well, hi? how are ya? i totally missed you yesterday...

Our internet service was down all day yesterday. I had a lot of offline work to do, so it wasn't a loss. I spent way too much time turning this:

into this:
It's the background of a cover for a client's huge-to-me 5o-something page catalog which I can't think too much about or I get a little embryo of an anxiety attack in my gut. It's a bigger project than I've ever done, and I'm still wobbly on my InDesign feet, and it the dealine iscomingthisfastohmygods.

Meanwhile, in Molly Tooth Watch 2007, we have one still in the just-broken-through stage on the bottom, and a matching top one, as well as one you can see pretty well on the top, if you catch the 1/778678332 of a second glimpse you're allowed before she rebels. The nursing-biting has abated for now, so I no longer flinch every time she latches on.

In the land of me-separate-from-Molly, I keep getting compliments on my baby elephant post from people in real life, who I totally forgot read my blog. It's disorienting and yet very cool. The comments on the post were so encouraging and awesome. Thanks:)

Oh, I meant to post this on Thor's journal, but due to previously mentioned ISP tragedy, I didn't. And now I'm lazy, natch, so I'll postie here:

Happy Belated, L'il Bit:) Many awesome parties this spring. The Souster's "Irish twins*" will be 5 and 6 (holy shit!) in March/April, and Molly'll be a year (holy holy shit!) in May.

*Did I just use a racial slur? Am I allowed if I have a stray ancesetor or two from Ireland somewhere in the mix? What if I named my daughter Molly Shayne**? Does that help?

**Shayne is actually Hebrew (or Yiddish?) for "beautiful." See footer on blog. I was reading Prodigal Summer one very pregnant day, when I read an allusion to the poem, and I convinced Bu, aka Shane, that we had a new spelling (not Shane) for the Birdie's middle name. If we ever have a boy his middle name will be Heidi; it's only fair***.

***and now I stop being silly, and wishing I knew how to do actual footnotes to a blog entry, and get my ass back to work.

floor, crash

And then, what happens when my brain is overloaded from too much Photoshop. I looked over the shelf that divides office from living room to check on her and Molly was gone: poof. I freaked out until I saw her little bum up in the air and her face happily planted on carpet.

9:41 a.m.

I'm weak. Bu & Boue were so snuggly... I dragged myself very reluctantly out of bed at 7:05. I pulled on pajama bottoms and a flannel shirt. I looked at my baby and husband, the pillows and the soft sheets, then I set the alarm for 8:40 and crawled back into bed. I thought, my blog will understand.

So weak. But look:It was totally worth having to blog that I broke my solemn vow:) The good news? 4 1/2 hours of crib time. Hell yeh. I'm so late for work. Blessed place that it is, I can do that once in a while.

This picture is so beautiful. My Bu rocks. I want to learn to work our cameras. You just can't get perfect golden light and shallow soft depth of field with the crappy automatic mode. I ruined what would have been some gorgeous shots of crawling, clapping, and hanging out with my Grandma. OK: tea, bagel, work. Off I go, drowsy and happy and thrilled to have spent an hour in bed lazily snuggling.

101st post. who knew?

Sitting at my computer and an IM pops up from the Bu. He has updated his sorely neglected photoblog: This is a goatee of applesauce & black beans. And a very amused baby girl. Look at those eyes! They are lightening and I firmly believe they'll be the exact shade of hazel/blue/gray as mine. They freakin' better be. She's a perfect clone of her Daddy except for my eyebrows and forehead. I carry her for ten moons, endure an induced labor in hospital bed with no epi and she gives me eyebrows? Come on... That said, my eyebrows do rather define my face. They are so scary-pointy Jack Nicholson's would cry with envy. If I can ever get a photo of her pointing up one raised brow, I'll post it so you can see she's got it.

new flickr photos

New photos a la Bu at our Flickr page, including this one, which is a strong candidate for a new profile photo. Are you sick of seeing me topless and... well, saggy? Because I think I might be.

arty night, the mom photos

Bu was at the photo lab today picking up a job, and our friends let us know an old friend was in from Brooklyn to show his new work at the school gallery where we all got our BA's. We decided to go have Middle Eastern food and see the work.

It is awesome. He used to sandblast tomb stones for a living, and his work is on marble, and it's images of graffiti and found objects and junk food. So weird and brilliant to juxtapose this random stuff that we see as a casual, un-thought of texture in our environment and use permanent heavy material to frame it in a new way.


This is his site.

Molly enjoyed herself thoroughly. She feasted on hummus, eaten off my fingers, and we got to see a lot of old friends who'd never met her.

My friend brought me the photos of mom that turned up at the lab.


These are the Yayas, mom leaning out in the top left:

This is mom and her best friend, a.k.a. Molly's LaLa, on her right:

It's so amazing to have this sudden little surprise of her smile out of nowhere.

molly's shout out & books you never thought i'd mention

Molly waves "Hi!" to Marianne. Thanks for the *beautiful* hat. We finally got her to leave it on for a trip out by taking off the (adorable!) ribbon. The wave thing is the cutest thing ever. She knows the word "Hi" means to wave her itty bitty arm and sometimes she groks "Bye Bye" too. So far, there is not a sign of Mama-leaving-trauma, mostly because she's so bonded with the Grandies.

Speaking of the Grandies, Papaw heard me talking about The Hillary's run for the White House and decided that I should read Rewriting History, as well as Hating America and something by Bill O'Reilly. I grinned and said "I don't know if I should read these- they may piss me off." He insisted I'd find them very good and I replied, "I don't think you realize how liberal I am." He said, "If you're that liberal, you're in trouble, honey." (He loves me even though I'm a tattoed Goddess worshipping Hillary lover.) I told him that yes, actually I was "in trouble" politically because I am indeed so radical that I will see little or none of my favorites in office in my lifetime. He said something about Social Progressivism, and I said, "Um, yeh, like supporting gay marriage and the like?" His answer was, "No, not necessarily. Social Progressives want to change everything and they are against traditionalism."

I politely exited then, because both of the following things are true: Social Progressives aren't against traditional values per se, and many traditional values suck.

The books are in the bathroom with the good ol' King James, old parenting mags, and my cheesier "Wicca 101" books- where things that I am interested in but not very much go to live and be perused idly while I do bathroomy things. I chatted happily with Bu about what books from my collection I could offer in trade. We decided lesbian erotica would be best:)

our birth story

It only took me six months, but I've finally finished writing my birth story. Starts here, and I dated the posts so they're physically in order on the page if you're on the main blog page.

she's my sweet potato

The sweet potatoes were a huge hit. She did really well with opening her mouth and swallowing; I was impressed. My contributions turned out pretty well, I suppose. The made-from-scratch and jello-free cranberry sauce was very tart and offended my 9 year old nephew's palate, but the grown-ups liked it. My glazed carrots could have had more glaziness, but were okay. The broccoli casserole was great. I could have eaten a ton of it, but Molly would have been pissed because broccoli-mom-milk gives her terrible gas.

After dinner with Shane's family we went to my Grandma's. She's doing really well now that she's back home. Her dementia is much better in a familiar environment. I think it's very mild, but Shane says she's more wacky than I think. Mostly she just repeats herself over and over. She had the best time playing with the baby- Molly was in the giggliest mood I've ever seen. She was just adorable.

I missed my mom so much, but it gets better and better. Molly is the best healing wonder. Being a mom makes me feel closer to my mom. I am still so close to her, it's weird maybe. I don't get into the guardian angel thing or any of that specific, religious stuff- it seems so literal and cheesy to me- I just feel closeness I guess. Like I still have a familiarity with her and a comfort about her memory that feels like the very mundane normal closeness we had when she was alive. Of course, there are times when all I feel is her absense, and it's like a fresh, wounded screaming pain that will never, ever heal. An orphaned, angry, lost feeling filled with confused denial. It just may never seem acceptable to my heart that she is gone. I think those moments are coming less often. They used to be so awful. I wince remembering the way Shane would hold me and I'd sob and shake. Now usually I have a little warm melancholy feeling, like a lingering ache but the baby will smile and I'll know her motherness is in me now as I sing and rock Molly.

(edited for a new better collage and longer entry-hre)