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?

class clowns

Ben's notes from our childbirth class:

• early labor = mac and cheese for Jill (after our instructor suggested using the time before heading to the hospital to eat something light, since I won't be able to eat once I'm admitted)

• have her sing along to Rent (I think the class was going over ambience as a relaxation technique; I know this makes me a boring person, but I don't give a crap about having a custom-made i-pod playlist, dim lights, or aromatherapy, especially since there's an 80 percent chance I won't be able to smell anything that day anyway)

• push present = new broom (I have no idea what prompted this one)

• Do we get a discount if Ben catches baby and/or cuts cord? (We both agree that no one but the medical staff needs to be anywhere near the business end of labor)

• During transition, remind Jill she'll get margaritas soon (This is my favorite!)

Playing house

We're about to leave for a momentous occasion: presenting ourselves as (soon-to-be) parents for the first time in a quasi-official way. It's the first day of childbirth class! I'm skerred. Will I be the furthest along in my pregnancy, causing all the first-trimester moms to judge me for putting off the class for so long? Will I be the only one who definitely wants an epidural? Will my maternity outfit be too boring? Will I be the only one old enough to have read the Ramona books as they were published (the later ones, anyway)?


Whatever. The hospital where the classes are held in within walking distance of my favorite cupcake bakery. I'll get to stop by to either eat my feelings or celebrate getting through the tedium. Probably I'll be dreadfully bored, because I've now read at least seven pregnancy books and have read everything they're going to teach us.

comida of errors

I'm back from six days in Albuquerque, and am most proud of what I managed to eat in that time:


- 3 breakfast burritos
- 2 dinners of enchiladas (one homemade, one not)
- pepperoni & green chile pizza
- a pile of green chile brisket
- 1 green chile burger
- 1 frito pie smothered in green chile
- 2 sopapillas
- and one taco party!


We returned with 20 pounds of roasted green chile. Tonight, Ben made a pork and chile stew with it, which has left my mouth burning and the baby, who will be called "Rolo" or "Rolette" until we come up with a real name, doing backflips. This kid better love chile. I know she's going to love Rolos.

Things that comfort me

(or, things that make me feel like maybe the world isn’t going to hell in a handbasket)


- Thing #1: Driving at night past a municipal sports field and seeing a neighborhood softball league game or practice in progress beneath the unearthly glow of stadium lights


-Why: The sight of an otherwise unaffiliated group of grown-ups (so, not a school or pro team) gathered together voluntarily to play a game that will have no bearing on anyone else in the world, combined with the knowledge that the bright, artificial lights illuminating a well-manicured field are kept on at the will and shared commitment of the people (i.e., taxes), are, to me, what living in a society is all about. Even if some of us are lazy slobs on our way home to eat chocolate chips out of the bag as we write a blog, who would be mortified to have to play softball.


- Thing #2: That rare occasion when two cars are approaching each other at an intersection with no traffic signal and simultaneously, in perfect synchrony, both turn left at the same speed. It’s even better when a really cool song is on the radio like “Kyrie Eleison” by Mister Mister or the crescendo of a power ballad that swells just as you both sail off into the night, a smoothly executed maneuver like a Russian figure skating pair doing perfect side-by-side double axels. 


- Why: I don’t know why. It’s the antithesis of road rage, the “every man for himself” nature of a 4-way stop, or some jerk in a BMW (isn’t it always?) who weaves in and out on the freeway and refuses to let you into the right lane even though you just want to get over so he can pass you. It’s like: we don’t need traffic laws or the presence of cops with radar guns to drive safely! We’re civilized people who can negotiate the road using our own grace and common sense. Our turns complement each other as we both glide along down the road that we must travel (through the darkness of the ni-igh-igh-ight).


I realize that I sound like I’m on painkillers, and I’m not, so I’m going to stop now.

my new role model

www.scarymommy.com


Not really, but I did just discover this blog, and it seems pretty awesome! I know what I'll be doing for the next few days. (Reading past entries and hating myself for abandoning Super Fit Mama, then becoming too insecure to write my own blog.)

What I hate about the internet, part I

The internet can be a force for good. For example, today I set myself four goals: do the thirty-minute circuit from “Super Fit Mama” (my latest attempt to avoid becoming a complete sloth), have no more than 50 percent of my diet come from sucrose, decide which child seat(s) to order, and start the process of getting little Julia on a wait list for day care. This last goal was easily accomplished, thanks to the internet: I learned all about the university’s day care centers, how much they cost, and even that there are “lactation rooms” complete with hospital grade breast pumps scattered throughout campus! I guess I’ll be carrying a cooler around along with my laptop. Great.

And, amazingly, I was able to resist the siren song of my backlog of sewing projects and new Parent Trap DVD enough to do the entire circuit. I made sure to close the blinds first, lest the construction crew across the street think that my pelvic thrusts in their direction were some sort of invitation. (If you could see me, I make quite a sight doing this workout, especially since I refuse to buy maternity workout clothes, so there is now a ten-inch protrusion of bare skin between my waistband and sports top.)

But when it came time to make a decision about the carseats, I found myself caught in a vortex that spiraled down from mild indecision, to increasing confusion with dangerous hints of questioning my suitability for parenthood, to utter panic and despair accompanied by heart palpitations. 

That vortex is known as “online reviews” at Amazon.com, which then leads one to the even more terrifying and dangerous world of forums and message boards, from carseatblog.com to a site for Subaru Legacy owners that includes multiple conversations on which carseats work best with the Legacy. And I thought I was a dork. There’s a whole subculture of guys who think the Legacy (granted, the turbo version with a spoiler) is the hottest thing on four alloy tires.

[Skip this part if you are not interested in the details of my carseat dilemma--so, if you’re not a parent. Or if you are NOT suffering from severe insomnia, or are not a masochist. You know, there is absolutely no reason anyone should read this. I’m just writing it for myself.] You see, we get a free carseat from Ben’s employer (which we refer to as “Sabre” when we wish to keep its identity anonymous, as I shall do here since it’s inevitable that I’m going to want to slander it sooner or later), and can choose anything made by Britax, a fairly expensive brand. If we’re going to get a $350 carseat for free, I want to make the most of it, so I want to get a convertible seat that will last until the kid is 70 pounds--so, if she’s anything like me, until senior year. Then, we’ll still need an infant seat, and there's only one seat on the market compatible with the fancy-schmancy stroller that my sister is handing down to us. So you’d think would make this an easy decision: buy the cheap Graco seat for the stroller, and the best Britax seat to use for the years beyond. Easy!

Oh, ho, how foolish you would be to think that. An easy decision? For me? Me, who won’t go out for a scoop of gelato without poring over all the Yelp reviews of all nearby gelaterias? No, I must do my research, in my quest to make the perfect decision that I will never regret. There are 300 Amazon reviews alone for ONE model I am considering, many of them paragraphs long and written by engineers who go into the physics of why the Marathon 70’s headwings are superior to those of the Advocate’s, or whether the side-cushion technology of the latest Boulevard will protect your baby’s head in a crash or wrench it from its socket, even explaining why Consumer Reports can’t be trusted because of how they’ve revamped their testing procedures. Then there are the reviewers like “Braeden’s Mommie!!!” who get on to write a typo-ridden rant about how a piece of the headrest broke off for no reason, and it turned out to be made of styrofoam, or that the chest clip broke and nearly punctured poor Kaighleigh’s lung. Some babies fall asleep instantly in the seat, they love it so; others shriek in pain during every car trip, causing their parents to rue the day they ever chose this despicable seat. Whom do I trust? Even the Graco seat (which isn't really a choice--we have to get it if we don't want to buy a new stroller) has rave reviews and claims that its straps are impossible to adjust. Judging from these reviews, a trip of any distance with a baby needs to be engineered more carefully than a space shuttle launch. Yes, we are going to have our seat installed by the certified carseat technician at our Subaru dealership, but even then, how will we ever move the seat from one car to another? Will I have to personally drive my child everywhere she ever goes until she’s big enough for a booster seat?

Turns out there are a million little sub-decisions that must be made before you can make the big decision of which seat to buy: convertible or not? Will you use it with a stroller? Move it between cars? Take it on a plane? Use it front- or rear-facing? Will the harness be too high for your baby (whose size you can't predict)? Who will be sitting in the passenger seat, since they may not be able to recline? And then which fabric do you want? Dark, to cover stains, or light, so it doesn’t absorb heat and burn your baby in the summer? 

I decided to take a break from this madness and make an easier decision: which baby carrier (like, an Ergo or Baby Bjorn, etc.) to buy. Even THAT led me down the primrose path to review-scouring. There were reviews by women who bought ten different carriers (seriously) before they found one that would work for them. That’s like $1000! How will I ever deciiiiiiiiiiiide?! 

I took a deep breath, and---okay, I ate five squares of Swiss milk chocolate and a bowl of Cocoa Krispies, and went on to surf from Gawker to The Nation to reviews of books I’ve recently read to see if the critics agreed with me (another shameful pasttime of mine). Hours later, I did have a potential epiphany: Somehow, whether in an Ergo or a Pikkolo Catbird wrap or a Moby sling, I will be carrying my baby around in three months. I’ll use my bare arms if I have to! 

And somehow, we will transport this baby to visit her cousins and aunts and uncles and, eventually, her little friends (whose parents' profiles I will meticulously research online beforehand). No! That is not who I want to be! That was the whole point of this post: we have access to too much information. At some point, it stops being useful and becomes a hindrance--to authentic life, to being in the moment, all that mumbo-jumbo. (Namaste.) From a practical standpoint, this glut of opinion steals from us; it steals time, energy, and trust in our own instincts. It makes us see ourselves as nothing more than consumers, and it perpetuates the false belief that we can create our own happiness by choosing the right products. When the truth is, if our carseat turns out to be a pain in the ass, so what? We already live with many pains in our asses, but we're fortunate that they are only figurative, and not, you know, colorectal cancer. My world will not turn on whether I can get the baby into the car in three seconds versus three minutes.

I’ve always had a terrible time making decisions. I tend to think that if I just do enough research, think logically, and seek enough input from others, I can determine precisely the right choice, and thus control the outcome. But maybe there isn’t always a right choice, with baby carriers or the many more important decisions that we’ll have to make in the coming years (when I’ll look back and laugh at myself for giving it this much thought). Maybe Julia/Maeve/Gracie will be better off if I spend hours each day doing something besides learning what 398 people thought of her carseat. Like eating a danged vegetable once in a while.

baby's first manic sugar fit

Today was my glucose challenge test for gestational diabetes. I had to fast overnight and then drink a bottle of icky, dextrose-laden "fruit punch" before getting my blood drawn. When I got home, I flopped down to watch some Good Morning America, and the baby was kicking like she's never kicked before. She was going crazy in there, flipping around every which way, fluttering her feet, doing kick-ball-changes or the Charleston. I could actually see my belly rippling. I then fell asleep for 2 1/2 hours.


Wonder how much sugar was actually in that stuff?!


Anyway, in case I do end up diagnosed with the 'betes, I'm living it up now with some brownies and iced coffee. Probably not the best snack after having more sugar than anyone needs in a day, but what the hell. I'm dutifully avoiding soft cheeses, runny eggs, lunch meat, soft serve, alcohol, sleeping on my back, cleaning products, standing in front of the microwave, drinking from plastic cups, and teeth whitening toothpaste. A girl's gotta have some pleasure in life!

What a maroon!

Sorry for the current ugliness of the blog. I followed Blogger's suggestion to switch to the new template, believing its promise that I could easily switch back to my old design, and now I can't figure out how to! Nor can I figure out how to get rid of the dumb highlighting behind the text of my last entry. Maybe I should type out my blog on my Royal typewriter and make mimeographed copies to send to interested friends using the Pony Express. Geez.

Look what I found!

After years of searching the children's section of countless used bookstores, I've finally gotten a copy of one of my most beloved childhood books! Powell's has a feature where you can sign up to be notified if a used (even out-of-print, like this one is) book ever becomes available. As I've written about before, the image of a sand-colored round cookie has haunted me for the past twenty or so years, and with the help of some faithful readers, I was able to remember the title. With shipping, it cost about $10--so, about a 1000 percent inflation from its original price--but once I opened up the pages, the feelings of nostalgia evoked were well worth it.

Isn't it just. Seeing this round, crumbly-looking cookie goes a long way toward explaining my lifelong obsession with cookies. Sometimes I lie in bed and dream about these butter cookies that my grandma would give us. They came in blue tins decorated with little Dutch girls, which I used to make tin can stilts (the cans, not the girls) inspired by Ramona Quimby. But they were shell-shaped, and too buttery to match up to how I imagined the cookie in the book would taste. I'm also on an eternal quest to find these tiny Japanese cookies that I think were called "hitokuchi", which were the size and shape of Japanese coins, with holes in the middle, and tasted like coconut.

Gah, this image kills me! I can feel the lazy afternoon, the boredom mixed with mild contentment of lying curled in a laundry basket (we didn't have any metal tubes like this in our neighborhood, sadly, and if we did, they would've been rusted and scrawled with "Honeygirl wuz hea") while Neil Diamond's "Song Sung Blue" plays on the record player, eating some sweet or other and contemplating whether to play with my Little People or make a miniature golf course out of toilet paper tubes.


And finally, here's one for my friend and soul sister in book lust (you know who you are):

Off I go to craft a papoose board and bunting so I can recreate this image in a few months! Just kidding.

The Wisdom of Crowds?

Ben’s been bugging me to write more charming anecdotes about him, and I have to admit, there have been several gems lately, most involving practical jokes at my expense or goofy jokes about the baby. But unfortunately, as I have proven to be prone to every stereotypical pregnancy symptom from insomnia to inexplicable weepiness to an obsession with sewing useless-but-cute baby crafts, my “pregnancy brain” has forgotten most of them. 

It’s embarrassing, but I now see everything through the lens of impending parenthood. Where I used to smile goofily at babies in the checkout line, now I ogle the stroller or Ergo carrier housing them, wonder if they’re wearing cloth or disposable diapers, and covertly notice when the mother is buying a bunch of wine. I’m also paying attention to parenting practices, and have made some vows that will probably prove to be foolish in the months ahead, like A) We will spend a night away from the baby by the time she’s one year old, and B) we will have dinner at a grown-up restaurant at least once a month. By the way, who wants to babysit? 

One thing I’m on the fence about is whether I’m cut out for taking family trips to events like Zoo Tunes, a series of outdoor concerts at our lovely neighborhood zoo, or any of the music/cultural festivals that Seattleites seem to love so much. We went to a Zoo Tunes concert recently to see The Be Good Tanyas and Carolina Chocolate Drops, and while the music was great, and I loved the fact that we could walk a few blocks, pick up pastrami sandwiches at Dot’s Deli (Hey, how about “Dot”?), and stroll into the concert without using the car, I think Ben and I might be too meek to navigate such events on our own, let alone with a baby and its gear in tow. 

The scene: Ben and I on our folding, low-profile camp chairs (cheap knock-offs of the Crazy Creeks everyone had in college), taking up about six square feet of grass, trying to balance our Mexican sodas between our knees while everyone else had spread out king-sized bedspreads to mark their space after nearly crushing our sandwiches with their BOB jogging strollers and wheeled coolers full of quinoa salad. With every passing Be Good Tanyas song--which we couldn’t hear because apparently people go to these concerts to run into their neighbors and swap tips on vaccine avoidance (okay, now I’m just projecting), not to listen to the music--our space shrank inch by inch, as more and more people arrived to join the groups on the bedspreads. Soon, we were completely hemmed in by people passing around tubs of hummus, bunches of uncut broccoli, jugs of echinacea-infused lemonade--and that was just the group of twenty-somethings next to us! At one point, a six-foot tall man’s barefoot leg was so close to my own that I could feel the breeze ruffling his blond leg hair as it glinted in the sun.

As I moved my chair over in one-inch increments, only to be followed by the hairy leg as it stretched itself out in the grass, Ben became more and more amused by my rising ire, which I expressed in eyerolls and tiny sighs (carefully hidden from the encroaching hippies--or were they yuppies? It’s so hard to label people these days), until he finally leaned over and whispered:

“Neville Chamberlain made the same mistake, you know.”

“Huh?” (I couldn’t hear him over the sound of everyone crowing to each other, “I love the Be Good Tanyas!” as they proceeded to drown out their entire set.)

“When Hitler invaded. Chamberlain just kept on retreating until it was too late.”

So true, Ben, so true. In the game of life, we are the Neville Chamberlains, even the Neville Longbottoms. While sometimes I think I need assertiveness training--or, failing that, to avoid situations where my passive-aggressive nature will not be tested--I’d rather be a Neville than an obnoxious, space-hogging, junk food-unappreciating stroller conquistador. We are the meek, we shall carry our baby like a kangaroo in large crowds, and we shall revel in our Neville-ness. We shall also spend our nights at home listening to the Be Good Tanyas on the stereo, if anyone wants to join us. I promise not to serve quinoa salad.

Neatest Penmanship Award

While trying to decipher some of my recent journal entries, I started to wonder, "Is this Mom handwriting?" My mom, both my grandmas, and even my dad, all had/have perfectly even, symmetrical, flowy cursive handwriting, the kind that doesn't vary from one word to the next, so that any corn chowder recipe card or one sentence note is immediately recognizable. (As if the Post-Its that accompany my dad's mailed checks--"Here's a little spending money. Go out for a Mexican dinner with margaritas"--wouldn't be recognizable even if glued in cut-out ransom note letters. Thanks, Dad. I’ll be very popular at the bar with this $500!)

It’s yesterday’s news that cursive is a dying art, but as a member of Generation X whose elementary school devoted more time to cursive than to geography (hence my long-held belief that “New England” included all the original 13 colonies), I have no excuse for the way my handwriting has devolved steadily from its pinnacle around senior year of high school, when I exhaustively outlined my AP History textbook from beginning to end and kept the notes organized in my meticulous Al Gore binder. Even today, one half of my grocery list might look like it was penned by a completely different person than the second half, indicating that my identity is even more inchoate (less choate?) than it was in the days when I experimented with imitating the penmanship of every Baby-Sitters Club character. Except for overly flourishy Jessi and boring Mary Anne. 

What I’m trying to say is, HOW THE BLEEP AM I GOING TO BE A MOTHER? Even seeing the word “mother” in this context (me) is weirding me out. I could barely contain a giggle fit a few weeks ago when the ultrasound tech squirted the gel onto my stomach and the bottle made a farting noise. Maybe my inability to form letters like a grown-up is just a symbol of a much deeper immaturity that will put our daughter (eek, the weirdness!) at a great disadvantage next to the children of professionals who lease cars, have investments, and bid on items at silent auctions. 

Let’s examine this rationally. Virtually none of our friends here have children. My close friends from college and high school are just starting to have babies now, too, but that’s because they’ve been busy establishing impressive careers. So it makes sense that Ben and I are in utterly alien territory; while many of our unknown peers are well into (or beyond) the world of car seats and parties that end at bedtime, our social circles have continued to revolve around finding the cheapest happy hours, watching six-hour marathons of Deadwood and The Wire, and Sunday afternoons playing bocce and drinking wine from sports bottles. It’s like we’ve been in grad school for the past seven years (which we kind of have). 

But then I think of something my mother said to me years ago, when I was still in college and she’d just had several serious health scares. One day, perhaps on a drive to Long’s Drugs, she mused that all her life, she had been living and thinking as if she hadn’t started her “real life” yet, and maybe it was time to reconsider this approach to life. This shocked me because of how similar it was to feelings that had dogged me ever since I’d realized the dreams of my adolescence (ending homelessness AND being a doctor AND an influential journalist AND a famous tap dancer) were not to be realized. And here she was, fifty years old, still feeling this way?

Looking back on this now as I start to dream about what kind of relationship I hope to have with my daughter, I admire the humility and candor that allowed my mother to share this with me, her selfish and moody mooch of a daughter, and the fact that she has never lost this childlike spirit, however grown-up her handwriting (and permed hair, and Rockport shoes) seemed when I would wish for a younger mom. I’ll try to remember this when I’m feeling anxious about being an Old Mom--that it’s never too late to change. Maybe I’ll add some daily handwriting practice to my schedule.