Save your drama for your mama

So last night, The Texan and I had just started a movie*.  It was a nice night, so we had the front door and the windows open to enjoy the breeze, and for some reason I'm still not sure of, we had the front porch light on.  Suddenly, we heard a woman's raspy voice shouting through the front door, "Can I please use your phone? I've been jumped!" I ran over there and there was a woman gasping for air, holding her shoes, jacket arm ripped. She didn't want us to call the cops - in fact, she was insistent that we not do that - but said she just had her van stolen and she needed to call someone to come pick her up. 

Now, it's late at night and there's a woman in distress pleading for help. What are you going to do? We invited her in and let her use my phone.  Our dog, Che, kept barking at her. I almost asked The Texan to put him in the yard but then figured that Che, who frightens most of our neighbors, might not be a bad thing to keep nearby. 

The woman asked for water and was hysterical. She kept sobbing that her friend had stolen her van and it had everything in there: her purse, wallet, phone, smokes, glasses, etc.  It sounded weird that a friend would steal your van - carjackers typically don't know their victims - but you never know. 

She was very polite and kept thanking us, even when she start puking (and thank god she ran outside to do that over the porch).  It took 45 minutes for her daughter to come get her.  We didn't really talk - she was far too upset to do that - but over the course of her repeated phone calls to various people, what I think was her real story came out. She mentioned at one point that she'd had a restraining order put against her and she wasn't allowed within 20 feet of a house just down the street from us (this is the house whose residents often have loud screaming matches out front and then when the cops show up, yell at them to show respect and that they've got their badge numbers). 

What I think happened, based on other details she said to us, was that she and a friend had been outside her ex-boyfriend's house. His current girlfriend and her friends started mixing it up with them, at which point the cops were called. Her friend took off in her van and she ran to avoid the cops. 

Her daughter eventually came and she sobbed one last thank you to us and left. 

We have all had bad nights, and I hope that this woman's got better when she left.  But I have to say that The Texan and I were talking that despite all the tumult in our lives going on right now, we are both so glad not to have that sort of drama going on. 

This is a very long-winded way of saying that today is The Texan's and my 9th anniversary.  Almost a decade!  We've had our ups and downs but overall, can't complain. :)

*11:30pm.  Yeah, that's right - living it up!  Of course, knowing that no matter what time you go to bed, your baby is going to wake up around 7am and want to eat does make you think through doing this verrry carefully.

Reflections on Mother's Day

Yesterday was kind of a weird day for me.  It was my first as a mother, and that part of it was wonderful. The Texan put out a card in the baby's room, since he said he knew that would be the first place I would go in the morning, and La Principessa did her part by working on taking steps and generally being adorable. (Less adorable: how she managed to, uh, expel up the front of her diapers, necessitating a bath and general all-over bleaching of the clothes she had on.  I'm still not sure of the physics behind that.)

But it was also the first without my mom.  She died when I was four months pregnant and it breaks my heart that she never got to meet her first granddaughter.  At the end, her dementia was getting pretty bad, but one of the last really coherent conversations we had was when I told her I was pregnant, so she definitely knew and was thrilled. Later, even when her grasp on everything else was pretty loose, she still would remember to ask me how I was feeling and if I was listening to my doctor. 

Yet her knowing about the baby and getting to meet the baby are two different things.  When I was growing up, no accomplishment was complete until my mom knew about it.  I wish I could show her the baby - she would just adore her.  But I can't, and I never will be able to.  I just have to accept that. 

In the meantime, La Principessa has gotten to meet the rest of my family and our "urban family" of friends here in DC.  They have all been wonderfully supportive and we are lucky to have them. I keep reminding myself of that.  

Capped and gowned

Well, he will be soon.  The Texan will be walking down the aisle (wait, wrong metaphor?) for his college degree tomorrow.  His soon-to-be-alma mater being UDC, they are having an intimate ceremony for their grads at the Washington Convention Center.  I am very proud of him and am bringing along La Principessa for the convocation ceremony, not because she'll remember it - at five and a half months, I am pretty sure this will all just go over her head - but because I want her to be part of the memories of the day.  And that way I can be that horrible mother who brought a child to an event that they clearly are too young for. In my defense, I am planning on sitting near an exit and have plenty of food and pacifiers ready in case she decides to start vocalizing mid-ceremony.  But either way, can't wait to see the Texan in his cap and gown!  And then afterwards, because the ceremony is first thing in the morning, there is brunch and mimosas.  A celebration all the way around!

Achoo

So the Texan and I have learned that if the baby is miserable, EVERYONE is miserable. La Principessa has had a cold/allergies/who knows what.  I feel kind of guilty about the cold because I think I was the one who brought it to her (I flew last week and was feeling crappy a day or so after I landed and then had a small cold myself when I got back).  Fun fact: babies breathe through their noses, so if their noses are stuffed up, they are unhappy campers. We have had a week of waterboarding the baby (ie, rinsing her nasal passages out), suctioning out what is loosened up, and taking her into the bathroom for a nice steam.  Also frantically including googling to see if dear god there is ANYTHING we can give her.  (Short version: not for a five month old!)

I am knocking wood as I type this, but it *appears* that the baby is on the road to recovery.  The Texan has been sick too and he also seems to be feeling better.  Those two Scorpios really do feed off each other. 

Seriously?

All winter the meterologists have been toying with us. Maybe this time we'll get some snow! No, maybe this time! Okay this time, we're really pretty certain. No, really. No, really this time!  And of course, each time, nothing panned out.

So when they predicted snow Sunday night into Monday, I thought, yeah right. First off, nice track record you guys got there. Second, it's the end of March - DC doesn't really get snow that often as it is, much less this late in the season.

Cut to snow falling and sticking even through most of yesterday. We had yet another medical appointment for La Principessa (all good), and I didn't bring an umbrella because it wasn't supposed to snow much more than mid-morning. I don't know why I keep such faith in weather prognostication.  It's a dicey sort in the best of climates, and DC is right at the fault line of several weather patterns so it's a real crap shoot to predict what's going to happen.  Long story only moderately short, we had to spend a lot of time shielding La Principessa from snow while we waited for various forms of transportation. Fortunately, her stroller/car seat combo is pretty water-tight, which cannot be said for my coat.

As for La Principessa, we're starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. She hit four months last week and has been, more or less (KNOCK WOOD), been sleeping through the night. Plus she's improved her bottle work greatly- still not 100% at it, but much better. Plus she's pretty damn cute.  At times, it's her strongest asset.

Disconnected

Last year, in an effort to save money (the official reason) and because it's neat-o (unofficial), we got rid of our cable and switched to watching TV that was downloaded from online.  One of the good things is that it got rid of commercials. One of the bad things it that you can really miss out on pop culture stuff unless you seek it out. Or regular culture stuff - the Texan and I both were completely unaware that the time change is this weekend until someone emailed me about it from work. My dad used to call me every year to tell me about the time change and each time, I'd tell him that I was way ahead of the game. He's stopped calling me to alert me to this, figuring that I'm an adult and able to figure it out myself.  He is wrong. 

The other strange thing is that you can decide which version of shows you'd like to watch. For example, the Texan got the entire series of "MASH" and has been working his way through it. He decided to get the version without the laugh track. It is very odd to watch the show without it, as the actors pause just long enough between lines for the laugh track to fill in.  I am so glad that we are moving away from laugh tracks overall - they are highly annoying.

**********

Update on La Principessa: she slept for six hours in a row yesterday. Hooray!  They were, however, from 8:30 am to 2:30 pm. Boo!  At some point, we'll get her so that she's in our time zone; at least, we keep telling ourselves that when up for a 4 am feeding.

Underwhelmed

The DC weather media have been working themselves into a state of frenzy about today's snowstorm ("Snowquester," heh) since last week.  First it went from a possibility of snow, to a good chance of snow, to a lot of snow.  Last night, they kept revising their projected totals upwards, with the latest tally being 5-10 inches within the Beltway.  Do I even have to say it?  Some snow, a lot of rain, practically nothing sticking.  Rats.  I was kind of looking forward to this, as we haven't had much snow at all this winter.  Even so, the federal government has shut down in the DC area, meaning that life overall has shut down, since everyone follows the feds.  The Texan has made noises about making a snowquester cake, which I think is a good way to spend a snowy/rainy/wet Wednesday.