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welcome to Tuesday at our house. in various stages of undress and escape. ;)

every good morning begins with some intent cat chasing.

later, one should attempt to evade all efforts at diaper changing…and where did that cat get to?

and after clothes have been forced on one and the cat has hidden in the porch, perhaps some smug library perusal? whilst standing, all by one’s self?

hey…when it’s -30something outside, one has to make one’s own fun.

erm, apparently, Shakespeare was wrong. there is something in a name, after all.

Oscar and i are in the midst of what i suspect is a brief but wonderful window of parent-child contentment, wherein he’s mobile but not very fast-moving. he’s happy to scoot about the floor of whatever room i happen to be in, rather like a baby swiffer (hence my part of the contentment). he explores the dustbunnies while i get to pluck my eyebrows or unload the dishwasher at leisure…oh, glamourous life. but over the past couple of days, i’ve noticed a disturbing pattern to what actually attracts O’s attention.

if there’s a garbage receptacle around, or a pail, or a trash can, Oscar is enthralled. this morning, he was (i thought) safely esconced in his jolly jumper for a few minutes, because i was gathering laundry from around the house and wanted to be sure he was in a safe place. when i hopped down the stairs loaded with pee-soaked sleepers, i found him around the corner of the kitchen doorway, jolly jumper stretched to its absolute limit, trying to pull the plastic bag out of our back porch garbage can. he was beaming and cooing to an empty Doritos bag. sigh. he really is an Oscar.

here is my boy, if he could only form complete syllables.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQYFt2lzEQU]

perhaps we should have named him Joe, instead. then he’d only be after the coffee.

strategyOriginally uploaded by oscarcormier.

Oscar wanted to help me wish a very happy birthday to my favourite Celebrity Boyfriend (and thus O’s, um…well…favourite rock star). the photo at left shows that Oscar obviously isn’t quite ready to take over the blog world just yet, as he hasn’t fully separated typing from biting…but perhaps he thought the laptop was a delicious cake for Mr. Bowie. the Thin White Duke and all his other personas turn sixty today.
when your idols become senior citizens, does that make you old?

funny. when i first started my faithful if one-sided relationship with The Other David, he was just a little older than i am now…and i was twelve. and while fabulous and ethereally cool, he also seemed ancient. now…i’m not sure if he’s just a fresh mind or i’m secretly the world’s oldest almost-thirty-five year old, but hell, that twenty-five year age spread now seems but a season, a mere moment. perhaps because the man is still one step ahead of pop culture. or me. :)

i doff my hat (errr, should that be “bat my eyelashes”?) in his direction. happy birthday, David Bowie. and i’m, um…still out here, whenever you’re ready…not terribly busy…free tonight, in fact…

oh well. can’t hurt to try.

ahem. bat bat.

(ps – this little obsession of mine is gently endorsed by the Dave i actually live with. do you think this is because a) he’s a tolerant soul who loves my free spirit, or b) because a woman with a fantasy life is HOTT, even if she lusts after semi-androgynous elders, or c) because he’s hoping Bowie will finally get his act together and come for me one of these days? hmmm.)

happy 2007, world.

i love fresh starts and newness…the infinite promise of things yet to unfold. every year at New Year’s i get all a-twitter at the prospect of a whole new year lying ahead, unsullied by the mistakes and regrets and doubts and sorrows – and even joys – that will inevitably put their stamp on it. and despite the fact that i no more subscribe to the old Enlightenment doctrine of human progress than i do to yogic flying, at the beginning of every January i indulge in a little modernist fantasy.  maybe this year, there will be fewer mistakes…not just my own, but the world’s.  maybe this year, we crazy humans can make the place a little better.  maybe this year, we’ll get it together…and next January we’ll ring in the new from a planet just a little bit kinder/cleaner/cooler/happier than we found it on this New Year’s Day. :)

no, i’m not high…or strung out from all the leftover Christmas chocolates (well, a little).  just hopeful.  i want O to believe that maybe he can contribute something to the world, and so, in some small part of me, i cling to the notion and possibility of progress, to represent to myself the beauty and betterment he’s brought into my world just by being.  he’s like New Year’s Day everyday…and sometimes i notice.

may the year bring all of you some joy.

 

Dave, in his noble and ever-uphill quest to help me truly become part of the 21st century, has tagged me with the “Five Things You Don’t Know About Me” meme.

the very fact that i know what a meme is is some proof that his efforts have not entirely failed. :) i like reading these little blogosphere snail trails, mostly because i like to trace the meme back, linking and linking, looking for a logic of connection between these people who choose each other. this one’s kinda obvious, of course. Dave and i are intertwined in Oscar…not just linked on blogrolls. but still. if you didn’t know that, and you read both our posts, i wonder if you’d ever suspect?

so…five things. god.

first – there exists an alternate universe where David Bowie is my Celebrity Boyfriend and is dying to marry me someday, simply because i have been patiently waiting for him for more than twenty years. yes, it is true. this despite the fact that i am generally impatient in the usual arrangement of space/time, that i am quite deeply happy with the other Dave (who i think believes himself to be the “real” Dave) and that i have epistemological misgivings about ever getting married again. this despite the fact that i don’t actually find David Bowie sexy, per se. and yet…and yet…he is my oldest habit, in so many ways. and one must be faithful to something, yes? so i continue to believe, in some small part of myself. :)

second – i know all the words to the Anne of Green Gables musical. i don’t just mean the songs…i mean ALL the words. and sometimes i still sing the songs in the shower. oh, legacies of a misspent youth in a province where teenage summer jobs all involve prostituting oneself to the wearing of pigtails.

third – i bleach my moustache. (to those who know me in real life, this may not be so much of a surprise as i think it is. heh. we shall never speak of this again.)

fourth – i once played rugby. or actually, in point of fact, i played in three official (and a number of pickup) rugby games, during two seasons as a member of the Mount Allison University womens’ rugby league. yep, three games, two whole seasons. can we say “not a natural”? i also drank with the team for another entire season. i was far better at the drinking than at the playing…as the coach eventually concluded when i finally, miraculously caught the ball during a game but immediately turned around and ran the wrong way. in my defense, i was not confused, just bent on self-preservation. a Very Large Opponent (a giantess, i shit you not, she was, like, six-foot-nine, built like a Volkswagen, had fangs) was trying to tackle me. she ran me down despite my cowardly attempt to flee and gave me a most impressive talon-like scar on my thigh with her illegal metal cleats, which i now prize as my one (ever) sports injury…but thus ended my active rugby career. i think i lack the team sport gene.

fifth – i was voted “Most Artistic” when i graduated from high school. high on such acclaim, i promptly and completely stopped creating any kind of visual art (why fall from glory?) but still have a secret artist buried deep inside somewhere. the trip to MoMA in New York last month made me all moist and wide-eyed and breathy, and inspired me enough that i have actually glopped some paint on a little DIY mirror thingy for O for Christmas. Warhol, eat your heart out. :)

so there. i stand before you naked. more or less.

and now i get to call out others. hmmm. locally, i’d love to know what Cynthia is keeping under her bike shorts. and way up there in Upper Canada, Dinah needs to get posting and feed my habit. in the mommy blog world…i’m tagging Christy, Beth, and deadbabymama, all of whom have a way with words and feelings and funny/bad/sad/secret stuff that always make for very fine reading.

chop chop, little sea monkeys…trust me, it beats wrapping presents.

this is a picture of Oscar’s mother in NYC.

it is a picture, more specifically, of Oscar’s mother at the Rockefeller Center, in front of the building her grandparents worked in during WWII.

there is no Oscar in this picture.

for just a couple of days, that was really nice. Oscar’s mother wore clothes with no spitup on them, and went to Hairspray and MoMA and funky little bookstores. she went shopping, and didn’t worry about nap schedules. she had real, uninterrupted conversations with Oscar’s father. Oscar’s mother ate a lot of Korean food, and Italian food, and Turkish food, and some pastries that the gods clearly invented. she had the best cheesecake of her life. she did not stint on caffeine intake.

Oscar’s mother drank in the afternoon.

it was a wonderful trip to a fantabulous city, and Oscar’s mother was enthralled and would go back next weekend if she could convince someone to get her a ticket.

but that isn’t the whole picture.

the picture doesn’t show the panic attack Oscar’s mother had at 1 am the first night, trying to fall asleep in a fabulously skanky “hotel” on Times Square while her very overtired and overstimulated brain reviewed all the terrible things that could possibly happen to poor Oscar over the course of his lifetime and played them in a vivid and unrelenting reel.

the picture doesn’t show the way Oscar’s mother’s head snapped round every time she heard a baby cry on the subway, or saw a little bald head peeping out of a snuggli.

it doesn’t show the hokey “i heart NY” baby onesie that Oscar got as a souvenir, or the NYC nameplate for his door, or his Oscar the Grouch his mother carted back to Canada in her carry-on, or the copy of “The Giving Tree” bought at St. Mark’s Place just so he would eventually know he was being thought of even when we were away from him.

the picture doesn’t show the Air Canada employee that Oscar’s mother nearly ate whole and spit out when the flight home to Oscar was cancelled.

the picture doesn’t show the nice first class seats Oscar’s mother and father got to sit in on the eventually rescheduled flight, once the previously mentioned Air Canada employee was made aware of the existence of Oscar waiting patiently at home. or the fear in said employee’s eyes as she tried to assuage Oscar’s mother into feeling a little less fierce and feral.

the picture doesn’t show Oscar’s mother’s face when she got home at midnight last night after fifteen hours in transit – we could have driven home faster – and pulled Oscar from his crib and rocked him in the dark and kissed his head.

i think that was probably the best picture of the whole trip, but only Oscar’s father got to see it.

wow, what a city…like a toyland for grownups. someday we’ll take Oscar and see if it’s a toyland for kids, too. :)

lioninpunkins

Originally uploaded by oscarcormier.

i think Hallowe’en is my favourite holiday.

now that the curtain is dropping down on October, all the stores can start the mad sparkly dash towards decorating for Christmas, or the holiday season, or whatever we’re calling it in polite company this year so as to avoid excluding or offending anyone…but i personally shall miss the spiderwebs and pumpkins. don’t get me wrong. i like Christmas. but my little Grinch heart doesn’t thrill to the shopping mall crowds, or the weird mix of religion and consumerism that swirls about in the eggnog along with the tinned Bing Crosby carols…in fact, i don’t even like the eggnog. these adult Christmases are always a little bittersweet for me, because – in all their prosaic reality of trying to get things bought and baked and beribboned – they remind me that i am no longer a kid.

whereas Hallowe’en is simple, spooky, tooth-rottingly full of candy, and doesn’t even make me comb my hair. it’s a magical straight line back through sensory memory to childhood. the smell of a candle slowly burning away the inside of a pumpkin makes me feel giddy.

of course, i’d be more giddy if we’d had more than seven trick-or-treaters come to our door…insert many lamentations about how sad i was sitting outside in our porch in the dark hoping small children would happen by. only on Hallowe’en is one allowed to admit to these types of secrets.

but we had our own built in trick-or-treater this year – Oscar the lion. a very overtired, fussy, teething little lion, admittedly, who whimpered more than he roared.

but he was quite lionhearted, nonetheless, and bravely went next door to trick or treat his mama some candy. unfortunately, the clueless neighbours cooing at him apparently saw through the shameless candy-grab ploy on his mother’s part, and we came away empty handed. Oscar has promised to trick them whenever he gets big enough.

i’ve started a mom’s group.

those words make me blush. rather self-consciously, like i’ve exposed a secret fetish for something turgidly wholesome. in my former baby-free life, i might have conjured up an image of a mom’s group founder as a rabidly perky, baby-obsessed keener, replete with matching tupperware and a “Chicken Soup for the Mother’s Soul” collection. which i swear i’m not. really. i own army boots. i wore them just last year. and i still have friends who don’t have kids, and i wouldn’t want them to think i’ve gone over to the Disney side entirely….hence the blushing. i do still read things other than “The Baby Whisperer”….in very short intervals.

but the fact is, i don’t really have friends who do have kids, at least not here, in the milk-stained, sleep-deprived flesh. and i’ve been feeling the lack, deeply. so this Wednesday afternoon mother’s group that i cobbled together with a few phone calls two weeks ago is actually something i’m kinda proud of. it’s the first time i’ve ever really been the one to take that first step with people i didn’t know well; the first time i’ve been willing to stick my neck out and try to make a group come together out of a scattered collection of individuals. i’ve spent the last twenty years or so letting people come to me…and i’ve been lucky. they’ve come – i am blessed in my friends. but asking new people to come, even just for coffee, sent me into paroxysms of adolescent angst.

the other mamas were acquaintances, mostly, or the friends of friends. i worried before i called them: would they think my mom’s group idea was lame? would they would think i was some kind of mom cheerleader, too earnest to hang out with? would they think i was deficient, eager to commiserate with other new mothers because of my inability to cope? was the city already clotted with groups, and was i advertising my sad isolation in not knowing anyone who’d invited me to join one? were their thighs already contracted to pre-baby size? would anyone even show up?

in the end, i got over myself and picked up the phone, four or five times over, and called them. and i noticed something that i probably would have noticed decades ago if i’d swallowed my insecurities and learned to initiate friendships better. it really wasn’t so risky, after all. they all came. they were happy to be asked. they, too, welcomed the chance to get out of the house and talk to adults. and they’re nice.

we don’t do much. we descend on a coffee-shop patio in the middle of the city and circle our prams like wagons, making ourselves and our babies a little oasis of shared experience. we talk. most conversations are erratic and unfinished: a baby cries or falls asleep or throws a rice biscuit into someone else’s stroller. the topics are mundane, mostly – sleep schedules, when to switch from three hours between feeds to four. how hurt and angry one of us was when flatly told not to bring her newborn to a friend’s wedding shower. how frustrated one of us (moi) is trying to find a foundation garment to wear under the bridesmaid’s dress i’ve got to squeeze myself into next week – who thought spaghetti straps were a good idea for a nursing mother? and how hard it is adding a second child to the mix of a family, and what babysitters come recommended, and how we’d really like to go to New York. not all mom stuff, just…talk.

the group is good for me. and i hope, as the babies grow, it’ll be good for Oscar too, in the socialization sense. but i think it’s already served a valuable purpose, in teaching me a lesson i hope i can pass on to little O, sometime before he hits thirty: it’s not so bad to reach out to people. and it’s much cooler to try to get what you want from the world than to freeze up and lament your loneliness.

if you try sometimes, you get what you need. trite, but true. thanks, Stones. thanks, fellow mamas in my group. see you Wednesday.

we drove to New Brunswick last night to Oscar’s grandparents’ house. and the whole length of the four hour car trip (five when you count the hour spent breastfeeding him in a gas station parking lot), we played music. not kid music, though we’ve been given some wonderful children’s CDs. our music. i confess – we are actively trying to brainwash his tiny eardrums.

Oscar does not come from what one would call musical stock. to my great sorrow, i am as tone-deaf as a stump. at my fifth grade provincial music festival, my choir teacher suggested that rather than sing out loud, i merely mouth along with the melody so no one else would be thrown off key by my warbling drone. Dave’s not much better. he does occasionally channel a great Debbie Harry falsetto, but is otherwise nearly as musically challenged as i. yet we love songs. i know the words to everything. and while we secretly hope that Oscar is carrying some recessive “carry that tune” genes somewhere in his makeup, if not, we still want to expose him to the joy that music can bring even to the tuneless. so we’ve been constructing a soundtrack – a musical primer – for his edification.

i believe that – if you listen to the words – music can teach all you need to know about the human condition. and i also believe that the music a person learns early on – the music eventually remembered from childhood, no matter if it matches later tastes or not – will shape that person’s sense of not only what music can be, but what it means to be human. so Oscar can get down with his bad self on gangsta rap and pop fluff later, if he wants to, should those genres mysteriously thrive. but for now, he’s being groomed into a groovy little folkie, with bardic ballads and funky sounds all around. i secretly believe this may be the best way to pass on wisdom about life and love and the universe and everything: subliminally, with a pleasant back beat.

this theory comes straight from my own experience. my poor mother wonders how, with her fine upstanding example as model, i grew up to be such an amoral vagrant. i barely watched TV as a kid, and i read only Anne of Green Gables and The Velveteen Rabbit and other umimpeachable classics of children’s literature. however, the old stereo in our apartment got a lot of use throughout my youngest years, and i blame Kris Kristofferson for my adult ambivalence about social and moral conventions. in kindergarten, i got lost at Kmart. thinking my mother would hear me and find me if i sang – even then i sensed my voice was…uh…attention-getting – i wandered blindly through the aisles, belting out my favourites. i was eventually located in the menswear section giving an offkey rendition of “Help Me Make it Through the Night.” i thought it was written for Kristofferson’s teddy bear.

i’m hoping by the time Oscar reaches that age, he can wow the Kmart shoppers with all umpteen verses of Dylan’s “Tangled Up in Blue”. or maybe a little Leonard Cohen. at the very least, i hope he learns that beauty and joy and sorrow have a place in all human lives, and are wonderful to express in song. even if that song comes out a little flat.

home again, home again, riggity jig…i can never remember the end of that nursery rhyme.

but we are home, and happy, if not a lot more informed than we were when Oscar went into the hospital a week ago. i’m still off dairy, and citrus, and – sniff! – chocolate, and he’s still sporadically miserable, but we’re working it through. he had a miserable eighteen hours or so through Sunday night and yesterday, but this morning, he seems like his cheerful, alert little self again. my fingers – and most of my nerves – are crossed.

he came home on Saturday, just in time for Father’s Day. Dave didn’t get his Dairy Queen cake, but Oscar considerately got him some tasty Father’s Day chicken wings instead. and he almost got breakfast in bed, except that by the time the coffee and the fruit shake were ready, the baby was howling for a feeding, so the huevos rancheros went on hold until later in the day. they were eventually scarfed down around 2 pm while Dave jiggled the stroller in one hand and tried to keep from dripping salsa on the cat. much flexibility is required in this parenthood thing.

we also finally got around to making the switch to cloth diapers over the weekend, once Oscar got home from the hospital. despite his long-running diarrhea, the boy has been gaining and growing like a foie gras goose, and the newborn Huggies that seemed so enormous when we came home with him the first time were now looking rather wee…and rather pricy, since we’d finally run out of donations from the hospital and from O’s grandmas. so, we leapt into the brave old world of wet diapers that actually feel wet, and little wrap covers that rustle like snowpants when he moves.

they add kind of a retro baby-bumpy-butt look to his little outfits…and they do leak a bit around the legs, but they’re not quite as intimidating as i’d begun to think they might be. while i was pregnant, before Oscar was actually an individual making waste of his own, i’d intended to use cloth right from day one, or at least from the day we brought him home from the hospital. it makes economic and environmental sense, and – the real bonus – the idea made me feel virtuously earth-motherish. after all, i’d be home all day – wouldn’t i have piles of time on my hands to spend on laundry?

insert loud guffaw at my naive and foolish self.

as it turned out, he came early, and by the time we brought him home we’d already gotten used to the tidy little preemie Pampers he’d worn in the hospital for that first two weeks. plus he was still way too small for the stash of cloth we’d bought, and heck, we’d been given four packages of newborn-size disposables by our own wise mothers, “just in case they might come in handy.” very handy indeed. five more weeks of handy, especially with all that diarrhea. and there was plenty of laundry without diapers…more, in fact, than all that “time on my hands” could manage. i was starting to look at my diaper genie as a beloved companion.

and that’s how i knew it was time to make the change, if we were ever going to do it. rumour has it the cloth’ll do wonders for the low-grade diaper rash that’s built up through weeks of diarrhea. and i can stop feeling quite so horribly guilty about the landfill contributions our household is making.

but we’re not necessarily going to retire the diaper genie just yet. the diarrhea might come back.