Journey to the Land of Queso and Endless Clean Towels

Hooray, we're in Dallas! In the spirit of what-else-is-maternity-leave-for, I have come to stay with my parents for an indulgent five weeks (!!) of free baby care and endless clean towels. Sadly, Nava and I had to leave daddy behind because he has to work. Sad face. He'll join us for Christmas though! 

At DFW airport. Nava adorable as ever,
Mama Noms looking like someone smacked her
with one of those supersize packages of wine gums.

The baby is too young to make real trouble, but I was still apprehensive about the flight. And by apprehensive I mean I was terrified. 

The main reason was that I was certain we would crash. I am always certain that my plane is going to crash and certain of my certainty because I am clairvoyant. I'm only clairvoyant right before I fly, of course. I discover this talent anew every time, and it never fails to bum me out that a soothsayer like me is about to be extinguished.This time I was extra bummed because Nava was going to come crashing down with me and it was going to be all my fault. 

As usual, I considered changing flights, but again, as usual, I didn't. I've seen Final Destination. I'm not stupid. 

Secondly, if we survived take-off, I was concerned that the baby would scream and carry on to the point that our fellow passengers might just open the hatch and throw us into the Gulf Stream. For that reason, I spent several hours (no, seriously) curating the selection of toys and books that I'd take with me.  I also got a bunch of these ingratiating little goody-bags ready for the passengers in our immediate vicinity. My friend Florence saw these on Facebook somewhere and told me about it, and I'm never one to miss an opportunity to suck up to strangers.

For our wretched seat mates. Except our flight companions this time just weren't wretched enough.

Except once we boarded the flight, I didn't use them. Here's why: My dad, who bought my ticket with miles, got us a business class seat on the way to Dallas. As a faithful member of the economy class, taking an overnight flight in a seat that reclines completely was a revelation. I imagine this is how swine herders in the late Middle Ages felt when they finally hobbled out of their plague-infested hamlets and into the big city and saw, for the first time, the Gothic cathedral whose stony spire pierced the heavens and which had been constructed off their breaking, dead-by-30 backs: A combination of divine inspiration and thorough revulsion. Revulsion not because cathedrals are revolting, but because the existence of cathedrals reminds you that there is no need for your hovel to be so unnecessarily shit. 

The seat next to us was empty and the row behind us was empty. So we were ten feet from the nearest passengers, all of whom were well-dressed and good looking and started drinking gratis gin & tonics before we even took off. They were all really nice. Why wouldn't they be? 

That's when I decided these people didn't need my candy. First of all, they had an ice cream sundae bar. Secondly, they could get their own free ear plugs. Lastly, they were fortified by their own inherent superiority. Not sense of superiority. Actual superiority. Most of all, I was too busy making Nava giggle by putting our magic seat into silly configurations. Nava behaved like an angel. Who wouldn't, if they lived in a cathedral? 

So yeah. I didn't hand out the candy. When we fly back to Vienna it will be in cattle class, where everyone drinks tomato juice just to feel like they're having a special time. I'm saving my little care packages for the poor fuckers who have to cosy up next to us then. 

People who need ear plugs and candy. 

Now I'm off to try and take a nap. You know what is no good? Babies with jet lag who are unhappy to be in a strange new house. Also I drank my weight in queso last night and am feeling about like you'd expect. Blurgh. 

Hope you're having a happy hump day! 

Try a Little Tenderness

You know that Otis Redding song "Try a Little Tenderness"? It's the one about being nice to a young girl who is "tired of wearing that same old shaggy dress". Well, like every other song that was ever written, if you just change one or two words around it applies perfectly to babies.

This is a (long) aside, but did anyone else have this phase in their early adolescence when they first became aware that the world is full of sex references? You start hearing about mysterious things like foreplay and fetishes and positions (for or against?), and realize that you can often take things two ways (*snigger*). And once you start to crack the code, you realise that popular culture is a 24/7 industrial-grade firehose of sex.  

My parents and teachers appeared totally oblivious but we who were in the know were privy to a non-stop barrage of sex on the radio, TV, movies, poetry, novels, comics, paintings... It turned out that sex was the basis of modern civilisation and all commercial enterprise. Once the veil was lifted, it seemed to me that Pop! Goes the Weasel was the only non-church song I knew that didn't have a sex reference, and even there if you snickered properly you could make it sound vaguely filthy.   

I think until I was 12 or 13 I just thought all those radio songs were about kissing. Which is astonishing considering that ubiquitous hits at the time included, for example, I'll Make Love to You (I mean, HELLO), Freak Me (opening lyric: "Let me lick you up and down")  and this song, which is basically like singing: "Hooray for your body/ let us have imaginative sex/ but no need to improvise/ I'll spell it out in the hook". 

I specifically remember hearing this song on the radio: "Mary Moooooon, she's a vegetarian/ *incomprehensible*/ She loves me so/ She hates to be alone/ She don't eat meat but she sure like the bone.".. and thinking, Ya. I know what THAT means, New Age Girl. And ohmygosh, the band is called Deadeye Dick. Subversive.

Anyway, I bring it up because since the baby came (not yet four months ago... but was there ever a time when she didn't exist?) every romantic song now seems like it was written about babies, for babies, with babies in mind. It's all so innocent now. All those kisses become sweet little baby smooches. Enchanting smiles are those priceless fleeting ones accompanied by drool and dimples.The dreams they are talking about are baby dreams, full of fluffy sheep and smiling stars. At Last. My Funny Valentine. I could go on. Having a baby is the great total de-sexualization of how I understand love songs. 

(Okay, that doesn't actually apply to "Freak Me" and "Stroke Me Up", but those only count as love songs in the grossest sense and even then it's a little iffy. Also, now that I am 30 and officially a mother I must point out that those songs are derogatory, vulgar and infinitely stupid. If songs about sex were cocktails, listening to them would be the equivalent of downing orange squash mixed with antifreeze when you could be getting down like scotch neat or something off the grapevine or perhaps a refreshing Hendricks and tonic. 

Anyway, to bring it back to the beginning of this post, "Try a Little Tenderness" is one of the songs I play for my baby to amuse myself, except our version is about young girls who grow weary of the same old diaper. It helps to remind me in my more aggravated moments that rather than joining the baby in a flood of frustration I should just try a little tenderness. 

Cute, right? But forget all that. I was wrong. What nonsense. The thing to try is a little BABY FORMULA. 

Until now I have been an exclusive breast feeder. But the other night I was going somewhere and was not able to pump, and so for the first time ever our sprout got fed a solid 200mL of formula. I felt so guilty, even though I am actually still breastfeeding. Whatever. The point is, she slurped that ish right up, slept for eight hours solid and was a warm dumpling of satiated joy all morning afterwards. The transformation was total, like a desert traveller who survived three months on bitter sips of mud before being given a whole goatskin of Evian. Redemption. Inner light. It was so awesome. Love and peace reigned for hours on end. So yes. Forget tenderness. Try a little formula instead. 

P.S. I just can't end this without noting that I am still breastfeeding so please do not yell at me. I'm not sure who I'm addressing this to other than my inner demons, who wear soft hair and natural fabrics and look surprisingly like members of the La Leche League. 

Parenting Fail: Part 1/529224315

On Monday I took young Nava to the doctor because she had been coughing a little on the weekend and her eyes had been red and runny. This was the first time she's ever been even a little sick and I wanted someone else to tell me that she's fine. As is always the way, her symptoms evaporated completely by the time we were in the doctor's waiting room. But I'm stubborn and anyway I had nothing else scheduled, so having gotten this far I decided there was no way we were leaving without seeing the doctor about something.

Not-sick Nava. Because she can't say no,
she has to wear elephant ears and bunny boots.
This is how we incentivize learning to talk. 

Happily (I guess), there was something! The infant had developed a pretty grody rash behind her ears. It was flaky and nasty. Now, my ignorance is a silky and voluptuous creature whom I hate to discourage, so I hadn't done any research or even much thinking about this rash and had simply put it down to "some kind of cradle cap or something". Despite knowing better, I also had a slight nagging worry that it was a symptom of psoriasis, my own familiar skin condition, which I obviously hope my daughter hasn't inherited. 

And so we waited at the doctor's office. One patient was a teeny weeny baby that must have been less than a week old. His (her?) parents looked exhausted and held their little bundle in that awkward super-newborn way where you're just trying to prevent the kid's head from dribbling down your front like a wet squid. It made me realize how much old Nava has solidified in the last three-and-a-half months. 

There was also a cute toddler girl who was tinkering with toys while her mother and grandmother were intently focused on some kind of cell phone game. At one point the girl dragged this mini rocking horse out from under a table to play with, but she only pulled it out halfway, so that once she got on she inevitably smacked the back of her head against the countertop. 

The girl's mom leapt up and over me in time to prevent her child from bumping her head a second time. Then she shot me the same look that you give a turd that has failed to flush. I was sitting closer to the rocking horse than the kid's mom, and, you know, I wasn't playing with my phone, so I guess it was my job to intervene and save her toddler's skull, but I was holding a baby and also I didn't realize what was happening until it was too late. The kid didn't even notice she had banged her head. Whatever. So this other mom gave me the squint and I tried to act like a dignified turd who has better shit to worry about, so to speak. 

After that tiresome interlude in the waiting room, which I feel like doctors (and perhaps bloggers) insist on just to make a little more mountain out of what would otherwise be a negligible tad of molehill, we finally got in to the doctor. 

He instantly dismissed the suggestion that Nava was sick, so as planned I brought up the rash behind her ears. 

"Uh-oh, a rash?," said the doctor, who looks nothing like Santa but sort of talks like him sometimes. "Well, we had better take a look!" He carefully turned the baby's head from side to side to inspect behind each thumb-sized ear. 

He looked at me. "That is just dirt." 

"Oh," I said, deflated. "Just dirt?" 

Oh. 

"Yes, dirt," he said, slowly, as if explaining to a turd that it is not supposed to stick around but rather should swim away with its brothers. "One does actually have to clean the babies. I would suggest treating the ears with a washcloth and soap, and later applying almond oil. That should do it."  

Flushed, I left.