message for the masses, or, why I hate cars reason #1542

I’d like to clear up some odd misconceptions.

As you drive along today, talking on your cell phone, drifting into my crosswalk or blowing through the stop sign, I’d like to remind you that your third trip to the mini mart today for coffee, your date with the asshole that will talk incessantly about himself, the quick jaunt to Macy’s for a shopping fix, the dash back from lunch to the job you hate, are – I know it may amaze you – not more important that the life of my child. Get out of my crosswalk, get out of your car, and go home. Shut off the engine, go inside and stay there. And if, when you turn to put the key in the lock, you find your living room furniture is not covered in river silt, that your cappuccino machine, your pets, your neighbor, are not floating by you, be glad.

Happy Birthday, Fetal Positions!

My blog turns one year old today!

In a little retrospective, I was glancing back at some of my more favorite-er entries over the pregnancy.

Stuff like August 30th's "Your Baby and Citris Fruit" Sept 14th's ""the fat lady's float" Sept 16th "into this chaos, a new life" and October 5th's "il bambino bilingue."

October 8th is an interesting one since it's another fiasco with the Jetta. Then there was October 20th "In a bi-costal state of mind" - though it had little relation to babies or motherhood (or cars). I liked November 3 (what child is this?), 8 (the chemical make up of ginger chews) and 15 (my little fruit fly), and December 28 (a gathering of grandmas). Jan 7 and 27 hold some interest too. And I realize that if I was savvy and had time to spare I'd make links to these pages, not that you all have time to spare.

Anyway, there it is. My own half-assed retrospective. Meanwhile, Isaac is rolling around like a log these days and cutting tooth number three...loudly and with significant drama. And me? Hey. I'm an old pro. Like, well, I thought about whether or not the ink was non-toxic after I smooshed his little foot into it to preserve his tiny toes in the baby book, didn't I? (Dude, it was for the book. )

when you’re a Jet-ta: "adventures" with cars

Just once before I die I’d like to say I traded in a car instead of tried vainly to donate what was left of one.

Well, darn if our car shopping stalled a long time ago and darn if that didn’t come around to kick me in the pantelones. The fact that my car would choose to die on a weekend when there is a major car show in town attracting people from all over the world who want to show off, sell, and/or buy each other’s incredibly expensive, sleek, racy machines is not something that surprises me. The car gods have no mercy. They are a cruel, mirthless lot that enjoy irony and human suffering.

It’s really not as bad as it sounds, though. I mean, when my car just refused to continue moving in the intersection of two busy four-lane roads with my baby in the back, causing me to fear being rear-ended before I could find my flashers and extract Isaac from his car seat and then dodge minivans (it’s always the freaking minivans!) to reach safe ground, I was, after all, on my way to a gynecological check up. So you see how my life doesn’t completely suck.

Once we escaped to the sidewalk, I turned to the first people I saw walking by – two men, one possibly approaching fifty and smoking a tiny cigarette butt, and one older and more wizened in the face. I had failed to find my flashers myself, you see, and I asked for their help. They kindly suggested actually pushing my car off the road. Ah, this sounded like a plan even better than the one I had concocted.

They were on it in a skipped heartbeat and then, before I knew it there were more of them – two more, three, four, five? At least six or seven men had convened on my lame vehicle – appearing all at once out of carpet showrooms and from behind desks at notary publics. They were all around the blasted Jetta shouting and steering and aiming for the nearest parking lot. They had, it would seem, been waiting for just this moment: staring at the clock ticking slowly through their Friday afternoon, just wishing for a chance to push a car. And then I showed up and their dreams were realized.

I called my midwife – whose house I was headed to in the first place – and she set out to get me and the babe. By then, most of the cleanup team was withdrawing, back to their sorry 9-5 existences, their short-lived glory a fading memory.

The two original men and I had questions for each other: "Are you sure your friend is coming?" they asked in chivalrous tones. I told them yes. "Are you sure I can leave my car there for a while?" I asked them. "This is our neighborhood," they told me, "We’ll take care of it." All of a sudden I was in West Side Story? (When you’re a Jet-ta, you’re a Jet-ta all the way…) "Give a call to Wayside Garage," they further advised. "Tell ‘em Woody sent you," said the older man. He’d been behind the wheel in the triumphant pushing episode. Woody. Yes, of course. Of course, your name would be Woody. What else would it be?

This is where your parent brain kicks in and you turn to your baby who is squinting from the midday sun and thinking about beginning to wail, and lie as best you know how. "We’re on an adventure!" I said brightly to Isaac. "Here we go!" I continued, as if reading a conversation between Pooh and Piglet, and punched the button for the cross walk signal harder than I needed to.

The people at the carpet store brought a chair out on the sidewalk for me to sit down. And that’s where I was when Maggie found me. Planted in orange floral upholstery, absurdly stationed on the sidewalk of Broadway Avenue, still sticking to my "adventure" story.

In the moment the adventure line makes some sense, but I refuse to carry it too far. I don’t know about your childhood photos, but ours have always included the shots with the cars. There’s the family, standing next to the car. The brother posed with the first moving hunk of metal he made run himself. "Oh that was the station wagon your father loved," people caption. Or, "Remember that Ford? What a good car," they muse, looking past the collection of small people dressed up and looking miserable clustered in front of the heavy doors. How come there’s never a picture of the piece of shit that had a penchant for untimely hood releases, or Kodak moments of when the U-Haul hitch broke on the bridge that time? If we’re gonna document here, then let’s get down to it. When I get myself back to the new spot where my car died for the second time after Mike added the part he was sure it needed, I’m bringing the camera. It’s going in the baby book. "Look here, Isaac. This car sucked. See the peeling paint on the roof? Here we are standing by the side of the road, stranded."

The only thing worse than having a car die, is the exercise of buying another one. Stay tuned.

banana bread

My time at home with this little baby person is easier than it used to be. I was forced to admit this recently when a friend asked me, in just those words "It’s easier than it was at the beginning though, right?" "Uh, yeah," I said, conceding. It doesn’t tell you much really, but a going-on six-month-old who laughs and gurgles is far better company than a barely six-week-old who still only stares in your direction occasionally with a look that says "Who ARE you??" and then screws up his face to scream … again. Yes, sure, easier. In the meantime, there is loads still to deal with for me, not the least of which involves trying to keep my mind alive while I hang out for hours and hours with an infant five days a week and the adult world only stops by long enough to predict dire futures for the boy and let him chew on their fingers (See forthcoming blog on "work".)

This endurance test has brought on a sometimes-desperate need to create -- something. For example, I am overwhelmed with the desire to buy presents for my friends’ birthdays and wrap them in unique ways. I wake up imagining silk scarves used as bows or poems in calligraphy fluttering softly from the handles of baskets of goodies they’ve always wanted. And I have found myself, since Isaac was born, much more often than I can explain, in the kitchen.

Normally, you see, I don’t cook. Don’t like it. Don’t do it. Rather spend my time on other endeavors, say, eating. That’s why I married Mike, a man who has been known to walk in the door from work and, with one hand still on the knob, reach for the cookbook. Early in our dating life, I can remember several incidents when conversations with friends who were demanding to hear in more detail just who this guy was I was spending so much time with, ended abruptly enough. "He cooks for me," I’d tell them beaming. "He cooks for you?" they’d repeat incredulous. And the conversation would need go no further.

Since having a baby, things have altered slightly. "I’ll make dinner," my husband might innocently suggest on a Tuesday evening. My gaze flits between the baby lying on his play mat zoning out the way he does just before a really big poo and Mike’s back headed for the kitchen "NO!" I rush at him. "Why don’t you watch the baby," I say, trying to hide the quiver in my voice and bounding forward to block his way. "I’ll make dinner" I smile with what I hope looks like genuine pleasure, somehow, I think to myself, I’ll make dinner. In the next scene, I’m standing in my tiny kitchen, hands at my sides, shouting to Mike in the other room "What do I do next??"

You might think that helping to "create" a human being would have satisfied me for a time, but it does not. Perhaps I recognize just how little I had to do with all that. Instead I crave a product from my days, other than a pile of diapers. Another discovery about the real impetuses behind the choices in domestic life. Those 50’s moms in aprons were screaming for help. (Well, maybe we knew that already.) I hate to jump on the bandwagon in times when color-coded warnings instruct us how afraid to be, but I feel it’s only fair to tell you all, if we don’t find a sitter on Wednesdays soon so I can escape back to my writing group (see forthcoming blog on "sitters"), there’s going to be banana bread… lots of banana bread.

when good babies go bad

(been fighting with a few new entries I can't make work. in the meantime, here's this - in my opinion - only mildly satisfactory offering.)

Baby-rearing is rife with euphemisms.

For example, if someone asks you "Is he a good baby?" – this really means, "Does he sleep for long, continuous periods during the night?" If someone tells you "He is a good baby!" – this really means, "I haven’t heard him cry within my earshot in recent memory."

I am personally not in favor of parsing out the essential being of the youngest members of our society in terms of "good" and "bad". It is false and unhealthy. It is a goal of mine to avoid referring to my son as a "good boy." He will do good things and bad things, but of course he is good. He is good. Whether he cries or sleeps or slashes the neighbors’ tires. He was not born "bad". He did not arrive slathered in original sin. If I’m not mistaken, that white slippery stuff they shimmy out covered in is called vernix.

When did the shift happen? I used to be regaled with people delighted by my baby, whom they saw as cute and innocent – period. These days, hand in hand with the strangers waving and cooing at my son, adults suddenly turned into gooey, gaa-gaaing versions of their passive-aggressive selves, come the other comments. People are quite fond of repeating lines to me they think they are the first to deliver like, "Wait til he goes to junior high!" and "Wait til he gets his driver’s license!" If I’m lucky, they stop there. If I’m not, they continue their doomsday diatribe, recounting a thinly veiled version of their own offspring’s sad path toward the juvenile detention center. In the aftermath, I’m left standing, covered in drool, my own mouth slack, wondering what exactly I should do with these offerings. Should I thank these people? Should I wish them a nice day? Should I cover my babe with my body and run, fast and hard, away from them?

Toting Isaac around the grocery store the other day, I became aware of a woman speaking loudly. "I hate shopping for kids! They don’t like anything you get them!" To my dismay, I realized she was looking at me. Once she had my complete attention she continued: "You’ll see! Give it a few years! They hate everything!" Ah, my fellow parents, how I cherish their counsel. I smiled uncomfortably and moved swiftly away from her through the obstacle course of carts and displays of sandwich cookies.

Label your own damn kids if you have to, but leave mine alone. Come to think of it, leave yours alone too – they have to interact with mine. And you don’t want to mess with my kid – he’s baaaaaaaddd.

socks: the mystery continues

Okay, so apparently baby socks disappear in the laundry in equal measure to adult socks.

the mom’s plea (in progress)

Another cup of tea
I didn’t get to drink
perches on the coffee table,
a cold, still pool.

My new robe, an anniversary
present from the man
I married, smells of soured milk.
My old robe often smelled
of sex and look
where that’s gotten us.

I rummage about in drawers
-- something to wear –
the knowledge that today, again,
I will not get a shower, sharp around me
like a noon sun.

I am the mom.

Do not, therefore, bore me
with your shy attempts at art,
your designer poetry
in building blocks of careful vocabulary,
your plodding articles with obvious
conclusions. Throw yourself
into it; you don’t have time
to waste and neither do I. My mind
is splintered in a million directions:

poopy diapers laid out before me
like accident sites, cats in want of attention,
the fight I had with the man I married –
the robe gifter – at 4:00am this morning.

You’d do best to wow me –
short, swift bursts of splendor or grit –
not comet showers and grand finales,
but the stuff of every day, the
underbelly of an oatmeal breakfast,

so that I may see a truth, step out
of my life for an instant, throw back
my head in amused recognition,
like I did before
life became a quest
for a hot cup of tea,
and be back on the job again
by the time the baby is done
with his nap.

falling

It’s time to get away for an hour or two. This mission always turns out to be so much more difficult than it should be, and somehow days have gone by since your last self-preservation rendezvous. But you make the break. You jet away from home and make it to the pharmacy seconds before they close. You buy more teething tablets. The clerk has to unlock the door again to let you out. "I suppose you want to go home," he jokes as he twists the key in the lock. You suppose you want to go anywhere but home. The breeze hits you in the face as he gives the door a push. You are OUT. You are ALONE. What should you DO NOW?

You walk.

Everywhere there are babies. Everyone has a baby. EVERYONE.

You walk faster.

You notice the Mexican restaurant, its fresh coat of terracota paint shoulder to shoulder with the Bible bookstore on one side and the British pub on the other. There is music coming from the pub patio. Badly done Tom Petty covers on synthesizer. Tonight, it sounds so beautiful.

You walk slower.

You think back to the times you used to spend in that bar, complaining about how slow the wait staff is. But today, if you went in to sip a bitter Pilsner, or lick the lemon from the rim of your wheat beer, they could take all the time they wanted, and you would sit, the backs of the booth towering. You think about the dare you took once, there on the bar patio, everyone around the fire pit leaning in to hear each other, how you downed the shot, how it stung a little in your throat, your head, how you laughed, and your friends went up to the bar to order because the wait staff…how you talked that day, each one twirling a sweaty glass, about what you all might be doing in ten years, how "becoming a mother" wasn’t on the list for you, never came into your mind, and the drunks with military haircuts were beginning to sway with their arms around each other’s shoulders and sing along with the music: And I’m freeeeeeeeeee, freeeee falling.

Perhaps one of the last toothless grins - it's official - a tooth has broken through!

Mr Isaac studying up on the shuttle launch, though his mommy would prefer he not aspire to space travel.

someday sleep will find me again, embrace me like a lover, wrap me up tight in its massive, velvet cloak and spin me, slowly, through tiny, twinkling galaxies. sleep will come for me, lift me off on breezes perfumed in jasmine and rosemilk. sleep will guard me, its concubine, from all distractions, shower me in sweet, murderous kisses, call me its favorite. there will be a day, some day, when sleep will claim me again, sit by my bedside for hours, offering only the calm space of nothing. it will drop me down, heavy as water into the blackness of its well, where I will languish, happy, blind.

the trouble with postal carriers

They know too much.

Never mind that when Isaac was somewhere around eight weeks old, it was a mailman that witnessed him rolling away in his stroller as I fumbled with readying the car seat. Okay, so now I know – strollers have little break levers for a reason.

These days, our regular mail carrier is really good. I have apparently never had a really good mail carrier before because it is only now that I understand the compulsion to bake holiday cookies for the person that brings me my phone bill. This one is really good. My neighbor and I share a box; and he separates our mail. Hers goes on the left; ours goes on the right. It sounds like a simple thing, but in a world where I must look both ways before crossing a one-way street and beg the store clerk not to double bag my half-carton of eggs, it is like a glorious breath of competency. No more juggling Isaac in one arm while I attempt to sort her old-people organization newsletters from Mike’s computer-geek weekly. When we receive a package, the mailman brings it and the rest of our mail to my door. "Another baby present," he’ll usually chime pleasantly. And usually, it is just that.

However, he knows too much. I’ve greeted him at the door in various states of bathrobe and morning hair. I’ve answered the door with baby crying, cats leaping from desks to bookshelves, tossing the dirty diaper out of view and swinging open my world of chaos, bits of Pandora’s box seeping into the unsuspecting neighborhood. Afterwards, I always check the mirror, trying to imagine how my presence, my life might appear to this man, and what other slices of life he must encounter in a day’s work. I convince myself that the knot of hair askew on the top of my head says "casual artist skipping the shower to conserve water" rather than "new mom dowsed in an eau d'sour milk."

Last time he came by, I was actually properly dressed and so was the baby. Small miracle. We were, however, dancing around the house to the "Pure Funk" CD, and "Super Freak" was on. Look, Mike put it in the CD player – I was just trying to make it to nap time any way I could. Out of breath, stereo shrieking to my five-month-old about "very kinky girls," I hear the knock. "You’re so kind. Thank you." I try for a demure tone as the choir over my shoulder belies me. (She likes the boys in the band. She says that I’m her all time favorite…) Perhaps I’ll order those Baby Einstein videos with their classical music soundtracks and have them delivered express mail. Maybe I can redeem myself in the eyes of the only man besides my husband who knows Victoria’s Secret insists on sending me TWO of every clearance sale catalogue they print.

I wonder if my mailman has a blog?

can't get anything right

Well, hell. I just reread the "one year" entry and it actually sounds uplifting. It was supposed to be depressing, I think. Damn if I can get anything right these days.

one year

I’m normally not the kind of person who pays close attention to dates. For example, if my husband hadn’t taken note of the date we met, I’d be content to discuss it as "sometime in August." (In a bow to my more ignoble memory stores, however, I do remember what I was wearing…)

I remember the date I found out I was pregnant. One year and eleven days ago. My journal from that time is conspicuously missing any mention of this momentous event. Days and weeks afterwards, there is nothing. Then a list of names. Then nothing again. Eventually, (a month and a half later) I read Operating Instructions, pried one white-knuckled hand from the ledge and started this blog. In truth, I’m not much of a blogger. I’ll confess here that I don’t even know what a "permalink" is. I’ve furthermore never made an attempt to find out.

I wrote so as not to go back to the ledge. I framed things in ways that let me rethink them, relive them, feel like I could possibly, just for the space of my thoughts on a page, be in control of the situation. And on the bad days, I wrote mad, stream of consciousness rants full of soul-searching and self pity.

Somehow, at the anniversary of the discovery that my son had latched onto a wall of my uterus – tiny, determined cells making me vomit such volatile substances as plain rice and go to bed with saltines tucked under my arm – issues I tried to deal with then have reopened. For all my writing, I didn’t finish with it in nine months. I’m not supposed to say these things. I’ve crossed over to the other side. The outside world has limits with ambivalent emotions such as mine. Like with grief, after a pre-determined but undisclosed amount of time, you should stop talking about it. With pregnancy, the limit is set somewhere around the time when they hand you your baby, wet and wrinkled, to route in your armpit for lunch.

I feel compelled to begin anything I say or write with the blanket disclaimer of "I love my baby." And really, I like him too. This kid is cool. Have you met him? He’s groovy. He talks to the cats more than I do. He’s just delicious to hug. He smiles when he sees me – me! I’m his mom. I’m Isaac’s mom. He will save the world. It’s a clear path – Sit up. Eat solid food. Save world. He hasn’t mastered anything on the list yet, but they are all inevitables.

Now on the bad days I don’t have time to write my stream of consciousness rants. And if I did, would I know how? Here on this side, it’s hard. It's terrifying for all the reasons I imagined it would be and some others that have only recently occurred to me. At this stage, I often hate my days, my wardrobe, my husband, my reflection in the mirror, fellow moms, my ability to find the negative in anything put in front of me, my need for sleep. Meanwhile, my son squeals with delight at the world around him and I twist myself into knots to show him its beauty, to hide from him his mother’s doubts, her white knuckles. This community I’m always prattling on about, this fucked up society – the healing starts here. If I can just do this for him. If I can just love him. If I can teach him he is loveable, maybe he can teach me the same.

The Grandmas Tour: Summer 2005

A child can change things.

I had never before heard my mother-in-law sing "How Much is that Doggie in the Window?"

We have just returned from visiting family.

While Isaac is partial to "Itsy Bitsy Spider," my mother-in-law’s serenade was different enough from past experiences I’ve had on visits to my in-laws as to make me think that children can send all the known rules of conduct to the corner for a time out like no one and nothing else can.

We had two families to visit in two different states and seven days to do it in. We spent the first three and a half days with Mike’s folks in Massachusetts. That’s where the Doggie in the Window incident occurred, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

The drive to San Francisco goes relatively smoothly. I sit in the back and entertain Isaac. We’ve chosen a night flight and it works. Isaac sleeps and eats and no one knows there’s a baby in row 28. Then we land at our layover. Charlotte, North Carolina: three and a half hours I will never have back. Exactly how many Cinnabuns can you fit between an arrival gate and a departure gate? Apparently A LOT. We avoid them all and sit to wait it out. Two airline employees are talking loudly and excitedly to each other about the free Lover Boy concert to happen in town that evening. Mike, also overhearing this conversation, bursts into jerky laughter, while I staunchly refuse to acknowledge what I’m hearing. A man’s cell phone blares out a Jimi Hendrix riff. It’s his wife calling from another part of the airport (played on speaker phone at top volume) to report back on ice cream sightings. He puts in a request for chocolate. It is 6 am Charlotte time. It is 3 am California time. I am writing notes in my "Worst Case Scenario Survival Journal" where they include advice on any number of emergency situations – falling elevators, piranha-infested waters – but nothing on airport terminals south of the Mason Dixon line. It says I can use the reflective surface of the journal itself to signal for help, but so far, nothing, and now the Lover Boy fans are exchanging racist jokes.

Mercifully, we eventually board a plane. Shortly after that, we land. Isaac could have done without the pressure change.

I’ll repeat the same mantra over and over again as we jet into summer like I forgot it could be. It is so hot here. I’ll field the same questions over and over again as we traverse a million people in airports and all other spaces connected to them. Four months. Isaac. Thank you. My internal and external dialogues mix until I’m continuously spewing a collage of short phrases, anagrams of meaningless sameness. It is. Four months. Thank you. so. Isaac. hot here. Four Isaac hot so here is thank you months. It is so hot Isaac thank you four months.

At my in-laws we settle in to sleep off the trip and gear up for the extended family get together, ostensibly for our benefit, that will include 17 adults and an uncounted number of children. Branches of the family will meet each other for the first time. I am not making this up.

Before and after the party, I watch the grandparents. I feel sorry for men sometimes. (Okay, often.) They are really just so confused as to their role. My mother in law plays with the baby. My father in law plays golf. My mother in law makes the baby laugh. My father in law makes himself a sandwich. My mother in law takes pictures of the baby. My father in law mows the lawn.

As the time approaches to leave, Grandma starts getting antsy. She offers to take the baby "off our hands." I pack, Mike packs, my father in law installs something onto his computer, and grandma dances Isaac around the house singing "How Much is that Doggie in the Window?" For the rest of the trip, my mantra will include this ditty as its theme song. How much is that doggie… Isaac. It is so hot here. …for sale? … Four Months. Hot. How much is…

After the short plane ride to Philadelphia we are only a baggage claim conveyor, a rental car shuttle, and two more hours of road away from my family. No sweat.

Sometimes I manage to vary the mantra just slightly. Isaac. Four-and-a-half months. It is very hot here. His name is Isaac. Really? Yes. …in the window…Thank you.

I can always tell when we’re closing in on my old stomping ground. The signs are many: "Jersey Tomatoes!" the farm stands call out. "Blessed Mother 20% Off!" says one portable marquee surrounded by statuary. But that’s still a good CD-length away from "home." When we come to the chainsaw repair place and the taxidermist, then we’re talking homeward bound. And finally, when we meet the blinking yellow light at the blind curve… well, let’s just say it says home to me in that if-you-got-rid-of-the-car-on-blocks-you-could-fit-another-jetski-in-the-driveway sort of way.

It is so hot here. Why is it so hot here, doggie in the window? Isaac. Four months.

Here’s the short list of things I miss from the east coast:
1. fireflies
2. sarcasm
3. lightning storms
I never quite catch number three on my visits back. Number two is provided in abundance by my family. And number one flickers around the peeling bark of the plane tree in my mother’s front yard after the sun goes down.

I bet my family can take more pictures than your family. Bet me? C’mon, bet me. My family is relentless in their love. I think if we flipped the pictures fast we could recreate the entire visit moment for moment. Isaac is kissed and passed and kissed. He is famous.

Throughout his tour, Mr Isaac doesn’t nap well. You’d be afraid to close your eyes too if you never knew where you’d wake up next or who’d be pawing at you next. At one point late in the game after many a missed nap, Mike, baby and I find ourselves in my brother’s house alone. Isaac falls asleep in what could only be classified as a pass out. Toy in hand he just topples over on his side on the rug and stays there for three hours.

Before any of us realize, it is time again to take up the mantra. Four months. Doggie in the window… Thank you. Isaac. Four …for sale? It has been hard -very hard - to be here, and I balk at leaving. There have been many good things that happened here. Their significance is hard to perceive individually – little flashes like cameras, like fireflies – but if you take in the whole landscape they brighten and expand, show themselves for what they are.

On our last evening east, I fiddle with an email break while Mike takes our cranky baby away from his cranky mommy. Soon though, I am compelled to join them. Maybe it’s guilt, maybe it’s habit, maybe it’s something nobler. I leave the sticky, muggy living room of my mother’s small, rented house for the sticky, muggy brown grass yard of same and watch as Mike points our son over and over again in the direction of the tiny, fleeting lights scattered through the dusk.

WWJB?

On the eve of the 4th... Check out this song by David Rovics -- "Who Would Jesus Bomb?"

And here's a reprint of a commentary that I did last year for the radio station I contribute to:

It was 1997 and I was working in Washington, DC administering grants that brought graduate students from Central and Eastern Europe to study at US universities. The war in Yugoslavia had wound down not long ago and there was funding earmarked specifically for Bosnian students. We met the first small group of Bosnians in early July to acquaint them with the program and their new host culture.

We stopped off at a restaurant where they were overwhelmed by the menu. We navigated them around burgers and pastas, while the restaurant's owner made a fuss over his international guests.

A thirty-something dark-haired man named Adi charmed me from the start with his soft eyes and sweet manner. He told us about getting married to the love of his life during the fighting, and of the panic when they ran out of precious gas doing errands the morning of the wedding. They were sure Serbian mortar fire would catch up with the groomsmen and their car stalled in Sniper Alley. He talked proudly of his determined new wife who'd baked a wedding cake out of rice, as there was no sugar.

Soon it was the 4th of July. The owner of the restaurant where we'd eaten that first night had invited all of us to view the show from the rooftop there. The first few explosions of color and accompanying pops drew "oohs" from our group. Then more fireworks went off and the displays grew bolder, the sounds louder and more rapid.

Adi backed away from the roof's railing. He looked gaunt. "Too much like the bombs," he stuttered.

At the passing of each 4th of July, I remember this night when I realized what sounds like freedom to us, can mean for someone else, war.

submit!

Before Isaac was born, I tried to send out as many submissions as possible to writing journals and various magazines. Some were poems I was revising like mad, others were essays that had started as blogs. It wasn’t as many as I would have liked, but, like I said, I tried.

At the time I thought this move wise – after all, I wouldn’t have the opportunity to concentrate on such things for…who knows how long. As it turned out, the rejections are rolling in – as they are apt to do for writers – and I’m having to swallow each one with a large dose of mommy hormones scurrying about my body. The good angel hormone on one shoulder tells me, "Oh, Kitty! The joy of motherhood by itself is reward enough! Writing is a process. Love the process!" While the bad, demon hormone on my other shoulder screams "Bastards!" (and then cries and eats ice cream).

But in fact one poem of mine was accepted, the original version of which showed up on this blog back in January, I think. I’m told it will be up on the online journal Literary Mama in the July 2nd issue.

Meanwhile, at the drawing board, one submission I made to another online mother-y zine received this reply: "Dear Daniela: Unfortunately, we will be unable to use your poem at this time…" Hey, if you’re going to reject me, could you get my NAME RIGHT?? Now, I think I understand why they call it "submission."

advice column

Dear Ladywithebaby:
I can’t decide which stroller to buy. Can you help?
-- Carrying in Caledonia

Dear Carry:
The route to choosing the perfect stroller is obvious: First, exhaust yourself researching strollers on the internet, so that you are completely overwhelmed with choices. Next, staunchly ignore your peers who won’t stop talking about how you should go to the baby mega-store that’s an hour and a half from your house. (The whole point, after all, is that you don’t want to drive, you want to stroll.) Finally, hang out in the park and steal one. I’d recommend one of those jogging strollers – you can really book with one of those!

If you don’t do these things, you are a terrible mother.

Dear Ladywithebaby:
All the other moms in my Mommy and Me class report that their babes sleep peacefully through the night. My baby still barely gives me three hours at a go. Can you help?
-- Red-eyed in Ridgevale

Dear Red:
At your next class, stare deeply into the eyes of the other mothers until you have hypnotized them with the red spidery lines of your pupils. Then go like this, "LIARS! LIARS! LIARS! I HATE YOU!" Alternatively, if that baby of yours is a real night owl, why not take her out to the bars? Show her what night life is really all about.

If you don’t do these things, you are a terrible mother.

post-partum high

It's the new craze about town - the "I-fit-in-my-pants-dance."

I-hi-hi-hi Fi-i-i-i-i-t in my Pa-hants! Pants, pants. Oh yeah! I fit. I fit in my pa-he-he-he-hants. mmmm - hmmm. Ooh baby. I fit. I do. Pants, Me. Oh yeah. (repeat chorus)

towards an identity

"Four months without eating your young. Impressive for any mammal." --my friend, beth

So I'm walking down the street the other day and there's a woman approaching me with a girl about four or five skipping ahead of her.
"Watch out for the lady with the baby," the woman cautions her daughter.
It took me three blocks to figure out who she was referring to.

dreaming is free

I just bought Isaac a trilingual book. It’s in English, Spanish, and Achuar. The Achuar are an indigenous group in southern Ecuador. I find them fascinating because their dreams are a central part of their lives. Each morning they describe the dreams they had and elders interpret the dreams and make decisions about the day based on these interpretations.

Lately, I’ve dreamed there was a holiday we were celebrating where the traditional food was s’mores. I’ve dreamed Mike was angry with me because I didn’t pay attention to the paths and got us lost. I tried to read a map that was posted on a wall behind a group of young women lawyers smoking and wearing pointy-toed shoes – all at work on a Sunday. I’ve dreamed we were at a restaurant where, for a little extra cost you could have your picture taken with the prisoners of war held in the basement. I’ve dreamed I was trimming the dead and wounded leaves off a plant and when I was finished, there was nothing left.

Tell me, are conditions favorable today for hunting in the jungle?

mommy brain

Mommy brain is starting to leak into my ears.

The scene at a local cafe as I experienced it:

"Have you seen the new nipples?" says the clerk sorting through an old man’s change for the right amount.
"I don’t know about any nipples," the man replies.
"See? Look at this one!" the woman exclaims.
"Oh my!" says the old man. "Those are interesting."
"Okay, I got what I needed," the clerk tells the old man, returning a pile of change to him. "Have a great day!"
"I will. And I’ll be on the look out for those nipples now!"

QP

" I dunno know how you guys walk around with those things." – Elaine from Seinfeld

Having a boy is interesting on many levels, not the least of which is the mystery of their little penises. They are like magic wands or crazy straws or something. I don’t know. My son can pee all over his socks and leave his onesie completely dry. It defies all reason.

I peer over my husband's shoulder as he diapers Isaac -- another mysterious wee-wee, missing diaper, soaking instead newly clean and dry blankets in the vicinity. "Can't you aim that thing in some favorable direction?" I ask him. "It'll just move again," Mike informs me. My son coos sweetly in agreement and eats his little fists. I leave the boys to be boys.

Don't try this at home, kids. We're not talking about some ordinary garden snake. Maybe there’s such a thing as quantum penis.

the age of innocence

One day this week, Mike went in early to work so as to be able to come home and spend a lunch with us. That morning I got the call: Flat tire on the way to work. Other tires looking bad. Can you meet me at Costco to get new ones put on and we’ll find lunch somewhere while that’s going on?

Costco? Me? The mother who is loathe to put her babe in the car, period? Who has panic attacks thinking about driving two miles to get, yes, a car seat check? "Do you really need me to bring the baby?" I’d asked. The woman chuckled, then, seeing I was serious, put her hand over mine for a moment and turned back to her computer. Costco has to be a good 20 minutes from my house. And the Costco parking lot outside their illustrious Tire Sales department on a hot day during the lunch hour was just the place I wanted to bring my precious infant…not!

Besides the obvious hazards, Isaac doesn’t like the car. He is not soothed by the motion, or the white noise of the traffic. He cries. I don’t do well when he cries. In a haphazard attempt to ease his car worries, I’ve bought him all kinds of toys that dangle in front of him – a mirror, a soft mobile of (you guessed it) safari animals, and other goodies. To top it off my radio is broken, so I have to improvise if I want to try to calm him with music. Bottom line? If you see a green Jetta weaving down the road driven by a woman sweating and singing "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" at top volume over the wailing from the three-month-old in the back who is wondering why his mommy isn’t coming to release him from his prison of a seat, but has left a poka-dotted lion in charge instead, get out of the way, it’s us, and we’re not having a good day.

The world has gotten just that much louder and dirtier, just that much more profane since I had a child. Why in the world would I want to subject my sweet, sweet baby boy to Costco? All that innocence. You can smell it. I think I’ve decided that must be why people keep having children. Why else would we continue to do this obscenely difficult thing? We’re addicted to the innocence.

Some weeks, my only accomplishment is bringing Isaac into public and making people smile. It’s his job at this point. (His job is also to bust those teeth the hell out o’ the gum line without completely making himself and his loved ones insane, but we’ll wait on that topic.) The other day we passed an old man we often pass, who always greets us pleasantly. He looked up at Isaac from his wheelchair and told me, "You can just feel the magic pouring from them, can’t you?!"

We couldn’t get the tires that day. The lunch rush and current sale made the line too long. But we’ll definitely get them soon. And one of these days, Isaac and his mom will get over their fear of the car. Once we have our new tires and new-found freedom we can cover more territory and take this show of beauty on the road.

the animal kingdom and your baby

Safari animals are very important in baby’s first year. If you don’t believe me, visit your local department store and check out the kids’ clothes. Particularly the boys’ clothes. And the toys too. Monkey, elephant, tiger combo – very popular. However, not as popular as elephant, giraffe, rhino. It’s someone’s job to make rhinos look cute. Interesting when you think about it.

Perhaps the safari clothes are something akin to driving around in "off-road" vehicles and huge SUVs, just in case the suburban neighborhood suddenly reverts to its geological roots and one must drive furiously out of the jungle (formerly the Super Fresh) to the high mesa (currently occupied by Peet’s Coffee) where we’ll all have to fight off wild cheetah (Mrs. Lopez’s tomcats) to survive.

Now, when it comes to books everything changes. Clearly, stories must revolve around bunnies. Bunnies. Many, many bunnies. And these bunnies are always going to sleep. Eventually. Sleep is THE major theme in children’s literature. You might think that people are out there writing tales of virtuous bunnies, bunnies with moral lessons for your youngster. But, in fact, what we really want to instill in the next generation is to go to bed. For goddsakes child, sleep! so mommy and daddy bunny can have a good, stiff drink. After all, they’ll have to face the rhinos again in the morning.

Mr. Isaac

We've passed the three-month mark!

the "C" word

Reading is something I still get to do sometimes. I just finished an interesting book (with the unfortunate title of Our Babies, Ourselves) that discusses the meeting of biology and culture in regard to parenting. There are lots of ways to perform this crazy stunt. But it’s pretty clear that a child is simply not meant to be raised by one person in isolation. That Western society views children as a burdens, not assets. That I want something different than physically abusing myself as I repeatedly bounce this child to happiness or to sleep ten hours a day. A friend recommended the book to me. It was very informative despite the fact that it wasn’t what I was expecting. (When I said I wanted to read about different approaches to parenting from different parts of the world, learning about the tribal cultural that tosses orphans alive into the grave with their parents wasn’t exactly what I was looking for, but hey.)

There are alternatives to the ten hours of bouncing of course. But they come with their own risks. I did a stupid thing recently. I spent the afternoon with two other moms. I’ve had a better time at the bloody dentist. After hearing about one mom's plans for baby number two and listening to the other one discuss the fertility status of every female relative and acquaintance of hers, I asked them, one the mother of a seven-month-old and the other the mother of a nine-month-old, how they find time with their husbands. They both quickly and matter-of-factly told me that they didn’t. The sad part was that I couldn’t detect any regret about this state of affairs. The reason they hadn’t found that time, it appeared, was that there was no one they trusted to stay with their babies. Ah. Mother psychosis. It takes many forms. Okay, I need to confess right here that if Isaac turns one and there are no date nights on the calendar, I will hand my baby to the FedEx guy if it means 15 minutes alone with my husband. I then asked them if they liked staying home with their kids. Blink. Blink. Blank. They didn’t appear to understand the question. I think I’d traveled to close to a nerve in their brains and Stepford mode kicked in to cover.

I love my baby. And that's why we are running away to join a harem. Where’s my fucking community?

booby trap

This is where it starts. It’s so clear now. Why do you think women around the globe spend their time feeding people, obsessing over whether the people they are feeding have eaten enough, and generally using food to soothe? It starts with the breast. It's biological. It’s pathological. Fix it with food. He cries, he must be hungry. We give of ourselves – literally. Giving them life is not enough; we must sustain it.

This idea of a male creator figure gets sillier all the time. Now, the idea of a universal creator something like my Aunt Josephine – a tiny little Italian lady steaming up the kitchen windows, pasta boiling on the stove, asking the same questions I ask today: "Did you eat? Are you hungry?" – that makes good sense.

It’s all about the boob.

mother’s day

In having a child sure I have been dealt the cross of decades of worry and care, but I’ve also gained a holiday. Fantasy mother’s day presents danced in my head like sugar plums. A new robe? A trip to the Caribbean?

In my "parents’ class" that week the teacher wanted us all to dip our kids’ feet in ink and press them to pre-cut purple hearts that read, in sloppy penmanship, "Happy Mother’s Day!" (Yes, purple hearts. We won’t go there.) Isaac was fussy that day and there was no way I was aggravating the problem by creating something I’d just have to pretend to like and then recycle. (Besides, being involved in making your own mother’s day card is like baking your own damn birthday cake.) "Are you ready?" my teacher asks me eagerly. "We’re gonna pass this time," I tell her. Can’t she hear my squalling baby? his cries going right to the core of my biological response systems, my eleven-week hormonal state?? Am I ready indeed! And she calls herself a parent education specialist. Yeah, so am I, lady, so am I.

The day itself was just another gassy day for my baby that happened to be decorated with yellow iris. But I could accept that. I did get to listen to This American Life on NPR after all. So one morning last week, I stumbled into my living room (not a bungalow in Saint Croix) in my ratty old bathrobe to find the iris only half-open but already dead and my card covered in cat vomit. Ladies and gentlemen, the ground hog saw his shadow, it’s gonna be a looong first year.

if I drove a motorcycle

If I drove a motorcycle or a bus, things would be so much easier. In those subcultures, you know you are supposed to wave at others of your kind when you pass them on the street. Things aren’t nearly as clear among people with babies. The wave isn’t a given. There are awkward half-nods and unilateral greetings that can prove very frustrating. You think the average person has it hard deciding just when to look up and how much eye contact to maintain when walking by a stranger on the street? Well, that’s nothing compared to the mental dance you have to do when you are carrying a baby and approaching someone else who is carrying a baby. It’s exhausting!

No one is sure what to do. Ignoring seems a bit harsh, while greeting sends the message of "Hi, I don’t know you and you don’t know me, and the only reason we are acknowledging one another is that we both have kids, but that’s where our commonality ends since I don’t even like your shoes."

Then there are those mothers of older babies – the ones that tell you their kids’ age in months instead of weeks – who look at you all snobby-like. Their half-nod says "Ha! I only get up once a night. I can see straight. I’ve been where you are now, but I won’t admit it. Oh, and my kid’s clothes match too." They’re the poor soul that makes it out of the ghetto and forgets where he came from. If we were middle school boys, I’d be the sixth grader and they’d be the eighth grader and they’d flush my head in the toilet.

Can you see I’m under just a wee bit of pressure here? Maybe I’ll ask for a motorcycle or a big rig license for my next mother’s day.

hypothetical diatribe

The phone rings. And let’s say that somehow, for once, you manage to answer the phone. And let’s also say that when you do, it’s not the fax machine that’s been calling your number six times a day lately; let’s say it’s a friend who informs you she, her husband, and her three boys under the age of four are coming into town for the weekend and would like to see you Friday night. Now let’s say you have a small one-bedroom apartment which – besides the usual items in an apartment – now also contains a bouncy seat, a swing, a changing table, a bassinet, a car/stroller seat, two cats in search of attention, two adults in search of sleep, and one baby in search of unconditional love and constant movement. Let’s say that the thought of adding two more adults (what they’re searching for is unknown) and three more children to this mix is a bit daunting, and while you want to be accommodating, you are struggling with the mental picture. Now, let’s say that your friend suggests a picnic dinner allowing you the opportunity to suggest that you all just meet in the park in the first place. The friend decides this is a good idea, let’s just say, since, she off-handedly remarks, there’s a cold going around among her little lovies. Oh! Yes! you agree readily then. The park!

Let’s say that on the evening of their arrival it is the end of a long week and nearing your baby’s bedtime – and, let’s be honest, YOUR bedtime. Let’s say your friends get stuck in traffic and arrive an hour late – the hour of baby meltdown – the hour of bedtime. Let’s say you briefly introduce them to your screaming child and tell them you’re going home now, it was so nice to see them. And, let’s just say that your friend offers to walk back with you to check out your apartment; and let’s say that that sounds fine with you until she grabs her sniffling seven-month-old to come along. Let’s say that the moment you enter your apartment you check your shoes because of the smell until your friend asks where she can change her precious little one. Let’s say you refrain from suggesting the sidewalk. Now let’s say that fifteen minutes pass within which time your baby manages to fall into a tentative sleep and you contemplate where you will stay while you have your home disinfected and after which time the rest of her family bursts into your tiny apartment because, well, the boys need to use the bathroom too. Let’s say the following twenty minutes while you wait for a three and four-year-old to poop and leave are the longest you’ve ever experienced. Let’s say, just for example, that you are unmoved by the gift and card for the baby your friend gives you before leaving, and the irony that oozes from your friend's comment amidst casual conversation about how now that she is a mother she evaluates friendships in a whole new way is thick as pudding, let’s just say.

hands

I hold his hands while he sleeps. My son is grainy in the dim light, doesn’t yet know those hands are his, can’t imagine his power. When I let go of them, the hands resume their flight. At once they are warding off the paparazzi, then they conjure magic spells. He holds them as if about to conduct the orchestra playing in his head; they freeze in position like in an old game of tag. They are one frame of an animated argument.

past glory

I’m just reminding myself that I used to spend my days doing things other than praying my baby falls asleep and then when he does checking every 5 minutes to make sure he's breathing. My little audio archive link on this page is more or less updated. The latest piece I did aired the day after Isaac was born. It was elementary school kids’ views on the proposed closings of the Salinas Public Libraries, which I mentioned in a past entry.

What? No hat?? How'd this one get in there?

Izzy at 9 weeks.

on the seventh day…

Today’s a big anniversary for us. It’s the seventh day of my moratorium on yelling at my husband. Maybe there was an occurrence of "suggestion" snarled through gritted teeth in the last week, but that doesn’t count…because I said it doesn’t, that’s why! (Does it make ya nostalgic for how you were parented?)

I bow at the altar of hormones. I am but a tiny paper boat tossed about in hormonal swells. I am your movie ticket stub sloshed violently through the hormonal wash cycle in the pocket of your relaxed fit jeans… All right, you get the picture: Hormones = mean autocrat. Me = victim of above. Victims love company, and so whenever I can, I invite along my husband. Look, this shit is hard. Not a little hard. A whole fucking lot hard. Sometimes I just like to mix a little cocktail of complete exhaustion and misplaced anger and chill out for the evening.

One of our better arguments, before I gave it all up, was a little tit for tat that I like to call "the cookie incident." Mike was going to the grocery store. (We know how it works out when I go. Thus, this task has been relegated to my husband.) He asked if there was anything else that I wanted beyond the little list we’d created. Now, apparently, there is some link between sleep deprivation and sugar cravings. I know not of the details of this curious marriage, I only know that self-medication in the form of chocolate gets me by. So I told Mike I wanted cookies, please. He even asked what kind I wanted and I suggested a particularly tasty variety that he’d brought home for me in the past. I thought we had an agreement. Anyone in my place would have thought the same.

Mike came home from the store with frozen cookie dough. It wasn’t even the flavor I’d asked for. And it was frozen. I took in his misdeed calmly at first. He told me, this way, we could make a couple at a time and they’d last longer. Uh huh. I let him know that in fact it was not possible for me to make cookies during the day, ready-to-be-baked or not. And here comes his fatal mistake: Note to working partners, pay Very. Close. Attention. He asked me why it was that I could not manage to make cookies. Yes, that is what he wanted to know.

I’m fuzzy on the finer points, but something of a loud, chaotic scene ensued, which ended with me shrieking the line "…and if I have to eat a BAG of cookies EVERY DAY to get through these first months, that’s what I will DO!"

The next morning I woke up at 7:00 am with the resolve to try and stop yelling at my closest ally. A decision made slightly easier by the goofy, toothless smile on my baby’s sweet face, and the smell of chocolate chip cookies baking in the kitchen.

you thought it was the diapers…

You knew that creating another human being would to some extent add to the stress on the planet. You thought it had, in part, something to do with disposable diapers. In fact, it has to do with the take out containers that mom and dad go through since they can’t even conceive of having a spare moment, bit of energy, or free hand to cook at home.

You knew that people changed babies’ clothes constantly throughout the day. You thought it had something to do with how the little people spit up, throw up, pee, poop, and otherwise splooge on their outfits. In fact, it’s all about mom and dad spilling their take out dinner on the babies, since they just want to eat in peace and babies apparently scream when put down during dinner.

You’d seen moms walking around town with blankets thrown completely over their babies. You thought it had to do with keeping the sun and wind off of their tiny tykes. In fact, it instead has everything to do with hiding the little critters while walking to get your take out dinner, so not every stranger walking by puts their grubby hands all over your infant.

You figured that baby toys are made in bright colors to attract the baby’s attention and add to his development. In fact, the bright colors are to keep mom and dad awake for week nine of "Experiments in Sleep Deprivation."

the goddess within

We’ve recently borrowed a book from the library on techniques for calming a crying infant. I haven’t really read it yet. You see, whenever I try, my infant cries. Dilemma.

Although we haven’t read in any detail, we’ve scanned "the list". You know the list, don’t you? The list always consists of something like "The 12 Ps of Making Chili" or "The four Ws of (fill in the blank)." This one is all about Ss. So far, my husband has tried the Swaddling technique with some success, while I’m all about the Shushing, that is, white noise.

The whole idea surrounding these techniques is that you mimic the environment of the womb. The Swaddling – okay you get it. The white noise? Well, yes, according to this approach, the center for the creation of life sounds a bit like AM radio. I guess I never thought about it terribly hard, but if I had, I think I would have liked to imagine that the sound system of my womb might hearken of maybe a symphony, for example. Not the classical music that makes you want to puke (although it would seem that could be what’s on in the first trimester), but the really incredible kind of music that makes you think – "Geeeez, I wanna play the violin." Apparently, that’s not at all what’s going on in there. The uterus bops along to sounds closer to, say, a hair dryer. Who would have thought that the Goddess and Vidal Sassoon would have so much in common? Maybe the Goddess is indeed using a hair dryer. Maybe the Goddess is having a permanent bad hair day, which would explain a hell of a lot about the world.

For the last three days, I have put my baby to sleep to the lullaby of my very own, "pro-style", travel ready, hair dryer. It’s working pretty well. This could change children’s music forever. Titles on bedtime CDs might start to include things like "Daddy’s Electric Razor Goes Whir Whir Whir" and "Chainsaw Serenade." All this time we’ve been singing to kids, when really they just wanted to listen to the ceiling fan motor.

It’s possible the Goddess is just scrambling the signal in there so that the forces of evil can’t find the tiny new lives. Do you think babies hear a message in all that noise? Like, Paul is dead, or the winning Lotto numbers? Do you think it has meaning for them?

Mr. Sassoon, I’m appealing to you directly. – Spill the secrets of the Universe!

And an action fist shot. This is Isaac's "garden gnome" look. Hats are very important. On the tough days, make them look ridiculous, then you can laugh at them instead of catch a flight out.

really, we don't pose him with these power fists--it's all him!

renegade mom

I’d like to try to explain, or remind as the case may be, about how it feels when you start to venture out of the house solo after giving birth. First, I should mention this - When you are breastfeeding a baby weeks old, it is not as simple as just getting away, even when you have the chance. There is that little factor of the baby having to eat every couple hours. – At least that’s how often my little nursling guzzles. And let me clarify – that’s from start of feeding to start of feeding. In other words, if it takes about half an hour to get the critter fed, you get all of 90 minutes before you need to be back at your post – the boppy prison – exposing yourself to your newborn and any visitors that happen by. And in between snack time, from your new-found Barbie boobs, oozes the miracle of milk. It oozes onto your new blue top, your old silk blouse. It oozes in pretty wet patterns mysterious as crop circles.

But beyond the physical constraint of motherhood, there are the hormones. If you leave the room, much less the house, you feel as if you have betrayed your offspring and the rules of survival for your species. You feel they may die without you, or you without them, and, after only moments in front of the Suzy-Qs at the 7-11, you will be exposed for what you are: a fraud – posing as a woman entitled to five minutes alone – and a disgrace to humankind.

The first time I ever left my house without Isaac was a bizarre experience. It was a quick jaunt to the drugstore (for something for Isaac, of course). When I arrived, about seven minutes after I’d left my house, jittery and distracted, there were no parking spots in the lot. "See," an old inner voice told me, "Proof you shouldn’t be here." (Note to self: do not raise child under religion causing long-term guilt. = any religion?)

The next time I tried to get out it was to the grocery store. We had devised the plan early in the day: I would go shopping and Mike would stay home with the baby. It was simple, yet brilliant. I was excited all day in anticipation of my trip (I know, it’s sick. Just stay with me.).

The day wore on and I wore down until it was 8:30pm – 30 minutes before the store closed. I dashed away, leaving my baby tanked up on boob juice and sleeping soundly. I was feeling odd, but okay as I maneuvered through the aisles placing out of season fruits from South America in my cart.

I checked out right as the store was closing, having collected $60 worth of snacks. I chatted amiably with the checker as I swiped my credit card. …Declined. Re-swiped. Declined. My clerk buddy began to frown, all memory of the happy chit chat we had just shared now gone. Swiped again. Declined. Declined. Declined. Oh, fuck-a-roo-skis. The inner voice cackled into my ear, "Didn’t learn your lesson with the parking spots, huh? Well, screw with biological dependence and evolutionary schema and see where it gets you, Be-otch!" At least I had brought the cell phone leash and now I frantically called home to ask Mike if he had $60 in cash. The final nail in my coffin: I could hear my baby crying in the background. (RIP, you terrible mother, you) "$58.25…$58.50," my husband spoke into the phone as my son wailed on and on. "$59... $59.10…" (If there’s a god, you will kill me now! Kill me now!) The people behind me in line (oh, yes, there were people behind me in line) were expressing their annoyance freely and creatively by now.

Okay, we got it. Mike would be back with the money. I raced to the car, sans groceries, and started home. A couple blocks from the store I passed a cop. I’ll tell you all now, since I didn’t get to tell him, I don’t know how fast I was driving. In my rearview mirror, I saw him make a U-turn and my heart about crumbled. We’re talking my tiny little piddly town. My dull, quiet, whitebread town where your doggies are welcome in the bank. In other words – these cops are BORED and that means DANGEROUS! I have seen them give out tickets for stopping past the white line at the corner. These are the same people that as little kids, hit squirrels out of trees with homemade slingshots just to watch them fall. Shit!!!

I turned left. I turned left again. I turned right. I was lost in a neighborhood of skinny streets and lots of those holiday flags. Renegade mom. They would not bring me DOWN!

And so, yeah, as it turned out, copper didn’t catch up with me. Honestly, I have no idea if he was after me to begin with. But if he’d have caught me, I can tell you one thing for sure. It wouldn’t have been a speeding ticket I went home with. It would have been a citation for being a new mom away from her baby. Here’s an excerpt from the scene that would surely have ensued.

Cop peers in through the driver’s side window and, spotting the empty car seat in the back:
Do you know why I pulled you over?
I’m sorry, officer, I never speed, you see my credit card…
Ma’am, where’s the baby?
Baby?
Yes, the baby, ma’am. Didn’t you just have a baby?
Yes, I…
Where’s the baby, ma’am?
Where?
Ma’am, where – is - your - baby?
He’s, uh, at home.
I’m going to have to cite you for negligence.
Pardon? But, the baby is with his father and I just fed him.
Uh huh. (still writing ticket) Are you or are you not out without your baby?
Well, I thought…
No, ma’am you didn’t think. That’s the problem. It’s plain to anyone looking at you that you just had a baby and you have left that baby at home while you gallivant about town.
But I was just buying…
Save it for the judge, Lady. And by the way, you’re leaking.

the sound of mom

Ah, the good ole days. I remember when Isaac was just a baby – a few days old - and I could quickly quiet him with a whisper or a nonsense song. Now, he’s all of six weeks and good luck to me. Sometimes if he fidgets in his sleep I can still manage to lull him by letting him know I’m close by. A quick hello can do it. Most times, however, it’s to no avail.

It seems to me that these days, his reaction to my voice is one of increased distress. Like when he wakes from a nap fretting or when he’s wailing through a bath his dad is in charge of. I talk, he cries louder. He seems to be saying, "You were right there and not doing anything to soothe me?!?" and "You knew this was going on and did nothing to stop it?!?" respectively.

But mostly, I imagine he’s confused by my voice here on the outside. Home birth or not, maybe he’s concerned that he’s been switched. - Where’s the sarcastic lady with the sailor mouth? he’s probably thinking. She’s there; she’s just reeeeeally tired. What I could really use is someone to whisper to me, or sing me a nonsense song. I promise to go right to sleep.

"now we are six" (weeks), or, how to exploit your child

My child is a prodigy. He is six weeks old and already learning to count. Why else would Isaac have had me up at 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 last night? Between this development and the Isaac bobble head dolls I’m planning on marketing, he’s going to be big, I tell you, big, big! (Sleep and neck muscles are overrated.)

ENP

Besides, obviously being strapped for time and energy, I’ve frankly avoided writing this entry, but, alas, it must be written. It is the entry about the Evil Nurse Practitioner (ENP).

We were told that we should take our baby for a medical check (having birthed him at home) before he was ten days old. A nurse practitioner was recommended to us and we made an appointment. Right about the time of our appointment, after the initial magic of the first few days – cloistered in my bedroom with my mostly-sleeping infant and my husband – and while my body’s recovery was still preliminary at best, I got my first hint of emotional upset – "the weepies" we’ll call them, experienced by most brand new moms. And so, physically limited and emotionally strained, I set out for the ill-fated appointment with our ENP.

Okay everyone, listen for the bell (ding!) signaling key phrases to send the new, emotionally fragile, and hormonally ridiculous mom over the edge.

We arrive at the beautiful home of our ENP and take a seat while she finishes with another client -a dark-haired boy crawls out of a room to our left and is hauled back by his dad. After they’ve gone, ENP approaches us and we make introductory small talk which includes me telling her it’s our first time out with the little guy. "Are you sure you have the car seat installed correctly?" she quips (ding!) How I reacted: I stumbled apologetically telling her hurriedly, "Actually, we have an appointment with the highway patrol to have it checked, but they couldn’t get us in until Thursday, and…" She leaves the room to file something. How I should have reacted: "What car seat? He’s a little jaundiced so we stuck him on the dashboard in the sun."

We are ushered into the room where the pastel colors and teddy bear rockers clash strongly with our scowling ENP. She stares down at the forms on her desk and asks us questions so as to better fill in the boxes. Eventually, we find ourselves at this point: "He didn’t nurse at all in the first 24 hours?!?" (ding!) How I reacted: "Well, um, no, I mean, yes, I mean, he tried, I mean, I’m not sure…" How I should have reacted: "No." (My advice to new moms besides not to listen to any advice would be to write everything down. You will have liquid brain. You will not remember anything and people will ask you many details about how much, how often, when and if.)

Then she weighs him. His birth weight was 6 lbs. 7 oz. ENP put him on her scale and announces: "He’s 5 lbs. 2 oz." (ding!) "That’s not possible." I told her. "I think the scale is wrong." She didn’t even look in my direction. She wrote furiously on her forms. Finally, this: "I know my scale is accurate." (ding!) How I reacted: (Crying). How I should have reacted: "You numbskull. It’s about the two different scales not being calibrated to each other. He has not possibly lost over a pound."

More form scribbling. "He’s now in the fifth percentile for weight." (ding!) "And if you aren’t feeding him…" (ding! ding! ding!) From there, the conversation spiraled continually out of control, including talk of electric breast pumps and videos to loan and return visits for future weigh-ins. I will have the image long-burned into my brain of this large, rough gruff woman clutching a stuffed monkey to her generous bosom in order to illustrate to me various breastfeeding positions.

While I continued to weep, she proceeded to move ahead with talk of vitamin K shots and heel pricks/blood testing as well as discussions of dire consequences should we decline them. I never really imagined someone could fit the phrase "brain damage" into a conversation with such regularity. This woman was good.

I don’t know exactly what "bonding" involves. I’m told it’s a process. And from what I can tell, I’m not finished with that process yet. However, I can say that if it involves uncontrollable sobbing and the desire to jump out of your skin when a stranger sticks your child with needles and squeezes blood from his heel, then on that day, the fifth day of my son’s life, in the office of the ENP, our "bonding" took a huge step forward – My husband would comment later on my uttering of the phrase "Give me my baby!"

Then there is discussion of nutrition. Our ENP, at least 80 pounds overweight, raises both eyebrows at my disclosure of a vegetarian diet. "Your diet," she lets me know, "will help determine the neurological growth and brain development of your baby." (ding!)

You know the old joke about adding "in bed" to the end of any Chinese fortune cookie fortune? Well, just add "because you’re a terrible mother" to the end of anything anyone says to you about your baby in the first month. "You have to stay hydrated when you’re breastfeeding. You haven’t been drinking enough!…(because you’re a terrible mother!)" "I’d love to come over and help out!…(because you’re a terrible mother!)" Anything at all can be twisted into a baton with which the new mother batters herself about the face and head.

Really, I should have learned something from this birth. The one overriding feeling I had during labor – the only intuitive piece I could muster in all nine months and how I knew I was going to be just fine – was the idea that this baby knew what he was doing. I trusted my baby. And here I was throwing all that away to buy into the ways of an ENP SOB.

That afternoon, I call all three midwives and leave desperate messages. They are all in a meeting … with each other … and I can’t reach them. They must hurry before my baby starves to death. Penny comes by and brings us dinner, saint that she is, but can do nothing for my baby who is minute by minute wasting away. She is still there when Maggie calls to tell me she’s out of her meeting and on her way to my apartment with her scale (the scale that originally weighed Isaac – the one that counts). She arrives. She weighs him. The world begins again to turn. I exhale. "You are radiant!" Penny tells me on her way out. She kisses my cheek and vanishes. I stumble to the bathroom, pass the full-length mirror. My eyes are nearly swollen shut from crying for seven hours. Keep those lies coming!

The next day I call the ENP. I calmly inform her we will not be coming back – that day or ever. I calmly restate these things when she began the litany of "It’s your choice, but…" I must have seemed a different person all together than the blubbering fool who’d slunk away from her almost-mansion with my waif of a child less than 24 hours before. She seemed genuinely taken back and (dare I say) humbled when reality set in for her. How I reacted: "Thank you. Goodbye." How I should have reacted: "Oh, sweetheart, you have no idea. On a good night’s sleep, I can take you out."

Minotaurs

"…be careful! Minotaurs lie in wait in the labyrinths of memory." – Isabel Allende

I’m getting the feeling that everyone who hands out advice, or writes it down, carefully forgets the first two months – at least. Nothing applies yet. And I only know that now after running in circles trying to make things apply. He barely fits in the carriers; no, he is not sleeping through the night for godssake. Perhaps eager to show me another world of caretaking, people are obsessed with asking if he’s started to smile. No. Not that either. He’s too little. He’s little. Little. He makes some killer faces, but none of them include smiles. This is the raw stuff. Just hard.

My emotions ping pong violently around in a tiny box that I think is labeled "Monster." There is nowhere for them to go. If I feel them, I subject my baby to them. If I don't, I swallow them for later. They are trapped. And everything is true for only about an hour at a time. I don't know how to describe this.

The old ladies that staff the benefit thrift shops downtown love to coo over Isaac. Like everyone else, they have advice for me: Cherish this time, they tell me. It goes too fast and life can get pretty lonely. Memory is a funny thing. Spend ten hours alone in a little apartment with a five-week old and then we can talk about lonely.

the rest of the household

Some folks have been inquiring how the cats and the husband-guy are handling the new baby. Here's the report:
Zap Mama – my co-dependent, neurotic freak – much to my surprise, became again the mom she once was. For the first couple weeks of Isaac’s life, she ran to him at every sound he made. She stared at us while he cried, seeming to demand what exactly we might be doing to her baby. Now, she doesn’t rush to his side all the time – only at the most desperate-sounding of squeals, (like when I put him down while attempting to drain my mac of mac n cheese fame, aka my lunch, and he bawled like I’d abandoned him in a dark alley). More recently, Zap has instead put most of her energy toward running under foot while I carry baby. - In essence, things are back to normal. Emily is in need of super-attention since her little brother entered the picture, though these days she doesn’t always bolt at the first sign of a wiggle or a gurgle. When he fusses, she stares at him, comes to no conclusion about his origins or purpose, and leaves the room.

And then there is Mike. As anyone who knows him might expect, husband-guy has been a great help to me and has held up pretty well in handling the first weeks of parenthood. And he’s learning to give me less advice on breastfeeding, although he still wanders into that mine field once in a while. There are cracks here and there, however. I try not to mention the cut onions I found in the cabinet with the dishes, or the groceries that went missing for two days until I asked "Didn’t we buy watermelon?" and the bag was located out on the patio.

I think that couples must survive on the memory of each other in these first weeks. You have the vaguest of notions that the man over there, the one with the red-ringed eyes repeating "Take your foot out of your diaper. Take your foot out of…there you go!" resembles someone you once had a thing for, that there was a day not terribly long ago when you had enough time, inclination, and energy to make a baby.

the ultimate sacrifice

At about 7:00pm last night, with the baby recently fed and relatively content, I told Mike I needed to lie down for a little bit, but that I didn’t want to be out for the night. "If you fall asleep," he asked, "when do you want me to wake you up?" "Maybe half an hour."

At about 9:00pm, I opened my eyes as Mike tip-toed into the bedroom with a sleeping baby. Thank god he hadn’t listened to me, didn’t even remember the part of the conversation about the "half an hour" (that’s my guy). Mike put the baby down, and I mercifully kept sleeping another 2 ½ hours before I was called forth for snack time. After the 11:30pm feeding, there was a 2:00am feeding, and a 4:00am feeding/don’t want to go back to sleep time. I got Isaac situated again by 6:00am, and he, in turn, woke me up again at 7:00am. Some days you just have the munchies.

By 8:15, I was part of an all too familiar scene: I was reading – two articles down and one more given up on out of boredom – and quite awake, and the boys were asleep, Mike next to me, and Isaac crashed out on top of me.

I was too desperate for sleep and the odds of a re-awakening too risky to move my floppy baby. So, as I have many a night before, I attempted to just slide down, baby where he was, and get some rest. This move inevitably results in – the wedgy. Do I even have to mention that they don’t talk about this part of motherhood in any of the prenatal classes?

I’ve already lost my chance to guilt Isaac with the story of a long and painful birth, but I’ll always have the wedgy. Sure, sure, I’d throw myself in front of a U-Haul truck to save him if needed, but that’s a one-time, spontaneous sort of sacrifice. It’s the little everyday things - the pebble in the shoe, pea in the mattress, underwear stuffed up the butt crack - that show your true love.

what’s in a name?

I never would have thought to name my baby Isaac, except that I…dreamed it. Uh, yeah, honest. It was the only baby dream to speak of that I remember. The day I found out I was pregnant, I had a dream where someone was writing down the name, underlined it and told me "This is the name you want." I wrote the name down in my journal, looked at it alone on the page, and hunkered back down into my denial for another 8 months. But meanwhile, I brought it up to Mike and when we found out the meaning we were sold. (His middle name, Raphael, is for my dad.)

The nickname situation is still up for grabs. There is "Ike" -- and then I have "Mike n Ike." There is Zac(h) -- and then every one thinks his name is Zachary. My current favorite is Izzy, which I'm getting lots of flack for. Is it not a mom's perogative?? As if kids on the playground won't be able to make fun of him no matter what his name is.

Now, time to show your true colors. When you hear "Isaac," (or "Ike"), besides an adorable 5-week old, you think of:
a) political candidates of the 1950s
b) that bastard that held Tina back from her full, leggy potential
c) bartenders on cruise ships
d) biblical figures that barely escape with their lives

Now, about the part where he has only his dad’s last name…

not to dwell on fashion but...

the same people size baby clothes as make women's jeans.

twelve minutes in the kitchen by myself

It’s midnight and I’m fighting with my three-week old. We’ve both agreed he’s hungry, we just can’t agree on the angle of boob that will satiate this hunger. He latches, detaches, latches, detaches. Throws his head back, flailing his tiny hands dangerously near my tender nipples and screams. We try again. I’ve been told not to expect any patterns of behavior or routines, that babies keep changing and changing what they do, when they do it, and how. But let me tell you, for the last week, this is our pattern.

I’ve been duped. Of breastfeeding my friends said: "I loved it!" "It was like a drug!" and "It was easy!" I hate my friends. And I hate breastfeeding. If you quote me, I’ll deny it. What? You’re gonna say you read it on the internet so it must be true? Nice try.

But before the Mommy SWAT teams come to drag me away, let this humble missal be my final triumph…

At 2:30am, I hear him again. He’s generally a calm baby and by the sound of the lose-his-mind cry I can tell he’s been trying to get my attention for a while. We engage in the dance – I offer boob, he rejects it, cries, tries his fist instead, cries some more. He latches then rears back, my nipple at last well-secured in his mouth. At 3:30, after achieving minimal ingestion of nourishment, I bounce him to a tenuous sleep and roll over.

But the gods are merciful this evening, and the Wee Beast does not awake again until 7:00, light already sifting through the blinds, the cats not having bothered to pester us for breakfast yet – they too are relieved. On a whole three-and-a-half-hour stretch of sleep he looks oh-so cute again. We coo at each other, and I feed him with mild success and renewed patience. Before he can decide he wants more, I bound out of bed (my prison so many mornings) and suggest to Mike that I’ll get breakfast for us.

I put on water for some Earl Grey (decaf, naturally. look, I just can’t breastfeed, I’m not a barbarian!). Something is spilled on the burner as usual and I turn on the blower to try to shoo away the stinky smoke. I clear off the counter happily, though I realize I’m destroying some system or other my husband has devised there. I find random items to create a breakfast out of = some cheese, some granola. I find the orange juice container in the frig with .01 drops of oj left and cheerily drip it into a plastic cup then crush the empty carton with fervor and toss it in the trash returning inches of sacred space to my life. I fill the cats’ water bowl and feed the extra water to the fern. Order and control have returned to my world. I am gleeful.

It then occurs to me that the blower is still creating white noise and whatever splooged on the burner is long gone. I hesitate, but turn it off. Sure enough, it had been drowning out a wee cry emanating from the bedroom. I taste the oj and dump it in the sink. It’s turned into iodine. I pile the rest of breakfast carefully onto my arm and head back to my bed. There, I find my son and husband locked in a staring contest. The baby is wearing the last un-peed-on outfit in the drawer and two different socks. I can see I’m not needed here. I drop off the food and jog back out to the living room where my journal has been sitting unheeded for days.

Haul me away if you want. Of freedom I say: "I loved it!" "It was like a drug!" and "It was easy!"

Isaac, Volume 1

I believe it’s a good thing that when I looked at my new-born son for the first time, I did not crush him to my chest and weep with recognition of "my baby". Rather, we stared at each other with mutual curiosity and befuddlement. It's a good thing because maybe I'll be less inclined to expect things of him and more apt to discover who he really is. For my part, I am still wondering about this little person and just how it's happened that he has been delivered to my care. (Nine months, labor, and how many blog entries later, I still don’t get it. Sue me.)

We’re getting to know each other -- slowly. It’s kind of, but not really, like when you meet someone you really click with and you stay up all night talking, except we just stay up all night and there’s not much talking. There’s some eating and some crying, a few nonsense songs, and a lot of time spent trying to figure out what the hell the other one wants.

That’s just it. Without clear cues, like for instance Isaac telling me "Mother, I’d care for a snack please." or "Would you be so kind as to unwrap my legs so I may kick violently while I’m filling my diaper?" – which would be helpful as cues go – we’re left to try to read each other on some other level.

Here’s what I’ve learned about my son in the first three weeks:

• He prefers one sock on at a time. It’s daring, I know, but with the aggressive marketing campaign I’ve laid out it should be hot on the runway this fall
• He must have his arms outside the covers at all times. The better to conjure spells at a moment’s notice. Screw preschool, I’m reserving this kid a space at Hogwart’s.
• He startles at things like the CD player changing CDs, but makes no response when the smoke alarm low battery warning shrieks. Awww, how sweet, selective hearing – definitely from his dad’s side.
• He wears his hats at jaunty angles and can take on the appearance of a fry cook, a sailor, a hip hop artist, or a Smurf, depending on his mood. Flexibility in today’s job market – a must!

Maybe it’s a rather paltry collection of information so far, but I suppose a mother has to start somewhere.

EDD and LMP

Today is my official due date. I think Isaac arriving two weeks earlier than the doctors predicted is his way of thumbing his nose at their method of counting. It’s just dumb. They devise your "EDD" (estimated due date) by counting from your "LMP" (last menstrual period) instead of the presumed date of conception. Huh?? Thus, they add in approximately two more weeks than the "gestational age". Who came up with this system?

The dreaded EDD and LMP show up everywhere – on every scribbled note and official record associated with my pregnancy. These dates will live in infamy. I’m just waiting for someone to give us some cutesy handmade frame-able thingy for Isaac – the kind that has his name embroidered on it flanked by teddy bears and blocks. Under that will be his date of birth. And in fire engine red above it all - the date of my LMP.

Good ole LMP even appears on the form for the birth information my midwife left me to file with the courts and get his birth certificate. Does the county really need to know the last time I had my period??!? I think of my recent struggles in searching for information on my family history. Just a marriage license here or there would do. A consistency of spellings could be helpful. A hint of the year so and so was born. And yet some day, when I’ve been long ago scattered to the Pacific, thanks to our obsessively modern record keeping, my descendents will know the day I stopped buying tampons.

And here I thought the medical community had no understanding of women’s bodies.

the shower

(not the baby kind, the kind you take to get clean)

I get to take one every other day or so it seems. That’s with Mike still home from work. We’ll see what happens in the near future. I’ve noticed a few things about the post-partum shower.

1. At some point, I wake to consciousness standing under the water, soap stilled in one hand, rocking. Am I rocking the new baby I hold most of the day now, or am I rocking to quiet myself?

2. Every now and then, for just the briefest moment, between the shampoo and the conditioner, I forget.

3. I admit that sometimes I spend a bit longer hidden away under the weak jets of rusty water that block out crying, a routine I have no grasp on, than I might need to for reasons of cleanliness.

correction

Doh! Thanks, Barb. My apologies for mis-posting the Witches' line from Macbeth - Of course it should be Double, double, toil and trouble... Shame on me. Happening already, is it? I'm slipping away from all I formerly knew...

While we're taking care of business, I just wanted to also mention thanks! to all who posted comments about the Little One. Cute these creatures, no? Trouble. Hey Tracy, I had a dream that I met you!

Mothering a newborn is as difficult as I’d imagined it to be. And actually, I underestimated what it would take for my own physical recovery. It’s a major double whammy. Makes me think of a comedian’s routine I heard once (I think it was Lewis Black) "Starbuck’s coffee’s expensive, but at least the lines are long."

Ah, what's that? The sweet sound of my infant? Must go.

the midwives

One of my friends has admitted that when I refer to the (three) midwives she can’t help but picture the opening scene of Macbeth - Boil boil toil and trouble! I have to remember to tell them that; they’d think it was very funny.

The midwives were/are so great. Literally spoon-feeding me after I gave birth, coming to the rescue when panic sets in, spending hours telling me everything is all right. There are no more scheduled visits until Isaac is six weeks. Of course I can call, but…There are other babies set to arrive. We have to recede into our own lives. The moments of terror can be blinding.

At one of the follow up visits with the midwives, they are gathered around my bed just as they were when I delivered Isaac. They are listening while I still marvel aloud at the work involved, not just in care, but in labor and in recovery. I feel gutted. And then, after the nipple cracks heal and sleep returns to normal – maybe decades from now, light years - I will be left to raise a boy in this world. It’s all huge. Pam nods. "That’s why women are opposed to war," she says softly, "they know what it takes to make a person."

breastfeeding

Angela: Did you moo?
Kitty: What?
Angela: Moo. It’ll make you feel better. Go ahead. Moo.
Kitty: ---
Angela: Mooooooo!
Kitty: Moo.
Angela: There. Feel better?
Kitty: What gives me the feeling I’m not just any cow, I’m one of those Far Side cows?

4 days old

Isaac: A birth story in seven acts

(abridged version)

Scene: Saturday, February 19th, 2005. Small Town, California.
Characters: Kitty (preggo), Mike (Kitty's husband), Maggie (the midwife), Rachel (midwife's assistant), Pam (midwife's assistant 2), Isaac (baby)

Act I:
6am: Bounce out of bed to email everyone I owe emails to.
7:15am: Dive back into bed, because for godssake, it's Saturday.
7:16am: Mary calls from Brooklyn demanding to know what I'm doing up so early emailing her. We catch up. She leaves me with wishes for a pleasant birth. "I'm sure it will be ... " (being the nurse and never one to sugarcoat, she searches for something appropriate) "... memorable."
10:15am: Finally get out of bed again. Don't feel very good. The rain is hard and steady. I comment about "what beautiful rain" out loud to myself watching it through the front window. A minute or two later, Mike comes in and notes "Cool rain."
Mike heads out to do errands – gathering bits and pieces for all the last minute projects before the baby arrives, in two weeks or so. I stay home and attempt to clean the house. I'm moving slowly since my stomach hurts. Damn indigestion.

Act II:
12:00pm: While washing my hands in the bathroom, I notice the giant conch shell that lives on the window sill. It's the one Mike brought back from a research trip to the Bahamas almost six years ago. I grab it and start scrubbing the dust out of the crevices. I chuckle to myself unsuspecting that this is just the kind of thing women were said to do when they started labor – become gripped by strange urges to madly clean things they would otherwise not even notice.

Act III:
3:30pm: Mike finally gets home from the stores and we put together the closest thing we have to a nursery – a corner shelf from Target that we fill with the baby's books and Pooh characters from Grandma.
6:30pm: After continuing to feel bad all day, I try to go to bed and block it out. From that point on I am up and down, up and down from bed, miserable with what I think is gas pain.

Act IV:9:00 or 10:00pm: A fleeting thought - "What if this is labor??" But I blow it off. Shortly after that Mike has the same thought, but I blow him off too. I try a Gas-X and Mike reads about indigestion in his medical remedies books. "I can't deal with this pain, Mike. How am I going to handle labor??"
11:00pm: We try a walk in the rain. I head up the hill at mock speed. "Do you want to slow down?" Mike asks. Though colorful retorts fill my head, I do him the favor of declining to answer and plow steadily forward through the dourpour. The rain battering the umbrella is the best thing I've felt in hours. By now, the pain is clearly rhythmic. Denial digs deeper into its foxhole, peers out with beady eyes – labors can stop, it tells me.
11:30: (Back home and still stubbornly waiting for the Gas-X to kick in.) I let Mike convince me to sit and watch the beginning of Saturday Night Live. Okay, the Botox talk show bit is actually pretty funny and I make it through most of it before squirming away to writhe on the bed some more.

Act V:
Midnight: Panic. I'm inconsolably miserable. I can't be anywhere. What if this is really labor?! And then... Ohmigod! The house is still a disaster! I beg my husband to straighten the living room, finish the dishes... Mike leaves me with an Eyore rattle to ring for him when I need him to come be with me. Unable to tell him immediately just how insanely stupid this idea is, I wait until the next contraction, throw Eyore across the room, and scream Mike's name. No one heard from Eyore again that night.
1:30am: We call Maggie. "Do you feel like you want me to come right now?" she asks me. Apparently bent on preserving my misery, I hesitate. "Then call me back in half an hour and tell me what's going on."
2:00am: My waters break.
2:15am: We call Maggie back. She's on her way. (The home visit, where she would have come here and made sure we had all the supplies we needed, we'd have staked out the place for birthing, and just allowed the midwifery team to see where the hell we live so they weren't – uh – looking for the apartment for the first time in the middle of the night, was set for four days from now...)

Act VI:
Months later (2:50am): Maggie arrives. "Hi, pretty lady," she offers. Ugh. Start with me. Pretty my ass. I quiz her about whether she let the cats out when she came in. She is slightly puzzled, but used to me. Mike reports on the exact locations of the cats and appeases my neuroses.
3:00am: No sense of time left: Maggie is vigilant on the cell phone still trying to get ahold of the assistants. I need her to focus on me. She'd tell me later how quietly freaked out she was to find me ready to push with no back up, nothing set up and no instruments sterilized. I wasn't worried about any of that, I just had to have a baby. With instruments boiling on the stove, the smoke alarm sounds. Could these people have mercy on my poor cats?!
I am lost in a haze. Relaxation techniques are the biggest fucking joke right now. "Did I mention labor hurts?" Maggie quips. I stare at her from within my pain, shooting daggers but helpless. "Did I mention it hurts alot?" She smiles.
Pam arrives. She looks fresh and calm at 3:30 am. I'm glad to see her.

Act VII:
3:40am~4:10am: At first I'm not pushing very hard. I'm tired and the pain has shifted, it's less intense, I'm resting. I change positions a couple times and with directions on how to push more effectively push the head down. "You can reach down and feel the head!" Maggie tells me excitedly. I take this in and ignore her. "Feel the head!" she repeats. She should know better, I do not want to feel any heads emerging from my yoni, but she is full-on midwife mode now, my inclinations meaningless to her. "It's a once in a lifetime opportunity!" Even now? Even now, I have to be a people pleaser?? I feel the head. "It's weird!" I conclude. "Did you feel the baby's head though?" Maggie prompts. "Yes," I tell her, "And it's weird!"
4:13am: Rachel arrives. I ask her if she let the cats out.
4:14am: Mike is holding my left hand. I turn to him, "Are you ready for this?" "Yes," he answers. I laugh at him, it's that half-crazy laugh. I see a flash: the blue/grey of the cord entangled with floppy limbs - all of Isaac shoots into Maggie's hands.

(No Pooh characters were harmed in the making of this production.)