the modernity ward

Thx

You better believe I'm thankful this Thanksgiving, and all the other days as well. I mean, come on: awesome husband? wonderful daughter? neighbors unsurpassed in general niceness? great Jewish community? friends out the wazoo? wonderful family? baby on the way? lovely midwives and doula?

But these are the things it's easy to be thankful for. There are other, less obvious things for which I am grateful. To wit:

• That my sister, while a far better pianist than I (since we were about 13 and 15), is at least not as frequent a blogger as I.
• That someone else comes to fix the radiators that stop working every third week or so.
• That the canine bellyachin' next door turned out to be a visiting dog, who has since returned home.
• That my body feels relatively good for 35 (!) weeks pregnant.
• That the evil cold I have has progressed from the itchy-head-pouring-mucus phase to the stuffy-head-coughing phase (which is a lot easier for me to deal with).
• That the house is clean enough for me to feel okay about knitting.
• That a very kind lady brought a stuffed calico duck to the door and gave it to Sophia, who fell in LOVE with it and named it Alice and declared it had "eyes of flame."

For what small, weird things are you grateful?

Pictures, Then

My real actual boobs are safely concealed beneath the Sports Bra of Mystery, but you can take a look at the belly, circa 34 weeks. Forgive the blurry darkness of the shots. It's the best you're going to get, internets.

Oh, and the stretch marks are difficult to see in real life, but man do they pop in the pics! Anyhoodle.
Please to enjoy view of tattoo, front end of dog, and plant gasping for breath because it is hanging directly over a radiator.
 
Last we come to the view that Sophia gets daily. We know it's accurate because we gave her the camera to take the picture. Believe me, it's a really hot angle for me:

Boobies!

Ladies: Do you ever freak out about how yours look because you can't find a single media representation that matches what you see in the mirror? Are they too big or too small or are the areolas weird or do they sag or stare off in opposite directions? Has anyone ever made you feel uncomfortable about them? How do breasts change during and after pregnancy and nursing, anyway?

Dudes: Ever say anything assholish to a woman about her breasts? Get all your ideas about how they're supposed to look from the media? Like your special lady's breasts but don't understand why she doesn't believe they're just fine by you?

Go to 007b.com -- it's a site that's been around for a long time, but they just keep on updating, so now it's a treasure trove of NSFW-ness. And it will probably make you feel pretty good about things, because there are many different kinds of breasts in the world, and that, as we say in our house about everything from potty accidents to water spills, is okay.

Also informative: The Shape of a Mother. What happens (and doesn't happen) to the bod.

Would Everybody JUST STOP POOPING. PLEASE.

Cat: You have a lot of audacity, crapping in my perfectly good plastic box of fake sand.

Dog: And you had the nerve to drag partially dessicated cat crap onto my freshly vacuumed rug! I am sorry the neighbors had to hear me threaten to murder you, more so since they were down the block at the time. Also, I am sick of bending over to sift your steaming turds out of the heaps of autumn leaves you seem to prefer.

Child: It is a blessing that you basically take care of this bodily function on your own, save for the wiping, but when you slide off the toilet seat prematurely in your haste to do Elmo puzzles or practice harpsichord or whatever it is you children do these days, the result is NO FUN FOR ME.

Self: All the twisting and bending and reaching is getting damned difficult. And why can you not have the decency to get hemorrhoids from constipation like every other pregnant woman, instead of from your very, very irritable overactive bowel?

Wall-Sharing Neighbors: This is unrelated to pooping, but would you mind not leaving the house after 6 p.m. anymore? Your dog is mourning your absence with unrelenting mammoth bellows, and it doth echo like a goddamn cathedral in there. You're very nice people, but for this, I promise you will feel every contraction right along with me, through your ears.

But mostly: The pooping. It has to stop. Kthxbai.

The Wall

A self-indulgent pregnancy post, if you please. You've been warned.

I was bopping along happily, walking my mile and a half every day at a city person's clip (no small feat, with my short legs and a lanky husband to keep up with), feeling pretty good about my ability to move furniture, sweep the entire apartment, clean the kitchen really well, scrub the toilet, and wash the slipcovers to the sofa EVERY DAMN DAY. (Some of that is exaggeration, okay. Not all of it.) I've been bagging my own groceries and hauling them to the car and then out of the car and the half block into the building and up in the elevator and down the hall; I've been changing water filters and framing pictures and knitting things and pruning houseplants and reorganizing cabinets.

Today, after congratulating myself on the absence of mysterious inner thigh cramps this time around (those were totally debilitating with Sophia), I loaded up the stroller for preschool (lunch packed, kid in coat, coat zipped, hat and mittens and snack) and took five steps and motherFUCKER! There they were! The inner part of my thigh locked up like a charley horse. Also my hips ached.

My theory is that it's a combination of nerve pressure from the baby (with Sophia, it disappeared once her head engaged) and either waddling or fighting the waddle. It took me twice as long to get to preschool this morning, but I was just as winded.

When I got home, all I had the energy for was a whole-house sweep and some light construction. (Okay, I nailed together and sanded an Ikea box.) The mopping will have to wait, and the tub will have to be Sean's job. I am just done. But there's so much more to do! I would consider paying someone to clean my house, but I can't imagine anyone else would possibly do it to my specifications.

So. The slow waddly pregnant lady is me. Please do not honk at her, because she might pelt you with Tums.

Oh Give Me a Home

I was reading me some Tiny Cat Pants (oh, how I love the Tiny Cat Pants), and this being the season of politics, a lot of the posts are about Tennessee politics and how they, um, suck if you are at all liberal. Or a person with a uterus.

And I was getting all antsy about Next Stop: Nashville and how could we ever think of staying there, what on earth would life be like in a place that totally defunds Planned Parenthood in favor of things like really high infant mortality, blah blah blah. And then I remembered that I AM FROM WICHITA, MOTHERFUCKERS. That is where they MAKE the anti-choice crazies! And Sam Brownback and Todd Tiahrt and hey, what is the matter with Kansas?

This is a talk I have with myself every month or so. Usually about the time when I'm really falling in love with Philly and my neighborhood. When it's been days since I saw a used condom or tampon on the sidewalk, and we ran into our midwife and our rabbi and a lot of neighbors during the Halloween parade, and we finally found the coffee shop that sells locally made whole wheat challah. When I realize that Philadelphia has been one of the most friendly, welcoming places I've ever lived.

When I forget that we're outside of the "good" elementary catchment, and would have to deal with either buying a house elsewhere in the neighborhood (and you better believe that catchment is gonna cost) or moving to the suburbs. When it's not smoggy and I can't see the brown haze on the horizon or smell the festering garbage that is the hallmark of a Philly summer afternoon.

Obvious lesson: all places have their good and bad aspects. In Charlottesville, the mountains were beautiful, the general social climate was agreeable (although there's that pesky town/gown division), schools okay, life was pretty chill. But the urban planning was terrible (think all new development occurring on one highway leading out of town -- busy, grungy, clotted strip for miles) and the place is one of the most segregated towns in the country.

Princeton was lovely, picturesque and safe, pleasantly small while global and intellectual in flavor. But it's smack in the middle of Route 1 sprawl, and its beautiful little man-made lake (that you can see in the opening credits of House) has astonishingly high mercury levels. The cost of housing is exorbitant, and the sidewalks are populated with the obscenely rich who apparently are incapable of steering themselves around small children.

Every place I've known well enough to love and hate I've, well, loved and hated. The same thing applies to big city vs. small city vs. small town (and I assume rural, though I've never lived in a rural place): much to like, much to hate. When we move to Nashville, there will be things I love, and things that make me want to drive around town in a dog-poop-flinging-mobile. The presence of lots of morons on the political scene (and here I am referring to the TN Democrats) does not mean the absence of more liberal thinkers, et cetera.

What have you loved and hated about the places you've lived? What's been a dealbreaker, and what's been something you've decided to live with?

Tick Tock, Doot Doot Doot Dootoo

Time keeps on slippin', y'all, and I don't know where it's going. To big books of Jewish knowledge, to the hardware store twice in one week (once to drop off blender and vacuum for repairs, once to pick up blender that apparently is too difficult for a trained technician to repair but which the internet has informed me can be fixed with a flathead screwdriver and a $4 spare part), to random crap on the web, to knitting. To preschool for three effing hours because somebody is having a lot of separation anxiety and it ain't me.

Somehow that got me to 33 weeks. I don't know why the difference between 31 and 33 is so huge, but it totally IS, and kind of hammers home the inexorable march of time.

...and then I walked away from the computer for eight hours.

Arrrh.

And then another two went by.

Wha?
Hi.

(waves)

Epic Parenting FAIL

Me: "Sophia, go to the bathroom and blah blah something you don't want to do."

Sophia (distantly, from bathroom): "Ooookay...you Fuck Lady."

Me: (muffled laughter, horror)

Me (regaining control): "Did I hear you call me something not very nice?"

Sophia (contrite, yet calculating): "Yeah...I said, 'Stupid Lady.'"

Yeah, my Eff Lady ass you did. We had a talk about namecalling, and then I had a big talk with myself about watching my sailor mouth around The Children.

Chickens home to roost and all that. Still, I must admire her bravado as well as her inventiveness -- while safely out of earshot.

Oh Yes We Did

Not that I have anything particularly original to offer on this topic, but OH HELL YES WE DID.

Last night I left my window open and listened to Philadelphia have a total Obamagasm, with yelling and an impromptu parade of honking car horns. It was the best thing ever.

I love the thought of not just a black President, but a whole black First Family in the White House. I love that when Sophia looks at Barack Obama (seriously, she not only voluntarily sat through the BBC News piece on him, but watched rapt) she sees "a very nice man," "a dada and a mama and two big girls! One is little and one is too big." A daddy in the White House! Hee.

Another thing: Even in the red states, a sizable percentage of the population voted for Obama (usually between 35 and 42%). That makes me feel a little bit better about moving back to the Great Red Middle.

Maybe my children will grow up in a world without bats, frogs, or bees under a broiling green sky, but at least we got one thing right.

Insert contented sigh here. How are you feeling about all this?

Not Much

Sophia had her first vomit-inducing stomach virus last weekend. A merciful universe gave us only one night of actual barfing, but she was a very dejected bat on Halloween and has totally forgotten about the candy. At least she's eating now. Kind of.

So I'm boring, and I'm thinking about OHMYGODBABYCOMING and WHATTHEFUCKISUPWITHPRESCHOOL and other things that I imagine are more interesting to me than to anyone else. Also, tomorrow is OHMYGODELECTION and I believe we'll all be obsessing, no?

So I'll catch you Wednesday.