little tsunamis

I must really enjoy sleep-deprivation, since I have spent the past 3 nights reading way past a reasonable hour (reasonable being 1 AM in this house), engrossed in Jennifer Weiner's book Little Earthquakes. Once in a while I find a book like this, that the longer I read it, the less tired I am until I force myself to turn off the light. Then I lie in the dark, thinking about the lives of the people I have spent all this time with in my head. The next day (which starts four hours later) I want to kick myself.

The book follows the lives of 4 very different women, 3 pregnant and one who has lost her child. They all deal with motherhood and loss so uniquely, but their role as mothers is the one great leveller of all. So much of this book rings true, from the postpartum check-up (you're fine to have sex now! and she laughs so hard that she cries and then falls asleep in the examining room), to insane baby-care books, oh-so-unhelpful husbands/inlaws, breastfeeding woes and expectations never comparing to the reality of life with a baby.

I could not have read this book a year ago, and struggle even now to not sob as I read; the pain is still there, but fading in my memory enough to engage in a fictional world with new moms. Not faded enough to consider peopling the world further, but enough that I can remember more good things than before about my own experience. Mostly that my son was a surreally good baby, healthy and hungry. He was as low-key as you could get for a newborn without being comatose, which was a great thing. Because I was a complete train wreck and severely anemic (like half-my-blood-gone vampire victim). Nursing was horrible for about 10 weeks, because I had thrush 3 times and a son who, the nurse said, had the strongest sucking reflex of any kid she had seen. Ihhh.

Besides the considerable physical trauma, I was so shaken and depressed, and instantly overwhelmed with the crushing responsibility for another human's life. An old commercial repeated itself in my head for weeks, where a black mom is talking to her daughter: "a BABY?? You can't even keep yo' ROOM clean!" My strong suit has never been organization, and the mental effort of preparing to take the baby out was enough to make me want to stay in my house for weeks. The checklist of keys and wallet became keyswalletdiaperswipestoysnursingpadsmaxipadschangeofclothesburpcloth...and I agonized over the slim window of time I had between feedings to get anywhere I could conceivably nurse A. Plus he puked constantly, every time I fed him.

Many of my friends and my sister also had babies at the same time, which was great when we were all pregnant, but not so hot because we were all taking care of the babies at the same time and couldn't help each other out. I didn't have the energy to call anybody if they were even there to talk to. Dark times indeed.

I don't know whether this is a good thing or not, but in my own dark times I almost obsess over people whose lot is much worse. There has (luckily? horribly?) been someone who has had a worse time of it, and I try to thank God for his mercy, but then wind up being mad at God for his cruelty. Then I try to pray for those people so I can do something productive, instead of imagining those horrors in my own life. It doesn't always work, especially after reading for absurdly long.

I went to work out today at the Y, by myself, as D is on vacation this week, and on the closed-captioned news they were doing a report on the victims of the tsunami, one year later. There is a huge baby boom going on in those countries, since almost a third of the victims were children. It is impossible for me to conceive of surviving in a third world country in the best of times, but to survive a catastrophe so total--I have no words left for it all. God help them, and these new little ones who bring so much joy and pain.

now i know my abc's

Here is the alphabet song, in A-speak:

ahbaysheedeeee, chee, achi, ellumn, pee, eshteeu, fee, dobble, aks, why, am-mal kacker...giggle, pretzel...shing wif MEEEE!!

Shing wif me, effybody!!

iiiiiiiiiiii....love new yorrrrrrrrk!

pollution makes the best sunsets

the Met, in the snow

I just got back from New York city, where I spent the weekend and mucho dinero with my sister. We stayed at a friend's apartment on the upper East side, and walked all day long shopping all over town. The night we arrived, it snowed huge fake-looking flakes, and the whole city was gorgeous. There were massive slush-puddles of muck at every intersection, but I was wearing boots. We spent a morning at the Met looking at all my favorite paintings and an amazing Van Gogh drawing exhibit, then the rest of the time we were shopping at outdoor holiday markets and stores we can't find in our own hometowns (well, most of the stores are not in my sister's hometown, since she lives in the boonies in Maine).

Saturday afternoon we went to Rockefeller Center, along with all of the known world, and went to the top of the building where they have just opened an observation deck. The sun was setting behind the Empire State Building, and all the city was purplish and misty, with beautiful lights everywhere. Times Square was a canyon of light, and even the traffic looked pretty from so far away. It was worth the wait in 6 different lines of people plus a security checkpoint like the airport.

I think I have changed quite a bit since I was there last. I no longer like being in massive crowds of people, especially ones who have no clue where they are going and stop randomly to take pictures. But even though that chaos bothered me, going into Nintendo World was like a breath of fresh air. I can't explain it except that all those video gamers remind me of my husband and our friends (who are mostly all nerds). Sigh. They had a sort of "history of Nintendo" exhibit, with Hanafuda cards that the company originally made, a picture of Shigeru Miamoto who designed Mario etc, and a jillion special versions of old Nintendo products, including a gameboy that was bombed in the Gulf War that still works. Who knew?

The Hanafuda cards and the Shigeru picture were especially interesting to me because my husband loooooves Shiggy, who plays the banjo, and he also asked for "Nintendo playing cards" for Christmas one year. He thought they were just the standard 52 deck we have here, but they are really a special game played by Japanese gamblers 100 years ago. I spent almost a month emailing everyone I could find to tell me about them, and all the sites that sold them were in Japanese. Eventually, I found a site that has this guy's collection of Hanafuda ("flower cards" literally in Japanese) and a Japanese import store in California where he gets them. A very anxious phone call ensued, where I asked the English-challenged lady if she had these nintendo hanafuda, and she kept talking to some other lady at the store about it in Japanese. The cards arrived 2 days later, which isn't terribly surprising because everything I order for D comes immediately in the mail. Everything I order for myself comes 6 weeks later with no apology.

Another place I went was Knit New York, a cafe and yarn store that was pretty great. It looked a lot bigger in the picture, but it was still heavenly. I got some baby alpaca yarn that feels like heaven on a string, and some hand-painted mohair too. I usually buy the yarn, and then figure out what to do with it, so suffice it to say that I have a lot of nice yarn now and lots of ideas.

I was told that my favorite store in the world, Canal Plastics, is closed. Their website looks like they are still in business, but I am not sure if it is recently updated or if my friend was incorrect. This place has everything you ever wanted, if you ever wanted yards and yards of vinyl and shiny sticker material and sheets of plexiglas, and colored plastic boxes and buttons and plastic Venus di Milos and giraffes and cellophane. Whew. It's just a staggering place. I could smell vinyl all day. Freak.

cyu' me, dart deeder

Just a quick post to record some instances of A's sense of humor, since he has been cracking me up lately. He enjoys the absurd, or at least what I have told him is absurd, like having marshmallows for breakfast. He doesn't know that Lucky Charms exist at the moment. So nearly every morning he asks, "Ma-mellow bep-bist?" with a sly grin, and then says "Noooooooooo" and laughs. Same with am-mal kackers for bep-bist.

A and D also share some silly conversations, all beginning with "excuse me," in a very childish-sounding voice. So he and D go back and forth, saying "cyu' me, Daddy," "thcuse me buddy" etc. A spent several minutes this morning with his Darth Vader big-head toy, saying "Cyu' me, Dart Deeder." This kids meal toy was the best investment ever--the Darth Vader opens up to reveal a big-head Annikin (spelling?). But Annikin doesn't spend much time as the Evil Lord Vader. Papa Smurf, a harmless velvet bear, and Batman have all spent time in the Vader suit. We never suspected Papa could be so evil.

And finally, our trip to the mall this week is something I will look back on with satisfaction, once I have successfully embarrassed the crap out of A when he's a middle school student. I was trying on blouses in a store, and A was entertaining himself well and walked over to open the door of my changing room. I told him no, don't do that because mommy's naked nuu nuu and doesn't want to show everybody in the store. So he looked sly once again and said, "Mommy nakit nuu nuu, show effybody 'tore!"

Then we went to another store, and visited the bathroom for a minute. I went with him into a handicapped stall, since we had the stroller and all. He wasn't strapped in, but usually behaves himself in the bathroom. Well, I bent down to get the almost inaccessible toilet paper, thinking some wheelchair-bound person would fall off the seat to reach it. I looked up to see the stall door wide open and three ladies laughing, fit to burst. A said "Door ibin, Mommy, ibin door!" knowing full well that he was the one who opened it. I couldn't reach the door in the state I was in, since handicapped stalls are much longer, so I had to get one of the laughing ladies to close it for me.

Freud would have a field day with this, since one of my deep-seated fears is of public restrooms. I have, in my short lifetime, walked in on a homeless lady and all her bags in our church bathroom, a deranged man in the ladies' bathroom in Towson, and toilets fit for the first scene in "trainspotting" while pregnant. Not to mention the countless feminine articles, improperly discarded, and children looking under the stall door for a laugh. If I could hold it forever till I get to my own toilet, I would be so content. All my nightmares involve public toilets with broken doors and loads of spectators. Analyze that!