Isn't It Ironic

Two and a half years ago, my mom was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. After two major surgeries, she was able to stay at home while she underwent chemotherapy. Ironically, I was newly pregnant with my first child - her first grandchild – and as I visited her each day, we commiserated over nausea and lack of appetite, and took our afternoon naps together. The cancer responded to the chemo very quickly, and by the time my son was born, Mom came to the hospital, not as a patient, but as a proud new grandma meeting her new grandson for the first time.

She was healthy for over a year, and during that time celebrated both my sister’s wedding and my son’s first birthday. But not long after that, she began experiencing all too-familiar symptoms. The cancer had returned.

Once again, she began chemotherapy. And once again, I was newly pregnant. But instead of laughing about our shared nausea in Mom’s living room, we were grimly ignoring it in her hospital room. She was much sicker this time, and it was quickly apparent that the cancer was not responding to the chemotherapy this time around. So it was no surprise when her doctor asked for the family to join Mom at her appointment a few weeks ago. And it was no surprise when the conversation began with the awful words, “I’m sorry, but there’s nothing more we can do.”

Even though we all knew in our hearts that we had reached that point, hearing the words said out loud was both devastating and yet, somehow, a relief. The giant elephant in the room had finally been acknowledged. We all agreed that inpatient hospice care would be best for Mom, and the plans were set in motion to transfer her to a beautiful residential hospice facility near her hometown.

When the decision had been made that Mom would move to hospice, my husband gently suggested that we sign up for his company’s drop-in daycare program, so that when the time came that we needed to spend long days with Mom, we would have that resource available. We agreed we’d do a “test run” this week and signed him up for today. In yet another ironic twist, Mom was transferred into the hospice facility yesterday evening, so today, the day my son went to daycare for the first time, was my first visit to her there.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized how ironically parallel the situations were: handing over both my mother and my child into the care of others for the first time in my life; entrusting them to strangers who would care for them in the short term when I could not; feeling guilt that I wasn’t taking care of them myself 100% of the time yet knowing that was an unfair demand; feeling both grief and relief at releasing them into hands other than my own. I shed a few tears as I kissed my son goodbye on his way to daycare, and I shed a few more as I kissed Mom goodbye in her new home. I didn’t want either of them to need to be there, but I’m glad there is a safe place for them to be when they need it.

A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Words

For all that we have a zillion photos of my son, every once in a while one jumps out that captures a particularly perfect moment. Last night we had dinner with my in-laws and Ryan had French fries with his meal. He looked so cute eating them that Daddy pulled out the camera, and Ryan immediately flashed a big grin:

Look at that happy face! What a beautiful image! I’m sure that this is destined to be one of my favorite photos of Ryan ever.

There have been a few other photos that have also captured a perfect moment. This one, from his first Christmas, will always be near the top of my list:

The way he’s so utterly absorbed in what Daddy is saying was so typical of him at that age. I was thrilled that I managed to capture this moment on film. (OK, not technically “on film”. But I have no idea what the digital equivalent is, so just go with me on this one.)

And as much as I love photos of Ryan with his daddy, my list of favorites certainly isn’t limited to those. Here’s another, more recent, favorite, this time of Ryan snuggling with his cousin Troy:

In fact, another of my all-time favorites is of Ryan with all his cousins:

The vague bewilderment on his face, combined with the lack of neck and the Michelin Man arms and thigh just tickle me to death. The Michelin Man phase actually spawned quite a few delicious favorites, including this one, with his two favorite things in the whole world, Rag and Duck:

And of course, the “favorites” list wouldn’t be complete without a photo of the whole immediate family and one of just me with the little monkey:

I look forward to all the other “perfect” moments that we’ll add to our scrapbook over the years. A picture is, after all, worth a thousand words.

It's a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

This morning I was puttering in the kitchen while Ryan was playing in the hallway when suddenly I felt a cool draft and heard a small voice chanting, “Ball! Ball! Ball!” Ryan had discovered how to open the front door and was eagerly pointing at the neighbor’s basketball hoop. The smell of the fresh spring air was as tempting to me as it was to him, so we both got our sneakers on, grabbed a ball, and went to explore the neighborhood.

Our house is oddly situated, in that our street is divided into two unconnected parts. The upper road is essentially a large driveway shared by three houses (including ours), and by cutting through our yard we can reach the lower road, which is a long cul-de-sac with a wide open circle at the end. Since it doesn’t connect to anything, there is no traffic other than the dozen or so residents, which makes it an ideal play area. An added bonus is that one of the neighbors has a basketball hoop set up facing the street that is welcome to be used by all. So Ryan naturally loves to play there.

On this outing, as usual, the first thing he wanted to do was to shoot some hoops. I was happy to rebound for him, particularly since his shots rarely go more than 3 feet or so away from the hoop. After shooting for a while, we threw, rolled, and kicked the ball back and forth. And then Ryan decided it was time to explore, so we trotted down the street to check some things out. The first thing he discovered was a whole lot of sticks on the ground. There were long, skinny, bendy twigs that wiggled when he shook them. There were big fat sticks that were good for whacking other sticks. There were several sticks that were almost broken in half, and Ryan was fascinated by breaking them completely and then trying to put them back together again.

When he tired of that game, we walked some more, and discovered a use for frost heaves (possibly the only use): tromping up and down on them! There were several sections of sidewalks with deep heaves, and Ryan explored climbing up and down, at first holding tightly to Mummy’s hand, but then gaining confidence and climbing up and down as nimbly as a little mountain goat.

Before he got a chance to tire of that game, he discovered another fun by-product of New England winters: sump pumps! Several of the neighbors have sump pump hoses running into the street, and the water table is apparently still high enough that they occasionally spit out some water. It makes for the perfect depth of puddles to splash in without needing galoshes, and Ryan took advantage of the wet sidewalks to stomp to his heart’s delight.

But wait, we discovered yet another fun winter by-product: sand piles. One of Ryan’s favorite play areas at the church nursery is the sand box, so it was no surprise that he quickly discovered a pile of sand next to the curb. He patted it with his hands, smoothing the surface and then poking it and running his finger through to make shapes and patterns. And then he began grabbing handfuls of it and watching it run through his fingers. He attempted to give me handfuls, and seemed quite puzzled that by the time he got it into my hand, there were only a few grains left. He then discovered that he could throw handfuls of it, and amused himself by watching it scatter in the wind. He even leaned over and tried to taste it, but I discouraged that quite quickly.

In between all these discoveries, we checked out a whole bunch of other fascinating things around the neighborhood: a chain link fence, a neighbor’s abandoned sidewalk chalk, a few beach balls, a fire hydrant, a manhole cover, a robin singing in a tree. He even found a piece of trash on the ground, picked it up, and before I could take it away from him, ran over to someone’s trash can that was left out from yesterday’s trash pick up, and carefully threw it away!

It’s easy to forget how many fascinating and new things there are in your own neighborhood until you take a look at it through a child’s eyes. Those frost heaves, that sump pump puddle and the unsightly pile of sand may remind us adults of the winter that’s just passed, but to a child, they are delightful playthings of spring!

There's a Double Meaning in That

My son doesn’t have much of a vocabulary yet. In fact, his total vocabulary consists of the following: “up”, “ball”, “bye-bye”, and “k” (which means “clock”). But for having only four words, he gets an awful lot of mileage out of them.

For one thing, each word has multiple meanings to him. “Up” means not only “up” as in going up stairs, but it also refers to the stairs themselves. I discovered this a few days ago when we were driving on a road in a hilly area where all the houses had stairs leading to them, and he eagerly pointed at each one and announced, “Up!” Similarly, “bye-bye” means not only “goodbye”, but is also used to indicate a door of any kind, whether or not anyone is leaving through it at the time.

The multiple use of “ball” developed from his after-service playtime in the church gymnasium, which has several basketball hoops. Every time we pull into the church parking lot, he points and exclaims, “Ball!” which I assumed referred to the basketballs that he plays with there, but then I noticed that when we pulled into our own driveway, he pointed to the neighbors’ house across the road and announced, “Ball!” as well. I was confused, since I didn’t see any balls there – until I realized that they have a basketball hoop in their driveway. He confirmed this association when we were driving by a random house with a basketball hoop and he again announced, “Ball!”, and once again when the Sesame Street set featured a basketball hoop. So apparently “ball” now refers to “basketball hoop” as well as anything vaguely resembling an actual ball.

But the most flexible word in his vocabulary is most definitely “k”. “K” applies to any kind of clock or timepiece, from a grandfather clock to a wall clock to a clock on a church tower to a wristwatch. But it also applies to anything with any kind of a dial or face, and anything round with hashmarks on it. Hospitals and grocery stores are both rife with “k” things, by this definition. Hospitals have blood pressure monitors with round gauges and bright orange hands, oxygen tank pressure gauges, even stethoscopes with printing on the business end. Grocery stores have big round produce scales and small deli thermometers, all of which he helpfully calls my attention to with a proud “K!”.

I’m certain that he’ll be adding more words to his vocabulary very soon. Hopefully, “vroom!” will give way to “car”, “buh-dup-a-dup” will become the more recognizable “banana”, and the words we’ve been repeating over and over, like “Mama” and “Dadda” and “cup” and “help” will finally sink in. But until they do, at least he’s making good use of the words he has. And hopefully, his creative use of language will continue to expand even as his vocabulary does!

A Boy and His Daddy

I love watching my son and my husband play together. When Daddy comes home after work, Ryan lights up like a Christmas tree. He gets so excited that he can’t even contain himself, and instead of running towards Daddy, he runs to the other side of the room, squealing, or he throws himself into Mommy’s arms and then peeks back at Daddy with a mile-wide grin. And he often follows the peeking by hurling himself out of Mommy’s arms and into Daddy’s. It a crazy love-fest between the two of them.

Ryan and I play together all the time, too, and he does love that, but there’s something different and very special about the way Daddy plays with him. The two of them play like…well, like boys. With Mommy, there are lots of hugs and kisses and naming different objects in the room and rolling balls back and forth. But with Daddy, there are chases and tickle fights and wrestling and knocking each other over and hurling balls directly at each other’s faces. There’s no fear of cracking one’s skull open or busting a lip against a table or breaking one’s nose running into a wall (well, no fear from the two of them – if Mommy is watching, that’s a whole different story). They play like boys. There’s no other way to describe it.

And they are so exactly alike. They giggle at the same things, they have the same grin, the same mannerisms, the same sparkly eyes looking for trouble. They are two peas in a pod.

And I couldn’t love either one of them more if I were twins.

 

The Quickening

The first time I heard the term “The Quickening”, I immediately thought of a gritty western movie. The kind with Clint Eastwood squinting into the dusty wind and spitting out witty lines past the toothpick clenched between his teeth. The kind with bad guys in black hats and good guys in white hats. The kind with a main street running through a ghost town and nothing but tumbleweeds blowing past. Fortunately, in baby-making terms, “quickening” is a much more exciting word. It actually means the first time the mother feels the baby move.

Naturally, this is one of the most exciting landmarks for any pregnancy, whether it’s a woman’s first or her tenth. It’s one of those sensations that gives you a thrill every time you experience it, like riding on a roller coaster. It doesn’t get old or less exciting. And it feels different every time, I suspect. With my first pregnancy, I was convinced that I’d never feel him moving. I had, of course, done all kinds of research on the internet (the font of all knowledge) and learned that quickening often happens around 17 weeks. So starting at 17 weeks, I spent hours concentrating on my belly, willing myself to feel that fluttery, bubbly sensation that all the article described. Nothing. It wasn’t until I was 21 week, I think, that I finally felt something that I was SURE wasn’t just a gas bubble or my insides rearranging themselves. It was definitely, undeniably, another human being moving around inside my body.

With this pregnancy, even though most second-time moms recognize movement earlier, I was fully prepared to not feel anything until closer to 20 or 21 weeks. When I had my first ultrasound and the technician mentioned that my placenta was anterior, I immediately flashed back to my internet research and recalled that an anterior placenta can delay quickening for some time, since the placenta “blocks” the baby’s movement. So a few days ago, at only 18 weeks, I was delighted to feel those first little flutters.

“Flutters” is probably not the right word, though. With my first pregnancy, the first sensations I felt were definitely similar to having butterflies in your stomach or feeling a gas bubble shifting. It was light and delicate (in great contrast to the giant baby who later emerged). The sensation from this second baby already felt more like a kick, or a pushing against my abdomen wall. I could picture the tiny being inside me stretching out like we had seen on the ultrasounds, exploring the extent of this dark cavern that s/he is confined in.

It reminds me once again, that every pregnancy, and every child, is different. This baby could be a chunky blond like my son, or a delicate, petite, dark-haired peanut. S/he might be as nervous and tightly-wound as he is laid-back, or they might share that trait. This baby might be talking in full sentences at 10 months, or s/he could be another point-and-grunter, like big brother. But it doesn’t matter in the least. I just can’t wait to meet my little Rutabaga!

Running on Empty

I am convinced that small children have absolutely no sense of their own energy reserves. An adult will realize that he or she is getting tired and will either slow down or take a short break to recharge. A small child, however, will keep going at top speed until he or she literally drops from exhaustion. So either they have no awareness that they’re running out of steam, or they’re simply in denial and assume they can go on forever (there are times when I’ve thought they might be right about that, I will admit).

It’s particularly funny when my son starts to run out of steam and refuses to slow down, because he gets all kind of weak-kneed and uncoordinated. He’ll be running around the house and will suddenly collapse mid-stride, landing in a puddle on the floor. Depending on how close he is to an empty tank, he’ll either laugh uproariously at himself (just starting to lose energy) or he’ll look puzzled and after a moment’s consideration, puddle up in frustration (nothing but fumes). And even then, it doesn’t seem to register that he should rest for a moment, because he just picks himself up and keeps running.

I should be thankful for this trait, because not only is it an endless source of amusement for me to watch, but it also means that when he goes to bed, he generally has nothing left to fight sleep with and goes right down without a fuss. As I’ve said before, he only has two speeds: on and off. And when he’s on, he’s on with all cylinders, pedal to the floor, not saving anything in reserve. And when he’s off, he’s out cold, not even fumes left in the tank. It’s not a bad way to be, in my opinion.

And although this on/off trait is true of many children, I find myself hoping that it’s also part of his general nature, and that he’ll continue to throw himself fully into whatever he does, not stopping until he has nothing left to give. My husband often says about himself that he likes to work hard and to play hard, and I admire that about his nature, so I hope my son has inherited that same determination and tenacity.

Oh, What a Tangled Web

Ryan has always been very contented to play in his playpen by himself for quite a while when Mommy and Daddy are working on something in the next room. So last night when we were on a Skype conference call, we tucked him into the playpen with a bunch of toys and let him entertain himself while we worked. About 45 minutes later, we wrapped up our call, complimented each other on how quiet and well-behaved Ryan had been (which should have been our first clue), and went into the living room, where we were greeted by a little boy standing in a cardboard box, grinning at us – and totally wrapped up in various colors of thread stretching from around his belly to his various toys, over the side of the playpen and back. He was essentially in the middle of a rainbow-colored spider web.

My sewing table happens to be right next to the playpen, and the drawer that’s closest to the playpen is full of spools of thread. Ryan apparently discovered that he could reach over to that drawer and helped himself to about 30 spools of thread, which he then rolled around the floor, dropped through his toys, and wound around himself. He even had a large, colorful tangle the size of a small gerbil dangling from his backside like a festive little tail.

Once Herb and I stopped laughing, it took us several minutes and a pair of scissors to free him from his bonds. He wasn’t at all bothered by them; in fact, he seemed to think it was kind of fun to put this arm through that loop and that leg through this loop. The whole scene actually reminded me of a birthday party my mom threw for me when I was maybe 7 or 8, when she took skeins of crochet cotton and made a giant spider web in the living room. Each guest took an end of the skein and followed it to a goodie bag at the end. We all loved it as much as Ryan did!

As soon as I shared this story, I was reminded by my mom friends that silence from the next room is usually a sign of impending disaster – or at least a sign that little hands are getting into something that they shouldn’t be. At least it wasn’t my makeup drawer, or a craft bin with paints and markers. Although no doubt, someday it will be…

The OCD Stage

I’m pretty sure this is a stage that all children go through, but I think my son is temporarily OCD. He spent 45 minutes last night marching back and forth between his toy box and a shelf on the other side of the room, carefully piling up a large stack of rubber letter tiles. This is not an unusual occurrence in recent weeks. He loves to move objects from one place to another, or to take a series of objects and present them, rather ceremoniously, to someone in the room. Yesterday morning, we picked Daddy up from the dentist’s office and had to wait in the waiting room for a few minutes, and he very carefully moved the entire magazine collection from one end of the office to the other, one magazine at a time.

I assume this is a developmental stage in which the child is learning to understand order and the way things belong in a certain place. We’ve been practicing putting his blocks back into their box when he’s done, and putting his toys back into the toy box at the end of the day, so he’s definitely learning that certain things belong in certain places. But his focus and dedication to putting things in a certain place that he has spontaneously decided they belong is absolutely hilarious to me.

And to continue the theme of temporary OCD, one of his other recent habits is picking up minute (and occasionally invisible) pieces of lint or dirt from the floor and either deliberately throwing them into the trash can or very solemnly handing them to me. Considering that he’s generally the one who threw said pieces of lint or dirt on the floor in the first place, I find it particularly amusing that he suddenly seems so personally offended at finding them there.

Fortunately, I have no concern that this is a precursor of actual OCD, since when he’s not all wrapped up in putting things in a particular order or place, he revels in throwing things all over the room and is not at all uncomfortable in the middle of the mess he just made. In fact, he often sits in the middle of the chaos of toys and wriggles and giggles, delighted at the loud noise and mess. Yeah, I’m pretty sure he’s just a healthy, normal kid. But I think I’ll still miss this stage a little bit when it’s gone.

Let's Pretend

Ryan has a toy with four Sesame Street characters on it: Oscar in his trash can, Elmo in a big toy block, Ernie in his bathtub (with Rubber Ducky, of course), and Cookie Monster in a cookie jar. Each one pops up and sings his signature song (“I Love Trash”, “That’s Elmo’s Song”, “Rubber Ducky”, and “C Is For Cookie”, respectively), when Ryan turns a crank or flips a switch or pushes a button or slides a lever. He’s been able to push the Elmo button for a while, and he’s just learning to turn the crank for Oscar and manage the switch and the lever for the other two. Fortunately for himself, he’s discovered that he doesn’t have to master the intricacies of the mechanisms, because he’s strong enough to manually pry open each character – brute force does occasionally win out over delicate manipulation. But he completely astonished me yesterday when he pried open Cookie Monster, then announced, “Mmmmm!!!”, pretended to pull out the cookie in Cookie Monster’s hand, pantomimed putting it into his mouth, said, “Mmmmm!” again, and then repeated the process, handing ME the imaginary cookie. Wow, he understands pretending!

On the surface, pretending doesn’t seem all that complicated. You’re just doing what you would normally do, only some of the things you’re using aren’t really there. But if you stop and think about it, it’s a pretty “out there” concept. Children’s thinking tends to be very concrete – when they’re very small, they can’t even understand that something still exists when they can’t see it. It’s a major developmental milestone when you hide a toy under a blanket and the child knows to look under the blanket for it. So to me, it’s an even more major milestone when a child not only understands that something is there when they can’t see it, but that they can act like they can see it when it isn’t there.

What’s especially amazing to me about Ryan making this huge cognitive leap is that I haven’t done a lot of pretending with him yet. He does occasionally offer me food, and if it’s something I don’t eat (like oranges or cantaloupe, yuck), I’ll pretend to take a bite. But I don’t generally pantomime things for him. When I’m helping him put his coat on, I don’t act out putting the coat on, I simply hold up a sleeve and push his hand toward the opening and let him do the rest. If I want him to put his blocks back in their box, I don’t pretend to put a block in, I actually take a block and put it in, then take it out again and give it to him, saying, “YOU do it.” But even without my example, he’s figured out the magic of “pretend”. Wow. That’s pretty amazing. Not bad for a kid whose entire vocabulary consists of “bye-bye” and “up”.

The Hidden Wit of Sesame Street

I came into the world at around the same time that Sesame Street did, so it is definitely one of the television shows I remember most strongly from my childhood. I remember Big Bird and Oscar and Grover and Telly and Herry Monster and the Count and Snuffelufagus and Gordon and Maria and Luis and Susan and Bob and Mr. Hooper. There was no Elmo or Zoe or Abby or Prairie Dawn or Murray and his little lamb. There was no Chris or Alan or Leela or Mr. Noodle. There were plenty of celebrity guest appearances, and that has certainly not changed. I suspect there were spoofs of current adult TV shows as well, but I didn’t notice them back then. But then, there are a lot of things I notice and appreciate now that I didn’t back then.

The TV show spoofs are brilliant in that they are educational for kids but absolutely hilarious for adults. For example, the other day they spoofed the HBO series, “True Blood” in a sketch called “True Mud”. A broody-looking muppet with dark hair flopping over his eyes slinks into a diner and tells the blond waitress he wants some “True Mud”. The other diners gasp and wonder aloud if he’s a…Grouch. Because only a Grouch would want true mud. Sookie (the waitress) defends him and brings him a baked potato. He pushes it away and she realizes it’s not true mud, it’s a “true spud”. A cow wanders in and offers him some of her “true cud”; a farmer gives him a broken watch, calling it a “true dud”; finally, Sookie brings out a bathtub and announces that she mixed together some dirt and water and made him a whole bunch of true mud. He jumps in, followed by Sookie and the cow. Kids love the repeated rhymes, not to mention the image of a fully clothed man – er, muppet – jumping into a tub full of mud with a cow. But adults can laugh at the sketch on a whole different level. I won’t even get into the levels of adult hilarity in a spoof like “Dancing with Triangles”, complete with muppet versions of Tom, Carrie-Ann, Len, and Bruno.

Similarly, the celebrities who appear on the show are just ordinary people to the kids. Only an adult who recognizes Ryan Reynolds as People Magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive 2010 can appreciate the humor of seeing him wearing a large blue letter A costume and declaring in his best announcer/superhero voice that words that begin with the letter A can answer any question and solve any problem. Likewise, to kids, Savion Glover is just some guy teaching the words “forward” and “backward” by dancing back and forth; to adults he’s an amazing tap dancer who could probably also teach the kids “wall” and “ceiling” by dancing on those, too. Little cameos by people like Jennifer Garner teaching the word “galoshes” or Alton Brown explaining that a recipe is a list of the steps of how to make something or Yo-Yo Ma demonstrating how to play the cello are fun for kids but appreciated in a completely different way by those of us who know who they are.

It’s no surprise that Sesame Street has earned dozens of Emmy Awards over the years. It’s a brilliantly creative show that kids can enjoy as well as learn from, and parents can enjoy watching with their kids. And now that I’m a parent, I can understand even more why parents find it so enjoyable! It’s even worth putting up with an overdose of Elmo.

Technology Is a Mom's Best Friend

This may not seem directly related to motherhood, but last night I watched the Academy Awards. If I didn’t have a small child, I might have been watching at a friend’s house, or we might have invited some friends to watch at our house. But rather than pay a babysitter (and also because my husband doesn’t actually care about awards shows), I sat in the basement at my computer with the TV on and discussed the show with friends across the world.

Yes, literally across the world. I posted comments on Facebook, where I exchanged remarks with friends down the street, across the country, over the border to the north, and across the Atlantic Ocean. I posted comments on a message board I frequent that has members not only all over North America, but in England, Australia, Switzerland, and other countries all over the world. Due to the magic of technology, they were all able to watch the show at the same time as I was watching it. It was like being part of an Oscar party made up of some of the funniest people on earth. (I’m thinking of nominating a few of them as hosts for next year’s awards show.)

We began the festivities even before the actual awards show, of course, with a critique of the red carpet: the gowns, the interviews, the interviewers…which actresses were aging gracefully (Annette Bening and Helen Mirren), who should fire her hairdresser (Scarlett Johannsen), which celebrities have the cutest moms (Anne Hathaway and Russell Brand, of all people), whose beard looked like a defunct beaver (Christian Bale), which young celebrities dressed most age-appropriately (Hailee Steinfeld – cute as a button!!), who was most in danger of a wardrobe malfunction (Mila Kunis and Jennifer Hudson), how disappointed we were that Helena Bonham Carter looked vaguely normal (and wore matching shoes), and what on earth Cate Blanchett must have done to piss off her stylist so badly.

And then we got into the comments on the show itself. The first question, of course, was what kind of drugs James Franco was on that made him so unable to look at the correct camera. And the second was, did Anne Hathaway really just make her first costume (and hairstyle) change only ten minutes into the ceremony and also how much does that dress WEIGH??? Over the course of the evening, we found ourselves explaining to each other who Banksy was (the joke still wasn’t funny after we understood), sharing the information that Trevor Reznor was in the rock group Nine Inch Nails, expressing astonishment that Christian Bale totally blanked on HIS OWN WIFE’S NAME, agreeing that not many of us could ever bring ourselves to watch the movie “127 Days”, and cheering on Colin Firth for giving the most humble and charming acceptance speech of the evening.

By the time the show was over, I felt like I had spent the evening with good friends who enjoyed sharing opinions and making each other laugh. And in fact, I had, even though many of those friends I have never even met. Such is the amazing power of technology.

As a stay-at-home mom, that technology keeps me connected to the world in a way I never could have been twenty or thirty years ago. I have a cell phone, Facebook, e-mail, instant messaging, text messaging, and message boards to put me in contact with other human beings. My mom had…the phone. And if the friend she was calling was out shopping or in the backyard, she was out of luck. There was no voicemail, no answering machines. She just waited and called back later. If I call a friend and she’s out shopping or in the backyard, she has her cell phone with her anyway. And if she doesn’t answer for some bizarre reason, I can leave her a voice mail or send her a quick text. I can always connect to someone, somehow.

There are certainly times when technology can be annoying, when people constantly yapping on their cell phones or teenagers clicking away texting in the middle of a restaurant drives me absolutely bonkers. But for the most part, I appreciate how it keeps me in the loop. After all, without technology, how would I be writing this for you right now?

There's a Sub in My Tub

My first apartment after college was a bit shabby, but it had one amazing feature: an antique claw-footed bathtub. I loved that tub. I spent many an hour soaking in it, filling the bathroom with scented bubbles and classical music. My next two apartments, amazingly enough, also had fabulous claw-footed tubs. A long soak in a hot tub with a good book and a glass of wine became my favorite stress release. A bathroom with a nice bathtub was my haven.

When I married, that didn’t change. My husband used the smaller master bath, and I got the guest bathroom with the bathtub. The shelves were soon lined with boxes of bath salts, bottles of bubble bath, and tins of fizzing scented bath tablets. But shortly after Ryan was born, that all changed. My floral-scented haven began to smell instead of Johnson’s baby wash and talcum powder. The bottles and tins lining the tub gave way to an array of rubber duckies, plastic penguins, and a smiling blue octopus. If I managed to sneak in a soak in the tub, I did it under the watchful eyes of Elmo, who now adorned the tub faucet. And before I got in the tub, I had to evict two boats, a helicopter, and a submarine, along with their attendant pilots.

I knew that having a child would turn my basement entertainment lounge into a playroom full of toys, but I didn’t expect to sacrifice my bathroom. It’s funny how taking on more adult responsibilities, like parenthood, often brings you back to your childhood, like tubby toys and baby shampoo. And I’ll admit, as much as I sometimes miss having my own personal bathtub haven, it can be kind of fun having Elmo to keep me company, or nudging a boat or two around with my toes while I’m soaking. They don’t seem to mind a few bubbles, and I no longer mind having a sub in my tub. Because when Ryan is old enough to stage naval battles in the tub, I’ll be ready!

A Man's Reach Should Exceed His Grasp, or What's a Heaven For?

Ambition is a healthy thing. It’s good to strive for something that’s not quite attainable at the moment, to work your way towards a goal that’s slightly out of reach, to stretch beyond what you thought you could do. And I’m proud that Ryan has already set his sights above his current skill level.

Let me back up a bit and explain that Ryan’s favorite part of church on Sundays, although he does love playing in the nursery with the other little kids, is coffee hour after the service, when he gets to play basketball in the gym with the bigger kids. In fact, this morning as I brought him down from the nursery, I held his hand and started to walk him toward the snack table, but he pulled away and headed directly for the gym. There were no other kids there today, but he didn’t hesitate to head for the pews at the back of the room where the basketballs live. He pulled one out, toddled up underneath the nearest basket, looked up over his head straight at the basket…and blooped the ball directly in front of himself, about two and a half feet off the ground. But he had his sights set way up high!

Undaunted at his miss, he retrieved the ball, moved back under the basket, and tried again. He moved to another, slightly lower basket, and repeated the process several times. He tried grunting while he heaved the ball. He tried standing a bit further away, or a bit closer, or a bit off to the side. He tried an underhand toss and an overhand toss. But every single shot, he had his eyes firmly fixed on that basket, high overhead. Looking at his face, you could tell there was no doubt in his mind that he could get that ball through that hoop, just like Daddy and the bigger boys. So he just kept trying and trying without losing hope.

I hope that he continues to have such determination and persistence throughout his life. I hope he fixes his eyes on whatever prize he decides on and keeps working at it without losing hope when he doesn’t reach it at first. I hope he never doubts his own ability to reach any goal he sets for himself. And whenever that ball finally swishes through that basket, I’ll be right there cheering for him. Because I’ll never doubt his ability to reach those goals, either.

If Only They Would Use Their Powers for Good

It never occurred to me before I had a child of my own that every skill a child develops, as wonderful and amazing as it is, can be used for ill as well as for good. A skill as simple and basic as learning to roll over can be hazardous on the changing table. Being able to walk means being able to crack one’s head open on the corner of a table. Being able to turn a doorknob means being able to get into all kinds of dangerous, forbidden places. Learning to talk means learning to talk back. And learning how to take off your own diaper means that your mother will have plenty of blackmail photographs for when you’re 13.

Yes, over the past few weeks Ryan has discovered how to take off his diaper, and has taken every opportunity to hone that skill. I often put him down for a nap with just a shirt and a diaper, and several days this week I went to get him up from his nap and found him wearing just a shirt. So it was not a great surprise today when I checked the baby monitor after he’d been in his crib for ten minutes or so, and I was treated to the sight of him sleeping soundly, in his usual posture of face buried in a blanket, clutching his rag, with his little bum sticking up in the air – covered in nothing but a thin sheen of Desitin.

Naturally, my immediate thought was to grab the camera. The image of my sleeping angel with his adorable naked bottom in the air is one I want to remember for years. But I hesitated, because what kind of mother keeps a photo like that around to embarrass her child in the years to come? My mother has a few photos of me that I’d rather had never seen the light of day. Do I really want my son to suffer the mortification that I do whenever I see those photos?

Who am I kidding? Of course I do.

But not until he's thirteen and really, really asking for it.

No-One Is Alone

Much to my husband’s chagrin, I am a great fan of Broadway composer Stephen Sondheim. One of my favorite Sondheim shows is “Into the Woods”, and one of my favorite songs from that show is “No-One Is Alone”. The song is sung by several characters who have lost loved ones – a father, a wife, parents, a beloved pet – and are feeling like no-one understands them. But they realize that no matter who you are or what you’re experiencing, someone else is the world is feeling the same way. In this vast universe, no-one is truly alone. And in the vast world of pregnant women, I am often reminded that I am not alone in either my woes or my excitement.

One of the benefits of technology is that even a stay-at-home mom like me can be in constant contact with the outside world. With Facebook, e-mail, and electronic message boards, I can always find a friend (or at least a compassionate stranger) who can sympathize with me, lend a listening ear, or offer some advice. If my morning sickness flares up, there’s always someone around to remind me that it won’t last forever, or to give me suggestions of how they dealt with it. And even more encouraging than that, there’s often a fellow sufferer to whom I can give some words of advice and experience, making me feel like at least my own suffering has helped to alleviate another’s.

There is a special connection between mothers-to-be, a certain kinship and camaraderie. We’re all in the same club, going through the same experiences, having the same doubts and the same fears. Even though every woman experiences pregnancy differently, there is a certain universality in carrying a child inside your body. It’s not something that can be completely understood by anyone except someone else who’s experienced it herself.

So whether I’m churning with eagerness to feel that first flutter of movement or churning with nausea from morning sickness that just won’t go away, I can always find someone who’s feeling the same churning. After all, in this universe, no-one is ever truly alone.

A Mannerly Encounter

Last night my husband and I had dinner at a rather upscale restaurant. We had an early reservation so there were only a few other diners seated when we arrived. As we watched other parties being seated near us, we were both saddened at the number of young (and some not-to-young!) men who walked to their tables ahead of a female companion and plopped themselves in their seats without waiting for the lady to be seated first. But then a family arrived who gave us faith in the mannerliness of the next generation.

It was a mom and a dad accompanied by two boys, probably about 3rd and 5th grade. Both boys were wearing dark dress pants, immaculate, crisp, white dress shirts, neatly tied long, dark neckties, and dress shoes. As the host led them to their table, both boys politely stepped aside to let their mom go first, and then marched after her, the younger first, proudly carrying a large, cellophane-wrapped box of chocolates, and the older following, carefully carrying a large bouquet of red roses, with dad in the rear. I couldn't see their table, but I have no doubt that they waited to be seated until mom was seated. In a quiet room where young treble voices would have easily carried over the hum of low adult voices, I heard hardly a peep from either of the boys throughout dinner.

As we were leaving, I peeked over at their table and was not surprised to see both boys sitting with perfect posture, their napkins in their laps, and not a hint of chewing with their mouths open or talking with food in their mouths. I almost stopped to tell the parents how charming and well-behaved their boys were, but I didn't want to interrupt the Norman Rockwell moment.

It does give me hope that there will be at least a small contingent of the next generation with an understanding of good manners and proper etiquette. And it gives me hope that my own son’s immaculate manners (and they WILL be immaculate) will not be unique among his generation.

Pregnancy: The Best of Times, the Worst of Times

Pregnancy and I have a love-hate relationship: I love being pregnant, and being pregnant hates me. Seriously, being pregnant is something that I absolutely love in theory; in practice, however, my personal execution of it leaves something to be desired. I am one of those unfortunate women whose body simply does not deal well with carrying an extra passenger. As much as I anticipated and hoped and prayed every month that those two magic pink lines would once again appear on the pregnancy test, I knew this time that when they did I was in for a rough ride.

Morning sickness is definitely the worst of my woes when I’m pregnant. In fact, I once said to my husband that I was really lucky that I had very few unpleasant symptoms other than morning sickness. He, whose memory had not been clouded by the endorphins of giving birth, simply laughed. True, I never suffered from swollen ankles or headaches or sciatica or having to pee every fifteen minutes. But constant nausea for eight months was a pretty hefty price to pay to avoid those discomforts.

I’m fortunate that during this pregnancy I have the magic bullet of Zofran to offset the morning sickness somewhat. I say “offset” rather than “cure”, since it doesn’t completely alleviate the problem, as my time worshiping the porcelain god last night will attest. But at least it makes me functional enough to get out of bed in the morning, which was not the case for several weeks BZ (before Zofran).

Fatigue is also a pregnancy symptom that I think hits me harder than most. I’m sure the fact that I’m over 40 has a lot to do with that, plus the fact that I have a chronic disease which also causes fatigue and is triggered by stress. Pregnancy insomnia complicates the fatigue – although at least my insomnia seems to be limited to the first trimester. But again, I’m fortunate in that I don’t have an outside job to go to, and that Ryan is very content to keep himself entertained while I keep an eye on him from my perch on the couch. Not to mention that my wonderful husband steps in to do chores I just can’t manage, like grocery shopping and laundry and cooking. I’m not sure how I’d function if I had to get all those things done every day.

But the bottom line is that despite the physical frustrations and struggles of pregnancy, I just love waiting for each new milestone. I watch the mirror eagerly for the development of the baby bump; I lie awake at night wondering when I’ll feel those first tiny flutters; I mark off each week as it passes and look up what new developments the baby has reached this week. I see other babies at the grocery store and wonder if this baby will be a delicate, petite little girl or another big bruiser of a boy. I wonder if she’ll be a blonde or if he’ll be a brunette. I wonder if he’ll look like his daddy or if she’ll look like her mommy. Because I do truly love being pregnant, in theory AND in practice, and I think I’ll hate when it’s all over.

Is That a Loophole I See Before Me?

It seems to me that as soon as a child is old enough to understand the concept of rules, he also discovers the concept of loopholes. Who of us has never played the old trick of waving your arms within millimeters of a sibling’s face while announcing, “I’m not touching you!!!” Or responded to a mother’s command to “Stop punching your brother!” by kicking him instead? I have vivid recollections of my mother warning me as she tucked me in bed, at the age of 3 or so, that I was not to put my feet on the floor until she came to get me in the morning, and then as soon as she left the room, jumping around from bed to desk to toy shelf to lamp to rocking horse for an hour – all without touching my feet to the floor. And of course, when she came back to check out the source of the thuds, I protested innocently that my feet had never touched the floor, just as she said. We discover very young that as long as we obey the letter of the law, we can often disregard the spirit of the law with impunity.

I had assumed that the discovery of loopholes would not happen until the child reached a certain age and developed some degree of vocabulary. However, my son, at the ripe old age of 15 months and with a vocabulary that consists entirely of the words “up” and “bye-bye”, proved to me yesterday that he knows exactly what a loophole is, and he’s not afraid to use it.

His playroom in our basement is basically a large open room on one side of a staircase, with a hallway on the opposite side of the stairs off of which are doors to a closet, a bathroom, a study, and a laundry room. The laundry room door doesn’t latch properly, so although he has yet to master the art of turning a doorknob, he knows he can open that door simply by grabbing the knob and pushing. He also knows that he is not allowed in that room. But yesterday, the temptation to explore was just too strong, and as I sat on the couch on one side of the stairs, I heard the creak of the door swinging open on the other side, so I said sharply, “No!” and he immediately came running around to me with a grin, as if to say, “See? I didn’t go in!” We repeated this several times until I decided I needed to sit in the hallway and keep an eye on him. He walked up to the forbidden door, and with his eye fixed on mine, reached one hand up towards the doorknob. I immediately scolded, “No! No touching!” and he pulled back his hand and shook his head solemnly, “no no no no no”. He thought for a few seconds, then he very deliberately put his hands behind his back, sidled back up to the door…and nudged it open with his belly, all the while grinning in triumph. I made an attempt to scold him again, but since I was literally rolling on the floor and laughing so hard I could barely get the words out, I doubt that the scolding was very effective.

So I suppose that the lesson to be learned here is that I need to be very specific about the way I express the rules to him, and that I need to teach him to obey the spirit of the law as well as the letter of the law. The other lesson, of course, is that my kid is already outsmarting me and I should be afraid for my future. Very afraid.

 

It's a Girl! I Think. Maybe. Unless It's Not.

Today was Rutabaga’s first ultrasound. Since I’m 13-1/2 weeks, there was quite a lot to see. Since I’m also 42 years old, today’s ultrasound was an “early screening assessment” to check for the likelihood of chromosomal abnormalities or other birth defects. So although they do take a look at the development of some of the major organs like the heart, brain, and spinal cord, and the placement and development of the placenta, the main point of the exam is to take a bunch of measurements of various body parts. Well, the main point for the doctors, that it. The main point for the parents is to get some cool photos to show off to all their friends.

(Come on, people. With an opening line like, “Today was Rutabaga’s first ultrasound,” you KNEW there would be pictures.)

So when the tech started looking around, she pointed out the heart beating, the face peering out at us, the wriggling little hands and feet. Rutabaga seemed to be posing for us as s/he looked up for a perfect profile shot, then turned to the side for a front view, then obligingly waved his/her arms around and kicked up his/her little feet. The tech got several good photos for us. But then she started trying to take measurements, and suddenly Rutabaga was not so cooperative.

The tech did quite a bit of poking and prodding of my belly, trying this angle and that, trying to nudge the little rascal into a better position. She tried tilting the table so my feet were up in the air and my head was hanging down – woo, head rush! (I could suddenly understand the attraction of gravity tables. I felt like I grew two inches just lying there.) She had me roll over on my side while she poked and prodded some more, and then had me roll back. Eventually, between her efforts and the efforts of the adorably pregnant doctor who came in afterwards (who admitted with a sheepish laugh that she did ultrasounds on herself on a regular basis), they managed to get some good measurements and determine that Rutabaga is perfectly healthy and well-developed.

But it got me to thinking: What more female behavior is there than to preen for the camera but refuse to have any measurements taken? Really, for a fetus that’s the equivalent of hopping on a scale. What woman wants to do that publicly?

So I am that much more convinced that Rutabaga is a girl. (You know, unless she’s not.)

One Man's Trash Is Another Man's Toy

A few nights ago the three of us went out to dinner. Ryan was generally very well behaved, but the service was a bit slow and at a certain point he started to get a bit restless. He wasn’t interested in anything more to eat, and I hadn’t brought any toys with us, so I gave him an empty single-serving plastic milk bottle and a crayon to play with. He was fascinated. He must have spent more than 20 minutes taking the top off the bottle, peering inside, dropping the crayon in, peering inside again, then dumping the crayon out on the table. Lather, rinse, repeat.

The most interesting thing was how intent he was on what he was doing. Sometimes when he plays it’s just random banging on things, enjoying the sounds he’s making but not really paying all that much attention. But he was very deliberately examining the bottle, figuring out that the crayon had to be turned the long way to fit inside the neck, discovering that he had to twist the cap to make it come off, and figuring out what angle he had to tip the bottle at to make the crayon slide out again. I could practically see the wheels turning inside his head. Earlier in the evening he had been paying attention to the other patrons, the servers walking by, and the ceiling fans overhead, but once he started playing with his milk bottle, he could have been the only person in an empty room for all the attention he paid to his surroundings.

I’ve said many times that he is really the master of finding amusement in whatever happens to be around him, and that night was simply further proof of that. He has fun exploring his toys, discovering what their various buttons do, how they come apart and go back together, and what you can do with them. But give him a simple milk bottle, or a box, or a square of paper towel, and he’ll examine it just as carefully. A box can be a hat, or a propeller, or a sled. Paper towels can be scrunched up, or torn apart, or used as a blanket. (Or eaten, but I try to discourage that.)

His favorite toy this week is not a true toy but a little brass bowl with a snug-fitting lid that he discovered on a storage rack. He discovered that not only does the lid fit nicely on top of the bowl, but since it has a little lip, the bowl will sit snugly on top of the lid as well. The set makes wonderful resonant cymbals when he clashes the two pieces together, or when he clashes either piece against some other object. Both the lid and the bowl spin nicely, and land with a resounding crash when he spins them on the top of the wooden toybox. If he turns the lid upside down on top of the bowl, it slides around with a lovely metallic swish.

Educational toys are all well and good, but I think sometimes he can learn more about physics and geometry and spatial relations by simply playing with trash. And the best thing about that is that we’ll always have an endless supply of it!

Pregnancy and Food

No, this blog is not about what you think. Yes, many pregnant women are obsessed with food (either because they want it all the time or because they never want to see it again), but this obsession isn’t with food that you’re eating, it’s with the comparison of the size of a developing fetus and various food items.

One of the things that isn’t much different between when I was expecting Ryan and this pregnancy is that I love to look on the internet each week to see what stage the baby is at. And my favorite part is finding out how big Rutabaga is now – specifically, which food item the fetus is compared to every week. The majority of the items are fruits, but there is quite a variety of food products used, from seeds to fruits to vegetables to seafood. I’m not sure who decided that food should be the standard of comparison, but dozens of websites use the same standard. This week being week 12, I am told that Rutabaga is now the size of a lime. Last week s/he was the size of a fig. In fact, for your reading pleasure, here is the progression of fetal-food comparisons week by week, starting at 4 weeks: poppy seed, sesame seed, lentil, blueberry, kidney bean, grape, kumquat, fig, lime, shrimp, lemon, apple, avocado, turnip, bell pepper, “large heirloom tomato” (apparently just “tomato” would have been too vague), banana, carrot, spaghetti squash, mango, ear of corn, rutabaga (!!!! Really!!), English hothouse cucumber (again, “cucumber” would be too vague?), head of cauliflower, Chinese cabbage, butternut squash, head of cabbage, four navel oranges (apparently they ran out of appropriate vegetables – also, at this point they begin comparing weight rather than length), jicama, pineapple, cantaloupe, honeydew melon, Crenshaw melon, stalk of Swiss chard (and we’re back to length again, for some unknown reason), leek, mini watermelon (many expectant mothers would disagree with the word “mini” by this stage), pumpkin, and finally, baby. Whew!

I don’t know about you, but I’m hungry after reading that list! The only problem is that now I can’t bring myself to eat a butternut squash or a pumpkin or a jicama without thinking, “Hey, this reminds me of an X-week-old fetus!” and then promptly losing my appetite.

But I’ll admit that it is a lot more fun to picture a tiny baby as being the size of a grape rather than the dry “3/4 inches” or the even drier “1.6 cm”. I can’t picture a length without physically spreading my fingers that distance apart and looking at them, but tell me “apple” and I know exactly how big you mean. Any woman who’s ever asked a hairdresser to take off half an inch and ended up scalped understands that everyone’s concept of a measured length is different. But a kumquat is a kumquat is a kumquat. I suppose that food items are universal enough that everyone understands them and can easily picture them.

So I’ll just have to avoid eating bananas, carrots, mangos, and Chinese cabbage for a few months. I just hope that no-one ever compares the size of my baby to the size of a bowl of ice cream!

Hello, Baby Bump, I've Been Expecting You!

I’m naturally a relatively slender person, but I have no muscle tone at all so I’ve never had what would be called a flat tummy. The gentlest way to put it is that I have a “softly rounded belly”. It was true before my son was born and it was definitely true after he was born. I got back to my pre-baby weight pretty quickly, but my figure was not quite the same shape. So with this pregnancy, despite all the conventional wisdom that second pregnancies show earlier than first pregnancies, I have been approaching the end of my first trimester with no noticeable baby bump, just my usual “soft roundness”.

Until this morning. I got undressed to hop in the shower, caught a glimpse of my reflection in the mirror, and thought, “Where did THAT come from? It wasn’t there yesterday!” There was definitely roundness, but it certainly wasn’t soft any more. I went from zero to baby bump in literally 24 hours.

Which means I’ve hit the stage that every pregnant woman dreads: the “Is she fat or is she pregnant?” stage. The stage where your regular clothes are too tight but maternity clothes are still ridiculous. The stage where you discover tricks like putting a rubber band around the button of your jeans, through the buttonhole, and back around the button to buy you another inch or two around the waist. The stage where you wear long sweaters and leave your pants unbuttoned. The stage where you dig out every blousy, empire-waisted top and oversized sweatshirt in your closet. The stage where you borrow your husband’s clothes. The stage where you live in low-slung yoga pants. THE FAT STAGE.

Fortunately, I have one pair of jeans that has always been somewhat generous in the waist and is still comfortable. Unfortunately, they’re white denim so I can’t pretend I’m wearing a new pair of jeans every day like I could if they were standard blue denim. Anyone who sees me every day knows I wore the same pair of pants yesterday. (Fortunately, my husband and my son are the only ones who see me every day and neither of them really cares if I wear the same jeans for a month.) Also, white is not the most practical for wearing several days in a row when one has a 15-month-old who’s just learning to use a spoon and a cup. So yoga pants to the rescue! At least I can alternate the two until there’s enough laundry for a load – and it’s convenient that one pair is light and one is dark so whichever load is full first, that’s the pair that gets washed that day.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m very excited about my baby bump. As lousy as I feel when I’m pregnant, I’m delighted to look the part, and I love seeing physical evidence of the little life that’s growing inside me. I have several friends who have had babies in the past week or two, and seeing photos of them with their newborns makes me even more excited to go through the whole process again. I had wondered if going through it a second time would be less awe-inspiring, if I would be less amazed by each milestone because I’d seen and felt it before. But I’m still astonished at the miracle of procreation, and my heart still skips a beat or two at each new development.

Welcome, baby bump, I’ve been looking forward to seeing you!

There's a Day for That

Did you know that today (January 24) is Global Belly Laugh Day? Or that Penguin Awareness Day was last week? (I’ll admit to not knowing that penguins were, in fact, unaware.) You might have known that Talk Like a Pirate Day happens every September, but I bet you didn’t know that September also includes Be Late for Something Day (I suspect that was originally scheduled for August), Fight Procrastination Day (also originally scheduled for August) and Make Your Bed Day.

There really is a day for everything. In fact, a little bit of research results in the following list of days for January alone:
January 1: New Year’s Day (OK, this one gets a pass)
January 2: Run Up the Flagpole and See If Anyone Salutes Day
January 3: Festival of Sleep Day, Fruitcake Toss Day, and Humiliation Day (wonder if the third is directly related to the first two?)
January 4: Trivia Day
January 5: National Bird Day
January 6: Bean Day and Cuddle Up Day (ugh, not a wise combination)
January 7: Old Rock Day
January 8: Bubble Bath Day and Male Watcher’s Day (this combination could go either way, depending on the subject)
January 9: Play God Day
January 10: Peculiar People Day
January 11: Step in a Puddle and Splash Your Friend’s [sic] Day (too bad National Punctuation Day isn’t until September)
January 12: Feast of Fabulous Wild Men Day and National Pharmacist Day (double whammy for those fabulous wild pharmacists!)
January 13: International Skeptics Day and Make Your Dream Come True Day (need I even say anything about the juxtaposition of these two?)
January 14: Dress Up Your Pet Day
January 15: National Hat Day
January 16: National Nothing Day

I think I’ll stop at National Nothing Day. If you haven’t gotten the point by now, you’re not going to get it: If you want to celebrate something random and nonsensical, someone else probably thought of it already and assigned it an official “Day”. You can celebrate an officially-recognized theme every single day of the year, if you like. The fact that there are holidays that even Hallmark doesn’t make cards for is mind-blowing to me.

So what is the point of all these “Days”? The point is that there is always something to celebrate. No matter what other lousy stuff may be going on in your life, there’s some excuse to be silly and to laugh and to celebrate. If you’re into food, you could celebrate ice cream sandwiches (August 2), or crown roast of pork (March 7), or pastry (December 9), or angel food cake (October 10), or even moldy cheese (October 9). Maybe you’re thankful for working people and would rather celebrate mailmen (February 4), or cosmonauts (April 12), or waiters and waitresses (May 21), or even ratcatchers (July 22). Maybe what will make you happy is celebrating something musical like kazoos (January 28), or saxophones (November 6 – sorry, Dad!), or barbershop quartets (April 11), or tubas (May 6). Or perhaps you just need something completely goofy like wiggling your toes (August 6), or hugging your cat (June 4), or rubber erasers (April 15), or butterscotch pudding (September 19).

Whatever it is that will get you out of your funk and celebrating, it’s out there. So go have yourself a good belly laugh today!! Don’t worry, you can get back to crying in a couple of days - Opposite Day is on Wednesday.

The Physics of Spoons

There are many processes in life that are so deeply ingrained in us that we don’t realize how complicated they really are. For example, a trained dancer who is asked to do a “triple time step” will perform a complicated series of steps without thinking about each separate part. To her, a triple is essentially a single action. To a dancer with less experience, the process consists of hop, shuffle, step, flap, step, stomp, reverse. To a dancer who is just learning the step, the process is something more like hop on your left foot, brush your right foot back and forth then step back and put your weight on your right foot, brush your left foot forward then step with your weight on it, step back onto your right foot, stomp your left foot on the floor, then do the whole thing all over again in the opposite direction. Put that way, it’s easy to see how complex the sequence is – at least, until you know it so well that you do it without thinking about it.

For a toddler, using a spoon is just as complicated. We adults don’t think twice about using one: you grab the spoon, you scoop some food onto it, you stick it in your mouth. Easy peasy, right? But if you watch a child who’s just learning to use a spoon, you realize that there are a lot of tiny picky details that we don’t even think about.

First of all, where you hold the spoon is very important. If you grab the very end of it, not only does it take a lot of coordination to scoop something onto the bowl of the spoon, but the slightest motion flings whatever is on the bowl up into the air and very far away from your mouth. You need to find that “sweet spot” where you have both strength and control. Short-handled baby spoons make this a little easier to deal with, at least, but it still takes practice to find that perfect balance point.

Next, you have to contend with the whole “angle of attack” thing. Gravity is not in your favor with most orientations. Sure, if we’re talking about cold Cream of Wheat or pudding, something will stick to the spoon no matter what orientation you hold the spoon at. Even something a bit soupier like applesauce or yogurt is pretty forgiving. But dry, unsticky things like peas or rice have an unpleasant habit of jumping right off the spoon unless the bowl is perfectly upright. And I don’t mean just upright when you scoop. It has to stay upright for that whole precarious journey from plate to mouth. That’s asking a lot of a child who six months ago could hardly sit up without assistance.

And then of course, you have the whole scooping action itself. You can’t just randomly jab the spoon into the food and hope to come up with something in the bowl. Unless we’re back to Cream of Wheat or pudding, the random jab maneuver is not likely to meet with a lot of success. The spoon needs to start off deep enough in the pile of food to get a mouthful on it, and it needs to move steadily enough to avoid dislodging its contents during the whole scooping arc. Again, peas and rice are not cooperative with this step of the process, and often result in an empty spoon reaching the mouth.

Impressively, most children do not seem to be particularly frustrated or disappointed by the empty spoon. Ryan, at least, enjoys chewing on the spoon as much as he does chewing on the food, so an empty spoon in the mouth is merely a mid-meal toy break. (It is also useful as a drumstick, thereby leading to another type of mid-meal toy break.) Nor is he bothered by the fact that as much food lands on his shirt and on the table as makes it into his mouth. Occasionally his hunger overtakes his interest in the spoon and he shovels a few mouthfuls in with his hands, but generally he goes back to working with the spoon again pretty quickly.

As I watch his skills develop, and as I watch his surprising patience and diligence in practicing and honing those skills, I am once again amazed at how quickly children go from not even comprehending how something is done to mastering it completely. Within just a few months, Ryan has gone from tottering a few steps to confidently running all over the house. He’s gone from staring uncomprehendingly as us when we talk to him to eagerly responding to verbal requests and recognizing names and objects. He’s gone from sitting back and watching other people show him his toys to actively finding things (toys and non-toys alike) to amuse himself with. And I can only imagine what changes are to come over the next few months. I can hardly wait!

What a Difference a Day Makes

Yesterday morning I got out of bed and wished I could turn around and crawl right back in. Or die. Either option was equally welcome. I was sick and tired and I was sick and tired of being sick and tired. I thought I’d had terrible morning sickness when I was pregnant with my son but for the past three weeks I’ve hardly been able to function. On a good day I managed a shower (but had to lie down and rest before I had enough energy to get dressed). On a bad day (which was most of the time), I spent all day on the couch feeling sorry for myself. Fortunately the basement is baby-proofed enough that I could let Ryan run around and keep himself entertained while I “supervised” from the couch. When I didn’t have the energy to stop him from pulling all the videotapes off the shelf, I’d put him in his playpen for an hour or two to give myself a break. Sometimes I’d crawl in there with him and just lay on the floor watching him and chatting with him. The poor kid obviously sensed my distress and would periodically tug at my arm or my sweater (OK, let’s be honest: my nightgown) to get me to sit up. I felt like a horrible, neglectful mother, but it was all I could manage to keep him fed, changed, and safe.

But yesterday afternoon, all that changed. I had a doctor’s appointment in the morning, and when I told her all my woes she gave me a prescription for Zofran. I had my doubts as to how helpful it would be, since my sickness was not only nausea but light-headedness, shakiness, and exhaustion, but I figured that even if it only took the edge off it would be a move in the right direction.

Oh, ye of little faith. Within an hour of taking the first pill (and it wasn’t even a whole pill, it was half a pill!), I felt like a new woman. Instead of lying miserably on the couch, I was sitting up. Instead of staring unhappily around the kitchen and being repulsed by the thought of food, I eagerly ate two servings of hearty soup. My husband and I were sitting in the study and for some reason I laughed at something, and he turned to me and said, “That’s the first time I’ve heard you laugh in weeks.” And I realized that he was right. I’d been trying to put a good face on things, but I didn’t realize how miserable I’d been (to myself and to those around me) until I was back to my old self again.

I did sleep late today, but when I got up I had breakfast, I took a shower (I didn’t even take a nap afterwards), I brushed my hair, I took Ryan shopping, I made myself real food for lunch, and then – wonder of wonders – I cooked dinner. I even tasted it while I was cooking it. And I’m even looking forward to eating it! I’m not ready to run a marathon or anything, but the fact that I’ve been upright for more than 8 hours in a row is nothing short of a miracle.

Only a little more than twenty-four hours ago, I was prepared to endure this pregnancy, to merely get through it - to enjoy it in theory but not in practice, so to speak. I am, of course, absolutely delighted to be expecting another child. This child was just as hoped-for, just as prayed-for, and just as longed-for as our first child. But the thought of feeling the way I did for nine more months (or even nine more hours!) was almost more than I could bear. But the relief and the joy of feeling healthy enough to truly enjoy and appreciate the miracle of another child growing inside me is almost more than I can bear in a good way.

What a difference a day makes.

Every Rutabaga Is Different

[The blog entry is dedicated fondly to my college advisor, Dr. Russ Camp, who taught me not only that every rutabaga is different, but who also taught me the "Linus Pauling Song", which is sung to the tune of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" and includes the immortal lyrics, "Glory glory Linus Pauling, glory glory peptide bonding, glory glory polypeptides, that do the twist to form proteins, rah rah rah!" And a special shout-out to fellow alumni and now professors Dr. Craig Story and Dr. Dorothy Boorse, both of whom carry on in the tradition of Dr. Camp.]

When I was in college, one of my biology courses included a lab session in which we determined the enzyme content of a rutabaga. Each student was given a rutabaga to process and analyze. Naturally, at the end of the lab all the students compared their answers and immediately went into a panic because our results were all over the map. But the professor reassured us that we hadn’t necessarily screwed up the experiment; it was just that “every rutabaga is different.” And for the rest of our college careers, that phrase became our class motto. Any time something came out in a way we didn’t expect, we’d explain it by saying off-handedly, “Well, every rutabaga is different.”

I’ve been out of college for twenty years (gulp!), and I still catch myself using that phrase now and then. In fact, I’ve used it several times lately in reference to my second pregnancy. I find myself thinking, “By the time I was 9 weeks pregnant with Ryan, my pants were tight. Is something wrong with this pregnancy? No, it’s just that every rutabaga is different.” Or, “I never had trouble with food tasting funky with my last pregnancy, why do so many things taste weird this time? It must be because every rutabaga is different.”

I think the fact that symptoms can be so different from pregnancy to pregnancy is God’s way of preparing a mom for the fact that her children are likely to be completely different from each other, as well. My husband often found himself comparing our son’s development with that of his older daughter: “Rosemary used to squirm in the bathtub just like that!” or “Rosemary pulled herself up at the same age!” It bothered me sometimes, because I wanted to say to him, “He’s not Rosemary! He’s his own person!” But I realized that he was just recalling her childhood with all the joy and excitement with which we were both enjoying Ryan’s. And I have no doubt that I will do exactly the same thing with this new baby: “She’s squirming in the tub just like Ryan used to!” or “He’s pulling himself up just the same way Ryan did at that age!”

And I’ll just have to remind myself that this new baby isn’t Ryan, she’s her own person (or he’s his own person). After all, every rutabaga is different.

The Morning Sickness Diet, or, What Can I Eat Today That Won't Make Me Throw Up?

Ever since Ryan was born – actually, ever since Ryan was conceived – I hoped that my next pregnancy would be less fraught with morning sickness. I read all kinds of articles in hope that someone would tell me that second babies cause less morning sickness. And I found articles that said exactly that. I also found articles that warned the exact opposite. I spoke to friends who had subsequent pregnancies with symptoms nearly identical to their first pregnancies, and to friends whose pregnancies varied wildly from child to child. So I had no idea what to expect from this pregnancy.

Until I hit the 6-week mark, at which point my body totally rebelled. I was nauseous morning, noon, and night. Not only did I have bionic nose, but I developed an aversion to many smells. One night my stepdaughter made Brussels sprouts and I actually went outside and stood on the porch in the freezing cold air to escape the smell (actually, the fresh cold air felt wonderful). I borrowed my husband’s toothpaste one morning and gagged as soon as the toothbrush hit my mouth. The mere thought of the grilled chicken that had gotten me through my last pregnancy made my stomach roil. I spent my days lying on the couch and praying that this stage would be short-lived.

Fortunately, things eased up just a tiny bit at the 8-week mark. I still have nausea on and off through the day, but it’s a bit less severe. And I’ve even discovered a few foods that I can manage to get down. It’s rather an eclectic menu, though, and consists mainly of starch and dairy. Come to think of it, I think it consists entirely of white and beige foods. Here’s an example of what I had to eat today: For breakfast, I had a piece of toast, which I washed down with a vanilla Ensure. Around lunchtime, Ryan and I shared some vanilla yogurt and I had a bite or two of his grilled-cheese sandwich (white American cheese on white bread, of course). This afternoon, I had a coffee-flavored Ensure and shared Ryan’s string cheese. And for supper, I think I might be up for a handful of elbow noodles and a glass of milk. Oh! I almost forgot that I had an afternoon snack of a couple of Christmas cookies (one shortbread and one M&M – and the M&Ms were green and red, so it wasn’t a completely white and beige day).

Every once in a while, I can get wild and crazy and manage a few bites of squash, or some soup, and Spaghettios with franks are still a good bet most of the time (although everything from a can tastes a little funny this time). So I’m fitting in the vegetables and protein wherever I can. It isn’t easy, and it isn’t fun, but when I’m at the end of my rope, all I have to do it look at my precious little boy and I remember the prize at the end of the journey. And that makes it all worth it.