Due to Extenuating Circumstances

Adventures in Unplanned Parenthood

Archive for the category “Uncategorized”

20 Nov 2015
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The Paper Chase

We were told after we had custody of baby for EXACTLY six months his adoption file was going to be submitted to the Lancaster County courts, our lawyers would have us sign a lot of papers, the judge would do gavel-related things and the baby would be ours for all eternity.

na·ive·té
ˌnīˌēv(ə)ˈtā,nīˈēv(ə)ˌtā/
noun
  1. lack of experience, wisdom, or judgment.

We thought six months meant six months, 180 days, half a year, all those things you tend to believe when someone says a concrete amount of time that equals 24 hours multiplied 180 times. This, of course, was stupid. The same way that we thought 12 bibs was a reasonable number of bibs, this is the level of delusion I’m describing. Here is what 6 months means in the adoption world:

Obtain baby. Unbelievably difficult but necessary step.

Select family lawyer. One with a law degree is best.

Wait until the baby has been in your physical custody for 4,320 hours.

Go to your lawyer.

Prepare the paperwork. Learn that there has been a dispute over what Iowa paperwork and Nebraska paperwork need to include. Wonder why this was never addressed the entire time you have been twiddling your thumbs waiting for the day the paperwork could be handled.

Meet again to have papers reviewed and signed. Notice minor errors in the paperwork that are mildly concerning, like the fact there is no legal record of how the birth mother spells her name. It’s three different ways on three separate documents. Have a panic attack wondering if someone can be un-adopted if the birthmom shows up and it turns out adding a “y” to her name makes her a totally different legal entity with rights over your beloved son.

Take a sedative.

Go back to paperwork and notice that you have all be signing copies showing today’s date as 2012. Wait for everyone to get updated copies.

Wait for a second round of updated copies while everyone tries to remember if the baby needs to be Imes Borden or Borden, middle name Imes. Realize you don’t HAVE to remember, he’s YOUR FUCKING KID AND YOU ALREADY NAMED HIM SO JUST DO IT RIGHT AND WHY HAVEN’T WE BEEN HAVING THIS DISCUSSION BEFORE NOW

Take another sedative.

Be told, for the first time, that after the paperwork is filed (already one month late) the state must hold it between 4 and 12 weeks.

Realize that the tickets you just got to visit the baby’s grandparents in Canada are now $2,300 (CAD) bookmarks. Because baby cannot get a passport without a birth certificate, and he cannot get that without the adoption papers, and those just got pushed back at least another month.

Remove sedatives from bottle and repackage them into Pez dispenser for convenience.

Wait.

Wait.

Wait.

Realize the court date will run into the school year, wonder how we’ll schedule it all.

Pez dispenser.

Ask mother to find outfit for baby to wear to court. Consider the virtues of bowties, tiny seersucker suits and similar.

Get notice to appear in court. Invite family to be there.

Get everyone to court. See another family with a toddler they are about to adopt. Realize we’re about to do something profound and special. Give them the “us, too” nod that only the others of our vast and wonderful tribe get to share.

Explain to squirming nephew what adoption is. Realize the entire concept of “the baby grew in another lady’s tummy but she gave him to us to love forever because he’s our family”, while beautiful and awe-inspiring, sounds a little suspect when you say it out loud.

Go in front of the judge. Remember almost none of it because IT’S HAPPENING.

Tear up when she asks why we want to adopt him. Mac answers “because we love him.” I answer “because he’s our son.”

Put away the Pez dispenser.

Live happily ever after as the Imes Bordens.

Or whatever name they put on his papers.

 

 

 

 

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18 Nov 2015
6 Comments

An experiment at DtEC

Hi all,

I’d like your help, dear readers, in an experiment. I’d love to see where we can go if the comments section gets input from a variety of people. So, I’m introducing a little survey. Three easy sections to make DtEC the blog you can’t wait to read. Leave your ideas, thoughts and suggestions on how to style my hair in the comment section on the website at http://www.duetoextenuatingcircumstances.com

Thank you!

  • Do you find the column easy to read and navigate? If not, how would you change it?
  • What’s your favorite type of content in this blog? What are the things you enjoy the most or like to share with your friends?
  • 3.  Finally, what kids shows have songs or characters you CANNOT STAND? For me, it’s the Paw Patrol theme. All I hear is                           PAW patrol! Paw patrol! Something something PUPPIES, PAW patrol! At LEAST we’re not, the fucking Bub-ble GUPPIES!
Posted in Uncategorized
08 Nov 2015

Proof? YOU CAN’T HANDLE THE PROOF.

Attention! Due to extenuating circumstances, the following protocol is in place; nothing the baby can get to is safe, either for the baby or the object in question. The following things are now regarded  as extremely perilous: pennies, pens, TV trays, hair bands, anything sharp, anything metal, anything plastic, anything with a plastic bag/wrap/overlay, anything on the floor that can be swallowed, anything removed from the floor that can fall on to the floor, anything that’s not floor related but still adheres to essential gravitational physics, anything used for housecleaning, a dirty house, an old house, a new house, my house, your house, home school, pre-school, night school, eating, not eating, and the cat.

It’s impossible to childproof a house. It is literally, using that word correctly and deliberately, NOT POSSIBLE. How do I know this? Because we have done nothing this past weekend but try to make this house a safer environment for the baby and I can assure you I now live in the least safe house in America. There are people squatting in abandoned scythe factories and asbestos warehouses that are in a better position to guarantee my child’s safety.

First we started with the outlet covers. We got the fancy ones that slide over the unused sockets. The baby regards these as a triple pleasure. He gets to slide things (motion!), try to stick his finger in the opening (entertaining!) and listen to me shout “NO! NOT A TOY.” (attention!). That’s nothing compared to the baby gate. Mac screwed one into the wall, then made a special opening at the side so the cat can go downstairs to his litter box. This gate has it all. It has mystery (“what’s down there?”), comedy (watch mommy try to work the finicky lever!) and pathos (“why, oh why won’t daddy take me past the gate?”). It’s like dinner theatre for the under 1 crowd.

Gate

This is nothing compared to securing the cabinets. I have turned cabinet security into more than a DIY project. In all modesty, I can say I blew right through DIY and home maintenance cliché straight into post modern art. I tried to attach one plastic security spring onto my bathroom cabinet door. It was obvious the previous homeowners also had kids, I could see the remaining screw marks and plastic barrier meant to keep the spring secure until your finger pushes it down. It took me 20 minutes to install one plastic latch. It lines up with the barrier, but I can’t get it to latch. It just sticks out, completely useless, hitting the barrier over and over. If it does go under the latch, it’s so low it doesn’t catch. Behold, the phases of my useless childproof latch.

locks

So Mac got the fancier magnetic locks. This shall be saved for another time I need to write about pulling out my own hair and slowly eating it while I rock back and forth, singing nursery rhymes to myself.

In the meantime, I am on full Floor Patrol Alert. I encounter a lot of cat hair on my beat. As the baby butt scoots along, he often finds these fluffy wads wafting by, and will stick out a moist hand to capture a few little tufts to snack on. Cotton candy will never look right to me again after picking up wet strands of cat hair my son has tried to let melt on his tongue. I thought this meant he was hungry for fingerfoods, so I got him fancy “melt in your mouth” puffs. I was afraid the generics wouldn’t be melty enough so I went for name brand, recognizable Advertised Brand of puffs. The bad news is that the baby couldn’t care less. I showed him over and over how fun the puffs could be if he would let those melt in his mouth instead of the cat hair. The good news is, I now have a delicious and portable melt-in-my-mouth snack anytime I want to treat myself. I’m partial to the blueberry ones.

In the meantime, we have more than enough to be getting on with as far as floor cleanup. I never realized how many things fall on the floor everyday. Gravity is stronger in the Borden household than it was this time last year. Naturally, the things most likely to roll and fall (coins, those funny lipbutters in the egg shape that are trendy, grapes, breath mints) are exactly the size and shape of a baby’s windpipe. Mother Nature could have done all humankind a solid and made our windpipes a hexagon, or octagon, anything with some damn corners. But no. The human windpipe is fragile, round, easy to put things into and absolutely necessary for survival. Thanks, bitch.

So, we’ll take awhile longer to make la casa de Borden safer for its smallest occupant. Until we iron out the wrinkles the baby will be followed as much as possible and I’ll keep screaming “NO! NOT A TOY!” I have to swallow first though, these puffs make me thirsty.

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05 Nov 2015
3 Comments

Object Permanence is a Bitch

For several months I was amused by Baby’s lack of understanding that things don’t disappear forever when they leave our sight. True, you can debate the esoteric nature of the concept; philosophers among us would argue we can’t prove they do, we do, or anything does. What I do know is if Mac disappears into the realm of nonexistence every time he goes downstairs, then I’d really like to know what unseen universal force is leaving copies of Whisky Advocate around and flushing the toilet 4 times an hour.

Back to the baby. At first it was funny that the baby thought everything disappears. Ha ha! Look at the baby, he’s such a noob! Then we went through our alarming Separation Anxiety phase, which is still in effect but only with Mac. Now, with the revelation of the entertainment center, a new and dangerous phase is upon us: Object Permanence.

Baby clearly demonstrated it for the first time when he went back to see why he couldn’t make the pretty doors slide now that they are padlocked (yes, actually padlocked) shut. He knew there should be only a dowel, but it’s gone (I keep it in the garage as a powerful reminder that underestimating my offspring could one day cost lives. My life if he ruins our only functioning TV, his life if he tries to open the liquor cabinet and pour out daddy’s scotch). Just a few minutes after the dowel fiasco, I saw him try to stick a finger in a socket. Wackiness ensued:

Put the childproof cover on it. He still wants the socket. Pull the drapes over it. Still wants the socket. Move an end table in front of it. Tries to climb through the end table to reach the socket. Bring him a toy. Tries to stick toy through end table, under curtains and into socket.

What is your deal with this socket, son? As Mac and I race to cover all of the other sockets, it hits me. He remembered where the socket was. And just like that, I can no longer count on making things “disappear”  by removing them. I hadn’t eliminated our pre-baby household death traps, only consolidated them. Oh my god, I have an entire house of things I disappeared so he wouldn’t play with them. The basement is a graveyard of stuff I didn’t want him to touch so I made it go away. I don’t mean a few Ming vases, I mean I disappeared HUNDREDS of things I couldn’t bother to childproof. I’m the goddamn Chilean dictator of household detritus.

For a hot minute it seemed that childproofing would be a pain, but at least we could count on him understanding that things exist even when we can’t see them. However, it turns out my child has SOPD, Selective Object Permanence Disorder. He remembers some things with perfect clarity. He knows where the sockets are, how to pull on the cords Mommy keeps trying to hide/secure, where the cat left tasty wads of hair that obviously need to be sucked on. What he doesn’t remember, and I try not to take this personally, is that Mac doesn’t disappear forever when he goes downstairs.

I’m not kidding. This isn’t something that mildly annoys our child. Every time, and I mean EVERY TIME Mac leaves the room or walks towards the stairs our child screams the scream of the damned. How can he have such specific separation anxiety? I can be HOLDING him and he still screams like he’s been abandoned to the wolves. That kid isn’t just mad dad is gone, he’s grieving that his beloved father is lost forever and ever. Who can blame him? Mommy moved tons of shiny and sharp things down there and they never came back.

So, concerned for the baby’s mental health (and our eardrums) Mac started running the Third Rate Rapper Sequence I spew all day. That nonstop update of each achievement, intent, thought, or action that parents deliver in the third person. “Daddy needs to answer a work email! Daddy is coming back in a second! Can you hear me? Daddy is walking down the stairs AND I STILL EXIST!!

Of course that doesn’t work, so now he takes the baby with him and the baby sits in the office/small appliance/exercise equipment graveyard we call the basement. Mac puts him in a playpen and then tries to get something done. This should work, because Mac has proven we can go downstairs and not cease to be. But the basement has a bathroom. How does the baby know the bathroom is the same as the basement? He doesn’t. Once you close the bathroom door then you’ve disappeared again. He screams again, mourning with all his tiny, broken heart. So Mac is delivering an even more personal TRRS with gems like “Daddy is RIGHT HERE! You’re not even ten feet away from me! Daddy HAS to keep the bathroom door closed or if the neighbors look through the screen door they can see right inside the house to where Daddy is pooping and that would make Daddy SAD.”

I know. I know the next step. We’ll only be able to prove we don’t disappear in the bathroom if he’s in there with us. But I can’t grasp why he remembers the socket still exists in the bathroom but we don’t. It’s a metaphysical, religious, philosophical conundrum. Perhaps the only way to ensure he remembers Mac exists is to try to childproof him. Then we KNOW the baby will never forget he’s there.

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24 Oct 2015
3 Comments

Jaws

Mac and I had a fantastic idea for updating our tiny living room and making things safer for Baby. We would move bookshelves, anchor them into the wall, then put the new TV entertainment center between them. This would solve one problem we have had with keeping everything safe– the baby wouldn’t be able to crawl around the sides or back. We would then put all of the components behind glass so he can’t stick his chubby little fingers into all of the slots/inputs/outputs/shotputs. This was entirely Mac’s territory and he did his job well. Except for one, tiny detail.

The original idea was to get glass doors that had knobs in the center, so we could capture them together with a childproofing lock like so:

lock

But Mac got one with doors that slide on a track. No problem! Mac got dowels to put in the track and I painted them to be invisible. The baby would never even know it could be opened.

Those of you with children are already wondering how Mac and I manage to dress ourselves in the morning given our obvious mental deficiencies.

Over the course of the afternoon we get the whole center built and installed. Mac gets the thing put together, puts all of the cords in, plugs it in, I’m dusting away and artfully arranging books to cover cords. This thing is a masterpiece. It looks fantastic. I get the dowels. Mac goes outside to move some hoses before we get winter weather. I head downstairs and into the garage with a screwdriver we didn’t need. In the time it takes me to put away a SINGLE item in our garage, I hear sliding above my head. Let us take a quick peek into my thought process at that moment:

Huh! I hear sliding. There’s nothing up there that moves that much. Besides, the baby can’t even properly crawl yet, he just butt scoots…but there it is again. And back again? What do we own that slides back and forth ohmygodrunupthestairsnownownow GAAAAAAAH!

There is my son sitting directly in front of the entertainment center, happily sliding the glass door back and forth, back and forth. He can reach all the knobs, all the ports, all the cords. His fat little fingerprints are running the length of the glass door where he has tested how many different ways he can make the cool glass door glide to and fro. But not prints from both hands. No, just the prints from his right. Why only his right?

Because his left hand is for holding the trophy.

dowel

In under 60 seconds our son scooted to the entertainment center, disabled the “childproofing” then played with his new toy. I don’t even try to solve it. I pick up that stupid dowel, walk right out to our front porch and tell Mac the damn hoses can sit and spin.

“Go to the hardware store NOW. We’re gonna need a bigger boat.”

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22 Oct 2015

Sliding into Home

For generations, the Imes family has passed down a particular genetic anomaly that, while not fatal, causes a great deal of pain and anxiety to most of us. We find we fare best in the coldest months, when snow is falling and everything is ice cold. We generally begin to feel either benignly asymptomatic or slightly nauseated in the spring. During the summer bouts are frequent and we can feel the impact in our everyday lives. The condition rarely extends into late fall, but when it does it is, unquestionably, the most painful and distressing time of year. By the time October has ended we’re often hardly a shadow of our healthy, happier selves.

The Imeses are Cubs fans.

Being a Cubs fan is the arguably the best metaphor for life. It has certainly made me a better parent. Anyone who follows the Cubs is at least rounding third when it comes to vital life lessons regarding raising children. Watch:

  1. In your rookie year everyone will fall all over themselves the second your baby does anything interesting, adorable, picturesque or funny. After that first season, someone else’s baby gets to be the rookie sensation. You had your time, let someone else bask.
  2. Of COURSE your team is special to you, they’re YOURS. The truth is, to most everyone else they’re not that distinguishable from all the other goobers running around on the field. Seriously. Do you think your friends go home at night and talk about how great your kid did at the thing? No. They go home and talk about how everyone else should be watching their kid do the thing.
  3. It’s good to have ground rules and expectations, but if you ask for perfection you’re almost always going to be disappointed.
  4. Factor in errors. Nobody means to drop the ball, that’s why they’re called errors. If they weren’t so common they wouldn’t be a stat.
  5. Sometimes you do your very best and still lose. The proper way to handle this is to put your glove over your mouth, shout “DAMMIT!” and then get on with it. There’s no point in denying you’re disappointed, but you still have to get off the field and come back with a better plan.
  6. If you’ve given it all you’ve got and you’re failing, that’s why we have assistant coaches, bullpens, pinch hitters. Find what you need and call in reinforcements. A babysitter? A housecleaner? A therapist? A pot dealer? Why be miserable doing it alone when there are whole professions dedicated to helping make success easier?
  7. No matter how shitty this year is going, call it a building year and promise yourself next year your kid will be saner/smarter/less weird/smell nicer/not torch the cat. If last year was a building year and this year sucks too, say it’s a coaching problem and blame it on your spouse.
  8. Remember you have fans. Sometimes you screw up so badly you can’t even remember why somebody let you be in charge of a tiny person. Remember– your fans won’t give up on you. They have faith.
  9. If your fans are true Wrigley fans, they also have hot dogs and beer. You should get in on that action.
  10. This isn’t for dilettantes. It’s a true way of life so dress it, sleep it, talk it, walk it, be it.
  11. It might feel like decades, or even over a century, since your last big victory. Perhaps the string of small victories and joys is the way to get through parenting. It’s possible you won’t be there for the biggest victories but that doesn’t mean you didn’t help create them.
  12. When it all gets to be Too Much, blame a goat then get drunk.
  13. After you do that, bear in mind: there is always, always, always, always, always Next Year.
  14. Next Year, re-read number 13.
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18 Oct 2015

Oscar: Wild

As you may have noticed, the Extenuating Circumstances often end on a lighthearted note concerning Oscar, our much beloved cat. I adopted Oscar in a fit of total, total insanity.

There was a week about three years ago where SEVEN of my friends on Facebook messaged me to tell me they were going public with the news of their pregnancies. I dutifully answered each message with a “thanks for the heads up, I appreciate it, we’re fine, congrats, blah blah blah.” The truth was more like “thanks for the heads up, I appreciate the warning so I can comment on one picture of you glowing with your newborn, I need to block you so I don’t end up in a pool of tears every single time one of your posts crosses my feed, we’re not fine but we act like we are because we’re the real-life equivalent of the Harry Potter Dementors if we’re honest, I need to block you so my neurosis doesn’t get me hospitalized or fired. Congrats. Now hand me some tissues and a pint of Ben and Jerry’s Half Baked.”

The night of the seventh message, I calmly collected my materials, calmly drove to class, calmly delivered material on the role Michael Collins played in the Irish bid for Independence, then calmly walked to my car and had a complete nervous breakdown. I would have driven to the hospital or my house but I couldn’t remember where either one was located. My car drove itself to Pet Smart, which was a neat trick because at the time I drove a car so shitty that lemons were offended by the comparison.

The fact remains that I went to Pet Smart and picked out a small, cute orange cat. He was perfect. Then he ran away from me. So I picked up an old soggy thing that was shedding like it was his damn job. But he purred a little and was too lazy to run, so I adopted him instead.

That’s a lie. I forgot I had no money so my husband gave his credit card number over the phone. Mac had adopted and paid for a cat and didn’t even know it.

This is a testimony to the strength of my marriage. I brought this home:

340976_10150405000274544_1760985492_o

and all Mac asked was “should I buy a litter box? Thus began life with Oscar the Grouch, famous for being found in a trash can.

As you are now well aware, in the wee hours of December 2014 we did add the baby to our family. We didn’t consult Oscar, it just happened. I have to give Oscar credit. He tolerates the new obnoxious kitten better than I had feared. The new kitten tries to eat his fur, grab his face, squeeze his tail, poke his eyes, and run sticky fat fingers over his belly. Oscar treats the kitten like an adorable little peasant that is amusing for a time. Oscar also walks away rather than retaliating, most of the time. One swipe at the baby’s face concerned me but it turned out Oscar chose to not use his claws. That’s pretty good restraint for a cat that had mom and dad to himself for three years.

Oscar and baby were both brought in to complete a puzzle that was missing some pieces. I like to think Oscar knows that. I like to think Oscar gets that we need the baby, just like we needed him, to avoid meltdowns in my car at 9:00 at night. But mostly, I think of Oscar as a testament to the strength of a family that isn’t born together, it’s brought together. The Borden household is a place where we find our family, and then put that family on a credit card. But that’s a tale for the next installment.

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16 Oct 2015

Left Hanging

Readers, it’s time to broach a delicate subject concerning that precious room where our little one dreams their biggest dreams.  It’s difficult to discuss, even painful; but as parents in the 21st century it’s time that we face our demons and demand better. We are the only ones who can put a stop to the indecency millions of our babies–YES, even some you know– endure. When a child’s nursery is no longer a sacred space, we have lost what it means to be Americans. To be parents. To be human beings.

I refer, as you have already guessed, to the epidemic of horrifically ugly curtains for nurseries.

One day my mother casually noticed my child sleeps, on average, three hours more a day at her house than mine. If you eliminate the other obvious mitigating factors (such as our house is utter chaos, Mac has forgotten to inhale oxygen four days in a row, the cat has gone feral eating dried bits of oat cereal and I’m so stressed out you hear my brainwaves vibrating like a tuning fork) it must be because our nursery isn’t dark enough. Easy! We’ll get blackout curtains. Done and dusted.

At first I thought we had a defective Bed, Bath and Behind You. Everywhere I turned there were these monstrous pink and white frilly things advertised as “kids curtains.” They had names like “Marshmallowy Dream Cloud” and “Princess Entitlement Pouffles.”  There was a purple, gauzy glitter sheet that reminded me of a veil for a Bollywood wedding. The only other choice was the Very Plain Blackout Curtain. The Very Plain Series came in 6 colors: Green That Doesn’t Match Any Other Green, Electrocuted Lemon, Brick Shithouse, Murdered Teddy Bear, Lifeless Shark, and Funeral Procession. Because there had to be so many more choices, I went to BBB online. Not helpful. The big trend this year is Moroccan Batiky Hash Den. If you don’t care about colors, you can also get stripes. The stripes seem to be chosen for no other purpose than to clash with each other.

Next I tried Tar-jhay. They had some curlie-cue things that wouldn’t black out, a separate black out you’d buy for $45, plus the new rod you’d need (naturally) and then one set of cream curtains with upside down pink triangles. Nothing says “deliberate and thoughtful childrearing”  like window coverings for tragic gay Holocaust victims.

Even the pricier stores had dumb looking stuff. Why do I want an all-brown curtain with a single giraffe head poking down from the curtain rod? What does it mean? Is the rest of the giraffe hanging out the window? Is he cold? Should we be feeding him? Don’t get me started on the “scribbled design” curtains. They’re going for “whimsy” but blow right past whimsy, through mental instability and arrive at “if I wanted random shit in ugly colors as a design scheme, I’d turn Junior loose with a Sharpie.”

We could shorten “adult” curtains, but that looks weird, too. A formal, lined, silk drapery with three valences and a $200 curtain rod is not appropriate in a space where my son’s undiapered willy can squirt pee onto the base of his changing table all the way to the ceiling. Not to mention the times he drags one heel through his own diarrhea before he starts kicking.

Enough, America. There has to be some way to make sturdy curtains with fun nursery animals on them. They don’t need to be in the “hot” color combos (ballerina pink and chocolate, robin’s egg and cream). They don’t need 87 layers of sheer lavender organza. They also don’t need to cost $57.00 a panel. These are curtains for a human being that still likes to wash his face in his sweet potatoes. Dry cleaning, ironing and hand pleating are RIGHT OUT.

Nursery curtains of the world, please remember I want you, but I don’t need you. I will not hesitate to replace your ass with a beach towel and some safety pins.

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12 Oct 2015
3 Comments

The Curious Incident of the Blog in the Nighttime

I often find myself staring at this screen, typing into the DtEC blog editing tool, late at night. On some level that doesn’t surprise me because I have always, always been a night owl. Whether I want it or not my brain likes to energize itself after dark. Consequently, getting up early is hell. I can *do* it when required in order to project a facade of adultness, but I really suck at it. What’s funny is that location, schedule, enjoyment of activity or even money make no difference. I spent a summer being paid to work in a theatre, live in the mountains and do nothing but act and live the good life. And I STILL hated dragging my ass out of bed for an 8 AM start. Lest you think this is a product of a permissive or neglectful upbringing, let me set the record straight.

My mom is very, very big into sleeping at night and being a productive member of society from 8 AM onward. Morning is morning. I rather thought my dad had the right idea; be a cop, work crappy hours, then sleep in the basement with tinfoil over the windows. Of course I can see now working third shift and raising kids at the same time probably sucked, not the least of which was that we turned his basement window well into a soccer goal and I was a shit goalie. The man didn’t sleep more than four hours at a time from 1984-1987. Still, working at night and sleeping in the day just looks right to me. It’s no different than clothes or music. Everyone has their taste and everyone secretly hates everyone else’s taste.

My husband, bless him, embraces my night owlish lifestyle. He also aids and abets me in hiding it from my mom. If I nap, sleep late, get out of bed at 4 for a piddling reason like a housefire, my mother can be counted on to utter The Prophecy. The Prophecy is always delivered in a tone of warning and fear, with a dash of menace:

“Sarah, you’re getting your days and nights switched around!”

The Prophecy never varies in word choice or tone. It is delivered with an intensity hitherto reserved for sentences like “no, this IS the last plane out of Saigon.”

So you can understand how adopting the baby was the first time in my whole life my mother ever gave permission to sleep and work these weird hours. She even said to me “you sleep when the baby sleeps.” Holy cow! My mom just gave me carte blanche! I can be up til 3! I can nap at 6 pm! This is going to be the only time in my life I don’t harbor a secret disquietude my schedule shames my entire family!

This should have been a relief. Hell, it should have been a cakewalk. In my stunning naiveté I thought the baby would sleep. This is a LIE. It’s a lie sold to the American consumer by cradle companies and mobile manufacturers. I blame Hollywood. All these ads of little swaddled bundles, with eyes closed and adorable nostrils gently fluttering. Bullshit. Utter bullshit. I lived in the same room as Baby for 3 weeks and I can tell you he never did anything that resembled substantive sleep.

What did he do? He waited until Mac and I had a loose schedule so we could attempt to even think about sleeping. Then the baby would close his eyes and snuggle into his little sleepsack, looking adorable. He’d make a tiny cooing sound. A few minutes later, a squeak. “Oh!” we’d say. “He’s so precious!” we’d say. Then little bubbles. And another coo. I’d close my eyes. All is well.

Wait– was that the baby? Did he squirm? Was that the sleepsack? Then a slight shift of Baby’s head and I’d immediately run over to the crib, desperately trying to remember the 5 Warning Signs of SIDS, Proper Swaddling 101, the number to 911 (answer: 911) and wishing the Bat Signal was a real thing.

I’d finally feel reassured Baby was OK, these were all normal sounds, and then phbbt. Well now, what the hell was that? A burp? A fart? Is he gassy? Does he need drops? Can we even give him drops? Robin’s a nurse, I should text her about those drops. Crap, my phone is where Mac is trying to sleep.

Phbbbbbbt.

Now I’m definitely not going to sleep. Yes, technically I should be, since Baby is sleeping, but what was the phbbbbbbt? Is he hungry? Angry? Snotty? I give up. I have to go look again. And there I am, trying hard to find the source of this stupid noise, when it occurs to me AJ said moms can hear their babies even when the babies aren’t really making any noise at all. Oh GREAT. The ink isn’t even dry on the adoption papers and I’ll be carted off to a rubber room because I hear phantom phbbbbbbts at…midnight? 3 pm? The year 2017? Time and space have no meaning now. I have been awake since the dawn of man.

Which is why it gives me such infinite, sublime pleasure to have my mother babysit for us overnight. Sure, it means eating my dinner at the temperature God intended and the possibility of sex with my husband (don’t be daft. This is a family blog. We don’t actually have sex, we talk about it then fall asleep while trying to grade assignments handed in last fall that we never got to). And of course, the baby is a little prince most of the time for his beloved grandma. But there is a palpable satisfaction to showing up the next day knowing that no matter how fussy, how colicky, how cranky our bundle of joy was ALL NIGHT LONG, I always have the option of saying

“well sorry, Mom. Just sleep when he sleeps.”

Posted in Uncategorized and tagged , , ,
06 Oct 2015
1 Comment

I am raising a Somebody

I have noticed two odd behaviors that I never considered before I became a parent. One, why do I always address my child in the interrogatory? “Good morning? Did we sleep? Did we? Oh, look at you, are you a gorgeous baby or WHAT?!” Why am I asking him so many questions? It’s not like he’s going to answer. It’s not even like the questions need an answer. If I walk in on my child before noon, and he has been lying prone in his crib with closed eyes, then I should know that it’s morning and he has been asleep.If I own a watch and can identify a sleeping human there is no need for the Guantanamo treatment.

There are also questions that I do in a sing-song voice, and I always promised I wouldn’t do the Baby Voice. I hate the Baby Voice. It’s condescending and annoying. Plus, how can I expect him to talk and behave like a normal human when I speak to him in a key only my dog can hear? But there it is. I hear myself do it every day. “Are you happy to see me?” becomes

the-scale

This goes on all day. “Are you hungry? Do you want some yogurt? Oooh! How about some applesauce in your yogurt?” If I ask a really long question I need a vocal warm up so I don’t blow my chords on the high C. I have so many fucking questions. The really strange questions, though, are the ones I refuse to acknowledge pertain to my particular baby. This is the second behavior I have noticed and I have absolutely zero explanation for it. These are the questions about my baby that are ostensibly not about my baby. These are always Somebody questions.

“Do I hear somebody crying?” The answer is always yes. If I didn’t hear the crying I would have left him to quietly chew on the cat’s tail while I grade 23 sophomore essays. That takes a long time to grade, when you factor in how to explain a sophomore in college shouldn’t be writing a sentence that contains no discernible verb.

“Did somebody poop his pants? Let’s check!” Come on, now. If there’s any question at all who pooped his pants and I’m not located in the center of a daycare or, for accuracy’s sake, a facility for the elderly, then there is something very wrong with somebody and I am that somebody.

“Did somebody fall over again? Oopsies!” Well, yes, Sarah. At any given moment it’s even betting that one of the world’s myriad narcoleptics, vertigo sufferers, Lindsay Lohan, what have you, has taken a tumble. If you’re staring at your baby and he’s no longer in the upright and locked position just PICK HIM UP.

“Is somebody cranky?” Yes, and it’s Mac. Next?

“Is somebody ready for a nap?” See above.

“Is somebody trying to drive mommy insane?” Lady, the list is endless.

“Is somebody succeeding?”

Yep. It’s Mommy.

Posted in Uncategorized and tagged , ,

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