Inspirations from cheese in a can. joey, kelly and danny.

this morning i was hijacked by a heater.  i walked into joey’s bathroom, and the smell of the space heater took whatever day i was going to have, smacked it around, and replaced it with this one.  because why is because two years ago, when danny was born, we didn’t turn on the central heat, the whole winter.  we felt that the way it dried the air was not healthy for any of our mucous membranes.  instead we went and bought a couple of electric space heaters, and just put those wherever we were.  and that worked pretty well.  we closed off the back of the house (except for joey’s office, which was heated by eight computers…toasty!) and just didn’t even go back there.  so anyway, yeah, the winter of 2006-7 smelled like space heaters.  and this morning i got taken right back there.  almost.  you can’t really go back, but when you can smell it, it just feels like you should be able to.  or at least be able to remember enough of it to write about it.  i’ll settle for that.

i’m sure something will come along later in life to prove me wrong, but to this point, having a baby marks the biggest, most dramatic, most exhausting, most exhilarating change of my life.  joey and i don’t have any family that lives super-close, and that winter was before i had made any mom friends, so it was just the three of us most of the time.  at the time, that felt lonely to me, but thinking of it now, i realize that we all were really close then, and i remember being amazed every day at how much joey was willing to do, and how little he thought of himself.  except maybe at sleepy time.  overall, though, i remember thinking that i had chosen exactly the right man.  good father potential was high on my list when i was out on the prowl, including that night i picked him up at the office christmas party.  he’s so gentle and sympathetic with tiny things.

speaking of tiny things:  though by the time danny was born i had six niephews, one of whom i lived with for the first two years of his life, there was still a lot i didn’t know.  like what the terrible rash covering my baby could possibly be.  as it turned out, that, too, was related to the heating situation.  we were afraid that since we kept it in the 60s in the house, the baby would be cold.  so we wrapped him up REALLY well.  no kidding, i think sometimes he was triple-swaddled, with a fluffy blanket on top.  naturally the horrible rash was heat rash, but i didn’t know that until much later.  i had no idea what to do.  of course i needed to consult my dear friend the internet, but for that i would have had to put the baby down, an idea of which i was not a fan.  joey and his mother (now known as nana) were hovering about, wanting to do something to help the large, sweaty, frantic lady and the dangling, spotted-red baby in her arms, but unclear as to what.  someone found a bottle of baby lotion under joey’s sink (i don’t want to know).  generic, 5 years old, and it didn’t even smell like pink baby lotion is supposed to smell.  next thing i know, it’s covering my baby.  THE LOTION ATE MY BABY!  so what else is there for a new mom to do, other than be obnoxious to their mother-in-law about it?  sorry, nana.  thanks for the fresh bottle of brand new, johnson & johnson baby lotion you picked up when next you were out.  that was sweet and very gracious of you.

there were so many more emotions in those first months, which would take me a week to convey and 30 seconds for you to say:  ‘wow.  get a grip, captain hormonal,’ before you moved on to the next blog in your reader.  and anyway, i can’t smell the heater anymore, and plus the tiny overheated creature pictured below has been replaced with a much larger, much more opinionated little man who needs to leave for ’school’ in about half an hour, and i’m still in my pajamas.  have a great day, internet.  thanks for sharing.