gfrancie: (Default)
gfrancie ([personal profile] gfrancie) wrote2007-03-27 07:03 pm

and that's another thing.

It is the same old same old. I have much to say but it is incredibly difficult to find a way to lay it all out. Swirling mind but no organization.
So instead I cook. I cook because I can accomplish something and there is order. It can make me feel satisfied at the end of the day when everything else disappoints or exhausts me.
Yesterday afternoon I baked a yellow butter cake and put a french silk frosting on top. I admit the cake is sort of boring in flavor. I kept thinking as it was baking that I should have added some sort of spice, extract or something... A good base cake. I think maybe next time I should figure out a way to add blood oranges.
This afternoon I have made a sausage and mushroom quiche with gruyere and chevre. With that I will serve sauteed leeks and apples with thyme and some sort of starch. Probably potatoes.
Yesterday I grilled sausages and mushrooms and served that with herbed polenta and a spinach salad with dried fruit and pine nuts.
I also read and listen to the radio. So for now I sort of inhale ideas and then someday I will be able to say something.
Maybe.


Yesterday was one of those truly exhausting/frustrating days as a parent. I do want to say that while being a parent can be incredibly satisfying, exciting and entertaining; it can be mind-numbingly dull, irritating and just plain no fun at all.
To anyone who is thinking about having children in the future I will say this, sure you might know how to take care of a small human being but it is soooooooooo emotionally exhausting. Nothing can really ever prepare you for that. Even if you have an easy one on your hands. Sure they aren't mobile at this point but they take all of the time. It is their business to be selfish. And a fair portion of the time you have to set aside your needs for theirs. If you have a real problem with "going with the flow" and giving up control -it can be even more difficult. You have to ride out the daily banal chaos. Think about this. I am not trying to tell people "don't have babies" but think long and fucking hard about this.
Don't expect it to make your relationship with your partner super awesome. (because for many couples it can put some new exciting stresses on things) Don't expect it to make you a better person.
Babies aren't some kind of self-help project like taking pilates or doing kabbalah.
It is this constantly crazy balancing act. You have to maintain some shreds of your sanity so that you can be a parent but at the same time you ignore a lot of your old routine so you can make sure this small wiggly person is attended to.
Early on you are lucky if you can get out of your pajamas. So if you think "oh hey I will write that book while I am at home with little Methuselah or wee Ingeborge" or some other batch of crazy -good luck.
If this scares the crap out of you? Stick with cats. or Sea monkeys.



Alex has discovered the extreme hilarity that is peek-a-boo. Comedy Gold in his world. As is "let's pull Mummy's lips off."
Alex was given this little stuffed hippo that is chartreuse (the only appropriate description of the color of the hippo) and has pink eyes. Kind of a psychedelic hippo. I named him Frank after Frank Zappa. Frank doesn't make scary noises so he stays. Unlike the evil lion.

[identity profile] gfrancie.livejournal.com 2007-03-28 03:44 pm (UTC)(link)
You have the logic to know you won't write that book in the space of six months. (I only do the fancy-ass cooking when there are guests the rest of the time it is 20 minute cooking)
Though I do get that it is your link to sanity. That makes a lot of sense. Everyone needs a place that isn't so...poop obsessed.

[identity profile] gfrancie.livejournal.com 2007-03-28 04:36 pm (UTC)(link)
Those are very common/normal fears.
Some you can't help. (like the tired part) But you deal with it like anything else.
You do have to put some things on pause for awhile. But plenty of other Moms with older kids say that you do get some of those freedoms back. And sometimes you don't quite reconcile some things. There is always a pull somewhere or something that feels as if it is being neglected.

Taking a baby to England is crazy but it can be done. Shoot I know a lady who took hers to Nepal. But there is a certain level of insanity that one has to have to have a baby. hah

[identity profile] gfrancie.livejournal.com 2007-03-28 04:39 pm (UTC)(link)
There are plenty of nights that we just have soup. I feel lucky that I have a husband who I can hand the baby to and say, "watch him. I am making dinner." Also I have a bouncer which I love. I can put him in that while I prep some things and he can be entertained and still watch me.
I don't get dressed everyday. hah I have a pair of penguin pajama pants that gets a lot of wear. The upside is that Alex can recognize them and when he sees them he seems to know that I am there.
(I had to bite my tongue a lot around the ILs. But that is family.)

[identity profile] gfrancie.livejournal.com 2007-03-28 04:40 pm (UTC)(link)
I am still incredibly impressed with what you are able to accomplish and deal with. You are doing well.

[identity profile] gfrancie.livejournal.com 2007-03-28 04:42 pm (UTC)(link)
The emotional investment in a kid...it is so beyond a pet. You wouldn't think so but it is surprising. It is probably the most frustrating/satisfying/painful kind of love to experience.
And even with a cat the option is still there. Even if they aren't outside pets -you can.

Re: ec-freakin-zatcly

[identity profile] gfrancie.livejournal.com 2007-03-28 04:43 pm (UTC)(link)
You would make a great aunt. You have a great sense of empathy about the suckiness of being a kid.

[identity profile] jessiesquash.livejournal.com 2007-03-28 04:43 pm (UTC)(link)
You can't even toss the baby outside if they are being a twit like you can with a cat. hah

Oh but you can when they get older! And you will be building character too. It's a win-win situation! Or at least that was the line my mother gave me at the time........

[identity profile] gfrancie.livejournal.com 2007-03-28 04:44 pm (UTC)(link)
Yeah. They will never love you as much as you love them. haha My Mother described as the most extreme in unrequited love.

[identity profile] cusackam.livejournal.com 2007-03-28 05:03 pm (UTC)(link)
Well thanks, some days I think it is a wonder we are all still alive.

[identity profile] solar-diablo.livejournal.com 2007-03-28 05:07 pm (UTC)(link)
There's carefuly thinking things over and preparing yourself, then there's living it. Raising a child is like skydiving, or sex - we can talk about it/visualize it until we're blue in the face, but until you leap out of that plane, or leap into that bed, you have no idea what you're talking about. I was in love with my daughter the moment I saw the doctor pull her out of my wife's abdomen, but I knew within weeks she would be an only child. Just don't have the patience/energy for another one. I thought seriously about giving her a sibling once in the last 9 years - only once. To put it another way: I became a father once. I've gone skydiving twice, and would go again in a heartbeat (polite society dictates we not talk about how much sex I've had). The stress of parenting makes jumping out of airplanes look like a day at the spa.

And I second the notion that one cannot compare pets to kids. It's all subjective, sure, but the attention and energy I've had to give our cats over the last 17 years is maybe 2% of that required by the daughter in the last 9. And that's a generous estimate.

[identity profile] gfrancie.livejournal.com 2007-03-28 05:36 pm (UTC)(link)
I would go so far as to say "try not to make any new people unless you strongly feel you would be unhappy if you didn't."


Now that is probably the most appropriate thing I have heard upon the subject of why a person should.
Having/raising a kid is the most unselfish and selfish act at times. Insanely so.

[identity profile] gfrancie.livejournal.com 2007-03-28 05:37 pm (UTC)(link)
If you can't keep them tiny at least you can rock the wardrobe.
I think teens need just as much love and attention as babies at times. They are still so fragile.

[identity profile] gfrancie.livejournal.com 2007-03-28 05:37 pm (UTC)(link)
Good thing I didn't have a drink in one hand. I might have thrown it at a wall or something.

Re: ec-freakin-zatcly

[identity profile] bbcaddict.livejournal.com 2007-03-28 06:14 pm (UTC)(link)
I'm a bit miffed though because E has made a few comments when I'm asked about WHY I don't really want to go through the whole kid thing (especially the pregnancy thing- you're a hero in my eyes for getting through that!) and he's gone kinda sarcastically "That's my girl" and I've been like "WTF you KNEW well before what my position was on this subject... why are you making like you didn't in front of your family?"
Turns out that his brother & sister-in-law have 'taken the pressure' off of E for a while- they just announced that the sister-in-law is pregnant a few nights ago.
So yay for them.

[identity profile] nc-bookworm.livejournal.com 2007-03-28 11:08 pm (UTC)(link)
I think I have a blood orange cake recipe somewhere, if you want it.

[identity profile] tenebrous.livejournal.com 2007-03-28 11:42 pm (UTC)(link)
Cats are self-cleaning. WAY easier than kids. My cat is prissy, bitchy and has dander and fighting issues, but she's still a thousand times easier than a child. Thank goodness!

[identity profile] gfrancie.livejournal.com 2007-03-29 12:14 am (UTC)(link)
Nah. Fish are assholes. So maybe a baby might be less freaky.

[identity profile] gfrancie.livejournal.com 2007-03-29 12:16 am (UTC)(link)
The thing is -babies are great and awesome in their own way. I love many aspects of being a Mother and most days aren't that bad. But it isn't all happy happy joy joy. But it does take it out of many people.

[identity profile] gfrancie.livejournal.com 2007-03-29 12:16 am (UTC)(link)
Yeah. I think of the times when I would survive on three hours of sleep and I thought it was super.
Oh foolish youth.

[identity profile] gfrancie.livejournal.com 2007-03-29 12:17 am (UTC)(link)
It certainly adds an element of hilarity.

[identity profile] gfrancie.livejournal.com 2007-03-29 12:18 am (UTC)(link)
Babies are lovely. But they are babies.
hah

[identity profile] gfrancie.livejournal.com 2007-03-29 12:18 am (UTC)(link)
yep.
You are dead on.
This is why I love you.

[identity profile] gfrancie.livejournal.com 2007-03-29 12:20 am (UTC)(link)
Let's go do some covert mission where we take out some baddie in a foreign country. That would be a vacation.

[identity profile] gfrancie.livejournal.com 2007-03-29 12:23 am (UTC)(link)
A-feckin'men.
Animals do require love and attention and the bit of anxiety but a kid? it can be a daily roller coaster ride with no safety belt while doing surgery and juggling fire sticks

[identity profile] gfrancie.livejournal.com 2007-03-29 12:23 am (UTC)(link)
Oh yes. do send that to me.

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