10:18 pm - Monday, Jun. 12, 2006
Toe hair
Peanut has a problem with toe hair. Not hers. Mine. By which I mean, not my toe hair, so much as my hair on her toe.

Let me start over.

I have (head) hair that is long - half way down my back. Somehow, strands of it find their way to her little digits and begin winding themselves around. I can understand how hairs might get tangled in little fingers. I can't fathom how they pick one little finger and wind all 18 inches of hair around it. Really.
Today a rogue hair wound up around a Peanut toe, but she was wearing a sleeping bag and I didn't see it. Who knows how long it was there. When I changed her diaper after lunch I finally found it, and it was so tight I had to use tweezers to get it off. Her little toe was all red, and it must have hurt, because she cried and cried... I comforted her and put her down for a nap thinking that was the end of it, but when she got up two hours later it was Still red, and you could still see where the hair had been.
I felt a little silly, but I called the Dr. Rule of thumb: if you call the Dr to ask if you should come in, they will say yes. Always. So I bip over with the baby, and the same Dr who told me to come in giggled as he played with my Baby's toes. Another rule of thumb: Any Drs visit will entail a version of the following prognosis - It'll get better or it won't. He admitted it was pretty red, but he thought it would get better. Unless it doesn't. In which case I could come back.
I knew better. I should have stayed home. Somehow having a tiny person's life in your hands makes you utterly unsure of your own common sense. I knew that was what he'd say, but I had to go, because there have to be things I don't know, right? And what if some of those things are about toes? And what if she ends up losing her toe because I didn't see the Dr the day it happened? I thought about not calling the Dr, but then I thought about all those stories that pivot on the phrase "If only we'd done something sooner..."

On other news...
I do still have a son. He is starting down the horrible scary path to puberty. I thought girls cornered the market on moodiness, but it tain't so. Oh no. One minute he knows everything and we're so stupid and we just don't get it. The next minute he's so sorry and he's so stupid and he hates himself. Wait, hold the phone, now he's in a tremendously silly mood. Rinse and repeat.
Since we've moved here he's spent more time with his friends in environs devoid of grownups. And lately he's discovered what a double entendre is. I can't help but think the two are connected. The upshot is that now he catches me and Simon tossing our little ones out there. It's like when you're used to spelling things so the kids won't know, and all of a sudden they learn how to read. I would use to say things- anything- like, "hand me the salt" and Simon would say "I 'll hand you your salt later, baby..." . And I'd giggle. Now we do something like that and about five seconds later Boy goes "Hey! Eeew! You're perverts!"

And for more news you could do without, I'm pretty sure I ovulated a few weeks ago. Simon and I are nervous. Birthcontrol is something I'm not good at. When Peanut first got here I was thinking about getting the tubes tied, and I asked him if he wanted any more. He wasn't sure. He thought he'd like to have one on purpose. Now that we've spent some time with Peanut, and it's been acknowledged that the baby thing takes a long time, he comes home with the usual spermicide and condoms too, for those times when an egg might be ripe.
Ha. It would be much easier to get the tubes tied, but somehow the thought is daunting. It is a serious thing to be giving up. Not that I really want more kids, but to think that I couldn't even if I wanted to... That's serious.

I have a job interview tommorow. 12 hrs a week shelving books. Whee. Not sure it's worth it, really, but then money is good, and some is better than none, so I'll get shiny and go.

Maybe if I got the job I'd get cable. I've never had cable in my own house that I paid for. The very idea of paying for tv is repugnant. And yet, the past few weeks have left me very lonely and bored. I've watced all of every one of the LOTRs DVDs. The collectors editions. And all of them again with the commentaries on (just the cast though). And any DVD we get from Netflix I watch all the extras and commentaries. It's a little like hangin out with the actors. Wish it wasn't as pathetic as that, but it is. I remember going through something like this when Boy was a baby. I'd moved down to GA where I had no friends. ER, Friends, and Mad About You were my good buddies. And later BallyKissAngel. It is better now, because I call my MI friends all the time, and I have a husband to talk to everynight, and the house to take care of. But when I'm sitting in that damned rocking chair pumping the breast milk and I just can't DO anything, it's nice to watch a little tube.

Ever read Practical Demonkeeping? There's a character whose wife kicked him out, and he's staying with a friend in a shitty trailer, and neither one cleans the place, and as he wanders around the filth he keeps saying "People don't live like this." For half the book he has cameos- him in a car wash with a pickup bed full of dishes, hosing them down and saying "People don't live like this." I feel like that too sometimes. I work on getting our house put away, and when it all seems a little too much I think "People don't live like this."
Similarly, when I wonder how I'm going to get things done, I think "People weren't meant to live like this." We weren't meant to live in a house alone with our immediate family. We were meant to live in a village, with people dropping by all the time. And your momma and your grandmomma were supposed to live with you, so there'd always be someone to hold the baby while you wash the dishes. Seriously. Wish I had a momma. Maybe she could live next door, but still. Sometimes I imagine we join a co-op, and we make our own village. And it has a school, and the kids are lovely and there are chickens. And hammocks and watermelon.
I'm rambling now. I think I'll go to bed. Anyone interested in starting a co-op with chickens and hammocks and watermelon should drop me a line.