Some Pig

Birth Day Story

India is two years old!  The little blob who did nothing but yell and sleep has grown and changed to become ... a person!  Who still yells and sleeps.  And plays, and swings, and states "all done crib!" at 5:30 am, and demands things, and smiles and blows kisses, and drives me crazy with devotion and irritation by turns.  She is, more or less directly, the reason why I blog (I need something to preserve my scraps of sanity), and since I wasn't blogging when she was born, I feel it's only fitting that I dedicate a post to her journey into this world.  Don't worry, though - I'm only going to concentrate on the funny parts. If you don't know how birthin' babies goes, and are too young to remember the ABC Afterschool Special My Mom's Having a Baby, you can see the whole process any number of times a day on one of those TLC shows like A Baby Story, Maternity Ward, Emergency Maternity Ward, Pet Maternity Ward, Celebrity Maternity Ward, et. al.  Come back once you're up to speed.

One of the most common sentiments many a new mother states is how childbirth totally steamrollers one's sense of decorum and need for privacy.  I will attest to that.  The hospital I went to - and here I must state that Warren and I are huge fans of hospitals.  No doubt about it.  Sure, women have been having babies for centuries, but women have also been dying in droves from doing so for centuries, and who am I to refute progress?  I have nothing against all the other options (water birth, home birth, birth-with-drumming-ceremony, what have you), but all my kids will be or have been born where there's a nice big panic button handy in case everything goes pear-shaped.  Anyway, I digress.  The hospital I went to is the largest in the state and a regional teaching hospital, so when you go there to have your kid, there are observers upon observers all firmly intent upon staring at your nether regions in what cannot be the most flattering of situations.  In addition to the standard-issue OB nurse and resident, plus the doctor from my practice, I had an intern AND a pre-internship med student all trooping in and out pretty much at will.  On top of that, the maternity ward was apparently in the midst of deciding upon which new model of labor and delivery bed they would like to buy.  Their methodology for making this decision consisted of getting sample beds from various manufacturers and putting a different model in each of four rooms (and isn't that a swell idea for furnishing your home?  Just call the hospital bed retailers, claim to be a hospital and maybe they'll send you free samples!).  I could tell this was big doin's in these parts, because I'd hear the typical pitter-patter of feet shod in orthopedic shoes hurrying, hurrying down the hall ... the patter would come to a screeching stop just outside my door ... a moment's silence ... and then someone would poke (usually) her head in the room and say, "Wow!  That's one of the new beds, isn't it?"  I would remark as how yes, I guessed it was, after which there was always a brief, somewhat awkward pause, usually followed by a hesitant step into the room.  "Um, do you mind if I, uh ...," my visitor would stammer until I could jump in with, "Oh sure!  Go ahead!  Help yourself!"  and other social pleasantries.  Then my newfound friend would push buttons and pull levers to her heart's content as I tried to look nonchalant about the fact that all my limbs were being moved about involuntarily.  What the hell, it was for a good cause.

Once the novelty of being in labor and being able to watch the NBA playoffs in our room wore off for me and Warren respectively, we settled in to wait for ... a whole bunch of nothing.  Nothing happened.  We walked the (very short) halls of the maternity ward a million times and I took a bath, but no dice. Little blips kept showing up on the contraction-o-meter graph paper, but they were mere hillocks when Himalayan peaks were expected.  After a few hours of this, Warren pulled out the chair/bed and went to sleep, and I stayed awake because - well, I don't know why I stayed awake.  I think I stayed awake out of some cockeyed sense of obligation, because after all, someone should stay awake in case, um, anything happened. This is, hands down, one of the stupidest ideas I've ever had.  Did I think I would sleep through labor???  In fact, I still regret this to this day.  That was my last opportunity to sleep in, guilt-free, without having to go through high-level diplomatic negotiations with the other spouse, and what do I do?  I blow it.  I still kick myself when I think about all those hours of sleep I lost.  Alas, the night of May 23rd/24th, I scarcely knew ye. 

To make a long labor into a short story, I was given pitocin to speed things along.  I screamed.  Drugs were administered.  I screamed some more.  An epidural was administered.  I stopped screaming because I couldn't feel anything below my waist, and I wouldn't have cared anyway if I did.  Mmmm, epidurals ... good stuff.  Then I spent a great deal of time in a stage called "pushing," which felt like an enormous rubber band was squeezing my midsection at regular intervals.  From time to time, a disgustingly cheerful nurse would tromp through the room, take a quick look, then merrily proclaim, "Making good progress here!" before tromping off to go do something much less strenuous than what I was doing. This was completely mystifying and not a little annoying.  Progress?  What progress?  And how dare someone ambulatory and not possessed of a frozen-turkey-sized bulge of a midriff comment on how wonderful my life is at the moment, especially when the aforementioned frozen turkey is transitioning from an internal to external existence at a pace best described as glacial?  Feh. 

That stage lasted - well, I don't know, longer than it takes to microwave popcorn but less time than evolving to stand upright.  Women who know the technical term for each stage of labor and who remember how long each stage took amaze me.  Personally, I have only so much room left to store new ideas in my brain and I am not wasting it on stuff like that.  Plus I have had one too many lunchroom conversations monopolized by new moms who drone on and on about their obstetrical adventures, oblivious to the fact that no one is really listening to them.  Somehow it is always a noteworthy discovery that hey, labor is painful!  And she survived it!  For 272 hours!  "...And then the doctor wanted to give me an episiotomy, but I didn't want one, so they said I'd have to have a c-section, but then..." yada, yada, yada, all over the egg salad. Besides, any time I want to recall something health-related, I just have to call my mother the RN, who has an encyclopedic memory for everything physically noteworthy that has ever happened to me. 

So no, I have no idea how long this stage took.  But at some obviously critical turning point, the tenor of the room abruptly changed.  The room was designed so that its residents could go from "labor" to "delivery" without having to be rolled from one room to another.  The doctor on call from my practice strode in, announced, "this is a delivery," and suddenly the room resembled the Bat Cave, with hidden compartments swinging open and previously innocuous-looking mechanical doodads kicking into life everywhere.  I did not, however, get to slide down that nifty chute from Bruce Wayne's library to get there, which is too bad.  I always wanted to do that.  Anyway, as part of this magic presto-change-o act, the foot of the bed was supposed to break away and, with a few twists of some levers, the bed would become a delivery table.  Notice the "supposed to" and "would become" in that sentence, because the former happened, but the latter didn't.  First, one stalwart nurse gave it the old college try.  Then she went out in the hall and fetched an orderly or two, who tried the exact same thing she did, and then stood around scratching their heads.  A bunch of other random hospital personnel came in and alternated yanking fruitlessly on random protruding metal bits and standing about looking gormless (apparently, no one thought to keep the instruction booklet handy).  All of this is transpiring, mind you, around and about a very busy OB doctor, a couple of nurses, my husband, my mother, and me. I finally noticed there were far more people present than absolutely necessary when a huge debate broke out over whether the bed was broken or they just didn't know how to operate it, and if so, who on staff knew how to operate the bed and where was that person right now, should they page this mystery staff member or not?  I figured what these people needed was my well-reasoned, insightful opinion to get them straightened out and flying right.

"GET OUT," I explained.

They scattered as leaves before the wind, and India made her grand entrance minutes later to an audience that was, thankfully, back in the single digits.  We have a photo of me, looking "radiant" (read: horrible) in my hospital johnny, clutching what looks to be a well-wrapped loaf of bread wearing a hat, with two bright little eyes peeping out between the folds. Ladies and gents, that is the story of how Miss India came into the world.  And life hasn't been the same since.

Weight Watchers? We Don't Need No Stinkin' Weight Watchers!

Lose Weight Now!  Ask Me How!
For those of you trying to shed those pesky pounds, I have great news!  I have a diet routine that really works.  Forget no-carb, low-carb, good-carb, bad-carb.  Forget cabbage soup, Dexatrim, pomegranite juice, grapefruit.  Say goodbye to Pilates, the Ab-ciser, Suzanne Somers' workout tape.  I have the answer to your weight loss prayers!  Here is all you will need:

• One family car trip requiring at least eight hours of driving each way to get to destination and home again
• One wired toddler, who preferably has been off his/her usual sleep schedule for at least 36 hours
• One gaggle of relatives who want to go out to dinner

On any given night of trip, go out to dinner with toddler and relatives.  Spend the interval between ordering drinks and ordering dinner attempting to grab all pointy items or potential missiles off the table before they become harmful.  When bread tray arrives, offer toddler bread/crackers/breadsticks in vain attempt to divert same from realizing that all said interesting items have been removed from the vicinity.  Try to keep butter dish out of arms' reach. Offer toddler martini-soaked olives in vain hope that residual alcohol fumes will calm Tazmanian fury. Watch helplessly as toddler consumes appetite-ruining amounts of bread before special child-friendly dinner arrives. 

In the interval between ordering dinner and dinner's arrival, take toddler outside to large parking lot/empty field/busy sidewalk in attempt to "run off" excess energy.  Discover that the one activity that will engross toddler requires some kind of unpleasant physical exertion on your part, such as lifting toddler up to see over fence.  Decide that engaging in this effort is preferable to trying to restrain toddler from running into traffic or listening to toddler howl.  Continue activity until fetched by relative who has enjoyed tranquil drink and adult conversation for the past twenty-five minutes.  Try not to seethe with irritation when asked cheerfully, "Where were you?"  Sit down to dinner.  Shovel in entree as fast as you can without visibly gulping while bread-sated toddler nibbles on special child-friendly dinner.  When toddler begins jumping up and down in seat, leave remaining dinner on the plate and repeat process until everyone else has finished dinner at a reasonable pace, replete with chewing. 

See?  Nothing to it!

Special Accelerated Weight-Loss Program
If you want to get your weight loss off to a rapid start, add the following steps to the procedures listed above:
Before leaving for dinner, explain carefully to relatives that toddler has been off his/her schedule for several days now, is very tired, and needs - NEEDS - to eat early and get home to bed, as does toddler's parent.  Request specific times by which eating should commence and finish.
Upon arrival at restaurant, realize that relatives have paid absolutely no attention whatsoever to parental request and dinner will be the same as it has been for the past few days - late and drawn out.
When toddler begins throwing self around in an agony of exhaustion, point out as such to relative in effort to move the dining process along.  Try not to wig out when relative responds, "Oh, Toddler's doing great!"
At end of meal, stand up when other relative says, "Oh, we're just figuring out who's going to have coffee and who's not," and announce, "Toddler needs to go NOW."  Remain standing until everyone else takes the hint.

The additional calories you'll burn from clenching your jaw and suppressing your screams will make the pounds just fly away!

PS Out of familial loyalty, I have to add that the visit overall was well worth any inconveniences to self or kid.  India got to see her great-aunt, her great-uncle, and her great-grandmother for the first time (and vice-versa) and we even managed to squeeze in a visit with her father's side of the family.  I'd say the split between great and horrific was 75/25, which isn't bad for a long trip with a toddler.  But if we ever do this again, I'M making the dinner plans.

I Take Back Everything I Ever Said

As I have mentioned before in this blog, I am very leery of television.  I am secretly convinced it's the root of all evil (okay, it shares that honor with McDonald's and George W. Bush) and I feel guilty, guilty, guilty every time the death ray penetrates India's orbs.  We've watched Sesame Street in a desultory way every once in a while, but I try not to make a habit of it.  My husband is even more draconian than I am, and wants us never to expose her to the fact that TV shows specially aimed at children even exist, never mind let her watch any of them.  Please keep in mind that this comes from a person who is seldom if ever at home with India from 4 to 7 pm when I am not also at home, and certainly never at the end of a long work day.  This is important.

My friend Karin visited last week with her six-year-old, and they left us an Elmo video the kiddo had outgrown.  Now, I hate Elmo.  I hate his whiny voice.  I hate his habit of referring to himself in the third person.  I hate the fact that a time-tested, classic Muppet like Grover has to take a backseat to this punk-ass upstart.  So, of course, the very first pop-culture reference India ever made was ... yeah, no suspense here ... "Melmo".  It's not my fault, however.  There was a little girl at India's day care for a while who had a grubby Elmo doll she carted around everywhere and sniveled into on a regular basis.  This girl had a perpetual aura of damp about her - teary eyes, runny nose, the works - and if any of the other kids evinced any interest whatsoever in her humid little doll, the waterworks began.  Anyway, looking at that soggy Elmo doll on a daily basis didn't endear him to me any, but India's interest was piqued.  Still, I held firm. NO Elmo dolls in our house!  NO Elmo sheets, shirts, shoes, socks, zip zilch zero, not in my household, thank you very much! 

Fast forward to this afternoon.  I have had, to put it mildly, a rough week.  To be blunt, I think every parent in the district hates me or at least thinks I'm incompetent, but that is another blog post. I'm already running on fumes by the time I pick up Little Miss Pumpkinhead.  We've had an unusual stretch of nice weather this week, so the kiddos have been outside twice a day all week.  This is great for fresh air and exercise, but it definitely runs down the batteries more than India's used to at the moment.  Because of this, her late afternoon moods have degenerated from somewhat trying mild outbursts of crabbiness to downright full-blown unmitigated irritability.  Today we accelerated straight through Cranky, bypassed Annoyed and arrived at Howling Tantrum in record time, replete with a thrown sippy cup and a child face down, sobbing, on the rug. 

Keeping in mind my husband's wishes that we try to distract India from her bad moods, I asked India what she would like to do.  Play basketball with her miniature hoop set?  No.  Put a nightgown on Baby?  No.  Have a snack?  No, no, NO.  Finally she raised a tear-stained face off the crumb-strewn rug and asked, between sobs, "Watch [hic] Melmo?"

Friends, I couldn't run to the DVD player fast enough to get that sucker fired up. That squeaky-voiced irritant could have been advocating mainlining transfats and tap-dancing on glass shards and I would have let her have it.  And if this should happen again tomorrow, why, Melmo it is.

[Exit, humming "la la la la, la la la la, Elmo's World (Elmo's World) ... la la la la, la la la la, Elmo's World .....]

Sometimes A Girl Needs A Break

This past week was a long, hard grind - the kind of week that seems three weeks long.  Warren had to be away overnight two nights in a row.  The first night we knew about, so I was mentally geared up for the single-mom slog through those testy late afternoon and evening hours.  The second night was a bit of a surprise for both of us.  Warren had one of those work-related, social-but-not-really-social events where you really need to make an appearance, and it came up at the last minute.  That coincided with an evening-long episode of full-blown Terrible Two behavior from Little Miss Toddler.  Suffice it to say, at the end of the week, I was done.  Toast.  Finito.  Gone.

Warren has been working really, really hard lately, and it's starting to take its toll on all of us.  He's tired from his long days, I'm tired from the home/work juggling act, and India's getting more and more dependent on me, where she used to find nearly equal solace from both of us.  I don't know how single moms do it.  I would be a much different mother if I had to shoulder the whole burden on my own, with no safety valve for when the pressure builds up.  For instance, today I ran away from home.  After lunch I took off to see my pal Tracy.  We sat on the floor of her kitchen and played with her two fuzzball kittens and talked about all the teacher-y stuff that doesn't interest Warren.  I got to have an adult conversation uninterrupted by demands for juice, for toys, for a playmate.  I got to walk around a store and look at a bunch of stuff I wasn't going to buy without having to worry about prying fingers.  I got to enjoy sitting in Tracy's beautifully decorated apartment without wondering about sharp objects or low-lying pottery bowls.  In essence, I took a five-hour vacation from my life.

While I was gone, Warren took India over to see friends of his from college.  I thought about postponing my afternoon with Tracy, because I do like his friends, but then I decided to stick with my original plan.  Quite frankly, going to see Warren's friends would not have been much of a break.  When we go to visit friends with toddler in tow, I'm the one on duty 90% of the time.  I spend great chunks of time chasing India away from the cats, or dissuading her from eating the teeny tiny Lego pieces, or putting back all the book she pulls off the shelf, all while dying to hear and maybe even take part in the adult conversation all around me.  I'm sure this pattern is true of the majority of parent/couples, and it's not like Warren doesn't pitch in, but there it is. (Is it true for the lesbian/gay couples?  Is there a partner who's more the 'mommy' and one who's not?  Just curious.)  And while I wouldn't trade anything I have for anything on earth, part of me does resent this just the slightest bit.  I get tired of being the one left out of the grown-up group by default, because someone has to chase the baby and the baby wants me.  I get tired of being the one who fields all the crabby afternoons and tantrummy evenings.  I get tired of reading Richard Scarry and Mother Goose when what I really want to read is the Sunday Times.  And I know, truly I do, that some day I'll look at an adolescent seething with resentment and hormones and wish we were back in the days of Sesame Street and "Wheels on the Bus". 

Sometimes the thing I need most is not to be needed.

This, Too, Shall Pass ... I Hope

I am really, really starting to hate this stage of India's development.

Having a newborn, I was so thrilled I wouldn't have cared what she was like, and I was so sleep deprived I didn't know what was going on.  Babyhood was a kick - I had a kid who was all gurgles and smiles, and she was both readily portable and easily amused.  The ten month to sixteen month phase was a blast.  She started walking and talking, playing little games and laughing with us.  But now we are on a collision course with the Terrible Twos, and I am not sure if we are both going to make it out alive.

Sure, this new stage has its joys - we're chatting, we're playing "nap" with Baby and Teddy and Puppy, we're helping to empty the dishwasher and feed the cat.  However, it comes part and parcel with other, less attractive new habits.  India has developed this ... this keening wail of a cry that she employs at least five times on any given day any time she doesn't get what she wants.  This inhuman caterwaul penetrates every molecule of your being, to the point where I swear I can feel my vertebrae disintegrating under the force of its piercing vibrato.  And what parental transgressions set off this aural assault on my sanity?  Well, let's see.  She doesn't WANT to put on her coat, even if it is 29 degrees out with a stiff wind chill.  She doesn't WANT to sit in HER seat to eat her dinner, she wants to sit in MOMMY'S SEAT and, incidentally, drop bits of food all over it that I don't see until after I've sat on it.  She doesn't WANT to stay a safe distance away from whatever danger to life and limb is nearby, she wants to greet it with open arms (not to mention severe contusions). She doesn't WANT to sit in the cart patiently while Mommy shops, she wants to walk on her own in whatever direction she chooses, selecting fragile and/or potentially messy items to haul off the shelf at random and carry around, and if, God forbid, I should actually take the giant economy sized bottle of hand soap AWAY from her, then she is damn well going to LIE DOWN ON THE FLOOR and let everyone know the injustice she is forced to labor under, day in, day out.  And just where the hell is Amnesty International when you need them, anyway?

It is somewhat ironic that I would find this stage so trying, since it does have marked commonalities with adolescence, and I spend all my professional time relating to adolescents.  Let's look at the similarities:

Toddler                                          Adolescent

Prone to mood swings                      Prone to mood swings

Unreasonably stubborn                     Unreasonably stubborn

Irrationally behaved                         Irrationally behaved

Loud                                               Loud

Attention span of fruit fly                    Attention span of sand flea

Gets up at ungodly hour                   Goes to bed at ungodly hour

Surly toward mother                        Surly toward mother

Geez, just give India a driver's permit and some acne, and she'd be a typical sophomore!

While adolescence and toddlerhood are strikingly similar, they have one key difference:  The average adolescent prefers, and in fact goes out of her way, to avoid interaction with her mother; my toddler, unfortunately, seems compelled to seek me out for the sole purpose of crying at the top of her lungs until I suffer a psychotic break. The only thing that angers India worse than my repeated failures to meet her every need is when I attempt to remove myself as an audience for her anger.  For some reason, she insists upon following me around the house howling like a banshee when she's pissed off at me.  Hell, I'm looking forward to the day when she storms off to her room and slams the door - at least I'll get some peace and quiet!!

I have been conducting an informal survey, which basically consists of asking all the mothers I run into, "How long am I going to be living in this eighth circle of hell, and when does she grow out of it?"  The answers vary wildly, but unfortunately, one common theme seems to be that other ages are much, much worse than this one, and someday I will look back on this phase with nostalgia for the good ole days.  Lord give me strength, and perhaps a divinely-bestowed extra-large bottle of Valium while She's at it, because otherwise one of us has got to go.

I Have Glimpsed What The Future May Hold, and It Is Not Pretty

Today after we got home, I let India play upstairs by herself for awhile.  That way, she could excavate one of the binkies that always falls behind the crib and suck on it outside the approved binky use time zone while I started dinner.  By letting her play alone, I could pretend I didn't know exactly what she was doing, and she could pretend she wasn't doing it.  I think in legal terms it's called "collusion".

Finally, having chopped and assembled enough foodstuffs to consider dinner under way, I figured I should check on the little cherub.  I hadn't heard the pitter patter of little feet for some minutes, which, as any experienced parent can tell you, is always the first sign that chaos is about to descend.  I went to the foot of the stairs and called India's name.  She stayed out of sight long enough that I started mentally running down the list of Possible Life-Threatening Yet Silent Emergencies.  The internal dialogue goes something like this:  "Is there a light socket up there without a safety plug in it?  Could she have stuck her finger in the light socket?  if she had electrocuted herself, wouldn't I have heard the body thump to the floor by now?"  and so forth.

Finally the object of my attention hove into view.  She had one binky in her mouth, one in her hand, and her elastic waist pants, for some inexplicable reason, pulled down around her knees.  The reason I hadn't heard any pitter pats was because of the pants - they were restricting her range of motion so all she could do was shuffle. 

So what am I to make of this?  Is she trying to emulate the urban trend of excessively baggy trousers?  Am I harboring a wannabe gangbanger in pink fleece pants?  What if the binky is some kind of signal to her troops that the shit's goin' down?  What then?

This is going to be very hard to explain at day care.

That's Why They're Called GRAND Parents, and Other Musings

Cold enough where you are?

I just ask that as a patently obvious gambit so I can tell you how cold it is here.  How cold is it?  Well, for me to do it adequate justice, I would have to use most of George Carlin's Seven Dirty Words multiple times, and then I run the risk of losing my PG-13 rating from the MPAA.  Stating it another way, in the past 72 hours, the temperature dropped from Unseasonably Mild to Nippy, made a brief stop at Well, What Do You Expect, It Is New England In January; then plummeted down to Is That Really Necessary before coming to rest at Good Lord, Why Do Civilized People Live Here?  That's how cold it is.

Despite the Arctic forecast, Warren and I went away for a ski weekend.  Actually, I say it was a "ski weekend," but what it really was, was a "get away from our small person weekend."  As such, it just didn't matter what the weather was like outside, the weekend was still glorious.  No one insisted I put down my book to read Richard Scarry, no one had to be fed right now or else, no one had to have a diaper changed at a critical point in a playoff game (The Pats lost big to the Broncos, by the way).  Best of all, for two mornings in a row, I woke up when I was done sleeping, not when someone else decided I was done sleeping.  It took a little practice to get back in the swing of it - the first morning, I was awake at 6 am, but I screwed my eyes tight shut and refused to acknowledge it until 7.  Today I was much more proficient, dozing on and off from 7-ish to 8 am.  When I think back to the days when I could sleep until 10, 11, or even noon without breaking stride, well, I realize just how far off my form I've fallen.

After pestering us for ages to let her have the kid for a visit, my mother was in her element, and what can I do but stand dumbfounded at my enormous good luck?  In my pre-blog days, when I got my communication fix by reading the BabyCenter bulletin boards (I know, I know! I was young and foolish, I only tried it a few times, and I did not inhale), I would lurk on the drama-n-trauma boards like "Dealing with the In-Laws," and read absolute horror stories about families that aren't fortunate enough to get along.  India spent the weekend charming Nonny and Poppy, which must have been hard work, because she was crying with fatigue by 6:45 pm.  Added bonus!

I was startled to see how much more independent India has become, as always happens when we leave India for any length of time.  The kid who used to require being kept in sight 24/7 can now entertain herself for a quarter-hour at a stretch.  She's also become incredibly inventive, too.  She made up a special Nonny's house game over the weekend, in which she stands in the kitchen and announces "HIE-DING!  HIE-DING!" at the top of her little lungs.  Once she ascertains our awareness that she is, in fact, hiding, she then inserts herself in the gap between the kitchen cabinets and the counter.  After all the adults present proclaim themselves to be completely incapable of figuring out her whereabouts for a sufficient length of time, she reveals herself to huzzahs of relief and surprise, often followed by hugs and kisses and sometimes a cracker.

Know what I think?  This kid needs a sibling.

Warren is a little concerned that India doesn't really grasp the notion of hiding, or the underlying concept that if you're hidden, it's because you don't want to be found.  I think there are enormous advantages to fostering this misinterpretation. Think about how much easier India's adolescence will be if she thinks that concealment consists of telling us everything she's planning to do.  Instead of yelling "HIE-DING," maybe she'll yell, "I'M SNEAKING OFF TO THE WOODS TO PARTY AND SMOKE POT AND GET LAID."  Then Warren and I can stand in the kitchen and talk to each other really, really loudly, saying things like, "Boy, I don't where India is!  I wonder what she's planning to do tonight?  Do you know?  I have no idea what she's up to!"  Then, when we send the cops to pick her up, she will be completely stymied by how we managed yet again to thwart her teenaged plans.  "I dunno, man," she'll say to her multiply-pierced, gum-smacking little friends, "It's like they know exactly what I'm doing all the time!"

I can always hope, can't I?

Is She or Isn't She?

Those of you who have ever left your BD Basal Temperature thermometer under the pillow and hoped the Conception Fairy would visit, you will understand this post immediately.  We are (I say "we" because that's the politically correct thing to say, but in terms of actually paying attention to this, read "I am") in the two week lull that occurs post-ovulation and pre-widdle-on-a-stick.  In a way, it's a lovely two week vacation from worrying about baby making - you either have or you haven't, and there's no way of knowing, so you might as well alphabetize your spice rack, or catch up on your reading, or Netflix the next season of Nip/Tuck.  While I am, of course, hoping for the best, actually getting knocked up this cycle would present an interesting challenge:  What will I tell the terrifyingly competent Dr. A.?

A bit of history is in order.  My current batting average is .250 - I have one child to show for four pregnancies, the last of which came to its ignominious end at the tail end of August.  As I took the D&C route, I was sternly warned NOT to try to conceive for two cycles.  Dr. A. never actually came out and said what would happen, but the implication was that no sane human being would even try.  Well, being the good pedagogue that I am, I decided I would do my own research.  Most medical websites agree that waiting is prescribed as a safety measure, but one that has little to no foundation under it other than caution.  Furthermore, some anecdotal evidence suggests that some women are MORE fertile post D&C than normal.  Being that the self-imposed cutoff line of 40 is rapidly approaching, and given that I seem to be quite capable of NOT conceiving all on my own, I decided to get right back on that baby train, yee-hah!  This decision also had the added attraction of ending the sotto voce complaints emanating from the other side of the bed regarding the new contraception regime.  [NB: If you think men carry on a lot when they're sick, try interfering with their hassle-free marital rights!  It ain't a pretty sight.]

So if it comes about that I am pregnant, and I have to spill the beans, I have two options:  I can either 1) lie, or 2) tell the truth.  If I choose Door #2, what do I say?  "Hey, Dr. A., despite the fact that I have entrusted myself to your care, and I agreed to follow your advice, I basically decided to go off the rez and do my own thing.  Hope you understand."  Hmm.  Now, were I a doctor, and were I responsible for a patient's welfare and greater well-being, I think I'd understandably be a little irked.  It's a bit like a heart patient saying, "Thanks for the triple bypass, Doc, I'm off to Burger King." Maybe that's not the best idea.  This brings me to Door #1, which is to lie.  Okay, fib.  Prevaricate.  Fudge the truth.  Obfuscate a bit. 

The stories I have piloted so far all have serious flaws in them in some way.  For example, I can lie and say, "the birth control failed!"  But that will only invite questioning into what form we used, and how we used it, and where we went wrong, all of which offers way too many opportunties for crossing myself up.  Besides, on a personal level, my vanity won't allow me to pretend I've messed up on something even teenagers can do correctly.  Or I can lie and say, "I wasn't charting, so I didn't know" - but then how would I know to take a pregnancy test?  All the other stories I devise are even flimsier than these, so I won't insult anyone's intelligence by committing them to paper - er, HTML. The end result is always the same (I don't know what I'll say), and the reality is that I don't even know if I need to worry about coming up with a plausible excuse.  As a tarot reader once told me, "why borrow trouble from the future?"  [Not bad advice, and given the cost of an hour with a therapist who will tell you much the same thing, it came cheap!]

In that vein, I will sign off and leave this dilemma unresolved.  There is a far greater than 50% chance that I won't need any kind of stratagem for this situation anyway.  But if YOU have any experience with this, feel free to share....

The Tour de Mom

Yesterday I had an epiphany:  Middle age is rapidly encroaching and I might as well just accept it.  I have always tried to force myself off the couch on a regular basis, but in my younger days my activities of choice were much more ambitious (running, swimming, and aerobics in my 20's, hip-hop dance and most recently Bikram yoga in my early to mid 30's).  Since my very late thirtysomethings find me with far less free time in my schedule and with a toddler to mind, my exercise options are limited to going for long walks.  Oh, how my 20-year-old self would cringe!  My roommates and I used to call people like me "pep steppers."  Walking was what we would do when we didn't feel like doing real exercise.  "Are you going for a run today?"  "Nah, I'm just going to pep step around Back Cove."  One of the joys of middle age, however, is that now I can let go of some of these prejudices and preconceived notions.  Say it out loud, I'm pep stepping and I'm proud!

The beauty of pep stepping is that a) you don't need special training or surroundings to do it, and b) unless it's really hot, you don't get tremendously sweaty or uncomfortable.  So several times a week, I [wo]manfully ignore the siren strains of Dr. Phil and Oprah, strap on my sneakers, stuff India into her stroller, and off we go around the neighborhood.  I have come up with several nicknames for my usual route, including the Pep Step Parade and the Bataan Death Dawdle, but I have settled on calling it the Tour de Mom.  The name makes me feel important, I always get to wear the yellow jersey, and I always finish first.  Ha!

Having looked down on pep stepping for so long, it is only fitting that I should get my comeuppance in some way (we English majors love comeuppances; it fulfills our need to have our lives follow the story arc in some fashion).  At the dread annual exam (not the one where you see the GP - the other exam), I got on the scale to find that I weigh less now than I did before I had India! [NB: The creaking noise you hear is the sound of me, patting myself on the back.]  I currently tip the scales at 122 pounds!  Okay, that's a lie.  I tip the scales at much closer to 123 pounds, but the very kind nurse said, "That's okay, we'll just call it 122."  Even my doctor, the terrifyingly competent Dr. A., was impressed, and he's a prime example of an ectomorph if ever I saw one.  Now, in the interest of full disclosure, I have to confess that I rushed right home and tried on a bunch of skirts that haven't seen the light of day since approximately 2003, and they still didn't fit.  While I may be a mere slip of a girl at 122 pounds, they are 122 strategically rearranged pounds.

So where was I?  Oh yeah, comeuppances.  Well, it seems only fair that I have had the greatest success using the method of exercise that I have most disparaged. Trooping around in fleece outerwear with my kid strapped into our yuppies-from-hell jogging stroller, I have become a walking cliche. 20-year-old Caroline would have immediately rolled her eyes at the sight of me chugging along.  That oughta fix my little red wagon!  Or actually, it probably won't.  I bet I'll continue to jump to conclusions, make assumptions, and cling obstinately to my opinions for years to come.  But it's nice to know I'm willing to admit when I'm wrong.

In Which I Introduce Myself

Dear Reader,
(Hackneyed?  Granted.  But hell, it worked for Jane Austen, right?)

The process of starting a weblog is a terrifying thing.  I've spent weeks contemplating this, to the point where I find myself mentally reviewing the events of the day and editing them into amusing anecdotes sure to please my ever-growing fan base.  Daydreaming is one thing, however, actually making the leap quite another.  What kind of hubris does it show, after all, to think that my quotidian experiences will make for good blogging?  And where do I start?

Here goes.

My name is Caroline.  I'm 38 and happily married to Warren, a man who is by turns saintly (when he's putting up with my idiosyncracies) and supremely irritating (when he's giving vent to his own).  We have a sixteen month old daughter, India, who has a perennially sunny disposition and an alarming predilection for eating cat food.  I teach social studies at WHS, a large (well, for here, anyway) public high school in northern New England.  I like pina coladas, but I'm not too keen on getting caught in the rain.  My husband is very definitely into health food, and I like to think of myself as having at least half a brain.  I will spare you my perspective on making love at midnight, but I will say that doing so in the dunes of the Cape is probably much better in theory than in practice. 

Bonus points if you get the reference in my blog name.