Squidbits

We had two weeks of solo parenting in the middle of the month, when Himself was overseas on business and it was just the two of us here. I sent Himself a picture or two every day, of some squiddy smile or activity, and those are the pictures in this post - just me and the pocket digital again, snapping blurry and badly-composed pictures of the best small person ever.



On sleep: During the two-week solo parenting stretch, of course, his sleep got progressively worse. From Day Twelve of the fifteen days, a snapshot (from an email to a friend):

"The baby hasn't stopped crying all day, except for the lousy 45 minutes he took a nap this morning. I am ready to throw him out a window, so I am carefully not touching him and just letting him scream. I figure neglect beats defenestration any day. He won't sleep, he won't eat, he won't stop howling. I am building an altar to all single parents on which to burn incense daily. As soon as I have time, so, like, 20 years down the road."

We survived, natch, but it was rough.

He started fighting going to sleep at night, and waking up two and three times a night again instead of the usual once or twice. He also decided that waking up at six was a fabulous idea. Which, don't get me wrong, six is fine. But you can't wake up at six and also be an active member of the "Late Bedtimes For Babies" lobby as well as an enthusiastic participant in the Night-time Wakeup Brigade. Pick two. Or, you know, preferably, one.

Of course, the night after his daddy came home, he conked at 9:00 and slept like an angel. I feel...hmmm. Insulted, somehow.



On guilt: Since I started out the two weeks still sick, I didn't have a lot of reserves to draw on. I felt like a crappy parent for a lot of it. It is worth reminding myself, on the days when I am falling down on this whole mama thing, that I love the Squid more than anything in the whole world. I might be impatient or exhausted or scatterbrained or just plain crazy, and I certainly make mistakes, but he will never not be loved, perfectly and absolutely and unconditionally. There will always be one thing I am doing just right.

On growth: The Squid is 25.25 inches long and weighs 16 pounds, 1 ounce. This puts him in the 50th percentile for length (I guess it's not "height" until you stand up, eh?) and head size, and the 75th percentile for weight. His thighs are so plump they get stuck in his high chair. I love to squeeze them. A woman at the airport when we were coming back from vacation said he was "all cheeks and dimples" and that's just about right. The pediatrician says he's healthy and right on track developmentally, though we need to really start trying to help him roll and build muscles for crawling. I know, I know, I said in the last Squid post that I didn't care, but then someone told me that kids who don't crawl are prone (no pun intended) to learning disabilities later in life. Truth? Myth? Who knows, but I'm a little more concerned about making sure he becomes quadripedal before he goes vertical, now.



On eating: He started solid foods (cereal, pears, and sweet potato so far) last week, but it's mostly mess, not sustenance yet. It's so weird to see him have to learn all the things that are so automatic to adults, and weirder still to see how fast he learns. At first, his tongue automatically worked to spit food out, rather than swallow it down, even though I could tell he really wanted to taste it. He dribbled it down his chin and then sucked it off his hands, instead. But three days in, he was lunging at the spoon, snarfing it off so fast it still got everywhere, and then crying when the next spoonful didn't materialize fast enough. Schmutz levels and laundry have increased exponentially, as you might imagine.

This comes along with his new autonomous goal-setting ability. He's decided that he wants to hold his own bottle. If one of us drinks from a water bottle, he will look at it longingly and flail his paws in impotent yearning. So I gave him a "water bottle" of his own, and he tries diligently to hold it. I mean, he really tries - with some serious focus - and when he drops it, he tries again and again. He is determined to do this. And it's nothing we've suggested to him at all. Maybe he saw the other baby at daycare do it? I don't know, but it's neat to see him pursue something independently.

Lastly, we need to find a new word for solid food. Heretofore, all food has been referred to as "snack" - so that now means "boobs," which are different from solid food. (Yes, that's what we call my tits. "Are you looking at the snack? Would you like some?" "I'm sorry, the snack is empty - do you want a bottle?" Breastfeeding is weird in so very many ways, but the fact that my breasts are now, like, Handi-Snaks is probably the part that sums it up most succinctly.) We're going to have to work on our terminology - maybe "food" will be solid foods, "bottle" will be fluids, and "snack" will be nursing. Or something.



On sartorial splendor: In honor of the Squid's birth, I have purchased this T-shirt. I guess this was originally conceived in reaction to an article (which is no longer posted online) about the cephalopod biomass exceeding the human biomass. And the Squid's biomass will someday exceed mine, so yeah, that too. Mostly I just like the way it enthusiastically signals my willing acceptance of my new tiny despot. Welcome, Squid Overlord.

"What We Heard About The Japanese" and "What the Japanese Perhaps Heard", by Rachel Rose

I love these two poems. I think they are fascinating in terms of the way they depict the "urban myth" quality of cultural misunderstanding, and that they paint a lovely picture of just how wide the cultural gap yawns for most of us. The incident referred to in the second poem is the 1992 shooting of Yoshihiro Hattori, for those (like me) who hadn't heard of it.

I found these poems through The Wondering Minstrels, a daily poem mailing and discussion list which I in turn found through Henry Jenkins, a Comparative Media Studies professor at MIT who is advising a graduate thesis on the community.

I belong to at least three poetry communities, and I read a lot of blogs in general. For those of you who don't already, you can manage both blogrolls and listserv subscriptions through Bloglines (thanks Shelly for the listserv tip), which means you can subscribe and then let the poems/posts pile up until you have a quiet half-hour or so to peruse them. Very handy! And speaking of handy tech, when I switch back to LiveJournal, I'll be able to put stuff like this behind a "cut tag" so that it's optional reading for those of you who aren't poetry buffs. I love that feature.

What We Heard About the Japanese

We heard they would jump from buildings
at the slightest provocation: low marks

On an exam, a lovers' spat
or an excess of shame.

We heard they were incited by shame,
not guilt. That they

Loved all things American.
Mistrusted anything foreign.

We heard their men liked to buy
schoolgirls' underwear

And their women
did not experience menopause or other

Western hysterias. We heard
they still preferred to breastfeed,

Carry handkerchiefs, ride bicycles
and dress their young like Victorian

Pupils. We heard that theirs
was a feminine culture. We heard

That theirs was an example of extreme
patriarchy. That rape

Didn't exist on these islands. We heard
their marriages were arranged, that

They didn't believe in love. We heard
they were experts in this art above all others.

That frequent earthquakes inspired insecurity
and lack of faith. That they had no sense of irony.

We heard even faith was an American invention.
We heard they were just like us under the skin.


What the Japanese Perhaps Heard

Perhaps they heard we don't understand them
very well. Perhaps this made them

Pleased. Perhaps they heard we shoot
Japanese students who ring the wrong

Bell at Hallowe'en. That we shoot
at the slightest provocation: a low mark

On an exam, a lovers' spat, an excess
of guilt. Perhaps they wondered

If it was guilt we felt at the sight of that student
bleeding out among our lawn flamingos,

Or something recognizable to them,
something like grief. Perhaps

They heard that our culture
has its roots in desperate immigration

And lone men. Perhaps they observed
our skill at raising serial killers,

That we value good teeth above
good minds and have no festivals

To remember the dead. Perhaps they heard
that our grey lakes are deep enough to swallow cities,

That our landscape is vast wheat and loneliness.
Perhaps they ask themselves if, when grief

Wraps its wet arms around Montana, we would not prefer
the community of archipelagos

Upon which persimmons are harvested
and black fingers of rock uncurl their digits

In the mist. Perhaps their abacus echoes
the shape that grief takes,

One island
bleeding into the next,

And for us grief is an endless cornfield,
silken and ripe with poison.

— Rachel Rose

Fucking morons

A sub-group of one of my professional organizations just started a new listserv. And my email inbox has been deluged for the past few days with emails from idiots tech-unsavvy people who hit "reply" or "reply all" to ask to be added to the list or taken off.

I sent out an email telling them all how to subscribe/unsubscribe and informing them that hitting "reply all" or "reply" copied the whole motherfucking list. Since then there have been at least thirty more "please take me off the list" emails sent to the entire listserv. This is why I always end up filtering these damn things, despite my sincere desire to interact with my colleagues around issues important to our fields.

Aaargh! I mean, are we not professionals? Have we not yet learned to use basic, industry-standard communication tools like email and listservs? I throw up my hands in disgust. Seriously, I work with some people who can't attach documents to their email, or who think it's perfectly acceptable to submit files done in programs so far from the industry standard that they can't be opened by anything in the Office suite. I work with people who try to send me handwritten edits by fax (which of course end up illegible) when I know they have access to Word and its "track changes" feature. I work with people, my hand to God, who still hunt-n-peck type.

I mean, I have my own issues with the industry-standard programs. But it's part of being a competent professional to be able to use them. It's part of keeping current in your field to have at least a basic working knowledge of standard tools and communication methods. I don't care how old you are, or how long you've been doing this, or how close you are to retirement. If you can't use simple current technology on a bare-basics competence level, that's not professional.

Haircut!

I got a haircut.

Ten-plus years of the same hair was all well and good - I liked my old cut fine - but it's always been thin and fine, a prime candidate for hair Cialis. When postpartum shedding made half of it fall out, all at once, I started to feel like Baldy McStringyscalp, and that was just not on. But what to do?

I called Faux Salon, the place a local weekly's readers had rated "the best salon in the South Bay" for their innovative and well-trained hairdressers, and made an appointment. When I walked in, I said to the stylist "I get my hair cut twice a year, I color it myself, and I don't do anything to it but brush it. I need a cut that's professional but that I can keep out of my four-month-old's grabby paws. Within those parameters, do whatever you want."

I know I'm a challenge, okay? I don't even own a hair dryer, fer chrissake. She kept saying things like, "Have you tried hot rollers?" and "Do you have a diffuser?" to which I replied, "What are hot rollers?" and "I have a hairbrush." The poor woman. But! She gave me a cut I like, that I think will probably wear well with minimum care and not require constant cutting to update. She said I don't need to blow it dry or anything, though I think it would probably look far better if I did spend more than a minute on it in the mornings, alas. And despite the fact that the salon itself was full of hipster stylists with Manic-Panic chunks in their carefully edgy 'dos, she gave me a cut that is staid and professional enough to take to meetings. Huzzah!

Also, when she styled it, she found the curls. I had no idea my hair could be so curly! Getting it to hold like this involved products, and therefore will likely never happen again, but I took before-after-after photos of the various effects to document the possibility. Sure enough, it makes a difference. The question is, do I care enough about my appearance to find fifteen minutes a day to make it look like that? I bet you can guess the answer.... Oh, well. By the time I need to get it cut again, the hair that fell out should be well on its way back in, and I can start inching back toward my old hairstyle.

Interlude

Yesterday I drove back from a visit to my parents' house with a sleeping Squid in the back of my car. The bay was a perfect deep blue and jade, full of little wavelets shining in the sun. I was singing along with the radio, despite my lingering post-cold rasp. My brother is coming home in two weeks, and I was thinking about how good it will be to see him again. I was perfectly happy for about half a shining hour, which is worth saying, because I live a lot of my life in contentment, but perfect happiness is rare.

Four book reviews

Three Men In A Boat, To Say Nothing of the Dog, Jerome K Jerome. This was given to me by I., as part of the same package that included Connie Willis's To Say Nothing of the Dog, reviewed below. I think it was meant as background reading, but in some ways I enjoyed it more than the Willis - it was cleaner and easier to follow, and it had a blokey familiarity to it that I liked. This felt like a classic dandy humor novel - sort of Wodehouse or Saki meets road-trip-in-a-punt. The humor is really well done, the story is...less engaging, but fairly unimportant to the reader's enjoyment, and the period flavor of the piece is - well, if you like that period (and I do) it's delightful. The wonderful narrative quirks are the main reasons to read this, and they're what makes it truly memorable.

To Say Nothing of the Dog, Connie Willis. This is the first and only Willis I have read, thanks to I., who is on a mission to introduce me to new and wonderful authors. It takes time travel and jumble sales and the Jerome K. Jerome book and builds a hilarious and complex world full of British whimsy in multiple centuries. There's romance, there's farce, there's a good dollop of science fiction - I enjoyed this immensely. Until, that is, the last fifty pages or so. I found the wrap-up to the book dense and confusing, and not as satisfyingly well-constructed as the rest of the book. While this may be the fault of the speed at which I read (did I miss nuances early on that might have allowed me to better parse some of the stranger bits of the climax and denouement?) it was a disappointment that kept me from wholeheartedly loving the book.

This is to some extent also true of Robin McKinley's latest, Sunshine. I'm not much of one for a vampire novel, and so I bought this solely on the strength of the author, whose YA fiction and adaptations of myth and fable I have so thoroughly enjoyed in the past. And I must say, she made vampires more interesting to me than anyone else has managed to do, by constructing an elaborate but casually referenced alternate reality that included them and focusing her story around a pragmatic pastry chef and a local restaurant. The story had all the McKinley hallmarks: Young woman, raised to believe she is nobody special, finds that she is, in fact, uniquely powerful by virtue of her blood - an older man, about whom she has conflicted feelings, helps her through the revelation and together they fight a great evil. But for some reason, it wasn't working as well for me in Sunshine as it did in her Damar novels. The ending was too rushed and messy - she tends to have her heroines go into these weird oneiric battle scenes with Incomprehensible Evil, and because the foe is so mysterious, it makes the whole conflict a bit hard to connect with as well, at least for me. The strength of this novel lay in the general worldbuilding; the stuff about vampires, frankly, including the finale, was a bit confusing and boring. Not one of her best, but I say that with love and will continue to buy her books.

Making Peoples: A History of the New Zealanders : From Polynesian Settlement to the End of the Nineteenth Century, James Belich. Belich is clearly both an excellent writer and a good historian. This is probably, hmmm. A tertiary text? Like, it's not for lay reading really, it's for historians, but it's still not focused and specific enough to be a secondary text. College students doing introductory New Zealand history might have it as a course text. What I'm saying, basically, is that if you don't already have a significant amount of interest in the subject, this is not the book to interest you. That said, Belich seemed quite balanced and clear in his presentation of events (I haven't read a great deal of other NZ history, but I was impressed by his consideration of multiple interpretations on many counts) and he has a sly sense of humor that had me occasionally backtracking to snort at some outrageous phrase or other that he had sneakily stuck in among drier fare. The book was divided into two parts, "Making Maori" and "Making Pakeha." This, in the end, was not a choice that worked well for me, though I perhaps understand why it was done. I ended up devouring the first half and slogging through the second - I used it mainly as a cure for insomnia, I'm afraid. Whether this is just my own bullshit - am I fascinated with the exotic "otherness" of the Maori? Do I have an "authenticity" thing about non-European cultures? Please God let me not be That Sort Of Person - or whether I've just read far more about European colonization and frontier cultures in my life and am thus less interested in them as a whole, it made the book only half of what I'd wanted to read. And there was so much information I had trouble absorbing it in any way that would allow me to recall it organically; I will have to use the book itself for reference if I want to access any of the facts, even after reading it cover to cover. That last, however, I suspect is a function of my reading speed and absorption habits rather than anything else.

Next up, whenever I can get around to it: The Noviks and the Braudel.

Booklist

I've started, read, or finished all these books in the last six months (not counting re-reads, children's books, and the pregnancy/mothering books I've already reviewed, of course!). If you'd like a review of any of them, let me know, and I'll write it up.

• Our Enemies In Blue: Police and Power In America, Kristian Williams
  
• American Methods: Torture and the Logic of Domination, Kristian Williams
  
• Three Men In a Boat, To Say Nothing of the Dog, Jerome K. Jerome
  
• To Say Nothing of the Dog, Connie Willis
  
• Making Peoples: A History of the New Zealanders : From Polynesian Settlement to the End of the Nineteenth Century, James Belich
  
• Civilization and Capitalism, 15th-18th Century, Vol. I : The Structure of Everyday Life, Fernand Braudel
  
• His Majesty's Dragon, Throne of Jade, and Black Powder War, Naomi Novik
  
• It's a Boy: Women Writers on Raising Sons, Andrea Buchanan ed.
  
• Confessions of a Slacker Mom, Muffy Mead-Ferro
  
• Sunshine, Robin McKinley
  
• The Now Habit: A Strategic Program for Overcoming Procrastination and Enjoying Guilt-Free Play , Neil Fiore
  
• In My Skin: A Memoir of Addiction, Kate Holden
  
• Heading Home With Your Newborn: From Birth to Reality, Laura Jana, Jennifer Shu MD
  
• The Mother of all Baby Books: the Ultimate Guide To Your Baby's First Year, Ann Douglas
  
• Stumbling on Happiness, Daniel Gilbert

I don't promise in-depth reviews, and I know several of these authors personally, so I may be biased, but if you want to know what I thought, as always, just ask.

I'm surprised to see I haven't read more, but between a new baby and all the fanfiction I didn't list, it's probably fairly understandable. What I find most surprising about my own reading habits over the past several years, though, is that I've gone from reading almost entirely contemporary novels and classic literature to reading mostly nonfiction and genre fiction. I never would have predicted that I would cease to read more literary fiction - I used to devour it avidly, and turn my nose up at nonfiction. Plus ça change, plus ça change, I guess, or however they say that in French.

Flotsam!

I am in love with the Red Stripe beer commercials. HOORAY, BEER! It makes me want to buy their product, which commercials never, ever do, because clearly, these people are kindred beverage spirits.

I look good in pink. This is mildly distressing to me, as I dislike the color. But I look really good in it, and have done all my life. And not the powdery lighter shades, either, which I find fairly unobjectionable. Not even rose, which I'm actually rather fond of. No, I look good in hot pinks, salmons, and fuchsias. I just... I refuse. No. At least I don't look good in teal.

I flooded the whole bathroom this morning with at least half an inch of water, because I am just that smart capable fabulous kind of person. Luckily, I was able to soak it all up with towels, leaving me only with several loads of laundry to do rather than, you know, major swathes of flooring to replace.

Remember the Geek Hierarchy I mentioned a while back? I thought I was making it up, but it exists!. And yes, fanfiction goes right about where I thought it did. This chart is probably only funny if you have at least some tangential knowledge of geek subcultures.

If any more of my fucking hair falls out, I am going to spin it all into yarn and knit the Squid a better mother. Out-of-the-box problem-solving strikes again!

That is all.

"Valentine for Ernest Mann", by Naomi Shihab Nye

You can't order a poem like you order a taco.
Walk up to the counter, say, "I'll take two"
and expect it to be handed back to you
on a shiny plate.

Still, I like your spirit.
Anyone who says, "Here's my address,
write me a poem," deserves something in reply.
So I'll tell you a secret instead:
poems hide. In the bottoms of our shoes,
they are sleeping. They are the shadows
drifting across our ceilings the moment
before we wake up. What we have to do
is live in a way that lets us find them.

Once I knew a man who gave his wife
two skunks for a valentine.
He couldn't understand why she was crying.
"I thought they had such beautiful eyes."
And he was serious. He was a serious man
who lived in a serious way. Nothing was ugly
just because the world said so. He really
liked those skunks. So, he re-invented them
as valentines and they became beautiful.
At least, to him. And the poems that had been hiding
in the eyes of skunks for centuries
crawled out and curled up at his feet.

Maybe if we re-invent whatever our lives give us
we find poems. Check your garage, the odd sock
in your drawer, the person you almost like, but not quite.
And let me know.

Free thing

Due to a long and boring set of circumstances, I have mistakenly acquired a subscription to Allure magazine. As I have no need for "bombshell hair and makeup," "smooth, sleek thighs," or the beauty secrets of "the hottest women on earth," and no interest whatsover in Kate Beckinsale's (who?) racy side, I would be thrilled to pass it on to someone else. There are about ten glossy months of it left. Any takers?

ETA: Taken!

Squidbits

It's been a great week in Squidville, and the only complaint I have is that I've been too sick to enjoy it the way I would like. Himself's about to travel for work for a few weeks - our first solo parenting experiment since I returned to work - and I hope that the Squid's equanimity holds up while he's gone. This month had so many ups and downs for me, I don't even really know how to write about it - but things are definitely getting better as he gets older and more interesting, and I'm thrilled to have put the "fourth trimester" behind us and be enjoying the Squid more and more each day.

Of eating: The Squid is four months old! And the size of a small tank. He has started to eye my food when I eat with a disturbingly avaricious expression. Soon no foodstuff will be safe, and his dear little face will never be clean again. I'm delaying it for another few weeks at least, until we see the pediatrician and he okays it, but I can tell the Squid is ready. Bring on the new diaper toxicity alert system, I guess.



Of returning to work: Working motherhood is certainly interesting. Thus far, I have failed to show up at a meeting (it had been cancelled, but I forgot to let the person I was meeting with know that), spilled breastmilk all over myself, the couch, and the floor while pumping, and sleepwalked through at least one presentation. Between pumping and eating, I am not quite working full days, and it's hard to resist the impulse to steal time from work to have a shower, or some cherished personal time, though I hold out, most days - this is one of the many curses of working from home. I thought I would be better at this than I am. But while my work suffers (and I'm still getting things done, just not as well as usual), it's so great at the "end" of the day to pick up the Squid and be glad to see him all over again. The variety in each day is, I think, helping my attitude toward both work and parenting, as I had hoped it would.

I have also applied for several jobs, though no nibbles as yet; please wish me luck, as my current contract runs out in 2/07 and I really would like to find a better match for my skill set and work habits than my current position. Whatever it is, it will also surely be less Squid-flexible than what I do now; we will, however, negotiate that tightrope when it happens. I have to get the job, first. And when I do? This is the face I will make:



Of the stinky: The Squid is a damn cute baby, and we will always have the pictures to remember this time by. But nobody can bottle his baby smell - that indefinable milkbreath-and-neck-cheese aroma that makes up his own personal scent. I like to sniff the top of his head. I procrastinate on bathing him until he is quite ripe. I will miss it when he starts to smell like little boy and not like baby anymore.

Of the "Whoa, trippy": I am not much of a "whoa, trippy" person. Things are either interesting to think about or not; very little strikes me with the sort of "the world in a grain of sand/and heaven in a flower" kind of cosmic "wow" that some people seem more subject to. But my friend I, on her visit, pointed out to me that I had made the Squid.

"You made him," she said.

"Well, with help from his father," I replied, sort of shrugging it off.

"Yes, for the initial genetic contribution," she said, "but that's just the beginning. The rest of him, every cell, came from you."

Okay, whoa. Trippy. Because except for a little formula, when we supplemented for about two weeks, she's right. Every single cell of this 14-plus-pound human child came from my body. That's...wow. Just wow. Sometimes I look at him and just boggle about it for a bit. This may also contribute to my reluctance to start him on solid foods; right now he is mine mine mine and I don't want to share. Silly and irrational, but there you have it.



Of developmental milestones: We have laughter! I've only heard it once, but he's done it several times for Himself. Another of the "big" milestones I was hoping for, hooray! The Squid's age-mates, of course, are rolling over and making progress toward crawling. But to that I say, "whatever". My wee Squid howls if left supine for more than a minute or two, so I fully expect that he may not master rolling or crawling until after, I don't know, college or something. But he laughs! Who needs mobility when you have plain old-fashioned joy? Speaking of which, yesterday, by dint of sneaky camerawork, I managed to capture the elusive Squidsmile, and now have photographic proof of his delightful sweet nature.

Poll and book recommendation

I'd say my blogging has lost its focus, but that would be to imply that it ever had one.

What would you like to read?

1. The post-memorial-day "yes, but" post about support for the troops and torture
   
2. The list of all the books I have started, finished, or read entire in the last six months, up for review by request
   
3. The weird and convoluted thoughts I had around having a Boy rather than a Girl
   
4. More poetry! You used to post poetry! What happened to the poetry?
   
5. Thoughts on kids' music, with a few notes on Woody Guthrie and suggestions for songs that are easy to improvise on
   
6. More baby photos, bitch. We're not here to read about you.
   
7. More baby/parenting updates, musings, etc. I feel like that's all I do lately, but if that's what you like, I've got more. Oh, yes I do.
   
8. Instructions for how to apologize effectively
   
9. Thoughts on the conflict between caretaking and wonder
   
10. More linkage to interesting stuff I find around the web or random bullshit whateverness
    
11. Notes on risk-taking and personal revelations after 30 (heavy on the navel-gazing)
    
12. A list of things I think actually save time, money, or effort on a regular basis
    
13. None of the above! I will tell you in comments
    
14. none of the above! I don't even know why I read your stupid blog.

Let me know in comments, yeah? I need a kick in the ass to actually finish any of these.

That said, there is one thing I want to link to now now now. It is Daniel Gilbert's "If Only Gay Sex Caused Global Warming" commentary piece in last Sunday's LA Times. Gilbert is a brilliant, funny psychologist, who explains with wit and precision why it is so easy to whip the populace into a froth about relatively insubstantial issues and so hard to motivate them (er, us) when it comes to far more frightening larger problems.

Some few of you who have been reading this blog for - hmm, more than two years now - may recognize Mr. Gilbert's name. I mentioned him with great favor when I put together a set of links on research into happiness a few years back. I am thrilled to report that his book on the subject, Stumbling on Happiness (powells.com link here, for those of you who try to be more socially responsible consumers) is now out and getting great reviews. Run, don't walk, seriously. There are some books which immediately shoot straight to the top of my reading pile, and this is surely one of them.

Vacation?

Well, we went on vacation. Sort of. I'm not sure how to explain this without being a whiny bitch about it, so here are the good things first:

• The Squid got to see his Lola and Apupa for the first time since he was just-born.
  
• The Squid got to meet a few of our friends who live in the Chicago area.
  
• We got to see a few of our friends who live in the Chicago area.
  
• We got to go on a baby-free date for our anniversary. Like, 24 hours, Shedd Aquarium and a nap and an awesome dinner at Fogo de Chao, and we saw X-3 and slept in. Brilliant!
  
• We got to have dinner out by ourselves one other time, and a nice tractor ride around the farm.

So, good stuff. Necessary stuff.

But vacation with baby is not very relaxing, particularly when the baby decides to pull a week of unusual fussiness out for the occasion. It's sort of like being home full-time with a fussy baby...only without the routine and stability of home. I don't know if it was because he went into a growth spurt (he is visibly larger than when we left) or because the time difference threw him off, but dear God, Mr. Fussypants. We managed one good day of baby behavior before...

Baby's first illness! Woo! Okay, for him it seems to be just a cough and a bit of sinusy stuff. For me it has become a raging 100+ degree fever (now working on the third day in a row, and I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow) and headache and massively sore throat. I suspect a secondary infection, as neither the Squid nor the people we caught the crud from had a fever with it. Lucky me. Have lost voice and cannot talk, additionally, which is sort of funny except not. Thank God for Lola, who took over the baby care (Himself tried, but has a really bad back which makes carrying and lifting and diapering a heavy baby tough to sustain) and let me sleep. And in the midst of this...

Who let the dogs out? Sorry, I am feverish and couldn't help myself. Anyhow, our dogs (one of whom is blind) escaped not once, but twice - while my parents (who were watching them) had turned over responsibility to the neighbors and gone out of town. We got phone calls and emails "I found your dog in the middle of the street" and didn't know who to call to have them picked up! I ended up calling in favors from people I scarcely know to get them rounded up and safely home. Luckily, nothing terminal happened, but we were stressed out and terrified for a good chunk of both the third and the fourth.

I am glad to be home; the Squid was deemed well enough for daycare and I have been convalescing some more in bed. I think perhaps we will defer further travel as long as possible; there's a wedding in Hawaii in October, but until then, I'm staying home.