I'm moving. Virtually, this time. I haven't even unpacked all the boxes in our new old house, but I'm on the move again, this time to a new web address. Updating on two weblogs has been tough. Once I thought I needed to keep pop culture and pregnancy/parenthood separate. Silly Girl Detective. I now understand the wishful thinking of such a false dichotomy. As it says on the Dr. Bronner's bottle, it's All One. And now it's all one weblog at the all new Girl Detective.

Thank you, and good night. I hope to see you there.

posted by Girl Detective6:48 PM

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. . . . .

If you're going to be giving birth soon, I have two pieces of advice.

One, take it easy. Don't plan to work up till your due date; leave a week early. Put your feet up. Rest; take naps. Go to the movies. Watch TV and movies at home. Go out to eat at your favorite restaurants.

Two, keep an open mind once your birth experience begins. I was reluctant to take Pitocin for many reasons. I put it off for 18 hours after my water broke and contractions began. In retrospect, I wish I would have started it as soon as I got to the hospital. I know two women whose birth stories started similarly to mine, but had much easier progressions, probably due to their earlier starts on Pitocin. I know another woman who, like me, put off the Pitocin and had a long, difficult labor. As the midwife told me, contractions are contractions. They're hard whether they're natural or Pitocin-induced. What's important is progressing the labor. If you aren't progressing on your own, then you need help and it's best to get that as soon as you can.

posted by Girl Detective7:34 AM

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. . . . .

Several years ago, I was watching a mom's toddler so she could eat dinner at a party. I was carrying the little girl in my arms when she suddenly threw her arms around my neck and squeezed in an impromptu hug. The sudden wash of joy this caused was shocking. I thought, "This must be why people have kids."

Now, years later, the duck has recently begun to hug. For a very long time--over a year--he was not a very cuddly guy. His personality has not changed, but he had added the hugs to his repertoire, sprinkling them throughout the day like seasoning. If we are holding him, he will sometimes throw his arms around my neck and squeeze, and I am reminded of the lovely moment of that hug from that little girl. He will sometimes begin to wiggle up and down excitedly, as if he's trying to rev up. He will frequently toddle up to one of us and hug our legs. When we're on the floor during naked time, he will make a beeline and come right in for a hug.

They are so spontaneous, his little bursts of affection. And they astonish and gratify me each time they happen.

posted by Girl Detective7:13 AM

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. . . . .

We gave up on the diaper genie some time ago. It just couldn't begin to make a dent in the stinkiness of post-solid-food poopy diapers. Instead, we shuttle dirty diapers to the can by the back door, which we empty with some frequency into the bin by our garage.

On Monday, I was upstairs getting ready while the duck was in his "play area" (i.e. his cage) downstairs. I smelled poop and thought, did we forget and leave a diaper up here? Did I forget to flush the toilet? After a quick check, the answers were no and no. By this time, I noticed the smell less, figured I was imagining things, and finished getting ready.

When I went downstairs, though, I was hit by a poopy-smell wave. The duck had gone about the post-breakfast business of filling his diaper. I'd been able to smell it a floor away.

Never again will I doubt myself. When it comes to poopy diapers, at least.

posted by Girl Detective7:06 AM

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. . . . .

From his shelf of board and other smallish books, the duck selected The Gashlycrumb Tinies by Edward Gorey for me to read to him. My husband thinks this is not appropriate reading for one so young. I think it's just another alphabet book, with better illustrations than most.

My personal favorite is "N is for Neville, who died of ennui."

posted by Girl Detective7:22 AM

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. . . . .

The other day as we exited the house on our daily morning jaunt to the coffee shop, the duck and I heard noise down the street. There were several trucks parked around the electric pole at the end of our street, across from the park.

Usually, I take the stroller out of the house, strap the duck in and we merrily roll along to the coffee shop. Today, though, he was a baby on a mission. For the first time, he exited our front yard by himself, toddling about at the top, then getting into his backwards stair position to shimmy down the slight hill to the sidewalk. He then took off, bobbling quickly and purposefully down the sidewalk in the direction of the trucks, which was, to my chagrin, in the opposite direction of coffee. I watched him for a few moments, unworried because I'd tried to get him to walk the half-block to the park before without success--he was easily distracted, he sometimes fell, and sometimes started climbing stairs to neighbors' houses. Today, though, he got about halfway between me and the end of the block before I realized I better get moving. He was walking straight, quickly and confidently. Even over the most kitty-wompus bits of sidewalk he kept his balance and his forward momentum, bending his knees, pausing and then shooting off once he reached more level ground. Once we reached the trucks at the end of the street we simply stood and stared, he at the trucks, and me at him. He yelled and yodelled his excitement, and when his interest waned he let me bundle him into the stroller without protest so I could finally get my coffee.

posted by Girl Detective6:12 AM

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. . . . .

Hey folks. I am editing the main page here so that the titles appear properly in those blog collector thingies--what are they called, aggregator feeds? In any case, the titles now appear correctly in my feed listing, but not at the blogspot itself. Is it my browser, or does this page no longer have titles for the entries?

I'm not going to futz with this too much, since BIG CHANGES are coming. Cue eerie music and maniacal laughter. Mwah, ha ha.

posted by Girl Detective11:08 AM

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. . . . .

One of my very favorite things the duck does is something I call the Incredible Hulk Smile. He grins hugely while also (hence the name) holding out his arms and clenching his fists, a la Lou Ferrigno.

So imagine my delight the other day when he was eating lunch in his high chair and I said, "It's been a while since I've seen the Incredible Hulk Smile." And voila, he grinned, stuck out his arms and bunched up his fists.

I've got Incredible Hulk Smile on demand, people. This mother's mind boggles at my good fortune.

posted by Girl Detective5:48 AM

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. . . . .

Yesterday was great. The duck woke at 7:52 a.m. allowing me a nice cushion of time to myself in the morning so I could do my PT exercises (my right shoulder has been messed up since he was just a few weeks old--I've got curved-in mama shoulders), sit in front of my sun box, meditate with my finger labyrinth and write in my journal. He woke; we played. Then later, after lunch, I tried to convince him to go upstairs, but he wanted to play for a few minutes more, then he started upstairs on his own! Oh, how I love those moments, when he so clearly signals what he wants. Then he went to sleep quickly and slept for nearly two hours, allowing me to write blog entries and read those of other people. He woke; we read books. We also went to Target during which he was awfully screamy, then he refused to eat anything at dinner. But he did go to sleep quickly after a very noisy protest, after which I hammered out my 1700+ words for my Nanowrimo goal, then went to watch TV and got in a chapter of my book before bed.

Today he woke early, screamed often and refused to go down for a nap until 3 p.m after which he slept for a bare forty minutes and woke screaming, unable to be appeased for twenty minutes until I got him out of the house and into the car on the way to the comic book store for new comic day. So no new blog entries till now, after I finally finished my very difficult word goal for the novel. But no meltdowns or crying on my part, so I was able to maintain some balance, perhaps because of the leftover goodwill from yesterday.

It's difficult to have a very hard day after a very good one; it feels especially unfair. But, as my father never hesitated to say, life isn't fair. So I'll just hope that tomorrow unfolds more pleasantly for the duck and me.

posted by Girl Detective6:27 PM

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. . . . .

I noted in a previous entry that I was a medication moderate when it came to the duck. My husband reminded me, though, that when the duck wakes in the middle of the night, any moderation flies out the window. Tylenol, teething tablets and how to get us all back to sleep as soon as possible are about the only things that occur to me. At 3 this morning, though, after I went in but the duck had nearly settled himself already, I did find room for a few additional thoughts: "wow, that was easy", and "well, if I'm up I might as well go to the bathroom."

posted by Girl Detective1:40 PM

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. . . . .

"Sound and lights" is not a convincing selling feature for a toy.

posted by Girl Detective1:35 PM

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. . . . .

The other day at our grocery coop, a woman and her baby were ahead of me and mine at the checkout. We exchanged baby names, but didn't go the extra bit for each others'.

I leaned over the duck and said, "Duck, say hi to baby X," then added, "He doesn't talk yet, actually."

The other mother jumped right in. "Oh, baby X says a lot of words," and proceeded to list them. There may have been a fractional pause as she realized she was trying to one-up me in the mom olympics, and a definite moment of silence as I did not engage by countering with the duck's development milestones.

"Oh," she added, seemingly as apology, "but we really work at it with him."

Two primary responses vied for prominence in my brain: "Are you implying that I'm not trying to help my baby develop?" in an outraged tone, and "I try not to 'work' the baby; I figure he'll do just fine if we play." in a condescending tone. Instead I bade her a good day and left it at that.

When I feel anxious that he's not using words, I remind myself that the duck will do so when he is ready, just as he has done everything else. Outside commentary--from the doctor, from people like baby X's mom, and from the baby books--frays at my tenuous belief in him. Yet I am able to keep coming back to it; he will use words when he's ready. Whenever that is will be just when it should be, for him.

posted by Girl Detective1:31 PM

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. . . . .

Yesterday, the duck went back and forth across the bouncy bridge several times, by himself, at the playground. He backed down one side,then turned around, stood up and walked, then stooped, to get up the other. The bouncy bridge is tough--it moves as you walk, and is steep at both ends. Plus it's open on both it's sides, making it rather nerve-wracking to spot him.

posted by Girl Detective1:30 PM

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. . . . .

How's the baby's rash? asked my friend Queenie, when we went out to the movies last night.

"Funny," I replied. "It's not red, it's skin colored, so you can't really tell till you touch him, then he's all bumpy."

"Oh, like a Braille baby."

"Exactly."

posted by Girl Detective1:29 PM

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. . . . .

The duck "talks" all the time. He babbles, he croons, he often seems to be singing. But we have yet to identify meaningful patterns to the babble. This may, we fully admit, be a failing on our part. My husband insists that "Ah DEE dah" means "I love you" but I have some doubts.

To me, the duck's language is nearly binary--it consists almost exclusively of the letter D and vowels. He throws in other consonants--K, G, B, M, N--occasionally, but it is D that he is most attached to.

posted by Girl Detective5:17 AM

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. . . . .

He drinks his own bathwater. He leans over in the bath to put his face to the surface and comes up with a chin covered in bubbles. He also likes to find the bar of soap and bite it. He is not put off once he does, so we won't be able to use that as a punishment down the line. Not that we'd planned to. Perhaps I should sign us up for a swimming class.

posted by Girl Detective5:17 AM

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. . . . .

Lots of good news at the duck's checkup. His height and weight are good, his head continues to be gigantic but not off the chart. His ears are clear, in spite of recent viruses. His development is good, but the doc was surprised to hear that he's still not even using mama and dada meaningfully. We assured him that the duck understands us, and he asked us for specifics on how the duck communicates his needs to us. Does he point? Well, no. But he does pick a book and bring it over and hold it up. Today, he started pushing his highchair into the kitchen when he got hungry. He started screaming at the children's museum when he got bored. He lets us know.

The doc took a look at the rash. The good news: I didn't cause it by using baby lotion. The better news: it isn't itchy. The best news: it isn't because he is sick, it's because he WAS sick, so it's not contagious. It's called Gianotti-Crosti syndrome, and I had a hard time looking it up on the internet when I got home, because it's not mentioned in any of the baby books I've got. It's a rash that's a reaction to having had a virus. The curious thing is that we think the last virus he had was roseola, and the doc concurred after we described it--high fevers for three days that ended with a flat, red rash over his entire body, then the fever broke and he was fine within 48 hours. But this rash is usually in response to much nastier viruses like hepatitus B and coxsackie, so we're not sure what he had that it's a response to, just that it's now over. The bad news? This unattractive rash is likely to last for at least six weeks. The worse news? He just got his MMR and chicken pox vaccines, both of which can also cause rashes like this one, so in a week or so he may be even more bumpy and crusty.

A quick note about vaccines. There's a lot of liberal scare stuff out there about the danger of vaccines. Before I had the baby I was quite worried about vaccines. Since then, I've done a lot of research and found that both the science and the rhetoric to support the anti-vaccination stance are pretty weak. The link between the MMR vaccine and autism has been disproved many times. While there is data that tied thimerosol to higher levels of autism, no infant vaccines are preserved with thimerosol anymore, so the issue is moot. I had no qualms about the duck receiving both the chicken pox and the MMR vaccines yesterday. I had both chicken pox and the mumps as a child. You know what? They sucked. Thirty years later, my memory of mumps is of intense pain.

I did not, however, get a flu shot for the duck, even though at just 15 months, he is considered to be in the at risk category. If he were still in day care and had increased exposure I would have considered it. According to our doc, the data is not conclusive that the flu shot helps, so we opted against it, even though he told us that different doctors would give different advice. I'm a medication moderate--when it's called for, use it; when in doubt, wait and see. When we took the duck in to see the doc when he was having the up and down high fevers, she commended us on our judicious use of Tylenol. We used it only when he was feverish and acting very sick and unable to sleep, not whenever he felt hot. A lot of time he was feverish and happy, so we wanted to let the fever burn through whatever virus was causing the ruckus.

When I got home after the checkup, I was thinking about the doctor asking us if the duck understood us. So when the duck brought me a book, I told him to go get his monkey so we could all read together; he turned around and got the monkey. When we finished with that book he got down from my lap and I told him to get Moo, Baa, La, La, La. He picked it out of several books. Later when he was playing, I asked if he could hand me a lion. He did. I asked for a zebra. Got that. I then asked for a giraffe, at which he seemed confused. So he doesn't have complete comprehension, but it does look like he's sharper than a sack of hippos. Even if he isn't using English yet.

posted by Girl Detective6:18 PM

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. . . . .

Wednesday was a good day, even if my husband did get laid off at work. The duck woke late and happy, and he took a good nap in the afternoon, enabling me to ignore my Nanowrimo novel and instead indulge in some trashy TV on Tivo--part of a Wife Swap and part of a Trinny/Susannah What Not to Wear.

Yesterday was nothing so felicitous. He woke when I did, giving me no cushion of alone time, and only took an hour nap. He did have some happy periods, but screamed and screeched regularly throughout the day, including every single time I went to the bathroom. My husband had plans after work, so I was on my own with him all day (though we lunched with my friend Queenie), from 6:15 a.m. when he woke to 7:00 p.m. when it was time for bed. So all of life had to be crammed in after he went to bed: conversation with husband, email correspondence, blog entries, Nanowrimo goal of 1700 words per day, dinner, TV and a few pages of book.

I think he's fussy and sleeping less well because of imminent teeth. He also seems to have sprouted a strange rash. My alarmist self thinks it's chicken pox (I thought the same thing about the roseola he had two weeks ago). My practical self thinks it's a reaction to the baby lotion I put on him last night after his bath, worried that his skin seemed a little dry. His 15 month checkup is today, though, so we get to ask the doctor instead of trying to figure it out on our own. It would be ironic if it were German Measles or chicken pox, though, since he may be due for those vaccinations today.

Is it any more ironic, though, than that baby products are mostly bad for babies? All those years, and I thought the baby oil, baby lotion, baby bath, baby cream, baby shampoo, baby powder, etc. was made for babies but used by adults. Instead, I get good and stocked on all the stuff before having the baby, only to discover he needs almost nothing. He needs Dove soap. And diaper-rash cream with zinc. That's it. Seriously. Anything else is at best worthless, and potentially even harmful, e.g. rash-inducing. So I've got all these baby products, some of which I use myself in order to use them up, and others of which lie fallow, until I think I've got enough justification to use them, such as a little baby lotion for the dry skin and chapped cheeks, and then wham. Rash. I'm just hoping that this rash is from the lotion, and not some nasty virus. Again with the irony, that I'm hoping that I was the one to cause the baby's rash. If it's a reaction to a product, it will go away, and I'll never use the product again. If it's a virus, though, then he'll be sick again. I just want him to be well and happy. I wish it were easier done than said.

posted by Girl Detective11:21 AM

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. . . . .

I don't think the duck did anything new yesterday. This morning, though, when I went in to get him up he had bounced the crib a few inches away from the wall. I'm not sure if I should get those wheel stops to prevent it from happening, or just see how far he can get. I'm inclined to the latter.

posted by Girl Detective5:41 PM

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. . . . .

New things

My previous thought, which has thus far been disproved for a week, now, is that babies don't in fact do something new every day. I probably thought this about major milestones, like crawling, walking, talking, etc. Big milestones are interesting because they are both gradual and sudden. Gradual, in that I can see him working up to them for quite some time. Sudden, because the first time occurs in a flash, and has often been so quick, so fleeting, that I doubt it has even occurred. Did he really take a step, or did I just imagine it? It is only after he has been doing something for a while that I feel like he is really doing it, at which point it doesn't feel new, because he'd been doing it for a while, building up from those ephemeral, "did he or didn't he" moments to "yep, he'd definitely doing that."

I forgot to note that the other night when he ate pizza for the first time, we also went out to Crema Cafe, and he had Sonny's ice cream for the first time--raspberry chocolate chip, which he loved. He'd had Sonny's sorbet before, but not yet ice cream. Sometimes the new things are just gradations or variations on old things.

One thing he's been doing for at least several days is periodically spitting out what he's drinking from his sippy cup. I began to take away the cup firmly and say "no spitting." Then yesterday, when he spat something out, he promptly held out the cup for me to take away. We went to the playground and he climbed up on the jungle gym, but was using the footholds much better than he has previously. He backed onto the bridge, which he has done before, but began to bounce it himself, which he has not.

It all makes me wonder if perhaps we still do something new every day, which we'd notice if only we paid more attention.

posted by Girl Detective5:37 AM

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Cute, but not very bright

Our friend Queenie gave the duck a shape bucket for his birthday--there are four pieces and four holes: circle, square, tria
3.nge
63l

3
+6+

Add.i
tional typing by the duck.

Circle, square, triangle and star.

He gets the circle piece in the circle hole, no problem. But he absolutely cannot get any of the other pieces into their correct spots. In fact, he is so far from doing that that he will try to put them through the circle hole, even when we're doing it like a puzzle, and the circle piece is IN the hole--he will try to put another piece on top of it. Sometimes he doesn't even bother trying the other pieces, and just throws them.

So while other parents are out there teaching++ their kids words, and sending them to swim classes so they walk quicker, and exposing their kids to the entire Baby Einstein oeuvre, I'm just hoping that he hangs onto his looks. /He's looking like he might +++-*******end up sharp *as a sack of hippos.

Again, additional
typing and
line breaks by my writing partner, the duck.

posted by Girl Detective1:26 PM

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. . . . .

My son, the contrarian

The duck is now equally skilled at going both up and down stairs. Without fail, though, he will decide to go the opposite way that I want him to. In the morning, after his diaper change, I'll bring him downstairs and he'll climb back up. For later diaper changes, I'll try to take him up and he'll turn around and back down. Just to see if this opposite thing worked, the other night, after I'd been trying to get him to go upstairs for his bath and he was instead backing down the stairs, I stayed at the bottom of the stairs and told him to come on downstairs. Up he went.

So it looks like I'm going to have to perfect the Bizarro method of parenting. As if I'm not confused enough already.

posted by Girl Detective1:25 PM

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. . . . .

He almost, but not quite, didn't do something new today

"Hey," I said, after my husband put the duck to bed. "He didn't do anything new today!"

"Have you ever seen him put his finger up his nose, then eat it?"

"Well, um, no."

"He didn't necessarily have a booger that he ate, but the finger did go up the nose and then into the mouth."

"Unpleasant, but definitely new."

Perhaps this is the one I'll tell to a little old lady the next time one says that they do something new every day.

Also, he is sounding very, very close to talking. He babbles constantly, but there are some instances that are beginning to sound deliberate, like a "Dizah" sound when I read Dinosaur's Binkit.

According to the doctor at his last check up, the duck is supposed to have about eight words at his next appointment.

That's this Friday. I keep telling him he'd better get crackin'. He just responds, "Ah DEE dah."

posted by Girl Detective6:56 PM

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. . . . .

Awake, 6 a.m., every day last week

Apparently, the duck didn't get the memo about daylight savings time. So he went from going to bed at 7 and waking up at 7 to going to bed at 7 and waking at 6. He's waking up happy, chatting and crooning to his duck and sheep blankie, so this morning I did not get him up till 7 anyway, but I'm desperately hoping his circadian rhythms will catch up. I need a little morning time before getting swept up into the mom-a-whirl.

posted by Girl Detective6:32 PM

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. . . . .

I'm still wrong

Welcome to days five and six of my continually failing experiment to disprove the little old ladies small talkism "babies do something new every day".

Yesterday the duck ate pizza for the first time (Pizza Luce, of course) and was mesmerized both by seagulls and an airplane in the sky over Target, pointing insistently and shouting "Ay, ah, Ay, ah." Could he mean airplane? It's a leap, I think.

Today, we noticed that he's taking his little plastic giraffe and tucking it behind his ear and going "ah, ah, ah." We think he's pretending to talk on the phone. Also, he held out toys to me, and when I'd reach to take them, he'd pull them back, psyche!

posted by Girl Detective6:32 PM

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. . . . .

Me vs. the old ladies, round 4

Again, yesterday, I got through till five o'clock with the duck not doing anything new. (Aha, but is this because I'm a stay-at-home mom, and am just doing the same things with him every day? I keep thinking I need to start art projects and play more music or something. Sigh. It will _never_ be good enough, I swear.)

Then we went to a Guy Fawkes party at another family's house. We've offered him salmon and tuna before; always he has refused. Last night, though, he was loving the fish and chips. Then, with the other kids he discovered one of my favorite childhood toys, the Hopper Popper, and ran across the floor with it. Finally, we went outside to burn things and he was mesmerized by the fire, and shouted and crooned and was altogether a very excited baby. So three new things: fish, hopper popper and love of things on fire.

When my sisters and I were little, my father hated the Hopper Popper. He took to hiding it in more and more difficult places. He finally gave up when one of us turned up, excited and dusty and smudged, "Daddy, daddy, look what I found in the attic! It's our Hopper Popper!" He could either throw it away or give in, knowing that we'd eventually tire of the toy. He let us keep it. Perhaps soon I will have a Hopper Popper in my own house that I will come to loathe.

posted by Girl Detective9:15 AM

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. . . . .

In which I prove--twice!--that I am still able to think fast

I was in the parking lot, waiting for a spot, when I saw two cars pull out at the same time. Neither noticed the other and collision was imminent.

I honked loudly. Perhaps they looked back at me and thought, what the hell's her problem, then got a glance of the looming fender of the other car that was REALLY close to theirs, and felt sheepish. One waved, the other backed out first, then the waver went, I pulled in, and that was that.

Later, the duck was asleep for the night. My husband and I were watching TV in the basement. Our security system was armed. We heard a loud beep from the baby monitor and both jumped up. It wasn't the security system--that would have continued to go off. On the run up the stairs, I first identified the beep: the smoke detector in the duck's room. But why was it going off? Were the batteries low? Before we reached the first floor I'd gotten it: the humidifier we'd put in to help relieve his cold was setting it off. We reached the second floor and removed the humidifier. The beeps subsided, having never woken the duck.

posted by Girl Detective11:46 AM

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Is it worth it?

As I may have mentioned here, sometimes this parenting thing is tough. Some people have asked if it's worth it. I'd be lying if I said the answer was always yes. There have been days, sometimes several in a row, during which I long for my old life, going out to dinner, and oh how I miss the movies. But I didn't sign on to this gig because I thought it would be easy. The payoffs are numerous. I'm learning what really matters to me because it's often so hard to make it happen. I have to scramble sometimes to read and write, but I'm doing them, and I value them that much more. I'm also learning to manage my anger, and how to practice acceptance on a basis so frequent that sometimes I swear I have to do it every conscious moment. These are theory, though. Here are some points of practice:

The feeling of success I get when I am able to correctly intuit what the baby needs--food, nap, exercise. It has taken me over 14 months of practice, but it happens more and more often.

The shocking joy of being on the receiving end of a spontaneous baby hug.

The enormous smile with seven visible teeth that I get when I come into the room. (He has a total of ten that have broken through, and at least two more are imminent.)

Listening to him croon and babble happily for over half an hour when he woke this morning.

His soft skin, the downy red-gold hair on his head, the curve of his cheek, his chubby feet and thighs.

My absolute favorite thing that he does is this weird smile, where he grins hugely and tenses up his arms and hands--I call it the Incredible Hulk smile. It makes me laugh and laugh when he does it. Every time he does it, I think, yeah, it is SO worth it.

posted by Girl Detective11:28 AM

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. . . . .

Me vs. the old ladies: 0 for 3

Yes, day 3 of my experiment in whether the duck does something new every day. I really thought yesterday was going to be the day. That it was just two days of flukes. Then he fell off the couch. (Not far, and I was right there, and he was easily comforted.) Later, as he was playing on the landing, he reached up for the bannister, grabbed it and either just lifted his feet up to hang, or even might have pulled himself up a bit.

We're in the midst of day 4 of this experiment, and thus far nothing new.

One thing he's been doing for a while now that's very cute is sidling. He's mastered forward motion at top speed, so now he's practicing evasive maneuvers. He's a tricksy little guy.

posted by Girl Detective11:27 AM

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. . . . .

I am a reasonably intelligent person

So why can't I figure out the directions for the baby toilet clamp? (For any non-parents, this is so to prevent the baby from playing/drowning in the toilet. Yet doesn't it make sense for them to make friends (under supervision, of course) with the toilet, make it seem like a fun thing? That's the advice we got for the bed when we were encouraging him to nap.)

I feel like I'm in the twilight zone--the pieces in the box do not seem to match the pieces pictured in the instructions. But there are only three--how hard can this be? I read it again and again and it doesn't make sense. And no, it's not written in badly translated English.

posted by Girl Detective10:45 AM

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. . . . .

Newsflash: I might be wrong

Yesterday at the coffee shop, a little old lady said, "Oh, babies do new things every time you look." I held my tongue, since I still feel bad about the last time I heard a variation on this nugget, when my 90-year-old grandmother who I don't see very often said "Oh, he does something new ever day."

"No, he doesn't," I snapped, "he sometimes goes days without doing anything new."

I have no idea why I was so cranky and out of sorts that day. The sky is blue... (On a side note, I find it amusing that some people, notably members of my husband's pub quiz team, think he's cranky. Perhaps, but only until he is juxtaposed with me. Then, in order to maintain equilibrium in the universe, he has to be Zen Buddha guy. I never encounter him not juxtaposed with me, thus to me he is almost always calm, not cranky, like me.)

So when I heard the lady in the coffee shop say the same thing, I bit my tongue, did not snap at her, and thought, well, I'll prove her wrong. I bet he doesn't do a new thing every day. I will keep track on the blog. This should be easy.

Yesterday, the duck slithered down the basement stairs all by himself. And he did the same thing on the cement back steps, where just last month he did not one but two face plants. He also rolled a ball back and forth with his dad.

Today, he began to shake his booty to music. I don't just mean he danced--he's been bobbing to music for a while. I mean he literally did a little squat and shake while I sang Mary Had a Little Lamb. Imagine what will happen if I play him something with a strong bass line.

Then, at dinner tonight, just for the usual futility of putting what we eat on his plate (while having a hot dog ready as back up) I flung him a few pad thai noodles. He slurped them up. And to prove it wasn't a fluke, he did it again and again. We've given him mac and cheese and every variation on kid-friendly pasta, and it's pad thai that he gobbles up.

It's only been two days, so it's hardly a representative sample, but I'm going to keep tracking this. You heard it here, folks: babies may in fact do something new EVERY DAY.

posted by Girl Detective5:45 PM

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. . . . .

Board books

I've spent a lot of time reading board books lately. The duck will grab one, toddle over and hold it aloft with an expectant look on his face. This moment is repeated throughout the day and it never ceases to be cute. I can, and do, sometimes express displeasure with the book he has chosen, but the fetching and holding are, at least thus far, beyond reproach.

The duck, though, is not satisfied with one read, front to back. Usually he likes to go forward, then backward and will go up and back many times. Most times my husband and I will tire of a book long before the duck does. Also, the duck turns pages at a fast clip, so it's important to read fast and not get too attached to reading everything on one page. He sometimes skips pages, and he doesn't seem to notice, or care. We, on the other hand, do notice and are damn glad, especially during Green Eggs and Ham, which is a very long book, especially if you have to read it several times in a row, front and back, again and again.

I've come to appreciate books that have enough words to read quickly but not so many that reading them is futile. Too few words is deadly boring. Story books that have been converted to board books don't work so well--too many words, not enough rhyme or rhythm to keep his interest. Also some books work well going either forward or backwards.

So if you're looking for a book for a child, you need to consider both the child and the adult. A baby is likely to get bored by too long a story, and adult by one that is too short. Test drive a book by reading it aloud. Some books have terrible rhymes that are difficult and uneven to read. I like most of the Boynton board books, but Dinos to Go is like that--bad rhymes plus too long. Then read it forward and backward. If you can read it 6 times in a row without stumbling, cursing or growing bored, then it might work out.

posted by Girl Detective3:21 PM

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. . . . .

Fever

The duck has been feverish for days. It comes and it goes. We've measured it a few times above 103. Sometimes he's crabby, sometimes he's fine. The nights have been terrible. We took him to the pediatrician, who confirmed that his ears and lungs are clear, in spite of a juicy cough. She also said that we were medicating appropriately--only when he was miserable, and not every time his temp spiked.

He woke from his nap today with a fever of 103.5 and a rash. My dad says it
sounds like roseola, so we'll see. The book says that the rash should come after the fever breaks, which obviously it didn't. I hope that it is roseola, which is not serious and passes quickly. I also hope that my husband G. Grod and I can't catch it.

The past 2 nights have been terrible--like back at the newborn stage
where we are "privileged" to get one three hour stretch of sleep at the
end, after wakings anywhere from every 15 minutes to every hour. And
nothing seems to help. He won't accept teething remedies like frozen
washcloths, chilled teethers or even his former fave, metal spoons. And
Tylenol/Motrin are not helping for any long stretch of time.

His gums are bulging with the incoming molars and I see a little peep of white where one of the second set of incisors is finally coming in. His face and torso are covered with a speckly rash and he was screaming and crying at bathtime. My husband and I were in tears too, utterly helpless to do anything to alleviate his misery, except give him some ibuprofen and hope that he sleeps tonight and that tomorrow he'll be fever free.

posted by Girl Detective6:32 PM

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. . . . .

Best-laid plans

We had planned to leave this morning for a family reunion. My husband and I were trepidatious about the car trip. The duck is not a world-class traveler. That is one reason that we chose to live close in to a city, so car trips would be short and infrequent. He had a cough yesterday, but woke this morning (after sleeping 12 hours without interruption--yay!) feverish and very upset. He was mostly miserable throughout the morning, whimpering frequently. After lunch, he went down for a nap, during which I had to coax him back to sleep 2 or 3 times. He woke from the nap crying inconsolably and blazing hot with a temp of 103.8. We gave Tylenol and Dad carried him till he was in better spirits. An hour later his temp was down a degree, and an hour after that it's down another two. He's been playing happily for most of the afternoon now.

A couple thoughts. One, it's much easier for me to handle his screams when I know what is wrong. It has been easy for me today to sing, to carry, rock, jiggle and try to assure him that even though he feels crappy now it will pass, even though he's gone on some very long crying jags. It is the non-specific, erratic fussiness punctuated with ear-splitting screams, that wreaks havoc on my nerves and balance.

Two, when I was growing up, I frequently got sick as a way of getting attention or getting out of things. When I was younger, I did this subconsciously. It wasn't imaginary illness, though, it was actual vomiting. As a teenager I sought the same results overtly, by acting destructively and faking illness. At 14 months, I hope the duck is too young to have picked up on the illness manipulation trick. It did effectively get him out of a long car ride, though. I'll have to keep an eye on this.

posted by Girl Detective3:50 PM

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. . . . .

Sometimes you get lucky

The duck is napping. After less than an hour, he woke, hooting with displeasure. I leapt up from the computer and sprinted across the upstairs and into his room. I patted his back, gently guiding him to lay back down, and continued to rub his back till he fell asleep again. !!!!

posted by Girl Detective1:25 PM

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. . . . .

I am a skilled, capable, intuitive mother

See how quickly things can change, here? During lunch, the duck looked tired, so I quickly got him cleaned up and to his room for a diaper change and the nap ritual. I left the room, he squawked and was quiet. But when I checked after 10 minutes, he was sitting up. At 15, he hollered, so I went in and checked his diaper; he had pooped. I executed a quick, quiet diaper change, sang to him, rubbed his back, then left. He squawked just a bit, but was asleep in five minutes and, after the aforementioned waking and being coaxed back to sleep, has just finished hour 2 of his nap. Woo hoo, ladies and gentlemen. I said, woo hoo.

posted by Girl Detective1:10 PM

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. . . . .

"It's so much harder than I ever thought it would be."

This quote from Jennifer Weiner's new book, Little Earthquakes, resonated painfully for me when I read it. In my head, I am a Bad Mother; I am just about every Bad Mother there ever was. Here are things I have done, in my head: shaken the baby; slapped him; punched him; hit him upside the head with his sippy cup; dropped him; screamed at him--to shut up, that I regret having had him, that I'll give him something to cry about. In my head I have committed suicide, gotten drunk, taken pills. I have left my husband and the baby to fend for themselves.

I have only actually done one of these. On some recent bad day, I was gritting my teeth and trying to do something around the new house that I could also do with a fussy, active baby under foot. I settled on watering the plants. As I climbed over the baby gate for the millionth time that day, then tripped over the recycling and spilled the water, the baby let out his Glass-Shattering Shriek of Random Rage. I didn't even turn around, it just poured out of my head, out of my mouth, "Shut up!" Immediate shame washed over me. I wondered if one of the neighbors had heard. I certainly would have earned condemnation from myself in the olden days, something like, "Some people just shouldn't be parents."

Things have been particularly difficult for several days, now. The weather is cold and gray. The baby has gone from waking later in the morning, which gave me some precious, necessary time to myself, to waking before dawn. He screams during the night, needing comfort to get back to sleep. His naps get shorter each day. Yesterday's was barely an hour. The baby is ill-tempered, probably because his molars are coming in. It's only logical that bone punching through flesh would make him irritable, sleepless and out of sorts. Yet there is no logic in my response. Only anger as I feel my stress levels spike as he screams. Frustration as he refuses teething remedies. Aching wrists as I try to comfort him and he attempts to squirm out of my grasp. Annoyance as I fight so he doesn't crack his head against the floor. Disbelief at the irony when he smacks me, hard, in the face with his sippy cup. I have never been so tired for so long. I never knew how angry I was until I had a baby, till I had to keep it in my head and not act on it. This is payback, I think, for every judgmental thought I ever had about mothers back when I was a smug DINK. My husband never hesitates to remind me, to say I told you so.

Today is better than yesterday was, than the day before and before. I got time to myself this morning, and have time to write, now. I talked to some other moms about getting out, getting together, getting help. I need the time not only for me, but also for him, so I can stop reacting on such a visceral, basic level. So I can think, "He's screaming because he hurts, not because he's angry at me." So I can come up with another plan when one fails. Motherhood _is_ so much harder than I ever thought it would be. Some days I wonder if I can survive it.

Here is where a writer would normally finish with a sunny, compensating conclusion, but I'm not going to. I'm writing this because I wanted to to get these thoughts out of my head in a way that isn't hurtful. The only hopeful conclusion I have is that today is better, and that I've been able to respond to him without anger, even when he's been fussy and difficult. I'm the parent. I only wish that this meant that I knew what I was doing.

posted by Girl Detective11:55 AM

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. . . . .

A parenting success

We've been in chaos around the move, these past months. One of my fervent hopes was that our family would begin to establish routines. After a month in the new house, things are still chaotic, but we have had some success, most notably at dinnertime. We start cooking dinner early, around 5, then sit down to eat as a family around six. After that, it's bathtime for the duck, then naked time, then bedtime books and bed. Our new routine has worked especially well for the duck, who recognizes his bedtime and even embraces it, chatting happily to his two lovies after we turn out the lights. But it also works well for my husband and me. We now have the rest of the evening for ourselves, separately and together. It takes some planning and focus, but I think everyone's happier for it.

posted by Girl Detective6:54 PM

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. . . . .

Newsflash: teeth don't arrive in order

Which I would have known, if I'd consulted the baby book BEFORE I saw the honkin' molar in the middle of the duck's mouth.

In the month since we moved into our new old house, the duck has been sleeping well at night, for a stretch of about 12 hours. During the past week, though, he began waking around midnight, often acting as if in pain. Since he hadn't gotten any teeth since July, I've thought that he's been way past due for some new ones. He's got four on top and two on bottom. I'd been expecting bottom rectangles, or upper vampires. Not random middles. Imagine my surprise when I caught a flash of gigantic molar in the back left middle of his mouth. Turns out you're supposed to get the front rectangles, then the middle molars, then the vampire teeth.

Those are the technical terms, you know.

posted by Girl Detective1:28 PM

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. . . . .

Lunch

We bought food books so we could get ideas on what to feed the baby, since I was feeling so inept. Breakfast today went well. I gave him his usual yogurt, plus O's, plus diced peaches. He ate it all; he liked it all. For lunch, I made pasta with tuna and peas. I also re-heated the baked sweet potato with leftover peach juice from the breakfast fruit--clever! The pasta recipe, which said it took 20 minutes, took nearly 45. During that time the duck rampaged about the kitchen, flinging tin foil and ziplock bags hither and yon. I dirtied about a zillion dishes making the meal. Then, when I put him in the chair, he refused it all, together and separately. So I gave him some milk and put him down for a nap. When he woke, I tried again. He refused again. So I got out applesauce, which he ate. I snuck a few peas in it; he ate those, though he spit out some of the skins. I gave him a hunk of baguette. He liked that. I gave him jarred baby food sweet potatoes. He liked those. Then I made a roll up of a slice of turkey bologna and a slice of co-jack cheese. He ate some bologna and all the cheese.

So at the end of the day, I spent a lot of time cooking and cleaning, and he still likes what he likes: fruit, bread, cheese, select meats and pureed, jarred veggies. I may have to keep buying baby food veggies in jars. He is eating some people food, just not solid veg quite yet.

posted by Girl Detective6:14 PM

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. . . . .

Food isn't fun

Feeding the duck is driving me crazy. Or, rather, I am driving myself crazy feeding the duck. I finally stopped buying baby food, figuring it was time to make a serious effort to get him to eat people food. All well and good, but he doesn't like real vegetables. I've tried canned and frozen peas and green beans, both of which he liked as purees. One night he liked baked sweet potato slices, one night he didn't. Complicating matters is that he veers between being cranky because he's constipated (because he does love both banana and cheese) or cranky because he has several poops in a day after I've given him prune juice because of the constipation. And every few days he gets a red ring around his anus, indicating that we've given him something that he's allergic or sensitive to. Because he eats a lot of different things each day, and some of those have multiple ingredients, it's very hard to isolate problem foods. The doctor and the book said "Give him what you eat." Easier said than done. We try, and most often he refuses it. We made soup and tried to give him the chunky stuff. He refused. And since we made enough soup for three nights, then we're scrambling for three nights to find something else for him to eat, that he'll agree to eat, that's reasonably nutritious and that won't give him constipation or a red ring on his bum. So far, we're not doing so well. He woke this morning with diaper rash, having been asleep in a very poopy diaper for who knows how long, plus having eaten something that disagreed. His poor little butt is as red as a monkey's. One of the women at the coffee shop recommended Burt's Bees diaper ointment, and I may try to give him extended naked time today, especially since it's rainy and we can't go to the park anyway. And now he's woken after only a 45 minute nap. Sigh.

posted by Girl Detective1:37 PM

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. . . . .

Book fiend

We'd read to the duck since before he was born, and he's been turning pages since he was about four months old. Lately, though, he's taken a more active role by getting a book, toddling over and holding it up with a pleading look on his face. It's quite endearing. The other day he had a go at the mass market paperbacks. I turned to find him holding up Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson. Excited, I thought this meant he was ready to move beyond Baby Faces and Hop on Pop. Alas, he put it right back down and crawled off in another direction. So we're back to reading board books, multiple times. But if he gives me another opening for a more interesting (to me) book, I'm going to take it.

posted by Girl Detective10:14 AM

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. . . . .

Watch where you aim that small talk, lady

The duck has been markedly fussy the past few days, letting loose with frequent, high-pitched screeches, and doing his darndest to lay his hands on every single thing in creation that would bug me. I stopped in a deli the other day to pick up a few things. I picked up just enough that I couldn't juggle the things and the duck, so while we were waiting in the VERY SLOW checkout line, I had to do a lot of shifting while I pulled him off the glass soda bottles conveniently located at baby eye level. I kept glancing at the cashier, wondering what the hell was taking so long, then back to the duck, then back to my pile of stuff.

"Oh, you can go ahead of me. I think you were here first," cooed a high-pitched voice to my left.

Surprised, I turned to find a woman with a cart standing where she hadn't been before. Damn straight I'm going ahead of you, lady, I most certainly was here first.

Alas, in the moment she distracted me, the duck managed to get hold of a glass Nantucket Nectar bottle (why not the plastic bottle of Diet Coke? Why?) and I had to wrestle it away. I've lost patience with the substitution game. It never works, and I feel like a sucker for trying it again and again. He's smart enough to know when he's got something I don't want him to, so getting it away quickly seems to be the best solution to a bad situation, like ripping off a Band-Aid. The duck threw his usual "you took something I really, really wanted, you mean mommy" tantrum. I closed my eyes for a moment.

And the lady chimed in again, un-ironically, "It's such a fun age, isn't it, with all the motor skills developing?"

I looked over at her in disbelief. Did I not look as tired, harried and cold-ridden as I felt? Was the duck not gushing snot and wailing as if under torture?

Taking the path of least resistance, i.e., not punching her, I twitched the edges of my lips up in what I'm sure barely resembled a smile, and said, with full-on irony, "Yeah, it's just great."

posted by Girl Detective10:30 AM

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. . . . .

Some perspective

I've been feeling a bit down on myself as a mom...

OK, how many moms ever feel like, "I've been feeling I've been doing a GREAT job as a mom lately..."? Gotta say, for me it's pretty rare. Anyhoo.

I've been feeling a bit down on myself because of how ragged I've been at the end of some recent days. Tired, bitchy, and feeling like my major accomplishments were not losing my temper and doing something damaging to either the baby or to myself. The common thread on these days? A short, one-ish hour nap by the duck. It happens more than it doesn't, so I felt I should be better able to handle it.

Yet caring for the duck is a twelve-hour day--about 7 a.m to 7 p.m. How many jobs have you working a twelve-hour shift, full on except for an hour break?

Some certainly, but not ones whose labor practices are on the up and up.

I now feel perfectly justified in feeling tapped out at the end of a day that contained any nap less than two hours. And justified for collapsing in front of the TV rather than unpacking, cleaning or organizing our new house. Though I do fear for our future here if we don't make some progress.

Now, if I can only find the magic formula to get two-hour naps. Or, gasp, something even longer. Sigh. Heaven.

I don't think it's going to happen today. I peeked in on him after he'd finally fallen asleep and there was an unmistakeable whiff of poop to the air. Argh. Why couldn't he have gone before I changed his diaper, before the nap? Now his dirty diaper will all but ensure that he doesn't sleep soundly and long. So many nap variables. Such a short, short window of time to myself.

Again, sigh.

posted by Girl Detective11:40 AM

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. . . . .

Last night at our house during the duck's naked time

Me: He's pooped.
My husband: How can you tell?
Me: Because he's got shit hanging out of his ass.

It's a glamourous life.

About the time the duck started to walk, I began to let him have naked time after his bath so he could air dry after being cooped up in diapers all day. I was torn between doing naked time before bath when he was still dirty and after, to allow for the air drying. I've stuck with after, in spite of a fair number of out-of-diaper occurrences. We just clean it up. If we had a diaper on him, we'd have to change it anyway.

posted by Girl Detective10:56 AM

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. . . . .

A review of Desperate Housewives, by a desperate housewife

I watched the pilot for ABC's much touted new nighttime soap Desperate Housewives, and it made me realize I've got some work to do.

For anyone under a rock, the show begins when Mary Alice, one of the Stepford-y women of Wisteria Lane offs herself. She is found by the Nosy Neighbor, and the wake is attended by her four friends: Bree (Melrose Place alum Marcia Cross), in major Martha mode; Susan (Teri Hatcher), completely unbelievable as the desperate single mom, and on whom low-rise jeans are strangely unflattering; Gabrielle (Eva Longoria), essentially playing the slutty housewife with the heart of gold; and Lynnie (Felicity Huffman), the former executive ground down by four kids in three years. Lynnie's impregnating husband is played by another MP alum, Doug Savant, in an effort, perhaps, to distance himself from his role as the Gay Guy. Rounding out the neighborhood is the New Single Guy, the potential love interest for Susan who's got a secret, and Nicolette Sheridan, sporting some awful plastic surgery, playing the Nasty Slutty Single Mom. We are shown in the middle that Mary Alice's husband has a Secret. In the end, we learn that Mary Alice had a Secret too. Note to producers: postmarks show when things are sent, NOT when they arrive.

There were fun moments in the pilot, but what struck me mostly was its meanness to the women. Their desperation is played for laughs, and too often, at least for me, what they showed was too sad to be funny. Susan shoving her daughter's project down the sink to create a clog, Lynnie jumping in the pool at a wake--these were too painful to be funny. The husbands are not shown in a more flattering light, though, so perhaps the show is misanthropic, not misogynistic.

Lynnie had my two favorite moments. One, when she was in the grocery store and had to chat with a former co-worker, who asked the inevitable "Don't you love being a mother?" My response to this facile piece of idiotic small talk is to say shortly, "Sometimes," then get away from the insipid questioner as quickly as possible. Lynnie did what she had to; she lied. In my opinion, this is another socially acceptable alternative to what the questioner deserves: to get her lungs ripped out.

My other favorite moment was when Lynnie's husband returns to find her covered in strained peaches and under siege. He bribes the kids to play outside for 20 minutes, then initiates sex. When she tells him she's off the pill and they have to use a condom, he grins and says they should risk it. She, rightfully, punches him. And I laughed. Because that was funny.

Satirizing the suburban lifestyle goes back at least to the original Stepford Wives. This show, like the Stepford remake, doesn't seem quite clear in what it's satirizing. Desperate housewives and hypocritical husbands have been done to death--they're not funny anymore. Perhaps this show is taking a deeper jab, at those of us viewers who are entertained when perfect-seeming people suffer.

What I am left with, though, is the uncomfortable knowledge that I am a cliche. I'm a stay at home mom who quit her executive job to look after the baby full time. I complain about finding time for myself and time to write. I'm frustrated and tired. I'm wearing a sweatshirt of my husband's and spent the morning wiping my son's runny nose, then feeding him cookies while we watched Sesame Street. My adult interaction is at the counter of the local coffee shop.

When I resigned, I cannot count how many people said to me with envy in their voices, "You're so lucky." And I am. I'm glad not to be working in corporate America anymore. I'm glad that my husband makes enough money so that this choice is possible. (NB: it's not luxurious, it's sometimes not even comfortable, it's just possible.) I used to get a salary and benefits for what amounted to quite a lot of busy work and not a lot of valued content; I struggled to find time to write. Now, I'm still struggling to find time to write, but here I am, typing away happily while the baby naps. I am more likely to find time to write now that I am at home. Being a mom and housewife is hard--physically and emotionally. But so was being a corporate drone. I had a choice, I took it, I'm glad and I've got work to do--embrace the stay-at-homeness and quit griping about it. I would like to believe there's a way to be a stay-at-home mom that isn't desperate, and isn't pitiable. I'll let you know as I find it.

posted by Girl Detective11:38 AM

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. . . . .

Naptime, naptime, wherefore art thou, naptime?

I have just spend a blissful hour and twenty minute catching up on blogs.

Our past few months have been fraught with upheaval: I resigned my job, we spiffed up our condo, the duck and I left town while we sold it, we looked for a new place, found one, lost it, found another one, then had to wait 25 days between closings, so the duck and I went to a hotel, then out of town again, then back to a hotel, then into the new house, where we've been for 2 weeks plus a weekend. Is it any surprise that we're all feeling a bit discombobulated, here?

The good news is that the duck has been sleeping well at night. I think we have a lock on our bedtime routine, he recognizes it as such and he embraces it: Dinner, Bath, Naked Time, Milk with Dinosaur's Binkit and the Going to Bed Book, then lights out.

The same, alas, is not true for naptime. Most parent books say that a kid will transition from one nap to two, and will usually start to skip the morning nap. The duck, however, is the opposite. He still gets sleepy about 3 hours after he gets up in the morning, but will not go down for a second nap in the afternoon. This was fine in PA when he would wake up at 8 a.m., we'd have lunch at 11:30 and he'd nap right after. Back in MN, things aren't going so smoothly. He's crying every day at naptime, and he's only sleeping for just over an hour. I need his naptime in order to eat lunch and write. His awake time is very active and doesn't allow me much independent time

So I am persevering in trying to establish a nap routine. We wake up, I change his diaper and dress him, then we have breakfast, I get dressed and we go to the coffee shop. We get back, watch Sesame Street (or rather, I watch Sesame Street while he runs to and fro in the basement) I read some books, he acts tired, I give him some milk, read Snoozers, Pajama Time and Sometimes I Like to Curl up in a Ball, pull the shade and listen to him cry. I'm thinking I should add playtime in the park in there, between coffee and Sesame Street. This morning was too cold, though. Plus he and I both have colds, so we stayed inside.

The good news, though, is that he's just passed the hour and half mark, so perhaps things are looking up today. Ah, he hoots. It's been 2 hours. Better. Plus I've blogged. Yay!

posted by Girl Detective11:02 AM

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. . . . .

New toy

For months now, the duck has been coveting remote controls, phone handsets and our cell phones--anything with buttons, that lights up and beeps. I put off buying toys until we had moved, not wanting to juggle/pack/remember one more thing. On our first post-move trip to Target, though, new toys were on the list. My sister Sydney and I found a set of metallic keys with noise-making buttons and an Elmo cell phone. I had a moment of quandary as I stared at the Elmo cell phone and compared it to the rolling Fisher-Price rotary phone of my childhood. Shouldn't I get him the classic? Was I being a horrible yuppie parent if I got him the cell phone? Could I still be a yuppie since I'm a stay-at-home mom?

Then, a moment of clarity. The cell phone is like any phone we actually use. The rotary phone is all but extinct. Most people use cell phones or electronic handsets. A cell phone is not a yuppie accoutrement, but rather an artifact of everyday life. I felt no qualms as I placed the Elmo phone in our shopping cart.

The duck has very much enjoyed the Elmo phone. It's portable, so easy to put in the diaper bag. He even sometimes accepts it for a substitute when he has something else in his hands that I want to take away. When he flips open the bottom, it plays the opening bars of Elmo's World. We had a surreal moment, though, when I caught the duck repeatedly pressing the 6 button, with Elmo's cute squeaky voice going "six, six, six."

Elmo is red. He tempts little children. And their moms. Hmm.

posted by Girl Detective8:44 AM

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. . . . .

Moving Day

The duck was a champ during moving day. He took a good nap in the morning while the movers took out the stuff from the basement and the front of the apartment. Then he played happily while they moved the rest of the stuff, and was mostly good during lunch and our subsequent clean up and the removal of those many last odds and ends. We took him to his favorite restaurant, the Convention Grill, for dinner. He had cheeseburger and fries, plus his first bites of hot fudge sundae with bananas. It was late and we got lost on the way to the hotel, but he was so happy after that sundae that it was a joy. He laughed, and grinned, and made faces, and giggled. He was so giddy it was almost like he was drunk. And when we finally did get to the hotel, he had his bath and went to sleep without event, even though it was over an hour past his usual bedtime. And then he slept for ten hours straight, with no 3 to 5 a.m. waking. What an adventurous soul.

posted by Girl Detective6:26 PM

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. . . . .

A year ago right now the duck and I were getting acquainted.

Happy birthday, little duckie.

posted by Girl Detective7:33 AM

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. . . . .

Mom-friendly makeup

As I've navigated nearly a year of new motherhood, I have managed to hone a morning makeup regimen that is straightforward and does what needs to be done to hide lack of sleep and potential lapses in hygiene.

Cleanse: Cetaphil.
Moisturize Face: Olay SPF 15
Moisturize Eyes: whatever eye cream is at hand--they're all the same
Moisturize Body: Vaseline something or other
Conceal: Laura Mercier Secret Concealer around eyes
Brighten: Benefit Eye Bright under lower lashes and corners of eyes
Curl Lashes; Darken: Bobbi Brown Everything mascara (I think I preferred the Thickening formula)
Blush: Nars Portofino on cheeks, nose, chin and forehead
Lips: Zum Kiss Tangerine balm or Laura Mercier Dry Rose

posted by Girl Detective8:06 PM

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Welcome changes

Of late, the duck has stopped fighting nap time and actually embraces it. As always, when I notice him slowing down and getting fussy, I take him into the bedroom. Now, though, he nearly leaps from my arms into the pack-n-play (his temporary bed till we move) where he snuggles and chats with his duckie and his mouton blankie for a few minutes before falling asleep.

Also, while he still is not a quiet snuggler, he has become quite good at flinging his arms around me in a convincing hug. It's quite endearing.

I'm enjoying this phase.

posted by Girl Detective9:19 AM

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