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.