Little Miss Sunshine

I've suspected it for a while, but after last night, there is no denying it.

My baby has a downright sunny disposition.

People are saying it to me all the time: She's so happy! She's so delighted all the time! She never cries (a notion I could disabuse them of. Lulu does cry--copiously, at times). But she'll go to strangers with little to no prompting, no tears. She has a smile for everybody she meets. Even when I am firm with her--when she bites me while nursing, and I respond with a loud, meant-to-shock-her NO--Lulu smiles. And laughs.

(It's actually kind of annoying. Not to mention PAINFUL.)

Last night, we bundled our croupy baby up and ran her to the ER to get an attack of croup checked out. The triage area was full of babies wailing miserably, of little kids with tear-stained faces. But Lulu was laughing and waving, even while barking out those awful-sounding coughs.

The doctors and nurses commented on it, as she allowed them to examine her without a peep, as she showed off her six pearly teeth in face-splitting smiles. Did you give her anything? What, like Xanax? Um, no. Is she always like this? Well...yes. We sat and watched Lu play contentedly with the cords of her oxygen monitor, while the neighboring cubicles resounded with sounds of PURE WOE.

Totally unconcerned with the fact that somebody just stuck a q-tip down her throat.

I have a happy baby. I sort of didn't believe it could happen. James is a pleasant-enough guy, but he can be cynical and fatalistic to a fault when he feels like it. And with my struggles with depression...I thought we would pass along our worst traits to our little one.

But Lulu is happy. Even when things are bad. And she is teaching me--something else I didn't think would happen, at least not for a long while--to do the same.

They say that a mother can only be as happy as her saddest child. But that goes the other way, too: when the child is happy, that happiness is infectious.

In my unhappy moments, my sunny baby cheers me up and gives me confidence that I must be doing something right. And for that, I am so grateful.

my whirlwind girl

If I had my way, no unhappiness would ever touch her life. But if (when) it does, I will remember the happiness she brings me now, and pay it back as hard as I can.

FYI: Your parents are cool(ish)

Because I am a loving parent (and also probably extremely overprotective), I haven't really had many nights out since Lulu was born. I live in fear of wearing out the few babysitters that are willing to watch our child for us. And I think I have PTSD from being separated from my baby for the first days, and weeks, of her life. So J.D. and I are the annoying people who take our kid everywhere with us, and haven't really had a proper date night since Lulu was born. We even took her with us to our anniversary dinner back in May.

But when J.D. told me that X, my favorite band of all time, was playing in Maryland on Monday night, and that there were tickets left, and that it might be fun to go, I carefully weighed the pros and cons of leaving my baby called my MIL and asked if we could dump Lulu's ass with her for the evening. How could I not take this opportunity? I listened to Wild Gift pretty exclusively from about 2003-2006; it was the only CD in my car for a while. I think at one point, it got stuck in my CD player, and that was fine by me, since it saved me the hassle of having to find it in the detritus on the passenger-side seat. Plus, everybody in the band is in their 60s. Who knows how many shows they have left?

So Monday night, we went. I put on real clothes (as opposed to yoga pants). I did (run a brush through) my hair. I put on MAKEUP (lipgloss counts), and EARRINGS and even perfume! We left the baby and a heap of her stuff with my in-laws. And J.D. and I drove to Annapolis, and we heard X play.

And! We talked about so many things on the ride there! Things that were not child-related. We talked about politics and home values and music and gossiped about people we know and it was SO QUIET. And yes, there were a few times when I looked back and saw the empty carseat and freaked out for half a second, thinking we had left the baby in the parking lot or on the roof of the car or something, but I soon calmed myself because THERE WAS NO CRYING and it was just so peaceful I couldn't help but relax.

This show was the strangest punk show that I have ever been to. Instead of being crammed in a basement or a sweaty room in a bar, we were seated at a table surrounded by a bunch of other tables in a pretty upscale restaurant. A waiter came by to take our drink orders and left carrying a tray of empty martini glasses. There was a list of specialty beers and available tapa-type appetizers and a bunch of people in business casual work clothes and I was the youngest person there by about 15 years, which is what happens when you like bands that rose to popularity before you born. We watched a documentary and then the band played through their most famous album, and then they played for another 45 minutes or so. Altogether, we were there for about two hours, and in those two hours, I listened and sang and talked and drank (iced tea) and generally had an AWESOME time.

A picture of the band, and also the pole that blocked half of my view of the stage. But it was a very upscale pole.

I had so much fun. I had forgotten what it was like to be able to give my whole attention to something without wiping up drool with one hand and calculating how long before I needed to breastfeed again in the back of my mind. Between sets, I went outside and bummed a smoke off of a young crust-punk and got into a very heated discussion with him about the definition of anarchy (lack of state, not lack of laws) and why Haiti is so f-ed up (corrupt government and deforestation). I quoted Thomas Jefferson and brought up the whole lawyer thing to make a point. And then I realized that zipper on my $14 Forever 21 jeans had been down the whole time and that I was possibly not as cool as I thought.

I slunk back into the venue and drank more iced tea and listened to Exene wail and watched Billy Zoom play the guitar, cool as a cucumber, and was happy when the band played my favorite one of their songs.

After the show, J.D. and I sat in a deserted park in the center of town and talked for a while. And then he stood up, and said we should probably get back. My first thought was, why? And then I remembered: the baby. For a minute, I felt like a bad mom, because I kind of...forgot. I had a picture of Lulu in my head, her blue eyes welling, missing me...when I'd been chugging iced tea and singing at the top of my lungs. How could I have wanted to be away from her? What if she needed me?

But then I got over it, and decided that going out and enjoying myself was the best thing I could have done for my child. Lulu, if you are reading this thirteen years from now, do not take this the wrong way, but right now, being your parent, while fun and often funny, is not always very intellectually stimulating. And you, like all babies, can be rather selfish in that I DO NOT CARE IF YOU ARE IN THE BATH, MAMA, I NEED TO EAT NOW. Tonight I got to recharge my batteries, and remind myself of who I am outside of you, and I can't share all the things I love about the world with you if I do not experience them and thus cannot recall exactly what they are.

Plus, if I had not gone away from you, I wouldn't have gotten to come back and experience tons of delicious baby smiles when you saw me again. That was pretty great.


Other things I learned tonight: pregnancy has robbed me of my iced tea tolerance, which was once pretty impressive. I think I spent about 30% of my night out going back and forth from my table to the bathroom. Luckily, it, too, was far more upscale than the bathrooms I am used to at these events. There was no drug use going on in there (that I could see). And no hanky-panky between people reeking of B.O. And there was one of those hand dryers that's so strong it moves the skin on your hands all around. FANCY!

Littles Unboxed

We went to the NY State Fair this weekend with my sister and brother-in-law and our cousin visiting from North Carolina. Unexpectedly for September in upstate NY, it was horrifically hot, and so humid my glasses kept steaming up - kid you not. Even my cousin, who is from Vermont originally but has lived in NC for the last ten years, was wilting.

It was great fun, though, especially since even last year we could not have done something like this - Carl and I and the littles left our house at 7:30 in the morning, and got back at 11:00 that night. The girls were troopers through the entire day - no meltdowns, no tantrums, only a couple times where they needed reminders of the importance of having good attitudes. They had so much fun with everything - from the cow barn (my brother-in-law's cousins were there showing cattle, so we had to stop there to see them first thing), to the pig/goat/llama barn, to ... well, everything. Even Joy, who does not like crowds and noise, held her own quite nicely, even standing right up to the chain separating the crowds from where the six- and eight-horse hitches came thundering by with Mamma and Auntie Lizzie. No fear, just awe and delight at the magnificent horses (she liked the all-black ones the best - Mamma was partial to the Clydesdales, black with white feet, and Auntie Lizzie liked the dapple greys). In fact, she loved the horses so much, that at the end of the day, when I asked what her best favorite part was ("best favorite" is a phrase of her own coining, and I love it), I fully expected her to answer "horses." Especially since that was what she was talking about ever since we told her about the Fair.

If not horses, than I figured she would say the little chick that Papa held while she petted it. Or even say that her best favorite part of the day was drinking half of Auntie Lizzie's maple slushie, or watching Dan Duggan play hammer dulcimer (he is just brilliant with that so-tricky instrument).

Not a bit of it. Joy, my petite, tidy, finicky, dainty little maiden, liked the big black mama pig the best. Even better than the piglets, which at least have the advantage of being little! Nope. No matter how many times she was asked, she answered the same:

"The big black mama pig was my best favorite."

I love that she's almost four, and still surprising me every day. Just as I think I've got her figured out, she comes out with something completely unexpected. I love seeing all these disparate bits come together to make one cohesive Joy.

If I am honest, I have to confess that I really hated the baby stage. I loved them, of course, but the real fun is starting now, when they get to express their personalities and there's a new delightful discovery waiting around every corner. Sometimes it gets frustrating, as when I can't buy clothing for Joy without her along because she already has decided opinions, and won't wear something unless she likes it (thank goodness Grace is still young enough to have to wear Mamma's preferences!), but even that has its fun side, as I get to see her decide, already, what styles she likes and what she doesn't. Although I did put my foot down when she wanted to buy a leopard-print jumper. Mamma will allow a lot, but I do have my limits!

Grace is still little enough that she mostly goes along with whatever Sissy says ("Grace, what was your best favorite part of the day?" "Pigs!" Never mind the fact that she barely paid any attention to them, that's what Sissy said, so that's what she liked, too), but we're starting to see glimpses of her independent personality peeking out here and there.

These kids, they cannot be put in neat and tidy little boxes, ever. And why would anyone want to? Life is so much more fun when it is unexpected.

(Sorry about the lack of pictures in this post - we were a bit too busy experiencing everything to stop and take pictures! Maybe next year.)