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SPOTS
It is with some sadness that I realize I have re-entered the spit-up stage. It is extremely hard to look pulled-together when one is in constant danger of acquiring blotches of food and ink and spit-up all over one's efforts. I do try, but my clothing suffers.
And this is why I am thrilled to see a helpful article in Slate today about stain removers. If you don't want to read it, I'll spoil the ending, Zout wins.
posted by Elise at 11:38 AM
1 Comments
Why Can't I Do This?
So I checked in at Babble today and while poking around, frustrated with myself for poking around and not being more productive while feeding the youngest and second hungriest member of the household (top prize in that department still goes to the terrier who, this weekend, jumped on the coffee table while family friends were over and snarfed a huge bite of pate-- oddly no one wanted more after that stunt). While there I had an unusual experience.
For the first time I developed celebrity-with-baby-envy and if you check out this photo of actress Kerri Russell, you'll see why. I want to do that. I want to be able to pop out with my kid in some contraption and take big slugs of (increasingly vitally important to everyone's well-being) coffee while taking care of errands both necessary and frivolous.
What am I instead? I am the person who sends her coffee splattering on the street while making some broad gesture. I am the one who simply can't trust the sling even though, I know it, all sorts of cultures including my own have used it for hundreds of years, or at least five, to great success. I am the one who managed to fall over my shopping cart in my second to last week of pregnancy, bringing on a huge knee gash that was somehow amusing to the No-Nonsense Nurse from Russia who got me out of bed and wandering the halls after Sebastian was born.
I want to multi-task. I want to bounce around like some sort of Shiva statue, coffee in one hand, book in another, two more holding the phone and dialing the plumber, and a fifth kitchy-coo-ing one child or a dog or all three.
Instead I am sadly stuck, sloppy and single-tasking, but I aspire.
posted by Elise at 10:40 AM
1 Comments
It's Not a Science
You may think that plumbing is a practical matter but you would be mistaken.
It is an art, a lofty one, full of rigid formalism, wild flights of fancy, incomprehensible rules, and pride in materials.
All of this is in my sink that hasn't worked for seven weeks.
In one of those rare moments of domestic clarity, I was able to easily identify the sink's problem when it happened. Water poured out all over the floor. An easily visible hose was leaking. Fabulous. I was ahead of the game. Usually I have a feeling something is amiss and it takes several visits from my super and a fit of apoplexy (mine) before the trouble is even identified.
Bypassing my superintendent I enlisted the help of some plumbers who were working in the building (who as it turns out were the same fellows who fixed the pipe that burst in the wall the morning I brought Sebastian home from the hospital-- fun times). I would have this problem fixed in no time.
Then things stalled. This hose is not just a hose, it is a piece of unique construction full of proprietary technology, and the company that made it decided to discontinue it. My plumber friends say that to fix it I will need to replace all the hardware that ever touched my sink.
A fit has been pitched. Attempts to locate a new hose have been renewed.
And I am stuck (and sinkless). I get this angry clenched stomach every time I look at my idle sink while wondering where the little part is and when it might show up (I've been told one was found "in a warehouse" and will be here "in two weeks").
But then I remember that I'm really just living in a plumbing art installation. It isn't supposed to work. It's just supposed to be experienced.
Until I jump out the window. Or rather, until I can figure out what's wrong with the window that makes it impossible for me to open it, after which I will jump.
posted by Elise at 11:49 AM
2 Comments
A Practical Note
I wish I could say that my youngest child tends to be grubby because I can't handle the kneeling beside the bathtub necessary for washing him (bathing the Felix is much easier since he can sit up on his own and even make gestures towards washing himself). The truth is, I'm lazy.
The reason I can't claim physical discomfort is that my mother-in-law discovered this fabulous item made by the people who make those unattractive shoes (though they are actually charming on toddler feet). The kneeling pad is hardly a new invention, but the charm of this version is that it is soft and doesn't require inflating and is made of something that refuses to get smelly and covered with mildew-- an unfortunate risk of things used at bathtime. I am so sick of soaking bath toys in bleach solutions that it is nice to have something that is rather self-maintaining.
As always, I'm late to the party (I was using a bunched up towel for this purpose) so forgive me if you're all too aware of this item and I might as well be saying something like: "My goodness, there's this device called the light bulb that lets you read after dark!"
posted by Elise at 9:21 AM
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Several Plots Thicken...
Tragically, Black White Doggie has been discontinued. I'm hoping one (or two even) can be found on a shelf somewhere.
On other fronts, Slate has published a couple of intriguing pieces, one, presumably in honor of Father's Day, is about how pregnancy brings on certain shifts in fathers' bodies and brain chemistries. Intriguing, indeed! Since I'm still rather acutely aware of the way in which my person is trying to get back to something that feels familiar, my sympathies are selfishly with the maternal side of things, but I find this quite interesting.
Perhaps also in honor of Father's Day, Emily Bazelon has a slide show on the history of the Jewish mother-- because it is easier to appreciate one parent if you remember how annoying the other can be.
posted by Elise at 8:48 AM
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The Missing Friend
It is one of the rules of the universe that the moment you are most likely to screw up, you will be called upon to get it together.
In my post-partum haze -- I know, I know, I'm still under it. I don't know how long it will last or how long I'll be talking about it. Is 10 years isn't too long, I expect.
Anyway, the Felix has a stuffed animal friend to whom he is particularly attached. Actually he has a huge gathering of them. There's Mr. Mouse and Robie (a bear who wears a bathrobe) and Fur (the guinea pig hand puppet), Giraffe, New Doggie (a.k.a Blue Doggie) and the Dinosaur Crocodile (no one knows what it is but it has a bellybutton which complicates matters). There are also the nameless "other doggies" and a small dog called This Guy, but the best of all friends is Black White Doggie, who is white and tan and gray.
For weeks, especially in the wake of new sibling jealousy insecurity and regression I have been thinking we should invest in a second Black White Doggie. (There have been bits of odd behavior including overheard statements like: "Mommy, I'm not going to draw on Sherry now." Sherry is the terrier and while he is brindle and won't show stains the way he would if he were a Westie or a white Bull Terrier, he would also not appreciate being a toddler's easel.) Also for weeks I have forgotten to track one down. And so the inevitable has happened. Black White Doggie has decided to go into hiding.
Things have been vanishing all over the place lately. My husband's keys went missing and have not been seen in at least 4 weeks. Felix had a necklace he loved that also seems to have gone into the void (which is fine since there were so many rules about places he couldn't wear it: to bed, at "gym" class, in the playground...) I have misplaced a couple of "important" notebooks and some bits of clothing have also gone AWOL.
I can work around everything but Black White Doggie and even though I ordered a new one which should show up soon it won't be so well worn or loved and really, what are the chances that Felix won't notice his friend isn't hanging around before UPS graces my door in a few days?
How this happened, I don't know. I won't let any of his animal friends out of the house because I dread this possibility.
Maybe the terrier can help. There is a chance that Black White Doggie had an encounter with some yogurt a couple of mornings ago. If that is the case, he will surely be found. The only fear is that the terrier, acting like one of those truffle pigs when he finds the succulent mushroom, will eat Black White Doggie.
An era of vigilance begins.
posted by Elise at 10:35 AM
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While Making Coffee This Morning...
and reading the brief book reviews in the Times Literary Supplement, one book caught my eye and it is just a shame it is only available in the UK. The book in question is Can Any Mother Help Me?: Fifty Years of Friendship Through a Secret Magazine, by Jenna Bailey.
The subject of the book is a fascinating collection of documents created by the women of the Cooperative Correspondence Club (CCC) in England between 1935 and 1990. The club functioned in a fascinating analogue fashion. Members would write articles for discussion and send them to their founding member who would bind them together (stitched into linen covers) and then mail the set to the first member on her list. That woman would read the pieces, make comments on them in the margins and add her two cents and then put the thing in the mail for the next member to read. This went on every two weeks for 55 years. Each "issue" of this "magazine" was one single copy. The ones that exist still are housed at an archive at the University of Sussex.
The club was created by one woman who was looking for a way to alleviate the loneliness that beset her. (Here is a note she sent to another magazine that wound up inspiring her to invent her own magazine hobby: "Can any mother help me? I live a very lonely life as I have no near neighbours. I cannot afford to buy a wireless. I adore reading but, with no library, am very limited with books. I get so down and depressed after the children go to bed, and am alone in the house. I have had a rotten time and been cruelly hurt, both physically and mentally, but I know it is bad to brood and breed hard thoughts and resentments. Can any reader suggest an occupation that will intrigue me and exclude 'thinking' and cost nothing? A hard problem, I admit.") The women, all mothers, talk about many things (including, intriguingly, cow psychology) but it is interesting to me that it was maternal isolation that invented these documents.
Of course, this sort of dialogue is utterly commonplace now, thanks to Internet forums and other sorts of online communities, but there is something truly remarkable about how everyone stuck to this format and how long it survived. I am dying to read this book, eager to see what these women talked about and especially the details of life before, during and just after the second World War in England.
Has anyone read this book? Is it worth placing an international order?
posted by Elise at 10:24 AM
2 Comments
Object Lesson
There are certain precautions one learns to take: hand washing during flu season, closing the windows when the air conditioner is on, leaving extra travel time during rush hour.
And then there is the land of New Precautions, which is where I find myself.
Felix came home from art class today sporting an exquisite necklace made of beads, colored pieces of pasta, felt bits, plastic doodads and whatnot. Eventually he took of the necklace and left it somewhere.
This simply can't done when one has a small terrier around and a horrible crunching sound made me realize that no pasta artwork can be left on any terrier-accessible surface. Because even raw pasta is food, and terriers tend to be very, very hungry.
I did salvage the work, but word to the wise: pets will eat art.
posted by Elise at 7:26 PM
1 Comments
More 'Bout Books
While I was pregnant for the second time, I wasn't particularly interested in reading about the birth process. When I was carrying Felix, I took a birth class and read all sorts of stuff, but as is probably typical with second children, I was too busy to revisit the depths of the mysteries of birth with Sebastian.
And perhaps it is because my experience with Sebastian's birth was so different from the one I had with Felix that my curiosity has been somewhat revived, so I was particularly curious about a book review in the Times Literary Supplement. Three books are discussed, one of which sounds unspeakably annoying but Tina Cassidy's Birth: A History has all kinds of fascinating historical facts, of the sort that I adore (as anyone stopping by these pages probably knows too well by now). Consider this tidbit about Queen Victoria flouting the preferences of her church:
"In 1853, Queen Victoria notably defied clerical wisdom by inhaling chloroform during her eighth accouchement. The Lancet had firmly deplored such unnatural tinkering with 'natural' labor but, as Cassidy explains, it was not the fact that it was a tremendously inexact science that bothered the public. Rather, the problem was that taking away pain appeared to tamper with divine decree (ie, Eve's curse). It followed that, when Queen Victoria, the referred temporal head of the Anglican Church inhaled chloroform, this seemingly inconsequential private act unleashed a paradigm shift in assumptions and practices on both sides of the Atlantic; the wealthy forthwith embraced chloroform a la reine. Soon enough, in another telling paradigm shift, 'refined' women were seen as being too delicate to do anything but be knocked senseless during birth."
First of all, Queen Victoria had endured seven times before. Surely she was entitled to a break if she wanted one.
Second of all, if even a great monarch (who herself, the review points out, owed her crown to the fact that King George IV's only possible heir was stillborn- a result of a reluctance to intervene with forceps) can be reviled for her birth choices, I suppose I can feel better about getting flak for mine. Now I'm in good company. And so are you, no matter what you did.
But I should give this up because once the kids are in the world, there is plenty of other stuff to read, whether for oneself or to the children. I just found a new blog that discusses children's books, Kid*Lit(erary), and I'm very excited to see what gets reviewed on those pages. Anyone who loves James Thurber's The Thirteen Clocks as much as I do, (read the review), must have some good suggestions.
posted by Elise at 12:15 PM
0 Comments
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