A Daily Dose of Zen Sarcasm!

Metamorphosing

Thicket of Cherries, originally uploaded by Madame Meow.

Spring is ironic because it's a beautiful event that is the walloping harbinger of life, and then death.

It happens so quickly, all this beauty. All this fragile beauty that makes some of us so sick and renders others of us into zombies who can't drive and who think they can find parking down by the Tidal Basin when it's 11:30 am, 79 degrees, and more than ten thousand other people have had a similar idea.

And then the long summer settles in, and nature becomes fat and matronly and eventually she becomes ugly and jowly and then she becomes a haggard, disheveled hag who chases you away with icy words and an acid tongue of frost.

Bla, bla, bla. I lost some weight.

I find myself emerging from a cocoon of ugly and haggard and jowly and for the first time in years I feel light, like I can enjoy the sun. Call it postpartum depression that got stuck in the DC mail; call it sudden impending modest amounts of hotness getting to my head; call it really bad timing, considering that I'm here and feeling good and pretty for once in a long time, and there's no one to cast admiring glances in my direction.

Well, no one except for this one kid, who had to have been over ten years younger than I-- he seemed to want to flirt with me earlier today, despite the fact that I was in feeding Thunderdome with the toddler.

I was baffled. I haven't really had to fend off the admiring glances for the past eleventy-or-so years, but it seems there is a first time for everything.

A first time for everything, Including having a very young guy think it's dead sexy that I'm getting pelted with partly-chewed pieces of bread. Maybe he ate paste as a kid.

File Under "Quit Staring At Me"

I know you were thinking you were a cool, compassionate man, sitting there with your coworkers and your cool tags,enjoying your business lunch, sipping on Diet Coke.  Hey, I would have even toasted your choice of beverage --mine too!-- as the choice for us eternal dieter types.

Except that you wouldn't stop staring at me.  Or, more specifically, at Don Meow.

________

For those of you who haven't recently scraped extraneous child-related goop from your clothes, allow me to fill you in on something: teeth, for all their food-chopping and tag-removal virtue are quite a pain in the ass when they are erupting out of the gums of your seven-month old.  My seven-month old, who is quite the drooler and I am beginning to suspect has been actually teething since the day he was born --either that or he is quite dramatic in all his elocutions--  has been exceedingly cranky on account of his lower right incisor starting to strain those precious velvety pink gums.

The poor little sweetie.  One moment he's happy as can be, and the next he is like a rabid dog, shoving anything he can into his painful maw and biting down to make the pain go away.

And this was what you were witnessing, sir.

Not that I could have conveyed any of this with my eyes or my mind, really, as I was far too busy shushing the kid and shoving anything I could into his mouth to prevent him as much as possible from hollering anymore. 

But then you'd look at me, even as I busily tried to hide behind the miserable baby.  And you'd keep looking at me, making me uncomfortable with that vague expression of contemptuous pity that you shone my way like an unwanted beacon.

Don't do that.

Maternal Evolution

Face-off, originally uploaded by Madame Meow.

This little cute chunky monkey face, a.k.a. Don Meow, likes to keep me up nights.

Oh sleep, how I miss thee.

He also likes to pinch and chomp on limbs; he likes to make cute random talky noises and the most darling high-pitched squeals for no reason; he enjoys being talked to, especially in Spanish; he does not particularly enjoy smiling for pictures; and he positively adores covering the world with his drool so much that his brother, Herr Meow, has decided to start calling him "The Slug."

(Proud Mama notes: Srsly? He came up with a nickname all on his own! A correctly applied nickname!)

_______

When people tell you that every baby is different and that you simply cannot and must not compare, they are usually trying to soothe ruffled tempers because someone's kid is going through a milestone faster than another's, or because someone's kid is filling out (and in) their diaper much better than another's child.

It's only when you become the parent of more than one child that you get to realize that, indeed, comparisons are pointless. Or at least comparisons amongst your offspring are pointless and potentially hurtful.

Don't get me wrong: the comparison monster likes to rear its ugly head all the time. Did Herr Meow get to be as chunky? Is Don Meow more drooly? Was the first-born more camera-friendly? Is the second-born blessed with more expressive eyebrows?

Who communicated better? Who will be taller? Who is the better eater? Who slept less or more or better or longer or more often?

And yet, for all the inner monologue that sometimes keeps me up and plagues me and makes me wonder if the Good Mothers of the World ever do this, when I actually focus on the children and stop questioning for a few seconds, I find that I can just let go and enjoy.

I can enjoy the soft, chubby, ripply deliciousness that the little baby basks in with his whole self. And I can do so while I also enjoy the lean, low-body-fat, creamy, austere landscape that barely holds babylike features within my little preschooler hellion.

I can nuzzle into the buttery chin and sniff Don Meow's milky babyness, while also snuggling against Herr Meow's lanky, mini-dynamo frame.

And I can laugh at Herr Meow's budding sense of humor and comedic timing, such as when he, embarrassingly correctly, admonished one of his little friends to "stop being such a douchebag" (reason #8375 why I would be going to Hell, if such a place existed); while I also laugh at Don Meow, who blew the tiniest of raspberries today and then cracked up at his own sound (fart sounds NEVER get old).

And I can marvel that these two children were once an actual part of my body, while now they are a part of my very existence and a very real pain in my behind (or "butt-hoooooole" as Herr Meow might gleefully declare-- this being reason #8376, by the way).

And really, when you're talking about something being a part of yourself, how can you compare? I mean, objectively i suppose you can compare your spleen to your eye, but it's all a part of the same whole. And so it is with children.

If only I could get them to sleep when I sleep, we'd really be in business.

You Mean, She's Like a Whole Lot of Cookies?

When I was a junior in high school, I was forced to attend participated in a spelling bee.  It was actually oddly fun to prepare for it and I didn't mind it very much, as I've always had a knack for spelling things correctly.  That and remembering birthdates seem to be my most salient Forrest-Gumpian characteristics.

I didn't make it very far in the spelling bee, however.  My first word was "pyjamas", or as Americans like to spell it, "P-A-J-A-M-A-S"

When I was through spelling it all British-like, I was told I was wrong and therefore disqualified.  I protested and was handed an enormous dictionary where, for the life of me, I could not find the alternate spelling.

After the bee was over, I finally found it, buried deep in the late Ps (obviously).  I tried to point it out but was summarily told that since I hadn't been able to find it within the first three minutes, that it was moot and I was still DQ'ed.

I was very, very angry.  I wish I'd been argumentative, nay, BITCHY enough to complain to a higher authority  regarding the invalidity of that bee, since the rules stated clearly that the bee could not use any words with alternate spellings.

How do you spell bitter, after all these years?  M-E.

___________

Spelling is lately much in my mind, since becoming a parent gives you plenty of spelling bee practice on a very regular basis.  It's also been on my mind because we  might be seeing the end of that child-proof spelling period, in which things that would make sailors blush get telegraphed out of my mouth with astonishing intensity, on account of Herr Meow getting really reeally good at spelling.

To wit, I have a favorite twelve-letter darling that rhymes with brothertrucker, for instance, that gets muttered with worrisome frequency.  Mmm... so satisfyingly vulgar.

Of course, spelling is fraught with mistakes.

Rev. Mom just child-proof spelled "bitch"-- too bad it came out B-I-C-T-H.  Wonder if that's some sort of early Indo-European tribe?

Which is funny because, well, it's funny, but also because some time ago Monsieur Meow also tried to spell "bitch" in a child-friendly manner and what came out was B-A-T-C-H.  We still use that regularly around here as a euphemism.

And just today, Herr Meow has started spelling the word "Dad" proudly and loudly.  Except that in one cruel twist of fate mixed in with Sesame Street-induced error, he's going around saying B-A-D DAD!

Monsieur Meow took offense.

Finally, I remember one of my earliest babysitting gigs and being urged, with a wink of delight and a complicit smile, to go ahead and get a treat out of the freezer if the kids were behaving well.

My beautiful, stylish, lovely boss smiled wide and whispered, "We've got S-H-E-R-B-E-R-T in the freezer!"

(I'm still hoping Robert and Hubert got away.)

___________

Spelling.  It's a batch.

Swimmingly, And Not So Much

The lifeguard warns us parents, "Some of your children may scream at first when coming into the water."

The orange-haired, tramp-stamped, flabby-bellied-whilst-in-a-bikini woman off to my left waves a fishbelly-white arm and points theatrically toward the sullen-looking baby she's holding with her other arm.

"THIS ONE HERE!  OH YEAH!  THIS ONE!  SHE'S GONNA SCREAM!"

You don't say.

___________

Swimming lessons are among those things that either you had --formally or informally, does not matter-- or you didn't as a child; but if you did, they marked you for life.  How can they not?  Even if they left a favorable impression, it was the first time for most of us that our parents willingly lead us to a place where we could die.

The chlorine smell and that particular pool smell, they all remind me of good times and vacations and summer, and of heartbreak and ear infections, but they also bring back vividly those first times I had to blindly trust and let go and attempt to float or hold my breath.  That salty sting in the eyes reminds me of trying to learn to do handstands and pretending to be a synchronized swimmer.

And getting an accidental gulp of pool water always brings that little bit of tinny dread to the forefront of my mind, like a lash of lightning to my conscious mind.

So now that Herr Meow is starting to take swimming lessons, I am keenly aware of my own misgivings and likes; and I realize that as much as we may project our own fears onto our children, some things are truly and universally scary for all, even if there is much enjoyment to be derived and an innate ability in some.

And so, when the young boy dressed in red and white reminds us all parents that being in a pool will be scary enough for some to scream out loud, I remember and I hold on to my kid as tightly as he wants me to, and then some.

_________

Herr Meow is a little scared of the water, but he is also excited.  He refuses to try to ride the floating board that the boy lifeguard offers him; however, when the pretty girl lifeguard offers, he gets over his fears and goes on ahead, telling me and whoever will listen afterward how fun it was and how he rode the board and how BRAVE he was.

Because he's a brave boy, right mommy?

Mommy nods.

As I hug my brave boy, I look at the shallow end of the kids' pool.  Orange-hair is there with her mother, both of them laughing uproariously as, right on cue, her child is wailing.

The swimming lesson started twenty minutes ago, and the child is still sobbing and screaming.  And her mother is dunking her periodically in the two-foot-deep water, happily dragging her child in and out of the pool.

The little girl flails her arms all around and keeps on shouting, reaching out to her grandmother who seems delighted to continue this torture and swirling her granddaughter's tense body in and out of the pool.

Both women have separated from the main swimming lesson and are taking turns dredging the unfortunate kid in the water.  As the forty-minute lesson wraps up and we leave the pool, I can still hear the screams.

_________

I'm not sure what else to say here, except that if in about forty years' time Orange-hair is wondering why her daughter won't trust in her and won't confide in her, or perhaps why she won't talk to her, I am willing to bet she won't remember that June day where she let her daughter scream for forty minutes straight and laughed in her face at her fear of drowning.

His First One Hundred (And One) Days

Today we went by the airshow at Andrews, celebrating Don Meow's one-hundredth-and-first day on this earth by watching some very cool planes do some very awesome maneuvers in the air.

Your tax dollars at work, being awesome.

______

Earlier, I mentioned how I thought Barack Obama deserved a middle-of-the-road C for his suddenly-middle-of-the-road "progressiveness". 

On the other hand, I think my little Don Meow deserves an A during his first one hundred days in Office of  Cuteness and Cooing.  And Poop.  And I realize I haven't shared much of his birth story. 

And a B, and a C.... oooh.  An idea is born.  An abridged idea, but an idea nonetheless.

A is for Apparently Amazingly fast labor, which truly started around 12:15 am when my waters broke, and ended at 3:57 am, when Don Meow popped out to say hello.

B is for Bouncing Baby Boy, which surprised me a little bit since I thought that the fact that this pregnancy was achier and more nauseated than the first could mean it would be a girl.  But there was no doubt as they thrust his boy parts in my face, that he was, indeed a boy.  Distinctly remember thinking, "Huh-- a matched set."

C is for Crying, which dear Don Meow did upon leaving the vaginal canal, and lustily.  Cry, cry, cry, and then make loads of noise.  This child was quite the vocal aficionado from day one.

D is for Delightful, yet Disturbing array of crocheted and knitted baby hats provided by the Spouses' Club.  We made off with an eyelet-looking one at first, but then a nurse also decided we needed a blue variegated one and a camouflage one.  You know, so the child knows it belongs in the military family from day one.  (hey, patterns!)

E is for Edibles, which we had by the diaperbagful, and were still not enough to Extinguish my Enormous Eatathon after giving birth.  If you're pregnant and reading this, I cannot stress this enough: PACK SNACKS.

F is for Feisty Female.  That would be me.  I demanded to move around and be left alone, and I wailed like a Feral Fire-breathing Phoenix (humor me with the F-sound at least-- I realize Phoenices do not wail) while pushing out the little Fat Fetus.

G is for Good God! Gushing (gallons of everything) and Gravidity Gone!  Golly gee... what can I say?  Giving birth is painful, it's true, but it's also a hormonal trip like no other.  It's my second time at rodeo and I can confidently say that while it's nervewracking to think of what will come, once you're done it's a feeling like I can only imagine the most pure runner's high can feel; a feeling of accomplishment and elation and like you can walk out and take over the world while folding the laundry, if need be.  Never mind that you crash a few minutes later-- right after birth, your endorphins will take you there, wherever
"there" happens to be.  Also, Going to the hospital once your bag of waters has popped was quite a trip (pun, I imagine, quite coincidental); it was kind of a walking-with-a-water-balloon-between-your-legs kind of feeling.  Although I should retract that "kind of", now, shouldn't I?

H is for Hospital.  Because although I thought at one point of doing the whole Home birth thing, Monsieur Meow was simply Not Sure about the whole thing.  And if I'm being Honest, it was lovely to have someone to clean up all those Gs.  Happy mother, she who doesn't have to boil Her own birthing instruments (but maybe I'm missing the point of a Home birth, and if so, I apologize to the Heavens).

I is for I.V. lock.  I realize this is actually called a Heparin lock (Hep lock) but I think the H was better suited to the hospital.  And this is part of why I didn't want a hospital birth: I resent having to have a catheter in place for that ethereal yet dangerous "just in case" gray area of life.  I tried to delay getting mine put in as long as possible and I whined actively until it was removed, around 10 am that morning.  And I guess that the lock didn't like me much either, because it was jammed close to my wrist bone and it chafed and hurt long after the catheter was gone.  But really, if that was to be the extent of the medical intervention at my birth, then so be it and happily.

J is for Just five days short of his due date. 

K is for Kegels.  Just. Do. Them.

L is for Love at first sight.  Little babies are Love anyway, but as much as the clichés seem to prepare you for it, nothing really does justice to when you first touch that fuzzy little head and let those little tiny quasireptilian fingers curl around your suddenly-gigantic one.

M is for Mommy, twice over.  Man, they just don't tell you how much Motherhood again will Mess up your life (and ruffle the feathers in your Marriage).

[Not to mention what it does to your blogging...]

N is for Nursing, which Don Meow did right away while Nuzzling on my Neck, and has mastered very quickly.  Nervous memories of Herr Meow kept me on pins and Needles, but in the end, it was all fine.  And really, it was far more Normal than I thought the first time around, too.  N is also for Nine, Number of ounces by which Don Meow exceeded Herr Meow's birthweight.  Herr Meow was almost a half inch longer, however.

O is for Ob-Gyn, traditional sort.  The woman who caught my baby was One such type of doctor, and while she felt a little uncomfortable with a Feral Female who refused to birth on her back and numb from the waist down, she was still genial, accomodating, caring, and very funny-- and let us not forget she was awakened at 2 am in order to catch said baby.  I will always hear her happy yelp of "IT'S A BOY!" in my head when I think of that night, and smile.

P is for Pirates-- because Herr Meow says so.  This house is all Pirates, all the time, lately.  I'm not sure what that might have to do with giving birth, other than I guess the Privateer in my uterus is now sailing the seas of the living, or something like that.  Also, Personality starts with a P, which Don Meow has slowly been unfolding.  You can say that he is a Puckish, Playful and Piggy little baby: he so far seems to always keeps us guessing; he loves to interact and "talk" up a storm; and boy, does he ever love to eat, as can be evidenced by his overall roly-poly chunkiness.

Q is for Quintuplets, which thankfully I was not carrying.  I am glad to have only borne one baby at a time, and my hat is off to people who are able to parent multiples with a Quickness to their step and no Quivering of their chins.

R is for Rooting, Reassurance, Rubber of backs, voice of Reason, and Runner-- all Roles Monsieur Meow fulfilled excellently: Really glad he was there.

S is for Sensations-- from the contractions that Seemed to last forever, and which Started irregularly a week prior; to the feeling that I'd be having the baby on Saturday, January 31st; and then on Monday, February 2nd; and then on Wednesday, February 4th; and Lo!  Finally, after Seeming like it was forever, the moment finally came and went, fast and hard and gritty like a Sirocco.  And I have not been able to catch up on Sleep ever since.

T is for Thursday night, after the beloved Thursday shows like 30 Rock and Bones (of course).  It was about Twenty-eight degrees and I was freezing my Toes and everything else off-- although there was little Time to  focus on much anything other than my impending parturition.  Incidentally, Twenty-eight degrees was a Temperature that would suffer a dramatic Turnaround on Saturday, when it was about sixty-five degrees and puzzlingly pleasant for the beginning of February (mean February 5-7 temperature is 36 ºF).

U is for the Umbilical cord, which feels bumpy, lumpy and odd as it comes out , dragging the placenta along with it.  I believe I described it recently as a bit like having a very bumpy bowel movement, but out the wrong hole.  I realize this is charming talk, but this time around both the Umbilical cord and the placenta remain very vivid in my mind-- both the exit and the textures and the squishiness and the amazement in my mind that ALL THAT could come out of me, and I could still weigh 175 lbs (the horror).

V is for Visitors in the hospital-- not many, just Herr Meow and Rev. Mom.  And nothing prepares you --while we're at the whole "being prepared by life for momentous stuff" diatribe-- for the moment in which your firstborn meets the one other being on earth with whom he shares more genetic information than anyone.

W is for Well baby, which Don Meow has been.  He is well, round, chubby and very, very demanding. 

X is for Xeroderma, a.k.a. dry skin.  This is what happens when you lose a lot of fluids, have a baby, and spend the next day and a half in the drying chamber that is a hospital.  All the lotion in the world was not enough, it seemed.

Z is for Zinger, meaning both a witty and caustic remark or a surprising turn of events or revelation.  Don Meow is a zingerful baby, always with a WAH! or a GOO! or a BWAAAAH! to interject.  I have been told that the younger child is usually mellower, but I am not exactly sure in which ways Don Meow will fullfil this dictum, since he is a veritable plethora of cute, tiny sounds and big sounds and baby zingers to fit every mood and manner. 

And the revelation is that with the firstborn, the beauty is in the newness of every waking moment, and the dread that hangs behind every action and every perceived neglect.  The second child and, I imagine, subsequent ones, let you enjoy life a little more because there is not the fragile balance of beholding raw miracles the first time around.  You know this fragility, and you know this beauty.  And you know the dread, too.  So you can steal back a little time and you can play a little longer with and without the baby, and you can enjoy the highs and sweep more of the lows underneath the welcome mat.

From the Mouths of Meowies

The man is walking my way.  He asked for some plant-related product, and the chirpy helper at the local hardware store directed him to aisle nine with insouciant pertness.

I am currently blocking aisle nine.  As a matter of fact, I am blocking aisles nine and part of ten and the main aisle that connects the garden center with the rest of the store.  I am awkwardly trying to pull the stroller out of the way for him, as well as trying to rein in Herr Meow, who wants every single dinosaur in the impulse buy tray the hardware folks have thoughtfully placed at child level.

"This one is my favorite," he coos.  "And this one!  And this one too."  "They are all my favorites.  Can they all come home with me?  Please, mommy?"  Pause.  "I said 'please'."

"No," comes my default-irritated response.  I wish I were the patient kind of mommy, but I am not.  I attempt to place a dinosaur back in the cardboard crate while maneuvering the stroller, too. 

But suddenly, he looks up with a face filled with glee.  Surely the Easter bunny hasn't been let loose around the hardware store again?

(Aside: I haven't had as much fun in an Easter egg hunt as I did looking for eggs amid the nuts, bolts, electrical, and the plants for sale.  Hardware store egg hunt, for the win indeed.)

"HI, PIRATE!  HI!  HI, PIRATE!"

The man, who came into my view a split second after he did into Herr Meow's, is wearing an eye patch over his right eye.

"PIRATE!  HI!"  Herr Meow waves and hams it up and acts as if he's female and twelve (or twelve-and-twenty) and Britney Spears is walking by. 

Pirate-man nods in his direction and gingerly makes it to aisle nine.

I am beyond embarrassment.

________

Monsieur Meow takes Herr Meow to the ballgame.

Into view comes a double amputee wheeling himself around.

Herr Meow ascertains to the person in question that he must have had "a pretty big boo-boo."

_______

I realize children do this.  Part of me is touched and amused at the ways in which small children absorb and assess their world and that which is contained in it; I mean, pirate?  Classic, right?

But a part of me is not ready for the dangerous candor that comes out of my son's mouth.

I fear it, and I fear the reactions of people.  Most of all, I fear my own reactions to his reactions: do I apologize to the one-eyed man and to the amputee for their respective injuries, even if they are obviously living full lives despite, or perhaps because of them?  Do I laugh?  Do I beg pardons?  Do I remain neutral?  Do I ignore him?

What am I to do, apart from cherishing his charming remarks?

I suppose I can always blog about it.

Other People's Children

This is, perhaps, the biggie.

The taboo subject.

That Which Will Not Be Named, as far as mothers' circles are concerned.

For, you see, there is much to be learned from other people's children.  And most of it is none too flattering.

_______

I, as usual, get way ahead of myself.  Call it my shameless attempt to get your attention with a couple of what I hope will be inflammatory sentences, just so you'll stay and read and pause and perhaps go, "OMG girlfriend is wack."

Because I know you speak in 80s-slang-cum-urban-platitudes, that's why.

But seriously, I have been mulling writing about this for a while.  Because, you see, people do not have children in a bubble.  When you have a child, or more than one child, you are also exposed to the world with children.  Some of these people happen to be pretty cool people --the kind with which you may get caught up in a picket-fenced fantasy in your mind or perhaps some glossy photo shoot of what life with children --yours and those of others-- might be like in UtopiaLand. 

Children with wide smiles, blurs of action in gorgeous clothing that isn't marred by primeval goop, none of which would be coming out of their nose or mouth, or worse.

Parents who are well-coiffed and well-rested and in gorgeous clothing, none of which would be marred by the aforementioned goop, having adult conversations that are not subjected to Spelling-Bee-like parsing.

A pristine swath of land, free of mosquitoes or treacherous parasites or viruses, in glowingly Photoshopped colors.

You know that it could happen for a nanosecond, that you may know one set of parents and child(ren) with whom a tenth of a second of idyllic circumstances may be possible.

But then there are the others.  Those "other" parents, to whom you are an other yourself.

The ones that ruin the teachable moment when their little mongrel(s) do exactly what you've spent the last half an hour telling your kid NOT TO DO, FOR THE LAST TIME AND FOR THE LOVE OF  SOMETHING SACRED, PLEASE. 

And when said little mongrel gets to do it, and keep on doing it, without getting an earful, or glares of reproach, and your kid eyes you with a mix of hurt and resentment that makes you feel old.

The kind of action that at the time is so very unfair that you're left scrambling for the right words to tell your kid that, basically, some people are total assholes who are raising their kids to be absolute troglodytes and that while right now it's your mother who looks like the tight-sphinctered harridan who is not letting you bash people over the head with the funnoodle that is NOT YOURS (is it?  No, right?  THE TOY IS NOT YOURS), well, that you might just look back on this incident twenty years from now with a little less seething rage and be able to appreciate your mother and her tough love.

Or perhaps they are the parents who are buying their kid the loud and obnoxious toy that you swore you would never get your kid, who is staring at you with what could pass as a poster face for the UNICEF.

Or perhaps they are the parents who don't tell their children how to behave; what is expected of them in social situations; why it's not appropriate to push or punch or cut in line or shove an adult, even if it's a stranger; why it's important to say please and thank you; and why it's a good idea to avoid stepping on other people's toes, shoes, hands, feet, and babies.

Or perhaps it's none of those things.  Maybe they are just the parents who seem to have their own utopia moment unfolding with their cool parent friends right before your very eyes, while you sit there and struggle with your own children and your own issues and your own oh-so-high-school issues, still feeling awkward and gawky and like the only one who got "does not play well with others" written on her permanent file and was never able to live it down.

________

Now that I have this load off my chest, I frankly don't know what else to say.  I've spent so much time thinking about the little things I thought I wanted to say, such as,

• most people suck as parents most of the time (but then again so do I),
• hanging out with others' children is like a birth control opera, but with more snot,
•  your children are all ugly, except for the cute one and the one with good manners who just smiled at me,
• how can you do that/not do that to your child?
• who the hell dressed your kid?
• why don't you get off the phone when you're handling your kid?

that I am suddenly rendered mute.

And I am rendered mute mostly because it is a truth universally acknowledged that the more vitriol you spew --even if rightly deserved-- at the world (especially in a semi-public forum), the higher the odds that any or all the things you itemized during that vitriol will come back to haunt you.  Also, because while other people's children reveal truths about their parenting or lack thereof, I fully realize my own children are revealing my own fears and mistakes and announcing them to the world, for it to take it all apart and analyze it.  And while I love to analyze others, I don't like to be picked apart that much by strangers, myself.

Also, Herr Meow is slowly turning into Dennis Mitchell.  I find myself living in a glass house these days.

Like a Pacifier For The Sleepless Soul

Oh I know.... I've been so bad at blogging lately.  Or rather it's not that I've been bad as much as missing in action.  But, well, those of you in the audience who have had kids (i.e. been also possessed by your biological imperative and gone nutters) know what's going on.

And by "going on" I simply mean that I've been going to bed at 9 pm and waking up at 7 am feeling wiped out.  Insert any and all shenanigans in between.

________

I have been promising to review "The No-Cry Nap Solution" because it's a great book, and I will do so today.

Let me tell you: few things are the result of such happy serendipity as my getting this book when I did.  Which is to say that I got it about a month before little Don Meow was born and I started pecking at it here and there. 

At first it was a few chance encounters here and there.  Herr Meow's little-brother adaptation period has gone really well, but his naps have always been a little tempestuous: there is this whole "waterboarding" feeling that used to pervade in the atmosphere in the minutes leading to the little guy's nap, as if somehow suggesting that he lay down in the comfort of his bedroom and rest his body and soul for about an hour were tantamount to shaking his hand with my left one or spitting in his eye.

Naps= unspeakable horror.

And then, like a sunbeam through the clouds, came the advice of Elizabeth Pantley into my life.  When an authority on sleep can tell me within the first page that she, "...thought she knew everything there was to know about sleep..." and yet goes on to disclose the findings throughout the book, such as the biological evidence that supports the need for naps, that she was not aware of until writing it.

Reassurance is good.

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"The No-Cry Nap Solution" is the latest book of practical sleep advice from Ms. Pantley -- who is also the author of "The No-Cry Sleep Solution" and "The No-Cry Sleep Solution for Toddlers and Preschoolers."

She is also the mother of four, which definitely vouches for her expertise alone in the been-there-done-that department.  But hers is not just empirical expertise alone: her advice is filled with practical and rational solutions that are good common sense and do not feel like the parent is imposing authoritarian discipline on the child after a "breaking in" period.

The book is approachable enough that you can read it cookbook-style--skipping around and finding your particular bit of troubleshooting necessity as you see fit-- or you can be riveted and in sleep shock and read it from cover to cover like a cliffhanger of a novel, suddenly realizing that, yes, your older kid is just damn busy all the time and sees naptime as some sort of lesser pastime with which he cannot be bothered.

Ah... the sweet sound of answers bubblilng up in the mists of tired. 

I am happy to inform that my über-busy three year old just needs a firm and soothing hand.  Now if only they sold infinite patience pills at the CVS down the street, we'd totally be in business.

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Overall, I heartily recommend this book, if anything because you need a guiding hand that does not make you feel like a total failure-- like many parenting books can-- and instead provides you with calm and collected solutions that do not feel like you're imposing medieval torture on your child.

Preamble

Mon Petit Chou, originally uploaded by Madame Meow.

As onerous as winter can become, it makes the warmer days that start to burst forth like tiny flower buds that much more well earned.

Also, it's beautiful.

There is something about how things look in memories that makes them sometimes brighter or cozier or fuzzier. We've been talking very much about perceived memory Chez Meow lately-- how three years can make a difference in how you remember the experience of having a baby, and how some things seem so memorable while others hang back unearthed altogether until a receipt or a picture or someone else's more vivid recollection thrusts it into the forefront of your own mind and makes you go, "OooOooOoooh!"

And so, with this little cabbage.
Many years from now, I may run into this picture of it, as it looked during a snowstorm the winter I became a mother for the second time, and until I do so, it may not hit me just how pale and delicate and otherwordly a plant can look under winter's delicate and deadly mantle.

And maybe I'll also remember how fuzzy and loving and naïve those earliest days of motherhood for two also looked under that particular cloak of happy, scared shitless, and tired from which I may one day emerge, ready to photosynthesize.

Or, you know, live.

No Wreaths for Wraiths

As some of you may have noticed from my blog posts and my desperate-sounding status updates on ye olde CrackBook, I have been trying to sell wreaths this Christmas.  It's one of those delightful fund-raising efforts that parents have to put up with over the years, lest they be shamed into believing that they don't care about their children's education.

Part of our particular fundraising effort included having to stand in the merciless windstorm of yesterday and peddle wreaths close to Eastern Market.  If some sort of lightbulb goes off in your head and you suddenly remember some overeager whaleish woman hawking something at you, please accept my sincerest apologies: I don't usually beckon total strangers to buy what I'm selling.

But you know what was funny?  Well, there were the usual suspects, for starters: the nice people who bought from us (THANK YOU!!! You have no idea how many blessings/good wishes/excellent vibrations/happy hormones I am sending you from here!); the nice people who didn't buy from us, and whose sense of saying "No, thank you" and adding something nice was polite and thoroughly appreciated; and the language-challenged who, upon being asked if they desired a wreath, stared at me and my associate with a mixture of horror and shyness and making all manner of dangerous maneuvers with their head-- it's okay, foreign people.  Not all Americans will try to sell you things while you're on vacation; just the ones who are kind of desperate.

And then there were the disciples of Scrooge.

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Now, I've been on the other side of having things peddled and shoved in my face, and I have marveled and cringed at the type of perseverance that it takes to do that.  But now being on this side of things, I can tell you one thing: it only takes a little desperation mixed with having someone stimulate your sense of competition.  That is actually all you need to make an ass of yourself and yell to people across the street to come admire your wares.  I would say it's fascinating, but it's not: when you gotta do what you gotta do, you do it and it's amazing how little guilt you feel after you've bothered enough people.  Mind you, it was not my intention to be annoying --I never once invaded people's personal space with anything but my rich, melodious voice, and I was careful to say "thank you" even in the resolute face of rejection.  (I tried keeping the cursing to under my breath and the flipping-off strictly into my coat pockets, for instance)

But sometimes it was hard not to keep from either cracking up or bursting into tears on a couple of occasions. 

My first such time was when a little old lady, very wrinkled and very dignified in a nice puffer coat, said the following without even looking at me:

"Bleaurghfffuff."

It might have been a meaningless guttural sound, it's true, but it was so filled with hatred and contempt and a nasty sense of how-dare-you-speak-to-me that it felt like a suckerpunch to the stomach.

Aren't little old ladies supposed to be nice and buy my crap wreaths?

When the second such woman fitting the above description --subtract oversize bag, add dog-- did THE SAME THING to me (sounding more snort-cum-bah-humbug-ish this time), I laughed.

I laughed out loud.  Suddenly, the desire to cry and run to my mommy was displaced by something I feel is more akin to what the situation was really about:  about someone who was bitter enough to forego manners completely and not even be able to say "no, thank you".  It had nothing to do with me, and everything to do with the other person.

Anyway, they missed out on very nice-smelling, cheerful wreaths.  And cheer is something some of these people could have used in spades.
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If you are going to do something nice for another being this holiday season, please remember to say "please" and "thank you" to those who serve you, seek to serve you, or those whom you serve.  You have no idea what a difference it makes-- not to mention the blog entries it spares.