The Life of the Mind

Riding in Style

Yesterday, Milo and I went to the mall, and on a trip to the restroom, the handicapped stall was out of order, so I had to take him in the "Family" bathroom, which was already in use by a mom changing a toddler on the changing table, a grandmother lending moral support, and a little girl who was, according to her mom, "just playing" in the stall I wanted to use.  The mom called the little girl out, and she looked at me and asked, "Why are you going in there?"  I told her, "I have to pee.  Adults pee, too."  The mom and grandmother chuckled.

But what I liked best about that exchange was that she was playing in the bathroom.  Remember when you were little and anything could be a game?  Pushing buttons on a calculator that wasn't on could occupy me for quite some time when I was a little kid.  Putting fake groceries into a bag was also a compelling imaginative exercise.  I remember playing "Space Monkeys" with Sally Hirships on her backyard jungle gym and something that I would now dub "Orphan Boat" with Jenny Gurney on her bunk beds.  The premise of these games was pretty much described by their names, but there were a million variations on a theme.

My imaginative life definitely hasn't stalled, but it's different now that I'm an adult.  Although I will sometimes make up a backstory for an interesting person I see on the street, mostly my imagination takes me through scenarios that happened and I wish had gone differently or consist of my trying to map out how something will go, something I have to do anyway.  And not that there aren't lots of cool things to get lost in when you're grown up, but it's nice to watch Milo playing with things -- the little stuffed animals in his crib, say -- and think that he's got this whole life of funny voices and made-up narratives ahead of him.  I love the concentration of kids in the world of make-believe, and I especially love seeing it start to emerge in my little man.

Ch-ch-ch-changes

Daycare bound? This kid is college bound

Man, I don't know if having an eight month old is like this for everyone, but everything's changing all at once.  Milo is understandably cranky because he has all four top teeth coming in at once.  But when he's not gnawing and whining, he's developed a pretty healthy attention span for playing with toys and the ability to manipulate them in ways that are compelling to him and cool to watch.  But also?  He's crawling and grabbing at things (read: me) to kneel, and likes to have his hands held while he practices walking.  Yep.  No joke.  A very physical kid.

This is all to the good.  But it's definitely way more complex than it used to be to sit by him while he practiced rolling over, which I felt that I was well-suited for.  Now, I'm like a rug lifeguard.  Not that it wasn't before, but now everything is so completely hands-on.  Hands-on, eyes-on, no back turned unless he's completely confined.  He is also not the kind of kid who will, if he's crawling in one direction towards something you don't want him near, and you pick him up and turn him around to head him in the opposite direction, actually go the way you set him; he will turn around and head his way.  Six times in a row.  Until you get up and move elsewhere.

All of these awesome little steps forward are important, and necessary, and fascinating to watch.  But.  My back hurts.  And I'm frustrated.  I'm old.  Some days I feel like I can't even keep up with him, that I'm not up to the challenge.  And the desire to return to work, to do what I'm good at, has been making itself felt very strongly recently.  I haven't worked since last June, and I find myself jonesing to do my job, to work outside the home again, to speak to adults about things that aren't related to my child.  And I feel guilty about that, because that means that someone else will be the primary person looking after him during the day.  That's an astounding lot of responsibility for Milo's shaping that I'm giving to someone else.  And I recognize that it's an economic reality, and that boatloads of women have to do it way earlier, and that I've been incredibly lucky to have all this often very frustrating and anxiety-inducing but also joyous, intimate, lovely time with my child.  How can I simultaneously want to hand him off to a child-care professional tomorrow and play with him on the rug until the end of time?  How do other women more effectively smush down this painful and confusing ambivalence?  How come the clock is my enemy and my friend?

Holy Mobility, Batman!

The Beginning of the End

In, like, the last week, Milo has somehow totally gotten coordinated.  While he can't pull himself into a sitting position from flat on his back, he can do it in any number of other ways.  And while he's not crawling, per se, he's doing something remarkably like it that gave me a little heart attack the other day when I had him on our bed while I was changing clothes.  So I won't be doing that again.

In fact, as I sit here typing this post, I have an eye on the baby monitor, because although he is supposed to be taking a nap, that means that I put him in his crib, leave the room and either A) he sleeps for twenty-six to thirty-one minutes or B) he does what he is doing now: rolls around, semi-crawls, and now pulls himself up to a sitting position, and then a kneeling position, looking perilously close to somehow catapulting over the side of the crib.

All this movement!  While I am certainly tired from hauling him around everywhere, I am filled with anticipatory tiredness thinking about chasing him.  His round, rippling thunder-thighs will become lean and muscled as he becomes a sprinter extraordinaire (probably with solid long-distance capabilities as well) and I will constantly be giving chase, tearing him away from bleach, razor blades, exposed wiring and the gaping maws of feral dingoes.  Crap.

Yo, Moms!

Best darn thing I've ever done

Happy Mother's Day, all y'all!

Just Taste It

Did anybody happen to love that seemingly throw-away shot in this week's episode of Mad Men as much as I did?  Megan quits advertising forever -- unthinkable! -- and as she leaves the building, the elevator doors close between her and Don.  But there's no hint of Beethoven's Fifth.  Instead, Don goes to catch another elevator, and as he looks into the opened doors, it's just the elevator shaft, the concrete and metal guts on display, looking about as soulless and empty as the work of Madison Avenue itself.  Man, I love the writing on that show.  And also how Harry Crane has just become a total goofball, a punchline in search of a joke.  Anyhow, find a nice wrap-up of the episode here:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/popcornprejudiceamovieblog/2018159434_mad_men_monday_don_and_the_ele.html?prmid=head_main

Baggage

Snoozing on Daddy's lap

Excuse me while I get comfortable on the couch for a moment, Doctor.  I think it all started with my mother...

But seriously, folks.  It did actually start with my mother.  My mom, as I've mentioned before, was the uber-mom.  She did all things mom with competence and ease.  My brother and I sometimes joke that she was kind of tough (stock threatening phrases she used back in the day but never acted on were "I'll give you something to cry about" and "I'll break every bone in your body"), and family lore has it that one time my brother, after playing at my cousins' house, was found crying and quivering out in the backyard because he had gotten grass-stains on his pants and was afraid of what my mother's reaction would be.  In reality, she taught us outstanding manners, was incredibly patient and empathetic and always made us feel sheltered and comforted.

So maybe that's why I've been nervous to take Milo out and about in the world.  Don't misunderstand; I do, of course, take him out.  We go lots of places all the time.  I'm trying not to foist my own weird semi-agoraphobia onto my child.  And even though he is almost always well-behaved (if he cries on a changing table in a restroom, that's the worst of it), I get nervous about him freaking out in public because I don't want to be that mom.  Which is stupid.  I can't ever remember a time when I was out in public and saw misbehaving kids and then remembered it half an hour later.  Kids are kids.  They are naturally uninhibited, difficult to restrain and prone to act on whatever they feel whenever they feel it.  A parent can curb those things to some extent, but it just takes time and socialization to really get good behavior to kick in.  And the common sense to know when you and your child have to make a swift exit.  At seven months, most people aren't going to expect please's and thank you's and bowties and the ability to eat escargot from Milo.  He can barely sit up by himself for long periods of time without tipping over. 

Ben and I took him to my parents' house last weekend, his first "long" trip anywhere, and the first time he didn't sleep in his own crib.  He was fine, of course; it was me who was the wreck.  His nap schedule was thrown off by the events of the weekend, but I'm learning (Milo has already figured it out; duh) that he will sleep when he's tired enough to sleep, and that it's OK to disrupt his routine every once in a while.  As much as I want to provide a framework for him to be happy and healthy and peaceful in and around our home -- familiarity = comfort, I figure -- the world is wide, and he needs to experience it.

Oh my Gawd, Bev, you look a fright!

Today, for example, he needed to experience a local dog show.  Well, actually, Ben and I thought he would like it, because he gets a big bang out of our dog, but we were the ones who were really excited about the prospect, and sometimes he just has to do what we want to do.  And it was awesome.  It was like being thrust into the real-life version of Best in Show.  I took pictures of some dogs, because I like dogs a lot, but also because I thought it would be rude to take pictures of the people, who were a sight unto themselves.  The best dog I saw wasn't in the ring; he or she was in the prepping area and now I have this fantasy of our dog walking out of the bathroom in the morning, coffee mug in one paw and cigarette in the other, looking just like this.  Check out those banana clips!

Nervous Goth

I am of the Woody Allen or Jon Stewart School of Jewish Hypochondria.  It mostly doesn't interfere with my day-to-day life, but I tend to assume the worst about throat tickles and sciatica.  When I was pregnant with Milo and started having heartburn for the first time, I suspected it would never go away, although, of course, it did.  When I make the bad decision to read the Medical Dispatches articles in The New Yorker by Groopmans or Guptas, I always have the sinking feeling that, later in life, some horrible health issue will befall me or members of my family.  Which, let's be honest, will probably happen, although I'm not doing anybody any favors by anticipating it.

Having these crazy fleeting fears was fine when I was single and could indulge in the Bridget Jones-style fantasies of dying alone, half-eaten by an Alsatian, but now that I'm married and have a child, it seems wrong to project my weird "nervous goth" onto my family.  Ben's itchy throat is allergies, possibly a burgeoning cold.  Milo's red cheeks are from teething.  Such is life. 

Part of my recent spate of hypochondriacal fears probably comes from the untimely demise of Desmond the cat.  It made me feel so acutely that danger and heartache lurk around every corner, and that, as much as you try, you can't control the wrath of the Furies.  Far more likely to happen is that my son will use his spazzy baby super-powers to topple out of his crib, or that he will bonk his head on something when my back is turned.  There will be small boo-boos and boo-hoos, and, yes, there will also be big ones, ones that seem unfair and unfathomable. 

It reminds me of the first summer I spent at a rented beach-house with Ben's family.  It sat on a little marina, and there was room to swim from the pier at the back of the house to the pier of the house across the way, which I did one sunny day.  When I swam back and got out of the water, my mother-in-law said to me, "Oh, now I have someone else to be nervous about!"  Which I took as the warm welcome it was, and as the sign of a kindred spirit.  The more people you love, the more people you have to worry about.  I'll probably fall and twist my ankle on my way to pick up my Apprehensive Jew Award.