Don't stop til you get enough

I did it! I turned in my first assignment for this writing program I'm taking.

Skip-a-dee-do-da, ya'll!

This is vaguely pertinent to the blog because I've wanted to pursue writing seriously since I was a little girl but didn't have the guts to put myself out there. Anonybabe was a big impetus to get my behind in gear because I really want her to follow her own dreams. I can lecture her about that until I'm blue in the face - and probably will - but actions speak louder than words. It is extremely easy to fall into the rut of doing what your parents did when you aren't really sure what actions to take next. I spent a lot of energy circa college being mad at my mom for shelving her dreams completely to raise 3 kids. Once I hit young womanhood I realized that a working model of what I could become other than a stay-at-home mommy would have been really helpful. I've since learned to be more forgiving, but I'd still like to show Anonybabe how to live for herself so she's happy and confident enough that others will enjoy her as well. Might as well leave her some positive ruts along with the bad ones, no?

More on the list of items I'll pursue in order to mash a rut of self-actualization into the dirt road of my daughter's future:

• Front a country and/or swing band


• Start a grrrrl band long enough to put together 10 horrendous & joy-filled songs


• Buy a piano


• Read books in the bathtub


• Swing dance/tango


• Take some sort of fly girl dance/exercise class: something like Jackson-size: recreating the video dance moves of Michael and Janet or Supadupafly: mimicking Missy Elliott videos


• Tap dance class


• Etc, etc.

It's easier to enjoy myself when I can do it in the name of my daughter. And it makes me so much more of a pleasant Anonymom and Anonywife.

I took Anonybabe out for a day of socializing this past weekend. I don't know how much she enjoyed it, but I sure did. And I enjoyed her a lot more than usual at the end of the day, because my tank was full.

So the formula seems to be: me, me me = I love you you you

The doggone girl is mine

For the first time in a long time, Anonyhub and I fought over who got to care for Anonybabe. She has some mystery illness: she has a mild fever and will occasionally squint and cry. Weird. Scary. Upsetting. In between squints and cries she is acting normal. But her fuse seemed short, and at one point she was almost asleep in my arms and when I moved her up on my chest she just started bawling. Anonyhub wanted to hold her; I wanted to hold her...then later I was given the bird for scooping her up before he could get to her.

I apologized later for bogarting the baby, which he thanked me for, but I wanted to take it back when he then got all victim-y and said that I always swoop in on his baby time, taking her away, etc.

Wah. Who's the baby here?

He'd been out with a buddy for burgers beforehand. I wonder if he got a beer? That might've brought out his inner whiney-puss.

Sexual healing

Birth is a sexual thing.





No shit, says you.





But it was in ways that I didn't anticipate at all.





After birth, waiting for my milk to come in, pumping away at my breast with that little hand-pump felt for all the world like a masturbatory endeavor. There was all the anxiety, shame, furtive quick hand motions.



There was just how yummy and luscious I felt during pregnancy and right after. My boobs were gorgeous, and I really enjoyed them; wearing low-cut shirts at every opportunity.



Something has dried up. Not only have I lost interest in sex, I'm generally covering up more. What's happening?

Poop-ku

You know what this blog really needs? Yes! That's just what I was thinking! Bad poetry!

I started killing some of the insipid time I spend pumping at work writing Haikus and limericks. I'm not even sure I know how to write haikus or limericks but that didn't stop me. Or even drive me to double-check my form before posting them.

Part of my inspiration must go to Haiku Mama: (because 17 syllables is all you ever have time to read). It had several haikus about poop, and the intro says that for every poop haiku that made the cut, there were about 100 more behind it, but the editor didn't want a poop-themed haiku book. Anybody that likes saying poop as much as I do is okay by my count.

But I digress. I wrote another couple today and it dawned on my that I should foist them onto the blog. Enjoy. Or not.

P.S. I tried to find a good picture of diaper oragmi to post with no luck, but I did find this.

P.S.S. I'm hoping this incites you to chime in with offerings of your own.

bagged eyes, red all through.
forgot your bright baby blues.
I'm sorry, sick girl

Sad eyes, lip aquiver
Why'd I have to yell at you?
Oh yes, nip biter

There is a young lass of ten months
Who cries so she'll get what she wants
Her momma cried too
When a bout of "fuck you"
Left her nose scratched and hurting in fronts

Do you hate me, munch?
Self-indulgent musings are
Par for the course, no?

Why, oh my pumpkin
did you prefer Dad last night?
Wheedling flirt kicked in

Desperate for love,
but desperate to cook, too.
Ignore you for beans.

There was a wee girl from Chicago
Whose poop was quite kaleidoscopal
She'd grunt and she'd heave
Red-faced, then she'd leave
A pile of some sad-smelling offal

Oh, my pants-a-france
Who says "fuck" to a baby?
This mama, that's who

Oh no you di-int, Mama!

So you know how I directed ya'll to Mamasource the other blog? I get a daily email from them with assorted example topics for the day, and I'm kind of hooked on it. Despite, or maybe because it is kind of like reading a daily gossip rag. I can't put my finger on it, but there is something really trashy and sordid about the thrill I get reading about these other mother's problems. Some of them are so mundane and some of them are just spectacular. And then of course I read and judge the mama's responses. And I weigh in on things I know absolutely nothing about.

Did I already post about my new year's resolution to become a better gossip? I think Mamasource is putting my on the fast track to achieve my goals.

Losing my Mojo

So I've been reading some really good blogs lately (just added links that should be to your right - I am doing the airline stewardess "Here, here, and here" motion) in part so as to avoid doing my homework for this writing class I started. Reading them has the added bonus of intimidating the hell out of me so that I think "I can't write; these people can write; what the hell am I thinking trying to submit stories for publication?" I'm effectively drumming up a big, unnecessary, and stupid drama in my head about whether or not I'm the best writer in the world, just to avoid doing a little homework.

Sigh.

My 11 month old is less childish than me, I swear.

When I can get my inflated ego in check, I'll let you know.

In the mean time, just checking in to let you know that I miss you, blogola.

Tabula Rasa

Ya'll. Hi. I kinda have nothing to blog about. I mean, a lot happened this weekend with my Denver buddy and her 4 1/2 mo. old daughter, but because of her visit I'm feeling a very pleasant lack of angst. I don't need to vent; I don't need to process. Instead of my usual psychic choppiness I'm feeling like a still pond after a cooling rain.

Like my PBS yoga show imagery? Good. Me too.

I'm even feeling the love for Anonyhubby again, even though he managed to get in a few digs about my tendency to micromanage Anonybabe's diet. To whit: "What!?" (He feigns shock to my buddy who is letting her daughter mouth food as she seems to become interested in it) "You're letting her mouth touch apple?" (and at this point he goes to the list that's posted on the refrigerator from this book, showing when certain foods can be introduced to her) "Why that's not on the list...you know, THE List?...for one...two...three! Three months! Heaven help you!" I think he found great relief in hamming it up for my friend, who had to giggle uncomfortably while he vented because really, she's on his side when it comes to chilling the fuck out, but she's on my side when it comes to husbands who want to mock and humiliate you.

But still, giving all of my attention to my friend and her awesome little one was like a little vacay from Anonyhub, and I "came back" all refreshed and ready to dig him again. Hell, hanging out with my friend was a little vacay, period. She's fun. We bundled up ourselves and our babies in the gawd awful subzero temperatures and sallied forth to a baby boutique, a vegetarian breakfast, the southside for a lunch with her in-laws, a sushi place, her sister's, a latin fusion restaurant, and my doula's where we finally cashed in on the massage my buddy was supposed to get the night I went into labor with Anonybabe.

On the way to the massage we fishtailed in the approximately 2 solid inches of ice covering all of the non-major roads of Evanston - we hear most of the suburbs are short on salt this winter - and ended up getting the nose of my Camry wedged against one car's wheel well and the tail end sitting about half an inch from a car directly across the street while we sat blocking traffic. It took a village to get us out of that one, with car owners and neighbors shuffling carefully out onto the ice to help direct moving the cars and our babies cooing in the car while one or the other of us got out to do damage control. I won't do the owner of the car I dinged justice here, but she was an 80 year-old Chinese woman who'd been drinking already (10am)! And would flap her arms violently at us when we would try to help walk her over the ice between her car and her house. "You people leave me alone!" Other than her aversion to being helped over slippery terrain, she was very accommodating, offering to let us come inside with the babies and telling us not to worry about the crack to her rear bumper. I'm still waiting to get a sober call from her asking for repair money.

All in all, it was a little sun, a lot of ice, a little laughing, a little relaxing, a lot of good eating...a lovely weekend.

Take Me to Your Leader

Yesterday I was feeling my usual inadequacy as a parent, in a very self-indulgent look-how-bad-I-suck-at-this way.

I told you how many more giggles Anonyhub has always been able to elicit from Anonybabe, and last night was no exception. I would ham it up and just get the same blank stares she gives strangers. I find these stares more than withering, precisely because they aren't meant to be. They don't say "you're stupid", they say "no really...what on earth could you possibly be doing? I'll just sit here and wait for you to calm down and see if you eventually manage to do something I can connect with."

And then there's a problem I've seen coming from a long way back and see stretching into my future with Anonybabe. I'm not an authoritarian person. At all. I hate being in charge; I back off from any confrontation, and I have a bit of a anarchist streak that says authority is not to be trusted or respected anyway and everyone should just tend to themselves. And here's what I think about that: do you know how much easier it is for a parent and their kid if the parent is unequivocably in charge? A lot. It doesn't mean the relationship is then happy or great by any means, but it at least eliminates these uneasy power struggles. This doesn't mean the parent has to be a hardass or an asshole about it, but I think it is the parent's job - like it or not - to fill the role of boss and then train the kid for it until the kid is able to take on that role themselves. I still haven't fully accepted that I have to be the boss of my baby. And I worry that she's going to turn out to be an out of control brat, at least around me. That, my friends, would make me, my daughter, and anybody around us unhappy.

So first I need to pep talk myself into taking on the role of parent. Pep point #1: it's just a role. A necessary role. I gotta pick it up with relish knowing I can lay it down as I train her to pick it up for herself, or when she turns 17ish, whichever is sooner. Pep point #2: I don't have to believe in my innate ability to be in charge but I do have to believe in my innate responsibility, and just do it. Pep point #3: if I do my best, I shouldn't worry overly about being a bad parent. I can try to introduce her to people who have what I haven't got, and give her what I do, and not burden myself unnecessarily with guilt about ways I don't measure up. Not helpful.

And pep point #4, which kind of slices through the gordian knot for me: one friend of mine with a 5 year-old passed on this advice from her mother -- the best way to have an enjoyable kid is to enjoy them. Have fun with them. Learn what you like about them and then whoop it up with them. The Who's-the-Boss matter is important, but not as important as this. If I can manage to really and truly enjoy Anonybabe for who she is, I feel I will have done right by my daughter, that she'll have a reference point for finding her inner core, and will more naturally slide into being the captain of her own soul.

The biggest thing I have to fear is fear itself in this department. As in last night, facing Anonybabe's blank stare, I fear I won't know how to enjoy her because I often don't know how to enjoy myself around others. I've had many many moments in my life where I conducted myself like an alien, so far in my own head that I don't know how to just be with people and hang out. Ach! Are my introverted tendencies going to rob me of a relationship with my daughter? For the first time this makes me want to leave them behind. To try to pick up connecting with people the way a kid tries to pick up smoking. Awkwardly, mimicking at first until she can get the hang of it.

bouquet

When I am in my house, I always smell poop.

Play becomes work

Anonybabe got quite pissy last night when I didn't want to eat from her hand as often as she wanted to feed me. "Uunh!" she would bark, slapping her high chair tray, "UUUNGH!"

Anonyhubby said when he gave her a slice of apple yesterday, she took one look at him and shoved the whole thing in her mouth sideways, prompting him to fish it out so he could offer it back to her in bite sizes. She really lost her shit, crying and yelling, so he waited to give the apple back so she wouldn't associate temper tantrums with getting her way.

Let the power plays begin.

Unjun

For a long time - like, years and years, I could slice onions without tearing up. I remembered a time when onion fumes burned, back when I was a child, but hadn't really experienced the sting for eons. I didn't consciously congratulate myself for my dry eyes, but looking back, part of me thought crying over onions was for the weak of eye, and that I was pretty rad.

Cut through an onion-friendly youth and young adulthood to the present. I got an eye infection and was forced to wear glasses for 10 days. During that time I cut onions and holy-of-holies did it burn! I was confused for a long, weepy moment; my eyes don't burn when I cut onions...and then it dawned on me that in the daylight hours between the ages of 10 and 33, my eyes were pretty much constantly covered by contact lenses. I only took them out right before I went to bed, and had not yet found occasion to chop onions with my back resting against the headboard.

So for 20-odd years I thought I had this minor super power, when really I was just getting an unacknowledged assist from my contacts. I'm pretty amused by my easy assumption that I was somehow stronger and better than everybody else, even if it was just in the onion-cutting department. It makes me wonder how many other invisible assists I get that make my life great that I don't even realize.

I'm like the upper-middle classer who opposes welfare because I have never needed it; why should anyone? I also feels like this applies to my relationship with Anonyhub; I thought we got along more or less swimmingly before Anonybabe because of our incredible maturity, foresight, and levelheadedness. Not, as I'm coming to realize, because we'd never experienced a real challenge to our relationship until it tap-danced across our noses in the form of Anonybabe. Looks like I'm absolutely blind to my own priviledge and quick to take credit where it isn't due.

The More You Know

(Before I share this post with you, let me get something off my chest ahead of time in the interest of full disclosure: the website I've started trolling on a regular basis and that I mention below - mamasource.com - recently ran a survey of members asking if they had a parenting blog. When I clicked yes, I got an email asking if I would be interested in blogging about mamasource and then emailing a link of my entry in to them. In return they would possibly list my post on their site and open my blog up to a whole world of anonymoms. A breezy little I-scratch-yours-etc-etc, arrangement. I feel a little funny about this even though I honestly enjoy surfing the site. Okay, now that you're fully in the know, form your opinions as you may).

So I told the tale of Anonybabe hitting me to several friends and then submitted the question of what to do about it to Mamasource, a website that allows you to post any question and gather advice from mamas in your area. First of all, I love love love me some public forum action. It exists, in smaller ways on other parenting websites, like babycenter.com or in my Le Leche League chapter. But babycenter has annoying pop-up ads and a squeaky-clean commercial vibe, while Le Leche League is a small local base of moms who have a strong breast-feeding anti-medicine bias. (I happen to agree with it most of the time, but I like to hear a broader base of opinions). I'm sure there's a lot of this kind of thing out there, but mamasource seems to have streamlined the q&a between moms to just that.

I've been reading other mom's questions and answers for the past couple of weeks and it seems you are guaranteed at least one horribly bad answer to your query there, several mediocre ones, and at least one or two very helpful answers. And it's quick -- I got a string of 16 suggestions within 24 hours for curing Anonybabe of her violent tendencies, and this is with hundreds of much juicier questions whizzing around daily, from "My husband decided to relocate without consulting me" to "My 4 1/2 year old is acting out" to "My baby just pooped as I put him to sleep - do I really have to change him?".

I could find and dismiss the horrible answer fairly easily: ("Hit her back! Worked wonders for my son's hitting and biting!") and got the answer I needed from all the people who read the subtext to my question: Yes, she's no longer an infant, yes it's okay, nay necessary to make her responsible for her actions and start teaching what kindness and consideration mean. I needed to hear that. I was having an almost impossible time thinking of Anonybabe as anything but a big fat embryo who has developed some pretty cool party tricks. The hitting and the laying down of the no-hitting law have flipped a little switch in me that seems profound: Anonybabe is not just a baby - what she is in the present; she's a potential woman & fellow human being. All that she has, does & experiences will be carried with her into the future and it's time to start treating her as such.

I still need to hear it. It makes my brain want to explode when I look at a 2 year old and know that Anonybabe will be talking in sentences and throwing manipulative temper tantrums in such a short period of time, much less asking for a cell phone and wanting to spend the night with her girlfriends just a few short years later. I remember the inner life of a four-year old. It was dadgum complex. Yipe.

Can I make a little incindiary remark about mamasource commentators while I'm here? The professional advice that comes from people trained in psychology and child development typically sucks compared to the mama advice. Even the horrifically bad advice smacks of the been-there-done-that vibe you need to trust what someone is telling you.

Awwww, or The More They are Amazing and Adorable the More They Are Like Everybody Else...Ain't it Grand?

Along with Anonybabe's new skill set comes the desire to feed Anonyhubby and I. She'll raise a pea-sized smidgen of toast high in the air, holding her mouth open while we lean forward and let her carefully place it in our mouths, and then lean back, pleased and smacking along with us as we chew and swallow. It's great fun, and gives me the opportunity to teach her "nooooo thank you" when I've had enough.

She's also experimenting with the art of stuffing more food than she can possibly swallow into her mouth at once.

Anonyhub is such a fun playmate for her. I try to take pages from his book and sorta roughhouse with her; we have fun and I can finally make her giggle, but Anonyhubby can just make her shreik with laughter. Last night he would "toss" her onto the bed with a dramatic count-off, and then tickle her belly with his scratchy face, or fall onto the bed while she was on it and make her bounce, or "chase" her around the bed while she crawled around on all fours cackling like a maniac. I wish people who have only seen her docile stare could see her enjoying herself. She loves playing peek-a-boo with him because he'll hide behind something like the armchair and then Houdini-like, crawl to another piece of furniture out of her sight and startle her by popping up behind the couch. Or he'll hold up a blanket and peek at her behind it a couple of time and then shimmy himself behind the changing table before dropping it like he's disappeared, then he'll pop out at her with a "boo!" She loves it.

Pain in the neck

I have emotional whiplash from loving/hating my husband.

I remember about 2 weeks ago feeling all warm-fuzzy about how great he is and how I love that he takes care of the house and Anonybabe and supports me emotionally and is cute and has common sense and morals...and he paints and plays guitar and listens to the presidential debates!

And this weekend he couldn't say boo without me hating his guts. His common sense and morals in particular were getting on my nerves. Why does he want to take extra time to scoop out the car in the morning? Isn't this the same guy who is always so worried about me getting to work on time, and now he wants to hold me up? Also, he stayed after work one night to talk to the parents of one of his teenage co-workers...people he really likes and they really like him too. They think he's funny and nice and I agree. But he lost track of time and didn't call me to tell me he was headed home until midnight. That wasn't the problem. I figured he was taking some much needed time hanging out and was just gearing up to call him just to make sure he was still a-okay. But he apologized up and down for not calling, saying over and over again that he was sorry and that not calling was unacceptable. That got on my nerves. Mostly because he loses his shit when I don't call to say where I am and I wish he would lighten up about it. I love getting so lost in enjoying something that I lose track of time; I find it very relaxing. So the fact that he always rejects this as evil and inconsiderate just bothers me.

Obviously I still have a little venom in my tank, but I'm winding down. We ramped things up Friday night by talking about ways we are not on the same page when it comes to child-rearing, religion, socializing, and housecleaning. Four topics that should never be aired at once if you want to have a nice weekend with your spouse.

In & Out

From the time she could grasp objects in her hand, Anonybabe has delighted in emptying toy baskets, sock bins, bookshelves...anything that had things in it that she could get out, she would do so with relish. We have video of one of the first times she pulled herself up, it was on a box of CDs that Anonyhubby was pricing to sell on Amazon. She immediately got lost in pulling cases out of the box and tossing them onto the floor. Before long she was leaning so far into the box that her little feet were dangling off of the carpet, CDs flying over her shoulder . If we needed to keep her occupied, we would always just give her something to empty. She also has a little affectation that to us is cute, but to others who have no reason to like my daughter might be eyebrow raising: she always tosses things aside with a flick of her wrist that implies "ugh! This old thing." It makes her look like a horrible baby snob.

But yesterday was a watershed day; she actually deigned to put something in a container. And she did it again today! Anonyhub and I were both very happy to see this; me because now I don't have to worry about her having some emptying-only OCD, and Anonyhub has misty-eyed visions of the two of them organizing closets together someday.