A few thoughts on motherhood

I've been reading Dooce's blog for several years now, and found some of her posts during her pregnancy to be a little over the top, irritatingly melodramatic. But her posts since the birth of her daughter really really resonate with me. Like this one. I can remember trimming my fingernails in the first week and only getting four of them done. It was a good 36 hours before I got to the remaining six. I can't really explain why, what I was doing. Yes, in theory Annabelle sleeps 16 hours a day, and shouldn't I get lots done during those many hours she sleeps? But in practice, not so much.

This week I finally felt like I got into a groove, getting Annabelle up and bathed, efficiently running errands with her, getting her in and out of the carseat and the awesome Bjorn that my sister got for us. Yesterday I was up, showered, bathed Annabelle, had company, and made it to Sam's, Target, and Walgreens before 2. Yes, I can bring home the bacon and fry it up in a pan. There's been more leakage of bodily fluids; today she both spit up on my shirt and went to the bathroom on my jeans, but what the hell, we're all just electrons. It mostly washes out.

So after finally getting the hang of this, alas, today is my last day of maternity leave. (Tomorrow is a holiday, so I'm not counting that.) Where did the 12 weeks go? On one hand it seems like a million years since Annabelle came into our lives, but on the other hand it seems like 12 weeks went by in an instant.

I'm heading back with very mixed emotions--a heavy heart to leave Annabelle, but a desire to get back into work things, see my friends, and use parts of my brain that have been dormant for the last 3 months.

Baby tips to make a mother insane

While we were gearing up to have this wonderful small girl that has changed our lives, I was sucked in on multiple occasions to the DIRE DIRE warnings about how anything you could put on, over, or near your child is a deathtrap! A DEATHTRAP! I figured once I got the basics and stopped reading those insane reviews and news pieces I would be fine. But a wise friend told me that the worrying doesn't stop with the birth of a child. Wise words, indeed. It turns out that if the children are lucky enough to survive the death traps, there are many, many things the parents can do to permanently damage them--simple things, like feeding them or letting them sleep. For example:

In my book about sleep, entitled something like Healthy Sleep Habits Happy Child, a misleadingly cheery title, I was told things like:

If your child does not learn to sleep well, he may become an incurable adult insomniac, chronically disabled from sleepiness and dependent on sleeping pills.

Yikes! But no pressure getting her to nap. Really.

And there's Dr. Spock. Sweet, supportive Dr. Spock. I got his book in the hopes that it would be reassuring. The latest edition is an updated version that incorporates many of his original segments and theories with updates from a new doctor/editor who has a dark, dark side. It started out all deceptively cheery, lulling me into a false sense of confidence with advice such as:

Don't take too seriously all that the neighbors say. Don't be overawed by what the experts say. Don't be afraid to trust your own common sense. Bringing up your child won't be a complicated job if you take it easy, trust your instincts, and share concerns with your friends, family, and doctor.

This I liked! I read further. He has some charmingly antiquated pieces of advice, such as:

It's good for a baby (as for anyone else) to get outdoors for two to three hours a day, particularly during the season when the house is heated.

Have you been to Chicago in January before, Dr. Spock? During those long, cold days when the house is heated here, it is very very cold out. Cold like our fingers and toes and noses fall right off, cold. Cold like the baby would freeze to death in minutes. VERY COLD.

So some things I disregarded. But generally he was upbeat and reassuring. But later on, even kind, gentle, antiquated Dr. Spock--et tu, Dr. Spock?!--joins the panic-inducers:

When parents constantly urge their baby to take more than she wants, she is apt to steadily become less interested. She may try to escape from the experience by going to sleep increasingly earlier in the feeding, or she may rebel and become balky. She's apt to lose some of her active, positive feeling about life. It's as though she's gotten the idea that life is a struggle, that those people are always after her, that she has to fight to protect herself.

It's a good thing Annabelle is very clear in her dietary wishes, namely I DEMAND FOOD RIGHT THIS INSTANT BRING IT TO ME NOW WHERE IS THE FOOD YOU IMBECILES DID I NOT MAKE MY WISHES CLEAR AAARGH! Often J will bring her to me when she's mad and impatient with hunger, and right before she settles in to start to eat she'll turn to me and let out one last indignant cry, aargh! There is never any sense that I'm forcing food on her, thank heavens!, because I couldn't bear it if I were taking away her active, positive feeling about life. She is, all kidding aside, a very sweet-tempered and loving girl, and we are so very enamoured with her.

Random thoughts, part II: The Dirge, The Dirge!

First off, I have to say how tired I am of this relentless cool rainy weather, which I refer to, while shaking my fist to the heavens, as "The Dirge! The Dirge!". After ten years in Chicago I have come to expect that May will be disappointingly cool and rainy, but by June Mother Nature has to get her ass in gear and give us some sunshine, man! Alas, no. Just cold rain. The Dirge! The Dirge!

Second: One of many things I've learned as a result of motherhood is the importance of prioritization. At this stage, the little one's naps are unpredictable in schedule and duration, so I never know if I have 10 seconds or an hour before I will be called away from what I'm doing. So in those brief respites I have to quickly go through my list of things needing done and decide which is the most important, then set about doing it expeditiously. Now, for example, I should be sauteing onions to go with the pieroghis, replying to emails, or doing some of my day job. But instead I blog. I haven't perfected the prioritization, but I'm working on it.

Now, off to saute some onions. Then again, we're still having a crashing thunderstorm so perhaps she will sleep peacefully for another hour...

Random thoughts

Inspired by my sister, Cousin Flora, who has resumed her blogging, I’m going to try to post a few of the eight million thoughts I’ve had in the six weeks since my last post, as many of them as I can before my little benevolent dictator decides my time at the computer is up. Here goes…

--The benefit of using the rain sounds CD to soothe the little one is that when we really do have rain, indeed, a crashing thunderstorm with torrential rains and hail, she just sits raptly listening to it all, not batting an eye at even the loudest thunder claps. In fact, she is now sound asleep.

--Have you read “One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish” recently? That’s some crazy stuff. What did Dr. Seuss stir into his coffee that morning, I wonder. It starts out with a standard parade of fish, including the eponymous red and blue ones, but next thing you know you have a big furry thing called a zans opening cans, man. I love Dr. Seuss.

--Two reasons I wish I had Star Trek technology: so I could beam myself and loved ones to and fro for visits, and so we could avoid the nasty needles required for immunizations. The heartbreak of her little screams and first real tears! The starships always had those painless infusion thingies. They'd probably already have eradicated measles, mumps, and rubella on the Enterprise anyway.

Another installation of "That Mother Nature is one crazy lady"

We enjoyed a gorgeous day on Friday, with bountiful sunshine and temps near 80. And then Mother Nature had one of her fits and yanked it away from us, because apparently she loves Kankakee better than Chicagoland...

After reveling in the first truly warm days of the year Friday and Saturday, a strong cold front sent temperatures crashing across the area Saturday afternoon.

In Highland Park the mercury plunged 28 degrees from 70 to 42 in just 14 minutes shortly after 1 p.m. and by 5 p.m. the temperature in the north suburb hovered at 37 degrees while the Kankakee area still basked in the lower 80s.

The temperature disparity generated waves of showers and thunderstorms across the region that produced heavy downpours and hail.

But she can't stay mad at us long...

Sunday morning will open rainy, damp and chilly, with brisk southeast winds holding temperatures in the lower and middle 40s. But the warmth is expected to surge back into the area Sunday afternoon with the mercury rapidly rebounding to the lower 80s, as gusty southerly winds initiate the temperature comeback.

New arrival

We're very pleased to welcome Annabelle Moxievanilla, who arrived April 14 in the evening. We're still figuring out how to navigate this crazy parenthood path. I am a project manager by trade, but this is so unlike any project I've ever managed. Hoo boy.

Also in the category of this might be funny only to me

After just emerging from a house-hunting and purchase process I found this story interesting: burglars are targeting open houses that have been staged with borrowed furnishings and swag to spruce them up, making off with thousands of dollars in high-end linens, electronics, and furniture. The author of the story struggled to present the situation in the most serious light, however:

In Piedmont, the discriminating criminals have made off with bath linens, dressers, upholstered chairs and sofas, table lamps, mirrors and end tables (not to mention the flat-screen televisions). In perhaps the most perplexing incident, the perpetrators stole high-end bed linens, a duvet cover and a metal bed frame from a master bedroom — but left the matching dust ruffle.

OR:

Ms. Holstlaw, like many of her pearl-wearing, flat-shoed colleagues here [MEOW], has been harboring conspiracy theories. “You go online and you can tell if a house is staged,” she said. “There’s nothing personal in it. In real life, everyone’s knickknacks don’t all blend.”

Ironically, it's really NOT that cold outside

All night I've had loops of the same short annoying conversations disguised as dreams. Thirty seconds of a co-worker asking for help with the annual sales meeting; can she borrow one of my staff? Yes, of course. I wake up, I sleep again; it's the same person with the same request. YES, TAKE HER. Meanwhile, this completely banal conversation's soundtrack is "Baby, It's Cold Outside", which has been looping NONSTOP in my head all night.

I finally gave up and got up, intending to listen to the song to release it from the confines of my wretched mental jukebox. I swear I have it on CD somewhere but could only find a bizarre Jackie Gleason whistled version. iTunes has 145 versions of it, some of them absolutely abysmal (Tallulah Bankhead, no!, or an explicit version from Blowfly that has to be the most horrid, irreverent piece of Yuletide music ever created.)

It must be Steve Lawerence and Edie Gorme's sing-song presentation ("I'll take your hat...say, your hair looks swell!"). Dean Martin rushes that line; Tom Jones is far too campy; Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Jordan sing over each other. Inexplicably the Steve and Edie version is 81st in popularity (Blowfly ranks 58th; there is no accounting for people's tastes; sheesh). I'd like to hear more than the free 18 seconds iTunes gives me but do I really want it on my iPod year-round?

Suffice to say, I eagerly await the contraction portion of the labor process.

I appreciate the inquiries but NO, SHE HASN'T COME YET

I am getting many considerate and kind inquiries every day regarding the status of Baby Girl Moxievanilla (what's that? No, no, she hasn't come yet; thanks for asking!). Status checks by distant loved ones are of course completely understandable. We will of course let them know when the big day comes, but it's fine to call and check. But I had to laugh just now when the HOSPITAL called to see if they had the correct due date and she hadn't come yet. Yes, it was April 4. No, she is not here yet. Thanks for checking. I will let you know when the big day comes because I will SHOW UP THERE, IN LABOR. Really, I'll be hard to miss.