The world famous, awesome comedian, Kerri Pomarolli!
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Letters to Lucy - SuperStar!
Dear Love Bug,
It's July 19th and I'm pretty sure this book will have about 10 pages by the time you're ten. Every time I try to get to the computer to write I'm stopped by clothes to clean, food to pick up, diapers to change or an impromptu game of "let's chase Lucy" around the house. Luckily our place isn't that big because you're super duper fast Ms. Mario Andretti. (I know you won't know who that is..look him up in your history book.)
You're literally almost walking. I'm not lying. I knew you were advanced when you rolled over at 3 weeks and started trying to climb out of your crib at 6 months. In fact to this day every time we put you in your crib you immediately make a break for it as if you're about to be put in prison, which is how you refer to any crib or enclosed environment. You're almost 9 months and you not only can cruise all around the furniture unassisted, you can balance all by yourself with no hands. Then you fall down and eat it on the floor. Then you repeat the process. You're a tough little cookie.
Your favorite thing is to go next door and have Uncle Danny hold your hands and let you run around their kitchen over and over and over and over. He has not quit the gym because you're enough cardio. He and Aunt Anne are expecting baby Sydney in a month or so and I'm not sure you're going to like sharing his and Auntie Anne's attention. You've had them all to yourself your whole life. I laugh because Uncle Danny seems terrified of children and babies in general. But when you're around he's the one you want to hang out with. He babysat for you last night and he said all you did was want to run around their place with him holding you for 3 hours and then sit on the couch with him. You won't sit still for many people but when you're over at their place you're totally chill. Ok, maybe it's their big screen TV ? You seem to like the food channel and I hope that parlays into some child genius cooking skills so we can be a well fed family. I'm still not cooking. I have cookbooks out and they sit there and stare at me like some homework assignment I will never get done. Ironically, I'm making your baby food though. I think that's more because I'm cheap and competitive and I want to save money and also brag that I did it homemade to other moms and your Nana especially.
But this walking thing is pretty amazing. I know I'm not supposed to compare your milestones to other babies but everyone does it. And since you're ahead of the curve I'm totally ok with it in this case. I just love it when other moms ask me "Is she crawling yet?" And Dad chimes in like a proud peacock but trying to seem humble "Yes she's also trying to walk by herself" We try to seem like it's no big deal when they ask "How old did you say she was again?" It's fun!
In other cases like weight and height since you are lower on the % , I take no stock in any of those statistics. You are 50% in height and 25% in weight. My friend referred to that as "Average" and we just don't say that word in our house. Ask your dad about his Asian upbringing. There was no average. That's why he's so stinkin' smart! I asked him one time "Honey do you think Asian kids are genetically smarter?" He said "No. Our mothers just beat it into us!" Isn't that sweet? So now I'm that mom. Just Kidding.
But seriously you're awesome. I don't have to push you. You are going to walk by yourself any day now. I, on the other hand, didn't walk till I was 15 months and your father was at least a year old. Yes, I was telling jokes at about 1, but we see where that got me. No health insurance. I used to try harder to get you to talk, but basically you just say" Ba Ba Bu Bu" and that's because you learned that from your friend Alexa. We try to pretend you're saying Ma Ma so we can record it in the baby book that you talked and said your first words. But I can't find any word that sounds like Ba Ba so we're stuck on the talking thing. But that's ok Daddy talks enough for all 3 of us!
We thought for sure you'd be this big talker and fat and lazy like your parents were when we were babies. But you've been a mover and a shaker this whole time. I think you're planning your escape somewhere more exotic than our little home. I'm no more allowed to sit at this computer while you are in the room. It's much more fun for you to make me watch you run around and try to eat things like coffee table handles and pieces of paper that you've stolen from all over the place. Speaking of stealing, you have this obsession with tags. Do all babies have this? You love tags on everything especially clothes. When we took you to Macy's the other day as I was holding you, I noticed you had systematically ripped off the price tags of three items and had them in your hands. If I was raising you to be a thief I'd say you have a bright future. But let's see if we can do something else with those fast hands of yours. How about sculpting? Naa...no way to get scholarship with that. What about cards? Professional gambler? Well your Nana does like the slots, it might be in your blood. Well we have some time still to decide your life's calling and what it is exactly that is going to pay for your college. With your amazing physical agility at such a young age we're now thinking track or cross country running or the ever faithful Korean Irish Italian super model route. You have choices, honey. You have choices!
Love,
Mama
Labels: Letters to Lucy, Lucy, Mommyhood, Motherhood
Monday, June 23, 2008
Letters to Lucy - He Snores, She Snores
Dear Little Piggy,
Well he's done it again. Another one of your daddy's traits has made it's way down the gene pool to you, my dear. Yep, you're both in there now snoring away like two little piggies. It's darling when you do it now. But if you follow in his footsteps, I'm afraid your wedding night will be like daddy's when mommy almost smothered his face with a pillow!
It makes me laugh how our children take on our genes and little tendancies. You really do snore little one when you're really tired. But that's ok because as a first time mom it always lets me know you're breathing. I sometimes when you were first born would run into your room in the mornings or in the night to make sure you were breathing.It sounds crazy but I guarantee you'll do it yourself. I even pulled the car over once because you were so quiet in the back seat. So I'll just take this little snoring thing as a gift from God to let me know you're A ok! Now if I could just do the same with your father…
Labels: Letters to Lucy, Mommyhood, Motherhood
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Letters to Lucy - Working
Dear Munchkin.
I'm trying to be a good mom and write this book so you can have something to look back on and realize that you were loved and cared for and every moment with you was sacred. Well I've done a bang up job so far because every time I think I have something profound to write about I can't make it over to the computer to record it. I'm too busy cleaning spit up out of my couch, washing and drying baby clothes stained with brown iron supplements or most recently chasing you around the house trying to explain in your language why it's not a good idea to chew on electrical cords or eat paper. You're so into eating paper while we were in the security line at LAX airport the other day you ate my boarding pass. Literally you ate it. I felt like a kid with no homework when it was time to show it to the security officer and I was sitting there holding my puppy/baby trying to explain why I didn't have a boarding pass! Nice Lucy..really nice.
Today you are 7 months old and in the past three months I've not done much writing in this so-called book I vowed to author. It seemed like a good idea at the time. I, after all, am a professional writer and I've written entire books before, believe it or not. But something happened after I gave birth you and all of my brain cells have somehow been sucked literally out of my body. I'm sort of a walking robot that breastfeeds and cleans and changes diapers and manages to sing a song or two once in a while and then collapses at the end of a long day and wakes up to do it again. Is this motherhood? Is this what they were talking about when they told me it was the best, most difficult thing I'd ever do? The joke with me is that I've attempted to keep my job. I've attempted to convince other people I can do anything else but be a full-time mom. Because no matter what, every mom is a full time mom. Just some of us are crazy enough to think we can handle other obligations. Maybe some other women can handle it, but I'm going stark raving mad! I love you to pieces and I wouldn't change having your cute little face in my life for anything in the world. And when you become a mom someday you too will wonder how it's all to be done and you'll probably call me and ask "Mom how did you survive?" I'll tell ya when we get there!
Love you.
Mom
Labels: Letters to Lucy, Lucy, Mommyhood, Motherhood, Working
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Letters to Lucy - Bald is Beautiful
Dear June Bug,
My daughter and I are balding! Yep Lucy, that's what I'm telling people. You and me kid! We're in this together. We both came into this world with a lot of hair and a cool Mohawk. You still have yours but the rest of your head is suffering. These days you're still my beauty queen and people still fawn over you wherever we go but honey your hair looks like a cross between Albert Einstein or the Nutty Professor! You look like you stuck your finger in a light socket. And so much of your hair is gone we have to do the old man "comb over"! I can't lie. The other day because you were in blue...this lady comes up and says "How old is he?" I almost smacked her. I really did. Daddy calmed me down. The thing is that happened to me when I was 6. I had this beautiful hair and your Nana cut it all off into one of those absolutely appalling "bowl cuts" claiming I'd look like Dorothy Hamill. (She's a famous ice skater...looks her up in your ancient history books.) I vow never to cut your hair off in the shape of a bowl, Honey. As God as my witness! What was she thinking?
Anyway who am I to talk now either? I just started losing hair in the shower by the handful. My hormones are running amuck! It's pretty emotional for me and I keep running out with fistfuls of hair yelling at your daddy "Look! Look! I'm going bald! I'm losing all my hair. Life is over! The sky is falling! The sky is falling!" So I know I sound like a raving lunatic but I think anyone male or female can understand that our hair is a hot commodity and we'd like to keep as much of it on our heads as possible. Even your dad understands this one, Honey. I immediately went to my friend the internet and www.babycenter.com to read that many others new moms experience the exact same thing with their hair shedding after delivery. I just thought it wouldn't happen to me. No matter who I talk to that has gone through it. I don't believe it's normal because it's now happening to me and it's new. I hate the unknown. Every single symptom I had in pregnancy scared me because it was new and unknown. I hate not knowing if and when my hair will stop falling out in mass amounts and when it will grow back. They say weeks or months and there's not much I can do to slow or stop it. I'm still trying though. Of course I'm loading up on fish oil and Vitamin E and anything else I've heard can help. I'm proactive that way.
I take the fish oil because since I'm still nursing you (because I'm awesome...thank you...thank you). The fish oil is what I took when I was prego with you and it's supposed to help your gifted brain to develop even more so you can grow up to be extra brilliant and discover the cure for cancer or baldness or play the violin and get a scholarship to college. Whatever you pick...we have several options laid out for you including: golf star, math genius, Olympic ice skater or world famous Dr. You don't have to marry a Dr. It's 2008..you can be a Dr. Your nana would love it. She could get free prescriptions!
But the thing that makes me laugh in all of this hair loss drama is that you as usual, don't seem to care at all. The more I get to know you and your happy go lucky attitude the more I aspire to be like you. You smile when you're fed and after a nice long nap you wake up ready to face the world and play to your heart's content. Whether you're in your favorite hand-me-down flannel PJ's or some ridiculous sequined number your mother has forced you to wear you still know you're a star and that you're beautiful inside and out. I pray to God you never EVER lose that attitude. I don't want the world and all its TV commercials and fashion magazines to influence you to think you're anything less than sensationally perfect in every way. God made you amazing and I don't want you coming home from school someday thinking your body isn't absolutely flawless. I think that one boils down to the fact I think my heart will break if I ever see that you are sad. I don't care that your thighs are adorably chubby. You have these delicious rolls on your belly that everyone wants to take a bite out of. I wonder if that bothers you. I don't think I'd like people biting my stomach all the time but it seems to make you giggle. Most things in this life seem to make you giggle.
What is your secret Lucy? Can I join you in your world for just one day? Can I put away the worries about my chubby thighs and roly-poly belly and come lie in your crib and stare at the Winnie the Pooh mobile and drift off to a peaceful dreamland? Maybe I should stop trying to fit into sexy lingerie or skinny jeans and just wear flannel footy pajamas all day long? I'll ask your dad what he thinks. It's not like he's trying to fit into skinny jeans or sexy lingerie. (Sorry for that visual baby...my bad).
I think if I was 5 months old and no one told me having hair was a big deal. I could relax a lot more. I am so overwhelmed every day as I watch you take on life's big challenges with total peace. You are learning to grab things now and sometimes you try and try with all your might to hold something in your tiny grasp. When it doesn't work and falls from your little hands you just smile and try again. You're really exploring how those hands of yours can work to your advantage and it's precious to watch. You can't crawl yet but when we set a toy in front of you, you find a way to scoot up to it as best you can. It's funny that you enjoy fancy baby toys and pieces of wrapping paper to play with the same enthusiasm. When we took you to the show this weekend and they let you play with these fancy sitting tables in the nursery you were in hog heaven. I felt kind of bad because our little home is so small I don't think we'd be able to fit a big swing or rolling table for you in it. I sometimes wish we had a bigger place and a yard for you to play in. For now we have a 4 ft patio and a living room/office which is all of 110sq ft for you to exist in. But I hope you don't mind because we'll always make sure you have food to eat and some kind of toys to play with and 100 kisses a day from each of us. For now you're convinced playing with mommy's headband on the floor is a true delight and I hope that doesn't change for a long, long time.
I love you little bug!
Mom
Labels: Bald, Letters to Lucy, Lucy, Motherhood
Thursday, April 03, 2008
Letters To Lucy - Top Ten Things To Do While Breastfeeding
1. Plan your next vacation-sans children.
2. Wonder who Pamela Anderson and Madonna hired as their "Wet nurses" and how you could get their numbers.
3. Ask God why if women carry the baby why couldn't He have men do the breastfeeding? Then remember it's because men are usually late and would forget to feed the children.
4. Play the minute game with the clock closing your eyes and seeing how close you can come to 60 seconds without peeking.
5. Remember what it was like to wear tiny lacy bras and wonder who Pam Anderson and Madonna hired as plastic surgeons and how you could get their numbers.
6. Think of all the chores that need to be done around the house and shout them off to your spouse loudly one by one starting each sentence with" Honey, since I'm breastfeeding your child could you..."
7. Make important business calls knowing this will be the one time your baby is quiet.
8. Realize your exotic dancing career will probably never happen now and being that you're a woman of great morals rationalize you're ok with this fact.
9. Vow never to do a topless scene in any movie even if Matt Damon is your co-star and the money will send your kids to college.
10. Look lovingly at your baby remembering that you will remind them weekly for the rest of their lives all the sacrifices you've made for them as their mother and they owe you big time!
Labels: breastfeeding, Letters to Lucy, Mommyhood, Motherhood
Friday, March 28, 2008
Letters to Lucy - Home
Lucy,
You won't understand this until you're a mom. But if you met me before you were born you would have seen a Type A (or type triple A as your dad calls me) woman. I was a go-getter. A "get it done" kind of gal. I had multi-tasking down to an impressive science. You name it, I did it! I took lessons, I read books, wrote books, traveled, lunched with friends. I was a woman with goals and those goals got accomplished. Now I can't even seem to find time to bathe! Yes you heard me! Bathing has become somewhat of a luxury activity, one in which the entire time is spent with me peaking out of the shower to glance at the video cam making sure you are still sleeping and alive. I just don't need the papers writing some story about me someday as the mother who took too long a shower and her child got out of the crib and starting eating glue or something.
But today I had chocolate cake for breakfast standing on one leg in the kitchen and forgot to brush my teeth completely. I managed to remember to feed you 30 minutes later than scheduled and now I've realized I lost your baby book that has never even been written in. How's that for "get it done?" I've turned into this walking breast-feeding machine that runs from the couch to the laundry and back to the couch for more feedings and then to the kitchen to clean dishes that have been there for two days. You daddy is a big help I must say. I've convinced him that all men have to do kitchen clean up and dust so he does it. But I just didn't think I'd be so "out of this world" when you were past 3 months old. Surely, I should have the hang of this new role in my life by now right? Not even close. I went back to work in December and you and I did some fun comedy shows together on the road and we made it back alive. Mind you we had "Auntie Karen, Aunt Lilly" and others to help but we made it. It's true when they say," It takes a village to raise a child." I guess they meant you, huh? I know God knew what He was doing when He gave me you. You're so mellow and even in the midst of life's craziness you have this calm cool look in your little blue eyes as if you're saying, "Mommy it's going to be all right!"
I'm a terrible flyer I have to tell you. I get so scared up in the airplanes when it gets bumpy and I keep praying to God to save my life and I make promises that I'll be a better person all the time. I think I've found true religion on many airplanes. But the other day when you were laid out on that little meal tray and our plane began to bump and thump. I was freaking out. I grabbed your dad's arm and tried not to turn it blue from my grip of steel. He just smiled and told me it was going to be all right and then gave me some made up scientific reasons we weren't going to die. I didn't believe him anyway. But in all the up and down bouncing you just laid there right below me with this very collected grin on your face. You stared me right in the eyes the entire time without looking away. I tried to keep calm and you just kept smiling. I could almost read your thoughts. I think you were saying "Mom, we've got this covered. I'm here with you now and it's all going to be ok." Lucy, you as my daughter have that effect on me every day. I came home after we landed and walked into our little home completely exhausted. I looked around and compared to your grandparents 8500 sq foot mansion, our 900 sq ft place looked cluttered and dirty. My type A personality was rearing its ugly head and I started to despair on all the cleaning I'd have to do right that minute.
There were things to put away, bags to unpack, clothes to fold. I was miserable already. Then I looked down, as you gleefully played on our big red couch happy as a clam. You exuded a radiance of pure joy to be in your perfect little home. I know you knew right where you were. You were at peace in all of the clutter. Because you knew you were in a place filled with love. So I threw everything down and played on that big red couch with you and your dad. We all cuddled up and watched two episodes of "I Love Lucy" on the television. Yes I let you watch some TV sometimes and I'm sure all the parenting books will tell me I'm a terrible mom but I don't care. The show had your name in it after all. I felt at peace. I had everything I could ever want and I'm not just saying that. I really felt content. I was happy to be home. Thanks Lucy.
Love,
Mom
Labels: Home, Letters to Lucy, Mommyhood, Motherhood
