My School!

This is what Max cried when I pulled out of the primary school parking lot yesterday. "My school!"

Max's first day at preschool.

I was thrilled.

He wasn't crying-crying, there weren't any actual tears. He was too exhausted from his third day of preschool in a very stimulating classroom to wind up into any kind of tantrum. He might have just been accessing an emotional response appropriate for leaving a place and practicing with it.

I don't care about any of that. I'm just glad he said something spontaneous. I'm glad he talked at all. And I am more than grateful that school quickly has become a place he enjoys.

It's been a rough journey these last several months, discovering that Max has a speech delay and perhaps a few sensory issues. His development was cruising right along, his vocabulary was growing, and his academic learning was way ahead.

At 3 years old he can sing the ABCs, correctly identify the sounds each letter makes, and even list a few words here and there that begin with those sounds. He asks me to make crescents and trapezoids when we play shapes with a rubber band, and he is about one letter away from cracking my password on the Kindle to download more apps.

But tell me what he did at school? Say what he is thinking? Communicate in sentences that aren't first given to him for parroting? Nope, not yet.

These last few months have been a confusing and often depressing journey, but the light at the end of the tunnel is glowing brighter. Actually, it's really illuminating several more tunnels, and we still have to evaluate and explore and outright guess which one is Max's best chance at being his full and authentic self. But at least we've figured out how to drive the freaking train.

Paperwork for anything having to do with school or a state board or a child's brain development is an endless stapled packet. Four different packets are really the same one just in slightly different wording or order. We all know just how much I like filling out paperwork.

But now it's an outright battle. Paperwork is just one more tactic that I'm willing to employ to get Max the help he needs to unlock speech and let all of the learning and behavior skills fall into place. I'm willing to drive to a different city to get him the best therapy. I'm willing to be what I never thought I would be: a parent who drives her kid to and from school.

I dutifully stand in the parent waiting area, the vortex of possible friendship and probable judgment. I willingly hand over my little love to other people who don't let me past the buzzer-locked double doors. I scour the little half sheet of paper that reports what he did in school that day as an attempt to have a conversation with him about it.

Happily, three days of this have yielded more results than the previous three months. My stress level has plummeted with just a few hours a day completely belonging to me, when I can actually schedule appointments or clean the house or get some grocery shopping done (which increasingly has become a screamfest when I have to drag along Max). We're all benefiting from a routine.

Max sweetly feels some ownership of this new place, this school with new toys and new playgrounds and new friends. I am feeling the same gratitude for it.

My school! My chance! My relief.

Ring of Despair

I suppose it's OK to let Max play in his bedroom while I'm here in the boys' bathroom sorting his brother's laundry he is going to be stuck downstairs all day it's freaking snowing again and I'm too filthy to go to the gym and take him so he can have fun in the kid room there I didn't wash my hair yesterday it's so dirty it hurts I'll just wait until he naps if he naps he hardly ever sleeps but maybe he will be merciful to me today and I can pop in a workout DVD and shower too while he naps Jesus how much laundry does Gabe have did he go to school naked his closet is only so big wait a minute what's that sound that very distinct tinkling sound of delicate metal and gems on crystal oh my God that little shit has gotten into my jewelry dish again I'd better rush into my bedroom and see what's happening he hears me coming he's already saying "oh no no no" and "it's OK" like I'm not going to spank you look what you did dammit how many times do I have to tell you oh yeah you can run but I'm going to catch you oh God you're struggling and I'm mad and I just hate myself for spanking you and this morning is just going to shit I'm trying to do laundry and housework and act like I've got it together and here you are dumping my jewelry you're entertaining yourself you've got no one to play with I guess there's just nothing to do but pick it up no I don't want your help just get away from me I don't even want to look at you right now and I hate hate hate myself for how I feel about you when you're just a little guy and you're just curious and I wish I was a better mother and oh my God where the fuck is my wedding band no get away stop it oh shit where is it where is it I've found all the earrings and the diamond and the other rings where is the band how many times do I have to tell you to leave my things alone this is my stuff stop it leave it just leave it alone my wedding band is gone I'm crying now and I know it's just a ring just a thing but this makes me so sad your daddy gave me this ring this is from daddy he gave it to me on the day we finally got married and this is my wedding ring and I miss him so much he's gone so long at sea and he gave me this ring and I'm sobbing and there is snot coming out of my nose and I'm on the floor now you're really crying and upset and trying to hug me and crap I have to hug you because you're making that funny little upset penguin honk and you only ever do that when you're super upset of course you're upset because you're just 2 and you don't know why your mom is on the floor sobbing but you know it might have something to do with you and you just said "it's OK" in half reassurance to me and half hope for yourself and you're putting your soft little chubby hands on the side of my face and trying to physically lift my sobbing face into a smile this makes me love you and hate myself even more and stop it you have to go somewhere else now I can't do this right now I just want to find this ring it has to be here somewhere I'll go through everything and lift up everything and put away all this piled stuff maybe it fell into this stuff everywhere wait a minute I'm doing extra work now and it's taking more time where did he go I hear the rattle of the blinds in the guest bedroom my God is he hanging himself in the cords of the blinds while I'm looking for a stupid ring I'm running down the hallway nope there he is just screwing around trying to make that noise again with the blinds c'mon let's go downstairs and do this laundry please I just want to do some laundry it's the one thing that always makes me feel like I can accomplish something just something anything in this house that can be some evidence that I have done something right.

(Just a little snippet from my morning.)

The Tax Tutor Cometh

My husband is a great provider for our family. It's a hard way to go about it -- being away from that family more than half the year in one of the hardest professionally skilled jobs on the planet, IMHO -- and sometimes we wonder if it's all really "worth it."

There's not much arguing with the net worth on the balance sheet, though. We may not be together like most couples get to be, but when we are together we get to live and travel and have experiences that a lot of couples only dream about. I mean, Robin Leach isn't going to show up any time soon, but it's a comfort for which I can be only grateful.

One of the greatest things Dan ever did for us financially was to contract with a local firm that manages all of our money matters. Taxes, investments, cash flow, household budget, college savings plan -- you name it, they do it. They set up a trust for all of our assets, and I finally got a power of attorney that makes handling business while Dan is away at sea so much easier.

The best part is that Dan and I can pester our financial consultant and our accountant -- hell, even the secretary there -- as often as we want. They are extremely nice and knowledgeable. And whenever there is an issue, or some sort of hoop jumping that financial matters inevitably require, they and the rest of the team there will do the research and make the calls and fill out the forms.

Oh my God, the forms.

Any and all forms ever sent my way should come with a brown paper lunch bag. Forms make me hyperventilate. I have a bad association with forms when it comes to money and insurance and other Really Important Stuff. Very bad. But the folks at Hantz, along with Titus & Urbanski, just handle it and tell me where to sign.

Spare me any lecturing on how I, especially as a smart and capable woman, should know more about finances and should be able to figure it out myself. I'm scarred, OK? Besides, for good or evil, money is rather important and having experts sort it all out isn't a dumb idea. I take my clothes to a really good tailor, even though I could take three times as long to hem my own pants and probably end up with uneven stitches and a bloody finger. I'll take my money to a really good financial firm, and I won't be the one calling the banks and the brokers and the myriad governmental gatekeepers and waiting on hold until Christ comes again.

Enter Tony the Tax Man, as I call him. T-Bone, as my husband calls him. We met him at a vendor's booth for his firm at our little village's annual summer festival. Dan had been on the hunt for a new CPA to prepare his taxes, which are ridiculous because of his sailing schedule, independent consulting, union, Navy orders, etc., and was considering a financial adviser too since I had quit earning my own paycheck and the whole family's financial stability was now in one basket.

Filed under Small World Wonders, it turned out folks from Tony the Tax Man's firm were the exact same ones who gave a presentation on retirement investments that I had covered for the newspaper. [You can read that little gem here: "Older residents urged to do estate, tax planning for retirement" -- I did not write that boring headline, by the way.]

Dan and I ended up scheduling a meeting with Brian the Brain (a moniker I only now made up but which totally fits), and it was he who had been the first one to ever make any of that 401(k) shit sound sensible to me -- and hopefully to the Silver Sneakers seniors gathered at the YMCA that day as well. A copy of my article was even laminated and among the pile of magazines on the lobby table when we first arrived at the office. Good omen, eh?

So now, Tony the Tax Man prepares our return, Brian the Brain keeps our finances on track, and Kristine the Great (our lovely lawyer queen) helped us prepare all of the documents that say who gets our kids when we die. Now that is one-stop shopping.

But today I'm particularly fond of Tony the Tax Man. A preview ad for HBO's "Silicon Valley" finally made me realize why he looks so familiar; Tony apparently is the stunt double for Zach Woods. A letter from the Ohio Department of Taxation made me realize how very vital Tony is in keeping my hyperventilating feelings at bay.

Good ol' ODT sent both Dan and me an "identity verification" letter stating how very concerned the department was with being responsible to the American taxpayer and doing everything it could to combat fraud. What I read was it wanted me to jump through one more goddamned hoop and had made it cumbersome enough in the hopes that it wouldn't really have to issue us any refund.

At first I played it very cool. I followed the letter's directions, went online to take the ID quiz, and had Dan's letter scanned in and ready to attach to an email that I planned to send to him aboard his ship with this very easygoing and reassuring note that I had successfully passed the quiz and he just needed to do this teensy little thing and everything would be golden.

Instead, I wrote him and cc'd Tony the Tax Man with a record of my failure. I couldn't even get past the log in page. But Dan couldn't either, and I suppose that made me feel a bit less incompetent. We kept getting these errors that we weren't in the Ohio Department of Taxation's system. All I could think was, "Then why the f*ck did you send me this letter?" This is why I hate this stuff so so so much. It never works out.

But Tony eventually got us the answers we needed and set us on the path to passing the quiz. Tony the Tax Tutor.

I highly recommend getting a financial adviser or manager or consultant, even if you think you don't have that many finances to be advised/managed/consulted in the first place. An adviser actually helps you find more money. And if you can, find one that does all these services together, especially if you are ever paying for anyone else to do your taxes. The fee for this particular firm is $100 a month, and that includes our annual tax preparation so really it's only 60 more bucks a month for the year. Money doesn't scare me that much to miss the good deal in all of this. Kristine the Great had her own fees, but if you have people you love and property you want to protect and pass on, you really need the kind of stuff she handles.

Now all that's in my little brown paper bag is a sandwich. Bought and paid for, baby. Pass the mayo.

'We Deserve to See a Range'

I cried for three days when I found out I was going to have another boy. Now I can't imagine my life without Max in it, but boy oh boy did I want a girl.

I love the idea of seeing what kind of mother of a daughter I'd be after being the daughter of my mother. I also love the hair bows and the frilly dresses, the dolls and the sparkles, the girly girl stuff in all of its forms.

But I know there are varied, wonderful dimensions to being a girl. I happen to have some of them. A pink princess castle isn't the only part. Hell, it doesn't need to be a part at all.

Frankly, castles should be gray. A little reality doesn't hurt any girl. Boys get castle sets that resemble real stone, so why does a girl's castle toy have to be pink? It's more of the same conspiracy to label girls as the "weaker" sex that is stamped right on their diapers. (See "The Cheese Stands Alone" blog post.)

Toy company GoldieBlox, which makes interactive books and games, is doing its very best to combat this nonsense and encourage girls to play with science and engineering concepts. (See Slate.com article.) Even better, it set a commercial of girls using all of that pink plastic crap as the world's biggest Mousetrap game to a Beastie Boys tune. I just so happened to have a little love affair with them when I was growing up.

That's not very pink and frilly at all. But they did inspire an awesome lullaby, "No Sleep till Boobie." (See "Max's Anthem" blog post.)

Co-Sleeping Nightmares

The scene this morning.

I hate co-sleeping with my baby. I do it, but I hate it.

Here are a few things you should know:

1. Max has been a terrible sleeper since the day he was born. Hates to sleep. Never seen anything like it.

2. He isn't really a baby anymore. He's a 17-month-old toddler, and co-sleeping with him has gotten increasingly frustrating.

3. My husband doesn't like this arrangement any more than I do, although for different reasons.

4. Yes, I've tried everything. Yes, it's safe. Yes, I'd like it to be different. Your advice is not being solicited here. I need to vent.

Co-sleeping supporters tend to be the enthusiastic kind, the ones who are really into attachment parenting and point to cultures across the globe who don't put their offspring in cages in a separate room at night. They fiercely defend the practice against the traditionalists and the medically panicked alike.

I'm not one of those people, really. I'm doing it just because that's the only thing that worked for Max. I found myself trying to explain the history of his sleep habits and justify how he ended up in my bed here in this post, but I deleted all of that. You'll just have to believe me. From the day he was born he was like this, and having him sleep next to me was the last resort.

Gabe had slept in his own places, after all, with no trouble. Fifteen years later, I had every intention of my new baby sleeping in his own bed. We had a bassinet, a crib AND a playpen set up well before Max even came home. We were fools.

Getting Max to nap during the day in his crib was a major achievement that took months and months. Hell, just getting him to fall asleep in the first place is a victory every time. I spend hours of my life trying to rock him and sing to him and pat him. No, I don't let him Cry It Out. That's mean. And he doesn't cry. He just lies there awake, happy, waiting to throw a tantrum later in the day when we're out in public and he hasn't napped.

Nighttime is still ruled by co-sleeping. And not just sleeping in the same bed with me; Max wants to sleep cuddled up right up next to me, and I can't stand it. I don't like sleeping with anybody else, not even my husband.

Hold on -- there are several things I like to do with my husband in bed. (How do you think Max got here?) I'll cuddle, talk, have sex, horse around, even submit to the occasional spooning for a nap. But when it comes to really sleeping, at night, to recharge my body and brain?

Get. Off. Of. Me.

I don't need a BTU factory or a sheet stealer or a nerve pincher. I need a good rest. In a bed all to myself, with no one else's tossing and turning, snores, or farts other than my own. Selfish, I know.

My dear husband wants to sleep in a bed with his wife in it. Sigh. I suppose, but it's just all rather moot since there is a toddler in his spot. My husband is out to sea right now so it's not like he's getting much sleep at all, but when he comes home the guest bed is still waiting for him. I had hopes that I would train Max to sleep in his own crib at night by the time his daddy came back, but that plan is going to the same place where most of mine go lately: straight to shit.

Still, sleeping-as-in-sleeping with my husband would be better than sleeping with Max. Because the real issue is that Max likes to sleep with strands of my hair clenched in his grasp.

I forget when Max started using my hair as his security blanket, but it's lasted for more than a year now. Some kids suck their thumbs. Max holds my hair. He runs his fingers through it, he holds it taut and strums it like a guitar, he even sucks on it if I'm not paying attention.

He is still quite the restless sleeper at night, but he can usually self-soothe with a little handful of hair.

This does not mean restful sleep for me. Max doesn't just reach for my hair, really. He drowsily gropes for it, which means he first picks my nose or slaps me on the forehead before he finds my scalp. And as he has gotten older and more independently mobile, he also wants to be cuddled up RIGHT NEXT TO ME. He even tries to put his very heavy, bowling ball-like head on top of my head. No matter how much I push him over onto his own side, he rolls or scoots or slides until he is pressing every available body part against me.

It sucks.

Try being asleep and getting head-butted in the nose so squarely you bleed or poked in the eye so hard you see stars. Happens to me nightly. Oh, and try to conceal your rage. Try to feel like a good mom when you throw your toddler into his crib from a rather significant distance just because you can't freaking take it one more night and then feel how tightly his arms clutch around your neck when you go back in and pick him up and he goes instantly back to sleep because all he needs in his little life is a fistful of hair and a warm cuddle and the assurance of love from the woman who just moments before treated him like bag of trash thrown into a can.

Trust me, if I could get Max to sleep through the night in his own bed, I would. I was rather desperate to get it done while Dan is away. Then I would truly get some time in the bed all by myself. Because I know that as soon as I kick out the kid, the husband is going to come back in. At least he stays on his own side and hasn't punched me in the head yet.

I'm not looking for suggestions, or even sympathy. I'm just trying to put an alternate perspective out there on co-sleeping. Not everyone is doing it out of choice or good will. Some of us are doing it because it's the only way that works, and by that we mean what's best for our kids. It certainly isn't because it's what is best for us. So give us a break.

Just not on my nose.

Mouth Fishing

I knew a young boy who swallowed a bug, I don't know why he swallowed a bug ... but he's not dying on my watch!

This morning I had to fish out several pieces of ladybug from my nearly 1-year-old son's mouth. To say this took an extreme amount of fortitude would be an understatement.

I grew up on a farm and am no stranger to bugs, but I have become more squeamish about them over the years. And the thought of them crawling all over my baby, let alone in his mouth, is just a bit too much to stomach.

The first one who tells me that bugs are just protein is going to be forced to eat a plate of them.

Since I didn't want the bug to go into Max's stomach, I knew I had to get it out of his mouth. I'm always swiping a finger through his mouth to remove all the other weird things he manages to find and put right into his most exploratory baby part -- mostly little stones of grout from the aging tile in our kitchen.

Thankfully he seems content to roll around these stones and leaves and bits of fuzz in his mouth until I notice the telltale signs on his lips and come in for the swoop. Unfortunately he has gotten wise to my efforts and now will clamp shut his jaw instead of submissively letting me dig around in there.

It made my knees week this morning to discover he had a ladybug in his mouth. We have a real problem with them getting into our house, but I haven't seen many yet this spring. (Centipedes are another matter, they're everywhere, but hopefully they are too fast for his pudgy baby fingers.) I think he must have discovered a dry old dead one in some corner missed by the vacuum.

I had to mentally instruct myself to get this out of his mouth. I had to convince myself that to feel the crunchy bits of wings and legs and disembodied head of the ladybug with my finger wasn't nearly as nasty as them being on his tongue.

Let me tell you, ladybug bits don't come out easily. They want to stick to that wet tongue, and the baby wants to keep exploring that new texture. It was quite the battle, complicated because I was holding him over the kitchen sink so that I could fling away the bits of bug as soon as I captured them. I didn't need to worry about them landing on the floor where he would just find them again and put them back into his mouth.

Guh-ross.

The Cheese Stands Alone

Sexism starts early in life.

I clad my baby in a brand of diapers that are adorned with cartoon characters. I use this brand because it offers decent leak protection and a nice little rewards program that lets me donate diapers to others.

These diapers are unisex. Some brands have a color-coded differentiation for boys and girls, which I find unfortunate. Can we give their genitals some time to actually develop before we cover them in pink and blue? Excuse me, pink OR blue.

But my brand may be worse. My brand isn't just telling babies that boys and girls are different, these diapers implicitly state that boys are better than girls.

The male cartoon characters are sometimes featured solo on the diaper, but the female characters appear only with their respective male partner or in a group. They never get to stand on their own.

It's fine for a baby girl to have Mickey Mouse smiling over her hooha, but it would be intolerable for a baby boy to wear a diaper with Minnie Mouse batting her eyelashes right over his pee-pee. Right?

No, this isn't right. This is how we indoctrinate our children right from the beginning that boys are supposed to be strong and independent and girls are supposed to be supportive and cooperative. Those all are good things to be, certainly, but when we start parsing them out on a gender basis we make the dividing line thicker and more damaging than it needs to be.

What's most troubling to me is that it's OK for a girl to wear boy things but not OK for a boy to wear girl things. Girls in overalls are cute but boys in a tutu are unacceptable.

Let's be quite clear: It's unacceptable not because it's just different but because it lessens the boy, it sucks away his manhood, it turns him into a weak girl. If a girl wants to step up and play with the big boys, that's admirable. But for a boy to parade around in a Minnie Mouse diaper would be an anathema.

I like it that girls and boys are different. I celebrate many of those differences in my womanhood, and I honor many of those differences in the manhood of my husband, male family members and other men I know. But none of those elements are harmful to the other person, none rob the other of basic personhood.

It boils down to girls being inferior to boys. When girls wear boy clothes, it's as if they are bettering themselves into being boys. When boys wear girl clothes, it's as if they are lowering themselves into being girls. It's acceptable for a girl to be like a boy because that is the ultimate way of being a person. It's unacceptable for a boy to be like a girl because that is giving up the best for just OK.

Damn shame, really. I'm kind of glad whenever Max poops all over it.

Daddy Ashore

Daddy takes Max for a little motorcycle ride in the village park.

After four long months, my husband has returned from sea.

One hundred and twenty-eight days have gone by since he last saw his infant son. His jaw-dropping, eye-widening smile when he came down the escalator at the airport and saw us standing there was worth every minute.

Max got a lot bigger since he was 2 months old. He wasn't ever a scrawny thing, but he has plumped up into a chubby chunk of absolute cuteness and several arm rolls. And he can sit up on his own and stand on your lap and babble away, which are amazing to a man who remembers him only crying, eating and pooping.

Baby and daddy adjusted to each other quite well. I'd like to think Max actually remembers him, but it's hard to tell and really doesn't matter.

It probably helps that every night I played for Max a voice mail Dan left for him and that I showed him one of our wedding pictures in which Dan is kissing me, saying, "That's Daddy! See Daddy? That's your daddy!"

Max is a happy, interactive baby, and he had Daddy enamored pretty quickly. He must have said, "Look at that smile!" a dozen times the first night home.

The next day, we put the baby in the stroller and did our village rounds, including the post office, hardware, bakery, and dollar mart. This time we added the park, and we both delighted in Max's little feet clapping away as Daddy pushed him in the baby swing.

We still have some things to work out. A minor one is that Dan isn't used to how baby things multiply like baby rabbits and spread all over the house. If he has a better solution, he can knock himself out. But most parents accept a certain level of it and deal with it.

A major one is that Max was still co-sleeping with me in our bed. I had made significant progress in Max sleeping in his crib for his naps, but we never got around to a different nighttime routine. He is still nursing a few times a night, and he rests best when he's cuddled up next to me.

But since Dan has been working aboard a ship for 128 straight days, standing a midwatch that gives him only a few hours of sleep here and there, his first night home was going to be spent in his own bed.

Max slept contentedly the first few hours in his own crib -- some pretty vital hours for a husband and wife to be alone in their bed after being parted for four months -- but protested mightily when I tried to put him back in there after a nursing session.

I gave it a good hour, and then gave up and took him into the guest bed and spent the rest of the night with him in there. I didn't sleep well at all.

But there's always a transition period, no matter the time away. This time is special because it's the first one coming back to a son who is older and bigger and different, but there will be more of those times to come.

For now, we'll all just sleep when and where we can. I'm the only one awake, keyed up after seeing the new James Bond movie for our date night. Max is still asleep in his downstairs playpen where my mother laid him, and Dan is curled up in the big chair asleep with his dog.

My plan is to wait until Max rusltes, take him upstairs, nurse him back to sleep, and conk out with him in his bed. Shh ... don't wake Dan.

To Work or Not to Work, That Is the Question

I'm out of writing juice.

My new reporting job is sucking it out of me. It's also being rather gluttonous with my emotional and physical well-being.

I sent some videos of baby Max to his daddy out to sea, and they inspired him to protect what he could see as the results of a good, strong mother-son relationship. He said that I could quit my job and that he would keep working hard to support all of us.

To say I was relieved would be an understatement. On "E" in my articulation tank, I can't adequately describe what I felt to have been given that gift. It's something for which I had been praying about six months into my pregnancy, and now Max is almost 5 months old.

I also have no words for how difficult it has been to consider really quitting my job.

Lots of people are telling me lots of different things, which is turning my brain into utter mush and spurring my already manic tendencies. My bosses are begging me to stay and insisting that I just need to give it more time to feel settled and qualified in this beat. My mother is dead-set against me giving up a career for which I've paid so many dues.

I think my boys are leaning toward me quitting. My teenager Gabe found the most gentle way he could to tell me that I've been a raging bitch the past several weeks. Max just clamors to be nursed more often.

My identity has been wrapped up in newspaper for so long that it is far more challenging to jettison it than I ever had imagined. I have clear pictures in my mind of what kind of mother, wife, daughter, sister, cousin, auntie, friend, and community member I could be without the stress of a professional job. But I go back and forth several times a day.

My litmus test has become: "Do I really need this kind of bullshit in my life?"

The question is easily answered with a resounding "hell no" upon cranky emails from coworkers, standing in the damn rain at assignments, or typing a story with one hand while the other hand is desperately trying to guide a boob into a screaming baby's mouth.

Yet these "well maybe" answers keep creeping in. A story, typed with one or two hands, sometimes turns out really well, and it's hard not to be proud of it. A reader will thank me, or I make a really interesting new acquaintance. Suddenly laundry and bottle washing don't seem that glamorous, or even necessary.

I have more than 100 pairs of shoes in my closet, and I haven't found the walking ones just quite yet.

Slumber Party

Sometimes a girl's just gotta stay in.

A friend was throwing a girl's night out (out for us, in her apartment for her) and she had the graciousness to let me bring one tiny man. I was going to do my best to avoid her Jell-O shots but was looking forward to her company.

Things have been going a little rough for me lately, which manifests in several tried-on-and-rejected outfits strewn all over my bedroom. I'm slightly obsessive about dressing to match Max, so the whole experience was exacerbated tonight.

I eventually got Max and myself dressed. I had no sooner wrestled him into a jacket and strapped him into his car seat when he decided to crap his pants.

I was considering an attempt to still conjure the energy to go to the party while I was changing him. But when I came downstairs I had to yell at Hippo for barking at something in the front yard, and she pissed on an oriental rug that has been rolled up in the basement during her puppy year and that Gabe had lugged upstairs and placed in the foyer only yesterday.

Game over.

I had Max and myself dressed in pajamas by 7 p.m. We'll go to bed as soon as he starts drooping his eyes.

Molting Chicken

Gawd, I am losing a lot of hair.

My body apparently has jumped off the postpartum hormone cliff. It's a study in opposites: What was supple has become brittle, what was smooth has turned flaky.

On a happy yet intensely personal note, an arid desert has once again become the lush rain forest it's supposed to be.

But mostly I'm just losing my hair at an alarming rate. Much of what I read insists this is normal, but I've never had tresses so thin.

My son Gabe is astounded every time the chore of sweeping the bathroom floor comes up in rotation and he fills the dustpan with my hair, which is absolutely everywhere. I am constantly plucking it off of Max and out of my bra. Washing my hair in the shower has become absolutely depressing, as I stand there and scrape tangled clumps of it off of my wet hands.

My doctor notes that while it is indeed typical for women who don't lose even the daily amount of strands while they are pregnant to shed a fair amount later, my copious loss is a stress symptom. Stupid job.

Thankfully, my hairdresser -- the real professional in this area -- ran her hands through it today and assured me that while I may have less of it, the hair that remains is healthy. Not even split ends.

I got a little trim and a much needed color boost, and we'll just have to see whether that shocks my hair into behaving properly.

Or I'll just go bald and rock some head scarves.

Who's Down With OCD?

I don't have an official diagnosis, but few who know me well would be surprised to learn I'm a touch obsessive compulsive.

This may have something to do with the hours I spent as a kid planting flowers with my dad and his trusty tape measure. The little packet said to plant them 8 inches apart, and by God we did just that.

It was reinforced during the years I spent as a page designer and copy editor at a newspaper. Those lines had to even up just so, and it sure as hell does matter exactly where the word "only" goes.

As much as I like to let clutter lie around in my house, I do have specific locations for which clutter should lie where. That pile of receipts may have no business stacked on the liquor cabinet, but that's where I have been keeping them and I know where they are and so they stay there.

When it comes to Max's baby stuff, I am quite specific about where it all lives. The most anal thing I do is keep a particular pacifier in each room. I want to be sure to always have one wherever he may decide to pass out for a nap. If we change rooms or especially floors of the house, I pull out whatever plug he has in his mouth and then pop in another one once we reach our destination.

However, when other people are in your house caring for your child -- like the babysitter or my I'll-do-whatever-I-please-anyway mother -- those pacifiers grow legs and travel all over the house. My dad, the boys and I were halfway to Wauseon before I realized the sitter had not heeded my directions to leave a binkie in the car seat. (She left it in the cup holder of the stroller to which the car seat attaches after their walk, so maybe she assumed she was.)

I buy more and leave them on the tables where I like them, but they don't stay there very long. I restack books and reorganize toys only to do it all over again the next day.

I really can't complain to the people who are making my life easier in every other way. So I'll just complain to you, dear reader.

Tagged Off

Someone, somewhere, in some special cubby hole of a distribution center, is tagging the shit out of baby items.

The neckline of one little onesie has three different labels, inexplicably about 3 inches long, which certainly itches or tickles or generally irritates the neck and back of the baby collared in it.

A stuffed animal is shot through with plastic thread, tying an arm to a leg, an ear to an eye, and the whole thing to the box it came in.

A tired mommy re-covers her baby with a blankie only to have an errant tag right in the middle of one side go right up his nose, waking him up and destroying any more hope of either of them actually sleeping at 3 a.m.

After my baby shower, I sat at my dining room table for hours with a pair of scissors -- and at one point a pair of heavy-duty snips -- removing all of the tags and ties and twists from the clothing, toys and other items people had given us. I keep a pair of scissors in the nursery just for this reason as we get more stuff.

I swear, someone must earn a commission for every plastic thread and tag attached to one item.

Help Wanted

My mommy is a rookie too at finding full-time babysitters.

I never had a babysitter growing up. Ever.

I had extended family instead. My mother was pretty much Betty Crocker until I was an adolescent, making our baby food and clothes, tending the garden, taking a break from dusting to watch "As the World Turns," and generally being an extraordinary farm wife.

When my dad taught her how to drive one of his semi trucks and she joined him in his grain hauling business, my brother and I took a short trip through the alfalfa field to our grammy's house in the mornings. She fed us Fruit Loops -- an awesome treat since my mother took the church co-op rather seriously in the '70s -- and set our grandpa's horrific photo development timer to make sure we wouldn't miss the school bus. (That buzz would have woken the dead.)

In the afternoons our great aunt, who lived between our farm house and grandparents' house, would be waiting at our home when we got off the bus. My brother always marveled at how she poured the milk at just the right time so that it wasn't too searingly cold to have with our cookies, without a timer no less.

Now that's the way to leave your kids when you go to work: with trusted family.

My parents aren't in retirement, though. True, my dad isn't hauling anymore, but he is maintaining all three properties. And he's better with kids already out of diapers. My mom can swing a few days a week tops, and other family members have their own careers and families and obligations.

And we live a bit farther apart than one little alfalfa field.

So I have begun the cheerless task of finding a sitter for my baby. It reinforces some resentment and anxiety about returning to work. It's especially odd since teen Gabe has been on autopilot for so many years. In some ways he may be watching my dad when he is at the farm! (I wonder if he sets out milk and cookies for his grandpa.) As I said before, Gabe is the brother and not the primary babysitter for Max, although he does help out a great deal when I am trying to get things done around the house.

I started with some word of mouth, or rather word of Facebook in this social media age. I got some bites for folks willing to care for my baby in their home, but I am really hoping to keep Max in his own home -- especially with the major change of his daddy coming and going every three months or so.

I turned to Care.com, a site for posting jobs and resumes for caregiving of all sorts. It's good, although you have to pay a monthly fee to view full profiles and communicate with prospective candidates. And there are a bevy of filters to screen the best matches and background checks already on file.

I was willing to pay for that, certainly. But I got sticker shock when it came to paying for the actual sitter. Most folks will accept $20 a day if you bring your kid to their home. But the rate triples and even quadruples if you want someone to come to your own home ... and watch your full cable lineup and sit in your air conditioning and log onto your wi-fi and eat your food and use your washer and dryer.

I guess I understand part of it. There is the driving, and the not being able to wipe down your own kitchen counters. But everything else is the same. You'd better shower and get out of your pajamas at your own house too if I'm paying you to be with my bambino.

Good care is worth it, though. I felt like I was on eBay trying to get this wonderful young nursing student to come here, offering her more and more until she said yes. She was the only one I felt like could have been part of my family, and that was what was most important.

Post Script: No, I'm not going to pay you $40 a day for any damn thing, and certainly won't let you near my children, if you write to me things like: "I seen your ad" or "Your welcome." No. Way.

Just a Little off the Top

A freshly trimmed Gabe holds brother Max, while his cousin Maddie
waits for her magic foil to put pretty blonde streaks in her hair.

Many, many birds will be killed if I bother to pick up a stone. It's a chief attribute of a multitasker.

It was frustrating at the beginning of Max's babyhood to be limited to one little task spread over hours. He and I have figured out much better strategies now, and I'm getting a bit more rest, so I can tackle bigger projects.

My latest was wrangling three appointments at the salon. My roots were showing something fierce, Gabe had become a shaggy monster, and niece Maddie had been promised a proper highlighting for her birthday present.

It's always worth the 45-minute drive to the community where I previously lived so that we can receive these services from friend and stylist Shella. If I ever pop into a more local salon for a quick fix, I get tons of compliments on her work. And I wanted Maddie to have the best blonde streaks my money could buy.

Gabe gets great cuts at an old-fashioned barber house in this same community (he goes when he visits his dad and stepmother when he is in town with them) but logistics required him to join us in the house of estrogen. And I needed him to watch his baby brother.

On that score, Gabe did a most amazing job. Max took a nice long nap on his lap, and he was entertained so well the rest of his awake time that he never cried once.

As far as Gabe's head, though, he had to get it screwed back on after I chewed it off.

Shella had arranged for another stylist to cut his hair while she started on Maddie, and this woman gave Gabe a nice trim. But in my opinion, his thick, wavy locks needed more shearing for the summer. Leave it like that and he'd have to be right back in the barber chair two weeks later. That's a waste of my money.

All I said, though, was that I thought it needed to be a little shorter (like he gets at his barber, which I asked him to do the last time he was in town but that didn't happen). The stylist started telling me that it was what Gabe had asked for, so I told Gabe the same thing. "It would be good to get it cut shorter now, buddy."

"It's fine," he said.

Hmpf.

I explained that with as much as he was working on the farm repairing the garage roof, he would be cooler. I added that he would look more presentable with less shag when it grows out in a week. And still a second "it's fine" passed his lips. I tried the old evil eye, but it must have been out of order. He was willing to get out of the chair like he was. I persisted, and he resisted. The stylist spoke some sort of words that seemed to defend Gabe, and I had to get a little short with her to insist that in this moment I was calling the shots.

And so his hair got shorter.

Now, before you think this is a battle of aesthetics between a mother and a teenager, let me assure you that it is not. Gabe is a lot like me. He wants everyone else to be happy and comfortable. Hell, he may even remember me telling a stylist that my terrible haircut was "fine" only to go to someone else the next day for a rescue. He was not defending his desire to look a certain way. He just wanted the haircut to be over, to get back to the games and videos on his phone, and to leave the stylist feeling good about herself.

That's all well and good, but he sure as hell wasn't going to do it at my expense. I wasn't going to be the one walking away unhappy with it, not after going through all the effort to drag this baby around and handle a birthday gift and coordinate it all on the day he was due to come see his dad.

Back in the spa, where we were changing Max's diaper, I told Gabe that I felt he was being disrespectful to me, and that I would not tolerate it, especially in public. The evil eye was back in order, and a wagging finger was added for good measure, and Gabe seemed appropriately mollifying. (And yes, later I did check whether he liked the shorter haircut. He did.)

There certainly are people out there, and likely reading this blog, who think I am overbearing. Of the sins of motherhood that I could be committing, I will gladly take that one. Especially when it leaves Gabe looking presentable and feeling cooler while he's literally on a hot tin roof.

The Throne

My chunky boy in his happy seat.

"Now, this chair is a little controversial, but I don't give a shit."

This is what neighbor Kendall says to Miranda on "Sex and the City" (Season 5 episode 72, "Critical Condition") when she loans this mother of a fussy baby a vibrating bouncy chair. I happen to think the same thing.

I'm not sure what is so controversial about getting your kid to shut up, but I do make sure that I don't let Max shimmy-shake in the seat I bought for him any longer than he may vibrate in the car seat when we drive somewhere.

Perhaps his brain cells are getting shaken away, but I also am getting dinner cooked. One of my precious showers. Laundry done. A blog post written.

Or just some peace and quiet. It's something we both need, really.

Since this little throne has come into our lives, the periods of Max's bliss have extended greatly. He is happier a lot more often, and he gets plopped into the chair only when absolutely necessary. Our shower routine is so happy that I don't even have to switch on the vibration. He just contentedly sits in it on the bathroom floor, rocks a bit, and laughs when I peek-a-boo around the shower door.

Old wives' tales have been telling us to set our babies on clothes dryers for years, and this is why parents willingly drive around the block with their baby at all hours of the night. It's the vibration.

There's a positively awesome reinforcement of this point later in the episode with the character Samantha, but I'll let you watch it and find out that little gem for yourself.

One of These Boys Is Not Like the Other

Several things he does can be explosive, including belching, diaper filling and screams.

"Stop comparing him to Gabe. This is not Gabe, this is Max. Meet Max."

My cousin Amanda recently had to reintroduce me to my infant son. I had become a broken record in mentioning how different Max was behaving from how Gabe did as a baby.

My memory may not be perfectly clear, but Gabe nursed for long sessions, slept contentedly in his crib, was happy to let his father hold him and could be easily soothed in his car seat by a rousing rendition of "Old McDonald."

That Max differs in these areas was causing me a bit of distress. I was doing pretty much the same stuff I had done 15 years ago with my first son, and with any other infant I could get my hands on, but my results were suddenly of the fussy kind.

Side note: I cracked up Dan a while ago with these comments to Max: "Hey, what's your major problem? Major Problem? He must serve under General Fussiness!" You'll have to forgive the military family humor. Back to my blood family.

Amanda reminded me that Max was an entirely different person and would have his own needs, likes, dislikes, attitude, nursing schedule, poopy face, etc. I needed to let go of what an easy baby Gabe was, and maybe even how capable of a mother I had been.


Surprisingly enough, things with Max got a lot easier from that moment on. Successes are of the two steps forward, one step back variety, but they are coming. He still thinks sleeping anywhere else but in my arms is an effrontery, but we're working on it. The vibrating bouncy chair helps.

I may be less sure of myself as a mother, but Max thinks I'm the bees knees. He loves to look at me and smile and wave his chubby fists at me. He will happily lie over my shoulder and slobber all over my shirt for as long as I will let him. He has learned what it means when I squeal "Kisses!" and he crinkles his eyes and opens his mouth and waits for me to smother his face in smooches. He is *this* close to actually laughing.

He would beg to differ if anyone called him something other than easy. To him, it's very easy: Just have his mommy hold him at all times, feed him practically every hour, let him nurse himself to sleep, and cram herself in the backseat with him and let someone else drive so he can see her at all times. The screaming comes only when we deviate from this plan.

I knew that every baby was "different," but I didn't think it would be this different. I should have kept in mind my mother's oft-repeated comments on the differences between her own two children, which go something like this:

"You were a perfect baby. As long as you were in the same room with me, you were content to sit by yourself and watch. You quickly added a half an hour on each end of your sleep until you were going through the night. I thought I was a great mother and had this baby stuff licked. And then your brother was born. He had to eat every two hours and had to be touching me every moment of the day. It's a good thing you were born first, Rebecca. If I had had Andrew first, you wouldn't be here."

I'm already pouting at my husband about wanting another baby (which he is adamantly refusing, btw) so Max isn't anywhere near the colic or stress that make women rush to the doctor to get a tubal. He's just not what I had expected, based on my previous experience.

And all that means is that *I* am not what I expected I would be. You know, someone who could cook and clean and get shit done around the house, even with an infant. Maybe even read a book (although I am quite glad I don't have to write an essay about it for some professor).

Max isn't really the cranky one at all.

I am.

Fair Winds and Following Seas

Bye-bye, Daddy.

This afternoon, I stood on the curb outside the Toledo Express Airport and bid goodbye to my husband, Dan. His sea bag and briefcase at his feet, he held me and gave me the encouragement I would need to face the next few months on my own:

"You'll do a great job. Thanks for being such a good mom."

I cried the whole way home.

I am grateful that baby Max and I spent the rest of the afternoon and evening with my parents and brother, hanging out at the farm and eating steak. But now it's nighttime, and Max is sleeping in his playpen, Gabe is with his dad, my dog Johnny is with my ex, and Hippo is passed out on the cool tile after her misadventures of letting herself out in the 100-degree heat while I was gone. I feel alone.

Luckily, HBO is running the entire miniseries of "John Adams," one of my favorites and a great way to reflect on the nation's birthday. And I'm trying very hard to resist a binge-eating urge. (I'm full of steak and corn and melon anyway.)

I've spent many long months with Dan away at sea before, so I know the loneliness will come and go. I know that just one conjuring of his image in my mind or, more profoundly, a whiff of his shirts in his closet will make me smile one minute and weep the next. I know that I will grow accustomed to not hearing from him and then shoot to the moon with happiness when his ringtone jingles my phone if he happens to hit a domestic port at a reasonable hour.

But this is the first time he has ever been away when we've had a baby. I was willing myself to hold it together, but my knees went weak when he kissed Max, rubbed his chubby little arm and told him to be a good boy for me while he was gone.

Lots of parents, especially those deployed in the military, spend long stretches away from their children. Each time is hard at any age, but perhaps especially so during these rapid stages of babyhood. We all will manage as best as we can.

I will do most of the crying, I'm sure.

Nine out of 10 Dentists Agree

Gabe watches Max for me so I can shower. Woo hoo!

If there is one piece of advice I would impart to first-time mothers, it would be this:

Just try to brush your teeth at least once a day.

Among the things to which women address that depressing question -- "Why didn't anyone tell me about this part?" -- is how personal hygiene goes out the window once you bring home a newborn and you are alone with him for most of the day.

Days all run together anyway as you are up every two hours around the clock for feedings, so you you may not even notice you haven't showered for three of them. Other people in the house may, but they had better be too polite to mention it.

You might be lucky and have a baby who is a sound sleeper for stretches long enough to even shave your legs, but otherwise you can bathe only if you have another person who can tend to the baby's needs for 20 minutes. Especially if you have to bring into the shower with you the magic milk jugs that are his sole source of sustenance.

It's not that you are Pig Pen from a "Charlie Brown" cartoon. It's just that when 20-or-more-minute stretches come around, you tend to put other priorities ahead of your own. You first do the things that will affect other living beings in your home, like prepare a family meal or sweep a floor or pay the electric bill. Before you know it, all of the baby's calm, content, self-soothed stretches for the day have gone by and you're still in your nightgown. Might as well just stay in it and go to bed for the precious few hours of sleep you'll get.

Go a fourth day without showering, and you will be affecting others at that point, so drag a bouncy chair into the bathroom, let the baby cry in it, and wash your hair and your dirtiest bits as quickly as you can.

A quick fix is to bogart your baby's wet wipes during a diaper change. If he hates having his diaper changed, you're out of luck, but if he will pleasantly lie on the changing table for an extra moment, you can make goo-goo sounds at him while you surreptitiously swipe under your arms and other places. Don't do this past the development of long-term memory, or you'll be paying for his therapy couch.

What will make a tremendous difference in your day is a crisp minty brushing of your teeth. A clean mouth makes you feel clean all over. If you can manage to drag a comb through your hair and get a few passes of a deodorant stick, you'll be ahead of the game.

Brushing your teeth is good thing because it is a task you can do fully dressed and with one hand -- a most important skill for a new mother because the baby will be in the other hand most of your day.

I've learned to do several things with one hand, including:

• Write a blog post.
• Send a text on my phone.
• Fill the dogs' food and water bowls. (My elephant-shaped watering can works wonders.)
• Transfer laundry from the washer to the dryer. (This sometimes requires a foot to pick up dropped items from the floor.)
• Assemble, use and wash breast pump parts.
• Make my breakfast and lunch.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I must go brush my teeth. I taste raisin bran and guacamole. Ick.

Should Baby Boys Have Only Baby Girlfriends?

When I saw my friends' announcement on Facebook that their son had finally made his debut in the world, the thoughts that zipped through my head went something like this:

"Oh neat, he was born two weeks after Max. Dan and I were born two weeks apart too. Maybe he and Max will find each other someday like we did."

I was startled by these thoughts. I think somewhere behind them were imaginations that had this couple stayed in the area and not moved away, our sons likely would have grown up together as church friends.

But my brain quite innocently went to comparing their happenstance of being born two weeks apart to the same time frame between me and the person I love most.

I have decided that it is normal to have an innocent thought about your son finding companionship or love or romance or whatever with the progeny of good and decent friends, regardless of the biological sex. We do it readily enough between baby boys and baby girls.

The other day at my OBGYN office, a nurse was admiring how handsome Max is and told me that there had been a mini burst of girls born and that she would be happy to serve as matchmaker and secure him a little girlfriend.

I smiled politely, but all I could think about was how willing we all are to sexualize our children at an early age as long as it is in a heterosexual way.

I wonder if that same nurse ever would dare to say something to me like, "Oh, there was another handsome baby boy who was in here yesterday. I should arrange a meeting between you and his mom so that you can get them betrothed -- in the few states that allow that sort of thing."

I believe that whatever bent his sexuality will take, Max has it right now. There's no way to tell, but there are ways to let it develop naturally. We did this with his big brother, and he is all about ogling the ladies right now. In fact, it would be better for someone to come up and offer to match-make for my teenager.

If Max and my friends' little boy ever do find each other, I hope they do indeed note how close they are in age and find some joy in that. Whatever other connections they discover will be up to them.