Hello, Pushkin

Goodbye, Hello Pushkin

2007-10-19T06:23:00.000-07:00

For a while now, I've been thinking about how to say goodbye.

I started this blog as a record of Mae's first year, and -- incredibly enough -- it's over, and then some. She'll be 14 months old in a few days. Where did the time go? How did she morph from a squiggly, squinty, babylump into a full-fledged look-at-me-go toddler? I barely missed a minute, but it's still a total mystery. All I can think is that I'm glad we took photos, and I'm glad I wrote things down, because her babyhood already feels like a dream I've woken up from.

Last Friday, we went back to Mom and Tot class (the same one we went to last year, where Mae used to fall asleep on the mat every week amid the chaos). This year, everything is different though. This year, she's the big fish in the little pond. She tramps around, picking out toys and exploring, then goes over to peer at the little babies on the mat. She doesn't look at them for long though. She's a busy kid. She's got stuff to do. I don't blame her, either. I personally can't get over how boring those little babies are. And, if I hadn't been in their place this time last year, I'd be miffed at how their parents manage to just sit there, staring at them.

When I was pregnant, I had this naive idea that Mae would be born, and then I'd know her. What I've discovered, though, is that the first year (and beyond) is more like watching a Polaroid picture develop. She's still the same fairly-mellow, mostly-easy-to-please person whose shadowy outlines we started to know as an infant, but the colours are so much brighter now. So much richer.

I know so much more about her... She loves cheese and carrots and ravioli. She likes climbing things, opening and closing doors, turning on taps and going to the sandbox. She's shy and cautious in big groups, clinging to my leg and climbing into my lap until she knows it's safe. She likes to spin around until she gets dizzy, then fall down, then stand up and do it again. She's good at entertaining herself; this afternoon, she played quietly for fifteen minutes with four potatoes, a Tupperwear and a bath sponge. She laughs all the time. She smacks her lips in little air kisses. She takes off in hot pursuit of kitties and whacks them lovingly. She wants to read and read and read.

She's so much and so good, I couldn't possibly begin to capture it in words. She's changed everything about our lives already, and she's still only getting started.

One of Those Mothers

2007-10-12T10:42:00.000-07:00

About three years ago, way before Mae was born, my husband and I went to this cottage weekend at a friend's place. There were four or five couples there. Half had babies or young kids and the other half (which, obviously, included us) didn't.

And, dear God, those baby people were annoying. Not only did they never shut up about their kids... how clever they were... how cute they were... what funny noises they liked to make... but they also did incredibly rude and disgusting things. One of them even changed their baby on the dining room table WHILE we were eating. Shudder. My husband and I swore to never be like them.

It just goes to show, you should never say never.

In the past week alone, I've caught myself doing the following, inexcusable things...

#1 - I tore open a package of raisins in line at the grocery store (before having paid for them) and gave them to Mae to keep her quiet.

#2 - I changed her diaper in my in-law's carpeted living room, in full view of the Thanksgiving dinner table, where people were still eating. I admit, it wasn't as bad as changing her on the table... but it was still pretty bad.

#3 - While one of my best friends was pouring out her heart about her mother's stage four cancer, I started laughing because Mae was balancing a baby food jar lid on her nose.

So you see... it's official. I'm one of those mothers. I'm rude. I'm inconsiderate. My entire world revolves around my little girl. But at least I realize it, right? I figure that's got to be some sort of step in the right direction.

Mae's List of Amazing Words

2007-09-27T06:45:00.000-07:00

star (pronounced stah!)
dog (pronounced (dahg!)
kitty-cat (pronounced kee-kah!)
hot hot hot (pronounced hat-hat-hat. Refers to all mugs and Styrofoam cups, regardless of temperature of contents)
hat (Refers to anything put on head)
spoon (pronounced boon)
dada
mama
moo (pronounced boo)
baa
quack
bottle (pronounced bobble)
kettle
wow
brat
dirty dirty dirty (pronounced daddle daddle daddle. Refers to litter)
ooooooooh!!

In Other News...

2007-09-16T06:39:00.000-07:00

It turns out miracles do happen! I found out last Wednesday that I got a grant for the young adult book I've been working on. A pretty decent-sized grant, too. Decent-sized enough that I can stop worrying so much about money for at least a few months, and do some writing, and keep looking for freelance work and breathe a little. I am so grateful right now. Somebody, somewhere, is clearly looking out for me.

A Star-Shaped Dog

2007-09-16T06:32:00.000-07:00

Mae travels through her world these days on high alert for dogs and stars. They are, by far, her favourite things. When she spots one, she points and smiles and shouts to it: "STAH!" or "DAG!" Both things make her so happy that I can't help but wonder, how good would life be if we could find a star-shaped dog? Or a dog-shaped star? Or even a dog with stars on it?

Hang-Ups, Hook-Ups, and Holding Out

2007-09-12T05:59:00.001-07:00

When I was a teenager, my mom let me have sleepovers... with boys... in our house. Most people I tell that to are shocked. They had parents more of the "don't let me catch you so much as tongue kissing until you're at least 27" variety.

It might sound like an irresponsible approach to some people but, for us, it worked. She gave me all the information I needed (i.e., Use condoms AND foam AND consider taking the pill. Don't let anyone pressure you. Talk to me if you have questions or problems.) and then she made sure I had a safe place to do what I was going to do (if I was going to do it) and then she let me make my own decisions. She trusted me, and I generally made good decisions when it came to sex, alcohol and drugs.

Mae is one. We're a long, long way off from having to make decisions about what freedoms she will or won't have as a teenager but, all the same, it never hurts to start thinking about these things, and I loved - adored - absolutely can't say enough good things about the latest book I am reviewing for the Parent Blogger's network: girlology Hang-Ups, Hook-Ups, and Holding Out: Stuff you need to know about your body, sex, and dating by Melisa Holmes, M.D. and Trish Hutchison, M.D.

This book answers all the health-, sex- and relationship-type questions teenage girls are probably too embarrassed to ask... from the heart-wrenching: "I said the L word and my BF said nothing. Now what?"... to the truly puzzling: "Is it weird that one of my boobs is bigger than the other?"... to the downright terrifying: "My friend was raped while she was drunk at a party. She won't tell anyone. How can I help her?"

The authors/doctors tackle these and other questions in a down-to-earth, non-judgmental, teen-friendly way. The book is packed with information (even I learned a thing or two or three) but uses accessible language and never condescends. The format is pretty cool, too. Each chapter begins with a section called "She did What?" which tells a 'real life' story about a group of teens. And each chapter ends with a neat, doodle-inspired diagrams that walk the reader through the possible consequences of different choices. All in all, I have to say "Horray for this book." It's a balanced, informative, fun-to-read guide that treats teens with the respect they deserve.

And as for Mae, when we do reach the teen years, will we be as trusting as my mom was? Honestly, she's so little. It's hard to think about right now. It's one of those parental bridges you can't know how you'll cross until you get there. I do know that I will keep this book handy though, and that I hope to follow its approach. And, because the authors really say it best, here's a little snippet from the intro for parents to finish off the review:

"Making demands and saying "you will act this way" is find for young children, but teens will soon be "out there" on their own. They need to know how to think, decide, and act on what is important to them. They need guidance in establishing their personal values, but in the end, the choices are theirs to make. If they are given the opportunity to thoughtfully and individually establish their personal goals and claim them as their own, they can be much more successful in sticking to them. "

Back to Work... or Not

2007-09-06T06:42:00.001-07:00

Yesterday was my supposed-to-go-back-to-work day. I watched it pass on the calendar with a mix of gratitude ("Thank God I get to spend this day with Mae instead") and gut-wrenching fear ("Oh God. What have I done?? We are screwed and it's all my fault").

I haven't been blogging much lately because I've been frantically, constantly looking for freelance work. I've sent my portfolio to more than 300 companies... I've told everyone I know to let me know if they hear of anything and, still, nothing. Or, I shouldn't say nothing. I get a lot of nice emails back saying "We'll keep you in mind." But being kept in mind isn't going to help pay the mortgage.

I'm in a seriously low spot at the moment.

The good news though is that Mae is completely oblivious to it all. She takes her naps while I send email after email. While I stand in the grocery store, worrying over the price of this or that, she babbles contentedly and waves to strangers walking by. When I feel like crying in frustration, she reminds me that it's time to go to the sandbox now, and so we go, and I feel better watching her bake sand cakes in the sun.

And then there's my husband who is endlessly supportive. He keeps telling me the work will come... it will be okay... which is nice to hear when I'm too scared to believe it myself. Lately, I look around at my life and wonder what I did to deserve all these people who love me and believe in me so much, and then I think, oh God, please help me find a way not to let them down.

10 Reasons why I am a Bad Birthday-Mother

2007-08-31T06:17:00.000-07:00

#1 - Mae's first birthday was two days ago and I didn't even write a big, long, sappy, thoughtful post, reflecting on what an incredible year it has been. I meant to. I swear. I just didn't have time, and now it seems too late.

#2 - We only got her one gift: a googly-eyed monster puppet which only cost $17. And it wasn't even a surprise. She picked it out herself at the toy store.

#3 - I only took two seconds to wrap it, using second-hand wrapping paper from a better gift somebody else had given her the day before.

#4 - Betty Crocker helped me make her birthday cupcakes.

#5 - We ordered take-out food for her party.

#6 - I didn't even blow up any balloons.

#7 - I didn't even invite any other kids.

#8 - But that was just for the little party. This weekend, we have to have a bigger party for the whole family and I am totally resenting it already. She's going to hate it. There will be too many people, all vying for her attention. All picking her up when she does not want to be picked up. All making too much noise and stressing her out. And it's going to be a lot of work, and it means having my in-laws PLUS my bitterly divorced parents all in our tiny backyard at the same time. How do you spell 'hell' again? Oh yeah, B-I-R-T-H-D-A-Y P-A-R-T-Y.

#9 - I bought Hello Kitty plates and party hats for the second party, but I only bought them because I was with my highly-organized best momfriend, and she was telling me about how she drove all over the city to find Curious George plates for her son's party, and about how she'd already ordered the balloons even though he won't turn 1 until the 15th. Then she said "Hey, want to walk over to the party store and see what they have?" and then I felt guilty... as if the fact that I wasn't planning to buy over-priced plates with cartoon characters on them made me a crappy mother, which maybe it does.

#10 - I'm letting Betty Crocker make the cupcakes for the next party, too.

Hear me Roar

2007-08-26T06:41:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I got bitten by a neighbour's chihuahua. Mae, my husband and I were on our way to the hardware store and passed by this house we pass by every day. Mae loves doggies, and the more ridiculous and spazzy they are, the more she laughs. So when this silly little doggy came running at us, gritting its teeny tiny teeth and yipping for all it was worth, we just laughed - at least, until it sank those teeny tiny teeth into my ankle.

The woman who owns the dog yelled at it, but she didn't apologize to me. Whatever, I thought. I asked her if the dog had had all its shots, she said yes and we kept walking. It was a chihuahua. No bigger than a very skinny, completely bald, very ugly guinea pig. I could have kicked it clear down the block if I'd wanted to. I probably should have. It wasn't a bad bite, anyway.

Later on though, I got to thinking... what if it had bitten Mae? I can guarantee you my reaction would have been different. I would have yelled at the woman who was yelling at her dog. I would have told her to keep her vicious, yippy, miserable little ankle-biter on a leash. I would have gone straight home and called animal control services. And all of this is very surprising to me because it never has been, and never will be, the way I react on behalf of myself when a stranger does me wrong. Not to say that I'm a total doormat... just mostly a total doormat. But, when it comes to Mae, I've discovered an inner mother bear.

I remember the first time she roared. Mae was a few weeks old and we were taking the subway to the mall. A whole gang of rowdy, rude teenage boys was messing around on the subway - pushing each other, swearing, being generally loud and obnoxious. One of them pushed another one straight into Mae's stroller. Normally, I'll admit to being intimidated by teenage boys, especially when they travel in packs, but something inside me snapped of its own accord. I gave it to those kids. I can't remember exactly what I said, but I know they backed off the train at the next stop, apologizing profusely. Mae slept through the whole thing.

It's happened a few times since, too. This one kid on a skateboard nearly ran into her. This other guy flung open a taxi door without looking. A man threw his cigarette butt onto the sidewalk and it came within inches of her stroller. Every single time, I'm surprised, and secretly pleased, when the mother bear roars. She's got attitude and angry, angry eyes. She means business, and I like that in a bear.

Personally, if I were you, I wouldn't mess with her. She'd try to be reasonable about it, I'm sure, but if you hurt her cub on purpose, she wouldn't hesitate. She'd bite your head off and swallow it in one gulp.

Hear her Roar

2007-08-19T06:02:00.000-07:00

Lately, when Mae is busy doing something important - like pulling all of the Ziplock bags out of the box, or splashing around in the cats' water dish - and you interrupt her, she throws the most amazing full-body tantrums. When you pick her up to redirect her away from her tail pulling, rock eating, shoe licking or other inappropriate activity, she starts shaking her head violently to tell you "NO" and then her arms get in on it. She punches at the air with tiny hands. She kicks her legs hard, like she's riding a very big bicycle.

And there's a noise that goes along with it, too, but it's a little hard to describe. Sometimes it's a long, sustained whine, but other times it's all kinds of funny, short syllables strung together, as if she was trying to tell you something and you kept rudely interrupting. "Be. Da. Da-dah. Be. Da. Un. De. Daaahhhhhhhh."

I guess we should be discouraging tantrums in general, and we do try not to laugh, but it's hard sometimes. There's something so endearing about the whole thing. She's just so, so mad, and so, so determined to let the world know about it. And then, fifteen seconds later, once she's on to the next thing, she's so, so over it.

Getting to Know You

2007-08-14T10:49:00.000-07:00

I don't completely know Mae yet. If I had to pick one, most surprising thing about new motherhood, this'd definitely be it.

When I was pregnant, I had this naive idea that she'd be born, and then I'd know her... but, instead, she was born, and she was a little stranger and I was a stranger to her, too, and - ever since that day - we've been slowly working away at getting to know each other.

If I had to say who she was though... today... Tuesday, August 14 at 2:16 p.m, age 11-and-a-half months.... I'd tell you that she's a very joyful person, but also very cautious. She laughs a lot and loves to be around people... but only when you give her lots of space and time to adjust to new surroundings.

She loves to eat. Especially cheese and peaches. She dives for the spoon. She smacks her lips. She says "Mmmmmm" after each bite.

She grins ear-to-ear and babbles at strangers, but goes shy and hides under the brim of her sun hat if they respond.

She's a reader.

She's an explorer.

She's an excellent, steady stair climber. Solid on her feet. Careful, coordinated and curious.

She loves the wading pool, and the sandbox, and the science centre, but hates all other noisy places.

She goes bananas over doggies.

She started out quiet, but now she talks non-stop. She points at all the trees when we go for walks and tells big stories about them.

She's mostly laid-back and usually cooperative - at least - until she's not... and if she's extra tired, or very cranky, or feeling sick, she's really, really not.

She's gorgeous. She's lovely. She's scandalously cute, and I'm pretty sure she knows it.

And she's changing every day.

Our Little Unvacation

2007-08-12T10:27:00.000-07:00

Traveling with a baby is a special kind of hell.

My husband had the week off so, in all our wisdom, we decided to kill two birds with one stone. First we went to his parent's cottage, then on to visit my family.

Just the sheer volume of stuff we had to take along was (as always) staggering. I reserved a large-ish rental car, and we filled the trunk to the brim with the playpen, highchair, baby-sized life jacket, towels, clothes, diapers, formula, ice packs, food, toys, the complete boxed-set of Baby Einstein videos, storybooks, pillows, etc., etc., etc. Mae easily needs ten times her body weight in stuff just to spend one night away from home, and we were looking at a full week here.

We decided to head out as early as possible. So, after dinner last Friday night, we changed her into her jammies, put her in the car seat and left. We figured she'd sleep through the drive this way, and she did. But when we got to unfamiliar cottage, in the dark, and Mae woke up, she wasn't pleased. Actually, I've never seen her scream like that. I'm sure people could hear her clear across the lake. And nothing would comfort her: not cuddles, or books, or toys or even (the big guns) the tiger puppet in the Baby Einstein Numbers Nursery video. We walked with her for hours until I finally had to let her cry herself to sleep - something I've never done before and never want to do again.

Things got a bit better after that screaming start, but it was still the most un-relaxing vacation I've ever had. Mae still isn't walking much on her own, but she crawls quickly and can stand up without help. She's in to absolutely everything. The cottage wasn't childproofed, and my dad's house was even worse. They never, ever throw anything away. The tippy piles of stuff on every surface are treacherous. Not to mention the extremely chokey and dangerous things we kept finding on the floor... a bottle cap here, a knife there, an ant trap under there...

Then, to further complicate life, Mae is in a clingy stage. Nobody but mommy or daddy will do. She didn't want her grandparent, uncles, aunts or anyone else picking her up, snuggling her, giving her a bottle, changing her diaper or even holding her hands to walk her around. They all tried to be tough about it, but you could tell it hurt their feelings. And while I also know that, one day, when she's a teenager and doesn't want to be within ten feet of me, I'll miss this stage, right now I'm finding it pretty exhausting.

Every single time we come through the front door after a trip like this - arms loaded with baby gear, throats dry from singing one too many overly-cheerful rounds of "The Old Lady who Swallowed a Fly" - I say: "That's it. We're never going anywhere again." But this time.... this time, I definitely mean it.

You know you've finally relaxed when...

2007-08-03T06:23:00.000-07:00

You know you've finally relaxed when, not only have you completely stopped sterilizing bottles but - yesterday - you didn't even flinch, or stop to think about it before letting your baby drink from the garden hose.

To market, to market, to give mom a break...

2007-07-31T09:42:00.000-07:00

My neighbour took Mae to the market to give me a break. So nice. I haven't gone out alone since the last time she babysat and I went to the dentist on July 17, if you can even count that as a break. I mean, obviously, there are breaks when my husband is home on the weekends, but it's not quite the same. Those are only breaks until I hear her crying or talking and go to see what's up, or until my husband can't find the bottles or a soother or something else and calls up the stairs. To be a real break and to officially count, Mae and I have to be physically separated by at least two-blocks because, if we're not, I can't stop myself from listening to see what she's up to, and popping my head downstairs to check in.

The weirdest part of it is that - for the most part - I don't mind the constant togetherness. In the eleven months since she's been born, the longest I've ever gone out is probably five hours. And when I do go out without her - like I did an hour ago, to get groceries - I find myself looking at all the moms with babies and feeling weirdly jealous and lonely.

I feel like a loser admitting this, but I'm actually, at this very minute, watching the clock because they were supposed to be back at 1:00ish and it's already 12:54. Oh. there they are now. Yay!

Ick. Ick. Ick.

2007-07-25T07:36:00.000-07:00

I've been wondering when, developmentally-speaking, kids start to become aware of grossness. Whenever it is, Mae is definitely not there yet. If left to her own devices, she'd happily chow down on handfuls of sand and dirt (including bugs, if she could find them) then gnaw away on dirty sandbox toys and somebody's old shoe (found on the ground, of course).

This morning, while I had my back turned for a fraction of a millisecond, she plunged both hands into her poopy diaper and gleefully smeared it all over the crib sheet and her pajamas, and my arm, and her legs. I have (I think) developed a pretty high gross-out tolerance for certain things lately, but that one got me.

Awhile back, I was joking with my husband that I was going to buy a little cassette recorder and attach it to my belt. On it, I'd play an endless loop of me saying "No. Not for your mouth. No. Ick. Not for your mouth. Ick. Ick. Ick. Not for your mouth..." Honestly, though, it's not seeming like a half-bad idea these days.

One Clever Duck

2007-07-19T07:10:00.000-07:00

It completely blows my mind how much Mae understands these days. For example, if she's feeding herself yogurt and you ask for the spoon, please, she will put it right in your hand. Well, most times. Other times she will throw it on the floor and then lean over to see where it went, looking amazed and amused. She also understands "Stand up big and tall, please," and "Sit your bum, please."

And she knows her way around the house. "Lets get in the stroller," I'll say, or "Which way to the bath?" and she holds one of my index fingers in each hand and leads me there, barreling headlong, practically panting with excitement.

And yesterday. Oh my God. Yesterday. It was the best day ever. Not only did she say mama for the first time, but she also gave me a present. We were at the park having a snack of Cheerios. I was picking them up from her stroller tray one at a time, and she was opening her mouth like a little bird so I could pop them in. Then all of a sudden she reached into her mouth, took out the Cheerio I'd just fed her and, with a huge smile, tried to feed it back to me. Was it gross? Oh yes. But I ate it anyway because that's what mothers do. And I loved every mushy, pre-chewed second of it.

Putting one foot in front of the other...

2007-07-18T09:55:00.001-07:00

Big news at our house. Mae took two steps on Monday all by herself. We were in the backyard with our neighbour (Yaya). Mae's daddy was sitting exactly two steps away and Yaya just let go of her hands and said "Walk to Daddy," and she did! It was amazing, but also not amazing.What I mean is, it was so easy and so natural. She's been working up to it for such a long time now that it barely seemed like an effort. It makes me wonder if she might have done it even sooner if I'd just let go of her hands. Unfortunately, I'm particularly bad at letting go when it comes to her. It's something I have to work on.

And then, this morning, she said mamma while walking towards me, and has been saying it over and over again ever since. It's the most beautiful sound on earth.

Also, I'm quitting my job this week. Maybe even today, if I get around to it. Mae and I just aren't ready for daycare. She's extremely shy in new situations. Big groups of noisy kids get her all upset. Like, last week, we went to the early years' centre, and the kids sang Row, Row, Row Your Boat with the verse about the crocodile where you scream at the end. And, oh my God, it was traumatic. She had big fat tears running down her cheeks and was clinging to my shirt and we had to go outside and pick dandelions until it was all over. That's not an isolated event by any means. It happens almost every time we go there.

And, while I know she'd get used to the noise and routines of a daycare eventually if she had to, I don't think I would. It probably goes back to my inability to just let her go, but still, I can't make myself be okay with the idea of her spending 75% of her time being taken care of in a strange place by adults who aren't me. If she went to daycare, and I went back to work, I'd see her in the morning (while we rushed around getting ready for daycare) and at night (while we rushed around getting dinner ready and putting PJs on) and on weekends, of course, but still. It's not good enough. Plus, I did the math. After paying for daycare, transportation and work clothes, I'd be bringing home a whopping $600 a month. When it comes right down to it, you couldn't pay me enough to leave her at some strange daycare... and $600 is definitely, definitely not enough.

So I'm going to freelance, and I'm going to hope that some of the writing grants I've applied for come through, and I'm going to - somehow - make it work. I feel like I'm at the edge of a very big cliff about to step off. It's terrifying, but also kind of exciting. I keep repeating this quote in my head, from one of the dumb self-help books my mom gave me: "Leap and the net will appear."

So, here I go, just like Mae, letting go and putting one foot in front of the other, just hoping beyond hope that I'm ready, and that it will all come naturally.

Slow Going

2007-07-10T06:54:00.001-07:00

Mae is so unrushable. It's infuriating. Yesterday, it was ten squillion degrees in our house (today it is, too) and, after she had the indecency to wake up early from her nap and interrupt the work I was trying to do, all I wanted to do was to get her dressed so we could go to the library, the grocery store, the pharmacy and the health food store after stopping for a coffee, then swing by the shady sandbox on the way home.

But the plan hit a snag when she didn't want to get dressed. There was a kitty to look at, and a tambourine to play with, and it was fun to wait for the split second when I took her diaper off and was reaching for a wipe to sit her poopy bum smack down in the middle of the clean sheet. And, of course, once the diaper was back on and the mess cleaned up, staying still to put on pants seemed beside the point to her. Then we had to have a bottle, which she took fifteen minutes to drink one-twentieth of while taking breaks to putter all over the living room pulling books off the shelves.

Sunscreen was next. And she always has to chew on one sunscreen bottle while I squeeze sunscreen out of the other. And she always has to close the tray on the stroller herself. And she always had to point at the light in the front hall while babbling incoherently. And she always has to take her shoes off again after I put them on.

And by the time we'd finished all of that, I had to pee... So, basically, by the time we got out the door, it was practically time for her next nap. We rushed to the pharmacy, spent five minutes at the library, stopped by the sandbox for two seconds until some kid threw sand at her, then came home.

By the time I fed her lunch and put her back to sleep, I was on the edge of snap, and it occurred to me that, really, I was the one who was approaching things all wrong.

Mae is unrushable. It's how she is. It's the hallmark of toddlerhood, which she is now entering at breathtaking speed (ironically enough). Clearly, if I don't want to go insane, I'm going to have to be the one to slow down, which is infuriating... totally infuriating... but just might end up being good for me.

Mystery Butt

2007-07-06T06:06:00.000-07:00

I can't take another day of this torture. I need pants that fit!

For months now, I've resisted going clothes shopping. First, because I don't want to spend the money. Second, because I'm not going anywhere much besides the park and the early years' centre, so who cares what I'm wearing? Third, because I can't figure out what size I am anymore, anyway.

All my maternity stuff is huge... and the jeans I bought just after Mae was born (when the idea of putting on something without an elastic waistband made me giddy) fall off my hips now. And you'd think my normal pre-pregnancy clothes might fit, right? Only you'd be wrong. They're mostly too big, too. It's like the combination of breastfeeding, running around after Mae and not always having time to eat lunch has shrunk my hips, legs, butt and everything else down to nothing.... except for my stomach, where there's still a strange, bulgy, flappy thing that, I'm guessing, will never go away.

This morning I was so desperate for something that wouldn't fall off that I actually put on a pair of sweatpants... even though I swore to myself when my mat leave started that I would never be a sweatpants mom. I ended up looking in the mirror and taking them off again but, still, it was an awfully close call. So, that's it. I'm taking my mystery-sized butt shopping this weekend. Wish me luck!

Hanging up the Nursing Bras, at Long, Long Last!

2007-06-25T17:14:00.000-07:00

As of this weekend, Mae is no longer breastfeeding. Da be da de de dum dum. Bring in the brass band! Release the balloons! Break out the pretty bras!! I've got my body back!!

All the books I read told me I'd miss it. The nice, snuggly, close times. The special bond, the convenience, etc. But they were so wrong. It stopped hurting so much after the first three months, and I eventually stopped hating it, but I would never go so far as to say I liked it.

And as for convenience, bottles are where it's at. I wasn't a very good public breast feeder at the best of times and - since she sprouted teeth four months ago - I haven't even attempted it. Near the end, Mae and I just weren't a pretty picture while breastfeeding, what with her biting me, kicking me, wiggling around, getting bored and deciding to pull off mid-let-down, and me yelling "Ouch!" or else "Focus!!! Focus!!! Focus!!!". But now we can go anywhere we want with a bottle in tow. I don't even have to warm it up. She doesn't care. She's chill like that. And if she wants to bite the plastic nipple or wrench her head around 90 degrees while eating, she can now be my guest.

I've heard and read horror stories but, for us, the whole weaning thing was, thankfully, a non event. I just dropped a feed every couple of days - whenever I felt like it - and she just started taking a bottle - whenever she felt like it. And, honestly, we're both much happier with our new arrangement.

I'm glad I breastfed her, don't get me wrong. I'm glad because of the health benefits ... and I'm glad because it was free and money has been tight... and I'm glad because it helped me to drop my pregnancy weight fast... but more than any of those things, right now, I'm glad it's over.

Vaccinated

2007-06-22T05:04:00.000-07:00

a review for the Parent Bloggers network

I don't get people who don't vaccinate their kids. I seriously don't. I remember one woman in our prenatal class was so against any kind of "unnecessary western medicine" that, not only was she not going to vaccinate, she was adamant her newborn not even be given eye drops after the birth (something that's standard procedure in Canadian hospitals). She felt this way even after the midwife warned her that some babies who don't get the drops go blind. Hello??? Blind!!!

To each his own, and whatever, but I just can't imagine personally taking that kind of risk when it comes to my daughter. Even the debate about the possible link between the MMR vaccine and autism (something there's no scientific evidence to support) doesn't dissuade me one bit... not when you weigh the remote risk of a possible connection with the definite dangers of measles, mumps and rubella.

So, there. I've warned you up front. I read the book Vaccinated - One Man's Quest to Defeat the World's Deadliest Diseases (by Paul A. Offit, MD.) with a bias, to say the least.

Still, as pro-vaccine as I am, I was amazed at how much I didn't know. I was surprised to learn that many of the vaccines we give children today were invented relatively recently. Vaccines for measles, mumps, rubella, chickenpox, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, pneumococcus, meningococcus and Haemophilus influenza type b were all invented after the year 1950. I was also surprised to learn that all 9 of them were invented by the same guy: Maurice Hilleman - arguably one of the most important scientists of our time, and a man the majority of people have never heard of (myself included, until I got this book in the mail).

"Before these vaccinations were made, Americans could expect that every year measles would cause severe, fatal pneumonia; rubella would attack unborn babies causing them to go blind or deaf or become mentally retarded; and Hib would infect the brain and spinal cord , killing or disabling thousands of young children. These nine vaccines virtually eliminated all of this suffering and disability and death." - from Vaccinated

To say we all owe the guy a great big "Hey, thanks. Great job," is an understatement. But, unfortunately, we're a little late. He died in 2005 without ever having been properly recognized by the public, the press or the Nobel Prize Committee.

Better late than never though, I figure. So I'm grateful for the chance to have learned about Hillman through this book - a detailed, interesting, sometimes disturbing and other times disgusting look at his work.

Raised on a farm in Montana after being practically orphaned at birth, he harnesed a relentless drive to succeed and became a genius in his field. Through direct quotes from interviews with Hillman as well as commentary from his family and fellow scientists, Offit pieces together a portrait of a man who was as surly and uncompromising as he was kind and brilliant. Hillman was truly a force to be reckoned with, which was a lucky thing, considering he had a lot of roadblocks to overcome in the making of his vaccines.

Aside from describing the processes Hillman used to invent and produce his vaccines, as well as describing the work of other scientists which he built on, the book goes into great detail about the ethical battles Hilleman and other scientist faced. One such controversy had to do with their decision to use cells from an aborted fetus in the creation of vaccines (even though using cells from monkeys, chickens and other animals was proven to be unsafe as they could contain undetectable viruses that could be spread to humans).

I was also astounded to learn about the uphill battle Hilleman sometimes faced to get adequate funding and facilities. You'd think curing the world's deadliest diseases might be considered somewhat of a priority, but apparently not. To treat a military outbreak of Japanese encephalitis virus (JEV) - an infection of the brain which is transmitted by mosquitos - in 1944, Hillman was forced to produce a vaccine in an old barn by putting diseased mouse brains in a leaky cocktail blender. Okay. Ick.

He also faced controversy (understandably) over the testing of vaccines. Many vaccines at the time were tested on institutionalized mentally retarded children. Hilleman rationalized it by pointing out that retarded children, who were confined to institutions, were at greater risk during outbreaks of diseases... "They weren't used for testing because they were expendable, but rather because they were vulnerable." (p. 25). Yeah. It's a little hard to swallow.

But whether or not you agree with his methods (and some of them were, admittedly, harder to agree with than others) you can't deny that Maurice Hilleman had a mission, and a whole lot of stick-to-it-iv-ness. As a result, he saved the lives - and continues to save the lives - of millions of children around the world.

If you're in to science, you'll definitely enjoy this book. If you're not, it's still worth skimming. And the second-last chapter, which deals with the autism debate, is especially relevant. At the very least, you'll gain an appreciation for the work of a true modern hero.

Hello, Words!

2007-06-21T18:06:00.000-07:00

Mae's first words have been (in this order):

Dada
Kitty
Hi
Quack, quack, quack

And while I whole-heartedly approve of her appreciation of my husband, the cats, friendly greetings and the sound a duck makes, I still can't help lamenting... where, oh where, is Mommy? Will it ever come? I'm seriously considering making her an entire deck of flash cards with my face on them. Okay, not seriously... but I'm definitely un-seriously considering it. It has fleetingly crossed my mind at least once... possibly twice.

Miss-Mae, you've got the kind of daddy who...

2007-06-17T09:30:00.000-07:00

... cried the first time he held you and, in seven years, I can count on one hand the number of times I've seen him cry.

... gets up with you every morning at 6:30 (or earlier), just so he can spend a few hours playing with you before he leaves for work, then comes straight home afterwards so he can see you again.

... loves to see you laugh and will do just about anything to make it happen, whether it's miewing like a kitty, balancing toys on his head, recklessly flipping you upside down or pushing you endlessly in your swing.

... can't wait to take you rock climbing, bike riding, kite-skiing and parachuting (okay, maybe not parachuting, but all of those other dangerous things), because he's so excited to show you the things he loves to do.

... always makes a show of going bananas over the latest hand print craft you've made, even though you've made a million.

... cheers you on with every word you say, inch you crawl and step you take.

... will always love you, right down to your tippy-toes.

Raindrops on Roses 2.0

2007-06-12T18:37:00.000-07:00

It's been a long time since I wrote my last post about Mae's favourite things. She's so big now, and so much has changed, so here we go again. In no particular order...

#1 - Washcloths
Gladly the Cross-eyed Bear, her former lovey, (which made for such a nice, sentimental story) has been unceremoniously replaced by baby-sized washcloths. She sleeps with one clenched in each hand. Sometimes, when I go in to get her after a nap, I'll find her waving one out the slats of the crib, like she's some kind of damsel, bidding her lover farewell as the train pulls away.

#2 - Spatula
Why do we bother having an entire box full of gaudy, musical battery-sucking toys? Mae's happiest times are with the spatula. She chews it, drops it on the floor, hits the cat with it, drops it on the floor again, chews it again.

#3 - Kitties
Mae's first word was, technically dada. She says it all the time, but we aren't convinced she really knows what it means yet. She definitely calls her daddy dada. But she also called a cardboard box dada the other day.. and the highchair, and the umbrella on the picnic table. But when she sees a kitty go by, she always says the same word. It's something kind of like "kee-ee," but you can tell what she's going for. Plus, when she sees one, she just laughs and laughs like they're the funniest things on four legs. She chases them mercilessly. Still, it's amazing but true (knock wood): we've got three cats, and in nine and a half months, she hasn't been bitten or scratched once.

#4 - Sandbox
Mae is all about the sandbox at the park. We go almost every day. I love it too. It's got all kinds of great digger toys and plastic food that somebody donated, plus great sides for sitting on (for moms), and you never know who you might meet there.

#5 - Bread
Yay carbs! Bread is good for eating, and also good for squishing.

#6 - Books
Sigh. It warms a writer/editor/mother's heart. The first thing she does when she gets downstairs most mornings is to pull every book off her shelf. And while she doesn't exactly treat them with respect, she does become deeply involved with them... tasting, banging, ripping. As long as she keeps being interested in them, it's all okay with me.

Where does my time go?

2007-06-08T06:43:00.000-07:00

It's another blog blast Friday with the Parent Bloggers and Light Iris. The topic this time around: where does the time go?

God, I wish I knew.

Lately, Mae and I putter through the days, going to the park, eating lunch, getting groceries, going for a nap, taking a bath... Every now and then we'll do something special. Like, yesterday, we went to the petting zoo. We visited with the cows, saw the fattest pig, walked underneath the trees that were dropping fluffy white seed pods. It was all very dream-like. But then, so is every day, even if we don't "do" anything. Since Mae was born, I feel like I've been living in a bit of a time warp. The first three months of her life lasted about twenty years, for example... and the past two have lasted six seconds.

Yesterday on the phone my little brother asked, with what sounded like pity, aren't you bored yet? To which I replied, "God, no."

I guess I can see how our life might look a little boring from the outside. I'm not sealing deals or meeting deadlines. There's nowhere we especially have to be, and - with the exception of a few loads of a laundry; a little grocery shopping - there's nothing we especially have to get done. If you stripped our schedule down to its basics, it'd go something like this:

Mae gets up.
Mae eats.
Mae plays / We do errands.
Mae goes back to sleep.
Repeat.
Repeat.
Repeat.

But you'd be missing the hundreds of details, which are what really make it magic. Like under the category of "Mae gets up" alone you could add so many subheadings...

Mae Gets Up

Mae rocks on her hands and knees in the crib while telling an unintelligible story.
Mae roars when I come in.
I get a hug.
Diaper change during which Mae pulls herself to standing, wiggles all around, takes ten wipes out of the box while I'm not looking and tries to eat them.
Face wash torture.
Tooth brushing torture.
Getting-dressed torture.
We go downstairs.
We stop in the hallway to admire the kitty.
We stop on the stairs to admire the banister.
We stop to wave at our reflections in the mirror while saying things like "Who's that pretty baby? Oh, that's Mae. Mae is a pretty baby. Wave hello to Mae. Oh, hello pretty baby."
We go to the mailbox to see what's there.
We look at all the pictures in the pizza fliers.
We stop to pick a flower from the bush and Mae tries to eat it.
We go inside and stop by the mirror to wave at ourselves one more time.
and on
and on
and on...

That probably still doesn't sound so exciting from the outside... but what I can't quite put into words is the almost unbearable sweetness of it all; her sticky little hand on my cheek; the way it feels to be greeted by her two-toothed smile.

Our time goes to just being together, I guess. To just slowing down and looking at everything, and learning about everything, because everything in the world is brand-new to Mae and, somehow, that makes it seem brand new to me as well. And when you're coming at it from that perspective, doing nothing much can take a very long time.

What we learned in the sandbox today

2007-05-30T14:11:00.000-07:00

Tarantulas are the biggest spiders on earth. A tarantula can eat an entire frog. Honestly, four-year-olds know the coolest stuff.

Happy Nine Month Birthday, Ducky!

2007-05-29T17:31:00.001-07:00

Today is Mae's 9 month birthday! It was a HUGE day in our house. Just giant. Not only did she do her first definitely-not-an-accident waving for 'hi' and 'bye,' she also learned how to clap. Also, if you make motorboat lips at her now, she makes them right back. We had a tea party with our neighbour this afternoon and basically spent the whole time making farting noises at each other. It wasn't exactly ladylike and civilized, but a good time was had by all.

I have to say, 9 months is definitely the best age yet (and I do realize I've said the exact same thing about every age she's been so far). But, honestly, 9 months... it can't get better than this. It's just so cool to see the beginnings of communication happening.

The beginning of mobility, on the other hand, I have mixed feelings about. Yesterday Mae spent the whole day tearing around the main floor finding wires to pull on and corners to bang her head on. It was horrible. Every time I moved her away from a dangerous area or tried to distract her with a toy, she'd scream. By the end of the day, I didn't have any energy left. When I called my mom she squealed with excitement (like the good grandma that she is) to hear that Mae was really, really crawling but I couldn't share her enthusiasm. "I hate crawling," I said. "I wish she would unlearn it." My mom laughed at me. I guess she's been there.

Anyway, after a night spent childproofing (even though, I swear, I thought we'd already more or less childproofed), things were much better today and I'm sure I'll adjust. It definitely makes Mae giddy to be so mobile. You can just tell how proud she is when she pulls herself up on the sofa cushions or almost catches the wonderful, lovely kitty she's been crawling after. And if something makes her that happy, I guess it makes me happy too... even if it also makes me tired.

Go for Gold

2007-05-28T10:51:00.001-07:00

If there was such a thing as the Parenting Olympics, I think the Toddler Diaper Change would have to be one of the main events.

It's pretty much got it all: Precision... (can she get the diaper on with the tabs facing forward?) speed... (while chasing the crawling, rolling, incredibly wiggly baby across the floor) high stakes... (before a poo gets made on the Persian rug?) It's hands down the most athletic thing I do these days, anyway.

Mae on the Move

2007-05-27T15:58:00.000-07:00

We went to Sudbury for the weekend to see my family and, once again, I feel like I've come back with a different baby (we really need to stop going there, I think). When we left home, Mae was kind of puddling around with the whole crawling thing: rocking on her hands and knees and inching forward and backwards safely and at a leisurely pace. But now that we're home, she's speed-crawling with reckless abandon. Blink twice and she's halfway across the living room fiddling with the door of the cabinet where I keep my grandmother's antique china, or in hot pursuit of an unfortunate kitty.

Her crawl is not text-book perfect (if there is such a thing). It's not a diaper commercial baby kind of crawl. It's a bit wonky and special. She sort of walks with one leg while dragging the other and pulling herself along with her arms. Something about it reminds me of a three-legged dog. I doubt she'll really have much time to perfect it though anyway. She's pulling herself up to standing constantly. You can tell that she already thinks this crawling stuff is for babies and that she's got her eye on the next prize.

What's Red and White and Tired all Over?

2007-05-20T07:15:00.001-07:00

Me! Reddish hair. Whiteish skin. Totally exhausted. Good riddle, eh? Okay, not really. But it's the best I can do today.

Mae went on a sleep strike last night. She was up for a snack at 1:30, then sort of went back to bed, and then was up again from about 2:30 until 4:00 ish just, you know, wanting to hang out, bounce up and down while holding the side of the crib and talk. She screamed whenever I left the room, but she wasn't hungry. She didn't need a diaper change. She didn't seem to be teething (although I gave her some Tylenol anyway at 3:30 out of desperation).

I rocked with her. I held her. I read to her. I shushed her softly. Then I shushed her in a very angry way. I explained to her in a very calm and rational voice that mommy has only a limited amount of patience after midnight and that she was using it up fast. Then I explained the same thing in a not-so calm and rational voice. I tried to look at her lovingly and remind myself that one day, I'd miss these times, except I didn't believe myself. I snapped "NOTHING," at my husband when he stumbled in, bleary-eyed, asking what he could do to help, then went right back to rocking with her miserably, not knowing what to do.

Eventually she had a bit of a bottle and went back to sleep and everything is fine now. There's not much point to this post, really. I have nothing insightful to say about this. Nothing at all, really, to say except that I'm tired.

I am a mother because...

2007-05-11T06:30:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking about how to fill in that blank for a week now, ever since the Parent Blogger network I'm part of partnered up with a site called Light Iris to issue this blog post challenge.

I am a mother because...

I haven't come up with much. To tell you the truth, eight months after Mae's birth, I still feel like I'm figuring this mothering thing out day by day (or sometimes moment by moment). I'm happier than I've ever been in my life. She's the greatest little person to spend the days with. She's smiley, and healthy and hitting all the developmental milestones.... but, all the same, my confidence is so easily shaken that, some days, I feel like I barely deserve the title 'mother'.

Pushing Mae in the swing at the park, the mother standing next to me makes an off-hand comment: "It's not as warm as they forecast." Immediately, I'm convinced that what she's really trying to comment on is the obvious fact that Mae is not wearing mittens while her golden-haired son has got on adorable teddy bear mitts which he is not even pulling off at every opportunity and this is, obviously, because she is a good mother and I, clearly, am not.

My husband comes home from work and asks, innocently enough: "Did you water the new tree today?" "No," I snap back. "I didn't get around to watering the tree because..." and then I rhyme off a ridiculously long list of the things I did that day, including every diaper change and every meltdown I had to deal with because I wouldn't let Mae eat Kleenex... all in an effort to spell out for him that I am not lazy and that, while he's away earning the money, I don't I sit around all day in my underpants neglecting our daughter while I watch Oprah (Okay, bad example. I do watch Oprah and, sometimes, Mae is only in her diaper, which is a lot like underpants but, I swear, that's the only downtime I have some days between baby care, dishes and loads of laundry).

And, of course, I'm not suggesting that my insecurities really have anything to do with my husband or with the other mom at the swings. There have been a few people (a very few) who have rudely suggested that I should be doing this or that differently when it comes to Mae but, comparatively, I've been about a hundred times harder on myself.

It's like I can't quite shake this feeling that the other moms I know are really mothers, while I'm just in disguise. Sure, I love my daughter with an intensity I didn't know existed before. And, yeah, I'm pushing the stroller. I'm wearing the shirt with spit-up on the sleeve. I can read Mr. Brown Can Moo in the dark, with my eyes closed, with or without the actual book in my hand. But I don't really know what I'm doing. I'm only muddling through, making up the words to the songs as I go. Whenever somebody tells me how good Mae is, I shrug my shoulders: "She just came out that way," I answer. "She's a great baby." And she is. She's got the sweetest, happiest nature; the funniest smile.

But maybe, on this, my first mother's day, I could try giving myself some of the credit. I might be feeling my way through the dark with this motherhood thing, but I'm staying on course all the same. I'm figuring it out one step at a time. I'm raising a great kid. And I'm willing to bet that every mother feels that same uncertainty - even the mom at the swing set. How could she not?

It's not like any of us come into this job with prior experience in being sent home from the hospital with a total stranger who cries, doesn't sleep, can't talk and can't even support the weight of their own head. It's not like any of us can possibly be prepared (no matter how many books we've read, how much advice we've been given, or how much help we've got) to be the primary caregiver; to know how to protect that little person and help them grow up to be a responsible, caring, fully functioning adult. I mean, Jesus Christ. It's huge, and it's hard, and it's scary, even when it's amazing and rewarding and totally magic. It's the biggest, most complicated, most lifelong job I can think of.

We're all stumbling through motherhood and, for the most part, we're doing the best we can. As hard as I can be on myself some days, deep down I believe anyone who takes on the job with a loving heart and the best of intentions deserves to feel proud of herself.

So, I've been thinking about this question all week, and this is what I've finally come up with:

I am a mother because I don't really know what I'm doing, but I'm doing it anyway, and I'm doing it with all of my love, and I'm doing it with all of my energy. When it's all said and done, that aught to be enough.

Hey, Tambourine Girl. Play a Song for Me.

2007-05-02T13:56:00.000-07:00

One nice thing about being eight-months-old: When you get naked and play the tambourine, it's incredibly cute. When you get older... not so much.

If Naps Were Made of Gold...

2007-04-30T11:01:00.000-07:00

If naps were made of gold (which they are), I'd be rich (which I guess, following that logic, I am).

Mae has started having three naps a day. It's such a beautiful thing. In just over a week, I've written more than 12 single-spaced pages of the YA book I've been working on. Not to mention that the dishes usually get done and the house is more or less clean. Plus. I've re-covered three of our four dining room chairs.

And then there's the fact that she's even lovelier than usual after she's had a little rest. She peeks out from underneath her strawberry sun hat and leans forward in her stroller during walks, babbling away at the flowers and trees. And when she does her shy smile, hiding her mouth against her own shoulder, people melt for miles around.

Of course, the only downside to all of this is that I'm already hooked on our new lifestyle. A friend reminded me recently that babies usually start napping only once a day, somewhere around their first birthdays, and I wanted to scream "Noooooo! Not Mae!! Mae will keep having three naps a day until she's at least four. She has to!"

Sigh. Oh well. I guess the main thing is to enjoy the naps while I've got them. Speaking of which, she will probably be up in about half an hour, and after that she'll be wanting to crawl around (since she's officially crawling, as of Saturday!), so, for the time being, I am off to write while I still can...

Haiku for Spring

2007-04-20T05:39:00.000-07:00

La la la la la
Springtime is finally here
Die, pink snowsuit, die!!

The Times They are A Changin'

2007-04-18T13:43:00.000-07:00

Mae is a scooterbug. She's not exactly crawling yet, but she's thisclose. She gets up into a kind of downward dog yoga pose (only with more drooling and babbling), planting her elbows (or face) on the floor, putting her toes down, then straightening her legs to push up. Then she kind of scoots herself forward, or else rolls sideways. She's been working on it for ages now.

I think that's why I haven't written much lately. The changes are happening constantly, but also so gradually that it's hard to spot them.

Like how she puts a hand on your arm now to let you know she'd like your attention. Or the way she's figured out that her toy hammer makes a bang-bang-sproing sound when you bang it. How she's so good at sitting up that she hardly ever falls over. The way she likes to turn the entire toy box upside-down so all the stuff will fall out at once. How she's got two teeth (which I think I forgot to mention) and eats beans. How she sometimes covers her ears when you warn her there's a "big noise" coming. Plus, she's got a little kid look about her now.

I see people pushing strollers with little babies in them and think, I wonder what that's like? It's so crazy how fast it goes, and how quickly you forget each stage and become an expert on exactly the stage your baby is at right now which, thankfully, is all you really need to know anyway.

One of the momfriends said something very insightful the other day (those momfriends are so smart). She said she credits motherhood with helping her to slow down a little, and to chill out a lot. "Everything is a stage," she said, sounding amazed. "It'll all pass."

Stop, Hammer Time

2007-04-02T16:40:00.000-07:00

There are these nails in our floorboards that keep popping up. We've been meaning to fix them for ages. They're nasty little sock snaggers and, we figured, once Mae started crawling, would be horrible for her knees. This weekend, my husband got out the hammer to hammer them back into place.

Mae has never been the kind of baby who's bothered by loud noises (fire engines don't phase her, and we make a big game out of the coffee grinder every morning), so we weren't expecting her to mind the hammering... but we weren't expecting her to love it so much either. Every time my husband hammered a nail in she would start laughing hysterically. Just absolutely killing herself laughing. All but wiping a tear away with the back of her hand as if nail hammering were right up there at the top of the list of impossibly funny things in the world.

My husband ended up hammering in all of the problem nails, plus every other nail in the floor that was even sort of threatening to possibly pop up one day in the future. As long as she keeps finding this funny, it's safe to say I'll never have to nag my husband to fix anything (as long as it involves hammering) ever again!

Cookie Boobs

2007-03-29T15:02:00.001-07:00

Another big week over here. Mae had her first cookie... and then her second, and then her third. We're actually almost half finished the box. Don't worry though. They aren't good cookies. Not like those chocolate-covered marshmallow ones with the jam inside or anything. They're more like responsible dissolve-in-your-mouth Styrofoam-type cookies made mostly of rice.

When she sees me coming with one, she opens her mouth wide and juts her chin forward to reach for it with her face. Then she roars like a lion and spends about ten minutes goobering it into sticky mush that hardens to cookie cement all over her face, her hands, her clothes, the floor and anything else nearby.

The other day I was getting ready to go out and just happened to glance in the mirror. I had a tiny hand print made of cookie cement on my boob - like I'd been felt up by Cookie Monster.

LOL and Bad Haircut

2007-03-19T18:30:00.000-07:00

I found Mae's baby book in the drawer the other day and decided to flip through to fill in some blanks. I was doing fine, listing weights at monthly check-ins, dates for first teeth, memories about her first Christmas, and then I got to one that completely stumped me: "I first laughed out loud:......."

That's a big one, isn't it? But I honestly have no idea. What I can tell you is that, at some point, she started laughing, and now she laughs all the time. I can also tell you that it's the single greatest noise on the planet earth.

The other day, Mae was downstairs with my husband playing "upside down" (a thrilling game in which he flips her upside down, then shouts "UPSIDE DOWN," then she histerically laughs her head off, then he flips her right side up, then they do it again) and I just stopped what I was doing and stood there for the longest time, basking in the noise of her laughter. It reminds me of little bells. There's something that pure about it.

Or, at least, it had always seemed that way to me. But then yesterday I got a haircut; a bad, bad haircut. I'm not usually the kind of person who gets upset about hair (it grows back, after all) but this time I couldn't help it. It was much, much shorter than I'd asked for, with way too many layers. I kept saying to the hairdresser "I think that's short enough" and she'd say "Okay, I'm just tidying it up now," and then she'd chop off another three inches. The end result made me look a lot like Harry Potter.

When I got home, I cried over it while nursing Mae. When she heard me sniffling, she stopped and looked up at me with her big, curious eyes. "Oh Mae," I explained, sadly. "A terrible, terrible thing has happened to mummy's hair." Well, didn't the mean-spirited little brat burst out laughing like my suffering was the most hillarious joke of all time. "No. It's not funny," I explained, shaking my head. "It's a terrible thing." She laughed more.

But by the third time she laughed, I couldn't even be mad at her or properly feel sorry for myself anymore. I just like that sound too much. I ended up laughing at her laughter. And in the morning, after I washed all the hairdresser pouffiness out of the bad haircut, I was able to see that it was actually sort of cute, in a whimsical, pixie kind of way. Plus, it's true: it will grow out eventually.

In conclusion, I'm not going to go and say anything crazy, like that I'd get a bad haircut any day just to make my little baby laugh... but, at the very least, it was the silver lining in a bad, bad, bad hairday.

Snot Goblin of Misery

2007-03-15T13:49:00.000-07:00

Dooooh. We're sick. Again. Actually, Mae is almost better, but I was the last family member to catch the dreaded cold, so I'll be the last to shake it. Every breath I take sounds all rattly and phleghmy and retched. I'm like a snot goblin of misery.

This is just one more reason that Mae can never go to a daycare centre where, I've heard, constantly having a cold is the norm. It's just no way to live. The last of the nasty little cough she's still got is just heartbreaking.

Add to that the fact that our household is barely functioning as it is with me off full time (it took me two days to notice we were out of milk and, sometimes, a load of laundry can take three days to go from dirty to clean and folded), and well, it's settled. I definitely have to find a way to work from home as well as a lovely, nearby, virtually germ-free, part-time home daycare for Mae.

This is all do-able, right? Oh whatever. I barely have the energy to worry about it today. And, actually, to completely contradict myself, I almost miss work, where - if I was feeling as wretched as this - I could call in sick and take care of myself all day. Being sick with a sick six-month-old sucks. Ha! Say that six times fast. Or don't. Whatever. I don't care.

Nosy Old Lady #3

2007-03-09T16:13:00.000-08:00

My neighbourhood is full of nosy old ladies. I've had it. For the THIRD time today, I had one stop me on the street to berate me about what a bad mother I am. This afternoon's lady was the worst one yet.

It was a gorgeous day, relatively speaking (zero degrees), so I skipped the cuddle bag, put Mae in her snowsuit, threw on her white hat that always falls over her eyes and off we went.

Then halfway to the coffee shop, this lady started yelling at me. Full on, actual yelling. "NO BLANKET. BABY IS COLD!!" And so I yelled back at her, "Mind your own damned business, stupid lady who I hate."

Okay. No. I didn't. What I actually did was cross to the other side of the street and, from there, tried to murder her with laser beams that I shot out of my eyes. It didn't work.

I'd love to think that this problem will go away once the warmer weather hits, but I know better. The nosy old ladies will only switch from nagging me about blankets and snowsuits to lecturing me about sun hats. So I guess I just need to deal with it head on. Next time one of the old ladies rears her ugly, judgy head, I swear I will actually tell her to get lost. Or, at least, I will tell her that I don't appreciate the unsolicited advice... or, at the very least, I will shake my head silently in disapproval of her annoyingness and hope that she notices.

Fuzzy Friends and Magnetic Bunnies

2007-03-07T07:47:00.000-08:00

Hello Pushkin recently joined the Parent Bloggers Network. It's an online community of mostly mommy bloggers that matches bloggers with baby products to review. The moms get the products in the mail, the companies get reviews of their products posted on blogs, and voila: everybody is so happy.

This week, Mae and I worked on our first product review. It was a team effort: She played with the stuff. I observed.

"The stuff" was two sets of baby flash cards from a company called School Zone : Fuzzy Animal Friends Clever Baby Cards and " Infant Magnetic "Peek-a-Boo Bunny Guess Who?" Cards. My first impression of both products was that I wasn't all that impressed, however, Mae felt differently, and she's clearly the boss around here anyway.

The fuzzy animal cards are a lot like the pages of a board book with a different animal on each side, only they've got pully bits (for example, the tiger/lion card has a cord tail and crinkly fabric feet, and the swan/monkey card has a soft bit that makes the monkey's tail on one side, and the swan's neck on the other.) At first, I couldn't understand why they didn't just bind them together into a board book, rather than having 5 separate cards that looked perfect for getting scattered all over the house.

But then Mae explained to me (by demonstrating) that the reason School Zone didn't bind them into a book is that individual cards are much easier for little hands to manage. Over the week we've had them, cumulatively, she's spent hours flipping them over, and over, and over again; visiting with the animal on each side of each card; shaking them; babbling at them; crinkling their crinkly bits and feeling all the different textures; banging them on the floor and, of course, eating them.

Which brings me to my most major complaint. Her very favourite card is the "Tiny, shiny red ladybug" and its flip-side, "Fluffy yellow bird" and, as you can see from the photos above, the poor things just couldn't handle the power of her love. Within the first 20 minutes, the corner of this card had already been goobered into mush, and it just kept disintegrating from there. Although, I have to add that, despite all the goobering, the pully bits are still very firmly attached.

On one hand, I feel like these cards could be made of tougher stuff... but, then again, Mae did get her first tooth in the week we were testing the cards, and, also, I've never seen her love a toy with quite as much gusto as she loves the ladybug/bird. The other (less vigorously loved) cards held up better, with only the lion/tiger (the liger) showing any signs of wear and tear.

Because Mae loved them... adored them, even... refused to be separated from them... I'd have to say that the fuzzy animal cards are a great product. These guys clearly did their research when it comes to understanding what babies at my daughter's developmental stage like.

The Peek a Boo Bunny cards, on the other hand, weren't really Mae's thing. The age range printed on the packaging is 9+ months though, and Mae is only 6. I think she's just not quite ready to fully appreciate them yet, although, she did watch attentively every time I read her the cards (e.g., "Peek-a-boo! Who likes cheese?") and flipped them to reveal the answer under a flap (e.g., "Mouse likes cheese!)

As for me, I found the whole magnetic part kind of finicky. You're supposed to stick each card magnetically to the bunny base, put the bunny's magnetic hands over his magnetic eyes in "the peek-a-boo position", then flip the card, re-stick it, and uncover the bunny's eyes. Maybe I'm just lazy, but it seemed like a lot of unnecessary sticking and unsticking to me.

Also, even though they come with a carrying case for storage, it's still easy to lose a page or two. I'm all for the fuzzy animals being loose now that I've seen them in action, but I still think the peek-a-boo cards would have been better off bound into a board book. Also, three of the cards have the answer to the question printed right on the outside of the flap. Not sure if this was a printing mistake or what.

In summary...

The Fuzzy Animal Friends cards are a fantastic product for babies 6+ months. They're easy to handle and the crinkly, fuzzy, rattly or shiny bits provide tons of stimulation.

The Peek-a-Boo Bunny cards aren't really for us but, based on how much Mae loves the Fuzzy Animal Cards, I'm willing to bet she'll grow into loving the Peek-a-Boo cards as well, once she's a little closer to the recommended age.

Umbrella Stroller vs. Worst Snowstorm Ever

2007-03-01T15:02:00.000-08:00

Winter finally decided to show up in our city. It's cool, except that I wouldn't have minded a little bit of warning. The forecast for the day was mild flurries, so we set off for Momfriend Thursday with our tiny umbrella stroller. I even thought twice about whether or not we really needed the cuddle bag and only grabbed the plastic stroller cover on the way out the door as an afterthought.

But by the time we started for home at 3:30, the snow was already too thick to push the stroller through, and there was tons more falling, along with nasty winds whipping it all around us, making it seem like even more. One of the momfriends had her baby in his snuggly, and she helped us get to the subway, but it was super rough going. I ended up folding up the stroller and carrying it over my shoulder while she took our diaper bag, then holding Mae in my arms and trying not to wipe out or smack anyone on the sidewalk with the stroller.

It was honestly a pretty scary, horrible, vulnerable feeling being such a long way from home, with such a little baby, in such a bad storm. Then it got worse when we got off the subway and realized there was no way we were going to be able to get onto a bus. The station was already packed with people waiting, and no busses in sight.

Thankfully though, when you really need them, the world is full of nice people who like cute babies. A man helped me carry the stroller full of Mae from the subway to the end of our street - five whole blocks. I would never, ever have made it on my own. I swear. If it weren't for that nice man, Mae and I would still be walking.

So now we're just feeling happy to be home where it's safe and warm. And we're never, ever going out again. Not until spring.

Alert the Fairy!

2007-02-26T13:23:00.000-08:00

Mae has her first tooth. You can only just see the very top of it, but I can tell already that it's a lovely one. The only downside is that it's also very sharp. I didn't think it was possible, but I hate breastfeeding even more now.

Poor Britney

2007-02-24T12:19:00.000-08:00

Lately, I've been finding myself thinking about Britney Spears a lot. Poor Britney Spears. I feel so awful for her. I mean, sure, she's done some dumb things, but who hasn't? I keep picturing how insane I'd go myself if - for some reason - the media was just as captivated by what a bad mother I am.

"Kate H. Gives Baby Mae Black Eye - Child Protective Services to Investigate".

That would have been the headline the day the back of my hand slipped off my elastic bra strap when I'd finished nursing Mae and accidentally boinged right into her poor little eye with frightening force. I'll never forget the look she gave me, for one split second, before bursting into frantic tears. It was like, "You've GOT to be kidding me. You just HIT me?" I cried more than she did, and that was with nobody but myself trying to make me feel bad about it. I can just imagine what Britney must have gone through when her son fell out of his highchair and everyone on earth wanted to rag on her for it.

Or then there was the time when I pulled another "Britney" by strapping Mae into her carseat, but forgetting to strap the carseat itself into the car. So we drove for blocks with it just sitting on the seat unbuckled. Shudder.

"Carseat Catastrophe: Kate H. Wrecklessly Endangers Baby Mae's Life."

And, oh God, if there were reporters following me around documenting the state of my hair:

"Kate H. Spotted for the Tenth Day in a Row Sporting Messy Ponytail. Has she Lost her Hairbrush AND her Sense of Style??"

If you added to that the stress of a divorce plus the day-to-day pressures of being a pop princess (whatever those might be), honestly, it'd be more than enough to make me shave my head and check in to rehab, too. I kind of want to send her a nice bouquet.

Monkey-See-Monkey-Do

2007-02-15T14:12:00.000-08:00

Mae is suddenly in to everything she shouldn't be in to. If I turn my back for a second, she somehow manages to twist herself around or wiggle away and is busy pushing the buttons on the phone or the remote, or else reaching for the computer mouse and opening a spreadsheet program I didn't even know we had. Yesterday she used Photoshop to crop a photo. And, while she didn't crop it very well, still!!

She can't even crawl yet, so we can just imagine what we'll be in for when she can. She just gradually wiggles her way toward whatever she wants or, if we're holding her, shifts her centre of gravity so she becomes very heavy in the direction of the thing she wants.

We love the computer, the phone and the TV, so she does too. And it doesn't stop at electronics. Everything we do is fascinating and worthy of immitating. It kind of makes me feel like a rock star. You know like when Criss-Cross was famous for five seconds in the 90s and all the kids started wearing their pants backwards?

I've had a bad cold the past few days, and Mae is fascinated with nose blowing now. Every time I do it, she smiles like its just the greatest thing. Yesterday, I was looking up baby food recipies on the Internet while holding her on my lap and she managed to make herself very heavy to the left until she could reach the box of Kleenex sitting on the sofa. She'd pulled three tissues out and was trying to eat one before I noticed what she was up to.

I told my husband that being so interesting is a big responsibility. We're going to have to start setting a better example by loving more wholesome, healthy things... like sugar-free snacks, educational toys, classical music and napping. That last one shouldn't be too hard.

Gladly the Cross-eyed Bear

2007-02-12T07:20:00.000-08:00

It looks like Mae has picked a lovey. It's a scraggly-looking bear named Gladly. Of all the stuffed toys and soft blankets she's got, I love that she picked that particular bear. It was a special gift from my dad, chosen in memory of my grandma, a fiesty woman with an easy laugh, who loved us hugely. She died suddenly, almost 9 years ago, but the hole she left in our family still feels gapingly huge to me.

About a week ago, my husband brought Gladly into the big bed for Mae to play with and she went nuts. She did her babyjoy thing, where she screams and laughs while smiling, waving her arms spastically and doing a bicycle with her feet. It's pretty much the greatest expression of happiness. It got me thinking, actually, how sad it is that it's not socially acceptable to be that spastically happy as an adult. Or, at least, it's very rarely acceptable. The only context I can think of it being alright in is, say, if you won a squillion dollars in the lottery, or if Oprah gave you a new car.

But for now, for Mae, just that bear is more than enough to make her silly with joy. So is a kiss, a bath, or a kitty.

But more about that bear... its name comes from my grandma's favourite church hymn when she was a kid: "Gladly the Cross I'd Bear." And while it was actually about getting nailed to a cross alive, being a little girl, she interpreted it in a much more cheerful way, as a song about a cross-eyed bear named Gladly.

And Mae's scraggly bear is definitely cross-eyed. He's brand new, but is made to look old, with a plaid patch on one leg, and soft, matty looking fur. She burries her face in his belly when she's fighting sleep, then sometimes throws one arm across him while she's actually sleeping, then does her babyjoy thing when she wakes up again and finds him still there.

It's Cold. It's Cold. It's Cold.

2007-02-07T08:31:00.000-08:00

I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. Today's high is -11. How sick is that? Let me tell you how sick: Very sick.

It's windy, and horrid, and cruel. It's the kind of cold that makes your eyeballs hurt, and your fingertips go numb... and if I'm feeling it that much, I can't imagine what it's like for Mae, being about 20 times smaller than I am.

So we can't go anywhere. Or, we can, but when we do I feel guilty because, in actual fact, we've got nowhere we really need to go, and we don't have a car, and I feel like an awful mother when I take Mae out in the stroller and her nose and cheeks turn bright red. So we're mostly staying home and watching way more TV than usual and dreaming about all the cool stuff we'll be able to do once it's summer.

I take Mae to the back window on our way to diaper changes and tell her how the grass will turn green, and that we'll play in the yard with the cats, and we'll get her a baby swing attachment for the big swing set, and our neighbour will lend us a wading pool, which is a lot like a bath, only for outside.

She looks at me doubtfully with her great-big grey eyes, and I don't exactly blame her. Right now, I'm having a hard time believing it'll ever happen, too.

Banana-nana-nana Face and Other Assorted News

2007-01-27T07:41:00.000-08:00

Mae's new nickname is banana-nana-nana face. It's just one of many though. Sometimes I worry that she'll start kindergarden and the teacher will ask her her name and she won't know it - because we barely use it - and instead she'll say, "Ducky" or "Bunnymuffin" or "Boo", or else "Banana-nana-nana face". But then I figure, oh well. Worse things could happen.

The reason for the new nickname is that she started eating bananas this past week. I know that the current recommendation is six months for starting solids, and she's not quite five... but we were just so bored. It went down to 20 below with the windchill, so we couldn't exactly run errands in the stroller, or even make it as far as the coffee shop to hang out. Really, bananas were our only option. Also, more importantly, she just seems ready. For a few weeks now, she's been watching every bite of food my husband and I take with big, awe-struck eyes - like we were eating rainbows or something. She'd even started reaching for the food on our plates.

So now she's a rolling over, banana-eating kind of girl. And, also, I'm pretty sure she's teething. She's not whining as much as she was last week (thank God), but she's drooling rivers, and pulling at her ears, and putting absolutely everything on earth into her mouth.

She's also decided that the kitties are worth paying attention to. Until a week or two ago, they may as well have been big, furry houseplants for all the attention she paid them. Now she laughs when one walks by, and sometimes grabs a big handful of tail or back-fur. All things considered, the kitties are taking the change in stride.

And, yeah, we've been busy, despite how cold it is outside, and despite how I say we've been bored to bananas. I've got an excercise class on Tuesday mornings (with childcare for Mae), and then we see our momfriends on Thursdays for lunch and go to a program at the community centre on Fridays. And, in between, Mae breastfeeds, and rolls, and naps, and takes baths, and swings in the swing o-matic, and sits on my lap... and we watch Oprah, and read stories and I try, somewhat unsucessfully, to stay on top of the chores, like laundry and groceries and making sure there are enough diapers and doing general tidying up.

The days are so completely full, actually, that I can't imagine how going back to work is ever going to fit into the mix. Also, I can't imagine how I'm going to stand being apart from Mae for that many hours a day.

I'm trying to tell myself that I have another seven months of mat leave and not to worry about it yet, but it isn't really working. Every time one of the momfriends talks about this or that daycare she's visited, I feel queasy. I haven't made a single phone call, or visited a single centre, or gotten Mae on a single list because, the truth is, I don't want to. What would be ideal, really, would be if a magical mortgage fairy could float down from the sky and erase our mortgage with her magic wand while sprinkling money-tree seeds in our backyard. And I know, I know... it's kind of unlikely to happen, but that doesn't mean I can't still hope.

Unnnnnhhhhhhhhhhhggggggg

2007-01-21T18:59:00.000-08:00

Mae started napping in a regular kind of way this past week. It's fantastic. She sleeps for an hour, starting at 9:30 or 10:30ish. Then we go out (as per our busy social calendar) to storytime at the library, or play group at the community centre, or for coffee. And then she has a second nap later in the day at 2:30 or 3:30ish. And while she naps, I can write, or clean, or else just walk around the house marvelling at the fact that I'm walking around the house without a baby.

The only real downside to naps is that I'm hooked. This afternoon, she fell asleep in the stroller when we were out, and then didn't want to sleep at her regularly scheduled time, and I felt so cheated. I spent about 45 minutes feeding her, and then my husband spent a good 30 minutes walking with her, and then I fed her for another ten minutes. We did get her to sleep in the end. For 30 minutes. Hardly much of a return on our investment.

Still, I'm not really complaining. Most days, she sleeps. And it couldn't have come at a better time because - and this, I AM complaining about - she's also learned how to whine.

It's this awful, groany, grating noise. If I had to spell it phonetically, it'd be something like "Unnnnnhhhhhhhhhhhggggggg." And, if the mood strikes her, or if she's overtired enough, she can keep it up for ages, until she's wearing so badly on my last nerve that I say things like "You are testing mommy's patience. Stop it. There is none left!! Oh my God. None." And she just blinks her big grey eyes at me and goes "Unnnnnhhhhhhhhhhhggggggg. Unnnnnhhhhhhhhhhhggggggg," until I'm almost driven to the brink of insanity.

But then she has a nap and wakes up cooing like a little dove so as to make me forget her whiny ways and fall madly in love with her again. It's a nasty little trick, really. It's just lucky for her that it works.

The Complications of Rolling

2007-01-15T09:45:00.000-08:00

Don't get me wrong. I'm very happy for Mae and her new rolling over thing. It's just that it's awfully inconvenient for me.

Now that she's had a taste of mobility, she's hooked. She refuses to lie passively on her back and play anymore. And she's not even happy to stop at rolling over. Once she's over, she wants to move forward, except she can't (yet), and so she gets mad at the universe and everyone in it. She makes these loud, irritating grunting noises. And if I flip her over onto her back again, she gets even angrier and cries in frustration.

The only time she's really content lately is when she's sitting up. Except that she can't sit up on her own (yet), so one of us has to hold her. Which'd be fine (I love holding her), but it makes it so much harder to, say, wash the dishes, or clean up, or make lunch, or have a quick shower or read a bit of a book - all of which I used to be able to do while she played nearby.

I'm tempted to say that I can't wait until she can sit up on her own, or crawl... except I can see already that these things will bring their own set of complications. Since we got back from Sudbury, I keep looking around in wonder and thinking "How have I never noticed before that our house is a giant death trap??"

Like, just this morning, I put her down on some blankets on the bathroom floor with her toys while I showered (which is what I always do). And she rolled over (which I expected her to do) and came about three inches from banging her perfect head on the trecherously point corner at the bottom of the vanity (which, I swear, wasn't there last week).

Just when I was really starting to get the hang of looking after her, too. Thing have definitely taken a turn around here...

We got Those Missing Daddy Blues

2007-01-09T18:29:00.000-08:00

Mae is a rolling expert now. As of today, there's just no stopping her. She could roll all the way to China if she decided to. Half the time I've been cheering her on saying, "Look at you go!" and the other half of the time I almost plead with her, "Don't roll too far away, ducky. I'll miss you."

We're in Sudbury this week, visiting my dad and stepmom. They're head over heels in love with Mae. My dad lies right down on the playmat with her so she can pull his hair and my stepmother takes her for walks around the house and tells her which magazines are good to read and about how they'll go shopping together one day. They both love listening to her babble away in baby language and bragging to anybody who will listen about what a good baby she is.

The only problem is that Mae and I are really missing her dad/my husband. It's deeply weird being away from him for so long. I've been sending him photos and updates about what we've been up to, but I know it's totally inadequate. And, actually, it might somehow be worse than no updates at all. I keep thinking how I'd feel if he were with Mae and I was alone, reading about how she was rolling over. I know I'd cry and cry.

When Mae was first born, our neighbour asked us both what the most unexpected thing about her birth was. I think I said something at the time about how I already couldn't picture life without her, but I've been thinking about it since then, and I've finally got my real and final answer.

I was fully expecting to adore her... but what I didn't know was how her arrival would make me fall even more in love with my husband. It's so insanely attractive watching him play drums on a pie plate because it makes her smile, or reading her Mister Brown Can Moo. Those first nights, he camped out in our hospital room on the world's dodgiest looking cot, coming straight from work and wearing the same clothes three days in a row, barely sleeping, hardly eating. Thankfully, he changes his clothes and eats now, but what hasn't changed is that he's still taking care of us any way he can. His devotion to us, but especially to his daughter, makes me feel all melty. I'm not saying I had any doubts before... but just that now I'm about a million percent certain that I married the right guy.

So, even though it's nice to spend a week at home, I don't think Mae and I will be planning any more trips without her daddy for awhile. He's already missed way too many rolls over, and it just makes all three of us feel lonely.

Four months is definitely the best age

2007-01-03T06:22:00.000-08:00

Or - at least - it's the best age yet . Mae is so much sturdier than she used to be. She can sit on your lap now for half an hour at a time, and her neck control is awesome. You can lift her right up in the air - 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, blastoff - when singing the song about going to the moon.

She even rolled over (back to front this time)on New Year's day. And then there's also the fact that she's lovely and babbly, and, when she finds something hillarious (like her mobile, or her daddy)she laughs, bobbing her whole body back and forth; the same motion as a seal clapping its flippers.

Our best friend, Jum, who took care of us in the hospital, is here for the week. It's so great. At first, Mae was a bit shy with her, but within a few hours, she had clearly remembered Jum and the time they spent together, rocking in the chair and talking about philosophy, food, fashion and celebrity gossip while I slept.

Officially, Jum is Mae's legal guardian in the event that anything ever happens to me and my husband... but I like to think of her more as a godmother, only without the God part. So more like a fairy godmother, really, but without the puffy dress or preachy morals. Really, more like a bad-assed fairy godmother with good fashion.

She's been coaching Mae on how to misbehave all week. "When you get a bit older, and your mother isn't looking," I'll hear her say, leaning over Mae on the playmat "you can eat jellybeans for breakfast." Mae and I don't want her to go back to New York. We're considering hiding her suitcase.

This is the first time Jum's seen Mae since she was a few days old, and she's amazed at the changes, too. Really, she just seems so grown up compared to those days in the hospital. It feels like millenniums ago to me. I keep catching myself saying things like "When Mae was little, she used to have so much hair," or "When Mae was little, she used to sleep at restaurants so well," or "When Mae was little... fill in the blank." And then the person I'm talking to will laugh at me, and it'll take me a second to figure out why.

It's 2007. Christmas is over. Thank God.

2007-01-01T12:08:00.000-08:00

Not that it wasn't joyous and magical and full of chocolate, because it was. But it was also kind of exhausting, and I'll be glad to have real life back starting tomorrow.

Mae took her first road trip (to see her Grandma in Ottawa - normally a 5 hour drive, which turned into 7 with all the stops for feeding, etc.); met about a gillion relatives and family friends who wanted to hold her, and coo at her and have their photo taken with her; and received more board books and rattly toys than our house can comfortably hold. All in all, it was a success. She was chatty and lovely and even put up with being dressed in this dumb, itchy santa dress and feathery "baby's first Christmas" hat my mother in law bought her (at least for the 15 minutes it took to have her photo taken).

If I had to choose a favourite first-Christmas moment though, it'd definitely be watching my father in law hold Mae at the dinner table.

To put it in context, exactly a year to the day, we were sitting at that same dinner table when I said I'd pass on dessert (a nauseating rum-soaked triffle) and my mother in law asked me, point blank, if I was pregnant. We'd just found out ourselves two days earlier, and we weren't exactly ready to have her alert the network, but I couldn't lie to her face either.

While everybody else squealed and congratulated us, my father in law turned bright red and rested his head in his hands like the weight of the news was too much for him. Then he made some comments to the effect that being a grandfather would make him officially old. Then he dissapeared into his basement office for a long time. It wasn't exactly the reaction we'd been hoping for.

But this year, he came over and lifted Mae off my lap, then sat, bouncing her on his knee and talking to her while he finished his turkey. "She's a smart one," he said, and told some family friends how they'd watched a hockey game together and she'd tracked the puck with her eyes the entire time. "So alert. Good kid." And then he talked to her in a voice like a duck, which made her smile, which made him smile, which made me feel all Christmassy inside.

Too Zonked to Think of Good Subject Line so This'll Have to Do

2006-12-19T14:31:00.000-08:00

Except for peeing after you've really had to pee for a long time, feeling better after feeling sick is, quite possibly, the best feeling in the whole world.

I started feeling pukey on Sunday at our friend's birthday party, and was a full blown disaster by 8:00 that night. The worst moment was when I was throwing up in the bathroom while listening to Mae, hungry and crying in the nursery with her dad, and trying to shout, between wretches, "I'll be there in a minute." I just couldn't, couldn't look after her and that helpless feeling was almost worse than vomiting steak pie all night.

I'm so lucky that my husband was there to take over (everything but the breastfeeding, of course). He worked from home the next day and did most of the diaper changes and funny faces and general childcare stuff. I've said it before, but it deserves re-saying: Somebody needs to give single parents medals and free nannies. Being sick with an infant felt horrible, but being sick and alone with an infant must just be impossible. It must be the scariest, scariest thing.

But today is a much-much better day, although I'm still tired and not feeling fantabulous. (We ventured out to get wrapping paper from the dollar store down the street, and it very nearly killed me.) Mae has been taking good care of me, too. We had the biggest-ever snuggly sleep-in in the big bed this morning until 11:00. And she also went pretty easy on me the rest of the day, doing lots of quiet playing on her mat, happy gurgling and even some swinging in her swing-o-matic. That's where she is now, actually; going back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. And, amazing! Watching her rocking isn't even making me feel sick.

The Formula Taste-Test Experiment and the Poor Tummy

2006-12-12T12:55:00.000-08:00

Mae has had a bad, bad tummy for about two weeks now. It's only now that it's getting better that I feel at all able to talk about it. The first real sign of trouble was a bit of blood in her diaper. It freaked me right out.

It freaked me out so much, actually, that it absolutely paralized me. I didn't tell anyone. I didn't do anything. I pretended to myself like maybe it was just food dye from her vitamin D drops, except I knew it wasn't.

I should explain that Mae has a family history of gastrointestinal illness, coming from my side. And I guess that's probably why I immediately jumped to the worst possible conclusion. Clearly, she had advanced, accute ulcerative colitis that would require her to have horrible, painful surgery and need an ostomy for the rest of her life. I know it was awful and selfish, but I just couldn't bring myself to face the fear that something might be really wrong with my little girl.

But the third time it happened, I took a deep breath and my husband and I took her to the children's clinic. And, of course, it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought. The doctor said it could be a milk protein allergy, which would make sense since we'd just started giving her a little bit of milk-based formula at night.

So I've been avoiding dairy foods ever since and we've stopped giving her the formula, and it all seems better. "Phewf," is an understatement.

Our only problem now is that she's still hungry at night. Last night I nursed her for almost an hour, until there was nothing left, and she was still screaming for more. So we tried some soy formula, which she refused to eat.

I'll admit, I was a bit frustrated with her for being such a picky eater, but then I tried some myself. It was like drinking dissolved chalk or - at least - how I'd imagine drinking dissolved chalk would be. Kind of gritty (even though I shook it and shook it), and gag-inducingly bitter. Absolutely the grossest taste I've ever tasted in my life. Ever. And I've tasted some gross tastes (like the time I tried cat food when I was 7, just to see what it was like. Note: It's not very good).

So today Mae and I set out for the pharmacy and bought cans of every single soy-based formula we could find. This isn't saying much though, since I could only find three. Still, I labeled three seperate bottles and measured out three portions and we did a full-scale grade six science experiment with them complete with a hypothesis and beakers. Okay. Maybe not beakers but, still, it was very scientific. We both agreed that the clear winner was one called Isomil.

She finished off half a bottle of it and is taking a lovely, full-tummied nap as I write this. We are both feeling much better.

Breaking News (from 2 days ago): Mae Rolled Over!!

2006-12-06T07:47:00.000-08:00

We had a huge day on Monday. I meant to write about it sooner but, I don't know, I guess I was just overcome by all the excitement.

First of all, Mae rolled over!! I put her on her tummy in the crib to play while I ran to pee, and she was mid-roll just as I got back. Of course, we had a huge celebration about it. And then I flipped her back on her tummy and she did it a second time, so we had to celebrate all over. All of that jubilation took a lot out of us, so by the time her dad got home, she was either too worn out to do it again, or else she'd just forgotten how. She hasn't done it since, either, but I can tell that she's working up to it.

And that wasn't the only important developmental milestone that day. She also learned how to torment the cat!! She has this toy that's a clear box with all these pully bits, and we hung it from her baby arch thing. She loves it. She grabs at it, and stares and stares and stares at it. And then, Monday morning, the light was coming in the window in such a way that it hit the clear box and made a reflection on the ceiling. So Mae was carefully tipping the box from side to side, and the cat was going nuts trying to catch the reflection and was meowing at the ceiling while jumping from the table top to the buffet and back again. Meanwhile, Mae was doing her high pitched happy-baby scream-thing. And I just sat, sipping my coffee, watching the pandamonium unfold.

All in all, a very thrilling day.

Mall Santa & 1/4 Birthday

2006-11-29T12:28:00.000-08:00

Mae is three months old today. These have, hands down, been the longest three months of my life. Not in a bad way. In a great way. Just in a slow way. But, also in a fast way. I know I'm not making sense.

I think it's that same feeling you get when you go travelling. Everything you're seeing and doing is brand new. You're noticing all the details; taking it all in and trying to remember it. And so, somehow, the days feel much, much longer than your usual 9-5, get on the subway, go to work, work, come home, sort of days which all blend one into the next.

And then, on the other hand, it all seems to be flying by too fast. It's hard to believe that three months ago today she was just born - so squinty, beautiful and bewildered, all wrapped up in her hospital blanket - and now she's so big, gorgeous and talented! She's on her playmat right now, having a very loud and important-sounding conversation with the orange star on her dangly pull-toy.

She even went and got her picture taken with mall Santa today. How grown up is that?! You should have seen her! She was so good. So trusting!! She was fast asleep in her stroller when we got there, and she slept right through being unbuckled and handed over to Santa. And then she woke up.

Now, if I ever fell asleep in a familiar place, all wrapped up in a familiar blanket, and then woke up in the arms of a strange bearded man, there's no question; I'd definitely cry. Not Mae though. She just took it all in stride. She looked around a little to get her bearings; noticed that her daddy and I were standing nearby; then checked out Santa and decided he was probably okay. In the photo, she's looking off to her left, where we were standing, with this great expression - a little baffled, but not at all distressed - that seems to say "And who did you say this guy was again?"

A letter to the stupid lady standing in line at Tim Hortons

2006-11-28T11:36:00.000-08:00

Dear Lady,

Are you the snowsuit police? Yeah. Didn't think so. Then why, while watching me come into the coffee shop, did you feel you had the right to look at my daughter and say, loudly, "Oh, the poor thing. Look. She's freeeeeezing."

First of all, it was 6 degrees out today and she was wearing a fleece suit with a hood. She was plenty warm, but that's beside the point. The real point is that you should mind your own damn business.

And, really, if you were SO concerned about the welfare of my daughter, you could have taken two steps to your right and helped us in from the "freeeeeezing cold" by holding open the damn door, rather than just watching with your ugly, judgy eyes, while I struggled to get the stroller in by myself.

I hope you enjoyed your coffee.

Sincerely,
Kate

Danger! Honey Babies

2006-11-27T11:49:00.000-08:00

Mae's grandma is SO not in my good books today. She's fired, actually. Not from being a grandma, of course, but from babysitting - at least for the forseable future.

On Saturday night, my husband and I drove out to his mom and dad's place and left Mae with them while we went out for dinner. They are incredibly enthusiastic babysitters and we've left her with them before. And, just like the other times, everything seemed to go fine. She cried a little, they said, probably because of some gas pains, but she was otherwise our usual little angel. We said thank you, packed up her truckload of toys, mats, bottles and diapers and drove home.

But the next day, my mother-in-law called just to chat, and she just so happened to mention this trick she'd used to stop Mae from crying - something I should keep in mind, she said. What she did was dip her soother in honey. I said, "You what? You what what what?" And then I tried very hard not to freak out, but it didn't go so well. She could tell how upset I was.

And, at first, she seemed upset that I was upset. She couldn't understand what the big deal was. Just a little honey, right? She bought it at the grocery store, so it must be safe to eat. But, first of all, why would she put ANYTHING in our three-month-old babies' mouth that we didn't leave expressly for that purpose? Doesn't she know that babies under six-months aren't supposed to eat anything except breast milk or formula? I guess the answer is, pretty obviously, no.

And, much more importantly, how did she not know that it's dangerous to feed honey to babies? Hello?? Botulism?? Potentially deadly?? There's a warning right on the label??

She said "Oh no," because she used to dip her children's soothers in honey and they're fine, fine, fine. I told her to go get her honey out of the cupboard and read the warning. And then she felt very bad and appologized. And she said she didn't know. And I know that she didn't know. And I know I'm being too hard on her. But, more than the honey itself, this is the problem: she doesn't know what she doesn't know. In part, it's understandable.

The recommendations for taking care of babies are changing all the time. I mean, it wasn't so long ago that parent's were told to always put their babies to sleep on their stomachs (I guess maybe to keep them from choking on spit up?), but today it's all about "back to sleep" (because of SIDS). And that's just one example among zillions.

Except that doesn't really solve the problem of how I'm supposed to tell her the current recommendations without offending her or seeming to imply that she did it the wrong way with her kids. When I explained to her how to warm up the bottle one time (i.e., not in boiling water and not in the microwave) she took it personally. "Oh, I know THAT" she said. But how am I supposed to know that she knows unless I tell her and make sure?

Anyway, after I got off the phone, I went online to look up the dangers of giving honey to babies, so I'd know what symptoms to watch for just in case. I found out that it's extremely unlikely that Mae will get sick from botulism spores in honey and that, even if she were to, it can be treated very successfully if caught in time.

I left the screen open so I could show it to my husband when he got home and he laughed at me because in the search field in google I'd written "danger honey babies". I was mad because he didn't seem as scared as I was, but today I can admit that it's a little bit funny. Just picture these little babies in bee suits, crawling toward you with murderous looks in their eyes. Danger, danger.

Sigh. Okay. I will chill out. I will maybe even lift the babysitting ban in time. But only if she promises not to feed Mae anything we didn't leave there for her. And I will leave copious amounts of instructions from now on. And if she's offended by that, she can just be offended. Mae's safety is about a million times more important than whether or not my mother-in-law thinks I'm nice. Plus, in the end, I'm pretty sure she'll understand that I'm just trying to follow the current recommendations, which is exactly what she did for her own kids.

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens...

2006-11-24T11:37:00.000-08:00

Mae likes things now. Squeaky toys. Teddies. Receiving blankets. She grabs them in her teeny tiny hands and does not let go. Just now she carried her own sweater down the stairs for me (I carried her, of course) and, this morning, she almost had to have a bath while holding the sheep towel because I couldn't pry her hand loose from it.

If I had to guess, I'd say her favourite things are (in this order):

#1 - Her soose. Winnie the Pooh soose, which is the original first soose, or butterfly soose, which is also a very good soose.

#2 - The yellow squeak duck.

#3 - Her Manhattan Whoosit. What's a Whoosit? It's a very ugly stuffed toy. On one side it has a black and white target, and on the other side, it's got a scary face with a big red nose. And then it's got all kinds of black and white arms. Like, ten arms. And each arm has a squeaky or rattly end to it. And you can shove all the arms inside it, and pull them out again. I only know it's called a Manhattan Whoosit because one of my friends came over and said "Oh, you've got a Manhattan Whoosit." Apparently, Miranda, on Sex and the City, got one when she had her baby. So there... see how hip Mae is? ALL of the babies have them. I've even seen mini stroller-sized Whoosits, for infants on the go.

#4 - Her set of plastic keys. Her Uncle Jim has a theory that these are manufactured by evil car companies looking to sell gas-guzzling SUVs to the next generation.

#5 - The red Fisher Price apple. It has a smiley face on it and makes a gentle, tinkling noise when you tip it sideways. It sounds exactly like fairies.

Just Another Reason why Canada Rocks my World

2006-11-17T13:41:00.000-08:00

Mae and I live in Canada and, yes, it can be ridiculously cold... but aside from numb fingers in February, damn, we're lucky. Yesterday we went to our first mom's group, organized by public health. It's a FREE 8 week session run by a nurse, although she barely runs it. Basically, what happened was that public health went to all the trouble to arrange it so that 10 women, all with babies almost exactly Mae's age, all of whom live in our area, got together to drink coffee and talk while the babies wiggled around or slept on gym mats.

It's true! And you don't even have to get on a waitlist or beg to be allowed in. THEY call YOU to arrange it.

It was amazing. We started by going around the circle and talking about our pregnancies and our babies' births. And guess what? Half the women had a C-section like I did! And - like me - none of them felt particularly sad about having "missed out" on a vaginal delivery the way everyone expects you to. Also, lots of them have babies who sleep through the night, and they all felt vaguely guilty about it, too. And, even better, ALL of them hate breastfeeding!! It was like finding a whole room of kindered-spirit momfriends without having to spend a cent on a torturous excercise class or sing The Wheels on the Bus. And I wasn't the only one ready to cry with relief.

A bunch of us went out for more coffee afterwards and, walking with three strollers side-by-side (it was a really wide sidewalk), I blurted out like an idiot "I've always wanted to be one of those moms walking down the street with a stroller... with other moms... with other strollers!!" But instead of nodding and smiling while secretly thinking I was a loser, the other two moms shrieked in unison, "I know! Me too!!"

So, yeah. Woo!! At longlast, It looks like I'm going to have momfriends! Momfriends to spend the rest of my ONE YEAR maternity leave with. Yay, Canada!!!

Monkey Love

2006-11-15T10:09:00.000-08:00

Mae has wicked bad cradle cap today. She's had it for two weeks, actually, but it's much worse today. It started out at the back of her head, but now it's crept forward right down her forehead and into her poor little eyebrows. She looks exactly like a sea crustation.

It's really gross, but what's even grosser is the way I can't stop picking at it, especially when she's nursing. It's monkey love, I think. Some kind of deeply engrained head picking instinct. But the more dead skin I pick off and brush out with the baby comb, the more dead skin seems to come back in its place. I've tried every home remedy I can find on the Internet - which isn't saying much. The only recommendation I can find is to rub the baby's head with olive oil. It isn't helping. Not only does Mae look like a sea crustation, now she also smells like garlic bread.

This morning I seriously thought about skipping our Mom and Tot class, just because she looked so crusty and uncared for. I thought we'd walk in, and the teacher would see Mae, silently judge me an unfit mother, and then call Children's Aid the second we left. In the end, I decided to go but planned to ask, loudly, unpon entering the room, if anybody else's baby had had cradle cap and if they knew how to get rid of it (thus making sure everybody would know that #1 - I was aware of the problem and #2 - I was trying to make it better, like a good mother would).

Before I could even get Mae out of her snowsuit though, another mom started appologizing for her own baby having a crusty eye. She had a blocked tear duct. "That's nothing!" I cried happily. "Mae has cradle cap. She's crusty all over." And then we both forgot all about it for an hour and played happily with our crusty, smiley babies.

Our Most Shameful Secret, Revealed

2006-11-14T12:01:00.000-08:00

This weekend, we had a birthday party for my mom. I put Mae in this extra-ridiculous Italian princess party dress for the occasion. You maybe know the kind: 100 % polyester and totally covered in bows. Somebody gave it to us as a gift. It's hiddeous but, when I was a kid, I loved things like that. And really, it's not a party if you're not in a party dress, right?

So, I brought Mae down, all done up like a twinkly-pink sweetheart princess, and she proceeded to be horrible. Whiny. Drooly. Cranky. Irritable. Fussy. Carrying on. Screaming uncontrollably. Real tears running down her face and everything. She kept it up for nearly an hour until we finally just had to put her to bed.

But that's not the shameful part. This is: she has never done that before. Not once. At least, not like that.

When I talk with other moms with young babies, I nod knowingly while they complain about sleep deprevation. I pretend to understand totally. I have to. Otherwise they would think I was a very mean, braggy, hostile person.

But the truth is, Mae sleeps through most nights. And, sometimes, after she gets up to eat at 6:00, she falls back asleep until 10 or later. She has also slept peacefully through (among other things): a live, very loud samba band; countless restaurant meals; several fire engines; the smoke detector in our house going off twice; and me, dropping the entire pot set on the kitchen floor.

And if they talk about how much their babies cry, I nod again. But, truthfully, Mae hardly ever cries for mysterious reason. At least, not for more than a few minutes. She's mostly happy to play alone on her mat. She drifts off to sleep in the crib without a fuss. She doesn't really mind the bath. Or the car. Or being passed around when visitors come.

I swear though, this is not me bragging. I can't even start to pretend to have anything to do with her even temperement. We just completely lucked out. She was born easy-going. It's entirely possible we won't be so lucky next time around (if there's a next time around).

The other night, when she carried on for an hour, I was ready to snap. To quit. To give her away to the first pack of passing wolves. I don't know how people with collicky or fussy-natured babies do it. Somebody needs to award them medals, and throw them a parade, and offer them free babysitting while they get unlimited Sweedish massages and eat chocolate covered grapes. God knows, it's the least they deserve.

That night, we rocked Mae. We walked with her. We sang to her. I fed her. We changed her. We took her temperature and checked for any early little teeth that might be poking through her gums. Nothing worked. Eventually, after we changed her into her jammies, she just wore herself out and fell asleep. And the next morning, she was herself again.

Our best guess... Our only guess... She must have hated that stupid princess dress. And really, who could blame her? Next time we have a party, she'll just wear stretch pants and a T-shirt.

Food Grossness

2006-11-13T14:30:00.000-08:00

I know it's probably unavoidable. Despite our best intentions, we all turn out like our mothers in some ways. In my case, it isn't such a bad thing. My mom has her quirks (she sometimes wears a hat with a dead racoon tail attached to it), and we have our differences (she follows political races closely; I've been guilty of voting for the city councillor with the prettiest last name), but she loves me very much and, quite probably, loves Mae even more. I know that makes me lucky.

That said, there are a few minor ways I plan to stay different. One has to do with food. My mother does horrible things with food. Nasty, nasty, revolting things. Like, for years, she stored her homemade soup in the same tupperware container she gave my sister and I to vomit in when we had the flu.

Or, like this weekend, when she came to visit her grand-daughter. We went out for brunch and she accidentally dropped a big gob of pesto-garlic sauce on her shirt. Whatever, right? But wait. Next, she picked up her butter knife, scraped the sauce off her sweater, then licked the knife clean - sweater lint and all. And as though that was not gross enough, she dipped her dirty napkin into my water glass (she didn't have her own) and used it to wipe at the stain. I was suddenly not thirsty anymore.

Or there's the last time she came to visit, when Mae was three weeks old, and I caught her trying to feed a bottle of slightly-off expressed breastmilk to the cats. (She said it was a shame to waste it.)

Or last Christmas when she said, "Do you want a piece of cake?" and I said, "I thought you threw the cake out." And she said, "I did, but I changed my mind and fished it out again."

I know I will eventually do things that both embarass and gross-out Mae. (All mothers do, right? It's practically a rule). I might wear the wrong clothes; get an embarassing haricut; drag out the naked baby photos when her first serious boyfriend comes over, but, with God as my witness, I will NEVER offer her garbage cake or feed breastmilk to her cats. It's the least I can do to make things a little better for the next generation.

I hearby do solemnly swear...

2006-11-08T11:03:00.000-08:00

Mae is ten weeks old. Still so tiny, but already so much bigger and more capable than when she was born. She laughs, and swats at things and can roll over onto one side.

Watching her grow so fast, it's beginning to dawn on me that she's not going to be a baby forever. She's going to be a kid before we know it, and then a teenager and an adult, and the way we interact with her is going to play a big part in determining the kind of person she becomes. And I guess that's why I've been thinking a lot lately about what kind of mom I want to be.

I know I'm going to make a ton of mistakes but, maybe, if I can lay some ground rules for myself, I'll have something to look back on and aspire to. You know, kind of like wedding vows - except for parenting. Parenting vows.

So this is what I'm thinking. I hearby do solemnly swear the following things. And if I slip up some day (and I know I will, probably often) Mae can print this off, and highlight it, and stick it to the fridge and point to it and jump up and down and say "Hey, you. Remember how you solemly swore?"

So, I hearby do solemnly swear...

That I will not micromanage Mae's homework assignments, clothing choices, friendships, diet or schedule. Of course, this does NOT mean that I'll let her skip school, wear only a thong and a micro-mini, join a biker gang and go on a 100% Twinkie diet. Just that, whenever possible, (and unless her general health and safety is at risk) I'll try to let Mae make her own choices.

That I'll always keep in mind how much a parent's approval means and will only withold it when I can't possibly manage to approve (again, the health and safety thing). Because it doesn't matter if you're five-years-old, showing off your macaroni art project, or almost grown-up and bringing home a new boyfriend... without exception, it hurts like hell when your parents fail to be proud of you or when they dissaprove of something you love.

That I won't put myself down in front of Mae. Little girls who hear their moms say "I can't, I can't" or "I'm fat, I'm fat," learn by example.

That I'll never ask or expect Mae to take care of me - emotionally, financially, or otherwise - in return for being her mom. If Mae wants to "pay me back" she can do it by loving her own kids as much as I love her.

That I'll do my best to make the world be - and feel - safe for her even, and especially, when it isn't.

That I'll support her in becoming whoever she wants to be and in living the life she wants to live. My only expectations (and I am firm on these) are that she keeps breathing until she is at least 100 and that she is kind to herself and to others.

The Ongoing Quest for Momfriends

2006-10-30T12:16:00.000-08:00

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?

Oh, I Wish I Was a 1950s Housewife

2006-10-25T12:26:00.000-07:00

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.

Kissy Lips are Coming

2006-10-20T09:10:00.000-07:00

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.

Goodbye, Turtle Sleeper

2006-10-17T08:20:00.000-07:00

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?

I hate breastfeeding. There. I said it.

2006-10-16T08:35:00.000-07:00

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.

Mae and I skipped Mom and Tot class today. We are such delinquents.

2006-10-11T08:12:00.000-07:00

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.

Happy 6 Week Birthday!

2006-10-10T11:11:00.000-07:00

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.