This is Daniel's friend Beela. They were in the same Early Childhood and Family Education class this spring, and now they go to a weekly play group and Music Together class. (Her mom took the picture.) Beela's first professional modeling job can be seen right here! (It's the Web site for a children's clothing store in our neighborhood. I drove by the other day and saw Beela's picture, larger than life, in the store window, too.) It's a classic story: store owner-photographer spots beautiful baby in store, asks to take some photos of her modeling their clothes. Very Kate Moss, right? (Except without the drugs and anorexia.) As they say in baby-talk parlance, yay, Beela!
Saturday, June 30, 2007
daniel is already hanging out with models
This is Daniel's friend Beela. They were in the same Early Childhood and Family Education class this spring, and now they go to a weekly play group and Music Together class. (Her mom took the picture.) Beela's first professional modeling job can be seen right here! (It's the Web site for a children's clothing store in our neighborhood. I drove by the other day and saw Beela's picture, larger than life, in the store window, too.) It's a classic story: store owner-photographer spots beautiful baby in store, asks to take some photos of her modeling their clothes. Very Kate Moss, right? (Except without the drugs and anorexia.) As they say in baby-talk parlance, yay, Beela!
small-town sisters
Two of my sisters have moved to small towns in Oregon in the past year. Last summer, Susanne moved to Hood River, about an hour east of Portland on the Columbia River, to work at her first accounting job since completing the CPA program at Portland State University. Now, Ellen has just moved to Lebanon to become the Lebanon bureau reporter for the Albany Democrat Herald, a daily paper in central Oregon. (Ellen says it's near Oregon State University in Corvallis, so hopefully she'll meet some people her age!) Sisters, I hope you make the most of it while you're there. I know you are city girls at heart, and Ellen, you are a wanderer like me, but there's something to be said about having the experience of living in a small town sometime in your life.
When I lived in Greenville, I knew people who seemed so rooted to the Mississippi Delta that they would never be able to wash it out of their blood. I sort of admired that and sometimes envied it. They had a certain claim on the place that I, as a total Yankee outsider, never could have had even if I'd lived there for decades. I couldn't have done that anyway — stayed in the same place all my life. I would have gone crazy. My blood itches too much for adventure and variety — I left Oregon as soon as I was old enough to go to college. (Now I would welcome the opportunity to move back, and Steve loves Portland, too. But we are pretty well rooted here in St. Paul, and we like it here, too. From April to October, at least!) But it's interesting and enriching to meet people whose families and heritage define the place where they live. Mom and Dad grew up in small towns before moving to the city, and then suburbia, to raise their family. My dad's grandfather was a historical figure in Camas, Wash., where Dad grew up. In fact, I think he founded the historical society. Our aunt and uncle and cousins in Sherwood, where my mom grew up, own businesses there, have worked and raised their families in the same place for generations. Garrison Keillor writes about those families, too, the ones in Lake Wobegon, who care about the small details of their town (and know everybody else's business) in a way that city dwellers cannot, do not. So I think small-town America is a fascinating place to spend some time. But I wouldn't want to live there forever.
When I lived in Greenville, I knew people who seemed so rooted to the Mississippi Delta that they would never be able to wash it out of their blood. I sort of admired that and sometimes envied it. They had a certain claim on the place that I, as a total Yankee outsider, never could have had even if I'd lived there for decades. I couldn't have done that anyway — stayed in the same place all my life. I would have gone crazy. My blood itches too much for adventure and variety — I left Oregon as soon as I was old enough to go to college. (Now I would welcome the opportunity to move back, and Steve loves Portland, too. But we are pretty well rooted here in St. Paul, and we like it here, too. From April to October, at least!) But it's interesting and enriching to meet people whose families and heritage define the place where they live. Mom and Dad grew up in small towns before moving to the city, and then suburbia, to raise their family. My dad's grandfather was a historical figure in Camas, Wash., where Dad grew up. In fact, I think he founded the historical society. Our aunt and uncle and cousins in Sherwood, where my mom grew up, own businesses there, have worked and raised their families in the same place for generations. Garrison Keillor writes about those families, too, the ones in Lake Wobegon, who care about the small details of their town (and know everybody else's business) in a way that city dwellers cannot, do not. So I think small-town America is a fascinating place to spend some time. But I wouldn't want to live there forever.
Friday, June 29, 2007
friday five :: better
From Kristine, who posts these each Friday:
In what way is today better than yesterday?
Well ... we have a new-used DVD player to go with the new-used TV we bought yesterday (both through Craig's List), which means we can watch movies in bed! (Yes, while Daniel sleeps ...) The whole experience has been a lesson learned, though. It took a couple of trips to Radio Shack (and almost three times the cost of the DVD player, which was admittedly cheap) to learn that not all DVD players hook up easily to all TVs. This TV only has a coaxial cable in the back, while the DVD player only has RCA plugs, so I had to buy a set of RCA plugs and a converter to plug both the cable (which we already had, thank you Baby Jesus) and the plugs so everything would work. Cords everywhere. GRRRR. I had called both units' former owners (as well as Steve in tears) by the time I got everything assembled this afternoon. Steve talked me down, so I'm not thinking about it until he gets home.
In what way is this year better than last year?
We have Daniel! Plus, last year at this time, I was waddling big-time because I was seven-plus months pregnant. It's nice to have my body back.
In what way are you better than you were six months ago?
I get dressed before noon, have twice as much energy, and fit into my pre-pregnancy jeans.
Besides technology (because that’s so easy), what’s better about the world today than the world you grew up in?
More people recycle and care about the environment.
In what way will you make (or have you made) someone else’s day better, today?
I let Daniel eat ice cream. :)
In what way is today better than yesterday?
Well ... we have a new-used DVD player to go with the new-used TV we bought yesterday (both through Craig's List), which means we can watch movies in bed! (Yes, while Daniel sleeps ...) The whole experience has been a lesson learned, though. It took a couple of trips to Radio Shack (and almost three times the cost of the DVD player, which was admittedly cheap) to learn that not all DVD players hook up easily to all TVs. This TV only has a coaxial cable in the back, while the DVD player only has RCA plugs, so I had to buy a set of RCA plugs and a converter to plug both the cable (which we already had, thank you Baby Jesus) and the plugs so everything would work. Cords everywhere. GRRRR. I had called both units' former owners (as well as Steve in tears) by the time I got everything assembled this afternoon. Steve talked me down, so I'm not thinking about it until he gets home.
In what way is this year better than last year?
We have Daniel! Plus, last year at this time, I was waddling big-time because I was seven-plus months pregnant. It's nice to have my body back.
In what way are you better than you were six months ago?
I get dressed before noon, have twice as much energy, and fit into my pre-pregnancy jeans.
Besides technology (because that’s so easy), what’s better about the world today than the world you grew up in?
More people recycle and care about the environment.
In what way will you make (or have you made) someone else’s day better, today?
I let Daniel eat ice cream. :)
Monday, June 25, 2007
Friday, June 22, 2007
dare i dream?
Yesterday I drove to Woodbury and picked Steve up from work, and we went over to one of the government offices and submitted all the paperwork and photos for Daniel's passport! I didn't have a passport until I was in college, but I think this boy is going to be better-travelled than his parents were as children. I am just naive and optimistic enough to hope that we might be able to swing a trip to Paris for our five-year anniversary next year. Daniel will be a year and nine months old. The plane ride would be ... incredibly challenging. I can't sugarcoat that. I picture the three of us staying for a week in a little apartment, tromping around the parks and museums, stopping in bistros for lunch and then maybe cooking at home at night over bottles of wine. Paris for families instead of Paris for lovers, yes, but romantic nonetheless. Steve seems open to the idea, too. Maybe. I'm crossing my fingers. I figure that if I put the dream out there, I'm taking the first step to making it happen.
happiness
This has been an amazing week. I have been feeling so happy being home with Daniel. Happy ... is that the right word? Content. Overflowing with love and excitement about being such an instrumental part of this little boy's life. Looking forward to what's ahead for him, for our family. I don't know what triggered it because last week I was in a funk about having stepped so far out of the career world, wondering if I would ever feel the sense of accomplishment that comes with winning awards and nailing major projects, wondering if I'll ever get this freelance thing off the ground to a point where I'm consistently doing work I'm proud of. Suddenly, this week, it's as if the sense of accomplishment is coming from somewhere else, inside me.
We walked through the College of St. Catherine campus today, as we do many days, to look at the ducks in the pond, and we saw a white heron, with a long, snaking neck, wading in the shallow edges and catching little minnows. It was mesmerizing to watch its sinewy movements, and Daniel was staring and grinning and kept letting out his big call of excitement ("ayyy!"), the same one he belts out when he sees other things that are precious to him — his daddy when he comes home from work, the pottery bunny on our bookshelf, the glossy Arts and Crafts tiles that hang at the end of our hallway, upon which he has gazed with adoration since he was three or four months old. So we're watching the heron, and I see other people walking around the campus, busy with their lives, going to reunions and conferences and jobs, and I am holding Daniel closely and already acutely aware of how much I will miss these moments when he is this young, still a baby, and I am just hit by this inner voice that says, "I am in the perfect place in my life right now."
I used to encounter a lot of middle-aged people in my job. I covered talks by fascinating people like Joan Chittister and Helen Prejean. Conferences on Celtic spirituality. Workshops on lectio divino, centering prayer, simple living. I get into that stuff, actually. I find it interesting and enriching. When I first moved here and started covering the church, I thought I had hit the jackpot. I knew God had sent me in the right direction. But it aged me, too. Young people typically do not go to these religious events. It's the midlifers, who wear comfortable sweaters over turtlenecks and Birkenstocks and talk about their teenage children and laugh knowingly about things I don't understand yet and still simmer about women's ordination even though by now they've mostly justified why they stay in the church anyway. I took so much from the speakers and conferences and workshops, but I started to feel like the middle-aged people who attended them. After too much spirituality, especially when I first started working for the paper, I sometimes found myself needing to go to bars and drink flirty cocktails and watch Sex and the City, just to tip the seesaw the other way.
So today, we walked past a lot of middle-aged women on the campus, and they reminded me. Memories of myself at those events washed over me, but suddenly it crystallized in my mind that I am still young, that even if technically I am approaching middle age, I am a young mother, and I have many years of being a young mother ahead of me, and I should embrace them because I will have plenty of years to be a middle-aged woman (hopefully fabulous and wise) when that time comes. I looked at myself through their eyes, which saw the young mother and her baby in the stroller and conveyed, "We've been there already. It goes fast, so enjoy yourself."
So I've been going to play groups and making friends with other moms and going with Daniel and Stephen to Music Together classes and kissing my son until he giggles. The world is his to discover, and he's exploring it with a ferocity that astonishes me. I'm relishing in it, this week. I've found that when I am truly present to the moment I am in (which is not always easy for me), I feel as if there's no place I'd rather be, nothing else I'd rather be doing, than just watching and loving and nurturing this happy, smart, adventurous little child. And, yes, maybe trying to make another one. I told Steve on Wednesday that I am having one of those weeks where I want another baby ... just because I feel like I have so much more love to give — and energy, too. I'm not as tired as I was in those first few months. Even though I'm chasing Daniel around a lot more, I feel as if I could possible manage another one without it totally depleting me.
And maybe it's OK if I don't have a career plan nailed down. That all my size 4 work clothes from before I was pregnant have gone to charity or consignment shops. That I go out every day dressed like in my capri pants (which I read somewhere are the "new mommy jeans"), and that I don't have intellectually stimulating conversations about world issues when I stop for coffee, and that my belly still resembles a bassett hound's droopy, wrinkly face. That the highlight of my "work day" sometimes dancing around the room with Daniel, singing songs from his Music Together CD. All of this is OK. I am loving it. When I am right here in the moment, it is exactly what I want to do right now. I am in the perfect place in my life.
We walked through the College of St. Catherine campus today, as we do many days, to look at the ducks in the pond, and we saw a white heron, with a long, snaking neck, wading in the shallow edges and catching little minnows. It was mesmerizing to watch its sinewy movements, and Daniel was staring and grinning and kept letting out his big call of excitement ("ayyy!"), the same one he belts out when he sees other things that are precious to him — his daddy when he comes home from work, the pottery bunny on our bookshelf, the glossy Arts and Crafts tiles that hang at the end of our hallway, upon which he has gazed with adoration since he was three or four months old. So we're watching the heron, and I see other people walking around the campus, busy with their lives, going to reunions and conferences and jobs, and I am holding Daniel closely and already acutely aware of how much I will miss these moments when he is this young, still a baby, and I am just hit by this inner voice that says, "I am in the perfect place in my life right now."
I used to encounter a lot of middle-aged people in my job. I covered talks by fascinating people like Joan Chittister and Helen Prejean. Conferences on Celtic spirituality. Workshops on lectio divino, centering prayer, simple living. I get into that stuff, actually. I find it interesting and enriching. When I first moved here and started covering the church, I thought I had hit the jackpot. I knew God had sent me in the right direction. But it aged me, too. Young people typically do not go to these religious events. It's the midlifers, who wear comfortable sweaters over turtlenecks and Birkenstocks and talk about their teenage children and laugh knowingly about things I don't understand yet and still simmer about women's ordination even though by now they've mostly justified why they stay in the church anyway. I took so much from the speakers and conferences and workshops, but I started to feel like the middle-aged people who attended them. After too much spirituality, especially when I first started working for the paper, I sometimes found myself needing to go to bars and drink flirty cocktails and watch Sex and the City, just to tip the seesaw the other way.
So today, we walked past a lot of middle-aged women on the campus, and they reminded me. Memories of myself at those events washed over me, but suddenly it crystallized in my mind that I am still young, that even if technically I am approaching middle age, I am a young mother, and I have many years of being a young mother ahead of me, and I should embrace them because I will have plenty of years to be a middle-aged woman (hopefully fabulous and wise) when that time comes. I looked at myself through their eyes, which saw the young mother and her baby in the stroller and conveyed, "We've been there already. It goes fast, so enjoy yourself."
So I've been going to play groups and making friends with other moms and going with Daniel and Stephen to Music Together classes and kissing my son until he giggles. The world is his to discover, and he's exploring it with a ferocity that astonishes me. I'm relishing in it, this week. I've found that when I am truly present to the moment I am in (which is not always easy for me), I feel as if there's no place I'd rather be, nothing else I'd rather be doing, than just watching and loving and nurturing this happy, smart, adventurous little child. And, yes, maybe trying to make another one. I told Steve on Wednesday that I am having one of those weeks where I want another baby ... just because I feel like I have so much more love to give — and energy, too. I'm not as tired as I was in those first few months. Even though I'm chasing Daniel around a lot more, I feel as if I could possible manage another one without it totally depleting me.
And maybe it's OK if I don't have a career plan nailed down. That all my size 4 work clothes from before I was pregnant have gone to charity or consignment shops. That I go out every day dressed like in my capri pants (which I read somewhere are the "new mommy jeans"), and that I don't have intellectually stimulating conversations about world issues when I stop for coffee, and that my belly still resembles a bassett hound's droopy, wrinkly face. That the highlight of my "work day" sometimes dancing around the room with Daniel, singing songs from his Music Together CD. All of this is OK. I am loving it. When I am right here in the moment, it is exactly what I want to do right now. I am in the perfect place in my life.
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
hooray for rfk (jr.)
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is someone people might actually listen to in this whole mercury-autism-vaccine debate, which is apparently in a federal "vaccine court" right now. Then again, I thought Al Gore might change people's minds about global warming, but if they didn't like him to begin with, they probably won't listen to him now. At any rate, Kennedy wrote this article for The Huffington Post. It starts like this:
On a related note, Daniel had his nine-month well-baby visit a couple of weeks ago. We saw a new doctor who listened to me — actually listened — when I told her we are delaying some of Daniel's shots and want to forego some of the others, at least until much later. (Like chicken pox. I'd be happy if he could catch chicken pox on his own and develop a natural immunity, but if he's not immune by the time he enters adulthood, a case of chicken pox would be a lot more troublesome, so I'd want him to get the shot in his early teens if he doesn't bring the pox upon himself. :) And hepatitis B. Why on earth do they give that to babies, when it's mostly transmitted through sex and IV drug use? And that was one of the shots that used to be preserved with thimerisol.)
Whether or not the doctor agreed with me, what she said to me with complete openness was, "I don't want you to give him any shots if you're not comfortable doing it. It's not good for a doctor-patient relationship if you feel pressured into doing it." What a breath of fresh air compared to the previous doctor, who basically made me feel like a floundering fool — and very pressured.
I did get Daniel one shot at his nine-month visit: DTAP, the combined one for diptheria, tetanus and pertussis (whooping cough). I'd been going back and forth all week about whether to do it now or later, but I decided to go ahead. It was his third DTAP shot, which the doctor said completes the primary series, so he should be covered through the scariest age for whooping cough. (Well, as much as he can be; that part of the vaccine doesn't have the highest success rate.) And tetanus? I know it's rare, but the thought of the actual disease scares me immensely. It sounds horrible. It didn't help that we were at a birthday party at a park a couple of weeks ago, and when I sat on the grass next to Daniel to eat my cake, I put my hand down next to a big, thick, rusty nail. Eesh. At any rate, if he splits his lip open again, at least I don't have to panic, and that emotional reassurance is good for something!
So, I left feeling good about the doctor, better about the clinic, and great about our decision to keep going on a selective and delayed vaccination schedule — and keep researching. And Daniel handled the shot really well, and he got plenty of cuddling from his mom and dad afterward.
Oh, and Daniel's vital stats: As of June 1, he measured 29 and a half inches (90th or 95th percentile) and weighed 18 pounds, 5 ounces (25th percentile). What a big boy! I love him so much.
The poisonous public attacks on Katie Wright this week--for revealing that her autistic son Christian (grandson of NBC Chair Bob Wright), has recovered significant function after chelation treatments to remove mercury -- surprised many observers unfamiliar with the acrimonious debate over the mercury-based vaccine preservative Thimerosal. But the patronizing attacks on the mothers of autistic children who have organized to oppose this brain-killing poison is one of the most persistent tactics employed by those defending Thimerosal against the barrage of scientific evidence linking it to the epidemic of pediatric neurological disorders, including autism. Mothers of autistics are routinely dismissed as irrational, hysterical, or as a newspaper editor told me last week, "desperate to find the reason for their children's illnesses," and therefore, overwrought and disconnected.Good for him. I hope people are listening.
On a related note, Daniel had his nine-month well-baby visit a couple of weeks ago. We saw a new doctor who listened to me — actually listened — when I told her we are delaying some of Daniel's shots and want to forego some of the others, at least until much later. (Like chicken pox. I'd be happy if he could catch chicken pox on his own and develop a natural immunity, but if he's not immune by the time he enters adulthood, a case of chicken pox would be a lot more troublesome, so I'd want him to get the shot in his early teens if he doesn't bring the pox upon himself. :) And hepatitis B. Why on earth do they give that to babies, when it's mostly transmitted through sex and IV drug use? And that was one of the shots that used to be preserved with thimerisol.)
Whether or not the doctor agreed with me, what she said to me with complete openness was, "I don't want you to give him any shots if you're not comfortable doing it. It's not good for a doctor-patient relationship if you feel pressured into doing it." What a breath of fresh air compared to the previous doctor, who basically made me feel like a floundering fool — and very pressured.
I did get Daniel one shot at his nine-month visit: DTAP, the combined one for diptheria, tetanus and pertussis (whooping cough). I'd been going back and forth all week about whether to do it now or later, but I decided to go ahead. It was his third DTAP shot, which the doctor said completes the primary series, so he should be covered through the scariest age for whooping cough. (Well, as much as he can be; that part of the vaccine doesn't have the highest success rate.) And tetanus? I know it's rare, but the thought of the actual disease scares me immensely. It sounds horrible. It didn't help that we were at a birthday party at a park a couple of weeks ago, and when I sat on the grass next to Daniel to eat my cake, I put my hand down next to a big, thick, rusty nail. Eesh. At any rate, if he splits his lip open again, at least I don't have to panic, and that emotional reassurance is good for something!
So, I left feeling good about the doctor, better about the clinic, and great about our decision to keep going on a selective and delayed vaccination schedule — and keep researching. And Daniel handled the shot really well, and he got plenty of cuddling from his mom and dad afterward.
Oh, and Daniel's vital stats: As of June 1, he measured 29 and a half inches (90th or 95th percentile) and weighed 18 pounds, 5 ounces (25th percentile). What a big boy! I love him so much.
Friday, June 15, 2007
friday five :: what is ...
A fun one from Kristine:
What’s something you were into before it became popular?
Harry Potter, I think, because my friend Elena worked on the first book when she worked at Scholastic and encouraged me to read it. So I bought it when there were only a couple of copies on the shelf in the children's section (under "R" for Rowling!), not piles and piles of them on tables at the front of the store. Elena was right, of course — I was hooked from page 1!
What’s something you were reluctant to jump on the bandwagon with, but now are totally into?
My digital camera. It took me a while to get one, but now I can't imagine life without it.
What’s a current trend or fad you just don’t get?
iPods. I wasn't into Walkmans, and I'm not into the latest incarnation of listening to music through earplugs whilst on the go. I am perfectly happy with my CDs and my CD players!
If you could turn any current fondness of yours into a popular trend, what would it be?
Comfortable shoes! Why couldn't Carrie Bradshaw champion Danskos instead of Manolo Blahniks on Sex and the City?!
What’s something that’s totally uncool that you love anyway?
Hmm ... how do you define uncool? What's cool to me is probably very uncool to others (like comfortable shoes!), and vice versa. But for the sake of answering the question, I'll say ... Harlequin romances. :)
What’s something you were into before it became popular?
Harry Potter, I think, because my friend Elena worked on the first book when she worked at Scholastic and encouraged me to read it. So I bought it when there were only a couple of copies on the shelf in the children's section (under "R" for Rowling!), not piles and piles of them on tables at the front of the store. Elena was right, of course — I was hooked from page 1!
What’s something you were reluctant to jump on the bandwagon with, but now are totally into?
My digital camera. It took me a while to get one, but now I can't imagine life without it.
What’s a current trend or fad you just don’t get?
iPods. I wasn't into Walkmans, and I'm not into the latest incarnation of listening to music through earplugs whilst on the go. I am perfectly happy with my CDs and my CD players!
If you could turn any current fondness of yours into a popular trend, what would it be?
Comfortable shoes! Why couldn't Carrie Bradshaw champion Danskos instead of Manolo Blahniks on Sex and the City?!
What’s something that’s totally uncool that you love anyway?
Hmm ... how do you define uncool? What's cool to me is probably very uncool to others (like comfortable shoes!), and vice versa. But for the sake of answering the question, I'll say ... Harlequin romances. :)
Thursday, June 14, 2007
books!
We finally got around to buying a little cubby-shelf for Daniel's room so now he has a place to store all his toys and books. He loves it! (And we love Ikea!)
Edited to add: Ikea also has some great baskets that fit almost exactly into these cubby holes. We got these ones, in the shorter height.
Edited to add: Ikea also has some great baskets that fit almost exactly into these cubby holes. We got these ones, in the shorter height.
a day in the life
I've been a Beatles fan all my life (well, since I was 14). Steve, not so much. He's always been into more alternative and obscure music and (I think) thought the Beatles were overrated or something. Maybe it was a music-snob thing. At any rate, he owned no Beatles albums when I met him, and although I didn't really get it, I didn't let it be a dealbreaker, since we do share other important musical preferences, like Elvis Costello and David Bowie.So in the past couple of weeks, the media has been observing the 40-year anniversary of the release of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band — which is one of my favorite albums of all time, even though I've pretty much played it until I've gotten sick of it many times in my life.
One day last week, Steve came home from work and said all nonchalantly, "Do you have any Beatles albums?"
"Of course!"
Do you have Sgt. Pepper?
"Yep ... why?"
"NPR's been running a lot of stories about it, for the anniversary. Aimee Mann was on today talking about the op-ed piece she wrote for the New York Times (which we'd read that Sunday). I think I want to check it out. They're having a pledge drive next week anyway, so I need something to listen to."
A couple of days later, which was last Friday, he came home from work and set Sgt. Pepper and my copy of Revolver down on the table. He came into the kitchen, where I was chopping up chicken for dinner.
"I listened to those albums."
"Oh, really? What did you think? Did you like them?"
"There were a couple of songs on Sgt. Pepper that just blew me away." His face looked as if he'd had a spiritual awakening.
He went in and put the disc in the CD player. He programmed it to the end: A Day in the Life. And we started listening, and I started singing, since I pretty much know the words to every single song on that album. "... I read the news today, oh boy ..."
"These lyrics are amazing!" he said. "They sound more like John than Paul. I think John is my favorite Beatle."
I grinned: He knows the difference. "Mine too! Though I also love George ... he was so spiritual and quirky."
We skipped back to some of the other tracks, and that was how we ended up dancing around the kitchen, me with the big chef's knife in one hand, singing I Get By With a Little Help From My Friends. The soundtrack to my life, and my husband just getting hooked for the first time. It felt a little like falling in love again.
Monday, June 11, 2007
another ending
So Steve and I have been watching The Sopranos on DVD for a few years now. We aren't up to speed on this season, since it's not out on DVD yet, but last night while we were eating dinner, we got this hankering to watch the final episode with the rest of the HBO-viewing country. So we put Daniel in his pajamas and packed him into the car and drove up to the Motel 6 in Roseville and rented a room for two hours. (It's the same motel where Liz and I went to see the final episode of Sex and the City a few years ago. God bless Motel 6!) The desk clerk was a nice lady who gave us a deal and only charged us $20. It was so fun and spontaneous! We felt like we were on a little adventure.
I thought the ending was genius. It was sort of ... a non-ending. It just stopped and left them going on with life, only we don't get to see it. They're all in the restaurant, Tony and Carmela, A.J., with Meadow trying to park her car to meet them. Journey's Don't Stop Believing is playing on the jukebox. There are a couple of suspicious guys who could be nobody special but could be there to kill Tony. We don't know, but the tension is fierce. (Actually, I read that one of them was David Chase, the show's creator.) In the final conversation of the series, they're talking about A.J.'s new job, and A.J. reminds Tony about how he told him to remember the good times. (Appropos.) Meadow finally gets her car parked and starts to walk toward the restaurant. My adrenalin was kicked into high gear, wondering if there was going to be a big, climactic scene — and then the screen went dark, and Steve and I thought our cable had gone out at the hotel. We were debating whether to try turning the power off and on again ... but then the credits started to roll, in complete silence.
And that was it. And we sat there, saying, "Huh. Huh?" And that was the brilliant part of it. It was as if David Chase handed the whole thing to us and said, here - it's not mine anymore. Whatever happens next can only happen in your imaginations, and it can be whatever you choose. Me, I choose to think that they had a nice dinner together and went home, and Meadow will get married, and A.J. will get his act together, and maybe Tony'll get indicted or maybe not. Whatever. Their life goes on. I'm glad it didn't wrap everything up into a neat little package of closure and answer all our questions. It would have felt too contrived that way, in retrospect. I thought this ending was perfect for this show.
I thought the ending was genius. It was sort of ... a non-ending. It just stopped and left them going on with life, only we don't get to see it. They're all in the restaurant, Tony and Carmela, A.J., with Meadow trying to park her car to meet them. Journey's Don't Stop Believing is playing on the jukebox. There are a couple of suspicious guys who could be nobody special but could be there to kill Tony. We don't know, but the tension is fierce. (Actually, I read that one of them was David Chase, the show's creator.) In the final conversation of the series, they're talking about A.J.'s new job, and A.J. reminds Tony about how he told him to remember the good times. (Appropos.) Meadow finally gets her car parked and starts to walk toward the restaurant. My adrenalin was kicked into high gear, wondering if there was going to be a big, climactic scene — and then the screen went dark, and Steve and I thought our cable had gone out at the hotel. We were debating whether to try turning the power off and on again ... but then the credits started to roll, in complete silence.
And that was it. And we sat there, saying, "Huh. Huh?" And that was the brilliant part of it. It was as if David Chase handed the whole thing to us and said, here - it's not mine anymore. Whatever happens next can only happen in your imaginations, and it can be whatever you choose. Me, I choose to think that they had a nice dinner together and went home, and Meadow will get married, and A.J. will get his act together, and maybe Tony'll get indicted or maybe not. Whatever. Their life goes on. I'm glad it didn't wrap everything up into a neat little package of closure and answer all our questions. It would have felt too contrived that way, in retrospect. I thought this ending was perfect for this show.
Friday, June 1, 2007
the third child
A long time ago, before we had Daniel, I read something in the New York Times wedding section that I never forgot. It was one of those years-later updates on a couple whose wedding had once upon a time been featured in the Times. This couple, who had been married maybe 10 or 15 years, said their philosophy in childrearing had been to treat each child as if it were the third child. Meaning, by the time parents get to their third child, they pretty much have seen it all, and they don't overreact to things that are normal parts of growing up. (They had some reason for saying the third child, not the second, but I can't remember.) Anyway, parents tend to be more relaxed, more zen, after they've had some life experience with kids, and this couple wanted to try to have that attitude with all their kids.I've been thinking a lot about that this week, as Daniel becomes more and more independent and adventurous. He's pulling himself up onto everything. Everything. Things that are solid, things that slide when he puts his weight on them. The high chair. The coffee table. The dresser drawers. The bathtub. The TV stand. My knees. His crib. He just loves to stand, and he loves to pull himself up with one hand while he clutches a toy in his other hand. But he's wobbly, and he doesn't always succeed. On Monday, he fell against the coffee table and bonked his forehead, hard, just above the eyebrow. It started to swell up, and Steve and I started to panic. What do we do? Do we call the doctor? (We didn't. I pulled out the Dr. Sears Babies book and looked up "head injuries" in the index.) Do we put ice on it? (We tried, but he wasn't having it.) Do we just watch to see if it goes down? (We did, and it did.)
Then, on Tuesday, he fell against the high chair, which has a little screw toward the bottom, and busted his lip. He was bleeding hard as I carried him to the bathroom, and I think I was more scared than he was. I dabbed it up, all the while thinking, "Get air into the wound so he doesn't get tetanus." (I know, I know. There are shots for that, but he wasn't up to date on them. Besides, tetanus is really rare; only 26 cases were reported in the United States in 2005, and many of those are in elderly people. But when my child is bleeding at the lip, I begin to imagine the worst-case scenarios.) Then, when I talked myself down from the tetanus scare, I began to wonder if he needed stitches. I called Steve. I called the doctor, who said to watch it for an hour and see if it stopped bleeding. After a few minutes, it looked like the blood was starting to ease up. I put Daniel in the car to go meet Steve for a mid-afternoon coffee. Steve took one look at the cut and said, "Oh, that's nothing." Boys. I just don't get them sometimes.
So I've been thinking about the third-child philosophy. How would I be feeling, acting, now if Daniel were my third child and not my first, if I'd seen the blood and bruises plenty of times before? No sweat, I'm sure. Toddlers fall all the time. It's part of life. It's no fun, but they're tough, and they bounce back, and moms and dads just go with the flow. The next day, when we got to our Early Childhood and Family Education class, the teacher Deb saw Daniel's sore lip and heard about his mishap and just smiled. "Oh, he's becoming a toddler," she said. That's what I mean.
four!
Four years ... Forepaugh's. Yes, we chose the restaurant for our anniversary dinner based on the shared syllable! It was a good choice — a big, old, Victorian house in a quiet neighborhood of St. Paul (hmm ... not unlike the big, old, Victorian house where we had our wedding reception). I'd been there once before, on a date long before I met Steve. He hadn't been there since his eighth-grade graduation party. It wasn't very busy so we had a room to ourselves. The food (bruschetta, pork tenderloin with a plum sauce, asparagus with bearnaise sauce) and drink (pomegranate martini, pinot noir) were delicious. And they don't rush you, so we had plenty of time to talk and reflect on the amazing year gone by — and dream about what the next year will hold. Mainly, that was about children. Will we try to have more? Will we go through fertility treatments again, and if so, when will we start? Do we have the emotional energy to do that right now? Will we look into adopting a baby? If so, will it be a girl from China? From India? From South America? A mixed-race baby from the United States? What would that be like for our family, to add an adopted child? I've been heartened by the number of people I've heard say lately that their capacity for love astounds them. I have no doubt that an addition to our family — no matter how he or she joins us — would be embraced with the fullest of hearts.
We'd left Daniel home with a wonderful babysitter, but he has such stranger anxiety right now that it's agonizing to leave the house to the sound of his wailing. We couldn't quite get it out of our heads all evening, so it was nice to go home, eventually, and find him sleeping in Maria's arms. We ate a slice of anniversary cake and all fell into bed together, exhausted.
We'd left Daniel home with a wonderful babysitter, but he has such stranger anxiety right now that it's agonizing to leave the house to the sound of his wailing. We couldn't quite get it out of our heads all evening, so it was nice to go home, eventually, and find him sleeping in Maria's arms. We ate a slice of anniversary cake and all fell into bed together, exhausted.
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