a fire-pole, and other parenting ideas

Getting my daughter to sleep isn't that difficult, the real trick is getting her to stay asleep. First comes the bouncing and singing. Okay, she's asleep, now the hardest part: putting her down. I hold her for a while, hoping she falls into a sleep deep enough not to notice the move away from my body and onto the mattress. Gingerly, I ease her onto the bed. First her feet touchdown...steady now... lowering her head... EYES OPEN! Quickly scoop her back up and immediately they close again. Little bounces... and try again. It usually takes me at least three tries.

Once she's successfully laying on the bed, I stand perfectly still; you wouldn't even be able to see me breathe. I contemplate my escape, cursing the creaky hardwood. I am so close to victory, and yet defeat threatens me with every step. What I need is a fire-pole, so I can slide silently down to the main floor. I'd wear mittens so there'd be no squeaking of skin on metal, and I'd plop noiselessly into a pit of foam pieces. Yes, that would work. I have also imagined myself swinging out of the room on monkey bars, so as to avoid the perilous floors. A house made of marble would be equally adequate for enabling a soundless departure.

Instead, I slowly slide my foot across the ground, trying to detect any creaks before all my weight goes down, and reaching as far as I can to minimize the steps required. I try to hold myself up somewhat on the dresser as I slip out, then with hands pressed against the hallway walls as I near the stairs. One time she stirred and opened her eyes before I made it out of the bedroom and I instinctively ducked down out of sight. As I lay huddled on the floor, I thought how absurd it was that a three month old could incite such ridiculous behavior in a (more or less) sane adult. But instead of picking myself up off the ground, I slid out. That's right, laying flat on the floor and pushing myself backwards with my hands, I slithered out of the room. A new low (haha, pun).

There is one other thought that crosses my mind every time I lay her down. I inevitably get my arm pinned under her head, and sliding it out without waking her is challenging. That's when I remember an old commercial for the War Amps Champs about playing safe. A robot gets his arm sawed off and then clicks it back on. He says "I am Astar, a robot. I can put my arm back on; you can't. Play safe". Oh how I wish I had Astar's removable arms!

a light breeze

i looked out the window across the lake, and was taken aback to see that the world was going in reverse! snow was gusting across the lake and i could see four people heading north, all walking backwards. Step by step they plodded into the past, like someone had hit rewind. like when superman flew so fast around the earth the time rolled back! The illusion was ruined when a snowmobile zipped across, going in boring old regular forward motion. but then it was out of the picture and we returned to backwards land. It really was sort of surreal to watch. Briefly one of the four turned around and tried to walk straight on into the wind, but quickly spun back around and resumed his blind trek.

and no wonder; that wind stings! i barely had any exposed skin, but where the wind did hit was like thousands of little fingers pinching me with tiny nails. i want to say it's like being pelted in a sandstorm, but i have no idea what that feels like. maybe if i ever experience it, i'll say it's like the wind in rankin inlet.

but now i'm home, stripped down to a normal amount of clothing layers, enjoying a glass of red wine, and perfectly cozy.

quotationfingersipadwifistarbucksblahblahstuff

i'm bored, and have nothing really to talk about, so don't expect any kind of theme or common thread that holds this all together. i'm just going to do a stream of consciousness type entry. which will most likely be a mess since my thoughts are pretty lame and fragmented.

i like using quotation marks. actually, to be more accurate, i like misusing quotation marks. i don't care if it's in print or quotation fingers when talking; the more i do it, the funnier i think it is. it doesn't matter what the sentence is, just throw some quotations in there and suddenly people will wonder about your meaning. i'm thirsty, i'm going to have a glass of "juice". "juice"?? what does she mean? what is she drinking? you all wonder. yeah, i know i have you doubting the authenticity of my juice. and if you put a whole phrase in quotation marks, what out! after my "juice", i'm going to "brush my teeth". clearly this must be some cryptic euphamism! hahahahaha.  "ha".

*my mind wanders; eyes fall on a disc sitting on the desk*

so we can't figure out how to get our stupid wi-fi to work. blair's parents gave us their old one and it seemed to be set up right, but something is wrong. we turn on the ipad and our network comes up, we type in the password, it says we are connected.... but then when we try to bring up the internet, or any of the web based apps, it says we're not connected! wtf?! and the stupid ipad doesn't come with any instructions because it's just sooooooooooooo easy to use. grumble grumble. so now i have no choice but to walk across the street to starbucks to use the ipad. yeah, i'm one of those people. sipping my coffee, tapping on an ipad, showing people how cool i am. look at me, tap tap sip tap tap tap swoosh swoosh sip swoosh. maybe next time i'll also bring in some obscure text books to highlight, and wear my hair in a messy bun with a pencil in it to complete my image. yeah, i'm focused and studious, yet hip and artsy. but i'm edgy because i drink regular coffee, none of that fancy shmancy half caf extra foam soy milk chai-mocha-latte-cino crap.

*my mind makes a few rapid connections to get to....*

in high school my friend Allie and i used to have fake arguments in ATM vestibules to make the other person/people in there feel awkward. wait... i've written about that once, years ago. man, i'm so out of material i'm posting reruns? short version: we'd have non-specifics fights that even we didn't know what they were about. example:
 'are we going to talk about this?'
 'i'm through talking.'
 'you act like you're the victim in all this.'
 'oh, and i suppose you think i'm to blame'
 'drop the indignant self-righteous bullshit, you know what part you played in this mess!'
 'i had no choice! YOU left me no choice!'
and so on. it was fun. but i told this story once before, so moving on.

i'm sleepy now. i just sneezed twice. the two things aren't connected... i don't think. are they? do i sneeze when i'm tired? i never really paid attention. now i'll have to pay attention to see if there's any correlation between them. i'll keep a sneeze journal. i can put together charts and graphs, mapping out the times and frequency of my sneezes, anayzling the results and determining if any patterns exist. i could do my "work" on the ipad at starbucks! see what i did there? i pulled the whole thing together.

damn, that's "good" writing.