It's over!
As if I wasn't the happiest woman alive already and now this!
Posted at 04:20 PM on June 26, 2004 | Comments (4)The things you think about while you are starving and waiting for your pizza to be done baking
I love how certain foods are forever connected to nice memories. Scrambled eggs evoke fuzzy feelings about how my mom made them for me for dinner. Strawberries smell like summer at my grandma's house. Watermelon reminds me of summer and tank tops because you could eat them and get your shirt all messy. Warm cocoa smells like dinnertime and fresh pajamas. Grilled pork smells like summer family get-together and paper plates. Corn on the cob tastes like first day of school, when it's still warm out...
Aaaah. So what's your comfort food?
Posted at 07:22 PM on June 25, 2004 | Comments (5)Thoughts for the day
- With all this funeral coverage and Reagan reverance, what is brought up again and again is what he did for the "American Spirit", how he revived it, or gave it back to America or something like that. You can call me European, but I'm a little confused about what this really means. How did Reagan's raising of the spirit made a difference in your American life? Does it mean he made people feel good about themselves, so they had a better time forgetting how miserable they were? Ok, irreverance aside, but I wonder what would have happened to the spirit of America if he had given every citizen medical coverage...
- I wonder if I will be able to stop having a second breakfast every day once Veronika weans. Right now I have a cup of coffee and two pieces of toast with either regular or peanut butter and strawberry jam every day at around 10 o'clock, after I already had breakfast at 8. (Please note the PB&J habit. That should totally redeem me for the unamerican comments above!) It scares me a little how easily I down all this without feeling even a little stuffed.
- I'm getting slightly nauseous with Kate Hudson's omnipresent cuteness. You could call it jealousy but I'm very annoyed with the press pointing out her amazing weight loss after gaining 60 lbs during her pregnancy. To be short, there are several things that are wrong with this:
1. It seems a pregnancy is the only way an actress gets to eat what she wants, because it's the only acceptable reason she can gain weight for.
2. She needs to lose it ASAP after she has the baby because if the fat is not actually covering a fetus, it is digusting, while with a fetus underneath that same fat is rather cute.
3. She supposedly spent 3 hours a day working out losing almost all the 60 pounds in 3 months all the while she was working and also exclusively breastfeeding her baby. Or something like that. While this is almost certainly not true, it will still do wonders to promote a realistic picture of a first-time-mom.
Something I can't stand
... is "Religious PR". What I mean is the kind of verbal bumper sticker people will think is convenient to bring about a change of heart in someone. Not only does it not work, but it is highly insulting. I understand that one would try to convey the motives for one's lifestyle - share something that you deeply value and that shapes how you see yourself and the world. If you make it into policy though, if you switch your thinking from a natural outpouring of your soul to a business-like approach of packaging your convictions in neat one-liners that can be used in a variety of situations independently of your listener, if you do that, not only are you being dishonest, but it will also cause the opposite effect.
I don't understand how as christians we think sometimes it's ok to use a phrase as a general "comeback" to something that questions our belief in hopes of making the other person embrace our faith, while at the same time we get furious when we feel any sort of proselytizing attempt from someone else. "Because THEY are wrong!" - is not an argument. Feeling like someone is trying to convert you sucks, no matter what that person is actually saying. There is no excuse for "spreading the word" if there is no genuine personal relationship. And no, you cannot be pursuing a "genuine" personal relationship in order to later be able to spread the word, because then it is not really genuine, is it.
Being Catholic myself I have encountered that so many times, where other Catholics tried to be "my friend" so they could "keep me on the better path" or "help me" or whatever it was they were trying to do. Oh and if I did not prove to be docile enough they'd drop me like a hot potato (not that I cried myself to sleep after that). No matter how well-meaning they were, I didn't care, I just wanted them off my back and developed a strong dislike for them and their spiritual goods or whatever they were trying to get me hooked on.
Anyway, count me out of the handy comeback, the quantative approach to testimony, the paternalizing and demeaning "I-know-what-would-be-good-for-you"-friendship. All it does is make you look dishonest and manipulative (which you are at that moment) and make everyone run as fast as they can from you and your apostolic flag. And no, that is not a sign that they obviously must have acknowledged it as truth and just can't handle it. It's a sign that you don't know what you're talking about.
Posted at 10:05 AM on June 09, 2004So, how did you do it?
Just like when you're pregnant and your belly seems to attract comments from strangers on a regular basis, when you have a baby, you are a moving target. Everyone feels called to the noble task of instructing you on proper child-raising techniques and critique your current performance. It's as if just like a semi you have a sign taped on your back saying: "How is my parenting? Please come and do tell!" Is your child wearing shoes? It is not? Why not? It IS wearing shoes? Why? Don't you know that's bad? Does your baby sleep through the night? No? BAD! So, you STILL breastfeed?! What, you do NOT breastfeed? When are you going to have another one? You don't know? When will you know? Do you stay home with her? Great. You do? Hm. Let me tell you how I did it!
One of the things I get to hear a lot about is whether my baby needs to be more attached or more separated. Her completely natural behavior, called "separation anxiety" is met with disapproving comments on how she needs to learn to be "more independent". Apparently dependency at 10 months of age is likely to make my child never ever want to move out of her parental home (she will also probably still be nursing). There are also plenty of those knowing looks when I admit to being a stay-at-home-mom. "Oh, I see. She's very attached to you." What they meant to say was: YOU are very attached to your baby and you shouldn't be. See, the "advice" is supposedly about the baby but actually it's advice about me, the mother. The real issue is never what's best for the baby (although officially that's all it is) but whether I'm a good mom or not. Even though I am extremely mature and know to act friendly because I understand that the well-meaning advisers are just talking about their own issues and their own regrets, I am increasingly tempted to just tell them: Your comment is testing the boundaries of normal social conduct! (Ok, that is a quote, but a good one!)
I am sick and tired of listening to veteran moms (!) tell me how separation is good for my infant when what they're really saying is: "I feel guilty about leaving my baby when she was really small and because I don't know how to handle that I need to justify my own decision by making you do just like me. See, if you do that it will make ME feel better. So there! Put your baby in daycare already!"
Before you gauge my eyes out, I am NOT (read: NOT) saying that they indeed made a bad decision putting their child in daycare. I don't know about their circumstances and their needs and priorities as a family. I don't want to know. Nevertheless, they will tell me. They will make sure I hear it at every possible opportunity. With feverish energy they try to convince me that they were totally fine with whatever they did while I, with feverish energy, try to convince them that I DON'T REMEMBER EVERY IMPLYING THE OPPOSITE. You can just say that you are sad you had to work while you wished you could've spent that time with your baby. That's ok. It's ok to miss you baby when you are at work. You are not a bad mother. Please back off now. And for the record, I am staying home with my child because I want to and believe it or not, it is not meant to be a provocative political statement addressed to every employed mom out there.
The funny thing is, every mother whose child is even just a few months older than yours feels "experienced" compared to you. You provide a funny anecdote about your baby doing this or that and you will get the knowing looks, the "Oh, I've SOOO been there! That is history to me, so ancient I barely remember, but look, how lucky you are, I DO remember and I will tell you all about it!" It's probably been only 3 months, but in parenting progress that is huge. Because, let's be honest, as parents, we never really know what we're doing. We are like teachers who are in the same grade as our kids only we have to lead the way. Sometimes we might be wiser with a subsequent child, but then again that child might be so different from the previous ones that actually we are learning to parent all over again. I suppose it's that permanent feeling of never being done with the on-the-job-training that creates the compulsive need to at least appear competent and experienced at all times. They say: "Just you wait... until your 11-month-old is 12 months old! THEN it's a whoooole different story!" while I'm standing there wide-eyed and in awe trying to imagine what it's like to parent a baby one month older than mine! Right.
Another good way of making the advice sound really important is to appear slightly annoyed and bored. That means you are so totally beyond getting worked up over your child's antics that it gives you an air of superiority and, of course, immense experience. Wow, SHE must be a great mother, she is so completely untouched by the screaming toddler she is hauling on her leg! Surprisingly those moms are not above taking extensive time to really let you know that THEY ARE SO OVER that kid's behavior! They are so over it that they have time to tell you exactly what you are doing wrong with yours!
Just like outings with my belly, outings with my child are an open invitation for everyone to come and "help me" only I am too full of myself to graciously accept the advice. It must be because my mom made me wear socks...