Trader Joes like yesterday's news

One of the bum things about living in San Francisco is how granola everybody is. ( I know, you thought I was going to say the fog but that isn't it. I like the fog. It adds some poignancy to my angst. ) Everybody thrifts, recycles, walks/ bikes/ uses public transport whenever possible as a bare minimum--and most do more. This means that you cannot impress anybody by tying a ratty scarf around your hair and saying, "Oh yeah, I'm totally into the environment." If you say you're into the environment around here, you'd better be nurturing a flock of compost-eating worms in a garbage pail under your kitchen sink. People like me who go the semi-biodegradable-but-still-mercifully-disposable-diapers route can't exactly advertise it.

But there are larger still consequences to this green frenzy. My biggest problem since moving here is that my whole repertoire of Trader Joe's fancy menu items has gone right out the window. In Chicago I wooed many a dinner party with a white bean dip drizzled with almond oil. I impressed my guests in Falls Church, Virginia with edamame hummus and green olive tapenade. Here? They've eaten in all. Apricot stilton on stone wheat crackers and chocolate-chipotle macadamias are like pigs-in-a-blanket and oreos with milk--nothing special. I have people to feed all weekend and not the faintest clue what to cook.

When certain people should be sleeping

Please don't call Stacey and Clinton

Last month I started wearing my approved-for-public-viewing clothing while staying at home. This was a big step for me. You see, I have a strict zoning system in my wardrobe. There is the now retired salsa zone from my previous life when I was an up and coming Salsera in Chicago. (And for any dancers out there reading, might I just add that dancing on two IS NOT SALSA. Salsa is on one, Mambo is on two.) Ahem. Sorry about that. That was old, salsera Priscilla talking, who actually liked to shake it at the Green Dolphin, baby, in silver lycra pants.

Moving on, there's the pyjama zone which is where all my other clothing zones go to die. My pyjama zone currently includes a thermal ski shirt that belonged to my dad in the seventies, various assorted gender-neutral treasures from Khalil, a couple of geek conference t-shirts my husband has picked up in the wrong size along the way with some accent toothpaste stains, flannel bottoms from when I weighed fifty more pounds, ah yes, and let's not forget my seventh grade "King and I" keepsake t-shirt in which I played somebody who sat in large group of people. What an important life I've led thus far. . .

Next we have the daily living section. This is the meat and potatoes of my wardrobe, the stuff I wear to Target, Trader Joes, lunch and when I used to go there, to the job. In this zone you'll find elite, incredible designers like Old Navy and anything sold at Marshall's, Ross, or T.J.Max.

Finally, we end with specials and miscellaneous. In this zone there's my wedding dress, a pea green suit with shoulder pads (from where else? Khalil, courtesy of my mother), some unmentionable lumpy knitted items (also courtesy of my mother), a gallibiya, and hoochie mama date night attire.

So when I say I started wearing my approved-for-public-viewing clothing you now understand that I moved from my saggy flannel jammies and tees with sayings like "udderly exhausted" or "agile 2005" to jeans in my actual size. I just woke up one morning and realized, this is it. At least for the next few years, this is the job, this is lunch with a friend, this is what there is in a day. And I moved up a zone.

Nothin doin

The last two weeks have not been my prettiest. As in you could find me in the middle of the afternoon wearing sad looking Khalili pyjamas (sorry, there's no translation or explanation I can offer here except that they are from Khalil but that doesn't even nearly capture it) with carrot stains, my hair hanging in chunks around my face with old rubberbands caught somewhere in the mix. On these days, I eat anything I can find. I call anyone who might be home, whether I like them or not. I leave long-winded messages on ex-boyfriend's voicemails. I haunt my email. I watch momversations and type inappropriately personal responses then delete them with a choke. And Munch Munch? He knows about these days. These are the days when he says, "Aha, nobody will notice if I just tug the corner of that toilet paper ever so quietly--ooooh, look at that!" And before you know it, there he is under a heaping pile of shredded toilet paper and yes, some of it always makes it into his mouth.

So my excuse is that my husband went to India for nine days. I repeat, nine days. Every single one of those days I understood a little better that attachment parenting is not something one is meant to do alone. Even with copious amounts of support, attachment parenting a high-need infant is emotionally, physically, psychologically taxing but on a day where you are eating cheetos for breakfast and cheesecake for lunch and there is no magical hour ahead where someone who loves you will come home and say "Oh, honey, let me take the baby. You go do something else"--that is a day where I would just as soon be nobody's any-kind of mommy. Then night comes and my long-lashed little boy finally, finally drops off and I sneak away to the living room for some trashy tv and I all I can think of is how lonely it is in the house with no one to sit next to. So an hour later, in clean pyjamas, I end up in bed with my baby again. Those are the days, those are the days I really love my husband.

Here's to another rejection letter.

As it turns out, my work truly was unpublishable and maybe not for the noble reasons I would like to think.

This changes everything

For nine months now we have been doing the impossible. I'm scared to actually tell you what we've been doing because I assure you, it will suck every glamorous notion your have ever had out of attachment parenting and send you right back to Mr. Ferber with a bottle of champagne and a bucket of fried chicken (best to cover your bases ).

Here it is: the truth. With the exception of the last several days (and the odd, rare, unexplained miracle) my baby has not slept alone since he was born. He has napped in our arms and spent the night cuddled against me in our family bed. This means I have spent 13-16 hours a day sitting in bed every day. And you're wondering what my ass looks like, right? Small, in fact. But I'll get to that in a bit.

If you're not already someone who lives in San Francisco, owns several slings and buys your baby recycled toys on craigslist, your internal crazy-dar is probably going off right now and you might be moving this blog from your mental category of "not me but relatable" to "this lady is clearly a wack-job." So, let's take a little detour down I'm A Regular Person, I Promise Blvd.

The basic presmise of AP could probably be distilled like this: babies have a certain set of needs which, if not met, may have far-reaching consequences. And my husband and I happen to have a Munchkin with more needs than average, or at least, more persistence. This means that if I didn't sleep with my baby, he wouldn't sleep at all. And yes, in case you're wondering, we did try the whole sneak away thing and the leave-an-object-that-smells-like-momma thing and many, many others which all pitifully, rapidly, undeniably failed. And when I say tried, what I really mean is we really, REALLY tried! Finally, we saw that our only two choices were
1) give the baby what he wants
2) ignore what the baby wants.
There was no middle ground, no bag of tricks, just the two extreme choices and we chose to meet our babies needs the best we could.

Now? After nine months of gentle parenting, I snuck away during a nap and my baby slept. And slept and slept and slept for two whole hours and I felt like crying because we have survived and he finally got here, on his own time, and I am just so proud of him, of us and also I am so exhausted I can barely think.