I am currently balanced perfectly between two states: (1) Will no one rid me of all this noxious, vile, encumbering, despicable STUFF? and (2) Oh Christ, what if we find ourselves in the middle of nowhere missing some crucial, vital, comforting piece of STUFF?
Fucking stuff.
Yesterday I took a break from packing for Jane's four-month doctor's appointment. It was something of an ordeal. Our doctor is lovely, but her office is not good at scheduling. It took us over two and a half hours to obtain her vaccinations and the news that she really is as tiny as passersby always say that she is.
"How old is your baby?" strangers ask, and then inevitably "Ooooh she's so teeny!"
I have started to get a bit of a complex about it. "Well, she does look extra small all bundled up in her carrier," I demur.
But it turns out that she is indeed an infinitesimal infant. She has always been snuggled up along the bottom of the chart, i.e. in the fifth percentile, and this time she fell off it. Because I provide her sole source of nutrition, this makes me feel like a bad provider, though she seems the very (miniature) picture of good health otherwise. But I want to bring home the bacon! And fry it up in a pan!
I also want not to be a complete neurotic, however, so let's pretend I'm not.
Jane is great. She does a million charming baby things a day and impressed us all by flipping from her back to her front and over to her back again the other day. She has considerately decided to enjoy riding in the car just in time for our long car trip. She coos and sings and sighs, holds her tiny hairbrush at arm's length and stares at it contemplatively, chuckles appreciatively, and belches like a large man. She creaks like a door when she is not sure whether or not she wishes to lodge a complaint, and pulls on Steve's beard to test if it is glued on.
I love you, brush.
Her mettle will surely be tested by spending a week in a car seat on our way to the West Coast. Fortunately, we have timed things so that her complaints will be more likely to be in the form of "cried incessantly throughout Missouri" or "spat up on a passerby at a rest stop Starbucks" than "filed police report, then crawled away to sweet freedom in Lubbock".
PS. I was feeling unnaturally fine about everything to do with moving until about 6 pm, when I got all the anxiety in a single dose and perished. AGGH!
Tiny and GORGEOUS! Could she be more adorable? I think not.
Posted by: Nellig | 07/14/2010 at 04:54 AM
Well, I'm partial, of course.
Posted by: redfox | 07/17/2010 at 11:34 PM