blogthecat

Blog the baby

So much for trying to avoid turning blogthecat into a mommy blog. I've just looked over the last six posts, and their subjects go like this: breastmilk, post-partum embarrassment, poo, breastbiting, baby swinging, poo. Oh well, at least I'm following one good writing guideline: write what you know. Maybe better to record my real experience, niche as it currently is, than pretend there's more going on. There isn't. There really isn't. But what's going on is so much. And poo is so funny.

Quagmire

So this aft Oliver and I are on a quick trip round the ‘hood to pick up various sundries. He’s in the Snugli carrier since he so prefers it to the stroller and my back and shoulders can withstand his 20 lbs for a short jaunt like this. We’re in Meinhardts, the horrendously expensive deli/grocery store on Granville, shopping among the snooty snooties. After picking out a restrained half dozen items we line up and wait our turn for the cashier. A till opens up, and we make our way up to the counter feeling quite pleased with ourselves for our cute and quiet performance in the store. Then Oliver erupts:

“EEE-uurgh!”
(Beat).
“Eeeeeehhhh-uurrgh!”
(Beat. Beat.)
“Uurrghh!!!”

A close, pungent smell slowly but devastatingly oozes out of the pure polyester Snugli. The cashier looks discreetly away. Her face is going red. She has to deal with us, but she’s trying hard to a) not vomit, b) remain expressionless. Oliver is turned outward as per Snugli protocol, but I know his face is a) as red as hers from the exertion, and b) expectant, since at home when he poos, we congratulate him or soothe him if it looks like it’s been a tough go. I, meanwhile, am grappling with the fact that a) my baby has just pooed on me in public and b) I don’t know what decorum and decency would have me do in our predicament.

We’re all confused—the cashier, Oliver, and me. We remain mute as she rings through each item as fast as she can yet not so fast as to let on her revulsion. I pay, pick up my bags, and walk to the door briskly but not so briskly that I acknowledge my mortification. Oliver’s the only one who has recovered: he babbles happily away, knowing that despite the lack of positive reinforcement, he’s pooed mightily and well.

Memory making

I don't know where I stand yet on family photography. On the one hand, my dad is a brilliant photographer, and he and my mom have some ridiculously good and beloved family albums as a result. On the other, I like most experiences to happen sans camera interruption or influence. There isn't much time to figure it out, as I was made ruefully aware of today.

Today, I put Oliver in the baby swing at the kids' park for the first time. His dad was in Frankfurt, and his grandparents, cousins, aunts, and uncles live far away. There was only me. Only me to witness his bemusement as I lifted him into the seat, his excitement at being airborne, his wide-eyed surprise upon being swung, and finally his laughter and wild joy at being caught and pushed again, and again, and again. I will never forget the soft fall sun, the darling wisps of fine, blond hair flopping about his face, his eyes crinkled in merriment, and his open-mouthed grin as he floated up and down, away from me, back to me, away, and back, both of us locked in a long, delicious moment of pure, mutual delight.

I may be lugging that camera around a bit more.

Etymological concerns

OMG it hurts when your baby bites your nipple! I’ve been waiting for Oliver to do it, having heard other mothers talk about it, but nothing prepares you for the clamping down of two razor-like teeth on intensely sensitive skin. Thankfully, I had read about what not to do: scream bloody murder at the top of your lungs and whack baby’s head until he lets go—which is precisely what it feels like you must do to stop the blinding pain. No, there is a better option: draw baby’s head in until your boob surrounds his nostrils and he must release to breathe. I don’t know if I can say I so much drew Oliver’s head in as buried it deep, fast, and with feeling into my boob.

He did release. Then he did it again. This time after I smothered him, he actually looked up at me and grinned. A new game. Oh no!

p.s. Is that where the word "nip" comes from? I don't doubt the action could have prompted a new word.

Learning on the fly

Let me begin this one by admitting that Craig and I fit the mold of first-time, older parents to a T.  We’ve read all the de rigueur parenting books. We get mushy over anything organic and can’t wait to register for signing class. We visit the alternative pharmacy to stock up on breastfeeding tinctures and teething relievers. We persist in reading earnestly to the young prince though his only interest is in eating the pages. That’s just a sampling of our state right now.

My mom (and various others of her generation who shan't be named) tries to bear with us as we fall over ourselves trying to please this baby via the trends du jour. Sometimes she agrees with us, sometimes she laughs at us, and sometimes she longs to steal Oliver away to save him from his crazy, protective parents. She would have been crowing triumphantly had she been with us at about 5 pm yesterday.

Despite its being an FFD (Family Fun Day—a day when Craig, Oliver and I spend the whole day together hanging out), Oliver’s mood took a sharp downward turn about ten minutes into a stroll down 4th Avenue in Kits. Not a huge fan of the stroller even on his best days, Oliver seemed especially put out on this particular occasion. Craig and I stopped a zillion times, made silly expressions, launched new toys into his already crowded compartment, and cooed maniacally. Nothing worked. His face was locked in a sullen expression, he practiced a perma-whine, and every couple of minutes a torrent of sputtering and spitting bubbled forth from his little mouth.

“What IS it?” we asked each other. “What could it POSSIBLY be?” After serious contemplation and debate, we settled on the likely culprit: a Developmental Milestone—a Cognitive Advancement. His brilliant baby brain was so bushed from its relentless processing of new inputs that it was affecting his mood. We wheeled that grumpy, Einsteinian boy down the street somewhat placated by our conclusion.

The whining took on a more threatening tone, however, and we decided to stop so we could have a beer and Oliver could be sprung from his stroller. We pulled Oliver out and sat him on the restaurant table. A powerful pong met our nostrils. Oliver looked up at us beseechingly. We looked at each other, horrified. We had been marinating the poor boy in his own poo. All down 4th. Mystery solved. No comments necessary, mom.

An unfortunate encounter

You know when you bump into someone you are wholly, massively, totally unprepared to bump into? When your mouth gums up, your brain freezes, and a thick, whooshing vibration invades your ears, blocking out all relevant sound? When your interior dialogue drowns out the conversation you’re supposed to be having?

It happened to me last week. The context: a much-deserved appointment with my hairdresser, Kelli. My hair was a bushy, frayed, SOS-pad of blond mixed with dull brown and grey at the roots and it was time to take action. I showed up to the salon without thinking twice about my ensemble since I knew I would be mercifully covered in the same salon robe every other client would be wearing. As a result, my outfit could only be described as soccer-mom meets lady-who-feeds-the-pigeons-in-the-park: bright, white running shoes, slouchy, stretchy, long black shorts, shapeless t-shirt with traces of hastily wiped-off spitup, and the piece de résistance … plastic Safeway bag to hold my wallet since I couldn’t find my purse in the wreck of my baby-bombed apartment.

Not ten minutes into the soothing sounds of Kelli’s scissors, I heard her exclaim: “Jeff!” I passed a quick hand over my mouth to wipe away possible drool and squinted into the mirror. There stood Jeff. Not any Jeff. Jeff, my good friend from my life pre-Oliver. Seriously pre-Oliver … I knew Jeff in a period of my life when I went to the gym, smoked more than I ate, got my eyebrows waxed, and wore only uncomfortable shoes that tore into the skin on my feet. We partied hard and we looked good, and that was about all that mattered for a while.

Now—six years since I had last seen him—stood Jeff, not two feet away from me. Two feet away from the bright white trainers poking out under my robe. Two feet away from my post-partum dumpling of a bum. Two feet away from the plastic bag tucked under Kelli’s station. Two feet too close for my state of dishevelment.

After big hugs, Jeff sat down in the chair right beside me and we began to catch up. Except I couldn’t hear him. The mouth on his handsome face was obviously forming words, and I was nodding furiously to show my grasp of these words, but I was taking nothing in. All I could think was:

“Jeff here. Plastic bag under chair. Must give back robe before leaving premises. Will be me leaving before Jeff. Jeff will see me leave. Oh God, Jeff will see me leave.”

At a certain point, Jeff must have caught on that I wasn’t listening. He asked mischievously, “You like that sort of thing?” in reference to his description of his current job. I mumbled, “Yes, well yes, I like the industry.” I knew he was in the pharmaceutical field so I thought there was a slim chance I had responded in some way appropriately. Later I was able to piece together what he had actually said … something about his role helping doctors use defibrillators on urgent cardiac arrest patients. “I like the industry.” Nice.

Then sadly, Kelli declared my hair done. I murmured my approval, concurred with Jeff that I’d see him when I came back from the changing room, then slunk away from the chair. I saw a back-door exit and contemplated making a run for it. I didn’t. But neither did I trot back to Kelli’s chair to say a real goodbye to Jeff. I snuck quietly to the front desk, paid, then ran like the wind to the door, humming madly to block the sound of the plastic bag crinkling and crackling beside me. The horror.

First post, post-Oliver

Aaagh! I have no idea how to start this post. I’ve wanted to write every single day since Oliver (previously known as Little Dude or the LD) burst into our lives four months ago, but sheer exhaustion and confusion about what and how much I want to write about Oliver here has kept me away. Of course, the more I delay writing, the more daunting it seems, so I’m just going to do it and abandon any hope of this first post doing justice to Oliver and everything I’m feeling because of him. For the next little while, I’m going to write in a way that reflects my new reality: one moment at a time, in fragments.

So I’ll begin with a fragment from a night not long ago. It was one of the many times we’ve had with Oliver in which the most mundane of moments is the most achingly, dizzyingly full experience imaginable.

He was drunk on milk. We lay together on the bed and I watched his goofy, half-conscious smiles as he revelled in his full tummy and groggy head. Though ready to sleep, he resisted for a few minutes, limbs flailing, head whipping from side to side, over and over. Eventually the pull of sleep won, and he succumbed and went limp. I moved my face closer to his, and listened to the little sing-song moans of his breathing. Oliver’s breath smells like almost nothing; only a memory of warm milk gives it any substance at all. Sweet, delicate, and like nothing else in the entire world.

Like Oliver.  

5:46 a.m.

It’s 5:46 a.m. Thursday morning. For those of you who know me, this is not an hour I am generally awake. In fact, it’s often one of my prime hours for deep slumber since falling asleep at night is not something I’m good at. But by 5:46 a.m. usually, I have tossed and turned my way into drool-accompanied oblivion and you could set off a firecracker next door and I wouldn’t wake up.

But not today. Today is the official mark of 39 weeks of pregnancy completed. That means one week, technically, to go before the LD enters the world outside my tummy. My tummy, which contains him and keeps him safe. And quiet. And without a need for diaper changes. Or feeding. Or nurturing and stimulation of the kind that will make him happy and see him grow up to be a good, bigger dude. Right now, he is a blob inside me, one that I joke endlessly about given his effect on my figure, my comfort, my sense of dignity.

But very, very soon, the blob becomes a real little person, who looks like something, has a personality, and needs his parents desperately and incessantly.

Am I excited? Yes, I am. I love falling in love, and I can’t wait to do it again, and enter into what so many say is the most profound bond possible. But I am also terrified. I feel almost shy to meet the LD—what if each of us is not what the other expected, bargained for? What if I can’t morph seamlessly into “mom,” that most powerful—and to me so far in my life—foreign of roles? What happens to the me who was not a mom? Does she disappear, usurped by a brain and set of hormones dedicated slavishly to the care and protection of a baby? What does this transformation entail? Is it like an alien abduction, or a less dramatic shifting of priorities?

More practically, will my famous gag reflex stick around for my own baby’s poops?

All these questions are ricocheting around my addled head, complicating the traditional and socially condoned sense of pure excitement I’m supposed to have right now. But I’m giving myself a break. This is like stepping off a cliff into the unknown. I don’t imagine jagged rocks below, with a pack of vultures and hyenas anticipating my fall. Nor do I expect a cushy landing all decorated with hearts and pretty things. I can’t really imagine anything, in fact. I just know life is about to change immeasurably, and it’s a strange feeling knowing it’s going to happen in a matter of days.

So if I’m not on here for a while … you’ll understand. I’ll be trying on a couple of new hats. Or something like that.

Bad dad

Last night we had a dinner party at which our friend Monique, an avid reader and literary trend watcher, gave us two adorable children’s books for the LD—Little Hoot and Good Morning Sam. After everyone had left, I raced upstairs to bed to check the books out, and eagerly awaited Craig’s arrival, since he keeps promising that he will perform that most new-agey and intriguing feat of reading to the dude in utero. I thought for sure Little Hoot—by the same author as Little Pea—would be the catalyst—the special, portentous First Book.

As I waited, I read Little Hoot to myself. Like Little Pea, it offers a funny twist on kids’ potential for rebellion: it features a young owl who is “forced” by his parents to stay up late and play instead of going to bed, which is all the little owl desperately wants to do (all his friends get to). He is, after all, supposed to grow up to be the wise, nocturnal sort. It’s really cute, and I loved the idea of the LD modelling his sleep behaviours on Little Hoot, albeit for entirely selfish reasons.

When Craig finally made his way up to bed, the effects of his copious bourbon ingestion in the last half hour of the party hadn’t quite worn off. He was ready for Little Hoot, but according to me, he was also ready for a couple of Tylenols and water. I went downstairs to get this for him. When I came up, he was deep into Little Hoot, and muttering away.

I plopped into bed and prepared for the reading.

“Nope,” said Craig.

“Are you too tired, then?” I asked.

“No—I won’t do it to the dude. No Little Hoot—it’s social conditioning, social control. A naked, manipulative attempt to warp his mind and make him think he wants to go to bed when he really doesn’t.”

“But WE will want him to go to bed. WE will. That matters more, and Little Hoot will help us.”

“Little dude, I am saving you from your mother and from Little Hoot,” said Craig to my tummy.

I can see it now … Craig-instigated food fights. Craig joining the LD in the principal’s office—in solidarity and support. Craig orchestrating late-night video-gaming marathons on school nights.

We have yet to read in utero. No more bourbon for Craig.

Thank god, it's not just us

Went to parenting class again last night. This was #4 in the series of seven, and finally, a less earnest, less awfully polite vibe has made its way through the group. We became aware of this welcome change just after being shown the most graphic video yet: strange woman after strange woman moaning and groaning through labour to produce strange babies. When I say strange, I (mostly) mean to say we don't know them, and the intimacy of watching them naked and in pain was fairly uncomfortable.

In any case, this time after the video, no one piped up about how beautiful it was. We were all visibly shaken, and it wasn't just Craig and me who allowed a few nervous giggles. There was some catching-of-eyes and empathetic, silly grimacing, which was lovely, as it prevented another descent into hysteria.

Utter proof of the change in the air came when our teacher broached the subject of placental considerations. That is, she advised us that it might be wise to keep our placentas (as in store in some way ... I'm not sure, I was close to fainting at this point) since there are businesses that can freeze-dry placentas, turn them into powder, and pack them into pills to be ingested by the mother to ward off post-partum depression. Yep, it's a documented cure.

Into the stunned silence and widened eyes came Jenna's response:

"Unless knowing you are eating your own placenta makes you more depressed."

I tell you, we were all spitting up and clutching our sides. It was the deadpan delivery, too.

Thank god it's not just us.