Elaine Envy

I dropped Toddler off at camp this morning and after clinging to my leg for a few delicious moments that made me feel wonderfully needed, she said, "Bye bye, Mommy" and promptly started decorating a cardboard star-wand with blue glitter. And for the first time, I left the school. On the way out, I assured Toddler's teacher that I would be within a two-block radius and tethered to my cell phone. And before I could utter my phone number, the door was shut to that colorful room. So, like it or not, the separation process is underway.

Having a good chunk of time to spare, I met Sister C for breakfast. C is 38 weeks pregnant, glowing and gorgeous, waiting for her little boy to make his debut. We lingered over yummy food and drink, talking life and law and little babies. And I had a feverish resurgence of belly envy. I looked at her - all sunny smiles, on the precipice of perhaps the biggest day of her life. I looked at her belly - round, taut, bulging with promise and I thought: Yup, I'm officially envious.

It didn't help that I went to see her finished nursery which is hands down the coolest, funkiest, most artfully arranged baby haven I have ever seen. I will ask her if I can take a picture and post it here on ILI because it is that amazing. It's a sanctuary of blues and aquas and greens, full of animal motifs and rich patterns... Leave it to my Phi Beta Kappa, Summa Cum Laude, Yale Law Grad beauty of a sister to be good at yet another thing. I have zero doubt she will make an incredible mother and I can't wait to see it happen... and soon!

I'm also envious of another thing: Elaine. Elaine is the miracle of a baby nurse who stayed with Husband and me during the first weeks of Toddler and Baby's lives. And now she will stay with C and her new fam. A seasoned veteran of all things baby, with a cool Jamaican accent and sweet smile, Elaine brought a sense of sanity, calm, and happiness to our home during a time when things could have easily been insane, hectic, and anxiety-riddled. She answered infinite questions, taught infinite lessons, showed me how to burp and bathe a baby. I am forever indebted to this woman and I cannot wait to see her again. I know that baby nurses are largely a Manhattan phenomenon and that there are many of you out there who are judgmental of paying someone to stand by and keep the postnatal peace. I know plenty of you probably think having a baby nurse is indulgent and unnecessary and you are certainly entitled to your opinion. But I have zero regrets. And when I have Baby #3 (and Baby #4 - I can dream!), I will welcome Elaine back into our humble abode.

When will my baby nephew arrive? When will I be reunited with Elaine? Stay tuned! My guess: C will go into labor late Thursday night and her cutie will arrive this Friday, July 10...

I know you don't know her (or maybe you do!), but when do you think C will give birth? What are your thoughts on baby nurses?

Is Knowledge Always Power?

Last week, I posted a letter to fellow mothers urging them to stop sharing their labor and delivery stories with pregnant women. This letter like my blog and like life was part serious and part silly. And it prompted a pair of insightful comments from loyal ILI readers. One of these comments came from fellow-blogger Mama over at the delightful blog The Elmo Wallpaper. Mama stated - ever-diplomatically of course -- that she disagreed with my argument that women should lie about their labor stories.

She wrote:

...I believe in telling the honest truth, because not telling it just makes women freak out when they are in the middle of it and things AREN'T going perfectly. I would rather them know that it's perfectly normal to NOT have the birth you expect. And I think it's almost criminal that nobody tells you about the aftermath. Knowing it's coming, IMO (in my opinion), makes the experience less terrifying.

And instead of responding to her comment in the comment box, I decided to make this is its own post because really this is about something far bigger than birth and babies and pseudo-serious letters to fellow members of the Mother Species. This is about knowledge.

We all know that I am a hopeless romantic when it comes to education, to my alma maters, to concepts of knowledge and continued learning. There is something magical and majestic about knowledge. But does it always empower us or does it sometimes hinder us? Is it always better to know more, or does a little (willed) ignorance perhaps go a long way?

When I quit my job at the law firm and told people that I was going to write a novel, I was serenaded by a chorus of condescension. The gist? My plan to jump ship and write a book was cliched and cute. An ill-conceived, utterly blonde move. And then people who knew more than I about the publishing world (which at that point was practically everyone) regaled me with countless stories of failure, of dusty manuscripts, of slush piles, of evil agents. I was fed statistics - alarming ones - about how hard it is to complete a novel and then find an agent and then sell the book to a publisher.

But I tuned these people out like I do waiters who read dinner specials and I nodded politely and then I continued to chip away at my first novel. I would venture to say that it was because of this willed ignorance or timely naivete that I actually finished the book and then started looking for an agent. If I did too much research, if I soaked up all of the dismal details of the stories told, I would likely have been derailed, deflated, discouraged.

This is what I meant when I urged you moms to gloss over the miseries that might have marked your deliveries. Not because I am a proponent of dishonesty. (Quite the opposite. My aim in creating this blog and nurturing it is to be honest with you and myself and the world and my fingers are crossed that this honesty is deeply contagious.) Rather, my feeling is that there are times when full knowledge is not power, but the opposite. When a little mystery is a good thing. I think a woman who goes to the hospital to give birth should be excited (and, yes, a bit scared) and cautiously optimistic and realistic that uncertainties abound. I do not think this woman should have specific visions of a litany of minutiae that might go wrong. No, I think she should be shrouded in a thin veil of blissful ignorance about the admittedly tough and undeniably rewarding road ahead.

What do you all think? Is knowledge always power? Or are there times when we should dial back on details?

Dear Baby #4

Dear Baby #4,

Daddy says I'm not allowed to have you. That only three kids fit in a rental car. Your Daddy is so sane and practical. And unfair. I will work on him.

Insecurely yours,

Mommy

Dear Baby #3

Dear Baby #3,

You don't exist yet. Not even a tiny cluster of cells. But I'm beginning to think about you. Your sisters are a handful and yet I crave more. More chaos. More cheeks. More.

Insecurely yours,

Mommy

Dear Fellow Mothers

Dear Fellow Mothers,

Stop telling your labor stories to women who are about to give birth. And if you must tell them, lie. Lie big time. Tell them that your doctor was a genius. That the nurses were sent from heaven. That the contractions were mere twinges. That your hospital bag was perfectly packed. That the epidural worked like a charm. That all tears were happy ones. That your husband was a cheerleader. That the baby came out pink and screaming and got a perfect 10.

Lie. Or zip it.

It just scares people. And childbirth is scary enough on its own. No one needs to know how many stitches you got or how many times you needed to push. No one needs to know how miserable your contractions were or that you made it to seven centimeters before getting your epidural. No one needs to hear that you had an emergency C. No one needs to know that the cord was wrapped around your baby's neck and she didn't cry for the first fifteen seconds of her life. No one needs to know about the catheter or the mucous plug or those disposable undies that you wore. No one needs to know these things.

These things make people nervous. Just like this letter does.

Insecurely yours,

Aidan

Dear Jimmy

Dear Jimmy,

You are a troublemaker already. Tucked inside C's belly, kicking and punching and turning somersaults, keeping her in NYC while the rest of us are fly-fishing miles away. And we wish your Mommy and Daddy were here with us now, catching fish, taking in the views, eating cheese curds.

But I think ahead to next year. You will be almost one. I can see you now - bright blue eyes, a mini-mess of blond hair, a vast and undeniable smile, stumbling around on that old wooden porch, reaching for your Daddy's rods. Playing with your cousins.

You better stay cozy in that belly until I come home.

Insecurely yours,

Aunt Aidan

A Saturday Shower

100 blue balloons.

36 baby bacon quiches.

1 black Bugaboo.

Countless bellinis.

Endless bubbly.

1 blonde boy on his way.

Congrats, C! 

I can happily host your shower, but I can't offer you too much advice. With four sisters and two daughters, I live in a pink, pink world.

Parents of boys out there, can you pass along your baby boy wisdom to my little sis? Pretty please.

Congratulations, C!

Bulldog blues.

Barley blonde.

Bombshell beauty.

Blinding brilliance.

Burgeoning bump.

Baby boy brewing.

If I didn't love you so much, I'd have to hate you.

Your impossibly proud big sis,

A

A Scrumptious Saturday Spread

Enjoy this lavish link buffet, a sweet and savory start to your Saturday. Chock-full of choices and calorie-free, so click away! 

Hilarious Heather Armstrong welcomes an univited house guest in the 34th week of her pregnancy: Fred The Protruding Belly Button.  {Dooce}

Bad mommies unite! A defense of the modern phenomenon of Mommy Confessions.  {Hybrid Mom Insider}

Nanofiction?  Twiction?  Cell-Phone Novels?  Technology is changing what we read and how we read it.  (Where does that leave us writers?) {PC World}

We humans are literally wired to help each other, but what happens when compassion fatigue sets in? {Daddy Dialectic}

Reality is not always roses.  Not every Mother's Day sentiment fits squarely on a pastel Mother's Day Card.  {NYT's Motherlode}

Want to up your happiness and lower your blood pressure?  Then get your hug on.  {The Happiness Project}

Bristol Palin as abstinence advocate?  And Britney Spears should be the voice of virgins. {New York Times Op-Ed}

You know the economy's in shambles when a promising young lawyer turns to prostitution.  {Above The Law}

Spiderman has a son?  I'm ceaselessly amazed by couples who manage to conceive one of each!  {Celebrity Baby Blog}

Belly Envy?

[A quick disclaimer: This stunning ultrasound? It's neither Toddler nor Baby.  I'm not that crazy.]

I am clutching my BlackBerry extra tight these days.  Why? A couple of my very best friends are about to go into labor.  One with her first baby and one with her second.  And just as I craved the odd egg sandwich or glazed donut or Tootsie Pop during my latest pregnancy, I find myself salivating for details.  The more, the better.  And maybe it is a bit odd, but I want to know numbers, about dilation and effacement and softening.  I like to hear about contractions -- the Braxton Hicks and the big-time.  I like to hear about what's in the hospital bag. Maybe this isn't so weird?  I'm a writer after all.  I love details.  The more obscure, the better.  I love to see the poetry in the everyday.  

You know what is a bit weird?  That I am envious.  Of the profound fever of anticipation.  Of the glorious mystery.  Of hearing that first primal cry.  Of seeing what the creature looks like for the very first time.  Of changing that first tiny diaper.  Of swinging that car seat over the threshold for the first time and saying, "welcome home, baby."

And six months out from all of this, I wouldn't go back.  So maybe envy is not the right word.  I'm happy to be right where I am. Baby is sitting and babbling and as of today eating (okay, spitting) oatmeal.  Toddler is a sassy spitfire, in love with her sparkly sunglasses and a stone lion on our sidewalk named Steinway.  It doesn't get better than this.

But I guess I am excited for my friends (and sister) and frankly every pregnant woman I see waddling by my Starbucks window.  Because for each of them, in a matter of minutes or hours or days or months, life's best adventure will begin.  Or begin again.  And when I allow myself to dream big (and shouldn't we all?), sure,  I imagine published novels and book signings and good reviews and maybe a motion picture.  But if I squint hard and envision the most beautiful future, I see something more.  I see bellies and births and babies.  

But now, entrenched in this poetic, borderline pretentious, present moment, I will make do with the beckoning buzz of my BlackBerry and the blissfully good news it brings me.

The Ticker Makes Us Sicker

Yesterday afternoon, I did something I vowed to stop doing.  Something I have gotten a lot better about not doing.  I checked the DOW.  Down a splendid 289.60.  Cheers.  Immediately, I was struck by a wave of nausea.  A very familiar wave of nausea.

The economy.  Yuck.  For months now, it’s as if all of us Americans, yes all of us (welcome to the club, guys) are pregnant with a baby we didn’t quite plan.  And, worse, we don’t know who the father is.  Was it Slick Willy?  George W?  Homeowners? The banks?  Now, it doesn’t quite matter; the cells are multiplying, limbs are flailing, we are repeatedly getting kicked in the gut, our ribs are sore; the thing’s got a life of its own.  We wake up, blissfully foggy, at times unaware of the purchase this creature has on our lives and then, we do stupid, predictable, everyday things: we turn on the TV, we surf the web, we grab a paper. And bam, we’re headed for that toilet. 

Fun way to start the day.

Thankfully, we all have a good and benevolent doctor, albeit a rookie, to tell us that the nausea is exceedingly normal, that it will pass, that if we snack on salty things and hunker down and keep our eye on the prize, we will be okay.  And, desperate and pale and fat under those standard issue hospital gowns, we (okay, only some of us) tell him: “Do what you have to do.  Tax us.  Spend.  Bail out the bozos.  Just make this go away.”

And our doctor nods bravely. Fear and wisdom glisten in tired eyes.  He flashes a smile, winning and genuine.  And though he probably doesn’t know exactly what he’s doing (who does?), we listen to his soothing tone.  And we don’t know why but we feel better.  And we think, at least we are getting good medical care.

I gave birth to Baby six months ago.  You wouldn’t know it by this schizophrenic weather but, alas, it’s Spring.  And I’m beginning to feel freedom again.  After the birth of Toddler two years ago, I spent my hours sans babe doing what other spoiled first-time mommies do: I shopped Columbus Avenue, washed improvident $20 chopped salads down with a glass of Sancerre (only one of course, I was breastfeeding!), I got manicures with friends.

But now?  Other than typing caffeine-fueled rants like this at my local Starbucks and chipping away at my next manuscript and taking care of the babies, I go to the gym.  Why?  One, it’s cheaper.  Two, it will help me get back in shape and if I can no longer buy designer skinny jeans willy-nilly, I will get myself some skinny legs.  But mostly, I go to the gym because at the gym I am surrounded by other people (admittedly privileged enough to be at the gym smack-dab in the middle of the workday).  People who are white and black, young and old, fat and thin, blonde and brunette, famous and jobless, and somewhere in between.  I go there to escape a few things for a few hours. The babies I love.  The worries I don’t.  This vomitous, illegitimate economy.

But on those flat screen TVs that once splayed silly soap operas and reality shows, newscasters wear severe pin stripes with their severe frowns.  And in the bottom half of every television that stock ticker mocks us, doing its subversive dance.  Up and down.  And down.  And down some more.  And even if we keep those TVs muted, an ominous voice carries:  Try to relax, foolish one.  Your portfolio was burned in half.  That home in which you raised your kids and your grandkids visit at Christmas time?  Might not be yours for long.  That splendid nanny who is at home with your two baby girls while you indulgently tone up your postpartum thighs?  Even you can’t quite afford that.

And I am not immune.  I listen to my iPod and read my book, my legs spinning fast, my body going nowhere.  But every few minutes I look up and squint.  And there it is: the ticker.  And part of me, the feral, uncivilized part of me that is bohemian and insane or maybe totally sane, wants to rip out the headphones and jump off the arc trainer and stand atop the water fountain for an impromptu town meeting and break the zen-like-gym-silence and tell all of these sad and nauseous people, pregnant with worry, to STOP.  Don’t kowtow to the DOW.  Turn off the ticker. 

The ticker only makes us sicker.

This is not about denial, friends.  Mine is not a sob story.  My sacrifice: foregoing the marble countertops in my new apartment.  But I feel sick just like you. 

We cannot ignore the economy; the creature’s within us, creating irreversible and sobering scars, giving us stretch marks and wrinkles.  We are not going to say screw you and hit the bottle or slurp sushi with abandon.  We are going to keep taking those prenatal vitamins.  We are going to be responsible critters.  And nurture the little sucker who makes us all miserable.  Because, right now, we have no choice.

But that doesn’t mean we have to lie on the couch, clutching our swelling belly, bemoaning the cruelty of it all.  That doesn’t mean we have to spend every moment whining or cursing life.  That doesn’t mean we need to hinge our daily happiness on those fluttering little green numbers that follow the little negative sign.

Because you know what?  At some point, this dreaded pregnancy will be over.  And it might be more than nine months.  And labor might suck.  Royally.  And, surprise! We might end up with octuplets.  But, at some point, it will be over.  Pound by pound, we will lose the pregnancy weight and feel the flutters of freedom once more.  And we will once again buy homes and sip Sancerre and splurge on totally unnecessary pairs of skinny jeans.

Right now, it’s hard to believe but some day, we will wake up and feel okay.  The morning sickness will be gone and maybe we won’t even remember how ill we once felt.  And, even stronger than before, we Americans will smile again. 

Living On The Edge

My little sister and a number of my very good friends are pregnant with their first babies.  And each of them has asked me the same question: How is your life different now that you have kids?  As any parent knows, this is a ridiculous question because quite frankly the whole world changes when you have a baby.  But, that aside, two very practical things occurred to me.  Since I gave birth to my first child, (1) I never sleep past 7:30am; and (2) I never wear heels.  And these aren't minor things.  I used to sleep until 11am on weekends and less than four years ago, that very nice lady from California Closets built me a whole bunch of little cubby-like shelves for all of my heels.  Heels which I never ever wear.

Until tonight.  Tonight, I am attending the big Dalton benefit.  My beloved alma mater is turning ninety-years-old and I figured why not live on the edge and channel my High School heel-wearing self? I will let you know how it goes. And, no, sadly I will not be able to sleep past 7:30 (who are we kidding? 6:30).