March 4, 2009

Hah! You have not seen the last of ME, Mr Bond!

Hi everyone. :)

So, first, a request - if any of you are tired of getting this please,
let me know and I'll take you off the mailing list. I know that it's
hard to keep up with email, so, if you like reading my nonsense and
just can't really reply, do not worry and I'll keep sending it out.
However, should you be one of those people (no judgement here, I know
you exist) who really wish I could stop talking about the freaking
baby and get on with life, lemme know and I will take you off the list
until such time as I start talking more about other things and less
about babies.

That may be another 17 years, but I'm sure it will happen some day.

Of course, to be honest, there are a few of you who will keep getting
this even if they'd rather not hear so much about babies.

*cough*Tiff*cough*

So first - non-baby news! Fuzzy and Dante, our upstairs neighbors, are
getting married this fall in Maine. Aside from this being exciting
news in it's own right, it means that they really want to move into a
house this summer, because they figure there's no sense in getting
wedding gifts and then having to move them all. I quite agree with
them. Anyway, it means the house hunt is on in earnest now. We're on
the "loan pre-approval" step, and are looking forward eagerly to the
"actually looking at houses" step. I have a strong suspicion that in
order to get a house that meets our needs and our price we're going to
have to look at bank foreclosures, which likely means doing some
repairs, however, since Dante and I are both competent carpenters I
hope we could keep the costs down on these by only having to hire
people for the important functional stuff, and doing the cosmetic
stuff ourselves. We shall see.

I ended my last email with the news that Waxor had lost his job - good
news, he has a new one! Actually, considering the job market and such
it was remarkably fast. He's been hired by RIM (that's Research In
Motion) otherwise known as the Giant Ass Company That Does Blackberry
Phones. So, that's awesome, because they're a stable company, and
they seem to have good employee practices, and such. Of course, it
also means that they're less likely to be cool with the wife coming
and bringing the baby to hang out at the office, but we all have to
make little sacrifices. He starts on March 23rd, so in the meantime
we're enjoying having him around the house. By "we" I mean Elliot and
I, of course. I think he likes it, too. It's also given us a lot of
freedom to hang out with people, we've had Amanda over for lunch
twice, we went to Maine for a long weekend, we went to Northampton for
a long weekend, and this weekend we'll be hanging out with Kate and
Mark. Also he'll still be home while Coury and Momma are here
(they're coming separately, but will overlap for two days) which is
really nice. Normally he's got to work when my family is here for
visits.

Speaking of Momma, her birthday is this Friday. I was thinking about
this and I realized that this year my mother will be 58, which is
amazing, cause she doesn't SEEM 58. I think she successfully achieved
about 42 and then just stopped aging. My grandmother was the same
way. I can only assume that there is some black magic secret that the
women on my mother's side have passed down generation after generation
that my mother, for reasons unknown to me, has chosen not to share.

_I_ am aging just fine, thank you very much. I'm only 30 and I've
managed to achieve middle-aged spread. All right, so maybe that has
something to do with the baby, but it really isn't fair. At any rate,
I'm retaliating. I refuse to stop eating (do you have any idea how
HUNGRY breast feeding makes you?) but I figure I CAN exercise, and
that's just what I'm doing. Thus far I loathe it. But I feel an odd
sense of pride. Maybe at some point the pride will overcome the
loathing, but I doubt it. On the other hand, maybe I will be able to
wear a bathing suit at Montelimar this year without cringing, so there
is a payoff. :)

This Monday I'm headed off to auditions for Urinetown. I'm sort of
robust at the moment, but I would dearly love to play Little Sally.
We'll see how they go. Waxor has agreed that if they offer me a part
I'm interested in then I can take it assuming they agree to my
rehearsal restrictions (which, actually, aren't that strict, just it's
what Waxor and I have agreed on) and I have agreed that if they offer
me a part I'm NOT really interested in I won't take it. I figure it's
a fair deal. I'd like to start being in shows again, but it's a bit
of a burden to put on Waxor if I'm only sort of interested in the role
I've got.

I'm thinking of doing Moments in the Woods from Into the Woods as an
audition piece, anyone got any comments? Red Riding Hood's Song might
be more appropriate to the role I want, but I seriously loathe that
song. And I love the baker's wife, and I figure the other role I
might be able to get would be Penelope what's her butt.

Speaking of music, those of you who share my love of mix tapes will be
joyous, and those of you who don't' will cringe - I've been working on
another one. I think we'll call it "Jessica's Descent Into
Narcissism" since it reflects my varying moods of late. I've finally
finished it and am ready to burn it to disc. If anyone would like a
copy I'll send you one, just make sure I have your current address.
(Believe it or not, all you cringers, there are actually some people
getting this email that are likely to take me up on this offer.) If
anyone OVERSEAS wants it can you kindly advise me on the best way to
post it to you?

Elliot has developed a decided taste in music, to the point where if
we're listening to something he doesn't approve of while in the car he
is very cranky. Sigh. I thought we could wait til the teen years for
that to be a problem. He's also developed a decided mind of his own.
He wants what he wants, and he doesn't want anyone else to tell him
no. Most particularly the thing he wants more than anything is to
BEEEEEEEEEEE with me always. We're working on getting him out of that
habit without actually BREAKING him of it (isn't that an awful verb?
To break, meaning to destroy or damage, why do we talk about doing
that to our children?). So he goes to see Waxor and when he cries we
cheerfully tell him I love him but I get to have minutes to myself,
too. So far he is taking it... hmmm... not well, because he still is
very angry, but not poorly, because he calms down fairly quickly and
plays with his daddy. So... tolerably. He's taking it tolerably.

He's walking all the time now. He still prefers to hold an adult's
hands, but he can and will walk on his own. He LOVES other children,
and if he sees another kid in a store he'll let go of my hand in a
flash and be off down another aisle. Little girls in pink coats are
his favorite. :)

He's really grown an amazing amount. He was doing really well with
his eating, and then I think another bout of teething pain has hit
him, because for the last few days or so he's rejected most food, even
things like ice cream. He's also taller, all his 12 month clothes are
getting pretty small on him. His cognitive abilities are better, too.
He's got some really almost words (Dante, and cat, and dog, and dada,
and just this morning he looked at me and said "mama") and he
understands a lot more (like when I ask him if he wants to go outside,
or to see the cats, or for me to pick him up, or if he wants some
boob.) I think he's starting to realize that turning the pages in the
books and the sounds I'm making have some correlation, and he's
started figuring out more complicated mechanical things. He loves
putting things in and taking them out, or opening and shutting things,
and, while pulling all the books off the shelf has always been fun,
he's just now started helping me to put them back.

And he dances. If you put on music he really likes he'll grin like a
madman and start bopping his little head, or swaying side to side. It
may be the cutest thing in the entire world.

Alright, I've got dishes to do and dinner to make, and I think Dante
is waiting on me to come up and have tea, so I'm gonna go, and since
it's been so long since the last time I sent one of these I don't
think I'll postpone it in order to add more on.