Anything Said: July 2007

Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Cletus takes New England: a photo essay

Friends, we survived. We survived the taxi ride to the airport, the security check (thank goodness we had sealed our carry-on liquids into terrorist-resistant ziptop baggies), the flight to Boston, the bus ride to the rental car, and the drive to Maine. And then we survived it all in reverse.

And in between, I occasionally stopped freaking out long enough to have some fun. We spent the first couple of days of our vacation in Boston, reconnecting with both place and people. I know it's just because we lived there for so long, but every corner of that place felt like home. Not that I'm exactly itching to move back, but it was nice to feel comfortable in my skin again. We had a park outing with dear friends, where Cletus the Former Fetus refreshed herself thusly:

From there, we proceeded to Maine. I had all these romantic visions of taking that perfect photo of my child's first visit to the ocean: me bending down slightly to hold her hand as she stood tentatively at the foot of the water, her toes sinking ever so softly into the sandy beach. I'm getting misty just thinking about it. Except apparently Maine didn't get the memo about how beaches are not supposed to be made entirely of rocks. So instead, we spent most of our time at the ocean hovering on various elevated patches of grass, trying to block the child from crawling to her death:

We were in Maine to celebrate the wedding of one of our closest friends. In this case, "celebrating" seemed to translate into Eating Nothing But Lobster For Two Days. As the groom was a college classmate of ours, we thought it best to dress Cletus appropriately for the festivities:

The wedding itself was the highlight of the trip. We lured two friends from Boston to come up for the night and babysit the Former Fetus so that we - and by we of course I mean I, since the husband had already been getting his groomsman on all weekend while I rocked constant baby-duty, but that's a post for another day and another Xanax - could have a good time at the reception. And have a good time I did. My friends and I were seated soundly at a table in the very back corner of the beautiful inn where the party was held, our location secured either because we were chiefly Groom's Friends or because those in charge knew we were bound to spend the dinner hour taking compromising pictures of our table settings:

I don't know which it was, but I do know that I drank like a college freshman on welcome weekend, and that during the father of the bride's elegant and classy toast I raised my glass only to have my husband yank my arm back down due to the fact that I had exuberantly started to clink everyone's champagne flutes with my vodka-tonic.

Also like a college freshman? The Sunday morning hangover. Except now, with 100% more baby. I don't have a photo to go along with this one; you'll just have to use your imagination.

Sunday, July 22, 2007

On the road AGAIN

Ok, people. I'll be gone for a week while we "vacation" in Boston and Maine. It's a vacation on account of the traditional time off from our places of employment with pay. It's a "vacation" on account of the teething ten-month-old we're bringing along. It's our first flight with the baby and we didn't buy her a seat on the plane. Anybody have any survival tips other than the standard bottle-during-takeoff suggestion? We're not leaving until Tuesday morning. Which means that, naturally, I'm already Flipping Out like we're boarding in five minutes.

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Blocking up the scenery, breaking my mind

You may remember that last month my husband was sent to a conference in Beijing, because that's what happens when you are a scientist and not a librarian. He came back with pictures of lots of stuff that looks like this:

Those pictures are nice. But he also brought back pictures of stuff that looks like this, which I prefer because I am twelve years old:

He claims to have seen a sign at his hotel prohibiting "harlotry and wenching" but I don't believe it, because how could you see a sign like that and not take its picture? Non English-speaking people who kindly translate their native tongue for the tourists are HILARIOUS!

Last weekend the husband and I passed a sign in our neighborhood advertising a "Moving Garage Sale." We both cracked up laughing, but only later did we realize that we were laughing for entirely different reasons. He had read the sign as a mobile garage sale, as in "Dude, I'd love to buy this coffee table from you if you would just stand still..." Whereas I had looked at the same sign and thought, "A moving garage sale? Where the deals are so awesome they make you cry?"

My favorite sign ever was one I saw when I was fresh out of college and living in Washington DC. Some friends and I were leaving a poetry reading at the Library of Congress and we passed a hallway nook crowded with wheelchairs, which I guess were intended for patron use. A sign was posted above the chairs, warning "Wheelchairs Are Alarmed." I don't think any of us would have noticed were it not for my friend S., who took one look, squealed with glee, and then twisted her face into an expression of terror and threw up her hands, shouting, "Eeeeeek! I'm a wheelchair!"

Maybe you had to be there?

Friday, July 13, 2007

Potty animal

There are two varieties of crap currently dominating my life. The first is my crap job. I wish I could tell you all about this, but I can't. Lucky for you, though, the second variety is the actual toxic crap coming out of my child, about which I can freely blog all day. Grab a coffee and settle in.

Cletus the Former Fetus is almost ten months old, weights 27 pounds, and appears to possess some bastardized version of free will. She crawls and furniture-walks and babbles and plays with the dog and today, for the first time, she actively watched the television, meaning that I can finally accept her as my flesh and blood. She is growing. I'm not going to go all Precious Moments Anne Geddes baby-in-a-flowerpot on you, but it IS mindblowing how quickly it happens.

Part of this growing up means that my bottle-monger of a child now sits down to sup on three solid meals a day. She still gets her Similac fix on as well, but the bottles are becoming more supplementary as solid food has taken center stage. We're constantly trying to feed her new things. Her standby faves are mashed-up avocado, boiled sweet potatoes, boiled carrots, yogurt, any kind of cheese, and applesauce. Mixed results have been achieved with brown and white rice, mac and cheese, and banana slices. Dismal failures? Mangoes, watermelon, and oatmeal, to name a few. The last two, in fact, brought on gigantic adult-sized heaves and subsequent pukage.

She also still totally eats jarred baby food from the store. All of you haters can go grind up some barley while I take a nap over here with my Chicken and Apple Dinner. It took me awhile to get on board with the selection of "meats" but now she enjoys almost the full array. I say almost because we draw the line at Beef in Beef Gravy. Have any of you ever opened a jar of that paste? Meh. I have a firm policy that if I taste it (which I do, everything) and it makes me want to hurl, there's no way I'm making her eat it. That's why we pretty much skipped that whole rice cereal business. We were not buying the propaganda; that stuff tasted like feet.

So anyway, what I'm building up to is this: you can see by the poundage that the child is not starving, yes? She sucks down chunks of carrot and slices of Havarti (today's lunch) like she's headed to the gallows every time, barely pausing to gum/chew with her three little teeth. Then, a little later, she gets curiously quiet. Sometimes she keeps on with the business of playing and mess-making, other times she pops a squat, always she becomes all red eyes and concentration. And then, the odor. And her work is done.

Before solid food, of course there was still poop. But not really. Not like this. People, every diaper change these days is an adventure. There are shiny colors, a veritable rainbow of crap. There are endless consistencies, each one a fresh delight. Often, my senses are treated to whole pieces of food that passed through the child apparently unchanged. And then there is diaper rash, a result of pushing vats of toxic waste out into your skivvies and then sitting around in it like a villain.

I remember back during the first week of Cletus' life. The husband and I hovered over her nervously for days, waiting for the first mythic meconium poo that wouldn't come. Everyone kept asking: "Has she pooped yet?" "Has she pooped yet?" And we would wring our hands and gnash our teeth. Why? Why wasn't our baby pooping? What were we supposed to do to get our baby to poop??

Apparently, we should've given her sweet potatoes. That's all I'm saying.

Sunday, July 08, 2007

When feminist librarians get blogs

Last Thursday I was ordering books for the library where I work when I came across an ad for a book about preventing date rape. I think it was even called something like "Preventing Date Rape". Unsurprisingly, the book was written for a female audience and focused on things women can and should do to avoid being targets of sexual violence. Does this ever piss any of the rest of you off? Because it pisses me off. Like, why and how are women supposed to be preventing date rape? News flash: we're not the ones doing the raping.

If the book were called "Protecting Yourself Against Date Rapists," I might feel less angry about the whole thing. The idea of a woman protecting herself against an assailant doesn't, to me anyway, project some kind of responsibility onto her for the existence of the crime in the first place. To say that women should "prevent" date rape implies agency. It says "you're the victim, but you shouldn't have let it happen." Where are the books for men called "Stop Raping People"?

You want to know what else makes me angry? The fact that there is a Library of Congress subject heading (Library of Congress subject headings being the set of controlled vocabulary with which all library books are catalogued, DUH) for "Working Mothers" but not for "Working Fathers". Because, of course, ALL fathers work -- that is what they do, by definition, so the Library of Congress need not point it out. Fathers are fathers; the "working" is implied. But, see, mothers are different. Unlike fathers, they alone have the option of staying home with their children, so a sub classification is necessary to set apart those who "work" from those who don't.

Also, believe it or not, there are two different subject headings under which books about doctors can be classified: "Physicians" and "Women Physicians." Not "Male Physicians" or "Men Physicians" -- just "Physicians." Because here in the 2007 now, physicians = dudes. Same thing with "Lawyers" and "Women Lawyers", and "Executives" and "Women Executives." But don't worry, ladies. We've got the corner on all the important stuff. Take for example the twin headings "Prostitutes" and "Male Prostitutes."

And also, when will Sylvia Brown stop writing books? She's got one coming out about psychic children and I had to order multiple copies for the library because I already have patron requests for it and the whole thing makes me feel dead inside.

Wednesday, July 04, 2007

Things I was able to do as recently as last month which are now strictly prohibited by order of the Former Fetus

1. Sleep past 5:00 AM. Back in ye olde golden days of yore (early June), I used to luxuriate in bed until the grand hour of 6:30. From time to time, wee voices in my heard would whisper something about "you used to sleep until 11, and watch tv in bed, and occasionally even have sex IN THE MORNING" but I ignored them. 6:30 was a fine time to get up; it meant that Cletus the Former Fetus had slept. But now... Cletus the Former Fetus? She still sleeps. UNTIL 5:00. If I put her to bed earlier, like this bastard recommends? 5:00. If I put her to bed later, like most rational people seem to suggest? 5:00. We have blinds AND curtains up in her room, and a white noise machine running all night. The next step is to cover her windows with cardboard and foil (not kidding) and equip the child with muzzle and blindfold (only slightly kidding).

2. Sit still for five minutes. Because in that five minute period, the child has crawled to the other side of the room, cruised from the couch to the coffee table, consumed half a box of kleenex, stuck two fingers into each of the dog's eyes, drank Tylenol, and dropped a deuce in her pants.

3. Leave a room that the child is presently occupying. I'm not talking about leaving her alone unfettered (see #2); I'm talking about putting her in her crib so I can go to the bathroom, or plopping her into the Pack-n-play so I can go put in a load of laundry. Used to be the child would play happily by herself for at least a couple of minutes. Lately? The instant I disappear from her sight she flips out like the end of the world is nigh. The first couple of times it happens each day, it's endearing in its own screechy way. I think: she needs me; she wants me. By the 49th time, I think: Seriously? She needs me again? She wants me still?

4. Think rationally and/or do my job. Chance of mercury in the vaccines causing autism? Better stay up all night questioning Dr. Google, the premier medical professional to consult regarding whether or not to let your child get the measles. An article states that babies can get elevated lead levels from chewing on keys? Better pull the hardware from your child's mouth and put in a calcium-and-iron IV to flush out the inevitable lead poisoning and subsequent illiteracy. Ordering true crime books for the public library where you work, which - maddeningly - are by far the most popular nonfiction books you purchase? Better stop and read entire chapters from each book featuring a smiling pre-mutilation baby on the cover and/or a title like "The Cradle Stopped Rocking"; this is merely research for personal traumas yet to come. After all, you do live on the first floor now. Did you check the locks on those windows yet today?

5. Stay mad for more than five minutes. At the baby, anyway. Everybody else -- that's a different story. I still have an image to maintain.

Sunday, July 01, 2007

Everything old is new again

It's four days post-move, and I have got one discombobulated pooch on my hands. The pug, she is confused. She's been spending most of the day in her crate voluntarily, just sitting in there with the door open, looking out all "these are my people, this is my stuff, but WHERE ARE ALL THE MATTED CLUMPS OF MY OWN DISCARDED FUR?" It's sad. I hope she is able to go on.

So the move is complete and we all survived. Before the move, there was a weekend in Austin, Texas with two of my best friends from college. This trip had its own blog post which I composed in my head but never wrote down, which means I can pretty much remember a couple of "and"s and a "the." Suffice it to say that it was a rockstar weekend; we saw Patty Griffin play a sweaty late-night outdoor show, and we ate and drank and told our secrets like we were straight-up slumber partying. Also, in the course of said slumber partying, we learned that my friend E. has always thought that the lyrics to Alanis Morisette's "You Oughta Know" go as follows: "It's not fair to deny me of the cross-eyed bear that you gave to me." Like, Alanis' boyfriend won her this jacked up bear at a carnival and now he's being a big bastard and taking it back and she's PISSED. Awesome. (Equally awesome, my other friend, C., looked at an image of Richard Marx on the television screen that same night, clucked her tongue, and said, "That kind of volume just doesn't happen by accident.")

Then there was the packing and the preparing and the four random days at my parents' house experimenting with my cousin's Magic Bullet (which is, by the way, every bit as awesome as the infomercial says it is and I am so totally getting one and I don't even care that you are secretly judging me right now. You blend your smoothie right there IN THE CUP FROM WHICH YOUR DRINKING WILL ENSUE. I don't know why more people don't understand this).

And then there was the move itself. Seeing as how we have here in Chicago A) a nine-month-old and B) about 75% fewer friends than we've had anywhere else we've lived, we hired movers to do the dirty work on moving day. And do the work they did... for like a million dollars. Seriously. To move our stuff from one two-bedroom apartment to a different two-bedroom apartment about five minutes away, it took a four-man crew four hours. FOUR. When we moved here from Boston, it took me, the husband, my father (who incidentally has only one arm), my mother (who incidentally is barely five feet tall) and my brother (who incidentally is lazy) less than two hours to unload the truck. So yeah. I'm thinking we got ripped off. But whatever. We're moved.

The new house is great, and we've made a lot of progress on the unpacking tip. The baby and the dog have already enjoyed much frolicking in the big backyard. I have so much cupboard and counter space in my kitchen, I'm swimming in it. We went to the farmer's market, now conveniently located around the corner, on Saturday and brought back some zucchini and teeny tomatoes, which I spread out luxuriously all over the countertop this evening while making a tasty bake. We've also got a porch swing and a parking space and some shady, shady coolness up in here.

Lest you think it's all roses, though, let me assure you: there are thin walls. There is a yappy dog upstairs, and a neighbor who apparently likes to do laundry (in the shared basement directly below our apartment) at 12:30 AM. There is a malfunctioning dishwasher and a landlord who has yet to return my calls regarding its repair. But still. You take the good, you take the bad. One day, I swear to you all, I will scoop up my American dream and live in my own damn house, free of the tyranny of The Man as expressed through the misdeeds of landlords. Until then, though: did I mention the parking space?

Now go visit Julia and shower her with praise -- she just had herself a wee little baby boy!