Politics and Potties

Election season is finally upon us, after about 2 years of hearing about it constantly, and I have to say it looks like a total freakshow. I'm an Obama supporter, as you may have already guessed, and I'm feeling so fervently pro-Democrat this election that I stare into cars with "McCain/Palin" bumperstickers, as if trying to see into the drivers' souls. Or to shake my head disapprovingly at them. I just can't take it anymore! I mean, what is wrong with people in this country that we've elected a total jackass for two consecutive terms and are hearing the Republican message yet again? You know, I think McCain is actually a great candidate for the Republicans. He's sort of this straight-shooting, fiery, all-American guy with this rockin' military record (I mean, could we hear MORE about the POW experience? PLEASE?), and he has seemed, in the past, to genuinely think for himself. But no longer. I see him on the t.v. now and he looks like a worn-out old sack of potatoes with pancake makeup on. He's obviously exhausted from the campaign trail, and I can see that he's caving to the hate and fear-mongering conservative machine. He's sold his soul to Karl Rove et al. And he's got his ridiculous sidekick - an embarrassment to successful women everywhere - in her Naughty Monkey pumps. I do not know what is worse - the cheap shoes and party pony, or the fact that, in last night's interview with Katie Couric, she could not name a single publication she reads regularly. Excuse me? What if this woman became our president? It's not so unlikely, considering the looks of John McCain these days. He seems about to keel over at any moment. She's a terrifying heartbeat away from that, and everyone is so, so proud that the Republicans have a "lady" on the ticket. It's very, very awkward to see McCain and Palin in an interview together - they don't seem to know each other at all, and McCain keeps looking at Palin out of the corner of his eye as if he's afraid she might say something dumb. Guess what? In any case, I'm so watching the VP debate tomorrow night, just as I would watch a live train wreck were that to be televised on primetime.

I must take a break from politics for a while, or I will go nuts. My daughter started her preschool two weeks ago, and she's in heaven there. This year she goes two days a week, and I go with her only one of the days (the other day the other half of the moms go to help out the teacher). Some of the other kids are freaking out that their mommies aren't there certain days, but not my daughter. She's like, Bring it on! She's entered the state that, being my daughter, she will be in for the rest of her life, and that is the "Momentary Pretending to Have a Different Life State." She's like, "La-la-la, I'm a princess, and my dollies are my children, so of course I must put them to bed and I cannot come to dinner right now." Or, "La-la-la, I am a dinosaur in his nest, so this is where I pee instead of the toilet." Or, "That's not my mommy over there - you're my mommy. Can I go to your house and you can fix me a snack?" In my life it's, "La-la-la, since no one saw me eat that half-sheet of brownies, it didn't really happen." Or, "La-la-la, since I am fabulous I MUST have that (insert entirely unaffordable clothing item here), and I of course don't have to worry about how much it costs."

Anyway, Olivia loves school. She has attached herself to the teacher, and makes sure the teacher knows about everything she's doing. She also gets a kick out of the potties at school, and the fact that she can reach the sinks and squirt her own hand soap. Never in my life have I gone through so much hand soap or toilet paper as I have with a pottytraining toddler. These two items are the source of endless fascination for Olivia. Who needs a Teletubbies book or "Everyone Poops" when you've got paper that unrolls forever right next to you? The other thing she is very excited about at school is snacktime. She runs right up to the teacher when we arrive, asking, "Where's my snack?" and is very insistent about it all morning, and when the snack does show up she eats it all up; every . . . last . . . bite. Last year I had to struggle with her to get her to stay on her bottom on her seat and not wander around during snacktime. Not this year, boy. This year she sits right there and puts her napkin in her lap and pours her own water and studies every single cracker and piece of fruit as she consumes them. Then she wants seconds. Sheesh! Everyone else leaves, goes to the other room, music time starts. The mom in charge of snack cleans off all the tables and starts spraying the tables to sanitize them, and there's my daughter, still methodically eating her snack until it's all gone. I want to cheer for her and hold her up for everyone to look at - a shining example of good, healthy eating. But, sadly, no one is there to notice. They've all gone off to sing the "Cuckoo Clock" song.

My baby boy is doing great. He's such a jolly little fellow, really. He just wants to hang out and smile at me and squinch up his big blue eyes. He just seems to beam love and happiness. I really don't know what I did karma-wise to deserve such a peach of a child, but if there's one thing I've learned about happiness and contentment as a parent, it's that these things are always fleeting. I'm sure I'll get mine soon enough with him. He's going to be digging up the gay guys' gorgeous landscaping next door with his shovels and dump trucks when he's three, or smoking pot and running around with the class ho in middle school - just you wait. He turned 6 months old a couple of weeks ago, and I started feeding him "real" food. He can't seem to get enough of it, and squawks now if not invited to sit up at the table with us and be a part of things.

I think every day about whether I want to have another baby. I know, I know - it's crazy, it's too soon to worry about that. But I am a planner, and I'm somewhat perplexed that I'm not completely decided about this issue and planning my life around it. Aside from the fact that I don't know if I could mentally or physically handle a third child, I'm obsessed with the idea of having to get a mini-van. This seems like it would be the absolute end of any semblance of a stylish existence I may still cling to. But it also would be kind of awesome. Here's the thing; if I could just have a mini-van, but I wouldn't ever have to look at it from the outside - like, I would be somehow just beamed into the inside of it and settled all comfortably into my seat, I could totally rock the mini-van. Because I think the inside experience of a mini-van is exceptional. It's like riding around on a big comfy couch. And now you can get the mini-vans with DVD players and giant built-in coolers. Almost like you don't even need to leave your living room. But I just can't stand the way mini-vans look from the outside. Even in black. They just seem to scream, "I've got a big fat ass, and I don't care!" There are no chic mini-vans. But I continue my search . . .

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.

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.