Mumbling Madly

I am trying to force a friendship on my son…it’s with a stuffed dog. It is probably the first of many relationships I will convince my kid to tolerate. In this case, it’s totally self-serving: I want him to love the dog more than me.

Let me explain: at nighttime, my baby prefers to be nursed/held/rocked until he falls asleep. Then he is whisked to the crib where he is blissfully ignorant of ever leaving my aching arms. The problem is that he lacks the skill to really fall asleep on his own. If placed in his crib awake, 9 times out of 10 he explodes in mind-blowing weeps and wails, as if he were like the abandoned baby Moses floating down the river. Occasionally, I can distract him with his musical sea horse with the light up belly (followed by me tiptoeing out the door)…but even the sea horse has grown stale. The doctor hinted that nursing him to sleep wasn’t a long term solution (what, I’m not going to nurse him until he’s 18?). The yoga ball Josh insisted on bouncing on (while holding all 20 pounds of our baby hulk) has been banished upstairs. And, well, the kid is nine months old now. We can see toddler-hood in the distance…and it’s a bleak world if our boy can’t fall asleep on his own. Right?

When he does finally sleep, I catch my baby snoozing in a face down ball with his bum in the air. I marvel at this. Many, many times, we lay him flat on his back as a newborn and he would rage. Sure, we were avoiding a SIDS tragedy every time we insisted he lie this way, but now I realize how badly he just wanted to sleep on his tummy. I look over at my husband in the middle of the night, and there he is, crashed out on his stomach, fast asleep. For 11 years I’ve been sleeping next to the same man, and the majority of his sleep time has been sans pillows, face down, with a look of pure contentment. He is sleep gifted in that he can nod off anywhere and at any given time–on the couch, or camping, or in a dark movie theater… Before my baby was born, I prayed he would be like his Dad. And he is like his Dad in that he prefers to sleep on his stomach. Otherwise, he appears to be just like me.

Sleep has never been my strong suit. As an adult, I toss and turn and kick off covers and worry into the wee hours. As a child, I was merciless in my insomnia–so much so that I ended up at a child psychologist when I was 11. I had spent the entire summer prior to 6th grade sleepless and anxious. I held some sort of neurotic vigil night after night: I would lie in the dark, awake, worrying that the house would be set on fire, or that my Dad would die, or maybe I might contract AIDS (the HIV virus had just hit the news as a mysterious, unknown, killer and I had no idea how one really contracted it; I think I thought it was airborne). The therapist thoughtfully suggested I have my own room–I was still sharing a bunk bed with my brother. This advice was profound and effective. I remember picking out a pink paint sample, proudly anticipating the shining color of my new room. I entered 7th grade with a new bedroom fit for homework, fashion, and yes, sleep.

In 9th grade, my Health class required we write the number of hours of sleep we received the night before in the top right hand corner of our paper. This was in addition to the name and date; a typical heading would look like this:
Mara S.
November 6, 1992
0 hrs
It was this exercise of sleep recording that pushed me back into insomnia. I would lie awake, distracted and silently hysterical, periodically checking the clock and thinking: “Tomorrow in Health class I’ll have to write that I only got 6 hours of sleep last night!” And thus the subtraction game would continue until, yes, unbelievably I would get down to 3, 2, 1, sometimes 0 hours of sleep. I’m not sure why this data recording exercise disrupted my sleep schedule so much. Perhaps it was part of my rocky road into adolescence or a sign of my suggestible, slightly obsessive-compulsive nature. At any rate, I learned that I had to have all clocks turned away from me at night. This rule still stands, otherwise I immediately start calculating: “Oh my God, it’s 1am; I have to get up at 6am, which means I’ll only get an estimated 5 hours of sleep” FREAK OUT.

At our son’s 9 month check-up, I gave his pediatrician the run down on our shitty sleep situation: up usually twice a night, nursing requested both times, refusing Dad, lot’s of crying if left alone. “Which one of you has issues with sleep?” The good doctor looked at my husband and I. Of course, I sheepishly raised my hand. “Me, that would be me…I’m a terrible sleeper.” The doctor nodded, implying that sleep issues can be hereditary, or at least influenced by an equally sleep-challenged parent. I look over at my cheerful son, who is playing with the doctor’s stethoscope. “He’s such a great kid,” I said, “He eats well, plays well…he just doesn’t sleep all that great.”

Thus, the little stuffed dog is introduced. He was given as a companion to the book, “The Pokey Little Puppy.” The dog has a tag with the name “Douglas” inscribed on it. (Whenever I say the name, I think of our neighbor down the street, also a “Douglas,” who has a spectacular yard, with a chicken coop, and a mysterious wife who recently appears facially paralyzed from a firefighting accident). Stuffed “Douglas” is gently nestled between my son’s body and mine as he haphazardly nurses. Always a sloppy nurser, my son has only regressed with age and the onset of teeth. He nips, his mouth barely open, eyeballs rolling all over the place in case he might be missing something. Sometimes he earnestly pounds on my clavicle with a the flat part of his hand, his palm ringing out some sort of secret nursing rhythm. I urgently push “Douglas” on him, and eventually my son’s hand lapses onto the dog’s soft, synthetic, fur. Occasionally, he’ll try and nurse “Douglas’” furry ear, as if initiating the toy into some sort of lactation ritual. ‘This is good,’ I think, ‘My son is bonding.’

Occasionally, a small wave of sadness will sneak up on me. What was once a really comforting ritual, something that could always soothe my son, is now fraught with difficulty. Nursing to sleep is no longer a guarantee, my trump card, my go-to trick. Getting up twice a night to do something purely for my son’s own comfort (instead of necessary nutrition), is putting its toll on me. However, the idea that I am replacing my own, warm, body with that of a stuffed dog feels rather sad.

“Night, night, baby,” I say to my son as I put him in the crib. I stuff “Douglas” next to him, and for a moment my son looks at me with wide eyes. “Night, night, doggy,” I pat “Douglas” on the head, indicating that this is a special toy, a lovey, something to emulate Mommy at night. My son isn’t buying it and I can see the uncertain look in his face. Pretty soon, “Douglas” will be thrown across the crib, a talisman of despair and betrayal. I will find “Douglas” in the corner of the crib, legs akimbo, his comforting features distorted. Later, after the crying is over and my son finally succumbs to sleep, I will return the stuffed dog to his side, in hopes that some day soon, sadly…yes, sadly, he will turn to “Douglas” at 4:30am instead of his mother.

That’s right: It’s time for the stuffed dog to take over…

Mysterious happenings abound. A full carton of eggs vanished from my refrigerator and I can’t get over it. This particular carton was being saved for a large egg casserole I was planning on making for my brunchy birthday party. Straight out of the Relief Society cookbook, this casserole calls for a 32 oz bag of frozen hashbrowns, 1/2 pound of cubed ham, 2 cups of cheese, 1 whole onion, and a dozen eggs. It is presumed to be a delicious, gooey, mess and exactly what I know most party guests secretly hope for. Oh sure, we politely eat from the veggie and hummus tray, but what we really crave is starch and dairy: i.e. The Breakfast Casserole, (and maybe some mimosas to wash it down).

A month ago I made a latte for myself in an old, chipped mug I had purchased eight years ago in a Las Vegas gift shop. It’s terrible cheesy, a collage of playing cards, chips, and Vegas icons decorate the exterior. The cup is small and was purchased for only a dollar…I bought it because I had recently committed to drinking coffee and needed more mugs in my kitchen. I found a much better souvenir mug a day later, one that read “I Heart Las Vegas” in simple script. That mug is now missing and its not-so-attractive twin is still around. Or at least it was…the mug plus latte went missing for a full 24 hours before it resurfaced in the cupboard.

I had made my special coffee drink right before putting the baby down for his morning nap. The latte would be my reward for the sometimes 1/2 hour ordeal of talking my son into sleeping via rocking, nursing, bouncing, and generally cajoling him into closing his eyes. When I returned to the kitchen the drink was gone. I checked everywhere a simple mug could be found: cupboards, the fridge, the freezer, the living room. Reluctantly, I made a second drink. Surely, the latte would appear in a funny place, right? My house isn’t that big, I rarely go upstairs anymore, retracing my steps was simple (from kitchen to baby’s bedroom and back again).

A few days later, the mug reappeared, washed, and clean in the cupboard with the rest of its muggy kin. “Oh, I probably found it and put it away,” my husband said, which I found very, very hard to believe. Josh is notorious for leaving his dishes strewn around the house. Wouldn’t he take note of a full cup of coffee lying around? Besides, he’s more likely to let dishes lie.

Perhaps we have a late-in-coming ghost who likes children and has recently resurfaced now that we have a baby in the house. Many of you might recall my initial concern that our house might be haunted when we first moved in. Built in 1916, I often wonder about the house’s history from a trim little Craftsman built in the middle of nowhere during the early part of the 20th century to a dilapidated mess with an illegal Auto Repair business in the backyard (circa mid 1990’s). Surely, someone has died in this house or had someone die in their life and POOF, that ghost was hiding out until just the right moment.

This ghost is good natured…simply hiding items is certainly better then haunting us or terrorizing us in our dreams. Perhaps this ghost is what has kept us safe as the pesky neighborhood crime whispers around us: cars stolen, occasional windows smashed, graffiti tagged, the scariest of stats ebbing and flowing on the Seattle Neighborhood Association’s interactive map. I’ve long thought the irritating pair of chihuahuas next door have kept our house remarkably safe–no one wants to waste time breaking in with a pair of ratty dogs screeching at the top of their lungs a few feet away.

But perhaps, it’s been a spirit all along. One that enjoys playing little tricks. Perhaps this ghost is not used to me being home all day long, day in, day out…the dreaded ’stay-at-home Mom’ title sneaking up on me every now and then. (But I’m not! I teach 2 classes a week and perform regularly). Maybe this ghost is a mother who hides in the kitchen and is baffled by my constant attempts at culinary excellence. From homemade ice cream to fancy cupcakes, I spend hours in my kitchen. My son plays on the floor, gnawing on a pair of measuring spoons, while I whisk and stir. I pound out the fear that someone will swoop in unannounced, ready to steal our belongings and run off with my child. I beat eggs furiously, grate cheese with protective gusto and chase the fear away.

But somewhere, I know, there are a carton of eggs just waiting to be found, right? There just has to be…I know I bought them.

In an attempt to make peace in our household, I find that my husband and I have resorted to sweets. After a recent argument (stupidly held at the unreasonable hour of 2am), he came home the next day bearing Molly Moon ice cream and I, in turn, brought two offerings from Cupcake Royale.

Our arguments have changed over the years. When we were courting, we would spend hours in the car traveling the 1-5 corridor. He lived outside of Portland, I lived in Seattle; it was a romance we decided would only last for the summer of 1999. Together in the car, passionately debated the merits of religion, politics, and LIFE, that big, beautiful world we were using as our playground. I was fresh out of college and throwing around all sorts of big words thanks to my freshly graduated, newly acquired, academic vocabulary (‘homogeneous’ is one of the words I can recall overusing). Josh had recently spent two years in Brazil, and his new found worldliness made him extra sexy as he expounded on the struggles and hardships of South America. The hours we had in the car, unfettered and totally free, allowed us to really get to know each other…we decided to continue dating after the summer.

After I dropped everything and joined him to become a snowboard bum in the CO mountains, our arguments transitioned into that of any new relationship: space, time, food, and habits. Neither of us had ever lived with the opposite sex before. Standard issues like toilet seats being left up, milk cartons found accidentally left in the cupboard, and clothes left all over the place were standard grievances. Larger fights involved a certain person loaning the other one’s car out to a fellow mountain local (who didn’t have a driver’s license due to a head on collision with a bus the year prior). Time and time again I was continually putting my foot in my mouth at various parties (subsequently causing embarrassment and eventual scolding on the drive home). As we transitioned out of being a new couple into a more seasoned one, we learned to forgive one another’s respective quirks and relished in the simple fact that we had each other. The twenty-something years are typically filled with lost, wandering, feelings as one scrapes out a living and tries to become an adult. We felt lucky that we had each other during those times.

After marriage, we fell into a few standard arguments: the dishes, money, and, oh, I don’t know…me putting my foot in my mouth in front of friends and (his) family. The arguments fell into such a usual pattern it was if they were scripted. A few things were resolved, i.e: I clean the dishes and Josh puts them away. I am also in charge of sending Josh monthly emails that usually involve me FREAKING out about our finances (I don’t think he even reads these anymore). We’ve developed a series of hand signals which we use during public events (usually indicating the desire to ‘leave…NOW.’) When I was pregnant we rarely argued, so astonished by the enormous undertaking we were about to embark, Josh tiptoed around me in stoic reverence. I glowed, I waddled, I expounded my new-found sense of taking on the world, one pregnancy at a time.

Then the baby came…and at first we didn’t argue at all. We simply put our heads down and plowed through the inexplicable exhaustion, the sleepless nights, arms going numb from jiggling the baby in a rhythmic, hopefully sleep-inducing, dance. We approached newbornhood as a team, determined to make it out together. Because babies are constantly changing with no predictable pattern, it was hard to get any real rhythm going. And while the sleeping has gotten better, it still doesn’t change the basic feeling of being unrested that I feel from day to day.

After the first three months, Josh started sleeping through the night again as the baby made his preference for his mother loud and clear. I masked my resentment with the resigned acceptance of a martyr. Sure, I had the boobs, the food, the familiarity…but couldn’t the baby understand that a bottle was a fine substitute? Sure, Dad smells different…kind of like an office building…but that’s ok too! I always had this rule pre-baby: No fighting with Josh after 10pm. All arguments were on hold until the morning. Now the rule should really change to: no fighting at 2am.

Last week, at the unfair hour of 11:30pm (too late to be still in the evening, and too early to really get any sleep under my belt), the baby called out. I had been enjoying a really nice spoon, the kind where everything feels right in the world. I was so tired I was experienced “Floating Bed Syndrome,” where the whole mattress feels airborne. My husband had been whispering sweet nothings in my ear before he abruptly dropped off into a deep sleep. I was following him, blissfully, into a state of dreaming. With my child making his wakefullness known, I rolled out of my hubbie’s embrace and into the cold, blanketless world.

The encounter didn’t take long, about 10 minutes, before I staggered back into bed, eager to feel the warmth and love of my marital bed. Josh was not in the same position I had left him in. He was lying flat on his stomach, turned away from my side of the bed, with a pillow over his head. I slid into bed and tried to turn him over…wouldn’t he like to continue snuggling? His shoulder was unresponsive. I lifted the pillow off his head and made my wishes known…silence. I lay there in the dark, the chill of being up in the middle of the night still on me. “Pssst,” I whispered. “Can you spoon me? Hey…hey….can you SPOON ME?” Hubbie woke up with a start, disoriented and confused: “Snnrrgggfff.” Thus began a two hour siege involving me becoming the most unspoonable human on the planet and yet outraged that Josh wouldn’t comply. Threats were thrown, pillows were gathered up, the couch was slept on briefly before I bribed him back to bed (only to immediately pick up my spoon crusade again). The sheer injustice of not being spooned was so palpable, so personal, that I could not let it go. I found myself blubbering in the dark next to my baffled, (but stubborn), husband.

Sleep dep does remarkable things to one’s spirit. Arguments you would never have in the broad daylight at a reasonable hour occur in the darkest of times. The rational side of me is the first thing to go. Suddenly, my wild imagination takes over and I become this crazed, unlovable, harpy. I am lucky that I have a partner who knows me so thoroughly. “I love how open and honest you are about your feelings,” he once said during the many car trips we took on the I-5 corridor eleven years ago. “I never have to guess how you’re feeling.” The coy, secretive, Geisha was never my style.

Silently, we eat our ‘truce’ cupcakes and lick our ‘make up’ ice cream. Sometimes, I worry about the occasionally dark turn our arguments have taken. What happened to the sweet simple days of fighting over who does the dishes? Will we ever lapse back into making fun of each other’s house cleaning quirks? Despite this, there is laughter behind our eyes, because despite the argument aftermath, I know we’ll tell this story again: “Remember how I yelled at you to spoon me at 2am? That was so, so funny…”

A cube of bright, orange, Jell-o sits on my son’s high chair.

We are at a Chinese Food Buffet in Hazel Dell, WA. The restaurant is located where the Holland used to be. When we were young, my family would visit the Holland for their cheap kid’s menu and open salad bar. My siblings and I would always order the same thing: A corn dog and fries. Then we would load up at the salad bar–dining on such delicacies as black olives, sunflower seeds, unlimited blue cheese dressing, and all the iceberg lettuce we could handle! For years my sister piled her plate high with pickled beets and nothing else. Every spring, the Holland featured an enormous strawberry shortcake bar–which was so visually exciting, with its whip cream peaks and valleys, that we could barely make it through our corn dogs. The worst stomach ache I’ve ever had from overeating was after a particular stint at the shortcake bar.

Now the Holland and all its memories have been replaced by a vast and efficiently run Chinese buffet. Row after row of hot plates filled with Chinese (and not so Chinese) favorites: sweet and sour chicken, stir-fried rice, sesame balls filled with bean paste, and yes, the required fried section of various deep-fat fried meats (and even bananas!). For my little son (I actually just typed ’sun’) I find apricots swimming in syrup and banana dusted with chocolate pudding. I clean up the food, smash it with my fork and place it on his tray. He chases it around with his fists, then pats it flat with his palms, his fine motor skills not accomplished enough to grip the food. I give him a spoon and he shoves it into his mouth. Pieces of banana are on his fingers–which are constantly in his mouth.

I am lucky: My kid is pretty thrilled to be in a restaurant. A natural observer, he carefully mixes people watching with sucking the nose of his beloved ‘little red bird.’ This stuffed toy only travels in the car with him. It’s a special toy. One that even has its own song, a sort of ‘getting into the carseat’ ritual I created when the kid was still shy of car trips. Little Red has accompanied us into many lunch outings. My boy promptly spits up all over his stuffed toy and the love affair is over. We move on to his music box and then, when he tires of that toy, move on to food.

I’m trying to devour as much of the buffet as I can and still keep my baby entertained. Through bites of fresh spring roll I hoist mashed bananas into his mouth. I break up the apricots and place them near his hands for grabbing. I put a chunk of banana on his tray in the hopes that he’ll enjoy chasing it around. The food is ground into his hands, sticky and unrewarding. This promptly leads to frustration. Then my father places a beautiful square piece of orange Jell-o on his tray. I’m sure this goes against all the rules; Jell-o is sugar, artificial, and not really defined as a true food. But my son promptly squishes the Jell-o cube with his fists and it looks like a lot of fun. Pieces of Jell-o are everywhere, a rewarding mess. Food! Food as fun, food as a toy, food as exploration.

I enjoy buffets. My in-laws are all squeamish about buffets which has rubbed off a bit on my husband. Their sense of sanitation and cleanliness is too high for complete comfort when it comes to openly helping yourself to a buffet. Sneeze guards don’t give them the false sense of security that I have. I realize that many people are handling the serving spoons one after the other as we all dive in for second helpings of sweet and sour chicken. Therefore, I wash my hands. The people at the restaurant are mostly blue collar workers of the ‘good ole’ boy’ variety on lunch break. They heap large piles of fried pot stickers, egg rolls, and mandarin chicken onto their balls if fried rice. Clusters of cream puffs disappear in droves.

My son is relishing his introduction to solid food. An avid eater, I have yet to give him anything he hasn’t devoured. From applesauce to peas, he hasn’t turned down a thing. Thankfully, he sits in his special high chair at the buffet and watches, pats, plays, sucks on Little Red Bird, and pounds the crap out of orange Jell-o. But his enjoyment gives way to fatigue, and soon we are making our way out the door. While driving home, I realize the old Holland location still houses the charm and excitement of all the salad once I could eat. Only now it’s been replaced with rice, tea, cream puffs…and a baby whose introduction to culinary joy has only just begun.

I bend over to gather a freshly pulled string of ivy off the lawn and toss it into the yard waste bin. I breath easy. Last year at this time, I was pregnant and stubbornly trying to physically do what I always did. But bending over caused a strange sensation in my belly, a protection, a slight inhale of air that left me winded. “Aw, I can’t even clean up ivy?” I thought, plucking another strand off the scrappy fence in the side yard. The act of rising, of bending and then standing was compromising.

As the summer months wore on, I trudged out to the garden with my watering hose, desperately trying to convince my tomatoes to turn red. (I should have cut them back in August but my brain was like a sieve). The seat of my jeans grew dusty as I found myself time and time again plopping down on the dirt instead of squatting down to garden. Picking herbs from my little collection of herb pots on the back porch seemed like a huge trek from the kitchen. As the weather (which was gorgeous last summer) gave way to an ideal garden season, I found my appetite constantly changing. Salad greens seemed paltry, not enough sustenance for someone growing another human being. They quickly sprouted flowers and became stringy. The peas I grew were unappealing and ended up going to another pea-loving individual (my sister). The tomatillo plant I bought in May grew into an enormous, fence eating, creature that hung heavy with small green fruit. Its shell was like a lamp shade, crinkly and folded around a tiny tomatillo. I finally harvested the plant in October, stuffing as many of the tomatillos into plastic bags as I could before Josh hauled off and uprooted the outrageous plant. I cracked open their papery skins and plucked out the sticky green globes one afternoon and made pork tomatillo soup. This was one of the last bits of cooking I could manage before the weight and burden of pregnancy left me lethargic on the couch. After the baby was born I looked longingly at the bag of rotting tomatillos in my fridge. Such promise! Such a harvest! Such a waste as I tossed them into my yard waste bin.

Similar to my garden, I began growing that summer. I felt myself expanding, widening, my body developing a thick shell. By Fall, the quiet of the leaves and the early onset of dusk matched my behemoth self. “I’m huge,” I would think every week and then only get bigger. Items littered the floor–too much work to bend down and grab them. I tried to avoid looking at myself in a store front window when walking by–an action I normally enjoyed. My neck had meshed with my chin in the way I knew it would; Italian women tend to have weak chins when they put on weight.

After the baby, after a few months, my body began to streamline again. The thickness began to evaporate, the weight of my feet began to lighten, my clothes, thankfully, fit again. Perhaps I can blame it on breastfeeding, on the voracious appetite of my son, but I was lucky and my girth disappeared. My chin re-emerged and no longer matched my neck.

Sleep deprivation has caused me to feel fragile…sometimes paper thin. Lying in bed unable to sleep while soft breathing is all around me, I find myself feeling two dimensional…flat. My body shrinks as it makes way for the enormity of raising a child. I feel small and transparent–a whisper of a person. There are times when I rise out of bed at 4am and think: “I’m just not ready for this world, I haven’t spent enough time in the Land of Sleep…I want a break from the real dimension, the weight of life, the peace of not being awake.” When I actually get a large chunk of sleep, (say 6 hours), my mind dreams furiously, churning out images large and loosely unprocessed due to lack of R.E.M.. I wake up exhausted but sated, an actual break from the Real World!

When I was heavy, I was full and thick with night time sleep. My body soaked everything up and clung to it…hair, nails, everything stayed long and thick. Now I feel like a strand, a string, a line. My pants hang in a different way on my new body. The belt loops are hard to pull up when I’m holding a child. Food is sometimes hard to pencil in when I’m factoring in my son’s every need. At restaurants I barely taste what I am eating, so wrapped up in my kid’s every whim that I don’t have to time to savor my food. (Why focus on my Ali Goba when my son just ate his first Indian food off my plate!)

What a relief it is, despite my growing invisibility, to roam the garden again. Unrestrained by weight, my body deftly moves above the trimmed branches of an errant tree. Nature seems brighter then last year, more clear. As my husband and I spread gravel across the alley way on a Saturday morning, our son plays happily in his bouncy chair. It is chilly and we are all dressed in layers. The Chihuahuas start barking at us through the fence, a crow family starts to caw, someone fires up a lawn mower next door…the many dimensions of my life begin to form and pad my body as I silently shovel. This year we have a garden bed and free compost from the city. I’m making baby food and freezing it. Many wonderful women who share the experience of being a parent have entered my life. And I have my body back…

When we first moved back to Seattle in 2005, we rented a little duplex next door to another little duplex. Granted, these were single family dwellings from the 1920’s that had been converted into two units–don’t get any ideas that they were fancy. Anyway, there was a family next door living in the bottom unit. They were a nice but distant hippie couple who planted flowers, hung laundry, and tinkered with their Volkswagon in the driveway. Their car sported a handmade bumper sticker–more of a sign really–that was affixed to the back window: “This car runs on bio-fuel! I supply the bio-fuel myself by going around to fast food restaurants. Because I save money on gas, I don’t have to work as much and I can spend more time with my family.” Or something like that…only much longer and more condescending.

The couple had a baby named Atticus. I recall at the time missing the To Kill a Mockingbird reference and instead thinking the name “Atticus” was way too ancient for a kid; It’s the sort of name that looks good on paper but in practice seems forced. Aside from this, Josh and I could never remember the name so we started referring to the baby as Spartacus. I’m sure this was prompted by the fact that the first Sex shop I had ever entered (illegally before the age of 18!) was called Spartacus. (It was located on Burnside near Powell’s Books in Portland; It is now an American Apparel).

This baby, like many babies, cried…especially at night. The hippie couple always left their bathroom window opened a crack and their child’s cries would sail into the late night air and into our room. We stuffed earplugs in our ears, turned our fan up, and pounded our pillows: “Damn you, Spartacus!” We would complain the following morning, (after 8+ hours of sleep), about the extra 15 minutes we could have had if only the baby were not crying. When we formally met the couple, the first thing they said was: “Sorry about the crying.” We politely shrugged them off with a “don’t worry about it” but secretly I thought if they were really sorry they would do a better job keeping the crying down…I was that naive.

Admittedly, we were not terribly sad to see the family go after a year. Granted, Spartacus was no longer a baby by then and I would occasionally see him toddling outside near the Volkswagon with his father. (I have no doubt that he is already learning how to change the bio fuel in the family car). We spied on the hippie couple as they packed their possessions into a moving van; I imagined they were probably headed out to some transitional neighborhood in the south end. Later that day, a nice, unmarried, yuppie couple moved into the unit parallel to ours. They had no children.

5 years later, I have a baby…one who cries a lot. I realize now that Spartacus/Atticus never really cried all that much in comparison. Perhaps the hippie couple believed in Attachment Parenting and slept with the baby. Or maybe he was a quiet baby who only made noise when he was was teething and couldn’t make it through the night. Perhaps when the bathroom window was closed it drowned out the majority of the baby’s cries. At any rate: Babies cry…a lot. And of course, my level of empathy has deepened when I recall the sound of our neighbor’s crying child. In the same way I’ll probably feel new found sympathy in two months when I board a plane for the first time with my own baby. I will have joined the ranks of suffering a airplane ride with a small child. I have reached a level of understanding that only those who can call themselves “Parent” can truly reach.

I know my son. Sure, it’s been only five months since he arrived but I know that he’s a bit expressive, emotional, sensitive, and prone to over-stimulation in public places. He is an empathy crier; one who senses the sounds of other babies and mimics their cries. His eyes get big when placed inside one of those gigantic excer-saucers, all bells and whistles, and toys dangling off them like some kind of Herculean beast. He makes several grabs at a few hanging toys before settling on chewing the crap out of the plastic bar that keeps him fastened in.

So, it shouldn’t have surprised me that when required to take off all his clothes except for a dress-code required white onsie and placed on a couch with ten other babies that my boy would have a panic attack. Stuck in the middle, my son makes it very clear how he feels about being pressed into a social situation he hadn’t bargained for:

He is the one with the outstretched lip, propping up the precariously placed kid next to him, mouth set in a permanent frown. While the mothers belted out a round of “Itsy Bitsy Spider,” my son rewarded them with howling cries. Cameras flashed, a few babies actually smiled, the girl next to my son put her finger in his ear. The whole time this was going on my son searched the crowd for me, his cries letting me know his grave displeasure. The photo shoot was only a minute long–I’m sure my kid sped up the process–and when it was all over, we all clapped (yay!). I scooped him up and removed him entirely from the festive scene.

Hanging out in another baby’s pink decorated bedroom, my son and I tussled to get his clothes back on. He was still mad at me for taking them off, putting him on a couch in a fake social situation, and then taking pictures for posterity. I was mad at him for not going graciously into, what would turn out to be, one of the cutest photo sessions of his life, (can’t beat the adorableness of the baby line-up). While I admired the tight decor of our hostess’ baby’s room, my son finally settled down at the sight of a pretty black and white mobile hanging from the crib.

His peace wouldn’t last, however, because then I had the audacity to attempt an art project with him. One of the mothers had provided these really lovely colored canvases for each baby. White paint was produced and it was our job to dip the baby’s feet and then press them on to the canvas: Baby Prints! How adorable! Because I know my son, I offered to go first.

My heart sank as I removed my baby’s socks off and was rewarded with a squeal of complaint. Another mother stepped in to help me, trying to aim the paint brush at his wildly kicking feet. Carefully, we painted the bottom of his feet white while he cried in protest. Then, I hastily pressed his foot to the green canvas I had picked out. Because he was struggling, the first foot print was sloppy. “Heh, heh,” I said to mask my disappointment. The second time the canvas came at him, my son had had it: he pushed it away with his painted foot and left a smeary second print. (His cries seemed to say, “NO GOD NO, not the canvas!”) Instead of two lovely baby footprints, it looked like I had attempted this art project with a baby Sasquatch. The first print was barely recognizable as a foot but the second foot print looked like my kid was literally running away–a quick smear across the canvas. I looked at our finished art project and felt a mix of foolishness and despair.

No surprise: The other babies left much nicer foot prints on their respective canvases. While they wordlessly and silently placed their painted feet against pink and blue canvas, I was left with the task of removing the white paint from my son’s feet in the kitchen sink. He was livid. He was so outraged that I had to stuff him into the Ergo carrier and jiggle him around until he finally passed out into a brief, unsettled, sleep. Our canvas looked so terrible I polled the other moms: “Should I try this project again?” They took one look at my frowning, sleeping baby and discouraged me from a second attempt. One mother said, “It is what it is…it reflects your son.” She had a very, very good point.

I’d love to say I ate decadently during the 9 months I was pregnant, but instead I had this weird relationship with everything I put in my mouth. Those of you may recall, I never barfed but was so nauseous my OWN SALIVA made me gag. I was saddened by the idea that I wasn’t going to really celebrate my 200 extra calories per day. Instead I volleyed back and forth from feeling queasy to just ok…There was only one day that I felt so famished, it felt like my body might be ingesting my own tongue.

Otherwise, I ate pretty normally. Oh sure, I had a few celebratory meals where I went to Red Robin and wolfed down a giant hamburger or when I ate the entire Chicken Dinner at St. Clouds. But the baby was squeshing my stomach most of the time and I seemed unable to really pack much in during one sitting. (Hence, I was constantly grazing). I also suffered from “Copper Penny Mouth.” This is when your mouth inhabits a bitter taste most of the time instead of the neutral, non-taste, your saliva usually produces. I would eat something marvelous, delicious, ravenous and two seconds later…bam…copper penny taste was back. I’m sure this had something to do with hormones, but it plagued me all through my third trimester. One of the first things I noticed after pregnancy was a lack of copper taste in my mouth.

Anyway, everything changed when I started to really, seriously breastfeed. And I mean REALLY seriously…in the beginning the baby is this tiny, blind, newborn who can barely open its mouth much less lift its head. There is a lot of manipulation of the baby, of your breast, or everything to get the kid settled and fed. Baby only eats about two ounces and it takes a long time. As baby becomes stronger, hungrier, and more confident your milk supply really starts to kick in. Then baby starts developing an attitude, and in my child’s case: he’s thrilled. He loves to eat, he loves to look around, he’ll stop mid-way and smile up at me in adoration. 3 ounces has gone up to 5 and then 6. As a result, Baby has developed creases in his thighs and an extra chin. He’s wearing 6-9 month clothing on his barely 4 month old frame.

To allow for baby to be this enthusiastic about nursing I have become a Protein Fiend. I always had a casual approach to protein, preferring a diet based on fruits, vegetables, and light dairy. A pack of chicken breasts would last me a week. The idea of ‘cooking a roast’ was foreign to me. I’m sure Josh suffered over this; preferring to leave the cooking up to me, I would find him appreciative but constantly hungry. (Consequently, he would supplement the lack of roast in his diet by smuggling large bowls of cereal at night).

Slowly, I became more and more hungry as baby began to really grow. At three months I noticed I was spending a lot more at the grocery. My cart started filling up with sausages, chicken, beef, and lunch meat. I bought a Baby Loaf of Tillamook cheese–because it was on sale, but I didn’t expect to actually go through the whole thing in a week. I found a really excellent cookie recipe made entirely out of almonds, whole wheat flour, and oats–the nuts provide a huge pack of protein in a hurry. I showed up to a yoga class having only eaten my father’s healthy whole grain pancakes. The class did not go well. Sleep dep combined with only carbs for breakfast left me weak and light-headed. When I returned home I wolfed down handfuls of salami slices and a cheese stick.

The real indicator came during a recent BBQ at Seward Park. There was a time when someone would hand me a bratwurst and I would bat my eyes demurely, look at my husband, and say, “This looks delicious; would you split this with me?” Then I might nibble a veggie burger or munch on some carrot sticks to balance the half of a sausage I had just consumed. Not so this last time…no, at this BBQ I wolfed down the entire bratwurst in two seconds. Then, AND THEN, I ate a hamburger. Oh sure, I told Josh we would split it, but before I knew it I had eaten the whole thing. At one point Josh asked, “Hey, where did that hamburger go we were going to split?…oh, wait…I see.” The burger was gone. Beef tastes good! After the hamburger and the bratwurst, I contemplated a hot dog, but decided I might need to slow down for a moment.

My sister’s eyes widened when I told her the BBQ meat story. As a vegan, she is pretty laid back. However, even she knew that my meat consumption was unusually high compared to my usual “let’s split this” attitude. I asked for some recommendations of non-animal based protein sources. Beans and rice, saytan, tofu dogs…”even I get protein cravings,” she claimed. But they’re no where near mine: handfuls of sliced turkey, meatballs, baked chicken with veggies, chicken quesadillas on whole grain tortillas. At last, the epic food adventure I didn’t get to have during pregnancy, is here!

At a recent (professionally paid for) playgroup, the baby and I were treated to a guest speaker who specialized in dance, movement, brain development, scarf tossing, etc. etc. During this speech the babies were bombarded with group tummy time in a circle on a mat (my child cried first), scarves dangled in their faces, songs, and then their torsos were placed on top of big rubber balls. While the balls were rolled gently back and forth we sang “Wheels on the Bus” loudly. During the madness the speaker expounded on the brain while holding a plastic replica. “You see this ridge right here,” she indicated to a blue line near the cerebellum, “This ridge is thinner in boys at birth then girls…this is because boys mature fully by the age of 23 and girls by the age of 21.”

Instantly, I was transported to myself at 21 and all the dingbat boys I hung out with who were a sad two years away from full maturation. (Ah, no wonder I had such a hard time in college!) But then I looked at my son who outweighs the average baby girl in the group, his chubby enthusiastic cheeks, his fists clinging to my shirt in a desperate monkey-like grip to keep from being placed on the mat again….really? This kid is destined to be behind the girls due to a thinner band in his cortex? Sure, we all know what adolescence looks like with the girls towering over the boys in pimply hormonal maturation. But, I hate being reminded of this ‘fact’ when my son is only 3 months old and just starting out.

The speaker then launched into how, since we all place babies on our backs now to reduce SIDS, their brains are getting smooshed. In fact, a very important part of the brain which controls motor development is at the base of the neck, which, BINGO, is right where a prostrate baby puts its weight. ‘Laying a baby on its back is equivalent to a turtle,’ she said, ‘All arms and legs waving but the REAL work is when you put the baby on its stomach.’ She then announced that since the “Back to Sleep” campaign began in the 1990’s, neural disorders like ADD and ADHD have increased by 60%! Especially in boys…that’s right. If you weren’t afraid of your son getting autism, (thanks a lot Jenny McCarthy) now you need to worry that laying your child on his back is increasing his chance of bouncing all over the classroom and being put on Ritalin in a few years.

There are several big worriers in the group, myself included. We over-analyze and over-read all the baby books and worry ourselves into the middle of the night. The last thing we need us a reminder that our sons are at higher risk of every neurological disorder on the never ending list of ‘things that could go wrong.’ I could see the other mothers tighten their grips as they dive bombed and swayed to “Tickety Tickety Bumblebee.” The speaker lambasted us with more shitty brain facts for a few more moments before whisking her millions of props away and running out of the playgroup as fast as she had entered. Every baby in the room was either crying or past out from over stimulation.

Remember when girls were the big concern? The whole “Ophelia Complex” thing with the neglect of the schools for girl’s learning; They all had eating disorders and low self-esteem tied in with a squashing of their learning potential due to overbearing boys. Cut to 15 years later and now we’re desperately concerned for our autistic, ADD, ADHD riddled boys who yearn to run around the playground during the many cut recesses from the school schedule. Boys can’t read, they’re graduating from college in smaller numbers, and they’re drowning in jail time. And, oh yeah, Baby girls have cuter clothes, they pull off gender-neutral outfits better, and they have more choices for good first names.

Was this why I initially swore I would have a girl during the beginning of my pregnancy? Because I had already had a whiff of the boy hysteria crowding our education? Did I think it would be easier to navigate a child who was my own gender? Perhaps the fear is that we will be unable to unlock the mysteries of our sons and they’ll be out of control monsters pointing guns at everything while the girls stand there demurely being seen and not heard. It doesn’t improve our outlook when so-called specialists remind us that our boys will be talking later, their brains are smaller, and that they might, MIGHT, struggle more in life because they are boys.

Because, we do the best we can, right? We put our babies on their backs despite what a huge pain in the ass it is. Babies LIKE being on their stomachs when they’re a newborn ball, they prefer it actually. But consequently, none of us are putting our kids on their stomachs enough when they get older, the concept of ‘Tummy Time’ a cruel invention of our generation. We don’t put them on their tummies as often as they need to because most babies HATE it. They usually throw up, head resting in their puke, little necks straining to support themselves. Most of them cry and cry, only to be relieved when they finally end up on their back again.

We delay feeding them solids because we don’t want them to get allergies. So, even though many of us were eating solids at 2 weeks old and therefore sleeping through the night with a brick of solid food weighing our stomachs down, this is now taboo.

Vaccines might cause allergies, autism, aluminum allergies or something bad…so many parents are spacing them out much to our pediatrician’s chagrin. I’m not doing this but so many of my friends are that I can’t even talk about vaccines without fear of a panic attack. What if the current recommended vaccine schedule turns out to be unsafe after all and our children are consuming thousands of toxins with each shot? Will I be the idiot who trusted the American Board of Pediatrics when everyone forged ahead with their own made up vaccine schedules?

Don’t get me started on the current stipulations for the crib: no pillows, no blankets, no toys, no crib bumpers, no nothing in their crib until they’re one years old. Winter babies are expected to be stuffed into sleep sacks to ward off the cold because even swaddling the kid in a blanket is under controversy! Because it’s a BLANKET, people, and even a blanket tightly wrapped around your baby could somehow come undone, drape itself over your kid’s mouth, and SUFFOCATE him.

All this and I have to sit through a guest speaker reminding me about my boy’s future shortcomings? No way, sister…no way. I’m shutting my ears, holding my son securely in my lap, and waving a scarf a safe distance from his face.

There are these little shoes….well, they’re not SHOE shoes, they’re more like moccasins. They’re pricey–twenty-eight bucks–for something a kid is only going to wear for a few months. But all the other babies have them. They’re soft and leathery and don’t have hard soles. This makes them more acceptable because everyone knows that real shoes for babies are kinda silly. In fact, real shoes are suppose to inhibit the baby’s ability to learn how to walk. Stick a pair of leather, heeled, shoes on a kid and their feet becomes walk-less clubs.

Before I knew this, I already felt prejudice against shoes for babies. I always thought they looked weird. Plus, it’s a well known family story that my mother cried the day she bought me my first pair of shoes. I cried too, I hated them! I think I was over a year old and my father described my mother’s anguish: “It meant that you weren’t little anymore, that you would be tied down to the weight of the world and that this was only the beginning.” Or something kind of sweet and hippie like that. At any rate, I felt my mother’s pain but I also developed a healthy shoe addiction as an adult. (My father is to blame). When you’re a size 10 you must seize the opportunity when a cute pair of shoes is on sale–and in stock in your size!

At any rate, I swore that Isaac wouldn’t have baby shoes. Even the little moccasins that EVERY GD baby in Seattle has to have! But I sorta thought that once he reached the walking stage I would break down and buy him the moccasin style shoes–you know, to protect his feet. And then, a woman at play group pointed out that she too had been really anti-shoe until she realized that no amount of socks could keep her baby’s feet warm. Suddenly, I realized she was right! Isaac’s feet are always cold when we go out and it’s because he doesn’t have those little leather shoes!

So…I compromised. I bought him a slightly used pair for seven bucks…and now he’s a total hipster. (They have blue helicopters on them!)