A Free Man

Happy Birthday, Baby Z! No, Boy Z.

Happy Birthday, my pea. My chicken. My monkey.

Happy Birthday, Z-Man. My Super Z.

Happy Birthday, Zachary P. Quack.

It’s been a year, a year beyond my wildest dreams. I remember clearly, and hope I always do, the days leading up to your arrival in the world. I remember the seemingly endless labor, probably worse for your Mum. I remember running out of energy entirely and sleeping on a bed made of various delivery implements on the floor of the delivery room. I remember the absolute powerlessness that I felt when things started to go a bit pear shaped at the end. Most of all I remember the feeling, one that I am entirely incapable of describing in words, when I first saw the top of your head. When I broke down in tears while saying, “It’s a boy, it’s a boy.” When I first held you in my arms. When I picked you up and everything changed, as a better writer than me has said.

I remember the song that was playing when you were born. It was Whiskeytown’s cover of Gram Parsons “A Song For You”. It wouldn’t have been my choice, but as I held you for the first time - too delicately, too nervously - it made perfect sense and it’s burned into my soul now as a song for you.

“Oh my land is like a wild goose
Wanders all around everywhere
Trembles and it shakes till every tree is loose
It rolls the meadows and it rolls the nails
So take me down to your dance floor
And I wont mind the people when they stare
Paint a different color on your front door
And tomorrow we will still be there…”

MP3: Whiskeytown - “A Song For You”

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A Free Man, Dr. O’C and A Free Boy are celebrating today. Unfortunately two of us are celebrating at work and the third at kid jail, but we’ll get there. Since it seems that most of you aren’t going to be able to make it to the party tomorrow, Boy Z and I decided to give you a little bit of a gift - some of out favorite tunes of late.

MP3: Great Lake Swimmers - “See You On The Moon”

This is one of our favorite sing-a-long tracks by a wonderful lo-fi folk outfit. I interviewed Tony Dekker, the brains behind Great Lake Swimmers, a little while ago and his record Oniagra is one of my favorites from 2007.

MP3: Kimya Dawson & Antsy Pants - “Tree Hugger”

I’ve been singing this one to Baby Z for weeks. Made famous by “Juno”, but Kimya Dawson is just fantastic. Check out her record “Remember That I Love You”.

MP3: Black Sabbath - “Iron Man”

Finally, my post yesterday caused a bit of a ruckus and some strong feelings. But it’s important to remember that whether liberal or conservative, religious or athiest, most of us have the same ultimate goal - a good life for ourselves and our family. We all want to raise our children in the best way can. And I’m sure that we all start off the day by listening to a little Black Sabbath with our kids. Right?

“Heavy boots of lead
Fills his victims full of dread
Running as fast as they can
Iron man lives again!”

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One last thing. Baby Z - Boy Z - told me that all he wants for his birthday is to get to see Steve Spurrier cry again. His beloved Georgia Bulldogs are headed over to Columbia, SC to play the Layin’ Hens of the University of South Carolina. Now, the Old Ball Coach laid one on us in Athens last year, but that was before Z’s time. I’ve regaled the boy with cautionary tales about Spurrier’s evilness, particularly when he was at the University of Florida. Z recognizes just how crucial it is that we smack Spurrier and his Chickens around on Saturday.

Georgia visits South Carolina on Saturday with a 3:30 p.m. Eastern (5:00 a.m. Sunday in Adelaide) kick. No internet video that I’m aware of  so we’ll be listening.

In the interest of equal time for nourishing mothers, Missouri has another easy one as they host the Nevada Wolfpack on Saturday at 12:30 p.m. Eastern (2:00 a.m. Sunday in Adelaide).

Hurray, hurrah! Mizzou! Mizzou!

Sic ‘em Dawgs!

Most importantly, Happy Birthday, my sweet boy.

MP3: Oxford Collapse - “The Birthday Wars”

Popularity: 74% [?]

Regular readers of A Free Man may know that one of my life long quests, much like Superman, is fighting for justice and pointing out inequity when it crosses my path. For example, the fact that Dr. O’C has celebrated two Mother’s Days in her first year as a Mother and I have had no Father’s Days. Zero. This is due to the byzantine wanderings of our family,different holiday calendars and the universal plot to screw me. Well, dear readers, that’s all going to change on Sunday because it is Father’s Day in Australia. And I am in Australia. And I am a Father. So, time to pony up, Baby Z. A matching “World’s Best Dad” coffee mug and T-shirt are always a nice gift. Or maybe some Georgia Bulldogs gear…

Odd time of year for Father’s Day as I will be spending at least the first part of the day waking up ridiculously early to listen to American football games on the internet. As week 2 of the NCAA football season kicks off, I feel like I need to rectify something. As a couple of my grad school friends never fail to point out, I have a tendency - in my undying loyalty to my undergraduate alma mater - to forget about the institution that gave me my Ph.D. and thus current career, the University of Missouri. I’ve written about why my devotion is focused on the Dawgs, but with Mizzou starting the season in the Top 10  as well and with a win over No. 20 Illinois last week, I really should share the love a bit for the school that added the Dr. to my name and several thousand dollars to my annual earning potential (not to mention provided me with a mate). So from this week on, I will give the trials and tribulations of the Missouri Tigers at least a little bit of time every week. Roughly equal time for almae matres (nourishing mothers). As for showing support, I’ll make the same deal I did for Georgia gear: send us some Z sized Mizzou gear and we’ll reciprocate with some Antipodean styles for your little Tiger.

Both the Dawgs and the Tigers are going to have it pretty easy this weekend. Despite an easy win over Southern last week, Georgia dropped to the two spot in most polls. This is actually a good thing as it’s number 1 that everyone guns for, so let them go after the Trojans rather than my boys. Takes the pressure off for a tough season. A bigger loss than the ranking was the loss of starting D tackle Jeff Owens, who is out for the season with a “freak” knee injury. First Sturdivant, now Owens - we can’t keep losing the big guys and win a championship.

We’ll be OK without them for this week as Georgia welcomes the Central Michigan Chippewas into Sanford Stadium on Saturday.The Chippewas are back-to-back MAC champs and are thought to have a good chance of winning that conference again this year. They’ve also got a dark horse Heisman candidate in QB Dan LeFevour. (As an aside, I thought all NCAA teams were supposed to jettison their Native American nicknames. What’s up with the Chippewas? Is Central Michigan racist or something? All the more reason to beat them up on the gridiron.) At any rate, we all saw what the Dawgs can do to teams from upstart conferences with hot shot quarterbacks. This game should be largely the same. I think Central Michigan will hang with the Dawgs for a bit and may put some points on the board, but Georgia brings it home in a rout: Georgia 45, Central Michigan 24.

Mizzou’s win over the Illini (Another racist team?) last Saturday was kind of a bittersweet one. The Tigers’ offense was spectacular, putting 52 points on Illionois. But they had to do so because the D gave up 42. With a defense this porous, Mizzou’s time in the Top 10 is likely to be pretty short-lived. The good news is that they’ve got a patsy to work with this week in Southeast Missouri. The Redhawks of Cape Girardeau, Missouri represent the Div I-AA Ohio Valley Conference and are riding up the road to Columbia to collect a check. No real contest here, just the question of how many points Tigers’ Coach Gary Pinkel piles on - Mizzou 55, SEMO 20.

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Your Number 2 Georgia Bulldogs host the racist Central Michigan Chippewas for a 3:30 p.m. Eastern (5:00 a.m. Sunday in Adelaide) kickoff. The game’s available on internet radio or ESPN’s Gameplan.

And the hapless Southeast Missouri State Redhawks have a date for a thrashing with Your Number 6 Missouri Tigers in Columbia at 7:00p.m. Eastern (8:30 a.m. Sunday in Adelaide). No options for international fans I’m afraid.

Hurray, hurrah! Mizzou! Mizzou!

Sic ‘em Dawgs!

—————

Green Day’s “Warning” is available from .

 

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“I said, ‘I like Fidel Castro,
I think you heard me right,’
And ducked as he swung
At me with all his might.”

Z, at just shy of a year old, got in his first fight at day care yesterday. Unfortunately, it wasn’t because he was espousing his Dad’s (and Bob Dylan’s) socialist  notions. Nor was it because he’s taken to wearing girls’ sunglasses (thanks Arizaphale). Nope, he tried to steal some kid’s dummy (pacifier) and the kid responded, impressively, by going for Z’s eyes with his/her claws. I haven’t seen the other kid, but based on the scratch marks, I’m guessing Z came out second best. I’ve got no idea what’s going on in that day care, seems to be filled with battling feral children.

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Z’s birthday is in just over a week, and we’re planning the party. First birthday parties are, in my limited experience, only tangentially about the birthday boys or girls. For me, it’s a celebration of my success in avoiding major catastrophe whilst in charge of another human being for 365 days. That, my friends, is something to celebrate.

You’re all invited, by the way. Nichole looked online and found that she and the family could get down to Adelaide on short notice for $34,000 (U.S.). So, I’m looking forward to seeing her and Alex again. Don’t worry about a present, Nichole. Can’t think of a reason that the rest of you won’t be there as well.

Speaking of presents, Z’s gotten his first birthday gifts from his Grandparents in Florida and as with kids of his age, enjoyed the box as much or more than the contents. Among the contents, though was a great little piece of childhood memorabilia, a Tonka ambulance that has been playing the role of madeline for me since last night. It’s amazing how much you forget about childhood and how much can be brought back with a little bit of metal and plastic. You know what else is amazing - those old Tonka toys. Just indestructible, and Z’s giving it a good go.

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I took today off to spend with my son and I find that when I do that my brain goes a bit abstract and I start invoking Proust and shit. But among the partying that Z and I did today, we had to go and get another in the endless string of childhood vaccines. All the researching and posting and comment fielding that I’ve done about vaccinations and autism really got to me. Not because I had a slew of Luddites chiming nonsense and even some nut job compare me to Hitler. Nope, it was the thoughtful and valid points that people like April, NATUI and Joe and others made about the number of vaccines that kids are sometimes given at once. Since then, Dr. O’C and decided that Z would be fully vaccinated but that he would receive one jab at a time with a few weeks between jabs to let his immune system recover. Before you point it out, I recognize that we’ve made this decision in a very unscientific manner. But I’ve been parenting largely on instinct so far and, as I mentioned above, the boy’s still around. (One year, woo hoo!)

At any rate, the slightly thuggish nurse tasked with jabbing Boy Z tried to bully me into having the MMR and two other vax today as well. I told her no and explained my reasoning. I anticipated, and would have respected, an argument from Nurse Ratched based on the extra monetary burden on the health care system. One of the things about a socialized health care system is that you sometimes have to try to minimize costs and high maintenance parents demanding deviations from standard operating procedures cost money. That makes sense and if she had made this argument, I would have offered to pay the excess. But her case was that the kids get more upset with the more shots that they have to go through so its better to do them all at once. Bogus. Z barely whimpered with this one, which is about his 14th, and I doubt that he’ll be fazed by a few more. I’m always willing to stand on principle and Z will get his shots one at a time.

“As his fist hit the icebox,
He said he’s going to kill me
If I don’t get out the door
In two seconds flat,
You unpatriotic, rotten doctor commie rat…”

 

 Bob Dylan - "Motorpsycho Nitemare" [4:34m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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There are still no sign of teeth, but just shy of a year old the boy’s taking to his feet. The days of lackadaisical parenting are near an end.

 

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 Miles Davis - "Walkin'" [13:03m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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“Lighted in a room, lanky room
Lighted, lighted, laughing in tune
Lighted, lighted, laughing…”

What better way to start of a Friday than this. Nothing warms my heart more than hearing and seeing Z laugh. Here’s hoping it’s always this easy…

R.E.M.’s essential “Murmur” is available from .

 

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 R.E.M. - "Laughing": Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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As a first-time parent there is a whole series of “firsts” - first time the babe rolls over, his first bottle, first time he crawls, first haircut, first steps, first words, an on and on. And then there’s the first visit to the emergency room, maybe not one of the best ones, maybe not one that you capture on video, but certainly one that will stick in your head.

After recovering from his couple of sick days last week, Z seemed fine and dandy over the weekend and was unceremoniously chucked back into kiddie jail on Monday. Not for long, however as Dr. O’C got the call yesterday from day care that Z was running a fever of 40°C (104ºF) and raced from work to day care to the nearest emergency room. I raced, by bus, from work to the hospital. Nothing moves slower than a city bus when you’re on it and in a hurry to get somewhere.

Everything’s fine. Z has a case of tonsillitis and is on new antibiotics and ibuprofen and paracetamol for the fever. But that visceral sense of panic and powerlessness when you fear that your child is in danger is not a pleasant one. I fear that it is something that, with a young boy in the house, I’ll be dealing with on more than one occasion. First trip to the E.R. - probably not the last.

My first impression of the Australian health care system is that it pales in comparison to Britain’s NHS, but I’m not completely objective. Our wait was longer than I thought it should have been, but once we were seen by a doc, everything was fine. But it is better than the American system - when we walked out a few hours later we didn’t owe a cent for the treatment, medicine or even the cup of tea they brought for me.

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The White Stripes’ self-titled album is available from .

 

 The White Stripes - "St. James Infirmary Blues" [2:24m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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Father’s little helper and I are grateful that the weekend’s upon us. It means a brief reprieve from ten plus hour days. Here’s hoping that this weekend’s also free from flat pack furniture. Damn Swedes.

Wanted to take the chance to point you all at a band that’s been burning up my iPod this week. The Mates of State (MySpace) are a husband and wife team that came out of Kansas in the late 1990’s. They got my attention a year or so ago as the traveling band for the This American Life live show and, separately, as a contributor  to a great kids music compilation called “For The Kids Three” . They cover James Taylor on that comp and their song is one of the most earwormy you’ll ever hear.

The Mates of State have a new album out and I’ve been listening to it non-stop since it came my way. It’s the best that I’ve heard so far this year. “Re-arrange Us” is effervescent, piano laden pop that just forces a smile out of you. A must. It’s my soundtrack for the weekend.

The Mates of State’s “Re-arrange Us” is available from .

MP3: The Mates of State - “Help, Help” (from “Re-arrange Us”)
MP3: The Mates of State - “Jellyman Kelly”

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You’ve got to love happy endings. In what could be Dr. O’C’s final post here on A Free Man, we get just that…

At some point my attitude to motherhood started to improve.  I don’t know when that happened, but it did.  I am a better mum than I thought I would be.  For the first few months, I would tell Z that I loved him, over and over but I don’t really think I meant it.  I said it more to convince myself of that fact.  I know that I was meant to feel this unconditional love for him.  Instead I didn’t really feel anything for him.  Sure he was a cute baby and it was nice when he smiled, but it could have been any baby.

Initially we had planned that I would take 4-5 months off work, but when February loomed I couldn’t go back.  I couldn’t put this helpless individual into day care 10 hours a day.  I didn’t know how it would work.  How would I get up, walk the dog, get Z and myself dressed and out the door.  Plenty of people do it.  I just didn’t know how it would work for me.  It comes back to my fear of new things or a new way of doing things.  A fear I never knew I had before Z was born.  I walk the dog the same route every morning.  I get up, walk dog, shower, get dressed, eat breakfast, brush teeth, dry hair and leave for work. In that order, every morning.  I don’t think I ever changed it.  It was the most efficient way of starting my day.  But looking back, was I inflexible and stuck in my ways?  With Z, although it took a long time to establish, I was used to doing things a certain way and couldn’t imagine fitting work into it.  I also couldn’t imagine that I would be comfortable leaving him with anyone else.

The irony of the situation is that before I got pregnant and even during my pregnancy I worried if I was capable of taking a whole 4 months off work.  I thought that would be pushing the limits of my sanity.  I am a social person, I love to talk, interact with people and find out about them. But mostly I knew that I would go insane if I stayed at home with a baby (and I kind of did).  If Chris could have taken paternity leave, I think that we would have both jumped at the chance.   And now here I was, not wanting to go back to work because I was both afraid of the logistics of doing what millions of people do every day, getting themselves and a baby ready and out the door in the morning and I was getting attached to this little person, whom I had had very little emotional connection with so far.

Chris and I had been discussing a move to Australia for a while.  Well to be honest, Chris was ready to go, but I loved my job and had negotiated a promotion for when I returned from maternity leave.   Problem was this promotion almost certainly required me to travel internationally every month.  Not something that was going to work with a small baby.  I know my company would have worked with me and changed the job, but to be honest I was probably looking for an excuse not to go back.  An excuse to not change my finely tuned routine and put Zach in the care of strangers.  Pathetic I know.  Instead of getting into a new routine of going back to work, I embark on a trans-continental move, involving two adults, a baby and a dog.  What the hell was I thinking?

I was thinking that it would be nice to be home after 8 years spent overseas.  It would be nice that Z has family around. A Nana whom he adores and who gives him sups of tea and biscuits, who he goes crawling half way across the house to when he hears her saying ‘Nana Nana Nana’. (She is determined that they be his first words).  It would be nice to have someone to tell me how to do things.  Simple things like when it is safe to give Z a piece of bread and not choke, when he is sick enough that he needs to see a doctor.  Someone to baby sit so Chris and I could have a night out, go see a movie, have a meal.  Someone who cares and loves him as much as we do.  It would be nice to be around friends who are having babies who Zach will grow up alongside.

Don’t get me wrong, the move was incredibly stressful.  I was moving home, but Chris was moving to a place he had never visited, a place where I grew up, knew people, had extended family.  I didn’t really know what the job market was like for either of us.  I didn’t know if Chris would like it.  I felt like if it didn’t work out for us that it would be my fault, that we would have wasted the better part of $15K moving our life here and worse still, we wouldn’t be in the financial position to do anything about it.  Dealing with importation of a dog into Australia is not an easy thing, not to mention importing Chris!  It might actually have been easier in hindsight to stay in Oxford.

But things have worked out so far.  Chris has got two jobs, both in areas he wanted to explore and on Monday I started a new job, a good job doing exactly what I had hoped I could do when I came back to Adelaide.  The next few months aren’t going to be easy, getting up, walking the dog, getting myself and Z fed and dressed, and out the door.  Not to mention establishing myself in a job that is challenging and WAY out of my comfort zone.  But I have more confidence that it will be ok.  That I can do it.  That Z will adapt.

I really didn’t think that having a baby would teach me anything about myself, that it would reveal numerous faults.   And in those early few months, I didn’t ever think I would get to the stage where I would look at my baby, my son and say I love you and actually mean it.

Now, about that final post thing. I can’t convince Dr. O’C of anything, not for lack of trying. But maybe you all can. I’ll leave it in your hands to persuade her to keep writing.

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Phantom Planet’s “The Guest” is available from and Amazon.

 

 Phantom Planet - "California" [3:14m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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We’ve been slowly introducing Z to day care over the last couple of months in anticipation of Dr. O’C returning to work. It’s been a pretty traumatic experience for both of them from what I hear, an experience probably best left to the protagonists to tell. Suffice it to say that Z is not yet a fan of day care. With Dr. O’C starting work this week it was to be his first full week at kiddie jail, as it’s known around the A Free Man household.

But Z got a temporary reprieve in the form of a winter bug and doctor’s orders not to send him to day care for the first few days of the week. Because Dr. O’C had just started her new job and thought her employer might be underwhelmed with her taking time off already, sick kid duty fell to me.  My own work situation is pretty precarious, I’m really just barely staying ahead of things, for example I finished my Monday lecture on the bus coming into the city that morning. Regardless, I was looking forward to a rare weekday in sole custody of my son.

Things got off to a bit of a snotty start, as Z’s mood and health was pretty well illustrated by the photo above. He was whiney and clingy and unhappy - the very model of a sick child. In order to save my sanity, I bundled the boy up and hit the road. I am not a shopping mall sort of guy, but on another rainy Australian winter day, it’s the best I could come up with.

It was at the mall that I realized something wasn’t quite right. While Zach was roaring around the play area, an acorn of suspicion started to germinate in my brain. When we left the mall, the weather had cleared up and man and boy headed to the beach. As we were walking along the jetty at Brighton, with Zach chatting, singing and laughing, I knew I’d been had. It seemed, in fact, that his symptoms had vanished completely. As someone who’s phoned in with the blue flu once or twice in his time, I know a con job when I see it. I mean, look at that smile - does that look like someone who is too ill for day care to you?

Baby Z, you can’t bull shit a bullshitter.

I enjoyed our day together so much, however, that I kept quiet  and didn’t grass him up when he started coughing, sniffling and moaning when his Mum got home. In fact, Z may have an accomplice in his anti-incarceration plan tomorrow.

Z and I thought we’d share a bit of our playlist from the day. Enjoy:

MP3: Ryan Adams - “Nuclear”
MP3: Count Basie - “The Kid from Red Bank”
MP3: Radiohead - “I Might Be Wrong”
MP3: Wolf Parade - “Modern World”
MP3: Morcheeba - “The Sea”

The albums from which these songs come are all available at .

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Things didn’t get any immediately easier for Dr. O’C after Baby Z was born. On this weeks episode, bringing home baby…

So, I am a parent - a mum.  I spend the first couple days at home wondering when I will be relieved of my babysitting duties.  But apart from that it is happy family.  Timmins, our Siberian Husky is behaving himself.  Z sleeps 4-5 hours at a time and I start to think that the next 4 months of maternity leave are going to be a piece of cake.  I am already planning my days of leisure.

Apart from the pain I am in, which the drugs are keeping under control, life is good.  Then the jaundice that has been causing Z to sleep so much wears off and the 2 hourly feeds 24/7 start and pretty rapidly sleep deprivation hits.  Now I know why it is such an effective form of torture.  I have always loved to sleep.  I love being in bed.  I get panicky if I know I am going to get less than 8 hours sleep.  Unfortunately it will be another 9 months before Z graces me with a full nights sleep.  That, my friends, is a very long time.

Apart from the sleep deprivation, which leaves me exhausted, I am in a lot of pain and can barely move. A simple shopping expedition to the local Mothercare makes me realize that my body is going to take more than a couple of days to recover.  Getting into and out of a car takes my breath away. I walk like I have just spent a year on a horse.  I wasn’t prepared for the pain.  I mean I knew that I wasn’t about to hop straight back on a bike after giving birth, but I never thought that a simple thing like getting your baby out of a cot would inflict pain.   The combination of constant pain and sleep deprivation make me realize that the whole motherhood thing isn’t that much fun. I feel no real attachment to Z.  I feed him, dress him, change his nappies, hold him, but he doesn’t feel like mine.  All I keep thinking is “What the hell have I done?  What was I thinking? I am not cut out for this motherhood thing.”  Now don’t get me wrong, I love kids.  I have two nephews, whom I adore. I just don’t know if I want to be a mum.  I haven’t felt this gushing ‘oh I love my baby soooo much’ rush of emotions that I think I should be feeling.Because I have chosen to breastfeed, the exhaustion is never relieved.  Z takes close to an hour to get back to sleep when I feed him in the middle of the night.  Chris offers to get up with him, but he has gone back to work and is teaching to earn extra money. Honestly I feel trapped in my situation and I know I am.  When Z wakes up 3-4 times a night for a feed, I find myself crying.  I remember one night crying so violently that I wake Chris up.  I just keep saying to him ‘I can’t do this’.  He tries to comfort me, but I think that he is disappointed in me.  What I am too afraid to vocalize is that I don’t want to do this.  I want my old life back.  What new mum thinks and says this stuff?

Looking back now, I don’t think it was as straight-forward as post-natal depression.  I wasn’t ready to be a mum.  I didn’t want to give up the life I had which was easy and uncomplicated.  Where I didn’t have to think of anyone but myself.  I also realize now (although it has always been glaringly obvious to most people around me) that I am a control freak.  I like to do things well.  I thought I was adaptable and easy going.  Z quickly taught me that I was not adaptable and although I have spent my life as a scientist performing new experiments, I actually would rather do experiments that I know will work, that I have done before.  A health visitor points out that some people like to learn through trying and others like to be shown what to do and then do it.  I disappointingly fell solidly into the last category.   Z doesn’t do the same thing day after day.  I think he is in a routine, only for it to the next day.  I feel a bit paralysed, unable to make plans for fear that Z won’t fit into them.  I am only capable of focusing on what is going wrong, of what I am doing wrong.  Z isn’t an easy baby.  He has a severe case of colic.  He cries for hours every night and some mornings.  Piercing, loud, hysterical crying.  The doctors and health visitors reassure me that nothing is wrong and that hours upon hours of crying can’t physically hurt him.  Mentally though, they take their toll on me.  Chris tries to relieve some of my exhaustion by feeding Z formula from a bottle.  A bottle he promptly rejects and continues to reject for months. We have no family in Oxford, no reprieve.  I become afraid to leave the house to meet up with people for fear that he will be a screaming nightmare.  It takes a while to work out, but when I eliminate dairy from my diet things start to improve.   

Chris, fearful that I am at serious risk of sliding into a depression, goes to great lengths to force me out of the house.  He emails my antenatal group on my behalf arranging meet ups.  He insists I visit him at work during the week.  He searches the internet for things for me to do.  I resisted initially.  I didn’t want to meet up with a bunch of people and just talk about sore tits, baby shit and vomiting.  I have a PhD dammit, I am a career women.  I have nothing else in common with them apart from having the same hippy lady tell us all about birthing.  In the end though, they were saviours.  Sure we talked about tits, shit and vomit, but so what, for the next couple of months (I thought at the time) that would be my life.  I slowly, very slowly, learn that Z is adaptable. 

I take him grocery shopping, and instead of him screaming his way around the supermarket he is fascinated until the rows and rows of tinned goods sent him to sleep.  We take him to our favorite Asian restaurant and he falls asleep in his pram staring out the window.  I think I had become afraid of Z.  Afraid of his tolerance for sitting in a pram, afraid to test him out, to see if he would actually be happy sitting and staring out a window.  I became afraid to let him whinge or cry.  When tested he passes with flying colours.      

What Dr. O’C is too humble to say is that she does as well.

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This week’s accompanying track is the Mates of State’s cover of Phantom Planet’s ”O.C.” theme. I first heard this on “This American Life” and found this version over at Agnes‘ site. I’ve no idea where she found it, but The Mates of State’s new record “Re-arrange Us” is available from .

 

 Mates of State - "California" [2:32m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Popularity: 80% [?]