I haven’t talked much here about the story of Emma’s birth. It was the most affirming and powerful experience Mike and I have ever had and also the most disappointing and enraging. The positive parts of the experience for us came in spite of the way the medical establishment treated us and the whole thing has made us wonder what we will do if there is a next time.
Which brings me to a movie I am very interested in seeing - “The Business of Being Born”. The movie reportedly looks at the process of birth in our country and how, in spite of it being a natural part of life, it is also a business. Ricki Lake, whose home birth is the focus of the film, discusses in this clip that the film isn’t about everyone having a home birth, or hating hospitals, but it is about women being respected enough to be given a choice in their birth process and being educated enough to make that choice. Sounds good to me.
The international premiere is September 30 at the Zurich Film Festival and according to the film’s website it will be screening in the DC area at the Arlington Cinema and Draft House, the Washington Ethical Society, The Family Room and the Thurgood Marshall Center. Check this list for screenings across the country. In November you can rent it from Netflix and the DVD will be released in March of 2008.
Just watching the excerpts from the film on the website made me tearful. If you have ever given birth, think you might ever give birth, or know anyone who has ever given birth you should see this movie.
Emma’s teeth have finally arrived!!! We had a rough weekend, but the teeth are here. Pretty much every symptom of teething you can think of, Emma had. The drooling has not slowed down though, leading me to think there might be a few more pearly whites where these came from.
Oh and also, Emma met Barack Obama! And she definitely did NOT burst into tears when everyone around us started cheering and screaming. And he did NOT look at me and saw “awww!”.
Oh and also, Emma got to hang out with her Poppy - who looks an awful lot like that Captain K2 guy. Which would be cool. To have a pirate for a grandpa.
I have a question for the more seasoned parents out there. What exactly are the rules of etiquette for the park? I have many years of dog-park experience under my belt, so I thought I would be fine at the kid-park once the time came. I find that is not the case.
My experience at the dog-park is that most owners tend to be extremely friendly, happy to make eye contact and say hi, if not strike up a conversation. In fact, there have been times when I have NOT gone to the dog-park because I didn’t feel like being sociable. This, however, is not my experience at the kid-park. When I go to the kid-park there are usually groups of parents talking amongst themselves and I am never sure how to break in and say hi. So Emma and I do our thing - usually swinging - and go home.
Really, Emma is really still a little young for the park. She can only truly enjoy the swings right now, although she is starting to dig the little slide, as long as I hold her while she goes down it. So, maybe as she gets older and can appreciate the park a little more, we will start to meet and hang out with parents whose kids are Emma’s age?
Am I going about this the wrong way maybe? Is this more like junior high than I wanted to think? Am I supposed to actually be IGNORING all of the other parents thereby solidifying that I am, in fact, one of the cool kids? I wasn’t any good at that in junior high either.
Or, is breaking into the whole kid-park culture more difficult than I had originally anticipated? Am I doomed to a life on the periphery - watching all the other parents become BFF’s?
Back when she was a wee thing at about 4 months she started producing so much drool that we considered building a small dam as protection for those of us who had to live with her. Around the same time she had moments where she was less than cheery and would grab her mouth while screaming. “Oh, she’s teething” we said.
Then once, at about six months, she screamed for two hours straight. A bloodcurdling scream that was accompanied by frantic pulling at her mouth. Around the same time she had a terrible diaper rash. “Oh, oh, NOW she’s teething” we said.
For the last few nights, she has woken up whimpering. The whimper eventually develops into a full blown cry, requiring parental intervention, and usually a hearty dose of tylenol. “Here we go, now she is REALLY teething” we have said.
Back when she was four or five months old and I talked to the pediatrician about the whole teething thing, I was told “Nope, research says they only feel pain from teeth for a few hours, when the tooth is actually erupting.” Uh huh.
So here is what I know about teeth, teething and my daughter:
I hate teeth. I have always hated teeth. I had 16 of mine extracted when I was a kid and ever since have avoided the dentist like the plague. Just thinking about it makes my jaw twitch. (please no lectures about the importance of the dentist…yadda yadda yadda. I go, I go, but there is not much else in my life I hate more. Except George Bush.)
The impending appearance of her mandibular central incisors has been causing Emma huge amounts of pain. The pain hasn’t been for a few hours, it has been for a few months. There is no study in the world that could make me think otherwise. I know my daughter and I know that for about 6 months now she has battled an evil worse than Frodo and Sam ever faced.
All kids are different. I once spent the afternoon with a friend and her 8 month old twins who were perfectly delightful and unfussy. She wrote me that night to say that one of the twins “got her first tooth” when they got home. At the time I was still in the “All kids are the same” stage and thought that I was making up the things I was seeing her do. Now that I am getting to know her a little better, I can say with confidence that she was and is, in PAIN.
I don’t know when these suckers are going to make an appearance. Once they do, I can only hope that the ones that come after are less painful. Otherwise it’s going to be a long few years.
This weekend my sister Emily came down from NYC to visit. We had a family dinner at our house on Saturday night and spent most of the day on Saturday preparing for it. I worked in the kitchen preparing dinner for that night and watched Emily and Emma hanging out in the backyard. They spent two hours exploring the yard and getting to know each other. Then Emma’s Aunt Jocelyn came over and the three of them hung out while I finished getting ready for the party.
It was sort of a surprise to feel so completely content as I chopped onions and watched Emily and Emma play. Maybe this is what being a grown-up is - finding peace and happiness in the quiet in-between moments of everyday life. I looked out the kitchen window at the two Em’s, took a deep breath and wished the moment would never end.
Thanks for coming down Emily - we miss you already!
Today I locked my keys in the car. With Emma. Emma and the keys. Together. In the car.
I read about this scenario a few months ago on Baby Toolkit, and after reading the whole post including the tips on what to do if it happens to you, I thought to myself “Whew, good thing that will NEVER happen to me.” Because I just could not imagine it ever happening to me. Not because I am oh-so-smart mind you. Just because I am anal and neurotic and mostly because I don’t have a keyfob, so I have to use the key to lock my car door, so I couldn’t imagine the unfortunate series of events that would leave me hyperventilating in the parking lot of a rundown strip mall.
In the first seconds after I shut the door and heard the “bloop” of my car alarm, I thought my heart was going to explode out of my chest, I was going to throw up and faint all at the same time. It truly was one of the worst moments of my life. You know those times that are so intense with emotion that the whole world turns a different color? Hmm, maybe that only happens to me. In any case, today the world turned red and I got that weird tunnel vision thing.
Through the haze of my panic and guilt and “ohmygodiamtheworstmotherinthewholeworld” I thought of the Baby Toolkit blog post. As the panic built, I remembered suddenly that the number one tip in the post was to be calm. That Emma needed me to be calm. So I was. On the outside. Inside I was still all poundy and pukey and fainty. Luckily Emma was asleep, so I didn’t have to pretend too much. I ran into the store that was my original destination - a children’s consignment store, kid and mom friendly - and said, in my most calm voice “Could you please call the police, I just locked my baby and my keys in the car.” And then I think I cried? Honestly I think I was crying from beginning to end, but maybe I was just teary and not out-and-out crying. Then I went back out to check on Emma. Who slept.
Anyway, long story short (too late), Fire and Rescue was summoned (luckily the fire station is, literally, two blocks from the store) and four hours later arrived. Ok, it wasn’t four hours. It just felt that way. I paced in the parking lot the whole time desperately trying to remember the other tips for what to do if you lock your child in the car. Emma slept and I couldn’t remember anything except that I was supposed to stay calm, so I tried doing that, but secretly I was planning how I was going to break the window if Fire and Rescue didn’t get there soon. Finally they did. They v e r y s l o w l y climbed down from their truck and approached the car. Since I was being calm, I chose not to shriek “HURRY UP FOR GODS SWEET SAKE WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU THAT IS MY BABY IN THE CAR?” at them.
They were very nice and had a bunch of snazzy tools so they quite easily got my door open, setting off the alarm. Emma slept. The whole episode probably lasted 15 minutes at the most. It was the longest fifteen minutes of my life.
One thing that struck me was how nice everyone was. The shoppers and staff in the store, the Fire and Rescue squad people, even the owner of a nearby store who brought me a cup of water once it was all over. People are very nice to a mother in crisis. Luckily in the grand scheme of things it was really a pretty minor crisis. It wasn’t very hot today, and as I said, Emma slept. I was certainly more traumatized than she was.
Tomorrow I will be hiding a spare key on the outside of the car.
Via Strollerderby comes this article by Steve Almond over at Babble. He writes about the “joy and pain of being a work-at-home parent” and how to balance working with spending time with his family. It seems like his wife is the primary caregiver for his daughter, so while a lot of what he writes about resonated with me, there were definitely parts where I found myself thinking “Huh, must be nice…”
Reading his article made me realize that we need a new category of parent type. We have working parents and stay-at-home parents and work-at-home parents, but what about us stay-and-work-at-home parents? Being the primary caregiver and a work-at-home parent has a unique set of challenges and experiences that isn’t quite covered by the other categories.
We could call ourselves working-stay-at-home parents, but that implies that there is a non-working stay-at-home parent, so that won’t work. We could say staying-work-at-home parents, but that’s just weird. Staying where? How about working-during-naps- and-any-other-time-the-kid-is-occupied- and-also-on-weekends- but-otherwise-hanging-out- and-having-fun parent? Hm, catchy.
Some days Emma is three minutes away from a full on two hour nap, when the deck cleaning guy arrives and rings the doorbell and the dogs bark like crazy and my work phone starts ringing and Emma starts crying and the nap goes down the tubes along with my list of to do items for work and I wonder why in the hell I ever in a million years thought this arrangement would work.
I love football. I grew up going to RFK Stadium with my dad to watch Joe Theismann, John Riggins and the rest of the Redskins make history in the 80’s. Their name and mascot appall me now, but it doesn’t temper the deep seated passion I have for my team. As a teenager, other girls I knew had posters of Shaun Cassidy or Duran Duran on their walls. I had a poster of the Hogs.
When September rolls around I am always reminded of those games with my dad and the Redskins’ heyday. As an adult I have never enjoyed football season quite as much as I did back then. Until recently. Last year Mike and I were invited by our friends Jim and Kate to join a fantasy football league, and I fell back in love with football. (To be fair, our final-big-purchase-before-the-baby-comes HD TV has helped a little too.) Just a few weeks after Emma was born we won our league’s championship. You can’t even imagine how excited I was - first a baby and now THIS?!?
Like everyone else, our fantasy season started this week. We drafted Tony Romo and Vince Young, Willie Parker and Laurence Maroney, and I even grabbed the Skins’ Santana Moss. Like the Redskins, we will be working hard to recreate the Championships of prior seasons - maybe Mike and I can even get our own little dynasty going. I wonder if we should rename our team The Hogs…
Update: I noted above that I drafted Tony Romo. As I watched his first game of the season tonight, I got upset. Like on the verge of tears. Why? Because he is a Dallas Cowboy. And I am a Redskins fan. When I drafted him I forgot how important it is to like the players on your team — let alone not hate them — since you are going to have root for them all season. It’s in my blood to hate the Cowboys with every fiber of my being, so how the hell can I enjoy my fantasy season if I cry every time he makes a touchdown? Cheering for the Cowboys makes me throw up a little in my mouth. I think I’ll have to figure out a trade, even if I have to beg someone to take him.
Update to the update: Romo got 52 points for me tonight. Ahem. I guess I’ll be hanging on to him for now.
Emma turned 9 months old today. 9 months. I don’t even know what to say.
Ok, well let me get an update in here before she turns 37.
She saw Dr. Ben this morning and weighed in at 18 lbs. 3.2 oz. and 27 1/4 inches. He said we should start giving her “table food”. (I didn’t want to sound too much like a wise ass so I didn’t ask what that meant exactly. Isn’t anything that can go on the table “table” food? But I digress.) I shared with the good doctor that I was pretty sure that it would be much safer to wait until she was say, 12 or 13 before introducing foods she might choke on, but he was not to be reasoned with.
So I guess we are going to start giving her finger food she can pick up and eat herself (and get lodged in her TINY LITTLE throat). Thanks doc.
9 months.
She is crawling as fast as Moose can walk. In fact, I often find them drag racing down the hallway. Emma usually wins, but I am pretty sure that is because Moose is throwing the race. While she loves to crawl and explore, there is nothing she loves more than standing and walking. She still needs to hold onto something when she walks, but she can stand for a good 10 seconds by herself before she delicately plops down on her derrière. We find her standing in her crib after every nap and beaming with joy when we open the door.
She has started saying “mamamamamma” and “dadadadada” (in that order), and we know she knows what she is saying, despite what the books say. We are less sure what “aaaaannnnnnnnaaaahhhlllld” means, but we’ll get it eventually. She just started waving at us recently, both hello and goodbye, although it’s not a trick she will do on command, so don’t bother asking her.
Every day with Emma is a joy. She is the light of our life. I can’t wait to see what the next 274 days will bring.
