One Year Later or Is February Out To Get Me?

                 

Last year I planned an amazing party for Owen’s third birthday party.  He was neck deep in love with anything having to do with firemen and even though I have always struggled with theme parties, it was easy to get excited about this one.  I ordered fireman themed plates and bowls, candles, hats, favors, and even practiced making natural dye red icing for the fire truck shaped cake I was determined to construct.  To be fair, the icing never really looked red; it looked, and sadly tasted like magenta dirt, which made sense since it was made out of beet root powder and strawberry juice.  I booked a day at the YMCA which provided a room and an hour of indoor play complete with bouncy castle and sent out invitations.  I have never been so prepared for a party outside of my wedding.  And then Friday, February 28^th, six days before his birthday, I went in to check on him during a nap and found him unconscious, having vomited, and apparently still having a seizure.  In that moment, I thought that I had lost him.  We went by ambulance to the hospital where he did not regain consciousness until the next morning.

                We stayed in the hospital for six days, and in fact thought we would spend his birthday in the hospital, in isolation.  The nurses promised to make it special and I tried hard to believe them. At some point during his hospitalization, I snuck down to the children’s playroom that we could not go into because Owen was in isolation and called the YMCA to cancel his party and then sobbed. Somehow, in a small miracle we were released on his birthday, perhaps the best birthday gift possible.   I don’t think I have ever bought a birthday cake for anyone in my life.  I love making homemade cakes, have been making cakes for family and friends since I was seven and aside from the one year I put in a tablespoon of baking soda and baking powder instead of a teaspoon of each in a cake for my grandfather, I have been fairly successful.  But last year, physically and emotionally exhausted, I could not make Owen a cake.   My husband took Owen to the local gourmet grocery store and bought him one, a big expensive chocolate cake, twice as large as we needed because when Owen asked for it in the store, my husband could not say no, could not think of anything other than the fact in that moment, we were so thankful to have him home and alive, he would have bought him every cake in the store if he could have. The lady behind them in line rolled her eyes, muttering something about entitled children.  My husband did not say anything, just paid for the cake and brought it home and we put the special fire fighter candles on it and sang to him around the dining room table. 

                This year we are one week out from Owen’s birthday. Owen is still madly in love with firefighters but I couldn’t bring myself to make it his theme.  As is, we don’t even have a theme but I will make a cake, possibly two.  The party feels important somehow, that because we did not get to have one last year, this will somehow serve as a milestone, something solid to say, “Here we are a year later, still on medication but seizure free. Here we are approaching normal, a different type of normal, but normal.”  But as the anniversary of his seizure approaches, I find myself getting more and more anxious, sliding back into the behavior of the weeks and months immediately following his hospitalization where I could not let him nap without checking on him constantly, laying my hand on his chest to make sure he was breathing, pressing my lips constantly to his forehead to check for fever, running my fingers across his limbs like a seismologist searching for subtle tremors.  And my fear is not contained to Owen, is has somehow transferred onto Nora, my younger daughter.  She has a bad cold, a cough that settled deep into her chest and at night I can hear her choke, then pause, and each pause feels to me like death and I stay awake trying to decide if I should go back in and check on her.  What if the end of February is a doomed time for me, as if the days themselves were still hungry for tragedy, unsatisfied?

Roughly eight years ago, I was driving up I-95 from NYC.  It was roughly 6:30 in the morning, just slipping into daylight and the roads were empty aside from a few trucks and other cars.  Then in front of me, a tire rolled off a truck.  I watched it fall, watched it bump and fly across lanes in front of me, hurtling towards my car.  The car in front of me swerved and I swerved too.  I managed to stop before I hit the car in front of me but the car behind me hit me.  I was shaken and scared but fine, as were the other drivers.  I eventually continued on to work, training some teachers at a high school.  But on the way home, I narrowly avoided two other accidents.  It felt like the accident I had escaped was chasing me, wanting to sink its still hungry fangs into my neck. And this feeling followed me for days as cars seemed continually drawn towards me as if I was magnetic north. As I move towards the end of February, I feel a nasty presence in the same way, like I’m waiting for tragedy to come.  I am not sure where this comes from but I try to be kind to myself and not tell myself to get over it, to feel that I am not entitled to this amount of grief, that that is reserved for someone with real tragedy. 

But there it is.  Here we are, one day away from the day that changed my life as a mother but also didn’t.  I am thankful for that and even more thankful that this month is almost over and in one week we will be having a wonderful, if theme-less party. 

Once There Was A Little Girl Name Nora - Or How Nora Came To Find Her Family

Once there was a little girl named Nora, or she wasn't really named Nora yet, she was just a little soul floating around the universe waiting to find her family.  Or that's not really accurate either. Nora had already found her family they just didn't know it yet.  Nora had spotted this family way way back when her brother Owen was inside Mommy's belly but since the space was occupied, she had to be patient, and she was pretty good at that.   So she waited and waited and waited until Owen finally left his mommy's belly which seemed to take a very long time.

While he was being born, Nora whispered into the doctors's ear that she she should make sure to do a good job because she really needed that space.  And luckily the doctor did.  Afterwards, the doctor even laughed and told her mom and dad that she would see them back there in a little over a year when they were ready to have their second baby.  A year was a long time to wait even for a very patient little soul but it seemed like anything sooner than that would be too risky so Nora started thinking about things she could do to pass the time. But then her parents, she was already calling them that because she knew they were supposed to be her parents, laughed and said something dumb like, "You won't see us back here, we're too old and poor to have more children!"  Nora thought that was ridiculous because in her journeys around the world, she had seen people a lot poorer than her parents who had more than two kids and seemed to do okay. It was true that they were a little on the older side but that was one of the things she liked about them, it made them more interesting, like art or a good bottle of wine.  "We will see,"the doctor said, "I bet you will be back.  I know these things."  "That's right!" Nora shouted, "I know these things too!"  but since she was just a little soul shouting into the universe she couldn't be positive that anyone heard her.

The next year or so, she kept close to her family when she wasn't busy flying about the world exploring.  Her favorite thing to do was to watch other babies being born, she loved seeing that little moment when babies burst out of their mommy's bellies and took their first breath of air.  Most people in the real world couldn't see it but babies come out encased in a shimmery gold light that explodes into a sunburst of magic dust which settles and burrows into their parents.  This way they will always be connected to each other no matter where they are.  It is one of the most beautiful things in the world.   Her second favorite thing was to watch dolphin's swim.  If her parents didn't come to their senses and decide to have her, her back up plan was to be a dolphin for a lifetime until she got over the disappointment. She didn't think she would need this but it made her feel better to have an option.

Then one day, when she stopped by her parents house she heard them talking about having another baby.  Her mom, boy she liked the sound of that, was really really ready but her dad was still a little worried.  He said he was too old to go through having a newborn again, with all the sleepless nights.  "This one will sleep, " her mom said .  "Can you promise me this one will be a sleeper?"  he asked.  "Yes," mom said, "she will be a sleeper. I promise."  So Nora wrote in her little invisible sketchpad ' be a sleeper'  though she wasn't exactly sure what that meant.  "Wait,"  dad said suddenly, "how do you know it will be a girl?"  Mommy just smiled.
Nora thought things were looking promising because she got the feeling that once her mom made up her mind to do something that she usually got it done and she knew there was more love in her daddy's heart than even he knew.  She stopped spending quite as much time with the dolphins because when you spend too much time with creatures when you're still a little floating soul, you can end up attaching to those beings, despite the best master plans  Instead, she watched her family,.  She especially loved watching her brother Owen who had a remarkably big heart and made people smile wherever he went. He seemed to know everyone in the neighborhood and she thought he would do a job showing her around.  Now all she had to do was wait.

Her mommy didn't like waiting either and one day her mommy get very sad.  "I can feel her waiting," her mommy sad to her daddy  "She wants to come so bad.  I feel her, I want her so much."  This made Nora happy and sad.  Despite being a very calm and patient little floating soul, she sometimes worried that things wouldn't work out because life doesn't always go according to plan but she decided to just have faith.  Because once two souls feel each other so strongly, magical things can happen.

And then one day, everything fell into place, as things that are meant to fall into place, fall into place.  She felt her little floating soul being tugged by a shimmering golden thread, nestling her deep within her mommy and daddy's hearts.  And there she began to transform from a matter-less soul into a solid and beautiful baby girl.   Though people claimed that babies grow in people's bellies, she knew that this was not the case.  She knew souls find root only by burrowing into other souls, weaving together their strands until they are thick and strong as tree trunks.  And in her case, she had planted that seed long ago, and it was a beautiful and marvelous thing to see it bloom into something so miraculous and alive.

If You Can't Beat Them Let Them Join You - Or How Owen First Learned To Massage Kale

The other night I was trying to cook dinner while Owen was trying to make me not cook dinner. This is kind of how our conversation went.

Owen: (tugging at my leg)  Mama, mama, mama, mama

Me: Owen, mama, needs to cook dinner.

Owen: (tugging at my leg more insistently)  Mama, mama, mama, mama!

Me:  Please Owen, just a few minutes.  Do you want to play with this?  (I try to hand Owen a variety of items from Cheerios to measuring cups, to a puppet.)

Owen: (tugging at leg)  Mama, mama, mama, mama, MAMAMAMAMAMAMAMAMA!!!!

I become increasingly frustrated as he yells at a higher and higher pitch and tries harder and harder to pull me away from what I'm doing.  This is not the first time this woman vs. toddler dinner battle has gone down. It is also why I usually cook dinner during his naps but sometimes I just have more important things to do, like lay in bed and play on-line Scrabble and watch Ted Talk videos which reinforce the fact that I have done very little with my life.  So, often I end up cooking while Owen is awake. At least this time I am making a raw kale salad so there is no hot oil, or flames or anything that poses great danger to Owen. It's really just a manner of my needing to get this done. But Owen is cook-blocking me like Putin at a Pussy Riot concert and I can feel my blood-pressure rising. I can also feel my "bad mom" growing more and more powerful and realize that something needs to give.  I do not like "bad mom" but recognize she is the less pleasant part of me. Bad mom is the one who forgets that we are dealing with a barely sentient human being and who believes that an 17 month old should in fact understand logic and delayed gratification.  Bad mom is adamant that Owen should fully appreciate that we are making this wonderful massaged kale salad for him (hahaha) and thus respond to our gentle entreaties to "give me a moment"  by saying, "Sure mom, I would love nothing more than to ease your stress and go entertain myself while you make something that I do not even consider a food."  And when this does not occur, bad mom wants to yell, she wants to kick a cat, she wants to go to a yoga class where they serve wine and definitely do not have any children there.

And just as bad mom is about to have her evil way, good mom has a revelation.

I was looking at this situation as if Owen and I had competing and incompatible desires and the only way to get around it was for one of us to give up. And even though I am a red-headed Scorpio who has often been described as "the most stubborn person I have ever met,"  I know I am in fact, no match for Owen.  But while Owen and I do very much have different desires they are not by any means exclusive.  So this is my revelation, "If you can't beat them, let them join you."

What Owen wanted was me.  (Can you blame him?)  And what I wanted was to get dinner done so the solution was simple, let Owen help me.  So I took the pot of kale and put it on the floor and after washing Owen's hands, (okay I might have forgotten that step but at least we weren't having company over) let him massage the kale.  And he loved it.  He was laughing and mixing.  I got creative and added additional ingredients just so he could mix them in with a spoon. He got so excited he decided to try it, though after he put a handful of leaves in his mouth he did shake his head and say, "No.  No, no, no,"  and throw it back in the bowl.  But since I was currently good mom, I understood raw kale is a hard sell.

And after we finished the kale, he helped out with the sliced potatoes that good mom was baking into "chips" because good mom doesn't fry.  He gleefully shook on  pepper, garlic and paprika, mixed them up with some olive oil (this time we did wash our hands) and then lay them out on the baking dish.  Aside from getting a little heavy handed with the garlic powder he did a great job.  But the point is he loved it.  And not only did I get dinner done but I got it done while creating a wonderful memory with my little guy.  And he seemed so proud when the food was done.  He was particularly thrilled with the oven baked potatoes which he ate by the handful and he even tried the kale again.  

Beets Right Off The Bush - Or How My CSA Has Helped Owen Love Vegetables

It seems to be a common agreement among most people in America that kids don't like vegetables.  Unless you are the PR people for Hidden Valley Ranch, then the tenet is that kids don't like vegetables unless they are covered in sugar,cream,salt sauce, um I mean Ranch salad dressing. People are wrong. (This applies to both the general public and the folks at Hidden Valley.)  Kids just don't like gross vegetables.  I think this fear of vegetables originated in the days almost all vegetables came in cans.  Or when vegetables came on a truck, hidden in a dark box, picked before their prime, tasting like cardboard painted with minerals and dirt.  And while apparently that's a good description of what some would consider a good wine, it's not a winner with kids.  When kids grew up on farms and access to good, fresh food, I'm pretty sure they didn't snub their noses at tomatoes.  I read every single Little House on The Prairie books and don't remember anywhere where Laura, aka Half-Pint said, "Aw Ma and Pa, no more lettuce please!"  


And now, having a fresh picked vegetable is not just the luxury of those who garden. It's becoming easier and easier for people to have access to good local food.  (Yes, we have a long way to go to making this accessible to people of all incomes but more on that another time and place.) And I do love vegetables, aside from Okra. Okra, I'm sorry, I will never love you, even deep fried, even hidden in a stew, it's just not going to happen.  But loving vegetables and not having having time or money to buy them is kind of like loving to snow ski and living in Morocco.  Shopping for groceries with a toddler kind of feels like you are on an episode of Super Market Sweep.  (Am I dating myself here?)  Especially in NYC when pushing a stroller down the aisles of most supermarkets is kind of like trying to drive a Hummer down the cobblestone streets of Santorini, except without a view and with lots of people giving you dirty looks as if you're, okay, well driving a Hummer down the streets of Santorini.  But with the CSA, you pay once in the beginning of the summer, and if you play your cards right you can actually trick yourself into thinking the vegetables come for free the rest of the time.  Yes, I'm that good.  So every week I get a huge box of vegetables and then race to use them all by the time the next delivery comes around.  But aside from the stress of worrying if Owen will be napping during the too small window of time, I have to pick it up; I have nothing to do but go get what's there.  And as I have another mom friend at the same CSA if one of our kids is sleeping, we pick up the other one's share .  (It takes a village.) 

And so, we have all been eating tons of vegetables, Owen included. Now, to be fair using Owen as an example for food is unfair.  It's kind of like throwing Michael Phelps in a lake and saying, "hey, tall people can swim." Owen is an Olympic level eater in general; he has sucked down pork belly, Soba noodles, lasagna, meatloaf of every different variety, clapped with glee at his first taste of truffle oil and also chicken parmigiana.  He has never met a fruit he has not liked and would probably run away with a loaf of bread if he could. He learned to say "more" and "please"  for the sole purpose of asking for more food. (see pork story and pumpkin pie stories from earlier posts.)  But vegetables have been pretty hit or miss and if he does eat them, it's often because I have disguised them well.  Yes, Virginia there is a spinach cake! But ever since we have been getting our CSA vegetables have become a thrill.  He sucked down a salad made with sugar snap peas, yellow peppers and mint tossed with olive oil and feta.  He eats plain sliced cucumbers like they were Cheerios.  I made pasta with beets, and beet greens, lots of garlic, and a little ricotta and he actually pushed the pasta away to get to the beets.  (Note to anyone feeding their kids beets for the first time.  Please tell your spouse, partner, babysitter etc.  before they change your kid's diaper the next day. You will save yourself and them a little stress. If you do not understand this, you will.)  With our CSA Owen has even taken to eating salad!  Yes, salad, and sorry Hidden Valley, he eats in naked or with a splash of lemon and oil. 

Last night I made a summer squash and tofu casserole that Owen applauded for. Granted for him I pureed it with a little tomato sauce and parmesan cheese so it pretty much tasted like a pizza but still, it was squash and tofu.  And I'm not going to lie; it's nice to be applauded for.  And I held on to that appreciation because later that evening as I began to happily sing him to sleep, he not very nicely told me to stop, by signing, "finish, finish," repeatedly.  To be honest, I usually get through a few rounds before he cuts me off.  But I guess it's important for everyone to acknowledge what you are good at and what needs improvement.  I did also try to explain to him that sometimes expressing yourself artistically is more important than the quality of what comes out and at least I was in tune.  He was uninterested and just asked for milk.  

Can't win them all. 

Old Enough To Ask For It - Or It's Not Meth It's Milk

I actually started writing this post about nursing before that damn Time magazine cover came out but that is certainly not going to stop me from posting this even if it now just seems like a response.

Owen is now fourteen months old.  We are still nursing.  It's getting to the point that a lot of people are starting to ask me when I am going to wean.  Friends, family members and even strangers seem to feel that this is an appropriate question.  And they often ask it in the same tone as one might query, "So, when are you going to finally quit smoking?"  or "Hey, do you think maybe it's not such a good idea to have onion rings and a chocolate milkshake for breakfast?"  But cigarettes and fried food have the potential to kill you, (or at least fried food on a daily basis, nothing is wrong with an occasional french fry smoothie.) But breastfeeding past one has the potential to do what?  Let a stranger get a glimpse of my boob?  Take a little money away from the milk industry after their great comeback with that "Got Milk?" campaign?  I think at one point, years ago, I would have been in the "Breastfeeding should stop when they are old enough to ask for it," but the problem with that is if you teach them how to communicate well they are old enough to ask for it really early.  And also it's arbitrary, one child can "ask for it" at eight months, another at fourteen, and maybe some never can. But if there is one thing Owen has learned, it is how to ask to nurse.

Owen doesn't talk much yet, he as a few words like cat, dog, wa-ber  (water) and Daddy. Once he said "more" to ask for extra pie at Thanksgiving and once he said "Tara" while holding a Buddhist statue of Green Tara  which freaked me a little since I had NEVER said Tara but is another post.  He hasn't said "mom" yet, because he's clearly holding out just to piss me off.   He also has a few signs which include "finished" and "hungry" and "thirsty" but his most used is the sign for" nursing" aka "milks" or "milkies." (Feel free to judge me for pluralizing milk if you want, that's probably the real crime.) So I guess he now officially can "ask for it."  And ask for it he does.

He is an addict.  He wakes up from a nap and after I take him, and everything single thing that is in the crib out of it, both stuffed animals and his blanket, he is off and signing that he wants to nurse.  He wants to nurse before he goes to sleep.  He wants to nurse if he falls down or gets scared or sick.  He wants to nurse when I take off my shirt.  In fact, he claps when I take off my shirt which is somewhat of a validating response.

To be clear, I don't always let him nurse.  I am in the process of trying to encourage him to cut back.   I am also in the process of trying to discourage him from trying to "self-serve" in public where he reaches his hand inside me shirt to scoop out my boob and drink.  Sometimes I feel like I am back dating a young teenage boy, who is a little clumsy but VERY enthusiastic about my breasts.  Except the difference of course, is for one it is all about excitement and for the other it is about comfort and well, food.  So what's the big push?  To give him something processed to drink just so I don't offend someone?  At some point, we'll stop either because he goes to preschool and it's impossible to pack a boob in a lunch box, no matter how fancy that lunch box is, or because I'll get pregnant and I promised my husband he could have my boobs to himself for at least a few months before the next baby comes.  I have not put the boobs off limit but my husband does not like to share.  In fact the first time Owen slept through the night, I begged him to "just take a little off the top"  so I would not have to get up and nurse but for some reason he was completely un-cooperative.

But for now Owen really loves to nurse so we're nursing.  At some point we'll stop.  We might need professional help.  I see a reality TV show in the making.. MILK REHAB.  Then again we will probably be able to do it our own.  Because people, it's not meth, it's milk.

Owen Says - Or A Lesson On Recovering From Disappointment

The other night I sat down to dinner with my husband, his father and his wife, and of course, Owen.  We try to eat dinner with Owen a lot because eating really is a social thing and I want to make family dinners a part of our life. I want to firmly establish a time where we can ask Owen about his day and he will ignore us, ask to be excused before finishing his lima bean casserole, and roll his eyes when I quiz him on world capitols and revolutionary heroes. But eating with Owen usually means we have dinner when most restaurants in NYC are still serving lunch and when most restaurants around the rest of the country offer the Blue Plate Special.  But since we go to bed at an hour most appropriate to elementary school students or farmers in the middle ages it turns out okay.

Owen has recently developed a love for trying to eat with a fork or spoon though the chances of food reaching his mouth is just slightly higher than the chance of us being able to afford to pay for preschool in New York city. But last night he was doing a stellar job, even spearing the food himself, which was a new (and if I do say so myself impressive  trick for a 13 month old). I think he was inspired by the fresh lamb sausage.  He was so proud of himself.  He was laughing and cheering himself on (yes I have taught my son to clap for himself which could be viewed as self-aggrandizing but I have found to be a great tool on many occasions in my own life.)  Then suddenly right as he was about to successfully convey a juicy bite of meat to his maw, he jammed the fork right into the roof of his mouth.  Happiness over.  First his lips trembled and then he gave way into full body shaking sobs.  Tears poured from his eyes like he was auditioning for a soap opera and he waved the fork at me as he opened his arms for a hug.

We all know the feeling.  It's not just the pain. It's like when you'd dancing around your living room to your favorite song with so much glee that you start to feel like you are just one class shy of mastering the skills of Baryshnikov (or some hip modern dancer that would make be sound less old.)  Every cell  is alive with accomplishment, you are sure that if Janet Jackson (or someone way more hip) were to peer through your window at that moment she would invite you to star in her next video and then suddenly you stub your toe and with the rush of pain, your dream disappears like smoke.

I know that Owen will inevitably experience disappointment in his life and that I will be powerless to stop it but I am floored by how much it hurts me.  I watch him approach the world with so much sheer joy and watch him sadden when the world does not respond in kind, and he is only one.  The other day we were in a playground where all the kids were older than Owen.  He wobbled up to them and try to play and one after one they would shout," No," and walk away.  I watched his face crumble each time and when the third kid walked away after Owen tried to hug him, he started to cry and then crawled over to me and buried his face in my chest.  I love how sensitive and loving my son is but I worry.   I get that for the other kid, having a strange one year old toddle up to hug you could be perceived as somewhat creepy but I still wish he would have hugged Owen back.

All I can hope is that Owen finds people who love him.  I hope that Owen does not learn to close his heart or hide his emotions.  I hope that he still gives hugs and kisses to his friends and to a metaphorical extent, strangers.  I hope that people return these back to him.  I hope that when the disapointment and heartbreak, and sadness comes, that he will have the strength to deal with them and that I have the strength to interfere only when it makes sense.  So while I wanted to tell that kid to hug Owen back, I know that that is wrong, both for the kid and for Owen.  I also know that Owen will in fact bounce back,probably within minutes, just like he bounced back from the frustration of stabbing himself in the mouth with a fork just after learning to feed himself.

Because shortly after the fork incident, Owen discovered the game, "Owen Says."   I don't know how it started it but for some reason when Owen clapped his hands the four of us around the table mimicked him and clapped ours.  When he stopped clapping, we stopped and Owen broke into hysterical laughter.  He then threw his hands in the air and waved them like he just didn't care (sorry) and we did the same.  He laughed again.  Once he realized that we would do whatever he was doing he was beside himself.  He twisted in his high chair, he wiggled his hands above his head, he touched his nose to his plate and after each thing stopped to see if were following.  When he saw that we were he would laugh and laugh and laugh.  And we laughed and laughed and laughed because it was impossible not to experience his joy.

So, I think this is the lesson for me, sadness will happen.  And I have to let the sadness happen and trust my little boy to feel it and move on.  I can comfort him, be there for him, but also let him find his own power.  Because if a one year old can make a table full of adults do the twist in their chairs, clap their hands, and put their noses to the table, and have it end up making them laugh the hardest they have laughed in months, well, I'm pretty sure he's going to be okay.

Why It's Time To Talk to Our Kids About Race No Matter How Young They Are - My Response To Trayvon Martin

In general, my goal for these posts is to chronicle my life with Owen in a funny way, talking honestly about the rough patches of parenting but the murder of Trayvon Martin has made me think more seriously about what it means to raise a son. I have some friends who were recently joking about how the hard part about having sons was that you ended up losing them to a future daughter in law.  I'm pretty sure that I will be an awesome enough mother and mother in-law that this will not be the case but I guess there's always a danger.  I told them I was banking on my son being gay so I just get another son, though I guess their would always be mother to contend with. (Assuming he had one, he could have two dads too. . oops I digress.)

My husband's worry for our son is that he will be so sensitive that the world will be hard on him.  I'm not sure where this fear comes from, perhaps the fact that Owen kisses his stuffed animals on the mouth or blows kisses at people on the television if they are crying, or seems to stop people on the street who look lonely and wave until they smile.  I am not entirely convinced my husband's fear won't disappear entirely when the terrible twos arrives.

I do worry about raising a son in New York City.  From my experience boys can sometimes be the target of other boys just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Yes, girls fight too but it generally seems to be personal.  But in the light of both Trayvon's death among other recent incidents I have thinking about how grateful I feel to not have the added burden of having to worry about the effect the race of my child has on his likelihood of being the victim of a crime.  Yes, I still worry about cars and deadly animals and freak storms.  I will probably worry about SIDS until Owen is out of high school.  I worry about traffic accidents and poisoned Halloween candy even though we mostly walk in the city and have yet to go trick-or-treating and even when people thought old men were poisoning Halloween candy it wasn't really happening.  But in general the only time I worry about the color of Owen's skin is when we are outside and he rips he hat off and I have to worry about his super pale baldie head burning in even the modest March sun.  And while that IS a considerable worry as we come from a long line of skin cancer sufferers, to say that that is my "white woman's burden" is somewhat ridiculous.

What happened with Trayvon Martin is devastating but sadly not an isolated case. While our country has come a long way in regards to race, we still have a long way to go.  As white parents, especially those who identify as being forward thinking, who regularly expose their children to different cultures, who talk about politics and morals, it is easy to think that our kids either do not need to be taught about race or that talking about race does not need to be explicit.  But as books like "Nurture Shock" (Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman; Twelve, Hatchett Book Group, 2009) show, white parents are not talking about race, or at least not in a way that changes attitude or behaviors.  (Read the chapter "Why White Parents Don't Talk About Race.") White children still tend towards associating positive traits with people who look like them and negative traits with people who don't. This is a problem.  Sure, eventually this problem will be solved when white people don't exist anymore, and yes this day is coming even if it won't happen in our lifetime.  But that seems like a lazy, irresponsible solution.

The most powerful thing we can do as parents is to make sure that we don't create the George Zimmerman's of the world.  Or even if are to give him the  deepest benefit of doubt and take a step further back, that we don't create the world that gave space for his fear to feel so real.  This is our moral obligation.

I don't purport to be saying anything particularly new or daring.  I don't claim to be above or beyond racism in any way.  I am most decidedly not naive enough or egotistical enough to think that my talking about race will magically make it disappear for my son's generation. But I do think that sometimes as parents, especially white parents who consider themselves 'aware of race' that we do not address it directly enough.  We do not talk about it in a real meaningful way. In general, parents offer vague comments like, 'race doesn't matter' or 'anyone can succeed.' This does little to change children's perceptions. One study in the Journal of Marriage and Family 2007 shows that our of 17,000 families with kindergarten students 45% do not talk about race at all and if you look just at the white families that jumps to 75%  (Bronson & Merryman 2007).

75% is not acceptable.

So while you might not be able to change the mindset of a neighborhood watch person miles away or change the mentality of police who still racially profile, or individuals who do the same, what we can do is teach our children about race.  Use this incident and others to make a difference in some way.   Telling kids that skin color does not make a difference does not make a difference.  We need to be explicit and real.  Kids do respond.  And start talking now. Kids are never too young.

Now to be clear, I don't think I can have a completely meaningful conversation with Owen today.  As advanced as I think he is, he's still mastering words like "water" and "milkies" so I don't know if it makes sense yet, though my mom claims she gave me a very meaningful lecture about the birds and the bees when I was four.  She said she wanted to get it out of the way.  And while I think perhaps her approach was a little off (sorry Mom) I also think that maybe she is on to something.  If we start talking about it freely before kids can really understand, it will not be as hard later because we will be so used to it.

So when the story came on the news again last night, I told Owen what had happened and why I thought it was wrong.  And because I'm still hormonal (yes, I know it has been a year) I explained to him why I was crying and how I hope so much he would be safe always and how I felt so much sadness for Trayvon's mother. I'm not sure he got it but it does not matter.  He will some day.

Once There Was A Little Boy Named Owen - Or How Owen Found His Parents

Once there was a little boy named Owen.  Well he wasn’t named Owen yet and he wasn’t really a little boy either.  He was just a little soul floating around in the universe waiting to find the right home.   He had been looking for quite a while but finding a family was important business and he wanted to do it right. 

Each day Owen would visit different places and people to look for his home.   First, Owen went to visit a farm in Idaho.  There he saw a big family with lot of kids.   And there were all sorts of animals.  Everyone looked like they were having a lot of fun and Owen thought it sure would be neat to get to live near all those cows.   But as Owen counted up the kids one, two, three, four, five, he started to think maybe it wasn’t the best for him. “I don’t think I want to be number six,” Owen thought. “In fact, I’d really like to be the number one, so I better keep looking.”  So off Owen went, after one last look at the cows. 

Next, Owen went to Dallas Texas.  He heard someone say that everything was better in Texas, or was it bigger?  He wasn’t sure but he decided he might as well check it out.  He swooped down into one yard where he saw a couple living in a BIG BIG house, with a BIG BIG pool, and three BIG BIG cars.  Boy, they weren’t kidding when they said things were big.  Even the lady’s hair was BIG BIG BIG.  Owen smelled some delicious things, like BBQ and queso.  The couple looked like they were having fun too, which might have had something to do with those BIG BIG drinks they were drinking.  But all this big, big, bigness made Owen feel a little anxious. “ I’m just a little, little boy”, he thought. “All this bigness is just not for me, I better keep looking.”  So off he went.

After that, Owen went to California where he saw a nice young couple living right near the beach.  Owen was pretty hopeful about this.  He had a feeling he was REALLY going to like the water.  He liked the sound of the ocean and he thought it would be fun to run his fingers through the sand.  Owen watched the couple for a while and they seemed to be having a lot of fun.    They had a garden in back where they grew lots of vegetables and fruit which they used to make a big dinner.   Then Owen heard them talking about their plan.  They planned to move from country to country each year, surfing the big waves and living off the land.  Owen thought it would be nice to travel but changing homes every year seemed like a little much.  “I think I might like to stay in a place a little bit longer than that,” Owen said, “I better keep looking.”  And away he went.

Next Owen went to Alaska.  He had heard that Alaska really was beautiful and boy it was true.  The air was clean and the glaciers glittered in the sun.  He saw a nice couple there who lived in a nice little house right at the foot of a mountain. There was a head of an animal hanging on the wall which didn’t seem as nice as having a live animal in the yard.  He watched the couple sit down for dinner and boy did the food look good.  The table was piled high with fresh fish and bread and a huge salad.  But as dinner went on, Owen noticed the couple did not talk at all except to say, “Pass the fish please.”  They seemed to enjoy being quiet.  Owen guessed that was okay but he thought, “That’s not for me.  I think I need a little more noise.  I better keep looking.”  So off he went.

Owen went from place to place to place and saw so many different people and things.  And so many times he was tempted but something in him wanted to keep looking.  Finally he went to New York City and right away he loved it, with all the different people and sounds, and things to see.  And he was floating around and he saw this man and this woman walking down the street holding hands and talking to each other.  There was something about them that just seemed nice.  Owen moved in a little closer to hear what they were saying.  The woman was talking.  She said, “Hi baby, if you’re out there, we would really like you to come live with us.  We have some really great things to offer.  True, we have a few things that could use a little work but overall we’re a pretty good deal.”  Owen looked around to see who she was talking to but he didn’t see anyone else.  “Maybe she’s talking to me,” he thought. 

“So, baby if you come live with us, we promise that we will have a lot of fun,” she said. “We are creative and a little silly and we love to play.  We’ll sing songs and read books and make art.  We have good imaginations and will try to make magic wherever we can.  Sometimes I have too much of a temper and I’m not so good at organizing things but I can write you stories and sing you too sleep.  Also, I’m a really good cook and I sure know what to do with a banana.  We don’t exactly have perfect jobs and we only have a little apartment and we may not be your most traditional family but we love each other so much and love you too.  We promise to let you be whoever you want to be though we sure hope you’re not a Republican and you don’t join a cult. Please baby if you’re out there, we would love for you to come to us.”  They went on talking a little more about what they had and what they didn’t but Owen didn’t need to listen anymore.  He knew that this was his family.  He liked how they were so busy looking for him and how they talked about what they had and what they didn’t.   But most of all, he just felt like he was supposed to be their little boy.  For him, there was nowhere else he would rather be.  And he decided to stop looking.  He painted a little splash of his soul across their hearts so when he went back up into the universe to wait for the right moment to return, he would be able to make it back to them. 

And that is the story of how Owen found his mommy and daddy.  

Reshaping Shower Games - Or Why Tossing Water Balloons Does Not Prepare You For War

I have played quite a few games at baby showers and heard of many more that I have not had the good fortune to play.  What I have come to realize in my first year of motherhood is that all of these games have one thing in common, they were completely designed to put a rose-colored glow on the dirty part of parenting. They are roughly the equivalent of training future soldiers by tossing water balloons for grenade practice or playing paintball to practice face-to-face combat.  So I propose that we revise these games to retain the fun while incorporating a hard dose of reality as well as some necessary skill building.

Game #1 - Diapering a stuffed animal.  In this game the participants have to diaper a stuffed animal and whoever does it the quickest wins.  Once I saw someone diaper a watermelon.  I can tell you that diapering a stuffed animal does not compare at all to diapering a child.  Even the blindfolded variety does little to help you.
Alternatives: 
a.  Diaper a cat.  I have a cat and I can tell you that he enjoys many things, tuna water, corn chips, baked goods, being scratched under the chin, even broccoli and occasionally being put in a paper bad and swung around in circle but he does not enjoy being diapered.  But then again neither do babies.  If you try to diaper a cat you face rapid movement and squirming and have to avoid being scratched and/or bitten.  This is what it is like to diaper a baby after they learn how to roll.
b. Diaper a rotating sprinkler before it gets back around to you.  This is where speed comes in handy.  You have about 30 seconds to get the diaper on before the water comes back around and hits you in the face.  If you are up for it, and are throwing your shower somewhere you don't have to clean up or ever see the host again, go ahead and fill that sprinkler with pee, or if that's a little too much, just die the water to freak people out a little.
c.  Diaper a cat while playing whack-a-mole.  The goal of this challenge was inspired when Owen found his penis.  Now, I don't care if Owen plays with his penis, pretty much every child will find and be in awe of their genitals at some point and more power to them.  In fact, it makes diaper changing a lot easier when Owen does find and enjoy his mini-manhood because it keeps him occupied.  (And of course by 'min-manhood' I mean baby-sized, not small. In case this blog comes to light in his teenage years I want to make it clear that Owen is exceptionally well endowed.) But the problem with the penis play is that the penis is often covered in poo when I first take the diaper off and playing with a poo-covered penis is where I draw the line. But it is VERY hard to get in there and wipe before he gets to it.  So, hence whack-a-mole. . change a diaper while completing other high speed tasks at the same time, such as wiping the penis down, catching tubes of butt=paste as they sail from the table, trying to get him not to eat the clean diaper before it is on him, or quickly wiping his hand that has just been plunged into the tub of A&D ointment before he plunges that same hand into his mouth.  And that is just the beginning.

Game #2 - Trying to identify the taste of baby food blindfolded.  Here you taste jars of baby food and try to figure out what's in them.  In the first place, baby food is disgusting.  What you will realize when you have a baby is most babies will refuse to eat jarred baby food if they ever get the chance to taste something else because 80% of them are inedible.  So unless this game is a teaching moment to allow you to empathize with your future bundle of joy, skip it.
Alternatives: 
1.  Try to feed baby food to a cat strapped in a high chair.   Here you will find that most cats also don't like baby food.  Even mine who will eat wonder bread off the street won't eat jarred baby food.  Cat's also don't like to be in high chairs and yes I know this for a fact.
2. Make recipe combinations that make anything taste like either a pear or a banana.  In this game, you try to make foods that are not a pear or a banana blend well with a pear or a banana which seem to be like beer goggles for babies, making food they will not eat, look and taste delicious.  To make this challenging include foods like fish, lima beans and brussel sprouts.  And if it is truly successful you will be able to feed it to your husband or partner and they will not realize it is baby food.  Now Owen eats what we eat and has a quite varied palate but I'm not going to lie, in the beginning the only home cooked food was his so we often ate that.
2.  Try to catch finger foods flung off a balcony while eating a sandwich and feeding another sandwich to your friend.  For this game you need a partner, or a cat.  In this game, you try to eat some food, it does not have to be a sandwich, whatever you are serving at the shower will do, the sandwich is just best for beginners because you can eat it with one hand.  With the other, you should try to feed your partner, or a cat if you feel like it.  Then someone will start flinging food, good options are: cheerios, blueberries, pieces of cut up chicken, peeled and halved grapes.  Your job is to catch as many food items as you can.

Game # 3 - Trying to identify what type of candy bar has been melted into each diaper.  Okay, this game is pretty close to being perfect already.  It is pretty gross and has you doing things you think you won't actually do, like examine the contents in a diaper trying to identify its origin.  But the problem is, it's just not gross enough.  There is a big difference between sniffing a melted Reese's Peanut Butter Cup or a Twix and peering at actual poo to try to see if those remnants are peas or corn or cat food.  (as an aside, while cats do not necessarily like baby food, babies do like cat food.) You might ask, "Why would you want to know what was in there poo?"  There are so many reasons, you are trying to see if they digested in properly, they had a bad reaction and you are not sure what it was so you are trying to figure out, or you are just falling into the examining poo as pride trap that many people do to this day, as if getting out a good poo was something your child should be proud of.   I don't really have a game alternative here because it's kind of like that show Dirty Jobs, you might want to watch someone else do something but you don't want to do it unless you have to or you're getting paid for it.

Game #4 - Guess Mommy's Tummy Size - In this one guests try to guess how big mom to be's stomach is.  Now in my opinion this is pretty much no fun from the get go because even though I LOVED my baby bump, I can pretty much tell you at 8.5 months I would have hit anyone who guessed that I was three feet around.  Also, even if the guest of honor is the 1 in 100 women who is happily immune to feelings of body image towards the end of pregnancy, there's just no real learning here.
Alternative:
a. Guess how many months post-pregnancy this woman is.  Here, you show pictures of women post-birth both from vaginal births and c-sections and guests have to try to guess how long it has been since the woman has given birth.  Fact is, I left the hospital after my c-section weighing 3 more pounds than I went in, wearing my husbands shoes because my feet were still swollen and my maternity yoga pants and even larger granny underwear to fit over my still enormous belly plus scar.

Okay, I could do lots more like 'try to keep a cat lying down in a crib, try to punch 'gently', how to make a diaper MacGyver style when you have run out, how to play chess while someone screams in your ear, how to walk on a balance beam after you haven't slept for a month, but those all require too many props and preparation.  Please enjoy these, and let me know if you try them!

There Are Starving Kids In Africa - Or My Sophomoric Moment

The fact of the matter is, I work through things better with sarcasm and self-deprecating humor than with sappy introspection and for the most part those posts are a better read.  So I apologize in advance for the shear indulgence and perhaps banality of this post but I can still blame it on the hormones for at least another month.

My husband and I have spent a lot of time recently talking about the future, if we want to have more kids, if we are in a financial position to do so, if we can even currently provide for Owen the way we would like to, etc.  The only answer where there is a "yes" is the first one, well for me it's a yes, for my husband it's more of a "maybe." The other two are pretty solid nos, or at least for Mitch.  I pretty much live in the world of, "hey, it will work out,"  and he lives in the, "things do not work out unless there is a plan," camp.  And sometimes these camps blend nicely, like a well shaken salad dressing and sometimes they don't blend at all.

This week a lot of this came to a head as we heatedly discussed each of our future earnings, a timeline for having another child, Mitch's income goals prior to having another child, my returning to work or not returning to work.  For me the discussion has the loud background music of a very loud biological clock sounding much like the tell-tale heart beating under the floor boards from Poe's horror story, louder and louder until it practically drowns out Mitch's words. And on top of all of this, Owen got sick again.

As Owen moved into day two of 102.458 fever, I  broke down and took him to the doctor.  I know that that seems like a very specific fever but for some odd reason my thermometer is stuck in Celsius and as I am an American I have a pathetic understanding of most measurement systems.  Each temperature reading was displayed along side either a frown or a smiley face, tokens to my illiteracy.  All of his readings displayed frowns.  But there were no ranges of facial expressions like the ones used on doctor's charts to show pain on a range from "everything is okay" to "my genitals have been lit on fire."  So, I was not sure if it was a, "Hey, he has a little fever but you might as well go to the grocery story and get a bottle of wine," or an, "Immerse him in an ice bath STAT and call 911 type of fever."  So, I ended up doing an internet search after each reading to calculate for me.

But I could tell without knowing an exact temperature that he was not well.  His skin burned beneath my fingers, even his hands which are habitually cold and he was listless, clingy and sad.  He whined, cried, and clung to me and was generally miserable which made me alternate in waves of sympathy, love, and frustration.  The doctor basically said he probably has a virus, keep watching the temperature and let me know in four days.

I went home, bitter about my $30.00 co-pay and not feeling any relief. That night, Owen started screaming in his crib, this high-pitched whine that I had never heard before, and frankly, scared me.  We went and got him from his crib and he was burning up.  We took him temperature, and after a quick search on my IPad, saw that is was 104.256.  We stripped him of his pajamas, and tried to cool him down with a washcloth as he nursed and whimpered.  I put him against me skin to skin because I had a vague memory that this helped regulate body temperature though I had no idea if this worked with a fever. When we picked his arm or leg up, they were completely limp.   After an hour or so, he felt a little bit cooler.  And after another one, we all drifted back to sleep.

In the morning, the fever was back below 101.789 and it continued to drop from there.  I know that these sicknesses will be less scary as time goes on but there is something so helpless about the feeling of having your child be sick and not being able to do so much to change it and being a new enough parent that even what you can do, you second guess at each step.  Am I stupid to take him to the doctor with a cold?  Am I stupid to not take him to the ER with a high fever?  Do I warm him up?  Cool him down?  Use the nasal aspiration?  Not use it?

By that weekend he seemed to be recovered and I took a much needed trip to the gym where I planned to work out and take a long steam.  I took the book I was reading to the gym and as I pretended to go somewhere read it with the enjoyment of a gourmand who now subsists mainly on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches getting a once a week taste of truffle oil or farmer's market greens.   The novel took place in Africa, a fictionalized portrayal of the dubious morals of big Pharmaceutical companies in third world countries.  I read the following line, " . . and the women holding babies to sick to cry."  And right there, on my elliptical machine, in the middle of my fancy gym, I lost it as tears leaked down my face.  As helpless as I felt, I can not imagine what it must be like to be a mother who can not feed your baby, who can not do anything to prevent what probably should be a very preventable death.  To not be able to breastfeed because you are starving, and to have no alternatives.

I came home and hugged my husband and told him this.  I was thinking about our discussion about potentially not having a second child because we could not afford to give them what we wanted, and of course by this we meant summer camp, piano lessons, trips to Europe, etc.  And the fact is, we are so lucky.  I am lucky to be able to take Owen to the doctor when he as a 102.347 fever.  And if this life is really it, then really we are just so damn lucky.  And yes, I know this is very prosaic and pedantic in a way, a sophomoric realization of your order in the order of things but hey, you can not process things as a mother until you are one, or not in the same way, so I guess being sophomoric is okay.

My Very Coxsackie Birthday

So two Fridays ago - Owen and I went back to Gymboree. (Well now about six since I apparently forgot to publish this post but that's probably unimportant.  When I did stand-up comedy I told jokes about my brother 'having a baby the other week' until that baby was about eight so. . .

So, for any of you who read my first Gymboree post you may question why I even went back to Gymboree but hey, I'm a person who is willing to give someone a second chance, especially if the second chance is free and involves some of my good friends on an otherwise boring Friday afternoon.

The class was actually better than the first.  There was still a Ms. _______ with the omnipresent creepy clown mascot but it was less like Tammy Faye Baker running a Kindergarten class and more like a gym class programmed for babies with ADD.    I was still not sold on attending but Owen really loved the space, crawling through fabric tunnels, "climbing" up cushioned inclines, etc.   But not quite. . .

Then Sunday night, after our first night out with a babysitter, Owen spiked a fever.   Well, we did not go out with the babysitter, she stayed with Owen and we went out with some friends. We were home by nine, nothing crazy but Owen woke up around midnight burning up and inconsolable.  I brought him into bed to nurse him and console him but he was. . oh yeah inconsolable.  We took his temperature in the morning and it was close to 103 degrees so I called the Dr. as soon as they opened.  I gave him some Tylenol although i briefly considered waiting because I did not want to mask his symptoms and also think that the purpose of a fever is to burn off sicknesses so if we stop the fever we stop that process but he was so miserable I could not make him wait.  We made an appointment for 10:15 and got there ten minutes early.  They were running thirty minutes late.  I walked Owen around the block a few times as he slumped in the Ergo whimpering softly.  His eyes were glassy, and he kept looking up at me as if I had betrayed him, or was just failing to fix what was wrong.  I guess he should have been used to that by now but he seems to awaken each day with renewed faith in me.  I went to the grocery store to buy a banana because it can never hurt to have a banana in your bag and went back to the doctor's office.  Sadly they were still not ready for us.

When we finally went in Owen was crying like a baby and languishing against my chest.  After a brief examination the doctor said it looked like he had Coxsackie.   Well, I'm going to be honest, what I heard was cocksucky but after I googled it upon returning home, turns out I was off in name, if not accurate description.   It is also the name of a town in New York where they first isolated the virus in human feces in 1948.  I am slightly amazed that in the last sixty-odd years they have avoided successful resolutions to change their name.  You think somewhere along the way someone might have said, "Hey we have the same name as a virus that is spread by infected feces that results in skin blistering and throat ulcers and a high fever, what do you say, we switch it around?"

So we went home, cursing Gymboree, and there we stayed for days.  Owen stopped eating at some point, I assume when the blisters erupted in his throat.  Luckily he still nursed so I didn't worry about him.  And that was pretty much the only thing that gave him comfort.  So we sat on the couch, lay on the bed, lay on the floor, and he nursed and nursed and nursed.  The only bright side was that I figured all of this extra nursing would burn some calories to make up for the fact that I was about as sedentary as a contestant on the Biggest :Loser before their trip to the ranch.  And as his skin blistered more and more, I tried not to cry because he looked so awful.  The doctor had said the rash would not bother him, aside from the ulcers in his throat, but it definitely bothered me, and either was he was miserable.

After three days he started to feel better and was back to eating some fruit purees.  And then, the night before my birthday I had gone out with some friends for a pedicure and about half-way through I started to feel exhausted.  This alone is not that unusual since I have felt exhausted for approximately the last nine months but  suddenly all I wanted was to be home in bed.  We finished up, we went home and within ten minutes, I knew I was the lastest victim to be claimed by the cocksucky.   Within thirty minutes my temperature was over 103 and I was down for the count.  Luckily my husband took charge of Owen all night and I slept and slept (well aside from a brief tortured pumping session.)  The next morning I crawled out of bed, threw a blanket and pillow on the floor and sobbed with happiness that Owen was not walking yet.  My husband looked at me with both worry and doubt as he walked out the door.  The doubt was probably that either of us would be alive when he returned home.  "I guess we should cancel the babysitter for tonight," he said.  Considering the fact that I could neither sit-up or swallow, I thought that was a logical action.

So for my birthday dinner, I choked down a cup of soup and a piece of bread and crawled back into bed as my husband took over with Owen again.  I guess if I was a better person I would say that throughout it all I just kept thinking that it was still an amazing birthday because it was the first I spent with my son but really I kept thinking, "Damn, I wish I could swallow my birthday cake."

So, I'm sorry Gymboree, I blame you for this.

Sweet Potato Madness

When Owen first started eating solid foods, we started off with bananas and then added pears and apples (both organic) to the mix.  He seemed to love them, and love eating so I figured it was time to move on to vegetables.  I thought that my best bet was sweet potatoes, though one could argue that a sweet potato's vegetable status us somewhat dubious.  In make your own baby food world sweet potatoes have a stellar reputation, they are virtually the baby gourmet equivalent of foie-gras (minus the unethical tarnish) so I thought I was in easy home-run territory.  So, I purchased some wonderful organic sweet potatoes, steamed them, pureed them with some fresh breast milk and presented them to a smiling Owen.  He leaned his mouth forward to take the spoon heaped high with a mountain of orange glory, took it in his mouth and then promptly spit it out with such force that it painted my face, his high chair, and even the wall behind me.

I took this as a sign that he needed another bite.  After all everyone says that babies can not develop a like or dislike for a food until they have tried it several times.  I thought perhaps if I added a train noise and roller-coaster swoop as I brought the spoon towards his mouth he might find it more enjoyable, much like baby dinner theater.  This time he spit it out so hard it landed on the ceiling fan.  This time the message was clear - Owen did not like dinner theater.  I tried a third time as the cat wisely hid under a chair just in time.  Then I gave up, put the spoon down and peeled a banana.

Over the next few weeks, I tried sweet potatoes a few more times but all to the same effect, though the furniture suffered less as I learned to cover everything with TV's Dexter's kill-room like precision.  He learned to love several other foods he originally hated: peas, spinach, zucchini, but alas the poor potato that helped so many Irish survive was the eternal pariah, that is until one momentous Tuesday.

We were over at our friend G_____________'s house having "music class."  (As an aside I know it is ridiculous to use a letter and a dash to refer to people but I quite enjoy the Austen/Bronte quality of it and no one really asked to be written about in my blog so I want to protect the innocent) Music class mostly consists of having music on in the background as four babies crawl around occasionally banging on a xylophone but mostly chewing on maracas and batons.  At some point, I stopped and fed Owen his lunch of papaya and mango that I had brought with me but after he ate he still seemed hungry.  G___________'s mother brought out some food for all the babies and offered some to us.  It was of course, sweet potato.  But it was not just sweet potato, it had been cooked in a slow cooker with onions, pork, salt and pepper.  I took a bowl without great hope but Owen had that piranha/succubi mouth action going so I put the spoon in. And lo and behold, he LOVED it.  I could not shovel it in fast enough.  He lurched towards the spoon as soon as he had swallowed, gasping and grunting for more.  Before I knew it, the bowl was empty.

He lurched forward again, mouth agape and met an empty spoon.  "It's all gone baby," I said as his mouth started to twitch.  I added the sign language for 'all done' in case that would help clarify things but before the knowledge could sink it he started to sob.  And not just the 'I am slightly upset sob' of discontent but a full-on body shaking wail.  As he screamed at the top of his lungs, tears coursed down his face as he shook so hard I thought he might be having a seizure.  He reached out his hands towards the bowl and looked at me in desperation.

"What's wrong with him?"  one of my friends asked.

"Um, I think he wants more," I said, mildly embarrassed at Owen's clear lack of table manners and gratitude.  Luckily, instead of being horrified G_________'s mom found this cute.  I guess in some ways it was a huge compliment on her cooking, if somewhat of a condemnation of mine.  Apparently even babies can recognize the difference a little salt, pepper, and pork fat bring to an otherwise annoying vegetable.  (It is here I will confess that I actually hate sweet potatoes as well but also found these to be delicious.)  So, we stole some sweet potatoes from the other babies who were less gluttonous and Owen sighed in contented relief as a full spoon of  porky potatoes made their way into his mouth.

I was so inspired by this that I decided to repeat the experiment at home, making my own slow-cooker concoction of similar ingredients.  And I can honestly say, it had nothing with trying to heal my wounded sense of pride at my own food having been rejected with a vigor equivalent to the joy the other was received.  

And low and behold, the porky-potatoes were a hit!  I tried to snap photos to show my friend the joy that her recipe had inspired at home, but it is hard to take pictures while a baby demands to be fed his third bowl.  So, I don't know if sweet potatoes have made it to banana status yet but I have learned that apparently babies, like their moms, find foods more enjoyable when they are actually, well enjoyable.

It also made me feel genetics is no joke because to be honest, it is only a sense of propriety that keeps me from wailing sometimes when I clean my plate, or more likely, it's because I have mastered the skill of refilling my plate on my own.   My third most infamous childhood story is centered around a reaction to food deprivation wherein I was so incensed I stomped on the floor until the chandelier beneath me was shaken free.   My first and second involve lecturing my nursery school teacher about birth control and drinking out of discarded glasses of beer at a state-fair - both before I was six.  I'm sorry mom and Dad.

Payback's a b. . bowl of potatoes.

Our Very First Commercial - Or How We Sold Out For A Bag Of Licorice

I'm pretty sure that Owen is the cutest baby in the world.  Well, maybe not the world, but at least in New York City.  I fully expect baby model scouts to approach us at all times and ask for Owen to sign up with them.  And not those creepy people who might approach you in the mall and tell you you should be a model and all you need to get started is $1000 which you will most likely get back, well never.  No, I expect the bonafide, "you oughta be in pictures" approach.

To be fair to myself, this is based on cold, hard fact, not just the delusions and hubris of a first-time mother.  People often stop us on the street and tell me that Owen could be the Gerber baby, that he is in fact the ideal, or platonic form of baby. . just saying. . . But so far, no contracts, despite our walking slowly by movie sets and coffee shops where advertising scouts probably hang out scouting for the "Next Little Big Thing."  (FOX please take note, this could be your next great competition show. Little Babies, Big Dreams.)

And then, finally on Tuesday it happened!  We were discovered.  Well, or at least we were there.

I was sitting in Washington Square Park with a friend and her baby, trying to have a play date.  Her baby was only mildly co-operating because he is HALF of Owen's age and this means a lot in baby land.  At some point this does not mean as much.  No one in fact would be shocked because my husband is a whole three months older than me but when three months is your entire life, it seems to matter.  And then, we were approached by a film crew.  I saw them walking towards us with a look of determination in their eyes.  I would like to imagine they were thinking, "We have to run and get to that remarkable baby before anyone else."  More likely they were thinking, "We have to run and get to those women before they see us coming and run away."

"So, you two are mothers right?"  they asked.  Part of me was tempted to say, "Nope, baby thieves," but who knows if CPS has a very elaborate undercover agent system in place to make sure I'm still not shaking my baby, so we just nod.

"Well, you are ideal people to be in our licorice commercial," they say.  "Would you like to be in a commercial?"

"No," my friend interjects.

"Are you sure?" he asks, "You are perfect."

"No," she says. "Seriously, go away."

But, the fact is I would very much like to be in a commercial but about twenty pounds ago when I still had time to actually lint-roll the cat hair of my clothes. "I haven't brushed my hair in two days," I say, noticing that nowhere among the crew is a make-up person. But, I am bored and feel like this is something to fill my day.  At the very least it's more interesting than changing a diaper.

 "You look great," says the liar/director. "All you have to say is, 'Once you get a taste of it, I just can't get enough of my Darrell Lea.' Only catch is you have to do it in an Australian accent. Can you do an Australian accent?"

"I can mimic one if I hear it,"  I say.  "But you know, what you just did, was a pretty awful Australian accent?"

"I know," he says, "but I'm sure you can do better."

"What's our model fee?" I ask as my friend looks like she would rather shoot them, than shoot a commercial.

"You get to keep the licorice," he says, holding up a bag. "It's really good licorice."

"Does it count towards his SAG card?" I ask, just to be annoying because, well motherhood is sometimes boring, and this is amusing me.

"No," he says, not amused.  "We're pretty low-budget here, just trying to pay our mortgages."

"What about my mortgage?" I ask. "I've been un-employed since November."

"It's easy," he says, and feeds me the line again.

"This isn't Candid Camera?"  I ask and they assure me it is not. "Well, how about I just make my baby say the line?" I suggest, apparently willing to exploit Owen.  "Look," I say, holding him up, "this will be much funnier and he is quite photogenic." I hold him in front of my face and deliver the line in a very mediocre Australian accent.

"That's actually wonderful," the director says and the whole crew agrees. They make me do another take and film it.  "He looks great on camera," the director says and the whole crew looks and agrees.  "Now, can you do it one more time but make his mouth move?"   It's at this point that I'm pretty sure that the man has never had a kid.  I think he has been watching too many e-trade baby commercials and thinks it's just magic.  I  want to point out that it's probably done in editing and if not those e-trade babies are at least twice Owen's age and in baby land. . well, you know.

"Probably not," I say but we try another take.  I don't know if his mouth moves because he's facing away from me but they seem overjoyed.  Then then have me sign the model release form for Owen.  Owen keeps grabbing the pen which makes it hard for me to write and they seem to be getting impatient.  I want to point out that we just shot a commercial for free but instead I slow down and read the entire release.  "Just to be clear," I ask, you can only use this for this commercial right?  I'm not granting you a release to use his image for anything else?"  (See I only partially exploit Owen, I am no spring chicken, I know how to protect him from the seedy underworld of media exploitation.)

"No," they say.  "It's just for this commercial.  It will only be on the interwebs."   I want to point out that it's really wrong to pluralize the slang interweb, as the fact that it is all connected makes it a web so really can't be pluralized but I let it go.

They hand us a bag of licorice and two coupons.  "It's really good," director man says.  "You can buy it at Whole Foods."  And as fast as they came into our lives, off they went.

So, who knows if this commercial will ever see the light of day.  Last time some commando camera crew tried to film me I never saw it again.  They said they were from the news and filmed me washing my car in my cut-off shorts and a tank top.  (This was about 30 pounds and fifteen years ago.)  I did find it odd that they were driving a black van and had no identification so I said no.  Also, they didn't even have the decency to offer me candy.

So, look for us on the interwebS.  I'm sure Owen will be genius though I don't know how everyone who sees it will track us down for more work.  I guess I'll have to go about it the hard way and keep stalking movie sets.



Owen with his paycheck.

Owen's First Cat Scan and Our First Encounter With Social Services

I am playing with Owen on the floor when Mitch comes home.  He picks Owen up and says, "What's this bump on his head?"  "What bump?"  I ask, because I did not notice any bump.  To be fair to me, Owen has a very large head with fabulous contours so a bump is not easily noticeable.  He is in fact 97 percentile in head size and 25% in height and weight.  Having a rather large head myself, I'm glad they stop measuring heads at some point in your life.

I take Owen back from Mitch to examine his head.  There is in fact a LARGE bump on his head, that is soft and squishy to the touch, much like it is filled with blood.  I have no idea how this happened.  Turns out Mitch does.  Apparently they were playing while we were on vacation in Palm Springs and Owen wiggled out of his arms and smacked his head on the marble counter top in the bathroom.  He cried for about five minutes and then seemed fine so Mitch forgot about it and moved on.  Part of me wants to zero in on the fact that head injuries really should be mentioned even if they seem to be minor but that's a conversation for later. For now I have other priorities so I do what any mother would do here - freak out.

I call my sister and ask her if she has any advice.  My sister works in a hospital so I assume she knows all things medical though she is in fact not a doctor.  Well, she is a doctor but in bio-medical engineering and medical physics which does not give her the knowledge to tell me if my son is about to die from a bump on his head.  She also has two kids which gives her an edge.  She does her best to help me regain calm. (see how handy it is) though it does not work that well.  I debate with Mitch what I should do.  He thinks Owen seems fine so I might as well wait until Owen's doctor appointment which happens to be tomorrow.  I then do what one should not do - Google.  I go onto Dr. Sears's site because I figure if I am going to go to the internet for research I should at least narrow my fear scope.  I don't want to end up with someone's personal diary about the demise of their child.  Under head injuries, it says that hematomas can develop up to 4 days after an injury which is about what it is now.  It also says a few more things that lead me to call Owen's doctor right away.

Since it is night time, I have to leave a message with the service who then relays it to Owen's doctor who calls me back in about two minutes.  After my explanation she asks where the bump is.  I tell her, an inch above the ear.  "Go to the ER," she says.  "Anywhere else I would say, don't worry about it, but in that area we always send people.  There are some major arteries there and it. . "  Well the rest of it does not really matter because I start to pack a bag while I am still on the phone.  I add extra diapers, a jacket, and our un-eaten take out dinner, Vietnamese sandwiches and two ears of corn covered in coconut-mayo dressing.   Then we go out to catch a cab.  We debate if we should take the car seat and stroller but I can't imagine trying to maneuver in it around a crowded ER.  Also, it is raining and it's easier just to put him in the Ergo carrier and go.

We go out to the street and of course there are no cabs to be found.  I stand staring at St. Vincent's Hospital which is about a block away and stands dark and shuttered in the rain.  It has been empty for over a year and there is no hospital in our neighborhood anymore.  It makes me angry that we could have already been in the ER when I am still trying to flag down a cab.  I watch cab after cab go by until finally one stops.

between the rain, the traffic, and my growing fear, the ride to the hospital takes forever.  When the cab driver drops off off, I think I tip him 50% on the ride.  I am so thankful he stopped and it seems like good karma somehow to tip a lot on your way into the hospital to make sure your baby is okay.

When we go in, we realize we are dropped off at the wrong location.  Right hospital but it is not the ER wing. We ask for the ER and the man near the front desk asks, "Is it for the baby?"  "Yes," I say, and before I can move, he starts whisking us through an elaborate series of corridors, elevators and back ways until we somehow wind up in the ER.  I am thankful enough to kiss him but it also terrifies me somehow, as if there is more urgency than I thought.

Soon enough we get to the ER and my first thought is that if my son does not have a skull fracture that he might still leave with a disease.  All of the seats are taken and no one offers their seat.  I guess this makes sense because no one chooses to be at the ER at 8:00 on a rainy Tuesday evening.  Still, there are a few people who look like they could have waited.  I once gave up my seat in a clinic for a women with a baby when I had cut half my finger off with a cuisinart. . of course she didn't take it.  Probably because I had already bled on it but still.

Good news is we don't actually have to wait that long.  Long enough that we do get a seat and solve a puzzle or two on Wheel of Fortune which is comforting because this is actually what we would be doing at home.  Except at home we would be eating our Bahn-Mi sandwiches but there is something about the thought about pulling out a pork belly sandwich in an ER that makes me want to remain very very very hungry.

At some point, they call our name and we move from one room to another, to another.  People ask us what happened, we tell them.  They take his vitals, which appear to be fine.  They examine his head, which appears to not be fine. Still, the doctor does not think anything is really wrong, or is this the impression I get.  We are moved from a room to a little curtained partition, basically a curtain around a bed.  There is barely room for the three of us in there when two of us are on the bed.  I think how different this looks from all the ER shows.  A camera couldn't even follow someone in the lane in front of us.  Mitch and I are getting hungry but still not desperate enough to eat while the woman in the curtain next door is speaking about bed pans and blood samples.  Finally the doctor comes back in and says after talking to my pediatrician, they think that we need to have a cat scan to make sure there is no fracture and/or internal bleeding.

When they are ready to us, we take Owen over to the cat scan machine.  As we wait in the hallway outside of the cat scan room, I slump against the wall and start to cry. I can not imagine my little baby in that big machine.  I had a cat scan once and had to meditate through the whole process because it was so intimidating,  and now my poor little guy is going to be there all by himself.  I think I mutter something like, "my baby, not my little baby."  Mitch tries to comfort me and I have only one moment where I want to blame him, to say something awful but inside I know that nothing I say will bring me any comfort and it will just always be out there in space so I let him hug Owen and I in a tight little circle.

They won't let me stay in the room.  They wrap Owen in a lead swaddle and drape an apron over Mitch. Mitch holds a pacifier in Owen's mouth who is oddly, not crying.  In fact he seems to be the calmest he has been since he was born. I, on the other hand, am held together by dissolving stitches.  I stand outside of the room and cry again.

It is over in seconds. Then there is more waiting.

Finally the doctor comes back.  The fact that it takes so long gives me a sense of relief.  I assume if there was really something wrong with him that people would come faster.  Dr. H comes back and tells us that Owen does indeed have a skull fracture.  A hairline fracture running horizontally across his skull.  "Their heads are basically like eggshells," he tell us, "these are really very common. It should heal with no problem."

I am still trying to process that he has a skull fracture.  The good news is there is no bleeding inside the brain, nothing requiring surgery.  But before they let us go, they want us to wait for a neuro-surgeon consultation.  I think it is at this point we eat our sandwiches.  We still can't stomach the corn on the cob.

I call my mom and dad.  I update a group of mom friends on line and read with comfort their responses and prayer, wishes for Owen to be okay.  Most of them, I only know from online but they are the only friends I reach out to right now.  Well, them, and two friends in Brooklyn who I ask to say a prayer for us.  I am not really an ask for prayers person but I do it and I know they are the type of people who will actually pray for Owen and it feels good.

I go to the bathroom more to just get away for a moment than for anything else.  I get lost and end up somewhere I shouldn't be but I find a cleaner bathroom.  When I come back, I see a man standing in front of Mitch asking questions.  When I get closer I can see that he has a clipboard that says social services.

I walk up and say hello and he sort of smiles back at me.  And then he asks me why it took me so long to bring my child into the ER.  I ask him what he means and he says, "Why did it take you four days to seek treatment?"  My mind starts racing because the implication seems to be that a good parent would not have taken this long.  I stay calm though and answer that he had no symptoms before then.  I want to sound like a responsible parent without seeming like I am trying to sound like a responsible parent which is what I would be doing if I was not a responsible parent.  It feels like trying to tell someone you are not drunk when you are in fact not drunk but people think you are drunk.  I go for the approach that any Law and Order episode would teach you - give the facts but don't go out of your way to explain why you are innocent.  "As soon as we noticed the swelling, I called my pedicatrician,"  I say, pointing out how I immediately sought a professional opinion.  "We have our 6 month check-up tomorrow," I say, "but I was too worried to wait, so I wanted to ask her if I should go to the ER."  I hope this also points out that we indeed have regular appointments.  I want to say, " I AM A GOOD MOM! I TOOK HIM TO THE ER WITH A COLD LAST WEEK.  I ROCK HIM WHEN HE CRIES AND CRIES AND FEED HIM AND LOVE HIM AND SING TO HIM AND KISS HIM AND BREASTFEED AND CO-SLEEP AND GO TO MOMMY AND ME YOGA AND THE PARK AND EVEN EAT ORGANIC BERRIES SO NOTHING GETS IN MY MILK AND I LOVE MY BABY AND I MAY SING ABOUT SHAKING MY BABY BUT I NEVER EVER EVER HAVE"  but I figure this makes me seem a little crazy.

Social Services man asks more questions.  He asks what we do for work and I say I am out of work and then immediately think I should have just said I am a stay at home mom because out of work people are probably more stressed and . . . breathe, breathe.  He asks what I did before that.  I make my job sound very intellectual and professional.  I am very calm and succinct on the outside.  Inside I am still a lunatic.  He asks if Owen has had any injuries before.  I say, "No," then inside of my head think.  SHIT THAT'S A LIE.  MITCH FELL WITH HIM BEFORE BUT THAT IS TOTALLY NORMAL TOTALLY AN ACCIDENT BUT YOU WOULD THINK TWO TIMES IS NOT AND EVEN MY ANGRY MOMMY SELF KNOWS MITCH IS THE BEST DADDY IN THE WORLD AND WE LOVE OUR BABY AND GO AWAY PEOPLE PLEASE  Finally he does go away.

Finally neuro-surgeon people get out of their surgery, come by and do a few tests on Owen and then say they think he will be fine.  Social Services man is with them and listens as neurosurgeon man asks a lot of the same questions about our jobs, our lives, etc.  I wonders if Social Services man thinks we will confess something else to the doctor that we would not to him.  I do have to say the doctor is pretty slick about it and if I had anything to spill, I might.  Something about the way he asks questions, while examining Owen, as if they were just chit-chat, like, "It's a rainy night huh?  Well, he seems to have equal reactions bi-laterally which is a good sign? What do you do for a living?  So, do you often throw your kid against the wall?"

Finally, he leaves.  Dr. H comes back again, sets us up with a follow-up appointment with the neuro-surgeon to make sure Owen's skull has healed and finally we pack up to go home.   Dr. H is great.  He is calm, he smiles, laughs, assures us that Owen will still be a genius if he would have been a genius in the first place.  Our nurse is wonderful too.

My dad has come to drive us home and it is a blessed relief to climb into his car instead of trying to hail a cab home.  I am exhausted, physically and mentally but so, so happy to be going home with my family all in one piece, even of some of the pieces, mental and physical will take a little time to heal completely.

Why You Don't Take A Baby on Vacation When It is 115

We were headed to Palm Springs for a friend's 40th birthday party and were already having misgivings about going.  When we booked this trip we neglected to look up the weather and a few days ago learned it would be roughly 118 degrees with a low of 104.  Still, the trip was starting out better than our last one where we almost missed our flight.  We were at the airport early enough to buy water and coffee and change a diaper so things were looking good.  I had recently bought Owen a small maraca and while we were waiting to board I was shaking it for him and dancing around singing, "Shake, shake, shake.  Shake, shake, shake, shaker your baby, shake your baby," to the tune of 'shake your booty.'  

"You can't do that," my husband said to me, appalled.  "To Child Protective Services, that's the equivalent of making a bomb threat in the airport."  I wanted to point out that we were in an airport and he had just said bomb threat but I am trying to be nicer.  I did point out that I highly doubted that there were undercover CPS agents casing the waiting area by the gate and I'm also pretty sure that the people who do in fact shake their babies don't sing about before they do it.  They more likely do it in a fit of rage or frustration much like I experienced four months ago.  (For anyone who did not read that post  I DID NOT EVER SHAKE MY BABY.  I just wanted to.)

But stopped shaking the maraca and singing.  Not to be nice but because I am as easily bored by myself as Owen is and it was also time to board.  Owen was actually great on the plane.  Our second leg, a short jaunt from Vegas to Palm Springs was a little anxiety producing. The plane was roughly the size of a Smart Car and our ride felt like we were on the Spin Cycle of a washing machine from 1930.  I was pretty sure that holding Owen in my lap was a bad idea because at every other bump I was pretty sure the man in front of me was going to end up catching him, or dropping him.  I kept watching the flight attendant's face for panic (which is a trick a pilot friend of mine taught me - don't worry until you see fear in their eyes) but she seemed calm so I tried to remain calm.  (As an aside, I am bothered by the fact that usually when people say 'remain calm' that they are no longer calm.  People should really say 'regain calm'.   But that's a different blog.)   So, I regained calm, we landed safely and I thought the worst of the journey was over.

That's when I got off the plane and stepped into an oven - at 11:00 AM.

It was at this moment that I realized that this trip was going to be a challenge.  I don't really enjoy heat - even this it's not really as hot because there is no humidity stop lying to me it's still 119 heat.'  But Owen enjoys heat even less than I do.  Maybe because at 15 pounds and existing entirely on breast milk and the occasional spoon of banana, he can de-hydrate about as fast as a puddle in the Sahara.  And he has skin just slightly paler than the skin of my Albino sister-in-law's 1 year old. That's right - I said paler.

But, after almost having a meltdown while we waited an hour and a half for the hotel to get our room ready, I regained calm once I go into the air conditioning of our room - and there we stayed until the sun went down and it cooled off to a frigid 108.  Then finally we ventured out to meet our friends.

Aside from us, only one other couple had a kid and he was a hearty four year old who could survive without things like naps and an air-conditioned hut.  So for everyone else, the poolside misters, shade, and frozen alcoholic drinks made it easy to hang out for most of the day.  (Okay not easy - a lot of people gave up at 1:00 and headed for the safety of their rooms - but easier)  But for us, our schedule was very different.  We were out by the pool at about 7 AM where we got to go swimming until 9:00 and then we went back to the hotel room where Mitch and I basically took turns watching Owen while the other person went out.   It made for a hard vacation.

One day, we went with a few other folks to ride the aerial tram high above Palm Springs.  It was something that everyone recommended doing but one of the major draws for all of us was it was rumored to be twenty degrees cooler up on the top.  This sounded amazing.  We could be with other people, be out during the day, and have a panoramic view of. . well, the desert.  What I was not told, was that the elevation change was actually so drastic that it would cause Owen's ears to pop so he cried the entire way up on the tram.  I tried to shift him in the carrier to nurse him but in between the awkwardness of the carrier and the fact that the tram floor was constantly moving around in the circle, I had no choice but to let him cry and try to comfort him the best I could.   The good news is it was much cooler on the top and Owen slept happily through the entire visit.

On the way back to the hotel, we also stopped at In-And-Out Burger, my very first time.  Owen was awake for this.  He did cry in the car but magically stopped when I shook the maraca to, " If you like Pina Coladas," when it came on the radio.  That, and ABBA's 'Fernando'were the only things that seemed to calm him.  (Look, I am not responsible for his taste in music.)

Evenings were a challenge.  In between our perpetual exhaustion, Owen's early bed-time/waking time, and my breastfeeding, gone are the days of drinking until 1:00 and rising at 10:00.  Even on the night that Mitch offered to stay with Owen so I could go out, I was so tired, that I came back after ninety minutes. One night while Mitch stayed out, he ate by the pool while I ate a black bean burger in the dark, afraid to make noise or turn on a light that would wake Owen, feeling around for morsels of food on my plate as if I were blind, but without the finesse of someone who is actually blind.

Overall, we still had a good time.  We got to see fabulous friends, share some good meals (even a few together with those friends) but nothing was easy. And what is the scariest part is that people say that travelling with babies is the easiest travel you will ever have with kids.  But maybe, this doesn't count when you are trying to take your baby to a Bacchanal Feast in the desert.  Maybe that's easier when they are older, like twenty-one.