It turns out that blogging is much more easily accomplished from a Days Inn hotel room in an unfamiliar town during a blizzard than on a birthday or a visit home for the holidays. I’m not sure I have anything particularly insightful or pertinent to put out there, except to express my gratitude for warmth and safety. We sat on Interstate 90 for hours today with our surprisingly patient four month old in her car seat in the back, chattering (I’m assuming) about her hopes that we would change her diaper and feed her again some day. Finally, the state patrol kicked everyone off of the freeway and we found ourselves on even more treacherous country roads. There’s nothing like seeing car after car in ditch after ditch to remind you how lucky you are to be creeping at a snail’s pace ahead. On that potential metaphor, I think I’ll call it a night– only adding that in the past, I’ve spent the first few days of new years looking back and tallying up signs of progress. This year, I would rather look out at sideways snow and be glad that there’s more than a car between it and my family.
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Lake Effect
Sunday, January 3rd, 2010Mom-athy Part 2
Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009I finally got back to work as an Artist (Writer) in Residence at the children’s hospital last week. My warm-up was an art project at a tree lighting ceremony for chronically ill kids. It went beautifully, but when I got home and discovered I just missed tucking my baby into bed, I was a wreck. All I could think was, how do moms do this? How did my mom do this? Late that night I was as actually happy to wake up at 1 and 4 and 6 a.m. to feed and snuggle my little one. I didn’t know how I was going to leave her for eight hours that day and worried over whether or not I’d left enough milk for her. This must be the Italian mama in me. You know the ones who cook the ten course meal and wonder if that’s enough. In any case, getting back into the swing of things went more smoothly than I expected. It helped that the other artist and dancer I worked with are amazing and that one of the first patients I met said she loved, loved, loved Shakespeare. What I didn’t expect was how much it would affect me to see unwell babies and their parents.
A few weeks ago, I created the word, mom-athy. Now I feel that its definition needs to be expanded. Evidently this sort of deep empathy extends not only to your own ailing child, but also to those of total strangers. You don’t usually take an infant to the hospital unless something is very wrong, so you can imagine the condition of the babies I saw when I first walked through the automatic doors.
How We Didn’t Become Famous
Thursday, November 19th, 2009… and how I became that mom.
You can already guess, this is more minutiae than crucial. If you want something on the grounded and meaningful side from me, go back and read my birth story.
This all starts back when I was a kid and wanted to be an actress more than anything besides having lots of dogs and rabbits and a pony. I took acting classes, got headshots, and did a victory dance when a local talent agency wanted to sign me. Then my lawyer mom read all the fine print and became concerned about someone “owning” any part of her daughter. End of my career, thanks Mom. (Just kidding. I find writing far more rewarding.)
Cut to: Monday night when I got an e-mail looking for babies 1-3 months for a commercial shoot with a certain famous toy company. I thought of my friend’s niece who was all set for college by age five because of the Baby Gap ads she did, asked the potential star’s daddy for permission, and sent in her pictures. The next day I got a call that yes, they wanted to “use” Francesca and maybe me as well. Could I send in a full-length shot of myself? I was flattered, but completely unprepared. I found a couple of candids where I’m holding Francesca, and I’m wearing tennis shoes and not much makeup. Why was I surprised when the response from the agent was… “Yeah. They just want Francesca.”
Pre-Existing Condition
Monday, November 9th, 2009
I was thinking of going to the dermatologist. Should I tell my provider that I have skin? This was my reaction to a dizzying fight over the bill I received for the delivery of my baby and our hospital stay. We’re lucky to have insurance, I know that. But imagine my surprise when my provider wanted me to pay a penalty of several hundred dollars for not clearing it with them when I arrived at the hospital at 2:30 a.m. to have a baby.
“You must have known at some point that you were pregnant, and that’s when you should have told us.”
“You’ve been paying for my pre-natal visits. Isn’t that–?”
“With your doctor. This is a hospital bill. It’s completely separate.”
“Why exactly? Never mind. I did pre-register with the hospital, and we did call you to find out what would be covered months ago.”
This is really nothing compared to the nightmare my friend is facing. After severe back labor at her home for 14 hours, she went to the hospital and was advised to get an epidural. Now she’s got a bill of a few thousand dollars for using an anesthesiologist who wasn’t in network. Evidently she was supposed to ask in the thirty seconds between contractions. They would have told her that he was the only anesthesiologist in the hospital, so I’m not sure what she was supposed to do after that.
Mom-athy
Monday, November 2nd, 2009“Don’t tell Mom.” = An e-mail from my sister.
“I know.” = My response.
We hadn’t done anything illegal (you’re shocked, I’m sure). We hadn’t broken anything or hidden any evidence, and we weren’t re-enacting the Christina Applegate movie. We simply decided to protect the woman who bore us from: news of the Return of the Thrush. It may not be grammatically correct to capitalize the name of the infection or to put “the” in front of it, but it feels appropriate. We just weren’t sure Mom could handle it, even though she’s dealt with much greater crises with one hand behind her back and the other one cooking a gourmet dinner. You could hear her teeth grind every time she asked, “Is it any better?” and a pained sigh every time I said, “No, not really.” And I might have thought she was overdoing it a bit, had I not discovered for myself that knowing that your daughter is in pain is a whole new kind of anguish.
For the Show
Tuesday, October 20th, 2009I know, I know. You’re tired of reading about Balloon Boy. I just wanted to take a moment and ask: Remember when you were that trusting? Someone older and supposedly wiser told you to do something and you went along with it because you yet hadn’t accumulated years of experiences, good and bad, to give you insight as to when to follow directions and when to say, “Are you kidding me?”
I remember. It was when a freckle-faced girl named Alice told me that I should eat the “blue Hawaiian ice” from the toilet in our pre-school bathroom. This was back in the days when you had to go to the potty with a buddy. While mine was a year older, she wasn’t much of a buddy– inasmuch as she nearly poisoned me with toilet freshener. Luckily, a teacher was suspicious about how long we were in there and saved me from an early death before I took that first bite.
It’s been a few years since I’ve taught theater to young kids, but I’ll never forget the discussions we had about the difference between make-believe and lying and between a show and real life. Some parents had clearly put deep-seeded fear into their children about the dangers of deception. Other kids found story-making and trickery to be second nature. I wonder what will become of Balloon Boy. Will he decide that he likes the limelight and continue to do things “for the show”? Or will he realize that he was manipulated by his own parents and never be able to trust anyone again? The trust of a child is so freely given and so easily lost.
Happiest Mama On the Block
Monday, October 12th, 2009When I heard that he was flying out from L.A. to give a talk here, I squealed. A star like Brad Pitt or a rocker like Steven Tyler, both of whom I considered swoon-worthy at some point, wouldn’t have gotten such a reaction. I have to go, I have to go. Joe, skip rehearsals. We have to go. It was like the Dalai Lama was coming. Actually, the Dalai Lama did give a talk at the University at Buffalo, but it was a couple of years before we moved here. And I don’t think even he would have garnered such a reaction from me.
There he was, a bespectacled pediatrician in a fencing sweater from his college days in the 80’s just getting over laryngitis but still ready with parenting humor. And I was his most attentive disciple. After the talk, I was maneuvering Francesca’s stroller out of an aisle backwards to avoid the crowd, and I felt a hand on my shoulder. I had just backed into Dr. Harvey Karp. Swoon. “Thank you so much.” He smiled and nodded. “For the talk,” I added, in case he thought that I was thanking him for preventing us from plowing him over and running into the wall. I think he got it.
How many mamas have looked at the doctor, longingly, with circles under their eyes, eternally grateful for the spell he casts to calm their crying infant? Even Larry David (co-creator of Seinfeld and star of Curb Your Enthusiasm) describes him in this way: “There’s nothing quite like watching Dr. Harvey work wonders on a screaming baby. He’s not a pediatrician, he’s a magician. Every time I bring my kids in to see him, I walk out wishing he was their father.”
Liquid Gold
Monday, September 28th, 2009I splashed some of it on the couch this morning and spilled some on the floor. Worse than that, there are a few dozen ounces of it in the freezer that must be thrown away because of possible contamination. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you may not have been around the breastfeeding community recently. Nurses, lactation consultants, childbirth educators, friends have said on more than one occasion in the last couple of months, “It’s liquid gold.” This is often followed by “Remember, breast is best.” And, “Don’t keep formula in the house or you’ll use it.”
I may have left out the part in my childbirth story when I thought to myself, hmm, I don’t know that I ever need to go through this again. I think that was somewhere between the car door and the hospital. Or maybe it was when the troll woman forced me to sit in a broken wheelchair and hold my leg up in the air as she bumped me into door frames. The point is that I expected childbirth to be painful or at least the greatest challenge of my life. I focused all my will power on getting through it as mindfully and calmly as possible. Breastfeeding, on the other hand, I expected to be easier or at least natural. Friends told me about the challenges that they or their partners faced in nursing, so we did take a class. Still, I felt incredibly unprepared for the journey that is feeding someone from your own body.
Better than Drugs
Thursday, September 17th, 2009Tuesday morning was the first time I left a twenty foot radius from my infant’s side. She’s still reticent to accept a bottle after a week of coaxing, but it was time for me to get back to teaching my Playwriting class. I had to convince myself that she would survive the two hours away from her primary food source while in the care of her doting dad. So, I borrowed Joe’s car and headed to the university, listening to NPR for the first time in over a month. A soldier was talking about the blog he kept in Afghanistan. He said that the Army offers medicine for depression, sleeplessness and anxiety, but that he found writing to be better than any drug.
Then, bam. I was rear-ended just a block from the university. Since this was the first time I was outside of the twenty-foot-from-infant radius, it was also the first time I had been in a car without her since she was born. My mind raced from oh my god I can’t believe that just happened to what if she were in the car with me? Would she be hurt? And what if this had happened, and she were in the car, and it was that first day or two of parenting when I kept buckling her legs through the arm straps? What then? Or what if this accident were worse, and something happened to me, and she can’t drink from a bottle?
Calm Birth
Monday, August 31st, 2009
No tears. No screams. And all I had was half a glass of Prosecco eight hours before my daughter, Francesca, showed off her pipes and I had her little naked body in my arms. My doctor told our doula (childbirth coach), “This is rare, isn’t it? You don’t see births like this.” Cindy, who calls her practice Gentle Birth Doula Services, attempted to convince the doctor that she had seen births like this. The RN added, “Still, I bet you wish you had filmed it.” Cindy, just shook her head, smiling. “If I had,” she said. “No one would believe me that she wasn’t on drugs!”
Evidently I smiled before each push.
The RN suggested that I not tell other women about my experience. “They’ll hate you,” she told me, only half joking. So here I am, two weeks later, telling every woman who happens to read Crucial Minutiae that by the time I got to the hospital, after laboring at the mall, my friend’s party, our bathtub and bedroom, I was fully dilated and all I had to do was to push.
Big Surprise
Saturday, August 15th, 2009Some things you just know. I (and thank goodness I have back-up on this one) knew I was having a baby girl. At 19 weeks, the sonographer scratched her head and said, “Huh. I thought it was a girl too,” but printed out a picture that said “It’s a boy!” And off we went to announce to everyone that mama’s intuition is a myth and that we better buy some Vikings baby gear. I was confused by the news that disproved both my gut feelings and a beautiful dream that Joe had of his long-haired daughter chatting him up, but I didn’t want to act like i didn’t want a boy. I would love a boy. So I started trying to love my “boy.” But every now and then we’d ask each other, “What if the ultrasound technician was wrong? What if all these blue clothes are for a little girl?”
“As long as the baby’s healthy” is one of the cliches mocked in the song “Pregnant Women are Smug.” Of course, I found myself saying it today, since this was the sonogram that I mentioned in my last post, to determine if the baby was too small. And no, not too small. Not too big. Just not a boy. One of my best friends flew in to visit within an hour of the appointment and was able to join us in the doctor’s office. To her credit, she said to our new ultrasound technician, “I still think it’s a girl” moments before we learned that she was. We all saw clear as day that the baby due to arrive in one week is a GIRL. I’d post a sonogram picture for you, but when I say clear as day, I mean it. And I don’t think that’s how she should make her first appearance on the Web.
Small Worries
Monday, August 10th, 2009
I’m going to take a page out of Girl with Pen’s and Dooce’s sites and “pregnancy blog.” Less than two weeks to the day when I get to meet this person who has been using my ribs as a jungle gym and my cervix as a moon bounce for the greater part of this year. Outside of a couple of scares and the headaches of switching OB offices three times to finally find a doctor I liked (who then quit her practice after two appointments with me, but I’m guessing not because of me), gratefully, this has been a smooth pregnancy. And yet, I’m up from roughly 3:00-6:00 a.m. the last three nights, thanks to my newest doctor’s newest concern. “You’re measuring small.”
How many times in a woman’s life is this an insult? A threat even! “Your husband’s over 6′3″? If he was 5′8″, I might let this go. No, we’ll have to do another sonogram to make sure the baby’s not growth restricted and that there’s enough fluid, or we’ll induce.” Since I’m guessing that not all of you have read the latest books and documentaries on how interventions in pregnancy lead to more interventions in delivery, I’ll just cut to the chase by voicing my personal preference for tea and sex as induction methods over an IV drip of manmade hormones, reported to dramatically increase the intensity of contractions. Did you see the New York Times article on how redheads feel more pain?
“Maybe we’re having a Sardinian baby,” Joe says cheerfully.
Vote with Each Bite
Monday, August 3rd, 2009
Remember studying The Jungle by Upton Sinclair in Civics class? We read excerpts and made gagging noises when we got to the parts about rat pieces and feces found in American food. Maybe we didn’t quite understand the other call for social reform in the book: to end the profound mistreatment of immigrant workers at the turn of the century. 1906 seemed like another world. We had no idea how close this book hit to home, to now.
Everyone who eats should watch Food, Inc. Or at least the trailer.
Should you buy popcorn and M&Ms? Probably not– unless you can down them during the previews. This documentary isn’t for the faint of heart, but it’s tasteful and informative. Most importantly, it argues for our right to knowledge, to be able to find out “what’s in the kitchen.”
Righteous Babe
Tuesday, July 14th, 2009
I heard her music played around a campfire in the Catskills, the first songs worth earning callouses on new guitarists’ fingers. I listened intently to her lyrics, repeated in these voices– so honest and clear while still weaved in metaphor. I took Ani back to high school with me and then on to college. I’ve been toting her tapes, cds and mp3s ever since, but I’d never seen her in performance until last night. A powerful voice emanates from her small body while she attacks the strings on her guitar, tuned uniquely for each song, with fingers wrapped in electrical tape.
When we first decided to move to Buffalo, I daydreamed that I would meet Ani in the produce section at the Wegman’s in her hometown. Luckily for all parties involved, this hasn’t happened yet. Remember how cool I was when I met (/stalked into an Irish Bar) the Swell Season? I tried to behave better when I met Ani’s bass player at a friend’s apartment in New York, but mistakenly assumed that he played bass guitar and not the upright. Had I been listening to the music instead of the lyrics all those years, this would have been obvious. It’s not much of a defense, but I am a word person.
How Much is that Hot Dog in the Window?
Tuesday, July 7th, 2009“Ma’am. Is it true Missouri girls are crazy?” I had just grabbed a bite while my flight was delayed. I looked down at my eight and a half months pregnant belly while I swallowed and then glanced back up to see the National Guardsman who had directed this question at me. A fresh scar ran from the side of his mouth across his left cheek.
“I don’t know,” I laughed it off.
“Well, are you crazy?” His southern drawl slowed the question while his buddies flirted with the women behind the fast food counter, trying to talk them into a lower priced hot dog.
Thoughts of a Child
Sunday, June 28th, 2009A bag of blood hung from a pole. “It’s not my type,” the eleven year old informed the nurse, spurring a lecture on the capabilities of a universal donor.
BET played “Thriller,” which she and the nurse watched on the small television hanging over her chair. “This video used to scare me,” the girl told me. Amazing that someone so calm in the face of blood transfusions would be scared of dancing zombies, but I nodded. “Me too.” The nurse flushed her IV and walked away. The girl returned to her watercolor painting and her haunted house story. Then she paused. She looked at Michael Jackson’s face with such empathy and said to me, “I wasn’t even thinking of him yesterday.”
“I don’t think anyone thought this would happen,” I assured her. The news hit me like the end of an era the night before. She persisted– of course she didn’t think he would pass away, but more importantly, she didn’t think of him before he was gone forever. I lingered, wondering if the thoughts of a child can save someone.
Flu Season is Not Over
Monday, June 22nd, 2009The ER looked crowded with overflow into the hallway of parents and children wearing face masks. Throughout the hospital, I kept running into moms with a mask haphazardly covering their mouth but not their nose and a toddler with his mask around his neck. They didn’t seem sure of where they were going or what the diagnosis would be. Was I in a remake of the Dustin Hoffman movie, Outbreak, from the 90’s? I tried to tell myself not to overreact. Somehow I got a reputation for being dramatic in my family and I’d like to live it down eventually. But this was scary. All over the hospital where I work in Arts in Healthcare, signs explained the new rules that siblings and friends are no longer allowed to visit patients and detailed the symptoms to watch out for that may point to Swine Flu– all an effort to keep exposure down.
A fifteen year old boy came into the hospital on Friday and lost his life there on Saturday due to a severe case of Swine Flu, accompanied by Pneumonia and MRSA. Another patient also faces a dire situation, and many others are being treated for Swine Flu or Influenza A. I worked with a patient with a fever the other day without even thinking about it. Now I’m concerned. The news is grim, between reports from Iran and the rush hour train crash in D.C. today, but the hysteria over the Swine Flu died down not too long after it dragged my friends back from their honeymoon in Mexico. Why was the fear of it nationally newsworthy, but the reality of it hushed? We’ve all heard how the common flu has taken the lives of the elderly, small children, and the immunosuppressed, but would you have known that the Swine Flu could take the life of a teenager or that at least 63 people have already died of it in the U.S.? Perhaps it’s easier to keep washing our hands and staving off panic.
A Father’s Film Club
Monday, June 15th, 2009
Did you ever think that you were wasting your time in high school? That it wasn’t the best place for you to spend seven hours a day, five days a week? If you had determined this and you had failing grades to prove that you and high school were not a good fit, would your parents have let you stay home and watch movies all day?
David Gilmour’s book, The Film Club: A Memoir, came out last summer, but when I heard him read some of the final chapter on NPR yesterday, he had me near tears. And no, it wasn’t preggy hormones. Even Douglas McGrath, in his New York Times Book Review, said that the book moved him to tears… more than once.
What Goes Up
Monday, June 1st, 2009
This new indie movie is definitely worth seeing. Imagine the Breakfast Club set in Christa McAuliffe’s New Hampshire high school. She was the teacher aboard the Challenger space shuttle that went down in January of 1986. Only we never see her or the crash. Instead, we watch people collide and try to assess the damage. And finally, a papier-mache shuttle crashes to the ground on the high school’s auditorium stage.
Unlike other teenage angst movies that wallow, this one is seen through the eyes of a British, middle-aged reporter (played by Steve Coogan) and is so quirky that you’re almost never prepared for what comes next. With its calculated tone and pace, the movie teaches you how to watch it– be patient, don’t grab at storylines, don’t expect answers– and then it stays with you after you leave.