This one's for the grandparents

(and for people who like to look at cute babies)






Thank you, GoGo, for the playmat.

And, thank you, Stacy, for the lovie from SwaddleDesigns.

Testy

While making homemade tofu Thai curry (why do I do this to myself with a deadline and an infant?), I was listening to the NPR summary and analysis of the Sotomayor hearings.

Is it just me or is the use of the word "temperament" by the Senate Judiciary Committee, Lindsey Graham (Republican, SC) in particular, symptomatic of covert (or overt) sexism? Would we be talking about temperament concerning an aggressive male lawyer/judge? I always get a little suspicious when the words "difficult" and "challenging" are used to describe a successful woman. 

I will say that one of the commentators theorized that Graham was probably just testing her to see how she would react, that he did much the same with Chief Justice Roberts. 

Okay. Fine.

But, still...

I think she handled it pretty well.

Sometimes, I think the Pilot worries that I expose Gus to too much NPR throughout the week.

What moves us

The past couple of moves have seen an astonishing increase in the number of boxes of books.

While I used libraries and online books and documents when I was writing my dissertation, I bought quite a few used scholarly monographs as well as an occasional mystery or romance novel. Add to that the generosity of many friends and family who like sending me books and you have a library that movers hate.

During this move it took me over a week to whittle down a book collection that filled three medium-sized bookshelves, two very large food service shelving systems that I used both sides of library-style, and one smallish bookcase for my "pretty" books to a collection that fills the smallish bookcase and the three medium-sized ones.

And I had to accomplish this task as soon as I could since the boxes of books surrounded my son's crib.

A teacher friend of mine took quite a few of my duplicate books and teaching copies, especially the Signet editions of Shakespeare (we're saving up for a nice hardback Complete Shakespeare), and there are quite a few boxes still left in the garage. The Pilot set aside quite a few of his book for donation/sell, too, but the ones that he decided to keep are in stacks on the guest bed. Next week will be for finding creative places for some of the books and redistributing and reorganizing others among the shelves. 

I've been thinking about the objects we carry with us, about what we keep and what we find disposable. It's been haunting me since we took a detour to an estate sale during one of our Saturday morning rambles.

The house was a humble one, filled with a whole lifetime's worth of objects, and every little thing was for sale. These little things stuck in my head: a collection of key rings, new and old, for fifteen cents each; the magnets on the fridge, 25 cents; opened and unopened medications whose packaging I recognized from the eighties, ranging anywhere from ten cents to a dollar.  

I thought of the couple who lived there. I imagined that husband or wife (probably the latter) must have lived without the other for quite a few years before dying in the bed that had the old clock radio beside it. The clock radio played a classic rock station, but I wondered on what station it had been set for so many years or if it had been played at all until that afternoon.

A middle-aged couple followed us around the house and kept reminding us that all prices were negotiable. There were two hours left of the sale. I think they cared less about what all got sold and more about just wanting the whole ordeal to end.

I walked through the kitchen and knew that all the good stuff had probably been set aside for family or already purchased by those who make banging down estate sale doors five minutes before they open a Saturday morning ritual. These people go to garage sales, too. I once brought some items to a garage sale that a friend was having one early Saturday morning, and there were people fighting over the roasting pan that I had yet to unload from my car. It was six in the morning, one hour before we expected "customers."

I always wonder why these people are so anxious to riffle through other's stuff when they tend to have quite a few years under their belts of purchasing tools and household items. These are not young people just starting out (unless, of course, you're looking for baby items); these are ladies whose fighting elbows at a table of lace linens belie their seemingly frail physiques. I have felt these elbows. I have been cornered out of many a tablecloth and embroidered cloth napkin, and I let them at it because I was not raised to get into a tug of war over a table runner with a seventy-year-old woman.

(Even writing in this slightly satirical vein makes me feel disrespectful towards my elders.)

The anxiety of these people wanting to find just the right thing is palpable. They have set their sites for the collectible, the antique, the rarity. And I find this need to collect later in life curious. I remember my great-grandmother finding great joy in telling others what she wanted them to have when she died. I don't believe she bought any trinket or decorative object the entire twenty-two years I was lucky to know her; she had all she needed. She looked forward to passing down her china cabinet to my mother. Each time I watch my mom change out the items in the cabinet for Christmas and see the pleasure she derives from such a ritual I feel that my Mamaw is being honored in some way.

What does the life of material objects mean for military families, especially those of us who find ourselves moving every two years? We are forced to purge on a regular basis. Our homes do not reflect years of collection even if many of us like purchasing objects that reflect the culture of where we live. I long to move to Germany every time I visit the home of someone who has been stationed there, but my attraction to these objects does not always win out over my overwhelming need to simplify. During this PCS, move #3 in so many years, I told the Pilot I wanted to get rid of everything and just live in furnished homes for the rest of his military career. I was halfway serious.

Just now the Pilot proudly showed me a small aluminum toolbox, one he built with his own hands and his own tools, for Gus. He plans to put Gus's name on the top in flat rivets. This is an object I know our son will treasure, one I will never regret moving from one assignment to the next. 

There will always be a place for it even when room seems scarce.

Pain and Pleasure

Two things you do not want to hear while having sensitive areas waxed (as if I didn't have enough pain for one year what with a tooth scaling and twenty hours of labor followed by a c-section):

1. "You have some real stubborn patches of hair. I haven't seen hair this stubborn in a very long time," mused the technician with so much experience she trains others in her particular trade of torture as she proceeded to pluck out hairs one-by-one.

2. "Your hair is growing in all sorts of directions. It complicates things." Pause. "Lucky you."

That said, it was one of the better waxing experiences I've had. 

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The things I love about the quite excellent Cafe Poca Cosa, which we tried today for lunch:

1. The Margarita: "This is the postpartum margarita I've been waiting for!" 

2. The Waiter: He delivered the day's offerings in both English and Spanish with descriptions that bordered on the poetic. I wish I had recorded it.

3. The Food: Chicken mole, stewed meat, pesto chicken, a corn tamale with pureed black beans. The Pilot had the mole; I ordered the Plato Poca Cosa, a sampling of three of the day's entrees as chosen by the chef.

4. The Hostess: She smiled at my mostly naked baby and remarked, "Enjoy those reclining years while you can." Gus smiled and made cooing noises the entire meal. I wish he could have tried the corn tamales. He will one day soon.

Short Shorts

Yesterday Gus and I went to Babytime at the library. We love Babytime. I get out of the house, and Gus gets to see other brand new tiny humans.

Gus, who is usually very vocal, says very little when we go to Babytime. He's too busy watching everything, almost giving himself whiplash trying to take everything in. I attempt to sit him in my lap during the story and songs, but he sees some of the other kids toddling and crawling about and he wants to be held up in the standing position. 

As we were singing "If You're Happy and You Know It," I had one of those weird out-of-body experiences. I didn't recognize myself much less my own spawn, and then I snapped out of it; the feeling was over almost the moment it began.

After Babytime one of my friends asked me how I was doing and I asked her if she ever wondered: "Either I'm a mama or I just kidnapped a three-month-old baby and brought him to storytime."

Her response, "Oh, yeah."

Of course, neither one of us were complaining, and we're both very happy with our lives and our precious little boys. But I think there's a bit of an adjustment for those of us who wait to have kids in our thirties or later. 

Actually, it probably doesn't matter how old you are. Being a parent changes so much of who you are.

That night I asked the Pilot if he ever felt that way, that the realization of being a parent was almost as real as the fleeting thought that you absconded with the sweet, sleeping child in your arms.

His answer, "That's a good way to put it." 

And that in itself is a relief.

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Last night I went out with a whole gaggle of wives to celebrate a new friend's 27th birthday. We had food and drinks at Risky Business followed by dancing and more drinks at the Cactus Moon (or what my husband lovingly refers to as "The Cactus Poon"). 

Hanging out with the girls, one of whom I have known from other assignments (she's my PCS buddy; in her two years of marriage, she has moved three times), provided a nice break from being homebound. It has been years since I have been to a bar without my husband or now, as it happens, without my husband AND our child since we have no problem bringing a well-behaved baby to a respectable drinking establishment while there's still light out. 

While I was out, I briefly thought back to being 27. That year I became engaged, passed my candidacy exams, and got married. 

I haven't really given much thought to being in my thirties, and there's something pretty kick-ass about that. 

My favorite parts of the night included dancing like a maniac and then driving home on a mostly lonely desert road with some good tunes on the radio.

I heard the great Levon Helm singing "Growing Trade" from his new album Electric Dirt.

A gorgeous song and a great story about a farmer who can no longer make an honest living growing cotton and has to resort to a more lucrative, albeit illegal, crop.

Maybe it's all those episodes of Weeds I've been watching online from Netflix. It's a brilliant show. Really. 

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As mentioned earlier (too lazy to hyperlink aforementioned post), we have decided not to receive cable television. Some may ask, "What in the hell do you do with yourself then when you have to feed the kid every two hours during the day?"

Well, I watch the offerings on Netflix.

(For those of you who asked about how we hook our computer up to our laptop, it's pretty easy. If you have a monitor hookup on the back of your television, you can connect your pc/laptop/whatever to your TV with a PC-Monitor cable. My macbook came with a cable to accomplish such a task, but we had to use an extension. Most flat screens are built with this PC input. Also, you can connect your TV with an S-video cable or with a video card that had video outputs. This just dictated to me by the Pilot who recommends this article.)

(Gus and) I have watched the following:

Friday Night Lights, Seasons One and Two: I will be getting the first disk of season three tomorrow. I. Cannot. Wait.

Weeds: As I said earlier, brilliant. The acting and writing are all there.

This American Life, Seasons One and Two: I would not be surprised if Gus gets hungry every time he hears Ira Glass's voice.

The Pilot and I are watching The Wire at night after we put Gus to bed. I went through the entire series while the Pilot was deployed, but it's just so damn good I have to share. Seriously, it's the best show on television. Ever. When I watch it, sometimes I feel like I'm seeing a Shakespearean play adapted to the modern-day Baltimore drug trade.

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Just so you know, Gus and I do more than just watch television all day.

Gus can now roll over and do a low (and very slow) crawl. I have to put some pressure on his feet, but he just scoots along. He discovered this week that he can knock over soft building blocks. He likes to watch me stack the red, blue, and yellow blocks, and then he knocks them over with his hands or legs or head. He finds this activity highly satisfying.

We also do baby sit-ups to help with his head control and back strength.

We also read. More on this later...

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Another book to put on my reading list: Christian Davenport's As You Were: To War and Back with the Black Hawk Battalion of the Virginia National Guard. I listened to Davenport being interviewed on the Diane Rehm Show while I was making bottles. Davenport embedded with the Virginia National Guard and wrote a book about it. I hope that many people unconnected to the military heard this show and that Davenport's book will help citizens understand our citizen-soldiers.

Blog, Interrupted

Gus likes his new bed. On Friday night, we swaddled him, fed him a warm bottle, and laid him down for the first time in his crib on his brand new mattress. 

I switched on his Twilight Turtle, and the Pilot and I watched him drift off to sleep within minutes.

He slept for eight hours.

However, that did not prevent me from getting up every two hours and checking on him. Gus is fond of rolling, something difficult to do whilst wrapped up in a baby straight jacket. Instead, he scoots by bending his legs in the little room available to move. I often find him rotated 180 degrees and three feet away from where I left him. 

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Friday afternoon while the Pilot worked on his airplane and made trips to the hardware store, I worked on putting together Gus's desk.

Sure, he's not even big enough to sit unsupported much less plant himself in this adorable desk that I bought on clearance a couple of months ago, but I wanted his nursery to be close to complete. Honestly, I do believe we'll move house/PCS again before I finish his nursery and I expect we'll probably be packing up before Gus is able to use the desk, but I can try, right? (Note to new friends reading this: We've never lived anywhere for more than 20 months.)

As I'm putting together his desk, Gus begins to fuss. Occasionally, this is what he does in the afternoon once he has eaten. Sometimes it's gas; sometimes it's just him being three-months old. After all, it's not easy being small. But the fussiness came at a bad time just as I was lamenting my complete inability to finish any task however simple or quick or insignificant. 

It's not that Gus is inordinately fussy; he's just incredibly active. He likes people to talk and look at him and for people to listen and respond when he makes funny noises. He enjoys new places and faces. When he's rested he likes to squirm and worm around and kick and bat at objects. When he's tired, he likes to do much the same but his movements are desperate and frenetic. He's running on empty and he knows it.

The Pilot left for the hardware store right before I started setting all the pieces of the desk out. I watched him pull out of the driveway and thought, "I bet Gus shits his shorts before his daddy returns." The Pilot has not changed a dirty diaper in over a week. It's not that the Pilot doesn't help. He does. A lot. And gladly. Whenever he is home and not doing an upgrade that keeps him at work eighty hours a week, the Pilot changes diapers, makes bottles, and plays with and reads to Gus whenever he can. But let's face it, even with the breaks the Pilot gives me when he is home, at the end of the day, there is little left of me or my energy to do anything beyond caregiving. I never knew how much energy it took to care for a little person until now. As a good friend reminded me the other day, "You DO work, and you work HARD." 

And I really wanted to put together this desk all by myself, to finish something, anything, in one sitting without interruption.

And I was not able. As predicted, Gus started squirming and fussing in his swing just as I was getting ready to (Writing Interrupted. Baby awake after a twenty-five minute nap).

(About eight hours later... Gus is about to wake up from another nap. The drive from the store put him to sleep. Maybe I'll finish this story later and continue telling how Gus, in fact, did shit his shorts and about how I let him sit in his own mess for fifteen minutes while I tried to put the damn desk together and prayed that the Pilot would return home any minute.)

But, I didn't wait. His fussy grunts became a deafening wail. I changed him and then had to calm him down. I felt guilty that it took me so long to respond to his cries. And he kept crying as I tried to put the washers and bolts into the desk and then I had a minor nervous breakdown in the process.

The Pilot returned home to find his son crying and me crouched over the desk and looking up at the Pilot with what he terms "the crazy eye." 

The Pilot led me outside and said he bought something to cheer me up; a family of three birds and a lone pig made of scrap metal sat on our porch. 

And it did cheer me up. 

The Pilot finished the desk.

The next morning the Pilot kept Gus while I visited the Rincon Farmer's Market where I bought tamales and fresh-baked bread. Then I ate an adequate omelet at The Good Egg and read a couple of chapters of Monica Ali's Alentejo Blue. Ali's prose is far more than adequate and made up for the so-so breakfast. 

I drove to a very disappointing Whole Foods but then found a nice coffee shop in the same strip mall where I wrote merrily for a solid two hours. After a quick, yet highly satisfying trip to Sunflower Market for wine and beer, cherries and mangoes, and tomatoes and onions, I was reunited with my boys around noon. 

They were watching John Wayne in McLintock! 

We spent the fourth snacking on mango-avocado salsa, grilling steaks, drinking beer (and formula--Gus did not have any beer), and relaxing together. 

Maybe next year fireworks... For now, the Pilot and his son converse. Or, father tries to make son sing for his supper:

And maybe one day I'll put together Gus's table and chairs set.

(Sorry for the prolonged video of nonsense. I wanted to have fun with iMovie, and I had a ten-minute window in which to do so.)

(As I was uploading the photo and getting ready to post, Gus's diaper got hung up on one of the toys hanging over his playmat and he ripped it right off in his efforts to turn over and roll across the floor. So I carry him to the changing table above the packnplay, and as soon as I set him down, Gus lets out a four-foot stream of piss that hits me, him, the packnplay, and the wall. Yes, it's cliche. But my startled scream made him laugh which just made the pee shoot up higher. Now he's back on the playmat, diapered and smelling vaguely of pee, hollering at the dog and trying to flip over again. And, yes, we have heard of the teepee; he's just too wiggly for it to do a damn bit of good. I love my wiggly, giggly boy.)

Bedding down

Or what I learned on the day our new queen mattress was delivered.

When a delivery service tells you between eight in the morning and twelve, go ahead and run your errands in the morning when it's the only tolerable time to do so. My delivery guys got here at 11:30. Besides, that's the point of the courtesy call thirty minutes before delivery. Don't wait around as I did and have to run errands between noon and two in the afternoon in Tucson.

Things you should have when you upgrade mattress size: new or adjusted frame (check), new sheets (check), comforter/duvet set (in transit, out for delivery today), and a mattress pad (doh!). 

When one Tuesday Morning is closed for inventory for two damn weeks, all Tuesday Mornings in the general area are closed for inventory for two damn weeks. Don't even try to make it across Tucson (or any other large city) in hopes that the other two are open. (No, I didn't go to the third location.)

When Tuesday Morning is closed for inventory for two damn weeks, TJ Maxx works just as well to satisfy one's mattress pad needs.

Target and other big box stores do not carry swimwear for infant boys, or at the very least they have a limited supply of it. I would think nothing about outfitting a three-month-old boy in a pink swim tank with purple hearts. The Pilot is another matter... I may just walk on the wild side and use sunscreen everywhere but his hands (which he likes to eat) and face before the prescribed six months. 

Gus likes Leonard Cohen and watched almost all of the documentary I'm Your Man (2005) from his play mat. After listening to Rufus Wainwright's version of "Hallelujah," Gus had a moment of satisfied silence before throwing a fit. We listened to the song three more times.

Gus falls asleep best in the Pilot's arms. He passes out in his daddy's left arm where he sits slumped over and drunk off the bottle he was just fed. We're back to using the SwaddleMe velcro swaddler since the rooms have ceiling fans. Save this morning's 3:30AM wake-up, he has slept through the night almost all week.

This morning the Pilot and I slept in late and woke up in our new bed where Gus joined us and showed off his new rolling-over trick.

Barley watched longingly from his bed on the floor.

What I like about moving...

New places to discover. That's obvious enough.

New stuff: Gus and his parents both will have mattresses by tomorrow night. This morning Serta called to tell me that our queen mattress is in their warehouse and ready to be delivered tomorrow morning. For the past couple of weeks we've been living on an air mattress. In Georgia and throughout our marriage (and the Pilot's entire career in the Air Force), we've rested our weary heads on his grandmother's full mattress set which is about as old (possibly older) than our thirty some-odd years. Gus is getting too big and too active for his pack-n-play bassinet, and the Pilot and I need more room. People wonder how we got pregnant so quickly; I tell them it was sleeping on a full mattress. 

New Friends: The other night we had our first steak night with dinner guests. The Pilot threw some gorgeous steaks that he cut from a primal on the grill, and our guests brought a lovely salad and two even lovelier bottles of red. I made apple dumplings served with black walnut ice cream for dessert. Good food and conversation made our house feel more like our home. Last night I attended book club. Some of these people barely know me, and they've made me feel very welcome. My social calendar is filling up. Pretty good for someone who tends to be socially awkward and a little antisocial. 

Old Friends: The Pilot works in a field where at Hail and Farewells people rarely say goodbye unless they are retiring. I miss the friends I had in Georgia, but I'm fairly confident we'll see each other again down the road. One of my friends from an earlier assignment is here, and I am very happy to get reacquainted with her.

A New Address: For some reason, I like changing my address, especially when the street name is interesting. In one place, we lived on Commando which always tickled me. Also, whenever we move, we always receive the previous tenant/owner's catalogs. Sometimes these catalogs turn out to be useful (gardening); I visit the website and get my own subscription. Other times, the catalogs are just plain odd but no less amusing. On Sunday I discovered this catalog in our mailbox: Emergency Essentials. It features large vats of applesauce, grains and legumes in six-gallon SuperPails, and the Pilot's favorite, MREs, or Meals Ready to Eat. The Pilot is determined to have me try the latter. While it would be easy to poke fun at such a publication, I must admit that some of the stuff in the catalog is extraordinarily practical. Has anyone read Cormac McCarthy's The Road? I promise to mark the catalog "Return to Sender" and place it dutifully back in my mailbox, but I probably won't subscribe to it. It will, however, stay in the back of my mind in a file labeled "Just in case."