New Jersey State of Mind

Mommy's Little Hedonist

Since Thursday, Allison Clare has had a bit of a cold. It has given her a low-grade fever off and on, and at times, a very bad attitude. After a good bit of fussing and crying yesterday, she fell asleep at about 8:30 p.m. and slept for an unprecedented 6 1/2 hours (if I had only known to go to sleep immediately when she fell asleep!).

She woke up at 3:00 a.m. frantically hungry, and gulped and gulped and gulped as she ate. Then she let out two enormous belches, closed her eyes, rolled over onto her back, and smiled. I think she was just about to ask me for a cigarette.

"I Measure Out My Life in Coffee Spoons"

--T.S. Eliot, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"

In his comment on my last post, Dave linked to a fascinating photo essay that shows 15 families surrounded by the food each family eats in one week. I have a couple of observations:

1. I thought the Japanese ate a lot of packaged foods until I saw the family from North Carolina.
2. The Egyptians, Mongolians, and those from Bhutan seem to eat pretty healthfully.
3. Those Mexicans love them some Coca-Cola! But their beverage consumption is nothing compared to the Germans, I tell you.

I pictured me entering a photo of Allison Clare into the series, with her paddling around in a little vat of milk.

Canned

Canned peas are so wholly unlike fresh peas that they should be required to be sold under a different name. But then, some foods are not at all like their fresh selves when preserved, and yet are wonderful as entirely distinct canned entities: canned corn, canned peaches, jarred applesauce.

48 Hours

Here is Allison Clare and the laundry she generated in, oh, about 2 days. (Not including all the clothes of ours that she necessitated we change.) Doesn't she look proud?

AC's Week in Review

6 new fat folds: upper thighs, wrists, and of course beneath the (double!) chin. And elbow dimples. I can't help but feel proud.

First sign of mobility. She scootches around in her bassinet. I haven't seen it, but she's definitely in a different position sometimes than when I put her down. This means I can't leave her lying around places like I used to (kidding, Sam!).

First day of work. She went with me for a couple of my advising appointments. We had a serious conversation about office etiquette ahead of time, but overhearing details of American lit course offerings put her right to sleep. My students were excited to see her because I had had them in class before I got married and then when I was pregnant, life changes they apparently followed quite avidly.

First trip to Barnes and Noble. Yes, she was more interested in staring at the brown wall than the books, but it's a start.

First daylong outing requiring public feeding. Thank goodness for unattended dressing rooms is all I have to say.

First real smile. We've been getting these little comfort smiles a lot forever, but this one was really joyous: enormous bright eyes, and her mouth looked like she was laughing. It was all like sudden starshine.

My First Thought . . .

. . . when I saw the headline "Tips for a Good Night's Rest" was: Birth control.

Who's the Boss?

Having a baby is like working for a capricious, impatient, and incredibly disorganized boss. Who, incidentally, is both anal retentive (literally) and incontinent.

First thing in the morning you see the pile of work the boss has left for you (laundry: several soiled blankets and burp cloths, two sets of sheets, and three changes of clothes from the previous night), so you start gathering up a load of wash. But before you've even got it all sorted, the boss starts grumbling about being hungry. You begin tossing things into the washer as fast as possible, but then the boss starts screaming at you with her furious demands, so you drop everything to attend to this latest request. You're in the midst of providing the meal, and the boss falls asleep while eating.

Then you think maybe you can get dressed yourself, but inevitably, somewhere in the middle, the boss calls you again to let you know she'd like to finish the meal, and where are those clean blankets because she's manufactured another dirty one?

Stay-at-Home Starbucks

Today I think I finished perfecting my raspberry mocha: fill the bottom of a mug with way more chocolate syrup than you'd think, add a generous amount of raspberry syrup (maybe 1/4 of the amount of chocolate), pour in half a mug of extra strong coffee (1.5 x the usual ratio of coffee to water), and fill the rest of the mug with warm milk. The key seems to be an imprudent amount of chocolate.