Metaphors.

So my good friend tells me that when you've got the time and energy to come up with extended metaphors for the relationships in your life, it's pretty much a sign that the shit is about to hit the fan.

I don't necessarily agree. 

She tells me I should write it down, anyway, because that chick that did "He's Just Not That Into You" is making bank now. And she's sympathetic to my frantic attempts to start saving for the baby's college education on my $12/hour salary.

So have you ever waded into a cold lake to go swimming?

You put your feet in, it burns, you keep going. The water rises higher and higher on your legs, to your knees, mid-thighs, and then it's kind of hanging out there right below your crotch.

That's a moment of truth, right there. Up till this point, you were testing the waters. But now you're either going to dive in and go swimming, or turn around and give it up.

How cold is the water? Do I really want to do this? Oh shit, this is going to suck.

Alternatively, you think "This isn't so bad. I got this."

I'm hanging out in that cold lake. I've got arctic, icy water lapping at my nether regions.

I thought that the Manfriend was right there with me, in the frigid waters. And we'd plunge or turn around together.

Now I find out that I'm out there all alone and he's still getting his toes wet in the surf.

It's kind of awkward.

So I'm in the process of backing up and heading to shore. Maybe we'll try swimming again when the water's warmed a little.

Vulnerability vs. Neediness

I find that very often, "vulnerability" is mistaken for "neediness."

Vulnerable: Capable of or susceptible to being wounded or hurt.

Neediness: The quality of needing attention and affection and reassurance to a marked degree.

One can easily see that they are not the same thing, when faced with such concrete definitions, but we rarely live our lives in the realm of such clear delineation. We live in the emotional, baggage-laden, messy world, a world that often bears little resemblance to the neat and orderly realm of the dictionary.

When you make yourself vulnerable, especially when you consciously choose to make yourself vulnerable, it is often taken as a sign that you need to be protected, taken care of, reassured. We live in a time and place where no one is allowed to simply feel. We take pills, we go to therapists, we spend an inordinate amount of time trying to make other people responsible for what we feel and the aftermath of it.

Don't get me wrong- I'm a big fan of talking. I am a born communicator. I honestly enjoy sitting down with someone and figuring shit out.

But that doesn't mean that that other person becomes responsible for me and my emotions and my vulnerability. I may choose to allow you the weapons to hurt me with, and with that choice, I must take some responsibility for any hurt that ensues.

I have a lot of soft points. I'm vulnerable.

But I'm not needy.

A Civil Little Savage

I don't write about the baby very often. She's too new, and there are still some raw places that don't like to be poked at surrounding her appearance. Also, I'm not very good at funny or touching, and blogs about babies should definitely be one or the other.

But oh well.

My nearly-10-month-old girlchild has taken to raising her hand to get my attention.

This started about two weeks ago. The first time she did it, I thought it was a fluke. The second, third, and fourth times, I was suspicious, but not overly awed. Now it's been two solid weeks, and I am trying to wrap my head around this development in her development.

I always thought that raising one's hand for attention was a learned behavior. We go to school, we have some self-righteous control-freak teacher, and she makes us raise our hands before she acknowledges our presence in any way. In this fashion, we learn that before being heard, we must be recognized, and before recognition comes the madly waving hand that is as often as not completely ignored anyway.

(It's actually a wonder we come to associate hand-raising with being called on, since the results are so sporadic, but we're smart beings. I guess.)

Anyway. My nearly-10-month-old girlchild has never been in school. She's never been in daycare. She's never had to compete for attention with any other babies. Or children, for that matter. I cannot come up with one place that she would have learned to stick her hand in the air and wave it around to get attention.

And yet she does.

Don't get me wrong, this is definitely an advancement in communication between us. Previously when she wanted something, she'd scream at the top of her lungs. Now, she gives me a solid 30 to 45 seconds of hand-in-the-air before she starts screaming.

This has made mealtime much more pleasant.

She gets her toast point.

She rips it apart and gums it to death like the most adorable little savage that's ever lived.

Then she politely sticks her hand in the air and waits for me to notice and give her the next piece.

Conversation can carry on around this ritual. There is no yelling or crying or screaming or other loud noise involved.

Who would have thought this behavior was not learned? But I guess it's not.

However, as appreciated as the decreased volume of my life is to my poor head, I can't help but be a little concerned. Is my darling girl going to be a pushover? Is she going to be a queuer, a stand-and-wait mouse, someone who never gets what she needs because she's always too polite and considerate and patient to throw a temper tantrum when it's warranted? Not-quite-10-months seems a little early for this kind of civility.

Then I fail to notice her chubby little hand within the proscribed window of opportunity, and she howls like a banshee. And all my fears are laid to rest.

Compensation.

I whine a lot. I have come to this conclusion.

Good things (in no particular order):

The Snugglebug has four teeth, and is quite capable of feeding herself. Give her a piece of toast, and she'll happily sit there for 15 minutes ripping it apart like a savage and gumming it to death. It is adorable.

She also can almost walk. She has this Fisher Price shopping cart (that she loves to throw everything out of, but that's a different story) and she can walk along with it. But only in a straight line. So she goes forward until she runs into something, and then she stands there, banging the cart into the wall/door/piece of furniture over and over, trying to figure out why she's not moving anymore, until I get there and turn her around. Then she does it again. And again. And again. I'm starting to worry that there will be dents in the front door and the wall opposite it.

When she crawls, her little butt wiggles back and forth. I bought her pants with ruffles on the rear. My mother finds this hilarious.

The Manfriend let me fall asleep in his bed on Saturday night. I picked him up from work, and then we went back to his house, and then we started watching Lucky Number Slevin, and then I fell asleep. He woke me up when I had to go home.

He's so good to me.

My sister's mother-in-law spent a large chunk of Saturday afternoon giving me parenting advice. This is because she does not approve of the way my sister is raising her grandchildren, and she doesn't want me to ruin the Snugglebug in a similar manner. I refrained from pointing out to her that I am nowhere near as crazy as my sister is, mostly from some lingering sense of familial loyalty. I felt very virtuous about this act.

I have job. I will have health insurance in less than a month. I intend to get new glasses, contacts, my teeth cleaned, and some form of superbirthcontrol that will neverever fail.

I am especially excited about the teeth cleaning. I'm sort of a freak.

Modern Woman On-the-Go!

I have two jobs. Only one of them pays me. And, to be honest and objective, it doesn't pay me that well, but it pays me enough to get by and save for my future and the baby's education. And it comes with health insurance.

Health insurance is worth its weight in gold. Except insurance doesn't really weigh anything, so that analogy doesn't really work. Although, on third thought (yes, we are changing our minds that many times in the span of three sentences) health insurance comes with a lot of paperwork, and paperwork is heavy.

Health insurance is worth the weight of its paperwork in gold.

Moving on.

This job that pays the bills is a good job. I don't mind the work. I like the people 

well enough. I support wholeheartedly the practices and missions of the business.

But I have another job. In the seamy underbelly of the internet lives a site called ThirdCoast Digest. And it is there that I slave away in obscurity, writing and editing theater reviews, previewing theatrical occurrences, and (only recently, mind you) writing full-fledged features. I also post blogs (complete with pictures) for our resident rogue agent, who is too busy being roguish and agent-y to do it herself. I also mine through 100s and 100s of announcements and press releases in any given month. I'm not really exaggerating with the 100s. Milwaukee has a thriving arts community.

However, this job is time-consuming. It's probably a 20-hour per week job in and of itself. But I already have a full 40-hour per week job.

Now, were I not to have this adorable, wriggly, loving and wonderful thing called a baby, I could probably work 60 or 70 hours a week without breaking a sweat and still have a kick-ass time at the bars several nights a week. I've got no problem working. One might say that I am a work-a-holic in the making.

But I have got this adorable, wriggly, loving and wonderful thing called a baby.

And I want to adore her and love her and wriggle with her and wonder at her. Her arrival has definitely stopped my fall into the pit of a-holism (work-). She's my bungee cord. My stop-cable. My belay-line.

I'm not Wonder Woman. This is a hard realization for me. I want to do EVERYTHING. I've always wanted to do everything, and I've always had the time. Now I have to sacrifice bits of what I want to do, and it's a bitter pill to swallow. I'm not as fabulous as I pretend to be.