Girl Detective

I forget how long ago it was that I bought a neti pot, but it was many years. It might’ve been during my pregnancy with Drake when I had a cold and was all “oh, I can’t take conventional drugs.” (As opposed to my pregnancy with Guppy, during which I was sick all the time, and was not nearly so cautious–Dimetapp, Robitussin, Pepcid, Tums, echinacea, zinc…) I tried the neti pot, nearly drowned at my own hand, then put it away, thinking to myself, “crazy alternative therapies.”

Recently, my nose has been in bad shape due to hot summer, allergies, and air conditioning. It was both dried out and stuffed up. I decided to give the neti pot another try. I followed the directions and the ridiculous picture of the girl pouring salt water through her nose and smiling, and this time it worked! It didn’t feel pleasant, but I poured salt water in one nostril and it came out the other. Then Drake came in to see what I was doing, and I had to smile just like the women in the picture so he wouldn’t be alarmed, but then he wanted to use it, and I had to explain that, like fancy chocolate, gum and lipstick, neti pots are just for mommies.

After the neti pot, I felt a little wet down deep in the ears (during his bath, when he gets water in his ears, Drake says, “I have diapers in my ears.”) but that passed quickly, and then my nose felt great–clear on both sides, moisturized, fresh–like it had been to a spa. I’ve used it a few more times, and while it still feels like I’m wilfully choking myself with salt water, my nose feels much better. So: crazy but effective alternative therapy.

A long time ago, I fretted over Drake’s pronoun confusion. He got you and I mixed up, and forget about he and she; they’re still all over the place. Recently, Drake has begun narrating his life, eschewing pronouns, but still in third person. For example, in the bath he cried, “Stop washing me, yelled my mom!” Running around the house: “I’m chasing, shouted my dad!”

Odd, but amusing.

I think Drake and Guppy require re-entry each week back to our routine after the weekend, thus I find it hard to write on Mondays. So until I get a fortuitous naptime, here are links to letters I wrote to the author at Mental Multivitamin, one on housework (among other things), the other on Caitlyn Flanagan’s and Linda Hirshman’s books, showing that I haven’t really opted out of commenting on the Mommy Wars, I just don’t necessarily do it here.

#45 in my book challenge for the year, and #21 in my summer book challenge, Intuition by Allegra Goodman, was recommended with reservations by a member of my writing group. Interestingly, she didn’t tell me what her reservations were, so I read with extra awareness to how it was written. I found it a good book, worth reading, but with some significant problems as well. I was also reminded that in nearly every book I read, there is some very small thing that I quibble over, even if I love the book, so I’ll leave that for the end.

What works: Intuition is the story of group of postdocs, once of whose work begins to show results. The positive results are a mixed blessing, though, as tensions begin to arise among the various strong personalities. Goodman has written a huge cast of characters, most of whom are complexly drawn, and all of whom interact in interesting and believable ways. Their various experiences and points of view give the reader multiple views into the plot, as in Rashomon. The plot clips along at a strong pace, as events seem to take on a life of their own. At the end, everyone is both better and worse off, and two of the main female characters are perhaps the only ones to gain significant self insight.

What didn’t work: The cast was so big that there was no way to adequately characterize all the characters, and some of them appeared conveniently, then disappeared. The omniscient point of view was sometimes dizzying and distracting, as the narrative would swoop among several characters within a chapter. Additionally, there was a great deal of narration of what each of the characters was feeling or thinking. Sometimes this felt like good characterization, other times it felt like “telling”. The characters and the story might better have been served with more narrative and less character description.

The tiny thing that annoyed me a lot: The font of the pages numbers was different from that of the text, and it was hard to read–a poor design choice.

#46 in my movie challenge for the year was What’s Cooking. I recorded it for two Thanksgivings ago, and we finally felt like watching it nowhere near holiday season. It’s a decent holiday flick, switching between four LA families, one Jewish, Latino, African American, and Chinese. Each family has drama for both the parents and the children, and each family has different food and ways to celebrate. It’s overlong at about two hours, and some of the drama and performances are forced, but it’s got some sweet and funny moments that make it worthwhile, and nothing so over-the-top dreadful as what usually gets churned out by the studios each year.

#44 in my book challenge for the year, and #20 in my summer reading challenge, was Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides. Since it’s been sitting on my shelf for about four years, it’s a good reminder that I should not buy books on impulse. It is appropriately epic in scope, for a sprawling tale of Calliope/Cal Stephanides, a genetic boy raised as a girl. (Calliope is the muse of epic poetry.) It is touching, frequently funny, and crowded with memorable characters. It’s a family history as well as an investigation into identity, sex, gender, and history. There’s much to enjoy while reading, and much to ruminate on once it’s done. The non-linear narrative helped make the long book go quickly, though a few times it made me wonder at things that didn’t quite match up.

I think there’s a tendency in childcare books and in advice of extremes. One camp says babies are evil geniuses, adept at manipulating their caring, sleep-deprived parents. The other says babies are like little buddhas, who know exactly what they need, if only their parents are attuned enough to divine it. The reality, of course, is much more murky and middle ground. It also changes as babies get older, and can learn cause and effect.

Our first parenting book was the Dr. Sears Baby Book. Initially, I thought it was great. I aspired to be an attachment parent. I had not, however, consulted Drake about this. Drake did not like the sling. Drake did not like to be held. And Drake would not, could not, sleep. I consulted the Sears Baby Book, where it said disparaging things about sleep training, and that it set children up for unhealthy dependencies later in life. It was not what I needed to hear at the end of my rope. Next, I consulted The No-Cry Sleep Solution by Elizabeth Pantley. It also disparaged the so-called sleep-training books as cruel. I read it, I tried its recommendations, but Drake’s sleep did not improve. Finally, I took the advice of our pediatrician, and I purchased the book of the sleep trainer the other books reviled: Dr. Ferber. I read the book, and was shocked at how reasonable it was. I’d expected some baby-ignoring devil based on what I’d read in Pantley and Sears. My husband and I followed the advice in the Ferber book, and finally Drake’s sleep improved. He liked to go to bed, and he slept well once there.

It was the Ferber book I opened when Guppy began to wake more often, at about four months. I supplemented it with a book by Jodi Mindell, billed elsewhere as a “kinder, gentler Ferber” though I found it so nearly the same I’m surprised at the lack of attribution. This time, I tried to approach it more like sleep learning than sleep training. We checked on Guppy at lengthening intervals. I decreased the duration of night feedings by a minute a night. I stopped nursing him right before bed and directly after waking to differentiate those events. Gradually, Guppy learned not only to fall asleep by himself, but that waking did not mean nursing. Within days, he was sleeping longer and waking less. Guppy did cry more for a time, which set the rest of us on edge. Faced with little sleep and much crying, it was often difficult to determine the best thing to do. But now we are all four doing much better than we were a month ago.

Drake, at nearly three, talks a lot. He lisps over his Ls and Ss, but for all that I agonized over his late start talking, he’s pretty clear now. One word, though, remains charmingly babyish. The hot weather has spurred me to keep the blender out for frequent smoothies. Drake just can’t get his palate around the word, so he pronounces it “foozie”. I know it will change eventually, just like cats went from being “beows” to “meows” to “cats”. So I don’t correct him; I’m going to enjoy listening to him say “foozie” as long as it lasts.

#s 44 and 45 in my movie challenge for the year were, respectively, The Graduate and Rumor Has It. The Graduate is not long, but moves slow. My dad and mom saw this while she was pregnant with me, so apparently I experienced the film pretty young. Our movie book review says it’s uneven because the director, Mike Nichols, couldn’t decide whether it was social satire or farce. I think it works better as the former, because the elements of farce take away empathy for the characters. Bancroft was 36 when it was released, Hoffman was 30, so hardly young enough to be her son. I think it’s most memorable for his performance, which contains the humorous, nebbishy tics more familiar from his later roles. He turned down the Gene Wilder role in The Producers to do The Graduate, and the role made him a star.

Rumor Has It is a riff on The Graduate. Aniston plays a girl who discovers that her family was the basis for the Robinsons in The Graduate, so she seeks out Costner to find out if he’s her father. Maclaine, as the “real” Mrs. Robinson, steals every scene she’s in. Costner is believably charming, though his artfully mussed hair is an expensive variation on a combover. It’s billed as a comedy; while lightweight, it’s more bittersweet. It also had that rare character–a good father, played well by Richard Jenkins of Six Feet Under. I enjoyed it more for having watched The Graduate. It got poor reviews, but I enjoyed it.

I’m likely to hit my minimum yearly book and movie goals of fifty, perhaps for books even by the end of August. After we had our first son, Drake, I found I was reading less often, and seeing movies hardly at all. Both reading and movies felt too important to become casualties (even temporarily) of parenthood, so last year and this I set movie and book challenges, with a hope that, at minimum, I’d be reading one book and seeing one movie a week. These challenges are reminders to myself (and perhaps to readers) that there IS time to read and to see movies. I make time for these things by not doing other things, like housecleaning and yard work, or doing them less often. Mental Multivitamin re-posted this entry on how she makes time to read/write/live/learn. Her post is a good reminder: time is limited and distractions many. My challenges help me focus on my priorities. My summer reading challenge has helped me focus on the reading list I set, rather than haring off whenever something new catches my eye, or comes in at the library. I’ve still departed from the list, but much less frequently, and with more deliberation, than I would if I had not set a reading list.

#43 in my reading challenge for the year, and #19 in my summer reading challenge, was Baby by Patricia MacLachlan, a recommendation from Michael Cart’s interesting history of YA literature, From Romance to Realism. Baby is a bittersweet, spare story of a vacation island family that takes in a child left at their door at the end of the season. As the story unfolds, we learn the sadness that lurks for each of the family members. This has beautiful prose, memorable characters, and challenging ruminations on loss and memory. Short, powerful, and emotional.

#42 in my book challenge for the year, and #18 in my summer reading challenge, was Magic Lessons, the second book in Larbalestier’s Magic or Madness trilogy. After re-reading, and again loving, Magic or Madness, I was disappointed in the sequel. It didn’t feel as tight, either in editing (there were many extraneous and unnecessarily repeated sentences) or in plot. Reason Cansino, the 15 year old protagonist, goes back and forth between New York and Sydney and tries to avoid Jason Blake, just as she did in the first. But the introduction of a new character creates more questions than it answers, and I’m not sure that was intended, even while there is more than a little deus ex machina element to him. Some of my dissatisfaction may be unfair–this may be a typical second book in a trilogy, that begins to answer some of the intruguing questions raised in the first part, but doesn’t finish the story. I will certainly read the next book in the series, but I may get it from the library rather than purchasing it, as I did this book, based on the strength of the first.

#43 in my movie challenge for this year was last year’s Proof, directed by John Madden and starring Gwyneth Paltrow and Jake Gyllenhaal. (There’s another movie by the same name from a while back, which was on that “overlooked movie” list.) I almost skipped this movie, since I felt so busy this week. I told the librarian to put it back in the queue since I didn’t have time to watch it. He shook his head, and told me to rearrange things so I could watch it. After that recommendation, I had to watch it, even though I knew it had gotten mixed reviews. It took a while for me to enjoy it; its origins as a play are quite clear, and some scenes were very stage-y. Additional, Gyllenhaal and Paltrow often sounded stilted, as if they were reading lines. But the story grew on me. Paltrow is the daughter of a mathematician played by Anthony Hopkins. The story jumps back and forth in time as we see their relationship, his madness, and as we try to determine which of them wrote a math proof, and whether she is going crazy, as he had. Uneven, but it finishes strong.

Even before having kids, we found that combining dinner and a movie was difficult, logistically. Either we rushed to an early movie and ate late, or rushed through dinner to a movie. My husband and I had been on two dates since baby Guppy was born in February, and both were movie dates. (#1, and #2). After traveling and a few tough weeks at home, I decided it was time for a dinner date. And if we were going to go to dinner, I figured we might as well go for broke (perhaps literally) to what our favorite food critic has called “the best restaurant in the history of Minneapolis.”

The superlative is well deserved. A few times during dinner I asked my husband if something was wrong, since he looked rather pissed off. “They’re ruining me,” he complained. “This is too good. Nothing will ever be this good again.” It may well have been the best dinner we’ve ever had. We chose the five course tasting menu, supplemented at our server’s suggestion with the foie gras appetizer (because since when is foie gras NOT a good idea?) and with an extra dessert at the food critic’s suggestion. Even if I’d kept a menu, I couldn’t list all the elements of each dish, because there were so many–I’d hazard to guess about ten elements per dish. Yet they didn’t come off as fussy, disjointed or complicated. Each course was a miracle of fusion and balance.

We began with not one but two amuses bouches, a sauteed squash flower stuffed with cheese and a gruyere puff. The courses were soft shell crab in a bright fresh tomato sauce, followed by trout wrapped in serrano ham, then the foie gras, which was garnished with an apricot sauce that demanded for extra bread to wipe the plate clean. The meat courses were a lamb ribeye and a veal tenderloin. The dessert was a peach and plum tart with peach ginger sorbet, which we complemented with a deep chocolate dessert accompanied by a strawberry and mint confection. With our check were four exquisite, delicious petit-fours.

I was reminded that the best meals we’ve eaten have been tasting menus. A la carte menus make sense for average restaurants, or for meals when time is an issue. But when the meal is the focus (and cost is wilfully ignored), a tasting menu showcases the talents of a chef across a variety of ingredients. The effects, as we experienced, can be dazzling both to the eye and to the palate.

As a recovering bookstore junkie, I greatly appreciate both the selection and reserve system at my local library. A recent trip turned up interesting results. Drake enjoyed all three books, but I did not. I think the true mark of a book’s success is if I like to read it, and Drake’s likes to hear it, and we both like to look at it. Since he often insists on hearing books dozens of times, books weak in story or art get very annoying, very fast. Borrowing from the library, rather than buying, allows us the luxury of test driving these books at home, to see which books we both enjoy.

Good: Bailey Goes Camping by Kevin Henkes Some Henkes books are particular favorites: Kitten’s First Full Moon, Lilly’s Purple Plastic Purse, Sheila Rae the Brave, and Chester’s Way. Some I have actively disliked (Julius, Baby of the World, and A Weekend with Wendell). Others I found only OK (Chrysanthemum and Wemberley Worried). Bailey Goes Camping falls into this last category. The blurbs on the back call it “cozy” and “comfortable”. I found it boring. Bailey’s older brother and sister go camping. He wants to go but is too young, so his mom helps him do camping things at home. The story is simple, the art is deliberately old-fashioned, but I found neither particularly memorable.

Better: Too Big by Claire Masurel, art by Hanako Wakiyama. I’d liked the art from The Best Pet of All (see following) so I decided to give this a try. Charlie is small and brings home a big toy named Tex. No one wants him to take Tex anywhere because of his size, but when Charlie has to go to the doctor, Tex is loyal and ready. I had a few problems with this book. First, I think Tex’s size is supposed to be a contrast with Charlie’s smallness, typical of a kid, but that’s a subtle inference for a child. Second, when Charlie needs to go to the doctor, all his regularly sized toy friends hide. The illustration for this was good, since a child can find them, but why they hide is unclear. Are they afraid of the doctor, and the author didn’t want to make this explicit? Is it so that Charlie finally takes Tex? Without explanation, it seems cruel and arbitrary that his friends hide from him. Finally, while I liked the retro look of the art, the dad had red hair (like Charlie) on several pages, but black hair on another. I found this lack of continuity confusing. Drake, though, liked the book just fine.

Best: The Best Pet of All by David LaRochelle, art by Hanako Wakiyama. We have checked this book out before, and I was reminded that it is a great blend of story and art. A little boy wants a dog; his mother says no. The boy counters that he’d like a dragon. The mom OKs that, little expecting the boy to bring home a dragon. Both are understandably upset with the dragon’s bad manners. The end is charming and funny, and turns on understanding something from the illustration, not just the text. While my husband jokes that he finds the mom “uncomfortably hot” for a storybook, the art is retro yet kid-accessible. While all three books had very good reviews at Amazon, this is the one book of the three that I liked as well as Drake did, and it’s the one book that I will consider adding to our permanent library, though I also like the idea of having old favorites at our public library that we check out and re-read.

#41 in my book challenge for the year, and #17 in my summer reading challenge was Magic or Madness by Justine Larbalestier, which I re-read as preparation for the more recently published second book in this trilogy. Reason Cansino, a fifteen-year-old Australian girl, has been on the run for all her life with her mother, from her grandmother. When her mother is institutionalized, Reason is returned to the grandmother, who Reason’s mother has warned her is an evil person who believes in magic. In a more conventional novel, Reason would come to terms with her grandmother, and discover that magic isn’t evil and neither is the grandmother. This book, though, takes a darker, more complicated route, and is hugely entertaining because of it. Reason discovers that magic is real, but using and not using magic both have terrible consequences. As Reason struggles to learn more, she must determine who to trust, since most of what she’s been told all her life has been a lie. I raced through this book, and am eager to begin the sequel, Magic Lessons.

#42 in my movie challenge for the year was last year’s Junebug. It is an interesting contrast to The Family Stone, which I found heavy handed. Junebug was not overdetermined; I found it often perplexing. Amy Adams gave a great performance, and it deftly avoided the usual cliches about family and the south. At the end, I had many questions, most about George, the son who brings his new bride to meet the family. George spoke hardly at all, and the few times he did, he often contradicted something he’d said before. A good movie, with much to recommend it, but one I found ultimately unsatisfying.

#40 in my book challenge for the year, and #16 in my summer reading challenge, was The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo. Kate gave a reading last weekend, which prompted me to re-read her previous books before picking up her newest one. The Tale of Despereaux won the Newbery award, and it’s a sad, lovely story with beautiful pencil illustrations. Despereaux is a tiny but large-eared mouse, who is exiled from the mice because he won’t conform. He goes on to endure many difficulties as he struggles not only to survive, but to restore both soup and the princess to the kingdom. The book is not only sad, but frequently delves into disturbing portraits of perfidy (which the author exhorts the reader to look up) and evil. One character, Miggery Sow, endures so much that no happy ending can really redeem all that she has suffered. Throughout, the author addresses the reader in the same manner as Charlotte Bronte did in Jane Eyre. I felt this was a way to remind the reader that while dark things are happening, the reader is not alone in the darkness. The contrast of light and dark, and its reflections both in character and in events, is present throughout, as are reminders that this is a story. Despereaux is longer and more complex than DiCamillo’s previous books, Because of Winn Dixie and The Tiger Rising. I don’t think it’s as charming as the former, or as moving as the latter, but it is a compelling story, well told.

#39 in my book challenge for the year, and #15 in my summer reading challenge, was The Tiger Rising by Kate DiCamillo. Rob is a young boy whose mother has died, and who has trouble with bullies at school. After he finds a caged tiger in the woods, and befriends Sistine Bailey, he has to decide if his previous coping mechanisms can still work for him. There is a great deal of sadness in the book, for Rob and for other characters as well. Additionally, unlike DiCamillo’s Because of Winn Dixie, the book goes beyond sadness and portrays glimpses into evil–cruelty for its own sake–as well. This is a sad, but ultimately rewarding book, with good emotional insight into difficult circumstances.

Yesterday I was about to wake toddler Drake from his nap. (Within the past year, I’ve had to modify my “never wake the child” rule, because if he napped late, then he stayed up late, so it became a choice between shortening the nap, or pushing back the bedtime.) On the monitor, I heard movement and thought, “He’s waking himself. Perfect timing.” Then I heard a giant thump and a loud wail. With baby Guppy in my arms, I raced up the steps and into his room, where he was getting off the floor next to his bed, blood dripping from his face. “Nosebleed,” I thought. “I can handle this.” I tried to hug him, he rebuffed me, so I went to the hall to get a towel, choosing a dark red one, so he wouldn’t be so alarmed by the blood. I returned, and was trying to calm him and wipe up a bit, when he let out another loud wail, displaying a mouthful of blood. Since he wouldn’t let me near him, and I now wanted help, I put Guppy in his crib, then called my neighbor who said she could be right over. Guppy, of course, had also begun to wail by this point. The neighbor arrived and tended to Guppy, who was happy as long as he was being held. I managed to coax Drake into my arms finally. He said his nose hurt, but not his tongue, so we figured that the blood in the mouth was backwash from the nose. He eventually stopped crying, then let me put him down with a few whimpers here and there. We knew he was OK when he asked me to play cars with him.

I’d been thinking that it would probably be OK to get rid of the monitor in Drake’s room now that he’s almost three, since having one for each boy is cumbersome. He’s a good sleeper and has been in his bed for seven months. But I was glad for the monitor yesterday, since it let me respond to him quickly. The monitor stays, for now.