Random notes on TheGirl

Her nostrils are shaped like hearts.

She looks just like me.

She seems happiest and most awake at 4 a.m.

She has long, delicate fingers, which she did not inherit from me.

She has a little patch of fur just above her tushie and a racing-stripe bald spot stretching across the back of her head. She did get at least one of those from my side of the gene pool.

Her body resembles an offensive lineman's, plump yet solid with plenty of folds.

When she's eating, she likes to wave one arm back and forth. When she's done, she likes to pop off and find something interesting to stare at in the distance.

Turn ons: Nipples, real and fake.

Turn offs: Not being held. Naps.

Favorite pasttimes: Sucking. Peeing. Being held. Staring at lights, her mommies, her big brother.

New tricks: Sticking fingers in mouth. Cooing.

Best feature: Most people would say her big blue eyes, although I'm partial to the tushie fur.

I head back to work next week, and I'm so glad and so guilty. I want to be one of those women who can find fulfillment staying at home with their children. But after three and a half months at home, I'm pretty close to bored out of my mind and clinically depressed. It's not that I don't love TheGirl -- I adore her little furry tushed self. Yet I don't really enjoy spending my days staring at her, much as it shames me to admit that. I do feel some guilt -- OK, let's be honest, a LOT of guilt -- about depositing her in day care, especially so young. At the same time, a happy mommy is a better mommy. Right. Right???

The nature of fortune

I got a flat tire this morning as I was biking The Boy to school. We were halfway there, and I was foolishly traveling without tools or a spare, so there was nothing to do but walk the remaining two miles. On the way, I found a shiny penny heads up. Maybe that's a fair trade, I thought - flat tire for lucky penny. And who was it, I thought some more, that got me started thinking only heads-up pennies are lucky - a notion that irked me for a while, (I wouldn't want to pick up an unlucky penny, but I certainly don't want to spit in the face of good fortune by leaving a penny on the ground,) until I came up with the perfect solution: whenever I see a penny face down, I flip it over so Lincoln can see the sky, thereby passinng the good luck to the next passer-by - a good karmic kick either way, I think.

Then I started mulling over the fact that while I dismiss belief in god as quaint, I cling to silly superstitions that allow me to believe serendipity belies a certain order in the universe.

These mental meanderings brought me about half as far again to our final destination, but the rest of the way was uphill, and the suspicion that I would not be able to buy a replacement tube to get home because I had left my wallet back at the house began creeping into my consciousness. (I would mention here that on top of everything it was raining, but this is Portland, so you know that already.)

It was at this point, as I waited at a corner for the light to change, that a man traveling by bike on the street I was about to cross stopped and asked if I would like him to fix my flat.

!

I demurred, of course, because someone dumb enough to be biking without a spare is also too stupid to accept such a gracious offer. I started to babble something about the bike shop at the top of the hill when he said, "So, do you want me to fix your flat or not?"

That would be great!" I said, coming to my senses. He got off his bike and handed me a tire iron, which I fumbled with (apparently I had not come to my senses completely) until he took them back and used them himself to replace in no time at all my flaccid tube with a brand new one he had in his pack.

You can call it luck, but I prefer to call it Portland.

We're regressing here

Our children are falling back into old, unpleasant habits. Up until a few weeks ago, TheGirl was sleeping seven, eight, even nine hours a night. Now she's back to five or six. TheBoy, meanwhile, seemed to be adjusting well to his role as big brother. But we've recently seen a spate of whining for attention, crying anytime he doesn't get what he wants and refusing to play by himself, a skill he'd seemed to have mastered. All in all, it's not the most pleasant time. (Actually, right at this moment, both children are napping -- TB at the top of his bunk bed, TG in her car seat at my feet. This is pretty much as good as it gets.) Add to all that the fact that I'm going back to work in two weeks, and Judybat and I are both on edge. Not that I'm not happy to be going back. I wish I could be one of those women who gets her fulfillment out of staying home. Instead, I'm bored, and feeling guilty about it.

We've also got some details to work out between now and March. Who is going to get which kid to school? How can we get them both downtown -- to separate places -- without robbing Judybat of the right to ride her bike at least some of the time? (This is not a selfless search on my part; we're all a lot happier when JB burns off some of her energy and angst.) How do we arrange TheGirl's schedule to maximize her sleep? She's sleeping five or six hours, eating, then going back to sleep for a fitful few hours more. Does that mean we should try putting her to bed at 9 every night? But will she let me arrange her feeding schedule to do that?

If I had a remote control that would let me flash forward, oh, six months, I swear I would do it in an instant. The good news: Today I had both children by myself between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m., and I managed not to a) Lose my mind, b) Bribe TheBoy into submission with TV, c) Yell more than I usually do. I also managed to supress the abject terror I usually feel when I have them both solo for, oh, at least a good 15 minute stretch.

Er, um, the classics

I had this great plan for this period in which all Judybat and I want to do each evening is crawl into bed and watch a movie on our tiny little portable DVD player: We'd rent all those movies we should have seen but didn't, thereby becoming better, more worldly people as we entertain ourselves.

The problem: We haven't been all that entertained. Yes, a couple of the movies on the "Films I Should Have Seen But Haven't," list proved worth viewing -- "Reds" made me think, even though it took us two weeks to finish; "All About Eve" instantly made my list of all-time favorites, and not just because Bette Davis rocks the world. But for the most part, we've subjected ourselves to movies from the '60s and '70s that make me wonder how those decades ever became retro cool again. For example, what the heck is the point of the "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head," montage in "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid?" What was with the weird pacing in "Bonnie and Clyde?" How can anyone stay awake for all three and half hours of "Seven Samurai?" Does "McCabe and Mrs. Miller" even have a plot? Was Warren Beatty actually in every movie made between 1968 and 1976, or does it just feel that way?

I'm sure part of the problem here is that me and the Mrs. are both too tired for anything that doesn't work overtime keeping us awake. Watching movies in 30-minute blocks -- until TheGirl wakes up or we crash -- isn't really a fair way to critique. But still ... I feel like I would have been better off substituting reruns of "Star Wars," and "Gone With the Wind," on a few of these cold winter nights.

I ATE NY

It's funny how a social bond - a product of the mind, you would think - can turn into a physical ache when it's broken. That's what I thought when I drove away from my parent's house in our rental car this morning. I don't usually cry when I leave my folks, but I must admit to a fair amount of weepiness as we made our way to the airport. Maybe it was because The Boy had such a great time with his Bapa (a.k.a. The Pig, a.k.a. my father,) and they won't get to play together again for at least a year, since my dad refuses to get on a plane. Maybe it's because it's harder and harder for me to imagine returning to New York for good, as we always assumed we would. (The cold didn't bother me, and I think I could live with driving more and biking less if it meant more time with my extended family, but the stories my NY friends told me of the interview process their 2-year-olds have to go through to get into preschool makes me think living a continent away from the Big City is not the worst thing in the world.) Or maybe it's the sugar.

I learned an interesting thing about humpback whales this weekend at the Norwalk Aquarium; they make their babies in Hawaii, then leave the breeding grounds and travel all the way to Alaska for a snack. Apparently, that's the closest place with enough plankton to satisfy their hunger, and that's kind of how I feel about New York. Except instead of plankton, I stuff my gullet with cookies that my mother never had around the house when I was a kid but now seems to stock in abundance, fancy chocolates I think she receives as gifts from her students, and souffles at the phenominal restaurants my dad likes to frequent.

I don't really have a point here, except to say that as painful as it was for me to leave this morning, it's probably a good thing that I'm back here in hippie-town, where my carb intake is limited to whole grains and fruit sugars.

Random observations

We're on the East Coast for a quick visit with the in-laws, and it's prompted some random thoughts.

- Before we got settled in Portland, I used to pine for New York whenever I visited. Now, I spend a lot of our trips out here wondering how we will ever leave the West Coast. It's too cold here. It's noisy. It's crowded. It smells ... odd. Our life is so easy in the Little Green House. How could we give that up for a place that's so difficult? How can we stay so far away from the bulk of the people we care most about?

- Why is it fun to be scared? We took TheBoy to the Museum of Natural History this week. The trip was mostly successful, until he came to the diarama depicting a sperm whale grappling with a giant squid. He hid behind Judybat's legs. He whimpered. He refused to go any closer than a safe 10 feet. Then, during our lunchtime discussion of what else we should see before departing, he demanded we go back to check out the whale-squid action again. Because abject terror is a new sensation.

- I am a strong, strong woman. I made it through our first night with a babysitter for TheGirl without going insane. Or more insane than I am now.

- I am a weak, weak woman. We return to our part of the world Sunday night. Bright and early Monday morning, I'm expecting a visitor: The cable guy. Yes, I broke down and did it. Judybat, of course, is still rolling her eyes at me.