I think I'm starting to like this town.

Look outside any window facing Europe and you might just see a glow in the sky. That would be me. After today's day.

9:30am ride cute little funicular 2 minutes down the hill to the central tram stop
9:40am meet N for a great cappuccino and juice at Henrici
10am go with N to the Migros Fitness Park Hammam downtown
1pm leave Hammam and go get another good coffee and some European style cheesecake at Schwarzenbach

2-6:30pm play with A at home, because it is raining outside. Not a single tear. Fun afternoon.

That time in the Hammam was three whole hours of no cell phone, quiet spaces, Moroccan tiles and embellished metal bowls to hold my washcloth. We wore cotton sheets. We sat in steamy, lavender rooms, and soaped and washed. We sat in other, hotter, steamy cinnamon rooms and sweat. We laid around on a hot dry cement bench, in a room lit only by a few Moroccan lanterns, and felt our back muscles melt. We got a 30 minute soap foam and warm water massage, and a 20 minute thyme mud scrub, a light lunch on chaise lounges in a room with a fountain and peppermint tea, and then another, hot stone and oil massage. I don't think I've ever been as clean as I was when I left the building. Three whole hours of paying attention to my skin and my body and just being.

All inside what is a bit like Switzerland's Target, except it is a cooperative. I doubt there is a Target in the world where I could leave feeling so serene. I doubt that there are even Target executives who ever feel that serene.

So yes, I'm liking living in Zurich a bit more today.

Do they even make binkies in my size?

Two things have been going on at our house lately that probably shouldn't mix. We started trying (on my insistence) to wean our daughter of her pacifier, and she is having a "don't touch me, help me, comfort me, push my stroller, carry me, mom" month. The latter I've posted about before, and I'm still working through my resentment and hurt feelings some of the time.

I'm not so far gone that I can't see the benefits of having a daddy's girl. I get a break. I can go lay down with a magazine for 5 minutes because she could care less what I'm doing. But the becoming just a cook and cleaner is tough on the ego (good thing I've started work again) because I've been so focused on successfully navigating motherhood and bonding with her these last 18 months that it is a slap in the face to be physically pushed away by her tiny hands. "Ne, ne ne ne ne!" she shouts in Lithuanian, her one unconscious concession to my influence.

I feel pretty alone in figuring out how to deal with it, in that I don't feel like I have viable, mature models for how to weather this storm. How do I not take it personally? Should I stay in the room, or can I leave to pout a bit and cool off? What does it mean about me? Or is it just about me as a mother versus her father? Is it a phase? What have others gone through?

This is where Facebook has once again brought me comfort, from those who've gone before me and seen it pass as a phase. From R, posting on here, that's she's also felt hurt by it. And the parenting forums also brought some relief, through my tears yesterday (I'm still hoping it was a PMS day, how emotionally raw I felt by evening), assuring me that it is a phase, that it happens to many people, but most importantly for me, letting me know that a lot of people feel hurt by it. Knowing that my experience, as well as my reaction, is common, helps. That this is a tricky thing to navigate, especially for those of us who are still working through self-esteem issues.

And once again I'm convinced to try to fake not feeling hurt, in the hope that the practice will help me take it better, to concentrate more on myself as a person and not just a mom. Maybe it is finally time for me to take that 3 day trip by myself now. As usual, I can swing quite far in either direction, so at some point I even wondered if I should try to get pregnant again if this was a long phase, because then she wouldn't mind me not being as physically available. Yeah, that last one has been set aside, but it was a good exercise in trying to think around the hurt.

But it is important for me to acknowledge the hurt, because that was not something that was done often in my family. And you can't deal with something, or work through something that you don't admit exists.

There are some changes in our house, now. I've asked M to make sure he takes care of himself enough during the day to be able to be her one-and-only in the evenings and to have the energy for it. I have to find some set of things that A and I can do together, just the two of us. Things she does with her mama. After some serious screaming in the middle of the night, which did not result in a poopy diaper, I seem to have come back into vogue in A's world and we had a fun morning together. And given how much I could have used a huge pacifier this weekend, and a bunch of parenting forums that tell of kids growing out of binkies on their own time, I'm thinking that A should keep hers until she's ready to let go of them.

O, o o ooooo.

I love getting Oprah magazine each month. The second time I pick it up , after flipping through all the fun early pages, I go for just the books section. I read the synopses, check off which ones I want to try, and today I sit at a great coffee shop in West Zurich, with a really good capucchino and my Kindle and download samples of all those books. For quiet nights or sleepless nights of days when I have an hour to myself.

I'll spend the next hour on my work project and then walk over to a great second hand store before heading back home to do some more work.

Oh, and my shopping lent is over, like I mentioned yesterday. It was good. I feel a bit re-set in terms of worrying about how I look, and much less antsy to using shopping as therapy. Just dropped another dress at the tailor to fix it to fit better. Add straps 'cause mama don't have the rack to hold it up on my own. Besides, I have a climby, grabby, jubilant toddler who is great at pulling down loosely tied pajama pants as well as tube top dresses.

I'm still not totally happy with my post yesterday. Something is still missing from the idea of the real me, but I'll have to wait to figure that out. I have some stuff to go do now.

I LOOOVE you, just, the way yoooou, aaaare.....

I've been craving new coffee cups. We have these basic white ones, from IKEA, and although they set a very classic table, they are a bit too tall and narrow for my taste. I like to see a big surface area in my hot morning drinks. And all identical white, not as practical for those friends-with-toddlers brunches where you can forget all sitting down at once, not to mention keeping track of your coffee. Little monkeys running and getting into precarious situations, crying, eating, and generally being toddlers don't help anyone's short term recall of which cup was theirs.




I let myself do some test cup shopping, seeing as how my shopping lent is over. One plain white mug from Bodum which is probably the best size and shape (low cylinder), and then two for fun mugs from the campus art and paper supply shop. Ever since my cousin, L, encouraged me to wear that astronomy image tank top "with irony", I've realized how many other things I can do with irony. I give you....

my "born in the USA" mugs. It would be way more fun to have coffee at my place now that with Mr. Bland White Mug, right?




Anyway, I'm slowly getting back to eating my way across the omnivore's diet, and back to consuming things with milk in them, after this past weekend's flu. And at the same time, I've cut my anti-depressant dose in half. Which is the main point of my post.

I don't have my epiphanies all at once, and writing about complex issues helps me get to new places with them. So back to this idea of who "I am", on or off, or 1/2 off (or on) anti-depressants. I'm already a bit worried about how I'll feel, scared that maybe I'm just an irritable person naturally, the real me, and that my options in life are:

(1) nauseous after meals, fatigued after 10 hours of sleep, but fairly unflappable with A, and putting any other kid we might try to have through a gestation with me on medication or

(2) irritable, faster to get flustered by her tantrums (the kid wasn't even started on tantrums when I started the meds last year), more emotionally up and down, and more of a worrier. And who knows what kind of a mess if we ever decide for me to get pregnant again.

Which do I choose? Who am I?

Now I'm pretty sure these won't be my only choices, given how much more complex the world usually is, but for now, that's what I see as my choices. And that first one, apart from the uncomfortable physical feelings, has this air of "unnatural."

So now I'm thinking through that concept. Why unnatural? Or at least, why is that more unnatural that the other things I have used in life that I wasn't born with? Like my super strong glasses. Unnatural. My inhaler. Nope, not something that grows on trees or vines. My vaccines. Natural source but totally unnatural delivery. And let's not forget my whole reproduction story. Un. Natural. I shouldn't have gotten pregnant, or delivered a baby, or breast fed, if we were talking natural. But I don't get hints of disappointment from the same people about that as about my meds. I got it from myself, but long ago decided that nature can be a real bitch, and is really not into empathy (can we just dial back the clock to 1 a.m. last Thursday, when I was holed up in the bathroom, swearing and exploding?).

This "natural" person, then, who exactly is that? Under what conditions is someone more natural (which seems to be the ideal)? And what is the ideal based on? Surprisingly, for me, there seems to be almost a "the way God made you" sense about anti-depressants, and coming from non-believers (including me). But again, what is the benchmark for this person? I think each of us has to choose the balance for ourselves, because the choices are so dependent on culture, on the way our bodies turned out, our current situation in life.

So for now I'm trying to not worry too much about whether the lower dose is already making me more irritable (because I think I might feel less exhausted, but then again, I'm recovering from a flu), or whether A is just extra cranky these days. With the babysitter last night, who is like a baby whisperer, she was cranky, too. So I'm going to stick with more cranky for her, instead of me, but keep a little, peripheral vision watch. When do I go from "I know, sweetie, something just doesn't feel good right now" to "Really? C'mon! Just, please calm down"?

And for those who might encourage me to "just not think worry it!", I encourage you to actively not think about cabbage for the next 30 seconds. As you read this. I mean it. How is that not thinking about it going?

I'll pass on the clams, thanks.

Ugh. I was hoping for our family's sake it was food poisoning from the pasta and clams.

A nasty, horrible, be glad for indoor plumbing and the white noise machine in the baby's room next door flu hit our house this weekend. I got taken down on Thursday night, M went down Saturday night, and Baby A....well, she was just slower. Given that M and I were no-calories-in-my-body tired all weekend, having a slow, calm Baby A was actually a gift. She spent many minutes in a stroller, just sitting, watching the world go by. Not trying to stand up, or pull off her socks, or climb down the front, or rock it until it flipped over. And, snuggly A was back, too. That's the one I get all my cuddles in with to last me through the high energy times.

It was also a daddy weekend. Actually, it has been sort of a daddy month. I'm definitely the runner-up these days, and it is giving me time to practice not getting my feelings hurt. Just to go with it. Wanting to collapse on a bed for another 4-hour nap makes for a good mindset for this, too.

"You want to go with your papa instead? Oh....phew. Good. I'm going to go pass out again. Wake me if something starts to burn."

But I'm not always as gracious. It still stings to be the main caregiver and not the main go-to parent. But only because I think those two go hand in hand. M has never seemed to take it personally when she prefers me, other than being frustrated if it is his turn to attend to her at night. But it doesn't seem to hurt his feelings. Why? It isn't because he has none, or that they don't get hurt. I think it is because dads aren't supposed to be the ones a kid always goes to. It is the social convention. The "should" part, that keeps his ego intact, and makes my ego's lower lip quiver just a bit when she pushes my hand away but not his.

So I'm trying to go back to a better formula, that has worked before for me. Being a mom means knowing her the best, not being her favorite. It isn't a two-way arrow, at least not always, not necessarily. For me, being a mom has to be about knowing what she wants, and right now, it is her dad when he's around. And that's ok. Because it means I know my kid, which is more important to me really than being her favorite. Ok, I want it to be more important to me.

Just as with a bottle or some cough medicine, M should be in my bag of tricks. If A wakes up screaming (instead of crying), pacifier still in mouth, I should try a minute of calming and then carry her in to M. I can be pretty sure it is what she wants right now. And it keeps my sense of motherhood intact if it is based more on problem solving for her rather than being what and who she wants all the time.

Yeah, ok. So I'm going to go practice that now. Somehow.

And have some more Coke in a mug, because when you live with a toddler who wants to try everything you're having, but already knows that coffee isn't for babies but for adults, it is a small blessing that poured Coke looks a LOT like black coffee. M and I had a lot of "coffee" this weekend.

Me and the dog, out for a walk

Sometimes, all the cat and cow poo she eats, the barking she does at non-existent cats, and the needing to lick herself (extremely loudly) in the middle of the night, all falls away, because she also brings me for walks into the wet, cool forest on days like this, and it is beautiful there.

Being the new kid, again

How old do you have to be not to get the "new kid" nerves in a new place? Last night I went out dancing for the first time since I was 3 weeks pregnant. I was still in Tucson then and most of the people I danced with had no idea. Given how hard it had been to conceive, I was a bit worried about the rougher leads trying do to some crazy spin-me-by-my-stomach move, so I just told everyone I had hurt my back and to lead gently. My last night of dancing in Tucson.

I finally had the energy, the babysitting, and the time to go dancing here in Zurich last night. In a small space near one of the playgrounds I really like.

M was off on a work dinner, so I suited up (gotta dress comfy but in a skirt that swings nice and a t shirt that won't bertray you when it gets sweaty), got out my dance sneakers (way more stable than the wedges, especially for a bad back and out of shape mama), and went on my way. Once I was within walking distance, I realized I was nervous. A room of new people, who to dance with, did I remember how to dance, and could I handle all the asking I'd have to do as the new person (tiring at best, disheartening at worst)? At nearly 40 years old, triumphantly with a successfully navigated new motherhood, country of residence, marriage, work life, depression....and I was still nervous.

My friend J posted today that she got a job in the middle of nowhere where she will be alone for the first many months, not even her cat with her. And she is nervous. But she is one of the funniest people I know. The person I would expect to have no problems in a new place. S there it is - we all still get nervous. Of isolation, of what people will think of us, how it will go, what we were thinking of undertaking this new thing. And invariably it is these adventures that enrich life in ways we hoped but didn't imagine.

So good luck, J, and congratulations!

My night of dancing turned out great. Luckily I lead as well as follow, so even though the place was 3:1 women to men, I got my self-promised 5 good dances, with 3 guys and 2 women. And the biggest mistake I made? After asking the best lead in the room to dance, and having a great dance, I walked away afterwards, having thanked him. Guess what, here the norm is to have two dances with each partner. I threw away a totally great second dance! I'll have to rememdy that next time.

Oh, and the second place winner of the Eurovision contest this year, Italy, has a pretty danceable song.

Times, they are a changin'....at least as far as coffee goes

Lovely, cool but sunny Saturday. Baby A was sleeping over from Friday night at her babysitter's, and we slept in until 8am (college self, there's something we need to talk about you savoring more while you can). At 9am we were off to Bern, for a 2 1/2 hour coffee class with, get this, a Swiss Barista Champion. This dude had gone to compete in the world championships. You know he knows coffee. Better than you'll ever know it, or want to know it.

We met him at a coffee shop for our private, in English class, just me and M. (This was sort of a birthday present for M, but since the other present I'd planned came through, it became an anniversary present for us both. This also meant that if he hated it, it would still be ok as long as I didn't. I've mentioned I go to counseling, right?)

We got some history and background about coffee, and then tried to grind and measure out 9 grams for a single shot. That shit is hard to do. You're not even talking about the part where any water comes in contact with the coffee yet. You're still at the "making bean into small small pieces" part. And realizing your $40 grinder from the local equivalent of a Target is so tragically unqualified to claim that it grinds beans for drinkable coffee that it is a wonder you haven't spit out everything you've brewed these last 2 years.




Let me be clear, Mr. Champion was a totally cool, not snobby, not sarcastic guy. It was just that after seeing the grinders he had us practice on, and why, I realized that we may just need to buy a super-grinder first, pay our dues, make some great french press coffees and only then go on to the espresso machine. We may just not be able to handle all that metal and a fancy grinder all at once.



Anyway, then we went on to try actually pulling shots from the machine. Oh wait, nope. Tamping was next. Using that heavy thingy that looks like a stamp, to press down the coffee. Level. Not crooked. Otherwise, you're once again in trouble. As M put it, water takes the easiest, least crowded, path and if you've tamped your espresso at an angle in the portafilter, you're going to pull some funky shots. After that, you attach the portafilter, turn on the water, and count to 5. Apparently that is how long it should take for the coffee to start pouring. At which point, you scrutinize it like it was your senior thesis and the finalist project for the Westinghouse Genius Teenagers Way Smarter Than Us All science fair all in one. How wide is the band of liquid? How viscous? Color? How smooth or do you have unfortunate, loser bubbles in the coffee stream?

Again, let me be clear, Mr. Champion was the most gracious of teachers, having us look at all of this and then guess what we needed to adjust. Grind fineness? Amount of coffee in the shot? It just surprised me how much there was that could, and did, go wrong. The reject pitcher (where all the "you don't really want to drink that one" shots went to end their life) was pretty full at the end of our class.



But, we had a great time, realized how good it was that M and I were never physics lab partners, and that our current grinder should probably just bow out gracefully and retrain in the spice grinding business. And, I managed to pull a few decent shots (good enough for a few cappuccinos), and let me tell you, that amazing coffee drink I've been searching for, it is not so exotic. I came close to making one myself. I drank down 2 cups of better tasting drinks than I've had in all of Europe apart from Amsterdam, and I made them myself. Well, with some help from M. He seems to have a way with the art of milk foaming.



We even came home with some recommendations from Mr. Champion for the few places in Zurich he thinks do great coffee. Cafe Noir, is one of the names I will bestow on you now. And Henrichi, in the Old Town.

Enjoy.

My "morning" coffee - a post I've been trying to put up for days

I am still needing an extra morning nap these days. One, because my body is still tired. Two, because my baby has been sleeping on average an hour less at night and at daycare. Crap. I'm pretending (using all the make-believe skills I've cultivated in learning to roll with the punches of parenting) that it is temporary. Because of molars, or the weather. It is getting awfully warm these days, after all. Or because of the rainy, cool weather last night. Or because of the spoonful of chocolate truffle birthday cake she ate last night. It is basically because of something temporary.

If it isn't, obviously we'll adjust. But since I can't imagine how right now, I'm pretending it will end soon. I have to start back to work in the coming weeks.

I'm going to need more coffee.



This is what my first cup of the day often looks like. Fancy, huh? There's the birthday candle lobster, helping model the coffee and accoutrements. But let's be clear - the coffee press was freshly made for M's cup, around 8am (by said husband). I took a nap from 9am to 10:30am. At 11am, I filled the Swiss flag mug with milk, put it in the microwave for 2 minutes on "MAX" and then put the cold coffee in it. With a teaspoon of sugar. Works for me.

I've also spent an hour (ahem, or a bit more) this morning on Etsy. M likes sculpture. So do I, but he actually likes the idea of having some in our apartment. I'm not against the idea, but I am against the idea of having an expensive three-dimensional object that Baby A, Toddler A, or Moody Teenager A will destroy. And I know that M likes all sorts of sculpture, not just the expensive kind. And I like organic stuff right now. So I was searching for wood sculpture.

As usual, there was the tacky, the sappy, the poorly made, the "did you even put any thought into that?" along with the whimsical (bunny with a tool belt), the interesting (book sculpture), the wood stuff I might like in our bedroom or hallway, and the cute mug I found while looking for new coffee cups instead of closing that Firefox window.

And thank god it is a cloudy day, finally. I don't feel so bad for my flowers and plants under the broken-in-open-position sun shade on the balcony. And the smell of rain, the thick white clouds dripping tentacles onto the hill across the valley, and the sense of rest for the body. No need to find yet another great outdoor destination for the afternoon.

I don't want to share my toys anymore

Every time my friend I and I go to this one park in Zurich with our kids, one of our plastic sand toys manages to disappear. Even with our kids’ names written on them. Another child will carry one away and it somehow makes its way into another stroller or diaper bag.

Now, I realize that we all have IKEA sand toys around here. And yellow IKEA kitchen funnels. And all other things plastic from IKEA. But, c’mon. Don’t steal our toys. Don’t let your kid walk off with another child’s toy. I want to be able to loan kids toys at the park. I think it makes for a nice sense of community, especially if you’ve just stumbled on this great new spot with the water fountain and your kids would loooooove to play in it. I’m a big supporter of magical, surprise moments like that, for my kid and yours.

Just stop taking our toys home, ok?

It happened again yesterday (I’m going to start bringing Tupperware containers instead), but otherwise we had a lovely time at the park. The water feature was on, the kids stripped down to diapers and less, and loads of cute little toddler butts were braving the freezing water to splash and pour and play. And once in a while, pee.

Water play is such a big thing for kids. Baby A loves baths, splashing with buckets and cups and the baby pool on the balcony, fountains, sinks. You name it, if there is liquid, she’ll play (down to the water in her bottle at breakfast or the cup of milk on the table). Do they gain intuition from it? Is it just fun and then they have to stop playing at some point? Is it an integral part of the conservation of volume understanding? Is it just this crazy substance that you can touch but not grab?

It makes you buoyant. It slips through your fingers. It helps you slide across a rubber mat on the lawn. It makes dry bread easier to swallow. Plants need it to grow. You float in it as an embryo. Dogs love to play in it.

Sorry, I’m tired this morning and the cleaning lady came early so I am biding my time outside the house, at a café, having a hard time thinking much or writing well. I have my Swiss magazine and my iPhone German-English translator helping me read the article titles. Let’s be honest – I’m understanding about 50% of them even with the help of 2-4 words looked up per title.

And since I’m being random and uninspired today, I’ll mention that I’m still on my clothes and house decoration buying Lent. Which I’m happily surviving, partially by taking existing clothing to the tailor in our village to take in, let out, fix and such. I even got the curtains down there for a proper hemming. Now the baby’s room blue shower curtain is no longer staple-hemmed. My Target denim shirt fits my shoulders and my waist (this doesn’t happen often to me). On Mother’s Day, I even wore a dress from 3 years ago purchase, that was too tight on my arms, because he’d loosened the arm holes. Oh, and let’s not forget shoes. I brought in a pair of Teva sandals I bought last summer to move the tie loops so they fit my foot. Amazing what you can find to wear, in your closet.

Crinkles are coming

There used to be a store in Tucson, which we often passed on the drive home. It was one of those tchotchke places, that sold decorations for holidays. Actually, I never went in, but it always had a fake pine in the window, covered in ornaments for Thanksgiving or Valentine's day. It was one of those stores that I'm surprised can even stay in business. And in this case, it didn't. But while it was there, it felt like every 2 months they would advertise with a huge sign on the shop window: "Crinkles are coming!" and then, "Crinkles are here!"

I have no clue what a crinkle is. Or what crinkles are. Or, obviously, even whether you purchase a bunch (like with flowers) or a gallon (maybe they are more like water) of crinkles. But they sure were on their way often.

A few weeks ago, I was in a hardware store here in Zurich, with my friend K, and her toddler. As we walked the aisles, I found myself mystified by the light bulb selection. I somehow couldn't find non-fluorescent bulbs in the size I needed for the dining room lamps. K quietly giggled and said that at that instant, there was no doubt as to who Baby A's mom was. We had the same concentrated frown. I smiled. K effortlessly scanned the display and quickly found my light bulbs. We went to pay.

Another friend recently mentioned something about sunglasses and not wanting to encourage those frown lines between her eyebrows. I know how she feels. I've often tried to be more conscious of my "passive face" expression. More often than not, a frown creeps in, as if I'm silently upset. And I'm not. My face just does that. So does my mom's, and her sister's, and her other sister's. And probably my cousin's. And my daughter's. It's a family thing.

I already have wrinkle lines up there. Some of the first "I'm getting old" features I see when I look in the mirror. But after what K said, I'm wearing them proudly.




So wrinkles are coming! Other wrinkles are (already) here! They make it easy to identify me as Baby A's mama. And I like that.

My day

We make plans to have friends and their kids over this Saturday for a late brunch, and see what other families might want to go to Sunday brunch early for Mothers' Day. It is Mothers' Day weekend and I ask M for two things: (1) flowers (because I like them a lot), and to let me sleep in Saturday morning. Sleeping in mostly means that when Baby A wakes up, he takes her and maybe the dog out. Because if they stay here they will probably come find me, or at least the dog will need a morning pee walk. Basically it is asking him to take both the baby and the dog for an hour.

I sleep the night before with baby A, but she wakes some 5 times (maybe it is getting too warm at night for the heater?) looking for her binky. So when morning comes and M has had a decent night's sleep, he grabs the baby, and I head to our bedroom. The three of them take off towards town, in search of flowers, and I fall blissfully back into bed.

Such a treat.

Mothering is so different than I expected, but I feel pretty good at it. I am learning to roll with the punches, I don't freak out anymore when baby A acts out more at home than school (after all, she also "paints" the crib sheets with her poo at school and not at home), I take her tantrums in stride. I trust that I know what I'm doing when she's getting cranky as I insist on her trying to nap. I try to be her solid rock when her emotions and temper start to storm. The calm to her tempest. And most times, I succeed. We laugh together, I love hearing her voice and watching her eat things she really likes.

And then I realized, just as our friends arrive for brunch, that this time last year was hard. Really hard. It is at the hospital in the countryside that I met this friend coming over today. A year ago we were both in a treatment program for mothers and families having a tough time. Who were at the end of their rope.

Which means I've reached another milestone that takes me a step further away from the painful beginning - a year since the hospital stay, and almost a year since she (and then we) started sleeping better. Since we could start not caring what the problem was those first many months of her life, because we were no longer so dangerously close to falling apart. And that all the milestones now, with the weather coming back around to each season to remind my body and brain of that last year, will be improvement milestones. The coming of Mothers' Day has not made me nervous or scared, like the coming of baby A's first birthday did.

I've learned, also, to give other mothers in other situations more leeway for ways in which they parent differently than I do. Single moms, full time work-at-home moms, and full time back-to-work moms. We love our kids, and do our best. I do my best.

And I'm a mom. Whose little girl doesn't want to fall back asleep with when she wakes in the night, or on a plane, but who will run in to greet and wake her the next morning. I let her stand in her stroller, even after I flipped it running across a street median and fell on top of it (granted, I go slowly now). I let her have her binky to calm down. And the decisions I make are ok. As am I.

I'm a good mom. And I love my baby.

It's about perspective

I looked up body dysmorphic disorder this morning. I do not suffer from something this extreme. But I do have a skewed version of what I look like. For a long time, I've felt like I need to worry about what I wear so I don't look too masculine. It probably didn't help that in college I tried to blend (or maybe disappear) and in physics that meant wearing oversized t-shirts and shapeless jeans. I had to buy men's boots for my first super-freezing winter at school, and a men's leather biker jacket (I didn't have to buy this, but I had to buy a men's size to fit my shoulders in a sweater in it). And more than once I was mistaken for a man from behind.

Given that I'm six feet tall and not super curvy, and was wearing a large biker jacket one of those times, I can see how that happened. And that it doesn't mean I look like a man.

I still worry that I do, though.

I also realized over the winter that I feel a lot bigger than I actually am. The shoulders require me to buy at least one size up from what the rest of my upper body needs as far as size goes. I have to do a quick-cross-my-arms-in-front-of-me test for any shirt or jacket to make sure it won't tear if I go to pick up something. So yes, I have broad shoulders. And big feet. And that is about it.

Yet I feel huge a lot. Or I feel like my thighs are big. And I blame a lack of perspective.

Or the existence of perspective. Or both.

This is what I see when I look down on my legs and feet from my towering 72 inches.


So if my feet are already big, my thighs must be huge. And those pants look like 80's pleated things. Ugh.

But let's see this same person, a minute later, from the side.



Uh huh. Not quite the same. The shoulders are still broad, and now the legs look completely different. Where this those mom pants go? Who is this woman? Oh, wait, that's me. And right now, with my decreased appetite and Baby A's increased energy (really? has she started fusing Helium now instead of Hydrogen? where does this child get the calories to do what she does?), I'm skinny. Even if I don't "feel" skinny.

I think I need to stop looking earthward for a while, at my feet. Perspective can be problematic. So can a culture obsessed with women as objects and women's looks, but let's face it, perspective isn't helping.

My new bookstore

I have a Kindle. The electronic book reader. If I lived in the US I may never had bought one, but it is so nice to have instant access to so many books in English, here in Zurich. Parenting books, self-help (you're not surprised by that one, I'm sure), novels, something I just heard about on NPR.

These days, instead of roaming the aisles of a Borders' store, I roam the book pages of my favorite magazines to see the recommendations, with my Kindle next to me. And the best part is that I can download all sorts of book samples for free. I don't need to read the first 10 pages of every book I find interesting in one trip to the store. I can download them to the reader and then on a night I'm having trouble sleeping, pull one up.

And perhaps most important, baby A has not yet figured out how to turn on my Kindle. That day is coming, I know, but for now it is a boring static image. She presses a few letter keys, nothing happens, she moves along to find my iPhone or the remote control. Something more rewarding of her efforts.

At this point I have some 30 books on my reader, and just downloaded a sample of a book about adult LEGO builders. I probably won't buy the book, based on the writing, but it is nice to have a chance to browse this way.

Sure, paper books are still nice, but they get less so when you already lug a diaper bag around or have to pack for a long trip with a toddler. Or move across an ocean to a smaller living space. It is much less disappointing to not read any of 10 books when they are all in one light piece of plastic than it is to not read 10 paper books. Think of the shoes I could have packed instead!

I didn't realize this blog was so widely read

On Glee last night, they used a diabetes/insulin analogy to question how people look down on medications for mental illness. Who knew that even Glee writers read my blog? Hee hee.

A friend of mine has recently been going through the "should I start taking anti-depressants" quandry, and this issue of who we are on medication versus who we are off medication came up in our discussions. It reminds me of a reading group I sat in on for some 4-5 sessions once, in grad school. The readings were tough, about identity and self, and the discussions were intense. I mostly sat back and listened, trying to soak up as much as I could. I remember only one thing from those 10 hours. For me, that's actually pretty good.

It was on the sense of "I" or "me", a solid self inside our head. And how that "I" is constantly being constructed by who we are interacting with, who our audience it, and even down to the level of using a language (be it English or another) that has been constructed by others. Even the words each of us has available, with which we define "I" or "me", are not our own. We are not independent of culture on any level. And the notion of a "me" separate from "you" came heavily under scrutiny during those two hours. It was one of those times that make you question a lot of the things you take for granted. And in a way, although we are each alone with our thoughts and feelings, in this way, we are intimately connected to all we come in contact with.

I guess what I most take away from that class, is to question the basis for the questioning about how I might be changed (for the worse, is usually the assumption) by being on anti-depressants. That there is an immutable I out there to be changed in the first place.

In talking with my friend, the use of the word "depression" to mean generally sad also came up. If it wasn't used in everyday speech to mean just sad today, it might be easier to disentangle treating sadness from depression. And all the baggage that comes with that discussion.

Oops. Time to go pick up Baby A.

spilled milk and a dead man

The news this morning is that Osama Bin Laden is dead. And I'm finding all the "shit, yeah! Awesome! Celebrate!" postings on Facebook a bit uncomfortable. All the more enthusiastic, it seems, from people who are more Christian. It is strange to see so many people so gleeful about a death. Isn't the gleefulness about people's death what we thought made him so evil in the first place? Relief I could understand better, but I guess it has been a while since most people were anxious about him still being uncaught. I wonder what people think will happen now.

I didn't mean to leave such a hater-post up (about the runner) for so long as my most recent post. It is the first time I've felt I have to write something else so that it doesn't seem like I'm just angry for days. Because I sat on the couch, and ate a whole chocolate rabbit while watching the royal wedding on Friday midday. I thought the hats many women wore were cool. Ok, some were perhaps a bit much, but most of them made me want to have somewhere to wear a hat like that. And we had a good weekend, full of farmer's market strawberries, a totally messed up batch of compote, good (but forgot the baking soda AGAIN) scones, baby A's first sleepover at her babysitter's, and a bedroom shade that works for the first time in over a year.


Oh, and Baby A is now a strawberry bandit. We've been calling her the Elmex Bandit for a few months now, because this child loves tubes of this Swiss toothpaste, for carrying around the house. Smooth, plastic rubber, fun huge cap to put in mouth. And she'll happily take 3 at a time (one long ago empty, others still in use) and cruise her territory. But this weekend we went up to visit a friend who has a share in one of the great gardens on the hill above our apartment. And the teeny berries were starting to ripen. Our friend N's friend showed her how to pick a few and she was off - harvesting like a pro. Baby A is going to know where fruits and vegetables come from. I have finished most of my balcony planting - some cherry tomatoes and zucchini in the big box, along with a peony (because I love these flowers in a visceral way and they had one deep violet flower plant left this weekend for sale), some peas that might take to a cheap trellis, a bunch of herbs (two kinds of parsley, dill, rosemary, chives), and on the floor, within Baby A grazing reach, two kinds of strawberries, basil, arugula, and mint.