We celebrated Karis’s first Christmas in Ithaca with the family.

This meant we actually got to relax for half a minute!

Karis got inundated with gifts – they were ALL delicious!

We hope you had a happy holiday!

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My mom called today very excited. “HAVE YOU GOTTEN PARENTS MAGAZINE YET?”

“Uh, no. Why?”

“GO GET ONE AND TURN TO PAGE 85!!! MY GRANDBABY IS IN A MAGAZINE!”

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December 10, 2006
Fluff and scold

I use a laundry mat on 75th street. It’s older and the machines don’t always work perfectly, but it’s the closest one to my little apartment. It is run by a family with at least four children. You can usually find two of the older kids manning the counter between hands of go fish or black jack. They look to be around thirteen and eleven. They are usually supervised by a harried looking father who has more important things to be doing than counting quarters and sweet talking fickle dryers.
Today the precocious three year old was in residence. I heaved my giant laundry bag across the threshold just in time to witness the little bastard grab a fistful of clean laundry from a tall blonde woman’s basket. What followed was a rather entertaining exchange between the father and the tall blonde, who clearly did not have any children of her own.

Father: In a warning tone,“Billy, put that back.”
Billy slaps the laundry back into the blonde’s basket.

Blonde:  (fake laugh) “Oh, he’s a cutie.”
Billy tugs at Blonde’s empty laundry bag. She reaches for it, but Billy snatches it away and prances toward the back of the room. Blonde waits quietly, starring daggers at Billy and hoping futily that he will return the bag so she can load up her laundry and get the hell out of there.

Father: “Billy, give the lady her bag. Now.”
Billy is only three, but he has mastered the art of passive aggression. He s-l-o-w-l-y meanders his way back towards the blonde woman, dragging her laundry bag across the dirty floor.

Father: “I’m sorry, he’s usually better behaved.” (Liar!)

Blonde: “Oh, don’t worry about it. He is just so darling.” Her fake smile is wavering and a fine sheen of sweat is forming on her brow as Billy purposefully scuffs her suede boots when he reaches her.

The blonde starts to put her laundry into the returned laundry bag. Billy grabs a shirt – did I mention that he has sticky lollipop residue on his lips and hands?

Father: “Billy! Leave her alone!” His voice is getting louder and sterner, but he still hasn’t moved a muscle towards coming out from behind the counter and physically stopping his son.

Billy: “I’m helping!”

Blonde: “Oh, it’s ok. Thank you Billy.”
She cringes every time Billy grabs an article of clothing with his dirty little paws and stuffs it into the laundry bag.

At this point I’m dieing to know just how far Billy can go before the blonde losses it. What will she say if Billy up and pees in her laundry bag? “Oh, isn’t that sweet – what a silly boy you are!”

We’ll never know the answer to this question because just then the blond finished loading up her laundry and managed to swipe her purse away a nanosecond before Billy riffled through it. Billy glanced dejectedly in my direction. I gave him a knowing look as he sized me up. He inched toward me hesitantly. I let him get right up close, almost within reaching distance of my laundry before I bent down to his level and put my face in his. “Don’t even THINK about it.”  I said in a low, menacing voice.
Billy’s eyes became round saucers. He backed away from the crazy lady with blood shot eyes and hid behind the counter with his father.

Sometimes doing laundry is fun.

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A brisk jaunt through Riverside Park today.

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December 8, 2006
Oh me of little faith

We did the Sopranos today and Karis did GREAT! She was amazing. Everyone loved her. She was sweet tempered the whole time (as usual) despite being overly tired and half starved. I tried to keep her a little hungry leading up to the scene in the hopes that she would take the breast. She didn’t show much interest in her bottle anyway.
The whole crew set up the scene in whisper voices so as not to scare Karis. Everybody wanted to come up and make funny faces at her. She loved the attention. There was a crewmember named Rich that Karis couldn’t stop flirting with. Every time she caught sight of him she would coo and smile.
By the time our scene was set up she was getting a touch fidgety. She latched onto the breast immediately! She even let us do three takes!! I was dumbfounded. The director was overjoyed. The entire crew gave a sigh of relief that they managed to shoot a scene with a child WITHOUT a single problem! Karis was the star of the day.

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December 6, 2006
The Wicked Witch of the Breast

Karis is such a low maintenance joy in every way but one. Her unwillingness to take the breast is heart breaking. The constant daily pumping is so time consuming and annoying. She will only breast feed at night. If I’m lucky I can occasionally trick her in to taking the breast if I catch her just waking up from a nap, but still very groggy.
We got booked to be body doubles for a breast-feeding scene on the Sopranos on Friday. I keep telling the booking agent that Karis is VERY fussy about when she’ll take the breast. They don’t seem to believe me that she will literally scream and cry if I offer her the breast during the day – no matter how hungry she is! I’m waiting to hear back from them to see if they still want to use us knowing how challenging it may be. They might not have a choice – I don’t think there are too many breast feeding mom’s and babies that match our description willing to bare their ta-tas on a HBO crime drama, no matter how popular said drama may be.
I’m counting my blessings… if having a baby that is anti-breast during daylight hours is my only complaint then things are going pretty great!

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