carl in casimirland.

Actually, I'm just seeking validation.
My mom emailed me an online story from the New York Times yesterday about parenting blogs. She knows I enjoy reading about all forms of parenting stuff, and didn't realize that I'm already a religious fan of Finslippy, Dooce, MimiSmartypants, and some other blogs mentioned in the article. Nor does she know I keep a blog, but that's a different story; she'd die if she knew I was saying things like "shove it up your intestines" on the internet. Actually, I'm not sure she really gets what a blog is, but anyway, I digress.

I read this "article" and found it, er, let's just say "intersting." It seems like every couple of months there's an article somewhere about blogging as this neat-o new thing, as if it hasn't been around for awhile. I mean my god, I've been blogging for just about a year. Do you know HOW SLOW I AM to catch on to technological trends? I just found out that an iPod is actually an MP3 player. But anyway. I find that there's almost always this tone of condescension in blogging pieces, and an inevitable reference to it as self-absorbed. Frankly, I just think that journalists get pissy when people who aren't published dare to try and write too. Because I really don't see what's so complicated about the fact that SOME PEOPLE LIKE TO WRITE. And so they do this, on the internet, and share their writing and read others' writing. I suppose you could call that self-absorbed, but then you could call any writing or form of expression self-absorbed. And most popular blogs are not of the "I brushed my teeth four times today" self-absorbed variety. And even most parenting blogs are not of the "my kid's so cute" type. They would not be so popular if they were. Like any other personal weblog, they're usually just personal anecdotes about dealing. And I think as long as people are parenting, they will be interested.

Of course, parenting blogs get even more of a bad rap, because omigod, you don't get more boring than being a stay-at-home mommy or daddy. Yes, we all know that no one has room in their brains for one iota of respect for child care and parenting. That much is painfully obvious to those of us doing it. But even with that attitude and the social policies to prove it, I'm not sure how a parenting blog is deemed any more boring or less relevant or more self-absorbed than any blog about personal experience, infused with humor, off-topic banter, political commentary, or just plain good writing. In fact, I think parenting blogs are often refreshing in a way that other personal blogs are not, because they are charting a territory that is, while well covered, rarely done so with raw honesty, humor, and a good dose of venting. No, you won't find Dr. Sears relaying with sarcasm and humor about the day he felt dangerously close to child abuse. Brazelton doesn't really get into the humorous side of the tantrums, or the helpless feeling you sometimes get that you can't do anything right, no matter how hard you try.

But this article seemed to take special glee in that I-get-published-and-am-therefore-valid-and-you-blog-and-are-self-absorbed attitude that just didn't sit well with me. Instead of really asking WHY this type of stuff IS so interesting to parents fed up with the lack of reality in most parenting tomes or magazines, they just dismiss it with a shrug and a pat on the head and a snicker. Because afterall, wrote this NYT genius, it's not like it's the first time someone has written about the dark side of parenting- since we have Andrea Buchanan's Mothershock and Anne LeMott's Operating Instructions. Obviously, two whole books have said it all already. So why blog?

Well, according to this piece, blogging is an online "shrine to parental self-absorption," where parents are seeking validation, says one expert. And, although parents are waiting longer than ever to have children, "time and again the bloggers voice surprise and sometimes resentment about the unglamorous reality of raising children." Silly bloggers. And here I thought I was just writing about one of my life experiences, and relishing some fabulous, humorous writing about similar experiences in other blogs. I thought it was sometimes a cathartic outlet in a society where everyone is trying to tell you how to parent and the expectations can be stifling. One quoted expert did put out his theory that blogging is a way to try and rise above invisibility, which is something parents face all the time. Well hey, I'd say he's on to something there. I especially liked the vague warning at the end about putting your kids' personal story in the spotlight for your own gain. Because who knows, Casimir could read this in fifteen years and find out that mommy swore and sometimes didn't like getting up all night long and getting poo on her hands. Oh no! Well I hope so, why else would I print it out, but to save it for him? Needless to say, this "article" made me spew my milk and nearly tantrum-mad. And I'm not even good enough to be famous, but I think I'm defensive enough to rant the most about it.

So imagine my inordinate glee when I clicked on some of the other bloggers he profiled and found them already embracing their narcissism and self-absorbtion. God, I love bloggers. I'm also happy that these writers got this publicity, because I'm fairly certain that those who share the NYT ideas of mommy blogs won't bother to actually read them, and those who do will have their world opened to a whole variety of self-absorbed, child-exploiting reading pleasure.

I was going to title this entry "You can take your mommy track and shove it all the way up to your intestines. Have a nice day." But I decided that this was better. I think my positive forcefield buffer (tm) has been working fairly well, although I'm used to being more negative. I can't shake the feeling that when I choose not to worry about something in particular, that I'm just living in denial of impending reality or something. Though I'm not sure that fretting and wallowing really make things better, but at least you feel like you're doing something about the situation, in your own pessismistic way.

Pay.
Every morning, within about four seconds of awakening, Casimir shouts out "Pay!" which means "Play." If Paul gets up with him, Casimir still finds me, attempts to pull me out of bed, tugging, desperately pleading, "Mommy. Mommy, pay! cars!" If you try to actually go to the bathroom, he will attempt to pull you off the pot, imploring you to pay. If you attempt to do anything besides running toward the cars instantly, he will holler to pay. It just strikes me as funny, because isn't that all we do? I guess he eats and sleeps and poops and bathes. Just once I'd like to say, "No, Casimir. Today we are going to work. We are going to start with shoveling and then we will wash all the sheets and mop all the floors, and then we will head to the employment office to see if they have any kind of temporary work for you, maybe some kind of factory work that requires small hands." Still, it's kind of cute, as long as you're not trying to get anything done or eat or dress or pee.

This mah shit, uh huh.
I popped in my new Gwen Stefani CD for the first time the other day when Casimir and I were driving around to engagements. I just realized that we'd been all Wiggles, all the time, for quiet some time, and that different types of music were good for him, and mommy might go crazy listening to Hot Potato again. But with the Wiggles, I take for granted that you don't have to worry about the lyrics. Apparently Gwen was tyring out some new 'tudes with her solo career, and I don't know how a white girl older than me ends up sounding like eminem, but maybe my antiquated, 32-year-old mommy self is just a little out of touch with that part of the population that is "hip." Casimir and I flew along listening to the bop-bop beat, Gwen singing along, "Take a chance (bop bop) you stuip-id ho (bop bop)" and "uh huh, this mah shit, this mah shit, uh huh.." Before I knew it, it was growing on me and he'd shout for more ("mo!") and I'd oblige and replay the song where I get to sing along "This shit! is bananas! B!-A!-N!-A!-N!-A!-S!"
At the end of the ho song, Casimir clapped and shouted "Yay! yay!" So it went over better than Franz Ferdinand. Though he's picking up words rather quickly, so I'm not so sure I'm embarassed to be all prudey-mommy on Gwen Stefani. We'll probably be back to Wiggley Safari in no time, with maybe something raucous like Edith Piaf to offer variety. Because it's all fun and games until he calls me a stupid ho.

I.am.not.scrapbooking!! Do you hear me? I am not! You can keep telling me I have to get started so as not to get too behind. You can keep giving me a heap of likely expensive oval-cutters and backgrounds and albums and stickers. But you will not indoctrinate me! I am strong! And I have no problem placing uncut, uncustomized photos with the bad linoleum visible, into a regular album, with no room to write on with a glitter pen. My love for my child springs eternal and everything, but spending every free moment on my son's "creative memories" aka an eternal project cluttering up my desk, will not happen. I'm not putting down your hobby if it gives you pleasure, and I know that the end result is (sometimes) really neato, (and sometimes ghastly), but actually, I'm okay with my own pre-Casimir hobbies. Really!
And I just don't get why we're supposed to all suddenly enjoy all the same, prescribed things once we have kids. Becoming a mother has changed me in many, many ways, and I am indeed more sentimental. But for whatever reason, a glitch in the system perhaps, this has not manifested itself in any way that MAKES ME WANT TO SCRAPBOOK! Please, keep your watermelon and flag and pumpkin stickers! I insist!

This winter thing and toddler parenting and financial stress (THANK YOU, property tax assessor!) have been getting me down, so I am trying to be like those annoying people who insist on being happy, no matter what, as if all that positive thinking will barrel that bad luck right down. You wake up and you just decide to be happy or some such. You know, for the children.You can fire the positive people or break up with them, but like weeble wobbles they just pop right back up. Personally I was always a little fond of my cynical and negative side, but it's making me start to wallow. I plan to erect my little positive-forcefield to buffer the bad stuff. No more stressing out over the temporary inconveniences of life burdening my self right down to the ground. I will count my blessings each day. I AM TOTALLY POSITIVE. Even if I sometimes seemingly hate my job, neighborhood, Dr. Sears, and all employers everywhere.
I won't say I'll meditate, because I've been saying that since New Year's 1992. But I will try and be more positive. And I am definitely, really this time, trying not to cuss at all. The other day I overheard the guy at the next drive-through ATM shouting out of his SUV to "Go back Goddamnit! I fucking hit clear! Go the fuck back you goddamned machine!" and he sounded like such a complete ass, I was ashamed enough to immediately expunge any bad words from my brain. At least in front of Casimir, I won't. Or the ATM. It's part of my Positivity Program.

We've started the s-p-e-l-l-i-n-g phase around here, and I can finally see now, decades later, just how useful it is. As in, "Yes Casimir was a good boy today, except for just before the nap when he was A-t-t-i-l-a the H-u-n and a total H-e-l-l-m-o-n-s-t-e-r. Except sometimes when you're trying to speak quickly, you realize you aren't such a snappy speller in a hurry, and you feel kind of stupid when you screw up. Until you realize that the listener was not expecting a spelling bee and has no idea what you just spelled, because it's also hard to pick up in a hurry when your brain is listening for real words. The first time my mom's friend tried to spell raisin and got it wrong I felt a little smug. But thus the spelling out of words commenced, and now I'm routinely mispelling t-i-r-e-d and c-o-o-k-i-e out loud. We are such a sneaky lot. I can't wait until Casimir's older- I'm going to teach him German and we'll do this to his daddy who took one year of Latin and nothing else. And won't we be clever then.

We've been trying to wean Casimir off daytime pacifier use for some time, but it involves some tough love. You take one out of his mouth with a little suction *pop*, and then turn around for a moment, and then he suddenly has another. You take that one out, put it away, come back, and he's chomping on another one, barely hiding his nothing-can-stop-me smile. Every morning I collect them, wash them and boil them like soup to sterilize the. But he goes to bed with like 20 and manages to stash some away somehow and get his fix anyway. I don't really care too much though, I figure eventually he'll grow out of them without some 12-step program. Now sometimes he'll even take it out and hand it to me with a wounded scowl when I remind him of the new no-paci rule, which always seems terribly grown up to me. Occasionally we encounter the Just Say No people who will say something to him along the lines of: "I can't understand you with that thing in your mouth! Take that out, silly boy!" Oh, you're too cute. Go suck one. He's not even two. He can have a pacifier to help cope with people like you.

Speaking of not sucking, I think I'm doing really well as his hairdresser, relatively speaking. I thought the last cut was pretty bad, considering the duress I was put under and the recalcitrance of the subject. But then Daddy and I got our professional haircuts at some local places. I requested a shorter, no-layer bob, and returned with my stick-straight hair flowing down as far as my ear lobes. Is that a bob? I don't think so. More like a bowl, I think. Then Paul returned looking like a school kid with his bangs cut short and straight across his forehead, and the sides and back strangely longer. He said when he at least requested some gel to style it a little, the guy combed his newly shorn bangs straight down, his one, extra-long fingernail dragging down Paul's head, and said "This way you look like movie star!" In a way though, he's right. He does look like a movie star. At least Casimir's still cute. We should all use his hairdresser.

One of our exciting play "classes" started again after a holiday hiatus, for which I was completely psyched. It's not that I have wild crazy fun there, or much fun at all, actually. But we needed some mix 'n mingle activity, and I always look forward to seeing if there's any new, friendly moms when a class starts. It's similar to how I used to look forward to the new college semester to see what hotties were in my classes. Now it's just platonic. But still mildly desperate.

There were a few new people, but no one really seems to give off that desperate air that I'm pretty sure I must be emanating by now. What are they, content? Among all the tapered, high-waisted jeans and white sneakers, no one even looks like they are remotely going crazy, or holding up an imaginary sign that reads, "be my friend? pretty please?" Maybe they're just too busy, with older kids too. They're all local, which is closer than my old friends now living in Tahoe, Virginia, and Salt Lake, but for whatever reason it's hard to get to know people in this neighborhood. It'd just be cool to have more grown-up conversations before 6pm, and maybe together we could lobby to get espresso and chocolate added to the juice and cookie snacktime menu in play class. Yay, city living. I thought it was the suburbs that were supposed to be isolating.

The play class itself never changes, of course. I'm betting I could have four kids and we'd still be doing the same thing come Thursday morning at 9:30. They have this cute little oldies-style tape (yes, casette tape, probably 8-track) of kids music that we dance to first. There's this giant tape recorder that looks remarkably like the one we used in our first grade classroom; it balances precariously on the garbage can and the tape sings and crackles through the hokey pokey, touch the ceiling and wheels on the bus. I was looking forward to seeing if Casimir would actually consent to being set down for dancing this time, but no. Can't rush things! At home he dances all the time, and pulls everyone in the extended family off the couch to do the hokey pokey, whining and crying for "Pokeey! Pokeey!" But we hit the play class and he's like a deer in headlights. Pokey? I know no Hokey Pokey, he seems to say. He swings between very shy and wildly charming and charismatic.

The suburban play class we go to is a little fancier, though it costs a little more, and Casimir doesn't seem to notice a difference. I like it better though, and they actually plow the side streets there too, so I don't feel like we have to skip class if it has snowed a lot and we don't have an SUV for that 1/2 mile, residential drive. I don't know why Chicago CAN'T PLOW SIDE STREETS WITHIN 3 DAYS OF MAJOR SNOW FALL, but apparently they can't. I'm pretty sure the annual increase in property taxes on our dinky house alone could buy a couple plows, but maybe they're still paying off the big, metal bean in Millennium Park? I'm not sure.

On that note, yay, it's snowing! We'll go out and play in it later, Casimir looking like a barely mobile space man in his snow boots and pants. He throws snow balls and then yells "Mess!" when it splats on the sidewalk. I don't holler out when we have a mess on our hands, but apparently he's more like me than I thought. I totally love that sometimes.

Love,
The Biggest Pig of All.

Casimir is spewing out new words like crazy, but sometimes we have "conversations" that go something like this:

Casimir: MoommEE!
Me, dazzling: Yes?
C: Daddy? Bop bop! ooh? {shrugs}
MD: Uh? Daddy is at work. He'll be home later.
C: Bop bop! Ya ya! Nooo.!
MD: Okay. No what sweetie?
C: Milk! No Ya ya, Mommy, ooh kitty?

It helps if you speak the language a little, since I know that bop bop = grandpa and ya ya = grandma. And I think that Ooh? means where, and this is perhaps residual language ability from a previous life in France, but it's still confusing when he tries to string it all together with his signature shrug and hands in the air.

And he totally has too many toys from Christmas, and I really, really want to avoid accumulating mountains of toys, which we all know kids get sick of after playing with like three times. But this carwash thingy (Yay, I must have the most riveting links in the blogosphere!) has brought me an unbelievable amount of sit-down-and-chill time. He doesn't always play well by himself, but give him a kitchen set or train or car set up and I can pretty much put on the coffee and pick out a magazine. Sometimes a big plastic toy is worth its weight in gold. God, I love that carwash thingy.

And I do not highly recommend this book to read to your child, or cat or dog. Some hens are in, some hens are out, but how pig is a pig, what's this all about? It sounds all cute and nicely rhymed until the end. Then you get to the end and read: ...Some pigs are big, and some pigs are small, but this pig is my mom, and she's the biggest pig of all!
I know where we got every single book we have, whether I bought it, bought it second hand, or received it as a gift or as a hand-me-down. Except this book. I have no.idea. where we got this book calling me the biggest pig of all. But I intend to find out.