I (Heart) Saturdays

On Saturdays, we get to 'sleep in' till 7-ish, which also means Django and I get to wake up together. (The work days in the week, I'm up at 5:00a at the latest; he has to be up by 6:45a or so.) We lounge around -- stretching and singing, rolling and giggling -- till I need to have a cup of coffee and get in the shower, in order to get ready for sign language class at 9:30a. At sign class, we love seeing all the babies and parents, but especially Max & Tedra -- because they're the ones we're job-sharing with next school year. We usually run errands after class. Today that meant buying a bunch of 'new' clothes and a fun musical octopus at Thrift Town, and avoiding the line at the bank. (Okay, we were supposed to go in, but it was daunting.) On Saturdays, we have time to nap together, play together, vacuum together & cook together. I also get to give him his midday snack in the new food net he loves so much. Today it was green grapes + mango. He's been talking up a storm lately. It was only today -- a Saturday, of course -- that I realized that what he's been doing is working on making 'raspberries' with his tongue. Cute, cute, cute.

Our Pit Crew

In her book Operating Instructions, Anne Lamott talks a lot about her pit crew. Just to be sure readers understand what it means to be 'pit crew' for a fellow human being, she tenderly illustrates the idea by analogy to the Special Olympics event she attends every year. She explains that each competitor is assigned a helper, someone who picks them up, points them back in the right direction, and makes sure they cross the finish line -- no matter how many times they might wander off, sit down in the dirt, start to take their clothes off, or fall into tears during the course of the race. Over the last few weeks, I've been especially grateful for my helpers. As much as working full-time has been wearing me down, my pit crew has been propping me up. Special thanks this month to Cori & Milo, who meet us at Wine & Whiners Wednesdays and don't mind if 'we' chew on their calves every now and again. Also to Elizabeth for getting us out there on our first Bay to Breakers run, hopefully to become an annual family tradition. To MDN for always sharing his new toys. To Greenberg for taking me out for my first night without the baby, and to Brad & Joey for babysitting to make that possible. And last, but absolutely not least, to Aunt Jenny for coming to visit and doubling the love for 24 hours. I can't wait for summer vacation. Ten more work days.

Now

While I spent much of the workweek either in the copy room with a bunch of worksheets or in the supply closet with my breast pump, Django spent his days with two loving and wonderful niÑeras – Graciela & Marixa – and his new little lady friend, Sylvie. Guess who had the better time.

Reports have it that Django & Sylvie got carried and strolled around the sunny streets of San Francisco, held hands, shared naps and swapped drool via their toys. The only thing they didn’t do too very much is sleep. You would think this would have the benefit of making a baby MORE tired at night, but in fact it has the opposite effect. So not only did I miss all the fun while I was at work, I also got an extra dose of evening frustration. Not fair. Not fair at all.

I was thinking to make up for lost time this weekend. But that’s the thing about lost time, you never get it back. The more you try, the more you keep losing the time you’re in. It’s a vicious cycle. The only way to break it is to resolve to live firmly in the now – which is about as easy walking backwards all day. There’s something about it that’s sort of scary and uncomfortable unless you really get the hang of it. I’ve always been someone who’s had a hard time getting the hang of it. But today I really tried. Harder than ever. Because the ‘now’ is slipping by so fast.

Django and I greeted the day slowly, lazily, with lots of snorts and giggles. We rode the bus to our Baby Sign Language Playgroup at Kaiser. Wiggled some fingers, made some faces, sang some songs. Then we shared coffee and a sweet treat with Tedra & Max (7 mos.) – who we’re excited about spending LOTS of time with starting in the fall, when Tedra and I will be sharing a classroom as well as taking care of each other's babies. After that we ran a bunch of errands in Noe Valley, with a good, long, break at the park in between.

Pretty soon Django will be a ‘big’ kid, off running and sliding and bouncing on his own. But for today he was simply my beautiful baby in the baby swing.

The Last Supper (Before I Go Back To Work)

Operating Instructions

I’ve finally gotten around to reading Anne Lamott’s book about the first year of her son’s life, a book I think Andi recommended to me before Django was even out of my belly. If you ask me, it should be required reading for new moms. Especially new single moms. Especially new single moms with chequered pasts. I’ve completely dog-eared my copy, and my copy actually belongs to the public library, a temptation I usually resist out of respect for the next reader who might not share my taste in memorable passages. But I can’t help it. She tells it so much like it is – the good, the bad, the ugly, and the uglier still. In these last precious days before I return to work full-time, this is the paragraph I find myself reading again and again, and again:

“I feel like my mind becomes a lake full of ugly fish and big clumps of algae and coral, of feelings and unhappy memories and rehearsals for future difficulties and failures. I paddle around in it like some crazy old dog, and then I remember that there’s a float in the middle of the lake and I can swim out to it and lie down in the sun. That float is about being loved, by my friends and by God and even sort of by me. And so Iie there and get warm and dry off, and I guess I get bored or else it is human nature because after a while I jump back into the lake, and into all that crap. I guess the solution is just to keep trying to get back to the float.”

I keep getting caught between the urge to batten the hatches, hunker down in preparation for a big storm, and the impulse to throw open all the windows, let the weather pass right on through. So, I’ve given up nightime socializing in favor of an early bedtime routine, but I’ve also starting romping in the baby food aisle for fun little jars of pureed vegetables for Django to try, even though the authorities say we should wait another month.

What I wish I could do is cry. I think I’m in need of a really good cry. Maybe even one a day. But there’s no time for that. And I’m not yet ready to let Django see how terribly alone, overwhelmed and afraid his mama sometimes feels.( We can cover that ground once he hits middle school.)

I sure hope I don’t miss too much during the 6 weeks I’m only getting to see him a few wakeful hours a day. He’s already sitting up on his own for little stretches of time, and pushing his torso so high with his strong arms. I just know, any minute now, he’s going to figure out how to creep or roll. And I want to be there to shriek and clap and kiss, kiss, kiss when it happens.

I simply want to be there. All the time. Always.

Hittin' the Bottle

After our first sour-milk disaster with the bottle, I was worried Django would have a lingering negative impression of the thing. But, as you can see above, he's over it. He likes the bottle just fine, especially if he gets to hold it and I'm sitting nearby. We're still working on his skills at taking the bottle from other people. In fact, if any of you are in the neighborhood and would like to give him some practice, stop on by.

The other thing(s) he really likes to hold these days are his feet. Every time I turn around he's found a new way to grab at them. The other day he wouldn't even let me attach the toy tray to his Bebe Pod, as you can see. He was too busy twinkling his own toes.

Even though we've been keeping a full activity card -- cruising Costco again with Dragovich, lunching afterward with Gaitley, dining at Universal Cafe with Jen & Monique, playing infant-vision research subject at the Smith-Kettlewell lab, registering our new car at the DMV, enjoying a sunny afternoon at the Botanical Garden with Charly & Lera, whooping it up with a gang of moms & little ones at Vega's, eating Indian Pizza with Andi (after she babysat while I went to yoga!!), watching the fog roll in over a picnic dinner in the park with MDN, joining the Stonestown YMCA, visiting Joannie at City Hall, and sipping wine with John & Sachiko at Vino Rosso -- I still find time to worry about having to leave my little man and return to work full-time for 6 weeks. It's like a constant static in my brain, messes with my reception all day long. As soon as I can be clear and articulate about why it's so troubling, I certainly will. Until then, you'll probably find more photos and less words from me here.

Pitfalls of Single Parenthood

Until recently, not only did it seem reasonably manageable to be a single parent but sometimes even easier than having a partner to worry about, negotiate with, try not to scapegoat. In the last couple of weeks, however, I've discovered two things you really don't want to be handling on your own, if you can at all avoid it: 1) loading and unloading the car from a 10-day road trip; and 2) going back to work full-time.

We ended up having a fantastic time on the road visiting Nana, Aunt Jenny & Uncle Steve plus The Cousins on the Central Coast, as well as Poppa & Laura in Bakersfield. Laura took us on a special trip to the local wildflowers and Toys-R-Us -- evidence of both pictured here. Uncle Jon drove up from L.A. for a rendezvous, too. But since our return a week ago, I've been careening between depressively exhausted and maniacally preoccupied. I'm not due back at work until 5/1/08, but the idea of leaving my little fella with a stranger for 9.5 hours a day -- nice as that stranger may be -- is looming large and ugly in my mind.

The boy, I'm pleased to report, isn't anguished in the least (yet.) He's happy and healthy, and charming the pants off everyone he meets. Dr. Bojorquez said he was "perfect" at our 4-month checkup. Since our 2-month checkup he had gained just over 4 lbs to weigh in at a hefty 15 lbs 12 oz, and had grown 3.5 inches to a total length of 26 inches. His head's expanding. Brain, too, I'm willing to bet. His eyes twinkle at everything around him. You can tell, he just can't wait to be able to propel himself on all sorts of more in-depth explorations of the world. Lately, he's been arching his back like crazy. And just yesterday, after MUCH effort, I witnessed him using this move to help turn himself over, from back to belly, for the first time.

Now, if only I were so focused, determined and productive.