Booty (Re)Call: This is Becoming PSA Central

I am walking to the pantry right now to throw out our Veggie Booty. It's been recalled. All of it. 51 people have come down with salmonella after eating it, mostly kids under 3.

The scary thing is the last two times we gave it to Thalia she told us her tummy hurt, so we figured we'd put it away for a while. I can only hope it's a coincidence.

Wii are Family

Last night, the boobs and Nate and I made a happy foursome as we headed out for our first sans kids night on the town. And by town I mean a way cool little party at Isabel's, for which the folks from Nintendo brought over six Wii systems, plied us with alcohol, and hoped that we didn't fling the joysticks through the flat screens.

It was the perfect date night--Nate headed right for the baseball and I hovered around the crabcakes. And then Alice and her husband showed up so I hovered around them instead. And then Laura Bennett--that Laura Bennett--showed up so we hovered around her. And then a transvestite sort of a fellow who lived upstairs showed up, along with a Jocelyn Wildenstein type of a woman but we didn't so much hover around them as quietly gawk from a safe distance.

I know this is all too much to try and picture so fortunately I brought my camera.

(Yay!)

But then I was having such a nice time feeling tan next to Alice that I didn't take it out once.

(Rats!)

So I present you with the virtual photo album: The photos I would have taken had I not have hit the wine quite so quickly.

The charming, funny, and proudly pale Alice Bradley.

We try desperately to make Nate and Scott BFF but, ugh. Men. You know.

Playing Wii on the hottest night of the year: Sweat is the new black.

Isabel shows off her shapely Alpha-calves. And wait...where is her child? Not attached to her at all times? Wait 'til the media gets a hold of this!

I can't decide between the wine, the beer, and the mango mojitos.
Which is why God gave us two hands.

Laura arrives in sequins. How she has this figure after five kids, I will never know.

Laura and Alice who are now going steady I am told. (By Alice.)

Nate taking his Wii tennis victory a liiiiiittle too seriously.

I am almost not quite sucking at Wii bowling but the boobs are a bit of a hindrance.

Hahaha! Can you believe THIS happened?

Laura crushes us in bowling, even in 90 1/2-inch heels.
Damn competitive reality TV stars.

The Difference Between Men and Women

Me: Hey! I got my new nursing bras in. What do you think? Do I look a little smaller now?

Nate: No, you still look humongous.

Me: That's not what I was going for.

Nate: It's fine by me.

Giving Peas a Chance

My little city girl loves the country. And who can blame her. It's a world of dragonflies and chipmunks, a pond stocked with fish, countless birds feasting on the feeders, tall grass tickling the toes, and a cow. Even if the cow is only a four-foot painted piece of plywood leaning against the patio wall, to Thalia a cow is a cow and this one's name is Apple.

The things she sees in picture books all live in Grandma and Papa's backyard and I think to Thalia, it's heaven. Heaven with mosquitoes and a plywood cow.

I know Thalia's growing up as I see her most requested backyard excursion evolve from the toy bag to the red swing to the vegetable garden. Before we've even pulled up to the driveway, Thalia's asking for Peas? Peas? so sweetly that if she were using the same tone to request her own solid gold roller rink in her bedroom, you'd have no choice but to give in.

It started a few weeks ago as Grandma took Thalia and her cousin Ella on a guided tour of the garden, pointing out kale, peppers, lettuces, tomatoes, and an entire perimeter of sweet peas. Thalia and Ella each walked with great care along the boards laid out between the rows of plants, carrying cups from their tea set which they eagerly filled with dirt. Sometimes rocks or a stray pinecone. Thalia wasn't interested in the frais de bois or the mint leaves or the kale, but rocks--those are always good for the picking.


This weekend things were different. The peas had sprung.

"Take the fat peas only," Grandma cautioned, as Thalia pawed through each twirly vine for the plump, ready-to-eat pods.

Papa showed her how to unzip one then open it like a sunken chest, revealing eight, perfectly round, sweet-as-sugar peas.

She hesitated at first, prepared to spit it out as she did with all new foods. But as the flavor hit her tastebuds and melted into her tongue, Thalia's crinkled face brightened, telling us that peas were Christmas and birthdays and a Wonderpets marathon all rolled into one.

"MORE FAT PEAS!" she shouted.


By the end of the day, she had devoured every ripe pod in the garden, and some that hardly were--nearly a third of the total crop. Papa had to hold her back from plucking at the skinny pods, so eager was she to continue along on the marathon of peas. The garden is not a supermarket, with an endless supply of produce hiding in a back room somewhere. She was not happy. And so we assured her that we could try again tomorrow. That maybe, in the morning there just might be some more that had plumped up overnight.

We were all thrilled at her reaction. A toddler tantrum over fresh vegetables? Foot stomping and tear shedding over something green? Be still my heart.

The next morning, before she had even gotten out of her crib: Peas? Fat peas?

And indeed there were.

Now we can stop counting french fries as a vegetable

My Daughter the Communist

Several weeks ago we were having a playdate with blog-friends turned friends when Tony began preparing dinner for his daughter.

"Fishsticks. Is that okay?" he generously offered.

"Um..." I hesitated, not eager to confess to the embarrassingly slim range of foods that pass Thalia's lips. "Probably not. I don't think she'll eat that."

"Oh," he said. "Can I get her something else?"

"Got any couscous?"

"Couscous!" Thalia repeated, delighted. She settled for an apple.

Recently the New York Times published a much-discussed article about kids' menus in restaurants and how the ubiquitous chicken finger/grilled cheese/hot dog selection is keeping kids in a culinary box.

I only wish my daughter had even one pinky toe in that culinary box. Then she might actually eat something besides the contents of the bread basket when we go out for dinner.

Instead Thalia has created her own box, one comprised of meals not ordinarily in the American toddler repertoire: Couscous. Quiche. Pesto. Her latest request is "sushi," although her version has nothing to do with raw fish and everything to do with dunking a chopstick into some soy sauce and licking it.

It's not so much what she eats that concerns me but what she doesn't eat. And I don't mean leafy green vegetables. Lord, what I'd give just for her to eat one damn McAnything like the normal kids. In desperation we once bought her some Chicken Nuggets at a Florida highway rest stop, but she only nibbled at the batter for a brief moment before burying the rest of it in the crevices of the car seat.

(I can't entirely say I blame her.)

Needless to say, childrens' menus are not our friends. Thalia will feast on the fries but not the grilled cheese. She'll have the peanut butter but not the jelly. She'll eat the ketchup but not the burger. And a hot dog is only as good as the bun. Kraft singles? Won't touch the stuff. Although last week she discovered a taste for the Italian Prosecco-washed goat's milk cheese that her foodie grandfather set out as an appetizer.

Her behavior is downright unamerican. Next thing you know she'll be thumbing her nose at baseball and telling me that when we travel to other countries that we should bother to learn the language.

What confounds me most is that Thalia won't even try the spectacularly delicious neon orange goop over overcooked elbow macaroni that passes for dinner in millions of households with children. Thalia's prefered pasta preparation is a liberal dousing of virgin olive oil, a sprinkling of pignoli nuts, cracked pepper, and sea salt, and then a good amount of "yummy cheese"--or fresh Reggiano-Parmigiano ($12 a pound!) grated tableside as if she's some European VIP at da Silvano. Yes, she actually insists on the tableside service. I'm surprised she doesn't demand that we move her highchair a little further away from the kitchen, maybe something near the window, and hey, is that Drew Barrymore over there?

Please Thalia, please, just once, be like the other kids. Eat something fried and crappy. Eat something totally devoid of nutrition and steeped in transfats.

Eat something on a kids' menu. Please.

You're starting to worry me.

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Find Mom101 cross-posted at Time Out NY Kids every Monday, along with great NYC-area stuff to do with your family. Including restaurants with kids' menus, although don't count on finding us at any of them.

The Rare Public Service Announcement

I'm not one generally for posting about the kinds of stuff you get in bi-weekly emails from your alarmist paranoid aunt or your college friend who doesn't realize that no, Bill Gates will no send you $100 if you just forward this onto fifty friends.

But when I've just finished uploading a picture of my niece like this


only hours before reading that 26 Thomas Train toys were recalled for containing lead paint, I certainly feel obligated to spread the word. I'd also like to point out that the toy company is balking over refunding postage for parents returning the toys. Hey, we just make 'em. If your kid puts the thing in his mouth that's his problem. Excellent way to do business. Bravo.

Now excuse me while I revert to my snotty, elitist affection for wooden toys, with a preference for those not outsourced to China.

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Edited to add: As Katie kindly pointed out in the comments, the recalled toys do not include the blue train featured here. Although I still freaked thinking of this photo--guilt by association. Here's a link to the photos of the actual recalled toys which are mostly red. (And thanks Katie.)

Portrait of the Toddler Years. With Pesto.

I'd like to think my almost two year-old daughter could come up with a few original, out-of-the-box ideas as far as acting out. We value creativity around here and I wouldn't mind so much if she opted to:

-fingerpaint her crib slats with the anarchy A
-put daddy's wrist in water while he sleeps
-hold her breath until we let her watch news hour with Jim Lehrer
-convert to Buddhism
-sneak out at night to get a tattoo
-slip a duck into her stroller

But nope. We're stuck with the old bowl of spaghetti on the head trick.

I may not be original but I'm great fun at parties.

The Ten Duhs of Driving

On one hand, I don't mind terribly that the Vatican issued the Ten Commandments of Driving today. It's with good intention certainly, and heaven knows (haha) a lot of the drivers out there could use a little divine guidance on the road. Especially those with Pennsylvania plates, being as how Pennsylvania drivers have become the new New Jersey drivers in my neck of the woods.

(Seriously, thanks for the Liberty Bell and cheesesteaks and all that, but it doesn't give you the right to weave up and down the FDR Drive at 80 miles an hour in exchange, you psychos.)

Let my people merge.

But I do have issues here. Not necessarily because the church is crossing a line into matters of law, or because it feels like a cheap PR ploy to take the Jesus is My Copilot bumper stickers to the next level. Mainly I don't like it because the list is lame. It's lame! "You shall not kill"-- oh really? Thanks for the tip, guy.

A little more thought and the Vatican might have come up with a few commandments that could actually make a real difference:

-Thou shalt not amass stuffed animals in thy rear window if thou is older than 17.

-Thou shalt not drive with a turn signal on for more than 50 yards and that goest double for thou, Grandma

-Thou shalt not park diagonally in a mall parking lot, lest thy penis be revealed to be of diminutive stature

-Thou shall roll the windows up and turn the radio down when driving through residential neighborhoods at night, thou selfish douchebag

But nope. Just some babble about being courteous on the road and helping people in accidents. Blah blah blah.

Vatican, we're going to give you a second chance at this. So let's have it, readers. You're smart. What are the driving commandments you'd like to see?

Vanity, Thy Name is Mom101

You can also find my posts every Monday on Time Out NY Kids along with great New York-area stuff to do with your family this summer. You know, when you're not at your Hamptons House.

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I recently sat in a manicure chair, reading that Melaine Mayron, who played Melissa on Thirtysomething (God how I loved Thirtysomething) copped to getting a breast lift after having kids. My first reaction was "Ugh!"

My second was, "Ooooohh..."

It's a funny thing, these boobs of mine. They were s-l-o-w to come in the adolescent years, then burst forth with a vengeance. No sooner was I wishing away my A cups that I was wishing away the Ds. But I admit the mammary ups were greater than the downs (so to speak) and plenty of ex-boyfriends will back me up on that. They even got me out of a speeding ticket once, loyal friends that they were. Nothing Bad Lieutenant style--just some back arching and a big smile did the trick one Friday afternoon while I raced up a stretch of the Taconic on the way to the Berkshires, right into the speed trap of a young flirty officer.

For a good two decades, my boobs were easily my best asset, particularly in the we have nothing here that will fit you ma'am, have you tried New Jersey? years. Just drop me into some flowy Eileen Fisher pants and a plunging v-neck and my ego was still intact.

But two years ago the girls found their proper biological function as source of food and comfort for my daughter. Next thing you know I'm standing in the mirror trying on my bikini for the first time in an age, looking at my DDs and wondering when exactly they developed such a strong affection for gravity.

I may have cried a little.

Tube socks with a rock in them was how I once heard postpartum breasts described. So sad. So true.

"Well girls, " I now say to them as I scoop them up and deposit them in the underwire harness of doom, "we had a good run there for a while." And we did. I try so hard not to mourn their sorry new state, to feel grateful for the times we had together.

Yet I mourn. Oh, do I mourn.

And so I consider the boob lift.

Until recently, I thought voluntary plastic surgery was only for Those Women. You know, the ones with three homes and four nannies and egos rivaled in size only by their retinal-damaging engagement rings. Plastic surgery (with some exceptions of course) is a vanity move, pure and simple. And there's something about the idea of voluntarily having someone cut me open under general anesthesia that seems selfish now that I've got kids counting on me to actually come home after the procedure. Or forget the risks, and just consider the expense. Or the recovery time. Or most troubling, the message it would send to my daughters if they found out.

(Of course they would find out. Because the only thing bigger than my boobs, proverbially speaking, is my mouth.)

Perhaps I am dissuaded by my own mother's anecdote about a humiliating pre-surgical consultation. As she tells it, the doctor took a fat black Sharpie and marked up her naked breasts with circles and arrows like a C-student's essay in need of correction. When she turned to see them in the mirror, she burst into tears and ran out of the office without looking back. The episode furthered her resolve to teach me to love my body, or at least to value who I am inside more than what I look like outside. And this she did.

But then I think about how nice it would be to score me some perky tatas.

A lift is less an exchange than a minor alteration, I justify. It's not that I covet what Angelina has, I just want what I used to have myself. I want to skip down the street with my children, knowing the breasts are bouncin' and behavin'. I want to look in the mirror and see the me I think I still am instead of the saggier (older), more compromised (older) me I've become. I want to retrieve the tanks and stretchy tube tops from the "donate" bag in my closet.

But I don't know that I'll ever take the plunge. For one, it will strip me of the opportunity to make fun of Those Women, and I don't know if I could live with that.

Besides, there's something about the old nip and tuck that somehow feels like cheating.

In which case the only real solution is to continue down my current path of waiting for my chest to magically revert back to its former glory on its own, without surgery. Or exercise.

Now would be good.

Still waiting.

Empowerment: It Isn't Just for Women

I have been fairly outspoken on these pages about feminism and my wholehearted support of it as a movement. I've got no qualms defining myself a feminist, and I've taken issue with those who thinks it's an outdated concept--you know, because women have like, jobs and all so we don't really need it any more, right? I wish I could credit the person who wrote that the day journalists stop discussing Hillary's hair is the day there will be no need for feminism
But I also feel like I have to call 'em like I see 'em and I don't think that women are inherently disadvantaged everywhere. And I think blogging is one of those places that women get a pretty fair shot.

So when I'm asked to consider whether blogging empowers women, my answer is sure. But not just women.

I think this medium empowers anyone with a strong voice that might not otherwise be heard, particularly by the mainstream media: 16 year olds and 97 year olds. Blacks, Asians, and half-Latinas with a wicked sense of humor. Short people. Bald people. Lawng Islandahs. Conspiracy theorists. Cancer survivors. People with acne. People with buck teeth. College dropouts. Housewives--and not the desperate, ready-for-prime time, size 0 kind either.

It doesn't matter what your bust size is, how white your teeth are, or what kind of car you drive, and it certainly doesn't matter whether you've got those double-X chromosomes if you want to journal online. Anyone with access to an internet connection can have a soapbox. And that's exactly what I love about blogging, even if it does at times lump me in with the crazies and the grammatically deficient.

Here, a woman can write about football. A man can write about crock pot recipes. And a mother can write about her experiences without an editor saying Momlit? Oh, that's so played. Pass.

The potential is limitless. For women. For anyone.

Gotta love that.

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What do you think? Does blogging empower women? If you've got an opinion, post it and link back to Motherblogs Toronto for a chance to win a free pass to BlogHerCon 07. You don't even have to be a woman to enter. You certainly don't have to be from Toronto. Or if you don't want the $200 pass (although who wouldn't?) you can win a prize pack that I know nothing about except includes candy.

I feel empowered enough to tell you that I love candy.

And Right On Time, According to the Milestone Charts

It's been a slow climb to this stage. But I can now safely say we have indeed entered the tantrum-throwing, foot-stomping, paint-eating, baby-poking, cookie-demanding, parent-testing, food-hurling, dog-riding, cat-teasing, diaper-removing, mommy-clinging, independence-asserting, random whining, shrieking, and falling down crying years, or so it would seem.

"Well," Nate said dryly in response to one of the forementioned behaviors. "Now we know why they call it The Fabulous Twos."

Portrait of the Tantrum-Thrower as a Young Girl.
Barely visible pigeon shirt courtesy Sweet Juniper

Ooh, They Got Me

"How can she possibly be one month?" I asked Nate on Monday. "Where did the month go? What have we done?"

"Look under your eyes," he said. "There's your answer."

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Later that day I was taking Sage on a needed walk around the neighborhood when I was approached by two cheerful students with clipboards, the types soliciting donations for some charity or another. The young man turned on the smile and headed in my direction with forceful determination,just as Sage started to do the diaper change squirm.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I just can't right now."

"That's okay," he said. "You look like you could use a shower."

Oppressive fatigue has its benefits

Reading Between the Milestones

I admit it. I did the unthinkable.

I checked the milestone charts.

There is surely someone charging rather huffily toward my front door as we speak, prepared to revoke my membership in the Laid Back Moms Club ™ along with all the benefits it entails. (YoBaby without judgment! Dora the Explorer presweetened cereal!) But alas, I could not help myself.

I was on babycenter checking out a few forgotten tips about newborn care when I snuck a click over to the toddler pages, just to see how my 23 month old might stack up next to her peers. Or if I am to be truly honest about this, to see in which ways specifically my geeeeeeenius 23 month old might be blowing her peers sky-high out of the water.

Oh come on, like you’ve never done it. (And then squealed out loud like a 13 year old girl when the results were to your liking.)

(And then started to call friends about it.)

(And then hung up realizing that it would not be one of your better ideas.)

I was delighted to learn that my daughter has an above average vocabulary, and can draw a straight line ahead of her time. She also gets an A in “exploration of genitals.”

Walking up stairs? Eh, not so good. Kicking a ball? Yeah, we’ll just skip that one. Did I mention she’s advanced in exploration of genitals?

See, that’s the great thing about looking up achievements that your kid is not supposed to be achieving anyway – you can arbitrarily dismiss any of them. It’s like shopping for milestones; you just return the ones that don’t seem to fit.

After my foray into this forbidden corner of the internet, I dug out Thalia’s somewhat neglected baby book from the bookcase with the intention of recording her great feats of intellectual excellence. When I opened to my lopsided notes traversing the unlined pages in back however, I was surprised that it wasn’t actually milestones at all I had been scribbling all these months.

Mostly, I had recorded things that made Nate and me laugh.

I found quirky memories like Thalia referring to a birthday cake as a “happy cake.” And that the “first song she composed” was a little ditty in which she banged on her toy piano while rocking back and forth Stevie Wonder style and chanting, Big Bird, Big Bird, Big Bird over and over. I read that Thalia’s first two-word phrases were “Oh, no!” “Oh, man!” and “Oh, my!” And that when she was first reciting animal sounds, she didn’t bark like a dog, but instead panted quickly in an imitation of our slobbery English bulldog.

None of these things were so much evidence that Thalia is a geeeeenius. Just proof that we were paying attention all these months. Evidence that Thalia is loved.

And they made me smile. Even more than the milestone chart.

Every baby lifts her head or takes a bath, or, eventually, recites the alphabet. It’s not that these things aren’t important or worthy of recording, but they’re not special, at least not to me. What’s special are the days in between those days, the firsts in between those firsts: The first high-five. The first painting you hang on the refrigerator. The first knock-knock joke.

That’s when I remembered why I wanted membership in the Laid-Back Moms Club™ in the first place, even if sometimes I can’t resist breaking the rules. I don’t want to be a prisoner of the milestones. I don’t want to give them too much power over me.

Just then, my newborn daughter who had been cradled on my chest all this time awoke. She craned her head to the right in an awkward, sleepy stretch, then straight up to face me. She met my eyes while holding her chin aloft for a good thirty seconds.

And I raced to the phone to call anyone I knew.

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Care to read this again with fewer typos? Check out Time Out NY/Kids where Mom101 is cross-posted every Monday. And grateful thanks to Beth from Role Mommy for filling my shoes on TONY Kids for the past four weeks, and making them look mighty small in the process.

My Daughter, the New Yorker

Ever since two of my best blog friends gave me the mother of all new mother gifts - a gift certificate in an obscene amount to my fave local purveyor of spicy tuna rolls - there's been quite a bit of Japanese food eaten in front of the TV in the Mom101 household. Thalia even experimented with the cuisine at our suggestion, if only by dipping a single chopstick into the soy sauce and licking it off, each time commenting, "Mmmm. Sushi."

So Nate and I weren't entirely surprised when we asked her what she wanted for dinner and her response was, "sushi."

"Okay sweetie," Nate said, as he went to the kitchen to make her some rice with a side of soy sauce.

"NO," she exclaimed shaking her head wildly. "DOOR."

She wanted it delivered.

Happy Links-a-Plenty

If you haven't been following Duckiegate over at Motherhood Uncensored, you don't know what you're missing. Start here. Then click over to the witty (if sometimes too subtle for readers) responses at Her Bad Mother and Mothergoosemouse. If you still haven't had enough, go to Parentdish and see who throws the first stone. It's not as fun as watching Flavor of Love Girls: Charm School, but really, it's close.

Edited to add: The fun continues, with video no less. David sez Free the Duck.

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Hey, a new blog! And it's funny!

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Hey, another new blog - a real life compadre who needs something to write about besides her recent google searches. And she has chops. So go comment, and give her some fodder, will you?

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The New Girl joined the ranks of motherhood yesterday with her beautiful baby girl, and Christina had her baby girl last week. May they and Sage all grow up to be bff.

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Babble is attempting to encroach on Cool Mom Picks' territory with drool.icio.us which features product product reviews from some of my fave bloggers. Eh, we're not worried. In fact, we'll probably steal some of their ideas.

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Speaking of Cool Mom Picks (smooth segue, right?) do you know that if you sign up for our newsletter this month you could win a gorgeous twin bed along with a set of Boodalee bedding from Mason and Matisse? It's worth like 900 bucks. Plus we give stuff away almost every day--just check our morning posts. Today it's a goooorgeous giclee print from artist Stephanie Wise.

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Go to sk*rt. It's fun.

Woe Is Me and My Music

Sunday night, fresh out of gray matter for the day, I checked in with my favorite channel as of late, VH1.

As pop culture savvy people know (or, really, the non-knowledge-seeking population at large), this is the home of such ingenious programming as My Fair Brady and Breaking Bonaduce (yes, that Bonaduce); my original pregnancy staple, The Surreal Life; and my current guilty pleasure, Flavor of Love Girls: Charm School Starring Mo'Nique - which, if you ask me, should be subtitled Oh Dear God This Is Surely the Sign of the Apocalypse.

While the Celebreality shows were not on, something nearly as good was - 40 Most Softsational Rock Songs.

Was there ever a show title that called to a marshmallow-brained new mom-slash -former child of the 70's more?

I laughed as I clicked over to channel 19, and began drifting away to cerebral nothingness as the hosts riffed on Seals and Croft, The Captain and Tenille (oh, that wacky Captain), and REO Speedwagon. There was so much comedy fodder inherent in the topic: The earnest melodies. The confounding lyrics. The confounding facial hair.

Then suddenly it struck me...

holy crap...

I was not listening to this ironically at all. I was totally enjoying it. Every song.

Of course I was riveted watching Steven Perry belt out Open Arms, although that should come as no surprise to long-term readers. Especially considering the devirginication associations with the ballad (which I'll have to discuss another time). But I found myself wistful for Styx, honestly in love with Olivia Newton-John, and even humming along to...oh lord, I can hardly bring myself to admit it...ugh...can't...do it... must...resist...getting...weaker...

Michael Bolton.

Sigh.

Every one of those softsational soft rock songs brings back a deeply entrenched memory: Lying on the radiator cover in our kitchen on snow days while Anne Murray warbled You Needed Me. Impromptu street kickball games the summer of Chuck Mangione's Feels So Good. Singing Christopher Cross' Sailing ruefully with gymnastic camp BFFs whose names I've long forgotten. Hoping a boy would ask me to skate with him when the rink dimmed the lights for Hall and Oates' One on One. Watching the Rosanna video while experimenting with black eyeliner and heavy petting during the early days of MTV.

And of course, the hormonal flood of tears in a girlfriend's arms to Styx's Babe, during a particularly harrowing encounter with unrequited 8th grade love.

These songs are meaningful to me. I love them and I'm not afraid who knows it.

What's more, I didn't just watch the show, I recorded it.

So call me lame. Call me cheesy. Call me grandma, like Nate does. But I won't hear you.

I'll be too busy humming the Pina Colada song.

Big Buts

My daughter is fine.

Those are the words I've been afraid to write now for 3 weeks and 4 days, despite countless (kind, so very kind) emails and comments hoping specifically for these four very words in response.

I was afraid to write them even when the hospital pediatrician told me that the baby looked totally healthy.

I was afraid to write them two weeks ago even when my doctor first called to tell me that the lab report read that "her levels are inconsistent with a diagnosis of toxoplasmosis."

I was afraid to write them several days later even when I received a poignant letter from a blind reader who had stumbled onto this post; she is blind because her mother didn't know she had toxo during her own pregnancy.

I was afraid to write them Wednesday even when my pediatrician reported that based on her conversation with my OB, she wasn't worried at all.

Why?

Because there's always a BUT the end of every definitive statement.

"She looks totally healthy BUT we'll know better when we get the blood work back."

"Her levels are inconsistent with a diagnosis of toxoplasmosis BUT the lab would still like her to have her blood drawn at three and six months just to be certain."

"I spoke to your OB and I am not worried BUT I wonder why they only did blood work and not a brain scan on her at the hospital."

"I have toxo because my mother was never diagnosed with it during her pregnancy BUT I was perfectly healthy until I was four years old."

I know it's a tad unconventional, but actually I like my definitive statements to be...well, definitive.

My first instinct is that if I say "she's fine" out loud that I will somehow jinx it. As if my words have more power than antibiotics, more power than medical science as a whole. And so I don't say it out loud. Or when people ask me to, I smile and respond with the good news as enthusiastically as I can muster, then rapidly change the subject. No, she doesn't have toxo, thanks for asking. Hey, I know...let's get ice cream!

But sometimes first instincts are wrong. Sometimes they downright suck.

And so my new hypothesis is that saying the words is the first step in getting my mind to believe them. It's the first step towards acknowledging--knowing--that my daughter is in fact totally, mercifully, beautifully healthy and strong. That when I see her gazing off into the distance, it's just what newborns do and I should stop freaking the hell out that one day she'll tell me that she's only pretending to see all the things her friends see. She's not that reader who wrote to me. They have different stories.

This is Sage: A sweet, round, ruddy little newborn girl who looks beautiful in pink and lavender, who has infant acne crawling across her fat cheeks and up her scalp, who has piercing blue eyes that will probably change to brown, who needs to be picked up a wee bit more often than I'd like, who blows through 4 onesies a day and many ounces of Tide Free with her ever explosive and well-functioning intestinal system.

In other words, my daughter is fine. She's fine.

There. I said it.

And now I can resume falling in love with her.

Boobie for One, Non-Smoking. Something With a View Perhaps?

This week a long lost friend paid a visit, one whom I hadn't seen since we picked out nursing bras together two years ago.

I met her son for the first time, a sweet little boy with gorgeously curly hair, bright chubby cheeks, and a complexion the color of coffee milk. He spent the afternoon being a toddler - building blocks and knocking them down, taking Thalia's little ride-on train for a spin, climbing on the coffee table, hurling golf balls that Nate brilliantly leaves around the living room, and then crawling into my friend's lap with a simple request:

MOMMY, BOOBIE!

At which point she hoisted up her shirt and stuck one in his mouth.

"Oh..." I stammered. "Um, wow. I mean...forgive me. I just don't really know anyone who's still nursing a two year old."

"Oh sure," she replied proudly. "In fact he's still 95% breast fed!"

I wasn't sure what the other 5% could have been. Cow's milk? Formula? Hi-C? And so I asked.

"Food," she answered matter-of-factly. "Yep. He's not too interested in food. He's my little boobie baby. Aren't you, Sweetie..."

[suck suck suck]

I'm not sure how I responded at this point. For I was entirely freaked out.

When I hear about extended breastfeeding, it sounds reasonable. Beautiful even. But to witness it first hand...

freaked out. Entirely.

Now before you go and flame my comments, calling me Barbara Walters and suggesting I go take a flying leap off a Delta Airline 727 mid-flight, save it. I'm writing a good deal of this post with one hand as I nurse my baby (so please forgive any typos). And to do so, I just survived 10 days of fierce pain, the likes of which would have had even POW survivors pleading for mercy and switching to Enfamil. Think a slow, anesthetic-free nipple piercing performed by a crackhead with a rusty needle and you've pretty much got a sense of what I went through in order to give my daughter the first hundred and fifty or so meals of her life.

In other words, I'm all for breastfeeding. Or at least for those who care to do so. And I'm all for not breastfeeding for those who, for whatever reason, can't. This is not a breast versus formula debate; and may I add that anyone who tries to make it one is an ass. This is just me, trying to figure out why I was so freaked out (entirely) by a two year-old running up to his mom at snack time and ordering a boobie with a side of absolutely nothing.

Thalia, if you're curious, just had the Pirate's Booty. She was okay with that.

Maybe my issues stem from the degree to which my friend was dedicated (dedicated? devoted? insane?) to it - 95% breastfed isn't the same as oh he still nurses to sleep at night while we share a quiet moment. I mean, I watched as that boy flung himself onto her breasts in the broad daylight of my living room. That's pretty darn committed.

Or maybe it's just some 21st century American notion that's inextricably bored into my being, that says that nursing is something we do for babies. You know...because they can't eat food yet.

In any case, it shouldn't matter. My friend's son is healthy, strong and smart. He's bilingual. He's musical. He's athletic. And he's clearly doted on by both parents. In other words, her choices don't seem to be hurting him. Isn't that really what's important? Yes, says my head. But ew, still says my gut.

I didn't engage her on the vaccination question, but something tells me we differ there too. Especially when she waved off an aside I made about going the pediatrician's office.

"Oh no no no," she said. "Pediatricians...we don't do that."

Mea culpa, my old friend. I know we're different kinds of parents. Really different. So I'm working through this. Because I want that to be okay.

More Notes From the Bleeding Heart Liberal Capitalist Pig*

Answers to frequently asked questions about ads on my blog:

1) No I'm not selling out my kids.

2) Wal-Mart, Domino's Pizza, and the NRA.

3) Well no one is forcing you to read it, be-yatch.

4)Hahaha, yes! I totally agree with that.

5)About a million dollars a month, give or take.



To find out what the questions are--and even ask your own--come see me on Day 2 of the BlogHer conference next month, where I'm super honored to be a part of a panel called Professional Blogging: Business Considerations. It's just a schmancy title for balancing the art and commerce of blogging; or in other words, making a few bucks off your little corner of the internet without selling your soul or pissing off your readers.

It's easy to recognize me: I'll be the one with the postpartum spare tire and clothes three years out of date, who refuses to stand up from behind the table.

*In case you're thinking, "huh?" The original post that the title references can be found here.