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!