For Cousin Sophie

Cousin Sophie wanted to see some pictures of her cousin Rhett!  Here you go, Soph! We miss you!

 

Hello BABY! (What They Don’t Tell You)

Hi everyone! It’s been a (LONG LONG LONG) while. Sorry about that. What they tell you, but you still fail to realize, is how little time you have to yourself after your little one is born.

So, I’d like to introduce you to Rhett Calhoun Baker (pictures below). He was born on 11/11 (and the little bugger barely made that date – only by 10 seconds or so!) and truly is a joy. I went into labor on 11/10 at 9pm. I got up the next morning, worked until 12:15, came home, cleaned my house, went to the hospital around 4:30, and he was born at 11:59:50pm. That is the short version – details will warrant a phone call or email from you.

You do forget the pain as soon as the baby is out. They put Rhett on my chest and I was in love. But that love doesn’t stop you from feeling the stitches if they don’t numb you afterwards. Bye bye immediate joy! It’s true – stitching does kind of take away from your initial euphoria.

We’ve had a wonderful time with him so far, and it’s been full of joy and love and smiles. But there are some things they don’t tell you, and that’s what this post is for.

What I wish I had known:

1)  Children will make your ability to worry multiply by 109837849278398759823X. I thought I was bad before. It’s a whole new level now.  For instance, my boy just was diagnosed with Influenza Type A at two months old. You want to talk worry? See how this makes you feel. You will never worry more in your life – when it’s this bad, and when it’s something as mild as, “Should my kid have this many damn boogers?”  This is a pic of Rhett at the emergency room before they told us he had the flu. Watch them stick your baby with needles and give him an IV and tell me that you’ve ever worried more than that.

2)  Kids get blocked tear ducts and gunky eyes are nasty.

3)  They will pee/poop/spit up on you more than you ever realized.

4)  About a week after the stump from the umbilical cord comes off, there’s a chance your baby’s belly button will ooze, and you will think all his intestines are going to come out. Don’t worry. This is normal.

5)  You will be obsessed with his poop.  I applaud every time he goes and worry (See #1) when he doesn’t.

6)  You will become morbid and assume everything is the worst case scenario. See #1. Also, this may begin during pregnancy.

7)  DO NOT feel bad if you do not/cannot breastfeed. My son was tongue tied and has an overbite. Not ideal and will leave you with bloody nipples. Sorry, all.

8)  Being tongue tied can be fixed. Baby Rhett got his tongue snipped and was fine.

9)  Postpartum feelings are real. I was skeptical, until I began bawling to Mike one day that it wasn’t fair that Rhett was going to have to watch us die…in like 70 years.

10)  You will fear the state of the world and wonder why you brought a being into it.

11)  You will get super protective…even if it’s your own family. You’ll make up code words to get your baby back in your arms. 🙂

12)  You’ll mess up. They’ll live.

13)  You’ll cry. This will never end.

14)  Infant farts are lethal. They will take your breath away.

15)  I didn’t sleep for the first three days we had Rhett home because I was convinced that if I fell asleep, he would quit breathing. Don’t worry. They will continue breathing.

There is more. There will always be more. You will not sleep. You will quit caring about hair and makeup. You will pray that your husband still finds you attractive even though you don’t have the time or energy to try. It will be okay.

 

My response to, “You’re still here?”

 

NUGGET, COME OUT! (Also, things you can bring me in the hospital)

Well, we’re 9 days away from the due date, and I honestly don’t feel any closer to having the nugget (despite what the doc said).

Without going into gory details, the “any day now” thing is a possibility. Pfff.

Ladies out there who’ve had nuggets – what are the signs that you’re about to go into labor? Aside from the obvious ones like breaking waters and mucus plugs (I just threw up a little).

For now, I’m just going to focus on all the things that I’m going to be able to enjoy once this pup is out of me (feel free to bring any and all of these things to the hospital):

• Wine, IPAs, Gin & Tonics, and all the other wonderful alcohols I’ve been without for 9 months.
• SUSHI. OMG sushi. My favorite sushi place closed down while I was pregnant. It’s probably because I wasn’t able to support them financially.
• FISH. Fish in general. I’ve been avoiding it for the last 9 months. I finally had a pistachio-encrusted white fish for my 1-year anniversary with Mike.
• Lunch meat. Cold, cold lunch meat! How does one miss such a simple pleasure? I think I miss the convenience more than anything.
• Drinking coffee in MASS amounts. This one cup a day crap isn’t working for me.
• DIET PEPSI ALL DAY.

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OMG I forgot to tell you that we hit our 1-year Wedding Anniversary!  Mike was super wonderful and took me on a date to Sweet Melissa in Rocky River and then to get Mitchell’s ice cream. And he played me a CD that he made for our baby, made up mostly of the concerts we went to while I was pregnant:  American Aquarium, Pete Yorn, Punch Brothers, Turnpike Troubadours, etc.). How cute is he?  If you said, “suh cyuht,” you are correct.

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Other things that I look forward to:

• NOT having to pee 14 times a night.
• NOT having to drink 300 glasses of water a day.
• Being able to get off the couch without rolling or calling for Mike.
• Walking and running and generally being able to MOVE freely.
• Carrying my own heavy shit to my car.
• Being able to zip my jackets.
• No more doctor visits!
• Stomach sleeping.
• Cleaning with strong chemicals. 😀
• Cuddling our baby.
• Taking the first day off of work I’ve had since December 2013.

Alright Nugget, you may come out now.

 

A Nugget Update

A quick nugget update!

We’re 2 weeks from the due date. According to the doctor, stuff is moving along and I may not make it that long.

I will not get into specifics, but there will be pictures once the lil bugger gets here. 🙂

 

That’s Trashy…

Occasionally (read:  often), I see things that just make me say, “That’s trashy.” And today, I thought, “Yes–this is the perfect thing to post on my blog! People love when trashiness is called out!”

But then I realized that everything I have on my list is something I’ve seen people do in real life or on my social media sites…and that I’d be calling out my friends and people who know me.  I’m trying not to be a TOTAL biatch, AND I don’t think calling people trashy in my head would be nearly as fun if the people knew I was thinking it.

So there will be no list. But chances are I’ve thought something you’ve done/said/worn has been trashy at some point in time.  If it makes you feel any better, I am trashy sometimes, too. After all, I have a tramp stamp that says, “ROCKSTAR.” Not sure how much trashier it could get. 😉

Have a trashy weekend!

 

My Final Splurge – I’m Officially Cut Off

…my baby will be here in less than 75 days (God willing).

Know how I know I’m going to be a mom? I felt super guilty for going on one last splurge. SUPER guilty. I currently feel guilty. I’m currently considering canceling the order. I’m currently considering sending it back as soon as it gets here.

Last week, I started trying to sell two Michael Kors bags that I bought at one point in time. I liked the bags a lot. I loved them for awhile. 🙂 But I started to see them everywhere. Then, if you’ll remember, I switched to Frye purses.  I haven’t gone back since.

I pinned a Frye bag to my Pinterest board two weeks ago only to realize that I had pinned the exactly same bag 31 weeks ago.  Which can only mean that I TRULY wanted this bag.

Frye Elaine Satchel in Whiskey

I started campaigning to Mike, my husband, to let me get the bag. He quickly shut me down and told me we had a baby coming and that it was an inordinate amount of money to spend on a damn purse. And he was right.  So I started scheming…how could I get it? 

Simple – sell my other purses that I don’t use anymore. And I did! I sold two Michael Kors purses on Facebook and with the Maine fund that Mike said I could use (a piggy bank full of pennies that Mike and I have been saving to go to Maine…and that we also realize is never actually going to get us to Maine), I got the purse down to a reasonable price and placed the order today!  

And immediately started feeling guilt and regret and like I’m a horrible Mom…which I might be. 

Here’s my sacred vow, blogosphere:  I’m done splurging on myself. This was it.  I promise.

Now onto diapers and pacifiers!

 

A Tattoo – Live for Cory

Hi everyone. Sorry I’ve been so quiet lately.  A lot has been going on.

I’m sure that some of you have heard about my cousin, Cory Barron. I don’t have the heart to recap it all here. What I DO need is your help in deciding which tattoo I should get to honor him and to remind myself to live for him, like him, and in a way that would make him proud (don’t worry–I’ll wait until the baby is born).

I’m putting this off to the side on my right wrist. It’ll be less than the size of a quarter. So here are the options with a poll below:

A:

B:
(in black)

C:

 

Thank You, “Weird Al” Yankovic, For Your Lesson In Grammar

Mike said to me today, “You’re getting a little snippier every day since you’ve been pregnant.”

I said, “I don’t know if it’s me being snippy. I just feel less willing to tolerate people’s idiocy.”

Remember Crank-Ass Erica? I guess she’s still here.  With that said, this country’s decline in grammar/punctuation/speaking/writing skills is truly disheartening to me, and I wonder where we’ll be in 10, even 5 years. Frankly, it horrifies me.

Will we all be vegetables with smart phones in our hands relying on squiggly red underlines to tell us that we’re idiots–and then will we simply ignore those squiggly red lines and use single letters to denote actual words? I fear the answer is yes.

I’m currently rereading Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice, and I find myself enamored with the language and the grand language of each of the characters. Though the Bennets are not of the highest society, they still sound refined.  Hell, Elizabeth is witty enough to keep up her banter with Darcy–and that is a task in itself.

When I was in elementary school, I became insanely jealous of Jillian Rhoad (anyone know where she is?) when she showed up with “Weird Al” Yankovic’s “Bad Hair Day.” I wanted it. I wanted all the songs on it. I thought it was clever and wonderful, and truth be told, it made me want an accordion. “Weird Al” has been kind of MIA of late, but in the past two days, I’ve read about two of his songs:  “Tacky” – the “Happy” parody and “Word Crimes” – the “Blurred Lines” parody, which is directly below this word.

At first, I was just thrilled that “Weird Al” was back. I f*cking love this guy.

But most importantly, I was hit with the very stark realization that when a guy named “Weird Al” has to step in to tell all the people on the Internet that they sound like morons, the world should take it as a sign that it’s time to start improving the way we speak and write. As a country and as a species, our communication skills truthfully make us look like a bunch of uncouth, barbaric slobs.

So I posted this on Facebook earlier, and now I’m putting the call to improve on my blog.

Let’s get better, America!

 

Selective Perfunctoriness

Let’s be honest. Lately, Erica = Crabass.

I don’t mean to do it. Well, sometimes I do. But I’ve discovered a few things from my new friend Ana (NOTE: It’s been more than a few things that I’ve learned from her.  This includes, but is not limited to:  Mercury Retrograde, happy essential oils, charting, Patrick Stewart, DragonCon, making costumes out of 90s platform boots, tequila, Mexican food, 100 calorie Skinny Cow Truffle Bars, etc.).

The most important thing that I’ve learned from Ana, however, is perfunctoriness. Yes, y’all, it is a word–perhaps my new favorite word. you probably know what it means and don’t even realize it.

Perfunctoriness = Apathy, which ultimately = MEH.

In order to be happy, we have to surrender our ability to care about certain things beyond our control. Here are a few things that I am attempting to be perfunctory about:

• People’s grammar/spelling/punctuation on social media. I give up; almost everyone is a moron and luckily, thanks to my new perfunctory way of life, it does not affect me in any way.
• People’s inability to do anything to help themselves. Perfunctory Erica says, “If you don’t want to help yourself, I’m no longer going to try to help you, either.”
• Skinny jeans.
• People’s whining about things that they probably shouldn’t be bitching about.  Bitch on, friends. You can’t touch me up here on my cloud of perfunctoriness.
• Terrible music.
• People in stations of power who do not deserve to be in power are no longer my concern.
• The weather.
• People’s inability to read whether or not I care about what they’re talking about. Let ’em talk. I’m thinking about pickles.
• Bad decisions made by others that do not affect me.
• And a preemptive one:  People who have anything to say about how Mike and I will raise our nuggets. Trust in my perfunctoriness now and glorious children will be revealed.

This, of course, is a starter list. I assume that my perfunctory sense of being will prevail in even more areas of my life as I grow older and more pregnant.

I must note, however, that I am choosing to be selectively perfunctory. I do care about some things, like Mike, my family, my baby, stuff that directly affects me. I’ll just keep the caring to that stuff. 🙂