The Real Poop

My Little Boob Man

2005-05-31T13:26:00.000-04:00

In my quest to find a superior photo site on which to post recent pictures of Sam for all of his far flung friends to see, I found Flickr. Now, Flickr has found Sam.

Flickr is a site that features a single photo on your personal page and updates kind of like a blog complete with a personal profile. I registered a page for Sam, called Sam-O-Lama, about two or three months ago and like most projects I have started recently, I haven't done anything more with it. Go figure.

Sam's profile is simple. He is male, single of course. His hobbies include climbing, crawling, and boobs. Because he is too young for humility, his favorite movie is Swingin' Sam.

Maybe you can tell where this is going already.

The other day I got an email for Sam-O-Lama from his new friend, My10GallonJuggs.*** It seems as though a woman: twenty, single, with obscenely big knockers wants to be Sam's friend.

My10GallonJuggs has a clever profile, where getting to know her is "as easy as ABC." Each letter of the alphabet stands for some little randy tidbit about her ample bosom. For example "K is for Killer Kisser with Knockout Knockers."

Just in case "B is for big, bouncy b**bs begging for a boning" wasn't enough to make me cower with the realization that I have won worst mother of the year award yet again, then her pictures were.

Yes, it is true. Each boob is bigger than Sam. Really, they are NO JOKE.

I have composed no fewer than ten emails to My10GallonJuggs to apprise her of her folly. But each time I stop short of clicking send. Can you blame her for searching for "boobs" and making all those with that hobby her friends? She has a gift, a rare attribute that she has chosen to make the most out of because a certain subset of society finds it irresistible.

It is not her fault that Sam's proclivity to boobs is all about the milk. Maybe some day he will want My10GallongJuggs as his friend. But for now, I can only hope she will step away from the eight-month-old.

Because I feel bad chastising such a clever opportunist, my only defense was to post a picture of sweet, innocent Sam for all of those boob fiends to see and hope that it will be a long, long, time before he makes any new friends over the Internet.

***You might have to log on to Flickr first and search for My10GallonJuggs to see the link. But aren't you curious?

Cherry Blossoms

2005-05-03T13:46:00.000-04:00

It has been awhile, but baby-proofing our tiny apartment just before crawling Sam grabs the cable cord, licks the garbage can, or sticks his finger in the outlet has been keeping me busy!

We took a walk to the Botanic Gardens today in order to catch the Cherry Blossoms. Though the Botanic Garden is teeming with anal rent-a-cops who don't want people to drink their sippy-cups on the grass; it is the one place in Brooklyn that Sam can crawl merrily around and not pick up any dog excrement, shards of grass, or other wonderful big city surprises. So we enjoyed our visit and will return to gladly follow their strict grass rules.

To see more pictures, please click here.

Food! Food! Food all over the place!

2005-03-14T20:15:00.000-05:00

Though Sam clears his plate, about half of his food is on his bib, in his hair, under his chin and all over me! What an adventure. Now that we must eat three solid meals a day I feel like all I do is watch him smear potatoes all over and then clean it all up to start all over again!

Too Cute

2005-02-20T17:39:00.000-05:00

Note the cowboy shoes.

Sam likes it! Sam likes it!

2005-02-19T19:05:00.000-05:00

After much anticipation Sam treated his discerning pallet to a little rice cereal today. Though the experience did not knock him off his little feet, he seemed to tolerate the new mushy invasion with a pensive enthusiasm. The rice cereal, which is a soupy, gloppy mix of dried rice cereal flakes and breast milk, dribbled down his neck, spattered into his eye, and coated his double chin; but he still managed to eat two whole bowls.

The selfish Mom that you all know and love is a little sad. I dearly love nursing Sam because it is something that only he and I share. I know that every bath I spend washing flaky rice off his cheeks is the beginning of the end of that time. But it’s okay because it will be so fun to watch Sam move from rice cereal to duck confit to tiramisu!

Old wives dictate that solid food makes a baby sleep through the night, though the plethora of books that have been uncontrollably taking over my brain like creeping Kentucky kudzu say that there is no connection. Bahhh.

I need to give credit where credit is due: the books have seemed to make a napper out of Sam. But I am taking a hiatus from their paranoia causing edicts in hopes that old wives win this round and we can all get a little ‘honk shooo’ tonight.

If this whets your appetite for more pictures of Sam’s tasting menu please click here.

The Great Sleep Debate

2005-02-17T20:00:00.000-05:00

I hit a new low point this week. In order to get Sam to nap, I walked around Prospect Park twice in one day (3.5 miles a pop). Of that time, Sam slept for maybe two miles total. Add that much exercise plus constantly bouncing and dancing with Sam plus five months of sleepless nights and you get a total basket case.

The next day in my haze of exhaustion I found myself snapping at this adorable boy. While he screamed during my 2.5 minute shower, I yelled back, “Please, oh please just let me shave my legs!” Wrong. Just. Plain. Wrong.

In an act of desperation I am in the process of doing what I said I would never do. . .training Sam to sleep. (I seem to eat my words a lot on this blog.) I have read book upon book and have come across two main ideas: either let him cry or walk him to sleep. Clearly the walking is not working as both of us are too tired to function.

So sleep training here I come.

Logically it all makes perfect sense. I provide food, shelter, and comfort to Sam so why shouldn’t I equip him with the ability to fall asleep? It is a priceless skill that will make his life a much more pleasant one. But viscerally my body says NO! You are the worst mother EVER.

Tucking those gut instincts away for the time being I followed the directions of The Sleep Nazi (Weisblooth.) I watched for sleep signals and engaged in a sleep routine: the same routine that works magically every night at 7pm. However at 12:30 in the afternoon it is a disaster.

Oblivious to what was about to happen to him; Sam rolled and chatted to his plastic fish. That is until the music stopped. Then Sam cried. He rolled and cried some more. He lifted himself up on his belly and peered at me over the bumper, still crying. I cried. I called my sister-in-law for reassurance and cried. Finally after many minutes and many more tears Sam slept and I cried some more.

Today we did it all over again with much the same results and I feel like a failure. But why? I know that it is right to teach my son to be a good sleeper and I know that it is better now than later. I am simply trying to give him what I know to be a developmental necessity: daytime sleep.

Ahhhh. . .but my heart tears when I hear him cry. I feel guilty and the community of uber-moms who say “sleep training” like it’s a curse word are not helping.

I too want to do it better than my parents did it. But is everything they did wrong? Am I the worst mother in Park Slope? Oh the guilt.

Obviously it all stems from a much larger issue: the lack of confidence in myself as a parent. It’s why I have a blog. It’s why I flock to other mothers for advice. It’s why I live in a community of likeminded people. I know I need to just take the reins as Sam’s parent and do what I think is right, but how do I know I am doing it right?

I will make mistakes on the way, but so will everyone else. My parents did it without books and God knows my grandparents didn’t have a clue and everyone seemed to have turned out well enough. So why can’t we trust our informed instinct and run with it?

Grudgingly, tomorrow we will try again. I’m sorry Sam, but Mommy knows best, I think.

Valentime’s Day

2005-02-14T23:15:00.000-05:00

Every February 14th my students would wish me “Happy Valentime’s Day” with balloons, cheesy teddy bears, and chocolate. It was always an annoying day as a teacher because the class would be distracted with mylar balloons and I would get caught up in my own twelve-year-old romanticized dreams of Valentine's Day... only to be disappointed later in the evening. (Well one year we did get engaged on Valentine’s Day commuted one day later... but that was only once.)

As I awoke this morning to wish Sam a happy Valentime’s day I thought about his future Valentines. I will some day cast judgment on his partner and perhaps I will even be a mother-in-law. Who might actually be good enough to be with my Sam? I wouldn’t want her to be stupid, ugly, or too pretty (lest she be too self-absorbed to appreciate Sam). I would want her to be supportive, just gorgeous enough, and accepting of all he is and all he is going to be, a flawless, perfect human. Who can fit that bill?

The answer is no one.

Wow, what a hard job it is going to be a mother-in-law. Yikes. Perhaps I will be less judgmental by that point. But probably not so BEWARE future Sam’s wife!

Forget Sam’s wife for a moment. What a hard job it is to be my husband on this first Valentime’s Day as a Mom. I worked hard today to cook, buy flowers, a card, and a Critereon Collection DVD while Sam cried and bemoaned the day’s activities so much so that the two of us cried around 6:00 awaiting Dad’s arrival home. Unfortunately there was not much to wait for because P called at 6:30 to call off Valentine’s Day, yes 6:30 PM, because he did not do anything for it.

Unfortunately for him that is against the rules. He had to endure my dinner, dessert, present, and complaining until I knew he felt sufficiently bad. Really though, how stupid can you be? You really want to skip THIS Valentine’s Day when your new wife is also a new mother wiping spit-up off her shirt and pacing the apartment with a cranky baby for three hours? I don’t think so.

Luckily I got over it and he got off with only doing the dishes, listening to me call everyone I know to tell them how terrible he was this ONE day of the year, and of course enduring this blog. Better luck next (valen)time.

The Gates

2005-02-13T18:46:00.000-05:00

Sam experienced "Art" today at The Gates in Central Park. He pondered the saffron flags from his baby bjorn and decided that they were cool but maybe not $21 million cool. A man behind us pointed out that it looked like Hare Krishna laundry day and I would say that is a pretty accurate description, but what a great city that lets us watch the Hare Krishnas dry their clothes.
To see other pictures of Sam at The Gates please click right here.

Sammy (And Me)

2005-01-30T10:14:00.000-05:00

So I know everyone is doing it, but are they really doing it better than me? According to the NY Times article “Mommy (And Me)” blogging parents are self-indulgent narcissists who put their own happiness over that of their child’s because they are tired of being invisible to everyone since the birth of their dear baby. Well, darling Sam, if your senior prom-date Googles your name and you are embarrassed by my posts, I am sorry, you are damn cute and she ought to know it.

But can you really blame me? I am tired of not having a single accomplishment to call my own. There is no me apart from my association with Sam. Though, I love him dearly, I have nothing accomplished at the end of the day: no story filed, no papers graded, no test given, and no, Sam does not say “good job today, Mommy.” I know it’s wrong. It makes me sad that I need a little affirmation to keep me going, but that's the way I am wired.

I wouldn’t mind a little recognition or tangible evidence (other than a full diaper genie) that I am doing a good thing here. And frankly I don’t care if people think our generation’s parenting is too reliant on “validation…that doesn’t serve a cause.” Please validate me, I crave attention and I am not ashamed to admit it.

Do you know what hurts the most about “Mommy (And Me)?” It’s not that I mind being one of a quadrillion people doing the same thing, or even being called narcissistic. But what I really mind is being overlooked for a guy who catalogues every poop, every bottle, and has the time to write a guide to his site for people who have just read about him in The Times. Even though I don’t have the time to post 24/7 in real time, I am just as narcissistic. Here I’ll prove it. Here are ten links to my own site:

The Real Poop
The Real Poop
The Real Poop
The Real Poop
The Real Poop
The Real Poop
The Real Poop
The Real Poop
The Real Poop
The Real Poop

So where is MY book deal?

Check Me Out

2005-01-28T09:05:00.000-05:00

I used to be so embarrassed on Saturday mornings when my Dad would pick out my clothes. In the summer I would have to wear blue jean cut-offs and pick up sticks in the yard. I mean why did we even own a lawn mower? The cold months treated me no better because I had to wear black pants with white piping down the leg that used to belong to my brother and since there were no sticks to pick up I was simply the boss of the shoes. I am still honored.

Apparently I have either blocked out the resentment of wearing Dad's choices or spent enough years trying to rebel with my short skirts and tight tops to get over it because we have done one better to Sam. He is sporting a onesie that I not only picked out, but it was also designed by his Dad and made by me. Sorry Sam, it’s cute.

I reached a new level of intimacy with Sam yesterday. We were playing airplane because it makes us both belly laugh. But this time as he was coming in to buzz the tower he unloaded a big glob of teething drool right into my open mouth. Yum. I had reconciled myself to the little Sam hickies I had been receiving on my ear and clavicle because I know it comes with the territory. But the hawker in my mouth is quite another thing. Good thing he is so adorable. Check him out here.

Rolly Polly

2005-01-10T22:53:00.000-05:00

To see Sam's first Blockbuster Roll in the hit movie "Sam Rolls" Please click here.

Update

2005-01-05T19:30:00.000-05:00

So I am no longer fired from the Department of Education for being AWOL and they are very sorry for their mistake. But not too sorry.

I have recently received a mailing, the only phrase adequate to describe it for it is accompanied with no letter. It is a thick packet with no signature or explanation asking for my bank account information so that they can reverse the overpayment of deposits they made. No kidding. They are asking ME to give money back to THEM for my "maternity leave." Let it be clear that the Department of Education "maternity leave" is simply the sick days you failed to use during your tenure.

And it is not enough that they are attempting to steal my precious days, of which I have accumulated a month's worth of, but they can't even ask before they cut the checks that have already been spent on Sam's diapers.

I never asked to be compensated for my chronic headaches, stolen wallet, or hundreds of dollars worth of simple classroom supplies. Nor did I refuse to cover a class a day from my other colleagues who called in sick on a daily basis. So I will not be compensating them for their boneheaded treatment of "valued employees."

Congratulations!

2005-01-04T21:21:00.000-05:00

Jacob Donnelly Kowan: A few hours old

Santa's Helpers

2005-01-04T21:03:00.000-05:00

Sam’s first Christmas was chock full of jolly. He flew three times and was adored by all four grandparents and many, many more. Though he couldn’t care less about all of the loot he raked in he had a great time being passed from hand to hand and watching everyone else open his presents.

Perhaps next year he will at least like the boxes his gifts come in; that is as long as no one gives him hamsters.

He celebrated his homecoming after his two-week cross country tour by rolling over from his back to his tummy today. Afterwards he gave me a big high five and then started crying because he was having involuntary tummy time.

To see his December adventures please click here.

A Fine How do You Do

2004-12-18T13:49:00.000-05:00

In case I wasn’t feeling stressed enough about my decision to leave teaching the neediest middle schoolers in New York City in order to have and raise the cutest little boy on earth; yesterday the Department of Education made it that much more pleasant. You see, yesterday I got an email from the Teaching Fellows asking me to fill out a survey about why I left the profession of teaching. I sighed and wrote this curt reply:

“I didn’t leave teaching. I’m on childcare leave.”

I received this reply:

“We synch our databases with the Department of Education and their database has your status as Terminated.”

Yes TERMINATED; a synonym for FIRED. Pleeaaaase. If I were going to leave teaching for good at least let me resign with the force of my hatred for the bureaucracy and hellacious management of that crappy school where I spent three years of my career.

But no, my status is terminated because my childcare leave papers have been “mishandled.”

The situation is partly, only partly, my fault for I was not timely in sending Sam’s birth certificate into the school. But really I had more pressing matters on my mind like learning how to be a Mom. Mea Culpa.

Instead of picking up the phone to call me, perhaps ask after the baby and remind me to send the birth certificate in, I only got a terse formal letter informing me that I have gone AWOL. It's not like the payroll secretary never saw me frequent the main office at least ten times a day for three years and of course she couldn’t give a damn about me or my baby so she needed to skip right to the AWOL letter.

To avoid such labels I promptly sent a copy of his birth certificate only to find out that my status was moved to TERMINATED even before I received that letter.

Ahhh yes so in the new year I will have to get my job back; a job I will never go back to but need on my resume for when I do return to more sane and competent territories of teaching.

When you are operating in a state of permanent sleep deprivation, there is nothing like hearing that the three hardest years of your life have been cavalierly thrown out the window because some secretary doesn’t feel like filing paperwork in a humane and expedient way.

However, Sam started to laugh this week and I remembered that he is well, well, worth the headache of a new battle with Department of Education.

Baby Homecoming Must Haves

2004-12-13T21:55:00.000-05:00

In honor of my dear cousin's pending labor and delivery

At the end of pregnancy I obsessed over everything I needed to have at hand for Sam's arrival. I got confused by all of the options at Babies 'R Us and almost resigned parenthood on the day I created a registry. Don't let the superstore or the books make you paranoid. You don't need all the Baby Einstein DVDs or that tiny sensor that you place under your baby's mattress to make sure he is alive. Belive me, you'll know. But don't be under-prepared either.

Though there are no easy answers to this parenting thing, there are a few things that make it easier, slightly.

Feeding Paraphernalia: All the things you need to turn yourself into a milk-cow plus everything you need to defend against projectile baby puke:

Burp Cloths
Boppy (My Breast Friend is no good. The Boppy is versatile and comfortable and not as cumbersome)
Breast Pump
Nipple Shield (I’m sure your nipples are shaped correctly, but get them for good luck)
Bottles and bags if you use Avent
Lanolin (For your precious sore nipples. Start putting it on after each feeding right away to avoid bloody nipples…I started too late. But now I don’t even need it!)
Breast Pads (washable doesn’t work for me because they get soaked at the first sign of leakage and that’s it…disposable sucks up the milk and keeps you dry)
The number for a lactation consultant and don’t hesitate to use it!
Unlimited supply of water
Patience and serenity

Care for his nether regions: Everything you need to clean up poop, defend against a fountain of pee and care for his little penis.

Diapers (we like pampers because we don't blame them for our poor diapering skills early on)
Wipes (we use pampers sensitive with no perfume)
A&D Ointment for his circumcision (can be used later for cuts and burns and diaper rash)
Small gauze pads for his circumcision (put A&D on gauze and then place over his wound. We tried to use a cotton pad, but the cotton sticks to it…poor kid)
Multiple changing pad covers
Can’t wets and lots of them (rubbery, cotton material that you can cut and put over the changing pad, basinet, your bed, and crib; and wash only that little square each time he nails you during a diaper change or in his sleep.)
A sense of humor

Baby Maintenance: Everything you need to keep him looking pretty and smelling yummy.

Bath soap and bath tub
Washcloths (a lot at changing table can be used to wipe up stray pee!)
Baby fingernail clippers and a steady hand (you will need to do this within days of his homecoming and it's hard! We broke our baby in the first week by cutting too low.)
Baby lotion
Aquaphor (works on his face to clear up baby acne and keep away dry skin as well as for diaper rash later)
Thermometer that can be used in the armpit (Your pediatrician will tell you to use a rectal thermometer, but I say LIE! LIE! LIE! And be safe with the armpit. Be sure to read the directions to see how much you add on to the temperature to make up for not doing it rectally. Unless of course you have the balls to stick it up his little bum.)
Your wits

How do I soothe a screaming baby?! Ha! Good luck. He will change his habits daily. But try these for a start:

Pacifier
Mobile
Baby bjorn
Swaddling blanket
Patience, Patience, Patience

But what about my needs? Everything you need to care for your sore crotch.

Tucks (Even if you do not have ‘roids you might want them to wipe because it hurts down there!)
Overnight Pads (Yup you need those again)
Heavy duty daytime pads
Quick reference baby book to help allay the moments you freak out about anything and everything
I got a little bottle to fill with water and cleanse myself…they should give it to at the hospital. Use it well and it will really help.
A dumpster for your scale (You will look better before you know it, but don’t spoil it. Don’t even think about jumping on a scale for at least the first six months.)
Patience, Patience, Patience

What’s in the Bag? Everything you need in the hospital bag for your comfort and healing minus the crap those books make you think you need

Pillow and Pillow Case (they don’t have one, really!)
Slippers and/or Flip Flops for the shower and walking around the hospital.
Toiletries: Think comfort not beauty: shampoo, conditioner, lotion, deodorant, toothbrush/paste, brush
Bottles of water
Sweats for the day and for homecoming (don't believe the hype that you want to look cute for pictures. You will not be cute and will not want to be remembered that way so be comfortable)
Pajamas…comfortable and roomy
Bathrobe
Lanolin
Nursing Bras
Camera
Cell Phone and numbers

Glamour Shot

2004-12-02T10:51:00.000-05:00

My little man sounds like a pig. His first cold has filled his nose with green slime and made him hack like an asthmatic cat. I have pulled out man-size boogers from his nose with a Q-tip and wiped up slug trails of sneeze remnants from his face for two days. It's hard to watch such a little body shake with a cough, but he doesn't seem to mind it terribly and continues to flash his pearly white gums in my direction. Though the common cold has been passed around our family for many weeks, I have no choice but to blame the fine people at the cheesy mall photo studio where we attempted to take his portrait this weekend.

You see, we were really trying to be good parents and grandparents and get a formal photo to document the growth of our child. What better place than the mall during the busy shopping season to take a quality shot of Sam? We could snap the photos, shop for awhile and come back to pick up the final product an hour later. But apparently there are better places or perhaps Brooklyn has just made us finicky perfectionist parents.

Anyway, our first warning should have been the sample photo album which included a picture of a baby in a crock-pot wearing nothing but a chef's hat, a naked baby wearing a top hat and a tie, and a baby head peeking out of a Christmas stocking. Surely they did classy, plain black and white portraits...Nope, they didn't. Once again maybe we are missing the programming chip for making our baby cute, but glamour shots were not quite what we had pictured for his first portrait.

If the colorfully creepy photo album wasn't enough to give us a hint, the pee stains on the carpet that Sam had to lie on should have. Patrick was hoping it was spilled juice, but after observing other naked babies I was sure the mysterious yellow substance was nothing less than old, dried pee. Then again, perhaps we are too deep in Brooklyn haute culture and need to get used to germy kid activities. I mean someday he has to get dirty, right?

Being the naïve new parents that we are we chose not to heed the warning signs and waited in line behind a naked two-week old with a pink bow on her butt that said "Gift From God" (can you tell we were in a red state for the holidays?) to get Sam's glamour shot. After about fifteen minutes of trying we gave up waiting for the perfect smile and looked at proofs. We almost joined his cries as we saw his freaked out look and sad eyes. We might have escaped from the experience with a couple of passable pictures but the look of terror on Sam's cemented the deal and we left without a purchase.

I hope our snooty inclinations don't foreshadow a foodie, Harvard speaking metro-sexual teenager. But there could be worse. I'd rather a finicky high society boy than a gun-toting pick-up truck driver with a W sticker in the rear window.

Until we try for Sam portrait round two, here are some November shots to whet your appetite.

This is my Morning

2004-12-02T10:34:00.000-05:00

So this is my morning: I get up lazily because I have been so tired for the past few days that it is almost impossible to take the first step out of bed. After I fed Sam Patrick changed his diaper and played with him a little bit before work while I tried to summon the energy to roll out of bed. When I finally mustered the courage to face the day Sam was entertained in his crib by his mobile and was kicking his legs and arms and cooing. However the diaper Gods were not on my side this morning and Sam was laying in a huge puddle of pee. I took him out of his bed, sponge bathed him, changed his clothes and diaper, and then set him on the floor to play while I changed the sheets.

I don't know if you have any idea how difficult it is to change a crib mattress, but it sucks. First you have to untie the the whole bumper, which is an ordeal because there is a cute little bow on almost every damn rung of the crib. Then you have to pull the mattress out of the crib to get at the sheets. At that point I discovered that the can't wet, mattress pad, and sheet were soaked through so I threw them in the laundry and put new bedding on and of course reinserted the mattress and retied the entire bumper.

We were in the clear, that is until Sam was sitting on my lap happily bouncing while I looked at the NYTimes headlines and pooped for no less than 90 seconds straight! I went in his room to change his diaper and discovered that he had filled the entire diaper with a pool of poop and the overflow was leaking out the back of his onesie and down his leg; I remind you here I just sponge bathed him.

So off we go to take a real bath, which is mighty hard to orchestrate as the sole parent. First I had to clear the dishes and dish strainer off the counter, then warm the water, then fill the bath, all the while holding a naked baby and hoping there would not be another butt-spolosion. We had a good bath but Sam got cold while I was dressing him so he was upset by the end.

Like a good mother, I tried to swaddle him. But as I tried to lay the blanket out on the bed with my left hand Sam lurched forward and almost propelled himself out of my right hand like a rocket. He scared himself to death and spent the next ten minutes screaming bloody murder and was inconsolable by my breast, his pacifier, the swaddle, or me. He wore himself out until he fell asleep.

I feel like I ran the marathon this morning and its only 10:27! And I used to complain about being tired during my pregnancy. Go figure.

The Two V words—Not All They’re Cracked Up To Be

2004-11-03T15:19:00.000-05:00

This week Sam learned two hard facts of the real world: Pain and Disappointment. These hard lessons came from two necessary evils: vaccinations and voting.

Yesterday Sam woke up from his nap and despite a slight fever from his vaccinations, he eagerly donned the baby bjorn to get his vote on. Since he traded his Kerry vote on Craig’s list for a Nader vote in Ohio, he almost threw his first vote to the Green Party. However, he got a tip that the Ohio guy wasn’t going to keep his word, so at the last minute he proudly cast his first little vote for Kerry.

When he woke up at 5:40 this morning for his mo(u)rning snack, the disappointment began to set in as he realized there was no way Kerry could take Ohio. By the 2:00 concession speech he could take the heavy weight of disappointment no longer and fell asleep. Even Sam knows that this is no mandate and he couldn’t bear to hear Bush claim it.

This disappointment came in the wake of his first vaccinations which inspired Sam to scream so hard that his mouth opened wide, his face turned red, and it took 20 seconds for the sound to come out. The screams were followed by a slight fever; but he has heard that needle pricks and fevers are nothing compared to Polio.

We can only hope that the next four years will also be nothing compared to Polio. But just in case, Sam has now been injected with a little bit of of disappointment and is prepared to accept the reality of four more years.

Samuel Douglas Mortensen in 2048!

Sam-O-Lantern

2004-10-31T19:55:00.000-05:00

To see more Sam treats please click

Like Mother Like Son

2004-10-29T14:08:00.000-04:00

Though Sam seems to be getting his days and nights straight, more or less, eating well, and taking in more of his world, today, I was reminded about just how difficult it is to be a little man. He woke up this morning and first on his to do list was pooping. All the tell tale signs were in place: he was kicking his feet and throwing his arms, his face was contorted into a grimace and turning red, and he was making small grunting sounds as he thrust about in bed. I picked him up and sat him upright in hopes of helping him release what ailed him and he let out a big burp, but still he cried. When he finally unleashed the mother of all BMs and was satisfied with a clean diaper, for this is a kid who does not like even a spot of dirt in his diaper, he just fell asleep, all tuckered out from all of his work. It was quite funny actually.

Watching Sam for any length of time gives me a better understanding of just how difficult it is to be a little man. Imagine coming from a quiet, warm, comfortable world where you never need to think about eating, sleeping, waking, or defecating to this place. Yikes. Suddenly you are thrust into the light and forced not only to figure out how to suck on a breast to get some food but you also need to somehow let these strange people know that is what you want to do. It is hard work. I would cry a lot more than Sam if I was so rudely awakened into a reality of working to eat, and poop, not to mention communicating with people to make it happen.

In fact, lately, I do cry right along with Sam when I have to communicate my emotions. One of my fellow new mothers posed the question, “Has anyone else been bitchy lately?” Are you kidding?

Why can’t people just figure out what we, the mothers of the world, want while we cry? I don’t want to tell my husband why I am sitting on the couch covered in spit up hysterically crying with a baby in one arm and the soaking wet burp cloth in the other. Isn’t it obvious? I hate cluttered apartments, which is the status quo. I don’t want to eat cereal for dinner and I don’t want to cook. I miss being able to do what I want when I want, much less leave the apartment without an hour of preparation and fifty pounds of paraphernalia. I am over being too fat for my clothes and looking in the mirror at my lumpy stomach. And oh yeah, I can’t take this crying baby at the moment! Is it that hard to figure out?

Apparently it isn’t that obvious and there is no good way to express all of that in rational conversation. I do feel bad for him when he has to deal with me and the baby, because despite Sam’s extremely high cute factor there is no way to know what it feels like to be home all day with him and miss out on the Halloween party to boot.

I guess the bitchy new mom syndrome is another mechanism to help us understand our babies. As they are figuring out how to navigate the world, Mother Nature blesses new mothers with frayed nerves and a whirl of hormones so that we can sympathize with our babies. In my semi-alert new mother state I have to say that I have a lot more anti-social moments. I seem to forget how to make small talk, and I don’t really care. I understand the desire to get what I want by simply breaking down. Too bad it only works for one of us.

Sam the Campfire

2004-10-24T16:51:00.000-04:00

Sam! Sam! Sam! Sam! Sam!

It’s been six weeks since I have experienced REM sleep. I have moved beyond the tired stage, through the giddy stage, to the zombie stage. I have completed the transformation into a robotic feeding machine, a conversion that was foreshadowed by the first experience with R2D2 the breast pump, to feed Sam every hour and a half.

In case I missed the completion of my mutation, just yesterday, defeated and too weak to sit in the rocking chair, I brought Sam into bed to practice the celebrated lying down breastfeeding position, which is really not so wonderfully comfortable, only to awake two hours later with the realization that Sam had guzzled at the tap for a record breaking marathon feeding.

Though I miss rational conversations and the synapses in my brain that connect one thought to another, my current zombie stage is good for assembling our incredibly complicated birth announcements. In our signature manner of over-complicating the simplest projects we have designed birth announcements that require eighteen million complicated assembly steps and we will be lucky if they are sent out before his sixth birthday. But just you wait; they are worth the delay (as are the still unordered wedding pictures)!

[Update: you can also click here]

This is good practice for when Sam brings home a school project and asks Mom and Dad for help and fails since it is two weeks late and too complicated for Sam, the teacher, and us to understand. May the birth announcements be a lesson to us all.

Between birth announcements and blank stares at the track lighting, the remaining hours of my day are occupied looking at Sam. Our friend Anthony compared Sam to a campfire. You can sit around him and carry on a conversation. But sooner or later you just stop and stare at him. To partake in the campfire experience, please click here.

The Smile

2004-10-21T13:43:00.000-04:00

Sam has started charming his parents with his heartbreaking smile. He has officially moved from the gaseous smile to the social smile, though of course his face continues to light up when he takes a great big dump too.

His whole face, mouth, eyes, and cheeks glow with glee when he recognizes his Mom or Dad or when thinks we are just plain silly. He hears our voices and apparently likes it. He heard Patrick talking to him on the phone today and looked at the phone with a big smile!

He is even using his smile to charm the ladies in our New Moms’ groups, though he also spits up all over himself when he does it. Such a lady killer.

Labor Installment Part Two

2004-10-21T13:37:00.000-04:00

For those of you waiting for labor installment part two: As anticipated the IV and fetal monitor led to Ideal Birth Plan Casualty Number One: I could not move around at all. Despite my storybook dreams, I did not get to practice all of those wonderful positions we learned in birthing class to manage the labor

The first detour led to the inevitable Birth Plan Casualty Two: The Epidural. If you are induced in a hospital setting with no place to move and no special midwife to give you magical pain relieving techniques, you are CRAZY not to take the epidural. The only regret I have about accepting the miracle drugs is that I waited way too long to ask for them, well and that they don’t mask the pain of an hour and a half of pushing.

Yes, I pushed for an hour and a half. I threw towels around the room as I felt Sam’s head come forward and then go back in after the push. This ridiculously painful experience went on amidst the banter of the doctor who called out, “Get angry now!” thinking that would help me push! Sorry, man that just makes me mad at you!

After the endless marathon pushing, which by the way is nothing like running the real marathon because you don’t have the option to stop, Sam came out all in one push. There was no head first, followed by shoulders. There was just Sam. I couldn’t believe what he looked like when they put him on my chest. All those months, this was who was inhabiting my belly! And now this is who smiles at me when he wakes up or when he gets a new diaper. How great is that?

The Stitches: Forty Five Minutes of sewing with a few extra shots of local didn't seem that bad at the time, but man oh man! The things that used to be so easy were suddenly so hard. I couldn't walk well, or even stand to get Sam out of the bassinet to feed him. Surely I don't need to tell you about the incredible pain involved in every trip to the bathroom for four weeks. I think perhaps he sewed me up in a way I was never designed to be. Thank God for Tucks!

The Maternity Ward: This is a miserable place at Long Island College Hospital. The nurses are not friendly and in fact they seem to disappear once you tell them that your baby is rooming in with you. There is no help with breastfeeding, diaper changing, or advice for mothers with pain in their nether regions. This situation is not helped by the fact that we had to share a room with another Mom, who was lucky enough to have the window. We were however treated to her five-year-old son's commentary on his new sister. In his little Jamaican accent he commented, "She is so red because she was living in Mom's blood." What an astute observation!

Homecoming: I was released early Monday morning. But for some unacceptable reason Sam's doctor couldn't arrive until five at which time she looked at him for all of five seconds and sent us home. But we were waylaid yet again for there was a one hour fire drill which prohibited the wheelchair from getting to our floor to take us out to the car. Since I thought the wheelchair was pointless anyway, I tried to walk down the stairs, but Patrick thought better of it. I did however cry almost all day.

Finally we carried Sam outside and put him in the car. I never realized how hard it is to drive. There are so many people out to get you with no regard to precious cargo! We made it though and have even tried the car again.Six weeks later labor and delivery doesn't seem so bad. Maybe, just maybe we could do this all again and Sam can say, "the baby is red because she lived in Mom's blood!"

The Great Pumpkin

2004-10-17T18:29:00.000-04:00

Sam journeyed to the depths of Long Island to pick his first pumpkin, but not before he conquered an eight acre corn maze. He quickly earned fame as a master of the maze and was followed by fellow explorers who could be heard shouting, "Follow that Pumpkin Baby!" To see more pictures of our favorite pumpkin please click here.

Sam really wanted to take the 20 pound pumpkin home but had to settle for two smaller pumpkins since he refused to wake up to carry his side of the gourd. Despite the festive day, his favorite part of the day was being the first boy to pee in the Sentra as we clumsily changed him in the parking lot. Someday we will learn that cold equals lots and lots of pee, but hey, it's only been five weeks!

Other notable attractions in the picture installment include Sam's introduction to Mom's famous Fisher Price Honey and Dad's storied Blue Bear. Though the editor has agreed not to begin a competition on whose childhood toy Sam will become most attached to; you are asked to note the smile on Sam's face as he greets Honey.

Finally, though many cousins have been clamoring to get a piece of Sam, first blood was drawn this week by Gary Mex Glazner, poet, teacher, and deserter. (He left his group of New Mexico high school students alone to roam the streets of Manhattan while he ventured to Brooklyn in order to meet Sam. We do hope they behaved or at least have a good story about their adventure.)

I'm Back

2004-10-06T14:31:00.000-04:00

I’m blogging again. After a few weeks’ hiatus to allow healing time, I can actually sit on a hard chair without wetting my pants from the sharp pain lingering long after the doctor sewed up my privates for forty five minutes to update the world of the Real Poop. My mother is in Italy this week and cannot ask, “how’s your crotch?” So I’ll just tell you its much, much better, thanks.

There is now actual real poop that comes in various shades of brown and orange and is the consistency of cottage cheese. It comes day or night and even at projectile rocket speed all over me in the midst of a diaper change. Yes. Real. Stinky. Poop.

Aunt Amy, the last of the scheduled visitors has left for Dallas. After Sam welcomed Amy by spitting up his whole meal over her shoulder, down her back, and on her shoes, they got along fabulously. He misses her already. To see pictures of her visit, please click here.

Patrick has also returned to work, so just as Sam has lost his umbilical cord, I too have lost mine, and Sam and I are now on our own to figure out how to master this mother/son thing. Though we are both a little terrified, if the first few weeks can be any indication, we will occasionally get frustrated, but we will do just fine.

You might be awaiting the nitty gritty details of labor and delivery. Now that I have had a couple of weeks to digest the whole labor and delivery experience while I gaze upon my dear, sweet Sam, I am thinking it wasn’t that bad. However if you were lucky enough watch me throw towels around the delivery room while I pushed, you might have a very different view of how things went down. It was hard. Yes. Very hard. But Mother Nature has a way of glossing over the more terrible aspects of the experience so that we will blissfully create more and more babies. I can confidently say that she hasn’t glossed over it that well yet, but it surely doesn’t seem that bad anymore.

There is much to tell about our visit at Long Island College Hospital so I will spin the tale in a few installments, since according to everyone in their right mind I should be using this quiet time to nap instead of blog.

Needless to say despite the fact that I had the whole labor and delivery elaborately planned out as a storybook experience, nothing of course went as planned. Since Sam was so comfortable in his water world I had to be induced. This of course meant that even though I walked into the hospital as a perfectly healthy woman I had to be immediately hooked up to an IV and a fetal monitor, because apparently now I was a very sick patient.

We were not engendered with a sense of confidence from the weekend shift of nurses and trainees. An unwelcoming nurse-hack first showed a complete inability to untangle cords and hook up a fetal monitor (which is no more complicated than hooking up your iPod) prompting the real nurse to say, “What happened here,” as she adjusted it. Lucky for me this incompetence was not enough for the real nurse to step in. She sat quietly on my right side asking me a plethora of questions and filling out forms while the scary nurse in training attempted to put an IV in my left wrist. Ten minutes later and after a geyser of blood prompted Patrick to sit down for fear of passing out*, the real nurse again said, “What happened here,” and explained that the wrong tubes were in my arm. But of course these were not fixed so every nurse and doctor thereafter repeated the chorus, “What happened here?”

After the monitor, IV, and teabag like device used to induce labor were all in place Patrick and I dug in for a night of labor. I lay immobile in bed while he tried to get comfortable on the plastic-coated reclining chair while we waited for the contractions to begin.

Just as we waited, you must wait too for Sam is asleep so I must now resist the urge to straighten, clean, and write thank you notes and rest.

*To underscore the terror of the IV, this was the only time that Patrick, an admittedly queasy hospital visitor, had to step away for fear of passing out. In fact he watched Sam enter the world with vim and vigor!

Uncle Mark Takes Sam Bar Hopping

2004-09-29T14:54:00.000-04:00

Sam's First Subway Ride

Uncle Mark swooped into town to meet his new nephew this weekend, and Sam took the opportunity to take his one and only uncle on a tour of Brooklyn. Sam rode his very first subway, the wonderful F train, watched his first "R" rated movie*, and went to his first bar where he enjoyed a nice Brooklyn Lager. To see more of Uncle Mark's visit click here.

*Bull Durham, which he slept through.

Grandparents Attack!

2004-09-20T20:43:00.000-04:00

Sam wowed all four grandparents with his extraordinary ability to sleep through even the most rigorous dandling this weekend. For the lucky few, he opened his eyes for a few daylight minutes, but next visit the grandparents are going to visit only between the hours of 3am and 5am for optimal awake Sam.

Don't believe me? Proof is here.

More Sam!

2004-09-17T21:51:00.000-04:00

Or, for those of you into Spanish Palindromes: ¡Más Sam!
A few more photos from the past few days, many taken especially for you fans of topless babies, are available here.

--Dad of Sam

Samsplosion!

2004-09-15T21:29:00.000-04:00

More photos of Samwise available here.

Samuel Douglas Mortensen

2004-09-12T23:33:00.000-04:00

Hello: I am hijacking this blog while my wife is stuck at the hospital. Before I go any further, I'd like to say that if elected President I will make pennies the size of dimes, nickels the size of pennies and dimes the size of nickels. Colors will stay the same.

OK, on to the news: Samuel Douglas Mortensen was born on September 11, 2004 at 11:49am. Sam is 7 pounds 12 ounces. If you asked if he is 20 inches long, I would be lying if I said no, and as a possible future President, campaigning on the Accurate Corresponding Sizes for Currency Values Platform, I cannot afford to lie.
Calculating the extent to which Sam rocks requires a version of Excel that is NOT EVEN OUT YET.

Meg is in the hospital through Monday and will resume her blogging duties soon.
Did I say quarters stay the same size? Quarters stay the same size.

- Patrick

Induction Junction

2004-09-02T10:52:00.000-04:00

Now that the Repugs are about to evacuate our city making it safe once again for rational, intelligent individuals, I think the baby will take her cue and begin the long journey into the world. However if Cheney and Bush have caused a more permanent neurosis in our child, I wanted to take a moment to review the suggestions I have received to “naturally” induce labor; that even I, stubborn and determined, am not ready to inflict upon myself.

I do not consider myself an Amazon woman able to withstand pain better than no other. In fact, quite the contrary, I am a wimpy woman scared to death of needles. My goal in this labor process is to avoid an epidural in my spine at all costs. Call me crazy for not wanting a five inch needle jammed into my spine for the effect of numbing my whole lower body. If the needle doesn’t creep me out enough, the loss of feeling surely does. Being the control freak that I am, I need to be in control of the whole process and that involves actually feeling pushes despite the pain. Though I may be wimpy, I am stubborn. I ran a marathon even if I did cry my way through a mile and half of it. So in keeping with my stupid yet stubborn ways, I am determined to deliver this baby before the tenth, the day the doctor wants to start inducing labor with his super drugs: super drugs that cause unnaturally painful contractions that few woman have conquered without the aid of a miracle needle in the spine.

That being said some of America’s advice to naturally induce labor seems even crazier than the five inch needle:

1. Enema: Even taking into account the very real fear of every pregnant woman of “having an accident” on the delivery room table, we do not live in the middle ages. I am not even sure how this can be considered a “natural” option as there is absolutely nothing natural about this process. Pass please.

2. Castor Oil: This is basically the same principle with the added bonus of ingesting a nasty substance that would make me puke before I even swallowed it. If it needs to come with a recipe engineered to get it down, No thanks.

3. Ankle Massage: Call me a pessimist, but how can something as simple as massaging a certain spot in your ankle to induce labor be anything more than an incredibly long shot considering how drastic these other measures are. Since it involves the word massage, I of course tried it, well made my husband try it, to no avail. If the answer was this simple everyone would deliver their babies on time.

4. Acupuncture: Didn’t I say I am deathly afraid of needles and now you want to poke multiple needles in multiple places in my body in some back room of an East Village tattoo shop? Ummm, I don’t think so.

5. Seaweed: Now this option sounds the most palatable of all of the ideas thus far. According to some people, even some qualified doctors, putting seaweed in, shall we say the birth canal, for a day or so causes the cervix to open up and bring on labor. But it also seems a little gross: cold, wet leaves. Ugh. And if my doctor is not willing to do it, which he is probably not, do I really go to the sushi restaurant and beg for some seaweed for this purpose? Not likely.

There remain two viable options:
1. Exercise: Any type of exercise brings on contractions. That's what we are looking for. Even though I have a fear of being on the other side of the park when labor begins, that’s why God made cell phones. So exercising, you bet I am.

2. The final option, you, my conservative Catholic friends and family know this one. And well um Dad since this baby is of course the product of an Immaculate Conception; I don’t know anything about it and never will. So a walking I will go.

View of the City

2004-08-31T12:50:00.000-04:00

Listening to countless homeless people yell, “What’s in there?” and enduring assaults by strange women who reach out to touch my belly used to create a well of bile in my throat where insulting comebacks would fester but never be voiced. The constant stares from people on the subway seemed to penetrate my belly and somehow harm my baby. Once I even had to scream obscenities at a truck full of men in East New York who whistled at me and my six-month-old fetus. I even found a way to get offended at a young, very attractive man who got up a minute before getting off the F-train to say, “I am not trying to pick you up or anything lady, but you are the most beautiful pregnant woman I have ever seen and I really admire what you are doing.” How could that upset me? It was at that low point of bitterness that I began to reassess New York and reintroduce myself to my home.

A pregnant woman’s introduction to New York begins with her nose. Suddenly all of those hidden baked garbage smells seep out of the blacktop only to be followed by the gagging whiff of day-old pee in the subway station. A pregnant woman never steps in the piles of dog shit on the sidewalk because the smell makes her gag five feet away. However emerging from the putrid smells of millions of people living on top of each other are also the scents of tasty treats. We pregnant woman get first sniff of the aroma of the bakery across the street as they begin baking the day’s bread and the garlicy goodness of the pizza place down the block as they make their signature sauce.

Once we get used to smelling everything the city has to offer like Bloomberg’s pack of bomb sniffing dogs, we have a new hurdle to jump: the endless amount of walking that our visiting relatives used to complain about but had never really seemed that bad to us. Suddenly to get anywhere in this city everything becomes miles apart. To get to work we need to hump to the subway only to be met with countless stairs down and the dread of heaving ourselves up at least that many on the other side. It is blocks and blocks to get to work and a few more miles to go out for lunch or to meet a few friends after work. And finally it’s hiking up four stories to get to bed at the end of the day to elevate swollen feet and varicose veins. But along the way sweet men have offered to carry our suitcases up the stairs at Penn Station or carry some of our groceries to our door.

Amidst the stench and the painful walks are the few gifts New Yorkers have given pregnant woman. The first gift comes directly from Mayor Bloomberg. Thanks to his no smoking policy, a pregnant woman does not have to hibernate for nine months while all of her friends are out on the town dancing on bars and karaokeing without us. Instead she can join them for happy hour and watch them descend into a slow drunk at which point she goes home and wakes up refreshed at 9 AM on a Saturday while they roll out of bed at noon with a monstrous hangover. The second gift comes from the mass of largely cooperative subway riders who more often than not actually give up their seats for a big-bellied woman.

Upon reflection, I have now come to welcome the comments, stares, and smiles for what they are. I have been reintroduced to New York and have begun to recognize it not as an evil place ready to attack its prey, but rather a surprisingly caring place filled with millions of members of a well meaning surrogate family who are more like my drunken family dance parties than I might have thought.

First Day Jitters

2004-08-30T17:46:00.000-04:00

Today my nephew had his first day of first grade. Since school is still a fun place to be, there are not many better feelings in life than a first grader’s first day of school. This is the first day of the rest of his life. Finally he is a big kid. He is able to go to school all day and find out what exactly goes on in that first grade classroom.

Today he was introduced to his new teacher, the one he really wanted, his new desk in his new classroom, and the kids who would sit next to him until the teacher makes a new seating chart. You know, the one who will gross him out by picking his nose and flicking his boogers across the aisle and that adorable girl who will capture his seven-year-old heart. As if that was not enough excitement for one day he also got to take out his newly sharpened pencils from his brand new pencil case to write down his first assignment, which was surely to write about his summer vacation.

As I sit waiting for my baby, it occurs to me that it is the first year in many years that I don’t have anywhere to go on the first day of school. I don’t get to find my new seat or meet my new homeroom. I won’t get any homework or grade any tests. Though I am glad I missed the fitting room mirrors as I shopped for my new back to school outfit in my current whale like state, I also missed out on the annual trip to Staples to refill my drawers with shiny new pens, fresh paper, crisp notebooks, and a brand lesson plan book. I miss putting all of those new names into my grade book and wondering who will be the best poet in the class, who will be the most disruptive, and who will break my heart. I miss the quiet, attentive first day faces trying to make a good impression and the tough, abrasive faces trying to set their boundaries early. I miss the smell of new backpacks and the sound of pencils being sharpened.

But as I think of the hours I usually spend this time of year planning my first lessons and I remember the butterflies I usually get in my stomach in anticipation of how that lesson will go, I am awakened to the reality of the kicking, stretching human inside of me and realize that I do have a first day of school this year too. I am about to meet my teacher’s pet and live all of the firsts with my baby. What will be the first thing I say to my baby? Will he be a good poet or perhaps a track star? How will we all sleep in the first nights? Will she have my eyes or will he have my husband’s nose? And how will she like the nursery I have so meticulously set up for the homecoming?

In all of my neurotic and obsessive day dreams about my new baby I am living out the first day jitters. Only this time I get to introduce myself to my own baby instead of other people’s babies. Instead of buying red pens and loose leaf paper I am buying diapers that fit in the palm of my hand. Just as my new class and I would have to forge a relationship throughout the year, my baby and I are about to embark on a new journey full of firsts. And just as I have screwed-up countless times as a teacher, I will surely make many mistakes as a parent. But in the end we will have come through the year with a long list of accomplishments. And someday my baby too will have a first day of first grade.

Books Not to Read While Pregnant

2004-08-26T10:58:00.000-04:00

At eight and a half months pregnant there are few things that a pregnant woman can do happily. But one of the most enjoyable things is to read. However, it is very important to choose those books wisely. For example its not a good idea to read stories of births that have gone awry or pregnant ladies that have fallen into misfortune and it is an especially bad idea to read books in which the main character suffers from a hormone disorder that makes him/her a hermaphrodite. That is why I cannot allow Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides into the pregnant lady book club.

While its 529 pages look like an enticing way to waste some time and the reviews welcome you in, I have spent the entire week having dreams about my baby being a eunuch, a transsexual, and running away from home to join the porn trade. Those are not the happy thoughts that we should be having days before birth. In fact I might even go as far as to say that this book is why my baby is not starting his or her voyage yet. It has in fact scared the baby out of being born.

While we are on the topic of bad reads during pregnancy I must add one more. Though everyone says that the bible to a pregnant woman is What to Expect When You Are Expecting, I heartily disagree. As a result of this book's alarmist ways I began my pregnancy thinking that I had an ectopic pregnancy, a pregnancy in my ovaries that would not survive, and recently convinced myself that I would be on bed rest because my baby is too small. What to Expect When You Are Expecting details worst case scenarios that feed into a pregnant woman's obsessions and there is really no need to help a pregnant woman obsess about things that could go wrong. She does that all by herself, thank you very much.

Now that I am on to calmer reads I declare this baby will be less frightened of an adolescence with two sex organs and is going to want to enter the world at any time. Oh please let that be true. I am so tired of looking like a beached whale.

Pregnant Under the Critical Eye of a Brooklyn Middle School

2004-08-25T14:17:00.000-04:00

What happens when a pregnant blogger fails to post for four days? Lots and lots of calls from people who think there is a new baby. Sorry folks not yet. But here is a new piece for your reading pleasure.

The sight of a pregnant woman makes people lose all pretenses of social graces. As if the increase in public burping and gas, or open discussions of her nether regions were not enough to make a pregnant woman feel less than a proper lady then surely she can rely on the outside observers to make her realize that she is no longer an individual with feelings and emotions but rather a mere vessel whose sole purpose is to bring an adorable small person into the world.

The dehumanizing process of the pregnant specimen starts very early in the pregnancy. In fact even before a woman starts spreading the news she can hear whispers at the water cooler. “Is it me or is she putting on some weight?”

As a middle school teacher the whispers were actually not really whispers at all but rather loud speculations meant for me to hear. Before getting too critical of these commentaries, let’s first consider the source. Middle school students are insecure themselves and subject to intense criticism about their Uptown shoes, RocaWear sweats, and corn rows. Every day at school is a battleground for them to maintain their status and perhaps move up one more rung in the middle school hierarchy. These rungs are earned by fights, victorious insulting matches, and of course a demonstration of supremacy over a teacher.

These are the same students that kindly raised their hand in the middle of a lesson about pronouns to ask me if I was pregnant when I gained five pounds over spring break two years ago. This group has also had no problem interrupting class to call me out on a bad hair day or on my ugly boots. Nothing escapes their notice so you can only imagine how much scrutiny I must have been under for three months of subtle yet marked changes in my body.

At about two and a half months into my pregnancy and after about seven trips of bolting out of my classroom to throw-up without a single comment from my students, I began to hear guarded conversations about Mrs. Mortensen’s changing body and I knew it was about time to tell my students. However, protocol says that I must first tell my commander-in-chief, my principal. Since this was a man I neither respected nor trusted I was not excited to share my news because I knew that my favors, extra supplies, and general autonomy I had obtained in my classroom would soon come to an end as he would sense that I would no longer be helping him raise his bottom line: test scores.

Though I labored over the conversation, I finally just blurted it out on a staff development day when he came in to invite me to an appreciation dinner for twenty of the sixty teachers in the school. Why you might ask yourself did he only appreciate twenty, young, handsome, female teachers out of the sixty teachers? That, my friends, is case in point. After I told him my big news he looked at me blankly and walked out of the room, refusing to believe me. Later, after confirming the news with one of my colleagues, I heard him tell another teacher how sad he was that I was having a baby, exactly the reaction a pregnant women dreams of. That was the last conversation I had with man for the remaining three months of the school year. No more stops into my classroom to discuss my future position as teacher of the 'gifted students'. No more praise for my students’ progress. And certainly no more friendly chatter. That conversation also marked open season for my students and colleagues as news of my looming motherhood traveled around the building at Mach 3.

The first assault came the next day when one of my male colleagues took me aside to tell me “the funniest story.” Not having a history of liking this man’s stories about how he cursed out a kid or called another one a faggot, I was not at all optimistic about the comedy in this one. He enthusiastically began to tell me how Dayquan, one of his homeroom students and one of my writing students, came up to him at lunch and said, “Mrs. Mortensen’s tits are huge and her stomach is fat, is she pregnant?” At this, my coworker laughed heartily and I glared at him and told him how incredibly insensitive he was and walked away to the shock of all around me. But really, did that story need to be told? Surely if it did it could did not have be reenacted as crudely as it was originally told.

For the most part, once I told my kids, the news was greeted warmly and I was treated like a queen, well at least when they remembered my delicate condition. If the class got too loud one concerned student or another could be relied upon to yell above the din, “Shut the fuck up! She’s pregnant.” For the rest of the year I would also receive lots of advice from my kids who had seen countless brothers, sisters, and mothers give birth at young ages. They would ask if I was going to have a water birth. Boys and girls alike would advise me about cravings, morning sickness, and breastfeeding. One girl even came to talk to me privately about morning sickness from her own experience. At age 12 she had recently miscarried.

Of course my weight gain was continually monitored. Many would say that I didn’t even look pregnant while others would express awe at how big my belly was. Not a day would go by without questions and observations of this new science project standing in front of them. Comments from my kids were endearing and educational and did not need to be couched in manners because if kids from East New York can be respected and admired for anything, it is their honestly. They just tell it like it is.

However the teachers had apparently spent too much time learning from their students as their boldness only increased throughout the year. Every morning I was assaulted at the front desk by people telling me how big I was getting or people analyzing my butt or whether or not my nose was expanding across my face. Almost complete strangers would grab for belly to touch the baby. Hello?! Keep your hands to yourself! Still others would talk about how my husband was a lucky man. Apparently sexual harassment clauses do not apply to pregnant women.

At the end of the year I thought I was free from the scrutiny of the outside world and able to carry out my pregnancy in peace for the rest of the summer. But just last night after a series of well meaning people on the street had told me how cute I was and how small I looked for being so close to my due date, a security guard asked me if I was having twins. I was crushed. My heart plummeted to my feet and I once again remembered that yes, I am no longer a individual with feelings that can be hurt, but rather a vehicle to carry and introduce a tiny new life for the benefit of all strangers in this the world.

Locked and Loaded

2004-08-20T16:56:00.000-04:00

For several weeks I have been able to watch the veins in my groin palpitate in unnatural and painful ways. Every time I climb the four flights of stairs to my apartment it takes an extra hour because the bowling ball that is crammed between my legs is getting heavier and heavier. But just in case I wasn’t getting the hint, my doctor kindly observed that, “Wow, there is a lot of pressure down here” during today’s exam.

In case I didn’t feel like I was getting my moneys worth with the first brilliant diagnosis he followed that keen observation with two very helpful suggestions: “You could go at anytime or you could walk around like this for two more weeks.” Gee, thanks.

Even when pressed for an estimate, the doctor really has no way to tell what “anytime” means. In fact going to the doctor to get checked for progress might be the most unscientific test of the entire pregnancy. There are no tools to measure how many centimeters I am dilated or how much I am effaced. The doctor simply feels around and suddenly declares that I am 80 percent effaced, meaning these “practice” contractions are actually doing some pretty heavy work and I should start freaking out because I could go into labor now….or in three weeks. Good to know.

Of course I don’t register the three weeks estimate for a few hours and I immediately go into the “I’m having a baby any minute mode.” What does that mode entail for a very pregnant woman? Well first she freaks out, because once again she is violently ripped away from the picture perfect life of calmly sitting in the nursery where she has folded and refolded onesies for a phantom baby while rocking in the rocking chair that might someday be used to the reality that there is going to be a whole new person living in the house in moments. Then she calls her husband to tell him the news so that he too can freak out. Because, really what else are partners for?

Next, I need not stop at Go to collect my two hundred dollars before forging ahead in full throttle. I forget that the nursery is meticulously organized and I fixate on the two things I don’t have: gigantic pads and Vaseline. Gigantic pads are self-explanatory. Obviously you cannot trust your husband to arrive home with the right kind of monster pads if he is sent out immediately after bringing the baby home. He will creep down the aisle on his tiptoes as if all of those feminine products might suddenly awake and attack only to pick up the first thing he can reach: tampons or panty liners. Triumphantly he will arrive home and proudly present his acquisition as you burst into tears.

Why the Vaseline? For weeks night time has no longer meant curling up in bed and falling asleep. Instead it is filled with countless trips to the bathroom and award winning pillow sculptures meant to support that single, one and only, comfortable sleeping position. Oh and yes, the rest of the time is occupied obsessing over everything from the birth to the unacceptable clothes our daughter will wear when she is a teenager and dating real live boys.

However, recently this productive mental exercise was filled with the complications of having a baby boy. In this scenario we had a beautiful baby boy, but when we brought him home I couldn’t change his diaper because we had no Vaseline to dress his circumcision wound. What a terrible mother! As if that were not cause enough to revoke my recently earned and oh so valued motherhood badge, I suddenly didn’t know which way to point his penis in his diaper! I didn’t want to point it down in case it became uncomfortable and I certainly couldn’t point it up because he would pee right out his diaper all over his umbilical cord and cause a life threatening infection. Though I don’t know how to actually situate his boy parts in the diaper yet, I do have the Vaseline and am once again calmly prepared to wait for this baby, even for a few weeks, while I watch Michael Phelps swim for the gold.

That Doesn't Even Look Like a Baby

2004-08-19T20:53:00.000-04:00

For women who have complacently gone through the majority of their pregnancy obliviously focusing on baby names, duck-themed onesies, and nursery colors, the beginning of birthing class can transform them into wide-eyed deer in front of a Mack truck. Suddenly a formerly content pregnant woman who once sat calmly knitting her baby’s first hat is sent into a deep downward spiral of fear where creeping out of every repressed part of her brain are scandalous unfit mother thoughts like, “What were you thinking!” “Give this baby back!” and “There is no way you are going to make it through this!”

In fact the object of birthing class may not be to teach breathing methods or breastfeeding positions, but rather its goal is to abruptly shake us into the reality that all too soon this adorable little parasite is going to have to come out. Suddenly a tiny six pound baby seems to feel more like a fourteen pound Thanksgiving turkey and any sane pregnant woman knows that there is no way last year’s turkey is going to fit through that narrow and oh so delicate space.

The first day of birthing class starts out calmly as each couple introduces themselves and proudly proclaims their due date and practitioner of choice. There are silent glances of superiority from the women who have chosen midwives, birthing centers, and home-births over traditional doctors at traditional hospitals. The birthing coach seems to endorse these brave women while the rest of us feel weak and old fashioned for choosing a doctor. Throughout the class we spineless traditionalists become even more anxious that we will be the victims of an unnecessary C-section because instead of being able to labor in a hot-tub or draped over a birthing ball, we stupid women are stuck with a doctor who will strap us to our bed and hook us up to countless machines in the most uncomfortable and unproductive labor position.

Despite the subtle paranoia beginning to cloud my brain, the class seems to go smoothly as people ask mundane questions about diapers, breastfeeding, and epidurals. In fact I am not even disturbed as the instructor absent-mindedly plays with a stuffed pelvic bone in which an oddly shaped baby is being pushed out onto the floor over and over again. After the fourth dropped baby the instructor inquires, “Why does Mother Nature make birth so painful?”

The philosophical group of Brooklyn hipsters spout out elaborate answers that would impress Socrates himself. However none of these clever answers are the responses she was digging for. Finally a voice of reason from the back calls out, “because you are having a damn baby!” Though this seems obvious to everyone and we all wonder how its simplicity escaped us, the instructor begins to explain that Mother Nature made this process painful so that early woman would come in from the hunt and off of the field and bear down for this process. In other words it is a painful experience so that uneducated primitive women would not simply let out a little gas and drop their baby in the middle of the field. This response to her philosophical question is intended to both reassure us that birth is a natural process that millions of women before us have endured without the benefit of classes, coaches, drugs, and hospitals and to toughen us up. Because really what should we be scared of? Women have done this for thousands of years in much worse circumstances. In other words stop your whining wimpy twenty first century hipsters.

But we shouldn’t remain too calm or get too comfortable with the fact that we are going to be able withstand this age-old phenomenon because now the instructor drops the stuffed baby to pop in the first of many 1970’s era videos. At first it’s a friendly video full of animated sequences explaining where the baby is at each point during pregnancy and how the baby turns and manipulates itself into position. Then without any warning the video cuts to a live birth and zooms into a full view of a woman’s vagina where what looks to be a grimy, mildewed volleyball is emerging. The entire class gasps and looks away from the unnatural and stomach-turning scene. While my husband squeezes my hand and whispers in a shaky voice, “Wow, thanks for doing this,” the woman in the video looks down at her crotch and yells, “It doesn’t even look like a baby!” Thank You! That is what we were all thinking. This white cone-shaped thing certainly cannot be her beautiful baby!

We watch a few more minutes as she grunts and moans and the camera zooms in on her fourteen closest friends watching this humiliating act and then zooms into her entirely naked body until, finally the baby pops out and is placed bloody and screaming on the woman’s bare breast. At the conclusion of the video the instructor asks if there are any questions or concerns. Hell yeah there are!

Why is that baby white?! Why are there so many people watching her? And why oh why is she naked in front of her mother-in-law? But we are all too shocked to respond so the instructor breaks for snacks.

Who's In My Belly?

2004-08-18T11:29:00.000-04:00

Normally I would be planning my lessons and shopping for an unlimited supply of pens and paper for my unprepared seventh graders. But this August I am fighting back against feminism and counting down the two and a half weeks until I am a stay-at-home Mom.

The homeless man on the steps of the West Fourth platform told me that I am having a boy. He kindly wished my son and I lots of luck. The man on the ladder at Lowes hollered, "Its a boy" as he almost slammed his ladder into my wide load. My students declare that my baby will come out cursing because it spent its first six months listening to their seventh grade East New York mouths. But most people say that there is girl in there. Personally, I don't know if I am carrying high or low or if my belly looks more like a football or a basketball. But I do know that there is something growing in there. I see flailing limbs out the side of my belly on a daily basis and can spend endless minutes watching my belly heave up and down with baby hicups.

I am eight and half months into this pregnancy and I have 21 pounds to show for it. Recently I have found myself drooling over my Citizens jeans and tearing-up as I thumb through my Anthropologie catalogues. As if I wasn't already tired enough of my 20 extra pounds, yesterday The Gap sent me an email with the subject "Time For New Jeans." Gee, Thanks.

At the beginning I thought I would never tire of being pregnant. That is until I suddenly woke up and realized that somehow I really am going to have to get this baby out of this tiny orifice. Before that epiphany my biggest worry was who would be the next to make an amazingly insensitive comment about my new body shape. Once people discover that you are pregnant it seems as though they lose all filters. I heard everything from "Hollywood Mom" to "Wow, you are big for four months" to a male co-worker's observation that my "Rack is huge!" Its funny how the people with the most oddly shaped bodies have the loudest voices upon finding new pregnant prey.

Now that delivery is upon us, I worry about the fact that I have yet to buy overnight pads by the caseload and that I don't have the right shaped nipples for breastfeeding. I dream about little faceless babies cooing up at me and then suddenly growing into loud twelve year olds overnight. Then I feel the contractions. Are they Braxton-Hicks "practice" contractions? Or am I really Going to Have This Baby Today? Nope. Not today.