Thanks To Sara Fenske Bahat for the T-Shirt!
Also, perfect timing. In a weird way, I had been sort of looking forward to the one-year anniversary of Clio Confidential, much as I had long anticipated my 100th post. But like that milestone, which came and went anti-climactically many months ago, I missed my blogaversary by about a week. Which, in hindsight, is an excellent thing: it means that, unlike some mom bloggers whose laments I have recently read on their highly-trafficked and well-publicized sites, I'm not too busy blogging to actually live my life.
In chronological order:1. Sleeping in2. Dave's intention to make my favorite sweet-potato pecan pancakes (I got up too late to take advantage, but found pecans toasting in the iron skillet and sweet potatoes in the microwave!)3. Chocolate brioche and delicious decaf from Colson Patisserie, instead4. Dad-posse at swim class. (Top, from left: Sylvie and Brian, Dave and Clio, Peter and Zoe, Jay and Dylan; Bottom, Dylan and Clio practice jumping in.)
5. Almost buying the mid-century sideboard I've been eyeing at a local antique store (One sad thing about Mother's day: what an unhelpful a-hole the store's owner was, leading to us not actually getting to buy the thing. Sigh.)6. New-Orleans style brunch at Stan's: po boys, huevos rancheros, and biscuits with sausage gravy (not even in the same realm as Grandma Barb's, but still good). Here's a picture we took of Clio to show her pictures of Clio as a distraction when we realized that the camera was the only "toy" we had on us
7. Limonciata8. Watching Dave show Clio how to make those little winged seed-pods that litter the ground this time of year "fly." He's a Dad who knows some cool things.9. A 2-hour nap on the couch (the back support is so much better than bed!)10. Hearing my own mom's voice, calling from the Atlanta airport on their way home from Ireland, and hearing Clio say "I want to talk to Nonny!"11. Actually sitting around and playing with my daughter for a couple of hours- blocks, trains, throwing balls, jumping around, listening to They Might Be Giants Here Come the ABCs (while Dave made tortilla soup AND did the dishes)12. Having more than 10 things to be happy about on Mother's Day (and only half or so relating to food!)
I'm at a point in this pregnancy where of course I would like your seat. But believe me, I've been conditioned not to expect you to get up. Because people don't get up. They pretend not to see you, they nose their way further into a book or a newspaper, they feign sleep. A friend who has never been pregnant once asked, why don't you just ask someone for a seat? The problem with this is partly, who do you single out to ask? Not that long ago, an old lady got on a train where I was already seated, holding my purse in my lap, which happened to cover my belly. She stared me down with an intense evil eye, clearly demanding that I move; I looked her straight in the face and said, "I'm 6 months pregnant; maybe someone else will give up their seat." The young woman next to me sighed dramatically and stomped across the car; even this indirect call for volunteers was a clear breach of the silent etiquette of subways.The only time I have ever actually made a direct request, a seat had opened up and I asked the woman about to take it if I might have it instead (this seemed like an acceptable loop hole because I was asking her to give up something she didn't yet have.) Ironically enough, it turned out she was pregnant too, just not that obviously so. She insisted I take the seat, believing I was more pregnant and therefore, I suppose, more deserving. I said to her "it shouldn't be that difficult to get two, huh?" but no one got the hint; somehow my comment did not manage to shame a single person on that train.Why am I reporting all of this now? I guess because I had two somewhat parallel subway experiences today on my commute to and from work that got me thinking. When I was pregnant with Clio, I began to see some patterns when it came to generosity towards the visibly pregnant, and at the risk of being accused of sounding sexist, racist, and ageist, I'm going to recount them here. Middle aged women, any race, are the most likely to give up their seats, presumably because they've been there and they can relate. Next come Hispanic men, followed closely by black men. My theory on this is that family, and particularly motherhood, is more revered in Latin American and African American culture- black and Hispanic men are also the most likely to say "god bless you" and "congratulations," unsolicited, on the street. Women in their 20s are highly unlikely to help you out, and teenaged boys, well, forget it. Immigrant Chinese and Orthodox Jews fight it out for the absolute least likely to get up, beaten out by just one demographic: white American men.That's right. In my unofficial little study, which comprises some 300+ subway rides over two pregnancies (and I'm really only counting months 6 through 9/10; before 6 months there is a lot of understandable nervousness that maybe that pregnant-looking woman is just fat), I have never, not once, been offered a seat by a white man of any age, unless he turned out to be a German or Australian tourist. Until today. (As an aside, Dave never takes a seat in a crowded train in the first place; if he did, I know for a fact that he would get up for the pregnant crowd. Call him the exception that proves the rule.)This morning a very nice, 40-year old journalist gave up his seat for me, an operation which required him to gather up several papers, a notebook, some pens, and a coffee, and balance all of this while he stood. Once I was settled, he said, "you know, I always look around for a minute to test how long it will take for anyone to offer." Glad that someone else (and someone on the other side of the equation) is taking an informal survey of his own, I asked how long it takes, in his experience. His response? "I don't know. I'm always the first. Or the only."I wish I could have asked him if he had come to any conclusions on the demography of subway generosity, but the subway itself is kind of not the place to have that conversation, so I'm left to my own devices to think through this burning question: Why don't white men jump for pregnant women?Do they really, truly, not see us? Is it some kind of post-feminist backlash? My own dear husband, who may kill me for writing this here, has been known to abstain from special treatment in his efforts to keep all things equal. (When we recently had a trunk full of returns to Home Depot, including a boxed medicine cabinet that weighed roughly 50 pounds, I had to ask him, point blank, if he really thought that I was the best candidate to take on this particular errand. In another example, I remember distinctly being 9 months pregnant with Clio and heading to Costco, where nothing weighs less than 50 pounds, all by myself.) To be fair, I recognize there's a damned-if-they-do, damned-if-they-don't aspect of the whole notion of special treatment: I, for one, protest at work because my colleagues won't let me lift anything at all.If I was braver, I might have answered this question on my ride home. A twenty-something blond-haired blue-eyed guy, good looking, grabbed a seat out from under me as I got on the train. As he sat, he saw me, but gravity, inertia, or a sense of entitlement planted his but right in that seat. A middle-aged woman directly across from him got up for me, and I gratefully accepted. When I sat, I deliberately caught his eye and raised my eyebrow as if to say, Do you think this worked out right?You know what? He looked right back at me, and ultimately I was the one who looked away.
Maybe it is all more loaded than it seems, and my own sense of entitlement is what's out of whack. Maybe it is too much to ask for special treatment, just because my body is hard at work growing another human being, even if it looks like I'm just standing there, reading my book.
I heard Dave laughing from upstairs last night, and came down to find him looking at these pictures. Sometimes a picture really is worth a thousand words
After all of my Saturday-night bravura, Sunday morning dawned a little bit sad. Not only was I leaving Marni and Sara, but I would not make it back to my baby girl until after her bed time. Suddenly those 6 hours on a plane seemed like an utter waste. We were reunited this morning, when I went in to get her up for the day. I was concerned that Clio might take the negative track in responding to my return, acting out in anger when she "remembered" that she had been "abandoned" for a couple of days. Happily, she was all positive, kicking around excitedly in her crib in her haste to get up and give me a big, delicious, full-body toddler hug.I was away for four days, a relative blink of the eye for a 33-year old. For a toddler, though, that's a long time, and I must admit I am surprised by how different she seems to me now. Maybe it has to do with how quickly they develop at this age, making her seem just a bit older. But she also seems changed, somehow. She doesn't look quite as utterly familiar to me, but maybe this is like going on a rustic vacation and finding surprise in your reflection when you finally look in a mirror after days without. She also sounds a little different- partly just the tone of her voice, but maybe also the fact that, somewhere this weekend, she picked up the habit of saying "yup" instead of "yes"- to everything. It feels like the baby equivalent of a 'tween suddenly taking on the slang and cadences of teenagerhood.Most startling of all: she got a little braver. After daycare, we went to the playground at the school down the street, and for the first time that I'm aware of, she went right down the slide with no coaxing or hand-holding. She figured out how to walk across the "drawbridge," holding onto the rail, rather than scooting backwards or crawling as she has previously done. She went up steps on her feet instead of her knees. She even tried the ladder. By the end of our time, she had tried out the big slide countless times, both on her bottom and her belly, and I had to refrain from telling her not to walk up the small slide- of course, I don't want her to fall, but there's no way I'm discouraging the new adventuress in her.I hate to think that my influence is too sheltering, but it's interesting that this new physical adventurousness would blossom the first time I left her. Or, actually, perhaps more positively, the first time I returned. I could read any number of things into this, but for now, I think I'll just be glad that she decided to take these leaps of faith on her own.
At this very moment, I am surviving my first weekend away from Clio. And you know what? It has been blissful. Highlights from my only girls' weekend between baby #1 and baby #2 include a whole lot of activities that may not sound quite as great from a different sort of life position, like lying in bed with Marni and Sara watching Grey's Anatomy and Lost,
Enjoying dinner party where the min event was one long round of Rock Band; Or building an entire weekend around what to eat when, like cupcakes from Marni's friend Kara's amazing bakery, Kara's Cupcakes; lunch at Alice Water's famous Berkley restaurant Chez Panisse; and heaping servings of Mexican after a long walk in beautiful Muir Woods.
Much of our time in San Francisco proper involved gaping at the architecture (one of my very favorite past times); this time, in addition to the mansions of Pacific Heights and the great mix in Sara's Ashbury Park neighborhood, we stumbled upon the gorgeous enclave of the dremy and envy-inducing Sea Cliff. We did manage to sneak in one excursion that was somewhat cultural: a quick trip to SF MoMA, where we played in Olafur Eliasson's bridge installation up at the top of the building.
Sara has a very cute baby bump these days; and I'm looking large in those horizontal stripes, but why not embrace it, right?
I thought I would miss Clio physically, like a palpable ache, and would worry bout how she and Dave were getting on all weekend. Instead, I've been thrilled to have this time for myself, to reconnect with my girls, and know I will be all the happier to see both my husband and my daughter for having been away from them for couple of days.And the best part? I still have a 6-hour flight ahead of me, where no one will need anything from me, I can read a book, watch a movie (or little of each), and when I'm thirsty, someone will bring me something to drink.Bliss.
