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Prickly Tuesday
It has always been something of a point of pride that I've never been one of those people who suffers from "Medical Student Syndrome"- wherein the second one hears about a new or novel disease one begins suffering the symptoms.
(The one exception happened quite a number of years ago when I made a bunch of people take a little detour while on a Washington D.C. trip to visit the Walter Reed Army Medical Center's National Museum of Health and Medicine. The focus then was on kidney stones and the whole lot of us left the exhibit feeling as if we were in the process of cooking up whole worlds of misery and running to guzzle bottles of water in hopes of staving off the dread stones.)
But now, in yet another case of "since Felix," I confess I'm a little more susceptible to reports of various ailments, particularly those related to children, the threat of becoming personally incapacitated, or ones that reflect some sort of parental oversight.
The Tuesday morning health section in the New York Times (or I just think of it as the "morning" section because I tend to skim it around 6:30) has become the site where many weird worries blossom. Today, for instance, the top article is about "Sibling Violence." Where once I would have glanced at the thing and thought: "What sort of nitwit wouldn't notice if one kid were regularly beating the crap out of another one and do something about it?" Today, I actually read the article and while I am still mostly of the same opinion, the issue has been filed away in the back of my mind for future potential worry.
Potential, I say because right now I have one child.
Right across the screen, however, another article hails me down with another worry: macular degeneration. I know about the disease. I saw Gray's Anatomy and enjoyed Spaulding Gray's monologue about searching to save his eyesight with psychic surgeons and sweat lodges. But this article dragged the ailment out of the novel and into my mind. I don't want to lose my "central vision" (who does?) and now I see I possess a fistful of risk factors. This should send me scrabbling for an eye doctor (it's been years). It should indeed. And I should take my vitamins.
I don't really like this change. I would prefer my old ways of being interested in disease (I really do visit medical museums for kicks) without having to think about them.
But then again perhaps I am misdirecting my energies. On the subject of health and wellbeing, I read a great piece by Dahlia Lithwick on the subject of "pharmacists, physicians and the right of conscience." This was a clumsy segue, but if you haven't read it and you're feeling panicky about the power of physicians to deny you medicine on moral grounds, it's worth a gander.
posted by Elise at 9:46 AM
3 Comments
Stars Shining Bright Above You...
It's still the season of footie pajamas here and the Felix is tottering around, smacking me in the jaw with his firm, firm skull and learning clever things. This week he figured out how to open doors and I'm wondering if I need to do something about that, and if I do, what that something might be.
But that footie loungewear (I was mistaken when I called them pajamas- everyone knows they are Not Intended for Sleepwear) makes him look so much like a character that has only recently popped back into the front of my mind.
My family had a book of reproductions of a fabulous cartoon that was published in the early 20th century called "Little Nemo in Slumberland." I never knew how the book found its way into the house though it wasn't a complete surprise; comics did occasionally make an appearance. We also had huge anthologies of Batman and Wonder Woman comics, but nothing like Little Nemo. The cartoon was drawn and written by Winsor McCay, who is apparently wildly influential. You can see traces of McCay's innovation in Calvin and Hobbes and all kinds of other artists and cartoonists have found his work inspiring. (McCay himself was something of a phenomenon beyond his Nemo work.) The images were astonishing, vividly silly and scary. Perfectly dreamlike, which is what they were: iterations of a little boy's dreams. They contained almost no story and were mostly concerned with experience. It is almost pointless to try to describe them because of the lack of plot. Each episode is a trip to dreamland- some blissful, some nightmares, some full of petty embarrassment that even young boys must fret about- ending with Nemo waking up to an exasperated parental voice but the dreams are exquisite.
When Felix was a few months old, I wrote here about imagining him as a smart little creature, hoarding a world of secrets and talents (beyond the obvious: Why won't you sleep? and What are you complaining about now?). That phase has ended. He is turning again, and in many ways seems younger than he did in his early blobby state. (Really, when a creature is limited to silence and screaming it is just too easy to think he is keeping something from you in that superior way that the silent or at least wordless person is actually more powerful... I'm thinking here about Strindberg's play "The Stronger" but with wailing. Once words start appearing and the first ones turn out to be "bubble" "banana" and "uh-oh" the glimmer of mysticism evaporates.)
Anyway, now I watch Felix and see him thinking. When I peer at him at night, I can see him dreaming, and something about him in those timeless footies reminds me of Little Nemo.
Nemo is bouncing in the Zeitgeist right now, anyway. A new, gigantic and gorgeous book (21 inches tall, 16 inches wide) has been published that carefully restores the cartoon. I gave my husband a copy of Little Nemo in Slumberland: So Many Splendid Sundays! this Christmas, but I find I can't help staring at the gigantic pages full of crazed craziness with Felix's dreamlife in mind.
posted by Elise at 6:17 PM
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Busy, Busy Man
I wish I could say that the haze of being away still covers me like light moss, making me dreamy and abstract, confused by the speed of the world.
But really, I'm just on the wrong side of everything. Whatever feels most pressing and urgent and in need of resolution to me is inevitably the thing that the universe feels it can lollygag about. And the converse is also true.
Yesterday Felix and I went to a birthday party where he finally (finally) did what a kid is supposed to do to a cupcake. When the whole episode was said and done the dainty chocolate-frosted cupcake adorned with a dark red icing dahlia was pulverized and Felix looked like he came out on the good side of a brawl. The rest of the children, by the way, ate their cakes with more decorum and managed not to pose such a threat to the furniture.
Levity aside, the question of Felix's schedule was raised. Will I put him in a playgroup? What activities does he do?
And here I suspect is the beginning of that parental myopia. To me, my child is a baby. Actually, soon, he is going to be ready for a life more structured.
Frankly, the vernacular is tangling to me. I don't know exactly what a playgroup is. Is a playgroup better than assorted classes- music, tumbling, art? How does one figure what will be best and what is just a silly expense?
Of course time is short. (Really? What? Yes, time is short because all decisions for September must be made now, now, now.) And this gets me back to being so out of it. Why should the business of babies be so pressing?
I was perfectly happy not knowing that I should think about this sort of thing because I have work to do and this is a distraction.
But I don't want my kid to be a victim of my own will to be out-of-it. These choices are far from dire but I'm having a hard time looking into the future when things seem so much of the moment.
posted by Elise at 9:19 AM
1 Comments
Vacation Final Words
I can't argue with Dorothy, there really is no place like home because no matter how beautiful wherever one goes is, hell is other people (and, yes, I'm aware that I've switched over to quoting a different mastermind).
In our absence, Felix began a new program of behavior. Perhaps this is one of those forward leaps that everyone says children make or maybe it was just the shock of being someplace new but it was a little surprising when he started doing new things that were never in his repertoire. It was a bit astonishing to watch him totter over to the hotel mini-bar, key in hand and try to fit it into the lock. Perhaps he was reading my mind. It isn't like me to weed through hotel mini-bars for a snort, but our neighbors (mentioned earlier) made me somewhat inclined.
This is a shame, really, because I do love getting around, looking at wildlife, walking in different cities and my kid seems to be taking after me. While I was pregnant, I was able to take a final pre-kid weekend in Paris ("paradise of food" as one new acquaintance's child describes it), and I would love to go back with him, and see what he thinks. I suppose I should credit the food paradise with him incredibly healthy size at birth since in the short time I was there, I think I was presented with more shaved truffles than I had consumed in my entire previous life. (No, I didn't order them, they just started appearing on dishes set in front of me and the waiters would say: "Truffles are good for the baby.")
Is it just bravado that one needs? Do I just need to ignore the people around me who might gripe? How does one manage that horrible feeling that one is intruding horribly on other people's lives and holidays with one's child? Even as I write this and seem to be a meek cringer, I must say that I summoned a healthy mass of hate for our neighbors, such that even when they tried to be nice, I could not look at them.
So, lessons were learned and I suspect I am the one who needs to shut up and deal a little. If I don't intend to stay home forever, the only thing to do is look the world in the eye, wrestle the kid out if he gets loud at a meal and send champagne or chocolates if Felix intrudes too much in the wee hours.
It is a shame to have the beauty of being away wasted on dark undereye circles and conflicting simultaneous cravings for coffee and wine.
posted by Elise at 1:52 PM
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Trade Offs
Make no mistake. Going away was the best choice and really, there was no turning back once plans were made, but...
But I have this difficulty. It is a private one, and I don't know why I didn't think it would set in but here it is, sitting on my head practically all night.
I am constantly worried that my kid is annoying people, keeping them awake, disturbing the peace, fussing them unnecessarily. He has had trouble sleeping and I know there was some snark from neighbors (though oddly, the day they were nasty was after the night he was very quiet and the day they said he had improved wildly was the morning after the night of Excessive Moaning and Yelps). This has led to a lot of sitting up all night on my part, fending off peeps.
So I have been up, up, up and am fraying.
How does one balance? How does one ensure sleep in a strange place? How can I avoid feeling so ashamed of myself for disturbing people while being, so defensive of anyone who would suggest my kid shouldn't be, well, anywhere he's actually allowed to be.
I hear New York is turning cold this evening.
Three cheers for Rufus, that Bull Terrier at Westminster. It's about time the terriers had another win, though I hear Coco, the little Norfolk gave him a run for his money.
posted by Elise at 6:05 AM
5 Comments
Not Crafty
If I've seemed terse lately, it is probably the needlepoint. Years ago, my mother-in-law indoctrinated me into her favorite hobby and I have become a dabbler. I go through spates of working diligently on something or other for evenings at a time and then amnesia sets in and I forget I even started it.
I always figured I was participating in a great tradition of unfinished handiwork. Nancy Mitford showed the true advantages of this sort of neglect in her essay "The Shooting Party: Some Hints for the Woman Guest" (1930)
"For a woman who stays much in country houses, `work' of some sort is indispensable. You probably never touch it at home and most likely have only the vaguest idea of how it should be done, but if it is well begun for you at some school of needlework you can always muddle along with the background. As a barricade and as a topic of conversation it is an invaluable asset. When you are asked to go for a walk, play bridge, or so anything else that you particularly dislike, you can entrench yourself behind it. `My dear, I MUST get on with this wretched work, it is for mother's birthday and I don't see HOW it is to be finished in time.' Should your hostess remember it from last year, and be tactless enough to say so, you answer airily, `Oh! That was finished ages ago, I'm doing the companion chair now, it's quite different if you look into it.'"
This is about my speed.
But recently I found myself in a needlepoint-on-demand situation. A bunch of us were enlisted to work on a secret family project about ten months ago. I picked up my panel back when the weather was just turning warm, certain that it would be a cinch, and then I lifted my head, panting after finishing a big work thing in between Holiday Events, and realized that matters were dire. (I wasn't alone, by the way. My companions in needlework were in the same boat and I only finished because of a little email roundabout that forced me onward, ever onward into a great sleep deficit.)
I've never been one for crafts. I can knit and I can purl, but I can't cast off, so all I know how to do is make a scarf in progress. Having a baby did not make me more inclined to be handy. I know some people who were really galvanized by motherhood, who became really good cooks and taught themselves how to sew and stencil or design stationery and paint murals. I just became more like myself.
I can manage the odd, low-pressure pillow. Pictured above something I did for someone a while ago. It was supposed to be for her late summer birthday. I managed it for Christmas. I was hoping she could leave it on her couch during parties as an encouragement to her guests to cut loose.
Of course my next project is to recover a threadbare piano bench, which I hope to do by the time Felix is able to do something compelling with a piano.
posted by Elise at 3:49 PM
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Trundling
So my small family and I are shuffling off on the first real trip we have taken together, mere hours before one of those Nor'easters that New York is so famous for, and that my grandmother used to use as an excuse to get out of everything from air travel to dinners across town, hits.
The terrier has a full social schedule, so don't think he's missing out.
Updates may be sporadic for the next bunch of days, or they may not. I have a few tricks stored in my sleeves and the rest is up to technology.
(The photo is a representation of "fun" as a general matter. It is of the fabulous all-bug carousel at the Bronx Zoo, which was the last family outing.)
Cheers.
posted by Elise at 5:35 PM
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Dolly Time
A few months ago I was thrilled to be able to drink wine at a dinner party with Felix around and wasn't at all afraid of spilling it because he was busy playing with a baby doll. I commented to my friend that it was nice to watch him trying to poke its eyes out instead of mine and said I should get him one.
My friend, whose child is much older and who already knows all the questions, asked if I planned on getting a black or Asian baby doll or sticking with a generic Caucasian one. Her question (need I say this?) pretty much put the kibosh on the toy, because all of a sudden picking one would have gone from making a random choice to making a STATEMENT, and I've been busy. My search has changed and I am now on a quest for the perfect classic teddy bear. (Suggestions, anyone? No Steiff please. They are classic and beautiful but wildly expensive and the opposite of cuddly.)
I was suddenly reminded of the conversation while glancing at the Movie City News blog and catching the inevitable headline: "Where the Girls Aren't Is In Family Movies For Starters." There was a link to an article about how (shockingly) male characters wildly outnumber female characters in G-rated movies. The actress Geena Davis finds this appalling and has founded See Jane, a group whose mission is to increase the number of female characters in children's media. I have no real quarrel with this idea, but I wonder how this is news. I also wonder what kind of response there could be to this agitation. Does this mean we'll start seeing a lot of extra girl characters who sit around and don't do anything interesting? I just remember talking with someone about how in the 1980s there were so many popular movies for adults with almost no female characters and complaining about it, and his response was: "At least you can ask where the women are. How much better would it be if the screen only had expendable sexpots on it?"
But I'm a cynic, because the doll world is full of girl drama, or melodrama, as the case may be, there are plenty of races represented but there are mighty few boys, and, one at least, is really fraught. According to today's New York Times, Barbie's ex-boyfriend, Ken, is going to be reintroduced in an effort to repopularize the whole Barbie brand which has taken a huge hit at the hands of the hideous Bratz dolls (some of which remind me of those Trolls from bygone days).
And so, guided by "customer feedback" Mattel reconfigured Ken, explaining his absence as the result of misery after Barbie ditched him for some Aussie surfer. Ken toured Europe and the Middle East and became a practicing Buddhist and Catholic (All! Both! Everything! Does anyone else think that some members of the Barbie fan base were having some fun with the Ken "narrative" at the Mattel executives' expense?). He reemerges in cargo pants a new man with a new more "rugged" jaw line, fit as a fiddle and ready for love (as the song goes).
Mattel makes no bones about saying that Ken (and Blaine, the Australian surfer and the other boy dolls) are "accessories to Barbie." And even in the Bratz world, the "Boyz" don't even make it into the brand's unfortunate tag line ("The only girls with a passion for fashion!")
So here is a "world" controlled by and populated by girls. Is this any better than the G-movie arena where there are hardly any female characters? I have nothing against See Jane or its mission but I wish it would work on the problem of stupidity while its addressing numbers.
posted by Elise at 6:26 PM
4 Comments
A Year Older, a Year Wiser
In the wake of a small family gathering for Felix's birthday, I figured out a few things.
Chocolate isn't a guarantee
Some kids, after having "Happy Birthday" sung to them and pawing at a cupcake their mothers made for them, will spy some idling blueberries and want them so badly that they will yelp and smack their mothers with chocolate coated paws. Can any child of a woman with professed candy obsessions be such a goody-two-shoes? Indeed. And then everyone will be thrilled that someone had the presence of mind to snap pictures of the frosting smeared mother holding an angry kid.
Dog hatred is contagious and annoying
Of course it is sort of a free country and people are entitled not to like dogs and not to have to deal with them. But. It would be prudent, if you have children, to figure out some method of dissembling because you run the risk of handicapping your children by translating your distaste into fear. There is no reason why children should feel it is necessary to be so threatened by small dogs that largely ignore them that they fly into hysterics and try to claw their way up their parents. If it is too much to handle, no one would blame you for calling "uncle" and asking to do something dog-free later. Being aggressively miserable at the house with the dog in it just makes the dog's owners feel rather put upon.
Everything old really is new again
Look! It's the Chatter Telephone! Felix was given one and now he knows to hold the receiver to his ear when one says "Hello! Hello!" a few times fast.
Of course, this revival is truly odd, since there is almost no chance that he will experience a rotary phone or even a telephone with a separate receiver in his lifetime. Still, I suppose this toy does what Rocky and Bullwinkle or some Pixar animation does: appeal to adults and children simultaneously for very different reasons.
A small rocking-chair can be mistaken for an amusement park ride
But only in the best way. My parents gave Felix a little rocker that I had when I was little (note the "genuine" Naugahyde seat that someday I'll recover, I promise). This thing works wonders on restless children, even the dog-shy. It encourages their little bureaucratic tendencies as they line up, take turns and bully each other on and off.
There's nothing wrong with wanting a drink afterwards
But you knew that, anyway.
posted by Elise at 9:49 AM
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Birthday Management
Oh I don't know what to say. I keep looking back at Emily Bazelon's piece in Slate about curbing kid birthday excess, particularly in the present department and the whole business makes me want to crawl into the bathtub.
What does one do? Needless to say, this is not something I have to worry about for a while. I'm counting on coasting for a bunch of years at least, but reading the article made me honestly cranky about all the contortions Bazelon went through to try to limit enormous volumes of plastic junk in the house.
The proscribed way of things now is for children to invite their entire school classes to their parties, so while everyone's feelings are spared being slighted, the potential for becoming inundated with stuff gets upgraded from Possibility to Certainty.
I have a late summer birthday, so the whole question of the school party was never an issue. I wasn't in a class and no one was ever around, so am not even in a position to look back to my halcyon youth for imperfect and retrograde solutions.
Bazelon seeks solace in a book swap (her piece offers some guidelines) for years. This is appealing and spares her goodie bag angst. But I hate bullying people. I hate telling them what to do, especially what presents to get. I hated it when I got married. I was happily spared it when I was knocked-up (I pretended I wasn't going to have a child for so long that I suspect people thought it might upset my equilibrium if they pressed me too hard about what I needed- clearly what I needed was a few drinks but they weren't available to me). I love giving presents but I hate requesting anything.
Is there a solution? Book swap seems a little odd, if utopian, and Bazelon's solution for her son's party (he is in grammar school) of having all by 5 kids doing book swap and getting the remaining friends to bring presents is really awkward and seems guaranteed to make at least a few folks feel as if they did the wrong thing. (It strikes me as only a little bit less confusing than the "no gifts please" invitations where almost inevitably if one arrives empty-handed, one faces a wall of exquisitely wrapped lovelies.)
On the other hand, I'm not opposed to party favors yet, though. I spend enough time in Chinatown to know that there are untold inexpensive curious pleasures. Witness my new favorite amusement, the paper balloon.
But I must run because someone else's new favorite amusement is the garbage can.
posted by Elise at 7:10 AM
3 Comments
Consuming Kiddies
Salon just ran an article for which I was interviewed about the wildness of consumer culture for babies. In it, I admit, as I did once here, that Buy Buy Baby made me cry.
Really, there's nothing wrong with reasonable indulgence and- I'll say it even if it is oxymoronic- tempered excess, and the second I have to care deeply about how other people spend their money is the second I need to develop some hobbies. I would rather take up quilting than develop any sort of rigorous moral stance about people's spending habits.
Besides, I'm not really masochistic about functional things and won't quibble with good design that works well. Even if it is outrageously expensive, it offers up hope, the promise that beauty might trickle down into the affordable.
I've been thinking about this a lot because I got a chance to peer into the insane world that is the New York International Gift Fair. The entire Jacob Javits center was loaded with every kind of product that could even remotely be considered a "gift." Wandering the hall was beyond breathtaking, though after about an hour something that sort of felt like a hangover started to set in.
For reasons too obvious to mention, I did quite a bit of wandering the floor of Kiddie things. There were kaleidoscopes of Robeez , strange wooden springy toys, the entire series of That's Not My... books fabulous raincoat sets and stuffed animals galore. I should say that there wasn't much in the way of equipment- perhaps that sort of thing isn't romantic enough to qualify for a gift show.
Something that was interesting about all of this stuff is that a lot of it is conceived as a kind of "lifestyle" product. One doesn't just get the stuffed animal, one gets the blanket and the crib bumper and the bathrobe and the mobile and the stroller toys, everything. Obviously, manufacturers think in these terms. They like to make things and people are drawn to sets of matching things. But there was an underlying message that was fascinating.
"Comfort" was the word. The idea is that no matter where the child is, there will be a familiar item: a toy that can be taken everywhere and serve as a "transitional object" (I'm still not 100% sure what this means), blankets that feel like the toys, sets of things with harmonious colors. One company whose products are actually very lovely (Felix actually got a couple of these stuffed animal/puppet/blanket hybrid things they call "doudous," see above, as presents and loves them) even makes something that is soft and cuddly AND a nightlight that kids can take to bed with them. I saw the object and was really taken with it, and then caught myself. My kid isn't afraid of the dark. Yet. There's a (slim) chance he won't ever be and yet here was this cute thing...
It is just interesting how the goal of so much of the baby stuff was "comfort," as if the default state of little ones were "discomfort" (something I always assumed didn't set in until middle school). How much of this is designed to trigger parental angst and purchasing, I couldn't say.
The nightlight was adorable, but happily not for sale.
posted by Elise at 2:01 PM
1 Comments
Mythbusting
Around this time a year ago, I was hearing a lot about what sorts of things catapult women into labor. Among them:
Chilies
Moon cycles
Blizzard
Sex
Walking
Garlic
Sleep
Massage
Acupressure
Some of these things are beyond one's control while others are the result of merely pointing to the "spicy" icon on a menu and I dabbled in every labor inducer I could dig up, especially Sichuan Kung-Pao chicken from a fabulous place on 9th avenue.
By the time people began making cracks about not wanting to get into an elevator with me I had Nature on my side. A full moon came and went and my doctor said she was sure to see me on one choice Saturday evening because a blizzard was due. It snowed a lot. I made a bunch of people join me for a long hike through snowbanks for barbecue.
And nothing happened.
I was actually too pregnant to go into labor, but that is a much larger story.
The news this week is that I could have crossed one element of hope off my list. Apparently the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology and the New England Journal of Medicine both did studies that reveal that the phases of the moon are not remotely helpful in bringing on labor. This ran in the often amusing "Really?" column of the New York Times's Health section. So if you're pending, cross that one off your list.
And another word to the wise also made the rounds, which is that the hormonal cocktail one lives with while pregnant apparently won't prevent depression. Years ago a friend told me that his wife was never sad or weirded out about her body changing because of the "happy hormones" of pregnancy. Even at the time I doubted this, since no surge of hormonal activity had ever made me more sanguine about anything. Being pregnant is incredibly nervous-making. Don't let anyone tell you to be giddy.
And if Nature isn't working for you, you aren't alone. There's plenty of evidence to combat the rumor that Nature has any interest in making things easy for you.
posted by Elise at 7:39 PM
2 Comments
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