Men, Women, and Unborn Baby Luaus

We recently were invited to a Hawaiian-themed couples baby shower. One afternoon while we were running errands, I coerced Stephen into accompanying me to Target to buy the baby gift.

We printed the gift registry from the little kiosk and set off for the baby section. Stephen glanced at the rows of baby paraphernalia. "How much are you planning to spend on this kid?"

I named the amount, and justified it by emphasizing the importance of the relationship that I have with the baby's maternal grandmother. Besides, my mom had agreed to go in for half.

"Okay," said Stephen, and skimmed the pages of the registry. "That means that we can get the Bumbo Baby Sitter Blue...and a Boppy slipcover. Oh, and one pack of assorted wash cloths. That will be just the right amount."

"No, no," I tried to explain. "We want to pick one semi-large gift to set the theme, but we want to have enough money left to buy a few other items that relate to the theme. Those things you said don't have anything to do with each other."

Stephen tried to look patient and understanding as it dawned on him that this would be no quick in-and-out trip. I prowled up and down the baby aisles in search of inspiration. My initial idea was a bath-themed gift, with a baby tub full of shampoos, lotions, and towels. But washcloths and shampoo were the only thing on the registry, and I wasn't going to go out on a limb for the most expensive part of the gift.

After much agonizing, I decided to go with a diaper-themed gift. We bought diapers and wipes, and a travel changing pad, some diaper rash cream, baby powder, and Purel hand sanitizer.

Stephen mentally totaled the items in our basket. "So, we're set, right? A basket full of themed baby stuff. Now we can get a big gift bag and go?"

"No, no," I contradicted, and proceeded to instruct him in phase two of the gift buying: Themed baby stuff is a good gift. But good is not good enough- we want to give the best gift. And the line between good and best is all in the presentation. "We need to find a cute container that fits our theme that we can put all this stuff in."

Stephen eyed the pile of diaper accessories. "Maybe a laundry basket?"

"You can't put diapers in a laundry basket!" Stephen knows my paranoia about mixing clean and dirty.

"Well, they're unused diapers in a brand new basket," he reasoned.

I was off to investigate what seemed like the only logical possibility for a container in keeping with my theme: a trash can. Voila! There was a perfect one, in a lovely hue of baby green, and for a very reasonable price. Stephen was skeptical, but willing to go along with anything at this point.

I got home, played with my ribbons and scissors and clear cellophane, and even Stephen had to admire my final product:

When Are We Having a Baby?

The Baby Question seems to have come up a lot lately, since we are young (but not too young) and have now managed to stay married for two years, it seems like the natural next step in most people's minds. Certain members of my family are now especially interested in this question as they now have a financial stake in the answer (ahem, ahem, Watsons...).

I've been pondering the Question some myself, and I feel very strong pulls in contradicting directions. One one hand, I'd like to wait. Although I never thought I'd think this way, I actually am enjoying my full-time job and I don't feel ready to give it up, which I would want to do if we had a baby. I feel like I'm just hitting stride as a fourth grade teacher, and I hate the idea of quitting just as I've learned how to do my job well. Also, my ambitions at LO have not even come close to running their course. I'd like to gain enough clout there so that I can stay involved in committees and decision making even after I've gone to working part time.

Also, as you know from previous posts, we're in major limbo from Stephen's perspective, and we're looking seriously at the idea of him going back to school for a couple of years. It seems like a less-than-responsible decision to choose to have a baby at a time when neither one of us could devote our time to bread-winning OR staying home with Junior. It would be possible, but less than ideal.

On the other hand, I love the idea of having a baby. Many of my other young married friends are thinking about getting pregnant or have already had babies, and I hate missing out on the bandwagon. I'd like it if I had kids at the same time as my friends, so we could do play dates and our kids could be in the same school grade and could grow up and marry each other. I love hanging out with my little nieces and nephews, and I enjoy the babies of my friends. I've really had Baby Fever since I was about thirteen, and now that I'm good and twenty-five it seems like surely I've waited long enough. Not to mention, I would like four kids, and unless I can be really efficient and have twins, I need to get going or I'll be too old for the last one.

On top of all of my mental confusion, there is the very inconvenient fact that often bodies don't cooperate with the deadlines that are set for them. Some people get pregnant before they mean to. Some people don't get pregnant right away, even if it is time according to The Plan. So even if I had a set date in mind, there's no guarantee.

So...here is your answer: I DON'T KNOW. I'll tell you when the test is positive, and nothing before then. No speculating!

Speaking from No Experience

Normally blog posts are a place where I share my opinion about a subject. But in this case, I am not sure what my opinion is. Three times in about ten days, I have witnessed this strange phenomenon that I honestly do not understand. In my ignorance, I think it's weird, but I seek enlightenment.

As I have mentioned in various contexts before, I am a frequent patron of public restrooms. Here is what I have seen:

1. Grandma and grandson (maybe age 8?) in the same stall in the Ladies' Room at a restaurant. Based on the way Grandma's espadrilles are sticking out from under the stall door, I can tell she is on her knees facing the toilet.
2. Mom and son (again...age 8? 9?) emerge from the same stall. This was in the women's restroom of my church-owned-and-operated exercise facility.
3. I was waiting outside the women's room (a one-holer, as my dad would call it) at Camille's Sidewalk Cafe. A man and his son (age 7?) emerge from the bathroom. The Dad apologized to me and the rest of the ladies-in-waiting in the hallway as he walked away.


Okay. I get that a) little bitty boys need help going potty, and it's easier for Mom to help Junior in the ladies' room than the men's; b) Mom can't abandon her kids outside while she answers nature's call; and c) there is some concern about sending even independently potty-ing young boys into men's restrooms alone due to the risk of pervs and predators.

But it also seems to me that at some age it's weird for boys to be in the girls' room, and especially weird for boys to be in the same stall with Mom (or Grandma, ugh!), no matter which one needs the relief.

Sorry if the potty talk is awkward, but I'm really curious. I hope this can be less a conversation about bathroom habits and more about child safety and parent/child boundaries. So, for those of you who have opinions about either of those issues, what are your thoughts?

All Aboard the Train of Thought

Today I overheard a teacher giving a stern reminder to her class. "...you should all know what to do when you come into this classroom. The rules are the same whether Mrs. X is in the room or not." Now, Mrs. X was the one speaking, and it struck me as odd to hear her refer to herself in the third person. I don't know why it caught my attention today, as this practice is common among teachers. It's sort of like the "Royal We," which implies that regular personal pronouns do not carry enough clout to represent our identity in a sentence.

My mind skipped ahead a few steps to the other group of people who almost always refer to themselves in the third person: parents.
"Junior, come to Mommy..."
"Junior, you must obey Mommy."
"Junior, please don't pull on Mommy's earrings."
I thought of these examples in a slightly mocking tone of thought, until I realized that I myself fell in this category. Flashbacks to my own words came back with embarassing clarity:
"Callie, please don't jump on Mommy's legs when she's wearing hose."
"Phoebe, you may not jump on the table and eat Mommy's food."

Ahem, so anyway...on a related subject, I have been wondering about baby talk. Does anyone NOT use it? I'm listening to a book on tape that involves a baby, and the reader always uses a very high-pitched, baby-talk voice whenever she reads dialogue that is directed at the baby. It's kind of annoying. But I think this is actually how people talk to babies. Why are we so compelled to do that?

In theory, I believe in helping babies develop good language habits by speaking to them in intelligent sentences from their earliest days. I plan to read Pride and Prejudice aloud to my own baby (at least the firstborn) before he is a year old, and I hope that his first sounds are actually English phonograms. But just last week, when I got to hold my new almost-nephew, I find my own voice rising several octaves and I hear myself asking questions over and over, as if Owen will actually answer: "Are you a hungry boy? Are you hungry? Are you?" It seems that baby-talking stems from some deep-seated, primal instinct that we all posess. I wonder if people speak baby talk in other languages??

If any faithful readers or lurkers have insight into this phenomenon, please post a comment for Lindsey.

Hey, Kid, Want to Watch Yourself Be Born?

I have discovered, to my surprise, that I have mixed feelings about birth videos. As an impressionable teenager, I heard a very cool young mom discussing the video of her giving birth to her daughter, saying that she liked to watch it and laugh at herself. The image of THAT pretty much turned me off to the idea. My opinion wasn't really changed much in college, when I watched A Baby Story religously. It was daily visual confirmation that birth is the most unflattering thing in the world that a woman can participate in, and I make a very intentional effort to avoid contributing to permanent records of me looking gross (that is why the family albums from the years 1994-2000 have mysteriously disappeared from my parents' house).

But I recently talked to an adult colleague of mine who made me think twice about the value of birth videos. She said that her family watches the videos from her son's birth every year on his birthday and it is special to him to see how happy everyone was that he came into the world. I decided that a video of that sort might be a special memento.

The last time I had talked about this was with my friend Abbey, who is now weeks away from giving birth to Owen. I felt bad because it turned out that the topic of birth videos was a topic of disagreement between her and her husband. On the ride home from Abbey's house, I discovered that it was a topic of disagreement between me and my husband as well. I believe that both Stephen and Josh were opposed because men in general are squeamish about the miracle of birth. But it wasn't a hill I wanted to die on at that moment, so I decided to let the topic drop.

That was early this year, and what got me thinking about it again is that I watched an interview with Terri Erwin on 20/20 last night. The show featured clips of her two birth videos, with Steve delivering their kids. I decided that my official stance on birthing videos is favorable, but with some very important boundaries:
1. The Birth Video (BV) will never be made available to be shown, in whole or in part, on Barbara Walters' show.
2. The BV will document the early stages of labor (especially if I end up looking as cute as Annie Banks MacKenzie in Father of the Bride Part II in my hospital gown) but will pause as soon as my grimaces become too disturbing. Recording will commence again as the nurse lays a clean baby into my arms, capturing Stephen's proud smile and my own tired but happy tears.
3. The BV will contain no footage that involves yelling
4. The BV will contain no footage that involves blood
5. The BV will contain no footage that involves stirrups or the use thereof
6. The BV will contain no footage of dialogue involving grisly medical words like placenta and worse
7. The BV will contain an interview in which the doctor expresses amazement at my bravery and strength

I realize that most hospitals don't allow video cameras in the delivery room anyway for legal reasons, but I am curious to hear other people's opinions anyway.

A Baby Blog of My Own

I used to think that I obsessed about babies more than any girl close to my age. Now karend is my friend and I think that I have met my match. She has posted about babies at least twice in the last couple of months, and so, not to be outdone, I have decided to post a baby blog too.

I think that maybe almost half of my fascination with babies is the idea of getting to name a real live human being. I thought up my first baby names when I was in elementary school. I decided that I wanted twelve children because I had twelve names that I loved. When I was in college, my roommate Jessica and I would spend hours playing the "Baby Name Game," which consisted of discussing our favorite baby names and writing them out (first, middle, and the favorite last name of the hour) on my giant dry-erase marker board.

Jessica and I decided that the hours we spent playing the Baby Name Game (in addition to countless hits on websites like babynamer.com) made us something like experts. We decided that we'd grow up and hold seminars to help parents make wise choices in naming their children. In these seminars, we would share wisdom such as
-if your last name begins with a short vowel sound, you should choose a name that ends in a consonant sound to keep the two names distinct. A name like "Anna Edwards" would smush together.
-avoid putting the accent syllables next to each other. "Felipe Carson" has no flow. This is also why people with one-syllable last names should choose longer first names. "Jane Grant" is choppy.
-alliteration is great in poetry, but it is silly in a name. People with matching-letter first names and last names (like "Benjamin Barry") sound like movie characters. That is also why a name like "Anna Nicole" is such a mouthful. Too many N's! Similarly, beware of repeating letter combinations. That's why I scrapped my favorite boy middle name (Harrison) when I married a Watson. One "son" in a name was enough.

If you would like more of my tips, you'll have to wait for the book. Meanwhile, I'm going to wrap up this post. There are so many other directions I could go with this topic, but I'll save some for later. (You're welcome, Clint, you Lurker.)

PS- Don't be offended if your name (or your child's name) breaks one of my rules. I'm sure you or your child are a beautiful person anyway. Plus, there are all kinds of people who succeed despite an unfortunate name. Take Zig Ziglar, for instance.