Attachment Parenting, my ass.

I'm all hopped up on Dunkin', folks...what is it about humidity and the reek of steaming asphalt that makes me crave giant doses of iced french vanilla with half and half and two Splendas? And of course I get an immediate brain freeze/artificial-sweetener-tumor-induced headache, but it's so, so worth it.

So Lil and I had her yearly dental check up this morning, and I sat there slack jawed and drooling with shock while the sweet, gentle-voiced dentist went over her x-rays and told me basically that my kid's teeth are rotting out of her head.

She's five.

And we're basically vegetarian. And I keep sugar to a real minimum. Yeah, she likes gum, but we both chew orbit pink, which, though packed with ingredients I can't pronounce that produce golf ball-sized nodules in lab rats, doesn't contain any actual sugar.

And I'm good about dental hygiene. I am. I make sure Lily brushes her teeth with the goddamned American-Dental-Association-recommended motorized toothbrush in the shape of a bloated Cinderella at least two times a day (ok, at least once, but we really try for two).

So, what the hell's going on here?

So I gave it some thought, and I think I figured out the likely culprit: breastfeeding.

Sonofabitch. I'd heard stories about the sugar in breast milk affecting baby teeth if little'uns were permitted to nurse on-demand all night long for long stretches. And I spent two straight years in a state of of sleep-deprived, borderline psychosis because my kid loved to nurse, and I wanted a happy and healthy kid who was securely attached to her mama. I went to La Leche League meetings and am a huge proponent of breastmilk being the healthiest way to nourish babies and toddlers. I even went to the nurse-in they had in front of the ABC building a few years ago, when that C-U-Next-Tuesday Elizabich Hasselblech said she wasn't going to nurse her baby and Barbara Walters nodded, saying, "I get so uncomfowtable when I see a mothew nuwsing in pubwic!"
I sat on the sidewalk in midtown, amidst all my crunchy momrades (I just made that up! Get it?) and yanked my feedbags out of my dress to make a stand that nourishing a hungry baby in public is not offensive or disgusting!!!

And yet...here I am in cavity city.

I wouldn't have traded Lily's upbringing for anything, and I definitely agree with a lot of the principles of attachment parenting. Lily rode all over NYC in a sling and/or backpack from the time she was born, slept next to me, was permitted unrestricted access to my all-night titty bar for years. Her babyhood was happy and the connection we share is probably very much due to the bonding we did during her infancy.

But damn. Is Dr. Sears gonna pay my dental bill?

I think not.

It seemed perfectly rational at the time.

I was catching up on List of the Day's blog, and I came across this photo.



Now, clearly this pic was photoshopped for the purpose of eliciting a giggle, but for me, it conjured some heavy, stashed-in-the-attic sense memories of an irrational phobia I used to have, and it was positively chilling for me. Positively chilling.

I used to be afraid of swimming in my pool as a kid and being chased by a great white shark while I did laps. No, seriously. My hyperactive kid-imagination actually convinced me that it was possible for a helicopter to fly over the pool overnight and 'drop in' a great white shark (why? hell if I know), which would then sit at the murky pool bottom, hiding and waiting for me to dive in for my morning swim.
This thought paralyzed me for months, and eventually I would only go swimming if someone else was there too, say, like my little sister. Because that meant the shark would get her first, and that was more than okay by me.

Of course, my fear of great whites came from the movie "Jaws". I mean, I wasn't allowed to see it, but I clearly remember being freaked out by the movie poster and the cover of the book, which my mom had, with the naked girl cruising along the surface of the water at dusk while a monstrous, mountain-sized shark lurked just below, ready to chomp her in half with its giant, knifelike teeth.

Thinking back, I realize that most of the illogical, weird kid-fears I had were spawned from movies I wasn't allowed to see but somehow either managed to watch or find out enough about to scare the crap out of myself. Hell, some of those movies I probably shouldn't even be watching now.

For example, When I was 9 I was staying over at a friend's house, whose mother was way Jesusy and thought somehow it might be appropriate to allow two little girls to watch "The Excorcist" (edited for TV, but still). This was, I can only assume, the mom's way of warning us of what might happen should we fail to meet the standards expected of good Christ-loving children(luckily, she never knew about how we used to practice kissing in her daughter's room, or about the raunchy scenarios we acted out with our barbies). After the movie, I asked the woman if kids could actually get possessed by the devil, and she said, very solemnly, "Well. I really, really hope not."


Also, though I never watched "Silent Night, Deadly Night", I think I must've seen it at the video store, and the image of the guy in the Santa suit holding the knife, and the blood all over the snow, had me convinced me that my whole family was going to be brutally slaughtered while coming home on Christmas Eve. I remember praying in the car all the way home from church that we would be spared this horrible butchery, because the idea of never getting to open my toys the next morning was practically too much for me to stomach.

I was also constantly convinced that my loyal black lab had rabies. Every time the temperature topped 80 degrees and she started panting in the back yard, I'd yelp for my mom to come and check to see if she was foaming at the mouth.
Thanks, Stephen King.


So, needless to say, I won't be showing Lily any frightening movies any time soon. If she has half the imagination I had at her age (and I suspect it's even wilder), I'll be opening a door to years and years of mental torture, and I'm probably doing that well enough on my own without any help from scary movies.

So tell me, guys, what irrational fear did YOU have as a kid???

This is why I suck

I think I'm just too hippy-dippy and free-spiritish (read: lazy as fuck) to keep to a schedule of posting a photo a day.

BUT. This project has made me realize that I need to pay more attention to this blog. And I intend to. So sometimes I'll post silly pictures, sometimes I'll write stuff. And when I don't feel like it, well, I just won't. You can always find me spouting off bullshit on Twitter and Facebook if you're really interested. Which...well, let's just leave that one open-ended.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I love you, Ferrtileblog. You're like my neglected little sister who was fun to play with when no kids my age were around, but who got thoughtlessly tossed aside like a stinky sock when the cool older chick down the block came to play Charlie's Angels With No Shirts On in my backyard. Always dependable. Always present and ready for a game of barbies. I will try not to take you for granted as much.

I've been having crazy dreams lately. Mostly I think because I'm preparing for a big move from the city in which I've dwelled for the last 9 years -- from the apartment my daughter was born in, from my friends and family and favorite liquor store -- and planning to defect to the hothouse tropics of Southern Suburbia. I'm all Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and mint juleps and afternoon siestas like Scarlett O'Hara. More on this topic to come, of course, as plans unfold.

Mostly my nightly sleeps have been fraught with terrifying scenarios where I am lost in a mall/subway station/high school and late for something. Or I'm about to take a final exam in a subject I've never studied. Or go on stage to star in a play I've never rehearsed. I fake it fairly well, but basically I can't fool anyone and feel as transparent as saran wrap.

I've had enough therapy to understand that these dreams are simply my anxiety over making a big change, working itself out in my subconscious.

They still suck, though, and make me wake up feeling all bloaty and sweat-filled.

More later, bloggers. I loves ya.

Tattoos

It occurred to me that I'm gonna have a hell of a time dissuading my daughter once she decides she wants to decorate herself in permanent body art. Because I'm all hardcore and shiz.

Like Mama...





Like daughter.

Skull earring

I was taking pictures of myself in the bathroom again (to post on facebook? To avoid the monster hair/toothpaste/phlegm/god-knows-what-else clog in the sink?), and I thought you'd like this. All two of you who still read this blog.

Thoughts? Abandon 365? Keep going? I dunno...it's kinda fun...

That doesn't seem right, somehow.

Two porks AND a tofu? Most tofu-eaters I know don't tend to ask for a pork to go with it, let alone two.

Just my two cents.

I know I owe a picture. I'll post again tonight. Hi!

Please.

This made me smile. Well, smirk, rather.

Good Night, New York City

When I was little my mother made up a bedtime song that she used to sing to us, to the tune of "Springtime For Hitler", called "Bedtime for Babies". I didn't know who Mel Brooks was at the time, so I didn't find anything funny about the song at all. Quite the opposite, in fact; the tune made me so unbearably sad that I used to run and hide under the kitchen table and sob. I'm still not sure why the song itself upset me so much. Just like I can't explain why "Bohemian Rhapsody" made me freak out so hard in the back seat of the car one night my dad had to pull over and have me breathe into a paper bag. The song scared me, I dunno. It made me think of dark things. I thought maybe The Exorcist was singing it or something. A child's mind is a bizarre thing indeed.

Anyway, I'm not sure what brought that up. Maybe it was this pic I took tonight of Lily and the cat at bedtime, and how my city bedtime routine is so different for my kid than my mom's was for us in the sweet, suffocating quietude of 1980's suburbia. Lily crashed out in my bed tonight under the open window and had a street lamp for a night light. And her lullaby was the hard thunk-thunk-thunk base of some asshole playing 'Rumpshaker' in his parked car in front of our building.



G'Night, NY, you city that never sleeps, you.

July 4th and the aftermath

I'm gonna post twice today because I suck.

But get off my back, man. I'm doing my best.

Here is a picture of a firecracker that almost took my goddamned head off.

OK, I exaggerate. But if I didn't, I wouldn't be me.

Mwah!

Making up for lost time...

Hi Guys! OK, I was doing so well with my 365 project and then I totally fell down on the job (and on my face. Drunk).

Sorry I wronged you.

But I'm back. And celebrating July 4th in Southern Louisiana, a place I never in a million years thought I'd be spending any July 4th, ever, but as it's looking more and more likely, a place where I'll be spending many July 4ths going forward.

And, as it turns out, you can buy fireworks here in bulk like it's Costco.

Frigging insane.

So, happy 4th to all my lovelies, and here's hoping I don't blow any fingers off.

Mwah!


Hello, Mother lode.


Badass firecracker, that's me.


Apparently Britney Spears has her own fireworks, as well. I bet they're slutty and prone to psychotic outbursts.