Clearblue Anniversary

Today my brother turns 25. This is big, because my brother was sort of my first baby. We're ten years apart, so when he was born my sister and I (who was only five herself at the time, but a precocious five) got really involved in his raisin' up. This is a good or bad thing, depending on whether you like us. We've sort of left an imprint. It feels like I was just hauling him around in his little feety pajamas, but here he is turning 25 and getting ready to be married a year from October. Tomorrow it'll be HR, right?

Speaking of the bean (when am I not?) it was one year ago today that I found out I was pregnant with him. I had a feeling I was, but I wanted to wait a few days after my period was late before I took the test. I lasted exactly one day. When I woke at five a.m. to pee on the morning of that second day, I just had to find out. So I got Mike out of bed and and decided this was it, I was going to take the test. So I did. I think you can fill in the rest for yourself.

I'm taking off early today and taking a day off tomorrow so we can spend some time with Mike's family on their vacation in Rhode Island. Most of them haven't seen the baby in months and he's certainly gone through a lot of changes. I'm really looking forward to it.

Catch y'all next week!

Antiquated Pastimes

Just so you know, I'm going to write about music on here a lot. Not as someone who claims to be an expert or have good taste even, just as a person who loves and appreciates all kinds of music. It's always been a huge part of my life, even if all the musical talent was hogged by one person in my family and that person is not me. It's my brother. The jerk. ANYway, when we were on vacation we were sitting around the fire one night and somebody came up with the idea that we'd go around and each person would name a category, then everyone would name their most favoritist thing of that category. For example: favorite sandwich. That's easy for me: veggie sub with cheese, no onions, extra pickles, extra hots. Not so easy: favorite band. To keep it interesting, the rule was that the Beatles don't count. After a lot of thought, I decided to go with the Afghan Whigs. But it was no easy decision. Favorite band of all time? That's not even taking into account all the different genres, or emotional associations with times in your life. So difficult! Harder still, we later built upon this by going back to that old chestnut, top ten albums. After a ton of deliberation, I produced, in no particular order:

Kick - INXS
Pinkerton - Weezer
Low End Theory - A Tribe Called Quest
Purple Rain - Prince
Tapestry - Carole King
Grace - Jeff Buckley
Gentlemen - Afghan Whigs
Obligatory Beatles pick - Revolver
I'm Still In Love With You - Al Green
Maybe the first Scissor Sisters record?

Ack, too much pressure! I didn't even get a Ween pick on there because I can't choose. Clearly this list will be ever evolving. But it's a hell of a conversation starter, assuming all the people in the conversation understand the concept of an "album."

I have too much work to do to be playing around on here any longer. But if you'd like to share your list I'd love to see it!

Foodstuffs

When I was a kid, I LOOOVED Pop-Tarts and Ding-Dongs and Little Debbies. It's ridiculous, because my mom is an amazing baker and we had cookies and squares and things she made from scratch around all the time. I was spoiled with the good stuff, and I preferred the bad stuff because it was exotic. My friends whose family members didn't bake thought I was crazy. There was another aspect to it too, and it was that my grandmother, the baked goods nazi, always lived with us and to this day she swears she can always tell whether something's made from a boxed mix. I believe it. Because of this my mother and I shared an illicit love of boxed cake and canned frosting - when Gram went away we'd take the opportunity to get down with the Pillsbury like it was cigarettes or dirty magazines.

I bring this up because lately I've been craving Pop-Tarts or Ding-Dongs or Little Debbies or some chemical-y, preservative laden, mass-produced sweet thing. No, I'm not pregnant again. It's just one of those things. And it's just going to get stronger and stronger until I give in to it so I should probably go buy myself a box and be done with it. I know all I need is one and it'll take care of the jones, and I can put the rest in the freezer for future "emergencies." I'm lucky I don't have issues with food, food and I have a healthy relationship. I know what good food tastes like, and when I eat something crappy and inferior it turns out to hardly ever be worth it. It doesn't taste as good as I was thinking it would, and it reminds me that I could make myself a cake in an hour from fresh ingredients and it would be a hundred times more delicious. When I was younger, though, I'm not sure I had the palate to tell the difference and it seems such a waste in retrospect. But then again I also loved vegetables - I was the only one who liked brussels sprouts and a box of those was a treat.

I guess I'm thinking about all this because I hope that HR will grow up with an appreciation of good food, and we'll give him the best start we can and not encourage any picky tendencies. Some kids just aren't great eaters, though, I accept that. We'll deal with it when the time comes. I'm just happy to be living in a time where there's so much awareness of nutrition and locally produced and organic foods and less emphasis on technology and convenience. My parents did the best they could with us, nutrition-wise, but it was a different time, and we didn't exactly have the money to go all out for the best fresh items (it's still an issue for many families these days). Plus even with all the bounty we kids were still all, "A pox on your humble brownies! Get that sugary plastic-wrapped stuff we saw on TV in our bellies!"

I don't plan to make junk food a regular thing, but I won't hide its existence or deny a bit on occasion to my little guy because I know from experience that naughtiness is the ingredient that makes it more appealing than it actually is. And even though my strawberry-frosted loving self eventually grew up to appreciate the real quality stuff, I still get these cravings. The important thing is to strike the balance. Balance in all things, that's my ultimate goal. Maybe I should have called this blog Moderationberry Pie?

You Know That I'll Be Back

I'm sorry for anyone who is on vacation this week, but I'm digging the rain. The trees and things need it, it washes away the troublesome pollen, and it's given me a chance to do things such as put pants on my baby. Not to rob him of the joy of pantslessness when he's got a lifetime of pants wearing ahead of him, but he's got so many nice things he's in danger of outgrowing before he gets a chance to wear them, it's nice if they make it onto his body at least once before being passed down the line.

Ah, my petit bonhomme, he is full of beans lately. He's been backsliding a bit in his sleep habits (boo) but he makes up for it in other types of development (yay) such as keeping up a constant stream of jabber. We have pretend conversations all day long and it is THE awesomeness. I said my first word at five months and spoke in full sentences by my first birthday, but I'm not sure that's the sort of thing that's hereditary. I think this is just what babies do at this stage and is no indicator that he'll be an early talker. I don't even care about that, I'm just enjoying the expressive nonsense coming out of his mouth. Anyway, you know I think any little thing he does is the bees knees-- I still high five him for producing an especially impressive shart. HR will be four months on Friday, and can you even believe it? This one has definitely gone by the fastest so far.

This past weekend was full of friends, which is so great because I feel like we haven't socialized with other non-related adults for a long time. Two friends were in from Vermont with their beautiful five-month-old daughter, and though we mostly talked about the ups and downs of new parenthood, it was a treat. Yesterday Mike worked the brunch shift and I joined my best friend and her husband at the restaurant where he works to catch up over biscuits and sausage gravy. We live about 100 yards from one another, but lately if we see each other once a week we're doing well so we really have to take advantage of these opportunities to get together, especially since they're about to bring a little dude or dudette into the world in a couple of months.

Ooh yes, Blog of the Week: Lois Lowry (author of The Giver, the Anastasia Krupnik series, and approximately one million other excellent books) is one of my writing heroines and her blog--which offers a glimpse into her thoughts and private life as well the occasional post on her writing process--is fantastic.

I was just telling my brother that I heard Mark Morris's "Return of the Mack" on my drive in this morning and it took care of my Monday blues before I really caught them. This is admittedly an awful piece of pop music, but it holds a nostalgic place in my heart and its airing was perfectly timed. What have you heard recently that rearranged your whole mindset?

Conundrum

Work-from-home day, LOTS to do. Baby and Dada are taking a morning nap on the couch and this is the perfect time to get down to business. But they are so beautiful all snoozy and snuggly I can't stop staring at them. Somebody get me some blinders, STAT. I could write them off as a professional expense, right?

Fudge-ickles, rather

I just want to take a moment to thank you all for your comments! I want to respond to every one but for some reason blogger doesn't let me. I think it's user error more than anything, but until I figure out what I'm doing wrong please know that I enjoy and appreciate all of your words.

Mike and HR are coming by in a little bit to take me out to lunch so I don't have time for a proper post today, instead I'll hit you with a semi-annotated list of five awesome things:

-Song Away by Hockey.  It's apparently wicked old but I myself am wicked old and this is how I learn about music these days: way after everyone else. Anyway, it's one of things that make me glad to be alive, especially since there's another truly adorable version of the video starring Charlene Yi. For some reason the embed code was disabled for that one, so I highly suggest looking it up for yourself.



-Fall. This summer has been ridiculous with the 90 degrees every day since April. Though I can never say enough about the miracle that is air conditioning, I'm sick of it. I'm ready for fall and all the New England-y goodness that goes with it.

-Catching someone rocking out in their car, bonus points for terrible music (good-terrible like Night Ranger, not terrible-terrible like Limp Bizkit. You get no points for that. Minus points). It just makes my day.

-Fudgecicles.

-The morning, between six and seven. This is when HR usually wakes up, and it's his very best time of day. After I get him from his crib, feed and change him, he's full of smiles and laughter and baby magic. We hang out in bed, playing and singing and talking, and though I'm exhausted I don't care. I'll get to sleep in again someday, but I'll never get this time with him back. And there's always coffee, of which I am partaking right now.

Have a great Thursday, everyone.

Or IS it the Mob?

Today is my 13-year job anniversary. I can hardly believe it myself. This is the only real job I've ever had, I started the summer after college graduation, and Mike started his last job that day too. This is the first year we're not sharing the anniversary, and that's A-Ok with both of us. When I started here, it was nowhere near what I wanted to do - I was hoping to go into publishing, but time was running out and I needed a job and nobody else was offering. Maybe someday I'll go into the story of how I got connected here in the first place, but the important thing to know right now is that the prospect of a salary and benefits was mighty appealing to me at the time. All of that is still true, obviously, and publishing is not exactly what I'd call a growth industry. But I had no inkling I'd still be here all these years later. If I did I might have jumped off a bridge - 13 years sounds like such a long time. My job's old enough to be bat mitzvahed, for crying out loud. L'chaim!

I'm not a fate person, or a believer that there's a larger plan or, ew, that things turn out for the best. Things CAN turn out for the best, but I think that's where it's up to us to make the best of what we've got. And with that in mind, even though I've gone through bouts of feeling trapped and sick of being in the same place for so long, I feel like it's where I belong. I know I'm lucky to have a job at all these days, let alone one that's so fulfilling and that values its employees so clearly in word and deed. And that's a big reason why I'm the one kissing the bean on his wee head every morning and leaving him with his dad instead of the other way around. I believe in the mission of the place, and it's a bonus to have such a connection to the ultimate purpose of my work. Plus we're like a family here, my coworkers, bosses, our Board of Directors - we interact with mutual respect. We all have each other's back. It's not all sweetness and double rainbows every day, there are disputes, and things that go on that are part of the job itself can be very discouraging. But the majority of the time it's a wonderful culture in which to conduct a professional life, with the occasional veer into the personal. When I went back to grad school (even though it was just for my own sick thrills and not remotely job related) my bosses were super supportive, and I can't even get into how amazing everyone's been through my pregnancy, maternity leave and return to the job because I might just cry. I'm endlessly grateful to do what I do, where I do it, and for the company I get to keep.

My ultimate goal is to be able to sustain myself through writing and quit this job. I hope it won't take another 13 years before I can make it happen, but it's worth noting that in a staff of five, I'm the fourth most senior by a gap of at least 10 years. And even if/when I no longer need the income (HILARIOUS), I'll be here on a volunteer basis, no doubt. There's no real leaving this place. I won't tell you what I do or where (most of you who read this already know anyway), but even though it sounds like I'm in the mob I promise it's not the mob.