diet coke

My parents are the sweetest. They both came over to watch Baby while I went to a work thing and left me dinner with Diet Cokes. About thirty minutes after she left, my mom left a message to say “Yunny, don’t drink Diet Coke at night! You won’t be able to sleep.” Is that not sweet?

speaking of romance…

I spotted indie actor Paul Dano a few weekends ago. He’s extraordinarily tall and was smiling benignly, quiet, bent over to listen to his petite girlfriend while they walked. Something about it reminded me of when you first experience being smitten at age nineteen or whatever, and how in a couple, you kind of imitate adult behavior by acting all couple-y. It’s the first time that you can test the waters of treating another person with tenderness, and it is a pleasant stage to remember. What was funny though is that I’m so far from that time in my life that my reaction was maternal, like I hope Baby grows up and gets to bend his head near the one he loves and listen to what that person has to gab about.

I don’t want to say romance is not present in relationships you’ve been in for many years, but I suppose it’s not the same as that first blush, you feel me? Still, I wouldn’t say it’s dead. Having a child in certain ways, despite the puke on your clothes and the amazing sleep deprivation, is as a profoundly a romantic gesture as any, a very I-like-you-enough-to-have-a-child-with-you kind of thing. I remember wheeling Baby around in his baby bin around the hospital shortly after giving birth, Husband by my side, holding my hand. Our stroll reminded me of college sweethearts doing slow laps around a lake.

michael sheen

I kind of love this actor. I first noticed him in Frost/Nixon, which I thought he was excellent in. Actually, the first time I noticed this actor is when I read Kate Beckinsale left him for the director of the Underworld series. She was more famous than him at the time, so I imagine, that made the breakup doubly sucky, as they had a child together, though maybe not. Perhaps there are certain levels of breakup-suckiness that truly cannot go lower. Anyway, this guy is a solid actor, because he keeps showing up in pictures, doing a good job, and gets offered more and more interesting projects where the lead part actually requires acting.

He is also the head villain vampire in the Twilight films, and his reaction to the lead character Bella, who is supposed to be special beyond belief, but just seems like a normal teen who happens to wipe out a lot and has a controlling b-friend (and this is the summary from someone who consumed those books like they were crack cocaine), is a special level of amazing. I still remember there’s some moment where he like reads Bella’s mind and comes away with an expression that is stricken and over-the-top, where the other actress didn’t give him much to respond to, that made me realize, wow, you really are a terrific actor.

Mmm, pizza

This story made me laugh so hard.

Ex-co-worker
: Deadwood is awesome. You should really rent it.

Her new co-worker: I can’t. My kid put a slice of pizza in the DVD player.

Strangely, this makes a lot of sense to me. DVD player as pretend pizza oven? Totally.

something like this

This is sort of the position I need to take to carry Baby now, because he is about twenty-six pounds. I bump up my left hip and lock that leg, so that it won’t give out under his dense weight. When he bucks like a wild horse, that, of course, makes him heavier. Pain ensues.

This other picture is among those that you find when you google “golf swing.” Rather romantic, no? I imagine this is like the entire plot of Tin Cup starring Rene Russo and Don Johnson.

Water for Elephants

Oh, man, this will sound rude, but this picture Water for Elephants is supposed to be a romantic kind of movie, but the boy lead is far more beauteous than the girl. Reese Witherspoon has looked good in movies, but why decide to star opposite a boy with prettier facial bone structure than yours? I mean, pretty boy Robert Pattinson makes her look…a little mannish. Yikes.

amy poehler

She just makes me laugh. Here’s what she said in a New York Times article about Tina Fey:

Asked if she was surprised that Ms. Fey had managed to write a book on top of her other duties, Ms. Poehler cackled. “Please, no,” she said. “I am not amazed. Look, if she sets her mind to it, it gets done. Tina is not the kind of artist who makes people wait around and misses her deadlines. She’s a finisher.” (“And I mean that in the sexual sense,” she added.)

babyland!


1) Baby broke digital camera (he was so quiet when I gave it to him, I don’t understand how it happened)

2) I somehow deleted all my photos from the past year from my computer. Yay! (I have them all uploaded on a photosharing web site, but STILL, what is up with my brain?)

3) Baby loves playing with tiny toiletries from hotels.

4) I have abandoned my no-TV-for-babies policy and now play Baby Einstein when necessary. There is one particular green hand puppet that scares the bejesus out of Baby, so when he starts bleating, I make sure to hold him and help him cope through that section of the video.

5) Finally, I thought this was hilarious, but I have no idea who else will, so have posted here in hopes to find you. I keep thinking about it start laughing alone.

Career and Motherhood

I’m tired about 95% of the time. I remember asking new mom co-workers, how are you holding up with no sleep? And they would glare at me. After multiple nights of baby deciding to play from 3 a.m. to 5 a.m., I feel like I am in the middle of a Vision Quest, complete with hallucinations but no profound insight. When I have complained about being tired, I have been told (by my brother-in-law), that “of course! Because you have a full-time job!” But I’m not so sure that staying full-time at home would be much easier, at least for me!

Enter phenomenally successful and famous mom, Tina Fey. Her show 30 Rock employs 200 people. Two hundred people, people! Is that not remarkable? In the New York Times article I linked above, she talks about her 14-hour days followed by a few more hours with the writers camping out at her house. She talks about the weekend she shot her show all day Saturday with Oprah, filmed SNL that night for her Sarah Palin debut, then threw her kid a three-year-old birthday party on Sunday. Oy vey!

What makes me feel better about everything is that she mentions her triannual sobfests in her office, which makes me feel entirely normal and makes me think (without any specificity) about the pressure of being a girl nowadays. You have a career, maybe if you’re lucky you have babies, and you keep on trucking. You are both a man and a woman, in the societal sense, and somewhere, in between all that, you feel a lot of pressure. I don’t see anyone having the perfect solution as of yet. Working full-time and staying at home full-time seem like imperfect approaches.

Funny, with the weather being so nice, I am dying to go out after the sun goes down! What a concept! I seem to be the only one who doesn’t understand that life has changed, 180’d in a the span of a year, and the rituals of my old life are no longer doable, like a ghost who doesn’t understand that she has died and keeps showing up at restaurants to eat. I had coffee with Baby and a single g-friend, who told me, “Tina, are you kidding me? I’m putting on mascara and a miniskirt every Saturday night so that I can meet someone and stay home and wear sweat pants!”

See? Nothing’s perfect.

Impossible Task List


–Procure eye of newt

–Pluck hair of unicorn

–Extract elixir from elderflower with bare hands

–Sing a ballad so sweet that the Psmond family weep and adopt you immediately as their newest member

–Squeeze antibiotic eye drops to an infant with pink eye…two drops per eyes, four times a day, for seven days

You have got to be kidding me. Surely, four times a day, they mean best of four?