This Week:

- Put Baby Joe's 18-month clothes into her drawers instead of living out of plastic tubs so I don't have to tell the ER doctor that my daughter fell off a literal mountain of my own poor housekeeping:

Edit: I actually did this last night PLUS ALSO put up alphabet wall stickers I found at Dollar Tree. 

- Get a pedicure so that the summer gets scraped off of my toesies before I jam them into boots for the winter.

- Meal plan so we can eat.

Another edit: I did this an hour ago, PLUS ALSO ordered groceries, PLUS ALSO last night I printed out and laminated a menu for the fridge AND PLUS IN ADDITION TO THOSE ALSOS I've been using Dollar Tree bins to organize ingredients for meals so it's easier to make dinner when I get home from work. THANKS DOLLAR TREE PLS SEND COUPONS. 

This Month:

- Go on a date. 

- Put together Halloween costumes.

- Bake something.

This Season:

- Start thinking about how to redecorate the living room because as soon as we can deconstruct Baby Jail it's time to replace the IKEA couch and carpet that have seen us through three cats, a move and a maternity leave.

- Plan summer vacation because I'm rich and go on a lot of vacations and buy a lot of couches.

- Read three (3) books. COME ON.

We moved into our new apartment at the end of March but I’ve yet to fully process the fact that we don’t live in our old one anymore; I didn’t realize this until we decided to leave but living there was the safest and most in control of my surroundings I think I’ve felt, like, ever. Pssshhheww. (That’s the sound of everyone’s minds blowing.) (Our technical first apartment was objectively terrible so for me at least the apartment we just left felt like my real first home without roommates (stressful) or family members (see: roommates) or, say, a company of marines.)

I loved our insanely cheap rent and I loved our fire escape and our bathroom tile and I loved the light in the living room and the pink siding and just. I really loved it. Plus I quit smoking, hopped on the SSRI train, got engaged, started therapy (then stopped but ugh I’ll finish it later), and finally started earning a living wage during the threeish years we lived there. I also figured out what a 401K actually is and started caring about things like credit and undereye cream. Also like created a human life or whatever but I don’t want to brag. #blessed but #humble you know?

Anyway I was good and attached to the life we built there so when Diego found a bigger place in the same neighborhood I wanted to be sadder about saying goodbye. But since it’s so close to our old place that my routines/commutes are exactly the same and because I work full time and have a bb Joe and a need to leave the house socially once in a (great big) while to avoid inward collapse, I haven’t been forced to make any big adjustments or think thoughts or name feelings so I just. Haven’t. And also, maybe I’m just not that sad about it. Maybe I’m like “Okay, any minute now I will be overcome by sadness” but then I’m like “No, me, I’m not. I’m fine.”

Here’s the thing about talking about it though, is that it’s a great thing to do instead of making a decision on a pattern of removable wallpaper for the corner of your new kitchen and then figuring out a way to cover up the ugly light fixture in there because you don’t feel like buying a new one. Also if you blog about it it’s a great excuse to post a few pictures of bb Joe’s nine-month birthday weekend and tell everyone how even though you do, in fact, understand how calendars work you still do not understand how it is possible that you have a daughter who is three-quarters of a year old. 

"How to explain the strange arc of parenthood to new mothers? 
... It's like you moved to a new country, and it's beautiful but there's a war going on. 
But then the war ends and you begin reconstructing yourself."

Meaghan O'Connell, "And Now We Have Everything"

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It's exactly like finding Narnia, I thought as I put the book down. You say that about everything, said the cat. Yes, I said, petting him. I do. We both looked at the baby monitor for a while in thoughtful silence.

It's neat how you can read minds and speak English, I told him. It's very Narnian of you.

--

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At a certain point in the weeks and months after childbirth it really felt like my time to be alone and drink hot tea and read books and scratch cats had come to an end. The idea of being the only human on any given piece of furniture was inconceivable; if anyone had told me a day would come where I could once again aimlessly wander home good stores, fit into underwear, and sleep for three consecutive hours without needing to see and touch and comfort the impossibly tiny creature that was and is my daughter I wouldn't have believed them.

Or maybe... was that one of the things that so many people told me so many times that it ceased to mean anything when I heard it? Either way. U-n-b-e-l-i-e-v-a-b-l-e.

And, either way, it turned out to be true.

Having a newborn was like discovering Narnia at the back of the wardrobe, no matter how bad of an attitude the cat has. (I hope Meaghan O'Connell doesn't mind me taking her 'new country' metaphor and making it nerdy. I feel like she wouldn't. I feel like it's fine. She'll let me know, she knows where to find me.) It was fucking magical. It was incredible to the point of being - I like this word today - unbelievable, and I was afraid that if I closed my eyes it would disappear. It was awesome in every sense of the word, which made it also terrifying and disorienting. And exhausting. And exhilarating. But mostly exhausting.

Et cetera, et cetera. Don't worry, I won't put you through this for too much longer.

In short: Right now feels like the part of "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" where Lucy and Mr. Tumnus are having tea in his cozy house. (Minus the creepy sleep flute. That's a very different metaphor. Make a note, we'll come back to it another day.) I know it's the very beginning of a much longer story, but it's just really nice to know for sure that it isn't all wandering around in enchanted snowstorms, you know?

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A Note, Definitely Not Part of the Blog Post: I wrote this OVER a month ago. Feels like I wanted to keep going, which explains why I found it still in drafts, but I don't feel like doing that now so. 

I read blogs that are much more interesting than mine is, and this is a thing that some of the people who write those blogs do. So I am, too. Doing it.

Above and Beyond at Barclay’s Center. Diego got the tickets prior to knocking me up so I ate a hot dog instead of drinking a beer and we danced a lot and it was swell.

Black Coffee at the Apollo. They did not have regular Pringles at any of the concession stands. I still had fun. (But, to be clear, not as much fun as I would have had if there had been regular Pringles.)

Cat rescues with Instagram accounts made a decent amount of money off of my hormones in 2018, which I think makes up for the fact that I threatened to leave Griffon and Papi Choo Choo at the ASPCA approximately 2,018 times this year.

Diego being such a good dad to our little chunk makes my heart inflate like Violet Beauregarde and tip over and roll around in its own pool of ooey gooey love. MMM.

Engagement ring was lost and found.

Five year anniversary. I looked forward to that glass of wine with dinner for eight months, managed to drink almost half of it, and then passed out in the cab home. Misty water-colored memories.

Gestational diabetes testing. This fuckery was WAY worse than labor. I can’t even discuss it. God.

Hospital-issued postpartum underwear is both comfortable and a fun fashion statement. I may or may not still be hoarding a pack of them.

Instead of going to labor and delivery when my contractions started, I went and got a pedicure. Then I came home and had a glass of wine and took a shower and went to bed. The next day I called out of work and watched Parenthood until Diego came home and forced me to go to the hospital and three hours later I pushed a baby out. It’s a birth plan I highly recommend.

Joe. Everyone at daycare calls Zoë “Baby Joe.” It was confusing at first but I think I’ve figured out that it’s just how the two women working there pronounce it – I think it’s really cute and have started referring to her as Baby Joe myself because it reminds me of Jo from Little Women.

Kisses. So many. SO MANY. I’m squeezing them all in now before she’s big enough to say “MOM STOP KISSING MY FEET” and honestly even then I’ll probably pretend like I don’t hear her.

Laundering baby clothes is remarkably easy to screw up considering the things are made to be pooped in and spit up on. 

My Favorite Murder at Kings Theatre. Their NYC shows sold out in five minutes because insane fan cult members such as my good friend at work were ready the second tickets went on sale. We were front and center AND I got to meet them afterward AND I didn’t say anything embarrassing or try to kiss them or anything! (Even though we were second to last in line for the meet and greet because I had to pee because I drank entirely, entirely too much because it was the first time I Went Out after Having A Baby and "entirely, entirely too much" is two drinks.)

Night feedings. I almost – dare I say it? – enjoy night feedings now. She’s such an active baby when she’s awake that it’s nice to have those quiet moments to just sort of soak her in. It’s also a great time to bond with the cats, since they think it’s time to eat every time I get up. Also the tiny cat climbs on the baby so I’ve gotten good at petting him with one hand and feeding the baby with the other. I’m sure that skill will come in handy someday, somehow.

One World Observatory / Oculus. I scolded a man for putting his sweaty sausage fingers on the windows at One World and finally actually looked at the Oculus instead of rushing past it to get to whatever dumb thing I’m ever trying to get to. (And truthfully, the only reason we went was because we had a friend visiting - I'd invite people over more often and maybe go to more Things if I didn't dislike washing sheets so intensely.)

Psychic readings are sadly no longer available directly next door to me. In her place is a travel agency which I suspect is more of a laundromat. You know. For cash.

Quack! is what ducks say. Is it just me or does it seem like a disproportionate amount of children’s books are about farm animals?

Rest. Building a tiny human took a lot out of me. I napped a lot this year. Usually with cats.

School went well considering I found out I was pregnant one week after paying my tuition. I got through it sleepwalking and vomiting, which I guess is how a lot of eighteen-year-olds do it too.

Twenty-ninth birthday. We went to a matinee of Aladdin and had fancy lunch instead of fancy dinner. (I turn thirty in a few days and requested a repeat of this day date because I liked it so much. We’re going to fancy French lunch and then to see Book of Mormon, and we’re leaving our little chunk with her auntie for the afternoon so that Mommy can eat with both hands and day drink.) 

Ubered to and from work for most of August.

Virgo baby! As in, I had one!

Winter Music Conference – JK I DIDN’T HAVE TO GO BECAUSE I WAS PREGNANT. Diego went to Miami with his friends and I got to pretend I lived alone for a week and it was glorious. GLORIOUS.

Also, Waxing (as in the moon) (not eyebrows) (although, also eyebrows):

X… uh, chromosome!

Y? Because we like you!

Zoë Margaret.

There’s a slice of pizza painted on the sidewalk in front of the bar on the corner of our street. The bar used to be a pizzeria, and I remember exactly what we ordered the one time we ate there the week we moved into our first apartment. I also remember the summer in between the pizzeria and the bar, when we used to sit on the steps of the empty building every Sunday while we waited for the laundry to dry and I would smoke and read my latest fifteen-cent paperback and Diego would complain about my smoking and read parts of articles out loud to me and we loved each other so, so much that even doing laundry was a date.

That little triangle fades a tiny bit every year, and it’s getting to be where people who don’t know to look for it won’t know it’s there.

—

I’ve got a lot to say about having a baby. There are exactly twelve other documents open on this computer right now containing disjointed thoughts on my pregnancy (can’t say anything about it without careening into a sermon on reproductive rights), childbirth (everything went according to plan, completely by accident), and the walking-into-walls exhaustion and hallelujah-praise-Aslan elation of transitioning from fetus-in-uterus to infant-in-arms.

If I could organize my thoughts, I’d tell you about why we (I) (we) switched to formula after less than a month of breastfeeding, why the real reasons nothing to do with latch or supply, why I feel next to no guilt about “not trying hard enough,” et cetera (absurd) and why I think the way anyone feeds their babies is so politically charged**; I’d tell you about choosing an OBGYN over a midwife (insurance and geographical convenience and uh that’s it) and about what it was like having a (mostly) natural childbirth in a hospital setting (challenging but not impossible) (but nearly impossible) (good grief). I’d discuss how helpful it was that I happened to be taking a class on eugenics during my first trimester (I know what you’re thinking: Full time work plus full time classes plus full time nausea and full-body exhaustion sure sounds like full time fun!! and you know what you’ve never been more right about anything I recommend it to anyone). I’d copy a little something from my previous complaints about street harassment and paste it into a shiny new complaint about the special harassment that pregnant ladies and moms face, e.g., men on the street or bus shouting “THAT’S A BOY!” whilst pointing to a woman’s belly and then arguing with that woman when she tells them it’s a girl (which she didn’t have to do because she’s under no obligation to engage with you or anyone especially since the thing she wants least to do at that or any moment is to have long discussions about the size and position of her increasingly large body) or the strangers at the store who loudly and insistently insist that her baby is in grave danger of freezing to death even though it’s fifty-nine degrees and sunny and the baby is literally strapped to its mother’s very warm and squishy body and not that it’s any of anyone’s business but the baby’s head fits very snugly inside the wrap for when it actually does get cold you know like when we’re outdoors and not inside a temperature-controlled store being harangued by cashiers and men who have nowhere better to loiter at two in the afternoon on a weekday thank you very much g’bye.

Maybe one of these days I’ll throw it back to 2011 and write a “My Labor and Delivery Story” on here. (And by saying things like “throw it back.”) Are people still doing that in blog form? Are people still doing anything in blog form besides asking if anyone else is still blogging?

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Yesterday I made strawberry rhubarb pie filling during Zoe’s catnaps. This morning I got an email from Target informing me that they were cancelling most of my order, including the pie plate I bought specifically for said strawberry rhubarb pie. (Don’t worry, baby Christmas pajamas and a can opener are still en route.) I’m choosing to view this cancellation as an early Christmas gift from the universe (and Target) since honestly it’s been about six years since I last made a pie and it will probably be at least six more until I make another one; there’s really no place for a pie plate in this home. Anyway besides pie the only thing I really look forward to about Thanksgiving is that it’s the earliest Diego will tolerate me putting up the Christmas decorations and this year I’m putting our names on brand-new stockings to celebrate our brand-new family member so those five pie-plate dollars can be glitter-glue dollars instead. Nothing like the smell of fresh glitter glue to usher in the holiday season, am I right? (Glitter glue, and Mrs. Meyers peppermint everything. Tis the season for our apartment to smell like Santa’s house.)



** It seems like you’re going to get shit no matter how you feed your baby, which is about the dumbest damn thing I can think of. It’s so, so weird to me that there are people that get weird in an outraged way about a woman breastfeeding in, say, a restaurant. Everyone else is eating, what is the problem? And like, women in countries who breastfeed for longer periods of time and with overall higher breastfeeding “success rates” also typically get a shitload more maternity leave and have more postpartum support in general. Cave ladies had each other to rely on, and also weren’t subjected to a lot of the fuckery that we modern ladies are today - like how if you do breastfeed your baby you have to make sure you cut them off at an age that society deems appropriate instead of what feels right to you. Fuckery, honest to god. Additionally, “breast is best” is only true if you add “…unless breastfeeding is a threat to your mental health, your relationship with your baby or your partner or your other children, a physical impossibility, or if you can’t or just don’t want to for any reason in the world because you’re a living breathing human with access to healthy alternatives and the ability to make an informed decision.” Those three snotty words put so much unnecessary pressure on mamas who are already physically and emotionally vulnerable and create a dynamic wherein properly caring for your baby means putting your own needs last. Anyway, just wanted to clarify that I’m all about breastfeeding, I just didn’t want to keep doing it. Not advocating for anything except that women get support for whatever choices they make. I’ll sit next to anyone with my boobs out in solidarity at absolutely any time while my own baby tries to talk and drink milk from her bottle at the same time even though I keep patiently explaining to her that it doesn’t work that way. I’m serious. Call me. 

Mon petit bébé and I have settled into something resembling a rhythm and these late October, November days have been as golden as the leaves on the ground. Well, they’re more of a yellow actually. The leaves. But if I said “These days have been as yellow as the leaves on the ground” you would think “Oh does the baby have jaundice?” and she doesn’t. So I said golden and we won’t discuss it any further.) Thankful doesn’t even begin to describe how I feel about what an easygoing two-month-old I’ve got; I can’t imagine how much more challenging this season would be if my little girl didn’t have a solid sense of humor about her mama.

Probably as challenging as reading through thousands of baby product reviews. Ba-doom tss. (WHAT A SEGUE WOW LINDSAY YOU’VE STILL GOT IT.) So okay, we didn’t buy very many things for the baby before she was born. The one and only major purchase we made was the crib which I was for some reason obsessed with getting and setting up before she came - well, Zoe’s two months old and the only one who’s slept in it so far is the cat. (Don’t give me any advice about how to keep him out of there. I have internet access too and I promise you none of it works.) Her changing table, for example, is a dresser that one guy at work gave me for twenty bucks because he was moving to the Bay Area like everyone seems to when they’ve had enough of this city and that another guy at work completely refinished for us for free. (Here’s a tip for having a baby on a budget: Make sure you know a lot of people with slightly older kids and tiny apartments. They’ll be really eager to gift you their kids’ old high chairs, diaper bags, and even a breast pump and it will all be way nicer than if you waited for them to buy you something brand-new at a shower because who spends real money on other people’s kids no one okay bye.) Well one of the things we were fortunate enough to receive was a stroller, which I actually really like. It’s the “travel system” (ooOooHHoOHh) kind with a carseat that pops on and off. The thing is that we don’t own a car so the carseat thing is a bit of a wasted perk, plus it makes it more cumbersome than I want for when I start needing to maneuver her around Manhattan. (“Enough about the stroller,” says Papi Chulo/Sonny/Dexter the tiny cat from his perch on top of the air conditioner that we still have not taken out of the window. “You’re losing them. Nobody cares.” “And take a nap, for the love of Aslan,” calls Griffon from the kitchen, where he’s watching Zoe sleep in the stroller we are currently discussing because I have to trick her into taking naps. “Cats don’t speak English. You’re hallucinating.”)

So I started looking at strollers and almost immediately threw up. The baby shower episode of The Office had prepared me for the price tags (and thanks to Dwight I knew what basic safety features to look for) so the cost wasn’t shocking, but the reviews on these things are out of control. If you ever want a reason to give up on humanity I suggest you visit BuyBuy Baby dot com and browse a little. “Voice on GPS feature grating. Diaper bag lost at coat check. Ladies’ room disappointingly small. Service at swim-up bar slow.” ALL I WANT IS FOR THE THING TO NOT FLIP OVER AND KILL US BOTH. And a cupholder would be nice. Who are these poor kids whose parents are nitpicking strollers that cost more than my rent and how can we save them? The things are meant to hold the children, not raise them, unless I missed a very vital chapter in “What to Expect.”

This is not what I meant to say. Stroller reviews, really. But I hear chubberina cherries waking up and I must, must must go kiss her feet now. I must.