Virtual Navel-Gazing

There are good things about not having Selfish Time. Having a kid can be helpful in providing a central theme for your life. I do a lot of narcissistic navel-gazing, but much less than I used to. I don't have to cast around much for A Reason For It All. Dutch makes it much simpler. I am deathly afraid of flying (afraid of dying while flying, actually), but when I fly with Dutch I am making sure she's all set, so I don't get to worry so much. (Though now that she's so much more self-sufficient, I can worry more. Thank goodness.) Now she keeps me so busy answering her questions ("is a toad a kind of a turtle?") that I don't get a chance to gaze at my midsection (speculating about where, exactly, my navel has gone). When I do, I know that there is at least one reason for my life.

This is dangerous, though, because it can also lead to the Smug Mommy Syndrome, in which the Mommy uses the kid to make herself feel good about her life. The kid is both the most difficult child in the world, and the most wonderful, and oh yes, parenting is SO hard and also SO rewarding, and if you don't have a child, you couldn't possibly understand the amazingness of parenting, and if you DO have a child, your child and your parenting skills are deeply inferior to hers.

Anyway, I guess my point is that while my life has reorganized itself around Dutch, reducing the need for existential angst, I still need to find other themes.

Meanwhile, I have finally learned what it means when you poke somebody on Facebook.