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Outing
This city is wonderful on holiday weekends. I love the abandoned streets and taking everyone out on walks when tumbleweeds are practically rolling down the avenues in my neck of the woods.
But I'm betraying myself this weekend and will be hitting the road for a few hits of sea air.
Of course this decision to trot off that came so easily weeks ago is now completely fraught. I'm fighting something off and while I'm as prepared as any girl scout (antibiotics handy, home remedies easily packed, precautions being taken even as I type), I do feel as if I'm asking for it, straying from home.
This is the way for me, though. I don't travel easily, even thought this is the simplest trip. Even Felix was all packed up in record time and his bag is sitting by the front door. My family is expecting us; the dog has been stripped and fixed up with Frontline. We haven't taken off yet and already I feel like turning back.
We won't, of course, and before I know it I'll be back in my abandoned city, well ahead of the fireworks. That point is moot, though, since the spectacular doesn't get rolling until well after Felix's bedtime. (Someone asked me today if he's afraid of them, and I really can't say. He isn't afraid of thunder, if that counts for anything. Neither is the dog.)
Has anyone tried continuous sun block spray on a toddler? He's on a determined hat strike, so I have to cover my bases, and it seemed the best way to keep his scalp (and mine) from turning some unpleasant shade.
It's unlikely I'll be making it, but if you're in the city and you feel like braving it, here are the trains to take.
posted by Elise at 7:57 PM
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Work Culture
On Tuesday, Slate began running its annual Breakfast Table Supreme Court Conversation between my favorite, Dahlia Lithwick and Walter Dellinger. I love reading Slate's Supreme Court commentary generally, and the dialogue format for the end of the year decisions pressures me into thinking of the quotidian implications of these cases.
In a depressing moment for elections and legal precedent, for instance, the Supremes wound up supporting Texas's middecade redistricting plan that wildly favored the Republican party, but happily has ruled that the Bush Administration's military tribunals are a violation of the Geneva Convention and US military law.
What do these decisions say about the culture of this country and about how we think about the government as having abandoned its citizens? In spite of the Supremes having come down hard on these military tribunals, which are indeed horrific, the administration has proudly announced that it doesn't care what the nation's highest court has to say.
And to this end, on the super domestic front, I have been thinking about the irritating Linda Hirshman, who is making a lot of money and getting a lot of ink by condemning stay at home mothers as damaging the feminist cause, their lives and the lives of future generations of women. Her writing is really appalling (really), though some of her ideas can spur interesting conversations about gender roles in families and what women should learn to expect from their partners.
But once again, as I think Judith Warner describes in her book Perfect Madness, there is a lapse in thinking. All sorts of pressure gets ladled onto the individual. If a woman stays at home, she is betraying the cause of ALL women. What is missing is a sense of spreading responsibility around, NOT just between partners in a relationship but to industry as well. What is wrong with corporations becoming more flexible about how people work? Why do we admire so deeply a culture of work that admires brutal hours and foregone vacations- that measures workers through an abstract markers of "dedication." Why isn't there more discussion of making work better for everyone?
Hirshman's smugness is unbearable but her work is unimaginative and just another silly way to polarize women, many of whom have lousy options and feel brutalized generally.
The whole current paradigm is rotten and the disappointing thing about writers like Hirshman is that she's a waste of space with her shrill, scoldy voice. Her writing feels like a trip to the principal's office when what we could really use is something like a revolution.
posted by Elise at 10:52 AM
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Mind Reading
We do it all the time with pets- put words in their mouths. My terrier, for instance, frequently poses various philosophical questions about the weather (distaste for damp paws), expresses vague misanthropy (strange, since he is so social and attention-hoggy), and generally speaks in a voice that sounds not unlike that of his mistress.
But I've also become interested in the way we do this with children. I'm not talking about the standards: "Why is he crying? Is he hungry? Is he tired? What if I give him this train? He'd throw it at my head, that's what. Maybe he needs to be bounced, or- Oh. He wanted to be left alone."
What I'm thinking about is the way artists become taken with the unknowable that is in the infant mind. Let me dispense first with the whole Look Who's Talking phenomenon, with which I am only familiar by name. I have not seen them and I don't think you could pay me.
But beyond that, there's a whole kaleidoscope of fantasies about the mystery that is toddler. This is in my mind because my father proudly handed me a creepy volume of cartoons called The Book of Leviathan by musician and illustrator Peter Blegvad (the comic strips were originally published in the UK's Independent newspaper, which is also responsible for bringing you Bridget Jones). Leviathan (Levi) is a faceless toddler with two primary companions (stuffed bunny, "real" cat) who see what he sees and accompany him on his adventures- from which his parents and older sister are excluded.
While the strips are often rather scholarly (which, given the title, is no surprise) there is a real poignancy to some of the stories when Levi wakes seeking comfort in his parents. If you like Little Nemo and Calvin and Hobbes, you'll at least be intrigued by Leviathan.
And all of this reminded me of a favorite passage from a Jasper Fforde novel that I read last summer in a fit of new-mother malaise. The Big Over Easy is exceptionally charming, but I now truly appreciate a moment in the book where a guest arrives at the detective hero's house and tries to strike up a conversation with his youngest child, who still dines in a highchair. Everyone is ecstatic to discover that their guest speaks "baby gibberish" (having studied it at an adult-education center). Unfortunately the baby has moved on linguistically and converses in "either pre-toddler nonsense, a form of infant burble or an obscure dialect of gobbledygook."
This sets everyone back at square one, which is where I am. Every day I turn over all the possible ramifications of "Aaiya" and wonder what sorts of dreams my son has that make him into a Cirque du Soleil worthy contortionist.
posted by Elise at 6:45 PM
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Taking Suggestions
As soon as I possibly can, I'll be making a run for more books. Felix loves being read to and demands performances often... and even though we have a lot of books in a wide variety of genres, I am starting to want to pull my hair out whenever he bounds over with the much-loved (and terrific, but severely mauled)Fuzzy Yellow Ducklings or Tails.
One big recent hit that I actually have had some fun reading about 10 times a day is Charlie Parker Played Be Bop.
But if there are any sure-fire hits I'd love to hear about them. I'll certainly ask at the bookstore, but I'd love to have some ideas.
posted by Elise at 7:55 PM
13 Comments
Big Deal
Just quickly, Simon Doonan at the New York Observer has a piece about low-key pregnancy in the face of pregnancy and baby obsession. It's a little too bad all of the people he chats up are sour to the point of nastiness, but I agree with the general impulse. For a whole host of reasons, I had an impossible time talking about my pregnancy with people I didn't know very well so I didn't say anything.
At about week 39 I ran into one of the Dog People who had clearly been away on a winter vacation and he yelled down the block as he saw me approach: "What the Hell happened to you?!" I told him that if you spend too much time in the sun you miss things in darkest Manhattan.
I don't think pregnancy secrecy needs to be a whole campaign and another reason for people to look down on those who are more excitable, more comfortable and less superstitious. But it is nice to hear that my approach to having a child (which I'll call the "La La La I Can't Hear You" Strategy) isn't mine alone.
The piece is worth it for this line alone: "Along with the fetishization of reproduction, the other thing that needs to go is the self-flagellating "look-how-quickly-I-got-my-figure-back" exhibitionism."
I know no one will believe him, but just seeing it in print is a relief.
posted by Elise at 9:10 AM
2 Comments
Cleanse My Heart. Give me the Ability to Rage Correctly*
I watch my son have a tantrum. At least I think that's what's going on. He has pitched the little cup of his favorite cereal bits on the floor and similarly mistreated some ice water.
It is hard to figure what to do for him when he gets into a rage. It's hard to know what to do with older people who fly off the handle as well, of course. Adults who behave this way, though, are kind of dismissable. Their fury is intimidating, especially if it results in things being flung all over the place, but really, we look at those people who exhibit no self-control as being almost handicapped, even when they're frightening. Once they've raged enough it is impossible to treat them as if they were in the "normal" spectrum.
But a young child's tantrum is something else. It represents some kind of developmental stage, certainly, and has all kinds of meanings ranging from "kid is tired" to "kid is learning to explore boundaries" to- I guess- "kid finds parent incredibly annoying," though maybe it takes a few years for that one to kick in.
The pediatrician we use takes a pretty hard line on tantrums: don't interfere with the kid raging unless he or she is in some kind of danger. If you're out in public, try to contain the tantrum without coddling the child or interfering with the anger until it passes.
This isn't too hard for me, but I do sometimes hold my son when he pitches a fit. Not if he's flailing, of course, then he needs some room. But as he was while abusing the aforementioned cereal and ice water, he seemed about to become hysterical, not just angry, and then I thought it would be so bad to hold him while he hollered. This was perhaps unwise from a hearing standpoint, but didn't it take years and years of ear abuse before Pete Townsend developed chronic tinnitus?
Anger comes very easily to me. I know when I'm angry and I know what makes me angry. But actually exercising my rage is something I almost never do. I'm quite bad at it, really. It makes itself manifest instead in classic avoidance behavior and a reluctance to get out of the bathtub.
I'd like to teach my child how to be good at anger, not so frightened of it in himself. I imagine, well managed, it can be quite the force in getting things done and not so much an obstacle as it is for some of us.
*Sincere apologies to Joe Orton. I suspect I know what he would say.
posted by Elise at 4:53 PM
2 Comments
Cornball Father's Day Bit
Needless to say, there has been a lot of ink about fathers this week, but I did see something the Independent magazine (UK) - a short series of interviews with fathers in unconventional situations that was quite intersting, even for sourpuss types who don't really have much to do with the holiday.
And if you do celebrate-- Cheers.
posted by Elise at 1:31 PM
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Sealed Lips
An interesting bit of outrage erupted on Slate when the Dear Prudence columnist (Emily Yoffe, writing as "Prudie") told a reader seeking advice about how to tell her family that she had decided not to have children that she should consider reconsidering this decision.
I saw the original column and knew this would spark all kinds of rage, which it did, and Yoffe ended up writing an interesting responseto her furious readers.
In my own life, I don't feel it very strongly- this extreme bitterness that exists between people who have children and people who are childfree. Before I had Felix, I experienced weird slights from mothers at parties who decided I wasn't worth talking to because I didn't have a child. This was annoying but falls into the No Great Loss category.
I would never tell anyone to have a child just because I have had a happy experience with mine and I hope no one would ask me to talk him or her into it because I'd have to leave the table and I really, really don't care if a friend has a child, as long as the friend is happy.
But back to Yoffe and the ire she inspired. She was, I think, rather forward in her advice, but I suspect she felt that the woman who wrote to her had given her something of an invitation.
My mother taught me that if you don't want to argue about something, you don't introduce it. She is astonishingly good at keeping her counsel. In this case, the writer wanted to know what to say when people ask her when she is going to have children, since she never intends to become a parent, and went on to list all of her reasons why she thinks motherhood is not her cup of tea.
This struck me because for the longest time, I never intended to become a mother, either. I am not particularly good with children, am impatient and clumsy. I never had dreams or thoughts of parenthood and always thought it didn't suit me at all. The circumstances of my life changed and so did my thinking, but I never blabbed my feelings to the world, so I never had to deal with this crap.
Now. The letter writer made a tactical mistake, which left a big opening for Yoffe. She gave too much information. She only wanted advice on how to shut people up without being too rude, but she elaborated too much. She gave her reasons for not wanting children. Not only was this not really relevant to her question, Yoffe took her reasons to heart. She felt the same way once, had the same reasons for wanting to take a pass on motherhood. Her change of mind sounds as if it was hard-fought but happily rewarding for her. She may have kept her mouth shut if she had not felt this kinship. This is not to say that the letter writer deserved to be "punished" for oversharing, necessarily, but as my mother would say: once you air your feelings to the world, people are going to make use of them.
Besides, it's useless to give reasons for having or not having children.
Having a kid is not a rational decision. By this I don't mean to imply that it is folly, more that it is such a large choice that all the usual ways people use to make decisions (those preposterous "plus" and "minus" charts, for instance) are useless. The good things about being a mother are wonderful to me in ways that I can't really talk about clearly and the things that are the stock laments (noisy, smelly, occasionally sick, distracting) are so plebian that they don't mean too much to me in the larger scheme of things. (A friend said recently that phases with children pass in a matter of weeks, and now that she has a second child, life is easier with the knowledge that unpleasantness won't be hanging around too long.)
Really, having kids is something one does or does not do. But the decisions relate to the most private feelings, which really are the business only of the individual- not family, not strangers, not friends, no one.
Why so much antagonism? It is beyond me, and kind of repellant. I have family and friends who do not have children and everyone kept his or her choices private.
To avoid unwanted advice and encouragement, apply Odgen Nash's counsel on dealing with big cats in his poem "The Panther."
The panther is like a leopard,
Except it hasn't been peppered.
Should you behold a panther crouch,
Prepare to say Ouch.
Better yet, if called by a panther,
Don't anther.
posted by Elise at 9:52 AM
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And About the Self-Righteous Breastfeeding Folks
I can't stand the obnoxious mothers who compete with others over milk production and duration of breastfeeding. This is about as interesting to me as girls sitting around comparing how little they ate that week or how many crunches they did every morning. Nasty, toxic.
So it is nice to know that the government is getting in on the act by creating a lot of guilt-inducing advertisements about the terrible disservice women do to their children's health if they choose formula over breastfeeding. You know what I'm talking about. It's the New York Times's "most emailed" article of the day: Breast-Feed or Else.
I could say more, but I think Lori Leibovich, Indiebride founder, says it much better in her entry on Salon this evening.
And I'll just drop in this little piece from Slate that argues with the New York Times.
posted by Elise at 7:40 PM
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Same Story, Other Side of the Coin
A couple of weeks ago, on a weekday, Felix got up at an hour I will call ungodly and crashed hard around the time when most people, my husband included, tend to rise. Finally after dawdling as long as possible, my husband had to leave for work and Felix was still asleep. This upset my husband, who really only gets to see Felix in the pre-work hours because he gets home long after the kid has hit the sack. It was very saddening to him to miss a day of Felix (though at that point, I would not have woken the kid up for a pile of Good n' Plenty, I was so tired).
I know that everyone feels pulled in all directions all the time, so it wasn't wildly revelatory to see this piece from the Sunday Observer (UK), but it was interesting to read this man's thoughts about being a father and feeling torn.
posted by Elise at 5:08 PM
5 Comments
Twice the Pressure, Half the Speed
Right on cue, Felix found the pencil I keep handy to prod at the lock mechanism on his door (because sadly it keeps locking without permission).
And armed with his implement, he created his first wall drawing:
Untitled (2006)
Faber-Castell Mongol 2 pencil (the kid can't be trusted with the rare Blackwing) on wall
posted by Elise at 7:14 PM
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Half the Pressure Twice the Speed
All sorts of innuendo is bouncing around on the tube. My husband is watching John Huston's The Maltese Falcon. Humphrey Bogart has just hoisted Peter Lorre up, whacked him one and hissed, "When you're slapped, you'll take it and like it."
I heard it, but I'm not watching. I'm not really working either. I have Nap Ear right now and it means I'm in a state of unpleasant paralysis. This is the condition that sets in when one listens so hard to the bleats and yelps coming from the would-be sleeper's room, trying to decide whether to give up on a nap or not. There's no full-fledged wailing or chanting ("Mamamamamamamamamama Ho!"), but there is just enough noise to let one know that this is no nap and the chances are very slim that one will set in.
This is a problem when one had hoped naptime would allow one to at least glance at the thing with the looming deadline. Instead, I just sit, clenched, waiting until I give up.
And I'm back. It is hours later and the nap was indeed, bucked, but now bedtime has been enforced. While I was waiting to become the butt of the naptime joke (I'm still laughing), I happened to read a tidbit on Maud Newton's bookish blog that cast my mind into the past.
She writes with contempt about some highly fetishized pencils that certain writers just adore. Of course they are no longer manufactured and people sell them for enormous sums on eBay.
Years and years ago, I worked briefly for a monster. She was notoriously awful and kind of an embarrassment to the folks around her, but the word was that she was very smart and good at some part of her job, so there is a reason for everything. She was the classic type: angry, snotty, threw things, cold, tricky, testing... the whole box. And she was also deeply affected, which was fascinating. She always wore the same kind of clothing- rigorously shapeless and had a wide assortment of red shoes. There was something novel about her hair, but I can't recall what it was now.
This woman also had a penchant for these, now famously discontinued pencils: the Eberhard Faber Blackwing 602. These were the only acceptable implements for some kind of work that she did, which I wasn't allowed to see, but which I served. The pencil was on its way out for years before production finally stopped in 1998, and when I went to special order them from the company's supply man, I was told that no one needed to use a $2 pencil (given their current value, Mr. Supply must be suffering some sort of agony). I was then sent out to various stationery stores, the dustier the better, to gather as many of the cherished Blackwings as I could find. This cost a lot, and here I must confess something: I procured a handful of these for myself. In my desk now, there are 7, I just counted, silver pencils, completely intact, though their erasers are probably quite old. I don't write with pencils, usually, and I certainly didn't admire this woman, so I don't know why I got them, but here they are.
They won't put the kid through preschool, but I look at them now with the same thought I had then. If you're going to be affected, you need to be responsible for your own affectations.
It doesn't do any good to send some assistant; no matter how ridiculous you think she is, out to find these things. It should be part of your rare eccentricity that you will go to complicated lengths to find your costly and easily used up talismans. Look, all of these journalists swear by the formerly lowbrow Tab (cola), and now they have to jump all over the place to get it but I hope they have only limited assistant access and can contact their suppliers themselves.
Pardon my rant. There was no nap. This deadline is scary and I have the nagging suspicion that I am somehow under the weather.
All of which means I should get to the business at hand.
posted by Elise at 7:32 PM
3 Comments
Unanswerable
Thrills n' chills. Felix can say a thing or two, tell the dog to lie down, make polite but insistent requests for me to blow bubbles and I've considered not tracking down copies of The Emotional Life of the Toddler and How to Talk So Your Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk (which will then languish as coasters until the next time I panic).
But then I read something that sent me into a different sort of fret, not really over anything I feel is threatening m or my family but over the unanswerable questions that show up all the time. I don't think this is something that happens only to people with children, but the unsolvable, unreasonable, unfathomable issues are easy to spot when they crop up around questions of responsibility for one's child.
The Village Voice this week has an article that poses a heartbreaking problem. What does one do with a child who prefers or claims to prefer, claims to need to live as a member of the opposite gender? What does one do when a three year old child begins asserting these wishes or needs?
I know there is no right path, no program of necessary action.
It is an interesting article, and worth reading for the questions it raises, if not the answers.
posted by Elise at 8:02 PM
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Hold the Phone
I'm overwhelmed and the house is getting angry again. How do I know this? There is a pile of work yelling at me and the vacuum cleaner seems to have given up. (What has offended it? Too much dog hair? Too much of my hair? Too much polyfill from dog toys on which the terrier has performed necessary if messy surgery?)
So in a moment of procrastination, I found this little tidbit about how easy it is, not just on days with the memorable date of 6.6.06 for babies to dial what I suppose one could call the Phone Number of the Beast.
Felix does love the phone. He realizes, I suspect, that the phone means power. It is the source of his parents' dinner leftovers which will visit him at lunchtime (creative in the kitchen, I'm not). And he is ahead of his mother in that he makes use of telephone features, like the "redial" button and scrolls through to find already dialed numbers (so he doesn't have to look them up, I suppose). But I do wonder why he manages, on both home and cell phones, to call one of his aunts. Perhaps he wants to tell her that he's sick of his parents ordering in.
posted by Elise at 3:57 PM
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Aromarama
Years ago, before I knew him as an adult, my husband attended an unfortunate office party in a sufficiently rural setting that people brought their children and everyone got to romp around for the afternoon. One fellow, who was apparently annoying under the best of circumstances, had recently become a father and was proudly holding his baby proclaiming:
"My baby smells incredible. Just smell this kid!"
And without pausing for encouragement would shove the child into the barely prepared faces of his co-workers and their spouses.
This is unpleasant. There are enough smells that one has no choice but to sample (the hideously stinky subway station at 51st street and Lexington or the weirdly awful cloud outside the McDonald's on Canal street) and no one should have to endure things being stuck under one's nose.
But there is something ineffable about baby smell, and I don't mean to open myself up to all sorts of ha-ha jokes about excrement and sour milk. Ever since Felix was born, neighbors and strangers will smile at him and say: "Don't babies smell amazing?" One woman who lives upstairs from me had tears in her eyes when she said: "There's nothing like it and when it's gone, it never comes back," Her daughter is in middle school.
It must be true, though I haven't been overly conscious of being attached to this special scent. I'm sure I'll miss it when it's gone, just as I'm sure there is some primal biological reason for it. There is so much nostalgia built in to being a new parent. For every adorable outfit, there is something freshly outgrown. For every new stage in development, there is something lost.
Smell is something incredibly powerful. It enables taste, triggers memory, feeds emotions. If you're selling your house you're supposed to toast coffee beans or do something with vanilla extract to encourage your pad's appeal. Men are supposedly turned on by the aromas of baked goods (is it cinnamon? Where did I read this?) because they supposedly remind them of their mothers. Never mind the Oedipal issues this factoid raises, or what it means for men whose mothers are terrible cooks or who never laid a hand on a potholder.
I know that when I was pregnant I became more aware of how the world smelled (not always an advantage) and since having Felix, I've suddenly become entranced by perfume. Apparently Jennifer Lopez was thinking about sentimental parents when she was planning her latest perfume "Live," saying she is intrigued by the smell of new babies' heads and apparently worked it in as an element. I have not gotten a whiff of this product. I can't say whether it made it in there.
It is a lucky thing for me that Felix likes to be held close. I think my lack of awareness of his baby smell may come from my being all over him so often. But now that it is in my mind as something that will eventually go away, I suppose I should drink it in and hold it in my mind as best I can. If only it were something easy to recall, to use as a sort of talisman when I'm faced with future unease.
posted by Elise at 12:22 PM
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A Return to Glamour
So the weather here has been astonishing. For those who like it wild, or who have polyurethane shoes, it's a load of fun. I fit the bill in that department but I'm suffering from a weird post-post-partum side-effect that is cramping my style.
About a year ago I started my hair loss lament and as everyone promised I didn't go bald and only looked horribly patchy for a month or so. Now I have something just as unappealling going on which is the humidity halo. My head is full of little sprigs and shoots of hair growing back where once it was long and the weather is encouraging its worst tendencies. I constantly look as if I've been playing with a fork and the electrical sockets and I fear there is no hair salon that could help this.
The theme for the summer, I fear, is "woolly."
posted by Elise at 7:37 PM
2 Comments
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