My baby is French

Hard Evidence:

* Loves frogs.
* Would happily subsist only on fruit, cheese and wine.
* Has a short workday.
* Crazy about little dogs.
* Omits consonants.
* Surrenders after only token protest.

Speculative Evidence:

* Seems to harbor prediliction for unfiltered cigarette butts.
* Not crazy about Germans.

Potentially Determinative Tests:

* Gauge love for Jerry Lewis.
* Offer baguette.

Playdating

A woman asked for my phone number today, so that we can have a PLAYDATE. Ooooh, I hope she calls!

This has never happened to us before. We've always had the same circles of neighborhood friends, and now, someone wants a PLAYDATE with just me and Babycakes. Well, mostly Babycakes, but still. If the mom hated me, she wouldn't have asked for our phone number, right?

She's so cool, she just moved up from Berkeley and her son M. is very patient with Babycakes. He's about 2. We originally met in the sand park by our house, and I liked him right off the bat, as did Babycakes. Then I met his mom and she was unpretentious and had a sense of humor and no airs about her parenting decisions, so when she left the park, I lamely said, "Maybe we'll see each other again here!"

So lame!

Then FATE brought us together again. I was packing up Babycakes at Gymboree, and she was bringing in M., and our two kids were fighting over the bead toys when I suddenly (freakishly) grabbed her arm and said, "I KNOW WHERE WE MET BEFORE!!!"

This is the kind of behavior that occurs when a previously gregarious woman is sealed inside a house with a napping child for many hours every day, and doesn't go out at night EVER -- social ASININEDNESS. (Asininity?) Anyway, behaving in an asinine, slobbering fashion.

She handled my arm-grab in stride, and then I kind of panted after her while she brought M. into the play area and I called out, "What was your name again!??" while my sleepy child bobbled snot all over my sleeve. She told me, and then she said:

"WHY DON'T I GET YOUR PHONE NUMBER AND WE CAN DO THE PLAYDATE THING?"

I don't know why this feels so marvelous. That my year-younger daughter and my spastic self would be asked for our digits so that we could get together for a two-on-two playdate -- the ultimate in suburban social acceptance. My mind raced as I wrote down our number, thinking, "I hope our husbands like each other too!!!"

Oh, where will we go? The sand park again, for old time's sake???

Gee, I'm excited. I hope she calls.

Addicts

You wouldn't think it from looking at our clean tree-lined street, but we've got ADDICTS coming out our ears around here.

Up the street from us live two brothers who have been dealing drugs for more than 15 years from their home.

The rest of our neighbors are wonderful. REALLY wonderful. Let-you-swim-in-their-pool wonderful, take-care-of-your-baby-while-you-have-a-funeral-for-your-cat wonderful. But they have given up long ago trying to get rid of the drug-dealing brothers.

People have tried buying the house from the brothers (no deal), they have tried writing down the license plate numbers of all of the buyers (police say they're not admissable), and the neighbors have had meetings and letters and petitions over the years, working to get rid of the dealers, and the addicts that come along with the territory.

From what I've learned about meth in our area, it pretty much all comes from Mexico. These brothers get sporadic shipments, and then somehow spread the word (possibly via their infamous courier, The Scruffy Man) to the addict community. And that's when our street turns into a circus of disgusting characters, come to get their meth. As it did yesterday.

I've learned that there is a certain look to meth addicts. All of the photos I found of real meth addicts are too disgusting to post, so I've opted instead for editorial cartoon at the top of this post. Most of the people who come walking, biking, and driving up to the meth dealer look like either stage 2 or stage 3 of that cartoon. Also, their mouths, most notably, are sunken in -- they look like old people who lost their dentures.

And they have that haunted look around their eyes -- because I think that meth sinks your eyes in too. These skeletal addicts crowded down our street yesterday like zombies honing in on brains, and it pissed me off so much, I was ready to tear their vehicles apart with my bare hands, if not the addicts themselves. One guy raced up the street on a motorcycle with no muffler -- so loud that Babycakes (naked and playing joyfully on the porch) was jolted into a terrified scream. TWICE. Scooping up Babycakes, I ran after his motorcycle, hollering at him to get a muffler. Yeah, that worked. He did his deal and then thundered away.

Carloads of skeletons came zooming down the street, which is usually a quiet haven beset only with amusing cat fights. Babycakes was playing on the front lawn when a big old pick-up truck came around the corner. The skeletal woman in the passenger seat waved sweetly at Babycakes as they drove up the street -- then they idled in front of the dealers' house, and drove away 60 seconds later, careening into the intersection at the other end of the street, weaving away with their stash.

DON'T WAVE AT MY CHILD. GO AWAY you horrible people.

Hub-D was driven to madness by the sudden influx of addicts yesterday as well -- he stood on our lawn watching people head for the dealers' house and started talking about Nashville, about Washington State, about ANYWHERE but this street.

"Is it worth it?" He asked me. "Shouldn't we move before one of us gets hurt by living here?"

The out-of-control cars filled with skeletal addicts are one thing. Another is the implicit threat -- if we rabble-rouse and try to have the dealers ousted, will we become targets? Or will a frustrated addict, out of money, be tempted to break into our house and trade our wedding silver for drugs, at any cost?

Then when I called the DEA about it (again), the agent asked me if the dealers still had "those pit bulls." GREAT. So now there are also pit bulls, which, according to the neighbors, have been trained to attack.

I don't know. I'm upset. These people, the couriers, the addicts, the wicked drug-dealing neighbors, are so close to my child, sleeping now in her crib in her stripey overalls with Panda tucked up under her chin. It makes me vicious.

Toilet tease

I am of the opinion that clip art should add something duly festive to its accompanying text, and perhaps intrigue the reader to learn more. But this is too much.

If you're telling someone that they can't (as my dad would say) "hit the head" at your business establishment, it's not cool to RUB IT IN like this.

The clip art seems to say, "Yeah, wouldn't it be great if you could go to the bathroom here? You know, the bathroom -- with a nice shiny TOILET in it, and a big fluffy roll of toilet paper? Well, you CAN'T. So BEAT IT."

Fattening pen

I can't stop eating. Now that I spend so much time in the kitchen, it seems there is always something in my MOUTH. I'm not nursing anymore (sob), so I can't just eat like this and not expect to get a "spare tire." As it is, my jeans are getting tight. I eat like a damn hobbit -- two breakfasts, two lunches, two dinners... because first Babycakes eats, and I nibble off of her tray, and then we eat, and I eat MY dinner, then I tuck into whatever leftovers that Hub-D has on his plate.

I wonder if this is some sort of manifestation of grief. I'm eating like I am pregnant anyway, or eating to cover the pain, or whatever -- basically, this feels like emotional eating, and I think that unlike most people, if I went on a CRUISE, or a beach vacation, or generally got away from my kitchen, I'd lose weight.

Note to Hub-D: get me out of here.

Fantasy comes TRUE for Babycakes

Thanks to my uber-clever girlfriend J., Babycakes lived out her GREATEST fantasy today.

J.'s daughter was turning 3, and she held a barnyard-themed party to celebrate the occasion. In doing so, she unwittingly created a confluence of Babycakes' FAVORITE THINGS.



They are:

* An agreeable dog who will let her touch his tongue
* Corn on the cob
* A sandbox with toys
* Older kids
* Watermelon
* Red wagon
* AND BALLOONS!

Tonight after I put a fully-tuckered Babycakes to bed, she stayed up for a good long time, just chatting extensively with Panda. No doubt the conversation went something like, "Oh, you should have BEEN THERE, Panda -- the dog! The balloons! The corn on the cob had JUST the right amount of butter, and did I mention Mama let me have CAKE? Oh, just settle right in, Panda, there is SO MUCH to tell you."

And as she chats, Panda picks extra sand out of her scalp with his gentle, marsupial paws.

Jesus Laughs

I have this thing I do whenever I feel put-upon by life, and it involves Jesus.

I'm not a church-attending kind of gal -- I haven't been for a while. I used to attend the Unitarian church, and that's where Hub-D and I got married. But my own beliefs about God just haven't fit within any churches I've found lately, so I just motor along on my own, thinking about our ole pal Jesus in my own way.

Sometimes my burdens feel too heavy, like this morning, with Hub-D dieting and Babycakes teething and the dog across the street waking us up at 3 o'clock in the morning. And I'm strolling along the road in pursuit of Frosted Mini-Wheats at the local Safeway because, my friends, that's the only thing that's going to help. And plus my period has reminded me that I'm definitely not pregnant, and my 35th birthday approaches, feeling like a reproductive deadline.

So I think about Jesus. Specifically, I imagine his (His?) glorious head floating directly over mine, and he is tilting his head back and laughing a JOYOUS kind of laughter. His long hair is falling down his back and his teeth are all showing and he's just laughing his head off.

You might think this would piss me off -- Hey, Jesus, can we take my life a little seriously? Because if Safeway is out of Frosted Mini-Wheats, we're going to go to Defcon 4.

But no, Jesus freakin' ROCKS, that's why he's laughing. He's laughing because he sees everything from his perspective, and he thinks that people's lives have so much fun TEXTURE to them, and, in my mind, Jesus thinks it's just really cute when a person likes me goes through life's little whitewaters.

Maybe I'm not explaining this right, because in my own mind it's so clear -- Jesus derives joy from the fact we are LIVING and experiencing these bits of life so acutely, and that we take ourselves so SERIOUSLY. It just cracks him up when I get a big furrow in my brow because I wonder about my uterus.

"There she is," he seems to say, in his beaming way, "Fussing about her babies. That's just what a gal should do right about now in her life. Ah, the GLORY of it! Ha ha!"

And I can't be the only one who spontaneously started thinking about how funny my life is to Jesus, because these dude got it a friggin' TATTOO. See, Jesus thought that was hilarious.

Let's Play... "What's That Fluid on the Floor!??"

Contestant #1 (BUZZ) "Is it from the rancid chicken, spilling out of the broken refrigerator?"

NO, I'm sorry. A lot of fluids have been spilling out of that broken frige, but that's not it.

Contestant #2 (BUZZ) "Is it in any way related to menstruation?"

NO, that's wrong too, but an EXCELLENT guess, due to the continuing X-TREEEME nature of periods after pregnancies.

Contestant #3 (BUZZ) "This may sound crazy, but is it BABY PEE?"

WE HAVE A WINNER!

Babycakes has a horrid diaper rash, which has been so bad I'm on the brink of photographing it, if I didn't think said photograph would probably show up in some pervy inappropriate place online and I'd have to go to all the effort of suing someone for the rights to a picture of my child's sore heiney.

So after I take off her diaper in the morning, I let her go COMMANDO for awhile to let the rash air out. We usually go outside, but due to her recent prediliction for redwood pine cones, I've limited her time in the backyard. And the front yard is probably the wrong place to go with my superduper naked baby, because the neighbors have probably had it up to HERE with my nude child scampering in the road.

So Babycakes was hanging with me in the kitchen this morning, all bare-assed. And she found my old Mac keyboard, which I let her play with, so she can be on the "computer" and "take dictation," which amuses her NOT AT ALL, and amuses me VERY MUCH, so I keep making her do it.

Suddenly things got "Baby Quiet" -- the state in which all normal baby sounds have ceased, and you know something valuable is being destroyed. That's when I discovered that she had masterfully squatted right on top of the keyboard and pissed right into the keys, then caught a little puddle with her foot and stomped some baby urine around the living room for good measure.

If ONLY I'd had my labial adherence act together, this could have been a happy ending.

But no, there is pee lodged within my maybe-someday-valuable Mac keyboard, and the news of the urination sent Hub-D scurrying to his computer to sell our Apple stock. He thinks Babycakes has good stock info sometimes -- she does get up earlier and has the first crack at "The Financial Times" after all.

Photographer after my own heart

My dad sends me various "funny" detritus from around the web, and that's how I found this GEM.

What I love about this is the parent did not (a) freak out, (b) stop the child, (c) remove the little brother, who is clearly EATING the paint. No! He/she calmly retrieved his/her camera and started snapping.

You can tell that the photographer kept his/her cool by the smile on the kid's face.

A *photojournalist* just like me.

Mall

Today, Babycakes and I went to the MALL, and when we opened up the doors to enter, a cool blast of refrigerated air greeted us. AAAAAhhhhhAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaahhhhhh.

It was a big change from yesterday's excursion to gritty San Francisco -- it was CLEAN and freezing and filled with retail shopping opportunities. Babycakes just freaked out with joy.

The people at the Select Comfort store gave her a balloon, and she frolicked with it like a LAMB who's never heard of Easter. She's learning to RUN, and went in circles just celebrating the crap out of that balloon in the mall air conditioning, while the little gangs of teens and other moms with strollers steered around the intense frolicking behavior.

Babycakes has started singing, and it's the greatest thing in the entire world, a 10-month-old child who pipes up with little tunes every so often.

The mall has never known such joy and such sweet song as this child, out of the heat, with a glorious balloon.

.

Just minutes after I posted the last entry, it arrived.

My idiocy is increasing by the minute

Everything feels bad and wrong and panicked, so much so that I keep checking my underwear, knowing that this feeling of world-crappiness generally precedes my period. But nothing yet.

This lack-of-period sinks me into a deeper despair, a despair in which the world's love bounces off my leathery hide, in which everyone is conspiring against me, and I'm just generally an IDIOT whom everyone else barely tolerates.

Because I don't know -- what kind of cycle does a woman expect after a miscarriage? Do I get my next period 28 days after I miscarry? Or do I expect a month-long psych-out, whereby I continue to check for my period, filled with apprehension and impatience? Because the LAST thing this woman wants to do is take another pregnancy test, have it be positive, then start bleeding, oh say, four days later.

A friend of mine once said to herself: "My IDIOCY is increasing by the MINUTE!"

I love that. My idiocy IS increasing by the minute. I don't know where half my shoes are. I lose all of Babycakes' toys. I didn't wash her playground sand hands before she ate dinner. My house looks like it was organized by a circus clown with ADD.

I walk around with a bellyache of stress, wondering if it was TOO MUCH for me to hope for multiple children, too much for me to want THREE for goodness' sake, and aren't I screwing up THIS ONE badly enough, by leaving her with an expensive babysitter while I shop for things I don't really NEED?

Today, while Nanny D raised my only child, I browsed a stationery store, which is usually one of my favorite occupations in LIFE. I will enter a stationery store on the slightest provocation and just sit around smelling the stacks of paper. MMmmmmm. But today I kind of lurked around listlessly, half-melted from the heat, mired in indecision about the purchase of an expensive but adorable photo album. It led me into this highly IDIOTIC line of thinking:


Internal Voice #1: "I should get this CUTE photo album, and put it out for display for Babycakes' birthday party!"

Internal Voice #2: "Shit, it's $65. Put it back. And when are you going to actually sit down and put in pictures and do the captions?"

IV#1: "But it's so CUTE, and it's something she can have for the rest of her life -- this chronicle of her first year."

IV#2: "But what if you have other kids, are you prepared to make them albums that are EQUALLY cute, so that they don't feel jealous of Babycakes' $65 pimped out first year photo album?"

[Enter Internal Voice #3]

IV#3: "YOU WON'T HAVE MORE CHILDREN. SO WHAT THE HELL DOES IT MATTER. BLOW THE WHOLE WAD ON THIS ONE."


That's when the song "Fields of Gold" came on the radio at the store (performed by Logan Wells), and I started to blubber. Right there. In front of the piles of thank you notes. I knew I needed to reach out, so I told the store clerk and a nice woman ordering baptism invitations that "Fields of Gold" was making me cry, because it reminded me of my wedding video.

And they were really nice about it, but I know that they were probably thinking that my idiocy was increasing by the minute.

Sunday Summary

* Yum. Our pal J. came over last night and taught me some of her Pittsburgh-ingrained Pizza Master MAD SKILLZ. I actually woke up this morning MISSING the pizza, wishing we hadn't eaten all of it. Who knew that Trader Joe's makes such a badass wheat pizza dough? Well, they do. And we ate all of it.

* Spider Epilogue. Regarding the MASSIVE spider I found in my husband's office -- when he returned that night, he determined the KILL the spider with a shoe -- right there on the nice rug. I felt compassion for the spider (and the rug), so I stopped him, and using a cardboard box, a piece of paper and the aluminum pan lid, I removed the spider. I left it in the opened box, out in the backyard, to seek its fortunes. BUT the next morning, Otto discovered the spider still in the box. And ate it.

* Literature. I'm reading "The Girlfriends' Guide to Toddlers," and it's really good. I like Vicky Iovine's writing style, and the information is presented in such a non-stress-inducing fashion, that I find it a gratifying read. See, I responded to Babycakes' new "toddler" status the way I do to any new stimulus in my lfe: I found a bunch of books about it. My sister and husband have joked that if/when I ever decide to take up tennis, I will hole myself up with a stack of books on the subject (regarding the life of Arthur Ashe, etc.) before I ever set foot on a court. I also bought "The Toddlers' Busy Book" which is kind of simplistic, and contains interesting juicy references to "The Lord," but still -- we had a whale of a time making the bean-filled bottles the author suggested, and are STILL enjoying them. So, it was worth it.

* If I WISH that I'm pregnant hard enough, can I be? Can I? Can I, huh?

Weather WTF

I'd like to issue an official "WTF" regarding the weather.

Not ONLY is it due to be 107 degrees here again, but there is NO RELIEF IN SIGHT. I desperately thumbed through the newspaper this morning, trying to find a map that contained some sort of approaching blue spiky "cold front" over the Pacific Ocean -- and if we can only hang in there for "X" more days, then YEAH, it will be normal again!

BUT NO. It is going to be hot all the way into the forseeable future. There is NO GOOD NEWS.

It's one thing to be a grown-up experiencing all of this humid, disastrous heat. It's another to be a toddler who weeps every time I close the front door -- so BADLY does she want to go outside. From the minute she was born, Babycakes has been an OUTSIDE kind of kid. And I've trapped her inside throughout this (now-determined-to-be-endless) heat wave, so she's beginning to take on the attributes of a feral kitten -- biting, pissing, and generally being an impressive force of entropy throughout our home.

I'm at a loss as to what to do. Residents of California have been asked to not run their washers or dryers unless it's the dead of night. So now I'm wearing the frumpiest possible stretchy-clothing, purchased back when I thought I would be a tubby pregnant lady by now. And Hub-D's gym socks have become science experiments, and we are all trapped in a sealed-up house with said socks, stinking and sweating.

I'm plotting a trip into the city on public transportation. Because the train is air conditioned, right? And entertaining for a toddler, yes? And the city is supposed to max out at 87 degrees, so this seems like a quality brainstorm... or...

Reporting on the spider

I just went into Hub-D's office, where I'm moving the wine fridge. We bought the wine fridge in a fit of pre-pregnancy yuppie wine idolatry which has since passed, and it's now best used to refrigerate Hub-D's water bottles. So, anyway, I was moving it to his office, when I discovered what MIGHT be the BIGGEST spider in California.

Much like Babycakes's poo of a week ago, instead of DEALING with the situation, I photographed it. I'm totally a New York Times reporter in that way, I believe. It's my duty in this household to make a record of its goings on. I can't ALSO be responsible for actually CLEANING the poo, or removing the spider.

I called Hub-D at the office and reported his resident arachnid, and he asked if I could just kill it.

AAAH! WHAT!? That's against my photojournalist ETHICS!

Anyway, I very heroically threw a lid from my pasta pot over the spider, and there he sits.

Seventeen ROCKS!

I came across an issue of Seventeen a few days ago, and it was really, well, AWESOME.

I know it's for women who are HALF my age, but it was so refreshing for several reasons:

* No super-skank slutty articles. Whenever I read Cosmo, I feel like I am the biggest SQUARE. It seems to be written for women who live in big cities and have assorted "partners" and no intention of real commitment, or respect for their bodies. On the other hand, SEVENTEEN was about *kissing* and abstinence, with a few nods toward birth control.

* Well-written articles. Again, this is where "women's" magazines fall flat. They are so poorly written, and even Good Housekeeping (my former favorite women's magazine) has taken a nose-dive quality-wise. As a publicist myself, I can spot publicity-driven articles from a mile away and they gross me out (oh, unless they were placed by my agency, in which case they are fascinating and Pulitzer-worthy). This issue of Seventeen seemed immune from this -- their articles were about (1) A high school in which 13% of the girls are pregnant (JUUUUICY), (2) A young woman whose mother is a meth addict, and how she copes, (3) A simple and accessible explanation of global warming that was more moving to me than Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth". Good for you, Seventeen!

* Normal fashion. Whenever I flip through Glamour or other fashion-oriented publications for grown-ups, I feel like the fashions presented there are inaccessible to suburban-dwelling gals like me, who don't have access to the boutiques of New York City, and WHY do I want to wear those strangely-layered mismatched atrocities ANYWAY? Not in Seventeen -- they have helpful fashion advice for EVERYONE, and I was surprised by how much good information about current fashion I gleaned from this one outdated issue. (Oh, flats are in, and you can dress them up with a bow? I didn't know that! Thank you.) They divide their fashion advice into different sections -- one for "classic" people like me, another for kind of EDGY ladies. So that way, I'm not trying to pair a polo shirt with deep black eye make-up. Awesome, Seventeen!

* Reader input. That magazine is jam-packed with reader commentary and guest reader editors and they even had a big fashion spread featuring a somewhat overweight reader from Tennessee. I couldn't stop staring at the pictures -- it was so genuine, and the model was SMILING! Thumb through any ordinary fashion magazine, and you'll notice how DOWN all the models look. They are actively frowning, even in bridal magazines. [Hub-D has enjoyed looking at bridal fashion magazines in the past, at all of the brides WALLOWING in MISERY.] But the readers are front-and-center, and gleeful in Seventeen, and I really enjoyed seeing what young women are "into" these days. It's not what well-meaning editors in a NYC office THINK that young women ought to be into, but REAL input from girls all around North America.

So I am thinking about subscribing. I like the people who are in this magazine, and the content has gotten SO MUCH BETTER than what I remember when I was a teenager. Either that, or the content in other women's magazines is so GODAWFUL, that Seventeen is now a shining star of journalism in comparison.

I also really wouldn't mind Babycakes thumbing through Seventeen. With the normal-shaped models and compelling stories ("See baby, at least your mom is not a METH ADDICT!"), it might be just her speed.

Gymbo Haunts

Is there some kind of SERVICE or perhaps a charity organization I can contact to remove the Gymboree songs from my head? It would almost be OK if it was just ONE of the Gymboree songs. Then I could say, "Oh, THAT song, yeah THAT one drives me crazy."

But no, they all seem to emerge randomly, like old splinters from my subconscious, when I least expect it.

Today it's that highly irritating ditty:

"Gymbo the clown goes up for YOOOOOOOOOOOOOU,
Then goes back down for PEEKABOO...."

The music, in the grandly unimaginative Gymboree style, is just the SCALE. It's just do-re-me-fa-so-la-ti-doooooo. Then backwards. And here I am, cooking up a batch of yogurt-macaroni-and-cheese (in my sick reliance on DAIRY to nourish my child), singing it over and over and OVER. If I close my mouth, it just sings in my HEAD.

GET OUT OF MY HEAD, GYMBO! You're like CHUCKY... of the MIND.

"We are all meant to shine."

I decided today not to feel bad anymore about parenting a child who has been born filled with light, adventure, beauty and precociousness. Up until now, I wondered if I was being too risky and wild with my little girl.

I am proud to declare that my baby wears dirty clothes and has sesame seeds imbedded in her neck folds. She is rambunctious, opens and closes doors, and has become truly unstoppable. But it's not like I let her run in the road naked at 8:30 at night, chased by a gang of kids with a cold hose! Oh wait, I do.

But see, the thing is, she's having so much fun, and she's OK. She's OK walking in her bare feet in the grass. She's OK eating a few rose petals. She's OK when she gets a little sunburn on a place I missed with the lotion. She's OK putting her whole head underwater at swim class, eating spicy food, getting scrapes and bumps, moving the furniture, eating all the flaps off of her Elmo book and hanging upside down from her ankles.

I know she's OK because she is happy and glad for the freedom. Babycakes and I live on the edge, it seems, compared to the calm life prescribed for babies in their first year, and I have, in the past, wondered if I will eventually RUE my zen-like attitude about her extremely adventurous nature.

I started out as a cautious mom, before her personality began to unfold. I tried to keep her in her snap-in infant carseat, but she HATED the confinement so she's been in a big-girl convertible seat since she was three months old. Now she thinks all of her baby toys are STUPID, and she wants to run, in a pack, with all of the older kids on our block.

[The kids are nice to her in general, but she can't talk, she runs slow, and she steals their food with no remorse whatsoever. So she's not as popular as she wishes.]

I keep thinking: She's only TEN MONTHS OLD! She's supposed to be pulling herself up on things, exploring her world from a calm, observant point of view. Apparently she's not reading "What to Expect in the First Year" because she's RUNNING, I tell you. She's talking to all of the dogs in the neighborhood in a strangely authoritative manner (and they listen!). She eats almost everything we eat -- but she DOESN'T want me to cut it into smaller chunks, no, she wants the whole banana (with the peel, thanks). (I chop her food up anyway, because SISTER, you do NOT want to see what a diaper filled with whole blueberries and black beans looks like. OK?)

Today I came across that old Marianne Williamson quote about fear. I now realize how often I try to put Babycakes' light under a bushel -- minimizing her precocious accomplishments for my own stupid reasons, and trying to fit her in other babies' molds.

No more! What follows is my own bastardization of the Williamson quote, followed by the original. And to all you wild babies out there: RUN! Here comes the hose!!!

"Our deepest fear is not that our children are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that our children are powerful beyond measure. It is their light, not their darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who is she to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who is she not to be? She is a child of God. Her playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking her so that other people won't feel insecure around her. We are all meant to shine. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our child's light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same, for themselves and their children."


Marianne Williamson's original quote, from "A Return To Love: Reflections on the Principles of A Course in Miracles":

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

Nanny Quandary

Woke up an hour early this morning, stewing and worrying about childcare.

Here is the issue: I kind of don't WANT childcare. But Nanny D. is fantastic, so ought I keep her, so that if/when I should get pregnant (aka debilitated), we are set with a great person?

She's asked to reduce her hours for this semester, but to keep the same salary, essentially taking her salary to $20/hour. Even in California this seems exorbitant. I bristled at the idea of paying her the SAME, for fewer hours. And she told me she might have to quit then. Eeek.

The situation would be clearer in my head if I didn't philosophically want to NOT HAVE CHILDCARE in the first place. Am I crazy? If I want to spend every waking hour with my child, am I even rational? Is this post-miscarriage insanity, as I HUG on Babycakes with no mercy, and stare at her gorgeousness for hours on end?

When Nanny D shows up, I sometimes resent her presence -- I vacillate between seeing her as an expensive interloper and a GODSEND who makes it possible for me to take a shower, particularly now that Hub-D is spending more time in the office.

So if I officially reduce her hours, she's unhappy and poor. And if we keep paying her for more work than she does, am I a heartless sucker?

GAH! Ah, Babycakes is awake. I shall fly to her and obsess over her every pore!

Mama goes PEE-PEE on the POTTY

"Guess WHAT? It's time for Mama to go PEE-PEE! Hooray for Mama! (I clap.)"

(Babycakes claps.)

"Come with Mama. Come to the bathroom. You can look at your bath toys and Mama will go PEE-PEE!"

(Babycakes doesn't budge.)

"No really, it will be awesome. It's PEE-PEE in the POTTY time for Mama."

(I plunk Babycakes down in front of the toilet.)

....

"Wow, check this out, Babycakes, Mama is a BIG GIRL. She's going PEE-PEE in the POTTY! Can you hear it? That's the sound of Mama going PEE-PEE!"

(Babycakes stands up, makes for the toilet handle.)

"No no, Babycakes, don't flush the potty yet. It's ALMOST time, because Mama is a big girl she goes PEE-PEE here, and someday YOU will be a big girl and you will go PEE-PEE on the POTTY and you can flush the toilet EVERY SINGLE TIME!"

(She bats my hand away in a frenzied pursuit of the toilet handle.)

"Mama is still using the toilet. After she's done, you can flush the POTTY for her... STOP IT."

(Ignores mother, tries to shimmy her little hand up under my hand, which is cupped over the handle.)

"OK! Mama is DONE going PEE-PEE on the POTTY. You can flush!"

(Flush)
(Flush)
(Flush)
(Flush)
(Flush)

(I stand there, calculating the cost of water, and potential cost to the environment while my child jiggles the heck out of the handle.)

"OK! Enough! When you start going PEE-PEE in the POTTY, you can flush all you want. Is it a deal?"

(Flush)

People Babycakes Resembles, Redux

My friend L., returning from a long trip to discover Babycakes in full mobile mode, declared her to be "VERY Tevya."

Tevya is the main character from Fiddler on the Roof who happens to dance with his hands in the air all of the time. This is Babycakes, stomping from place to place, with her arms kind of artfully raised in the air, occasionally pointing to her destination in her grand excitement of locomotion.

On a completely unrelated note, the raccoon just tried to come in the house again. Hub-D hollered and chased him out of the house, but I feel so SORRY for him. I mean, is he getting enough to EAT??? Stanley is now sitting by the cat door hissing and growling under his breath. Some show -- where were you five minutes ago, Stan, when I was having a heart attack and waving around a leather journal I received as a trade show promotion and a "Vinny's Tampon Case", banging them against the walls and halfheartedly discouraging the raccoon from entry?

Off to bed.

Sunday Summary

I'm going to make this quick, because I promised myself a TOFUTTI CUTIE this evening, and it's calling to me, in a sweet little "Siren"-like voice from the freezer. Did I mention it's the PEANUT BUTTER KIND? Yeah, it is. So you understand.

* Bratty baby, brattier mom. Tonight was the first time in history that it really seemed like Babycakes was being a pain in the butt -- ON PURPOSE. I know that's a totally Joan Crawford thing to say about a rambunctious, curious baby, but what other conclusion do you draw about a child who first destroys your entire kitchen, unearthing a package of Oreos and secretly devouring one, then this same child takes the whole tray of meticulously chopped-up, well-flavored ORGANIC-freakin' food I have created and chucks the whole thing upside-down on the floor? Don't think I didn't just let her eat it right off the floor. By the time I wrestled her into the bath, and she kept reaching for and removing the tub stopper -- over and OVER again -- I just used the "F"-word -- boldly and proudly, I just told her to "F"-ing stop it. And it was kind of therapeutic in a completely inappropriate kind of way.

* Progesterone Envy. Another dear friend has cropped up pregnant. Strange how I'm HUNGRY for people to be pregnant now. I want to be surrounded by that pregnant energy, even though I'm mourning a miscarriage that happened not even a month ago. Am I going to turn into one of those freakish women on "Lifetime" movies who pretends to be pregnant then steals another person's baby? Probably.

* Speaking of which, the Garden of Grief has TOTALLY sprouted. There are maybe 30 sunflower sprouts, concentrated in various blobs around my carefully spaced and planted gardens, but who gives a crap if they're not in straight rows? Something GERMINATED.
If I gave my garden a pregancy test, it would totally be positive.

* Cooking Hubris. I have turned into a way better cook than I ever was, just kind of out of necessity. I can't believe I'm making dinners and my family is eating them (or chucking them on the floor, as the case may be). This means we're eating better portions, more organic stuff, saving money, and, oh yeah, did I mention I spend my WHOLE LIFE in the kitchen? In the company of a 10-month-old unstoppable force of destruction?

Yeah, so about that Tofutti Cutie. Yeah, you. We've got a date, don't think I didn't forget.

Weekend at Bernie's

Talking today with my friend A. as we braised ourselves in a wading pool, I mulled over the categorization of my involvement with work.

I think there are four different categories of work involvement, of which I'm the fourth:

(1) Full-Time
(2) Part-Time
(3) Occasional Consulting
(4) Weekend at Bernie's

See, "Weekend at Bernie's" is a movie about a couple of guys who prop up a dead guy (taking him water-skiing, etc.) for various hilarious reasons, with a surprising degree of success.

I'm definitely not dead, but I'm so OUT OF IT. We're signing clients and hiring people and everything is marching along, especially because of Hub-D's hard work -- he keeps the fires stoked and has worked with our VP to maintain the agency's profitability in my long-term, maybe-never-gonna-end absence.

The "Weekend at Bernie's" analogy is most relevant when we have a big client who wants to meet with ME. My name (my maiden name, anyway) is still on the front door, so sometimes, when a big account is on the line, it makes sense for them to trot ME out in front of the potential client, leaky boobs and all.

And I feel so OUT OF IT -- really, I have no idea what's going on in our industry. Did the PS3 come out yet? I don't think so, but it COULD HAVE and it would have completely escaped my notice. So our #2 VP sits behind me in these meetings giving me prompts, and butting in when I start waxing poetic about shitty diapers.

Maybe I'm not totally "Bernie" -- I think this old mare still has some professional kick left in her -- but compared to my involvement when I started the company and the first four years, I'm basically a corpse, waterskiing behind a boat, because REALLY NOW, could you leave THIS at home????

Psychic

Always one to be sucked in by things I'm reading, and self-centered enough to think that everything is just a LITTLE bit like ME, now I think I'm psychic. Oh, not just me, but Hub-D, totally.

I just finished a book by Allison Dubois, the inspiration for the TV show "Medium," which, yes, I love. She discusses many things in her book -- how those who have "passed" still linger among us, and what she SEES. She discusses the idea that many people have psychic tendencies, but they don't know what to make of them as children, so they shut them out.

It reminded me of the time when I was little and I became convinced that a woman in Victorian clothing was hanging around in my mother's study. I even drew a picture of her. Who knows, I probably got it from some book, but WHAT IF I was totally psychic and SEEING DEAD PEOPLE? And then because my parents didn't take it seriously, I repressed my GIFT?

Anyway, all of this leads me to a line of thinking regarding my miscarriage. I've been super-sad about it again -- I really does come in waves -- like contractions of grief. I thought about how, despite the fact I had so many initial symptoms of pregnancy, I denied that it was possible, but then, when I had irrefutable proof that I was pregnant, my first instinct was to schedule a CVS test -- a fairly invasive early pregnancy determination of birth defects.

I scheduled the test THAT DAY, when I found out I was pregnant, even though it wouldn't take place for 10 weeks in the future. Then I shared with many people my thoughts about the coming baby -- I felt protective of Babycakes, and determined that I would do anything to protect my CURRENT family against a child with birth defects.

Yes, probably every expectant mom mulls over birth defects when they are in their first trimester -- the fear of the unknown, and the terrible stories you collect when pregnant. But I felt pretty sure the baby DID have birth defects, and I was on a mission to get tested on the very first possible day, in order to determine if my hunch was correct.

I did get excited, obviously, about the prospect of adding a child to the family, but I remember, the day before my miscarriage, reaching down and rubbing my belly and feeling like it was an UNWELCOME presence somehow. I told my friends, as we took a hike in the hills nearby, that I felt fiercly protective of Babycakes and Hub-D, and our current familial bliss, and I wanted to know ASAP whether this kid would ruin it.

Strange thinking, I suppose. And by that point, the embryo had "passed" anyway. The next morning the bleeding started.

So now, because I'm obsessed with Allison Dubois, I'm wondering -- is the embryo still "with us" the way dead people are? Oh that's just bizarre thinking, and in order to truly determine whether this is the case, I would need to employ a legitimate psychic.

DON'T think I didn't look into it. A psychic could also tell me whether I would conceive and fully gestate future progeny -- relieving me of my reproductive sadness and obsession. It's $350 for a reading from a legitimate psychic.

The people who are the "real thing" really demand a pretty penny.

What am I? Nancy Reagan!??? Anyway, I'm psychic, so I ought to be able to see it myself, yes?

CSI

Yesterday, Babycakes woke up screaming, just a half-hour into her afternoon nap. I waited to go in, just in case it was a mid-sleep holler, which happens upon occasion.

But the screaming just increased in volume and intensity, so I came in... only to discover a MASSIVE CRIME SCENE.

It involved multiple pandas, a hand-made blanket, her entire sheet, mattress pad, and of course, her ENTIRE BODY was covered in poooooop.

It was a serious fecal situation, and my immediate response was to create a to-do list:

(1) Bathe child
(2) Take PICTURES
(3) Histrionically clean up all of the poo.

And I'm SORRY that I have to share the photo of what her crib looked like, but it just seems so COMICAL to me. In my previous, pre-Babycakes life, I would never think that poo was funny, even if it was on the shoe of someone I did not like. But now? It's hysterical! And I did not arrange the pandas like this, they were like that when I got there. I had to immediately wash two of them, who had found themselves haplessly in the stream of massive poo-itis that occured in their mistress's crib.



The hand-made blanket was thrown in the wash, as was all of the bedding and clothing. They do not manufacture enough Oxy Clean in the world to satisfy me at moments such as these.

And is it mean to take a picture of one's child crying? I mean, there she is, calling out for comfort, and I'm snappin' away, like a heartless paparazzi. Well, yes it is mean, but when you are dealing with a CRIME SCENE, sometimes it makes sense to snap a few photos of the criminal herself.

(I will let it be known, for the record, that the crying photo was taken AFTER her bath, when she is poop-free, and I believe she was crying because I wouldn't let her suck on Panda. Because he was NOT poop-free, and, my friends, it seems he always shall remain a little poopy.)

Prizewinning tart

I'm still busting my buttons with pride, having come in THIRD in a baking contest last week. The fact I placed among the winners is a miracle, as I had never in my life made, or consumed, a tart.

My mother has posted the recipe here.

I made the Blueberry Almond Tart. And if you ever want a tart pan, the only store that professes to stock one is Williams-Sonoma.

Sharing is for suckers

I have been thinking a lot about sharing.

On the playground today, there was a lot of SHARING, or prompts to "share" by nervous adults who didn't want their children to seem GREEDY.

I'm all for the concept of sharing. As adults, we have a kind of formalized sharing system in place. Our taxes go to the roads, which we SHARE, and our schools, which we SHARE, and the military and the judicial system -- all stuff we share. Government is a giant abstract SHARING system, and it's cool and we all tacitly agree to participate in it by living in this country.

However, we ask our kids to share material objects in a way that WE never do. We almost never model the behavior we'd like them to exhibit, so we shouldn't be shocked when they clutch objects to their chest (99% of these disputed objects are sand shovels) and holler: "MINE!"

If someone I didn't know walked up my driveway, opened up my car door, sat behind the wheel and pretended to drive my car, saying, "Vrrrrooooom!" excitedly, I would call the COPS! And even if he CRIED when the police told him he had to get out of my car, I still wouldn't share with him. Get out of my CAR, mofo!

Or if my parents randomly invited a bunch of weirdos over to my house, and they were sitting in our hot tub drinking our wine, I'd grab a bunch of towels, and kick 'em out, hissing admonishments. But if WE invite kids over for OUR kids to play with, and share their bedrooms and their toys, etc., they HAVE TO! They have to accept this raft of strangers who get saliva on their stuff, poop on their changing tables, drool in their cribs. "We're going to SHARE today with our little friends, Babycakes! Won't it be fun?"

No! It doesn't sound like fun. It sounds like a total invasion of personal space and property.

We ask our children to be like the Indian nations, to live as though there were no delineation between their property and another's, but WOE BETIDE the people who want to share with US. Heck, we don't even let our kids share our stuff.

NO, you can't borrow the remote control. That's OURS.
NO, you can't borrow the butcher knife. That's OURS.
You can't borrow the newspaper, that silk blouse, the soy candles I got on eBay, the curling iron, the bank statement or most anything I'm eating.

Why? Because it's MINE, and I'll tell you it's "bad" for you, but mostly it's because I don't want your spit and sticky fingers on it.

So am I going to force Babycakes to share once she's old enough to uncling her grip on treasured toys? Yeah, probably, but I'm also going to bring about 50 sand shovels to the playground, so maybe the subject won't come up.

She advances, I retreat

Just when I think I've gotten into the swing of motherhood, Babycakes seems to have entered a new developmental stage which has me scrambling to catch up again.

Now that she's walking, she wants to do things like RIDE BIKES and swing across the monkey bars and fly a kite and about 1000 other things for which she lacks manual dexterity. It's exciting, watching her light up when she sees other people engage in these activities. I sit there and explain to her WHEN she'll be able to do these things, many of which are predicated upon walking effectively, but it falls on deaf ears...

"Mama, I want a bike/kite/jungle gym." (Or at least that's what she seems to be saying, with some level of exasperation...)

She's also deep into a new stage of separation anxiety, whereby I am chastised by pitiful weeping whenever I leave the room. Of course I think that I am bringing it on by NOT spending 24 hours a day with her (babysitter/non-co-sleeper/weaning guilt), and not somehow "training" her to deal with my absence, but the reality is, she just wants me to hang around at ALL TIMES, no questions asked.

But she doesn't want to PLAY with me when I'm there. She's not really into my singing, and my dancing has her deeply unimpressed. She doesn't get into game-playing, really, but she wants me to be her Sacajawea -- toting all of her stuff, kind of bringing up the rear -- a funny sidekick and trail guide, a good mascot, but certainly not the star of the show.

I've tried explaining to Hub-D how BORING it is being her pack mule and chauffeur, now that she doesn't want to play/sing/dance with me, but he knows how much I still enjoy being her mom. It's all worth it for those few moments that she'll turn to me and gleam a smile with her pea-pearl bottom teeth, and shift her weight so that her forehead touches mine.

Yeah, she throws me a bone every so often, and it fills me with glee. Enough so that when my 5:50am wake-up call comes around, I'm ALWAYS happy to see her. Even if she's got poopy diapers and a litany of complaints. I love my kid so damn much. I may just be a remote supporting character in her life, but I'm SO SO SO happy to be in the play.

Where does Prince go?

Prince is our sweetest cat -- comically thinner than his chubby twin brother, he always wants to rub noses, and snuggle and be carried around like a wee babe.

But after his morning dose of lovin', he is TAKES OFF to points unknown. Otto and Stanley hang around us all day long, just in case anything exciting should happen, e.g., a can of tuna might get opened.

Prince, however, disappears completely for about 8-10 hours each day.

Does he have a JOB? That'd be nice. Is he going to some little kitty gym, where he works off all his Costco-brand high-carb food? Does he have another life with another family, like in that wicked film, "The Stepfather?"

No matter... around sunset he reappears, full of sweetness and light, purring to beat the band, a few prickers lodged in his fur, filled with mystery.

Hub-D suggested a kitty GPS system, and I fantasize about a little camera on his collar. Where in the world does Prince GO?

Perms

I think I'm a pretty attractive person, kind of objectively speaking. Sure there are things I might change about myself (read: saving for a postpartum BOOB JOB), but I have always had good looks on my side.

OR SO I THOUGHT.

My mother brought a passel of photos for my viewing pleasure this weekend, and I was hurtled back into the reality... that I had -- from 1983-1989 -- the WORST PERMS IN THE WORLD.

I was trying to fit in -- our proximity to New Jersey dictated that PERMS were just the thing for being a hot chick in the 80's.

And the perms didn't look so bad on other girls. They had hair that kind of handled perms better, I guess, or they knew how to style it so it didn't look so ASS-ISH.

I suppose it's time to present an example. Here, cringing, I attach a photo of myself at 14 with a fresh perm:

I am seated in this photo next to my friend J. I cut him out of the photo because, well, would YOU want to be in this photo? If you look closely, you can see that I've put a bow in my hair, but you can't find it because I look like a damn sheepdog. WHY didn't someone stop me? And why were my parents routinely laying out the $60 or so in order to damage my hair, my appearance and ALL of my teenage photos irreparably? Did they hate me?

I thought this shirt was awesome. These are paisleys on a white shirt, and you can tell by how meticulously I have folded the sleeves back that I was DRESSED UP for this visit with J. This outfit and hairdo were the apex of what I was able to achieve at this time. So sad -- if I just had a little lipstick and no damn perm, I bet J. would have totally been my boyfriend.

****

Flash forward, through two years of bad perms and hair growth, to age 16:

I worked HARD to style my hair in these perms. I would use a curling iron every morning, curling my bangs under and curling a kind of "croissant" of hair back from the second layer of bangs. Sometimes I'd curl additional layers in order to make the front as fluffy as possible, then I'd hairspray the entire concoction until it stood, solid, from my scalp, surrounded by these layers of chemically induced "waves," and I thought it looked kind of hot.

Of course, by the time I reached the bus stop, the whole thing would be falling down in greasy-looking loops, and I'd spend the rest of the day catching my reflection and trying to kind of pile it all back together into the giant croissant.

This photo was taken in the middle of summer, and my lunch companions are sporting their own bad perms, but this is my own confession. They can do penance in their own ways. It just makes me sad to think of all of the hours of my precious young life that I spent screwing up my hair.

I just looked at Google Images to see if I could find a stock photo of a WORSE perm, so that I could say, "Yeah, but at least I didn't look like THIS! Ha ha ha!" But there are none to be had. I am the winner of this sad contest.

But the GOOD NEWS is that the minute I arrived at college, my roommates took one look at me and commanded that I NEVER use the curling iron again, that I NEVER get another perm, and that I grow out my bangs tout de suite. Thank you, thank you, thank you, ladies.

Sunday Summary

* My mother is in town, dunking Babycakes in a wading pool in the front yard, buck naked. The baby is buck naked, not my mom, who is fully clothed.

* Three little tiny sprouts have emerged in my Garden of Grief. Are they sunflowers? Weeds? I don't know, but I'm sure glad to have them. The garden gets an extreme amount of sun every day, so even though I water it twice a day, I fear the soil has not been moist enough to germinate the seeds I planted during my peak of grief. Now I'm WAY too lazy to cut up plastic garbage bags and place them with rocks over the G.o.G. so that the seeds will stay moist and germinate, as my mother has advised.

* This miscarriage has been nothing but a heartbreaking bother: My hair has fallen out, I've re-developed the pregnancy-related allergy to my wedding ring, I got a ring of chub around my middle, not to mention pimples, oh and BEING SAD ALL THE TIME. Heartbreaking pain in the ass.

* I have programmed my iPod for the first time, and now I drive around town inattentively, singing John Denver tunes I paid 99 cents for on iTunes.
These include: "Thank God I'm a Country Boy!" "Matthew" and "Rhymes and Reasons." Incidentally, when my friend M. and I went to the John Denver concert in 1991, we were dismayed when he pulled up in a black limousine, as he specifically directs AGAINST black limousines in "Thank God I'm a Country Boy!"

* We tried out "The Little Gym" -- a competitor to "Gymboree." It's basically the same schtick -- throwing kids in parachutes and making them jump on puffy crap -- but at the end of every song, instead of singing "Here at Gymboree!" they sing "At the LITTLE GYM!" Hub-D and I have started singing "At the LITTLE GYM" at the end of everything we say, as in: "This diaper is filled with black blueberry poo!... at the LITTLE GYM!"

* My office STILL reeks like raccoon hide. He hasn't been in the house for weeks, and yet it smells like he's on my lap right now.

* We have gone soft from living in the suburbs. Yesterday we went to a housewarming party at the home a friend bought within the housing projects in the city. If Hub-D and I were cats, we would have been creeping around, bellies low to ground, with our ears pinned back and huge pupils -- on high alert for danger. I'm just not used to that area anymore, even though I used to bike through it every night on my way home from work.

* I think it is entirely possible to spend all of one's life in the kitchen. There is always something to do there, be it choppin' or cookin' or cleanin'. Babycakes is all for spending the rest of our lives in the kitchen, particularly as she grows taller and is able to reach increasingly fascinating drawers. Yesterday, she located the CANDLE drawer for the first time, and gnawed her way through the soy candles I found on eBay. Where does one put one's candles and plastic bags and 409 when one has a baby? I've babyproofed the cabinet with the garbage can and Raid, but there are so many gray areas... the glass measuring cup? I don't KNOW.

* I'm starting to really WANT some things that I didn't want before. Is it the suburbs' influence, or is because I'm almost 35? I want a puppy or some other young, impressionable dog who will not bite my child, and I want a bigger car, like, say a RAV-4. See, we were going to get a bigger car when I got pregnant (because two car seats will NOT fit in the Camry), but now we're in suspense -- will I get pregnant again? And in the meantime, do we have to subsist on one vehicle? Is it totally lazy to have two cars? And the dog thing, is that complete insanity?

* My child, who is 10 months old, wears a 4 1/2 EW shoe. And the shoe STILL has to be stretched by the store to make it fit her foot. Is it OK that I am SUPER PROUD of my child's Sasquatch-esque tootsies?

* I don't know what to do with my life right now. Babycakes still wants to hang with me, kind of, although I'm a little boring, and she'd rather rip all of the flaps off of her Elmo book if it's all the same to me. And the office is running GREAT without me most of the time because Hub-D is doing so many things I used to. See, this was the time I had sketched into my grand LIFE PLAN for gestating another baby. But I'm not, so I'm kind of adrift. What do I do? Last night I picked up a "Better Homes and Gardens Baby Scrapbooking Guide" and I started totally salivating over the interesting ways you can preserve your child's early years. They even had a little scrapbooking FRAME for the positive pregnancy test. I had to close the book at that point because positive pregnancy tests still make me sad.

* Finally, did you know that COWS and BULLS populate most of the hiking trails in our area? I think it's AWESOME, but my mother, who knows about 1000 times more about livestock than I do, thinks it's scary.

I'll close with John Denver's "Rhymes and Reasons." I miss you, John, you limo-ridin' hippie...

"You wonder where we're going
Where's the rhyme and where's the reason?
And it's you who cannot accept,
It is here we must begin
To seek the wisdom of the children
And the graceful way of flowers in the wind."

Wait for Lloyd Dobler

I dropped off a few of Hub-D's shirts at the cleaners, and I asked if they could replace a few broken buttons. The woman behind the counter asked, "OK if we just use a black button? No way I can match that color."

Having consigned Hub-D's shirt to a mismatched button, I remembered the LENGTHS I went to to replace a button on another guy's shirt, way back in 1996, just 'cause I liked him. It had been a purple button, so I believe that I asked my friend S. to express mail a purple button to me, so that I could replace it.

WHAT did I think that would gain me? Did I think this guy would fall for me because I somehow magically repaired his shirt with JUST the right color button? And, perhaps a better question -- what was I doing hanging around guys who wore shirts with PURPLE BUTTONS in the first place?

I don't know. I was just grasping at straws in my dating life -- completely down the wrong path with the wrong guys -- guys who didn't like me as much as I liked them. LORD the time I wasted on these fellows who didn't even LIKE me! At the time, I believed that if I dialled JUST the right combination on them, they would start liking me back.

From my wise, married, joyful perspective now, I can see what an idiotic pursuit this was. I didn't have much in common with these guys, so it's GOOD that none of these things worked out, that no matter how much of a GROUPIE I was, or how many purple buttons I sewed on (maybe I even bought purple thread too) -- I had the completely WRONG idea about how love worked.

Someday, Babycakes is going to notice boys other than her handsome daddy, and she's going to embark on her own dating adventures. Here is my advice for her: DON'T work to impress anyone other than your future husband.

This doesn't mean that she should just slack off until the man of your dreams comes waltzing in -- this means, having faith that she will meet her match someday, that she should work to make herself an interesting, attractive, open-minded, open-hearted woman. She should pursue interesting career paths, she should take care of her body, she should be kind to men who ask her out (but don't feel obligated to accept), and -- for the love of all that is holy -- she should not date anyone who doesn't like her as much as she likes him. EVER. And your future husband will love and appreciate all of this.

See, in my 20's, I would go into overdrive when I met a dude I liked. There were cases where we weren't even DATING, but I would be changing myself into the kind of woman I thought he would like, desperately tap-dancing for him to notice me, for him to approve of me, and give me LOVE. No, that doesn't work, Babycakes! Don't do that.

Instead, make yourself fascinating. Follow things that interest YOU, listen to music that interests YOU, wear clothes that make YOU feel beautiful, accept jobs that advance you professionally, and remain true to yourself, your friends and your family.

If you've been hanging around a guy, on a "friend"-like basis, and you just think he's terrific and you want to go out with him -- take a HINT. A guy isn't going to let a woman hang around him on a "friend" basis if he's interested in a romantic relationship with her. Men are programmed, by nature, to pursue that which interests them. If things aren't going anywhere, move on, get busy with other things. I believe now that you don't need to ask HIM out, you don't have to drop huge hints, and you DON'T NEED TO REPLACE HIS MISSING PURPLE BUTTONS.

Sure, when I met Hub-D, I threw myself at him, but he asked me out first.

THANK GOODNESS I didn't ask him, or get weirdly aggressive, or try to change myself to make him like me, or lurk around like a Hub-D groupie. NO, thank goodness I didn't have the chance because he was nuts about me too, and thus short-circuited all of my stupid desperate behaviors.

Yes, Babycakes, stay interested in your own life and your own pursuits. Know what you want in boys that you date -- and what you don't want. Your mama can tell you one thing to add to the list: he has to really, really like you in a bowled-over "you're terrific" John-Cusack-in-Say-Anything kind of way. Otherwise, he's not worth your time.

Your mother has made ALL of the dating errors FOR YOU. So when the time is right (you know, 30-40 years from now) go boldly into your dating life, confident that great men will find YOU, and all you need to do is be your beautiful, brilliant self -- never compromising, never groupie-izing, and having a marvelous time.

I stink

I finally fixed the ads on my blog, but I have begun to take offense regarding the ads that Adsense serves my site.

What's up with the ODOR CONTROL ads? Adsense's conclusion seems to be that readers of this blog are more likely to admit wildlife into their OWN domiciles. God bless all of you and your resident reeking raccoons!

The problem had been my use of LANGUAGE... See, for a long time, I was getting only PSA's -- dumb little ads that were just a set of links for bloggers. After a little research, I learned that this was a result of my use of the word BOOBS all of the time. Some advertisers don't want to be associated with BOOBY sites, and thus, I get the PSA's. My use, a couple weeks back, of the word "labia" really threw my ads for a loop, dooming me to temporary PSA hell -- kind of like DETENTION in high school.

But now I'm getting a slew of interesting ads. Things about doggies and teacher supplies and legitimate businesses with odor control solutions for the army of raccoons that live in everyone's houses. Enjoy!

Animals in the bathroom

It's time to discuss the bathroom walls.

Last night, for the first time, Babycakes really focused on the animals painted on the tiles in her bathroom, and I knew it was TOO LATE. She's spotted them. She will forever be traumatized.

When we first moved into our house, we found these... pieces of... "art" on the bathroom walls. My neighbor K. informed me that the SINK used to have animals painted on it too, but they replaced it, so that's just heresay at this point. Let's stick to the crime we can prove:



This Noah's Ark theme is painted on the tiles surrounding the bathtub, but are painted so high up, they seem intended for adult enjoyment -- best viewed by grown-ups taking a shower. I prayed that Babycakes would not fix her gaze on them, particularly so early in her life.

When I was pregnant, supersick, and hating the world, I spent many, many hours in this bathroom, barfing and taking showers to rinse the barfy skank from my person. I took to memorizing the painted-on animals, staring at them and making up stories so that I wouldn't think about vomiting for two minutes.

The animals VEX. They are so poorly painted, and out of proportion, and several of them sport BIZARRE BLUE EYES with NO PUPILS (a la "Little Orphan Annie" except with wide X-Files-esque blue eyeballs).



As in this camel:









And also, the not-fierce, but dreadfully unhappy tiger...

My friend S. is particularly bothered by the fact there is just ONE of each species (except for the few who are featured with babies). If it's really Noah's Ark, they are all in for a real shock when they realize that they only brought one mature adult of each species.

"Why don't you remove them?" you ask... WE TRIED. Our handyman tried scraping, he tried various chemicals -- everything. The only way to remove the scourge of poorly-painted "wildlife" from the bathroom walls would be to rip out all of the tile in the bathroom and start over again.

So for the time being, we are stuck with the animals, and now, they are implanted in Babycakes' sensitive early childhood memories.

And I also take umbrage with the "Boxing Squirrel".... Float like a butterfly, sting like this angry Beatrix Potter rip-off SQUIRREL! What is going on with this pose???












And this sad tableau -- whereas the depressed, blind zebra has to breathe the farts of the dentally challenged hippopotamus...


Well, at least there is one animal that makes us all happy...
And of COURSE this was the first one Babycakes spotted last night in the bath. PANDA. (Nevermind the lack of pupils. At least his eyeballs are white. Count your blessings.)

"If they could only stay little"

I was just packing up another passel of Babycakes' outgrown clothing, when I started thinking about the Carter's clothing tagline: "If they could only stay little."

Ew! I mean, yeah, she's super cute and it's fun having a baby, but how CREEPY it would be if she actually STAYED LITTLE? No thanks! Would she "stay little" but learn to use the toilet? Would she "stay little" but pursue an education, clambering up with her tiny limbs into her college professors' offices:

"Why don't you ever call on me in class?"
"You're just SO LITTLE! I can't see your itty-bitty hand raising up over the desk!"

I'd like her to be able to date guys -- but presumably she'd have to find other people who "stayed little" because of the directive on their Carter's clothing tag...

"SWF seeks SWM who also STAYED LITTLE for companionship, sympathy, crawling on the beach..."

Nevermind driving the car, or shopping for age-appropriate clothing.

So no thanks, Carter's, I wouldn't want her to stay little. I'm looking forward to her pulling her own weight around here.

Other parents bother me

Who am I to judge other parents? Just a third-prize winner in my neighborhood baking contest, really. And the mother of one ten-month-old baby. But STILL, I have to get something off my chest.

WHY do parents say "OK?" all of the time to their children? It sounds so whiny and submissive when I hear things like, "Jeffrey, don't hit the baby in the face, OK?" "Time for bed, OK?" "Just ONE more dessert, OK?"

GAWD! It drives me berzerk.

Our kids aren't ever going to agree with a point of discipline, really, as discipline runs contrary to their desired actions -- therefore, we just have to be the LAW, like a Gary Cooper sheriff in the Old West: tough, decisive, take-no-prisoners.

But it's easy for me to say this, because my child can't TALK, or reason with us in any intelligible manner. We have just a few rules so far.

We started the "one finger rule" regarding touching the plants and the cats, and anything not intended for human consumption or destruction. That is, she can usually TOUCH whatever it is she wants to touch, but she must get all of her yayas out with one itty-bitty finger, extended by itself, stroking the leaves or the cat's ear. She seems to get this one.

Today I introduced the "don't eat anything your mother hasn't given you" rule. This was specifically applied to the dessicated leaves marinating in canal water atop one of the plastic play structures. This rule pisses her off.

But what, I push around my barely-walking infant, so suddenly I'm Dr. Spock???

I just wish people wouldn't ask their kids if discipline is "OK." I think we parents have to stick together, form a united front of badass sheriffs and say, "Yeah, we don't give a crap what you think, kids. Do what we say anyway."

OK?

Victorious

Well, the suburbs have a new champ, and that'd be me.

I stayed up last night making the filling and the crust for a blueberry almond tart, following my mom's e-mailed instructions and risking waking my child with the loud-as-hell food processor.

But I DIDN'T CARE. I was a woman obsessed. I needed to create a TART for the AGES. I was so worked up about our damn neighborhood tart contest that yesterday afternoon saw me screeching into various parking lots around town, rifling through stores' baking supplies, accosting employees: "DO YOU HAVE A NINE INCH TART PAN? NO!!?? YOU'RE WASTING MY TIME!"

Finally the uppity folks at Williams Sonoma hooked me up with a badass nonstick 9.5" tart pan. (WHY are they so snooty at Williams Sonoma? They work at an overpriced chain store that features too-heavy stewpots and cider-making supplies. People who CAN be snooty: Martha Stewart's actual staff. People who CAN'T be snooty: Williams-Sonoma apron-wearing staff.)

So this morning at 9:30am, exactly on schedule, I poured the blueberry filling into the almond crust and set it into the fridge to "gel," or whatever it is tarts do. Hub-D and Babycakes watched me pouring it from the breakfast nook -- everyone holding their breath. God forbid something would go wrong at that critical tart-production juncture. Not this week. NOT THIS WEEK.

But it fell into place beautifully. The tart felt blessed by the heavens. Earlier this morning, when I was on the final stretch during our town's 4th of July 5K, a strong wind kicked up and pushed my back. I thought, "Thank you, God. That's awesome." Likewise with the tart-filling procedure. Good job, Diety of Tarts.

I decked my daughter in her blue star shirt, and she and I spent the morning decorating her little red wagon, then participating in the annual neighborhood parade. The parade is thus: One of our neighbors carries a radio playing patriotic Sousa music and all of the kids (about 50) and dogs and parents circle the streets in a triumphant, "Hooray for America" manner. Imagine lots of pinwheels, streamers, chaos and no audience, other than the marchers. Everyone in our subdivision is either in the parade, or annoyed by it. It made me happy as a LARK though -- it brought back all of my latent marching band joy, and although Babycakes kept standing up in her wagon and attempting to ingest the flags I had taped to the sides, we had a blast.

So then, it was TIME for the neighborhood block party and concurrent PIE BAKING CONTEST. THEME: TARTS.

I marched over with my blueberry almond tart, hoping no one would be a stickler regarding my use of blackberry jelly for the glaze rather than the traditional red currant jelly. Plus, I had NOT put any showmanship in the tart whatsoever. It was enough to produce it in the first place -- nevermind the glitz and glamor that my competitors put into their tarts. They had friggin' FLOWERS and FLAGS and carved KIWIS on their tarts. My hopes sunk as I unveiled my blueberry tart, glinting in the sunlight, plain and crumbly.

After an eternity of waiting, while I LURKED BEHIND A TREE watching the judges taste the tarts, and bad-mouthed the other tarts to Hub-D, "Dude, that's not even a TART, that's a flag cake. Unconscionable..." -- they announced the winners.

I PLACED THIRD!!!! HOOOOOOORAY!

I couldn't believe that they announced my tart as the winner of the third place prize. It was the first tart I'd made in my life, and I got a BIG prize -- a plexiglass platter, patriotic dishtowels and an APRON for crying out loud. I was so emotional as I accepted my prize, and seized with disbelief -- I'm STILL not sure they didn't make a mistake, as my tart was #4, and they announced the winner as the #3 "Blueberry Crumble."

I beg your pardon, it was NOT meant to be a crumble. But it was the only blueberry entrant, so they must have meant me, and no one begrudged me my prize, so yeah, I WON! Or at least, I placed.

On the walk home, as I clutched my prize to my chest, I told Hub-D that I need to start planning for next year's pie contest. I told him that perhaps I should do something with spun sugar, or create a marzipan replica of our neighborhood. He knew better than to try to talk me down.

Trust

C'mon, go through the TUNNEL! Look, Mama's on the other side of the tunnel. So come THROUGH the tunnel, it will be awesome.

I know it looks creepy in here, but the Gymboree instructor told us that tunnels are about TRUST, so don't you TRUST ME? I won't rock the tunnel that much while you go through it, and I won't cackle with laughter that loud when you become alarmed halfway through.

TRUST ME, baby, come through the TUNNEL.

Sunday Summary

(1) My boobs. Now that the nursing is down to "once in a while when I'm sleepy and trying to get the baby to shut up," my boobs have totally deflated. They look PUBESCENT. Hub-D has put a moratorium on my discussing:
(a) My new, small boobs
(b) Possibly getting a boob job when I'm done having children
(c) "Do you still like my boobs?"
(d) "Really, they're not saggy, but LOOK at them!"
(e) "You're not looking at them. Do you not like them?"

...or any related topics.

(2) The raccoon. He's in the house again. He found the big bag of Costco cat food in my office, and gnawed several holes in it with his insanely sharp teeth. It was the one night I forgot to lock the cat door, so it's my fault, but it pisses me off because the bag now leaks cat food every time I walk into the office, in a pathetic way, like St. Sebastian filled with arrow holes. My father-in-law snapped this photo of the raccoon -- it's NOT a stock photo -- that is the actual raccoon who spends half his life in my house stinking it up.

How did he get the photo? With some telephoto lens? Is he a wildlife photographer by trade? NO. He walked up to it and took its picture, and it posed like a tired celebrity, like, "OK, let's get this over with."

(3) Miscarriage feelings. I started crying again last night. I'm losing so much bodily fluid with this whole thing, I practically need an IV. I've planted the "Garden of Grief" with sunflowers and poppies -- all seeds, no bedded plants -- so we'll see if it even germinates. If it doesn't germinate, I'm just going to lie down in the G.o.G. like Ophelia..."Rosemary is for remembrance..." and give the hell up. Tomorrow is the one week anniversary of my losing the pregnancy. It's sad to me that this miscarriage will only have empty anniversaries -- June 26 -- the day I lost the pregnancy, and February 25, the phantom baby's birthday.

(4) Miscarriage feelings, exploited. I tried to leverage my sadness over the miscarriage into a new pet acquisition, but Hub-D is wise to my tricks. As we drove home from the county fair today, I casually said, "I feel like I need a kitten," and he immediately replied, "We WILL get you pregnant again." We came to a sick but satisfying agreement whereby if I have a second miscarriage, I am allowed to adopt a kitten.

(5) The TART. No, I'm not referring to myself, although it would be accurate because at the county fair, I pointed out a food booth called "Sausage Works" and then riffed on it all day, I am referring to an actual TART. My neighborhood has an annual Fourth of July block party, and there is a baking contest. This year's theme is TARTS. I had to look up in "Fanny Farmer" what the heck a TART even is, and it's basically a short pie with no upper crust, and, to my mind, a way to sell friggin' TART PANS to people like me, who are just gunning for social acceptance on a block filled with seemingly more competent mothers. So now I have about 20 pounds of blueberries lodged into my refrigerator, awaiting my purchase of a GD TART PAN. Have I ever made a TART? Obviously not. Have I ever made a PIE? No. Do I have any skill whatsoever in this arena? NO. But I have a huge rolling pin I received as a wedding present, and a recipe from my mom, so the other moms on this block will HAVE to like me, after they see me strutting around with a blue ribbon on my shirt, "Oh, this? Yes well, I DID make the winning TART -- yes, that was mine! Sure, I can share the recipe with you. If you'll BE MY FRIEND, and SCRAPBOOK with me."

(6) The Steelers. I have found myself clinging to small victories this week, a la Kate Winslet in Titanic, clutching that wooden door in the frosty sea. So here is why I'm excited: The Steelers have cashed our check for game tickets this season -- so we will be receiving tickets to at least one home game. We are over the moon about this -- it's a chance to go home to "The 'Burgh" and watch a game at Heinz Field, where two GIANT KETCHUP BOTTLES spill red neon whenever The Steelers drive into the "red zone." I mean, yeah! C'mon people, that's just awesome. And because I'm not pregnant, it will be FUN and I can drink beer, and everything's going to be OK.

(Including my boobs, right? I mean, because if they aren't I could have a boob job, just say the word...)

Memories of Uta

I don't know if anyone else in the world thinks about Uta Pippig as much has I do. Maybe because I lived in Boston in 1996 and I saw what HAPPENED with my own eyes.

See, on the morning of the Boston Marathon, Uta woke up with some terrible digestive and "female" issues, but being a hearty German and having traveled so far, she thought, "Screw it, I'm going to run ths marathon ANYWAY."

She was the female leader throughout the race, as I recall, and she WON the whole thing. But as the cameras followed her throughout the race, well, let's just say that it was apparent to all of the viewers that Uta was, um... leaking. She didn't care, she just ran it, the whole world watching as she just kept her pace and the scene became grosser and grosser.

I thought of Uta again this morning, in my own obsessive way, because I feel a huge desire to go running again. I'm not allowed to use the usual feminine protection, but I feel fine and energetic, and FLABBY. So I want to go out there and jog all the flab and the worries off. But what if I... leak?

Well, if I do, too bad! This one's for you, Uta!