The Promised Page

Now that I've successfully wooed those of you who like to hear me talk about my moist-eyed devotion to my daughter, here's something that sure to alienate and displease. Apparently I have an equally strong misty-eyed love of Old Testament-y smiting humor, because these clips cracked my shit up, big time. Enjoy!

Funny Videos | Funny Cartoons | More Video Clips

Funny Videos | Funny Cartoons | More Video Clips

Funny Videos | Funny Cartoons | More Video Clips

Words and worms

So Anonybabe is very slowly but surely adding words to her communication arsenal.

"Mama" and "Daddy" are the only ones she says clearly and consistently, but she'll repeat stuff, saying something like a mantra for a while before dropping it and moving on. Anonyhub told me about my recent favorite. He was cleaning her after a massive poop and readied a wipe for some detail work. "Ok, " he said, "let's clean out your hoo-ha."

"Hoo ha", Anonybabe repeated, again and again after seeing Anonyhub crack up. She even said it on the phone for me. Snicker.

And Anonyhub said he managed to take a shower while Anonybabe was awake today; he let her throw bath toys in the tub while he soaped up. She's seen him take showers before, and seen him change many times, but today she seemed to notice for the first time the difference between boys and girls. She tends to point repeatedly to anything she wants identified, and she kept pointing to Anonyhubs nethers, again and again.

I didn't find out yet whether he gave it a kicky nickname akin to "hoo ha".

Neglect vs. Nurture

Reading this parenting book made me think of Artist's Way - it's a workbook to help you make creativity part of your daily life, and to help you realize your creative dreams one tiny step at a time. Sounds trite, but it was a life-changing book for me. Mostly because there were some really simple concepts about being nice to yourself and taking care of yourself that were absolutely new to me.

I was raised to be self-sufficient, but not to think that nurturing yourself is a necessary component to thriving. Before Artist's Way, I waited to do something right to be nice to myself, now I am nice to myself so I have the fuel I need to do things right. And correspondingly, the definition of "what's right" gets turned on its head. It becomes internal (what do I believe needs to happen) rather than external (what am I supposed to be doing? Am I doing it right?!). Now I spend a lot of the energy I used to spend worrying about measuring up doing things. Good things. Things that make me happy and content.

Finding little ways to fill my tank has been, like I said, life altering, and probably the basis for my interest in all of these parenting books that are centered around nurture rather than discipline. I want my child(ren) to know that leisure and pleasure shouldn't have to be earned, and that creativity is spiritual and necessary.

Parents. Gotta love them. How?

My dad and step mom are in town, and when we were out to dinner last night I let Anonybabe play in her food when we were done.

"I think she's done eating," my dad kept saying. "You're just playing with your food now, aren't you sugar?" Without saying so, they were obviously uncomfortable and wanted me to make her stop, but she's sixteen months old, she wasn't making an obscene mess, she was sitting happily and quietly, and I was more than willing to pick up the oyster crackers and sugar packets that were dropping around her chair when she was done.

So I just smiled and nodded while my dad gave a little speech about how children really appreciate boundaries, how it makes them feel safe and secure...he actually went a step beyond that and said no children feel safe without them. It sounds benign and well-meaning when he says it like that, but I know the history of heavy-handedness (spanking, yelling, shaming his kids into and out of things) that backs up that statement.

Flannery O'Connor wrote something I read years ago about how sometimes you honor your parents by doing the opposite of what they did. You honor them by learning from their mistakes. That made a big impression on me at the time. I was just out of college and was trying to sort out what to make of my parents and my upbringing. On the one hand, there were all the fucked up ways they treated me and the baggage it left me with; on the other hand I knew they did the best they could and that it was an extreme luxury to know beyond the shadow of a doubt that they loved me. I was torn between resentment and love.

O'Connor's little blurb offered me a third way: take all of the anger and discontent from the ways they done me bad, and use it to build a better life, do things differently, and pass that along to my kids/friends/family. And do so in the name of my parents. If they taught me a million ways not to do something, they taught me a lot. I'm honestly grateful to them for that. It's a good way to reconcile my need to love them fiercely and my need to put all of the bullshit they threw (and throw) my way behind me.

I know I want to raise Anonybabe differently than I was raised, no matter what my father & mother's good intentions. They parented me a lot better than they were parented, and I plan on raising the bar for Anonybabe as well.

I'll give me a cookie if I'll be a good parent

Oh bloody hell. So I'm reading this parenting book, it's about discipline.

First off, I'm still in the process of accepting that this is one of the main ways I learn to do things - read a book about it - and that that's a legitimate way to learn how to, say, parent. Not an ideal way, actually it's one of the lesser ways because it's so non-experiential. It's like learning how to paint from a book, or learning how to cook. Makes a _lot_ more sense to do it firsthand. But whatever, as long as I change the way I look at learning, I'm okay. You really can learn through books, but not as a step by step, line-by-line process. It's more like panning for gold, letting all that the books says pour over and through your brain, and whatever little nuggets stay with you, you cash em in and spend them.

So I need as many good ideas about parenting as I can get. Gives me something to chew on when I find a good read.

The read I'm working on now is called "Unconditional Parenting" and the main premise is that punitive damages (spanking, time out, even rewards systems) teach kids that they are only loved if they act a certain way. The author thinks if you let a kid know they are loved unconditionally no matter what, you'll get better behavior, but more importantly a better relationship with your kid, and he thinks a kid that gets treated like a viable human being will in turn treat other people like viable human beings. He thinks one of our main objectives when raising kids is to teach them to be considerate and kind to other people. He thinks corporal punishment in particular and most punishment in general makes kids think only about what effect their actions will have on themselves. ("If I act up in the grocery store, mom won't buy me a treat" as opposed to "If I act up in the grocery store, I'll be bothering other people")

I'm down with all of this. Very down with it. It's articulating a lot about the way I'd like to treat Anonybabe, but have been kind of scared to because I worry about spoiling her, that she'll be uncontrollable unless I tightly control her -- all of the conventional wisdom about such things. this dude hit the nail on the head for me when he said tightly controlled parenting (the kind I grew up with) assumes that the kids are, at heart, horrible wild animals that are just waiting to take advantage of us unless we tamp them down. Which of course isn't true. They can be capable of downright horrible things, it's true, but they can also be naturally capable of acts of amazing kindness and love. Just like adults. The idea is that kids are people too! So if you treat them with respect and thoughtfulness, they'll learn to be respectful and thoughtful.

Like I said, groovy! All well and good, except while reading all of this I feel like I need to be reprogrammed to be the kind of person I want to try to help Anonybabe become. I'm reminded of how I scold her to only take one grape or one cracker at a time from her high chair tray, and I'm saying it through the handful of crackers I just shoved into my mouth. Think about how my actions affect other people? Not so much. To try to impress on her to think about the consequences of her actions on other people has me thinking about the consequences of my actions on people at large...and realizing how breathtakingly self-centered I can be. I guess I've realized that before (and been told by people who were close to me) but I've never had a good enough reason to want to change that.

So I'm kind of overwhelmed reading this book. I feel like I can't even really think about how I'm going to apply some of the nuggets I like here to Anonybabe until I've applied some of them to myself. Not that I'll wait until I'm perfectly presentable to try to teach Anonybabe as much as that absurd thought actually appeals to me. Just that I'll realize while I'm doing it that we both have some growing up to do. Me maybe more than her.

Sigh. Life really is one big science experiment, ain't it?

Or rather, life is like a painting. I always thought life was lived in broad decisive strokes, big acts. But it isn't. It's lived smidgen by smidgen, dab by dab. That's why it's okay to make mistakes, if you have one bad dab to 100 good ones, you're in good shape. Even if you have 1,000 bad dabs, given time & patience you can dab out more good than bad. Time to dab out some good parenting, to my daughter and myself.

Too good not to share

Anonybabe and I spent yesterday with a college friend and his wife's family. (I gotta say, at first glance they appear to be one of the most functional families I think I've been around). We swam in an uncle's above ground pool, and I waited until we got there to unclothe Anonybabe, put on her swim diaper, slather her in sunblock, and get on her swimsuit and hat. Anonybabe hadn't been in a large pool since she was 4 months old (she's 16 months now) and she was mightily unimpressed at the time. She has a kiddie pool that she's merrily splashed away in for the past few weeks, but I was prepared for her to be meek and mild and more than a little timid in the face of a big pool filled with strangers.

She pointed wildly to the pool the whole time I was prepping her for it, and laughed with maniacal delight when we stepped in. She shook her head "no" when we tried putting her in the floaty that our hosts had graciously bought for us, preferring instead to kick around in the water with me. Several times she tried to squirm out of my arms so she could "swim" herself; this from the girl who still won't take an unassisted step. She would "swim" from me to my college buddy (read: be passed off in a rush of water) and bored him to tears when she wanted to pass a little toy basketball back and forth to him. It was heavenly.

To cap off the night, we got home and got into our pj's and I crawled into bed with her, but she didn't seem interested in going to sleep. "That's fine." I told her. "If you want, you can crawl out of bed and see Daddy, but Mama's going to go to sleep. Should we turn on some music?" She gave her enthusiastic assent, and 20 seconds later the Modest Mouse song we've used since she was born to dance her to sleep came on. 10 seconds later I was out, and when Anonyhub crawled into bed, it woke me up enough that I looked over into her crib (that adjoins our bed) and saw her sleeping in it. "Did you put her to sleep?" I asked him. "No, didn't you?" he asked, surprised.

Our baby put herself to sleep, ya'll.
And a choir of angels is singing in my head.

P.S. I realize that this post makes it sound like our whole day - nay, our whole lives - are just perfect and heavenly. Yesterday was a loooooooong day, complete with almost no nappage and train rides that involved attempts to crawl down the aisle and crying and whatnot. Don't get the wrong idea. But the lovely parts deserved reliving and the not so lovely parts are heretofore filed under "I forget."

Do the Time Warp

Time for another time warp. Although I jot down blog entries every other day or so in my notebook, they haven't been making it to my actual blog out of a mixture of laziness and the enhanced workiness in my workplace, which is where I usually post.

So I'm post-dating a few blog entries. You can find them (and this isn't in chronological order)
here, here, here, here, here, here, here aaaaaand most importantly, here.

P.S. I got a horrified EMAIL from my brother when I passed him the news that Rocky Horror Picture Show is supposedly going to be remade. We never ever talk! I'm so giddy that we shared even cursory correspondence! This clip (although he won't see it) is for him:

Who came first?

I haven't had a sex drive to speak of for about 2 months, maybe more. I haven't wanted sex, not even out of a feeling of obligation to Anonyhub or because I hated the idea of being a person who would happily go for months without.

I had more or less embraced this unsexed version of me when my libido popped up overnight like a crop of smelly mushrooms. I found myself listening to Savage Lovecasts again, Anonyhub and I had sex twice in one week, I found myself wondering if I would be hurt if Anonyhub ever hooked up with this one person I suspect he has a crush on and who I adore (I think not, but maybe I'm crazy), I felt an unexpected stab of lust for someone else, I've been eating a lot of beef, watching a bunch of poorly sexed up music videos, listening to R&B, wearing heels and earrings and my boobjob bra three days in a row to work, and shaving my legs.

I don't know who gets to wear the "egg" nametags in this bunch, and who gets to be "chicken", but I think I like having my sexual identity back for a bit.

If you love her, let her go

I don't like the idea of getting a moment of clarity from the Sex And the City movie, but I'll take my inspiration from whence it comes.

I'd casually tossed off here that I'm anxious because I feel I don't understand Anonybabe, and I wished we could be joined at the brain stem, right?

Last night I went to see SATC by myself. I don't recommend it unless you instantly recognize that acronym for what it is, and have spent years all up in the business of Samantha and Carrie and Miranda and Charlotte. Even then it wasn't a good movie, but I ate up the themes of messy but committed love and friendship nevertheless. When I was walking back with a silly grin on my face I thought about a moment where Miranda had to make a decision not with her brain but with her heart, and I thought - the closeness I'm longing for with Anonybabe doesn't mean being joined at the brain stem, but at the heart. Hallmarky as that sounds, it resonated. My gut tells me the difference between the two is more than just semantics. Then I had this weird vision of each metaphor that I might as well share:

The idea of joint brain stems conjured up all of the loneliness and inadequacy and fear of wanting to hold on to something forever while knowing that it's just not possible. I thought of scientists trying to get to the essence of a thing by finding out its smallest components. I saw a tiny me, crawling inside one of Anonybabe's brain cells, which in my imagination was a barren room like a holding cell in a mental institution. I sat on the hard linoleum, knees to my chest, staring at the oatmeal colored walls, all alone.

The vision that sprang to mind when I thought of being joined at the heart with my daughter was of us as adults on opposite sides of the globe - she's dark-haired and laughing lustily, I'm quiet and strong and content and very near a massive garden. We're happily going about our business, far apart physically but secure in the knowledge that we're close anyway.

I don't know what all my mental pictures mean, other than this: Love her. Enjoy her. See her through the eyes of love and then not only will I really see her, I'll be able to let her go.

If I can swing that, then it doesn't really matter how much or how little I understand her, and it'll be enough.

Waaaaah

Hi. Long time no blog. Look, I left my idea notebook out at work where the cleaning crew could see it and mistake it for trash, and now I think it's gone. Gone, gone. And my writing mojo seems to be seriously ebbing at the moment. And my daughter is prone to angry temper tantrums that involve hitting things or people repeatedly. Charming. And after my last visit to my sister all of my ideas about libertarian parenting seem delusional and stupid. I feel like I've lost my bearings as a parent. And I hate that I'm someone who can lose her bearings so easily. And I've been feeling the desperate need to be around people and talk to people and interact with people (rare for little old introverted me) at a time when the whole world seems to want to be left alone. Do you know how many freaking emails I sent out in the past 10 days that were completely ignored? A lot. And I'm taking it personally. And I hate that I'm taking it personally. And I've also been trolling my favorite blog spots and leaving long, needy, weird comments with the subtext "love me! love me! laugh at me!" and then hating myself for it. And my boss called me out for not, you know, working at work. And have I mentioned how I've been throwing myself at friends and family and relative strangers, only to have them not respond, leaving me paranoid about whether they are just busy or are completely turned off by my stench of desperation? (Not you, A; you even kept on the phone with me through a teething baby screamfest...thank you).

Please tell me I'm not alone in these moments of self-doubt, self-loathing, and general waah-itude.

Tonight is my night off, and I think I need to spend it alone. I plan on having a good stiff margarita and do a little writing. *Anonymom wipes underneath eyes, smooths shirt* Now that I've had a good e-cry, I think I'm ready to enjoy it.

Eye of the beholder

I shouldn't like my body, but I do. I didn't always.

As a preteen I lamented that I didn't have firm thighs or a flat enough stomach. When I was 10 I would get up at 5:30am with my 8 year old sister and we would put on worn shorts and browned Tretorn sneakers, pad quietly down through the kitchen, den, and back hallway to the garage, open the heavy door to my father's shop, and go to his slightly rusted weight bench. We used it for leg lifts, and after pulling the metal pins that kept the weights on and adjusting them to what we wanted, one or the other of us would lie on the bench, position our knees over one padded bar and our feet under the other, and the metal ring that held the leg lift apparatus in place would begin squeaking methodical as we counted together "one" squeak "two" squeak "thREE". We would pause together without comment when either of us stopped to pant, silently keeping track of who could do the most lifts before taking a rest. We'd count as high as we could, adding more as we got stronger. When the muscles above our knees burned and felt wobbly, we would head out of the shop and into the wet Arkansas morning, crunching in a slow jog around the 1/8 mile square of driveway to road, to road, to driveway. We would circle 4 times and then go inside, a light sheen of sweat on our brows and biceps that felt suddenly cold in the house's air conditioning. The whole process from bed & back to bedroom to get dressed took about 30 minutes.

I would filch my mother's magazines on a semi-regular basis between ages 10-14, first looking for any short stories that involved sex, and then grazing all of the fashion advice. "Don't sleep with your face on your pillow" I remember reading when I was about 11, "the pressure will form wrinkles". I slept face up for the following two months, and would despair when I would wake up to find I'd flipped over in the night.

I look back on these episodes with shock and horror. I remember the rising panic I felt worrying as an 11 year old that I would have crow's feet someday, or lying on the bed amidst all my stuffed animals and dolls and craning my neck to look down on my stomach to make sure it was completely flat no matter what position I was in. How did I get to be so panicky about my looks at such a young age? What did I think would happen if I wasn't physically perfect? I still can't really say, although I knew then it was not to be considered.

These days I've taken a swing in the opposite direction. My husband is lucky if I shave my legs once a season, and I've completely given up wearing make-up. My eleven-year old self would squeal in horror to see me now in shorts, and yet in most ways I feel better about myself than ever. I certainly haven't gotten any prettier, I've just let go of the crushing weight of self-judgment I carried around for years. Now I really can enjoy it when a little sunshine makes my cheeks glow, or a certain top accentuates my chest, or certain shoes make me feel sassy. I wouldn't trade my current feelings of self-worth for my almost stick-thighs any day.

It ain't bad to get mad

Anonybabe is all about the temper tantrums these days - shaking her head "no" when we announce the need for a diaper change and then kicking and squirming when we lay her down on the changing table. We were at an outdoor festival when this happened yesterday and we gave up and gave her poopy butt one half-hearted swipe before tacking on a diaper as quickly as possible. (By all accounts it is way too early (or late) to try to leverage her diaper aversion into potty training, but that hasn't stopped me from weaving fantastical tales within her earshot about the day when she pees and poops on the potty and can throw off the fetter of diaper changes.)


She hits a thing that frustrates her - hits it repeatedly - while yelling at it.

"Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, AH," she yelled once while wailing on a piece of food she didn't want to eat. She stopped, breaking her angry trance for a moment to look up ant me, and then turned back to her beating with renewed vigor. "Ah ah ah ah AH AH AH."


Charming. There go my fantasies about having an even-tempered kid.


At first we chalked the outbursts up to teething, we could see where her gums were red and swollen in at least two places and she wasn't usually this fussy. But after two nights of uninterrupted sleep and ensuing playfulness, we had to face up to the fact that she was throwing her shit fits solely because she wanted to get her way OR ELSE, Dammit!


Part of me wants and welcomes a firecracker. Part of me thinks - oh shit! I'm doing something wrong and I'm raising a brat as a result. Part of me thinks there's nothing we can do to really change her so howdie doody do we have our work cut out for us helping her learn how to contain and/or channel her rage and impatience at not getting her way.


Not that her tantrums are that bad. She just hadn't had them hereto fore, and now I'm re imagining her future with a very different set of personality assumptions. That one little change changes her life trajectory so that she lands in a completely different spot in my imagination. With the wallop of a green bean she's gone from wallflower to potential domestic abuser.



And then Sesame Street reminds me.....

My neediness knows no bounds

So today I am feeling a little...oh, how do I say this without sounding too truthful? Fuck it. I feel stalker-y.

I get this way every so often. I have wild swings when it comes to being social. As in -- I will spend a week wanting to do things and see people 24/7. I will send dozens of bright and (to my fevered imagination) beguiling emails, refreshing my inbox every ten minutes and watching for responses. I'll call friends and acquaintances, trolling for plans and fitting every available free moment. And I'll call my mom, sister, good friends, old friends, hoping for someone to fill the time on my commute home. Follow this with a three-week period where I won't want to talk to or see anyone. It's a social binge-starve cycle I've grown to recognize and accept in myself.

I am currently social binging, and orchestrated a picnic/playground date with this family. Things went swimmingly. Their preternaturally bright son seemed more like a normal three year old on the playground, angling for pizza and running around like the boy that he is. I'm still in love with him; this time he was totally playing the big brother card with Anonybabe in the nicest way possible. There was a set of side-by-side slides he would climb up, calling out "See Anonybabe? You can climb up the slides like this!" And as he would grunt his way up and his sandals would slip, he'd pant "sometimes it's a bit tricky." Then when he'd get to the top he'd say "Maybe we can slide down together." He was very into showing her stuff, without being bossy. And then his baby sister would give a signature, lazy, catty-eyed closed mouth smile and continue playing contentedly with her wood chips. Anonybabe didn't cry when approached by her and managed to really enjoy herself by the end of our time together. I had a great time chatting away with the mom and was relieved to confirm that any awkwardness with my college friend the dad was just that - social awkwardness - and not due to any real changes in personality on either person's part. By the end of a long picnic I was ready to play date on a regular basis.

This morning my desire to seal a playdate deal with them had reached a fever pitch, and I felt the first stirring of "friendly" coercion rearing its ugly head. I thought of all the jokes I could write to them about being a friendly stalker, but settled (wisely, I think) on just asking them to meet at at a playground of their choice once a week for playtime. I'm already requesting a lot of their time without asking them to laugh over my social neediness on top of that. I've been refreshing my inbox constantly, hoping for a response.

I am scaring myself, people. I know this happens to parents on occasion, but how did I let it get this freaky?

Thanks

So I've gotten a couple of sweet and demure words of encouragement lately about my writing, and to my dismay I've used it as an excuse to take my ego for a walk. "Yes," I'll say, "writing this blog has given me a new level of insight into blabbety blah blah blah." Or "Yes, what I really wanted to unlock when writing this piece was wishety wash wash wash."

Ugh.

To those people who said something nice, only to hear me prattle on about myself, I apologize. I'm not an asshole, exactly, I just have a needy little puppy of an ego that has been misused and neglected for years and is starving for a little attention. Perhaps that is the the definition of an asshole, but regardless, your nice words of encouragement are no less nice. Thanks!

More thoughts on breastises

My sister got a boob job yesterday. She is just shy of 31. In her 19th year, she got pregnant with a son, and her modest perky B cups ballooned overnight and early on into DD. The post-partum result was disastrous. Her shriveled, deflated balloons, she called them, and ever since her boobs have gone into hiding. I've never seen them since - apparently her husband rarely does either - but from her descriptions I can picture them vividly. I think of Carol Burnett's Mrs. Hanigan boobs from Annie. There's a scene where she shakes her rack during a song and dance, and the move always made me think of dangly bean bags. All of the weight hanging low.

About 5 years ago, my sister and I found out that our mom had had a boob job after the birth of our brother. My dad, freshly divorced and still prone to sharing things inappropriately floorboarded us both with the news. "Oh, you didn't know that?" he asked. I think it gave my sister and I a whole new perspective on boob jobs - our modest, slightly dippy mother had quietly restored her rack after pregnancy and nursing and mother nature had taken them away.

It took my sister another 5 years to do the research, build up the nerve and justify spending the money. Her biggest fear is that the work will be obvious. She just wants to be able to take her shirt off in front of her husband without worrying about what he thinks.

When I asked Anonyhub if he would mind if I got a boob job, he didn't hesitate, in fact, he answered before I even finished my question. "No. Why would I mind bigger boobs?" And with that, I was rendered a little giggly and speechless.

Mounds

Okay. I gotta admit that I am twenty kinds of boobalicious today. In my thin little pink knit shirt that clings and drapes, and is pretty damn close to the color of my skin, and a bra with good lift and really smooth lines, it's quite possible that I give the illusion of buxom shirtlessness at first glance. I'm certainly getting looks, but no you- were- unconsciously- checking- out- my- rack- until- I- caught- you- looking- and -then- you- quickly- looked- away looks. Those don't bother me a bit. Neither do the more intentional and appreciative "mmmm, nice rack" looks, as long as they're relatively discreet. Hey, some girls like to take their affirmation where they can get it.

But today I got none of those nice looks -- none I could detect -- and lots of open leering, starting with the Lincoln Avenue bus driver! Then a series of doddery old men who hadn't shaved in a few days and didn't completely close their mouths stared openly when I walked by. It was weird. I felt like something was hanging out, or that my nipples were on overdrive, and/or there were suggestive grease stains right over them, or that I inadvertently wore my "hey jerkface, take a good long look at these" t-shirt.

I've worn this shirt plenty of times before, without incident. What gives? I'll see Anonyhub soon and have him set me straight. *Update, when I asked Anonyhub if it was something I'd done he only commented that I looked "cleaner than usual". Ummmm, thanks, babe. *

While I'm on the subject, I might as well slip in an unrelated product endorsement. A co-worker and I mosied into the Victoria's Secret across the street from our office last month, and were immediately accosted by a saleswoman who sang the praises of their new Secret Embrace push up bra. "Smaller and larger customers seem to like it, and I love it!" I waved her off but something about her tone made me go back and try one on. Instant booblift. Pancakes to luscious little orbs with no padding. They are Anonyhub approved...our sex life is pretty much dead in the water but he noticed me in this. The cups do tend to hold their shape on their own, and I confused Anonybabe when I wore my pink bra the other day. I pulled it up so that the bra sat above my boobs, and I had true quadroboob going on, so much so that Anonybabe gave a puzzled look and squeezed my boob then the bra. Fun and alluring!

Uptight? Alright!

Anonyhub recently brought home a "Best of Bert & Ernie" CD. I was stoked to hear it had several songs from a Sesame Street album I wore out as a kid. It's all just as good as I remember.

It was a revelation to discover how damn funny Bert was! I was suckered in by Ernie's it's-all-good nature and his infernal giggling as a child, but now I've seen the light.

Viva la Bert!

If you click on Bert's face, you'll hear them singing the "L" song. I found myself getting really protective & angry when Ernie corrects Bert because his words aren't pleasant enough. Stfu, you bland muppet, and let Bert revel in his lumpy oatmeal!

P.S. Try making up your own lyrics to the "L" song (link on Bert's picture). It's a good way to pass the time on the way to work. To whit: La, la, la, Lysol; la, la, la, Lithuania; la, la, la, la laxative; La, la, la, la Lyme disease

Seymore moms

I was lying in bed next to my daughter just now, and her arm was flailed out to her side. It has gotten so long, and I was struck by how beautiful I think she is. It seems now I start to see glimpses of the woman she'll become, in body and personality.

Her crib is set up abutting our bed, with one side missing, so that although she sleeps in her own space, it melds into ours and she can crawl back and forth freely. Sometimes I'm glad for the division, but tonight I missed having her sleep right beside me or on top of me. I wanted to touch her, pull her back close. It got me thinking about this weird desire I have to know her inside out, so I got out of bed to write about it.

I love my husband a lot, I think more than I love anybody else in the world, and yet I'm very comfortable with the distance there is between us. I don't fully understand him. I don't anticipate any but his most obvious wants and needs. It takes a lot of effort to think up the right birthday present or Christmas gift for him. And then there is my immediate family who I know more intimately than anyone, yet I don't always want to.

And now I have my daughter, who seems to have a little veil pulled around her soul...and it vexes me. Shouldn't I understand her intuitively? Shouldn't I just get her? I keep reminding myself that it takes time to get to know anybody, and that they have to want to reveal themselves to you. Shit, this is getting too abstract, isn't it? I just don't feel I understand my daughter, and it bothers me. I want to. Like, I wish I could climb inside her head and live there for a day and see things the way she does. I want this a lot and I want it pretty much all day, every day. It's an insistent background drone to my life. I'm a little disturbed by this want. I wanted and needed space from my mother. I have to assume that Anonybabe wants and needs it too. At the very least I know she doesn't share my desire to be joined at the brain stem.

Is this what it means to be a mother? To have a voracious, disturbing appetite for your child? Is it my duty to resist this appetite, give my baby her space? Is it every good mother's lot to feel a little like a lover scorned?

I just...I love this girl so much and I have no idea what it means.

Open Sesame

I wanted to work for Sesame Street when I went to college, because I wanted to be a part of something creative, and funny, and gentle. Something that plumbed the depths of earnestness, but could still be tongue-in-cheek. The world owes a debt to Jim Henson & Frank Oz. My world certainly does.




and of course:

How Anonybabe spent the 4th

Since this is my blogspot dedicated to all things Anonybabe, I think it's appropriate that I indulge in a little oh-look-at-the-minutia-my-daughter-managed-to-do-today. I would try to punch it up and make it interesting, but I think all three of my family members got a combined total of 4 hours sleep last night. Teething. Sobbing. Tylenol. Etc. So I'm just going to transcribe a couple of things I wrote down that made me go "awwww" recently.

Anonybabe is into bringing her face down to her food to eat. In our hotel this weekend I laid a towel on a chair & set her at the table to eat. The table was about chin height. She began carefully and methodically picking up blueberries and cheerios and setting them on her seat and then bending down and eating them with her mouth. She looked rather pleased with herself.

I read to her from a book about Grover in Grover's voice. "Grover" is known to break from the script if Anonybabe stops to point things out to him. She's been known to sign to book characters when she's about to have some milk. This weekend she made the "milk" sign to Grover mid-story. "Milk?!" I said in my Grover voice. "Are you going to have some milk?!" "Hmm Hmmmm!" she says, in what has been her "affirmative" answer for the past week. With a little grin, she popped her pacifier out of her mouth and pretended to nurse, putting her nose about a half inch from my shirted boob and making a smacking sound with her mouth. She then takes the book and puts Grover's picture up to my boob, making the same smacking sound. Pretending to eat and sleep are a new development. 'Twas adorable.

At one point, my sister held Anonybabe down by the pool while her cousins swam and my mom and I worked on painting some megaphones for the cheerleading squad my sister sponsers up in my room. Anonybabe sat quietly on my sister's lap and pointed animatedly to her cousins every time they emerged dripping from the water. "Freckles!" My sister would say, "Yea, Anonybabe!" When they went back up to our room to ask my mom something, Anonybabe saw me and lit up. I waved, but didn't take her, and when the door shut and my sister turned to go back to the pool, I could hear Anonybabe's squally cry. I felt bad, but was tired and wanted to get my project done, and quite frankly needed a break from Anonybabe. Apparently Anonybabe wasn't happy but stopped crying as soon as they rounded the corner, and sat quietly facing my sister for a bit, until she was turned around to face the kids playing in the pool while my sister talked to our sister-in-law. When Sis looked into Anonybabe's face again tears were silently coursing down her cheeks. She hadn't made a peep; no sign she was unhappy except for those silent tears.

Anonybabe would sit quietly in my lap in the stands, staring somberly while we would watch her cousin play baseball. (I love going to little league baseball games, by the way...maybe it wouldn't be so bad if Anonybabe got into sports). But if we got down off of the stands and went to sit in the grass, she would suddenly come to life, climbing up and down, pointing and cooing.

She's been making animal sounds for a while (roars are a favorite) but pretty much never copied word sounds we made until recently. "Mama" is finally a part of her vocabulary, and occasionally she'll surprise us by copying a word in it's entirety. She said "cheese" clear as day while we were taking pictures a couple of weeks ago (not yet to be repeated), and while Anonyhub and I were talking about our fair city of Chicago in the car, she started babbling "Ca-Go! Ca-Go!" She won't repeat it on demand, but has occasionally mimicked it back. When our plane touched down from our 4th of July trip Sunday and the pilot welcomed us to Chicago, Anonybabe perked up and said "Ca-Go!" Will she be talking soon?

Blood is thicker than fireworks

Wow. Nothing like being around your parents and siblings to make you completely question your sense of self.

I'm really no different than the gal I was as a child, teenager, young adult, woman, but the older I get the more I grow into myself. That's a good thing. I'm more comfortable and confident than ever before, and I love it. However, my siblings have grown into themselves and we've all grown apart from each other, so when we get together we often don't know how to piece our relationships back together. At least I don't.

It doesn't help that my mom is bequeathing me with "good girl" status again, praising me for my self-flagellating attempts to make sure Anonybabe has only the most nutritious, healthy foods, and has breast-milk on demand and is nearly always comfortable and happy...sometimes all of this to the point of absurdity. I tried to tell my mom that a lot of the “good” things I do as a parent are only me trying to make lemonade out of the lemons of fear and ineptitude and lethargy and insecurity. She’s still happy that I look more presentable to her friends than my tattooed, rehabbed brother, or my trailer park, Marlboro Lites sister.

I was always the good little girl, the one who did things "right" to the applause of mom and dad. In short, not the kid you want to be by any stretch of the imagination, but the one you probably resent for all of the gold stars they get for being such a brown noser. Then you realize nobody could pay you to live your life like that, and if that's the way you have to act to get your parents' approval, then screw your parents. I don't think my younger siblings resent me for getting undeserved pats on the back when they didn't, not any more, and not for a long time. But I still feel like the goody-two-shoes they don't feel comfortable being themselves around. It kinda sucks. I feel like they are way beyond me in terms of life experience and common sense, and now I'm the baby, desperate for their approval, blushing furiously when I'm the only one at the party other than my mom who doesn't know how to open up a beer bottle with a lighter.

I don’t want to parent like them. At least not in all aspects. My sister is a drill sergeant and my brother is laid back almost to the point of neglect. But. But they both seem to know how to have a good time; and it has got to be about the best thing a child can see growing up is their parents truly having fun.

Anonybabe is tentative with new folks, and I've gone back and forth about whether I should beat myself up about that, or throw her into more uncomfortable situations so she toughens up, or act as her advocate and let her take her own pace meeting people. My sister's family is definitely of the throw-her- in- the-pool-so-she-can learn-how- to- swim camp. They can't believe I still let her use a pacifier (at 15 months). They think I'm doing her a huge disservice by putting her to sleep rather than letting her cry it out. I'm sure they can't believe I'm still nursing her, and they would be horrified to hear about my dabbling in child-rearing philosophies that involve respecting the child's feelings and wishes. In their eyes, children survive their childhood by learning to obey, and then fighting tooth and nail for their independence. Hell, they would be scornful about the term "child-rearing philosophies" period. In their mind you use common sense to raise your kids; philosophies are for elitists who like to spend their time in mental masturbation rather than action.

At least, this is the way I assume they see things, and see me.

And in some ways, I tend to agree with the way they see things. And sometimes I get jealous of the way they live their lives, with the beer and the crawdad fishing and the baseball tournaments. But fuck, people. I can't be anybody but me. And I read and love to sink into childrearing philosophies. I love restaurants where people sink their imagination and love into making two amazing bites of food. I love living in cities. I love reading essays and comments to online newspaper articles. I prefer trying to do things "right" and then being a little self-righteous about it. I definitely have my eyes wide open when it comes to my sister's happiness and how her life fulfills her. And I want to try to make some of the elements of her life work for me. I loved the community of families my sister is a part of. I love the stuff they do for fun - fishing, drinking, sitting around someone’s living room and smoking and talking for hours on end. But I can't be my sister. I love raising my daughter according to my own lights.

There was a moment when my sister's ten year old son Freckles was holding Anonybabe, and I felt this warm sense of love and pride. The next generation. Right there in front of me. They were blood, no matter how different or indifferent they grew. And I was really grateful that they get to be a part of each other’s lives.

Dashboard vistas

There were two times I really wanted to stop the car while driving to work just now.

I saw a teen-ish-ager waiting to cross the road with what at first looked like an aqua blue bow perched above his right temple. Ends up it was a plastic pick. I haven't seen people walk around with picks in their hair since I was a little girl in Arkansas. I wanted to stop and grill him about it. Did he just do it because it was convenient? Was he being ironic and retro? Were all the kids walking around with picks in their hair? An inquiring mind wants to know.

Then, a few blocks later, I saw a monarch-ish butterfly fluttering at windshield level up ahead. I willed it to fly higher or to my left, but it bobbed up and then down just in time for me to broadside it right in front of my face. I winced and "doh!"ed. From my rear-view mirror I could see an orange dive-bomb hit the turning lane pavement, then groggily fly up a couple of feet only to smack back down to the road. I talked myself out of turning around and doing a butterfly rescue on a busy road. I would have felt ridiculous on 12 different levels for doing so, but I feel like a shit on 20 more. I'd rather be ridiculous and soft-hearted than rational...not that the two are mutually exclusive. But you know, if they were at loggerheads. Anyway, if I had it to do 20 times over, I probably wouldn't stop for a butterfly, unless I absolutely had nowhere to be. But I secretly wish I were the kind of person who would.

Book worm

Do you ever get the urge to talk to people about what they're reading on their morning commute? Just this morning I saw a woman reading Nick Hornby and a younger man reading a yellowed copy of Herman Hesse that was about as old as he was. I wanted to plop down next to both of them and ask what they thought. I imagine as I age and my inhibitions lower this is how I will make a nuisance of myself. Society at large won't appreciate it, but I'll be having a gay old time, the chatty old lady on the purple line who natters on about Steppenwolf.

The time I fought my impulse to lean in and say something the hardest was several years back. A frattish looking dude in a baseball hat was sitting on the train, open-mouthed in front of "A Prayer for Owen Meany". His elbows were on his knees, then he was sitting up straight, then he was fidgeting, eyes riveted to the page. Occasionally he would stare blindly at the advertisement opposite him, ingesting what he'd just read. I enjoyed reliving the shock, horror, and giddy mind-expansion that accompanied having John Irving bat me around in a good way. I wanted desperately to say something, share the moment, but I couldn't think of an acceptable in. Instead I got off the train at my stop and carried the memory of that guy's face with me for a good long while.

Would you enjoy it or resent it if someone tried to strike up a conversation with you about your morning read? If somebody breached the sacred wall of pages you were holding up around your face and heart?

And if you did want to be approached, what would be your preferred come-on? Something clever, or would any old opener do to get the conversation started?