Bay Area peeps

Anyone interested in meeting up for the 3:00 ish portion of the May 1st "Day Without An Immigrant" pro-immigrant rights march in San Francisco? This is something I feel pretty strongly about. so I'm thinking I'll try to make it. We won't be going "undocumented", as the site suggests, but there are other ways to show solidarity. Anyone? Comment and we can figure out a place and a time for meetup - I think the baby and I will CalTrain into downtown.

May Day In The Bay
ImmigrantSolidarity.org (more comprehensive national info on the issue)

Convergences in San Francisco:
8:30am - Montgomery & Market (Montgomery BART)
11:00am - Embarcadero (Embarcadero BART)
3:00pm - San Francisco Civic Center (Civic Center BART)
5:00pm - Federal Building (450 Golden Gate)

A Day In The Life II

I chronicled an average day breakdown for the first month in Day in the Life I; we're almost done with month 2, now, and so I thought I'd do it again, since a lot has changed. Please note that I think most children are probably a little more difficult and have more sleep issues than the Squid has had so far; we've been lucky, and that is reflected in the time breakdown.

24 hours, again.

Again, allot a minimum of 2 hours for basic personal hygiene and meal prep/consumption.

Another 2 hours for chores and cleaning up after self and Squid - laundry, dishes, etc. etc. etc. We have a cleaning service once every 2 weeks, a 1700 square-foot house, two dogs, and only one child. Your mileage may vary significantly.

20 hours left...

Then, feeding and diapering. He's still eating 6-12 times a day. He was down at 6 at 5 weeks and almost sleeping through the night; now he's in a growth spurt, and he nurses sometimes every hour, sometimes for two hours straight, and his sleep patterns are changing so fast I can't keep up. On the other hand, he's a more efficient eater, now, so it takes a bit less time to feed him, and he has fewer dirty diapers (though still as many wet ones). I'd say this has gone down to an average of six and a half hours. This is all guesstimates, of course.

13.5 hours left...

Other baby care is the area that has changed the most. The first month, he mostly slept when he wasn't eating. Not so, now! He still sleeps a good 18 hours a day, but much more of his "day sleep" is light snoozing, which he won't do on his own. He'll snooze in the carseat on car rides, in the frontpack or sling if I carry him, on my chest if I hold him, or in the bouncy chair if I actively bounce him the whole time. But most of that time, the instant he is put in his nest, his crib, or his swing to sleep on his own, he'll wake up and howl the house down.

Actual independent deep sleep is down to a few hours during the day, making it much harder to get things done, though babywearing helps immensely - I'm typing this as he snoozes in the front pack. I'd say this has doubled; six hours a day of walks, soothing, bouncing, singing, reading, bathing, or other baby care/interaction. A lot of this can be multitasked with the cleaning and chores, thank God, as well as exercise and a social life. Now that he's more alert, he likes to go out more, and I'm trying to take him out a few times a day for errands and hikes and whatever else I can come up with; we're going to Himself's office tomorrow to meet the team, and having lunch with a favorite professor from grad school on Friday.

This all leaves 7.5 hours for sleep, etc. I'm getting about that on average, which makes me think my estimates must be off somewhere, as his daddy takes him for four hours every night, so I'm only responsible for 20 hours in an average day, not 24. Last night I got almost eight, but for several nights before it was more five or sixish, because he was gassy and wakeful - growth spurts are hard on everyone.

I'm not writing this up to make it sound like my life is hard - some days are, some days aren't. Today was fine. The day before, not so much. I'm writing it up because my friends who haven't had kids are curious - and because I'm sure I'll forget, and it's nice to have a record of what it is I'm spending my day doing.

And just to make this blog truly multimedia, here's a .wav file of the sound of the Squid latching on and grunting, gasping, and swallowing his way through the first 30 seconds or so of a snack. He'll be a messy eater later - now he's just a noisy one.

Incoherent rage

Well, that would explain the string of miserable days, alright.

i just got my period. At 7.5 weeks postpartum, despite continuous breastfeeding.

GODDAMNIT.

I just ... I have no words.

Squidbits

State of the mama: Today I miss sleep. And coffee, and chocolate, and dairy. I miss having my back not hurt and my nipples not be sore. I miss having time to myself or having interactions with people who communicate with words, not screaming. Some days are better than others, and this is just one of those days that other days are better than.

I wrote that three days ago, but it's still holding true - I think crankiness probably builds on crankiness, especially when lack of sleep is involved. I feel like Alexander, in that book about the terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad day. Yes, I am sporting a seven-year-old's level of irritability and ability to cope. Yay, me.



Things I have done since having a child that I swore I would never do:

• Refer to myself, not only in the third person, but in the third person titular: "Hang on, Mama's coming". When did I lose my first-person singular pronoun? I'm making an effort to get it back, but it's interesting to see how all my fears of losing my individual self in motherhood are being aided and abetted by my subconscious, at least linguistically.
  
• Speak for the baby. As in, someone says, "Hi, Squid" and I turn the baby toward them and say "Hi, someone!" He is not a puppet. I do not have to make him talk. I hate it when people speak for animals or babies or other people, and here I am doing it. Nitpicking? Yes. But it's these little things that get to me.

Still holding out on the "not talking about poo at the dinner table" resolution, but only by a thread.

On Easter: I'm very much looking forward to holidays with the Squid. Christmas is my favorite, with the tree decorating and the music and the family and friends and wrapping of gifts and baking of goodies and all, but Easter and Halloween are also more fun with young'uns. One thing friends and I do each Easter, however, will now be more difficult - for the past several years, we've made Ukranian-style easter eggs, or pysanky. While ours look nothing like the traditional designs, they still involve hot wax and open flame and take hours to make, none of which is conducive to small person participation. But I'd like to find a way to keep going, because we get better at it each year; this year's products (very few are mine, but they look better all heaped together) are shown below. This year, the Squid napped or hung out with Himself, who doesn't decorate, while the rest of us played - next year, though, he'll be a toddler, and the egg hunt will be on!



On literacy: I read to the Squid occasionally, when we're not dancing or taking walks or getting clean or singing or eating or (less and less, these days) napping. Since he doesn't understand anything yet, or even focus on pictures, I read whatever I have to hand - I try to keep poetry books around, since he seems to enjoy the rhythms, but he gets a lot of non-fiction, too, since that's mostly what I read for fun. It's the vibrations and sound of my voice that interest him more than anything.

But the other day, we sat down for breastfeeding and I discovered that I had no reading material within easy reach except my old "to-recycle" pile of back New Yorkers - I used to clip all the articles I liked, before they came out with The Complete New Yorker on CD, so I've got in the habit of keeping them around long after I've done with them. I flipped through until I found an article I hadn't read, and started in. Himself walked into the room just as I was saying to the Squid,

"Again expressing the right to abortion as a doctor's choice, Blackmun wrote that the decision to perform the procedure 'may be exercised in the light of all the factors - physical, emotional, psychological, familial, and the woman's age - relevant to the well-being of the patient.' In other words, when a woman's health was at stake, at whatever stage of pregnancy, she and her doctor should be able to choose an abortion."

He said, "I can't believe you're reading that to the baby."

I think I'll get more selective about my reading material once he's around six or seven months, and starts rudimentary language acquisition, but for now, what harm can it do? It's essentially just an article about Supreme Court politics, after all. I'm not sure that abortion and babies have much to do with one another in my mind anyway. Abortion is about women, and babies are about babies - an article like that seems about as appropriate for seven-week-old reading material as anything else from the "Annals of Law" section.

On progress: He's growing like a weed (one week, he gained three ounces a day - that's about a pound and a half a week, for those of you playing along at home) and focusing on faces and things a bit more (the ceiling fan is a huge hit). The three milestones I am avidly awaiting - smiling/laughing, paw control, and head control - are still a ways away, but change is noticeable and rapid. Below is a picture of him standing up on his own two chubby legs on his father's chest, with support to keep him from toppling over.

Squidzilla! Raaar! WATCH OUT, TOKYO! Squid SMASH!



All photos in this post, by the way, are me and my snappy little pocket digital, not the gorgeous stuff of Himself's photography.

Meme

I don't usually do memes, but I got tagged by Nonlinear Girl, and since this one's an extension of what I do on this blog anyway, I present to you Six Things About The 'Stute Fish.

1. I grew up without a television. This sentence has become another source of friendly mockery in our household, as I mention it often to explain various personal eccentricities and gaps in my general cultural knowledge. I owned a working television that actually got channels for maybe a year prior to moving in with Himself in my mid-twenties, though I did have one I used as a screen for the VCR for several years. Now, of course, we have cable and netflix and TiVo and a host of other media delights, and I have gone back on a long-held "I never" and live in a house where a whole room is arranged around a large TV. I feel some ambivalence about this, but mostly I enjoy it - television where one can skip or fast-forward the commercials is a far lesser evil, methinks.
   
   
2. When at the grocery store, I put my items on the conveyor belt grouped in "food themes". The themes aren't consistent - they can be by what aisle the product comes from, what food group it is in, or what dish it will go into, but they are always themed in my head. I also get a bit OCD about how they are arranged. Um, and my grocery lists are written in the order items appear in the store layout, to the best of my knowledge. I also compulsively color-sort candies before eating. I wasn't always this anal-retentive, I swear it! Though I must confess that I have always been this odd, just in sloppier ways.
   
   
3. I've never read Chaucer, Spencer, Mann, Hegel, or Benjamin. And I've never been able to finish anything Dostoyevsky wrote other than good old Crime and Punishment. I managed to get a lit degree despite these omissions (I read lots of other things, really I did) but I feel a bit of a fraud about it. I actually lied to Himself during our courtship, in a fit of shame, and claimed to have read Benjamin. Note to self: lying to impress people only works if one does not 'fess up in a fit of honesty shortly thereafter. I am mocked about the incident to this day.
   
   
4. I once went a whole year without thoroughly mopping my kitchen floor. I think I spot-mopped it when I spilled things, and I know the dogs helped here and there - but mostly the linoleum was dark and didn't really show dirt and I didn't care enough to do more. I am not, needless to say, the clean one in my relationship, though I have gotten far more attuned to dirt and mess than I was as a bachelorette. We hire people to come in and clean for us now, once every two weeks, and our relationship is far healthier for it. Not to mention that the floors are much cleaner.
   
   
5. I read fanfiction. For those of you not in the know, fanfiction is amateur fiction based on the worlds and characters of television shows, movies, or books. The top percent of it is better-written than the bottom 90% of published genre fiction. Sturgeon's Law applies to the rest...but then again, Sturgeon's Law applies to just about everything. On the Geek Pathos scale, involvement with fanfiction is generally considered to lie somewhere between going to fan conventions and speaking fluent Klingon; this is probably in part because it is a primarily female pursuit. I don't care; I enjoy it. And I figure if my taste in movies hasn't stopped you reading this, some heavy geek cred probably won't either.
   
   
6. I've voted in every election since I turned 18. Or maybe I skipped a few "deputy fire commissioner" type things early on, but certainly for the last decade. After running a small local campaign, I realized how much hard work and effort and heart goes into even the most obscure race, and I make an effort to be at least marginally informed (some huge percentage of voters decide based solely on the candidate's official statements in the voters' pamphlet, and I try to do a bit more than that, at minimum). I've always said that if you don't vote, you've got no right to bitch. And I do so love to bitch.

If you were expecting deep and meaningful revelations, I'm sorry to disappoint. But there you go. Six things about me, and I tag no one, for I enjoy frustrating the viral spread of these things.

Movie confessions

I like certain kinds of really bad movies. Things that have lots of action and explosions and either superheroes, martial arts action, or awesome chase scenes and shootouts? Love them. Heartwarming underdog-triumphs-over-adversity sports/dance/other competition movies? Love them. And, you know, the occasional romantic comedy, though my embarrassment squick prevents me from loving the genre as a whole. But really, I'm infamous among my friends for my poor taste in film. Himself is covered with shame each time someone comes over, examines our DVDs, and asks, "Whose copy of xXx is this?" It's not that I don't know the difference between well-done film and bad, it's that it is not necessarily always directly linked to my enjoyment.

So, though I have watched many good movies since I started breastfeeding/pumping in the middle of the night (Howl's Moving Castle and The Motorcycle Diaries are particularly recommended), what I want to review here is Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights.

Are you still reading? Hardy soul!

Well, god bless the fast-forward button, for one thing. I watched about half of this movie, with the plot points about the dippy blonde on fast-forward and the parts where they actually dance on rewind. Yes, rewind. I watched Center Stage twice, so sue me. I actually watch a lot of things on half-forward like this (America's Next Top Model being a stellar example - I watch the photo shoots and the judging and skip all the catfights and Tyra Bank's diva act) - it's like poking all the chocolate in a box to see which ones have the filling you want and leaving the weird goopy ones alone.

The cast: Diego Luna, the main reason I rented this in the first place, shakes his thing admirably, and he can act, so I mostly watched his scenes. The blonde, I suspect, was a dancer first, and an actress a distant third - her "acting" was painful, in the parts I caught. Patrick Swayze makes a cameo, which totally cracked me up, as the dance instructor. Um, and there were some other people. But mostly Diego Luna, really.

The plot: Same as the first movie, more or less - the same class inequality setup, with the same lack of resolution - at least they weren't so cheap as to go the hypergamy route, but it was all a gloss anyway, an excuse for romance. In this case, it was also set, not at a country club, but against the backdrop of the Cuban revolution. Um, what?! That's a lot of politics to stick into a fluff film about dancing, and yeah, it failed miserably. There were also whole scenes in which the actors spoke Spanish - rapid Spanish, which I couldn't follow, despite usually being able to get the gist of movie Spanish. And no subtitles. Who is the audience for this film? I am confused.

And in another WTF moment: At the end of the movie, they have sex. After a "romantic buildup" that I had totally mistaken for just a close dancing partnership, suddenly the two teenies hop in the sack. All I could think was, "I wonder what kind of birth control they had access to?" Answer: none. Gah!

In conclusion, this movie sucked royally. And I enjoyed it thoroughly. And I enjoyed complaining about how bad it was even more. And I am so totally excited to see Take The Lead, though I'll have to wait for the DVD release. Antonio Banderas! Ballroom dancing! It's going to be so awfulesome, I may have to watch it twice.

It takes a village

There are things I don't blog about - more of them than one might guess.

I don't blog about my relationship with my husband. I don't blog about my brother. I don't want to blog about my grandmother's rapid decline. I don't blog about my extended families' dynamics. I don't even blog much about my work, except in the vaguest terms.

The Internet is a public place, full of more people than you think, as anyone who does blog about these things can tell you. There are people who love to have opinions about other people's personal lives based on very little actual information. There are people who love to argue about things I have no interest in arguing, people who love to give unsolicited advice, people who love to take offense. I hope that I give all these people minimal fodder; and if that makes the blog less interesting than, say, the blog of someone who is willing to let it all hang out and damn the consequences, well. So be it. I've grown more cautious about such things as I've grown older, though there are those who might say I should be more cautious still.

Which is all to say, it's not so much the one-handed typing that has kept me quiet lately (though that is certainly a factor) as that my life has been filled with a lot of the things I don't blog about, both good, bad, and just plain complex. Visiting my grammy and seeing all my aunts and uncles (and not a few cousins). Bad news from my brother, who lives far away. Falling in love with my husband all over again, not just as my partner, but as the father of our child. Coming to terms with some of my own bullshit around parenting, and struggling to be a better person in a multitude of ways.

But I will say that the last few weeks have been filled with family meeting and spending time with Ray, and that has been an incomparable blessing. His grandparents took some of the night feedings when we were visiting Grammy, and my honorary cousin S. taught me many new baby soothing techniques - she truly has a magic touch. He spent time with great-aunts and great-uncles and Grammy got to hold him, and told him, "I love you, honey. You're Grammy's little boy," which still makes me tear up just thinking about it. His Aunt D. came to visit and we discovered that he loves Bhangra dancing - he fell asleep in her arms, despite the loud music and the energetic movement. He's been handed around to a wide circle of admirers. And because of all of this, I have gotten sleep, and uninterrupted meals, and a multitude of other wonders. It truly takes a village, and makes me more determined to create some sort of local community for myself around here with other parents.

And this last weekend, Himself hung out with the baby for more than four hours while I got a nap and a massage, which did wonders for pressing my reset button and reminding me how lucky I am in my life. I'm not always good at giving myself nice things that don't have a function or can't be incorporated into multitasking somehow or that cost more than, say, $25. Himself practically had to shove me out the door and remind me that he had promised me a massage as a Christmas present to get me to actually go. And it was amazing, having that time to myself without running errands or telling myself I had to use it to catch up on housework or sleep. I feel so much more sane, so much more balanced than I did last week; I'm more ready to be a nicer person, a better mom.

I'm prone to bitching about things - I like to think that I do it with enough style and flair that it's at least entertaining. I like to think I'm good at it, if one can be "good at" complaining. But more and more, I find that what I have to say about my life involves a deep upwelling of gratitude, a sort of thanks tinged with awe. I am so very truly blessed. (And no, for those of you who haven't got kids, this isn't one of those you-can't-understand-it-until-you-have-a-baby things. It predates the baby, though he is certainly an amazing gift. This is just...hmmm. Maybe I'm growing up.) While I reserve the right to complain volubly about any and all minor matters, and to take the fifth on anything I don't wish to blog about, the core of it all is that I think perhaps I am the luckiest person I know. I feel like I need to say it, because taking all this goodness for granted would truly be a shame; it's nothing I've deserved, god knows, but it's come to me all the same, and I am overwhelmed.

An open letter, as I attempt to replace my pre-pregnancy wardrobe

Dear fashion designers of the world,

I would totally have bought that, had you not added the "kicky" and "fun" embroidery, or the "romantic" lace trim, or the "modern" asymmetry, or the "casual" contrasting stitching. Or maybe if you had made it in some color that did not remind me of fruity girly umbrella drinks. Or in some fabric that was machine-washable and yet not nastily poly-acrylic. What happened to boring classic clothing in quality fabrics and standard colors and cuts? What happened to the unembellished wardrobe?

All I wanted was a few good t-shirts and a sweater or two. God damn.

No love,
Me

A Day In The Life

I had lunch with my friend A the other day, and she asked me, "Why do I hear the parents of newborns always talking about how tired and sleep-deprived they are? I mean, I know the baby's up at night, but what about when he's asleep? What do you do that takes up so much time?"

So I thought I'd chronicle the daily activities of the first month here.

1 day = 24 hours. It looks like so much!

First, you have to eat and go to the bathroom at a minimum. Showering and toothbrushing are nice too, and changing clothes when you've been peed or spit up on. Allocate a minimum of two hours for all of that, though I find everything takes longer with a baby in one arm; I tried to put him down this morning and had my breakfast prep/eating interrupted three times for crying, soothing, and diaper changes.

22 hours left...

6-10 hours average for breastfeeding. 6-12 times a day, for about an hour each time, with burping, changes, etc. You can pump, but with sterilizing and storage time, it takes almost as long. If you're pumping and bottlefeeding, like I am right now (literally... I'm typing with my right hand, pumping with my left, and bouncing his bouncy chair with my foot), double that time. Average 8 hours a day, minimum - the equivalent of your full-time job.

14 hours left...

Allocate another 2 hours minimum for cleaning up after baby and self. Restocking diaper supplies, taking out diaper pail, returning dishes to the kitchen and washing them, using the Roomba, doing laundry (oh my God so much laundry), putting away books and blankets and slings and the Boppy and extra clothes after use, refilling water bottles, sorting mail, dog care, etc. It's ridiculous how much time this takes, cumulatively, but it does - I did it before, too, but not in 5-minute increments between crises while carrying a 9-pound weight - that makes a difference.

12 hours left...

This is the most variable factor, but for the first month, I would guess an average of 3 hours for other baby care - soothing, bouncing, going for walks with a fussmonster, holding him while he sleeps on you because he grizzles whenever you put him down, reading/singing, diaper changes between feedings, baths, pediatrician visits, runs to the drugstore for meds/diapers/etc.

9 hours left...

Now, fit your social life, residual work complications, correspondence, time with your spouse, other errands, grocery shopping, personal grooming, bill paying, time with your pets, etc. into the remaining time. Sure, you can multi-task some of these things (socialize while breastfeeding, cook/clean while bouncing, sing while changing, etc.) but by the same token, all these estimates are minimums or averages - many days they take more time, so it probably cancels out the multitasking time savings. Oh, and sleep, can't forget sleep. Just fit that in in the one and two-hour time blocks that are left...Himself gives me a three or four hour chunk each evening (on top of his current 12-14 hour workday, so he's exhausted too), which can mean up to six straight hours of sleep, and will also mean that once we are over our current breastfeeding difficulties, I may be able to find a bit more time - though the Squid is ever more wakeful and needful as he grows, so we'll see.

We're into month 2 now - I may do an accounting of the next two months as I go as well.. if I can find time! Just finished pumping, and he's starting to wake up...thus ends even 1-handed typing time.