teamwork

I jinxed us by writing about Jake's sleep on the internets. Any progress we had been making seems to have gone out the window in the last few days, and I am spending a lot of time in the wee smalls sitting in his rocking chair, wretchedly reminding myself that he will eventually sleep through the night, even if that eventuality is several years away. Ugh.

However, the universe has been awesome, by which I mostly mean people I know. Kat gave us her glider, so I have a place to rock the baby in the middle of the night. Paul drove me out to Kat's to pick it up. Jenny took Jake overnight last Saturday so we could get some sleep. Folks have sent me sweet notes about my parenting abilities. And as a cherry on the top of it all, I found this website:

http://www.askmoxie.org/

Behold! A parenting website where people discuss their parenting experiences instead of screaming at everyone else about how they're doing it wrong! It's a miracle. Now if I could only figure out how the spambots are defeating my word verification for comments, all would be golden.

why yes, that IS a Cuisinart in my bathroom!

Jake is finally spending some of the night sleeping in his crib. We're usually able to get him to sleep between 7 and 7:30 without too much fuss. He doesn't stay asleep particularly well, but it means as much as two whole hours some nights when we can just hang out, usually watching tv because we're too wiped out to do anything else. Still! Adult time is awesome. Oh, hello, person I married. I vaguely remember you as someone other than "that guy I hand the baby to."

The complicating factor is the layout of our apartment, in which the baby's bedroom shares a wall with--you guessed it--the kitchen. Another wall with the dining room. And since his nighttime routine (bath, story, nurse, song) can take up to 45 minutes on a tough night, we usually have not eaten before getting him down. Hell, some nights spook doesn't even get a chance to get home before I'm in there, rocking and singing. The only outlet in the house that feels far enough away to run a noisy appliance is downstairs in the bathroom.

I left my coffee grinder there this morning.

inside out

Having a baby is, in my limited experience, like ripping your heart out and then sending it into the world where anything can happen to it. I meant to be blogging the last few months. In fact, I meant to be blogging every day. Babies nap, right? But the experience has so far been both so intense and so banal that I could not think of a way to express myself. And so I haven't.

it IS a fashion statement. it says "I give up!"

I was really, really happy about buying a pair of jeans that fit me. Wearing maternity clothes when you are no longer pregnant is just depressing. And oh! The novelty of pants with a zipper! So why, you might legitimately ask yourself, did I also buy a pair of sweatpants?

TO HORRIFY STACY LONDON.

What are you doing, 'col?

Well, I'm doing laundry, which hardly bears mentioning, since I'm always doing laundry. Unless I've given up on the laundry, in which case spook is doing it. This morning he said that he had put in all the laundry last night, and I thought no way, and then I discovered that all the laundry did not include the two sets of sheets and mattress pad that have been waiting to be washed, oh, since Jacob was born. I don't want to diminish his achievement; there was a lot of damn washing to do. He also washed all of the bottles and all of the breastpump paraphernalia, no minor feat. So today I'm trying to get through the aforementioned sheets, and to assemble all the diapers and put them away. For ten seconds we could have clean diapers.

Can we talk about cloth diapers for a second? They are not nearly the nightmare that I was afraid they would be. When I told Adam about it, he said "You're doing all that folding?" Incredulous, wide-eyed. I know there are people who do all that folding and think nothing of it, but I am not of that tribe. No, in fact, we bought the BumGenius diapers (I am embarrassed just typing that), a diaper described to us (more embarrassment coming up) as "the Cadillac of diapers." No lie. These are pretty awesome, and totally straightforward, a big plus for me since when the Diaper Lady was demonstrating prefolds for us, I realized that I would need a degree in engineering just to understand how the damn thing was supposed to go together. The other big factors in the ease of our cloth diaper experience are:

1) Flushable liners. You wouldn't think this would matter much at the infant poop stage, but they cut down on the rinsing.
2) A spray head for our laundry sink tap. Thank you, Jenny. Before this I could not get the water pressure high enough and had to scrape poop out of the diapers by hand. (Ew. I know. But babies are gross, so stay with me.)
3) Laundry in our apartment. I cannot stress this enough.

The other thing I've been doing lately is reading a lot about food. I just finished Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food. He says in the introduction that he wrote it after The Omnivore's Dilemma was published partly in response to the reader questions he received: now that you've done all this research about food production, what do you think we should eat? What do you eat? So it's two parts critique of the way nutrition science filters into the public imagination and one part his guidelines about what he thinks makes sensible eating. His ideas feel possible to adopt, unlike the dogmatic and rigid thinking which makes up so much of food discourse. Instead of feeling squashed by impossible standards, I came off the end of this book feeling inspired to change our food habits--both shopping and eating.

iterative development

Here is what I have learned in the last four weeks: the first month, all you will do is feed the baby, change the baby, and try to sleep. Seriously. Over and over and over and over and over again. If you do anything beyond these parameters, it is a fucking miracle. This is especially true for people who are single parents, or for people whose partners have to return to work right away.

With the help of our massive supporting cast, we have done some other things. Thanks to spook's job, which allowed him to be home (with the exception of a few days) until this week, we managed quite a bit of the housework. (We also had volunteers do some of our laundry and dishes.) Thanks to being strongly motivated to not go crazy, we went for a lot of walks, both to calm the baby and to get ice cream. Thanks to fairy godmother Jenny, we got a chance to go out to dinner, just the two of us. So I'm not trying to discourage you, folks who do not have kids, so much as telling you to keep your expectations super-low and then congratulate yourselves like mad on every small achievement. It feels much better that way.

This first week by myself is interesting so far. It's a lot less possible to get things done when there isn't a second set of hands around--and I'm cheating, because once again fairy godmother Jenny steps in so that I get to eat lunch. Lunch which she makes for me. I am completely spoiled. But today I count as a victory that I was able to take a shower, something which has previously only been possible when spook is home because it breaks my heart to put Jake down if he's crying, even for five minutes to get clean. But y'know, showers are awesome, especially at such a sticky time. (Not ten minutes goes by without me getting some substance all over me--drool, breastmilk, toast crumbs, and--rarely but unpleasantly--poop.)

My mind feels a little bit gone, although it's actually better than it was early in my pregnancy when I felt so sick all the time that I seemed to have been sublimated by my wretchedness. I do the same repetitive tasks and it's hard to get my brain out of that loop to talk about anything else, so I hate listening to myself, because even though I kinda knew I was going to be one of those people who's all the baby the baby the baby, I didn't want to be. And gradually, I guess, I won't be. There are non-baby activities in my life, even if a lot of them occur simultaneously with breastfeeding: watching HBO's Rome and the NFL preseason, playing Scrabble, visiting with friends. Today I'm going to rent National Geographic's documentary about the Romans in Britain. (Yes, it's a kick I'm on, all right?) It will mean a walk in the beautiful fall weather and a chance to look around at the slightly wider world. Baby steps.

safely back in the world

"my heart's not new
I'm not like you
I've loved and been loved
well and badly too
my body's been
through everything
I've used and been used
I got over it
there's something that you learn on a tightrope
just outside the spotlight,
there's a big net waiting"
Tanya Donelly
I'm Keeping You

I'm listening to my son making little sighing noises in his sleep. It's been three and a half days, and I still can't quite believe he's here. I probably do not have time to tell you about his birth before he wakes up, but I can tell you that it was one of the most challenging and most rewarding experiences of my life, that spook showed me a depth of devotion and care that I can still hardly fathom, that although I was terrified that it would somehow be too much for me to cope with, it was not. And now he's here with me.

Et tu, Brute?

I've been reading novels set in the Roman Empire (one series concerning the rise of Julius Caesar, another set much later in Roman Britain), so I thought I'd borrow some nonfiction from the library. It seems, however, that all I care about is looking at Roman art and reading about the structure of the military.

Also that it is a good thing I developed this quirk now and not five months ago, because I would totally have tried to talk spook into naming the shrimpbaby Gaius.

Anyone have any good military history to recommend?

It sparkles!

I keep thinking "I should blog," and then I don't, mostly for the reason that the stuff in my life at the moment is all "I was sitting at the computer and my cat was hovering anxiously in my lap, when I realized I should probably go and pee for the ninth time in the last hour. When I stood up I discovered that one of my legs had gone to sleep and then I had a contraction and had to hold on to a chair to keep from falling over."

Yep. Glamourous.

On the other hand, the internet gave me this.

if you're reading this

Dear Person Who Thinks That A Catchy Way to Get the Attention of a Prospective Employer is to Drop Letters at Intervals Around the Store You Hope To Work In (I'll call you PWTTACWTGTAOAPEITDL@IATSYHTWI; I hope that's not too informal for you),

You might recognize yourself from your salutation: "If you're reading this, it means I have already submitted my resume to you!"

While I commend your creativity, I feel that someone should point out to you the actual effect of your letter-dropping, at least in my workplace.

1. I found your letter on the floor of the elevator.

2. I wondered (admittedly, not very seriously) if your letter was full of Dire!Poison!

3. I handed it over to a supervisor, who rolled their eyes, because this was the fifth such letter they had received from you.

After the first time, which I will admit would have made me go and look up your resume to see if I wanted to hire you, although I make no such claims on behalf of any of my managers, it's just littering. If doing it once does not get you the result you hope for, I suggest you move on, because at that point you can determine that either this tactic doesn't get you the right kind of attention, or that the issue is your resume. Perhaps that is where you should direct your energy.

PWTTACWTGTAOAPEITDL@IATSYHTWI, I'm not trying to be a bitch here. I'm trying to help you get a job. Good luck.

'col

I miss my dignity

This was the main thought going through my head when I was struck with a terrible foot cramp at work while multiple onlookers got to witness me going "Ow ow ow ow I'm fine it's just a cramp ow I know what to do about leg cramps but ow ow ow--oh. That's working. Okay."

Max said ten new words this week

I would like to invite all of you to pledge to Team Max in this year's Walk For Autism. Max's mom, Katrina, has been deeply kind and supportive of me in the last few months. She played matchmaker for us with some of her friends who were looking to give away baby things they didn't need any more. She encouraged me when I was miserable and sick and wondering what the hell I had gotten myself into. And what I wonder, every time a note pops up from her with a word of advice about something I've complained about, or a check-in to see how I'm doing, is where the hell does she find the energy?

I can't possibly tell you what it's like to be the parent of a child with autism, much less what it's like to be that kid, but I invite you to consider the following figures:

Recommended treatment for autistic kids: Intensive Behavior Intervention. This is most effective between the ages of 2 and 5. It is recommended that children get a minimum of 21 hours a week of therapy. The cost, out of pocket, is $45 an hour. The wait list for funding for this therapy, as I understand it, is currently hovering somewhere between 2 and 3 years. That doesn't take into account how long you might have to wait to get a diagnosis in the first place. When I think about what this would mean for us--that in order to get appropriate treatment for our child, we would have to pay out more money than we make--I feel sick. And when I read about what Kat's working on to make sure Max gets all the opportunities he deserves, I feel inspired.

Come with me if you want to live.

...Guys?

I know I just moved and all, and there are probably a number of updates that people might be happy to have about what's going on in my life and this trailer is no longer even that new, but...

Apocalyptic sf makes me flaily.

The first Terminator movie made deep deep grooves in my brain when I saw it as a kid, and I am similarly excited about this, Christian Bale's douchebaggery notwithstanding. And how excited am I? I'm wondering whether it would even be possible to get in to see it on Thursday, and if not, how soon thereafter we could go, given our work schedules.

I am full of squee.

Oof.

At lunch today, shrimpbaby kicked me in the ribs so vigourously that I made an involuntary "huh" noise, and then stared down at my treacherous belly.
"Those are my ribs!" I told him. He kicked me again. "And I am currently using them!"

I can see that this is just preparation for things to come, for example the foolish notion that sleeping through the night is worthy of consideration.

the basics

"Put a pillow between your knees when you're sleeping," my midwife said. I do, faithfully, gradually getting used to the weirdness of sleeping on my side. This morning it feels like my femurs might just pop out of my hip joints, bitey crescents of pain.

On the other hand, the shrimpbaby is doing flips, occasionally booting me with an elbow or a foot. Hi, buddy. Fifteen more weeks. I woke thinking about how I was hungry, was suddenly worried that he would be hungry, and then thought "No, no, that doesn't come until later." And then I thought about how freaky it must be to be born, and then to be suddenly cold, and hungry, for the first time in your life, with no idea what it is or if it will ever go away. I realize this is not a new thought, but it was new to me, or new to me in a way--in the sense that it was the first time I'd ever gotten inside the thought. Little dude, I can't save you from the scary feeling of getting hungry, but I will always feed you.

irrational fear

I must keep reminding myself: my uterus is not a water balloon, and no matter how weird it feels when I bend over, it is not going to pop.

Eeugh.

oh, now that's just embarrassing

In a time of economic uncertainty, you know what a really great idea is? Doing something so stupid that you piss off half your customer base.

Amazon, massive online book retailer, has removed a whole whack of titles from their sales rankings because of "adult content." In many cases, this means those books don't show up in a search of the Amazon site, either. One wonders how Amazon plans to sell these phantom books. One also wonders how Amazon defines adult content. The answer? "As poorly as everyone else who's ever tried it." In one of the more ridiculous examples, Bret Easton Ellis' American Psycho (complete with horrific serial killings) still shows up, but Unfriendly Fire, a book about queers and American military policy, is apparently too racy for us.

Books with queer content are disproportionately represented (or unrepresented, I guess) in this new system, regardless of whether that content consists of frolicsome fisting threeways or the mere mention of our existence. Also missing in action are romance and erotica titles (though which ones appears to be a crapshoot), and I'm sure there's more.

The internets are already ablaze with fury, and I think some fury is warranted. But you know what else is warranted? Hysterical laughter. Seriously, Amazon? Seriously? What were you thinking?

I'm with the Smart Bitches on this one. I say we Google Bomb them. Click for a new definition:

Amazon Rank

ETA: Apparently Amazon is now claiming that it's a glitch and not a new policy. And you know, if they had offered this as the first explanation, I'd've been willing to believe it, because the alternative is just so mindbogglingly dumb. But here are a couple of points to consider.

she's a jukebox with a knack for fighting

Oh, the things I would like to blog about--I would like to tell you that I'm methodically working my way through my packing, making sensible decisions, scheduling the cleaning that needs to be done around here--but that's spook. I am mostly staring in dismay at the boxes, bereft of any sense of what needs to go in them or how to go about it. Or, in the rare occasion when I know exactly what needs to be packed and how, void of motivation to do it.

I hate transition periods. I want to be in the new place, already, and then we could unpack things. That part is not so bad.

Similarly, I'm impatient with my pregnancy. I should say that things have gotten better. Both the nausea and the dizziness have passed, and it wasn't until they were both gone that I really knew how exhausted I've been for the last four months. I have a personality again, and the resources to look for the positive in things, whereas when I look back I can see that I was coasting on the habit of cracking jokes about the things that make me want to cry. Now I'm happy to see people. I can think about something other than how wretched I've been feeling. So aside from the fact that all my connective tissues are loosening up, which means that if I stand for any length of time it feels like someone is taking a chisel to my pelvis, I'm doing pretty well. (For those of you who wonder about it: try not to be working in retail sales when you're pregnant. Every frustrating limitation will directly impact your ability to do every aspect of your job. I'm just saying.) I think it's a good sign that I feel better enough to feel antsy. I want to meet the shrimpbaby--on the outside. We have seventeen weeks to go. (I checked; I keep screwing up the count and thinking we're farther along than we are.) I am trying to be grateful that we've got the time; after all, there are nine million things to do between now and then.

my family just got bigger

This is Nico, second of my World's Most Gorgeous Nieces.

nom nom nom

It's not all throwing up and fainting and complaining about how my clothes fit, 'round here at Newly Human--some of it is waxing rhapsodic about the grocery store near our new apartment. We went over today to measure some room sizes and sign our lease, and on our way home we stopped by to do a sample shop.

From a neighbourhood grocery where icing sugar and veggie burgers have both been known to qualify as a "frill," we are moving to one where the No Frills has live Tilapia, a butcher's counter, and seven kinds of ready-to-bake pies (four if you want them in the "pie for two" size). They have bean curd in hot chili oil, they have Mole in jars, and cans of tomatillos, they have fancy snack nuts. About halfway through our shopping spook started giggling helplessly and widening his eyes at me, like can you believe this shit?

This in addition to a Sobey's right around the corner and about six fruit stands within a ten-minute walk, two coffee shops selling fair trade beans, a cheese shop and an organic meat store. It is food heaven.