Movin' on Up

I've got myself some new digs.

Mostly because my friend Kara moved, and when I checked out her new blog decided to checkout her new host.

Me likey. :)

Come visit me at my swinging new pad: www.imalemming.org

Just kidding. :) Although I DO sort of feel like a lemming. Vist me here, instead: www.beege.wordpress.com

A Sign of Age

I came here this morning to blog something really profound. Well. Let's be honest. Probably not really profound. But at least fairly profound. The thought occurred to me last night as I was laying on the couch eating cheese popcorn and finishing the 4th season of "Six Feet Under". I thought to myself, "Ooo! I'll have to remember to blog about this!" and now, for the life of me, I can't remember what it was.

Must be getting old.

What I can remember is feeling just a little bit sad that Aaron Spelling is dead. I grew up with his television (hell, who among my generation didn't?). When I was like four or five years old and put a nail through the bottom of my foot, it was because I was playing Charlie's Angels and was running after a bad guy. When I was in high school, my friends and I would all gather around and watch 90210 and we were so affirmed in our status as "the Year to Be" (at least, that's what the Josten's sales rep kept telling us we were) when the gang graduated the same year as we did--take that class of 92 and 94. You'll never be able to make the same claim to coolness as we did. I feel like we should all gather down at the Peach Pit and have some pie and diet Coke, and then go to a hotel and loose our virginity on prom night.

Also? My daughter seems to have made the decision to join the Ministry of Silly Walks. I don't think any step she took yesterday was just a normal one. She minced like a geisha, she pranced like a pony, she took huge lumbering steps and spoke in a deep voice, she walked on her tiptoes like a ballerina--what she didn't do was just walk. It was sort of fascinating, watching her discover all the different ways she could move her body to get to her various different destinations.

Perhaps I should start expecting the Spanish Inquisition...

Revivification

It's been nearly a decade since I decided to up and move to Minnesota from the inexpressibly lovely Pacific Northwest. It was a decision I never ever second-guessed, for even a moment. I loaded up my 1987 Civic hatchback and hit the road. Tooled around South Dakota a bit on my way across, and was having the time of my life, looking forward to a new and exciting venture that would take me God-only-knew where.

As I got on I-35 at Albert Lea, I started getting even more excited. As the traffic picked up, and I was trying to drive while my mother attempted to navigate (I was terribly confused as to why I wanted to keep going toward Minneapolis when I was going to be living in St. Paul), I was still excited. And then, I came around a bend on 35W north, and the Minneapolis skyline filled the windshield of my little black car. Beautiful and big. So very urban. So very alien. And suddenly, I thought to myself, "What in the hell have I done?!"

Tonight, as I drove home from work, I headed up 35W north once again. I've driven that stretch of interstate more times than I can count in the intervening years. But there's always that point in the drive when that skyline fills the windshield and I remember that first moment--for some odd reason, it functions as a turning point. The moment those buildings hit my line of sight, something in me shifted...something changed. Now, I can't help but see those familiar buildings and get a thrill of excitement: they're no longer alien. They're home.

Heaven looks like this...

...aisles and aisles of items that I am free to purchase in bulk. (I don't believe, even though this picture would seem to suggest it, that heaven looks like a cow with a huge nose.)

M and I finally found a Costco around here. I love that place. I love their delicious chocolate-chocolate muffins; the little old people that hand out the samples; the cheap books and DVDs and CDs; gigantic bottles of lotion and shampoo; and then all the super fun extra things you can find there--stuff you didn't even know you needed until you found out you could get one for such a great price (my "oooo, are you SURE we don't need this?" for yesterday? A sheepskin rug for less than $40. After a brief marital summit meeting, it was decided we were pretty sure we didn't need it--for now, anyway).

We found a great dish draining rack from Simple Human that just kicks the shit out of our old, plastic, Rubbermaid dish rack (you could get two cups and a bowl in that thing). And a 2lb brick of Tillamook extra special sharp white cheddar cheese. This cheese comes from Tillamook, Oregon. I grew up eating it, but it's hard to find here in the upper Midwest--and when you do find it, it's freaking expensive. So I sit here this morning, secure and satified with the knowledge that not only are my breakfast dishes drying in a fabulous draining rack, I'm also well-supplied with my favorite kind of cheese. It's a good day.

Space

I've been thinking of something for a long time--months, maybe. Ever since my brother up and moved to a new place and a new job and is making it all on his own.

I want my own space.

I went right from living at home, to living in dorms in college. In college, I could never afford to have my own place, so when I moved out of the dorms after my first year and into an apartment: I had roommates. And I loved it! I loved having girlfriends around, at any and all hours to sit and talk with--I didn't for a moment wish otherwise.

Then after college, I moved to Minnesota to go to grad school. I planned on living in the dorms the first year, since I had no idea where to look for apartments. Everyone had their own rooms, and it ended up being more like a singles apartment complex (we didn't call it "Melrose Place" for nothing) than a dorm, so I stayed there until M and I got married and moved into our own teeny weeny apartment.

But I've never had a space that was MINE. Even the dorm room belonged to the school, so I was limited in my abilities to put my mark on it.

And I find that I'm suddenly missing that. Not to the point that I'd change anything in my life...but I miss having had the opportunity to live on my own, really and truly. To be able to paint a wall any color I want, just because *I* liked it and nobody else's opinion mattered. To hang what pictures I want, to choose which bedding I want. To have things stay where I put them. A place where I can play whatever sort of music I feel like listening to, without thinking, "Oh, M really doesn't like this CD. I hope he doesn't mind if I listen to it right now."

It probably says something about me psychologically that I'm suddenly missing this. Perhaps that I'm feeling overwhelmed and pulled in too many directions--that I'm longing for a place that's mine, where I can just close the door and be left alone, doing whatever sort of Beegish things that make me happy. Perhaps it means that I feel like my current lifestyle represses the person that I think I am and that I want to be.

Or maybe it's as simple as I never got to have pretty pink bathtowels. Sometimes it doesn't do to over analyze things, you know?

Slightly broken hearted

Since this promotion came my way, I've been working even more insane hours than I was before. I'm gone before Linnea wakes up, and don't get home until after she's in bed.

I hate it.

Tonight, she's running a fever (hello, ear infection! We hardly even had a chance to miss you!). M was in the shower, so I was trying to snuggle and comfort her. She just kept crying for her daddy. As soon as he was done, he picked her up, she buried her face in his neck and they're now snuggled down for the night (hopefully) in our bed.

He's become her primary caregiver. The one she looks for when she's scared, or lonely, or hurts, or doesn't feel good. Me? I'm just that lady that floats in and out of her life from time to time. I'm lots of fun, she loves me "bunches and bunches", but I'm not to be relied upon when the chips are down.

I don't like this. M tells me, "You're working so hard for us! You're making sure we have food on the table and clothes on our backs and health insurance in our pockets--we couldn't make it without what you do for us every damn day."

But I'm the Mommy. It should be me soothing and singing, caring and teaching, comforting and loving. Last night was the first night I was home for dinner in God only knows how long and she looked at me and asked, "Mama? What are you doing here?" Last night she woke up M to tell him, "Daddy? Mama misses me when she is at work."

Part of me is thrilled that they've established this sort of relationship. And part of me feels cheated and jealous. And part of me feels rather embarassed, because when we were growing up, my father (who also built himself a career in retail) was hardly ever home. He was always working. And recently we have given him a really hard time about that--talking about how he was never around, how he missed so much, yada yada yada. And he DID. But what we assumed (and I'm beginning to think we assumed this in great error) is that he didn't REALIZE what he was missing. That he was just working that hard and those long hours because he wanted to...but now I'm seeing that perhaps he HAD to. And maybe he hated it as much as I hate it. Maybe he was as jealous of Mom as I am of M. Maybe for every hour over 40 hours a week that he worked, he died a little inside because it was another hour he wouldn't get to be with his family. We're just over a week away from Father's Day. I think I need to make a phone call.

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Edited to add: Apparently I'm not as close to chopped liver as this pity party would have led us to believe. Nea refused to go to sleep until I came and rubbed her back and sang "Old MacDonald" starting with ants and going all the way up to rocketships (That Old MacDonald seems to have a pretty advanced farming operation). I guess I can stop refering to myself as "Aunt Mama".

Innies and Outies

So, three years ago today we got the official word from the doctor that we were going to have a baby. I'd sucked up all my courage, let them take copious amounts of blood out of my arm, and within minutes: we knew we were going to be parents.

One of us (me) was ecstatic. One of us (M) was scared to death.

Both of us were nauseous.

It's been a pretty special ride, these last three years. From seeing those first "extra" lines on the pee stick, to the blood test, to hearing her heartbeat on the Doppler for the first time, to the quickening, to the first time she made my belly jump with her movements, to giving birth and that seemingly endless moment when I waited to hear her cry; how tiny she was and how completely clueless we were. Through first dirty diaper; first smile; first time sleeping through the night; first words; first steps; first bee stings; first move; first day of school--all of it. Being a mom is like nothing I imagined. If I had imagined it, I probably would never have done it. But having done it: I wouldn't trade it for the world. Motherhood has taught me that in some cases, ignorance is indeed bliss.

I was giving her her bath last night. Sweet chubby toddler legs and arms, sweet toddler belly, delicious little baby bottom. She was playing with her bellybutton, "Dis is my beep-beep, Mama." I looked at her belly button. It (like everything else about her) is beautiful. I remember when it was hidden by the cord stump, and how angry M and I got when his mother made it bleed when she changed her. I remembered the wet snick of the scissors moments after she was born and her life was officially biologically severed from mine. And I marveled that this small girl, who loves Dora the Explorer (especially Boots the Monkey) and raisins, and swings, and coloring was the same baby that lived and moved inside my belly. Sometimes it's hard to remember that.

I marvel at that little beep-beep...through it, I nourished her and kept her alive. Oxygen, blood, food--everything that she needed for 38.6 weeks came to her through that cord. And I marvel that even though it was cut mere seconds after she came out of my body, there were already other cords being formed--cords that bind us together more completely than that umbilical cord ever did. Trust, love, friendship, protection, fun, tenderness...all of it serves to bind us closer to one another today than we were three years ago today.

As I write, I'm listening to M and Linnea playing in the living room. Linnea is singing a song about how much she loves Dora. M is trying to convince her that "Finding Nemo" is just as much fun to watch as "Dora" (especially since we haven't seen "Nemo" four times a day for the last four months). Nea is strong, sassy, opinionated, independent and stubborn. All this adds up to a challenging child to parent. But I wouldn't trade any moment of the last three years for anything.

Love you, Sweetie Pea.

Toot toot!

I mentioned a couple of posts ago about how the head of the company really liked me? Turns out, he likes me likes me. He authorized a promotion which lifted me from the bottom rung of management to assistant manager responsible for HR. Yes, ladies and gents, I am the Hank Hill of the store I work in. Along with a rather large jump in responsibility, I was the grateful recipient of a rather tidy jump in salary.

Excuse me for a moment while I toot my own horn.

So, anyhow. I'm incredibly busy. We're working on opening a brand-new store. Tomorrow the truck comes and we get to unload scads of wunnerful stuff. We have people from the regional and corporate visual departments here to help us make sure we look good. Most of them are gay, and can I just say: after three years in Kansas, I'm in some serious need of hag time? I told M (who was helping us out today), "I just want to take them to bed, make a beege sandwich, and snuggle." It says something about who M is as a husband that he didn't freak out about his wife wanting to make a sandwich with two other men--homosexuals or not.

Now I'm going to head to bed. I'm tired, and tomorrow will be a long-ass day. Sleep well.