anger management, and baby nostalgia.
You know the Jews are doing well when they have denominations. Back in Czarist Russia, no one worried about which denomination they were.
One year ago: You know the phone is too fancy when it's called a "phone system."
Two years ago: The Errol Flynn Festival.
Three years ago: I have drinks with USC buds.
Four years ago: I have a long, long day at USC.
Today's news question:So who the fuck won Survivor, anyhow? And how did I get through the entire series run without seeing a minute of it? (Oh, that's right, I had mystery writing class...)
Of late, I felt coffee guilt.
I've been going to the newest local Starbucks of late, instead of my old hangout, Pane Dolce. The Starbucks has lots of wall outlets -- and consequently has a lot of people with laptops in there (four as I write this) -- and big tables and comfy chairs. It's big and well-lighted.
But it's, you know, Starbucks, and I believe firmly in supporting local businesses if they provide equal or superior service.
And I've enjoyed Pane Dolce since I first found them. Great drinks, tasty treats, friendly people behind the counter.
I didn't go so much in the past year, between having morning sickness and not leaving the house with the baby particularly often, at least at the start.
Over the past year the owner, Alexandra, trained new people to run the place as she started a new branch over the hill in Santa Monica. They always said hi to me when I came in and they always knew my order.
The other morning I thought, I will go to Pane Dolce today, not Starbucks, and I will go all out and get an iced mocha, because Pane Dolce does chocolate like no one's business. When Rob and Laura come down to visit us, they always like going there to get a hot chocolate. I haven't had a mocha in donkey's years; I will have a mocha.
I ordered an iced mocha.
It was quite possibly the worst iced mocha I've ever had in my life. For one thing, there was basically no chocolate. There had been chocolate added, clearly, an itsy-bitsy-teeny-weeny-polka-dot of chocolate.
I became very depressed. This was not the Pane Dolce I remembered.
I told the girl the mocha wasn't very chocolatey and she offered to make me a new one, but I said no, I had to go.
One thing Pane Dolce has that Starbucks does not is food -- you can get breakfast and lunch there. So perhaps they are not doomed. I don't know if their business has been affected adversely by the introduction of a Starbucks into the neighborhood, but they weren't doing themselves any favors.
We had another pretty lazy weekend. Well, except for one thing.
On Sunday I asked Darin what he wanted to do. He wanted to get lunch. That was his big goal. I asked again, later, and he said he still wanted lunch, but he wanted to nap first. I was pretty tired and wouldn't have minded a nap myself.
Sophia, not tired. Sophia, not in need of a nap. Sophia, at high ebb. Frustrated, I wanted to do something to keep her entertained, so I asked Darin again what he wanted to do, and he lost his temper with me, and he screamed at me that he told me several times already what he wanted to do, why the hell was I asking again?
(He had to have been really frustrated with me; I think I can count on one hand the number of times Darin has yelled at me in the eight years we've been together.)
Now, we might have had a decent conversation had I been able to say, "Sophia is tiring me out, I am frustrated, we have to do something to entertain her." But I was completely unable to respond. I clammed up, my jaw got very tight, and I picked up Sophia, fully preparing to just put her in the car and go do something, anything, rather than put up with this.
Darin stopped me from going, begging me to talk to him, rather than running away. When I finally did leave the house with Sophia, he went with us, and he forced me to talk to him. I don't know many people who would show as much patience.
When I'm confronted by anger: I shut down, I refuse to respond, I decide I am going to leave the situation and not engage.
Yes, I know why I freeze up; it's learned behavior. But it's not a very good model to follow right now, when I am supposed to be having a relationship with someone.
And, as Darin put it, he doesn't want Sophia growing up in a household where Daddy loses his temper and Mommy just shuts down as a result. We have to be able to air our differences. We have to show her that we interact under all circumstances, not just the good ones.
I don't know how not to shut down, though. When someone yells at me, I literally cannot think of one thing to say in response. My only mental monologue is, Walk away. I might think of twenty things to say when I've left, when I've gotten to somewhere else, but in the moment it's like my IQ drops to 20 and I want to go run and hide. I've been told I should practice arguing, to get me in the habit of responding verbally, to train my reflexes to fight instead of flee.
What I'm really afraid of, I think, is the model I grew up with: when you respond in anger, you respond with everything that's made you angry over the past x amount of time, meaning that a simple argument about, say, what we're going to do on Sunday turns into a Defcon 5 situation about why the other person is totally horrible and shouldn't we just get divorced. Which is just as untenable as not saying anything at all.
There has to be a middle ground. I just don't know how to get there.
What I really need is a Monty Python Argument Clinic to teach me how to argue.
Look what arrived yesterday!
(The chair, silly, not the baby.)
We haven't actually fed her any solid food yet. I had always planned to wait six months, and Tamar and my yoga mommy friends have encouraged me to wait even past that point if I possibly can. Tamar's reason was that the older the baby is, the more likely she is to be able to feed herself. And Nancy and Casey of yoga class told me about various and sundry eating problems they ran across that would have been lessened had they waited longer.
But boy is Sophia ready for solid food. She is continually reaching for my plate and trying to drink out of my glass
And today she remained upright when I put her into a sitting position. That's evidently one of the big signs.
Last night, after we got her to sleep in the evening, I told Darin I was feeling a little sad after the high chair experiment. Why? he asked. "Because she's growing up so fast!" I said. He's not sad -- he loves watching her get older, and he thinks the older she gets, the better she gets.
I'm happier with her now too -- I've conveniently blocked out all the difficult stuff we went through the first three months. But I kind of miss my little helpless newborn.
We finally came to a decision about the whole sleeping thing. We would put her in her crib at 7:30 or 8, whenever she started to fall asleep in the evening, and we would leave her there until she started crying. Which, we discovered, was about 4 in the morning. Then Darin would go get her, I would feed her, and she would sleep with us until 6:30, at which point she wants to play!
Sleeping eight hours, from 8 until 4. Meaning if I went to bed early enough, I could get 5 to 6 hours of sleep.
Two nights in a row, I got 5 straight hours of sleep.
I had a whole new lease on life after 5 hours of sleep. I had a lot more energy during the day. I got writing done.
I love sleeping with my baby, but she doesn't move to our bed until the wee hours.
Last night, of course, she woke up several times and thrashed around a lot. I've been rather pooped today as a result.
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Copyright 2000 Diane Patterson
Send comments and questions to diane@nobody-knows-anything.com