Anything Said: December 2006

Wednesday, December 27, 2006

Post-holiday malingering

We are still in the throes of Holiday Family Togetherness, so please excuse my extended absence from blogland. Can I make it up to you with some delectable Christmas babytude?

No? How about if I tell you that Santa Claus rocked my holiday by bringing me a 2-DVD set of Tori Spelling's greatest hits, including the recent release of "Death of a Cheerleader", otherwise known as the greatest cinematic treasure ever to grace Lifetime Television for Womyyn, and the lesser known but I'm sure equally awesome "Deadly Pursuits", both of which I will totally let you borrow?

I thought so.

Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Be merry. That's an order.

December is always a confusing month for me. On one hand, there's the onset of winter, with its freakishly midwestern temperature drops and frozen things falling from the sky. I hate cold weather, I don't go sledding or make snow angels or sit at my window staring google-eyed into a winter wonderland, and I prefer my roadways to be visible, thank you very much. But then, on the other hand? There's Christmas. And boy howdy do I love me some Christmas.

There are so many awesome things about Christmas that I hardly know where to start. I mean, first off there's the music. You've got your old-skool classics, like that one old guy who sings "Have a Holly Jolly Christmas" and then that other old guy who sings "Silver Bells," and then all those weird new-agey arrangements by Mannheim Steamroller (who ARE they?? does anybody know??). And then you've got the more modern-day classics, like that Eurythmics version of "Winter Wonderland" -- I guarantee you've heard this playing in, like, CVS or something -- and the pseudo-We Are The World holiday anthem "Do They Know It's Christmas," in which Bono wonders whether the lack of snow will leave poor Africans confused, walking around all "dude, I know we live in the desert and all, but without white flakes falling from the sky I have no idea what month it is!" And on top of all that Christmasy goodness you've got the Cherry of Wrong that is most holiday music released in the past 10 or so years, including but certainly not limited to "All I Want for Christmas is You" by Mariah Carey, "Christmas in Hollis" by Run D.M.C., and my personal favorite, "Baby It's Cold Outside" performed by Nick and Jessica. Ho ho ho - you're divorced.

If you somehow get tired of listening to all of the awesome music, you can switch gears and settle in for some awesome Christmas TV. There are like 5,000 Christmas-themed movies on Lifetime, like the one where Olivia Newton-John is a mannequin who comes to life and steals a motherless child ("A Mom For Christmas"), or the one where Jo from the Facts of Life is a Very Important Business Lady who gets in a car crash and wakes up as a stay-at-home-mom who volunteers at the church and feeds the homeless and though she resists at first she is eventually bitch-slapped into wifely submission by the spirit of Christmas ("Comfort and Joy"). Or you could watch one of the many Very Special Christmas episodes of *enter name of hour-long television drama here*. My favorites are always of the Little House on the Prairie ilk. Who doesn't love the one where Pa busts his ass making a saddle for Laura's Christmas present, not knowing that Laura secretly sold her horse to Nellie Oleson so that she could buy Ma a stove, NOT KNOWING that Pa has already bought Ma the same stove, and then Ma and Mary go and top it all off by making Pa the same damn shirt, causing Ma to hide hers under the rug in shame. Seriously, who doesn't love it? If it's you, you're dead to me.

(Speaking of Little House, I saw the raddest episode the other day, where Laura and Almonzo are engaged and Laura gets a letter asking her to teach school and she really wants to do it but Almonzo gets all emasculated, causing Ma to serve up an antifeminist smackdown of the highest order in which she tells Laura that getting married is hard for the ladies, seeing as how they have to give up their hopes and dreams and become house-monkeys for their menfolk, but in the end it's all worth it on account of the general awesomeness of big strapping husbands. I paraphrase, of course. And also, Nellie gets knocked up by a Jew.)

My favorite awesome thing about Christmas is the present-shopping. Present-shopping is second only to grocery shopping at Trader Joe's on my list of awesome retail adventures. While I fully realize and appreciate the heinousness of a religious holiday being shoved down the collective throat of Jew, Gentile, and Pagan shoppers alike, I can't help but enjoy the pageantry in spite of myself. I'm like a cat: it's shiny, so I have to bat at it with my paw. I love that feeling when you are doing something totally random, like washing dishes or waking up in the morning or lint-rolling your couch, and that elusive Perfect Present Idea pops into your head without warning and you have to run out and buy it that instant. Or in my case this year, run to the internet and order it that instant, then wait three weeks for it to arrive, late and poorly packaged. I have a 3-month-old baby. I do not shop outside the confines of my home.

This year, obviously, is Cletus the Former Fetus' first Christmas. Last year at this time I had just gone off of the magical wonderdrug that is the birth control pill, so that the husband and I could begin what we thought would be a months-, maybe years-long journey of preconception. Turns out it was a shorter journey than we thought. We were there and back in a couple of weeks. Without doubt, the luckiest Christmas present we ever received: the blessing of fertile soil. If I could bottle it up and give it to everyone who wanted it, to family members and dear friends who would give anything to have a family, I would be the happiest gift-giver in town. Because really, on a scale of holiday awesomeness, with 1 being Not Awesome and 10 being Jon Bon Jovi Singing "Please Come Home for Christmas" Awesome (translation: really, really, awesome), this ranks about a million:

Friday, December 15, 2006

Shameless Hawking of Product is the Reason for the Season

Here it is, the official Anything Said product endorsement of 2006:

My blog-friend Holly has opened up an online store. At that online store, she sells flax packs that she makes herself. These are lovely little packs that you can heat up in your microwave and strap on (shut up) to yourself in order to comfy up what ails you. They are cute and fashionable and smell like lavender. I bought one from Holly when I was pregnant. It loved me through the hellish first postpartum weeks, it loved me through two cases of mastitis, and it continues to love me in my current life as brokeback slave to the Bjorn. You should buy one for yourself and for anyone who needs to be saved from the perils of physical discomfort. Seriously, they're homemade and they rock. What else could you possibly want? I mean, besides a pony.

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

Taking leave of my leave

Behold the power of the one-handed blogger:

Yesterday was my first day back at work after 12 weeks of maternity leave. I did not cry when I bid Cletus the Former Fetus farewell in the morning and headed for the car. I did not suffer separation pangs as I listened to the day's news on NPR during the drive. I did not wonder "what's she doing what's she thinking does she miss me?" as I walked through the library's staff entrance and made my way to my desk. Not that there's anything wrong with doing or feeling any of those things -- I just didn't. Instead, I pulled out a framed photo of the kidlet at her cutest, propped it up next to my computer, and proceeded to have the best day ever.

See, that whole colicky baby thing? Hasn't gotten any better. Cletus still screams like a banshee-child for significant portions of the day. She still demands to be held for most of her waking hours and refuses to nap unless cradled in my arms or strapped to me in a sling or Bjorn. She is still unable to drift off to sleep on her own and needs to be aggressively swaddled, rocked into a veritable coma, and sprinkled with magic voodoo powder before she will go down in her crib for the night. For the most part, all that's changed in the last couple of months is that she now holds her head up, sprinkles some 5,000-watt smiles and giggles over her otherwise gloomy days, and has apparently discovered the soothing facial exfoliant that is The Drool. As for me, I've learned a few coping skills AND dropped the nazi diet I tried to maintain while breastfeeding, thereby releasing me to eat my feelings with abandon.

I hope you'll understand, then, when I tell you that in comparison to the last 12 weeks, work is SO DAMN EASY. It's not that I even love my job all that much; it's just that work makes sense. I like work. I understand work. Work has rights and wrongs. Work has a starting point and an ending point. Work has other people to talk to and unlimited coffee. Work has a lunch break. A LUNCH BREAK, with tables and chairs where I get to sit down and eat for thirty whole minutes. And after I eat, I get to go to the bathroom at a leisurely pace, and then I get to go sit at my computer and type things. With both hands. And an empty lap. I get to feel smart, like I have half a clue about whatever it is that I'm doing at a given moment. I get to care about things like dewey decimal numbers and the graphic novel budget, things that don't matter AT ALL. And then, on the way home, I get to listen to NPR again, or my Ipod, or sweet delicious orgasmic silence.

I'm not saying that I wasn't happy to see Cletus when I walked back into my apartment last night; of course I was. She was all curled up in her daddy's lap, her face soft and warm when I kissed it, her hair all messy and adorable. But then about twenty minutes later, the screaming started anew. And as I launched into what has become a nightly routine of pacing and rocking and dancing the polka around the living room, I felt deflated, like someone coming down from a tremendous high. Which made me feel guilty. Which seems to be the defining emotion of motherhood, so... back to normal it is, then.

Over the weekend we took Cletus to my parents' place, where she stayed overnight while the husband and I spent a luxurious evening in a hotel in the glamorous, romantic hotspot that is Fort Wayne, Indiana. For us, luxury meant seeing two movies (The Queen and Stranger Than Fiction, both excellent, if you're interested), having dinner at Steak n' Shake, and retiring to our room with a 6-pack of Guinness. It was undeniably awesome and we thought of the baby only happily, and in passing, not wistfully and constantly like I feared we might. And the next morning, as we drove back to my parents' place a few towns over, I felt - you guessed it - guilty over that very fact. Why didn't I miss my daughter more? How could I leave her so easily and not even worry that she'd be ok? What did other moms have that I didn't, that made them heartsick over being separated from their children even for a few hours? What was wrong with me?

Being a mom and feeling the guilt. They seem to go hand in hand. Why do we do this to ourselves, and how do we make it stop? Cause I'm over this whole Oprah Winfrey self-help-frosted mirror hating I've been feeling these days. I'm working tomorrow, and I'm planning to enjoy my lunch hour like it's joy in a box with a side of fries.

Thursday, December 07, 2006

Night terrors

Nighttime is hard for new mothers like me. I'm not talking about lack of rest -- I bought myself a coffee-maker and have gotten used to existing in a state of near-permanent exhaustion. Neither am I talking about 2:00 AM feedings -- for the past couple of weeks, Cletus the Former Fetus has been sleeping between 6 and 8 hours in one stretch, a blessing we enjoy guardedly like a murder suspect out on parole; we never know when we will be stripped of our sweet, sweet freedom.

No, I'm talking about another kind of hardship. Before I had a baby, I used to scoff at the image of new moms running in to their nurseries throughout the night to make sure their infants were still breathing. "No way will I be that paranoid," I thought. "In fact, no way will I even have a nursery to begin with! Nurseries are bred of consumerism and as such are tools of The Man! My child will sleep on a crib in the guest room and she'll LIKE IT!" And then I got pregnant and had Cletus. And yes, she sleeps in a nursery (albeit a sorta ghetto one with mismatched furniture, bare walls, and a closet full of rumpled sheets and towels), and yes, I do run in to said nursery throughout the night, driven entirely by the overwhelming irrational fear I used to cast off as ridiculous: where is my child, and sweet god is she breathing?

I can't explain it. Every night I lie in bed, paralyzed by worry: worry that the baby will wake, cry, scream, and I'll have to get up and feed and console her. But also worry that she WON'T wake, cry, scream... and I'll selfishly sleep for twelve hours, wake refreshed, and go to her crib to find her gone. So I check her. When I wake up randomly in the middle of the night and realize that I haven't heard any baby grunts or rustles for awhile, I check her. When I hear a snort that could be either dog OR baby, I check her. When I second-guess how tight I remember swaddling her, I check her. Sometimes my night checks wake her up, and I curse myself for my lack of self control. And also: I sigh a little with relief, in spite of myself.

A couple of weeks ago, on a visit to my parents' house, I had a horrible nightmare in which my daughter died. In the dream, I was out with a friend and came home to find my mom waiting for me at the door. She delivered the horrible news in a prepared speech that started out like a newscast: "Honey, every day more than 6,000 children die in the United States." And then she told me that Cletus had passed away, and next thing I knew -- I woke up. Just like in those dreams where you fall and fall but open your eyes moments before you hit the ground, the full impact of that moment's grief was too awful to survive, even in sleep. I climbed out of bed and got down on the floor where Cletus was sleeping in her travel bed, pressed my cheek against the side, listened for the soft intake of her breath. Only when I heard it was I able to release my own.

As hard as motherhood has been for me thus far, as much as I complain and bitch about feeding and colic and how the Baby Bjorn has relegated me to a life of spinal deformity, as much as I'm never quite sure that I'm cut out for this, I do know this: if I were ever to wake up to a world without my daughter in it, I would never again be ok. And sometimes, with that knowledge, I'm not sure I will ever sleep soundly again.

Tuesday, December 05, 2006

First things first

I've been meme-free for far too long. Courtesy of Madness and Dori:

Who was your first love?
My first love was Jason R., the smartest boy in my elementary school. Jason amused himself by writing out the number pi until it filled up pages and pages of notebook paper, and walked around with a tiny perma-boner poking out through his sweatpants. I pined for him from the day that I met him in the fourth grade until we went our separate ways, he to private high school and me to public. Sadly, he never returned my affections. Once, in 8th grade, he passed me a note after class and I was so stoked, so sure that he was about to become my boyfriend, FINALLY, except that when I opened the note he was totally asking me whether or not my friend Jessica was interested in him. She was, and they started going out, and Their Song, I remember, was "Another Day in Paradise" by Phil Collins. Which is about homeless people, so, you know, whatever.

Who was your first kiss and when?
I was a freshman in high school and the recipient was my first boyfriend, Mike the Christian. We were watching Roseanne on the TV in my parents' basement. There was a moderate amount of tongue involved. Not too much; he was God-fearing.

Who was your first prom date?
Also Mike the Christian. He was a junior and I was a sophomore. We had been broken up and had just gotten back together. I wore a little black lacy number; the prom theme song was "Bed of Roses" by Bon Jovi (I KNOW!); we left early so that we could drive out to the dam and make out in his pickup truck. The next day we went to Cedar Point with a minivan full of his friends from church. A week later, we broke up again.

Who was your first roommate?
My roommate my freshman year of college, Courtney, remains one of my closest friends today. I knew we would get along when she showed up for the first day of orientation wearing a Spam t-shirt. Not Spam, the dirty email, but Spam, the canned ham. For Christmas that year, we unknowingly bought each other the same Ironic Stocking Stuffer (the "Saved By The Bell" soundtrack on CD). I was jealous of all her other friends and wanted her all to myself. Sometimes I still do.

What was your first job?
When I was 15 I started working as a waitress in the "restaurant" at a nearby senior citizens' home. I served pureed items to the elderly, who often forgot their orders.

What was your first car?
The first car I actually owned was Mrs. Peepers, the green Chevy Cavalier the husband and I bought when we first moved in together. The first car I drove, though, was my dad's castoff pick-up truck. It was brown with an orange stripe running up the side, completely bad-ass, and barely worked. I loved it like a fat kid loves cake.

When did you go to your first funeral?
My first and only funeral was that of my friend Allison. I was in 10th grade when she died in a horrible accident -- the student council van that she and several other students were riding in was hit when another driver ran a red light. Allison was thrown from the van and killed; another student was paralyzed. I was in 3rd period choir when the principal announced the accident and Allison's death over the loudspeaker. The funeral was a couple days later and was so, so sad.

How old were you when you first moved away from your hometown?
Does college count? If so, then 18.

Who was your first-grade teacher?
Mrs. Welsh, who wrote in my report card that I was a "delight." Which was and is totally true.

When you snuck out of the house for the first time, who was it with?
I don't remember the who, but I do remember the when: my birthday slumber party in, I think, 7th grade. We snuck out the back door and TP'd the home of Jason R. (see above), just a few blocks away. The next day, a couple of us rode our bikes by his house to see if anyone had cleaned up the mess, but we made sure to act all nonchalant like we just happened to be in the neighborhood, la-di-da, not looking, not looking, because we were thirteen and hella stealthy.

Who was the first person to send you flowers?
That would again be Mike the Christian. He gave me a flower on our first date, and for our one-month anniversary he got me a white chocolate rose. I saved that rose and saved that rose until one day, months after we broke up, I finally got over the sentimentality of it and chomped it down. But by that time it was all old and nasty and I got sick and couldn't eat white chocolate again for years. Fucking Mike and his wily Christian ways.

When was the first time you got drunk?
The day I graduated from high school. My friend Wes got his older brother to buy us "alcohol" (Zima and wine coolers), we drove out to his parents' lake house and stayed up all night. The next morning I nursed my first baby hangover through my graduation open house. I sat there surrounded by my high school awards and my relatives drinking punch and felt like I had a very, very big secret.

What was the first thing you did this morning?
Picked up the screaming baby. Coincidentally, this was also the second, third, fourth, and fifth thing I did this morning. And also this afternoon, and this evening. And will be UNTIL THE END OF TIME.

Sunday, December 03, 2006

Creature comforts

Not long before Cletus the Former Fetus was born, a friend of mine introduced me to the concept of the Push Present: a special gift presented to a new mom by her partner on the occasion of their child's arrival. Meant as a way of thanking the mother for volunteering her body to be mangled by pregnancy and labor, the Push Present is often lavish, meaningful, sentimental. It comes from the heart. Which is why I, upon learning of its existence, dropped hints to the husband that I might want to receive one. And, of course, by "dropped hints" I mean shamelessly asked outright "What are you getting me for a push present? Katie Holmes got diamonds."

The day came, Cletus made her appearance on the red carpet that was my hot mess of a hospital bed, but there were no diamonds in sight. I comforted myself with the knowledge that Cletus was my Push Present, that diamonds would cost money that we didn't have to spend, that I don't even really wear jewelry, that Katie Holmes is a Scientology war bride who had to deliver the faux-child of Jerry Maguire. And then, last week: my birthday. The husband gave me a gift bag and pronounced it Push Present, birthday present, and maybe a little Christmas present too, and I opened it, and lo, it was good:

It's a Nano! The Product RED one, the one that Bono uses to fight the AIDS! See how pretty? See how shiny?

As it turns out, this past week was particularly heavy in the New Product arena. Besides the Ipod, our home has also seen the addition of a healthy helping of the baby crack known as the Playskool Let's Play Together Tummy Time Gym. Yes, it has come to this. I am now a person who uses my cashflow to endorse the use of phrases like "tummy time" and companies whose names incorporate whimsical misspellings. But this toy? Gets my child to stop screaming for whole 15-minute intervals. She lays (lies? I should know the difference, but I don't) underneath it, stares at the flashing lights, flirts with herself in the little hanging mirror, and gleefully kicks her legs until her tiny socks fly off. This afternoon she played under it long enough for me to eat an entire leftover slice of Chicago-style stuffed pizza. With a fork! Chewing and swallowing included!

Also in New Product news? My friend Sarah sent me a boxed set of Freaks and Geeks DVDs as a gift. I had never seen an episode before, but Sarah insisted that my abiding love for Angela Chase and Jordan Catalano made me a perfect candidate for Freaks and Geeks fandom. Today, I viewed my first episode. People? This show is Awe. Some. Not only does it feature adolescent angst, questionable early-80s fashion, and a band of nerdy boys kicking some serious bully ass, but it expertly weaves two -- not one, but TWO -- Styx songs into integral points in the plot. Any show that sets a gawky teenager's first slow dance to the tune of "Come Sail Away" is worthy of my respect and admiration indeed.