Drive-in movies

C and I (and A, asleep in the back) went to the movies. This is huge, people.

A friend of ours from birth class mentioned that she had gone to the drive-in with her baby. I thought, "Oh my God, we have wasted so much freaking time not seeing movies."

The last movie I think C and I saw was the second Pirates movie, although that sounds wrong to me. We kept trying to see Cars but the world conspired against us seeing it.

We went to the drive-in, parked in the wrong lot and had to get a new (less than optimal) position for the movie, but A slept through most of Ratatouille and all of Pirates. And we stayed awake until 1:30AM watching these stupid films, which was even more amazing. We were so tired on the 4th, but boy, it was fun to see a movie. We should have discovered the drive-in earlier. Maybe we'll actually get to see the latest Harry Potter. Ratatouille is super, btw. Very sweet.

Oh, speaking of Harry, I know you're all re-reading, so I wanted to postulate. Does anyone else think Harry's scar might be the last horcrux? Is this just patently obvious to everyone?

Drywall dreck

Yesterday the drywall guy was a no-show. He was even a no-call.

Today he called at 7:30 to say he'd pick up the other guy (who is the guy he blamed the crappy drywall job on last week) at 10-ish and be by at 10:30 or 11.

At 11:43, the other guy calls and says he's leaving the beach right now and will be over soon.

He got here around 12:45.

He painted the bathroom (no, you can't dismantle my broom to use the pole for your roller, thanks for asking) then asked, "Is there anything else we can do or is this good?" Translation: are you going to keep asking me to fix this crap or are we done?

I said, "We'll take pictures once it's dry and email them to the landlord, and then he'll say."

The kicker? This guy blames the other guy for the crappy drywall job. Personally, I think you both suck because you both walked away from it looking like crap. And I'm thinking about posting the pictures somewhere to prove it, if they'll let me. So there.

On his way out, he asked if there was any other work we needed done. No! No! This crap has been going on since freaking May and I wouldn't ask you guys to do it if you were the only people on earth. I could have started my own drywall business by now.

Classes and drywall and more

I know we're on the verge of a holiday (how can it be July?).

Saturday I went to part 2 of a "how to get published" class so now I'm raring to go. Need to write, need to get things done, yup. I've got one story to polish and send out as soon as the latest Writer's Market gets here and two more stories to finish and send out. And then there's that damned novel that probably needs the first six chapters chopped off, but I have to gear myself up for that.

Sigh.

While I was at class, A and C went to swim class. C learned to submerge A, which is great, and A had a good time but looked for his mom, which warmed my little mommy heart.

I realize I haven't given a food update in a while. This is what he eats now: apples, apricots, bananas, carrots, sweet potatoes, peas, peaches, winter squash, plums, chicken, turkey (although the turkey veggie dinner is not his favorite), avocado, rice noodles, rice, lentils, O cereal, oatmeal, barley, raisins, yogurt, pears, and the latest, mozzarella cheese. He now claps after we introduce a food that he likes.

We think he can say "Mom" and "more" and I'm pretty sure he's added "banana" to his signing vocabulary. He just refuses to do any of it on cue so we could jump up and down and say, "Yay, he's doing it."

Drywall: the drywall is a mess. You can see the seams and the space behind the wall through the tape in one place. The drywall guy is supposedly coming to fix it today between 9:30 and 10AM...yes, it's about twenty minutes after that. At least it's not our house or our money that's paying for this crap.

Swimming update

For the first time today, A floated on his own. This is a huge deal. The other babies in class can't stand to back float, but A always has a fine old time. Our instructor took her hand away and for maybe 15-30 seconds, he floated on his own. Then he wriggled and started to go under, so she put her hand under his head again.

So he floated. Wow.

Whew.

Got an email in response to my critique saying that I have some valid points and that he's thinking of alternatives now. It was not the "oh you MORON" email I was fearing. So now I'm not wincing any time an email comes into the critique group folder in my inbox.

Vegas baby!

Oh, I completely spaced the biggest news. C has to go to Vegas for a work thing (I hesitate to call it a conference since it's more like a sci-fi con than any business conference type of event) and so we're going to go with him.

Yes, we're taking the baby to Vegas. We took him to Italy; we can take him anywhere. This will be just after A's first birthday. Vegas isn't my most favorite place in the universe but C is my most favorite person. A and I can take walks and spend time poolside.

Got no title

Got no topic. We're random here today.

It was Free Tuesday in Balboa Park today. A and I went to the free museums. We hadn't been to any of them before. Note to other non-sports people: having the museum be free doesn't make the sports museum more interesting. It is interesting to see the high schoolers who came over to intimidate me out of a table jump and run when they realized I was breastfeeding. That was downright funny.

I called in C for a sci-fi consult on the story. Unfortunately, he confirmed what I originally thought, which was that the story did stink. Instead of having his interest piqued by some of the sci-fi geek word details, which is what I was hoping I could praise the story for, C said the words were used incorrectly. Oy. I talked to Miss Julie about my critique conundrum, and she refocused my efforts, which was good. I sent him a critique this afternoon that only scraped the surface of what was wrong with the story but also included disclaimers stating that I am not a sci-fi person. It was a good compromise for me between being helpful and being honest.

I have surveyed ScriptFrenzy and realized I'm not going to make it. I'm at 6,000 words and I need to come up with another 14,000 by Saturday. It's not going to happen. I'm trying not to beat myself up about it.

Monday morning and where's my weekend?

This was a busy weekend, holy cow. Saturday we had Mr. L's birthday party, which was fun. Two of the babies are standing; A is still crawling fast when he needs to go somewhere. A missed his morning nap (more or less) so we drove around SD after L's party so he could sleep.

Sunday morning we hosted brunch for our friends who are moving away. We had waffles: lots and lots of waffles. Oh, and red beans and rice, which C and I will be eating for a week now. We went to our local coffee shop to get a carton of coffee (since not having coffee for brunch can be a mortal sin but we don't drink coffee) and our friendly barista loaned us one of their carafes, which was lovely. And the coffee was good according to the people who drank it, so that's great.

C triaged the massive number of dishes so that the kitchen wouldn't become kitty-licking-heaven while we were gone, and then we were out again to Miss M's birthday party (different Miss M than Thursday). This was a huge bash out on Coronado. This is the baby from our class born prematurely and boy howdy were they celebrating their very tough first year. I don't know how many people were there but it was probably at least fifty or so. They had a lot of things set up for the kids; A found a tiny inflatable ball pit and thought that was the best thing ever. Two of the other moms commented to me that A's very focused; he finds one thing he likes playing with and plays with it. This was at least true about the ball pit.

We walked to the beach and put A's feet in the Pacific for the first time. He loved it. We were lucky he can't walk yet or he would have walked right into the ocean. That kid loves water; we're going to have to explain water in a pool versus the water in the ocean.

I'm up and writing since nobody's awake, but I think I hear a baby. C and I are so tired; it was fun but we need a weekend to recover from our weekend.

Critique vs. criticism

I've got a boy in my lap who's tired but happy to be held, so we'll try typing around him and see what happens.

In my past life as a technical writer, I was subjected to criticism on my work, well, daily. I realized this week that it's inoculated me against criticism masquerading as critique. Critique is specific, kind, and meant to help. Criticism is vague and not helpful.

There's a writer in our group who I referred to earlier in this blog as a prat. After I read my story, he began his comments with, "Well, this first paragraph needs a lot of work." He said it with the tone of a contractor surveying fire damage, so sorry to tell you, it's worse than you think and it will cost a bundle. Weaker souls than me would have cried.

On reading the paragraph aloud, I realized I had an ambivalent pronoun (that other people in the group had already discussed), but as far as paragraphs go, the paragraph was pretty tight. My writing (not on a blog) is terse.

I turned to him and asked: "Could you be more specific?"

He hemmed and hawed. "Well, no, sorry. You've got four characters introduced here, and well, okay, four sentences, and this pronoun's confusing..." The other people in the group had a problem with the last sentence since it was delicately worded and had to read it twice, but I'm okay with that. The writers I love often make me read a sentence twice to figure it out and I'm happy to be in their company, or in their anteroom, anyway.

I looked at him, and not with my evil glare of death. This was my editorial, I'm happy to do anything you ask but if you can't ask I can't possibly help you look. It's pretty friendly. "Anything else?"

Nope. "Alrighty then." Then he went through a laundry list of things, one of which was actually good and the rest were kind of blah. And I realized: there is serious power in being able to say, is that all? Anything else? You've offered your harshest criticism and I'm not even blinking, in fact, I want more details about how much I suck and why. No? Okay, who else wants a go at me?

Anyway, after he read his story, I realized he's probably a sci-fi computer geek like many others I know who doesn't have social graces and is used to being the best writer in the room. I think he's only used to sharing his stories with adoring audiences. I have my own adoring audience too, but I also know they're not necessarily good for the unvarnished truth.

There were many aspects of his story that we asked clarifying questions about that he would answer with, "Do you want me to tell you or do you just want to read the story?" This is a response I've had, but I think he used it because he didn't fully understand what we were asking some of the time. There are questions about story and questions about technique, and sometimes you can answer a technique question with a story answer, but that doesn't help identify the technique issue.

He sent the story last night. Full disclosure: I read very little sci-fi on my own. I'll read anything that comes into this house, but past Dune and the Orwell/Huxley dystopia canon, there's not a lot of sci-fi on my own shelves. So maybe I'm not the audience. But the story doesn't actually seem to have a story. There's no character arc, the conflict was unbelievable and not that bad in terms of conflict, the "redemption" of who I can only guess is the protagonist is really silly, there's no come-uppance for the "villain" who I identified most with in the end anyway. Add in so many, many cliches and I don't know how to comment on this story.

Now I struggle with what to say in an email. He requested general feedback and no "pickys" whatever the hell a picky is. A typo, maybe? I read it again this morning to see if it made more sense and it didn't. I might call in a consult with my in-house sci-fi expert.

But the rest of the group was fabulous, supportive but insightful and kind. I'm looking at this email as part of training the sci-fi guy to be less "I am super writer, tremble before my insights!" and more like someone who gives good critique.

Birthday Party #1: The Divine Miss M

We went to our first official baby birthday party today. The birthday girl's birthday is still a couple weeks away, but she's moving and all of us SD moms were getting robbed of the joy of her birthday. So her mom threw a party during playdate.

There were eight babies there. It was chaos, babies strewn everywhere, crawling, chewing, and one running around. We had cupcakes (deliciously if accidentally almond flavored, yum) and munchie food and it was good.

I did have a couple WTF moments. First and primary example, the kid only got three presents and a card. It's a kid's birthday party. You need to bring a present or at least a card. There are only two types of parties where presents are required, showers and kid's birthday parties. One of the presents was hijacked by a husband who took the wrong car to work, but that's still a couple clueless wonders left. One person had the gall to say to the hostess: "I thought you wouldn't want a present since you're moving and you'd have to pack it." Beeeeeactch. How much room does a kid's book take up in a box?

Here's my other WTF moment: This bitchy person, who I have blogged about before as happy naked mom, left the place where we have swim lessons to go to another place for swim lessons. "It's cheaper and they keep the pool at 92°F!" I didn't go. I think the place we're in has logic and goals behind its lessons, the instructor is a gem, and the pool is 84°F, which isn't balmy but is more like what he'll actually encounter in pools. I didn't want a hothouse swimmer baby.

Today she asks me if I'm still having lessons at the old place. "Have they taught him anything new? Have they progressed any in what they're doing?" This ticked me off. The lessons are structured so that there's a repetition in every class that I know A likes, because he knows that after the welcome song comes the "kids in the pool" song, followed by "all around the cobbler's bench" and submersions, yadda yadda. He knows what to expect and while it varies from time to time in small ways, he's used to the routine.

But within the boundaries of repetition, there's room for each kid to do what he or she is able to do. So while my boy's doing six or more submersions in a class, the two-year-old who's scared of the water is still practicing putting his body in the water. And the instructors do a good job of not making it judgmental or competitive, which is honestly refreshing after you've had any conversation with a baby scorekeeper: "Is your son walking yet? My son was walking at ten months. Is he talking? My son recited Henry V's St. Crispen's Day speech at his first birthday party." Bleack.

But I digress.

I told this mom that since A had improved, they were giving him more complicated things to do but that it was same as it ever was, based on the ability level of the individual kids. She doesn't like the new place because (I kid you not) "the pool is 92°." Okay..................

But the WTFs were few and far between. It was the first time all the moms from birth class were together since our reunion in November. The one baby born prematurely looks great (her party's Sunday). I talked to moms with bigger hearts than mine who are adopting babies from Africa soon. I had a cupcake. I took pictures. The birthday girl's dad came home and I only wish I'd gotten a picture of him entering his completely trashed living room and scanning the eight babies that were there. He was goggle-eyed.

Coming soon: a post on my read and critique group, although I can't right now because I read a story from a person in the group and it wasn't good. It just...wasn't...good. This person had some mildly snarky commentary for me on my story so...Oh, next post, I promise.

I am a super writer.

Right now, I think the biggest compliment you can get in a read and critique group is that they forgot they were supposed to be critiquing and were just waiting to see what happened next. But this might be because this was the compliment I got tonight at read and critique group.

It's so nice to eat a tart without having to make sure my wee little one is amused, or watching to make sure he doesn't choke, or trying to make sure he's not eating something disgusting like the grime-covered high chair strap or the edge of the table. Relaxing used to be the spa in Hawaii. Now it's eating a tart.

Wednesday blahs

I've been up since four AM so I'm probably cranky. The drywall saga is still on-going. No drywall guy yesterday, although he came by after we'd gone out (and called his partner to mention that the drywall wasn't done yet) and left a melodramatic note saying he'd be back and stay for as long as it takes to finish it. Whatever. I know what he's got left to do (install drywall, tape and texture, plus paint) and there's no way to do it in one day.

Monday we had swim class and it was super, just one other kid (18 months old) and us. It was bilingual all-star swim class. We did a lot of submersions where we let the babies swim on their own for a couple seconds. With the goggles on, I can see that A's got his mouth closed underwater and his eyes open. He's started trying to jump off the wall on a 1-2-3 count, which is neat.

We also do what we call "balloon faces" where we're trying to get the kids to hold their breath. A hasn't really wanted to do this, but when I showed him that I could make a balloon face and then put half of my face in the water, he perked up like, "Really? Why didn't you mention this was relevant? I thought you were just batty!" and started doing balloon faces. He's funny. Don't bother him with new information unless it's relevant, cha chas.

I've got a writing group meeting tonight, which means I spent the last hour writing something so I wouldn't look like a big goober with nothing to have to share. I'm not sure what the critique value will be on something scribbled for the purpose of not looking like a goober, but that's okay. I'm showing up. I'm way behind on ScriptFrenzy but I am not throwing in the towel yet.

Two more things

1. The other day, I meant to write about how super Mistah C is and I didn't. But he's super. He's just amazing and I'm so grateful to have him in my life. I'm just so pleased A has such a wonderful role model; it will make raising a boy a lot easier than if I'd married a sexist pig dog.
2. A has added another baby sign to his repertoire, more. In A's version, he raises two fists parallel to each other. I filmed him doing it while eating Trader Joe's Os and it's up on YouTube for your enjoyment.
   

Father's Day

We've had a busy week. We're currently (still) in the flux of drywall installation. I'm partially convinced our drywall guy is on meth, but he may also just be incredibly flaky. He seems to do good work, so maybe it's early in his addiction cycle. (This thought occurred to me while I gave him unsupervised access to our house, so this may just be my insidious paranoia. Nothing was missing, so let's assume he's just flaky.)

So the toilet and sink are in the garage, the bathroom has insulation and copper green, and now all it needs is drywall and paint.

A had swimming last week, which was super although I was late. We left the house early to avoid entanglement with the drywall guy, which meant I realized in OB that I didn't have the swim bag. Oops. Home and back again in record time and we made it into the pool during the welcome song. A's doing great in swim class. After swim class, one of the other mommies and I rode the Giant Dipper, which was super great fun. I haven't been on a roller coaster since, oh, Space Mountain before we had A.

It was Father's Day and that was mellow and low-key. A's been having sleeping troubles so there wasn't much sleeping in for C. But we had a lovely day nevertheless. A's sleeping troubles are currently attributed to:

• Teething - that sixth tooth is bulging out of his gum
• Growth spurt - some of his borderline jammies are verging into too tight
  
• Learning - he's had a couple, non-duplicable standing incidents
  

But in the end, it doesn't matter since we're not getting any sleep. So a lot of Father's Day was spent driving in the car so A would sleep.

We have a bonus swim class today that we're making up from Italy. I had a class myself this weekend on queries for articles and short works, so now I have to go get published somewhere. This week is birthday party week: Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday.

Superduper Mister C

Right now, the drywall guys are banging away in the powder room, removing two walls' worth of drywall and insulation. A's in the office with me, coughing his poor little head off. He's got a cold and didn't sleep well last night. He's still got that darned sixth tooth bulging through his gum but it actually hasn't come through yet. So he's a little cranky. He didn't have any good naps yesterday and he's only had a tiny one (between the gardeners and the drywall guys) today.

He's so tired. I would write more but he's just crawled across the room to me to be picked up and cuddled. So off we go for a diaper change, a feed, and maybe (cross your fingers) a nap.

Sandbox!

We got a sandbox from the consignment baby store yesterday. I washed it this morning and once it's dry , we'll fill it up with sand and see how it goes. I've spent the last weekend and this week cleaning up the balcony/patio outside our bedroom. We figure we'll put the sandbox up there. The sandbox has a lid, but it's always best to take whatever precautions you can against the neighborhood cats with a sandbox, don't you think?

Swimming on Friday was super. We're now putting on goggles to see what they're doing underwater. A keeps his eyes and mouth closed and flaps his arms. We thought the two-year-old in class might actually go underwater this week, but no dice. I think continuous swim classes are a good thing, or continuous access to water, at least. We got him a little surf shirt at Target so that he can go in our pool once it gets warmer.

Blond and biting

In the last few days, many different people have commented to me on how blond A looks, including but not limited to Miss Julie, the other playgroup moms, and everyone at the dentist's (where I finished my cleaning with A sitting on my belly, staring into my mouth in fascination--he did a happy 45 minutes in the stroller before deciding he needed some attention). He still doesn't have much hair, but his latest hairs do seem blonder.

I'm currently styling myself as a strawberry blond, which might make people who don't know us more inclined to think he's blond, but there are enough people who've commented who know my hair color has more to do with chemicals and no relation to A's hair color. C was blond as a child and my brother's strikingly blond, so there are some possible genetics for blond. Oh my. I spent my childhood in envy of my blond haired, blue eyed brother and now I might be the mother of a blond haired, blue eyed boy. Scary.

Also scary: A got bit at playgroup yesterday by a girl three weeks older than him. They all mouth each other from time to time, but all of a sudden, chomp, there she clamped down on his arm and little fat wrist with her four teeth. Ouch. She didn't break the skin, but he's still got a red mark today. He was surprised, then howled. Her mother was horrified and embarrassed. I reassured her that he was fine after making sure she didn't break the skin. I don't know why that was the dealbreaker for me, but as long as she didn't break his skin (and grabbed her child and kept a close eye on her after that), I wasn't in terrible lioness mother mode.

Today's agenda: swimming. He's currently napping so I'm trying to figure out if I can get a shower in before class. That may not happen. Sigh.

Eating and learning

That's what we're doing here. A is up to three meals a day and boy howdy does he like O cereal. He's cruising around everywhere but hasn't gotten to the standing alone stage yet.

What have we done? We got a baby gate installed at the top of the stairs, which makes everyone feel better. We hosted playdate here last week and everyone admired the baby gate. All the babies want to hang on the bars of the baby gate, which makes everyone nervous. A and I were noticed for signing; I made the "nurse" sign at him from across the room and he came to me to eat. I didn't think this was that big a deal, but the other mommies noticed so it must be.

We had swimming on Friday. A rocks. We practiced backfloating and he is the king of the back float. He's getting really good at paddling and kicking. We got to meet our swim class instructor's mother, which was nice since our instructor's so sweet. "She's been like that since preschool. She met everyone at the door and greeted everyone as they came in."

Now if we could get him to stop grinding his teeth together...

Swimming breakthrough

In swim class, we give the kids a one-two-three count before we do anything like jumping in the pool or going under water. Today, I was jumping A off the "island" in the middle of the pool back into the water. On three, he lit up and splashed his hands and kicked. He knew he was going back into the water and he was happy about it. (And maybe, just maybe, he understood that he needed to paddle his hands and kick?)

He was great at kicking and paddling today. He floats on his back really well; I'm holding him up with three fingers behind his head. I tried to take my fingers away today (gently, tentatively, under the instructor's supervision with big eyes) and his head sunk. So he's not quite ready to solo back float, but he's not crying like the other babies.

Nannies

We live in sunny San Diego here. A and I went to the Zoo with one of our mom friends this morning, and I have to address the nanny issue.

I first noticed this when we went to the La Jolla library. La Jolla is a swanky place, beautiful beaches, lots of money, mansions everywhere. I was hanging out in the library with A and overheard a conversation. Two women were sitting with two kids reading books to them. The kids were maybe three or four(?). I can't tell until A's been that age and then I still can't tell.

Anyway, these two women were hired caretakers, one was an au pair and one was a nanny. They had a lovely cheerful chat about where they spend time with the kids and where the kids live.

So then I started wondering how many other nanny pairs I'm strolling by with A in my stroller. Now that I've started looking, I think it's more than I originally thought in my altruistic, pluralist way. I'm keen on adoption, blended families, biracial blends, and all the other wonderful manifestations of society. But the woman at the zoo pushing a toddler I saw today--they weren't related. No way. And I hate making the judgment because I'm making it on appearance (skin color and disparity of consumer goods). No mom who's pushing a kid dressed in Juicy Couture in a Bugaboo Chameleon would be seen in Walmart sweats with knock-off Keds sneakers.

I know; maybe it's Grandma. Maybe.

Changing after swim class one day, one of my least favorite moms had a wailing infant. Sobbing, yelling, tears. Sound really reverberates off the damn tile in there. If you don't have kids and are wondering if parenting inoculates you to the sound of babies crying, wonder no more: it doesn't. If the parent's working on it, then I feel more empathy since I've been there, done that, but if the parent is blithely letting the child cry, then I'm ready to jump down their throat and say, "Why have the child if you weren't going to help him?"

There's a swim class for older ladies at the same time as our class, so there's an older woman sitting next to me. She says to me, "I hate hearing babies cry," and I nod as agreeably as I can while getting dressed. She goes over and talks to the mom.

This mom is one of my least favorite moms. (Said it once before but it bears repeating.) This older woman tried to coo to the baby to get him to stop and this mom basically said can it, Grandma, he doesn't like strangers. Lady, he doesn't look like he likes you. (I have never seen this child not screaming.) One of the other moms suggested that maybe he was hungry. Oh yes, she says, he is. He's on a new feeding schedule and he has to wait another two hours to eat, plus a new nap schedule so he has to stay awake.

This might make sense, you formula-feeding parents out there are saying. No, he's breastfed, and they eat when they want to. Also, swim class is like my bankable nap of the week. If I had to bet all the money in my pockets to say when during the week A would be taking a nap, I'd tell you right after swim class, after he eats. This new schedule sounds like the road to insanity.

The older woman sits down next to me and tells me again how much she doesn't like to hear babies crying. I agree. She looks over at A, who is his sweet darling observant self, and she says how beautiful he is, how sweet. I thank her.

She tells me she never let her babies cry. I tell her I try not to let mine cry like that. I ask her how many children she has. She explains that she raised five children, all grown now. She wasn't their mother, but she raised them. She did a good job; they are all sweet, smart, and still remember her.

I tell her that's wonderful, but I'm thinking how sad, they still remember you and that's the marker of a good job? She tells me that she has no children now and she wants to have new children to look after, that she likes having nice children to look after.

And I think, oh, have I been conducting a job interview for a nanny without knowing it?

So I try to not-too-obviously state that looking after children is quite a job and I consider myself so lucky to be looking after my own son. And she agrees and leaves.

I don't know why I didn't expect to see that many nannies; I just didn't expect to see them in the locker room. Or the zoo.