Stuff

For some reason Cole can’t seem to sleep longer than two hours at a time. Last night was awful. I took him into bed with me and he used my nipple as a nuk, not actually nursing and emptying out the milk, but just suckling. The second I would try to reclaim my breast for myself, he’d wake up and cry. So I had an overfilled right breast all day.

And then he barely napped today. Ugh. I should be sleeping now, but this is my time to get a few things done.

We harvested broccoli from our garden! And we have corn stalks almost as tall as me. Pretty cool. Nick is quite the farmer.

The Other Slide

I've got another nagging depression biting at my ankles.

I'm having agent problems--as in, my agent won't return my phone calls or emails. I'm still feeling sick. Cole is only happy when in a lap. And I'm tired. Plus all the other annoyances that include my grandmother making me nutso.

On a lighter note, Genny told a great joke unknowingly today.

"Mommy, why did the chicken cross the road?"

"I don't know. Why?"

"To get to the other slide!"

"The other slide?"

"Yeah! That's funny, right? I guess he was at one playground and there was another one across the street!"

That's my new fave joke.

Sleep Deprivation

This is a nursing blog. Cole sucks away, which makes typing difficult.

What do I need to strip away tonight?

I need to reexamine Stripper Mom and figure out what I want to focus on.

What do I want to write about?

I do not know tonight.

I want to sleep.

Full of grouchiness

There's nothing like being peed and pooped on to make a day great.

Enough about that subject...

Cole poked me full force in the eyeball with a sharp fingernail.

Besides the eyeball pain, I also have a headache and a shoulderache.

Cole was screaming for apparently no reason for most of the day. And he only had itsy-bitsy naps.

Fortunately, Genny was in better spirits, until she rolled off the couch and walloped her head on the wood floor.

Did anything good happen today?

Why yes, I somehow managed to get two pages done on my graphic novel project. I have no idea how.

Roles

I’m wondering what truth is anymore. I’m wondering whom I speak to when I write my words. I’m wondering who I was and who I am.

Who will my children know me as? When I am old and need to be driven to the grocery store, what will they tell their spouses when they talk about me afterward?

I know I am not the only one who is right.

But I am wondering how and why I became the caretaker. I don’t feel like I ever chose the role, rather it snuck up and clobbered me on the head, said, “You’re mine. Now get to work.”

Perhaps I just need to accept this role. And all the other roles I play.

And the roles I played, that are now quite played out.

Get ‘er Done

I’m still just getting better—not all better yet.

I’ve been doing a good job of keeping up with my writing. It truly amazes me that I’m getting so much more writing done since I became a mother.

I wasted so much time as a non-parent. I would think nothing of watching three hours of television an evening. I don’t even know what shows are on TV anymore.

Have other parents experienced this upsurge in creativity since becoming a parent?

And for you non-parents, how do you keep yourself working and not being distracted by all our digital era offers?

Storytime

Here is a funny stripper mom commercial. This would never fly in the United States.

I’m wiped out. I took Genny and Cole to the pajama storytime at the library.

Cole threw up pear sauce and breast milk all over him and me.

Genny actually sat in the circle with the other girls. She still looks to the others for how to act though. She laughs when they laugh. She copies. She follows.

I’m hoping that this year being the oldest at her Montessori School will force her into being a leader.

I want her to lead. I don’t want her to conform.

My Life In a G-String: A Round Up of Stripper Memoirs

Here’s an interesting article that my friend Tanya told me about. It’s round-up of stripper memoirs.

I agree with the writer, Katie Roiphe, on a few points she makes, but also feel annoyed at the unfair treatment the stripper writers receive.

Are all naked women pretty much the same? Reading stripper memoirs would lead one to think so. It is a surprisingly rigid genre, with a set of rules and conventions as strict as those of sonnets or villanelles.

Of course, there are “conventions” as Roiphe points out, but what books about a certain group of people don’t have conventions? Alas, there are a lot of similarities to some strippers’ experiences.

You would think the subject would have a certain voyeuristic frisson, but something about stripping lends itself to cliché and obviousness, to the literary equivalent of fake breasts and caked mascara and silver thongs. Still a vast number of them have appeared on shelves, including Lily Burana’s good-natured Strip City, Elisabeth Eaves’ journalistic Bare, and Lacey Lane’s ditsy Confessions Of A Stripper.

True, I’ve read these books and there is a bit of cliché laid on, but that just reflects the job. And for there being “a vast number” of stripper memoirs out there, I’d have to disagree. How are a small handful of books “a vast number”? I’d say there aren’t enough (and not just because my memoir hasn’t found a publisher yet).

How many clichéd white male diatribes about the same old business thing are there out there?

We need more tales of strippers and prostitutes and mothers and clerks and waitresses. We need more stories told by women. Perhaps then we will begin to see the true extent of the similarities and differences inherent in women.

....StripXpertease.... The Strip and the Tease.

....StripXpertease.... The Strip and the Tease.

Shared via AddThis

I just stumbled upon this blog that reposted my Salon article from 2000 with the writer's comments.

She teaches a striptease class.

I've had my own thoughts along these lines...of course, with my own strange twists!

Life is short.

I love it when people take what they've done and find new ways to monetize it and empower themselves and others.

Calling All Mom Writers!

Attention Mom Writers! (Or moms who WANT to write…)

I’m looking for writers for short posts on my blog - strippermom.blogspot.com (and possible inclusion in a book).

Looking for short pieces (25 – 500 words) about what it means to be a “stripper mom.”

It doesn’t mean that you’re out there working the stripper pole at your local “Gentlemen’s Club.” Being a stripper mom is about stripping down to your past, no matter what it may be, and embracing and accepting it, so that you can live more fully in the present. We all have experiences or jobs from our pasts that we view as negative. Instead of letting those things constantly hold us back in life, we can look them squarely in the face and learn from them.

Are you a stripper mom? Are you a woman engaged with using her past stories to create the life you want for yourself now?

Be as creative as you like! What does being a metaphorical “stripper mom” mean to you? What is it like to be a mom writer? How do you make time for everything? What advice do you have for other moms who want to write?

No pay, but good experience and exposure.

Please email your submission in the body of the email along with a short bio and any email or website contact you would like included with your piece. If you would like a photo to appear with your piece, please include that, too.

shageman@hotmail.com

Getting Better

Genny is still at her grandparents. Her grandma was so wonderful to say she could stay one more night while Nick and I get better.

Absence really does make the heart grow fonder. I miss her silly personality and her needling.

Cole is sleeping as I write. I am hoping this will last for a few more hours.

I am feeling better physically.

And mentally.

I’ve upped my Zoloft to 75 mg from 50 mg. Not a big jump, but I think I feel less anxious.

Next week I will hopefully be back to my “normal” self and getting some work done.

One day at a time.

Still Sick

Cole’s first tooth is officially in and it looks like the second one is on the way.

His personality is really showing forth this week. He seems to be a happy soul! I hope he continues along this path.

I’m feeling an eensy bit better after my hospital visit last night. I have a sinus infection, but by the middle of last night, after not having slept for two nights, I started gasping for breath. I had been so congested for hours that I could only breathe through my mouth and it was causing me to hyperventilate and freak out a bit.

I got fluids, medications, and a breathing treatment at the hospital. I’m still crazy congested, but at least I’m not feeling so horrible.

Cole is rubbing eyes like crazy now. I’ve got to get him to bed.

Sick

I am sick.

That's about all I have strength for right now.

Naked Tushie

I’ve got one of those headaches that feels like a starter headache of something else.

Cole’s getting his first tooth in on the bottom. I thought the first one was supposed to be on the top?

Perhaps my headache is simply a starter headache from all the teething screeching. A warning of more pain to come, for him and me.

I’m sitting on the floor typing this so I can be close to Genny and Cole. They’re both rather needy.

I have one sleeve of my tank down because I was nursing. Genny tried to do the same thing with her long sleeve shirt and practically tied herself up.she decided to just take off her shirt instead.

Speaking of my daughter and her liking being nude (oh God, no, please!), she does a tushie dance. She’ll just pull her pants and undies down and shake her tushie and sing, “Shake your little tushie!”

I asked her where she learned it, but she said it she made it up herself.

It is quite funny.

When does doing a naked tushie dance go from being funny to being stripping?

Where am I?

Cole had his six-month checkup.

He’s only 19 pounds 8 ounces. I really thought he’d be over 20 by now.

I realized where my mysterious bruises on my thighs have been coming from—Cole in his car seat smashing against me as I carry him.

I’ve got to say, I’m feeling extremely depressed tonight. I feel disconnected from my body, from other people. It’s one of those things that’s so hard to explain. I feel nervous, anxious.

I just want to be able to relax and stop thinking. I guess I miss my yoga practice. I’ve got to get myself some alone time.

It’s hard to breathe. Shortness.

Blech.

Gotta Go

The nap gods smiled upon us today. Cole took two, I repeat, two two-hour naps.

The rain fell nonstop.

And I gained back a fun side-effect of having a baby.

I pee nonstop.

Well, not nonstop, but any amount of peeage not associated with a toilet, I consider as good as nonstop.

This is one of those untalked about features of stopping your kegel exercises, I guess. I was squeezing my “pelvic floor” like a good yogini many times a day, but stopped about a month ago.

Now, after having partaken in a baby-making activity the other day (with no actual baby-making attempted), I get this silly, if-I-don’t-find-myself-on-a-toilet-the-instant-I-have-to-pee-then-I’m-peeing-where-I-am-phenomenon.

So I’m starting my kegels again. I’m thinking that the recent activity shocked the muscles and they’re saying, whoa, lady, we’ve got to take things slow here, or at least get squeezing!

Questions

Why is Cole not sleepy?

Why does my back ache?

Why does Genny not like me to take her photograph, but she’ll let other moms take it?

Why did I not appreciate my free time before I had children?

Why has the weather been so chilly even with global warming?

Why is Cole scratching my leg brutally and slobbering on my hand?

Tired

Something cute and fuzzy was munching on our corn stalks. We need to build a protective fence around our entire garden.

Tomorrow is Genny’s last day of Montessori school for the year. I’m looking forward to the cute graduation ceremony they do.

I was doing pretty well all day, but I’ve got a headache now. And, you know, I’m a bit exhausted.

It was chilly out today. In fact, I took Genny and Cole to Long Brook Park and Genny wanted to come home without playing because she had goosebumps.

That’s it. I’m absolutely dry. I have nothing to write about. I was writing all day in my spare moments. My eyes are tired of looking at the keyboard.

A Day

Cole continues to astound with his, “Maaa, maa, maaaaa.”

He also seems to have grown an inch in like two days. We had to raise his exercauser a spot.

He likes to practice standing with assistance.

And from his reactions right now, it seems as though he may have a future in computers. He’s practically leaping at the keyboard and his whole body is shaking.

My own mood is pretty okay today. Not manic. Not depressed. Just pretty focused on working and getting things done.

After dropping Genny at school, I took Cole to my home away from home, Starbucks, and I was able to get an hour worth of writing in.

After school, the three of us went to Target to buy diapers and cranberry juice.

I just came in from my daily stroll through our garden. It looks like we may have fresh lettuce every day forward from yesterday.

The Only Good Thing in My Life

Nick said I should call my blog post what I said about coffee this morning.

I don’t understand why it should upset my husband for me to say it. I obviously meant coffee is the only good thing in my life BESIDES my family. Besides, I mean, you can’t drink your family.

So, Cole said, “Mahm.”

Not Mom or Mama exactly, but he made the sound. And he knew he was doing something marvelous. He practiced at least three times for ten minutes. He put his whole being, body, and breath into it. He pushed out the sounds from deep in his belly.

He just said, “Mome.”

And now, “Uh-Mum-mum-mum.”

Okay, THAT sounded like, “Mama!”

Very cool.