it was a strange day

blogger has been down from sunday evening through most of today.  i found myself frantically searching for news about blogger's status on twitter and kept seeing tweets like, "oh boo hoo! just go outside and take a walk" and, "who cares if blogger is down! just blog later!"

BLOG ABOUT IT LATER?  WHAT?

i need to blog about it NOW!  i started out thinking... if i don't post no one will love me anymore!  which progressed to... if i don't post, everyone will think i am dead!  which progressed to... my people!  must talk to my people!  friends withdrawal!

someone commented that we should all just go calm down and do something else, it's not like they cut off our right arm.  you are my right arm.  without you i just don't know what to do with myself.  you may officially check me in to bloggers anonymous.

i even resorted to posted on facebook, FACEBOOK of all places, to get my friends fix.  (speaking of, if you are not already you should like this blog on facebook, that way the lines of communication can never be broken between us again.)  and through our facebook chatter i have now changed my facebook group picture to THIS:

you would understand if you were THERE.  it's been a long day without you, ok?

i've been considering switching to my own host and server service but i held off because i was afraid that my page might go down or i would be unable to post.  i thought i was safer from outages if i stuck with the big guy for a little longer.

hah.  hah.

blogger is laughing at my foolishness.

so now in place of the previously scheduled post about our art opening you get this crazy caffeine-fueled whateverthisis.  did you know that one cup of coffee to a nursing person who has given up caffeine is like pure crack cocaine?  and did you know that the phrase 'crack cocaine' while really fun to say is totally of nonsensical, because we don't call it 'blow cocaine' or 'snow cocaine' or 'cocaine cocaine'.  from now on i'm just going to say i'm on drugs drugs.  the java coffee kind.

DON'T EVER LEAVE ME.

lessons in acrobatics

when i was pregnant i wasn't sure if i would nurse.  i didn't know many people who had and i hadn't been exposed to breastfeeding hardly at all beyond the few glances they squeeze in on tv.  but i wanted to give it a try and we were blessed that everything has gone swimmingly well.  with such a limited experience  the only thing i was familiar with was the traditional cradle-hold position.  it never occurred to me that as jude got older things would... change.

i was not prepare for, as experienced nursing moms call it, the acrobatic nursing.

jude is no longer content with the laying-down boppy-style cradle hold unless he's pretty sleepy.  for one thing he is outgrowing his pillow- his feet hang off the end and it nearly pushes him up too high.  so he  has been branching out so to speak.

he likes to crawl over of his own accord when it's milk time and help himself on his knees, standing up, downward dog, bouncing up and down, you name it.  when he nurses in the bed he'll sit up on his knees and drape himself over my chest like a tiny boy throwing himself over a barrel.  our new go-to position has been him sitting facing me next to my legs so he can eat sitting up.  it's the big boy eating.  he just sits there like a little person, gets his food, pops off for a laugh, gets his food, and then off to play again.

i'm torn, because i'm not used to not cradle-hold nursing and it feels a little off-putting.  it dips into that area where people get all preachy.  if he can sit up on his own to eat– would people be scandalized?

...but it's also REALLY REALLY hilarious.  he's very serious about it, proud of himself, and so very happy.

well... who gets the bamboobies?

you do, Devan from Accustomed Chaos!

your bamboobies overnights will be on their way to you.  i hope you enjoy them as much as i like mine!

thanks to all who entered and thanks to bamboobies for their generosity.

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my cat's breath smells like cat food

we're on week seventeen of the movie closet challenge.  did you know that?  week seventeen.  i'm going to go ahead and put it out there- i don't think we're anywhere close to making the september 17th end date.  we're deep in the heart of simpsons territory right now, season six, and three things have become blatantly obvious to me:

1.  i forgot how much i like the simpsons.  there are a lot of good episodes.  (MONORAIL... MONORAIL...)

2.  i am tired of watching the simpsons.  six seasons straight without a break is too much simpsons in a row for me.  jon says otherwise, he is thrilled.

3.  i quote lines from the simpsons in conversation more than ten times daily and i'm not even aware of it.

jon and i are THOSE people, those annoying people who communicate almost entirely in one liners from shows and movies.  we've done it for so long that i'm not even aware that i'm doing it and half the time i couldn't tell you what quote is from what.  our conversations are maybe, 50% quotations?  an outrageous percentage.  they're constantly peppered with:

oh sandwich, i could never stay mad at you! and,

so's your face! 

NO YOU'RE IN THE CEILING!

eastman! he came out of the east to do battle with the amazing RANDO!

monkey's brains, while popular in Cantonese cuisine, are not often found in WASHINGTON D.C.!

etc. etc. etc. (etcetera... what does this mean, etcetera?  who can tell me what this is from?  because it's from a show, and it immediately popped into my head, but i have no idea what it is.  do you see my problem now?  every word triggers a tiny movie in my head.)

you get the point.  a few times it's occurred to me how strange we probably sound to outsiders since we communicate almost solely in inside-joke-speak, and how odd it would be to not understand anything we're saying.  repeatedly through the movie closet we've been watching something and i've had a lightbulb go off- OH!  THAT'S why i say that!  i don't even remember where some of these things come from.

we speak a different language, you see.  we speak tv.

who rigs every oscar night?  we do.  we do.

bonus points to anyone who can name where all the quotes in this post come from.  bonus points of me loving you.
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my favorite time these days

the holiday weekend gave me three long wonderful days at home with the jude.  days filled with playing and napping and baby's first pool time.  but i have to say- playing with a 9 month old baby?  not really that fun.  i'm having a great time, and don't get me wrong, i'm down on the floor in the trenches for the climbing and pulling and slamming the block on the floor over and over, but... it's not particularly entertaining for big adult people.

i find myself mostly following him around the room like a little spotter to make sure he doesn't topple backwards onto something painful because the room is 'baby-proof' but not 'fall-down-all-the-time-proof'.  if i find myself feeling confident he will undoubtedly fall forward instead of backward and catch himself with his face.  just to keep me in check and make sure i'm paying attention.  CONSTANT VIGILANCE.

i'm looking forward to games.  to legos and blocks, building and creating, and less constant desire to escape.  then again, once he can walk... the escaping never ends, does it?  i think jude has already proven himself an explorer and he's probably not going to change any time soon.  i'm attempting to prepare myself for lots of running and climbing.  it's a bit of an adjustment because i was a quiet sedentary child, happy to play by myself under the table for several hours at a time.

jon found him like this during nap, face down and butt in the air

with both sides of his diaper undone. ridiculous.

after a long day of standing and exploring i'm tired of being climbed like the monkey bars and grabbed and pulled and scraped.  he is very.... boy.  SLAM SMASH RUN ESCAPE DESTROY.  he can zero in on any electrical cord in a ten foot radius and any pair of glasses on a nearby face.  even when he nurses now he is on the go- he's in and out of that shit in 5 minutes flat.  he has places to be, people to crawl away to, miss bang to grab.  he's not so much into the cuddling and never has been.  too busy being the zen watcher.  there's a world out there to observe.

all weekend he screamed MAMAMAMAMAMAMAAA!! every time i would walk away.

lately i've found that my most treasured part of the day is the mr. jude nightcap.  we wake him up when we go to bed and he lays down with us for his midnight snack and curls up right where he belongs, between my shoulders and my knees, drowsy and snugly and tired from a busy day.  he rolls over when he's done eating sighs like he just doesn't have the energy to crawl away any more.  he closes his eyes, curls in close, and sucks his thumb and dozes off with our faces so close together.

all this activity is exhausting.  can't we just sit quietly and read a book?  no?

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hello and goodbye, i hope that you’re okay

the kindness and karma week contest winners, Sarah and Penelope, finally received their prizes in the mail this week.  (apologies ladies, i'm slow.)  and, though i'm thrilled with how they turned out, they were a little... weirder than what Ashley won. what can i say, i was inspired!  i'm no painter, so forgive me these transgressions that i thrust upon ye:

horace is hungry

5 x 9 acrylic paint and mixed media on board

horace is waiting

8 x 5 acrylic paint and mixed media on board

so... sorry for the weird. but he makes me happy, the little guy does. and i hope they bring joy to you too.  i've always secretly wanted to be an illustrator, so thank you for letting me live out my tiny dreams through you.

included was a new mix- the 'it's fucking FOLK up in here' mix, because shamed as i may be i think i like folk music now.  those avett brothers, they've stole my heart.  i'm so, so sorry.  i'll push off my new obsession on to each of you.

each lady also won a set of gorgeous debossed thank you cards donated by Debb at Hand Pecked:



... i wanted to keep them to myself, but i figured i owed you for the weird paintings.
that's what this was all about, right? sharing the love?

speaking of weird art that i made, jon and i have a piece in an upcoming gallery exhibition that opens friday night.  it's the first show i've done in.... oh forever, like four years?  i swore off the gallery scene after art school because i truly hate all those douchebags and their bullshit mc snottery, but a friend is putting on the show and jon talked me into it.  if you're in the area please feel free to stop by the opening at the museum gallery and show us some love, i'll be nervously hating everyone.  i wish so dearly that you could all travel to join us and i could have my full internet-friend crew there, but alas, i make friends with far away homes.

(don't worry your darling face about it, i'll take pictures)

all this week don't forget to enter the bamboobies nursing pad giveaway!
enter for yourself or for a friend through this friday at noon.

will you come again? it’s hard to say.

i surely hope so.

xoxo,
her grumbliness

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