And You May Find Yourself

"You may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automo-minivan,
You may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful fam'ly,
You may ask yourself, well, how did I get here?"

-Talking Heads

--

A Capital-C Confession:  Once, I wanted to have a child because I longed for my mom to take delight in something I had done, someone I had made.  I wanted my parents to love me and nurture me, and maybe they would care deeply for me like I'd always hoped if I had a baby.  Was this healthy, and did I admit it to myself at the time?  Not remotely.  But I did, we did; we had three children.

They are exquisite.  And much of the time, I can't imagine how any of them actually came to be.  I am not talking about sperm and egg, friends.  I am talking about longing for someone who is yet to be, hoping for someone who isn't here yet, wanting someones, and these people actually coming true.



The gratitude I've felt lately doesn't have words, especially since I was such an undeserving asshole in the first place for trying to fill an unexamined void with innocent human beings.  And so, the usual platitudes like "children are precious" and "children are a blessing" are almost irritating in that they are so inadequate.
My astounded gratitude takes the amorphous "shape" of what the Double Rainbow Man might try to express if he saw a triple 'bow (and wasn't wacked out on wacky tobaccy).  Or Kate Farrell's unclassifiable but universal imagery in anticipation of her wedding:
"The Cosmos was Laughing with Lasting Love and Light".

Lasting love and light?  It is only in ourselves, and we can't find it when we project it onto babies.  But still, I found something better than what I was hoping for all those years.  I figured out how to love people other than sad, needy self-absorbed me (not that needy, self-absorbed me didn't deserve love, but this was no longer my only goal).  Some days I am more successful at demonstrating this love to my kids than others, but  most of the time, I make good work of mothering them.  And I figured out how to accept, along a dynamic, grief-filled path, the regrettable fact that my parents will never love me the way I had needed as a baby, as a child, or as a young adult.  The latter realization wasn't from the kids, directly, but has come from therapy and lots of work and searching that was inspired by them.  This is the miracle--the goddamned miracle!--I am talking about.

Same as it ever was.

Predictions and Postdictions

I'm going to be super dee duper surprised if this baby is not a girl.  Like, Barney the purple dinosaur flaps his feeble little arms in the air surprised.

"Hey there little baby!  You have different genitals than I expected!"

First of all, in case I have not been whining about it quite enough, the NVP (nausea and vomiting of pregnancy) is outrageous.  With James and with Will, it was just a matter of a little queasiness.  With Elise, the nausea was similar and terrible but not quite this bad.  So if I didn't know better--read: weren't getting ultrasounded every two weeks--I would go so far as to be convinced it was g/g twins or g/g/g triplets.  Thrice the symptoms, thrice the babies, right?

And then there's the chinese gender chart thing.  I do not believe for one hot, hormonal instant that this thing could possibly be accurate, even as I type this.  But it was tripping me out today, as it correctly "predicted" (postdicted) all three of my previous kids' sexes based on age at conception and month thereof.  And so when it decreed that this one will be a girl, too, I kind of sort of believed it.

I brought James and Elise to the eye doctor the other day, in one of the first times I've ventured out of our neighborhood in awhile.  While we waited for the doctor, the kids were making requests as to the baby's sex.  James wants a boy; his top name picks are Phineas and Ferb.  Elise is demanding a girl baby.  (Will didn't get to vote because he has freakishly good eyesight and was at karate, but he seems neutral.)  I told them it was "up to God, and daddy's sperm".  In hindsight, this was not the best answer.  I think they came away from my confused, rambling, overly-caveated explanation with the idea that there's some kind of godlike quality to Joe's sperm.  Not that I personally disagree, or that sperm are taboo per se, but it might be slightly wrong to talk about daddy's particular splooge.



Pictured: More than you need to know about Daddy.

And Now, Some Memes

Baby's Named A Tasty Thing

There's this new Indian food place by my house; it's so close that I could bike there if I were nonpregnant and nonlazy.

So much appreciation do I have for this food. I went there twice yesterday, and made a lunch date with my friend for future deliciousness. Their food is currently the only real-meal food that doesn't make me violently ill, and I start sweating when we run out. This is progress, though, from an entirely cracker-based diet of the last few weeks.

The compulsion to Google search 'intense food craving pregnancy' led me to discover that there is a blogger (Heather Flett of RookieMoms) who has already addressed the funny premise of naming one's child after the particular cravings that prevailed (ruled!) during the gestation.

James would be Colby Jack Cheese and Matzoh (nn Jack).
Will would be Campbell's Chicken-with-Rice Soup, or perhaps, Funfetti Batter (I don't have a good nickname for that one. 'Fetti?).
Elise would be called McDonald's Hash Browns Right This Minute (nn Mickey Dee).

This baby shall be known as Chicken Tikka Masala with Basmati Rice Oh Dear God Please It's So Good.

Another gem unearthed in this Googling: Wikipedia claims that there is something called Taste Addiction Disorder, which is:

"a psychological condition with a biochemical basis in the brain where the person develops an obsessive/compulsive relationship with food...the brain produces more dopamine, which drenches the brain in 'happy hormones'. Other [non-food] ways of giving the brain a dopamine bath include, but are not limited to, singing, running, dancing, laughing with other people, or engaging in sex."

Ehhh, sex? Kind of a tall order right now. At this point I could be more easily encouraged to do a full reenactment of The Sound of Music.


Not pictured: sex.