Hello everyone! Happy New Year!!

I was stopped so many times in the past few weeks and asked about this blog! I didn’t realize that there were so many people following our story and want to thank you all so very much for your support!

We haven’t been updating over here for a few reasons. First of all, Milton has started a new company and is really dedicating every second of his time to making that company work. If you’re interested in checking out those digs, I would really recommend it, especially if you are resolved to improve your health during 2011.

Second, I have been in sleep deprived mommy swirl. I barely remember these past few months. I have skimmed every book that anyone ever suggested to try and get our Crane to sleep more than an hour at a time, with little success. He’s just not a good sleeper. Yet!

Here is a comment I shared in an entry below that I thought should be shared on this blog, in general:

The whole sleep regression never really ended for us. We’re just maybe, sort of rounding the bend now, when our guy is almost 8 months of age.

I have had a lot of thoughts about sleep and parenting in the past few months. I’ve felt mentally ill. At my worst, I’ve felt that mothering was an exercise in misogyny. I’ve had 3am mommy meltdowns that have SHAMED me when 9 am rolled around again and I made myself a cup of coffee.

I’ve rallied, again and again, telling myself that I CAN handle it! If he only wakes every other hour, I CAN handle it. And it’s true, if he only wakes every OTHER hour, I can do it and still go to work and smile and cook and go for walks. But where does that leave me when he wakes every hour? Every 30 minutes? Because, believe me, that has been more the norm than him waking every other hour.

Two things that have recently helped me:

1) Calms Forte. This is a homeopathic sleep-aid that my naturopath suggested I try. I take three every night before bed. They have helped me avoid MOST mommy meltdowns and have kept me groggy through all the feedings, whereas before, my sleep deprived brain would get mighty anxious and keep me awake with all its incessant and bitchy blather.

2) This is a new development, but now Milton is taking a long middle of the night parenting shift. We are going to gradually start night weaning so that Mr. Crane ultimately doesn’t ask for it between 12 and 7am. Last night I fed him at 11, and then again at 2. Then, Milton came up from his couch and I went downstairs. Between 2-7, Mr. Crane punched his pop when he woke, but knew he couldn’t get any, so ultimately went back to sleep. I fed him again at 7 and we had family bed time until 8.

I feel GREAT today. This might just work for us. I am closing my ears to anyone who tells me that I shouldn’t night wean until he is a year old because I really don’t think that my crazymaking stress hormones are good for any of us. Mr. Crane is a 25lb 7.5 month old, and he will get through this alive and sweet, I am SURE.

I hope to be blogging a little bit more over here once my brain is kept clear for a bit longer. Until then, here is a holiday photo of our lovable dude:

Mr. Crane meets Santa for the first time!

Oh internet, where does the time go? Oh! Wait! I know where it went…

I lost it to the so called 4 month sleep regression. This, of course, came in tandem with my triumphant return to the VAIN beauty world and our baby’s first cold.  Seriously, the world of baby parenting decided to throw me three difficult things at once and see if we would sink or swim.

We swam.  We swam our hearts out!  We swam even when we felt we were sinking.  We adults navigated through exhausted rows with each other, necessary naps that were foiled by the ever-present boogers, and nights peppered with our sweet baby waking every 45 minutes to nurse.  We swam because we had to.

There were days when I wondered how I was even standing by the end of my shift at work.  There were even days when I dove right into a glass of wine as soon as the baby went down.  But one thing that came out of it was this:

The further we went down the path of no sleep, the further we went down the path of shifting the baby from one partner to another to facilitate sleep before a productive day at work…  the further we moved from fighting with each other to actually working with each other.

I meditated soundly on keeping my mind quiet.  Every time my exhausted brain tried to tell me some story about why things weren’t working for ME, I went for a walk, took a bath, or just left the stupid laundry and dishes to fester.  In the meantime, my husband, who is really so amazing, did his absolute most to give me a break when ever I looked like I was going to break.  We worked better on the mechanics of parenting together, and I would say that ultimately this month of sleep regression/boogers/work has come out making us much stronger.

Of course, it helps that our child looks like this:

I mean. Seriously.

Baby Pile!

Yesterday we went to our birth class reunion!  It was such a blast seeing so many healthy and happy babies all up in a pile, and wonderful to reconnect with our doula master, Penny Simkin.

Just a few short months ago, when our class last met, we were a bunch of nervous and very very pregnant almost-parents.  We wouldn’t have known what to do with a baby if you had chucked one to us!  Milton and I hadn’t even changed a diaper in decades, since our long past junior high school baby sitting gigs.  We sat in class to practice breathing, voice our concerns, and watch videos in which women made harrowing sounds to bring their babies into the world.  We were totally labor focused, of course, because it was a home BIRTHING class.  I for one could hardly imagine what it would be like to hold a silky three month old in my arms, much more imagine how I could possibly become a breast feeding champ and screaming baby wrangler (luckily the screaming part doesn’t happen often).

Yet, yesterday, there we were!  A parcel of relaxed and experienced baby parents who could carry on conversations with one another while flipping a baby from one side to another to keep them entertained and quiet!  Amazing!!!

It was so great to see everyone and get a look into the essential selves that all of those babies had on display.

Here are a bunch in a pile, with my sack of potatoes son rising a whole head and shoulders above the rest.  Aren’t they sweet?!  Look at those little faces!!

Had someone told me during all of those years that I spent being my own selfish self that I would love a baby as much as I love you, I probably would have laughed them off.  If I could have felt even a tenth of that love, like watching a preview for a fantastic movie, I might have called all my own selfishness off and gone ahead with The Parent Agenda a bit too soon.

I don’t regret having gotten around to my parent agenda a bit late in the game.  I got to spend many years becoming my own person, operating by my own whim, and cultivating my own character.  That’s a pretty awesome thing and I consider myself very fortunate to live in a modern age where women even have the option of becoming 100% of their possibility before offering some of that possibility up to the whim of a little baby.

Now that you are here, while I look back on the years before you with some nostalgia, I would never go back to a time when you weren’t a part of my life.  Rather, I want to take every magical thing that I learned during my time before you and show you just how wonderful life can be.

I hope that you have all the opportunities that I did, and more.  I want to help you feel free enough to experience every emotion, free to trod down any path, and free enough to try your hand at any craft that will help you develop your own special brand of person.

I spent a lot of time getting to know myself, but it wasn’t until I started getting to know you that I felt all of my experiences close in full circle.  The best way I know how to thank you for that is to be the best parent I can possibly be for you.  I probably wouldn’t have been able to be that parent if you had come into my life a decade sooner.

I’m glad we both waited.  I’m glad you’re here now.  I know that I’m happy.  So far, you seem pretty happy, too.

Love,

Your Mom

So satisfied with himself for sort of holding up his own head while sitting in his Bumbo seat.  So ridiculous I crack up every time I see this photo!!  I mean, really!  It’s verging on too much hilariousness.  Babies are surely the greatest invention of the whole round human race.  So delicious that it’s amazing we don’t eat them up for real.

Chuffed Chubs

So.  I want to lose 10 pounds of baby weight by the end of the summer.

I kept in pretty good shape through my pregnancy!  I did yoga very regularly and walked everywhere.  My eating habits are pretty darn good, too.   But, still, I gained 35 pounds.  2o of that came off right away, and then 5 more were sweat into the bed in the first week or two after his birth.  That was great!  I had never undergone such a physical change so quickly.  There were days when I looked into the mirror and said things like, “I can’t believe I EVER thought I needed to lose a single pound before pregnancy!”  After all those weeks of growing bigger and BIGGER, I felt so tiny in those first weeks after labor and delivery.

That said, my skinny feelings are over.  Like, really over.  Nothing fits.  I have a closet full of pretty dresses that won’t zip over my anything.  I have a shelf full of size 28 jeans that can barely fit around my ample thighs.  It’s not horrible.  It’s not earth-shattering.  It’s certainly not a deep and meaty thing to talk about… but it I do feel a little disheartened.

I am stoked to be a mom, but I want to be a hot mom!  I want to be a mom with something that resembles my old body.  I realize that I’ll have a little bit of extra that requires me to wear my Spanks a little more often, but I at least want my dresses to zip.

SO!  With all of this in mind, I have eaten my last almond croissant for a while and I am getting down to business with proper eating.  I’m sure that I’ll feel like eating the floor often enough, and I’m also sure that I’ll let myself eat the floor since I am breast-feeding a boy who is above the 95th percentile for size… but the floor had better be made of whole grains, veggies, and lean proteins.  No more fish and chips from Ivar’s, no more sneaking cookies, and no more rationalizing french toast for breakfast.

I am also glad to have the green light to work out to my heart’s content again.  Mind you, my heart’s content isn’t all that much… it’s usually just enough.

To help my workouts, I have made a promise to myself to be more outdoorsy. We live in the Pacific Northwest, and this is absolutely stunning country.  When I moved here, it was my intention to get more in touch with my love of nature.  I had lost touch with the land after all of those years living in New York City!  It can’t be helped!  So I figured I’d get back in touch with mother nature in the Olympics and the Cascades, no problem.  Yet, I’ve been here for two and a half years now and have only been on ONE single hike.  It’s just hard to get moving in the great outdoors when you’re a total downtown dweller with no car.

I vocalized all of this to a friend recently, and she let me know that she too needs to be more outdoorsy!  AND!  She actually has a car.

We made a date to head out to our first hike today with another girlfriend in tow!  It wasn’t a huge hike, but it was still a pretty impressive feat for our first time out.  We hiked the trail to Rattlesnake Ledge, which is 4 miles, roundtrip, and about a 1200 foot elevation gain.

Axelrod rode in his Ergo carrier, which is so perfect for longer walks.  He fared pretty well!  I had to stop in the middle of the climb to nurse him.  Once we got to the summit point, I changed him like a big brave hippie with all of these totally stunning views around us.  Then, he lay there on the rock with us, wide eyed.  He really loves being outside in the sunshine!  He gets so alert and I wonder just what he can see out there.  He always cries when I pick him up to move to our next destination.  I love that he can sit still and enjoy himself so much, and don’t take a moment of that peace for granted.

On the way down the mountain, he got a little difficult and I figured out how to nurse him in his Ergo while hiking down the mountain.  I felt very proud of myself, like the La Leche League should give me a special advanced nursing badge or something.  And now?  I guess I’m fully a PNW mom.

I did learn a few things for our next hike.  Like!?  Maybe I should have had pants and booties on the baby to keep his little legs and feet away from all of those mosquitos.  And maybe I should have brought a banana with me, because I sure wanted one.  Maybe I should have brought a little pad for him to lay on (though laying on the Ergo seemed to make him happy enough).  But we did a pretty good job, and boy am I ever tired tonight.

And, all that diet talk aside… and I totally ordered a beer when we went out for lunch after our hike.  Gosh, was it ever deeeelicious.

Burping on the trail

We three got all gussied up last weekend for a lovely wedding! It was my first real night to play dress-up since our boy was born, and I really tried to represent for all new and exhausted moms out there.

I bought a new dress, dictated outfits for Milton and Axelrod (they only rolled their eyes at me a little), and hopped up the street to the salon I work in to (finally) get my legs waxed earlier in the week. The day of the wedding, I even had my makeup done at VAIN! Thank goodness it’s only a few blocks away and my girl Belinda can work fast on under eye circles.

The bride walked down the asile to Spiritualized’s Ladies and Gentlemen We are Floating in Space and I about crumpled in a thousand romantic tears.  I even missed the perfect shot of her walking down the aisle because I was just so overwhelmed taking in the beauty of it all.  Admittedly, it doesn’t take much to set me off these days.  All anybody ever needs to make me cry is a mix of love, family, and gorgeous music … add some pretty dresses on a sublime Pacific North-West day and a couple making a life-long commitment to each other and I am done for!

We took some photos of each other holding the baby in all our sunny day finery!

My Handsome Gentlemen

Getting used to his monkey suit

Sadly, the little vintage romper that our little boy is sporting barely fit his baby flub!  I had to leave his zipper partly undone.  I’m so glad he got to wear it out once!  He’s growing out of his adorable duds way too quickly.  Between the both of us being so chubby, I don’t know how I’ll ever keep up with finding outfits that work.

I have to admit!  I made one big fat mothering mistake with our outfit planning.  I couldn’t find a dress that I liked that was good for nursing.  Milton and I figured that we could just bring a few bottles to the wedding with us.  I don’t mean to sound cold when telling you that I choose fashion over nursing, but the boy doesn’t really have a problem taking bottles from his dad in the middle of the day or in the evening when I go to the gym!  But, apparently! nothing but a boob will do for his 6-8pm bedtime witching hours.  Now we know!  I spent a good portion of the wedding reception in the bathroom with my pretty dress around my waist and my baby at my breast.

That lesson learned, I think that I’ll be going out in our neighborhood once a week this summer so that Milton can show him just how great it is to be dadded down with a bottle!

Once I momed him down, we put him straight into the Ergo on Milton and had ourselves some cake and dancing times.  We were home by 10 for a final bedtime, enjoyed by all, high on love and romance.

This Guy

Please don’t crucify me for admitting this to the public at large, but I was a little worried all through my pregnancy that I wouldn’t bond with our baby.  It’s not that I didn’t want to be a mother… getting pregnant and extending our family was something I worked pretty hard at doing for a while.  From making sure I was healthy in every possible way to making sure I was somewhat financially sound before walking down the road to parenthood- I planned everything.

The thing is, I planned everything on a suspicion.  I suspected that becoming a mother might be a good step for me as a woman.  I suspected that having a child would be a great experience for Milton and me.  But like so many other times in my life, my faith was constantly questioning.  Would I be good enough for this guy?  Would I love him enough?  Clean our house enough?  Engage with him enough?  I even wrote to Milton in the middle of my pregnancy with worries that I would leave him with the baby, trotting back east to resume my selfish city girl high life because I just couldn’t take the parental heat.

I was worried that I would be one of those women who just didn’t connect with their babies.  Maybe I worried because having a baby was never a really concrete part of my life plan.  Maybe I worried because I have a hard time keeping up with my own business, much less the business of someone else.  Maybe I worried because I was so free and easy with abusing my body and burning the party candles at both ends for so many years that I wondered if I could really, REALLY be a responsible parent.  For whatever reason, I really worried about taking the heat and giving this guy the responsibility he deserved.

Being a responsible parent, to me, means being a loving parent.  Babies beg for love.  The children, teenagers, and adults they grow into beg for love.  Parental love is the first love any of us can beg to get.  If you care for a child, you are responsible for fulfilling all of that child’s needs, especially the need for love.  I wondered if I could possibly have enough love in me to put up with the spit, the diapers, the plastic baby gear, the aching back, the sleepless nights, or the belly that would lay beside me like a sad puppy after pregnancy.  I figured, if I can adapt to these MAJOR life changes, maybe I could hack my way through the other many years of parenthood.

Today, I am happy to report that I woke up on the second morning of our child’s life, after going through the shock of childbirth and the barely remembered haze of his first 24 hours, and saw my baby’s face in the first morning’s light.  He looked like such a sweet little buddha laying there, stirring in his swaddle and newborn cap!  I felt a surge of LOVE that I couldn’t believe, referred to him as Mr. Snugglepants, and kissed him all over his beautiful face.

Since then, I’ve only gotten worse with the doting.  This guy and I are bonded, for sure.

Baby on one knee... iPad on the other.

With the exception of our nursing and napping enabler, the marvelous iPad, we’re both super sensitive to baby gear.  Most of it is junk.  I see it in the store and immediately visualize it in a landfill.  It’s pretty much all badly made molded plastic crap, and much of it requires a batteries.  Gross.  I cringe at the use of even a disposable water bottle or plastic shopping, so you can imagine how all of this other stuff makes me feel.

I tried to get around the baby gear issue by only registering for very few things and buying vintage.  The furniture I bought to house Axelrod’s little onesies and pajamas is midcentury stuff that matches all the blonde wood we have in our space, refinished a little with some fabric that will eventually translate well into his own room (someday, someday!).  Our pram is a fantastic mid-70s vintage.  We co-sleep when he’s not in the pram, and hope to totally avoid ever owning a crib.  The little books and toys we’ve gotten for him are stashed in bins on the blonde wood shelves.

The big, amazing, SUV style BOB stroller is the big item in one of our only big closets.  The ugly Graco infant seat was my one plastic concession in our living room, along with a vibrating chair that is on loan from another family.  We found that we could strap him into the car seat and rock the seat with our foot, creating a swing effect, OR put him in the vibrating chair.  They both work, depending on his mood.  I thought it’d hold out through the infant swing phase nicely.

And then he started to get fussy in ways that only a good rock would suffice.

He’s generally not a fussy guy.  He doesn’t cry unless he has a really good reason.  He cries when he’s hungry.  He fusses when his diaper needs changing.  He cries when he has gas.  The thing is, that whole gas issue?  Yeah.  That happens a LOT.  He’s always working something out, be it a man sized burp or a series of charming farts.  He grunts and pushes and cries.  I can’t blame him.  Digestion issues are the devil.  We use a little Gripe water from time to time, but this stuff certainly doesn’t put him down for a nap, hands free.

The thing about infants is that they get all worked up.  They’re happy and gorgeous and smiling, and then something will happen to tip the scales and you could be looking down a rocky road for the next few hours of family peace.  It’s not that he screams, really.  We are very fortunate to not have a baby with colic.  He just fusses.  He grunts.  He squeaks.  He squirms.  If it goes on for two long, the scales get tipped and his head gets all messy and refuses to sleep.  You’ve got to reset that baby brain with some white noise and swinging to lull him off to sleepy time, thereby lulling yourself off to some precious sleepy time.

For us, the worse time is in the morning.  It starts to happen any time from 4am to 6am and can sometimes (luckily not often) last until 2pm.  He starts to get gassy and he starts with the grunting and the squeaking.  Sometimes, this makes for parental shambles for the whole rest of the day.  A baby who nurses at midnight, 2, and 4 and then decides to be mostly awake until late morning or early afternoon makes for a parent who is trying to survive the day on only 2 hours of sleep.  Exhaustion makes everything worse.  We will start to snip at each other and argue about areas where we generally feel peaceful.  That’s not a pretty way for new parents to go!

Enter… my bratty foot stomping insistence on buying a baby swing.  I was lucky to have the backup of my mother and sister-in-law on the swing front.  They were all visiting- Milton was uncertain of this ugly plastic monstrosity, but it’s rather hard to argue in the face of so many mothers.  Our family needed a swing- it was decided.  We headed to a local baby gear consignment shop and put our fussy baby into some of the ugliest swings I’ve ever seen to test them out.  In the end, Milton and I decided to come away with the cheapest one.  His sister used the same model for her little girl, and it worked for her, that was good enough reason for us!  We bought it and brought it home.  My mother sent me to bed for a much needed nap and commanded absolute silence from my very young sisters and step-father.  She scrubbed the swing while I slept.  It now looks practically new and now doesn’t have that sweetly rancid other-people’s-baby smell that I associate with day care centers and baby consignment shops.  Phew.

Today is the first day we’re getting to test the swing.  His little head flops around a little in it, so I’ve got him supported with an adorable purple elephant that a good friend of ours knit.  I put him in that swing when he was grunting, squeaking, and badly in need of a nap… and he went down for the count.  After 10 minutes, I moved him to his pram for a proper sleep and breathed a sigh of relief.

The swing will go right back to that consignment shop in a few months.  Our living room will look worse for the wear in the meantime, but we three will get some sleep in the meantime.  We’ve learned that a sleepy baby by day means a sleepy baby by night… so I don’t doubt he’ll be lulled to many naps in this thing.

Once he grows a little more and can focus on some different things, I’ll tell you all about the ugly playcenter hand-me-down that was dubbed by it’s previous owner as the “Neglector 1000.”  We’ll use that thing (currently stashed under the couch) and pass that right along to the next baby, too.

In baby world, the fussbucket motto must be, “By Any Means”. Even if those means are plastic.

I’m afraid I haven’t been keeping up with my baby blogging since our guy was born!  I admit to having been busy.  It seems that the usual time it takes to get anything done must be multiplied by 10 when you are caring for an infant.  Whereas my afternoons at home prior to baby-time would see me cleaning the house, playing dress up, going to a yoga class, blogging, drinking wine, etc… my afternoons now are a great success if I can see the house clean, get the dishes done, do the laundry, bathe, bathe our son, find clothes that fit me (impossible), find clothes that fit our son, and go for a walk.  All this happens only with 50% of the effort coming from my husband, who is a champion.  Honestly, I don’t understand how single moms do this job!

I have a lot of posts in my head about lots of baby related things.  Maybe, at some point, I’ll get some of the posts out.  For now, I’m leaving the bulk of family blogging up to my husband.  He is keeping a blog under our son’s domain, where he writes a little bit about our baby’s firsts, every day.  We decided to keep this blog password protected because there’s no telling what our small fry is going to think about internet privacy issues in the future.  Milton and I are obviously pretty open people…. you wouldn’t have to look very hard to uncover our real names- and once you had those you would find a couple of professional blogs, hobby blogs, even private journal blogs that were started long, long ago.  You would find open Facebook profiles and profiles to every other social networking site that ever got popular.  But, there comes a time when you have to ask yourself how your son will feel when his first girlfriend googles his name and finds old entries about his baby acne online.  As we don’t know just how self-conscious he’ll feel, we’ve decided to keep his personal logistics a little bit separate.

Of course, I can talk about baby generals right here!  And I will, between nursing, sleeping, and trying to hold our stuff together.

Currently, our little man is wrapped snug in his Moby Wrap across my tummy.  He seems happiest when he’s being worn.  He’ll sleep for a good long strapped to our chests and bellies while while we take him for walks or eat out at a restaurant.  Today is the first day I figured out the Moby well enough to sit in front of the computer with it.  Baby wearing is a plus for both of us.  Milton loves dading him down; I love moming him down.  Sometimes we argue a little about who gets to have the baby wearing fun.  It’s a beautiful thing to have a warm little snugglepants snuzzler so close to your heart.

Axelrod also loves the following, in no particular order:

• Bouncing on the ball (best reserved for the witching hour and other intense times)
• Bathing with his father (this wins my award for cutest)
• Smelling the basil (this startles his senses to silence when he’s in the middle of a cry)
• Playing peek-a-boo (makes him smile, BIGTIME!)
• Having his cheeks stroked (more safe baby smiles)
• Having his neck kissed (ahh, sugar!)
• Hanging upside down (see below photo)

Of course his #1 favorite thing, ever, is breast feeding.  I must say, it’s also my #1 favorite thing.  No matter how much it exhausts me (especially when he hit his 3 week growth spurt, geez!), I am thankful for all that special face time with my boy.  It’s a pretty wonderful thing to be such a provider for someone you love in such an epic way.

I’ll report more very soon!  Axelrod is 11lbs, 9ozs (!!!!!!), and has been social smiling since week two (GENIUS).  I am honestly trying not to miss any of this miraculous process.  I don’t want to forget a thing, which means that I might remember a good 50% if I try real hard.

This guy's perspective.

As we’ve already reported, our son Axelrod was born on May 15th, 2010, at 7:43 in the evening.

He was born in our bedroom, where we first unknowingly conceived him, knowingly dreamed of him, and with hope laid a great many plans for him.  He was born into the hands of our very capable and trusted midwife, Lynn, and from there went straight to his mother’s arms.

From start to finish, the hours that followed my water breaking are both foggy and precious.  There are moments that are burned into my memory forever, and moments that my husband reminds me of when we retell the story to each other while trying to get a grasp on just how our universe changed that day.  There are moments when I’m sure that the both of us seemed incredibly lucid… that we already have forgotten.  Memory, when it comes to an event that is the most painful, most endearing, most pivotal event of your entire life, is funny, stretchy and malleable times all the stars in the sky, added to the value of each fish in the sea, to the exponential frequency of infinity.

That in mind, I doubt I’ll do our birth story justice.  I’ll never be able to quite capture something that becomes more fully realized to me with every second of our son’s life.  I could write this story in 10 or 20 years and it would have a different, equally precious, description of every moment I recall.  I could write for hours today and feel the story is still incomplete.  Life that brings babies is like that, I guess.

When I last reported to our pregnancy blog, my water had broken in a gush of glory at the local cabaret club.  I had slept soundly for the night after a shower.  I woke up that morning with no symptoms of labor and spoke with our midwife, who encouraged me to start drinking delicious castor oil cocktails at noon.

I had really hoped that my son’s birth story wouldn’t be kicked off with castor oil.  I decided that we should walk to one of our favorite breakfast spots, about a mile away, to try and encourage my inevitable labor.  I put on the dress that my best friend Myrtle had bought me to labor in the day before: a kelly-green jersey sun dress that was stretchy, cheap, and comfortable.  I layered on a hat and a sweater and headed out with my husband and my best friend at about 9:30 in the morning, which is an hour I’ve hardly seen the outdoors of during these last few years of working a noon to nine schedule.  The morning air felt pretty ripe with expectation; it was a beautiful day.

While carb loading on buckwheat pancakes with delicious fruit toppings at the cafe, we played it normal.  Honestly, I can’t remember in the least what we talked about.  Every part of the conversation was overshadowed by the knowledge that I was going into labor that very day.  I started to really zone out into my own birthing bubble.  I felt completely connected to my husband.  My best friend was with us, and she’s our partner in all things criminal and lovely, but my husband!  My husband was my whole world starting at breakfast and continuing on for the rest of the day.  As far as I was concerned, there was a bubble around us that the universe had hermitically sealed and it was impermeable.  We were going to have our baby, finally.  The news washed over me again and again.

On our walk home, we stopped at Whole Foods to stock up on foods for the folks who would be in the house for our delivery.  I barely knew what to order!  I thank goodness every day that Myrtle was with us, acting in a way like my sensible, outside the bubble, extension.  She choose some foods for us to order while I stood mutely in front of the prepared foods counter, overwhelmed by the whole outside-the-bubble world.  We picked up those foods and some extra supplies and headed home.

We were home by 11:30, I suppose.  Myrtle and I put the foods into glass bowels that were wrapped for later before she headed off to have a lovely day, knowing that she would come back later to me going through the motions of what was supposed to be a long and exhausting labor.   I called Lynn to get a pep talk about castor oil.  What would it do?  How long would it take?  Would it be terrible?  How did it work?  I hated the thought of having to induce anything, but was also so done with being pregnant.  I was 3 centimeters dilated, 41 weeks along, well rested, and mentally prepared.  I just wished it could have all been triggered on its own without having to drink something that had less than desirable side-effects.  Lynn explained to me how the castor oil worked, and also reminded me that, while we had 72 hours to deliver before having to transfer to a hospital (for risk of infection), the midwives at Rainy City Midwifery liked to have their ladies in labor within 24 hours of water breaking.  I braced myself and pulled out my (former) favorite flavor of coconut milk ice cream from the freezer.

Using a hand blender, I combined my (former) favorite ice cream, 2 ounces of castor oil, and Perrier for a delicious milk shake.  At exactly noon, I downed it.

Castor oil milkshakes are actually not delicious

Shortly after finishing this, Milton and I went up to the loft to get one last nap in before labor started.  I had been instructed to drink another milk shake at 2pm if labor hadn’t started, but was absolutely certain that I would wake up to my first contraction before then.  I was wrong.

At 2:30, I woke with a jolt and checked my cell phone.  It was late.  I was supposed to have drunk another milk shake by now!  I shook Milton awake and worried to him that I had messed everything up when I didn’t wake up on time.  He assured me of my craziness, and we went downstairs to make a second milk shake with my second (former) favorite flavor of ice cream.  I drank that and I waited.  I tried to pass the time doing whatever I could.  I watched the banana bread defrost on the table.  I went to the bathroom.  Mostly I just wondered why the hell I wasn’t in labor yet.  I worried.

3:10 rolled around with still no signs of even a Braxton Hicks contraction.  I googled “immunity to castor oil” and came up with a good dozen stories that convinced me that castor oil had done absolutely nothing for my system.  For a famously fast metabolism, I was sure getting nowhere fast.  I yelled down to Milton, “I’M IMMUNE TO CASTOR OIL.”  We wondered what would happen next.

At 3:13, I had my first contraction and pulled out my iPhone to use the Contraction Master application.  I was fairly convinced that showtime was still so far in my future that using the app was just a funny game, but I was also certain that the game was ON, which was exciting enough.  For an hour, Milton and I made out, slow danced, and laughed with each other.  We were totally going to have a baby!  And we are totally in love!  Win!

All through this hour, I was having contractions every 1.5-2.5 minutes for about 45 seconds.  They were definitely progressing, but were completely manageable.  We texted our midwife and doula to let them know that the contractions were regular, but that we were totally in control and not in a 4-1-1 situation yet.  Our doula was off supervising a birth for another couple in our birthing class.  That woman was had been at 10 centimeters and pushing since lunch, so we told the doula, “No problem!  We’ve got plenty of time!” and carried on with our labor.  Our midwife decided to come over and check me out to see how things were progressing.  She figured that she would pop in and then leave us to laboring alone for a few more hours.  I bounced on a ball and read my favorite columns in the latest issue of The Stranger for a little while.

Bouncing

After this photo was taken, I hit another level of intensity.  We were still at 2.5ish minutes for 45 seconds and chugging along at a very manageable pace, and right after a contraction, Milton followed me up the stairs to supervise a trip to the bathroom.  I stopped on the landing of our stairs to support myself through another surge, and again at the top of the stairs.  Milton joyously declared it a 2 contraction trip to the upstairs.  I asked for the bag of rice that we had warmed in the oven for my castor oil pains and found that that bag was just what I needed to get me through the next several contractions.  I hung out upstairs in the rocking chair, not realizing that I wouldn’t come downstairs again … for a whole week.

At this point, I still didn’t think my contractions were a big deal.  I was doing a lot of deep Ujjayi breathing through them, and found that I could maintain my breath throughout.  This had been my plan for labor all along.  I had hoped that I could maintain my Ujjayi practice through all of labor and delivery.  I had read a bit of hypnobirthing literature, and though I’m not fond of visualization (frankly, the rainbow visualization technique outlined in the hypnobreathing book made me feel as if I were gagging on a tie-dye moo-moo), I felt as if the 2 breath practices that hypnobirthing waxed poetic about were the same practices I used in my asana practice or to lower my blood pressure during times of stress.  I practice that breath control all the time, on the mat and otherwise, and figured I had everything covered.

At 4:56, Lynn arrived for my check up!  She watched me move through some contractions before checking me out on the bed.  I have to stress here that we all still thought we were in this game for the long haul.  Lynn was going to check me out and leave us to our laboring for a while.  I had my rice bag and my husband in my bubble and we were going to rock this birth out slowly and with grace.  Our doula was going to finish with a birth down the street and arrive with a birthing tub so we could deliver our son into the water. Myrtle was going to enjoy her afternoon while I was in early labor and arrive in a few hours when things got intense.  We had all the time in the world at that point.  We were bound and prepared for a glorious all nighter!

Or so we thought. Lynn checked me out and declared me “a good 4 centimeters” along.  She looked at my husband and said, “I’m not going anywhere.”  She told me that she was surprised I was as far along as I was from the look of my contractions and I pat myself on the back a little.  I figured there was no way I would lose my Ujjayi breath if I could get to “a good 4 centimeters” without a hitch.

We contacted our doula and let her know that I was in active labor.  The woman she was with was STILL pushing (uh oh!) and she sent for her back up to join us.  Right around the time this call happened, I started to feel a little more intense and decided to get into our bath tub.  It was 5:15.  The water felt amazing!  I couldn’t wait for my birth tub to be ready!  Milton stayed with me and held my hand.  With every surge, he commanded my eye contact and helped me breathe through.  At this point I realized for the millionth time what an amazing birth coach he was going to be.  He was absolutely right there with me for the ride.  Up to this point, he had project managed the whole labor, making sure that he executed contact with our midwife, doula, family, and friends.  He refused to let anything distract me or stress me out.  Now, in active labor, he committed himself to being totally with me and letting everything he had set up so perfectly ride itself out.  Our connection, which has been solid since we first met, honestly sparkled.

While I was in the tub, Marion arrived.  She’s Lynn’s assistant, a student midwife whom we’ve met before during a clinic appointment.  She’s swept my cervix before.  I know this woman!  I was, however, lost in little our bubble at the moment, and I decided that she’s a new face.  I introduced myself to her and she laughed.   Around this point, we stopped timing the contractions.  It no longer mattered how far apart they were.  I was in active labor and time had stopped.  Time had stopped for my husband.  It became just a blur of rushes and coping.  It was all meditation and strength from where ever I could find it.  Marion checked the baby’s heart rate before, during, and after contractions to make sure he was maintaining.  He was doing great, like we all hoped he would.  My blood pressure, on the other hand, was not the best.  I’d been trying my best to keep it down for some weeks, and now that the contractions were coming so fast and hard, it was being a bit pesky.  The midwives give me some sort of homeopathic powder to put under my tongue that seemed to do the trick.  I remember feeling a superhero relief when Lynn gave me the blood pressure nod of approval.

Lynn watched me go through a contraction and declared that it seemed different than the ones before.  She was right.  She also noticed at some point that it seemed like I was having one weak contraction and then one strong one.  This is reflected in my Contraction Master records as something that had been occurring since labor began.  Of course, I didn’t exactly notice until Lynn did.  I just thought it fun to note.

Not very many rushes later, I had to ask myself if I was being dramatic.  It hadn’t been so very long and, rather suddenly, I felt pushy.  How was that even possible?  It was a half hour or so since my 4 centimeter check up.  I felt so not ready to feel pushy.  I thought that, obviously, I must be pushing along this process psychologically in much the same fashion I pushed along the pre-labor process and thought I was about to go into labor every day for about 3 weeks running.  I had another contraction and looked into my husband’s eyes.  When it was over I said, “I think I feel pushy?”  For some reason, I remember that I didn’t want him to tell Lynn that I was feeling this way.  I guess that’s because I figured there was really no way I could be so far along.   Everything I do is dramatic!  It’s natural for me to exaggerate everything, isn’t it?  He told Lynn anyway and I remember feeling foolish.  If I felt pushy already, what would it be like when I was even further along?  I expected that I was really just at 5 centimeters.  Lynn reached into the tub to check things out.  I was at 7 centimeters.  I was in transition!  It was 6:20 and it had been only 3 hours from my first real contraction.

At this point, our doula’s back up lady, Mali, arrived and introduced herself.  Actually, I don’t remember her introducing herself at all, but am sure that’s what happened.  I do remember hearing Lynn call down to her that there isn’t time to set up the tub.  I stared at my feet in the bathroom and cursed inwardly.  I was momentarily pissed that we were not going to have our dreamy water birth and I say as much to Milton in between contractions.  Between 2 big rushes, I thought this was all going a little too fast and for my tastes.  With the next one, I forgot to think anymore about control over the birth I wanted.  At 7 centimeters, I became completely immersed in the birth that we were having.  I let it roll over me and let myself get lost inside it.

Lynn asked me if I wanted to have the baby in the bathtub.  No, I did not.  It’s small, cramped by the toilet, and we had a pretty big team assembled at this point.  Eventually, I specifically got out of the tub to use the toilet.  Experiencing some pretty frank castor oil side effects, I was too modest to ever be on a toilet with anyone around, so I endured a few contractions in the bathroom alone.  Contractions were difficult enough with the support of a husband!  Alone, they were horrible.  Alone, I hated them.  Alone, they were an unproductive enemy.  I was just totally lost in them without a coach.  They hurt a thousand times more, and I felt so alone.  Still, when Marion peeked her head into the bathroom to check on me, I yelled at her to get out.  Modesty triumphed over loneliness and pain for a good 5 minutes.

It was 6:30 when I moved to the bed to labor on my side for a bit.  I don’t remember much about this at all.  I don’t remember the contractions.  I don’t remember the people.  I don’t remember what people are saying to me.  I don’t know if I said anything to anyone.  Some time around then, Myrtle arrived.  I felt like an animal and I didn’t want her up stairs to see me like this.  Of course, she was downstairs in the kitchen, taking in my every primal scream.  For some reason, downstairs felt like a different world from upstairs.  To me, the visual was different from the audio.

At 6:48, Lynn checked me again and jolted into reality when she tells me I am 10 centimeters dilated, 100% effaced, and ready to push.  I asked her to repeat herself.  For a moment, I was really, truly, completely in shock that I was complete.  We pushed through a few rushes on the bed while Marion holds my top leg up and Milton coached me.  They felt painful, unlike anything I ever expected.  My known and trusted Ujjayi breathing was long gone.  I breathed however my husband told me to breathe.  Pushing felt unproductive and Lynn told me that I had to get the baby over the bone.  I remember all of this from our birth class.  A stuffed skeletal pelvis and a doll head flash through my mind.  Lynn shows me where in my perineum to concentrate my pushing and I dedicate all my energy and all the months of highly competitive (with myself) Kegel exercises I’ve been practicing to this area.  Lynn asks if I would like to move to the birth stool.  I am totally game.  Lying on my side feels fine, but not productive, and I want to have this baby.

Immediately, on the stool, pushing felt so different.  The baby was moving.  He was coming, and I might have said as much.  In between contractions, I felt almost as if I was entranced or sleeping on my husband’s shoulder.  Every song that the stereo played was one that I absolutely loved, which was convenient since I made the mix myself for this very occasion.  My husband was on my left hand side and Mali was on my right.  I had just met this Mali, but I already needed her desperately.  I reached for her hand with my right hand every time a contraction began.  She became indispensable to my getting through this experience.  Between contractions, I am at the same time entranced and lucid.  During contractions, I remember overhearing Mali say that I was “a monster” (in a good way).  Pushing was the worst torture I’ve ever felt.  I hated it.  I hated it so fucking much that I  said as much, which I am later ashamed for.  I remember saying, “It fucking hurts!”  Later, I can’t believe I complained at all.  Of course it hurts.  It’s labor!  I honestly wish I had been able to channel the pain a little better and not complain.  I told my husband at some point during the final pushing that we are never doing this again.  Everyone else in the room laughed, apparently it’s a common sentiment.  Seeing my baby’s face now, I would relive the whole experience for the same outcome.  I would endure it ten fold!  In retrospect, it didn’t hurt even a little bit.  Thank god for our malleable memory and our personal bubbles.

I can’t tell you enough how amazing the rhythm of these contractions were.  Here I was, in the most horrible pain I could’ve ever imagined, and then – I am fine.  Between, I was able to rest.  At the height of a contraction, I was uncertain of my ability to sustain and survive.  In between,  I was gazing into my husband’s eyes and thinking about how much I love him, thinking about how the two of us are having a baby who will shape and define the rest of our lives together.  I almost forgot that I am in labor in the space between these rushes.  I was almost able to forget that another contraction was coming.  When the next rush came, it would start slowly and I would think it won’t be as bad as the last.  I would grab for Mali’s hand and tell everyone, “Here it comes!”  Every time it came, it was worse than the one before.  I now knew what they meant when they talked about the ring of fire.  I now knew what it meant to have the baby come down and then slip back up after you’ve pushed so hard to get him down there.  When all of this happened, I also knew that it was almost over.  I could feel the contour his little face low inside of me.  I knew that, soon enough, I would have him in my arms.  Lynn had me reach down between my legs  to feel his head.  It was soft and wrinkled, like the skin of a newborn kitten.  Feeling him was really surprising to me and, according to Milton, I gasped in surprise, as if I didn’t expect him to be there.

In between all the rushes I called down to Myrtle to check on her.  I felt badly that I’d left her down there all alone to den-mother my kitchen!  I wanted to make sure she was comfortable.  Between one of the contractions, Milton knocked over my water.  Marion goes downstairs to get me some more because I can’t let go of Mali’s hand.  I told Marion that I like my water with lemon, but not with rind.  I hate rind!  Lynn apparently remarked to Milton that I was remarkably lucid.  When downstairs, Marion tells Myrtle that his head is an inch out.  I began another contraction, pushed, and felt madly productive.  I heard Lynn yell, “Marion, get up here, I need you!”

Next thing I knew, his head was out.  His body was easy after that.  It slipped out as if it had no bone.  I was in a daze when Lynn’s voice called through our bubble and said, “Reach down!  Reach down!”  Suddenly, there was this gurgling blue and white creature in my arms!  I was elated!  In complete awe!  He was gurgling and like a little old man, I’ll never forget the sound.  When he found his breath and cleared his lungs, he screamed and screamed like a little devil.  Both Milton and I found this hilarious!   He was pissed, and telling us all about what just happened to him!   Milton cut the cord at some point, and I’m told that the cord was really very healthy and difficult to cut.  This makes me very proud!

We did it.

I called down to Myrtle and told her that she’s gotta get up in the loft to check out our guy.

Greeting the 4th partner in crime

I find it hard to believe, looking at these photos, that it’s still light outside.  For some reason, I picture his birth as having taken place after the sun was set.  But, actually, as Lynn remarked at the time, he was a sunset baby.  This is fitting, because a variation of his name (his real name) means sunlight in Japanese.

At some point, I delivered the placenta.  Apparently I complained that this also hurt, but I remember that it was absolutely easy in comparison to my son’s impressive head.

After a while, I handed our son over to his father so that I could move off the stool and on to the bed, which has been protected with a drop cloth between sets of sheets for quick changing after the event.  I told Milton to take his shirt off so that Axelrod could have skin to skin contact.

Skin on skin with his father

This is another blurry point of our story.  It’s almost a point of the story that I don’t want to share, because I don’t want to pull back from the awesome that is the birth of my son to get into medical issues and aftermath.  But, it’s part of the tale.  And, on reflection, labor and delivery involve every kind of emotion and event.  Labor and delivery includes everything wonderful, awesome, dramatic, and sometimes grotesque.  So. I stood up off of the birth stool and move my butt up to the bed… and proceeded to hemorrhage down the side of the bed and on to the floor.  It splashed impressively on to feet and ankles with a sound.  I looked down and thought, “They’ll fix that right up.”  Milton looked down and thought the same thing.  Myrtle confessed later that she was worried.  My doula confessed later that she started to rush from the birth she was attending in another part of the city (that woman, after pushing all day, delivered 4 minutes after I did) because they were talking about having me transferred to a hospital.  Lynn gave me a shot of something and put something else under my tongue.  The bleeding stopped, thank goodness, and I recall being very diligently monitored by Lynn and Marion for some time after while I shook and trembled my way through the shock that my body was experiencing towards the light of recovery.

I was really curious to see my placenta and asked for it.  Marion offered to bring it to us to give us a little Placenta 101.  This was really exciting to me.  I think I might have asked Myrtle if it was ok with her that Marion bring it around.  Of course Myrtle is game for anything at this point, I mean… she had just watched me hemorrhage all over my bedroom floor without so much as flinching.

Marion gave us a pretty stunning class on the different parts of the placenta, showing us the amniotic sac, the tree of life, and the cord.  I have to say that I am really very impressed with my body.  I just can’t believe I grew that thing!  Or that it sustained my son for 41 weeks!  Around then, our doula, Cheryl, showed up and made a placenta impression on a piece of paper.

Placenta print!

(I’m sorry if our placenta is too much information for anyone out there, but I personally find it all very fascinating!)

Next, I had to use the bathroom to prove that I could use my bladder — which was a Very Important Event — and I was then also allowed to take a shower.  I was absolutely relieved to be allowed to shower all of the day’s waste off of me.  I figured if I was allowed a 10 minute shower all by myself, I would be transformed into a picture of bright and shining health.  A quick glance to the mirror told me otherwise, though.  My ruddy skin was 3 shades of the wrong color and I knew that it was right to confine me to bed for a week after the birth.

When Cheryl, got there, I was so stoked that I got to have my two doula’s with me at once.  Two doulas, two midwives, a husband, and a best friend (who was totally promoted to sister after seeing the whole after birth business), AND a brand new awesome son.  How lucky can one lady get?

My two doulas!

Soon, our son was weighed, measured, and checked for the proper reflexes.  Everyone in the room took bets on how much he weighed.  I thought silently to myself that he might weigh 9 pounds and 2 ounces.  I only figured this because it’s what my brother weighed when he was born.  I didn’t say anything out loud, though, but I swear to you, readers, I had it right in my head.  He was 22.25 inches long, which delights me.  I have a thing for long legs and am glad that they run in our little family.

9lbs, 2ozs

Eventually, after giving us lots of important instructions, our doulas and midwives left.  Myrtle stayed for a while, shot some amazing photos of Axelrod, and cleaned my house like a champ.  She was leaving the very next morning for a flight home.  She took this photo before we all cried and she left for her hotel room:

Post-fetal position

We spent our first night together marveling.  The first long nap that Axelrod was supposed to take never really happened.  Alexrod just wanted to nurse all night, which I was really fine with.  We worked through the hours together, figuring out how he worked on the outside of my body.  Figuring out that we were family, and that we were both in it for the long haul.  Milton and I will never be the same sort of family we were before this little guy’s birth.  We are now part of a better, bigger family.  We are now parents, and sport a very worthy and excellent son.  We wouldn’t have it any other way, either!  I can honestly say without a hint of irony that this is the best thing we have ever done with each other, for each other, and for our family.  Parenthood is pretty awesome stuff, already.  It is every emotion.  It is every worry.  It is every sort of elation.  It is every sort of love.  We welcome it, completely.

The End.

Or, more accurately:  The Beginning.

One week old

This video touched me to tears this morning. I found it on the Offbeat Mama blog, along with Offbeat Mama Ariel’s story.

We got only a small taste of infertility when trying to make our little crane. Making this baby led me down the road to a heart-breaking miscarriage and 9 months of treating my body and our sex life like my own personal science experiment. Ultimately, we were very lucky. We did get our little crane to plant himself naturally. But the what ifs that I got a taste of during that year of trying were quite a life lesson.

Let’s hear it for all of those women out there re-defining motherhood, shall we? Let’s hear it for modern science, infertility research, and a healthy dose of awareness. Let’s hear it for all of you folk out there who are NOT pressuring lady friends by constantly asking if they are pregnant. You never know if that woman is letting the What If’s plague her. You never know how many different mothers rest in the hearts of different women. We don’t all have to give birth to realize that goddess within.

The other day, one of my wonderful clients was booking her next appointment for her haircut and color at the salon. I asked what the date of her appointment was, and it turned out to be a good 11 days before my last day at work. I was surprised that I had so much work time left and searched for a word to explain my surprise.

“Everything just feels so… so….” I stumbled to find the words.

“Imminent!!” she exclaimed.

And that has become my word for this week. Maybe it’s my word for the next few years. Every moment Milton and I have alone makes me grasp to hold it tightly – these moments are bound for imminent change. Every kick I feel is one less kick I will feel with this baby inside of me. Everything precious is only precious for right this moment, and about to give way to other new and precious things, which will in turn slip away for even more things new and precious.

I looked up at him today and said, “Can you believe we’re having a baby?”

He replied, “And that baby will turn into a kid, and that kid will turn into an adult…”

“And he will be a member of our family,” I said, “And it will always be the three of us, after all this time of it being the two of us.”

It’s a pretty magical and confounding thing to realize that life as you know it is about to become completely and beautifully upheaved.  It will become life as we never knew it.  It will be a completely new journey that we can’t possibly be completely prepared for.  No amount of book reading or closet cleaning is going to make us more aware of what life will really be like once pregnancy ends.  And pregnancy ends in the not too distant future….

Milton and Sopor cuddle at dusk.

My father has been appearing in my dreams a lot lately.  Probably because I feel myself overlapping with my father at this particular part of my life.  When he was my age, I was 8 years old.  Which, in hindsight, is halfway through my life with him, as he passed away when I was 17.  But in many ways I see my parents as wise beyond their years in their parenting of me, and I only hope I can meet the bar that they’ve set.  I’m gonna try real hard.

In the meantime, I am discovering that I’m also highly sensitive to the thought of “changing” when I become a father.  I don’t like changing in predictable ways, and the more people say things like “oh, you’re going to think completely differently about things once you’re a parent” the more I resist those changes.  I want my changes to come from inside me, and not to be guided by expectations or stereotypes or the occasional cynical remark.

That said, I’ve already become much more of a home-body, just as the stereotypes dictate.  Ahead of time, even.  Half because I don’t want to leave my lovely pregnant wife at home by herself and half because I feel like I’m in some kind of cocoon state that is requiring all of my subconscious resources to build new subconscious structures to help transition me into the new responsibilities and opportunities of fatherhood.  That, and I’ve also become somewhat of a workaholic, at least in terms of hours.  I feel like this is my last couple months to really devote myself 100% to the foundation of my self-employment, and even though I’ll be as loyal to work and career after I become a father, it will no longer be the primary recreational activity that occupies my brain.  Also, I’m loving work right now and that’s pretty awesome to have.  Of course, even though people don’t actually say this to me, I feel like the male stereotype of PROVIDING that complements the female stereotype of NESTING is one I should resist.  Yeah, it’s all a little neurotic but that’s just the way my brain’s wired.  I will do everything I can to help the family, but I will never claim to having sole responsibility for the providing, nor exclusion from the nesting.  Enough about that.

Today Esther and I purchased some art supplies that we’ll be putting to use in the next week as our first joint art project.  In a way, other than our genes and bodies and minds, this will be the first physical gift that we give to our future son.  It’s quite fun to be able to celebrate and meditate on him through creative art projects.

My father passed away from complications from lung cancer 16 years and 2 days ago. Here he is…

One year, five months, and one day from now will be the point in my life where I have been without him as long as I was with him.  In my literary mind, it makes sense to me that I’ll be at the very beginning of my own fatherhood at that point.

He was a great father. I miss him.

Something to chew on: “‘Wild Things’ is scary, but so is life”

81-year-old Sendak is my king is because of what he said during a recent Newsweek interview that was intended to promote the film but no doubt wound up offending parents all over the country. It went like this:

Reporter: “What do you say to parents who think the Wild Things film may be too scary?”

Sendak: “I would tell them to go to hell. That’s a question I will not tolerate.”

Reporter: “Because kids can handle it?”

Sendak: “If they can’t handle it, go home. Or wet your pants. Do whatever you like. But it’s not a question that can be answered.”

Sendak: “This concentration on kids being scared, as though we as adults can’t be scared. Of course we’re scared. I’m scared of watching a TV show about vampires. I can’t fall asleep. It never stops. We’re grown-ups; we know better, but we’re afraid.”

Reporter: “Why is that important in art?”

Sendak: “Because it’s truth. You don’t want to do something that’s all terrifying. I saw the most horrendous movies that were unfit for child’s eyes. So what? I managed to survive.”

Remember, this guy is 81 years old. I miss the way people used to be. A couple of generations ago, parents didn’t worry about whether kids were happy all the time or comfortable 24/7 or wrapped in protective coating. Of course, they didn’t want their children hurt. But it’s hard to imagine they would have spent much time and effort trying to keep kids from being scared.

Quite the contrary, they used to tell them scary stories at bedtime or on camping trips — usually the kind intended to frighten little ones into behaving correctly. “And then one day, all the kids who didn’t listen to their mommies and daddies just disappeared. …”

I get it. We really, really, really like our children. In fact, we love our children and we think they’re the most precious little darlings ever created, and so naturally we want to protect them. And we should protect them from some things — predators, disease, abuse, etc. But we shouldn’t protect them from all things. And we certainly can’t protect them from life. And part of life is getting scared now and then. In time, we learn to separate reality from fantasy.

And yet, while one infamous set of parents could face criminal charges for pretending their son was in a balloon, other parents think nothing of keeping their kids in a bubble.

Esther sent me the link to this article yesterday and I think we’re in agreement that Sendak is on to something here.

It’s weird trying to balance all the practical aspects of preparing for a new baby with the totally 180 degree opposite reaction of the emotional aspect of becoming a father. I probably tend to over-prepare on the practical side rather than investigate the emotional side.

Reading this lovely blog, Dear Baby, from beginning to end has reminded me that I need to also spend some time really thinking about this new life that will be joining us soon. A real live person, built from my wife and my own genetic histories, going all the way back to the first walking amoeba.

I want to write this baby songs, give it a comfortable and beautiful place to grow up, happy examples of how to live, protection from the elements at first, and then help taking them on him/herself eventually. I want to feel the feeling of its own weight push against Esther’s belly. I want to know all about this baby that’s in there doubling in size every week.

I guess since yesterday’s ultrasound I feel like this is all becoming more and more real.  Real is good.  Being a parent is gonna be so great.

My mother was young and vibrant.  She had me at 22, during the long sunset of her first marriage- which started at 18.  I remember us being best friends during my early years.  Looking back, I see now that we grew up together during those early years.  We were very poor during her time as a single parent.  My mother worked 3 jobs to send me to a good school- where she was snubbed for being a divorcee.  I spent much of my time at my grandparents’ house, where I became their 8th child and had raucous good times with aunts and uncles who were only a few years older than me.

When my mother was 28, she married my step-father.  This upset me bitterly for some time.  In my child’s mind, I felt as if the camaraderie I had with my mother was intruded upon by her new relationship.  I am sure that I was affected in large part by the breakup of my mother’s first marriage, as well.  My biological father was, to a great extent, absent from my everyday life.  This anger and resentment was unconsciously projected on to my step-father until I became much more self-aware in my adult years.  Now, my mother, stepfather, and I have a sound and loving relationship.

Children are so sensitive, and begin with such a small world view.  I wonder what sort of issues I will unwittingly imprint on my child’s ego.  I hope I will be able to make sure that my child is strong enough to ultimately see past himself in order to become a terrific success.  I feel as if my husband and I have a step over the situation I was born into. We are older, well established in a marriage trust that I can’t see either of us ever questioning, much less betraying, and obviously in a much more sound financial condition than our young parents were.

When I have my first child, I will be 34.5 years old.  I will have lived through my party years with a youthful mixture of bubbles and melancholy, I will have already established my career.   I feel totally ready at this age to face my parenting years.  I feel as if I’m still vibrant enough enough to be idealistic, which is, in my opinion, an important positive emotion to convey to my child, even as that child is in utero.  I hope to be the kind of parent who is engaged, active, responsible, and actually fun.  I hope to be able to protect my child from making some of the mistakes I made, or forgive my child if they walk headfirst into the mire without first taking into account my own personal story.

I know for certain that my husband echos my sentiment.  I also know for certain that we are excellent partners.  I am looking forward to this whole lifelong family-building business.

My father was awesome.  He passed away from lung cancer when I was just 16, but we had a great relationship all throughout my life.  He and my mom had me when they were both 25, 8 years younger than I am now, almost 9 by the time our baby is born, and I find myself thinking about him a lot now that I am possibly going to be a father myself.

He had a difficult life, a difficult family, and I remember him saying many times that he wanted our lives to be better than his, for us to be happier, more successful, etc than he was.  He also was an entrepreneur, working in software for many years and eventually starting his own company with his best friend a couple years before he passed away.  At the time, I wanted to be a painter or a genetic biologist (yeah, I know, very similar… both got to draw animals is how I saw them being related), and was applying for colleges.  And now here I am as an entrepreneur in the software development / Internet industry.

My parents were pretty poor when I was born, but eventually as his jobs got better we moved to the suburbs and eventually to a fairly wealthy planned community in Southern California.  I remember him saying to me in my early teens that he feared my life had been too easy, that great people are never born out of easy lives, and he wanted me to have an easy life.

As things would go, his departure sort of started in motion a long series of events that would be anything but easy.  While our lives aren’t yet chronicled in the history books, it’s safe to say that life is great, and that the challenges and lower lows have helped me find a place of earned happiness that I might not have otherwise achieved.

And now, I have the chance to think about raising a son or daughter of my own.  I want to be the best father just as my father was the best to me.

My mother also shaped a lot of how I see the world, and I want to make her proud to have a son that can pass on some of the things I’ve learned from her.

It’s weird making the transition from random married dude to an actual father.  It makes me rethink my posture, my habits, etc.  And yet, there are plenty of fatherhood stereotypes that I want to avoid.

I don’t want to be absent.  I don’t want to be aloof.  I don’t want to be too serious.  I don’t want to be the the one that’s only around for big events or for times of punishment.

I do want to be active and engaged in every step of the process.  I want to be a teacher, a leader, a role model, etc.  I want to carry a full half of the responsibilities of parenthood.  I want to encourage growth rather than simply be a protector. I want to give this new person every chance to be great, and to have the will power to let them also be their own person when the time comes, making their own mistakes and taking credit for their own successes.

Existing parents may scoff at my idealism, but we have to start with idealism and not compromise anything but the most necessary ideals when absolutely necessary.  That’s how my brain works at least.