Category: Children

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Awesome Beginnings Children Family Food Friends Games Love Memoir Nonfiction Parents Pregnancy Sentiment

Baby shower!

This week (and next week) is crazytown at work. I have given myself over to it, and just accepted that it’s going to mean full days at work, followed by evenings at the theater, but I just had to get that out there. It’s a lot, and I’m looking forward to a little peace and quiet after everything’s over. (Yeah, right.)

Last weekend I went home-home, and had my first baby shower. It was bigger than I expected (I guess I didn’t pay attention to the guest list), and I had a great time! It was lots of women who have (pardon the cliche) watched me grow up, so that’s always fun. My aunt and uncle came up from Napa, and Drew’s mom and her BFF drove up, and I hope everyone had as much fun as I did.

I mean, it’s either one or the other!
We’ve been splitting our time between this (sock) monkey theme and this jungle animals theme. Settling on one theme was never my strong point.
Christy made a diaper cake! Cute AND functional!
Me and Mom!
Me and long-time friends!
With Suzanne and Bonnie – love you guys!
Our travel system, compliments of my parents!

We are incredibly lucky and very blessed to be surrounded by such great, supportive, generous and loving people. The excitement and the joy has been very encouraging. I am grateful that I haven’t had to deal with people saying inconsiderate or negative things. Literally everyone has been positive and respectful.

When I got regular-home from being home-home, I had a carload full of stuff to unload (more boxes of books from my parents among them), and Drew’s mom had brought back a lot of presents that wouldn’t fit in my car. I reworked the nursery (see, I can call it that now, and not just keep calling it the library) and tried to get rid of boxes and bags, and group things into blankets, feeding, bathtime, etc.

We pushed the stroller/carseat in there, and after a moment Drew said, “Wow. I thought we had this room under control.” It’s a bit of a jumble right now, but I’m hoping we can alleviate that over the next month or so. It’s amazing how much stuff we have amassed – and I thought we were being conservative!

We haven’t taken the plastic off the crib mattress yet, or washed the sheets and made the crib up, but it’s still a good place to store certain things…

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"Other people" Beginnings Being a girl Children Drew Family Fashion Friends Love Memoir Nonfiction Parents Pregnancy

Oh brave new world: Babies on the internet

I have a dilemma. And I know it will be one that people have differing opinions on. But I’m trying to figure out how I feel about it, precisely.

You (maybe) know how on your Facebook timeline, you can scroll all the way back to “born 1983,” and you have blank years between, say, 1983 and 2006, when you actually set up your account. But at some point in the not-so-distant future, there is going to be a wave of teenagers with every single year of their lives filled out, thanks to their overenthusiastic parents.

And I guess no one really knows what this is going to mean for the future. And maybe I’m giving Facebook (or whatever comes after Facebook) too much credit. But I think it’s a pretty safe guess that things aren’t going to start turning backward. Everything’s going online.

When Drew and I got married, we got into a small scuffle or two with friends over the fact that we preferred that people not post tons of pictures of the wedding, particularly if they’re, you know, sitting in the back and taking pictures on their phone. Ultimately, yes, some pictures got posted, and it didn’t really bother either of us. But the other day, I saw that a (far-flung) friend of mine had posted 300 pictures into an album called “Wedding,” and my first thought was, “Oh wow, I didn’t even know she was getting married!” and then when I looked at the pictures I realized it was just a wedding that she attended. (I don’t even think she was in it…just a guest. Which seems extreme to me.)

But at least those people are all over 18. Lately, I can’t stop worrying about the whole phenomenon of posting a million pictures of your baby on your Facebook page. Let me just admit, I don’t think I will be able to resist that, for a couple reasons.

1) How can you not show off something like that? How cute would an Instagramed baby be? Am I right?
2) I’m pretty sure that I’m still like halfway in the closet with this whole “being pregnant” thing, and if I post a couple pictures of me and Drew holding an infant, it’s going to make it a lot clearer.

(There’s also a whole other side issue of the “attention wanted” posts, versus the “for entertainment purposes” posts, versus the “for the family members” posts.)

It’s not just the possibility that one day this kid will want to be the president (ha, yeah right), and won’t want pictures of himself or herself naked in a bathtub. It’s also a safety thing. Drew pointed out there are people on Facebook, who we don’t really know in real life…but we know EVERYTHING about their (very young) children. Like, we could probably use the knowledge we have, to kidnap said children. And we would never do that, because we’re cool, but there are people out there who would totally do that.

I can’t claim to be particularly good at staying anonymous – I’m sure that I’ve accidentally let slip too many details here. Things that I didn’t mean to say, but “oops” happens.

And even if I can resist putting a bunch of pictures – there are still all these other people running around with cameras and phones and wanting to post stuff.

I can be kind of private about some things. And delivery is going to be one of those things. I’m good having our parents in and out during labor, and hanging out…but when it comes down to business, it’s really important to me that it’s me and Drew (and I guess some doctors or something). It fits with our whole “we’re a team” thing.

So I’m going to be pretty bummed if I come home two days later and find out that it’s already on Facebook, because someone jumped the gun – purely out of excitement, I’m sure. But how do you put that out there, without sounding like a total bitch? It’s just gotten too hard to put restrictions on things like that.

Friend anecdotes: one friend was very strict about things early on. She didn’t want her kid posted anywhere linked with his name, or with the names of her or her husband. I think she was thinking about safety. But eventually she’s posted more and more pictures and videos of him on her Facebook, which I’m sure has the highest security settings.

Another friend has been strict the whole time, and her kid is 3 years old. She’s also told family members to take things down because she doesn’t want them just floating out there. She also told us a story about a relative posting a video online with the caption, “[Name]’s first steps!!” And all the family members were commenting and loving it, and she had to say, “Hey, listen, she had her first steps a week ago and her father and I were there you can’t just take that away from us.”

I guess that’s my fear. My long-winded fear. I just don’t want this to get away from us. I want the two of us – Drew and me – to be the keepers of the milestones and the reveals. That’s all. I guess. Luckily, none of our parents are really into Facebook, so they won’t go crazy. Other friends and relatives…might be harder to rein in.

Silver lining, which I keep reminding myself: I am so grateful that this kid is arriving into a world of people excited and happy to meet him or her.

PS. He or she has been kicking the whole time I’ve been writing this – perhaps as if to say, “Moooo-oom, you’re embarrassing me” ?

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"Other people" Being a girl Children Drew Family Games Parents Sentiment

Dads: The New Suffragettes

Just to perseverate on my post about the imbalance between recognizing moms and dads for their contributions…

Commercials are a terrible perpetrators of this phenomenon. How many commercials feature a dad and a small child making some kind of mess, and then looking sheepish until the mom comes in, smiling, and cleans everything up? Or the commercial where the dad builds a slanted table and the mom has to save the day with Eggo cinnamon toast waffle sticks? In commercials, dads look like helpless slobs who can’t get their kid through the day to save their life, and the moms sweep in and fix everything in a second.

P&G is currently running a series of ads focused on the Olympics. You’ve probably seen them. There are three or four, and each one features a mother getting a young child out of bed, taking him or her to some early morning practice, cheering on the child, driving the child around, doing dishes, doing laundry, feeding the child, taking care of the house, etc. (There is no sign of a day job for any of these moms.) The child grows up and then we see them at the Olympics, doing their best and sticking that landing, winning that race, etc. And then the mom is in the stands crying, and the kid hugs the mom, or blows her a kiss through the TV, and it’s so happy and sweet, and the tagline at the end of the commercial is “The hardest job in the world is the best job in the world. Thank you, Mom.”

Here’s the long version (it incorporates all the different moms/kids), if you want to feel really good. I’m not going to lie, I just watched it and teared up a little.

I just saw that P&G has an entire Facebook page called “Thank you, Mom by P&G,” where they post things like this video and other little tidbits that make moms cry. I mean, let’s face it, some large percentage of Facebook is probably moms, and moms love stuff like this. Even just moms-to-be. Even people who just like kids. Or seeing people succeed.

Here, try this one if the first commercial didn’t push you over the edge.

Who am I kidding? Everyone loves stuff like this. Drew just eats this ish up, and he’s the kind of guy who will willingly watch videos of people falling down.

And I don’t have anything against these commercials, or this Facebook page, or their entire campaign. It’s smart. And it’s so sweet. They take that overwhelming Olympics feeling, like the world comes together in these feel-good games, and people work so hard for this…and they juxtapose that with the intimacy of watching someone grow up and achieve something on a personal level. So smart.

BUT. I just have to point out…where are the dads in all this?

That’s it. Just sayin’. Why can’t it be, “The hardest job in the world is the best job in the world. THANKS, MOM AND DAD.”

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"Other people" Being a girl Children Drew Family Fashion Nonfiction Not awesome Parents Writing

In this case, E stands for “erroneous”

Stuff like this drives me crazy.

I realize this is just one little e-card. It’s not even a physical thing – it just exists as a jpeg. (And however things on the internet exist.)

This was probably a Mother’s Day card at one point. But I just saw it today, because this “your ecards” thing has somehow merged with Facebook and George Takei to create the unholy trinity that I like to call, “Why is my news feed now composed entirely of semi-funny, oft-shared pictures??”

Anyway. “9 times out of 10 children get their awesomeness from their mother.” What’s being said here? Why are we leaving out the fathers?

I’ve been running into a lot of father-bashing (or father-ignoring) on all the pregnancy boards to which I am now addicted. A common occurrence is that a woman will start a thread about being upset with her husband about a specific incident, and then comments will quickly pile up about how “it’s different for the men” and “they don’t understand” and how “they’re not interested in the pregnancy.”

Based on this and similar stories, Drew and I started a running “joke” about how much more important mothers are than fathers, which is basically us just repeating how the baby doesn’t even know who the father is until they’re 3 years old, 7 years old, 10 years old. (We just keep exaggerating because that’s what humor is.)

But this morning, I had to stop and say, “We’re both just kidding…right?” because it’s kind of getting to me. Enough is enough. Dads love their children too, and contribute to their health and well-being and yes, even to their awesomeness.

Maybe I just grew up in a very lucky kind of household, where my parents shared responsibilities and were around us equal amounts of time. I would say I get 50% of my awesomeness from my mom and 50% from my dad. And I would say that with a totally straight face.

It’s possible I’m overreacting to a stupid Facebook share. I mean, such things happen. (Some time last year, a WP blog post about bullying made the FB rounds, and everyone yelled about how their kid is such a special snowflake, and they would kill anyone who said anything mean to their perfect and sensitive child. I’m sure my coworkers enjoyed my attitude that day.)

On the other hand, maybe we’ve seen enough of FB e-cards, and enough of comments under-appreciating fathers. Hmm?

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"Other people" Books Children Drew Games Not awesome

Calendar tricks

Tonight we were at the mall, and I was like, “Hey, let’s swing by Barnes and Noble and pick up my book for book club, and also a calendar.” There is a lot of stuff happening in the rest of 2012 and we’ve been talking about needing a wall calendar to keep track of it all.

B&N had zero 2012 calendars – they’re all 2013 – but the guy at the information desk said that they’re 16 month calendars so they cover the rest of this year. (Which doesn’t really make sense since, counting June, there are 7 months left in 2012.) But we liked this Where’s Waldo calendar, and they didn’t have the book I wanted in stock, so the calendar came home with us. (Please note on the cover where it says “16 month calendar.”)

Most of the pages are great and I look forward to being able to use this calendar. I also look forward to studying every month for a long time, not finding any of the characters, then having Drew find them all in about 30 seconds.

However, I can’t use this calendar for 7 more months, because the Barnes and Noble information desk guy tricked me. Having one little add-on page like below, should NOT count as a “16 month calendar.”

For shame, Barnes and Noble! Now I have to go find somewhere that’s still selling 2012 calendars. Also, I have to not forget where I put this one, so I can use it come January.

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Awesome Children Drew Games Memoir Nonfiction

Forbidden Bridge

In sticking with the theme of Drew finding old board games in his attic and us playing them…today we played Forbidden Bridge, a game I’ve never heard of before but that his parents both seemed to have fond memories of when their boys were little.

But it’s hard to remember the rules to a game you played in 1992, and the instructions were missing. So Drew went online to try and find the rules. He found not just the rules, but the exact instruction manual from 20 years ago. So we read through all the rules (when do you ever do that, even with a new game?) and set up the game.

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The game was over pretty quick, but actually not as quick as I expected. You have to get up and across this bridge, and pick up jewels from the idol, and then get them back into your boat. But you spend a lot of time getting knocked off the bridge when the idol “wakes up.” It’s actually kind of freaky.

I don’t think this is going to become a regular party game, like Taboo or Scattergories, but it’s fun, and I can see why boys would like it. Drew and his brother definitely had a lot more “boy” games than I ever had growing up.

Bonus: this game, despite the moving parts, doesn’t take batteries. I guess it’s all, like, a wind-up mechanism. A board game in 2012 would never work like that. I am way impressed that this 1992 game still works perfectly. (Hope I didn’t just jinx it.)

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Awesome Being a girl Books Children Drew Family Friends Memoir Nonfiction Pregnancy Sentiment TV Work

The weekend that lasted 3 days

This weekend felt longer than three days, but in that kind of weird draggy way. Allow me to explain.

On Saturday we had a dinner-and-game-night at our place, which I spent the day kind of stressing about, since it was an eclectic crowd of people and I’m not quite used to playing hostess yet. But overall everything went very well (possibly better than I had expected) and I learned that I love the game Balderdash, which I have never played before but now want to play all the time.

On Sunday, Drew and I went with Erin to San Jose to help out her dad with this steampunk convention he was doing. It was part of FanimeCon, but apparently only sort of? We didn’t really have all the details, but we were mostly there to do little odd jobs and make sure no one stole any of the equipment. It was…nerdy, honestly, and I don’t need to get into it but there was some major judging going on there. (By us; of the people attending the convention.) It was a fun day though, and it’s always good to branch out and spend some time around people wearing full out Victorian costumes (with steampunk accessories) and speaking in bad British accents.

Also, this bag of heads. But I have no idea why.

On Sunday night Drew and I started our Modern Family marathon – we hadn’t watched any of this most recent season, which ended last Wednesday. At least, we thought we hadn’t, until we started watching episodes and realized we’d actually seen about 4. But marathoning it is more fun than watching a half-hour episode once a week.

That’s mostly what we did on Sunday (after finishing reading Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban in the morning), until after 9 episodes I said, “I need a break,” and then right after that Hulu Plus said “You’ve been watching for 3 hours, need a break?” Oh how we laughed.

We went for a walk but didn’t really accomplish anything while on it. Well, we did pick up a menu from this Thai place near us that we may try out later this week.

We watched some more episodes that night, but we still have maybe 8 or 9 to go, which I think is a nice amount. Although, I do want to finish them this week because I think I’d like to cancel Hulu Plus before I have to pay for another month. (That’s how I roll.)

When I came into work this morning, I found a post-it saying “Gotcha!” taped over the laser on my mouse (so it wouldn’t work). I also found these people taped under the handset of my phone:

If you’re not familiar with Game of Thrones, that’s Cersei (she’s sort of a bad guy) and Tyrion (he’s totally the best guy). Tonight we watch episode 9 of season 2, which aired on Sunday, and which I have heard is an amazing episode. I am pretty stoked. (And I highly recommend if you’re not watching, you begin immediately.)

And, finally, if you’re keeping score, today marks 22 weeks pregnant for me, which is the end of the 5th month. (The counting is complicated, but trust me: 22 weeks = 5 months.) This week the baby is the size of a papaya, and probably weighs about a pound. This isn’t a particularly huge landmark, but we’re celebrating every single little one, plus I just kind of like this picture I took this morning. So please enjoy this relatively infrequent pregnancy update!

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"Other people" cars Children Memoir Nature Not awesome

Whining on Board

Dear people on the internet,

Why do you take such offense against these little yellow Baby on Board stickers that hang in car windows?

I mean, I kind of get it. I used to be one of you. I assumed that the sticker was there as a way to tell me to slow down and drive more carefully around the baby. I thought that was the equivalent of a mom shushing me in a public area where I should be allowed to talk freely, just because her child was sleeping. (In both cases, I should probably just restrain myself a little better. But also in both cases, I disliked having a stern stranger tell me what to do.)

Here’s a little story: once in high school, I was driving from Lakeport over to Fort Bragg. Between Willits and Fort Bragg is a 30-mile stretch of winding road through the trees – it’s gorgeous, but it’s one lane, with a single passing lane available about 10 miles in from the coast. There are plenty of places to pull over and let someone pass you, though.

Photo from http://www.trazzler.com

I was stuck behind a car rattling along with a Baby on Board sticker. This car would not pull over, no matter that it had been nearly 20 miles, which was unbearable to me, a teenager in a 2-door car with a stick shift. Finally we approached the passing lane, which incidentally was on an uphill stretch, and as I moved over to pass…the jalopy sped up! I barely made it past them, and then I continued on my way…at which point that car tailgated me for the remaining 10 miles of the trip.

I reached the coast and pulled into the parking lot of a grocery store…where the jalopy pulled up behind me, parking me in, and an irate woman got out and began yelling at me about “almost running her off the road” and how she had “a baby in the backseat.” All I could do was stand there in shock (I have never been good at confrontation) – but what I wanted to snap back was that she had plenty of chances to let me pass, she didn’t have to speed up while I was passing her, and she certainly didn’t have to speed up in order to follow me the rest of the way.

So. She was crazy, and should not have behaved that way. Because of her I am now totally paranoid about being followed and trapped in a parking lot, and I always have a contingency plan if I think someone is tailing me.

But, here’s what I started out to say. I realized something, many years later.

The Baby on Board sticker is not there to tell you what to do: it’s just to alert you, the other driver, that the car with the baby is likely to drive slower, more cautiously, and to view yellow lights as “stop now” signals rather than “go very fast.” So if you need to adjust for that, then feel free. I’ll be here, in the right hand lane, signaling carefully and going the speed limit.

Hope this helps, whiny people on the internet!

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Beginnings Being a girl Children Friends Love

Masterful suspense

My bff Liz, who is 19 weeks pregnant, is currently in the doctor’s office finding out whether she’s having a boy or a girl. All day long I’ve been getting texts and emails from her, saying “We find out today!!!” “3 more hours!!!” “An hour and 45 minutes!!!” etc.

My excitement is growing, even though technically whether she has a boy or a girl doesn’t affect me. Knowing that she is literally in the appointment right now is very suspenseful. She promised to call me immediately afterward, but I don’t know when that will be exactly…it could be in 10 minutes, it could be in 40 minutes. Appointments are weird.

She told me this morning to “call it” – to guess whether it’s a boy or a girl. I had to admit that I’ve been picturing her with a boy, although I don’t know why that is. A few months ago I was thinking that a girl would be more fun to shop for, but after spending time in baby stores and on baby websites, I now feel confident that there are adorable gifts to be had for babies of either sex.

I know that really, every parent just wants a healthy baby, and whether it’s a boy or a girl is of little consequence. I wonder though – if you really want a boy and it turns out to be a girl, is there more potential for (slight) disappointment in an ultrasound situation, as opposed to a delivery room reveal?

I guess this also leads me to think about loving your baby – when that shift happens. But that’s probably a completely different post.

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Beginnings Being a girl Children Drew Love Memoir Sentiment

This Girl’s Treasure

The other day Drew put on a jacket he hasn’t worn in over seven years (apparently) and said, “Oh wow, guess what I just found?”

My first thought was Twenty bucks??

But what he showed me was kind of way better than that.

This is the ticket stub from the first movie we ever saw together. It was January 9, 2005, it was a Sunday, and I think it wasn’t actually a date.

I remember that I was running late getting to the theater, and parking was hard to find, and he was already waiting and had already purchased his ticket. I don’t remember how late I was but I hope it wasn’t bad – I know now how much he hates being late. Oops!

While we were reminiscing about this movie, I asked him why it wasn’t a date, and why he didn’t buy my ticket, and why we didn’t do anything afterward. His response was, “I don’t know…but don’t worry, everything worked out in the end.”

It’s just so weird to think about – when this ticket was printed, we were just two people who went to school together. And then less than three weeks later we had started down a path that would lead us inexorably to New York City and back, to marriage, to starting a family…and that’s all within eight years. There are so many more years yet to come!

I saved the ticket stub, by the way. I mean…wouldn’t you?