School Days

For a so-called stay-at-home-mom ("SAHM"), it seems that I am hardly ever home these days. I thought that what with August ending and our weekends no longer being PACKED with activities, I would have some time to just chill with my girl. But no. Now we have preschool, and OB appointments, and study appointments, and YMCA for mama's exercise and daycare. And at night, I have meetings for the preschool, and book club meetings, and neighborhood association meetings. Etc., etc., etc. The weekends are now about the only time we have at home, together, but of course those get swallowed up often by time spent with extended family and/or friends we haven't spent time with in too long. Time is at a premium, and while I want my little one to be able to taste all of what is out there for her, I also don't want her life to actually become stressful at 21 months. She is a little bitty person with a short time here so far. She moves slowly through the world, taking her time to notice each thing (often for the first time!), to remember its name, to take in its presence with all of her senses. Today we went to Subway for lunch after I went to the lab at the hospital to have my blood drawn, and she sat right down at our table and started staring at the ladies at the table across from us. "Hi, ladies!" she said, and she kept on saying it ("Hi! Hi!") and swinging her legs in her chair and smashing her chip with her fingers on the table. She was right there with a big grin on her face, soaking up life, and I can honestly say I do believe she's had a big day today. She got to press the buttons on the elevator, she got to look at the pictures in the lobby, and she got to sit in Mama's lap while the lady took Mama's blood with a needle (and she's the one who got the lollipop afterward!). I suppose this is all to say that I need to be mindful of the fact that I do not need to structure every moment of her days in order for her days to be well-spent. I think we as mothers - as parents - can get too caught up in all of the "activities" that are out there, and feeling like we need to sign our children up for each and every one. My daughter's favorite thing to do right now is to sit at the dining room table with some play-doh and plastic cookie cutters and just make snakes and noodles and stars for a little while. She wants to put the play-doh right up to her nose and take a giant whiff and say "Yucky!" and break it all apart, only to stick it all back together again in a big hunk. This does not require me to change her clothes, put on shoes and socks, get into the car or out again. She requires only a hand to get up into the seat of the chair, and someone to get the play-doh and toys out for her. And she's in heaven.

We go to the co-op preschool through South Seattle Community College once a week. My daughter thinks this is the best place in the whole wide world. When we go to "school" there are stations of fun activities set up for her to play with, and she can just run around like a crazy person checking each one out. Her favorites are the play-doh table (of course), the sensory table (changing each week from water to rice to silky scarves), and the larger play area where there are things like slides and tunnels set up for all the kids. Then we have snack time, which is a little more challenging, as my daughter has to sit in a chair at a table and eat her snack, which is different from all the other kids' snacks, so she usually thinks she would rather have what some other child is having instead of her own thing, and also she wants to get down and go roll around on the mats some more with her orange slice instead of sitting in her seat, because she is just so gosh-darned excited to be there. Then we have music time, which involves all of the kids shaking little maracas and bells to songs like "Shake My Sillies Out" and sitting in their mamas' laps to sing more interactive songs. And then comes the most magical moment of the whole week for my daughter, in which she can hardly contain herself and literally squeals with delight: we sing "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" with all of the lights turned out, laying on our backs and looking at twinkling Christmas lights on the ceiling. For my daughter, this is IT. She grows quiet and still as a snail, and you can almost see her whole little body trembling with anticipation for the special song. She cannot stop talking about it all week long, and will positively tell anyone she meets about this experience.

I honestly wasn't sure if I wanted to do co-op preschool with my daughter (it does cost about $50 a month, plus some other small fees throughout the year - plus I have to do a "job" for the co-op, which requires more of my time, and we have to attend a once-a-month parents' meeting/training), but this visceral excitement my daughter shows over going to her "school" has sealed it for me, and I now feel bad if we are even a minute late. It also gives me confidence that my daughter will be okay leaving me eventually to go to "real" school, as her experience with the whole idea has been so positive thus far.

I wanted to also talk today about "Tim Gunn's Guide to Style," which I have been watching on Bravo each week (gosh it's been a long time). Here's my review so far: honestly I find it a little bit disappointing and lame. I was so excited for Tim to have his own show, but it quickly became evident to me that this is not at all Tim's own show; Tim is pretty much just the name, and the bitch for Bravo and Macy's hyper-advertising. I mean, every time the fashion-challenged woman goes shopping for her wardrobe, she has to go to Macy's. I honestly cannot think of a worse place to shop for an entire wardrobe, particularly if you're not sure of what you're doing. Macy's is a very scary place to me; it just seems to go on and on and on and no one ever seems to be able to help me with what I need. I went shopping there last spring for a new foundation, and I swear to God, the saleslady was like, "Well, here are all the shades - go ahead and try them on and see what you like best." Um, hello! I can do that at Bartell's! If you're charging me $50 for foundation, you'd better be sitting me down in a comfortable chair, giving me a hand massage, and applying that shit from a new bottle with special sponge applicator, followed by a full makeover. Anyway, that's my rant about Macy's. The other issue I have with this show is that Tim and Veronica Webb (certainly a fierce 80's supermodel but not a very likeable co-host and handholder to these women - I mean, would you want to go underwear shopping with a 6-foot tall ice queen? Okay, I guess I would, too, if she was taking me to La Perla and buying me whatever I wanted.) are just not hard enough on these women. My favorite makeover show ever was the BBC's "What Not to Wear" with Trinnie and Susannah, both fashion editors at Vogue. Those ladies were hard-CORE! They never held back, and hounded the women through their shopping experiences until they were breaking down, sobbing in the dressing room, but they actually did get them to get it right in the end. Plus, they were on British television, so they could say wonderful things like "That jumper makes your tits look like absolute rubbish!" AND, when they showed video of the women weeks later on that show, the women still had it together, for the most part. Tim's show is disappointing because the women all seem to go back to their old hairstyle and never seem to get the makeup on the right way again. I wish they didn't just recruit all of their women on that show from New Jersey, because I totally want to be on it. And I would be Tim's star student, except that I would be a little bit demanding, I'm afraid. I would be like, "And when you open the magic armoire, Tim and Veronica, I'd like there to be a Ferragamo Python Flap-Top bag and some matching pumps. That will be just what I need to inspire me for my day of shopping. What's that? Oh no, darling - of course you can't get those at Macy's! And I won't be doing any of my other shopping at Macy's either. We all know that Macy's sucks. I know you two would never shop there, and I want to be just like you."

In other news, the new ANNIE LENNOX album has come out!!! HOORAY!!! "Songs of Mass Destruction" looks like a winner - now I've just got to get my ears on it, girl. Lord knows I need something in the car besides the "Curious George" soundtrack and the compilation of random annoying children's music my daughter loves.

What else is new? Oh, well - fall is here. Boy, is it. It's raining and pouring here in Seattle and the leaves have turned overnight. Because of the chill in the air, I was inspired to make beef bourguignon and zucchini gratin (ooh la la!) for a great big family dinner, and it ROCKED. Thank you, Julia Child and Barefoot Contessa. More on Ina Garten later, as she is one of my all-time idols and I just want to go to her house in the Hamptons and sit by the fire, sipping whiskey sours, and having all my flowers arranged by a bunch of super-friendly, preppy gays. What a life.

Enjoy the new chill, and enjoy all of your fall and back-to-school memories.

A Coupla Things

So I was down at Southcenter this week, doing a little maternity clothes shopping at Old Navy and Target. May I just say that Target's Liz Lange maternity clothes ROCK - they are so cute and stylish and don't make me feel like a bargain basement pregnant lady. Old Navy was a little bit frumped out and rag-tag, but I should mention that it looked like they were about to set out a bunch of new merchandise (staff were very busy unpacking boxes) on the day I was there, so we'll see.

I have an issue with most maternity jeans. I do not understand how so many of them can be this "demi-panel" and get away with it. Can women actually wear this without their pants falling down every time they bend over or sit? I cannot. Call me Grandma, but I just love the "full panel," over-the-belly stuff. It gives the pants something to hold onto when my waist goes away. The other advantage is that when you wear the over-the-belly panels, you don't have nasty elastic lines showing under your clothes at your mid-belly (or, your "demi-belly"). I'm all about smooth silhouettes. If I'm going to have a big, beautiful belly, I want people to look at that and think about what a gorgeous pregnant woman I am. I do not want them to wonder what tricks are going on under my fabulous maternity tunic. The whole demi-panel thing sucks because all of the stylish choices in maternity jeans are made with this kind of panel. It's like the industry thinks that if you're going for the full panel, you've completely given up on style. Not so! Au contraire!

I ended up buying a pair of full-panel jeans online at oldnavymaternity.com. They're okay - your basic boot-cut antique wash. Ho-hum. I was hoping for a dark wash, straight leg style, so I could look a little less suburban. But when you're only shelling out $24.95 or so for jeans (and also when you're shopping at Southcenter shopping center in Tukwila), you're kind of in the suburban pickings zone, I realize. Liz Lange didn't even offer any full panel jeans styles, so I got what I could get.

All of this is to get to the following point: They are opening a Nordstrom Rack at Southcenter tomorrow!!!! Hooray!! I was driving by all of that new construction that's going in on my way to Old Navy, and I almost had an accident when I saw the Nordstrom Rack sign, shining like a beacon in the distance. I drove around and around, trying to get through the construction fences to catch a glimpse of the new mecca, but when I finally got in and parked in the crispy new parking lot, the store was, alas, still not open. I hauled my daughter up to the front window and peered inside, trying to see if they had a children's department, if they had women's dresses, anything. But it was pretty hard to see past the stacks of boxes and racks of hangers. Now back in the day I would have been there, in my car, at 6:30am with a cup of coffee and a piece of blueberry coffee cake, listening to the radio, and waiting with all the other die-hards for the place to open up tomorrow morning at 7:45am. I would probably have even skipped work for such an event (I was definitely known to do such things - especially when the Rack had their annual small designer shoe event, for sizes 5-6 only. Although I never have been a match for those tiny-footed, tough-as-nails Asian fashion mavens). This time I'll bide my time, however. It's just not worth it anymore. I don't want to say that having my daughter along takes most of the joy out of shopping for me, but I'll say it anyway. It sucks. She starts howling and lashing out the minute she catches a whiff of the leather and the fluorescent lights, and won't stop until we're back on the highway toward home. No fun. Now I shop like a madwoman, whipping through racks and picking out things that look vaguely attractive, throwing them in my cart. And forget about trying anything on, though I was lucky enough to have this opportunity for about six minutes the other day at Target, thanks to the popcorn they so ingeniously sell at the front. I swear to God, I would pay $10 for a little bag of that popcorn, just to get the peace that comes from slipping a few items over my head and taking a more-than cursory look at my appearance in the mirror once in a while.

So that's a major event in fashion for those of us who live on the South-West side. The other thing I wanted to note is that there is a new maternity shop on California Ave., south side of the Junction, close to that C&P Coffee place. It's called On The Way Maternity, and I checked it out the other day, too. They don't seem to have a website yet, but their address is 5446 California Ave SW, Seattle 98136, phone (206)938-2229. They have some nice things - they carry Olian and some other bigger higher-end maternity brands, but they also have a lot of brands I've never heard of and some really cute ideas. Most of their stuff looked to be between about $40-100, so more expensive than I would pay for most maternity things, but definitely lower prices than A Pea in the Pod (racket!) or Village Maternity. I appreciated that they carry a number of maternity swimsuits, even though it's not swimsuit season, so you know you always have a place to go if you're going on vacation or need something for swim lessons.

That's all for now. Happy shopping, pregnant ladies!

September Morn

My daughter is sleeping as hard as she can right now, catching up from a day of running around the beach on Whidbey Island with her cousins and all of the excitement of trying to process everyone she met at my husband's family's mini family reunion out there. She is quite the social butterfly, ever concerned with where everyone is, how everyone is doing, and whether they need a "big hug." She wore herself out, poor thing. I wore myself out yesterday, too, being stressed about spending time with my husband's relatives and whether or not they would like my guacamole or my orzo salad (they always do like my dishes - why do I worry about this?) and whether one of his aunts would get in my business and say something terribly rude and offensive to me (she always does - why do I worry about this?). I guess I was just anticipating having to be "on" the whole day long (i.e., smiling appropriately and making sure I don't have lettuce in my teeth or a stain on my boob, limiting my political commentary and/or not stating that George W. Bush is a big fat dummy, and taking care not to say things like, "Why of course I modeled nude in college - it was for art!", plus chasing after my baby and trying to make sure she got SOME rest throughout the day so that she didn't erupt into tears at the drop of a hat or smack one of said aunties in the face because she was SO exhausted). But of course, it all went fine. I think I got out of there only mildly offending some of the Catholics/Republicans.

Anyway, these mornings when she sleeps in are so, so sweet for me. Now that the summer's activities finally seem to be winding down, I can actually sit back with my delicious americano (thanks, baby) and enjoy the weather we're having. It's the perfect temperature today - there's not too much sun yet, but the air is mild and pleasant. And the smell in the air - I always say it smells like California when it smells like this. I grew up spending a few weeks every summer at my grandparents' house in L.A. I woke up every morning there to the smell of their home, my grampy's Winston cigarettes and my grandmother's piles of fabrics next to the sewing machine in the sunlight. Their house was filled with beautiful, musty pieces from their young life in New England, and my grandmother flung the windows and doors open every morning to capture some of the last cool air. The smell of California for me is that smell - a cozy house with fresh iced tea in the refrigerator, a new jug of Arrowhead water in the dispenser, cat food in the bowl on top of the washing machine off the kitchen, and the essence of the sun warming all the world outside, promising another day filled with small adventures.

I can smell that smell now almost. I can smell the water and the salt. I can hear the sea lions far off barking to each other like that's the most natural thing to do right in the middle of a huge city on a Monday morning. I see a hummingbird out my back window and I wonder if many of these birds are going to try and get down to California before long.

Gaining

I went to see my OB for a checkup last Wednesday, and it's taken me until now to write about it. Because I have mixed feelings, but the primary feeling in the mix is crappy. No, no, no - the baby is fine. Everything's dandy there - my OB heard a heartbeat (I didn't hear it, but she heard it, so that's okay) and all else looks good with my little 5 cm. progeny. It's me. Or, as she put it as she clucked her tongue and shook her head at me from her seat in the examining room, it's my weight. She said that she was concerned that I had gained 44 lbs. during my last pregnancy, and that I hadn't lost it all before getting pregnant again. She said that for my height (about 5'2"), I should really be getting down to less than 120 lbs. after this pregnancy, and that she didn't want to see me gain more than 30 lbs. this time around.

I keep going around and around with this in my head. You see, it would be one thing if I was an overweight person to begin with. But I am not. I will be the first to admit that I gained too much weight during my last pregnancy, and that I certainly learned my lesson the hard way (those last 10-12 lbs. never did get off). I was already planning to be more vigilant about what I was eating during this pregnancy (i.e., forego the daily Ben & Jerry's chocolate milkshake and frequent stops at Jack in the Box for cheeseburgers in favor of tuna fish sandwiches or salads and glasses of water or milk). I now know that pregnancy is not a license for me to eat indiscriminately - nothing really is - and that eventually I will have to pay. But so far in this pregnancy - that is to say, in my first twelve weeks or so - in spite of my Lorna Doone frolics, I have gained around 3-4 lbs. (as opposed to 15 lbs. in my first trimester last time around), and I was feeling pretty good about myself. But no - I was shot down by my teensy-weensy, marathon-running doc who is treating me like I am a fatty. I felt like I was in the fifties or something!

It is a very fine line we women walk, I realize, when we begin arguing with our doctors about our weight (or telling our husbands or friends or our blog audience about all the things we wish we could have said to that bitch). Inevitably, we sound hyper-defensive and whiny and like we're about to make a gazillion excuses. But I'm feeling pissed off, and I think rightfully so. You see, I follow the BMI guidelines for weight versus height, because I feel that this is the most objective and simple way to determine a healthy weight for height. The other reason I follow this is because this is what doctors supposedly refer to in order to determine if a person needs to take extra steps to manage their weight. According to the BMI chart, I have managed to stay pretty much within a "healthy" or "normal" weight range for my height. And now I am pregnant, and I was planning to try really hard to gain within the "recommended" 25-35 pounds for a woman of normal weight. The point is, I had studied all of this - I had made a concerted effort to prepare myself for the changes in my body in this pregnancy - and I felt like my doctor treated me like I had no idea what was going on and I was just going into this pregnancy carelessly. She never asked me once what I was doing for exercise, what kinds of foods I was eating, etc. She just got bent out of shape about the number on the scale.

My doctor also didn't ask me, before launching into her speech about my weight and how much I was gaining, if I had ever had an eating disorder before, which I found most alarming. I actually haven't, and I am fortunate to have gained a fairly healthy attitude about eating and weight and food in my life, but I have encountered many, many women who do have a wide range of issues with eating. I also know that pregnancy and the inevitable weight gain that accompanies it can be quite a trial for someone who has gone to extreme measures to control her weight in the past. Add to this a doctor telling you that you are headed toward FAT if you don't exercise more control, and in some women this might trigger an all-out recurrence of their disordered eating behavior, leading to innumerable risks for the growing baby (not to mention the mama). Of course I checked, on the initial questionnaire, that I do not have an eating disorder, and the doctor may have reviewed this before talking to me, but I imagine that many women who do have a problem would also check "no" in order to avoid another confrontation/counseling session with a professional.

The point is, I felt that all of this that happened was very irresponsible on my doctor's part, and I am pissed off at her and wondering if I should go to the trouble of switching doctors at this point. I realize, however, that no matter what I do, what she said is now going to stick with me and needle at me throughout this pregnancy and beyond. Even if I do succeed at gaining 30 lbs. or less, I will be haunted as I try to take the weight off that maybe I won't be able to get it all off again, and then even if I do, that I won't be able to get down to 120 - the magic number that my doctor spewed. I have not weighed 120 since the 7th grade! That number seems unrelated to any BMI chart or anything I have ever seen. It sounds, again, like some ideal that girls learned, in whispers, in the 1950's - "You musn't let your weight get above 120, or your husband will stray, darling." There is the side of me that knows that what she said is at some level irrational and extreme and not exactly for me, and that's what I try to focus on. But there is another side of me that freaks out every once in a while that what she said was actually the gospel truth, and that I must trust her judgment and her comments as she is a highly-educated, experienced medical professional. After all, why would she just want to make me feel bad? She has an interest, doesn't she, in retaining me as a patient?

I think the term "eating disorder" is interesting. It conjures up images of Karen Carpenter or Paula Abdul or, for me, perfectly-tanned, blonde Connecticut girls in pearls and cashmere sweater sets eating their salads with lemon juice and a cup of tea day after day in the dining hall at my prestigious New England college. And I all-too readily said, just above, that I do not have an eating disorder. But I am inordinately concerned with my doctor's comments, made almost a week ago now, about my weight. In fact, my husband might say I am "obsessing," and he would probably be right. Though I do feel that my attitude about food and weight is generally healthy, I know that I can get caught up in other people's determinations about what a "good" or "healthy" body looks like or measures up to (or down to). I think that women in this society are severely patronized about this issue. We are told not to worry about our weight so much, and everyone knows that supermodels are freakishly tall and thin and we should just love ourselves, etc., etc., but isn't it a shame about Judy, who's had three kids and she used to have such a nice figure and now she's really gained a lot of weight. Or Allison, who would probably feel better about herself and get some dates if she could just drop a few pounds. Or back to my last post, where a woman who is beautiful and slender to boot "probably has an eating disorder." It's like this great farce. Do we or don't we feel that women should just be themselves and be healthy? And what does healthy really mean to each one of us?

I will say that my doctor's comments have freaked me out to the extent that I am giving much extra thought to what I put in my body now. And I am surely eating more healthfully as a result, even as I gain. I will try not to worry, I say. I will focus on having the healthiest baby possible and nothing else matters. But I will put out there that it is almost impossible even for the most confident of women to hear a negative comment about their bodies, their weight, and not carry that comment around in their sack of woes, of "can'ts," for a long time after. My sack was really lightening of late, but now I am huffing and puffing from the extra weight.

Perfect

My daughter must be recovering from a rockin' weekend this morning - she's napping like there's no tomorrow, after waking up at 6am. Her naps are somewhat unpredictable these days, so it's impossible to map out my schedule around them. Add that to the fact that I am extra breathless and worn out from pregnancy, and there's not a whole lot that gets done during these quiet spells.

The last time I was pregnant, I remember having a very clean house all the time. I did a lot of cooking and threw elaborate dinner parties for my husband's extensive family. People asked how could I do it - wasn't I so exhausted - and the truth is I was, at the end, after all of the guests had gone. But I was exhausted in a very satisfied sort of way, not an, "I'm never f%&*ing doing THAT again" kind of way, like I would now. I used to believe that a pregnant woman was a woman who was about to be a mother, therefore she was a woman who needed to have her shit together. and keep it together until the last child was married off, at which point she could run off to Israel and join a kibbutz. Add this to the list of "Now I know better's." A pregnant woman is a woman who needs to chill out as best she can for nine months before beginning the Ironman triathlon of motherhood. A mother is a woman who tries to hold on to her femininity, her womanhood, her shit, once a child takes over every last aspect of her life. If she can run a brush through her hair once a day and prepare a meal once in a while, as well as talking her children out of tantrums at the grocery store, she has succeeded, to my mind. If she does all this PLUS goes around in shiny shoes and pressed pants and her shirts tucked in to reveal a lovely waistline, she is a freak and I don't want to be around her.

Which brings me to this question: Why do women want to be friends with women who share their same faults or weaknesses? Or, why do women come together over weaknesses? I heard Naomi Wolf speak at my sister's college graduation (she went to a women's college), and she addressed this. She challenged the graduates to surround themselves with strong, powerful women instead of seeking out women who would make them feel better because they were so lame (I paraphrase here). I've always thought about this, and here's what I think: Strong women, powerful women, are strong and powerful because they have weaknesses and because they've sorted them out or muddled through them to get to their strengths. I feel somehow that a woman who can't admit to her weaknesses is a woman who is trying to operate in a man's world, thereby isolating herself from her sisters. The man's way is to show a superhuman-ness, a strength-and-power-in-the-face-of-all-adversity kind of face, to the world. The woman's way, I believe, is to find connections with other human beings. To show that she cares, empathizes, with their struggles as well as their triumphs. A woman rises and falls, really, by the number of people who seek her out to share a thought, a feeling. A man rises and falls by how strong people perceive him to be.

So, I agree with Naomi Wolf ultimately. Women should seek out women who are strong, in the way that women become strong. We shouldn't seek out persistent losers, or women whose self-worth relies on the tidbits men throw them. We should love each other, build each other up. We should celebrate the lovely chaos of motherhood. Certainly there are some women who just innately have it together, even in the face of childrearing, and I really shouldn't hate them for it. I shouldn't wait for the facade to start crumbling down around them, either. Why do we do that, women? Why do we see a very slender woman and whisper to each other that she probably goes and throws up in the bathroom after she eats? Why do we see a very attractive woman and reason with ourselves that she must have a daddy complex or a drug problem or a huge ugly mole on her butt? I know it's because we're jealous, but why are we jealous? Because we fear that everyone's looking at that woman, thinking about how gorgeous/skinny/talented she is, and they're forgetting about us. Again. So we must reason that if we insert some negative thoughts into the atmosphere around the woman, somehow it will all balance out back in our favor again. But do we really want to be the one everyone is looking at and thinking about all the time? Do we really want to be that woman? God, what a chore that would be.

Are men not concerned with what people think of them? I don't believe this, but I do believe that the problem is more pervasive for women. Not a day goes by that I don't think about the shape of my belly (even pregnant!) or the clarity of my skin or the smell of my breath or whether I've sent a thank-you note out fast enough to someone or whether so-and-so liked my cooking or what I will do next to build my perfect-life resume somehow. In my moms' group, we meet once a week at different members' homes, and we all tell the other moms that it really doesn't matter what shape their house is in when we come to visit - all that matters is that we get to be with them. But each week we go to the home of some poor mother who has busted her ass to get the house all cleaned up and child-proofed and plates and glasses set out and cupcakes baked and frosted for the other moms. I am perhaps the guiltiest one of all, I'll admit it (maybe it's something about having an excuse to actually get the house cleaned up, for my own sanity). No one has yet just said, "Aw, screw it" and just left their floors unswept and told people to get whatever out of the fridge for themselves. We are all perpetuating the lovely myth of homemaking/hostessing perfection.

I'm not sure where this discussion started, or where it ends appropriately. I think about Hillary Clinton, and whether this country is ready for a woman president. Perhaps it is not the woman president - perhaps it is just Hillary that people may not be ready for. What makes a woman a great leader? I think it is when she is not afraid to lead like a woman, connecting with people through the wilderness of pain and misunderstanding, sharing her own faults honestly. Hillary is a bit of an enigma to me. I really don't get the whole thing with her husband - I happen to like Bill fairly well as a leader, but I think he completely dishonored his wife when he went around humping interns. And Hillary should have treated his actions as such. Instead, she seemed to go into super-robot mode and get to church more often and talk about their counseling. Blah, blah, blah, as my daughter says. No. He was a dick, and you should at least separate from him for six months and take a nice long vacation to Tahiti if you're in a real marriage. It all left me feeling like she was even more ingenuine than I had originally thought. Like Hillary is in nothing but a power-marriage, and the whole thing with Bill is swept under the rug so that her own campaign can go on and she can use his clout for her own political gain. But the problem is, I've lost the connection with Hillary because she never showed me a face of pain or anger along the way. She never went on Oprah and said, "I know what women feel like who have been cheated on, because I have lived through that experience myself." Maybe a man doesn't have to address these kinds of issues when running for office, and maybe that's wrong. But in my mind, a woman grows with each pain she endures and lives to tell about.

Showing

I just got off the phone with my educational loans people, asking for a forbearance. Finally. I've been nervous about starting this, because I'm not sure that I want to let go of my 3-year grace period just yet. I'm a big hoarder - you should see my basement. I've got enough canned tomatoes, soup, pasta and tonic water to survive if the big one hits and we somehow manage to live through it. We might be unable to use electricity or plumbing, but if we've got a can opener and maybe some gin, we're in great shape.

Anyway, the payments are getting to be too much for our single-income family, so it's the right thing to do now. I also cancelled our New York Times subscription today, because it's very expensive and generally serves only as extra weight in our recycle bin at the end of the week. I loved the idea of getting the NY Times every weekend - curling up with a cup of coffee and the Magazine or the Book Review, hours and hours of blissful quiet and peace stretched before me, but come on. Are you kidding me? That was in another life, and hopefully in a life somewhere far in the future, when there are no children running around here on a Sunday morning trying to stick their fingers in light sockets and screaming, "Cinderella, on! Cinderella, on!" Good-bye, highbrow intellectual me. Hello, Survival Mama. Stained, tattered Mama who now showers every other OTHER day and uses moisturizer and deodorant as an afterthought.

I realized the other day, fighting the crowds at an outlet mall to buy my daughter some new fall clothes at Carter's, that I am far more concerned with what she is wearing and the state of HER clothes than with my own. Before I had kids, when I would dream about life with kids, I would always picture myself as one of those very together mommies, with nary a wrinkle or a stain on my tailored wool pants and silk blouse, and though it would be a challenge sometimes, I would always wear at least just a little bit of makeup to brighten up my face. Fast-forward to reality: most days I hang around in my bathrobe, mascara smudged under my eyes from last night, until an hour in the day I prefer not to mention, hoping for a window of opportunity in which to bathe myself before putting on a new pair of underwear. My other issue with getting dressed these days is my in-between waistline. My regular pants don't quite fit me anymore, but maternity pants look ridiculous - like I'm trying to "look" pregnant. I almost forgot about this schleppy-sloppy time of pregnancy, where mostly you just look like you haven't been taking care of yourself. It doesn't help that I reach for the same old black yoga pants almost every single day, just as soon as I step out of my bathrobe.

What's been a trip is that my tummy is really sticking out much sooner this time. I had convinced myself that I was really just behind on my situps, and I really needed to start drinking my coffee without two heaping teaspoons of sugar and a hefty pour of half and half each morning, but some good friends plus a random old woman in my workout class at the Y pointed out to me that indeed, I was "showing" (the old lady said it was either that or I was just really putting on the pounds. I told her she was very lucky that I was pregnant, or I would have had to strangle her with a resistance band). Note to reader: Just because you are old and/or have been around the block a time or two, that does not give you the right to approach random people and ask, "Are you pregnant?" What the hell is wrong with you! I swear it seems sometimes like people never had a mother - at least a mother that taught them anything about how to act.

The other thing that people have said to me so far this time that has been annoying is, "Another one? Already?" As if I have not waited the requisite time of _____ (insert random time period here) and have, most irresponsibly, disrupted some code of child-spacing. My daughter is almost 20 months now. That means that when this baby is born, she will be almost 27 months old. It's not like I got pregnant right away, and the second one will be born before the first one can even walk! Good Lord. It's hard not to get freaked out by what people say, though, especially since there are no certainties around the whole child-bearing/child-rearing thing. Surely if I lived in another community, people would be saying, "Well, what took you so long?" I have to remember that what my husband and I are doing is right for us, and stake my confidence on that.

That brings me to something that is constantly on my mind; the whole thing about staying at home and not being out there working, using my law degree to the greatest extent possible. I used to really worry about it, most of all because when our daughter was born, the amount of time I was going to take "off" kept changing the older she got - my husband and I hadn't really hammered it out as much as we should have. And money kept getting tighter and tighter (it still is). But the more I stayed home with her, the more I knew that this was what I should be doing - what made me the happiest. I also knew that going to work and being away from her was going to make me very, very sad. I do not know a single other woman who was an attorney and had a baby and now stays home full-time. That is a bit disconcerting - it makes me feel sometimes as if I am not following the "right" track for a female attorney, and that somehow I will never find my way back on again. But I have faith that this experience, while taking me out of legal practice for a while, will make me an even better attorney - more well-rounded, perhaps - and one who is not bitter for having "missed out" on these formative years. My hope is that I will be more than ready to go back to work when the time comes. Fresh and optimistic. Certainly, I want my children to see me take my education and use it to make a difference out there in the world, and contribute to the household income to boot. I also want them to see that I am committed to them, and that nothing is more important than the time I got to spend with them when they were small.

Life is much less complicated these days for me. It is also much less glamorous, a little softer around the edges, a lot more raw. I talk about poop now with all kinds of people and don't even give it a second thought. I sing "B-I-N-G-O" right out loud with my daughter and show her my bellybutton when she shows me hers - I don't care who's around. It is very rare that I get flustered or embarrassed around other people now, or that I fail to say what I really think, without my voice shaking so much. I don't get bogged down, stressed out by what I think people are thinking of me or what they actually mean by what they say. I live rich in the knowledge that nothing else really matters, when it comes right down to it. Nothing but my family. I will work hard to support and promote that, and the rest is just bullshit. I would want to hire someone like me.

Anniversary

What a wonderful anniversary we had! We celebrated a couple of days ago - my husband took the day off work and we left our daughter with her grandparents overnight. My husband insisted on surprising me, which normally I hate ("Surprise! We're going on a picnic and hike in the woods today!" or, "Surprise! I caught four frogs at the lake while I was fishing and I'm bringing them home to keep as pets!"), but these surprises were all good and did not involve anything unpleasant for me down the line. The first surprise was a sushi lunch at Nijo Sushi off of Post Alley. I know I've been yammering on about the sushi lately, but I've really only eaten it about three times since I got pregnant. And this sushi was amazing! When we go out, it's usually in West Seattle, so we go to sushi at Azuma because it's a great old local standby. But WOW - what a difference a venture out across the bay can make! I thought Nijo's rainbow roll was one of the best I've ever had, and we got some super-fresh bluefin nigiri that was out of this world. Oooh, we also had some wasabi bloody marys that were awesome (mine sans vodka, of course, but I find that a virgin bloody mary can still be quite enjoyable). And we sat at the BAR like grown-ups - that's always a treat.

Then we wandered up the way to The Spanish Table, where I've always wanted to go. After much time spent living in Spain, I am a huge Spain-o-phile, particularly when it comes to the cuisine. Many Americans don't go for the Spanish food as much as the Italian or the French - maybe because it seems heavy on the olive oil and potatoes - but man, can they do some things with olive oil and potatoes! And ham and fish and cheese and fava beans. And coffee, as my husband can well attest. Anyway, the Spanish Table is faboo - it's got almost everything you need to recreate most any of your favorite Spanish dishes, and lots of fresh Spanish cheese and ham choices. Oh - and the wine selection is outstanding (not that I could partake). I did wish that they had a little counter where they turned out cafes con leche to enjoy while you browse, so I could be 100% transported back, but I guess you have to buy a plane ticket for that. Ah well, someday again . . .

We poked around Pike Place Market for a bit. What a zoo. I wondered how many actual Seattleites were hanging out there, aside from the vendors. We got our doughnuts from that great doughnut hole stand, some cheese from Beechers, and a tea sample from Market Spice, then pretty much got the hell out of there. It's not much fun to be a foodie and be in your first trimester of pregnancy. You want to go and look at all the fresh meat and fish in the cases and wax and think about how you would prepare it all, but the combination of sights and intense odors at the Market can be overwhelming. I needed out.

We took off and headed for our next surprise; the hotel. My husband had booked us a room at . . . tah-dah! The Sorrento Hotel! What a joint! I felt like Little Orphan Annie on her first day at Daddy Warbucks' mansion pulling into that grand circular drive. They knew it was our anniversary, so they upgraded us to the penthouse even though we had just reserved a standard room. They also provided a complimentary bottle of champagne (read: sparkling apple cider) and a cheese and fruit plate to our room. I lazed around on the king-sized bed with the 450 thread-count sheets and ate and drank and felt like a queen. That is my kind of place, let me tell you. I love an historic hotel that is elegant and quiet and reserved, but not at all snooty (well, maybe just a little bit snooty, but not so you feel like a cad walking around the place). I also want to just brag a little more and mention that my husband arranged to have a beautiful bouquet of flowers brought up to the room for me when we arrived. Oh yeah - he is gooood.

For dinner we went to a wonderful restaurant in Belltown called Marjorie. It was a very cozy space with eclectic yet nicely-prepared food. We had the chef's sampler menu, which we always seem to do on our anniversary (we have not been disappointed yet!), and it was all delicious. I especially loved the cold heirloom tomato soup with salmon tartare, and my husband loved the shrimp with grits and a soft-boiled egg. I did crack up, though, when as a third course the waiter brought us a tiny dish each of raspberry-lemon sorbet, and my husband started scowling and getting very anxious because he thought that this was dessert and that was all we were going to get. It turned out to be some kind of amuse bouche, palate cleanser thing before the entree, but it was very funny to watch my husband sweat and try to figure out how he was going to handle the situation. Men . . .

In all, a landmark anniversary. Thank you so much, Daddy. And thanks to Grandma who took the baby for the afternoon and evening and essentially erased all of our worries for about 20 hours - what a treat! Everyone should be so lucky to have a day like this, to be reminded of how special their partner is and how special they are to that person. It is a rare treat these days to look into the eyes of the man I married and talk about things like the future and our dreams and how we're really doing these days. The answer is, blessedly, just great.

Sushi and Pregnancy; Like Two Edemame in a Pod

This NY Times article basically confirms what I've suspected all along; that sushi is far from a serious danger to pregnant ladies. Interestingly enough, sushi has been one of the things I've been consistently craving through all of this nausea. Perhaps because the flavors are so clean and there is no heavy smell or grease. Azuma, here I come!

Pickling

I've been gone - off the radar - for almost a week now. My apologies. I've been mired in the swamps of nausea and exhaustion. I've been living on small pieces of cheese and saltine crackers, watermelon and ginger ale. It's been hard to imagine getting back to normal, and I've been getting a little freaked out at it all. I also went to Portland to visit my family while my husband went to eastern Washington on a fishing trip. A lot has been going on.

I went to the doctor on Friday for a checkup/ultrasound and to hand over some more blood, and they told me that my due date is March 20th, which puts me at about 8 weeks along tomorrow. Soooo, another couple of weeks of this feeling crappy crap. I've had enough. It was heartening to see the baby's heartbeat on the ultrasound, though. I remember that my daughter's heartbeat was very fast, and my mom and all those women my mom's age told me that meant I was having a girl. But this heartbeat didn't look quite so fast, so I can't help but to think that maybe I'll have a boy. That and this yucky morning sickness, which I don't ever remember having with my daughter. I feel like I've been just sitting around this time, watching my daughter play, with minimal movement. I feel like she must be so disgusted with me after a while, saying "No-no!" and "Not for babies!" from my perch on the couch. I am disgusted with me, that's for sure. She is such a sweet little girl, though - so patient and coming over to me to say "Kiss!" and to pat me on the back every so often. What a peach.

This morning when I went to use the toilet and she went over to her little potty, I told her she was going to try and go potty like a big girl today. I took off her pants and her diaper, and sat her on her plastic pot, but she kept getting up and walking around. I think she understood that I was asking her to produce, but I'm not sure the message got across that she needed to aim her production at the potty. Finally she walked over to the corner and peed standing up and said, "Mama, potty!" She was very proud of herself, and I praised her, but then I took her hand and tried to lead her mid-pee to sit on her potty. She managed to get one drop in the pot, so I would say that she's officially christened it. I am very proud of her. I probably should do some reading on the topic of potty-training before I go whole-hog with her, but I would say that was a very successful introduction.

What else? Speaking of whole-hog, I attempted to make pickles this weekend at my parents' house. I went with my mom to Sauvie Island, to a farm stand, and bought a bunch of pickling cucumbers and jars and vinegar and spices, and got started on my project on Sunday. My sister took the baby to the children's museum, so I had a few hours to myself. Let me just say that, as with every home-made item, there is an awful lot of prep time compared to the actual time of completing the task called pickling. You have to wash and dry all the jars, screw-tops, and lids. Then you have to wash all of the cucumbers really well (and I had 20 lbs.!). Then you have to set up all of your ingredients and set out like four pots with boiling water and your vinegar solution. Then you have to sanitize each jar by dipping it into boiling water (oh - and don't forget the tricky task of getting the jars back out again without cooking your hands!). And THEN you can pack the pickles and spices and pour the solution over them and screw the tops on and put them back in the boiling water to get the lids to seal. Whew! A lot of work for about 18 jars of pickles. And I have this fear that none of them sealed right so they're all going to go bad. We'll see - I'll let you know. It did feel really good, though, to start a big project like this and see it through to its completion.

I also saw my best girlfriend from high school this weekend. She has moved back to Portland from doing her OB/Gyn residency at Duke, and now has a 3-year fellowship at OHSU. What a smarty-pants. She's getting married to her long-time boyfriend this month, and she's anxious to get going on starting a family herself. It was so nice to see her - she's one of those friends where I can go months or even a year or so without seeing her, and then I see her again and we just catch right back up. There's never any awkwardness, and she and I share the same principles of etiquette. That is to say, we are considerate of one another's needs and situations, and we don't say rude things to one another - amazing! We went out to dinner and dessert and the food tasted wonderful and I didn't feel sick once - Hallelujah! But she did say to me something that has been on my mind since I saw her. She said, "So, are you going to come back to Portland ever?" And I wasn't sure what to say. And it made me feel sad. You see, I'm still at that stage here in Seattle where I love living here, and I love the friends we have made and the life we've built for our family, but if the opportunity presented itself and the cards were right, I'd move back there in a heartbeat. You bet your boots. Because that's where I'm FROM. I LIVE in Seattle, but I'm FROM Portland, and my struggle thus far has been to create more of an identity for myself in Seattle. I suppose it will just take time, blah blah blah. It may also take getting a job outside of taking care of my daughter, eventually, or doing something where I am having an impact on a community greater than my household. I want to love Seattle in the same way I love Portland, but I'm not quite there yet. I love various people in Seattle, but the city itself is still fairly foreign to me and holds little interest right now, aside from child-friendly activities and the occasional need for a good restaurant for a date with my husband. In Portland I have a whole city that I love - every last pocket - as well as the people (including my own family and a couple of childhood friends) who I love there. Anyway, it's still a challenge.

We saw "Young Frankenstein" last night. It was very good, although quite long and my husband and I kept getting sleepy. We are such old people now! Megan Mulally was hilarious in it, as was the guy who played Young Frankenstein himself. As always, it was very fun to go out and share an evening of adult activities. As parents we need to keep reminding ourselves that this is key to self-preservation and the preservation of our romantic relationships. Amen.

Cinderella

We picked up a bunch of VHS tapes of Disney movies at garage sales lately. What a score! It seems that we're the only family left in West Seattle with a VCR, but hey, that works for me. I love that I can pop in "Babe" or "The Lion King" or "Mary Poppins" at a moment's notice and have my daughter transfixed for a few golden moments while I do something like, say, go eat some Lorna Doone cookies.

That damned Lorna Doone! She's always in my thoughts lately, with her buttery shortbread goodness and instant hit of comfort to my stoic Scottish soul. If I don't slow down with her I may well exceed my 2-8 pounds' allotted weight gain in the first trimester which, honestly, I do not need to do this time around. Dammit! She's the best thing going since the Girl Scouts went away with their Trefoils last spring, though. Maybe I've accidentally discovered that hydrogenated cottonseed oil is the cure for nausea.

And Disney movies for me are a good way to make those big fat pregnancy tears fall down my cookie crumb-dusted cheeks. Good Lord - the opening sequence of "Lion King" never fails to leave me bawling. All that stuff about the zebras and the elephants (oh God, the elephants - one look at an elephant, especially a Disney-animated one, and I am a mess) and the circle of life makes me just whimper with joy and angst for the plight of those fictional animals.

This morning we watched a little bit of "Cinderella." The angry feminist in me was dreading the moment my daughter laid eyes on this film, the ruin of all girls' ideas about success and happiness in life, right? But oh, what a story! The ultimate makeover movie, really - Cinderella and that fairy godmother of hers sure showed those bitchy stepsisters who was really hot. And oh yeah - she gets the prince, too. I think there is some good to this story, if you really watch the movie again. There is nothing wrong with really, really wanting to go to a super-fun party at the big castle and looking awesome. And it's not as if Cinderella is some total dunce in the meantime. She does talk to the animals, after all (you don't just learn that overnight!), and she's taught herself how to sing very well and seems to have very good manners and a positive outlook in spite of her circumstances. She deserves to have a great time once in a while, I think. So she is the prettiest one at the ball - someone has to be! Are we always going to hate that girl, or are we going to applaud her for getting her whole package together quite well? I say congrats, Cindy! You're a gem!

This brings me to my own love life. Or my married love life. I believe that, ultimately, I have been very lucky in love. This is why it is also difficult for me to be so cynical about love stories. I dated a lot of guys before I met my husband. I was "trying on" lots of different styles of guys. Wait - that doesn't sound right. I was trying out different personas, perhaps, through the guys I dated. Which I'm not sure says a lot about my aspirations for myself in my early twenties. I dated mostly cooks and musicians (bassists), though there were one or two trust fund babies thrown in there so I could get some cool jewelry and nice dinners out. Let's be honest. I dated a black guy who was way into Steely Dan - very strange. The last guy I dated was an ex-Marine who had a rockin' bod and was a yummy mixture of Portugese, Japanese, and Puerto Rican, but was also, as it turned out, a great big homophobe. So that was it for him - yuck.

And then I met the one. I will spare you the details (people really should more often about these sorts of things, I think), but the bottom line is that we clicked. Just like I had always heard it was supposed to happen. I started talking to him, and he was talking, too, and we were listening intently to one another and we didn't want the conversation to end. We must have had about fifteen cups of coffee between us on that day, and he kept getting up to pee about every five minutes. He wore a silly trucker's cap on top of his head and his jeans sagging down his bottom and he was somewhat tattooed (enough that my dad, who answered the door, kept looking at me sideways and swallowing like he was either going to cry or crack up). He smoked the same cigarettes as I did and thought I was very interesting, and more importantly, he remembered what I said and thought about it and commented on it at a later time. It honestly was like I had always known him.

There were many hurdles to get over, not the least of which were law school in another city for me, the bar exam, and his penchant for late nights of role-playing video games with his geek-o friends. But we always came back to each other, because we always had to. For me it was like finding a long-lost close family member - you say, "Oh! This is the part of my heart that has been missing all along, even though I didn't know it was missing!" I love my husband with all of my heart. He is my heart. And the two babies we have made are my heart too. I never knew I could have so much love, and it only feels like there is more to come.

Next week my husband and I celebrate four years of marriage. I want you to know, love, that you're never getting rid of me. I have settled into this with you and it feels right as rain and you're it. You make me so happy and so sad and you make me just live my life to its fullest. Thank you for all of your gifts to me - I only hope I can share half as many with you. I love you!

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Condos

My daughter knows the word "condo" now. It's because her mama and daddy talk about the condos constantly, and tsk-tsk the development up and down California each time we travel that way. We are house snobs now - we have the luxury of owning our own home on our own property, and even have a yard where our dogs can run around. I don't know that we have all that much against condos or townhomes, really. We just don't like the way THESE condos around here are shaping up, for the most part. They seem to be getting slapped up without much regard for the history and future of our community; they are unabashed symbols of capitalism. They are land-hogs, stretching their structures all the way out to their property lines, and all the way up to their coded height limits. They make me feel yucky. And P.S., What kind of people are going to live there? That also makes me nervous. And don't go telling me this is "affordable housing." These places are starting around $4-500K. So it's not going to be friendly, middle-class families who just want to live in a nice community. It's going to be single-ish, couple-ish upper-class-ish people who are choosing to spend their money to live someplace tacky, a.k.a. TACKY PEOPLE. Ugh.

I am not sad that structures like the burned-out Schuck's or the nasty Hancock Fabrics building (hey - isn't that also a Schuck's?) are getting torn down and revamped for mixed retail and living spaces. I just want to see more consideration taken for the values of the community when the new structures are designed. I have learned (and please correct me if this is inaccurate) that according to city restrictions, developers constructing buildings with eight townhomes/condos or less in this area do not have to go through any sort of community design review process prior to initiation of their projects. Ever notice that a lot of these places going up, particularly the really generic, disheartening ones, are exactly eight townhomes big?

Now onto the subject of Whole Foods. Honestly I have mixed feelings about this whole thing, though I'm not exactly sure how this is really going to affect me because I shop mostly at Safeway and Fred Meyer and WinCo (do you know about WinCo? An amazing place! I will save this topic for an entire post!), and generally more cheaply and inorganically. I know, I know - I should buy organic, blah blah blah, especially now that I am pregnant. But find me a store that sells organic for only slightly more than regular price, and washes off the dirt for me (why does it always have to be so dirty? I still believe it's organic without seeing the soil still on the leaves!) and I will go running with my hemp bag to load up. Ha ha. Until that time, it will be me with all the other rag-tags in our sweatpants at the Safeway, buying our non-dirty produce and discount meats. Not to mention the human drama that unfolds each time I shop there. Yesterday I saw a guy in the Safeway wearing a t-shirt that said "Hola Bitchola," shopping right next to a little old lady who had been bussed in from the nearby rest home. They smiled pleasantly at each other. Now, tell me when I would see that at PCC!

Sure, I love to go to Whole Foods occasionally when I visit Portland, and look at all of the gorgeous fruit stacked up perfectly, the tantalizing sausages in the meat case, the amazing fish section. I love to go to the cheese section when I have a little dinner party, and try fourteen samples of fresh cheese from all over the world before I pick one. And I love to look at all of the lovely desserts and the prepared foods section to get a little snack and lots of ideas for what I might whip up at home. It's a beautiful experience, really. And cheers to all those people who can do their weekly shopping there, buying bags and bags full of that awesome produce and meat and 360 brand rice cakes and bottled water and flax seed oil. You will probably go to heaven for filling your bodies with only the freshest, purest foods. But I do not believe that most of us can shop there like this. So I guess I wonder how these three stores - Whole Foods, Metropolitan Market, and PCC - are all going to survive in our little old neighborhood. I would hate to see Metropolitan Market have to leave West Seattle, for example, as I feel this is a wonderful, local community-minded business (although I do very little shopping there, either. It is a great place to get the occasional coffee, though! And of course the samples. And it's a good place to see some West Seattle gays.).

So, we shall see. Happy Friday, by the way!

On Houseguests

I had houseguests all weekend long until yesterday morning. First my younger sister came to stay, which is something of a treat. She is generally a good houseguest and loves to spend time with her niece, although lately she makes me a bit nervous as she is constantly "cleaning" my house while she is here. I'm not sure why this is, but I suspect it has something to do with the whole sister-competition thing and is a passive-aggressive way of letting me know my house is somehow not up to snuff. No, it is not "helpful" but rather distressing to the hostess when your houseguest gets out the Clorox spray and begins disinfecting the bathroom and the area around the dog bowls. As a guest, I believe a balance must be struck between being respectful and keeping your room tidy and not leaving your bowls and glasses around the house - perhaps even clearing the table and offering to do the dishes one night - and actually taking on the role of housekeeper, taking out the garbage and doing laundry and scrubbing the floor on your hands and knees. In my opinion, you as a guest have a duty to let the host/hostess know with all of your might that you greatly appreciate being invited to stay in their lovely home, you find it most relaxing, and is there anything you can do to help maintain the loveliness that surrounds you. You should behave as though nothing needs improving, and certainly does not need deep, disinfectant cleaning.

Then my mom came up from Portland and stayed for one night while my sister was here. I love my mom. She is a good houseguest, too. I especially love that she goes and takes a nap in the afternoon when she is here. That's a good thing, all you guests. It is important to initiate some "off" time while you are staying in someone's home. Particularly someone who is newly pregnant and feels perpetually as if they could just crawl under a table and sleep for three days. Give your hostess a break from hostessing once in a while.

Of course, there are things that bug me about my mom, too. For one thing, she seems to always only stay for one night. She does work full-time still and has things at home that she has to take care of like we all do, but this is kind of a strange feeling. My husband jokes with her that she's afraid she'll turn into a pumpkin if she stays here longer than 24 hours, and there is always that awkward chuckle after this comment. Because it's true, I guess. The thing is, she's just like me. She's a Taurus. She knows she loves her daughter and her daughter's husband and above all, her precious granddaughter, and she wants to come up to Seattle from time to time to pay a visit, but God forbid she be taken out of her element - out of her home, her nest - for more than a little while. She starts getting itchy, and she "really needs" to get home to do things like sort out the boxes in the basement that have been sitting there for thirty years. So, it bugs me because it is all too close to home, I suppose. It is interesting, though, because she cries really hard when it's time to leave us. She probably wants to bring us all home with her to always have around her. I guess my sister would be in charge of all the cleaning in that case.

Then an old childhood friend from Portland came to visit, starting on Monday. This houseguest will not likely be invited to stay again anytime soon, as she violated many of of the rules of houseguesting, and generally pissed me off. #1: She called me at the last minute to say that she was coming up with a friend (who I do not know) and she guessed they would have to stay at the youth hostel, unless I could possibly spare them a room. Of course I will say of course you should come and stay with us. What else can I say? #2: Said friend of friend would be attending a real estate conference on Monday and Tuesday, and old friend would like to just "hang out" with me and "do whatever." All day long? What about events in my schedule? #3: Houseguests were going to just need to spend Monday night, and leave Tuesday after conference got out, but oh, actually, come Tuesday morning, would it be okay if they just stayed one more night? Um, NO! But of course, "Sure!" #4: Old friend is newly pregnant as well, for the first time, and has extreme morning (read: "all-day") sickness which involves frequent vomiting and inability to eat or even look at regular foods at regular mealtimes, to go for a walk, or even to just be. This makes you an extremely high-maintenance houseguest, and someone who should not be a houseguest unless it is some kind of emergency. This was not. #5: Old friend (this is fast-becoming an inappropriate title for this individual) leaves dishes, silverware, food wrappers and large clumps of hair all around my house, poo-poo track marks in the toilet bowl, every single light on in her guest room all the time, and her bed unmade with the door wide open. Needless to say, on Tuesday night, when she and her friend were telling me that they'd like to spend Wednesday "just hanging out and doing stuff," I told them that actually I had a list of very important appointments for Wednesday so I couldn't join them and that everyone needed to be out of the house by 9am. At 9am, we all left the house, I locked the door and said good-bye, then I drove around the neighborhood with my daughter and came back a few minutes later to my sweet empty house where we both fell down and took a good long nap.

Maybe I am hard on my houseguests. Or I shouldn't be so critical of people who I myself have invited to stay. Well, my sister and my parents are givens. They can come and stay no matter how much they bug me, because they are my family and we're stuck with each other. But I do find that having non-family people come to stay is a good way to figure out who you really desire to have in your life. This friend was a lot of fun when we were little girls - she was adventurous and always up for whatever mischief I wanted to get into. But this weekend sealed for me that she has grown into a woman who missed a good portion of the lesson on manners and selflessness. She is a kind enough person, and I'm sure she will make a perfectly fine mother. But when someone lacks the ability to conduct themself as a houseguest with grace and some humility (yes, even when they are feeling ill), I feel that I simply don't have the time or energy to deal with that person any longer. And these days, I will not.

Blech

Okay, maybe this early pregnancy not-feeling-so-hot thing was not just a passing thing, and I am not actually a pregnancy goddess, immune to bouts of nausea and gas and general grossness. I feel yucky again today. All I want to do is sit around and drink Sprite with ice. My sister is visiting and we went to Kokoras Grill for dinner (so good!) and all I could do was pick at my salad and try not to look at the ceiling fans for fear of getting dizzy and passing out.

It could have been the Nordstrom sale that did me in, too. I am a bit ashamed to say that I really hardly ever go downtown, so when I venture off of my peninsula for an event so massive as the Anniversary Sale at the flagship store, it is almost too much. Almost. Of course it was an absolute zoo. The women's shoe department looked like a war zone, people were running here and there and up and down the escalators with random clothing and accessory items. I took a number in the kids' shoes department, and waited fifteen minutes for the saleslady to even tell me that they didn't have my daughter's size in the shoe I wanted to get for her. But you know what? I loved every minute of it. I stood there in that great mob and my heart was beating hard and I grabbed at a green Juicy Couture track suit just because everyone else was and held it up to myself for a moment, and my daughter was at the sitter's so I could just look and look and hold pieces of clothing together and see if they made sense, and just enjoy shopping with all of the other frenzied shoppers.

I didn't buy shoes for myself somehow because I am still having this shoe dilemma where I can't seem to find shoes that are actually comfortable that make me look cute and not momsie or like some lady with a walking stick out on her Elder Hostel trek through Turkey. I need help! Flats seem ridiculous to me because I am short, and because all of my jeans are hemmed to be worn with a shoe with a heel. I know that the real fashion mavens have their jeans hemmed to different lengths to go with their various shoe heights, but I simply cannot justify this as a stay-at-home mom. I don't really wear high, high heels anymore, at least not on a daily basis. I think the answer is going to lie in some kind of wedge-heeled shoe, but one that is so comfortable I can wear it all day and not have to think about it. I continue to search.

I didn't actually buy a thing for myself today, unless you'd count the little white kimono outfit I picked up in the children's department today, size 6 months, with a white velvet bow. I'm not so sure this time that I will have a girl, but I wanted to honor the little one growing inside of me with a special gift. If I have a boy I'll take it back and find something else, of course. I think for me it is a token to hold onto through this pregnancy, and a way to remember that this child is its own miracle, deserving of its own recognition and anticipation.

Pregnant

Last week Wednesday I found out I was pregnant. Apparently, I'm about six weeks along now, and the embryo (or is it called a "fetus" at this point? I forget) is supposedly about the size of a peppercorn. I'm not exactly sure how far along, as my cycle's been all out of whack for a few months, so they have estimated from a blood test they took last week. Thank you, phlebotomist, for the lovely brown bruise I'm now sporting on my left arm.

I've had few symptoms, except for a monster headache that started about Sunday evening and stayed with me until Wednesday. Oh yes. I used to really be the Headache Queen - like get these horrible hormonal/migraine headaches that took over my entire body and would cause me so much pain I would vomit - until I had a child. Then they pretty much went away. Now they're back, apparently. With my last pregnancy, I managed to avoid coffee, alcohol, litter boxes, artificial sweeteners and most of that other "bad" stuff like the plague. I did still indulge in sushi at Azuma and stinky European cheeses. And I will again, dammit! And this time, I'm having a cup of coffee every morning. I've decided it's okay, and it's a hell of a lot better than getting a headache from lack of caffeine that turns into a migraine that lasts for three days. I did have to come to this on my own, though. I hate it when people shove their children in your face and say things like, "I had a glass of wine every day throughout my pregnancy with Beauregard, and look! There's nothing wrong with him!" Shut up - you're gross. As if your baby was this grand experiment about the REAL effects of alcohol on fetuses (all that stuff the doctors say is just a bunch of bunk, right?), and you've got living proof now that we all can have a cocktail with dinner every night. Blech.

I'm going to be talking (actually whining) about unsolicited advice from people when you're pregnant. Unsolicited comments in general. With my last pregnancy, I liked to play this trick on inappropriate people in supermarkets, etc., who would ask me when I was due. I liked to act really shocked and say, "I'm not sure I understand what you mean!" so they would have to stand there and flounder and try to think of how to now mask their idiotic comment. Some woman came up to me at Costco near the pillow section and she grabbed a body pillow and shoved it at me and she said, "You're going to need this." Shut up. Call me a grump (and I am kind of a grump today, and I will be frequently throughout the next nine months), but people need to censor themselves somewhat. A pregnant belly is not a cry for help, in and of itself. If I must cry for help, I'll just cry. Oh and I will just cry, too. Don't tell me anything about babies dying or conjoined twins having an operation to get separated or some child's plight with multiple sclerosis or diabetes or homelessness. I'll be a mess. I already am a mess, but you know, it will all just come out in your lap.

Anyway, right now this baby's just a peppercorn, so no one's talking to me at the grocery store usually. Except the elderly men who see my daughter and come up to me and say, "What aisle did you pick her up in?" Ha ha ha. I swear this has happened each of the last five times I've been at the Safeway. Maybe it's the same guy! And I always say, "I had a coupon," or "She was on special." Ha ha ha. What the hell is wrong with me?

And I am excited to house this new life. In general, my last was an excellent pregnancy. I cruised around (then waddled) for the entire blissful time. I was a little bit cranky and I got pretty tired of getting up to go to the bathroom all the time, but I loved having a big belly and I thought I looked pretty awesome. I also got really into the whole mother-one-with-earth thing. Not like Birkenstocks and all that - no way (see my last post) - I definitely still got my grub on at Jack in the Box and the taco wagon in Burien and wore heels that were too high for my pudgy legs. I just mean that I was continually amazed that my body could grow this other person, and I could be her first life source. That's pretty incredible to me.

Last time I knew it was going to be a girl. I bought her an outfit at the Nordstrom Anniversary Sale (starts tomorrow!) before we even found out, and my husband yelled at me, but I just smiled because I knew. This time nothing strikes me right away. Perhaps I'm just being more reserved because now the chances are good again that it will be a boy. A boy would be good. I'm not such a boy kind of gal (one of two sisters), but I could learn how to do it for sure. I would try not to pressure him too much or dress him too effeminately, but I think I would secretly hope the whole time that he was gay. I'd be waiting at every turn to have "that conversation" about the gay neighbors or the man who wears foundation at the M.A.C. counter or the cheese guy at the market - you know. I mostly would just want him to learn to respect women, and to respect himself, and to not be afraid to do things like use lotion.

It's going to be different this time with a toddler in tow, I keep thinking. It already is different. What happened to that rule from last time about how you're not supposed to lift more than 20 pounds? Or you're probably not supposed to change poopy diapers or eat pieces of food that someone else has already slobbered on. I guess you don't have the same rules when you already have one. I keep trying to tell my daughter that mommy has a baby in her tummy, but she just smiles at me and says, "Owie. Tummy." Okay - I guess that's good enough for now. Another great journey begins. I'll see you tomorrow at the sale in the baby section. I'll be the one with the cup of coffee.

Thinking about shorts

The weather in Seattle has been hot, and apparently it's only going to get hotter this week. Which brings on a multitude of emotions for me. It's swell that the heat has finally come to our fair, green city. I get so sick of freezing in my house in May (my husband refuses to turn on the heat - he says, "Put on a sweater!" Aaagh! Is this something - some kind of fear-of-heater-usage chip - programmed into all men? My father is the same way), so my body is glad it's warm. I love going to the wading pool with my daughter, and splashing around with her and watching the absolute delight take over her entire being to be in the water playing with the other kids. I even love showing a little shoulder, and a little tanned, freckled decolletage if the feeling is right. But I am not so fond of the notion that we must be outside all the time in the nice weather, and I have a love-hate relationship with that American summertime clothing obsession . . . shorts.

I am an indoor cat, for the most part. I'll gladly attend a picnic or two during the summer months, though I do get a bit aggravated about hosting one myself (what is this need for packing up food in containers, on ice, carting it all to a park or other windy, hot, insect-filled locale, and eating off of precarious, soggy paper plates, all just to pack it all up again and unpack it at home?!). I'll have you for dinner in my dining room anytime you like. You can eat the food off of my dishes at my table, and I'll clear the table for you and wash the dishes with my soap and water that I have here at the house. That sounds very pleasant to me, and like excitement enough for one evening - even a summer evening. I admit that I would rather read a book or do a Sudoku or crossword puzzle or drink a Maker's Mark in my pajamas in the house than bring it all outside. If I had a beach house in Hawaii or the Turks & Caicos, sure - I'd be out on the beach every day and living in a bikini and probably even set my dinner table on the outside patio and invest in one of those giant bug-zapping machines. But living in Seattle, I get used to (and very comfortable with) staying indoors and building my indoor nest.

I'll get to the shorts thing. I lived in Europe for a year or so while in college, and for another couple of months some years later. I lived in Spain. And if there's one thing that identifies an American tourist quicker than some idiot shouting at a waiter that they want butter for their bread, it's shorts. Now, I am a snob in my own right but I'm not some kind of girl who's spent a few months in Europe and now I have a silly Madonna/Gwynneth Paltrow accent and I must have a cappucino every day for breakfast. No. I have worn shorts before and I am wearing them right now, for heaven's sake. I just think that the Europeans must be onto something for having universally and repeatedly rejected this clothing item. I heard the What Not to Wear ladies on Oprah one day confirming this out loud. They said, essentially, "Don't wear shorts, ladies," to many boos and gasps from the Oprah audience. They're right. Shorts look terrible. You all look terrible in your shorts, especially you ladies in the Oprah audience. I look terrible right now in my shorts. I bought short shorts because I have short legs and thought that the short shorts would make them look longer. What they do is highlight my gigantic, once-athletic, now wobbly thighs and bunch up in the area just under my na-na because that's where my thighs rub together (an area I call the "chub-rub" zone), so they end up looking like an adult diaper. Terrible. I've tried mid-thigh shorts and "walking" (knee-length) shorts, and none of them are right. And yet summer after summer, you'll find me at the Old Navy register, shelling out my $19.99 for the dream of looking perfect and summery/sporty in shorts. The problem with shorts is most definitely some kind of problem of physics. There is not enough weight to shorts, or not enough fabric, or not enough of either, so that your chubby parts of your legs grab onto the fabric and pull it up. This happens between your legs (as with my aforementioned adult diaper phenomena), or at the intersection of your abdomen and thighs, creating a huge exaggerated crotch look, or (perhaps worst of all) between your butt cheeks, so that it looks like your bottom is "eating" the shorts. Usually, it's a combination of all three effects.

I don't know why this is a love/hate problem for me. I pretty much just hate shorts. But every year as I said, I seem to get sucked into the excitement, and then I am very, very sorry. This is a difficult fashion dilemma. European women somehow manage to live without shorts - they wear skirts and long pants and dresses and always look cool and comfortable. I wear skirts sometimes, but that's not really the answer for a stay-at-home mom. I like to get down on the floor and spread my legs if I want and roll around with my daughter. And jeans are too hot for this time of year. Oh - P.S. I think capri pants suck, too - they have all the same problems as shorts and cut me mid-calf, which is suicide for the short-legged woman (though of course I own a pair of these as well - aargh!). Then there are pants that come in lovely "summer-weight" fabrics like linen. Linen is a really great fabric to wear if you are a mannequin in a temperature-controlled department store. Or a European woman. But for those of us who sit in the car or go to the bathroom or have lunch, linen is a big no-no. So for now, I am stuck.

Can I just say that the other big fashion problem I have this time of year is footwear. I refuse to go in for all the Crocs and Keen sandals. Those things are just silly. Yes, Seattle, I've said it. This is why I must remain anonymous. Just as I'll say that Birkenstocks are silly and have no flattering qualities. Really. However, I am at this point in my life where I really do need to wear something somewhat comfortable, as most of the time I am chasing a toddler around and can't be tiptoeing through the sawdust at the playground on three-inch heels. I wear these black Dansko sandals that I got a few years ago when we went to Italy for our honeymoon. They have a chunky, thick sole which gives me some height and have a lot of straps to them so I can imagine that they look a little bit sexy. They are passable, and I wear them every . . . single . . . day. They do scream "comfort sandal," though, so I'm currently looking for a new best summer shoe friend. I love the Donald J. Pliners, but I don't have $180 to spend right now on some sandals and no one seems to want to put a new pair on ebay for $30, so I'll continue to pine. And wear my short shorts and flip-flops inside my cozy house, contemplating how those damned European women do it.

Got an email yesterday from a college friend of mine. I haven't heard from him for a few years, and since then he's gotten married and just had his second daughter three weeks ago. His first daughter is 19 months old - almost the same age as mine - and she was born with Down Syndrome. He sent a photo of the whole family, and it just made me cry to look at it. I don't know if I can precisely describe what I was feeling. Sad, not so much because the child has a disability, but more because I know it must have been so, so hard for my friend and his wife to be faced with the prospect of raising a child with a disability. I was sad for the moment that they had to endure when they realized that none of this having-a-baby stuff was going to be the way they'd always imagined it. I also cried because I was so proud of my friend, sitting there with his beautiful family and so full of love and it all working out for him in spite of the intense challenges his family faces. And I suppose I wept a little out of guilt, too, for all the times I thought my situation wasn't perfect and got stressed out about it.

I would never not be a mom now. I am so addicted to this love (I know, I know . . . Robert Palmer got into my head just now, too - sorry) that I can't imagine living without it. Of course I get resentful sometimes that I can't just go to a movie or out to a restaurant or shopping for clothes by myself and take my time. And have things that are MINE and pretty and not stained or wet. But those are low moments, and luckily they are becoming a lot fewer and farther (further?) between. I think my situation now is just about perfect, stresses and worries and all. I'm sure my old college friend thinks his is, too.

in Portland . . .

Well . . . I guess I'm not a very good blogger so far. I've been remiss. Actually what I've been is busy, getting down to Portland with a car full of dogs and diapers to visit with my family for a week, and wrangling an 18 month-old on my own (Daddy is up in Seattle at work and Grammy and Grandpa both work full-time) - whew! I cannot imagine how single parents do it. Kudos to all of you who take this on alone, and may you be able to count on the village to lend you a hand.

My daughter is testing, testing testing me. She wants to get up on the chair and stand on it. She wants to take the sidewalk chalk and put it in her mouth. She wants to eat her book (seriously rip chunks off of it and chew them and swallow them). She wants to run with a stick down a hill. She wants to get down and walk BY HERSELF and not hold my hand. She wants to talk about her vagina with my parents' friends (thanks to my efforts to teach her the correct names of her body parts). She wants to drink my beer at a restaurant and will start shrieking when I offer her some "delicious juice" instead. Actually, I know she's not testing me - she's just trying to live her young life and figure things out and learn about cause and effect. And I am in a surprisingly good place with her right now. Now that she's talking we are having something of a dialogue, and she remembers what I say and says it back to me.

Right now we are talking about "sad" and "happy," and she's trying to understand. These are big concepts. I told her that Mr. Potato Head looked sad yesterday because he was laying down on the floor (where she had thrown him) face down with his eyes in his mouth hole and his tongue in his ear hole. I was just making mindless conversation, but she really picked up on the "sad" and she went over to Mr. Potato Head and pointed and said, "Sad!" Then she went over to the sleeping dog and pointed at her and said "Sad!" Good job, Mama. I can't just go tossing words around anymore, I see. Now she understands that people/creatures who are sleeping or in some kind of position of repose are sad, so I've got to try and figure out how to explain sad in a different way. I'm excited that we're beginning to talk about feelings now, though, so I don't have to use the word "Owie" all the time to get a message across. I found myself telling her the other day that if she didn't put her bottom down into her carseat (she was at the time arching her back and screaming as I was trying to get her into the car) it would give Mama an owie. Talk about your manipulation of language. But you know what? That worked.

I miss Portland very much, but I've lived in Seattle for two years now and it's becoming home to me more and more. Everyone always says Portland is a smaller Seattle, but I'm not exactly sure that's so. Portland is a more concerned Seattle, I think. People who live here are more invested somehow - more proactive about the future of where they live. Not to say that I haven't met plenty of Seattleites who love where they live - I have. I just think that Portlanders are more interested (and historically have been more interested) in creating the place that they love, and Seattleites have a beautiful city with some great things going on (and some not-so-great things), and they just love it, albeit a bit more passively. How's that? I'll think some more on this and get back to you. I'm a bit distracted right now since the baby just woke up from her nap and is crying for me.

I will say that I always appreciate the no sales tax aspect of P-Town and also the full-service gas stations. And you know what? Gas costs less here than in Seattle! What's up with that? Why do I need to get out of my car and fiddle with all of that and get my hands all nasty and pay more money on top of it?

BUT, Seattle has the foot ferry. It has Alki Beach and the Space Needle and a few more brown people than Portland, perhaps. That I like. And Seattle has my husband and my baby and a bunch of new friends and the life we are creating for ourselves there. I am attached to the city I grew up in, it's true. But I am more attached now to the nest we have built in Seattle, and to dreams of the future with my family there.

Intro

So here I am - daughter napping, morning sun shining down on me and a sleeping cat through my kitchen window - trying to think of what to write for my first post of my first blog. I'm trying not to get caught up in the potential momentousness of the occasion, trying not to imagine what people will THINK of me when they read the things I have to say. I'm trying to be cool and casual, like I'm completely used to the idea of posting my ideas about the world out into the world, for the world to see.

My husband - God bless 'im - told me that he wants to see me have an outlet for my writing, that I am a good writer and I have a voice, and that's why I should have a blog. Oops - I probably shouldn't have told you that. I should let you judge for yourself, right? Maybe blogging won't be the best thing for me, since my ability to determine what and what not to share has been a little bit skewed by having a child. There is a person in my life now who follows me into the bathroom for each use and watches my every move with great curiousity and concern (is it pee-pee or poo-poo that Mama's making?). My husband always tells me that I share too much with strangers. He says why don't you just tell them where you live and when you'll be out of town. I suppose I always want to let people into my life so that they'll feel more at ease with me somehow. So they'll identify more.

Why Mama's Purse? Well, I'm not really sure. I do want to clarify that I do NOT own the HERMES Birkin bag - not even a fake - so don't go thinking that I'm a great big bee-yotch right off the bat. I just happen to think that they're gorgeous bags. I think that if I could own any bag I wanted right now, it would be some sort of creamy-white Salvatore Ferragamo boxy number. Yum. You know, I haven't checked the Neiman Marcus website lately to put together my fantasy purse collection. I should do that, and get back to you. But Ferragamo is always one of my faves. I own one pair of the shoes - they're satin and I picked them up at a vintage shop years ago. They kill my feet and I can't wear them for more than about five minutes, but I hold onto them because they are so beautiful and just a classic shape. They're what a shoe should look like.

I am a Taurus. I don't go in for all the chains and animal prints and giant logos (usually). I prefer high-quality, sumptuous materials and design that does not go out of style. I wear a lot of black. I do not care for shorts or sporty sandals. Blech. I am what some people would call unadventurous when it comes to fashion. I prefer the term "well-advised."

My baby girl is fascinated with purses, and with my purse in particular. It is a simple black leather Coach, bucket style (about the fanciest thing I carry around these days), and she loves to carry it around, heaved over her shoulder, or dragged about in the crook of her little elbow. She has figured out how to unzip the zipper and pull out pens. "Pen!" she triumphantly yells each time she finds one of the Sanford Uni-Ball micros (oh yes, I am VERY particular about my pens, too). She is currently learning to put words together, and whenever she spies the purse, she gives me a big smile and says "Mama . . . PUHS!" For some reason, this almost always brings tears to my eyes. I think it's because she has identified something in particular that means "Mama" to her. It brings me back to that absolutely heavenly feeling when my mom would pick me up from daycare after work and gather me up in her arms and she would smell like Chloe perfume and Trident spearmint gum and brown leather (from her own old Coach purse) and sunshine. And I remember my heart just singing because I thought my mom was the most beautiful woman in the whole world. That's why.

I am really like most young women you know. I am fortunate enough to own a few luxury clothing and accessory items, and the rest of my wardrobe is generally from Old Navy, Costco, and the Banana Republic outlet stores. But I love to fantasize - to pick and choose what I'd buy in a fantasy life, if I was making the actual 140K annually or whatever they say that stay-at-home-moms are actually worth. I love to keep a running list of the order in which I'd buy the things, and change that order around constantly. And most of all, I love to use my creativity and think about how to get the most from what I do have. That's what I want to talk about. I also want to talk about people - people I love and people I hate (and try not to give anyone away), and why. I want to talk about raising my daughter, and (sorry, folks) to brag about her frequently. I just want to reflect here on this life so that I can remember how lucky I am to do so. Mama's Purse is fashion, it's female, it's love, and it's a few handy items you can't get through the day without. Cheers!