Author Archives: Naptimewriting

Then and now

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What I had forgotten, what I remember all too well, and what’s brand new….

I know, because we raise sling babies who are always close and usually sleep (in the daytime) on a parent, there will always be food on baby’s head or clothing. But I don’t remember Peanut being covered with as much  chocolate as Hazelnut has been.

I remember about feedings every two hours, but I had forgotten that means one hour between feeds. And that every-hour cluster feeds mean non-stop.

I’d forgotten how long the Netflix wait when there’s a newborn to peel…

I remembered how heartbreaking is the cry of a brand new baby, but never thought that this time I’d be willing to pee first and nurse second.

I’d forgotten how forgetful I get after meeting a new baby.

I remember how much help kellymom.com can be in the wee hours, but since I know now, after a firstborn with thrush and nipples with Raynaud’s, that ANY breastfeeding problem can be fixed with expert help, that I can logon in the morning and still be fine.

I remember being grateful for help, but I don’t remember bursting into tears so often about people’s generosity. I’ve cried several times over some sesame cashew noodles and homemade bread delivered last Sunday. After reading each email or getting a call of support, especially from those pressed for time and struggling i their own lives. I cried twice over surprise Zachary’s pizza that showed up courtesy of a lovely friend and family conspiracy. Countless times over seeing a clean sink and drying dishes each time my mom comes over. And frequently about the preschool cooperative’s plan to deliver a dinner every night for two weeks just because they have so many volunteers who want to help.

I recall feeling overwhelmed, but I didn’t know this time would be much calmer, much more fully present and in the cuddly moment. Maybe it’s the change in geography, wherein I’m home and surrounded by people and places I deeply love. I’m much less caught up in fear and loneliness and panicked “should” and “have to”s because I now know that everything changes, often daily, and today’s ratio of tummy time to music time to sling time will matter not one whit in four years as long as Hazelnut is loved and heard and warmed and fed.

Screaming, wakeful, gassy, pained babies do get to 13 weeks and do settle into life here eventually. I was too freaked out to know that the first time.

This time I just wonder if scared, angry, intelligent, head strong preschoolers settle eventually, too.

Eh. Probably.

Bolano’s 2666 quote of the week (10)

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Ah, 2666. Your methodical recording of misogyny, legal incompetence, and cultural neglect of humanity continues unabated. Way to stick with it, really. I couldn’t write this telescopic focus on a dump alongside a border town that could be a symbol for all that is wrong with trade and consumerism and capitalism and the war on drugs and tiered social systems that offer as little hope as a caste system for 400+ pages. Congratulations?

In going back over this section, I noted, as Dan Summers does over at bleakonomy, the despicable blathering of civil servants over breakfast: two full pages of jokes about beating women, complete with standards about belonging in the kitchen, having no brain, and being useful only for sex. Social tradition noted, vapid machismo noted, and nausea calmed only slightly by watching the linguistic choices in the passage. The repeated call and answer format of the so-called jokes, the Spanglish convention of beginning the answers with pues, and the increased violence of these particular jokes over the standards in the U.S. were all notable. But what a despicable way to spend two pages, which David calls the nadir of the novel’s misogyny, to depict the officers spending the time after the long day at work. The long day in which they assume, if a murder victim had red toenail polish she must have been a whore (520).

Dan also notes the interesting and welcome interlude about Lalo Cura’s family history of intensely resilient outsider matriarchs. Rape, thrive, rape, thrive, rape, thrive. While I’m not entirely sure about celebrating “good nature and the fortitude to endure periods of violence or extreme poverty” (555) because I much prefer generation stories of women kicking ass instead of enduring ass-kickings, but at this point I am fully aware that the Exposito women’s ability to make it out alive is more than most characters of the novel can claim. I’m really beginning to hate this depiction Mexico, I have to be honest, but I do appreciate the flavor of Marquez and of Allende in these passages. Of, if we went away with one of these women instead of tripping over the bodies of the narrative’s bodycount drumbeat.

In this section, too, we finally start seeing the narcos and their influence on the incompetence of the so-called authorities of Santa Teresa. “It seemed the police had fallen afoul of some big fish whose sons, the Jrs. off Santa Teresa, owned almost the entire fleet of the city’s Peregrinos (it was a car of choice for rich kids, like the Arcangel or Desertwind convertible), and they pulled strings to get the cops to stop fucking with them” (530).  Well, of course. One thread running through at least 20% of the murders are black Peregrinos, so closing off investigation of that connection is a great choice for the rich kids and another slap on the face of the brutalized and decomposing bodies in the dump. “When the neighbors were asked who lived in the house, their answers were contradictory, which made the patrolmen think it could be narcos and they’d better leave and not make trouble” (530).

So buried within 400+ pages of crimes, we see what the authorities can’t or won’t: suspects, motive, pattern of criminal behavior. The curtain wasn’t drawn too tightly, but at least Bolano led us to the corner and let us peek behind it before drawing us back into the narrative of confusion and helplessness. Others notice this, too, as reporters begin to ask “some questions out loud. If the murderer was behind bars, who had killed all these other women? If the killer’s lackeys or accomplices were behind bars, too, who was responsible for all these deaths? To what extent were Los Bisontes, that terrible and improbable youth gang, a real phenomenon and to what extent were they a police creation?” (559).

Good questions. Better question: when will we get to Archimboldi? Two weeks? Okay. But that’s all you get.  I’m so very done with the Crimes, with poverty, with misogyny, with rampant death, with ignoring the international implications of a maquiladores economy for the residents and the consumers. Get me outta here.

A special thanks to the people who made this post possible (other than Dan and David, whose posts reassured me that my addled brain is at least on the right section, if not making sense): to Hazelnut for actually sleeping for the half hour it took to write this, to Peanut and Spouse for playing so nicely so I could type without interruption, and to my mom for making dinner so I could take advantage of the Hazelnut nap. Yay team Nap. Ya made me feel like a human for half an hour!

Birth announcement

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Here’s the announcement a hypothetical mama might send:

The Naptime Writing Family blissfully welcome Hazelnut Nutella Naptime to the world! He made his entrance March 23 weighing 7 pounds 3 ounces and measuring 19 1/4 inches. Mom, Dad, Peanut, and Hazelnut are all doing well and can’t wait to get to know each other.

But here’s the announcement a hypothetical mama really wants to send:

The Naptime Writing Family joyously announce the arrival of Hazelnut Nutella Naptime! He reluctantly joined our family March 23 after 41-plus weeks of gestation and 47 hours of labor. His mama made it through 41 hours of unmedicated labor and arrived at 10 cm dilation just in time to pull a muscle in her back. She lost all ability to cope and sobbed for two hours about acquiescing to an epidural. Hazelnut’s ginormous melon was facing posterior and get stuck under mama’s skeletal structure, so five hours of pushing wasn’t enough to get him to join the air-breathing lot of us. Mama Nappy’s doc offered several unacceptable options and Hazelnut got forced into reality with heroic pushing and expert, though traumatic, vacuuming.

Unfortunately, that mode of birthing left mama in shambles, and she bursts into tears every time someone says, “well, at least he’s healthy” or “you’ll heal” because she knows that and really wishes you’d say something supportive instead of dismissive (unless you, too, are currently sporting more than two dozen stitches in your lower body, twenty pounds of active volcanic rock on your upper body, and have made it seven days on approximately 20 hours of sleep).

Mama and Hazelnut are resting at home, where Peanut is as sweet as can be to his baby brother, and as terrible as he can be to his parents. Hazelnut is perfectly delicious, opinionated, and ravenous. His doting family are surviving just on nips of his sweet breath and heavenly sounds and hoping things get a bit easier.

But we’re not holding our breath.

The big lie of prodromal labor

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[Update almost 18 months later: a lot of you are coming here after searching for ways to progress prodromal labor. The secret is to WALK. A lot. Even if the neighbors have to hear you bellowing in your loud, low, open voice. And sleep when you can. I couldn’t. Read on…]

Oh, man.

Here’s the thing about having contractions every three minutes for 24 hours…if they go from lasting 30 seconds to lasting 45 seconds and then don’t progress any further, some person of questionable character will call it false labor. Not stalled or taking its time labor. False. (Technically, nobody I have talked to called it this, but the books and these here insipid interwebs aren’t afraid to…)

Let me tell you, oh reader, there is nothing fake about it. I still can’t talk or walk through these so-called false contractions. And I’ve still been awake for 24 hours dealing with what we in the natural labor game like to call strong rushes every 3 minutes. But the extra special good part? No progress. Doesn’t count. Still have all of active labor and transition and second-stage and third-stage yet to go. Maybe in a few days, they say. A few more days of strong contractions every 3 minutes.

Remember how we all joked that this baby couldn’t POSSIBLY as much work as Peanut?

Hmmm. The Office of Mandatory Looking on the Bright Side would like to remind me that this extended, healthy labor might, in some lights, be better than lolling around feeling way too pregnant because it is at least something different than being convinced the baby will never come out. Fortunately that Office is closed today.

[update, months later…intense contractions 3 minutes apart for 24 hours were a gift. They only lasted 30-45 seconds so they taught me to cope with the longer contractions. I labored 24 hours at home before I hit minute-long contractions. Those took 4 hours to come every five minutes (the typical “go to the hospital” frequency), which is when we found I was 7 cm. Tub, walking, tub, walking…7 hours to 8cm. 5 hours in transition to 10 cm. Posterior at the last minute, pulled a muscle in my back. 5 hours second stage. 1 hour stitching. Just shy of 48 hours total. That is totally not false labor. And, after the 41 hours of first stage, I can tell you the prodromal felt the same as the transition contractions…just shorter.]

Bolano’s 2666 quote of the week (9)

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The Part About the Crimes continued last week with a telling interaction between Sergio Gonzalez and his bedmate:
“As he was talking the whore yawned, not because she wasn’t interested in what he was saying but because she was tired, which irritated Sergio and made him say, in exasperation, that in Santa Teresa they were killing whores, so why not show a little professional solidarity, to which the whore replied that he was wrong, in the story as he had told it the women dying were factory workers, not whores. Workers, workers, she said. And then Sergio apologized, as, as if a lightbulb had gone on over his head, he glimpsed an aspect of the situation that until now he’d overlooked” (466).

So now we are brought face to face with the reality…the maquiladores produce tax-free exports, primarily for the U.S. The women who work there are disposable, and not only do the Mexican communities ignore their brutal murders, but the consumers in the United States, complicit in the womens’ low-wage employment, have never even heard about their mass deaths. Disposable economy, disposable humanity. Right there in the whore’s bed we are taken to task about how we value things over people, consumption over people.

Geez, this is a fun text, she typed wryly, trying to wrestle her guilt back into the closet as the bodies in 2666 pile up in the dumps, a grotesque metaphor of our disposal of everything we have no need for, including Mexican women. “What surprised the reporters most,” though not any reader who has been paying attention, “was that no one claimed or acknowledged the body” (467).

Sheesh.

Lalo Cura finally figures out the town is run by narcos, Epifanio brings the misogyny in the novel to a new low by noting that a clerk was wearing a skirt and high heels and therefore must be sleeping with her boss (474), and Klaus Haas presents an interesting German figure that begins the “is he or isn’t he” wait for The Part about Archimboldi.

And finally, Florita’s crowning achievement, “to introduce the other women, who had something important to say. Then the WSDP activists stepped up to talk about the climate of impunity in Santa Teresa, the laxity of the police, the corrupttion, and the number of dead women, which had been constantly on the rise since 1993” (505). Of course, we are quickly ushered away from this scene of awareness toward a discussion of film, J.D. Salinger, and L.A. the rest of the week’s section shows the police solving several crimes, none of which involves women or murders. Because stolen cars are a priority, after all.

I despise myself for wanting The Part about the Crimes to end, because it should go on, every day, with body after body piling up until I can’t take it and actually DO something. But for now I’m writhing in discomfort watching nothing get done and wishing I could have Archimboldi or Amalfitano back for a while. That frustrating, incessant journalistic narrative march of case after unsolved case is clearly doing its job. I may have to retract my criticism of Bolano because this tactic is working. I am not growing numb to the deaths. I am increasingly uncomfortable.

Just what I need right now.

Why, yes, you may

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Okay, I need to tell some of the people on the planet a few things. Close your ears if these don’t apply, cuz there ain’t no ranting like a wicked pregnant rant.

If we come to an intersection at the same time and I indicate you can go first, you’d damned better thank me, jerk, because chances are if I have to wave you through you know you don’t have the right of way. If you’re walking across the street against the light or half a block from the crosswalk and I let you go, you’d damned better thank me because I’m driving a ton of steel and you’re squishy. And if I’m crossing in the crosswalk, with the light, hugely pregnant and holding my kid’s hand, you’d damned better stop and wait for us, because I will hunt you down and maim you for being such a subhuman stool specimen turning dangerously close to us.

Waitstaff, if I ask for water twice and you forget both times to bring it, don’t be surprised if I forget to tip. If I ask for something for my kid even once and you forget to bring it, don’t be surprised if I brandish a weapon.

Parents, if your child is at the playground and you spend the whole time reading the newspaper, I will call child protective services and say the kid asked me to take him home because you lock him in the closet. I’m sick of parenting your kids for you.

Yes, you may ask:
How are you doing?
Can I bring you anything?
Could you look any more gorgeous?!
May I send you cash or a check?

No, you may not ask:
Are you ever going to have that baby? (No. I’m going to keep it in there and live off it in case I’m stuck at Donner Pass.)
Is that damned thing *still* in there? (No. Had it a week ago. Just fat. Thanks for asking.)
Could you get any bigger? (Probably. Could you get any more stupid or rude?)
What, are you waiting for your due date to come around again next year? (Yes. That’s exactly it. Nothing says fun like 17 months pregnant.)

And for these you will be stricken from the mailing list:
When are they going to induce? (Never. What part of natural don’t you get?)
How dilated are you? (Doesn’t matter. That’s not an indication of anything. Also none of your business. Also, I don’t know. Want me to run to the loo to check just for you?)
How long will they *let* you go? (Hi, have we met? Nobody is letting me do anything; I am an intelligent, consenting adult doing what my body needs without intervention, chemicals, or coercion.)
Will you have surgery? (For what? I don’t have cancer. I have a baby who’s not done cooking.)
How much weight have you gained? (Including the guilty conscience from killing you and woodchipping the body? Not sure. I don’t look at the numbers.)

Thank you Jehovah’s Witnesses

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I’m pretty proud of yesterday’s big conversation with Peanut, and I have only the Jehovah’s Witnesses to thank. I can’t believe it actually happened this brilliantly, but it did.

P and I were eating dinner when we saw a woman walk up the porch and knock. When I opened the door she apologized for interrupting dinner and invited us to a celebration of her faith and I thanked her then closed the door.

Peanut: What did she say?
Me: She wanted to invite us to a meeting.
P: Me, too?
M: Yes.
P: And the cats?
M: No. Just the people.
P: What’s the meeting for?
M: Well, she and her family believe something and they want to tell us about what they believe.
P: Is it true?
M: Nobody knows, but she wants to tell us about it.
P: What does she believe?
M: Well, this is a big idea…….People have always tried to figure out how the Universe and the solar system and the Earth and humans got here, and some people believe that some chemicals got really hot and exploded and made the Universe, and some people believe that a kind of creator, not like a person but kind of like a ghost person that was here before anything else was here made the planets and the solar system and the people.
P: Do you believe that?
M: No. Daddy and I don’t believe that something decided to make the Universe. We believe that physics made the Universe. But lots of people we know believe a spirit decided to make everything and then created planets and people. [He asks who and I list the people we know and tell him who does and who does not believe in God.]
P: Well I believe a…what’s the name of it?
M: Most people who believe call it god. One god or lots of gods.
P: Yeah. I believe god made everything.
M: Oh.
P: But I believe something else made god.
M: Interesting.
P: Yeah. It was kind of like a bicycle that was just a basket and people have to push it and it made the god.
M: So a bicycle that’s just a basket makes a creator, and the creator makes people, and the people push the bicycle.
P: Yup. That’s just what I believe.
M: Interesting.
[eating]
P: Is god around anymore or did it die?
M: Depends who you ask. Many people believe many different things. Some believe god is everywhere and is still everywhere and will always be everywhere. Some believe god is an idea that people made and that idea died.
P: I don’t believe that.
M: No?
P: No. The bicycle and the god are still around.
M: Hmmm. Okay.

Here’s the thing. I’ve been waiting for just the right moment to introduce the idea that lots of people believe different things about supernatural forces. And I wanted it to be a discussion that respects all ideas, like our discussion about the afterlife late last year. So I’m thrilled the faithful came to the door. I’m proud of myself for teaching P by example to respect what other people believe, and I’m proud of not teaching him only what I believe. I’m glad I’ve been introduced to so many faiths and paid attention, so I can explain, when he asks, the basics of Catholic and Lutheran and Muslim and Buddhist and Jewish belief. I’m glad I got to introduce the idea seriously, with no pressure to hurry, no frustration at who introduced the topic or how. I’m glad I got to explain that we believe something, that other people believe something, and that you never know who will believe what, but that it’s generally pretty important to them.

And I’m proud, in a detached intellctual kind of way, that P saw the immediate question of “what existed before the Creator?” because this kid is gonna be way cool to talk with about philosophy, theology, and sociology, whatever he ends up believing.

[for the record, I do not hold his faith in an immobile bicycle as Creator of the Universe and all within on par with other faiths, nor am I trying to mock religion when I detail his reaction to being exposed to the idea of god. It’s his first try at faith, he’s four, and we’re just getting started on this journey. Please don’t misinterpret my being willing to relate his “god #1 invents god #2 so the latter can create people to wheel god #1 around” theory as an attack on any ideas you may hold dear. Just because I don’t believe doesn’t mean I disdain belief itself. There is no way the bicycle that is just a basket dogma will hold up, nor that fascinating theological texts like Jesus Interrupted or Misquoting Jesus dedicated to Peanut’s bicycle-god-people trinity, but who am I to judge, is the point.)

Bolano’s 2666 quote of the week (8)

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Know what? I knew I’d get tired of murders and rapes and detached listing of such. But this morning while flipping through this week’s reading, in which I highlighted not one single line of text as remarkable, NPR had a segment on the murders in Juarez. Not a clever fictionalized version, but a detailing of the gross incompetence, the terror, the pervasive powerlessness, the futility of life there. And I wanted to vomit. I cried for a while, and I realized that, had I not already read the whole Part about the Crimes, I would stop this book right now.

I have finished the section, and did so only to get to Archimboldi. So I’ll post quotes in their appropriate weeks, and emotionally rejoin you when you climb out of Santa Teresa. I offer you no analysis or thoughts this week because this has ceased to be a project I enjoy. I feel like a witness to a crime who has chosen to stay silent and I’m chagrined.

Bigger than the sun.

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“Mommy? If you attached our car to Daddy’s truck and attached Daddy’s truck to our house and attached our house to grandma’s house and attached grandma’s house to Jupiter and attached Jupiter to Saturn and attached Saturn to the sun…I love you bigger than that.”

Damn. That’s a lot of love, boy.

I’ll wait until you’re bigger to tell you I love you infinity plus one.

Also, the Sun so completely dwarfs all those other objects that it’s silly to waste all the breath attaching them when you could shortcut with “I love you bigger than the Sun” and be done with it. But I won’t tell you that, because who doesn’t need that tiny, wee bit of bonus, Jupiter-sized love? Great Atlas-buoyed heavens, I know I do.

Oh, bless you, child.

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Me: What should we have for dinner?
P: Crunchy carrots, cheese stick, and apple. [Runs into the other room. Runs back.] Cheese stick is our protein for tonight.

On behalf of all parents who like dinner that can be sliced and plated in three minutes, thank you, Peanut.

(He is now galloping through the house, chanting “I gallop, I gallop, I gallop, I fall down.” And does. Good heavens, if someone told me there’s be a funny, easy, self-entertaining phase with this child, even if it only lasts a day, I would have been a lot less stressed the past four years. Talk about calm before the storm, eh?)

Not really. Really?

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Wanna know why social networking is not the downfall of society? My brother found a woman’s wallet and keys on the DC metro and sent her a facebook friend request to try to get them back to her. She accepted a week or so later and is now overjoyed to have her stuff back, several states and an area code away.

Wanna know why social networking is the downfall of society? Because now even more f—ing people think my brother is the world’s best human and I have no way to subvert that perception. I mean, who comes off as the petulant a–hole for claiming the whole thing was a hoax and he’s just doing facebook p.r.? Exactly.

2666 quote of the week (7)

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You know what? I’m tired of finding quotes in this book. It’s a little game I began with Infinite Jest last summer because I was rereading the book and found some passages so compelling, so central, so clever, or so erudite that I needed to share. Needed to share.

With Bolano’s 2666? I’m kind of over the quotes. Because the novel is both compelling and frustrating, and I don’t want to retype. I want to read and, honestly, finish this damned thing and move on.

The Part about the Crimes: I read the first twenty pages and got pissed, so I went back and made some notes about the chapter’s foci. Nine pages of short descriptions wherein women’s bodies are found dumped unceremoniously, scant details are collected, and cases are closed without substantive investigation. Some of the murders are similar, some are not. Nine pages. Then twelve pages on a guy peeing in churches. Back to the women for three pages. And the serial urinator for three. You know what? I don’t need to be hit over the head with a mallet to know this book is about misogyny. But the mallet is there, nonetheless: “The attacks on [the churches] San Rafael and San Tadeo got more attention in the local press than the women killed in the preceeding months” (366).

Shocking? Nope. The religion dominating the area is well known for being, despite its commandment against false idols, one that supports worship of consecrated land and general disdain for women.

My fury over the casual disregard of hundreds of brutalized and composting women whose lives seem completely meaningless is provoked by the text to make a point. The murderers dump the bodies, the establishment dumps any responsibility for understanding or preventing further deaths. The culture is more fascinated by and upset about symbolic destruction of religion than by actual destruction of humans. Blasphemy is more important than murder. A post-Neitzschean dead God is valued but a postmodern woman is not. Saw that coming a thousand miles away, when the critics flew into Santa Teresa.

Gotta tell you, I’m more than a little angry about the casual discarding of women’s bodies by the murderers and of women’s stories by the narrator. Chalk up this week’s frustration to being way far ahead in the reading and less willing to leaf through 50 pages of macabre bullshit, to being nine months pregnant and a bit protective of women and girls everywhere, or to being frustrated that, while this is a good text that I believe is valuable and necessary, is not the right read for me in search of post-Wallace, post-postmodern enlightenment. But the anger is supposed to move me to action, to changing the state of affairs. To helping, to expressing outrage, to making a difference. And how the f— am I supposed to do that?

I’m just saying…this section pisses me off. I know it’s supposed to. That doesn’t help.

“But somewhere along the way something happened or something went permanently wrong and afterward her mother was told there was a chance she had run off with a man. She’s only sixteen, said her mother, and she’s a good girl. Forty days later some children found her body near a shack in Colonia Maytoprena. Her left hand rested on some guaco leaves. Due to the state of the body, the medical examiner was unable to determine the cause of death. One of the policemen present at the removal of the body, however, was able to identify the guaco plant. It’s good for mosquito bites, he said, crouching down and plucking some little green leaves, pointed and tough.” (375.)

Passive aggressive notes

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A huge thanks to FYM for pointing me to passiveaggressivenotes.com even though they have expanded their repertoire to include blatantly aggressive notes that are not even a little passive.

Exactly the procrastination I was looking for today. Yay!

Some faves include
the shoeless child
the effective note
grandma’s horror
and proper urinal etiquette.