Childcare, it’s not glam either!!!

Thank you to everyone who emailed and commented about the baby!! She is doing fine, thanks!!

Happy to share some fab news about Blue Bloods! It’s been getting on some great lists and has been nominated for several awards, woo hoo!

You know I love me a gold statue or a blue ribbon…

TAYSHAS Reading List – The book is listed in the Texas Library Association’s Yearly List of Recommended Books – Yay!
Ellies -Given by the Teens at the Madison, Alabama library. Short for Most Popular Library Items – nominated for the “Fang” award – Best YA Vampire Book – Yay!
Cybils – The Book Blogger Awards – nominated under the Sci/Fi-Fantasy Category – Yay!
ALA Quick Picks for Reluctant Readers – nominated – Yay!

Now for the real news…
Childcare..it’s not glam either!!! My god, if everyone who wanted a baby knew how much WORK was involved, I don’t think anyone would ever have children. Even with nannies and nurses, the BUCK STOPS AT MOM (AND DAD).

It’s been such a shock to the system, when they say “it changes your life” I had no idea it meant “it changes your life”.

As in…

Every meal I have ever eaten since she was born has been COLD. Why? Because when the food is ready (ie delivered), I’m either feeding her or changing her or putting her to sleep or a combo of all three.

I have dreds in my hair. It is sooo gross. DREDS. Me! Who conditions every day! Why, you ask? Because I have long hair now (It’s always been my dream to have long, straight Demi-Moore, head-cheerleader-Queen Bitch hair. Yes. Shut up. So I got my hair straightened.) Anyway, with looong hair, you need to be able to blow dry it so it looks good. But I have had NO TIME to blow dry. Instead I scoop it up in a messy bun while it’s wet. And what happens when you don’t blow dry or comb it out?? You get dreds!!! Ewwww. I would run to my stylist except I have to…feed the baby.

My fingernails are bitten down to the quick and it’s cuticle city. Which in and of itself is not too unusual since I’m a writer and although I love my weekly manicure, it doesn’t last long when you type all day and you HAVE to gnaw on SOMETHING when you don’t smoke anymore. BUT, my toe nails?? My precious pedicured feet? They look like something out of LORD OF THE RINGS. I mean, hobbit city. Gross. My baby is only six weeks old and I’ve been off my “maintenance” schedule (as in, maintaining one’s looks, very important if one is to look presentable to the world) for only a month and a half and already I look like a troll.

I wear the same five things every week. Me, who has four closets of clothes! One for shirts and pants. One for coats and jackets. One for formal dresses. One for day dresses. And yet, I wear the SAME five nursing shirts EVERY WEEK. I am so bored by my clothes I want to cry. But I can’t wear anything else because I have to FEED THE BABY.

I sometimes don’t leave the house for days. I mean DAYS will go by and all I see are the insides of my house. Granted, it’s a new house (we just moved to our Penthouse-in-the-Sky, I mean, our mid-century-modern-house in the Hollywood Hills.) By the way, I’m not bragging, I’m just PROUD. Because my husband is an architect. And it was seriously a PAIN because he was renovating the house while I was in my third trimester, and the house wasn’t ready until last week, which meant we were literally HOMELESS for months so we had to stay at my parents (which was fine) but it was SO HARD not to have a home, and then MOVING and then having the baby, anyway, it’s been chaos. And I harbored a deep, deep resentment against him because of the fact that our house WAS NOT DONE.

But anyway, it is now done and it is FRACKING FABULOUS. I walk around and have to pinch myself. It’s always been my dream to live in a fabulous modern house in the Hollywood Hills, and now I do…the house is all glass on all sides, and we are surrounded by trees and we have all these decks and foliage and the bathrooms are insanely luxurious, with yummy white and silver Marble and chocolate brown walls and we have this faaaaaabulous off-pink wallpaper in the baby’s room that a certain very, very famous designer (whom I can’t name since he’s a client) also has in his house and we have this gorgeous stone fireplace and these walls made out of the thinnest transluscent stone that when the light hits it is golden. The floors are this grayish silver ashy wood and the kitchen is a European system with all these cool doodads and concrete floors and the master bedroom is so big we have a second living room in it. With the fifty-inch plasma. I mean, it’s insane.

Mike and I have worked for every penny we have (well, OK, we have parents who love us enough to kick in some pretty big gifts/checks once in a while, but for the most part we are self-sufficient) so it’s just crazy to me that we live in this house.

I grew up in a pretty fracking faaabulous house in Manila, (custom built for my parents by the leading architect at the time) but I also know what it felt like to lose it. (We had to sell it when fortunes ran dry.) So part of me is like, we better never lose THIS house, man. Which is why, even with the breast feeding and the round the clock childcare, (um, did I mention our nanny quit after a day? loong boring story. But our new nanny starts after Christmas. THANK GOD) I still work? Because work means you get to live in a great house.

So it’s all worth it…

Anyway, speaking of work, I should get back to it while the baby is still sleeping…

xoxo
Mel