Back in…sometime last year (the pregnant months, they blend) I got a loan to cover the next quarter’s worth of school supplies. One of the classes I thought I’d be taking was Intermediate Algebra. Art school doesn’t ask much of you in the math department, but if you’re seriously numerically anemic like me, College Math is an ever-present spectre. Looming. Like a big black graphic calculator of doom.

Anyway, the textbook for College Math, according to last year’s syllabus, was to be the same as the textbook for Prerequisite to College Math, which, um, I also had to take. So I had the textbook. Ha! said I. One textbook for two classes! I WIN! And then I laughed maniacally, because I was jacked up on third trimester hormones.

But College Math was not on my schedule until summer session, which started yesterday. I marched into the classroom (virtually; this is online art school, after all) armed with my old book, only to discover…they changed the materials requirements.

The class now requires a spanky new book. A $124 spanky new book. You know what I don’t have? I will give you a clue:

So, yeah. There was panic. Because I’m really not going to be able to pass my math class if I don’t even have the book.

But wait! There is a happy ending! Postpone your despair until finals time!

My sister generously caved to my pathetic entreaties and bought me the big red book of algebraic doom. Thank you, sister! Now there is nothing standing between me and a passing grade. Except my brain, of course.

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Saturday: Not So Cranky Dada celebrates his 31st year of being awesomely Matt-full. Since the in-laws are in town looking at real estate, they give us the best present ever: babysitting so we can go on a date! A real-life, no-babies-involved date! I can still barely believe it, so I will say it again: we had a date, my husband and I! (Possibly we need to do this more often.)

The plan was to go to PF Chang’s, but – surprise! – restaurants are busy on Saturday nights. Not to be deterred, Not So and I strolled around the Pearl for a while (passing Blue Hour, which fills me with longing but is, unfortunately, way out of our price range), but he deemed most of the restaurants we passed as “too fussy” (the Pearl? Too fussy? No way!). We hopped on the trolley and took it out to PSU. The theory was that college students need to eat, but apparently that theory was flawed. There was nothing out there.

We made our way back toward downtown. “Let’s have fondue!” said Not So. “Ooh!” said I. We scurried down the stairs to Melting Pot. “Oh, I’m sorry,” said one of the hostesses, “We don’t have anything until at least 9:30.” Not So and I looked into the nearly-empty restaurant, looked back at the hostess, and said “O-kaaaay.”

Now we were really hungry, and the adventure was beginning to wear thin. “First place we find,” said Not So, and I agreed. That turned out to be Bistro 921 in the Hilton. They had plenty of tables, seated us right away, and – bonus! – Not So has a membership at the Hilton health club, which gave us a fat discount on the meal. I had salmon, which was heavenly, and Not So got down with a steak, which came with these mashed potatoes with bleu cheese that I will seriously have dreams about for the next week. (Like a crack dealer, he let me have a taste for free.)

Afterward we went out to Voodoo Donut for dessert. On our way to the train, we passed a bunch of guys playing bagpipes. Eee! Bagpipes! I wanted to stay and hang out with the Scotsmen, but we ran for the train instead.

Happy Fun Baby was all smiles when we got home. The grandparents said he was a perfect angel, although he did spend twenty minutes crying after he woke up and found himself in the crib. (He does that for us, too – I just hadn’t thought to mention it.) When I came upstairs, Grandma Not So was sitting in the dark with the baby, holding him up to the window so he could see the stars. Grandma Not So = sucker. Everyone is a sucker for Happy Fun Baby.

After the grandparents left, we made some coffee and had our donuts. (Note:This part of the story will come up later. Literally.) We watched some TV, Happy Fun Baby nursed like a mad fiend (Grandparents: He wasn’t really interested in the bottle. I guess he wasn’t hungry! Me: Ha.) I took the baby (who was passed out on my chest) to bed around midnight, and I fell right asleep. All was well in the Cranky house…or was it?

Two a.m. (or so): I woke up with bile in my throat, feeling seasick. I couldn’t even begin to fall back to sleep. After laying there for a while I got up (being careful not to disturb Ellison) and called down the stairs. “Baby? I need you.”

Not So slooooooowly (or so it seemed) came to the foot of the stairs. “What’s up?”

I said “I need you to keep an eye on the baby because I think I’m going to be sick.”

He came up and I crouched over the toilet, feeling horrible and wanting nothing more than to lay my head on the cool, cool linoleum. But nothing happened, so I came back into the bedroom. “I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe I ate something bad.” Not So rubbed my back for a while, and I think he was getting ready to go back downstairs when all of a sudden I felt a lot worse and made another bathroom run. Let me just say: there is nothing good about throwing up a combination of salmon and donuts. Nothing good.

I came back to bed and Not So said he was going to run downstairs to turn things off, since it seemed like I was going to need him for a while. I said okay, but the minute he got downstairs the nausea hit again with a vengeance. I literally ran for the toilet, hoping the baby wouldn’t wake up and roll off the bed before Not So got back but really, really not being able to worry too much about it because OMG sick.

Happily that was the last regurgitation trip, but I spent the rest of the weekend feeling like – well, feeling like I did when I was pregnant. Which I’m so not. But, dude – in case I was thinking about it? Unending nausea + small needy baby = no fun at all.

Still. If someone had told me beforehand “You will go out with your husband, but you will be sick all night afterward” – I still would have gone for it. A date with my husband is totally worth it.

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technorati tags:cat, baby, sun

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Happy Fun Baby is exercising his vocal cords. Not in the cute ‘listen to me shout!’ way he was yesterday; today it’s all about the screaming. I think he’s mad about the fact that I’m the only one home with him. Yesterday he had mama and daddy and grandma and papa davey. Today: just mama. And everyone knows mama is no fun.

Hey! I know why mama’s no fun! It starts with pre and ends with menstrual. God, how I’ve missed – oh wait. I haven’t missed it. In fact, I’d looked forward to several months of periodlessness (I am breastfeeding, after all) and was unpleasantly surprised last month when it started again. Stupid period. And since then my hormones have been throwing themselves a rave in my brain, complete with lightsticks and bad techno. We’re back! they say. Pass the cupcakes!

Currently I’m cranky and bloated and my self-esteem is actually eating itself. Because god knows the rest of me can’t stop eating. Ha! I am funny. Funny, and tired. So. Tired. Not a productive kind of tired, either; I could sleep for days and I’d still be complaining about how exhausted I am. (Sleep for days. Ha! I am funny again.)

Aside from the wild n’ crazy mood swings, it’s been a pretty good week. We got the office (yay!) and ordered our first set of official business cards (double yay!). I’m almost done with, what, three of our websites? and we signed up for SkypeIn for our business phone. CouldBe Studios is getting off the ground!

Of course, I still feel like I should be doing More, because I always feel like I should be doing More. Like right now: Cranky Baby’s taking a nap (and snoring…SO CUTE) and I could take this time to do some laundry, or work on a template, or work on a design blog post, or clean the kitchen, but do you know what I’m going to do? I’m going to have some pie. Yes, pie. Because my hormones demand it. And what the hormones want, the hormones get.

Except for sleep. I’m certainly not getting much of that.

technorati tags:pms, couldbe studios, cranky

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Cranky Mama’s lullaby:

Hush, little baby, don’t you cry
Mama’s gonna get you a piece of pie
And if that piece of pie’s too sweet
Mama’s gonna give you a strand of wheat

And if that strand of wheat is lame
Mama’s gonna give you a video game
And if that video game’s no good
Mama’s gonna give you a hunk of wood

And if that hunk of wood’s got splinters
Mama’s gonna give you a thousand winters
And if those thousand winters are too cold
Mama’s gonna give you some bread with mold

And if that bread with mold’s no fun
Mama’s gonna give you an exploding sun
And if that exploding sun goes boom
Mama’s gonna put you down in your own room

Kid’s gonna need therapy. No question.

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I turned on the TV this morning for Happy Fun Baby (gasp! She lets her baby watch TV!) while I had my coffee, and the much-touted Mickey Mouse Clubhouse was on. I’ve been annoyed by the promo spots for weeks now, so why not watch? Ellison is enthralled. Irritating songs! Bright colors! Whee!

He tends to like preschool shows the best – stuff aimed at the 3-5 year old age group. Baby shows fill him with ennui. I think I got more of the Baby Einstein videos than he did, although there was a brief period (around 3 months old, I think) when he thought they were okay. Now, if there isn’t singing and dancing, it’s not worth his time. Singing, dancing, and possibly techno music. My kid is totally going to be in a boy band.

The show, if I were to venture to have an opinion, seems like the unholy union between Dora The Explorer and Kingdom Hearts. I hate Dora with the heat of three suns (“Backpack backpack!” ::pokes self in eye with fork::), but I do love me some Disney-branded video gaming. Thus, I will tolerate Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. I’ll pretty much tolerate anything that lets me drink my coffee in the morning. Even Dora. ::shudder::

Mickey Mouse Clubhouse follows the lead of Dora and Blue’s Clues and suchlike by “interacting” with the audience. “When you see the wrench, yell ‘wrench!’” Look – the children are shouting at the television! They must be watching something educational!

The main problem with children’s programming, for me, is refraining from making inappropriate comments. For example, Goofy just got launched into space, and I did not say “And now he’s dead! Let’s go find his corpse and experiment on it in the name of Science!” At six and a half months old, Happy Fun Baby would probably not be forever scarred by his mother’s “livening up” of some, let’s face it, pretty inane dialog (who are they trying to impress? Preschoolers?), but you never know. Besides, I need lots of practice at being appropriately mother-like.

Things that are okay to say: “People will not always agree with you.”
As long as it is not followed by: “This is because people are stupid.”

Things that are okay to say: “Some words make people uncomfortable.”
As long as it is not followed by: “Like fuck. Fuck is funny to say. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.”

Unfortunately, I can forsee few times when it would be appropriate to call my video game controller a stupid whore. Even when it is clearly conspiring against me while I’m trying to play Kingdom Hearts II.

…doesn’t seem to stop me, though.

technorati tags:parenting, disney, preschool, television, mickey mouse clubhouse, dora, inappropriate

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