It's here! It's here!

Spring. Spring! Spraaaaaaa-ing! It's always worth waiting for, isn't it?

Mother's intution does not require AA batteries

I just got off the phone with one of my good friends. When she first called me, I thought it might be Sasquatch or a prank caller. There was so much heavy breathing—and some gurgling.

"It's Rachel," she said, irritated. "I just walked up some stairs."

Ah, yes, I'd forgotten how much fun it is to be pregnant.

"I need your help," she moaned. She told me she needed a blanket. Except it was a question. Like, "I need a blanket?" Then she got angry. "Right? Don't I?" Then angrier. "Answer me! Don't I need a blanket? Doesn't my baby need a blanket?"

"Yes!" I said. "He does."

"See!" she said. "I knew that. I knew it. Fuck this shit!" She started laughing hysterically. Or she was crying, I really couldn't tell.

"What's going on?" I asked. "You sound a little...you know..."

She took a deep breath. She'd been having a good day, she said. She'd slept late and decided to go to Babies "R" Us to register for her baby shower. She thought it would be fun.

Then, reality. This being her first baby, she had no idea what to get. There were things that needed batteries. Pumps. Swings. Cribs. Rockers. Gliders. Tables. Chairs. Slings. Carriers. Strollers. Jumpers. Heaters. Coolers. Tubs. Soaps. Lotions. Creams. Clippers. Sprays. Juices. Oatmeals. Diapers. Frames. Rugs. Bumpers. Sheets. Swaddlers. Nipples. Brushes. Diaper bags. Pads. Inserts. Warmers. Mirrors. Mobiles. Monitors. Rubs. Squeaky toys. Rattles. Rugs.

"I have no idea what a baby needs!" she wailed.

One thing was clear: She knew he needed a blanket.

"Don't I?" she asked again. "But the kid's coming in the summer. If it's hot do I need to cover him? Unless the air conditioning is on. Does he need those pajamas with the feet? Does he?"

Rachel's experience reminded me of my own first trip to Babies "R" Us—that flashy monolith of stuff—when I was pregnant with Junior. I'd gone on my own, like Rachel, to register for my baby shower, and I'd left the store completely fucked up. I might have run screaming.

There was so much. I suddenly had the feeling that everything I'd amassed in my 35 years of life wasn't enough. I needed more. So much more. I needed everything. The message was so clear: your baby didn't need you; your baby needed a continent's worth of shit.

I told Rachel it was okay. I told her about the rectal thermometer women. I told her that the only thing her baby needed after he was born was her. She could buy him a blanket, but he'd probably love one she already had because it would smell like her.

"Like a dog would?" she asked.

"Exactly."

She promised she'd take it easy the rest of the night. She promised she wouldn't let her experience unnerve her, but I'm not convinced. I bet when I see her registry, it's going to have 2,675,987,256 things on it, many of which will wind up in the closet.

I don't know when the Baby Gear Movement started exactly, but it's done horrible things to motherhood. When you falsely believe that you cannot mother (or father) without the right apparatuses, you remove everything that is powerful about yourself as a mother. You remove the innate.

Worse yet, if you buy into the belief that if you don't have gear A, B, or C something terrible will happen to your baby, you invite fear into the mothering (or, of course, fathering) experience. From what I've seen, parenting from fear is a rotten way to raise a kid.

I wanted to tell Rachel all this. I wanted her to trust herself.

Instead I told her she could prank me any time she wants.

She snorted and hung up.

Self-sufficiency: the tired, overburdened parent's aphrodisiac

My mother offered to babysit the two hellions last night so Chuck and I could have a date night. According to her, Chuck and I should meet out at a restaurant, sit at a table and chew our food, drink some wine, throw back some dessert, hold hands, profess our love, possibly make out in a parked car, etc., etc.

It sounded good in theory but true to our nature, by 5 p.m. both of us were exhausted from working all day and in no shape to go anywhere. All we wanted was our pajamas and to sit on our couch, yet when I explained that to my mother on the phone, she wouldn't take no for an answer. She insisted we spend some adult time together.

Poor sweet, crazy woman. She's always trying to get us to do something exciting...and we're always laming it up. Like the time she babysat and we got drunk in LensCrafters. Or the time she babysat and we went on a Woolite and Hellboy outing.

She had an idea.

"Come home and pretend we're not here."

"Um."

"No really. Pick up a pizza for yourself, and when you get home you'll see what I mean."

At 6:30 p.m. Chuck and I walked through the door, pizza box in hand, and found ourselves in an empty living room (empty of people, I mean, not of all the shit that comes with having two kids—wouldn't that be nice). Our pajamas were laid out on the couch. Alongside them was a note: "Don't be pains in the asses. DON'T come upstairs until you're ready to go to bed."

My thoughtful mother had barricaded herself upstairs with the rugrats so Chuck and I could have a couch date. Sweet cushions of love!

"So what do you want to do on our date?" I asked Chuck. I waited for his typical response—"I don't care"—but was surprised to find he was brimming with ideas.

"First I want to eat this pizza in front of the TV and watch whatever I want to watch. I don't want anyone to ask me what I'm watching. I don't want to talk while I'm trying to chew. I want to eat another piece without getting you one. And I'm sorry, but I don't care if you're thirsty."

He sat down and crammed a slice of pizza in his mouth.

"Chuck! I want the same thing. I don't care if you're thirsty or hungry either."

"You don't?"

"No. That's your problem."

"You'll get your own juice?"

"Yes!"

"Oh, God yes!" He shoved more pizza in his mouth and started channel-surfing. Somewhere in there he beamed lovingly at me (I think).

Let this be a lesson to you: If you're looking for love, don't underestimate the power of offering to take care of yourself.

Or, subsequently, the excellent birth control that is a nosy mother and two children standing at the top of the stairs.

Small town newspaper humor

Where the hell was this moose when I was overcooking my chicken last night?

Our Easter eggs have zebra acne

Chuck and I just got done hiding the eggs. I have no idea how many we hid, nor do I remember exactly where we hid them, which means in a month or so we'll have no problem getting rid of lingering guests.

I like Easter, but it snuck up on me this year, as did preparing for it. Junior's basket is decidedly humble, and besides one pastel egg tree, I didn't put much out. I'm a connoisseur of magazines and they were brimming with catchy Easter creatures to concoct (Easter bunnies made with pink pipe cleaners, tampons and glitter? Great idea, Martha!) and various ways to wow my guests, but every time I started reading them I—yawn—couldn't quite—yawn—get into it.

I blame the children.

I spent Thursday morning as teacher's helper in Junior's nursery school. We helped 25 four year olds make Easter baskets from old milk containers. I was in charge of helping them glue on cotton tails, stick on whiskers, draw on faces, and affix ears. In case you've never been to hell it sounds like this:

"I don't want my bunny's ears there! I want them THERE. No, not THERE. THERE!"

"I need a tail. I need a tail. I need a tail. My tail fell off. I need a tail. I need a tail. I need a tail."

"You dress funny."

"I HATE craft time!"

"I have a cat at home. Do you have a cat? Does it have a name? My cat's name is Mark. My uncle is Mark. Does your cat sleep? My cat eats."

"I need a tail. I need a tail. I need a tail. My tail fell off. I need a tail. I need a tail. I need a tail."

"His basket is bigger than mine!"

"I don't want my bunny's tail there! I want it THERE. No, not THERE. THERE!"

I have never craved grain alcohol so desperately. Every brain cell ached.

It still does.

But that's ok. It's all ok. It doesn't matter that there isn't an overflowing Easter basket for Junior. It doesn't matter that our colored eggs are riddled with animal-patterned acne and encased in electrical wire. We don't need opulence. We don't need smiling, pink bunnies peeking out of every crevice to celebrate life, family and holiday. If you think about it, we need so very little exposure to young children to be happy.

Oops, that last sentence is the bunny tail talking.

Hold me! It was frightful!

Slip slidin' away

It looks so damn cute, doesn't it?

A race car door frame track thing.

After seeing it in Real Simple, I wanted it for myself. Bad. Real Simple said all I needed was black paint, a one- to two- inch paintbrush, white adhesive Velcro, assorted Matchbox toy cars, and scissors.

All I needed...

Well, they were right. And I did it! After work yesterday and right before dinner, I rustled up some paint and a mini roller, sat the kids down in the hallway (why fuss over a doorway when you can glam up your well-trafficked hallway?) and started taping up some tracks. Then I painted. While we waited for the paint to dry, Junior helped me with the velcro.

We wolfed down dinner—"Mom! Can we see it now? Mom! Is the paint dry yet? Mom! Can we play on it? MOM!"—peeled away the tape and voila!



A race car wall track thing.

It looks kind of neat, right? I thought so too, but after about five minutes, Junior put down his car and looked at me dejectedly.

"This isn't as much fun as I thought," he admitted.

"Why?"

"Because the cars don't move!"

"You mean you don't like pulling them off the wall and then sticking them back on, over and over and over and over?"

"No."

"You mean you actually want to race them around the house by hand and see the wheels move?"

"Yes!" he said exasperatedly.

Junior's disinterest wasn't the only drawback to our newly painted hallway. At around 3 a.m. I awoke to the sound of something clattering. I grabbed Chuck's arm and told him someone was breaking into the house.

"Downstairs! I heard a noise!"

Nope. No burglar. The matchbox cars I'd taped up were on the heavier side and had fallen to the floor, one by one. Boy did that tickle him.



I didn't think the track had much more to give, but it did. An hour after Chuck's mom showed up this morning to babysit, she called me at work.

"Can we do something about those cars in the hallway?" she asked. "It's a death trap!"

Turns out no matter how many times she slapped the cars back up on the wall, they'd fall and turn her shoes into a pair of wobbly skates.



After she left that night, Chuck told me she thought I might be out to kill her (shouldn't I know better than to put something like that in a hallway, she wondered).

That may just have made this little project worth it.

Photo courtesy of Real Simple.

What we glean from carpooling

Mulletville Corp must have read my last post (the one where I lamented that I never get to go anywhere) because on Monday they told me that I, along with three co-workers, were going to a week-long conference on the other side of the state. (In Connecticut lingo, that's like being told you're being sent to Texas).

I won't bore you with the details of the conference, except to say that communication conferences are brutal. If people spent less time talking about how to communicate and just shut up and did their work, the world would be a better place.

Small bonus of the trip: I got to see a legitimate handlebar moustache.

I said small, didn't I?

My fellow co-workers and I carpooled every day. I hadn't been to the other side of Connecticut since I used to commute there. I'd forgotten about wishing my car came equipped with secret death rays because of the insane traffic.

My co-workers were as shell-shocked as I, mostly because all of them are Mulletville-born and -raised (ew).

I could lie and say that after all that forced together time I have a new appreciation for Donna in purchasing, and Drew in IT, and Phyllis in HR but I don't. They're all shitty drivers. Donna's bracelets clanged too much. Drew has ugly ties. Phyllis has a fake laugh and shares way too much about who uses Mulletville Corp's confidential counseling service.

The highlight of our drive was talking about the popularity of The Hunger Games.

That, um, can only take you so far.

There was a silver lining though, so to speak: a point in the drive home every night when traffic lost its tight grip and we were able to break away. The feeling of being released, as opposed to being caged, was palpable. A calmness would come over me. I'd realize I was 10 minutes away from home and driving toward everything that matters to me.

It's a good direction to be driving in.

(Can you tell I'm going somewhere with this? Can you?)

In fact, it's the only direction I'd like to be driving in.

(Do you see it now? Do ya?)

That feeling solidified something Chuck and I have been talking about for awhile. Something I've been wanting for a long, looooong time.

(Ah yes, now you see it.)

And so on Friday, I decided to go for it. After I climbed out of Drew's Toyota, I tossed my "Best Communication Ever! EVER!!!" conference materials into the recycling bin and I called my boss.

I told her I will be leaving Mulletville Corp sometime in the next month or so.

It's not official, it's not even on paper.

But it's something.