Me and My Shadow

Yesterday spring arrived and Milo spent two hours playing in the sandbox at the Third Street Playground. Midway through his play, which primarily involved raking sand and shoveling dirt into a plastic cup, another kid about his age toddled over and stood next to Milo.

Then he very distinctly gave Milo a look like, okay, what's the plan? What's next?

Milo looked at the kid and then promptly reached into the sand, grabbed a fistful of grains and dropped it gently onto the ground. Here's what we're doing, Milo seemed to say. We're grabbing sand and dropping it like this.

The kid immediately did exactly what Milo had done -- he picked up a handful of sand and dropped it.

All right, Milo seemed to think. Now what we're doing next is this: we're rubbing sand in our hair. Milo took both hands, smeared them in sand and smashed his hands into his hair.

Great idea! thought the other kid, who also reached down and rubbed sand in his hair. Keep those ideas coming! What are we doing next?

Milo then took his little toy rake and began to rake sand. The kid looked around. He didn't have a rake, so he reached for Milo's. Milo quickly turned his back on the kid, grabbed the rake, and began raking somewhere that the kid couldn't get to. I felt bad for the kid, but come on - had he never had an original idea? Sand in the hair is creative and all, but it's no mud pie or sandcastle after all.

Eventually the kid wandered off, presumably to find someone else to copy. Milo didn't note the other kid's departure in any way.

"Rake," he said, showing me his rake. "Dirt."

The Art of Reproduction

It is only now, after a few consecutive nights of Grade A sleeping, that I have begun to realize how very truly tired I am. Now that I no longer approach the bed each night wondering what torture lies in wait for me (will it be the inability to fall asleep? a car alarm at 2am after I have finally passed out? a single cry that Milo lets out at 3am that keeps me awake until 7am? only The Shadow knows...), I find that I can't go to bed early enough. I've taken to falling asleep at 9am with the lights on, and it is truly awesome.

All of which reminds me just how long it is taking my body to recover from pregnancy and labor. Over a year later, I'm still dealing with the aftermath of creating another human being. I went to get a facial last week and the facial lady asked if I had had a recent pregnancy. I wasn't sure if 14 months ago qualified as recent, but I said yes. She told me I had some kind of weird pigmentation on my skin that people get during pregnancy that would require many hours and many lasers to correct. Yay! More ways pregnancy is disfiguring!

And yet, everyone wants to know when we're going to get working on baby #2 - the combination of Milo entering full-blown toddlerhood and my entering my 35th year, I guess. But I cannot possibly conceive of going through all of this again. The morning sickness, the insomnia, the crying, the every-2-hour feedings. For some reason the labor and delivery I can imagine doing again - in retrospect that lasted only 36 hours, while the morning sickness, the late-night feedings and the insomnia lasted months. And if I'm this exausted with one baby at 34, how will I be at 36 or 37 with two babies?

Still, my body has been saying all kinds of ridiculous things to me lately. Like: don't you miss being pregnant? NO! Isn't it nice when Milo curls up on your lap? That won't last forever, you know. SHUT UP!

And then on the other hand we have Elizabeth Vargas, who apparently left her position anchoring the evening news when she became pregnant with baby #2. I had to find this out from watching Oprah, because I do not watch the evening news. (Does anyone? Is there anyone left out there who doesn't get their news exclusively from The Daily Show?) There is no question that life is easier on a working mother when there is only one child... Vargas says she hopes she'll be able to become an anchor again when her kids are older. And apparently NOW sent her a nasty letter, because that is how feminism should work.

Lucky for me, I still hate babies. The one thing I do not think, when thinking about baby #2, is how great it would be to have an infant around. I do not think, aww, they're so cute, I miss that new baby smell. I do not think, it was so awesome when Milo was a helpless blob who couldn't communicate, I'd love to do that all over again. If only babies could be born at around 11 months old, I might feel differently about the whole thing.

Also if Steven could carry this one. Then we might have a deal.

A Quick List of What Will Happen When You Bring A 13-Month-Old On A Plane

1. Within 15 minutes of getting on the plane he will take a dump.

2. By the end of the flight you will be covered in milk/Diet Coke/drool.

3. He will smash the seatback tray onto his head/snap his fingers in the seatbelt/slam the window shade on your fingers.

4. He will lose one or both of his shoes.

5. Midway through the flight your spouse will point out the dried applesauce/piece of cheese/brown smudge that has attached itself to your sleeve.

6. The 13-month-old will insist, twenty minutes into the flight, on walking up and down the aisle and saying hello to every single person on the plane.

7. Half an hour before landing he will turn beet red and launch himself across the width of the plane while shrieking.

8. The flight crew will be forced to suggest to you that perhaps letting him play with the emergency exit door is not wise.

9. He will drink all his milk and cry for more. When he receives said milk he will indicate that what he really wants is your seltzer. When, after taking a sip of seltzer, he discovers he hates it, he will indicate that what he really wants is to bang his head against the window. When he discovers that hurts, he will indicate what he really wants is to be OFF THIS MOTHERFUCKING PLANE. (See number 7.)

10. After you have spent an entire day trying to please and placate him, the 13-month-old will see Hillary Clinton on television and call her "Mama".