Alana Franklin, Artography

Too Easy, Sir.

Ahahaha.

Growth, So Far.

I do bombard my Facebook with photos of my kid but what can I say?  He's my kid and I fancy myself a photographer.  I don't think anyone expected anything less than this before he was even conceived.  In all the photos I take, I try to get one from each month that kind of shows a bit of a developmental milestone.

As you can see, there wasn't much going on in the first few months, which is true to form.  Newborns aren't all that entertaining.  They suck, they grasp, they poop, they pee, they puke and eventually they smile but mostly, they just sleep.  And when they're not asleep, they're looking at you with this look on their faces that screams, "I'd rather be asleep right now."

By month three, he had decent enough head control to not get pissed off at "tummy time" and now that he's four months, he's discovered his upper digits can finally reach the lower digits. 

Yeah, I'll probably make him do this until he's eighteen.

 

To Play And Not To Play.

Things Julian wants to play with and/or drool/spit-up on:

- Mom's expensive iMac keyboard and mouse.

- Mom's expensive iPhone.

- Mom's expensive Bamboo Wacom pad.

- Mom's expensive camera.

- Mom's expensive glasses.

- Mom's expensive Girl Scout Cookies.

- Mom's not-so-expensive face.

- Mom's thankfully-rubber bracelets.

 

Things Julian does NOT want to play with:

- Julian's expensive bouncer.

- Julian's expensive swing.

- Julian's moderately priced kick piano.

- Julian's expensive jumperoo.  (Unless he's standing on the outside of it.)

 

Needless to say, we have recently discovered that the processes of both gaining and losing teeth will turn anyone into an irritable, stingy old man.

Sometimes, My Kid Is Creepy.

I don't know how else to put it.  Sometimes, my kid is creepy.

My kid sleeps in my bed at night because I find it the easiest way to get the most sleep and he finds that cribs are meant to be used only for decoration, speed naps and very temporary bathroom-run placement (like, you-better-be-back-by-the-time-this-mobile-stops-spinning temporary). 

One night, when he was just a couple of weeks old, I woke up to find him staring at me in silence.  I mean, he was obviously silent then because he didn't have much of a vocabulary; he couldn't even muster up a sweet middle-of-the-night "ah-goo" to let me know that he had not, in fact, been replaced by a doll whose hallow body had become home to a homicidal soul.  I think the creepiest thing about that particular incident was waking up to something that looked like a teeny tiny version of myself, staring right back at me.

This past weekend we made a trip to the Gilroy outlets and decided to have dinner before heading back home.  He was passed out in his car seat, set in the booth beside me.  My friend Suz pointed out that he was awake and we all turned to find his expressionless gaze upon me.  To his benefit, I'm sure he's probably just as freaked out about waking up in a new location every hour as we are about him waking up with the baby zombie stare, but I'm pretty sure he doesn't have the repertoire of scary, murderous children movies playing through his mind like we tend to.

Once he's realized that we haven't actually abandoned him with a bunch of strangers, he'll grace us with a couple minutes of toothless grinning followed by a verbal reminder that his food ain't gonna serve itself.

Bless the child.

Clean. (Kinda.)

My Desk.

I decided to move my room around and clean it up in the process.  It's something that I've been needing to do for a while but it's hard to find time when you've got a new baby in the house.  I manage to keep his room clean (barely) but let my own go for my own sanity.  JC recently (finally) cleaned up his (way too large) room and made a little space for his couch and television that has become something like a little movie room for us at night.  So, in all of my envy, I decided I needed more space in my room, too.  The bed was centered under a window, so I had hardly any room to walk around.

This was okay when I moved it like that half a year ago but now, with Julian's large-play-things collection growing every so swiftly, the extra space is almost a necessity.

I am currently (procrastinating on) cleaning my desk and decided to make a note of some of the findings..

- No less than twenty bobby pins.

- A half-eaten sandwich.  (Okay, that's today's lunch and I'm still eating it.)

- Several sprinkles.  (I spilled a bag of Circus Animal cookies... more than once.)

- Two pacifiers.  (Unused and encased.)

- A sample pack of Butt Paste.

- One panorama puzzle of NYC sans the Twin Towers.  (Completed.)

- Chapstick.

- Other crumbs of unknown origin.

Basically, my shit was a mess.  But now it's clean, wiped down even.  I just need to organize the organizers, center my computer for my own aesthetic pleasure and take a picture to share with the world.

Be back soon!

Jules at Seven Weeks.

Already showing signs of being goofy.  We encourage a healthy level of nerdiness in this household and Julian is already well on his way to success.

Still Alive!

You know how it is, when you have a baby.  Or maybe you don't really know how it is but you have a good impression from watching decades of movies, videos and news reports that tell you all about the thrills and chills of parenting.  Either way, we' been busy up in this house!  And yes, that apostrophe was purposeful.

I'd like to introduce our offspring, Julian Michael.

(He's a bit of a nerd.)

This is a photo of him at four of five days old but he still looks similar to that, just a bit fatter and bit darker.  Also, he's toned down the nerd quite a lot since then but not enough for us to have to disown him or anything.

So, how is motherhood, you ask.  Pretty exhausting so far, while simultaneously still fun and exciting and full of wonder.  Like, I wonder how many outfits Julian is going to spit up on today and I wonder if his diapers are going to hold up to the disastererous tests he decides to put them through during every feeding.. it's all one big mystery game!

There has definitely been a shift in our lives.  And when I say ours, I mean every adult this kid sees on a regular basis.  Me, his dad, his innumerable aunts, his uncles, grandparents and the closest of family friends.  As fun as we'd like to make our parenting experience be, our lives are also filled with great anticipation as to what sort of antics this kid will be up to in just a few months, when his little personality starts to shine through with actual mobility and purposeful body actions.

Right now, this kid is just living the life.  I'm off work for another two weeks, catering to his every need and avoiding as many feelings of domestication as I possibly can.  And also screwing around on the computer..

Yep.  Welcome to parenthood, Us.  Only seventeen years and ten months to go!

Seven Weeks.

In seven weeks I will have a child.

The number one thing I don't want to do to myself is completely alter my own definition from sassy Black lesbian to plain ole "mom".  I'd rather be a sassy Black lesbian with sassy Black/Mexican offspring in-training.  For twenty-seven years, I've been a version of me that has been slowly transitioning into something else throughout this pregnancy and I know that as soon as the kid gets here, that version of me is going to transform into something completely different.

I am not taking this idea very lightly.  In fact, I might even be building it up in my mind.  Sometimes I think to myself that I could have been childless forever.  Not have to take responsibility for another life.  Not have to worry about anyone but myself.

But then I ask myself, who would take care of me when I'm old and senile?  Who will inherit all of my debt when I'm dead and gone?  And who am I to take away all of these, the greatest of life's pleasures, from my future child?

Enjoy, kid!

Blue Necklace.

Today is my brother Allen's 21st birthday.  Tomorrow is my brother Alex's 21st birthday.  They were born fifteen minutes apart, the first naturally and the second by C-section because he refused to come out.  When they were little, Alex used to always say the only reason Allen was born first is because Allen kicked him out of the way.  Hah!  Pretty clever for a four-year-old, I always thought.

We opened dinner with a champagne toast to the both of them for making it this far.  It was Allen's first legal alcoholic beverage and, like always, we just cheated with Alex.  He'll be 21 tomorrow anyway.  I, of course, had none but that's perfectly fine because I'm not a big fan of champagne anyway.  At my last birthday, my friends tried to get me to chug a full magnum of it in an over-sized flute glass.  I chugged a lot of it before I finally said no.  I've never had champagne since then.

Unless it has orange juice in it, of course.

Afterward, I got stuck watching Austin Powers' Goldmember.  I'm not a fan of Austin Powers at all.  The humor just doesn't hit me right and most of his costumes and actions are too aesthetically unpleasing for me to stand.  I lasted half of the movie and despite there being some pretty hilarious parts, I gave up.  Although, I do love the retro throwback of it all.  I love Black 70s culture.  I wish I could walk around in roller skates all day. 

Let me rephrase that: I wish I had the stamina to want to walk around in roller skates all day.  But I don't.  I have rollerblades that I've avoided using through this pregnancy and I'm actually quite anxious to put them on again. 

One thing I will never put on again, however, are bell bottoms.