Like a bad date.

Dutch, when she was an infant, wanted to be held all the time. She was pretty much happy to go anywhere and do anything, as long as she was being held. I mostly just held her while I did stuff and told her about it, and she was cool with that as long as I NEVER PUT HER DOWN. When she got upset, she wanted to be closely cuddled and bounced. This was exhausting and tedious, and hard on the back, but it didn't require much mental effort.

Skipper, on the other hand, is happy to be held, but also wants to spend lots of time looking at me and chatting. She also seems to want other things I haven't yet figured out. I am often at a loss about what to DO with her. When Dutch was a baby, I had friends who said they didn't know what to do with their babies, and I thought that was weird. Obviously, all they needed to do was just be exactly like me, and I was obviously a brilliant parent. But now I understand. It's a little uncomfortable for me to be with Skipper all day, like being forced to spend lots of time with somebody with whom you don't really have anything in common, making super-awkward conversation. We have some very nice chats (though it's pretty hard to get stuff done when both your kids want to talk all the time), and that's fine. We've also worked out a system where I put her in the Bouncy Chair of Doom for short periods of time, and she watches me while I do stuff and talk to her about it in a jaunty, baby-engaging kind of way that would sound insane to any eavesdroppers. But that only gets us so far, and then we have these uncomfortable periods when neither of us knows what we're supposed to be doing.

Happily, she's now taking an extended crib nap for the first time in a long while, and I am free to (blog and) do dishes and pick up all the junk I kicked under the couch. Whee!

Godfather

I took Dutch to a big neighborhood multiple-yard-sale event last weekend. Yard sales are great for the accumulation of cheap plastic junk (!), and I figured she'd enjoy it, and she loves our friends Emma Goldman and Brendan Behan, who met us there. At the third sale we visited, she found an cheap, plastic, ugly doll that came with a box of cheap, ugly clothes. She wanted it. It cost $5.* She had $7 to spend. I was concerned that she would buy the doll and then freak out later when she found other things she wanted more and couldn't afford them, so I made her leave the doll there. She then proceeded to show her strength of character by whining and complaining almost incessantly, asking after each sale we visited "NOW can we go back and get my doll?!" After about an hour, I began to realize that I had made a major mistake, and that I should have let her buy the doll. We finally went back to the scene of the crime, and of course the doll had been purchased by some other princess-in-training. Dutch freaked out. I considered sticking a price tag on her and leaving her on the curb. Then we went around the corner, and Emma, blessings be upon her, spotted something amazing at another sale - a plastic horse head that comes with a number of grooming accessories, like a fake curling iron, combs, barrettes, and some kind of disgusting gooey makeup. Dutch promptly purchased it and was utterly thrilled. She carried the bag herself, and kept reaching in to pet the horse. She played with it all afternoon, and at bedtime she put it next to her bed, and said "I want to be able to see my pony. It can see me. I am my pony. I am looking at myself!"**

I had to include a picture, because the thing is truly spectacular. I can't believe that someone somewhere thought "Hmm. You know what would really sell well? A plastic severed horse head with barrettes. I bet that'd be terrific!" and I really can't believe that that person was RIGHT.



*Many of the items at these sales were weirdly over-priced, based on my experience of yard sales in the past. Emma Goldman's theory was that these people are all so accustomed to paying lots of money for things (it's a pretty rich neighborhood) that it didn't occur to them that, for example, used children's clothes of no particular beauty or quality shouldn't be priced at $3 apiece.

** She takes identification to an extreme. When she sees a movie, or looks at a book, or is told a story, she picks a character that she is going to "be". She used to want to be Mary Ingalls, because she had BLOND HAIR, and then as soon as she reached the point in the series where Mary went blind, she switched her identification to Laura. Apparently it's better to be brunette than blind.

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.

Dutch is doing the library's Summer Reading program again. As you mark off reading accomplishments (determined by the parents), you get little prizes. They actually have some pretty good prizes to pick from, because there are a lot of coupons for local businesses. Dutch, however, always rejects the good options (a ticket to a kids' play! she would have loved that!) and picks a cheap plastic toy. (The volunteer manning the table today told me that the kids overwhelmingly pick the cheap plastic toys over the much more valuable coupons - instant gratification and whatnot.) Cook and I disapprove of this strongly, and she knows this. Today she picked a cheap plastic jump rope, and Cook and I were all disapproving about it. When she stepped on it and the handle detached from the rope about a block away from the library, she burst into tears. I fixed it for her, but after we'd subsequently browbeaten her for half a block about how you have to expect cheap plastic junk to break immediately, she said "I feel sick." I felt a little sick, too, because I realized that we, in our disapproval and our desire to teach her about making wise choices etc. had just totally sucked the joy out of her prize, and made her feel really crappy. We couldn't even let her have some pleasure in her cheap plastic.

I then demonstrated my own scintillating jump roping skills, and Cook pretended to be a monster and tried to eat her, and by the time we made our way home, she was cheerful again. But I expect we killed a tiny spark inside her. Sometimes we feed the sparks, but I think we probably kill more than we kindle. It deepens like a coastal shelf.

Grr.

There is a category of advice frequently given to busy parents that drives me crazy. It's very sensible advice, and I've given it myself, hypocritically, to other parents. Here it is: Take Care of Yourself! My least favorite advice in this category is Sleep When The Baby Sleeps. Also, Make Sure You Take Time For Yourself Every Day to Exercise/Meditate/Do Your Hair/Eat Healthy Food/Sleep/Be Creative/Whatever. Again, it's VERY sensible. When I am rested and exercised and eating well, I am much happier, nicer, and more energetic, and that's good for everybody.

But... I am already taking care of people. I don't WANT to take care of anybody else, even myself. And the time that I take to Sleep/Exercise/Meditate/Etc is time that I then have to make up later on, because the dishes will still be piled up in the sink, the bag of poop-stained laundry will still be waiting by the door, we will still be out of bread. This sort of advice usually comes with a condescending suggestion that you go ahead and let the housekeeping slip a bit to get some extra time. Like... maybe you could skip ironing the sheets to make time to do some Tai Chi. Unfortunately, if our housekeeping standards slip any more, Health & Human Services will come after us. Anyway, if they slip any further, it will stress me out even more; I don't actually like living among roaming herds of dust creatures, though you'd never guess that from the state of our home.

It annoys me. How am I supposed to squeeze in time to Take Care of Myself? I keep a running list in my mind of Stuff That Needs to Be Done. When I get an unexpected break (the baby sleeps in her crib for an hour while Dutch plays by herself), I do as many of those things as I can - dishes, laundry, pumping breast milk, making granola, dinner prep, tidying, paying the bills, etc. I also go to the bathroom and/or feed myself something. In the evening, Cook comes home, and one of us chats with Skipper while watching Dutch's performances, while the other makes dinner. Then we all eat dinner, and then Cook or I get Dutch ready for bed while the other minds the baby or (if she's sleeping in the crib) does dishes. Then one of us sits with Dutch for a while while the other minds the baby and cleans or does consulting work. After we've finally got both kids down, usually sometime between 9 and 10, Cook usually does consulting work while I finish the dishes, take a shower, fold laundry, etc.

I would love to do some self-care. But when would I do it? And if I did it, who would do the dishes and the laundry? The best I can do is lots of walking with the kids, to keep me from gaining 300 pounds. I am aware that there are people who wake up at 4 AM* to work out for an hour and write a chapter of their novel before cooking a nutritious breakfast for their large happy families. But those people are scary! They don't count.

Everybody needs help (except those crazy 4-AM-wakers), and nobody can actually take care of him or herself alone. Give me some paid parental leave, good cheap childcare, good cheap health care, and THEN I'll take care of myself. Until then, I'm going to be staggering around like a flabby zombie.

* I do wake at 4 AM sometimes, but I definitely don't get up and work out, unless you count singing and sashaying around the dark living room with a 12-pound weight, while trying not to fall down from total exhaustion.

Good things

1) HA! I'm going to live forever.

2) I have instituted Quiet Time, and it is going to save my sanity. On afternoons when we're home, Dutch must spend 45 minutes in her room playing quietly (she likes to do this anyway, and the new arrangement just formalizes it).

3) We have arranged a standing babysitting/playdate exchange with Alpha Girl for the summer, which will also help preserve my sanity.

4) Skipper is freaking adorable. She seems to hate sleeping, but otherwise we think she's the best baby ever.

5) Swim lessons, at a quiet pool on a cool, sunny morning, are awesome. (Except that Dutch, who thinks her swimsuit is SO PRETTY, refuses to wear the "warmbelly" neoprene suit that would actually keep her from finishing her lesson with goosebumps, shivers, and blue lips.) I sit across the pool, usually nursing Skipper and chatting with another mom,* and I can hear Dutch talking non-stop the whole time,** and I can see her beaming. She's scared to put her head in the water, but she seems to be having a pretty good time. Her teachers look kind of tired by the end of half an hour, though.

*A mom who lived through the Rwandan genocide. I learned this today, at the end of our fifth half-hour of meaningless mommy-chitchat - it made the idyllic morning seem kind of surreal.

** It's awe-inspiring. This is a not-exaggerated sample that I heard today: "I have to point my toes just like this in ballet. I take ballet! I was in a show. I was a Princess Frog! I can point my toes really well! I'm the bestest at pointing my toes! I can't wear pointe shoes yet, but I'm really good at walking on my toes! This is my favorite swimsuit! Last night I practiced holding my breath in the bathtub and my mom showed me how to blow bubbles out my nose! She put her head in the water and she blowed bubbles that were SO BIG! Look, this is how big they were!"

wiggle wiggle wiggle

A conversation with Skipper on the changing mat. She was tired and cranky, so it's not very scintillating. Also, she wrapped up the conversation with a combination sneeze/poop that sprayed my pants with shit. I edited that out.

Five days down...lots more to go.

This morning we went to a swim lesson, then spent two hours at the playground (including a picnic lunch), then went to the library for 45 minutes of reading children's books. I spent most of that time nursing and or standing up in order to meet Skipper's various needs. An hour after we got home, Dutch said "I'm BORED. Why can't we DO something?!" It's really hard to entertain a preschooler without another preschooler.

Also, Dutch threw a tantrum over her swimsuit options this morning, and it was so awful that I'm only now recovering. This blog has now officially become an incredibly boring record of my Life as A Full-Time Mommy.

Anyway, enough whining. Here, for your viewing pleasure, is a video of Dutch, in her newly-purchased "bride dress," performing a spectacularly tone-deaf rendition of the Star-Spangled Banner, with Skipper in the foreground providing commentary.

Shots

Skipper had a well-baby checkup this morning, and I'm taking advantage of her post-vaccination sleepiness to blog. Vaccines make me feel awful. I'm torn between my public health education (must protect the herd!) and my natural tendency to avoid putting anything foreign into such a small body. We plan to fully vaccinate Skipper, just on a slightly more prolonged schedule than is recommended. Not as prolonged as Dutch's was, though, because she's going into daycare much earlier than Dutch did, and we MUST PROTECT THE HERD!

Dutch had one nasty vaccine reaction (fever and vomiting and lethargy, which qualified it as a "mild reaction" in the opinion of the medical establishment), but otherwise has weathered all her shots without trouble. Skipper seems determined to sleep for the rest of the day, with breaks for nursing. This is a normal vaccine response, and would be fine with me if I knew for sure that it'd turn out okay. (Parenting would be easy if I knew it'd all come out fine in the end.)

Anyway, Skipper is thriving. She's in the 90th percentile for height, 72nd for weight, and 66th for head circumference - another tall pinhead baby! Also, she doesn't like getting shots.

Life aquatic

Skipper, Dutch, and I stood in line for half an hour yesterday morning to sign up Dutch for free swim lessons for the week. She's super-excited for swimming; our local pool is outdoors, open only in the summer, and it opens today. Today! Dutch has tried on all her swimsuits, and is champing at the bit to get started. She's signed up for seven weeks of swim lessons this summer. The first five weeks are all at the Penguin level, which is sort of the getting-ready-to-swim level, where she's supposed to learn kicking and floating and get very comfortable putting her head in the water. The last two-week session, though, in far-off September, is at the Otter level, which is the crucial actually-learning-to-swim level. Dutch is dubious that she'll be ready for this, and I promised that she could drop the class if she wanted (or if she doesn't get promoted from Penguin).

I'd really like for Dutch to learn to swim this summer. I secretly want Dutch to be a serious swimmer, because I've loved swimming so much as an adult, and wish I had learned earlier. In my family, as long as you could get around without drowning, you were all set, so while I got to be very comfortable in the water, I never learned how to crawl, let alone spiffy things like flip turns (I still haven't learned that). I'd like Dutch to have more skills than I did, so she can both feel more comfortable in an ocean/lake/whatever and can swim in a pool for exercise.

So I'm a little too invested in Dutch's swim lessons. I'm happy she's enthusiastic, and it's going to be hard for me to let it go if she decides she doesn't want to Otter. I know that no amount of enthusiasm on my part is going to persuade her to do something she really doesn't want to do (like jumping into the pool unassisted) until she's ready. Parenting involves an awful lot of letting things go.

Anyway, tomorrow! Swim Lesson #1!

Wrong

Did I say Skipper wasn't interested in interacting with us? Totally wrong. She likes nothing more than looking serenely up into your face and chatting. A sample dialogue goes like this:

Me: Hi, sweetie!
Skipper: Gla.
Me: Gla?
(pause)
Skipper: Aeuhll.
Me: Oh? That's nice.
Skipper: Gla!
Me: Um. What's going on?
Skipper: Heuhl.
Me:I see.

She likes to talk more than Dutch did, and she really seems to think that we are actually talking.

It's important to have goals.

I've revised my daily to-do list.

1) Dress myself, and brush my teeth and hair.

2) Wash the breakfast dishes.

3) Feed myself and Dutch adequately.

4) Don't be mean to Dutch when she drives me crazy.

5) Make sure Dutch is active enough to get really sweaty at least once every day.

6) Don't let Dutch get sunburned.

7) Remember the first-aid kit on every playground trip.

8) Make sure Skipper gets her down time.

The rest of it? Like cleaning up, or doing laundry or making dinner or anything like that? Forget it. All my kid-free time (those precious moments when Skipper's sleeping in her crib and Dutch is playing quietly in her room) goes to activities like working on my resume, or pumping breast milk. (Or... blogging! Though Skipper's sleeping on my chest and Dutch is sitting at the "Art Table" coloring with Best Friend, so it's not exactly a precious moment.) I know that many moms manage two or more kids AND maintain clean homes (and, I don't know, make beautiful jewelry and write poetry in their spare time), but I AM A LAZY PERSON. I can barely manage what I'm doing. Item #4 alone takes nearly all my energy.

Yesterday I explained to Dutch that no, I do not want to stay home with her and Skipper for the rest of their childhood,* and that I will lose my mind if I don't have an outside-the-home job of some kind. She looked so perplexed; the notion that I have wants and needs and define myself in any way other than as her mother is totally incomprehensible to her. When I was a kid, I had no understanding of that either. It never occurred to me that my parents might be interested in doing anything other than tending to all MY needs. If I'd even thought about it, I'm sure I would have thought that when I wasn't around they just hibernated, or maybe blinked out of existence temporarily. I don't think this is because they catered to all my demands or anything - I think I was just spectacularly self-centered. I think all kids are like that. I hope I wasn't specially selfish.

* I don't even know why she wants this. She likes spending time with other kids way more than staying home.

Day Two

Hm. This home-with-two-kids thing is not for sissies. Best Friend's mom called this morning to invite Dutch over for a playdate and I was so grateful.

She has arrived.

Skipper took her time getting here. She seemed kind of unfinished when she arrived, with lots of little incomplete-neural-system tics, and then that whole not-breathing thing. She kept her eyes closed, and when she finally started opening them more, she didn't want to look at us. Just furniture, which didn't move or make weird noises at her.

In the last week or so, I think she's finally finished up her mental moving in. She looks at us, she watches Dutch everywhere she goes. She makes weird noises back at us. She smiles. She holds her head up, and really likes to stand up. (This is adorable, as her whole body wobbles, her torso sways this way and that, and she makes a fiercely-concentrating monkey face that makes her look just like our last president.) She's interested in what's going on around her.

As well as being a slow-arriver, she's also a baby who needs down time, it seems. Dutch, in my memory, was happy to go anywhere and do anything, no matter how hectic, as long as she was being held. Skipper is not. The few marathon days on which I've dragged her lately have left her fretful and angry in the evening.

Anyway, now that she's fully arrived, there's less time for blogging. Also, today is Dutch's last day of daycare until the end of September, so I expect that will also cut into my blogging. I am not entirely sure how the summer is going to go, but I am sure that it will include the following: swimming, books, ice cream, tree-climbing, blueberries, tantrums, playgrounds, diapers, sweaty red faces, tomatoes, dirty feet, movies...


*A friend just announced on his blog that his much-newer baby has begun smiling, and I felt a pang of competitive jealousy. (Their baby is more alert than ours! Or nicer or smarter or something! Crazy Jealous Parent Brain is sometimes very loud.)

The blue smiles!Skipper's first role in one of Dutch's ballet performances. Notice how Skipper is staring at Dutch, fascinated and bewildered. She watches Dutch all the time, probably partly due to an instinct for self-preservation. The ballerina also climbs trees.

New

My classmate (the one who has twin one-year-old babies and a 4-year-old) looked at Skipper a month or so ago and put her hand to her chest. "Oh my god," she said in amazement, "I'm never going to have another newborn."

I'm trying to pay attention to Skipper. I'm never going to have another newborn, either, and I'm trying to absorb all the crazy and lovable stuff that's common to all newborns (that I've met, at least). These are my favorites:
1) The way that her skin is so soft that if you touch it with your less-sensitive skin parts, you can't even tell you're touching it.
2) The buttermilk smell of her breath.
3) The post-eating stretch-and-grimace, which expresses so much satisfaction that it's impossible not to smile when you see it.
4) The strange slow waving of her arms and legs, like underwater plants. (This is already gone.)
5) The thoughtful, considering gaze, completely un-self-conscious, completely unaware of any rules or history. Just new!
6) And, of course, the very very small feet. Everybody loves the feet.

Look!

I put Skipper down on the couch today* and got up to film her wiggling around (because hey, why not! I've got nothing else to do!). And then she smiled! On record!



I did not include any record of Skipper, in her blue shirt and blue pants, being held by Cook, in his blue pants and blue shirt, sitting next to me, in my blue shirt and blue pants, on our blue couch. (Dutch wore a pink dress today, fortunately.)


* Yes I KNOW you're not supposed to put even the least motile baby down on the couch unless you're right there to catch it, because it could suddenly roll over and fall on its head and DIE. I know. I'm sorry.

My new favorite thing

Way way better than LOLcats.

Ceremonies

Last night, Dutch's preschool class held their "graduation." (Dutch's last day is Tuesday, and she will be going into another preschool classroom in the fall, along with Best Friend and few other kids from her current class.) The kids paraded across the playground and walked across the "stage" one by one to be greeted by their teacher, who said, "Kid X! Congratulations! You're graduating and going to kindergarten/other preschool classroom next year! Great job!" and then gave each of them a plastic medal that said "Winner" on it, and a diploma.

I left the celebration right after the ceremony, and went off to do the "client presentation" for my BSP. I'm officially done with it! Yesterday, Skipper took the unprecedented step of sleeping in her crib for TWO HOURS, so I went through all my BSP papers and recycled piles of them,* which was tremendously satisfying.

Today Skipper and I will be attending the "hooding" ceremony for my classmates, almost all of whom are collecting their masters degrees.** I've still got 17 credits left before I graduate, so I'll be in the audience clapping (or standing in the doorway, bouncing Skipper and clapping). I don't know what that ceremony will be like, but I really hope it involves "Winner" medals.

I registered this week for classes for next fall, and planned out my final 18 credits (I have to take 18 in order to keep the kids at the low-low student rate at the daycare). I've knocked out all of the required courses, and have only fun electives left, so I get to take "Pedestrian and Bicycle Planning" and "Pedestrian and Bicycle Planning Lab" - I think I'll really enjoy my remaining credits.


*I also did all the dishes, tidied up some of the worst clutter, made and ate lunch, practiced my presentation, sorted through all our medical paperwork, folded laundry, and worked on my resume and cover letters. I almost got around to the huge heap of ironing, but Skipper was kind enough to wake up before I got that desperate.

** And entering the job market, poor souls.

Baby, baby!

Congratulations CM! (Also Emergency Man and BookYanker!) She's lovely!
Seems like there are lots of people in my life having babies these days, both first and second children. Trapeze Girl is expecting a girl this summer, Tiger is getting a sibling in October, and various other friends and acquaintances - two of my classmates, one of my former coworkers, etc.- are expecting as well. I'm very pleased, and also sad that I'll get to see so few of them anytime soon. I'm sure that when we do get to see them, they will all be best friends with Skipper.

One of my college housemates from senior year posted on her Facebook page that four of the six of us who lived together that year are having babies this year (including CM and me). The season of marriages was much more dispersed for my peers than the season of babies... I don't know why. Maybe we're all thinking that a recession/depression is a great time for reproducing.

Anniversaries

Happy Birthday, E!

Money

So we got our enrollment package from Dutch's daycare yesterday. (After next Tuesday, Dutch is out for the summer.) Dutch will be in the oldest preschool class, where she can practice being the oldest kid in her class, a role she will play for the next 14 years. Skipper has a fulltime slot in the baby room. We will be paying just under $1200 per month for both kids, starting at the end of September. I would guess that those of you without kids are thinking "My god! That's so much money!" and those of you with kids are thinking "Wow! Only $1200 for excellent fulltime care for two kids including an infant! Way to go!"

We have a dilemma. The way things stand, we can't afford the daycare unless I manage to nail down a parttime job (which around here these days is exceptionally difficult).* But if we give up the slots, and then work miraculously appears, finding good daycare will be a huge problem.

Cook showed me the enrollment info last night (he'd picked it up along with Dutch that afternoon) when Skipper and I got home from school, and I said "yikes." I'd known that it would be expensive, but somehow, looking at the numbers made it very real. "Yeah," he said cheerfully, "I've been thinking about which bank we should rob. The one down the street looks pretty vulnerable."

We know we can't stay in Portland. There are way too many highly-qualified people here looking for jobs (did I mention that the City is cutting jobs left and right, including a bunch of planning jobs?). I don't know where we'll go. We had been planning to move next summer, after I get my degree (I still have 17 credits left) and before Dutch starts kindergarten. But I don't think we'll make it that long, and I don't think I can do 17 credits in one quarter. We'll probably try to have me finish by March. But then if I don't find work anywhere in the world, we'll be stuck, and I won't have health insurance anymore. (And don't forget that I'm uninsurable because I grind my teeth at night.)

Ugh. Anyway, if anybody knows of any poorly-defended banks, please let us know.

*Plus there's the painful calculus of working parenthood - if I get a job, it needs to be worth leaving the kids (especially Skipper, who will then be only 5 months old) in daycare to do it - either seriously lucrative or really great for my career development.

Electric

Dutch has always been a mommy-first kid. She loves her dad, but when things go bad, she wants me. She never went through any sort of daddy phase. When she was upset when she was a baby, she liked to suck on my neck.* Even before she chose that particular/peculiar soothing method, I was better able to calm her down, with or without breastfeeding.

Skipper, though... it's early days yet, but it looks like Cook's got much more of a knack with her than I do. He's the one who figured out that she's not all that keen on being cuddled to a torso, and that she likes to lie on her back on your thighs when you sit in a chair, and that this will actually often calm her down from a rage. It still works better for him than for me. She likes to have him sing to her. She just seems to find him all-around much more comforting than me.** I had assumed that this would not be the case, because I am with her so much, and it's a little demoralizing for me that he picks up her cues so much more readily.
Happily, my status as the sole food source allows me to retain my parenting confidence. Phew. And I don't think we're quite ready to launch a family dynamic of splitting the kids between the parents. This is just another way that my assumptions about what-my-kid-is-like are getting busted.

*Really - it was sort of charming and also sort of really weird.

** This does make sense, since I'm not that comfortable. Witness the snarling match I engaged in with Dutch this morning. Actually, don't witness it; I'm appalled by my inability to be reasonable with Dutch. We may have to send her to boarding school when adolescence ramps up her remarkable gift for pushing my buttons.

A rose

Some names of kids in Dutch's ballet school (from the program): Crimson, Siena, Mavis, Ada, Maeve, Ripley, Kalindy, Delilah, Heavenly (!), Teagan, Roan, Noemi, and of course many many Ellas, Fionas, Sophie/Sophias, Olivias, Anna/Annes, and Madeline/Madeleines.

Performance anxiety

One of the girls in Dutch's ballet class dropped out just before the Big Show. I suspect it was due to stage fright; that kid was stricken with terror after each class when she had to do her farewell curtsy to the teacher in front of the waiting parents in the lobby. Cook expressed his sympathy, opining that some people, such as himself, "would rather crawl over a floor covered in broken glass then perform to an audience." However, Cook acted* in plays as a kid, and enjoys playing the clown for people with whom he is close.** So he's not exactly a non-performer. I like to perform, personally - I liked being in plays as a kid, and I like presenting to audiences now, even when I haven't got anything worthwhile to say. Dutch seems to have inherited every scrap of ham from both sides of the family, and I foresee years of dutifully volunteering backstage at various sorts of shows.

*and sang, dreadful as that is to contemplate.
**His comic timing is excellent, and his accents lovably atrocious.

pictures

First, an almost-smile from Skipper. She's been smiling a bit this week, but we haven't yet caught it on film; this is the best we've got.
This is what we more typically see. These photos show what it's like in our household these days. This is the invasion of the Bad Robot.
And this is this morning's adventures in Ballet-Painting.

This one's for you, Grandad! Dutch has been pretending to surf, in anticipation of our beach trip this summer.

Phew

I've perfected the "ballet bun." I'm a ballet bun genius! All it takes, after all, is 45 bobby pins and about half a pound of gel.

I forgot to bring the camera, so you'll never know how ridiculously cute Dutch looked in her ridiculous "frog princess" costume, and the video camera is out of batteries, so you'll never get to see the utterly hilarious frog princess dance, and you'll just have to take my word for all of it.

Cook watched the whole show, but he was too far away to be able to see much, and reported that he spent much of the time contemplating the poignance of little kids doing ballet. When I asked what he meant, he said "you know, birth, death, the innocence of youth, that sort of thing." Weirdly enough, I do kind of know, because watching the kids from the wings actually brought tears to my eyes. Something about their eager little faces and hoppity little bodies, and, you know, their lives ahead of them. That sort of thing.

Of course, I also had the much-less-poignant experience of spending about five hours out of the last 30 stuck in a room with a whole bunch of revved-up "ballet-ers," ranging in age from 4 to 7, all dressed in rented costumes, with their hair falling out of their perfect buns, and FORBIDDEN TO EAT ANYTHING. It was getting kind of scary by the end of each performance- they were all hyper and starving and the situation was rapidly devolving to a let's-get-Piggy point. We all survived, though, even The Totally Loony Kid who stole food, screeched backstage, and ordered me to "watch!" and then picked her nose and ate the booger. Dutch was a star, of course, well-behaved, cheerful, charmingly excited, non-nose-picking, and attentive to all instructions. (You'd never guess she's a horrible brat at home, if you met her out in the world.) She was very proud of herself. And I'm SO glad it's over for the summer. Dutch has the option of starting ballet again in the fall, if she wants and our budget permits, but I'm hoping she just sort of forgets about it.

Birth and death

First, here's an opinion by Judith Warner, from the Times (of course) about abortion and Dr. George Tiller.* People like babies (and pregnant women) because of their clean-slate-y-ness. Brand-new babies haven't yet shown us their human-ness. They haven't been petty or mean or cruel or stupid or boring yet. It's easy to forget that babies will grow up to be ordinary people, and it's easy to assign them all the good qualities they probably won't have. I think this irrational perspective is kind of necessary, from an evolutionary point of view, so we as a society will take care of babies as well as possible. But in the pro-life world, most of the time it translates into a sort of deification of unborn babies, and total neglect of babies/children/teenagers/adults after that clean-slate thing wears off. Which is totally crappy.

Second, on a semi-related depressing note, here's something I've been thinking about a bit. Near where I live in Portland, a woman recently threw her two small children off a bridge into the Willamette River in the middle of the night. The younger child, who was Dutch's age, died, and his 7-year-old sister was rescued. The comments on online articles about this mostly fall into the category of "she is evil, torture her and throw her in the river." We can have no idea what happened, really. The story is that she did it as revenge on her husband over a custody struggle. My personal narrative about it is about the power that parents have over our children. We are stronger than they are, they are dependent on us, and we are the center of their worlds. We can throw them off real and emotional bridges any time we like. But mostly... we don't. Even parents under terrible stress, with very limited resources, take this responsibility seriously. I think that's pretty amazing.

Last, here's a video Trapeze Girl sent me. I love the magic word the mother says!

Yet another picture of a confused-looking baby.

What a difference a day makes

Today, by 8:30 I was clothed and somewhat groomed, Cook and Dutch had been gone for half an hour, the breakfast dishes were washed, the ballet bag (the BIG SHOW is tonight and tomorrow morning, and I'm totally dreading it) was packed, and the laundry put away. There are two differences between yesterday morning and this morning - first, Skipper and I woke up an hour earlier, and second, Dutch now has a Chart.

Last night Cook put it together* for her, with her 6 key morning tasks. If she does all of them properly and promptly, she gets a sticker for the day. Once she's got 10 stickers, she gets to choose a movie to rent from Blockbuster. This is a big deal because we always rent our movies from the library, which means we have to wait (sometimes a very long time) for them. Instant gratification is a big deal for preschoolers.**

This morning we explained it to her, and she had tasks 1 and 2 done before Cook and I even crawled out of bed. She was standing by the door wearing her shoes (all tasks done) before Cook finished his coffee. The novelty and motivation will no doubt wear off soon, but it was a great morning.

Fun note for my vast reading audience of Swedes - our Picasa is still operating entirely in Swedish, and I just spent about 15 minutes trying to copy photos from my camera onto the harddrive - I kept clicking "avbryt," because my other option was "slutfor" which sounded like "stop" to me. Then I googled it, and when you google "slutfor," you get awful results. But I figured it out.

* He did it on the computer, using Illustrator, because he's like that - I would have done it on cardboard with crayons.

**And adults. Well, for me at least.

This week's movies

Skipper, sleeping in the Chair of Doom yesterday. This was a random and brief occurrence - I put her down awake right after nursing her, and she slipped into her usual post-nursing three-minute coma. But look at her in her brightly-colored onesie, twitching adorably as she dreams happily of the boob! Also, note the freaky Cook-family-open-eyed-sleeping thing.



And here's Skipper* deploying just a few of her vast arsenal of facial expressions, most of which seem to be designed to communicate one of five basic messages:
1) Hey, lady, bring those breasts over here RIGHT NOW!
2) Who ARE you people, anyway, and why are you making those weird noises?
3) AAAAAAAHHHHHH! WHY CAN'T YOU UNDERSTAND ME?!!!
4) Well, I guess this is okay.
5) Uh-oh. I feel that something bad is about to happen.

*And yes, that is Shakira playing in the background of the video. Whenever, wherever! I'm trying to ensure that Skipper grows up listening to more than just jazz (Cook), musicals (Dutch) and ballet scores (um... Dutch). 

Cranky

Cranky is a great word. Just look at it! It looks just like it ought.

And I am cranky today. (Again.) Bear with me (or stop reading right now, because I am very whiny - perhaps it's contagious).

About one out of four mornings, Skipper goes back to sleep after her 6-AM-ish nursing session, and Cook and I have a tacit agreement that I get to sleep in with her. * This morning was one of those, so I woke up at 8, 15 minutes before the arrival of the bus that Cook likes to catch. I was, of course, still tired, and would have been happy for about 10 hours more of sleep, but things needed to be done.

Skipper wanted to nurse again (because when she's not sleeping like an angel overnight, she wants to nurse at least once every 90 minutes). We had no clean diaper covers, so Skipper was wearing only a cloth diaper, which soaks through instantly. Dutch was being awful, refusing to dress and complaining of every possible ache or illness she could think of (her nose really really hurt, and her heart really hurt too, and she couldn't feel it pumping!), and finally throwing a knock-down-drag-out tantrum over the fact that her vast shoe collection did not contain ANY SHOES SHE LIKED. Skipper peed on Cook's freshly-ironed shirt. Skipper cried a lot. We remembered a load of wet laundry, including diaper covers, left in the washer overnight.

They finally left, half an hour late, Dutch in tears, but at least dressed and shod and walking of her own volition. I looked around the apartment, which was littered with detritus - rejected (nonsparkly) shoes, granola from Dutch's breakfast, dustbunnies, blankets from fort-making, clean and soiled washcloths for the mopping of baby barf, drafts of my BSP report, crayons, a bag of wet laundry...

I changed Skipper, put a wet diaper cover on her, wrapped her to me , walked around till she fell asleep, drank a cup of coffee, hung the wet laundry on the rack, ate a bowl of granola and yogurt, checked my email for BSP emergencies, and looked at the New York Times website. And here I am. I'm still wearing my pajamas, and haven't brushed my teeth or hair. Skipper's sleeping uneasily. I am feeling dismayed by how horribly Dutch behaves AND how horribly I behave when she does it. I am feeling peevish about carrying a 10-pound baby on my body all the time. I am feeling guilty for writing whiny blog posts and not just getting up and cleaning the apartment. Ugh.

Also, I'm feeling a little crushed by the Times articles I've been reading.

This article doesn't tell us anything new, but is deeply depressing. After reading it, I opened the three pieces of mail we got yesterday from various parties involved in Skipper's and my health insurance. During the last six months, I've gotten probably a hundred "This is Not a Bill" notices about my prenatal care and Skipper's postnatal care. We've only gotten a few actual bills so far, but the flood of information about how much we're going to have to pay is scary. The cost of a healthy pregnancy and an uncomplicated birth is three or four months of rent. The cost of having a baby spend three days in the hospital is even more. Skipper has nearly reached her individual maximum for the year. I have no maximum, because I have crap insurance** through school.*** We can pay the bills, and we're not yet at the point in our health or finances where we have to decide which health-maintaining prescription we're going to fill this month. But it is just so astonishingly wrong. The whole system is just SO WRONG. As Dutch would say, it's totally poop-head poopy. With pee on top.

Speaking of things that are wrong, how on earth have we gotten to the point where we need legislatures to ensure our right to dry?

Anyway. I've got to turn off the computer and wash some dishes. I think I've reached my self-pity threshold for the day, and possibly the whole week. But first, things to cheer me up:

1. Skipper has grown into a wardrobe of festive and brightly-colored onesies!
2. We have fresh strawberries!
3. Big School Project is almost done!
4. Obama gave a speech about Islam and didn't use the word "terrorism" once!

*We haven't actually discussed it, but in my mind it's fair because I'm the one nursing her all night long.
** Because Kaiser won't insure me because I grind my teeth at night
*** Which means I have to take at least five credits a quarter so I won't lose it. If I got really sick and had to drop out of school (or, say, skip a quarter in order to have a baby), I would lose my health insurance. This is a bad way to care for people.

Mitigating

I think I may have been just a wee bit negative in my last post. Just a little. So I want to say that even though Dutch frequently behaves horribly, she also frequently is hilariously funny, delightfully loving, and surprisingly interesting. Apparently, these things come in a package. Actually, if only she would spontaneously stop with the potty talk,* I'd say she's pretty awesome.

Also, Skipper, while not the cheerful, calm, peacefully-sleeping baby of my dreams, is starting to be a bit of a person. She's still not truly smiling, perhaps because she thinks potty talk is not amusing, but she occasionally busts out a sort of proto-smile that even looks a little cynical to me, like maybe she's laughing AT me and not with me. Being cynical myself, I find that pretty charming. And she is still an easier baby than her predecessor, more willing to sit around and watch things happening, and more prone to staying asleep once convinced to go there. I am very grateful for the nighttime sleeping; we're still massively sleep-deprived, and I'm sure things will deteriorate, but she's been pretty easy at night during this crucial period when I'm in school. Anyway, she's been working hard - she's gained 1.5 inches and 3 pounds since birth. This is not to be sneered at; increasing your weight by 40% in six weeks (five, actually, since she didn't get back up to her birthweight until a week later) is a spectacular achievement. We really don't recognize very often how much WORK babies have to do, what with all the growing and learning and pooping. She also now spends a lot of time staring at our faces, looking confused. It's not easy.

Also, this week I have re-discovered (again) my fondness for Terry Pratchett. He's probably where I get my footnoting habits from.

And BSG is almost done!

Hooray!

* We decided to not pick this particular battle. She's not allowed to talk potty at daycare, except in the bathroom, and she is just bursting (so to speak) with the subversive joy of fecal chat, so it has to come out (so to speak) somewhere. We don't laugh at it, and we've made it clear that we're not interested in it, but we let her talk about poop and pee in an endless tedious loop. She makes up songs... hopefully it'll be over soon.

Yesterday I walked out the door wearing a nursing undershirt, pants, and Skipper. It only occurred to me on the way to the bus stop that I should probably go back and get a shirt to wear for my meeting with faculty advisers.

Today, Dutch left the apartment in Cook's arms, struggling and screaming, because she didn't want to daycare because she was wearing a green dress, in which she COULD NOT BE A UNICORN. She could ONLY be a FLOWER, and she wanted to be A UNICORN. She was also not pretty enough. And if we made her go to daycare, she was going to POOP on us. (I checked with Cook after he got to work; she didn't carry out the threat.)

Skipper will now only stay asleep in the crib for 5-10 minutes at a time during the daytime,* so I am spending an awful lot of time with her attached to me.

I have been very angry at Dutch. I have not been very nice to her.

Two nights ago, I attempted to cut Cook's hair. I was able to do this only in two 5-minute periods while Skipper slept. His hair looks very odd.

My Big School Project is rapidly approaching deadline.

I'm really looking forward to summer.



*She is still sleeping beautifully at night, though. Good girl!

Someday.

I dream about this. Is that bad, that I have a 6-week-old and a 4-year-old (and gosh they're so precious and I treasure every minute with them) and am already fantasizing about how fabulous it'll be when they're grownups? Dutch and I have talked about it, how she and Skipper will come over and have dinner at my house* and she will get things down off tall shelves for me (because we all expect she'll be at least three inches taller than me) and we will watch grown-up movies together. We're both really looking forward to it.

*For some reason we think I'm going to live in a house at some point.