Troublesome Pumpkin

I have a beautiful baby daughter, called Sophia. She was born on Leap Day of this year, that is, February 29, 2008. Such an auspicious day to come into the world. The delicate, intricate strains of music by harp-guitarist Andy McKee heralded her coming, at four-thirty on that Friday morning.

Sophia will be eight months old this week. Her first months have flown by on graceful, silent wings, and before I know it, she is doing things I feel I am not ready for her to be doing! Where did that tiny, helpless, floppy little grub hie off to? Now she is crawling at Mach three speed, showing intense inquisitiveness that only a baby, just now discovering The World, can show.

She has, in the last few months, picked up some strange and amusing habits. Sophia has learned to imitate a ferocious, growling monster, grumbling and snarling to get a laugh out of her audience. As she suckles, she hums pleasantly in rising and falling waves of monotone bliss, often subconsciously imitating me as I hum softly back to her. When she concentrates, her little eyebrows knit together in an adorable emulation of a scientist hard on the heels of discovery. As if her hands have a collective mind all their own, she cannot but touch and handle and feel everything within her grasp, exploring anything that comes into her awareness. She is inexorably studying her world, and with it comes understanding. You can see it in her eyes, and once she has something figured out, the pleasure shining brightly on her face is enough to make me fall head-over-heels in love with her over and over again.

In celebration of you, Sophia, my sweet little grub, a video to embarrass you in the years to come.

Love,
Mama

(click on the title of this post to view the video)

The Fear

They say that when you've got The Fear, you get things done. A fire is lit under your bum, and off you go like a rocket, trying your damned-est to achieve whatever it is you have set your sights on without falling into the proverbial Oblivion of Failure. I have been wallowing in the mud on the edge of the Oblivion of Failure recently, for no other reason than to play chicken with my inner... selves.

Well now I have The Fear. That archetypal Fire has been lit, and I am off and running. I have been scared for so long... scared of what? Well, just plain old scared, scared to put myself out there and go back to school, play music with my heart on my sleeve, scared of doing things the way I used to rock 'em. I am going to enter the Spring semester at the University and finally be on my way to a Bachelor of Animal Sciences with an Emphasis in Equine Science and Management. Ain't that a mouthful?!

AND (although we have been taught to NEVER start a sentence with and, I will break the rules today because I can) AND, I now promise and do solemnly swear to dandle my guitar on my knee and sing it to sleep every night for at least an hour.

Yeah, I'm getting back in the game and now I've got The Fear.

Screw it

So the subject of this blog has jumped from My Music to Sharing Good Music to Commenting on Farmer's Market Produce And Other Inane Subjects to My Personal Online Diary That I Deluded Myself Into Thinking No-one Reads. Thankfully I have yet to divulge critically embarassing information to the general Internet Public (however, I fear that circumstance will rear it's ugly head in the future) and I have decided I will write whatever comes to mind, just spread it willy-nilly across the proverbial wall that is the Internet.

Still, on the other hand, I will not fool myself with the number of people who do read this blog... likely that number falls below zero, a sad but factual fact. Factual Fact? Really? Can I be more uninspiring? I believe I can!

Recently, my darling spouse and I received a feral fluff up our nether regions and packed up our entire house and daughter, tossed it all (sans the daughter, who had the dubious honor of being strapped into a car seat) into the back of a sixteen-foot Budget rental truck and drove across the great continent of North America. A three day drive, not counting the nights. Which, by the way, started at one or two in the morning when we had exhausted our supply of energy drinks and grudgingly checked into a motel. I surmise that our unofficial motto for the trip was "Get there faster than the speed of sound, and please obliterate your sanity by stuffing yourselves into the ridiculously small confines of the Budget Truck Cab."

I think this is the appropriate moment to steal a popular Canadian interjection: Oy.

Now, what would make this move to Northern Utah better? Add one slightly stressed mommy (me), minus a husband (he is now working all the time!) and an apartment to live in (Inlaws house!!! Par-tay!!!) and what do you get? Full-on Depression with a capital D.

Of course, I might be able to alleviate the pain, I suppose. I know I should go for more walks outside in the neighborhood with little Sophie and her high-tech stroller. I should excersize, and I should try to eat better. I should study! Because studying and learning is supposed to make people feel like they are worth something in this life.

But, bottom line, I don't have the energy. For anything. I thought that the time in which I get used to being a mom and incorporating Sophia into my schedule would be over now. "Life used to be life-like".... and now it is just a series of endless, numbered days.

Welcome to the World, Sophia!!! It sucks!!! You will love it!!!