A Big Day (And It's Not Even Noon)

Last night, Dr. Husband and I had the following exchange as he removed a bag of Sara Lee bread crusts from the freezer so he can make stuffing (and a roast chicken!) tonight for dinner (I know—a Jewish doctor who cooks!):

Dr. Husband: Nobody does it like Sara Lee.

Me: You know, when I was growing up, I always wondered whether it was “Nobody does it like Sara Lee” or “Nobody doesn’t like Sara Lee.”

Dr. Husband, in a tone that says, obviously, people: It’s “Nobody does it like.”

Me: Yeah, well. I thought the double negative was weird, but whatever.

Dr. Husband: Silly.

Me: I was twelve.

*

Today has been slightly more exciting. I took the baby to meet a friend for coffee, and first Dan Savage told me he loved my baby.

Then the guy who started The Onion told me my baby was cute and gave me a recommendation on a daycare center.

Then—and this is the best part—as I was stopped at a red light on the way home a Sara Lee truck drove by. The side of it read: “Nobody Doesn’t Like Sara Lee.”

Mental Hygiene, II

There is no sweeter sound in the world than the kind, gentle cooing of a babysitter keeping your infant happy and warm and fed and dry and safe and silent.

Mental Hygeine

I used to be an interesting person, I swear. Oh, not tremendously interesting, not, like, Michelle Obama-interesting or Charlie Kaufman-interesting or the-guy-who-invented-spray-cheese-interesting, but I thought about stuff. I had things to say about the stuff I thought about. One year I even took some filmmaking classes and made a movie about stuff I was thinking about—namely, how weird straight men are around each other—a movie that gay people in Miami at least seemed to like.

But now, well. I feel tapped out. Dried up. All done. Anyone bored enough to spy on my Google search history would discover that I spend all my mental energy seeking out things like “Fisher-Price bouncy seat replacement toys” and “full-figured nursing bras” and “tips for taking infants to the movies.”

In my darker moments I’m tempted to believe that I’m not worthy of pursuing anything bigger or broader than this—my new tiny circle of babycare.

Last night Dr. Husband and I had a fight in which I bemoaned the fact that the baby would be due for a nap right before her bedtime, thereby fucking up her bedtime. Dr. Husband suggested that we could just try to keep her awake longer, and because I’d spent my precious reading-while-nursing time reading Unhealthy Sleep Habits = Unhealthy Devil Children (or somesuch) I was all, “No! That’s the equivalent of depriving her of food, you evil man!” and he was all, “I’m sorry, but I do not spend all day being aware of her sleep needs, what with intubating people and having to yell 'Clear!' all day at work.”

Okay, I’m paraphrasing slightly.

His point was that it takes actual mental energy to keep track of all this baby jazz, and I’m the parent appointed with said keeping track. (He is the parent appointed with making as much money in one day as I will make teaching a six-week creative writing class.)

And I realized—well, I realized I need to get out more or I will become one of those moms who funnels all her creative energies into planning birthday parties for her children and becomes bitter and resentful when her children fail to thank her. Even though they’re not yet verbal.

I want to be a good mom. And I want to create things other than my child (adorable and compelling though she is) and marital strife with Dr. Husband (lively and compelling though that is, too).

I don't feel anywhere close to being able to make another movie, but maybe I could make an essay or two? Or some art out of Triscuits and spray-cheese?

Trial Run

Dr. Husband and I took the baby to her first movie today. We both really wanted to see Up in the Air with George Clooney but realized we’d be better off going to a movie we didn’t want to see, what with the baby’s propensity for fussing, crying, cooing, giggling, and otherwise not being a silent moviegoer. So we took in a 10 a.m. showing of When in Rome, which A.O. Scott summed up for us beforehand: “Its failure to produce anything much in the way of worthwhile complication is not the only problem with this frantic and dispiriting movie.”

Perfect! Neither of us has gotten nearly a good enough night’s sleep to handle much complication, especially if it’s worthwhile!

I got pretty nervous during the “Please don’t spoil the movie by adding your own soundtrack/Silence is golden” PSA, which, as you may recall, includes a baby crying in Dolby stereo, but in the end my child was an angel. The type of angel who poops all over every item of clothing on her body before a movie and screams inconsolably all the way home after it, but still an angel.

And, yes, the movie was bad, but not all that frantic or dispiriting—which was good because Dr. Husband and I both managed to see every single minute of it, uninterrupted by our child.

Sundance, here we come!

NFW

Things went much better with the baby and the sitter today. It turns out my child was frantically overtired last time—a situation only solvable by strapping her to her mother’s body and staying in constant motion for the duration of an acceptable-length nap or until my back can no longer take it—whichever comes first. (The latter always comes first.)

I spent most of my three precious hours staring at the wall wondering what the hell I was supposed to do with myself during this time I was paying someone else to watch my child nap (because of course she naps for the sitter—babies always nap for the sitter.).

Write?

Sentences?

Paragraphs!?

Interesting ones?!?!

You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.

Please Join Me

I’m not much of a joiner. Oh, I’ll take a class once a decade or so, but in general I prefer the comforts of loneliness to the discomforts of small talk and role playing and having my torso and face break out in red blotches while everyone stares at me as I’m forced to introduce myself and name my favorite animal.

The idea of signing up with the local nonprofit that matches new Seattle parents with other people in town with babies the same age as theirs filled me full of dread—especially when I learned there would be singing.

It turns out, though, that stay-at-home-and-try-to-write-a-teeny-bit motherhood is boring. And lonely—lonely in a way that’s starting to make small talk and publicly naming my favorite animal sound appealing. So when the 400th person told me I had to sign up, I did, despite my reservations about the singing and the facilitated conversations about such scintillating topics as feeding, clothing, washing, and trimming the fingernails of my family’s newest member. I was in it for the camaraderie of other stay-mostly-at-home moms. And the Perrier.

I attended my first meeting today and had only two social anxiety attacks—the first when I realized that despite the fact people having been telling me I “look great” for having just had a baby, there are moms out there (moms in my group!) who look considerably “greater” than I do. It should be illegal for new moms to wear jeans smaller than a size 10 around other new moms! Honestly! The nerve!

My second attack of mild tearfulness (and, no, I’m not exaggerating) occurred when the other moms talked about their schedules. They have schedules! They have husbands who work consistent, predicable hours and are home at consistent, predictable times! Their husbands can “do” the 7pm feeding because their husbands are always home by 7. Hell—they have a 7pm feeding! What’s up with that? I thought you were supposed to feed two-month-olds when they’re hungry. How do they get their babies to be hungry every night at 7?

Let it be resolved that I am going to impose structure on the baby’s and my life. Dr. Husband can negotiate his life around ours as his crazy “sometimes I work from 6am to 3pm-ish, sometimes I work from 11am to 8pm-ish, sometimes I work from 1pm to 10pm-ish, sometimes I work from 11pm to 6am-ish” work schedule allows.

On the bright side, at least my baby wasn’t the one that shat all over the hostess’s wool couch.

Putting the "Fun" in "Neurotic"

I taught my first class since having the baby yesterday. Okay, technically it was my second class, but the first was a volunteer class to drum up business for this actual class I’m teaching for the next six weeks, so this is the first one that counts. I’d forgotten how nervous I get in front of other people, particularly when I’m out of practice. Hell, I’m out of practice leaving the house, much less imparting wisdom about creative writing to a roomful of creative writers.

I’d forgotten, too, how much more neurotic I am about pretty much everything besides being a mom (and all it takes to thrust me into those particular throes of neurosis is to pick up a book on parenting—so I suppose I shouldn’t be blowing that particular horn after all). I once knew a lady who was so neurotic. How neurotic was she? She was so neurotic that when after teaching her first creative writing class after having a baby, two students came up to her and told her they’d had fun, she nearly burst into tears.

Fun?

Real classes aren’t fun.

Real classes are challenging and engaging and gripping and mind-blowing. “Fun” is for amusement parks and trips to the ice cream parlor and late night dance parties.

Next thing you know they’re going to be telling me that I’m an adequate teacher with average ideas who gives mundane but functional assignments.

Fun, my ass.

Next week I’m taking away their bathroom break.

Fun.

Hmfph.

New Adventures in Motherhood

As I sit here writing this, a very sweet, very capable babysitter is hanging out downstairs with my fussy offspring, while I ostensibly get some work done. The baby keeps crying every five minutes, and I am trying desperately not to intervene. All those years of babysitting never taught me how hard it was to leave your own kid--even to leave them for the other room for ten or twenty minutes. "Oh, we'll be fine," I reassured countless parents as I shooed them out the door. And we were always fine--but not always without some fussiness here or there. And I was never privy to the agony of all those moms driving away in all those cars practically in tears themselves. Or maybe I'm just a hopeless sap.

But my baby is so small and so young and so MINE--I still cannot stand to hear her cry and not at least try to soothe her.

Next time the babysitter comes, it would be smart of me to leave the house so I don't hear the inevitable fussing, but I'm just not there yet. Maybe next week. Or next month. Or when the baby is two.

Wacky Parenting Interaction #19

The setting: The café up the street from our house which the baby and I use as a latte-providing destination to motivate us to go for walks in the cold Seattle winter rain—though today it was gloriously sunny and too warm for a coat.

The characters: Me, my two-month-old daughter, and a hippieish man in his sixties with scraggly facial hair and a slightly wild glint in his eye.

Hippie man: Oh, wow. A baby. Are you nursing?

Me [crossing my hands in front of my chest while giving him the finger]: Am I nursing? Are you seriously asking me that? What the fuck business is it of yours?

Me [in reality]: Uh—yeah.

Hippie Man [Giving the double thumbs-up, a la The Fonz]: Right on. There’s no point in having a baby if you’re not going to…

Me [Trying to cut him off by wheeling the stroller past him and towards the door]: Uh, huh.

Hippie Man: That’s great, that’s great. He’ll be immune to everything.

Me: Um. I hope so.

Hippie Man: No really, he will! That’s how it works!

Me: Go back to the sixties and leave the world’s mothers alone!

Me [in reality, hustling us out the door]: --- .

Mother and Child Reunion

You know how in every crowd there’s one mom—at least!—who acts all sanctimonious about her parenting choices, making everyone else feel crappy and angry and irritated?

Well, today Dr. Husband and the baby and I attended a reunion of our Lamaze Class From Hell and the worst person in the room was the facilitator who was as nightmarish as she was originally, twisting every epidural into a “medical intervention” that ideally would have been avoided.

When it came my turn in the circle to tell my “birth story” (when did this become a thing, by the way? Did 19th century moms have birth stories? Well, the mister boiled some water and I screamed and pushed real hard and didn’t die and here we are…) I delighted in announcing that I lasted all of an hour without an epidural, getting one as soon as the nurse answered my question of, “Well, how much worse are these contractions going to get?” with, “Oh, honey. So much worse.”

I didn’t want to feel like a failure for getting an epidural—it was pretty much always plan “A” for me.

Lamaze Lady made herself feel better by summarizing our collective birth stories with, “Well, it sounds like all five of you had really hard labors and used epidurals only when necessary.”

I wanted to shout out, “Not me! Not me! I got an epidural long before I needed one!” but managed instead to just exchange a meaningful glance with Dr. Husband.

When Lamaze Lady left I thought the judgmentalism part of the event was done—but then the mom hosting the event brought up one of those dangling toy “gyms” for another mom’s baby to play with while the grownups ate cookies. I remarked how nice it was that the gym was made entirely of fabric rather than a bunch of made-in-China plastic. The hostess casually mentioned that they try to avoid plastic whenever possible. “Oh, us too!” I cheered, thinking nothing of it.

Well. As one of the other moms was getting her baby situated in her carseat for the ride home, she pointed to some toys dangling from the handle of the carrier and said that, like my child, her baby hated traveling in the car, too—until she’d attached toys for her to play with. I nodded and smiled and started to say, “Good idea—I should totally get some—” When she added, “They are plastic and they are made in China.”

I was so startled that I stupidly—stooo-pid-leee—said, “Oh, that’s okay, it’s not like she can put them in her mouth.”

And then the baby grabbed the cute plastic made-in-China dragonfly hanging in the middle and mouthed the hell out of that thing.

Yes, today I was that mom.

Inappropriate Utensils

As these things go, my baby is pretty easy. She has known the difference between night and day from the outset, only getting up to eat a few times in the night, and she’s generally pretty chill during the day—as long as she’s being held and as long as I’m not trying to eat—which, for some mysterious reason, she cannot abide by. (Doesn’t she know that her food source requires food to work properly?)

All that said, she is still a newborn, and as such is exhausting.

And sometimes that exhaustion leads her parents to behave like children. Take, for instance, the following exchange her father and I had this morning:

Me [still waking up and holding the baby in one arm while stirring oatmeal flakes and water in a pan, as I have become expert at doing one-handed in the past eight weeks of my child’s life]: ---.

Dr. Husband: I’ll take the baby.

Me: That’s okay.

Dr. Husband: I’ll take her. That’s dangerous.

Me: We’re fine.

Dr. Husband: Give her to me. That’s not safe.

Me: ! [Followed by storming out of the kitchen.]

Dr. Husband: Oh, give me a break.

Me: !

Dr. Husband [calling after me as I head upstairs, oatmeal-less]: You obviously need to eat! Do you want a spoon or a fork?

Me: --- .

*

Like I said, I was behaving like a total child. But, more importantly, who eats oatmeal with a fork?

Wish I May

The other night, sometime around 3am, or perhaps 2:00 or 4:00, I asked myself: If I could have anything in the world right now, what would it be? Why I felt compelled to play magic genie with myself I have no idea, other than the fact that I’ve grown wary (and weary!) of logging onto the New York Times website and reading about horrible things happening in the world in the middle of the night and I’ve exhausted Hulu's repertoire of Modern Family and Community and Glee, so I’m pretty much left with my own sleepy mind for entertainment.

ANYway, I asked myself what I would wish for if a genie emerged from a lantern (or, more likely (if "likely" is the right word, which it is not) a breast pump), and the answer came hard and fast: A weekend by myself in a nice hotel with nothing to do but sleep under a duvet and eat round-the-clock breakfast from room service.

Sure, I would miss my little bundle of joy during the five or ten minutes I was awake and stuffing pancakes into my mouth, and, yes, I would have to pump to keep up my milk supply, and, sure, my wee one would probably miss me and wonder why I left her alone with the parent with the scratchy face for so long, but, oh, that duvet—so soft and fluffy and warm and cozy and delicious. And, oh, those pancakes—so soft and fluffy and warm and cozy and delicious, too.

Friend of the Year

I had coffee this afternoon with a (childless) friend and discovered that I’ve hit the point of new parenthood when I no longer have anything interesting to say.

Oh, I could go on about how adorable my baby is when she makes this one particular noise or how her pouty face is cuter than any other pouty face in the world—but I vowed NEVER TO BE THAT KIND OF PARENT, so I’m left with nothing.

Pretty much unless you want to discuss strategies for interviewing babysitters or getting a two-month-old to sleep when she’s not lying on someone’s chest or removing mustardy breast-fed-baby poo stains from onesies without resorting to bleach (or is bleach perfectly fine? I don’t know because it’s too boring to ask other people about!), I won’t be a good conversationalist.

Oh, I try. I ask my friend about her job and her new boyfriend, but my queries are clunky at best. So, how’s the job going? And: Are things still good with the new boyfriend? Follow-up questions are beyond me, not because I don’t care but because I cannot think of what to ask next. Or sometimes because my baby just pooed and I can feel it leaking through her diaper onto my t-shirt because, did you know? Newborn baby poo is the consistency (and color!) of butternut squash soup! Isn’t that interesting? No! Of course not! Never mind!

I try to keep up with current events. I read the newspaper—but I do it in online the middle of the night during feedings, so by morning my recall is spotty at best. Bombing? An airplane? In his underwear?

Truth be told, I’m quite proud of myself for remembering that my friend has a job and a boyfriend. And, hey, I usually even remember the boyfriend's name, which, considering that I forgot my own age the other day, is really just completely fucking incredible. I should get a medal or something.

Ready or Not

The holidays are over, my parents and brother have left town, my husband has finished cramming nearly a month’s worth of shifts at the hospital into one week, and my formerly consolable offspring has returned to her consolable self, her fussiness having peaked at 6 weeks, just as the books say it will.

Life is good, and, hey, it isn’t even raining outside.

2010, here we come!

The Other Foot

Get this: my mom and dad caught wind of Dr. Husband’s mom’s plans to buy a house here (and by “caught wind of” I mean “I told them”), and now they, too, want to move to Seattle. My dad is particularly eager, scouring the web for real estate and saying terrifyingly things like, “Your mom won’t be ready to make a move for five years or so, but I think the time to buy is now!”

“They do know my mom is thinking of being here just some of the time, right?” Dr. Husband asked nervously, pouring himself another spot of the rye whiskey he bought special for the holidays.

In response I raised my eyebrows into a look that said—or endeavored to say—See how it feels now, buster! punctuated by a Miss-Piggy-style karate-chop noise: Hi-ya!

Sweet Silence

In an effort to prevent any major emotional meltdowns during their weeklong visit, I have insisted that my parents retire to a hotel for the post-Christmas part of their stay. This is new for me, this insistence stuff.

So far it’s going pretty well.

Oh, sure, they ate prepackaged cheese crackers with peanut butter for dinner in their hotel room last night before going to bed at 6:30, but I don’t care! Or, more accurately: I won’t let it get to me! Or, more accurately still: I’m confident I can work out my ambivalent feelings in therapy in the not-too-distant future!

Ah, progress.

So Tender and Mild

As far back as I can remember, I’ve wanted a baby for Christmas. This year—my 35th on the planet—I finally got one.

I could not be happier.

I am, in fact, so full of love for her and Dr. Husband that I almost can’t stand it. My cup seriously runneth over—and I haven't even started hitting the sauce.

Halle-fucking-lujah

My family arrives this afternoon, and my head is splitting open into the first migraine I’ve had since getting pregnant last February. Coincidence? I think not.

Because apparently neither of us has a great sense of timing, Dr. Husband and I thought that this morning—just hours before the onslaught of my family—would be a good time to discuss his mom’s desire to buy a vacation home down the street. By some stroke of luck (another Christmas miracle?!), we had our most productive conversation on the topic to date. Yes, Dr. Husband finally said those magic words: I don’t expect you to be best friends with my mom.

He conceded that what the two of us need is a functional relationship, not one in which we stay up all night together giggling while we French braid ribbons into each others’ hair.

“Functional” I can work with, people!

Be of Good Cheer

Today is the winter solstice, which I believe means tonight will be the longest night of the year which means I might have to take my own life today because LAST NIGHT was the longest night I’ve had in a long time and it was pretty miserable and I don’t think I can handle a repeat, particularly two days before the arrival of my parents and brother and the full frontal assault of Christmas.

Apparently the gods really didn’t like my hubris—or perhaps my pseudo-Catholic invocation of “miracles” about the baby taking a nap in her crib on Friday. The baby is still fussy, including most of last night.

Granted, Dr. Husband and I are lucky. (You hear that, gods? We’re lucky! I’m grateful! Thank you for this blissfully well-behaved-almost-all-the-time child!) The fact that a bad, sleepless night with our baby stands out from the other nights with our baby is reason enough for some parents of newborns to refuse to speak to us and/or permanently hate us. And though a night of a baby making whiney “eh-eh-eh” noises and then crying if you try to move her off your shoulder or change positions slightly or take a deep breath—well, I’ve babysat enough kids and read enough books and heard enough parenting war stories to know that “eh-eh-eh” noises AREN’T THAT BAD, even if they’re keeping you up all night. She could be, for instance, screaming bloody murder at the top of her lungs all night long or threatening to run away from home and take the family cat with her.

The problem is partly that we expect her to be a decent sleeper. She almost always is, so why would we bother anticipating a night of constant fussing? As loathe as I am to admit it, sometimes Dr. Husband really is right about his happiness/reality/expectations equation. So from here on out, I’m going to assume that my child will never sleep and I will never get to put her down and I will never get to shower again. Because thinking that way is sure to make me feel better.

Good for Goodness' Sake

The baby continued to be a Christmas angel all the way through Dr. Husbands’ workplace holiday party Friday night. She charmed everyone present and did not whine or cry or make even the tiniest peep the entire time—a whole hour-and-a-half!—we were there.

Then, because karma is the bitch that she is, the baby has been fussing non-stop ever since. We told her that Santa will only come if she stops being so difficult, but she just got this look on her face like I can’t believe you’re stooping to idle threats already. I’m only a month old, people. Haven’t you got anything better up your sleeves? And then the real crying began.

My Baby's All Grown Up

Not only did my child nap long enough on the couch this morning for me to do a load of laundry, bake a cake for Dr. Husband’s workplace Holiday Party, and clean the dishes (Martha Stewart, I’ve got your number!), but at this exact moment—2:03 in the afternoon—my child is napping again all by herself—in her crib. As Dr. Husband said, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen her do that before.”

Indeed. It’s a goddamn Christmas miracle.

Welcome to the Nursing Home

So, I’m standing in my kitchen rinsing some stray coffee grounds out of the sink when I catch a whiff of a rather nasty sour milk-type smell. I run the disposal, but the smell is still there. I transfer a used plate from the counter to the dishwasher, but the smell is still there. I stick the sponge in the dishwasher, but the smell is still there. I spy pieces of breast pump lounging in a bowl of water and think, Ah-hah! Of course! I wash them out and drain the bowl and stick it in the dishwasher, but the smell is still there. Fuck it, I think, and carry the baby into the living room—and the smell follows me. And I realize the smell is emanating from me—from my shoulder, specifically, where my darling baby girl spat up earlier this morning whereupon I decided that it wasn’t worth it to put her down—which would wake her up, which would make my chances of getting any work done “zero”—and change shirts—which would mean another load of brights which would be annoying because the last load just finished the rinse cycle, and, no, I can’t just toss the shirt in the laundry basket because, hello! The smell! So I left it on and forgot about it, and, yes, I’ve learned my lesson.

Neighborly

Speaking of parents and boundaries, it turns out Dr. Husband’s mom contacted a local real estate agent after her Thanksgiving visit because she wants to buy a little house up here so she’ll have a place to stay when she comes to town.

Let me repeat that: MY MOTHER-IN-LAW WANTS TO BUY A HOUSE IN MY NEIGHBORHOOD.

Dr. Husband thinks it’s a grand idea. “All that free childcare we'll get! And your parents can stay there when they visit, too!”

Note the use of the future and present rather than subjunctive tense.

It’s already a done deal.

Well.

What can I say?

I’ll have a lot of opportunities to practice setting boundaries, won’t I?

Home for the Holidays

We are practicing setting boundaries these days, me and Dr. Husband. Learning how to set reasonable limits, how to make sure we get enough personal time to keep us from going insane, how to encourage those in our care to play independently from time to time. We are practicing these concepts not on the baby, who is still too young and wobbly to learn such things but on our not-too-young and not-too-wobbly parents and siblings who are suddenly quite interested in visiting us regularly and eating all our snacks.

The therapist I started seeing a few months back, largely in anticipation of the post-partum depression that has not yet descended upon me (fingers crossed! naps taken! depleted vitamin D reserves assisted with supplements!), she suggests taking a hard-line approach to parental visits. Tell them what you need from them, and don’t make it optional, is the gist.

But how do you tell people whose idea of a “visit” is a solid week of staying in your house and never venturing outside that your idea of a “visit” is a weekend of them staying at a hotel and meeting up each day for an afternoon adventure and dinner out? It seems about as possible as a team of flying reindeer carrying a man in a sleigh filled with gifts for all the children in the entire world.

It’s not that I don’t like spending time with my family—I really do—it’s just that I need it to come in small doses, like sun exposure or flourless chocolate cake. When I graduated from college I moved from a campus 1,000 away from my mom and dad to a city three hours away so that each visit wouldn’t be such a big deal. Big Deal visits are sure to disappoint—and to grate on the nerves after an hour or two.

But now I live nearly 2,000 miles away from my parents, and nearly 1,000 away from Dr. Husband’s, and we have just supplied them with their first grandchild, and every single visit is sure to be a Very Big Deal.

How to cope?

Jack Daniels works pretty well, it turns out, but I would have a hard time justifying the consumption of whisky at 9 in the morning without a medical reason and a doctor (husband’s) orders.

The woman I was in a relationship with back when I lived in a city three hours away from my parents’ house—and three hours away from hers—used to refer to the phenomenon of going to visit family and having everyone hang out in the living room all day making chitchat as “having the sit-arounds,” a diagnosis that always makes me think of having the runs or the bends.


Dear Santa,

All I want for Christmas is to not come down with a case of the sit-arounds.

Love,
Me


p.s. Please tell my parents and brother that this gift is not optional.

A Holly Jolly Christmas

I had a total meltdown yesterday—an approximately once-a-week occurrence nowadays. I picked a fight with Dr. Husband because, well, I haven’t had more than two-and-a-half hours of uninterrupted sleep in a month and because, well, he was there.

It was a pretty typical affair for us—I tell him I need something from him, he gets defensive, I tell him I’m not attacking him I’m just clearly stating my needs, he gets more defensive, I get defensive, he says something mean, I say something mean, he tries to take a time-out to calm down, I feel abandoned and chase after him, he gets super mad, I cry super hard, and then he eventually leaves the house or I eventually leave him alone while contemplating how I—and now the baby and I—will make it on our own. I suppose I could pursue that teaching job at the University of Oklahoma and put the baby in daycare… my thinking goes, but I’d still have to deal with him and his parents…Perhaps I could kidnap her? And leave the country? And switch from writing nonfiction to writing novels?

After we both more or less regained our composure, we went out and got a Christmas tree because what says Happy Holidays! like a rage-and-sleep-deprivation-fueled family feud?

After stringing the lights and hanging the ornaments and then discovering that half the light strands had stopped working, my neck began to spasm something fierce. It can’t have helped that for the past month I’ve been wearing a baby in a sling or carrying her during most of the daytime hours combined plus I’ve been sleeping exclusively on my right side so I can keep one hand on the baby all night so she’ll stay asleep plus I’ve developed the bad ergonomic habit of typing with just my right hand every time I nurse plus I’m now lugging around two 20-pound breasts plus I’m spending a lot of time bouncing the baby (and the breasts!) up and down on the birthing ball (which, by the way, went unused in my blissfully medicated labor).

Also, my father-in-law is coming to town today.

On the plus side, the best thing to do for spasming neck muscles is to drink alcohol—Doctor Husband’s orders.

Conveniently, this is the best thing to do for visits from in-laws, too.

The Modern Condition

The baby’s Social Security card arrived in the mail today. Now she seems like an honest to god person. No, it wasn’t the peeing or the pooing or the eating or spitting up or crying or cooing that made her seem real—it was a two-by-three inch piece of blue and white paper that the government sent her in the mail.

She’s supposed to sign it when she joins the workforce. So strange to think of this cute little lump getting her first job and paying her first taxes and experiencing what will hopefully be her first—and only!—inkling of why some people decide to become Republicans.

We All Have Our Beefs

The baby and I attempted to go out to lunch today. Pretty exciting stuff. Leaving the house! In a car! All for the love of a bacon cheeseburger!

Around 11 we started getting ready. I nursed her. She pooped while eating. I changed her diaper. She pooped again, leaking through her clothes. I changed her again. I laid her on the bed so I could get dressed. I put on some pants. The baby started to wail. I picked her up and calmed her. I laid her down. She started to wail. I left her on the bed anyway and put on my shirt. I picked her up. She continued to fuss, so I burped her. She spat up all over her sleeve and my shirt. I changed her outfit. I put her down. I changed my shirt. She, predictably, wailed. I looked at the clock and Holy fucking hell—time to nurse again.

It was 2pm by the time we finally left the house, both of us in clean clothes, one of us fed but screaming nevertheless because she doesn’t like being in her car seat since it doesn’t involve human contact. This is unfortunate when the bacon cheeseburger of her lactating and ravenous mother’s fondest desire can only be found on the other side of the city—a 30 minute car ride away.

It’s also unfortunate that her mother forgot that the burger of her fondest desire can only be paid for with cash.

By the time I lugged the baby in her loathsome car seat into the nearest grocery store to use the ATM and back into the car and to the burger joint, I had pretty much lost my appetite, and my will to live.

I ate 3/4ths of my burger while the baby blessedly slept, and I swooped her out of there the second she cracked an eyelid and realized she was sitting in the wretched car seat.

She screamed so hard on the way home I was convinced she was starving to death and pulled over to nurse her as rush hour traffic whizzed by and I fretted as I went to collect her from the backseat that I would either lock her in the car and myself out or one or both of us would be hit by another vehicle or I would hit her head on some part of the car as I nursed her (the steering wheel seemed a good choice) or some creepy old man would ogle my exposed breast.

In general I consider myself pretty calm for a new parent (others have even commented on this themselves! people who aren't my own mother!), but this tranquility apparently vanishes the moment transportation—or screaming—become involved.

As we resumed our drive home and the baby resumed her screaming, I decided that we won’t try to leave the house in the car again until the baby is 3, which is unfortunate for many reasons, not the least of which is that Christmas is right around the corner and unless I can get out and do a little shopping, all my precious baby will be getting from me is the gift of life—and whatever crap I can find for her on the internet.

Little Tiny Clothes

I went through my old clothes today because, a) I was craving the sense of release that accompanies a trip to the Goodwill donation center and, b) I wanted an excuse to buy more new clothes.

Tucked in among the crewneck t-shirts I cannot wear with my newly magnificent lactating breasts and the pants that are still a bit too small and the sweaters I cannot imagine ever looked good on me was a bra from before I was pregnant. Now, technically, I was still quite, um, magnificent before becoming a breastfeeder, but that little pre-pregnancy bra was so delicate and cute and lacy, it looked like something I might have worn when I was 14—which, incidentally, was before I got my period.

Also: c) I’m apparently a bit of a masochist, as nothing says "recipe for low-self-esteem" than trying on all your old clothes three weeks after giving birth.

The Ladies' Lounge

The baby and I braved a department store today, as I was in desperate need of a pair of pants to fit my current post-partum form and psyche. (“Why don’t you just wear your maternity pants?” Dr. Husband suggested. Why don’t I just wash down a bunch of pills with some vodka and slit my wrists and, for good measure, stick my head in the oven?)

It turns out there’s this whole underworld of moms to be found at 11am on a Tuesday in the Nordstrom women’s bathroom. They have a few chairs and a couch, so it is the place to nurse and, apparently, the place to judge and be judged.

I’d just finished feeding the baby and in the 13 minutes it took me to hook my nursing bra back together she let loose one little cry, probably because she realized, Ack! I just ate lunch in a public bathroom! and this random other nursing mom looks over and says, “Sounds like someone is still hungry!”

Then, as I finished fixing my attire and my baby stared at a nearby light fixture, random nursing mom #3 told random nursing mom #4 she was glad to hear that #3’s baby likes looking at people’s faces because if a baby seems more interested in gazing at objects, like, say, a ceiling fan or, say, a light fixture, than at a person’s face, it’s an early sign of autism.

And then, as I we headed out the door and I tried to convince my fussing baby that riding in her stroller couldn’t be that bad, a random child-free woman waltzed into the bathroom and said, “Looks like someone needs to be fed!”

It looks to this mom like a couple of someones need to mind their own business.

Pretty in Pink

The past few weeks I’d been worrying that my baby was going to start having gender identity issues, as her entire wardrobe before her arrival consisted solely of gender-neutral clothing—slate-colored leggings, brown sweaters, pale-aqua shirts—clothes that, come to think of it, no man would ever wear—at least not off Broadway—but it turns out when you stick a baby in a plain-white onesie and a pair of ice-blue leggings, she looks like a boy. It turns out all those ruffles and frills and flowers and hearts adorning all those pink, pink, pink shirts and jackets and rompers and sleepers are the only things in the world that will ward off the questions, “How old is he?” and “What’s his name?”

Who cares if people don’t correctly assess the sex of the baby? you say! That’s what I used to say, too, back when I naively thought a person could dress her newborn in pale green and have the world receive her as a girl. But it turns out I feel very protective of my offspring—ready to pounce on anyone who fails to see her for exactly who she is: an adorable, brilliant, motivated, fashion-forward, perpetually hungry girl. What else does she have at this age beyond her sex to define her? She’s not old enough to acquire her own message-bearing t-shirts or haircuts.

So I bought her a package of girly knit caps: a white one with pink flowers, a pink-and-white striped one, and one plain pink. She was wearing the pink-and-white striped one this morning when a fellow customer at my local coffee shop asked, “So, what’s his name?”

If the antidote is more pink, we’re in luck as this week the pink has been pouring in from friends and relatives and relatives of friends and friends of relatives like a tide of frosting on Valentine’s Day: pink footie pajamas with a matching pink hat; pink overalls with a pink-trimmed shirt; a denim dress with pink sequins, pink leggings, and a pink undershirt.

I have to say that even though when I put my baby in the frilly white bunting in which I myself was brought home from the hospital, she appeared to be dressed in drag, my pale white baby girl does look rather good in pink.

Woman No Cry

You know that thing they tell you about how women are all hormonal and weepy in the weeks after giving birth? How we cry at the drop of a pacifier and all must be watched closely to make sure our baby blues don’t morph into a post-partum depression that makes us murder our mates? Well, I’d been feeling really proud of myself for surviving these first 11 days with my shit relatively together—not crying when the baby prevented me from taking a much-needed nap, not crying when the baby woke up for the fourth time in the middle of the night to eat, not crying when my brother-in-law’s young girlfriend watched me breastfeed and declared the entire endeavor “not sexy,” not crying when ten times a day the baby sucked milk with her little barracuda mouth from my raw, sore, tender, pained, unsexy nipples (I know, I know, they’re not supposed to suck on your actual nipples and if they are, you’re doing it wrong, but believe me when I tell you: it hurts like hell even when you’re doing it right. Don’t let the Breastfeeding Evangelists tell you otherwise.)

I didn’t even cry when my husband and brother-in-law refused to believe me when I explained—NOT FOR THE FIRST TIME—that sweet potatoes are not yams and yams are not sweet potatoes and unless they’ve eaten them in Africa or purchased them from a specialty grocery, neither of them has ever eaten an actual yam—even when I cited a New York Times piece making the case rather than just my own citation-free and therefore not to be trusted knowledge base.

But because nature abhors a contrarian as much as it abhors a vacuum, it was inevitable that I would cry about the teriyaki sauce that got thrown away because it was thought to be too old to keep when in fact it was practically brand-new. The extra-embarrassing thing about crying over discarded teriyaki sauce is that I was the one that discarded it. I was crying not because I missed it but because I felt bad for banishing it before its time. So, yeah, the weepy post-partum hormone rumor appears to be true. As true as the fact that if you live in America, you’ve probably never eaten a yam.

Cat's in the Cradle

I have a confession to make. I rode in the back seat with the baby on the way home from the hospital. And on our first two trips to the pediatrician. It’s just that she’s so little back there alone—and I’m still not entirely used to her being outside of me. I swear the situation is temporary. I swear I’m not on the verge of becoming a Mennonite. I love dancing—and swearing—far too much.

On a related note, I swear the baby will not always sleep in the bed with us. WE ARE NOT ATTACHMENT-PARENTING PARENTS! As soon as she can learn to actually stay asleep when not in contact with another human, she will sleep in her little co-sleeper and then graduate to her crib. I cannot wait to snuggle with my husband at night again and, before too long, do OTHER THINGS with him, too.

So, a message to the cat: go ahead and keep enjoying the co-sleeper for now—but don’t get too used to it. And if you could wash the sheet when you’re done, that would be lovely.

Thanksgiving

For this child I could not be more thankful!

Mothers-In-Law

I’ll confess, I struggle.

My husband swears his mother has only the truest of intentions with me, but I swear under her Pollyanna demeanor lurks the kind of competitiveness for which mothers-in-law are infamous.

“How many extra calories are you supposed to eat when you’re breastfeeding?” mine asked as I scarfed down yet another handful of corn chips dipped in Ro*tel Cheese Dip, a.k.a. my favorite comfort food of all time this afternoon in between nursing sessions. Was she merely intellectually curious—how many extra calories does it take to nurse a baby and maintain one’s own ability to function?—or was it a barb at my Midwestern willingness to eat a processed cheese product by the scoop-chip-ful or at the soft pillow of fat still padding my belly a week after giving birth? Why would she care? Does she care, or is this just the way women from Los Angeles relate to each other—even liberal ones with generally good intentions?

Yesterday the question was about how much weight I’d gained while pregnant. Thirty-five pounds, I told her, feeling rather proud. Now, did her reply of, “Really?! Where did you put it?” mean “You looked so great! Where did you hide the weight on your lovely, svelte frame??” or, “God! Thirty-five pounds is so much! Where the hell did you carry such a gigantic mass and how on earth will you ever work it all off again so that my perfect doctor son can have the perfectly skinny wife he deserves? Do you want me to see if my trainer has any recommendations of someone who can work with you in Seattle? Time’s a wasting! Put down that chip!”

To her calorie question, I told my mother-in-law I did not know the answer. “I don’t count calories,” I said, not a little defensively as I wiped a stray blob of Velveeta off my chin and reached for another handful of chips.

Another Kind of Normal —or— Why Western Medicine Rocks My World

Dr. Husband and the baby and I are home from the hospital now, and it turns out that being the mom of a newborn is a hell of a lot more fun than being the mom of a not-yet-born—and I haven’t even taken any of the Percocet yet! Yes, yes, it’s mesmerizingly lovely to gaze into the rich, Seattle blue-grey eyes of my sometimes-gorgeous baby, but equally lovely is witnessing the varicose veins rapidly disappear from my southern regions. It turns out that enduring such pleasantries for two months is good conditioning for enduring the after-effects of a vaginal delivery.

Speaking of which, giving birth to my baby was truly one of the best experiences of my life—just like the “normal” and “natural” childbirth advocates of the world—and all those dreadful pregnancy books—promise. I was, as you may recall, terrified of the whole hospital aspect of childbirth: all those needles and tubes being inserted into places formerly unvisited by foreign objects, all those chemical smells and beeping monitors and florescent lighting. But I had the world’s greatest labor nurses and anesthesiologist and obstetrician, and in the end, I slept through most of my labor.

Have I mentioned how much I love epidurals?

And how much I love Metoclopramide, which failed to stop me from throwing up (but, hey, my first 20 weeks of pregnancy more than prepared me for that!) but succeeded in knocking me out for two hours during which my cervix dilated seven whole centimeters. And for those pregnant ladies out there wedded to a “normal” “natural” childbirth: Do you have any idea how much it would have hurt to have your cervix dilate SEVEN centimeters in two hours? How abnormally, unnaturally excruciating it would be?

I myself was lucky enough to have the world’s greatest epidural. I didn’t feel a thing—just a light, painless pressure as I pushed for 40 minutes and my baby slid out of my body and into the world. My hefty baby girl with whom I fell instantly and completely in love.

The entire experience was just as glorious as my Lamaze coach promised—but without any pain.

And I hate to gloat (but that won't stop me!)—I didn’t even break a sweat.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must go take some more Advil and apply a new Tucks to my tender (but proud!) nether-regions. Because even the world's best epidural has to wear off sometime.

In a Name

So, I have a new theory on why I kept gravitating to girlish boy’s names throughout my pregnancy—Robin, Avery, Wesley, anyone? I now think it’s not because I harbor a secret wish to have a sissy for a son (it’s actually not a secret!) but because the human being displacing my intestines for nine-and-a-third months was a girl. Is a girl.

Yes, after nine months and ten days I am the mom of a baby girl.

A girl!

An eight pound 11 ounce baby of the female persuasion, born around 8pm last night.

This makes me inordinately happy, as the chances of a girl child liking to spend her afternoon quietly making necklaces or potholders with me in my art studio/office are, while not 100%, still far greater than if said child were a boy. Particularly a boy named Conrad or Conan or Thor. (Okay, I made that last one up.) Robin, Avery, and Wesley clearly would have been the sort of boys who love making potholders and necklaces with their mama, but if not one of them preferred basketball to basketweaving, their daddy’s heart would have been broken. And if I had endured three vomiting- and varicose-vein producing pregnancies and not produced a single girl, my heart would have been a little broken—along with my vagina. Because no matter how sweet Robin, Avery, and Wesley would have been, bringing me mugs of hot tea and a hand-embroidered hanky whenever I wept, it’s not quite the same thing as having a little girl.

Even if she turns out to be a basketball-loving, craft-hating, rambunctious little tomboy. No matter what kind of person she turns out to be, my baby is a dreamy dream come true.

Induction Day

I’m trying to relax and just enjoy the day before my 7pm hospital check-in time, but there’s a dude power-washing our deck and sidewalk, as per our September request so that nobody would slip on the moss and algae this fall or winter, especially while carrying the baby. It’s nice that one more thing is getting checked off the list, but damn is that noise irritating. At this rate, the hospital will actually seem relaxing. As will that blessed epidural.

Friday the Thirteenth

One week overdue. One day past the “most likely to give birth sometime in this range” window articulated by my obstetrician weeks ago.

I myself was born five days late—as my mom keeps reminding me—so it feels semi-fair in a cosmic sense that my baby would be five days late. But six?! And, at the rate this day is passing by with nary a uterine twinge, it will soon be seven. Seven! Days! Late! At least!

My mom was supposed to come for a five-day visit tomorrow, but when I told her there might not be a baby by the time her return flight left on Tuesday morning she said, “Well, I certainly don’t want to do that,” thereby shattering my illusion that while she was coming in part to meet the baby, she was mostly coming to entertain me and make me soup.

Apparently once this baby arrives I’m going to have to make my own damn soup.

When Life Imitates TV

Dr. Husband and I finally got around to watching the Happiest Baby on the Block video, at the urging of every person with children we’ve ever met. Which leads me to wonder, if every parent in America is following Dr. Karp’s famed baby-calming techniques, then every baby in America is the happiest baby on their block, and how is that possible? I mean, statistically speaking?

We’d been putting off watching partly because the prospect of watching a bunch babies scream seemed like an aggravating—and overly foreshadowy—way to spend an evening and partly because I’d read on the back of the box that the DVD was 128 minutes long. Two hours of screaming babies getting swaddled and shushed and held on their side and swung and given pacifiers to suck on? Thankfully it was some kind of typo—or maybe there are some really long bonus features on the DVD or something because the main feature was more like 28 minutes long—long enough to make us feel like we have a fighting chance at successful swaddling and not so long that we were driven to drink. (Well, at least not more than a few sips.)

As regards the swaddling, Dr. Husband said, “They really do become burritos, don’t they?”

Yes, they do. So much so that when I was standing in line today at a Mexican fast-food chain watching the employees make other peoples’ lunches as I waited to order mine, I kept thinking, “Wow, those burritos are like little swaddled babies, aren’t they?”

Talk to the Cervix

So the baby scooted down another centimeter in the past week, which is all lovely and good, progress-wise (it’s less lovely and good bladder-wise and varicose-vein-wise), but since I’m not at all dilated or effaced or any of those other labor-related delights, the baby has nowhere to go. Apparently my cervix needs to “ripen,” which makes me think I need to put it in a paper lunch sack with a banana to speed up the process.

I worried out loud that maybe my cervix is, as the books say, “incompetent”—a phrase I remembered only for its supreme offensiveness, not so much for its meaning.

“Uh, that means that your cervix can’t hold the baby in,” Dr. Husband explained. “Not that it’s holding the baby in too well.”

My cervix, it would seem, is hyper-competent.

I told Dr. Husband that we need to stop harassing the baby to come out because the wee one is doing its part. “If you have any requests or complaints,” I told him, “address them to the cervix.”

Dr. Husband protested that talking to my cervix is not nearly as much fun as talking to the baby, but I was all, “How do you know? Have you ever talked to a cervix before?”

Happily, the answer to that was No.