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People ask me what I named mah babby and I say “Nikola” and they get this knowing grin. Like, “Ha ha, you nerdy asshole! You named him after Nikola Tesla!” Which, you know, is totally true. Nesko is super gay for Nikola Tesla, one of the few successful mad scientists. Nikola is also Nesko’s family’s patron saint (slava) and is a family name. One of his nicknames is Nikatz, which means “Little Nick,” and is also the nickname of a famous dude whose exact story I forget but he was a super warrior. So he’s named after a scientist, a saint, a warrior, and an ancestor. We flirted with naming him “Vuk,” which is also a family name and means “wolf,” but decided against it. Sometimes I think we should have used that name after all, based on Nick’s overall hairiness and how avidly he eats.

But the smug knowing smirks really start when I mention his middle name, which is Malcolm. Malcolm is a family name on my side of the family, through my mother’s side. It’s, uh, also the first name of Captain Malcolm “Mal” Reynolds from Joss Whedon’s Firefly, which is a great show but not one I’d name people after, because I’m not that kind of nerd.

I am the kind of nerd who would knowingly and gleefuly name my kid “Anaximander.”

I like the familiar: the well known, the comfortable. I am perfectly happy in a rut. I read the same books over and over, I watch the same tv shows over and over, I go to the same places, I eat the same foods. A part of this– a big part– is because I’ve had a lot of turmoil in my life, and I’m a delicate flower who doesn’t handle turmoil well. I can cope pretty ok on the surface, I can get through the day, but it really upsets my shit internally. And part of this is because so often when I’ve tried new things (gymnastics, ballet, a new school, 4H) I’ve been cruelly rejected and bullied by my peers. And when I say bullied, I mean the kind of shit that drives some kids to suicide. I’m not exaggerating here; my native brain chemistry issues aside, a LOT of my mental issues derive DIRECTLY from my grade school experience.

What I’m trying to say is that I am reluctant to try new things. And that’s stupid! Because, as an adult, when I try new things I generally like them. But I’m still afraid! What if I don’t like them? What if I’m no good at this game? (side note: that’s the dumbest fear EVER because I suck at pretty much EVERY game and lose CONSTANTLY and still have fun playing. video games, board games, sports, EVERYTHING.) What if this food makes me gag? What if I get lost? What if people don’t like me? What if I fall down? What if I make a fool of myself?

What if I have fun?

One of my fears, as a parent, is that I’ll pass on my various neuroses to my kid(s). I feel like I have to be a better person, the best person I possibly can be. I have something to live up to. I have to set an example. I have to get over myself and stop letting fear and uncertainty rule my life.

I have to try new things.

My goal is to do so. When someone says “Hey, let’s play this game!” or “Hey, let’s try this new food!” or whatever, my goal is to say “And how!” I’ve been doing pretty ok so far, too. I’ve played Soul Caliber IV and I’m pretty awful at it, but it’s still fun as all hell. I’ve played drums in Rock Band and each song I play I get a little better. I’ve tried sushi and it was foul as all hell and I gagged and almost threw up (I have sensory issues and some textures make me gag and possibly puke. WHY YES BEING ME IS A NON STOP PARADE OF EXCITEMENT!) But I did not die! And the people I was with laughed at the faces I made and joked around but still liked me! I’ve taken OMG TEH BUS (I’m more nervous of getting lost on the bus than on a train, there’s more to go wrong route-wise) to new places and while I’ve sometimes gotten lost I’ve always gotten unlost.

I’m pushing myself to be braver so I can raise a brave and hopefully fearless kid.

It’s pretty a little scary, but I can do it.

On Monday night Nick slept through the night if you define “night” as “from 11:00pm to 5:00am” which is, at the very least, six hours and not four. Or two. Or 45 minutes! Which, you know, was a nice change of pace.

That all went to hell last night.

You see, at the age of 13 weeks, which is only 3 months, Nick is teething. And he’s either cutting all of the teeth on the left side of his face at once, or else getting his incisors is a hugely traumatic thing and I dread and fear the eruption of his molars. I might flee the country to avoid them. He keeps pulling on his left ear, which started out as “oh hey! a handle! I can hold this! and pull this! AWESOME!” and now is “OH HOLY GOD RELEASE ME FROM MY CHAINS OF MISERABLE MISERY AND LET ME DIE UWAH UWAH UWAH SCREECH UWAH.” He also pulls on his left cheek, cups his hand miserably against it while sleeping, and tries to yank out his own lower jaw.

Dude, I can relate.

You see, I need two root canals. I was going to get them done earlier but I didn’t have insurance and then I did have insurance but I was pregnant and now… well, now I mix tylenol III with vicodin and then curse that I chose that route over vodka. Drugs, you see, don’t work well on me. BECAUSE I AM SPECIAL. And also, possibly, because God hates me and thinks my suffering tastes extra sweet. (I do have an appointment to get the root canals done. It’s for a month from now. Apparently “Oh hey, dentist, I’m in excruciating pain and a previous dentist said I need 2 root canals let’s do this thing” means “take X-Rays, yell at me for having cavities, reassure me that 12 week old infants “sleep all the time,” and then schedule the actual work for a month away.” THANK YOU.)

So I also spend time clutching my face, pulling my cheek, and trying to yank out my upper jaw. We are a sad, matched set.

I’m drooling slightly less, however.

Other things he’s doing involve rolling around like a madman, sitting up without toppling over for about 30 seconds at a time, and perfecting his ability to reach for and grab things. He has two favorite rattles, one which captured his heart weeks and weeks ago and soothes him like nothing else. The other alternately delights him and fills him with utter terror. However! Many things fill him with terror. For instance:

• me sneezing loudly
• me belching
• me yawning too hugely
• Nesko’s hair
• the toilet flushing
• me taking off my pants while saying “whoops, I’m peeling off my skin!”

Yeah. I don’t know, either.

Although the “whoops, I’m peeling off my skin” thing was pretty hilarious.

ANYWAY while I was still pregnant, there were a few items that I either purchased ahead of time or received as gifts and they have basically saved our screaming, teething bacon. They are:

• infant’s tylenol drops
• generic mylicon

I’d add baby oragel in there as well but although I thought really really hard about buying it, I didn’t actually buy any until last night. Having the tylenol and gas relief stuff at 2:00am was really convenient and helpful, however. They’re those tiny things that come in oh so handy; much more so than larger but non necessary things like “an infant bath tub” or “400 bibs” or “those little mitten things that just get soaked in drool.”

So the pain really caught up with him last night even though he was dosed on tylenol and oragel, and a few times he only slept for about 45 minutes before waking up screaming and clawing at himself again. It was very sad. And I was so tired from his screaming marathons that day that I kept drifting off asleep even while he screamed in my arms. And kicked me, clawed at me, and hit me. Poor little guy. Poor little me. He seems to be feeling better today, but I’m left with the worry that like me tylenol doesn’t do much (actually, it often gives me migraines. WOOHOO.) and ‘caines are essentially ineffective. I’m sorry, Niko. My genes basically suck. On the other hand, if someone ever kidnaps you and injects you with heroin to keep you compliant, you probably won’t develop an addiction to it, so there is that I guess.

Nick’s starting to get really awake and alert, to not just take in the world but respond to it. His personality is starting to really shine through, and it’s a very buoyant personality. He’s a morning person, and as long as he’s fed and secure he’s very very happy and smiley. He is also playful.

He was nodding off in my arms so I tried to transfer him to his crib. He woke up entirely at the transfer process, looked up at me, and grinned. I pulled a blanket up over him and, looking directly at me, he raised his legs, tenting the blanket. I grinned back at him and pushed his legs down. His grin got bigger, one of those total face, gum-revealing, silent laughter baby grins. He lifted his legs up again. I pushed them back down. This went on for five hilarious minutes until I decided that yeah, he was fully awake, and put him on the baby gym to hopefully tire himself out.

Yeah. Pushing baby legs around is now my primary source of amusement.

Took Nick to the park that is about a block away, thinking he might like to either swing in the infant swing or look at the trees. Ha ha! Neither! Not that he OBJECTED, he just wasn’t interested. Since some assholes were sitting around smoking, despite signs saying “no adults without children” and “no smoking,” I took him back home. At least we tried, eh?

Nick has a little rattle. It’s plastic and has loopy things with big beads on the loops and little beads inside of it. It makes a great noise when shaken and it’s bright colors. It is one of his favorite things in the whole world and when he’s freaking out, someone shaking it near his face is a really great way to distract and calm him down. He’s been IN A Mood today, so I was using the rattle a lot. I want to digress here because Nick being In A Mood is both frustrating and hilarious. It’s frustrating because it’s hard to tell what he wants and he cries and acts sleepy but wakes up after only sleeping about half an hour, and he acts hungry but hardly eats anything until the third or fourth time you offer it at which point he noms that shit down, growling. He’s a baby, and he doesn’t know what he wants, but he does know that whatever you’re doing is assballs wrong. It’s also hilarious because if you poke and tickle him he’ll interrupt himself mid squall to smile and laugh quietly, then kind of grump, then smile and then hoot. Baby mood swings!

Anyway, at one point Nick was cuddled up against me and I was waving the rattle around while singing. You know when you have a really long stick or pole and are trying to poke at something, and the far end of the stick wavers around and it’s really hard to aim it and it’s shaky but you can eventually poke your target if you try hard enough? That’s what him using his hands on anything other than his mouth is like. He focuses super intently and his arms kind of weave around and then he can grab at something. Like the crinkly fin of the dangly fish on his baby gym. Or like the rattle! He reached for it and grabbed it, got his fingers around it, and waved it around. By “waved it around” I mean “smacked it against the top of my boob.” It made a little noise and he eventually dropped it. He did it a second time, too, only that time his “waving it around” involved “smacking himself in the face.” I joke around about being the worst mother in the world, but seriously, I’m pretty bad because I laugh every time he smacks or punches himself in the face. It’s a loving laugh, but it’s… yeah. I laugh at my baby.

He’s been kicking the kicky ball on his baby gym (we send him to the baby gym! he pumps baby iron! he gets baby fit!) and punching and stroking the dangly things that hang over his head. He’s even purposely grabbed at them. But grabbing the rattle is a little bit harder because of the way it’s constructed. I’m really glad he’s moving up to “grabbing and holding things” because that means that soon he’ll be playing with and chewing on them, and he needs to chew on something other than bottle nipples. Also the sooner he can hold and manipulate things, the sooner he can start washing dishes and earning his keep around here.

I arranged to meet Almeda and his daughter Beka at the Lincoln Park Zoo on Friday. The Lincoln Park Zoo is free and easy for me to get to, so I figured I could easily get there by noon.

HA.

OH HA HA HA.

I SAY HA.

Nooo, Nick did a giant poo that had to be cleaned up and then he wanted to eat, and I kept forgetting things and having to go back for them, and missed the bus, and then when I got on it the bus did its “sitting outside the McDonalds a block away for fifteen minutes” which it does every single time I take that bus no matter what day of the week or time of day it is. but! I am not talking about the trip there, because if I do this will be a post of fury and OMG YOU PEOPLE GET OUT OF THE FUCKING WAY and let those who want to disembark do so before shoving your way on! I am trying to strip all that out of this post.

We eventually got to the zoo and, as usual, I got lost. Because that… is what I do. Get lost. It is the way my brain is wired. You might think that is an excuse, but if so, that is because you’ve never walked around with me or given me directions or told me to turn left and watched me go right. Automatically. Instinctively.

My dad claims that St. Brendan found America because he was looking for France.

I finally met up with Almeda because he came looking for me and snagged me as I walked in a circle, consulted a map, walked in the same circle, consulted the same map, etc. We walked around and talked about nerdy stuff and holy CRAP is Beka cutely adorable and pretty beefy. I’m fairly certain she could take Nick in a baby fight, unless he started fighting dirty (note: he fights dirty). My plan for ANY outing with Nick is to tire him out so he sleeps well that night. He counters my plan with his own plan, which is to sleep through whatever it is we’re doing (note: he fights dirty). I mean, he’s not even three months old. It’s not like I expected him to gaze in wonderment at giraffes and penguins and stuff. But you know.

I got there around 1-ish I think and we left around 6-ish. There was lots of wandering, lots of sitting, some talk about parenting and babies but also some talk about books and tv and The Sims. You know. Adult talk. Uh, yes. I do consider books, tv, and computer games to be “adult talk.” Fuck you. Also I made the tactical error of eating a milkshake with no prophylactic lactaid beforehand.

You may be asking “oh, hey, so where are pictures?” And the answer is: I did not take any. “Oh, you forgot your camera at home?” would be a good follow up question but ha HAH! No! I had it with me. With batteries even! And it’s digital, so no worries about having film. Nooo… I just forgot to USE IT. Because I am ON THE BALL like that.

It was a super fun time and I hope to do it again soon, probably without the stroller and with a sling. The stroller is pretty big and bulky and the zoo isn’t really accessible if you don’t have at least one arm free or there’s wheels involved. Bits of pavement are cracked or falling away so it’s jouncy, people wander in front of you and then STOP MOVING, and a LOT of exhibits have multiple doors to get through or involve walking up stairs to get to them. I am very much looking forward to going out with Almeda and Beka again, possibly to the Garfield Park Conservatory.

On the way home someone asked if our babbies were twins. No, I said, they’re just good friends.

I was going to take Nick to the park near us today and see how he liked the swing. But my mother in law offered to watch him and in retrospect THANK GOD because for some reason our water’s been turned off with no advance notice AGAIN which is really a problem when you have a baby and can’t wash your hands and he’s formula fed and it’s in powder form and you have no water to mix it with.

Here is a video about Vaccines, put out by the CDC.

It addresses some of the common questions and concerns that parents have about vaccinations in a calm and informative manner.

Remember that when you vaccinate your child, you’re not only protecting your child and your family; you’re also protecting other children who are too young for vaccines, are allergic to vaccines, have compromised immune systems, or otherwise would be susceptible to illnesses which could cripple or kill them.

Nikola had his 2 month check up, and I’m sure you’ll be pleased to know that he is adorable and perfect and in very good health. His leg tremors and different sized pupils are normal, as is his cradle cap (which is improving), and he does NOT have a hernia. Hooray!

He also got a butt load of vaccines. Or, should I say, a thigh load. Two thigh loads, in fact. He’s been sad and angry and lonely and OMGFURIOUS but it’s really really rare that he’s in actual pain. Sure, he gets gas and grunts and cries and does terrible terrible farts, but that’s pretty normal. Getting poked with needles is something he is sooo not used to. At all. Even a little bit. Which is a good thing, you know? Anyway, he got the first shot and just started SCREAMING. His whole face screwed up and turned bright red and oh, he was so sad and upset! The world was an awful place! Just awful! Terrible! And right when he was calming down he got a shot in the other thigh. This is some terrible hell he’s trapped in, I’ll tell you what.

He keeps remembering that he got those shots and starts screaming again and needs to be cuddled and sung to and reassured. And then just now he was sleeping peacefully in his crib and suddenly woke up screaming. Actually, “screaming” doesn’t really cover the terrible freaked out noise he was making. Nesko picked him up, cuddled him and fussed over him, and Nick went back to sleep.

Poor little guy.

He got an oral vaccine against Rotavirus (did you know you can shit yourself to death? I’d rather he not do that.) and DTaP (Diptheria, Tetanus, Pertussis), Polio, Hib (H. influenzae type b), and PCV7 (Pneumococcal Conjugate). I was very sad that he was hurt. I try to protect him against random stabbings and searing pain, you know? But vaccines are really important. I spent a lot of time bringing this little guy into the world. I’d rather he stuck around for awhile.

We have a new pediatrician and I like her. She doesn’t seem as rushed as our old pediatrician. I was upset at the change but having dealt with her and her office I’m not upset any more. Win!

We’ve got a household full of problems. Nick, especially, has problems. His main problem is that his fist is larger than his mouth and is just so god damned tasty and why why why can’t he shove the entire thing in all at once sob sob why sob why Sad Face why.

He contents himself, sometimes, with simply licking his hand. Yes, licking. Like it was the best popsicle in the entire world.

This kid. I don’t know.

My problems are a little more down to earth and have to do with the people who live in our building being unrepentant kleptomaniac assholes.

Also, working is a problem.

See, I miss working. I miss having a job. I don’t miss working full time, but I do miss, you know, leaving the house and doing a quantifiable job and getting a pay check. Oh! And talking to humans. And not having a boss who just screams for fifteen minutes stretches for no discernible reason.

I know, rationally, that what I’m doing has value. I am raising a human and keeping him alive and hopefully teaching him to be a socialized non-asshole (hah! me, raise a socialized non-asshole? WISH ME LUCK.) who functions in society (double hah!). But raising a child is one of those jobs that’s viewed as women’s work and not valuable. So I have that cloud of preconception hovering around me, and that’s part of it, but really? My entire life is at the mercy of someone else’s whims, run at someone else’s schedule. I can’t make a list of stuff I need to do in a day and check off each item. No. It’s catch as catch can, as I try to eat, take my druuuuuuuuugs, bathe, get dressed, use the toilet, AND clean up bits of the house while Nick sleeps or kicks his kicky ball in the baby gym (which he liked for a short time but now HATES it) or otherwise occupies himself. Just to give an example, it’s taken me three days to make a doctor’s appointment. Sometimes I don’t eat “breakfast” until after twelve noon.

I know that soon enough he’ll be able to occupy himself for at least short amounts of time, and I’m looking forward to that. Also to him sleeping through the night. But right now I don’t really have much control over my day and that is a little stressful and I really miss the order of a “real” job.