Whitney Gaskell: September 2005 Archives

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Thursday Haiku

A baby coughing
Nasty germs floating in air
Now I am sick, too

And,

Thank God for Elmo
While he chirps on the TV
I rest my poor head

Link | 29 September 2005 at 01:48 PM |

Release Day!

She, Myself & I is now available in a store near you!

How am I celebrating the big day?

By trying to drink enough coffee to stay awake so I can take care of my sick baby who was up all night coughing (and crying and coughing and crying . . .).

Sam has croup. I knew immediately what to do because of the scene in Anne of Green Gables where Anne Shirley saves Diana Barry's little sister, Minnie May, from croup by boiling water (the steam helps the child to breath). George was doubtful at first (“I don’t think a hundred year old fictional book is the best source for medical advice,” he pointed out), but the American Academy of Pediatrics: Caring For Your Baby and Young Child book backed me up. So we spent a good part of the night sitting on the bathroom floor while the shower steamed up the room. Which, I have to say, none of us particularly enjoyed.

Now I'm very, very tired.

Sam and I curled up on the couch this morning and watched Higglytown Heroes (children's television seems to be the only thing that keeps him calm, and when he's calm he doesn't cough, so I'm going with what works).

Higglytown Heroes is a weird show about a group of four children who are actually nesting dolls (why, I have no idea), and get into various scrapes that require calling in one of the Higglytown Heroes (who are also all nesting dolls . . . the whole freaky town is made up of cartoon nesting dolls) for help. In the episode Sam and I were watching this morning, the children needed green paint and called in the Higglytown Painter Hero for help.

"I think their definition of hero is too broad," I said to George.

"I'm a Higglytown Hero brave and true! I help my town with the things I do," the painter sang in a thick French accent. He proceeded to teach the nesting doll children about mixing yellow and blue paint to make green paint.

"Like you need a hero for that," I scoffed. "I figured out the solution five minutes ago."

"Hon, it's Higglytown Heroes . . . I don't think the plot is supposed to be particularly complicated," George said.

"Hey, I'm operating on no sleep!" I replied. "Besides, since when are painters considered to be heroes? What's going to be next? The Higglytown Personal Injury Lawyer Hero?"

"I'm a Higglytown Hero brave and true, and I'll sue that malpracticing doctor for you," George sang.

Link | 27 September 2005 at 08:46 AM |

Sick Baby In The House

It was a good run. We got through the first two years and three weeks of Sam's life without any illness. Sure, he's had the odd cold or two, but he's never really been sick.

When other moms talk about staying up all night with a puking baby, I was sympathetic.

"Have a sick baby is no fun," I'd say, although I had no idea what I was talking about, because I've never actually had a sick baby.

My baby is so healthy, I’d think smugly. I must be doing something right.

Here's the number one rule of parenting: Never, ever get smug when something goes well. It will always -- and I mean always -- come back to bite you in the ass.

For example, when Sam first started on solids, he loved vegetables. Whatever I made him -- mashed peas, carrots, sweet potatoes, spinach -- he'd gobble it down and chortle for more. And I felt so incredibly smug about the whole thing, as I pureed up fresh veggies in the food processor and froze them in ice cube trays.

"Sam really just loves vegetables. I guess I just got lucky," I'd say. Okay, I didn’t actually say anything quite that obnoxious out loud, but I thought it.

Yeah, well. Fast-forward eighteen months. Now he'd literally rather eat lint off the floor then let a stalk of broccoli pass his lips.

And now he's sick. He has some sort of God-awful coughing, flemmy, achy, crabby, snotty, fever thing, and the poor little guy is just miserable. The only thing that seems to make him feel better is Sudafed and a Baby Einstein video marathon.

(Note to all of you mothers-to-be who are now smugly telling yourselves, I'll never let my precious baby watch television: Ha! Just you wait . . .)

Link | 26 September 2005 at 09:00 AM |

The Gift

I have a gift.

I can walk into any store -- even one that sells something I know nothing about, like auto parts or hardware -- and find the most expensive item they have for sale.

"Ooo, I like this," I say. Then I look at the price tag and blanch.

It never fails. I find the $200 piece of pottery in Trash n' Treasures, the sole designer handbag in Marshalls, the $400 t-shirt at Bloomingdales.

I can't help it; I have expensive taste. I always have. Come to think of it, I always meant to marry for money . . .

George: Did you marry me for my money?

Me: You didn't have any money when I married you.

George: (sadly) Oh.

Me: It's okay, honey. You were rich in potential.

So, anyway: It happened again today. I opened up my new issue of Domino magazine and promptly fell in love with a sweater.

It's pink! It has a skull on it! I have to have it! It costs . . . $1,240???

O-kay. Guess I'll learn to live without it.

It figures. I get my heart set on a pink-skull sweater, and it turns out to be the most expensive pink-skull sweater in the history of pink-skull sweaters.

So, you see, it's a gift . . . but also a curse.

My other secret talent is that I make the best ice coffee in the world. Luckily, I don't think there's a downside to that one.

Link | 19 September 2005 at 05:55 PM |

Shameless Self-Promotion

Two more weeks until the release date for She, Myself & I!

You can pre-order it here and here. Rumor has it that they sometimes even ship the books out early . . .

Can't wait that long? You can read the first chapter here.

Link | 13 September 2005 at 04:14 PM |

Heard Around the House, Part 16

Mom: I read your blog about the cake.

Me: I thought you never read my blog.

Mom: I normally don't. Anyway, that's not what I said.

Me: Yes, it is. That was an exact quote.

Mom: Where's your proof?

Me: Proof? I don't need proof. It's a blog, not a congressional inquiry.

Mom: Anyway, I was going to comment, but I couldn't figure out how to leave one.

Me: I disabled the comments. I was getting too much comment spam.

Mom: Then what's the point?

Me: What's the point of what?

Mom: What's the point of reading it if I can't comment?

Me: Ummm . . . you know . . . to read what I wrote.

Mom: Oh. Really?

Me: Yes. Really.

Link | 11 September 2005 at 03:47 PM |

Almost Perfect

A while back, a reader emailed me, and said, "I liked your web page, I liked reading your daily trials, and it’s nice to know that not everyone is perfect."

That's me, Ms. Not Perfect.

Now, of course I appreciate her praise (like most writers, I have my Sally Field moments: "They like me! They really, really like me!"). But here's the thing you may or may not be aware of: this blog is a highly, highly edited version of my life.

That's right. Believe it or not, I do tend to put some thought into what I post here. Mostly I write about things that I find interesting or amusing, and which I hope my readers will enjoy, too. And then, after I draft a blog entry, I smooth out the language, try to catch any grammar mistakes and finally run it through a spell checker.

I don't blog about how I sometimes have such terrible cramps, I don't leave the house for two days straight, or about how I've been known to snap at Sam when he's harassing me to reread whatever book he's currently fixated on, or how I'm perfectly capable of picking a pointless fight with George and then sulking about it for hours afterwards (even after he's apologized, and even past the point when I've figured out that I completely overreacted).

In fact, I do my very best to keep you, my readers, in the dark about all of my mean, petty, pissy, unpleasant traits.

So, you see, here on this blog . . . this is about as perfect as I get. And if someone reads this, and the first thing they occurs to her is, “Wow, she’s really imperfect," what would she say if she actually got a glimpse at my real life?

"She's really messed up."

Or,

"How does someone like that manage to function in polite society?"

Or maybe just,

"What a bitch."

Hmm. Probably best not to know.

Link | 07 September 2005 at 10:33 AM |

Heard Around the House, Part 15

Me: Look, I made Sam's birthday cake from scratch!

Mom: (examining the cake doubtfully) Oh. Well, don't worry. I'm sure it tastes okay.

Link | 05 September 2005 at 09:10 PM |

Birthday Boy

Today, my baby turns two.

Only, as everyone seems fond of pointing out, he's not a baby anymore. He's a little boy.

To which I rather gracelessly respond, "Shut up."

Two years ago today, in the middle of a violent storm that shut down the power and phone lines in the hospital, Sam was born via a scheduled c-section. For those of you who haven't had a c-section, despite the fact that you're awake during the surgery, and that you're the one giving birth, you end up oddly detached from what's going on down there.

For starters, they drape a tent over your abdomen, so that you can't watch while they cut you open. This is, as Martha would say, a Good Thing. But then all of the doctors and nurses head down to that side of the tent, and although they say things like, "You're going to feel some tugging," and "Don't be alarmed if you smell something burning," (!) they pretty much ignore you.

And then the doctor says something to your husband, like, "Would you like to watch while we lift your wife's uterus out of her body?" and just like that, you've lost his attention, too.

(George insists that if anyone ever asks you that, your answer should be, "No, thank you. I'd rather not.")

So eventually, the only person you have left to chat with up at your end of the operating table is the anesthesiologist. Mine was a nice guy. He kept telling me I was doing beautifully, and promised that as soon as the baby was out, he'd give me something "to relax me."

"May I have it now?" I asked greedily.

"No, not until the baby is out."

Stupid baby.

"How about now?" I tried again a few minutes later.

"Not yet."

"Now?"

"No."

But, as promised, as soon as Sam was lifted out of me, he hit me with something that made much of the rest of the day a happy blur. Oh, sure, I remember the first time I saw Sam (he was screaming with outrage). And how the first time George held Sam, the proud daddy beaming with joy, Sam promptly peed down the front of George's scrubs. And how I cried when the mean day nurse bullied me into putting on hideously tight, itchy stockings to prevent blood clots.

But the first really clear memory I have of being a mom was sometime that first night, after the happy juice the anesthesiologist had given me had worn off, and after George had left for the night. The night nurse (as a rule the night nurses were dolls, in stark contrast to the day nurses, who were such hideous gorgons, I suspect they kept them in cages at night, throwing raw meat in after them), brought Sam in to me to nurse.

It was the first time we were alone together. Sam was wrapped up like a baby burrito, with only his little face visible. He peered up at me, those big blue eyes rolling with hunger. And then, I swear to God, he grinned at me.

And just like that, I fell deeply, hopelessly in love. The love affair has been going strong ever since.

Now there are people who will tell you that babies that age are not capable of smiling. They're wrong.

"Look, he's smiling!" I'd coo.

"It's just gas," Evil Day Nurse would say dismissively.

How fucking irritating is that? So my nature being what it is, I proceeded to take fourteen million photographs of Sam as a smiling newborn to prove to anyone who questions it, that my baby did indeed smile the day he was born. And he hasn't stopped smiling since.

Happy Birthday, Sam-bean. Thank you for every blessed moment, and for every single smile. And I don't care what they say . . . you are a baby, you're my baby, and no matter how big you get, you always will be.

Link | 05 September 2005 at 09:51 AM |

Good Read

I'm just finishing up a fabulous book, called Waiting For Birdy, by Catherine Newman. It's a memoir following Catherine's second pregnancy (she's already mom to a hilarious 3-year old little boy, Ben).

Like so many other moms, I read a zillion pregnancy and parenting books, but this is the first one where I was nodding along and saying, "I know!" at every page. One minute, I'm snickering and reading out portions to George -- for example, her extraordinary thirst while nursing (George thought it was just a weird peccadillo of mine that I'd practically become hysterical if I didn't have a tall, iced glass of water next to me as soon as Sam latched on), and how she thinks that doctors should nix the "wait 6 weeks after birth to have sex" rule in favor of a more realistic time period, like, say, 2 years.

And then a page later, she's talking about the aching, bittersweet love she has for her son and daughter, and suddenly, I'm weeping and snuffling into wads of papertowels (I buy tissues, I do, but there never seem to be any around when I need one).

Anyway, read it. It's great. In fact, it's so good it almost makes me want to get pregnant again. Almost . . .

Link | 04 September 2005 at 09:09 PM |

The Grandparent Gene

Geneticists might argue with me on this one, but I think Sam has a Grandparent Gene. That is, he's able to recognize a grandparent -- even one he hasn't seen in awhile -- and immediately exploit the relationship shamelessly.

My father-in-law is in town visiting for the weekend. Sam circled him a few times, each time getting a bit closer, until it clicked. This was a GRANDPARENT. And grandparents, Sam has learned, are suckers. (As my mom frequently says, "Is the word lollypop tattooed on my forehead?")

Grandparents can be talked into doing all sorts of fun stuff. Like reading the same book twenty million times in as row, before morning coffee is even served. Or letting you stick your grubby hands right into their water glasses. Or playing chase around and around and around the house well past the point when parents give up and flop down on the couch in exhaustion.

Yup. Grandparents are suckers. But, you know, in a good way.

Link | 04 September 2005 at 08:40 AM |

Tough Time

I know I haven't been posting much lately. I'm sorry. It's been a tough week watching the city where George and I went to law school, where we met and married, where we lived as newlyweds, a city that we loved dearly, decimated.

I know that you've heard this a lot, but please . . . donate to the recovery effort if you can. The Salvation Army and Red Cross are taking donations through their websites, as is Amazon.com.

Many of these people have nothing left but our goodwill and the hope that things might improve at some point in the future. Those affected are in my thoughts and prayers.

Link | 03 September 2005 at 05:18 PM |