Fever, Again

The baby had a fever again today, starting at around 2 pm and lasting into the early evening. It peaked at around 4 pm, reaching around 103 degrees, then went down fairly rapidly. It was at 99.6 when I put him to bed. We called the nurse and she suggested lots of half-juice/half-water drinks, Tylenol, a lukewarm bath if his temperature spikes again, and calling the doctor tomorrow.

If last week we'd reached the first level of parental worry--mild concern--we've definitely reached the second level now. Not a great time for blogging.

A Rural Moment

Hiked the Sneath Lane Trail to Sweeney Ridge and the Portola "Bay Discovery Site"--the spot where historians speculate that Gaspar de Portola and his expedition became the first Europeans to set eyes on San Francisco Bay, in late October/early November, 1769. The baby enjoyed the hike up (in his stroller) and even the descent (when his mother carried him in a baby carrier and made sure his head was protected from chilly gusts of wind, and even massaged his lower legs from time to time).

The hike was lovely. We saw several rabbits, what seemed like an entire herd of deer, and various smaller creatures; and the gently sloping, scrub-covered hills and gullies, as well as the views of San Pedro Reservoir, the Pacific Ocean, and San Francisco Bay, greatly added to the secluded, peaceful feeling of the place. And the trailhead is just a twenty-minute drive from our home. Due perhaps to the steepness of the ascent or the chill in the air, or both, few people were on the trail on this weekend afternoon. All in all, a terrific find for a family that will be doing a lot of short hikes in the coming years.

The plaque at the top commemorating the Portola Expedition's discovery of the Bay did not call up any particular emotions. What's curious is that the site has two plaques: the one for the Portola Expedition, and an even more elaborate one in memory of the person, Mcarthy I think his last name was, who worked hard to promote the installation of the first plaque. I don't think I've seen that at any other famous historical site: two plaques, one for the actual historical event, the other for the person who cared enough about that event to get a plaque installed. I wasn't particularly moved by the second plaque either; but the vistas at that spot are magnificent, and overall, the hike provided a nice change of pace for the two overtired adults and much more vibrant young person who visited the spot today.

Wild and Woolly SF

Reading a history of San Francisco, I'm reminded of how permanently chaotic and freewheeling this place has been...except perhaps during its very earliest days as Yerba Buena, when it was a tiny yet bustling trading post, San Francisco has always been the rollicking, cavorting, slightly nutty, histrionic City by the Bay. Our current mayor and city council seem to be doing their best to live up to this reputation. Somehow I'm surprised that San Francisco politics has remained so theatrical and at times, sophomoric, right up to this first part of the new millenium, but it has. Does it have to do with living near or on earthquake faults and the "Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die" spirit that seems to rise up in people who live in danger zones? Or is there some other explanation?

LEEP of Faith

Met a 44-year-old woman today, pregnant with her first child...though I don't know if we'll be in touch again, we have each other's email address, and I feel somehow protective of her, don't want to say too much about her. But I will mention just one thing, because it needs to be known that some doctors are like this.

She was scheduled to have a LEEP procedure done (LEEP stands for "Loop Electrosurgical Excision Procedure," and it's done to treat cervical dysplasia, which is the appearance of abnormal cells on the cervix--a pre-cancerous condition). Such a procedure can increase the possibility of problematic pregnancies or even cause miscarriages or infertility, so she asked her doctor if she should think about freezing some of her eggs. Her doctor's response: "You're too old to have a baby anyway." This, when she was only forty, not forty-four.

When I was around forty-one, and nearly giving up hope of ever having a child, a doctor did something much less cruel--but it was still disheartening enough. He showed me a table charting the rapidly decreasing likelihood of conceiving and carrying a healthy baby to term, once a woman hits forty. After forty-two, the success rate just plummets.

When he showed me this chart I just nodded my head, dutifully said I would think about it, and went home. What I should have said (in as calm a voice as possible): "What are you trying to tell me, that I should just throw up my hands and call it quits?" And perhaps what this woman should have said to her doctor: "What kind of crazy talk is that? Of course I'm not too old to have a baby!" The woman did leave that doctor and now has another one--which is perhaps the best response to his stupid statement.

I'm sure that many, many women in their early forties who are trying to conceive have heard some variant of "You're too old to have a baby," or "You should really think carefully about this." I don't know why some doctors feel compelled to discourage women in this way--especially nowadays, with all the tests that are available to make sure a pregnancy is progressing normally. Do they think we are excessively stupid and/or arrogant to have waited until this age to conceive? Or do they think we don't understand the improbability and the risks?

On the other hand--I also feel that a woman who conceives a baby after she turns forty should be required to take a CVS or an amniocentesis test. The risk of a problematic pregnancy is so high that women should not complain at that age about giving up, at least momentarily, a certain amount of freedom. This will become, no doubt, a more pressing issue in the not-too-distant future, as more and more women in their forties choose to become pregnant for the first time.

Modern Baby

In keeping with my desire to spend a little less time on this blog (and more time on other writing), I'll keep this short...attended the mobbed 75th Anniversary show at SF Museum of Modern Art, two Sundays ago. I remember how I felt that day--desperate to do something "cultural," and something in keeping with the "old me," so to speak, the pre-motherhood me.

What ended up happening, however, was interesting: a bit of culture shock, along the lines of "Who are all these self-absorbed poseurs who take themselves for sophisticates? And who could enjoy art in a crazy mob scene like this?" Once I got those thoughts out of my system, however, I almost enjoyed myself.

But what I really enjoyed (if truth be told) was the phenomenon of taking a 10-month-old baby to a popular art exhibit and seeing his reactions to things. The kid really enjoyed whamming his hand against the clear plastic that covered the descriptions of the different pieces of art (he was desperate to touch something, and I couldn't very well let him slap his palm against the art itself, so this was the next best thing). I couldn't tell if he liked the art itself, though he definitely wanted to touch it. And at one point, he squirmed and cried out, so I let him out of the carrier and let him crawl across the floor a short distance (worried, of course, that he'd contract some horrible virus or be trampled underfoot, but he survived). He loved doing that. And other than that one brief outburst of fussiness, his behavior was exemplary. But the only part of the exhibit that he loved completely and utterly was the huge curtain of bright gold beads at the exit. Strung up across fifteen feet of floor space, it was a marvelous shower of gold, something my son could touch, slap at, stroke, wrap around his little fist; he adored it.

The exhibit was well-organized; different rooms highlighted different eras in the San Francisco art scene and more generally, the history of twentieth-century art. But at the end of it I was left wondering: is this all there is? I almost raced through the exhibit, because I didn't want to be stuck in the middle if my baby decided to have a fit; so perhaps I missed something. But I thought I'd find more "there" there, as far as the SF MoMA collection as a whole was concerned. Perhaps I'm becoming more demanding or even fussy as I get older, where art is concerned; or perhaps I don't agree with their choices of what to display for this particular exhibit. I think it's probably a mixture of both.

But it's also true that I'm not the same person I was just a year ago. I don't have much patience any more for Clyfford Still and many of the abstract expressionists, for example, or art installations of various kinds--I find most of that incredibly dull. Whereas the Magrittes and Klees in SFMOMA's collection still move me deeply. I suppose that a year ago, I might have tried to learn more about the abstract expressionists to find out if there's something I'm missing; now I just don't care that much. It seems so important to create art as urgent as Klee's head with an arrow pointing at it (I don't remember the name of that one, will have to look it up). Art is as important to me as ever, and I need those Klees and Magrittes even more now--but I probably need the Abstract Expressionists much less. I'd like to discover a new trend in art that speaks to me as strongly and clearly as some of the early modernists do.

I see that I haven't kept this short after all...but so be it.

Changes

Sudden strong desire to return to the original purpose of this blog, which was less about "Confessions of a Stressed-out Mom" or "Cute Things my Baby Does," more about being an older mom, and wandering away from the usual mommy-blogger paradigms, both literally and figuratively. Also--I'm spending far too much of my very limited writing time on this blog instead of on other projects. Sitting down to blog has become too much like putting on old slippers; it feels good, but who wants to walk around in old slippers all the time. (Or see someone else in old slippers, for that matter.) Time for some changes in this blog and in my life in general.

Fever

A couple of nights ago, my son seemed to come down with a fever, then get over it, in the space of about four hours. It could have been from teething, I suppose; whatever it was, Tylenol at midnight then a bottle of formula at 3 in the morning seemed to be just about all he needed to become a happy camper again. He slept from 3 until 8 am, uncharacteristically late, then was remarkably cheerful the entire day that followed.

For a brief period of time, however, I witnessed my son as a feverish and distressed little boy. I had a taste (just a taste) of the agony parents must go through when their child becomes seriously ill. And I hope, of course, that I never have to walk that plank for real.

But I can also see the benefits of mild illness, and not just for building up one's immune system. A few times when I was a young girl, I came down with a fever; I remember enjoying it, or at least, part of it. It seemed like my feet were impossibly distant from the rest of my body, or that I was half-floating toward the ceiling. I was sorry when the fever broke and the world righted itself again. I wanted to install myself in that fever for days.

I don't know how this memory will help me get through any sort of illness that my son experiences in the future. It probably won't help at all. I feel sort of firmly installed in the Mommy role, these days.

Calm and Chocolate

Parents face a ton of pressure these days to raise kids "perfectly"--with no stress, no crying-it-out, no disposable diapers (or even, no diapers, in certain circles); with all-organic foods that we've prepared from scratch--preferably vegetarian; with playgroups, music classes and swimming lessons by the time they're eight months old; we must breastfeed them religiously, we must teach them baby sign language, we must read to them, we must dance with them and sing to them, we must not, good heavens no, expose them to any television whatsoever; we must have them signed up for preschool and daycare by the time they're kicking in the womb; we must have wills, life insurance and 529s in place by the time they're out of the womb; we must never raise our voices in their presence...we must raise them in an atmosphere of perfect calm.

Actually, all of that makes pretty good sense and if we could do it all, I'm sure the world would be a happier place. The point is that we can't be perfect parents, and maybe the stress of feeling like we're "not making the grade" translates into slightly more stressed-out babies as well.

I was astonished when, the other day, a friend of mine said she felt guilty about feeding her child a whole grain cheese snack for toddlers which was shaped like Cheetos. I feed my son the same thing, and I just feel grateful, on those days when he's suddenly very hungry and it's not even noon, that he can entertain himself at his high chair with these little puffs for a couple minutes while I get the rest of his lunch ready.

Similarly: at a new parents' discussion circle, about two-thirds of the parents said they are adamantly against exposing their children to any television whatsoever. I'm glad that at certain moments, when both baby and I are needing a little break from the same old books, toys and music, we can turn on the TV and take a quick peek at the weather report, or stare at some talking heads for ten minutes. I'm not saying that I'm proud of myself for having exposed my son to television, or whole grain cheese puffs; but I'm not distressed about it either.

Let's face it, raising a child is a high-stress activity. I do try to remain calm, cool and collected ninety-eight percent of the time. The other two percent--when he's really on a tear--I head for the chocolate, and offer him some fake Cheetos or some other similar delicacy. It might not be in any parenting guide, but it does work, most of the time.

Decency--and Beyond

Perhaps moving a step beyond decency (see the post for 1/14/10) involves what one might call grace. Grace, in my view, is the ability to do the right thing at the right time, without a lot of fuss or calling attention to oneself; it's not the most common of human traits, I'd say.

One example, which I might have mentioned previously, but it bears repeating: several months ago, an old friend came to visit with her two children. As I was preparing a simple lunch for everyone, her daughter said quietly, "Can I help in any way?" This would be a remarkable offer from any child below the age of fifteen, but my friend's daughter was only nine years old. And there was no prompting from the mother to say this.

This is the sort of graciousness that requires steady training, not just in the superficialities of being nice to people, but in the deeper aspects of being a good person in the world. Observing this little girl, who was far from being a goody two-shoes and had a lively sense of humor, I started to think about grace and what a difference it makes when one is in the presence of people who possess it. Perhaps this all sounds terribly old-fashioned; but so be it. I want my son to be old-fashioned in that way.

$113 Million

The stark figure in today's San Francisco Chronicle, related to school funding: $113 million. That's the projected deficit over the next two years for the San Francisco Unified School District. They predict that class sizes will inevitably increase to help make up the difference.

I'm pretty sure that a big part of the problem in this particular city is that not enough rich people give a damn about public schools. Those with the real financial clout are usually sending their kids to private schools (and paying an arm and a leg for them). $113 million over two years? "Not so bad--just reduce administrative costs, fire a few incompetent teachers..."

No. The difference won't be made up so painlessly. That much I'm sure about. Teachers will be paying for their classroom supplies out of their own pockets (the ones that can afford to do this) or the kids in these more-and-more-crowded classrooms will be going without.

And the kids in poorer neighborhoods will have to make do with even less. Two other depressing numbers in today's paper: $170,000 versus $21,000. That's the difference between what schools in richer communities in California receive in the way of donations, versus what the schools in impoverished areas receive.

What should be done? How to shake people out of their apathy? What if we passed a law saying that anyone who lives in San Francisco has to spend at least 10 hours in a public school in an impoverished neighborhood? Not so that these public schools will receive volunteer assistance--no, the visitors might be more of a burden for the hosts than a welcome presence. But at least, everyone should know what these less-well-off schools are really like, even in a rich city like San Francisco.

I do speak from some experience (not much, I'll admit), having worked as a teacher's aide for a year and a half in a poorer neighborhood in the City. It was an exhausting job, even though I only worked there part-time. It was also appalling to see what kind of conditions these kids were asked to learn in.

On the upside--these kids were wonderful. I've never heard so many cheerful voices saying my name in greeting as I did at this school, and I never will again. The classrooms I worked in were a mini United Nations, with about fifteen different nationalities represented; and though it would be wrong to say all these different nationalities and ethnicities mingled perfectly, it would also be wrong to say that the kids from different backgrounds did not respect each other on a basic level.

This is perhaps what breaks my heart the most when I think about the current imbalances in our funding for education: that these kids who had the least, of all the kids I've ever worked with, were the most generous in their outlook towards each other, and, in many instances, towards the adults in their lives. Where are they all now? And where are they sending their children to school?

Rainy Days

Still recovering from the stupid, stupid thing I did yesterday (see yesterday's post). The baby was fine today, perfectly normal, maybe a little sleepier than usual in the morning, but raring to go after his first nap of the day, and on into the evening. So he did not seem to suffer any lasting effects from that momentary trauma. But his mother is still furious at herself, and anxious to make sure she never performs any similar stunts in the near future. But of course, there are no guarantees.

It rained all day--a calm, steady rain, strangely soothing after the torrential downpours of the previous two or three days. We ventured out to another playgroup, where my son waved bye-bye to someone (? I think he did, not sure though) for the first time ever. And he's cutting his sixth tooth.

In other words, life goes on as usual...and yet...the fear, the constant fear that I'll do something equally stupid in the near future bedevils me, makes me less than calm.

For my son's sake, I'll have to get over this, or at least, come to terms with it.

Horrible Moment

I did not want to turn this blog into a confessional, but I'll make this one exception, because nothing is on my mind except the horrible thing that happened today. And writing about it might help prevent it from happening again.

I locked myself out of the car--with the baby still in it.

It still shocks me to write those words. It makes me feel too stupid to be a parent. And it just makes me damn angry at myself.

Luckily, my husband was about fifteen minutes away; luckily, he had my car key on him; luckily, he answered the phone right away when I called him from the parking garage where this had happened. Still--it was fifteen minutes of agony as I watched my baby crying through the back window of the car, as I tried in vain to soothe and distract him with finger games and smiles. He cried and cried, howling sometimes, the tears streaming down his face, his eyes growing puffy and red. That image of him crying inconsolably is now imprinted in my brain as if on concrete. And yes, the built-in joke is appropriate--that's about all my brain is these days, I sometimes think.

But what happens when this kind of disaster strikes is hopefully something like this: as a parent you kick into higher gear--because you have to. You have to pull yourself together, realize that you did something horrible, then do absolutely everything in your power to prevent it from happening ever again.

The boy bounced back so quickly afterwards that I realized all over again how resilient he is; but it doesn't erase the stupidity of what happened...and my resolve to, damn it, never let it happen again.

Will You Still Need Me...When I'm 84

At my older mothers' group today we joked about being grateful that life expectancies have gone up so much in recent decades. The undertone, of course, was serious; I'm sure we're all wondering if we'll still be alive and kicking when our children are approaching middle age. We didn't really dwell on the topic; and certainly, we're all doing okay, health-wise, as most of the babies approach their first birthday. But the test is probably how we're doing as they approach their eighteenth birthdays. How does one pace oneself for the next seventeen years? And how do we accept the fact that we'll almost be senior citizens by the time our kids graduate from high school?

Perhaps the biggest fear is: how will our children accept that fact, once it fully sinks in?

Joyful Parents?

Attended a parents' discussion group today at one of the centers where I often take my son for play sessions. All kinds of issues were brought up, almost too numerous to list here; but they included teething, stomach flu, sleepsacks vs. blankets, daycare, biting issues, sleeping through the night, naps, fussiness, and separation anxiety. What was remarkable about the whole experience was how upbeat it was. That particular mix of individuals was a fortuitous one, I think--everyone was remarkably positive, even when talking about something as difficult as taking one's child to the emergency room after a severe bout of vomiting. I came away from the hour session both much more informed about a number of topics, and subtly rejuvenated.

Obviously, parenting is a lonely experience; less obviously, one can get stuck in a rut of gloominess and negative thinking, especially if one is tired most of the time. How uplifting it can be to raise one's head for a moment, realize that others are going through the same distressing problems with their babies, watch them as they look at your own kid and realize once again just how wonderful he is, see their kids (and find them very appealing but, well, just not out-and-out wonderful like yours), and just shake up your thinking a little bit by seeing someone else's perspective.

Part of me wonders (the cynical part?) if most of the parents in today's group were working at least part-time, since two of them did mention they were working and just happened to be attending the group today because it was a national holiday. In other words--did the whole atmosphere of the session seem more upbeat and less stressed because these people are not full-time moms or dads?

Whether or not that is the case--it will be helpful to remember this group session--to remember what a room full of joyful parents feels like.

How Indeed

"How can you stand it?" a friend asked me--not in those exact words, but in a similar way, when I explained that I have been caring for my son full-time until a couple weeks ago (and it still is all-but-fulltime, with a babysitter coming six hours a week). Last week at my son's ten-month checkup I said I was planning on remaining an at-home mom until at least his second birthday; "When you change your mind," this wise-cracking doctor in his sixties told me with a smile, "it's okay."

They're both right. I can't stand it, and I don't want to stay at home full-time. Yet my words to my son, lying quietly in my arms as he drank his last bottle this evening, were also completely true: I will always be there for him and I love him. It's hard to give him up to someone even for six hours a week.

So I can and I can't. And it will always be that way.

All Quiet?

Reading the classic war novel All Quiet on the Western Front, I'm particularly struck by the author's discussion of the noise of the front and how it permeates his existence so completely that he no longer feels he has any access to treasured quiet moments from his past. Tied in with that--he feels a painful dissociation from his whole family, including his mother, ill with cancer, who cannot understand his life on the battlefield. They obviously feel an enormous love for each other, and he longs to return to the quiet days of his past--but the agony of life at the front has subsumed everything else.

The novel truly lives up to its billing as one of the greatest anti-war novels of all time. (By the way, I'm not reading this as part of a "disaster novel reading marathon," despite appearances; it just happens to be one of those classic works of literature that I feel embarrassed not to have read yet.) How do I react to it as a mother? I can imagine this mother, slaving away at a hot stove to provide her son with potato cakes, one of his favorite treats, when he comes home on leave; or scrimping and saving for weeks to buy wool underwear for him. I can imagine it but I know how far I am from having experienced it. And I also know how far I am from having my son wrenched from his familiar surroundings and thrust into a hellish environment where the very earth is heaving up around him, ripping his friends to shreds.

We're at war, in at least two regions of the world. How detached we are, most of us Americans, from all that. Reading this novel, I have to wonder, as naive as it sounds, how anyone can stand to make anyone else go to war. There's something that we all should be doing in response to Afghanistan and Iraq, and I don't mean marching in the streets. Something we need to do, to feel more in touch with what's happening. I don't pretend to know exactly what that is; but reading this novel makes this need feel much more urgent, somehow.

Head-banging Mamas

The other day in a cafe, I stood in line behind a middle-aged woman who was dancing and singing along to a pop melody playing on the stereo. It was sung by a young black woman--I don't know who it was, or what the song was, but it was soul-oriented and this white middle-aged woman was trying very, very hard to embody that style of music--trying so hard that it was painful to watch. Then a few hours later, while stopped at a long stoplight, I watched another middle-aged woman in a car with her tween daughter, bopping her head up and down to something that was playing on the radio or on their CD player. The daughter looked on with a tentative smile. I don't think her mother was embarrassing her; but I felt like the mother was embarrassing me, and I don't even know who she was.

Some middle-aged women try their very best to be hip, but I have a feeling that the harder they try, the harder they fall. I looked on at these women and could not help thinking, "Please, Guardian Angel, don't let me succumb to the urge to act younger than I am."

I know, I know--some people will say, What's wrong with a middle-aged woman or even an elderly woman dancing disco or hip-hop or whatever it is? It's fine if the woman can do it with grace and style--but I've never seen that happen.

Which leads to the question: what does it mean to have "grace" and "style" at this age (45)?

Something to ponder--I certainly don't have any kind of sufficient answer to offer at the moment.

Decency

How do you teach basic decency to a child? I don't mean saying "Please" and "Thank you"; I mean, how do you teach a child to consider not just his own needs, but those of the people around him?

For now, of course, it's a matter of gentle guidance and repetition. "Gentle, gentle," I say, when he pulls on my hair or my nose. But when he gets older, how will I teach him all the myriad ways in which he will prove himself to be either a lout and a burden on others, or a decent and respectful human being?

Cormac McCarthy's character was right, in The Road: we constantly have to choose. Of course, Camus said as much in The Plague and other books. The difficulty comes in deciding how much we will choose to do for others.

McCarthy's message was stark: in the worst of circumstances, many humans will turn into vicious, amoral monsters. But what happens in our more prosaic, quotidian now? I see something disturbing in the recent turn towards fantasy and disasters in literature (including a novel like McCarthy's), if it diverts our attention even more than it already is diverted from the acts of indecency which pervade our real-life social interactions these days. Where are our Dickenses, our Balzacs, our Tolstoys? Not that everyone has to write about the great moral issues of the day--but how many authors even make the attempt these days? How many even pose the question: What constitutes "decent behavior" in our times?

But back to my son. How do I teach him that the small acts of decency--sharing his toys, responding promptly when someone asks him a question, offering to help someone who is obviously struggling with some burden or other and could be greatly aided by a few moments of his time--all these are acts that will make him nothing more and nothing less than a full-fledged member of society?

Then, how do I teach him to go at least a few steps beyond that?

Tunnels and Visions

At a playgroup today, I presented my son with a play tunnel to pass through, putting it down on the floor in front of him; he's never been exposed to those before, and he sat at one end of it while, like an idiot, I smiled and waved at him from the other end. He smiled back, but remained firmly seated, while three other babies smaller than him eagerly tromped right past him and through the tunnel. This did not inspire confidence on his part. However, he kept smiling at me and I could tell he was contemplating the idea of venturing forth into this unexplored territory.

What was remarkable for me was to see the look of joy on his face, the joy of the unknown. Again, without even trying, he completely captured the spirit of what I've hoped to achieve here.

A New Track

I've gotten way off the track where this blog is concerned...but the track has changed. It's become very difficult to find the time to go on random strolls through hidden parts of San Francisco; more often, I'm involved with very purposeful shopping trips to keep up with the changing and expanding needs of this baby, or I'm taking him to a playgroup or to the playground.

As was the case today; we sampled a new playgroup, on Union Street. Which did take me off the beaten path, but there was only time for a fifteen-minute walk up the street and back--no wandering involved, just a bit of loitering. However, one part of the trip served as a useful reminder not to take this whole blogging business--or motherhood in general--too seriously.

The Union Street business district could hardly be described as a "hidden" or "lost" corner of the City, except if narcissism is a lost state; my first sight when I got out of the car was a place offering "airbrush tanning." All the shops seemed to offer some sort of bodily improvement or some way to add more accessories to one's home. Be that as it may...we found a cafe and sat down for five minutes. It was a small place, where people were mostly sitting alone at their computers; a couple women were chatting away next to us.

I fed my son bits of banana bread, thinking this would be a way to keep him from making too much noise for at least the length of time it would take to drink one-fourth of my coffee. He was enjoying the whole experience (especially the unexpected treat) and, towards the end of that five minutes, uttered one long, enthusiastic shout of approval, something along the lines of OOOAAAAYYEAH!

I'm only realizing how appropriate that comment was--how much in the spirit of this blog--some five or six hours later.

There Are Days When

...all you can do is tell yourself, "He's still in one piece and so am I." Then go to bed. In other words, today was a less-than-average day...just have to believe that tomorrow will be better.

Swimming

Went swimming today for the first time in weeks. Felt lousy for the first ten lengths. Then slowly but surely, as my tired, strained muscles kicked into gear and the endorphins started flowing--felt my thoughts settle down and my spirits lift, as almost always happens with a swim.

One of the best memories of my pregnancy was swimming in that same pool, right up to a few days before his due date, when I was bursting at the seams--but swimming felt as wonderful as always. I wonder if my son retains memories of that, somewhere in his psyche.

Great Books for Babies, Part Two

The only books I didn't include on the list, that is, the only other books my son has loved and I have loved reading to him: a series of animated books about different animals, by Maurice Pledger (we have them in French, but they were originally written in English), and Blue Hat, Green Hat by Sandra Boynton.

Not a lot of books on my list, I realize. I don't know why there aren't more Dr. Seusses and Byron Bartons out there. Yes, I have Goodnight Moon, and my son enjoys it; but I'm only including on this list books that he's wild about and that I still enjoy reading to him after having read them over a hundred times. I find Goodnight Moon surprisingly dull, and not even very good poetry.

My trips to the Internet or to local bookstores have not really paid off in terms of finding other interesting books for someone my son's age. However, during the last few weeks, he's become more interested in turning pages than in actually sitting and having books read to him. He seems to like to turn pages of really big books even more than the little board books we have all around the house. So it shouldn't be too hard to supply him with lots of books for this current phase of his career as a lecteur.

Great Books for Babies

I wrote briefly, a long time ago, about children's books and how surprised I was that so many of them were so dull. Or something to that effect. Well, I wanted to mention some that have survived multiple (maybe hundreds) of readings and have retained their lustre, somehow.

Many of the books I'm reading to my son are in French; we just happen to have a lot of French-language children's books. And yes, there are many extremely dull ones in French as well. But Antoon Krings' series of books centered on different members of the insect family are outstanding. Our personal favorites: Mireille l'Abeille [Mireille the Bee] and Simeon le Papillon [Simeon the Butterfly]. But I'll focus here on books in English. All the books I'm listing are books that work well with babies, if my kid is any indication, though some are better for younger babies (under nine months) and those I'll indicate with an asterisk:

Color Surprises* (out of print)--my son adored this book for months and months
Doctor Seuss's ABC board book*
Doctor Seuss's Hop on Pop board book*
The Wide-Mouthed Frog
My Car by Byron Barton (my son loves this author's illustrations--big, bold colors and shapes)
Dinosaurs, Dinosaurs by Byron Barton
Machines at Work by Byron Barton
The Three Bears by Byron Barton
Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?

I'm sure there are others, but I can't think of them offhand; I'll continue this tomorrow.

Is It True

It seems unreal to me that in just a few short months, I will no longer have the exquisite pleasure of feeding my child his bottle just before he drifts off to sleep for the night. This most silent and intimate of all moments between a parent and child...it doesn't last forever? No; it hardly even lasts a moment.

Off the Beaten Path

Took the kid on a stroll through the Aids Memorial Grove in Golden Gate Park today. A beautifully designed place with a redwood grove, a small one but remarkably peaceful and secluded, set down in an oval-shaped basin, away from the traffic noises of the park above. This secluded spot also contains, just beyond the redwoods, a surprisingly large grassy area with benches all around; and on all sides of the dell, lush plantings of magnolia trees, ferns and flowers provide even more of a feeling of isolation and tranquility.

The only complaint I could make about the place is that it's not all that wheelchair accessible--making it, also, not very stroller accessible. It's easy to enter the grove from what's called the South Portal, leading down into the basin; but then, it's a struggle to make it up the unpaved path on the other side. My progress forward, even with the new, sturdy stroller I've purchased, was seriously impeded by stairs and roots and large rocks. At the end of the climb up the side of the basin, a series of roots and rocks discouraged me so much that I said aloud, to the baby and to no one, "I just don't know..." at that moment, a young man with a tiny baby nestled under his jacket came towards me and offered to help me lift the stroller. "Oh no, you've got your own load to carry," I said, but he was already lifting the front end of the stroller; I had no choice but to follow with the back end. I looked at his baby, trying to remember when my own child was that small..."How old?" I asked.

"Three months."

"Oh yes, I remember those days," I said, smiling in what I hoped was a sympathetic way. "Not the easiest time."

"But they're very portable," he replied, cheerfully patting the bundle in his jacket.

His enthusiasm for his new parenting role was obvious; it was a highlight of the day, just experiencing that for a moment--remembering what the first days can feel like. Some of that glow washed off on me. I also realized--he might have no inkling of what I was talking about. It was entirely possible that his son or daughter (I could only see a pair of small eyes peeking out from his jacket) slept through the night already, and remained remarkably even-keeled throughout the day.

Everyone's experience of parenthood is completely different, because our temperaments and parenting styles are all so different--which is obvious; but also--and this is just not apparent to people unless they've been through it--babies are all so radically different from one another. My baby no longer fit into my jacket like that after about four weeks of age. I would have loved to have experienced that for a bit longer, but he just wasn't one of those babies. In my mother's group, one baby girl still weighs less than twelve pounds at four and a half months of age. My baby weighed over eighteen pounds at two months. That's just the way it is. As parents, we're all wandering off the beaten path, in one way or another. At least we are if we're honest with ourselves.

Happiness, Part Two

The problem with the adage "Happiness comes through doing," for a mother, is that one is almost always doing--doing something for the kid. And yes, in the big-picture sense, it brings great happiness. But in the small-picture, daily-life sense, it brings a kind of slow-burning insanity, as well as boredom and weariness. The only remedy for that is to preserve the other parts of oneself as well as one can.

It seems easy to predict that if I don't manage to crawl out of the "Mommy" role every once in a while, my son will pay, in the long run. If I have no focus but motherhood, how could I help but become suffocatingly protective and attentive? And/or, just plain dull? Or perhaps a reverse reaction will set in; perhaps I'll become resentful and negligent.

Stepping out of the "Mommy" role was, of course, one of the main purposes of this blog...I haven't done too well with that recently.

Happiness

The old adage, "Happiness comes through doing," seems particularly relevant for babies. The highlight of this day was when my son crawled halfway across the playground on his all-fours (up until recently he's been crawling mostly commando-style, on his belly). The proud, delighted smile on his face said it all. And yet--I just finished reading two grim apocalyptic novels, George Orwell's Animal Farm, and Cormac McCarthy's The Road. Happiness did not come through doing for the poor animals on Orwell's farm; as the character named Boxer illustrates particularly well, misery can come through doing, if the conditions in which one lives are oppressive.

On the other hand--something like happiness or maybe more accurately, a kind of moral peace comes to the father and son in McCarthy's book, simply through their efforts to survive with dignity, and to help each other. "The good guys are the ones who keep trying," the father tells his son, as they face starvation and bands of cannibalistic marauders in a post-apocalyptic landscape. McCarthy does a pretty good job of highlighting the importance of choosing in life. None of us face the morally depraved, hellish environment he describes; but we are constantly choosing--to try, or not to try. And sometimes the results of not trying can feel apocalyptic (I'm thinking here of a third novel I recently finished, Lorrie Moore's A Gate at the Stairs, which had a great message, but the characters and the unfolding of the plot were, for me, long-winded and uninteresting).

Getting back to my son. It's wonderful to see the first raw movements of a young baby, and the determination this particular baby exhibits in the face of so many obstacles, both physiological and topological. And yes, the choices he has to make are a lot less dramatic than those made by the animals on Orwell's farm, or the father and son on McCarthy's road; but they are no less impressive for all that. It certainly makes me happy just thinking about it.

AnPan Man

"Anpan" means "red bean paste cake" in Japanese, and perhaps the most famous children's action hero in Japan is "Anpan Man," which means "Red Bean Paste Cake Man." In other words, their action hero is based on something almost all Japanese children eat. I'm trying to think of a parallel in American culture. Our action figures are full of action, not red bean paste. I'm writing about this because my son has fallen in love with his Anpan Man doll, a little stuffed cloth figure with a bright smile, bright red cheeks and a small brown cape, and a little smiley face on the front of his shirt. It was sent to him by one of his relatives in Japan, and he coos every time he sees it, then reaches for it and bites its nose--his current version of a kiss, I think. He also coos when he sees the little wind-up Anpan Man toy we also have. It's about two inches high, and spins around the dining room table while he's eating.

I don't know why he's so fond of these toys, but they are extremely kawaii for sure, in other words, "cute." Basing a toy on a sweet cake is also kawaii, in that Japanese sense of the word which means so much more than simply "cute." And I think I see for the first time how extreme cuteness can be, sometimes, a virtue.

Poetry and Time

What kind of meaningful writing can happen when one is pressed for time, when one has all of two minutes to write something? Maybe not much; maybe a lot. It all depends.

William Carlos Williams used to write poems, or scraps of poems, or scraps of anything, on his prescription pads at eleven o'clock at night, when he'd finally finished with his demanding job as a pediatrician. Or he'd type away furiously for fifteen minutes. He wrote entire books using this method.

Most of us want to write, but make excuses for why we cannot, including: "I have no time." Williams, by example, refutes all of these claims. But it took a tremendous amount of will power and desire on his part. And he also moved into "poetic mode" at the drop of a hat. Stopping by the side of the road on his way to a house call, he would scribble furiously for a few seconds, then resume driving.

His time became Now. That's not a bad way to think about time, if one wants to write.

Relaxation and Trauma, Part Two

Reading the post "Relaxation and Trauma" again, I realize that I still need to practice what I preached there--but in one way, I've made definite progress towards that goal: I've hired someone to come to the house two weekday afternoons a week, three hours each time, to care for the little guy. This, to give me a chance to rest or go swimming or, hopefully, both.

It was difficult to make the decision to hire someone--I immediately felt deficient as a mother. But that begged the question: would it be more proficient if I let myself fall apart physically and perhaps emotionally as well? We don't have any friends or relatives in this area who can babysit on a regular or even semi-regular basis. He's only had two four-hour sessions of being watched by someone other than his mother or father, since he was born. This, combined with the daily, garden-variety stress of caring for a baby who's perfectly normal and healthy and, like all normal and healthy babies, rambunctious, left me so drained that I'd stopped looking forward to anything except lying flat on my bed, taking a bath, or sleeping. My quality of life, to put it mildly, had deteriorated.

It was also very difficult to find the right person--I won't discuss the details of what happened--suffice it to say that the caregiver we've hired seems wonderful, and I have my fingers crossed because it's way too early to say if she's good or not. She was still in training as of last week. But all the early signs are positive; so I'm finally starting to swing away from the "trauma" side of the pendulum. Maybe by sometime next week, I'll start learning to relax again.