Good Lullaby CD

I have been looking for new lullabies cause I'm tired of singing the same old things OVER AND OVER again. My advice for new parents is to learn at least 10 lullabies BEFORE your baby comes. Cause at 3 am when you're trying to soothe a crying baby and all you can think of is "Enter Sandman," you're gonna regret not learning some lullabies. :)

So in that quest, I found the Collin Raye CD at the library the other day. I'm not a huge country fan, although I can enjoy a good country song. But though this guy is country, these songs are sung in the true spirit of lullabies, without a lot of additional "twang" or flourishes that make them country-ish. Most of them, at least. I really like a couple of them..."I'm Gonna Love You" and "Hearts are for when you want to love someone" are my two favorites so far. So I can wholeheartedly recommend this CD. It's not too childish, nor does it over sweeten it the way some lullaby CDs do. As though lullabies aren't already sweet cavity makers.

Anyway. That's what I have for today.

Oh yeah, and this too

I realized just a few minutes ago that since the babies were born, I haven't posted any pictures of me! And with me being the super celebrity that I am, that's probably problematic for those of you out there who wish to stalk me.

And you probably don't know that I cut my hair. Yup. It's pretty short now. I'm not sure if you can tell in these pictures, but it's shoulder length, bobbed. I love it when the babies curl their little grubby hands in it and pull. It wasn't about them grabbing the hair, it was about me hating looking like a big shaggy dog all the time, with hair everywhere, and it taking 20 minutes to wash it.

I've lost some of my mommy weight, but I actually don't care that much about it. There's a post about how liberating it is to see your body as the thing that made these gorgeous babies, and how I don't actually care the way I thought I would about saggy boobs and stretch marks. I will eventually take up exercise again and lose the 25 or so pounds that are extra. But for now, I am okay with myself.

Anyway. This picture is from the digital scrapbook; as if it weren't obvious, it's me & Maia in the hammock. It's one of two pages, and I think it came out rather well. Like my cool new glasses? They're Versace... (say that with the wrong accent, like in Showgirls, please.) Maia grabbed a handful of my old ones and broke them really well, so I was forced to spend the money. And since I'm wearing my glasses almost all the time now, instead of contacts which annoy me lately (pregnancy changed my eyes, and I haven't gone to get a new sizing yet.) I figured I could spend a little cash on cool new specs.

Here I am. In all my PJ'd glory.

Breakthroughs?

Today, after reading over the book I talked about in the earlier post, I think I may have had a breakthrough on my Buffy the Vampire Slayer chapter. I have a lot of stuff written already, but it is disjointed & somewhat pointless. Buffy is feminist, blah blah blah. So what? And how does it fit into my overall dissertation (which, for newbies here, is basically about witches in modern lit, tv, and movies, and how they fit into a feminist ideology).

On the way home from Starbuck's, having finished Lorna Jowett's excellent book, I was thinking about some of the writing I've already done. And some justification I had in there for reading Buffy from a witch standpoint, which I was basically addressing in a footnote and glossing over and going on to the "blah blah blah" stuff above. And then I thought-- Well why the hell don't I just talk about Buffy as a witch, as defined in the Malleus Mallifacarum, which I discuss in my introduction, and then also discussing the other witches in the show? And then how those witches bring about that resistance to patriarchy that the feminist message wants to have? DUH!

Big DUH!!!

I may have to abandon most of the previous writing I have, but now I think I have my point. It's such a simple, duh point, that I can't believe I didn't see it as my chapter before.

You can get so caught up in the forest that you miss the trees sometimes.

So now I think I've got a paper which I can write fairly quickly. There will be some writing tomorrow. I'll keep you updated on how it goes.

How is it with you?

Everything here is pretty darn good. I'm leaving most days during the week to work on ye olde chain around my neck (also known as the dissertation). Yesterday and today I'm reading this really well done book on Buffy by a woman named Lorna Jowett, whose name seems really familiar. I don't know if I've read another book of hers or if maybe, years ago when I did the Buffy panel at the Popular Culture Conference, she was one of the contributors. Since she lives in England, I'm thinking it's the former rather than the latter. It's called Sex and the Slayer, and it's a very accessible. As I read it, I keep wanting it to be what I wrote. Can't I just, for my dissertation, have one big "DITTO" mark and say I agree with everything this person said? No? Damn.

Anyway. Off to somewhere that I can sit, have a coffee, and read in a comfy chair (otherwise known as starbucks.) I'll probably finish this book today, and I can use the thoughts it has stirred in me, therefore, in some writing I'll try to do tomorrow. It's been helpful, and you always have to have critics who are talking about the work you're doing. That was a problem I had on one of the chapters; my books were so unknown that no other critics had actually talked about them.

First, a shower, and a baby snuggle, and out the door. The babies are now playing with their incredible babysitter, who I adore because she is the best.

Diva Girl

At dinner tonight, we went to Macaroni Grill. I brought baby food for the precious angels. They were to try their very first meat!! Turkey. And I also brought sweet potatoes. Maia didn't much care for the turkey, but she devoured the sweet potatoes, yelling-- literally-- at me for not going fast enough. She grabbed the spoon several times, flailed her little sweet potato covered hands in the air. I felt like I was feeding Whitney Houston or something. Maybe actually she was in the Elton John range of diva-dom. The table next to us was laughing at us and said "You really should feed that baby!" Sean was just being charming & adorable. I can see it now: whenever she's naughty, he's going to be sweet (and vice versa.)

Did I mention that I adore these little things?

Kill Your Darlings

William Faulkner is supposed to have once told a group of writers that when writing, they should "kill your darlings." Those bits of writing that you're particularly in love with, that you keep in because you just love the way it sounds or whatever. That these bits of writing will bog you down, hold you back.

Today, in working on my current chapter, I killed many darlings. I'd been itching to delete some pages for a while, have even already deleted some. It's hard to do. I wrote that stuff, and it makes the chapter longer, which feels like progress. But I killed. I drew squiggly lines through stuff about the audience for Buffy. I drew squiggly lines through the sort of apologia for academic study of Buffy. I took out the introductory bits on the series. I deleted deleted deleted.

I also wrote a little bit, but more writing will come after I've read the stuff I worked on today. I still don't have a conclusion to this chapter, am still not exactly sure what to end it with. But I'm feeling much better today (the committee member did get back to me and offered an apology for not writing sooner. So that's good. I know she's busy and I know I haven't exactly pressed forward rapidly myself. So hold off on the voodoo dolls and whatnot.) Whatnot. Great word that.

Andrew and the babies are all resting. They've all had trying days, for various reasons. My sister comes into town tonight, and that's good. I bought some cool stuff for the Broccoliette's baby shower. Pink stuff. That's good. I ate a mango & apricot yogurt. The babies had their first "cookie"-- one of those gerber biter biscuits that would probably be really good with a cup of coffee. They loved the cookies (Maia gnawed on hers like a little ear of corn-- up one side, down the other.)

Me. I'm going to go indulge myself in digital scrapbooking, or maybe just doing nothing for a while.

I have a poem resting in my head that I hope to write soon. It's there, just not ready to be birthed yet.

It feels like late August here today (in January). Maybe it will actually get cold.

Ugh 2

Funny how I've titled a blog post in the past Ugh. But today is an Ugh. I feel kind of weird & out of sorts.

This morning, I got all excited about a new direction for my Buffy dissertation chapter which seemed to simplify the work & yet make it into a direction that would allow me to really have a critical, theoretical base. I went to the library, worked on this idea, and was driving home when I thought "crap. It doesn't go with the rest of the dissertation chapters." It doesn't. Really. I can make it work, but it's very discouraging. I'm really sick of the damned thing.

And I wrote to my dissertation committee more than a week ago and I have only heard back from 1 out of 3 of them.* I just think that at least 40% of my inability to finish it this far is because they don't help. Sigh. I have a goal of having a draft done by April in order to be done with my deadline of September. But today, it feels un-do-able. Discouraging.

Tomorrow, I hope it will feel better. We all have these kinds of days, I know. I'm also sure that the feeling of just not even caring whether I finish or not anymore is part of what everyone goes through (or at least those of us who take a long time.) But I really don't care anymore. I will finish it anyway. But I don't care.

*I re-wrote to the one who OUGHT to have replied by now in the hopes that my email had just gotten lost. I hope she replies this time or I'll feel even worse.

Babyproofing + Saturday Baby Blogging

The cool thing about the babies cruising around in their walkers way before they can walk on their own is that it is a nice way of recognizing where there are areas that need babyproofing. The walkers allow them a little cushion area-- what Keval called a "force field" around them that they can't quite reach. That doesn't mean they don't try, really really hard. Their little arms grab enthusiastically at the things they see-- the towels hanging on the cabinets, the garbage bag hanging out of the diaper pail, the electrical cords from the phone chargers that daddy always leaves in baby reach. (Those go straight towards the mouth, of course. So far I've caught Sean every time he's found the cords before they've made it to their mouth).

So now I know that the cat food dishes are unbelievably exciting. And the toilet paper is going to be a target. And the swinging doors between the kitchen and the formal dining area-- they hit them at what we call "ramming speed." Maia managed to get it open this morning.

They love their walkers. Maia is a little slower in it, because she's a whole three pounds lighter and a full inch and a 1/4 shorter than Sean, but she can move it pretty well too. Sean is everywhere in it and he also hates to be on the floor to crawl. He throws his legs in the air arches his back so he's lying on his tummy and squawks angrily. He doesn't want to crawl; it's lame. He wants to RIDE. Why walk when you can ride, man? Maia can crawl all over the place in a "Marine crawl" and boy is she fast.

Everyone has said "Oooh, you're going to have your hands full when they can walk." Yup. I sure am. Sentimental Schlock alert in:
3

2

1.....

But full of wonderful, wonderful things.

Little Walkers

The babies love their walkers. Sean, in particular, cruises around the house at top speed. This is the good part of having hard wood floors. Maia took a little longer to get the knack of pushing herself around, but although she is slower, she does make it pretty well now. Sean doesn't like to try to crawl, although I make him spend some time trying every day. Maia can scoot on her hands and knees, like a Marine going under the barbed wire, and she can really cover a lot of ground that way. It's fun, because now they can entertain themselves a little bit. This is why I have time to write this blog entry.

Anyway, that's enough for today. I realize that since the babies were born, in spite of my best intentions, this has become a mommy blog. It's because I am a life blogger, and that is my life mostly right now. But now that I have more time, I'll try to blog about other things too.

(s)Milestones

Sean has a tooth! It's a lower gum one. Just a sharp little nub so far, but it's there. He actually almost has two teeth-- the one next to it has almost broken through too. Something about 2 for 1 in this family.

Both babies have been gumming & drooling for months, so it's no surprise. Just very exciting. I guess I have to gently discourage him from gnawing on my chin now. :)

Mom-inism

Yes. A new blog name. I hope to define it better later, but as I've done this, Maia has gotten crabby & needs to be seen to. But please update any links you still have to this blog with the new name. No longer am I Kim Procrastinates but now

Mom-inism. See above for a cursory definition.

Keeping Score

One reason so many marriages get "crankier" (for lack of a better word) after babies come into the picture is keeping score. For instance: You took a nap yesterday so I get to take a nap today, no matter that my nap today is in totally different circumstances than your nap yesterday, and today's nap will cause several people to be put out as opposed to only one yesterday.

That's keeping score. If we really kept score, most of the time Mommy would be racking up the points. There are many times that mom gets up in the middle of the night that should be worth about 100 points. Then there's the times that mom gets to hold a baby covered in puke, getting puke all over her clothes. All those times mom didn't get a shower for three days. And that span of about (I think) two weeks where I forgot to brush my teeth in the mornings until my mild but still there gum disease flared up. (oops). And the times that mom lets dad take a nap, even though mom got up at the same time as dad and did just as much time "on the clock" as dad.

But dad's scorecard is pretty impressive too. Dad keeps the family alive. He works to pay the bills. He goes to the office, or wherever, from 8-5 or whatever version of that day he does. And he has to put up with the TPS reports (or whatever version of the TPS report exists in his world) and the small minded managers who focus on TPS reports to the exclusion of everything else. And dad is expected to do this.

My husband is better than many at helping me. He is a godsend. And he does get up in the middle of the night too. And he helps me after he's been at work all day. If I didn't have him, with two babies to take care of, I probably would, as someone warned after my poems the other day, go all Sylvia Plath and depressed. (I don't think I'd ever have the ego to kill myself. I'm just not that important to the great scheme of things to kill myself... the world goes on, and barely notices you're gone. It's not great melodrama; it's pathos.

Anyway. This is my warning. Because this morning, I'm feeling cranky because the wonderful hubby got to sleep an hour longer than I did because our gorgeous, clever, smiley (usually) babies woke up at 6 am. And I got to take care of them. Even though they really are still very tired but refuse to nap. And when I mentioned to hubby (communication of these crankiness issues being key) that I was trying hard not to be mad (cause I really was) he pointed out that I got a nap yesterday in the car on the road trip. He thinks I didn't hear that part. But I did; I just wanted him to repeat the comment. What he doesn't know is that I didn't really nap more than about thirty minutes of that time. I lay there listening to babies breathe and stir and the road noise and thinking of my dissertation.

You have to not keep score. Everyone gets the same results of the game-- wonderful children who grow up to be adults who make the world a better place. Hopefully. That's the real point system.

Blog redesign in progress

But later. I'm tired now. :)

Someone Has to Stop them before they kill us all....

Okay, I bought some new jammies at Target yesterday cause since the boy has started toodling around the house in his walker, he needs his feet bare for traction. So the footed jammies were not working well. These new jammies (which by the way are size 12 month on my 6 month old boy) were cute. I thought they had dinosaurs on them. On further inspection, I realized the animal was a big blue dragon, and grey castles. For my little prince.

We just spotted him cruising down the hall towards my office with the baby gate strapped across the back of the walker. I said to him "you can go in the office only if you will finish my dissertation for me while in there." He grinned hugely and headed that way with a little shiver.

The concept of my little man in his "prince in blue jammies" (as opposed to knight in shining armor) running about the halls and writing my dissertation for me is so freaking funny I can't even begin to stop smiling.

Target must stop. These sorts of things (as in, the jammies) will make me pop. Simply pop.

Here Again in a New Year

Well, things are changing tomorrow. I go "back to work" in a sense. I will leave the house for several hours a day to write my dissertation. The plan is 10-2 at the library. I have a fabulous friend to watch the babies, but it's still hard.

Today we had a good time. The weather here in Texas is freakishly warm and we played on our deck. The babies are mobile-- in walkers. Sean is very good at it; Maia is still learning. But these are pix I took... I am an obsessive picture taker. One of the things that is good about digital cameras is you can just take and take pictures because you don't waste any film on bad pictures.

Anyway. Say Anything is on TV again. It's one of my favorite old movies. Andrew is out jogging with the babies and I should do something productive. (Maybe a nap!?)

I love the scene in the movie where the odd red headed guy that Lloyd and Diane meet at the graduation party looks at himself in the mirror and goes "Oh My God" and takes a drink at looking at himself (you know, the one they have to drive home?). I can't tell you how many times I've looked at myself like that.

Just remember. Joe Lies. Stay away from Joe.

Here are two of the incredible pictures I took today. Aren't they the cutest babies?!