How old was your dad when you were born?

It is date night here at our house, which means the babysitter is coming and we're heading out to celebrate the end of M's exam week and almost-end of the work week with dinner in the Old City and a movie. Probably "What to Expect When You're Expecting."

Because it has that American-ness to it that we're both craving a bit right now. It doesn't have to be awesome to be comforting.

I keep calling it "What Did You Expect?" or "What Were We Thinking?".  I didn't much like the book of the same title when I was expecting because, as many before me have pointed out, it has that "sad you, who can't live off of no caffeine and fruitjuicesweetened-practically-everything when you are pregnant - you must not really love your unborn child" quality to some of its suggestions. It could be a playbook for out-earthmothering your fellow pregnant ladies. But I do expect some easy laughs from the movie.

And at just the right time. Because the hottest thing on the NYTimes right now is this article about increased risk of a child with autism or schizophrenia with advanced age of the father. This just days after I finished reading this book on a family whose autistic daughter has beaten a lot of odds to communicate with a computer with grace and eloquence, wit and insight, about autism itself, and the rest of the things a teenager thinks about. That is the life-afirming part of the book. The description of the exhaustion, sadness and burnout that the family lives with, and still uses respite care to help combat, is the part that prompted me to start talking with M about why we want another child.

Just to be a companion to A? We have enough crap of our own we're still working through that maybe we are better off teaching her to make close friends, spending some extra money on serious charity contributions that also leave a legacy (instead of looking for an embodied legacy in another child), and just keep working on our own issues.We could donate to places helping families who are already struggling. We could try to make a difference in this world in a different way.

And what if we were to have an autistic child? The book was already in the process of being read when this question came up and almost drowned me. What if all the things that have gone wrong with getting pregnant and giving birth and having a miscarriage, what if they all actually point to some reason we shouldn't try for another child? What if my body, which is almost 40 years old, is trying to tell me about my chances with the next child, and to just stop here?

Then the article came out. Well, gee, that sure helps the picture. Although, I have to say it is nice to hear anything that for once tells the menfolk they too are not untouched by reproductive aging. That it isn't just my biological clock ticking away, it is his, too. I mean to be gloating in a general, I-represent-all-womanhood sort of way, not to imply that I'm thrilled for M to have to think about all of this now. I mean, we're both old - double whammy.

And as a nightcap to all that, A had her first exorcist-level meltdown, which I only navigated with so much grace (heck, yeah, I'm proud) because of how much I've worked on myself, and the fact that a close friend's kid had a similar one a few weeks ago. I could chalk up 25 minutes of screaming, thrashing, running in random-including-the-street directions if I put her down, kicking and wailing to a developmental phase. I was one cool customer, even on the bus part of the program. I was exhausted afterwards (and A is now sleeping it off), and amazed at how randomly it passed. And feeling a profound sadness for lives where that continues to be a daily occurrence even for older children and adults. I could get through it because I knew it would pass (today, and in some months).

For tonight, though, we're going to go see What You Didn't Expect You'd Be Expecting, or something like that. And, hopefully, it will be good for a few laughs.

Giving the pacifier back

My daughter loves her "nuggi" (the Swiss German name for a pacifier).

I don't love it. Sometimes I'm just embarrassed by it - that some other kids her age (and seemingly every last child in Istanbul) gave theirs up months ago. Granted, I feel embarrassed when I'm in that "my parenting is what makes her who she is" state of mind. Sometimes I just know we're getting close to 3 years old and both the pediatrician and dentist say that is the time to be done with it.

We've gone through so many cycles of my pushing to limit it. She doesn't use it anymore, even for naps, at daycare. And now that constitutes much of the work week. At some point when she was around 20 months old, after a long trip, we found ourselves in double-binky territory for sleeping, and I was beside myself with anguish about it. First world problems, indeed. Except that, if she awoke in the middle of the night, and couldn't find both pacifiers, I or M was called in, loudly, to help.

I imagined that by this time, close to 3 years old, she's be over them for naps. For a while, she was falling asleep in her stroller without them. But not for long.

Now the challenges of convincing her to go sit on the potty in the morning, and getting her cooperation to get dressed (generally and issue of mine, but vital when my back is acting up), have gotten greater. They are accompanied by a lot of whining (I'm not saying whose is louder), and me finding myself trying more time-outs for not putting on socks when I've asked. That isn't what I need time-outs for. And in general, I can always use some practice in negotiating and compromise.

So the nuggi is back in our life, no longer removed once she is out of bed (although for a month or two that helped her stay in bed a bit longer and me get that last 5 minutes of sleep I needed to not be a zombie). It stays with her as long as she is making progress on the taking off of the pajama, the diaper, the sitting on the potty, the getting dressed. And in the evening it calls her name, encouraging her to sit still a bit more while I finish brushing her teeth.

I get it, it is bad for her dental something or other. Looking at that last sentence, perhaps I don't get it. It is bad for something. But so is having a morning full of tears and cajoling and general unhappiness.

The pacifier has taken some ground back. For now. And if a second binky tries any campaigning, forget about it. No deal. But one nuggi, I've conceded that ground.

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.

Not taking a photo is the whole point

I just finished reading "Cinderella Ate My Daughter", a book by Peggy Orenstein. Fast read, about the Disney princess culture and its effect on girls. Not the best book I've read, but she makes some interesting points. About how Disney tapped into the developmental stage where kids are worried that their sex (boy or girl) might be fluid, changeable, and try to assure they stay who they are by being as masculine or feminine as possible. For girls, enter the pink princess stage. Orenstein also talks about the Disney live princesses, like Miley Cyrus or Brittney Spears, who all seem to follow the innocent/virginal to skanky/centerfold route.

In the end, the author doesn't do much in the way of suggestions for boosting girls' self-esteem and helping them value themselves separate from their looks. She gives a few suggestions, like telling your daughter she's beautiful when she's covered in dirt and in her soccer uniform, and not talking about looks too much. And not obsessing about your own looks in front of her - although, I'd say even in private, learn to like who you see in the mirror, because kids pick up on everything. They do as we do, not as we say. If you don't feel worthy deep down inside, your kid is going to learn that - they are learning machines, these little humans.

Anyway, the bit from the book that is in my mind this morning is the part where the author talks about virtual identities and presence. And almost as a side note, she mentions how people (herself, she has noticed) have started to delay experiences of the real world, instead thinking how they (she) will blog, tweet or update their status about them. So on the foggy dog walk this morning, I left my phone in my pocket and tried my best to just see the trees, feel the soaked grasses against my fingers, and be there while I was physically there.

It was nice. I don't do that very often. With baby A, I've noticed that I tend to only relax and muse on her photos after she's asleep, and I'm not actively responsible for her well-being. I can look at her, notice things, dwell. But I also do that with situations. For me there is a part of the behavior that I think has to do with the fear of being overwhelmed by being in the moment itself. If I let it take me over, within seconds, I will start to fear its end. If I get too caught up in rapture, the next thought on my mind will be to mourn its impending loss. So it is a safety mechanism for me.

Sure, I'd love to be in the moment. But I'm terrified it will sweep me away.

Pass the Kleenex

I probably shouldn't be writing this right now. I'm sick, just a spring head cold, but my ears are plugged, my head is plugged, and doing anything more intellectually challenging than drinking from a cup is a struggle. But, I'm one of those women who feels like she isn't holding her own when she isn't actively doing something. I've written about this before, the not feeling like "enough," but it continues to amaze me how primal that urge is, to gain worth by what I do.

The dog has been napping with me all day, and apart from having free reign of the balcony, she has only gotten to go to the corner potty spot. I'll sit with her there for a while, let her smell the sights, but going up any hills is just not in the cards for me today.

And the babysitter picked up baby A from daycare and is with her now.

I've got a cup of tea in hopes that a theraflu drink with an English Breakfast chaser will help me at least get something done. Because I have to, right? Otherwise, my stock starts dropping. So I've made myself send a form to finish up to M, and I made some rhubarb, apple, pear, raisin, prune compote for the baby for her afternoon snack (actually, came out sweet enough with no added sugar), and watched her try to stuff both hands full of it into her mouth at once. And I'm back in bed, resting my slightly spinning head.

I'm not so sick that I couldn't do most daily things, but it would take it out of me. And right now my husband's job is enough. And all the other days I do a lot. So why does this make me so nervous?

Oh, and I've managed to lose my phone again. This time, I really hope, in the house. But the batteries are drained so even the "find my iPhone" app has let me down. I guess it is okay, because I can't spend so much time lamenting that I don't have the energy to go take a photo of all the shoes we came back from the US with and write something riveting about shoes and feet and all of that.

There is one thing that has made me feel like today's rest and extra help is okay. The babysitter relayed the message from the daycare that they think baby A might be into what they call the terrible three's stage. Well, I may be just able to keep a kid and dog alive and clean by myself right now, but a full blown tantrum from the little one today would have ended in her in a crib, the dog (and perhaps me, too) in a crate, and a lot of rocking back and forth until M came home. Thankfully, we have our babysitter, and that scene didn't have to play out today.

I should probably check out that podcast

There is a new free podcast up from The Moth (a great series of storytelling, in short, 15-min segments that my cousin got me hooked on) from Salman Rushdie about writer's block. I should listen to it. I've been avoiding writing the last few days. The earlier two weeks, we were in the US, visiting family, having a naming ceremony for Baby A (non-religious, like we are), going back to Arizona for the first time in 2 years, and doing some shopping in Chicago.

At first, I told M that I couldn't go see our old house in AZ. I was afraid it would be too emotional, that I'd tear up just seeing it, thinking how much easier it would have been to spend Baby A's first years there. But I think we went at the right time, now that we're all feeling a lot better. We drove past the house, and I felt nothing. My things weren't in there, my car wasn't parked outside, my husband, baby and dog weren't there. I didn't even have that "what a great house that was!" reaction. We've moved, and I haven't had to worry about faulty electricals or a leaky roof for two years. That counts for something. Or a mold infestation under the kitchen floor. That really counts for something.

On the other hand, seeing friends play with, babysit, and make Baby A smile warmed my heart. And on a quieter level, made me a bit sad for not having realized what a huge help that community would have been these last few years. Not that I knew I'd need that much help when we decided to move. I guess that is the point. But until the visit I didn't realize what I'd really missed out on, how essential that support could have been. So thank you, Arizona people, for being so loving to my daughter for the short time we were there. I think she grew a few months' worth with all the smiles and hugs and attention.

I also did a bit more American shopping this trip. I'm finally realizing there are many things I like about the US and being American. And when I was replacing my Freitag bag (which has gone over to M to replace his stolen one), I went with Vy&Ellie and their billboard bag with the GM seatbelt clasp. Oh, yeah. And bought a new cheap cowboy hat at Target. Cause I'm American, dang it, and I might as well be my American self, living abroad. I'll get to smile more, say "hi" more often, and worry a lot less about how I look.

Phew. Finally started posting again.

Sunday afternoon

A slight damp-cold day has turned into a beautiful spring, 55 F and sunny afternoon. My baby girl, poor thing, must still be sick, what with the phenomenal poo she had this morning, the small appetite and now going into her 4th hour of napping. She never does this. Not this long. And I heard another splurt from her (and the smell) about an hour ago and wonder when do I wake her up to just change the diaper so this doesn't turn into a rash, too?

Four hours. I've gotten a nap (I'm a bit sick, too, I guess, tired after a 2 hour nap and good night of sleep). M has gotten a nap. I'm writing in my blog on a Sunday with no babysitter in sight. I have a non-instant coffee. M and I have made some lists and decisions about something other than the next 2 hours. I've had a chance to sit with my Oprah magazine (can I tell you how excited I get everytime it arrives here? So American, without being all about celebrities and fashion and sex quizzes. And the book section practically summons my Kindle out of the drawer it inhabits.), and decide I'm not in the mood to read it. Yes, I'm sick, too.

I flip some colorful pages and wonder why the magazine has so many beauty product advertisers when it also contains so much "love yourself the way you are" writing. The writing I like, the ads make me a bit tired.

Crows and magpies sit on still-bare branches outside the living room window, so from the chaise that has broken free of the sofa and come to the corner, I can still see the city and the lake. In summer that won't be true, anymore. But then dinners, and afternoon baths, will provide all the contentment instead.

Four hours. I've watered the tulip bulbs that came home from Amsterdam. And I have a bit-too-hot bath tub waiting, bubbles and all, to clean that little bum when it wakes up. Sunlight warms my legs through the window. The door to the balcony is open for the pupper to come and go as she pleases on such a warm afternoon.

I hear a tiny cry. Time to go washa-wahsa.

Crying it out

When we first got the Pupper from the Human Society, we signed her (and, more importantly, us) for an 8 week training class. The head trainer was amazing, equally patient with dogs and their humans. The other trainers helping him liked dogs, but often got short with us humans. And really, the class was meant to train the humans to carry out commanding correctly. This class was a no yelling, no punishment class. All positive reinforcement. The basic principle was very simple and applied to every command:

1. Say (or hand motion) the command;

2. If the dog does nothing, you do nothing;

3. If the dog does what you wanted (perhaps coming by a gentle pull of the leash toward you those first few times), say "Yes!" all excited and happy as soon as the command has been executed and give a cookie.

A few years later, at a dog park in Tucson, the I saw the power of positive reinforcement used for a horrible purpose. A "trainer" was working with a man and his dog just outside the fence of the dog park, having the man yank the dog's choke chain harder and harder each time the dog misunderstood a command to heel while walking. Harder, harder, until I was close to an anxiety attack for the poor animal and the beautiful German Shepherd was cowering and whimpering. It was grotesque. And the "trainer" seemed to be having fun, calling out "yank! yes! yes! harder! good! good job!"

It was the first time I'd had the nerve to say something to someone else about their behavior and I managed some wavering "if you don't want to hurt your dog while training, the Human Society has great classes. This isn't training, this is abuse" the former directed at owner, the latter at "trainer." Of course the "trainer" got pretty upset with me, and I don't know if I got through to the owner. I was shaking, heart pounding.

Only later did I realize the irony of the situation - the dog had learned nothing through punishment and pain. The real results came from the positive reinforcement. The trainer was getting the owner to be more and more violent with his dog by applying the same principles our dog class teacher had - praise and encouragement. You can bet that owner would have walked away had the "trainer" said something like "you idiot, can't you even hold your dog right?" I wish I had realized that at the time.

Just as before, the dark side of positive reinforcement hit me this morning as I was reading a moms' forum about using the Cry It Out method, applied to kids who just kept crying and getting sick with despair. I've mentioned before the one incident where Baby A smacked her mouth on the crib and started bleeding which convinced me that Cry It Out just wasn't going to work for us - it went past my limit. I'd rather have a kid that wakes up more often than a bloody kid. And just like with that dog, I don't think Cry It Out works on all kids, and that it is harmful to keep using it no-matter-what. That can just land certain parents and kids in a traumatic place.

But these books, be they about Crying It Out or other parenting techniques that encourage us parents to do things that make our kids cry, bleed, throw up, get so upset...they are doing the same damn thing. Using positive reinforcement on us the readers, the parents ("Keep at it! Nothing comes easily! It's okay for kids to cry! You're a better parent for doing this!") to get us to do things to our kids that may not be where we wanted to be. That put our relationship with our kids in conflict. That encourage us to stop listening to them, in lieu of listening to some author who does not live in our house with our child.

I know, sometimes we have to say "No" and kids will cry. A lot. But I'm realizing that I want to be a whole lot more skeptical about books and blogs and "experts" who prey on my desire to be a good parent to encourage me to do things that make me uncomfortable.

Or maybe the dog shouldn't come with...

Poor pupper. She gets a lot of flack from us at mealtimes. She has started cruising not only the dining room table but also the kitchen counters. We used to never give her food that we ate, apart from a piece of bread here and there. And once in a while, she would get her claws into a loaf (or, on miraculous days, the butter next to the bread). But she very rarely went for the high surfaces.

But not anymore. She is a fully, two-legged creature when it comes to relieving our tables and counter tops of their edible offerings. It drives me up the wall. I yell and clap at her. I don't like baby A seeing that behavior from me, but she is part instigator - it is her food that the dog has started to get access to. By accidental drop on the floor followed by our lack of energy to clean it up before the dog gets it. Also on purpose, when the roaming eater that is our child meets the roaming eater that is our dog.

This has also led to our dog gaining some kilos.

Tonight the dog was away during dinner and bedtime, and it was so much calmer. Now I just have to figure out a way to translate that to when the dog is home. She already has to "go to bed" (i.e. her crate) when the food is on the table. But afterward is it one long inhale, as her nose travels the floor. Food goes in, fluff goes in, who knows what else makes it in there.

There are times I wish we had a yard. Very few, given the amount of work it takes to maintain even a simple one, but this is one of them.

On being human

When I told friends that M got baby A to laugh for the first time, one of them emailed me to say that in Navajo culture, the advent of the first laugh is considered a special moment when the child truly becomes human. And the person who gets the first laugh from a baby is supposed to throw a party to celebrate. Well, the party has yet to be thrown, in line behind so many others we have yet to throw - to meet our neighbors in the building, to have M's students and postdocs over, etc.

Last night was another tough one for baby A, and us, by extension. She seemed to have a lot of painful gas and would cry for 10 seconds, whimper, scream, then fall asleep again on the bed next to me, or on my chest. This went on for a while, and at times I was frantically looking for her binky in the dark, because I was sure that this time she might finally fall off to sleep for longer, taking me with her. Well, usually we have 2 glow-in-the-dark binkies in her room - one in her possession and one for when that first one gets chucked into some far corner of the room, under or behind something and we can't see it glowing. Last night, however, at bedtime, we couldn't find anything more than 2 non-glowing binkies.

Seriously? Two?! And neither glow?! This is cause for great alarm in our still sleep deprived household. Nothing is open at that hour, and we'd better be ready to find a stealth binky with our hands and knees in a dark room full of hiding places if things get unsettled.

Luckily, the unsettling of last night didn't have to do with plain-old, sub-glorious binkies. M wound up feeding baby A a bottle and rocking her upright until she fell asleep and the rest of the night went pretty well.

This morning, after a heartier than recent breakfast, baby A was playing in the dining room as we were getting her ready to leave for daycare. She started playing with a cardboard box by the window, and as M went to go help her open it, they both gasped. And he started laughing. "Guess what's in here."

I had no idea.

Baby A stuck her hand in, and came out with 4 glow-in-the-dark binkies.


We both started laughing. She's been creatively stashing all sorts of things lately, in her onesie (toy cars from school), in her diaper (not just things coming out of her back end), in her pajama feet. And the girl is most serene and grounded when she has one binky in her mouth and another one in her hand. Having 4 of them to stash in the cardboard box must have felt like a mindfulness meditation workshop to this baby.

I remarked to M that she's getting to the age where she makes him laugh. A very important quality to him. Especially these days, when things can still get overwhelming, and it still feels like a trudge to bedtime some nights.

And he said, "Yeah, she makes us human again."

12 months old is coming

Just to update on the adventures of Sincere-Girl - her cape was pretty ruffled after the trip to the consulate. Didn't handle it nearly as well as she used to. Almost left a poopy diaper on the window of the woman who "helped" with the passport application. The completely condescending lady with the big gold cross on her neck. The Swiss woman who got bitchy at me when I misunderstood her directions because she didn't use the American English version of some terms. Yeah, glad we made it out of there without too much damage to the process.

Passport arrived. We can escape if we want to!

And baby A's birthday, her one-year-old, is coming. During a sleepless night, I've found myself looking up PTSD and colic. Do I actually think I have PTSD? Probably not. I don't know that I get vivid flashbacks of those early months, but I do still get queasy when I see a twin stroller. The thought of another infant makes me scared, as does getting pregnant again. I realized that as I start thinking about her birthday party, I feel a bit of the sadness I felt at Mother's Day. My heartbeat goes up a bit, in an anxious way, when I think about approaching the anniversary of her birth. That's sad.

As if we might re-live all the things that hit us so hard - the difficult labor, the C-section, the problems (and not great solutions) breastfeeding, the nights of her screaming and no sleep, the confusion and sadness of how this was supposed to be such a happy time ("oh, when she gets older you'll miss those newborn times") of bonding, and quiet cuddling and turned out to be so hard on us, on marriage, on everything.

In a way, I'm looking forward to writing over the coming 5-6 months. How horrible is that? But I am. To replace fear with calm, sadness with laughter, confusion with getting to know our beautiful little toddler better. And I hope that at some point I might feel twinges of happy and not just sad on her birthday. It has to happen eventually, right?

I think it will. I just know that this first birthday is going to be a bit mixed for me. I'm sorry about that, little one.

On a lighter note, from Baby A's first two friends' birthday parties I've learned a lot about what a room full of babies and toddlers need to have a good time: novel crackers, and a bunch of helium balloons. And each other. That, we can manage.

Silly paperwork required.

A few years ago, I went to see a solar eclipse in Africa. M and I had already been trying to get pregnant for at least a year and a half at the time, and I bought a fertility symbol, and a bunch of baby clothes from a women's batik/sewing cooperative called Global Mamas. In cute, bright colors, three dresses and a romper. Both purchases were made as a sign of great hope that we could conceive.

When I got back, the clothes were stored away, in a box with fabric, in our extra bedroom. Two years later, and while packing the house to move Switzerland, I finally found out I was pregnant. I had already given away a few "maternity" type dresses a month earlier that my friend K had helped me let go of. I had kept them for so long and they represented a strange mix of sadness and hope. As with many of the clothes she helped me get rid of, the phrase "Can you honor the thought behind the item (uuuugly maternity dress, gift I never wore, etc.) and then let it go?"

Yup, you bet. The uuuugly dress went away. "You'll get some much cuter maternity stuff anyway when you get pregnant, to celebrate." was K's reasoning. But the baby clothes I kept because I could still always give them as a gift.

Now, they were packed in a box with itemized contents, so I could definitely find them for summer once the baby came. We got to Zurich, and the guest apartment, things got unpacked and repacked, and we moved to our current place. And the baby clothes disappeared.

I have looked everywhere for them. I can't even remember if I saw them in the guest apartment, but assume I must have because that box was itemized and they were in there. I have found every single other thing I packed. I have searched and re-searched the apartment and the storage unit. And finally I just mentally let go of the clothes. Summer is ending, and I will try to order one replacement dress on-line. It won't be the same, with the same meaning, yearning, full of good wishes and hope, but it can take on a new meaning.

Well, in the ridiculously complex process for getting baby A's US passport and consular report of birth abroad, we need not only our original birth certificates issued in the last 6 months, but also a marriage license the same, and to prove that one of us lived in the US for 5 years in a row after age 14. Really? Really, you can't take IRS and border control information. I need to get grad school transcripts, too, to prove my residence? Really?

So today I was looking for my old passport to find some dates (month AND day) of trips out of the US, and I needed to get into the lock box. It is one of those fireproof cases, where we've always kept things we want to save in a fire. I figured that was the most likely place I've stored my old passport. After an hour of searching for the key, I finally opened it.

No passport, no marriage license, no vaccination records. Just 4 things inside the lockbox. Not even important papers.

Here they are.



A part of me finally exhaled. I can't believe I finally found them. I was sure they were lost.

They are even big enough for baby A to wear next summer.

Now, where's my old passport?

Always 10 steps ahead

I fast forward a lot. I extrapolate, two, five, ten steps ahead of here and now.

Sometimes it is helpful, with a hint of side-show freaky. Like when I have 6 different
errands all in my head, mapped out (usually within a few seconds) based on not having to make left turns in a car. Or the order in which to do 10 things before boarding a train, to minimize how long it will take.

I do this with some sort of "when it is all done, then I can relax" notion in my head, I think. And unless I am alone, and not responsible for anyone else but me, and in a sealed room with no phone,...it works just like that. As soon as another person or the outside world, or heck, even a flu virus, get wind of this thinking, they all rush in and ruin my perfect little world where I get that International Foods coffee moment at the end of all the effort.

And this has been causing me a lot of grief with parenting. Even knowing that the crappy fake but sweet and easy coffee moments don't happen, the 10 steps ahead stuff gets me into trouble. Like this evening.

Baby A had what I might actually call her first tantrum when she woke up from a late, much needed nap that had been really hard to get her to take in the first place. Let's just say, he didn't wake up in a good mental space. One of those, inhale sharply, pop up on all fours immediately wakings she does so often that would have benefited greatly from me popping up and rocking her back to sleep for another 5 minutes even.

Well, I didn't do that this time, because it is hard to tell, and it was late in the day, and if she slept too long then what happened to her being hungry and me needing to give her that medicated bath for her horrible rash that isn't getting better, and I didn't want to bathe her after a meal because what if she threw up in the bath and I had to start over and I'm already tired, and she doesn't feel good, and M is out of town and I should try to keep her to a schedule because I don't want her to freak out too much and make bedtime even worse for her which will make me upset and I'm on my own with this and I get angry sometimes and I so don't want to be that way tonight and....

So I was going to talk about the screaming in the bath and my decision matrix failing me at that point, but apparently my issues with the fast forward are quite adequately covered by the 5 minutes before the bath.

The more I go down this path (and I'm a long distance runner where this stuff is concerned), the worse place I get to in terms of being flexible. And being flexible seems to me to be one of the best skills to cultivate for myself with baby A. And then I'm right back in this nasty power struggle place, where I'm fighting some "good fight" to keep the baby seated in the tub even though she's tired and upset and nothing is calming down. It really bites me in the ass, this tendency. A lot right now.

And as with many other mental habits, it was really useful at some point in my life, in another situation. To get a bagillion things done in a day. Okay, it was at least helpful toward that goal. The goal itself was a bit messed up. But it is so completely un-useful, to the point of being harmful to my connecting with my kid and noticing what she needs and letting myself do that. And it is faulty reasoning, because I have NO IDEA what this kid will do next, and I'm still learning, and she's changing all the time. My intuition can be totally wrong in these situations.

So I'm trying my best to keep reminding myself to just fix the situation in the moment, without all the what-ifs and but-thens. To trust baby A instead of my fears of some dystopian, Nanny 911 family. It is amazing how quickly I can get from a screaming child in a tub to visions of a future sociopath I raised who is being hunted by the Law & Order police. Why I go to those places in my mind, I'm not totally sure. Probably something to do with the "evil all around you just waiting to tempt you, bait you, pull you down" messages I learned as a child.

Anyway, that's my "work" right now. To stop jumping out of the moment. To just stay put, and do the best things to calm down the current situation in front of me. And I find it extremely hard. Surprisingly hard, given how useful it would be to stop jumping ahead like that. Bow to your sensei.

Familiarity breeds content

Everything is new this year. Everything is unfamiliar. My address, my phone number, my furniture, the language I need to speak in to do my shopping and errands everyday, a baby, my body, my shoe size, the "usual" things I cook and eat, banking and bill paying, garbage and recycling rules, the seasons, the customs, the holidays, the sky and the landscape, where to find light bulbs and baking soda, the people in my life.

It is all new, all at once. It gets overwhelming sometimes. To a point where I've realized how much I need to burrow into familiarity every few days. I seek out Starbucks, or an English-speaking butcher, or the International Herald Tribune's daily crossword, just to feel a bit less adrift sometimes. And no, I'm not currently learning German. I know a bit, but I'm still learning mothering, and expat-ing, and stay-at-homing, and all these other skills.

I confessed to M the other day that I don't know if I actually have the capacity left in me to learn the 3, randomly assigned, German articles that take the place of the English "the." I really feel like I may not have the brain space left for them. Vocabulary words, nouns, I'm adding a few every few months. But imagine then needing to learn a second part of each word. I don't think there is room left.

So I watch BBC on TV instead of the local channels. I ask visitors to bring Whole Foods peanut butter and oatmeal. I have images of New England on my computer wallpaper. It keeps me a bit more sane in a sea of novelty.

I've realized, too, that although I still have my friend-making skills, my life right now makes it near impossible to keep up with them like I would have pre-baby A. So I'm feeling a bit disconnected. Like I've said "I'd love to, but we can't right now," a few too many times this month. How many times can a person regretfully decline invitations before they stop being invited to things?

I guess I'm going to find out.

Bedtime blues...and red (shudder)

Baby A and I had quite the afternoon yesterday. Let’s just say a lot of crying happened around nap time. And while I had a bloody nose in the morning from my cold, she managed a bloody mouth from something she did while seriously protesting being in her crib. I have no idea how she did that to her gums, but I was pretty freaked out when I first picked her up in the dark and saw dark red on her chin.

Other than those 2 minutes each of bleeding, we were okay, but in the middle of the 5-step process that she seems to need most days to fall asleep, I just realized I can’t keep doing that. It makes me tired of being a mom. Hold her, sway her, bounce her while walking, bounce her while sitting, let her roll around on the big bed to settle down. It is too much, too many options, and it turns her into a too finely-tuned baby. Not for her, but for me.

Really, as with most other realizations, it is a realization about myself, borne out of frustration. I’m not super-mom. I don’t have the patience, when I’m tired (especially then…I don’t do tired very gracefully), to go through all those steps calmly. I just want it to be over, at least for my part to be over. I want to sit down, lay down, just rest, even if on the floor. I realized it is okay for me to be the kind of person who is not so great when she is tired.

And while it is my responsibility to keep trying to get enough rest, and put sleep ahead of a lot of other things I might also want to do, it is okay that Baby A has to meet me a bit more towards center. Not because it is fair or not, but because I can’t do more than that sometimes. Because her mama is imperfect and that is totally okay. It is okay that I disappoint her sometimes and that she knows I’m not superwoman. And I think it is much better than being angry with her, for me to fall short of some of her ideals.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t think my 9 month old baby should learn to put on her own pajamas, make her own bottle, or even scream herself to sleep. I just mean that I’m coming to the realization that it is okay that I may only have enough in me to sway with patience, and I don’t have to be embarrassed (and then angry at her for asking more of me), if she cries a bit more than if I could bounce and walk, too. This morning, she cried a bit in my arms, screamed a few times while arching, and then, as I kept really nicely calm and kept swaying, she readjusted once more in my arms and fell asleep. It was all I had for her, and it turned out to be enough. She met me a little bit closer to center.

We’re starting to read a few books (I know, I know, but they come recommended this time) about sleeping and babies. Granted, head hitting the crib bars or whatever that messed up thing is that brought about a bloody gum, we’re not going to let her go that far when we can help it. This baby isn’t made to be left completely on her own to figure out sleep. But her mama isn’t made to completely put her to sleep every night, either. And that is okay. She doesn’t have to make it to some classic, babble for 5 min and drift off stage. Because I don’t think she can handle it. And in our family, I’ve decided that it is okay for each of us to have some things we can’t handle and for everyone else to pitch in (in whatever way they can, big or small) on those issues. It is part of self-acceptance for Baby A, learning by seeing us accept our own limits. Without shame or guilt. Practicing being complete beings, just as we are.

My main point….I’ve come back to this paragraph after a day. My point is that I’m going to start acting like (and hopefully eventually believing that) my okay-ness, or good enough-ness, is intrinsic. That I start with that, just by being, existing. And that then my actions, my capabilities are okay and good enough by extension, and not treating the whole matter the other way around. Until now, I have spent most of the time judging whether I’m okay as a mom (or student, or woman, or person) based on my actions. And that just leads to a lot of harsh judgment. Kind of like what I read once about love. If you are constantly trying to decide whether someone loves you enough based on their actions, you’re going to constantly be either doubting or disappointed. They will always fail you in some way. Instead, if you start with the assumption that they love you, then you are free to look for all the other reasons that he didn’t bring you flowers or she didn’t get you that thing you like so much.

So, sleep is going to change somehow. We started last night by putting teeth brushing, face washing, and pajama wearing a bit early, and then all of us piling on the big bed in her room to quietly hang out until she got sleepy. So more wind-down for Baby A, less crying about being tired and having a diaper changed, and at least last night, a baby who fell asleep with 4 minutes of walking/swaying by me. That I can handle. We’ll see what else the books have to say.

The practice baby

We call baby A “monkey,” but technically, the nickname is Monkey #2. That is because the pupper, our beloved Heeler mix, who we have had for 5 ½ years is the original “monkey,” now Monkey #1.

We used to call Monkey #1 our “practice baby,” but I was a bit hesitant to say that around parents when we still didn’t have kids. I thought that they might get offended at us comparing a dog to a baby. I figured I’d stop doing it once we had a child because I would realize that the two are so different, and the relationship between us and a dog was nothing like that between us and baby A.

But that isn’t true. The pupper was totally a practice baby in some really great ways. When we first moved to Switzerland, we already had to limit going out a bit since we don’t leave the dog in the crate for more than 4-5 hours. That is just our rule, that if we want to have a dog we want to not just put her away more often than not. If we are to have a dog, our lives can change, and some things can get a bit harder in accommodating her because she makes other things in our lives so much better. We laugh more with her antics, we definitely see the outdoors more and spend more time walking with her. All of this is good. And when one of us has gone away for the night, the other one had a snuggle buddy if we needed one.

We also learned to use positive reinforcement, like time outs, to discipline her, and that having a “well-behaved” dog was more about consistency with rules than about punishment. Time-outs for the dog, a quick “uh-oh!” and 15-30 seconds in the crate, followed by a try-again, are a common tool in our house.

So when baby A arrived, some things were already familiar to us. Less going out – already been there. Being okay with a new member of the family changing some of what we can do – not so new. Knowing that some things are just due to temperament, be it a dog that wants to destroy all cats or a baby who forcefully protests what she does not like. And how I feel leaving Baby A at her new daycare – not too different from how I felt the first time the Pupper walked away led by her daycare person on her leash. I know to look for smiles and tail wags to help me know that they are both ok with other people.

And every day, we realize how lucky we are to have such a great dog. She is still herself, even after so many months of being a bit ignored while Baby A cried and didn’t sleep. She still rolls on her back and makes happy growling sounds, she still tries to make off with a plastic baby toy once in a while, she still goes to her crate for our dinnertime. But she is also amazingly patient with Baby A. She has never once growled or nipped at her. She has never given her an “I’m going to eat your face while you sleep” look. She lets her come and pinch her fur, and will even put up with a few grabs of her paw. And then, when she has had enough, she gets up, usually from the comfort of a dog bed, and just goes somewhere else in the apartment. And Baby A, now that she has realized we actually have a dog (which happened around month 5), is enamored. She loves watching the dog come in from a walk or daycare. She laughs when the dog goes through our legs to get some extra petting time. And now she tries to do that, too - instead of going over my knees if they are bent, she goes under.

They are going to be friends. It’s great.

Baby jeans

I ordered some baby clothes for the coming fall and winter for Baby A from the Gap and Old Navy. For some reason, of all the places they ship internationally, only Switzerland and Turkey are on the Europe list. I won't ask why, I'll just count myself lucky.

I just wanted some warmer pants and tops and some long leg pajamas. I'm not a bit fan of baby jeans. Although there was a really cute denim overalls. If they are soft, fine. But no baby needs to have its movement restricted by hard fabrics. (Ok, I may need to rethink my philosophy here, because the idea of slowing this kid down is tempting...)

There I was, on the baby girl "pants" page - because god forbid we let babies all dress without reference to their sex - and there were as many jeans for babies as I remember there being for women in the store! Really? Sure, light wash and dark wash, whatever. But flare vs. skinny vs. boot cut? Really? To go with the baby stilettos they sell? C'mon, like your kid doesn't have enough expectations from you to live up to already.

It makes the Saturday Night Live "baby thong" commercial not so funny anymore. It was funny when it was outrageous. But, what is the point of baby skinny jeans if you've got that big diaper bulge? Best get some thongs to go with it.

Yeah, girl/boy differences are all biological and we have nothing to do with teaching them how to act. It makes me want to keep Baby A in yellows and greens and not tell people on the tram if she is a girl or boy.