Would someone please come pinch me

because this must be some really odd nightmare.

I would've enlivened this post with a picture of the book's cover, but I'm rather sorry I ever saw it. :P

HT: My own, ever-alert brother.

Does this post make my butt look big?

No matter what size she is, no woman can find clothes that fit. The classically contoured can't find anything in this teenybopper day and age. The petite can't find anything what with this dad gum obesity epidemic that's all the rage. And if manufacturers remember to make something for those sized somewhere between the trendy extremes, it's always bought out since most people aren't that extreme. Ask any woman for her thoughts on purchasing clothing, and she will give you one of these three answers, or innovatively combine them to accommodate for a rogue measurement.

Dear sisters, let us stop ticking each other off. When you find you must complain about one of your innumerable proportional problems, only complain to a woman with precisely the same problem. To a woman with the opposite problem, your complaints about your problem, regardless of how deeply problematic that problem is, are extremely annoying.

(Please, no specific complaints in the comments unless they correspond precisely to my own at the moment when I will read them.)

What labor teaches you

In The Business Of Being Born, one of the interviewees invokes the classical rock and hard place to describe that horrible, endless moment in labor we all* know and cry about after our husbands fall asleep beside us. The laboring woman gets to a point where she either has to deliberately head straight into the unfathomable pain of pushing the baby out, or remain forever in the terrible pain she's already suffering. That's a bad place. Twice I thought I would die there, for real. And truly believing you're about to die is a totally rad life experience. lol j/k! Kinda!

Demerol, take me away!

I'm in no way against pain relief during labor. That is too personal a decision to be made or judged by anyone else. I know several women who fought the good fight and, utterly spent by hours of agony, were finally able to deliver after receiving an epidural. But there is value in making it through unassisted if possible. A girl who never gets wedged in good and tight between the monsters misses out on the ineffable mystery of surviving it, which strengthens her trust in God to pilot her safely through the treacherous strait again, should he direct her vessel accordingly.

What labors teaches you is that you actually can do things you think there is seriously no bleeping way you can possibly do. One intended meaning, many applications. ;)

*less a few birthin' machines like my sister.

My head, my heart, mine Eyes, my life, nay more

I like Anne Bradstreet. When her husband felt called to do Stuff on the other side of the ocean, she packed up and went with the dude, exchanging a cozily predictable existence in England for adventures unknown in the Wild New World. She somehow managed to pull off being a genuine writer while also being the mother of eight.

There are in fact many reasons to like Anne Bradstreet, and one of my favorites is the way she flummoxes the feminist critics: She was the First Real American Poet! A Woman! Wo-man! HOOAH! But wait a minute…what’s this? She wrote all this stuff about her husband and her kids, like she was actually….fulfilled…by that slavish domestic stuff. Poor oppressed thing didn’t know any better! Sounds like she might’ve even believed her husband to be her head?! Oh! Now what do we do with her? Wait—look at this—I believe this here is subversive! Yes, subversive! One of our very favorite literary terms! In fact one of our only literary terms!

And so on, as they co-opt her for their cause. But I digress. Gauntlets’ Penelope post tangentially put me in mind of Bradstreet’s “A Letter to Her Husband, Absent Upon Public Employment.” So I thought I might as well put you in mind of it too. If freshman English is but a distant door down the crowded corridors of your mind, go read it again. You can even feel subversive if you want.

But HOW

do these clever little crawlers ALWAYS know the difference between what is accidentally dropped on the floor and what is "accidentally" left on the floor in an attempt to distract them safely?

A daily odyssey

For every patient, kind, soft-spoken moment I manage in my mothering, there is a moment filled with angst, bitterness, or fury. I feel as if I spend all my time at Penelope’s loom, unraveling in darkness what I weave in the day.

I daresay this is why the children spend their afternoons with faces glued to windowpanes, watching for Dad. :D Even on our especially pleasant days, they do this. I can’t blame them; I do the same. My kitchen window looks across a blank parking lot at his office door. I save my dish washing for the hour in which he finishes work so I can watch that door—so that I might enjoy the thrill of seeing it open, of seeing our hero emerge from his long day’s journey to make that short, remarkable trip home.

Where is that guy, anyway?

And when he comes in what joy he brings with him, what order, what peace! Thanks, Dad, for being so great we can’t any of us stand to be away from you.

Happy Birthday to me, me, me, and me

There are getting to be a lot of birthdays around here. :) They afford me joyful occasion to think on someone very dear to me: myself. I watch the clock until the minute when the birthday kid is really his new age, and all day I'm back nostalgiaville reliving the awful drives, the everlasting minutes, the immense relief and thanks, the annoying nurses and the curious nuns and that boring show about counterfeiting that's on the History channel every time we're in the hospital. And, of course, the baby, who delights us by looking like someone or no one, by being astonishingly beautiful or hilariously un-beautiful; who even so tiny bears the weight of a name, who suddenly is with us forever.

Happy Birthday to you, babies, and thanks for giving your moms a chance every year to think, That day, I did something that mattered.

And you thought Emerson was just for English majors

Nothing terribly transcendental about this:

There was never a child so lovely but his mother was glad to get him asleep.

Another of his classics that's fun to recite when one is feeling a bit . . . scattered, or when the kids are complaining about a change of plans:

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds...

In third-tri, a mother's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!

I thought the self-doubt phase began seven centimeters in, not seven weeks out . . .

Whatever shall I do!?!

Sling it to me!

I’m a big fan of babywearing, as long as the conversation is limited to the theoretical. In practice . . . well, I want to like it, but I have so much fun delivering the baby, nursing the baby, staying up late with the baby, etc., that I’m all funned out come babywearing time. When at home and not in arms, my baby usually has to tough it out in a bouncy, on a blanket or within some other device of supreme torture.

However, I usually wear my baby when out and about. Strollers just don’t do it for me, and bare-arming leaves a little one too exposed to well-meaning but germy, touchy, kissy people (“I’ll just GIVE ME THAT BABY RIGHT NOW while you go and fill your plate. . .”). I appreciate the protection and security of a sling, but I have yet to find a product that lives up to its promises.

My search has evolved over the years, thus:

With my first kid, I used the Snugli front pack. Too many buckles, not enough ergonomics.

After 15 minutes in the pack, mom and baby are ready to eat one another

With my second, I tried the Nojo—a big step up from the front pack. Yet, the Nojo was a lot of fabric and padding for one person to heft, especially come summer time. And it placed all of the baby’s weight on one lone trapezius; after about hour of wear I couldn’t use the corresponding fingers and my face would go numb from the jaw clenching. Very embarrassing.

At -25 degrees, mom is thrilled to be wearing a crib mattress

So with my third, I looked for a nicer fit and less fabric. I found a little cargo sling and liked it more than the Nojo. If I can’t find anything better before this next baby is (DV) born I’ll likely default to this guy. Still, the cargo sling is really only good for the first couple of months, and it, too, ends up being pretty painful after about an hour.

She makes it look so easy . . .

Advise me girls. This is my hour of need. :D

After browsing about a bit, I found two possible improvements: Sleepy Wrap and Babyhawk. The Sleepy Wrap looks so sensible and is reasonably priced. I like the idea of being able to spread the fabric out over both shoulders to distribute the baby’s weight, and I like the option of switching between different holds. But I’m skeevy about all that fabric; it gets pretty hot around these here parts. And as I need to wear the baby to church I want something less conspicuous.

As for the Babyhawk, it just looks cool. ;) I’ve also had people tell me it’s terribly comfortable, easy to handle, easy to nurse in, and whatnot. Its biggest plus factor is its size. Its biggest downer is its price.

What do you think? Have any recommendations? Please?

I’ll even offer up a prize: if I take your recommendation, I’ll send you a full-color, autographed picture of someone else wearing her own baby in that particular product. Yeah? Oh, yeah.