Back in the day

I used to be really fun. No longer.

(Big Man gives Dani the lotioned hair comb down, but when I'm in charge after her bath, I always do the crazy, curly, baby mohawk!)

Back in the day, I used to pay attention to a lot more stuff than I do. I basically get my news from news radio on my 5 minute commute to work, and then The Daily Show if I can stay up.

My secretary comes into work often and asks me if I've heard any number of things which were local news headlines the night before. (nope)

Our house has been on the market since August. It's a great house, the one we have. Not like the character-less minivan of houses we are under contract to buy. But that one's more family friendly, blah, blah, blah. We had a mortgage commitment, but it expired because they only last 3 months, so me and Big Man had to re-sign all docs and provide new info (thank god we have great credit because apparently it's gotten slightly harder to get credit now that the banking industry frowns on unverified loans and had to contribute approximately the gross domestic product of France to keep it afloat) and the loan processor called me to mention that they would need a more recent purchase contract. And so I politely explained to her (because she clearly did not *read* my existing contract) that although we signed a contract to purchase last August, if she read the contingency (expressly contingent on the sale of my existing home) and realized that it did not have an end date (because who the f*&k is going to buy the sellers' house in this market either WTF?) then she would know that I'm still under contract to buy a house. But only if I ever sell mine. And, since my house has been on the market, I've (a) replaced the circulator in the furnace [not cheap]; (b) replaced the oven element [cheap but only lasted a month]; (c) replaced the whole flippin' freestanding range because we cheaped out and just tried to replace the element the first time it broke; and (d) no doubt done some other shit we didn't want to have to do because we wanted to move out of this house before we had Dani. Which was 3 months ago!

AND, did I mention that, because I was pretty pregnant (and clearly overly optimistic) in August, that I packed TONS of shit into (ten medium and 5 large) moving boxes I actually paid for at the UPS store, because I was sure the house would sell before I had the baby. And now, the baby's 3 months old, her Cubs romper is forever packed away, never to be worn, as Dani will clearly be a teenage mom before we unload this albatross of a house; the crockpot, toaster, and a shitload of rarely-used but much loved items such as my panini press and mini bundt pans have been packed away for 6 months.

And, at this point, I'm just waiting for more shit to go wrong so we can have to fix it and not be able to raise our sale price. (Big Man contends that we are selling our house with a stove, and so we can take our stove with us, and just leave a stove, but I've been telling him that as a lawyer that has real estate experience, that's not kosher and will not happen here.) Better yet, let Big Man's caddy crap the bed so we can add a car payment to the joy that is ours.

And, Big Man gave the kid too much cereal last night, and I had to take her to my democratic committee meeting (which is held in the county's supreme courthouse) and she was sick and screaming (local grandma-emeritus Debi took her to the law library and shut the doors so the meeting could continue) so throughout the meeting I could hear muted screams which did not stop. But, I'm the party chair and was running the meeting, so I carried on. At the close of the meeting (record time) I found Debi covered in puked up cereal/formula. Fun times. Got her home, and after an hour of screaming, and her not taking even water, I woke up Big Man (an hour early) and he calmed her, and rubbed her belly, and soothed her. And then he fed her and she threw up all over him. So we changed her, calmed her, and eventually got a little liquid into her before bedtime. And she slept through the night, and all was well.

But, today she was fine. Fine all day for Big Man. Literally as he began to get ready for bed she began to fuss, and once the bedroom door clicked shut so he could sleep, with the fan on and hear no outside disturbance, she let loose with the hellish screams. that. did. not. stop. until. she. eventually. took. a. brief. nap. and. began. screaming again. BUT, then I had to wake Big Man up, so she stopped and I fed her, and as Big Man prepared to leave for work, she unleashed again. So, at least, he heard it and didn't think I made it all up. Didn't swaddle her because she likes her fist better than the pacifier, and 3 minutes or so after Big Man left at 10:10pm, she is sleeping, or at least quiet. For now.

And, I'm realizing that we have, like, 3 photos of the three of us, and very few of me and Dani. But I have about 250 photo album pics of Dani alone, and that's about it. Need to remedy that. Before she gets her driver's license.

And, husband who never reads this blog but who used to be romantic. Buy me some flowers or do something nice because this is really getting tiresome.