Bye-Bye

Abby loves to say "buh-bye." She waves as she says it over and over at night before bed; when I'm hanging up the phone (with someone else); to characters on TV when the show is over. But she also hates saying goodbye. She says goodbye to Silvia, our au pair, when she goes out for a fun evening. She says goodbye to me in the morning when Silvia takes over baby duty, although I'm just in the next room. She says goodbye to Daddy when he leaves for business trips. Most importantly, though, and most painfully, Abby says goodbye to her brother and sister when they leave after a short weeknight visit. She runs to the window and bangs on the glass, watching until the car drives away, and then she cries. Sometimes a hug helps; sometimes she wants to be held; sometimes she puts her head on the floor and just gulps and sobs her little heart out. I'm told that in heaven, there will be no more goodbyes.

What Is This Thing You Speak Of, "Identity"?

I have been catching a lot of flak lately from my friends, especially girlfriends, about giving up my status as a Pittsburgh Steelers fan in favor of embracing my husband's hometown team, the Baltimore Ravens. Growing up, we had Steelers pep rallies on Fridays in elementary school, where we wore black & gold and danced to We Are Family by Sister Sledge. It was a great time to be a sports fan in Pittsburgh, when the Steelers seemed to win every Super Bowl and the Pirates, the World Series.

In the most recent few years before I met D, I had become primarily a hockey fan (the Penguins are my team) and watched Steelers games on Sundays mostly because they were a great way to induce a nap-- although I would still actively cheer during a playoff game and I never lost my Terrible Towel. I wasn't enough of a fan, though, to even be aware of the Ravens rivalry until it was too late . . . .

The first football season or two, I playfully maintained my membership in the Steelers Nation, even wearing a Steelers t-shirt to a Scott family event (lucky to have survived that, looking back), and my five-year-old stepdaughter seemed to think it was funny that I and her daddy "argued" about who should win the games. Later, when it became a bit more tense, I tried to soften the situation by seducing him during halftime. Finally, it became too difficult to deal with his rabid Steeler hatred, and my daughter's torn loyalties, and I decided to make a trade: he became a legitimate fan of the Penguins, relinquishing his halfhearted favor of the Washington Capitals, and I became a legitimate fan of the Ravens, acknowledging that I really didn't care nearly as much as he did about football. This agreement was quickly amended by the addition of a corollary: D needed to refrain from attacking Pittsburgh itself as a city, and any of the people in it-- only their choice to be Steelers fans was fair game for smack talking.

It was easy, really. I do love the Ravens, and I proudly and happily wear purple all season long. When the Ravens play the Steelers, I watch the game and just sort of am happy no matter who wins (and also disappointed no matter who wins). It turned out just fine. Until this championship season and the advent of Facebook. All my Steeler homegals (and some new Steeler friends), and even non-Steeler fans who just have rabid sports loyalties of their own - -Palmer -- are all over me about giving up on my identity "just because I got married."

Well, here's what I say to that: "Duh."

In a way. Obviously I didn't give up my identity, that distinguishing thing that is me, that character of mine that doesn't change no matter what situation I'm in. But if being a Steelers fan were part of my identity, I probably wouldn't have dated D for very long. What I really mean by "duh" is that I believe that one's self fundamentally changes when one gets married. Not for better, or for worse (pun intended), but it definitely changes. Being interdependent with someone else, sharing every part of one's life with someone else, being forced, as it were, to take someone else's feelings and needs into consideration no matter how instinctively selfish one might be -- these are all tectonic shifts that fundamentally alter aspects of your personality, I think. Maybe even aspects of your personality that were part of your identity. Perhaps you were a world traveller, an explorer, a lover of wanderlust. Now you're married, with kids. It's become more important to you that the children have stability and financial security, and so you don't spend the money to leave them for 3 weeks and go to Nepal. That's different, but not better, not worse.

Several years ago now, I was at a baby shower for my sister-in-law. Sitting around with the multigenerational group of women, I was the only one "of an age" who had never been married. My sister-in-law's mother piped up with her opinion that a woman could not "call herself an adult until she had been married and become a mother." Whoo! I was mightily offended. I left the room, lest I say something to Doris I would regret. Still, though that remark was very insensitive of her and she absolutely was incorrect, now that I am married and a mother, at least I understand what moved her to say that. She equated the kind of choices wives and mothers often make, sacrificing their own gratification for those of their spouses and children, with adult behavior. She also must have thought that any woman who got married and had babies would make those choices, by default -- if only that were so. I think there is plenty of evidence that plenty of wives and mothers behave like children, no matter what your definition of childish behavior might be.

So what did I really give up when I got married? Some measure of freedom to move independently, certainly -- freedom to spend my money, date whomever, move to another city, take a different job -- do all of those life-altering things that one can't just pick up and do without consulting a spouse. I gave up keeping my own financial books -- good because I no longer spend more than I have, bad because I get to be irresponsible. I gave up Indian food almost entirely, because D hates it. I gave up sleeping diagonally across the bed, sitting in the driver's seat on long car trips, and carrying suitcases. And all this just from being married -- not to mention being a mom. Were any of these things part of my identity, though?

There are days when, telecommuting to work like I do, and therefore sitting at home with the baby and our au pair in the next room, I feel like a SAHM (the chat-room acronym for Stay At Home Mom), and in some ways I am. I understand why they have support groups about the feminist politics of being a SAHM, and I understand why they/we have mommy playgroups like my Tuesday Mothers of Preschoolers group -- both of these undertakings are about identity. But I don't feel the need to assert my independence or reclaim any of the things I "gave up" in order to be a fully realized person with individuality and a connection to that old, single Anne. I am a person in a pair, now, mated for life. I'm a different animal. But I'm still me.

Except -- I am reclaiming the Steelers for one day this Sunday. My boys Ben and Troy are going to kick some serious *ss!

Wish You Were Here

There are days when
just hearing the baby crying
somewhere in the house
probably over nothing
toddling away time
outside my periphery
really makes me sad.

Savior

Little Lulu, Age 7, to her little sister: "Natty, do you know who wrote the Bible?"

Natty, Age 4: "Barack Obama."


I was underwhelmed by the Inaugural Address, but overwhelmed by the significance and beauty and excitement of the moment. God bless them and may they lead us down the right path.

Forgetting

Our au pair, Silvia, was groaning and walking around gingerly yesterday. Her every muscle was hurting because she started a new workout regimen two days ago at the local college gym. She said, "I forgot I had muscles in some places, and now I remember, because they hurt." A few times, she said, "I feel like an old woman." "I am dead." "I have no energy at all." She said all this while looking good and fit and chasing Abby around, and speaking in an endearing Arnold Schwarzenegger accent. In the end, she added, "But it's okay, because it feels good to exercise."

I refrained from saying, "I know exactly what you mean, except I didn't do anything to feel like this, and I don't have the satisfying counterpoint of knowing that my muscles hurt for a good reason."

Which leads me to the medical update you all haven't had in a while.

I am feeling hale and hearty. Well, that's a bit much. But I am feeling fairly fine, she said, alliteratively. Some days, I feel quite strong and stable and the Arthritis-Strength Tylenol works, and it's a good day. Other days (possibly the days after those other days, when maybe I overdo it a bit), I have "no energy," "feel like an old woman," "am dead," regularly careen into walls and cabinets and things, and remember my muscles because they hurt.

I have to elaborate a bit on this point of becoming acquainted with muscles. It is not an exaggeration to say that I'm learning about anatomy through pain. There are these muscles called pectoralis minor that sort of go under what we think of as your pectoral muscles -- these muscles connect your ribs to your scapula (shoulder blades), but in the front. They're the muscles that help you hunch your shoulders, should you care to do so. If you lie on your back and press just under your collarbone next to the hollow where your pectoral muscle stops and your shoulder begins, that's the muscle. Well, when these are in spasm for 2 years, it really hurts.

There are also actually muscles between one's ribs, called intercostal muscles. Sounds like a vacation -- down the intercostal highway. Oddly enough, these can spasm such that one's rib cage feels cast in concrete. Now, this doesn't so much hurt any more (which might be a bit worrying, actually). It feels heavy, and solid, and stiff, but I am so used to the background noise of pain that it really doesn't bug me that much.

The other muscles I never really thought about much (as opposed to all the muscles I knew well and would have aches in, especially after working out -- I used to work out, once in a while at least; Sara can vouch for that) are the muscles that are found in the front of the neck. They are called the sternocleidomastoids. I only feel these when I actually rub them (at which point they hurt). These turn your head in different ways, and they probably needed to be cut, or at least moved out of the way, when I had my surgery.

So, let's do a 'day in the life.' When I was a trial lawyer, there were "day in the life" videos, referring to a plaintiff's lawyer having a dramatic video produced showing how miserable the plaintiff's life had become since she took the drug/used the product/drove the car off the road, etc. They are really hard to watch (because if they weren't, the plaintiff wouldn't seek to show them to the jury) and sometimes judges exclude them on the grounds that they are more inflammatory than instructive. My 'day in the life' vid would be no big whoop.

I still use my cane most of the time when I'm outside the house, unless I know there will be plenty of things to grab onto if I start to topple over. I need to lift my legs (especially my right leg) with my hands if I want to put on my pants or cross my legs. To get up off the floor, I need to get on hands and knees first and then carefully stand up, using my hands because my right leg doesn't work. I make more typos than I like with my numb left hand. When I get tired, my vision goes double and I have to consciously focus (on the crochet/scissors/DS game/magazine/hockey game). I spend all day turning my head like some kind of demented bobblehead, just instinctively stretching the muscles and keeping it loose. I can pick Abby up and carry her around, but not as often as she'd like me to (which would probably be true of most people, because she would like to be carried around all day). My right leg drags a bit, which means I have to be careful not to stumble. And it is rough carrying Abby down the stairs, or wrestling with her on the changing table (she does NOT appreciate having her diaper changed or clothes put on). In general, maybe I feel like I'm living in a body that's ten years older than it really is, with a limp.

Dr. Restak, my second-opinion neurologist, wants to repeat the lumbar puncture (spinal tap). He says that the muscle strength is actually quite good (if this is good, I must have been a superhero before), but the nerve/muscle connection doesn't seem right (duh) and I have hugely hyperactive reflexes and other weirdness. When I'm sitting up on the examination table and he taps my knee with that little rubber hammer they use, my leg flies up so violently that I almost throw myself off the table. This is funny, actually, but also a little unnerving. So, he would like a repeat spinal tap. He says the fact that the first one was done before my surgery might have affected the results because of something I didn't understand, having to do with the impact on the spinal cord of my mushed-up disks. Now that the surgery is over and the cord has healed somewhat, there is a chance the results would be different, and the spinal tap seems like the only remaining way to triple-check that I most likely don't have MS. He still has an "inkling", he says, that I might have some kind of "sneaky" MS that just isn't presenting the way it usually does.

Children, I was just about to give up on the whole thing. Why keep going to neurologists just to have them make me look at their fingers and poke me with pins and tap my knee with hammers, and tell me that I seem a little better but they still have no idea what's going on? I told my husband that's how I felt, I told Dr. Restak, and I told a couple of other doctors, and they all said the same thing -- it's not yet time to stop looking for a diagnosis. If it is MS, I should be treated for it, and we haven't quite -- almost, but not quite -- done absolutely everything possible to be sure it isn't MS. So, I'll get on Maragakis's schedule (haven't seen him in a while, anyway) and see if he wants to stick a needle in my spine.

Meanwhile, I need to make a visit to Dr. Witham, the neurosurgeon, too. Last time we looked at an x-ray of my neck, he said the next two disks up, C3-4 and 4-5, were looking pretty crumbly. I want to keep on this, because I would rather have surgery before I wake up one morning on the brink of paralysis -- savvy?

As for rehab, well, really Abby is my only rehab. I stretch once in a while, and I certainly walk a lot more than I used to -- I even discovered my maximum walking speed, thanks to our treadmill: it is .9 miles per hour. Whoo! But it's impossible to imagine going to the frigid pool and putting on a swimsuit and walking around in this weather. I've been kicked out of physical therapy, and I can't lift weights. So really, it's up to me to do simple exercises which are really boring. I have been toying with the idea of yoga. Problem is, when you want to do restorative or very gentle yoga, it takes 25 props and elaborate staging of pillows and chairs and everything else. By the time I pile up all the accoutrements and position myself in just the perfect way to lie down, I'm exhausted. The answer? Not sure.

Here's the thing about giving up on the doctors. I have adjusted. At some deep level, I got tired of being afraid, of being angry, of being resentful. So I shifted in my expectations, and I decided 'fine, this is my life. i use a cane, i park in the handicapped spots, i can't move my right leg, and i have some level of pain all the time. i can do this, so it's fine.' And I moved on. Or rather, I wanted to move on. When I go to the neurologists, however, it all comes flooding back. The fear, the anger, and the resentment gain new life and I even have flashbacks to the hospital, the recuperation, the tears, the terror, the total mystery of what was happening to me -- would I die? Would I be paralyzed? Who wants to think about any of that? Not me. Fighting to achieve a diagnosis seemed much less important to me than avoiding all of that negative garbage. I asked over and over my remaining question, "Is this going to suddenly happen to me again?" and all of them said, "I don't see any reason why it will." Good enough for me. But it isn't. I need to know whether this is MS. If it is, I need medication so I can make it less likely that it will happen again, or get worse. Which, frankly, sucks. I'd much rather carry on as is and forget about the whole thing.

And The Award Goes To . . .

Inspired by a friend's recent posting of her favorite novels of 2008, I decided to set forth a few of my favorite things of 2008. (I think the only novel I read might have been Twilight, and I was underwhelmed.) So, here they are:

The Post-American World, Fareed Zakaria. My favorite book of the year. I am a Zakaria fan, and I really hope he knows what he's talking about, because this book is hopeful and yet realistic in its view of how globalization will play out in the near term.

Bobby. My favorite movie. Does it have to be a movie that came out in 2008? I think that's an unfair standard for a parent of an infant. Anyway, I finally saw this movie this year, and if you haven't seen it, you should. Powerful and frightening. Plus I love the costumes and sets. And Martin Sheen. I cried like crazy at the end, not only because it is so sad that we lost RFK, but because I am afraid that people will never change. (Close behind is Mamma Mia, which I also just saw. I haven't seen anything new in a long time.)

Harrod's Irish Breakfast. My favorite tea of the year. Thanks, baby, for bringing it back from the UK for me.

Web Site. I don't have a favorite web site. Do most people? I spend a lot more time surfing around on tons of different sites and haven't really developed a committed relationship to any of them. Am I alone in this?

Thich Nhat Hanh. My favorite class at church this year. Yes, I am still a Christian. But I'm an Episcopalian, remember.

My son's Nintendo DS. My favorite toy of the year. I still use my Rebel XTi digital SLR camera all the time, and love it, but the kids got DS handheld video games from Santa and I have become an addict. A real addict. Unfortunately, I'm not supposed to use the DS when R is not around, so I sneak it and feel guilty each time.

Sidney Crosby. My favorite sportsman of the year -- again. He plays hockey like a dolphin swimming in the sea.

The Monarchy. My favorite documentary miniseries. I love the Brits.

Richard Restak. My favorite doctor of the year. This is a tough category, what with all the competition. This gentlemen is a rock-star neurologist who looks like Alfred Hitchcock with Albert Einstein's hair. (Speaking of Hitchcock, I haven't seen Notorious in a while -- one of my all-time favorite movies.) Dr. Restak has a tiny garrett-office in D.C.; one feels like one is shopping at Ollivander's.

I Am Legend. My most hated audiobook of the year (how's that for a category?).

Sugarland. My favorite band. I love them, not only because I can actually sing along with Jennifer Nettles' voice (not well, mind you, but the point is she's not a screeching soprano).

The Irish Inn at Glen Echo. My favorite place to eat out this year. Although we ate at a lot of nice places, including in Vegas, I love Irish pubs and always feel very comfortable in them.

David Gergen, Bill Bennett and Jeff Toobin. My favorite pundits. These three were the only ones on all the networks I could stand to watch cover the election. I used to like Carville, but he really has stopped looking like a human being, and it's distracting. I think maybe Mary is a vampire and is slowly sucking the life force out of him. Creepy.

The Economist. Still my favorite magazine. This year, though, I also really liked "Wondertime" and sometimes I enjoyed "Good" (sometimes they're too cool for school).

CS Monitor. My favorite newspaper this year.

Jon Stewart. My favorite anchorman. Duh.

Finding Out that Obama's Nominee for Energy Secretary is a Nobel Laureate. High point of post-election political news (i.e. me jumping up and down, clapping). Right up there with finding out that, to some extent at least, Jimmy Smits' character in The West Wing was based on Barack Obama.

Crochet, Scrapbooking, Pastels, Sketching, Embroidery, Cross-Stitch, Fleece-Blanket-Making, Clay. My favorite dabbles of the year. OK, so I haven't found an outlet for my visual art yet. Sorry, honey, and I apologize for all the paper, yarn, fleece, thread, etc. lying around.

Red Damask Tablecloth. My favorite Christmas present! (Or one of them, anyway.) I don't know what this means about my life, but I love my tablecloth.

Cooking Thanksgiving Dinner for Many, Many People. One of my favorite moments of the year.

Attending a Penguins Playoff Game in Pittsburgh with My Hubby. Another of my favorite moments of the year!

Skippy Natural Creamy. My favorite peanut butter.

Narcissism. My favorite neurosis. :)

Face Painting

I was at a party recently where a friend shared her lip gloss with me because she wanted me to taste the amazing minty-ness of it. It was amazingly minty, and very yummy (I think it was CoverGirl). I said, "This reminds me of Lip Venom (which was big a few years ago)." She said, very excitedly, "Right! It's like Lip Venom, only without the pain!"

Lip Venom did hurt, actually. It worked, plumping-up and juicifying your lips, but I always had the sneaking suspicion that I wasn't meant to apply that sort of whatever-it-was to sensitive skin tissue.

Makeup is a strange thing in any case. When I was in my teens, I used it primarly to cover things up. Mostly zits. Which is ironic, because makeup can cause zits. Also ironic because I secretly longed for a chic, French mother who could teach me subtle, feminine secrets about skin care and enhancement -- and I was pretty sure they wouldn't involve Maybelline or Bonne Bell, much less tinted Clearasil.

In my early twenties, I went through a no-makeup phase. I was head of the feminist organization on my college campus, but it really wasn't so much a feminist statement on my part to avoid makeup as it was trying to fit in with the other 'womyn'. In fact, this whole radical time of my life was probably the one most marked by a total desire for social conformity-- just within my own little angry crowd.

I can still recognize what I consider 'makeup types.' There are the New England Barefaces, the hearty, intellectual descendants of Thoreau who specialize in self-sufficiency, wool crewnecks and not wearing makeup. I identified another of these gals at the lip gloss-discovery party mentioned above. There are also the Beauty Queens, the type of women who wear acrylic nails and will not leave home without being completely put together. My mother-in-law is like that, as are a lot of women I knew in the south, and bored, country-club wives here in Maryland who are looking for some way to treat themselves. Last night on New Year's Rockin' Eve, there was even a tall, stork-looking girl wearing a bright yellow slash painted across her forehead. I've often predicted to Dave that piercings and tattoos should not be our worries for Shannon's teen years -- by then, kids will just be painting their bodies blue and walking around naked.

By my late 20's, out of law school, I was using makeup again, with the goal of looking hot. That is, of meeting guys. This met with a fair amount of success. By my thirties, though, I had met enough guys and also gotten increasingly, shall we say, 'fun-loving,' as things got more boring in my career and life. During that phase, I started using makeup mostly to look awake.

After pregnancy gave me age spots and a few more wrinkles, I found myself trying to cover things up again. But yesterday, as I 'painted my face' to go out for new year's, I realized I've now moved into a phase where I use makeup both to look younger and to look hot. I'm not sure whether I succeed in either endeavor, but at least I no longer wear makeup that hurts.