Allison The Great's No Good Very Bad Day

It was just a normal Tuesday. How could I have known? I talked to my sister on the phone in the morning and was quite surprised that Cosette was only sort of crying when I put her down in her bed for her morning nap. I ate breakfast, had coffee in my mug, and was reading my book -- a wonderful morning!

Then...

Max Dog, our rotund terrier/schnauzer/street mutt, jumped off the chair he was snuggling with me in, and proceeded to vomit a nice little pile in the middle of the living room. At exactly that moment, Cosette's intermittent whimpers escalated into a scream. Sighing, I set aside my book about a gladiator journeying home to Germania and set out to do what I had to do. I'm a great mom/wife, after all, and can handle it. Multi-tasking as I do, I grabbed the paper towels and carpet cleaner in one hand and then grabbed the baby in the other arm and headed back out to the living room. What awaited me there in addition to Vomit Volcano? A pee-puddle the size of Rhode Island and a very unconcerned-looking Max Dog. Sadie Catahoula, on the other hand, crawled out from her lair under the futon, looked at Vomit Volcano and Pee Puddle, and started trembling. (Now, as an aside, Sadie is a wonderful pound puppy we rescued. After we rescued her, we discovered her non-breed, Catahoula. It is the way of the Catahoula to be extremely obedient and respectful, and she has never once willingly done her business in the house. It was not her Pee Puddle. She only feared my corporate wrath.)

What to do, what to do. I made the executive decision to put the baby in her bouncer and scoop up Vomit Volcano first. Immediately the screams returned. I put on my happy face. Sadie started barking at Max, perhaps recognizing I hadn't had time yet to discipline him so she would. Once the puke spot had been thoroughly soaked up and sprayed, I plugged the pacifier into Cosette's mouth and pressed on toward Pee Puddle. Turns out paper towels weren't going to cut it for this one! I grabbed real towels and started dancing on top of them to soak up Rhode Island's fury. I sprayed it, threw the towels by the basement door (where they still are...right...) and scooped up my screaming child. We rocked and settled a little bit, until we reached her feeding time...always a happy time...and then found some peace again.

Keith came home at 12:30 and promptly stepped in the still-wet Pee Puddle. I smiled. He changed his clothes and sat down in the rocker, took Cosette, and immediately both of them fell asleep. Now, I may have lost 13% of my brain cells during pregnancy, but I recognize an opportunity when I see one. I grabbed my purse and headed out into the wonderful humidity and heat of Kansas City, KS, solo. Goal: Complete this month's grocery shopping for under $100. Grocery shopping is rather cathartic for me: I can be in my own world, alone, pretending no one else is around, while perusing one of my favorite topics--food. I enjoyed my adventures down each aisle. Meat, cheese, potatoes, tomato sauce...I needed it all. Once my cart was sufficiently overflowing, I eyed each check-out lane and astutely chose lane 4, hoping beyond hope that my shallow profiling of the clerk would prove right and I'd be through the lane in a jiffy.

I was wrong. Baffled by some of my purchases, Lane 4 Lady began sending the customers in line behind me to another lane, telling them she was going to be with me for a while. She spent more time doing that than trying to check me out, I do suppose. Then she commenced, picking up the sack of red potatoes, and was about to key them in when a woman with 4 items got in line behind me. She told her to come on up and go in front of me, because "she was going to be with me for a minute," which is KCK-speak for a long time. "No," I thought, "I don't mind if you have her cut in front of me. How thoughtful of you to ask." Finally she refocused all her attention upon my groceries. Three sackers, one manager, $140, and 35 minutes later, I was loading up my car and headed home. Goal = unmet.

The afternoon continued on peacefully, with Keith casting his daddy-spell upon the baby, resulting in a sleeping, cooperative Cosette. Little did I know that my inconvenient morning was going to become THE no-good-very-bad-day, although I should have considered the black storm clouds rolling in as an omen...I do have a degree in English after all. Vowing earlier in the week to finally begin making meals again on a regular basis (no, pancakes, cereal, and spaghetti no longer count), I took up my mantel and began preparing some delicious tilapia and some corn on the cob. Half-way through, the unthinkable happened! We lost power. Something to do with a hazardous thunderstorm and perilous lightening.

Being the 21st-century suburbanite that I am, I nearly lost my cool. Refocusing all my thoughts on the new mommy-energy I inherited from the mommy-gene-pool, I pressed on. The corn and tilapia finished cooking at a much slower pace, but cooked they finally were! Keith and I found all our candles and lit them about the house. We ate a candle-lit dinner, through which the baby slept! It was almost what one might deem romantic. That is, if you don't mind the smell of dog poop. Yes, you got it, in silent protest of the monstrous storm going on outside, Max sneaked into the corner and pooped sometime during the dinner-making mayhem. Accident #3, check.

We spent our early evening reading and chatting. When I had conceded to a night without electricity, however, our lights shot on, the A/C buzzed to life, and the creepy man voice on the answering machine began doling out our answering-machine options. It all ended as quickly as it began, though. It was only a joke. We were back in darkness in no time. I began creating a mental emergency plan if we were to face the summer night with no electricity. One must be strong enough to contemplate such things. Thankfully, I didn't need to put my plan into action, for the electricity was back, and this time, it stayed on longer than 20 seconds!

We laughed together about our no-good-very-bad day, watched some TV, read some more, and then tried to head to bed around 10:30. Much to our non-amusement, however, the power went on vacation, checked out, took a snooze -- however you want to say it, we were in the dark AGAIN. Oh boy. We lay in bed and started to laugh about it. Honestly, what's the big deal about not having lights, and A/C, and TV, and laptops, and all that jazz? We are enjoying life now with our little one. We love each other. God is taking care of us! We settled down to a toasty night's sleep, happy.

The end.

Not.

The power came back on. And the next thing we knew, Cosette would have nothing to do with sleeping. This is unlike her, who for the past few nights has willingly slept from 8:30 - 3:30. Well, okay, so what's next? Keith being the awesome husband that he is offered to rock her in the living room so I could go to sleep. Ah, love. As I lay there trying to sleep, I recalled my day and remembered with a start that I was deeply involved in the plot of my gladiator-homecoming novel! I can't leave it be when another option is finding out how Atretes' return to Germania is going! I flipped on my lamp and started reading, only to drift off into a peaceful sleep, book in hand.

The end.

The end, I wished! I was awoken at midnight to the news: Max had deposited diarrhea all throughout the house. Accident #4, check. With super-mommy strength I leaped out bed, snatched Max Dog, and threw him in the tub. Consider this punishment for all you've done! I thought, thoroughly enjoying myself and cackling like that little hunchbacked man who assists creating Frankenstein. I washed him and I washed him until he smelled Fructis fresh and my frustrations had been satisfied. Meanwhile, Keith placed the baby in her bed and began the daunting task of cleaning up the deposits.

Finally, all and everyone were clean. We dragged ourselves to bed, pleasantly surprised to see that Cosette had drifted off to sleep on her own. Now, you may be worried about Max Dog's health due to his day of accidents. But let me assure you, nothing good can come from eating paper products out of the trashcan.

Now, since we had power, we might as well use it to our advantage: My final request was for Keith to turn the air conditioning up, because it was getting hot and sticky in our room. He came back with an air of comedic defeat: Our A/C was frozen over from the power turning off and on, off and on. We would have no A/C. Regardless of the power, we were going to melt. What do we do? Smile about it, I guess. We were beyond exhaustion and practically reduced to monkey-speech by this point. We flipped on our oscillating fan and turned out the lights on my No Good Very Bad Day.

The end.

Davenports in June & July

In an effort to remember these crazy days I'm going to write about the mundane as well as the magical. Hopefully I'll manage quite a few updates, but when the days consist of a crying baby and two very needy dogs and some genuine family time with my awesome family, 6 weeks go by and I've hardly even blinked!

What's going on in our little life right now?
Cosette smiles back and Keith & I both are sure we have heard her utter her first sounds....something like an "Ahh," or perhaps, "Heeyaaaeeee." She also enjoys squirming on her tummy and lifts her head up to 90 degrees. What can I say, we are proud parents. I think she's managing to sprout some more hair as well, although her totally awesome flattened mowak look is still being rocked. She actually fits into some of her 0-3 months clothes now too, and I've had to retire most of her newborn-sized clothing. Now that was sad. But, being a mature and forward-moving adult, I packed them away with only a few sighs and sniffs.

Going to bed each night is an activity full of expectation and hope, quite like Advent season. Who knows when that magical night will be that I wake up, not to some pitiful whimpering that gives us 20 seconds before it turns into a hunger wail, but to my own biological clock that says, "Wake up, Allison! You had a nice, refreshing sleep, and now it's time to get up and embrace the day!" (I feel obligated to state that I'm aware I may never again wake up to such a peaceful alarm, but I'm not secure enough to admit it to myself yet.) Maybe tonight will be the night? Please oh please oh please.

Let's see...what else...
Recent impulsivity (is that a word? impulsiveness?) has led to my over-indulgence in delicious chocolate chip ice cream, as well as, quite ironically, a renewed passion for Pilates. Pilates, by the way, is much more interesting without a 6.5 lb baby in a basketball-sized uterus adding her opinion on Downward Dog and the Saw. Um, okay, what was I talking about? Oh yes, impulsivity or impulsiveness...Right. Yesterday I got fed up with my frumpy fuzz hair and got it chopped right off. Now I feel much more cool, double-entendre implied. Oh, and much more mom-like. Mom-like as in, "Cool shopping mom that has it all together." Right.

One of my friends lovingly advised me that pregnancy and child-birth result in the average mom losing up to 13% of her brain capacity, most of which she can re-acquire in one year. I would like to attest. I think many things are responsible for this brain loss: 1) My baby sucked part of it out while in utero (I mean, really, how else does she get her own brain?), 2) Part of my brain voluntarily evacuated after labor and delivery (the weak cells couldn't hold up, so they left), 3) The human brain doesn't thrive on 6 hours of sleep divided into two or three parts, every night, every week, every month, and finally, 4) Part of my focus is always on Cosette, regardless of who is holding her or where she is or what she's doing. Undivided attention, therefore, is a joke.

Anything else?
Keith & I are in love with Booth & Brennan. Now, you may say, "Wait, aren't they fictional characters from the TV show 'Bones'?" Um, yes, but they rock. We've watched almost every episode from the first 4 seasons. This is what we do when we aren't sleeping, eating, playing with the baby, assisting in an effort to keep the house from voluntarily purging itself, working, etc. etc.

Max Dog & Sadie Catahoula are adjusting to the third (or rather, fifth) member of our family quite well. They enjoy sniffing her and occassionally offering up a lick offering. Sadie Catahoula also enjoys lounging on Cosette's play gym mat and alerting me whenever she is crying. Max Dog enjoys ignoring the baby, eating grass, and licking his paws.

Things we are looking forward to:
* David's wedding on August 21!
* A job modification...one part-time job just doesn't cut it. Please pray for us, as we have no idea how this complication will be worked out.
* Our 24th birthdays!
* Cosette's adjusting to a more scheduled existence, perhaps one that her mom and dad will be able to use to estimate when she'll be hungry, tired, etc.
* Season 5 of Bones coming to Netflix. Just kidding. Or am I?