Chipped Nails and All

In an effort to spice things up in my life, I’ve decided to paint my nails. Far less drastic than a tattoo or new hair color, but still it is something. I used to shy away from nail color because it would chip and I never felt like I got that blush paint off my fingers.

Now I wear that deep wine color, shades of gray, and this week Little Brown Dress. I once chose a gray based on its name, Smoking Hot. With the polish nearly dry, I received a compliment from a 24 year old.

It took me a little bit of time to adjust to the polish on my normally bland nails but now I am not as distracted by the color specks in my peripheral vision. Today four fingers are completely painted, three are mildly chipped and the remained are in worse shape. Even if I attempt to remove the polish myself I always feel like I leave a trace of color on the edges. So at this stage with polish approaching a week old, I must decide if the color should stay or go. Five less than perfect nails should be my tipping point.

And so I bid adieu from the dustbowl of my apartment to the bathroom to remove my little brown dress of color.

Stain Stain Go Away

I first noticed it when I was pregnant. The darkening of my skin above my upper lip, a stain mustache that demanded my attention every time I looked in the mirror. At first I scrubbed hoping the dead skins cells would fall off and reveal a color consistent with the rest of my face.

It didn’t. My sister noticed. My dad said something. Nobody else did. But still when I found myself staring at my reflection I could see little else than the darkened skin above my lip. I wore sunscreen and waited for my son to be born then learned that birth control pills can make the skin susceptible to staining.

A friend of my sister had similar face staining and passed along her dermatologist’s recommendation: a Retinol concentrate and bleaching cream with hydroquinone which I later learned was popular with gay men eager to bleach their anuses. I met the friend and discretely searched her face for stains apparently common during pregnancies. Either the cream’s worked or she had blended her foundation well.

So I applied the anus whitening and anti-wrinkle cream to my face along with sunscreen to prevent any further damage. And every morning I’d examine my stain mustache noticing that the edges were blurring. My skin tone faded making me a more ghastly olive tone so I used the creme less.

Bruised Balls

My husband devised this cute game to encourage our kids to jump in the pool. He modifies the humpty dumpy nursery rhyme and the kids jump into our arms with my daughter reminding us she does not want to go under.

My 18 month old wanted to play too and when he last jumped into my arms he screamed in agony, drying in my shoulder. I thought his tush had brushed against the brick because he wasn’t close enough to edge. I did wave for him to come closer before taking the leap. I think. I hope.

The next day I was changing him and saw a huge rash on his tush that I thought was the result of diaper friction. He squealed when I applied the Desitin. Then I saw closer that half of his ball sack was bright red too. He must have brushed that against the brick too. I cringe thinking about his pain, the loud scream in the pool with his eyes shut and mouth agape.

I don’t know how sensitive his equipment is to pain, but I imagine it hurts. I think his penis is especially sensitive because he likes to tug it regularly.

New and Improved

My mom always said Life is not a dress rehearsal. She said it so frequently and lived by it so fully we put it on her tombstone. Life is not a dress rehearsal.

I know some people make bucket lists, and some producers make movies called Bucket List but why do you have to wait until you are old and gray with death looming in front of you to make a “bucket list”? Why not just live your life fully? That’s what my mom did, to the point of me perceiving her as selfish at times, and that is what I intend to do.

House Arrest

The other night I was walking from my grandmother’s apartment when I passed a mish-mash store. A mish-mash store is a pop-up retail store that sells all kinds of assorted tschokes and such for a finite period of time often at a really low price. I’m not sure what lured me in, but the Halloween costumes caught my eye.

Now is probably a good time to mention that they were designed by Hustler.

Post Baby Body

My sister uses a girdle to shrink her uterus after delivering, per her ob’s advice. Within a week her stomach flattened to look a mere three three to four months pregnant. She doles this information out sparingly so that acquaintances think she is super mom with the super body. We went shopping a week after her son was born and the oohs and ahhs she received from the sales clerk about her body led me to chime in that I have a five month old, and my body is lean.

I was looking for some sort of validation. Staying at my sister’s house for two weeks with my two kids and her three children including the newborn was a lot, even though we are best friends and her house is significantly larger than any New York City apartment I’ve visited. I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt of her post partum mood swings, but she made comments about my kids. Comments that one such as myself might take offense to. Comments about my daughter and how she adjusted to being in a foreign place with constant stimulation. Every time she picked up a toy, one of the other kids would snatch it out of her hand and say Mine. She was not on her turf or even in her own country. My sister discounted this when she complained that my daughter whined too much.

I kept my mouth shut about her children and their misbehavior because I did not want to get into a tit for tat situation. There was nothing to gain. Kids are kids. They have good moments and bad ones.

She did share some helpful advice that perhaps I would have come to on my own. Given her kids are older she was more familiar with how best to handle a toddler. I do remember taking a trip when her eldest was a little over two years and my mom and I advised her how to discipline her toddler. I shared my thoughts in a constructive and sensitive way as opposed to attacking and criticizing.

I took full advantage of my sister’s help and changed an average of one diaper a day which was awesome. My sister felt the need to comment on that as well. She must forget that when I am in New York I can change multiple diapers in an hour and I have to run around looking for the proper size for each kid. That was my vacation, some R & R that I desperately needed and earned. She must have forgotten or never realized how hard I have been working and the amount of stress I am under.

So don’t judge me! Don’t judge my parenting! Since she is my sister and best friend and had just delivered a baby…I won’t digress and mention how she treated me in the delivery room, I’ll give her a grace period.

Grace Period

My father has asked me on multiple occasions whether or not I’ve started exercising again. “It hasn’t been six weeks yet!” I remind him. Then I mention the old wives tale that some women steer clear of stairs, a luxury that eludes me because I live in a duplex apartment with the bathrooms on the lower level. I’m not even supposed to pick up my toddler, but I do.

At the three week point during my first pregnancy, I was slowly becoming able to walk without leaning on to the stroller for support. this round, I am doing much better perhaps because the delivery was significantly easier and because I don’t have the luxury of indulging my desires as much as I did.

As my husband laments that I need to return to society and do things that make me feel good like exercising, I remind him that like sex, exercise is off limits for six weeks at a *minimum*. I will pat myself on the back for my body returning to a passable form. I’m in my old jeans – not the skinny ones but still. I can see the definition of my obliques from my abs and I’m excited for that to become more defined. Of course looking at my body feels so insignificant, especially when I find an inordinate amount of comfort in a sweet fresh baked cookie.

I may be rambling…but at least I’m posting.

Haute Mom Fashion

While I may not have enough fashion talent to land a spot on Project Runway, or enough sophistication to appreciate some of the contestants’ creations, I still enjoy the show. I’ll thumb through Lucky magazine, admiring new styles and how to pair them with the latest accessories but I probably won’t do it myself. Walking down the streets of my trendy neighborhood, I’ll note a well-dressed woman going to a hip bar or even to work in the morning (often times, designer shoes held in hand while sneakers pound the pavement).

Just because I don’t get dressed up everyday and consider yoga pants are an acceptable pair of bottoms during the weekday does not mean that I don’t appreciate fashion, nor does it translate to a dislike of shopping. I love shopping: the coming home with new items part, not the paying retail price. As my belly grows for the next two months, I try to control my purchasing prowess. Almost anything I buy will only serve me for up to the next twelve weeks, generously. After I have the baby, I’m certainly not going to want to continue wearing my maternity clothing, no matter how chic it may or may not be. But I miss adding new pieces to my closet, even comfortable ones, that I get excited to wear.

Which comes to the next point: as much as I love fashion and the latest trends, I have to ask myself what is the point? I’ll embrace comfortable trends, long sleeve t-shirts with exotic designs, but tailored shirts, structured jackets, even high waisted pants do not have a place in my wardrobe. Too many days, my interactions with people are limited to oblivious store clerks, equally disheveled parents, and homeless men begging for money. Should I risk tearing a new shirt or staining my pants for one of them?

Probably not. I suppose I should dress up for myself, which I do to an extent. It just won’t be with an expensive garment.

Long live E*bay.

Surging Hormones

I’ve heard that a pregnant woman’s hormones surge to 1,000 of times their normal level. I don’t know if that explains my clear skin (although one would think not, but I’m not complaining), but it hopefully accounts for my moody behavior.

I’ve been angering easily, excluded from this is me snapping at my mom after spending three days of vacation together and watching her morph into her mother about whom she often complains. When the dishwasher was not working well yesterday and my husband told me he had the same problem when I was away, I wondered why he did not call the toll free number inside the appliance to get an answer. Instead, he leaves the maintenance to me. Or rather, instead he ignores it and hopes/believes/imagines that it will magically be fixed. That he put our sharp fancy knives in the dishwasher after I’ve told him repeatedly not to, did not help.

I see crumbs in the kitchen and I am desperate to know if it was my husband or the caregiver who left them in the toaster. I freak out when I cannot find my jump drive that I know I put in a *safe place* before I went away. Perhaps because my husband is running the marathon this weekend and he needs some extra attention leaving a surplus of work for me, or because I am having this baby that I did not plan or because I don’t know how we are going to squeeze into our 1 bedroom + sleeping nook or because this baby is very active and I’ve been pregnant for over half a year, or because I leak pee every time I sneeze, or because even though my husband will babysit on a weekend night I have no friends to go out with, or because I am craving an imbibition, or perhaps realistically my mother did not receive the most stellar health report Friday from her doctor, but I’ve been very antagonistic and cranky lately. Sorry.

And the Boobs Grow On

My first pregnancy I watched my boobs grow faster than any Chia pet. the small perfect C cups that I had professionally constructed (for those first time readers, they were crafted from two droopy DDs) ballooned faster than my belly. Had they kept up that pace the entire pregnancy instead of the first three months, I surely would have tipped over. Friends even commented that they knew I was pregnant based on the globes attached to my chest.

Before I knew that I was pregnant and was fighting a fatigue, I checked my breasts. They were no bigger or more sensitive than usual and so I was convinced that everything was simply related to my period.

But the pee sticks proved me wrong and more symptoms manifested. But the boobs expanded slowly. I picked up the occasional D bra, the demis never fit for long. Until, at about 18 weeks they grew faster than a baseball player’s muscles on steroids. I am back in my 36DD bras holding in my massive sensitive heavy breasts.

I hope the growth spurt is older, until the milk pours in.