Thinking about a cat whilst drunk on NYE.

It's December 31st. I am sitting on my couch at 10:36 pm, sufficiently inebriated. The baby (toddler) is sleeping. My husband (still not totally used to that word) is sleeping, and has been since before 8:30. I am watching times square on abc. It's weird, I feel old. It's been a year, for sure. I got married. My daughter turned one. My sister had brain surgery. Trever's dear uncle passed away. Lots of feelings. Lots of adjusting. We are all just doing the best we can, I'm sure of that.

(this country music is fucking terrrrrrible)

But what is prompting me to type tonight is Kiki. She is sitting next at this moment, seemingly happy, but there has been considerable meowing recently. She's always been loud and talkative (my AIM name was/is kikimeowstoomuch) but lately I feel like she is yelling at me. She wakes Hazel up during the day. At night, it's incessant. Sometimes she sneaks up behind me. Sometimes she stares at the cat pan. Maybe her kidneys are starting to fail? That's common in felines at a certain age. She is 17. Let's face it: she is not going to live forever. I know this. I've done this before.

But tonight, she's driving me crazy with meowing. I clench my jaw. I pet her forcefully. Just please, shut up, stop meowing at the top of your lungs for ten minutes straight (right now she is all fluffy belly exposed, front paws tucked, purring so loud) because I don't know if you are in pain or you are just being a demanding queen, and you will meow either way.

And now that she's quiet and purring (and Trever is standing here in his long johns commenting on the NYE program) I just want to press pause. Look at her pretty face and stare into her eyes. AND JUST AS I TYPED THAT, THE MONITOR GOES OFF and Hazel is making sounds.

SO I'm going to eat a popsicle. And love my family.

Happy New Years. 

I had genuine happy feelings tonight.

Let's be real here. I'm a negative pessimist. Misanthropic. I keep a few close. The rest are people that exist in the ether. If we lived near each other, maybe we'd hang out. Hopefully. I'm not that great at keeping up with relationships in general. I get lazy with my friendships and then.. Well. The ones that stick, you know they count. Anyways.  The point is not about that. It's about tonight.

We took Hazel to the Edaville Railroad. It was magic. So many christmas lights. I loved it. I cried happy tears at the lights. I felt feelings that I couldn't control. It was awesome.

It's not that I don't feel things. But I'm a cold New Englander. I keep my feelings close. I keep my walls up. I'm loving in a practical way. I'll make sure you've got clean socks and a warm dinner. I'll make you a sandwich. I'm not mushy... maybe as a girl I was, but not as a lady. Not as a mother.

It catches me, though. Nostalgia is powerful. Add Christmas, and forget it. I can't control that shit. We pulled into the parking lot, and I saw all the lights, and I was done. Warm goo. Mush and heart eyes and fucking twinkly stars. All of it. We rode that slow train around in a loop and it was just magic. Hazel loved it. The whole thing. She walked around, smiled, pointed, wowweed. We took her to the gift shop and bought her some presents from Santa. We took her in the candy store and bought treats (for the car ride home, for mom & dad). We took goofy pictures.

It was all so good. So so good. I was overwhelmed by love and magic and feeling so fucking lucky that we were able to do this tonight. That we can create this cool memories for our daughter. To give her the warm feelings now that will make her nostalgic as an adult.

It's nice to feel those feelings. To feel so happy that I can't keep it at a distant from myself. I'm thankful.

Lots of cliches about time passing

I won't write them, but please know that I am feeling them.

My family is going through some big things right now that I don't feel like I can share publicly, as they are not happening directly to me, but certainly they impact my life, so hence the vagueness. If you, stranger on the internet, are reading this, please shoot good vibes through the ether or say a couple prayers for us, if that's your thing.

Currently, on this monday afternoon, I am listening to my baby cry & cough through her afternoon nap. First bad cold and this is just no fun. Ugh. It would be much easier if I didn't have this shitty mom elbow and a sore throat myself. Every time Hazel wails, Kiki howls. WHY?

I would love a night off..
but I will settle for a microwaved cup of coffee and a grocery store cookie before I go back in and rock my miserable baby back to sleep.

UPDATE: There are actually no cookies left. Trever finished them. ALL I WANTED WAS A COOKIE, MAN.

Wow.

My baby is eight month olds now. She is big. She is funny. She wears sunglasses outside. She eats cheese. So many things. It's amazing to watch her grow and change each day. Her little brain is processing so much. I wonder how she will be when she is one, two, eight, twelve, but at that same time, I wish she was still that tiny little bundle that slept on me. Being a parent is the weirdest thing I have ever done. I feel every feeling all the time. I am the same person I was but I am totally different. I am lonely often but I want to be alone alone which I never am. I want to be more than just a mom but right now all I want is to be a mom. Walking contradiction, always and forever. 

Kiki is seeming older and older each day, too. My poor kitty has tender hips. We have stairs for her to get on the couch and onto the bed. She has a food bowl in each room so she doesn't need to go far if she doesn't feel like it. Her food was discontinued (Canyon River Creek, WHY?) so we've been sampling various foods, trying to find the ones she will eat with her arthritis pills mixed in. Her meowing is out of control, she is SO LOUD. It's so frustrating sometimes, when it's 3 am, or when she manages to wake up Hazel just as she finally goes down for a nap, but I have to remind myself that my beautiful loud cat will not live forever and I need to appreciate every moment with her that I have left. She is seventeen years old now. SEVENTEEN. She has been with through every important moment of my adult life. No cats will ever mean as much to as Kiki and Roo (I miss you, every day, sweet girl), no chance. And of course, there will be other cats in my life, I am sure of that, but these girls have meant the world to me, have been my best friends and confidants, my pillows, my blankets, my babies. So I will do whatever I can to make Kiki's twilight years as comfortable as possible. Great. Now I am crying. 

The first Christmas.

Our holidays involved driving. A lot of it. And a lot of people, all up in Hazel's face, telling her how cute she is. And she is, it's true, but baby girl does NOT care for people to invade her personal space, nor does she care for cutesy loud voices, and quite frankly, older women scare her.  So with that, add in the following things:

-Barking Dogs
-No naps
-a few LOUD family members
-TEETHING (top front teeth)
-A cold (for her, for Trever, and now for me)

And you get a hectic five days of chaos and crying. That's right, FIVE days. Next year, that ain't happening, no sir, sorry family. I'm not sure how it is that we are expected to drive all over, but I think it may have something to do with the fact that we live in apartment and not a house, and the people with houses have more space? but also dogs. And it's not that I hate dogs, but I don't really like dogs, especially when they bark and jump and smell.  I don't want everyone to come over here, either. But perhaps we can combine visits a little better next year so that we aren't driving down to the south shore three days in a row.

As far as gift giving, we gave out magnets of our little goon's face. They were a hit. We didn't have much money to do things for people, and really, no one NEEDS anything. So the only actually presents that we gave were to the kids (there are two aside from Hazel) and a little photo album to Trever's grandmother. I wish people didn't give us gifts. I know that sounds ungrateful, but we just don't have the space for more knick knacks or things to hang on the wall, and also, I like to pick that stuff. It's my space, you know? I don't want my surroundings to be based on feelings of guilt over gifts. Does that make sense? I get it, it's nice to give gifts, but I feel terrible creating a donation pile right after Christmas. I would much rather people just keep their money, or give us $10 to put in the bank for Hazel, instead of buying her terrible clothes made of fabric that I don't like touching. It's not like I can tell people this, either. I can tell my mom, and I HAVE told my mom, but clearly it hasn't sunk in.

I swear, my family is TRYING to make me a hoarder, like they all basically are.  IT IS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN, PEOPLE.

Other stuff happened that was also dramatic/traumatic over the past couple weeks that I won't get into, but everything seems to be calming down a bit, for which I am thankful. We have big plans for New Years, to stay home and play Monopoly, and I couldn't be happier. I love my little family and I can't imagine ringing in the start of 2014 with anyone else.

Some Lists (I hate lists.)

Things Hazel is working on:

Sitting without toppling over
Napping on a schedule
Going to sleep without my nipple in her mouth
High Fives
Drinking from a cup
Drinking from a bottle
(Clearly she has a nipple dependency. MY nipple... which she is now biting. OW.)

Things Kiki is working:

Eating
Sleeping
Trying to get that hairball out
Getting more attention than Hazel

Things I should be working on but I'm not, really:

Organizing all the tiny clothes which are overtaking our apartment
Figuring out a "holiday" photo (why does this annoy me so much?)
Our Christmas Stockings, which I am hand-sewing because I am an asshole
Etsy Shop update
Some sort of exercise routine

Things I have managed to accomplish this week:

Ate a lot of oatmeal
Kept up on diaper laundry (but no other laundry)
Paid bills, paid overdue parking tickets (we suck)
Ordered new carseat for giant baby
Kept my baby & my old lady cat alive and mostly happy for another week
Showered three times
Bought moccasins (FOR HAZEL, NOT FOR ME.)

Super exciting, I tell you. Life is a carnival.

Last night I had a dream that I was on this big wooden raft with my mother, my sister, my brother-in-law, and Trever. We were in the middle of a body of water, hanging out I guess, for fun. Maybe the ocean, a choppy bay, with water that was clear on the surface for a foot until it got dark. Hazel wasn't with us, but we had the baby monitor. My mother went out on a float, and had the monitor, and dropped it in the water. I panicked at first but then I remember we have baby monitor apps on our iphones (which wouldn't have mattered in real life, since we would have had to set up one phone with her for it to work, but hey, it's a dream). Then my sister & brother-in-law decided to jump off the raft together, thus shifting the balance of the raft, so that both of their phones fell off into the water. I went to grab my phone, lost my grip, and somehow dropped it. Into the water. I scrambled to grab it but I was too slow. I watched it sink. My mom still had her flip phone. Trever still had his android. But these things were useless to me and I felt so helpless.

THIS DREAM IS SO IMPORTANT AND GROSS TO ME. Clearly it's a message about my phone and how attached I am to it.

Escapes.

One thing I like to do when I need a break is to go on craigslist and look up other places to live. Sometimes, it brings me down. Way way down. Cost of living is just so damn expensive here, and it can be incredibly frustrating to see how much more we could get for our money in a different state, or even just a different part of this state. Of course, who knows how much money we would actually have if we moved elsewhere. It's all about connections and networking and putting yourself out there when you are self-employed as Trever is, but also, carpenters can really work anywhere when you think about it. So this morning, with both babies snoozing, I went on and perused the listings in Maine. I will never leave New England, I can almost 100% guarantee that, and while I sometimes daydream about living in Vermont, I think Maine is really the place I want to be. Having spent time there every summer since I was 7, it just feels like a second home to me. We have friends in Portland. It's not completely out of our reach, to relocate there at some point. Not NOW, but maybe in a couple years, why not?

There are so many cute single family homes for rent. With porches and BACKYARDS. Some even have scenic views. If we went further up coast, we could get even more for our money. Farmhouses, or a dock. I even found an A-FRAME for rent! AN A-FRAME, people! Gahhhhh.

Don't get me wrong. I love living in Massachusetts for many, many reasons. And I think if we had a backyard, I'd probably be less inclined to want to move. I don't need to be in a house, just us. I grew up in a duplex, in a neighborhood with lots of other duplexes, and it was great. BUT we did have a backyard. It didn't have much grass, and it wasn't very big, but it was away from the street and I had a swing set and sandbox. I want these things for my little girl, and I hope it's something we can provide for her sooner than later.

Anyways. Today, instead of bringing me down, it's got me motivated to get our life on track so that in a few years, we can have the space we want/need. And until then, we will make due with our nice cozy apartment that is luckily within walking distant to a playground.

I hear a baby blabbering now, so I guess that's all I've got.

It's weird.

Watching a human grow and change, it's so weird. Hazel's first tooth is starting to poke through. I can feel it. It's sharp. I keep wanting to touch it, and since she likes to chew on my finger, this works out for the both of us. So far, she is handling it pretty well. A little fussy, very drool-y, and not taking naps very well (she doesn't do that anyways) but overall, she is managing. We, the parents, are a different story. OUR BABY HAS A TOOTH. HER GUMMY TOOTHLESS GRIN WILL BE GONE. HOW IS TIME MOVING SO FAST? It makes my head spin. Soon she will be one, then five, then ten, then in high school. Blah blah blah, oh to be a parent.

There's always a lot to do, not enough time, not enough coffee, not enough sleep, but man. Seeing our little girl's big emoji smile and hearing her squeal makes everything 100% worth it (which you will ALWAYS get if you just chant HAZEL HAZEL HAZEL).

real quick.

Even though I rarely update this nowadays, I decided to change the name of this blog to reflect my current situation. I feel sad now that I did it, taking the picture down and replacing it with one of Kiki and Hazel... but we have that picture of Kiki and Roo hanging over our dresser and I look at it many times a day, so I guess it doesn't need to be here, too.

So if you see this, now you know.

I've been busy.

Babies are time consuming. I can certainly see the appeal of going back to work and dropping the tot off at daycare. That's not in the cards for us right now, for a variety of reasons, so I am attempting to be a SAHM. So weird. I don't know that I am cut out for it, really, but I am trying hard.

Hazel is almost five months old. She is starting to sit for longer periods of time. She babbles A LOT. She sleeps through the night in her crib. She does not enjoy tummy time, she does not take naps, and she does not like bottles. She's into Led Zeppelin, Devo, The Cars, and Weird Al, but Tame Impala's newest album seems to be her favorite. And On Top of Spaghetti, sung by me.

Kiki now sleeps under the crib, or in the corner of Hazel's room where we had been working on tummy time (we've since migrated to the living room after a re-arrangement of furniture left us with more space) and is generally grumpy. She is warming up nicely to Hazel, though. She sits near her, will let Hazel grab handfuls of fur and not run away, and will rub up against her play gym. However, she meows more than ever. And louder than ever. It's brutal, honestly. I am a person that really appreciates silence, and it's something I don't have anymore. If Hazel is crying, Kiki is meowing. If Hazel is sleeping and I am enjoying a moment of peace, Kiki is meowing. If I get up to pee at 3 am, there she is, meowing. She is clearly asking for more attention, and I swear I am giving her as much as I can, but nothing is enough. Poor kitty.
I TRYING KIKI, I SWEAR.

Anyways. I've got nothing else to say. My days are a blur, and I now understand about days moving slow but time moving fast.

Thoughts, complaints, etc....

It's hot. I know, it's summer and I live in New England, but damn. These heat waves and the constant humidity suck. We have air conditioners, thankfully, but electricity isn't free. Plus I would like to go outside and get my baby in the fresh air, but the air is so not fresh. It's just gross, like walking into someone's armpit.

Money is tight these days and I am really feeling it. Not working and spending my days with my baby is nice, but the nagging feeling in the back in my head is moving to the front. I need to get Hazel on a nap schedule that doesn't involve only sleeping ON me, because I can't do much when I am acting as her bed. I have so much to list in my long neglected etsy shop, and it would be great to actually sell all the beautiful clothes that are taking up all of our closet space. We desperately need to have a yard sale, too. Our garage is packed with stuff, so much that we can't put the car in it. Our neighbor had one a couple weeks ago, barely advertised, and made $200 in just a few hours, so we really should get our asses in gear and DO IT.

I guess I am still having a hard time getting things done other than taking care of my baby, but my brain is ready to do more.

In baby news, our little girl hit six weeks on Sunday. She has started smiling A LOT. She hasn't laughed yet, but she is SO CLOSE. I think te first thing she will laugh at will be my hair. For some reason, she is very entertained by my hair. Perhaps because it looks like shit? Our very nice friends who have a one year old came to visit last weekend, and they brought me a gift card for a haircut at a nice salon. I can not wait to have a proper haircut! I don't remember the last time I went to a salon. Three years ago? Maybe. Anyways, back to the baby.

She is SO long. With her cloth diapers on, she can already fit into some 3-6 months onesies. They are a little baggy up top, but the ones that fit up top have to be stretched to get over her diapers. It's amazing how much she is changing. She holds her head up pretty well already. She does not enjoy tummy time. She prefers my right boob over my left. She took bottles two days in a row but is now not interested. As much as I would like her to take them, no problem, so that I can go get that haircut or have a couple of cocktails, I did feel a little pain in my heart when she took the bottle. MY BABY DOESN'T NEED ME ANYMORE. I blame it on hormones. I really do want a bloody mary or three.

Kiki is definitely warming up to Hazel. I have a lot of blurry photos of Kiki leaning against me while Hazel sleeps in my lap, and occasionally rubbing her face up against Hazel's feet. This all happened just today, so I guess that's a pretty good time line if I were to compare Hazel to a new kitten that Kiki had to get used to.. big kitten who doesn't need to share the cat pan. She doesn't love her yet, but sitting on the couch with my two babies sleeping on me is pretty awesome.

Five weeks.

That's how long my baby has been living outside of my body!

It's still hard to believe. I haven't had the urge to write here, but it's quiet this morning and I've got a little time to myself so here I am. There are other things I should be doing (folding laundry, making breakfast, working on the baby book) and other things I want to do (go for a walk before it gets balls hot out again, paint my toenails, read) but I will take a few minutes to empty my head.

Our baby was born June 2, 2013 at 6:00 pm, weighing in at a solid 9 lbs 3 oz. She was, and still is, a LONG baby, 21 inches are birth and now 23 1/2 inches. Our doctor told us she is off the charts for her height, which is explains why her arms look long and skinny despite weighing almost 11 pounds now. She has a lot of hair on her little head. It's not clear yet if she will be a ginger, but it's looking that way to me. Her eyes are dark blue right now, which will change. I wonder what color they will be, if she will be a blue eyed girl or have hazel eyes like me and her father.

Speaking of hazel, that is her name. Hazel. She was maybe a Jane up until she was born, but somehow her size and scowl (which she got from her Dad, for sure) made it pretty obvious that a Jane she was not. We waited over a day to decide on her name, so at the hospital her little bed was labeled Babygirl McCullough, which is a pretty awesome name, too. Ultimately we knew she was Hazel, or Hasel, if you are from Germany.

I won't go into the details of her birth, unless I know you and you want to talk about in person over lunch that you bring me, but I will say it was painful and crazy but pretty fast (first contraction around 7:30 am and she was here by 6:00 pm, with a total of 35 minutes pushing) and that I couldn't have done it without Trever or Mary, our wonderful nurse who knew just what to say when Trever didn't. Speaking of him, he was so awesome during labor. No fear or nervousness ever showed on his face or in his voice, he was the rock I needed him to be, and I was so grateful. We fell in love with our baby as soon as we saw her, of course, and our lives are forever changed because of her.

She is now five weeks old. She is just starting to smile. We are adjusting to the laundry routine of cloth diapers. I am actually getting used to the lack of sleep. Some days are harder than others (she can be pretty fussy, as babies are known to be) and there has been lots of crying and tears (hers and mine) but we are finding our groove as a little family more and more each day.

What you really want to know, I'm sure, is how Kiki is adjusting to all of this. Well. She spends a lot of time under the bed and in our closet. She doesn't care so much for the sound of a crying baby. She is curious, but every time she smells Hazel's hair when I am nursing her on the couch, she goes running. But each day she spends a little more time NOT hiding, and she spends a lot of time sleeping under the chair in the nursery. Her meows have gotten louder and more insistent. It's hard to believe that's possible, but it's really as though my cat is yelling at me. She does seem pleased to see me scooping her little box again, though. I don't know if she will ever really warm up to Hazel, but as long as she can co-exist with her and still be content, I will take it. Those first couple weeks when she wouldn't come out except to eat or pee were hard. I felt so many feelings: sad that my cat was miserable and wouldn't sit with me, guilt that I was sad about my cat when I had this new baby, and then all those other feelings you feel when you have a newborn baby. I couldn't look into Kiki's eyes without crying. And then I would think about Roo and look at my baby, forget it. Blubbering idiot over here.

Now Kiki and I are both learning to take advantage of our quiet moments together, and to make the best of the non-quiet times. Sometimes she will lean against me while I am nursing Hazel, and I can put on of Hazel's little hands on Kiki's body, and she will sit there calmly. Patience and baby steps, right?

If you follow me on Instagram or we are friends on Facebook, you've seen plenty of pictures of Hazel already. Maybe I post some on here later, but for now just find me on IG, username: bontielou, and you can get your cuteness fix.

Okay. I think I'm good here for now. Later internet, I am going to snuggle in bed with my family.

May 30th

Today is supposedly the day the baby is due. A due date, like returning library books, only there is no fine if baby is late, which I am presuming will be the case.

I've been thinking a lot of exposure of kids on the various platforms (FB, IG, vine, blogs, etc etc) and wondering how much I will actually comfortable with when it comes to my own kid. I don't see myself ever posting pictures of bare bottoms or sitting on the potty or prancing around in a diaper. I've watched far too much SVU to ever be comfortable with that. I am, by my nature, a bit of an exhibitionist, which is a funny contrast with the introverted part of my personality. If you were to meet me in person, it might take me a long time to open up to you. Probably I wouldn't like you right away. Or you wouldn't like me. I am, after all, kind of a bitch. At the same time, if I feel comfortable with you right off the bat, I will have no problem telling you all sorts of things about me that you probably don't even want to know. Especially if I have a little bourbon in me.

While I may comfortable posting tons of pictures on IG of my face or my feet or my cat or whatever, I don't know think it would be fair of me to do the same with pictures of my baby. I mean, I am sure I won't be able to resist the urge, but I am going to keep in check. I am going to think of my future 8 yr old, 10 yr old, 14 yr old, who may hate me for what I posted on the internet. There are so many ways that parents can embarrass their kids, without involving the internet, so I am going to have to remind myself that I won't want my teenager hating me anymore than the usual amount that teenagers hate their parents.

I am rambling. I am bored. I am going to watch Fringe all day and wait for this baby to show up.

The Waiting Game.

This is where we are at: making no plans, keeping the apartment clean, bags in the car.... just waiting for this baby to show up.

There haven't been too many signs of the arrival, but the doc seemed optimistic at our appointment on friday that baby would make an appearance soon. I'd really like for the tiny human to be early, or at least on time, because I just can't stand when people are late. As Trever puts it, we will really see whose baby this is, based on an early or late arrival. (case in point: he will be late for work today. Why? Cause Kiki MADE him sit on the couch for twenty minutes and pet her. I know she is hard to say no to, but really?)

SO. That's about it. I am in this limbo, waiting until my life is no longer my own. I am worried about money. I am a little, or a lot, nervous about the actual act of giving birth. I hope Kiki isn't too mad at me when I come home from the hospital with a baby. I hope breast feeding will be easy for us. I still need to get a breast pump. It's easy to get caught up in my own head right now.

Luckily I have some projects to keep me busy the next few days (my grammy would be ashamed at how long it's taking me to send out thank you cards) and some crappy tv shows to watch, plus I will need to smother Kiki with love to the point where she is sick of me.

Wish me luck.

Oh, hey there.

Much time has passed. I am nearly 38 weeks pregnant. I have stopped working. I have a new (used) Volvo with a baby seat in it. Kiki's back legs are getting weak. Life is moving.

I am flooded with all the feelings I can feel. Everything makes me cry. I am ready to not be pregnant. But will I miss feeling a foot kick me in the ribs? Maybe, though I look forward to being able to roll over in bed without it feeling like an impossible task. Or you know, to put my shoes on. (I hate wearing flip flops, truly.) I worry about money constantly. I am not reading parenting books. I left my anxiety attacks behind a long time ago and I can only imagine how easy it could be to bring them right back, by questioning every move I make. It's enough that I have to read every review on a pair of baby nail clippers and then still not be able to choose a pair. The last thing I need to is to have to weigh every decision based on different experts' opinions of what is right for my baby, a baby that they do not know. That I don't even know yet.

"We will just have to wait and see" pops up in my head a lot these days. I guess that's okay, though. I've never been a type A sort of gal, I'm not going to become one now, that's for sure. I just need to remember that I can trust my instincts, and that I will know what is right when our little human is in my arms.

I am just still finding hard to believe that in a couple weeks we will have an actual baby in our apartment.
I am also finding it hard to believe that in a couple weeks I will be pushing a baby out of my vagina. Still trying to wrap my head around that one....

Kiki is starting to adjust to me being home. My last day of work was this past thursday, so today was really the first day where I've been home with, since the weekend was busy and we were gone all day yesterday dealing with car stuff. She sleeps so much during the day, but I can tell that when she opens her eyes and sees me, she is happy I am there... especially now, as she is having difficulty jumping up onto the bed and the couch. Trever will soon be building her a ramp to get up onto the bed. That will be fun, as our tiny room is already jammed packed and currently housing a bassinet, but we will do what we have to for our Kiki, as she is the original baby, after all.

With all of my feelings and doubts and emotions, I do know a few things: We are lucky to have our friends & family. Our baby is going to have an awesome dad.... and I can not wait to drink a huge bloody Mary (or two.)

The end of March.

Hard to believe it's here already. Next Sunday marks a year since we lost our sweet Roo cat. I still cry about her. In fact my eyes are spilling over as I type this, and I won't blame it on hormones. Kiki is sitting next to me, a big lump on the couch with her prim little paws and her grouchy old man face, as beautiful as can be. Does she miss her sister? I don't know. The grieving process for cats is not something I am an expert on. When Kiki is dragging her red toy around at night and howling, is she sad? Or just crazy? Has this year pass quickly for her?
I miss Roo everyday. We talked about naming the baby after her, or finding names that have Roo sounds in them (Ruth, Gertrude, etc) but I think we've decided not to do that, though I guess we will just wait and see til we meet the baby. Maybe he/she will look like Roo... black and white with a moustache and a freckle eye and long whiskers.

Does this make me sounds crazy? Perhaps. But I don't give a fuck. Kiki is sixteen now. Sixteen fucking years of my life have been spent with this cat. She is my best friend who never judges me, is never mean to me, is always up for hanging out, and sometimes throws up on my bed. She lays with me when I am sad, she is always happy to see me when I walk through the door. She is funny and bitchy and weird and awesome.... like me.

Trever and I were discussing last night how some people don't understand this bond. And even though he hasn't known her as long as I have, he loves my cat(s) like they are his own. I know some people think it's insane, that we won't go on vacation this summer because we don't want to leave Kiki behind. There are lots of other reasons, too, like not wanting to drive 6 hours with a two month old baby, take an hour ferry ride with a two month old baby, and be on island that is not near anything should anything happen to said two month old baby... but a BIG part of the decision is that I really don't want to leave my cat alone for a week. I fucking LOVE my cat. I would MISS her. She would MISS me. And who knows how much longer we have together?

Kiki has been sleeping in the crib. Trying on the hats I've knit for the baby. Hanging out in the baby's room, puking up hairballs on the floor. And before you feel the need to tell me that it's OMG SO DANGEROUS FOR CATS TO SLEEP WITH BABIES let me just say: I am not an asshole. I am not a fucking moron. I KNOW THIS. Holy fuck. But also... there is no baby here yet. And if Kiki needs to sleep in the crib to establish the fact SHE WAS HERE FIRST, then you better believe I am going to let her. Not to mention, I KNOW my cat, and she does not like children. She is terrified of babies. The first time she met Cassidy, when she was maybe six months old, her tail puffed out and she took off. Those few months when I lived at my sister's house, Cassidy was two. Kiki wanted absolutely NOTHING to do with her. Trever's ten year old sister? OH HELL NO. She doesn't even like his eighteen year old sister. Kiki is not interested in you until you can buy booze. Sure, she will be curious, no doubt. Also, annoyed. But let me assure you all out there in the world, Kiki will not be sleeping in the crib in the baby... because Kiki will be sleeping WITH ME. That's right, I will bedshare with my cat, but not with my kid.

friday: snow day

Trever shoveled the walk this morning, and we took a walk in the snow for coffees & easter candy. Other than that, it's been a day indoors... watched a terrible movie we rented from vudu, started a crappy knitting project (one day I will learn how to read a pattern, I swear), pet Kiki A LOT, ate too many jelly beans and peanut butter eggs, and now we are listening to Childish Gambino on vinyl. Hopefully baby is listening from the womb, cause we LOVE him (too bad his lyrics are not kid-friendly AT ALL.) There is a little dancing happening, by a skinny guy in long underwear, while he sorts out the non-baby crap in the baby room.

Today was supposed to be our 28 wk appt, which will now happen monday evening. It's hard to believe. I thought that time was moving so slow but now all of the sudden it's all very real and very close. Spring is coming and so is this kid. I finally got my registry done, for the most part, and sent out the e-vite to our baby shower. It's non-traditional for sure. The last thing I want to do is sit in a room full of women who watch me open presents and coo over everything and touch my belly. No fucking thanks. We are having it at a bowling alley, which is actually what my sister when she had her shower six years ago. That way, dudes & kids can come, and people can drink beer and bowl instead of just staring at me. Our birthing class is the first weekend of April. We still need to sign up for a CPR class, and I need to send in the application for baby's health insurance (please Mass Health, do not let me down - adding this kid to my policy will make it that I am only working to pay for insurance, and that does not work) as well as figure our our birthing plan. Get the baby out. That's about all I have so far.

We are doing okay, I think. We'd be doing better if we found a bag of cash, but who wouldn't be.

I am going to make cupcakes now.

This sums up Kiki's day.

Slow.

Time is flying but I am not. I move so much slower these days. I can only imagine how I will be moving in one month's time. It's frustrating to need to ask for help at work because I can't move twelve 35lb boxes anymore. If no one is there to help me, I am stuck waiting. And I hate waiting. It's not that I am impatient, it's that I like to move at my own pace, which is generally a little faster than everyone else's. A good example of this: I am perpetually early. I always have been. When I was in high school and I would usher at church on Sundays, I would have to get there by 9:30am, and I was ALWAYS late since I had to rely on my fucking slow ass (ex)step dad to drive me there. I always got to school early, so I would have enough time to goof off, or when I was a senior, enough time to smoke a cigarette across the street and then freshen up in the bathroom before class started. Once I got to college, it was worse. I remember getting to my Painting 1 class and having everything all set up and ready to go by 8 am, even though class didn't begin until 8:30... I was always there before the teacher.

Since I have stopped taking the MBTA to work and have started driving, the only way to not sit in a shit ton of traffic each day is to get to work between 6-6:30 am. The store doesn't open until 8:30, but I always have things to do... unless no one has moved boxes for me the previous day, and then I just have to fuck around or find a few small boxes, or attempt to drag or kick a box down the hall. And then even when I am ready to go, everything just takes longer. I have to stop working so I can pee every half hour to forty minutes. I need more water. Then I need to pee again. Then I need a snack. And another snack. Have to put lotion on my hands from touching cardboard all morning. Have to listen to my coworkers talk about things that I just don't care about.

It's all bugging me.
And now I am at home, and there is still quite a bit to organize and straighten and find homes for, but here I am moving slow, too. I get overheated. I need to pet the cat. My sister calls. I need to sit down. I need second breakfast, and then early lunch, and then lunch dessert. I just can't move as quickly, now that I am carrying around so much extra weight.

I just want things to be done. I want to find a dresser/changing table for the baby room. I want to find a home for all the guitars. I want the turtles to stop fighting and just eat their damn fish. I want to find my muffin pan so I can make cupcakes and eat three of them. WHO LOSES A MUFFIN PAN? Apparently me.

Wow. That was all a big long whine. Sorry about that. On a good note, I can now SEE my stomach move when I feel the baby move. Fucking WEIRD and COOL and totally like a science project.

Currently.

I am tired.

There is a crib in our apartment.

I think Kiki is mad at me.

We finally have a shelving unit for our records which we bought (reluctantly) from IKEA.

It's 55 degrees out today.

We still have a lot of stuff to unpack.

My niece's 6th birthday is this weekend and her party is at a roller skating rink. (I will not be skating but I am making Trever.)

For Valentine's Day we went to Target so I could buy underwear that fit.

Someone at work keeps eating my cheese sticks.

Someone else at work keeps putting the toilet paper and paper towels on the WRONG way.

My annoyance at things that I shouldn't care is reaching an uncontrollable level. (Sorry for being a total bitch.)

My back, feet, and pelvic bone hurt.

Water gives me acid reflux.

I have chocolate chip gelato to eat tonight.

BYE.