God made the dirt

This morning Anonybabe and I took our breakfast on the lawn -- we ate a tomato and scrambled eggs and toast on a "t-shirt" quilt Anonyhub's mom made for him when he graduated from high school...it has nine squares that are the faces of his nine favorite t-shirts from high school. There are two that feature a gorilla and are about his summer corn detasselling job, one Escher tee, one extremely pixelated band t-shirt (his own), and some so embarrassing to Anonyhub that I won't include them even an anonymous blog.

From our breakfast blanket, Anonybabe crawled over to a freshly weeded corner of the garden and started flinging dirt. At first she threw it to the side, and then tried to throw it over her shoulder so that most of it landed on her back, and finally she stood up and started rubbing it all over her chest. Repeatedly. Chica loves earth. She also sneezed her pacifier out into the dirt and put it back into her mouth; when she spit it out again and let me brush most of the dirt off her tongue, she had a clown mouth of mud.

We have new neighbors moving in next door and they were back and forth from their house to the moving van in the alley. They could easily see us digging away in the garden, and I instantly became the white trash neighbor in my own mind. Muddy baby in a droopy diaper? Classic. Then I one upped myself by bathing her in her kiddie pool in the back yard.

Fanny

From Savage Love, July 29, 2004:"Judging from my e-mail, a lot of my regular readers, to say nothing of my fans, are out of their fucking minds."

I just created a facebook account, and was in the process of picking people I am a "fan" of: Dan Savage, David Sedaris, Margaret Atwood. Seeing the comments of other people who adored them reminded me that being relatively cool and talented doesn't ward off asshats who think you are the greatest thing since sliced bread. In fact, it just attracts them.

I luuurved David Sedaris essays for a few years now. I distinctly remember riding the el sometime in 2000 and looking around me at all of the people reading his books. They all looked like something out of American Psycho: well groomed and ready to snap at any moment. And I thought, is this me? Is this who is attracted to David Sedaris?

Maybe I am only attracted to douchebag magnets; perhaps I fit their demographic for a good reason, maybe fandom is just silly in general. Don't know. But it begs the question, when a person looks into the maws and eyes of their rabid fans, what do they see? A mirror? A need?

At Your Cervix

I clicked here to support this idea. It's a documentary about how med students are trained to do gynecological exams. They showcase an extremely wrong way: practicing on women who were under general anaesthesia for some other procedure without first getting their consent (I know, *gasp*, right?) And an extremely right way: women who are trained to train the med students...and then become the practice patient. Did you follow me there? A woman who is qualified to train med students how to do pelvic exams takes off her pants, climbs up on an exam table, and gives expert feedback on how to insert a speculum. It's just so insane and brilliant. So they can talk nervous med students through how to find their cervix, all the while putting the med student at ease and teaching the med student how to put future patients at ease. I can't for the life of me imagine being the woman teaching the med students with her legs spread, but I'm very glad somebody is doing this.

I'm no foodie, but I'm kind of a redneck

Okay, this isn't typical Anonymoms fare but it looked like fun - a personality test of sorts via food.

How the Omnivore's 100 works:

1) Copy this list into your email, blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Red any items that you would never consider eating.
4) Optional: Post a comment at Very Good Taste, linking to your results.

5) Also optional, I'm italicizing the ones I looked up.

MY OMNIVORE'S 100:
1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile (I think...I'm 80% sure I had this at the Grizzly)

6. Black pudding (I assumed this was blood pudding but wasn't sure).
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht (Really thick with potatoes is so tasty)
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari (The only appetizer my workmates can consistently agree on)
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes (Boones! And I've had dandelion wine, does that count?)
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche (I think...I mean surely I've eaten this although I couldn't tell you when).
28. Oysters
29. Baklava (Blech)
30. Bagna cauda (that sounds really good)
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi (also sounds really good)
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar (I've had cognac, and I've had cigars, but I probably won't have them singly or together again any time soon.)
37. Clotted Cream Tea (I was served this by a very condescending American Anglophile hostess. "Do you know what clotted cream is, Anonymom?"
38. Vodka Jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail (nope, but I used McCormick's Oxtail soup mix to make #9 before...and it was good.)
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects (Yes, but I assume this means prepared on purpose, not the ones I ate while riding my bike)
43. Phaal (I don't think so...I'm assuming this is beyond green curry hot).
44. Goat's milk (Raw. It was enough to turn me off of even goat cheese for a while).
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth $120 or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala (You know, I can't imagine that I haven't but I couldn't tell you when)
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin (Wait...maybe I had this in a sushi roll?)
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer (hmmm, I don't think so)
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal (no special sauce, please)
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine (mmmm, cheese curd fries; wanna try it!)
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. kaolin (Still don't know what this is)
64. Currywurst
65. Durian (woah. That's a cool looking fruit)
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings or andouillette (probably wouldn’t try these knowingly)
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost or brunost
75. Roadkill (my uncle hit a deer once on the way to my grandparents, so he strapped it on top of his jeep and they prepared it and stored it in the freezer. We had lots of venison dishes for our next few visits)
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang Souchong (I don't think so, although a Chinese co-worker was always passing around teas she brought back from her trips home while bemoaning the shittiness of American teas. Maybe she slipped me some.)
80. Bellini (Sounds good)
81. Tom Yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. 3 Michelin Star Tasting Menu
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate (don't think so)
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

So Cute it Hurts

Ever had your kid, or your significant other, or your friend or whoever, be so cute or nice or loving and all it does it get on your nerves?

Anonybabe babbles now; this sweet, dulcet-toned rambling that occasionally sounds language-like. It's adorable until it NEVER STOPS. Last night Anonybabe and I laid down to go to sleep at the same time and I guess she was only nominally tired because while I drifted in and out of consciousness, I heard an unbroken string of "ba boo da da" that lasted almost an hour before she finally gave in to the sandman. I would have almost welcomed a pissy cry or two just to liven things up.

And Anonyhub chose yesterday to be father/husband of the year; he wanted to spend all day hanging out with us when all I really wanted was a little mother/daughter time. Then when Anonybabe was taking her nap and I thought Anonyhub was off on a two-hour errand, he came back home in ten minutes and wanted to instead sit and talk...just talk. I was all ready to veg out and watch my Veronica Mars Netflix while he was gone and had to really will myself to listen to him without stealing longing glances at the tv. So I was miserable because I wasn't getting to watch my show and I was miserable because I had something far superior to tv sitting in front of me and all I wanted was for him to go away for an hour or so. Poor guy.

Babies from the Crypt

Anonybabe was eating beets this weekend and the juice got everywhere. I gave her a quick wipe down before taking her out of her high chair, but would then find red stains in creases: under her neck, at her wrists (yes, pudge muffin still has wrist creases). She looked like a baby suicide.

For those who are easily amused (like me)

Fashionazi

You know, I like the way Anonyhub dresses himself. It boils down to a pretty simple formula of jeans and band t-shirts and hoodies, but he picks things that flatter his stick figure form and he pretty much always has good hair. It was a relief to marry a guy who likes to dress himself, as my dad and many of the dads I knew growing up couldn't give a flying fuck what they looked like, but their wives did. So an understanding was forged whereby the one who cared picked the clothes for the one who didn't. I even saw girlfriends and boyfriends doing this during high school, and I knew it would never work for me. No matter how bad my significant other might look, I knew it would never drive me to pick up the wardrobe reins for them. Why the hell should I worry about the way you dress if you don't? I have more interesting (to me) things to worry about. (Please know that I'm not knocking you ladies who like to dress your honeys and you peeps who like to let your men or women pick your duds. If it works for you, great! But it always sounded like a chore to me).

Anyways, I like my husband's style, but he is really terrible at dressing Anonybabe. Like, worse than she is. He consistently dresses her in the most dowdy, goofy looking ensembles she has, making pieces that are individually cute as a whole just ugly. It's on my mind because he brought her to the office today, a rare treat whose joy was, as usual, marred by the fact that my co-workers are seeing my little girl at her least scrumptious. She had on three of my favorite pieces: her lemon yellow hand-me-down Freda Khalo t-shirt, still a bit big on her so that you have to pair it with something small. Instead she had on her baggy jeans with pastel embroidered flowers, wrong in size and color. And then some brown mary janes with polka dots. To top it off, Anonybabes Buster Brown haircut was parted down the middle making her look more like a kid who rides the short bus than an adorable waif.

Sigh. Feels like I can't win. When I really put some effort into dressing her, I feel like I'm being over the top. But when Anonybabe looks goofy I get embarrassed. No wonder I never wanted to dress someone else. Too much responsibility.

Commercials are sexist? Who knew?!

"The 15 Most Sexist Daytime Commercials" for your viewing pleasure.

I reserve the right to be boring as hell with this post

I have nothing much to "report" (a word my mom uses that drives me crazy. What's wrong with "sharing" or "chit-chatting" or "complaining"? But that's my mom for you - a woman who has already arranged to donate her body to science when she dies. Anyway).

I was feeling pretty low for a few days, and decided to blame it on a one-two-three-four punch of July 4th with my entire family, then a week-long visit with my dad, then reading a novel about a horribly sad and disjointed family, this last part while I got my period. It wasn't that long ago that I was rejoicing in the return to me-hood that my period represented. But for the last few days I've been steeped in a depressive side of me that I'd just as soon leave behind forever. I have at least one friend who talks wistfully about pregnancy as the most emotionally stable, happiest periods of her life. I just thought she was cracked out by motherhood. My mom talks fondly of how productive she was and how great she felt while she was pregnant. I chalked this up to my mom being my mom. But I'm beginning to see what the big deal was. It's hard to match the heady hormone cocktail that pregnancy and birth and round-the-clock breastfeeding bring about. They are all hard as hell, but as biology would have it, the memory of the shitty parts have faded and left me only with a longing for the euphoric, all-seeing highs. Sigh.

So Anonybabe, who has learned to say both "no" and "yes" with her head and occasionally her mouth, took to saying "no" a lot this weekend. She kicked and fought getting dressed, so I pulled out shirts one by one and let her toss them emphatically to the ground until she found one she wanted to wear: an atrocious hand-me-down with neon pink stripes and a kitty cat in a yellow dress, red necklace and strawberry-shaped handbag. "Mmm" Anonybabe nodded gravely as I pulled it out, and allowed me to pull it over her head and arms without a fight. We went through the same thing with pants; she "wah"ed and whined and yelled "no" to her little yellow shorts and red skirt, and pawed through her pants drawer until she found a pair of flanneled khakis that to my chagrin and her delight, have Micky Mouse embroidered on the bottom. She grinned and nodded when I asked if she wanted a bow in her hair like the kitty cats, and she let me put in one of the cute clips I bought at Target last week. Then when we were leaving she started pointing to her head "huh huh huh huh", and when I finally guessed "you want to wear a hat?" she grinned and nodded and eventually pointed to a clashing purple checkered hat near the door. I helped her put it on her head and whistled appreciatively at her ensemble. I gravitate towards cloths that have Anonybabe looking like a mini adult. I tend to hate things with cutesy animals and characters on them, and of course Anonybabe tends to love them. I don't buy them for her, but aunts and uncles and grandparents give them to us. When she falls in love with a neon blue shirt with puffed capped sleeves and a cartoony terrier with a bow on its head, pointing excitedly to the dog on her chest...well...I just can't bring myself to lose the shirt. Nevermind that Anonybabe looks like a poster child for the Wal-Mart shopping grandma set, nevermind that I look longingly at the toddler on the swingset with the chic little leggings and blouse, nevermind that I'm embarrassed to take her into the local coffeeshop in her garish neon ensembles. My desire to show her off is subsumed by her happiness in picking out things that delight her. Sometimes I still manage to dress her up like an Anonymom-approved dolly. Other times, I just have to suck it up and remind myself that she's the captain of her soul. And her wardrobe.

At 16 1/2 months, Anonybabe still isn't walking about. She's taken a few unassisted steps, and is cruising more and more. A couple of times this weekend we took painfully slow walks down the block where she toddled behind her stroller, hanging on to the handles for support. She would stop every few feet to drop to her hands and knees and pick up a leaf or a stick, hoist herself back to a standing position and put her find in the mesh bag attached to the back of the stroller. She would crawl around the vicinity for a bit and then when she was satisfied she'd exhausted that sidewalk square's treasures, she'd go back to pushing, with me holding on to the handles to make sure she didn't veer off into the neighbor's hostas. It was both enchanting and tedious as hell. It wasn't my idea to pick up sticks and leaves; I love that she thought of it. I'm excited that she's walking in any capacity. I wanted to give her the pleasure of her own self-directed half hour, and I'm sad that she doesn't get more. I grew up in the middle of nowhere and it was a child's paradise. Fucking sucks that she has sidewalks and a mom who is destined to corral her for a while.

Anonybabe ate some potting soil last night. I was planting some basil I'd gotten at the grocery store in a big Terra cotta pot, and Anonybabe reached in to scoop out big handfuls of dirt, as is her wont. "No, can you leave that in there please?" I asked. "We want to leave that in because it's food for the plant." As soon as she heard "food she shoved the hand full of dirt in her mouth. It took me a second to make the connection and I laughed and said no, we don't eat the dirt; the dirt is food for the plant and then we eat the plants. At which point she promptly picked a basil leaf and shoved it in her muddy mouth. We washed her mouth out with the garden hose and hoped she hadn't swallowed enough fertilizer to make her sick.

Anonybabe has also gone from silent and somber to chatty cathy, blabbing in a long uninterrupted string when she's comfortable. We went to see E.T. in the park with a friend of mine, and I hope we didn't bother the hell out of everyone around us. I didn't try to shush her or spirit her away; does that make me an ass? Fortunately the movie had subtitles.

Occasionally Anonybabe will copy my cadences: she's been saying "no" for a while, but she heard me say "no" to Anonyhub and it was funny to hear my southern accent parroted back to me by Anonybabe, the "no" drawn out to two or three syllables. Also we were walking by Trader Joe's the other day and she pointed to it in recognition. "Bye Bye" she said. "Bye Bye Trader Joe's" I vamped, which prompted "Bye Bye Da Doe" on her part. She keeps saying "Tito" for no apparent reason, and I keep asking if that's her favorite Jackson. "No-oo" she'll answer, shaking her head. "LaToya?" I ask, "Janet?" So far I haven't pinned her down.

"If I held you any closer I would be on the other side of you"

Anonybabe waggles her eyebrows now. Anonyhub and I can't get enough of it. It's as if we're the toddlers and she's the long-suffering adult.

"Again!" We'll call, and cackle with laughter when she obliges by wagging her almost non-existent brows. "Again! Again!"

Deepest darkest fears

Dios mio, mi amigas.

I'm reading this book: The Corrections, by Jonathan Franzen. I have a little book that I used to keep with me at all times. I would write ideas for songs in this book, or quotes I liked, and I had a huge running list of books I might want to check out. If a person mentioned a good book, or I heard an author interview I liked on the radio, or if some magazine came out with a list of great new fiction I'd jot it down there. I just so happened to have that list with me in a used book store last month, so I matched up a couple of names on the list with things that were actually on the shelves. The Corrections was one of them. Some of the books I remember why I wrote them down, or who referred it to me, but this one is a complete mystery. I went into it a complete and utter blank.

And I blame it solely for causing me to weep on my bed last night while Anonybabe lay on my chest in the dark (she mistook my heaving sobs for laughter and giggled merrily).

The book's just some novel about a dysfunctional family. Jesus fuck, how unhappy can one set of people be? It brought up all of these fears I have about Anonybabe hating my guts. Why wouldn't she? I've done my share of hating my poor parents' guts (still do, if you ask me at the right/wrong time). I've always kind of assumed that's just a part of growing up - nothing personal - just a necessary step towards independence. But the older I get and the more families I see/talk to/read about - I realize that although no families are perfect, some are relatively content, even happy. And I dared to hope that the little family I was creating had hopes of ending up the same way. Granted, some families were fucked up far worse than I could even imagine, but that didn't mean Anonybabe and Anonyhub had to end up like that. We might not even have to end up as unhappy and isolated as my immediate family. The worst possible outcome was no longer the only possible outcome in my mind. Lately I've been thinking happy parenting thoughts.

But this book is reminding me what a cesspool family relationships can be. And how utterly terrified I am that my relationship to Anonyhub and Anonybabe will somehow take a turn for the unbearable.

So I cried because at heart I feel like a joyless, fearful, parent. I cried because I fear I'm cursed to steep Anonybabe in the unhappiness I grew up in. I cried because at that moment it felt like the walls I've been putting up all my life to keep myself safe are too fortified to let this little girl in. Then I took some deep breaths and vowed to work really hard to avoid that fate. That's all I can do, right? If there's one thing I've grown hopeful about over the past decade it's this: that small concentrated bursts of effort, constant, steady work towards the things you want (including happiness) can make a huge difference. If I'm serious about having a good relationship with my daughter and husband and make that a priority and actually work at it, I can probably get that. No matter how fucked up or sad I may feel at the beginning of my journey.

Jesus, Anonymom; serotonin uptake inhibited, much?

Maybe I don't need to work at my relationships as much as chill the fuck out. I need "Enjoying Yourself for Dummies". Yep....jotting it down in my little notebook now....

Outlaw the in-laws

It's okay to hate your in-laws, right? For no good reason? Just because you don't like their decorating style or the sound of their voices and the way they don't really listen to a thing you say? How about for being incredibly vacuous and self-centered and then having the audacity to enjoy themselves pretty much all the time?

They did the nicest of nice things this weekend, and took a day off work and drove many hours including several stuck in tollbooth rush hour traffic, just to take care of Anonybabe while Anonyhub and I tripped around Lollapalooza this weekend.

For this, was I gracious? Was I grateful? Yes, but it didn't stop me from getting enraged at every little imagined altercation.

What horrible in-law outrages did they commit, you ask. Were they feeding our toddler daughter fried fish and greasy tacos and 2% milk and whipped cream from the top of their sugary alcoholic beverages while she was in their care? And then blaming her ensuing poop blowouts on the plums I packed in her lunchbag? Yeah, maybe a little. Were they dressing our protesting daughter in frilly and/or thick knit dresses that, although admittedly made her look freaking adorable, were inappropriate for the hot as hell weather outside? Yes, guilty. Did they litter our bathroom counter with dop kits and curling irons and toothbrushes? Uh huh. Did they hold her down in her bed to try to get her to go to sleep? Check. Refuse to do any activities that would mess up grandma's froofy hair? Yep. Take her away for 13 hours while they went to visit a nearby relative, getting stuck in traffic so that I had to wait 2 hours longer than I'd planned on to see my much missed baby girl? Si.

And despite all of these atrocities, did Anonybabe shower them with kisses and flirt with them, and seem to have the time of her life?

You bet your booty.

Sigh. It seems there is something to like about these squawky uberconsumer midwesterners, at least if my daughter and husband have anything to say about it. It even melts my cold, resistant heart to see them hovering around Anonybabe's high chair, kissing her and fawning over her and delighting in every little thing she does. They just like her. They like being grandparents.

I should enjoy being a parent so much. I should try to enjoy being the daughter-in-law of two people who really like my daughter, and even my husband, although they have a funny way of showing it sometimes.

Now if I can just stop myself from getting enraged every time I see my mother-in-law's Precious Moments figurine collection, I'll know I'm getting somewhere.