in the produce section Baldo and I went for groceries this morning because we were out of everything, including TP and coffee. I sort of had to stuff him into clothes and a diaper (he doesn't want to wear a diaper or use the potty--he wants to excrete all over the floor) and haul him off. He was really hyper and talkative. "I see the giant apple on the wall!" (painted there, that is). And he was counting over and over again, his new thing. So we were pointing to the artwork on the wall and counting things.

An older gentleman (I want to say 70ish?) came up to us by the apples.

"I can't believe this," he said. "Is he two?"

"26 months," I said.

"I can't believe he can talk and count like that," he said.

He went on to ask me if I was a stay-at-home mother, a question I never really know how to answer because (1) I do work from home and (2) I really don't have the attitude of, like, "Staying home with children is the best thing in the world!" because for the majority of people in postindustrial society, it's just not even a possibility, and what's the point of being evangelical about something the majority of people can't even do? But I said yes for purposes of convenience.

"It's great, isn't it?"

I hesitated. "It's very challenging." It is. My full-time jobs have been a piece of cake compared to raising Baldo. I never had to catch vomit, show my colleagues how to urinate in a receptacle, and teach people to read and count and eat with a fork.

"Well," he said. "I can tell that you're doing a wonderful job. That child is loved."

I felt so kickass. I forgot half the stuff we needed, including the ever-important baby wipes, but I still feel pretty good about today.

I still feel the need to go out and socialize with people my own age, people who will not want to count cars and dogs and their own fingers.

but then Now I can't get the "Dusty's Treehouse" theme out of my head.

doo doo doo doo doo The nap is running long, so I thought I'd blow off a couple of assignments and go download the theme song to Dusty's Treehouse. It's musical Xanax for troubled times. It's made me eerily calm and has totally expunged Leo Sayer. Whew!

With all the "la da da da" and "doo doo doo doo doo" it's a wonder anyone in my age cohort actually acquired language.

In Googling for the show I think I made a little progress toward understanding and accepting my fear of puppets. I guess I watched a lot of puppet television when I was little, and not even the really weird puppets. We've already established that I'm slightly too young for the Kroffts.

Maybe I should go back into therapy. I'd love to sit down with a counselor and explain the purpose for my visit.

oh god, no I woke up this morning with "You Make Me Feel Like Dancing" by Leo Sayer in my head.

further proof I need a transcriber. My recorder just crapped out. I think I blew its speaker.

I went to the kitchen for another piece of strawberry-rhubarb pie, but when I returned to my desk, the problem had not fixed itself.

some mornings Some mornings Baldo sleeps late, proof that he is his father's son.

If I were a good person I would be transcribing an interview right now. Every time I have an interview to transcribe, I think, "I really need one of those pedal-operated transcribers." I used one when I was a secretary and it was a lot more convenient. I priced them various places and lord have mercy, they cost about as much as a bomber! What's up with that?

So then I was reading e-mail to procrastinate, and I kid you not: One of the writergrrls posters was complaining about transcribing an interview. And then someone recommended a pedal-operated transcriber.

It's sort of like how you're thinking about a plate of shrimp, and then somebody says "plate of shrimp."

everybody knows We went to see The Jellydots tonight and had a lovely time. Baldo got his first-ever rock show hand stamp. Of a sort. Anyhow. The band is delightful in five-piece form and played Elliott Smith's "Independence Day," which still makes me cry because I connect the dots between me, three weeks pregnant and singing to my abdomen, and Elliott Smith dead in his apartment from a stab wound, depressed and addicted. Baldo sang the "everybody knows" refrain all the way home, though, even after we stopped at Wally's, so maybe it will all mean something different to him.

There was a rather energetic small boy who seemed to want to dance with me, such that he pulled my hand out of my pocket and held it to initiate dancing. At first I thought he had confused me with someone else from behind, but he was undeterred by not knowing me. And then he spluttered out about two sentences of passionate Toddlerspeak that I could not in a million years understand. Comprehension of one toddler does not guarantee luck with any others.

We watched Lost in Translation last night. I'm a cynic about those Coppola kids, but it sure has that ring of truth despite their pedigree. I like the scene where Scarlett Johansson asks Bill Murray if it--marriage and adulthood--gets easier. The day when your first child is born, he says, is the most terrifying day of your life. And the life you knew up to that point is gone forever, blammo. But your kids turn out to be the most delightful people you'd ever like to know.

The kids are fine. It is we who are fucked.

After all those power struggles last week over napping, all three of us took a massive three-hour snooze this afternoon. It was sweaty, fitful, uncomfortable sleep. I was dreaming that I was blind because I couldn't open my eyes. Everyone I knew was trying to help me.

well, that was fun anyhow My son has stopped napping, and I will never write again until he is old enough for Sea Camp.

sleeping alone for pleasure Please don't skip the nap. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting.

Must write up column.

Must write interview questions.

Please no skippy. No skippy. No skippy.

No whammies. No whammies. No whammies. Also hoping for shower today if possible. Perhaps a chance to read a letter from Mali.

Restful nap vibrations. Restful nap vibrations. Restful nap vibrations are now making me sleepy.

Listening to Richard Cheese through headphones for distraction. Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to introduce a little something I like to call...the band.

Change my pitch up...smack my bitch up...

Doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo.

Whooooo-ah. Whoooo-ah. WHOOOOO-AH! WHOOOO-AH!

Ouch!

Okay. Screw this. Kid still awake and screaming to come out. For those of you waiting for me to get something written, I offer this testament.

hear ye, hear ye Yours truly will be attending the eighth annual Conference on Mothering and Feminism at York University in lovely Toe-ronto, Canada, October 22-24.

I'll remind you later.

power Our power was out for a couple of hours last night. Like many people raised in hurricane country, I secretly welcome power outages as part of the flow of life. I can't be expected to do work. For fear that the beer will skunk, you have to take the whole six-pack out to the street (don't leave the fridge open but for a second!) and visit with your neighbors. In the event of a real hurricane, drink the beer inside, preferably in the bathroom or another windowless, centrally located spot.

Except I am a mom now, so while my neighbors were visiting, I lit candles and registered us for swim lessons this summer. Fingers crossed for a spot in session two!

I'm also very shy around the set of neighbors behind us. The people across the street are our buds. The people behind us I don't know so well. Evidently there is a new mother among them, and I am ever so tempted to go to her under the pretense of offering hand-me-downs and scope her out for signs of PPD. That's just what I do. Thus new mothers are rightfully terrified of me.

When we lived in San Diego--a time I recall with little fondness--we had one power outage. Our neighbors ran screaming out onto the lawn (we lived in a condo with a common yard), flailing about. "Where'd the lights go?!" They didn't have a flashlight or any candles. Worse, they had no beer. These people deserved to be Darwinned out of the species.

on the road When we stopped in Giddings to load J. up with caffeine, I watched a big burly guy with prison tats go into the truck stop carrying a Peter Rabbit diaper bag. Man, I won't even carry a Peter Rabbit diaper bag. I guess this guy had nothing to prove.

Message to Scooter: Go home.

on the farm We spent a lovely weekend on the farm with my parents. Mom, I apologize for debating politics with Dad.

The apple pie is gone. I just finished it MYSELF. Excelsior!

J. and I tried to go back to the bar in town where I convalesced when I was Crazy and staying at the homestead to keep from offing myself. The bar was closed. I was kind of sad about that. But I guess I can drink Bud Light and play AC/DC on the jukebox here, can't I? We went to Sonic instead--only thing that seemed to be open--and had a vanilla diet Coke. My first Coke in three years. Watched the townies cruising around in their trucks; waited for a train to come through town.

Now we are home and everything is quiet.

mama gathering 2004 It's official: I'm going to do a workshop and a reading at Mama Gathering 2004 in Minneapolis in July.

I'm chuffed. For all the reasons you might expect--gettin' to hang with the Twin Cities mama posse--and for some you might not. I'm strangely drawn to Minneapolis. The high concentration of Swedes calling to me? The way upper Midwesterners instinctively pronounce and spell my first AND last name accurately?

I wanted to go live in Mpls after college and do an internship with Utne. I couldn't afford to relocate, and I had to let it go. Then I applied to grad school, got a fellowship, moved, and met J., and there you have it. In some small quadrant of my brain there is a little imaginary me who went through with the original plan and is now leading a different life in the Great Swedish North. Maybe I'll run into her there.

marrit's tips for boys (TMI) When you're talking to a woman and her eyes unfocus for a second and she seems to stop listening, don't freak out on her. She may be passing a large menstrual clot, that's all. I wish it were socially acceptable to say, "Pardon me, friend. I am merely passing a large menstrual clot." In fact, I'm going to just do it anyway.

today "I play this guitar backwards, like Kurt," Baldo said. Granted, he was holding a big stuffed Lamaze inchworm, but he was holding it left-handed.

moreover And yeah...you assclowns who put high-fructose corn syrup in Children's Tylenol? Yeah. Get your sorry butts over here and help me deal with my kid, who's cutting two-year-molars and has been up nonstop since 5:30 this morning. He's acting totally coked from fatigue, and I can't help him because of your shitty sorry synthetic corn crapola.

high-fructose corn syrup High-fructose corn syrup blows.

At the risk of sounding demented, let me say this: That shit ain't food.

More to the point, it makes my kid itch. J. took B. shopping on Friday and B. whined for some Bob the Builder graham crackers. I know, I know. So he ate some and started scratching furiously in the cart.

This morning he woke up at 5:30 screaming and we couldn't get him (or ourselves) back to sleep. Four fussy, screamy, wound-up hours later, we were at the Hoodoo Doctor's office getting treated for HFCS. We did the treatment, and BAM! Instant scratching. He scratched his feet until they bled through his socks. And then I had to put sneakers on over that, and I know they rub his feet on the back and make them hurt more.

I'm going to throw rotten eggs at Nabisco executives. I'm really glad you guys and your stockholders are getting so rich off your stupid, cheap, and easily portable synthetic sugar crap that gets metabolized just like fat in the liver and is making us all itchy and sleepless. If you want to kick a little of that money back our way, then we can afford to go to Whole Paycheck and buy $3.00 graham crackers made with cane syrup.

NB: I never set out to be some kind of food purist. A child of the 1970s, I adore processed foods. It kills me that this experience is making me so puritanical. But those shitheads aren't leaving me much choice. I can't even buy graham crackers made with real sugar at the supermarket, you stupid greedy sons of bitches. At least we live in a metropolis with alternative grocery stores. If I lived in Bumfuck, Idaho and didn't have a choice, I'd have to pack B. up in the car and drive out to personally kick your asses.

easter Judging by the blogs I read, a lot of People Like Me (twenty- and thirtysomeodd folks with young children and a very circumspect concept of spirituality) are having difficulty with this holiday. We're not exactly going to go to the sunrise service (moreover, it's raining) so what's the point, exactly, of telling our child a large rabbit visited in the night and left candy? I'd rather my kid didn't eat candy. I was chuffed when we sampled a box of Peeps (given by our neighbor) and Baldo was grossed out. "Mama eat this," he said disgustedly, and crammed a barely-nibbled Peep into my mouth before I could resist. Rock!

I do like the idea of hunting for eggs. It's fun and developmental. So maybe that could just be "the egg-hunting game"? Isn't the whole egg bit Pagan? Just curious. Eggs sound so elemental and fertility-oriented; these are not traits of the Judeo-Christian firmament, historically.

I honestly hope no one will be disappointed when I say this: We will not have an Easter Bunny in our house. I'm not going to tell my son that a large rabbit traverses the globe giving treats to children. Yes, I had the Easter Bunny growing up and it was a gas. All I'm saying is that if we are to give presents in a basket with artificial grass, I think we're going to be honest: We made this present for you to celebrate the coming of Spring. Happy Spring!

So you probably know where this is leading: I have similar thoughts about Santa Claus.

taxes I haven't updated much because we are consumed by taxes.

It's funny being married to a person with OCD. They just have their things, you know, and one of J's is the record-keeping in the household. To wit, he keeps a Byzantine (but perfectly logical, to him) system of records and wants to pay all the bills and taxes himself. So we have had to wait and wait and wait until he had enough spare time in the evening. The man has meetings after school every day. Department meetings. Vertical-team meetings. Governance committee meetings. This is before you even factor in meetings with parents. Detention for students.

I didn't even mention his birthday here. I'm sad about that. But we've barely seen each other all week.

J's birthday was on Tuesday, the night I got sent to the movies. We had pizza and key lime pie and opened presents over dinner. Then I left, and when I came home he was crashed in bed, snoring like a mofo.

Now he and B. are off to the store because we are Out. Of. Everything. And I need to go mop.

Excitement, huh? Sometimes the mechanics of life--the taking-out of trash, the maintenance of lawns, the payment of homeowner's insurance premiums, the obtainment of tortillas and soy milk--are just so so so wearisome. It doesn't help that I am still extraordinarily antsy about the book project and I can't turn my mind to stuff like scrubbing a toilet. But there are splatters all over my kitchen floor.

Ugh. The Volvo Whisperer just called, and my car, which has been in the shop for three days, has a problem with one of the bearings on top of the timing belt and there goes another $240. Good thing I just got paid for SXSW.

Hot...married...action!

I want to have something insightful and illuminating to say but I don't.

mediocrity I got sent to review The Whole Ten Yards.

Then on my way home, listening to the radio, I had a choice between: (1) car-dealership ads, (2) Seal, (3) Joe Satriani, (4) Sugar Ray, and (5) Jackson Browne.

I stopped at the grocery store and observed (1) Spongebob Squarepants cereal, (2) Dr. Phil paraphrenalia stacked to the roof, (3) and an aisle of Toys 'R Us merchandise. I am so not taking my kid in there ever again.

A lot of people are making a lot of money off some really stupid shit.

I'm not an elitist; I'm not saying the whole world needs to be Waldorf toys and Debussy. But I'm really sick of middlebrow crap.

Shit. Give me Natty Light and Jack Hill movies and Spinal Tap. Give me some out-and-out crap, even. I just can't stand this measly-mouthed bullshit. Give me some stupid-ass movie some yahoos from Pennsylvania shot in their backyard in tinfoil costumes--like Corn Man, which I actually liked. Give me something that is at least different, something that wasn't conceived by a committee with focus-group input. Give me Showgirls for the rest of my life, if that's what it takes--at least I can respect that it was made by a stubborn expatriate guy who didn't care what his rating was and told the studios to go fuck themselves if they didn't like it.

All this Poochie the Rocking Dog jive is really getting up my ass.

kiss I got a spontaneous, unsolicited toddler kiss today. Rock.

diversity We went to our neighborhood park yesterday for some playtime. While we were playing we met an African-American family of five, a Mandarin-English bilingual toddler, and various doggies. In fact we are probably a curiosity of sorts, in the "blanquita aqui" sense. Moreover, within a three-block radius we have three LGBT families (that I know of), a whole bunch of retirees, one punk band, and a Spammobile. (Needless to say, the Spammobile, with its smiley-face on the grille, is a particular source of delight for Baldo.)

I really like our neighborhood, but the schools are totally packed because there is so much low-income multi-family housing. There's just a critical mass of children. Which is good, I suppose, but if we moved one neighborhood over we'd have better-"performing" campuses, single-families with high property taxes, and a whole lot more crunchy white kidless couples with Honda Elements. We'd also have a "cute" house, but a smaller one.

I dunno.

from rmc Go to Google and type "weapons of mass destruction." Hit the "I'm feeling lucky" bar to search. Hilarious.

school Here's a dilly of a pickle.

J. and I are talking about schools. The options are many.

There's a private school--International Baccalaureate curriculum--we like nearby. I like that it's in our neighborhood. I like that the classes are small. And we both like IB--cross-curricular, community-based. The primary grades meet three days a week with project-based learning the other two days. Sounds perfect. A little bit of school, a little bit of home.

The other day we were at the park, and one of the private school classes was doing PE in the park. Playing some kind of cross between soccer and volleyball. (Is that what they call Wallyball, I wonder?) Seemed okay. I mean, it's better than squat-thrusts and dodgeball. But I could still tell which kids were the dorks and which were the alphas. That's just adolescence, I guess.

The alpha kids, though, were really really ALPHA. Gorgeously phenotypical, Caucasian to the point of Aryanism. I imagined that they were named Buck and Hawthorne.

Needless to say they were all white.

I want my kid to have an appreciation for diversity--racial, economic, lifestyle. And I suppose that's my job, and something we can apply to the community- and project-based part of the curriculum. Yet I feel kind of squicky about opting out of public school. I feel squicky about giving my kid privileges other kids in our neighborhood won't have.

I realize that's already the case. We have a house of our own and regular nutritious meals and health care, and I'm not of the mind that renouncing those privileges makes anyone else better off. I see the kids streaming home from our neighborhood schools, taking the city bus, dragging their rolling backpacks. I'm going to have a lot of explaining to do.

But no AISD. No way.

The classes are just too big. The curriculum too inflexible. The administration too micro-managerial. No one makes these points more profoundly than J., who teaches in AISD and is subject to every administrative whim. He's got classes of thirty kids, even in the magnet program. Most of what goes on is classroom management. Getting thirty kids to read the same book is a challenge enough. Keeping thirty kids on task is hard. Teaching thirty kids? He does his best.

We've considered homeschooling, but I'm picking up that Baldo is probably not an independent learner, not totally. "I'm ready to go to playgroup!" he chirps when he wakes up in the morning. He loves other people. He wants me to tell him stories about Jose, who measured our carpet one morning for about ten minutes and hasn't been back. I also have a background in classroom instruction and I love what peer-to-peer interaction can accomplish. In the right setting kids can learn as much from each other, maybe more. I believe in that stuff. And I know there are ways to incorporate cooperative learning into homeschooling, but I'm just not quite sold on it for us.

I guess we just keep investigating options and listening to our kid.