Horrors, Indeed

I've managed to pare my early-morning routine down to about a 15-minute block of time each day before work; pee, shower, brush hair, brush teeth, and mouthwash while I get my clothes out of the closet. No blow-dryer or make-up for me anymore, thank you very much. Those are luxuries saved for the weekend. I think I'm doing a good job of preparing myself for when I have kids.

The advantage of getting ready so quickly in the morning is that it offers me the help of getting to sleep a little bit later each day, precious sleep that I so desperately need in order to function like a real human being and not a zombie.

I have no idea what happened to me. When Edgar and I started dating a mere three years and two months ago, we would (ahem) stay up during the week until around 1am and be out of bed at 5:30 before tackling a monstrous commute to work. And it worked. But somewhere over the past two years, I've totally lost my ability to function like a normal person if I don't get over eight hours of sleep each night. I've even found myself going to bed at 10:00 on the weekends. WHAT HAPPENED TO ME?

Anyways, this new version of me in the morning has also built time into my schedule so that after I'm done getting ready I have a few minutes to just sit down, zone out, stare at the TV, and stew in my own thoughts about how much I hate the stupid drivers that all converge on my commute in the morning. JUST BECAUSE THERE ARE A FEW PEDESTRIANS ON THE SIDEWALK NEXT TO YOU AND A STOP LIGHT A BLOCK AHEAD, THAT'S GREEN BY THE WAY, DOES NOT MEAN YOU HAVE TO CREEP ALONG IN FRONT OF ME AT 10 MPH DOWN A CITY STREET. Losers. My TV drug of choice in the mornings lately has been TLC programming. Depending on if I have to be to work at 7:30 or 8:00, the shows on around the time that I park myself on the bed in the morning are either A Baby Story or Clean Sweep. Or at least it was Clean Sweep until this week when they started running that abominable clown-car vagina show 19 Kids and Counting in its place. TLC, I will be sending you an angry letter.

Anyways, on Monday, finding myself ready even earlier than I expected, I sat down to catch the last few minutes of A Baby Story before being shockingly, unexpectedly greeted by the Jim-Bob clan in place of Tava and her sorts and her infectious energy and the carpenter who always spreads the paint on the wall with his fingers. The couple on A Baby Story was a Jewish-Italian family (at least I hope after naming their son Giacomo that they were at least part-Italian). The woman was incredibly obnoxious as they filmed her right after labor ("OH MY GAWD, OH MY GAWD, OH MY GAWD, I TOTALLY DID IT! OH MY GAWD!") and I was half tempted to change the channel, but I decided to stick it out for the "life-after-baby" segment that they show in every episode. For this family, their follow-up was 10 days postpartum for the baby's bris.

And then there was grandma. Oh, crazy old Jewish-Italian grandma, with your crazy teased hair and your crazy fingernails and all of your crazy gold jewelry. Way to play into stereotypes. But after opening her mouth, crazy old Jewish-Italian grandma was even crazier than I thought. Because she was holding the baby (not very well by the way...hey crazy old Jewish-Italian grandma, babies that young cannot hold up their heads, so just holding them up by their arms is probably not a good idea) and she was all "Oh, baby, do you want to dance? Ok?" And she started singing to him and kind of convulsively shaking him around to make him dance. But the thing was....ok here's the thing. She was singing, to this sweet little 10 day old baby that was about to have a very unpleasant experience with a knife, "Little shop! Little shop of horrors! Little shop! Little shop of horrors!" like IT WAS THE GREATEST SONG IN THE UNIVERSE.

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. You Are My Sunshine. The Itsy Bitsy Spider. Old MacDonald. These are songs you sing to babies. Not Little Shop of Horrors. Not songs about giant people-eating plants and dentists addicted to nitrous oxide. This is the point where if it was my baby story I would tell Grandma it's time to give the baby back and turn to the camera crew and plead with them to please not turn that film over to their producers.