Hello, Pushkin

Oh, I am so brave. Brave, like a lion. Fierce, like a warrior. Assertive, like a person who sends it back when she orders a sandwhich on whole wheat and the waiter brings it on white.

It's a gorgeous day, so after having brunch with Mae's aunty and grandma this morning, we meandered along the street with the stroller, looking for something else to do. We ended up at the coffee shop, which is often where we end up. But, this time, the place was full of moms. Ten of them, at least, taking up the entire middle section with their strollers, carriers and diaper bags. Some even had babies not much older than Mae.

So, I walked right up to them and asked if I could join them.

Okay. Untrue. What I actually did was get a coffee and then sit at a table very nearby, pretending to read a magazine while I felt sorry for myself because nobody seemed to want to be my momfriend, desperately hoping one of them would come over to talk to me.

But then I decided that was dumb so, eventually, I approached hesitantly, said "Excuse me?" in my little mouse voice, and asked if they were members of a mom's group and, if so, how they'd found each other. Turns out they all take a post-natal excercise class held in a nearby church basement and go out for coffee afterwards. I asked for the web address for the excercise programe, and they gave it to me AND invited Mae and I to sit with them. We accepted and tried our hardest to make witty conversation. (Well, I did. Mae mostly slept and showed off her pumpkin hat.)

They seemed very nice. Definitely very cool, accomplished and interesting. Probably mostly a little bit older than me. (Two of them mentioned being close to 40, and I'm 27 and still get carded at the liquor store. I self-consciously kept my wedding ring in plain view, hoping they wouldn't assume I was 12).

One of them was telling me about how hardcore the class is. You do the whole thing with your baby in a carrier, and it involves lots of squats and the use of free weights. My initial reaction is: "Bleck. Sign me up!"

The problem is, it turns out the class is full. The instructor tried to talk me in to joining a group on the other side of the city, but that just won't do. The whole point would be to make momfriends in our area, and the class itself would just be a torturous means to that end. Sigh. Anyway. Mae and I are on a waitlist, so we'll see.

Still, I can't help feeling very proud of the most un-me-like move I made today. I mean, really, today we're talking to strangers in coffee shops. Who knows what daring things Mae and I will be up to tomorrow... Mommy-and-Me Bungee Jumping, perhaps?

Staying home with Mae is the greatest, greatest thing. It is. It really is. But it's also boring sometimes.

Like, take today for example. We got up early and went to Mom and Tot class, which was neat (we made clay footprints and sang itsy bitsy spider), but then, afterwards, Mae and I were at a loss for what to do with ourselves. And it was still only 10:15 a.m.

So we puddled along, taking our time getting home and ended up at the grocery store buying Halloween candy. One hundred mini chocolate bars and 500 rainbow suckers later, we were on our way back to our much too quiet house.

Some days, I'd be fine with that. But, today, I couldn't take it, so I decided to be adventurous and go to one of those Movies for Mommies matinees. I was planning to be all brave and chatty, and hoped to finally meet some other moms to hang out with. I even dressed Mae up in an especially ridiculous pumpkin hat, thinking it might be a good conversation starter. But we got all the way there to find the theatre closed. And Mae was so heavy in the baby sling that I couldn't face going anyplace else. So we just came home.

And now Mae is sleeping, and sleeping, and sleeping, and I'm sitting here with 100 chocolate bars and too much time on my hands. It'd be a bad combination at the best of times, but right now it is especially dangerous considering I've still got a wack of pregnancy weight left to lose.

I need some mom friends in the worst way; preferably cool ones, who like to go out places and who don't spend all their time talking about the current colour of their baby's poo - but I can't seem to figure out how to find them. Mae and I go to a ton of baby and mom things, but the conversations never seem to progress past the superficial: "Oh, isn't he/she cute. How old is he/she?" Or else there are these weirdly competitive undertones to everything like "Has she/he rolled over yet? Oh, MY baby did that at 2 months."

I will surely go to feminist hell for saying this, but lonely days like this make me wish I could be a 1950s housewife because, if I was a 1950s housewife, all my friends would be 1950s housewives, too.

We'd all be married by now, and we'd all be having babies at about the same time. We'd spend the mornings doing the ironing and setting our hair - or whatever -, watch some soaps after lunch and then meet in somebody's living room for coffee while the kids played and we all swaped meatloaf recipies and complained about how bored we were while we waited for our husbands to get home.

It'd be fantastic, I bet. Or not. But, at the very least, we'd all be in it together.

Mae is smiling. Alert the world!! Her daddy noticed it first - when he made a popping noise with his mouth mid-diaper change - and it's been coming and going for days, but now the smiling is for sure here to stay. And it's not even just smiling. Sometimes it's high-pitched squealing, too, like the world is just so hillarious she can't contain her joy.

We have favourite games now that make her smile. We invented them ourselves. The first one is called Kissy Lips are Coming. You play it like this:


KISSY LIPS ARE COMING:

Step 1: Stand very far away (but close enough that Mae can still see you), make a kissy noise and say "Kissy lips are coming."

Step 2: Get closer. Repeat kissy noise and say "Kiisssssy lips are coming."

Step 3: Get even closer. Repeat kissy noise and say "Kiiiiiiiiiisssy lips are coming."

Step 4: Sneak right up. Repeat kissy noise and exclaim "KISSY LIPS ARE HERE" then kiss Mae all over her tummy until she smiles and/or shrieks.


IS YOUR NAME...?
The second game is called "Is Your Name?" and you play it like this.

Step 1: Say "Is your name Leonardo DaVinci?" Pause, as if waiting for Mae to answer and then shake your head, saying "Noooooo."

Step 2: Say "Is your name Daddy?" Pause, shake head, say "Noooooo."

Steps 3 - 10: Repeat steps one and two, using various names that aren't Mae. For example, you might say:

"Is your name Aunt Jemima?" "Nooooo"
"Is your name Ogopogo?" "Noooooo"
"Is your name George W. Bush?" "Oh, no. Noooooo. Thank goodness."
"Is your name MooMoo Bunnylips?" "Nooooo."
"Is your name StinkyPants McGee?" "Well, sometimes"
"Is your name Tina Turner?" (Pause, as if giving the matter serious thought.) "Nooooo"

Step 11: Say "Is your name Mae?" Then cheer like crazy until Mae smiles and/or shrieks and say "Yes!! Your name is Mae."

Honestly, I could play either of those games all day long. This is the best fun I've had in ages.

When I was pregnant, a co-worker told me that "being a mother is a series of letting go's." I've been thinking about that a lot lately.

The very first letting go was rather extreme and happened in the delivery room. The next one was later that day when I had to go to the bathroom and I realized that, not only were we not sharing a body anymore, but we were in different rooms for the first time. And then lots of people stopped by to visit and wanted to hold her and help take care of her, so I let go a little more and a little more so that everybody else could be let in.

And then my husband pointed out that I hadn't left Mae's side in three weeks (except to go to the bathroom, of course) and so we left her with my mom and walked down to Swiss Chalet alone where we talked about her the entire time. "Look," I said, pointing to a baby sitting a few tables over. "That baby looks just like an older version of Mae. See? He has the exact same round head." My husband, always so kind, just smiled and nodded, rather than pointing out that pretty much all babies have round heads.

And then, for some reason, the hardest one so far: she outgrew her turtle sleeper. I remember buying that sleeper when I was barely pregnant. I had bad cramping that morning and was convinced I was going to miscarry. I was beside myself with pre-grief and had to do something concrete to convince myself that, yes, this baby was going to make it. So I made my husband come with me to the department store and we picked out the turtle sleeper. It looked so huge then. I couldn't believe that a baby that size could grow inside me.

So it was heartwrenching to say goodbye to it; to fold up its turtley little arms and legs and put it in storage. And I know that the turtle sleeper is just the very beginning. It's nothing compared to the letting go that will be involved when she starts crawling and doesn't need us to carry her everywhere.

Or when I have to go back to work and she has so much fun at daycare without me.

When she learns to read her own bedtime stories.

Goes on her first sleepover.

Starts to keep secrets.

When she has her first date, learns to make her own scrambled eggs, wants her own cellphone, borrows the car, goes off to university and doesn't want to come home for Thanksgiving.

It's all so bittersweet. I'm sad that she's growing up so fast already, but I'm cheering, calling my friends and taking ten million photos because I'm so proud that she's thriving.

And I guess the main thing to remember is that, yeah, one day she'll be all grown up and independent... but today she loves kicking her feet, sometimes smiles if you miow like a kitty and falls asleep in mommy or daddy's arms.

What's the rush to let go when we've still got every second of that left to enjoy?

Why do so many of the other moms I've met claim to love it? What's wrong with them? I don't understand. Clearly, they are lying to me.

I know it's meant to be all natural-like, and that it's the best food for babies (this is the only reason that I breastfeed Mae, out of guilt, because I feel like I otherwise wouldn't be doing the best thing for her). But, oh my God. Nobody told me how much it would hurt; how bony a baby's mouth can be, even without any teeth in there; how my nipples would ache; how grouchy it would make me.

The books I read, back when Mae was just Pushkin, all said that if you were doing it correctly, breastfeeding was painless. So, I was very hopeful, at first, that we were just doing it wrong. We saw two different lactation consultants in the hospital though, and they both confirmed that she was latched right, and both times I was in tears. And, I'll admit, it's gotten a bit better since then, but it still hurts, and every time another three hours rolls around and Mae makes smacky lips at me, I say (trying to pretend like I'm joking, so as not to hurt her feelings) "Oh no, Mae!! Is that Eat-Face AGAIN?"

But now that I've complained, I'll admit this too: There are some neat things about breastfeeding. First, it's weird that my boobs are suddenly useful for something. It's also very comical (if you're into that particular kind of comedy) how sometimes, when they are full enough with milk, it will just squirt out in random directions, almost like a mostly-broken sprinkler. And - by far - the neatest part is that it's the one thing that only I can do for Mae, and it is nice to be needed.

Still, I will not be one of those mothers who has a mini mourning session when it's time to hang up the nursing bras and bring out the solid foods. In fact, I'm looking forward to the days when I can fit back into my littler, prettier bras and Mae can go to town making ick faces and throwing spoonfuls of mashed veggies about.

Actually, we're not as bad-assed as I pretend to be. We only skipped it because it was pouring rain (complete with thunder and lightning) and Mae was fast asleep. I got up and got showered anyway, fully intending to wake her up and drag us out of the house but, while shampooing my hair, it occured to me that I was acting like a crazy, high strung person, and I don't want to pass those qualities on to my little girl.

I am so paranoid, lately, about being a bad mother that I'm trying to overcompensate by forcing us to interact with other children and enjoy stimulating activities that Mae couldn't really care less about. And, actually, Baby and Tot class is partly to blame.

Last week, there was another woman there with a 6-week-old baby. She was busy flipping her baby onto her tummy to improve neck control (which her baby hated), then turing her on her back again, dangling various noisy/gaudy toys in front of her and then flipping her on her tummy again. To me, the kid seemed pretty irritated by the whole thing.

Mae, I should explain, is an almost unaturally chilled-out baby, and when I set her down on the mat, she busied herself by staring intently at the other baby, then at the ceiling, then at some mysterious thing off in the distance. I sat down beside her and left her to it because she seemed happy enough.

Then the other mom, while taking a short break from torturing her own child, rubbed Mae on the tummy and said in goo-goo-baby-speak "Whuz wrong, Mae? Do you want somebody to pay attention to you? Do you? Is that what you want?"

In retrospect, I should have rubbed her baby on its tummy and said, in an equally sugary voice, "And do you want your mummy to fuck off and mind her own business?" Except that you would probably get thrown out of Mom and Tot class for using the word "fuck" (probably rightfully so) and, also, I'm not the kind of person who has the nerve to make snappy comebacks in real life.

Instead I just smiled and then went home and felt inadequate all week. If Mae grows up now to be a hermit with poor neck control it will probably be because I didn't flip her on her tummy enough or stimulate her senses with enough interactive, noisy, neon toys.

But this morning, I think I made a big breakthrough in the sanity department. I decided that waking up a peacefully-sleeping, 6-week-old baby to drag her out in a rain storm would definitely make me a worse mother than skipping Baby and Tot class ever could.

Instead, I chilled out, waited for the baby to wake up and then let her stare in googly-eyed awe at the ceiling fan while I snuggled her and watched some bad morning TV. She didn't seem to mind.

Six weeks ago today, my daughter was born.

Writing that sentence just now was weird on so many levels. First of all, six weeks? How is that even possible? It simultaneously feels like ten seconds ago and like I can't remember a time when she wasn't with us. Second of all, my daughter? I have a daughter? Technically, that makes me somebody's mother. That's just bizarre.

When I first found out I was pregnant, I didn't believe it. I kept the pee stick on the bathroom counter all night so I could go back to check on it. Then I bought three more tests. I lined them all up next to the soap dish with their pink lines in clear view and refused to throw them out, even when my husband pointed out that it was kind of less-than-sanitary to keep something I'd peed on.

The 12 week ultrasound helped a little because we could see the baby's big jelly bean of a head and stubby little arms. It was having a party in there, arching its tiny back and bouncing off the bottom of my uterus again and again. And there was no denying the heartbeat, which sounded exactly like a tiny horse, galloping underwater.

At 20 weeks, we found out that the baby was a girl. We saw her yawn and stretch on the ultrasound screen and it all still continued to be absolutely unbelievable. But I thought surely, surely, when she was born it would hit home that I was a genuine, certified mom with an actual, real life baby.

Six weeks later though, it's still sinking in. She's actually here and actually true. She's just too good. Too little. Too perfect. I wake up in the middle of the night sometimes and watch her in the bassinet. I focus on the rise and fall of her chest to prove to myself that she's breathing and that she's not just a doll somebody put there as a cruel joke.

When she yawns and groans and stretches her soft little sausage arms over her head, I sometimes think my heart is going to shatter. When I nurse her, she makes tiny sighing noises every time she swallows. I want to catch them in a bottle to save for later.

Already, she knows how to make one hundred and two funny faces. There's eat-face, frustrated-face, sleepy face, waking up face (there are actually about eighty sub-versions of waking-up-face alone). And, when she smiles, (even if it is just gas, like so many cynical people like to pretend) my eyes go all bleary.

I want to memorize my little girl, because I'm scared that by the time I realize it's really all happening, it'll already be over. So, welcome to my blog for the baby who was formerly the embryo known as Pushkin and is now the real, live baby known as Mae. I guess it's my attempt to capture whatever little bits and pieces of the next year I can and get them down in words so I won't lose them or forget them.

Will maybe write more tomorrow, depending on whether or not she naps much.

p.s. Don't worry. I'm not always so smushy and gushy. But 6 week birthdays are a big deal and I'm feeling a little hormonal. Maybe tomorrow I'll "get real" and tell you about how Mae pooped THREE times today before I could get the new diaper on and I muttered,"shit, shit, shit" (only realizing later how hillariously appropriate that was) while frantically reaching for the wipes which were hopelessly inadequate in the face of so much poo anyway.