Damned Indecision

Of course, just when my nanny frustration level reaches a peak of what I think is no return, something happens to make me decide to re-embrace Shelly. I know it’s a far-flung comparison, but I totally get how people in abusive relationships convince themselves to stick around. One day is bad, and the next day the person shows all their wonderful attributes. It almost makes me question myself. Was she really that bitchy?

So with the main issue being the have-to-be-home-down-to-the-minute, the day after our last “episode” in which I’d mistaken an early-home day for a late-home day, I hit a shitload of traffic going home. And traffic itself doesn’t even get to me any more. Who cares about sitting in traffic. It’s me envisioning the hell I’ll pay when I walk in the door late. And even cringing at the thought of calling to confess that a second night in a row I’m going to be late.

I mean, it is my lateness. So maybe I’m truly at fault… though she was pretty nasty that night. Oh God, see? I go round and round.

So I’m all scared and I call to say I’m in traffic and I’ll be late. She asks how late, and I want to say, “How the hell do I know?” but I just say, “It’s hard to say. Hopefully not too late.”

Then I steel myself to what is going to happen when I walk in the door. It’s like getting in trouble when you are a teenager and you decide that you can hear anything. All you need to do is stand there and listen to your mother rant on at you about whatever it is that you did, and you think that you can take it, you just have to stand there and listen and then it will be over. It’s just words, right?

So I summon my teen-like powers of negative energy rebuffing, and unlock the door to walk into a picture of domestic bliss. Kate is in her high chair, gurgling happily at Shelly and eating dinner. Shelly greets me with a smile and says she started giving Katie (as she always calls her) some dinner. She gives me a run-down of their day, and tells me more about the cold she fears Kate is catching. (She’d called during the day to tell me about it too.) She suggests I take her to a doctor.

Then the next day, which she has off, she calls in the afternoon to check on how Kate is doing and what the doctor had to say.

Oy! This makes it hard to stay annoyed with her. Am I crazy? Or worse, am I just lazy and don’t want to put the effort into finding someone else? Someone who is maybe better on the getting-home-late front, but doesn’t love Kate as much, or cook her healthy food, or take a geunine interest in teaching her things.

We’ve talked about finding another family with a baby Kate’s age or slightly older who might want to do share-care part-time. So, some of the time Kate would have a playmate, and some time she’d have solo nanny time.

Tonight when I got home, Shelly–all happy and friendly and cute with Kate and nice to me–reminded me I should post a listing to find another family. And I’ve been dragging my heels since I don’t know whether she’s a long-term solution for us. Why bring another family into the situation? And how can I write an ad, conceivably extolling Shelly’s virtues to someone else seeking a nanny, when I have my own issues with her?

If I were a friend with this problem the advice I would give would be to at least, at first, talk to the nanny. Express all the concerns I’ve had with her and explain that it’s been frustrating. See if there is a way to improve the situation. But somehow when I get home from work every night I just want to be with Kate, and don’t want to get into it.

If she could only be consistently annoying–and not totally great when she’s not being annoying–it’d be so much easier.

Maybe I just need to set a deadline for myself. By the end of the week I will talk to her about this. Ugh. I have never been one for these kinds of conversations, but feel like I’ve gotten better about them since I’ve had to give feedback to people at work over the years and learned to not shy away from it.

Okay. Resolved to do this now. Will report back with my progress.

Oh and P.S. The other thing I need to make a decision on is when to wean Kate. I seem to keep saying I want to, then get lured back in by wanting to give her what she wants, especially since I’m away from her for work and then feel guilty about denying her.

Must decide what to do, or decide to not decide on anything for a while. But will decide on that later.

Halloween Redux and a Poke in the Eye

For anyone who ever doubted me, I did succeed at making the damn Halloween costume for Kate. I can’t say that I figured it out on my own. After my overwhelmed pattern-opening moment, I called a friend, Melissa, who is crafty with a loom, a sewing machine, and God knows what all else. Over the course of three tutorials in which I covered her house with tufts of craft fur like lava covered Pompei, she deftly guided me through the often utterly incomprehensible directions, and even made great time-saving suggestions to boot. (Don’t sew on the arms, just have her wear a black shirt underneath.)

Why is it two women who don’t even know each other super well can work during the days, take care of their toddlers through their dinners and bedtime routines, and still summon the energy to successfully–and even pleasantly–work together on a fairly complex crafty project, when a young guy can’t even teach his girlfriend how to ski without all hell breaking loose?

At any rate, the costume was adorable! Kate was a starlet–well, a skunk really, but a dazzling one! At the neighborhood Halloween parade Mark kept nudging me so I wouldn’t miss it when the other parents cooed over the cuteness of it all. (And frankly Mark being proud of my maternal craftiness was all the flattery I needed to consider going another round with this home-sewn costume concept next year.)

In a more recent turn of events, nanny Shelly informed me one evening last week that at the park Kate was playing with a baby and was so excited. “She really wants one.” Somewhere in the amazingly-good but not perfect English that Shelly speaks I misconstrued her to mean that Kate wanted a sibling, not a baby DOLL.

So once I sorted my way through an initially suprising suggestion that turned out to be a quite reasonable one, we went to Target. I resisted the urge to wait until I found the ultimate sweet and cute and not plastic-tacky doll for Kate and just get her one, since by the time she is 27 and I find one that I think is worthy of being her first doll, she probably won’t care.

What was funny was the day we went to Target I’d met Shelly and Kate at a sushi place for lunch. When I walked into the restaurant, Kate was so excited to see me she started squealing. Then squealing seemed to continue to appeal to her after she’d gotten over the fun-ness of having me there, she sqealed more and louder. So Shelly said “Shhhh, Katie.”

Well, at Target when I handed her her soon-to-be First Official Doll, the first thing she did was look at it gravely and say, “Shhhh.” Finally Kate can manage someone else’s behavior instead of being the low man on the totem pole. I’m sure that’s fun for her.

The second noteworthy thing she did upon receipt of the new doll–after the requisite hugging and kissing of it–was take both her thembs and bear down on one of its eyeballs. It had those old-school kind of eyes with lids that open and close and eyelashes. It’s one of her ways of giving the doll love: hug it, call it “Baaaaby!”, give it kisses, and gouge at its eyes.

Yesterday I went into her toy box to get some toys I’d stowed away for a while so she’d think they were all fresh and new when she got to play with them again. I found an angel doll that Mark’s stepdad’s mother had gotten Kate. I handed it to her and she grabbed it with her wild-eyed happy look. “BABY? Baaaaby!” Then she went for the eyes.

Let’s just hope that these little Equus-like episodes are all a harmless expression of a baby’s bodily exploration, and we’re not raising a little future Abu Ghraib prison guard here. Sheesh.

Talking Up a Storm Now

We seem to be in a learning, growing, changing spurt in this house. And not just Kate. It seems like there is something churning through all of us.

Mark is busy at work tackling a big feature story which at times has had him feeling frustrated, but ultimately has been a great project for him to take on. And finally it seems to be in the wrap-up final edit stages (knock wood) and so it’s nearing time to settle down and feel proud and relieved and ultimately thankful for taking on the challenge in the first place (since writing isn’t really a job requirement for him).

And I’m still on the upswing of my new-job learning curve. I’ve started to get to know the team and am feeling lucky to be part of a friendly, un-political and talented office. Sure, I’ve battled with intermittent frustrations–mainly about the client services lack-of-savvy that seems to pepper the ranks–but ultimately what I’m learning about people I’m appreciating and feeling grateful for. I’m also getting to know the clients and seem to have made some modest but real inroads in relationship-building there. I’ve tackled some challenges, crossed some things off my To Do list, and managed to have a feeling of job satisfaction minus the up-all-night stressing component that seemed to be part of the last job at least.

And our glorious little Kate. She is just shining and sweet and aglow. She is crawling and trying to stand–until she realizes she’s not holding onto something and she topples over. And she is saying words like a fiend: apple, doggie, turkey, book, ball. Most words you can make sense of. The one that’s totally off base is pumpkin. She says something that sounds like “BA-bi” for pumpkin. She’s also learning things like where her feet, teeth, hair is. She’s clearly a small sponge, and we just need to remember to keep adding information.

All this learning is leaving us all pretty tuckered out by night’s end. So Kate’s been sleeping through the night (knock wood) and Mark and I are intermittently keeping each other up by sleeping restlessly and thinking of everything we have to do, or going out like lights.

Oh, and on a totally different topic, today when the nanny left she said, “I love you, Kate,” which was very sweet.

No no no

I remember being at a friend’s baby shower a couple years ago, long before Kate was a twinkle in my uterus. A new mom with her teeny baby was there, talking to the mom of an older kid. New Mom was seeking out all manner of advice, and at one point asked Older Kid Mom, “Do you tell him no?” And I swear I wanted to lean forward and say, “Come again?,” but I was just overhearing a conversation from across the room, so I tried to just tune my ears in more inconspicuously.

Older Kid Mom actually said no. No, that she doesn’t say no to her kid. I felt like screaming across the room, “What the hell are you talking about? Is this seriously some new parenting approach? You’ve GOT to be kidding!” But again, since this was not my conversation, I managed to stifle my incredulous reaction.

Fast forward to the McClusky house a couple years later. As you peer into the windows you see that the woman who’d been babyless at the earlier baby shower has had a child of her own. And wow! What a beauty she is.

But I digress…

So anyway, a few weeks ago Mark and I finally gave into the reality of our need do more–okay, some–babyproofing. Kate’s still not walking, but walking be damned, you can cover some serious ground on all fours it turns out. And everything not intended for infant exploration is of course infinitely enticing, like the fireplace (even sans a blazing set of logs, still not the blest place for play). Also, the stereo, which is perfectly at Kate-level and offers a wonderful variety of knobs and buttons for the pushing and the twisting.

Thanks to his natural house-handiness and some research conducted with other new parents facing the same problem, Mark managed to rig up a Plexiglas shield which he Velcroed to the front of the stereo case. The other night Kate crawled up to the stereo and even though she couldn’t get at it, she looked at it and said evenly, “No no no.” Well, it sounded more like, “Nnnnuh, nuh, nuh,” which as it turns out is exactly what I say to her.

It’s funny in an oh-that’s-what-I-do way having your admonishments tossed back at you. Turns out something you come out with in the heat of the moment is actually making an impression on that little mind! I think it’s why so many people end up freaking out when they hear themselves use the same expressions with their kids that their parents used with them. You just have some weird reflex to say something before the volume on your stereo is turned up to an eardrum-splitting decibel.

Kate has since busted out the “no no no” a couple other times. Reaching for the knob for the drain midway through her bath, she turned to me and said, “Nnnuh nuh nuh.” Crawling along the hallway and stopping to look at the electrical sockets (at long last, covered with childproof plastic plugs), she looked over her shoulder at me: “Nnnnuh nuh nuh.” It’s like she’s stored away every place in the house where I’ve ever said it to her, and says it back to me to show me she’s paying attention.

Well, I guess I’m not that far off from the Mother Who Doesn’t Say No. I guess I’m trying to soft pedal a bit on the stern “No” and heck, it seems like it just might be working.

Seems like it might finally be time to watch all our language around Miss Kate. It’s ultimately cute and funny hearing the no no no mimicry, but I’ll be less charmed hearing her repeat what I scream out when I stub my toe some day.

Nannies and Boyfriends

Sometimes I wonder if my brain works very differently than other peoples’. It seems that I can’t have an experience without somehow tying it to something else in my life. I mean, I guess that’s how we all operate on some level, to process change. But for me sometimes it feels more like a game of Concentration. I turn over one Jack and know I’ve seen another Jack somewhere…but where was it? It’s fun to me to make the connection.

So Shelly. Our nanny. As I’ve not been shy about sharing, we got off to a rocky start. I was returning to work after a year off. Mark was traveling for business. Shelly was new to all of us. And in addition to the new job, new team, new industry, I had a new commute which I’d yet to understand the traffic/distance and timing ins-and-outs of.

Most of my family and friends offered their shoulders for me to unburden myself upon that first week. I was going to be 5 minutes late getting home on my second day of work, and Shelly’s reaction was less than easy-going. It was a stressful interaction with her that dominoed to Kate also being stressed, and especially without Mark here to help me wrangle with it, the whole experience lead me to question where she was truly The One to care for Kate.

Well since then the job has become less new. I have an understanding of the intricacies of the commute. Mark has been traveling less for work. And I ironed out some issues with Shelly’s hours that allow me more wiggle room in my drive home. She and I have also gotten to know each other better. And she and Kate have clearly forged a bond.

And yet, the outpouring of support from those family members and friends who had my back when I was sure the nanny should go, haven’t all caught up with our current state of contentedness. When they inquire whether we’ve found someone new, I feel the need to justify and explain why we haven’t and how we’ve had a change of heart. And still I worry that the kind inquirer won’t really believe me, or think I’ve made the best decision.

It leaves me feeling like you do when you and your boyfriend have a fight, or break up, or he just does something jerky. You do what any typical gal does–reach out to your posse for support. And often that support comes in the form of “you’re too good for him,” “you should ditch the dope” and sometimes even the candid I’m-telling-you-this-because-I’m-your-friend-and-care-about-you “I never really liked him in the first place.”

Which all gets a bit sticky once the incident that set off all the need for all the extra love and support is past, and you find yourself back together with said BF and feeling all butterfly-stomachy in love again. Those conversations in which you and you friends fantasized about him getting afflicted with a lifetime worth of he’ll-never-date-again acne suddenly need to be swept under the carpet by all parties. When both groups are together again, say, you sitting on your parent’s couch snuggling with the guy who they know did you wrong, you’re aware that your parents are secretly still cursing him, but you want them to see that he’s changed! He’s different now! Everything is okay–really.

Alas, I fear that’s where I’ve landed with poor Shelly. Will she ever meet a friend without them wondering what it was she was so hopped-up to get to that she couldn’t stay 5 extra minutes with Kate that evening? Are they judging me and Mark as parents who really should find another nanny but are maybe just too lazy? Or worse, don’t care enough about who watches Kate?

And maybe in my most self-doubting moments, do I fear that they are right?

In my Mental Game of Concentration, I have to compare it to yet another thing. It’s like looking for apartments. When you’re looking, you want it all–hardwood floors, fireplace, parking, walk to BART. And when you finally get a place you’re thrilled that you didn’t have to take that place that was so dark, or expensive, or whatever. But you still can torture yourself with the fantasy that the perfect reasonably-priced rental with a hot tub in back and a Viking range was out there and you missed it.

Ah, well. Yesterday I went for a walk with Kate when I got back from my work trip in LA. I was looking up at the Berkeley hills and remembering when we just moved here how I felt so misplaced in this neighborhood. (After a dozen years in Noe Valley, it’s no wonder.) But now, I look up at those hills and revel in their beauty. I look at our little local library and the coffee shops and people with their yoga mats tucked under their arms waiting to cross the street, and I think of how lucky we are to be here. Without a doubt, this is home now.

Our rocky start aside, I’ve been getting some of that feel-good vibe from Shelly recently too. Seeing the great healthy meals she cooks for Kate, the way she teaches her little games and how to blow kisses. The care and concern she’s expressed in the past couple days about Kate’s runny nose.

Hopefully some day all the friends who have ever heard me kvetch about Shelly will know that Mark, Kate and I feel content and lucky to have found her, and confident that we have the right nanny–even if there may be one out there who’s just as good who charges a little less.

HMS Pinafore, Kate, and a Mama’s Fierce Love

In a lifetime that’s been characterized by obsessive parental love, Miss Kate is currently experiencing a particularly high period of maternal adoration. Or, to say it more plainly: My God, can I love this baby any more?

It would almost be sickening except for the fact that it’s just at the apex of intensity without reaching that I’m-so-excited-I-have-a-headache place.

I’ve described my pride and excitement about Kate in high school play terms before. (This probably relates to what I’ve realized as an adult was my freakishly positive and happy high school experience.) At any rate, the play thing is something I use to explain how I feel about the fact that my dad and oldest sister and a ton of other family and friends don’t get to see Kate anywhere near as much as I wish they could. To me it’s like when you’re in the high school play. You’ve been rehearsing for so long, memorizing lines, singing your heart out, putting all your extra energy into it. You get to that place where you surpass the fear that it could be terrible and even arrive at the realization that it will be really quite good. When the performances finally arrive and your family is in the audience watching, you’re so damn proud of yourself and happy and excited to have them there. It’s a total high.

Okay, so stay with me here. Having Kate is like being in this incredible Broadway performance in the lead role and singing and performing in a way that is so exceptional and impressive that it astounds even you. It totally exceeds your expectations. But the thing is, instead of getting that thrill that everyone you care about and want to be proud of you (and sure, even those who you want to impress) will come, the fact is that people can’t make it to every performance. So sometimes you’re there bursting with pride and excitement and a desire to show off, and there’s no outlet for it.

Especially with my mother gone, I get these sudden pangs of wanting her to be able to see how amazing Kate is. To even just look at her her beautiful sweetness once. Those times are this whole feeling at its worst.

So sometimes it’s like Mark and I are just here in our little house in Oakland that just seems like any other little house but if you were to look inside you’d see that there is this wonder child who is being more beautiful and smart and sweet than you could ever imagine a baby to be. Whose little naked butt when she’s standing up holding onto the edge of the bathtub as she watches the water fill it up is so ridiculously cute you need to kiss it (yes, actually kiss her ass!). And all of this is just happening in here night after night with people just naively walking by outside having no idea!

Sometimes I just have to out and tell people, like my sister Marie when we’re on the phone, “My God, you have to see this baby. Like right now.” Of course it’s impossible for her to crawl through the phone line. But I really have thought that if she knew what Kate was doing at that moment and how great it was, she’d get on a cross-country plane immediately.

I guess it’s just in my nature to want to share great stuff. In the middle of an amazing massage I spend half the time thinking of how I have to get Mark to get a massage just like it. And part is just the exuberant braggart in me who wants to shout about Kate from the rooftops. “Amazing baby here! She giggles! She points at random things and says, ‘Ba ba!’ She has soft blonde hair with little wispy curls! She puts her head down on your shoulder to hug you! She says ‘baby’ like a CD that’s skipping and it’s so damn silly and funny and sweet you’d just love it, I know!”

Sometimes when I get swept up I call Ellen to see if she wants to come over last minute for dinner. Of course it’s in the guise of wanting to see her and the kids. And sure I do want to see them. But I also just really want them to see Kate.

Anyway, most of the time the last-minute dinners don’t work out, or we’re just in our day-to-day family routine. So what happens when it’s just us is that Mark and I marvel to each other. Sometimes Mark will just look at me with his eyes wide and say, “That baby.” And I know he means, “My God she is so staggeringly amazing. We are so lucky. How could we ever love anything quite so much?” Word to that, Dada.

And thankfully we do get opportunities to see other people who genuinely share our excitement. The mother’s group mamas totally appreciate all the other mamas’ babies. We thump each other on the backs regularly about the wonder of each other’s small beings. It’s nice.

And of course, when we do get to see grandparents, we get to connect with those who are similarly afflicted with The Crazy Love Glee. In Kentucky Peggy told us how Kate held her arms out for Gary (a.k.a. Papa) to pick her up, and I know he must have just melted. In that church-basement-sharing kind of way, it feels good to be around others who share our disease.

I guess all this is one reason why having Kate makes me want to spend the holidays with extended family more than ever. I’m so excited about The Miller Family Thanksgiving (TM) just because we can all hang out and delight in Kate and Gavin and family and love and luck.

And after two years of Mark unsuccessfully jockeying for the whole “starting our own family traditions at home” thing, this year he wins. We’ll stay in California for Christmas. It’s not that I won’t be happy being with Mark and Kate. Just the opposite really. I’ll be giddy with joy and love and pride and thankfulness. It’s just that sometimes when I feel that way I wish I could have all my family and friends experiencing it right there with me, and cheering me on from the audience.

To Hell with Cancer

I really hate to always have something to whine about these days but the preponderance of cancer I’ve been hearing about seems a legitimate reason.

First I find out that my friend Barb has a 40-year-old friend with late stage lung cancer. Never smoked a day in her life. Then Blanca, Kate’s former Thursday babysitter, tells me her father has cancer that they first thought was isolated and treatable and later determined was spread throughout his body. Then Mrs. Demopulos, Amelia’s mom, is diagnosed, which is a crushing blow since my mother already got cancer so it doesn’t seem fair that hers should too. And also because I love Mrs. D like a second mother. Then yesterday my father asks me on the phone in the course of an otherwise mundane “how’s the weather there?” conversation whether I’d heard that my Aunt Mary has colon cancer. (I had not.)

Aunt Mary isn’t really an aunt. She was our neighbor growing up and in many ways is closer to my sisters and I than many of our blood relations. I guess the aunts that you pick versus those that you just get can be that way. I mean, not to say anything remotely negative about my “real” aunts–but Aunt Mary is an amazing special person and force of nature. She’s super positive and friendly and fun and a great cook and has tons of energy and a fabulous head of (natural) strawberry blonde hair and you’d never know in a million years that she’s 87. In fact, she’s got so much vim and vigor that she takes care of her 92-year-old sister.

I still don’t know the complete story of what the doctors have said the deal is with Aunt Mary, and with all this other cancer news and Rose having died and the new job and new nanny and Mark traveling for work a lot stress, I kind of just can’t deal right now. Hopefully maybe there is something they can do about it.

Speaking of Mark, he’s away for one night for a work retreat and I’m forlorn like a schoolgirl. I think I’m still feeling the fall-out of the world’s stressiest week last week and while we all continue to transition into me working again, I would just prefer that he be here to sit in the couch with me and pat my hand saying “there there” as needed. Next week he’s away Monday through Thursday in New York. (Don’t tell any robbers.) I may well languish without him.

Speaking of “there there,” I really want to get Kate to sleep through the night more consistently. It’s never fun to be awakened from a deep sleep to go and nurse her, but when I need to wake up at 6:15 the following morning to go to work, it’s particularly unsavory. So, the other night when Kate had already woken up once, we decided Mark would go in the second time and try to get her back to sleep sans boob.

Kate’s pediatrician told us to do the ole Ferber thing of going in and saying in an unemotional tone, “It’s time to go to sleep,” and rubbing her belly to try to calm her down. Mark has done this a handful of times and more often than not it results in Kate losing her shit upon seeing him. It’s clear her internal dialogue then is, “What are you doing in here? I want the one with the boobies! I want miiiiiilk!” She starts crying hysterically and when he comes back into our room I always say to him, “How’d that go?”, and every time I think that’s a really funny thing to say.

What was so weird/funny/great was the other night Mark went in to do what we refer to as “there there” and when he arranged her blankets nicely over her and cooed, “Time to go to sleep,” she actually did! When he got back into bed we didn’t even say anything to each other because we were both bracing for her to lose it (and of course didn’t want to jinx anything). But despite us waiting for the other shoe to drop, she just settled back down into sleep. It was divine.

Of course, when he tried it last night, she lost her shit, and a few minutes later I caved and went in to nurse her. Ah well. As my grandmother used to say with a sigh of resignation, “What are you going to do?”

Tomorrow’s a Brand New Day, Right?

Oy vey. This week has just got to be better than last week. If not, someone please send me a cookie bouquet or something. Sheesh.

So the job seems like it will be good. Smart and funny folks. And everyone is crazy friendly. At times I’ve felt like I’m back in the groove–asking the right questions, making insightful observations in meetings, and even looking natty in my new work clothes. At other times I’ve sputtered out the totally wrong word (voicemail introducing myself to client saying “See you at the lay-off meeting” instead of the “layout meeting.” D’oh!) And then sometimes I get in that kinda sleepy, slap happy mode of being too familiar and jocular with people who instead of having fun with me seem to be mildly freaked out that I’m their new boss and I suddenly realize I should cinch my personality girdle in a bit tighter.

The nanny. We’ve clashed once already when I called to say I was stuck in traffic and would be 5 minutes late and she told me in a not so friendly manner that she just couldn’t stay. She had things to do and somewhere to be. I mean, I appreciate her life and respect her time but it was the second day with a new commute and I was still trying to figure out how long it would all take.

So, in a panic I called four local friends getting voicemails all around and leaving desperate pleas could they please call me if they got this and maybe go to the house and sit with Kate for a few minutes until I screeched into the driveway clutching the steering wheel with sweaty palms and a throbbing headache? No one was home. No one called back. I called the nanny again and really what ensued is too annoying to even go into but suffice it to say I wasn’t left with the warm fuzzies for how she and I will relate under duress.

But thankfully it was a three-day work week since Mark’s cousin Dan was getting hitched in Louisville (pronounced Loo-vul), Kentucky. So Thursday morning with the new-work-and-new-nanny part of the week behind me my alarm clock went off at 4:15AM and I greeted the day by dragging excessive luggage to the car, waking up a sleeping baby and schlepping to the airport in the icy dark morning. Once there I was making a bee-line for the gate since it was boarding time, but looked at my seat number (17A) instead of the gate number (3), so ran the length of the terminal with baby on hip, stroller loaded with large carry-on and carseat strapped to back chanting internally “one foot, the other foot, making progress, I can do it” only to arrive at last at destination, exhale with exhaustion, realize my error and turn around, sweat trickling down my chest, to run back to gate 3 twice as fast since I was really late then. (The argument with the gate attendant about why I couldn’t take the carseat onto the plane for Kate, even though there were free seats, was just gilding the lily.)

In Houston we met Mark. And boy was I crazy happy to see him in that misery loves company or at least loves to complain a lot to someone you really love way. In our second flight he unburdened me of baby, luggage, and most importantly the daunting feeling of doing it all alone (hail to you, single parents!). He really stepped up for much of the weekend too.

And Kentucky was fun at times. The Miller clan is always a hoot to hang out with, and many of Aunt Terry’s Lexington posse we’ve come to know a bit. And Kate had some babies to play with, and grandparents to adore her. Three nights of parties (BBQ, rehearsal dinner, wedding) were all fabulous and social, but really I would have been well-served to sit at home with greasy hair blankly staring at the TV and feeding myself Dove Bars. Since that wasn’t in the cards I did a sort of body cleansing by inbibing excessive amounts of bourbon. Not what I needed to feel rested and geared up for Week Number 2 of New Job, but it seemed like a good idea at the time.

Time to sleep since I’m already cutting into my much-needed 8 hours. And I know it’s all going to get so much better, if I can just wake up for it.

Things Not To Do

Do not start a new job and leave your daughter for the first time with a new nanny who for all you know could be an axe-murderer in the same week when your husband is away on a business trip and on Thursday you’ll already need to take a day off and be all packed and get yourself and your baby onto a 6AM flight to go to a family wedding.

Do not get your period the morning of your first day of work and have miserable cramps. And don’t forget to take Advil before you leave the house and spend the whole day hoping that you’ll magically find some in your office in the 30 second breaks between your back-to-back getting-to-know-you need-to-make-a-good-first-impression meetings.

Do not wear a pink dress shirt under a black dress on your first day of work, thinking it looks cute until you arrive at the office and realize you look like an overgrown girl in a Catholic school uniform.

Do not take on management of a community event when you are starting a new job and your husband is away on a business trip.

Do not freak out that the nanny that you hired is possibly terrible and that your daughter no longer loves you after one day left with a total stranger who you hope she will come to like someday, but not too much.

Do not get lost on your first drive home from your first day of work and ultimately sit in extra traffic and have to call the nanny and tell her you’ll be late and can she possible stay longer–establishing yourself in her mind as irresponsible (and as having a bad sense of direction).

Do not cry on the phone to your husband after feeding and bathing a crying overtired baby who didn’t take an afternoon nap, making him feel terrible about being away on a business trip.

Do not spend an hour updating a spreadsheet for your community event planning (which you have foisted off on your benevolent friend) when all you want to do is space out and watch TV, then have your computer crash and lose all your work.

Do not underestimate the many emails and calls you got from friends asking how your first day of work was, sending heaps of encouragement, and making you feel somewhat validated that this is indeed a big transition and worthy of stress, exhaustion, and anxiety but given time could turn out to be just fine and maybe even very rewarding.

Do not give into the temptation to ask your husband to come home from his business trip early just because you miss him madly and feel bad that he feels bad that you feel bad. Do go to sleep grateful to have him and looking forward to how happy you will be to see him in the Houston airport on Thursday.

Silly Crazy Love

Last Saturday we went to our friend Barb’s 40th birthday party. Barb was my old roommate Maureen’s friend from college. So, essentially the first flat I moved into in SF–the requisite Victorian flat that you move into with people you don’t know because you’re young and idealistic and have just pulled up your East Coast roots to live in sunny California–that flat used to be occupied by three friends who all went to UC Santa Barbara. So Barb was one of the apartment’s occupants before I was.

By the time I’d made it to Vicksburg Street, Barb was off gallivanting in Australia with her then BF, now hubbie. And one of the other three gals, Laurie, was off in Africa doing relief nursing work and meeting the man she’d eventually marry. Which left Maureen to look for two total strangers to shack up with. Those strangers turned out to be Shelley and me.

Anyway, those UCSB gals are a tight crew. Not unlike any group of best girlfriends really, though they have seen each other through particularly thick and thin times. And, God bless ‘em, they always make a great showing at parties. So, unbeknownst to the birthday girl, Maureen flew in from Boston and Laurie from Canada to take part in the festivities.

A considerable amount has changed in our lives since Maureen and I shared a phone. She ended up marrying a fine lad from Rhode Island who I never knew from growing up, but who I met in SF and introduced her to. And now she has four–yes 4–kids with said Rhode Islanduh [sic], and lives in domestic bliss in The Land of the Bad Accent.

So we were talking about being parents and Maureen beat me to the comment that I most often make about the revelation of parenthood, which was “Having kids makes you realize just how much your parents love you.” Word to that, sister.

My father is in the Professional Proud Parents Hall of Fame, and he certainly isn’t totally bereft of things to be proud of, but in many cases he’s just crazed with delusional paternal satisfaction. My old college roommate used to love it about Fred. “Aw Kris,” she’d say, imitating his deep voice. “You brushed your teeth this morning! I’m so damn proud of you!” (And I wonder why I need Mark to praise me when I clean the bathroom…)

But now, having Kate, I totally get it. The girl hits her hand in the bath water to splash and I act as if she’s won the Nobel Peace Prize. I too have foolish over-inflated pride. And don’t even dare to tell me it’s for no good reason.

The thing that Maureen said that totally cracked me up was, “All those times growing up when your parents told you how beautiful you were–they really thought it!” Hilarious.

I actually did ask Mark one night if he thought that maybe Kate wasn’t cute but we were so blind with love that we thought so. Unsurprisingly he said he thought she really was cute. I guess it’s something we’ll never know. (Don’t crazy people never think they’re crazy, which is the first symptom of insanity?) Whatever the case, I think Mark and I are destined to live out our days going with our hunch that Kate is sweet, brilliant, and beautiful. It’s annoying I know, but we try our best to keep it under wraps.

So, last year on this day I was clutching the side of a hot tub (more like a tepid tub) moaning my way through contractions. I was about 11 1/2 hours into active labor (but who’s counting?) and was at a particularly “active” juncture. I remember from the strange planet I was on that I saw Yeshi, my midwife, who was reading something or filling out some forms. And Sarah, my doula, who I also saw as if through a gauzy veil, was mopping my brow and reminding me to breathe. And Mark, of course, was right there with me and earnest and excited and supportive and kept telling me what a great job I was doing and how I was amazing and strong and beautiful.

About a half-hour from now was when, after an internal exam, I was told that I hadn’t progressed really at all. That all those intense contractions crashing in on me less than a minute apart had really gotten me nowhere closer to having that baby in my arms. And so I decided to toss my drug-free birthing plans out the window and get an epidural. If after 12 hours I was in the same place, how long would it take and how hard would it be to actually get somewhere?

Suffice it to say that by this time tomorrow, a year ago, Mark and I had taken up temporary residence in a hospital room with a baby we had no idea how very much we would come to crazy over-the-top love love love and be proud of in ways that no doubt seem foolish to anyone else (but really they just don’t get it).

So Kate, I tell you this on the eve of your first birthday. I know your father and I must seem out of our minds at times, but we really do think you’re beautiful. We really do think you are better than him. We really do think a family vacation would be a fun way for us all to spend some time. Someday you may experience all this yourself, and then you might not think we’re so crazy after all.