citizen of the world.

there is a scene from the spike lee film 25th hour in which monty brogan stands in front of the mirror in his dad's pub and curses every stereotype in manhattan, the gays with their french bulldogs in chelsea, the staten island diamond dealers sucking on rock candy, the asian dry cleaners, and finally himself. the film is set in new york after september 11th and i watched it alone in prenzlauer berg in berlin a few weeks after i had departed new york for germany. as the montage of those stereotypes flashed past, i felt, in that moment, an insider somewhere, even as i found myself on the outside of a new city and language. i felt i understood the subtext of my former home, even as i struggled to make it through the surface interactions of my new context. that i saw the film in german may have made it a better film for me. i could let go of the need for subtlety of expression. sometimes one needs a break from picking up every possible undercurrent. i remember crying in the theater, although i am not sure that the film itself demanded it.

the soundtrack to buena vista social club plays in stores often enough around here and it always takes me to dharamsala, where tibetans live in exile in northern india. i spent a few weeks there in the summer of two thousand and one, taking refuge from the heat further south. one night i found myself sandwiched between two tibetan monks in a swiss-run cafe eating cuban food and watching buena vista social club. later in my visit pierce brosnan came to the library in which i was working. i like to think we exchanged a special look acknowledging that we were the only two non-tibetans present. that week the dalai lama gave public teachings and pierce sat in the inner sanctum. when he walked out, just before the dalai lama himself, a loud whispered chant of 007 went up from the many children lining the path.

a man named stewart, about whom i can recall little else, recommended theodore zeldin's an intimate history of humanity to me while i was visiting tunis. zeldin is an oxford historian who has written extensively on the french, work, and conversation, founded project muse, and according to the back of his book, is married to a deirdre wilson who is the co-inventor of the Theory of Relevance. the book moves from the particular to the general within each chapter, beginning with a vignette from a real (french) person's life, and moving towards a look at those particular emotions and experiences over time. topics include "how some people have acquired an immunity to loneliness" and "how new forms of love are being invented," "how even astrologers resist their destinies," "how travelers are becoming the largest nation in the world, and how they have learned not to see only what they are looking for."

little gnome, your passport arrived a few days ago, crisp and fresh with pages waiting to be filled. you sat on my shoulders and held on to my hair while they shot your picture at the walgreens in noe valley. you are looking to the side, with your mouth agape, wearing a french hoodie with a stegosaurus on the front. in a couple of weeks time you will depart on your first international adventure. i hope that this trip will wing its way into your hidden memory, to help you become a citizen of the world.

the spoon (r.i.p.).

although we do not usually critique one another's purchases, peter was a bit taken aback by the spoon. luckily i was able to counter "he would be just as happy chomping on a twig" with a reference to some recently purchased hand-mixed bergamot bath salts (his achilles heel). i refrained from mentioning that the cute sales lady had actually suggested that i buy two, one for the little gnome to hold and one for me to use to give him the food. one of us will be using the silicone spoon for five dollars if it turns out that she is right about the two spoon feeding. judging by the number the gnome goes through at boogaloos, she is probably low-balling, but those are empty spoons and the floor is too questionable for reuse.

by tonight peter had admitted that the gnome loved it. sadly, after putting the gnome to bed for the second time, i discovered the splintered pieces of the spoon on the dream meadow. if she wasn't going to get her own spoon, calliope decided to make sure that the gnome didn't get one either.

with a wooden spoon in your mouth.

i bought the little gnome a spoon today. not just any spoon, but a handcrafted wooden spoon. basically if the adorable butch sales lady at natural resources suggests something, i cannot help myself. this spoon cost me twenty-four dollars. no, i am not kidding. she originally told me it was thirty and i laughed, like there is no way i am spending thirty dollars on a spoon. so, when it turned out to be six dollars less, i was sold. she has such a winsome manner. the little gnome took to the spoon right away and has been gnawing on it ever since. i am hoping this will set him up well to like eating foods from it, when the time comes. at least this is how i convinced myself to reach for my wallet.

little gnome, your new wooden spoon matches the stripes of your organic prisoner pants perfectly. if you are lucky that spoon might one day contain some homemade rice cereal. hhhmmm.

babywearing.

disclaimer: this is only interesting to people carrying babies or pets.

while i have not used every type of baby carrier, i have used a lot of them in my short five months of parenting. i owe a lot of my intial information to jennifer who steered me in all the right directions and of whom i often have carrier envy. some of what works depends on the baby and some on you. here is what has worked for me:


TWO SHOULDER

wrap: i have a moby wrap. this is the most versatile and best value-for-money carrier out there and has worked for all of the moms i know. in the early days, you can put them in it in the cradle position (which soren hated) or upright, tummy-to-tummy with their feet tucked up like a frog. as they grow, you can put their feet out, or even face them forwards. when they are sleeping, you can shade the baby's face with some of the material. since the soren was over nine pounds at birth, i appreciated having something that went over both shoulders. now he is over eighteen pounds and i can still carry him comfortably in the moby because the large amount of cloth distributes the weight well. my only dislike is that it can be quite warm between the other body tucked next to yours and all of the material. learning how to wrap it does take a few tries (for which peter has not ever had the patience), but once you are used to it, you can get it wrapped very fast. in the tummy-to-tummy position, you can take the baby in and out without having to take off the cloth. i have just started using it to put him on my hip for shorter trips and he seems to like this a lot. i have tried facing him outwards a couple of times, but it feels sort of awkward for both of us. the wrap is easily machine washable and portable. i have two colors to use with different outfits, although if such things do not matter to you, you can certainly get away with just one. they do need washing though (see above about heat). i have heard very good things about the woven wraps, like the (much more expensive) didymos, but i haven't used one yet. they are supposed to be less hot and not stretchy, so more supportive with a heavier child. If you think you want to use a wrap for a long time, this might be a good investment (but you could buy four mobys for the same price).

pack: i bought a beco because the little gnome was too small to fit in the ergo that a friend gave me (which i have yet to test, but which many people seem to like) and i wanted something with additional back support. while this is not a carrier for use with a newborn, once their legs are long enough so that their knees clear the sides of the fabric, this is one of the most comfortable carriers i have used. it is narrower where the baby's butt goes than the ergo (allowing them to sit in it a bit earlier), but not as narrow as the baby bjorn (out of which they will grow fairly quickly). the beco is also slightly taller than the ergo and so it gives higher support to the baby;s back. when soren's legs are a bit longer i will try him in the ergo to see how it compares for back support. peter and uncle dave both use the beco all the time and will not go near the moby (too many steps). i have also been using it to do a hip carry, but that is a bit less comfortable for me (the strap bites into my neck). eventually you can use it for back carries, like a backpack. the beco is on the pricier side, but it is made in southern california and comes in some very attractive patterns. leila tells me that no matter what one looks like a dork wearing a baby, so perhaps one shouldn't worry too much about the pattern. i did wear it to a departmental party and a professor who does not want children pronounced it the most attractive snuggly she has seen.

mei tai: i have a baby hawk mei tai carrier that jennifer lent me and i used it a bunch in the early days, when i could still tuck soren's feet in with him, but it is rather wide at the bottom, so i stopped using it once he stopped liking having his feet in. there are mei tai's with slightly different dimensions (narrower at bottom, taller body) that might be preferable. it is really easy to get on and off and you can do it without having to put the baby down, which is a major bonus at the beginning (and an advantage over the moby). the mei tai is also much cooler than the wrap, which i liked. once they get bigger you can use it for back carries too, but i have only seen that, not done it myself. i wonder how comfortable it would be once the baby is heavier.


ONE SHOULDER

pouch: i have a fuzzy adjustable kangaroo sling/pouch. it is very easy to get on and off, but i could not find a position in which soren was comfortable when he was a baby, so i sort of abandoned it until i could get him in a upright position in it and by that point he was heavy enough that i did not like having all of the weight on one shoulder. some people have a lot of success with these in the early days in the cradle position and their babies sleep really happily in the fleece, but that was not my experience. i was inspired by an acquaintance to give it another shot for a hip carry now that he is much bigger and that is actually pretty comfortable, since he is basically sitting on my hip with the pouch as back support and a seat. there is still the one-shoulder problem, but it is less uncomfortable with him sitting on the hip. i may use it again for quick trips in the neighborhood. overall, it was not the best value-for-money for me.

sling: i have a ring sling that a friend made for me and i have used it a few times, but i think it may be cut for a bigger baby (i have never successfully gotten the material under control). soren did not like to be in the cradle position, so i did not have that much use for slings, but the people who like them, seem to really get a lot of use out of them. i am not a big fan of the single shoulder strap, but they are easy to get on an off. as the gnome gets bigger i will renew my efforts to use this one because it is handmade by someone fantastic and in cool colors.

there are many people out there with much more to say on the subject,and many of them can be found online at the babywearer

i will become the wind.

little gnome you are my little explorer. today you discovered the pleasures of a box. the box contains your toys, and i think that added to the pleasure, but your primary focus was the box itself. in some ways you are like calliope, who has her own toy box in the same room, filled with lobsters old and new. she likes to perch on its edge and scoop out her toy with her mouth, or jump all the way in to get something deeper in the pile. a few times today you confused her toys for yours, which she did not like. that may be why she ate the face off of your wooden clacker.

you do not yet have calliope's agility, but you get around. you scaled uncle dave's barrel chest to reach the box on the other side, and then you leaned your head in and pulled out different prizes. at other moments you used the edge of the box to haul your little body upright to chew on the edge. when the box was empty, i put you inside, but there was not so much room to maneuver.

now whenever you play on the bed, it is not long before you try to crawl off of its edge towards something across the room. you have not learned about edges. this evening while we were filling your bath, your wriggled in a certain way and i lost my hold and you almost crashed to the floor. i caught you by your leg and you landed on my thigh instead. that was our closest call thus far, you and i, and we were both scared.

i am trying to find the right balance between keeping you safe and letting you find your way, to blow you where you want to go, to be a tree that you come home to.

fido, your leash is too long.

the gnome is mobile and shows a strong preference for cords, especially macbook cords. in this small house, there are many. right now i have draped them in cloth diapers as a temporary fix. he is on the cusp of finding me out.

why don't you like all of the colorful wooden toys i keep getting you baby? when do my genes express themselves?

neighbor-ly.

after last night's rants, this evening found me in need of the neighbors. i had been carrying the gnome for a few hours already today, so i decided to keep the extras to a minimum while on my walk up bernal hill with leila & juniper and the dogs. i took to a minimum too far and left the house with nothing but my new phone and a wooden teething toy. no keys. no diapers. i was not too worried because i assumed that uncle dave would be home by the time we got up and down the hill. somehow at the top i misplaced calliope's leash and did not discover this until we were significantly down the hill at the re-leashing spot. i chose not to retrace my steps, but to continue home and carry calliope at the busy intersections. a woman carrying a baby and a dog looks a litle crazy.

uncle dave was not at home when we got there. he was not even near home. i buzzed the people in our building. they were not home either. so, i found myself outside with a baby, a moby wrap, the toy and my phone, and a dog without her leash. i considered leashing calliope with the moby and carrying soren, but was not quite sure where we would go. i called a few people whom i know in the area, but no one was home, so we trooped to juri commons to wait it out. and then dave sent me a text message that read "almost at the bay bridge." the bay bridge. on a monday at five pm. disaster. we would freeze to death in juri commons huddled together under the slide before he would get home. the gnome was already wearing a bandana icy with drool.

leila called to check on us and she and juniper started driving back to our neighborhood with supplies, like a leash and a carseat. and then i remembered that the building adjacent to ours lets out into the same back courtyard. i gathered the gnome and calliope and went to go ring some bells. just as i pressed his buzzer, the affable man who often grills out back approached and happily let me cut through his (immaculate) place to the courtyard. he was bubbly from a champagne tasting and i was so happy to be getting home that i began babbling about foodies and painted walls and architects (his wife is one) until i finally excused myself and went home to await leila and dave and eat paplote on soren's rug.

at home.

maybe just a little.

on second thought, i do begrudge you your active sex life. i can hear your bed against the wall over the baby monitor. i feel like michael j. fox in the secret of my success.

buffalo.

the pint-sized lady who lives upstairs sounds like a herd of buffalo. how such a small woman could manage to make so much noise clomping about her days, i do not understand, but i am considering gifting her with a cheap rug and some bunny slippers. lady, i do not begrudge you your active sex life and rickety bed, but please cut it out with the platforms.

oral fixation.

the feel of wood against your gums, the different densities of flesh along the jaw, arm, and breast, the taste of other babies, the flow of water from the tub over your mouth, the sinking cushions against your gums, the cool metallic touch of the spoon from the table, the hard lip of the glass across your own, the velvet face of bunny or the raw cotton of tiger's ears, your thumb, pointer finger, fist, foot.

you are testing the world with your tongue little gnome, studying its forms and flavors.

apotheosis of cool.*

i got a new haircut the other day. uncle dave watched the little gnome while i asked christina to make my hair less matronly, or maybe that was her term. it is a word that has been going around. either way, the result included bangs. christina is the very cool woman who cuts the hair of many people i know. she is petite with a few tattoos and short, asymmetrical, thick black hair that usually has a bright color or two added to a few tufts. leila gave me her name when i first moved to the city and christina was cutting at a place called glamarama. when i called the salon i could not quite remember the name and ended up going to a guy called christian who did a lot of drag queens and gave me barbie doll hair. i kept going to christian until he left the salon, when i then deemed it safe to switch to christina without offending.

my new haircut seems to require a product or two in order to approximate what it looked like when i left the salon. today a friend tried out some kind of hair wax that she uses to get the bangs to actually go down, instead of to the side. the result looked sort of like i had washed all of my hair except the front. for a week. this just may not be me.
andrea recently wrote about letting go of the idea of being the cool mom who still goes to concerts and gallery openings despite having a baby. i can relate. not that i was ever particularly cool, but i had a lot of ideas about the kind of mother i would be. the past five months have been about coming to terms with the distance between my reality and my idea of myself.
i wanted to be a perfect hippy-hipster mom who breathed her baby into the world, used no plastics, and managed to write a dissertation during nap time. i wanted to bring my baby everywhere, see my friends as much as before, stay as fit as i had been, wear the same clothes, to stay urban and generally keep my old life. in actuality, i usually nap during nap time. i just went to yoga for the first time in a month. i still use cloth during the day, but i have switched to huggies at night to keep the gnome sleeping through his pee. i have documented my complete failure to EC the gnome. i do wear the gnome in a carrier all over the place, but it is taking a toll on my back. the tyranny of the sleep schedule rules my day. the bright colors of my thrift store wardrobe have given way to earth-toned tank tops with nursing access. i am to be a bridesmaid in a dear friend's wedding and the shoes she picked out are terrifying spike stilettos. i have not worn even the slightest of heels since the early days of my pregnancy.

the hardest part about being a parent is not the interrupted sleep, or the tears, but the slow realization that your life is no longer fully your own. maybe some people are quicker than i on this one. christina, you tried. perhaps the bangs will go a ways towards allowing me to delude myself a bit longer.

*i lifted the title from now-defunct site belonging to uncle dave (the manny).

things the gnome can now do.

1. remove the blue cloth mouse from its orange flower pouch on the dream meadow.

2. frog-crawl across the room to grab and chew on a computer cord. again and again, like an obstacle course on repeat.

3. cry when he is removed from some object, or some object is removed from him.

it is a hat.

so, i tried once again with the whole infant potty training. the gnome woke up from a nap, i removed the condoms that i had been storing in his little red infant potty and we sat in the living room, i holding the potty in my lap and the gnome on the potty. i even gave him a toy to play with while we sat. and sat. and sat. i waited longer than ever before (probably about eight minutes), but no pee. so i put a cloth diaper on him and set him on the living room floor. he peed immediately and started playing with the upside down potty, gnawing on its edges. now, it's a hat.

one year later.

last night peter and i went back to incanto, where we took our families the night before we got married. we drank vino nobile, ate calf's brains (not really so tasty) and squid-ink dyed pasta and goat loin (delicious) and quail (also delicious) and we finished it off with a bay leaf panna cotta (also also delicious). i wore the same dress and necklace that i had worn the previous year. we had the longest uninterrupted conversation together that we have had in the past five months. most significantly, we were alone. yes, for the first time since the little gnome was born, we went out to dinner by ourselves. uncle dave held down the fort at home. unfortunately for him, despite the nine pm reservation, the little gnome did awaken in our absence, but dave did a great job comforting him. since incanto is roughly in our neighborhood, we were really only gone for two and a half hours, but what bliss they were.

happy anniversay & birthday, honey.

well hung.

we only know girl babies, but apparently if we knew any boy babies whose wee-wees i was priviliged to spy during an on-the-fly diaper change, i would be comparing the little gnome's with theirs and posting about it here, and on message boards.

just because.

ouch.

the gnome was gnawing on my upper arm while i chatted with some ladies at natural resources. eventually it became uncomfortable, so i popped him off only to find that he had given me a big, purple hickie.

my baby gave me a hickie. this is much too eighties for me.

interruptus.

we attempted to make good use of a rare moment alone, only to hear, at a crucial instant, the waking noises of the little gnome. it seems that calliope had sought her usual refuge under the bed and in so doing wakened the gnome.

postmodern encounters.

the little gnome is devouring "marshall mcluhan and virtuality." he has soaked the section "deleting mcluhan" with drool.

and accept it that soon you'll be drenched to the bone.

having a baby is the only experience that i have lived through in which life was irreversibly different from one moment to the next. even the labor seemed somehow separate from being a parent. peter and i talked about how the birth itself (which i will write about at some point, once it has fully receded into the safe haze of memory) seemed like a separate challenge we had to face, after which, we were presented with a baby (brought in delicately by the stork, no doubt). and so it began.

pregnancy for me was a social experience. we turned out to have a number of friends in the city who were also having kids at around the same time (oona, alma, and juniper are those kids) so there were plenty of people with whom to go on walks or go to yoga or eat. and when you are pregnant you are basically mobile, or at least i was, and you can come and go as you please. i had just taken my exams and gotten married and was in a bit of the post-accomplishment let down phase, so i spent most of my pregnancy having fun or sleeping.

motherhood has not brought out my social butterfly. i spent the first month or so in our apartment fending off the pace and germs of the outside world. for a while i was getting out a lot more, but soren is growing bigger and more active (his has graduated from slither to crab-crawl) and i can tell that my restaurant hopping days are numbered. every outing is a production that requires that i tap my inner pack mule and it seems i am always without exactly the right thing. luckily we live in the land of the urban baby, so i was able to pick up a few haba toys at the church street apothecary to keep the gnome entertained through today's brunch and make it back to my table before the food arrived.

i have a lot of friends without kids whom it grows harder to see, because we live in the city and they in the east bay, keep even earlier hours than when i was a regular ashtangi, because even the days are ruled by nap schedules (did you know a four month-old baby needs about fifteen hours of sleep per twenty-four hours?). when i do see those friends out in the world, i find myself apologizing for the added burden that is socializing with me (now finicky about venue, time, terms).

we are planning a big trip (new york for pia's wedding and to see art and friends, boston for family, athens for work) for november and december and i am shocked at how much advance planning (worrying) it requires. i used to be the person who arrived for my flight twenty-five minutes before it took off and convinced them to let me on or took the next one. now they let me pre-board.