Category: mom life

Posted on

Stuff I Like: Real Madrid

Author’s note: I was undecided about whether or not to post this one, as it is definitely for a very specific crowd and probably not of interest to the average reader. But then I remembered – I don’t really HAVE readers, and besides, this is my fucking blog. So suck it, imaginary haters.

I have had quite a journey with Real Madrid. I started watching soccer during the 2006 World Cup, when I was pregnant and essentially bedridden with my first kiddo. My brother and sister came to visit me in LA for the summer, and we devoured every game, singing the stupid commercial jingles that aired on repeat all day. (I love Tito’s tacos – you love Tito’s too!)

After being sucked in by the World Cup, I vowed to watch more soccer (forgive me – I’m American) in the coming season, so I signed up for the DirecTV sports package and set my DVR to record every Premier League, La Liga, and Serie A game available. I was pretty good about watching the big games every week in the beginning, but this got kicked into high gear after my daughter was born in October. She was an insanely fussy baby, the kind other people call “colicky” and I call “assholes.” She barely slept at night, and she only napped in the arms of myself or her dad. I was a grad student with only one class left at the time, and he was a high school teacher, so I was home with her 90% of the time. Thus, multiple hours a day would pass with me unable to move while she slept in my arms. Continue reading “Stuff I Like: Real Madrid”

Posted on

Memories of Miseducation

The twentieth anniversary of The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill is quite an occasion for a number of important cultural reasons. For me, it’s mostly a reminder of just how old I am, as 1998 still feels like a decade ago at most. I now regularly ultrasound pregnant patients who were born after Tupac died, and each time I sprout a new gray hair. But back to 1998, I was fifteen years old and offered up Ms. Hill’s debut album as a gift idea for my grandma, who wanted to buy me a present for some random reason. She was (and is) generally clueless about such things as popular music, so she walked into the store and asked one of the employees to help her find the album. They searched the entire store for a good fifteen minutes before the poor guy finally discovered it on a separate display in a corner of the store. Because of this, my grandma thought this was some unknown artist whose rise I had predicted. When Lauryn Hill took home all those damn Grammy’s the next year, my grandma was convinced that I was some kind of musical clairvoyant who could pluck future talent out of thin air. Which would be great if it were true, as A&R of Def Jam sounds infinitely sexier than OB/GYN radiologist. But I digress.

I devoured that album from the moment I got it. My friends and I were just learning to drive at the time, and we listened to it in the car on the way to study sessions. I played it in my headphones while I set the table for dinner. I bumped it in the bathroom while I took showers, and I sat with the liner notes, reading the lyrics until I knew them all by heart. I discussed its awesomeness and debated over the best songs with my best bus friend as we delved into Ms. Hill’s controversial interviews and political stances. I had acquired a decent music collection by this point and had plenty of favorites, but this was one of the first albums I truly engaged with to such an extent, because it virtually demanded such attention. From the beats to the lyrics to the level of discourse, this was a piece of art to be reckoned with. Continue reading “Memories of Miseducation”

Posted on

Wu Tang Is For The Children

Nobody in my family can sleep. Between OCD, depression, anxiety, bipolar, etc., falling – and staying – asleep requires a gargantuan effort. We differ in how we approach this problem – meds? supplements? willful denial? – but we all struggle with it in one way or another.

My oldest daughter has dealt with sleep issues off and on since she was about 8 years old. There would be nights where she would go to sleep around 9:00 only to wake up at midnight and not be able to go back to sleep at all. Cold medicine, though, can knock her on her ass. So when she has the sniffles or a cough, a little Dimetapp goes a long way. My only concern was that I never wanted her to get to the point of needing it to fall asleep, so one time, after a week-long bout with mocos, I told her it was going to be her last night with the medicine. When she asked why it mattered, I explained my desire for her not to become dependent on it. Her response? “Why? Would I have to go to rehab?” This immediately activated my Amy Winehouse synapses, so of course I began to sing, “They tried to make me go to rehab, I said – “ Continue reading “Wu Tang Is For The Children”