A Twist in Terror Tactics - a Valentine's Day Attack

As you may have read, venturing out with the baby terrorist can be a traumatic experience. I race through the grocery store aisles, frantically grabbing goods off the shelves and throwing anything and everything into my cart in fear that at any moment, there may be a meltdown of nuclear proportions. Once that cute little terrorist of mine starts the scream wind up, I am out of that store in thirty seconds flat. If we ever have to escape our house in the case of an emergency, I've got it covered. I have no problem leaving a cart full of groceries in the middle of the store, leaving a house full of belongings, a dressing room full of clothing as I sprint outside, the baby strapped to me like a live grenade.

But this Valentine's Day, everything changed.

Maybe it was the feeling of love all around, or the smell of chocolate permeating the air, but this time our trip to the grocery store was completely different. The sweet baby terrorist is now able to sit upright in the shopping cart. She had on a very cute, pink dress and a ridiculously adorable bow in her hair. As I pushed the cart through the store, I began to marvel at the fact that I was leisurely lingering in the aisles, consciously putting food into the cart without interruption or fear. Everything was going smoothly, so of course, I panicked. What was going on? Was this the calm before the storm?

And then I saw it. People were literally stopping and staring at the baby terrorist with hearts dancing in their eyes. All I could hear around me were ooh's and ahh's and oh look at the baby, look at the baby! Baffled, I looked around, certain there was an angelic baby somewhere in the vicinity and that mom was definitely getting the stink eye from me and my baby terrorist. Slowly, incredulously, I began to realize that these people were talking about my baby! I slowly turned to look at Bug and sure enough, there she was, smiling from ear to ear, showing off her two bottom teeth, eyes twinkling, looking like the cutest, most well behaved child in the world. She was smiling at each person who stopped to look at her, all "Hi! How ya doin'! Can you believe my mom calls me a baby terrorist? Got any chocolate?"

I'm not kidding. Men and women alike were stopping to talk to my baby, to let me know just how lucky I was to have such an adorable daughter.

No one noticed that I had actually found a spare second to put on some makeup and do my hair. I had on my Valentine's Day outfit, too, but next to the baby terrorist I was just the woman pushing the  throne to the pretty little princess who was busy perfecting her precocious grin for all to admire. There was not a person in that grocery store who thought that perhaps this little charmer had gotten half of her good looks from me, and clearly she has her daddy's ability to flash a grin and all is forgiven.

And then it hit me. I am no match for this baby terrorist. She is employing tactics that I can't even begin to combat. But I do know that for the patrons of this particular grocery store, she may just have been the catalyst for the creation of Valentine's Day baby terrorists, made with love and delusions of baby bliss.

Booze & Bad Decisions - A True Greene Love Story

Since Valentine's Day is upon us, I think it might be time to share the tale of how I met the man to whom I am now married, with whom I am in debt for the next 30 fixed years and with whom I am currently in the trenches taking grenades from the baby terrorist. It's a lovely story, really. If you like scheming, strategizing and steamrollers then boy, is this a love story tailor made just for you.

Let's rewind back to the carefree days of yore, when I was a mere 21 year old college student at UC Santa Cruz, full of dreams, ideologies, booze and bad decisions.

Always liking to keep a little green in my pocket, I was working at the front desk of a hotel near the Boardwalk. After living in Santa Cruz for a few years, I had come to love the winter months because it meant fewer tourists, which translated into me getting paid to do my homework while manning the front desk. The hotel, however, had a different agenda comprised of the money making mentality and, in an effort to fill their rooms they decided to rent out the top floor to college students. Little did I know that this one decision (and several questionable choices on my part) would alter the course of my life forever.

One fateful afternoon as the sun was starting to sink lower in the sky, I was sitting at the front desk alternating between mindlessly staring at my Sociology book and wishfully glaring at the second hand on the clock as it slowly ticked away the final hours of my seemingly endless shift. Just as I decided time couldn't possibly move any more monotonously, in walked the future husband and just like that, time stood still.

I like to remember this moment because, as unrealistic and sappy as it sounds, it was one of those split seconds where life changes completely. I try to go back to this moment when we are yelling at one another, arguing about how it isn't rocket science to put dirty clothes in the hamper rather than on the floor of the bathroom, how if he comes home to one more of my online shopping packages on the doorstep we are going to go bankrupt, and oh my god HOW do you NOT hear the baby SCREAMING?! I fall back into this memory because we have been together for 10 years and we have met more than our share of challenges, but from the instant I looked up from that front desk a decade ago, I knew that no matter where life took me from that point forward, he would be along for the ride.

He walked into the office and stood in front of the front desk. The way the afternoon sunlight was streaming in through the blinds highlighted his green eyes, making them sparkle. He smiled and I never heard him say hello because oh sweet Jesus, the man had dimples. And I kid you not, though it might make you puke, I thought to myself "that is the man I am going to marry and he doesn't even know it."

He, however, only remembers that my face turned beet red and he thought to himself (probably in a voice similar to that of a caveman), "Huh. Her face is really red." Typical.

The reason he was standing in front of me, eyes all twinkling, dimples all dimpling, was because he had lost his room key. I made him a key and off he went, leaving me sputtering and blushing and being completely uncool.

From that point forward, he would come in almost every shift I worked with the excuse that he had lost his key. I would make him a new one and watch him ride his bike to baseball practice, smugly thinking that he definitely was totally into me because seriously, no one loses their key every. single. day.

What a fool I was! Here we are, married with a baby, and he literally loses his key every. single. day. It was no excuse to talk to me, he was not playing flirty games, he was not determined to date me. He just couldn't find his key and at the end of the day, the man needed to get into his room.

He and the other students living on the top floor used to play a little beer pong in the hallway. They would store their beers in the ice machine and the guests on the lower floors would call me and complain about the noise. I would run up to the top floor and not wanting him to think I was a square, I would slam a beer, blush wildly, ask them nicely to keep it down and then run away. 

One night, we ran into each other at the Seabright Brewery. I was dressed up and absolutely tipsy enough to be incredibly witty and full of hilarious stories that made me adorable. I was just enough fun that his friends invited me to a party afterward, but I sadly declined because he didn't invite me himself. He and his baseball buddies left the bar with a dimpled goodbye and a noncommittal maybe I'll see you later, and that was that.

I didn't hear from him for three days. I furiously wrote him off, telling myself that he could take his sparkly green eyes and shove it up his sparkly Greene ass for all I cared. I had better things to do, like hitting up happy hour and, and, .... and then the phone rang. It was one of his friends asking if I had heard from him.

"NO!" I yelled. "And if you see him, tell him - "

Before I could finish my sentence, his friend told me to take a deep breath and prepare myself because he wasn't ignoring me. He had gotten himself into a bit of a sticky situation and was having trouble charming his way out of it.

Apparently, my dimpled green eyed dream boy had channeled his country boy roots and hot wired a steamroller. This may be common practice in his little home town of Arbuckle, but driving it down 7th Avenue in Santa Cruz in the middle of the night is, folks, a felony. Being the daughter of a very strict dad who happened to be in law enforcement, I sadly thought that this might be the end of our love story.

Remember when I said I was young and full of bad decisions?

I had every intention to go to the gym. Every intention. But the gym was right by the courthouse, and would it really hurt if I just popped in to see if his arraignment was around that time? And there he was, in all his orange glory, being laughed at by the judge as he ruled that this boy was no felon, he was just stooopid.

And so a love story was born amidst the rubble of a narrowly avoided misadventure. 10 years have come and gone and we look back, shake our heads, laugh a little and turn the page, knowing that we can't rewrite the chapters that have brought us to this point. And even if we could, would we? We have the blank pages of tomorrow's chapters waiting for the next ridiculous story to be written. He will probably leave his dirty clothes on the floor and I will definitely continue to shop online and oh my god seriously, you HAVE to hear the baby SCREAMING!

But his green eyes still sparkle when the sun hits them just right and when our baby smiles, I can see his dimples on her sweet face. And that's enough for me.

We're so little! Circa 2004

All is Quiet on the Western Front

All is quiet on the Western front and this has me quite nervous. The baby terrorist has been laying low, smiling a lot, taking forty minute naps in her crib and almost sleeping through the night. She happily eats her sweet potatoes, laughs at some of my jokes and rewards my good behavior with a burst of babbling.

I am terrified.

Just last week, I was fighting with her about anything and everything. She was the root cause of arguments with my own parents. I was fairly certain that I might leave my husband in the dead of night in our home that has begun to resemble a homier version of Guantanamo Bay so that he would finally be forced into waking up and negotiating sleep with the adorable yet diabolical baby terrorist.

Seriously, the worst thing that has happened in the last three days is when she spit out a mouthful of butternut squash straight into my face. In her defense, I should have seen it coming. I don't even like butternut squash. I buy it in a halfhearted attempt to show that I eat my veggies. It is just bad parenting to pawn it off onto the baby. Do as I say, not as I do apparently is my mantra.

Impending doom must be directly around the corner, right?

I recently read an article written by a non parent who fancies herself a prospective parent but is scarred by all of these scary mom blogs. She has a point. I have had readers inform me that my blog is terrifying. I admit that scaring people straight has become somewhat of a hobby of mine. Perhaps I take keeping it real just a little too far. But I need you to know, to fully understand, what I am dealing with here. I used to be full of satire and cocktails, and now I am holed up in a sleeper cell of baby terrorism which is just a silly thing to say since there is not a whole lot of sleeping going on here. 

But now I am cautiously typing as I find myself in the midst of a cease fire. No treaty has been signed, but the baby and I are acting like a couple of frenemies who are definitely on again this week. Next week she might stab me in the back and I will probably talk smack about her on my blog, but right now, right this second, we're cool.

What is a wannabe mommy blogger who has built a story line around her very own baby terrorist to do? Once again, she has won because now I am practically begging her to give me a little material. 

I'm holding my breath - stay tuned.

31 Going On 13

 Unsolicited advice is pretty much the only advice I ever receive.

I suffer from an unfortunate social disease that prevents me from doing anything to make anyone else feel uncomfortable, despite how awkward I might feel. At a bar, on public transportation, in an alcohol fueled family discussion I make eye contact with the craziest one and then boom! I become the one to whom the crazy latch on and there I stand, stuck in a one sided conversation that involves the individual passionately telling me something outlandish while I smile and nod my head enthusiastically and hope that someone, anyone, will step in and save me. Hours later I attempt escape with a meek excuse about needing to use the restroom or find my husband or turn into a pumpkin and tiptoe away hoping not to upset anyone.

I do this when faced with the good intentions of an unsolicited advice giver as well. If I ever thought that I was the victim of drive by tips before, I had no idea how often I would be hit by the semi truck of parenting two cents until I had my little baby terrorist. There was the lady who pulled over on the side of the road while I was walking the dog and the baby in our neighborhood just to inform me that she really thought the baby could use a hat. There are the people that tell you Tylenol is terrible, sleeping with your baby is dangerous, sleeping with your baby builds confidence, teething tablets are questionable, teething tablets are life savers, pacifiers cause nipple confusion but if your baby is crying then a pacifier is a perfectly acceptable solution, and the list of conflicting information goes on and on. I try to act interested, nodding as though grateful for the slew of unwanted and frankly confusing words of wisdom that enter one ear and graciously exit the other. 

But when one of my parental units call with opinions on how to raise the baby, I crawl back into my 13 year old self, fold my arms and stick out my tongue. Whatever, Dad, I'm not listening! Later I am going to call my best friend and talk about how I have the meanest parents in the world and you had better believe that my diary entry tonight is going to go a little something like this:

Dear Diary,

My dad is sooo mean! He doesn't understand anything. He thinks that just because he's older than me and has raised two babies he wrote the baby handbook. I am so not speaking to him for the rest of my life but I really hope he babysits next weekend so I can go out with my friends. 

Oh and Jay said he thinks I'm cute! I love him soooo much. Hearts hearts doodle doodle.

Babbling Brooke

So there I was, 31 going on 13 as I listened to my dad's good intentioned but completely gratuitous counsel. As you all know by now, I am the mother of a baby terrorist. Currently, her terror tactic of choice is sleep deprivation. At 4 1/2 moths old, we still had her sleeping in a bassinet by our bed. Call me crazy, but I  have a difficult time letting her cry it out when she wakes up five hundred thousand times a night. My dad was of the opinion that I was letting the baby terrorist win and to an extent, perhaps I was. But I am clearly still a rebellious teenager though my wrinkles call my bluff when my dad tells me what to do.

I made my usual arguments in between crying, stomping my feet and putting my fingers in my ears, yelling "I can't HEAR you!" at the top of my lungs. Why let her cry it out when I am going to be awake either way? I can either wake up and help put her back to sleep or I can listen to her cry while laying in bed wide awake and feeling like a total failure. I'm tired and cranky either way, but the latter method also leaves me feeling like a complete jerk. Why fight with the baby? Why walk down the hall to her bedroom when I can just roll over and get her out of her bassinet?

My dad, as he has done since the beginning of my smart ass teenage years, listened to me rant and then boom! hit me with his best shot. 

"Sweetheart," he began. God, I hate that. He always starts out nicely before he knocks me down from my high horse. "Maybe it's time you start learning to be a parent."

Oh snap! No he didn't! 

As I furiously stewed for the next few hours, I began thinking about the parenting advice we receive from our own parents. It seems as though now that they have raised us into adult hood and we seem to be doing okay, their memories of child rearing is vastly different from what actually happened. They become the baby whisperers, the masters of sleep training, hearts hardened against the agonizing sound of baby cries. They forget about the daily decisions you struggle to make, hoping each time that your choices are the right ones for your child. As I revert back into the role of a petulant teenager rebuking any suggestions my parents make, and as I face new challenges the baby terrorist throws in my direction, I realize that maybe we all slowly forget the tests that seemed insurmountable at the time but now are just a distant memory.

Of course I'm totally going to take his advice. And if it works, I'm totally not going to tell him. But when I look at my baby, asleep in her crib, I know that one day she will be 31 going on 13 and I don't want to know what she told her diary about me.