floor-chair that with a screaming toddler writhing in my arms while sticking her fingers in my eyes and nose in protest to bowling.   I can be uptight about certain situations and refuse to intermingle myself in things if I have a gut instinct  that GiGi will hate it.  Like, for example, going to the movies.  Kind of a no-brainer at this point in time.  Taking a toddler to the movies might not be a completely stupid idea if some really colorful, musical, Disney or Pixar-gasmic flick were on the screen, but in our case I have sort of come to the conclusion that movies in theatres will have to wait until she is a tiny bit older to listen to them.  Yes, I intend to raise a full-on film snob.  Back to my rambles though…   GiGi and I drove to the bay, yet again, but this time we did a little Valentine’s Day babysitting for a best friend (oh yes, there will be a post on that one, stay tuned) and then spent two days at my oldest sisters house.  It was a great big sister event in Napa full of nieces and nephew and rain-rain-rain.   What the hell does one do on a three-day weekend when its pouring cats and wine drunk dogs outside?  Why, we bowl of course.    The word “bowl” and all the catch phrases and words that go with that sport should have flipped a little switch on in my head that said “no.”    It didn’t hit any switches, and like a moron I waltzed into the bowling alley with a toddler on my hip and the notion that things would be fine.   My brain says that having snacks and music in tow will always make a situation seem brighter for my child, but in a bowling alley?  What the fuck was I thinking?           (She looks soooooooooooooo amused by it all, doesn't she?)     Read More... Posted Feb 17 2009, 11:10 AM by Megg with | with 3 comment(s) Filed under: ca, gigi, toddlers, babies, kids, blindd, gia, bowling, bowling alleies, sensory disorder, napa, toddlerbowling, sound, loud noises, bowling alley, volume

• What's a Friday without a fire truck...or three?

  (Waiting in the car while the firemen climbed the rainy rooftop)   I spilled coffee on my shirt yesterday morning.  Walking down the hallway on my way to the kitchen to warm up the coffee that always seems to stay cold once it hits MY cup, I stumbled a little and spilled it.  Yes, I was in my pajamas and yes GiGi was actually trying to stick her fingers in the cup.  I stepped outside my usual o.c.d self and said f*ck it. I’m not taking a shower today, and the coffee stink will have to stay until tonight.  Friday night with a baby on my hands?  What was I going to do other than eat popcorn and avoid the rain. Fast forward to two hours later and you would have found me cursing my morning coffee and the fact that I didn’t have on clean underwear as I stood outside in my pajamas staring at the flashing lights of three fire trucks.  Read More... Posted Feb 07 2009, 11:52 AM by Megg with | with 5 comment(s) Filed under: gigi, children, fireworks, babies, parents, kids, megg, fires, homes, mothers, dipshit things, fire truck, emergencies

• Oh Mickey, You’re So Fine!

  Disneyland.  Once upon a time, in a land located on the West Coast, a girl and her daughter lived happily.  They lived with hip clothing, handbags, shoes and toys, all free from the faces of Princesses and faeries.  All things anti-Disney and character’d.  Once upon a time…..   Wednesday, October 29, 2008, today’s date and the day I publicly admit that yes, I now own a Mickey Mouse sweater (adult size even), a toddler sized Minnie Mouse dress, Minnie Mouse ears, Minnie barrettes with puffy black on them to resemble ears, a silver circle pendant with teeny Mickey ears on them, a toy story laser shooter thingy type gun, pink Mickey ears with GiGi’s name on them, and 1,687 pictures of one of the happiest trips I’ve ever been on.   Read More... Posted Oct 29 2008, 04:49 PM by Megg with | with 11 comment(s) Filed under: vacation, disneyland, halloween, 1st trip, kids