Life in the Slow Lane

Granny Cam. I've decided I need a granny cam. Most of the world knows them as nanny cams, but it's not the nanny I'm worried about. And before CutieBoyBaby's wonderful grandmothers take offense, it isn't the grandmothers I'm worried about either. Each Wednesday my son goes to Weight Watchers and takes his nanny along. Maybe it is the other way around, but you would never know from the stories that come out of it. For it isn't only CutieBoyBaby and his nanny that go to Weight Watchers. Three of my co-workers meet them there. Including my boss. Four women and a baby. Let me clarify. Four women at the "Grandbabies!" stage of life and a baby. Like I said, I want a granny cam. It is not that I don't hear about things that happen during CutieBoyBaby's time at Weight Watchers, it is that I do hear stories. One day I hear about the not-yet-granny entertaining CutieBoyBaby with her glasses which he promptly gagged himself with. She took it away an...

Sometimes I am overwhelmed by the heavy responsibility of these first few, formative months. For instance: a) In this short time before my child becomes verbal, I must settle on the best way to read each of the children's books destined for endless repetition. If the dog in the story barks, what should it sound like? If there are words to a song, but no notes provided, what tune do I borrow? Because once my audience gains the ability to protest, I am stuck to one method per story and one method only. b) Unlearning bad habits. I have frequently mused that young adulthood is the time to learn all sorts of bad habits not permitted while under your parents' roof that then must be unlearned before your children are old enough to mimic. Fortunately, I didn't pick up smoking, chewing, or going with girls who do, but I've begun to use horrendous amounts of cluttering... It's like I um... sort of put in words that are kind of unnecessary. And it is, you know, really sloppy ...

S.O.S. and I might need more sleep. As we were parking our car at the post office the other day, a man carrying a huge diaper box crossed in front of us. I'm not proud of this fact, but I started thinking how I could distract the man long enough to put my address in the "to" spot. Or maybe after he left the box to be mailed I could sneak behind the counter and change the address. I hadn't really come up with a good way to make sure the box was mailed to me, but it turns out S.O.S. was brainstorming on his own. "Ok," he said, "I'll take him out with the car and you grab the box." The thing is... if we had been getting more sleep, we probably would have realized just how unlikely it was that the box was still full of diapers.

I have now been a parent for twelve weeks. This means that I am only moderately less certain of how to raise fabulously well-adjusted and attractively well-behaved children as I was thirteen weeks ago. I have also now been a working mother for five weeks. I work from home three days a week and am in the office the other two. I will let you in on a few secrets: with 473 square feet of living space for two adults, a baby, a home office, and a mostly dead plant, everything but the plant and baby had better be multitasking. The other day S.O.S. and I had company over for dinner and as I was pulling the pasta off of our stove (doubling as counter-top), I quietly asked S.O.S. if he thought we should clear off the dining table so our guests could eat there rather than using barstools as TV tables. He whispered back that if we had wanted our guests to feel welcome and comfortable, they probably should not be witness to the conversion of diaper changing table to dining table. Oops. The bar s...

One day, in mid-pregnancy, S.O.S. and I were out for a drive and a large truck bearing the picture of a bag of Sun Chips turned onto the street in front of us. I yelled "Follow that truck!" Because right in that moment, there was nothing that sounded as delicious as eating an entire bag of Sun Chips. Now for those of you who know me, this might sound slightly out of character. S.O.S. thought so, too. "Really?!?" "No, I mean, yes. I mean, no. If we did go buy Sun Chips, then the advertising on that truck will have worked, and that would make me feel like I had given in." But three minutes later we were pulling into the Vons parking lot, at my request, to find some Sun Chips. S.O.S. drove the car around the parking lot while I ran in, went straight to the chips aisle, and found a bag of temptation itself. *CRINKLE, CRINKLE* The noise of the bag nearly made me jump. What was wrong with it? Some new-fangled packaging that was biodegradable... and extra noi...

I think I can tell you almost the precise hour when my Newbaby grew up. I knew it was coming based on a number of factors: his increased hunger, the famous "six week" spurt mentioned in all of the baby development calenders, and the inevitable truth that a Newbaby doesn't stay new for forever. His growth has actually been the topic of one of the pieces of advice most shared with me: Don't blink! The thinking, of course, is that if I blink I will completely miss him growing up because it really does happen that fast. And so it was that in the middle of the night Friday, my small baby got big. Why can I pinpoint this so accurately? When I put little T down for the night, he was happily ensconced in a diaper size "N". Three hours later when I needed to change him, the clean size "N" diaper wouldn't fit. And to think! I missed watching him grow because I was following one of the other most-frequently shared bits of advice: Sleep when baby sleep...

I am turning this blog into a food blog for just a bit to help out all of my readers who fell in love in Northeastern Brazil. That is... fell in love with tapiocas in Northeastern Brazil. For those of my readers who have not had the gastronomic pleasure of eating a hot tapioca on a crowded street corner, let me first inform you that a tapioca is not a pudding. Nor is a tapioca the pearls you find at the bottom of your boba tea. Imagine an omelet-type food only without eggs. To the uninitiated it may sound weird and not worth the effort of mustering up enough Portuguese to place your order, but you would be wrong. Please don't be offended by that. The other reason I am turning this blog into a food blog for a moment is because my husband, also known to readers as my S.O.S. (Significant Other, Sweetheart) is too excited by his culinary success to bother with sitting down to inform the world about this important breakthrough. S.O.S. has, since he first tasted tapioca goodness on th...