Reprieve

Sometimes, good news comes in wolf's clothing. Or something like that. Sometime after this totally deranged post (you're a real fan if you managed to read it, and sorry about that), we hooked up with another daycare-waitlisted family to embark on a phenomenon known as a "nanny share." In sum: 2 families + 1 nanny = less cost.

I responded to a post from our badass Cap Hill parents listserve, a post from a mom who had a six month old girl to do a nanny share. I responded with interest. As soon as she wrote me back with their address, I knew who it was. "We know these people!" I laughed to Seth. I once described them as the "alternate universe us" at the Axiom (the beige apartment). It was Christian, the building manager, his wife Jennifer, and their daughter Ellie, born a week after Helene.

Jennifer and I engaged in a tornado of nanny interviews, online research about how to legally compensate nannies (no Dan Snyder syndrome for us), how to get an employer Federal taxpayer ID number, workers comp insurance, the cost of a double stroller, etc. etc. etc. Jennifer had a new job that starts July 1, so the pressure was on. They would host it at their apartment, fabulous for us, since it's a five minute walk from our office. The babies are the same age - they'll be like sisters! I could nurse the bottle-recalcitrant baby at lunch every day! We'd be apart from her for less time! It costs a bit more than daycare, but fewer viruses!

We interviewed. We met women from Brazil, Togo, Trinidad. One had been granted political asylum. One had taken time off because her mother had died. One spoke limited English but promised to speak French to our babies. They all conscientiously washed their hands and were gentle and sweet with our babies. I wanted to know the political asylum story, but couldn't just ask yet. We were delighted with two of them, satisfied with all. One's references did not return our calls. We made a job offer to another. It was turned down - she wanted to take care of only one child. We floundered. We worked on setting up more interviews. I got a deal on a Phil & Ted's second-hand double stroller, and hauled it home. We tried again for references.

My stomach began to hurt. Seth tried for several hours one day to give Helene a bottle, while I tried to relax in the hot tub at the gym. I bought new bottles, new bottle nipples, a sippy cup. I tried to get Helene to open her mouth for rice cereal, bananas, pears. I made plans to adjust my work hours, to give up my cherished Regular Day Off every other Friday, so I would spend less time away from my baby, my girl. I wondered if I could nurse her every day at lunch for the next four or five or more months. My stomach still hurt. I laid awake, wondering why I had jumped into this nanny share, when I didn't really have to go back to work until September. I wondered how I could get out of it, my mind exploring dead ends like a mouse in a maze.

Then Jennifer called. They'd gotten a place at a daycare next door to her office. I could hear that she was nervous over the phone, nervous about telling me. All I felt was relief, giddy, happy, relief. Of course they needed to take it! They had to do what was best for them! No, you don't need to pay anything for the stroller - we might use it, or I can easily resell it. Please stay in touch!

I e-mailed my office. Could I go back to the "return in September" plan? My nanny share just fell through. I don't know how long it will take me to find another. (Meanwhile, there are at least two posts for nanny shares on the Cap Hill listserve that very day.)

I took a long walk with Helene in the Ergo and hugged her close to me, kissing the top of her head. More time, more time, more time. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

This rug fringe is the best thing ever! Have you tried it?

Of shop vacs and improvisation

Hello, blog. (Blows virtual dust off of virtual interweb space.) I know, I've been neglecting you. Yes, I've been busy. And actually, I've been having quite a lot of fun, now that I seem to have the hang of this mom-thing, and I have lots of awesome new mom friends in my neighborhood to hang out with. Yes, I've been neglecting you for coffee klatches on H Street and addictive chicken cutlet Philly-style Italian sandwiches at Taylor Deli and playdates in the park in the lovely spring weather in DC which only lasts like, a minute, so you have to get out and enjoy it. It's true. And am I here to write about all the fun we've been having? Of course not, because why would I do that? It's boring. Suffering really has much more pith and drama to it, don't you think?

So. The baby has her first illness. Just a mild cold, nothing too bad. But she's all snuffly and snorty and stuffy and has a pitiful little cough, and she just cries sometimes because she just doesn't feel good, and isn't quite her usual happy smiling, wiggling self, with the slightly glazed eyes to match.

This morning, I decided to kill two rubber duckies with one stone by taking a long shower, and putting the stuffy baby in the bathroom with me to have her snuffliness soothed by the hot steam. I wedged the bouncy seat through the narrow door, strapped Helene in, gave her some toys, and hopped into the shower. It was strangely quiet within a minute. I peeked out, and there she was, sleeping away, still holding a toy. Awww. I finished my shower in a leisurely fashion. When I got out, I realized the baby was (a) still sleeping soundly; and (b) totally blocking the door. Do I try to get her out of the seat and into her bed? If not, how do I get out? I dripped and stared and thought for a moment. Then I shrugged, picked up seat with baby in it, moved her away from the door, and left her in the bathroom to keep napping in the warm steam. Her head was elevated, which helps the snot, the steam was soothing her nose and throat, and it was certainly cozy-warm in there. I did sneak back in to put the baby monitor in there. And she slept for a good 45 minutes, and woke up happy. Huh. I'm a genius.

***

When I realized the baby was actually sick yesterday, I tried to coddle her, holding, nursing and carrying her a lot, and torturing her with the snot sucker only when really necessary. She took more naps than usual, and was relatively happy playing between them, so I decided to cook an awesome dinner with our CSA veggies and some tuna steaks. I made mango salsa, set the rice cooker, tossed squash, asparagus, and spring onions with olive oil, salt & pepper to prepare them for the grill, and marinated the tuna in maple syrup and soy sauce. This would be a great dinner. I chilled a bottle of Virginia rose, and resisted the urge to open it now.

And then it started to rain. And rain. And RAIN. And rain harder. And harder. And HARDER. I have never seen rain like this in Washington, DC. If I still lived in Florida, I would have evacuated already for the hurricane. Trees whipping. Rain going sideways. News saying something about possible golf-ball sized hail. I kept looking nervously at our new skylight, and examining the floor for water, hoping our roofer had done a good job. Then I remembered the basement. It used to occasionally get water under the door when we forgot to clear out the storm drain. It didn't matter when it was just old cement floor down there. But now there are closets and books and fancy electronics. Better go take a look. I carried Helene down and propped her on her play mat.

The water under the door started as a trickle, and I stuffed some towels against the door. Which worked for about ten seconds. The water kept coming in. More towels. More water. Oh crap, the Danish teak table that we're going to refinish. And the boxes of books. And Seth's poker table top. What's in the closets, since water is going under those doors? Suddenly, I was barefoot and ankle-deep in cold rainwater and soggy towels, frantically rescuing things from the oncoming flood. Which was headed towards the Very Expensive Electronics. Oh yeah, and the baby on the floor. Who is starting to cry because she is miserable and stuffy and tired and sick.

"This is why we got ceramic tile and carpet tiles!" I said reassuringly as I sloshed around, moving boxes and pulling up sodden floor tiles. The baby was not reassured. Then the phone rang. Seth. He was late getting home. Yes, I was glad he wasn't drowned, but could he please COME HOME RIGHT NOW BECAUSE THE BASEMENT IS FLOODING? Thanks. Must go, floodwaters still in force. I continued to carry heavy, wet carpet tiles to the utility sink. Helene continued to wail. At least the rain seemed to be letting up. Maybe. I could see water still pushing against the glass basement door. Opening the door - not an option. Carrying baby out in downpour to examine drain? Not an option. Leaving rolling-over baby in house with encroaching floodwaters while I go outside - also not an option. Where is Seth and why is he so DAMN LATE?

Seth arrived, and went outside to see to the drain. It was indeed clogged. With seeds from some tree that are weirdly, cosmically, exactly, precisely the size of the holes in the drain. I hope they were from the stupid tree in our backyard. Which we are having removed soon because it was stupidly planted incorrectly by the stupid previous owner, and it's root-bound, strangling itself, and dying anyhow. Seth unclogged everything, and I saw the water drain away. Now there was more water inside than out. Seth was dispatched to Home Depot for a shop vac. I hauled the last of the carpet tiles, rescued what needed rescuing. The water had stopped just short of the giant new TV. Oh yeah, and the baby. Who was still whimpering. So I hauled her upstairs, sat on the sofa, and decided catch up on my Tivo'ed "Deadliest Catch" episodes while I waited for Seth and the shop vac. Because footage of crazy Arctic storms at sea and immense walls of water dwarfing fishing vessels seemed appropriate.

Sink full of sodden FLOR tiles.

And then water started to drip quite loudly and steadily through the doorframe of the back sliding glass door. In the newly renovated sun porch. I looked over at it, looked down at the tired baby in my arms, and wished for a large slug of scotch. I turned up the TV volume and tried to ignore the dripping.

Sick baby. Flooded basement. Leaking roof. Trifecta!

Seth came home with an alarmingly large shop vac. I put the baby to bed, and went downstairs to slosh through the basement once more. Seth had the vac almost together. I helped him finish it, and left him happily sucking up water off the floor (He's always wanted a shop vac, it turns out. He is sure that he and Helene can make more messes that will merit the vac. And we can suck all the debris out of the storm drain with it. Which is much more fun than you, know, sweeping.). And I went upstairs to make my planned awesome dinner, damn it.

We will hug it and pat it and call it R2D2.

One delicious dinner, one bottle of wine, and one slug of scotch later, the basement was almost dry, the roofer would be called in the morning to fix the very old roof that we stupidly left over the very new addition, I'd caught up on "Deadliest Catch," and stayed up too late, and the baby amazingly slept soundly. We're still drying out here today - the basement, the sun room, the roof and the baby - but I think we'll make it as long as we don't lose the snot sucker, can pay the roofer and figure out how to get those carpet tiles to dry faster. All the domestic f-ing bliss you can stand.

Yeah. I had these great plans to take photos of the finished, decorated, furnished, fabulous new basement for the final "after" shot of the renovation. But instead, you get this.

It was supposed to be like this

Children. Plans. Hah, says the universe. It was supposed to be like this: Helene would have slipped out of my body into a warm tub, the waiting hands of her father, and would have then been placed on my belly, umbilical cord still pulsing between us. We'd be into our dream daycare, just a few blocks from our house, and our baby would happily lie in her father's arms and drink expressed milk from a bottle. I would have had a miraculous Mirena IUD placed in my uterus, without complication, to be removed easily with a tug upon the occasion I decide to reproduce again. But none of that is what happened. This is what happened: I had a surprise breech baby, a murky nightmare of a Cesarean section. We have no childcare; only a vague promise of "fall looks good, " and a muddled running of numbers, researching of nannies. Helene has refused with all her might and screaming to drink from a bottle, after doing it happily for a couple of months. The Mirena, in a one-in-a-gazillion occurrence, slipped up sideways into my uterus, and now lies there awkward and useless on the right side, to be removed only by laprascopic surgery. These things were not supposed to happen.

Here's Helene's room.
The one that we were supposed to bring her home to, just about six months ago. Well, you know how that went. Recall what it looked like in the "during construction" phase. You know that we were still in the rented beige apartment when Helene was born, that we brought her home there, because our house was still a dust-covered deathtrap construction zone until the end of January. I guess it doesn't really matter, since the baby has slept in our room (wherever it was) since she was born. But I missed it, that lovely frantic hormone-infused nesting, nestling, getting everything clean and pretty and placed and ready for the beautiful known surprise. Better late than never. Except for this stupid mobile, which I got as a shower gift.

Which says it's good for ages '"0 to 5 months." Well, fuck. Because my baby is just about six months old so I'd better just take down this insanely mesmerizing mobile that I JUST PUT UP. Oh no. We're using that damn mobile, even if it means it stays up there until the baby can stand, pull it down upon her small head, and yell "I hate you! I have a dent in my head now and I will never have a prom date! You have ruined my life!" at her stupid mother who put the thing up in the first place. So yeah, the baby has a real room now that actually looks like a baby lives in it. I think she's taken a total of three naps in there now, looking all stranded and small in the giant island of her lovely dark wood crib. She hasn't slept at night in there yet. Because I can't let her yet. I am still too attached to placing a hand on her little body in the co-sleeper next to me to quiet her when she cries out in her sleep, or to just feel the soft, solid rise and fall of her breath in the velvet dark, or to slide her into bed next to me for a precious hour or two of snoozing in the early morning, so I can watch her stir and stretch, and see her big grey-blue eyes open wide to the morning, wide smile to follow.

And then there's this. The Precious Planet Jumperoo.

Because Helene loooves standing, loves being bounced up and down, cannot get enough, and Mama's arms are tired from being a human jumperoo every day (though it is helping my triceps). So I decided we needed to buy this most elaborate and complicated plastic piece of baby paraphernalia (definitely the biggest, gaudiest, plastickiest baby thing we've bought to date) so the baby could jump! And bounce! And spin! And entertain herself for maybe dozens of minutes at a time. The Jumperoo was dutifully purchased at a big suburban baby store, wedged in the trunk, hauled home, and assembled (despite the usual horrifyingly bad instructions). The baby was placed in the seat that looks like a giant monkey is eating her, and voila! Let the fun begin. Just one problem with this whole plan. Our darling, precious petite flower of a baby? Her feet? Do not touch the floor. So she just kind of....dangles there....in the monkey head. Sigh.

I should stop getting so attached to plans.

Mothers' Day? What? Me? Oh yeah, right.

Yes, I really did not realize for a time that Mothers' Day applied to me this year. Seth: "So, Sunday is Mothers' Day." Me:"Oh yeah. We should definitely call my mom and do a video chat with her, and don't forget to call your mom." Seth: "Uh, I meant what do you want to do?" Me: "Oh....me....huh." Seth gently points out (as if speaking to someone who is mentally impaired) that I am the mama and that the proof is the babbling, flailing baby over there on her play mat. It was a weird feeling to be included in Mothers' Day until I realized that it's like getting another birthday. Presents! Dinner! Pampering! Adult beverages! I will be sure to milk this a lot more next year.


Mothers' Day breakfast. Mmm, bacon.

Despite my advanced age, I still feel too young and stupid to have a baby. Yet, here we are. I think one of the surprises of Mothers' Day for me was the bond that I suddenly realized I feel with all the other mothers. Friends sent profound and beautiful messages to me on e-mail and Facebook. We went for a stroll through the azalea gardens at the National Arboretum, and so many people were so friendly to us, their faces alight with smiles as they congratulated me on my first ever Mothers' Day.


Yesterday, one of my friends wrote: "To have a child is to agree to have your heart live outside your body." Yes. Thank you, my little heart, for the fact that I get to be your mother.


Sappy, but true. No matter how tired or jet-lagged I am, seeing this face first thing in the morning makes me helplessly smile. Her father is so doomed when she's older and asks him to buy her stuff.

This post brought to you by jet lag and insomnia

3:43 AM. We got back from Australia yesterday (uh, Tuesday, May 5, to be exact) and got home around midnight. We all managed to sleep last night and stay awake all yesterday. We all crashed around 8:00 last night, and I slept for awhile, but sleep, it is not happening any more just now. For awhile, Seth, Helene and I were all awake at the same time. The other two seem to have gone back to sleep for the moment, so I guess two people sleeping is an improvement over three people not sleeping.

And with no sleeping and lying wide-eyed in the dark often comes contemplation. Which often leads to more insomnia. How is it that my little baby will be six months old in less than two weeks?

When I'm on vacation, I feel like I've stepped out of time, and that it stops or slows. Then, I come home, and step back into the pace of regular time, and sometimes, it's kind of shocking. It happened to me on our honeymoon in Hawaii almost four(!) years ago. My dad died suddenly two weeks before our wedding. After the memorial service, we all had no choice but to go on, and plunge headlong into the whirl of the wedding. Our wedding was amazing and wonderful and perfect - my dad wouldn't have wanted us to be sad or to change things because of him, and we didn't. Then Seth and I had two weeks in Hawaii that are always secreted away in a special box of my memory as utterly relaxing and beautiful, removed a world away. I cried for my dad in Hawaii, when I saw things he would love to see, or when I wanted to ask him a question and realized I could not, not ever. But I was buffered by the timelessness of a perfect vacation, by the staggering beauty of Hawaii, by the joy and sweetness of a new marriage to the person that is my partner, my balance, my life. When we got home it was a different story. My dad was dead, and my life had to at least pretend to resume as normal. All the grief that had been buffered in Hawaii came rushing back in with the normality of my every day life. There were memories of my dad everywhere. I think I managed to go to work every day, but I cried every day too, for weeks - behind a locked office door, silently in a bathroom stall, on the treadmill at the gym. I hysterically sobbed with disappointment when we got the proofs of our wedding photos back. In reality, the photos were stunning, but all I saw were the photos we forgot to take, the photos that were missing. It wasn't the photos, of course. It was my dad that was missing, my dad that was supposed to have been there. It took me several weeks before I could really look at our wedding photos and see that they were actually breathtaking and artful.

This time, returning from the stop-time of a full month in Australia, I gasp that my little baby Helene is almost six months old. She ticked off a ton of developmental milestones in Australia, and she's so fun and funny and engaging right now. Now that we are home, I can see how she's grown - how that one footie sleeper that just fit her when we left wouldn't go on last night; how much more of the co-sleeper she fills up with the length of her body; how deft her little hands are when she grasps toys; how quick her eyes are to see something new in the room. And then I panic, because it's going too fast. If we were sticking to the original game plan, I would be going back to work in a couple of weeks, and Helene would be going to full time daycare. But despite being on the waiting lists for over a year, Helene does not yet have a place at a daycare. One of the five says that September looks good; the others have pretty much said, uh, nope, never, no chance in hell. It's a reprieve in a strange disguise. When we found this out Seth said that we could probably afford for me to stay home until September. When I told my office that I did not have daycare yet, but that I might in September, and that I was exploring all options, they said they could do without me until September, but no longer.

I think I just need to grab this gift and run. I have an overdeveloped sense of obligation, though, and I feel like I should be going back to work, like I owe them, like it's been incredible hardship for them to do without me. I get antsy, and feel like I should be going back in two weeks because I told them I would. But the truth is, they're just fine without me. And they seem, incredibly, to be fine with letting me be gone longer. I hope that's true. Because I don't want to go back. Not yet. I will have to go back - this house renovation and the kid's college tuition aren't going to pay for themselves, unless Seth's plan to sign Helene over to a former Romanian gymnastics coach and get her in the Olympics and on a Wheaties box works out. Yeah, I have to plan to go back to work. What's killing me is the thought of being away from Helene for so many hours every day. I haven't been away from her for more than a couple of hours since she was born. I've seen her change before my eyes, witnessed all the new things she can do. I have her every expression and the softness of her skin etched on my heart. How can I just give that over to someone else, to let someone else see the newest thing she does, let someone else just tell me about it? It hurts too much. How does everyone do it, all the mothers who have to go back to work when their babies are even smaller? I know they do it because they have to; we all do what we have to.

So, around and around in my head, I've been whirling my options around. Part time work would be ideal, but my office won't allow it. They're always afraid that if one person does it, everyone will do it. Should we hire a nanny, and I could work from home a couple of times a week, so I would get to be with Helene during the day? I thought I wanted group daycare, to have Helene around other kids, to learn to socialize. Now I think maybe I want her at home, with one person who cares for her, with playgroups and classes arranged. Could we just get a nanny a couple of days a week now? Probably not- that's money going out that isn't coming in. I have to be working for us to have a nanny, and if I work, it has to be full time. Could I find another job? Part time? Maybe. Maybe not. Damn, why did I not just marry rich?

I thought at six months that Helene would be less dependent on me. I imagined she would be eating solid food, breastfeeding less, needing me less. So far, not the case. She loves to watch us eat, but isn't interested yet in eating her own food. She's still breastfeeding exclusively. She can't sit up without a lot of assistance. She won't go to bed at night without me lulling her into sleep. She cries if someone else tries. She won't drink from a bottle. She did willingly, until two and a half months. Then she began to refuse, and it became an awful screaming, crying ordeal for Seth, who would try for a couple of hours in the evening while I hid upstairs. He even tried when I was out of the house. My mother in law tried when we were out to dinner. No dice. It just makes her screaming mad to offer her a bottle now. So we just gave up. She didn't have to drink from a bottle, not anytime soon, and it wasn't worth the heartache for us. It's another hurdle/cause of stress for daycare - many places aren't too tolerant of babies who won't drink from a bottle. I don't know what I'm going to do about that. We might try going straight to a cup, or we might try one of these uber-suggestive boob-like bottles that seem to work for some folks. Again, another reason I need to just grab this reprieve of time and run. In September, she will be almost 10 months old. She will certainly be eating solid food, and I hope she can drink from a cup.

And I will have a few more precious months, days, hours with my baby. I don't know yet if I'm going to have another one. This might be my only chance. To be the first one she sees whenever she wakes up, to be the one who rocks her to sleep, to be the one who sees first what she does next, to play with her, make her laugh and to just watch her beautiful eyes and wide smile. I am still struck breathless by how much I love her.

I'm happy

Yes, I did get to pet a kangaroo. This is a gray kangaroo, which is actually brown. The red kangaroos look mostly gray, so don't try to figure that one out either. Kangaroo fur is much softer than you'd think. It reminds me of petting a horse with its thick winter coat.

We saw the kangaroos at this place, the Healesville Animal Sanctuary. We also saw parrots, echidnas, wallabies, baby Tasmanian devils, koalas, platypus and wombats. Then we went wine tasting. And yes, we saw all of those animals BEFORE drinking wine, and no, we are not making any of them up.

The land down under

This is my nephew, Zach. He lives in Melbourne, Australia. He hangs out with wallabies. We think Zach is very cool, and he knows where the wallabies live, and will introduce us, so we are going to visit Zach in Australia. We are leaving tomorrow and will be there for a month. What? It's a long way - we might as well stay for awhile. I'm on maternity leave - this seems like a good use of my time.


Are we insane for traveling with a 4 1/2 month old baby to Australia? Probably. There has been a lot of hassle about car seats, and bassinets in the bulkhead seats and pre-approval of car seats, and what have you, but we think we have it all sorted. Seth's parents are meeting us in Los Angeles for the super-long part of the trip to Melbourne. I think it's 16-ish hours or something. I try not to think about it. I do think about the favorable 4:1 adult to baby ratio for the flight. Seth had it worked out as 4 hours per adult.

I've made packing lists, hauled out the suitcases, done most of the laundry, and thought extensively about what to pack. Actual packing has not yet occurred. But I did get a pedicure.

We will be petting wallabies and kangaroos, and seeing koalas, emus, duckbilled platypuses, fairy penguins, beaches, and vineyards. We will not be eating Vegemite. I've tasted it and its English cousin Marmite, and that was quite enough of that culinary adventure.

We think Zach is excited to see Helene, though he may be a bit disappointed that she does not do too much stuff yet, by his 3-year old standards. You know, like say words or play trains with him. When he first met her in December, he definitely expected that his baby cousin would be a little more exciting, and not just a tiny sleeping lump that everyone was inexplicably entranced by. I'm sure she will happily hold and gum a Thomas The Tank Engine, but that might not fit in with Zach's plans.

So, there might not be a whole lot of posts on here for the next month. I'll try to stick up some random photos of us with kangaroos and on the beautiful Melbourne beaches just to make you jealous, but I'll probably be too busy petting wallabies and tasting wine and enjoying grandparent babysitting services to exert myself too much. (Could I be traveling to AU just to get free babysitting? It's possible.)

I wonder what Helene will learn or do over the next month. She does something new every day, it seems. She's almost rolling over. She talks expressively to the ceiling fan. She is discovering her feet, and on a recent warm day, she rubbed her little feet and toes together to test out the feeling of barefootness. She is a little sponge, gazing with wide-open blue-grey eyes at everything in sight, drinking it in, as I carry her down our street. It's my favorite thing about her right now - watching her see and be amazed by the world for the first time.

Her look clearly says "Holy cow! I can hold my head up!" She's Australia-ready.


Gratuitous baby toes picture. No pedicure needed - cuteness is more than enough.

Going crackers (or, Grandma's attic part II)

A few weeks ago, while trying to recover from the Horrible Stomach Flu of Death, I sent Seth out to get one the time-honored stomach illness restoratives: the saltine cracker.

These crackers have soothed me since childhood through colds, food poisoning, intestinal illness of all kinds, hangovers and pregnancy. I've always been able to count on these crackers for their salty, inoffensive blandness, and their gentle, flaky texture, guaranteed to rest easy even in the most tumultuous of recovering tummies. I was ready for their comforting sameness, which hasn't changed since my childhood. Right? Nope, wrong. A few crackers in, I realized they tasted different. Sort of....sweet. Seth confirmed that he tasted the same thing. A glance at the ingredient list, and there it was: high fructose corn syrup. Now, seriously, why do you need sweetener in a bland saltine cracker of all things? I mean, aren't these things basically water, flour and salt? How much simpler can you get as far as a food product?


Not that simple, apparently. Having read Michael Pollan's "The Omnivore's Dilemma" a few months ago, we're on board with the idea of trying not to consume too much processed stuff and stuff containing corn derivatives, so as not to become giant walking corn chips, which is what most Americans are, if you are truly what you eat. As Pollan explains, the growing of corn is heavily subsidized. Thus, there is overproduction of corn, thus something has to be done with all the corn, thus corn and corn products are in nearly everything. Check your food labels, you'll be shocked. There is evidence on both sides as to whether corn sweeteners are metabolized differently than other sweeteners, and whether they contribute to the epidemic of obesity in this country. But really, how can it be good to have high fructose corn syrup in something that just doesn't need it, like a stupid cracker? Why are our tastebuds being bombarded with sugary sweetness in a fundamentally savory item?

After looking at the ingredient list on the 2009 box of saltines, I told Seth about the vintage metal Premium cracker box we always had in the house since I was a kid. My mom always bought crackers and stored them in this box, because it kept them fresher. The box has to be older than me - I remember it from my earliest days. I remember sitting at the kitchen table, eating my cheese and crackers or tomato soup and crackers, and reading the side of the metal cracker box. Very plainly, in English and Spanish, it listed the ingredients. My recollection was that the crackers contained a very short list of ingredients: flour, leavening, shortening, salt. I was headed to my mom's house soon. I would have to investigate.

As you know from my previous post, the cracker box had to still be in my mom's house. Of course it was:


And there was the short ingredient list, just as I remembered it, so concise:

To me, this list looks like food, people, not chemical engineering. I know that these days the FDA regulations require a little more detail, like what kind of shortening or leavening, but still. It would hardly make the ingredient list longer.

Is this progress? Maybe I'm just swayed by the nostalgia of the metal cracker box: durable, reusable, simple, with its short and understandable list of ingredients. But really, has the lowly, simple saltine cracker now been improved by its longer, polysyllabic ingredient list? Why did it need to be changed? And most importantly, what the hell are we eating?

Scrambled (or, Grandma's attic, part I)

First, I'll tie up a few loose ends. We had a great visit with my mom (aka Grandma Wanda), her big hairy Lab-Chow mix Tuffy did not eat the baby (this was Seth's personal fear), and we made it home just fine. The experience of flying with a 3.5 month old actually did quite a lot to restore my faith in people. Not one person was rude to us. There was not one disgruntled sigh or eyeroll as I walked on the plane with a tiny baby. People were just amazingly kind and considerate. When I squeezed into the window seat next to two men obviously traveling to DC for business, I said, "I swear the baby has been great on all our other flights!" One of them replied,"I don't mind babies. They're just babies. What I do mind is adults who act like babies!" Well said, seatmate.

Now, on to the main feature. I grew up in a house where things were Saved. They were not thrown out. Ever. These things were squirreled away, stacked up in closets, and Saved, because you might need them someday. These things included string, rubber bands, plastic margarine containers, piles of Army-surplus sleeping bags and ammo boxes, canvas tarps, broken watches, and my old t-shirts from highschool. When my parents moved from New Mexico to Idaho almost nine years ago, my mom made a valiant effort to thin out The Stuff, but she came up against a brick wall known as my Super Saver Pack Rat father, and most of The Stuff made its way to Idaho.

Sometimes I'm glad that it did, because gems like this are unearthed from my mother's kitchen cabinets. Behold, THE EGG SCRAMBLER!



Oooohh yes! This is 1970s Only! Available! On! TV! Call! Now! at its very finest. You delicately spear your unscrambled, raw egg on the magical vibrating needle, and it (GET THIS) SCRAMBLES THE EGG IN THE SHELL. Then you just crack the egg into your hot frying pan, and voila! SCRAMBLED EGGS. Because actually cracking the egg into a bowl and using a fork or a whisk or even an egg beater would be far, far too tedious, time consuming, difficult and messy for today's woman. Here's the Egg Scrambler alone in its vaguely Seattle Space Needle glory:


Now, I must confess. It is my fault that the Egg Scrambler entered our household. I was probably five or six years old, the prime age to fall prey to TV offers. I saw this device during afternoon cartoons, and I was mesmerized. Further, I was utterly, irreversibly convinced that my mother absolutely, positively needed this device. And Mother's Day was coming up. I do not know what appalling amount of begging, pleading, wheedling and convincing my poor father was barraged with, but it was enough to get him to order the Egg Scrambler. Which was proudly presented to my mother at breakfast on Mother's Day. And yes, of course we promptly used it to make scrambled eggs. Which were doubtless pronounced THE BEST SCRAMBLED EGGS EVER. And my proud little child self knew the TV commercial had been right.

Aaaand then, the Egg Scrambler went back into its box where it sat for twenty-some-odd years until it was unearthed and moved to Idaho and put away in a cabinet. Where it was unearthed again by my mother at my insistence because I could not believe she still had this thing. Now she can never get rid of it. I think its incredible kitsch value in 2009 has just elevated it to family heirloom status. I think this says it all about my generation : yes, the family heirlooms inherited before were gold watches, maple sideboards, vintage jewelry. My children? They will get THE EGG SCRAMBLER. And their lives will be better for it, see? The Egg Scrambler promises.


(And, incidentally, "Great for camping!" WTF??)

Updatery

(1) Feeling MUCH better since the day of this post. Immediately after that, I signed up for a baby yoga class, made plans with some other moms to take our babies out to a movie, bought a jogging stroller, and vowed to go to my neighborhood "Eaters and Sleepers" playgroup/coffee klatsch every week. Yes, I realize this is a long list of things. Overcompensate? Me?

(2) And since this post, the baby and I quite successfully flew cross-country to visit Grandma. Helene was quite fabulous. She fell asleep about 30 minutes before we boarded our first flight, from Newark to Salt Lake City, slept for a couple of hours, was awake for maybe an hour, and slept for the rest of that flight. She also slept for most of the second flight from Salt Lake to Boise. We had kind fellow travelers, who got bins for us at security, held things for us, and generally admired the baby (it does help when your baby gives a wide, gummy smile to pretty much anyone who makes eye contact). We had a kind flight attendant on our first flight who was happy to hold Helene, and who knew which airplane bathroom had a changing table in it. The pressure changes on takeoff and landing didn't faze the baby at all. I plopped her in our sling to carry her through the airports and to sleep. I tried to travel light, taking only a (crammed full) diaper bag on the plane. But I still had a change of clothes for both me and the baby in case of Diaper Blowout Emergencies. Which didn't happen, thankfully.

Now we just have to get back home today. I'm trying not to be superstitious about ye olde Friday the 13th and all, and am keeping crossed fingers that our previous good travel karma holds out. Because, wow, is four and a half hours a looooong time when you are on a full plane holding a completely cooperative/happy/sleeping baby. I don't even want to let thought enter my head about what it would be like if the baby was NOT cooperative/sleeping/happy. It's hard for you to sleep, hard for you to read. I tried to doze and watched the in-flight movie with no sound because I was too cheap to buy the $2 headphones on the plane. I might buy them this time. One of my friends won't travel with her young daughters because she had such a horrific experience with her oldest at five months (screaming baby, complete diaper explosion all over baby, stripping down, cleaning & changing baby in aisle of plane)- she says the memories still make her twitch. Yikes. So, fingers crossed, folks! Keep watching CNN to make sure you don't see us.