Things I'm looking forward to

Rediscovering my pre-pregnancy wardrobe.
Seeing my feet.
Pedicure(s).
Beer, wine, mixed drinks.
Not wearing Sea Bands as my major fashion accessory.
Not hearing Mr. Savant making snarky comments about our lack of a sex life.
Not waddling.
Eating without first having to consider whether a food will make me nauseous and/or vomit.
Having things to talk about other than how miserable I feel.
No longer fending off "Did you have the baby yet?" emails, Facebook posts, texts and phone calls.

You have fun with that.

I just don't get "attachment parenting." To me it seems more like "martyr parenting;" on-demand (breast)feeding, baby-wearing, cloth-diapering, co-sleeping ... why do people put themselves through this? Because a "brand name" doctor said so? Doesn't this "sacrifice yourself, your life and your sanity in the name of someone else" throw up some kind of red flag in the common sense region of your brain?

It does for me. But maybe that's because I struggle every day with striking a balance between my own preservation of self and giving away much too much of my time and energy to please others. And in some way, I do recognize the pattern and the 'logic' behind the attachment parenting philosophy. And it doesn't surprise me that so many women are attracted to it. Because, to me, the underlying theory is something like "If I give everything of myself whenever it's asked for, if I do everything to please and placate this person, then they will love me forever."

I've tried that. Granted, within adult relationships, but still. It didn't work then. It wasn't love. It wasn't respect. It wasn't any of those things that real love is -- it was slavery and it was sheer hell. Why, for fuck's sake, would I want to raise a child whose expectations are that adults' purpose in life is to cater to their every whim?

And then to hear the complaints: Baby's not eating/sleeping well. Breastfeeding isn't nirvana, neither parent is sleeping well, baby cries and wails no matter what; no matter what I do, it's never enough. And then, of course, comes the inevitable monetizing of these problems. Birth Doulas and postpartem doulas and lactation consultants and all these other "professionals" making you feel as though, if you don't get it just right, your kid is going to hate you. Well, guess what? You set yourselves up for this! I really don't feel badly for you. You have fun with that.

It doesn't take a lot of sense to realize that your kid is going to be "attached" to you regardless. You're fulfilling their needs one way or the other, and co-sleeping and baby-wearing aren't going to make that attachment any stronger, in my opinion. And who wants a kid who can't cope with disappointment? Who can't entertain themselves or deal with delayed gratification?

I could go on and on about how much this bothers me. But I think I'll just have to try to let it go ... because, with my luck, I'll have a kid who actually thrives on this "attachment parenting" bullshit and I'll be forced to eat every single word.

Winter of Discontent

I can't watch Mad Men right now. We downloaded (cough*stole from the Internet*cough) the entire first season intending to make our way through the series and ... it's too close. The isolation, the 'whatever you say, Dear,' the anxiety and the malaise; the problem that has no name.

""The problem lay buried, unspoken, for many years in the minds of American women. It was a strange stirring, a sense of dissatisfaction, a yearning [that is, a longing] that women suffered in the middle of the 20th century in the United States. Each suburban wife struggled with it alone. As she made the beds, shopped for groceries … she was afraid to ask even of herself the silent question — 'Is this all?"" Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique.

Even fifty years on from the first stirrings of what would be the Second Wave of feminism, the problem persists. Naming it is still elusive. I have fulfilling work. I am independent with a marketable college degree and a solid resume. I face no real stigma if I put Baby Savant in day care, if I leave dishes and vacuuming and cooking for Mr. Savant.

And yet, I find myself asking, still, "Is this all?" Of course, it's easy to give in to the crushing weight of this hopelessness with more than four feet of snow on the ground, with only one car (which Mr. Savant takes to work most days) and few friends. And my unborn son and all the related discomforts and symptoms make crawling back into bed and sleeping days away a simple alternative.

I find myself envious of my imaginary sisters on Mad Men. They have a neighborhood. They have a community, a circle. Sure, none of them want or are able to see past the barriers The Problem throws in their path, but at least they share a common delusion. I have no one with whom to share this exile.

A baby Savant manifesto

Being pregnant is one of the strangest things that has ever happened to me. And to be brutally honest, I fucking hate it. I'm uncomfortable; too hot too cold too tired awake at 3 am peeing every 20 minutes stuffing my face heartburn constipated diarrhea puking migraine rhinitis of pregnancy OMGWTFBBY!!!!1 Maybe it's because I am, at heart, a narcissist, and the fact that no one gives a flying fuck how I'm doing as long as the embryo/fetus/grandbaby is fine is pretty disturbing. Or maybe it's the sheer overwhelming tonnage of guilt, shame and fear that's suddenly shoveled upon pregnant women. What am I eating? When am I sleeping? How much am I exercising? Why am I/am I not doing/not doing or buying or behaving or feeling this, that or the other way?

For fuck's sake. I'm 4 and a half months along and I'm already so sick of it. Yes, I'm drinking my usual two cups of fully caffeinated Starbucks coffee every morning. Yes, today I'm going to Arby's for lunch instead of choking down some tofu salad wheat grass organic crap. Yes, I'm taking Sudafed and Tylenol and Claritin and I clung to the anti-nausea drug Zofran like a drowning woman to a splintered wood plank. And yes, sometimes I give myself a pass and smoke cigarettes. Yes, I'm going back to work as soon as I possibly can after Savant Spawn is born. No, I abso-fucking-lutely refuse to breastfeed, reject completely this "attachment parenting" bullshit and am already researching daycare options. You got a problem with that? I'm sure you do. And I don't care.

I've always been good at decision-making. Sometimes, I know, I am too hasty, but I don't have many regrets about the choices I've made so far. So, today, I'm adopting a new credo. Fuck Guilt. I'm going to do the best I can for my little Savant based on who I am. Not on who anyone else believes I should be as a mother. I say again: Fuck guilt.

Somewhere between 'happy' and 'total fucking wreck.'

So there was life and death, right in front of me. A baby robin, fallen from the nest, nestled in the branches of a juniper bush. The dog saw it before I did and froze. And the bird, slowly, hopefully but with this certain sense of inevitability, opened its tiny beak wide. And waited. Waiting in the pulsing moments, with the hot dogs' breath of full summer brushing past, for food or water or comfort from its mother. But to me it looked like a silent scream.

That was yesterday. This morning, on my way to sign powers-of-attorney with my husband at work, I picked up a stranded, flailing earthworm and placed it back in the dirt. Hopeful.

In between, buoyed as always by the voice of my best Friend, I managed to pop my head above the surface and have been treading water for the last 36 hours. Trying to keep busy and hold the loneliness, the ache, the disconnect at bay.

Today, a child asked to take a walk with me. Asked me if I wanted to play basketball. And the apartment freakshow tried to sell me a snowblower. This is my fucking life.

Connecticut Zombies

Connecticut is filled with zombies. They all have the same pasty complexion, round, dull eyes and light brownish hair. They shuffle blankly through Stop 'N Shop. They stand as though in line at the pharmacy, but I've found out too late they're just gathering their thoughts and mustering the ... what? Courage? Motivation? to move on. If you speak to them, they struggle to comprehend; you can see their brains blink back to life and chug-a-chug to full speed before they slur an answer.

Sometimes, they chew gum. Like the doctor I saw today. She shambled into the exam room, and in a Ben Stein voice she introduced herself. She was chewing gum as though it were peanut butter. Long, drawn out mastication, of course, loudly, smacking and cracking and occasionally making sucking sounds as she moved the wad back and forth between her cheeks.

What am I supposed to do amongst these strangers? It's like the whole state is populated by Stepford folk.

Connecticut Yankee

At the beginning of April, Mr. Savant began his search for a new job. One that didn't require him to write software for Evil Soul-Sucking Health Insurance Companies, preferably. He applied for a few positions here and there. And he got a phone call from a headhunter. Who worked for ESPN. Yeah, that ESPN.

Fast forward to three weeks ago. The house is up for sale. Everything I can't live without is smushed into my tiny Subaru. Mr. Savant and Dog Savant are already in Connecticut, in an extended-stay hotel that sounds way classier than it actually is.

And I'm sobbing in the arms of one of my best friends, on her front stoop as I'm getting ready to leave the neighborhood. For good.

Since then, its been rough. Really rough. I don't know anyone here. Mr. Savant goes to work and I stay here, in the hotel and try to work and write and find new work. All the while dodging the housekeeping staff and the landscaping crews and the maintenance folks ... and it's stupid hard.
And I'm so lonely.

It shouldn't be. I've moved, on average, every three years since I was 18. I went from Pennsylvania to New Jersey for college to Phoenix, Arizona, to New York City to Philadelphia. Where I thought we'd stay. I put down roots. We were in a neighborhood. We had neighborhood yard sales and helped each other shovel snow. We had summer block parties and baby showers and we all waved at each other and stopped to chat when we walked our dogs.

Yesterday was July 4th. Mr. Savant was invited to a BBQ thrown by some ESPN folks, so we went. I was beyond thrilled -- I imagined instant connections with other ESPN wives. I imagined we'd bond over the shell-shocked, pack-up-and-move-honey-corporate-America-is-calling job offer that we'd all agree was An Offer We Couldn't Refuse. I envisioned a cross between Desperate Housewives and Mad Men, where we'd chug dirty martinis and sneak cigarettes and lament the sacrifices we made for the sake of The Most Awesome Job in the United States!

Shockingly, that didn't happen. Sure, we swapped the "Where did you live before?" and "What do you do for work?" and "How is he liking ESPN?" and we discussed setting up a book club. But on the way home Mr. Savant said, "Did you have a good time? What did you think?"

And I managed to chirp, "It was nice! I had a good time, yes!" before the tears started streaming down my cheeks. I hate it here. I just want to go home. To my house and my friends and my neighborhood and the familiar and safe. This is not like me at all.