Urban Wildlife Encounter

 Attention citizens of Washington, DC: If you have misplaced your shopping cart full of shoes, I may have found it.

So I've been making a concentrated effort to take Noah for a walk outside every day. I don't really enjoy it as much as you'd think, mostly because it is 1) outside, 2) not inside, and 3) full of nature.

But after two full weeks going by where I realized that I NEVER LEFT THE HOUSE, NOT ONCE, I decided that my child and I were getting our asses to the fucking playground, come hell or high water, if only because the playground is close to the Starbucks where I could get in my daily quota for face-to-face human interaction by ordering an iced coffee in a non-baby-talk voice.

So far, getting out for walks has not been quite as treacherous as other outings, mostly because there's no deadline. Except for the vague idea of "later."

(Digression: That's actually the best part of staying home with a baby. Your deadlines are fluid. Your time is not structured. There's no one to judge you for just how much time you spend chomping on the baby's thighs. You can do work unshowered and eat lunch at 10:30, followed by dessert at 11. No one really needs to know that you watched Father of the Bride on HBO and then followed it up with Father of the Bride Part II. And no one definitely needs to know that you maybe cried a little bit.)

I've also gotten better about the hysterical compulsion to take EVERYTHING Noah might possibly need along with me. I no longer carry a rectal thermometer in the diaper bag. I'm comfortable leaving the extra socks behind and now realize that five diapers and two bottles for a 20-minute walk may be overkill, just a little bit.

Instead, we take our walks on the wild side. The wild side of NO SPARE OUTFIT.

I always take Ceiba too, because I cannot bear the look on her face when she realizes I'm leaving her behind. Honestly, you can HEAR her heart breaking. It's like a high-frequency dog whistle of guilt.

Amy: Noah, do you want to go for a walk later?

Ceiba: WALKWALKWALKWALKWALK NOWNOWNOW OHDEARLORDINHEAVENNOW

Noah: *languidly arfs up some Cheerios*

I also cannot bear the look on Max's face when he realizes I'm depriving him of 20 fucking minutes of peace, serenity and open access to the dog kibble.

I don't know why I'm so compelled to take walks, because we're not exactly the happiest bunch of campers out there, since our respective criteria for contentment cancel each other's out. (Noah is happy when we are moving. Ceiba is happy when we are not moving so she is free to run around in circles and chase imaginary squirrels made entirely out of bacon. Mama is happy in the shoe department of Neiman Marcus while various Italian salesmen bring her espressos and Manolos while complimenting the delicate bone structure of her feet.)

(This is code for: Mama is happy when she is napping, because IN HER DREAMS.)

And yet. We walk. Outside. Everyday. Where there are bugs.

The original idea was to take Noah to the playground and meet other moms.  You know, cool moms. Moms with babies! Moms who would immediately invite me to martini-soaked playdates! (Go ahead and laugh at me, it's okay.)

Mom, you are totally killing me here. With the hat. And your lameness.

The first day there was a group of older kids and two glowering nannies, one of whom informed me that her charges were scared of dogs, and I thought she was kidding until two of the children spotted Ceiba and promptly scrambled to the top of the slide to scream in terror.

The second day there was a pack of teenagers hanging around the swings. Moving on.

The third day we had the playground to ourselves, which was downright pleasant until a woman walked through with a big yellow lab. The dog proceeded to take a huge dump in the sandbox, and then they both walked away without a word.

I am not so very enamored with the playground anymore.

So on today's walk, I stopped by our condo office to finally (FINALLY) turn in our application for new pool passes. (I've been, um, stalling.) (I also turned in the form stating that we have a child under eight years of age residing in our unit, and therefore deserve to be first in line for getting lead paint scraped off our windows.) (I think we need to move.) (Oh my God.)

Anyway. I am thinking that the reason I haven't met any of those cool martini-swilling moms yet is because they are all hanging out at the pool, and next week is going to be AWESOME, provided no one judges me for showing up in my maternity bathing suit, or possibly a poncho.

Oh, and just so I'm clear -- two bottles of baby sunblock should be enough for an afternoon at the pool, right? And like 10 of those Little Swimmer diapers?  Maybe I'll stick an extra one on my infant CPR dummy and bring that, just to be safe.

I should still have room to pack the cocktail olives too.

The kind of nature I can totally get behind.

The Wednesday Redirect Smackdown!

Hey! Kids! The Wednesday Advice Smackdown is up over yonder at Alpha Mom.

The Alpha Child, seen here being raised in captivity.

And there's actual original content that will probably include a lot of bad words coming to this very site later today.*

*No warranty is implied by use of the word "today." Today is void where prohibited and your mileage may vary. The author of this site takes a very subjective view on the definition of "today," because to hold the word "today" to some kind of set block of hours would be attempting to define time itself. It would also be incredibly insensitive to our overseas audience if we were to automatically assume "today" fell into a North American time zone. And it would not take into consideration the unpredictable sleep habits of the average eight-month-old human or the fact that the author of this site is a lazy, lazy bitch.

Gods & Monsters

Noah waits quietly for the god inside the big glowing box to reveal himself and speak his gentle message of love, tolerance and Elmo.

For everybody who asked about the baby jail: it's called the Superyard XT. It's nothing really special -- certainly nothing we spent hours researching the safety of or the studying the current research on the most visually-stimulating plastic lattice-work. It also takes up our entire damn living room, but it keeps Noah's noggin away from the vicious gangs of roaming Ikea furniture. And for that, I salute it.

I salute you, baby jail! Keep on with your confining, frustrating self!

It is also handy for crushing the destructive hopes and shoe-chewing dreams of the average pursedog.

Also, I want to pass on one more big squishy collective thank you to EVERYBODY who commented and emailed about the churchy post. You guys are amazing and I really hope y'all are coming to Blogher so I can give you hugs when I'm all drunk and ungodly and shit.

Please get me back to my hotel room when I reach this point, is all I ask.

A completely inoffensive post, except possibly for the jokes about drunk babies

You know how sometimes you hit the "publish" button and then immediately cringe? And wonder if maybe you should not have hit that button? And then you brace yourself for the comments and the emails and then you pour yourself some wine and maybe lie down for a little bit?

And then everything is fine? And the comments and the emails are kind of fucking mindblowing because there are so many people out there who GET what you were trying to say and GET who you are and are maybe just like you? And it's such a relief, because when you are basically and publicly giving the finger to the teachings of childhood (Scarlett O'Hara: Oh, I know there's a hell. I was raised on it!), no matter how gently, you kind of can't help but be all kinds of twitchy and vulnerable?

And for like, 24 hours, it's all awesome and kumbayaish. You know?

And then the tone of some of the comments starts getting a little...snippy? And you get maybe an email or two that...well, frankly, they can go to hell too, blah, whatever...and then you know that fabulous dialog about spirituality vs. religion vs. upbringing vs. conscious choice aside, it might be time to close comments and post some goddamned baby pictures?

Yes. That time has come. Behold! We move on!

 

Welcome to Noah's swinging bachelor pad! Can I offer you a bottle? Some Cheerio crudite?

After cocktails, I will sing soulful songs while accompanying myself on the piano. Perhaps we can convince the banjo-playing frog to join in.

It's getting hot in here, let's take off all our clothes...

Not surprisingly, the next morning, Noah wakes up in the exersaucer wearing someone else's onesie.

Oh man, I need to lay off the Similac.

Ceiba: Bab1es r deLIcious! YUm!

Class of '96

I just sent in a check and RSVP card for my 10-year high school reunion. I have no idea why I'm going.

A couple months ago, Dooce wrote very eloquently about why Big Love makes her, as an ex-Mormon, uncomfortable. Oddly enough, the very next Sunday, The Sopranos featured a go-nowhere storyline about a fundamentalist Christian pastor visiting Tony in the hospital while on a break from a protest about pharmacists being forced to dispense birth control pills. Tony expresses concern about dispensing Viagra, correctly drawing the line from point A to point B in the drugs-that-have-to-do-with-S!-E!-X! spectrum. The pastor smiles and tells Tony that he’d never have to worry about Viagra, because of procreation-blah-blah-blah-double-standard-cakes. He then attempts to witness to Tony and get him to accept Jesus into his heart.

The whole scene unnerved me like crazy. I had to leave the room.

I grew up in the fundamentalist evangelical Christian church. I was a born-again Christian. I went to private Christian schools my entire life. And I was into it. 

Every Sunday morning, Sunday night and Wednesday night were spent at church, no matter what, and my weekends were filled with at least one youth group activity. I didn't have any non-Christian friends. Instead of Girl Scouts I attended Pioneer Girls.

I attended pro-life rallies with my parents. I thought homosexuality was a sin. I thought Rush Limbaugh was funny when he called women feminazis. I thought environmentalists were stupid. Global warming was a hoax. I believed in an extremely literal interpretation of the Bible and Creationism. Carbon dating was a conspiracy. I didn’t think you could go to heaven if you voted Democrat.

My sex-ed class taught us that it was possible to get pregnant from dry humping and women could only achieve orgasm when there was a penis present. (A penis you were MARRIED to, by the way, because YOUR CLITORIS WILL KNOW.) 

(Actually, I don’t think they covered that part of our anatomy, as I vividly remember turning to a boyfriend while watching Monty Python and asking him "What's a clitoris?")

I had a raging eating disorder, a compulsion to hurt myself and enough guilt to put an entire Catholic catechism class to shame. I got bent out of shape at sleepovers when my friends wanted to watch Dirty Dancing, but was myself a virgin mostly on technicalities. 

I never drank or smoke or did drugs until after graduation (when I promptly started doing all three, in a single night), living instead on a few emotional highs on teenage youth retreats where they basically made us sing praise songs over and over, standing up, on empty stomachs, until the oxygen supply to our brains ran low and the endorphins raged and suddenly everybody was crying and rushing to the altar to be reborn-again-again or confess their darkest sins and promise to never let their boyfriend feel up their shirt again.

I don't know why I’m going to this reunion. I don’t even know why I'm writing this. These words will sting and sadden members of my family and my fingers are shaking just from dredging up the memories.  I'm sure I'll get all kinds of hatemail and tracts about damnation and hellfire in my PO Box. 

Don’t bother. I've seen them all. I used to give them out myself.

My dad was diagnosed with cancer when I was in the ninth grade, and people at our church told us that if we had enough faith, God would heal him. Although radiation eventually sent the cancer into remission, I always blamed myself for not having enough faith to simply pray the tumor away. 

One of the graduation requirements at my high school was a mission trip. Our class decided to go to Jamaica and build a church. Which...great. Because if there's a group of people with 5,000 extra dollars lying around, it's broke-ass high school students who are trying to figure out how to pay for college in the fall.

I was a financial aid student to begin with, and had let my guidance counselor talk me into an expensive private Christian college in the Midwest that my family couldn't afford. ("Faith!" He told me. "God wants you to go there, and He will provide!") (Guess what: He didn't.)

So I (along with a bunch of other students) respectfully asked to be excused from the Jamaica trip. There was quite a lot of anger from the teachers planning the trip, for reasons I still don't get, and it was only after much protest that a second, local trip to clean up a homeless center in the west Kensington area of Philadelphia was planned.

I was sitting behind two teachers on the bleachers in the gym one day and heard them discussing the t-shirts they were having made up for the Jamaica students. 

"They look great," the one teacher gushed. "The Philly trip kids are gonna be so jealous."

"Well, it's not our fault they didn't have enough faith to raise the money," the other teacher snotted back. 

I grabbed my books and hauled ass off the bleachers, glancing back just long enough to see the OH SHIT expressions on their faces before I scoured the halls for a fellow second-class missionary to immediately report what I'd just heard. NOT HAVING ENOUGH FAITH. The ultimate Christian insult. The Biblical equivalent to flipping the bird.

45 minutes later I was being screamed at by one of the teachers in front of her freshman study hall students. She called me a liar and a gossip and a troublemaker. She started to cry because she was NOT GOING TO LET SOMEONE LIKE ME TAKE AWAY FROM GOD'S WORK. She talked about what a good Christian girl I used to be and started saying things about the devil.  I stared straight at her and didn’t flinch as she hurled insults at me. I narrowed my eyes and smiled, which sent her off on a new tirade of Crazy.

She finally calmed down and asked me if I had anything to say to her. She waited for my apology. I smiled and said no. I saw her draw herself up with rage and honestly thought for a split second that she was going to hit me. I sometimes think she would have if it hadn't suddenly occurred to her that there were other people in the room, staring at her with their mouths wide open. 

We all went on our respective trips. I cleaned up hypodermic needles in the yard outside the shelter and gave the children's play area a fresh coat of paint. We wrote papers about what we learned and how we served God and how the trip prepared us for being Christians in the real world. I wrote that only thing I learned was that Christians can be real assholes to each other.

I wonder if that teacher is coming to the reunion.

I don't keep in touch with anyone. I didn't have too many close friends there anyway. I was a huge goody-goody dork for most of my time there, and then became the mouthy gossip who hated the school and everything it stood for and every person there by senior year. I started eating again and got an after-school job where I learned to swear and found that non-Christians were really fucking easy to get along with.  I was in a car accident on my second-to-last day and barely made it to graduation. I left the Christian college after one overpriced semester when my dad's cancer came back, but I'd pretty much decided that it wasn't for me anyway. It was just like my high school, and I was fucking done with my high school.

But today, some of my former classmates seem like really cool, balanced people that I could probably be friends with now. Some of them read this site. Some of them married their high school boyfriends. Some of them had babies instead of going to college. A lot of them still go to the same church and live in the same towns where we grew up, while some of them couldn't move far enough away. The one girl I spoke to on the phone still said "oh my gosh" and I remembered how saying "oh my god" would get you detention.

Part of me envies them for still being so sure of everything that I once held dear. Another part of me wants to run screaming from the room. Another part is only going to the reunion for the cash bar and the schadenfreude. And one last small part wants to wear shoes that cost more than their mortgages.

I'm still bitter as hell. I'm still mad as hell. And I'm still totally afraid of going to hell.

Last summer, when I was pregnant, Jason and I decided to find a church. For Noah. For baptism and Sunday School and…I don't know. A moral compass we're afraid we can't provide because of the all-or-nothing approach to religion we grew up with.

(Jason's religious upbringing was, if anything, even crazier than mine, except he attended the evil public schools.)

We found a church we liked and attended for several Sundays. I remembered all the words to all the praise songs and all the prayers and found that I still know the order of the books in the New Testament. The church seemed alive and vibrant and accepting. We contemplated becoming members and volunteering in the nursery and they sent us free coffee mugs.

Then one Sunday, the pastor started talking about the next week's guest speaker. A young minister who was delivered from "sexual darkness and confusion" to "sexual salvation." 

Jason and I took one sideways glance at each other and got up and left. We never went back.

I'm not an atheist. I'm not even an agnostic. I still believe in something. I believe in God, but not in His people. I don't believe in the intolerant and legalistic bullshit that goes on in His name.

The word "Christian" carries so much baggage for me I almost bite my tongue every time I say it. I wish I knew how to fix that. I wish I could say the word with pride instead of rushing to clarify that I'm not like THOSE Christians.

I'm not the Christian I once was. But when you're taught that's the only type of Christian who counts, you can't help but wonder if you're actually nothing at all.

Because Flickr is Being Even More Durrrish Than Usual

And it may be some sort of crime against humanity to keep these photos to myself any longer.

The Wednesday Advice Smackdown!

Live! And in person!

(Also, Snarkywood is back from the near-dead, featuring the bleeding eye sockets of Chloe Sevigny, appropriately enough.)

It's Especially Good Because I Could Really Go For Some Pinot Grigio Right Now

IKEA: 1

BABY: 0

MOTHER: self-medicating

You know what though? I'm totally not going to play this all coy and cutesy and "oh I'm the worst mother ever, boo hoo hoo" so y'all will make me feel better about the three-inch gash and goose-eggy-black-and-blue mark on my baby's head, because right after it happened I was able to find an ice pack that came with my breast pump and didn't have to use our wine bottle cooler.

I may actually be the greatest mother of all time.

Edited to add: I am not making this up! Three inches! Red! Swollen! It is just not a very photogenic wound.

Preshus Parenting Moment #7852

Being out at brunch with an impeccably-behaved Noah, sipping on a delicious wild berry mojito and holding Jason's hand across the table as we gazed and beamed at the perfect golden child we produced, through the power of our love and DNA and maybe a little drunken sex, right as Noah took a grunting, red-faced and flatulent poop while the woman at the next table desperately tried not to laugh at us.

(Jason changed the diaper. It took 20 minutes. I drank his mojito while he was gone.)

The Starbucks at the End of the Universe

So let's say you have plans to meet someone at a nearby Starbucks at 3:45 on an average Thursday afternoon. Let's say this person is actually another blogger who, by all accounts, is quite fabulous. Let's also say that you are pretty much a total shut-in these days and the whole endeavor is pretty much the social event of your week.   

(We don't even need to say how pathetically sad you are, because honestly, YOU ARE PATHETICALLY SAD.)

2:00 pm Hey, you know what? I should totally leave now. I'd be all early and relaxed and delicately sipping a non-fat latte that I totally won't spill on the baby when she arrives instead of flying in all hare-brained, disheveled and late like I usually do.

2:03 I could take my impossibly tiny new laptop with me and write a blog entry! Or maybe even a  book!

2:04 Oh my God, TOTALLY. I could get at least one, maybe two whole chapters written! I will sit in the plushy chairs by the fireplace and maybe get part of the proposal done too.

2:06 Also should find an agent. Can you find agents on Google?

2:10 Should probably give Noah a bottle first. 

2:20 Please don't spit up on me please don't spit up on

2:21 Dammit.

2:23 Okay! New shirt! Pretty pink boho shirt! Matches fabulous pink Prada sandals!

2:25 Dilemma: Pants too long for pink Prada sandals. Pants make ass look not huge.

2:26 Kicky espadrille wedges it is!

2:28 Did I shower today? I did shower today. Or am I thinking of yesterday?

2:29 *sniff*

2:30 Well, I definitely forgot deodorant this morning, THAT MUCH IS CERTAIN.

2:33 Hair up? Hair down? Hair Up?

2:37 Up. Definitely up. Makeup would be nice too.

2:53 Let's change baby's diaper.

2:54 Poop! Of course. OF COURSE.

2:59 SOMETIMES IN LIFE WE JUST HAVE TO WEAR CLOTHING NOAH AND THIS IS ONE OF THOSE TIMES.

3:05 ALSO I CAN YELL LOUDER THAN YOU AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

3:10 Who the FUCK took all the diapers out of the diaper bag? WHO? Oh right. The pooping.

3:13 Shove diapers burp cloths, bibs, extra outfit, plastic keys ($1.69 replacement keys for exact same 99-cent keys the dog ate, like fucking inflation, man) and plastic measuring cup in bag.

3:15 Walk past mirror. Hair down. Down!

3:16 If I leave right this instant, I will have 15 minutes to spare. I could at least get most of a blog entry done, plus maybe the acknowledgments for a book.

3:17 Hmmm. Sky looks vaguely ominous.

3:18 Will pack that stroller raincover thing we've never used just in case.

3:20 Should I bring umbrella? Logistics of pushing stroller and negotiating umbrella seem daunting. Will grab Coach rainhat instead.

3:22 OUT THE FRONT DOOR OH MY GOD.

3:24 Stroller is in car. Hmmm. What to do with baby while I unload the stroller from the trunk? Access to carseat is blocked by boxes of baby clothes I totally meant to mail to my sister like, three months ago and also office desk lamps.

3:25 After moments of deliberation, decide to stick Noah in drivers seat and buckle the seatbelt around his waist, and holy fuck I am very glad the whole "Internet Rockstar" thing is total petty bullshit, because the paparazzi would be all over my ass for this.

3:29 Stroller is bulky and heavy and arrrgh, it's starting to drizzle. Seriously, if I'm such a fucking rockstar WHERE IS MY PERSONAL ASSISTANT BITCHES?

3:30 ALSO, GROUPIES AND BLOW. I DON'T HAVE THOSE EITHER.

3:32 Pry Noah's jaws off steering wheel, put Noah in stroller, realize you can totally see down my shirt when I bend over.

3:33 Shit. It's totally pouring now.

3:34 Stroller cover! Am world's best mother and trip-to-Starbucks-planner.

3:36 How the hell?

3:38 What the fuck?

3:39 ARRRGGH SUBMIT YOU PLASTIC MONSTER. SUBMIT!

3:40 Huh. That's pretty damn cool. Except...can he...breathe in there?  It's like I've just put a plastic grocery bag over his head.

3:41 Put on hat, jacket, start walking confidently down Wisconsin Ave. like the rain isn't bothering me at ALL and I can totally powerwalk 10 blocks in four minutes, are you kidding me?

3:42 Ugh, my hands are already pruny.

3:44 Oh my God. It's the fucking apocalypse.

3:45 A woman, in her mad desire to get around me (I gave up powerwalking about two minutes ago), nails me in the head with her umbrella. Sidewalk rage!

3:45.23 OMG IF U WERE 3 FEET SHORTER U WOULD HAV HIT MY PRESHUS BABIE!

3:46 Stroller cover is impenetrable shield, deflecting all raindrops directly onto me.

3:47 Pink shirt, when wet, has taken on the unfortunate shape of a maternity top.

3:48 Noah and his Impenetrable Shield are very amusing to people, apparently.

3:49 Glance down, realize bra is showing.

3:49.17 Oh God, am one bottle-fed infant away from being Katie Holmes.

3:50 Sun! The sun! Yet it rains on.

3:51 Pants are so wet that my laptop would probably electrocute me.

3:52 SUN. No more rain. At all! In fact...

3:53 SUUUUN. HOT. DYING. HATE.

3:54 Decide to stop and take off jacket and hat, perhaps is time to check that Noah is like, alive and stuff.

3:55 He's asleep, all flopped-over-ragdoll-Sean-Preston-like. Decide to poke him, just in case.

3:55.12 He moved! Well. That's a plus.

3:56 Walk past Metro stop where forty plillion high school students are congregating. Dread fear of roving groups of teenagers second only to volcanoes.

3:57 Catch reflection in store window. Put hat back on. Wow.

3:57.45 DO NOT LOOK TEENAGERS DIRECTLY IN THE EYES. IT CHALLENGES THEM.

3:59 At next walk signal, feel slight tap on arm, turn to see teenage girl. I am going to die now. Girl asks where Metro stop is. I point. She smiles sweetly and says thank you. God, they are so good at pretending to be normal sometimes.

4:01 Am muttering to Noah about disowning him if he ever dares enter puberty while I struggle with door to Starbucks.

4:02 Say hi to Stacy as I fly in, all harebrained, disheveled and surprise! Late.

4:02.30 Leave Noah in the care of total stranger from the Internet whom I just met 30 seconds ago and order a big fucking chocolate frappaccino with whipped cream.

5:00 Leave to go home. Do not dare attempt to write at Starbucks, as it was fucking crawling with teenagers who would probably beat me to death with my laptop, or at least make fun of my stupid hat.

It was a pretty stupid hat.