Two Days Late and a Holler Short

A virtual baby shower was held this weekend for GGC and Kristen as each awaits the birth of her second and third child, respectively.

Is that sentence even grammatically correct? Oh my God, I have no idea. That's where I am right now.

Anyway, I missed the shower. The brain of mine that is currently in hiding from the Strunk and White grammar police also balked at the price of admission to the virtual shower: one blog-ode extolling the virtues of newborn babes. Sometimes I get into this mood where I am unable to write about weighty subjects because I feel I can't do them justice. I am in such a mood now, as I have been for the past weekend. And certainly there are few things weightier than bringing a new life into the world--even if it only comes in at 7 lbs 1 oz, like the baby Boss, or 6 lbs 15 ozs, like my recently-born little boy.

So as I sit here typing with the latter in my lap--he's simultaneously eating, sleeping and pooping--I will let these words suffice:

Best wishes, Kristen. By now you're such a professional at this mothering thing--not to mention this blogging thing--that any wishes I can give are a meager offering compared to what you've already accrued. That won't stop me, of course. Here's to continued success in all your endeavors.

And I am so happy to be able to send much love to you, Rebecca, as you put the finishing touches on your next great work. Tell the story until it comes true, right? You've already started to weave the words behind this new life. I can't wait till she comes true through you.

Better late than never.

Today in Connecticut, a Plague of Frogs

I am plagued by frogs. There's a croak beneath each footfall once I step outside the house. As The Partner mows the lawn, I can picture the wet, green whir under the deck of his antique Gravely.

I'm disgusted. I just want to sit outside and read. I don't want to scratch my scalp repeatedly in fear of the frog-itch as I hug my knees to my chest on a chair. I'd like to recline beneath the mild sun that still, even after noon, feels damp from the previous night's dew.

I can't relax. I start to wonder about other plagues. Layoffs. Chemicals in plastic baby bottles. Foreclosures. Pesticides in my leafy greens. This is why I don't watch current events on TV anymore. It's irrational and alarmist, but that's me. I'm too affected by BREAKING NEWS. And it's all BREAKING NEWS these days.

If I see death and devastation in backyard frogs, I see the apocalypse on CNN.


And now back to your regularly scheduled programming.


___

Being My Own Boss

I am incapacitated by a preponderance of time. With The Boss off at school for six and a half hours each day and with Number Two still in a two-nap-a-day phase, I have moments where I could never collect them before. I have quiet spaces. I have broken chunks of blank slate.

It's not that I lack things to do; in fact, I have so much to do that I don't know where to start. There are books to read so that I have novels to write. There are freelance writing jobs for a little cash and some immediate gratification. There are volunteer roles I sometimes wonder why I took on. There's a blog I can't bring myself to update more than once a week. There's a house I haven't cleaned in four months. There are leaves starting to fall.

I could be doing something big right now, like starting that novel or increasing my freelancing load so that writing becomes more of a career than a side-job. But I don't know how to structure myself. I see the open expanse of possibilities and I just sit here as if I have no options at all.

When I worked in an office, my day was structured for me. When The Boss was born, the newness of her demands shaped my days. As she grew, she held onto most of my attention. Then her brother arrived and every moment I had was a single bubble bursting into two. I didn't need to schedule my own small projects because it was easier to get to them in fits and starts whenever I had the chance. The amount of effort it would've taken to organize my life was beyond my time and energy level. So my projects remained insignificant and largely undone.

Now I want to do more. But I don't know where or how to start. Instead of sitting here staring at my navel, marveling at the way it keeps my insides from spilling out, I want to try to turn this post into something productive. So I will ask you--all four of you dear, dear readers--how you manage to get anything done. How do you make time for personal and professional fulfillment while continuing to cater to your kids? How do you prioritize all the different things you need to do as a mother, wife, and all-around human being?

This is what happens when The Boss is out. I surf the Internet all day and get nothing done.

Three Hours

It was the same damn sky. I left the driveway in my car as a fusion of Over the Rainbow and What a Wonderful World came on the satellite radio. The overall effect of high blue and a gentle warble atop the ukulele should've inspired something like contentment, but instead I listened closely to the lyrics for a meaning I could relate to. It was right there. I didn't have to wait long. The wonderful world over the rainbow is a dream.

Before I got into the car I watched a ceremony and fed the baby. Then I drove to book club, where a group of us sat for two hours discussing things like organic food, the ubiquitousness of corn, and too many roosters in my friend's coop. Afterward I tooled over to the gas station to put $55 onto my credit card for transmittal to the Gulf.

Soon after my day began--at home, while the baby ate, at ten till nine--a young woman was reading the As on the alphabetical list of victims from the Twin Towers. Z did not come till I returned home, ten minutes shy of noon. In the car and at book club and next to the pump, there was a soundtrack of names I couldn't hear being mic'd over a chasm.

Three hours. With all the motions, emotions, and thoughts (about the day-to-day, but also about things less grounded) inherent in that span, I was able to contextualize in time the meaning of 2,751.

It was 180 minutes of living in the time it took to read the names of the dead.

That was the Twin Towers alone. Add Shanksville. Add the Pentagon. Then Afghanistan and Iraq. Each name buys me time that--at any given moment--I don't even realize is being paid for. But then I stop to think. And when the world doesn't stop with me, I start to understand.

There are not enough hours in the day. There are never enough hours in the day.

Her First Day of School

The September sun falls through trees onto old red farmhouses rendered dazzling by the light. I drive through glare that is no longer a summer shock, but a gold as intoxicating as currency. The first month of fall in New England is paler than both the preceding season and the autumn depths to come; it has less of an edge. I open my driver's seat window for a smudge-free view that allows the air to rush in as I am engulfed in senses that assure me I am sitting on the better side of just-right.

The Boss goes to pre-school every day now. She was eased into it by mild rays of sun warming her back as she prepared to step through the door for the first time. Her teacher was inside, The Boss was on the verge, and I was behind it all. I expected the teacher to use welcoming words or, at the very least, some hand gestures to indicate the way, but the blond-grey stranger just stood there with a smile that told me nothing. I looked at The Boss, whose lock on me was a blue mirror. I raised my shoulders and we both turned again to the teacher. I don't remember what method--a sweep of the arm, a nod, or a complete lack of direction--that Miss Kathy used to force my hand, but I finally realized what I had to do. My shrug became a gentle nudge against The Boss's kangaroo backpack and I'm sure that I held my breath as she lurched into Room 1. I backed into the September shine.

In the car now it is just me and Number Two, like it used to be me and The Boss. The roll of the tires over farm-hugging curves and marshy side roads comforts me; it lulls my son. The Boss's constant hum of energy is criss-cross-applesauced into morning circle back at school. In her absence is calm lethargy. Number Two looks out the back of the car from his infant carseat. My front facing vantage point is different. Still, we can both see early leaves detach from their support systems and float to the ground all around us.

We will start to get to know each other like this--as scenes of what will become his childhood speed by. It is September, and the greens and golds are faded to start with.


___

Please Pass the Breast Milk

We are sitting at the dinner table as The Boss forks pork chop and peas into her mouth with agonizing slowness. She talks more than she eats, a fact that stretches out dinnertime by a good hour on a nightly basis. She chews, she swallows, and she licks the residue from the corners of her mouth. Then she speaks.

"Why don't men have milk in their boobs?"

The Partner and I grin at each other from where we sit before The Boss. I remain mute long enough to indicate that he's going to have to take this one.

"Because men aren't designed to have babies and feed them. But women are."

The Boss nods her understanding. The up-and-down shake of her head is deliberate. Her mind processes information the same way her back teeth grind down pork to a swallowable squish--with the utmost thoroughness. But she's still only three years old. There are some concepts that elude her. She doesn't know about time, for instance: how fast it goes, and that it stops for no one.

"When I grow older and my boobs get bigger," she says, "I can feed my brother."

Random Notes from the Dentist's Chair

The hygienist pulled a file from a tray that gleamed the silver shine of something sterile and applied it--with quick, cursory strokes--to the tip of the dental pick. When she took the instrument to my teeth, sweeping the metal just under my gums, my eyes shut into a grimace that pulled my cheeks with it. I widened my jaw to counteract the scrunch.

As she worked on my teeth and more than likely rehearsed the ol' "perhaps it's time you acknowledged the existence of dental floss" lecture in her head, I was left to my own mental devices. This is what I thought as I lay there with a bloddy, gaping maw: I would rather get weekly pap smears than go through this crap twice a year.

If flossing is the answer, it's not an easy one. I mean, do I even know anyone who flosses? The Partner doesn't. My parents don't. I saw a lot of things amidst the communal indiscretion of dorm living during my college days, but flossing wasn't among them. I can only come up with one friend that I know for sure used to floss on a daily basis (while watching television, no less)--but she is now the mother of infant triplets and I have to wonder how she could possibly find a spare minute, let alone the requisite amount of energy, to suck on tooth string once every 24 hours. If I'm wrong, I hope she'll comment below. I may very well be wrong. The girl is shockingly disciplined.

When the dentist came in to poke around the hygienist's handiwork in an effort to at least make it look like he was doing something to earn the $300/hour being billed to my insurance company, he told me I really work my jaw like a pro. Okay, he didn't use those exact words, but I'm sure I'm not flattering myself too much. What he said was, "you're the ideal patient, the way you hold your mouth open so wide."

That's not what he tells all the girls, is it?

Self-Six

Jocelyn, a beautiful writer with a beautiful son and a beautiful husband and a whole bunch of beautiful stories to her credit (if you think I'm overdoing the beautifuls, just go to her site and try to tell me I'm wrong) tagged me for a meme asking participants to create a memoir in six words.

Here's mine:

This stoic New Englander laughs anyway.

Photo by Lauren

For some more six word memoirs--some haunting, some funny, some obscure--go here.

And to do my memely duty, I'm passing it along to Mrs. Chicken, Amy at Binkytown, Lauren at Memoir, Fitz and/or Duff at My Mom Genes, and jen at one plus two. There's something about this meme that really intrigues me. I can't wait to see how each of you spins your own six word yarn.

1. Write a six-word memoir.

2. Post it to your blog, maybe with a pic.

3. Link to the person who tagged you

4. Tag a few folks

5. Leave a comment for them with an invite to play.

A Chicken Nugget

You can find me over at Chicken and Cheese, where I am guest posting for Mrs. Chicken. She had herself a baby boy just a couple weeks ago. The two of us are now situational sisters, both raising a pre-school girl and an infant boy while building a freelance writing career. I'm happy to have such a talented, sensitive and funny woman to share the experience with.

If you aren't familiar with her site, take some time to look around when you get there. Chicken and Cheese is an eat-in establishment. A drive-thru just wouldn't do.

Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head

The Partner walked out of the house this morning on his way to work with a purple umbrella tucked under his arm. "I'm going toleave this in your car because it's supposed to rain today."

It was a sweet, protective gesture on its face. I think I swooned a bit. But it was early, and my mind was still cloudy. Things became clearer When I really started to think about the underlying meaning.

This is what raingear says about my general level of competence in any given situation: Not only do I not know enough to come in out of the rain, but I'm incapable of remembering my own umbrella.

On the bright side, The Boss always remembers her umbrella.

___

The White Trash Mom Handbook

The White Trash Mom Handbook by Michelle Lamar with Molly Wendland actually has very little to do with being white or trashy. If you find that fact disappointing, the WTMH is probably not for you. But if you enjoy a bit of tackiness more as a literary conceit than a literal comparison, read on.

Being a White Trash Mom as Lamar describes it is accepting the fact that you can't do it "all." It's about embracing your imperfections and having a little fun with them. The book is based on the premise that today's society pressures parents to be perfect, leading mere mortal mothers to fight for the unobtainable Supermom status. It's a losing battle with an imaginary foe. You're not perfect, and neither is anyone else.

Right now my oldest child, aged 3, is about to start nursery school. The WTMH tells me that parenting in pre-school is bush-league compared to the K-12 years of professional bullshit. That's a scary concept, because I'm already getting inklings that even pre-school politics are outside my comfort zone. I have a lot to learn from the White Trash Moms.

Some key things I discovered are:

1) Brown-nosing your children's teachers is crucial. They can make your kids' lives much easier if they have the motivation to do so. Give them presents. Donate school supplies. Volunteer to help cut out shapes for that activity or to collect and organize all those General Mills Box Tops. Your children will thank you (probably not literally, but the sentiment will shine through).

2) It's important to be true to yourself and your morals, but know that a certain degree of conformity (or the illusion of such) is necessary if you don't want your children to have to deal with the re-percussions of their mom marching to the beat of her own drummer. It's all about working the system from the inside--from fake-baking for the holiday party (caramel squares melted over fork-smushed, store-brought brownies to create that all important homemade look) to picking the volunteer duty with the best return on your investment.

3) One should never, ever (Lamar used 26 ever's to drive this point home) confront the parents of a child who is bullying your own. "For the most part," Lamar writes, "kids who are jerks have parents who are jerks."

The White Trash Mom Handbook is not about maneuvering your way around the trailer park, barefoot with a bump. It's about navigating the school yard as a parent. I heard about the book through the Parent Bloggers Network, and I'm glad I did.

Sightseeing

Last week The Boss honed her networking skills while on vacation in Acadia National Park. She made friends everywhere she went. The fact that she is so gregarious and charming never ceases to amaze me. I did not exhibit those traits as a child, and it's such non-familiarity that makes my daughter seem so much more strange and wonderful to me.

At dinner on a deck in Bar Harbor, The Boss walked up to a girl who appeared to be right around her age.

"What's your name?" The Boss inquired.

"Hannah," the girl replied.

"Hi, Hannah," said The Boss. Then she went on to engage Hannah in a conversation about several of the most recent things to catch her fancy, including the life sized whale perched behind the restaurant at which we were eating. "Did you see that fank whale back there? Mom and dad said I can go touch it after we eat." Fank, in case you were wondering, is three-year-old-speak for fake.

"That's not a fank whale," said three-and-a-half-year-old Hannah, calling upon the six months of experience she had on The Boss. "It's a sculpture."

The Boss was all agreement. "Yes, yes. A sculpture." They went on like that for more than ten minutes as The Partner and I watched, transfixed. At that moment in time, on a warm deck in Maine while the sun shone on a high tide, I was sure I had never been better entertained in any of my thirty years. The best things in life are ones first experienced, and everything about the scene was new. From what The Boss saw and discussed with Hannah to the way we hung on their every word, there was no room for the jaded.

***

Later, atop Cadillac Mountain, The Boss held onto her father's hand as the two of them tromped over flat rocks toward the ocean view. She was prepared for what we had promised her would be an amazing sight. Squeezing his knuckles with baby-soft reassurance, The Boss looked up at The Partner.

"I'll keep my blue eyes open so I don't miss the scenery," she said.

___

A Change of Heart

This is a ridiculous story. I was once playing Donkey Kong on the Intellivision with my father around the time that such a game console was popular. It was my father's turn, and he made it all the way up to Donkey Kong only to be crushed by a barrel right at the big ape's feet. It was an understandable mistake; not realizing he had one last ladder to climb, he thought he'd already beaten the round.

I was a sensitive child. That's the only explanation. With dad's game ended, he asked if I wanted to play. I said no. Then I went to my room and cried because my poor father hadn't known that the game wasn't over. I thought my father knew everything. I was moved to tears because he didn't.

I'm thinking about that today because I still hate the idea of my father facing disappointment, or the unknown, or fear. The lesson I first learned from Donkey Kong has only been reinforced as I've grown. My father is human. It's a strange understanding to have as someone's child--knowing that while I can control my own emotions, I am powerless when it comes to his.

My dad went in today for a cardioversion, which is an electrical shock to re-set the heart so the heart's natural pacemaker can take over. His first appointment earlier this week was cut short when it was shown that the medication used to thin his blood had not thinned it enough to reduce the risk of stroke associated with the procedure. So he went back in today. I'm still waiting to hear how it went.

I get all tight in the windpipe area just thinking about it. And, yes, I still think it's ridiculous that my first premonition of that feeling came in highly pixelated form on an old, wood-paneled console channeling Intellivision.

The 30th

Last night, on my 30th birthday, we went to a seaside restaurant in Narragansett. Upon our return to the car after our meal, The Boss peered over a stone wall nearly as tall as she was to an ocean that crashed into rocks below us and stretched out in seeming endlessness before us.

"I can't believe my mind!" she marveled. She meant "eyes," but I liked her spin.

As she focused on the blue beyond, three categories of people squeezed by on the sidewalk: teenagers on the fast track to what lay in front of them; groups of elderly women in no hurry at all; and joggers making a loop. I watched them, then took in my family standing still at my side. The Boss took in sea and sky. Number Two looked at a strange combination of everything and nothing. From a perspective six feet high, The Partner kept a constant scan of all of us (with a few backward glances to the restaurant, where the hostess with the 20 inch waist floated by in front of each new party).

So this is thirty, I thought. The reality coursed through the different levels of my subconscious and my everyday brain, as muddy and salty as the Atlantic.

I can't believe my mind, either.

The Key to Her Heart

Number Two dotes on The Boss in a way that seems a bit unmerited at first glance.

To everyone else he is a stoic. He goes about his business with steadiness and care. He eats. He digests. He spews from both ends. His mouth, when not occupied in an aspect of the aforementioned process, is a straight line.

When he sees The Boss, his lips arc. The curve comes closer to a half circle with each moment of attention his superior deigns to send his way. He positively beams.

For the past three months, The Boss has been prone to walking away after one look, or slap, or curt word flung in Number Two's direction. It was as though he'd go away if she ignored him. But now there is idolization in the set of her brother's features, and she thinks she might like him a bit more. Sometimes she leans in for a closer look. Sometimes she starts to coo. She often introduces him with the proud, emphatic point of her finger: "That's my brother. Right there. That's him."

The realm of the sibling is one strange place. Where else can selfishness and even moments of cruelty garner the kind of devotion that a little brother or sister can give to an older counterpart? But as strange as this nascent ass-kissing behavior may seem on its face, it makes more sense as I think about it. And suddenly it's not foreign at all.

Number Two knows on an innate level what people in different kinds of relationships rationalize much later--that the key to some hearts must slide in through an ego lock.

The Supplest Supplication

It's like a prayer, the way his two feet come together beneath knees bent back and to the side. Each pad pushes against its mate--heel to heel, ball to ball. The grip of ten toes is a stunted steeple. I thought he would've lost that fetal bend by now, but he's three months into the fresh air and still feeling for the womb.

It means he's new. He's doubled his birth weight and discovered the difference between day and night, but the proof is in the crook of his legs and in two searching feet. He's still new. I can run my hands over the silken powder of his thigh, which tapers fatly to his knee. I can put my finger into the grip of his toes and laugh when he doesn't let go.

And I do. I sit there, finger-in-foot, for so long that it becomes impossible to tell whether the newborn is holding onto me or I'm holding onto the newborn.

Happy Birthday, Boss

Today marks the third anniversary of The Boss's rise to power as the head of this family. From the moment she was ripped from my gaping abdomen while I laid there unconscious, she's been the one in charge.



The Boss is benevolent. She drops lispy words of encouragement like candy: "I really love you, Mommy" or "You're beautiful." She says "please" and "thank you" and "may I use that when you're done?"



She only breaks down occasionally, though you definitely don't want to be the one called into her office to witness that harangue.



She's a people person, too. She chats with strangers in the supermarket about subjects ranging from her weekend plans to body parts and functions to her upcoming pre-school matriculation. These strangers are usually charmed by her voice and passion. I am always proud. Okay, well, sometimes--in the case of the exclamations on functional anatomy--I admit to being a tad bit embarrassed.



Her thoughts and emotions are vivid. They're right there. She's a magnifying glass that uses sunlight to ignite everything in the line of sight. Without her, I wouldn't notice half of what's around me, and there'd be no fire.



Yesterday I told her that her birthday was also my anniversary. "You made me a mom," I said. "Before that, I was just Binky."



She laughed, like that was so silly. "You're not Binky. You're Mommy Binky." She threw everything into the giggle that followed, the sound coming from her diaphragm and emerging deeper and louder than one would expect from a just-turned-three-year-old. She always laughs like that. "You're not Binky. Nope."



"That's right," I agreed, matching her laugh. I'd defy anyone not to. "That's exactly what I'm trying to tell you."

Better Start Saving for That Booming System Now

An ornery Boss could always be calmed by classical music while traveling in the car. From the first time left the hospital as a family through this very day, a little Bach goes a long way. The opening notes of a concerto can be counted on to stop her wails and keep her on the silent side of satisfied.

Number Two, on the other hand, has no interest in the soft stuff. It's the thump of the bass that lulls him. Today he had been working himself into a tizzy for fifteen minutes when Salt 'n' Pepa's Push It came on the 80s channel of my Sirius Satellite Radio (have they really been around that long?!?!). His shrieks reduced to fits and starts. I turned it up. The crying stopped completely.

I nodded to myself and settled into a much more relaxing car ride. I even made an extra stop on a library book-returning mission I had thought I was going to have to abort when he was in the midst of his hysterics. It was only when I pulled up to the curb next to the book drop-off box that I realized how the situation might seem to others. The car was vibrating with sound, each tiny tremor making the rear view mirror shimmer. "Ooh, baby, baby" shot out the driver's seat when I opened my door. I turned it down, not out of concern for ear drums or moral development, but out of self-consciousness. Then I made the book depsoit and hopped back in the seat, pumping Push It right back up.

As an elderly gentleman emerged from the library, I figured it was a good thing the song was relatively benign retro hip hop and not something from, say, Big Poppa's body of work. Because a good mother would never expose her bass-fiending baby to that, right?

Riiiiight.

Bringing Summer Back

Childhood has an everlasting impact on summertime. When I was young, the season was rendered distinct by vacations and extended visits to my best friend's house and a shallow, plastic pool. There was a year of school and then two and a half months of glorious freedom. I came to associate that lack of structure with heat, pungent grass clippings, and the reverb of motorcycles in the distance.

Now that I don't attend school and don't have a set work week, summer has nothing to interrupt. A day now is like a day last month is like a day five months ago, except that it's hotter and sometimes we go swimming. There are still clothes to wash, bathrooms to clean, articles to write and a baby to feed. I may step outside for brief intervals, but then I escape back into the air conditioning where the smell of grass and the sound of motorcycles can't follow. The season just doesn't pack the punch that it used to. Yet the idea of it can still knock me over.

When I was a child I thought summertime naturally populated itself with friends and beaches and amusement parks and lightning bugs. It turns out my parents were the ones who made a lot of that possible. They packed up the beach provisions; they drove the car filled with screaming ingrates and are-we-there-yets; they left the dishes in the sink to go outside and catch bright bugs in jars.

Now I'm a parent myself and my three year old daughter is making me realize a few things, one of which is this: summer is not going to come to me. I have to go get it and then present it to the kids as if it was always there. It's a little bit surreal, I have to tell you. A little bit hot and hazy. I'm not used to summer requiring work.

We haven't even been the beach yet, and the season is half over. We've eaten dinner out on the deck maybe twice. I haven't even had to crack the lid on the mosquito repellant.

It's time to go be a kid again.

A Different Kind of Funny

I was reading the latest Janet Evanovich book in bed last night when I laughed out loud at a passage. That in itself was not unusual. It's her fourteenth Stephanie Plum by-the-numbers book, and each one leading up to it has elicited in me everything from giggles to guffaws. But there was something about the evening--the July heat, the humidity, the fact that both the children were quiet and sleeping--that reminded me of the first time I'd ever read a Stephanie Plum story. It was five or six years ago. I'd laughed so loud I woke up my parents in their nearby room. My father growled a string of unintelligible obscenities. I just rolled my eyes and went back to the hilarity. I was a college graduate living back at home while searching for a job. I was so selfishly happy.

My memory is fixated on the lightweightness of it all. The thin blanket in a tent over my legs as I perched the book on my knees. The crickets outside a window where tall trees were shadowed a degree darker than the night. The turned-away clock that meant nothing.

Not long after that--a year, maybe two--I was engaged to be married. Our first child came a year after the wedding. Our second arrived two years and nine months after that.

Four years. Just four fast years. Last night I found similarities between my old life and my new one in the evening, the bed, the out-loud laughing and the summer heat; but more than that, I felt differences. Oh-my-freaking-God. I am married. I am a mother. I am beholden to my husband and my babies and a mortgage company.

I am happy. There's no doubt about that. My days have more dimensions than they ever have before. Each moment is heavy with consequence. But selfishly happy I am not. I can't imagine I ever will be again.

The days of lightness are stuck in my head but I can't feel them. There's no mellow flow of air raising goosebumps on my arm. Outside, the grass clippings settle beneath the moon but do not release the cooled-earth scent I used to inhale.

But that's okay. Like the Bible and the Byrds say, there's a season for all of it. And as long as Ms. Evanovich keeps churning out the funny, I'll continue laughing right along.

When a Mental Health Day Is In Order

If I was Number Two, I'd be filing a harrassment report against The Boss over in HR right about now.

But the little guy just sits there and takes it.

Yesterday one of The Boss's fits sent a television remote whizzing right past his head. The day before that, she threw her bowl of dry cereal at him when he would not stop crying in the backseat of the car. She went over to her nana's house last weekend and was witnessed putting her hand over his nose and mouth.

It's not just Number Two who has a valid case against his superior, though. I myself am studying workplace policies to find out what kind of recourse I have when it comes to The Boss's tantrums.

My frustration came to a head last night when she refused dinner on the grounds that it was--AND I QUOTE--"not tasty." Her hysteria rose quickly. When I told her she needed to eat the food anyway, she began to huff and puff and blow sheets of snot from her nose. I put her in her room. She ran back out, screaming. Somehow she made it back downstairs, all the while yelling in barely coherent tones about her thirst. Something about "milk, not juice." She tore into the living room, where she launched a full cup of watered-down Tropical Blend across the coffee table and six feet of carpet.

I made the mistake of calling The Partner. I don't know why. If I wanted sympathy, I was barking up the wrong tree. If I wanted advice, I'd be better off calling someone with practical experience and a non-Hitlerian approach to child-rearing. He immediately went on the defensive at the sound of my impatience, shouting out a string of commands for me to use on The Boss. In fact, I'd already tried them all (except the ones involving duct tape and rope, obviously). Nothing worked. They were tactics that only proved effective when administered by The Partner himself. The Partner's word has always been law as far as The Boss is concerned. My word is white noise.

As it turns out, knowing that The Partner was on the other line of the phone was enough to send The Boss back up to her room of her own accord. I had just hung up on him--being yelled at from both sides didn't appeal to me--when I heard The Boss's last defiant cry behind the slamming door. And, silence. I was still for a moment as I waited to see if it held.

It did. I slunk into a heap on the kitchen stool. My energy drained from all useful parts and pooled like sewage in my chest. I stared out of the picture window onto a long row of weeds interspersed with roses and tiger lillies.

Then Number Two started to burble. Then he started to cry.

Fever! In The Morning, Fever All Through the Night

Number Two has a fever. Again.

This time it all began with his vaccines, which he received yesterday morning at his two month appointment. Yesterday night, we discovered a 101.4 fever. Visions of a lab coats and needles danced in our heads. To say that the whole family has been traumatized by his last feverish episode and subsequent hospitalization (including spinal tap)--which occured when he was just three weeks old--is putting it mildly. But we pushed past the flashbacks and phoned the on-call doctor.

She suggested we wait a bit to see if the fever went down. It did (somewhat). We retired for the evening, happy to be in our own beds. A steady 100.4 throughout the night afforded us all some rest. When I called the doctor's office upon the resumption of normal business hours, the nurse said such a reaction to vaccines was normal and that we should monitor it and call back later today if symptoms persist.

I would be much more blissful if I was ignorant of the risks of fever in a newborn and the speculative risks of vaccines. Yesterday, before Number Two's temp-rise registered, I was talking to my mother about my qualms relating to the recommended vaccine regimen for infants and toddlers. She just laughed at me. She'd never worried about such things, she said, and everything turned out just fine.

As I humphed on the other end of the phone line, I realized we truly are in a strange place in this day and age. It's hard to strike a balance between knowing too much and not knowing nearly enough.


On a positive note, I found a study stating that children with recurrent fevers in infancy are less likely to develop allergies. So that's good. We've got that going for us.

So Long as Men Can Breathe

The air is so heavy with humidity that you can see it. The Boss calls it "sozzy," which is the word that comes out when she means foggy but can't quite remember the F and the double G.

We were driving through a bucolic stretch of one of Connecticut's more sparsely populated areas on the way to swimming lessons. Green spread to gray underneath the haze. There was the wide swath of farmland to my left, then the treeline behind it, then the sheet of metal sky. It took my breath away and replaced it with wet heat. "This is so beautiful," I said out loud.

"You're so beautiful, too," The Boss piped up from the backseat.

"I'm so beautiful?" I startled slightly, the soft sentiment somehow sharp in my ears.

"Yes, you are so beautiful," she assured me. "You are."

I hadn't expected that. Me, in comparison to a summer's day. Not sweaty, fast and frazzled, but beautiful. My lips were buoyed by a slow grin as I lifted my gaze to the rear view mirror, where The Boss's big blue eyes met mine.

I melted into the compliment from my backseat bard.

Bookstore Breakdown

We left Borders Books in a frenzy, the front desk sales associate leaping over the counter to push open the door for us. "Breakdown," he yelled to the customer just coming in through the other side of the entryway. "Hold the door!"

The Boss was hanging in half over my arm, her face to her legs as she spewed snot and tears on her kneecaps. I clutched her discarded shoes with three fingers of one hand as I used the other hand to steer Number Two's bulky stroller through the exit. The Boss was bucking and screaming; Number Two was discordant in his seat in front of us as I pushed him into the doorjamb and then pulled back with a jerk. I'm not sure if I croaked out a "thank you" to the startled people holding the doors.

When we crossed over into daylight, the sun barely registered with me. It should've been a thunderstorm as far as I was concerned. Maybe the crack-boom of static electricity would've drowned out the tantrum. I heaved a sigh and then hoisted The Boss off of me and onto the sidewalk so we could walk the rest of the way to the car. She crumpled to the beige concrete. She wailed. About what? Who knows. Who cares. She had ceased making sense somewhere back in the children's section, at about the time I told her we had to leave.

In front of Borders, from the ground, I pulled her to me again, her stomach pressing into my forearm while the sun bounced off a pink skorted behind that was pointed toward the heavens as if in supplication. I made our way across the parking lot. She kicked me and thrashed against the handles of the stroller. She screamed. Number Two screamed. We reached the car.

It took me ten minutes to get The Boss buckled into her seat. At one point I put my elbows on the roof of the car and leaned into the whiteness, my chin in my palms. She screamed below. Two twenty-somethings in sleeveless black frills and short white skirts flounced by, luxuriating in not being me.

The Boss found offense in everything during the drive home. On the the three occasions we passed a lake or a pond, she railed against them: "I don't like water! I said, I DON'T LIKE WATER!" I could barely make sense of the tirade as her saliva threatened to drown out her words.

Snoop Dogg came on the radio then with "My Medicine," his countrified ode to illegal pharm. I turned it up. The twangy beat and the cadence of Snoop's voice settled over us like a jacked up lullaby. Number Two liked it. In the rear view mirror, I saw The Boss was sticking to her guns. Her face blazed red with the force of anger.

The more dedicated, the more medicated, Snoop crooned. Can you feel me?

More Than an American Footnote

So my name is a footnote in American legal history, which I'm perversely kind of proud of.

I don't want to go around describing myself as a 'groundbreaker' or a 'difference-maker' because I'm not and I wasn't. But I contributed to people who were saying things that weren't supposed to be said.

- George Carlin

Last night I dreamed that the president was assassinated. When I woke up, it turned out George Carlin was the one who died.

To me, there are few personalities as interesting and important as those found in the footnotes of American legal history as they pertain to the first amendment. Larry Flynt. Howard Stern. George Carlin. They're interesting (love 'em or hate 'em) because of the things they say. They are important because they said them. Each one made an indelible mark on freedom of speech by constantly pushing the envelope containing the letter of the law.

If George Carlin's legacy was humor, it would've been enough. But he leaves even more. By putting those seven dirty words to the test, he showed that each one was worth fighting for, and that none of them can be taken for granted.

There's a lot to be said for that.


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A Cold June in New England

I am very much a product of my New England upbringing. That is to say, I'm cold--like a November pilgrim alone in her one-room shanty mushing corn into meal. I don't tend to enthuse much with strangers. I'm slightly more animated with acquaintances. It's only with good friends (and preferably a few glasses of wine) that I begin to act like I give a good goddamn about those around me--at which point it becomes clear I'm no puritan.

When I was gestating my children, no stranger ever touched my stomach. I've heard many stories about such liberties being taken with pregnant women, but I never had to worry about it. Nobody whose name or face was unrecognizable to me would dare mention my condition, let alone feel around for it. It's like I wear a big sign flickering "UNAPPROACHABLE" in neon letters.

I belong to a mom's group where many of the members are transplants. Some are from the midwest, some from the west, others from further north. They are all very nice and quick to make friends so that, before long, it seems like they've always been here. That's well and good for them, but when they end up with all kinds of fun plans with all kinds of different people and I'm sitting at home with the family members who have no choice but to put up with me, it leaves me lamenting my roots and my subconscious determination not to weed them.

It's very hard for me to foster new friendships. I don't dig into people's pasts or predilections because I don't want to pry. I don't like asking for favors and thus it doesn't occur to me to offer them. I generally won't censor myself. I hate talking on the phone. All this comes together in an uneasy hospitality. I host play dates and visits from acquaintances, but it's usually only the friends I've had a long time who end up staying.

I don't know if I could change if I tried. I don't know where to start trying. How I've accumulated any friends at all is a mystery to me.

Some of the newest members to my mom's group are from England. They're supposed to be pretty reserved, right? Like, across the pond is where this region's particular brand of stuffiness was born. Maybe their True Englander status will be a good match to my New Englander status.

Although, if they really are like me, we'll never get to know each other well enough to find out.

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Realizing There's No Net

The thing about Number Two is that I know exactly how fleeting his infancy will be. I didn't have that awareness with The Boss. I guess I thought she'd be tiny forever. Certainly there was bliss in that ignorance, but what remains is a lack of memory for the details.

The rub of it is this: now that I understand the quickness, I've become so preoccupied with it that I still cannot enjoy the moment, what with all my fear for the remembering. I feel pressure to record everything, but this "everything" is so expansive that I don't know where to begin. Sometimes I don't. I get caught up in trivialities that are less daunting. Volunteer projects. Playdates. Yesterday I filled out a page and a half of Number Two's baby book and considered the effort a success.


But behind those everyday moments, my son still snuffles like a horse. He looks at everything with widening eyes that are, of course, turning hazel like his father's. His feet have outgrown all socks sized 0-3 months, even though that classification still fits the rest of his lean frame. More often than not, he smells stinky-sweet from a diaper that needs changing. He's often attached to my breast, hanging vertical, while I chase after something his sister needs--a drink, a snack, a pair of underwear pulled back up, a channel changed on the TV. Sometimes he looks so incredibly cute. Other times the plate of his forehead threatens to take over, and I can only hope that this kid has an unusually large brain. Like his father.


And that's the line. Between living and remembering. Right now I'm walking it like a tightrope, which is exciting if not a bit nauseating. Falling off is not an option; the only choice is getting used to the callouses where the wire bisects each bare foot.


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Blue

I found out about San Diego Momma's PROMPTuesday via Slouching Mom. I've enjoyed reading SM's responses to the creative writing exercises and, this week, I'm jumping on the bandwagon. Go to SDM's site to read the prompt, and keep reading here to find my response. It's fiction.

***

The sky is midnight blue. Light leaks through the house’s picture window and it is blue, too, but more frenetic and kind of dazzling. I stand on the sidewalk, directly opposite the curtained panes. Azure shadows flicker on the colorless palette of grass. I wonder what she is watching on TV.

The trees have skeletal hands that bleed leaves. They are caught by the wind in cold eddies around my feet. The temperature doesn’t touch me as I imagine so much broken glass and its affect on the eerie color scheme pervading this late hour. Opening curtains, white light bathing pale skin, blue turning to black as Letterman deadpans onscreen.

No, not tonight.

It’s not real, me standing here now. Behind the curtains she is reclining on her faux suede sofa, underneath a down throw because she’s always cold, as she watches the flat screen with indifferent lethargy. Maybe a clock ticks, so ubiquitous that she no longer hears it. Maybe the heat kicks on, pumping hard to warm her cold blood. Maybe her phone rings.

Finally I feel it, the chill against my ear as I wait.

A Connoisseur is Born

Evidently he prefers Sam Adams.

The Unveiling

Welcome to the new and improved 24/7, courtesy of:



Shannon was a pleasure to deal with. She whipped out the design and helped me install it to my Blogger account in the span of one day. The final product is her telepathic rendering of my vision. It had to be telepathy, because I'm pretty sure I didn't make any sense when I tried to put into words the look I was going for. But no matter. Shannon can read your mind over email. That's how good she is.

But if you thought the new design is the only thing being unveiled today, you underestimated my desire to kill two birds with one title. Today, I lift the curtain on the New Guy's Name!

Before you make any assumptions about the winning name based on the fact that I created a poll and asked you all to vote in it, you have to know a couple things about me. One is that I don't generally go with the most popular choice in any given situation. The second is that I often disregard my gut instinct, only to return to it after a completely useless detour. What I'm trying to tell you is that the name I will use to refer to my new son from this point on is not the one that received the most votes in the poll (though it did come in a close second, which helped validate my decision). In fact, it's the very one I used when I first announced his fetal existence almost a year ago.

He will be Number Two.

At some point in my post-partum haze I decided the name was too condescending and juvenile. The Partner sometimes likes to say I've lost my sense of humor, and I've got to admit that for those first few weeks after having a baby, I really didn't appreciate sarcastic bowel movement euphemisms used in reference to my son. My exact words were: "the name denotes a second class status that I don't want to bestow upon my little guy."

I've since gotten over that. No words exist that can describe how close he is to my heart. So why not accept that fact, and have a little fun with the words we do have?

If Number Two is going to flourish in his new position, he needs to realize that if he doesn't do his own self-deprecating, someone else will always be there to deprecate for him.

Backseat Drivers

The Boss does not take kindly to it when Topher* shatters her "ignore him and he'll go away" mindset with his newborn wail. The scene most often unfolds in the car, where seatbelts, five point harnesses, and the fact that I am driving separate me indefinitely from the two prisoners in the backseat. The acceleration in my sporty little v-6 has nothing on The Boss, whose mental deterioration can go from 0-60 in five seconds whenever she hears him cry.

"Mommy, he needs you! HE NEEDS YOU!" Her scream is a rain of spit as she joins in with him--all red-faced, wet and puffy--until their joint clamor builds to a crescendo that will one day either make me drive off the road or wish that I had. Either kid crying alone is tolerable to a hardened mother like myself, but the two of them together in hysterics is an invitation for me to let loose right along with them.

I don't know what it is about Topher's baby yelps that tears his sister up. She won't acknowledge his existence in any other circumstance. He is six weeks old and I still haven't been able to get a picture of the two of them touching. Is it the idea of his discomfort that upsets her? Or are her ears, which have become so accustomed to the quietude of being an only child, just that sensitive to her brother's new noise?

I don't know. I ask her, but she's too frenzied to be coherent. She couldn't tell me anyway. That's actually what she says when she doesn't know the answer to something: "I can't tell you, mom." Her tone is almost always frustrated when she says it.

Since there's not much I can do from the front, I push all the questions and uncertainty into the backseat with my two screaming offspring. I try to drown them out with classical music and the loud exhale of the air conditioner, which is now blasting to counteract the humidity.

And we drive each other crazy, all the way home.


*The polls are still open. Vote on the baby's new blog pseudonym in the box on my sidebar if you haven't already.


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On Yams and Strippers

In honor of the bachelor party The Partner is currently attending, I am re-posting a She Said/He Said written upon his return from a previous weekend of debauchery. It's two years old, but it is still relevant today. Frighteningly so.

***

SHE SAID: My husband came home from the Vegas bachelor party determined to put up a strong front. We went to a Memorial Day party on Monday; he went to work and then to play pool on Tuesday; and it wasn't until Wednesday that he finally called in sick to the office. Or, more accurately, he emailed his employers that he would work from home "in between naps." I ran to the nearest Internet portal and looked up the incubation period for the ten most common STDs.

HE SAID: My wife doesn't trust me worth a darn. She is still convinced I got some at my bachelor party. I probably should have. At least then, I'd have the bragging rights to go along with the blame. Believe it or not, a bachelor party can be fun without the swapping of bodily fluids. Other wholesome activities include watching strippers, gambling, drinking until you puke on a stripper, trashing hotel rooms, and discussing Tolstoy with strippers who are just doing it to pay for college.

SHE SAID: He forgot "burying your face in a stripper's cleavage at 20 bucks a pop." I would be interested to know how many lap dances it took to secure his party's place in the VIP lounge. Not that I would take his initial offer at face value. I know how it goes. It's like me with my iced coffee addiction. If he comes home from work and asks me if I went to Dunkin Donuts that day, I'll give him an honest yes or no answer. But if it's Friday and he poses the How many times did you go to Dunkin Donuts this week? question, I'm not above fudging the numbers.

HE SAID: Good thing I get the credit card statements. Her "lies" can only deceive me for so long. Here's an interesting tidbit about strippers. The girls in Vegas can make upwards of $200k/year for putting a knee in your lap. This one girl in particular wasn't even really hot yet she lives in San Francisco and commutes to Vegas. I guess the lack of health care and retirement benefits could be an issue, but regardless, that's not a bad gig. Here's my addition to the bachelor party stories: There was one girl whose gimmick was "talking dirty." Not talking dirty as most people know it. Instead, she went up to guys with lines like, "Who's going to let me pee on them next?" or grabbing a guy from behind and whispering, "I want to shove a yam up your ass." Maybe it works for some dudes, but she didn't exactly have me throwing money at her. At the very least, choose a vegetable that people will recognize. A yam? Seriously.

SHE SAID: It's impossible to get a straight answer out of him. Why regurgitate the truth when you can be lighthearted about legumes? Fortunately for him (though I don't know if it's fortunate or unfortunate for me) I like laughter almost as much as I hate deception. When he's really going good, I can be sidetracked indefinitely. I'm sure he loves this about me. What he doesn't relish so much is another personality quirk that plays into this discussion. I often say inappropriate things. And my timing? It's not so good. So my husband has the valid fear that, were he to divulge any secrets from the bachelor party, it would come back to bite him over champagne and chicken Francaise at the wedding of the man whose bachelorhood was so ceremoniously discontinued at the Las Vegas weekend in question.

HE SAID: See? She's already blabbing about this all over the internet. His fiancée is going to read this and wonder what sort of stories Binky might be referring to. I should have never have even admitted to going to Vegas. Fortunately, by now, most of my friends have learned to expect a scene whenever she's involved. Like the time at a dinner party when she brought up the anal sex escapades of the host and his high school girlfriend. In front of that guy's current fiancée. Yeah, that went over really well with the significant other. I'm surprised we still get invited anywhere.

SHE SAID: Go stick a yam up your ass

Cast Your Vote - Name the New Guy

The blog lines are now open! Head over to my sidebar (below the fold) to cast your vote in the Name the New Guy contest.

Thank you to everyone who submitted a name in Round One. The field has been whittled down to five finalists. Go vote now! Don't let your favorite business-world-inspired bloggy pseudonym go home.


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The Boss Grows Into Her Role

The Boss at 4 days old

When I wasn't looking--maybe it was while I was busy transitioning Topher from womb to delivery room--The Boss turned solid and grew long legs.

She's been a baby her whole life. That's only two years and ten months, but it's what I'm accustomed to. She started out small--a round repository of fat cells beneath pale skin--and grew so stealthily that I failed to notice when muscle moved in and her face colored with the blush of ideas. Until her brother came along in comparison, I couldn't see how much she'd grown.

The other day, I was folding a mass of laundry that had been piling up in the wake of Topher's arrival and subsequent hospitalization. After stacking romper after romper, onesie after onesie, I pulled a pair of The Boss's pants from the bin. The jean material seemed voluminous. I looked at the tag. They were 2T, a size that I knew--conceptually, anyway--was actually a bit too small for her. Emotionally, I still didn't get it. As I put them aside to be packed away with all the other outfits-turned-artifacts, I puzzled over the discrepancy.

When did she grow into them?

And just when did she grow out?

The Boss 4 days ago

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Sending Out Birth Announcements

Birth announcement by Tiny*Prints

Five weeks after my son's birth, I am finally getting around to mailing the announcements. But thanks to Tiny*Prints, putting the 41 cent stamp (wait, I blinked: now it's 42 cents! Do I hear 43? Come on, 44!) on each envelope will be the most painful part of the process. Choosing the design, personalizing it, and placing the order was a piece of birth-day cake.

There were a lot of cards to select from. I chose to search the boy-themed options with the least expensive cards showing up first. When I wanted a closer look at a particular card, I was able to click on it, opening up a window with a full-size screenshot of the design.

I went with our card because it gave me the flexibility to highlight our son's nickname atop the full version of his name. I also changed or switched some of the fonts and type sizes, choosing from a limited selection of styles that were guaranteed to complement the design. The process made me feel like I had a hand in creating a truly personalized card, while guaranteeing that the finished product stayed true to the sophistication of the original design.

Ordering was quick and easy. Delivery was well within the two week window that the site indicated. When the cards arrived, the image was exactly as I ordered it and the quality of the colors and card stock was impressive. Envelopes were included.

The rest is up to me. If I don't get these cards stamped and addressed in a timely manner, it's no fault of Tiny*Prints. Too bad they don't sell Self-Motivation and Follow-Through.

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Posted in conjunction with the Parent Bloggers Network.

No Conversation Over Coffee

The sky was blue without a cloud. We were seated on the metal weave of wrought iron chairs. I sipped my coffee non-fat; The Partner took his light and sweet.

In the clear air I wondered what he was thinking. Blue tinted sunglasses masked hazel clues. I looked away quickly because it bothered me that I couldn’t tell if he was returning my gaze. I wouldn’t want him to catch me staring.

Next to us, four bicyclists were breaking. “When I called him up to tell him, there was complete silence for almost a minute,” I heard a rider say. “He didn’t even ask if I was okay.” It was the one with his back toward me. I tuned out his companions’ responses. I wouldn’t want them to catch me listening.

The wind carried voices, but not much else. There was barely a rustle to the startling brightness of new leaves, where the green was almost as undiluted as the blue above. The sun covered us like a lightweight blanket.

A girl twirled in dress without sleeves near a bench across the sidewalk. A father beamed at her. Earlier, the same man had let me cut in front of him at the coffee counter. Amidst the roar of the espresso machine and the electronic hum of the register, his accented voice sounded like it might have been Austrian. Now I marveled at his vivid smile atop a beard that was thick and dark like the halo of curls on his head. The girl’s dress spun out around her knees. They were both quiet and carefree.

My own child gurgled at me, then. I looked down. White bubbles of breastmilk frothed at his lips. “My little cappuccino,” I trilled. “My sweet little cappuccino!” When I grinned up at The Partner, I still couldn’t see his eyes. The corners of his mouth turned up only slightly.

I sat back. The ideal weight of the late May heat was not, after all, a comfortable blanket around us, but a veil between.


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Like Roses, or, The Obligatory Mommy Blog Post on Poop

The Partner thinks his shit don't stink.

Well, it does.

But his son's? Odorless.

I guess they aren't exactly carbon (err, methane) copies after all. Ever since we started Topher on antibiotics for his urinary tract infection, his diapers have ceased to emit a stench. Still, he's as loud as ever when taking care of business. Now it is my auditory sense, with no help from my olfactory one, that recognizes when a visit to the changing station is in order.

One would think from the fluorescent green mass gelling in his Pampers that the smell would be toxic. How strange that it's not. But you'll hear no complaints from me. I'll enjoy the phenomenon for three more days, at which point his antibiotics will have run their course and our son will resume his normal newborn output.

But even that won't be so bad. There's something so innocent about a just-born baby's digestion.* Anything that comes out of the little guy is like roses compared to his father's noxious fumes. The Partner may not admit it, but it's true.


*With the possible exception of projectile vomit. But that's a post for another day.

Name the New Guy

I'd like to solicit your input regarding a name for our newest arrival that fits in with the nomenclature here at 24/7. I've been calling my son by his real world name up to this point, but that's only because I haven't had the time and/or energy to come up with something to match the other prominently featured titles here (e.g. The Boss and The Partner).

At first I was going to call him "Number Two." But whenever I thought about it, images of bowel movements popped into my head (which I guess is part of the point, but still. . .). Perhaps more importantly, the name denotes a second class status that I don't want to bestow upon my little guy.

So I'm reaching out to you, my four loyal readers. Please help me figure out what to put on the new guy's office nameplate.

The prize for the winning idea? My eternal gratitude. With a cherry on top.

The Spitting (Up) Image

The Partner, circa 1978

The fact that Topher resided for roughly nine months in my body seems completely out of context. His correct context is his father. They look exactly alike.

The Boss resembled The Partner from the beginning, but those inclined to look hard enough were able to rationalize a resemblance to me that they would offer up with only slight hesitatation. As in, "Hmmm, well. It looks like she might have your eyes."

With my son, no such rationalization is possible. He is his father from the devil's-horn hairline to the flaring nostrils to his waif-weight at birth. As much as I love The Partner, and don't doubt that I do, it's strange watching this miniature version of him sucking away at my teat for an approximate total of 12 hours out of any given day.

To look at us--this baby and me--it's hard to see the connection. I should've saved that last blackened remnant of the umbilical cord as proof.

Topher, circa last week

Homecoming

Last time The Partner and I left for the hospital, we came back with a new baby that turned The Boss's life upside down.

Maybe that's why she was so concerned when I stepped into the ambulance with Topher for our transfer to the children's medical center, leaving her with the Partner to await the arrival of nana's babysitting service. It must've been a strange flashback to just three weeks ago, when we took off for the hospital while my mother came in with outstretched arms to take care of The Boss.

I just hope that our little girl isn't causing herself unnecessary worry as she waits for our return. In her two-and-three-fourths-year-old brain, there is a clear association between hospitals and the arrival of new, unwelcome family members. I can just hear her now: "Oh, no. Not again. You're going to bring home another one?"

Or maybe she's still holding out for Tallulah.


***

Topher is doing well, by the way. Thank you for all the well wishes. His temperature is back to normal. He'll be undergoing a few more tests to determine if his UTI was caused by anything internal and he will be continuing his regimen of antibiotics, but I'm happy to say we should be home very soon.

Back to the Hospital

Last night three different doctors tried their hand at jabbing my son's back with a needle before successfully extracting the spinal fluid necessary for a full work up after we brought him into the emergency room with a 102 degree fever.

Apparently, any fever in a newborn less than 8 weeks of age requires that needles be stuck willy nilly into limbs and torso while probes are inserted into each orifice. Additionally, there is a mandatory two day hospital stay in anticipation of the results. In our case, Topher is well on his way to sleeping through his first full day at the children's hospital due to the exhaustion wrought by five straight hours of night torture.

So far it looks like a urinary tract infection is the culprit. This kid is almost exactly like his father in every way, but here we are, three weeks in, and my son and I have found something we can commiserate about--a propensity for bladder infections. And to think, I would've been satisfied if we just shared the same blue eyes or even similarly large foreheads.

There may be more tests of the urinary tract once the definitive results come in, but now we wait. The little guy is sleepy and cute and hot in his hospital cage. Next to it is a cot with my name on it.

That Old House

The fact that I now live ten miles away from the United States' biggest and most profitable casino belies the fact that gambling makes me twitch. I hate the temporary uncertainty and the long-term losses. I hate seeing half of our state's elderly population hooked up to the slots via Wampum cards on lanyards. I hate the rank air. I do like the free drinks, but I have to imbibe vast amounts before I can convince myself that all those bourbon and cokes negate the overall soul-sucking nature of the business.

Unfortunately, there's more than one way to gamble, and we've been doing it for over a year and a half in the real estate market. We've been paying two mortgages since we relocated in July. As our new home thrives around our growing family, our original place sits forlorn on its little hill overlooking the Interstate, waiting for a buyer.

Today I got to thinking about the offers we didn't take. The price we didn't lower quickly enough. The renters that almost burned it down. Everything related to the sale of that house has been a roll of the dice. It could be sold by now if a different number had come up on just one of those tosses.

Or it could have disappeared. One of the offers early on came from a neighbor who made his intentions clear--he wanted the property for its commerically zoned land, not for the house. He would have demolished the 200 year old Cape in favor of the expansion of his business. We decided we couldn't be complicit in the destruction of an antique treasure and told him, in no uncertain terms, "no."

I'm still glad we rejected his offer (which seemed a tad low at the time, but looks higher and higher in hindsight), though there's a sting each time our bank account bleeds out the next mortgage payment. If we didn't care so much about history, we'd have a much easier time funding the present. But so it goes. Another one of life's little lessons.

One of the most expensive locations in real estate? The moral high ground.



Cross-posted at New England Mamas.

Holding On To the Little Things

I didn't realize I had completely forgotten what newborns are like until my second child sailed down the Punani Canal and into town. It didn't take long to conclude that, somewhere along the line, the initial half-year of my firstborn's life had been erased from my memory.

The same goes for The Partner's flawed recall. On our first full day at home as a family of four, he called me into the room in which he was sitting with the baby. "I think something's wrong with him," he said.

"What?" I squawked.

"Watch. He won't even look at me." The Partner waved his hand in front of the baby's eyes repeatedly. "And he doesn't react to sounds." He clapped his hands right next to the little guy's ears. Topher didn't flinch. "The Boss was never this vacant, was she?"

"Well, I. . .uh, I mean. . .he is only three days old. . ." I stumbled over the seeds of doubt The Partner had planted. Though my instincts told me everything was fine, my brain was hormonally fertile ground in which visions of the worst case scenario flourished. My heart started to pound in my chest as my eyes watered. Was there something wrong with my baby?

I walked over to the book case and pulled out three different parenting books. I dropped two in front of The Partner and took one for myself. It didn't take long for us to determine that Topher was right on track. None of the experts expected him to do anything but lay there.

Looking at The Boss now, it's hard to believe she was ever so small and dependent. Seeing in Topher all the characteristics we'd forgotten about in her, I'm nostalgic for those lost traits. Soon enough Topher's newness will go the way of his older sister's. But at least now I know that. So we take more pictures, and bring out the video camera more often. And I write. . .

. . .Topher makes sounds like a bull, or sometimes like the whinny of a horse. When he's hungry, his tongue pokes through slightly rounded lips. He's always hungry. He sleeps a lot too, though, so that he nods off for four hours and then eats almost straight through the next four. His fast growing nails are scratchy on my chest, next to his face. He looks at me now and I think he sees me. Yesterday his cheeks pulled his mouth into the first hint of many smiles.

He is three weeks old.


___

A Nice Day in May

The subject of Mother's Day gifts came up this morning while I was feeding the baby and The Partner was getting ready for his day job.

"You've already got your Mother's Day gift," The Partner said, nodding toward the little sucker hanging off my chest. Then, in a tone that implied a wink even though his face was stoic, he added: "You're welcome."

***

True enough, Mother's Day 2008 came three weeks early for me. But the little guy is gift-and-take. Now that the official holiday is nigh, I wouldn't mind a plain ol' gift.

My stance on Mother's Day is the same as Valentine's Day--I'll embrace any excuse for a little pampering and positive attention. There are some people who say they have no need for a scheduled visit from St. Valentine because their lives are so chock full of romantic love on a daily basis, just as there are those mothers out there whose devotion is so continuously affirmed by their doting children and grateful partners that they don't need May flowers to bloom in their honor.

I am not one of those people.

Then there are the moms who have built up Mother's Day into a mountain so high it can never be summited. My own mother, for example, always has the same answer when asked what she wants for the holiday. "Good kids," she says. Ha, I say. I don't know if she's so delusional as to think that this is even a remote possibility or if her frugality dictates intangible wishes over commercial desires, but the fact of the matter is that she's setting herself up for disappointment. She should just ask for a gift certificate to the spa.

Mother's Day is what it is. It's not a substitute for love and care the rest of the year and it certainly doesn't have magical powers. It's a Sunday reminder to slow down and to recognize the creative energy behind our own life force, the community's, and the whole world's.

Motherhood is infinitely more grand than the second Sunday in May, but there's still a lot of celebration in that small square on the calendar. Whatever form the associated affirmation comes in--handmade card, hardcover book, bath salts, 50-minute massage, burnt bundt cake or cockeyed clay teacup--well, I'll take it. And I hope I'll always be grateful.



This post is part of the Parent Bloggers Network's partnership with Johnson’s in promotion of Johnson’s Baby Cause, powered by Global Giving. As part of their responsibility to the global community, Johnson’s has hand-selected dozens of charities around the world that mirror their deep commitment to caring for the health and well-being of mothers and children - not just on Mother’s Day, but every day of the year.

Where'd the Party Go?

Lately, The Boss likes to ask me where the party went. This line of questioning began over a week and a half ago at the end of our impromptu “Meet and Greet” barbecue for Topher as the guests began to trickle out the door.

At first she turned to the guests themselves. “Where are you going?” she’d ask.

“Home,” they’d say.

“Why?”

There were different answers, but none were deemed suitable. The Boss turned to me with each new departure, setting her eyes in a big, blue quiz on mine. “Where’d the party go, mama? Where’d the party go?”

I thought it was a good question. I could relate. It had been a fun party. There was food, there were friends, there were stories tossed around and there were balls thrown to the dog. The sun was high and warm, but not hot. The Boss got so much attention that she didn’t even notice the party wasn’t for her.

I thought it was a good metaphor, too. After the constant high of hope and expectation that came with pregnancy and childbirth, I was a bit nostalgic for the party, myself. Not that it was all fun and games—in fact, I was never really comfortable with the idea of living so deep inside myself for nine months. But it was different and intense and life-changing. After the baby was born, it was time to return to daily life. I don’t know quite what to do with that.

“Everyone at the party had to go home,” I told The Boss. “They had to leave so it would be just the four of us. So we could be a family.”

“Oh,” she said. She wasn’t any more satisfied in her acceptance of my answer than I was in giving it. But we let it go.

The question still pops up at random moments in that daily life we are slowly getting back into. Sometimes things are slow. Sometimes I am feeding her brother while she is thirsty. Where’d the party go, mom? So now we make plans. We talk balloons, hats and cake. We talk guest lists.

We are party planners.


____

Recommended Reading: Rockabye

I'm wrapping up these two weeks of boy birth wonderment with some recommended reading on a similar theme. Rockabye: From Wild to Child is Rebecca Woolf's 283-paged ode to her son, Archer. Inherent in his story is hers, as she articulates in a way that I've kept close to my heart since I first read the sentiment on her blog: "I am not and never will be defined by motherhood, but I will wholeheartedly admit that motherhood has inspired and enabled me to define myself."

Rockabye has all the makings of a passionate memoir about the unique experience of raising a child as a young mother in Los Angeles: making a baby, making a marriage, making friends, making it as a writer, and making peace with all the loose ends.

(This) Girl's Gone Child was one of the first blogs I stumbled across right before I started my own over two and a half years ago. I was immediately drawn in by the way Rebecca thinks and the way she conveys that process on the computer screen. She knows how to turn a phrase. She knows how to make people laugh. She knows how to live so she has something to write about.

I have a friend from college named Amy who started reading Rebecca's blog after finding the link on my own. She was sucked in the same way I was. When Rebecca made the announcement on her site that she had signed with a book publisher to write a memoir, Amy was ecstatic.

"I was telling everyone at work that I have a friend who's writing a book," Amy said to me. "I know that's bizarre, since I don't actually know her. I don't even leave comments on her blog. But she feels like a friend."

Rebecca's brutally honest confidence is friendship through her blog, and it's the same rapport that ties together each page of Rockabye: From Wild to Child. So check out her memoir, and I know you'll be waiting with me and Amy to find out what's next. A little bird told me that Rebecca's got some brilliant fiction on the books, and I can't wait to get my hands on all of it.


. . .But you don't have to take my word for it. See what some other reviewers from The Parent Bloggers Network have to say about Rockabye.

Ten Days Old

I have to keep reminding myself that humans beings do not procreate solely for their own personal fulfillment. If that was the case, we'd rue the milestones instead of celebrating them. We'd be too fearful of progress to foster our children's independence like we need to. We'd live in the past and the future, with only a high, rickety bridge spanning the present. If we had kids for our sake instead of theirs, the speed of their growth would render us immobile.

But the point of parenthood isn't permanent attachment. The point is, from the very first moment, letting go.

Right now, holding my second child, I am all too aware that he will only be this small for a short time. I may never have another teeny tiny baby to care for in the same way. I hate nevers. I hate endings. I hate overs. And I could get caught up in all those things if I didn't remind myself that what we have here is my baby's beginning. It's his chance to live what I pray will be a long, thrilling life. His infancy, his childhood, his teenage years...they will be bittersweet for me but for him they will be the foundation he doesn't even know is being built beneath him and his first car, his first kiss, his first job, his first day on his own.

Being a parent is about being a parent. It's not about being ourselves, with all our inherent needs and wishes. That's a tough idea to swallow, especially now when I'm 10 days post-partum and prone to way too much introspection, but it's liberating, too. This is not about me! This is a whole new ball of ear wax!

Yes, the Partner and I made this little guy. That much is about us. But the little guy is the one who is going to make a life.

Management Meltdown

Roughly three hours before my first labor contraction hit, The Boss had a precognitive existential crisis. She was sitting on our bed as The Partner and I nested our way through a much needed pick-up of the bedroom. Maybe it was witnessing this act of cleaning that shocked her system--so foreign was the idea of seeing her mother with a duster in one hand and vacuum in the other--more than intuition of the imminent arrival of a sibling, but whatever the cause, it's safe to say that The Boss freaked out.

"It's not fun being bigger and older!" she shrieked suddenly. It came out of nowhere. She rose to her feet on the semi-firm mattress and threw herself prone. "It's not fun!" She was screaming again, and rising again. Then she threw herself back. She was crying.

"What's wrong, honey?" The Partner and I both climbed onto the bed with her, patting and consoling and wondering. We had hazy notions of what troubled her, but we wanted her to articulate it. We wanted to say the right things back.

She probably wanted words, too. But all that came out was I don't know.

The Boss's New Hire

The Boss was expecting a sister named Tallulah. Though we did not find out the sex of the impending arrival and did not have a name lined up, The Boss's conviction was firm. There was a Tullalah in mommy's tummy.

When we pulled into our driveway after the short stay in the hospital, our first born was waiting on the front lawn. I powered down my window and waved at the girl who had seemed to have aged at least two years in the two days we'd been gone. Her hair was carefully plaited by nana; her long legs were showcased in shorts that had been taken out of the attic in a box of clothing I had, until now, been unable to conceptualize her fitting into.

"Is Topher with you?" The Boss asked. I couldn't tell from her tone what answer she was hoping for.

"Yes!" I enthused, in reinforcement of the positive. I gestured in exaggerated sweeps to her brother in the back seat. "He's right here waiting for you!"

"Oh," said The Boss. She was perched on a slope of grass that was mostly green and dotted in places with the detritus of pre-winter foliage. She rocked back on her heels. This time I saw concern in the midst of slow-growing enlightenment.

Her eyes were huge and blue. Her chin was square where it lowered with the weight of words about to emerge from shining lips.

The truck was still moving up the driveway. I craned my neck out my window, waiting.

"Where's Tallulah?" The Boss asked.

Baby Boy Blues

There's something refreshing about the way leaking bodily fluids can ground a situation in reality. I realized that first thing this morning, when blood lurching down my leg necessitated a pant change, and then again when my son's explosive poop transferred some of itself to my chest and forced me into a new shirt. I was off and running from the very start of the day, and I was glad about it. I would've remained in the surreal without those diversions. I would've been free to get mopey and maudlin and to cry all day. I do not like the hormonal haze. Apparently I prefer poop.

When The Boss was born I was surprised by the baby blues. I had heard about them, but like everything else related to actually raising a child as opposed to gestating one, I ignored the warnings and advice. Then an emergency c-section under general anaesthesia exacerbated an already compromised mental situation and I was a blubbering mess for three weeks and not-quite-myself for three months. This time around, I've been counting on the fact that many women do not get those blues as badly with subsequent children as they did with the first.

So far, the feeling is more muted than it was the first time around. It's also easier to keep it at bay when faced with the demands of raising two children. But it's there. It's the idea that life is so damn short and there's nothing that can be done about it. It's uncertainty when you'd think a little confidence would be more evolutionarily beneficial. But it's fleeting and I know that now. Emotions will be replaced to a large degree by the physical pace of keeping up with my babies. Pre-school and diapers. Swing sets and burp cloths. Six weeks of extra absorbent sanitary pads.

There will be blood. (And poop)

It's a Boy

Topher's minutes-old fingers were scaly-white and wizened. As I held him for the first time, I marveled at the similarity between those hands and the wrinkled ones of my grandparents, of my great aunts and uncles. I touched the creases. He was my little old man in a hospital room that buzzed with being born.

Two days later, on the morning of our departure, I held my son in my lap while The Partner showered in the bathroom. I had given birth on the very same bed, in the very same room, but now it seemed a different place in the sun and the silence. I saw the brightness of Topher's finger flakes and thought again about how old his new parts shone.

I cried then, not just with a hormonal surge, but with the pressure of an entire lifetime laid out on a tiny pair of hands. I sobbed so loud and long that The Partner heard me from behind the heavy institutional door. He emerged from the bathroom to ask what I was crying about.

"Nothing," I said. "Nothing."

Christopher Cadden, I love you so much, and forever. Because of you, I count ten fingers and ten toes, and while I do it I say a desperate prayer. I try to grasp with my own hands the texture of your future, laid out in deep bisects and powdery whorls.

As I cry I am doing it all at once in wet wishing for your long life.

I am begging for you a collection of years strung together in personalized perfection between the first wrinkles and the last.