The really great outdoors

After dashing off last week's missive on the subject of my modified reading habits, I came across this insightful, finely written book review that addresses the question of why we read literature. (Spoiler alert, the answer is an incisive, if rhetorical, second question: why live?)

Besides read, I do a couple of other things when I’m pinned to the rocking chair all day. My second diversion, after novel-reading, involves furtively probing the Internet -- on my precariously positioned laptop -- for a) Facebook activity, b) answers to my family’s embarrassing medical questions (thanks, Dr. Internet!), c) mommy blogs, and d) geographically convenient Cragislist bargains. And furthermore, e) whatever strikes my fancy at 2:30 in the morning with a sleeping baby in my lap. But why "furtively"? Well, you know… somehow, checking my Gmail, looking at patterns on Ravelry,* and blogging just don’t seem like things a mother cradling her peacefully dozing baby should really be fiddling with in the wee small hours. I know, that’s ridiculous; mothers need and want to do stuff other than/while breastfeeding their babies. I mean, obviously. But I guess I feel a bit delinquent because I always have the unshakable impression that it’s supposed to be totally Mary Cassatt-y up in here -- nothing but sweet, quiet, peaceful moments of gazing at my little one’s cherubic sleeping face,** surrounded by beautiful fabrics inspired by nineteenth-century Japanese pattern design. Instead, I’m all trolling eBay for Halloween costumes. 

Away from the rocking chair, Bee and I have been spending considerably more time outside lately -- a colossal improvement over the gloomy, winter-long situation of affairs to which we have been accustomed here in the frozen north. Where we live, you know, winter really does freeze your soul, just a bit. But the snow has mostly melted and the grasses and flowers of Minnesota are beginning to wake up. Temperatures have risen enough that one can take an infant outdoors without imperiling its life! If that celebratory statement doesn’t deserve an exclamation point, I don’t know what does! So, yes, Bee and I have been tramping around town on little errands, taking long-ish walks on the campus of a certain liberal arts college, and even embarking on High Adventure at the public library’s storytime for babies. (It involves more singing, crying, and curbed pandemonium than actual stories, but it’s fun. Come to think of it, storytime deserves a post all to itself, and a post all to itself it shall have, Dear Reader.)

So, to sum up: we go outside now. Thanks to the Björn, in fact, the baby and I have walked our town's sidewalks so doggedly that Bee could probably find her way home on her own at this point. But, I promise, I am still reading with a fierceness and vigor, because even in springtime there are books, and hours in the rocking chair, and middle-of-the-night awakeness. The difficult things, like NEVER SLEEPING, become a little easier in April. They just do! But Ben and I are still tired. The emerging tulips and the bunnies and the chirping birds haven't totally moderated our exhaustion. Not yet. Maybe in May.

* If you don’t know what Ravelry is, and you’re a knitter, you should probably get your ass over there. Me, I’ve basically accepted Ravelry as my personal lord and savior.
** Not sarcasm. Bee does actually have what we consider an unmistakably cherubic face, all roses and crème fraiche. You could just kiss it forever! Mwah mwah mwah mwah mwah!

Hard books and easy

One could accuse me of acts of snootery when it comes to the kinds of books I prefer to read -- or have liked to read in the past. You see, dears, ever since Bee was born I’ve had to stick with texts of the not-terribly-taxing variety. Why? Well, I do have plenty of time to read books, because Bee only sleeps when she’s being held by Ben or me -- so I spend hours at a time, at all hours of the day and night, camped out with a baby in my lap and a novel in my hand. HOWEVER, I’m also extremely sleep-deprived, so I find myself turning my attention to a) story-driven works, b) writing that’s fairly easily digested, and c) a variety of undemanding stuff that can be comprehended on four hours of sleep. Oh, and the books should be d) ones that are lightweight in more than one sense, because I need to be able to support the book in a single hand while cradling Bee with the other arm. At three in the morning, I can’t handle the intellectual rigors of Bleak House or, Dear Reader, the physical poundage of it.

So, less Clarissa and more Rilla. An absence of Brontë, but a little bit of Finney. And I must give a weary nay to historical fiction -- for now -- and a hearty yea to time-travel love stories (the line between the two being somewhat blurrier than you might expect, by the way). Anyway, lately I’ve had no lack of time to gulp down some Barbara Kingsolver and finish up one of my favorite things in this world, the Anne of Green Gables series (who knew there were eight books?! I always thought there were only six!). Wonderful, leisurely volumes, I assure you. And this week, I’m sailing through a painless sequel to The Bean Trees and eyeing a library copy of Enormous Changes at the Last Minute – because I daresay I can handle short stories, even postmodern ones, as long as they are in fact short, and not too toilsome. After that I’m likely to re-read some of my YA fiction faves, like this and this. (Man. You know, I really should just dig out my old copies of the Baby-Sitters Club series and have done with it.)

Of course, I miss capital-L literature. There are so many reasons read, and to love, Difficult Books, and the rewards of that reading, and of that loving, are not always to be found in easy books. I mean, I’m sorry, they just aren’t. That’s why people labor (but it’s a joyous labor!) through Tolstoy, you know? Your reward is comfort, and a timeless comradery, and encouragement for holding on in this life as your betters before you have held on. (I also tend to think that the best Difficult Books are instructive on the general subject of how to conduct oneself in this world. My own comportment, inadequate though it continues to be, owes a debt to Charlotte Brontë and Samuel Richardson that I feel sure I can never repay.) And then there’s the beauty of brilliant prose, often a reward unto itself. There are all of those things, plus the satisfaction of knowing you’re so much smarter than everyone else. (Joking! Totally joking!)

But when you’re tired, you’re tired; maybe this is what people mean when they talk about Mommy Brain. The phenomenon, if there is one, is always made out to be some sort of physiological occurrence, as if producing an heir actually melts a woman’s cerebrum. You’ll never do physics again. I mean, of all the cockamamie ideas! If Mommy Brain is anything at all, in my view, it’s just a vastly reduced quantity and quality of time and energy. You’ve got less time to read novels (or do freelance work, or translate ancient Hebrew texts, or paint, or revise your novella, or study for the bar exam, or INSERT YOUR INTELLECTUAL PURSUIT HERE). Plus, you’re fatigued. And the time you do have for these occupations is total crap compromised. As my friend Kara phrased it, “Doing any mentally immersive work with a baby in the house is a fantasy.”

Perhaps things do get better, as everyone swears they do (and as a few things, in our first several months as parents, already have), and I’ll be able to resume reading hard books at some point -- probably around the same time that I start combing my hair again. I don’t know. But I hold literature as one of life’s great comforts and pleasures,* so I sure as hell hope so. For now, though, I’m embracing easy books. Easy books are better, as I do not need to tell you, than no books at all.

* And that is why being an English major pays for itself hundredfold over the course of a lifetime. Comfort and pleasure, I tell you! Comfort and pleasure!

Did I say that?

I've never been the type to be afraid of tempting fate. I just don't think, for example, that commenting on the longevity of your house's water heater will bring about a flooded basement, or that celebrating an uninterrupted bout of pleasant weather (whatever that is...) can mystically conjure up snow. Call me a rationalist, but I just don't think it works that way.

But every now and then, I wonder.

The other day, I gratefully and happily reveled in Bee's improved health, and made merry re: our recent handful of advances toward someday having a normal life again (you know, with sleep and stuff). I wrote about how the tide had (maybe, possibly, we'll see) turned, because our girl seemed so much happier and healthier lately. In my excitement, I may even have, um, announced that spring was on its way... to Minnesota... in mid-March... Because that ever happens. (I blame my loopiness on the fact that I'm very tired, and constantly hungry.) I was enjoying my glee! Hope is a knave, and so am I!

The very next day after this gale of optimism and revelry, my poor Bee started puking. It was her first stomach bug, so naturally I was all, OH MY GOD MAH BAYBEE, and PARENTING, UR DOING IT WRONG!! And Bee clearly felt like crap and there was very little to be done about it. Now, since I'm the only parent in the history of humankind to have a baby with a stomach bug, the world was coming to a fiery end. At least, that's what it felt like, just the tiniest bit.

I know, I am really going to have to buck up, or else this parenting racket is going to mop the floor with me.

A few days later, our sweet Bee was feeling better and Ben and I began to feel that we might possibly be able to resume our normal daily routine (it's a shitty routine, but, hey, it's ours). Simultaneously, I came to the point in my elimination diet (the one whose purpose is to sleuth out Bee's food allergy, because I breastfeed her) where it was time to start reintroducing foods into my pathetic diet* to see what would happen. Well, the bad news is that Bee had a negative reaction to the very first thing I reintroduced. The good news is that we're pretty sure we've identified her allergy! [Insert hymn of praise.] And if I can think up a way to make it not brutally boring, I'll tell you more about that, Dear Reader, another day.

In other news, my BFF, Ari, is coming to visit next week! Although I'll be sure to show her quite a dull time compared to our youthful shenanigans of yesteryear, it will be a true treat to have her for a visit.

* For those players marking their bingo cards: corn, tomatoes, dairy, eggs, garlic, chocolate, iodized salt, meat, nuts, and wheat are currently out. Yes, for the time being, I'm one of those freaks who can't eat anything. BUT, on the bright side, if you want to lose all of your pregnancy weight and then some, I suggest (not really!) becoming one of those freaks who can't eat anything.

"No winter lasts forever; no spring skips its turn."

Apparently the cogent and methodical approach to problem-solving that I like to call Complaining About Stuff on My Blog continues to be fail-proof, because, Dear Reader, things are getting better: Bee almost never cries inconsolably anymore, and we get to see her giant, toothless smile all day long, and, thanks to the BabyBjörn, we can accommodate her need for near-constant closeness without getting blood clots in our forearms.

And spring is coming to Minnesota, thankyouandAMEN. Temperatures in the 20s and 30s have got me feeling pretty tropical after our long, dark winter, and Bee and I have been out tromping around town almost every day lately. We're still bundled to high heaven, and she's stuffed into the Björn, bear-eared snowsuit and all, but it feels good. She's fascinated by just about everything we encounter outdoors and while checking out library books and on visits to the grocery store. The other day, Bee chattered hilariously the entire time as we walked from home to the local pharmacy, evidently having the time of her life, then fell into an amazed silence when encountered with the array of interesting objects lining the shelved walls of the pharmacy. (Jars! Bottles! Homigod, boxes!)

Bee is happy and effusive these days, and Ben and I are as thrilled as two people can possibly be on four and a half hours of sleep per night. We still have our little troubles, of course -- there's still the mysterious and enchanting food allergy to puzzle out, and the small matter of Bee's outright refusal to sleep anywhere but in our arms. (The latter is really getting old, I am not going to lie. An acquaintance recently mentioned, offhandedly, that her six-day-old baby was sound asleep in the next room, and it occurred to me that I can practically count on my fingers the number of times our 4-month-old has been "asleep in the next room.")

Nonetheless, things are looking up. For the first four months of Bee's blessed little life, people would urge me to enjoy the baby's first year, because it all goes by so quickly, and I would think, "PROMISE?" Because every hour was a struggle, and every day seemed full of more shrieking than the day before, and I didn't get any better at keeping Bee from sobbing, because, you know, that's the nature of inconsolable crying. And I would feel guilty for not enjoying every moment. I loved her like mad every moment, but enjoyment was reserved for rare minutes of calm nursing and peaceful lap-napping. No, enjoyment was not often an option -- more of an occasional treat, like fritters, or some really nice yarn.* Plus, it's been kind of a heartless winter here, and I NEVER GOT TO GO OUTSIDE!

The tide began to turn a couple of weeks ago. Right around the time that the winter started to seem slightly less HORRIBLE AND NEVER-ENDING, Bee's truly awe-striking meltdowns and wail-fests began occurring far less often, and her reflux seemed to just about disappear as she started being able to hold up her head. So, more and more of our girl's mirthful personality has emerged, and now I find myself spending incredibly joy-filled days with Bee. (High five!) I don't mean that every second is daisies and dewdrops, necessarily, but what a difference it makes to see her so frequently happy, and to know I can successfully reassure her now when she does cry, as babies will and shall. I don't mind telling you that it's so much nicer than just being crap-out-of-luck with a SO VERY SAD baby who sobs and screeches comfortlessly for several hours per diem. (Readers, that desolate wailing broke my heart every day for four months, and I am so very happy to see it, and whatever was causing my Bee such discomfort and unhappiness, disappear. Oh, and the winter. I'm happy to see that disappear, too.)

Here's to happy changes, and to a season of fewer meltdowns, and more melt.

* What? You say you don't reward yourself with a fourteen-dollar skein of Japanese wool after doing something awesome? À chacun son goût, I suppose.

So begins the peaceful reign of King Björn.

Ben and I have been looking forward with a kind of desperate optimism to the day when Bee could hold up her wobbly little head and be toted around in one of those frontpack carriers loved by yuppie parents like us. Myself, I've kind of been fantasizing about carrying a baby around in a BabyBjörn since 2002 or so, when I met Ben and straightaway made up my mind that he and I would be getting married and having babies at his earliest convenience. But back then, I imagined trotting around Fifteenth in Capitol Hill with our happy hipster baby, maybe getting a muffin at Victrola on the way to doing whatever hipster parents do in Seattle (you can tell I'd really thought through the logistics of that fantasy). Fast-forward nine years, and Ben and I now live in a part of the country where it's too nipple-freezingly cold to take an infant outside in a Björn most of the time, and we're too old to be hipsters (or, for that matter, yuppies), and, anyhow, our little girl is a strong-willed, stately little creature who resolved, early on, that she could not possibly abide being carried around in a glorified backpack.

So, faced with a baby who hated the BabyBjörn, Ben and I examined the facts in front of us, drank a bunch of coffee, and ruled that the BabyBjörn would be set aside until such a time that Bee could hold her head up dependably, at which point she might, Jesus willing, be interested in riding front-facing (as opposed to the rejected inward-facing position for newborns) in the Björn. We had no intention of forcing it, but we'd noticed that she does like to get the lay of the land while being carried in our arms a million hours a day, so Ben and I figured this position -- available only to big girls who can hold their heads up -- would be perfect for letting Bee survey her world.

Well, here's the paragraph where you totally know I'm going to reveal how VERY WRONG we were, as always, and then make some peppy jokes about parenthood beating the living crapola out of Ben and me. Except, guess what! Guessguessguessguessguess! We* were actually right for once: Bee utterly loves being carried around in the Björn now, and will happily let us roam about with her strapped to our frontsides all freaking day! For longer than we generally want to be roaming about with her strapped to our frontsides!  O miracle! The earth grew glad! AND, we are told by friends, the pediatrician, and Dr. Internet that colicky babies often start feeling a lot better around the time when they can hold their heads up (and better still once they can sit up), because lying flat exacerbates their reflux. So maaaaybe that will happen and our girl will stop, you know, screaming all the time? Like I said, a desperate optimism.

In other news, I’m going to hold the record for number of times a simple pullover sweater (Ravelry link) gets frogged. Maybe I need to switch to a new hobby, something where carelessness is a virtue. Any ideas?

* Actually, Ben was right. It was his theory. The ones that end up being correct are pretty much always his.