Peasant Woman

I fear we're turning Mali Zub (Mah-lee Zoob) into a crack addict. We started giving Little Tooth Baby Tylenol when he turned five months old and began teething like a motherfucker. Now when he sees us (and our little pink dropper full of baby-crack) coming, he opens up his mouth and his eyes start to roll back into his head. And he's still fourteen years away from high school.

So the crazy thing about having a baby and being sleep-deprived is that you often don't even realize just how sleep-deprived you actually are. Like the day that Zubs was just a few weeks old and I was driving somewhere when Kimo (my husband) suggested I pull over so he could drive.

We're having another one of those days.

Another day spent driving around the countryside trying to get Mali Zubs to fall asleep. Praying to the Sleep Gods for a good hour of rest (even though I should have been praying to the God of Teeth for some motherfrigging zubs! The Mad Teething continues unabated...). Driving around deserted Colorado highways while looking at the gorgeous mountains and trying not to drive into oncoming traffic (not as easy as you'd think). Wondering what tricks my eroded vision will play on me next....

Oh Zubs. And he's just so goddamn sweet. Hard to stay mad at him when he looks at you with his crazy little madman grin.

The other day I read an article (in Newsweek or Time or one of those magazines) that talked about how many Gen-Xers are blogging about their kids these days. Specifically, the author seemed annoyed that so many of us are publishing details about each and every new thing our babies are doing. Intimate details -- things the kids themselves might not want known when they get older -- like stories about baths, explosive poops and every other embarrassing thing you can think of.

There's something to that, I think, in that these kids don't have a say in the stories that are being broadcast about them. (Like Mali Zub -- the poor guy might end up quite ticked when he finds out just how much Baby Tylenol we're giving him these days. Hopefully, he won't decide to sue if he ever needs a liver transplant.) And yet, I'm not so sure how this is any different than novelists or essayists, say, spilling the beans about their kids in print. Or poets, for that matter, especially the confessional kind.

Is it just a matter of audience? As in: the bloggers' kids stretch across the web, whereas the book kids reach a more limited audience?

What do you think?

I don't know about you, but I write about my kid because of the big bucks it's getting me.

Ca-ching.

Speaking of ca-ching, where are you, sponsor-people?

Guess it's time to start including a lot of key words in this space. Something like the product placement alerts that The Onion (that great satirical) is always including in its movie reviews.

You know, like that bottle of Rolling Rock, half turned, as if to somewhat disguise its identity, that the cute, down-on-his-luck guy is always drinking at the local bar after his world has turned upside down and his girlfriend has dumped him. Or those cold, sweating cans of Coke that our young stud uses to wipe off his sweaty (ack! I mean "dewy") forehead after a muscle-rippling workout. Or that Marlboro that our cowboy of the day (a Brad Pitt or Clint Eastwood type) lights up as he looks out across the plains, weighing his tried-and-true family ways v. the impinging modern world....

Any takers?

Will Mali Zub's first tooth ever arrive?!

Poor little guy -- he's already been good and Baby Tylenol-ed and he's still howling like a madman. And our poor babysitter -- she's doing the best she can, but....

It's probably not helping that I'm up in my office, trying to work (trying being the operative word). You'd think that with all the drugs we have on the market, they'd have created something good and strong for our little man. Like Baby Prozac for teeth, or something. Something to give us all some rest!

I think we're going to have to give in and try the old-fashioned whiskey-on-the-gums way. It's what Peasant Woman would have wanted, I'm pretty sure, if she could have been here with us in our misery today.

In the meantime, I might just have to try a good old prayer/chant/mantra/whatever you want to call it. (It worked for Elizabeth Gilbert in Eat, Pray, Love, the book I'm reading right now. Only she used it to get her husband to finally give in and sign the divorce papers....)

So here goes:

Teeth, teeth, we need some teeth!
We need them now, we need them how
Please, dear whiskey-loving God --
Give us some teeth!

We've begun calling Mali Zub Master. As in, "Yes, Master; No, Master; What would you like now, Master?"

Master decided that he didn't want to sleep this weekend. Which meant Kimo and I, underlings that we are, also weren't allowed to sleep this weekend. Master decided that he'd rather kick and scream all night. And that, when we put him to sleep, he would toy with us a bit, sleep just a few minutes--10 or 20, say-- to let us think he was actually going to sleep. And then, just as we were actually drifting off to sleep, Master would start bellowing.

"Oh, what a fun game this is!" Master said.

He is as funny as he is benevolent, our Master.

Master also decided that, royalty that he is, that he would rather not sleep in his crib anymore. "I would prefer a chaise," he seemed to say, "or a royal carrier made of purples and golds! I shall also like to be carried everywhere I go," Master said. "And to sleep in the willows, by the shade of the river Euphrates, as I am fanned from above...."

It worked! The tooth prayer/song/mantra we tried a few entries ago worked and Mali Zub is getting his two bottom teeth. Yeee-ha!

Do you know what this means? Our prayers have been answered! Mother of God has come through! We can become believing Christians again! All is right with the world!

Who would've thought two little baby teeth could have caused such consternation, so much grief, and for so many months?

Time to celebrate, Peasant Friends!

Hold out your cup and we'll fill it with your favorite Peasant liquor, whether it's made from grain, plum, pears or the salt of your hard-working tears....