Tales from La La Land

Because I work at a school, I figured the title was appropriate. Plus, I totally picked out my outfit last night, woke up before my alarm went off out of pure excitement, and I totally carry a back pack to work now.

It is so hard to describe all the feelings I have today. Harper has been in day care since Tuesday, but I stayed home her first two days so that no one would see my cry. Also, so I could go to the pool, get a manicure, clean the house, do laundry, and go grocery shopping.

On one hand, I am super excited to see people. Real live people who are taller than 21-inches. People who I can talk to about important things like what in the hell happened to Ali Lohan’s face. Not that I don’t love my conversations with Harper, but one can only assess poop and talk about how the penguin’s wings don’t help him fly because he plays in the water, not the sky.

Honestly, it came down to this: Me getting extremely excited that Harper could start mimicking my fart noises.

It is time to go back to work.

It is time to talk about other things. I often wondered if having a baby is what it feels like to be famous. Laef and I would get stopped a lot when we’d be out on walks with her. People want to ask all kinds of questions or tell you the stories of their baby. Or ask how much sleep you’re getting. Or what is her name. It’s hard to get from point A to point B without lots of baby talk. Which, is fine, until the woman at Bloomingdales told us that Harper was too young to be out in public, and that in her culture they don’t take babies out until they are 3 months old because they don’t want the spirits to get them.

This is a true story.

As is the story of the woman we met at Big 5 in Santa Monica who told us that if we have a boy next time we should seriously consider NOT having him circumsised. “My husband feels like he was amputated. It’s a form of amputation.”

Run. Away.

We also met a woman who stopped us to tell us how much she wanted a baby, but she is 40 and single, and her dog is her baby. She then showed us the “barrette that is for actual little girls” in the dogs hair, and told us that the dog has its own bedroom complete with children’s furniture. We were trying to abort the mission when she told us that she is a psychic and to stand there quiet (on the corner of San Vicente and Montana in Brentwood) so she could “see” if we were going to have a boy with our next baby.

So, there we stood looking at woman with her eyes closed in the middle of a busy intersection trying to tell us the fate of our next baby. We thought about running away and claiming we were just playing hide-n-seek if we got caught, but we figured we didn’t have much else to do so we’d see what she said. “I’m not seeing a boy.”

We met lots and lots of baby people with all kinds of stories. I was able to enjoy an entire summer with Harper. I was able to find out if the moms I see pushing strollers in the morning on my way to work had the life I wanted. I learned that those walks are often out of necessity, and sometimes not by choice. Tammy Taylor walked 5 miles in the blazing Texas heat on an episode of Friday Night Lights and people thought she was crazy. “Gotta keep the baby moving,” she said.

And, it’s true.

We spent so many days and nights walking Harper around just to keep her happy.

She is 12 weeks old today.

And she is a happy, happy baby.

Which makes  me proud and happy.

Now it’s time to work so that we can pay for her daycare, which might as well be called college because it costs almost as much.

There is one thing people who have been through the baby-raising stage of life will always tell you: It gets better.

I totally wanted to make a youtube video like this one, except with people like Angelina Jolie, Jennifer Garner, Pink, and Gwen Stefani telling me “It Gets Better”. But those bitches have a lot of money, so they probably have nannies. I would totally have a nanny if we could afford it. Like someone who is on nighttime duty.

But, anyway, I do believe it gets better. Then I saw a 2-year-old in Ralphs this morning LOSE HIS FUCKING MIND over gum. (Dude. That was totally me when I was little. And, by little I mean 9, and acting like a 2 -year-old STILL because we couldn’t get Capri Sun). To be fair to this kid, gum is like a really, really big deal when you are little. I don’t think there was anything I wanted more in life than a pack of gum when I was between the ages of 3-37.

While our lives have gotten easier in many ways, and we have managed to get on a routine, I am wondering if we will get better as parents.

Because we do some shit sometimes that I am thankful no one saw. For example, about 2 weeks ago, Laef was giving Harper her bath. He was getting ready to rinse her hair and I told him that I was starting to put some water on her face so that she would begin to get used to it for when we start going to the pool. What I meant was that I let some water slowly drip down her face. What Laef heard was, “Oh, you’re throwing water in her face as though she was being dunked in the pool.” So he threw a glass of water on her face. To his credit, he blew in her face first so she’d take a breath, and not drown.

Well, it didn’t work. She did not likey the water in the face. Mommy had a panic attack, daddy felt like shit, Sanch was like, “Whatever. I’ve been dealing with these two for years. This is just the beginning.”

OK, so she didn’t die, and nothing bad came of it, but Laef and I were like, “God Damn, I can’t believe people let us be in charge of a baby.”

A few days later, I put Harper in the Bjorn and we walked up to some friends house. When we got there, Laef casually pointed out that Harper’s leg was blue. This is because her leg was pinched a little in the Bjorn. But she never cried or anything so I didn’t know. Of course, when you see your baby’s leg blue and devoid of blood, your heart immediately drops to your stomach. We took her out, daddy did whatever you do to get the blood flowing. And we went on our day.

But, seriously. What are we doing???

Then two nights ago we forgot to turn on the monitor after putting Harper to bed. She is a saint when it comes bed time, and is down for the count by 7:45 p.m. We don’t usually hear from her until 6:30 a.m. But on the night we forgot to turn on the monitor, Laef had Tosh.0 on at a 43 volume and I was in the kitchen making dinner. And all of a sudden we heard Harper screaming. We go in and get her, and it seems as though she’s been crying for a bit because her face is very red and she has lots of tears.

Ugh. Nothing will kick you in the stomach harder than that.

So, yeah. We are still figuring this whole parenting thing out. And she has her ways of getting back at us: Sneezing with her diaper off, which leads to a rocket of poop flying all over the bedroom. Or pissing on me the minute I take her diaper off for bath time. Or throwing up on me right when I put on a fresh shirt.

I guess we’re all getting better at one-upping each other.