My Bulging Pockets

I think I have done a pretty good job maintaining my identity despite the birth of my child. Not every blog entry is about her. I don’t spend every conversation espousing the benefits of disposable diapers, and wipe warmers, or recounting yet another cute anecdote concerning talking, or walking, or falling down, or something embarrassing.

My car has only slightly suffered her introduction to the world; my house is only slightly more messy, I still get to play the guitar, crochet, cook for fun, throw parties, and even sometimes go out to the movies, or shoot pool, when a babysitter is available.

This morning, as I was racing from my car to the office, (I was 30 minutes late for work today!), I stuffed my freezing hands into my coat pockets to feel for my cell phone and it suddenly occurred to me that it was my coat pockets that have truly suffered my becoming a mother.

These pockets are completely overflowing. I must look like I have enormous hips, my coat bulging obscenely around my middle. This morning, and it changes throughout the week, the following items were residing in my pockets:

1. Three mandarin oranges: I do not get to eat breakfast as I am always running late in the mornings, so I stuffed these in there on the way out to the car.
2. One four foot long piece of toilet paper: Have you ever seen how much snot a one year old can produce? It doesn’t seem possible.
3. Two wheat crackers: Bronwen gets cranky when she is hungry and I always seem to be picking her up, or dropping her off when she is hungry. But I think these particular crackers were left over from our Costco trip last night.
4. Lipstick: I can’t remember the last time I wore lipstick, but I keep it just in case.
5. Burt’s Bees Lip-gloss: No only does this help my chapped lips, I also smear it under Bronwen’s nose to help with the snot induced chapped upper lip. Ha!
6. Necklace: Bronwen was pulling on this necklace and I was afraid it would break so I took it off and shoved it in my pocket. It lives there now.
7. Spare change: Pennies mostly, useless. I find change and pick it up so Bronwen won’t choke.
8. Spare pacifier: Have you seen what a pacifier can do when stuffed into the mouth a screaming child?
9. Receipts/papers/etc: Today, while fishing for the cell phone amongst the above listed things, I discovered the confirmation slip for the Foreign Service exam. Also, there are various receipts for lunches and daycare payments. I really should empty some of this stuff out.

When I carry a purse, all of this mess moves from the pockets to the purse. And because the purse is so much bigger, it is exciting to see the items that congregate and secretly multiply. If only the spare change would multiply into bills, that would multiple into larger bills.

Play Fights are Bad

Here is some advice for all you couples out there: Don’t have a few drinks and sit down next to your sweetheart and start the whole “play fight” thing, saying things like:

“No seriously, tell me what I do that really annoys you.”

and

“What else would you change about me if you could?”

These are bad questions to ask anyway, but add in drink, hormones and general exhaustion, and it is just not going to be a good night.

After last night I have realized that “play fighting” is not play at all, it is fighting without actually resolving anything. It is saying the angry things you want to say, without having to accept responsibility for saying it because you’re “just kidding!” It is purposefully saying hurtful things and getting away with laughing at the other person when they act hurt. It is just a bad idea.

I am not sure how to purge the ickyness of the “play fight”. Maybe a real fight is required. Or maybe just a sober talk followed by lots of make-up sex. Either way, at the end of the day, I think that honesty has to be paired up with compassion, and compassion is what makes us take care of each other and stick together through the fights.

A New Bronwen Video

This is the story. Every morning I go to feed Bronwen and all she wants is a banana. We have always called her our little chunky monkey, but this is ridiculous. Usually, I just give her a few cut up peices and she shoves them into her mouth until she can barely breath. This morning I decided to just give her the whole banana. I know the video is dark, but if you turn up the sound, you can here me laughing at her through out. Hilarious! You would think we never fed her! Click here for video.

My Christmas Rant

Despite my attempts this year to rebel against the commercialization of Christmas, I have fallen prey once again. Part of my rebellion centers on the fact that we just paid for, and are recovering from, our wedding that even though it was not particularly extravagant, still cost more than a few months of pay. But the main part of my rebellion has to do with my total lack of social responsibility, my guilt about that and my desire to do something for other people who are in need. Of course I want to receive Christmas presents! I have a list of a hundred things I would like if given the chance. But I don’t need anything. Our house is overflowing with stuff; books, CDs, DVDs, clothes, toys, stuff, stuff, stuff!

I suggested to friends that we should take the money we planned on spending on each other and pool it to donate to a charity, shelter, or maybe even adopt a family and give gifts to them. But it is hard to change habit, and it is nice to give gifts to your friends and family. I have a plan for next year. It is called a Free Christmas Yard Sale. Everyone donates stuff, new or gently used, and people can come by, pick out two items and we will wrap them and it is all free. The only rule is that the people choosing gifts must be picking them out for someone besides themselves. I am really looking forward to this event, and hopefully will have time next year to plan it well.

I had a good friend in high school who I roomed with for two years. She was living with a foster family because her mother was unstable, possibly she was a drug addict; I wasn’t sure. This friend had been through some really hard times. She had lived in a cardboard box, literally, and had been disappointed and hurt many times in her life. But she told me about a special Christmas that stayed in her mind. Her mother, I think in an attempt to make a bad situation good, took a beat up old Christmas tree and pulled off the remaining needles and spray painted it silver and they decorated it. My friend talked about this experience with a sentimental sparkle in her eyes and I realized that she didn’t see the tragedy in that Christmas. She didn’t remember how they went without presents and a “real tree”, she remember the creativity, the fun of doing something with her family.

Kids don’t realize that they are poor. I never did. I thought sleeping by the fire with my family was great fun and a bonding experience, not a survival situation to keep us warm because my parents couldn’t afford to pay the heating bill during a bitter winter month. But as you get older, you start to understand that there are people who have things that you don’t have, and you start to feel different. I remember the Christmas that my mother announced that we were not going to have any Christmas presents. We were not living in a box, we lived in a clean, warm apartment building, but what I didn’t know then was that my mother put every cent she had into keeping us in that nice apartment and keeping us fed and clothed. We cried, a lot! We had never had a Christmas without presents.

Christmas arrived and we were prepared for a quiet day together without any gifts. It was then that we discovered, outside of our door, two trash bags filled with gifts for us three kids and some for my mother too. We all cried and held each other and opened our gifts with a special reverence that year. We believed it was a Christmas miracle, or Santa or both. Either way, it was a powerful Christmas for our family.

It makes me sad when I see kids, and adults, open present after present, with burgeoning disappointment as the pile builds because they got less than year. How do you help someone to see that there are so many people in the world with nothing? How do we ensure, as much fun as it can be, that we don’t all get swept up into the commercials, the packaging, the desire for stuff that sucks us all into the Christmas spirit vortex, spinning us out of control, running up our credit and keeping us buying, buying, buying? Whether you believe in a Christian god or not, Christmas is about celebrating the birth of Christ, who was not surrounded by stuff at birth but surrounded by friends and family. Isn’t that what we need? Isn’t it the people that surround us (literally and metaphorically) that bring value to our lives?

Baby Shower Fun

Baby showers are really fun. I love getting together with a bunch of people to celebrate the inevitable arrival of a new human being. Toune and Alex’s baby shower was by far the best baby party I have been to, ever!

First of all, nothing can beat a party where the food is traditional Thai/Laos food, prepared lovingly by Thai/Laos people. We ate the best chicken pad Thai, spring rolls, ham salad, and the spiciest papaya salad I have ever eaten. I also had the pleasure of eating a strange pickled meat dish, which turned out to be tripe, and I ate this amazingly strange traditional Laotian meat dish which was sliced beef in a bitter, lemon grass sauce. It was unlike anything I have ever eaten and it turned out that the sauce was made of beef bile. I didn’t go back for seconds, but it was tasty.

The people were wonderful and friendly and I had a chance to catch up with some folks who, the last time I spoke with them was at Toune and Alex’s wedding reception. Vinee organized a great party; we played all the silly shower games (while the men played Texas Hold’em and drank brandy on the back porch) and Toune and Alex opened a million presents!

We left there thoroughly stuffed and happy. I am looking forward to the birth of their child. I think they are going to enjoy being parents (Alex was having a ball with Bronwen!) and I can’t wait to meet the little human that is part Alex and part Toune.

My Cool Daughter

I think my daughter is really cool. There are so many things that she does that really cracks me up. There is one thing, however, that she does that makes my heart completely melt and pour right out of my chest into my lap. Let me set the scene.

Let’s say we are driving home from daycare. Bronwen is usually hungry and fussy and usually, all I want to do is listen to NPR. So I turn on NPR and Bronwen starts fussing.

“YAYAYAYA!” she likes to say over and over, louder and louder.

If I ignore her, turn up the radio and keep driving, inevitably the loud crying will start up.

“MAAA MMAAA MMAAA!” she will cry, over and over, louder and louder. Then, and here is the kicker, all I have to do is turn off NPR and put on some loud, energetic music like, say, The Shins, for example, and she will immediately stop crying, and start bobbing her head to the music.

Side to side, she will toss her head, laughing at herself. Sometimes she will even try to sing along. It makes me so happy to see her enjoying music; it is after all, one of the most important creative parts of my life. The feeling I get watching her and listening to her bob and sing to the music is incomparable. She is the coolest.

Almost Winter

It’s that time of year again. The beautiful rainbow of autumn leaves have mostly fallen to the freezing ground leaving only the tenacious, brown and dried hangers-ons clinging to the bottom most branches of the skeletal trees. They remind me of molting vultures with their bald tops and feathered and scabby bottoms. The sun has headed south of the equator causing that curious change in the slant of light that causes me to feel sleepy all afternoon and into the early sunsets. All I want to do is nest; bake breads and cakes, cook stews and mull cider. I want to swaddle myself in down comforters and wear thick wool socks that make my feet sweat. I want to snuggle in front of the TV with Dan and Bronwen and crochet all day and night. I can’t stop lighting candles all around the house; I relish the jungle-like humidity of my bathroom after morning showers, and dread the barefoot climb north, to my closet in the freezing upstairs room. I love this time of year. It is romantic and sobering, festive and sentimental.

One late November I spent in Australia where the beaches were just warming up for early summer break. I put on my bikini and sunbathed the days away until thanksgiving arrived and the generous Aussie’s put together a makeshift American turkey dinner for us. There is something strange about eating turkey, pumpkin pie, stuffing and roasted potatoes in 90 degree weather while hanging out in your tank top, shorts and flip flops, and planning your next trip to the beach.

I prefer the northern hemisphere experience. I like the shortening of the days, the drastic change in temperature and nights spent cuddling under blankets, our cold toes and fingers burrowing into each others warm spots, under arms and between knees, until finally warm, we melt into the long winter night sleep.

Stump Update

Anyone who knows me knows that I love to play stump. Even when I was pregnant, and very much against my mothers wishes, I played stump (drinking alarming amounts of Seltzer instead of beer.) Therefore, I was delighted to receive a response to an email I sent to Worldstump.com last May including pictures of North Carolina stump, describing the viral spread of the game here and mention of our personal variation of the game, Fire Stump. The email simply said thanks for the pictures and keep playing stump, but it prompted me to check out the website and there I found mention of the infamous Fire Stump ( I have to post the pictures that Chris took, they are incredible) and I found out that Wikipedia has a Stump entry now, as well as a new Stump page at Myspace. I read through both and am happy to say that Stump is well represented.

Dan and I set the stump up in the front yard a few weeks ago, and we played with the neighbors while our little babies were sleeping in their warm beds. It was great, I even won one game.

Just Pure Laziness

It is not often that we take time to truly consider our mundane daily actions and consequences of those actions. Why bother thinking about something as simple, and routine, as how you make a cup of tea, what do you do with the spoon after stirring, and where does that tea bag get tossed? I certainly do not waste brain power on these thoughts, except that yesterday Dan was laughing at me, again, for not throwing the diapers away in the special diaper receptacle. At first I just laughed about it. “Yeah, I really can’t be bothered.” I told him.

This made me take pause. Why, I thought, do I not take the effort to throw those diapers away? It’s not hard? There are other things I do in life that are much more difficult and I continue to follow through. It’s pure laziness, I concluded.

I have always considered myself lazy; despite the fact that I rarely sit down until dinnertime and then again, only after the kids are in bed. So I guess I am not generally lazy, just specifically lazy. The diapers are one example. I started trying to come up with other specific lazy non-actions.

Unfortunately, I am lazy about my night routine (teeth brushing, face washing, etc) and I tend to skip more often than not. I am lazy about dragging the trash cans back up the driveway weekly. I am too lazy to wrap the string of the broken Venetian blinds around the window latch in order to keep the blinds up. I just don’t even bother and open all of the other blinds except for that one. It is very obvious too, because the broken one in right in the middle. I guess I am too lazy even to go buy new blinds that work.

I am too lazy too feed the cats and the fish, too lazy to move the clean clothes from the dryer to their appropriate storage place, (I actually have a great idea of a way to take care of this problem but that is for another day…) and too lazy to unload the dishwasher. Fortunately, Dan is not too lazy to do all of these things, including the diapers and the Venetian blinds. That works out pretty well in the end.