When did this happen?

I'm not especially bothered by the passage of time. At least, not yet.  I had some good times in the first few years of this past decade, but most of it I was busting my hump trying to get where I am now.   I don't love that I'm getting grey hair and it does feel weird to not be the target demographic for pretty much anything but strollers, but at least I have stuff.  Stuff is something I definitely lacked nine years ago--legit furniture, pots and pans that match, health insurance, whatnot.

The things I miss about being younger are cultural things that have just gone out of style.  What I'm basically telling you is that 1999 was my jam and I'm not ready to accept that it's over.  Does everyone pine for the time they were fifteen? What happened to 1990s J. Crew?  By the time I was old enough to afford any of it, it was a totally different thing. But I loved layering?!  Ally McBeal, my prophetess, where have you gone?  My law firm doesn't have unisex bathrooms, but I think of you any time my skirt is a little short.  I haven't thrown away my old cordless phone.  I'm just not there yet.

I didn't fully realize that I had passed the mark from young adulthood into full blown people-call-me-ma'am adulthood until I had a baby.  Getting a babysitter and not being the babysitter was a mind trip I cannot describe.  I feel like it was just yesterday (...said the old lady)  that I was watching someone's expensive cable while their kid slept and stressing about finals and wishing I could skip to the part where I had a nice house and didn't have to worry about mapping out my future.  Hello, 2005, it's me from the future. Hi!  Ease up on the eyebrow plucking.  

I've got expensive cable now.  I know now that parents have it because they don't ever get to go anywhere and it helps them feel less sad. HBO is the opiate of the people.  I don't have the freedom that I used to, but I do have stability.  Having had both, I'd take the stability every time.  That's what approaching thirty means to me.  Craig and were talking last Saturday night about that feeling we used to get in our early twenties around eight o'clock on Saturday.  That excitement that anything could happen and anyone could be there and ohmygod the stories we'll tell tomorrow.  Except, by eleven you realized it was the same people doing the same things and telling the same stories.  We still have nights like that, but they're fewer and farther between and end a whole lot earlier and less fuzzy, because the babysitter has to go home and we can't miss CBS Sunday Morning.  Fortunately, Charles Osgood is a confirmed robot and hasn't changed at all since the 90s.

How is it Tuesday?

     I’ve come to accept that there are things in life that I’ll never understand, like anything over eleventh grade math and how salmon know where and when to go upstream to have their salmon babies and if any salmon ladies are like, “No thanks.  I’ll just stay down here and not die.”  I can deal with the fact that some of life’s mysteries will stay that way, but some things must have answers.  Like, why do young girls make that face in pictures?  You know what I’m talking about.  That face.  The one where they raise both of their eyebrows and sort of smile like you just snuck up on them talking to themselves.  Sometimes they don’t even look at the camera.  What is that?  It’s probably the surest sign that I’m rapidly approaching the end of my youth, but I just don’t get it. I never did that.  I either smiled or I didn’t.  I can only assume it’s the dark side of having a camera phone and that wonderful teenage combination of self-absorption and disdain.  Even their fresh faces are over it.  Also, the skinny arm lean thing is out of control.  Now, every pair of young women in a photo looks like Chang and Eng.  They were connected, ladies, not being sassy. 

This has quickly gone from rambling to incoherent, but here are a few other things I’d like to address.  There should be such thing as night time daycare.  Craig and I worked this out.  A bus comes and gets you and your kid.  Your baby goes to daycare and has a wonderful time and maybe a snooze. You leave a substantial down payment.  You get taken downtown with a set pick-up time of, say, eleven.  Don’t judge. Eleven is plenty late for people with babies because babies don’t sleep in.  Ever.  Also, someone has got to do something about these baby socks.  I know, I know.  The debt ceiling and gun control, but seriously, this is a crisis that must be stopped.  Baby garters?  Spandex socks?  An end to cold weather?  Here’s a question.  It was actually directed at me from Craig, but I don’t know the answer.  Is there a way that a man with thick, mostly straight hair can have anything longer than a crew cut? He says to me, he says, Laura, I like the length, but not the puffiness.  Just kidding, he’s doesn't sound like a bootlegger.  I've told him his hair looks like Liza Minelli’s when it gets too long, but apparently that’s not helpful or supportive.  And lastly, do we or do we not like Jodi Foster’s speech from the Golden Globes? 

Food for thought.

Food for lunch. 

I’m out.

Resolute 2013

I haven't made a New Year's Resolution, but I'm gonna try to do a few little things in the New Year.  First on the list is trying not to go inwardly postal about gun control/anti-gun control memes.  Try, that's all I can do.  Second, I'm gonna try to resist feeling patronized about my parenting.  On my own, I feel pretty confident and calm about how things are going, even when they're tough.  He's been teething and not sleeping as well, etc., and I lose my confidence and become a nervous wreck about it around other people.  Why?  Because of the two responses from daycare workers, people in waiting rooms, mimes, general contractors, acrobats, and oral surgeons.  I made a few of those up.  It's either(1) he's fine.  Stop worrying and being a hysterical first time parent or (2), here's what you should do because I've been around him for forty-nine seconds and am, therefore, qualified to comment on his personality, habits, and preferences.  It's enough to rattle my confidence, for sure.  One woman, who shall remain on my personal prayer list forever, saw us at daycare and said.  "What a happy baby.  You're must doing a great job with him."   She should be lauded.  There should be a paid holiday in her honor.  I'm also going to eat less cheese because, come on, no one needs that much cheese.  I'm going to  make an effort to keep my (new!) house more organized than our current one.  I'm going to celebrate little victories, even if they seem insignificant.  For example, I've managed to avoid formula for the first six months of his life.  I feel guilty saying how proud that makes me, because I know how many people would feel some implied criticism of formula, but in reality, I'm just proud that I've achieved a personal goal.  I'm sure that sounds nutty to anyone without children, but it's cause for celebration in my life.  I'm going to cook more.  I'm going to take more pictures of the baby with the real camera instead of my phone.  I'm going to walk the dog more and, perhaps, give him a bath.  Currently, he gets a bath around the beginning and the end of the fiscal year.  He stinks.  2013 shall be The Year of Less Dog Stink.  Let it be written.  Let it be done.

A November's Worth of Thanks

    I haven't done the Facebook November daily thankful thing because I am thankful for nothing!  Just kidding. The real reason is that I don't have that kind of follow through.  That's partially true.  The other reason is that I didn't get what was going on until about the fifth.  So, there. I am grateful for so many things, though, and I've always liked that we take this time of year to be mindful of gratitude and thanks.

     Thanksgiving and the Fourth of July have always been my favorite holidays because there are no gifts, and for me, not a lot of expectations.  Celebration for the sake of celebration.  We have holiday traditions, but they aren't that firm.  I don't think any two Thanksgivings have ever been the same.  I'm not really sure what traditions we'll start now with the baby.  We've always been so portable that we could go anywhere and celebrate with anyone.  Now there are just so many more moving parts to be considered.  He's one little person, but having a four month old is like trying move a caravan.  We tried to plan, because we are planners who love plans.  Plan plan plan.  Turns out, those plans just aren't going to work out this year.  So, now we're figuring something else out.  Maybe that's the new tradition.  That is, being flexible and figuring it out as we go.  I have no idea.  In my fantasy life, all of my friends and loved ones live in the same place so we can always have him wake up in his own house on holidays, but still see everyone who loves him without hopping from place to place. That wasn't the case for me growing up and probably isn't for most people.  We'll work it out, but I want so much for him to have some dinstinctly "us" memories as he gets older even if it's a little different every year.

    However we celebrate this year, I feel like this is the year that gratitude was made for.  I had a healthy baby boy.  I was finally made permanent at work.  Our friend made it through a health scare.  We've had the opportunity to spend time with friends and family we don't get to see much. I've got the most supportive husband in the world.  I can honestly say that nothing would make me happier than for my son to grow up to be just like him.   Like any other year, there has been some really tough stuff going on too, but I'm happy to take time to focus on the good things.  We've got new worries, but so many of the things I was worried about this time last year have worked out perfectly and that's important for me to remember.

 

Holla-ween

     They say pimpin' ain't easy, and I don't want to belittle what must be a challenging line of work with untold personnel issues, but being a new mom and back to work is pretty tough, too.  This mom gig is the hardest job I've ever had and he doesn't even talk yet. On top of that, indigent defense is, at times, not as fun as you may have imagined. Pimpin' may not be easy, but pumpin' isn't a cake walk either.  Breastpump joke!  So far, every morning has been an adventure in postpartum dressing.  Those last ten pounds weren't really bothering me so much when I was still wearing glorified pajamas.  I say 'glorified' because my rule during my maternity leave was that if I hadn't actually slept in it the night before, it wasn't pajamas.  Put it on in the morning and call it an outfit!  I also had a rule that the baby needed me to have ice cream pretty much every night.  See aforementioned ten pounds.

   Being back at work has been good, but really jarring. I haven't recovered from the massive change of pace or gotten used to not being attached to him all day.  He does seem to be happy at daycare, though, which is a huge relief.  Its fun to see him learn how to be a part of a little community. I hope I haven't derailed his social standing with the other babies by taking him in his costume on Halloween.  It's a kill or be killed world in the infant room. That's a complete lie, but it sounds funny.  To me. Here's a cute baby in a ketchup packet:

    We did pitifully little for Halloween other than sending him to daycare in his packet.  We didn't want the dog to blow his sweet little gasket, so we turned off the porch light and hunkered down.  I'm gonna tell you a sad true story.  Our pumpkin is still in the truck.  Yep.  We bought a pumpkin to carve and we never even brought it out of the truck.  Peter, Peter pumpkin eater had a...poor introduction to Halloween.  We'll do better next  year.  We'll definitely get him out trick or treating when he's big enough to bring home some chocolate.  You can take that to the bank.

Fear and Loafing

Way back before the dawn of Pinterest and the social media onslaught of cutesy quotations, sometime around the early paleolithic era of 1997 or 98, I found a book on the shelf at home that was a dictionary of quotes.  It had thousands of quotations listed by speaker and by subject.  We lived on the river, which is about fifteen minutes from the booming metropolis of uptown Fairhope.  We called it that because Fairhope is far too genteel for a downtown, and because it helped us know the locals from the tourists.  Anyway, I came to peruse this volume because we lived too far away from my friends and no one, Mom, wanted to chaffeur me as often as I required.  Boredom is what I'm getting at. One of the quotes that stuck with me was, "It is better to die on one's feet than to live on one's knees."  Or something.  It stayed with me, I think, because it's about fear and how fear gets in the way of life.  I'm pretty sure that I even used that quote in a paper I wrote for my G/T class in middle school.  That's Gifted/Talented, thank you very much, or more appropriately, Smart Mouth/Nerd class.  So, yeah, I liked to use quotes as a middle schooler.  Here's what we can learn from this: 1) You're never too young to be a pretentious ass, 2) teachers who have too strict of a word minimum get what they deserve, and 3) I've always been preoccupied with the theme of fear.  The first two are absolutes, but the last one I've had to put some thought into.  I've decided that I'm so interested in fear because it's such a part of me.

I'm fearful in many ways, but none quite so much as with health.  I can spiral into anxiety in an irregular hearbeat when I start reading about how this additive is linked to this calamity, and this dye causes goats to grow two goaty beards instead of one, and how the whole planet is being inundated with carcinogens, and how autism is caused by each and every thing a mother does.  I should just avoid this kind of information, but instead I eat it up, even though I know that a lot of it is skewed or incomplete data.

One thing I read, or heard, or maybe made up entirely is that one way to delay dementia and keep your mind active is to vary your routine.  An example being, that if you normally brush your teeth with your right hand, occasionally using the left will force your brain to do something neat, the specifics of which I'm not clear on. Natch.  I think the idea is that it creates new pathways.  This is where I think the mind is fascinating and why worrying about disaster is a joke.  So, I think about this recommendation every single night of my life when I take out my contacts.  I always take out my left contact first, and each time I think about how I should switch this up more. If not, my brain will rot and I will lose my mind and not be able to care for myself and I will die in squalor, not knowing my own name.  All this happens in about two seconds.  Instead of creating new pathways and keeping my mind active, I've conditioned myself to contemplate my own mortality every single night between brushing my teeth and washing my face. This is the danger of science in the hands of amatuers.  This is why it's better to not know sometimes.  When I am senile and in the aforementioned squalor, I believe I'll just wear my glasses.

mADdening

  Have you seen this new McCormick's commercial?  You have if you're currently on maternity leave with a ten week old baby who will only nap when he's held.  What this means is, sometimes I'm tied to the couch for two hours.  You could say it's my choice not to go to the bathroom at these times, or sneeze, or shift my weight, or breathe too deeply, but you also may not have been screamed at by a tired infant in a while.  What I'm saying is, I've been watching TV.  If you're wondering, Michael Strahan is a surprisingly fun co-host for Kelly and Katie Couric's new show is also quite good.

   As a recap,  I do a lot of TV watching and diaper changing, and very little getting dressed or eating with two hands.  

    Back to McCormick's.  They have a commercial right now that says, "Life is a Fajita."

.....

   And that's the end.  What does that mean?  There's no end to the metaphor.  Nothing.  Life is absolutely not a fajita.  A fajita is a fajita.  I need something more, Seasoning Sirs.  Couldn't they at least throw in something about sizzle or steam.

Life is fajita.  Don't touch the plate. 

   Another headscratcher is the old Bagel Bites commercial.  Do you remember it?  "When pizza's on a bagel, you can eat pizza anytime."  Was the crust holding us back?  I support anything that makes 'round the clock pizza a go, but I'm just not sure a bagel does it.  

  One that has blown every remaining bit of my mind recently is the new commercial for Hefty.  Let me set the scene.  Two women are in the kitchen.  A baby, presumably the home owner's, is making a mess eating.  The other woman looks on in horror and says, "What do you do with the diapers?"  We find out at the last moment that it's a commercial for odor blocking trash bags. I wanna connect the dots.  My fragile new mother mind needs logic and order.  I think I get where they're going, but they Just. Don't. Get. There.  It appears that there is an intended poo joke, but come on Hefty, if you can't land a poo joke, you need to hang it up.  Really.

   

     And what about these Charmin commercials with the evidently filthy bears?  I can't even.