Oh my toe! The one where I don't even tell you what happened to my toe, it was THAT BAD.

Yesterday was the worst day of my life. Worse than the day my dad told me my parents were getting divorced, worse than the day my grandma passed away, worse than the day my egomaniac boyfriend told me he had taken his ex-girlfriend to New Zealand with his family over Christmas vacation for two weeks, after we'd been dating for over a year, worse than the day... Ok, ok, you get it, yesterday was bad. Maybe not as bad as all those days. Maybe that's hyperbole, but it was pretty bad. Not a memorable day. Not one I'll be able to pick out of the other 365 when I think back on this year. But one of those days that makes you lay in bed and fantasize about emptying your bank accounts to take the whole family away with a full time nanny and a masseuse to Hawaii for 2 weeks. That might cure the shit day that was yesterday. 

It began normally enough. I woke up. I had two kids, a house, a husband, I felt like I was coming down with a cold, and I had no real plans. I suggested we go to get pizza for lunch after Jack's swim class, since Nipper didn't have to be at his first audition until 1:45. Sounded like a good idea, until Jack SOBBED when Nip told him we were going to get pizza instead of my original idea of picking up In&out burgers, which we've eaten so many times this week I'm actually ashamed. (that number should be 1 time, but it's way, way, way, more). What kid cries when you tell him we're having pizza? My kid. You'd think I'd have said we were having brussels sprouts and liver. Jesus. Ok, note to self, more meals at home, and no more separate kids meals. Yeah right. I saw an expensive cookbook in a fancy store on La Brea last year that was about cooking for "picky" kids. Most of the recipes had stuff like shrimp and rutabagas in it. The book cost $45. This bitch obviously had never seen a child or a rutabaga in her life. It reminded me of the time I went to photograph a piece for a magazine a few years back. This Pacific Palisades socialite had written a book on table manners, and how to set a table. We were shooting at her parents bajillion dollar house in Malibu canyon. And...I shit you not, when I got there, she had me set the table for the shoot because she didn't know where the utensils were supposed to go. But I do. I do, because I was raised in the midwest...here on EARTH. How do I live in this world without so much as a switchblade?! 


So fine, we go to pizza, but the only way we get Jack there is to say he can play with Nipper's iphone when we get there. "Is this really a good idea anymore", I'm wondering as I stuff pizza in my mouth as fast as I can because Nipper is holding the baby because he was too hot in stroller and started to cry as soon as we got there. I mean if one kid won't eat the pizza and won't take his eyes off the fucking iphone, and the other one is dying of heat stroke so one parent has to forego eating and just bounce and coo like a dumb dumb, are we really having "family pizza"? IS this what a meal together has come down to? I have lost the war...

I find myself thinking these battle/war questions all the time. I want us all to eat around the table all together more often. I also want to eat a meal without saying "can you take a bite" and "can you please sit down" 17,821 times. I also want to eat at home more, but our schedules seem to drive us all out of the house at different times, and Nipper and I are never ready for dinner at 5:30-6 when Jack is having his, so... Lunch, that's it. I have 4 opportunities a week for us to have a meal together and it's lunch. Starting in September when Jack is in school 4 days a week, I'll have 3. You'd think I could make that happen, but no, and one kid is only a baby! 


So as I'm shoveling in the pizza, and having this argument in my head, the day is unfolding. Nipper is going to take Jack to his 3 auditions because we no longer have a babysitter (10 million word blogpost brewing in my head about that situation). He has promised him he can play games on the ipad, which is like telling a junkie he can have a wheelbarrow of crack. He's in. He woke up at 5am again and was out of his mind tired, so I offered to take him home with me and Charlie instead of being dragged around to work with daddy. NO WAY. He was going to get to smoke some serious ipad, why the hell would he want to go home with me and REST?! Narc. 


So off they go. I return home with Charlie, my throat now on fire from the beginnings of this cold. I'm praying for a nap. The boys won't be home for 5 hours. Surely at some point the baby will sleep and I will close my eyes when he does. Hahahahaha. Stupid woman. Don't you know, you should have kept that hope a secret, even from yourself? Of course Charlie doesn't sleep, and of course Nipper texts me from his 2nd audition that Jack has dropped the iPad, and smashed it to pieces. Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck. 


Jack is devastated. He can't stop crying. Nipper is pissed, but trying to console Jack. It was an accident. I'm now, sick, tired, mad, sad, trying to tell Nip to not be too hard on Jack, and Nip is texting me that Jack is inconsolable, and he sort of wishes that it hadn't been an accident, because he's so mad, but obviously not at Jack, and... You see where this is going. How can you be mad at a 4 year old when he breaks your $800 toy. You're the grown up who gave it to him. Dumb dumbs... I tell him that I'm going to give him a big hug when he gets home and I wait.


Well obviously, Charlie falls into a deep sleep 20 minutes before they get back around dinner time. I'm too fried to even get irritated at this point. I lay on the couch with my eyes opening and closing involuntarily. Watching my baby sleep, wishing for sleep myself. Listening for the car door slam, so I can get up and hug Jack as soon as he gets here. 


I made an appointment for Nipper to take the iPad to the apple store at 8:50pm. Thank the "geniuses" at the "genius bar" for having late appointments. Figured we might as well find out the extent of the damage ($) as soon as possible. ($419 in case you were wondering, and they just give you a new one. So now we have a $1200 iPad) Also figured both kids would be in bed. MARIJA ARE YOU REALLY THAT STUPID? The universe had a good laugh at my expense yesterday. 

Because Jack was so sad and sleepy and shaky, I told him, he and I could crawl into my bed and watch a movie and have popcorn after I put Charlie down, and daddy left for the apple store. Because you know Charlie has gone to bed at 7 every night for weeks. No problem. But guess what? They were both up until 9:45 last night. 9 forty fucking 5. For those of you without kids, you might be thinking "big deal". But 9:45 is the parent equivalent of 4:18am to you. I need that extra hour or so at night. I need it to clean the house, write emails, watch R rated tv, talk to Nipper about everyone we hate, and just stare into space. Oh, and I was sick. so... Boo-fucking-hoo. 


Poor Jack was so patient as I kept getting up from our movie, and then from our bedtime books to try to rock Charlie, pacify Charlie, and finally nurse Charlie back to sleep. He finally gave up on mommy and fell asleep looking at Pinocchio. Poor baby. He asked me as I was getting up out of the bed for the last time "mommy, when is Charlie going to be a big boy?". Sob...

Oh and don't worry, I was positive, sweet, and patient, with the kids the whole time, lest you think this post is about how I lost it. I was texting Nipper stuff like "FML" and "FUCK THIS WHOLE FUCKING DAY". But the kids, well, the one who is conscious, and most likely to remember this day, will only remember that we laid in bed and watched Pinocchio while mommy tried to get that his rascally baby brother to sleep. Because fuck all if I'm going to turn my day from hell, into theirs. 


I'd tell you about how Jack ended up in our bed, and because I was worried about him getting enough sleep I got up (now fully sick) and took Charlie, who sounds like a badger when he nurses, into Jack's room to nurse, and tried to go back to sleep at 5:45am, only to lay there, with Charlie only being happy to sleep ON ME, until my arms fell asleep around 7am. But I'm too tired. 


Oh and yeah, I wrote this post yesterday but forgot to post it because I was brain dead. In better news, Jack rode his bike, saw a lizard, had a "seaweed" popsicle, and I saw Midnight in Paris, which revived my hope for humanity. I also had a dream that apple started making iphones in jadite green. SO... one day up, one day down...

Cinephile

Movie Charlie

Today Charlie and I went on our first adventure together. The AMC theaters here have Monday morning mommy and me movies. You can take your baby, or your kid, and it's ok if they cry of poop, or lean over the seat and talk the whole movie. The movie is usually whatever is the big new release from the previous weekend. It's AWESOME. As someone who loves movies, it's the thing that saved me from feeling like a leper when Jack was a baby. The first movie we went to was Hairspray. I cried. Not because Hairspray is a tearjerker, but because being a dark movie theater with my baby (Nipper) and Jack, made me feel so fucking normal. 

This is what he looked like in the most exciting parts...Not really, he was snoozing. 

So Charlie and I went to see Super 8 today. We loved it. He nursed when we got there and slept on my lap for most of the movie. Heaven. I didn't cry, but almost. It's such a relief to get a glimpse into the future normal, after weeks and weeks of nothing but diapers and sore nipples.

Kind of love my fellas today. I promise to bring back the snark and venom very soon...

midnight gardener

This rarely happens at night...

So tonight I pruned my roses in the dark after the we put the kids to bed. When else am I going to do it? I went out there when it was still light to water this new GIANT fuschia plant I have in a hanging basket in the breezeway. But then I noticed the roses were looking kind of leggy, and no Roberto, so... I got out the pruners. By the time I got to the second rose bush it was pretty much dark out, and while leaning in to get a distant branch, I got a leaf in my eye, which made my eye automatically close AROUND THE LEAF. Have you ever felt an entire leaf under your eyelid? It didn't really hurt, just felt weird, but then when I got inside it was bothering me, so I decided to watch baby videos of Jack. You know so I could cry my eyes out, but just to clean out any leaf dirt. It's going too fast.

Pushing Charlie to Village Pizza

Oh also, apologies to those of you who don't like my Faulkner like stream of consciousness posts. I don't have the energy for structure. And no I'm not saying my writing is as good as Faulkner's, although that wouldn't really be something I'd say anyway, because I can't read Faulkner because he's SO boring, but my dad likes him, so... good night. 

someone get that lady a straight jacket

Peonies from Trader Joes. Perfect!

And then sometimes you run into Lisa from Smacksy when you're getting out of your car in South Pasadena and you are trying to cram a GIANT diaper bag, that you're already mad at yourself for bringing, when you're just going for a stupid walk, but what if the baby poops, or needs a change of clothes, or you know a hat. But really, you're going to walk for like 1/2 an hour, and you are 4 minutes from home, so you needed the suitcase? But there you are CRAMMING it into the bottom of the overpriced stroller you bought when you were pregnant with Jack, that you and Nipper Knapp HATE, but now it's like, you've committed and by god you're not going to spend one more penny on strollers, because this one DOES IT ALL!!! And you say hi, and then because you are embarrassed by the diaper bag, and the stroller, and the fact that you haven't spoken to a human being who wasn't related to you in weeks, you commence to verbally vomit on Smacksy about how Nipper is at a Target audition, but you want him to come home so you can go to the actual Target store for FIVE minutes, and isn't it stupid that you brought a diaper bag, and how your 10lb baby is killing your boobs, and oh you're just out for a walk. But you feel even weirder when you start talking so you try to shut up. But you feel like a freak because you think she's probably wondering why you are parking your car at the park, to go for a walk with your baby and your diaper bag, and you are SO HAPPY, she didn't walk by 5 minutes before to see you eating your In&Out burger in your car, like a criminal. So then you mention the In&out burger, but only in passing, and you wish you could shut up, but she's right there in front of you, A REAL PERSON, and a MOM no less! 

and Charlie sleeps through the whole thing...

You manage to shut up for long enough for her to say, "have a great walk", and pretend that you are behaving in a totally normal manner, only to run right into her and another mom 1/2 a block away. And when the mom politely says you look great for having had a baby 2 weeks before you say something about pacing around in circles in your house, which makes no sense at all, and probably she wonders if she should wrestle the stroller out of your hands, and call someone, but you know the walk is going to help, so you only slow down for a minute, and then you're off again. FITNESS! FRESH AIR! The jacarandas are in bloom! But you don't mention that. She also smiles politely because she's a mom, and realizes you are hormonal and insane, and she should let you pass. 


Later when you tell Jack that you saw Bob Rosenberg and his mom on the street, he says "Oh... you mean Action Bob?"


"yes, I saw Action Bob and his mom on my walk" like it was all no big deal...

Then later this happens, and you die of love

twice

and then this comes in the mail, and you think everything might be just fine...

Thank You

hiccups

I want to thank a few people who helped make yesterday pretty great. In no particular order:

I would like to thank Jack's babysitter for being a no show. It allowed me to spend 30 minutes in the swing chair with both of my boys under a blanket telling the wizard of oz story. Which Jack said he thought "Charlie really likes". 

I would like to thank Charlie for going to sleep after nursing, so that Jack and I could crawl into bed and watch an episode of Spiderman.

I would like to thank Jack for cuddling up next to me while watching Spiderman and falling asleep. His first at home nap in bed with mommy in what may be a year. 

I would like to thank Charlie for continuing to sleep all the way through my nap with Jack, and our grilled cheese and apples lunch, another thing we haven't been able to do in a long time. 

I would like to thank AMC for running Die Hard in the middle of the afternoon while Nipper took Jack to swim class, so that I didn't DIE of boredom while Charlie nursed for 17,000 hours. 

I would like to thank Nipper for taking Jack to swim class, where he reportedly did the pancake float all on his own, the only kid in his class to do it. Then for taking him to Menchie's and getting this picture. 

I would like to also thank the inventor of Limonata, for you know, inventing it. 

And I think that's it. 

As you can see, anyone that helps my boys nap, me nap, provides desert, action movies, or lemony goodness is alright in my book.

Trumpets and stuff

Ok, so for those of you who follow me on Twitter and Facebook, you know... We have a big fat baby boy! 8lbs, 13oz, 20 inches. His name is Charlie Truman Knapp, and he was born on May 14th at 9pm. I'm TOTALLY going to get back to writing here in the next few days, and I'm TOTALLY going to tell you the whole birth story, because I want to brag brag brag. But I'm too busy huffing baby smells like it's paint thinner right now. SO...for the time being you should all go follow me on facebook (link here), or twitter. I seem to be able to manage mini updates on there, and lots of pics. 


More later, soon, I promise. Unless I overdose on pampers, nursing, and total lack of sleep, in which case, you know, go read a book or something. Geez.