about
molly | art | writings
| contact | home
prego saucy: December 8 - 29, 2006
December 8 2006
We confirmed with each other that yes, we both know that one should not leave the vehicle should it break down in the middle of nowhere.
I would rather us all die together, anyway.
December 10
Last night we went to a pizza party hosted by the Italian son-in-law of a woman we met at Roma Import’s Harvest Feast back in October. This fellow, N, built his own pizza oven in his backyard and is a masterful pizzero. The arugula and gorgonzola was my favourite and I don’t give a flying fig if the gorgonzola was pasteurized or not. JB, who spent two years in Milano and knows good pizza, was practically drooling all night as one fantastic pizza after another came out of the oven.
The dinner was an informal fundraiser for the local Waldorf school, which N’s children attend, so the majority of the guests were the school kids and their parents. The kids were smart, funny, unselfconscious – and while still being rambunctious kids, very polite and thoughtful. Similarly the parents were wonderful company – intelligent, insightful, still growing and learning.
JB and I were total strangers to the group, having met N’s delightful mother-in-law once, however we were accepted immediately. Several hours into the party, I voiced my distaste for Santa Claus and asked how the subject was dealt with at Waldorf schools. At the Tucson school, they don’t do Santa. (They don’t do goblins and witches at Hallowe’en, either, and instead have a Perilous Path and talk about facing inner demons…)
In the winter, they learn about St. Nicholas and about all sorts of winter seasonal traditions. One of the moms went on to talk about how her heart sank into her stomach when she had to go see a friend’s kid’s public school Christmas pageant. She did a hilarious impression of a stiff, bored kid ringing a little bell “ching ching ching” with a fake smile on his face…and the music was aawwwwwful she said.
I’m liking the Waldorf concept.
Oh, and it was naturally assumed correctly (I love that…when someone assumes something correctly about me, so often it’s the other way) that I’d be having my baby at the Birth Centre.
Also, my nocino got the thumbs up from the N and another Italian fellow at the party.
December 11, 2006
I used to say, in regards to desserts, that there was no such thing as “too rich.” Well. I was foiled by ice cream last night.
I had a hankering for some ice cream and an action movie, so we headed over to the evil corporate Hollywood movie rental place and stopped in at the mushed-up-with-goodies-added ice creamery next door to it.
I ordered a vanilla-based mess o’ cream and goodies and JB got a chocolate-based mess o’ cream and goodies, which after barely making a dent in, he announced that he was unable to finish.
“Oh-hoh! I shall finish my ice cream and yours too!” I announced.
I managed about 2 spoonfuls of JB’s chocolate overload and stuck it in the freezer.
It won’t be my newfound affection for the Eagles and Fleetwood Mac that identifies me as “old” – it is my defeat by dessert. I am 37 years old and I cannot finish my husband’s ice cream.
::
Our legal nurse here at the office just saw me and asked how many weeks I was. I told her 27.
“You’re going to have a big baby.”
I was simultaneously horrified (um, PAIN) and relieved (miniscule weight gain isn’t affecting the kiddo).
December 12, 2006
The midwife said I am measuring large, but also moved my due date to March 19 from the 12th. At 32 days, my cycles run a little long she said. OK. I’m not wedded to a date, Scoot will come out when she’s ready.
However, I did gain 4 pounds since last month, which according to my coworkers appears to be all in Scooter and her isolation tank.
::
Ah, 'tis the season of the giant tins of Danish Butter Cookies in the breakroom...
::
Orgasmic Birth – a documentary film in the making. Great website; I hope they can complete the film.
http://babble.com/ This website launches tonight; I hope it's good. Aside from DaddyTypes there are no parenting weblogs I identify with or particularly enjoy enough to visit twice – although that might change once Scooter is outta me. Or never, which is fine too. I'm kinda used to that by now.
::
Stylin' sling – I may have to treat myself and JB can use a
plain, manly one.
::
Nicole Lundgren’s waterbirth story: “Many women underestimate their own capacity to give birth and rely too heavily on the technology that exists.”
::
More ideas; I get more ideas now than I ever have before. They randomly pop into my head every few minutes (slightly distracting, yes) and I hope they don’t dry up once Scooter’s born.
I want a female singer doing a cover of L. Cohen’s “I’m Your Man” and the video would be her in nifty cabaret get-up a la the “I sing you of Hochtaler as we share a glass” girl (best commercial ever) dancing over top of a café chair. Ute Lemper would be the obvious choice; I’ll think of a not-obvious choice.
Maybe it could be the commercial for Doppelganger.
::
Hah! I love the internet: the Hochtaler commercial!
Apparently Shania Twain already did a version of the commercial for some song of hers.
But my idea is better.
December 13, 2006
An old friend emailed and said the Rockabye Baby records sound like they’ve been cobbled together in Garageband. He recommends Chick Corea’s kids’ album.
I’m contemplating rereading The Real Frank Zappa Book section on kids and family…
December 14 2006
Along with the vivid dreams I have been having lately, I have also been experiencing very vivid recall of past events. For example, the other day, out of the blue, I thought of Emmett and the way he pronounced the word striped.
In 1997 I went on a little roadtrip by myself, as I was wont to do back then, and I found myself driving up the Butte Valley Mine Road to the old Warm Springs Ranch and talc mine. There was an abandoned ranch house up there and a fantastic spring fed swimming pool – I’m not sure if you’re allowed in it any longer, but years ago I went skinny dippin’ in it.
When I arrived, there were three people there (no skinny dippin’ that time, much to my disappointment) – a German film crew and a character named Emmett Harder, a mining explosives expert*, prospector, and all round nifty desert rat.
So I tagged along with them through the Panamint Valley and out through Ballarat and back into Baker as they filmed the last known route of a German couple who disappeared without a trace in the valley. Emmett was the featured local expert, describing the terrain and history of the area. I can’t remember if he described Charles Manson’s washing machine on camera or not.**
All that was found of the couple was the rental car and a few yogurt cups. (Incidentally, this is when I learned to never leave your vehicle if you break down. The car will be found long before your body will – especially if it’s a rental: they want it back and will come looking.)
In the Panamint Valley is a stunning butte called Striped Butte. It is unlike any of the surrounding terrain and rock – it’s black and white and, of course, stripey. Emmett pronounced it “ stry – ped.”
*At a later date, I had the opportunity to view a film of Emmett’s expertise. The camera panned a football field sized area of rocky desert. It came to a stop as a low rumble was heard. A few whiffs of smoke came up through the ground and then instantly the entire area rolled and sank about 20 feet. Beautiful.
**According to Emmett’s own personal eyewitness account, when Manson hung out at Barker Ranch in the Panamint Valley, his washing machine was a concrete cattle trough, water, soap, and a bevy of naked hippie girls jumping up and down on the clothes inside it. A year or so later when I was visiting the ranch, I saw a circular concrete trough and I commented “Oh, and that’s Manson’s washing machine,” and the few people I was with gave me withering glances. Oh ye jerks of so little faith.
Well, that was all apropos of nothing – but the point is, now EVERYTHING is. Random memories, vividly popping into my head, all the time, with no instigation. Who says the brain shrinks 8% during pregnancy?
::
I was singing along with Warren Zevon’s song Studebaker in the car and it came out “Scooter baker.” So, when I get stretch marks on my tummy, I’ll have a stry ped Scooter baker.
::
I had my blood pressure rechecked today since it was a little high on Monday night (132/80). Today it was fine at 120/70 – but get this, I lost nearly 1 ½ pounds since Monday. So, I’m back to having gained, what, 4 ½ pounds at nearly 6 and half months? I give up. I am just not going to be concerned about gaining weight or not – I’ll eat healthfully and take my vities and I know everything will be fine.
December 15 2006
My Scooter baker keeps on getting
rounder, man
My Scooter baker keeps on getting round
Dropped an earring on the floor,
can’t pick it up
My Scooter baker keeps on getting rounder, man
::
Scooter gave me a solid double fisted punch tonight. Pow! Both sides of my tummy, simultaneously.
December 18, 2006
My mom did not get stretch marks. However, yesterday we bought a gigarantic container of CocoCare Smells Like Cake Cocoa Butter Super Rich Formula Cream for the evening tummy rubbins.
::
I bought a ridiculously over-the-top superduper SLR digital camera and it arrived today – the 10.1 megapixel Canon Eos Smooch. I wanted the Canon EOS 30D but the super slick sales guy said well the 30D is being discontinued and the new and improved Canon Smooch is only a couple hundred dollars more…
“Duh, ok!”
Multiple lenses, remote control, new tripod, the whole shebang. I am an expectant first time parent, hear me roar.
December 19, 2006
JB smeared so much Smells Like Cake on me last night that I looked all vernix caseoseous.
“You’re frosting me!”
::
I’ve become very keen on looking at pictures of babies. This is a new thing – before, seeing cute babies did nothing to me. Coworkers would bring new babies to the office, and I’d think, Yep that’s a baby all right. Now, I’m fascinated and downright charmed. But not any babies – just ones that I think will look like Scoot, with big brown eyes and chubby cheeks.
::
Strangers on the street or at the library or in ladies rooms will ask when I’m due and most of them can tell it’s my first kiddo. They also invariably say, “It’s a beautiful thing.” (Or some variation: wonderful, glorious…)
::
I need to resist the urge to make Scoot into some sort of art project when she’s born. I really want to prop her in the same position and photograph her everyday and then stitch the files together into a movie of her growing.
::
K from next door lent me her copy of Birthing from Within. And within, there are excellent instructions on how to do a belly cast. I’m thinking we’ll do it in February, or at the beginning of March…we found a medical supply store for the bandages, next door to Mother Hubbard’s diner, which has the best biscuits and gravy in the entire world. I’m thinking: eat biscuits and gravy to pump up the belly, purchase gauze and bandages, go home and make belly cast. Yep.
Instructions are here ...
::
More on ecstatic birth. One can only hope.
::
Wow. 20ish girl intentionally gives birth solo.
::
A recent interview with Angela Barron McBride, author of "The Growth and Development of Mothers" (1973).
“…the real task of parenting, i.e., helping your child develop resilience and weather adversity.”
::
“ As opposed to being "emancipated" from what others think, as Kindlon attests, these girls are obsessed with recognition. As opposed to being equal and free, as 1970s feminism envisioned, these girls are better than and ensnared in an unenlightened more, better, faster ethos.” Eeek .
::
An article on breastfeeding and the author’s resulting resentment
of feeling indispensable.
Obviously, I’m not there yet, but I hope I don't feel that way. Mama and poppa have different roles – some based on their gender – and I’ve always been a vive le difference person.
“Undoubtedly my partner and I would have had different relationships with our children, because we are different people. But the extent to which Mama is the solace, the comfort and the rock, particularly in the middle of the night, feels like it plays to the most basic of gender stereotypes. I will never be sure, but I wonder if not nursing would have made any difference.”
The flipside of course is that a lot of new dads feel useless in the face of a woman’s ability not only to breastfeed but also to comfort. Children cannot identify themselves as separate beings from mama until they’re a year old, or more – there’s no getting around that. There's no denying biology.
December 20, 2006
Yet another random thought pops into my head, this time as I’m lying down to sleep last night: Koo Stark.
What the heck? I wonder if I have maternal ADD setting in?
::
Interview with Daphne de Marneffe, author of Maternal Desire: On Children, Love and the Inner Life .
“…the missing link of maternal fulfillment might just be a robust sense of self. [interjection: I don’t think I’ll have a problem with that!] Writing from her perspective as a clinical psychologist, de Marneffe argues that rather than cutting women off from their potential for authentic self-expression, navigating the emotional contradictions of motherhood can promote individual growth and development. A key part of this process, she believes, is understanding the nature and power of our desire to be with our children and the pleasure we take in caring for them as "a positive aspect of the self." Maternal desire, she writes, "is not only the desire to have children, but also to care for them. It is not the duty to mother, or the compulsion to mother, or the concession to mothering when other options are not available. It is not the acquiescence to prescribed roles as the result of brainwashing. It is the longing felt by a mother to nurture her children; the wish to participate in their mutual relationship; and the choice, insofar as it is possible, to put her desire into practice." ”
::
December 24
JB rocks so hard. He stood on a bursitisy goutish inflamed foot outside in the rain to smoke our holiday ham beast for 10 hours (he did have his Pappy Van Winkle's to keep him warm and good natured). And it was YUMMmmy. I like me my hammameat. (I like me my Pappy's too, but I'll have to wait a few months for that.)
Meanwhile, I made a pecan pie, a pound cake with stewed curried fruit, hoppin’ john, chipotle mashed sweet potatoes, cornbread chorizo dressing, and a mess of collards for 8 people. It was a mighty fine Happy Wintertime dinner.
December 27
From the weekend magazine, Peggy Orenstein article on the Disney Princesses:
“There are no studies proving that playing princess directly damages
girls’ self-esteem or dampens other aspirations. On the other hand,
there is evidence that young women who hold the most conventionally feminine
beliefs — who avoid conflict and think they should be perpetually
nice and pretty — are more likely to be depressed than others and
less likely to use contraception. What’s more, the 23 percent decline
in girls’ participation in sports and other vigorous activity between
middle and high school has been linked to their sense that athletics is
unfeminine. And in a survey released last October by Girls Inc., school-age
girls overwhelmingly reported a paralyzing pressure to be “perfect”:
not only to get straight A’s and be the student-body president,
editor of the newspaper and captain of the swim team but also to be “kind
and caring,” “please everyone, be very thin and dress right.”
Give those girls a pumpkin and a glass slipper and they’d be in
business.”
“Girls’ obsession with that color may seem like something they’re born with, like the ability to breathe or talk on the phone for hours on end. But according to Jo Paoletti, an associate professor of American studies at the University of Maryland, it ain’t so. When colors were first introduced to the nursery in the early part of the 20th century, pink was considered the more masculine hue, a pastel version of red. Blue, with its intimations of the Virgin Mary, constancy and faithfulness, was thought to be dainty.”
Also mentioned in the article, Packaging Girlhood: Rescuing Our Daughters from Marketers’ Schemes.
::
I’m thinking it’s very important that I organize all of my Molly Solo Roadtrip in the Desert photos into albums so that Scooter and I can look at them and she can say “Hey wow, you have a cute dress on in that picture out in the middle of nowhere, but you were by yourself and confident and knew what you were doing…”
::
Maternity clothing run down:
Pregnancy tights are not comfy, worn either above or below the tummy. I have a hard enough time getting my panties on – I’m not going to bother with tights.
My 10-year-old extra large and boxy J Crew sweater still fits over my tummy (which now measures 39 inches around).
I should have taken into consideration that my new fantastic Ecco Mary Jane Cloggies that fit and feel comfy have buckles, and that bending over to buckle shoes gets difficult.
Liz Lange prego lady wrap dresses from Target look cute, but the fabric pills up after the 2nd or 3rd wash. I guess that’s what you get for $19.
My two Bella Maternity nursing lounge dresses (which I’ve been wearing as nighties and around-the-house wear since day one of pregnancy) look fantastic after repeated wearings and washings. Despite their $100+ price tag, they have a much more agreeable cost per wear than the Target stuff…
December 28 2006
The Scooter jumpings are more pronounced now. They feel similar to major intestinal distress, without the audible gurglings or the urge to dash to the powder room. She's upside down and facing forward, so I think it's knees and feets pummeling me (about 2 – 3 inches above my bellybutton).
::
My bellybutton is still an innie, although my piercing tunnel is about ½ inch above it now.
::
This is the first time in my life I've had (lower) abs of steel.
::
Most of the time I'm very excited about the pregnancy – yay, new person! big challenges! cool body changes! – but then the Economist arrives and I feel a little guilty for bringing her into the world.
December 29, 2006
I raided JB's subzero hiking / skiing / camping gear again and came away with a fantastic pair of capilene tights and a Patagonia pullover thingie. The tights are not tight, so I should call them baggies. They come up under my ribs and bag at my ankles, so I look like an Oompa Loompa -- but they are WARM. And you can't really see them under my crazy stry ped poncho skirt. I'm going to have to take the plunge and get a pair of mukluks, too…I can't get my trusty ol' J Crew equestrian boots over my fat feet and it's been cold out and we want to go up the mountain to visit snow this weekend.
If I end up with Uggs, I don't know what I'll do with myself. (But what else is going to fit over my cankles?)
::
I want to henna my tummy this weekend…
::
I ended up with Uggs. Actually, deeply discounted "Bear Paw" brand knock-offs from Shoe Pavilion. None of the cute boots fit over my ankles. Let's not get started on my 17inch calves. However, I made myself feel much better by buying a year's worth of baby clothes at the Twice As Nice for $28 ($13 if you count my office clothes trade-in).They had all the Carter's and First Impressions stuff I've seen at department stores for much less. Some of the outfits hadn't even been worn. Toot!
::
(Grrr, stupid Uggs...they're warm and comfy but Grrr...)
::
Blurry me in front of the tree;
Happy Wintertime
2006, Tucson, AZ.
::