Prairie sunsets rule! (or, eat your hearts out, city slickers)

I'm not gonna lie - living in a tiny town n the flatlands after growing up in a moderately large city is tough sometimes. But then sunsets like this happen and all is forgiven. You just don't see this shit through a maze of skyscrapers and condo blocks.

The shortest post ever (or, it ain't pretty)

Our son is currently cutting what seems like all of his teeth at the same time. He's not eating or sleeping properly, and needs to be held 24/7. Needless to say, we are not getting a heck of a lot done around here at the moment, outside of helping out our little one.

Hopefully I'll be back in the saddle soon, cuz I got a lots to say.

A nipplehawk of many names

When you spend 24 hours a day, 7 days a week with someone, you tend to get a little bored of calling that person by just one boring old worn out moniker. So..a list of the nicknames that we've come up with for the sprog - so far.
- Little man
- Little mister
- The Nipplehawk
- Sweet pea
- Cutie patootie
- Stinky Baby (very popular)
- Mister Man
- poofy boy (kokum's nickname for him)
- King Cale
- baby
- Babyface
- softie baby
- sweet baby
- My tiny
- Grumpty dumpty
- The Grumpian highlander
- Stinkopotomus Rex
- Funky Stinkerbean

...and that's just off the top of my head. Pretty sure there's more.

Sorry about my C cups

Tonight as we were sitting around after the baby went to sleep, my hunny loked at me and casually asked if my boobs were going to get bigger if I started pumping more milk.

What the FUCK??

Because I don't have enough to worry about, now I have to go through all that again?

I'm sure the question was innocent enough - stupid curiosity. He couldn't possibly know the kind of fear and sadness that it set off. He couldn't possibly know how many times I've been dumped or cheated on because of some whore with a huge rack and some retard boyfriend who couldn't see past it. He couldn't posssibly know how badly questions like that hurt.

The sad part is, I don't feel like I've been shortchanged. I'm a reasonably good looking person, with a reasonably nice body. I'm also a loving, kind, intelligent person with a lot to offer. But I'm not in possession of a nice set of double D's, so therefore the rest of the package is moot, I guess.

The things you learn at 6 a.m.

Throughout my young adulthood, whenever I heard someone say " there's nothing that compares to being a parent" (or some similar tripe), I immediately dismissed them as people who obviously didn't get out much.

I know better now. Five months into being a parent for the first time, I understand that the game has changed. I've experienced feelings that I didn't even know were possible before.

This morning was one of those times that drove that fact home to me again, as I leaned in the doorway of our bedroom and watched my honey feed our little guy a bottle of breastmilk. We've been struggling to get him to take the occasional bottle for quite a while now, and it was the sweetest thing in the world for me to be able to watch daddy hold and feed our son.

Just another one of those "ahhh" moments that makes it all make sense.

Excuses, Excuses

I've been reading up on how to set up a blog. It's something that I've been wanting to do for a long, long time now. I'm addicted to other people's blogs, and I've always thought "I should do that."

As luck would have it, my baby got me my very own netbook for Christmas. It's my first computer, and I figure now is the time. So here I am. Got a first post n everything.

Here's the thing. I've already dropped the ball, one and a half posts in. It's been nine days since my last post, and from what I can gather, two or three posts a week is a little more like it.

Two or three posts a WEEK? Holy shit, are you kidding me? I have a five month old son who never, ever sleeps more than three hours at a time. I also live with and care for my elderly grandmother. Oh, and I have three dogs. I have exactly one nanosecond each day to myself, and yesterday that nanosecond was completely taken up by editing the color of my navbar and posting my purty sunset pic.

Did I mention that I am almost completely computer illiterate as well? That definitely slows things down. The aforementioned nanosecond goes pretty fast when I'm trying to figure out how the hell Google Webmaster works. All I wanna do is find out how many people (if any) are seeing this blog, for Chrissakes!

So, the point is, it may take a little while to get up to speed and settle into a routine, but it'll happen. Eventually. And, if by some miracle you've stumbled onto this post and actually read this far, I'm totally open to suggestions and helpful hints on how to make this here interweb publishing thingy go.

One Perfect Moment

Today I experienced one perfect moment. I was feeding our son in the bedroom, and something happened. As I sat there watching him - the curve of his tiny nose, the sweep of his eyelashes - I realized that he was looking away from me. Engrossed in the process of feeding and exploring with his hands, yet he was looking off into the distance. He was elsewhere. I watched those big brown eyes rove across a landscape I could not see, and I wondered where he was, what he saw.

All the familiar thoughts crowded in then - that he would not always be this small and dependent and cute. That things would not always be this innocent, this soft. I thought of all the things I want for him - a safe home, love, good food, friends, books, art, beauty - and of all the things I did not - lonliness, abuse, addiction, zits. I thought of all I could do to give him the first and help him through the second, and I wasn't afraid.

He came back to me then with the loud smack of his lips and the push away from my breast that says "I'm done". Those big shiny brown eyes recognized mama and my chubby little guy broke out a huge grin for me. He's too young to recognize the tears that shone in my eyes or hear the catch in my voice as I welcomed him back home. Sometimes I can't help it - the tears, the lump in my throat - when I realize the kind of love I feel for him, and how lucky I am to have it.