Polyphonic spree

I have this friend.  I've written about her before, I know.  T. is many, many things I cherish in a friend: generous, dependable, clever, capable, responsive, and funny — my God, so funny.  She had her kids at the same age I had mine but encountered no difficulties.  So it wasn't until I had trouble conceiving that the question of infertility presented itself to her in any meaningful way.  We learned a lot about it together, I firsthand and in the moment, she just a half-step behind.

She's always been there for me.  If because of this experiential gap there have been times that "there" has meant "not quite exactly there," well, it was still a lot closer than any of my other friends were.  I'll give you an example.  The day I was discharged from the hospital after Charlie's birth, she dropped everything to show up, take me to lunch, and treat me to a pedicure, a bracing few moments of normalcy that shored me up more than I can say.  (The pan of lasagna and the brownies were a nice touch, too.)  This past weekend she said to me, "It wasn't until Charlie was born that I learned that when a baby's born early, there's something to say other than 'Holy shit it's so soon oh my fuck is everybody okay?'  That you should also say, 'Congratulations! You have a baby now!'"  See what I mean?  She's always been right there with me, taking it all in — not always knowing immediately what to say, but paying very close attention, meeting it all with an open heart, and learning.  Just like those of us living it more personally.

So I get a little thrill — of pride, of gratitude that I have such an ally — each time I see the payoff from that.  Since my experience is over, her understanding has fully caught up, and I'm rocked by the awesomeness of hearing her in action: arguing with a solvent staunch Republican friend, say, who's dealing with infertility himself, about insurance coverage for treatment.  Or taking her chiropractor to task.

Her chiropractor, it seems, regularly posts a bulletin up by the front desk.  I imagine it's generally something along the lines of Your Spine: Threat or Menace? and What to Expect When You're Expecting Your Head to Be Twisted Clean Off.  On the day in question, the bulletin made...let us say egregiously inflated...claims about chiropractic care and infertility.  T. read it, drew herself up to her full rhetorical height of about eight foot six, and marched in to the exam room, where she proceeded to tear the poor unsuspecting chiropractor a brand new musculoskelethole.

She told him, she said, that although chiropractic adjustment might have some applicability as complementary medicine, it doesn't constitute any kind of standalone treatment or cure for infertility, and that by posting the bulletin his office appeared to endorse a stance that was wholly irresponsible.  That by disseminating such claims, his practice could deter patients of his from seeking real, for-true reproductive medical help.  And that he was lucky, she finished, to be hearing this from a patient who didn't have an immediate stake in the matter — not a vulnerable patient, not one the notice had hurt or offended personally, "not my friend Julie, who'd probably feel like burning down the clinic just to make a point."

Which is funny, because, you know, I don't have anything against arson, but it might have been a slight exaggeration.

We visited T., whom I like to call Effortless Segue in moments of affection, this past weekend.  I was somewhat apprehensive about the visit because of Charlie's recent behavior.  But I worried for nothing.  He was wonderful, really great company.  It's almost like he'd read my post and all of your truly helpful suggestions and decided he'd better shape up if he didn't want me following him around cheerfully saying, "That's terrible! But I don't care! Now I'm going for a time-out. In a place of loving curiosity! After which I will shepherd you to bed promptly at four of the clock. Also, the cat loves me better."  Or some combination of same.

Really, thank you all.  I read every comment with great interest — not to say ravenous desperation — and they gave me a lot to think about.  In the spirit of continuing conversation, I'll say that while an earlier bedtime has its charms, what we found when we put Charlie to bed early is that he still stayed awake exactly as long, sometimes until nine o'clock and beyond.  With yodeling, y'all.  Now, I'm not opposed to his being awake, working out the details of his day; mostly I just need him to be in his room alone and in bed.  As the Biblical proverb goes, you don't have to go home, but you can't stay here.  But going all lonely goatherd is simply not okay.  Anything short of eight and, goddamn, it's Yma Sumac.

Also, I have a terminology problem with some of the suggestions, probably nothing more than semantic, but significant.  Any sentence that begins with "I love you, but..." makes me shiver a little.  To me, that seems to suggest a condition.  I don't want any kid to think that there are limits on my love.  (My tolerance, certainly.)  I'd be much more inclined to say, "I love you, and..." or "Because I love you..."  I love you, and I want you to learn to behave like a decent human being instead of an entitled little savage, so...  Or Because I love you, I can't let you become someone who says mean things to hurt people.  I know this is probably an esoteric point, but I think language is important.  (The same goes for "I love you, but right now I don't like you," times a million.  I feel creepy even typing that.)

But what a lot of great insight in those comments.  I want to single out one particular way in which you've helped.  Up till now I've made an effort not to talk about the jobs I don't like to do.  Oh, sure: When Charlie complains about setting the table, I've reminded him that everyone has to do things we don't want to, but when he's asked what I mean, I've admitted only to hating to pay taxes, or getting shots, or saying goodbye to good ol' Effortless Segue.  Neutral things like that.  I haven't wanted him to think I resent any of the things I do to take care of him and Ben.  But I'm starting to think that's wrong-headed, a good way to allow him to take for granted what Paul and I do every day.  Maybe, just maybe, it's okay for him to know that I'm not that jazzed about cleaning errant pee from the toilet seat.  And the floor.  And the wall behind the toilet.  And the crevice where the toilet tank joins the bowl.  (If there are still more places pee can hide, do not tell me where.)

Even more helpful was the commiseration.  It's such a relief to know that even if my young reprobate does end up in prison, at least he'll have plenty of company.  Hair-tearing-out shared is hair-tearing-out assuaged.  And if not, we'll go bald together.

I get so much out of my blog.  Thank you for helping.

Now can I tell you about Ben for a second?  Ben is awesome.  There.

I just don't know how to convey how dear he is, how delicious I find him even when he's screaming, screeeeaming, oh Jesus please stop the screaming.  I don't have any great anecdotes that illustrate it; it doesn't make for much of a story, the way he gathered his boots because he wanted to leave the café, but then saw me bringing a brownie, so stopped in his tracks and dropped them, but it does make me grin like a fool.

Finally, an update on the Utah bill that made me so crotchety, the one allowing the state to charge a woman with criminal homicide for inducing a miscarriage or obtaining an illegal abortion.  According to the New York Times, the scope of the bill has been narrowed somewhat:

The sponsor, Representative Carl D. Wimmer, a Republican, said he had removed a key clause that would have allowed prosecution under Utah’s criminal homicide laws for a “reckless act of the woman” that resulted in death to a fetus. Language will remain, he said, that makes a woman’s “intentional” actions, if resulting in the death of her fetus in an illegal abortion, a felony.

Gosh, thanks, Carl!  That's so much better!

Breaking news: Local mother, supplanted by cat, finds parenting challenging

I don't get discouraged very often.  Oh, I have my isolated hours of weary frustration, my moments of tooth-gritting, my fifteen-second flashes of What if I just kept driving?  I note for the record that those last do not occur during drives with the children in the back, like the one we took yesterday afternoon.  The screaming (Ben's) and recriminations (Charlie's) were enough to make me suspect that our hybrid runs not on electricity but on filial discord.  The louder you whine, the faster I drive.

It's been a rough ten days.  Since we got back from our trip, Charlie's behavior has been almost uniformly rotten.  Defiance, rudeness, and aggression have been floating so near his emotional surface that the smallest provocation — or sometimes none at all — results in an outburst that confounds all our attempts to defuse it.  I can usually weather the occasional storm with good humor, and even lately my lips twitch as I try not to smile; there's something hilarious about being berated by a five-year-old who hasn't learned to swear.  "You are a...spoiled...lady!" he sputters.  True, but I was really hoping for something in an inflexible harridan.  Shall we try again?

But at the moment I'm frazzled.  This time I'm having a hard time recovering my optimism.  Every moment is a battle, and the stress is beginning to get to me.  A few nights ago I achieved a dubious milestone.  Charlie was complaining, as he does every night, about one of the few regular jobs he has — "You always make me set the table.  It's not fair.  I hate to set the table.  It's no fun." — and I finally said it.  "I don't care," I told him, in a pleasant conversational tone.  "It's your job, and you need to do it anyway."  It was the first time I'd ever told him explicitly that his feelings were immaterial.  That felt worse to me than it does when I sometimes raise my voice, because I perceive a big difference between For the fifth time go get dressed and It doesn't matter what you think.  But it also paradoxically felt better.  It was a relief, if a temporary one, to be honest about my own frustration for just a moment.

[There were three paragraphs here detailing recent clashes.  It felt good to write them.  It felt better to delete them.  Because ultimately, what does that serve?  Charlie's five years old.  I'm now 39.  As demoralized as I am, I do remember that.  As irritating as his behavior is, I can still sit alone in the dark and drink.]

I have some guesses as to the origins of all this.  It's hard to come down after a vacation.  There are changes afoot at preschool that might be throwing him a bit.  (I told them the rack was more effective than the wheel, but did they listen?)  He doesn't, I suspect, get enough sleep, despite an 8 o'clock bedtime.  He's certainly chafing at the new incursions Ben gleefully makes into previously uncontested territory.  And on top of all that, it'sprobablyjustaphasehe'sgoingthrough.  But I suspect there's something more, something I'm missing.  And Charlie can't be of any help.  He doesn't know why he's being such a punk.  Gentle queries about his mood and behavior have yielded only the information that Paul and I are mean and always stop him from doing what he wants to do and are not very nice parents at all because you are always supposed to be nice to your children and I don't love you I only love Dad and the cat and N-O and S-T-O-P and [angry poking gesture with his dinner fork].

So I don't feel I truly know what's going on, and I just don't know how to change it, and I'm not even sure I know how to weather it.  I'm sure not doing it very well.  Last night after dinner, Charlie followed me into my office, the better to continue his litany of complaints about I don't even remember what, and I was just so beaten by it that I asked him to leave.  "Please go out of here," I said to him.  He stopped for a second, and then, deciding I hadn't meant it, started following again.  "Go out," I told him, and he did, bewildered.  I closed the door behind him, then sat in my chair and cried. 

We had a good talk at bedtime.  I'd like to believe I got through to him, but lately we've had several good talks at bedtime, with little enduring change.  Yet I know it will get better; the single lesson I can confidently say I've learned about being a parent is that everything, bad or good, changes.  And then changes back.  Sometimes with nauseating speed.  Repeatedly.  Until you and your children have reached the perfect peace of nirvana, having extinguished all destructive longing and achieved freedom from human suffering, in which case I now understand why you were wearing yoga pants all over town and I apologize for mocking you.  Or until you decide that maybe this Sunday, just this once, you won't visit them in prison.  Whichever.

I know it will get better.  At the moment, though, I'm just tired, worn out by the turbulence.  Discouraged, which is in itself discouraging.  I've been liking five so much.  Shame it's trying to kill me.

If you can think of a title that unites this post thematically, tell me. I'm all ears.

Item: By age 30, you've lost 90% of the eggs you were born with.  From the Washington Post: "Now it appears that the old biological clock may start ticking much earlier — and faster — than once thought."  But don't worry, the article advises; the 30,000 or so eggs that remain at the beginning of your 30s are probably more than enough.  After all...it only takes one.

How I do love to laugh.

Item: Tomorrow — that's Thursday — The View addresses infertility.  That the program is doing so by featuring Giuliana and Bill Rancic, who've made their desire to conceive the focus of their reality show, shall pass without comment.  That it's also featuring NYU's Dr. Jamie Grifo seems encouraging, since in his frequent appearances in the media I've yet to see him offer his commentary with a rabbit on his head.  But that it's featuring Risa Levine, a tireless advocate but moreover an extremely eloquent woman with firsthand experience of infertility and what its personal cost can be — that alone made me set the DVR.  Oh, sure, my TiVo balked; so strong is my antipathy towards Elisabeth Hasselbeck that I soldered in an anti-View chip before I even hooked it up.  But I think this one will be worth it.  11 AM ET on ABC in most markets.

Item: In Utah, awaiting the anti-choice governor's signature is a bill that criminalizes self-induced miscarriage.  According to RH Reality Check, the bill "amends Utah's criminal statute to allow the state to charge a woman with criminal homicide for inducing a miscarriage or obtaining an illegal abortion."

I don't even know where to start with this one.  I could froth for a bit about this latest attempt to establish fetal personhood, which has, as Lynn Harris points out, consequences beyond the issue of abortion.  I could point out the obvious and dangerously slippery slope it constructs, where it could be argued that certain behaviors, ones that have been shown to increase the risk of miscarriage but are unexceptionably legal, could come to constitute intent to harm a fetus.  I could decry the obtuseness of the legislature in considering the case that inspired this bill, "a recent case in which a 17-year-old girl, who was seven months pregnant, paid a man $150 to beat her in an attempt to cause a miscarriage," because, I mean, my God, guys.  Don't get me wrong; I agree that there's something bad wrong there.  But what looks baddest wrong to me is the desperation the girl must have felt in the face of the choices she had.  If you want to do something, Utah lege, fix that.

But I'll take a step back from there, back from the passionate into the clinical, and simply say that a bill like this is ultimately futile.  It won't prevent abortions.  And when access to legal abortion is unavailable or difficult to obtain — Welcome to Utah, the lordy, do we hate abortion state — many women will still seek to terminate their pregnancies themselves.  Whatever else the Utah legislators imagine a bill like this will do if signed into law, it will also discourage women, perhaps injured or bleeding or suffering from infection or uterine rupture, or even just plain old scared, from seeking medical care after the fact.  And women will die, as they always have when safe access to abortion has been denied.

...

I care about all those things.  I do.  But I've also been using them, clicking, reading, and writing, as a way to put off something I must say.  Do you remember Fonzie from Happy Days?  Oh, come on, of course you do.  You're as old as I am.  Stop trying to pretend you still have more than 30,000 eggs.  I can hear your tubes creaking when you walk.

Anyway, Fonzie had a problem, and no, I am not talking about too much vagina.  No, it seems good sir Fonzarelli had a problem admitting he'd been wrong.

"I was..." he'd begin, when the necessity to apologize arose, and falter.  "W...wuh...wuhrr...wrruhhhhhhghgh."  Cue laugh track.  He'd try again.  "I was...wraaaaoggghghng."  Canned hilarity.  It was a gentler time, a more innocent time, a time in our cultural infancy when we didn't yet know what a douchebag Chachi'd turn out to be.

Like the Fonz, it's not always easy for me to admit when I've erred.  So bear with me while I try to get this out:

I was wuh...wrhguh...

I was...wrruhhhhhhghgh...

Okay, look, fine.  Disney was great.

The cruise, four nights to the Bahamas, gave us lots of time to visit and relax.  It also presented Charlie with numerous opportunities to meet the Disney characters, many of whom were utterly foreign to him but no less beloved for it.  I am fairly sure Charlie had no idea who Snow White was, but he sure couldn't wait to tell her about the RFID chip around his wrist for the kids' club:

 

Smooth, kid.  I bet this chick digs nerds.  Short nerds.

And although Charlie spent very little time in the kids' clubs on board, I was glad to know they were available in case I sparked a meaningful romance with Gopher or a Harlem Globetrotter or Charo or anybody and needed a little time alone.  The food was passable, though not inspired.  The staterooms were large.  The coffee was atrocious.  The weather was cold.  The time with my mom and my brother's family was wonderful.  And Charlie got to dress like a pirate.

Okay, maybe more like a preschooler-dressed-like-a-clown-dressed-like-a-pirate.  But don't tell him that.  He'd be so crestfallen to learn that he's not really suffering from debilitating scurvy, malaria, and the French pox.

I had a good time, but I don't think I'd take another Disney cruise.  Although it was very well done overall, I'm not sure cruises are really my thing.  For most of the time it was like being in a big hotel with mediocre food and waves outside the window.  I might have liked it better had there been just a touch more rum, sodomy, and the lash.  As expensive as the cruise was, I'm pretty sure they charge extra for that.

If I were going to spend the same amount of time and money again, I'd opt for more time at the parks, because I liked our two days in Orlando better.  It really is the happiest place on Earth, y'all, if you're five.  Luckily one of us was.  I couldn't take in any of it without being acutely aware of the wheels within wheels, the staggering amount of money and effort that go into every aspect of the Disney experience.  It didn't prevent me from enjoying it on its own merits, which are considerable, but it did add a layer of adult reservation.  It was jarring to watch an earnest film at Epcot about energy conservation, and then to step back out into Ignore That Petroleum Barrel Behind the Curtain Land without feeling a little cognitive whiplash, you know?

Charlie, on the other hand, loved it on the purest level.  Despite knowing, to the point of sternly reminding them, that the people walking around in chipmunk suits are, in fact, not real but people walking around in chipmunk suits, he still scampered eagerly to shake their hands.  Paws.  ...Handpaws.  And despite correcting almost each singing doll individually that it is not, after all, a small world — "Well!" he chortled repeatedly, even after my explanation of the conceit, "Actually!  It's kiiiind of a big one" — he loved every ride indiscriminately, from the lame to the sublame.  -Ime.  I mean sublime.  He bought into it ardently, so much so that whenever something mildly unexpected would happen, like a waiter bringing him a refill of milk unbidden, he'd carol, "It must be that old Disney magic!"

And what surprised me about the whole thing had nothing to do with Disney itself, nor with Charlie's predictable love for it.  It didn't even have to do with my own skepticism, which lifted upon arrival a little but not a lot.  What surprised me was the realization that none of my enjoyment of it had anything to do with me.  (Except riding the Segway.  That was all me, and all awesome.)  I thought a lot about what Kel said in the comments on my previous post:

Don't watch the characters, watch your son. I've never understood why people line their children up next to the characters and take their pictures with everyone looking at the camera, especially a child who is a bit scared of the interaction. Run behind the character and capture THE LOOK ON YOUR CHILD'S FACE as they approach the character. If they believe, that is the picture you want.

This applies to the whole experience.  What I thought about it all on my own behalf — complicated grown-up thoughts like Jesus, did they drip this coffee through Mowgli's loincloth? — existed on a level apart from what I thought about it on Charlie's.  And Charlie's was the one that mattered.  In the best possible sense, what I thought wasn't important.  After all, it should have been obvious: Disney World isn't for me.  Or if it is, it's for me to enjoy through my kid, who loved every — okay — magical moment.

Happiest place on Earth

Hey, thanks for the great Disney tips.  Thanks to you I'm going to be all up in FastPass's business, and I have acquired the Unofficial Guide several of you recommended, but I'm sorry to say that some of your pointers, like any of those that call for making arrangements in advance, are off the table because we're leaving in approximately 12 hours.  Yeah.  Hoo, boy, I sure do like to plan ahead.  You can't spell "hyperorganized" without...one or two letters that are also in my name!

Coincidence?  I think not.

I had to laugh when I imagined some of you recoiling at the very mention of Disney, let us now praise its great and terrible name.  Can I tell you that I have a few Disney issues myself?  It's not quite Lunchables territory, only because I don't think they ground up any domesticated dogs to make Goofy, although on second thought there is an awful lot about that vest-wearing sonofabitch that begs an explanation.  Gentlemen, I am waiting.  Yes, I'll stand by until you finish your Maxed Out Deep Dish Pizza with Pepperoni-Flavored Sausage. To the X-treme, my good sirs.

...Anyway, in general I'm leery of the commodification of fun; any marketing aimed directly at kids makes me go all slitty-eyed and snarly; and as a rule I mistrust any corporate entity with that great a reach.  Disney's kind of the category-killer on all three of those counts, and I've resisted it on principle.

But that principle — don't do anything that makes me feel more than 75% cynical — is, like most principles, subject to a savage beatdown when it wanders across the path of another, more badass conviction.  In this case, that conviction is to see my mother whenever I can.

A couple of weeks before Christmas, my brother sent e-mail saying he and my sister-in-law were giving their sons a Disney cruise as a gift, and also including my mother.  Did I want to get in on it?  And I gave the matter careful deliberation for all of fifteen seconds, thirteen of which were devoted to going, "Diiiiisney.  Huhhhh," before I said, "Yespleasethankyouwhendoweshoveoff?"  Because the real question wasn't actually whether I wanted to sidle up to Donald Duck and murmur, "Hello, sailor," but whether I wanted to spend time with my mom.  Recreational time, real leisure time, with none of the dispiriting conditions — my grandmother's increasing needs, Ben's exhausting limpet act, Charlie's inevitable, understandable boredom and eventual acting out — that prevail when we visit her.

I have been missing my mother.  Since she's my grandmother's primary caregiver — a nice tidy clinical term that keeps me from wanting to cry too much — she can't get away easily.  And when we make the trip, it's almost impossible for us to spend even half an hour together without someone requiring something: being held nonstop; being given an occupation at the pace an energetic five-year-old deserves; being discreetly followed around and prevented from leaving the stove on.  It probably started when Ben was born, when my mother had to leave here early because my aunt was in decline.  That feeling of Wait, I was hoping we could...  And it hasn't let up yet.

It extends beyond just me.  Since my dad died, since my aunt died, I'm aware every day of...oh, you know, just everything.  Time fleeting.  People mattering.  Connections being irreplaceable.  The only scant protection from the sadness of loss being a bulwark of happy memories.  All of it, and besides — the relevant part here — the really strong desire for my kids to know my mother.  It's not that she's their only living grandparent, although I think about that sometimes; it's that she's who she is and I want them to benefit from it as I have.  They already do.  I see the relationship Charlie's building with her and I think, More, more.  I hope he and Ben get more, lots more.

So that's why I've packed our suitcases, stocked up on Lunchables for the flight, and spent approximately $300,000 on this Disney vacation extravaganza.  Ben and Paul are staying home; Ben's too little, I think, to get anything out of the experience, and I suspect Paul's just as happy.  We'll all meet tomorrow in Orland, then board the ship on Sunday.  After a few days on the boat, it's back to Orlando for some time at various parks.  My brother kindly made all the arrangements, so if I sound a bit vague, it's because I'm not entirely sure what we're doing.  And I honestly don't care.  Food, lodging, rides, whatever.  Feed me $18 hot dogs, and charge me extra for the ketchup...double for ketchup with no mouse hairs in it.  Make me share a chest freezer with old Walter Elias himself.  Put me in a line to get in line to be in line for the line to the bathroom.  (What, the ladies' room isn't a ride?  It doesn't move or spin or play music or have happy little animatronic Pygmies singing me to my seat or anything?  I want a goddamn refund.  Happiest place on Earth, my ass.)  Doesn't matter.  As long as it involved some time with my mother, I'd even let Goofy hit me sideways.

Sometimes the followups just write themselves

A belated but sincere thank you.  All your comments a few weeks ago on my post about Charlie's incipient spiritual awakening were really helpful.  I read them with great interest, making note of the points I found most useful, and waited, like a panther tensed to spring, for Charlie to ask.

He didn't.  He threw over Ramona the Pest in favor of some Magic School Bus book or other — Frizzle's In UR Colon, Probin UR Sigmoid.  And gradually I relaxed, perceiving that the threat had receded.

So it was with some alarm that I heard Charlie say, as I tucked him in a few nights ago, "I said a prayer today at rest time."

"Ohhhhhh?" I answered.  My lips were saying Isn't that mildly interesting but my heart was saying OMG WTF.  (My aorta insisted long ago that all its co-workers learn Morse code for just such an emergency.)

"I prayed," he said, inserting a dramatic pause, because when you're five there's no other kind, "that my life would get better."

And it had been kind of a rough evening for Charlie, I guess.  I offered him some sympathy, some talk, and a hug.  And then — oh, like you could resist, either — I caaaasually asked him, "What's a prayer?"

"It's something you say when you ask God to do things for you," he answered with confidence.

"Oh.  Who's God?" I asked.  Some of you expressed surprise that a kid could get to age five without acquiring some sort of familiarity with God and Jesus, but, because we keep Charlie strictly confined to his room when we're not out picketing churches or tripping popes or humping Stonehenge or whatever it is we atheists do of a Sunday morning, I honestly can't think of any real brushes with religion he's had during his short life.  So I wondered what he thought.

"God is the one who's in charge of everything," he told me, again supremely assured.

"Ohhhhh," I said.  (I was doing a lot of Ohhhing, because Jesus Christ, kid seemed a little strong for this particular situation.)  Then I asked, of course, where he'd gotten his information.  He told me he'd read about God and praying in Ramona the Brave.  So, okay, religion: Apparently it's a theme that recurs throughout the Ramona oeuvre.  I was surprised; I didn't remember any of that from my careful reading...which was, now that I think about it, thirty years ago.  Fine.  I admit it.  The proof is right there.  I have no idea what my kid is reading these days.  Probably Rage of Angels. No, worse: Ayn Rand.

Anyway, we had a nice little talk about God — the one in charge of everything — and praying — asking him to smite your parents for making you set the table every...single...night.  I got to trot out my "some people believe," and although I felt well prepared thanks in large part to the advice and perspective you all shared, he didn't care much about the particulars, didn't wonder about details, and didn't ask any questions about what Paul and I believe.

In fact, I'm not at all sure he grasped even the basics.  Because as I was turning out the light and leaving the room, he said to me with expectant relish, "I sure hope God does what I command."

...

Now that you've kindly seen to the disposition of Charlie's everlasting soul, can you please throw me your best Disney World tips?  I'll post about this at length later this week; because today's Tuesday, a day no strangers raise my children, I'll say in brief that we're going, and I'm intimidated — Beezus gay, what kind of vacation needs a system? — and I need all the help I can get.

Carrier smidgen

OkaybutsoIwas downtown a couple of days ago with Ben, leaving the library after story time.  I stopped outside to get him into the Ergo carrier, a maneuver which, when performed solo, can, I admit, look alarming — like, drop-your-baby-on-his-head-on-the-cold-unforgiving-cobblestones alarming.  But it looks much more difficult than it is.  It's one I've done a thousand times, and one Ben is used to.  He can even help by holding his body steady, offering me his foot, or obligingly going all Möbius, just as the situation warrants.

That is all a long way of saying we got this, Ben and I.

So there we were, getting him holstered up on my back.  This is a move that entails putting one strap of the carrier over your shoulder, mounting the baby on your hip, threading one of his feet under that shoulder strap, oooooching him under your arm and around to your back, bringing the body of the carrier up under and over the baby's bottom and back, and finally bringing up the other shoulder strap.  In the commission of this act, the adult is bending over, dislocating any shoulder that's fool enough to get in the way, getting all yogini with it, and enjoying a rich chuckle at all the well-meaning squares shouting, "Oh, my God, stop!  That baby came with a spine!"

This move, spectacular in the absolute sense but not at all noteworthy in the relative sense given the population of our town, was made somewat more finicky that morning by the snow boots Ben was wearing, and I'm sure the way he was mounted — suspended out from my body, a placid human cantilever — looked odd to the uninitiated passerby.

One of these passersby stopped directly behind me.  Bent over as I was, I could see his feet.  He was right there, y'all, about six inches on the wrong side of the steal-your-wallet radius.  Closer.  It was really more like get-into-my-panel-van-and-help-me-find-my-puppy territory. 

I wasn't exactly worried, because it was broad daylight in front of the children's library and we babywearing breastfeeding cosleeping types have got each other's tattooed yoga'd backs.  But it was still too close, especially when I perceived that the owner of the feet was...helping. 

Thinking we were having trouble, he was trying to get Ben into the carrier.  "I'll just..." he said, and stuffed Ben's booted foot wherever he saw a hole.  Naturally, Ben protested; not only was his leg being jammed where it didn't belong, and where it probably hurt to go, it was being jammed there by someone he didn't know who was more than a little too close.

So Ben was freaking out, I was saying, "No, really, thanks, but we got it," and this guy, whose face I still hadn't seen, was continuing to help.  I managed, with some difficulty, to stabilize Ben enough in the carrier that I could turn and face my volunteer assistant, who turned out to be an older man, grinning, pleased with himself.  Like, Think nothing of it, screaming child and pissed-off lady!  All in a day's work!

And I was pissed, so I...thanked him.  And waited until he'd walked away, then took poor pretzeled Ben off my back entirely to comfort him.  And I shoved the Ergo in my bag, and I let Ben walk instead.

I'm still thinking about it two days later.  When a stranger moved in to handle my kid, I didn't tell him to stop.  And I don't know if I didn't because I knew he was trying to help and felt I should be grateful, at least, for his impulse, and polite, or if I wussed out, plain and simple.  I can't explain it.  I also can't quite imagine how I'd have handled it if the feet behind me had belonged to a woman, but then that might have been a different proposition entirely.  "A woman," Paul suggested, "would have asked if you needed help.  And would probably have known where his feet belonged."  A fair probability where we live.

I don't really have a point here except to say that if someone appears to be struggling to force her child into a precarious position, twisting his spinal column into a stout and useful midshipman's hitch, and endangering the integrity of his all-too-fragile skull, and you feel like getting hands-on know-nothing helpy, oh, my God, just don't.  Or at the very least, ask first.  Because if you just amble up and try to shove a kid's foot where it doesn't belong, a less polite person — or a much better parent — than I might just cram hers where, trust me, you don't want it.