Quoth the Squeaker

Funny words the squeaker has been using lately:

quoting
per se
rather

He'll make some random statement that seems unconnected to anything, and then when he sees that I'm puzzled, he'll explain, "I'm quoting [insert one of several hundred book or movie characters]."

Call him the wrong character when he's play-acting and he'll correct, "Or, rather, Neera, you mean..."

Or he might say, "It's not that I don't like dinosaurs, per se, but right now I'm Randall [from Monsters, Inc.]."

It's very cute, but I'm not sure what other little kids are going to make of him.

I've been thinking about that because we're looking into preschools. When I was little, I went to the Methodist preschool a block from my house. Here, in the middle of rural PA, we don't have that option. But the squeaker is so lonely. He pines for other kids and is usually beside himself with excitement when his cousins are coming for the evening.

There are playgroups around here, but they are mostly made up of moms who do not work and who thus meet on weekday mornings. I'll be back at work part time in two weeks, so I'm not sure that a playgroup with stay-at-home moms works for us. Plus, I'd like him to have the opportunity to navigate his own relationships, away from mama or papa. A big group of kids would give him that chance.

The best option would be a preschool that coincides with my work hours. That way, he could hang out at school while I work, and his grandma gets a chance to have the baby alone for a while (otherwise, she'd watch both boys all day). So I looked into a place near my work. The price tag for two days of preschool? Almost $500 per month. So I'm thinking about it, but I'm not sure the budget allows for it. Until then, the squeaker will have to find companionship in his play-acting with a zillion book and movie characters...

Woe, Baby

The pipsqueak is over 4 months old now.

He's a lot more fun than he was as a newborn. He is smiley and sometimes giggly. He is good with his hands, and can grab his toys -- and his mama's hair. His favorite person to watch is the squeaker. He is awed by his big brother and will happily watch him play.

When I had the squeaker, I discovered that the first few months with a baby aren't really very much fun. Since I have five younger siblings, you would think this would not have been a revelation. But it seems to be a secret that parents keep from parents-to-be -- everyone talks about how incredible parenthood is, how it changes you forever, how great it is to have kids. And these things are true, but no one really talks about the not-so-fun stuff. Yes, they kid about never getting enough sleep, but that's really small potatoes.

It's the big stuff that really changes -- suddenly having this little vulnerable person to worry about and who is completely dependent on you. Being on duty 24 hours a day, seven days a week for months on end. (I find it hard to leave a young breastfed baby with a caretaker, even grandma, and even for a few short hours.) Finding it impossible to get a few minutes alone with your spouse that isn't taken up with conversation about your kids.

Sometimes, I miss the period of my life when I could choose a good book, make some hot cocoa, and curl up to read all day on a rainy weekend. Or snuggle in to watch a movie with my husband on a weeknight -- maybe even at the movie theatre!! Or make a phone call that isn't constantly interrupted by "Hey mama...hey mama...hey mama...." (I think I've been interrupted about a dozen times while writing this -- so far...)

Life with the squeaker turned out to involve a kind of mourning at first, for I felt a keen sense of loss. A loss of freedom, a loss of carefreeness, a loss of unburdened intimacy with myself and my husband. Sometimes, I now warn parents-to-be -- especially those that have enjoyed several years of kid-free adulthood -- about that sense of loss. I used to feel guilty about feeling that way -- shouldn't I just be grateful and happy for having a healthy, wonderful baby? -- but since then, I've realized that it was OK to mourn -- after all, I really had lost the life I had known in many ways.

As the squeaker got older, some of my "old life" returned. I could leave him with a babysitter, and he was enthusiastic about it. The three of us went to movies and restaurants together, though sometimes it was an awful lot of work with a two- or three-year old. Nonetheless, it was clear to me that while every stage of childhood will present its challenges, nothing is quite as all-consuming as the needs of an infant, and that as time goes by, parenthood will not demand so much self-abnegation.

But I wanted the squeaker to have a sibling, and I wanted one more baby. I knew that meant I'd have to endure those rough early months one more time. And this time, it has been easier, maybe in part because I know it doesn't stay this intense forever, and maybe because I'm more reconciled to the loss of my before-kids life. So this time, I've gotten to appreciate the beauty and wonder of those early months a bit more than I did the first time around (though I still think those first 8 weeks or so offer very little in the way of rewards for the tremendous parenting effort they involve).

Now that the pipsqueak has reached 4 months, I think the hardest part of infancy is behind us. He sleeps pretty well at night, and we have a pattern that makes the days relatively smooth and predictable. And now I'm surprised to feel a different kind of mourning -- the "this is my last baby" mourning. It's not exactly that I want another baby. I'm excited about having two boys old enough to do fun things with. I'm excited about moving beyond days punctuated with multiple naps and lots of diaper changes, with endless breastfeeding, with curtailed (or non-existent) me-time. And I swore to myself last time, in the midst of daily vomiting that went on for literally months, that I would never make the conscious choice to suffer from morning sickness again.

And yet...and yet. No little girl for me, then. No more feeling those first stirrings of life within me. No more of the exhilaration of that first moment after the exhausting work of childbirth when that little person is suddenly separate and draws his first breath, when you can suddenly hold him in your arms and know that everything is OK. No more, no more, no more.

Probably nothing would cure that mourning associated with the last baby. After all, there always has to be a "last baby" at some point. And my head knows that I don't even WANT another baby. But who knew, after all the throwing up in pregnancy, after all the worrying about miscarriages and birth defects and stillbirth, after the every-two-hours-all-night-long feedings, after the diapers leaking in the night, after the shock of having so much less time for the squeaker because of the demands of the pipsqueak, after the struggle to get my body back into something I recognize, that I'd feel a little sad that this is it for me. I can't say that I expected to feel quite so sad about it -- and yet jubilant at the same time!!

This is why my husband, to whom sexism is generally as foreign as it is repugnant, thinks women are crazy.

An Open Letter to Congressional "Investigators"

Dear Congressmen and Congresswomen of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee:

1) the Iraq war is costing $100,000 per minute;

2) more than 9 million children lack health insurance;

3) as many as 3.5 million people -- 842,000 per week -- experience homelessness each year;

4) more than 10% of the U.S. population lives below the poverty line;

5) U.S. schools are struggling to meet much-debated standards;

6) millions of jobs have moved overseas;

Can you please just SHUT UP about baseball players using steroids? It's really embarrassing to watch you use my tax money to interrogate baseball players.

Thank you.