One Froggy Baby

So Jericho is two months old, and he has started "social smiling." In the mornings, when he's well rested, I can perch him on my lap with my thighs to his back, and he will often smile at me. He doesn't smile on cue, but he does seem to respond to certain interactions. I haven't figured out what those are yet. I think when he's in a good mood and has something to smile about (he feels rested, well fed, not gassy), then he smiles. It's the first thing that babies really give back to their parents. Seeing him smile makes everything -- the sleep deprivation, the complete uprooting of life as I knew it -- worth it.

I've been unable to get a photograph of Jericho smiling, however. He'll be smiling away until I pull out my camera. Then it's glumsville. He reminds me of the frog in the classic Warner Bros. cartoon "One Froggy Evening." That frog, excavated from a time capsule in an old building, would sing and dance for the workman who uncovered him. However, as soon as the workman tried to get the frog to sing for anyone else, it would revert back to a glum croaking amphibian.

Here is a video of me trying to get Jericho to smile again, after he'd been smiling.



Here's the classic Warner Bros. cartoon.

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By the way, that cartoon is based on an old legend of the "toad in the hole" and also real reports of entombed frogs and toads coming back to life. Some consider it the best short film ever made. I'm in that camp.

But back to babies. I remember Jade smiling very early in life. At six weeks, she was interacting with people. They would smile at her, and she would smile back. She always was a flirt and a ham. Her dad and I took her to a neurological specialist when she was six weeks old, and the main observation the doctor made was of her beautiful social smile. My mother had made the appointment for us with a San Francisco pediatric neurologist because she was terrified that Jade had Crouzon Syndrome, like her father. I had no such worries, and I kept the appointment only to appease my mom. I was carefree, even though the odds of Jade inheriting her dad's serious genetic abnormality had been 1 in 2.

Those are much higher odds than they were for Jericho having a chromosomal defect of the sort that are more common with mothers in their 40s. With him, as well, Bryan and I chose to think positive. I did not get the amnio or the CVS, choosing to forgo an increased risk of miscarriage; however, I did get the noninvasive first trimester screening. Regardless, we decided that we would welcome a baby with Down Syndrome into our home.

Still, I found it ironic that Jericho's risks of problems were much lower than Jade's, even though I was 21 and healthy when Jade was born and 45 and diabetic when Jericho was born. Both my kids beat the odds. And like an entombed toad in the hole, my motherhood -- and optimistic outlook -- reemerged.

Elephant Man

I was proud of myself the other day. I figured out how to post a video on Facebook. It's one of those annoyingly cute videos that people post of their children. In this case, Jericho is filmed "fighting" with mobile-tethered elephants while sitting in his vibrating infant seat. He looks very aggressive and cute, between yawns, as he swats at the tiny elephants. He wears a camouflage jacket that his aunt gave him, so he looks very boyish and tough.



Immediately after I posted the video on Facebook, Jade posted the following comment:

here is evidence of early maternal investment in tropes of masculinity and militarization. small brother, do not hit the elephants; honor their continued efforts at survival through threats of ivory hunting with tender caresses. and please someone take the camouflage off that child. are we cultivating a warmonger over here?!

I smiled at first, though I wasn't sure if she was joking or not. Then I thought: Can't I post a cute video of my baby without her deconstructing it?! (Did I mention that Jade is an editor at a publisher specializing in books highlighting academic theory, such as post-structuralist feminist criticism and gender theory. I am sure I just explained that wrong, and if she's reading this, she will be highly offended. I'm sorry.)

But I later realized that Jade had a point. I was invested in Jericho's masculinity as I'd never been invested in her femininity. I mean, in 1985, I never would have posted a video on Facebook (if Facebook and digital video had existed) showing Jade in a tutu doing some gendered female activity, such as baking cookies or tenderly caressing elephants. I was all about empowering her and teaching her that she could do anything she wanted, regardless of her sex. And she became a strong feminist woman, much to my delight.


But I find I am not as eager to fight the stereotyping of boy children. Jericho wears a lot of blue, albeit, most of it hand-me-down. (Why do baby boy clothes always have imagery of dogs, bears, cars, or sports?) We are already talking about the sports Jericho will play. One friend has prematurely signed him up for Mt. Airy Baseball. I go around bragging about how big and strong he is. And worst of all, I impulse-bought him a Chris Jericho action figure. Yikes.

Masculinity is my son's ticket to acceptance and participation in society (read: happiness). I guess my maternal desire for his success (read: power) is trumping my feminist desire to overthrow patriarchy ... just in his case. Of course, I will teach him to respect women and do the dishes, but even that presumes his dominant position vis-a-vis the other sex.

So I guess I don't want to deconstruct it too much. I assume I will be supportive if he grows up to be a Ferdinand, sniffing the flowers instead of fighting.



I'll try not to invest in Jericho's masculinity. But I'm not going to discount it either.

The Motherland

Jericho has started to smile. But he doesn't smile at me. He smiles at strangers and his Bubby (my mother-in-law). He smiles at his father and looks around when he hears his father's voice. But I don't get the sense that he recognizes me as a separate person. I'm more like a landscape.

That makes sense, since 7 weeks ago he was literally housed inside of me. And he continues to be nourished by my body. He sleeps on me. I carry him around. I am (almost) always there, part of him. This is good. But it doesn't get you appreciation.

It's a little bit of an ego trip to be Mother Earth for someone. You feel so ... essential. It's so primal. You feel a lot more important than just being someone's lawyer. I am his landscape. Of course, without me, life would still go on for him. Lot's of people love him and can take care of him. But I like feeling so needed.

I also hate it sometimes. Like the other night, Bryan, Jade, and I were going to go see a movie. Of course, it was last minute and I hadn't pumped, so we figured we'd take Jericho with us. It was after 9. He'd (probably) stay asleep. So we drove into Center City to the Ritz Five Theater (where Babies was playing, coincidentally). We bought our tickets and got in line to buy popcorn. I detected some apprehensive looks from other theater-goers. Before we could go into the theater, the usher said, "You can't go in there with a baby. No one under 5 is allowed entry. It's been that way for years." This was confirmed by the manager who gave us our money back. We dejectedly went home.

Duh! If we had thought about it for a minute, we would have realized that one never sees babies in movie theaters. No one wants to hear a baby crying while they are trying to enjoy a movie. I don't know why we thought we could just waltz into a serious foreign film carrying a baby, who would hopefully keep quiet, but most likely cry, at some point.

And then last weekend, Bryan and I wanted to go out for dinner. I have been feeling some serious cabin fever lately. We drove through Manayunk, a nearby trendy strip, which was hopping on a Saturday night. The thought of going into one of those pubs or nice restaurants with a baby made us feel like wallflowers at prom. We ended up driving from the city into the suburbs to dine comfortably with our baby at a Jewish deli. The waitress rushed us because they close at 9.

I know what you're thinking. Get a babysitter, stupid. We're working on it. Bubby is ready and able. But it takes orchestration. And I'm not especially good at orchestrating things these days. I mostly just get through the day. It's hard being Mother Earth.

Thanks Philadelphia Inquirer for reading my blog

She must have read it. That's what I thought when I read this Thursday column by Malina Brown in the Philadelphia Inquirer. It very much echos my post about how many people discard politeness when confronted by a pregnant woman. Either that, or the experiences we both shared are all too common.

Changing Hats

One unexpected issue with having two children nearly a quarter-century apart is that I can't just be one mom to both of them. I have to be two moms to each of them individually. I guess this is true no matter how far apart kids are spaced. But it seems that when all your kids are kids more or less together, they can eat together, play together, get scolded in turn, and basically follow the same rules and have the same expectations of family life.

Not so when you were an irresponsible hippie for your first kid and a married professional with your second. And not so when your kids belong to different generations. My daughter is squarely in Generation Y, she fits it like a glove. My son ... ? Will they have a Generation Z when he comes of age? Who knows? My husband thinks Jericho's generation will be the one that must address the fall of civilization as we know it -- and he's jealous. (I'll get to my husband in another post.)

But the biggest problem I have mothering across generations is that I must change hats -- actually, more than hats -- states of mind, biological foci, intellectual capacity, rules, language, everything -- when I switch from one kid to the next. I mean, I'm with Jericho most of the time. Mothering him basically entails nursing, rocking him, singing to him, walking with him in the stroller, trying to get him to sleep, nursing, soothing him, getting stuff done in a flurry while he sleeps, napping, nursing, showing him off. That's about it. We obviously don't have deep conversations yet. Or if we do, they're pretty one sided.

Jade is my intellectual equal; actually, she's way smarter, more articulate, more well-read, and far more capable than I. Mothering her mostly entails keeping up. She schools me more than I school her. I try to be a sounding board and support system, when she needs it. And she only needs mothering once in a while and, in those cases, it's immediate and acute and temporary.

That doesn't mesh well with the steady white-noise of mothering an infant. It's hard to drop everything when necessary. It's hard to focus on a conversation. It's hard to change hats.

Jade and Jericho at Mother's Day brunch.

The closest I've gotten, so far, is on Mother's Day, when my husband took Jericho to his mom's house for dinner. Jade and I went to yoga by train and also went shopping. It was wonderful. But it was bittersweet, because I know how rare such occasions now have become.

It was the longest I've been apart from Jericho -- 4 1/2 hours. But it felt like an instant. And it felt inadequate. And while, in the coming months and years, I'll be able to talk to Jade on the phone or by email and see her during visits, life as we knew it is over. I am no longer just her mom. I am Jericho's mom and must consciously change hats to be her mom for those times when she wants me or needs me to.

Jericho's Early Mother's Day Present

Today, I feel for the first time in months that my life is semi-under control. Maybe it's because Jericho gave me 3+ hours of napping in a stretch. I was able to actually pump breast milk (really, I have not had "time" to do this over the past two weeks) in anticipation of Mother's Day. On Mother's Day I'm going to ditch my baby with his dad and paternal grandma, aunt, uncle, and cousins and spend some quality time with Jade. Jade is coming for Mother's Day. Even though she's grown, she's adjusting to having another creature sharing her mother's love. So we're going to hang out together on Mother's Day without the boy.

I also reorganized the books in the house. This sounds like something a Type-A housewife would do because she has too much time on her hands. But believe me, I'm no Type A, and it needed to be done. We just moved into our new house two weeks before I had the baby. It's been sheer chaos. The house is finally starting to feel settled. Books are important, and they need to be settled.

It's amazing how my mood can improve so much after a couple extra hours of sleep and time to myself ... time spent cleaning/organizing, usually, but still time not listening to a crying baby. Did you ever notice that babies have the most annoying pitch to their voices, kind of like an alarm buzzer? Human babies may be the most helpless creatures on the planet, but shit are they loud. You can't ignore them.

Jericho is approaching, according to the pediatrician, the most fussy time of his life (I hope). Six weeks apparently is when they peak in fussiness. True to form, he's been a real pill, until today, that is. Yesterday, I had to let him cry it out in his crib for 5-10 minutes a couple of times because nothing would console him.

Today he was an angel though. And all the fiction and nonfiction are in their places.

Quarter Century Dula

An old friend gave me a huge gift last week. She game to Philly all the way from Oregon to help me with the baby. I was surprised and pleased that she volunteered to come, as we haven't spent much time together over the last 10 years or so.

My friend, Margaret, was a huge part of my daughter's life. When I moved to Oregon when Jade was 6 months old -- homeless and not knowing anyone -- I looked up Margaret. We grew up in the same hometown, and my mom heard from Margaret's mom that she lived in Oregon. Margaret welcomed Jade and me with open arms. When she met Jade, they instantly connected, and she became Jade's "other mom." She was always there to help me out when necessary. And gradually Jade and I became integrated into Margaret's group of friends. Without her, I would have had a lot more trouble making it in a new place as a single mom.

When I moved to Oregon, I was a big advocate for home birth, because I'd had such a great experience delivering Jade with midwives in our small trailer in Northern California. Of course, I was 21 and healthy then. Birth was truly a trippy experience for me. A couple years later, when Margaret and her then-boyfriend became pregnant, she decided to have a home birth as well. She too became a home birth champion. She later worked as a doula (labor coach and postpartum helper), a midwife, a childbirth educator, and a lactation consultant. Basically, Margaret became a baby guru.

Margaret and her husband (they got married after the first one) had two more kids. The second two also were born at home, in water in birthing tubs. In her late 30s, Margaret delivered a 10 lb baby in a tub, basically by herself. She is a true believer in empowering women to take charge of the childbirth experience, rather than meekly following the orders of risk-adverse doctors and hospital nurses.

We've kept in touch over the years (mostly through our parents), but I haven't spent time with Margaret for a while.I spoke to her when I was pregnant -- this time managed by "high-risk" doctors in one of the country's premier teaching hospitals. The docs were making it clear I was looking at an interventionist birth -- induction or C-section. It would be a far cry from my natural home birth in the cow pasture with my cats and dog as labor coaches.

And, sure enough, the docs did intervene, inducing me into labor at 38 1/2 weeks. The anesthesiologist eagerly pushed the epidural. Before I knew it, I was pumped full of drugs, attached to the hospital bed by tubes and wires, with a team monitoring every peak and valley of the baby's heartbeat, my blood pressure, blood sugar, anything measurable.

But I did manage to push Jericho out myself, avoiding a C-section. And I insisted on breastfeeding him when he went to NICU for a day, due to a low blood sugar. Small victories against the American health care system, which would rather treat everyone as a statistic, usually the product of a risk-benefit analysis equation.

I spoke to Margaret about all this. And I was happy when she volunteered to leave her family for a few days to come help me with Jericho. It was good to have a visit from a verifiable Oregon earth mama. She taught me the double-swaddle, which is helping Jericho sleep in his bed. And when Jericho was up one night because his nose was stopped up, she told me to drop some breast milk in his nostrils. It miraculously unclogged his nose, acting like a saline solution but with those natural antibodies. Mostly, she calmed my jittery everything-old-is-new-again mom nerves.

What goes around comes around. It's something to be thankful for.