We Have Her Flipper On Order

I have an embarrassing compulsion. I can't help myself. I keep submitting Bea's photo places. For some reason, I'm not simply content to marvel at her majesty in the privacy of our home. And her small level of internet celebrity isn't enough for me. It's happened a few times now: my eyes glaze over, I black out, and when I come to, Bea's been entered in a Gap casting call, or sent into the LA Times Halloween gallery (and for most of yesterday her pic was actually on the LA Times homepage). I know! I'm crazy. I've got to stop before I give her a complex.

Today we paraded (literally) our little girl in a costume contest at Silver Lake Reservoir in East L.A. As I walked by carrying my little pinata I heard the judge whisper, "She's gonna win." And rather than being flattered, I thought to myself, "I know! It's in the fucking bag, bro." In this case, my arrogance extended beyond the fruit of our loins and onto the fruits our labor: Bea's pinata suit. And lo! She did win.



See us accepting her award for Most Original Costume at the Silver Lake Reservoir Halloween party (under 4 division)? See the little train engineer below my elbow? See the agony of defeat on his face? See my smugness? See me on my way to be becoming a horrible person? See me watching Toddlers and Tiaras and instead of thinking, "God, those people are assholes," actually thinking, "Bea is way cuter than those brats"? See it? SEE IT? I've got to stop before I have that poor kid decked out in sequins, grease paint, and a flipper. It's a slippery slope. A SLIPPERY SLOPE.

But while I'm working out my stage mom issues, see Bea enjoying the spoils of our handiwork:

At Long Last

FINALLY! Now that the little one is nine months old, she's got a chomper poking through her swollen, drool soaked gums. I would gladly share a picture, but I reckon that it might be impossible to get at this juncture. In order for Alden and I to get a peek, he had to pin down on the bed while I rooted around in her maw. So instead, here's my lass and me, captured as she runs her finger along her new pearly friend.

Family Style

Following are the meals I learned to prepare from my mother:

• Cold cereal
• Hot cereal -- only if from instant Quaker packets
• Tuna noodle casserole -- from frozen
• Mac n' cheese -- from box or frozen
• Baked apples
• Soup -- from can or bag
• Frozen lasagna
• Sourbread cheesy toast
• Grilled cheese with american slices
• Spaghetti with sauce from a jar
• Garlic bread pre-made from the bakery isle
• A power bar

Honest to goodness, that's it. My mother Does. Not. Cook. Every holiday she makes the same joke, "Costco slaved in the kitchen to make this." Ha-frickin-ha.

My first two years of college I lived in the notorious Berkeley co-operatives (giant unsanitary houses shared by 50-60 co-ed college students -- it was Bedlam). To fulfill my workshift requirements (Go communism!) I had to prepare dinner for the entire house once a week. I didn't do it alone of course because where would I have found that many boxes of mac n' cheese? I shared the responsibility with another resident and that poor person had to teach me the fundamentals.

And I do mean fundamentals. I may have been a National Merit Scholar, but I didn't know what an eggplant was. I had no idea how to cut up a potato. I couldn't crack an egg without getting at least a few flecks of shell in the bowl. I didn't know you had to grease the pan or pre-heat the oven. I didn't know there was a difference between butter and margarine, or between baking soda and baking powder.

I've come a long way in the intervening ten years. I know the names of most of the fruits and vegetables in the grocery store. I can saute and stir fry. I can make rice with a rice cooker. In my own uncoordinated way I can chop vegetables. And brown hamburger. And make a sandwich. The skills I have! I can prepare a basic meal.

I make a batch of steamed squash or sweet potatoes, or sometimes baked pears, for Bea about once a week, but most of her meals come from jars or Yo-Baby. I cook Bernie's food from scratch because we need to hide his supplements (that will hopefully prolong the remission of his lymphoma) in something, but he's not a very picky eater. Just now I made him a batch of instant rice and frozen chicken fingers and he gobbled that mess down like it was a freshly killed lamb. However, when it comes to Alden and I, most nights we eat frozen food from Fresh and Easy (I fucking love that place). Alden's a bit better of a cook than I am. His father (he was raised by his dad) is actually a great cook, but since he went to boarding school from he was twelve on, he didn't pick up the whole suit of skills. We are no gourmands.

I genuinely mean for us to someday be the kind of family that sits down for a nutritious meal together and talks about the highs and lows of our day or whatever happy, healthy families discuss over dinner. I just don't know how we're going to pull it together at our current speed and that? makes me sad. I read Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals and In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto, each while still in hardcover release. THAT's how hardcore I am about thinking about food, culture, and sustainability.

But in practice? I suck. But hey, if nothing else, we can still rehash our days over take out. Worse things have happened.

Grand Stand

Have you seen anything so menacing in your life? She stands! The terror. She not only crawls back and forth across the living room floor, but now she pauses at each end to stand on something. She can't stand up on her own, of course, but she can pull herself up easily. Which means that she can fall in a blink. And pull Kleenex out of the trash at lightening speed. And catch up with the cat and pull her tail.



And speaking of Muffy, I think my girls are getting to be good friends.

Mama Whiplash

As a mama, I sometimes feel an overwhelming pressure to be positive about all experiences relating to motherhood. Several months ago I mentioned on this blog (can you believe that a "several months ago" already exists for this blog?) that Tina Fey once said that the first year parenting a baby “is like someone hitting you every day in the face with a hammer.” Back then I though that was an overreaction. The first three months with Bea were a rarified delight. As have the last six months, but now? In addition to delight, I kind of feel like my face has been smashed in with a hammer. I am Just. So. Tired.

But then! I'm back to being not only in love with my baby and my husband, but my life. This weekend was both full of merriment AND productive. Plus, I have come to adore Bea's daycare teachers. The other day I went to pick her up and ended up just hanging out for an hour chatting. Work wise, the hardest part of the semester is under my belt and it's smooth sailing from here on out. I've gotten to know and adore (most of) my students and I'm getting the hang of my schedule. Believe it or not... at this very moment I'm actually dreading the end of the semester when I have to give all my kiddies up. And? I want very badly to land a teaching position in the spring. It's a long shot and depends on enrollment figures that haven't yet come in.

I swing back and forth between treachery and joy so spastically that I'm getting mama whiplash. I'd say it all depends on how well I slept the night before and how many bottles into a box of Amstel Light I am, but I'm feeling pretty giddy at the moment on a crummy night's sleep and sans beer in my tummy. I might be especially cheery because I'm so nearly caught up on work AND we had a lovely afternoon out yesterday showing Bea off at a party for the MOMS Club. It's easy to forget that it was just Friday that I cried on my way to work because of diabolical exhaustion and misery at having to ever be apart from the Littlest T.A.

Is this normal? These dramatical flings to-and-fro? This frightening ambivalence and wild shifts in temperament? Is it possible to be simultaneously surly and joyous? Well, I guess so. But it's gonna take some getting used to.

PIÑATA!

Oral Quarrel

Is it common knowledge that babies tend to be exquisitely designed punishment for the ways their mothers were as babies? My mom has always said both of my sisters have daughters that take after their most annoying traits in infancy. She just sits back and laughs as my sisters struggle to parent the tiny replicas of themselves. As for me, my mom still hasn't gotten over a habit I had as an infant: I put stuff in my mouth and I choked on it. Allegedly, repeatedly and exasperatingly. Being the youngest of three, the house was filled to the brim with choking hazards and I put each and every one of those potentially fatal objects in my mouth.

Well, today Bea and I hosted our MOMS club group over at our house. (I say "we" like Bea helped or something, though she most certainly did not.) We had seven (7!) moms and seven (7!) babes in our tiny backyard. It was a little squishy, but we made it work. But here's the rub: my backyard is a succulent-lined pool of marble-sized pebbles and it seems to be Bea's mission to put each and every piece of gravel in her mouth and gag on it.

The other babies all quickly learned that gravel was not delicious and played with the decidedly non-hazardous toys, but Bea? Homegirl wanted to get all NOM NOM up on that shit. I pulled rocks out of her mouth so many times that I'm certain I'll dream tonight (well, if I sleep, now that the image of Bea choking is lodged in my brain) of sweeping the fleshy insides of her toothless squawk box. I love sitting outside and enjoying the fall sunshine. I mean, if you can't enjoy highs in the mid-80s in late October, than what's the point of living in L.A.? But I may never venture in the backyard again because I cannot handle that gravel business. How long until she stops putting everything in her mouth? I feel like I aged ten years today.

In other news, if you don't mind looking past the fact that Bea is sans pants and diaper, check her out! She can clap! She also can wave, but so unreliably that I haven't been able to get her to do it when the camera is rolling. She is changing so quickly that I barely can keep up.



Now, you'll excuse me while I try to forget the terror I felt each and every time that kid snuck another pebble into sweet mouth.

What Am I Doing?

So, this is weird: I can't remember when I started calling myself a feminist or why. I think it might have had something to do with Bust or riot grrrl music, both of which I stumbled upon towards the end of my freshman year of college (though by that time the riot grrl scene had sputtered out into isolated pockets shielding themselves for Lilith Fair lady mellowness). I do, however, recall what primed me to be a feminist.

I skipped my senior year of high school thanks to a surplus of junior college credits and went straight to Berkeley as a 17-year-old. I did this because I had something to prove. I had a deeply internalized belief that everyone discounted my intelligence. A persecution complex, they call it. I apologize in advance, but I'm about to delve into some therapy-speak about my emotional development.

I came from a family that ridiculed me for being "book smart" instead of "street smart." They lauded athletics over academics and equated nerdiness with victimhood. Being an incurable dork, I reacted to this environment by approaching academics with a ruthless competitiveness that eclipsed my emotional development. I thought if I could prove that I wasn't fucking around in the school department I might finally be accepted for my forte (books) rather than disdained for my weaknesses (socializing and sports). It did not work out as such.

I racked up academic accomplishments, but my competitiveness and aggression put people, especially teachers, off. I felt undervalued and undermined. I didn't get this, so I was certain that the only thing keeping me from a Genius Grant was my femaleness. I thought everyone assumed I was dumb because I was a blonde girl. The truth, as it appears to me now, is that 1) I was kinda dumb 2) Not everyone thought I was dumb 3) No one cares if I'm dumb of not 4) I made myself look dumb.

I went on to graduate from college when I was 20. I thought the real world would suit me. It did not. I never found the recognition I was looking for in my mediocre jobs, but my sense of injustice ripened into detachment. My feminism became a blah assortment of weak ideals and affection for DIY projects. The feelings that led me to feminism were misguided, juvenile and self-immolating. Ten years down the line I'm nothing more than a mama with a heightened awareness of gender and a girl-boner for the entire Sleater-Kinney oeuvre. BUT! I teach a gender studies themed writing class. I talk about feminism All. Day. Long. And I'm still a feminist, but lately I've been asking myself: what does it matter that I'm a feminist? What do I do for the cause? And HEY! What is the cause?

I don't have easy answers. On one hand, I do nothing. I've never marched in anything. Not even when I was at Berkeley. I'm no activist. And despite this blog hanging a feminist shingle, I don't do much hashing out of gender in any meaningful way. I don't even know what us feminists are trying to hash out anymore. I mean, I hated having no maternity leave. I'm pissed that I can't find part-time work that uses my skill set. It fucking sucks that mamas hands are tied and the lot of the American woman is a junkyard. I care. A lot. But I don't know to do other than, well, my job. I want my kids to think about gender. But I'm feeling generous with myself tonight. Every time a female college student asks herself, "Hey! Why DON'T I wear underwear when I'm riding my bike around campus?" or a frat boy staggers back to his twin bed with blue balls intact, a feminist angel gets her hand-crocheted wings. I mean, what else can I do?

Now the revelation that caused this post: as I mentioned the other day, one of my students wants to be a physician, but after mulling over some of the issues we discussed in class, was beginning to think she should find a health provider speciality (not necessarily an M.D.) that would be more conducive to the family she knows she wants to have. So, I like to pat myself on the back for getting my girls to question the practice of asking, "Is this slutty enough?" while getting dressed to go out AND I'm pleased that one of my students is thinking realistically and carefully about what it means to be an ambitious woman. But shit, my views on gender--as nebulous as they are these days--are inadvertently resulting in girls choosing less demanding careers.

Should it be my goal as a feminist to ensure that there are just as many female doctors as male ones, or should it be my goal to make girls realize that being a doctor and a mama is a hard path to take that will require painful sacrifices on both fronts? We expect our workers to check their humanity at the office door and be neutered, sanitized, and focused. And indeed, that is what my students expect of their professors. They have a hard-wired sense of "professionalism," this is repeatedly challenged by me coming in so under-slept that I can barely follow along with my own PowerPoint presentations or trying to have conferences with a screaming baby chewing on my tit. My classes are 85% female. All are training for a profession. Most want children, some want to be stay-at-home moms, but several had been planning on "having it all." I am not sure if I am modeling the latter option well. And I am unsure if I want to be modeling it well. Perhaps all I can say for myself is that I'm giving them the scary truth about modern maternity.

So, here I am. Despite latching on to feminism for all the wrong reasons (I suppose I'm akin to people who only find Jesus after exchanging a $20 for a BJ behind the Kwik-E-Mart), I believe in equality, but I don't know what that means anymore. I don't even know if I embrace myself as a working mother or if I'm just punching the clock until I can get back to SAHMing. I don't know what to tell my students. I don't know what to tell my daughter.

Sunday Snaps: Histories and Futures, Natural and Otherwise Edition

I can't believe it took me so long to get Our Lady of Toothlessness (seriously, we're approaching her nine month mark and still not a slice of white in sight) on her first tour of the Natural History Museum, but FINALLY today, we rolled that Little Lady on over. What's remarkable about the delay is that 1) It is across the street from where I work, and 2) both Alden and I are in the tank hardcore for dioramas and taxidermy. Despite having worked in art book publishing for a spell (das fucken Taschen), I don't really get worked up about art museums, but man, sit me in front of a stuffed bear and I'll be occupied for hours.


So fine, I'm pretty sure Bea's first sentence won't be "gorillas are terrestrial quadrupeds," but a mama can dream, right? We happened to walk in on a presentation geared towards younger school aged kids about dinosaurs and Bea was MESMERIZED. There was a person in an elaborate t-rex suit with an unwieldy tail and gimpy dino paws snarling at the children and Bea was unfazed, even when said unwieldy tail almost knocked her stroller over.

In other news, we ventured on to the Exposition Park rose gardens and then, later, to the WeHo Target where, inexplicably, there was a Transformer out front. I said to Alden, "Um, there's a giant Transformer here. Why? Is this something that I'm supposed to take a picture with? I mean, like, for my blog?" So I posed for you, readers, but I didn't like it because I do not understand the point of cars that turn into robots (or whatever). Maybe this is because I'm a lady, maybe this is because I'm stupid, maybe this is because the very notion of alien robots that turn into cars (or whatever) is idiotic. Jury is out, y'all.


Okay, so I post the photographic evidence of this hesitantly. I expect someone either to post a comment or just silently wonder about our willingness to feed our almost-nine-month-old ice cream. Our waiter was this super-cute fresh off the boat (road trip?) model/actor/musician-type with a Texas twang and a soft-spot for kiddos. He brought the ice cream out for free. Who were we to disappoint him? And HOLY SHIT! Kiddo went nanners for the stuff. Joy all around. Please don't hate. And we didn't really let a stuffed bear push her stroller. He was stuffed. Stop hating already!


Alden just took this a few minutes ago. Let's not worry about dogs with incurable cancer and behbehs that must grow up (and whatever is going to happen to Muffy). Aren't they perfect?

Beatrix or Treat

I meant to spend a chunk of my afternoon writing sumpin' insightful-like for this blog while Bea napped and Alden worked on Bea's Halloween costume, but alas, I might as well have wished for a pterodactyl to do the dishes. Firstly, the lady rejected napping like it was a toothless suitor. Secondly, my initial plan of hot glueing this shit together was not going to fly. The glue would add too much stiffness and bulk. See, Alden came up with a great costume idea: a piñata. We bought a white sleeper and cap and decided to deck it out with felt strips. Well, it turns out that sewing 40 or so strips of felt down is a pretty tedious affair. Though Alden can do basic stuff with a sewing machine, this required a bit more finesse so I've spent the last five hours hunched over the machine performing a labor of love.

We're not quite finished yet. The sleeves need to be hand-stitched (Alden's turn to labor for love), but we did finish up the hat. Check it:



We don't have any solid Halloween plans, but wherever we go, we will carry baseball bats.

FML

Notice anything different around here? Anything? Anything? My ads are gone because my AdSense account was disabled. I don't know why. I'm working on it.

I got the email as I was leaving to go to Work: Special Thursday Edition. It was a rather crummy note for my day to start on. I did three hours of conferences with Bea in tow and sadly, there was no repeat performance of Monday's ultra-refined behavior. Nothing terrible happened, but I was exhausted by the task of being a working mom--literally, simultaneously. I'm a public nurser, but I'm not crazy about whipping a boob out in front of my students but Homefry wouldn't have it any other way. I bet some prescriptions to birth control were renewed today.

One of my students wants to write her next paper about the problems of being a working mother, apropos enough. This student was planning on being a doctor, but is now thinking of changing her plans to something more accommodating to having a family (i.e. to a professional career that has a part-time track). Part of me was HORRIFIED, but most of me was impressed with her foresight. Because that's the kind of feminist I've become.

I would give anything to find a satisfying part-time position. I like a lot of things about working. I have a great batch of kiddos this semester and I'm having a lovely time getting to know them, but I am FUCKING EXHAUSTED. Seriously. I'm going to start spiking my Amstel Lights with Jack. (Actually, I'm not. I get severe allergic reactions from liquor and thus never drink it.) Even my tiredness is tired. Like, can you tell? I'm struggling to find words to put in this little white box and I can't even muster the energy to cry over my dearly departed AdSense account.

I'm just gonna quit while I'm ahead (am I even ahead?) and try to assemble a thoughtful post on the state of feminism for Saturday.

Utilitarian Egalitarian

I grade papers about gender for a living. Some of these papers are written by 18-year-old girls that are absolutely befuddled with this whole working mom/career woman thing. From their perspective (and indeed, most perspectives) it's quite confusing. Most want to be stay-at-home moms, but um, hey! They're in college RIGHT NOW! preparing for a career as an engineer/professor/lawyer/doctor etc. How do they reconcile that?

They don't. There's no easy answer. They don't leave my class with any resolution, but one thing that comes up over and over again is: how are women supposed to have careers AND take care of children and the house at the same time? This is when I usually squirrel away a kindly chunk of whitespace in the margins and write:

"WHAT IF MEN DID HALF THE HOUSEWORK AND CHILDCARE?"

I never get a response out of the kiddos for my hypothetical question, but, in their defense, it's only after a few months of working that I prepared to answer a response myself.

I've heard mama friends say that daddies are just inept with household chores: feminism scheminism, it just works better when mama does it. I've heard stay-at-home moms who do everything but wash the pots and take out the trash. I've heard of working moms who do all the household work despite a husband who spends equal time in the office. I think I've heard everything in between, but GODDAMNIT! I knew when I went back to work I want some cut and dry 50/50 business around here.

Tonight I posed to Alden the question, "Who does more around the house?"

"Dunno," he responded.

"Okay, if one of us does more, who is it?"

"Dunno."

Mission fucking accomplished.

But our housework arrangement is not perfect. No one has clear roles and so we fight about why the dishwasher wasn't emptied, or the daycare bag isn't packed, or why I can't find the baby's goddamn stoopid yellow hat and WHY DID YOU HIDE IT FROM ME WHEN IT'S FINALLY COLD ENOUGH OUTSIDE TO WEAR? I HATE YOU!

Clearly this housework thing is a key part to a truly egalitarian household, but this bidness is not as clear as it might seem. Honestly, it really might be simpler for one of us to stay home and take care of the household realm while the other takes care of the money sitch. At least then we'd know what we're supposed to be doing. Well, that might work, but how do we live on one income? What happens if one of us botches our role? What if we get divorced? What if we both want careers?

Shit, I don't know where I stand on all this 'cept that: if both of us are working? Both of us are washing the goddamn dishes. And so far, we are. Phew.

That's Enough Vassar Bashing from You, Young Lady

Today I took my first step towards forcing Bea to be a women's studies major at Smith. A baby step, if you will.

Because her daycare was closed for Columbus Day (what we call Indigenous People's Day where I come from), I had to take Bea to school with me. Fortunately, I was able to arrange for my once-a-semester librarian-led class to be today so that I didn't have to teach, though I did need to show up to take attendance and make sure those little buggers weren't Facebookin' on library time. While the librarian introduced my students to USC's illustrious research resources, I taught Bea to take snacks off my tongue and feed them back to me. Yeah, bro. I got your pedagogy *right here*.

I managed to get her down for two--TWO!--naps while I taught and attended related classes thanks to the sleep mask that an anonymous commenter suggested to me on this blog ages ago, but I wasn't able to find in stock until this weekend when it just appeared at Target, of all places.



My Lady slumbered like Rip Van Winkle during gender studies lecture (I'm not the instructor of that class, but I attend along with my students so we can discuss related topics in our writing class). Despite her rock solid nap, I'd like to think the seeds were planted for a preternatural awareness and affection for feminism.

Today could have gone terribly, but it was rather pleasant. At the end of the day it felt fantastic to be with her, so closely connected all day, and I bitterly missed my days as a stay-at-home mom. If only I could teach--a job that I so adore--with Bea every day, my world would be perfect.

WHY NOT?! Why does equality in the workplace require separation of mothers and their infants? Who wants to get together with me and come up with a new radical feminism that allows mamas and babies to enter the workplace together? Until kiddos are 2-5, mamas and babies should be one unit. I don't want to have to choose between the false dichotomy of SAHMing and working. Grrr! Let's take it to the streets, ladies. Who's with me?

Pumpkin Meets Patch

In between grading papers this weekend, Alden and I delighted Bea with her first trip to the pumpkin patch. We met a few ducks, a couple of goats, some piggies and bunnies (but the bunnies aren't so exciting to us because we have a family of "wild" bunnies that live in our yard). It is one of my goals as a parent to instill in Bea a love and respect for animals. Petting zoos will be instrumental in that goal.

We took, I'm slightly ashamed to admit, 162 pictures at the pumpkin patch. One hundred and sixty two. At one point a small crowd amassed to gawk at Bea's awesome cuteness and I was like, "Shhh! Don't overwhelm my subject!" We seriously sat that kid down between a couple of pumpkins and made any and every zany sound we could think of to get her to keep mugging for the camera. "Bea! Bea! Zoooooom! Neener-neener! Ow! Bam! Zowie! Yay!" Then we clapped and snapped and motor boated and hooted like abject idiots. I never thought we'd be those parents, but I guess I couldn't have reasonably predicted that my baby would be so goddamned cute.

The green shoes were an afterthought. I had to go to a cafe that morning to grade papers and my pet cafe just happens to be a few doors down from a spectacular overpriced children's boutique. I splurged and now she had to wear those shoes every day until I can't shove her tiny feet into them anymore. (And by the way, she has leetle paws. She's eight months old and still needs 0-6 month size shoes. She's going to be a gymnast if you ask me.)

While one of us took photos the other was on straw duty: about every 15 seconds someone had to remove whatever pieces of hay she had shoved into her mouth.I swoon at our adorableness. Is that narcissistic? It can't be. Objectively I just know: we are a cewt asplosion. If you're aching for more candids with pumpkins, there are several additional shots up on Flickr.

Mama Time

Earlier this week I was indulging in a little Facey Spacey chat with Krazy Kuzin' Timmy and I got quite flustered with the guy. You see, Timmy and I chat exclusively about Timmy's life. He won't even listen/read a five line story about something wacky one of my students said. So I laid into the guy and he said, "Ha. Pretty sure you just complained to a 16yo that he doesn't listen to you."

Oh dear. I guess I did.

I'm long on patience and interest for listening to teenagers chat about their lives. On campus I spent sometimes hours chatting with students past and present about their first tequila shots, the weird stuff their frats make them do, and difficulties managing their schedule. I like teenagers so much more now than when I was one. I know. It's weird, but I guess it's a good thing I like them given that I teach them for a living, eh?

But I spend so much time chatting in person with students and online with Timmeh that I sometimes lose track of how important it is to spent time with people my own age, especially other mamas. I lose the motivation to go out on playdates because Bea spends all day with other babies and thus isn't hurting for kid time and I get plenty of social interaction at work, but the need for mama time runs deep.

I've been a louse with time management lately so I decided to tidy my schedule. Instead of blowing my recreation time chatting late at night with Timmy, I resolved to get some work done at night so I could hang out with some age-appropriate friends during the day. At the last minute I booked three playdates with some SAHM and some working moms for this week and next. So far, I've had two of them and can I just say....

Aaaahhhhhh. Much better.

When Bea was born I wasn't exactly awash with friends. I felt isolated and damaged by the experience of being pregnant four times in two years and I was so nervous about my pregnancy with Bea that I barely moved for eight months. But since she Bea's been on the outside I've worked hard to build relationships with other mothers: through the MOMS Club, Mommy and Me classes, friends of friends, this blog, wherever.

I've never been a social butterfly. I like who I am like, and the others can screw themselves. (I've also never been wildly popular; can you infer why?) But I've met the most delightfully cool mamas and there's not a bad apple in a bunch. The academic in me wants to assign causation to this phenomena of the mama friend glut compared to the dearth of 20-something friends. It seems pretty easy to do: our babies provide my mama friends and I with a bonding point. But that seems to be such a cold, cynical way of explaining relationships that are such a kind comfort to my rattled mama brain. I'm not gonna over think this one. I'm just gonna shut up and be grateful.

Wonder Week

On one or another blog I read I came across the idea of a wonder week. I have no idea if this is a well-known child development phenomena that every mother but me is prepared for, but it took me by surprise. Since we took this video of Bea crawling less than a week ago, the lady has mastered getting around with her tummy up off the floor.

Additionally, she can lift herself to standing with the help of her crib railing (hello! dropped that thing down over the weekend) and can pretty much get wherever she wants to go. I sit her down on the mat some toys and BOOM! two seconds later she's sucking on the dog's leash. Yum. This morning I woke up to the sound of the animals fleeing her mighty fists as she had woken up, silently crawled to the foot of the bed, and began assaulting the pets. She grabs on to Bernie's ears and tries to climb on his back like he's Falkor. It's a good thing Bernie and Muffy are so damn nice. We had two other cats that died when I was pregnant (within a few weeks of one another, of totally unrelated causes) who would have taken her eye out for such an offense.

She likes to hang out under the dining table. She destroyed one of our MacBook power cables. She licks the soles of our shoes. Putting clothes on her is a full-contact sport. Brushing her hair requires good aim. If she doesn't feel like wearing shoes, she simply rips them off and throws them across the room. She's becoming less like an infant and more like a capricious overlord. ALL WITHIN THE LAST WEEK.

It's frightening. It's overwhelming. It's a huge step towards that slippery slope towards adulthood. But I think I like it.

Wordless Wednesday: Glockenspiel Edition

I Need You So Much Closer: Part III

Before I went back to school to get my masters, I was a part-time barista and a fledging pop culture writer for PopMatters. I wrote a lot about music and in the process developed a sharpened awareness of What's Cool. As a result I can't mention any music without feeling the ire of a hypothetical ultra-hipster indie dude judging my banal and pedestrian tastes. Okay?

So, I don't want to get all Seth Cohen on you, but five years later I'm still wet for Death Cab for Cutie's Transatlanticism, particularly the title track that I've referenced here before. This is in part due to a scene from Six Feet Under in which Claire and all her cronies get super-high and shatter their art school sangfroid by singing along with with all the earnestness of a pack of stoned boomers sprawled out on the amphitheater lawn during a Doobie Brothers reunion tour (clip here). They have to be totally fucked up to do it, but for a moment they just enjoy being young, with their friends, and unabashedly feeling something.

Late in my pregnancy with Bea I was diabolically uncomfortable. I carried that baby high and tight, so by the 32nd week she was wedged under my ribs causing a constant burning ache in my side, especially when sitting up. I made a chiropractic appointment to see if I could get her to shift down a bit, but during the cross-town haul to the chiropractor's office the titular song form Transatlanticism came on.

I remember it so specifically. It was early January, but it wasn't cold. And I was driving down Fairfax, past Wilshire towards that monster intersection at San Vicente and Olympic. As the song ramped up it occurred to me: I was going to have a baby. And also? It was going to HURT. I felt my tummy full of tightly-packed baby girl and then I thought about how she was going to make her exit/entrance and I thought, "That's a physical impossibility. That's never going to happen." The song swelled and burst out it's refrain and I realized, "OH MY GOD, that HAS to happen."

Just like the art school asshats, but sans whatever the fuck it was they were taking, I dropped the façade. (I was alone in the car, but still.) In that moment, as the song crested and enveloped my car in good will, I remembered her conception and my love for Alden and how this real, live baby was going to finally be a manifestation of my wild, seemingly-unfeasible love for this dude I met on the internet six years earlier.

I resolved to carry that song into the delivery room. Despite the alarming rapidity of my five-hour labor, I remembered that song, the feeling, the love, the overwhelming psychological urge to get that child out of my gut and into my arms no matter how gruesome the process.

Yesterday I picked Bea up from daycare, drove her home, and she was asleep within the hour. Thus deprived of my face time, I labored on, prepping a tight mothafuckin' PowerPoint for Wednesday's class and chatting with Krazy Kuzin Timmy on the Facey Space. I don't know why I thought to put Transatlanticism on, but again overtaken by the slow, dark swell, I quickly found myself scampering into Bea's silent, darkened room to abduct her from her crib and cuddle her to bits. She ate some boob while asleep and then woke up long enough for me to wrap her up in my arms and gawk at her majesty. As she smiled her cheeks rose like floured dough for me to kiss and nuzzle. God, I love that baby.

Slow-Breaking News

Admittedly I'm not a 100% positive this photo is of me because the clothes look a little more 70's that 80's. I think there's a definite possibility that this is my older sister, Nika, though the back of the photo is clearly labeled "Jodie Horn at 6 months" in my mother's handwriting. I guess I'll have to take her word for it that she didn't go back letter and label photos based on her shoddy recollections.

Which, strangely enough, brings me to this post's point: I have no idea what Bea is going to look like when she gets older.



I can tell that she mostly looks like her dad, but that she has my nose, or at least she doesn't have her dad's rather sharp nose. I can't definitively see any of her grandparents in there, but I can see her cousin Kyler, which is weird because Kyler looks like HIS dad, who is not a blood relative of Bea's. Somehow both Kyler and Bea have enough of their mother's in there (my sister and I) to look alike despite neither ostensibly looking like their mothers.

Every day she looks more and more like a child and less like a baby, but I'm chomping at the bit to see how she'll look when she's grown. It's like watching a Polaroid develop (remember those?) is super-duper slow motion. I'm in no rush for her to grow up (I hear some rough things about toddlerhood), but the suspense is killing me.

P.S. Notice my ever-so-subtle black eye in my baby pic? I think that's what my mom is basing her inscription on. Nothing like hellion older sisters to bludgeon a baby's face to the point of bruising. Bitches.

Crawliver!

Holy shit y'all. My baby can crawl. She's not super at it yet; her tum is still dragging most of the time, but this kiddo can get around. And y'all? Never before has a girl wanted it more. Also? I won't ask for more because I know what's in store. Crawliver! Crawliver!



And while I'm on the subject of Bea being intoxicatingly adorable, it's FOOD, GLORIOUS, FOOD! Please enjoy this photo collage of my Finger Foodie going to town on some "organic puffs." She seriously cannot shovel those things in her mouth fast enough.

Tenuousness

This morning Alden got up with the baby and let me sleep in a bit. As I was trying to convince myself to finally evict this aching bag of bones and chub from bed I flashed on a memory from this weekend that had been suppressed by my crummy week): Bea's first wave. While out to lunch with my parents at Trails, the majestic vegetarian cafe couched in Griffith Park, I smiled at Bea, waved, and said "Hi!" Our Lady of the Flaxen Locks smiled right back at me, lifted her paw up and quite distinctively crunched her knuckles into a loose fist, opened her hand back up, squeezed again, and then released. A wave.

Between that happy memory and the whopping nine hours of sleep I got last night (sure, I woke up to feed the baby three times, but she politely requested her food like old times; I wasn't boob-jacked), I woke up feeling almost serene. That is until I saw the mass of student emails that had accrued overnight and the mess in the kitchen and that I had a playgroup to be at in an few hours and the baby wouldn't go down for her morning nap and I still haven't finished writing my plans for next week and OH MY GOD papers are due tomorrow and I have to grade and OH HEY FOOT! what's up with you being broken-ish?

I don't know if I've effectively conveyed my stress level on this blog. I'm so desperate for time alone with my own thoughts that I've taken to just driving Bea around town while she slumbers in her car seat. It is the only place where I can listen to music, mull over all the stupid shit I've said in the last few days, worry about my workload, meditate on the distance growing between My Dear Queen and I, and figure out all the logistical nightmares that come with being a full-time working mama with part-time daycare. Even after nine hours of sleep, I am just so tired.

As I write I'm sitting in my driveway in my car. Bea is finishing off a nap in the backseat and I'm parked just close enough to the house to pick up the WiFi. It's 2 p.m. and I've already driven so much that I've listened to Andrew Bird's Noble Beast two and a half times today. It's 92 degrees out so to keep it cool enough for Bea I have the engine running and the AC blaring, which makes me a pretty shitty person from an environmental perspective (though at least said engine powers a measly hatchback--it's not like I'm idling my hummer). And I'm not sure that it's stellar parenting to depend on the car to get my baby down for naps.

I got a lot of comments to my last post encouraging me to keep pumping thing and I realized that I didn't meaningfully address how worn out I am; how desperate I am to reduce my stress level; how difficult it is to lose an hour of work time (and keep Bea in daycare for extra hours) just so I can keep her 100% breastfed. I'm not sure that I was clear, either, about how difficult it would be to continue to haul over to the gym to pump twice per day on a messed up foot. I think there's a bit of a pissing contest with working moms on who has to suffer the most to pump milk for her baby. I don't want to win. Bea is 8 months old. I'm going to quit pumping, send her to daycare with formula, and do my damnedest to keep her plied with boob when we're together. I'm going to keep taking my domperidone that I shadily order from an internet pharmacy and hope I'm able to sustain a decent supply to keep her milk soaked on the four days per week that I'm not on campus. Still, I've prepared myself for the possibility that Homefry will become a formula foundling. What matters most is that I reduce my stress level so I can savor my time with my kidlet before it's no longer cute when she tries to steal my beer.