Motherhood for the Phobic

I Surrender, Disney Princess

2011-11-27T21:11:00.002-05:00

Christmas is a-coming, and not only are the geese getting fat, Charlotte is aware of what is going on, really for the first time. She might have been more into things last year, but the whole holiday was overshadowed for all of us by Lawson's birth, which made one too many babies to keep track of at Christmas for Charlotte (and for me if we are being honest). She was rather humbug about it, boycotting the Christmas tree trimming in favor of listening to her CD player and failing to run through the house screaming with excitement over the Fisher Price Little People Discovery Village (a whole village! can you handle it?) Santa brought for her. Maybe she had an inkling Santa bought it used on ebay.

So this year is really Charlotte's first Christmas, in which she is a conscious, active participant with memory that extends beyond a few weeks. This one she will remember, this one will set the stage for all to come, this is the year in which any action taken, no matter how thoughtless and foolish, runs the risk of becoming a Holiday Tradition to be repeated every year without fail for decades to come ("But Mommy, we ALWAYS make ornaments covered in glitter that clings to every surface in our house impervious to vacuum cleaning for every single teacher at school even the ones that work in my class only when needed on the third Wednesday in months starting with J!").

Most importantly, this is (or was, I should say, since the damage is already done) my opportunity to set expectations in terms of gifts. It was my firm intention to not fall prey to the big bad wolf of American commercialism, not to mention that wonderful American tradition of spoiled, entitled children. I was, after all, raised in Africa, as I believe i have mentioned. When I was 9 years old, I did not need Bono and Boy George to educate me about how African children didn't even know it was Christmastime at all, as if that was some great tragedy in the African context (although I do not mean any disrespect here to Bono, whom I of course worship. I'm sure that particular lyric was written by Wham! right after they penned Wake me up before you go-go/Don't leave me hangin on like a yo-yo and were too spent by the output of brilliance it required to come up with anything better). Kids without shoes, much less a Tickle Me Elmo doll, were a common sight for me. No, I was going to buy my kids a very few small, used toys for Christmas, teach them about Jesus's birth using the Fisher Price Little People manger scene Baba and Shosho got us, and decorate some sugar cookies. I would take them to volunteer at a homeless shelter, but at their ages, a visit from our family would probably have the residents reconsidering a park bench in sub-zero temperatures. I know how to be charitable to my fellow man, and I keep my kids home most of the time.

But my upbringing should have served not only as inspiration but warning for me, for American commercialism STILL infected me, even as I peered at shoeless African children and even as I lived with scant exposure to American media. Not only did we have no internet (gasp), we had no TV (gasp gasp gasp), except for the VHS tapes of random TV shows American church members sent to us, which endowed me with an incredibly spotty yet expert-in-places knowledge of 80s pop culture. While it is true, I have never seen an episode of Cheers (being set in a bar, this would have been taboo to send to Southern Baptist missionaries), I have seen probably every single episode of the short-lived sitcom Alf about a dozen times each (which I would not recommend; desperate times called for desperate measures). Piecing together information from the few commercials on these tapes and from one JC Penney Christmas catalog that somehow made its way across the ocean, I concluded that, in order to continue living, I absolutely had to obtain a Cabbage Patch Kid, just like every other little girl in American circa 1985. My Christmas wish finally did come true, not at Christmastime itself, but while my family was touring Europe and stopped in the BX at an Air Force base in Italy (my dad is retired military, thus our entree). I could have cared less about the Sistine Chapel ceiling--snoresville--but I was prepared to stage a lengthy sit-in on the floor of the BX if my parents did not buy for me one Willabella Charissa, which they had the good sense to do, as I can be quite stubborn as evidenced by my advanced age at the time of my potty-training.

And this is why, my friends, I caved early to the American Christmas. To fight it is a lost cause on par with Pickett's Charge. You will be mowed down in a grassy field by, in my case, Disney Princess so you might as well go ahead and lay down and get comfy. I hardly even put up a fight. Charlotte--whom I never take in a store and who only watches Nick Jr which has no commercials--probably could have been shielded for a little longer. On the other hand, she does have friends who have better access to information. Regardless of how the idea became implanted in her head, she strummed through the Target flier she plucked out of a mail pile and immediately honed in on the Disney Princess 7-doll set and proclaimed this to be her Christmas desire. Now, I have any number of objections to this. I think Disney Princesses teach girls they must be rescued by a man at which point their lives will be fairy tales (notice of course the story ends before the happy couple has children, a subject about which I have already commented at length). Then of course they are fashioned into Barbie Dolls, which teach girls that they must smile constantly, defy gravity with their chest size, and wear high-heels at all times in order to be beautiful. As everyone knows, Barbie condemns girls to low self-esteem, not to mention back trouble. But I imagined her opening her Disney Princess doll collection on Christmas and squealing with delight, and most of all I imagined her being so amused by it, she left me alone for maybe even an entire hour (which is probably delusional but i can dream on Christmas) so I bought it. Sue me.

I also bought the Disney Princess Dream Castle, which was definitely overkill. For the same cost, I probably could have bought shoes for the entire country of Burundi. But are shoed Burundian children going to keep my child entertained and save my sanity on a cold rainy day? I think not.

Merry Christmas!

The Sum of All Fears

2011-10-21T13:46:00.003-04:00

As you may recall (and I'm too lazy to post a link to the entry), when I found out I was having a boy, I was less than thrilled. But then my little Lawson was born and he was precious and cute and he didn't pee in my face every time I changed his diaper after all. And I figured with parents as cultured and erudite as we are, his masculinity would be tempered by superior genetics.

But there were signs from the beginning that I had in fact birthed a miniature frat boy. The first thing he did upon being delivered was to take a giant crap all over the attending nurses. They said his birth weight would have been at least 2 oz. more if they could have gotten him to the scale first. He showed signs of a temper; if he were able and had the right equipment, I could totally see him taking a baseball bat to my headlights to avenge diaper changes (then again, it would stand to reason that someone who could vandalize a car could also take themselves to the potty). He also vomited with the frequency and ease of keg party attendee. Other than being a talented sleeper and having pretty blue eyes, there was little evidence he was related to Charlotte, who came out of the womb organizing her books by author.

Ten months later, all my fears are coming to fruition right before my eyes. I read somewhere that elephants are the only species who destroy their own habitat. I would add--elephants and little boys (and some big boys) are the only species who destroy their own habitat. Unfortunately, I share Lawson's habitat, so my world is crumbling around me. Lawson now tears through rooms like a Red Bull-addled teenage girl who just caught a glimpse of Justin Bieber near the Food Court. Meal times are particularly harrowing, as he pounds his food to a pulp before smearing it all over his face like it is some kind of moisturizing beauty cream and flinging what's left all over the room. He also seems hell bent on committing suicide before his first birthday. He quickly figured out how to crawl up the two stairs from the living room to the dining room, but he seems to think diving headlong off the top of them is a satisfactory way of getting back down. Yesterday, he took a bite out of a rubber plant, prompting a frantic internet search and a call to poison control (by the way, the internet is wrong--I know, shocking--rubber plants are not in fact poisonous). That is after he ate 3 leaves outside at daycare this week--with the amount I am paying for daycare, you would think they would be wiping his butt with dollar bills, much less be able to prevent leaf-eating--2 of them i pulled from his mouth and one of them I found in his diaper the next day, a lovely surprise. And he continues to have a temper. At music class, Charlotte has always calmly relinquished the instruments, egg shakers, and sticks at the end of songs, even from the youngest age. Lawson becomes more outraged than a French person in the face of a 38 hour work week. He practically starts a baby picket line. And then there are the diaper changes. Oh my dear Lord, lead my back through the valley of the shadow of death. He still screams like a banchee on crack. But now he's got some strength and movement going. Picture Steve Irwin wrestling a croc. Crikey! It's bad.

So life has gotten a bit more complicated. Now when I cook dinner or fold laundry, which make me want to end it all just on their own, I've got to keep an eye on Lawson as he cruises around seeking ways to impale himself. Kevin suggested I just pen him in somewhere, but hell hath no fury than a mobile male baby contained. Pick your poison. On top of that, of course, I am treated to a background chorus from Charlotte of "I'm hungry," "I'm bored," "I have to go potty," "My iPod won't work," "Lawson took my toy." I am not a good multi-tasker, and this pretty much sends me over the edge. I am reminded of that scene in Glory, when the troops finally are issued their guns. They're target practicing, nailing some cantaloupes and feeling pretty good about their skills. Then the commanding officer comes around and starts shooting in the air right next to their heads, ordering them to fire while he does it. They get all frazzled and can't even load bullets anymore. I feel like I am living my entire life now with someone firing a gun over my head. Anytime I actually cook a meal while watching both kids, which happens with decreasing frequency, I believe I deserve a medal (or perhaps a spa gift certificate). Unfortunately, my family doesn't seem to agree. Not only have I yet to get a medal, or a gift certificate, for any meal that I have cooked, pretty much no one will eat it, except for Kevin, after I threaten to join a labor union (which would upset Kevin not because of any collective bargaining I might do--he would just hire scabs--but because he thinks labor unions in 21st century America distort the market). Lawson throws whatever I make back in my face of course, and Charlotte seems to think the purpose of dinner is to negotiate for dessert.

Gender aside, Lawson has proven high maintenance in another way as well. He has gone only about 2 consecutive days without illness since he started daycare 7 weeks ago. Once again, my own experience and observation, which is of course far superior to any scientific study, has shown that breastfeeding is a giant waste of time and effort. Lawson got about 4x the amount of breastmilk than did Charlotte and has been at least 4x sicker than she ever has been. Which by my calculation indicates that breastfeeding is actually bad for your baby's health. Whereas I can count on one hand the number of times Charlotte has vomited or had diarrhea, Lawson is like some kind of double decker volcano. That is on top of the usual coughs, colds, random, unexplained fevers, occasional demon possessions etc. Of course, this has resulted in me missing work, and when I'm only there 3 days a week to begin with, and Lawson (and sometimes Charlotte) picks those days to get sick--well, you can imagine what a success I am these days. Remember the manatee/motor boat analogy (one of my best, if I do say so)? Fortunately, it is harder to fire a federal worker than it is to regain abdominal muscle tone after child birth.

Being the great optimist that I am (not), I know for a fact that worse days are to come. Soon he will be walking, which will bring his reach up by at least a foot, more if he turns out to be a climber, endangering my precious African Crap that transcendently floats above the sea of kid-chaos on shelves, declaring to visitors that, yes, we do have a decor scheme other than Fisher Price going on here, and calmly assuring me there is still beauty and order in the world.

It is my last link to sanity. If it goes, I am finished.

The Great Issue of Our Time

2011-08-25T18:09:00.005-04:00

Every morning, when the mother of small children is awakened by the soothing sounds of someone screaming at her, as she is changing diapers and making bottles and parking toddlers in front of the television and snorting coffee grounds while also injecting the liquid form intravenously, she is confronted by the great existential question that permeates motherhood and to which there is never, no, not ever, a right answer:

To leave the house, or not to leave the house. That IS the question.

The internal debate on this matter never fails to be fierce. Both sides are girded with strong argumentation and logic. On the one hand, if a mother chooses to leave the house with her young offspring, the preparation alone could finish her off for the day. She must pack a duffle bag full of items for every contingency--food for 3 days in case they get caught in a rare August snowstorm; diapers, enough wipes to thoroughly clean her children even in the event an oil tanker spills on them; extra clothes for everyone, including bystanders; umbrellas, sunscreen, mosquito repellent, swimsuits, snowsuits; iPods, iPhones, DVD, VHS (in case of unforeseen time travel; a flask of whiskey and/or Prozac, for either herself or the children, situation and law enforcement presence determinant; and, if the terror alert is above Orange, supplies to turn the duffle bag into a makeshift dirty bomb shelter. And, of course, the children, who must be loaded and unloaded and loaded and unloaded in sequence interspersed by unpacking and unfolding, packing and folding strollers and/or other equipment. Then of course you have the timing of the outing, which must be in between the naps and solid feedings of the younger child, unless of course, you want to bring more equipment. This gives you about 47 minutes to work with for the actual outing.

If all that goes well, you still run the risk that the destination you have chosen will not be up to the high standards of one or both children, who will then make everyone within a mile radius of them aware of their displeasure. For instance, we took Charlotte and Lawson to the Natural History Museum recently, to meet Charlotte's demands to see dinosaurs. To be fair to Charlotte, her parents did take her to the museum on a Sunday in August, the height of the DC tourist season. It was packed, which distressed both her and Lawson greatly. In addition, she was only mildly interested in the dinosaurs, highly disappointed as she was that they were not "real" dinosaurs, i.e. living dinosaurs, but only bones. We tried in vain to explain to her that their moribund state was actually to her benefit, as "real" dinosaurs would not be so friendly and docile but would in fact eat her. She was unconvinced, so we pushed on in our quest to please her, excitedly gesturing at whale bones, recreations of African huts, mummies, butterfly cocoons, taxidermied elephants, and precious gems while she either looked bored or whined loudly that she wanted to go home. Lawson also occasionally threw a fit. We looked like Idi Amin's personal advisors, hovering about the petulant dictator while timidly assuring him that the snails he was being served, while not imported from France exactly, were still exquisite, while he decided whether he would have them tortured and killed or merely tortured. Or killed. Speaking of African dictators, did you know Mobutu's full name for himself meant "The all-powerful warrior who, because of his endurance and inflexible will to win, goes from conquest to conquest, leaving fire in his wake"? Well, Charlotte's full name means, "The all-situation whiner who, because of her shrill voice and focused desire to test to her parents' love for her, especially while in public, goes from fit to fit, leaving destruction and misery, not to mention population control, in her wake."

In fact, the only thing worse than leaving the house with small children is NOT leaving the house with them. In my mind, it always seems much easier to stay home with the children; after all, no luggage or equipment transport is required. And we have so many toys. So many toys. If each toy only entertained Charlotte for 5 seconds, simple math would suggest she would be occupied well into her 50s. But simple math does not apply, as it rests on the assumption she has any interest at all in any toys, when in fact she is only interested in amusements that involve bossing around, hanging onto or otherwise affixing herself to, and/or requesting activities that require the assistance of her mother, the very same mother who is trying to dress and feed herself and another child, occasionally pee, vainly tidy her house and otherwise create order in a world of utter chaos. A day spent solely at home with two small children is a very long day indeed, particularly as it seems the children involved view it as an opportunity to conduct scientific research on the outer limits of human sanity. This is in fact their usual mode of operating, but the distractions of the outside world can sometimes give their subjects a moment of relief. At home, in their natural environment, they are completely focused on this mission. It is hard to explain the torture that ensues to someone unfamiliar with the scenario--usually the reaction is "How bad can it be?" Instead of wasting my precious energy trying to convey the inexplicable, I will simply say that it can be very very bad, and if you would care to see for yourself, it is unnecessary to await an invitation to babysit. You may come at your leisure. Then you will see that--much like Roseanne Barr singing, Britney Spears mothering, Elizabeth Taylor marrying, Sarah Palin speaking, Paris Hilton existing--things can be much worse in fact than they are imagined.

Then there are the worst of occasions, those when you have no choice about on which side of this great debate your day will fall. Sometimes you must leave the house, perhaps to get on a plane with your small children, a fate worse than death, which would be greeted as a mercy, worse than life in a prison cell with Snooki. And other times, you must remain trapped in your home by a hurricane, which is what we are facing this weekend. Let's just say that trees falling through the middle of my home is only my second worst fear.

Did I mention they are predicting massive power outages? Shudder.

Lowering the Bar

2011-07-17T20:45:00.004-04:00

Have I really only written three entires since going back to work...in April? Wow. Of course, that is more than I've gotten done at my actual job. It's not that I haven't been working hard, I have. But I now have the mental capacity of a manatee, which I am assuming is not that great, given that they keep getting run over by speedboats. You don't see any dolphins getting run over by speedboats. Like a manatee, I am getting run over by all kinds of speedboats these days--that is, faster, brighter, peppier, mostly childless humans. OK, poor mental function aside--comparing myself to a manatee is an even more brilliant metaphor than I first imagined! I just was trying to pick a dumb animal, then the speedboat thing came to me...perfection! I AM a manatee. Maybe there is hope after all! Hooray for me!

And that bit of self-congratulation, my friends, is called Following the Advice of One's Therapist. Yes, it's true, motherhood has driven me to counseling. Me, and many of my mom-friends. Mom-friends, by the way, are different from regular friends. Regular friends know the real you, the you that existed before you had kids. They know what you used to do, what your hobbies were, what education you have, who you are married to. Mom-friends don't know anything about each other other than what discipline method you subscribe to, where you got that awesome stroller, what curse word you screamed at your kids last week when they flushed a candle down the toilet, what you use for birth control, what anti-depressants you are on. I have been attending the mom's group at my church for 3 years now. I have poured my heart out to these women (which is a nicer way of saying I have completely melted down in front of them). And vice versa in some cases. But can I tell you what any of their husbands do? Nope. Can i tell you what careers any of them ever had or what degrees they have? Nada. They may have told me at one point, but my brain can only retain relevant information any more. I'm going to stick with information related to how they potty-trained their children.

So my mom-friends and I are apparently trekking to mental health professionals in hordes. One of my mom-friends has a theory that the expectations and pressures put on women these days basically necessitate anti-depressants. I am trying really hard to stay off the drugs myself, mainly because I am afraid they will make me gain weight. The weight thing is one of my things, admittedly, that's why pregnancy is like death for me. Like if I get diagnosed with cancer, my first thought would probably not be, What if I die? it would be What if the chemo makes me gain weight? Seriously messed up. So no drugs for me. Just some therapy, which by the way, I LOVE. I have been in therapy before, but this time it feels even better, seeing as I live life mostly as a slave these days. It is so indulgent, like getting a pedicure for your soul. An actual person, for a solid hour at a time, is completely fixated on seeing the world from your perspective, hearing your life story, listening intently to you, helping you understand yourself, without inserting themselves into it at all. Like it is ALL about you, you don't even have to pretend to be interested in the other person. Sure, you are paying them, but who cares? Assuming you are somewhat introspective and aren't going to be shocked by the revelation that you aren't perfect--it is AWESOME.

Beyond feeling awesome for an hour every couple of weeks--I am trying to understand why I struggle as a mom and to find ways of coping. One of her theories is a common one regarding the modern over-achiever women who become moms, especially stay-at-home moms, and that is we can no longer achieve at the level we are used to and we spend most of our time and energy on tasks that do not tap into our gifts and that makes us feel like crap. Having Charlotte was one thing--of course I didn't have as much time and energy, but after awhile I adjusted, and she is like a world-class Olympic champion sleeper, so I had her naptimes and the evenings to work with. You may recall that I listed all the things I wanted to accomplish and assigned them to one-hour blocks in a spreadsheet. yes, that is neurotic. more neurotic would have been to actually follow the spreadsheet schedule, which I mostly did not, but I did squeeze a lot into my free time and managed to feel decent about myself. Now--well, there ain't much use in plotting out your free time in a spreadsheet when you've got maybe 1 hour a day to do what you want, and that includes showering my friends. You may have noticed I am rather transfixed on the showering issue. that is because I consider it a basic human right to be able to shower daily in peace without having to sacrifice other activities. But this is now a luxury I cannot afford many days, unless I do not want to sit down. In any case, there is no time to do anything without major organizational skills that I do not have.

So the counselor suggests that instead of focusing on what I did NOT accomplish in a given day and how little I am doing that gives me any sense of accomplishment on a daily basis that I redefine what an accomplishment is and start celebrating those things. In other words, I need to lower the bar on my existence. Like by quite a lot. This actually sounds like a decent, if rather depressing, idea, so I've started trying to do it. Ideally, I would write out what i accomplished each day, but that takes energy away from perhaps flossing my teeth, which is more important, so I have mainly been making mental notes, which of course immediately get lost in the post-partum clutter. If my brain were a house, it would definitely show up on the hoarders shows on TLC.
Here is a sample list of accomplishments:
1) Not only did I shower, I shaved my leg. I forgot to shave the other one, but we are not going to focus on that. We are going to celebrate the one leg.
2) My children are still alive and appear to be fed. They are not clean, Charlotte still has red paint in her hair from a week ago, but we are not going to focus on that either.
3) I fed Charlotte something other than chicken nuggets. I also gave her a Flinstones vitamin, meaning that it doesn't really matter what she ate anyway. I am a genius for figuring that out.
4) I did not scream at anyone today. Not the children, not the husband, not the Verizon representative who informed me that even though the technician has missed 3 other arrival windows, he is going to be at my house between 8 and noon tomorrow.
This is a MAJOR accomplishment. I am AWESOME.
5) I read something. Sure, it was an US Weekly, but still--I AM STILL ABLE TO READ. This is a BIG DEAL.
6) I allowed the Roomba to vacuum my dining room. True, all I had to do was press the button, but there are actually like 3 whole buttons and I pressed the RIGHT one. So there.
7) I thought about my best friend. I did not call her or email her, but I talked to her in my head.
8) I think I may have eaten a vegetable. I have a vague memory of something vegetable-like entering my palate.
9) Charlotte only watched two hours of television, AND I had Lawson positioned so that he really had to strain hard to watch too.
10) I cleared a path through the toys so that no one would get injured. I am tidy AND considerate.

I think you'll agree--If the bar gets any lower, I'll be a Trinidadian limbo dancer. Which really would be an accomplishment.

And they lived happily ever after...Until they had kids

2011-06-17T14:26:00.003-04:00

Here's a quick summary of all the marriage advice I have to offer. If you have a really great marriage and want to keep it that way, don't have kids. Get a fish. If, on the other hand, your marriage sucks and you want to finish it off, by all means, go for it. Other than having an affair, children are the nuclear option. Like literally, a bad relationship will be Hiroshima after that. I don't think this is particularly original advice, despite all the idiots out there who have kids to "save the marriage." This is about as delusional as having kids to improve one's figure. Children will destroy the marriage, the figure, and anything else of value you may have lying around your house. I just got a parenting magazine (one of any number of magazines I get without subscribing, which seems like a a really dumb marketing ploy, but what do I know), with the cover story, "Help Your Marriage Survive Parenthood!" In fact, every parenting magazine has a similar cover story, along with the other go-to winners, "No-Fail discipline tricks!" and "Get your 2 week old to sleep through the night!" and "Cook meals your children won't throw back in your face!" I guess they know that if you put such promising claims on your covers, you really can get people to pay money for a magazine you are already giving them for free. Parents are just that desperate, not to mention zombie-like.

But I'm thinking if parenting magazines are peddling answers to the problem of "The Kids Ate My Marriage," it must be a common problem indeed. My own scientific research (i.e. talking to my girlfriends) confirms this to be the case. How many times have I heard someone say something like, "We never fought about anything until we had children," "We had the perfect relationship until we had children," "We spent hours every evening lying in a bathtub full of rose petals by candlelight before we had children." or "We used to discuss music, books, politics, and the meaning of life into the wee hours of the night before we had children." Personally, I haven't recently read any books that I can remember, haven't heard any music that I can remember, can just barely name the current US President, and certainly am incapable of anything so vaunted as a "discussion." And my kids have me thinking more about the meaning of death than the meaning of life (i.e. at least you get some sleep when you are dead, and that is pretty darn meaningful). So what is going on here? How and why are children so destructive? You would think they would have a personal interest in the survival of their parents' relationship. Perhaps they are part of a massive conspiracy by the mental health profession to improve business. I've definitely kept some mental health professionals in business since I had kids anyway.

Beyond the obvious factors of sheer exhaustion and lack of time, I'm thinking a key dynamic in children's destruction of marriage is how they magnify latent gender differences and inadvertently start a gender war. It's like Britain and Germany in 1914 are hanging out, pretty cool with each other, then some pan-Serbian dude assassinates an Austro-Hungarian monarch and, boom, you have World War I. Now Britain and Germany are digging trenches and mowing down millions of each other's soldiers with machine guns. Same with men and women. In our modern age, men and women, before they are parents, can have the illusion that everything is equal and their interests are the same. Suzy and Johnny can both go to Harvard Law and wear pants and vote. Then they get married, and maybe things are a little tense because Suzy likes a clean house and Johnny doesn't care and isn't volunteering to help, but they both like to run marathons and play pool on the weekends, so it's all good. But then Suzy gets pregnant, and that's where things start to unravel for our dynamic duo. Suzy watches as her body is completely destroyed. Johnny buys her some flowers. Suzy has her reproductive organs ripped apart, then is brow beaten by a band of cruel women into becoming her baby's sole source of sustenance, every 2 hours around the clock. Johnny goes to the vending machine and gets her a coke. Suzy loses her mind and falls into a clinical depression. Johnny feels helpless and befuddled, so he goes and watches him some monster trucks on TV. Suzy is racked by guilt about returning to work so she shelves her PhD in molecular biology and opts for getting vomited on several times a day. Johnny sends her a cute postcard from the hotel he's staying at on a business trip in Fiji. Suzy becomes angry and resentful that her entire life has been rearranged while Johnny's is relatively untouched. Johnny gets her a blender for Mother's Day. Suzy starts being really mean to Johnny. Johnny develops an internet porn addiction. Suzy takes out a life insurance policy on Johnny and hires a hit man. They end up the subject of a Dateline investigation. And so it goes.

Obviously, many parents miraculously do survive having kids, and eventually have a great marriage again. Don't ask me how to do this, I told you up front that my reservoir of marriage advice is basically a kiddie pool. My best guess is endurance and amnesia. Maybe some anti-depressants.

Letting Myself Go

2011-05-08T18:08:00.006-04:00

There's a woman I often see at work, I don't know her really, but I happen to know she is the mother of two small kids. She is always wearing the same, seemingly inexplicable outfit: A hooded sweatshirt of some kind, a pair of black dress pants, and black dress sandals, even in winter. Her hair is always in a ponytail, with bits of it sticking out and to her face. Holly B.C. (Before Children) would have looked at this woman with pity and condescension and reassured herself that even if she ended up with 12 children, she would still find a way to at least wear seasonally appropriate shoes. The present-day version of myself needs no explanation. The sweatshirt and pants are the only thing in her wardrobe that still fits her since having kids, and she has no time to buy more clothes. When she puts them on in the morning, she probably congratulates herself that they aren't maternity clothes. The ponytail is a no brainer. She probably hasn't showered in days and wouldn't recognize a blow dryer if it was dropped into her bath tub. The sandals, well, those are a bit more mysterious to me, since my feet are always cold, but I imagine that she had her first child in summer and has simply lost track of the time. Still, I would at least wear them with socks.

Objectively speaking, I can tell you this woman looks like crap, she is a fashion armageddon. But I am in no position to judge, as I am definitely sliding in her direction. In fact, I'm kind of in awe, and wonder how I, too, can get to the point where I care that little about my own appearance, because it would probably add a good 20 minutes a day to my free time, of which I have exactly 69 minutes per week. Think of what I could do with that kind of increase, maybe cure a disease. Or launder my sheets. Or both. It would be a revolution.

When you have one child, there are things that go by the wayside. You probably aren't getting 12 hours sleep a night and reading Tolstoy in Russian for fun. But when you have your second child, well, then you have to make some really tough decisions regarding your use of time. You start having to choose among what I call the Six "S"s: Sleep, Showering, Sanitation, Style, Smarts, Shape. There is also a seventh "S," but we're not going to go there, as my mother reads this blog, and my husband edits this blog with an eye towards his eventual presidential run. We'll keep it clean. Well, as clean as we can without Showering and Sanitation, those aren't priorities for me. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

So, yes, the 6 (or 7) "S"s are things that people who are not mothers consider basic human needs. Everyone needs to sleep a decent amount, shower regularly, keep their house somewhat sanitary, present themselves to the world in a positive light with clothes that at least do not scream another decade, use one's brain on a regular basis for something other than keeping track of Jennifer Aniston's dating life, and not be obese. Doing these things for oneself is not to spoil oneself. It's ground-level treating oneself with a modicum of respect. The problem is that doing all this is a full-time job, and when you are also in charge of someone else's "S"s, something has got to go. And that something is the mother's rights as a human being. Anyone who thinks that Americans do not torture other Americans has not heard Charlotte whimper and moan for 39 minutes straight because no one is playing with her. She apparently is unconcerned that she is in violation of a UN convention.

Moms only have time to tend to a couple basic needs, so you have to choose carefully. There is not a mom anywhere who can 100% fulfill all the S needs. She may try to convince you she does, but she is either a dirty liar or mentally ill. I do know one mom who comes close--she even washes her sheets and towels twice a week, which I would not do even if I had servants to do every other thing in my entire life--but I am not convinced she is actually human. I'm thinking at the very least she does not sleep. Sleep is a real time hog, so if you can do without it, you are really going to come out ahead. My problem is that if I get less than 8 hours on a regular basis, I begin to cry uncontrollably and declare that "I can't go on!" every time Lawson vomits on me, which is like 10 times a day. Not really functional.

So sleep is number 1 for me. After that, I've got to go with Smarts, or mental stimulation. That's why I am writing this blog entry instead of taking my first shower in 3 days. It is easier to quickly rectify years of personal hygiene negligence (although I have seem some eyebrows that would require some real sweat equity to address) than years of mental disuse. I don't want to wake up in 20 years and realize I have the brains and wit of a cucumber, or worse, a celebrity. After that, I've got to go with Sanitation, because the cleanliness of my house affects everyone who lives in the house. Then again, the only people that see my house are those whom I let in, vs. the entire world out there who sees me going unwashed and looking like a walking bin of fashions rejected by Goodwill. Still Sanitation is ahead of Showering and Style. Dead last is Shape, because I hate exercise regardless of child-rearing, and even when childless I prioritized it right behind cleaning the scum off my electric toothbrush. As it is, I feel my life is a workout, I am in constant motion, though not one that will apparently prevent my butt from sliding down the back of my thighs. I plan to retrieve it someday, but not until both my kids can walk unassisted (and Charlotte can breathe unassisted). Until then, I am too tired to care. Every woman may categorize things differently, and it's not my job to judge. Sarah Palin, for instance, obviously puts Style, Shape, and Showering ahead of Smarts, because she looks great but thinks Africa is one country and can't tell you why there are two Koreas. I'm not going to judge. I'm also not going to vote for her ever again, but I'm not going to judge.

When jesus said, "Whoever tries to keep their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life will preserve it," he might have been talking about parenting. Because if, as a mom in particular, you devote yourself to preserving your own life and meeting your own needs, well, Child Protective Services will come and lock you up. But if you just accept that you are pretty much a slave now, you have forfeited your basic civil liberties to some tiny but militant dictators, then you'll be much happier.

In other words, just let yourself go.

Stroller Round-Up

2011-04-12T08:42:00.006-04:00

When I was preparing to have Charlotte, one thing that really scared me was all the stuff one had to acquire for a baby. I tend toward the anal, and houses around here aren't that big, so extra crap lying around really gives me some hives. I noticed early on that most parents own like 14 strollers, many of them as big and expensive as a Hummer and as luxurious as a Lincoln Town Car (Seriously, strollers are soon going to become equipped with DVD players, GPS and cruise control--they already come with iPod jacks--you just wait). I queried my parent-friends how I might avoid this fate and get away with owning only one, basic stroller. I got a lot of confused looks. I just didn't get it. So I settled on buying a "snap-n-go" on which one's infant carrier/car seat fits and thought to myself, "Done." So naive. So very naive.

Flash forward 3 years and I just acquired my 6th, that's right, 6th, stroller, on craigslist. Which can I just say that acquiring a stroller on craigslist, especially of a certain brand, is on par with climbing Mt. Everest while chain smoking. Or actually more like an Olympic Decathalon where all the athletes are on steroids and crystal meth, since it is a competitive sport for sure. You go on there, you locate what you are looking for, you carpet bomb every eligible entry with inquiries, and maybe, MAYBE you get one reply from someone who posted their ad like 6 nanoseconds ago. Then you had better drop whatever you are doing--like seriously, if you are on the pot, you need to stop peeing midstream--throw your kids in the car and haul a** over to whatever location they instruct, hopefully to beat out the other crazy desperate moms and hopefully not to be murdered by a Phil-and-Teds-peddling serial killer (for those who are not parents, Phil and Teds is the holy grail of strollers, but I will get to that).

So how and why do I possibly need 6 strollers? Before I run down the litany of acquisitions in my own stroller odyssey, let me try to analyze for the confused what motivates a parent in their stroller quest. Most basically, moms keep buying strollers in the endless pursuit of the "perfect stroller," one that hauls all of one's children in comfort, as in they each have their own space big enough to live in comfortably for several days, in a contraption that can fit down a store aisle and fold up small enough to fit in the glove compartment of one's car. Maybe it can also change a diaper. In other words, it doesn't exist, much like the perfect man doesn't exist, even if he seems perfect at first, he will inevitably give your child strap burn or start veering to the left or become to heavy to cart around comfortably and you will be back trolling on craigslist.

More specifically, there are 3 reasons moms keep buying new strollers (or new-used ones):
1. You have more kids or your kids get bigger. As we all know, American children in the 21st century are unable to walk. It's true. Chinese toddlers are no doubt walking 23 miles one way in the snow to Montessori school. American children, on the other hand, must have a stroller until they are able to drive a car. So you really need to get a double or, if you are so crazy or unfortunate to have more than two kids, a triple stroller than can accommodate someone who is 5'6.' Just in case your 13 year old gets tired at Disneyland.
2. You bought the cheap stroller but then you see that all your friends have the kind that you can push with your pinkie finger and your kids are so comfortable, you can leave them in there until they graduate middle school. And you think to yourself, I must have that. I must either spend my children's college fund to buy that new or I must kill some people on craigslist.
3. You happen upon an occasion for which your stroller/s are not well-suited. There are three broad categories here--you got your out-on-the-town stroller, you know your stroller for when you lose your mind and think you'll just run to Target with your kids; your around-the-neighborhood stroller, which is typically a massive, 4 wheel drive, jogging stroller of some kind that lives on your porch and performs the secondary function of scaring away potential burglars; and lastly your exciting-adventure-Cadillac stroller, in which you take your kids on exciting outings to farms and Disney World and other places where they have animals and people in costumes. The latter kind of stroller we don't own, because as you know, we make it a rule not to go ANYWHERE with our small children, for the good of humanity.
So those are the basic drivers. Of course, you have to have strollers of every type for one or multiple kids as well. This starts to add up to enough strollers to fill an 8 car garage.

Now we are ready to recount my own stroller story. I will include pictures for added interest (or for any kind of interest):
1. As I said, our first stroller was the snap-n-go.

What I didn't know when I determined this was the only stroller I would ever need was that it is rendered useless once the child has grown out of the infant car seat, when they are about 25 lbs. This takes about 5 minutes for my kids. So then I bought a...
2. Cheap regular stroller. This was a hasty purchase, not well researched (a stroller purchase requires more research than the average dissertation), and didn't last long (I sold it on craigslist of course). This stroller was rejected because it did not fold up into a small enough area to put easily into my car and it did not have shoulder straps to secure my infant, thus endangering her life. I won't post a picture because it doesn't deserve one.
3. Single jogging stroller. This was given to me and has been used to go on walks in the neighborhood. I decided I had, HAD to have a jogging/multi-terrain stroller because our neighborhood has a few unpaved walking trails that I might want to walk on with my child sometime. You know, on Fridays in May when it is sunny, but not too sunny as to burn my little cherub, and between 72 and 78 degrees. There's a stroller for that. And this is it.
4. Expensive regular fold-up stroller to go in my car and replace the cheap regular stroller I sold on craigslist. I saw a friend with this particular brand and I just HAD to have it, I really don't know why, it's not that impressive, it's not like it can make air travel with small children bearable or anything miraculous like that.

5. Now we are moving into double stroller territory. Now, every mom, EVERY mom in my church group that has more than one kid has a Phil and Teds. Everyone breastfeeds, everyone cries in share time at some point, and EVERYONE owns a Phil and Teds. Those are the rules. The Phil and Teds are amazing, because they can convert from one to two kids and back again and they are double decker so very compact.

The downside is they cost more than a car, and forget about getting one on craigslist. The second they are posted, the seller's house is swarmed by moms with their own SWAT teams. So imagine my delight when I located a very cheap one on a listserve and actually made it to the woman's house in time. I was so busy salivating over it I did not test it out and notice that one of the axels was broken. No matter, I bought a replacement part. But it still didn't work, veered to either side. Long story short, I replaced all the wheels and axels and got it working decently well, not great, for a reasonable cost. Then Lawson arrived. We configured it for a toddler on top and a baby lying down in the bottom. We put him in it. He screamed as if we were forcing him to watch Barney. And he continued to scream for the entire walk. He did it again the next time. What can I say, he likes to see the sky and has acid reflux. So Phil and Teds, not his thing. But no matter--I can sell it on craiglist easier than I can eat an entire carton of mint chocolate chip ice cream in one sitting. But I think I'll keep it for now, I am sure there is an occasion where I will need a double-decker stroller for two, maybe a funeral or wedding.
6. So that brings us to our last acquisition, the double, side by side jogging stroller, so I can take both Charlotte and Lawson on walks in the neighborhood, on unpaved paths, on Fridays in May, when it is sunny but not too sunny and between 72 and 78 degrees, and Lawson can see the sky and be happy. The End. It's not the Rolls Royce of double strollers--that would be the BOB Revolution, and yes, it IS a revolution people, so don't mess--but it will do just fine. I hope. Otherwise I will have to buy another stroller.

All told, I've probably spent more on strollers than some countries spend on education. But I can take my kids places. If I want to. Which I don't really, it's too much trouble.

Parting shot, I title it "Strollers in the Mist."

Hi Ho Hi Ho It's back to work I go

2011-03-25T14:49:00.003-04:00

So I only have less than a week of maternity leave left. When Charlotte was born, the 4 month leave I took seemed to stretch into eternity, and I could not wait to return to work. Taking care of a baby all day wore me out and stressed me out. I became obsessed with the poison ivy growing in our yard. It distressed me greatly that I was constantly wearing a ratty T-shirt accessorized with spit-up. If she didn't follow her nap and feeding schedule exactly, I was plunged into depression, just sure it meant she would never sleep through the night again. I was a little crazy. I could also tell you Charlotte's age in weeks until she was 2 1/2.

This time around, 4 months has zoomed by, and I am not sure I am ready to go back to work. I also have no idea how old Lawson is in general, much less in weeks. I only know it's time to go back to work because my iPhone told me so. Charlotte still goes to daycare three days a week, so I have been home alone with Lawson those days. Don't tell my husband, but it's a pretty easy gig (most days; there are days when he acts like he has a bleeding ulcer and I'm feeding him lemon juice). Honestly, I don't know how and why I thought having one baby was hard. Just like I can't understand why I ever thought my job was stressful--what is stressful about sitting in front of a computer, unmolested by little parasites, all day? I imagine if I kept having children, which I most decidedly will not be doing, I would eventually come to regard prison as relaxing.

No, Lawson is pretty easy, despite the fact that, at almost 4 months old (I'm assuming, the daffodils are in bloom anyway), he still has no discernible nap or feeding schedule. Every day is a surprise, as if I am living with Charlie Sheen (incidentally, meditating on Charlie Sheen is one of my most effective coping mechanisms these days. Still 20 pounds overweight? At least I'm less likely to be kidnapped by Charlie Sheen and forced into a harem. Not getting enough sleep? Easier to fall asleep during ET's Charlie Sheen update. No quality time with my husband? At least I won't be reminded of Charlie Sheen by virtue of the fact that he and Kevin are both men). Sometimes he wakes up at 7, sometimes he wakes up at 5. Sometimes he goes to bed by 8, sometimes he feels like staying up til 10, usually on a Tuesday because he's a huge Gleek. Sometimes he has 5 bottles a day, sometimes it's 6, sometimes they are 4 oz., sometimes they are 7 oz. Sometimes he takes 3 naps, sometimes 4...it goes on. The only thing you can count on is that he will poop. At some point. Charlotte on the other hand followed a rigid schedule with military precision by 12 weeks old, a skill she must have inherited from her maternal grandparents, whose own sense of time could not be shaken even by the blunt force of Africa, where militaries lack military precision (but they can stage a decent coup in most places, although it will run behind schedule). His erratic behavior aside, a day with Lawson is fairly chill. He sleeps, he eats, he sits around. He is basically a piece of furniture at this point. A little more high maintenance actually, probably more like one of those weird Japanese toy pets that make you feed them. He's way cuter and more important of course, but just in terms of work load. And so what if I just wear spit-up all the time? Spit-up fits even on a fat day, and every day is a fat day around here.

Which brings me to one of the reasons I am reluctant to go back to work. Despite my best efforts, I am still really fat. I did not consider the possibility that I would have trouble losing weight when I was chowing down on donuts during my pregnancy because I did the same when pregnant with Charlotte and had no trouble shedding the pounds once I went on Weight Watchers. I also did not consider this possibility when I got rid of all my spring fat clothes, foolishly thinking I would be back to normal by the time warmer weather rolled around. Warmer weather is rolling around, and, alas, so am I. Still. Given that my wardrobe mainly consists of yoga pants and T-shirts, I have had to buy work-appropriate clothing in larger sizes, something I find more painful and unpleasant than giving birth without an epidural, something I have very intelligently never attempted, or eating salad without salad dressing, something I unfortunately have in my desperate state. I'm hoping my body will eventually get the message and start cooperating with me, but I fear this pregnancy has somehow permanently wrecked my metabolism, and I'll be forced to start buying really really expensive clothes so I can claim to be a size 8 again (Oprah, you know I love you more than life, but you are not a size 10, hate to tell you. Go try on a pair of jeans in Old Navy and brace yourself). I have a few other strategies in the event I never lose this weight that involve making my husband obese and moving to a Muslim country, but honestly I am quite despairing about it. My biggest fear in life, after being eaten by a wild animal and having to home school my children, is having to eat nothing but lettuce for all eternity. Hopefully it won't come to that.

I keep telling Lawson, in our waning quiet moments together, that he better not grow up to be a criminal because it would really suck to have had my body destroyed to bring a criminal into the world. That's what I think every time I see a bad person on TV now: your mother went through all that so you could go and become this? Honestly, we all owe it to our mothers to be a bunch of Mother Teresas out there.

VIP

2011-03-12T12:47:00.002-05:00

If you came to my house on a typical day, this is what you would see: Charlotte desperately trying to get me to play with her, usually by rolling around the floor and whimpering like a wounded Yorkshire Terrier, and me desperately trying to get her to play by herself so I can do something really important, like check to see how many people have "liked" my new Facebook profile pic. Or play another hand of spades on my iPhone. Or maybe write a blog post so my 13 fans will have some meaning in their lives. Doesn't she know who I am and how many important things I have to do?

Of course, I do have things I need to do. I need to defend against the invasion of toys into another room. I need to cook something to eat so Kevin doesn't have to do another Taco Bell run on his way home (yes, we eat Taco Bell regardless of what their meat actually is. If the FDA hasn't shut it down, we're eating it). I need to read a book, other than the Dr. Suess variety, so I don't forget how. I need to work out, although I don't know why, my body is hell bent on maintaining my new hefty weight regardless of what I do. And I need to pee, preferably alone. But besides the latter, which is not really an option, although tell that to Charlotte, I don't do any of that stuff. No, I just keep mindlessly moving through a series of digital stimulants like some hamster in a bad science experiment. Check email, check Facebook, spades, bridge, sudoku. Check Weight Watchers log to see if I have enough points left for a stick of gum. No, I don't. Start reading an article on cnn.com. Nope, too much mental energy required. Check email. Even though I haven't heard an alert and therefore already know I don't have any email. If I click "check mail" I might get a couple of messages that have come in in the last 1.5 seconds.

I got an iPhone recently, making this routine even easier to maneuver and even more constant. I got the iPhone because I was unable to share the iPod Touch I had earlier bought, ostensibly so Charlotte could play games. Yes, I could not share it with her, even though she plays with it maybe 1 hour a day. I explained to Kevin that I was getting my own iPhone because I thought sharing the iPod with Charlotte was fostering the spread of germs. Which is probably true, it's pretty much encrusted with dried spittle when she gives it back to me. But that is not the real reason I couldn't share, after all I was raised in Africa and ebola doesn't scare me much less some toddler spit. No, the real reason is that I found I could no longer breathe without it in my hand. I bought an iPhone to save my own life, it's true. Now, besides breathing, I can stand in line at Starbucks with the other people that are too important to be disconnected from anyone who knows them for 3 seconds and go through my motions on my iPhone.

And that is what I think a lot of this digital addiction is really all about: Feeling important without doing any meaningful work. And communicating to other people that you are important. Thus the 8 status updates per hour (I carefully limit myself to 1 per day. I don't want people thinking I think I am important. I want them to know I am so important I only have time for 1 per day). Thus the constant email checking and sending. I want a visible, tangible sign that people think I am important. Thus the blogging. I want people to reflect back to me that I am so smart and important that they want to read what I have to say. The spades and bridge, I don't know what that is, just pure crack without any deeper meaning I suppose. The Weight Watchers is pure desperation at this point.

But playing with a 3 year old? Giving her my undivided attention? Where's the pay off, man? She already knows I am important because she doesn't eat without me around. And no one else will know and be impressed by how well I play with a toddler.

Until she robs a bank. Or just becomes a law-abiding bad person. Or just an emotionally needy regular person.

The truth is--I don't have anything better to do than spending quality time with my kids. Partly because I am really that lame. But mostly because there IS nothing better to do. It doesn't really matter if I am fluent in Swahili or well-read. It for damn sure doesn't matter if I have a cute status update that everyone hearts. Or write in this blog. No one cares or is going to die. Don't get me wrong, I'm still going to do it, I really do need to feel important. But maybe I could spend more time on the things that actually ARE important. There's a concept.

The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics

2011-02-26T13:16:00.003-05:00

Wikipedia gives a scientific definition for the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics that I can't really understand, so I'm going to go with the dumbed-down version, that things basically decay over time. An addendum to the law is that if children are present, things decay at an average increased rate of π÷√∝∑.99967. If you are not a math major (or especially if you are and know that makes no sense), that is A LOT. Whether you are talking about a sofa or a clean floor or just peace and quiet and sanity, things tend to fall apart rather quickly.

Just this week, for instance, a peaceful, orderly day was shattered when Charlotte calmly informed me she had inserted a craisin into her nasal cavity. This simple action resulted in a three hour ordeal that took us to the ER, then an ENT doctor, when the ER staff inexplicably could not remove the craisin (Gunshot wound? No problem. Craisin in the nose? Panic attack. To be fair, it was in the nose of a toddler, which is kind of like a bullet being in the head of an adult. At the end of the whole thing, I considered taking myself back to the ER for treatment). Fortunately, my husband was in the country for this ER visit, unlike the last one, so I didn't have to haul a newborn along for the ride. That would have 2nd-Law-of-Thermodynamic-ed what is left of my adrenal gland.

Or take a look at my house, which is impossible to keep clean and/or neat for more than 7.2 seconds. For some reason, I insist on picking up, every so often, all the toys and empty toilet paper rolls and burp clothes that litter the landscape as if a world war had been recently fought here. I do this because I need psychological help and probably some Paxil. Here is my dirty little secret: I am a recovering neat freak. Motherhood is my rehab program. Just as people with phobias are treated with exposure therapy, I am treating myself by living in a house with dozens of crappy McDonald's toys made in China. My mantra, which I repeat to myself multiple times a day, is, "It does not matter if my house is messy. It does not matter if my house is messy." On a bad day, it is, "The toys are not alive and cannot hurt me" or "I will not end up on a TLC hoarders show if I go to bed without sorting the toy bins." A monthly maid service is a stop gap measure in case I catch a glimpse under the dining room table (also to maintain a basic level of sanitation of course). I have also thus far refrained from telling Kevin is it over between us due to his penchant for leaving a trail of burp cloths wherever he goes with Lawson. Of course, Kevin has his own mental illness with which to grapple, and that is his fear of any foreign bodily fluids touching him or his clothes. We have both managed to hold it together and are gradually learning how to co-exist with chaos and bodily fluids. Lots of bodily fluids. We still refuse to go on vacation with our children, however. We know our limits.

You don't have to have kids, however, to be undone by chaos. After all, our entire existence hovers on the brink at all times and is in a constant state of decay if not kept up. We spend our lives struggling to maintain order, control, health, youth, relationships. And we are all neurotic as a rule. I've become convinced that those who are most comfortable with chaos are the most happy, unless the chaos just completely overruns them, then they really do end up on a TLC show. Whenever I am in a really messy house, I am horrified, but I am also filled with admiration. I'm thinking, this woman has presumably been living with laundry, play dough AND dirty dishes stacked on her formal dining room table for days if not weeks, and she is still standing here speaking English as if the world were not in danger? Is she some kind of super hero who is immune to all mental illness?

Kids also do a number on a marriage. When Kevin and I finally get both kids in bed on a Friday night, we are too exhausted to do anything but fall asleep on the couch watching Dateline NBC and eating bean dip. If we decide to go all out and have a glass of wine, well, there is some drool involved. I am hoping we are also both too tired to have an affair. I know I am, affairs seem like a whole lot of work. Plus I would have to leave the house for that and probably even take a shower.

Well, gotta go. The toys are calling me. No, seriously, I think there must be something lodged on top of Charlotte's Pooh phone.

Lies La Leche League Told Me

2011-02-14T13:35:00.002-05:00

I think everyone (and by everyone, I mean EVERYONE, including people who don't know me and don't own a computer, they just sense a disturbance in the force) knows how I feel about breastfeeding. If you want to refresh your memory, you can go back and read my earlier post on the topic, but let me save you the trouble and summarize my position. Quite simply, breastfeeding is an unnecessary and barbaric vestige of the pre-modern past that enslaves women while saving them thousands of dollars they can spend on psychiatric care for the resultant depression. But of course I am breastfeeding Lawson, as I lack the power of my own convictions and also fear being ostracized by the yuppie mom community, because then I would have no one to discuss my child's bowel movements with. Well, I am mostly breastfeeding him, but we'll get to that. Even though it has gone well this time, relative to last time, I can't say that I have become a huge fan, although I do hate it slightly less than I did. For instance, it has gotten me out of taking care of Charlotte at some opportune moments that involved vomit and poop.

But one thing that has definitely endured is my hatred for the band of breastfeeding Nazis that have perfectly reasonable, smart, and capable women convinced they must breastfeed at all costs in order to be the best mom to their kids. In order to convince them, they have told many lies, as propagandists do, the full extent of which has become apparent to me only now when I have had some success with this. As a public service, I'm going to reveal them now. You can send gifts of gratitude if you wish.

Myth #1: Breastfeeding aids weight loss. OK, now, this probably is true for some people, probably the same people that only gained 20 lbs in pregnancy and just love breastfeeding so much, their bodies sense their joy and work hard to make enough milk to feed all the babies in Sudan, which requires like 3,000 calories per day. I gained a wee bit more than 20 lbs. I lived it up during my pregnancy because I gained 50 lbs with Charlotte and lost it all fairly easily on Weight Watchers, so I figured I could just do that again. Well. Despite diligently counting points for 6 weeks now, I have barely lost anything. In fact, today for Valentine's Day, my scale gave me back 2 pounds I thought I had misplaced. Thanks so much. So I started doing some research and asking my friends about their experiences. It turns out breastfeeding may actually prevent weight loss in a lot of people. The body thinks it needs extra fat to make the milk, you know, in case you are crossing the Sahara without food and water while you are breastfeeding. It always comes back to that with women and weight loss, I don't know why the human body hasn't caught on to the fact that most of us don't plan to cross the Sahara anymore, we plan to sit on our sofas most of the day and watch soap operas. This does not require a lot of fat stores. Not to mention that, as Weight Watchers explains to you, you can't cut too many calories while you are breastfeeding lest it affect your milk supply. Then you might--GASP--have to put your baby on formula. So don't even think about cutting back too much, you fat cow. And that's not an insult when you are breastfeeding, either, it's just the truth.

Myth #2: Once your milk supply is established, your body will naturally keep up with your baby's demand. So everything was going well with Lawson, by all signs, he was getting plenty of food, it was about a month in. Then he started to get cranky. First it was just a couple of hours in the evening, then it became almost all day. The doctor said he probably had "colic." Some people said it was just his age. We tried acid reflux medicine, it didn't work. So one day I decided to try giving him a bottle around midday (we already were giving him one at night). It was like Bill O'Reilly suddenly morphed into a yoga teacher named Rainbow. So I guess while he was technically getting enough to eat to stay alive without the bottle, he wasn't getting enough to make him a nice person. Just like me on Weight Watchers, actually. This just confirmed my long held belief that bottle fed babies are happy babies, if dumb and disease-prone ones.

Myth #3: If you are breastfeeding correctly, it shouldn't hurt. This is just UTTER CRAP, I think that is all that needs to be said.

Myth #4: Under no circumstances should you give your baby anything but your breast to put in his mouth in the first month, to include bottles and pacifiers, because this will wreck everything. This is the advice I followed with Charlotte. After two weeks of feeding and soothing her around the clock, single-handedly, because I was the only one lactating, this isn't feudal France and I can't run out and get a wet nurse, I became a mental patient and was forced to quit. This time, I followed the advice of our sage pediatrician, who operates on the theory that if Mommy ain't happy and sane, ain't nobody happy and sane. If Mommy commits suicide determined to let no unclean thing pass her baby's lips, then baby grows up on formula fed to him by a single Daddy. So he suggested supplementing with formula at night and letting Daddy do a feeding. Newborns will suck on anything, turns out, and this way, baby sleeps better, earlier and Mommy doesn't get run into the ground like a common piece of livestock. I don't know why the breastfeeding "experts" take everything to such an extreme, it just sets women up for failure.

Myth #5: Your breasts will return to normal when you are finished. It is still too early to determine if this is true, but talking to others, I think I can preemptively rule this a lie. Just today, I was watching Rachael Ray, which goes to show you just how much TV I have been watching since Lawson was born. I was watching Rachael Ray, even though I hate cooking, don't think the name "Rachel" should be spelled with an "a," and get confused when she refers to olive oil as "Evo." But I still watched, and she had a woman on who needed help buying lingerie now that her breasts had gone from a D to a B after breastfeeding her 3 kids. This is the experience of many of my friends as well. Given that I am not that well endowed to begin with, I expect a few months of nursing Lawson will send me back into a training bra. On the other hand, my butt will no doubt stay the size of Dolly Parton's chest.

Myth #6: The formula companies are evil fiends who just want your money. Obviously, the formula companies want my money because that is the basis of operation for all companies. In this case, I will happily give my money to the formula companies because they are selling a superior product that I want. It's called capitalism, maybe you've heard of it.

Those are the key lies that I have uncovered. So far. What I haven't figured out is why these people, all women, are so committed to their gender's bamboozlement. Maybe they are all robots created by men to get out of child care. Maybe they are secret Muslims trying to institute sharia law through the back door. Maybe they are cows dressed up like humans. Maybe they are aliens dressed up like humans. Maybe they are just really mean humans. These are just a few theories I'm tossing around. But I will get to the bottom of it. Right after I finish watching Rachael Ray.

Perspective

2011-02-02T14:45:00.003-05:00

So I'm on my own now as the mother of two. Kevin went back to work (and even left town for a couple of days for his grandmother's funeral), and all our parents have departed. Turns out this is harder when the adult to child ratio is not even. Basically, you have to be OK with someone always being unhappy with you. It's kind of like being President of the United States. If the Republicans aren't crapping on you, the Democrats are. Only when you are a mom, the crap is not metaphorical. And you don't have a personal chef. And you're wearing yoga pants all the time. Those are the key differences. But either way, every day is an endless series of weighing worst outcomes. Is it worse to put Lawson down mid feeding or let Charlotte's pee soak into the rug? Is it worse to let Charlotte stay up til 9 pm or let Lawson scream to himself while you put her to bed? Is it worse to let Lawson scream to himself or let Charlotte eat the Goldfish from under the dining room table for dinner? And the ultimate issue of our time, is harder to leave the house with both children or stay in the house with both children? Is it worse to support Hosni Mubarak or risk declining counter terrorism support from other key middle eastern allies? See, all the same.

I won't lie to you, I'm not having the most fun ever. I would give anything to have more than 2 pairs of pants and 5 T shirts to wear, to go anywhere by myself other than the gynecologist, to go bra-less and nursing pad-less in my sleep, to eat a quiet dinner with my husband, to spend any real time with him really. But I know that this phase will indeed pass, each day brings me ever closer to that Nirvana that is elementary school. Lawson is my last chid (as God is my witness), so everything with him is the last time, and I am celebrating that. I am trying to enjoy this time on some level and to fully appreciate how blessed I am to have two healthy kids.

One thing that has helped me to do this is to remember a family I've never actually met but who used to go to our church. They have a 6 year old and a 4 year old, both born with a rare genetic disorder called Sanfilippo Syndrome, a disease that progressively causes children to become disabled and then die by age 10 or so. Children with this disease develop like a normal, healthy child until around age 2, at which time they begin to regress mentally and physically. This couple's second child, a boy, was just born when they discovered their daughter had the disease. Then they tested their son, and he had it too. I cannot imagine what these parents' lives are like. In addition to the deep heart break of watching your beloved children slowly leave you, there are the day-to-day challenges of caring for special needs children. They have said on their blog that they are perpetually in the baby and toddler stage. They cherish each moment with their kids despite the hardships.

When I think of this family, well, I still complain about my life with small kids. Clearly, God has limited the number and severity of challenges in my life because the resultant whining would drive him crazy. As it is, He has poured out blessings on my life in attempt to make it stop, to no avail. Apparently, God can create the universe, but he can't stop me from whining. BUT, when I think about this family, underneath my grumbling I know that these beautiful children of mine are the greatest gift on earth. I mean, not only are they healthy, they are adorable, talented, personable, and brilliant (obviously). Raising them is the most important thing I will ever do. But then I think that is why I do complain about parenthood, because I am overwhelmed and terrified by the responsibility of it. I love them so much, it is horrifying to me that they are in my care. Surely someone else is more qualified.

So I'm still going to complain, mostly because it is fun. But I'm going to try a little harder to keep it in perspective.

Surrender Hymn of the Sloth Mother

2011-01-25T10:40:00.006-05:00

The latest debate in the parenting world surrounds Amy Chua's book Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. I haven't read it because I just had a baby and won't be reading books for at least one year. But I do watch TV. Lots and lots of TV. Which Amy Chua would frown upon. Based on interviews I have seen, her parenting strategy is to put her kids through boot camp, minimizing leisure and socializing and stressing performance and perfection. Chua, a Chinese-American, says this is how Chinese parents raise kids, as opposed to the American way of spoiling and coddling kids and telling them they are awesome all the time, and that is why China is now kicking our economic butts.

I think she has a real point. Having taught and worked with some classic products of American parenting, I do think we are a nation of spoiled brats, people who need hand-holding and affirmation for simply breathing, people who can't learn unless the teacher is also tap dancing, people who feel entitled to all the material goods their 20 credit cards will allow. I include myself in that to a degree, but mainly this is a result of living in America as an adult. America rubs off on everyone. If Gandhi lived here, he would also conclude that an iPad is essential to human existence like the rest of us. Maybe not. But America has spoiled me, despite the fact that I was raised in Africa by pretty strict parents who sent me to boarding school, where I had to--gasp!--do my own homework, BY MYSELF no less. I also had to survive a Jr. High girls dorm, where a sense of entitlement and diva behavior will get you stoned to death, socially speaking.

Given how often I have lambasted and rolled my eyes at American kids and felt superior in my upbringing, you would think I am well-positioned to be a strict Tiger Mom who excels at discipline. But just as I once voluntarily ended up in a Hooters restaurant exactly 53 minutes after unleashing a brutal anti-Hooters tirade, hypocrisy in the face of harsh reality--in that case the harsh reality of not being able to find another sports bar showing the OU-TX game--inevitably sets in. To quote George W. Bush discussing rebuilding Iraq, parenting is "hard work! It's hard work!" And the stricter you are, the more control you want to have, the harder it is. It turns out it is easier to just buy a new couch when your kids are grown than to war with them about putting their shoes and crayons and bodily fluids on it and it is easier to just let their brains whither into nothingness than to impose limits on TV watching and it is easier to just let them eat hot dogs and raisins for every meal than to cajole them to eat vegetables. It is easier to have no rules than to enforce the rules. It is the same reason prohibition didn't work out.

I wish I could say my lax parenting style is the result of some well-thought-out theory that letting children run wild builds their self esteem and teaches them to make their own decisions. But it is not. No, my parenting style is the result of pure sloth. I am a Sloth Mother. A Sloth Mother only bathes her kids when they start to stink or there is visible goop in their hair. She waits for her child to potty train herself. She stuffs her newborn to the gills at bedtime to get a better night's sleep. She does not put her baby in tummy time. Her kid thinks church is Disneyland because that is the only place she takes her. I'm sure my kids are smart enough to read by age 4 but I'm not going to be teaching them. That is why I pay taxes. I don't think Sloth parenting is the same as just plain American parenting because that includes a lot of ego stroking activities that take too much energy.

I am Sloth Mother, hear me snore. That's the goal anyway.

Saint Holly

2011-01-08T10:31:00.004-05:00

Well, it's a done deal. I am now a mother of two children (Incidentally, I have written this post the way I do everything these days, in 5 minute increments over the course of weeks). For those who somehow missed the email, the Christmas letter, and both mine and Kevin's Facebook announcements, Lawson was born on December 16 weighing a whopping 10 lbs, and thank God because that explains the extra 20 pounds I packed on. OK, maybe it only explains an extra 3 pounds, since the average baby is somewhere around the 7 lb mark, but I will take anything I can get.

For those who have been waiting in anticipation for me to recount with attempted comedic effect the horrors of the last month, well, you will be disappointed, I'm happy to say. Everything has gone surprisingly well, miraculously well even. In fact, the last month has been so full of miracles, I think I should apply to the vatican for canonization upon my death. I guess it would be me who is responsible for the miracles anyway. Not sure on that, or if simply being responsible for a miracle qualifies you, or if you have to be a decent person on top of that. I'm Presbyterian now, which means I don't have to try too hard. Anyway, let the Pope consider these uncanny events before he decides:

MIracle #1: Lawson is as good a sleeper as Charlotte, if not better. Charlotte, you will recall, was sleeping 8 hours straight by 4 weeks or so, and 12 hours straight by 8 weeks. Of course, in weeks 1-3, she only slept an hour at a time, but that is because she was starving. People said there was no way, NO WAY we could possibly have another baby like that. But Lawson, whom we stuff like a pig before putting him to bed, did 8 hours at 2 weeks. Now he typically only does 6 at a time, but we know he is capable of greater things. What can I say, we birth sleeping geniuses.

Miracle #2: Despite Charlotte getting sick twice and Kevin getting sick once, Lawson nor I ever got sick. Kevin's illness was a near disaster averted by Kevin's mother's miraculous last-minute flight across the country, the day after Christmas, through a would-be blizzard. Maybe she is the one who should apply for canonization. She has the good person thing going for her as well, despite being Lutheran, a denomination that similarly emphasizes grace over works. Which makes her even better, since she is a good person without even having to be. Wow. In any case, I only had to take care of both children by myself for about 6 hours. Of course, that was enough to occasion a hormonally induced meltdown, but it wasn't too bad.

Which brings me to MIracle #3: I have only had a few meltdowns/psychotic breaks/strokes in the last month. In addition to the aforementioned one, I of course lost it when I first weighed myself upon my arrival home and realized that, despite birthing a 10 lb baby and all his accoutrements, I had only lost 10 lbs. (which I didn't think was scientifically possible, meaning this is possibly another miracle, only not the happy kind). Apparently I was retaining a lot of fluid that soon exited my body, but still, a meltdown was in order. I also had not so much a meltdown but a crabby outburst over my mother-in-law's relocation of the package of baby wipes from our dining room table, which is apparently an offense on par with serving pork barbeque in Texas. But in general, I would say I have been relatively sane, which is an accomplishment for me even under normal circumstances.

Miracle #4: Charlotte actually likes her baby brother, even if she is a little bored by him and was forbidden by her father to be in the same room with him for much of the past month due to her germs. Nor is she able to do much to help with him, much to her dismay. Her big contribution as a big sister is to pat his back and turn on his toy during the dreaded Tummy Time. It's very sweet. She even seems to accept that most of Mommy's time and attention is now devoted to him. There have been no attempted murders or suicide threats on her part, at least not directly related to him, just for all the normal things, like being served meatballs instead of chicken nuggets. That is apparently a MUCH bigger deal than suddenly having to share your parents with another child.

Miracle #5: And this is the biggie: I AM STILL BREAST FEEDING. And it is going WELL. I know. I am a little freaked out by it, as this really calls my entire identity as a mother into question. I do maintain that I don't like it, I will never change my stance on that. It is indeed like living life as a chattel slave. The main reason it is going well is that we are not perfectionists about it this time. We give him bottles at night, ensuring that everyone gets some sleep. This has made all the difference. But I am breast feeding him during the day. I am trying to stay focused on all the money we are saving. In fact, when I go back to work, at which point I am definitely quitting, I think I will calculate exactly how much money that is, and then I am going to take that money to an outlet mall and buy a bunch of clothes once I am back to my normal size. Or actually, since it will probably take me a decade to lose all this weight, I could invest the money in a high yield mutual fund, and assuming the economy recovers, I could buy myself a new wardrobe AND a ranch in Montana. Eyes on the prize.

Of course the biggest miracle of all is Lawson himself. Take a look at this handsome fellow!

Oh Holy Fright

2010-12-09T14:53:00.004-05:00

It turns out Christmas is not an ideal time to have a baby. Actually, I have always known this to be the case, having been born at Christmas myself (on Dec. 18th to be precise). The best thing about having a Christmas birthday is that is provides a wonderful opportunity to whine, complain, and feel slighted every year. I can't say I have been cheated too much in the gift department, although I have heard from other December babes that it is quite common. I guess I am particularly skilled at guilting my loved ones into buying me things for my birthday. Kevin, for one, lives in terror the rest of the year that he will not do my birthday up big enough, which usually works out quite nicely. One year I got a surprise trip to see U2 in another city. No, my biggest gripe has been that most everyone is just too busy to make a big deal over you if you are born at Christmas. No one has time to come to a birthday party because they have a more exciting Christmas/holiday party every single night in December. Either that, or they are out of town. As I am fond of saying (in jest, God, really!)--Jesus is a massive attention hog. And I hear theologians don't even think he was born in December! It's just an outrage to the December birthday community, one of the great overlooked and oppressed minority groups going today.

Given the complex I already had over my birthday, the fact that I am having a December baby just adds insult to injury. Not that I am absolved of all responsibility. Kevin in fact suggested we skip a month, if I can be delicate about it, in our quest to have a second child so as to preclude such a horrific occurrence. But since we are so ancient, I thought we couldn't afford to miss any opportunity, so here we are. As usual, he was right and sensible, and God was a comedian and a little bit cruel. Now that Jr. is also going to born at Christmas, I figure last year was my last official birthday, I won't stand a chance from now on. This year of course will be particularly awesome. I am going out to dinner the weekend before my birthday with friends--friends who can't scrounge up a holiday party to attend instead--but I will weigh close to 200 lbs, I will undoubtedly be wearing overalls (literally the only thing left to wear, thank God I went ahead and bought them), and I won't even be able to binge eat without great pain and agony. But I'm sure it will still beat out my actual birthday, which will be spent in the hospital recovering from major surgery and doing my absolute favorite thing, every 2 hours, and really every hour if you consider it takes a newborn almost an hour to eat: breast feeding. And the jig will be up in terms of how fat I actually am, which I'm guessing is severely, since last I checked, people don't usually have 50 lb. babies. But, hey, I will have a son, who I will one day love, right after I stop breast feeding him that is.

But all that aside, I somehow did not anticipate how physically and logistically difficult the Christmas season would be when 9 months pregnant. I would have just skipped the whole production, but this is the first year we can begin to properly indoctrinate Charlotte, now that she speaks English pretty well. So I have gone to herculean efforts, given the level of my disability and exhaustion, not to mention all the baby-prep we have inevitably left to the last minute, to give her a real Christmas. There have been crafts, there have been Christmas books read to her daycare class, there have been Christmas cookies, there has been Christmas-tree-decorating, there have been Christmas cards for her teachers, and of course there will be gifts. So far, she has proven to be a huge Scrooge about the whole thing. The crafts have been a disaster because the skill level they required slightly, SLIGHTLY, exceeded her actual skills, so she got frustrated, I had to help her, she threw a fit, and it was so much fun, not to mention festive. The cookies she did not want to decorate so much as stuff in her face as fast as she could. The book reading at school also upset her because she apparently thought I would decide to trade her in for one of her classmates while I was there (Not a chance. They are all 2, as well, but I'm not related to any of them). And the Christmas tree--Oh the Christmas tree--well, she just completely boycotted that. I had made her her own basket of unbreakable ornaments that she could put on the tree without drama. She just flatly refused to cooperate. Went and watched a DVD. Meanwhile, it took me the rest of the day to recover from the exertion of fluffing the branches on our (fake) tree. Now she says at least 4 times a day, "Look at our Christmas Tree! I didn't help." At least she doesn't do what so many adults do and take credit where it is not due.

I am thankful for one thing, however, and that is online shopping. If I had to go to a mall right now and actually purchase gifts the old fashioned way, and without a wheelchair or even handicapped parking space mind you, I can tell you that no one would be getting a darn thing. And some people in that mall would probably not survive to see the new year, as I am very short-tempered these days. As it is, my loved ones are getting whatever came up first when I entered "toy" or "sweater" or "book" in Amazon.com search bar. I've also farmed out some of the gift buying to my mother-in-law, God bless her. If any of the gifts I have purchased myself end up wrapped, well, that will be a Christmas miracle all on its own. It's hard to cut wrapping paper when you can't even reach the table.

So Merry Christmas to all. May you sleep in heavenly peace, because doubtful I will be doing that anytime soon....

Birth Order

2010-11-29T20:11:00.000-05:00

Where have I been, you ask. Let me assure you that I am alive (barely) and still pregnant (extremely). I have used all my spare time and mental energy the last few weeks on full-time language training. I'm sure it will take exactly 48 hours of post-partum sleep deprivation to forget everything I have learned not only in the last month but in my lifetime. By Christmas I'll probably be calling Africa a country. Her 5 kids are no doubt the source of Sarah Palin's own ignorance on the subject, and every other subject for that matter. They are also the reason I can't vote for her in 2012--any woman who has that many kids clearly lacks the sanity to have access to nuclear weaponry. But I digress.

I have a theory that becoming a parent is particularly hard on last born children. Sure, youngest kids are just hysterical amounts of fun, which logic would suggest aids good parenting. But one of the reasons they are hysterical amounts of fun is because they grew up having other people take care of all of the logistics in their life and were responsible for very little. It's a very relaxing lifestyle. When my parents weren't around or couldn't be bothered, my sister took care of everything for me. For instance, she got me settled in college, which included taking me to Wal Mart and telling me exactly what I needed and what I should buy. That is something I would never do. If I were responsible for getting someone settled in college, I would give them directions to Wal Mart. Maybe. Then I would take a nap. People are adults and can buy their own comforters and plastic storage shelves without my assistance.

But what happens when people are NOT adults? And what happens when the only "adults" around are BOTH youngest children? Well, then you have a problem. Not necessarily for the kids--Kevin and I were after all raised in good families and can be responsible when pressed. It's not like our kids are out there robbing banks. Yet. But being responsible for others is definitely not my preferred way of operating. When I am given responsibility over others, I either go the most lax route possible to ensure as little work as possible--thus the reason Charlotte will not go to Disney World until she is old enough to drive me there--or I overcompensate and become a German prison matron, as I do when it comes to Charlotte's sleep schedule, although this is primarily motivated by my own comfort more than anything else. But in general, the responsibility of parenting requires an incredible amount of logistics and planning that youngest kids find boring and exhausting. You have to make sure they have the right size and season clothes at any given time, that there is more than just peanut butter in the house to eat (you may even have to--gasp--plan meals and make grocery lists, one of my most hated activities), that they have something to do, which often involves leaving the house, which then requires more forethought and preparation than the D-Day invasion. Kevin and I had a hard enough time leaving the house when we didn't have any kids. Mostly we sat around and had conversations that went like this: What do you want to do today? I don't know, what do you want to do? I don't know. We could go to a movie. Which movie? I don't know. Hmmm. Wow, look it's already time for bed. Now, of course, when it's too late for us, I can think of lots of things we could have done with our childless time. I was 8 months pregnant with Charlotte when we discovered we had a mutual desire to play tennis. Now if we want to play tennis, which we rarely do, who has the energy, it involves more preparatory steps than a Martha Stewart craft project. Maybe when we retire.

Most of the Classic Moms that I know are oldest children, or at least middle children. Take my friend Kenna. First I have to say that despite her claims to the contrary, this woman is a Classic Mom, for which her lucky kids and husband should be thankful. Kenna has a 2 year old and a 1 year old, they are 18 months apart. If I had found out when Charlotte was 9 months old that I would be having another one, I would have called my mother-in-law crying and begged her to raise one of them for me (because she is that nice of a person). Kenna was unfazed and remains so from what I can tell. Between diaper changes and breastfeeding (which of course she loves to do), she frequently bakes cookies and repaints entire bedroom suites singlehandedly in her spare time. According to our mutual friend Christina, when Kenna went into labor with her second child, she finished a craft project, probably even a Martha Stewart craft project, and made lunch before mentioning to Christina or anyone else that she was having contractions. Kenna is such a competent mother, her husband seems to think motherhood is easy, as evidenced by his insinuation that I complain too much (I don't know where he would acquire such a ridiculous idea, certainly not from this blog. As if!) Kenna is, of course, an oldest child. Oldest children ENJOY taking care of people and managing the logistics of life for the happiness of others. This is the key to being a happy, Classic Mom. I on the other hand think other people, including small children, should manage their own stuff and leave me alone. And I'll bake cookies only when I want to binge on something and we are out of Readiwhip.

Our youngest-child-as-parent situation is not improved by the fact that we are currently raising a first born. When we decided to have kids, this was an inevitability. I don't know how you avoid having an oldest child (maybe with twins? or are they both oldest children?) In any case, we are completely out-bossed by her. She is particularly draconian about our "nap time." She lays out pillows and blankets and demands that we lay down on the floor. She covers our heads with blankets, and God help us if we try to lift the blanket a little for some air. She then pats us on our backs and whispers insistently in our ears, "Close your eyes!" I'm not going to lie to you, it's more than a little Stephen King-ish. She is also very demanding of our attention, probably because she is accustomed to getting it. The other day she stood in her room and wailed for 10 minutes because I had the nerve to walk into the living room instead of sitting in the chair in her room as ordered. Kevin, the sucker, finally went in and got her (I ultimately blame him for all her bad behavior). I fear Baby Brother's arrival is going to be something akin to the last scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark when the Nazis open the Ark and the fury of the Lord melts everyone's skin off. Studies have shown that oldest kids get more of their parents' attention not only before their siblings are born but throughout their lifetimes. I believe it. Parents are afraid to have their skin melted off for one thing. That, and old habits die hard. I already have it in my mind that Baby Brother is just going to have to adapt to whatever we have going here, such that it is, because I don't really have the energy to accommodate another little dictator.

Basically, I'm hoping that given a few more years, Charlotte will just take over completely and put me out of a job. We'll probably be eating a lot of chicken nuggets, but if I don't have to cook them, who cares?

A season for Thanksgiving

2010-11-07T13:59:00.006-05:00

I am in a really REALLY foul mood. We went to the mother of all malls this morning, with Charlotte, so I could go to the maternity store and buy a few more tents to wear, having grown out of almost everything I already own, and Kevin could watch Charlotte play on the indoor playground. I should have known better--this particular indoor playground is probably one of the most dangerous places in America (I won't say in the world, since that includes several war zones). On a given day, it is virtually crawling with children, many of them far too old to be playing on this playground, and all of them raised by wolves. The older kids are invariably jumping off the top of the adorable foam elephants and birdsnests and things, landing on the toddlers for whom the playground was designed and giving them concussions. The toddlers who remain conscious, meanwhile, are zipping around, up, and down, trampling over anyone in their path, including any parents who may be futilely trying to save their child's life. So I don't know what I was thinking. Sometimes it's like I subconsciously set myself up for a nervous breakdown because I just can't allow myself to be sane. I think that's why I had children in the first place. Either that or I am just insane to begin with, which going by Ockham's Razor is the correct explanation because it is the simplest one. In my defense, it is a very nice day, so I thought maybe most parents, or at least those who are not the size of a Buick and can walk across a playground without a cane, would have taken their children outdoors to play, with the wild animals where they belong. But apparently not. It was INSANE. And Poor Charlotte. She wanted to play on the playground so badly but really lacks the aggression to do so successfully. She has the distinct disadvantage of being raised by enlightened humans. She would near the steps of the slide and get overwhelmed by all the little demons swirling around her. At one point, she looked at me pathetically and said, "They aren't waiting their turn!" while I tried to give her a crash course on what you do when you are the only moral, civilized person anywhere in the tri-state area and risk being destroyed if you don't bring yourself down to the level of the unwashed masses to a degree, never forgetting that you are in fact better than that and retaining the ability to revert to superior living when once again in kinder circumstances (kind of like driving on the Beltway. Or worse, in Africa). Then I just fled the scene and left Kevin to figure it out. She must have gotten it OK because she was still alive when I got back from the maternity store.

Ah, the maternity store. There's a depressing place at 8 months pregnant. This is where you go in desperation when you either can't fit in or despise every last item in your closet, when you have somehow managed to outgrow even your socks, when you are reduced to wearing your wedding rings on a necklace (as if you would be beating back the interested men without them), when watching college football has the added intrigue of seeing how many players you now outweigh (in my case, pretty much all but the offensive line). You go the maternity store with the deluded notion that you will find something in which you will resemble a human being. You try on everything in the store and are left with the choice of either spending good money on items you will only wear for 5 weeks and which basically cover your body and perform no other redeeming function or to leave with some underwear and the mirage of dignity, dignity which you in fact shed months ago, somewhere in between wearing sweatpants to church and pulling a groin muscle while turning over in bed. I did the latter, although I did cave and buy the overalls I have been threatening to buy, the overalls that will pretty much finish off what is left of our "marital" relationship. The saleslady perkily assured me I could paint my house in them after I am no longer pregnant. Thanks, once I recover my abdominal muscles and my will to live, I'll definitely be painting my house in those overalls.

In any case, I arrived back home in a foul mood and very depressed at the next 5 weeks, but really at the next 5 years, to be honest with you. Sometimes I think I live too much in the moment. In one of my favorite movies, Out of Africa, Dennys tells Karen that if you imprison a Maasai he will die because Massai live in the now and can't conceive of one day being free. While I think Dennys is full of paternalistic colonial crap about the Maasai, I think he is describing me quite well, because I really suck at looking forward, at enduring misery to reach a goal down the road. I tend to wallow in the putrid muck of the present, like an elephant, a particularly apt metaphor at this point since I am the size of one. But this is really ridiculous, as I know I will be returned to human form (still an obese human form, but nonetheless) in another month or so, and I know, rationally, that if I can just make it through the next year, the worst will truly be behind me. And besides that, my life overall is really blessed and, God willing, in 20 years, I will have adult children who come to see me on my ranch in Montana at Christmas, if not out of affection, out of the hope they will inherit the millions I have earned from my career as a writer, and who hopefully know me well enough not to expect me to do for them and their kids all the stuff my mother and mother-in-law are currently doing for me.

So there's lots to look forward to and be thankful for, in this month of Thanksgiving. Even just here and now, there are things for which to be grateful. For instance, I'm thankful my mother and mother-in-law are indeed better people than me and are willing to help me out. I'm thankful I don't outweigh the Sooners' offensive line, because if I did, watching them would truly be unbearable, given how they have been playing. I'm thankful I probably won't outweigh them, given that severe acid reflux is putting an end to my late night binge eating. I'm thankful I'm not a Maasai and don't have to wash my kids in cow pee, not to mention breast feed in a culture without brassieres. I'm thankful that I am enlightened enough to use formula if it comes to that, as it inevitably will, so I can merely be post-partumly depressed instead of suicidal. I'm thankful for my Weight Watchers membership, which shines like a beacon of hope for the future every time I get on a scale. I'm thankful I have no weddings or big events or even many reasons to leave my home over the next several months that would require me to get dressed and/or photographed. I'm thankful men are so oblivious and therefore can't tell how much I hate them all right now. I"m thankful that my husband is clearly too busy and consumed by his work to have an affair so that I can wear those overalls after all.

It's the little things.

Je suis Low Batt

2010-10-24T20:13:00.002-04:00

I'm reading a great book, Michaela Wrong's In the Footsteps of Mr Kurtz, which is about Zaire/Congo in the waning days and wake of Mobutu. Yes, shocking though it may be, I have a young child and can still read. I did have to retrain about 6 months after her birth, as entire sections of my brain had been damaged from PPDPTSDSD (that's Post Partum Depressive Post Traumatic Stress Disorder with Sleep Deprivation). But after years of therapy, I am now able to once again read an entire adult book, as long as it isn't too literary or academic, those are still too much for me. I'm trying to do a lot of reading now since I am not sure I'll bounce back as well from another bought of PPDPTSDSD. I may only be able to handle People magazine for the next couple of decades.

But I digress, back to the Congo. She has a chapter called "A Nation on Low Batt," which plays on an expression used by Congolese cell phone users when their phones run out of batteries ("I'll ring you back, I'm Low Batt") and refers to the barely-functioning state in which Mobutu left the country. This includes mountains of uncollected garbage, 20 story buildings with out-of-order elevators, hospitals that act as prisons for patients who can't pay their bills, and, most terrifying, a nuclear reactor (that's right) with almost no security and uranium rods on the verge of corroding.

Well, I am the motherhood equivalent of the Congo right now, definitely A Mom on Low Batt. Everyone poo-poos when I say that I am humungous, but this week it became official. I got on the scale, and my normally laid back OB--who answers almost every question with, "If if makes you feel better," as in, "Should I avoid feta cheese?" "If it makes you feel better"--almost fainted. After he collected himself and examined me further, he concluded that I probably have a condition called polyhydramnios, or excess amniotic fluid, which I also had with Charlotte and which basically means I am breeding oceans in my uterus. And it means that I am officially humungous, and will become ever more so, so you can save your "You look great!"s because we both know you are lying, and last I checked, that was still one of the 10 commandments, right up there with Thou Shalt Not Enact Universal Health Care and Thou Shalt Not Believe in Global Warming. So you know it's bad.

When a person is carrying around not only a small human but an Olympic-sized swimming pool so Baby can practice his butterfly stroke, she finds herself slipping easily into a Congolese state of mind and body. In practical terms, this means Charlotte watches so much TV, if one of the yuppie, over-achieving moms that litter this area gets wind of it, I'm probably looking at a visit from Child Protective Services. She also hasn't had a bath in over a week, because washing her hair is pretty much the Mt. Everest of my physical activities right now, along with putting on socks (on myself or her). My own personal hygiene is rapidly descending in my priorities, not that it was that high to begin with (see a previous post on that topic), but I can't even see a large portion of my legs, much less shave them. Like Kinshasa, my house features uncollected garbage on occasion, and my kitchen counters would probably incinerate the Dateline NBC ultra-violet germ detector (I hate those shows. If Jane Q. Housewife and her family have been living with those germs and no one has died, then their presence is not a news story. Go back to busting sex offenders). Fortunately, when we redid our kitchen, I specifically chose a pattern of granite for the countertops that does not show dirt or debris, even if you are looking for it. Seriously, I could scatter a bag of raisins all over it, and they would be mummified before anyone discovered they were there.

My brain is also on low batt, book reading aside. Today I broke an egg into the sink (as opposed to say a dish where it might be edible). And that's really the tip of a massive iceberg of absent-mindedness. I am really questioning the wisdom of my decision to attend a month of full-time language training for my job in November. I did it last year, and it was really fun, so I thought, what a great way to close out this pregnancy. Plus I will have childcare 5 days a week rather than just 3 days a week, not to be sneezed at. But I am increasingly having a hard time speaking English (writing in this blog is truly tortuous at this point, but I can't let my fan down so I am writing through the pain), much less any other language. I fear this could be quite humiliating.

I'm also having to drastically scale down my extra-house activities I had great hopes of taking Charlotte a nearby farm's Fall Festival this autumn, because as everyone knows, it is obligatory to take small children to places where there are animals, hay, and pumpkins in the fall. But, alas, there will be no pumpkin farming for Charlotte this year, unless I can convince Kevin to buy me one of those Hoveround scooters they advertise late at night on TV. Those things are awesome! Did you know they are lightweight, highly maneuverable even in small quarters, and have lumbar support? And their founder's name is Tom Kruse, which adds even more credibility. I want one of those bad, even just to cook dinner. Or to go to a pumpkin farm, either way. But seeing as we are not on Medicare or Medicaid, I don't think Hoveround is in my future. I'll have to console myself with my "Stork Parking" permit for work, which truly make pregnancy almost worthwhile. If I were like an in shape pregnant person, like super model Gisele Bunchen--who brags that she did yoga the day before giving birth, never wore maternity clothes, and, sealing her position on my Most Hated People in the Universe list, just behind Robert Mugabe, says she thinks breast feeding should be mandated by the UN--I would sell that permit on the black market for a year's worth of formula.

Well, I'm stopping now because writing this has pretty much depleted my mental energy supply for the rest of the week.
Je suis Low Batt.

Potty Training 101

2010-10-17T21:02:00.002-04:00

Christopher Columbus dreamed of sailing to India. Icarus thought he could fly near the sun. Tiger Woods believed he could save his marriage after sleeping with the entire bimbo population of the United States, many of them not that attractive. And I had plans to potty train Charlotte before the arrival of Baby Brother. Fools, all!

In my defense, Charlotte is an appropriate age (2 1/2). She speaks English fluently. She can obey my instructions and often chooses to do so, particularly when bribed with jelly beans. I have a Costco membership and can buy huge vats of jelly beans. Most importantly, she has demonstrated an ability to hold it, to the point where I may eventually only have to change her diaper every few days (thereby removing any incentive either of us have to potty train her, but whatever). So I thought my goal was not that ambitious and totally achievable. A co-worker gave me a talking Elmo potty, which, along with the Dora the Explorer panties, I felt pretty much made it a slam dunk.

I forgot about one thing, however. Whereas Charlotte loves jelly beans, Elmo, and Dora, and laps up praise like a Golden Retriever, she also has the life long goal of never growing up. Not that I am one to judge, I totally feel her on this one. My mom loves to recall how I would say to her, "Mommy, when I grow down, can I be your baby again?" Wasn't I totally adorable. This attitude has in fact remained a constant, not literally, as in I no longer want to be my mother's baby, that seems a little creepy, but I would like to have someone cook all my meals, pay all my bills, and basically absolve me of all responsibility in life. I remember when I was like 10 or 12, my 13-going-on-30 contemporary, Amanda, would bemoan how people treated us like kids (my response: duh, that's because we are) and how she couldn't wait til she was 16 or 18 or 20. I thought she was crazy because being a kid was so awesome, I didn't see how it got any better. And, as usual, I was right and wise beyond my years (which is why I shouldn't have to grow up. If you can ace the test without taking the class, you shouldn't have to take the class. I'm just saying.). It doesn't get any better, children, so enjoy your carefree youth while you can. And eat your broccoli, because that doesn't get any better either.

However, I will say this: Depositing one's waste matter into a modern toilet where one's contact with it is limited and it is whisked off into the nether reaches of the earth before one even necessarily has to view it cannot be overrated. Or, as a slight variation, depositing one's waste matter into a talking Elmo potty that congratulates you on your achievement as if you had cured polio and where one's contact with it is hopefully limited and it is whisked off by a long-suffering mommy--who still has to do some cleaning apparently, which is a real rip off, but baby steps here, we will one day make it to the actual toilet seat because the arc of parenting is long but bends towards an empty nest--cannot be overrated. Certainly it is immeasurably better than, say, sitting around with it smashed up on your skin waiting for someone, perhaps even a relative stranger--and I thought a pap smear was humiliating--to clean it off of you with a cold, damp baby wipe. I feel this is a distinction anyone, even a 2 year-old, could make, no matter how badly they wanted to hit the pause button on life. In other words, though I never wanted to grow up, I am cool with wiping my own butt. That is some responsibility I can handle.

This is apparently not Charlotte's take on things. We have had the Elmo potty for about a month (we also have a potty seat that goes on top of the big potty), and so far, Charlotte's potty achievements basically boil down to sitting her doll on the potty, sitting herself on it for a sum total of hours, basically using it as a procrastinatory device at opportune moments, and one second-hand account by probably corrupt church nursery workers of her actually peeing in a toilet. Allegedly. When I heard that, I was filled with hope, only to spend another 20 minutes that evening--after 10 hours of Charlotte with a dry diaper--waiting in vain for the faint, musical sound of urine hitting plastic. I ask you, who, after 10 hours of not peeing while ingesting liquids at a normal rate, can sit on a toilet, with water intermittently running for inspiration, for 20 minutes and not let out even a drop? This child is some kind of urinary camel, with bladder muscles that could bench press a Hummer. I don't know what other conclusion to draw except that she just hates me so much, thwarting me gives her superhuman strength.

Now, I'm told if I am really really serious about this potty training thing, what I need to do is just put panties on her and let her have accidents. She won't like having accidents and will start going on the potty. Sound good...I guess...I just have one question, what, pray tell, do I do with my furniture? Wrap it in plastic wrap? Go all Euro-minimalist and get rid of all but a plastic orb chair hanging from the ceiling? We've already been over how much I love my African crap (thankfully most of it is water proof), but I also happen to love my sofa as well, probably because this is where my butt lives and grows.

And anyway, maybe I'm not really really serious about this potty training thing after all. What's wrong with diapers? The diapers these days are like wearable science labs, sucking in gallons of liquid and turning it into a sterile gel you can style your hair with if you are so inclined. If I just wait another year or so, I'm sure they will start evaporating feces and buffing baby's butt clean at the press of a button. Modern diapers are probably why potty training a child is so difficult now anyway--they make it so comfy to wallow in your own crap, the child could care less. In other words, there is a massive conspiracy by the evil, money grubbing diaper companies to render the human race incapable of using the toilet, thereby increasingly their profits 7 billion fold (evil laugh)!!! I'm so glad I got to the bottom of that. No pun intended. Now I can just start a movement (wait til the anti-vaccine people and the breast feeding Nazis hear about THIS one!) and spend the next several decades trying to eradicate effective disposal diapers from the face of the earth!

Hey, it's probably easier than potty training Charlotte.

An attempt at empathy

2010-10-08T13:38:00.006-04:00

First of all, if you haven't seen the Mompetitors short films, go right now and watch this introductory one at least. You will laugh until you cry. More importantly, this blog entry won't make any sense unless you have seen it. Incidentally, this is yet another example of why I will never be a famous writer/humorist because there are just too many funny people out there (and the mom-blogger market is totally saturated). Still, I persevere, pathetically lapping up the meager praise from the few kind friends who encourage my habit.

I noticed on one of the films that someone had left a comment, the gist of which was that the films' maker was obviously siding with one perspective in the mommy battles (i.e. the sane mom) and maybe she could try making a film from the perspective of the "mompetitor" (obviously the person leaving the comment is a mompetitor herself). My first reaction was, Get a life. My second reaction was, It would be impossible to make an entertaining film mocking the other mom because she is totally normal and sane. My third reaction was, But if she tried to make a movie taking the side of the mompetitor, what would that look like? And my fourth reaction was, Why don't I try and see, what else do I have to do? While I am not technologically savvy enough to actually make such a film (and would probably be sued by the brilliant woman who made these), I thought I'd offer her a possible screenplay to try. So here is my attempt to see life from the Mompetitor's viewpoint:

Mompetitor (MP): Hi, I see you were able to turn off the TV this morning. I'm so proud of you!
Other Mom (OM): Yeah, it was hard but I thought of you and your kids and felt inspired.
MP: What did you and your kids eat for breakfast? I find that is the key to having enough energy. We eat plain, steel-cut oats with flax power and fish oil every morning.
OM: We all just ate sugar.
MP: Like Pop Tarts or Lucky Charms?
OM: No, like sugar. LIke I opened a bag and gave everyone spoons. Is that not good?
MP: Actually, no--sugar causes obesity and tooth decay. It's probably also why you and your kids are so tired all the time, it's not a steady energy supply.
OM: Really? I had no idea. I am so glad I met you so I can learn all these things.
MP: By the way, I read in the New York Times this morning that there has been a recall on Snuggleride car seats. Do you use that brand?
OM: Oh, we don't use car seats. My kids like to ride in the bed of our pick-up so we let them.
MP: Well, that sounds fun, but it's really unsafe and actually illegal. 1,768 kids die every year from riding in pick-up beds. And according to state law, kids have to be in a car or booster seat in the back seat of the car until age 8.
OM: Age 8, seriously? How are they supposed to drive themselves to school from the back seat?
MP: That's the law. Kids aren't supposed to drive until age 16 anyway.
OM: For real? Wow, you know everything. Thanks so much.
MP: No problem, I really care about kids and realize that not all moms have time to research everything so I consider it my responsibility to try and help out.
OM: Oprah should give you an award. I mean it, I'm going to write her.
MP: Oh, you're sweet. How's the new baby doing? How's the breast feeding going?
OM: Oh, I've quit, she wasn't sleeping very well so we started giving her formula with codeine in it.
MP: Hmm, well, I don't think codeine is safe to give a new born.
OM: Really? But it works so well!
MP: Yeah, I know, but it's not safe. And you should really give breast feeding another try--did you know that it is scientifically proven to make your kids healthier and smarter?
OM: Really? So that's why my kids are so stupid! Man, I wish you had been around for me a few years ago. But I think it's too late to try again this time, I'm all dried up.
MP: You can take a hormone that will make you lactate. That's what I did with our middle child, who is adopted. It really worked too. Even though her birth mother was drunk for her entire pregnancy, my daughter just passed the MENSA exam and is already a certified genius. Remember, breast feeding is always worth it!
OM: I'm going to my doctor right now to get me some of those hormones. You are a life saver!
MP: You go girl, you can do it! Hope to see you again soon. In the meantime, here's my card, call me anytime you have questions. I'm here to help.
OM: Thanks so much. You are seriously an even better person than Sandra Bullock.

OK, so that was predictably lame. And I still think the Mompetitor comes across as an evil witch. So I think this pretty much proves conclusively that she is. Empathy can really be a useful way to prove yourself right.

Throwing off Tyranny

2010-09-30T13:56:00.006-04:00

This is not a political blog, and I am not a highly political person, unless you count an aversion to insanity as a form of political engagement. But lately I can't help noticing the striking overlap between the mood in the country and what I am experiencing here in our house. When I was an American History professor, in fact, I used to explain the American Revolution to my students in terms of the parent-child relationship. The big mistake Britain, the mother country, made in terms of enforcing her authority was not cracking down on her children, the colonists; after all, no one in the world at that point governed themselves, and almost everyone believed the monarchy did so by divine ordinance. No, Mother Britain's big mistake was letting the colonists run wild for 150 years and then cracking down. Anyone who has perused even one parenting book, knows that your window for establishing your dictatorship is between the years of 0 and 6. If you wait until they are 13, well, you are going to have a revolution. Too bad for England that her monarchs never had a subscription to Parenting magazine (they could have also discovered the 29 Foods Picky Kids Will Eat!).

I don't think what is going on in American politics today is quite the equivalent of the American Revolution (unless you are Sharon Angle)--in all seriousness, I think the economy is bad and people are struggling--but I do see some parenting analogies. In short, I believe that Charlotte is a member of the Tea Party movement, as best as I can make out what the Tea Party movement is anyway, and I'm only slightly less afraid than Barack Obama.

First of all, she believes in less government. While the Tea Party folk resent Obamacare as a form of government interference in their lives, Charlotte also wants to live more independently. Her version of a Don't Tread on Me banner is rolling around the floor screaming because I did not let her pick out her own clothes (I don't want her ending up on What Not to Wear). Of course, a big difference is that Charlotte doesn't make any money and doesn't buy her clothes, so I think my position holds more water, ideologically speaking, than the Democratic Party's.

Second, while she believes in less government theoretically and selectively, she is not very consistent across the board. In theory, Charlotte wants to do things "BY SELF!!!!!" yet she is unable to explain to me why she has no interest in peeing in the potty (indeed, why she would rather sit around in feces than become potty trained), why she is incapable of watching an entire Wonder Pets with me in another room, why she occasionally loses the use of her legs without in fact suffering a paralyzing injury. While some of their leaders want to abolish Social Security and Medicare, which accounts for over half the budget, if you polled the rank and file members of the Tea Party, I guarantee you they would not support this position in reality. I know this because they are average Americans, and the average American has not saved enough to buy themselves postage stamps in retirement, much less private insurance policies for senior citizens, which cost more than the GDP of some African countries. In addition, when people started discussing rationing some high cost/low efficacy treatments as a way of cutting Medicare spending, it was the Queen Tea Partyer herself who cried Death Panel. And of course no one is talking about cutting defense spending, which accounts for pretty much the rest of the budget.

Thirdly, I keep hearing various Tea Partyers invoke the 2nd amendment. Charlotte doesn't quite do that, I don't think she has much knowledge of weaponry, but she does believe in using physical force to throw off her oppressor, which mainly entails going rigid when I pick her up to drag her off somewhere she doesn't want to go, unleashing a chain reaction of painful events that rupture a disc in my back. It's very effective.

Also, the Tea Party loves them some Founding Fathers. If they knew a bit more about their ideological views--for instance, did you know they were actually pretty elitist and passed the Constitution to strengthen the federal government because the hicks and nabobs were going crazy out there? Or that GW violently put down the Whiskey Rebellion in 1794, when some farmers rose up against an excise tax on whiskey?--they might not be quite as fond of them, but they are really really awesome nonetheless. Well, thanks to some US President flash cards I got at Mt. Vernon (where you can not only find out more about the Whiskey Rebellion, you can view GW's false teeth), Charlotte is loving the Founding Fathers too, although her favorite president is Andrew Jackson, who was definitely NOT a Founding Father. GW would never have invited the public into the White House and let them get drunk and run wild.

Fortunately for me, Charlotte can't vote, and I already mentioned her lack of income, so my position is (relatively) safe come November, unless her rigidity trick leaves me a paraplegic, highly possible given my weakened state. The Democrats, though, yeah, they're in big trouble. Sorry guys.

Looking on the bright side again

2010-09-17T20:21:00.004-04:00

Generally, I'd say being pregnant is like being on death row in Iran. Your condition is miserable, and you long for relief. However, that relief comes in the form of being stoned to death, or in my case breast feeding compounded by sleep deprivation, which is almost as painful, though not fatal (supposedly. But I would not be surprised if the massive breast feeding conspiracy has suppressed countless reports of women throwing themselves to their deaths, or else dying of abscessed nipples). Not to mention the horror of surveying the state of one's butt once a massive stomach is no longer eclipsing it. In any case, there is no comfortable way out of my predicament at this point.

But now I am just being negative, and that is really not my nature (yeah right, and Benjamin Franklin was a eunuch). What I should be focused on is the beauty and wonder of a woman's body bringing life into the world surrounded by puppies and kittens and butterflies blah blah blah. Whatever. Not to disparage the miracle of life, but miracles can be really disgusting. When Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, there had to be at least one by stander who was thinking, Gee, that's pretty cool, Jesus, but maybe next time you bring out a person who's been living in grave clothes for the past 3 days, you could pass out some gas masks first. There is nothing beautiful or wonderful about my body right now, trust me about that. Or, if you don''t trust me, hook my husband up to a lie detector.

Nonetheless, especially given the worse fate that awaits me, I should really try to savor the last 12 weeks I will ever in my life, no matter what, even if a comet wipes out most of humanity, even if Glenn Beck sees some geese, even if Obama begins a government program that pays geniuses to procreate to offset growing numbers of dumb people, the last time I will ever ever ever be pregnant so help me God. Or I should at least try to find some good things about being pregnant. OK, I will. Here goes:

10. I look about 20 years younger, thanks to cystic acne that has carpet bombed my entire face. In other words, people on the street think I am a pregnant 16 year old. OK, maybe that's not such a great thing. Trying again...

9. People are generally afraid to mess with me right now, either because they are nice and don't want to cause stress to my baby, or because they are afraid that I will unleash hormonal hell on them then sit on them for good measure (Always trust your instincts, people).

8. I can now wear fashions that before I thought were cute but were afraid they would make me look pregnant. Of course, now I don't think they are so cute, but there I go being negative again. All my maternity clothes are just adorable, and it will pain me greatly to shred, pulverize, then burn them the second I can squeeze into anything else.

7. I can manipulate my husband into doing stuff around the house by threatening to do it myself. For instance, I told him the lawn probably needed mowing before he left on a trip, but if he didn't have time, "I can do it, no problem," knowing full well he would rather be castrated than have the entire neighborhood witness the shame of his massively pregnant wife pushing around a lawn mower. Unfortunately, this tactic doesn't work as well with laundry and dishes. Might have to resort to fake labor pains for that.

6. This is a rare opportunity to do a thorough belly-button cleaning. I do not say this in jest--I have a deep inn-y belly button, and keeping it clean is a real challenge.

5. The complete and utter destruction of my body gives me a great opportunity to rebuild it even better, kind of like Brad Pitt is doing with New Orleans. I'll pass on Brad Pitt, unless he really insists of course, and take Weight Watchers and a good plastic surgeon (if it comes to that).

4. Do I really have anything to complain about when I can still drink coffee, according to the latest medical guidance that will probably be reversed in another year by new studies showing caffeine during pregnancy increases the chances by a kabillion percent of giving birth to an iguana?

3. I have built-in patterned hosiery, which I hear is in fashion this season, in the form of spider veins covering my legs.

2. I have the ultimate motivation to quit chain smoking and binge drinking. And of course break that nasty crack habit.

1. Once I stopped complaining for five minutes, I realized that I am indeed surrounded by puppies and kittens and butterflies, and even an odd rainbow or two. It's super special. And miraculous.

See? Nobody can tell me I'm not an optimist. Nobody. I am appreciating the hell out of this pregnancy stuff. Literally.

Maternity Chic

2010-09-10T14:39:00.005-04:00

Buying maternity clothes is one of the more unjust experiences in life, at least for those who don't live in a third world dictatorship. You are forced to pay good money for clothing that you are 100% guaranteed to despise and look hideous in. A pregnant friend of mine complained this week that she had basically squandered her child's college tuition in a desperate attempt to look "fashionable" and "professional" for an upcoming work trip, only to look like a upper crust whale. When I look in the mirror, which is increasingly rare, after all I'm not allowed to take antidepressants right now, it is definitely my first instinct to sprint to my computer and begin a frenzy of online shopping. But, honey, a cow is a cow is a cow, whether you dress it in Target or Gucci or whether you own 1 pair of elastic waist pants or 20.

If there were truth in advertising, the slogans of maternity stores would be a take off of the Men's Wearhouse one: You're gonna hate the way you look, I guarantee it (but you're gonna pay top dollar for these dog ugly clothes anyway, because there are indecency laws on the books). Instead, they pathetically try to sell you the idea that if you buy their clothes, you will look not just OK, not simply comfortable, not somewhat cute, but sexy and stylish. I remember when I was pregnant with Charlotte, one of the big maternity chains had a poster in its window of a pregnant lady (well, more like a watermelon-toting super model) wearing one of their dresses while walking by a couple, the man gawking at her and the woman scolding him. I was like, do you really think I am that stupid? If I am basically at the point of having to pay my husband to touch me, your "little" dress is definitely not going to make me irresistible to some random man on the street, unless he has some kind of sick fetish, in which case he is probably a serial killer planning to murder me and sell my baby on the black market, and I'm not paying for that either. As for the woman with the gawking man, honey, if your man is lusting over a pregnant lady, well, I think suicide is the only thing left for you, not to be mean or anything. Call a hotline first, maybe they can help, cuz I got nothing.

Skinny Jeans: Delusional under the best, non-pregnant of circumstances. Under pregnant ones, morally on par with child abuse (and perhaps a direct cause--that baby is begging for air, people).

Just as a random sidenote, if you have cankles like I do, you are doubly screwed while pregnant, because legs are pretty much all you have to work with, other than massive boobs, which I just find frightening anyway. Plus pregnant ankles tend to swell, turning cankles into thankles. This is not a good look.

No, my strategy this time around is to buy as little grotesque clothing as possible. I have some from last time, although it is off season as as repugnant as I remembered. But, see, I own a washing machine, and I even own a dryer. And I can wash and dry this T shirt and these cargo pants I am wearing while I sleep naked (it's not like anyone's going to bother me) and be off to the races again tomorrow. As it turns out, Americans buy way too many clothes, which is fun and fine as long as they look good. In the absence of that, give your money to Darfuri refugees. Now if I could find a pair of pants I don't have to hike up every 5 seconds, I might shell out for that. But I've tried them all--real waist, low waist, full panel, demi panel (next I'm considering death panel)--but unless you are willing to wear them with suspenders, your crotch is going to be half way down your legs before you can say postpartum (maybe they are trying to prepare you psychologically for what's to come, I don't know).

In fact, my entire approach to personal appearance has changed. Whereas I once was somewhat vain, I am now focused merely on survival. I put on as few clothes to prevent roasting but enough to avoid arrest or the frightening of small children. I diligently apply make up to somewhat cover my acne (only about 2 bottles of foundation/day) also to prevent children shrieking in horror or my recruitment by the circus. With Halloween coming up, however, I may go without on occasion, that might be festive. And like I said, I do not look in the mirror unless absolutely necessary, to spare my own feelings, not to mention those of my mirror. And just to be consistent with the overall look, I hardly ever wash or comb my hair. That's really a waste of time and energy anyway.

I'm also thinking of letting my husband look at the Victoria's Secret catalog for his birthday. I'm sweet like that.

A Daddy's Girl is Born...Finally

2010-09-02T14:51:00.004-04:00

My life has gotten a little bit easier. And just in time, too. Although I am not due to give birth for another 3 1/2 months, I am already as big as that massive Pillsbury Dough Boy that destroys New York City at the end of Ghostbusters. The ground similarly shakes when I walk. And I officially outweigh my husband (of course, I outweighed my first husband after a large meal, but this was in fact a major reason for our divorce). When people ask me when I am due and I tell them December, I get an incredulous, "Oh Wow," with the more sadistic ones adding, "You've got a long way to go!" Thanks, I'm still on the Mayan calendar and had no idea. So after initially thinking I would not end up weighing more than some NFL players like I did last time, I am now preparing myself for the likelihood that Richard Simmons will have to come and knock out a window in our house with a bulldozer just to get me to the hospital. I really dread that, he's so annoying. And my back hurts.

So it's getting pretty tough for old Mommy to get down on the floor and play Little People, swing around 30 lb children, really do anything but sit with my feet up. Charlotte has wisely concluded that I am no fun anymore, and that Daddy is where it's at. I have been living for this day. As everyone knows, her central goal in life up to this point has been to have some part of her body touching me at all times. Daddy has been of little interest to her, she in fact has shunned him on many occasions, the lucky dog. I would sell my soul to be shunned.

But fortunately, it did not come to that, for my shunning ship has come in. Charlotte is now obsessed with Daddy, and who can blame her, really. He's devastatingly handsome, charming, smart, funny, even tempered, and can discuss the federal deficit at length. Most importantly, he does not have a tiny human resident draining his life force. He can still wrestle on the floor, play the upside down game, and dive into a ball pit with abandon. He could even shave his legs without risking his life, if he so chose, although I suppose this skill has little use for Charlotte. When he comes through the door, Charlotte immediate attacks him, hauls him off to our room, demands he remove his tie and shoes, then drags him upstairs to play where Mommy will not bother them (really, Charlotte, you don't need to go that far. Give me about 5 inches and you won't even know I'm here). If I attempt to come, I am told to "move away" and "stay downstairs." These are the sweetest words I have ever heard.

Of course, Daddy is only around for about 15 of Charlotte's waking hours, so i am not quite out of the woods. Then again, in another month or so she probably won't be able to fit in the same room with me, so things could still work to my advantage. Like a natural toddler barrier system.

Religious Devotion

2010-08-15T14:01:00.003-04:00

Let me say up front, in case my parents are reading this, that my faith is both deep and sincere. And let the record show that I have always attended church regularly, even before I had children. Having said that, being a mom brings a whole new level of meaning and urgency to church attendance, which I can summarize with two words: FREE CHILDCARE.

We are just coming off VBS season in the world of Christendom. For you unfortunate heathens out there, VBS stands for Vacation Bible School, but it could just as easily stand for Very Best Several-days-of-mom's-life (yes, I realize I am playing fast and loose with the rules of acronym construction. Bite me.) This is when very kind but obviously deranged or guilt-ridden people in a church put together an entire week of day or evening programming for children, and you, the parent, get to drop yours off free of charge and go and eat in an actual restaurant. The most unbelievable part is you don't even have to be a member of the church. In fact, if you do a little research, you can hit the VBSs of a whole bunch of churches in your area, which hopefully have wisely staggered their programs, and you might not even have to see your child for several weeks. I missed the boat this summer, because I assumed Charlotte, at 2, was too young for VBS, but I did at least get her in to our church's VBS. Kevin recalls that when he was growing up, his mother fully exploited the VBS system, which is even more vast in the Bible-belted nirvana of Arkansas than here in the bleakly secular northeast. He thinks she might have even put him into a Mormon one, which, based on her commitment to Christianity, I kind of doubt, but based on her probable desperation as a full-time mother of small children, I would believe (and would not judge).

And VBS is just the tip of the iceberg. There is an hour and a half of childcare every Sunday, there is childcare for every major church seminar, congregational meeting, and potluck. There are two hours of free childcare every Thursday morning for the mom's Bible study. I attend all of these religiously. Or actually, not so religiously, if I am honest about my motives. Like I said, I was a regular church attender before I had kids, but I did my share of playing hooky and certainly I rarely attended seminars and Bible studies. Because I figured that God realized what a busy person I was and that I probably had something very important to do, like getting my eyebrows waxed. Now, if I am not in church, you can reasonably assume someone in my family has contracted the plague (which sadly does happen fairly regularly) or a sink hole has swallowed my car (fortunately a more rare occurrence). You could not reasonably assume that I have lost my religious devotion, because I would come for the free childcare even if I suddenly became an atheist or a Buddhist. If I discovered that other faiths had similar perks, I might hit them up now and then too, but if I am not mistaken, Christianity, and evangelical Christianity in particular, has the free childcare market pretty well cornered. Which makes me wonder why every parent in America doesn't attend church, at least while their kids are young and pretty clueless. People are really missing out.

Of course, it does help if you actually believe what is being preached/taught (although honestly, I would listen to a 2 hour Amway pitch if they were offering free childcare). And if you want your kids to also believe those things, even better. Our church already has Charlotte coming home with Jesus tales. It's unbelievable. And incredibly comforting, too, because I can suck just that much more as a parent.

And that's what Christianity is all about anyway: God making up for us sucking. I am SO all about it. See, I am a real devotee after all.

Toddler Used to Interrogate Guantanamo Detainees

2010-07-30T12:56:00.006-04:00

The unlikely face of an elite government operative

(Another Onion-inspired entry, again, fiction, people)

Government sources, who decline to be named due to the sensitivity of the information they are providing, have confirmed the existence of a top secret program that employs a two-year-old to help interrogate terrorist suspects at Guantanamo Bay. According to the sources, a Virginia toddler named Charlotte has been helping officials at the detention facility for the past month, wearing down alleged terrorists with incessant whining.

The program has thus far been highly successful. Charlotte has reportedly broken 9 out of the 10 detainees with whom she has assisted (the 10th detainee is deaf). Sources say after hours of listening Charlotte beg, scream, yell, cry, and prostrate herself on the ground for various items, including goldfish crackers, raisins, Elmo, and the Wonder Pets--even after the items were given to her--the detainees revealed the details of plots to attack the US Capitol, the White House, the New York subway system, and Heidi Montag, who reportedly paid to be blown up for the publicity (Her publicist says she will launch a media tour this week to deny the allegations). They also gave up the exact location of Osama bin Laden, but sources say the government has not yet acted on the information because he is allegedly co-located with several bongo, a highly endangered antelope species from East Africa.

The Charlotte Project was reportedly launched in 2009 in the context of the Obama administration's strict prohibitions on interrogation techniques that border on torture, such as water boarding. "We really had to think creatively," recalls one of the sources, a military interrogator. "We held numerous brainstorming sessions, in which we asked ourselves, What is the psychological equivalent of a physically excruciating technique like electrocution?" The officials, several of whom are parents of small children, eventually came to the conclusion that the maddening behavior of toddlers, particularly the over-indulged American kind, held the key to breaking the world's most dangerous criminals.

The next step was finding the perfect toddler. Government officials secretly observed parks, playgrounds, and daycares in the DC metro in search of a child with elite skills in psychological warfare. On a visit to the National Zoo, they found their man, or in this case, a blonde, blue-eyed, dimpled, 30-pound package of mental torture. "Whatever Charlotte's mom was doing, it wasn't acceptable. She wanted crackers until she had them. She wanted to walk when she was in the stroller and wanted in the stroller when she was out of it. She wanted to see the cheetah when she was viewing the lion and the lion once she was at the cheetahs. We watched her mother slowly lose her mind." She finally buckled Charlotte in the stroller and walked numbly into the woods, Charlotte screaming at her. The officials actually had to intervene to get her safely back to her vehicle. Charlotte's mother's cooperation with the project was not difficult to obtain. "She basically had two questions: Will my child be harmed in any way? and Can I be on a government-funded cruise while all this is going on?"

Leaks about the program have aroused the ire of human rights activists, who claim the technique subjects the detainees to inhumane treatment and is indeed torture. Charlotte's mother reportedly agrees (but is enjoying her cruise too much to formally complain). The Justice Department is investigating.

Help me, Oprah

2010-07-23T14:05:00.003-04:00

Yesterday I was watching Oprah, because I am an American housewife and this is my obligation. The show was, once again, on a topic "that could save your life," in this case abusive relationships, and she had some expert on there with his questionaire/survey that could tell you how much danger you are in. Not to make light of a serious subject, but it got me thinking, Can your relationship be considered abusive if the abuser is 2? If so, then, yes, Oprah and your expert, I need help.

Let us go through some of the classic warning signs of an abusive relationship that appear in all of these surveys and you'll see what I mean:

Does the person control your activities? Has he/she ever stalked you?
Yes. I cannot even go to the bathroom without her following me. If I attempt to close the door, hell is unleashed. In fact, she insists I stay within 5 feet of her at all times. If that isn't stalking, I don't know what is.

Is she jealous of your friends and family? Have you lost friends because of her?
Check. She will not even let me speak to another person in her presence. And I have definitely lost friends because of her. I hear from/see about 2 of the friends I had before she was born. Fortunately, my parents and in-laws find her strangely charming, so I've managed to maintain relationships with them.

Does she blame you for her problems?
While she has never said so explicitly, I am definitely the target of her rage and frustration in any situation. If she tries and fails to fit herself into her Little People School Bus, I am the one who pays, not the laws of physics.

Does she get angry so easily you feel you are walking on eggshells?
Just today she screamed for 10 minutes just because I would not open a bag of chocolate chips we had bought at the store. She also becomes enraged if I sing the wrong song at the wrong time or pick the wrong outfit for her to wear.

Does she drink or use drugs?
Not to my knowledge, but sometimes I wonder.

Does she insist you drink or use drugs with her?
That might help, actually.

Does she go through your purse or personal things?
OMG. It's like her favorite thing.

Does she keep you in debt?
She's certainly trying.

Has she caused you to lose a job?
Again, she's working on it. I went to work about 2 days in June due to her illnesses.

Does she threaten to kill herself if you leave?
Not explicitly, but she gives the impression of dying, even if I just walk into the next room.

Does she act one way in front of other and another way with you? Is her behavior erratic?
She definitely puts on a good show for others, who tell me what a sweet child she is. With me, she is the love child of Hitler and Mussolini. And her behavior is completely erratic and unpredictable. How was I to know that just because she ate a plate full of cucumbers yesterday does not mean she won't find them morally offensive today? We have many conversations that go like this: "I want water!" "OK, here is some water" "No, I don't want water!!!!" "OK, don't drink it." "I want water!!!!"

Given the facts, I think this relationship is abusive by anyone's standards. Basically the only thing I have going for me is that she weighs 30 lbs and I weigh...more than that. And I can drive. Like a real car, not the Little Tykes one in our living room. And she doesn't own any firearms. So I think my chances of survival are pretty good. Survival with dignity? That I can't say.

Baby-boozled

2010-07-08T13:56:00.008-04:00

As one of my ongoing "nesting" activities--which, this time, I intend to accomplish BEFORE I qualify as a body double for Free Willy 8 and have to scoot along the floor to pull up my pants--is culling through all the baby and kid crap that has bred like rabbits in this house and getting rid of things that did not live up to hype. That pretty much describes about 90% of it. Honestly, if you want to get rich quick, forget the lottery, forget Amway, forget flipping real estate during the next housing bubble, forget becoming a Kenyan Member of Parliament. All you really need to do is think up a baby product, then--and this is the key--market it as something that will buy the parent sleep/time/peace/quiet/sanity. The product can honestly be a piece of plastic you found on the floor of your Beijing hotel, and the marketing has to be only slightly more convincing than Michael Jackson's nose job. The most desperate people in the world are parents, and desperate people make very very stupid consumers. Look at the weight loss industry. Does anyone really believe that 5 minutes per day with a vibrating dumbbell will turn your George Wendt body into a George Clooney one? The answer is YES, times like a billion.

The same goes for the baby industry. Just as an obese person does not want to believe that they will have to stop eating ding dongs and amputate the sofa from their buttocks, so parents cannot face the hard facts of their jobs, such as they will not get a decent night's sleep perhaps ever again, their toddler will not play with a single toy for more than 30 seconds, extended travel with a small child will be more painful than birthing breech triplets without an epidural, and dirty diapers will smell like, well, poop stored in a plastic bucket for several days no matter how many genies, filters, vacuums or other patented pending "disposal systems" are involved. It's a hard truth, but parenting, like obesity, isn't pretty and requires many years of hard labor to remedy.

But I am in no position to judge. If parents, and particularly mothers, are desperate folk, Phobic Moms are the most desperate of the desperate, the equivalent of Joan Rivers at her plastic surgeon's funeral. Certainly I have fallen prey to many many baby product pitches. After months of therapy, I am only now able to immediately throw away the One Leap Forward (name changed to prevent lawsuit) catalog upon its near weekly arrival. This catalog is a virtual Encyclopedia Britannica of Baby Crap with marketing so slick, televangelists study it in seminary. Here's just a few of their products I have eagerly purchased (do NOT judge):

1) Two or three versions of a foam wedge/mother's heartbeat simulator designed to improve digestion and soothe the newborn for a good night's sleep. After using each one, while trying to keep all other variables uniform, we spent hours analyzing, with charts, which one produced more sleep. The answer: none of them.

2) Diaper storage system with carbon filter. Powered by D batteries, a set of which the "system" runs through in a few days, this contraption supposedly circulates air through the pail. The carbon does something scientific. I still use the pail, but have long since given up on the battery-powered carbon filters. I don't have anywhere to store all those D batteries.

3) Mesh food bags that allow the baby to sucK on real food without the risk of choking. Charlotte's assessment was that they made everything taste like mesh, and she would rather choke to death, thanks.

4) Shampoo visor that kids just love to wear and that keeps soap and water out of their eyes. I bought this because Charlotte practically has a seizure every time I wash her hair, and despite being quite communicative, she cannot grasp that leaning her head back will allow the water to run away from her face. Physics is apparently not her best subject. She greeted the shampoo visor, which did not fit her head snugly enough to prevent a waterfall anyway, with another seizure.

5) Portable placemat that suctions onto "any table" and has a little trough that catches stray food. Minor problem: It actually suctions to "no table."

6) Baby toothbrush that babies just can't get enough of. Except that they can. And it only takes 5 seconds for them to get enough. Then they want it out of their sight forever.

7) Stroller shade extender that supposedly you can shape and turn to fully shade your child in any sunlight. Maybe I am just not good at shade-shaping but I never could get it to do anything other than look like a massive black duck bill that shaded nothing, as duck bills typically don't.

That's just a sampling. This isn't even counting the hundreds of toys I've bought, each one pinned with the hope that Charlotte would finally leave me alone for a few minutes. I've also bought every kind of sippy cup, plate, bowl, and utensil you can imagine in a determined quest to prevent messes at mealtimes (SUCKER!!!) I came this close to buying this hands-free breast pump holster before I decided it was better to just quit pumping. There are easier and cheaper ways to look and feel like a cow.

There is exactly one baby product (beyond the obvious needful things, like car seats and formula. oh yes, formula!) that actually did save my bacon. I will go against the expressed aim of this blog, which is not to educate anyone, and share it with you here. My friends, I give you the Kiddopotamus Swaddleme:

You haven't lived until you have seen two Ph.D.s on 3 hours' sleep huddled over a newborn baby and a regular swaddle blanket frantically trying to make the necessary folds and tucks to achieve the perfect swaddle. It isn't pretty. Fortunately, some genius that is deservedly rich somewhere invented this miraculous, life-saving device, which ranks right up there with the polio vaccine. I guarantee that anyone, no matter how phobic and/or over-educated they are or how little sleep they are on, can successfully swaddle any newborn, no matter how fat and squirmy, in less than 10 seconds. Seriously, find the inventor and give them a Nobel Prize, because I love him/her more than Bono. OK, maybe the same as Bono.

So to recap: Buy the swaddle blanket. Then STOP.

Luxuriating in Illness

2010-06-23T14:08:00.003-04:00

First, an update: I am already over the disappointment of having a boy. I think that was pretty dumb on the whole. Much like those of my daughter, my reactions to things are huge, over-the-top, and ultimately fleeting.

In addition, I have worse things to deal with. Like a pernicious virus that has swept through this house like the Asian tsunami, kept me out of work 2 weeks, and left nearly lifeless bodies in its wake. Charlotte succumbed first, running temperatures of 105, and worst of all, sleeping fitfully, an hour at a time. Usually her illnesses, once I determine they are not life-threatening, work to my benefit. She practically slips into a coma. On the rare occasions she is awake, I feel completely justified sticking her in front of the TV because that is all she has energy for. All I have to do is check to make sure she is breathing every now and then. Now, she has never had a vomiting illness, those are a different story entirely. I honestly don't even know what you are supposed to do in those cases, it's not like you can instantly rubberize your entire home. But this recent illness was bad enough. It was like having a newborn again, and once again, it was scientifically demonstrated in the laboratory that I can go exactly 2 days on little sleep without basically becoming a mental patient. It was also once again proven that if I were a stay at home mom, both Charlotte and I would become horrible people. I always instruct her that if she is going to get sick, she needs to do so Thursday-Sunday, days which I am home anyway and have no child care. But this time, she chose to get sick Saturday-Wednesday, meaning I missed an entire week of daycare/work and was home with her for 11 days straight. By the end of that time, her mommy addiction had been fed to the point of complete overdose, like she was coming off a massive crack bender or something. I mean, she was a little terror. And so was I, quite frankly. There is something about being locked in a home with a rabid toddler that starts to wear on a person.

So, when I fell ill with the virus that next Saturday, I was more than a little bit relieved. True, I felt like crap, and I was still pregnant, which makes everything worse. I even vomited twice, something that is so traumatic for me, I cry uncontrollably over my certainly impending death every time it happens, which is mercifully rare. As you might imagine, I've never been a binge drinker. On the other hand, I had the perfect excuse--and for a mom, such a rare experience, like meeting a nice French person--to go in my room, shut the door, and expect her other parent to fully take care of Charlotte. Because, unlike Charlotte, I timed my illness perfectly for once. I had Kevin on the weekend--and workaholic though he is, he could not fail to come to the aid of his sick, PREGNANT wife--then daycare Monday-Wednesday. Things do not always work out like this, and I maintain that there are few experiences in life worse than having to take care of a small child while you are deathly ill. Breast feeding while deathly ill, or even while perfectly well, is the only one I can think of. Perhaps being forced to watch an Olsen twins movie.

But if you have someone to take care of your small child, being sick as a mom is kind of like checking into a spa. Other than the vomiting, of course, although I'm sure there are "cleansing" spas in LA where people pay thousands of dollars to be induced to vomit. This is now Day 4 of laying around in my bed, sleeping, watching a bunch of crap on TV (although if I see one more interview with the Twilight stars talking about their kissing scenes, I believe I will vomit voluntarily), and having your husband wait on you hand and foot, when he isn't keeping your child out of your hair. Which you don't even have to wash. And best of all, I lost a bunch of weight, which I shouldn't be happy about, given I am pregnant, but since my doctor is unconcerned, neither am I. That is why women have piles of cellulite anyway, right? So they can feed their babies even when starving to death? Glad it's finally doing more than preventing me from ever wearing shorts again. At this rate, I may actually stay within the recommended weight gain limits according to those stupid books and only be mistaken for a dolphin instead of a whale in the third trimester.

it's pretty sad that a mom has to contract a violent viral infection to catch a break, but no matter, I'll take it.

Oh, the Horror

2010-06-17T14:10:00.005-04:00

I had my 12 week ultrasound yesterday (but at 14 weeks because the scheduler apparently cannot do math). Anyway, everything looked pretty good. Except for that penis she saw. Even I could see it. I could hear God taunting me as I gazed at it in horror. Some people will tell you they don't care what they have "as long as it's healthy." I will tell you that I do NOT want to have a boy.

As everyone knows, I don't really like small children, period. A lot of people find that offensive and wonder why I then had children (Ironically, these are the same people who got all worked up 15 years ago when I told people I did not want to have children. I guess some people are never happy.) To me, it's very understandable why I had children, I honestly think it's the same reason anyone has children, so they can one day have GROWN children. Or at least children who do not have a tantrum when you explain to them it is physically impossible for them to sleep in a shoebox.

To me, boys are the distillation of early childhood in its most potent form. Now, I know there are vast differences in individual children, and I have known little boys who are quite civilized and little girls who would put the fear of God into Kim Jong Il. Some people think good parenting makes the difference, but they flatter themselves. I am convinced that nature accounts for at least 75% of the equation, which is terrifying to consider, because it largely turns things into a crap shoot. And I think when one has a little boy, they are more likely to lose out on that crap shoot, at least if they cherish their possessions, their sedentary lifestyle, and their sanity, as I do very deeply. Little boys are the reason why there are products to lock down every object in your home that moves, opens, slides, or electrocutes (none of which I have yet to purchase for my little girl). They are the reason a bottle of Tylenol can't be opened without power tools. They are probably the reason so many lawyers in this country are so rich and why there are disclaimers on things as seemingly harmless as a fitted sheet warning of sure death and destruction if not kept out of the hands of children. In short, they scare the living crap out of me, and I want no part of them.

Unfortunately, I am going to have to get over this, unless I plan to be an even worse mother to this child than I am to Charlotte, which I really can't afford. I mean, when girls go bad, they just tell you they hate you and maybe have a child out of wedlock, which is bad enough, but when boys go bad, they shoot up a school. I have had many helpful friends encourage me by telling me how much they love their little boys and how there are many good things about little boys. Of course, none of these friends are as lazy and pessimistic as I am, but I did find their words heartening. However, to combat my bad attitude, I am going to have to find reasons of my own that are relevant to me and my own life. So, I am going to start now by listing the benefits I might reap from a son.

First of all, and this is a big one, probably the top one--Now that I am having a boy, my cankles are really irrelevant. No one cares if guys have cankles, in fact, it makes them appear more sturdy. My dad has cankles, which he generously gave to both his daughters, and I don't think he has ever agonized over which shoes might make them less noticeable (incidentally, it is a wedge, in case you are wondering). Of course, now my weak jaw, plus autism and psychopathy, are bigger worries than they would be for a girl, but I really don't think anything can trump cankles on a girl.

Secondly, my son may destroy my house, but at least he should leave me alone. I don't think you can simultaneously destroy a house and cling to someone's legs demanding that they hold you like Charlotte does all day, every day. I might even willingly sacrifice some of my Africa Crap for an hour to myself. Of course, this assumes Charlotte eventually grows out of her current preference for living in symbiotic relationship with my lap. My worst nightmare is that she will not, AND I will have a boy destroying everything I own. I can just see myself attempting to run after the boy as he impales himself on a giraffe sculpture while Charlotte desperately affixes herself to my leg. But I think she will have to get over it if she wants to live to see adulthood, which she may not, quite honestly. She gives every impression of wanting to stay an infant forever or to die trying.

In addition, I think I can also use a son to make my husband do more work. For instance, he has never allowed Charlotte to see him in any state of undress, because he thinks it will scar her for life. I think I can make the case that the same is true for a boy child and his mother, which will necessitate Kevin blocking out an hour every day so that I may shower and dress alone in order not to scar our son. Also, it should make him more supportive when I inevitably give up breast feeding. He may actually beg me not to ever breast feed, so when the nazis come after me, I can just blame it on him. That would be pretty awesome.

Next, although having a boy will necessitate I buy a bunch more baby clothes--which will cost money I could have spent on someone really important, myself--I find boy clothes so uninspiring, it's doubtful I will be tempted to buy many of them. It's really the same with men's clothes. Buy three polo shirts in different colors, khakis and a pair of jeans and you should be good for the next 20 years. And even then the only thing that will change is the khakis will probably go back to being pleated instead of flat front. If you saved your pair from the early 1990's, you still won't have to buy anything new, at least until we go all space-age and start wearing Star Trek uniforms.

Choosing a name should also be easier, since there are really like 10 guy names. Put David, Michael, William, Alex, Ryan, Brian, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John in a hat and just draw a name. It's really that simple. And boring, but let's stay focused on the positive side of things.

Lastly, for today anyway, boy decor will probably go better in our spare room, the ceiling of which is slanted and painted blue already for an eventual sky motif. If it was a girl, I was going to have to do something really radical, like combine pink with blue. I am not sure the baby decor world could handle that.

Wow, I'm already feeling better. Not really, but I've got 6 more months to work on it. Worst comes to worst, I'll fly in my former boss, Jerry, who can always be counted on to spout an endless stream of annoying yet mysteriously penetrating optimism.

Woman Uses Toddlers to Treat Phobias

2010-06-11T13:48:00.003-04:00

(Note: For the more oblivous among you, this is a satirical "article" in the style of The Onion. It is not true, so please don't become outraged.)

A Springfield, Missouri mother with no academic training in psychology has pioneered the next big therapy revolution, what she calls Toddler Therapy. The technique places adults with phobias in the situations they fear with a toddler under their care. The phobic individuals are so consumed by the unruly behavior of the toddler, the fear of the situation itself pales in comparison. Jane Smith explains that she came up with the idea while traveling on a plane with her two-year-old daughter, Susie. "I used to be a nervous flyer. I would do a Hail Mary at take off and landing just in case the plane went down. But flying with Susie, if I thought about death at all, it just seemed like a relief."

Mike Jones was successfuly treated for a fear of snakes. He was paired with 2-year-old Johnny and placed in a room with several non-poisonous snakes. "Johnny immediately started stepping on the snakes, swinging them around, biting them...I couldn't believe it, but I found myself coming to their rescue. I felt too sorry for them to be afraid." Annette Miller had a similar experience while being treated for agoraphobia. Once in a public place with 2-year-old Joey, she didn't have time to have a panic attack. "He was immediately on the other side of the park, had his diaper off, and was peeing on an elderly woman. What was I supposed to do? I couldn't very well assume the fetal position."

Smith's therapies have aroused plenty of controversy. She has been investigated for child abuse and child labor law violations. But attempts to pursue legal action against her have so far not been successful because she has the permission of all the toddlers' parents. "When I first had the idea, I thought it wouldn't work because where was I going to find parents willing to let an emotionally unstable person babysit their kid? ," she says. "Turns out, there are plenty of parents of toddlers who will do almost anything for free childcare." She explains this is particularly true of very badly behaved toddlers, the ones who work best in her therapies anyway.

Still, she worries her legal troubles may one day catch up with her and is exploring other options, including using celebrity adults instead of toddlers. "I think having to cater to Mariah Carey or Diana Ross could have the same effect as taking care of a toddler," Smith surmises. "In both cases, you would have to deal with outrageous, self-centered behavior." She has been in contact with the Los Angeles Police Department about allowing celebrities sentenced to community service to participate in her program. She says both Naomi Campbell and Lindsay Lohan have expressed interest. "I think either of them would be ideal," she says.

Extreme Motherhood: ER Edition

2010-05-27T13:26:00.009-04:00

As a Phobic Mom, I have carefully confined myself to the minor leagues of motherhood. As in, I generally do not put myself in situations where a meltdown or vomiting binge would be catastrophic and/or situations where the amount of work I will have to put in exceeds the amount of entertainment Charlotte will get out. For instance, a trip to a nearby park with age appropriate equipment is OK; a trip to Disneyland is absolutely out of the question for another decade. I go to the grocery store alone (or we just eat chicken nuggets, which I buy once a year, in bulk, at Costco). I go to a church with a nursery (you could say I go to church FOR the nursery). I get on planes rarely, and only after drinking. I go out to eat NEVER. I do this not only because I am phobic and lazy, but because I find that Charlotte never appreciates the effort that goes into outings. Her grandmother and I took her to the National Aquarium in Baltimore a few weeks ago, and apparently, the reason we drove for over an hour, paid $20 for parking, paid another $50 to get in, and painfully carried all 30 lbs of her around for 4 hours (because those sadists don't allow strollers) was so she could say, "Go Home!" every 10 minutes. The most fun she had all day was going through her grandmother's purse at the dolphin tank. Which she could have done AT HOME, for free, and without causing me to rupture a disc. So that is where we mostly stay. Eventually, she starts climbing the walls and loses interest in all 539,221 of her toys, and I am forced to take her out of the house, but I consider this a fairly desperate measure.

Given that I think leaving the vicinity of my home is a major ordeal, a trip to the Emergency Room tests the outer limits of human survival in my mind, something akin to the Bataan Death March or being stranded on a deserted island with nothing but a volleyball and an ice skate. I have lived in fear and trembling of just such an occurrence ever since Charlotte was born. But, despite having quit breast feeding, Charlotte has been shockingly healthy, and I went over two years without having to experience the terror.

Last week, my luck ran out. In a big way. Not only did I have to take my child to the ER, I had to take her in the middle of the night. While my husband was overseas (probably on purpose). And I was pregnant. And I had a hang nail. Charlotte had been getting progressively more congested as the day went on, but she was desperately clinging to my legs and eating her chicken nuggets just like normal. By evening, her breathing was pretty loud, so I called her doctor, who asked me some questions and listened to her on the phone and said she thought she'd be OK. So I put her to bed and put on a movie. I went in to check her before I went to sleep, and she sounded kind of like Darth Vader. So I called the doctor's line, the nurse listened to her on the phone and told me to take her to the ER. Now, I must be the worst mother in the world, because my first thought was not, OMG I hope she's going to be OK but, OMG How am I going to survive a trip to the ER in the middle of the night, by myself, pregnant, and with this hangnail? I just knew it was going to destroy her sleep schedule and probably deny me of rest until she was in kindergarten. In my defense, my experience is that American medical professionals are some of the most cautious people in the world so that they don't get sued. My ex-OB (the one I fired for being a crazy Nazi) had me leave work and rush immediately to the hospital when I was 8 months pregnant with Charlotte for what turned out to be gas. So I was a little skeptical of the ER verdict. But what is a mom to do? Can you really afford to call their bluff? I imagined having to call Kevin in Turkey to tell him his baby girl had died because I just didn't have the strength for a visit to the ER. So I got Charlotte into the car and took her in. All by myself, pregnant, and with a hangnail. I felt an instant, spiritual connection to Angelina Jolie.

I will not detail every horror of what followed, but let me just pass on a very important lesson learned. If you have to take your child to the ER in the middle of the night, NEVER EVER assume that just because said child is supposedly deathly ill and would ordinarily be sleeping, they will do so at the ER, rendering toys and other entertainments unnecessary. This would be a tremendous error in judgment. If you make this mistake, you will almost certainly end up in what could be the next TV reality show, where the producers put you and a surprisingly lively small child in a small, sterile room with nothing but a pair of latex gloves, a vomit tray, and a few cotton balls, plus a bunch of other dangerous and/or breakable stuff, and challenge you to entertain the child for 4 hours straight. If you manage to stay calm and emerge with most of your hair still on your head, you win a trip back to your own bed. At 3 am. Still alone, still pregnant. At least you got the hangnail treated while you were there (which will cost your insurance company $439).

So I feel I am now at least in qualifying position for the upper echelons of motherhood. Although I think they only let breast feeders in there.

Charlotte is fine, by the way, and I am also recovering.

Getting things off my chest

2010-05-18T20:54:00.006-04:00

OK, you were warned, you knew it was coming, and you almost certainly will be offended. This is the official anti-breast feeding tirade. The good news is the culture is on your side, not mine. I am a horrible mother, who has doomed her child to poor health and below average intelligence. You are Mother Teresa. So you win from the outset. But I have a blog, and this is America, so deal with it.

I hate breast feeding. It is the #1 reason why Charlotte was almost an only child. It is the #1 reason why I am angry at Eve (and God. I know she screwed up, but this is really a bridge too far.). When I see other women breast feeding, I have a deep, down, visceral, primal urge to run screaming into a nearby forest or maybe even a freeway. When I think of torture, I think of breast feeding. When I think of hell, yep, breast feeding. If heaven includes breast feeding, I'm relocating. If I found out Kim Jong Il disapproved of breast feeding, I'd probably move to Pyongyang and consider marrying him. There are many reasons why I hate breast feeding that are too graphic for this blog, but I will say that, in addition to being painful and exhausting, it made me feel like an animal and resent the hell out of my child. And my husband. How convenient that, even though he just yearns to do it, he is unable to get up five times a night so a screaming baby can suck the life out of him. As a a feminist of sorts, I have a real problem with that.

If I am truthful, however, a big reason why I hate breast feeding is that I sucked at it, pun intended, and as much as I milk (wow, on a roll here) the self-deprecating routine for its comic value, I am actually not that accustomed to failure. But I was definitely a failure at this. My breast feeding efforts ended with tearful pleas to Kevin in the Babies R Us parking lot to flee with me to West Virginia and let his mother raise our child, a nervous breakdown in the pediatrician's office, and our lactation consultant's pitying verdict that "maybe this isn't going to work out for you." When the lactation consultant is telling you to quit, you know you are a disaster. It was certainly all I needed to hear. I got me some formula, some sleep, and suddenly, I was reborn. I loved my husband again, didn't start crying every time my daughter woke up, and wore a real bra. It was liberation, baby. But I still felt like a failure. When I went to the mom's group at my church, which is a virtual breast feeding society, I imagined the other women looking down on me from behind their matching Hooter Hiders as I brought out the only bottle of formula most of them will ever see in their lives. (Rationally, I know they probably weren't looking down on me because they are all better people than that, and I know that because some of them read this blog. And, of course, they all breast feed.).

Naturally, I became a militant opponent of breast feeding, because when you have failed at something, the only reasonable thing to do is attack and belittle that which has defeated you. But I probably would be much tamer in my opinions if breast feeding advocates weren't so nazi-like in theirs. The insane lengths these people go to to convince women they MUST breast feed their child at all costs sends me into equally hyperbolic rage. Some of them even argue that adoptive mothers should take hormones so they can nurse their adopted children (which obliterates a major argument in favor of adoption in my view). They distort scientific facts, which are that breast feeding offers only marginal improvements in health and intelligence, findings that in fact cannot be submitted to a classic double blind scientific study and cannot account for individual, genetic differences even among siblings. For instance, my child, who barely got any breast milk at all, has thrown up twice in her life (once when I accidentally gagged her with a toothbrush), whereas my friend's son, who was exclusively breast fed for at least six months, is constantly ill. In addition, formula now contains DHA (the intelligence link) and other fortifications that replicate many of breast milk's benefits; a recent study actually found that premature infants fared better on fortified formula than on breast milk itself.

There is definitely a reasonable argument for breast feeding. The argument that kept me at it for as long as I did was that breast feeding helps you lose your baby weight (you may recall I gained 50 lbs, so I was DESPERATE. But I did find Weight Watchers is a much less painful route, however). I also don't doubt that breast feeding has health benefits, that makes intuitive sense (then again, so do beets, and I'll die young before I eat a bunch of those). For another thing, it costs less. If you use formula, it's probably for the best your kid turns out dumber, because you're not going to be able to afford Harvard after shelling out for Enfamil anyway. If the economy really goes apocalyptic, I'm stockpiling formula, not gold. I would certainly sell some organs and throw in my soul for free for a can. And we could probably erase the national deficit by forcing mothers on welfare to breast feed. I don't know if they grind up diamonds and put it in there or what, but that stuff be pricey. Moving on...I don't really buy the intelligence argument; if you are dumb, you can breast feed your kid til they are 25 and they will probably still be dumb (and certainly my formula-fed child is a genius, I don't think there's any doubt about that). But let's say it makes kids smarter. If that's the case, breast feeding advocates would be wise to keep that to themselves in this competitive, information-based economy. The more formula-fed kids there are, the greater chance their kids will become President of the United States.

But they don't keep it to themselves, and they don't make the reasonable argument that breast feeding has some benefits and some (deranged) women actually enjoy it, but formula these days is pretty awesome, too, and if you are facing a choice between mental illness and Similac, your child is better off every time if you go with the latter. Not a big deal, ladies, not a big deal. Instead they opt for a slightly less relaxed line: You are irrevocably and forever harming your child if you give them the poison the evil, money-grubbing formula companies are doling out, in addition to bringing emotional damage to your relationship with your child, and therefore you should endure any hardship you may encounter--to include a starving infant, nipples oozing with puss, human slavery, excruciating pain, depression, an impaired sex life, hell on earth--to make it work. And I don't really appreciate that. Being a mother is hard enough.

The logical conclusion to this tirade would be to courageously declare that I, Holly, am taking a principled stand, based on my firmly held convictions, and will not even attempt to breast feed my new baby, knowing that it will once again end in disaster. That would be the logical conclusion. But human beings, and especially guilt-ridden mothers who have been brow-beaten by the evil Breast feeding Brigade, are not entirely logical. Come December, I'll likely have a baby's head in my palm, desperately stuffing flesh into its mouth like some kind of sado-masochistic chef. I shudder at the thought. But you mark my words, I am quitting at the VERY FIRST sign of trouble. Take THAT, La Leche League.

PS Please respect my property and do not leave me pro breast feeding sermons in the comments section. They will be deleted. And I may never speak to you again. Just kidding, but barely.

The Phobic Mom goes back for more

2010-05-09T14:41:00.008-04:00

Conventional wisdom says that you never, ever announce a pregnancy before the 13th week because of the high chance of miscarriage, and sadly, I have a few friends who have experienced that first hand recently. When I was pregnant with Charlotte, I had every intention of honoring this cardinal rule. In reality, I think I made it to week 7 or 8. Not only am I terrible at keeping my thoughts and experiences to myself (as I think is obvious), I am also very vain and love to complain (equally obvious). Given that I felt and looked like crap by week 7 or 8, with a face full of zits and an extra 10 pounds and counting, the entire world just had to be informed that I was NOT fat nor going insane, I was just pregnant. Given that I packed on about 15 lbs in the first trimester, I was soon informing everyone I met, total strangers, and even the odd squirrel of this fact within 5 seconds of encountering them.

For those who secretly tut-tut at me for complaining so much about being a mother, it will come as a tremendous surprise to hear that I have a sequel in the works. And once again, I am announcing early, so as to squeeze every last opportunity for whining out of this pregnancy and to excuse myself early on for what looks to be another massive weight gain. I certainly had to announce this before my husband's 20th high school reunion in a few weeks, at which his ex-girlfriend will be present, and she can NOT be allowed to think that I am even a little fat. And I am not fat, I am pregnant (OK, so I am a little bit fat). Please do not congratulate me, all I had to do was quit using birth control and repeatedly sleep with a very hot man.

I honestly can't believe I am submitting myself to this again. My last pregnancy was "healthy" but nonetheless a misery--12 weeks of 24-hour nausea, depression, rapid weight gain, total exhaustion, and viral acne followed by raging sciatica and more weight gain, culminating in about 50 pounds total and including enough excess amniotic fluid to allow me to petition NASA for planetary status and subsequently drown several medical professionals when my water broke in the hospital (thank GOD it was in the hospital, we had no flood insurance at the time). And that was the easy part. I will write more on my experience with breast feeding (oh, you know I will write more on breast feeding, one of my goals in life is to stamp out the barbaric practice. Kidding, sort of), but for now I will say I am still deeply scarred, as evidenced by the angry tirade I went on at a recent dinner party in conversation with the pregnant hostess. Between that and the store-bought pie I brought, I think I am definitely in danger of expulsion from that supper club.

This time out is going accordingly. I thought I had evaded the nausea, because it set in a few weeks after I tested positive vs. a few minutes after I tested positive. But it definitely arrived. Cruelly and strangely enough, my impulse when feeling nauseous is to graze on fatty foods, and when you pair that with barely having enough energy to put on deodorant, it's not a pretty picture. Fortunately, I lost extra weight after my last baby so I am starting from a lower basement. But a whale is a whale, and still in danger of being harpooned so its blubber can be turned into soap and heating oil, whether it weighs 500 lbs or 510 lbs. The main difference this time is that I already have a Weight Watchers membership and The Obama is president, so there is hope. And change. But first there is obesity, I don't think even The Obama can help me out there. Maybe Michelle can, with that nice vegetable garden she has going. Except that I can't stand the concept of a vegetable right now. So there you go.

So consider yourselves warned. Things are about to get ugly. Or rather, uglier.

Some signs you are a Phobic Mom

2010-05-08T11:47:00.004-04:00

I usually don't live my life in imitation of Jeff Foxworthy, but I'm low on creative energies (and all other kinds) so i'll do a cheesy-easy-cop-out post. Besides, some very deranged people out there might be lying awake at night wondering what a Phobic Mom is exactly. So here are some indicators/warnings that you, too, might be a Phobic Mom.

1. You don't understand how and why people take their small children on vacation. In fact, you believe it is impossible to take small children on vacation because once small children are present, it ceases to be a vacation.
2. You don't understand how and why people have more than two children. You don't know how they have more than one, but you vaguely understand why (so the older one will one day leave you alone).
3. You don't understand how and why people breastfeed their children beyond two weeks, which, by your calculations, is the exact moment when social pressure is defeated by exhaustion, clinical depression, a strong desire to get in the car and drive to Utah, and a generalized desire to reclaim one's humanity.
4. People often compliment you on your "honesty," which is a nice way of saying you whine a lot.
5. You are completely incapable of putting your daughter's hair in a ponytail despite playing with dolls for over a decade.
6. People express shock and a degree of horror when you tell them you plan to have another child.
7. You are the only mother in America that bathes her child once a week and believe whole heartedly in the power of the Wet Wipe.
8. You brush your child's teeth once a day, if that, because they are all going to fall out anyway.
9. You cannot imagine any scenario, other than global apocalypse, in which you would allow your child to sleep in your bed.
10. You cannot imagine any scenario, including global apocalypse, in which you would enjoy being pregnant.
11. You cannot imagine any scenario in which you would have organic milk delivered from a local farm, unless a global apocalypse shut off all other sources.
12. You support your child's chicken nugget habit because it means you don't need to cook.
13, You work to support your daycare addiction.
14. You eat your child's leftovers for your meals because it's just easier that way.
15. You would rather die a slow, painful death that lasts 20 years than homeschool your children. Because it's kind of the same thing in your view.
16. . You really really love your child but you really really can't wait until they are at least 5 and can watch an entire TV show without involving you. And despite everyone telling you otherwise, you won't miss "these precious early years." Really.

If 4 or more of the above descriptors sound like you, you are probably a Phobic Mom and need immediate help. Unfortunately, there is none....so....

Stress Management

2010-04-30T13:17:00.004-04:00

In most cases, it's not a good idea to take behavioral cues from a two-year-old. Refusing to let anyone touch your hair, maintaining a diet of chicken nuggets and grapes, asking people the same question over and over until you get the answer you want or they go insane, peeing on yourself--not recommended.

But in one respect, I think little kids are onto something. Almost every toddler has a "lovie" or comfort item that miraculously calms them down in a crisis (well, some kids better than others). In Charlotte's case, this item is Bear. Bear is an essential part of our lives, so much so that we in fact have two Bears, unbeknownst to Charlotte. At least I hope unbeknownst; last time we switched out the Bears, for public health reasons, she gave the clean bear a stare so intense I thought he might crack and confess to being an impostor. She commented, "Bear...clean." I quickly explained that Bear had a bath and that was why he was so shiny. She gave him another withering look and moved on with her life. I fear, though, that she has in fact figured it out, and we will eventually fall victim to some kind of elaborate Parent-Trap-esque hoax involving the two Bears. I don't know what that would look like exactly, but that is precisely the point.

When things don't go Charlotte's way, she yells, "Bear! Bear!" and someone is expected to scramble and put Bear in her hands (We are starting to get tough now and demand she fetch her own Bear. Pretty risky, I know). She then takes a quick Bear "hit," holding him up to her face while she sucks her thumb, and before long, you would think she had just had a swedish massage. As far as I can tell, Bear is the toddler equivalent of pot or large quantities of alcohol (not that I have any personal experience with either; I have always perhaps wrongly assumed I need every brain cell I can get). He probably works faster and better than pot or alcohol, in fact. Five seconds with Bear, and Charlotte is a new woman.

Relieving herself of the stress of her Dad looking like an idiot.

Which leads me to the obvious conclusion that one of the root causes of society's ills is that most people forfeited their teddy bears without finding a healthy substitute. Instead of years of therapy and rehab, maybe people just need to get them a bear. Better, maybe they need to go rooting through their parents' attics and find their original bears. Then maybe they need to sit their with their bears and suck their thumbs for a few seconds. I bet they won't need a drink after that.

And this brings me to the reason Yours Truly is such a healthy, well-adjusted human being. I never got rid of MY bear. Arthur has been my faithful companion through moves to Africa, years at boarding school, moves back to this insane country, a sucky marriage, graduate school, divorce, remarriage, and now, the ultimate stressor, Motherhood. When I bought Arthur at the age of 5 for $1 at the Goodwill with my allowance--which I earned the hard way, by breathing--little did I realize I was purchasing decades of mental health care. True, I have had to supplement Arthur with slightly pricier therapy at times, but I still maintain he has warded off all kinds of badness. He even got me through labor and delivery. He and a epidural, of course, I'm no fool.

So you bet Bear will never be evicted from this house. I'm counting on him to make up for all my mistakes.

Trapped in a World of Boredom

2010-04-16T14:27:00.002-04:00

The title is a quote from a movie called Son of Rambow, which is about two misfit British boys who make their own Rambow film. At one point in the film, an uber cool French exchange student who has come to their school proclaims he is "trapped in a world of boredom," even though every girl wants to be with him and every boy wants to be him. He eventually finds meaning by becoming part of the Rambow film. Far be it from me to suggest that Rambow isn't the source of all meaning, but I think Cool French Guy just needed some kind of creative outlet. He was probably an idea man, and the non-imaginative side of life just didn't thrill him, despite the whirl of activity around him.

My big career advice to Cool French Guy would be to avoid motherhood, and I think he's off to a great start, being male (although you know how progressive the French are). Of all the things I struggle with about being a mom--not being able to sleep in, the scarcity of free time, the inability to keep clothing clean, the inability to keep housing clean, the inability to keep oneself clean--it's the sheer boredom of watching a small child that I find most challenging. Someone described it to me as being like a cop on a stake out--although you are sitting there for hours with nothing going on, you have to remain vigilant, it's not like you can write on your blog, read a book, or even just get lost in some deep thoughts. Of course, the big difference between being a mom and being a stake out cop (besides the weaponry, although a tazer could come in handy for motherhood. KIDDING, don't call the county), is that a stake out cop has a partner to chat with. I have a partner to chat with, but he's hardly ever here, so that doesn't really help me much. So there I sit, a lone cop on a stake out, fighting to keep my brain alive.

The vigilance needed with Charlotte is not what you might think. She's definitely not the criminal type. I have no fear that she will electrocute herself or dive head first off the couch into the coffee table or destroy my African Crap (she knows I'd probably choose it over her if it came down to that. KIDDING, again, put down the phone). She won't do any of that, because that would mean she would be entertaining herself, and that really is beneath her. Actually, even opening the cupboard and removing her own toys is beneath her. I don't know if she really is that much of a prima dona, or if she is such an extreme, perhaps fatal, extrovert that doing even the simplest activity alone plunges her into clinical depression. I'm going to go with the latter explanation, because it doesn't make me look as bad as a mother. So I have to be involved in ALL her play activities, such as:

What Happened?: This scintillating game involves her ordering me to draw various people, often herself. After I draw them, she takes a crayon and scribbles all over them. Then she says, "What happened to [person x]?" Repeat about a dozen times. I have no idea what this means, but I do hope it isn't an indication she will grow up to be a serial killer who murders all her victims with crayons.

Naptime: This involves Charlotte ordering me to go lay down with the rest of her toys in her tent. Then she covers everyone up. Doesn't sound too bad, I know, but keep in mind that she insists my face be covered, and I do NOT get the owl pillow, because that is HERS. I have to put my head down on the hard floor. Still, this game is preferable to "What Happened" because it is possible to doze off for a few seconds. Until, that is, she informs us all that it is time to wake up and immediately vacate the tent.

Watch Charlotte: This activity is usually inaugurated when I attempt to sneak away from her and read some email. She immediately senses that something is off-kilter in the universe, because I am not within 2 feet of her, looks over and sees me at the computer, and dashes over demanding to "Watch Charlotte!!!!" I then have to hold her on my lap and show her videos of herself on my Facebook page. While I enjoy watching videos of Charlotte the first few dozen times, the shine does start to come off the penny. Charlotte, on the other hand, never tires of watching videos of herself. Between this self-absorption and her inability to be alone, I think Hollywood is definitely in her future. That is if the serial killer thing doesn't work out.

Mommy the Chauffeur: This involves me pushing her in her Little Tykes car around and around and around and around in a big loop through our house. This car is designed so a toddler can move the vehicle themselves with their feet, and although Charlotte doesn't come from athletic stock, at least not on my side of the family, I'm thinking she could move that car. She does have those cankles, which I find bolsters lower leg strength (I skate circles around Kevin on the ice rink, he with his spindly little ankles). But why not find a way to involve Mommy? She looks so bored all the time.

Doesn't she though.

You could reasonably argue that I have only myself to blame, and I could force her to play by herself by simply ignoring her demands. Don't think I haven't tried that. The resultant fits are one thing--I am becoming immune--but she literally forces herself on me if I try to sit by myself on the couch. She brings all her toys up on the couch and onto my lap. Somehow I struggle to find the concentration required to read a book or even just peruse the Pottery Barn catalog for the millionth time when Charlotte, Tickle-me-Elmo, and a Winne the Pooh telephone are all sitting on top of me. So What Happened it is. Brain usage will have to wait.

The Phobic Mom does some light gardening

2010-04-11T15:32:00.008-04:00

Three years ago, B.C. (Before Charlotte), we were a hip-hot-happenin' couple (in our opinion) living in a super cool, massively overpriced apartment in Yuppie Central, DC. We walked to awesome restaurants. We rode the subway. We bought organic at Whole Foods, usually as a result of not reading labels closely, but still, organic foods were known to pass our lips. And we had no yard, a blessing I did not fully appreciate at the time.

There is something about having kids that makes one want to homestead it in the burbs. Of course there is the practical issue of space; looking around our DC apartment, it was clear that if a baby were to move in, she would either have to sleep in a window box or I would have to get rid of most of what I affectionately refer to as my African Crap. And that really was not an option, since i break down emotionally unless surrounded by wood animal carvings. But the draw to suburbia is more powerful than simple logistics would dictate. When a member of the American middle class has a child, there's something deep within them that believes that unless one has a 3+ bedroom structure of some kind, some sort of large station wagon/SUV/minivan, and a yard, one's child will know how deprived they are and probably run away from home in search of a trampoline or a kiddie pool. Although I am less ridiculous than that, just for the record, because I have yet to own a station wagon/SUV/minivan and because ultimately I moved to the suburbs to save my African Crap and for no other reason. If you can't save Africa, you might as well save some African Crap. Just so no one thinks I am materialistic.

So long story short, we moved here. And we have a lovely house. And we have a lovely yard, even better, we have a relatively flat yard, a rarity in these parts. Here's the rub--we don't know how to care for our yard. And how would we? Kevin grew up with a Classic Mom, who cheerfully made his entire world perfect without him having to lift a finger. I grew up in Africa, with volcanic soil and year-round perfect weather and, more importantly, a cheaply employed gardner. The gardening I witnessed as a child involved someone putting a seed in the ground and weeks later the Garden of Eden descending. American gardening requires ever-so-slightly more skilled labor.

Everyone knows that the holy grail of suburban living is a perfect lawn. When we moved in, I employed a lawn service to come spray various chemicals on the lawn at various points thinking this would guarantee the holy grail. So the lawn service comes and does this. Well, they may just come and leave a flyer on my door saying they have done this, because I don't know if I can tell a difference. It is true we have fewer weeds. It is also true that when weeds die, they leave dirt behind. And if you had a lawn with many weeds, when the weeds are gone, you have a lot of dirt. Or mud, depending on conditions. This is what they call in the yard business "baldness," and according to society this is not good for yards or men, although I personally have no issue with it in men. Male pattern baldness never covered me in mud when I go out to play.

Kevin and I determined we had "baldness" last fall, when all the experts say you should rectify the situation with seeding. At that point, Kevin was still in charge of the yard. Kevin has many good qualities, but he also has a very demanding job and, in my humble opinion, poor time management skills. I've often daydreamed about kidnapping Kevin from his office and hauling him off to a weekend Steven Covey retreat, but I don't think even Steven Covey could help Kevin. So the yard did not get seeded. Fast forward to spring, and I decide to take matters into my own hands. I summoned up all my courage and went to the Garden Center, where my game plan was to locate an employee and plead with them for knowledge conveyed very slowly and in mono-syllables. I am not talking any garden center, this place is basically the garden center equivalent of a gothic cathedral. It is acres and acres of every kind of shrub, flower, tree, rock, soil and garden tool on the planet. They probably have a St. Bernard on retainer to find lost shoppers. I got out of my car and was immediately intimidated. I thought to myself, No place of business this vast and in a country with a minimum wage can possibly afford to employ the numbers of workers it requires to deal with a customer like myself. After giving myself a brief pep talk, I walked toward what appeared to be the main "store." I was within about 10 feet when I was swarmed with smiley helpful people saying, "What can I help you with today?" After hugging one of them, I explained my plight, "OK so my yard is about half bald. The area in my brain devoted to gardening of any kind is completely bald. Go." Before I knew it, I had purchased seed, fertilizer, a spreader, a bunch of flowers (might as well), and had a truck headed to my house with a buttload of top soil. And I had spent $200, which pretty much solved the mystery of how they can afford such great customer service.

All I had to do now was rake up the ground, mix in the top soil, and apply fertilizer and seed. The Garden Center man proclaimed this "an easy project." I found it to be slightly more taxing. On the other hand, there is no better way to shame a man into work than a woman pathetically attempting hard manual labor in front of him. Kevin, the same Kevin who up until now had taken zero interest in my seeding ambitions, not only came out to help, he largely took over the project. We raked our arms off. We hauled countless little red wagons full of dirt from out driveway to the back yard. We raked some more. We spent the better part of a day on this. Since then we have watered and watered and watered.

And this is what we have to show for it:

Yeah, that's right. A few new blades of grass in a sea of bald. In fact, I'd say the results are probably pretty similar to those from using Rogaine, come to think of it.

Personal hygiene and other annoyances

2010-04-01T13:58:00.007-04:00

It wasn't until I became a mom that I noticed just how much maintenance the human body requires. I've always tried to keep my beauty routine to a bare minimum, because laziness is one of my fundamental qualities, but still, even the base amount of work it requires to avoid shunning by human society is quite impressive. I would put in this base-level category: showering daily or near daily, deodorant application, washing hair, combing hair, drying hair (although depending of your type of hair, you might be able to skip that step without being shunned), brushing teeth, covering zits or basic makeup application, shaving legs and armpits on maybe a weekly basis (more is preferable, although in winter, you may be able to go several weeks without shunning), trimming finger and toenails possibly every two weeks; cleaning out ears with Q-tips. For the next level up in hygiene, which aims beyond avoiding shunning to avoiding being subjected to a televised makeover, I would add: further make up application to include but not to exceed mascara, blush, and some sort of lip color and/or moisture; more frequent shaving; applying body and/or face lotion; eyebrow and, after age 30-35, chin hair plucking and lip waxing. The top level of hygiene would be things I personally consider to be completely unnecessary, the goal of which is creating the illusion of human perfection: complete make up application, including eye shadow and liner, lip liner, bronzer or anything else that vaguely sparkles, and any other cosmetic product that exists but I am not aware of because I don't wear make up; applying sunless tanning lotion; teeth whitening procedures; manicures and pedicures, or the application of polish products to nail surfaces or dealing with the cuticles in any way; tending to "bikini" hair when not actually wearing a bikini; exfoliation of any kind; perfume application; using any other device or procedure or product to style one's hair beyond a blow dryer and brush/comb. Then there is dental flossing, which is basically the Mt. Everest of personal hygiene in my book because, despite its real necessity and low time commitment, I cannot make myself do it, even when repeatedly shown graphic images of diseased gums.

While I will never achieve the top level of personal hygiene--mainly because I didn't achieve it before I had kids and even when I was unemployed (I seriously don't know what I did with myself, but apparently not exfoliation)--I have mostly comfortably hovered in the middle category. And, no one has ever attempted to secure a televised make over for me, that I know of. But then I became a mother. When you have exactly 4 hours in a day that does not involve a small child affixed, or at least aspiring to be affixed, to some area of your body, you have to choose very wisely what you will do with that time. And if you wish to avoid forgetting how to read and write, or you want to be able to quickly and easily answer the question, "Who is the President of the United States," when asked, or you do not want to see your home declared the independent Republic of Toys and Germs, or you want to pursue any activity that develops yourself in any way, you may reasonably, logically, and perfectly understandably be unable to recall why human beings bathe. You may look at the oil slick that is your scalp and figure no one will notice because your roots are dark anyway. And a layer of anti-perspirant really does cover a multitude of missed showers. Besides, it's not like you really live in human society, so doubtful you'll notice if you are shunned.

Fortunately, I do live in human society three days a week, when I go to work, so I am forced to shower at least those days. So you can add "justification for bathing" to my list of reasons why I work, which include: justification for owning clothing that is not a T shirt; solo toileting; speaking standard adult English; being called by my actual name; thinking; eating; sitting; breathing....

The Cankles

2010-03-27T15:05:00.013-04:00

It takes a certain amount of ego to procreate. At the very least, you have to assume your genetic material and child-rearing abilities are quality enough to ensure your offspring will not destroy themselves, you, others, or the world with their stupidity and/or evilness, or you have to not care, which also takes some hutzpah. Or you have to lack the intelligence to properly use birth control, which I suppose isn't an ego issue, so let's just ignore that category of people because they don't work with my analogy. Most of them seem to live in Hollywood anyway.

But the egos of most of us parents and wannabe parents is such that we move beyond hoping our children will have simple decency and basic street smarts and believe we will birth a child who will really contribute something to society and who will at least not be so hideous looking as to frighten small children. Maybe our kid won't cure cancer, but it won't be because they aren't smart enough, because we are that smart, it will be because they sign a modeling contract at the age of 15 and figure they can do more good becoming a millionaire by age 20 and participating in a Save Haiti telethon with Matt Damon. OK, so I am exaggerating here, most of us don't really believe our kids will be supermodel geniuses, especially since that would require a level of genetic engineering that doesn't exist outside of sheep. But we may take an inventory of our qualities and that of our spouses and figure, yeah, there's at least one awesome human being lurking in here. In the case of Kevin and me, I'm not really worried about personality or intelligence too much; I figure our kids will definitely be smart enough to support themselves and nice enough to get along in the world, even if you just discount me altogether and dilute Kevin's offerings by half (not a bad idea). Unless some concentrated form of my great granddaddy Turner's personality sneaks through--he used to set off firecrackers under the beds of visitors for kicks--I think it's unlikely any of our kids will be genetically predisposed to be Hitler, although there is no accounting for bad parenting, of course.

Physical appearance, while not as important in the grand scheme of things, is more of a crap shoot. I think we all know of very attractive people with ugly kids (I have a certain celebrity couple in mind, but I'm not going to name names on the internet as these are "real people"). Even if both parents have perfect features, not every combination will work out that well, just ask Mrs. Potato Head. Once you consider that most of us don't have perfect features, all of a sudden there is the possibility you could give birth to a warthog.

There are definitely some physical qualities I am hoping not to pass on. Weak jaw, big nose, bad skin...the list goes on. But above all, I do not want to pass on my truly fatal flaw, the one thing that cheats me out of a modeling contract and Haiti telethon with Matt Damon more than anything else. I give you The Cankle (Brace yourselves for the horror):

Yes, that is really my ankle, not that of some 80 year old slavic potato farmer.

The Urban Dictionary gives several definitions for "cankle." I'm going to by-pass this one: "An ankle of a very fat person that is so fat that it combines with the calf of the leg to create one large formation and it no longer has the definition of an ankle" and this one: 'A grossly malformed, disproportionate, and tree stump-like ankle that seamlessly merges into the calf, so that there is no singular "ankle" or "calf".' I'll go with this one, which conjures up a slightly less ghastly image: "the meeting of the calf and the foot where an ankle is not present due to lack of ankle definition." Regardless of which definition we go with, I think you can see why I would not want to pass on this trait to my offspring.

Unfortunately, while she is, I think, still too young for a definitive verdict to be reached, Charlotte is giving every appearance of having acquired the Cankle gene. Hard to say if it's just baby fat or if it is indeed bone structure, but she definitely has stocky lower legs. It's really a shame, too. Her father's legs would be the envy of Tina Turner. Seriously, give them a good shave, put a pair of panty hose on them, and you've got the inspiration for a ZZ Top song. But Charlotte does not appear to have gotten these legs. Maybe that is because she is perfect in every other way, and this was needed to give her character. Maybe God is just a comedian. So a Haiti telethon with Matt Damon probably will not be her grand contribution to human civilization.

Curing cancer will have to do, although based on her current aptitudes, which include knowing every name and face she has ever encountered, it is more likely she will be a politician. OK, perhaps I shouldn't take that simple decency thing for granted after all.

Side-by-side play

2010-03-23T20:39:00.005-04:00

Childhood experts describe the interaction of toddlers as "side-by-side play" or parallel play. It basically means that they are ignoring each other. That is until one of them takes the other's Elmo doll, then it means World War III has broken out, kind of like how the US bombed the crap out of Afghanistan after 9/11. Apparently this kind of interaction has deep meaning and real relationships are being formed:

"The togetherness of playing beside each other is what draws children together," says Alice Sterling Honig, professor emerita of child development at Syracuse University. "If two young children are playing beside each other in a sandbox, they may seem like they aren't paying attention to each other. But if one gets up and leaves, the other one will be upset that their playmate has left."

I have no idea if this is the case for Charlotte and her little "friends." But I certainly hope it is true in my own "side-by-side play," with their mothers, and other would-be friends. Unfortunately this kind of distracted, self-absorbed, and superficial relationship is about all I can manage these days. Much of my time spent with other women is with other mothers and our kids. While we try to carry on a conversation, our kids are climbing our legs, destroying our homes, hitting each other, and screaming for our attention. It's hard to get past topics like, "What diaper cream do you use," to actually get to know the PERSON, as opposed to the mother. I have spent substantial amounts of time with women about whom I know almost nothing beyond what they do about their children's constipation. I don't know to whom they are married, what he does, what they used to do, where they are from, what they like to do when they aren't changing diapers, nada. Attending to my child's needs and simultaneously demonstrating interest in another adult is seemingly a multi-task too far for me. For example, Charlotte and I met my friend Jeannie and her daughter Skylar at the zoo recently. Charlotte and Skylar enjoyed seeing the lions, tigers, and bears, oh my. But I think I might have found the mental energy to ask Jeannie at most two basic questions about her well being. If I recall correctly, I may have asked her if her other child was sleeping better at night and if she was enjoying her job. I don't think I could tell you her response if you water boarded me.

Example number two, my friend Tanya called me today. Props to Tanya, she is a single woman with no kids and therefore can move on with her life and pretend I don't exist anymore post-baby (and in a way I don't) like most of my other friends without children have done. But Tanya made the effort, and I really appreciate that. Pretty much the only friends I have now that I had B.C. (Before Charlotte) are those who do make the effort, because I sure as hell don't have time or energy to chase people down anymore. People who call, people who email, and especially people who invite themselves over--or better, people who invite me OUT, who don't assume that because I have a child, I no longer own clean clothing, must go to bed at 7 pm, and consume nothing but chicken nuggets and milk--those folks are my true friends. So I was talking on the phone to Tanya, God bless her, and she was updating me about her life. Meanwhile, Charlotte was sitting beside me watching TV, which had transfixed her in a wonderfully hypnotic state. But then the show ended, and I usually don't let her watch more than one show at a time, and she started making her charming "give me attention" noises, which sound something like a cross between a rabid bat and sorority girl being chased by a serial killer. I instantly recalled the last time I had the gall to speak to another human on the phone in her presence. Since, in that case, it was her endlessly forgiving grandmother, I ignored Charlotte and continued to talk. Charlotte then threw herself on the floor and had herself a fit worthy of Miss Scarlett, only this time she was convinced tomorrow would not be another day. So, recalling that incident and not wanting to scare Tanya or have her eardrums burst from the screaming, I let Charlotte watch not one, not two, not three, but four shows so that I could have a reasonably decent conversation with Tanya. Even so, I had to silently play the tickle game with her (Charlotte, not Tanya) to keep her appeased.

So I'm hoping those experts are right about side-by-side play. And I hope my little "friends" can tolerate my distracted friendship. Just don't take my toys, people.

Raising your child, Raising yourself

2010-03-11T14:22:00.002-05:00

Parenting a small child can be so humbling, assuming you have any amount of introspection. Toddlers exhibit humanity at its most primitive; they are 100% selfish. I'll cut them a break because human selfishness is at bottom rooted in self-preservation, and when you are 3 feet tall and unable to operate a microwave, you have to be pretty insistent (and dare I say a wee bit rude) that someone feed you and that your other needs get met. Once we are grown and can operate a microwave, we can afford to be a bit more polite, unless we are very hungry and our spouse gets his frozen burrito in there before we do. Then someone will have to die.

It is a bit counterintuitive that to grow up and become a happy, well-adjusted, and successful human being--in order to preserve yourself--you have to learn to put your needs, or at least what you think you need, aside on occasion. But that is indeed the case. Those adults who continue to act like toddlers on a regular basis are not going to effectively get the basic human need for relationship met. Unless of course they become a military dictator and have everyone around them living in fear, which works fairly well for a time, until they are pulled out of a rat hole in the Iraqi desert on a very bad hair day.

As I am beginning to teach Charlotte these important life lessons (i.e. Do NOT become a dictator), it strikes me how poorly I have learned them myself. Here's a few examples:

Lesson Number One: We do not throw a fit just because we aren't getting enough attention. This is a hard one for Charlotte. If I am around and doing something other than adoring her, she will see to it that, whatever it is I am doing, I will not be having fun doing it, because she will be giving her best impression of a puppy being tortured to death. If I do not get the attention I think I deserve, I don't quite throw myself in the floor and writhe around while screaming. But I might go on and on to Kevin about how Debbie's husband gives her a foot massage every night and brings her flowers at least once a week just to thank her for being born and isn't that so sweet and oh by the way you forgot to take out the trash again this week (loser). Not a fit, but just as charming.

Lesson Number Two: We do not eat things that are not good for us. In Charlotte's case, this would be Play Dough or a stick. But I am just as guilty; I pretty much ate one of her two birthday cakes all by myself, and I think a stick definitely has more nutritional value than that, at the very least more fiber anyway.

Lesson Number Three: If we can do something safely by ourselves, we don't nag others to do it for us. I am trying to teach Charlotte that she does own a pair of working legs and can in fact walk and grasp things with her fully functional opposable thumbs. We do not need to play fetch with Mommy. Mommy is lazy and prefers to stay seated. But then I recall the last time I badgered Kevin about doing ______ (fill in the blank with anything besides our taxes, as this is not something I can safely myself. We will both land in prison if Kevin does not do this.).

Lesson Number Four: Patience is a good thing. Charlotte unfortunately acquired the phrase, "Right NOW!!!" fairly early. I really don't know where it came from, probably those Nazi daycare workers. This phrase has wide application, including, "I want crackers Right NOW!!!" "I watch Yo Yo Right NOW!!!" "Mommy read Right NOW!!!" and seems unfazed by the lovely Patience song I sing in response (She will sometimes then yell, "Mommy stop singing Right NOW!!!). I myself am not the most patient person. I would say that my impatience is demonstrated in a more subtle way than screaming NOW!!! at the top of my lungs, but I have even done that on occasion. I am even impatient about things that don't matter in the least. I'll be watching Charlotte try to put a puzzle piece in its place and feel the anxiety welling up in me as she wriggles it around unsuccessfully. It's all I can do to sit there and do nothing. That's when I start singing the Patience song to myself, which actually does make a dent.

Lesson Number Five: Imperfection is "not a big deal." I was shocked, SHOCKED to discover that I have a child who has a panic attack when food gets on her hand and would not walk or feed herself until she could do it almost perfectly. How did she become so anal? It could not have anything to do with the laps I did around her high chair, catching every morsel of dropped food before it could even hit the floor as if I did not have a 10 year supply of paper towel in the garage. It couldn't be because I conscientiously told her as I heroically saved every bite that it was "OK, not a big deal." Now I try to restrain myself when she accidentally shovels oatmeal onto the table and use the "it's not a big deal" mantra on myself.

Maybe by the time Charlotte is 18, her mother will be a civilized human being.

A rare Classic Mom moment

2010-03-07T19:49:00.007-05:00

Well, I think I can die now. I have thrown my child a moderately successful birthday party, complete with a theme, decorations, TWO homemade cakes, and a person dressed up in a costume. Of course, there were hardly any actual guests, but this is a minor detail. So I'll just start with a picture of my grand achievement, I give you The Brobee Cake:

This cake is probably in the top 10 of my proudest accomplishments, right up there with my doctorate, Charlotte herself, and singing karaoke at my husband's office holiday party (this was somehow not one of his proudest moments). It was not easy, I'll tell you. I of course stole someone else's idea, I'm not that good. I got step-by-step instructions from the blog of a REAL Classic Mom, who did think of it herself. I did adapt it a little bit, for instance, I ignored all the instructions to use various organic ingredients and used a cake mix instead. There were some tense moments--The initial layer of icing did not go well. The sides of the cake crumbled horribly when I tried to ice them, and I thought I would just have to stick with icing the top, which would have been a humiliation. Even Kevin balked--I was telling him I thought I would only be able to ice the top of the cake, and all he said in reply was, "Couldn't a bakery have made a cake like this?" I got very huffy at that, he had obviously missed the point, which of course to prove to myself and the world that I could SO be a Classic Mom.

But I did not stop with the Brobee cake. I also fashioned creative party decor from paper plates and hats (Don't tell me this is not just ingenious):
Then of course I had the easy back-up cake in case the Brobee Cake did not turn out:
Finishing touch, I forced my husband to dress up as DJ Lance. You ask, did I feel bad subjecting him to this costume? Let me ask you, Did he give birth to the child in question?

There was one thing I kind of overlooked, however. Well, not overlooked, really, just miscalculated. So there was only one actual child in attendance other than Charlotte. There were several very indulgent adults, but only one actual child. Here's the thing. In general, it is a good rule of thumb to invite double the number of guests to a party than you actually want to attend, assuming that around half will not materialize. But you run the risk that everyone will come, which, if you are talking about a bunch of adults, is not a massive tragedy, it mainly will entail a beer run or two. But if you are talking about a bunch of small children, this is a risk on par with drinking tap water in Kinshasa. You could end up with an explosive situation either way. I, not really liking small children all that much, did not want to risk having a buttload of them running through my house, so I limited the guest list to what I could tolerate. The problem was only one of them actually came, which made the party kind of lame, even if it meant my house was still standing at the end of it.

Maybe next year I'll just make one cake but aim for two child guests.

When the going gets tough, the tough run off to Africa

2010-03-05T14:25:00.003-05:00

So--I'm pretty sure being a good mother does not entail leaving one's offspring in a massive blizzard for two weeks while one enjoys the warmth and beauty of East Africa. I'm guessing. But that is exactly what I did last month. I had the great fortune of leaving the morning of--the hour before, in fact--the arrival of Snowmageddon in DC to go on a work trip to Uganda and Kenya (which is where I grew up and literally one of the most beautiful countries in the world, not biased at all). Although I left Charlotte in the far, far superior hands of her grandmother, a "classic mom" if ever there were one (see "The Moms"), Kevin cautioned me about going at all, because according to all those ridiculous child development books and studies he insists on reading, Charlotte is at the peak of her attachment to me, and my leaving for two weeks might irreparably damage her psyche and probably at least give her an eating disorder. My response to this horrifying information was that of any decent mother: Screw you.

So I left. I did feel a little bad when I saw on CNN International Washingtonians wading through 3 feet of snow to toilet their dogs, the dogs peeing all over themselves because they couldn't lift their legs high enough. I became very concerned in fact when I saw forecasts that another 2 feet of snow was right behind that. Although there was pretty much no chance my family would run out of food anytime this century--thanks to the massive freezer parked in our garage, which is in fact bigger than our car, and Costco--I had visions of our roof caving in, or Kevin losing Charlotte in the tundra when they went out to play, or America turning into some kind of Lord of the Flies world without a federal government for week (funny how that didn't happen). But I got frantic when I heard there were thousands of people without power in the DC area. I could imagine Kevin, Charlotte and Grandma huddled around our fireplace, their only source of heat, burning my cherished collection of African wood carvings for fuel. I called every day with a new suggestion for how they could cope without burning any of my things in the event of a power loss. These included chopping down trees in our yard with the hand saw in our garage, cross country skiing to my cousin's house 20 minutes away, and somehow hooking our heating unit to the car battery.

But they all survived just fine, and soon I was luxuriating in a childless existence. Between the plane rides and the 24 hour satellite movie channels in my hotels, I watched more movies in two weeks than I have in the last two years. I even had the pleasure of watching half of "All the Right Moves," a lost Tom Cruise flick from the 80's. Despite its gripping plot--Would Lea Thompson sleep with Tom Cruise? Would Tom Cruise get reinstated on the football team? Would Tom Cruise get into college without a football scholarship? Could Tom Cruise keep his face in a cool yet earnest expression the entire film?--I fell asleep before the end. But I did finish a host of other very fine films, which could have been anything, because no one was bothering me while I was watching them. A Steven Seagal film suddenly becomes Oscar-worthy when you are a refugee from motherhood, much as stale bread probably tastes like mint chocolate chip ice cream when you are a real refugee, I imagine.

In addition to watching millions of movies, I slept in several times; ate numerous meals in peace (and gained 5 pounds as a result, but whatever); read actual books, as opposed to "Bambi Gets Lost;" routinely went to the toilet by myself (although I'm assuming I shared some of them with numerous germs and diseases just based on appearance and smell); physically went shopping, as opposed to doing it online; and generally enjoyed my own company and that of some relatively mature adults. True, I had to work and even got stuck overnight somewhere I did not anticipate staying and had to wash my hair with hand soap, but who's complaining. It was awesome. Best of all, I missed being confined to my house for 10 days with Charlotte, who, while perfectly angelic when under the care of others, acts as if she will in fact die a painful death if she is not touching me at all times when I am around.

Since my return, I have fielded some horrified queries from other mothers about how I could stand being apart from Charlotte for that long. In response, I quote Yo Gabba Gabba, Charlotte's favorite TV show: Try it, you'll like it. Probably too much.

Rebranding myself

2010-03-02T20:38:00.002-05:00

Kevin has long argued that I need "a concept" for my blog, that "all things in moderation" is really too random and catch-all, and therefore it will never find a niche audience, and I will never become rich and famous like Julie of "Julie and Julia" fame. I have ignored his suggestion for several reasons, the first being of course that I will never become rich and famous like Julie of "Julie and Julia" fame no matter what I write, so I might as well make it easy on myself and just write about whatever pops in my head/whatever I want to bitch about that day.

Another reason I have ignored him is that I have no concept. Someone has already read the entire encyclopedia and written about that, dammit, otherwise I would totally do that. OK, maybe not, but I would totally watch every episode of Oprah and do everything she says and buy every product she recommends, but dammit if someone hasn't already done that, too. Then of course there is Julie herself, who cooked her way through Julia Childs and wrote about that. But cooking dinner, period, mostly Hamburger Helper in my case, is a major achievement for me, but funnily enough not one that others would find monumental enough to want to read about. And I am no longer qualified to write about politics, books, movies, or current events since last time I had time to check, Joe Lieberman was a Democrat, Arlen Specter was a Republican, Lindsay Lohan was a major movie star, and Michael Jackson was just creepy, not dead. At bottom my problem with the "concept" concept was that all concepts require I actually do something besides just write about it. And I don't do anything.

The one thing I do is be a mother, but that still seems awfully trite to write about. There are a ka-jillion blogs and books about motherhood. I mean, there are only so many poop jokes or breastfeeding diatribes out there. So this is not likely to be a raging success. But it's all I have, so we'll give it a whirl.

I like you, I really like you

2010-02-01T19:57:00.003-05:00

The blogosphere is pretty laid back in terms of etiquette--people in fact exhibit fairly appalling behavior on the internet in general, hidden behind their avatars, usernames, anonymous profiles and such--but there is one sort-of, kind-of, maybe "rule," which is: If you read my blog, I'll read yours. When I had oodles of time to blog, circa 2005 when I had no child and no job, I found the quickest way to build my own readership was to read jillions of other people's blogs and throw a comment on there every once and awhile about how insightful or witty everyone was. Don't get me wrong, there a lot of brilliant bloggers--so many, it becomes obvious to to an observant person that she does not have any special talent. But telling them as much, it turns out, breeds appreciation, and before long, I had quite a devoted following. It could be that some people are great enough writers they attract mobs of readers to their blogs without any extra effort. But I'm guessing most people have to resort to ego-stroking, and that is certainly the only success I have ever had.

Except now, I have no time, so I have few readers. I do have several very devoted, probably insane friends who read this blog fairly regularly and in fact have blogs themselves. But I don't read their blogs (gasp!), nor am I apt to, except on the odd occasion. It's not that I don't care about them or their thoughts, but....OK, I'm just going to admit it, I care about me and my thoughts more (double gasp!). Yeah, that's right, I'm in this for myself. Just call me the Self-Centered Blogger. The good news is I will assume that the reason you have a blog is that you, too, are self-centered, and therefore I don't expect you to read my blog either.

So to re-cap: Most of the blogosphere is made up of completely isolated blogs authored by people who are so self-centered they read no other blogs and therefore acquire no readers; and blogs authored by people who are so self-centered they read millions of blogs in pursuit of millions of readers for their own blogs and thus build a community of self-centered people feeding each others' egos. A cynic might say it's pretty much a mirror of actual human society, but I won't go that far. I like people in real life, I'm just not going to read their blogs, because that requires a lot of effort, literacy, and eye strength, and I'm low on all that these days.

Then there are, of course, those of you who are actually reading this and are clearly not that low of human beings and therefore should take no offense at this post. But neither should you expect me to read your blog.

Dare I admit it?

2010-01-21T14:37:00.000-05:00

I think everyone who has been within earshot or key-stroke-shot of me in the last 2 years has duly noted my struggles with motherhood. It's not that I have been unhappy, it's just been an adjustment shall we say. I, like most people, am a selfish person, and parenthood really beats that out of you the hard way. At least I am honest about it (a cop out if I ever heard one, but a good one nonetheless). And I do think that I am warped by all the feminist thought I acquired in grad school and have focused entirely too much on gender equality issues (see the last post I wrote), which is really a futile occupation when it comes to having babies/very small children. Related to that, I think my pride has been an obstacle to my enjoyment; I have found myself grumbling to myself as I crawl along the floor picking up grains of rice that were recently flung in my face, "I have a Ph.D., dammit!!," which is totally stupid, because a Ph.D. is basically worthless compared to a properly raised child, but even so, one can easily find oneself feeling overqualified for many of the tasks of motherhood. Lastly, there is the confidence issue. It's hard to enjoy a job, even a great job, when you feel you're in over your head, when you haven't found your bearings. And I've pretty much been scared s**tless since the day Charlotte was born (She, on the other hand, has produced plenty of excrement during that time).

While I won't go as far as to say that I am cured of my discontent, I will cautiously admit that I might possibly have started enjoying myself a wee bit. Charlotte is now at an age where she has a full-fledged personality, can communicate fairly well, and has interests and hobbies. For instance, I have really gotten into her favorite TV Show, Yo Gabba Gabba, which is definitely some weird California dude's hallucinogenic mushroom trip, but whatever. She likes it. A lot. And I like it because when it is on, she leaves me alone. Any show that can do that should win a lot of Emmys and maybe even a Nobel Prize. So I have bought her Yo Gabba Gabba toys and Yo Gabba Gabba books and am planning a Yo Gabba Gabba birthday party, complete with DJ Lance Rock costume, which is basically a bright orange body stocking, to be worn by the very brave Kevin, as if he had a choice. I may even attempt making a Brobee cake, but I don't want to get too ambitious and end up with a pulled muscle in my hand or something.

So she is basically a real person, and I like people and find them interesting. I even find people's behavior problems fascinating and somewhat enjoy the challenge of figuring out how to get along with different people, with a few exceptions of course. I think this is a trait fostered by my boarding school upbringing. I had over 20 roommates all told after 7 years there, all of them middle school or high school girls, so I have pretty much been exposed to the full range of unmanaged personality foibles and petty, immature behaviors (and the consequences of my own). It made me very pragmatic. When in 9th grade my friends/roommates began to shun me because they felt I hung out too much with my boyfriend, I broke up with him, even though I thought they were the most ridiculous thing since the New Kids on the Block, although technically, I had not yet arrived at the conclusion that the New Kids were indeed ridiculous, that milestone would be reached in 10th grade, probably after listening to "Hanging Tough" for the 32nd time. Now, I was not a door mat, but I had to ask myself, did I like the boyfriend enough to put up with the misery of my friends' shunning? Because it was doubtful they could be shown the error of their ways or change them. I had already begun to learn by that time that most people can't and don't, certainly not if they are a teenaged girl (or an overgrown teenaged girl, of which there are plenty, of all ages and both genders). Given that, I concluded that he was in fact not worth it--no offense to him, he went on to become a very nice man--so I dumped him and got my friends back. Problem solved. Of course, principle at times dictates that you do not give into unreasonable demands, and in those cases a good strategy is to just ignore people. Or put baby oil in their shampoo. Or both.

With Charlotte, I take the same approach. I try to accommodate her silly-ness whenever possible. Like if she insists on bidding the space heater in her room good-bye in an elaborate ritual that looks vaguely Japanese before leaving for work/daycare, that's fine, I'll just budget some extra time to get her out the door. And if she must have her own piece of toilet paper and must get to throw it in the toilet every time I use the bathroom (if she must come with me to the bathroom in fact), whatever. And if she absolutely demands that I read Little Bear--which is the most inane, pointless book she owns, and which sends me into fits of rage inside my head every time Emily gives Little Bear her doll and then takes it back because it makes no sense in the story and obviously teaches children to be stingy--but if she insists that I read Little Bear 50 times in succession, then I will do it. Because I know without a doubt that the alternative is much, much worse. However, if she refuses to take a nap, well then she can just scream about it for a couple of hours while I go get my earplugs. And if she throws herself on the floor in a melodramatic outburst because I gave her milk in the green cup, not the blue one, which is so obviously an outrage and an offense to humanity everywhere, then I'm going in the other room. But I don't put baby oil in her shampoo because I will be the one to have to wash it out and that doesn't sound like much fun. See, pragmatism. It works.

So now that parenting is beginning to move into the realm of relating to human beings and managing their behavior instead of a relentless game of "let's see how many bodily fluids I can apply to your outfit today," I am getting into it. The dreaded teenage years? I almost can't wait. Bring it on. I have LOTS of experience.

Low-maintenance women and other mythological creatures

2010-01-03T21:34:00.000-05:00

I have had more than a few guy friends explain to me that they plan to buy or bought their girlfriend a more modest, less expensive engagement ring than they could afford because their girlfriend is "practical," "has simple taste," and "wouldn't want a very big ring."

Um, yeah....try again.

The problem is not that these men are cheap. Instead, they have fallen into the classic trap of believing they are about to marry a low-maintenance woman, a woman who makes few if any demands on them, is just happy to be in a relationship with them because they are so awesome, and is secure enough not to need fancy gifts or worldly tokens of their affection and esteem. Such a woman, if she even exists anywhere in the universe, is so rare, if a man is dating her, he will likely be banned from touching her at some point by some endangered-species-loving lobby group, which will put a serious damper on their relationship anyway.

Lest any feminists out there think I am stereotyping women or otherwise being unfair to them, let me say that a major reason why there are few if any low-maintenance women is that there shouldn't be any. Women, even if they start out not making any, eventually make demands on men for several very good reasons.

First, if women didn't make demands on men, many of them would never bathe, much less get married, have jobs, do chores, eat vegetables, and/or help take care of kids. I love men, but they can be awe-inspiringly impervious to guilt or empathy or other sorts of inward motivations. For instance, if I come into our bedroom and Kevin is already visibly sleeping with the lights out, I will crawl on the floor in the dark, eating dust bunnies while I feel my way to the bed as if I am Anne Frank and simply breathing too loudly will mean the certain death of my entire family. Kevin--who has dramatically improved on this front, after I made repeated demands, see how that works?--used to come in, turn on the lights, rustle around in his closet, take off his massively-heeled shoes and drop them on the ground like the Blitz or something, maybe even get down by my ear and ask me if I am awake so he can then inquire about something really important like what time did I plan to get up tomorrow or did I hear about that study about how artichokes cause cancer (No, but I did read an article about how sleep-deprived women are 59% more likely to commit murder).

But mostly women make demands on men in an unconscious attempt to level the playing field in some way. Through no fault of men, the system really is stacked against women. Even if men make no explicit demands on their women, their women will at the very least carry, birth, and breastfeed (if they are crazy women that is; I think everyone knows my feelings on this topic) their children--a physical and emotional ordeal that lasts a good two years per child and leaves one's body and mind looking like post-Katrina New Orleans--and in most cases take primary responsibility in seeing that said children do not starve to death, freeze to death, annoy other people to death, and otherwise live to see adulthood. You might say, c'mon, children would not die without women around, to which I would reply that this theory has not been widely tested and doing so would risk the future of the human race. I do know that dishes that are not done by this woman probably will go some days without being done, and meals that I don't plan and cook certainly never materialize. Granted, dishes are less assertive than a small child (Hitler was less assertive than a small child for that matter), but I'm just saying. Women seem to be hard-wired to notice these things and to take responsibility for them. In addition to all of this, thanks to that witch Gloria Steinem and her ilk, women also have to have stellar careers on top of all that.

So, yes, I want a massive diamond ring, even if I do have "simple taste." And I want you to do the dishes, dammit, I'll nag you if I have to. It's the least you can do, given the circumstances.

Reflecting on 35 years of Holly living

2009-12-18T13:14:00.000-05:00

Today is my 35th birthday--how did THAT happen? I mean seriously, 35 is like a REAL adult. Honestly, I am dumbfounded how I got here. The last 10 years in particular are a blur. But unless I am on some kind of mind-altering drugs or am otherwise mistaken, today is December 18, 2009, 35 years to the day that I was born, according to my mother, who should know.

It's been a pretty crazy life so far. Nutshell version: Born in KS, moved to CA, moved to TX, moved to GA, moved to KENYA, fell completely in love with it, had to depart for adulthood (which broke my heart so badly I went married someone completely wrong for me at the age of 19), spent 8 years in an awful marriage, left, found Kevin, got my doctorate, moved to DC, got a job, had a baby, bought a house. Boom. Technically speaking, I've learned a lot along the way, although I can't say that I act like it. But here's a few things I've learned in theory, if not in practice, in random order:

1. If someone has to inform you they are very important--either explicitly or through arrogance, condescension, or demanding behavior--they probably aren't. That includes oneself. If you are important, that will be apparent to others in time. If you aren't important, get over it, most of us aren't either, and there are worse things. Like being an annoying jerk. Besides, convincing everyone you are awesome all the time is really exhausting. Take that energy and channel it toward actually becoming awesome in a way that doesn't undermine or seek to control others. Just put in the work and shut up about it.

2. Marry your soulmate. They do exist. Marriage is always hard work, but marrying your soulmate makes a HUGE difference. It's like you can cut a tree down with a little bitty axe or you can get yourself a big ass chain saw. Either way, it won't be easy and you might end up dead, but one is a lot easier than the other. Trust me.

3. A really good prank to play on someone is putting baby oil in their shampoo, but it only works with an opaque bottle. And play it only someone who can take a joke and/or is pure evil.

4. No one is really pure evil, and we are all evil to a degree. Don't judge, even though it is SO much fun, like THE MOST fun. But the day will come when you are judged, and you won't like it.

5. Men and women are fundamentally, irrevocably, completely, and utterly different. I don't care what Gloria Steinem says, she is just dumb. One of the biggest mistakes a woman can make is to think she can act like a man and get away with it, or expect a man to act like a woman. It never works, it just leaves a lot of crushed expectations littered all over the floor. And then some woman will just have to come and clean it up.

6. Jesus is full of grace and forgiveness and generally rocks. His followers, however, can really be quite heinous and annoying. Learn to differentiate.

7. The world will not stop spinning on its axis if your bathroom is not spotless and you are 5 lbs. overweight. OK, I am still learning this one a little bit, which is totally embarrassing.

8. Acne does not go away with age, even with wrinkles. Which totally sucks, but let's keep some perspective here, it's not like I am living in a cardboard box and wondering where my next meal is coming from.

9. The fashion industry does not in fact care if you look good. This was a shocking revelation to me. They care about making money, and that means they have to keep changing the styles, whether they look good on anyone or not. Just because something is supposedly in fashion does not mean you have to wear it, especially if it makes you look like an ice cream cone. Just say no.

10. A work place should have a roughly even gender balance. If you go too far one way or another, you have yourself either a fraternity or a sorority house, and that's never a good thing even when it is a fraternity or a sorority house. No thank you.

That's all I got. I don't want to think my birthday away, there are so many better ways to spend it.

It IS the thought that counts

2009-12-11T14:19:00.000-05:00

More and more people seem to have forgotten what the point of gift giving is. On behalf of Martha Stewart, I'm going to remind everyone. A gift should one of two things, or both:

1)Something someone wants (you think) but either can't afford it for themselves (because they are 7 years old and don't have a job) or would not buy it for themselves because it is impractical and unnecessary (i.e. a dog snuggie. Except my friend Kim just bought one for her dog. So I can't give her that).

2) Something that communicates to the recipient, Hey, I get you, and I'm actually thinking of you and not myself for a change. I personally would hate a 3-year subscription to Cuneiform Studies, but I realize what a massive geek you are, so I shelled out the money just for you.

It seems like the chief destroyer of traditional gift giving has been the Gift Card. Don't get me wrong, I have given my share of gift cards and will continue to do so. I think gift cards are fine especially when you are not exchanging gifts with someone (as in it's a one-way transfer) and/or you don't know the recipients too well (i.e. Charlotte's day care teachers). But generally nothing is more perfunctory than a gift card, it is basically cash not even well-disguised. It is like cash with its hands over its eyes thinking you can't see it because it can't see you. That doesn't work too well for Charlotte, and a gift card certainly isn't getting away with it.

When you have people exchanging gift cards with each other, you have officially entered the realm of what-the-heck-is-the-point. Also in this realm, in my opinion, is when full grown adults with jobs tell each other what they want for Christmas. My husband's family--and I'm not putting them down, I love them more than anything--is particularly bad about this, and I have joined in the absurdity on more than one occasion. So we buy Kevin's parents the toaster oven they want, and they buy us the coffee pot we want, and we both spend $50. I don't think I am a massive Scrooge to say, why don't we just buy ourselves what we want and be done with it? We actually have stopped exchanging gifts altogether, because it literally degenerated into cash exchanges one year, and at that juncture it became easier to deny the Holocaust than it did to deny the pointlessness of our gift giving (which means that President Ahmadinejad is probably out buying us some loot as I speak).

On this topic, I give my parents a lot of credit, because while I have gotten many gifts from them that I didn't exactly cherish forever, I have almost never known what I was getting. My mother never asks me what I want, which means she has to put some thought into it. Personally, I would rather get a kitty cat sweatshirt I didn't expect than a blender I asked for, unless the blender can make margaritas by itself and clean the whole kitchen after and costs like $1 million and my best friend Bono gave it to me. Then I'll totally take the blender. Or just Bono. I would take Bono even if I asked for him, which I do every year (not in a romantic way or anything, I just want to hang out) and somehow no one ever comes through.

Of course the worst gifts are not those you expect or the gift card but gifts that show appalling lack of thought about what the other person would want. For instance you probably don't want to give a recovering alcoholic a fancy bottle of cognac. You probably don't want to give an overweight person a pair of skinny jeans (Actually, my well known belief about skinny jeans is that they don't look good on anybody, period, including you who are already starting to argue with me because you think you look so good in them, you don't, trust me, so I would just rule them out across the board). Similarly, it is bad form to give a new mom who has 30 lbs of baby weight to lose a massive box of chocolates. Try giving her prozac instead, that would be an appropriate gift for a new mom, probably the only one. You probably don't want to give an illiterate person Tolstoy's War and Peace. And you probably don't want to give a man, any man, a speedo, even if he wants it, for the good of humanity.

So there are some hints. Not that I am that stellar a gift giver myself. Most years I grasp at straws trying to come up with something for Kevin and settle for some random clothing. This year I actually got him something creative, but I won't say what it is since he sometimes reads this blog (only sometimes, and who can blame him).

This post is not that funny and pretty much sucks so I'm just going to stop now :)

'Tis the Season

2009-11-20T12:38:00.000-05:00

First of all, let me address my silence last week, lest anyone out there think I have fallen off the wagon of accomplishment and slid back into a life of brainless sloth. Instead of blogging, I was in bed, feeling like that mean-girl soccer player from the University of New Mexico had kicked in the side of my head, and generally praying for death. While it probably wasn't that bad, I did have my first sinus infection, something I hope never to repeat. In fact, I've now updated my official version of hell to: Breastfeeding with a sinus infection for eternity while Kay jewelry commercials play on loop in the background. Shudder.

Which brings me to today's topic: Annoying things about the holidays. Let me first say that I love the holidays, actually, I'm not a Scrooge at all. But making a list of all the things one loves about the holidays is more difficult to make humorous than a list of things one hates ("I just love reindeer. What's up with how cute they are?" See what I mean?). So for the same reason almost all stand-up comics resort to foul language and potty humor, I will once again whine.

The timing of this blog (pre-Thanksgiving) brings me to reason number one, which is admittedly trite, and that is that the holidays now last like half the year. Soon we will live live in a constant state of Christmas to the point where there will be no more Christmas because it will have just become normal life to have a fake evergreen tree in your house, binge-eat, and buy massive quantities of goods on credit (OK so, save for the tree, we are pretty much there as it is). Santa arrived at the local mall this year on November 7. November 7! Seriously, shouldn't he still be scarfing down his Halloween candy and exercising his right to vote on November 7 instead of hanging out at the mall? I know Christmas did not start this early six years ago, when Kevin and I got married on November 8th, otherwise I know I would have made our annoying DJ (the one that had the nerve to play the explicitly forbidden Kenny G) dress up like Santa for revenge. I didn't realize a holiday theme was even an option at that time.

Starting Christmas so early means we have an entire additional month to enjoy those aforementioned Kay Jewelry commercials. This year's selections include one from last year featuring some deaf girl and the idiot she is dating, who makes up for his bumbling sign language by giving her a diamond necklace. When he asks her if she likes it (proving his idiocy), she says in her halting deaf accent, "Read my lips," and then gives him that kiss that "begins with K/Kay." Three of my teeth rotted out just typing that out. Then, brand new this year, we have another idiot couple in a woodland cabin suffering through a (rare) December thunderstorm. When the woman jumps into the man's arms in fright over a clap of thunder, he gives her some "arms surrounding you/hearts entwined/I will suffocate you with my love"-themed necklace and reassures her. He should have just dumped her right there because any girl who can't handle a little thunder is for damned sure not going to make it through childbirth, much less motherhood in general. A slight improvement on that one is the couple celebrating their first Christmas with their new baby. The husband comes to the nursery where the wife is up in the middle of the night rocking the baby back to sleep and gives her a diamond necklace. Somewhat touching at first glance, although if I were the woman, my response would be, "You can keep your damn necklace and try getting you butt out of bed with this child once in a blue moon." But I guess that is not going to sell any jewelry. I've about decided Kay's entire advertising campaign is based on the premise that if your commercials feature a bunch of really dumb people, the viewers will feel smarter by comparison and thank you by soliciting your business. That's all I can figure. Unless most people are really that dumb just for starters.

Wow, I've pretty much written an entire blog about the Kay Jewelry commercials, so I may have to save the rest of my holiday whining for next week's post-Thanksgiving extravaganza. Here's hoping I am much funnier when hopped up on sugar and 10 lbs. closer to obesity.

The Leaf Raking Workout

2009-11-06T13:17:00.000-05:00

As you know, the spreadsheet says I need to be working out. This is currently slotted for 7:30-8:00 p.m., but I'm sure you can imagine how well that is going. By 7:30, Kevin is home, infecting me with his laziness, and Charlotte is in bed for the night, which always leaves me feeling self-indulgent for having survived another day of motherhood, a.k.a. working for the most demanding prima donna since Mariah Carey. My thought process is usually, "I SO deserve that massive slab of cheesecake/massive glass of wine/massive internet shopping spree," NOT, "I SO deserve that massive workout." But ultimately I do blame Kevin for the fact that I have yet to implement this part of the spreadsheet.

So today I decided I would work out during Charlotte's nap, before blogging. But then I looked outside and realized that our house was about to be devoured by leaves. Now my original plan for fall was to allow all the leaves to fall, because why go through the work of removing them when more are simply arriving? But this strategy doesn't work for managing body hair, and it doesn't work for leaves. Because in both cases you end up being suffocated, you die, and no one can even find your body for all the crap all over it. OK maybe not, but I really don't want to take my chances with the leaves. Our yard looks like there's some kind of weird Star Wars creature living on it. And then I looked up on Weight Watchers the point value for raking some leaves, and it was like double the elliptical machine, seriously. So I went out and raked me some leaves.

And then I got to thinking, it's really pretty dumb how we whine and complain about household chores and even pay other people to do them and buy all these contraptions on TV to make the chores easier and less strenuous--and then we go work out. Why don't we just skip the workout, which is at least as tedious and boring as any chore, and just clean or rake or something? We could even wear that cool sweat-wicking workout gear if it makes us feel any better. I'm telling you, I just got an awesome workout raking those leaves. My abs are begging for mercy, man! And better yet, there are like 50 billion more leaves to rake out there, which will keep me in workouts for the next month.

Yeah, I'm totally buying a leaf blower.

The Moms

2009-10-30T08:29:00.000-04:00

I've spent a lot of time with moms over the last nearly 20 months. To be honest, the mom culture was a huge part of why I was reluctant to become a mom. From the outside, moms seemed like people who got all their information about the world from Dora the Explorer and were more than a little sniping with each other. On the latter point, the battlefronts are numerous: working moms vs. stay at home moms, spankers vs. timeouters, cloth diapers vs. disposable (or crazy hippies vs. sensible people, not to be judgmental or anything), non-vaccinators vs. vaccinators (ditto, etc. I would add to "crazy hippies" "crazy hippies who don't care about public health"), natural birthers vs. epidural users (or people who are too crazy to be out walking free on the street vs. normal people), and of course, breastfeeders vs. bottlefeeders (or women who insist on living like slaves of the 15th century vs. those who choose sanity and liberation. Again, not to be judgmental). But who am I to judge, right? I have a theory about what drives these battles, other than people being crazy, but I'll save that for another time.

Now that I have become a mom, I have a lot more respect for moms. And I am also sniping (see above) and can no longer carry on an intelligent conversation, even about poop, and have no idea what is going on in the world (Michael Jackson died? really?). I have also figured out that mom culture is very diverse. There are actually several different kinds of moms, which I will tell you about now, as if you could stop me.

To be more precise, I have identified 4 broad categories of moms that result from combining 2 key sets of criteria, organized vs. disorganized and uptight vs. laid back. Most moms are lesser versions of these 4 types or combinations of types, of course, but this gives us a basic idea:

Type 1--The Mess (disorganized and uptight)

This is the clearly harried mom, usually of multiple children, who is rarely showered or dressed in clean clothing, nor are her children, who run circles around her and destroy things as she valiantly but unsuccessfully tries to stop them from eating rocks, hitting each other, breaking valuables, or jumping off the top of jungle gyms (or buildings). Her house is basically ground zero of Armageddon, complete with blood on the floor on a bad day. Dinner is Cheetos. And conversations with her go something like this, "I think we are--Johnny come back here!--going to go to the beach--Susie, don't hit your brother!--except that Joe may have to work--Sally, get down from there!--so I don't know--Mikey, don't eat that!" You might as well not bother to relate any information of your own to her because she can no longer understand English.

Type 2--The Proud Mess (disorganized and laid back)

This type looks very much like The Mess, except this mom doesn't give a damn about any of it. Instead of trying to control the chaos, she just sits back, smokes a cigarette (either literally or figuratively), and lets it all wash over her. Her lack of control is a point of pride for her. As another mom scrambles to prevent her child from eating a cookie laying in the dirt, The Proud Mess (proudly) proclaims, "Honey, my kids regularly eat grass coated in dog urine, and they are fine." She barely contains her contempt for moms who dare show up at a mom gathering with make up on, chiding them as "over achievers," and openly ridicules moms who don't let their kids watch television or drink juice.

Type 3--The Anal Mom (organized and uptight)

This is the neat freak mom who can't quite come to grips with the fact that small children don't really go with the decor or most of her outfits. Anal Moms will buy the "tasteful," neutral color baby bouncer because it matches the leather chairs, although they may eventually cave in desperation to the colorful rainforest bouncer that lights up and is more garish than a drag queen (I speak from experience. Not because I am drag queen, because I bought the rainforest bouncer. I'm not a drag queen, just to be clear). In extreme cases, Anal Moms either make their children play exclusively in their rooms or bring out one toy at at time. Messy toddler meal times induce mommy panic attacks and therapy sessions; Anal Mom will be running a handvac all over her child and everything in the vicinity within seconds of that dropped grain of rice. Sleep schedules are enforced according to a nuclear clock. Clothes are changed multiple times a day and are all adorable little matching outfits complete with hair accessories. The children's clothes are nice, too.

A related type is the Mom, Ph.D. This is usually a well educated mom, often one who has given up a high-powered career to stay home. Instead of coordinating baby gear with furniture and devising storage solutions for toys, Mom, Ph.D. pours her uptight, organized energy into reading mountains of childhood development literature and medical studies, usually with the end goal of her child winning a Nobel Prize. If you are around this mom for more than 5 minutes, you will learn how simple, wooden blocks create 13% more brain synapses than toys made from Chinese plastic. You will learn how peek-a-boo games help your child get over attachment disorder. You will learn how the number of times your child defecates per day can inform you of their optimal potty-training age (this requires a spreadsheet). But mostly you will learn that if you let your child watch television, he will end up in jail.

Type 4--The Cruise Director, a.k.a The Perfect Mom or the Classic Mom

(organized and laid back)

If you are a kid, this is the mom you want to have. If you are a mom yourself, this is the mom that makes you want to commit suicide. Life for this mom's family is one exciting activity, cool craft, healthy and delicious meal, and fun family vacation after another. This mom just loves, loves, loves being a mom, has probably wanted to be a mom since kindegarten, and embraces it all with gusto while letting none of the pitfalls get to her. This mom takes her toddler everywhere with her, from the grocery store to Paris, because she gets such a kick out of watching her child discover the world (the rest of us, who have come to Paris to escape our children, are not quite as thrilled). This is the woman whose reaction to finding out she is pregnant with triplets 2 months after her last child was born is, "God has so blessed us!" while the rest of us would at least consider atheism if not actually convert for revenge. If this mom has only 2 kids, it's usually because "we just can't afford to have the 6 we want." Oh, and she just loves to breastfeed, it's like her favorite thing.

So those are the types. Now, few moms are solidly in one camp and in fact can change types depending on the day. For instance, I am situationally either a Proud Mess, mainly because I let my kid eat dirt and I look askance at moms who shower every day, or the Anal Mom, although I keep it under control. Toys are strewn all over my house but that doesn't mean I'm OK with it. I'm basically Anal Mom with my house but Proud Mess Mom with the personal hygiene of myself and my child. I am definitely not the Cruise Director, because I generally dislike small children and try not to go anywhere I don't have to with mine, nor am I Mom, Ph.D. Not only am I too lazy to read all that crap, I feel like my children's genes will be enough to ensure they are geniuses. I don't want to overdo it and wreck their sparkling personalities with too many synapses.

Of course, these categories are confined just to "normal" moms. I am not even going to go into the whole psychotic mom thing, that is another whole world that I don't feel qualified to speak about. Yet.

At the risk of offending the spreadsheet...

2009-10-30T08:27:00.000-04:00

...I am actually hanging out with a friend today during the blogging slot on my spreadsheet. Horrors! So no blog today, unless I dump Kevin from his slot. He probably doesn't deserve to be dumped, but we'll see how things pan out.

The Struggle to be "Accomplished"

2009-10-16T13:30:00.000-04:00

I recently decided that I need to use my like 10 hours of free time a week for better purposes than watching the YouTube video of that wedding party dancing down the aisle to Chris Brown's "Forever" 50 times in a row, which is exactly what I did one morning last week, or looking at all my pictures on Facebook for like the hundredth time and scrutinizing how big my nose looks in each of them. Enough is enough, I decided, at this rate I'm never going to become a talented writer/pianist with abs of steel who is fluent in Swahili and cooks gourmet meals for her family every day. When I stop to think about it, I really don't know why it is so important that I become this extraordinary person. Hmmm, more on that deep question later.

So I have actually plotted out all my free time on a spreadsheet and assigned various tasks to various times. Yeah, I know. Fridays during Charlotte's nap, for instance, are for blogging, thus this entry. From 6-6:30 a.m. is Swahili study, which I am mainly doing out of shame that I am not fluent after being raised in Kenya (The first question people ask when they find out where I am from is, "So I guess you speak the language?" to which I defensively reply, "People speak English almost everywhere in the world and probably on some distant planets, making it very hard for English-speakers to learn other languages.") Thursdays during Charlotte's nap are devoted to housework, the idea being if I only slot one segment of time for housework, whatever doesn't get done is not that important. Fridays are for blogging and piano practice. At half an hour a week, it will probably only take me about 50 years to fulfill the promise I showed as a 4th grader, when I won first place in the Kenya Music Festival, and become an accomplished pianist. My mother will be so happy. Dead, but happy. Then in the evenings, I am supposed to work out and read books. This is the part where the spreadsheet collapses of its own weight, as do I, in front of the TV, eating some crap.

Now that I have written all this out, it really looks kind of ridiculous. When I come to the end of my life, I really doubt I'm going to care if I learned Swahili or how to play the piano, unless I somehow end up in a Tanzanian nursing home or in some strange society where people communicate through musical instruments, in which case speaking the language will be the least of my worries. And unless I figure out how to become a real writer and something comes of this, I really doubt it's going to matter if I had a blog. The exercise thing actually might make some kind of difference, I might avoid wearing adult diapers or something. Of course, exercise is the only part of my schedule from which I get absolutely no enjoyment (probably subzero enjoyment, really). The books--yeah, whatever. I already know how to read.

So why am I doing all this? It's a bit like the 19th century obsession with women being educated and accomplished so they could....sit around the house and be educated and accomplished. Accomplishment for its own sake. Which is pretty much just ego--in the 19th century, it was male egos wanting to have impressive wives so they would seem more impressive themselves. For me, it's just me wanting to be impressive, although I feel people who know me are sufficiently impressed (don't correct me if I am wrong), so I guess I just want to feel impressive to myself. Which is really quite pathetic. And probably plenty of justification for a life of utter sloth.

Now I really have hit the jackpot--maybe I can become an unmotivational speaker and go around convincing people that sitting on one's butt and doing as little as possible is the key to a successful and happy life. I think people would pay big money to hear that.

OK, so I have to slot some time in the spreadsheet to prepare for my speaking tour. Piano's out, sorry Mom.

You're never too old for acne and pettiness

2009-10-07T22:41:00.001-04:00

So I'm turning 35 here in a couple of months, which is quite shocking to me and probably to everyone who knows me and thinks I am gorgeous (not to mention immature). I still feel like I'm 13 years old much of the time, and worse, I act like it on occasion. And, yes, I still have acne, which I find to be a tremendous injustice, right up there with men not having cellulite even when they are obese and of course the genocide in Darfur.

Acne is one thing, but being a small person is another. And I don't mean being a size 2, a dream that died for me in like 7th grade. Seriously I could be starving to death and I'd still be at least a size 6 by virtue of my big bones. Now, see, this is exactly what I am talking about. Why do I still care what size I am?

No, I'm talking about pettiness, taking the low road, acting out of insecurity. Just for example--and this is just one among hundreds--Kevin and I were discussing personality types, with which we are pretty much obsessed. We are like Myers-Briggs experts by now. Our most recent reading on the topic confirmed our long-held theory, that the N-S indicator is the most important for compatibility (who needs a Ph.D. in psychology?). I mentioned a certain, very beautiful friend of mine as being a probable ESFJ. I later found an internet page open, which of course I did not look closely at, because that is too much work--all I saw was INTP (Kevin's type) and ESFJ. I naturally assumed that Kevin was researching his compatibility with my gorgeous friend so he could determine if running off to Fiji with her might be fun. So naturally I confronted him with his horrible misdeed. It turns out he was reading about career choices for his type and ESFJ was included on the same page since it is the exact opposite type. So while he may be thinking of leaving his job to go to Fiji, I don't think he is considering taking this friend of mine. Especially since she is an S.

Or at work the other week, I literally threw a tantrum in my boss's office because someone else was getting to do something that I wanted to do. I was like, "But I want to do that, and I've been here longer." She was like, "Um, you aren't even going to be here that day." And I was like, "But my hologram might could make it." Very mature.

Maybe the acne is a magical curse that will only go away when I finally learn to grow up and get over myself. Ever seen a 90 year old with acne? You will in about 55 years.

The Agony and Ecstasy of Bulk Shopping

2009-09-22T09:31:00.001-04:00

Sometimes there is a thin line between heaven and hell. Straddling that line, sitting right smack-dab on top of it, is Costco.

We finally joined Costco this summer, now that we have a real house with a real garage and some decent storage. Once a gargantuan freezer was in place in the real garage, I headed off for my first foray. Unfortunately, I had to go on a Saturday, but I did have the good sense to arrive early, about 15 min. before the place opened to be precise, at which time there was already a crowd of people, carts claimed and positioned to knock down the doors and anything/one else in their way. When I saw that, I started getting a little nervous. I am not what you would call a champion shopper. Even the normal grocery store--with its maze of aisles often organized according to incomprehensible logic and ten billion choices of rice and freaky looking customers everywhere (like the 70-something-year-old man and probable sex offender who snuck up behind me this week to inform me I have a cute butt)--gives me mini panic attacks, and even on a good day, I have an overwhelming impulse to get the heck out of there just as soon as possible. So I'm thinking I'm probably not cut out for Costco, which is basically the Olympics of shopping, requiring super human strength, superior cart-pushing agility, marked aggression, and outstanding decision-making skills under fire. So actually it's more like war than the Olympics, now that I think of it, which really doesn't help me. I would suck and get myself and others killed in either venue.

I definitely had the combat-ready adrenaline pumping as I stood there with my cart watching the entrance. A very brave woman finally emerged and opened the gate (I certainly hope Costco offers their employees massive life and personal injury insurance packages). And we were off. I had a list of things I needed, but the list is the first casualty of Costco I find. Pretty soon I was just grabbing stuff, anything I saw that I had ever used in my life, in the cart. Zone Bars. Ivory soap. Fleece jackets. Animal crackers. Thank goodness they put the diamonds behind glass. Pretty soon the cart that had once seemed the size of a Hummer was looking pretty puny, kind of like one's home does once a baby arrives with all their crap in tow (speaking of baby crap--blanket sleepers for $7! SEVEN DOLLARS!!! grab grab grab). So I had to have a talk with myself because I was there on a serious mission, to supply for a rather large party, so appetizers and drinks had to take priority over the massive bag of Venus razor cartridges.

After a meager 45 minutes, my cart was so full I risked a hernia just pushing it around the floor. On top of that, I noticed preparations for the imminent arrival of Dan Akroyd, who would be hawking his new line of wines. That was pretty much my cue to run for my very life, no offense to Dan Akroyd, he was very good in Driving Miss Daisy, but he has no business creating more havoc in Costco. They have havoc in bulk at Costco, just like everything else. Massive jar of Prego, butt-load of havoc, sitting right there together on the shelf. So go to Whole Foods, Dan Akroyd. People who pay $6 for a container of organic sea salt will not likely mutilate fellow customers for a bottle of wine autographed by a former Ghostbuster.

So I grunted and groaned and pushed my way into the check out line, where I was soon baffled as to how this next phase would play out. My cart was absolutely full, upstairs and downstairs; the conveyor belt thingy looked pretty small; and they don't have bags or baggers. So somehow I would have to unload everything onto the belt then rush to the end and start loading everything back in the cart before the skyscraper of goods the checkout person necessarily constructs topples over and decapitates a small child (that's another thing--What fool would bring their child to Costco? Do they not cherish the future of humanity?) I actually consulted the rather bored but grizzled-vet-looking man behind me to make sure this would be possible and I hadn't made a deadly error by not bringing an extra cart. He told me it would be OK. So I unloaded and unloaded and unloaded, sprinted to the end of the line and loaded and loaded and loaded as if my life depended on it. The items of course did not fit in the cart like they had the first time, but I got it done. The final bill was shocking even to the cashier, who asked me if I wanted some kind of super duper membership for the really big spenders, i.e. people who have 14 obese children or run a day camp for hook worm patients out of their homes. I assured her I would not routinely be buying this much. Let's pray.

I felt quite accomplished having successfully purchased a cart-load of crap at Costco, but the challenge was not over yet. I then had to wheel the cart--still weighing about 500 lbs but now a leaning tower of unconfined goods--out the door, of course stopping for the absurd receipt check at the exit (I could have had a dead body in that cart, buried--and nicely preserved I might add--under 20 pounds of frozen mini quiches, and the receipt checker would never know), across the crosswalk and through the parking lot, dodging dozens of determined parking-spot-seekers, and to my car. Then I had to fit everything in my car, drive home, unload....Honestly the whole thing was the best workout I've had since I dared myself to run 3 entire miles at one time back in college. I even pulled a muscle in my back. It was like my own version of Rocky 4--instead of aging former boxing champ getting back into shape with practical workout of hauling logs across the Siberian tundra, this was aging former model (just go with it) getting back into shape after having children by making repeated shopping trips to Costco.

So back to the heaven/hell motif--The good news is I have enough food to last through several swine flu epidemics, allowing Kevin to breathe normally again, and I probably saved a few dollars, which I will promptly spend on my 109th sweater. The bad news is I'll probably have to go back eventually to resupply, and when I do, it might not be a pulled muscle this time, it might be paraplegia. Or worse I might hit Dan Akroyd with my cart and make him a paraplegic, and there will never be a Blues Brothers 8. Can you think of a darker hell?

The Modest Kitchen Remodel

2009-08-14T20:27:00.000-04:00

I was going to title this "The Great Kitchen Remodel," but that really would be an exaggeration. You technically have to gut a kitchen in order to call the remodel "great." We kept our cabinets and floors and stayed with removing a wall and replacing the counters and backsplash. So that's modest really. But it was enough to cause us to flee the scene for three weeks, joining the ranks of the oh-so-downtrodden Yuppie Homeless. We actually did without cable and internet (gasp!) but a large chunk of time. It was tragic.

To be honest, I felt uncomfortably indulgent remodeling this kitchen at all. It was a fine kitchen, everything in good shape, moderately attractive even. With much of the world basically living in shacks--and most of the DC area living in shoe boxes, what with how ridiculously expensive housing is here--why exactly was it imperative that the kitchen be "open" and the countertops granite (you MUST have granite if you are a yuppie. Anything else just won't do, won't do at all).

Looking through tons of design magazine for inspiration did nothing to assuage my guilt. The American lifestyle is off the hook, y'all! Does anyone really need special little drawers with places for 50 spices (does anyone really need 50 spices?)? Does anyone really need a stove the size of a tank? The ironic thing is as American kitchens are becoming gourmet cathedrals, people are cooking less than they did in the 1950s when people practically had to gather wood. I mean, how would the 14 million restaurants out there even begin to stay in business if even half of Americans went in their granite and stainless steel palaces and did so much as fry an egg? The rest of the 21st century American home is equally absurd. Does anyone really need to be able to run laps in their bathroom or swim laps in their tub? Does anyone really need a cinema in their basement (why do we even have movie theaters anymore when it seems everyone has a "media room" these days?) Does anyone really need their butt warmed by their toilet seat?

In addition to my concern that remodeling the kitchen would undeniably put me in the ranks of the spoiled American-yuppie-consumer-whore (but who was I kidding anyway, three-quarters of my wardrobe is J Crew, and not all of it bought on sale either. And besides if Bono can live in luxury with a conscience, dammit so can I), I of course had fears for my marriage. This is no laughing matter--remodeling is in fact a leading cause of divorce (I am sure there is a study on this. Quick, let me ask Kevin). Our marriage in particular was at risk because we don't work well together, period. We play together very well--we have great conversations, we like to do the same things (i.e. nothing), we have the same sense of humor (we are HYSTERICAL), we both read the Economist (he reads more of it than I do of course. I skip the dull parts, which means I can gut the thing in about 15 minutes). But we don't work well together, which is mostly OK, because he does his thing, and I do mine, and never the two shall meet. But when they do, oh no, no, no. No. Not good. When Kevin approaches a task, he considers it carefully for several hours/days/weeks/years, basically however long he has before someone tells him he's fired/divorced/injured/dead. He researches all the options, weighs pros and cons, considers every angle...he makes A DECISION whereas I have an impulse. This is a very efficient way of doing things. Thought/idea pops into my head and then I act on it. I act on it quickly. Sometimes it turns out great (like my 2nd marriage), sometimes it turns out no so great (like my 1st marriage). I just like to get things done so I have more time to do nothing. Kevin likes to do nothing while thinking about all the decisions he needs to make. So we are quite different. Except for the doing nothing part.

So this could have been really bad. But props to our awesome selves for doing some self-policing and to the good Lord for doing his thing and to the good contractor Larry, who did his thing at such a rapid pace, most every decision fell to me to make by default (I LOVE this man). What ended up happening is that I made all of the not-so-noticeable decisions (i.e. faucet, under-the-cabinet lights, etc. Seriously, there is an African child starving somewhere, and I'm deliberating under-the-cabinet lighting) without even telling Kevin there were decisions and included him (and let him have actual input rather than railroading him into my "vision") on only the jumbo decisions (granite counters, washer and dryer, etc). Kevin for his part actually accepted the fact that we could only look at the granite at this one place because this was Larry's vendor rather than dragging us on a round the world tour of granite outcroppings (I think there's a great one in Nepal...). And he trusted me on the rest because he knows that while I may have little to no sense, I do have good taste.

So we survived and we have most of a new kitchen (all very anticlimactic, sorry). Still some cosmetic finishing up for Larry to do. I'll post pics eventually.

The month that was

2009-07-15T20:32:00.001-04:00

Wow, has it really been a month since my last post? Disturbing. Well, I guess since I'm in an airport with a laptop, I'll do a post...(Just for you, Kerry!)

So we moved. I really doubt there is anyone who likes to move. People like to have moved, as in past tense, as in they like getting a new house (hopefully), but the process is a different story, I think most people would rather listen to preteen girls discuss at length the proper way to say, "Hey," as I did recently while buying some cords at Radio Shack (there are always cords you must have, until you end up with a box of cords--when you move, of course--for which there is no discernible purpose). Incidentally, you don't want to say "Hey" high-pitched and enthusiastically, that just sounds stupid, you want to say it tersely and cooly, kind of monotone and casual so the other person doesn't think you are TOO excited to see them. This would be a horrible tragedy. Cut to me and the Radio Shack man, who look at each other and silently agree to a joint ritualistic suicide.

So, duh, I hate to move. I think I've said before that it really makes me question consumer culture. When you get down to it, this is all you need to live comfortably and decently in America: Laptop, cell phone, Couch, TV, coffee table, dining room table and some chairs, a few pots and pans and such, a bed, a dresser, some towels and sheets, and maybe like 10 outfits. I probably have about 30 outfits but I only really wear 10 anyway. Do I really need an entire room filled with African knick-knacks? When I am not in the process of moving, yes, I do, I can't breathe unless surrounded by wooden animal carvings. And how will anyone know how cultured and well-traveled I am otherwise? I can't just announce it, that would be gauche. But when I am in the process of moving, I consider that not having to carefully wrap that hand-blown Israeli vase in 17 layers of packing paper is definitely worth the risk of everyone I know concluding I have spent my entire life in a trailer park in Arkansas. And do I really need 4 tall bookshelves filled with books to convince people I am a genius? They should just know by reading my blog, LOL. My blog certainly takes up less space. But then again no one but Kerry and a few other charitable souls read it, so in the boxes those books go, yes, even that Danielle Steele novel (hopefully when people look at my bookshelves, they will be so overwhelmed by the sheer volume of books, they won't notice individual titles necessarily). Anyway, I think minimalism is very brave and self assured. Me--I need my stuff to feel impressive.

Do you think it is ironic that I am typing this in a word doc the top of which has a list of things I need to buy? hmmm, just noticed that. There is no hope for me.

There are good things about moving. It is a wonderful opportunity to purge all the stuff you thought would make you happier and more impressive and your life more convenient but turned out to be as overhyped as the 4th Indiana Jones film (and it pains me greatly to say that). For this move, this included, among other things, some stick up light bulbs "as seen on TV." Don't buy those, they give off less light than a firefly, and they run on batteries so if you leave your light by accident, it's dead next time you go to use it. And you never ever need more than one. I mistakenly bought 4--for the low low price of $29.99! In Europe, they sell for easily twice that amount!--not realizing you don't replace the bulb, you replace the batteries. Money down the drain. But I digress.

Moving also gives you the opportunity to "get organized," which is another way of making oneself feel successful. Everyone wants to look around their house and say to themselves, "Not only do I own a butt load of crap, I have mastered my crap. You don't see my crap running all over a desk or table loosey-goosey. No, I have put my crap in its place and shown it who is boss." Moving into a new house gives you a chance to reassert your authority in case you have lost control. Nothing says, "I own you," like throwing the object into a box and sealing it with tape. Of course, you may have to go buy more crap in order to whip the crap you already own into shape. That is why we have the Container Store, which is the consumer society equivalent of a training camp for Nazi prison guards. You come to us, we give you the tools you need to have absolute power. Those paper clips in your desk drawer will NEVER AGAIN run amok, we have a container for that. Heck, we have a container to organize your tampons by absorbency if that is your thing. If you buy everything we have, you pretty much will be God.

But generally, moving sucks, and I am might glad my latest (and hopefully last for awhile) is over. Now I only need to survive the kitchen remodel...

I should be packing boxes...

2009-06-17T20:21:00.000-04:00

...but instead I am planning to exploit the labor of the two septuagenarians who arrive on Sunday to help us move into our new house (i.e. my parents). They are very energetic and seem to enjoy being useful, so who am I to deprive them of the fun of packing up my entire house? Every dish I wrap is a drop of joy robbed from these deserving people. So I am blogging instead.

In general, I think one of the best things about American culture is how few rigid social customs we have. In some cultures, you can pretty much alienate an entire community with a single wrong gesture. Or in France, you can pretty much alienate an entire country by not being French. In America, you just show up, there are no rules. Or at least very few. There are so many kinds of people and cultures and sub-cultures that the only thing un-American is to be snotty about it.

But sometimes I think we could stand to have a few more customs. Like with greetings. The French do the three air kisses (a gesture so fraught with social peril, it is probably just another French invention designed to make people feel inferior). Kenyans always do the handshake, coming and going, no more, no less. Japanese used to do that bow thing, not sure what they do these days. Russians might vomit vodka all over each other, I don't know. Americans don't know what they do. And this makes things very awkward. Some people hug everyone no matter what. To me, hugging seems like a "haven't seen you for awhile" greeting, although I usually hug more casually than that, mainly because I don't know what else to do. But then if you hug someone you see often to say hello, do you also hug them to say good-bye? That seems a bit much, but again, I'm at a loss for good options. Guys have it a little bit easier, because they can always greet other guys with a cool guy-handshake, although the guy-girl greeting remains dangerous (usually it degenerates into the "side hug," which I think is one of the more hideous greetings. Nothing says, "Hello! Please don't sue me for sexual harassment" like the side hug). Then there are those who just say hi, they don't pair it with any gesture of any kind, as if they are robots who will short-circuit upon human contact.

My biggest pet peeve are the wanna-be Europeans (usually people here in the northeast, large portions of which I am sure would vote to join the EU if given a chance) who do the air-kissing even though, hello, we are Americans. We don't have universal health care, we do believe in God, we do insist on full-sized appliances, and we don't air-kiss. The worst part of the Americanized air-kiss is that when someone goes in for the air-kiss, you never know if they are going to do one, two, or three, which is awesome because it offers the potential for not one, not two, but three chances for humiliation.

I had a highly unfortunate incident with the air-kiss greeting yesterday. I ran into someone very important in my professional world who actually knows and likes me (a bit, let's not get carried away). He came over to greet me, and we shook hands (not sure who offered the handshake to whom), but then I thought, mistakenly in hindsight, that he was going in for the air-kiss. So then I went in for the air-kiss, I didn't want to offend if he was air-kissing, because nothing is worse than not reciprocating an air-kiss, as it sends the message of "I think you might have ebola." So we did the first air-kiss, and I thought, OK, that was heinously awkward but it's over, whew. But then he went for air-kiss number two, in which I only haltingly participated. Awkward pause, waiting to see if there will be third....and, no, that's it. Two air-kisses is all we have today, because today we are only 2/3 French. Tomorrow, who knows? And the rest of our conversation was tainted by the ridiculous meet-and-greet. And I am still mortified a day later. I ask you, is this any way to live?

So I say we have a referendum and select how we will greet one another. Personally, I think the Kenyan way is correct (and not just because I was raised there). Handshakes all the way around. It's friendly, yet non-invasive. And it's clear--if someone sticks their hand out, you know what to do with it (if you don't, there is no hope for you, you need to move to Jupiter or something). But I'm open. Majority rules. Now that's American.

Farewell to Jerry, the Uberboss

2009-06-10T00:00:00.000-04:00

Sometimes you don't know what you have until it's gone. But other times you know exactly what you have and you are just very sad when it's gone.

I haven't had any truly heinous bosses, I feel lucky about that, but I've had better and worse. And for the past 2 years, I've had Jerry, and I think it will be pretty much downhill from here. So what's so awesome about Jerry? Well, if I could describe it exactly, I could write a book and make kabillions. But I can't quite describe it, and besides, he is probably writing just such a book as I speak (the man has already written a dissertation-come-book and a certain-to-be-published novel in all the time he has leftover from his demanding job and two small kids) and would sue me for plagiarism. Because he's nice but he's not a fool.

First of all, Jerry is the most positive person on the planet without being too annoying. I mean, it's kind of annoying at first, but then he just wears you down with optimism until you cave and find yourself saying things like, "You're right, Jerry, it's actually a good thing that my house burned down and I lost everything I own because now I get to buy new shoes." He also heaps (hopefully not empty) praise on his employees, and yet it doesn't seem like flattery, you walk away thinking, "Hey, I might actually BE awesome. Or at least a little awesome. I think I might go read a whole book or run a whole mile. That's right."

Jerry is also really into the personal growth/leadership/corporate success crapola, but once again, one's eyes do not involuntarily roll up into one's head when he is pushing the stuff. For one thing, he's just so sincerely enthusiastic that to rain on his parade would make you pretty much the worst person in the world and no one wants to be the worst person in the world, except maybe Kim Jong Il, but he's just crazy and has bad hair. So I actually read--READ--The Five Dysfunctions of a Team (or was it 10?), which like almost all books of that type contained nothing really new or earth-shattering and yet you find it mysteriously inspiring. Kind of like Jerry.

Jerry also knows how to do both work and fun. Our team is the most productive team in our organization (stats don't lie, people!) We work, and he works. But he also spends time each day goofing off with us, leading brainstorms like "If our team was a TV show, who would play us?" and "What female stars are 'just OK'?" and teaching us the meaning of words like "hogly" (which means hot or ugly depending on the context. He claims Cameron Diaz is hogly, but I think he is on crack. Try Britney Spears, Jerry).

I think the key with Jerry is that he is incredibly socially skilled. He always knows how to strike the right balance. Like he is also extremely self-aware without being self-loathing. He's confident but not arrogant. He's funny but not inappropriate. He's short but not too short (OK he's too short. But he has a hot wife). He works hard and is devoted to his job, but he leaves on time. He's upbeat but no Pollyanna. He's encouraging but honest. I don't think you can really teach this kind of savvy, he would probably say you can. But I am not convinced, because despite his best efforts to induct me into the cult of optimism, I still loiter on its fringes.

Now Jerry is moving on to bigger and better things, thankfully within the organization. So maybe he'll remember me when he is huge (not tall, but huge).

I Survived Princeton Reunions 2009

2009-06-07T19:48:00.000-04:00

We got back last Sunday from a great little break from parenthood. Kevin's mom and stepdad came and stayed with Charlotte while we drove up to Philadelphia for a couple of days, then went on to Princeton for Kevin's 15th reunion. Philadelphia was spectacular, barring the several hundred middle school kids with whom we shared the city. You could smell the insecurity. There was also the very frightening guide at Christ Church who very sternly told us and a bunch of the school children that we ARE the Founding Fathers and this is OUR Revolution (I'd say we are in big trouble if that is true). But we did our best to ignore the preteen spirit and saw all the historical sites, stayed in a gorgeous hotel, and even ran up the Art Museum steps like Rocky. It was awesome.

This sign was probably my favorite thing in Philly, at the Liberty Bell. I just think it's so helpful when historical sites make provisions for those with uncontrollable compulsions.

Then we went to Princeton. Historical context: Princeton reunions are an absurdly big deal. Every 5th year class (i.e. 50th reunion, 45th, 40th, and so on) has its own courtyard where there is music, food, and massive quantities of alcohol. Then the capper is the "P-rade" in which everyone lines a long parade route, and each class, starting with the oldest, falls in with a float of some kind, and everyone wears a like-themed costume (this year for Kevin's class it was "Smells like 15 Spirit"/Grunge). It takes like 5 years for everyone to parade past, and the ending is very anti-climactic. After waiting for so long for you class's turn to parade, you walk along the route for like 10 minutes and then spill out into a field where the university president and a few of her friends are sitting in a bleacher clapping for you. Then everyone goes back to the courtyard and drinks some more.

This was my second reunion. The first one, 5 years ago, was made more wretched by my terrible attitude (and my terrible footwear). In my defense, I was in the throes of rewriting my entire dissertation after one of my committee members decided it simply would not do two days before my scheduled defense. I also had no job. So I was feeling a bit like a failure. And when one is feeling like a failure, going to hang out with a bunch of drunken Ivy Leaguers probably isn't the best thing (it probably isn't the best thing just across the board, but especially not then). To make matters worse, I wore uncomfortable shoes and didn't realize how much you have to walk at these things. So there I was rejected, humiliated, not knowing anyone, not drunk, and hobbling around campus. Needless to say, I was miserable and of course I had to make Kevin miserable, that really was not in doubt. There's just no point to it otherwise.

This time, I was determined to not make Kevin miserable. I wore comfy shoes. I had an answer prepared when someone asked me where I went to college and why ("Po-dunk Baptist University. Because I am only of average intelligence and prefer not to be too stimulated intellectually." Unfortunately, I never got to use it, as we talked mainly to people I had met before.) And most importantly, I stayed focused on the fact that I was there WITHOUT A BABY. I would almost enjoy spending a week in a concentration camp without a baby. I still found the entire scene more than a little ridiculous, mystifying, and boring but whatever.

But I did get to see George Will in the flesh:

You can already tell these twin girls (daughters of one of Kevin's classmates) will make great Princetonians.

Here's good news: There is a policy on alcohol. And it includes a reference to diversity. Good to know that all those people drunk out of their minds are being multicultural.

The best part of the P-rade: Seeing the oldest living alumni. This guy is class of 1925, so unless he was very precocious, he's around 106 years old. Awesome.

My great husband

2009-05-24T21:12:00.000-04:00

Kevin actually read my blog, and I didn't realize until he did that I can be kind of mean and ungrateful on here. I don't mean it, really! I just get overwhelmed with my life sometimes.

In reality, I am one very blessed woman. The pathetic thing is when I married Kevin, the memory of my first very lonely marriage was fresh in my mind. I told myself that I would never ever take Kevin for granted or forget what a gift he is, and I was overwhelmed with gratitude that God had given me a second chance. Fast forward 5 years, and you get numerous whiny blog posts. Honestly, if I were God, I would just want to slap me across the face and say, "Wake up Dumbass!" on a regular basis. I think we can all be glad that I am not God. For one thing, I tend to fall apart under pressure and have trouble being responsible for one person besides myself, so 6 billion is definitely out of the question. I should remember in fact that I am not God then maybe I would do better with the responsibilities I do have. Hmmm.

But I digress. I am very blessed. I have a smart, funny, sweet, incredibly good looking husband who works hard so he can buy us a gorgeous new house. And that is just the start. I feel a top 10 coming on:

Top ten things I love about Kevin

10. He never looks askance at my purchases. He doesn't get involved in my shopping at all in fact.

9. He does a great impression of a stick figure. You just have to trust me.

8. He keeps my brain from turning to mush. When he's around, I'm reading the Economist and watching Frontline. When he's not around, it's US Weekly and Oprah. Or worse.

7. He thinks I am funny and loves everything I write. Except when I am complaining about him of course.

6. He didn't even notice my thick ankles until I pointed them out to him. It's because of him that I have finally (almost) accepted my body.

5. He's taught me everything I know about economics and patiently explains things to me over and over again even when I tell him the impenetrable shield in my brain has come down.

4. During communion at church, he always steps out of the pew and lets me go in front of him. I don't know what it is about that, but it gets me every time.

3. His episodic healthy food obsessions are kind of weird and usually short lived (like the time he announced he was only going to eat "mediterranean" food because he read a study that said it vacuumed up all the cholesterol in your arteries), but overall, he keeps our diet on a higher plane.

2. He has also elevated my taste in movies and music. There was a time when I liked a Backstreet Boys tune or two but now I know exactly why they suck, and I run out of a store if they are playing any kind of boy band song.

1. He got me Coldplay tickets for Mother's Day even though he doesn't even like them (he hasn't completely changed my taste in music)! And they were awesome seats near the front! And I had a great time with a good friend while Kevin stayed home with Charlotte. And I was so close I was able to take this picture:

A beauty product riddle

2009-05-20T20:30:00.000-04:00

What kind of body lotion do you use if

You have extra dry skin AND

You have cellulite AND

You need sunscreen AND

You want some self tanner in there AND

You want to shave less often AND

You only want to apply lotion one time?

Solve THAT one.

Some enthusiasm, for once

2009-05-14T12:32:00.000-04:00

For once, I am posting not to bitch and moan, but to ooh and aah! A recycling revolution has come to Arlington, VA in the form of a big blue trash bin!

My rule on recycling has always been: I will recycle enough to feel like a decent human being but no more than is convenient for me (because I matter. And because my economist husband says that recycling really doesn't save much in the way of resources and energy after all. Someone did a study. And if there is a study, there is a good chance Kevin knows about it.). In other words, I will rinse out a can of tomatoes, but not a jar of peanut butter.

But actually I am a better person than that in practice. I have done some level of recycling even when Arlington, VA didn't make it that convenient. Until today, I have had to sort paper and cardboard from plastics, for instance. And yes I felt like a hero doing it. Because these days if I am dressed and clean, I feel like a hero. I even told my boss I deserved an Exceptional Performance Award this month for accomplishing anything at all. I would really like to see my group chief hand that one out: "This EPA goes to Holly for performing her normal duties adequately enough and with relatively clean hair."

But heroics are no longer required for recycling in Arlington, VA. Everything you can imagine to recycle goes in the big blue bin. Paper, foil, yogurt cups, milk cartons, boxes NOT EVEN BROKEN DOWN (stop, it's just too thrilling to contemplate!), and, can you believe it, EVEN BOOKS, paperback AND hardcover. AND you can throw away wire hangers, one of my top nemeses because no matter how many times I try to root them out, the dry cleaners keep giving us more and more and more until they band together in one tangled mess and take over the closet and cause me to lose my mind!!! AND, as if it could get any better than wire hangers, you can request them to come and pick up ELECTRONICS for recycling. Yes, it's true. You can throw away an entire VCR without turning some village in India into a seething pit of toxic chemicals.

And this gets me to the real heart of my excitement. It's not that I have a strong commitment to the environmental movement (I have a strong commitment to other people's strong commitment to the environmental movement, I'll keep living the easy way thanks). It's that I love throwing things away. OMG do I love throwing things away. Now I can do it with less guilt, knowing that my trash will become a yoga mat or maybe even some house that Brad Pitt is building in New Orleans.

This occasion calls for a rethinking of the shopping boycott in fact. If I can so easily and usefully dispose of things, why punish the economy by not buying more?

Happy Mother's Day (Bah Humbug!)

2009-05-11T21:16:00.001-04:00

Charlotte really knows how to ruin major holidays. At Christmas, in the midst of all kinds of traveling stress, she got deathly ill with RSV. And now--on Mother's Day--my would-be "day off" which I had been living for the past few weeks--she ran a 102 fever and demanded that I hold her pretty much all day (Daddy just won't do).

And she was still sick today, one of the three measley days that I go to work/have childcare each week. I have missed so much work the past few months due to her illness that it is a wonder people remember I still work here (I always feel like I've won the lottery when I actually do get to come to work and then see that they haven't packed up my desk). I got to stay home instead today and futilely attempt to prevent her from wailing and moaning the entire day, even though her fever was largely gone. I have no idea what is wrong with the child. Then I got to come into work after she went to bed (that's where I am now) in a desperate effort to make headway on a project that ordinarily/in my full time/pre motherhood days would have been done in December. Work is now my vacation in this topsy-turvy world that Charlotte has created for me.

I love Charlotte. I do. I think she is the most adorable, precious little girl on the planet. But motherhood pretty much sucks. I am exhausted, I am rarely showered, my clothes always have crap on them, and, as mentioned, I eat most of my meals off the floor. I am pretty much a German Shepherd. And not a pampered one either, like one that does stuff.

Fatherhood, on the other hand, I could really get into. I know there are a lot of dads who are slogging it out in the trenches, and hats off to you fellahs. But from my vantage point, it's a pretty good deal. You get to have an adorable little child, but you basically resume your normal life. Every now and then you watch the little girl for an hour or two when her mother tells you she's about to have a nervous breakdown. In fact the main drawback of fatherhood from what I can tell is that you are now married to a mother. That's fairly significant now that I think about it. OK never mind, fatherhood sucks too.

But I'd still take it over motherhood. If anyone knows where I can apply for a father position, let me know.

Is this what I've been reduced to?

2009-05-08T19:28:00.000-04:00

So I've gained a few pounds since Charlotte started eating "real food." Why you ask? Well, that's kind of embarrassing but I'll confess anyway.

I eat the crumbs from her table.

I mean that quite literally. Not only do I often eat the leftovers on her tray, I frequently eat the rejects she throws on the floor (which is more food than is left on her tray). I know. It's disgusting. My wake up call the other day was when I put a piece of cast-off Nutrigrain bar in my mouth only to discover a dust bunny was stuck to it. Yuck.

It's easy to explain why I feel the need to eat the clean leftovers--I can't stand wasting food. Blame it on my African childhood. But I don't think even starving African children would care to eat a fuzzy Nutrigrain Bar. So that habit is just pure sloth. It's just easier to eat it all than go get a paper towel, pick it up, and throw it away. Not that that is like running a marathon or anything. But when you are a mom, you will do almost anything to save time/multitask/make your life easier.

That's the ugly truth about motherhood. It pretty much turns a relatively hygenic adult with decent manners into a human vacuum cleaner. Hey, I've always said if you want something done, you should just do it yourself.

Preparing for Doomsday

2009-04-30T12:51:00.000-04:00

My husband is extremely well adjusted and normal, with just a few little quirks to make him interesting. One of those little quirks is an obsession with disaster preparedness. Although that is probably just a symptom, the actual trait is more like extreme caution bordering on paranoia. A couple of years ago, when Homeland Security Chief Michael Chertoff told the nation that although there was no definitive proof, he just had a funny feeling that a terrorist attack was imminent and gave us all a check list of items so we could "shelter in place," Kevin ran out immediately and bought every item of the checklist, including:

Surgical masks

Jugs of water

Massive jars of peanut butter (which Kevin explains packs the most punch, nutrition and calorie-wise)

Plastic sheeting and duct tape to seal windows and doors in the event of a dirty bomb

Latex gloves

We still have most of these items, except that I ate the PB already (duh) and used some of the masks in my own paranoid days, early in Charlotte's life.

And now we have the swine flu. Kevin is once again at his vigilant best/worst. He keeps me fully abreast of how serious the situation is so that I will not think him crazy when he arrives home with a car load of canned goods (Charlotte is too young to eat PB so there goes that brilliant plan). I'm thinking, gee, it's a flu, it's not ebola. I think we will be able to run to the store for some cereal. But he argues that if people panic (um, like maybe he is?) and no one goes to work, the entire food distribution system in the United States will grind to a halt and there will be nothing on the store shelves and a piece of bread will buy a Mercedes Benz. Did you know that New York City only has a one day food supply at any given time? Yes, and so this scenario could unfold within 24 hours and the entire city will then starve to death. It's true.

Now, there's really only one thing crazier than Kevin's reaction to the swine flu threat, and that is my reaction to Kevin's reaction to the swine flu threat. For some reason, a swine flu pandemic doesn't have me up at night, but the prospect of my house being filled with canned goods that we will likely never need does. When he broaches the subject with me, I go ballistic. Even though he is not asking me to do anything--he is going to go to the store and haul around tons and tons of canned chicken soup. He will put it all in the basement somewhere, and I can sit and file my nails. There really is no reason for alarm. Nevertheless, I go ballistic. I myself have a difficult time understanding why, but I think in my mind, he will be introducing a large quantity of new "stuff" into the house, the order of which is my responsibility. As it is, I spend large portions of every day managing all the stuff we already do have in the house, trying to keep it in its proper place and making sure it doesn't smother us in the night. These canned goods--How do we know what they will do once they have access to the house? Even if Kevin neatly boxes them up and puts them away somewhere, I have no doubt they will soon find a way to clutter up my house and my life. What if they form an alliance with the Baby Gear? Now THAT'S a doomsday scenario my friends.

At the end of the day, we are all just a little, teeny bit insane.

The Answer is NO

2009-04-29T21:10:00.000-04:00

The last post ended with the burning question of whether I could go into Babies R Us and just buy the shade extender.

No. No, I can't. And I didn't.

In my defense, some of the other things I bought we did really really need. Charlotte needed lighter PJs since the weather is now warm, and she needed a few more warmer weather clothes. But did she need $100 worth? Probably not.

I also bought her a baby floaty thing for taking her in the pool. We are going to Kevin's college reunion in a few weeks, and the hotel where we are staying has an indoor pool. Introducing Charlotte to swimming is pretty much the only thing about this trip I'm looking forward to. I spent the last reunion explaining over and over again to countless Ivy League graduates where the tiny little Baptist college I went to is located and why I went there. Then I got to explain to them why I did my graduate work at a mediocre state school. It was so much fun, I probably went on a giant shopping spree upon my return just to continue the high.

I also bought the shade extender. But now I can't figure out how to attach it to the stroller.

The Call of the Baby Gear

2009-04-26T15:48:00.001-04:00

I've already had my first major run-in with temptation since swearing off buying things I don't really really need. Not surprisingly, it has come in the beguiling form of Baby Gear, the shopaholic's nightmare because the vast majority of it is definitely unnecessary but buying it can be so easily justified as good parenting. Also, Baby Gear makes you think that if you just had this one toy or gadget, your child would be entertained for hours/would sleep for hours/would eat her vegetables/would poop where she's supposed to/would leave you alone for 5 minutes and you would be free to cook gourmet meals and do the Ab Sculptor Miracle Workout and read actual books and write a novel. And maybe cure cancer.

There are a few products out there that do deliver (my personal favorite: Kiddopotamus swaddle blankets. Swaddling for Dummies is what they should be called, as they have been successfully tested on me and Kevin), but they are few and far between. I have wasted my money on more baby crap than I can remember, including: the miraculous baby toothbrush, which your child will voluntarily chew on, making her entire mouth sparkle within seconds; these little net-thingies you put food in so your child can suck on/chew on food without choking (Charlotte's advice is don't buy them unless your child loves the taste of mesh, which she--apparently--does not); more types of sippy cups than I can count, all promising a easy transition from the bottle and "no leaking no kidding" (except they are kidding); a vibrating teether that Charlotte believes is a torture device.

Knowing what I know now, you would think I would never again fall prey to The Call of the Baby Gear. Yet this week I nearly, that's NEARLY, bought a diaper bag. Not just any diaper bag mind you, the perfect diaper bag with little compartments for everything and so space-efficient you could pack the crib in there practically. At least this is the claim. But I resisted and plan to remain content with the diaper bag I have, which is the free, vinyl Similac bag I got in the hospital. Hey, it works. And it was FREE.

But there is one thing I think I will buy and really do need. I plan to buy a shade extender for her stroller because the idiots that make strollers make the shades only big enough to cover 25% of the child so that you have to keep moving the shade back and forth as the sun angle changes (seriously, if you are going to make a shade, is it really that much trouble to make it big enough to cover a real human child as opposed to a like a Cabbage Patch doll?). So I think it might be worth it, but I'm going to investigate further before I leap. Then the real test will come--Can I go into Babies R Us and buy just that one thing? It is a feat never accomplished by a mortal parent.

Desperately Seeking a Hobby

2009-04-24T11:36:00.000-04:00

I mentioned a couple posts ago a theory about there being two types of people in the world, the guilty and the screwed. Well, there are actually more than two types because there are another two types of people in the world and combining the two sets of categories yields...4 types. Yes, 4 (pardon the delayed activation of my math skills, they aren't much in use). The other two types are people who do stuff, a.k.a "active people," and people who do not do stuff, I'm not going to call them lazy, mainly because I am one of them, but you know what I mean.

I was reminded of this recently as I looked at a new Facebook friend's photos. This friend, a former classmate, comes from a large family, has 5 kids himself, and grew up with me in Africa, which seems to cultivate in boys in particular generalized outdoorsyness. In his photos, with his 5 kids, he waterskis, he hunts, he fishes, he rides motorbikes, he rides bikes, he rides four wheelers, he plays soccer, he runs, he jumps, he does stuff. Lots of stuff. Just looking at his photos wore me out. Not so much because of the activities themselves, but for all of the organization/preparation that goes into the activities (especially with 5 kids!) First you have to purchase or rent the proper equipment. Then you have to choose a day, time, and place to do or find a scheduled event. Then you have to either find child care or make preparations for children to come with you. If they are small kids, that means you need more proper equipment just for their attendance (a baby backpack, baby kayak, papoose thingy, what have you). Then you have to assemble food, water, clothing, equipment, whatever you will need for the duration for yourself and 5 (! I still can't imagine even birthing that number of kids, much less taking them anywhere) kids. Then you have to get up, get yourself and your kids in the car and go and do. Then you have to clean up the mess and tend to the injuries. See, I'm absolutely in a coma right now just having typed it up, I'm so tired.

The strange thing about these kinds of people is that very often they aren't actually very organized kinds of people, more like fly by the seat of your pants kinds of people. Regarding this particular guy, I would never believe he in fact had the organizational skills to do all these activities if the photographic evidence weren't staring me in the face. I, on the other hand, am fairly organized and don't do much stuff. I feel pretty accomplished if I leave the house on any given day. I would like to do stuff, I really would. I am not terribly athletic--if you watched me and Kevin play tennis, one of the things we do actually do on occasion, you would swear you are at the Special Olympics, and, unlike Pres. Obama, I can say that because if anyone writes angry offended comments on here, I can just delete them--but I like to do stuff. But I hate, HATE, HATE!!! to organize stuff to do. This is one reason why I don't cook much. I really don't mind cooking but I hate trying to decide what to cook, making a shopping list, and going to the store to buy the ingredients. Maybe I over-think things (you think?). I don't know.

Now that we have a child--and now that I am trying to stop shopping of course!--it is becoming more imperative that I find stuff to do. Whereas I can easily laze in front of the computer or TV for hours on end perfectly contented, she gets really bored with that. She wants to Seize the Day!!! So I actually have been forced to schedule play dates and even enroll in a class (gasp!) It is getting to where it takes more energy to stay home and do nothing than it does to go somewhere and do something because Charlotte will be relatively content in the latter scenario whereas she will be screaming and crying and writhing on the ground like a demon-possessed person in the former one.

I think the bottom line is that, other than having a child/dictator, it is good to have some kind of activity that you are passionate about, that you will get up in the morning for, that you will go through the pain of planning and organizing for. Maybe the two types of people aren't active people and non-active people, but people with passionate hobbies and people without. I have just got to get me a hobby. Other than shopping.

Another solution would be to just tie my wagon to an active person and let them plan my life for me. Any volunteers? Seriously, just tell me when and where to show up, I'm there. And bring me a packed lunch, you don't want to see me hungry.

Breaking the Addiction

2009-04-23T12:20:00.001-04:00

I just came from my weekly Bible study group where we discussed materialism, always a downer. I was convicted, not necessarily on a moral or biblical plane, although those dimensions are part of the issue of course--what one spends their money on is an ethical/religious issue. But my disgust with myself as a consumer has more to do with a) Poor use of my time b) A general lack of discipline and c) My hatred of clutter.

On point a), I have come to realize that one of the primary reasons why I shop is out of boredom. These days, now that it is harder to get out of the house, it is internet shopping that is my hobby. I watch Charlotte with one eye and cruise ebay with the other (incidentally, this kind impaired shopping is quite dangerous, especially on ebay where you can't return a lot of things; I have probably wasted $100 in the last year on things that are the wrong size or not quite what I want because I wasn't paying close attention. I also bought the new U2 album twice on iTunes, not because I just love Bono that much and want to give him all my money--which I do actually--but because Charlotte was screaming at me). Or at work, if I am procrastinating, I am invariably cruising the J Crew sale (which isn't what it used to be, by the way. They need to wake up and smell the recession). It used to be against company policy to actually buy things on work computers, but they changed that and now it's a no-holds-barred shopathon. Shopping out of boredom would be fine if I was content just gaze, but I am a goal-oriented person, and I don't feel accomplished unless i actually make a purchase. Some people run marathons; I find the perfect black pants (and then I find the more perfect black pants).

This bleeds into point b). I used to think I was quite a disciplined person. In fact, I used to BE a disciplined person. In college, I worked out every day, I studied like mad, I lived pretty frugally. Then I finished graduate school and got divorced. After 8 years of forcing myself to do things I really didn't want to do, both in school and in marriage, I pretty much wanted life to be a party. And it has been for the most part. Until I had Charlotte, my existence was ridiculously easy. I had to invent stress just for the drama of it (which I am really great at doing. Who knew, for instance, that having weeds in one's yard was a life-or-death struggle, as if the weeds might invade your home and strangle you in the night if you didn't find time to pull them up?) Now that I am a mother, which is actually kind of hard for real, I realize that I have lost all discipline. I hardly work out, I spend almost no time on my spiritual growth (I mainly go to the Bible study to socialize), I eat a bunch of crap, I watch a bunch of crap on TV (including Oprah, who, as it turns out, doesn't flood your life with meaning as advertised), and yes, I buy a bunch of crap. Some of it is on sale, this is true, but it is still a bunch of crap that I don't really need, and even a lot of it, unbelievably, I don't really want at the end of the day (see point c)). I have come to lead a very thoughtless and accidental life. And I whine endlessly about the smallest about of hardship. It's really pathetic. I disgust myself! Like really, I'm sitting here with myself and feeling quite nauseous.

My lack of discipline with time and money leads me to point c). Much of what I buy I end up loathing on some level because it takes over my house, stares me in the face, and becomes an obvious display of how little discipline I do have. And it makes my house messier, which I can't stand. I hate clutter! I hate it so much, I do regular purges where I just can't take it anymore and start compulsively throwing things in the car for a Goodwill run. Then, incomprehensibly, I turn right around and go buy more. It really does blow my mind when I sit down to think about it. Some people binge and purge; I shop and donate.

So here's what I am going to do. I've just made my last internet purchase (one needs a parting fix after all), and now I am going cold turkey. That's right. I am going to stop buying stuff I don't really need. I'm going to start with a 30 day stretch to make it more palatable. So watch out American Economy! You are about to take a severe hit.

Who are you and What have you done with me?

2009-04-10T13:33:00.001-04:00

Kevin had a friend in graduate school who claimed there were only two kinds of people in the world, those who feel guilty and those who feel screwed (which, incidentally, is one of the more brilliant insights I have ever heard). I definitely fit into the former category. I have many faults, but at least I am aware of the fact. Still, while I think people who feel guilty a lot and therefore take responsibility for their characters are generally the better half of humanity, feeling guilty and being self aware does not necessarily prevent bad behavior.

Believe me, I know. I have been feeling guilty A LOT lately, because I have been screwing up A LOT. I've never been particularly "sweet" or "nice." Many people think that I am, but that's only because they don't know me very well. Patience, gentleness, kindness, self-control--these are the fruits of the Spirit, and the Spirit is working his butt off with this soul. He apparently even needs to take frequent vacations to Fiji because I swear there are times when there is no sign of him anywhere. But Holly Post-Charlotte makes the pre-Charlotte version look like Mother Teresa. Post-Charlotte Holly it seems uses up 99% of her patience and goodness and unselfishness on Charlotte, leaving the world, and especially Kevin, to suffer. Kevin and I used to be the most nauseating couple on the planet. We never fought about anything. Now it seems like hardly a day passes that I don't bite his head off for some egregious offense, like asking me where my W-2 is (because the 10 seconds it takes me to find it for him is so much more of a burden than the 10 hours he spends actually doing our taxes).

I don't know what it is about motherhood that makes me so angry and crazed. It seems I am not alone either; in talking to many of my Mom Friends (which are more akin to fellow support group members than just regular friends), they also are angry and crazed. Especially at men, and especially at the father of your child. If this is some kind of evolutionary thing, it is really counterproductive, because if you are now mothering a child, you should probably try to be a better person, not a more evil person, and you probably need to love your baby's daddy more, not less. Maybe in caveman times, instinctually treating your man like crap was a primitive form of birth control (although it works only about half the time, I find. While men like to be treated with respect, it turns out they like to have sex even more).

I think it's just that we women end up managing all the little bitty details of parenting a child, whereas men kind of just show up. For instance, this is my thought process getting ready for church: OK I need to feed Charlotte, change her diaper before we go so they won't have to do anything in nursery but if I give her a snack now she won't be hungry for dinner before we leave so I better just give her a few goldfish crackers now, then about 15 minutes before we leave, I'll feed her dinner then I'll just have like a Nutrigrain bar in the diaper bag in case she gets hungry in the nursery because Nutrigrain counts as a fruit and she's only really had one fruit today whereas goldfish count as a protein oh and I had better wash her coat now because she got mud all over it this morning at the park and the other coat really isn't warm enough for this weather and I'd really better put a change of clothes in the diaper bag because her poop has been a little runny since she discovered shredded wheat and I don't want her to have a blow out at church. Oh and I need to dress myself. Note to self: Don't forget to put on clothing.

Whereas this is Kevin's thought process: Looks like it's time for church. Let me put my shoes on.

So when Kevin needs something, like my W-2, my knee jerk reaction is, Are you freaking kidding me? Can't you do one thing yourself?

But there really is no excuse. Kevin, I'm really sorry. But the least you can do is forgive me after all the trouble I continue to go through to birth and rear you child! See, I can't be helped....

That's right, this isn't a free speech zone

2009-04-09T13:20:00.000-04:00

I am hiding the comments section for now because some real estate agents decided to use my blog to shame me and to put their side of the story on here. Guess what? This is my blog, where I can speak freely without shame and MY side of EVERY story gets its due, because there is nowhere else where that is true. So there. Sorry to those who like to leave pro-Holly comments, I will put that feature back once the realtors have lost interest.

But, being the child of missionaries with a hyper-active conscience, I do feel guilty about bashing ALL real estate agents. I am sure there are a number of nice people in the business who speak the truth and honestly put their clients' interests first even when it costs them money. I have at least one friend who is a realtor, and I am sure he would fit this description. I just think the business model is a little off. Not so much for agents representing sellers--in that case both the agent and the owner want the house to sell as quickly as possible for as much money as possible. But with buyers, I think it doesn't work. The agent's interest is for the client to buy as expensive a house as possible and as soon as possible, whereas the buyer's interest might be to looks for months and months for just the right house at the right price. Realtors are only human. So I think as a buyer, Redfin is definitely the way to go. We certainly have been pleased with Redfin in our recent home purchase.

And to the realtor who left the "Shame on you" comment--It is true that B and N weren't representing me. Apparently you think that means they are then at liberty to lie to and about me and treat me like crap when all I did was ask B for a smidgeon of consideration and in the case of N break some kind of realtor rule that I had no idea even existed that cost her nothing (and in fact saved her a ton of time and effort and made her a boat load of money because I bought her house without her having to put it on the market). Anyway, you aren't making your profession look good, you are only proving my point.

Why real estate agents suck (except for Redfin)

2009-04-06T20:11:00.001-04:00

Disclaimer: If you are a real estate agent or love a real estate agent, stop reading this now. You will be insulted. If you choose to read on, don't come complaining to me. You will only add to my long list of why I hate real estate agents.

We have unfortunately had a lot of contact with realtors lately. We have just bought a house, and worse, we are living as renters in a house that is for sale. On the latter issue, we have had the joy of dealing with B, who despite endless schmoozing attempts, has come to reside squarely on my blacklist. B's sins have been many and continuous. First she asked if she could start showing our house a month earlier than we were contractually obligated. We said OK, provided the owner agree to a few demands. We never heard back, except to be informed that the open house would be two days hence. We took that to mean the owner had agreed to the demands, and we didn't put up a fight. We sat in our house with our baby for 3 hours while dozens and dozens of people stomped through and stared and us and our baby. After which it became apparent that the owner had no intention of honoring our demands. Nice, very nice. B promised us we would have 24 hours notice for showings then proceeded to repeatedly ask for showings at an hour's notice. We accommodated when we could, we aren't bastards. But now I refuse a showing for maybe only the 3rd time out of about 100 and B goes all ballistic and contacts the owner, to threaten us with revocation of the free month's rent she had earlier offered. You know what B? Your owner can keep her pathetic month's rent if it means I don't have to be nice to you. So there.

Then we have the charming selling agent of the place we just bought. We contacted N about our new house when it was off the market--we originally saw it last summer when it was on the market and we went to the open house. She showed us the house this winter without us having our agent present (which is apparently against stupid realtor protocol). When our agent contacted her about us putting in a bid, she insisted that we wanted dual representation and proceeded to make up lies about how many times she had showed us the house. When we told her that he was our agent, not her, N continued to give him trouble and even tried some under the table double dealing. And this in a BUYERS (hello, N!) market and a house that had not sold for a year. She is lucky we didn't just have enough of her and move on. We are suckers, what can I say.

In fact, the whole problem with the real estate business and real estate "agents" is that in reality, no one is really working for your best interest. It is in the realtor's interest that you buy something, anything, as quickly as possible and at the highest price possible because that way they get more money. It doesn't matter what the market is doing, they will always give you a load of crap about why "it is a GREAT time to buy," etc. In 2004, when we were last on the market as potential buyers, the jerk we were working with then just went on and on about how the DC housing market was perpetually strong and the federal government is the most stable employer and the value of whatever we would buy would just go up and up and up. Fast forward 5 years and prices have collapsed 20% as part of a nation-wide crisis. Thank goodness we didn't listen to him and decided to rent.

Which is why Redfin is so awesome. Everyone, listen up, because you want to know about Redfin, and you want to use them if you live where they operate, if for no other reason than they will eventually put the conventional realtors out of business and score one for humanity. Redfin agents do not work on commission, they are salaried, and when you buy a house with Redfin, they SPLIT THE COMMISSION with you. That is right folks. AND you get the same service, only without the self interest and annoying salesmanship, since your agent gets paid their salary regardless. So you get actual, objective advice from a real estate professional. Unheard of! And of course you get 1.5% of the value of your home purchase back, not bad either.

Incidentally, what do you think the realtors did when Redfin began? Of course they tried to put them out of business. Redfin had to sue for access to the MLS system of listings. They won, because this is America, and the better business model will eventually triumph.

So watch out real estate agents! Your days are numbered. There is a God.

The Control Center

2009-03-29T19:55:00.000-04:00

I just have to rib my dear husband for a minute. Forgive me.

As you may recall, Kevin bought me the MacBook that I am typing on right now for Christmas. Supposedly, in theory, it was a gift. For ME. This was so that he and I would each have our own computer, and "disagreements" over who could use our hitherto lonely laptop would be prevented (I usually lost those "disagreements," incidentally, because while he needed the computer to work, I needed it to shop, which is somehow not as vital? I know, I don't get it either).

Now, I had no delusions going in that this computer would be my exclusive possession. Our firstborn laptop, a Dell, has grown prematurely decrepit. Although he is only about 4 years old, Dell is quite a bit less spry than my nearly 90 year old grandmother. Heck, she could kick Dell's butt (and beat him at bridge). Dell years must be like dog years multiplied by 10. It takes poor Dell about 15 minutes just to wake up from a nap. Ask Dell to open a page of photos, and you had better go run some errands and check back later. Dell definitely tries one's patience.

Enter the Mac. So slick, so cool, so FAST. Nothing is too much for Mac to handle. You say you want to watch a 4 hour clip of clowns ice skating on YouTube? No problem, Mac has you covered. Zip zip zip. So--if you are Kevin and you have some work to do, which laptop do you reach for? Dell, who will likely take half an hour just to open your spreadsheet, or Mac, who can not only open it, he can probably just read your mind and enter in the figures telepathically.

So big deal, you say, Kevin gets Mac, Holly can still shop with Dell. Maybe with Dell, she won't spend as much, since it will take the rest of her life for Dell to locate and display the sought-after items.

Yes, in theory this would work rather well. In practice, Kevin uses BOTH the computers. Yes. Don't ask me how or why. I don't understand. When pressed he mumbled something about documents he needed not being on the computer he was using, to which I replied you can easily email yourself documents or put them on a flashdrive. Or just use the computer that houses them. Hey, I'm no technological genius but I have at least figured that out. All I know is that he is invariably sprawled out on the bed with TWO laptops in front on him. That's what I call the Control Center. The variation of that is what I call Shuttle Diplomacy. This is when he has one computer upstairs with him, and he leaves the second computer downstairs but comes down every so often and does stuff on that computer as well.

Either way, I have no computer. Except now, when he is working at his office. So actually I now have two computers. Maybe I should try the Control Center, maybe my eyes will be opened. Maybe he is secretly launching crap into space from our bedroom, and I am missing out on the fun.

A Room of One's Own

2009-03-23T19:39:00.000-04:00

We are now homeowners of the above house, I say with not a small amount of trepidation. We are also now officially broke, meaning that I am going to have to stop buying shoes. It has been a long journey...Our housing saga dates back to 2004, when, as newlyweds, we ventured out into a bubble-inflated market and tried very very hard to buy a condo in a fashionable area of DC for an obscene amount of money so that we could walk to Whole Foods and generally feel "hip." Fortunately, we were thwarted time and again by other wannabe hipsters with either higher offers, more cash, more stratospheric escalating clauses, and, I like to think, less sense. We had enough sense to walk away from the madness when properties started selling for $100K more than the list price and settled for renting the hipster lifestyle. We did indeed walk to Whole Foods, which I will report is highly overrated because then you have to lug your groceries home again as it turns out. Then I got pregnant, and we decided that since parenthood is never cool, even for those who try very hard to make it cool and do crazy things like taking their babies to movies and parties to prove to themselves that the child had not changed them, we would be uncool in a larger space in the burbs. A rented space.

But renting has its downside, namely you do not own your home. The person who does own your home may opt to sell it, in which case you are not only rendered homeless, before you are so rendered, you get to have jillions of people tromp through "your" house for months on end. Worse, you get to deal with real estate agents for months on end. I am sure there are well-intentioned real estate agents in the world, and I'm sure that if you are reading this blog and you are a real estate agent, you are very nice and therefore should take no offense. But you are also about as common as a pacifist Al Qaeda member. Anyway. And of course you have to MOVE, something I hate more than almost anything else on the planet, more than the common cold, more than African dictators, more than Kay jewelry commercials, more than sushi (yes, I am a sophisticated, over educated urbanite who hates sushi so deal with it), more than daylight savings time. Moving makes me want to become a hippie and live in a field somewhere. HATE. IT.

This is a situation we have found ourselves in twice now in the last few years. So when our landlady told us she was putting our house on the market, we decided to buy, even though my economist husband declares the bottom is still to come (fyi), and we would be better off, financially speaking, waiting until November 2010, when, he predicts, the economy will officially go from being in the crapper to being flushed into a sewage system before it begins its glorious re-ascent only this time without a trade imbalance with China because Americans have finally learned to save. At least that is what I have picked up from his frequent economic lectures. But I told him that while it might be good, financially speaking, to wait until November 2010, it would be much better, personally speaking, for him, to buy me a house in order to prevent the extra move, which could very easily be the move that finally sends me over the edge. Since motherhood has me already teetering on the edge as it is, he, being a smart man, decided this was an even greater risk than buying a house on the downward slope into a major economic collapse. So we headed out.

We looked at dozens of houses. We debated kitchens vs. yards, vs. location vs. size vs. shape. We "got a sense of the market." And finally, FINALLY! we took the plunge and put in an offer. We have no idea, really, if we got a good deal or we got screwed. But we did get a nice place to live that no one can sell out from under us and that we can live in for many, many years. I may even throw away my nice collection of boxes.

Happy Birthday Charlotte!

2009-03-09T21:02:00.000-04:00

One year ago right now I was about to be wheeled into surgery so a baby could be extracted from my poor body after 24 hours of labor, only 8 of which were agonizing enough to be used as a guilt mechanism on my husband and eventually my child, then I got my epidural and all was right with the world (on the other hand, I could no longer whine and complain, which is my very favorite thing). In fact, I wish epidurals were more widely available. Sometimes it is pretty handy not to feel half your body. But I digress.

That baby was one Charlotte Ruth. On Saturday, we gathered to celebrate her one year of existence. More importantly, I gathered what is left of myself to celebrate my one year of maintaining a thin grasp on sanity. A grasp is a grasp, people.

I made a cake from a Duncan Hines mix because I forgot to order one from a bakery and because I am not the kind of mom who makes cakes from scratch. I am not the kind of mom who makes dinner about 75% of the time but rather sends Daddy to Taco Bell so there is something for us to eat. The cake was not shaped like a fairy princess or a magic pony. It was shaped like a cake pan, a 9x13 one to be precise. It was not iced to look like Charlotte or her favorite teddy bear. It was iced with chocolate and the "Happy Birthday Charlotte" written on it in red was barely legible. But it smeared all over her face and encrusted her entire head of hair just like a fairy princess cake, or even better.

I figure I can slide by with such poor mom performance for another few years, then she is going to realize her mom is a huge loser. But I do have a Ph.D. so there's that.

Gone fishin'

2009-01-29T09:40:00.000-05:00

Between busyness and upcoming travel, I have been and will continue to be AWOL. I know all 2 of you are devastated, but try to console yourselves.