This has been the most trying week I have ever experienced as a parent.

I know that is a strange thing to say considering that Willa was only a few months old when I was dealing with my father's terminal illness, but things were different then. There was one point where I took Willa to the hospital 11 days in a row, and she didn't cry once. Actually, the only time I can remember her crying at all in the hospital, was the last day I saw my father- the day before he died. I think she sensed something.

This week has been a constant struggle to keep her from crying.

You see, what is happening is, three different problems are combining to create a perfect storm of crankiness.

1) Willa is teething AGAIN. As my mother likes to say "If there is a GOD, he is cruel for making babies experience so much pain."
She constantly has either her hand or some object in her mouth. The teething is also causing her to sleep horribly. She tosses and turns and wakes up several times during the night. This also means she wants to breast feed more frequently. She was down to six times a day, but this week it has been eight or nine times a day.

2) Willa has just started to pull herself up to standing. She wants to stand ALL THE TIME. The problem is that there are not a lot of places in our apartment where she can reach something and pull herself up. Almost everything is too high. So, she gets REALLY frustrated. When I put her on the floor to crawl she does downward facing dog and starts crying because she can't stand up. Plus, when she is standing up I have to be right there next to her.

3) Willa has started the clingy phase. She needs to be able to see me AT ALL TIMES. Sometimes even being able to see me is not enough, nor is me sitting next to her. Only being held will do, and even then sometimes she acts as if she wants to crawl back inside of me, and I'm sorry kid, but THAT IS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN. Also, Willa can now say "mama", which is awesome, but NOT THIS WEEK, because now when she whines it sounds like this "Maaaaaaaaammmaaaaaaaaa". Please kill me now.

It is like someone has replaced my child with someone else's child.
She used to wake up smiling and would spend a good amount of time in her crib cooing and babbling. Now she wakes up crying.
She used to play contentedly in her play pen, sometimes for as long as 45 minutes. Now, she screams the minute I put her in the playpen.
I used to be able to put her in her exasaucer for a few minutes so that I could go to the bathroom or load the dishwasher. Now she starts crying the minute I try to put her in it. This makes no sense to me at all because HELLO- you are standing- you WANT to stand- why are you not happy?

The changing table used to be one of Willa's favorite places in the world. Now, she acts like I'm trying to remove her toenails whenever we even get close to the changing table. And getting her dressed is like trying to dress an octopus. There is a lot of flailing and she is constantly flipping over.
Willa has never been a big solid food eater, but we had gotten to the point where she would eat at least a little something at least twice, if not three times a day. Now, if I can get her to eat even a couple of spoonfuls a day that is an accomplishment. I have to constantly distract her and she keeps moving her head around. Weaving and bobbing. My husband said feeding Willa is like trying to refuel a plane in mid air. Actually, I think feeding Willa is harder. I mean, at least when you are refueling a plane, once you get the hose in, it STAYS in. With Willa every spoonful is a struggle.
As I've said before, Willa gets bored at home, so she's always happiest when we are out. Yesterday I took her to the cafe to have lunch with a friend. I can usually sit her in the high chair for at least a half an hour and she will play with a toy and people watch. Yesterday was a nightmare. She was squirmy and fidgety and I had to leave before I could finish my food.
And it figures that all of this is happening during the coldest week we've had since last winter.
If it wasn't so cold I would just keep her outside all day and she would be much more manageable, but FUCK it is COLD.

I am mentally and physically spent. My nipples are bleeding. I'm starving
And, I'm feeling really guilty for not liking my child today.

I want my happy, smiling, COOPERATIVE kid back.

Posted by torrie at 10:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (24)

Posted by torrie at 11:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (9)

I've been hesitant to write about this because I'm sure I'll get lots of lovely emails from some judgmental assholes, but here goes nothing.

Back in the beginning of November we were in Bloomingdale's returning some stuff, when we saw that they were having a baby model search. So, we decided it would be fun to enter Willa. We filled out a form and then she sat in my lap and they snapped a couple of pictures of her. She gave them a huge smile and that was it. We went home and forgot about it. Then, a couple of weeks later, the phone rang. It was the people from Bloomingdale's calling to tell us that Willa had won the contest. I was dumbfounded.
The prize was a full page ad in The New York Times.
So, a few weeks later Willa had her photo shoot. She had a GREAT time. There were other kids there- they were shooting another ad. She loved meeting everyone and seeing everything.
She gets really bored when we stay at home. She's happiest meeting new people and seeing new things.
Willa's turn came and they plopped her down on a pillow in the middle of this big set in from of ten strangers (photographer, photographer's assistants, buyers, stylists, etc.) and she just looked up at the camera and laughed and smiled. She was awesome.

After the shoot we were talking to one of the women from Bloomingdale's and she said that Willa should model. I said that I thought she might have fun doing it, but I didn't know how to get started. So, she picked up her phone and called her contact at one of the top modeling agencies in the world. She told them that Willa was great and that they should sign her. They asked me to email them a picture. The next morning (a Tuesday) I emailed them and less than two hours later they emailed me back and said they wanted to meet her on Thursday. We met with the agency on Thursday and we were there for about five minutes before they offered her a contract. It was all very surreal.

Now, my husband and I debated this and discussed every aspect. I honestly felt kind of weird about the whole thing. We also had 5 different lawyers read the contract (including two who work in the entertainment industry).
We decided to go for it for the following reasons:

1) As I stated above, Willa LOVES meeting new people and experiencing new things. She lights up whenever someone pays attention to her. On the few go-sees and photo shoots we've been on Willa starts bouncing up and down and screeching happily when she sees the other kids.
2) I looked into mommy and me classes in my neighborhood. They cost about $500-$700 (yes, REALLY) and they only meet once a week. We can't afford that. Even the libraries in my area make you register weeks in advance for story time and most of them only let you go once a month.
3) Willa modeling means people will pay her to have fun. We can put the money in an account for her and if anything ever happens to us at least she'll have a little bit of a cushion. Also, we are just getting by these days and we can't afford to set aside money to put in a college fund for Willa. I am super paranoid about Willa having money for school because I almost wasn't allowed to graduate from culinary school because my parents couldn't afford to pay the bill. It would be great if Willa made enough money to pay for her own college tuition. (Although, I highly doubt it because tuition will probably be a bout a million dollars a year by the time she goes to college.)
4) Once she is actually old enough to understand what modeling is she won't be doing it any more. We don't want her to turn into Jon Bennet Ramsey or Lindsay Lohan.
5) We will be donating a portion of Willa's money to charity.
6)We rarely focus on Willa's beauty. Sure, we occasionally tell her that she is cute or pretty, but mostly we focus on how smart and well behaved she is.
7) We will not compromise our morals. Willa will not model for anything that we don't support such as pharmaceuticals or meat and she won't have to wear any animal products. Her agency is really supportive about this.
8) It's also good for me to get out of the house and meet new people. Plus, I may pick up a few photography tips at the photo shoots.
9) The minute Willa stops having fun we stop.

If you are interested in seeing Willa's ads I will be posting updates on Twitter.

Posted by torrie at 02:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (64)

This has a topic that I've been wanting to write about for a long time.

There seems to be this trend on the internet, specifically in the blogging community- Who is suffering the most?

I remember when I lost my first pregnancy people left comments with undertones of "Well, at least you can GET pregnant". Someone even had the gall to tell me to get over it- that her mother had carried a baby to full term and then had a still birth.

Someone is always suffering more than you.

You had a miscarriage? They've had two.
Your father died? Their spouse died.

When did misery become a competition?

It seems that in order to gain support you must have a hard time. You need to suffer from infertility, or have multiple miscarriages, or be broke, or have an illness, or have a child with physical or developmental delays.
And even if you are suffering from something, rest assured, there is always someone who has it worse.

Is this really human nature? If so, this makes me so sad.

Why can't we be happy for someone when something goes their way?

Money, in particular, seems to be a very touchy subject among bloggers.

I myself, have restricted what I've written about for fear that I would be judged.

When I did the first ad campaign for Nikon they gave me a free D80 camera.
There was a period where, before the ad came out, I wasn't allowed to talk about where I got the camera from or the ad campaign.
I actually hid the fact that I had the D80 until the ad came out because I knew there would be a few people who would say things like "Weren't you just complaining about not having any money? How can you afford that camera?"

There is a lot of assuming going on by people who read blogs.

There are many other things I've been hesitant to write about because people would assume that I have money. And people who have money are obviously spoiled brats.

I have this stroller. It costs about $1,000. My mother-in-law bought it for us. I also have a cleaning lady that my mother-in-law pays for.
We have a car- in Manhattan. It was given to me when my grandmother passed away. The parking in our building is free because my husband is a chief resident.

But what if I had paid for those things myself?

Why is it wrong for people to work hard and reward themselves?
And what if they didn't work hard? What if their family has money? What if they have never known what it is like to struggle financially? Does that make their trials and tribulations or their tragedies any less painful or real? Can someone who is financially stable not be a kind, thoughtful, humble person?

I'm not saying you can't envy someone, or even be a little bit jealous, but why do you need to spew hate at them?

The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence it seems. So, while someone might have something that you covet, I'm sure that you have something that they want as well.

Doesn't it make for better karma to be happy and supportive of other people and their triumphs?

I don't agree with everything that people who write the blogs I read do or say. And I think it is perfectly healthy to have friendly debates. But, I would never intentionally insult someone or say something mean to them, no matter how strongly I might disagree with them.

And sure, there are some assholes out there blogging. But, they usually say controversial things just to get attention, so when you leave an obnoxious comment you are just feeding their fire.

So, here's my unsolicited advice-

Don't assume things. You can't possibly know all the details from one (or even several) blog entries.

If you don't have anything nice to say- DON'T SAY ANYTHING. See that little red x at the top of the page? Click it, and move on. No one is forcing you to read someone's blog.

I have several friends who get paid to blog. This does not mean they should write about what you want them to write about. You wouldn't email your favorite author and tell them that their last book was boring and you liked their books better before they had a child, or moved, or whatever other life changing thing happened to them that you think "changed" their writing. You are not paying to read their blog so, again, if you don't like what you read, MOVE ON.

Thank you for being such a good listener.

Posted by torrie at 01:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (47)