Our Safe-House

Despite the fact I constantly b*tch about our neighbors and other various neighborhood riff-raff (including but not limited to the joksters who draw penises on cars) I really do love where we live.  We're within walking distance of restaurants, shops, parks, grocery stores and, pre-Alexandra thus most important at the time, bars.  Moving to the city, though a small city it may be, encouraged us to stimulate the economy by spending a lot of money at, you guessed it, bars; improved our health by walking everywhere thus negating the negative side affects of alcohol; it also improved our health because we did not drink and drive which would otherwise increase our odds of DYING (though it should be noted we never did anyway and always had a DD when we lived farther away); and it encouraged us to keep our town safe by offering up our home as a place for friends to crash if need be.  In other words, I'm pretty sure we deserve the Key to the City. 

Happily, quite a few of our friends opted for staying at our, what I like to refer to as, "safe-house."  In most cases I use the term "safe-house" to designate a home where people can stay and be safe from their own selves.  Typically the scenario that played out would be I was already home, pregnant and feeling like I would be judged if my pregnant belly was hanging-out at bars, and I would hear Marcus come in the door with a friend or two in tow.  He would get them all set-up on beds, couches, floors, etc. and life would be good and I could get back to weeping at stupid commercials while dipping into my Haagen-Daas.

There was one instance, however, in which I was forced to use the term "safe-house" to denote the fact that I found myself harboring domestic domesticated terrorists men of the drunk-husband variety.  It was during this night that I felt like a traitor to my female brethren because it was on this night that we allowed two banished husbands to stay at our house.  In one single night, but yet two separate occasions, two of our friends got so mad at their husband's they left them behind to fend for themselves.  In other words the husbands were really, really, really drunk and were thus not responsible for their actions and really there's only so much a sober wife can take.

I remember like it was yesterday (one benefit to being stone-cold sober).  It was a girlfriend's bachelorette party and many of the ladies went off to have some fun while leaving the men behind.  Not ones to be out-done in the fun department the late-twenties-to-early-thirties-married-but-free-that-particular-day-men made themselves comfy at a local watering hole *pause* at noon.  Considering the ladies didn't arrive back to town until 4 or 5 in the evening one can only imagine the amount of damage the guys did to not only their wallets but livers as well.  I won't go into details, and I certainly won't reveal the identities of the "innocents" *snort*, but I will say that picking fights and slamming bottles (though perhaps accidental in that case) is no way to keep a wife happy and both ladies eventually left without saying a word.

Needless to say, as the night wore on it became apparent that the ladies were most definitely not coming back for their bad boys.  Marcus wasn't about to let anyone fend for themselves and offered up our home as a refuge.  I was OK with that as long as the husbands knew they were getting the stink-eye for the rest of the night and through the morning, and they most certainly were not getting any breakfast.  That'll show 'em! 

In the end all is well.  The husbands were taken back and forgiven, as a group we no longer frequented that particular bar out of shame (though not too much shame considering the place smelled like a toilet anyway), and our house kept it's reputation for being a safe-house.  Now that Alex is around the days are gone that we have random overnight guests.  To be honest, it wouldn't bother me much provided they were quiet and didn't wake the baby...though considering Alex wakes when our knees creak by her doorway I suppose that may be out of the question.

Writers Note (31 January 2012):  After reading this post Marcus said it was "just alright."  I, thinking it was a pretty funny post, was aghast.  "What could I have done differently?" I asked.  "Well," Marcus said, "It's just that, I know my mom reads this blog and it comes across as we're all a bunch of drunks."  So, to appease the person I've chosen to spend the rest of my life with, I would like to state that we are not a bunch of drunks though we do enjoy getting together and partaking in adult beverages.  This was pre-children for all of us thus our only responsibility was for ourselves alone and it was a one time event that never occurred again.  Now, with that out of the way I think what Marcus is most afraid of is I'm going to spill some secrets of his own adventures in drunk-land.   All in good time...

So Far 2012 Blows

The New Year in our household has not started off very well between some of us getting sick and none of us getting any sleep; we're all a little worse for the wear.

So, to begin with Marcus and I went on a date night the first weekend of January.  This is such a rare occurrence the last time we went out alone was for our anniversary in August.  Anyway, we went to the movies which we never do, in fact I think the last movie we saw in the theater was Avatar though I'm probably exaggerating.  We saw Mission Impossible:  Ghost Protocol which was entertaining and less than two hours so my ADD never fully kicked in.  After the movie we went to a local Japanese steakhouse for dinner.  Now, bare with me because I still can't think about this place without feeling just a tab bit nauseous because, you see, I went outside of my box that night and ordered the shrimp and chicken entree.  I never eat shrimp.  I don't even like shrimp that much.  But for some reason, that night I wanted shrimp.  The next morning it was verified why I don't go outside of my box and that's because I woke up with a moderate case of food poisoning.  For four straight days I consumed maybe 300 calories total.  Poor Marcus tried so hard to get me to eat and drink (all while trying to make sure Alex was taken care of) but I couldn't.  I just couldn't.  It was a very strange feeling to have food put in front of me and to try so hard to eat it but not be able to.  Everything I put in my body, even water, hurt my stomach and made me feel even more sick.  Finally, after four full days I felt the first pangs of hunger and I knew I was on the mend.  While it's not a doctor recommended diet I'm pretty sure I lost about 5 pounds during that ordeal so that's a plus?

So that was me.  Now, this past week, Alex has been sick though I'm beginning to suspect she was playing hooky.  At the end of the day on Monday we received a call from her daycare saying she had a fever.  When we picked her up she was clearly uncomfortable so we took her home, got her comfy and watched for any signs of serious illness which never appeared in any other form other than a fever.  Unfortunately, Alex's daycare has a rule that the kiddos have to be 24 hours fever free and unfortunately she spent all of Tuesday with a fever so she was home with mamma for two whole days.  So, back to the story.  On Tuesday she slept for most of the day and when she was awake I essentially forced her to drink a gallon in fluids.  I even let her sit on the couch, surrounded by her stuffed animals, and watch TV with me (currently our plans are to exclude any and all TV from her until she's 2...but I made an exception this time because I wanted her to sit still and rest).  The most excitement we had that day was when we started dropping her stuffed animals into her wagon from the couch which she found to be particularly hilarious.  I wish I could see things in life with as much enthusiasm as she does.  Alas, I suppose that's the curse of being an adult.

So, we're all now feeling better but we have one thing that is driving all three of us crazy, although I guarantee you it's driving Marcus and me more crazy, and that is Alex's non-sleeping.  It was right around Christmas that Alex decided sleeping was for the birds and started waking at least twice a night.  Last weekend, and at my wits end from a lack of sleep, I played hardball with her which finally ended around 2:00 in the morning with a whimpering baby and a drained mamma.  However, she slept through the night the next two nights so whatever I did worked.  That was short-lived though because now, and I'm assuming it's due to her fever, she's back to her old habits and this time it's not as easy to play hardball when we're concerned she's truly sick.  Monday night was rough as she woke up on at least three different occasions but the worst night was Tuesday when she woke-up every hour and a half, crying so hard I'm sure our neighbors heard.  Every time she woke up Marcus and I would take turns trying to assess the situation:  Is she hot?  Cold?  Worried about paying the bills?  Hungry?  Dirty diaper?  Stressed about her big presentation to the corporate office?  Gassy?  Teething?  Wondering who will win this year's Presidential election?  Every time we assessed the situation we came back empty handed, not knowing what was going on and feeling like parental failures (both of us) and somewhat murderous (that one is totally me...I really gotta work on controlling my stress), we would finally get her back to sleep only to go through the cycle all over again.  Sitting here today I still have no clue what was going on and, despite my recent musings over what life used to be like pre-kiddo, there is no doubt in mind that life post-kiddo is definitely better despite a lack of sleep.  Of course, these are not my same sentiments at 11 PM (we're boring, we got to bed at 10 PM), 12:30 AM, 2 AM, 3:30 AM, or 5 AM but after the day has worn on and the memories of the previous night have faded all I can think about is her beautiful face and how much I love her.  Plus, it's hard to stay mad at someone as cute as this:

Every Night Is An Adventure

Last night reminded me of one of the more endearing exciting frustrating aspects of being married to a certain someone and that is his propensity to sleep walk and sleep talk.  It's been happening a lot more lately for some reason so I'm beginning to suspect he's stressed out about something.  Just last week, in between Alex's numerous nighttime wake-ups (we're still reeling from the chaos of Christmas), Marcus woke me up numerous times to discuss really important things like archways and snowmen.  In fact, archways with snowmen.  No matter how hard I tried to make sense of what he was talking about I just couldn't, not to mention I don't have much fight in me at various odd times of the night, and I ended up letting it go.  The next morning I asked Marcus what he was trying to verbalize and he acknowledged that he remembered speaking and being frustrated because he also knew what he was saying didn't make any sense.  I suppose we'll never know why the archway had snowmen. Or the snowmen had archways, whichever it may be.

So, getting back to the story at hand, I've been sick with food poisoning for the last four days which may be the source of Marcus's stress as he's been taking care of Alex 24/7 and making sure I'm alive and haven't died of starvation or dehydration.  Anyway, last night at middle-of-the-night-o'-thirty I woke up to Marcus standing on the bed and unscrewing the perfectly fine globe from the ceiling fan.  "What are you doing?!" I hissed, trying to sound loud but not actually be loud so I didn't wake the baby, "why are you doing that?  Do you know you're taking the globe off of the ceiling fan?  Stop it!  Marcus, stop!"  (I was getting a little anxious by this point)  Naturally, I received a curt response from Marcus who insisted he knew what he was doing and that he was not sleep walking despite the fact I never asked if he was sleep walking.  Finally, once the globe had been completely unscrewed and safely set aside Marcus lay down.  "Why did you do that?" I asked.  "It was on my list of things to do and I wanted to get it out of the way," was the response.  *sigh*  All I could do was roll over and go back to sleep, all the while wondering if the entire ceiling fan would be dismantled come morning.

It wasn't.  But I'm still concerned what may happen over the next few days.  It's all fun and games when he's simply lying there talking gibberish but when he's physically doing things, that gets a little worrisome.  The only way I can see this working out to my benefit is if he starts working on the master bathroom renovations and if he does that I'll only get mad if he wakes the baby...or cuts off a limb...or something equally disastrous that could potentially happen if he does sleep-renovate the bathroom (although he did show a real carefulness when handling the glass globe last night so it may not be such a bad thing).

Alex's 1st Christmas

Our 1st Christmas with Alexandra has come and gone.  I was so excited leading up to the big day.  Her gift from "Santa," the Learning Home from Fisher Price, had been delivered weeks earlier and was sitting patiently under the tree, waiting to be put together.  As night fell on Christmas Eve I couldn't wait to put her to bed and get to work.  Strike that.  What I meant to say was, as night fell on Christmas Eve I couldn't wait to put her to bed, pour an eggnog and rum drink, and watch Marcus get to work.  He's the engineer; he's much more capable of these things than I am.  Anyway, I popped in the most glorious of all Christmas movies (Christmas Vacation if you have to ask) and proceeded to hand over screws of various sizes in between long sips of spiked eggnog and laughing at the same exact scenes in the movie that I laugh at every year and have done for the last 20 years. 

We weren't overly concerned about Alex waking up and sneaking downstairs to see if Santa had been to the house though if she had it would have been a way more exciting Christmas than anticipated.  There might have been some small concern that she would wake upon hearing Marcus using a power tool to tighten screws on a piece of plastic (this is where we differ because if I had used a power tool it probably would have taken me even longer to put it together thus negating the efficiency of a power tool) but all in all we relished in the knowledge that it would be another few years before we'd find ourselves putting toys together at 3 in the morning.

Once Marcus finished being an elf we headed to bed.  I was so excited for the next morning I felt like a kid again barely containing my excitement to go to sleep.  Alex awoke around 7 Christmas morning and I instructed Marcus to go downstairs and turn the Christmas tree lights on (as if Alex would notice...which she does but only if they're of the blinking variety which ours are not).  I held Alex in my arms as we made our way downstairs, the whole time saying to her in a sing-song voice, "It's Christmaaassss!  What did Santa bring youuuu?" as she kept her eyes trained on a piece of missing dry wall which may or may not have been more entertaining than me.

I set her down in front of her gift and she sat there first looking up at me then looking up at Marcus, both of us with stupid, silly grins plastered on our faces waiting for her to do something.  Anything.  The pictures we have are of her sitting in front of the toy giving a slight smile that seems to say "I'm not really sure why you people are staring at me with those goofy grins..."  As Alex sat there looking perplexed and Marcus and my cheeks began to hurt from smiling it became clear that we were going to have to show Alex what we expected so I got down and started playing with her toy.  Also, slightly off topic but, I'd like to add that I can't wait for her to start playing with Barbies because I'll have to make sure the current Barbies are up to standards of course.  Once she figured out how her new toy worked she was enthralled.  She opened and closed the door numerous times (which we were well aware of because it states "opened" or "closed" each. and. every. time...insert psychotic grin here) and figured out how her mailbox worked (which also informs us when it's opened and closed...yay).  She even played with the shapes and attempted to put them in their proper hole.

Also waiting under the tree for her was a gift from her Mimi, a Radio Flyer Walker Wagon, which she took to immediately (once we put her to it anyway).  Alex had a second Christmas with her Grandma and Grandpa in New Jersey during which it was discovered that Grandma and Mimi have the same excellent taste in toys.  While two Radio Flyer Walker Wagon's would be any little girl's dream (aside from a pony of course) it was decided that the New Jersey wagon would be sent back in lieu of something else.

Finally, Alex had a, short but sweet, third Christmas with her Pappy and Gigi from Williamsburg during which she received the cutest Schoenhut pink piano.  Soon upon unwrapping it she gave her very first performance for a crowd of four adoring fans and which reinforced my belief that she will one day be famous and set her parents up in a beautiful house on the Mediterranean.  Later, as Marcus and I discussed her inevitable rise to super-stardom, we decided that we would be equally pleased if she miraculously started playing "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" or "Fur Elise."  At such a young age there's only so much we can expect, right?  Though, to be sure, when we get home we'll be practicing our scales.

Alex's First Words

About two months ago Alex's Uncle Jonas came to visit us.  I only mention this because he was a third witness and can back-up the events that follow.

During Uncle Jonas's visit we took note of Alex's new ability to babble; more specifically her ability to babble "mamma."  It was with a great deal of pride that I proclaimed her first word was "mamma" and told Marcus, a.k.a. "dadda," to suck it because she obviously loved me more.  We even did a test to make sure she wasn't calling everyone "mamma" and instead was directing it towards me alone.  Because "mamma" usually occurred during a time of great stress for Alex (read: cranky) we tested her during one such moment.  As we sat at the dinner table, with Alex at my feet growing fussier and fussier by the minute, Marcus and I switched chairs to test her new found vocabulary.  As she pathetically tried to climb her way into Marcus's lap nothing sounding remotely like '"mamma" escaped her lips.  Then, we switched chairs again, and immediately "mamma" was being said over and over while the tears and frustration increased.  I didn't want to gloat at that exact moment because she was having such a traumatic time but "Ha!  In your face, Marcus!" are the exact words that came out of my mouth and which may or may not have been accompanied by a happy dance.

Later that evening another friend of ours stopped by and the four of us adults sat around as Alex entertained us (I'll be so sad when she becomes self-conscious and won't let us just sit there and stare at her for hours on end).  She babbled "mamma" as I happily reiterated the fact her first word was my "name."  Marcus, apparently growing frustrated by the lack of respect Alex was showing him, picked her up and said "Whatever.  Alex, say 'Hi, daddy...'"  *pause for emphasis*  ...and she did.  All four of us were shocked and our jaws dropped in disbelief.  "It can't be that easy," Jonas said as we all whipped out our camera phones and started video taping Alex hoping to recreate the moment.  "Say, 'Hi, daddy'" was parroted to Alex while she sat there giving us her notorious you-are-an-idiot-stare.  Needless to say we haven't heard "Hi, daddy" since that evening.

Two months later and Alex's vocabulary has expanded yet decreased at the same time.  "Mamma" is rarely heard while "dadda" can't be said enough.  She likes to sing what we call the "dadda" song and which basically consists of "dadda" over and over and over again in varying tones.  Even when I give her a bath and encourage her to say "mamma" she just smiles at me and says "da!"  *sigh*  While I might have won the first word battle it's clear "dadda" has won the war.

Finally, she has a third "word" which we just recently recognized as being a word.  "Keh" is quite clearly "kitty" and I can't believe we didn't figure that out sooner.  After 10 months you'd think you know someone and their language (in)ability.  Anyway, Alex points her finger (sort of...it's more of a five finger point with one finger extended just a little more than the others) at the kitty and says "keh" repeatedly and sometimes with such great emphasis she's spit on me in her zeal.  Typically, the saying of "keh" is coupled with a great desire to pet manhandle the "keh."  Unfortunately "keh" does not share the same affection for Alex and tends to get juuust out of her reach.  I'm actually very grateful that we have a "keh" because without her we might not realize that Alex is beginning to associate names with objects.  This all makes for truly exciting times in the household...well, maybe not as exciting as our festive New Year's Eve but that's a story for another day.

This is Alex from the "keh's" point of view.