Bluegrass Baby Momma

Sabbatical

2012-02-18T09:38:00.000-08:00

What a year it's been. Not that you'd know. Because I stopped writing on this blog...

Well, I'm back, and there's no stopping me now. (Even if you really want to.)

So stay tuned, because stories of parenting, public school teaching, and general merriment are coming your way. (But not right now, because I'm going to go see a movie.)

Things I Am Sick Of:

2011-02-08T19:36:00.001-08:00

Being fat
Being sick of being fat when I know I'm working my butt off to lose weight, have CRAPTACULAR genes, and honestly do believe that beautiful people come in all shapes and sizes
Never feeling beautiful, no matter what my shape and size
Giving a crap about this stuff when it is NOT IMPORTANT, and being a mom and a teacher really are
Being sick - asthma, skin conditions, coughs and colds, foot problems - pretty much constant since I got preggo 3 years ago
Feeling like an outcast because my inner guiding voices sound different than most people's inner guiding voices
Not having enough time to spend with Stella and feeling EXHAUSTED when I finally do find time
Going to the damn doctor
Being in the apartment all the time that I'm not at work
Being the butt of adolescent anger and angst when all I want is for kids to do their work and improve
Working out, working out, working out
Being sore, being sore, being sore
Driving without a working radio/tape player/CD player (my own voice frankly sucks)
Driving so freaking much
Complaining on Facebook when I know I hate it when others do the same
Worrying about every decision I've ever made
Still feeling sad about things that happened decades ago
Missing my NYC friends
Being tailgated
SNOW AND ICE
Wanting to change the world, even though I have no clue how and the constant battle frustrates me
A messy apartment and no energy to clean it
No energy to do anything
Not being able to breathe and wheezing constantly
Not having a sense of humor and feeling like this
The fact that I lack a filter that prevents me from making a fool of myself

Please do not feel the need to comfort or say nice things. I just needed to get this stuff off my chest. I'm in an illness-induced funk and it will pass.

Leap of Faith

2011-01-20T12:56:00.000-08:00

When I was little, I had a lot of fears. Fear of the first day of school. Fear of public speaking. Fear of getting in trouble. Fear of nuclear holocaust.

My mom's sage advice for handling these phobias was to "pretend that you're an actress playing the part of someone who is not afraid." For the record, this is amazing advice.

And it has worked. I no longer fear the first day of school (I've had many now), I love speaking in public, I don't fear getting out of line when necessary, and I just don't allow myself to think about nuclear holocaust.

And I can vividly remember those moments when I did something I was afraid to do. The first time I had to sing for an audition of Funny Girl, for example. I'm a terrible singer, anyway, and all the cool kids (well, as cool as musical theater kids can be) were there. I played the part of a confident singer, and on the outside, I probably looked fine. On the inside, my heart was pounding, my stomach aching, and my body threatened to run. I had to endure a persistent voice in my head that kept saying, "You can't do this. You CANNOT do this. I'm not sure you heard me, but this is really not something you can do." And then, and this is the case in every instance where I overcame my fear, I basically stepped outside of myself, shut my brain off, and let body do what it thought it couldn't. I had to take a leap of faith.

And thank God I did, because it led to so many amazing events in my life. Asking a boy out (what if he says no?), saying yes when a boy asked me out (what if he breaks my heart?), studying abroad (I can't be away from America for six months), moving to NYC with $1,000 in my pocket (am I CRAZY?), starting a family (in this messed up world?), and being the catalyst for our move across the country (what if I'm WRONG?).

Each and every time I just acted, pushed myself, taking that step off the cliff and just knowing that something would catch me. And something did. Every time.

But these are all rational fears. It's the irrational ones that I have more trouble with.

Car wrecks. How can I trust other people won't be drunk or high or just terribly reckless?

Kidnapping. How could I possibly let Stella out of my sight when someone might take her and...I can't finish that sentence.

Terrorism. After witnessing 9/11 from my apartment window, I still feel plagued at times by a fear that a bomb will go off at a crowded event or my plane will get hijacked.

And my most recent one: school shootings. Tuscon really shook me up. It reminded me how much hate is out there, and how relaxed our gun laws are. It made me think about how I'm an opinionated, outspoken liberal in an area where opinionated, outspoken liberals are considered by some to be disciples of Satan. It reminded me that some of my students hate my guts.

And just when I thought I was feeling better, I read about not one but two school shootings this week in California. These were much smaller than Columbine, thank God, but no less scary. The world is filled with hate, children are sponges for that hate, guns are plentiful and easy to acquire, kids get mad at each other and their teachers. Sometimes it just seems inevitable to me that it will happen in my life at some point, in some way.

I know. Irrational. Dave already told me. Especially when you look at how rare school shootings are. But that fear is there, regardless, and it's hurting me.

So now I have to play the part of the confident teacher, the woman whose only thought is how to instruct 13-year-olds to find the main idea of Nelson Mandela's autobiography, not peeking around the corner to see if someone's holding a firearm. This is a difficult leap of faith to make.

And yet, I will. Because I'm where I'm supposed to be, doing what I'm supposed to do. And, if you think about it, most any career can be deadly. Just ask my wise momma - she works at the Post Office.

How a Couple of Fad Diets Made Me a Health Foodie

2011-01-11T18:26:00.001-08:00

How did I go from eating bacon as a snack on Atkins to getting giddy about buying organic greens at a Farmer's Market? It's not as crazy as you'd think.

When I started the Atkins Diet about eight years ago, I honestly thought it wouldn't work. My family "dared" me to join them, and I thought I'd prove their crazy fad diet wrong. Instead, I lost around 60 pounds.

I remember day three of the diet, hitting a major CRASH and feeling like I would die if I didn't eat chocolate - STAT. If you don't know, Phase I of Atkins involves no sugar, no starch, and carbs that come only from vegetables. It's intense.

But I had no idea that giving up candy would be such a big deal. Until that moment, I hadn't realized that I was consuming some on a daily basis. Daily. Um...really?

As the diet went on, I noticed many other things about my previous eating habits. Like, for example, how many foods I consumed from bags or boxes. Chips, crackers, frozen Boca burgers -- if it was processed by a factory, I was there. I rarely ate vegetables, other than forms of potato, and, contrary to its meat-centric reputation, Atkins forced me to eat my roughage (let's just say a certain bathroom function isn't possible without it). And I ate a lot of things that didn't fill me up and made me crash - unlike candy and Pirate's Booty.

Atkins and I had to part ways eventually, because the idea of a life without bread was just too depressing to take. And that's when I met South Beach - Atkins' handsome, more laid-back cousin. Sinful foods such as beans and low-fat milk were cleared for Phase I, making it instantly more doable. I lost weight at a slower, steadier pace, but I felt less desperate and likely to steal someone's bag of Doritos.

And, again, I learned about myself. Since the diet focuses on lean proteins, vegetables, and, in Phase II, fruits and whole grains, I had to cook almost every meal. (You can find a lot of frozen South Beach meals now, but they were almost nonexistent at the time.) That seemed impossible at that point in my life. I worked full time and so did Dave, and it seemed ridiculous to me that we could have the energy to come home and fix a meal. (Little did I know that this whole equation becomes 6,000 times more exhausting when you throw in a toddler...)

But we bought a second South Beach cookbook - a quick meals one - and we found that it was not only doable, it was fun and delicious.

And I found even more success on this diet - getting super skinny for my wedding, then settling at a heavier, healthier weight for me and maintaining it...until pregnancy made me regress into my old eating self. But that's a whole other post.

And now that I'm on South Beach Phase I again - with a few modifications (I'm shying away from the fat free stuff, because I think it's too processed), I'm finding it so easy that I feel ashamed that I didn't do it sooner.

It's so easy because not only do I know how to cook - I enjoy cooking and take pleasure in it. It's also easy because, over the years, I've developed a love for many healthy foods - like basically all vegetables in existence - and I've cut down on the daily bad habits - like the afternoon Snickers bar. And because I'd been eating too much starch and consuming too many caffeinated beverages pre-diet, I'm reeling from the natural energy and good mood that I'm gleaning from my current eating habits.

And the organic, Farmer's Market greens? The initial Atkins-inspired awakening that I experienced concerning my eating habits caused me to look at all aspects of my eating, to evaluate everything that went in my body. If cutting down on the carbs made me feel great and lose weight, how would I feel if I took out all the processed crap? What if we ate less red meat? How about no artificial sweeteners?

I watched "Supersize Me" and read Fast Food Nation, leading me to cut down on and eventually cut out fast food. And I started equating my political views with our family nutrition. If I think the meat-packing industry is corrupt and immoral, how about I stop eating their meat? If I want to have a cleaner Earth for Stella, why don't we buy foods that are grown and produced locally?

Speaking of "Supersize Me," my fellow language arts teachers and I recently showed this film to our 7th graders as part of our persuasive writing unit. There's a scene at the beginning where Morgan Suprlock's girlfriend prepares his "last meal" of healthy food -- a vegetable tart, a quinoa veggy salad, an artichoke, and a simply dressed green salad. I stood there salivating (it looked delicious), but I heard several kids groan as if they were looking at something vile and disgusting. And I remembered thinking the same thing the first time I saw the movie. Who'd have thought Atkins would change my mind about THAT?

Sensory Processing Disorder

2011-01-09T09:43:00.000-08:00

Stella starting to "zone out" at All About Kids.

She still had tons of fun, though!

Her adorable friends. Whom she's completely ignoring.

A few weeks ago, Dave and I took Stella to a birthday party of one of her classmates, Alex. It was at a fabulous place called All About Kids where they teach gymnastic classes and have bouncy gyms and ball pits and general awesomeness. Dave takes her there many weeks when the weather's bad, so we knew she loved it.

However, when we got there, we were confused. Although Stella seemed excited to play, she completely ignored all the other kids, walking to a secluded corner and sort of zoning out. A couple of times, she even lay on the floor, face down, ignoring us.

I'll admit, I got peeved. Here we are spending our weekend eating store-bought cake (you know how I feel about that) and drinking Kool-Aid so Stella can be with other kids her age, and she just ignores them?

So, I emailed her teachers (like the over-attentive yuppy mom that I am) and asked if she's social at school. I expected them to tell me that I'm overreacting and that things will improve with age.

Instead, we got an email back saying they were in the process of emailing us about similar concerns.

Well, crap. Crappity crap crap.

I did what I do best - jump to far-fetched conclusions. Not interacting with other kids, rarely liking to hug or touch, an obsessive personality that caused her to learn her alphabet, numbers 1-15 and all her colors more quickly than I could have imagined. Obviously, she was autistic.

Thankfully, her amazing preschool teachers calmed me down and led us to a great resource - First Steps, Kentucky's early-intervention program. They were responsive and friendly, and set up an appointment with us right away. We filled out questionnaires about Stella's ability and social skills, and had a couple of counselors come over to do things like roll a ball on the floor with Stella and ask her to "read" a book to them.

And the conclusion they came to was Sensory Processing Disorder. And my little teacher brain said, "WELL, DUH!"

I have no clue how I missed this, considering I learned about it in grad school, spent two weeks over a summer at an intensive training course learning more about it and other disorders, and even had a couple of students with it. How did I not see?

Sensory Processing Disorder is a huge umbrella term and can explain a lot of different behaviors, but its definition is: a neurological disorder that results from the brain's inability to integrate certain information received from the body's five basic sensory systems.

Stella has a very mild version of it, which is great, and it can be vastly improved or even reversed with occupational therapy, which is also great. And best of all, catching it this early is the most effective way to work with it.

What this is all means is Stella has a really sensitive system. Which explains why she basically didn't sleep for 16 months. The world was too bright, too loud, to smelly, TOO MUCH to allow the poor girl to sleep.

It also explains some of her other quirks - like why transitions MAKE HER SCREAM, why she hates to have her face washed, why certain foods make her gag, why really loud places cause her to "zone out" and seek seclusion. And friends? Friends are too unpredictable, touching you at odd times or screaming in your ears or, sometimes, even smelling funny. Friends are simply sensory overload for a kid like Stella.

SO WHY DIDN'T I CATCH IT?

I'm also amazed that I didn't recognize the same condition in myself. How many nights did I simply lay awake as a child because the car lights on the street were distracting or because I could hear my sister breathing? How many times did I sob at the hairdressers because combing my hair felt excruciating? How many times have I had a friend ask if I was paying attention to the conversation because I kept looking around at all the other people and lights and displays at the restaurant?

Stella got this from me, and heredity is the most common cause of SPD.

I learned to adapt to being very sensitive, but it did make things more difficult for me. I remember my legs simply ACHING from sitting all day at school. I remember hating getting my hands dirty but refusing to say anything about it because I didn't want to be made fun of. And I was very tentative and scared on the playground because I dreaded getting hurt.

How on earth did I manage to have a natural labor? Because I'm just that awesome, yo.

Anyway, her teachers thanked us today for being so receptive to hearing this about Stella and so proactive in seeking early intervention. I was floored. Shouldn't I be thanking them for keeping such a close eye on our kid?

They said many parents refuse to listen to this sort of feedback because it makes them feel bad. But I feel relieved to have an explanation for Stella's more puzzling behavior, and thankful to have a FREE resource to help her (and us) find natural ways to deal with it.

I'm also grateful to have any insight into my amazing, gorgeous child and the knowledge to not only be patient with her differences but also proactive in helping her. Nobody's perfect, and if I'd be OK getting a math tutor or an allergist to help her, why wouldn't I want an occupational therapist to teach her how to process the intense sensations she experiences so she can enjoy this vibrant, loud, kooky world we inhabit?

The Top Ten of '10

2010-12-31T09:16:00.000-08:00

Au revoir, Brooklyn!

My sister's Christmas card was fabulous this year. Rather than a long letter of all her family's triumphs and woes, she made a bright, vibrant top ten list of their stand-out moments. Seeing as she's a wonderful graphic designer, it was not only poignant, it was visually stunning.

Mine will just be poignant. Maybe.

After the horrible year we experienced in 2009, 2010 was a year of reconstruction - pulling ourselves together after the brutal wars we fought. The war against a corrupt landlord who refused to dispose of both lead paint and a violent neighbor properly. The war against my possibly nearly fatal (TMI?) post-partum depression. The war against our budget after Dave lost his job at Forbes. The war Dave and I fought against each other as we tried to make sense of the constant sleeplessness we were experiencing combined with seemingly constant moving.

2010 was definitely an improvement. We had settled into an apartment that was devoid of lead paint and had a reasonable neighbor. I'd gone back to work part-time at my beloved school in Brooklyn. Stella, thank God in Heaven, had not only begun to sleep, but began to be possibly the best sleeper in her class -- middle-weight toddlers. And, despite Dave's work situation, we'd tightened our apron strings sufficiently to avoid going into debt or claiming bankruptcy.

We had climbed far enough up Maslow's hierarchy of needs to stop simply surviving and start self-actualizing.

For me, that meant being brutally honest with both Dave and myself about the fact that I couldn't stay healthy as a "middle class" (i.e. impoverished) parent in NYC with no family support. I had to stop finding a way to try to fit my square self in that round hole and just start searching for a freaking square hole (they're hard to find).

So, keeping that long-winded prelude in mind, I present to you The Brooklyn/Bluegrass Baby Momma's Top Ten Profound Moments of 2010:

10. Getting bed bugs - TWICE - and dealing with record low temps and large amounts of snow while living in a place with limited heat.
9. Finally convincing Dave that we had to give moving back to Kentucky a shot, after the above events showed us that just moving out of Little Russia wasn't going to solve all of our problems and that possibly NYC was simply not for us.
8. Working my butt off to find (and succeeding in that endeavor) what people told me was an impossible situation: working for a rural, high-needs school an easy commute away from our urban life in Louisville.
7. Moving to the nicest apartment we've ever inhabited without seeing it first. (Thanks to my brother and sister-in-law for finding it!)
6. Finding that I love being a middle school language arts teacher, and that I really do love being back in a school where I feel needed.
5. Reconnecting with wonderful Louisville friends while missing wonderful NYC friends.
4. Finally finding a spiritual home at Adath Jeshurun after years and years of searching.
3. Finding so much joy in the fact that we can afford to send Stella to preschool here without knowing the mayor or president or dishing over her entire college fund.
2. Watching with glee as Dave has the time and energy to write awesome freelance stories and perform his wonderful, original music in a band composed of cool, sweet, trustworthy guys.
1. Getting to be with my family again in a normal way (well, as normal as we get) after 12 years away. And the best part of that is watching Stella fall madly in love with them and vice versa.

This is the kind of year that really showed me the power of prayer and positive thinking. I really thought this move, this job, this drastic change would never happen, but once I set my mind and heart and soul into trying to achieve it, it's amazing how things just fell into place.

I hope that we can all keep that in mind in 2011. We are our own worse enemies. Our fear and doubt and self-loathing and petty differences all serve to distract us from our awesome potential.

What does your heart really want for you in 2011? Are you willing to shut up the negative voices in your head and just GO FOR IT?

My One Resolution

2010-12-21T18:16:00.000-08:00

This is the kind of person I want to be in 2011.

Unlike many people I know who hate New Year's resolutions, I love them. Or rather, I love making them. Keeping them is an entirely different story.

But I love the chance to start over, to write a new chapter, to turn over a new leaf.

And I've been thinking a lot about how I want 2011 to be different, see as how 2008-2010 kind of kicked my ass.

And my list, the one I was composing in my head, grew longer and longer, more and more intricate, even including a weekly schedule of things I'd need to attend to in order to improve my weight, my financial state, my mental well-being, my professional success, and so on.

And then, tonight, it hit me. Dave and I were engaged in Stella's bedtime routine - a multi-step, deeply involved process that we developed during the sleepless and crazy period of time from her birth until she turned 16 months old. It goes something like this:
1. Warm bath.
2. 5, 3 and 1 minute warnings that the bath is ending, so she doesn't flip out.
3. Having her help us clean up the bathtub while singing the Clean Up song.
4. Full-body massage with lavender-scented lotion.
5. Not one but two different songs that we made up about being sleepy.
6. Pajamas, then tucking her into bed with soothing words about the good dreams she'll have.
7. White noise machine and pitch black bedroom.

We do this the same way. Every night. And whether or not our now wonderfully-sleeping daughter needs it, it just feels right. In fact, it's the sweetest time of day, at least for Dave and me, one we look forward to consistently.

However, I rarely take that same amount of time - roughly 30 minutes per day - to do anything for myself. I rush out the door each morning, either skipping breakfast or packing a banana. I take 5 minute showers and crawl into bed each night after minimal face-washing and tooth-brushing. I've neglected exercise in favor of working late or being with Stella or just sitting on my butt out of fatigue. And, although we make most of our own food and eat pretty well, I still feast on sweets late at night and make a lot of foolish food choices during my weak time - post school, pre-dinner.

Consequently I'm overweight, exhausted, lacking in self-confidence, a bit depressed, riddled with achy joints, wearing poorly-fitting clothes, and often feeling frazzled and/or pulled in 1,000 directions. Oh. And unappreciated. I'm definitely feeling unappreciated.

I realized that the 452 resolutions I was making all really stem from one big one:

Take care of myself as well as I take care of Stella.

If I can manage that, everything else will fall into place. I will:

1. Eat the correct number of healthy, whole-food meals per day with no night-eating.
2. Drink only water and sometimes milk - no more sodas. (Coffee, though, coffee gets to stay.)
3. Get sufficient exercise in varying, fun ways (I'm thinking more hot yoga, zumba, and wii fit over playgrounds and bouncy rooms, but still).
4. Take good care of my skin. (In fact, maybe I'll give myself nightly massages with scented lotion, too.)
5. Do something, each day, just because I want to, and not feel guilty. (This could include reading, calling a friend, going to see a movie by myself, or writing a blog entry.)
6. Just as Stella tidies up the bathtub while singing "clean up, clean up," I will find a way each day to help our home stay clean and welcoming.
7. Laugh freely and easily, sometimes for no reason at all.
8. And, finally, I will not be afraid to say "NO!" Loudly and jubilantly. To people, to responsibilities, to guilt, to uncertainty, to situations that make me unhappy.

It will all come full circle for me. I can be a good mom, a good teacher, a good wife, AND a happy, healthy woman who cares about herself. (I just have to wait until January 1st so I can sneak in a few more days of crappy eating and laziness.)

Yes, I'm alive.

2010-12-19T15:36:00.000-08:00

I would have settled for this cake. Seriously.

Alive but incredibly busy and, as of very late, in one of my famous "funks."

I must say this about myself. As my age has increased, so has my ability to handle my trademark funks - the times in my life when I feel the world is crashing down, that nobody has ever cared for me, when I wonder why I ever was placed on this earth to begin with. In fact, now the funks are few and far between, and normally, when they occur, I can usually take a long, hot bath and remind myself that this is mostly chemical and will pass. That my life is really not one big pattern of people abandoning and neglecting me. That I am blessed beyond belief but that I've developed some unhealthy habits that need to be reversed.

I tried to handle the past week this way, but I have failed. After several months of working my butt off - both as a mom and as a teacher - spending what little spare time I have trying to nurture my gratitude and serenity, this week has royally and completely kicked my ass and broken down my resolve.

I wasn't happy about my birthday to begin with. Thirty-five. Middle age, if I die at seventy. The time when, should we decide to get pregnant again, I will most likely be asked to take a battery of tests and will be at a higher risk of problems - both for myself and the baby. An age where it's even harder to lose all the fat I've accumulated, where wrinkles and gray hairs are multiplying like bunnies, where I'm routinely referred to as "lady." This is even harder to take when I realize I spent all the years I should have been young and sassy curling up into myself and feeding my "funks."

Regardless, I shook it off and told myself to be a big girl. And then, then came the middle schoolers. I'm loving my job, I feel I'm 100% where I need to be, I really love the staff and administration, but I'm still acclimating to the mood swings and occasional attitude of middle schoolers. Particularly the "mean girls" who bring back WAY too many painful memories of Sonora Middle School and the psychological raids I received.

So, I should have just shrugged it off when one of those "mean girls" sang the first part of "Happy Birthday," but finished with "you look like a monkey" and a howl of laughter. I should have just calmly written some detentions slips and then let it go while another "mean girl" joined in, pointing and cackling. I should have focused on my incredibly sweet third block class who sang "Happy Birthday" to me (the normal version) and gave me gifts like a candy cane and an apple, rather than fuming over those girls whose punishment I'd already doled out.

Instead, I loaded it onto my shoulders and into my heart, bringing it in the door with me. There was my gorgeous daughter who immediately wanted something from me and my sweet husband, consumed with his 4,000 writing assignments. No bouquet of flowers, no handmade card from Stella, nobody hugging me and shouting out how happy they were that I was born. I sagged even more into my sadness.

So much so that I couldn't really appreciate the delicious steak dinner Dave made, because I was consumed with the lack of wine and a cake to go with it.

A word about cake. I bake. I love to bake. I especially love to bake cakes. I really, especially love to bake birthday cakes. And I love to blow out candles and eat birthday cakes on my birthday. It's really the only thing I need to have a good birthday.

However, it seems that the universe has decided that is not usually in the cards for me, no matter what.

In Dave's defense, he bought ice cream and hot fudge for sundaes, but the ice cream was "off" somehow, and besides, all I ever want is cake. Cake. Just cake.

It should have gotten better the next day when I had a snow day and Dave and I had plans to go to dinner at a place I've been dying to try - Hillbilly Tea - and a show at a fringey, cool theater we've heard about. However, the weather that created my snow day also created icy roads, and we couldn't bring ourselves to ask our friend (and babysitter) to risk her life for us, nor could we handle the thought of getting in a wreck and dying, leaving Stella to fend for herself. So we ate split pea soup, sans cake, and I tried to tell myself that all would be better when I joined some local friends the next night for cocktails.

Now, I had wanted a little party - reminiscent of the ones I used to throw for myself in Brooklyn ages ago. However, this year, I stubbornly refused to plan it myself or make all the food, seeing as I'm working full time and being a mom in my off-hours. So I kept throwing out hints here and there, and those hints fluttered on up to the heavens where they shriveled up and died.

And I was too busy to keep on top of things like I should have, so, about a week and a half before my b'day, I sent out an email seeing if anyone would want to join me for a karaoke party. Only two people responded positively, so rather than book an expensive venue and have nobody come, I decided to demote my "party" to a night of cocktails with friends - an informal event where people could drop in at whim. This received a scant more positive RSVP's. (Having a birthday 10 days before Jesus's means that most of the free world is already spoken for when you so arrogantly want to celebrate the day you were forced to enter this earth.)

But, still, I was excited. I just wanted to get out at night and join the rest of the world, sipping a silly cocktail and laughing loudly and forgetting all about my responsibilities for five minutes.

However, that pesky ice remained on the road, and OOPS! We forgot to book a babysitter. So, no cocktails with friends. And still, believe it or not, no blessed cake.

So, I made backup plans to meet an old friend who lives a mile away for dinner at a nearby restaurant. At least, I thought, I can get out of my cabin-fever-diseased home and eat a bite. Maybe drink a micro-brew. MAYBE BUY MYSELF A SLICE OF CAKE. And, can you believe it, my friend stood me up. STOOD ME FUCKING UP. Excuse my language, but really? I got a text, saying an "unexpected visitor" was occupying his time. I hope to God that visitor is Barack O'fucking Bama, otherwise - there is no excuse.

So...the funk descended. I cried. I threw a couple of things (safely - in a room with no one else in it). I went to Chick-Fil-A by myself and read my book and ate a fried chicken sandwich, waffle fries, and a peppermint chocolate chip shake. I considered an alcoholic drink, but I could feel a cold coming on, so I crawled into bed.

And I awoke with a cold. Sore throat, snot, aching joints, chills. I mean, really?

Still, we had a better, more hopeful day - taking Stella to see "The Nutcracker" as performed by my old dance school - The Dance Centre of Elizabethtown. I got to see my old dance teacher, Mrs. Banard, for the first time in 17 years. As wonderful as this was, it also brought back memories of my difficult youth - a time when the beauty and grace of ballet was one of the few refuges I had against the turmoil and violence of my home and the almost non-existence of a social life at school. I was chubby, it's true, but ladies and gentlemen - I could dance.

I enjoyed time with my family, marveling, as I always do, at how much Stella adores them and how good they are to her. But my cold intensified, and although this would have been the perfect opportunity to let my precious mom shower me with affection and GET ME A FREAKING SLICE OF CAKE, all I wanted to do was wrap myself in 1,000 blankets and sleep.

So, the funk is here. I know it will pass, I just need time, but right now, I'm just kind of pissy and frustrated. It's a hard time of year to expect people to take care of me, I get that, but there were just too many unfortunate events in a row in a week where I was already emotionally raw for me to feel particularly forgiving and understanding of anyone whose name isn't Randi or Stella right now.

At least, today, I managed to get myself some cake. Red velvet cake from The Homemade Pie and Ice Cream Kitchen. And, although my cold has abducted my appetite, I ate EVERY FREAKING BITE.

Halloween Store

2010-10-20T16:58:00.001-07:00

Each night, before we put Stella in her room (where, and I still can't believe I can write this, she walks herself to bed, lays herself down and sleeps through the night), I ask Stella what she wants to dream about.

"What are you going to dream about tonight, honey?"

And if she doesn't have an answer, I give her an idea - usually something fun we did that day, something involving her cats or me or Dave or her Mamaw or whatever. Something sweet and soothing.

I do this because, as a child, I was an incredibly troubled sleeper. And part of the reason I was so troubled was because it seemed every time I closed my eyes, I had a nightmare.

A dream that people had broken into the house to murder us, but nobody would listen when I told them to evacuate.

A dream that a nuclear bomb was headed for the U.S. but I couldn't find my mom.

A dream that I fell into a manhole on the street and ended up in Hell.

I will do everything in my power to keep Stella from experiencing such terrifying, sleepless nights. So now, while she's young and impressionable, I'm teaching her to think of relaxing, comforting images as she soothes off.

About a month ago, Dave, Stella and I headed to the local "Halloween Express," Louisville's answer to NYC's Ricky's - an overpriced Mecca of goulish rubber masks and sexy fill-in-the-blank costumes. (Sexy Mad Hatter? Really?)

Stella loved it. Loved it to pieces. Even the enormous, mewing, head-swaying black cat with red eyes. "Wodo!" she called out to it lovingly, assuming it was Cromwell and not wanting to leave its side.

That night, when I asked her what she would dream about, she proclaimed, "HALLOWEEN STORE!" So we imagined roaming the aisles, Wodo by our side, before she drifted off.

The funny thing is, ever since then, that's the thing she wishes to dream about every night when I ask her the question. Including the other night, when she talked about bringing the entire family to the Halloween Store, including Bubbie and Aunt Nora.

I kind of hope this sticks for a long time. I kind of hope next Spring, as the buds begin to blossom and the air begins to warm, that Stella will reply "Halloween Store" when I inquire about her dreams.

Present Problem Solving

2010-10-14T18:41:00.000-07:00

The following pictures have nothing to do with this post, but they're awfully cute:

Stella's current obsession: a bed packed with many of the things she loves.

One of her many fabulous outfits.

Turtle Sitting.

So, here's the thing: your first year in a new school, in a new state, on a new grade, with a new curriculum -- well, it might as well just be your first year teaching, period. I'm so blessed to have an incredibly supportive staff and administration, but still. I am working my butt off.

It doesn't help that I got straight into Pollyanna mode at the beginning of the year, saying yes to two projects I love so much that there was no possible way I could turn them down:
1. The Future Problem Solving component of the Academic Team
2. Drama Club

But I really couldn't let either of those activities happen without me, so I guess I'm in the best of all possible outcomes right now. It just also happens to be the MUCH busier of the two.

For those who don't know, the Future Problem Solving Team is a team of four kiddos, given a possible future problem to which they must brainstorm a solution. IT IS SO COOL. If you're a complete and total nerd like me, that is.

A possible problem could be workplace rage on the rise due to the increasing use of robots in multiple industries in the year 2031. Students would come up with 16 possible problems that would arise from this, such as economic breakdown or an increase in domestic violence. Then they would determine the main, underlying problem causing all the problems - such as workers feeling insecure and disgruntled about possibly losing their jobs . Then they would brainstorm 16 possible solutions to the underlying problem, such as site-based counseling committees aimed to intervene when a worker feels unstable. After that, they develop their own set of criteria by which to chose their best possible solution, and plug their 8 best solutions into the approval grid to narrow it down. And finally, FINALLY, after all that, they create a detailed action plan - paragraphs of well-thought-out and researched suggestions - that will alleviate this future conundrum that may or may not ever happen.

To many, that sounds like pure and utter torture. To me, now and back when I was in middle school, this is heaven.

Perhaps it was an intricate escape from the turmoil that was my home-life. Perhaps I preferred to live in a the future rather than face my unstable present. Perhaps it was a ridiculous excuse to keep hanging out with my ex-boyfriend, for whom I still carried a torch.

Or maybe it's just that I've always loved digging myself out of complicated situations. Hmm...

*******

Although I haven't posted in a while, posting has been on my mind. Driving to work (yes, New York friends, driving is part of my daily life now), eating my 25-minute lunch, the 5 second lull when classes change, the quiet right after Stella falls asleep -- these are all moments I find myself fantasizing about what I should write when I have the "time and energy." I just have to face the fact that I'll never have the "time and energy." I just have to make it happen from time to time.

But here's what's been on my mind:
1. Toddler obsessions: Stella's two plastic whales that are her version of a security blanket (and the fear that keeps us up at night that we'll lose one or both).
2. Cliched but true working mommy guilt: why do we suffer from this so much more than daddies?
3. Public education: the conundrum to end all conundrums. My thoughts on how our current system is flawed, how I'd like to fix it, and how I'd like to personally thank George W. Bush for No Child Left Behind and the insane amount of testing that came with it. (Bet you'd like to know HOW I'd thank him, wouldn't you?)
4. How quickly I've acclimated to the comfort of living in KY: laundry and dishwasher in apartment, parking space, balcony, central air, nice people, accessible everything. How easily I've adapted, and how I'm not sure I could go back to Big Apple Living after all this.
5. What I do miss about NYC. And it's not just my friends, although I miss my friends tremendously.

So, blog, like exercising and calling my loved ones, I vow to get to you more often.

Writing it Down

2010-09-06T17:41:00.000-07:00

Amidst getting acclimated to my new job (which I still love) and buying a new-to-us-car (what a grueling process) and sending Stella off to preschool (where Stella eats yummy challah), there's been a whole lot of cuteness over here. And I fear if I don't take a moment to write it down, despite my raging cold and the 465 papers I need to grade and the cleaning that I should do, I'll hate myself later.

So, here goes.

As the pictures illustrate, Stella is WAY into dress up. Only my sassy girl never wants to be a princess. Oh, no, she wants to be Lady Gaga or a bunny. In this photo, she is both. (Notice the fluffy tail?)

Speaking of Lady Gaga, Stella's favorite song is Bad Romance. She requests it between 400 and 6oo times a day. And when she says "romance," her New York accent is deliciously apparent. I play the Glee version for her, but I'm still disturbed that she knows all the words.

She invented a game called cheeseburger. This is noteworthy because the game has nothing to do with food and she has never actually consumed a cheeseburger in her life. She stacks whatever clothes she can find - dirty, clean, whatever - into a big pile on our bed and then pretends to eat it. If an article falls off she yells, "OH NO, MY CHEESEBURGER," and rebuilds.

Sometimes, when she is really happy or really tired, she hugs me close and says, "my baby."

She can read her name. I kid you not, she knows her name when she sees it written. And I swear I didn't do this.

I have spots on my chest from a weird infection I got (caused by NYC's tropical weather), and sometimes Stella pretends to eat the spots. She says, "mommy got spots, yum!"

If her nose is runny, she says, "Stella's nose is MESSY!"

She says "thank you," "no thank you," and "please" all on her own. And when she drops something, she picks it up.

She makes up songs. One is called "Baby in the Water" and the other is called "Ballerina Cat." Both are beautiful.

She calls our cat Cromwell, "Wodo." She calls our cat Talisker, "Talisker."

Any and every item can become ice cream in her imagination. Especially ink pens.

Her favorite thing to do is to go to the Homemade Ice Cream and Pie Kitchen in St. Matthews, not only to eat their Smurf ice cream (made from real Smurfs!), but also to dance to their authentic, antique jukebox. Sometimes she'll peek inside the jukebox, looking for the hound dog who got lost in a jukebox on a particular episode of "The Wonder Pets."

She loves her Mamaw. Whenever we get in the car, she asks if we're going to see her. And her dogs.

Her favorite song, other than "Bad Romance", is "Old MacDonald" (not by Lady Gaga, that I know of). She likes to add odd animals to his farm, such as bears and seals, and sometimes claims that he has a baby or Mamaw on his farm. Once, when she said Mommy was on his farm, she told me the sound Mommy made was, "STELLA," said in an exasperated voice.

She has a single, perfect, dark brown freckle on her right hand.

The Power of Language

2010-08-22T17:12:00.000-07:00

We've moved three times in the past two years, one of those moves across 800 miles.
Dave lost a job and I changed jobs - from full-time 4th grade teacher to occasional tutor to part-time math coach to full-time 7th grade language arts teacher.
We've had possibly homicidal neighbors, or at least neighbors who almost drove me to homicide.
We've had 1/2 of a marriage realizing that she might very well lose her mind if she remained in NYC, while the other 1/2 of the marriage feared his future if he left NYC.
We've had tears and fights and drinking glasses shattered into 1,000,000 shards.
We've had enough money issues and health issues and life changes to rate us through the roof on the Scientologists' "Stress Test."

But now we have something else.

We have a kid who has slowly but surely become vocal. Very vocal.
She says "please" when she wants something and "thank you" when she gets it.
She says "bless you" when we sneeze.
She says "Stella eats challah," when I ask her what she did at preschool.
And, best of all, she says, "I love YOU, Mommy," out of the clear blue sky. Just because she feels. Not because she's mimicking someone or being cajoled into it.

And those are the moments that I know that "somewhere in my youth or childhood, I must have done something good."

Why I'm Not Blogging

2010-08-11T17:48:00.001-07:00

Because I'm teaching full time again.
Because my full-time teaching position is in a new grade.
Because my full-time teaching position is in a new district.
Because my full-time teaching position is in a new state.
Because I had to jump through 9,000 hoops to transfer all my credentials to get this job.
Because I really want to be an inspiring teacher in order to honor my incredibly cooperative and supportive coworkers, my tireless and dedicated principal, and my spunky and sweet students.
Because, after teaching all day, grading papers, preparing for the next day, and juggling administrative paperwork, I'm still a mom and a wife. And I really want to be good at those jobs, too.

Life is good, and hopefully I can find more time to tell you about it soon. In the meanwhile, here's an update from Adorable Stella-Ville:

When Stella counts to twenty, (which she can kind-of do), she says "bumblebee" instead of "seventeen."

FAQ'S about LOUKY

2010-07-26T07:19:00.000-07:00

I have been asked many questions about our move from Brooklyn, NY to Louisville, KY. I have decided to address as many of these questions as possible before moving on with this blog.

What is LOUKY? That's an abbreviation for Louisville, KY. This FAQ will be mainly about LOUKY, but will also deal with the following: Kentucky in general, the South in general, and the Brooklyn Baby Momma's attitude toward all of this, though not the Brooklyn Baby Daddy's, as he is his own person and stuff.
Why did you move? That's complicated. Dave was laid off From Forbes back in November, and that served as sort of a catalyst for us. New York was becoming more and more expensive, the apartments we could afford were riddled with problems, traffic prevented us from being around Dave's family very often, having a kid in the city was HARD, and I felt a pull both to be near my family again after twelve years and to teach in a rural school area in need. I came from a poor, rural area, and I felt it was time to give back.
How big is Louisville? The population is around half a million, although if you include the entire metro area (which extends South of the city and North into Indiana), it's over a million.
How do you pronounce "Louisville?" What ever you do, please do not call it "LOO-EE-VILLE." That's just wrong. Most native Kentuckians pronounce it something like this: "Loo-a-vull." And yes, that's how I say it.
Is there a Jewish community in Louisville? Uh...yeah. The mayor himself, a lifelong Louisvillian, is Jewish. There are several synagogues and even an Orthodox community. There are Jewish preschools and Hebrew schools and a ginormous JCC that even has live feeds to programs airing at the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan.
Is there an arts scene in Louisville? Yes, my friends, we have art in Louisville. In fact, it is an epicenter for glass blowing, an incredible medium that was a big deal at my alma mater, Centre College. There are tons of galleries and museums and festivals where local artists sell their masterpieces. There's incredible theater, including Actor's Theatre of Louisville, a nationally acclaimed theater and home of many experimental and provocative works. Unlike NYC, we can actually afford to go to the theater here, which is a major bonus for a former drama major like me.
And music? We know the Brooklyn Baby Daddy is a sucker for live music! Kids, we're in the land of bluegrass. Yes, there's music. Dave's even going to an open mic on Wednesday, and we have plans to go to yet another music festival this weekend. There are small blues bars and huge classical venues, there are top 40 bands giving concerts and amazing local bands that will one day be famous.
What about restaurants? We know how the BBF loves their food! Louisville has a rich variety of eating establishments that we are excited to explore. And yes, you can get things like sushi, seafood, Vietnamese food, Middle Eastern food, vegetarian/vegan food, amazing barbecue, traditional Southern food, and Slow Food born of local produce. And you can eat for less than $100 a couple.
Speaking of food, are you guys going to start eating fast food all the time now? NO! Absolutely not! Except for the Chik-Fil-A down the street, because I, like every New Yorker, have missed my Chik-Fil-A. But I remain dedicated to creating our own healthy, seasonal meals from scratch whenever possible and mainly patronize local establishments.
Does Fresh Direct deliver in Louisville? No, but that's OK because we have a plethora of wonderful stores within a 5 minute drive. Whole Foods is so close I could shake a locally-grown, organic stick at it. Kroger, wonderful Kroger, Kroger with its huge aisles and amazing variety and incredible prices, is very near. And Louisville has so many farmer's markets and CSA's that I don't know where to begin - and they're actually, legitimately cheap! So here, as opposed to NYC, non-millionaires can eat locally.
Will you drive everywhere now? Will you have to get two cars? The answer is probably yes to both. There is a convenient bus system, called TARC (Transit Authority of River City) that has a stop right outside of our apartment complex, but we'll probably become frequent drivers. However, we were driving a ton in NYC anyway because gas was cheaper than paying the subway/bus fares for the two of us ($2 per person each way).
Will you be the only liberal freaks in that red state? Nope. Louisville is filled with folks as liberal as we are and way, WAY more. We found this out at the Forecastle Festival, dedicated to "music, art, activism," on the shores of the Ohio River a couple of weeks ago. There were seminars about leading a green life and grass-fed Angus burgers from cows raised a mile away and women with purple hair and circus clothes twirling around on roller blades.
What are you guys going to do for money? I have a job teaching 7th grade English Language arts at a school in Bullitt County, a rural area south of Louisville. Dave is considering substitute teaching and freelance writing, as well as going back to school.
OK, so I realize the cost of living is lower there, but don't you also make a LOT less money? Sadly, no. Teachers in a rural area of Kentucky make only slightly less than those teaching in New York City. And the cost of living is HALF that of NYC. Did you hear me, people? Half. I'd have to make $25,000 for us to struggle as much as we did in the Big Apple, and I can guarantee that teachers don't have it that bad here.
Where will you live? Are you near civilization? We live in a lovely, two-bedroom apartment in a family-friendly, centrally located part of Louisville. We are five minutes from two of the hipper parts of Louisville, ten minutes from downtown, and close to all the stores I mentioned earlier. Our apartment has a huge dishwasher, its own washer and dryer, two bathrooms, a balcony, parking spots right in front, and a food disposal (something I've only ever seen in movies). The complex has a pool, a basketball court, a gym, tennis courts, a pond stocked with fish and brimming with ducks, walking trails, and a common house with a huge porch and free movies that we can borrow. It's rather heavenly. And the neighbors are QUIET AND NORMAL. (Wait. Did I just jinx everything?)
Do people smoke everywhere? No more so than NYC, which, as Carrie Bradshaw demonstrated, is a city of heavy smokers. Smoking is banned in all public areas, like stores and restaurants, so even if there are a lot of smokers, I don't have to deal with it.
Do people wear shoes? How about shirts? Yes. And yes. Nice ones. Sometimes designer.
Will you ever come back to NYC? Definitely, to visit Dave's family and all our friends, if for no other reason.
You sound maniacally in love with Louisville. Are you being paid off by their tourism board? I am maniacally in love with Louisville, but I am not being paid. This is the calmest and most serene I've felt in years. New York is an amazing city and, for some, it is the most perfect place on Earth. But I found life incredibly stressful there. I love hearing the crickets and seeing trees; I love having frequent and casual visits with my family; I love that people are friendly to me, even at the post office or the grocery store; I love that there's so little traffic and everything is so close; I love that my favorite stores are all here - Lush and Whole Foods and Target - and they're all within a 5 minute drive; I love how quiet it is at night; I love how funky and interesting the city is. I love it here.
What will you call your blog now? I have to keep it as it is for a while, just because I'm so in love with the name. But, over time, I think I shall transition to "Bluegrass Baby Momma." Sound good?

I guess that's it, unless you want to add more in the comments. I miss my friends so much it hurts, but otherwise, the quality of my life has increased tenfold. And for my New York friends (and others) who remain dubious of Louisville's grandeur, I invite you to come visit. You won't have to sell a kidney for a hotel room, and I'll make you some red velvet cake!

Too Busy...

2010-07-19T18:34:00.000-07:00

I'm sorry I haven't posted in a while. We've been busy. Busy:

Moving everything we own from Brooklyn to Louisville.
Moving into our fairly fabulous apartment.
Trying to find jobs.
Catching up with my family, particularly my brother and his daughter in from Las Vegas.
Enjoying the summer by swimming in our apartment complex's pool, going to an incredible music festival on the shore of the Ohio River, taking walks to our nearby park and playground.
Being happy.

Things are so wonderful and I feel so blessed. There's so much to tell you about, but not now. Some things I don't want to jinx, for sure. But I'm also just really enjoying being here. Experiencing contentment, just experiencing it - not writing about it or analyzing it or questioning it or even taking the time to share it.

But I'll fill you in, soon. Enjoy your summer, friends.

Summer in the City

2010-07-06T17:04:00.000-07:00

One question I've gotten a lot about our move is: "Is it a lot hotter in the summer in Kentucky?"

This question always makes me laugh. Laugh laugh laugh. Laugh, and, of course, remember.

I remember when I first moved up here, 12 years ago, a fresh-faced, naive, idealistic college girl. It was June, and I very sweetly assumed that New York, that Yankee state, would have a nice mild summer. Summers in Kentucky tend to be in the '90's and muggy, so I was excited for a change of pace.

Of course, I was rudely awakened when I debarked my plane and found that New York is just as hot, just as sticky as Kentucky, but has added bonuses like pollution so thick that your sweat becomes black and piles of garbage that smell like death when warmed by the sun.

I remember staying in that flea-bag hotel, the one where I first experienced bedbugs, which, of course, had no A/C. (That hotel has now been transformed into a "boutique" hotel, which makes me want to vomit.) I tossed and turned in my questionable sheets, rinsed off my sweat in the coed, rapist's dream of a shower, then tried to look presentable for my $250/week job at the Ubu Repertory Theater. I'd pass a vendor as I exited the subway selling ice-cold Coca-Colas, which I could never resist.

I remember sweating constantly, even at work, which only had window unit A/C's (and not every room had one). I remember how grouchy everyone was on the street, because they were in the same boat.

Soon, I moved into my Newark, NJ apartment, which had the best and most reliable A/C of any apartment I've lived in since. True, it's also the only apartment where I frequently heard gunshots, but I was cool at night, damn it!

The next year I moved into the safety of Brooklyn, but could not afford an air conditioner with my checking account, which often read $24.15. Or much, much less. I remember going to the ATM and feeling like it was judging me for taking any money out at all.

My parents offered to buy me one, but I refused on principle. I took cold showers each night, jumping into my bed completely naked, all the windows open, hoping to pass out before I heated back up. I kid you not - the water would evaporate and I'd be sweating before I even hit the sheets. I even took a bath WITH ICE CUBES IN IT, not once, but several times. It still didn't help.

At least at this point I'd moved to a job that was air conditioned, so I had work to look forward to. I also had many friends who took mercy on me and hosted sleepovers on the hottest nights, but still. What a crap year.

Then there's waiting for a subway below ground, where the heat gets trapped. Or worse, finding that every train is overly crowded except one - one that turns out not to be air conditioned.

There are the bodegas that brag about "ICE COLD DRINKS" but then you find their fridge is broken. There are restaurants that only have weak little window units, so they're no relief. And of course you have the free, public pools, but they are filled to capacity with other foul-tempered, sweating people and you have to deal with the Parks Department bullyish employees to get there.

And always, of course, the threat of a blackout.

Anyway, yes, Kentucky is hot in the summer. But the air conditioners work there and you have more trees to absorb the heat.

And at least people pretend to be nice, even if they call you names as you walk away from them.

Addendum:

2010-07-03T07:38:00.000-07:00

Right after I posted my entry about what I'd miss about NYC, The Brooklyn Baby Daddy very kindly reminded me that I left out something ridiculously HUGE. Food. How could I - a woman nearly obsessed with food - leave off one of my favorite attributes of NYC?

I love the pizza. The fancy pizza like Patsy's or Arturo's or Grimaldi's. The pizza by the slice from a hole in the wall. Grandma's pizza. Sicilian pizza. Garlic knots. Spinach calzones.
I love the bagels. It's cliche but true: no place has a better bagel. My favorite? The egg bagel from The Bagel Hole in Park Slope, untoasted (to toast is to blaspheme), with Temptee cream cheese, lox, red onion, and black pepper. Perfection.
Thai food. Glorious, addictive Thai food. So many places to get delicious and affordable Thai food. Our favorite will always be Song, also in Park Slope. Their veggie spring rolls make you weepy, their spicy broad noodles with chicken are pure comfort food, their Panang curry is a thing of beauty.
Italian food. Authentic, amazing Italian food that makes you want to throw a watery red sauce in someone's face. Al di la, yes, in Park Slope, is a classic. Their menu is seasonal and stupidly affordable for the quality of the food and the ambiance. Their wines are wonderful. My favorite dish is the braised rabbit with polenta. Mmm...
Delis. Katz's Deli - a classic, if not the best, with surly workers and harsh neon lights. 2nd Avenue Deli - now on 3rd Avenue, with melt-in-your-mouth matzo ball soup and insanely good corned beef. And now, our new favorite, Mile End Deli in Carroll Gardens with its "smoked meat" sandwich (i.e. delectable pastrami) and its over-the-top Poutine (french fries with cheese curds and gravy).
Specialty food stores that enable obsessive foodies and cook-a-holics like me to do our thing. Stores that carry raw cheeses or Indian spices or fermented soy sauce or Marmite. Stores with artisan chocolate made from horse milk (no joke) or wild boar soppressata. Wine stores with real absinthe or boysenberry liqueur or that favorite wine from Alsace that I never thought I'd see again.
Coffee shops. Coffee shops that take coffee VERY seriously and make Starbucks seem like McDonald's. Lattes and cafe con leche and home-made granitas and iced coffees with ice cubes made out of coffee so your iced coffee NEVER GETS WATERY. Sigh...
The Grand Army Plaza farmer's market. Brimming with toddlers and dogs and surly foodies cutting in line to get their black raspberries and kale. A place to buy the best yogurt in the world. A place to get inspired to cook with local and seasonal ingredients. Sometimes a place with live music and puppet shows. A place to see friends and taste produce I've never heard of before.

OK. That's enough. I'm getting hungry.

Oh, and one other thing. Wonderful celebrity sitings that I'm floored that I forgot.

PAUL RUDD. Back when he was in transition, back before he was the major comedy superstar he is today. Sitting right in front of me and my friend, Alex, in a coffee shop in the West Village.
All the now stars from my old comedy scene days. Ed Helms, known as Andy on the office, once dated my roommate and was super sweet. Tina Fey, Amy Poeler, Jack McBrayer (from 30 Rock), Horatia Sanz were all people I saw in person.

OK. I think that's it. Soon this blog will return to its parenting roots. But I guess we just have to process this here little move first.

What WILL I Miss?

2010-07-01T17:24:00.000-07:00

We will only be Brooklyn inhabitants for six more days. And since today was a gorgeous, near-perfect Brooklyn day, it's time to make my list of things I WILL miss about living here.

Dave's family and our wonderful friends. Especially you, Alex. *Sniff*
Walking down the street to: the playground, the ice cream parlor, the pizza parlor, the store, the cafe, the park, the subway, the deli.
Running into so many wonderful friends everywhere we go, especially in the summer.
My school, PS 321 -- the colleagues, the kids, the parents of the kids, the administration, the lively and lovely building itself.
Unexpected, constant, accessible, sometimes free: book readings, performances, concerts, festivals, one-of-a-kind events.
Seeing famous people everywhere - John Turturro, Steve Buscemi, Salmon Rushdie, Padma Lakshmi, Susan Sarandon, Julia Roberts, Julianne Moore, Chloe Sevigny, Liv Tyler, Kevin Bacon, Ethan Hawke, Jonathan Safran Foer are all some of the ones I've spotted.
Coney Island. The American Museum of Natural History. The Bronx Zoo. Central Park. The Empire State Building. The Brooklyn Bridge. The Met. Lincoln Center. Times Square. The South Street Seaport. Some things are inimitable.
New York's incredibly rich history. There's nothing like teaching the Revolutionary War and then taking the students on a multitude of field trips relating to it - all within a couple of hours.
New York accents.
The unexpected and underrated friendliness, openness, and honesty of New Yorkers.
Broadway, Off-Broadway, and, possibly most of all, Off-Off-Broadway. We don't get to see many plays anymore, but I'm so glad they're out there.
Autumn in New York. There's a reason people wrote songs about it.
Summer in New York. It's crazy gross and sticky, but also filled with free concerts and events that would blow your mind.
Being able to tell people who treated you like dirt in high school that you live in New York City with a certain amount of snobbery.
Feeling like, if you can survive this, you can pretty much do anything.

New York, I'm sorry our relationship has been so rocky. You've changed me tremendously, and only for the better. This may not be goodbye forever, but it is goodbye for now. Let's part as friends.

What the Heck is Up?

2010-06-24T15:48:00.000-07:00

Random adorable picture of the Brooklyn Baby for no reason.

Hey there, Cyber World. I guess it's about time for an update re: where the heck we'll be living this summer...

Things have been insanely stressful and up-in-the-air here in the Brooklyn Baby Abode. Dave got called out of the blue by A Major Financial Publication with an almost-too-good-to-be-true job possibility here in NYC. So good, that we weren't sure what was going to happen regarding the move.

But, as it turns out, the opportunity WAS too good to be true, so we now officially have nothing holding us back from our move to Louisville, KY. Other than Dave's understandable trepidation, but I think it shall be surmounted.

So, here are the facts:

Stella and I fly out on July 8th.
Dave drives in a moving van on either the 8th or 9th.
We will be living in an amazing 2BR apartment in a centrally-located apartment complex with a dishwasher, its OWN LAUNDRY ROOM (as in - in the apartment itself), a deck, storage, duck ponds, 80 acres of land, a pool, a gym, as many parking spaces as we need, a security system, central air and heat, and a park with playgrounds and bike paths across the street. Oh, and the rent is a tad more than half our current rent.
I don't have a job yet, but I do have a few possibilities. This is the part of our plan that makes me crazy, but I guess I get it that nobody wants to hire me without meeting me.
Dave is still determining what he plans to do there: freelance, go back to school, change career paths, etc.

I'm pretty sure I would die of excitement about that fact that, after twelve years, I'll be living near most of my family again if I weren't so stressed out about the details. I will say that I can't believe their generosity when it comes to helping us find our apartment as well as their in-advance offers to help unpack, set up and babysit. (They may soon regret such generosity.)

So, in honor of the fact that I'll soon be leaving NYC, and due to the fact that I had one of those hot, NYC days filled with piss and vinegar and aggression that caused my blood pressure to rise to around 200/300, I will now entertain you with a list of things I will NOT miss about the Big Apple:

Having to park 6 blocks away - with groceries and a toddler.
Alternate side of the street parking.
Dripping with sweat after a hot, NYC day, and wiping myself off with a tissue to find that that sweat is black.
Walking up and down 3 flights of stairs with a 30 pound toddler, a 10 pound stroller and/or 5-10 pounds of groceries.
Subway trains that take 20 minutes to arrive and then are too packed to enter.
Young, able-bodied men who pretend not to see me when I need help ascending or descending the stairs with the stroller.
Traffic - no matter what time of day.
Constant horn-honking.
Aggressive driving.
Aggressive walking.
Carrying 40 pounds of laundry up and down 3 flights of stairs and down the street to do laundry. (Or rather, watching poor Dave do this.)
Grocery stores with aisles so small you can barely fit your cart in it. And the person standing in your way ignores you and refuses to move.
The smell of piss, garbage and dead rats in the summer. And sometimes the Spring, Fall and Winter.
Having an awesome idea of something fun to do, and then finding out that the rest of the 8 million New Yorkers had the same idea and got there first.
Having people cut in front of me in line at the grocery store, the pharmacy, the movie theater, Target, even the hippy-dippy farmer's market for crying out loud!
Paying way too much $ for everything, except flower arrangements and mani/pedis.
Feeling like I should apologize to store clerks for ruining their day by buying something.

That's it for now. Maybe later, after having a much nicer day, I'll make a list of things I'll miss. For now, that list only includes my friends. And good, cheap Thai food. But I've had a rough day.

To all our NYC friends - we hope to see you before we leave! To our KY friends - it won't be long. To all our loyal readers - what the HELL will we call this blog after we move?

Eavesdropping on Awesome Parenting

2010-06-16T11:12:00.000-07:00

If you're like me, you sometimes find yourself rolling your eyes at others' parenting skills (or lack thereof). It's all too easy to point fingers and find fault in the hand-smackers, the over-indulgers, the ignorers, the screamers, the baby-talkers.

(All the while, of course, trying to forget the crappy parenting moment I had myself just moments before.)

Lately, I'm trying to find more positive examples of parenting, scenarios to file in my "TO DO" file in my brain.

Yesterday, I stopped in a pharmacy to use the ATM. As I was waiting for my account to decide whether or not I was worthy of my $40 withdrawal, I overheard a little girl, around three or so, ask her dad for a coloring book.

Dad: Do you think you deserve the coloring book based on how you behaved today?

Girl: Um...uh huh?

Dad: Well, let's think. You poked me, you smacked me, and you whined when we had to leave the park. Do you think that's the kind of behavior that earns you a coloring book?

Girl: I don't know.

Dad: We came in here to get some water. Let's get our water, and tomorrow we'll see how you do. If you have a good day, we can come back and get a coloring book.

Girl: But I want it NOW!

Dad: You heard what I said. That's that. Let's get our water and go.

I was so impressed by the dad's cool demeanor, the way he got on her level and spoke to her respectfully and calmly, the way he reminded her of her actions and set consequences for them, and the way he stuck to his guns no matter what. This type of parenting is all too rare, as far as I can tell, and I really want to remember this for future reference. His daughter learned that she can't just behave any way she wants and get whatever she wants, she learned that her actions have consequences, but she also learned that she can have a second chance.

Have you seen any great parenting lately? Have you had any personal successes that you'd like to share lately. I'd love to hear about it, and add it to my mental file!

Evolution of a Food Snob

2010-06-13T17:14:00.000-07:00

Even uncooked, the spatchcocked chicken with lemon, thyme, onion and potatoes looks delicious.

An artful toddler plate.

This is what Stella does when she likes her food.

A pleased Brooklyn Baby Daddy.

The Brooklyn Baby Momma's plate.

It all started with Rachael Ray. Yes, Rachael Ray.

If my slightly flawed memory serves, it was my sister who told me to watch her, claiming that she was annoying yet irresistible, like pop music.

And I tuned in, making fun of her voice, of her abbreviations (EVOO), her cutesy vocabulary (sammy night), her rambling stories about herself and her handsome musician husband.

But, simultaneously, I also started cooking. I mean, her meals were easy enough, prepared in 30 minutes, and certainly better than the Amy's frozen pizzas and rice and beans Dave and I were accustomed to.

I considered myself a baker, a master of alchemy who could follow a recipe to a T and turn out fluffy, moist, rich, special-occasion food. I didn't cook. Cooking was too risky, too improvisational, too prone to disaster.

But Rachael Ray gave me confidence. She taught me how to chop vegetables quickly and accurately (while keeping most of my digits). She taught me how easy it is to make homemade dressing. She taught me how to bring a steak to room temperature before grilling it and how to correctly boil an egg.

Once I got comfortable, I became a bit more adventurous. I started watching another Food Network show, the Barefoot Contessa, and began accumulating exotic and expensive ingredients and spending hours to make complicated and delicious food indigenous to East Hampton: whole roast chicken with fennel and carrots; pancetta and fontina quiche; cheddar dill scones.

I made Alton Brown's famous turkey for Thanksgiving and soaked up the praises. I prepared a decadent Swiss shard manicotti from Giada Delaurentis and fluffed up with pride.

But my efforts at cooking were still pretty occasional and special. I enjoyed making things that were difficult and intense. I liked shopping for rare ingredients and following long recipes to the letter. I was still a baker at heart.

And then I had Stella. During those first sleepless, insane months, I barely cooked a thing. We ate a lot of frozen dishes from Trader Joe's and bowls of cereal.

But then Stella got started on finger food, and I knew that I wanted her to eat wholesome food, and to see her father and her mother doing the same.

A friend turned me onto a mom/foodie blogger whose recipes are easy, seasonal, delicious, and geared toward early eaters.

I had never really considered seasonality in my cooking before. I just bought whatever the recipe called for. But now I started perusing the farmer's markets, searching for the beets or kale or new potatoes that One Hungry Mama was raving about.

And then I became hooked. Hooked on eating what was in season, hooked on eating local foods, hooked on eating stuff I made myself, stuff that doesn't come from a box or a can, stuff that is whole and real and filled with vitamins and nutrients.

And it just took off from there. Once I started making all my own dressings, I couldn't stand the stuff from a bottle anymore. Once I made pancakes from scratch, it seemed like such a waste to buy the mix.

And, in all honesty, I was seduced by the taste. Real food, even if it's healthy mixtures of vegetables and lean proteins, tastes worlds better than anything pre-prepared.

And the more I made, the easier it got. And now, I cook dinner almost every night. And I love it.

We go to the Farmer's Market on Saturday morning and buy what looks good. Then I peruse my recipes and come with a menu for the coming week. We make a list of what else we need to get, do a little more shopping and then we're set. It's good for our wallets (no impulse buys, no food going bad), good for the environment (local foods travel less), good for the economy (I love people who choose to farm), and good for our bellies.

Look, I'm not trying to toot my own horn. I am lucky in that cooking/baking is my hobby, so I derive a lot of pleasure out of this endeavor. But I do wish, much like the adorably British Jamie Oliver, that people would realize how easy and cost effective it is to cook for yourself in the hopes that we can help our country's obesity problem, environmental problems, and economical problems.

So, in addition to my shout-outs to One Hungry Mama and Jamie Oliver, I must recommend my other source for culinary inspiration: Martha Stewart's Everyday Food. Anybody who's seeking easy, simple, seasonal, healthy dishes should subscribe to this delightful magazine. It arrives every month, and I excitedly clip out my favorites. Everything I've made has made the masses cheer, and is honestly as easy as can be. Oh, and as an added bonus, almost all the recipes use ingredients you've heard of that are easy to find.

Here's our current favorite, spatchcocked chicken, from Everyday Food. It's a way to make a whole chicken in 3o minutes. Seriously. And it includes three variations, although the first - lemon/thyme with new potatoes and onions is our favorite. Enjoy!

Qualified to Parent?

2010-06-09T12:10:00.000-07:00

I've decided to take my mind off myself a bit (due, in large part, to the slippery unpredictability and insanity of our lives right now). I've decided to address a topic I've been thinking about for a long time.

A couple of weeks ago, Dave and I met up with our dear friends, Coleen and Beth, to celebrate with some beers. Coleen, Beth's wife (if not by law then at least by devotion), had successfully adopted the daughter that Beth carried and gave birth to - Hazel. This was no small feat. They had been evaluated with a microscope, asked intensely personal (and, in my mind, irrelevant) questions, filled out mountains of paperwork and paid a boatload of money.

Although I was happy for Coleen, I couldn't help feeling slightly embittered at this celebration. Why should Beth's partner for life be required to adopt what is already her daughter?

In fact, it is such a difficult process that many folks, people not required to go through the same hurdles, ask why even bother?

Sadly, you have to bother, or else your child might go into someone else's custody should the birth parent pass away. Because, as we all know, same-sex partners have no freaking rights in our country.

Coleen has been Hazel's mom since birth. She changes her diapers, snuggles her, feeds her bottles of Beth's breast milk, wakes up with her, worries her head off about her, cries with delight upon looking at her. It is disgusting that the government feels the need to intervene and "qualify" her.

What would happen if dads in heterosexual relationships had to go through the same process? How many fathers would make the cut? How many wouldn't? Is it fair that they get the same parental rights without the weight gain, the sore nipples, the stretch marks, the gray hairs that come from pushing a watermelon out of an opening the size of a lemon?

Dave has been Stella's father since birth. His love for and devotion to her has matched mine every step of the way. No doubt he deserves to be her parent. I'm just glad he didn't have to "apply."

And I get that Dave's sperm led to Stella. I get that. But what about men who become fathers without the sperm donation? Men who have fertility problems or men who are with women when they give birth to another man's child. They are FATHERS, without any sort of qualification. And I have no problem with that.

Coleen and Beth aren't the only couple I know who've gone through this BS, either. My friends Shanie and Mary are amazing moms to Avner, one of Stella's buddies. I've taught many students with two moms or two dads at my school, and have never questioned any of the parents' devotion to their kids.

In fact, today, I read a student's writing piece about his family. He has two dads. His dad's adoptive sister was the surrogate parent, and he sees her regularly. His dads also foster children in dire need, and have adopted one of those boys, giving this child a younger brother. They are one of the most loving families I've ever known, so giving and so sweet. And their son, this student, is simply a marvel.

I don't know what time of bureaucratic BS they've had to go through, but it can't be pretty. So while we make some people apply and reapply and pay and strive to be parents, others get to parent without any qualifications at all. Others abuse or ignore or abandon their kids, while we make same-sex partners prove themselves to us a thousand ways.

It's just my opinion, but this type of treatment seems to be the opposite of "Family Values."

Matched by Incompatibility

2010-05-24T11:05:00.000-07:00

The other night, The Brooklyn Baby Daddy and I were watching America: The History of Us on the History Channel (which we HIGHLY recommend, even though, as Dave has noted, I'm unhappy with how infrequently women's stories are told). We saw one of those heart-warming, deliciously optimistic commercials for E-Harmony, the sight that matches people on different components of compatibility.

We've known people who've met their spouse through this site - lovely couples for whom we couldn't be happier. But it made me wonder, where would I be today if I'd met someone with whom I'm almost completely compatible?

Don't get me wrong - Dave and I are good together. But I'm not sure, especially in the beginning, you would have considered us "compatible."

Dave grew up in a Jewish family in New Jersey - basically a suburb of NYC.

I grew up in a Southern Baptist family in a town of 1,000 people in Kentucky.

Dave tends to be very laid back about life, realizing that should a disaster happen, there's probably not much he can do to stop it, so it isn't worth worrying about.

I obsess over my loved ones, demanding phone calls upon the landing of an airplane, freaking out if a person is 30 minutes late to meet me, tossing and turning in the middle of the night from fear that a meteor will blast right into Stella's room.

Dave cherishes his time alone, and has been known to sit and read for days on end, taking breaks only to use the restroom, snack and sleep.

I get ancy if I spend too much time alone, and want to chat almost constantly.

I could go on, but fear not - I won't.

For the eight plus years I've known Dave and the almost five that we've been wed, we've challenged each other, struggled against each other, fought with each other, and made up with each other. We've considered calling it quits, called each other names, gone to counseling, pretended nothing was wrong.

But somehow, maybe miraculously, we've made it to now. A time that isn't perfect, but a time that is (mostly) peaceful. A time that isn't devoid of work, but a time that is filled with love and joy.

And, perhaps best of all, we're both better people because of it.

If I'd met someone more like me, perhaps I would have delved deeper into my binge eating, getting to a weight that is unhealthy and dangerous, rather than recognizing when I'm full and making myself stop. If I'd met someone like me, maybe I would have gotten a bit out of control with my negativity and paranoia, rather than realizing people act out of their own situations 99% of their time, and not as a reaction to me. If I'd met someone like me, maybe I would have continued to have more and more angry outbursts, rather than learning to accept responsibility for my actions and speak to people respectfully, even when angry.

I needed a lot of work. I needed to be challenged, not allowed to go along as normal. Because, sadly, I was not normal.

But my evolution as a human wasn't complete with Dave. I had other things to learn -- things like life doesn't always follow my schedule, no matter how far in advance I planned things out. Things like I can't control others' actions, no matter how prepared and sweet and persuasive I am. Things like I can't be perfect - even, in any circumstance - no matter how hard I try.

These are the things that Stella taught me, just by being special little Stella. Spunky little Stella, with her own ways of doing things and her own brand of adorable that tempt you to give into her every whim. Are my daughter and I completely compatible? Probably not - and I'm grateful for it.

And last, but certainly not least, nobody would call New York City the most compatible city for someone like me. I get incredibly claustrophobic in crowds; New York City squeezes 8 million people on its cramped shores. I adore nature - rolling hills, streams, animals; despite its great parks, New York City remains mainly a landscape of steel and bricks. I am open and friendly and thrive on people who are the same; NYC is known for its rudeness - people who are too busy or jaded or pissed off to smile or say thank you. I love to live among order and beauty and convenience; my apartments have all been tiny and dingy and filled with complications (like a laundromat that's half a mile away).

But I'm so grateful I moved here nearly twelve years ago. There's a lot I needed to learn, and I think only a place as extreme and distinct as New York could have taught it to me.

I've learned to be much less naive and much more savvy. I've learned self-preservation and defense. I've learned to be assertive and unashamed to get what I want. I've learned to express my displeasure unabashedly, without worry that someone "won't like me." I've learned to do many things on my own: install an air conditioner, get a lease, get a job, go anywhere on the subway, audition for plays, talk to celebrities, haggle with salespeople. I've learned not to allow myself to be a victim.

And although I remain excited about and dedicated to our move, I am so happy that I followed my ex-boyfriend's advice and moved New York City all those years ago. I don't know if I made it here, but I do kind of feel like I can make it anywhere.

What He Said

2010-05-24T07:19:00.001-07:00

This wonderful blog entry by my husband, Dave Serchuk, is a must read (in my humble and completely unbiased opinion) for all expectant parents, new parents, experienced parents, people who might be parents one day, and people who enjoy back-seat-parenting others' children. I'm just sayin'...

NYC Bucket List

2010-05-19T06:10:00.000-07:00

Louisville is definitely our future. The ball is rolling now and can't be stopped.

That's not to say that it's all neatly wrapped up and topped with a lovely bow. The list of things we still need to do include:

Subletting our current apartment
Securing our Louisville apartment (for which I put down a $250 deposit, let me repeat -- $250 deposit - not $1700 deposit plus first and last month's rent, plus our passports and parents' home addresses in case things get out of hand)
ACTUALLY GETTING MY TEACHING JOB, which I'll need to land the apartment and pay for food for our daughter
Hiring movers that aren't so expensive as to completely negate the cheaper aspects of moving to Louisville

But we're getting really excited. Just chatting with my sister on the phone yesterday, we discussed how nice it will be to visit with each other in a casual, laid-back way, not constantly thinking "I only have one more day left with them," feeling the need to suck the marrow out of each and every moment. In twelve years, I haven't been able to just hang out with my family without feeling the melancholy that comes with knowing I'll be leaving them in a short while.

And I'm also so excited to try a new city. As huge as New York City is, I feel like I know it like the back of my hand, and I want something new. Perhaps it sounds odd that moving back to my home state will be new for me, but I don't really know Louisville all that well. I lived about an hour away, in a town of 1,000 people, and Louisville was our exotic big city. Just like many suburban New Jerseyans only know the areas of Manhattan that are easy to travel to, I only know a few parts of the 'Ville. I'm excited to get to know the rest.

Of course leaving New York after living here for 12 years remains a conflicted thing for me. I had a dream the other night that I was already in Kentucky, and I realized I'd forgotten to do some New York-y things before I left. I'm leaving out the more decidedly Dali-esque parts of the dream you don't need to know about, but rest assured: that is the gist of it.

So, this prompted me to make my NYC Bucket List. I have to work to keep it abbreviated, as we don't have a ton of time, and I can't take Stella along to all of these, but I really do want to try to do them all before July arrives. Here goes:

Go see the Mets play at CitiField. I love the Mets (and I look forward to eating Shake Shack food, as well).
Go back to the Bronx Zoo and see the lion cubs.
Go to Coney Island and the Aquarium.
Go (on my own) to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and pay homage to one of my favorite hangouts when I first moved here. How I love that museum.
Visit my old pals, the dinosaurs, at the American Museum of Natural History. (Stella will come along for that trip.)
Perform in the Moth Storytelling Slam one more time.
Walk around all my old neighborhoods: the East Village, the West Village, Hell's Kitchen - revisiting my old shops and parks and cafes - such as Cafe Dante off Washington Square Park, where I wrote my play, A Counterfeit Straight. (Yes, I wrote a play in a cafe, drinking lattes and munching on cannoli. I really went for the stereotype of the small-town-girl in the big city there.)
Go back to Central Park and revisit the big sights - Alice in Wonderland, the Zoo, the reservoir.
Have a real beach day - probably one of the Long Island beaches.
Hang out with as many of my wonderful New York friends as I can before the big day.
Eat my favorite NYC food. That's an entire list in and of itself.

Making lists soothes me, and if I can complete this one, I'll feel even more happy about our move. The problem is, I keep thinking of things to add to it, and there just isn't time for everything. Oh well. I guess we'll have to come back and visit a lot. Darn.

Cold Feet, Warm Heart

2010-05-12T06:32:00.001-07:00

I haven't experienced a roller coaster of emotions like this since I was going through puberty at the same time that my mom was entering menopause.

I just went through a mini-depression about leaving NYC. Yes, me. The one who's been belly-aching about how much she hates schlepping a stroller up and down subway stairs, the one who bitches about the sour disposition of shop-keeps, the one who would sell her kidney for a parking space so she can run to the grocery store without carrying bags of veggies three blocks to get home.

This is how I roll. I make decisions pretty quickly and easily. I'm the opposite of the Brooklyn Baby Daddy who can take a week to decide what flavor ice cream he'd like to eat. The guy who agonizes over decisions and makes pros and cons lists about the pros and cons lists he's made. The one who can drive me crazy because once he's suggested the possibility of Thai food for dinner, once I've convinced myself that I'm dying for Panang curry with tofu and vegetable spring rolls, he changes his mind and says he just wants a bowl of cereal.

But there is something to be said about Dave's method. He takes a while, he agonizes, but once he's committed to a decision - he's done. Me? I commit. Then I change my mind. Then I change it back. I cry, I moan, I worry.

I could really learn something from my husband.

So, for the past few weeks, I've tossed and turned at night, worried that I'm dragging my entire family away from something wonderful. I've sighed at the Statue of Liberty as we drive across the Brooklyn Bridge. I've looked at Time Out For Kids, marveling at the fact that we could visit any number of museums or zoos or beaches on any given day, just by hopping on the subway. I've watched Stella playing with kids of all imaginable races, religions, and ethnicities on the playground, worried that I'll be robbing her of the diversity I sought by moving here in the first place.

In short, I've been a hypocritical bummer.

But the other day it dawned on me that I've done this before, and that my gut instinct has always been right. I made the decision to move to NYC quickly and easily, then agonized over it after I'd already bought my plane ticket and arranged job interviews for myself. I decided to become a teacher, seemingly on a whim, then worried that I was going to hate it as well as screw up a whole generation of kids. I couldn't wait to get pregnant, and then once I was, I twisted myself up with worry, afraid that I would be a terrible, unstable mother.

Thank goodness I stuck with my initial instincts, because they led me to this wonderful place.

So, now I'm back where I need to be. My amazing brother and his wonderful wife are going to look at apartments and houses for us this weekend in Louisville, and sometimes I have to pinch myself because for about half of what we pay now (which is already a cheap rent for NYC), we'll be living in either house with a yard or a spacious apartment in a complex with a pool and gym. I think about how easy it will be to run errands (parking spots abound)! I think about how it's looking promising that I'll get hired at a struggling rural school on the outskirts of Louisville that has a new principal who wants to turn it around - totally my career dream.

And, most of all, I keep thinking about how we can pile in the car and go see my mom, my sister and her family, my brother and his wife, friends of mine from college and high school that I've rarely seen in twelve years. I think about how we are about to become part of a village, no longer a lone nuclear family in the middle of an enormous city.

We are about to embark on an entirely new journey as a family, and I'm just brimming with excitement. I'm fully, all-the-way committed, no more cold feet.

Time Travel

2010-05-03T06:07:00.001-07:00

In that time between waking and sleeping, strange things happen. Especially to me.

Last night, for example, I shot up in bed and proclaimed to the Brooklyn Baby Daddy that Cromwell, our cat, was glowing red with spots. As we both scrutinized Cromwell by the light of the moon, I realized that I was just dreaming/imagining it, and promptly drifted off to sleep, leaving Dave a bit dazed, to say the least.

Possibly even stranger than that, I sometimes forget where I am while in that state and assume that I'm back in my childhood bed in Kentucky, still a kid or preteen or teenager. This happened to me a few nights ago and again I shot up, panicking and scared.

Now is when this post gets a bit sci-fy, a bit Freaky Friday on you. So please, bear with me.

When I was around 16, I experienced one of the most traumatic years of my life. It's not exclusively my dirty laundry to air, but there was domestic trouble involved, a lot of yelling and instability, financial worries and a general sense of unhappiness and unease on the home front. Added to my already toiling hormones, this was not good. I gained weight (my standard response to stress, as evidenced by my current pot-belly), experienced a depression that made me look like a Cymbalta commercial, and even sort-of, kind-of, half-assedly (thank God) attempted suicide. (A stunt that landed me in the "guidance counselor's" office - the misogynist coach who needed more desk time to validate his job and told me that I'd make some man very happy one day, so I should just go ahead and live.)

I was desperately lonely, but only allowed myself to pursue romantic attractions to boys/men who were totally unavailable: my closeted gay best friend, the mopey drummer in the grunge garage band who barely noticed me, Keanu Reeves, and the like. I told myself that I was unlovable - too fat, too emotional, too bizarre to have a boyfriend. I figured that love was something I'd get later in life - when I'd lost the weight, moved away from the craziness, and "found" myself.

In the meanwhile, I'd lie in bed and pretend (this is about to get incredibly nerdy) that I could travel into the future - just for a day, and live 24 hours in my future self's skin. I'd imagine waking up in a fluffy white bed, rolling over to face an incredibly rugged and handsome man, snoozing blissfully. I'd look down at my body, marveling at my svelte belly and flawlessly tan skin. I'd look around the room, taking in its understated, elegant, cigarette-smoke-free luxury. Then my future husband, Paul or Raoul or Xavier (or even, sometimes, David) would roll over and do things to me that I'd only ever imagined or witnessed in R-rated movies at that time. Later, we'd have a delicious breakfast with our adorable kid(s) before going off to our amazing jobs (he did something incredibly lucrative and I was a Broadway actress).

I'm ashamed to tell you how many times I resorted to this fantasy as an escape from my life.

So, the other night as I drifted off, I had this uncanny feeling that I was being pulled back to the past, that 16 year old Randi was finally succeeding in trading places with her future self. And, as nuts as this may sound, for a moment I felt that I should just go, and let her experience my current life.

She might be a bit surprised. We do not live in the lap of luxury. I am not thin, nor an actress, nor do I have an easy, stress-free life. But all my dreams came true.

I'm in love with my husband, and he's good to me. We fight, like normal couples, but we've learned (and continue to learn) how to do so effectively and respectfully. We provide for ourselves and our family with no problem, even if we aren't rich. We have the most wonderful child we could have hoped for, and our lives our filled with love and happiness.

Past Randi would be relieved, overjoyed to be in my place. She probably wouldn't want to return.

And that's the thought that occurred to me before I drifted off, a shattering fear that if I did travel back and exchange places with my former self, that I wouldn't be able to get back here. That I'd be stuck there for another 18 years, waiting to get back to the life I so treasure right now.

And that's what I need to keep in mind on days when Stella won't stop fussing from the pain of teething, when the kids at my school are loud and unruly, when Dave and I argue over who should do the dishes, when I feel stress creep on me because Kentucky has not yet presented a job for me. This life may not be perfect, but it's all I hoped for, and I wouldn't trade it for anything.

Life Doesn't Stop...

2010-04-19T09:33:00.000-07:00

The Brooklyn Baby Daddy is an excellent children's performer.

The cake made my The Brooklyn Baby Momma, amateur cake boss.

Stella with Daddy and her cousins. And her beloved cupcake.

A happy birthday, indeed.

So, we made our decision about moving to Kentucky and we're feeling good about it, but of course we haven't really had a chance to think about it, or plan for it, because life continues to move forward at its thoroughbred pace.

Stella's birthday was last week, and I find it incredibly hard to believe that it was two long years ago that this miraculous person entered my life. This age is so adorable, so exciting, so enjoyable that we find ourselves looking for a way to live life in slow-motion. Terrible two's? Not when your child is a good sleeper, a good sharer, cleans up after herself, constantly wants to learn, shows off to make you laugh, and snuggles with you as you read her books.

Oops. I think I just sounded like the smug parents that almost drove me to homicide during the first year of Stella's life. So let me make this clear: Stella got to this wonderful stage mostly on her own, with little nudges from us. We are not uber-parents and we don't know it all.

But we are better than we used to be. And that is a very good thing.

My mom came up from Kentucky to be with us for Stella's birthday, and my heart almost can't take watching my daughter fall more and more deeply in love with my mom. It's so endearing to hear this little New York City kid call her grandmother "Mamaw." And it makes me so excited that we'll be moving closer to my family so these types of experiences will no longer be so few and far between.

But now I find myself filled with good old Southern superstition, and I don't want to talk about it anymore. For fear that somehow, it won't happen.

So, I'll say that it's so nice just to live life and not stress out about THIS MAJOR FAMILY DECISION anymore. Yes, I still need to find a job. So does Dave. And we need to find a place to live. And someone to take over our lease. And we have to hire movers.

But at least peace has been restored in the home. And we have an adorable little girl to keep us entertained.

1st Haircut and Other Life Altering Events

2010-04-12T18:02:00.000-07:00

Stella gets a sweet ride during her cut.

And she gets to watch Elmo!

The bangs caused some unhappiness.

The result is pretty darn cute!

Stella got her first haircut last Friday. As is typical for her, she was a screaming banshee all morning (she's getting the final few teeth in and she lets us know that it SUCKS), but then she was a completely calm angel for the hair stylist. See her cherubic little face in the pictures? Well, except when we went in for the bangs, but that annoys even the best of us.

Stella's hair has given us some grief for a while. She hates having it brushed and she pulls out every barrette and band we put in there, so it was constantly a tangled mess. Additionally, since she has a perpetually runny nose, it wasn't uncommon to find chunks of snot and boogers in her lustrous locks. Mmm...motherhood!

Unless, of course, she was at daycare, where she'd let the workers brush her hair and style it in increasingly complex and intricate ways. Braids, pigtails, buns on the head -- each one making me ridiculously jealous and insecure about my mothering abilities as they relate to coiffing.

So maybe that's the real reason we cut her hair.

Regardless, it's tres chic, n'est pas? And Stella loves it. In fact, she keeps checking herself out in the mirror and saying, "hair?"

Yep, this is the child the feminist gave birth to.

In other news, we're moving. To Louisville, KY. In July.

What? You think that's more important than the haircut? Obviously, you haven't seen the beauty that is Stella's 'do!

On the one hand, we're relieved to have finally made a decision. We're excited about a change of pace, the promised ease and affordability of life, the proximity to my family who've vowed to kidnap my kid with such frequency that we'll have the FBI on speed dial. I'm selfishly excited to inch toward educational reform in the Heartland, and I can't wait to be surrounded by Southern hospitality. And have a parking spot. And laundry. And a grocery with aisles big enough to let two carts pass each other unscathed.

But, of course, there is tremendous trepidation. Neither of us has jobs...yet. I have a lot of leads and a lot of people telling me encouraging things, but no job. I've filled out applications for three different school districts, each one insanely complicated and lengthy, and I'm in the process of transferring my teaching license. People tell me getting a teaching job ain't no thing, but I must admit, I feel half-crazy giving up a guaranteed full-time position at one of NYC's top public schools for maybe?- probably, no almost certainly a job. Maybe.

But school systems hire notoriously last-minute, so I must not bite my fingernails down. Even further.

And Dave's still up in the air about what he'll do there. There are some writing leads for him, too, but that field is experiencing major setbacks at the moment. Perhaps a career shift, perhaps going back to school? It remains to be seen.

And, of course, Brooklyn is incredibly gorgeous and seductive now that we've made a decision to leave. All the Spring flowers are in bloom, the weather is gentle and lulling, everyone is out and in a good mood, sidewalk cafes are bustling with delicious food and local beer, free outdoor events are popping up on every street corner.

But NYC has been my abusive boyfriend for 12 years. I know his game. He's all sweet and kind now, but the minute I enjoy it, the minute I trust it, our next door neighbor will start demolition work at 3am or our subway station will close for a month for repairs or some insane person will rub his junk up against me on a crowded train.

It's sad but true, and I'd venture to say that most every inhabitant of this city knows what I'm talking about.

The question is, how much will we miss all this lunacy when we're gone? Some late summer night in Kentucky, crickets chirping as we finish up the last bites of our outdoor BBQ dinner, Dave playing softly on his guitar, my mom tickling Stella and my nephew telling me about his day, will we secretly be longing for our old Brooklyn home, our old Brooklyn home, far away?

Note: This amazing haircut took place at Lulu's Cuts in Park Slope. Highly recommended for their personable staff, great cuts, and awesome toys by the Brooklyn Baby Family.

Insomnia

2010-04-04T21:13:00.000-07:00

Back in the seemingly endless days of waking every 1.5 hours to breastfeed, I never could have imagined a day like today: sleeping in until 9am, the whole family taking a 2 hour nap in the middle of the day, Stella asking to go to bed after a long afternoon of outdoor play at 7:30pm. And our precious, wonderful Stella, drifting off to sleep on her own, in her bed, me and Dave hanging out downstairs doing absolutely nothing to make it happen.

I also couldn't have imagined that I'd EVER have trouble sleeping again, not after realizing how precious it is, but here I am, driven by insomnia to read the Huffington Post, check my Facebook page obsessively, and add yet another blog entry for this week.

I stress ate some matzo (despite its toll on my digestive system), drank some diet soda (despite my wishes to consume mostly natural products and my fervent wish that it was really beer) and now I seek further distractions.

Because there are too many big decisions that must be made in mere days.

Because there is an endless eddy of things to worry about.

Because I miss so many people so profoundly that I don't know what to do with myself.

Because I need to have a sense of where my life is headed and that is the one thing I can't seem to get right now.

Because money is starting to become a major issue for us, and not in a good way.

Because I remind myself to count my blessings and then I feel overwhelmed by the enormous amount of blessings I have that I can't possibly deserve.

Because I love Dave and Stella so much that I think I'm going to burst right open and soil our already troubled laptop computer right here and now.

Because this love makes life sticky and complicated and amazing and totally worth living. But it can also make it hard to settle down and go to sleep.

Or maybe that's just because I slept too much already today.

Ghost of PPD Past

2010-04-02T09:04:00.001-07:00

Yesterday, as I was entering our couple's therapist's office for a one-on-one session, a woman about my age was leaving. She was setting up the frame part of a Snap and Go stroller outside the door and rushing back inside to get her newborn, asleep in his baby carrier.

The office is located up a few stairs, and the entrance door is heavy and doesn't stay open on its own. I asked her if I could help, and she replied, "no, thank you," her eyes on the floor, her face very pale. I held the door for her anyway, telling her I have one of my own and I know how hard the shuffle can be. Then I told her how precious her baby was.

"He's very new," she said, her voice almost monotone. She clicked the carrier into the stroller and started to walk away, her hair in her face.

I hesitated, then said after her, "I know how tough it can be. I really do. Good luck."

I must have looked like that a little less than two years ago, barely put together, obviously on the verge of cracking up at any given moment. And I remember thinking everyone must think there's something wrong with me for needing help, for being sad, for not ENJOYING EVERY SINGLE MOMENT OF MOTHERHOOD!!!

I wish I'd had the nerve to grab her by the shoulders and tell her it'll get better. I wish I could make her understand that she's not the only one going through this and that it's not her fault. I wish I could show her how much it would help her to allow others to do things for her, even things as simple as holding a door open or grabbing an end of her stroller when she's ascending or descending stairs. And I wish I could proselytize to her about the benefits of anti-depressants, and how there are amazing ones that are OK to use while breastfeeding.

But our therapist is a good woman, so hopefully she relayed all this to her anyway. I really hope so.

I think there should be a service in places like New York where many new parents are far away from their extended families. I'd be happy to go over to that woman's house for a few hours a week and watch her adorable newborn, giving her time to rest or read or cry or sit out at a cafe and drink coffee. Or beer. Or shots of tequila.

Anyway, I hope she can see past her gloom to enjoy the Spring that has finally sprung. And I thank God every single day that I emerged from the disease intact and stronger.

What's Best for the Child

2010-03-31T08:14:00.000-07:00

One of the most difficult aspects of parenting, as far as I can figure, is balancing personal ambitions with what's best for your child. And no matter what you do, either you or your family or the rest of the world thinks you've erred too far in one direction.

You work too many hours at your hotshot career at the expense of your family.

You let your children get away with bloody murder because you never tell them "no."

You make your children go to that crumby public school because you like your hipster neighborhood.

You toil at a soulless job so you can give your child a certain quality of life.

Dave and I really want to find that balance, that perfect harmony between doing everything in our power to give Stella the life she deserves while also modeling our own self-respect and personal drive at the same time.

It's not easy. We're not even sure it's possible.

Why? Because my personal ambition directly conflicts with Dave's personal ambition. And, all the while, we can't figure out what would be best for Stella.

I'm nearly certain that my career future lies in Kentucky. Especially after witnessing the angry, misinformed masses on the news amidst health-care reform, I know it is my duty to travel back to the rural South and reform education. I cannot sit idly by and watch America become more and more disjointed, this side against that side, "good" versus "evil," people using "facts" they heard from another person who heard it from another person to back up their thinking. People have to learn to think for themselves, to form their own opinions based on reality, to not hate people just because they disagree with them.

(And before you get angry at me, I know this happens on all sides of all issues. I'm not into making this a partisan thing. I'm just saying if you're going to be against health care reform [or whatever], have a real reason why and don't let your difference of opinion cause you to yell a racial slur or want to murder someone else. There. Let's see how many more Facebook friends I lose this time.)

There are also so many issues in rural areas that go ignored. Parents addicted to crank. Extreme poverty and malnourishment. Kids (really young kids) having to help work to support the family. I would really feel good about my time here on Earth if I could know that I left the state of education in a better place than I found it. I'd love it if every kid from a town of 1,000 people in the South could get the kind of education I received (because my parents were fanatical about it).

But Dave has dreams, too. Dreams of writing for a national publication, the kind that's based out of New York. Dreams of reaching a wide audience and informing them about issues that matter. Dreams of living an exciting and amazing life, changing the world in his own way, being surrounded by the hustle and bustle of the most vibrant place on the planet.

And his family is here. As much as I've missed my family the past 12 years, Dave has the same reservations about moving away from his. Not seeing his nieces grow up. Not being around should someone need him. Not being here for his sister with Down's Syndrome, for whom we are legal guardians.

And then there's Stella. What's best for her, and how can we know that it's best for her without a shadow of a doubt?

In terms of education, I lean toward the public schools in Louisville, KY, because the good public schools in New York are in overcrowded, insanely expensive neighborhoods. And should we get her into a good elementary school, she then has to apply (just like a high schooler to college) to a middle school, praying that her standardized test scores are good enough to get her into one of the few decent public middle schools because her parents have jobs that won't pay for private schools. And then we have to do it all over again for high school. And all the while, should we get her into a "good" school, she'll be surrounded by friends who have much more money than her, causing her poor mother to stress out about birthday parties and the bat mitzvah she'll one day have.

I also like the idea of her being able to play in a yard and have my family babysit her on more than a few occasions. And I also like the idea of a less stressful and more carefree life due to things like a parking spot, a washer/dryer in our house, less traffic and more available parking so we can drive to the grocery store and not schlep up and down 75 flights of stairs a day. It may sound selfish, but I do think Stella would benefit from having a less stressed-out mommy.

But Dave has many valid reasons for wanting to raise her here, too. He loves the diversity of New York and the massive Jewish population. He likes the access to museums and other cultural institutions, the prospect of an adolescence not filled with the isolation and loneliness that can come from living in the 'burbs. And he (and I) love our friends, and the community we've managed to become a part of here.

Maybe I shouldn't air our dirty laundry to the world, but I know we can't be the only family on earth dealing with such a conundrum.

And, yes, we've considered compromises, like living in Jersey, but there are a lot of reasons why we don't like them (Jersey's not cheap enough, I would teach in either a really wealthy suburban school or a really desperate urban school, and Dave's commute would be ridiculous.)

So, maybe I'm just trying to gain clarity by posting this entry. I'd appreciate it if people shied away from giving advice or telling us what's best, because this situation is already pretty difficult without us feeling pulled in 1,000 directions. Not to mention the fact that we have to figure this all out by NEXT WEEK because I have to let my school know what my plans are for next year, and I have many job applications for Kentucky that need to be finished ASAP. (No pressure or anything.)

The main thing I want Stella to see is how her parents can work together to figure out what's best for the family -- for the mom, for the dad, for her, for Cromwell and Talisker (the cats). I want her to see a loving couple that doesn't shy away from challenges but faces them head-on as a unified force. I want her to see that nothing in life in insurmountable, that any problem can be dealt with as long as you're surrounded by love and support.

I just hope she gets to learn all this while swinging on our porch swing in Louisville.

Shameless: Stella's B'day Wishlist

2010-03-23T06:48:00.000-07:00

Yep, I did this last year. And yes, it was just as shameless then.

Stella's birthday is coming up -- April 14th, and no, I can't friggin' believe that she'll be TWO -- and many friends and family have asked what she'd like. Since this is the central source of information, here it is. This is by no means a hint. We do not need stuff, thankfully. But if you want to get something for the girl and are stuck, this is for you.

Size 2T clothes, particularly Spring and Summery stuff. Stuff she can play and get dirty in. And some warm, footed PJ's.

Size 5 or 6 shoes. Particularly sneakers or crocs or sandals.

A swimsuit and other summer staples.

Books are always welcome. Feel free to contact me if you're not sure whether she has something or not. Curious George is HUGE with her right now. Elmo is still her buddy, and she loves Richard Scarry books. She's obsessed with numbers and colors, as well.

And then there are toys. We'd prefer not to have stuffed animals, but Stella would love other items like a play stroller, building toys, anything that doesn't require batteries and make tons of noise. She loves drums and other musical equipment. She also loves bath toys, particularly water-proof books.

Art supplies. And by art supplies I mean coloring books, crayons, finger paints, drawing paper, activity books, etc. And, of course, expensive canvases and some good quality oil paints.

And music. We'd REALLY love some good kids' music, and have none. They Might Be Giants or The Barenaked Ladies or The Laurie Berkner Band would be great.

I think that's a good start. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions. As always, your love is Stella's favorite thing anyway.

Now we return you back to your regularly scheduled blog.

Have We Come a Long Way, Baby?

2010-03-18T16:52:00.000-07:00

This is what a feminist looks like, sippy cup and all!

I can tell you the exact moment I became a feminist:

The first day of school, 8th grade, social studies class. My teacher, Mrs. Ryder, was a notorious Democrat in a land of Republicans. She even had the nerve to defend taxes to us Reagan-loving kids, telling us about all the important services that rely on those moneys.

Ah, that rebel Mrs. Ryder.

But the most incredible thing she ever did was pass out our American History books that fateful day and ask us to flip through them. "See how many pictures of women you can find in those books," she said, a sly grin on her face.

One. One little picture of Susan B. Anthony was all I found. Was all any of us found.

"So, do you think that Susan B. Anthony was the only one who had anything to do with American history?" she asked.

I my heart rate quicken. I felt my cheeks start to burn. And I felt the cogs in my brain start to turn. I. Was. PISSED.

From that moment on, both my BFF Amy and I proudly called ourselves "feminists." We'd write, "women rule" on our notes to each other, notes that dealt primarily with the boys we liked and whether they liked us back.

And although my family and friends poked fun at me and even tried to argue with me over the uselessness/offensiveness/ludicrousness of feminism, it was apparent to all that this was my destiny, that championing the causes of women was something that would stay with me from that point on, one day even leading me to a tiny feminist, mostly lesbian theater collective in the East Village of New York City.

I've written about the WOW Cafe Theater before because working there was one of the most important and pivotal moments of my life. I learned that there were many more issues affecting the lives of women than I knew about, global issues like genital mutilation and domestic issues like women STILL not getting paid the same amount of money for the same work as their male counterparts. And, equally importantly, I realized the importance of legalizing gay marriage, but again, that is a blog entry for another time. (I have to stop putting that blog entry off, I realize, but there's so much to talk about lately!)

But I also learned that feminism is a difficult concept to quantify and define. Is it having the same rights as men? Is it having specialized rights? Is it acting in a masculine way to overcome stereotypes? Is it embracing your femininity and maybe even using it for personal gain? Is it unnecessary now that we have the right to vote?

The conclusion I came to is that feminism means supporting women as they try to lead authentic and fulfilling lives and protecting them legally from discrimination or harm.

This means that it's fine that I love to bake and cook, that's it's cool that I tinker in knitting and sewing, that I'm not letting anybody down by having a traditionally feminine job such as elementary school teaching. I do those things because I choose to, not because I have to, because they bring me joy, connect me to my heritage, allow me to be creative, give me a chance to change the world. Not because society deemed those things appropriate or mandatory for me.

It means that it's fine that I pursued a master's degree, that I enjoy watching the NCAA tournament in the hopes that the University of Kentucky will win it all, that I make my opinions known when it comes to important political issues and that I take that hard-earned right to vote extremely seriously. These behaviors are no longer considered "male" and I am well within my rights to pursue them.

And finally, it means that I should feel free to take the subway home on a Thursday night without worrying that some guy is going to make aggressive and sexual remarks to me. It means that my career goals are as important as my husband's. And it means that I have the right to pursue my dreams and passions without feeling belittled, as in "oh, isn't it cute that this woman with her wittle ideas on her wittle blog wants to be taken seriously?"

I didn't realize how far we women still have to go and how ingrained sexism is in our culture until I became a stay at home mom in 2008.

Many educated moms make the choice to be stay at home parents these days. Even if it's a financial hardship, as it was for our family, many of us decide, for varying reasons, that it is something important enough to do. And, of course, in this economy, many women (and men) are stay at home parents out of circumstance, and they're just trying to make the best of it.

However, since we're shifting from a career to staying at home and parenting full-time, it can be a shocking and difficult adjustment. You find yourself missing time with colleagues, missing the intellectual work of your former job (which is different from the intellectual work of parenting full-time), missing the little moments to yourself while commuting or during coffee breaks. And, since a lot of us used to be writers in our former lives, we turn to blogging as a way to chronicle this incredible and transformative time, as a way of connecting with others rather than remaining isolated, as a way of expressing ourselves when a good chunk of our time is spent taking care of another.

So, why this long, rather unexpected rant rather than a new entry about Eastern-inspired recipes or tales of Stella's unbearable cuteness?

Because lately, moms who blog have been the source of much ridicule. The condescending attitude with which they are viewed just reeks of ingrained sexism, sexism that nobody thinks is sexism because it's just a part of the way our society is.

And, possibly worst of all, it's mainly coming from other women.

And this is what makes feminism so difficult. We're not technically a minority and our problems are not solely due to a dominating class. Our problems often come from ourselves and our misguided attempts to fit in to our preexisting patriarchal culture.

(Randi, this is not an undergraduate thesis. This is a blog. Reign yourself in, please.)

It all started with the article, "Honey, Don't Bother Mommy. I'm Too Busy Building My Brand." This article was written by a mom who blogs and was dealing with a topic that many of us find interesting: bloggers who try to build a brand and turn what they do into a business. However, this article was filed into the Fashion & Style section of the New York Times, not the business section, and often had a snarky tone that seemed to find it surprising that women would be entrepreneurial in such a way.

Look, I can't say it nearly as well as fellow mom blogger, Mom 101. In fact, I had no idea about the original article until I read her response and found myself intrigued and angry.

But that was just the beginning.

Then another mom blogger I know, Meredith Morgenstern Lopez, wrote her own wonderful response in The Huffington Post. And the comments on her Facebook page came pouring in. And some of them just reeked of sexism.

Sexism so deeply ingrained and subconscious that it was disguised as liberalism. *SHIVER*

Remarks like what would Betty Freidan think if she heard that many of us find being a stay-at-home mom harder than working outside of the home? I'd hope, if she's the woman I think she is, that she'd say, "You probably know what you're talking about, lady."

Perhaps I'm getting scattered. I do that when I'm angry. It keeps me from punching a hole in the wall.

But I'm so tired of this attitude that if I stay home with my child, I'm instantly an ignorant and indulgent person who concerns herself only with the volume of fecal matter I clean up in a day or how engorged my boobs are from breastfeeding. Or that I'm more valid now that I've realized that I'm a person who HAS to work outside the home for my sanity, because that means I'm doing a "real job." Or that I'm a crappier parent due to that realization, and that it's terrible that I'm letting someone else raise my child. Or that I'm so frivolous for blogging about how any of this makes me feel, since this is WOMEN'S BUSINESS, and that stuff is just SO DAMNED SILLY.

When men make the decision to stay home or are laid off, they are simply not viewed in the same matter. Nor are they judged as harshly if they go back to work. And, should a man find this time of his life amazing and worthy of writing about, he'd be applauded. And furthermore, should he decide to try to profit off of it, that would be considered industrious of him.

We women don't have the luxury of being viewed in that light. Unless you're the world-famous Dooce, a business woman who still has to deal with this crap but at least makes money off of it, people think you're being silly or terrible.

So, to conclude the most rambling of all my rants (and that's saying something), let me ask you this. Do people criticize the bloggers who created Stuff White People Like or Passive Aggressive Notes? These are people who found everyday occurrences funny and/or interesting, wrote about them, found they had a loyal following, then used that as a way to make money for themselves. Are they changing the world? Nope. But they make us laugh and keep us coming back for more.

If a mom can do that with her words, why is that funny or silly or ridiculous? At least we're also contributing to the future by raising aware and brilliant (and freaking adorable) offspring who'll make sure we get out of this environmental and financial mess, right?

Or am I just being a silly mom? Oops, gotta go, Stella's writing with crayon on the wall.

Camaraderie Curry

2010-03-11T14:53:00.000-08:00

Camaradarie Curry

I'm sure it's shocking to hear that a New Yorker has trust issues. Especially a New Yorker with a rocky childhood straight from the Oprah show and bladee bladee blue.

Anyhow, yes, I find it hard to trust others. To trust them to do what they say they're going to do. To trust that they really feel the way they say they feel. To trust that they're not trying to get something from me and really just want to be around me for my company.

I'm a fun one to be married to, I tell you.

Most of all, I find it hard to trust myself. As my mother will confirm, I've always been incredibly self-critical and ready to jump down my own throat. I'm constantly worried that I will screw everything up, which, of course, only causes me to make more mistakes.

Now that I'm getting up there in the age department, I'm forcing myself to trust more, no matter how uncomfortable it makes me. To trust that Dave really doesn't mind giving me a back rub after he's offered it to me. To trust that my friend will meet me at 16 Handles at 7pm and won't flake out on me. To trust that, after cooking almost every night for the past five years, I know what I'm doing and won't ruin dinner.

It's funny that the people who are helping me most in overcoming my trust issues are women, because women were the epicenter of my trust issues for most of my life. Starting around 4th grade when a girl would tell me she wanted to be my BFF on Monday and then declare by Friday that I was a fat, farting retard, I found it hard to know what other females' true intentions were.

So, whether warranted or not, I found myself deeply suspicious and often envious of other girls/women throughout my life. I projected all of my insecurities and unhappiness on them, moaning about how unfair life was that other girls were naturally skinny, naturally beautiful, naturally outgoing, naturally magnetic to the opposite gender.

But now, thankfully, I'm finding that my female friends are increasingly trustworthy and generous, interesting and motivational.

I've spoken about my high school friend Tiffanie on this blog before. Well, recently, she very sweetly posted a blog addressed to me on her food-a-file blog in an attempt to help me overcome my phobia of "throwing things together" for dinner and not using a recipe.

You can read her wonderful entry here. I had planned to write up her directions in a more strict recipe format, to create a shopping list, and then add the recipe to next week's menu. (Yes, we plan a menu for each week and create a shopping list for it. This is a great way to budget, folks, and not just a nerdy move.)

But then I realized that's not the spirit of what Tiffanie's trying to teach me. So I looked in my pantry and LOW AND BEHOLD, we had almost all the same stuff she had, with just a few differences. We had no ground lamb, but we're a bit meated out lately anyway, so we decided to go vegetarian. I don't carry fennel seeds, but I love cardamom and used it as a substitution. We had no white potatoes, but three lovely sweet potatoes. We had some leftover fresh ginger that I thought might be brighter than the powder. And finally, we had some green beans that were about to go south, and I had a hypothesis that this recipe could benefit from something crunchy anyhow.

I "threw it together" tonight, and the whole Brooklyn Baby Clan went wild! And I can't seem to stop patting myself on the back.

So, I'll post my adapted recipe below, or you can use Tiffanie's on her blog, or you can use this as a jumping off point to create something of your own.

And, as I've said before, check out the other food blogs I link to for inspiration and camaraderie. In particular, the Seriously Soupy blog on my list to the right hopes to be a community of soup-loving folks sharing their secrets, so please check it out and submit your soupy treasures.

So now, without further ado, my recipe for:

Camaraderie Curry (Not Really Curry but I Needed the Alliteration)

Ingredients:
brown rice
chicken stock
1 lb green beans, trimmed
3 medium sweet potatoes
1 large onion
1 jar of coconut milk
Butter
Kosher salt
1 tsp. Cumin
1 tsp. Coriander
1 - 2 T. fresh ginger
1 tsp. Turmeric
1/4 tsp. Cinnamon
1/4 tsp. Cardamom
1/8 - 1/4 tsp. Cayenne (we like it spicy)

Directions:
Cook brown rice to package directions. I used 1 cup chicken stock and 1 cup water for more flavor.

Chop onion and sweet potatoes in to small pieces. Put a couple tablespoons of butter in a Dutch oven or large pot and turn the heat to medium-low. Once the butter has melted, add the potatoes and onions. Cover and cook until the onions are translucent and the potatoes are starting to soften.

In the meanwhile, bring a small pot of water up to a rolling boil, salt liberally, and add green beans. Blanch them until they are just tender, then drain and submerge in ice water.

Turn up the heat to medium on the potato/onion mixture, stir and add all the spices. Cook for about 5 minutes. Pour in the can of coconut milk, bring up to a simmer and cover. Stirring occasionally, let this cook until the potatoes are tender. Add the green beans and stir, cooking an additional minute.

Enjoy!

The Lengths That I Will Go To...

2010-03-10T09:31:00.001-08:00

I recently saw a relatively crappy, box-office bomb of a movie that shall remain nameless, not only because I'm slightly embarrassed I rented it, but also because I'd be spoiling the ending for you, should you decide you want to rent the same piece of crapola.

Anyhow, it's a horrorish/sci-fi movie, and at the end, after a long, rambling, twisting plot-line, the parents in the movie have to make a choice: have the father shoot the mother in the heart, or allow their only child to live out the rest of his life without his senses of sight and hearing.

It's funny; where I am now in my life, that decision was a no-brainer. Shoot the mom, of course. How could she look at herself in the mirror, knowing what she did to her child, knowing she didn't sacrifice herself for the person she loves most in the world.

I guess that's how you know you're really a parent. When, suddenly, your own life is just MUCH less important than this other person's, and you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you'd do anything to protect him or her.

Well, it's a much more minor situation, but yesterday, I fell down the steps in our duplex. I was carrying Stella back downstairs after her nap, walking carefully as I always do, when suddenly, she shifted her weight on my hip, and the hand that normally rests on the handrail needed to come up to keep her from hitting her head on the wall. Then, in slow motion (this stuff always happens in slow motion), I felt my foot slide out from under me and I felt us both being hurled into the air.

Stella was on my right hip, and I was falling toward the right. The thought of all my weight crashing down on her was horrifying, so somehow, in the air, I shifted her to the front of my body, causing us to land on my hip, my back, and my elbow.

The moments following the fall were confusing, excruciating and terrifying. Stella began sobbing, and I had no clue if she was hurt or not. I couldn't move or feel my right arm, and I was worried that I was paralyzed from hitting my back so hard. The rest of my body was tingling intensely.

I used my left arm to hold Stella and comfort her, but I was on the verge of vomiting the entire time. I really wanted to check her, to make sure she was OK, but she wouldn't let me stop hugging her long enough.

Eventually, and quite abruptly, Stella pulled away from me, stopped crying, grabbed a book and asked me to read it to her. In my current state, I know that's adorable and hilarious, but at the time, it was even more confusing and disconcerting.

I dodged her, gave her a toy to distract her, then went to the bathroom in case I vomited. I didn't, but I saw that my right sleeve was ripped and my arm was bleeding everywhere. I tried to move it, and barely could.

I'm a lucky, lucky woman that I have a loving husband who rushed home to check on me and take care of Stella. And I'm a lucky, lucky woman that I feel much better today and can move my arm almost normally. I have two major bruises on my back and my elbow is still weird, but I'm going to be OK. And I'm luckiest of all that Stella doesn't have a scratch on her.

And I'm relieved to know that, even amidst a fall, I had the presence of mind to protect Stella.

I used to scream bloody murder every time I stubbed my toe. Now I've survived both natural labor and a pretty bad fall, both in the name of my daughter. I guess I'm growing.

The Call to Motherhood

2010-03-09T07:25:00.000-08:00

My Little Dream Come True

Believe it or not, I wasn't always sure I wanted to be a mom. This may come as a surprise to those whose babies I've held and rocked, parents whose children I've taught, people who currently read my Stella-obsessed blog entries and Facebook status updates.

I've always loved children, ever since I was one myself. Their openness, their enthusiasm, their loving nature -- I just revel in it. But I didn't feel the biological urge to have my own for many, many years.

My sister, Nora, bravely had a baby when she was a teenager. I was a few years older than her at the time -- 21 -- and completely shocked by the sheer amount of blood, sweat and tears that went into taking care of an infant. I was instantly, madly in love with my nephew, Daniel, but I was also floored by the volume and frequency of his tears and the amount of work it took to keep him alive and thriving. What a wake-up call, and natural form of birth control, that was. I did not ever, due to that experience, romanticize having a baby. And, consequently, didn't want one.

Until...well, a month before my wedding in 2005, I met my niece, Bethany. And then, something just clicked. I was 29 and in a stable relationship that would soon be legal in the eyes of society (since it was, luckily, a heterosexual relationship, but that's another blog entry).

I held that gorgeous lump of baby smoosh, and I knew I wanted to be a mom.

However, I was embarrassed to tell Dave. I was embarrassed that I, like the stereotype of a woman on the verge of her 30's, had a BIOLOGICAL CLOCK that decided to act up. I was embarrassed that I was an episode of Sex in the City, a completely typical woman prey to her hormones and society's expectations of her.

So, I didn't tell him. If communication is the cornerstone of a good marriage, ours was pretty shaky there for a while.

But the urge became silently stronger and stronger. I found myself ogling others' infants, smiling at their toddlers and waving at their preschoolers. In a city as suspicious as New York, this type of behavior is not welcomed.

I found myself fantasizing about how it would be to snuggle up with my son or daughter and read my favorite children's books. I found myself looking at my life -- the post-work drinks with friends, the nights of take-out Thai and rented movies, the weekends of sleeping-in and having an over-priced brunch at a restaurant with a one-hour wait -- and found it to be empty.

And it soon became clear to Dave that I had been bitten by the Mommy Bug.

Thankfully, he felt the same way, as we realized when a late period turned out to be just that -- a late period and nothing else. We weren't trying to get pregnant, and yet we were both secretly hoping I was. We both cried and held each other and realized we wanted to be parents.

And together we fantasized about family vacations, about instilling values such as empathy and open-mindedness and fairness in our offspring, about piling on the bed and tickling each other until we were red in the face.

We're lucky that after eight months of trying (which seemed, at the time, like eight years), we were blessed with a healthy pregnancy. We're lucky that Stella was born without complications and was a bouncing, thriving girl. And we're lucky that we survived the first year of her life, despite my post-partum depression, her lack of sleep, moving twice in 18 months, the lead-paint scare, the creepy (possibly homicidal) upstairs neighbor, the loss of Dave's job, the lack of family around to help us out.

But most of all, after almost two years of the blood, sweat and tears that scared me from having a baby in the first place, we're at the point of parenthood I always dreamed about. Sitting for hours on the couch, reading wonderful book after book. Taking Stella to destinations and watching her amazement and excitement. Giving her new foods to try and wiping her tears and reveling in her unexpected hugs and kisses.

Sometimes I want to pinch myself, to make sure this is all real, and not just a hormonal dream sent to me by my insistent BIOLOGICAL CLOCK.

I'm not saying life is perfect. There are still boxes of Cheerios spilled on the floor and temper tantrums at the grocery store and pages ripped out of library books, but the sweetness and excitement of watching this gorgeous, brilliant, wonderful person grow and learn each and every day makes me happy that I overcame my own silly restrictions for myself and realized that becoming a mom is worth the work, worth stepping out of my comfort zone, and a totally feminist act.

Writing It Down

2010-03-01T11:40:00.000-08:00

Loving the snow and the snowman.

Cuteness times 1,000.

The Brooklyn Baby Family at Disney World.

Stella nearly worshiping the parade.

Woody Allen has spoken at length about how his original dream was to be a musician. Becoming one of America's most iconic and successful film makers of all time was Plan B, when he realized his talent at the clarinet couldn't really cut it. (Although now people pay craploads of money to see him perform regularly in Manhattan for his less-than-perfect talent.)

I have always dreamt of being one of those beatific, zen-like people who populate yoga classes and the Park Slope Food Coop. Someone who rolls with what life gives her, who never seems frazzled, who is too wise and calm to let life's little mishaps drag her down from her ethereal perch.

I have friends like this, people I revere beyond belief. My friend (and doula at Stella's birth), Julie, a woman who can find the good in everyone and make lemonade from the most rotten, disgusting lemons you've ever seen, comes to mind. As does my friend from high school, Tiffanie, who even in those hormonal and turbulent days always seemed to know that life was composed of more than AP US History test scores, pimply straight-edge boys and college applications.

Tiffanie manages being a mother with apparent ease and grace, finding the beauty in each and every moment. l avidly read both her regular blog and her foodie blog where she details the gorgeous meals she throws together on a whim using what she grows herself and buys at her local Berkeley farmer's market. (Again, I wish I could throw food together, but that zen-like confidence makes me nervous, so I search Epicurious and Food Network for detailed recipes for almost every dish I make.)

One thing she does as a mother is to "write it down," to chronicle those day-to-day miracles that you're certain you'll never forget, but fear you might.

I know myself. I will never be zen-like, although I do aspire to take more yoga classes and eat more whole, organic foods. Although New York exasperates me, I sadly fit in with the neurotic, control-freak, Type-A vibe here.

But one thing I can do is slow down, look at my gorgeous daughter, revel in her existence and WRITE IT DOWN.

So, for your consideration, some daily miracles I've witnessed recently:

Saying, "Oh, hello Romwell," every time she sees our cat, Cromwell, in the most excited and joyful voice.
Dancing and singing along with the parade at Disney World while the other kids around us melted down.
Traveling to Florida like it's no big thing, sleeping like an angel and learning our hosts' names on day one.
Counting to ten almost obsessively. In fact, she does everything obsessively until she's an expert at it: learning the alphabet, learning colors, climbing stairs, singing songs. I guess that's one Type A trait she inherited that's not too bad.
Speaking of colors, whispering in a reverent voice, "All da colors" when she sees an assortment of them, then using my index finger to point them out and name them.
Speaking to my mom on the phone enthusiastically, saying "Mamaw" and singing songs for her. And, of course, telling her "I lub you."
Being obsessed with photos of her family members, especially those far away, and knowing their names even though she rarely sees them.
Grabbing a book and saying "da couch," leading either her father or me by the hand to the couch and snuggling up to us while we read.
Insisting we tickle her. And tickle her. And tickle her until I'm not sure she'll be able to continue breathing.
Hugging me, really hugging me, finally FINALLY FINALLY hugging me, squeezing my neck and giving me a precious pat on my back.
Mocking crying when we ask her what she always said as a baby.
Wanting to play dress up and play with a tea set, diapering her stuffed animals and loving the color pink, proving beyond a doubt that nature kicks nurture's butt, and that I was a fool to think I could mold my child into something. Which, of course, is a very good thing.

The Joy of Cooking

2010-02-15T17:19:00.000-08:00

Channa Masala -- A Brooklyn Baby Family Favorite

As I've mentioned before, much earlier in this blog, one way The Brooklyn Baby Family has survived a rough economy is by cooking our own meals. A lot. (This is explains how we've managed to survive Dave's layoff, despite what some consider our extravagant habits of buying organic milk for Stella and continuing to get haircuts. Ahem. That's all I'll say.)

Sometimes we find ourselves in a rut, I'm ashamed to say, making ourselves sick of black beans and rice and chicken/veggie stir fry.

However, after a while, we find some renewed energy and discover new and exciting recipes to try. And since we don't eat out a fraction as much as we used to, many of our favorite recipes tend to have a certain international flare.

So dear, dedicated readers, I'm going to share some of our favorites with you. They are mostly quite healthy, some are vegetarian, and almost all are easy and quick. I hope you enjoy them!

Oh, and don't forget the fabulous food blogs linked to on the right. They are responsible for much of my motivation.

1. Channa Masala -- A spicy, vegetarian Indian dish starring chick peas. This one is great on a cold, miserable day. (So, odds are good you could be making this one soon.)
2. Moroccan Skillet Chicken with Pine Nut Couscous -- This is Stella's number one, all-time favorite recipe. We omit the olives because we just find it to be too heavy a flavor for this dish. And yes, my foodie friends, this is a Rachael Ray recipe. Maybe you just need to get over yourself and admit that many of her recipes are tasty and easy and that's not a bad thing.
3. Pork (or Chicken) Chili Verde -- Chowmama. My absolute favorite food blog. Every recipe is winning, easy, healthy, sophisticated. You can't go wrong with any of them, but this is our current favorite. Not too spicy, but oh so flavorful. And really versatile -- great on rice, in tortillas, as a burrito, whatever. Another Stella fave.
4. Perfect Roast Chicken -- Yes, more chicken. Look, Stella eats chicken. Consistently. Which means we, as a family, gravitate toward chicken recipes, because otherwise she eats a lot of PB&J's. This is Ina Garten's masterpiece of a recipe. It takes a bit of time, but is so worth it. A Friday night Shabbas feast favorite.
5. Salmon Cakes with Creamy Ginger-Sesame Sauce -- This is good for a night you're craving Chinese food without the fat. Not one of Dave's faves, unfortunately, so we don't eat them too often. But, man, I love them!
6. Slow Cooker Red Lentil Dahl -- This is another vegetarian Indian favorite around here. And boy, is it easy and healthy!
7. Roasted Broccolini over Spinach Parmesan Polenta -- Or, as my mamaws might say, "Healthy grits." We made these tonight and they're delightfully decadent while still healthy.

Well, that's all I can think of for now. Feel free to post links to your favorite family recipes, too, as we're always looking to expand our repertoire.

Stay home, cook your own food, and then blow your wads of saved cash on some organic dairy and snazzy haircuts. Look, baby, you've earned it!

Careful what you wish for...

2010-02-08T06:03:00.000-08:00

Last week was...insane? Nope, not strong enough. Strenuous? Nah, too limp. Ri-flipping-diculous? Now we're getting warmer.

I remember when Stella was an infant - a shrieking, nurse-a-holic, non-sleeping infant - how I envied Dave his 9-5, Monday-Friday work schedule. How luxurious it seemed to slip on the subway with the paper, chat with people your own age and engage your mind, eat lunch at your own pace, sip coffees and munch apples, and just be yourself - nobody constantly needing you - for chunk of time each day.

And so, I found myself wishing on a star that I could go back to work and contribute financially, that I could have time alone, that I could remember the unique attributes that made Randi Randi again, and not just a woman who accidentally ran over people's feet with her stroller and had baby poop on her sweater.

And so, as has happened many times in my life, I was granted my wish, and promptly realized how naive I was.

Last week I worked my ass off. Don't get me wrong - I'm still one of the lucky, rare saps who LOVES her job and I'm so grateful to have money during what could be a very scary time for us. But...

I didn't realize how much I'd miss Stella. And how tired I'd be. And how guilty I'd feel every day when she cried as I said goodbye. And how much I'd crave sitting on the couch in my snuggie, watching episodes of The Jersey Shore on TV.

And I didn't realize that my immune system, so used to regular sleep (now that Stella is the uber-perfect-sleeping child) and relatively relaxing days, would FREAK OUT with my schedule.

Here was last week, in a nutshell:

Weekend: Two parties, I baked for each one.

Monday: 8:30 - 4:00, teach

4:15 - 6:30, two separate tutoring jobs, with a brisk jog between.

7:00 - 7:30, spend time with Stella, feel guilty

Tuesday: 8:30 - 4:00, substitute teach for a really challenging class

4:15 - 5:15, tutor

5:15 - 5:45, buy groceries

6:15 - 7:30, spend time with Stella, feel guilty

8:30 - 10:00, bake cupcakes for a Bklyn Bakes order

Wednesday: 8:30 - 4:00, teach

4:15 - 5:00, do more shopping with Dave

5:00 - 7:30, spend time with Stella, feel guilty

8:30 - 10:00, decorate cupcakes for a Bklyn Bakes order

Thursday: 7:30 - 9:00, sleep in, due to a night of coughing my lungs off

9:30, leave for Manhattan for a day I planned with my BFF weeks ago

10:00, deliver Bklyn Bakes order

10:30 - 4:00, hang out with my friend, have a great lunch, drink a glass of wine, feel INCREDIBLY GUILTY for spending my first day off without Stella

5:00 - 7:30, spend time with Stella, feel guilty.

9:00, crash in a heap.

Friday: sleep most of the day, due to incredible sickness, feel like a piece of sh*t for not spending more time with Stella

6:30, leave during Stella's dinner to go into Manhattan to perform, feel guilty

You get the idea, although I should report that the following weekend included more baking, more sickness, and an effort to visit in-laws and friends amidst the fog.

And today I'm back at work. Coughing my lungs out. Feeling guilty.

I know I'll figure this working mom thing out, and I know that most weeks won't be nearly as hectic as last week, but this is tough. The strangest thing is when I find myself really loving my jobs, really getting into the teaching/tutoring/baking groove, and realizing that I've forgotten, for a brief moment, that I'm a mom. And then I hate myself.

But, then again, the best thing is that, when I come home, Stella's face lights up like a sunrise, and I find that I have a new found abundance of energy and enthusiasm. She sits in my lap and I read and read and read to her, smelling her hair and relishing the weight of her on my body. I appreciate her.

I appreciate my life. My crazy, hectic, brimming with good stuff life.

What are YOU doing this Friday night?

2010-02-03T11:39:00.001-08:00

If you're in NYC, I know you're going to come see the Amazing Multi-Tasking Brooklyn Baby Momma perform in Mama D's Arts Bordello at Parkside Lounge in the LES (yes, MANHATTAN) at 8pm! It's a mere $5, is not parenthood-related (for all you hipster baby-haters), and will be sexy, sassy and hilarious.

Join me in pretending, for one night at least, that I'm in my bipolar, partying 20's once more!

Newest Apartment Saga, or The Last Two-Family House on the Left

2010-01-27T05:53:00.000-08:00

When the Brooklyn Baby Family escaped the Baltic Hell that was our last apartment, we really wanted to believe that we were starting fresh. We found a no-fee apartment through a friend, who in turn found it through a crunchy community bulletin board in Park Slope's famous Food Coop. The landladies were real people, not a corrupt mega-corporation run by the Russian mafia, and they seemed (and still do) like they really cared about us and wanted to create a nice space for us. They even put in new air conditioners and installed a dishwasher for us. The space was open and friendly, our downstairs neighbor was NORMAL and very kind, the neighborhood was awesome and convenient. And, possibly best of all, since we lived on the top floor, NO MANIAC, SERIAL-KILLER, UPSTAIRS NEIGHBORS TO SEND ME TO THE MENTAL HOSPITAL AGAIN. Oops, did I say again?

Ah, yes, we thought, we can put up our feet and stay a while.

And then, like the beginning of a formulaic horror movie, we began to notice...things. Little things. Things we thought we could shrug off.

Extremely loud rush-hour traffic that seemed to be right in our living room.

Mysterious swarms of bugs entering in through the skylights we raved about.

A random hole in the wall in the living room that we stuffed with foam insulation and duct taped over.

A bathroom door with a tricky lock that seemed to lock itself.

A crumbling ceiling around the in-wall air-conditioner in the bedroom.

A radiator in the living room that just didn't turn on. Ever.

And thing the things became bigger, more ominous, annoying as all hell.

A neighbor who started doing construction late at night.

The beloved dishwasher getting stuck in the middle of a cycle and leaving us with wet, crusty dishes.

Mysterious sounds, like two squirrels either screwing each other's brains out or murdering each other, INSIDE our ceiling (not on it).

Lack of insulation in Stella's room that caused it to be freezing cold the minute the heat goes off.

And, worst of all, a heating system that suddenly stopped working smack in the middle of -- you guessed it -- the biggest cold snap we've had yet.

I won't tell you the full story, because it's long and rambling and, dare I say it?, boring (that is, if you're not living it). But here's the bottom line.

Our landladies bought a brand new heating system last year that came with a warranty. The warranty guys came time and time again, replacing this, tweaking that, putting more oil in, adjusting it, bla bla bla. It would work for a day or two, then stop. Immediately our historic home from the 1800's with its gorgeous swiss cheese walls would become an igloo, and the most pyrophobic person on earth (me) would try to sleep at night while the ominous space heater kept her daughter warm.

Have I mentioned we have no fire escapes, and our upstairs windows (where we sleep) are too small for us to crawl out of? Not that I obsess about such things.

Things came to a head the night we turned on the space heater in Stella's room, opened her door (so as not to trap her with the fire should the worst happen), and locked the cats in the bedroom (so they wouldn't play their Brokeback Mountain cat games in her crib). We woke up to a freezing cold apartment (except for Stella's room, thank God), but when Dave tried to free the cats from the bathroom, the mysterious lock had locked itself. Dave heard nothing on the other side, and fearing that the room had become too cold for the poor felines, he ended up breaking the door. The cats were OK, but we, as a family, were dispirited.

The heat kept going off over and over, but I must say the landladies took it seriously and responded to us each time. Even recently, when we pleaded with them to get a new guy to look at it, as we feared the warranty guys (who sometimes missed appointments and seemed generally surly and clueless) weren't helping, they did it.

A pretty competent guy came, looked at every thing, messed with our radiators, etc. And, when he left, ALL our radiators worked and it seemed that finally, FINALLY, we were going to have some reliable heat this winter.

Until...our neighbor called us later to tell us the heater wasn't working again. It kept shutting itself off.

So, I didn't sleep at all last night, worried about the cats in the cold bathroom, worried about my daughter in our fire trap, worried about this life we were creating for ourselves, worried about all it would entail to truly change this life.

I've tried to stop whining on this blog, and honestly, we're handling this OK. But I'm 34 years old, and by golly, I'm ready for life to be a tad bit easier on us.

I'm ready to live in normal-ville, wherever that may be.

The Reluctant Disciplinarian

2010-01-25T11:20:00.000-08:00

As a teacher, you'd think disciplining my child would come naturally to me, wouldn't you? Well... it doesn't.

In fact, that was what I had the hardest time with as a teacher, back when I started out almost eight years ago. I wanted to be everyone's buddy, everyone's confidant, the lone adult who "got" these kids - their Michelle Pfeiffer in Dangerous Minds. Of course this led to the class working their butts off to get away with murder 24/7.

So then I switched gears and became the screaming banshee of a teacher, getting in kids' faces, turning red, and causing everyone's blood pressure to raise unnecessarily. (Oh, God, sometimes I wish I could just gather my first year of students, those first graders at PS 114 in the Bronx, and give them all enormous hugs and boxes of chocolates. They got a pretty crappy teacher that year, unprepared and emotional. Of course, now they're all around 14 and would think that's lame, but still...)

Over the years, I found the balance necessary to maintain order in a class.
1. Clear expectations of behavior.
2. Praise for good behavior.
3. Clear consequences for misbehavior that are followed each and every time.
4. Maintaining a calm, cool composure, no matter how upset the kids (or you) get.

It works. But the hardest part is when that sweet child who never misbehaves suddenly has a bad day and you have to call her parents. She starts sobbing, begging you please, just not this time! And you know she means it, that she'll never do it again, and you don't want to give bad news to her parents anyway, and wouldn't it just be easier to let it slide just this once?

But you can't. That's the deal. The same rules apply to everyone. And guess what? That kid lives, her parents live, you live, and now everyone in that class knows that you're fair and honest and mean business.

So now, what do you do when the child in question is an adorable almost-two year old, the sweetest kid you know, the light of your life, your very own offspring?

If you're me, you keep finding yourself thinking, oh, she's just having a bad day. Oh, this is just a developmental phase. Oh, maybe if I get her mind on something else we can avoid this situation. And, worst of all, maybe I won't even attempt this activity at all because I know she'll have a meltdown. (Which explains why I almost never go shopping with her, never turn on the TV to check the weather because she won't want me to turn it off, why I rarely go on long trips on the subway with my darling.)

I really don't want to become one of those mothers who's at her daughter's beckon call. It's bad for me, surely, as it rules my life and makes me feel frazzled. But it's also bad for Stella because it'll prevent her from learning to deal with disappointment, anger, and sadness, and might just create a kid who expects the world to revolve around her. (Believe me, I've had some experience with this type of child.)

So the Brooklyn Baby Daddy and I have started giving time outs and I'm frankly surprised that it's working. I'm staunchly against spanking and honestly, I used to be against time outs (it's a long story that harkens back to when I thought my ticket to hell would be purchased the minute I gave Stella an ounce of formula or let her fuss for a moment in the crib).

But every kid is different, and this works for her. The theatrical sympathy of The Happiest Toddler on the Block ("STELLA'S MAD THAT SHE CAN'T EAT ANOTHER COOKIE! SO MAD!"), the coddling, the constant looking for a way to distract her -- this all just made it worse. But once we taught her how to sit quietly in one spot for one minute (two minutes as of April 14th), she learned to both cooperate with our demands and dread the routine.

So, this is major work in progress, but now when she starts screaming because I won't let her spill the box of Cheerios all over the floor, I get on her level and warn her, "Stella, if you don't stop, we'll have to give you a time out." And she either stops or she doesn't.

The hard part is talking myself into actually following through when she doesn't, rather than reaching for the broom and bracing myself for a cleanup.

Multi-Tasking Momma

2010-01-20T06:01:00.000-08:00

I found it hard to post in the wake of the devastation in Haiti. Although I do love to complain from time to time, I've led quite the privileged life and I can't fathom the heartache and pain the people of Haiti are experiencing. We've done what we can, which is donate money, and I'm sure by this point you know how you can help, too. But still, it's hard to sit here in my cushy life and go on about trivial issues when people are literally surrounded by death and destruction. My heart goes out to them, to say the least.

But, still, our lives go on, and so blog I must.

Lately, the Brooklyn Baby Family has found itself in a bit of a slump. The weather outside is frightful, and since the Baby Daddy is still currently unemployed and I am only employed two days a week, we spend many days together, hanging out in our fairly small apartment, reading the same books to Stella, eating the same foods, doing the same chores, guiltily letting Stella watch Elmo when we get too tired to go on. Although I'm happily medicated at this point, I still felt myself begin to sink into the dark, swirling eddy of my emotions, and I knew it was time for a change. Sure, I'd prefer that change to be a move to a modern house in Kentucky with central heat and a parking spot and access to my family, but since that's not an option at the moment, I'll take what I can get.

First, I began a three-week cleanse. Over the holidays, I was basically training to be a competitive eater (my favorite categories were french fries, beer and red velvet cake), and I was dismayed to find that even my fat pants were suddenly tight on me. Worse than that was the fact that I woke up with zero energy and felt terrible -- headaches, stomach aches, back aches. I'm 34, but I would have sworn I was 85. A friend at school had told me about a cleanse she does each year to give her body a break. It consists of vegetables and fruit (most raw), a tiny bit of brown rice or lentils, water, and supplements. After 10 days, you can add a bit of lean protein, too.

Sure, it's extreme, but I needed a major wake up call. I'm almost halfway through, and I feel fabulous. I've lost 10 lbs and feel fantastic, even mentally (and that's quite the feat, I can tell you).

The only problem is I can't really exercise while on it, other than walking, so my goal to run and do yoga will have to wait another 11 days. But I'm on my way and I'm proud of myself. (But I must admit there've been times when I would have cut off my right arm for a powdered donut or some nachos. I'm just saying...)

I'm also going to get back into performing, after a too-long hiatus, and I'm starting it off with a bang, so to speak. After doing a string of mom-themed shows, I decided to show off my sassy side by performing a steamy bit in Mama D's Arts Bordello, a fantastic, hilarious variety show. The theme is "The Jet Set," and the entire show will feel like you're on an airplane. Want to know what I'm reading? You'll just have to get yourself there -- Friday, February 5th at Parkside Lounge on the Lower East Side (see the link for more details). I also plan to do at least one Moth reading a month, from this point on, since I loved it so much the first time.

The Brooklyn Baby Family is also in need of money, so we have a few plans on that front. I picked up two new tutoring jobs a week, but would really love a third (hint hint). I am officially now a sub at my school on the days I don't work, and Dave is interested in becoming a sub for the city, too (which he can do for up to 40 days/year without a teaching license). Dave is also busting his butt finding exciting freelance opportunities that we can tell you more about once they're solid. (Lest you forget, I am a superstitious Southerner).

But the venture I'm having the most fun with is my in-home bakery, Bklyn Bakes. I love to bake so much, but I find I only do it when a major special occasion is coming up. A friend gave me the idea to start selling my homemade cakes, cookies, brownies and the like to folks who don't find joy in measuring and sifting the way I do. I thought I'd just tell people about it, in the off-chance that they were interested, and two days later I have two solid orders and one possible order -- all for this weekend! I don't know how it's going to be, baking delicious cakes while on a cleansing diet (this is willpower like nobody has ever seen it), but I'm so excited to do what I love, get paid for it, and hopefully make someone's tummy very happy.

So that's the update on the Brooklyn Baby Empire. I'm glad we overcame our winter inertia and I'm sure little Stella is, too (my born traveller was about to commit matricide from staying in our boring apartment all day, every day). I guess it just goes to show you, when you're not happy, doing something is always better than doing nothing.

A Tale of Two Baby Mommas

2010-01-03T08:52:00.001-08:00

I have a feeling this post may veer into spiritual territory, something I rarely do because I don't like to alienate those who don't share my beliefs and also because I've always felt like my spiritual life is quite personal. I understand why others want to proclaim their views to the world, I really do, but for me, it's always felt kind of like telling people more than they'd like to know about what happens in the Brooklyn Momma/Daddy Bedroom. So, in advance, you have been warned.

We had an incredible trip to Kentucky to celebrate Christmas with my family. So incredible, in fact, that I didn't feel like separating myself from it for a single moment to blog. Sorry if I ruined everything for my dedicated readers for about two weeks.

It's hard to explain why it's so amazing to me how much I enjoy returning to Kentucky these days. Let's just say my family experienced quite a bit of turmoil for most of my life, and by the time I moved to NYC in 1998 (three weeks post college graduation), I felt like I was fleeing. There were constant arguments, lots of unhealthy behaviors and the feeling (whether self-imposed or not) that I didn't belong. I didn't belong in a small town, I didn't belong in Kentucky, I didn't belong with my family.

I'd had a short-lived, tumultuous relationship with a man in college who convinced me I was destined to move to New York. To be honest, until our romance, I figured I'd move to Nashville, possibly as far away as Atlanta, upon graduation. Although I was a theater (and French, don't forget the French! So practical!) major, I just didn't think I could cut it in the big apple.

But he sold me on it, and once he broke up with me -- with much emotion, embarrassing displays and gastro-intestinal problems on my part -- I wanted to go there, as much to prove a point to him as anything else.

And, to this day, I can't thank him enough for this.

I needed to show myself that I was capable -- capable of self-preservation, capable of living alone, capable of actually writing, producing and directing my own plays in New York City! And I did. I also developed an intensely accurate internal map of the subway system, learned how to not let anybody cut in front of me in line, and can tell you the best place to get pizza, sushi, bagels, and egg creams in the city.

And, of course, I made a circle of wonderful friends, met the love of my life and was blessed with a wonderful daughter here.

Amidst all of my self-discovery and actualization, my Kentucky family began to heal. My parents got their much-needed divorce, my mother threw herself into her career, my father moved to Las Vegas (a city that was made for him), my sister and one of my brothers met their soul-mates, and my other brother survived a brutal divorce and emerged a stronger, incredible father, brother and son.

Sometimes I feel like a major bum for not being there for anyone during any of this. My brother Jason and my sister Nora have been rocks for my mom, and my brother Kerry has taken excellent care of my dad, especially now that his health is fragile. What was I up to? Going into debt to produce my plays, moving apartments a million times, strolling around museums, and buying $13 cheeseburgers.

But it is what it is, and I can only work with the here and now. Which is what is so confusing.

The Brooklyn Baby Family found an apartment that is affordable, in a great neighborhood, and has given us great friends with kids Stella's age. I have a job teaching at possibly the best public school in the country. I can write and perform my work to real audiences in a variety of venues. Dave has the opportunity to possibly find a job writing for another major publication here in New York. And Stella can always have the amazing bragging right of being a native New Yorker.

And yet, and yet, my heart and my soul tell me we're not supposed to be here. That little voice keeps telling me that our lives were meant to be lived in Kentucky.

I don't know if you've ever read Paulo Coelho, author of The Alchemist. Some people think of him as too new agey, but I find his theories to completely match up with my instincts. He thinks we each have a purpose in life. However, we also have free will. God can give us little hints (omens, as he calls them), that we're on the right or wrong path to fulfill our destiny, but He can't flat-out tell us what to do.

For example, years ago, when I found myself, once more, without an apartment, I really wanted to move in with Dave. However, he wasn't ready for that commitment. I seriously considered breaking up with him at that point. But then, when I began to search for a place, I found only one apartment that was anywhere near my price range (this was back when NYC real estate was even more ridiculous than it is now). Guess where it was? Less than a block from Dave. That felt like an omen.

So, this long and rambling post leads me to this. When we were in Kentucky last week, life was blissfully easy and calm. Yes, I realize we were on vacation, but this goes beyond that. People were friendly and open. Grocery stores had what we needed and were easily accessible. My family babysat for me so Dave and I could be alone. Sigh. Easy. Not to mention the rolling hills and low cost of living and the fact that we never had to worry about where we'd park our car. But I digress.

Coming back to NYC on New Year's Day, by contrast, was an enormous smack in the face. We picked up our car from the long-term parking garage to find that the driver's side window wouldn't roll up. In winter. We began driving on the BQE (a crowded expressway), cold, January air blasting us in the face. Then we began to smell burning rubber. I looked in the side view mirror only to find that our entire back right wheel had separated from the rim and was rolling down the freeway.

Dave, to his immense credit, remained calm and pulled off on the nearest exit -- Metropolitan Avenue in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. However, as we approached the intersection at the bottom of the exit, the brakes failed, and Dave had to use the parking break to stop us from colliding with several other cars.

At this point, we were shaken up, but elated to be alive. Dave pulled into a Getty gas station. The minute he turned off the engine, the attendant approached us, and in very broken English told us we had to get off of the property. I explained that we just had an accident and needed to wait here for AAA. He had no sympathy, not even when I produced my adorable 20 month old daughter, so I grabbed my purse and stormed off to the nearest diner, but not before cursing in his face and saying things that I'm intensely ashamed of now.

I ordered Stella a $9 peanut butter and jelly sandwich and tried to breath. Although I told the waiter that we'd just had a wreck, when I started to cry, both he and the folks around us completely ignored me. Stella began to get restless, spilling her milk and throwing her food everywhere. It was late and she was ready for bed.

I called a car service, but when they arrived, Dave had trouble loading the car seat in, because they did not have the LATCH system and their seat belts were messed up. So Stella and I sat in the car, freezing because the window was broken, and waited for around an hour and 15 minutes for AAA to show up.

They finally did, and the angel working for them quickly fixed our window and jumped our engine (oh -- did I forget to mention that the car wouldn't start, either?). However, his jack wasn't working. So we had to wait another 15 minutes for his associate to bring us a jack and for him to change the tire.

This whole time, nobody stopped to ask us if we were OK. Passers-by seemed annoyed that our car was in their walking path. At some point, Dave asked a couple in a car if he could borrow their jack. The minute he turned his head, they sped away, yelling at him, "sorry man!"

Well, we finally got home, and put the little one to bed. Our wonderful friend, Julie, who'd been watching our cats, gave us some Hoppin' John and collard greens (a Southern tradition on New Year's Day), which we ate gratefully, both out of hunger and a desperation to turn 2010 around.

Yesterday, we stayed in our PJ's and watched TV all day, telling ourselves we needed to recuperate. That night, when I was ready to turn in, our next door neighbor began using a power saw and hammering. At 10:30 at night.

Which means construction has literally been surrounding us in the last three apartments.

Thankfully, this guy stopped when Dave went over there, unlike our last noisy neighbor, but really, COME ON!

So, please forgive me if this feels a bit new agey or whatnot, but this just feels like the final omen in a string of omens that we don't belong here. True, it would be scary to start all over, to make new friends, to find new jobs, to get a house, whatever. But I can't help but feel like that's exactly what we need to do.

Now, how to get the Brooklyn Baby Daddy to agree with me...and what the heck would we call our blogs?

Getting to Know You...

2009-12-02T06:07:00.000-08:00

I know a lot of cool, fellow parents. What makes them cool?

1. They have a kid/kids Stella's age.

2. They live close by.

3. They parent in a laid-back, non-judgmental way.

4. They are smart, funny and easy to talk to.

However, until recently, that was about all I knew about these people. In fact, in many cases, I had no idea what their names were, other than "Willa's mom" or "Sam's dad."

Meeting people is ridiculously easy when you're a new parent. People strike up conversations on the playground, moms ask for your number so you can arrange an indoor play-date on a crappy day, dads suggest a mid-day beer (with kids in tow, of course) via the local parent-centric message board.

I can't think of another situation, other than being a dog-owner perhaps, where people are more open to hanging out with you so frequently based on so little information. I mean, can you imagine being young and single, moving to a new neighborhood and just asking for someone's number that you meet at the coffee shop so you can just hang out? She'd think you were a crazy stalker.

But being a new parent is hard and lonely, especially if you're staying at home a significant amount of time. So it makes sense that our guards would be down, that our protective walls would tumble and we'd open ourselves up to meeting other folks in similar boats and hanging out.

What's strange, though, is how very little we know about each others' lives PRE-baby. As I hang out with my circle of friends more and more, their pasts are being revealed to me little by little and it's incredibly interesting, sometimes surprising, often quite intriguing.

There are people who used to work with celebrities. People who've written books -- the kind that have been published. People who've performed -- in a theater, on a screen, in bands. People who were wild and reckless. People who were activists and anarchists. People who once swore they'd never have kids.

And now they're the people swapping recipes for pumpkin muffins with me and discussing effective potty-training methods.

It reminds me a bit of Internet dating (not that I ever did that sort of thing before I met Dave...). You meet someone, you have chemistry, you enjoy each other's company. And, little by little, your pasts open up to each other, either like an onion or a blooming rose, depending on the details you learn and how you feel about them. And then you begin to view that person differently, as if you've just put on 3D glasses and all their dimensions are suddenly visible.

So, I maintain that I know a lot of cool parents. Not just because they see eye to eye with me about things like fostering creativity and developing consistent disciplinary measures and encouraging a love of literacy and cooking healthy, sustainable meals for our little ones. But also because they know a lot about politics and read interesting books and have travelled to amazing places and have degrees in crazy areas and can go head-to-head with me when discussing topics like religion or education reform or the role of feminism in American history.

Now I just have to find a way to keep learning more about them while keeping Stella from falling off the jungle gym and persuading her to eat her carrots.

Thankful-Palooza!

2009-11-25T11:15:00.000-08:00

I'm pretty sure that most of tonight and all of tomorrow will be dedicated to crafting the orgy of food we're planning for the holiday, so let me take this opportunity to cheese out.

I'm finding that the more I take time to really pause and appreciate what I have, the happier I am, and then the more I find to appreciate, and so on and so forth. It's a vicious, but delightful, cycle.

I think I spent a disproportionate amount of my youth feeling like a victim, worried about all the things others had that I was lacking -- a peaceful home life, more money, a better body, a boyfriend, better clothes, a larger and cooler circle of friends -- that now I feel it's time to make up for that and start basking in what I have.

And I have a lot.

When my 4th grade students have trouble coming up with ideas, I urge them to write it all down -- no order, no judging, no worries. So that's what I shall do for you now. Randi's Thankful List, great and small, trivial and important, in no particular order. Here goes!

I'm thankful for:

An amazing kid. The best kid I've ever met. A kid who makes me laugh constantly and awes me daily. More than I dreamt about -- and boy did I dream.
An amazing husband. Kind, loving, sexy, smart, hilarious. More than I dreamt about -- and boy did I dream.
A wonderful family, a family that's been through so much and is only stronger because of it. Renewed, changing, adapting relationships with each of them -- Mom, Dad, Kerry, Jason, Nora.
Nieces and nephews and cousins who push the boundaries of adorable. Daniel, Claire, Bethany, Sophia, Samantha, Kaitlyn, Gunner, Zander -- I love them all so much!
Wonderful in-laws -- loving and funny and accepting of their crazy daughter/sister-in-law.
A dishwasher. A dishwasher that's working just in time for Thanksgiving!
An apartment that has no crazy moron living above it. And new landlords that are decent human beings.
A job. A job I adore and will always adore. Let's call it a career, then. A career about which I'm passionate.
Anti-depressants.
Opportunities to write and perform, and the confidence to do so.
Being in my 30's, surviving everything that came before and finally feeling comfortable in my skin.
My health and the health of those I love.
Pumpkin pie. Which will be consumed tomorrow. In mass quantities.
Having a husband who's a talented financial planner, so even though he's unemployed I know we're secure.
Stella's improved sleep. It's not perfect, it'll never be perfect, but after what we endured, we'll never take it for granted again.
Incredible friends who are there for us -- there to celebrate, there to lend a hand, there to lend an ear, there to babysit.
Stella's daycare. Lovely workers, sweet kids, Stella loves it.
Flannel sheets.
Bourbon. Zinfandel and cabernet sauvingnon. Stouts, porters, and amber ales. Coffee. Spiced apple cider. Hot chocolate, when I'm feeling particularly naughty.
My chef's knife. My food processor. My new, very sharp grater. The growing repertoire of delicious, easy, cost-effective recipes.
Facebook. I love Facebook. I love spying on others' lives. Especially their pictures.
My neighbors and their adorable offspring.
The ability to visit my family in Kentucky and escape New York.
The ability to have family visit me and show off New York.
Having a husband who picks me and Stella up in the car now that he's not working and on crappy days like today.
Not having to travel on Thanksgiving!

There are so many more, but I worry I'd be pushing the boundaries of schmaltz if I go any further. I will post pictures of our food-stravaganza tomorrow at a later day. I hope you have a lovely Thanksgiving with you and yours!

Oh, Well (Moth-Related)

2009-11-18T16:35:00.000-08:00

I had grand plans of going to tomorrow's Moth StorySlam in Manhattan. The theme is "Lost," and that reminded me of one of my most interesting stories.

So, today I sat down and typed it up. It was an incredibly easy story for me -- flowing like river water -- and I knew I'd be able to commit it to memory in a snap.

Unfortunately, when I told Dave of my grand plans, he reminded me that tomorrow night he'll be busy fighting against our old landlord, Kensington Imperial, in small claims court. We're hoping to be compensated for moving and realty fees after the nightmare we went through with Douchebag Upstairs Neighbor (among other things).

So, yeah, that takes priority. But since I think this is a fairly interesting story, I'm posting it here for you all. It's not necessarily related to motherhood, unless you think about what it must have been like for my poor mama. (Oh please oh please oh please, Stella, have more sense than I did.)

I do plan on going to the November 30th Moth StorySlam, though, as the theme is "Cars" and I've already written a great piece about my old ex-boyfriend, best-friend, eventually de-closeted gay buddy, Jamie. I really hope they pick my name out so I can tell it!

For now, enjoy! Oh, and DON'T try this at home!

*****

Lost by Randi Skaggs

"Are you lost?"

It was a question I was used to hearing. I was a fresh-faced, lily-white girl from Kentucky living in the sketchiest part of Newark, New Jersey. I looked like I didn't belong.

But I was used to hearing the question with either faint sarcasm or genuine concern. The way this man asked it, I knew it was meant to be threatening.

"No, thank you, I live here. I'm just waiting here until it's time to catch my bus."

To get home from the city, I had to take a train to a bus. The bus that took me to my apartment boarded in front of a homeless shelter where drug addicts gathered to call me an assortment of names reminding me of my race, my gender, my weight, my newbie status in the big, bad city. I had decided that, although the train station could be deserted at night, it was a safer bet than crazy-land.

This night, I discovered that I bet wrong.

It was close to midnight, and I had just come back after a night of unpaid, gorilla feminist theater in the East Village. All I wanted was to go home, eat a little mac and cheese, watch a little TV, and crash on my full-sized mattress which was the only furniture I owned. I frankly didn't have time for this guy.

But he had time for me.

He plopped down next to me on the bench, and I could smell the scent of cheap alcohol, cigarettes, and body odor. He stared at me so intently that I knew he would not be deterred by my pretending to read the latest issue of Time Out New York.

"I need some money." It wasn't a request.

"Um, let's see." I dug out $.58 from my purse and handed it to him. I might as well have slapped him the face.

"What the fuck can I do with this?" His disgust didn't stop him from putting it in his pocket.

"It's all I have. I'm sorry."

"Do you have an ATM card? There's an ATM right over there." He gestured toward the dark oblivion past my sketchy bus stop.

"Um, I don't feel comfortable going with you to the ATM. And I really don't have enough money to give you denominations of 20."

Denominations of 20? How stereotypically nerdy did I sound?

"Oh, I bet you do. I think we should go find out exactly how much money you have right now."

My heart began to pound. This was the situation my mom swore would happen to me, the reason why she begged me to come home every night when she phoned. There was absolutely nobody else on this platform, and this guy was huge. I could scream, sure, but I'd be yet another voice pleading for help in the stark, Newark air. I was trapped.

Making matters worse, the guy leaned in close to me and whispered, "you wouldn't be the first person I killed." My life flashed before my eyes -- my short, ill-spent, overly-academic, still-a-virgin-at-age-23 life, and I knew I had to do something.

I searched through my bag, looking for any weapon at all, but all I could find were my apartment keys and my playwright's notebook. I considered trying to gouge his eyes out with the keys, or maybe bore him to tears with my ideas for my one-woman show, but I feared that I'd just piss him off further.

It was then I realized I had no other choice.

I began to pour my heart out to him, as if he were my best girlfriend and not my potential murderer. I told him how I moved to New York City from a small town in Kentucky with $1,000 in my pocket that was gone in less than two weeks. I told him how I worked for a tyrant of a boss at a French-speaking theater, making $250/week. I told him how my family had no money to help me out, that I put myself through college with scholarships and hard work, that I came to New York because of a dream to be something, and this is why I lived alone in Newark, New Jersey. I told him how lonely I was, that maybe this was all a mistake, that maybe I could never cut it in the big city. I told him how scared I was, that I didn't want to die before I'd actually accomplished any of my dreams. I told him, yes I did, how fucked up my family life was, and that I couldn't bare the thought of both giving up on my dream and having to back there again. I told him that even if he did force me to drain my account, he'd find that I only had a little over $7 to my name, which is why I ate ramen for lunch that day. I told him that I thought God had a purpose for me here, but I was beginning to question it, seeing how fucking difficult everything was.

When I looked up, expecting to be raped or punched or shot in the face, I saw that the guy was crying. Big, wet, slobbery tears running down his face. It made him smell even more alcoholic.

"God bless you, honey," he said, handing me back my $.58. "Don't give up on your dream, OK?"

I started to cry, too, out of relief, disbelief, profound melancholy from the complicated life I'd been living, a thought that maybe this was all fate, kismet, serendipity. He gave me a stinky, sweaty hug and walked off into the night.

I ran to my bus stop, relieved to find the crowd of drug-laced, rowdy folks, and boarded the bus home. The next day, I purchased a canister of mace and started a cab fund for the nights I arrived home after 8pm.

And while I didn't give up on my dream, I did give up on Newark.

Weighing In

2009-11-17T09:13:00.000-08:00

You can't tell just by looking at me how much work that took, can you?

Mere hours before I went into labor (with my momma).

Trying to love where I am now. (This is my friend, Katie. No, I don't hate her for being tiny and cute.)

The thinnest I've ever been in my life was the week leading up to my wedding and about three days afterward. I weighed 138lbs, and was a size 4. My boobs, once the most ample part of me, were down to a 34A.

How did I go from 230 lbs in 1999 to almost a hundred pounds lighter a mere 6 years later?

At first, it was the Atkins diet combined with intense work as a first year teacher in the South Bronx and grad school. I dropped a good 50 - 60 lbs within a few months that way, mostly because I didn't have time to worry about food whilst writing 20-page term papers and designing lesson plans for 1st graders who threatened suicide and punched each other in the face.

Then, of course, it got harder. I found the Atkins diet almost impossible to maintain (there's only so much mozerella-wrapped bacon a girl can eat), so I switched to the South Beach diet and started exercising more often. I discovered that I could actually run and that, somehow, I enjoyed it. That got me to a healthy 155 lbs and a sexy size 8.

Of course, though, begin the perfectionist lunatic I am, I decided that wasn't thin enough for my wedding. I mean, this was my day to show that world that I, Randi Lane Skaggs, could be a skinny bitch, too! It was my day to make all those boys who turned me down in high school and college smack themselves, then plop down on their beds and cry. It was my day to make all the pretty girls who'd found a way get a dig in on me (like expressing surprise that those pants came in my size) feel like the old, fat hags they'd become.

Ah, how enlightened I was!

So I cut down on my eating. Way way down. Like salads and fruit only, with absolutely no food after 6pm. I didn't drink alcohol or caffeine at all. I nearly drowned myself with water. And then, when that didn't work well enough, I resorted to incredibly unhealthy, teenager-esque eating disorders to make sure my calorie intake was as minuscule as possible. Yep, you know what I'm talking about.

I went from running a couple of miles three times a week to running 4.5 miles 4 to 5 times a week, with intensive weight training on the days between. I watched my weight slowly crawl down to 150, 145, 140, and finally down to 138 lbs.

Was I happy? Nope. My dream was to be 125lbs and a size 2. I had become clinically insane, you see. People in my family just can't get that little.

A week into our honeymoon, I abandoned my weight-loss program. I drank delicious Scottish beer and indulged in blood sausages and fried everything. I put on a few pounds and although I was a bit disappointed in myself, I realized I was much happier to be a bigger size and actually live life.

And then I got pregnant. I was overjoyed when I peed on that stick. But I did feel worried. I knew that gaining weight comes all too easily and getting it off does not. I sternly told myself that I would NOT go crazy and gain too much weight.

And, at first, I didn't. I had to start eating at night, just crackers, to combat my mild heartburn. And I had a weird revulsion to vegetables in my first trimester that caused me to eat more carbs than normal. But I stayed more or less on track.

As my pregnancy progressed, though, I fell back into old habits. Bowls of cereal at night. Bread with nutella as a snack. French fries with my sandwich rather than steamed veggies. I kept telling myself that I was eating for two, that I was burning 300 extra calories per day, but I knew I was fooling myself.

And I just stopped exercising altogether. I had some weird fear that I would hurt the baby by bouncing too much, that I would actually give my fetus shaken baby syndrome before she was even born, so my prenatal yoga video gathered dust and the folks at the YMCA gradually forgot my face.

And, by the time Stella was born, I'd gained a whopping 60lbs. When they announced that her weight was 7.1lbs, I called them liars. I was certain she had to represent at least 30lbs of my weight gain.

But some of the weight came off, slowly. The miracle breastfeeding weight-loss that La Leche League promised me never materialized. Although Stella ate nearly constantly, morning, noon and night, the only thing that got the weight off was dieting and exercise.

Some people told me that I'd probably be one of those women who loses tons of weight after she weans, but instead I gained 10lbs. I really don't know how to break it to people that weight doesn't just come off me -- it takes focused and intense work.

I do accept responsibility for myself, though. From time to time, I fall into terrible eating habits. I can eat compulsively when upset, and we've had more than our fair share of things to be upset about in the past year. Can I just tell you how I wish I was one of those people addicted to exercise? If so, I'd be running my first marathon by now.

Speaking of exercise, I am finding that incredibly hard to work into my day. I was running in the mornings, but now that it's cold, I find myself making every excuse in the book not to. And we don't have the cash for a gym membership at the moment. I guess I have to suck it up and go running in my sweatshirt and hat and scarf and mittens, dreaming of the steaming cup of coffee waiting for me at the end.

Why do I bring up weight? Because I'm appalled at how happy I was to find that I'd dropped 5lbs in a week this morning. Sure, part of that is we're eating healthier, but most of that is attributed to the fact that I've been crazy sick and have just stopped eating.

I mean do I really want to be one of those predictably morbid women who celebrates when a virus causes her to drop 5lbs?

Although I have a target weight and a target size, and although I think eating a healthy diet and exercising are important, I really want to find a way to be happy with who I am right now. I want Stella to see her mom as a confident woman who loves herself and exhibits good habits. I never want her to overhear me lamenting my jiggly thighs or pondering the cost of Jenny Craig. Because it'll break my heart if I ever overhear her saying the same.

Life isn't fair.

2009-11-14T09:16:00.000-08:00

Mt. Dishmore -- my nemesis

Look how she savors that ice cream. Gah!

Is it illegal to kidnap your college roommate?

Look how good she is with Stella! Wouldn't she make a natural babysitter?

This may come as a shock to you, but life isn't fair. No, seriously. It isn't.

If life were fair, the more cooking you did, the less cleaning you'd have to do. I love to cook and hate to clean, so I'd create homemade goodies from morn-to-night, just so I could get out of doing the dishes and scrubbing the toilet. And if you were one of those crazy people who doesn't like to cook, you could clean all the time and your food would magically present itself on the table. Instead, the more cooking you do, the more cleaning you have to do, which makes you bitter toward the Moroccan Chicken and Couscous when it's time to scrape the pan.

If life were fair, my doctor would tell me to eat ice cream, just like Stella's did. Her weight had fallen a bit, so the doc said do what it takes to get it back, even if it means letting her eat ice cream. Meanwhile, I don't eat ice cream, or fast food, or snacks, or much of anything it seems, and yet my weight doesn't budge.

If life were fair, my best friend from college would live here, not Florida. We would see each other at least once a week, not once a year, if we're lucky. She might even offer to babysit for us for free every once in a while.

I'm really not bitter. I just wanted an excuse to share some crazy and cute photos. Life is way more fair for us than for others, since our health is good, we have a roof over our heads, and we still (for the time being) have health insurance.

And life will be a hell of a lot more fair next week when our dishwasher is installed, and I can officially tell Mt. Dishmore to suck it.

Aunt Barbie

2009-11-09T05:58:00.001-08:00

Stella's Bubbie and Aunt Barbie

Stella goofing off at the Big K.

I couldn't resist.

The Brooklyn Baby Daddy and his sister.

Stella and Aunt Barbie (and Bubbie in the background) playing.

For the first time in her 18 1/2 months on this planet, Stella met her Aunt Barbie.

Barbie, or Barbara for more formal folk, is Dave's older sister. She has Down's Syndrome and lives a solid two hour drive from NYC in South Jersey, in a group home. Although we make a vow every year to see her much more, it seems that we always just manage the annual trip down, around or just after Halloween, when we take Barbie out for a lunch and then a mini-shopping-spree at the nearby mall.

Barbie is a complete gem. The minute we walk in the door, even though she only sees us once a year, she begins shrieking in absolute delight, "I'M HAPPY!" She remembers all of our names and never ceases to give us each a big, hearty hug. Although she is technically Jewish, she is obsessed with Christmas trees and Santa Claus, and loves to talk about what she's going to get for the holiday (which is almost always a fancy watch). She is warm and cuddly and non-judgmental and I wish I could see her at least once a week, selfishly, because she makes me so damned happy.

It was important to me that Stella meet Barbie as early as possible and then continue to see her as often as possible. Growing up, my parents had two separate sets of friends whose sons had Down's Syndrome. They were around my age, and I played with them from as far back as I can remember.

In fact, I remember one time that I was playing with Chuck, one of the two boys. I was around five, and suddenly it dawned on me that Chuck was different. When he and his family left, I went to my mom and said, "Mom, why do Chuck's eyes always look tired?"

My mom replied, "Chuck is a little different than you. Although is body will grow, just like yours, his mind will stay younger than yours. Even when he's a man, he'll feel like a kid inside."

I remember thinking, oh neat! I was even, if memory serves, a bit jealous. But never, not once in my entire life, was I afraid of mentally challenged people nor did I ever make fun of them.

The part of Kentucky where I grew up is not known for its diversity. Almost everyone is white, and a common question is "Which church do you go to -- the Baptist or the Methodist?" But I'm very proud of the fact that different levels of mental ability was something I was exposed to as a kid, and I'm sad that not everyone has that experience.

So, when Stella went into the home and met Barbie, I was disappointed, to say the least, that she began crying. My heart was ripped in two. Stella was obviously afraid -- an emotion I frankly don't see much of from her. Her lower lip quivered and she clung onto me for dear life. In retrospect, it makes sense; the house has a certain smell, there were lots of new people, and Barbie was loud and very close to Stella, excited to see a baby.

But I felt so disheartened, worried that my little girl wouldn't accept her Aunt Barbie, that she might even make Barbie sad. But I also hated the thought that my little girl was scared and confused.

But, as usual, I was worried over nothing. Once Stella got some food in her system and had a little time to chill, she began to love her aunt. We had a lovely pizza lunch and then walked around the local Big-K (that's a mega K-Mart for you NYC-centric folk). Stella and Barbie had a great time pulling random things off the shelf and assuming we'd buy them. Harriet, Barbie and Dave's mom, got Barbie a beautiful necklace and Dave and I got her a toiletry gift set with lotion and shower gel and a body puff.

Barbie kept stroking Stella's hair gently and lovingly, and the two of them enjoyed munching on some cookies that we had in the back seat of the car. I felt like my heart expanded to about three times its normal size watching the two of them together.

We're still working on getting Barbie moved to a home closer to us, so she'll be a more regular part of our lives and vice versa. And hopefully, when Stella encounters a kid who's mentally challenged, she'll think of her awesome Aunt Barbie, and won't be afraid.

The Best Age

2009-11-04T06:00:00.000-08:00

The Brooklyn Baby Daddy and I keep saying, "This is the best age." And, as far as I can tell, it really is.

Stella sleeps like an angel. Stella eats, for the most party, really well and on her own. She can play by herself for long periods of time but is also really social. She has a circle of friends whom she knows and loves to see. She learns something new every day and is ridiculously proud of herself every time. She has a gorgeous sense of humor and does things specifically to make us laugh. Although she remains too busy to cuddle most of the time, she also likes run to us and kiss us when we pick her up from daycare.

Each night, after we give her her bath and tuck her into bed, I am left with a very sweet, giddy feeling. Every single night. It's like that moment when you realize you're falling in love with someone, except you feel it every day, multiple times a day.

This is why I wanted to have kids, and sometimes I can't believe how lucky I am.

And while I do think a lot of this is the age -- the independence, the ability to communicate, the energy and humor and constant learning and sweetness -- I also think overcoming depression has helped me (and Dave, who suffered, too) lift a veil so we could see how awesome things were all along.

Even now, with Dave out of job and our lives in possible turmoil, I find that what I think about most of the time is Stella. How she picked up No Exit by Sartre (the French version -- Huis Clos) and began "reading" it as she would a Dr. Seuss book. How she ran into the kitchen last night while I was making chili and hugged my legs. How she's obsessed with the alphabet, especially the letter A, and looks for letters everywhere. How she loves to belt out a tune, even adding a sassy "cha cha cha" to the end of such classics as "Baa Baa Black Sheep." How she says "all done," when she's finished eating and begins cleaning up after herself.

I'm so lucky to have such a kid in my life, and I'm equally lucky to be able to appreciate her now.

When Stella Sleeps...

2009-11-02T16:30:00.001-08:00

Brooklyn Baby Daddy, Brooklyn Baby, and Brooklyn Baby Momma, Jack-o-lantern Style

Aren't we spooooooooooooooky?

Why, yes, I am pretty pleased with myself!

Tell me she's not delicious, I dare you!

Two great tastes that taste great together!

At the risk of cursing the Brooklyn Baby Household, I will proclaim that Stella is, for the most part, a really good sleeper these days. I've mentioned it before, I know, but you have no idea what it's like to go from waking up at least every two hours at night with a kid who really doesn't want to go back to sleep at all and rarely wants to nap in the day (for over a year, I might remind you) to having a kid who sleeps 12 hours in a row at night and reliably naps 2 hours each day. It's night and day. (Ba dump ba. Sorry. Couldn't resist.)

So, what effect has this had on the Brooklyn Baby Momma? Well, I've been writing and performing more, for one thing. I've also been cooking more healthy and elaborate meals, thanks to sites like Chow Mama. I've been talking to people on the phone and reading real books about topics other than getting a baby to sleep. And, like any good stay-at-home-mom/elementary school teacher, I've been crafting up the butt.

Normally, Halloween catches me off-guard, and even though I love it, I scramble to find costumes at the 11th hour, scouring shelves full of sexy nurse and sexy traffic cop and even (gulp) sexy school teacher costumes to find the most original (and modest) costume.

Not this year. Oh, no no no. I had it on my calendar as of September, along with weekly reminders such as: buy felt, cut out pieces, sew base, purchase pumpkins, carve, bake pumpkin bread, etc.

And I was incredibly excited about our costume concept. It was cute. It was funny. It was cheeky. It was unexpected. And, a huge bonus for me, it didn't involve drowning Stella in yards of Pepto-Bismal pink taffeta (I'll save that for when she's old enough to beg for it.)

So, yes, I'm showing off to you, my internet friends, in the hopes that you'll validate my existence by telling me how cute we are. I'm also showing you how much more productive I can be when my child sleeps reliably. (I give myself one, maybe two years top, to find the cure for cancer now. AIDS might take a bit longer.)

And, lastly, I'm showing you what I've been obsessing over ever since I found out that the Brooklyn Baby Daddy was laid off from his job. Because a dancing Reese's Peanut Butter Cup is infinitely more pleasant to think about than the prospect of losing our health insurance, wouldn't you think?

Shameless Self Promotion, Part Deux

2009-10-26T11:59:00.001-07:00

It's funny how many times I've used motherhood as an excuse. An excuse not to exercise, an excuse to look crappy, an excuse to buy pre-packaged snacks, an excuse not to call people, and an excuse not to do the things I love.

The fact of the matter is, I can do a lot of things now that I'm a mom. I can carve jack-o-lanterns, make three Halloween costumes from scratch, bake pumpkin bread, try not to eat the pumpkin bread, work a few days a week, and meet friends for frozen yogurt and beer in the East Village. I can even - get this - write and perform again.

I'm just excellent at looking for reasons to procrastinate. Excellent at finding ways to undermine myself. Excellent at being my own worse enemy.

In fact, that awesome show I was in in September -- Expressing Motherhood -- I almost didn't do it. I was told they wanted me, I wrote the date on my calendar, I printed out my piece, and then I searched for excuses. How would my daughter go to sleep without me? What about the nights when Dave couldn't get home in time for me to hop on the train? How could I stay up until midnight five nights in a row? How would we ever find a sitter so Dave could come watch me perform? And, GULP, how could the sitter actually get Stella to sleep?

But I firmly told myself to shut the freak up, Dave and I figured out the sitting situation, and I had a ball. An absolute ball.

So then I performed in the Moth -- a storytelling show. My piece had nothing to do with motherhood, was incredibly racy, and was written and memorized in one day. I felt empowered by my gumption. I felt addicted to performing.

So, here I am again, in another mom-inspired show. I feel confident enough to be performing a very candid, honest piece about motherhood that is still funny and irreverent. I am excited and honored to go back on stage. And yes, I am addicted.

So...come see me perform in Mommy Needs a Cocktail at Melt in Park Slope Sunday, November 8th, 4:30-7pm! It's a fabulous night for moms to kick back, relax, have a cocktail, eat some snacks, and listen to performaholics like me spin our nutty yarns. You can buy your tickets (reasonably priced at $10 online) here.

I really hope you can make it. I need people to enable me to get off my rump and stop using motherhood as an excuse.

However, I still think motherhood makes a fabulous excuse for not doing dishes.

Sick Stella Snuggles

2009-10-22T05:25:00.000-07:00

I'm pretty sure our trip to New Paltz, NY, last weekend was cursed. First we found out, last minute, that the B&B we'd booked doesn't allow kids under 12 to stay on the weekend. Whatever you think about such a policy, we were pretty perturbed that their website said nothing of this, nor did they discuss it with us when we called to book. So, Dave had to scramble to book us the one hotel room open in the area during peak tourist season.

Secondly, the weather was crappy. Saturday was OK, cloudy and cold but dry enough, but Sunday was filled with torrential downpours and general suckiness. It's a good thing we bought all the apples, pears, pumpkins, wine and cider donuts on Saturday, isn't it?

But the worst thing is that both Stella and Dave came down with something over the weekend. To be truthful, I may have given them something, as I'm somewhat of a carrier. Now that I'm a teacher, I'm exposed to every germ in the world, but my immune system is strong enough to either fight it off or only let me experience a mild version of the illness, allowing me to pass it on without even knowing it. Don't you wish you were married to me?

So, both my babies were sick on Monday. Dave got better throughout the day, and it seemed Stella did, too, although her temperature went up to about 101.5 that night. I took her into the doctor the next morning, and she said it seemed Stella just had a rotten cold. I was ordered to make sure she ate, even if I had to resort to bribing her with ice cream.

Consequently, I ate a lot of ice cream on Tuesday and Wednesday while Stella watched. She just didn't want to eat. I also tried bribing her with muffins, chicken fingers, french fries, chocolate, and a $5.00 strawberry smoothie. She refused them all, I ate them all. Have I ever mentioned how I stress-eat? Stress plus decadent food = trouble for yours truly.

I thought she was on the mend yesterday. She'd slept well and seemed to be in good spirits. But as the day wore on, I could tell something was amiss. She just wanted to snuggle. Constant snuggling. She'd burrow her head into my chest, snotting all over my Centre sweatshirt, watching WordWorld on PBS out of the corner of her eye. I tried to take her to the playground, but she just wanted to snuggle. I tried to read her a book, she only wanted to snuggle.

Have I ever told you how Stella doesn't like to snuggle?

On some level, I revelled in having that delicious, warm body curled up on mine. I smelled her sweet hair and stroked her back. I sighed deeply, remembering the days when she was a newborn and slept on me almost constantly.

But then I felt guilty. The only reason my active, independent girl was resorting to such behavior is because she felt like crap.

She's still feverish this morning, and is upstairs sleeping. We plan to call the doctor as soon as the practice opens. I really hope it's not the flu.

And I really look forward to the day when I try to snuggle up to Stella and she pushes me away, all before gobbling up a dish of ice cream.

Kvelling Corner - Restaurant Edition

2009-10-16T09:49:00.001-07:00

The Oak and The Iris Cafe, Windsor Terrace, Brooklyn, NY

Stella with her favorite toy in the play corner

Lots of yummy and affordable things to eat!

I call this Temptation Island.

Miss Katie leading her fabulous sing along!

I bet you thought I forgot about Kvelling Corner, the section of my blog where I rave like a lunatic about awesome baby-centric things. Oh no, my friend, I just was lacking for things to rave about for a while.

But now I want to sing the praises of a local cafe that has been, not to sound dramatic, my saving grace these past several months.

You see, once you have a toddler, your options for public places in which you can consume anything edible dwindle. Especially if your kid, like Stella, has problems, um, staying in one place for long, there are not many places that will welcome you with open arms or have nooks and crannies to occupy your kinetic offspring.

Except for places like The Oak and The Iris. I wish they had a website I could direct you to, but for now I'll just give your their info the old fashioned way. Located on Ft. Hamilton between E. 4th and E.5th Streets in Windsor Terrace, two blocks off the F train at Ft. Hamilton, 718.288.2217.

The Oak and The Iris is a cafe. They make your standard lattes and hot chocolates and have yummy, tempting baked goods for sale. But they also have an expansive, affordable menu of sit-down hot breakfasts, lunches and dinners, including a delectable, $8 Fettuccine alla Carbonara I consumed the other day. Stella's favorite is the $4 mac and cheese from the kid's menu, an ooey, gooey homemade version of the comfort food fave, served in a bowl that could feed three Stellas and with a side of either juice or fresh fruit.

And The Oak and The Iris, unlike some other Brooklyn restaurants and cafes who make false claims, is actually kid-friendly. Not only do they have a great menu of food and drinks for your rugrat, they also have a corner in the back filled with books and toys that will keep a normal child occupied for up to 30 minutes while you enjoy your snack and beverage (it works a whopping 10 minutes on Stella, a world record by any unit of measure).

And, much to the chagrin of some single folks who want to cozy up to their laptops, The Oak and The Iris hosts wonderful sing-alongs a few times a week. Here is the current schedule:

Mondays, 3:45, Yoshi and his ukulele

Tuesdays, 3:00, Joanne and her interactive music class

Thursdays, 4:30, Katie and her guitar

Each sing-along is a mere $5, so much less than other music classes, and we love them all. We can't go to Mondays anymore, due to my work schedule, but Stella is addicted to both Joanne's and Katie's classes.

Joanne brings a huge xylophone, drum and auto harp that she lets the kids experiment with, creating songs on the fly about whatever's on the little ones' minds that day.

Katie has an ever-growing repertoire of fun, hip kids songs, including her personal adaptations of the Beatles, Elvis and Willie Nelson. Stella is, to be honest, a little in love with Katie. She can't leave the poor woman alone during her set and afterwards wants to sit on her own little chair with the play guitar at The Oak and The Iris, singing the beginning to Baa Baa Black Sheep to her own invisible audience.

So, I salute you, The Oak and The Iris. You give me a place to buy coffee, a place to have a dinner out with my kid (without nasty stares from singletons), and a place to nourish the music-lover that is my child. I wish you much continued success.

Oh, and I'll be by later for the usual: Veggie Booty for Stella and a latte for me. On the house, right?

*****

Oh, and if you want to hear more from Stella's favorite singer, check out: www.myspace.com/kateemullins

Sibling Spacing and the Spirited Baby

2009-10-13T17:54:00.000-07:00

Here is how my night has gone, so far:

Stella ate dinner at 6pm, feeding herself for the most part. From about 6:30 - 7:10, she had naked play time, during which she aired out her sensitive tush, played with her toys, got tickled by yours truly and was read some fabulous books (also by yours truly). Then we had a lovely bath, including a reading of the Care Bears Bathtime Bubble Book, one of her favorites. I took her up to her room, dried her hair and body, massaged diaper balm and lotion into her flawless skin, diapered her and dressed her in her warm flannel PJ's. I kissed her, lay her in her bed, handed her her blue bunny/dog (Dave and I disagree over its species), turned on the white noise machine, told her I love her, shut off the lights and closed the door. I came downstairs, turned on the monitor, got myself a beer and settled in for some TV. It was 7:30 pm. Aside from checking on her before I turn in, odds are good I won't hear from my girl until around 7am.

Now, if you're a parent to a kid around Stella's age, I want you to ask yourself the following question: does this evening sound a)completely normal or b)freakish and strange, making you want to come over here and strangle the living daylights out of me, thereby destroying my cushy life?

If you answered a), you have what Dave and I would call an easy sleeper. Bedtime doesn't make your stomach tie up in knots, you don't flinch at any sound that might resemble a baby's cry (including feral cats, neighbors' tv's, cell phones and sirens), you're used to at least 8 hours of shut-eye a night, and you might even be ready to try for another kid (assuming you don't already have a litter).

If you answered b), however, you have what I call a "spirited" sleeper otherwise known as a "difficult" or even "bad" sleeper by people of our mother's generation. If you're the mom, you might have suffered post-partum depression from all the stress; if you're the spouse, you might have had to pick your partner up off the floor and cart her to the nearest psychiatric ER. Whoever you are in the family, you're probably still shell-shocked, still recovering from lack of sleep, still skittish about celebrating any kind of success you might have regarding sleep, and possibly NOWHERE NEAR ready to go through all this again with another sprout.

Stella's been remarkably easy lately. She wants to go down for naps and nighttime sleep all by herself. She doesn't cry, she doesn't wake prematurely, she gets plenty of rest. Consequently, Dave and I are also well-rested, have plenty of time to hang out together and on our own, can get things done during her daily naps, and find that life is generally pleasant and nearly stress-free.

I'm enjoying this stage immensely, but sometimes it dawns on me: this is what life has been like for months for many of our friends and acquaintances. Although babies vary greatly and sleep problems are by no means unusual for new parents, Dave and I know a remarkable amount of folks whose babies have been sleeping through the night or close to it from at least six months on. Even for people whose babies still wake a few times during the night past that age, very few people we know had an experience even approaching ours, with a baby that literally screams almost the entire night, wanting to either be nursed or be walked around the room or both at the same time. Think I'm exaggerating? Read Dave's blog* from back in the bad old days.

Look, I honestly don't begrudge those who've had an easier experience. Such is life, there's nothing you can do about it. And as long as that fellow parent is not self-righteous, assuming we did something to cause such turmoil via our terrible parenting, we harbor no ill wishes against them.

However, I do feel like this explains why, when people ask me if we're ready to "start trying" again (I would honestly prefer it if people would ask if we're going to have unprotected sex again, because I've grown so sick of that phrase), I want to give them shaken baby syndrome. I want to scream in their faces "NO NO NO! I AM SLEEPING AND IT IS WONDERFUL! BACK THE F*** OFF AND HAND ME SOME BIRTH CONTROL, BEYOTCH!" I want to throw a drink in their faces. Well, after I drink most of it.

If we'd had this same night every night for the past year, we might be ready to try to reintroduce some sperm to some eggs. But for now, screw the research on sibling spacing: if we have anything to do with this (and I think we do), Stella's flying solo for a little while longer.

I must reiterate: I adore Stella, she was worth all the sleepless nights, I'd do it again a million times if I had to. But, by golly, if I don't have to, I won't. So that means no second babies...for the time being.

*If you read that entry, just know that we thought my cessation of egg-ingestion had settled the issue, but that was just the first in a seemingly endless series of false successes. Other times we thought we'd found the answer to all our problems (but really hadn't) include the following experiments: pacifiers, taking dairy out of my diet, taking soy out of my diet, taking spicy food out of my diet, wearing Stella in a Moby/Ergo/Bjorn for walks, driving Stella around the block, taking Stella for walks in the stroller, blacking out all the windows, trying different white noise machines, playing different music, trying long and elaborate pre-bed routines, trying to get her to drink a bottle of expressed breast milk from Dave, and eventually trying Ferber-type sleep training. The only thing that worked was time. But I'm fully aware of the fact that the heavenly period we're in now may just be another false success. Whatever, honey, I'll take it!

Punch Drunk Mommies

2009-10-12T06:12:00.000-07:00

Ready for the brisk day!

THE CHEEKS! SERIOUSLY!

Yep, I'm pretty proud of this outfit.

See that upper arm? Tell me you don't want to munch it!

This one just hurts. It hurts.

I was speaking with an awesome neighborhood mom the other day about how cute our daughters are. True, our daughters are blond-haired, blue-eyed doppelgangers of each other, but they each have their own brand of "Oh dear God I almost can't stand to look at you" adorableness. (Is adorableness a word? It is now.)

This mom (who shall remain nameless) expressed her fears that her daycare might call ACS on her for the bite marks on her daughter's butt. Now, she was kidding (I think), but friends, this is a real problem!

What do you do when your child is so freaking cute you have trouble resisting her? When you want to bite her little thighs or munch on her cheeks? And worse -- what do you do when said child is constantly too busy for affection, so you have to settle for a pat on the back here or a seat in your lap while you read Count on Clifford for the 15,000th time that day?

I'm thinking about setting up a non-profit to help mommies like me. We suffer in silence.

Love Letter to My New Neighborhood

2009-10-07T06:11:00.000-07:00

I just got off the phone with a completely unhelpful, mildly disgruntled employee of the NYC Department of Education who told me that my paycheck will most likely NOT go to our new address because it takes two to three pay periods for the system to log in address changes.

Only a few months ago, this sort of phone call would have sent me over the edge. Tears might have appeared, my heart would have started to race, obscenities would have been slung across fiber-optic lines. Today, I just assured myself that the trusty Post Office would speed me my money, wished the pissy woman a lovely day, and made a joke about the whole affair with my coworker, Laura.

While proper medication and therapy definitely deserve credit for my personality shift, I do also have to credit our new apartment and our new neighborhood -- South Windsor Terrace/North Kensington, or SoWiTerNoKen, as those of us in the know call it.

So many battles had to be fought in our old apartment -- battles to get the management to fix lead paint properly, battles to get our a-hole upstairs neighbor to stop doing construction at 3am, battles to get people to stop throwing their trash into the communal courtyard, battles to get people to stop airing out their nicotine-ridden apartments into the common lobby. I constantly felt on my guard. Many mornings I awoke to find my fists clenched, as if ready to punch someone. I guess Dave is lucky he didn't make any sudden moves in the middle of the night.

It's hard to take things in stride when you're living and working in that environment. While Dave got to escape Little Russia 10 hours a day, 5 days a week, there I was, surrounded by surly neighbors and bullyish management. I had to walk a mile to the most decent playground, I had to cross the Boulevard of Death (aka Ocean Parkway) to get a coffee. I was in hell.

Now we're in a smaller apartment, a 2 floor walk up with no laundry. On paper, we've been demoted.

But I can't tell you how much happier we are. The apartment is sunny and happy. Can an inanimate object like a residence be happy? You betcha!

There's ample parking on our street, a fabulous playground a block away, the library two doors down, a cafe with sing alongs down the street, and Prospect Park a mere five minute walk away.

While all of this is fabulous, it's the people that really make the neighborhood. The fellow moms and dads and their adorable offspring, people who say hi on the street, people who offered to take Stella when my dad was sick, people who'll laugh with me when I'm feeling frustrated, people who are real and normal and friendly (and don't do construction at 3am).

So, SoWiTerNoKen, I salute you! Thank you for helping me refrain from calling a DOE employee a four-letter-word that starts with a "c!"

How to Talk to a New Mother

2009-09-29T09:32:00.000-07:00

Funny -- I looked happy here, didn't I?

Ah...this is actually happy Randi -- crappy hair, PJ's and all!

Many of my friends have either recently had babies are expecting their sprouts within the half year. Every time an old friend reveals that she is pregnant or planning to adopt, I am elated. Having a child is such an incredible experience, after all, but I'm also selfishly happy to have another old chum in the Mommy Club. You know, a friend to whom you can discuss explosive poop but who can also laugh until dawn with you remembering old, ridiculous, possibly scandalous, pre-baby times?

However, this elation is usually followed by a moment of trepidation and worry. What if this mom-to-be whom I love so much goes through what I went through? What if she stubbornly acts like everything is OK, refusing help from anyone (including me) while suffering alone? What if I miss her depression the way others missed mine? What if she spends the first year of her beloved baby's life flustered, frustrated, possibly even suicidal while I chase after Stella, blissfully unaware?

While there's not a whole lot those of us lacking psychology degrees can do, I do think that choosing our words carefully when speaking to a new mom can be incredibly important. Part of the reason it took me so long to recognize my problem and seek help was that I was constantly being asked about how much I loved motherhood, not IF I loved it, so I felt completely alone and abnormal. I was afraid of what others, including a therapist, would think of me. I felt ashamed.

So, I'm going to start with a list of things I think you should NEVER say to a new mom. I'm no expert, so you might disagree, but these were the statements that exacerbated my feelings of isolation.

1. "Aren't you just loving it?" This question assumes that you are in a state of bliss, and if you answer to the negative, it will seem strange. How many times was I asked this question and I wanted to reply, "No, in fact. I realize that I wanted a baby, worked hard to conceive, and now I should be grateful. However, since I've slept a total of ten hours in the past two months, have raw nipples that leak milk almost constantly, and spend my days carrying around a writhing kid who seems to scream a good 4/5 of her waking hours (and almost all of them are waking hours), I pretty much want to bang my head against a brick wall most of the time."

2. "Have you tried ________ to help her sleep?" If you know someone whose kid is really sleep troubled -- and no, I'm not talking about a 2 month old who wakes three times at night or a 7 month old who takes short naps -- I'm talking about a person who is on death's door because her child almost never sleeps -- please don't offer advice. I know that seems counter-intuitive, so let me explain. If that person is suffering to that degree, they've almost certainly tried every conceivable trick you can think of. Also, if the baby is truly that sleep-challenged, he/she most likely will not respond to the nifty trick that caused your baby to go from 7 hours of uninterrupted sleep to 12. This will make that mom feel even worse about herself and her mothering skills, because why on earth would someone else's baby be that easy to pacify if hers isn't? The best thing to do is offer sympathy -- TELL THEM ABOUT ME AND STELLA FOR GOODNESS'S SAKE -- and offer to help. This brings me to Number 3.

3. "Let me know if I can do anything." New moms are completely overwhelmed. Trying to take care of oneself and keep a helpless human being alive is hard work. When someone makes a statement like that, it puts it in the mom's hands to come up with a way for you to help. I remember being so exhausted and unhappy when a dear friend, Jess, wrote me an email saying, "I'm coming over on Tuesday. What time is good?" I started sobbing upon reading that email. Had she asked if she could help, I would have said no. Have I mentioned that I'm stubborn? Well, I am. But she insisted she was coming, and come she did. She took Stella and pushed me out the door -- forcing me to go on a solo walk. This is what you need to do for new moms. Insist that you help -- bring food, take the baby so she can nap, whatever. Take the ball out of her hands.

4. "Wow. You look really tired." Those first few months of a baby's life, most moms look like crap. Especially moms suffering from baby blues or PPD. We know we look like crap, but there's not much we can do about it in our state. Please don't remind us of that, and especially don't remind us of how little sleep we got last night. Because we can't forget about that. Stretch to find a compliment. Maybe you like our ratty flip flops, or maybe that greasy, stringy ponytail looks incredibly punk. Whatever -- just tell us we look good. And if you can't do that, pay for a spa day and some childcare so you can make a sincere compliment! (This goes along with #3.)

OK, now for a list of positive commandments. Here are the statements that I think you should say to a new mom, statements that either helped me tremendously or would have.

1. "How are you doing? No, honey, not the baby. I can see he's gorgeous. How are YOU?" The minute the baby comes into your life, it seems that's all anyone wants to know about. Hell, that's all you seem to care about. But when someone asks about you with genuine concern, it can cause you to confront those negative feelings and open up a portal for communication. If a mom looks unhappy, don't be afraid to keep asking her this question in the hopes that she'll open up to you.

2. "Did I ever tell you about the time my kid _____________ when she was a baby?" If you have hellish infant stories -- PLEASE SHARE THEM! Especially if you were depressed or if your baby had sleep problems. So much of PPD is feeling isolated and misunderstood, so just knowing that someone else's experience was less than peachy-keen can be incredibly helpful.

3. "Just because you love someone doesn't mean they can't drive you crazy." So many times I'd be in my mommy groups, listening to women share frustrations about their spouses/partners. The people whom we've chosen to be with, the loves of our lives, can drive us to the brink of insanity. But I often find that it's a big taboo to complain about your baby. Especially if you waited until a, um, certain age to have a baby and if that baby took some work to come by. In that case, your baby should be next to holy, or so it seems, and if you complain about her, something's wrong with you. Remind the new mom that, just because she's in love with her new addition doesn't mean the baby won't drive her crazy. It will. Possibly often. Remind her that that's normal and that accepting herself and giving herself a break will actually help her to handle those feelings in a healthy way.

4. And, just as a reminder from above, the following: "I'm coming over on ____________ to help out" and "You look gorgeous." It can't hurt to reiterate.

I hope this helps. If any new moms think of any other helpful/NOT helpful remarks, please add them to the comments. And if you think you might have made one of the "offending" remarks, please don't sweat it. I'm a Sagittarius, after all, so I'm sure I've offended you sometime in our past.

Expressing Motherhood

2009-09-25T11:14:00.001-07:00

I forgot to ask Dave to get a picture of me last night and now I'm supremely bummed. Why? Because this week I did the following:
Got a haircut
Got an eyebrow waxing
Purchased and applied makeup
Purchased and wore a new dress
Squeezed myself into my Spanx like a fancy, homemade sausage

Why all the trouble? For my awesome show, Expressing Motherhood, of course!

Now, having lived in NYC for a 11 years, I've taken part in and witnessed a fair share of sub-par shows. Comedy shows, one-woman/man shows, straight plays, musicals, reading series -- you name it. With a city this prolific, it's pretty easy to witness live theater. It's not always easy to witness GOOD live theater.

But I have to say, this show is AMAZING. I am humbled to be among such talented, honest, brave women. And the creators of the show did an incredible job finding such a varied group of ladies who have so many entertaining, profound and unexpected things to say about motherhood.

Yes, I'm in the show. Yes, this falls under the umbrella of shameless self-promotion. But I really do highly recommend this show for anyone who's a parent, is expecting a child, or is thinking about having a kid one day. I also recommend the show for dearest friends of mine who'd like to come LAUGH HARDILY at my piece about Park Slope.

Tonight and tomorrow -- that's it, baby! I hope to see you there!

And I'll try to remember to get Dave to snap a photo of me -- all cleaned up with no snot, poop or smushed banana to be found!

Foot in Mouth Disease

2009-09-23T04:29:00.000-07:00

Rereading my last entry, I wonder if perhaps this was another example of me personifying the Sagittarian tendency to put one's foot in one's mouth.

I just want to clarify my meaning, as I was writing after a long, intense day of parenting (no naps and a scary fall on the playground) and an exciting, unusual night of Manhattan and theater rehearsals.

I honor and respect the decision to NOT have children. Our world is over-populated, and the last thing we need are people who procreate or adopt for the wrong reasons. If someone does not want to be a parent, it is a great thing for them to refrain from doing so. (Although therapists may disagree, since this might cut down on their future patient pool.)

And when I spoke of friendships not being able to survive, I realize it's not just a debate between does that person have kids or doesn't she. It's more about how they view kids in general and specifically, do they see my kid as an individual or do they lump her into a category?

For example, many of my friends do not have kids for various reasons, but they love kids and are amazing with Stella. These friendships will survive and thrive, despite my shift, because those friends understand the new me and know that loving my kid is the way to my heart.

But there is a new breed of childless folk, especially here in New York. Folks who not only choose not to have kids, but also seem, for lack of a better word, offended by their general presence. I used to find such people vaguely amusing. But now, since my kid is viewed as one of the "rugrats," I can't see eye to eye with them any more.

Does this clarify? Perhaps this is even more confusing, as I'm writing this in my PJ's on a day before scrambling to get to work.

Perhaps I should always take my mother's advice and stop digging my hole the minute I realize I've dug one.

Whatever. It's my blog and I'll shove my foot in my mouth if I want to.

The Shift

2009-09-22T18:48:00.001-07:00

The Brand New (And Improved?) Randi

Tonight, I started rehearsals for my show, Expressing Motherhood. I ran out of the apartment the minute Dave entered, descending into the subway at the moment most people were exiting, coming home from their days at work. I settled into my seat, read for a bit, and engaged in some prime people-watching.

When people looked at me, I found myself wondering, as I often do, "can they tell I'm a mom?" Stella is such an enormous part of my life now that I often assume people can see her imprint on me, even when we're apart. I almost feel offended if people assume I don't have a kid, like they're assuming I can't read or something.

I remember reading an article in New York Magazine a few years ago about how being in different economic brackets can destroy a friendship. For example if you become friends with someone while you're both broke college grads, your bond may not survive it if that friend goes on to make a robust six figures at his job if you're still barely making five. You eat at different restaurants, use different forms of transportation, perhaps even have different priorities and values. How much in common can you really have if your lives are that startlingly different?

Now that I'm a mom I'm finding that the same can be true if one member of a friendship is a parent while the other isn't. Of course there are exceptions: my two best friends in the world are both currently childless. However one definitely wants kids one day and the other one adores them and is great with them, even if she's not sure if she plans on sprouting one of her own. This makes it easier to stay close with them, despite this major difference in our lives.

But what of the other friendships?

Before I had kids, I swore that parenthood wouldn't change me. I'd still be funky, I'd still love going out all the time, I wouldn't view my kid as the Messiah to whom others had to bow down. I knew I'd love my offspring, but I didn't want to alter the entire order of my life. I kind of assumed everything would stay in its place and I'd just squeeze this new addition into my structured life, like a new book that you add onto your crowded bookshelf.

But parenthood never goes as you plan. Stella completely shook the foundation of my life, reordering everything, eliminating some priorities altogether, inflating others to monstrous proportions. My life barely resembles the life I had before her. It is, in many ways, much more strenuous and exhausting than before.

It is also better that it ever was. And it honestly gets better every day.

The love I have for Stella is so intense I can feel it in my muscles. It's almost an ache, almost painful, but also ragingly sweet. She surprises and delights me daily. I think about her almost every moment I'm not with her. I crave her.

Which is not to say I don't value my time alone. No, I'm still a separate person with a brain, and I still like being Randi. Randi who's a good, dedicated teacher. Randi who is a raging, outspoken Democrat. Randi who is an irreverent goofball. Randi who is a writer and performer. Not just that woman at the playground, what's her name?, you know -- Stella's mom.

But I have almost nothing in common with people who don't have kids, don't want them, and don't necessarily like them. I know there used to be a Randi in this world who could have had a beer with those people, laughed and joked with them, made a plan to have a meal at the new Italian restaurant in the neighborhood. But this Randi just can't do that. Because this Randi can't get over the fact that this person doesn't see the miracle that is my daughter. Because this person lumps the child I adore beyond measure with a group of nameless, faceless, snotty masses of whining and tears.

So, yeah, maybe friendships can't survive this huge a lifestyle gap. And although I'd planned on staying the same old Randi, just with a mini-me, that's simply not what happened. I'm a completely different Randi.

And that's just fine by me.

A Day of One's Own

2009-09-02T05:44:00.001-07:00

Crouching Stella, Hidden Daycare

Blissfully playing with toys at daycare

Sometimes I feel so guilty for (sorry to use the technical term) going bananas this past year. I wonder why I couldn't just take things in stride, why I felt like I was constantly trying to climb a mountain with roller skates on .

But now I think I understand it a bit more.

Stella started daycare this week. I'm not back at work yet, but to secure our spot in the daycare we really liked, we had to go ahead and enroll the child. Part of me was so excited about the idea of having an entire day to myself. Of course, being a good, well-educated, perfectionist American mom, I also felt wretchedly guilty and nervous about the whole shabang, too.

Monday came and I neurotically packed the box of requested supplies, each and every item meticulously labelled with Stella's name, just in case some toddler with sticky fingers decided to try to take her diaper balm. I even included a bag of 20 oatmeal raisin cookies, a suggestion from a friend, as a way of letting the staff know what a sweet, kind, bribing mom they had on their hands, JUST IN CASE they were tempted to ignore my child for a moment or two.

Dave dropped her off, because he'll be the one to do so when I go to work, and I sat in our apartment all by myself. The realization dawned on me that this was the first time I'd been all by myself in our apartment. Ever. It felt unreal. All of the booming and banging from our upstairs neighbor seemed amplified and ominous (even more ominous than usual). The mewing of the feral cats in our courtyard seemed more frequent, the techno that someone boomed from their window seemed more annoying, the cigarette smoke from our neighbor's apartment seemed more vile. Well...you get the idea.

I did all the dishes -- no toddler underfoot, no baby monitor blasting in my ear. I took what felt like an incredibly long, steamy shower -- shaving my legs and everything -- and emerged to find that it was only seven minutes long. I put on makeup. Let me repeat that. I put on makeup. And earrings. And took more than a second to pick out my outfit.

I left the apartment, no stroller to navigate, and stopped by the library to pick up a ridiculously fluffy mystery novel. I ran up the subway stairs, not carrying a stroller with a 25 pound child in it, found a seat on the train, and read my book for 45 minutes. Again, I repeat, I read a book for 45 minutes.

I checked my messages when I emerged from the bowels of the Earth and was relieved to find none. I wandered around the East Village, where I used to live and do theater, and was confused and dismayed to find a lot of my favorite haunts replaced by flashier, kitschier, more expensive hipster outlets and restaurants. I ate a falafel for lunch, walked around some more, saw a gloriously empty midday showing of Julie & Julia (which made me crave French food with a vengeance), and went to Lush to spend a gift certificate that my amazing friend and ex-college-roommate Katie sent me in the midst of my insanity. Then I met up with Dave, who works near all this, and hopped back on the subway to go pick up my darling.

This may not sound like much to you, but to me, it felt restorative, calming, deliciously decadent. I realized that my favorite part of the day was not the movie, or buying yummy toiletteries, or walking around my old nabe. My favorite part was the time spent reading and vegging on the subway. A combined total of one and one half hours of sitting on my rump, reading a silly book, looking at other folks, and not even having the ability to answer my cell phone should someone try to call it.

For us stay-at-home-parents who live a distance from our families, this time to ourselves often does not happen. Our spouses get this time one their way to and from work or on lunch breaks. But if we don't have someone to relieve us, a mere hour and a half of time to ourselves per day is just not a reality.

I, of course, made the situation worse by refusing to let others help. People would offer to babysit, Dave would offer to take Stella for a walk without me, but part of my disease was an overwhelming and crippling fear that noone could care for my daughter with even remotely the amount of competence I had. I'd let people take charge of my darling for a moment here or there, but I'd always be in an adjacent room, ready to jump in at the slightest sound of unhappiness. This, in case you couldn't guess it, is not relaxing.

I did go out a few nights, leaving Stella in Dave's loving care. Those nights I clutched onto my cell phone, scared to death that she'd somehow tumble out of her crib or find a mysterious object to choke on out of the blue. I'd call Dave from time to time, and he'd always assure me that Stella was fine and I should enjoy myself. Alas, that was hard to do.

So, you get the idea. For a year and a half, I didn't relax. Ever. I barely slept for the first ten months, because Stella didn't sleep, and even when she did finally learn to sleep, I'd stay up, afraid something was wrong. I took no time for myself, didn't do the things I like to do, didn't let others help me. And that put me in a bad place.

I have to take a moment for a small PSA: If you've had a baby and are feeling similarly -- like you can't trust someone to watch your little one or you don't have any time to yourself -- go get help. This is not normal. And you cannot keep going at that rate. Nobody can. Hire a babysitter and trust him/her. Let a friend help. Let your significant other help. Help yourself.

OK. Enough good-deedery.

How did my day end, you ask? I walked into the daycare to pick up my girl and felt a rush of excitement and love upon seeing her gorgeous face. I missed her, and that felt so healthy and good. She beamed at me and came running into my arms. Her hair smelled like rainbows and unicorns. Am I overdoing it? Sorry.

The workers told me she had a great day and even took a rare two-hour nap. They also told me my cookies were delicious. (Cackle cackle cackle.) And then when I turned around to leave, Stella cried and reached back for the daycare. It seemed my social butterfly wasn't ready to leave her friends.

Which makes me elated. I have an independent kid who'll go far in life. She's back at daycare today, and although I plan to pack for our blessed move on Sunday and go into school to meet with my principal about my work this Fall, it still feels so indulgent to be on my own. It feels healthy.

So...I guess that means I should stop blogging and go back to work. Geez -- we stay-at-home moms lead such a cushy life.

Courage

2009-08-20T18:24:00.000-07:00

Because they're worth it.

So, you might be asking yourself, what the freak is going on with the Brooklyn Baby Momma and her sporadic posting? Or maybe you're asking yourself, who the freak is the Brooklyn Baby Momma, and how did I get to this infrequently updated blog? Regardless...

Well, it's taken me a long time to admit this, but I have some postpartum emotional issues that I kept hoping would resolve themselves, but alas, they never did. And finally, after plenty of drama and an ocean of tears, I've gotten help and am starting to feel human again.

For the longest time, I was sure it would get better on its own. When Stella starts to sleep, when Stella stops being so cranky during the day, when Dave gives me more breaks, when I hire someone to give me even more breaks, when we move to a bigger place, when I make friends in my new neighborhood, when I go back to work, when I start running, when we finally move the hell out of this crazy apartment, when we finally get out of New York City... You get the idea. Some of our many issues simply were never resolved, some were, some are still up in the air. But the lack of emotional control remained.

People suggested I get help, but I kept using my breastfeeding as an excuse. I figured there was no drug I could take that was compatible with nursing, so why even bother? (It turns out I was wrong, by the way, in case you're thinking the same thing.)

So, I went to a therapist, and her ideas were good. They were good as long as I was normally sad or angry -- the type of sad or angry you probably experience from time to time. But the brands of sad and angry I was going through were anything but normal.

Try as I might, I don't feel comfortable going into the details in this blog. I think my job has something to do with that, but still, I wish I had the courage to explain to you how hopeless and frantic I felt. I will say that a wonderful friend forwarded Dooce's blog to me, a blog you've probably heard of but was novel to me. When she wrote, "you need to read this," and I did, I figured it was because this woman has a wicked sense of humor, is totally irreverent and crass, and vents about parenting in a way that very few of the calm, cool uber-parents around me seem to.

But then I read Dooce, aka Heather B. Armstrong's bio, and came across the following sentence fragment: "to the postpartum depression that landed me in a mental hospital. I'm better now."

Here was this smart, innovative woman who had the courage to tell the world that she had been sick. I knew I had to do the same.

So...if I haven't returned your email or phone call, this is why. If you've seen me out and about, pale-faced and flustered, this is why. If you wonder why it looks like I'm about to snap, this is why. And if you're someone who actually reads my blog and doesn't get why I stopped posting so regularly, this is why.

I blamed myself for a long time, wondering why other parents seemed so at ease and unfazed while I was barely holding on. But now I know that it doesn't work that way. What happened is a combination of the poor chemistry I inherited, difficult events from my childhood that all came flooding back after Stella's birth, physical distance from my family at a time when I sure could use their help, the normal pathos and loneliness of the stay-at-home mom, and the mind-numbing frustrations that occur when you're blessed with a spirited, sleepless child. Without that special cocktail of insanity, I might have sailed through the past 16 months.

I have to thank Dave for being my rock during all this and for enduring things I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. My friends Alex and Katie and my mom and sister were also instrumental in helping me get better.

Now that I'm getting proper help, life is so different. It's as if a veil were lifted, and I get to look at my darling girl the way others do -- as a beautiful, brilliant, hilarious, precious gift. I am so lucky to have her in my life and to be able to watch her grow and develop. My only regret is that I didn't get help sooner.

Thanks for reading. I vow to be much less serious next time.

Cultural Norms

2009-08-05T04:40:00.001-07:00

Chillin' like a villain in the car.

Daniel, Bethany & Stella playing with Oobleck

Granny loves Stella a little bit.

The Kentucky Cousin Symphony Orchestra!

I'm sorry I went AWOL there for a while. The Brooklyn Baby Empire made its summer pilgrimage to my home state, Kentucky, for some much needed R&R and Brooklyn Baby Adoration -- Southern Style, and I found it hard to tear myself away from that to blog.

We drank an ocean of sweet tea, ate our weight in biscuits, sat on the porch swing, saw lightning bugs, enjoyed Granny's free babysitting (I saw two whole movies, at night, sans baby), and revelled in friends, family, nature and the general upbeat kindness that pervades most social interactions there.

I've lived in NYC now for 11.25 years, but every time I leave and come back, I am consumed with culture shock. I guess the 22.25 years I spent in Kentucky still win out in my head, no matter what.

For example, I grow accustomed to saying hello to people I encounter in Kentucky -- friends or no, but when I say "hi" or even nod my head to strangers here, they sometimes gather up their belongings and run the other way.

There's also a general sense of familiarity with folks in Kentucky that's missing here. A good Venn diagram could be drawn using two bathroom experiences I had -- one there, one here. In Kentucky, I waited in a line at McDonald's to relieve myself of my McCafe. (Would that be McUrine?) A woman rushed in, obviously in as much need as I, and I bristled, waiting for the fight for my spot in line. Instead she smiled at me, said she was sorry, shuffled in behind me, and made conversation about how all this morning coffee leads to a rush on the facilities. Nice, right?

Back in the North (not NYC, but close to it, on the drive back), I went to the bathroom at a Perkins. When I went to wash my hands, I was dumbfounded by the soap dispenser. It looked spage-agey and confounding. I pushed this button, I held this trigger down, all to no avail. Finally, I pushed the right part, but my hand was under the wrong section, so the soap sprayed all over my shirt. I laughed and looked at the woman next to me, saying, "well, I guess the worse that'll happen is my shirt will get clean." Nothing. Crickets. She didn't even make eye contact. Then another woman did exactly what I did, and I laughed again, saying, "the same thing just happened to me!" Silence. Awkward silence, as if I just asked both her and her husband out for a date.

The variance in social interaction is also apparent among parents. Stella, as my loyal readers may recall, can be prone to extreme mood changes and Earth-shattering tantrums. Out of the clear blue sky, my little darling can arch her back, smack her face, scream at the top of her lungs, throw things, and attempt to crack her skull on the sidewalk. This happened a few times in Kentucky, and it was such a relief to me when other parents either smiled at me sympathetically, shared an similar experience they had with their own kid, or even laughed and made some remark like, "she's quite the firecracker, isn't she?" It made me feel connected, supported, normal.

Here in New York City (in fact, as recently as Monday) my experience is quite different. Stella begins to freak out, and people look the other way. Some even move away. Some look gratefully at their own child as if to say, "thank God you don't do that." Some look suspiciously at me as if to say, "what did you do to cause that?" If I try to make a joke about it, something along the lines of, "OK, OK, I'll get you the Chanel swim diaper if you just cut it out," people ignore me or do the pained-looking half smile.

This has been a major source of chagrin for me, because the way I deal with tough situations is by joking and connecting with others. I find it very hard to wrap Stella and me in a cocoon, waiting for the fit to pass, and then act like nothing happened.

However, I don't want my loyal readers from all parts of this country to take offense and think that I'm a xenophobe. I did think about this quite a bit, and realized that my fellow Yankee playground-mates aren't bad people. I think the cultural norm up here above the Mason Dixon line is to give someone personal space, to not get in their face, to not embarrass them. What I take as judgment and coldness may, in fact, be their way of respecting me and giving me space.

Did I mention that it's part of my culture to be easily offended and take things personally? I'm not sure if that's a Kentucky thing or more specific to my family.

Anyway, I remain dedicated to my new goal of seizing the day, even if I really do wish that the Brooklyn Family were in Kentucky and not here in Kensington. Readers, I will find the good in people, even my chain-smoking neighbors who move furniture at 3 am and let doors slam in my face!

I must take a moment to brag on the Brooklyn Baby for surviving a 26 hour round-trip car ride! We broke it up into 3 days down and 3 days back, stopping off in Charleston, WV and Hagerstown, MD (speaking of, I must recommend the Charleston B&B: 28 Bradford Street -- excellent proprietors and beautiful accommodations). She had her moments of crankiness, but they were few and mild. My little girl is a born traveller, loving the open road, smiling at all the new faces, revelling in all the new stairs to climb at the various stops along the way (stairs are her new obsession). She even, dare I admit this, slept pretty well, despite the hard-as-a-rock pack and play.

And she frankly adored her cousins. Her twelve-year-old cousin Daniel was a tremendous help to me, watching Stella so I could shower or check my all-important Facebook page, sitting next to her in the car and keeping her occupied so she forgot to get cranky, fetching her the many items she dropped so she could utter the words, "uh oh." Her four-year-old cousin Bethany played so gently with Stella and showed her neat tricks, like how to blow bubbles or how to get messy with Oobleck. Her nine-year-old cousin Kaitlyn shared her cute dachshund with an animal-fanatic Stella and tried to cuddle the least cuddly kid known to man. Add to this the pure adoration and patience of her aunts and uncles, Nora, Brian, Jason and Nikole, and I guess I can understand why Stella's experiencing a recent bout of "get out of my face, everything annoys me" crankiness now that it's just me and her between the hours of 9am and 7pm.

The Brooklyn Baby Daddy may not agree, but I think the Brooklyn Baby is quite Southern in her ways, and is having just as much culture shock as her sweet-tea-craving momma.

Kvelling Corner

2009-06-26T17:15:00.000-07:00

I refuse to call this new section of my blog "Kvelling Korner," because misspellings for the sake of being cute are one of my biggest pet peeves. In fact, throughout my former life as a 4th grade teacher, one of my favorite games was "Catch the Mistakes!" I would encourage my students to seek out and record errors in signs, things like "Avocado's For Sale" and "Your crazy if you miss these deals" and "Open All Nite!" Nothing makes kids happier than correcting adults, and I'm sure there are many frustrated shop keepers out there who'd like to find the lady that encouraged a bunch of brazen nine-year-olds to correct their grammar!

Oh, and for those non-New Yorkers and/or non-Yiddish speakers, "kvelling" means to gush about something. It's one of my favorite words.

As a new parent, you're bombarded with marketing. There is so much crap you're told you need to buy to parent correctly, and it can be overwhelming, intimidating, and down-right scary to figure out where you should be spending your hard-earned dough once your bun pops out of the oven.

That's where my "Kvelling Corner" comes in. Now, it's true that what I might adore might not work for you. Every parent has to figure out what fits in their lives. But I simply must gush about a few choice items in the hopes that they bring you as much joy/relief/amusement as they do for us!

1. gdiapers

As you might recall from the old days of my blog, Dave and I (and Stella) were dedicated to cloth diapering for many months. It was wonderful while it lasted, but the huge, industrial washing machines in our current (ahem) apartment building ruined the diapers. The detergent caked up on the fabric, rendering them the opposite of water-proof and an enemy to Stella's sensitive tush.

So we tried gdiapers. The outer layer is reusable cloth, and into that you snap a reusable rubber lining. Inside that rubber lining goes a biodegradable, flushable insert that absorbs the pee and poop.

The only thing I don't like about gdiapers is that when Stella has a really nasty poop, I have to be quite intimate with it, as you have to rip the insert apart and "swizzle" the insert in the toilet. Sometime the poop goes on the rubber lining and you have to rinse it off.

However, there is something so gratifying about flushing away all the nastiness and not having to change your trash (or do the laundry) every five seconds.

The health food store near us carries the inserts for $12 for 32, so they're only slightly more expensive than disposables. But much better for the environment!

2. Maclaren Volo

Dave and I used to laugh at folks who'd talk about how their strollers "handled." I mean, really, do you plan to hike to the top of Mount McKinley with it?

My plan, anyway, was to use carriers to tote Stella around -- my beloved Ergo (another kvelling entry, I'm sure), the Moby, the Bjorn -- I loved the idea of taking up little to no extra space and having my girl in my face where we could converse. The only problem was Stella became very heavy very quickly (currently around 24 lbs.) and doesn't love to be in the carrier that much. She arches her back and cranes her neck, trying to see what I'm seeing and breaking my back in the process. So we began to use our stroller much more.

But after a few short months of trying to navigate the bumpy sidewalks of Brooklyn with a clunker, we got annoyed. Add to that the fact that our other stroller was a pain in the neck to fold and super heavy, and we knew something had to change.

I really did my research, asking all the moms I could find what type of umbrella stroller they'd recommend. And the feedback was impressive. Everyone said Maclaren, and several said the volo. (If you don't believe me, check out the various sing alongs and storytimes -- you'll see a sea of Maclaren at the entrance way.) Why? Because it's lightweight but handles very well.

We got ours on Ebay for half price, and it's worth every penny. (It would still be worth every penny at full price, too.) It glides around Kensington as if we were floating on a cloud (no easy task with all that litter on the sidewalk). It folds up easily into a minute, lightweight sliver of almost nothingness. The seat is mesh, so Stella doesn't boil in the New York summer heat. And it's pretty. (Ours is pink but also has a cool switch-out orange seat and canopy that I can wait to try out.)

That's it for now. I'm sure I'll think of more products to add, and I can certainly think of some worthy books to recommend.

But Thai food is on its way and blogger's giving me grief about adding photos, so I think I'll take a blogging break for now.

Happy purchasing!

Shameless Self Promotion

2009-06-23T05:22:00.000-07:00

I've been out of the theater business so long, that I forgot how to shamelessly plug myself. Let me do a few stretches and give it a go!

Come see me in Expressing Motherhood, a show with real moms telling real stories of the trials and tribulations of motherhood. It'll be at TADA! Theater September 24th - 26th, 8pm. I'm told you should buy tickets early, as the show, which originated in LA, has been known to sell out quickly.

If you come, make sure to stop by and sell hello. And don't forget to ask me how Stella went to sleep that night. Because, right now, only me and my magic boobies can do the trick. I'm hoping we figure something out by then.

Ah...motherhood!

Picture This

2009-06-22T10:58:00.000-07:00

In case you've ever wondered why I'm so gung-ho to get the heck out of this apartment, I've decided to paint a picture for you (I will post actual pix at a later date, but I had to get this out). I've really resisted whining about this for many reasons, but now I feel it's important to share.

You wake up to the sound of your daughter cooing/fussing over the monitor after a poor night's sleep. You go to her room to get her, dismayed to find that it, once again, smells like cigarette smoke. Neither you nor your husband (nor the baby) smokes, so you know it's from one of your 4,000 heavily smoking neighbors. You open both her windows all the way, turn the fan on high, and check to make sure that her air filter is still one.

You get her dressed and everyone has breakfast. You hang out for a while, and right when it's time for her first nap, the construction next door starts. There's been construction in the vicinity since you moved into this building in November, which is ironic because you moved her to escape the constant construction in Park Slope.

She can't sleep due to the noise, so you head out for story time at the library. Ah, fresh air and quiet (well, as quiet as NYC gets).

When you come home, the entire lobby wreaks of smoke, and you realize part of the problem is that one of your chain-smoking neighbors props his/her door open to air out their apartment. Your philosophy, you're tempted to tell them, is that if you hate the smell of smoke in your apartment, maybe you shouldn't smoke there to begin with.

As you're having lunch with your daughter, you hear downstairs neighbor begin blasting techno. This happens a few times a day, sometimes at night, and it is so loud it vibrates the entire apartment.

Finally, your daughter goes down for her nap. You turned her white noise machine on high because you had to leave her windows open to air out the smoke. About 30 minutes into her nap, the dog that lives at the house next door begins barking loudly. REALLY LOUDLY. And incessantly. Somehow, miraculously, your daughter sleeps through it. (She must be exhausted.)

You do some dishes by hand, because you don't have a dishwasher, and mop the floor, to make sure the peeling lead-based paint that your landlord refuses to fix properly without a major battle, doesn't poison your daughter.

As you go to check your email, your hear your elderly neighbor's grandchildren arrive. They bounce a basketball inside her apartment, and because the walls are paper thin, it sounds like it's in your living room. They shriek and yell, she yells at them to be quiet, they yell back, the go out in the hallway and yell some more.

Your head is raging.

Your daughter wakes up and you head out to the playground. You need fresh air yet again. Who cares that it's raining and has been for the past month?

When you get home, you hear the feral cats who live in the heavily-littered courtyard engaging in romantic relations. The pigeons that land on your window seem to answer them. Maybe the cockroaches that won't seem to go away, no matter how many traps you lay down, can join in the symphony.

You give your daughter dinner, your husband comes home, and you all begin the bath time/bedtime routine. You notice that your bathroom ceiling is leaking again, but they claim they can't fix it because nobody fesses up to being the source of it. You pray it doesn't one day collapse on you.

Just when it's time to (hopefully) get your sleep-fighting girl down for the night, your lead-footed upstairs neighbor comes home, stomping all the way. You begin to pray, again, that he won't wake her up and that he'll use some common sense tonight.

You get your daughter down, thankfully, and have a little dinner. Just as you and your husband settle in to watch The Real Housewives of New Jersey (Danielle totally reminds you of that terrible roommate you had in the West Village and therefore you hope those other ladies will take her down), upstairs neighbor begins. He must do mechanical work up there or something, because it sounds like he's dragging something heavy and metallic across the floor -- back and forth, back and forth. He drops bags of tools on the ground. He stomps to and fro.

Before long, he's done it. He's woken her up. Despite her loud, expensive white noise machine. You know you can't talk to him. You've tried, and he just answers the door in his banana hammock, acting oblivious and claiming it isn't him. If you push the issue, he begins to yell and say that everyone in the building hates you and wants you to move. Your landlords won't help, as they hate you for daring to ask them to fix lead paint properly. Your super tries, but he can't really do anything. You've called the cops countless times, but upstairs d-bag watches for them and stops when they come. Besides, their greatest piece of advice to date has been, "have you considered moving?"

You have considered moving, but you sunk over $6,000 into moving here, what with a security deposit, broker's fee, and movers. You need that money back to go somewhere new. So you call your lawyer.

Your lawyer isn't returning your calls anymore about any of this for some reason. You add him to your list of folks you'd like to get genital warts.

Before bed, after you've finally gotten the girl back to sleep, you look for places. Apartments to rent in Ditmas Park, Windsor Terrace, South Prospect Park, and good old Park Slope. Little is available in your range that seems nice. You dread going out to see them, finding that the agent lied about the neighborhood, finding the apartment is not really 1,100 square feet, finding that it's even crappier than the one you're in now.

You check real estate in Louisville, Kentucky, near your birth place, and sigh. Deeply. Homes. Yards. Distance from neighbors. Proximity to family.

You read your crappy mystery novel that you got from the library, then drift off to the sounds of techno, barking and stomping.

****

If you or anyone you know is considering moving to Kensington, Brooklyn, please tell them to really check out their place before accepting. Pay attention to smells, sounds, and neighbors. They should ask to check it out at night, after 9pm, and see how people behave. They should not rent any apartment owned by Kensington Imperial, LLC.

Playground Politics

2009-06-18T08:55:00.001-07:00

We love our local playgrounds, even if we do have to hike about a mile to get there!

Stella and I spend a good deal of our time at the local playgrounds, now that the weather is marginally nicer. (Meaning we have about one sunny day per week lately.)

The playground is an interesting mix of personalities -- both parents and kids. And since I spend most of my day chasing Stella, making sure she doesn't fall off equipment or get bulldozed by five-year-old Tasmanian devils, I don't really get to meet and mingle as I should. Which means I've come up with nicknames for the motley crew I observe. Let me share a few:

Cellphone mom

There is a mom about my age with a son about Stella's age. Whereas Stella is still merely cruising and mainly crawling, her son is fully toddling, even sprinting. As the careful mother that she is, she follows him around the jungle gym, up the stairs, across the bridge, down the slide. However, the entire time she does this, a cellphone is glued to her ear and she is busy making what sound like business deals. I have seen her catch her son before he takes a scary tumble, never missing a beat of her negotiations. Sometimes I even wonder if the person on the other end knows she's a parent.

Recently, her boy slid down the slide, only to be snatched up by an annoying seven year old girl who began to vigorously shake the poor kid. (I can call her annoying because she wouldn't keep her kid-diseased paws off Stella - stroking her face and hands and hair and saying she looked like a doll. I politely told her she wasn't a doll, and therefore shouldn't be touched. Finally I had to take Stella away from this girl, all the while searching for a Cabbage Patch Kid to throw in her direction as a decoy.) It was mildly amusing, in that schadenfreude kind of a way, to watch the mom run around to her son and annoya-kid while trying to sound cool and professional on the phone.

Judgmental Mom

There is a mom with a daughter who exemplifies gentle parenting. Her daughter is so quiet you don't even notice she's there, politely following all the playground rules and gently making friends. Her mother simply beams at her daughter in a way that screams, "look what I did -- I am the perfect mother."

Well, that's fine. I enjoy being around perfect parents in the hope that might rub off, if only a bit, on me.

What's not fine is that every single time I'm around this mom, and I mean EVERY SINGLE TIME, Stella throws one of her def con 5 tantrums -- arched back, smacking herself in the face, screaming at the top of her lungs, wanting desperately to smash her head against the concrete (she would if I let her -- she has -- so I must hold her to keep from it). These tantrums can be the result of teething discomfort, hunger, or frustration that she can't walk yet, even though she really wants to. These tantrums, I can guaran-damn-tee you (as my mom would say), are not because I've been mean to her or yelled at her or been indulgent with her or parented poorly enough to merit a call to children's services.

But try telling that to her. I sit holding my screaming daughter, my eyes sometimes filling with tears, attempting different ways of responding depending on which parenting book is in my bag, but usually I just have to ride it out and distract her once it's done. All the while, Judgmental Mom glares at me and Stella, sometimes going so far as to gently shake her blond head in disbelief. (I guess it doesn't help that my main means of coping with such turmoil is to make weird jokes, saying things like "I promise I'll pay you five million dollars when you graduate if you stop" to Stella or proclaiming that she learned this type of behavior while we were living in Park Slope.)

Now that summer's here (if only in theory), I've considered bringing a water gun so I can gently spray her in the face the next time she does it. This works on the cats!

Comparison Dad

I've seen a major influx of stay-at-home dads recently. I don't know if it's the economy or what, but more and more fathers are joining our ranks, pushing strollers, wearing Ergos, toting bananas and sippy cups.

This is a wonderful sign of the times, and one that's well overdue I think. However, that said, there is one dad at our local playground who makes me long for traditional gender roles.

His daughter is exactly Stella's age and adorable. Sweet but sassy, energetic and quick to laughter, she and Stella get along splendidly.

But while the girls giggle and coo, Comparison Dad asks questions. Lots of questions.

"Is she walking yet? What does she eat? You don't give her snacks do you? Does she sleep well? Does she listen when you say 'no?' Have you got her on a good schedule? She's down to one nap now, right? Do you do regular play dates?"

I respond politely and honestly, which inevitably leads to a lecture. I've been told about sleep training, getting her to work with my schedule, making sure she only eats three square meals a day with no snacks, making sure she knows her boundaries, etc. It doesn't phase him that I have a masters in childhood education and might know a thing or two about how kids tick. As much as he probably misses the middle management job he once had, he also seems happy being the CEO of his daughter's life.

Flirtatious Dad

This is actually a composite character. I guess stay-at-home dads get a wee bit bored with this life, because I've seen a fair amount of them be pretty darn flirtatious with the stay-at-home moms. Playground pickup lines, though, usually involve complimenting a Maclaren or inquiring about some new organic toddler snack. In their defense, they may be divorced. I don't know. But since we don't watch TV during the day, this is my form of soap opera fun.

Well, that's a good start. I'm sure I'll think of more names to add to my playground list. Of course I'm not mentioning the legion of incredibly cool parents who are fun to talk to and helpful. That sort of positivity is just boring.