Back To Life

Ahhh, home! Is there anything as delicious as that first day you get back to your house after a long absence? I think not! The bed is extra soft, softer than you remember it being, and was the apartment always this quiet? And who knew you had so many clothes! And look how much there is to catch up on TiVo - we'll never leave the house again! And ... was there always orange crayon covering that entire wall...? Hmm... and all over the air conditioner. Definitely wasn't there before. Same goes for the huge puddle of congealed red Jello in the refrigerator.

Okay, there are plusses and minuses. But nothing that can't be fixed by forcing the subletter to come over and clean the crayon off the wall, despite the fact that she is hugely pregnant and clearly in a sweat from the 95 degree heat and she has also informed you that her pregnancy is "high-risk."

"We are bad people," I whispered to Steven as we watched her scrub her son's artistic endeavor off our living room wall.

Steven pointed out that her husband could have easily taken it upon himself to clean the wall, instead of saying he would wait outside on the stoop. Good point.

But still, has Brooklyn ever been so lovely, 95 degree heat and all? The place is practically deserted because everyone with any sense or money has fled the concrete and the total dowdiness of being seen in the City in August. The people on the street are so skinny (nothing like a trip through the deep south to make you feel positively svelte) and fashionably dressed! No one is staring at us on the street with our Bugaboo thinking, what kind of inane East-Cost-liberal-homosexual-Jewish-freak contraption are those people pushing that poor child around in. And the food ... we can eat again, thank God. Last night we ordered a crispy sea bass with black bean sauce and even though by the time we got around to eating it (after realizing that poor, overtired Milo needed to be bathed, bottled and put to bed immediately) it was wilted and tepid, it was heavenly.

And best of all, being home means less time with Milo. I woke up this morning and, upon remembering that the babysitter would be here until 4PM, had to restrain myself from crawling back into bed because I was so overwhelmed with the gaping stretch of free time in front of me. (We'll unpack! We'll finish our projects! We'll write in our blog! We'll go to yoga! We'll get a facial! We'll take a walk! We'll buy groceries! We'll take a nice long shower!, assorted parts of my brain yelled simultaneously.) I realize that most working moms want to spend more time with their kids, not less, but one thing I learned on my summer vacation was that I am definitely getting too much Milo right now. Too much Milo and not enough yoga, not enough time to sit and stare into space, not enough time to buy myself pants.

Of course my feelings on Milo may change once I start seeing him less and missing him more. But for today let me revel in my freedom. I have eight baby-free hours. Has a more spectacular sentence ever existed? I think not.

A Baby Is Not A Toy ...

We spend a lot of time wondering what Milo could say if he could talk, which is why I love what Dooce had to say about her daughter's first sentence.

Sometimes we talk about what we'd like Milo's first word to be, because we like to imagine that we have some level of control over it. We joke about how, given the language we use around the house, there is a good chance that his first word could be "motherfucker."

On Sunday, after spending hours in Newark after getting bumped off a flight, we fantasized about how great it would be if Milo's first sentence was "Continental sucks my ass."

So much of having a baby at this age seems to be about getting him to perform stupid human tricks, or treating him like aplaything, which includes dressing him up in silly clothing . I've started naming Milo's outfits, for no reason other than that they seem to demand names. We have Surfer Boy (bright yellow shirt and board shorts), Middle Manager at a Software Company (golf shirt and khakis), Neil Young (longsleeved t-shirt sewn into shortsleeved plaid shirt, paired with jeans) and this morning I came downstairs to find my son dressed in something that can only be called Operation Desert Storm.

Expanding My Social Circle: An Open Call

Amy Sohn, I will be your friend. I will go to the Tot Lot with you (I live right there!) and we can let our similarly-aged babies roam free while we discuss Nietzsche or nonfiction writing, or the news, or whatever non-baby topic you choose. And then maybe you can tell me how one goes about selling a pilot to NBC. Deal?

Parenting 2.0

Yesterday Steven and I took a stroll with Milo. As we passed a clump of big yellow flowers I plucked one and handed it to Milo.

"Flower," I said, and then repeated it about a thousand times.

Milo looked approvingly at the flower. He petted the petals, he pinched the stem, he moved it from hand to hand and then, after about five minutes of this, he did the inevitable and tried to eat it.

"No," Steven and I said in unison.

Milo looked up at us and started shaking his head, which is what he now does when he hears the word "no". A minute later the flower was in his mouth.

Again we said no. Again Milo waited a minute and then the flower went in the mouth.

And so I reached over and took the flower away and handed him a rattle instead. Which, a few days ago, would have been just fine in Milo's world. But yesterday he immediately burst into tears. His face got red. He screamed. He wanted the flower.

Steven and I stopped walking and stared at Milo and then at each other.

"Aw," said Steven. "Baby's first temper tantrum."

"Wow," I said. "Do you get the sense that this parent thing suddenly got a lot harder?"

It's A Small, Cute World After All

Proof positive that even other people find Milo ridiculously cute.

Things took a dark turn yesterday when our normally mild-mannered cat got into a fight with something - we think it was another cat, but it could have been a chicken. We were then faced with the dilemma of who to care for: take the cat to the vet or let Milo continue his nap? Or just ignore the cat because we're kind of tired and who wants to go to the vet anyway? In the end we took the cat to the vet and our kind houseguest volunteered to stay with the baby. None of which prevented me from imagining all the assorted horrible things that could happen to Milo while we were en route to the vet. And then I would spend the rest of my life saying, "If only I hadn't taken the cat to the vet ... who cares about the stupid cat."

Of course, Oscar the cat was our pseudo-child before there was Milo. The first time we left him at a kennel I called the kennel every day to check in on him. The first time I took him to the vet I had a thousand questions about whether his ears were supposed to look like that and sometimes he makes this funny noise and how much time per day should I spend playing with him and how much should he be sleeping?

These days it's more like, "We have a cat? Is he here?"

Yesterday I spent time mashing up pills for Oscar and tending to his wounds and even Steven, who has zero patience for the cat these days, was extra nice to him. And then we played with Milo and it felt like I spent most of the day caring for small cute things, worrying about small cute things, telling small cute things to stop picking up pieces of fuzz from the carpet and putting them in their small cute mouths.

Oscar seems better today, and Milo woke up beaming as usual. The heat has broken and the morning was cool and bright and green. I pulled on sweatpants and a sweatshirt and cuddled on a blanket with all my small cute things, which burbled and purred accordingly.

Multiple Choice Summer

Last summer we rented a place in the Catskills for the month of August, which kind of sucked because:

a) the house was too cramped
b) it was ridiculously hot all month
c) I was seven months pregnant
d) the landlady stole my shit
e) did I mention being seven months pregnant?

This summer it continues to be ridiculously hot, even though we are farther north (How far north must one go these days to get some cool air? Next summer: Iceland!), but I think that not lugging around a squirming, hiccuping fetus makes a world of difference. (Although now of course we must lug around a squirming, squealing 8-month-old, but at least he can give hugs.)

Also the fact that no one has stolen any of my stuff has made things more pleasant.

The blog will be quiet(er) for the next few weeks as I move about the country and try to knock out three web projects and a book proposal. Also it's just too hot to write.

In the meantime I will try to post some pictures, and if you're in NYC you can come see me read on August 8.

Stop Taking My Picture Already

The rhetorical question Steven and I have been asking ourselves lately: when will Milo reach maximum cuteness? I present the evidence below:




And some Vermont scenery for good measure... a recent misty morning:

 

Real America

We are in our second week of living like real Americans, as opposed to New Yorkers, and there are positives and negatives. On the positive side, we're in a house! With rooms! And, even more exciting: stairs! At night we can see stars. When we get hot we can walk down to the river and jump in. On the negative side: we're in the car a lot. Need dinner? Get in the car. Need diapers? Get in the car. And on the in-between side we have supermarkets.

I always forget that the rest of the country lives in a world of huge, shiny food repositories where you can choose between seventeen varieties of microwave popcorn. In New York the supermarkets are dingy and crowded. You have to elbow your way through the aisles and you are always knocking into someone. The carts are mini-sized and baskets are the preferred way of transporting your purchases to the cash register, which is invariable staffed by someone who has much better things to do than ring up your groceries.

The most enjoyable part about visiting a supermarket in Real America is the ability to fling things into your cart willy nilly. I'm pretty certain this is the true reason that people in New York tend to be skinnier than the rest of the country. When you're grocery shopping in New York you have to really, really want those Fritos because you're going to have to schlep them home and up three flights of stairs, at which point you might just say screw it and order Chinese instead. But in Real America there's no deterrent. In fact, you've gone all the way to the supermarket, you've parked the car and dragged the kid out of the car seat and strapped him into the shopping cart, if anything you have earned those Fritos and it would be wrong not to get them.

I forget how easy life in Real America is. There are no upstairs neighbors who have purchased their three-year-old a really loud toy that goes kablam directly above your head every three minutes; there are no people shoving you on the sidewalk, no sirens and no flocks of snappily dressed women carrying the exact same handbag-of-the-moment. There is quiet and a sense of ease, but there is also a sort of lethargy that comes from not having to work too hard at anything. Suddenly I find myself deciding to watch television instead of read because I left my book upstairs again and who wants to go all the way back upstairs? This is also the only reason I can come up with for why people don't return their shopping carts at the supermarket. Because they are tired from all that easy living. And all those Fritos.

This Season's Must-Have Accessory

"Is that a baby?" asked the little girl. I was standing in Rite Aid waiting to pick up a prescription.
"Yes," I said, smiling sweetly. I'd taken Milo out in the front carrier, depsite my general dislike of the political philosophies implied therein.

"I thought so," she said. "It looks like a backpack."

Boys of Summer

The Others

"So yesterday I came home," Steven said a few weeks ago, "and Milo was in the exersaucer with a piece of paper stuck to his forehead."

"I think I know where you're going with this," I said.

"So I asked the babysitter why he had a piece of paper stuck to his forehead and she said she put it there because he had the hiccups."

"Right," I said. "She said it was something her grandmother used to do. It's some kind of Dominican folklore thing. To get rid of the hiccups."

"I mean, I guess it doesn't hurt him to have a piece of paper stuck to his head," Steven said. "But what else is she going to do?"

"I know," I said. "It's only for a few more weeks, though. And she's good with him other than that."

Today, our Vermont babysitter walked in with an enormous stack of books, topped by a bible. I had suggested she bring something to do while Milo naps. Actually, I had offered her the television to watch and she'd replied rather snappily, "Oh, no, I don't watch television." She is married to the youth pastor of a local church - they moved to Vermont a year ago from Oklahoma. What a youth pastor is I have no idea. I guess he pastors to the youth.

"That's a lot of books," I said when she arrived.

"It's mostly commentary," she said. "It's not like you sit and read it cover to cover."

I liked the vagueness of something being simply commentary, the assumption that of course one should know what was being commented upon.

She has a four month old daughter. Yesterday she told me that she gave birth at home, with no drugs, and that the baby was ten pounds.

What I wanted to say in response was "Holy shit!". But I thought that might offend her, so instead I said, "Oh my God!". Then it occured to me that taking the Lord's name in vain might be equally as offensive as swearing, at which point I just decided to give it up and swear as much as I normally would.

Our regular nanny is out of town for the summer, but she'll be back in the fall. It's taken me the summer to understand what it is that we really like about her. She's good with Milo and all that, but the best thing about her is that she's like us. She went to a college we've heard of. She's mulling over graduate school. She doesn't stick paper on Milo's forehead. She's even half Jewish.

It's great for Milo to be exposed to different kinds of people and different religions, but sometimes it's also nervewracking. One minute you're explaining to the babysitter what a menorah is, and the next she's yelling at you that you're going to hell, which is what happened to me when I was eight. I never forgot it - it was the first time it occurred to me that being Jewish and being different might not be all it was cracked up to be. And for little Milo, who wants nothing more out of life than a whole boxfull of plastic things to put in his mouth, it's way too early for him to know those things, too early for him to feel different or wrong. He needs to learn who he is first, and then he can learn about the rest of the world.

Milo Takes Vermont

Listening to the bullfrogs.


The boyz near where we got married.


Big boy high chair

 

Housekeeping at 8 Months

Milo, yesterday you turned 8 months old. You're ancient! You are also in constant motion, although you have yet to actually get anywhere. You have the strength to crawl but you haven't yet figured out how to coordinate your arms and legs to acheive crawling. Sometimes when we put you on your belly you pump your arms and legs frantically like you're swimming through air. You don't yet seem to understand that this will not move you forward.

Standing: still a big favorite. You can now stand holding on to my fingers, and you have even been known to take one or two tentative steps forward. Sitting is okay with you, you'll do it because you seem to think it's a neccessary evil, but it's not your favorite. You have also learned to bounce recently, and when we put you in the exersaucer your pop up and down like a whack-a-mole. This also makes a lot of noise because it moves the entire exersaucer. You like noise.

Every morning you wake up with a different Syllable of the Day. You will repeat this sound all day until you go to sleep, and when you wake up the next morning you will likely be on to a new sound. So far we have had tuh, buh, sss, muh and, one hilarious day, th-. But your old standby is without a doubt deh. Sometimes you modify it to be dah or doo or adeh, but most mornings we hear the baby monitor crackle to life with the sounds of deh.

You are also starting to understand some of the things that Mommy and Daddy say. You can clap your hands on command, and while you seem to understand "no" means something bad you haven't quite grasped that it means we want you to stop eating your socks, stop trying to take off your diaper (which, by the way, you somehow succeded in doing the other day despite the fact that you had clothes on), stop chewing on dirt. You have also started shaking your head no in response to us shaking our heads. Shaking your head yes still eludes you, though.

You are still a bundle of smiles and laughs. You still love people, which Daddy and I find slightly disheartening, but then again, I guess someone in the family has to be the optomist.