ain't nothing like the real thing, baby.
One year ago: We see Run Lola Run.
Two years ago: My exciting fitness history.
Three years ago: I am told to stop whining. I should note I have never stopped.
Four years ago: Just in case you thought journal thrashes were new, they're not.
I took Sophia to lunch today with a couple of my friends. Sophia worked her usual magic of charming everyone at our table and the next. At the end of the meal I checked my friends' handbags (to make sure they hadn't kidnapped my baby). I came home, gave Sophia into Dora's care, and then went to Starbucks--
--Yes, I went to the land of evil overlords again. I have discovered I really like the orange mocha chip frappucino. Yes, I know, it's not a drink, it's a dessert. Still. (Reminds me of Swensen's orange mocha chip ice cream. I used to walk for a couple of miles to get to nearest Swensen's shop to get a cup of ice cream. I must have had a lot of time on my hands as a kid.) Starbucks is better set up for the portable-computer-equipped. How much does it pain me to say that? I wonder if they are killing Pane Dolce, which is only a few blocks away. Wouldn't surprise me if they were. --
--to write for a little while. I wrote for an hour and a half and got five pages out of it. I think the pages were a little boring, just a couple of talking heads. Much information is uncovered, but it is not a thrilling scene. That is why we rewrite, I suppose. But I was feeling good. Five pages. Excellent.
I came home. The second Sophia saw me, she burst into tears. You have to understand--she does not cry. When I think she's making a big dramatic production out of something and I apologize to everyone around me for the noise she's making, people usually say, "Are you on crack? That is a quiet baby." She smiles, she giggles, she laughs, she coos, she sings...she does not cry. So I am not used to it.
Hearing a baby cry is a terrible sound. Hearing my baby cry is agonizing.
I stood there in the doorway and saw her burst into tears and felt my gut get wrenched out of me.
Oh God. Oh God. I'm sorry sweetie. Please don't cry. Mommy is so sorry and she'll make everything all better.
By the time I came home Sophia had only drunk two ounces of milk in three hours. Maybe she doesn't eat much during the day, but I think it's more likely she just hates drinking from a cup or a bottle. This is a tough row to hoe, getting her to take a bottle.
I, of course, have not had to suffer the slings and arrows of getting her to take one (or trying to get her to take one). Darin gets to suffer through her wanting Mommy every Wednesday night. He also (we have decided) has to give her a bottle on the off days too, so that she will get used to this strange plastic milk delivery device.
Last night he gave her the cup and got nowhere with it. After a while he gave up. When I got to Sophia she was frantically hungry. I told him that this weekend I would simply leave the house while he does it. That way I don't accidentally walk in and distract Sophia, and I won't be there for him to fall back on.
He's not enjoying this process.
When I walked in the door this afternoon, Sophia saw me and she wanted her Mommy to feed her, not this horrible plastic cup. And my job, over the next few weeks, is to deny this to her at least once a day, so that she will get used to the horrible plastic cup.
It is not fun. It makes me upset. Not as upset as it makes Sophia, of course, but upset enough. It makes me want to say, "Oh no, honey, we won't do this anymore, I know that you will learn to eat with cups and plates and spoons soon enough, so you don't have to do this just yet." I don't like having to walk away and ignore the cries she makes as though I were uncaring and had steeled myself to the noise. I'm doing this horrible thing to her for my convenience, after all. Who says I have to leave her at all for the first six months?
You want to lay guilt on someone? Find a new mom. Everything you do is wrong. You are either a slave to this new person (and everyone will tell you how you're being "manipulated") or you're hard-hearted and uncaring. There is no winning. There is no being the best mom in the world. Even when I'm trying to do something I'm sure is right in the long run, it hurts and I wonder if it is the right thing. But I don't know what else I can do, other than let her know I'm still here for her. Well, after she's drunk from the sippy cup.
The answer to yesterday's question: The foreign aid budget for 2001 is $13.3 billion. That sounds like a lot, until you realize it is a little over one-half of one percent of total government spending. About half of the money is for "humanitarian and development" aid --and the other half is "national security" aid--military aid or of financial assistance to governments that play some role in our defense strategy.
We spend hardly anything on foreign aid. I realize that $13.3 billion to you and me is a lot of money, but on the global scale it's hardly anything. "The average voter thinks that foreign aid is a budget item as big as or bigger than defense or Social Security," according to Paul Krugman in the New York Times.
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Copyright 2000 Diane Patterson
Send comments and questions to diane@nobody-knows-anything.com