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.

Lil' Baryshnikov

Just doin' some morning stretches in the chair before he moved to the barre.

Worst Monday Ever Award

A month or two ago, I blogged about a stray cat that had adopted us.  He slept by our dryer vent when the weather was still cool, and then ventured all around the outside of our house, taking cat-naps on our front stoop, the welcome mat by our side door, under our cars, out on our back deck.  He also developed the extraordinary and idiosyncratic habit of taking walks with me and the dog.  That's right: he took walks with us.  And not just two or three houses down.  He went on a pretty wide loop with us multiple times a day, cutting through bushes and over people's front walks to avoid traffic; the neighbors started to notice and to mention it.  He would rub up against Olivia as she was taking a pee; he'd stop and scratch his ear while she chewed on a blade of grass.

I would take little breaks during the day to go outside and cuddle with him.  He would sit on my lap and purr and let me totally manhandle him.  Anytime my hand was near his mouth, he would lick me.  I took him to the vet to get him vaccinated, and he charmed the heck out of the vet techs and everybody.  I got him a little collar with a bell on it (which probably totally sabotaged his hunting), and made a tag with our address and phone number on it -- and his name, Desmond -- until we found a home for him, so that if, God forbid, something happened to him, someone could contact us.  I think I thought we could keep up this routine through the warm months, by which time I would've made the case beyond a shadow of a doubt for us adopting him.

What I didn't do, was let him into the house, even though he clearly wanted to be part of our family, and I wanted him to be a part of ours -- really, had already come to think of him as part of ours -- and so not letting him into the house feels like the biggest mistake I've ever made.

If you can't stand hearing about intensely shitty things happening to sweet, quirky, warm-hearted, vulnerable animals, you should probably stop reading now, because everything went totally to hell on Monday, and I've shed more than a few tears over it.

Desmond and I went to the vet in the morning while my mother-in-law babysat for Milo so that the cat could get a second round of a booster shot.  He was awesome and easy-going.  I ran a couple of errands on the way home, even bought two new doormats, hoping that he would find them comfortable.  Milo and I went on a stroll later in the day, and Desmond greeted us by the front door when we came home, weaving around my legs.  I said, "Hi, handsome," and I was talking to the cat as much as to Milo.

We went inside, I put Milo down for a nap and was fixing myself some lunch when I looked through the kitchen window and saw a woman in the street next to Desmond's body.  I ran outside, and it was ugly.  In fact, it was the ugliest thing I've ever seen in reality, and was horrifying in a way that it isn't when you see things in a movie and you can tell yourself that it's just corn syrup.  There was a lot of blood, and I'm not going to describe the really terrible state of poor Desmond's beautiful face.  But he wasn't dead.  He was clearly in shock, looked like it and sounded like it.  The woman -- not the person who hit him and drove away, but a person who had probably swerved around the cat after he was hit and stopped, like any fucking decent human being would do -- was down on her knees near him but didn't know what to do.  I ran inside and got my phone and called the cops, and then I lifted him onto our lawn.  Probably ill-advised, but he was so far gone it didn't do him any more harm.

I think I was probably having a panic attack by the time the cops arrived, but I told the other woman to go and instead of saying thank you, I think I told her, "And you're even wearing white jeans!"  And I didn't have an adequate answer for the cop's question, "Is this your cat?"  I think the state I was in suggested yes.

The cops were gentle and very kind, and they told me the cat had lost a lot of blood and wasn't going to make it, and that they would take care of it, and that I should go inside for a few minutes.  I did.  I was standing on the stairs so I wouldn't be near the window when I heard the gunshots.  Milo, ironically taking a great nap, cried out at the noise and then went back to sleep.  I went outside with a box and laid Desmond in it, even though the officer said he would do it.  I felt like it was my responsibility.  The cops made sure I was alright -- I wasn't, but what're you going to do? -- and later that day, Ben dug a hole in the front yard, and we buried Desmond.

I've never been with a dying animal before.  And certainly never one who took leave of this world in so violent and undignified a way.  Desmond didn't deserve it.  No animal or human does.  I am so full of sadness and guilt and the relentless desire to be able to turn back the clock.  Even though I've had people close to me die and have grieved for them, this experience was somehow so fraught with and so proximate to the despair that survivors feel after a loved one departs.

What I'm trying to do, as the days pass, is to replace the haunting and terrible image of the injured and dead Desmond with the image of him alive, as the endearing, individual and sweet-souled animal he was, as deserving of a loving relationship with his humans as could possibly be.  I'm trying to remember that we shared a special link in these last couple of months, and that the affection and adoration that he showed to me and Olivia was indicative of how he felt about us, and that he was the kind of person who would've told me not to blame myself -- if he had been a person.  And if he could've talked.   I miss him fiercely.

Guilty Pleasure

O, delicious act of contortion

Story of My Life

Eight toys on the floor and none on the high-chair tray.  Now how did that happen?

A Moveable Feast

A most kissable spot

You know, I expected baby-raising to be a job with a learning curve, and indeed it is, but the curve appears to be getting somewhat steeper.  Milo's behavior has mostly followed the major developmental milestones that my limited reading discusses.  That those developments happened so slowly at first now strikes me as a great gift.

In a conversation with my sister-in-law, Kim, when I was pregnant, she said something that stuck with me.  I'll try to paraphrase, but will likely lose the tone of graceful intuition and humor with which she said it at the time (no surprise that she is now motherhood-bound herself).  It seemed to her, she said, that the good thing about child-rearing was that you would learn to handle every phase as it emerged, and wasn't it lucky that the design of growing up meant that parents didn't have to tackle everything all at once.  At least we wouldn't have to have the sex talk with Milo for quite some time, she joked.

And although Milo is still indubitably in an early phase, there are little sub-phases -- small components of growth or change -- that seem to happen by the day.  Usually, the ratio is 1:1 in terms of frustrating new routines to sweet new phenomena.  So, for example, lately, Milo seems unable to nap for more than half an hour or forty minutes at a time (sometimes he'll hit the hour or hour and a half mark, but it's really rare).  If he isn't already asleep by the time I put him in his crib, he is now wont to spend a significant amount of time rolling, playing with the mirror in his crib, scratching at the bumpers or the sheet to hear the sounds his fingernails make, and making a difficult-to-ignore cooing noise that waxes and wanes in intensity.  (I often snap to attention now when I walk the dog without the baby and hear an actual dove.)  Often, he falls asleep after this routine.  Other times, not so much, despite how tired he seemed before I put him down for the "nap," and I just admit defeat and go in and get him.  He's usually pretty happy to see me.

But as exasperating as this new habit is, he's got a couple of other new things that make me laugh.  The first is that he has discovered, now that he has his two bottom teeth, that he can use them to grab his upper lip.  Kind of.  There's a baby fish-mouth look (and sound) that I find appealing, and, obviously, so does he.  Better yet, he has this new thing where he looks at you, cocks his head waaay to the side, and gives you a coquettish smile.  It's pretty freakin' cute.  Oh, and to keep the ratio intact, he has also begun to do this thing with a couple of his toys (one is Sophie the Giraffe, a squeezie teething toy, and the other is a toy that Ben has dubbed "Death Chicken") where he desperately tries to bite/gum it, but instead of soothing him, it just pisses him off and he starts screeching and turns into Frenzied Wind-Up Teeth Maniac Baby.  The screeching also happens sometimes on walks, when Milo is sans toy, and I have no choice but to pop a wheelie to see if it shuts him up.  Sometimes yes, sometimes no.

Frustration notwithstanding, and of course Milo's age notwithstanding, I am already sometimes just flooded with these weird little montages of him -- the insanely joy-making grin that he gives when I lift him high into the air, the pink of those pinchable cheeks, the sound of his laughter when I tickle him or just tickle his funny bone, the little groove on the back of his neck under his hairline when I sit behind him, helping him practice sitting up by himself, the way his arms splay around me when he has fallen asleep on my shoulder.  They are worth the price of admission, to be sure, and sometimes I think ahead to how he'll be a grown man one day, taller than me (I hope), and living life on his own terms, and I'll have this crazy flip-book of pictures of him in my head.  It seems both utterly amazing and almost too much to bear.  I give props to all those parents out there who somehow manage to navigate this vast bittersweet ocean of feelings day after day for years.  Seriously: thumbs up.

The Blue Steel Competition

This Post Brought To You By Schadenfreude

Is it just me, or is it a little bit funny when your baby pukes on your spouse?

Perfect Comic Timing

See? Food!

As you can see from the photo, we've been trying out new foods on Milo, foods that don't come from jars.  He has had much of the mashed stuff you'd expect, but our pediatrician said he could try avocado, so that's what we did yesterday.  He didn't dig it too much, but he certainly wasn't going to cry about it.

But on to the comic timing that is the subject of this post.  Yesterday, before Milo's bedtime, we were hanging out on our bed with him, and Ben had him on his chest.  Before Milo started sleeping in his crib and when he wasn't really getting solid sleep in his bassinet in our bedroom, one of the only ways he would fall asleep comfortably was on Ben's chest.  He's a squirmy baby, though, and hasn't really done that for several months.  In fact, it's sort of rare to even be holding Milo and for him to be still.  Sometimes, when I'm putting him down for a nap, and he falls asleep on my shoulder, I hold him a little longer than necessary, because it is such a warm, cuddly feeling.  So, anyway, Milo was actually flopped on Ben yesterday, but staying still, in a way that looked really comfy and sweet, and I said, "Wow, he hasn't done that since he was just a little baby," and Ben responded, really nostalgically (I know nostalgia is silly when Milo is still only six months old, but that's the kind of people we are), "I never thought he'd do it again," at which point Milo lifted his head, propped himself up like he was doing a push-up on Ben's chest, and snorted.  Little dude wants to sell his wares at the Comedy Store.

Rollin' With the Homies

He's actually sponsored by Nike

The going-to-sleep routine for Milo used to consist of his taking a bottle, being sung to and, if he wasn't already asleep by the time he hit the crib but was still pretty mellow, babbling to himself in a funny kind of way.  Mostly "ahhh"s and the noise you make when you're trying to sound like a door creaking.  He'd do that for five or ten minutes, and then he was done.  Now, because he's finally unswaddled in his crib and doing his own thing, he rolls.  Relentlessly.  One time for as long as forty minutes before falling asleep.  [Side-note: We have a baby monitor that has both audio and video -- the video is this crazy infrared War Games kind of picture, which makes Milo's eyes gleam with cold, baby soullessness when it's dark -- and has been the source of both amusement and anxiety for me and Ben.  Well, it doesn't cause Ben much anxiety, actually, because he doesn't have any problem muting Milo while the screaming and crying runs its course. When things go badly, you can still hear him through the ceiling, but never you mind.]  Anyway, the amusement comes when you've put the baby down on one end of the crib, and you just see him circling like mad throughout the entire crib -- sideways, up in one corner, over to the next, on his belly, on his back, pulling on the bumper, doing a downward-facing-dog, etc.  It's like mattress Cirque de Soleil.

Why Are My Teeth Trying to Kill Me?

Good to gnaw you

I've often thought about the irony of human biology and how the necessary mechanisms of growing, and later, of disintegrating, have to happen to the super-vulnerable: the very young and the very old.  It seems mean, doesn't it, that the really rough stuff mostly happens to those who are least equipped to deal with it?

Teething seems to me a prime example.  Milo has cut his first tooth, and is probably on the way to the second, and the kid is miserable.  And why not?  A miniature enamel razor blade took its sweet time sawing through his tender little gums.  But for the fact that we need teeth to eat, it's pretty clear to me that we should all do our teething as teenagers, so at least there'd be a reason to be so moody and belligerent.

Better yet, how about we redesign the process so that human babies come out like colts do?  Horses totally have the right idea.  The mom just plops the baby out on the ground, and the colt stands up on its skinny, rickety legs, takes one look at the steaming pile of gestational gunk from which it emerged, and walks away.  Wouldn't you?

Instead, babies have to go through months (years??!) of misery as their teeth come in, wildly putting their hands, their parents' hands, perfect strangers' hands into their mouths to ease the pain.  While Milo has continued to chew -- perhaps with renewed vigor -- on his teething rings and toys, he has begun chewing on his bibs, on his sleeves, on the front part of his onesies that he can grab.  Anything!  Everything!  The better to eat you with!

Meow Mix

Knock, knock

We have an even newer member of the family than Milo.  Well, she wants to be a member of the family.  Kind of desperately.  There's a stray cat in the neighborhood that has adopted us.  Like, she doesn't seem to go anywhere outside of the vicinity of our yard.  She started hanging out by the dryer vent when it was really cold out, so she smells amazing, but then she began creeping up to the front door, lollygagging on our stoop and greeting us when we got out of the car.  This is all my fault, because I fed her because I am a bleeding heart, sentimental, cat-lovin' fool.  And at first, I was worried because, you know, stray cat, cat diseases, biting, all that.  But she's just the sweetest, gentlest little soul.  Our dog and cats don't like it too much, however, when she does the following: meows by the door for food and stands right there, even when I'm about to take the dog out for a walk, like she just doesn't understand why she's not allowed to come inside; lounges around by the front door, even going so far as to rub her little cheeks and whiskers against the glass, marking us as hers; watches us watching t.v. through the sliding glass door, as if to say, I'd have a better view of this show if I were sitting on the couch with y'all.  (That might actually have been a different cat, though.)  She's a total lover, though.  We're trying to find her a home.  Oh, and her name is The Archbishop Desmond Kit-tutu.  Anyone interested in a cat? 

Maxwell House

I'm reading a book by an author I confess I've never heard of, although I suspect he's pretty famous: William Maxwell.  It's a slim little novel called So Long, See You Tomorrow, and I found a passage from it that I like a lot.  Here it is, and most of it is but one sentence delivered in a litany to make your chest tighten:

'Without the heavyset aristocratic man snoring away on his side of the bed, without the fresh-eyed child whose hair ribbon needs retying; without the conversation at meals and the hearty appetites and getting dressed for church on time; without the tears of laughter and the worry about making both ends meet, the unpaid bills, the layoffs, both seasonal and unexpected; without the toys that have to be picked up lest somebody trip over them, and the seven shirts that have to be washed and ironed, one for every day in the week; without the scraped knee and the hurt feelings, the misunderstandings that need to be cleared up, the voices calling for her so that she is perpetually having to stop what she is doing and go see what they want -- without all this, what have you?  A mystery: How is it that she didn't realize it was going to last such a short time?'

Going Downton

One Degree of Kevin Bacon

Apologies, my nine loyal readers, for the blogger's block.  We've all been working through colds here, luckily staggered by a couple of days so that Ben and I could bail each other out.  The adults were stricken first, and we sort of thought that Milo was some kind of baby Superman with no apparent microbial kryptonite.  Nope.  He's got it, too, although it doesn't seem to be changing his disposition too much.  In fact, I think he's found it to be a rather pleasant distraction from the pain of teething except when we have to stick the bulb syringe up his nose to suction out his snot.  Mmmm. 

None of that is really important.  What's important is that Ben and I have developed an unhealthy addiction to Downton Abbey.  Don't worry -- no spoilers, here; we're only through the first show in Season Two, but we worked our way swiftly through Season One, and I kind of can't stop thinking about it, even though it's soap-opera schlock dressed up in Masterpiece garb.

I'm enjoying the Upstairs, Downstairs quality of the show, obvi, and the personalities of the characters were established sufficiently quickly to let the viewer enjoy their little quirks.  I've got a few ideas for DA merch.  Here they are: 1. the Thomas action figure who, when you pull the string, smokes, smirks and makes ill-advised passes at attractive Turkish diplomats and square-jawed gas-blind WWI convalescents 2. the bumper sticker that reads, 'Lady Mary: so good, it killed him' 3. the card game which tests the player's ability to tell the difference between side-by-side pictures of Edith and Hello, Dolly! era Barbara Streisand 4. glue-on Carson eyebrows that express disdain for common behavior and 5. a miniature tub filled with Yorkshire pudding in which the Dowager and Mrs. Crawley wrestle for control over Dr. Clarkson.

Anyhoo, looking forward to continuing the marathon after Milo goes to bed tonight.  And ready for the Great War to be over.  The foxholes and hand-held camera work don't seem to be the BBC's strength.

Dog Days

I love watching the Westminster Dog Show, but I have this compulsion when doing so to compare the dog contestants to their celebrity human counterparts.  See below: the Clumber Spaniel bears a striking resemblance to Cheers alum, George Wendt.  Boykin Spaniel, a ringer for Diana Ross.  It's not a perfect science, I'll admit, but it's as good a way as any to spend a Valentine's evening.  If anyone can remember the name of the breed of dog that looked just like Jason Segal, leave me a note in the comments section.  Seriously, it's killing me.

George Wendt	Clumber Spaniel
Diana Ross	Boykin Spaniel

Stackable Milo

So, the reason I thought of the subject of this post is that we have a million pictures of Milo around our house.  We're with him all the time, but we still like reminders of him.  Even when Ben and I are out alone -- like when we went out to the movies, just the two of us, the other weekend -- we whip out our phones to look at pictures of him, like the purpose of the "date" we're on is not to have alone time, but to miss him together.

At any rate, all these pictures made me think about the fact that Milo already is, and definitely is going to be, about a million kids all at once.  The pictures tell the story.  There are already so many iterations of him.  There's tiny baby Milo and the Milo who started to sleep through the night.  There's the Milo that cries when he wakes up from a not-refreshing-enough nap and the Milo that beams at you when you come in to get him from a night of restful sleep.  There's the Milo that's hungry and the Milo that's tired.  The one with the sweetest little upturned lips and rosy apple cheeks; the one who is overjoyed to handle a new (or even old) toy; the one who takes pleasure in making a very high-pitched squeal when he is excited.

And all of these versions of Milo have the other ones underneath, a palimpsest of Milos that speak to how all of us have this accumulation of selves that make up our self.  And parents get to watch this stuff from Day One.  Which is awesome.

The Other Ballgame

Looking like a proud little gnome

There are probably some things about parenthood that you can expect: the sleepless nights; the gobs of excretions; the triumph you feel at your child's victories; the way you can't stop grinning at your baby's smiles and belly laughs.  But nobody prepares you for the ridiculous waves and waves of empathy.

Well, I take that back.  I guess in some ways, a mom is prepared for being attuned to how her baby feels because she can actually feel the kid inside of her -- the elbows and knees, the nudges and kicks.  But when this baby is finally a separate entity, and has a personality and feelings of his own, and needs that he articulates in specific ways -- sometimes adorable, sometimes frustrating and sometimes heartbreaking -- that's a whole 'nother ballgame.

Crankiness doesn't quite count.  Yes, Milo's crankiness when he won't take naps absolutely makes me cranky.  But it's when the cries seem to mean something, when they seem like more than just "I'm hungry" or "I'm tired" and they have this (at least perceived) note of anguish in them that I feel like crying for him; okay, every once in a while when that happens, I get something in my eye.  Like an eyelash or a piece of volcanic ash.  I knew I would hurt for him, but I couldn't have known what that would feel like.  It feels rough.

And I just have to be consoled by the thought that I will also take empathic pleasure in his happiness, in the things that bring him joy.  His big old grins already have that effect on me.  When he cries, I am sad, but when he laughs, thank goodness, I laugh, too.

Baby Pick-Up Lines

I have monkeys on my feet.  Wanna dance?

Brave New World

He got a discount on the obscured seat

Sometimes I think that, with the exception of folks like Barack Obama or Richard Branson or Charlie Sheen, most of us have a routine to our days that is pretty similar.  When I'm teaching, and I'm doing The Catcher in the Rye for the eleventh time in my career, to be sure, there are always going to be new questions -- insane, or inane or incredibly thoughtful -- but mostly it's the same schtick; things in the classroom will usually go pretty much the same way, with the rare exception of fire drills or having to kick someone out of the room; faculty meetings will generally be excruciatingly similar and predictable each and every time, with the same rude person not having silenced her cell phone, which then rings with some loud and ridiculous Klezmer tune and then she has to excuse herself from the room, simultaneously trying to look embarrassed but also like a V.I.P. while saying loudly, "Wait, I'm in a meeting..."

But it's not like that for babies, is it?  Every hour, every few minutes, seems to deliver a whole host of new, amazing discoveries.  Like a truck going by on the street outside.  Or making eye contact with the cat.  Or realizing that you can blow raspberries and drool all over yourself.  And it's probably good that babies can't speak, because what could they even say when every single day is a mind-blowing experience?  When they are just astounded by the silhouette of branches and power-lines against the sky?  Or they realize that clouds move?  Or how incredible it feels when the wind whispers against their face?  They'd just sputter wow, wow, wow non-stop and sound like idiots. 

My Giant

Big Head Milo and the Monsters

OK, so there's obviously some weird perspective at play in this photo of Milo and his grandpa, but I just thought it was so wild that I had to include it here.

RIP, Fezzik

Milo looks like the Yao Ming of babies.  If he were in the Baby WWF, his name would be "The Juggernaut."  Do you think it's worth printing up stickers like this ---->, but with Milo's head on it?

Incrementally Speaking

Gaining mobility, losing hair

So, I've either realized something very, very profound, or I'm the last one to board the short bus in terms of understanding what makes stay-at-home motherhood so exhausting.  It's that there aren't any weekends.  Ta da!

I recognize that working outside the home is obviously tiring in its own right, but I remember that even when I had stacks and stacks of papers to grade, essay questions to write, lesson plans to make and e-mails to respond to on the weekends, at least they were two days that were different from the rest of the week.  As God intended. 

Now, don't get me wrong.  Weekends are still pretty great.  Ben is around and often lets me have an hour or two extra in bed in the mornings.  He makes nice breakfasts.  We do fun stuff.  Or: we do the same stuff I do during the week, but we do it together, which makes it feel like fun.  We see family.  I get to take a load off more and sometimes even leave the house for extended babyless periods to have brunch with friends.  But weekends are really just variations on a theme, which gives a Groundhog Day quality to my life at present.

Motherhood appears to be very much about measuring time differently.  In the really early weeks, when Milo was a teeny baby and woke up all the time to eat and cry and he couldn't sleep more than an hour or two at a stretch, max, catching a forty-five minute nap felt sort of luxurious.  When he started waking up only two or three times a night, it felt like a victory.  And now, he's doing a great job of sleeping through the night; the kid even takes about three naps a day, although they vary in how substantial they are.  I mean, he is pretty much still wired to only be awake and alert for about two hours at a time, which means that a cycle of activities can happen and re-happen: diaper changing, feeding, playing on the floor gym, bouncing in the jumperoo, etc.  And each activity probably lasts for fifteen minutes, tops?  It reminds me of the character, Will, in Nick Hornby's novel, About a Boy, whose father wrote some stupid Christmas song, the proceeds from which have made him so indescribably wealthy that he has never had to work, yet he is so bored that he measures his days in half-hour increments.  

 

But so I always feel -- slightly less so on weekends, but, yes, even then -- like I'm waiting for a timer to go off, a timer that can often have a very jarring effect -- and I never know quite when it's going to sound.  And it's that waiting, knowing, anticipating -- one's ear always turned towards the baby monitor or waiting for the cute noise that turns into the feed me howl -- that can drive a person craaa-zy.

Not-So-Instant Karma

A baby, two enormous cats and an unmade bed

So, in the last post, I was all, "Yeah, we're tough; we're the nap police; a little crying never hurt anybody.  Attachment parenting be damned!  Boo yah!"

Yeah, well, in an overzealous fit of trying to enforce some nap justice for Milo (after a day of crappy naps), we let him do a cycle of crying, muttering, falling asleep, crying, etc., which ended up in me going in to check on him because of his pretty oversized wailing. 

Turns out, he had spit up: down his neck a bit, somehow in his hair, on his sleeve.  Not like a Jimi Hendrix kind of dangerous throw-up, but the kind that roused him from his near-sleep state and, what with being overtired, got him very worked up, indeed.  So, instead of changing his onesie immediately and then rocking him like I should have (I didn't quite understand the extent of the puke-spread), I calmed him down with some difficulty -- which is not, luckily for us, a trend; he's usually easily consolable -- and gave him a bit of bottle. 

OK, but then, I realized that he needed his outfit changed.  And as soon as I put him on his changing table, he began screaming bloody murder, enough that Ben came in.  And he just wouldn't calm down -- Milo, not Ben.  Like, he wasn't in pain, but he was clearly overwrought.  And finally, once his crying did peter out, I gave him a bit more bottle.  Which was a bad idea...because he was still on with those jagged, breathy little hiccups that kids do when they've been crying hard.  But he seemed to want the bottle!

Well: lesson learned.  He started up crying again and then proceeded to make a noise that Ben and I had only heard coming out of his behind before.  In fact, Ben whispered, "Was that a fart?" and just as I said, "No," out came the vomit.  With some amount of speed.  Right down my shirt.

It wasn't projectile vomit.  But it was something.  And after that, the nap police punched out for the day.  We just chilled out with him until bedtime.  He slept through the night, though, God bless him.

And it's all kind of ha ha now.  What a story!  But really, it's hard to articulate how, when your child is upset about something, you can be filled with this combination of intense pity and sympathy and adoration and knowledge of your own relative futility, and how you just want to do something, to be of some use in consoling him, and even after we put him to sleep, and late into the evening, I was still so upset on his behalf.  I just can't help but look years ahead, to his not making some team or getting chosen for a solo in chorale or getting rejected by a girl, or a woman, someday, and me not being able to do much to put those protective instincts to good use, because I won't be able to nestle him in my arms or kiss his head or pet him and tell him everything will be alright.  I look at my parents (and all parents) with such a different kind of respect and understanding now.  The phrase "You can only be as happy as your saddest child" holds a kind of resonance now that it didn't when I was only someone's kid. 

Sunrise, Sunset

Look at this little worker bee

So, all of a sudden, it's like Geppetto's house up in here.  Milo's a real boy!  He's sitting upright (with a little help, but still), he's bouncing around like a maniac in his jumperoo and will be starting to experiment with actual food, a.k.a. rice cereal doused in formula.  Delish!

I know he's still the same kid he was last week, but somehow, seeing him sitting in that little chair and offering him something other than a bottle changes my perception of him enormously.  I mean, I know we're not sending him off to college or anything, but it seems like suddenly he's this little person who has distinct preferences -- like sucking on the index and middle fingers of his right hand and laughing when I do a goofy dance to Der Kommissar (oh, wait, maybe that's my preference) -- and it's all just a matter of time before he becomes an avid environmentalist and demands that we reduce our carbon footprint or wants to do some sort of summer Outward Bound program. 

I bite my thumb at you!

It's just odd.  You bring this child forth out of nothingness and you say you're going to try not to project too much onto him.  But of course, just the way you raise him is an act of projection.  Ben and I talk to him non-stop; he's surrounded by music and singing; he shouldn't be afraid of animals considering what a zoo it is around here; we read to him as much as his attention span allows; it's just the picture of silliness most of the time, although I think we can be firm when it's called for, as well (if he's tired and he needs a nap and is all bleary and rubbing his eyes and he makes a fuss, tough luck; ten minutes of kvetching or crying never killed anybody).  And all of this notwithstanding, he might grow up and want to get an MBA.  What are you going to do?

A Transcription...

...of a recent conversation between me and Ben, to/about Milo:

Ben: You're going to be a genius, buddy.

Me: No pressure.

Ben: Yeah, either you are or you aren't.

Me: As long as you're curious.

Ben: It's even OK if you're bi-curious.

Milo: [gives us both a pitying smile]

P.S.

Just FYI: I recognize the high crazy factor in the last post.  People with two or more kids surely know that it's totally kimpossible to focus on one kid all the time.  Or focus on anything, ever, really.

I may be guilting out and wondering how much attention is enough attention (or possibly too much attention, honestly) because my own mom so had it together as a mom -- she packed our lunches every single day, like, through high school; did our laundry; cooked a kick-ass dinner every night; kept her monthly budget on the fridge (clean lines for the rows and columns drawn with a ruler); was, all around, the picture of assured competence.  Maybe she didn't feel like she had it together, and I'm sure it was far more of a challenge than she ever let on, but my mom mommed like Ginger Rogers danced: she did it backwards and in heels and made it look easy.

Louis, Louis...Oh, No

Why do all my damn hats have ears on them?

One of the things I've been grappling with of late is summed up by the Louis C.K. quote, "It's hard having kids, because it's boring."  Now, don't get me wrong; hanging out with Milo is basically the highlight of my existence, however, if I were to tally up the minutes a day that I am either sitting on the floor or the bed with him, lifting him out of or buckling him into some sort of chair or swing or jumper, cleaning one end of him or another, feeding him or telling him from the other end of the room that I will be feeding him shortly (as if that has any calming effect), or waiting for him to awaken from a nap so that we can go somewhere...well, that would be approximately eleven hours worth of minutes.

And, man, he flashes me all manner of amazing smiles in that time.  He giggles and coos.  He smells good and can disarm me totally when he leans his sleepy head on my shoulder.  The kid has all sorts of moves that just melt me.  I root for him to do new things, and I am amazed by the things about him that already seem to be consistent and really rather pleasant personality traits. 

But what about when he's not being awesome?  And I'm not really talking about when he's being cranky or difficult.  What about when he's just looking up at something and gnawing on his fist?  I have, up until this point, sort of felt guilty if he's up and in my line of sight (i.e. if I'm not throwing another load of pukey bibs in the washing machine or heating up another mug of coffee) and seemingly paying attention to me, but I want to check my e-mail or read an article or, God forbid, watch a t.v. show.  Am I going to ruin him?  Musn't I be singing the alphabet song or explaining string theory or some such?  Is every moment supposed to be educational and stimulating?  Must I be in babyland for every minute that I am with him, or can I, within the realm of reasonable, safe mothering, watch an episode of What Not To Wear without feeling like I should call Child Protective Services on myself?

Tough parental negotiations here on the homefront, people.

How Did I Ever?

Somebody wins the biggest bib contest

How did I ever live without this little guy?

Milo spent the day with his Grandma today.  Like, the whole day.  Ben took him up there this morning when he left for work, and my boys still aren't home yet.  And while it was really nice to veg out and have the day to myself -- and even though it was so simple getting myself out of the car and into wherever and getting things done without worrying whether Milo would have a warm bottle or whether I would have to change him in a public restroom with those 90mph Dyson hand-dryers scaring the bejesus out of him or whether he was warm enough or too sweaty or taking a crappy nap or not napping at all -- I felt completely without a sense of purpose. 

How odd. 

Going places by myself and just getting things done used to be the norm.  Now, I feel like one of the lamps on a timer that used to go on in my grandmother's living room when darkness fell; I'm just ready to see Milo, and no doubt will light up when I see him, even if he's a total cranky-pants.

He's kinda magic.

Repetitive Motion

Sometimes, while washing bottles for the fourth time in a day, or unloading the dishwasher, or folding laundry (why do all the things I do make it seem like I'm a 1950's housewife?), I try to do the math on how many times in a lifetime I will do such tasks.  How many times will I wash my hands?  Take out the trash?  Straighten a pile of crap on the table or slam a car door?

Wait, what are we looking at?

Probably not worth thinking about, but now the repetitive motions of my day include changing Milo's diaper, feeding him, putting him down for a nap or just picking him up and holding him while walking from room to room.  And there is a new dimension to these movements because, although there's obviously some utility to them, there's a difference between doing them and putting away forks and spoons.  First, there's the tenderness quotient.  Taking the opportunity to kiss the Moosh's belly while changing his diaper adds a layer of meaning to an otherwise ordinary task.  And also, I'm almost always aware as I do these things that I won't be doing them for too very much longer.  Newsflash: he won't be a baby forever.  Won't be in diapers; won't clutch my hand when having a feeding; won't look at me with eyes that at once seem to see me with such freshness and sweet familiarity.  

Someday, he will be pimply and sullen, and won't want to look at me at all when he finishes up at the orthodontist's office with a bad freakin' attitude just in time to get dropped off at school to change for gym class.  But until then, I'll just continue to take pleasure as much in the 478th time of doing things with Milo as with his first times -- the rolling over, the new vocalizations, the gurgle-giggles -- and try to pay such close attention, because each time something happens, that's one less time it's going to happen, and I'll sure miss it when it's gone.