Possibly Moronic Travel Plans

Next week, we're flying all the way from California to Germany, then taking the train down to Italy for 16 days. ARE WE COMPLETELY OUT OF OUR MINDS?

Babycakes is at a blissful age, it seems, other than the teething tantrums. See, she wants to put stuff in her mouth but mostly she CAN'T (other than the full cup of sand she ingested at the playground yesterday) due to her lack of motor control in her hands.

And she isn't mobile yet -- she can lurch after things she wants, but has no reliable mechanism by which to propel herself from place to place other than rolling, which she avoids if she can because it usually results in a head bonk at some juncture.

She tries to crawl and pull herself up on things, but she can't yet, so usually just gives up at a certain point, lies face up on the floor and messes around with one of her pandas.

So if we are EVER to travel abroad at any point in our childbearing years without leaving her behind, this is *IT*. Because if my hopes and desires come to fruition and we have more of these children, I will probably just laugh at the idea of flying 16 hours and sitting in Roman cafes, sipping grappa or whatever the heck people sip in Rome.

So anyway, the tickets are purchased, the rooms are reserved and we're just going to do it. In an additional bit of foolishness, I'm not bringing near enough diapers, wipes, or food to last us 16 days, under the assumption that I'll be able to purchase these supplies while abroad. I have this romantic notion of drifting into an Italian pharmacy and having a lovely multicultural moment as I engage in the age-old act of purchasing supplies with which to clean my infant's rear.

At the other end of the spectrum, I have this definite fear that she's going to learn to put things in her mouth at exactly the wrong moment -- say, when we're touring the Coliseum in Rome, and she'll reach out and chip off a sizeable throat-sized antique rock from the walls of the lion pen, and shove it into her mouth, leading Hub-D and I to a slapstick scene in which we are trying fruitlessly to communicate that our child is CHOKING and that we need to go to a HOSPITAL and all of the Italians think we are just trying to reenact a Barbarian battle, and they'll just take pictures of us and have a good laugh.

Who knows? And maybe they don't have Pampers in Munich. Plus I hear that the Italian baby food is made out of rabbit ("coniglio"), which seems an especially awful way to celebrate Easter.

Idiot

I'm such a bonehead. Early this morning I started getting all foolish, calculating how long it had been since I'd had my period and conveniently forgetting about my 35-day cycle and the NURSING and all of the impediments to my potentially creating Babycakes II, and I raced into the bathroom and took a pregnancy test.

My heart was POUNDING. I was trying to breathe deeply so I wouldn't pass out, I was getting so excited. It was such a nervous moment -- it reminded me of the 8th Grade Spelling Bee, in which I was ROBBED and I came in 3rd in our region due to their giving me the word "eigne" which isn't even in the OED.

But anyway. I peed on the test, and sat there with my knees knocking, replacing the cap on it, then standing up "nonchalantly" to brush my teeth.

That's when I saw it -- a PINK LINE! I started getting so excited, I was actually yelling. At 5:59am, all greasy-haired and bleary eyed, putting my hand on my heart like I'd just unexpectedly won some kind of literary prize.

Now, I will display for you the actual test I was looking at:





For the uninitiated, I can tell you that TWO pink lines mean "Yes, you have succeeded," and ONE pink line means, "Hey fool, calm down."

I had been looking at that one pink line, which basically means that you have succeeded only in (a) actually getting piss on the test, and (b) spending money on an expensive pregnancy test for no reason, and in my case (c) your period will be arriving today.

But I must say that the 60 seconds in which I was an idiot, and I hadn't figured out that I wasn't looking at TWO lines, were really wonderful. I thought I was pregnant, and I was really excited, which is a nice surprise, because my last pregnancy was complete SHIT, other than producing Babycakes, which made it worth it... but ONLY in retrospect.

Anyway, but here I am again, having misspelled "eigne," which means "elder," apparently, according to the nuns that run the spelling bee, not the OED, which, I may remind you, does not feature that word.

I am an idiot, but that little moment where I fooled myself was a fun thrill.

Whatever you do, don't let me buy anymore of these tests.

Cranky morning

I'm going to go ahead and guess that she's teething. I guessed this so hard this morning that I actually pushed some Baby Advil down her gullet. I mean, what else could have turned our superdarling into such an irritating crankpot?

All I have to say is, I'm really starting to sympathize with Joan Crawford. I mean, really, would it have killed Christine to just eat that liver?

I knew Babycakes was hungry, and she was eating a yummy food (blueberries/apples/rice cereal, I mean YUM, people), but she just kept weeping the whole time. I gave her a banana in a mesh bag, which she loves more than anything, and she'd suck on it for a few minutes, then start crying again, dashing the banana-soaked mesh bag to the floor.

I pretty much ran out of tricks to entertain her and make her happy.

She kept yanking everything to the ground in her misery, and I saw our formerly clean floor, which is not due to be mopped by a professional for 11 long days, smeared over and over with blueberry, apple, rice cereal and banana -- it's a concoction so potent, so sticky and difficult to remove that Mr. Clean would weep.

So I just thought to myself, WWJCD... or What Would Joan Crawford Do?

So I put her to bed, mixed myself a 7am cocktail and bitched out my agent. Not really, but that would have been a glamorous thing to do. I just gave her the Advil and put her to bed, rubbing at the floor and grumbling in a wholly unattractive manner.

PMS and Tagalongs

I get so paranoid when I'm PMS, it pretty much crumbles all of my usual self-confidence.

To whit...

I just was gabbing to Hub-D about how I have eaten SOOoooo many Girl Scout cookies, and then I watched his reaction like a ravenous HAWK. He kind of pursed his lips, perhaps as though he were restraining himself from making a comment, so I flew across the bedroom to get a better look at his expression.

"Are you trying not to say that it looks like I've gained weight?" I said, leaping around, beating my hawkish wings all over the bathroom where he was trying to hide/brush his teeth.

He was terrified, understandably. There really is no appropriate answer to questions such as these, and my paranoia was growing larger than our house, our neighborhood, possibly into the realms of outer space.

I leapt onto the nearby scale. "SEEEE!" I shrieked, pointing to it, furiously. I weigh 129 pounds. I don't know how this is possible, and how it is that my size 4 jeans are now feeling too BIG, other than to issue a big SHOUT OUT to my nursing pal, Babycakes, for the daily breast-related liposuction, but anyway, I still kind of feel fat.

I KNOW that sounds totally anorexic, but my body has this odd new shape that inspires this kind of thinking. I have this belly that lurks over my waistline, and Babycakes has taken to kind of pounding it with her little fists when we're sitting together playing. I enjoy the pounding and pressing, as she investigates my bellybutton hole in particular with a great deal of concentration. But this little thought keeps lurking in my head, "Doesn't that belly seem LARGER than yesterday?" and this is followed by a flashback of my repeated trips to the kitchen, where I ate X amount of Girl Scout Cookies, "X" representing a number somewhere between a dozen and infinity.

Hub-D went running out of the house, ostensibly to get some dinner, but we all know that it was to get away from his peevish wife, who was beating against the windows with her wild wings, screeching about "neeeeeding to feel beeeauutiful" and asking him to be 100% responsible for making that happen.

And here I am, fantasizing about Tagalongs, and wondering whether there are any Girl Scouts in the neighborhood who might have a secret repository of leftovers. Even the process of adding that image to the top of the post has made me crave Tagalongs with a ridiculous oversized LUST. See, this is why I can't wait to be pregnant again -- when I'm not crippled by nausea, I eat whatever the hell I want with righteous abandon.

...I don't look fat to you, do I?...

Baby #2 vs. The Boobs

We want to have more. We realized this as soon as we met Babycakes, who was so friggin' CHARMING as soon as she was born, sleeping like a little bean against my side, and against the advice of the postpartum nurses. She came out so lovely and pink, and so ready for action, patient with Hub-D and me, and just gorgeous from every possible angle.

So yeah, we want to turn around more products such as these. And as soon as possible!

My friend L. has a baby the same age as Babycakes, and she is pregnant, so has been asking others to get knocked up as soon as possible, so she won't be the only mom-o-many. We're trying! Because heaven knows we wouldn't want L. to be alone, plus, our thirst for BABIES has yet to be slaked.

But the hitch, according to Dr. G, is the nursing. As long as Babycakes nurses, then we probably won't get a normal cycle in which to pursue additional parenthood. And I would be a complete jerk, I think, if I weaned Babycakes from what remains her FAVORITE FOOD (OK, after Earth's Best "Little Bear's Chicken Stew" but boobmilk is a close second), just so we could try to make her life even MORE complicated by adding a brother or sister.

Dr. G told me to consider weaning a "power struggle, the first of many," over which he encouraged me to reign victorious. That just seems mean. It's not a power struggle, it's a BOOB and it's just doing it's job. And if anyone has a better solution for keeping a baby quiet on an airplane, I'm all ears (if not all boobs).

So I'm just kind of tracking my wonky cycle, which, every month, psyches me out in an annoying way. Basically, I'm on a 35-day cycle. 35 days is just long enough for me to start getting excited about possibly being pregnant. I used to be on a 26-day cycle, like clockwork (oh yeah, that could have been The Pill... but anyway). So now I don't let myself take any pregnancy tests until, say, I feel a fetus kick, or perhaps the onset of labor.

And I also try to recognize the symptoms of PMS -- "Remember, you are a paranoid, chocolate-eating maniac just before you get your period" -- rather than the weird ways I continue to diagnose myself as being pregnant ("That's funny, there is a little more phlegm in my throat than usual this morning. That sometimes happened when I was pregnant.").

Oh, and the WORST thing I keep doing to myself is thinking that my belly, which continues to bulge over my pants in a way that I'm not quite comfortable with, is expanding because I'm pregnant. NO, your belly is not expanding because you're pregnant, Britney, it's because you're eating so much chocolate!

We have already picked out names for a second baby, and have shared our desire to be pregnant with PRETTY MUCH EVERYONE, so I have accidentally created a maelstrom of baby-hunger among our family, friends, neighbors and medical professionals.

Ah, Babycakes rises.

Rodney Dangerfield

In the grand tradition of my comparisons of my child to unflattering characters...

When Babycakes is done eating and getting peeved with the whole process of being strapped into her high chair, she hooks a finger underneath her bib and pulls it to the side, EXACTLY like Rodney Dangerfield.

To exacerbate the similarity, she pulls her head to the side away from the yanked bib, and affects an expression that can best be compared to a chubby old man. She looks irritated, and, if she could speak anything but a generic "Bah Bah Bah" she would most certainly explain that she was not receiving enough respect.

Confession

OK, this is a little gross, but I need to confess my dastardly deed.

Yesterday, I had a couple of folks over, along with their little babies. One woman I had just randomly met at Safeway, so I don't know her very well -- perhaps that explains my bad behavior.

So I put down a big sheet with a bunch of toys and the babies were going bananas, having a great time goofing off with boxes and tea strainers and whatever else non-lethal I could find around the house for them to explore. The conversation was fun, the babies were happy, then... it happened.

I should explain the way that onions effect my digestive system. Basically, I should NEVER eat onions. Never. No one should be around me for 24-72 hours after I digest even the slimmest sliver of onion. I believe that my body just can't digest onions, and therefore, it comes out in spates of highly unpleasant gas for several days after I've eaten one.

I didn't MEAN to eat onions the other night at the Indian restaurant, but I ordered a new dish without knowing the onion content (which really should be specified on menus for people like me, I think), and rather than making a big stink about it (so to speak), I ate most of the dish and just hoped for the best.

So there we were, happy babies, happy mamas, and something terrible occured in my digestive system -- resulting in, well, some gas.

And here is what I'm confessing today: I BLAMED IT ON BABYCAKES.

Oh yes, I did.

I even made a big drama of "reacting" to the smell and then changing her diaper, which, thank goodness for me and my huge lie, contained some #2.

There, if feels better to have gotten this out into the air. So to speak.

Sad

My mom has been out to see us a half-dozen times since Babycakes was born, and I am always feeling like a complete wreck when she leaves.

I used to be OK when my mom left, in that I wouldn't break down in public and get snot all over everything, but since the advent of Babycakes, I can't even handle it.

My sister and I tried to explain this feeling when Mom leaves by calling it the "butterscotch pudding" feeling. It's the kind of sad that envelops you with such force that you need to make a bunch of butterscotch pudding and immediately eat it. That is the only cure.

What kills me is that my mom said goodbye to Babycakes right before her morning nap, and when the baby wakes up she won't understand where Grandma went.

Is it that I'll miss my mom's help, which is terrific -- she's a great cook and she's marvelous with Babycakes? It can't be just that, I mean, if it were really that great a tragedy, I'd just hire a second nanny or something. It's much deeper than that. It's this continuing feeling that it's WRONG to live in California when my mother, sister, father and stepmother all live in Back East.

It used to be a nice retreat -- living so far across the country from all of the folks who defined my formative years -- I could, and did, reinvent myself, established my true independence, and found great happiness out here. But then I pushed a person out of my body and all of that was completely beside the point. Babies need their families -- their extended families. And Mamas such as myself need those families even more.

I try to remember how ridiculously cold it is back there. My mom said yesterday, as we hiked to the top of an amazing hill and watched the oak trees unfurl their new leaves in the rain, that spring won't come to New Hampshire until MAY. MAY. MAAAAYYY.

So I don't know what my issue is here -- we live in paradise. Hub-D is really pissed about the taxes and politics here, so he'd like us to relocate, but that would mean recreating our entire support system -- our wonderful friends and vendors. So I've asked for a reprieve on the subject of moving.

But I'm just trying to solve how SAD I feel now that Hub-D is driving my mom to the airport, and when Babycakes wakes up it will be ALL ME. Every poopy diaper will have my name on it.

It must be true. The only real way to fix this is butterscotch pudding.

Trooper

Babycakes has just been tromped all over creation -- from Indianapolis then home then down to San Jose and finally back in her wee little crib last night, and I must say how PROUD I am of her.

She has successfully weathered all of the changes, and is now goofing off with her grandmother in the living room. Her luggage has been retrieved from the airport (thank you heroic Hub-D!) and she is healthy, other than a perpetually runny nose. (Now I understand that expression, "snot-nosed kid," because I have one.)

Yesterday I took her to a crowded room filled with videogame industry professionals and she had a ball, generally observing things like chandeliers and people whistling. One industry pal of mine came scurrying up to us when I brought Babycakes into the room, and pried her from my arms. "Can I babysit her? Right now? I have no meetings right now and I really want to babysit her."

"Yeah, sure," I said, relinquishing Babycakes into her custody.

She disappeared for about 15 minutes, whereupon she returned the child to me. Something was amiss. Her hair didn't look right. It was covered in Babycakes' VOMIT. Whoops. Yeah, she's been doing that lately.

So my pal had to run up to her hotel room and shampoo before her next meeting. Post-shampoo, she realized that she still smelled like vomit, but had not choice but to spritz some perfume and head back into the fray.

Whereas I'm wearing no make-up but I'm home safe and sound

Hub-D says that when a flight is delayed twice, it's going to be cancelled. This was borne out by our experience yesterday when our American Airlines 5:30 flight to Dallas was delayed with excruciating slowness... first to 7:30pm, then 8:30pm then 9:10pm then 10:00pm, 10:30pm, then finally cancelled.

YET here I sit, safe at home. How? After the third delay, Hub-D told me to ABANDON the fools at American Airlines, so I ran (as only a nursing mother can run, which is slowly, and subtly holding one's chest) up to the Southwest counter and threw myself at their mercy...

"I cheated on you! I was lured in by a cheap ticket on another airline, and I *know* you're the best and I *know* you have never done anything to merit this shabby treatment, would you PLEASE take me back!!??!"

Miraculously, and apparently without a grudge, they held out their arms and we had a tearful reunion, and $1000 later, I got me, Babycakes and our pal S. back to California last night, by way of a lovely stop in Chicago's Midway airport, which sports a Ben & Jerry's shop! So we were happy.

But we got no love from American Airlines on the LUGGAGE issue. I had checked our luggage in Indianapolis, with American, and it has sat there ever since. When I went to the counter to tell them that I was breaking off our affair and I wanted my stuff back they told me that all of the baggage handlers were "in the break room" and so we should just forget about getting our luggage back.

Whatever. We threw caution to the wind and grabbed the Southwest flights unhindered by baggage of any kind.

But that luggage had a few important things in it. Namely, Babycakes' beloved PANDA, with whom she trades secrets at all hours of the night. And my make-up.

I'm almost dismayed by how easily Babycakes was duped by a black and white HORSE that I picked up at the Indianapolis airport gift shop. But as for the make-up, I hate not having it!

When I'm not wearing make-up I look like a cross between a teenage Danny Bonaduce and a middle aged Sissy Spacek.



+




Both of these are fine people, but the no-make-up Cakesy's Mama combo is just tragic...

She's feeding me

Babycakes has started trying to put her food in my mouth, starting with a teething biscuit she was enjoying on the plane the other day.

There we were, hovering in the sky somewhere between San Francisco and Dallas, and she turned that biscuit around and aimed straight for my mouth. She looked into my eyes, and then at my teeth as she steered it right in.

It was the tenderest moment we ever had.

Then again, my sister had to point out that Babycakes' teething biscuits look JUST like Mr. Hanky, the "Christmas Poo" from South Park. My sister couldn't/wouldn't stop singing the Mr. Hanky theme song as Babycakes gnawed on a biscuit when we were together this weekend. She also remarked how it was similar how both Mr. Hanky AND the teething biscuits leave brown smudges whereever they go.

So there you have it -- a beautiful developmental milestone, the first time my child nourishes ME... OR something totally gross.

Cruel

I am such a wicked mother, as I am about to embark on a cross-country adventure, Babycakes in tow, in order to visit my 93-year-old Oma in Indiana. It's butt cold there, and we have to travel on two airplanes to get there, then drive an hour through the freezing cold night.

And she has a FEVER and it's the last thing on her "Stuff I Want To Do" list, waaaay down there. Stuff on the top of her list would be "Put more metal objects in my mouth," "Get cat's tail," and "Walk for chrissake." Stuff on the bottom of her list would be "Visit doctor/immunizations," "Cry self to sleep," and then "Go to Indiana in winter."

But Oma is 93 years old and has been looking forward to this day from the moment I called her on December 19, 2004 at 4am and whispered in the phone, "Oma, I'm pregnant!" Because I'd JUST peed on the test, and it had turned pink about 30 seconds before and Hub-D was still asleep and the best thing I could think to do was to wake up my very old grandmother in order to fill her in.

She told me NOT to get excited yet, but she was about 29 seconds too late.

Anyway, from that moment, she has been so excited to meet this baby, and I do not exaggerate when I say she has equated this child's arrival to the birth of Christ.

I mean, and Christ had to do endure tons of visitors in his manger when I'm sure he wasn't feeling all that great, having just been born, and not-too-well bundled up, according to some of the great artists of the past 1000 years:



I mean look at that, everyone wants to get a piece of the sweet baby Jesus, but really, can't someone get him a HAT? Did they not know how much of one's body heat escapes through the head. Apparently not. But anyway, this is my stupid way of rationalizing the fact I haven't cancelled this trip.

Oma had her carpets shampooed in preparation. And Dr. M said to GO AHEAD with the trip, and that the rotavirus generally runs its course in 3-4 days, so by tomorrow, she should be golden. But my sense is that she's still going to be run down and this isn't the best time in the world to make this journey.

Oma is right now in her local "Marsh" supermarket with her personal shopper, Cindy (Did I mention Oma is blind? She is blind.) picking out baby foods for Babycakes. She asked me what she could get and there wasn't really a point to saying, "Yes, well, like Denise Richards, I only feed my child organic food," so I just said, "Get stuff with meat," because I know Oma is going to have a kick-ass time with Cindy in the baby food aisle today.

But I think Babycakes will be OK. Even Dr. M said she would be OK. And if not, Children's Tylenol seems like a miraculous invention, the way it makes her so much happier.

I'm just still feeling like a shitty mother because I made her go tromping around the horse farm with me on Saturday, even though Hub-D said it wasn't a good idea. And Hub-D got really PO'ed at me yesterday because I took Babycakes outside in the stroller, then parked her under the tarp in the backyard for a half hour because she had fallen asleep in the stroller.

Dude! She had a big thick blanket on top of her and a hat, and it was over 60 degrees here and she was toasty as TOAST in her little stroller. But that didn't stop Hub-D from programming Child Protective Services on our speed dial.

But look at Jesus! He doesn't even have anything on his wee shoulders and don't tell me they had a space heater in that barn.

Scorn

I am so proud of my little girl. Oh she is so wonderful, and now I know for SURE she is related to me.

Today I took her to see Dr. M. because her fever remained over 102 and she was miserable yet cheery -- an emotion I have never seen a human being sustain as well as she does. We waited 90 minutes to see the doctor, and she kept falling asleep while I nursed her, only to be woken up for awful things such as the rectal temperature check (ew!), the student nurse's ear check (totally unnecessary, as the doctor was going to do his own check later), and the rantings of Max, the feverish kid in the examining room next door.

Throughout this experience, she maintained her cool, as only a kid who has a 102.6 temperature can. As it turns out, she is suffering from "rotavirus," a springtime scourge which has taken down 2/3rds of our family (meaning me and her, but not Hub-D, vexingly). It's one scary-looking virus...




Anyway, this is not why I am especially proud of her today. I am SO excited about my little girl because today she executed a perfect me-esque facial expression.

See, Dr. M came marching in after the 90 minute wait, and he CLAPPED really loud. It pissed her off so bad. But she did not cry or even whimper. No, she addressed him with an expression of unfettered SCORN. It was unmistakeable -- her eyes closed ever-so-slightly and her upper lip snarled gently -- it was very royal and dignified, kind of saying, "I'm uncertain as to why that was necessary."

The best way I could think to describe the expression to Hub-D was kind of a Molly Ringwald in "Sixteen Candles" kind of look, when she's interacting with Anthony Michael Hall. This is the best representation I could find, although you'll have to trust me that Babycakes' rendition was way better.



Dr. M saw it and clammed up, reeling against the sink in the examination room. "Whoa!" he said. Then a moment later, "I haven't seen her this cranky before."

I had to say it. I mean, it's what she wanted me to say, so I said it: "She doesn't like clapping."

What a marvelous little kid. She is a BORN big sister with the ability to communicate such scorn with a tiny face and relatively unsophistocated muscle control. I have used that exact facial expression on my little sister for 30 years to great effect, and I'm so happy to know that it's already in her repetoire.

(Oh, and after a big fat dose of children's Motrin, she's feeling WAY better, bouncing with Hub-D on the bed, then sleeping like a champ.)

Drunk

Listen.

I'm sick. I've been sick for more than a week and my fever just started spiking up again. And our dear Chebbles aka Babycakes has come down with it too! So I spent most of the afternoon on the sofa forcing my boob into her mouth so she would sleep and start recovering.

I HATE it when I call the doctor and they don't say "It's nothing," but instead they say, "We'd like to see her." Damn, woman! Sure, everyone would like to see my adorable baby, but you're scaring me!

Her fever is something like 101.5 but probably higher because our ear thermometer is the only semi-accurate thermometer in the house and it said that Hub-D was 97.5 and I am 100, so we can presume that the baby and I are sick, and Hub-D is a lizard.

Anyway, so all this is to say is that I'm DRINKING right now. A big fat mug of steaming WHISKEY, my friends. I can't take Nyquil because it has narcotics in it, and my sister, who is a licensed REGISTERED NURSE told me to just drink some whiskey so here I am.

It's kind of an Irish remedy, I learned it from my mom. I combine boiling water with a lemon, honey, and several glugs of some whiskey I have left over from some party. My mom also says to get into the hottest bathtub possible while drinking this concoction, then go straight to bed.

We have an appointment tomorrow with Doctor M. so he can survey just how badly I've screwed my daughter up. Is she sick because I kept her outside for a long time at the blustery horse farm because I selfishly wanted to see the whole farm and all of the miniature burros, etc., even though I knew she was sick and shouldn't be outside? Hub-D is being nice about it, even though he asked me about 50 times if we shouldn't be LEAVING the chilly stables because the baby had the sniffles.

But oh well, she's got a virus and it sucks but she took a second bath (no whiskey) tonight and is dreaming peacefully as I type... and drink... glug glug glug.

Whereby I am seized by an 80's Flashback

I am 15 years old and I have been granted permission to SLEEP OUT for *Genesis* tickets!

They are due to go on sale at the local record store at 8am the following morning, so my friend T. picks me up at my house late at night, after I've already gone to bed for a few hours, and we camp out on the sidewalk outside the store, much like teenagers do for Xboxes nowadays...

Anyway, at this point in my life I have BIG hair and I put on a ton of eye make-up every day. But because T. is in the driveway and I'm SO excited to get these Genesis tickets, plus I am in a hurry and I have a huge crush on T., who will later turn out to be gay, but all of this is beside the point, the point being: I DID NOT PUT ON MAKE-UP this morning.

I am wearing a favorite outfit -- a white cotton shaker-knit sweater with a paisley collared shirt underneath it, jeans that are pinch-rolled up, then white socks and Keds, of course. I have "whitened" my Keds with some paint-esque white shoe polish ordinarily used by nurses.

It's Pittsburgh, so I'm bundled up against the cold, but not so much as to seem uncool to the OLDER KIDS who are waiting for Genesis tickets. (Genesis! Can you even believe it?! And this is after Phil Collins started his solo career, but he was still part of Genesis, and it was at THREE RIVERS STADIUM with all kinds of laser and light effects. Don't think I didn't buy a T-shirt. Ahhh.)

We wait for hours in front of the store, and we get colder and colder. Finally we start taking turns sitting in T.'s mom's station wagon to get warm. It will always be a point of contention between T. and me as to WHO locked the keys in the car with the car running at this point, but his mom did have to ferry out the extra set of keys at some point during our vigil. Stupid T! (Ha ha it was probably me. Anyway.)

The store finally opens but it takes awhile to get our tickets. We stroll into our high school really late, and TOGETHER, which I love, and I totally hope that people think we are going out.

But I am SO self-conscious about my lack of make-up or hair products. I don't even want to show my face to the other 40-50 guys that I have crushes on in school, so I dig around in my backpack and find a pair of sunglasses. This is PERFECT, a pair of sunglasses to wear all day in school to (a) hide my lack of make-up, and (b) kind of pretend I'm hung over or just SOOooo tired from hanging out with T. and getting Genesis tickets for crying out loud.

You need to know more about the sunglasses. They are Ray-Ban styled sunglasses, but instead of the black plastic frames made famous by Tom Cruise in "Risky Business" they are GOLD. Not a muted tasteful gold, but a 1980's MANIACAL painted-on shiny "GOLD" that's kind of chipping off from being in my backpack.

I wear them as I slink into Chemistry late, with my baggy sweater and dirty jeans (from sitting on the sidewalk and leaning against the locked-and-running car). The teacher comments that I must have had a late night. "Tell me about it," I say, SO FRIGGIN' SMUG. And golden with my gleaming, gorgeous sunglasses.

* I'm going to the Genesis concert.
* I spent many hours with my big crush, T.
* I'm late to school and making like I don't care.
* I have these SUNGLASSES on.

So yes, when Babycakes asks me, years down the line, what it was like being a teenager in the 1980's, I mean, if she even cares, I SO have an answer for her. It ROCKED. With gold sunglasses and LASERS and Phil Collins singing "Mama" with a STROBE LIGHT at Three Rivers Stadium for crying out loud.

This just in: Hub-D attacked by pack of angry dogs

Hub-D and I drove up into the countryside today so that Babycakes could meet some horses. She had a grand old time looking at the horses, dogs, miniature burros, a pony and a pot-bellied big named Lily.

On the way home, Hub-D spotted a plot of land for sale, and in a fit of "maybe we want to live out in the countryside, go 'off the grid' and become the Waltons," we stopped the car to look around. Ole Babycakes had fallen asleep, so I stayed close to the car doing embarrassing yoga positions.

I spotted Hub-D up on a hill overlooking our future estate -- he looked so majestic in a handsome checked shirt, up against the blue sky at the top of the path. I thought about taking a picture of him, and just enjoyed how terrific he looked up there for a moment. Then I saw a little dog approach him.

How sweet! He leaned down to pet the dog, whose tail was wagging, but the dog kind of skittered away, "I love that man," I thought, "So compassionate and glorious."

It was then that things started to change for the Walton's Family... the little dog started getting really menacing. Hub-D lifted up his leg in kind of a "mock kick," like "Hey dog, now let's not get too out of control -- you and I both know I can kick your ass."

But the dog got FIERCER and showed Hub-D his sharp little teeth and growled like this:

Hub-D started contemplating his options. The dog weighed maybe 10 pounds, but it really looked like it was going to take a chunk out of his calf. He didn't like the idea of actually kicking it, so he tried yelling at it, which only got it more AMPED to eat him. So he started to stroll carefully away when suddenly a pack of dogs Hub-D described as "the cavalry" came over the hill and made their way for him. They were all little, but they were all MAD AS HELL.

At Hub-D! Lover of nature! Father of Babycakes!

So he did what any man would do in this situation and he ran so FREAKIN' fast he was like a checkered-shirt BLUR down the hill toward the car. There I was standing in the "mountain pose," trying to re-center my chakras on the new events -- specifically, my husband hurtling down this formerly idyllic hill while a pack of maniacal little dogs nipped at his heels.

He made it into the car LICKETY SPLIT, while I stood there still stunned. The dogs started taking a look at me as a good "runner up" kind of prize. So I leapt in one motion into the backseat next to the sleeping Babycakes, Hub-D revved up the car and we got out of dodge.

How relieved we were to pull into our sweet suburb once again, where those dogs don't know where to find us. We think.

Sparkly dishwasher morning

I am so delighted in the mundane lately, as evidenced by my recent posts about magazines and shopping. I never suspected that I would be like this -- raised as I was on my mom's "Ms." magazine and heading so stridently into my career.

But DAMN it is fun having a new dishwasher, plus I've discovered those Cascade/Dawn 2-in-1 tablets that you just plop into the detergent receptacle and my dishes are so friggin' sparkly, it gives me warm, excellent feelings.

I am so content and happy and excited about making a donation to Salvation Army, and I love hearing the mail truck pull up in front of our house, particularly on Fridays because, folks, "Us Weekly" subscription -- hello.

I love the birches in my neighbor's lawn, whose branches hold onto the rain so much that when the sun comes up they are as jewely and bright as the glasses in my dishwasher.

I love that as I write this, our cat Otto is sitting on my other neighbor's roof drinking the rainwater out of their gutter. How did he get there? How will he get down. Whatever. I love it.

I love sorting laundry. Our new dining room table finally arrived and within minutes, I had Hub-D's underwear stacked in a neat little pile on top of it. I put Babycakes in her hiking backpack and the two of us folded laundry and delivered it to various points in the house.

I love that I have a dozen projects pending in the house -- closet reorganizations and a new rug to find and lamps! We need lamps!

I have waited my whole life to be this domestic and it was WORTH IT. It's a fantastic journey through the mundane aspects of life I once took for granted, but making macaroni and cheese for my husband, adding yogurt and cayenne pepper, is the BEST. Plus don't get me started about the satisfaction of steaming vegetables. There is just something magical about how steam actually cooks things.

Hub-D is off now getting gas in the car and picking up a drink at Peet's Coffee, then buying some organic eggs so Wifey can poach one for herself before the baby wakes up.

I am so HAPPY. Hub-D is HOME from Europe and my house is so full of love and interesting things and things to clean and sort and enjoy.

I feel calm, contented, and exactly where I should be in life. Things aren't perfect -- Babycakes and I still have gross phlegmy colds and Hub-D doesn't know if it's day or night anymore -- but it's SPRINGTIME everyone. The peach tree and the wisteria are both budding out, and there is so much to do and enjoy.

Ah bliss. Remind of me of this next time I get complainy.

Badass new magazine

I really like this new magazine: http://wondertime.go.com/

"Wondertime" is cool because it doesn't have all the idiocy of typical parenting magazines, and it also lacks the guilt of "Mothering" magazine, my previous favorite.

"Mothering" is completely out of control -- this month, they say that most kids' bath products contain chemicals that cause breast cancer. Give me a BREAK. Yes, I'd like to limit my child's exposure to anything that would give her CANCER, but articles such as this are written in such alarmist, haughty tones that I always end up petrified by the time I get to the 500 ads for cloth diapers and reusable postpartum pads (no thanks) at the end. And the science behind their reasoning is usually suspect, I find.

And the other parenting magazines are such DRIVEL, with the same hackneyed, questionable advice -- with bits of guilt added in for flair.

I've really enjoyed "Wondertime"'s sister publication, "Family Fun," but most of the ideas are for big kids, and Babycakes would be truly stumped if I tried to serve her cupcakes decorated like a lion and a lamb to celebrate the month of March. I mean, she'd be excited, for sure, because I'd be giving her something she could put in her mouth. But it's not really what I ought to be handing a 6 month old baby, I suspect.

Anyway, hooray for "Wondertime," because it contains clever ideas and well written stories and people who write about parenting while MAKING FUN OF THEMSELVES, which is absolutely essential. And I felt good about being a mom at the end of the magazine, I was lulled into happiness by their bright, beautifully illustrated stories, I was almost hypnotized into buying all of the Playskool stuff they advertise on every other page.

Anyway, I like "Wondertime," but just to be clear, it's no "Us Weekly."

I outsmarted Pottery Barn

So, I wanted six chairs for our new dining room table, and I spotted ones on sale on Potterybarn.com. They were perfect, they were approved by the interior decorator I am always pathetically trying to impress, and I had the rare Hub-D APPROVAL.

But just before I clicked "purchase," I saw a whopping $200 shipping fee ON TOP OF the delivery fee of $70 they charge to bring the chairs to my house.

What the hey?

I called Potterybarn.com and the poor embattled woman explained that it is the policy at her ramshackle place of employment to charge every customer 10% of their order for shipping. No matter what. No matter if it's $1000 worth of feather-light drapery panels, and no matter if they are already paying a $70 delivery fee. They just slap an extra 10% on top of every order over $200.

Now I used to work at a catalog company (a scientific supply company that specialized in "Happy Balls." Good times.), and we had a similar policy, but I waived it for practically everyone, because it was asinine. That's how I made the customers happy, and avoided screwing the nice Happy Ball purchasers.

But Potterybarn.com keeps this nice lady chained to her desk telling people over and over again all day long that YES they have to pay a 10% shipping charge even if they're already paying a delivery fee. She is so fed up with her job. Anyway.

So I called the local Pottery Barn store and asked if they had the chairs. They do. Could they deliver them to my house? Yes. Is there a delivery fee? Yes, about $70. Is there an asinine 10% shipping fee? No.

So I just ordered it over the phone, the old-fashioned way, and it will be here SOONER than if I'd ordered it online, and for $200 cheaper. DAMN I'M GOOD.

I'm just saying, if you'd like to get something from Potterybarn.com, just call your local store and have them bring it to your damn house.

Reading is boring and pointless

What's going on with all of this emphasis on READING?

I mean really, folks, can we stop cramming books down our babies' throats?

I occurred to me this morning when I was reading Babycakes a book that she doesn't really like it when I read to her. I sit down in the glider, and we snuggle up, then I lean over to the bookshelf and I can just FEEL her rolling her eyes.

Cripes, she's six months old, she's got many years before she will actually read along with me, and she'd much rather we sing a song or make up a dance or play with the lion puppets.

As I sat there going through a few books -- she kept yanking them out of my hands and chucking them on the floor (good for her), I thought, "This is for LITERACY" and "I am determined to make my child a good READER." Then I thought -- "Waaaait a minute here..."

Have we ever stopped to think who is telling us to read to our babies? LIBRARIANS!!! And booksellers, and the vast conspiracy of people who are trying to sell us chew-proof reading materials for our little ones.

Babies don't give a crap about books! Why all the emphasis? What is the risk, is she not going to read? Sure, she'll read -- I mean, she wants to drive the car someday, right? Well, she'd going to have to read the DMV exam for cripes sake.

I think we're just pissing babies off by shoving books in their face all the time. It seems to me that she enjoys READING the least of all of our pursuits, because she's facing away from me, she can't actually pick up any of the pictures in the book (that doesn't stop her from trying to pick off the butterflies or the other stuff that's lacquered onto her chewable books), and it's just boring.



I feel like I'm complicit in a situation like Plato's cave analogy -- I'm directing my daughter to the shadows on the cave wall rather than showing her a way out, the direction away from media, and into actual experiences. "Look, Babycakes, at the shadows! Learn to LOVE THEM."

And what about all of this self-serving librarian talk about how babies will learn that reading is valuable and reading can take you "anywhere?" No, reading doesn't take you anywhere. When you read, you tend to remain sedentary.

I'm not saying reading isn't thought-provoking, important to society or a good way to pass the time. It is -- for GROWN-UPS!

So anyway, I really feel there is little or no value in forcing my child to read books. I try funny voices and pointing to things in the book and "making it interesting," but it's ultimately a stupid pursuit, I realized this morning.

We could have been out looking at the bird's nest on the front porch, or banging on Tupperware. I could have been telling her a story of my own, looking into her eyes and completely slandering other members of the family (e.g., "The day Aunt Emily lost my wallet") or other thrillers.

But instead I've been jamming her onto my lap and reading that heinous "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" tripe where the moral is, what, you get food when you break into people's houses? Bears like sitting in chairs?

She's not interested in books, and it would be weird if she *were* into them. My friends have told me stories of their babies CRYING when they sat them down to read. So let's give up this librarian-induced hysteria that we need to make our babies literate from Day One, and whip out the lion puppets, shall we?

Someone peed in here again

I know it. I was away all day long, and that's usually Stanley's cue to leave something in the "suggestion box" (aka my office). Yuck, Stan, that is so gross.

In other news, Babycakes aka Chebbles was fan-FREAKING-tastic on her voyage with me on a plane today -- TWO planes, there and back to Burbank airport. She took everything with good humor, even though she's teething, coming down with a cold, and I kept her up way past her bedtime. As I zipped up her sleepsack tonight at the unprecedented late hour of 9:30 she gave me a huge grin, as if to say, "Good times, Mama, good times."

Can I trade in my pissy tabby for another sweet little baby? Who wears a diaper and therefore doesn't pee in my office in some unidentified location? Geez I'm so mad at that cat.

I have turned into a giant cockroach

Don't tell Hub-D how I completely I have decayed in his absence, but I basically remind myself of Gregor Samsa from Kafka's "Metamorphosis" in that I've transformed into a giant scuttling cockroach.

Our big fluffy marital bed has become a kind of hamster nest with balled up pages from "Us Weekly" and WORSE -- things like "InTouch" and "OK!" -- gossip magazines that don't even maintain the standards of "Us Weekly." I read the magazines, then show them to our infant daughter, who tears out the pages and puts them in her mouth, whereupon I gingerly remove them and ball up the chewed-on pages and toss them elsewhere on the bed, out of her reach. So now, when I try to sleep, I inevitably end up with images of Nick Lachey and Lindsay Lohan jammed into my armpits.

Also, at some point since Hub-D left, I started shuffling through the pile of clothes that I wanted to unequivocably GIVE AWAY and otherwise REMOVE from our premises -- and I started WEARING these items of clothing around the house, in front of guests, and kind of proudly, as in:

"YES this lacrosse shirt is from 1988 and it's completely unflattering and faded and gross and YES it is from the pile designated for the Salvation Army, but I am such a health-impaired heartbroken nut that I am parading it around the house on my body. Thanks."

I have not washed a dish in several days, and there are Kleenexes willy-nilly around the house. I have started setting teabags on any random object, such as a paper blow-in from Us Weekly, you know the one that advertises subscriptions cheaper than your own? Yes, I balanced a teabag on it, which promptly soaked through and onto the coffee table, and there it lies.

I also just discovered, and completely ignored, a giant splash of red wine on the new rug. Yup.

But I had a FEVER, and my friend A. was visiting from Chicago, and I'm beat, bushed and exhausted and in two days I have to go on a *business trip* which seems so far-fetched I'm contemplating staging my own disappearance.

Folks, now that A. has left and all humor has left the building, and Babycakes is in bed and it's quiet around here, now that Otto the kitten has torn up the skin on my thigh in an attempt to hurl his increasingly LARGE rear onto my lap, now that Hub-D is asleep somewhere in Vienna I can tell you: I'm depressed.

Of course you could come to this conclusion merely by surveying any room in my house: the clothes scattered exactly where I shed them several days ago, the teabags soaking into various surfaces and the bowls of rotting baby food and crusty demeanor of our kitchen floor. Let's not even talk about the Diaper Genie, which has, simply put, lost its magical powers.

Hub-D returns very soon, immediately after I return from my preposterous business trip. Thank the LORD that our amazing house cleaners are coming tomorrow, to help me scrape off one layer of slime from the house. But it's just so obvious, I can't imagine they can help me hide all of the thousand signs of how much I miss my husband, how hard it is for me to function without him, and how damn sad it is when he's away.

[Scuttle scuttle, giant cockroach mama tip-toes out of the room, positions her thorax in front of the television and watches the European "Joe Millionaire" marathon.]

NB: Hub-D is going to Prague tomorrow. Where "The Metamorphosis" was written. Coincidence?

Ill

What is going on? I now have the second terrible contagious illness in two weeks. Babycakes is fine -- everyone around me seems fine, but I'm super-feverish, I can't sleep, and I fear taking drugs to relieve my condition because I don't want Babycakes to ingest goodness-knows-what through me.

My pal A. is staying with me until tomorrow, which is a blessing. But then she leaves and I'm flying solo while Hub-D is out of town. I've sent out an urgent call for help to my favorite Mommies, and hopefully someone will come through, at least with sympathy.

Note to self: No getting sick when there are no Moms around besides YOU.

Sleepin' and Cryin'

Babycakes has started crying in her sleep. She cries hard like someone just told her the world is ending, and when I rush in there to save her from her pitiable despair, I find her wracked with sobs, but her eyes are completely closed and she doesn't respond to me at all.

Today, Nanny D. and I were at my office, and Nanny D. and Babycakes were in the baby room (once populated by interns, who have all be ousted to other desks) when Babycakes started the NAP TERROR abject weeping. Horrified, both by the sadness of Babycakes' cries, and the thought that people were trying to get work done on the other side of the wall, she grabbed one of Babycakes' vibrating toys and set it right up against the baby's belly and turned it on.

Damn if it didn't work. She woke up and started smiling. Go Nanny D!

Blue ocean theories are ass

It seems that since I've been on maternity leave, the folks in the business world have all bought into this new "blue ocean" theory. I've been bombarded with it ever since I stepped back into my old job, and it sounds like bullshit to me.

This theory states that big dumb companies are always fighting for the same limited market share ("red ocean" -- implying it's filled with blood and sharks. ew.) Therefore, they say, there is almost unlimited profit potential in the "blue ocean" -- in markets that have gone untapped because these big dumb companies are too slow and single-minded to seek profits from them.

People in the industry where I work (videogames) keep pointing to MOMS as a big untapped market, as the great "blue ocean". I've had a dozen clients say they want to reach MOMS. And they always refer to this target market as "Mom," as in, "What can we put on the box that will make Mom buy it?" or "How do we convince Mom that this is the best Christmas gift?"

Guys. Give up. Moms are no "blue ocean" -- before I disparage the "blue ocean" theory, let me just tell you, I am "Mom" now myself, and there is nothing you can do to make me buy videogames. When I tell you that I don't have time to play them, please consider that I'm being polite. The reality is: videogames aren't how Moms want to spend our time, unless it's a free Yahoo! Poker game or something similarly unprofitable, and we don't want our little kids playing them either. So take your blue ocean and cram it, because Moms want to play eBay.

But anyway, back to "blue ocean" theories -- I run a business that services publishers and developers in the videogame industry and today, in alarmingly lemminglike fashion, I thought, "What is my BLUE OCEAN?" and I thought about it -- it's smaller game producers, it's people making game content in Eastern Europe, it's fringe organizations involved in the game industry.

Then I stopped and thought: Those assholes don't pay their bills.

So I think I'm going to anonymously send copies of this Blue Ocean book to my competitors, and hope they take the bait... sailing mindlessly out into the sea, while I have a fun time eating their lunch here in the red ocean. Mom or not, I know an opportunity when I see one.