dog huntin'
Wednesday, September 21, 2005
Gender Failures, finale
OK, so maybe this outfit is a little boy-ish but I'm a dog fan so I thought this was a really cute sleeper and we only have one sunhat.
dog huntin'
dog huntin'
Saturday, September 17, 2005
Book Review: Broken for You by Stephanie Kallos
An elderly recluse with a brain tumor, a young woman searching for the man who abandoned her, a suave yoga-practicing senior doorman, a deceased and sarcastic mother, a gay Jewish head chef, and a house full of priceless artifacts representing many lives lost...
These are just a few of the characters that animate Broken for You. Kallos does a wonderful job constructing characters, living and otherwise, with an undeniable presence. The relationships developed in the pages of Broken for You are likewise very real, if at times a bit saccharine.
Ultimately, this is an optimistic and uplifting novel that highlights the importance of human connection and underlines the fact that it is never too late to begin to live one's life.
The only drawback to the novel is that it winds up too neatly. Kallos manages to favorably resolve the personal dilemmas of every single one of the characters she introduces. It's a bit too much of a happy ending.
I recommend this novel with the caveat that, although it's better than Nicholas Sparks, Faulkner or Sebald it ain't.
These are just a few of the characters that animate Broken for You. Kallos does a wonderful job constructing characters, living and otherwise, with an undeniable presence. The relationships developed in the pages of Broken for You are likewise very real, if at times a bit saccharine.
Ultimately, this is an optimistic and uplifting novel that highlights the importance of human connection and underlines the fact that it is never too late to begin to live one's life.
The only drawback to the novel is that it winds up too neatly. Kallos manages to favorably resolve the personal dilemmas of every single one of the characters she introduces. It's a bit too much of a happy ending.
I recommend this novel with the caveat that, although it's better than Nicholas Sparks, Faulkner or Sebald it ain't.
Wednesday, September 14, 2005
Gender Failures, Deuxieme
Earlier this week we ventured out of the house and into the car with our new baby in order to run errands. What errands? Well, despite the fact that we didn't even know if we were going to have a boy or girl baby until the relevant body parts saw the light of day, within 2 weeks of delivery we already had a huge pile of god-awful pink and purple flowery and frilly baby clothes to return. Call me crazy, but I would think that anyone who tells you that they decided not to find out the sex of their child ahead of time in order to avoid gendered clothing wouldn't suddenly decide that they want to dress their baby in little pink dresses with purple flowers and embroidery that says, "I love my daddy." Furthermore, anyone who was known to say, "I just want to avoid that Packers cheerleader outfit for as long as possible." prior to the birth of their child is unlikely to have a sudden change of heart upon the arrival of their daughter which will prompt them to dress their child in a badgers cheerleader outfit. So, ungrateful jerks that we are, we returned all of it, except that which came without receipts. We're taking that to the consignment shop.
A related issue, why is it so crucial that people establish the sex of your baby immediately and why is it that, if there is no pink or purple or frills or flowers, that folks assume a baby is a boy? When we returned the pink stuff to baby gap and were standing at the register to exchange it for this, the cashier said, "Oh, my god, someone gave you girls' clothes for a boy?" I responded, "It's a girl but we don't see the need to dress her in pink all the time. There's nothing particularly boy-ish about the outfit we're getting is there?" When I went to Osco yesterday afternoon, the cashier looked at my baby, sleeping in a little yellow t-shirt and nothing else as it was a hot day and said, "What a cute little boy." Exasperated, I replied, "What makes you think she's a boy?" To which the cashier replied, "Oh, just a bad guess." Of course, it was a good guess because usually folks with girl babies designate their babies as girls with "girly" things.
It seems to me there are a few ways to handle gender annoyances:
1. Buckle and dress my girl baby like a "girl."
2. Stop correcting folks and allow them to interact with my baby as if she were a boy.
3. Compromise by sticking with gender neutral clothing but get a little red headband or something to indicate "girl-ness."
4. Keep doing what I am doing.
A related issue, why is it so crucial that people establish the sex of your baby immediately and why is it that, if there is no pink or purple or frills or flowers, that folks assume a baby is a boy? When we returned the pink stuff to baby gap and were standing at the register to exchange it for this, the cashier said, "Oh, my god, someone gave you girls' clothes for a boy?" I responded, "It's a girl but we don't see the need to dress her in pink all the time. There's nothing particularly boy-ish about the outfit we're getting is there?" When I went to Osco yesterday afternoon, the cashier looked at my baby, sleeping in a little yellow t-shirt and nothing else as it was a hot day and said, "What a cute little boy." Exasperated, I replied, "What makes you think she's a boy?" To which the cashier replied, "Oh, just a bad guess." Of course, it was a good guess because usually folks with girl babies designate their babies as girls with "girly" things.
It seems to me there are a few ways to handle gender annoyances:
1. Buckle and dress my girl baby like a "girl."
2. Stop correcting folks and allow them to interact with my baby as if she were a boy.
3. Compromise by sticking with gender neutral clothing but get a little red headband or something to indicate "girl-ness."
4. Keep doing what I am doing.
Blog Status: Thanks for your patience!
Thanks for reading. I am giving myself the month of September to figure out how to get through the nitty-gritty day-to-day of life as the parent of an infant. It is my hope that I'll be up to blogging more consistently and, who knows, even getting some work done, by the time lovely October rolls around.
Thursday, September 08, 2005
Wednesday, September 07, 2005
My childbirth experience - you're probably not interested
I had this dream a few weeks before I had the baby in which my doula came to the house. She was hanging around and it was getting late and I was beginning to wonder when she was going to leave. Finally, she looked at me and said, "Well, are you ready?" I replied, "What are you talking about?" She responded, "It's 8:30 and I expect that you will have this baby by midnight." I responded, "That's funny. I didn't even realize I was in labor."
Wishful thinking but, in fact, I was uncertain that I was in labor until the very end.
Here is how it happened. Just after midnight on Friday I woke up with contractions. They weren't very painful and were pretty far apart but I was too excited to sleep. I putzed around the house and online. Finally, I decided I should try to get to sleep. That was a mistake because the contractions were more painful when I was lying down and, furthermore, when I started to doze off the contraction would startle me from sleep. It was more painful then because I would tense up.
By 6 a.m. they were coming at about 5 minutes apart, which is when many folks head to the hospital. Since I was trying to do most of my laboring at home, I called my doula, Jen, at that point. I also decided to hop in the bathtub. The bathtub was a mistake. Once I got in there the contractions stopped altogether and my doula arrived to find me not in labor at all. I felt like a schmuck.
We all tried to get back to sleep for a couple hours and I did manage to sleep for a bit but then the contractions returned, at about 10 a.m. but they were not regular at all.
Jen decided to head home. She told me to call if anything changed but that she expected I was in early labor and could go on like that for days. I was disappointed and skeptical that I was going to meet my goal of having a natural childbirth. I mean, if contractions in early labor hurt that much, how was I going to stand the later contractions?
I told Jason that I wanted pancakes so we ended up at "The Baker's Square," joking all along that we might be wasting our last chance to eat out. Anyway, I was still having contractions all across the board (4 minutes, 7 minutes, 12 minutes, 4 minutes, 4 minutes, etc). We went home and putzed around. Finally, I decided to take a shower at around 5 p.m. and at this time my brother showed up. He was in town for a frisbee tournament. We sat down to dinner. I tried to sit on the chair and found that I was completely uncomfortable, as if I was sitting directly on the baby, so I moved to my stability ball (thank you, pilates!). At this same time, my contractions started coming regularly at 4 minutes. We moved inside to watch preseason football (the colts, I believe). From this point on, everything is a bit surreal and I only recall bits and pieces.
I decided to call Jen to let her know that the contractions were pretty regular even though they didn't feel much stronger that the ones I 'd had earlier. I reasoned that I must be in active labor because, if I wasn't, there wouldn't be any such thing as natural childbirth (or at least people who were crazy enough to opt for it more than once). I called my OB to let her know that she might be called in later. Jen arrived and we left for the hospital. I arrived just after 10 p.m. already dilated 8 out of 10 cms. By the time my doctor arrived at 11, I was fully dilated.
My pushing phase was protracted (3 hours - they usually give you drugs to move things more quickly at 2 hours but my fabulous OB saw I was making progress and let me continue on). Pushing is very hard mostly because you feel this tremendous urge to push but it is difficult to figure out how to direct the urge. However, compared to the contractions, pushing wasn't painful at all. With the contractions I'd been experiencing all day there was nothing to do but try to relax and let them do the work of moving the baby down and opening the cervix. Contractions hurt like a sonofabitch. Pushing is really hard work but at least the contractions in that phase are telling you to do something and you get to do it. All along my contractions remained several minutes apart. Often we would get in long discussions between bouts of pushing. Sometimes I was a little too out of it to take part in the discussions but I was lucid enough to listen to them.
After E. was born, I had a uterine hemorrhage delivering the placenta. I wasn't really paying attention to anything beside my new baby at this point. In order to stop the bleeding, my OB gave me a shot of pitocin, a drug that helps the uterus contract. It did work to stop the bleeding. However, I lost a lot of blood, enough that they were thinking about transfusing me. I lost so much, in fact, that a couple of hours later when they tried to get me out of bed to get cleaned up and moved to my permanent room, I passed out. I had to spend the next 17 hours in bed (using a bedpan, UGH!). I was SO excited the next morning when I had recovered enough to take a shower.
So, yeah, that's about how it went. I am happy I opted to for natural childbirth and I intend to do it again next time.
Wishful thinking but, in fact, I was uncertain that I was in labor until the very end.
Here is how it happened. Just after midnight on Friday I woke up with contractions. They weren't very painful and were pretty far apart but I was too excited to sleep. I putzed around the house and online. Finally, I decided I should try to get to sleep. That was a mistake because the contractions were more painful when I was lying down and, furthermore, when I started to doze off the contraction would startle me from sleep. It was more painful then because I would tense up.
By 6 a.m. they were coming at about 5 minutes apart, which is when many folks head to the hospital. Since I was trying to do most of my laboring at home, I called my doula, Jen, at that point. I also decided to hop in the bathtub. The bathtub was a mistake. Once I got in there the contractions stopped altogether and my doula arrived to find me not in labor at all. I felt like a schmuck.
We all tried to get back to sleep for a couple hours and I did manage to sleep for a bit but then the contractions returned, at about 10 a.m. but they were not regular at all.
Jen decided to head home. She told me to call if anything changed but that she expected I was in early labor and could go on like that for days. I was disappointed and skeptical that I was going to meet my goal of having a natural childbirth. I mean, if contractions in early labor hurt that much, how was I going to stand the later contractions?
I told Jason that I wanted pancakes so we ended up at "The Baker's Square," joking all along that we might be wasting our last chance to eat out. Anyway, I was still having contractions all across the board (4 minutes, 7 minutes, 12 minutes, 4 minutes, 4 minutes, etc). We went home and putzed around. Finally, I decided to take a shower at around 5 p.m. and at this time my brother showed up. He was in town for a frisbee tournament. We sat down to dinner. I tried to sit on the chair and found that I was completely uncomfortable, as if I was sitting directly on the baby, so I moved to my stability ball (thank you, pilates!). At this same time, my contractions started coming regularly at 4 minutes. We moved inside to watch preseason football (the colts, I believe). From this point on, everything is a bit surreal and I only recall bits and pieces.
I decided to call Jen to let her know that the contractions were pretty regular even though they didn't feel much stronger that the ones I 'd had earlier. I reasoned that I must be in active labor because, if I wasn't, there wouldn't be any such thing as natural childbirth (or at least people who were crazy enough to opt for it more than once). I called my OB to let her know that she might be called in later. Jen arrived and we left for the hospital. I arrived just after 10 p.m. already dilated 8 out of 10 cms. By the time my doctor arrived at 11, I was fully dilated.
My pushing phase was protracted (3 hours - they usually give you drugs to move things more quickly at 2 hours but my fabulous OB saw I was making progress and let me continue on). Pushing is very hard mostly because you feel this tremendous urge to push but it is difficult to figure out how to direct the urge. However, compared to the contractions, pushing wasn't painful at all. With the contractions I'd been experiencing all day there was nothing to do but try to relax and let them do the work of moving the baby down and opening the cervix. Contractions hurt like a sonofabitch. Pushing is really hard work but at least the contractions in that phase are telling you to do something and you get to do it. All along my contractions remained several minutes apart. Often we would get in long discussions between bouts of pushing. Sometimes I was a little too out of it to take part in the discussions but I was lucid enough to listen to them.
After E. was born, I had a uterine hemorrhage delivering the placenta. I wasn't really paying attention to anything beside my new baby at this point. In order to stop the bleeding, my OB gave me a shot of pitocin, a drug that helps the uterus contract. It did work to stop the bleeding. However, I lost a lot of blood, enough that they were thinking about transfusing me. I lost so much, in fact, that a couple of hours later when they tried to get me out of bed to get cleaned up and moved to my permanent room, I passed out. I had to spend the next 17 hours in bed (using a bedpan, UGH!). I was SO excited the next morning when I had recovered enough to take a shower.
So, yeah, that's about how it went. I am happy I opted to for natural childbirth and I intend to do it again next time.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)