May 9th, 2010

I’d rather lick a garbage truck

It was a year ago that we discovered just how immovable our child was, though I wouldn’t comprehend just how much until she was born. And now she’s eleven and a half months old, we’re planning her first birthday party. She sleeps all night almost every night, which makes me feel that wonder and amazement you’re supposed to feel when someone hands you your newborn for the first time. That this enormous blessing could be mine. (Other mothers say, “We’ll see how long it lasts” and then I want to hit them.)

I had a splendid Mother’s Day today, beginning with six and a half hours sleep (and it’s only that because I stay up far too late), then a lie-in, breakfast in bed (croissants! yoghurt! fresh fruit! tea!). Harriet was thoughtful enough to buy me Darwin’s Bastards (which I didn’t think I’d want to read when I first heard about it, but the more I read about it, the more I longed to). This afternoon, my own wonderful mom came into the city and accompanied us to afternoon tea at The Four Seasons. Scones were so fresh. Harriet was an angel, and the staff were so nice to us even though they had to vaccuum grapes and cheddar cheese off the floor after we had gone. (Interestingly, they remembered Harriet from our last tea in February. I am not sure whether that’s a good thing or not.)

Also, asparagus is in season, so all is well.

In really stange news, my maternity leave ended on Friday. In an alternate universe, I’d be going back to work on Monday, but as working full time and being a mother would cut into my tea breaks, we decided it would be best if I stayed home for a while. Also, my husband begins a new day job in two weeks, leaving his Bay Street office behind for work at a non-profit. I’m very proud of him, excited for him, and relieved that if I get to be home all day, at least he’ll be working somewhere that makes him happy.

And I do mean that, “get to be home all day”. Can I just say that staying home with a small baby sucks like nothing else in the world? I’d rather work in a glass chewing factory or lick a garbage truck. Staying home with a one-year-old, however, is pretty brilliant and gets better all the time. It’s also a great excuse to spend sunny afternoons outside in the park. Even though her naps are often fleeting, I get to curl up on the couch with a book and a cup of tea. When Harriet is awake, we hang out together. She is beginning to show her understanding of language in ways that fascinate me, we can share jokes, she is a pretty happy kid and very affectionate, and I really do like her company. So I feel lucky that we get to continue our days together, that spring is here and summer is coming, and I look forward to exercising feats of financial acrobatics so that our little family can get away with having our income cut in half. (There may have to be less afternoon tea. This is sad).

Anyway, all of this is to say that I am grateful for my good fortune (especially the asparagus) and that I’m very happy that I’m a mother today.

May 25th, 2009

What life has been like lately…

Because I am a very lucky lady. And now we’ll just have to wait and see what happens next.

I’ll be back when I’m ready. I’ll miss you until then.

May 19th, 2009

Voracious

Now reading Trauma by Patrick McGrath, because Emily Perkins mentioned him in her interview last year. I reread Perkins’ Novel About My Wife yesterday, because Tessa McWatt’s puzzler put me in the mood to go back to it, plus Perkins writes about first pregnancy as a really bewildering, terrifying and tender time in a marriage, and I wanted to revisit that. Having the time and space to read voraciously is something I’ve not experienced in a while, and I’m really enjoying it.

And on the internet too– Jessica Westhead has a story up at Joyland.ca, “Todd and Belinda Rivers of 780 Strathcona“. Katia Grubisic in praise of difficult writing at the Descant blog. Seen Reading goes from sea to shining sea (or from Vancouver to Wolfville at least). The wondrous Meli-Mello responds to my post about Mommy blogging. And Marnie Woodrow guest-posting on Sesame Street turning 40 (plus she writes about loving Rita Celli, and who doesn’t love Rita Celli?). From The Walrus, “Water Everywhere, 1982″, which is an excerpt from Lisa Moore’s new novel February (out in June).

And we’re just back from our final midwife’s appointment, which is so strange to consider. And moreover, that in just a week, our Baby will be here. This little person we’ve known so long and haven’t even met yet– I am very excited for that moment to come. (Besides, the reusable baby wipes– I actually sewed them! We’re all ready now.)

May 15th, 2009

On mommy blogs, maternal ambivalence, and my worst tendencies

I’ve been thinking a lot about writing and motherhood lately, as I put one on the back burner and prepare for the other. I reread Rachel Cusk’s A Life’s Work yesterday, which is such a complicated, dark and beautiful book. And two ideas glared at me from her introduction– first, the inevitable backlash to any mother who dares to put her experiences down on paper (or blog). Cusk found herself taken aback, but reasoned the response with that “in writing about motherhood, I inevitably attracted a readership too diverse to be satisfied from a single source. The world has many more mothers than an author generally has readers.” So many people read her book because they were interested in motherhood, because of “the desire to see it reflected, to have it explained, all that love and terror and strangeness, even if it is immediately repressed by the far stronger desire for authority and consensus, for ‘normality’ to be restored: to me, the childcare manual is the emblem of the new mother’s psychic loneliness.” But more on this in a minute.

Second, Cusk writes “with the gloomy suspicion that a book about motherhood is of no real interest to anyone except other mothers.” Which I’ve been conscious of also here, as babies have become such a preoccupation of mine lately. As my personal experiences, the books I’ve read, the way I’ve been reading, and everything I’ve been doing have been so framed within the context of our baby’s imminent arrival. Though Pickle Me This has never been a particularly serious literary blog, it’s certainly become even less so lately. I’m not saying my hard-hitting criticisms of picture books aren’t worth noting, but there are some readers, I’m sure, who are less than enthralled. And I really don’t want to alienate any of my five readers.

Here’s the thing: I have read mommy blogs. (Note, I didn’t say “I read (present tense) mommy blogs”. But now I’m getting all Brian Mulroney pedantic.) The term mommy blog is a slur, as is “chick lit”, neither “genre” (let’s say) helping itself by mainly comprising compost. Stephany Aulenback recently remarked on the ubiquity of parents chronicling their children’s lives online: “I think when our children are grown up, they’re going to have different notions of “public” than we do now.”

My derision of women writing about their domestic lives (“compost”) sits uncomfortably with me, because it’s so easy to deride women’s domestic lives– everybody does it. By existing within the domestic sphere, these stories really serve to undermine themselves, which certainly bothers me when it comes to fiction. When with aesthetics as an excuse, fiction about women’s lives is so often deemed less than literary, as craft is less than art, etc.

The problem I have with mommy blogs, however, is that I watch them in the same way I’d watch a train wreck– even the incredibly well-written ones. I don’t necessarily admire these women’s “honesty” and how they “put themselves out there”, but sometimes I really do have to tear my eyes away. Their deliberate provocations are often horrifying, my knee-jerk response is catty, and I’m not the only one. As Cusk says, “The world has many more mothers…”, each one with her own opinions, and then fights break out in the comments section, commenters accusing other bloggers’ “followers” of being sheep, and then baa-ing themselves. Controversial topics include diapers, breastfeeding, reproductive rights, between working moms who work at home or out, and these are controversial topics, but it’s all handled a bit grade five. No one ever shows up to have their minds changed or expanded. My problem with these blogs is less with the blogs themselves, but how they feed on my worst tendencies.

(Though I also hate the smugness. The current trend is to embrace your inner bad-mom, and let her all hang out, but at the root of this is the sense that badness is in fact best. That anyone embracing domesticity has something up her ass, that liberation lies in the anti-domestic after all, but I’m really not so sure. I think a lot of these people might be misled. For all they’re anti-mom, they not beyond-mom, and they certainly define themselves in relation to their [albeit messy] homes. And this is a bit dangerous, can all go very wrong– I read one blog by a defiantly proud bad mom, and then her baby died. I suppose we are to make of that what we will.)

Which is not to say that maternal ambivalence, the experience of which these women are trying to project, is not real, or a subject deeply worth pursuing. It’s just not very often expressed in a particularly thoughtful way within these forums. Whereas I’ve found the idea explored well elsewhere, in the experiences of women artists in particular. Perhaps because these women have a medium with which to convey their experiences, because they are well-accustomed to expressing themselves. Because it’s a complicated issue requiring a high level of articulateness. We Need to Talk About Kevin, The Divided Heart, Who Does She Think She Is, Cusk’s A Life’s Work, Anne Enright’s Making Babies, and I was recently introduced to Marita Dachsel’s Motherhood and Writing Interviews (by writer Laisha Rosnau, who is the subject of one).

So somehow I find myself saying that inarticulate people have no business writing about their lives. Hmmm. (Or perhaps that they should, but I just shouldn’t read them because I’m not very nice). For your own interest, please do check in in about two weeks times to see how articulate I’ve become with a newborn, and then again six months later when my house is a mess and I’m smashing my head against the wall and the stove is on fire. When I’m just as bad a mom as any of them, reality sunk in. Don’t think I’m not aware of this, but it’s still scary to consider.

But it’s not simply black and white, good mom/bad mom and I appreciate the writing best that reflects this. How Rachel Power (author of The Divided Heart) wrote recently: “maternal ambivalence is not a state of being torn between love and hate for our children (meaning not them so much as what they’ve done to our lives) — but is a state entirely borne out of love. It is precisely this love for my children, being so excruciating, that I can feel has ruined me. This acute tenderness and sense of responsibility is something us mothers are never free of, and almost impossible to imagine until you’re in it.”

May 13th, 2009

How the future’s done

Lyrics from the baby’s current favourite song (or at least song that brings on the most squirms) suggests to me that he/she will fit in fine around here: “I got a man to stick it out/ And make a home from a rented house/ And we’ll collect the moments one by one/ I guess that’s how the future’s done.”

May 10th, 2009

The Immovable Baby

Though we love our own mothers dearly, continental drift and late-pregnancy laziness meant they were sorely neglected today as Stuart and I enjoyed Afternoon Tea together, a Mother’s Day treat for me though I’m not quite a mother yet. I did earn a bit of mother cred yesterday, however, when a doctor spent twenty minutes or so inflicting great pain upon my abdomen in an attempt to get our determinedly sideways baby to turn. (All reports say I was very brave! and then after I got Dairy Queen). Baby didn’t budge, however, and I’ve got to respect that. And now, after about six weeks of trying to get Baby to move through a variety of means, I’m giving up. I was very much committed to having a natural birth, but this baby is very naturally sideways, and I’m just pleased it has a means to still get here safely. I could spend the next two weeks resorting to further measures, but I don’t think they’d work, and I’m also really tired. I am finished work now, and my sanity will be much more assured if I can spend this time relaxing, planting flowers in my garden, reading novels, writing while I still can, preparing food for the freezer, stocking the pantry, and taking plenty of naps. (This will also give me time to sew reusable baby wipes, which I have somehow been possessed to accomplish, even though I don’t know how to sew. It is unfortunate my “nesting” instinct has taken on such inconvenient forms.)

And who knows, Baby might turn on its own anyway? But short of that, and providing Baby doesn’t decide to come earlier, we are excited to know we will meet the wee one on the morning of May 26th. I’m not looking forward to a cesarean, which certainly wasn’t what I’d envisaged, and in fact I am very scared and upset by the idea of a long recovery when I’ll need my strength more than ever. But so many others have done it fine, we have a lot of support, and I am very fortunate that a) I’ve now met the surgeon and I love him and b) my midwives will be there to take care of the baby and me, and provide after-care (I love them too).

From our prenatal class manual: “Cesarean mothers… are courageous women who are willing to be cut apart for the lives of their infants. Perhaps it is time to congratulate yourself for your strength and courage.”

Of mothers, and babies, and books

Today, for the love of Mothers, and babies, and books, my guest post is up at Rona Maynard’s wonderful site. So why not go read “At least the baby’s library is ready” and then have a pleasant Sunday.

May 4th, 2009

There has never been a cuter cake

This cake from my baby shower this afternoon was about as delicious as it was adorable. And even home-decorated by one of the wonderful shower attendees, no less. Pretty much typical of the afternoon too– the shower itself was deserving of a cake this good, with amazing food and some of my very favourite company. Family and friends who were patient enough to sit around watching me open presents all afternoon. For such patience, I’m grateful, as well as for the presents themselves, which were so thoughtful, perfect, and as adorable as the cake. This is going to be one very blessed baby, and I’m so lucky already.

April 28th, 2009

Less Apparent Miracles

I’ve always been a believer, in that all will be well, and things happen for a reason, and in the everyday miracles apparent all around us. Which is a kind of faith, if not the religious kind, and I’ve never had to to look far for awe and wonder.

But for a while now, I’ve been struggling with a less-apparent miracle. I’ve been unable to believe in things I can’t see, and though in some circles this might qualify me as sane, they’re not the ones I’ve been travelling in lately. Everyone else I know has found it easy to comprehend that for the last thirty-six weeks, a baby has been budding inside me.

A baby: the most extraordinary ordinary occurrence to happen to nearly everybody. Which is why no one else is even fazed, but I can’t believe it’s happened to me.

I was supposed to believe initially because a blood test told me so. The test results were even evidence enough, for a few hours, but then doubt crept in: how could I be having a baby, and it be Friday afternoon, and I felt ordinary, and my house, and the street, and world were just as usual? Shouldn’t the sky have looked different, the weather portentous, and wasn’t I supposed to be emitting a glow? A baby was impossible.

Which was ridiculous. Because I very much wanted a baby, had planned for a baby. My husband and I knew we were ready, and we’d been thrilled to have our wish come true. But it was so unbelievable, and too simple– to want so much, and then to get? Surely, there had to be a catch.

I felt like a fraud, arranging for a midwife, like I was just playing a part as I purchased a copy of What to Expect When You’re Expecting. We told our close friends and family, who reacted with excitement, but moments when I’d let my excitement match theirs were few and far between.

I wasn’t supposed to be excited anyway. The first trimester, I’d been warned repeatedly, was fraught with risk. My “baby” was the size of an apple seed. I’d heard so many stories of women suffering miscarriages that actually managing to be born seemed like a long-shot. The survival of my baby was as improbable as its existence.

It was very unromantic. I wanted to be pregnant like the women on TV, surreptitiously gathering nursery items, smiling with a secret, the kind of woman to whom labels like “over the moon” are assigned. But I was “out of my mind” instead– conscious of every abdominal twinge, terrified of bleeding, adamant something was wrong if I ever woke up feeling good. And it was only when so convinced its wee life was imperiled that I could believe in the baby at all.

So I looked forward to my first ultrasound. Surely, I thought, the sight of the baby would make it real, though I was also nervous. Everyone I know who’s ever gone in for a scan has been terrified of what the technician might find there. An ulcer, a tumour, a cyst or a monster, or the awful fact of absolutely nothing,.

But absolutely there was something, however blurry and undefined. We saw its pulsing heartbeat, and the squirming sprouts of arms and legs. It even looked like a baby, if you held your head back and squinted. And the baby was real, actual, or at least as believable as anything ever projected on a screen. Which wasn’t so believable, once I’d thought about it. The baby on the screen was just as abstract as the one inside my head.

With the second trimester, however, things got better. Once my apple-seed baby had surpassed apple-size, and every week grew comparable to an even bigger piece of produce. Crossing the twelve week mark gave me permission to relax, and to imagine things might turn out all right. We could tell everybody we knew, and they were so convinced by the news, I felt silly not going along with it.

But still, it wasn’t real. Which I thought would change when my belly started to grow, and when nothing changed, I thought, when it grew a little bigger. Or at the 19 week ultrasound, where our baby was definitely a baby, and we saw its tiny toes, its hand tucked under its chin, and how its whole body bounced up and down when I laughed. But then how could that be inside me, I wondered, looking down at my still and quiet– albeit slightly burgeoning– belly.

It would have to be the kicks, I decided. Though I wasn’t sure– I’d been wrong before, far more than I’d been right. Already in my pregnancy, we’d determined that I had abysmal intuition, and was about as in tune with my body as a passing stranger. But still, the kicks– could anything be more definite?

Of course, they started off as flutters. Butterfly wings, breaths and whispers, so how could I be sure they weren’t just in my mind? What if I wanted to feel them so badly, I’d imagined them? How could anything so wonderful really be true?

But it was. Just like the ultrasound images, bigger and stronger every time. And the gorgeous galloping stampede of its heartbeat, and how our baby had persisted in growing and thriving all the while.

Because the flutters turned into thumps, then kicks, our own little miracle doing the fox-trot on my ribs. With boots on. Even other people could feel it. And soon it became impossible not to believe in the baby anymore, as well as obvious the baby didn’t care if we did. This baby, clearly, had plans of its own. Probably not believing in me either, or even the world, but determined to arrive here regardless.

April 15th, 2009

Any day now

For about seven months, people liked to tell me, “You don’t look pregnant,” which I found deeply irritating and kind of perplexing to address. I don’t think I’d want to go back to that one, but neither am I too fond of the current comment, which is, “Any day now!” Because, well, no. Though perhaps in about forty days now, though probably more. My baby bump has ceased to be cute, and I am beginning to look into the mirror with considerable fright, and who knows what the effect will be forty days from now. I could also do with fewer strangers telling me I look “heavy” in the shower at the gym.

Nevertheless, I am excited. Our very good friends had a little girl two weeks ago, which served to make the connection clear, that pregnancy is a means to a miraculous end, for I often forget it’s not an end in itself. And our baby is moving around all the time, so that I feel like I’m getting to know it. Though yesterday I also got to know that baby is lying sideways, so we have to do everything possible during the next two weeks to get that baby upside down. I vote for turning somersaults in the pool, and hope it does the trick.

The biggest news, however, is that the baby’s blanket is done. I started knitting it back in November, before I could acknowledge the baby in any other way, out of fear that wanting too much was unlucky. It’s only been very recently that I’ve been able to start preparing, and indeed now the baby’s nursery is ready(ish). But in November, all I could do was knit, which made me feel that at least I was preparing in some way. The blanket coming together perfectly, with no mistakes, which is previously been unheard of in a project by me. The blanket is beautiful, so soft and warm, and I can’t wait to meet the little person who will be wrapped inside it.