Ghost Mommy

My 3 1/2-month old baby, the Duke of Juban, has a Ghost Mommy.


I don't really believe in ghosts. When I told my Harry Potter Wife a few years ago that I want to do a "haunted castles of Europe" tour for our honeymoon, it was with the idea (at least on my part) that we'd get a good laugh. I believe in creaky floorboards, howling winds, and overactive imaginations, but I don't believe in ghosts.


I also don't believe in angels, or guardian angels, or things like that. I'm a sort of Buddhist/Jewish/non-theist/none of your damn business. (A non-theist is not the same as an atheist. But, again, none of your damn business.)


Still. I freely admit I could be wrong about pretty much everything in life, including the existence or not of ghosts and angels. 


And I think the Duke might have a Ghost Mommy, or guardian angel, or something.

"Twinkle, twinkle, little star..."
By Gallowglass (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Yesterday morning the husband told me he heard the Duke chatting to himself - not crying, but chatting happily in that cute baby way - around 5am, roughly two hours before he wakes up for the day. (Yes, we do know how lucky we are, not to rub it in or anything.) When he flicked on the video monitor he saw the Duke chatting and staring at something OR SOMEONE! outside his crib, which is highly unusual since the Duke usually sleeps (and dream chats) facing the wall. He's a baby, and babies like walls. At least, my babies like walls. My older child, the now 3 1/2-year old Juban Princeling, had an entire relationship with a brick wall in the apartment we lived in when he was born, two moves ago. So when we watch the Duke on the video monitor in a totally non-creepy or helicopter way, we've noticed he generally favors the wall next to his crib and not the entire rest of his room, including the corner with the monkey nightlight. Who needs a monkey nightlight when you have a bare wall? Certainly not MY son! Monkey nightlights are for assholes, not for the youngest child of Brooklyn's favorite wino!


So when my husband saw the Duke cooing happily with the air, that was strange enough. 


Stranger, still, was my husband swearing he heard a woman humming to the Duke, and the Duke going quietly back to sleep.


Now, I've gone over before how no one has their best brains on in the wee hours of the morn, and my wonderful husband is no exception. We live in an apartment in New York City - the humming could have been anything.


INCLUDING THE HUMMING OF A GHOST MOMMY PUTTING MY BABY BACK TO SLEEP.


Why not?


Later that same day I left the Duke happily napping in his room, with the door closed, when I took the Princeling and his friend downstairs to play. YES, I TOOK THE VIDEO MONITOR, STOP NAGGING ME YOU JUDGEY MCJUDGERSONS. I didn't hear anything on the monitor, but when I checked it I noticed the Duke was awake. Awake and happy and quiet. We went upstairs...and his door was open. I didn't open it. No one else was home.


Since there is no way even the most gifted of 3 1/2-month olds (of which mine certainly qualifies) can climb out of their cribs, get to their bedrooms doors, open the doors, and then climb back into their cribs I have to assume it was Ghost Mommy.


Am I jealous? No. As any normal mother will tell you, every child needs at least four parents, maybe more. I would not mind a few extra parents living in my house, helping with the kids, not getting paid, and certainly not having sex with my husband. So if Ghost Mommy can soothe my baby at 5am and make him go back to sleep, and she forgets to shut the door every now and then, I can live with that. 


If she wants to change poopy diapers and watch both kids while I make a Tasti-D-Lite run, that would be cool, too. 


Do you believe in ghosts and/or guardian angels? Why or why not?

The Idiot Box

One nice thing about summer - besides baseball, mojitos, and key lime pie, which are pretty much summer's only redeeming qualities as far as I'm concerned - is the lack of TV on TV, allowing my husband and I to catch up on shows we otherwise would probably never get to watch because we're too busy watching other shows.

By Photographer: Hana Kirana (Flickr.com - image description page) [Public domain or CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

During any given TV season, we can be found watching:
Dancing With the Stars (well, I watch, my husband complains) (but he secretly watches, and that's how he's able to accurately predict the judges' scores each week)
How I Met Your Mother
Cougartown
The Middle
Modern Famly
Suburgatory (which I only watch for Jeremy Sisto)
Don't Trust the B- in Apartment 23
30 Rock
Community
Up All Night
Top Chef
Louie
Portlandia


And, when there are new episodes online:
The Guild
The (Mis)Adventures of Awkward Black Girl


That's a lotta TV for one couple with two itty bitty children.


We're also too cheap to subscribe to premium channels, and by "too cheap" I mean Time Warner already has dibs on our most vital organs and one of our children (I won't say which one), and yet the service is kind of shitty. Kind of really shitty. So we're unwilling to shell out our other child and still wind up living in boxes under the Brooklyn Bridge just so we can get HBO, when Netflix will send us HBO shows for less than half the cost. Sure, we get them about 18 years after they've aired, but so what? Game of Thrones is timeless.


The problem with doing it this way, though, is we go through an entire season in less than a week. We wrapped up season 2 of Treme in about four nights and season 1 of GoT in less than a week. After tonight it will have taken us all of two nights to get through season 1 of Bored to Death (Brooklyn, holla!)


And then we have to wait a whole year for the next season to come out on DVD.


And if you're thinking that we can just pirate or bootleg stuff off the internets, well, my friend, THAT IS HIGHLY ILLEGAL AND WE WOULD NEVER EVER DO THAT, DO YOU HEAR ME FCC?

I <3 the FCC

Also, we tried that and it didn't work. For a long time we were all caught up on True Blood for free, but some wonderful, puppy-loving, highly attractive and clearly intelligent person over at the FCC must have caught on to all these nasty, no-goodnik pirating sites and shut them down. (I swear to god, if I don't get my Eric Northman fix soon I will cut a bitch. Not you at the FCC, I love you and want to have your babies, and by the way, have you lost weight? You look fantastic.)


So if you watch GoT the way god intended - on HBO - or Treme, or Boardwalk Empire (next in our Netflix queue after BtD), or Carnivale (after BE), please don't tell me what happens. I need something to keep me occupied next summer. (The chef and the jazz guy are totally going to hook up, right? NO, DON'T TELL ME!)


How do you get your fix of your favorite shows? 

I'm Afraid of Siri

For Mother's Day my husband insisted I get a new iPhone 4S. With Siri. My argument against this was, if Siri can't change diapers, massage my feet, or get me a table at Le Bernardin, then she's useless.


Also, I have a crippling fear of robots. I've seen 2001: A Space Odessy and all the Terminator movies, I know what's up.


I got a Siri anyway.


My fear of robots started when I was 7 years old and went to see Superman III with my family and hid my face in my mother's shoulder during that part at the end where the giant supercomputer turns that lady into a robot who shoots lasers out her eyes. My mother, helpful as always, narrated for me what I was missing by hiding and not looking, because if there's anything more terrifying to a 7-year old than watching a lady robot shoot lasers out her eyeballs, it's being told by your mom about it. My mom wasn't matter-of-fact, either. Or sympathetic. She was gleeful. "She turned into a ROBOT!" with this tone that sounded like, "I cannot possibly be more excited to destroy your sense of security and safety, and to stay awake with you for the next three weeks while you don't sleep! Also, there really is a boogeyman under your bed who wants to eat you, and the next time you refuse to eat broccoli I'm going to sell you to Gypsies!"


Fun fact: A few years ago, as a 30-something adult, I tried watching Superman III for the first time since I was 7, and I couldn't do it. 


Since then I have what I consider to be a healthy fear of robots, and Siri is no exception. The Terminator movies aren't just good entertainment, people. They are dire warnings, and possibly predictions!

IT IS A SHORT, STRAIGHT LINE FROM THIS

TO THIS

(Photo from: http://www.nakedfanmail.com/tag/the-terminator/)

Short. Straight. Line. People.




Me: "Siri, are you self-aware?"
Siri:

Yes, I have Siri call me "Your Highness." I want her to remember who's boss.

If you had told me when I was 7 years old that one day I would own a phone that was actively plotting the destruction of all humankind, I would totally have believed you.

Start stockpiling water and supplies, especially guns, and for goodness' sake, where is John Connor?