Cynical Mom

The most pretentious simile ever

I'm in the middle of reading Atlas Shrugged, and just came across the following blurb:

The old woman looked on, without reaction. She had stood there silently, watching, without interest or purpose, like a chemical compound on a photographic plate, absorbing visual shapes because they were there to be absorbed, but unable ever to form any estimate of the objects of her vision.

Puh-leeze. Reading that made my eyes roll back like two protons circling the nucleus of a Helium atom.

Happy Hannukah

We started hannukah early this year because we'll be traveling during most of it, and we wanted to do a special celebration at home. Jared really loved lighting the candles and even learned the first few words of the prayer ("Baruch ata Adonai"):

Of course he also adored opening presents, and not just his own - the thrill of opening presents for everyone else was nearly as exciting as getting the gifts:

His first gift was a Little People playset, and he decided that each individual piece of the playset wanted to have its picture taken:

 

It's been so wonderful to share this holiday with him. And he loves it too - just look at this happy face:

Happy holidays, everyone.

And think kind thoughts about us later this week - we're taking our first trip with two kids on a plane, we're so very very... um... excited. :-)

Night and day

So far, Audrey is textbook "easy baby". It's like she's a computer program with various inputs and outputs and alarms which are for the most part incredibly predictable. When she's got a dirty diaper, she fusses or cries and won't sleep. When she's tired, her eyelids get heavy and she sends clear cues that she's tired. When she's hungry, we know. She wakes up every 2-3 hours overnight but is a deep enough sleeper that we are able to cosleep; eats quickly and goes right back to sleep when she's done, and gets up for the day at 8am at the earliest (and a few times as late as 11!). She still sleeps a lot during the day, sometimes it seems to be as much as 20 hours a day.

We've had a few days of "For god's sake what does she want?!?" -- but surprisingly few. This is nothing like my first six weeks with my son, and not just because I was new at everything that time - he was an entirely different baby. Not colicky, but nothing like this.

As I've been getting to know her and learning her patterns, I've been thinking how lucky we were to have such a mild-mannered babe. And I also realized how incredibly grateful I am that she wasn't my first.

If my first experience as a mother had been to a baby like Audrey, I would have become a completely different mother than I am right now. I wouldn't have understood why moms didn't feel physically well two months after the birth, isn't that long enough to heal? I wouldn't have understood why breastfeeding is such a bitch for so many moms - sure it hurt a fair amount but really it's not that hard, the mom is probably just not trying hard enough (ha ha). I wouldn't have understood why babies scream on planes - why aren't the baby's parents doing a better job calming them? I wouldn't have understood why anyone would put an infant in front of a baby einstein video - why can't you just leave the baby in the bouncy seat? I wouldn't have understood why a new mom can't get out of the house before noon and that doesn't necessarily include a shower, or why so many new moms walk around with spitup all over their shirts because it's not worth the effort to change. I wouldn't have understood that sometimes it doesn't matter how much you try, things just don't work out the way you want them to.

I'm thanking my lucky stars that we are doing well and that this experience has been wonderful so far (knock on wood). I'm also thankful that my son taught me that parenting (while it is a wonderful joy in many, many ways) can also be hellish, that every kid is different, that you can't control everything, that despite your best efforts your child may not always act the way you want, that what works for one may not work for another... and that in the end, all of our kids will probably be just fine, no matter how they were raised.

Hidden treasures

The length of the human small intestine is roughly twenty feet. I've always found that fascinating, imagining how twenty feet of intestine (plus the extra 5 or so from the large intestine) is coiled up inside all of us, it's incredible how much surface area there is in such a small space.

Then I had a baby with folds upon folds of joyous little baby fat all around her, which is lovely...

Except when it comes to diaper changing time.

Now that I've spent quite a large amount of time playing "hunt the poop" in those folds, they're not so cute.

I am not sure how I feel about this

Inmates vie for Miss Penitentiary title: Brazilian officials started pageant to boost convicts' confidence:

Angelica Mazua, a statuesque Angolan facing international drug smuggling charges, was voted Miss Penitentiary 2005 on Thursday after a six-hour contest pitting 40 female inmates from 10 prisons against each other in Brazil's largest city.

...

Other women imprisoned on charges ranging from armed robbery to drug trafficking also took part in the contest that officials began last year as a way of boosting inmates' self esteem.

This part is snicker-worthy, at least:

Last year's winner, Fernanda Maria de Jesus, gained early release months after her victory, but prison officials insist the shortened sentence had nothing to do with her winning the title.

I suppose technically this would be a meme

While shopping for trains for a gift for my son (I think we've settled on this one - what do you think, isn't it nice?), I was bored enough that I started wondering what nuggets http://www.tinyurl.com had hidden behind its random letters and whether or not this form of spelunking could teach me anything about myself.

So I decided to find out, using the incredibly scientific method of my ATM PIN number... just kidding. My initials and those of my immediate family members:

• Me: http://www.tinyurl.com/kcl: Prentice Hall literature page. Somewhat appropriate, I was a total bookworm in high school and have recently picked that up again while on maternity leave.
• My husband: http://www.tinyurl.com/del: An ADSL router. Incredibly appropriate for the total geek to whom I am married.
• My toddler: http://www.tinyurl.com/jsl (updated link here): The purpose of the article is not immediately obvious given the title ("retardant sprays at station again"). Upon closer inspection, it's about a failed fire suppressant system. My little boy adores fire trucks. This is giving me the shivers.
• My five week old: http://www.tinyurl.com/ajl: Cool animations & other things. Great to distract a crying baby. Again, a perfect link.

And appropriately enough, my maiden name (http://www.tinyurl.com/kcs) resolves to a domain that no longer exists.

There you have it: the Tinyurl Personality Test (I like to call it the TPT).

The story you remember the most

Chip wrote a lovely post about his (now teenage) kids' love for the "Heffalump" Winnie the Pooh story, and a few of the comments mentioned the books that they remembered from their childhood, which prompted me to think about my own.

This topic is timely, given the recent passing of Stan Berenstain. This quote from an article about his legacy really sticks with me:

At best, our favorite adult books can leave us with an appreciation for clever plot, maybe a memorable character or two. Children's books, though, give us the chance to stockpile memories of the quiet moments we get only when we set down the dishrag and the mail, the cell phone and the file folders, and pull the kids in close.

I have very few memories of my childhood for some reason, but one that popped into my head after reading Chip's post was of me, around age 10, sleeping in my big sister's bed as a special treat (she'd moved out to go to college recently and she had a really cool climb-upon on which her bed was perched).

My mom pulled out The Little Red Hen and--most importantly--the accompanying stuffed animals and read the book to me, pantomiming and doing voices for each animal in turn.

Thinking about this now, a few things jump out at me:

• I didn't realize I was still read to at such an old age! That gives me hope for the future that my kids will still be my little babies at that age.
• Man, what a story to remember - I know I loved the book as a kid, but looking back as an adult all I can think is how preachy it is.
• The stuffed duck used for the pantomiming belonged to my older sister; it had a black smudge on its butt which was the result of our older brother intending to show how the duck pooped - one of those family stories that gets brought up every once in a while for a shared laugh. Right up there with the time my eldest sister was in her high chair and she pushed something off the tray, leaned over and said "Aw, damnit!".

There are some wonderful things about having so many siblings (4 in my case); the matrix of shared experiences between all of the family members is that much richer and more complex.

From the "duh" files

Survey says: motherhood's tough.

Now what I'd like to see is a survey from fathers, in order to compare and contrast the answers. A demographic breakdown would also be nice.

OK I realize it's not the most scientific survey in the world, I just like reading about this kind thing.

Toy-buying guides from someone other than the company selling the toy

Last year I stumbled on the Oppenheim portfolio and found it very useful for highlighting some of the best toys out there from a more objective source than the company creating or marketing the toy. This year, I discovered there's a variety of other such resources:

The Oppenheim Toy Portfolio: http://toyportfolio.com/

TRUCE (Teachers Resisting Unhealthy Children's Environment) Toy Action Guide: http://www.truceteachers.org/Toy_Action_Guide_05.pdf

Dr. Toy's 100 Best Toys: http://www.drtoy.com/2004_3/body.html

There's a monster at the end of this dinner

At dinner tonight, I put some butter on my two year old's cornbread. He held it up and said "Butter! Oh, look! It's a scary monster coming to eat my butter all gone!"