Pick and choose

These days I either have time to write a blog post OR handle pictures. Today, I went through nearly 300 pics to give you these:

http://tiltedworld.com/brenda/pictures/December2008/index.html

Thane at two months old

Thane is getting old enough that I forget exactly how old he is. I believe he’s a day shy of his two month (8 week) birthday. I love him dearly. He’s doing a great job of sleeping at night — usually only waking up once or twice after I get him to bed. He’s packing on the weight — the only time of life when it’s great if you just pack on the pounds. His thighs are a delight in dimpled plumpness. His smiles are rare but exceptionally brilliant. He seems to be gaining control over his body and those weird appendages called “hands” and “feet”. He’s started looking more at things which are interesting. He LOVES tummy time — especially when he gets to have it on my lap. He has the most charming collection of coos and goos.

But that child wants to be held ALL THE TIME. It’s like he’s some sort of cute helpless infant who just wants his mommy’s arms. I mean, it’s not like anyone can hold him. Just mommy. I forgive him because he DOES go to sleep when I do. Also, it’s the most eminently reasonable thing in the world; for a child to want to be safe in the arms of his mother. But man is it wearying. I spend my days trying to figure out what I actually did with my time. In truth, it’s hard to do things when your child is in your arms almost all your waking hours. But at the same time, doesn’t Thane deserve to be held as much as he wants? He’s a baby. He’s been in the world a grand total of 8 weeks. You probably have Netflix videos older than that. The world gets hard soon enough.

It just makes it hard to: play with Grey, do the dishes, do the laundry (OMG the laundry), clean the house, wrap presents, exercise, stretch my back, cook, write blog posts, upload pictures, or generally do anything that isn’t watching “Avatar: the Last Airbender” (Note to world: we loves our new DVR we does) or read Anne McCaffrey novels.

Coincidentally, I have declared that every single Avatar character is my favorite so far. For reals I think it’s Toff. I wish they’d rebroadcast more of Season 1. I’ve missed almost all of it. And I’m nearly through with all the “Dragon” novels Anne McCaffrey has ever written, including most of the crappy ones. (“All the Weyrs of Pern” — I’m looking at you.)

Also, Thane has perfected the art of figuring out when my bedtime is. I keep TRYING to put him down at like 9 to see if I can shift his schedule a bit and have (GASP) an hour or two to myself or to spend with my husband. But Thane knows that bedtime is 10:30 (my bedtime) and no earlier.

Also, also, he cried more for anyone who is not me, even when he’s fed. It’s really, really hard to listen to your infant cry and not step in.

This time of life is short, I know. I’m far more aware of how finite babyhood is this time than I was last time. And frankly, 1 ain’t much easier than 1 month. (Ah, the dreaded mobility. Thane is already managing a scootch when put on his belly. I tremble.)

Lazy and weary is just an unsatisfying combination of emotions. Also, I find it very hard to be a good parent to both boys simultaneously. I feel like I’m always shorting one of them.

My mother once gave me a very valuable piece of advice: You don’t get through parenthood without guilt. Oh, is she right.

 

Thane and me

Dear Santa

When I was singing that I wanted a white Christmas, I meant six or seven inches of fluffy white snow that feel after all expected guests had arrived.

Right now it’s so cold here on Boston I’m not willing to go out without good cause — not with the baby. It’s only December 22nd and my parents are warning that they may not be able to make it out of Seattle on Christmas. Worse, I fear they’re right. I want my mommy and daddy!!!! Waaaaaa!!!!!

Also, I’m getting cabin fever. This never ends well.

Thane at Five Weeks – or – How the What to Expect Series Can Drive a Person Crazy

So according to “What to Expect: the First Year” a month old baby should definitely be able to socially smile at his parents. Thane has the most beguiling and charming smile you could hope for. He smiles just as he falls asleep, as though his dreams are full of funny jokes. It’s a lovely smile.

Although he is alert and attentive for a good bit of time these days, he has yet to turn that smile on me. So as a new parent, it is incumbent upon me to be CONVINCED at five weeks, due to lack of social smiling, that my son is autistic and to spend a good twenty minutes feeling weepy over the self-sacrifice and love that will be my future as the parent of an autistic son.

Ahem.

While no one knows what a child will be when he is grown, and it is possible that will in fact be my future, it is also possible that five weeks is a WEE bit early to diagnose it.

Also, the other web sites say that social smiling is expected by 6 – 8 weeks. Which would make it a lovely Christmas present. Then again, extra face time with Mr. Thane isn’t a bad thing. I carry him ALL THE TIME, but like his brother he likes to be carried facing out, so I don’t make faces at him as often as I might.

In other news…

Thane is 10 lbs 7 oz. Five weeks ago when he was born, he was 6 lbs 14 ounces. That’s not QUITE a pound a week, but, uh, it’s not bad. Fortunately not all his growth is being invested in second chins — he’s also 22 1/4 inches tall. So he’s 75th percentile for both weight and height.

Here are the doctor recorded heights and weights, since I got it wrong last time.

11/4/08 – one week
7 lbs 3 oz (25th percentile)
21 inches (75th percentile)

11/17/08 – just over 2 weeks
8 lbs 15 oz (50th percentile)
21 /14 inches (75th percentile)

Then again, maybe the lack of smiling is because he’s working SO HARD on growing!

He is physically doing very well. He can hold his head up as well as a baby twice his age, and will spend considerable time with his head steadily up looking at the world. He can also roll over. I’m not making this up. He did it twice in one day about two weeks ago, but I was willing to chalk that up to optimism on my part. But this afternoon he managed to roll over from definite tummy time to being absolutely on his back. This is even more impressive since there’s more and more of him to roll these days.

Sleep is still not fantastic. He’s waking up about every 2 hours during the night, although at least I have him trained to go back to sleep pretty well. Last night it was 11:30, 1:45, 4 am, 6:30 and 9 am. Grey woke up at 1:45 am (he came in while I was nursing Thane, woken by his crying) 2:30 and 5:45 am. I am: tired and abusing caffeine (again). Thane’s pediatrician says that he probably won’t sleep in longer stretches until he’s about 12 pounds. I suspect it will get much better once he stops trying to pack the weight on quite so urgently. Next week when my husband is in Nashville would be awfully convenient in that regard.

Thane at Thanksgiving

Mocksgiving

Eight years ago, I was a newly wed in a grownup apartment with a grownup job and a grownup husband doing the grownup thing for the first time. I had just turned 22. And being a grownup, I volunteered to host Thanksgiving dinner for my extended family of inlaws. Having been raised in a Protestant-and-turkey family, I just could never quite get behind the idea of going to a restaurant for Thanksgiving. Still can’t, truth be told.

There was just one problem: I didn’t know how to cook. I’d never cooked a turkey before in my life. Thanksgiving day, with my new inlaws arriving, seemed like a bad time for a first turkey, especially since my mom (whom I had on speed dial) would also be busy that day. A second problem presented itself, however. Two people cannot eat a turkey by themselves and stay married. Since I was (am) fond of my husband, I invited a few friends over to help us eat it, and broke out my still-new wedding gifts to serve the turkey. I think there were 13 of us for that trial, or “mock” Thanksgiving. We had a fantastic time. We ate, drank, told stories, and celebrated together. By the time the evening was over, we decided we’d had so much fun, we had to do it again next year.

I ended up not hosting Thanksgiving for the family that year. I don’t remember why. But every year since, I’ve hosted Mocksgiving. It’s a huge annual event. People ask me about the dates months in advance. People fly in. (I have a friend from DC here now.) It even engendered a spinoff holiday — Piemas. (Which merits its own post in March at the appropriate time.)

Tonight is Mocksgiving Eve. Usually for Mocksgiving I make: 5 pies, a batch of bread, a turkey, 10 pounds of mashed potatoes, a significant amount of butternut squash, stuffing (in the turkey and outside) and gravy. (It seems like there’s usually something else too. I used to make salad, but no one eats it so I gave up.) It is potluck, so in addition to the vast amounts of food I provide, most folks bring something else too. There is a LOT of food. This year I trimmed down to one pie. I was going to make a lemon merangue too, but my crust collapsed (must remember not to use that pie pan for lemon merangue — this is the second time this has happened). On Mocksgiving Eve, I used to spend a lot of time panicking, cleaning, polishing silver (yes, I actually have silver), and er, panicking. Now that I’ve been doing this for NEARLY a decade, the panic is significantly diminished. I know what I’m doing.

As I sashayed around the kitchen, with a candle lit above the sink and my music in the background and the scent of yeast rising in the hot water, I felt very happy and where I belonged. I love Mocksgiving.

It occurred to me this year that this is one more way in which my children will grow up warped. Piemas is fine — it is a standalone. (Plus, there is no such thing as too much pie.) But after cooking for up to 30 people a week and a half before Thanksgiving, I’m in no mood to cook a proper Thanksgiving dinner. And since we have no family remaining in the area, we don’t usually end up doing, well, anything for Thanksgiving proper. I wonder how old my sons will be before they figure out that not everyone does Mocksgiving, and moreover, most people do more on Thanksgiving. They get the Thanksgiving experience, only a bit earlier and with a slightly less great-aunt-heavy crowd.

There is one thing I hate about Mocksgiving. It is a sit down meal. We all sit down at proper place settings at the same time and eat together at table. And it is inherently important to me that Mocksgiving be held in my HOME. Therefore, there is an upper limit to the number of people who can be invited. I think I topped out at 28. Twenty-eight people in your house is a LOT of people, in case you’re curious. But I have more friends than that. I invite more people than can fit because there are always people who can’t make it. But I hate hate hate sending out the invitations. I can never invite all the people I’d like to. I know there must be friends of mine who feel left out — maybe hurt — that everyone else is talking about this fantastic affair to which they have not been invited. I wish I could figure out some way that it wouldn’t happen that way, but I don’t know how to make that work. Ah well. Generally, I invite everyone I invited last year, minus people who haven’t been able to make it for a few years or whom I haven’t heard from in quite a while, plus a few new folks with whom I’ve become closer. The first few years I was able to throw it open to everyone who wanted to come. I miss that.

But the bread is made, the pie is cooling, the largest-possible-turkey is in the fridge. Tomorrow I will wrestle with it (cursing) in the morning. My friends will arrive with hugs and casseroles. There will be the hard half-hour after the turkey comes out when everything must be done simultaneously. My kitchen, immaculate at the moment, will look for all the world like a hurricane hit it. We will retell stories, contemplate our very full bellies, stay up too late, catch up on gossip and generally have a fantastic time. I can’t wait.

The attendees at last Mocksgiving

Table 1 - the 'Grownups' table

The kids table -- I always ended up here. This year I think we'll be able to do one long table.

We usually end up with one or two (or 13) desserts.

What my kitchen looks like afterwards -- I believe this was the year the sink broke.

What I learned from Medieval Studies

In some ways, learning about the middle ages was as much anthropology as history. (I suppose most history has an anthropological aspect.) I mean, there are historical facts and pieces of literature, but in some ways, I found attitudes and beliefs more interesting. My thesis was basically on medieval literary *attitudes* towards music. It wasn’t what they believed was true about music, it wasn’t about what music actually did in that period, it was about how people writing literature were likely to portray music in that literature.

This is a long introduction to one of the things I learned which blew me away when I realized it. With, I’m sure, many exceptions, people living in the Middle Ages did not anticipate that the world was going to change!!! Consider: 1) A medieval painting of King David — dressed in medieval garb with a medieval lyre and medieval-looking courtiers. 2) Rent declared in perpetuity that is not adjusted for inflation. Can you even imagine telling someone they and their children can rent an apartment from you and your heirs forever and ever for $1200? No! We’d never let it go that long, and if for some reason we did, we’d figure out a way to make sure it at very least moved with inflation. Unless we didn’t care about losing money. There are other examples. I’m sure there are counter examples of people who anticipated change. But I think they were also less likely to perceive change as progress. The Vandals sacking Rome was change, but it wasn’t progress. The black death was at some point new, but it wasn’t progress. Rising illiteracy in the beginning of the middle ages was a change, but it wasn’t progress.

Can you imagine what it would be like to live in a culture where change was not expected? (I’m sure this was true of other cultures — China comes to mind.) For all every generation feels like the one that is following it is going to hell, can you imagine a world where you actually anticipated depopulation, diminishing technology and deflation? What would change about *you* if you were a believing part of a culture who thought that the world was always going to be like it is today?

Of course that brings up eschatology, and the belief that the world wouldn’t change, it would simply end. We’re more likely to believe that if we don’t change, the world will end.