the telltale smear of toothpaste

Today is Grace's twelfth day of being in the world. It's also the first day that I have felt human enough to sit down and attempt to write something besides a one-word Facebook comment.

One thing that symbolizes what the last twelve days have been like: there has been a smudge of toothpaste on my shelf in the bathroom since one of our first days home. I've been flirting with major tooth decay, brushing my teeth sporadically at best, tossing a few Rolos into my maw before falling into bed. So along with the countless other OCD habits that I have sacrificed to the cause of mere survival, properly squeezing the toothpaste tube from the bottom up has gone by the wayside. I now squeeze it like a toddler or an angry raccoon--Ben noted that I opened a tub of hummus "like an angry hobo"--and this drip of Colgate has remained stuck to the shelf, taunting me each day. I knew it would take a second to wipe it up, but doing so has seemed beyond my capabilities, not worth the energy. Like so many other things: changing out of Ben's ratty old pajama top, checking our bank balance, putting Chapstick on my disgusting, cracked lips. The only thing that has mattered has been keeping Grace fed, changed, and either asleep or alert.

Well, today, I wiped up the toothpaste blob! I also scrubbed the kitchen sink in preparation for Gracie's second bath, after her first one in the "Tummy Tub" I so carefully selected was a disaster, despite having watched instructional videos on its use. I wrote one thank-you card, and did a load of laundry, a milestone as I haven't been able to bend down to the washing machine until now, and have been letting my mom wash about ten loads every day. I capped off all of this activity by wiping up the toothpaste, and that's when I realized that life will get back to normal someday.

Every morning, when the sun (sort of) comes up and my mom or dad comes out to put on the tea kettle or make coffee, I feel a great sense of relief. "Well," I think, we've managed to keep her alive for one more night." Throughout the day, I'm seized by terror when I think about how my parents are only staying with us for three more nights, and a few weeks after that, we'll be completely on our own.

Tonight may bring another brush with utter panic and the depths of despair. But I have made progress: I've gone from being someone who idly ignores basic hygiene to someone who can wield a paper towel when needed. I am getting a little bit closer to being back to myself...or to my new self, whoever that will be.

the final countdown

This is it! The week I've been looking forward to for nine months. My due date is ten days away, and the baby has, thankfully, not arrived early. Everything is--mostly--ready for her arrival: the infant seat has been installed and checked by a certified car seat technician, the cloth diapers are washed and I've made peace with the uncertainty surrounding Charlie's Soap, the crib has been assembled for months and is filled with frivolous stuffed toys that we'll have to remove as soon as it's time to place Gracie in there.

Oh, did I not mention that we've decided on Grace for the baby's name? But I reserve the right to change my mind when I see her. Maybe some name we hadn't even considered will pop into my head and seem utterly fitting. Like Epidurlene, for example?

Anyway, all of my obsessive list-making and recent frantic preparations were all in service of this final goal: having a week before my due date when I would have nothing else to do besides watch TV and movies, read Sue Grafton's new book, V is for Vengeance, and eat things that, by my twisted logic, I am only allowed to eat while pregnant: root beer floats, a butterscotch sundae, and Dick's burgers and fries. So every day for the past few weeks has been driven by an undercurrent of fear that I might go into labor early and miss out on this blissful, self-indulgent week. But so far, so good! V is for Vengeance arrived at the library on time, and I was in the first round of people to get it on reserve, ahead of hundreds of other cheapskates! If only it weren't such a quick read. I'm having to ration it out so it lasts a couple of days, since I've looked forward to it for so long.

I am just about finished with the last ridiculously time-consuming sewing project that I burdened myself with, though I'm tempted to start another one, just to keep things interesting. After all, if I don't have this to worry about late at night (whether or not I'll be able to finish embroidering little flags to hang over the crib), I'll just worry about something else, like the unspeakable fears that every pregnant woman must harbor about the birth. 

So, I'll only be leaving the house when absolutely necessary: trips to Dick's, and maybe Jo Ann for fabric. Now I just need to choose my next series to watch on Netflix. Any suggestions?

exhibit Z that too much internet research can only lead to ruin

After spending at least 8 hours researching the best detergent for cleaning cloth diapers, I decided on this stuff called Charlie's Soap. It had hundreds of five-star reviews, and was glowingly recommended by diaper retailers, moms in the "cloth diapering community" (yes, there is such a thing), and several of my friends. It's an all-natural soap made of coconut oil and washing soda, and if the reviews and manufacturer are to be believed, will leave your clothes soft, stain- and fade-free; will clear up skin problems you may have; and will make your clothes fit so well that you'll look ten pounds lighter and years younger!

This weekend, I spent another 8 hours and untold gallons of water "stripping" our washing machine (since Charlie's is supposed to work best when you get rid of all residues from old detergents), washing our new cloth diapers five times (since you have to do that to make them absorbent), and starting to wash all of our own clothes and linens in this miracle soap of the gods. I also washed every single article of baby clothing in Charlie's, from onesies to  swaddlers to receiving blankets, lovingly folding and organizing them as I congratulated myself for being so eco-friendly, so caring of my baby's skin, so conscientious as to build her a little bubble into which no phthalates, endocrine disruptors, sulfates, or other bogeymen shall enter.

Then, while seeking more information about how to use Charlie's, I came across dozens of forums where mothers reported their babies have gotten blistering, oozing chemical burns from diapers washed in it. I started to worry. I spent another few hours reading more reports from both sides: Charlie's is a miracle soap! Charlie's is the devil's soap! Charlie's works great if you add five other things to your machine and do five extra rinses, but if you only do four rinses, your baby's butt will turn crimson and she'll hate you for life! I started to wonder whether I'd made a mistake. I told Ben. Ben mocked me and said it would be fine.

Ben just called from work, where he is visiting the on-site medical clinic as he has suddenly developed hives all over his body. I guess I should be glad that I only poisoned my husband and not my baby, but I still feel terrible. Could this be the sign I need to give up my addiction to online reviews? Maybe this is the universe's way of telling me to chill out about being eco-friendly, non-toxic and natural. Maybe I should head to Wal-Mart to stock up on Huggies, formula, cheap plastic noise-making toys, and Tide.

If I can't even get this right....I give up. Why couldn't I have been a mother in the 50s, when there was ONE way to do things? One baby book (Dr. Spock), one diapering option (have your housekeeper change your baby using cloth diapers and pins), and one way to give birth (completely unconscious, while dad drank whiskey in the waiting room). 

UPDATE: So I may have overreacted a little. It turns out Ben was reacting to some contact that he had with fiberglass. (Our hot water heater is wrapped in a blanket that sheds fiberglass, and he was dutifully checking the water temperature as recommended by our baby books.) But I am still conflicted about this soap issue. Should I continue to wash our stuff in Charlie's, or start over (which will require me to rewash all the baby clothes multiple times in a new detergent)?

in case you were wondering

Since 2003, I've tried to explain to countless people why I dropped out of grad school. This about sums it up:

http://gawker.com/5861448/report-english-lit-professors-write-too-much-boring-crap

I'm too lazy to read the original article, so I can't say that I wholeheartedly buy into this argument. I know that many of my colleagues from Duke are teaching amazing, inspiring classes at colleges across the country. But that was not to be my path. Can you imagine how stressed I would be on a daily basis, considering how taxing it was for me to teach high school classes? You can't give college students a list of vocabulary words and tell them to spend the period making flash cards when you're out of ideas! I would probably be bald (due to stress-induced trichotillomania), fat, or both if I had finished my Ph.D. and were now teaching in higher ed.

Anyway, some of my sleepless hours lately have been consumed by that pesky, familiar themes: What if I had... and Ack! It will be at least three years until...[we can buy a house, I have an established career, etc.] Coming across this article helps validate at least one of the decisions that brought me to this point.

Yes, I swallowed a beach ball

For those readers who aren't on Facebook, here are a few pictures of my ever-expanding girth!

World’s Greatest

For my sixth birthday, my sister gave me a stuffed “World’s Greatest” doll. He was the koala  in Shirt Tales, a Saturday morning cartoon we would watch at 6:30 a.m., fortified with Fruity Pebbles while our parents slept (a tradition I plan to replicate in my own family). This was just one in a long line of unbelievably selfless gifts and gestures that Beth would give me over the years. The next year, she slaved over a homemade dollhouse complete with hand-knitted curtains and cardboard furniture. And during my Awkward Sophomore Year of Having No Friends, she invited me to come along with her and her much cooler friend, Scarlett, on their beach trips and jaunts to Taco Bell. She even took me to my first high school party, where I probably mortified her by primly refusing to take even a sip of alcohol, believing as I did that one drink would instantly cause me to lose control of my faculties and then spew all over everyone. (If all fifth graders responded to D.A.R.E. like I did, the program would be a sweeping success instead of the national joke it really is!)

Well, true to form, Beth threw me the World’s Greatest baby shower last weekend! I now have one lifelong dream ticked off my list, as she recreated the “Best Friends’ Outing” from Best Friends for Frances, one of the formative books of my childhood. I can’t overstate how much the Frances books shaped my childhood...and beyond. I spent years in search of the recording of the book that we once borrowed from the library. I finally found it on a 45”, so now I’ll be able to sing Frances’s silly songs to my daughter--whom I considered naming Gloria, after Frances’s little sister--to the tunes that Lillian and Russell Hoban intended. (“When the wasps and the bumblebees have a party, nobody comes who can’t buzz...”) 

And even though none of the guests, being normal and not obsessed with children’s books, had ever read the Frances series, they all appreciated the perfectly rendered tableau of all things Frances.

The story begins when Albert won’t let Frances and Gloria come along on his Wandering Day, for which he has “only” packed a small lunch, including cupcakes, apples and bananas, and a quart of chocolate milk.

Frances and Gloria get him back but good, when they set off with a hamper filled with “Nothing much. Hard boiled eggs and fresh whole tomatoes...carrot and celery sticks...cream cheese and chive sandwiches, cream cheese and jelly sandwiches too."

"Salami-and-egg and pepper-and-egg sandwiches."

"Cole slaw and potato chips, of course."

"Ice-cold root beer packed in ice."

"And there are other things I forget, like black and green olives and pickles and Popsicles and probably some pretzels and things like that. And there are salt and pepper shakers and napkins and a checked tablecloth, which is the way girls do it.”

Of course, Albert apologizes and they have a lovely co-ed picnic. Perfectly fitting for my co-ed shower, which I attempted to document with my new camera. But that will have to be another post! I'll leave you with a final shot of the father-to-be.

No baby shower would be complete without beer!

six more weeks!

And I sure hope the fabled nesting instinct kicks in soon. At night, I lie awake thinking of all the cleaning that I need to do: washing down the walls in our unventilated bathroom so the baby doesn't develop asthma from the mildew; cleaning out our old wooden cabinets so my in-laws aren't disgusted when they reach in for a coffee mug and get a handful of cobwebs; and, of course, cooking and freezing a month's worth of meals like every single pregnancy book and website advises. 


This last one is pretty unrealistic, as our freezer is currently filled with ten gallon-size bags of green chile. Also because I have never successfully frozen a cooked meal that eventually proved edible. I've frozen a few Tupperwares of soup which I later threw away, sacrificing the containers because I was too lazy and disgusted to thaw them out and clean them. Also because Ben can't eat cheese, which is the main ingredient in any dish worth freezing. And our parents and step-parents, who will be staying with us for the entire month following my due date, are, variously: diabetic, gluten-free, allergic to chicken, vegetarian except for chicken, and sensitive to tomatoes and black pepper. I'm halfway tempted to just stock up on my fave, Stouffer's macaroni and cheese, and let everyone else fend for themselves. 


Anyway, with every day that goes by without my having turned into a manic clean-freak, I have begun questioning my initial definition of how prepared I need to be. Does the house really need to be perfectly clean when the baby is born? From my reading, it seems that most American babies are brought home to houses with recently scoured ovens and sparkling burner pans, vacuumed-out refrigerator coils, blindingly white bathroom grout, fully stocked and organized dressers full of clothes for their first year, and stacks of frozen lasagna. So I've been patiently waiting to tackle this list for months now--while actually looking forward to it--thinking that if I cleaned too soon, everything would just get dirty again, so I might as well wait until a month or two before my due date. 


But now the urge to keep watching Parenthood (my newest Netflix discovery) and read every single reader comment on STFUparents while eating Oreos (because I've now entered the "screw it, I'm taking a multi-vitamin" phase) is too strong to resist! It's overcome my desire for a clean house day after day. So in addition to fearing all of the unspeakable things related to the baby's health, feeling ashamed of myself for not learning (or wanting to learn) any natural childbirth techniques, and worrying that even my second read-throughs and highlighting of ten different baby books won't help me absorb the information, I am also feeling terribly guilty for being an insufficient nester. 


And now that I've mentioned Oreos, I need to go find some chocolate. Why are only the most self-destructive pregnancy cliches manifesting themselves, and none of the good ones?