Isn't This Rich?

Sadie got weighed today and although still a feather weight, she came in at 19 lbs. 2 oz. Okay, fine, maybe she was 19 lbs 1 and 1/2 oz but let's not split hairs okay? Let's just call it 2 oz and not try to ruin the rest of my day. Jesus! Anyway, as I was saying the kid is closing in on 20 lbs. which will be a wonderful milestone provided she's not seven years old when it happens. Unfortunately her movement up the growth chart is more slow than a glacier so according to Patricia, it's inevitable that we will be seeing an endocrinolgist in the not so distant future. "We have to remember that Sadie has IUGR," Patricia said (possibly because I was looking agitated - although I could be agitated for a number of reasons; almost 6 weeks without alcohol in my system, Wes getting a rose on Bachelorette or residual guilt over the five pieces of pizza I sucked down last night with salad and bread sticks ((four of them))).

"I haven't forgotten she's an IUGR baby," I said. And I haven't. Not for one minute of one day since I first googled it while still pregnant. Honestly it's pretty hard to forget that Sadie is different considering she takes twenty minutes to eat one piece of pasta, how much therapy she has and how far she still has to come. "Just look at the difference between Sadie and Mattie. It's a constant reminder," I added. Which brought our attention to Matilda.

"Do you want to weigh her?" Patricia asked.

"Sure. Why not." So we put her chubbalicious self on the scale and I almost had a heart attack (if I wasn't so worried that Mattie would have one first).


She weighs 28 lbs. Oh yeah. She's between 75th and 90th percentile in weight and 25th in height. She's built like a snowman. And you know why? Because the beyotch pilfers all of Sadie's Pediasure and helps herself to all the fattening food that Sadie leaves behind. So now, I have an underweight child and an overweight child which is awesome because I have to make different food for Mattie and different food for Sadie and different food for Elby and then order take-out for me and Jon because I'm too fucking tired to lift a finger to make one more meal at the end of the day. Plus, Pediasure is going to be on lockdown for the time being and doled out just during mealtime so I can keep an eagle eye on it.

But I am going to look on the bright side. Sadie is gaining. One day this will all be okay. We start speech therapy tomorrow. I have a strong feeling Sadie will learn like 100 new words. Let's hope a few of them are curse words so I'm not the only one swearing around here.

Reality Roadkill

I really like talking about reality tv, have I mentioned that in the last five minutes? Cause I really really do. The Housewives of NJ finale was pretty great and you all KNOW how much I love me some Bachelorette -which is why I recap it here. I'm just sayin'. All this not drinking has been leaving me with more time for writing which I haven't been doing. I should. I'm going to. Really. But weekends are soooo long with three kids. Have I mentioned I have three kids in the last five minutes? I know! I can't believe it either! Right now they are all three watching Jack's Big Music Show in the other room while I quickly type this out. And now, I must go eat their cookies -at least, Sadie's because you know she didn't eat hers.

Where Are My NYC Bloggers At?

Are you in NYC? Can you come to this? There will be champagne and white wine for those of you who are lushes and can't not drink for one goddamn Wednesday night. For the rest of you who, like me, choose to take the moral high ground, there will be Perrier.

Please come and say hi to me!

That didn't seem like a meaty enough blog so I decided to do some soul searching and really give you something meatier than just my appearance schedule.

I'm now going to share with you a whole list of shit I just don't get:

Radiohead

Sweet pickles

Shoe shopping

People who don't drink because they "just don't like the taste."

Cigarette smoking

Face piercings (for the record I had my nose pierced when I was twenty and I still have no idea what I was thinking. It hurt like a mo fo all the time)

Garfield

Women's Magazines

Drop-by's

Pennies

Decaf

Pie

Cheese snobs

The death penalty

Over eager blinker usage

Under use of blinkers

The movie Brazil

Cat people

Blueberry bagels

Let's Talk About Sex. Okay, How About Puke?

I'm sitting here at my desk wearing a puke covered bathrobe - the best thing about it is that it's a white robe which is now complemented smell wise and aesthestic wise with brown splotches of vomit. Are you thinking my robe was covered with puke because I got crazy drunk and am walking around my house dazed and hung-over with the remnants of a late night Kung Pao Chinese food binge after my night of debauchery? Sorry to disappoint but no, I'm covered in chocolate Pediasure. Sadie, who recently weighed in at a plump 18 lbs. 11 1/2 oz (a month ago she was 17 lbs 10 oz), has proceeded to throw up every day since her weigh-in.

If she weren't 18 months-old I'd swear she was bulimic. She's all, "Yeah, you're putting me in the 12 month pants now but I know I could still get into the 9 month pair. Do not throw them out. I need them for incentive!" I think she refuses to drink Pediasure not because it tastes like ass but she somehow knows how many calories are in it. Maybe I'll make up some labels that say Pediasure Lite! Now with less fat for babies trying to watch their figures! And see if she'll partake. Then when she gains weight I'll laugh and say "Ha ha! I totally fooled you!" thus ruining any trust we've built up in our short time together. But bulimia would explain why she always cries like a maniac when we try to put her on the scale. I can relate.

Sometimes it feels like just when I get into a good place about Sadie's weight and I'm really Zen and telling you guys how I hardly even think about her weight, she goes on a hunger strike or a run of puking and pulls the rug out from under my sanity. Plus, even though she put on a pound in a month, she is stubbornly refusing to get any taller. She's 28 inches. If she doesn't gain a few inches by the end of the summer we are being sent for sure to see an endocrinologist. Whatever. Listen, I know a lot of short people and they seem to have no trouble getting dates or buying clothes (sure the cost of hemming is a bitch but still...). Plus, I've seen that TLC show with all the Little People and they pull more tail than most single normal height friends I have. So her height can suck it. At least that's what I'm telling myself today. Try to tolerate me when I melt down about this in a few months. Right now I have bigger fish to fry like all the hurling.

Can I be really selfish here for a moment? Great. Besides the worry that her puking causes, can I just complain about how gross it is to constantly clean throw up laden pillows, crib bumpers, blankets and couch cushions? There is no amount of upholstery cleanser or Shout Out to mask the smell of lingering vomit. Just FYI if you wanted to come over, wear clothes you don't care a lot about.

Under the Microscope

I keep sitting down to write a post and then getting a bit paralyzed. Part of the problem is that when I wrote about giving up the hootch, it got a little more attention than I bargained for and now I feel like I'm under a microscope. Blogging is tricky because, to me, it doesn't feel so much like writing for a public forum as it does writing for a small community of readers whom I've come to think of as friends; so I spill my guts and assume twenty people are reading it. My husband says that I have to have some boundaries when I blog. I need to be a bit more protective of the information I release to the public because once you hit publish, pretty much everyone has access to it: friends, strangers, assholes, parents, media etc. I can see his point.

Sometimes I have no filter. I write about what I'm going through at the time and I don't always know what the hell I'm talking about because I'm processing while writing. There's a lot of good in that too, don't get me wrong. When I was in the hospital, in limbo, awaiting the birth (at any moment) of preemie twins, your comments and emails were what I clung to, what kept me hanging in there without going completely crazy. When the girls were colicky and I was crying myself to sleep every night, it was you guys that told me you'd been there and understood. This is LA so I don't have neighbors who pop on by to help out; hold a baby or hold my hand. I have a keyboard. Thank God.

When I make a new friend, I like to get right to the good stuff: what are your demons? Have you done things you regret? Like what? I don't give a shit that you backpacked through Europe when you were eighteen. I want to know if you've ever had an abortion, if you've ever slept with someone whose first name you never bothered to learn, if you hated your step-father. I want to hear the juicy shit that makes you who you are. I do realize that not everyone is like me. But blogging has a way of attracting like minded people who get me as well as the people who find my style of writing and relating completely inappropriate. Writing books is like that too except that when I write a book, there is more space between the event I'm writing about and the expression of that story which allows me to much more easily add humor and levity. In comedy we call this "tragedy plus time." Like for instance 9/11: It's only now that we can see the funny in it. Okay, very bad example.

So the drinking thing: maybe it was too early to write about quitting because I would hate to have anyone looking to me for answers or thinking that I'm judging their drinking or giving anyone a reason to judge me or make assumptions about what I was doing or why I decided to quit. When I talked about drinking before (in books and on my blog) I believed in everything I was saying. Alcohol was an enhancement to my life, a fun part of it - until it wasn't. That's all. I've only been off the sauce for three weeks. I know nothing. So possibly I will refrain from discussing everything that comes into my head at every moment at least until I've given it some time to percolate.

So, have you ever slept with anyone without knowing their name? DAMMIT. Don't answer that.

The Laziest Blog Post In the World

Why do I call this a lazy blog post? Because I am too tired to be funny today. But here's the thing, yesterday I got inspired and wrote a column for www.mommytrackd.com that contained a little more brutal honesty about my drinking habits. I re-read it again today and I was thinking it would be a shame to not share it with you guys because I'm a giver. That's my best personality trait (if I had to narrow it down to just one). I'm aggressively generous -like if you asked me for a piece of gum I would absolutely give you one -if I had a jumbo pack that is -and if it wasn't my last or second to last piece because you have to take care of yourself. Need more proof? Just ask the bum who asked me for money and I without hesitation handed him a dollar. I only asked for fifty cents change because that's my nature.

So now, I will let you go and check out my column so that I can go watch The Bachelorette that I was too tired to watch last night.

Just Say No

When I was a little kid, my mother and step-father were hippies -leather headband wearing, peace marching, "down with bombs" sign carrying, tie dyed hippies. From what I recall, I liked the free-for-all attitude that permeated be-ins, music festivals and crafts fairs which were sort of the staples of our family time. The only part of the scene I vividly recall disliking was my parents' love of weed.

From my memory, step-dad was a pretty daily toker and looking back I can see it was a lot about checking out. He smoked and worked for hours in his darkroom every day and would emerge with blood shot eyes and a shitty attitude. Other times, when he was pissed (which was a lot) he'd just disappear downstairs to get away and come back with that same look and a mad hunger for pound cake.

My parents' favorite time to get high was on road trips. Our little French Renaults ( my parents went through series of these cars when I was young) always reeked of marijuana although my step-father tried to cover the smell with Doublemint gum which didn't work. It only made me despise the smell of Doublemint gum (note to Juicyfruit: we are still friends). There's nothing like two high as a kite parents driving up the California coast over winding cliffs to leave you car sick and fearing for your life. I can remember cowering in the backseat with no seat belt on just hoping with all my might that I would make it to our campsite alive and not end up a burning ember on the beach 80 feet below.

Fast forward to junior high. My seventh and eighth grade years predated Nancy Reagan's "Just Say No" campaign but there was still a lot of anti drug speeches and pamphlets handed out among students. One day I placed an anti-marijuana leaflet on my parent's bed. They were not amused, more like completely pissed off.

At maybe thirteen, I decided that if I was to stand in judgment of their habit, I should at least know what they were doing so I stole some pot from step-dad's stash which he craftily kept unwell hidden in a film canister above their bed. My friend and I rolled a joint which I'd learned to do from watching and we proceeded to smoke the entire thing while hiding in the backyard. I didn't get buzzed but I did get a really bad headache. Turns out, it was some bad homegrown shit. Later I found that ragweed is only good for baking into brownies but not suitable for actual inhalation. I've since smoked plenty of good pot and to this day, I don't know how he managed to get high off of it. Looking back, a bag of good bud would've made a perfect Hanukkah gift. He always was hard to shop for.

But I've never really liked pot too much or people who smoke it a lot. I don't appreciate the movies that glorify pot smoking like every Seth Rogan vehicle. When I saw Knocked Up, I couldn't get past how Katherine Heigl's character could think there was any chance of a pothead being a responsible person. I also couldn't get past Katherine Heigl in general but that's my own prejudice. All that sitting around smoking and thinking it's cool - I didn't get it. At all. I once dating a pothead and he wore the same gross corduroy jacket every single fucking day of his life and it smelled like pot. I found myself actually pining for the smell of Doublemint gum.

So, people who use pot to check out? Gross. I judged. I had issues with that. But, in my mind, alcohol was totally different - cool, fun, socially acceptable, much better. Except that I was using alcohol in the same exact way I hating seeing pot used when I was a kid. And I'm glad I won't be doing that anymore.

This is not to say that I have done a 180 and think drinking is bad. Au contraire. Normal drinking is, in my mind, a great thing to model for your kids. I wish like a bitch I was a normal drinker. I wish like hell I had a glass of wine or even two with dinner and left it at that - a couple on the weekend out with my husband - sweet. But I know I can't.

Now Vicidon on the other hand...

And to all of you who are wondering or have asked, I'm doing this with outside support which helps tremendously. And to all of you who have suggested I take up knitting...DO YOU KNOW ME? Not going to happen. Seriously.

Two weeks!