Last night we drove to Asheville to see She & Him. I was surprised to find that my reaction to it was outright jealousy. I love the styles of music they borrow from, and it's not a stretch to say that my husband and I could play like this - albeit in much smaller venues and definitely not as a full-time gig. If only!

I'm not saying I'm -as good as- Zoey Deschanel, or that my husband is on a par with a touring guitarist/songwriter. I'm merely saying that as I listened to She & Him sing simple songs of devoted love, wistfulness kept nudging me in the ribs.

I lie in the dried grass in my front yard, yammering on my cell phone to my sister in L.A. As we talk, she goes outside, sees a sliver, and pops back into her overpriced Sherman Oaks apartment. When she goes back out a little later to check, she reports that her moon is pure-tee GONE. I think it scares her that it disappeared that quickly. It gives me a thrill that we're viewing the same giant thing at the same time from different angles. The blind man and the elephant.

Four people walk by and I hail them, "Hey! Hey, see the eclipse?" They stare at me. "The moon, you see?" I'm pointing, smiling. They continue walking, cautiously glancing at me. "An eclipse," I insist. One of them looks up. "Oh, OK." They keep going. They are Asian, I think they all work at the Chinese restaurant nearby. We live in a safe suburb of upstate South Carolina - this ain't New York, I am a skinny 30-something middle class white woman, they don't have anything to fear from me. Maybe they think I am a lunatic (pun intended) or their culture shrugs off periodic astrological events. Or maybe they are tired, and smell like fried food, and can't be bothered to look up for four seconds from the sidewalk that leads home.

I'm almost embarrassed to add a post to a blog that is several years old, which no one reads, and that isn't all that interesting. I've been keeping a diary offline in a Word document, so I do have a record of all of the little Camden developments since before she was born.

I do want to continue a blog or diary of some sort but I can never seem to keep one going. Also, I'm in need of good photo organization software. Suggestions?

Camden is a little two-year-old person now. She has a mop of very blonde hair and crystal blue eyes. She can be quite bossy, ordering around stuffed animals, spice bottles, and her parents. Two stuffed cows are her best buddies - This Cow and Other Cow.

As for me, I have been working at my own business since September, but over the past month I haven't been doing much billable work and haven't really been looking around for new projects. It's summer, and my time is being spent supervising the renovation of our kitchen, traveling with Camden to see relatives, and working on small house projects that have gone undone forever. We could use the extra money, but I feel like there will be time for that when these other things are taken care of.

December Update.
We are finally getting over what seems like a monthlong cold. Camden hasn't been sleeping in her crib, preferring instead to fuss until I take her into bed and eventually stick her in the Pack & Play in our room. In the past week she has spent 2 full nights in her crib. She is just now able to pull herself up to standing, which of course ups the tantrum level in the crib because she can now stand up and cry instead of fussing lying down and eventually getting bored.

On the bright side, she babbles a lot now and can crawl really well. Last night she was in the living room with Charlie and was crying for me, who was in the kitchen. Charlie came to the kitchen and a minute later, here came Camden, bawling and crawling after us. It was kind of comical.

We went really light on Christmas presents for her this year -- although oddly enough we got tons for everyone else. I think she'll enjoy tearing into them because she's a fan of crinkly paper. We skipped a tree because she's crawling and I thought it was stupid to put one up only to have to barricade it. Presents are stacked a yard high on the sideboard.

We have managed to get out and do things. Friday night, Camden accompanied me to an AIDS art auction, where we picked up a cool piece of folk art for $30, and to a Christmas party at a lawyer friend's office. She was nice as pie and she doesn't mind settings with lots of people and things to look at. We shopped Saturday, Charlie went to the Panthers game yesterday and we even went to a U2 concert while Camden hung out with the grands. The U2 concert deserves its own entry so I'll save that one.

Everyone's Blog is Better than Mine

If I were not so busy and didn't have such a deeply fulfilling life, it would bother me greatly that everyone in the world has a more robust and up-to-date blog than I do. I'm a better-than-average writer, and I daresay reasonably witty and well-spoken. But I just don't have time to spill my guts on a blog. I think I noted this in the very first post, and it's proven to be true.

I send a shitload of email, though, and I do keep an offline diary of sorts. It's a Word document into which I mostly copy and paste my most thrilling and detail-ridden emails to friends and family. I can't be bothered to document everything in real time. I've got a kid to raise, a husband to love, and a self to entertain.

I'm starting to think that insanely busy is normal for me. Did I mention I had a panic attack last week? I mistook my sudden inability to get enough air for asthma. Then I talked to my mother, and she suggested it was probably a panic attack because it sounded like one she had once.

The irony was that it happened AFTER all the crazy busy-ness, on the day I was driving back to work after having taken a day off to set my house in order. It was the first day I'd had to "breathe" in a while and most ironically, I couldn't.

But I'm all better now, having whacked most of the moles, except that the friggin' air conditioner still isn't getting the upstairs of our rental house under 80 degrees during the day -- and this is after I have spent $1200 to have it "fixed." In the immortal words of everybody, "F*** that."

Meanwhile, Camden's adorable. She has tolerated me feeding her a little rice cereal from a spoon, she slept 8 hours in a row last night, and we both heard her clearly say "golf" the other day during a conversation she was having with herself. So she's doing fine. If her parents can only get their lives together, we'll be one small happy family.

What Baby Camden is up to
About eleven pounds. ba dum bum

She is three months old and her new interests include clutching dramatically at her clothing a la Fred Sanford, poking out her tongue so mom & dad can tickle it with a finger, and "talking" to us in little "hoo-hoo" monkey grunts with a surprised look that says, "Am *I* making that noise?"

She's also holding that head up very nicely, able to sit on a lap and take in a room with bug eyes, and adores "tummy time" (for you non-parents, that means lying on her stomach propped on her arms like the Sphinx, thereby strengthening her neck, arms, and back muscles and gaining some balance and movement control). She can't read yet, but otherwise, she's coming along very well.

Kanka Is Some Hardcore Stuff

Apparently I have a canker sore. Not a cold sore, which is contagious. So I picked up a substance called Kanka at my local apothecary (Eckerd) which purported to provide maximum pain relief and form a protective coating around my annoying little ulcer. And boy did it ever. I think I went a bit aggressive in the application of it because my lips, the tip of my tongue, and part of my gums seem to have vanished. I can still numbly feel the canker sore a little bit but the pain has been greatly reduced. Thankya, Kanka.

Since I got pregnant, the April 2005 Expecting Club at iVillage has been a lifebuoy. I was able to find out all kinds of information, great "mom" insider information, and best of all, post or read about the totally embarrassing "is it just me?" and "is this normal?" questions that every pregnant woman has. There's a message board on nearly every subject of life and I recommend them. You can communicate with people across America (and in other countries too), and even though we shared the experience of being pregnant, it was really wild to see how varied the experience is.
I like my OB-GYN practice in general, but the doctor who is supposedly "my doctor" is not very forthcoming with information, even when pressed. I do my homework and I like a doctor who will discuss issues with me rather than just say, "See you in two weeks" before my feet are even out of the stirrups. So the message board was quite helpful in filling in the gaps that he left in my pregnancy knowledge base, and no book can fix that either.

P.S.

Today is my 33rd birthday. I am really enjoying it because I don't look anywhere close to 33. I secretly love seeing the shock that comes when strangers learn how old I am. Even a friend of mine the other day was jokingly saying something about how I was not "old enough" for something. I said mock-indignantly, "I'm almost 33." She paused for a long while and I threw in, "You thought I was younger than that, didn't you?" She said, "Definitely." Hey, it's not like I have any control over how old or young I look. Except I don't dress like a frumpy matron -- I suppose that helps.

Vampire Baby

So now I'm almost eight weeks on the other side of pregnancy ... the side where you have a new baby. The pregnancy and delivery were a cakewalk compared to the first couple of weeks of life with our daughter Camden.

Camden was fussy, cranky, crying, frowny, and not as sleepy as I had been led to believe babies are. Breastfeeding didn't work out - she was a "shallow latcher" (don't ask, but it's painful) and we ended up putting her on formula. Long story short, she didn't do well on Enfamil Lipil and is now taking Carnation Good Start very nicely, though it gives her the farts!

When she was first born Camden reminded me of Nosferatu in her middle of the night feedings. She would draw her preternaturally long fingers up underneath her chin and stare distantly with her giant eyes. It was a little creepy. Now she grunts if I stop feeding her and her newest thing is clutching at my shirt and hair with her fingers and grabbing on. I love it.

Life with a new infant had some definite surprises. I thought I had read all the baby books, heard every bit of advice, and knew what to expect. But no. First of all, my little girl looks exactly like her father. Everyone says so and it was the first thing I noticed when I saw her for the first time. Also, I discovered that despite the dire warnings about your baby dying of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome if you allow her to sleep on her stomach, some babies simply will not sleep on their backs. Camden is one of these babies and after we figured this out, life got a lot better for everyone in the household.

With babies you really appreciate the small advances, such as: "Look! She can lift her head up two inches and hold it for ten seconds!" and "Wow, she is starting to look at things besides lights and faces!" Forget walking and talking. We are talking basic motor skills and the beginnings of learning to be happy. Yes, babies must learn to smile and feel happiness; it's not something they are born with. Camden just started issuing the rare smile last week. And I am watching her every minute I can to see all of this unfold.

I have got 8 weeks to go and I have to say, for someone who was freaked out for years about the idea of having a baby, I feel cool as a cuke. Maybe it's that calm period while the log flume is gently bobbing along and slowly kank-kank-kanking its way up the incline. You know what's coming -- you got on the ride in the first place, didn't you? So you just sit back and enjoy the ride as best you can.

It is SO cool to feel the baby wiggling around inside though. She has one foot, the kicky foot, that often pokes out of my side and when I press on it, it drives the foot wild. Apart from that, I don't know what's what in there. In some ways I wish she would just stay in there, my own private pet, easy to feed, goes anywhere, not much of a bother. But I suppose eventually she would get way too big for me to handle from the inside.

If I only had time to read 1000 journals, maybe I would have time too to keep my blog updated. I'm so thrilled that people still make time for creativity and participation in group projects like the one I just linked. "This is an experiment, and you are part of it."

JUMP! All righty. I did not fathom just how much of my youth was spent on video games until I watched this little gem. It starts slowly but it picks up and suddenly you are watching your childhood flash before your eyes -- that is, if you owned an Atari 2600, a Nintendo, or frequented Aladdin's Castle.

ThinkGeek :: Geek Love Poem T-shirt
This shirt is so darn funny. I was trying to imagine explaining what the references mean to my mom -- which I think I could do. But trying to explain to her why it is funny? I think that is beyond my abilities.

The Top Ten Words I Want To Avoid In The Name Of My Baby's Daycare

1. Kollege
2. Baptist
3. L'il
4. Clown
5. Holy
6. Crazy / Krazy
7. Uncle
8. o'
9. Bubba
10. Experimental

Today I toured six daycares in the area. It was an enlightening (and exhausting) experience on many levels. In addition to identifying several I would actually entrust with my child, I also learned some things. Here are a few observations:

Babies really are all different. I guess I had this really generic concept of baby. Bald, drooling, and either asleep or crying. I'm not around them that often. But these babies really ran the gamut. I saw a happy black boy in a miniature Panthers jersey sporting a big afro, who had a bout of barfing on himself and then smiled beatifically like everything was cool and he wasn't soaked in vomit. I saw a very large pale fussy baby girl, whom the director described as "spoiled" because she wants everyone who comes in the room to pick her up.

Just because daycares cost the same does NOT make them of the same quality. The places I saw today all ranged from $115-120 a week (which I understand is quite inexpensive compared to the nearby big city) and all have the same stated caregiver ratio (1 to 6). But one I visited had 12 identical baby cribs jammed next to each other in a prison cell-like arrangement and the babies stared at me like tiny zombies in a room I would describe as too hot. Yet another featured space between the cribs, which each had bedding from home, active babies in the room too busy with their pursuits to notice me much, and neatly printed calendars detailing what the babies were up to that week. These places had the same weekly rate, and yet there was just no comparison.

I am better off letting a daycare look after my infant all day rather than me. I know, all the stay-at-home mommies will argue with me about what a GREAT caregiver I would be. But you know what? They don't know me. I am not really very into babies and I don't want to stay home with one all day. That was never the idea. And for the most part, the daycare workers I saw seem to really love working with babies. They exclaim over poopy diapers, jiggle feet, get down on the floor, talk baby talk, and so on. I'm sure I will do some of this but I can't imagine 12 hours of it daily will be better for me than going to a job I love and then coming home to see my happy kid who's had competent childcare all day long.

Babies seem happier in well-managed groups. Like dogs, who can entertain each other for hours, the babies I saw in the better daycares weren't (for the most part) clingy or overly bored. They seemed pretty content to hang out with other babies and a few adults. I heard very few crying babies today, which surprised me.

Anyway, that's the great wisdom I gleaned today. We'll be making a decision in the next couple of weeks. Now if we can only figure out what to call this child, and get a pediatrician, we'll be all set.

Why I will NOT be having natural childbirth.

First of all, I've never been a fan of pain, especially preventable pain. I feel I owe an easy birth to my great-great-grandmothers, who didn't give birth in pain drinking whisky and chewing on bark for me to decide, now that we have modern medicine, that I don't want any.

Recently I found out that they do not issue medals or trophies for women who have natural childbirth. On Mother's Day, kids do not give costlier and nicer gifts to the mothers who had drug-free labor. You get NOTHING for your pains, nothing except the knowledge that none of the drugs you just took passed through to your little baby. But as rough as the ride is for the baby, I think she would only appreciate a little narcotic help.

Think of it: it is not the most fun day of her life either. She was all warm, dark, and continuously fed, and now everything is cold, bright and she has never been hungry before and doesn't even know how to eat. So I think a little Stadol or Demerol probably takes the edge off for her.

I can't believe I have not updated my blog since last summer. I have been too busy making a baby, I guess. Accept my apologies and this link: Timothy McSweeney's is one of my favorite literary timewaster sites. Enjoyez-vous.

And now, time for some plugs....
My current favorite website is DailyKos. It's political commentary, with a mix of irreverence, humor, and thoughtful analysis that has me comin' back.
My favorite band remains They Might Be Giants. They kick the crap out of your favorite band.
My favorite current TV show is... well, I don't have one. They all suck, except Seinfeld reruns. I didn't see this one coming, but I just realized I don't care if I ever see a Friends episode ever again. Yes, I used to watch it and laugh at it, but now it's thoroughly played. Kind of like when you were in fourth grade and thought My Little Ponies were Totally Cool and you bought one every time you could scrape enough money together, but then in fifth grade you realized plastic Smurf figurines were so much better and you rued all that money you blew on those stupid ponies. 

I got this forward today. I wonder who leaked this "memo"? Ha.

Leave One Child Behind

Dear Mr. and Mrs. G.H.W. Bush,

Once again, it is that time of year when we update the parents of our students on their child's progress, and we regret to inform you that your son, Georgie, is not doing as well as we'd hoped and expected when he embarked on his four-year program at our school.

As you are well aware, Georgie was installed as class president at the start of the school year, despite the fact that the majority of his fellow students did not vote for him. We foresaw problems immediately, but were assured by several school board members (who, as we understand it, are friends of your family) that this would not result in any real difficulty. Unfortunately, they have been proven wrong.

In the area of scholastic achievement, despite our best efforts, Georgie is still reading and speaking at a grade level far below our usual standards. At this point, we are not sure if his failure to learn is due to laziness and a lack of ability to apply himself to his studies, or if he simply lacks the intellectual capacity to improve in these areas.

His oral presentations to the class are particularly troubling; it is apparent that Georgie has not read the necessary materials, and he often simply fabricates facts to hide this shortcoming. In oral exams, he tends to repeat the same answers over and over, e.g. "The economy is good; jobs are on their way," indicating a profound failure to keep up with the Current Events portion of the curriculum.

Georgie also tends to fabricate elaborate stories about himself - which, admittedly, can sometimes be very amusing. During a school celebration last May, he delighted his fellow students by coming to class in a little "flight suit" (just like the grown-ups wear!), and had everyone in stitches with his story about the family dog having eaten his report card from military pre-school!

On the whole, however, Georgie does not play well with other children. His "leadership" in the classroom continues to divide many students, one against the other. Other study groups, such as our French and German-language classes, are no longer willing to cooperate with Georgie's group, even though they have traditionally done so in the past.

Your son also displays a lack of taking responsibility for his failings, and seems unable to appreciate the consequences of his actions. Although he was provided with the best textbooks on the subjects of the Economy, Job Creation, The Environment, et cetera, these books were damaged or completely destroyed within a matter of months. Georgie insists that he "inherited" these books in poor condition, despite all evidence to the contrary. (In fact, these same textbooks were previously used by one of our very best students, who actually returned them in better condition than he found them!)

During his first few weeks with us, Georgie quickly became part of a group of other "problem students." Despite warnings, he has consistently befriended children whom we consider to be "bad elements," such as Little Kenny Lay and a foreign-exchange student named Chalabi. Both of these youngsters have been expelled from other schools due to their involvement in cheating other students out of their lunch money. We feel that these kinds of relationships can only lead to no good, and hope that you will advise your child accordingly.

Georgie often displays aggressive behaviour in the schoolyard, and recently assaulted a student in another school district, completely unprovoked. When asked about this incident, Georgie insisted that the other child was armed and dangerous. When investigation into the matter proved otherwise, Georgie changed his story several times: he was just trying "democratize" the other child, the other child's school was harboring gang members, and so on. Quite frankly, his story on this topic has so changed from week to week, we simply can't trust his word at all anymore.

Georgie's friends, while not great in number, are very loyal, but tend to be over-protective. If any of the other students point out Georgie's failing grades, these friends simply shout them down and tell them not to speak at all. When Georgie was summoned to the principal's office several weeks ago, he insisted that his "best friend" come with him. We feel that it is in Georgie's best interest to learn to stand up for himself; failure to do so could seriously damage his ability to handle a leadership role in his adult years.

As you are aware, final exams will be held in November, and Georgie's past performance leads us to conclude that he will not be able to achieve the grades necessary to continue on with another four-year term at our institution.

Yours Truly, Ms. J.Q. Public, Assistant Principal