JuJuBee

Anthropophobia

God invented caller I.D. for a reason. I personally could not live without it. I can't even comprehend picking up a phone without knowing who is on the other end. What if it is some ex-boyfriend that you don't want to talk to, or a sales call, or those annoying university calls begging for money on Friday evening at 8:59 pm? Isn't it just so much easier to let the machine pick it up?

Someone needs to invent a visitor I.D. We have one of those ugly steel front doors with a tiny peephole. You really have no way of knowing who is ringing the doorbell without looking through the peephole or sneaking a peek through the window beside the door. I can never look through the peephole because I feel like the person on the other side can see my eye and that freaks me out. I don't like to look through the window because it is obvious when the curtain is moving and the blind is separated by 1/2 inch, that I am indeed home and just trying to see who is out there. Why not just answer the door, you ask? Same reasons as above. I cannot say no to people and if you are a door to door salesman, chances are that I will buy something from you. I got this from my mother who once bought a Christmas tree from a traveling Christmas tree salesman who knocked on our door. We later found out that the trees were stolen. Better that I just pretend no one is home.

Last evening a man rang our doorbell. A hush fell over the house as we tried to decide whether to open the door or not. Mr. JuJu determined that the man seemed to be going door to door and that we should just ignore the bell. He was more than likely trying to sell us insurance or cleaning supplies that we don't need. Ok then. We quietly waited for him to go away. Once he left the neighbor's house and continued on up (or down?) the street, we found that he had left a pamphlet in our door with a personalized note hoping that we would be voting to re-elect him Mayor of our city in the upcoming November election. That's right. The Mayor was at our home and we hid from him.

I missed my chance to ask him why there weren't any black people living in our community.

Month Five

It seems to be my "way" to start out each monthly letter to you exclaiming how I cannot believe that you are already such and such months old. Well, old habits die hard, I suppose, because here I am yet again completely shocked that you are indeed FIVE months old today. It can't be. In some ways It feels as though you have been a part of our family forever and in other ways it seems that you came into the world mere hours ago. At any rate, we are simply thrilled to have you, sweetie. Thrilled beyond words.

You know who you parents are. This much is clear to me. One of Daddy's assistants (your "boyfriend") has taken a job at another university. Last week we had a small get together to say goodbye to him and each and every person who attempted to hold you must have been sorry. Sorry when you screamed bloody murder until you were handed back to Mommy or Daddy. I'm not exactly happy about this, but secretly we love that you feel so attached to us already. It is reassuring that you indeed feel safe and sound in our arms. I can't wait for you to reach out to the world and discover what fun it is to interact with other people, but I'm certainly not rushing you into it. I hope you always feel so safe with us. Now when we decide to someday hire a sitter and go out one evening (yeah, right) you'd better not pull that crap. If we find a sitter, we'd like him or her to stick around for awhile.

You are so in love with your big brother. I'm  glad that we waited and there are five years between the two of you. It is perfect. He knows just how to make you laugh. He can make you laugh harder than any of us by just being himself. He will be dancing around the living room singing a silly song and you stare and stare at him and finally decide that his dance is hilarious and you burst into a belly laugh. Of course he is so proud of himself when you do this, so keep it up. He would do anything for you.

You are rolling over, making the funniest, sweetest noises I have ever heard, NOT screaming in the car, and almost enjoying walks  in your stroller. You love to hold toys and drool all over them. Your new favorite thing is to sit and blow spit bubbles out of your mouth. This really gets to me since I have a bit of OCD when it comes to wiping slobber off of your face, but it really is cute.  You take long naps in your swing during the day and really seem to love sleeping in your crib...sometimes.

We do need to talk about the sleeping thing. You still don't really sleep through the night. You go to bed around 9ish and will sleep until around 1 or 2 am before you start whining for the binky that you lost. At this point it can go one of two ways. You will either go back to sleep until around 5 or so when you want to eat (which I can deal with...) or you will wake every hour just to make some whining noises and look for your binky and just be generally miserable and grumpy and make us want to die. Can we PLEASE deal with this issue and make it go away before next month's letter? I know you can do it, I know you can.

In other news, you are getting so big. Your doctor called you a little tomato because you are just so round and pudgy. I love kissing your big cheeks and pinching your chubby thighs.  You hair is growing, though no one can tell except Daddy and I since it is so fine and almost white. You look so different from pictures we look at from when you first came home. You have come a long way, and we are so proud of all you have learned in the last five months. Now I must go wipe your chin you big slobbery punkin.

I love you so much,

Mommy xoxox

Brotherly Love

Yawn

I've been struggling with writing here. I don't know why. I suppose it happens to everyone...but I hate feeling like I am writing here for everyone else and not for myself. I hate that I go for a few days without a post and then feel major guilt about it, like I had better post something or all of the people who come here to visit me will be disappointed to find the same thing at the top of the page everyday. I am guilty of doing the same. Going through my blogroll to catch up on the news of people's lives and feeling a bit bored when they haven't written anything new. It's stupid. Who cares? Life is so busy lately that I wouldn't even know where to begin with something to write.  Do I write about the boring gazillion and twelve tasks I do each morning? The making of the beds and the tons of laundry and the bottles and diapers and the same thing over and over? The doctor and dentist appointments? The trips to the grocery store? My days seem to be full from sunrise to sunset and I just can't find the right words to make any of it seem funny, or poignant, or interesting. I finally had a moment to eat my dinner last night at 9:30 pm after the kids were in bed. The baby was up all night again (after sleeping so well the night before, there is no rhyme or reason to her madness) and things are just what they are right now. Hopefully I will find the stories within the story to share here, but for now? I'm tired.

Happy Belated Birthday to The Greatest Aunt. Happy 32 ! (wink wink)

My Cheeks Really Are This Big

Assumption of Risk

In addition to the emotional and psychological abuse that has incurred as a direct result of  (but not limited to)  lack of sleep, screaming at decibels greater than necessary and for no reason whatsoever, split-personality disorder, lack of any clear schedule format and no distinguishable  facial or body features to suggest that she even belongs to me, BabyJuJu has now added "physical abuse" to the growing list of reasons that I might sue if she were not of  my own flesh and blood.

She pulled my hair so hard this morning that tears came to my eyes and I shrieked. Shrieked! She got me right there at the spot above your temple where your scalp is so sensitive and she yanked and yanked (and yanked some more) and I tried with all the power of my being to uncurl her fists from my hair but I swear she has a stash of baby superglue somewhere in her bassinet that she uses each morning to fasten her fingers into a permanent state of  "clenched shut tighter than hell" and there is no way in hell to open the grip. She has Herculean strength in those hands of hers. God bless the man who ever tries to snatch a purse from her on the street.

It's not only the hair pulling. She also has a tendency to hit. Yes, I realize that she is only four months old and therefore has no clear reasoning or purpose in what is going on with her hands, but when you hold her in a way that she might not be totally into...watch out. She will flail her arms until she makes contact with your  head, or eyes or nose. If she is lucky, she can grasp some hair just as her hand is smacking you upside the head.

How can someone so little ( but not so little, you should see the chubs on this girl) inflict so much pain  on someone so much bigger? It's as if I have wronged her in a previous life and she has come back as my daughter incarnate to punish me for all of my days.

Damn though, she is so cute I want to just eat her up. After I pry the hair from her fists and tend to my bloody nose, we are totally going to cuddle in the chair with a book.

My Little Entrepreneur

Yeah, yeah. I'm here and I'm pissy. That will happen when you haven't slept in over 7 months (I am figuring in the last month or two of pregnancy because, well, I didn't sleep then either). BabyJuJu and I had a little talk around 4:30 this morning after I brought her downstairs. She has decided that she'd like to start a company selling bumper stickers, clothing, coffee mugs, key chains and the like (who says 'and the like'?) sporting her new favorite slogan:

You Can Sleep All You Want When You Are Dead!

Her target audience would be infants and toddlers in the 1 day to 2 year old age bracket. She thought the tag line would look great on a line of  onesies (calming blue colored with sheep all over...for irony). I told her that I thought it was great idea but not to expect her father and I to fund this endeavor. She is on her own there. I'm sure she'll think of some way to raise the money during all of those hours she is NOT SLEEPING.

Speaking of being pissy, come on over to The Peevery where we are holding auditions to add a new peever or two to the mix. It's been said that it's better than cable.

Chaos

Looting: The police are looting. This has been confirmed by several independent sources. Some of the looting might be "legitimate" in as much as that word has any meaning in this context. They have broken into ATMs and safes: confirmed. We have eyewitnesses to this. They have taken dozens of SUVs from dealerships ostensibly for official use. They have also looted gun stores and pawn shops for all the small arms, supposedly to prevent "criminals" from doing so. But who knows their true intentions. We have an inside source in the NOPD who says that command and control is in chaos. He reports that command lapses more than 24 hours between check-ins, and that most of the force are "like deer in the headlights." NOPD already had a reputation for corruption, but I am telling you now that the people we've been talking to say they are not recognizing the NOPD as a legitimate authority anymore, since cops have been seen looting in Walmarts and forcing people out of stores so they could back up SUVs and loot them. Don't shoot the messenger....

I don't know what to say about any of this. Please take note of the Red Cross donation button on my side bar if you are able to help in any way.

And How Is YOUR Morning Going?

2:00 am- 4:59 am: BabyJuJu wakes every ten minutes or so for the sheer joy of driving her parents batshit insane

5:00 am: MamaJuJu has had just about e-fucking-nuff. Takes BabyJuJu downstairs and trips over a Rescue Hero in the dark

5:02 am: Change BabyJuJu's diaper and heat a bottle

5:08 am: Try and feed BabyJuJu as she decided that 5:08 is the perfect time for smiling, cooing and squealing

5:15 am: Give up on bottle

5:16 am: Put BabyJuJu in her swing, plug her face with binky

5:17 am: Lay down on the couch hoping to get some sleep before LittleJuJu wakes up for school

5:20 am: Get up to put binky back into BabyJuJu's mouth (who invented that god forsaken thing anyway?)

5:20 am-5:45 am: Lay awake worrying about various problems in my life including such pressing matters as why I did not do the dishes last night and what should I pack for LittleJuJu's lunch

5:45 am: Glad I didn't fall asleep yet, put binky back in mouth

5:46 am- 6:53 am: Sleep?

6:54 am- LittleJuJu and Daddy come downstairs for breakfast

6:54 am- 7:01 am: Hide under covers denying that it is actually morning

7:02 am- 7:30 am: Pack lunch and heat up coffee from yesterday's pot, attempt to wake up, step in orange juice that LittleJuJu spilled on floor

7:31 am-7:50 am: Help LittleJuJu shower and dress for school

7:51 am-8:05 am: Wait for the bus that never arrives at the same time which is reason we have to wait outside for 15 minutes

8:06 am- Stop bus to deliver the lunch box that LittleJuJu left in the driveway

8:07 am- Turn doorknob to door inside garage. It is locked. Curse and kick door

8:08 am- Turn doorknob to front door. It is locked. Curse louder and kick door harder and realize that baby inside might be crying or suffocating and would be able to do nothing about it

8:10 am- Trudge through the soaking wet grass in my flip-flops to back door. Turn knob. It is locked. Panic.

8:12 am- Pretend that actually made a spare key and hid it in the garage the last time that this happened and go to garage to look for phantom key. Dread having to call Mr.JuJu to come back home to rescue his dumbass wife

8:15 am- Back on the deck pulling screen off of window over kitchen sink. See that window is unlocked. Realize that any number of murders could have slipped into our home and killed us last night

8:16 am- Pull chair over to window and thank god that I was sick and lost the rest of the baby weight otherwise there was no way my ass was fitting through this window

8:17 am- Place foot in sink full of last night's dirty dishes. Curse loudly

8:18 am- Take a crying BabyJuJu from her swing

8:19 am- More with the diapers and bottles