Awkwardly Social

Seth started work unexpectedly last week and we have been scrambling to find babysitters for Moses.  Some regulars, some newbies, all of my senses are on high alert.  Freelance life is stressful with a kid.  I knew this.  I know this.  We’re trying to flow with it.

We can’t afford a nanny or daycare full time if we’re not both working.  We don’t always know when we’ll be working.

It’s weird, with Seth not at home with Moe, I miss him even more, even though I’m gone the same amount of hours.

Moe seems to be fine with all of the changes.  His schedule is pretty much set now, so I think that helps?  He doesn’t cry when I leave, so at least there’s that, right?

I get sad every month when I’m not pregnant again.  That is counter-intuitive.  If we can barely afford one baby, I’m not sure how we’re going to afford two, and yet…  I have this emotional response every month.  I think I’m a little traumatized from infertility.

We’re trying to plan a trip to Europe in the fall.  See above for all issues money and work related.  How can we plan a trip if we don’t know when we’re working?  Showbizness.  Also, Moe will be a little over a year, trapped in a tube, with no exit.  That sounds scary.

Seth, out of the blue, with absolutely no prodding from me, said last night that we’ll take Moe to Disneyland once he starts walking.  I was like, “SERIOUSLY?!” And commenced teaching Moe to walk in earnest.  He still has not taken a step.  But this adorable video will melt your heart.  (It’s sort of how I walk when I’m drunk, so we have that in common!)

After my mother in law died things began to move very quickly to get her house sold and all 45 years of her and her husband’s belongings out of the 4000 square foot home.  It was awful.  My eyelashes are falling out.

Before the house went on the market it had a cash offer from a couple who wanted to restore the home and not tear it down.  We didn’t believe them, but Seth and his sister countered and they accepted the offer.  It was shown 4 more times and got two more offers.  The same day.  The real estate market in Beverly Hills is intense.  The couple officially has possession of the home now.  I hope they like it.  I know my in laws were very proud of it.  I cried yesterday when I said goodbye to it.

Seth has spent the last month getting art to auction houses - some of which are overseas - consigning art to galleries, and splitting up art with his sister.  The house was basically wall to wall art.  His father was a collector.  We still have more art to deal with.  I am fucking sick of art.

There was also the matter of valuable antique furniture.  Most of which is at auction now, some of the less valuable pieces were sold elsewhere.  I insisted we take the not-valuable wing back chairs.  And now our house is filled with tables.  We have a table infestation.

The amount of stress selling a house and dividing its contents with a family member brings is incredible.  When we cleaned my mother’s apartment out we did it so quickly and it was so small that it was like ripping off a little bandaid, this was like surgically adding a bandaid and then cutting it off your skin tiny piece by tiny piece. I have no idea how Seth is not snapping my head off with stress anger every minute but there were definitely mini-fights brought on by cleaning out the house stress.  It’s a good way to test a marriage.

The amount of relief I have that I don’t have to talk about where to put a table or if I want a lamp or another duck or this thing or that book or this cup is incredible.  For the record, in addition to a table infestation, we are also lousy with ducks.  I think I just lost another eyelash.

We are spending the weekend in a fancy hotel, because we need to have room service and pool side service and I need a massage.  Seth probably needs one to, but he hates them, so I’m getting his.

My mother in law passed away yesterday afternoon.  We all had time to say goodbye, but by the time I said it, she was heavily sedated and her breathing was so labored it hurt to watch. She didn’t know I was there, or maybe she did.  I don’t know.  We knew this was coming - an 84 year old woman who smoked unfiltered cigarettes until her brother died of lung cancer and then switched to filters until she quit 30 years ago has weak lungs, mix it with the flu and well… I still thought she was going to beat this.  She had beaten everything else.  She was too stubborn to die, I thought.

She was a tough woman who rarely showed her softer side, but with Moses she lit up and melted.  I’m sad that she’s not going to see him grow up, and I’m sad that Moe doesn’t have any grandmas and that Seth doesn’t have any parents and that everyone dies eventually.

Death is unfair even when it lets you know it’s coming.

Goodbye, Gita.  We’ll lock the gate.

Holly does a monthly review of her goals, and it’s always inspiring to me, so here I am, trying to make 2013 a year of getting things done.This month I started a chore chart of sorts as a way to get me motivated to follow a plan of attack on my life.  It showed me some very interesting patterns.  One, that cooking is still not a priority, even though I think that as Moe gets older I’d like him to have meals around the dinner table, and it’s never too early to start an evening routine, it’s been too hard with work and weekend plans to make this happen.  My job ends mid-February, so maybe I’ll have the time then?  I’m not too worried about it yet.  Two, that the practice of blogging is really fun and I missed it.  I made an effort to write stuff down here and I’m so glad I did.  Having an online journal is one of those things many people still think is weird, but if I just kept a paper journal it would be all about my anxiety and stress and how I’m not losing weight.  If I have to show people what I’ve written, it definitely makes me dig deeper.

So, the year long resolutions, if you care to revisit, were these:

Get back to my pre-infertility treatments weight. - I started Weight Watchers before Christmas and it was going really well there until work stress and home stress started to give me an excuse to eat all the things.  I hope to get back to being more aware of the 20 Hershey’s kisses that magically just disappeared into my face hole.  It’s a process!

Make time for me and Seth. - Yes and no.  I try to stay up with him while he putters around the kitchen so we can talk about our day, but my back has been bothering me, and most nights I just want to get into bed and relax.  So, this is another thing I’ll be working on with more steam in February.

Start running again, even if I can only find time for it once a month. - Big yes!  I mean, I only ran twice this month, but that’s two times more than I ran last month.

Use my new sewing machine - Not yet.  But Mood fabrics just opened a couple of blocks away from my house and I can’t wait to go explore.

Carve out time to work on my own writing - Barely.  I wrote a couple of times this month on non-work related projects, but I hope February will get me going even more.

Don’t buy anymore books. - I didn’t buy a single one!

Figure out how to get Moe back into his own bed. - We did it!  We did Ferber sleep training and it’s still tough some nights, but last night he slept through until 6am.  I, on the other hand, woke up every two hours wondering if he was going to wake up.

Get a family photo of the three of us. - We got one at the beach of the three of us, but Seth’s head is cut off, and it’s not exactly what I was hoping for.  My sister gave me a tripod for my birthday, so I’m hopeful this will be taken care of very soon!

So, for February.

1. More personal writing.

2. More exercising

3. More fruits and vegetables

4. More Seth and Tamara time

5. More sewing

Moses slept through the night (with one wake-up to eat, yes, I’m still doing that), and we got up and hung out until around 10am when I got increasingly bitter and angry that Seth wasn’t up yet.  (He worked until 6am.)

Then Seth and I got into a fight because I’m a big baby and need everything to be about me.

Then I cried.  (It wouldn’t be my birthday without some tears.)

Then we drove to Santa Barbara and went to the zoo.  (Seth loves this zoo.  I am not so sure about it.  The enclosures were all so small, and the giraffes seemed on edge and I have mixed feelings about zoos anyway.) Moe loved it.  Or, at least, did not flip out the whole time and seemed to be pretty interested in the animals.

Then we went to our favorite restaurant in Santa Barbara, The Paradise Cafe, and I had pasta and pie and we drove home.

It was great.

Except for the fighting.  That I could have done without.

Last night I was in the back of the house playing with Moe while Seth was at the grocery store when I heard a blood curdling scream and a woman yell, “Oh my God, no! Someone please help me!”

At first I thought it was a television.  But it was so realistic and there was no music after.  That is my tip off that something is real, no music.

I grabbed Moe but thought, “Wait, if there is a gun out there, or someone is dead, I don’t want Moe to see it, but I can’t just leave him back here alone because if there is a gunman on the loose what if they come through the dog door.”  So I grabbed Moe walked quickly up to the front door and peeked through our peep door.  (We don’t have a peep hole we have a little door that you have to open and I’m always nervous when I open it half expecting someone with a gun to just shoot me in the face.) The woman was now shrieking, “Oh my god, why?  My baby!  The baby!”  And I instantly went from gun to car accident.  People on our street drive too fast.  It’s a very pedestrian oriented neighborhood, lots of temples and people walking to and from them in dark clothes and sometimes they just hang out in the middle of the street talking.  It makes me crazy.

I opened the door and saw Fred, our neighbor across the street and another man, talking to a woman standing on the sidewalk and everyone was looking down.  The man I don’t know was on the phone with 911.  Our other neighbor Carol, a 96 year old woman, had fallen.  She fell and hit her head on the curb.  She was unconscious and her caretaker was somehow involved in the fall, and had her young daughter in the car.  It was all very confusing, but I breathed a sigh of relief that it wasn’t a gun and it wasn’t a dead baby in the middle of the street.  It was poor Carol.

I got a queasy feeling in my stomach.  My mom’s name was Carol.  Moses’ middle is Carol.  I, for a split second, wondered if I should change Moe’s middle name because the name Carol was somehow cursed.  This is obviously ridiculous, because how could a 96 year old woman falling be somehow a sign of a cursed name?

Anyway, I know a name can’t be cursed and I hope neighbor lady Carol is OK.  But why couldn’t her name be like, Sylvia or Ethel, Judy, anything?

1. It seems a person can either “diet” (meaning, not shove baker’s chocolate into mouth hole willy nilly and eat all of the Wheat Thins and have a glass of wine with a big plate of pasta) or sleep train a baby.  You* cannot do both.

2. I not only ate the above things while listening to my baby cry on and off at 10 minute intervals until 10:50PM, but then, THEN! I went ahead and just gave up and brought him into bed.  Therefore not dieting and not sleep training all at once!  I am weak!

Which brings me to 3. Ever since mid to late pregnancy and (I’m guessing) also because of my c section, I can’t get up off the floor without considerable struggle.  Meaning if I’m on the floor with Moe (which is becoming more and more common) I have to put him down, then get up awkwardly, then lean over and pick him up.  Which, yes, there are way bigger problems in my life to worry about, but goddamnit, I used to be a champion floor getter upper.  So I ask you, twitter, what exercise will help return me to my floor getting off of glory? (Squats? Lunges? Abs? WHAT?!)

*You=I

A co-worker said this morning basically everyone’s resolutions should be, “Get your shit together.”

In lieu of just having that be my resolution here are a couple more things I thought of.

1. Don’t buy anymore books.  Read what’s on the shelf or check them out from the library.  We’ve got serious overflow going on and my kindle has several I haven’t even cracked.

2.  Figure out how to get Moe back into his own bed.  (Even though I like the snuggling, it is killing my sleep.  And every morning Seth wakes up saying, “He slept well last night!” And I want to stab him in the face, because WHY DOESN’T HE WAKE UP WHEN MOE IS FUSSING?!)

3.  Get a family photo of the three of us.  Even if it’s me setting up a tripod myself.

I reserve the right to say fuck it to all of these.

1. Get back to my pre-infertility treatments weight.

2. Make time for me and Seth.

3. Start running again, even if I can only find time for it once a month.

4.  Use my new sewing machine

5. Carve out time to work on my own writing

That’s it. That’s all I think I can handle.

Once again, I’ve yanked Sundry’s recap meme, even though it appears she’s retired the tradition. My old recaps are here - 2010, 2011

1. What did you do in 2012 that you’d never done before?

I had a baby and produced a feature.

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

Last year I said I would just wing it, and I think that pretty much sums up the year.  Having a baby kind of made any sort of resolution seem a little dumb.  This year, I have a few things I’d like to try to do.  Let’s see if I ever get around to writing that post!

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

Dragon babies! My real life friends, Cats and Waller, had a baby girl who is a champion among babies.  Shout out to my internet friends who in the darkest hours of my early post partum breast feeding days were there on twitter helping me see the humor. And who are there still.  The internet just made me cry! Hormones!

4. Did anyone close to you die?

My first Hollywood boss and mentor died.  This question doesn’t get any easier every year that goes by.

5. What countries did you visit?

Well, our Germany trip ended on January 2nd, so I guess, yes, Germany.  I visited Germany.

6. What would you like to have in 2013 that you lacked in 2012?

Sex.  Lots and lots of sex.

7. What dates from 2012 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

July 8th - my official due date.  And July 10th, the day Moses was born.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

Producing a movie while 7 months pregnant!

9. What was your biggest failure?

Not being honest with myself after Moe was born about being able to continue producing at the level I was before his birth and letting down my producing partner.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

I think I had a little PTSD after Moe’s traumatic birth. And the birth itself was pretty injurious.  Other than that, I’ve been pretty damned healthy.

11. What was the best thing you bought?

I just sat here for 20 minutes going, “What was that thing? You know, that thingy thing?” And yeah, THE BABY ate my brain.  I think the upgrade to first class on my trip to Seattle will have to be it.  I cannot remember anything else that wasn’t baby related.

12. Where did most of your money go?

Hey, babies are expensive! I had heard this, but now I have confirmed it for myself.

13. What did you get really excited about?

This little baby named Moses.

14. What song will always remind you of 2012?

My mind is blank again.  All I can think of is Danny’s Song by Loggins and Messina.  Not very 2012-y.

15. Compared to this time last year, are you:?

– happier or sadder? Happier!

– thinner or fatter?  Fat fat the water rat! Fatter!

– richer or poorer? hmmm… I think the same, surprisingly.

16. What do you wish you’d done more of?

Watching what I was eating while I was pregnant.  This 20 pounds is kind of stuck here at the moment, and that doesn’t count the 15 I gained during fertility treatments.

17. What do you wish you’d done less of?

Being mean to Seth.

18. How did you spend Christmas?

Christmas Eve I cooked a big dinner for Seth’s kids (Swedish meatballs, mashed potatoes, mac and cheese, and roasted vegetables). Christmas morning we opened presents at our house and then went to Seth’s mom’s and opened more presents.

19. What was your favorite TV program?

I fell in love with The New Girl and The Mindy Project and fell back in love with The Walking Dead.  I think Parenthood really upped its game again and I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention The Olympics.  They got me through some dark, lonely parenting days while Seth was working and I was learning how to be a mom.

20. What were your favorite books of the year?

I loved The Happiness Project and Happier at Home by Gretchen Rubin, Cinder by Marissa Meyer, You Take it From Here by Pamela Ribon, The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss, In the Woods by Tana French, Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore, and my friend Jennifer Quintenz’s book, Thrall.

21. What was your favorite music this year?

Hmm.  I listened to a lot of KDAY, which for those of you who don’t live in LA is “old school” hip hop and rap. I put old school in quotes because stuff I listened to in grad school shouldn’t be considered old school.

22. What were your favorite films of the year?

Again, I’m drawing a blank.  Magic Mike?  Was that this year?

23. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

I turned 36 and I remembered very little of it until I re-read my birthday entry.

24. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

This was a pretty satisfying year, but having my mom here to meet Moe would have been nice.

25. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2012?

Maternity and fat pants.

26. What kept you sane?

Brownie mugs.  Lots and lots of brownie mugs.

27. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2012.

People try to downplay the trauma of a bad birth experience, but to me that minimizes the mother’s importance in the equation and I’ve learned that people really don’t understand how much it affects the woman and that is pretty fucked up. That is not really a lesson.  Here’s a lesson - Breastfeeding is really fucking hard for some people and NO ONE WARNED ME.