• Note 1: Upon leaving The Dark Knight on Saturday, I noted my appearance in the bathroom mirror. As I rejoined Dan on the way out, I commented that I must be a mom now, because no one else would think a hot pink shirt went with a baby blue cardigan. And yet the perpetual juxtaposition of pink and blue in baby hospital garb has totally inured me to it.
• Note 2: Nathan’s getting ready to move from his bassinet to his crib, because he yesterday demonstrated his ability to roll entirely onto one side, which brings his face perilously close to the padded bassinet side. This is fine with us, because his bassinet is haunted. Starting Saturday morning, the various parts of the bassinet began turning themselves on without human intervention. My mom and I were out in the living room, talking, and had the bassinet out with us (Nathan was not in it), when the mobile started going around and its music started playing. When Dan got home from his conference, we mentioned it to him, and he was skeptical. But again, while we were talking about it, I asked, “Is the vibration going?” Sure enough, my mom stepped over to it and put her hand down and jumped back, saying, “Yes!” Dan was convinced enough to posit that we are part of the plot of Stephen King’s Bassinet, and we’ve had to do a hard shut-down at the switch to stop it entirely, so it doesn’t creep us out overnight.



• Note 3: Babies look cute in Pooh Bear bath wraps.

I’ve been noticing that all the fountain soda I have consumed lately has tasted terrible. Basically, every mix seems to be off in the direction of too little carbonation and too much syrup. This is a particularly sad joke on me, because I’d really laid off all soda while pregnant. Because of my risk for gestational diabetes (which I didn’t get), I stayed away from soda with corn syrup, and because of the lack of research on the effects of artificial sweeteners on fetuses, I didn’t consume diet sodas either.

Now that I’m not pregnant anymore, I was working some back into my diet, although less than before, because I was proud of myself for having somewhat kicked the habit. Imagine my sadness, then, that all the sodas I’ve had post-pregnancy have been terrible. I even indulged in a Coke — my first Coke in over a year! — at the movies on Saturday, and it, too, was flat.

Since this has been happening everywhere I’ve gotten soda lately, I’m wondering whether all the distributors or retail outlets are changing their mixes. Is the syrup less expensive than the carbonation? I’m chalking it up to the bad economy. I have no other explanation.

Dan and I made it to The Dark Knight on Saturday finally. It was the first time we left Nathan, three weeks after his birth. (He was with Grandma and Grandpa, so not very “left behind,” really. My review of Batman in a nutshell: “How soon can I own this movie?”)

I realized after the movie that my relationship to movies has fundamentally changed, now that I have a child. Movies are now an escape from reality for me. I don’t mean that in the traditional way in which movies are often characterized as escapism, i.e., that movies function as vehicles for imagination that let the viewer identify with the characters and try on different psychological personas for awhile. I mean it quite literally: a movie is an opportunity to escape parenthood for a little while.

Up until now, Dan and I went to the movies willy-nilly. It was almost a hobby for us. If we had nothing else to do on a weekend, we’d go see a movie. We didn’t even care if it was a good movie or not. On more than one occasion, I’ve remarked that I’d be willing to pay $6 a week just to watch previews and eat popcorn. I liked going to the movies just for the sake of going to the movies.

Suddenly, however, going to the movies is a huge luxury. It has to be planned out. It’s not something we’ll be doing very frequently, and it certainly won’t be wasted on any old movie. When we walked out of the movies on Saturday, I realized that I had been a different person for the 2.5 hours we were in there. For 2.5 hours, I was not the mommy tied to Nathan’s eating schedule, home-bound because of C-section recovery. Instead, I was still a person who can go to the movies when she wants to. It was a huge relief; I felt like a normal human for the first time in, oh, about three weeks.

I feel conflicted about that. On the one hand, I really enjoyed the movie itself and the whole experience. But I also felt guilty about “stealing” that time away from Nate, only three weeks after his birth (and only two weeks after he was allowed to come home). Saturday was supposed to be “date night” for us, and we had sort of planned to go to dinner after the movie, but I couldn’t conscience being away from Nate for another hour and a half, knowing that he was supposed to eat again and get his bath and get to bed, etc. We picked up to-go at the Cheesecake Factory and ate it at my parents’ house when we picked Nathan up. I just knew that I would have been antsy all through dinner if we had gone out. In essence, I enjoyed the escape, but then felt guilty about enjoying it. I’m sure this is not news to any parents reading this, but maybe it can serve as preparation for my friends who don’t yet have kids. (Female friends, that is. From what I understand, dads do not feel this same kind of constant guilt. Lucky bastards.)

I have in the past referenced the show My Boys, which is one of the best sitcoms on TV. This summer, however, I got my own gang, with the arrival of Nathan on the scene. My house is now tilted hopelessly in a male direction, especially when you throw the cats in. We’re a house of four boys and two girls now. I’m happy with that, though. Especially when they’re this cute, who wouldn’t want to be surrounded by boys?

Seriously, the sight of Dan in his McDreamy scrubs alone may have rendered the C-section worthwhile. And the image of Dan handling the baby, his gear, and phone calls at the same time is just hilarious. I wasn’t able to really laugh for two weeks after the surgery, on account of the hurting, but I just busted out last weekend when Dan brought me all that at once. In case there was any doubt, I’m totally in love with my boys.

I’ve been giving some consideration to my TV watching schedule, now that Nathan has arrived. It’s clear that things will have to go. Friends, Office, and Law & Order reruns have already been axed. We have a massive pile-up of Earth: The Biography and Shark Week shows waiting to be watched. And it took us three sittings over the course of four days to get through the season premiere of Mad Men. So a re-prioritization must happen, in the form of letting go of some things and shuffling around the viewing of others.

Going:
Desperate Housewives — no big loss, I think; I’m pretty sure it’s jumped the shark with its leap forward five years anyway.
Law & Order and SVU — I can catch up on these some future year in reruns anyway, so again, I’m not sorry to see them go.

On the bubble:
Private Practice — I did enjoy this, but since Dan doesn’t watch it with me, it’s hard to keep it on the schedule. I may make it an afternoon show while Nate’s napping or something, if there’s time.
Ugly Betty — another that Dan doesn’t watch, so again, possibly another afternoon show. I do really love Ugly Betty, so I’d hate to drop it altogether.

Staying:
How I Met Your Mother and The Big Bang Theory
Heroes
Reaper
The Office
Grey’s Anatomy
Lost

Lost is the only thing guaranteed to be watched on its original night. The rest are up for grabs as to when they’ll get watched. I’m thinking over the weekends sometime. And of course, this schedule doesn’t allow for anything new to be added. I’m thinking that’s OK, too, though, because I haven’t heard about anything particularly great coming up this fall.

Now we know: babies? more important than TV. On that note, there will be more baby stuff forthcoming when Dan gets back from his conference and can help me post pictures.

So, on Saturday night, the 12th, we had been sitting around talking and playing video games. As I got ready for bed, I realized that I hadn’t felt Nate move in awhile, but I couldn’t be entirely sure of that, because I thought maybe I’d just been engrossed in what we were doing. As I went to sleep, I paid attention, though, and felt him flutter four or five times in a row — enough to reassure me that he was there and OK.

When I got up Sunday morning, though, I didn’t feel him move at all. For two hours straight. I knew that was impossible, because Nathan was always a very active baby in utero. No matter what I did, he didn’t move: I walked around; I laid down; I ate and drank; I rubbed my belly; I talked to him, but no response. I called my doctor’s 24-hour line, and they rather dismissively suggested that I could go to L&D to get checked out, but they assured me that by the time we got there, he would’ve started moving again.

When we got to L&D, my doctor happened to be there, and she immediately came over to look at my monitors. Even though Nathan was there, his heart rate was flat, which meant that he wasn’t happy, and he still hadn’t moved in nearly three hours. While my doctor was talking to us — telling us that we weren’t leaving without a baby at this point, because she was ready to induce — she started frowning. “See these shallow decelerations in his heart rate right after your contractions? That means he doesn’t like the contractions.” This was a problem, because they were very light contractions, of the sort I’d had all through the last trimester. While we talked, over the course of about 15 minutes, her frowns got deeper, and she started preparing us for a C-section, because she said he couldn’t tolerate labor. And then, all of a sudden, she said, “OK, we’re going to do this. Now.” We had gone into L&D at 11:30 a.m., and Nathan was born at 1:40 p.m. on Sunday the 13th.
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I feel compelled to weigh in on the Stephenie Meyer phenomenon, with apologies in advance to those who love the series. I got introduced to it by Amanda, who knew that I was looking for things to pass the time until Nathan’s born. I’ve consumed all of Twilight and New Moon and about half of Eclipse in the couple of weeks since Amanda brought them up, and, like Regan, I was buying the next in the series before finishing the one I was on. However, that mostly has to do with the fact that as I near the end of a book right now, I start slowing down, reluctant to finish it, because I know that once I do, I’m back to sitting around with only Law & Order re-runs, unless I’ve lined something else up to read. I solved that problem by stocking up on the saga in advance.

To give credit, these are perfect summer reading books, especially when you’re semi-laid-up. I had planned to get through A Tale of Two Cities and The Corrections in all my free time, because they’ve been sitting on my shelves for a long time, unread. Erin rightly chastised me for that approach, which failed anyway, because I just couldn’t get motivated to pick up tomes. The problem is, though, that as much as I promised myself I was going to just enjoy the vampire books and turn off my inner literary critic, I’m finding it increasingly difficult to do so.
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As I’ve mentioned before, I read BabyCenter discussions pretty regularly these days. They’re often interesting, but I’m increasingly noticing that I’m out of the mainstream of the discussion. Recent discussions have posed questions like, “Would you, for $100k, defer to your husband on all decisions for a year?”and “Do you think that every mother should own a gun?” Anyone who knows me or reads this blog with regularity can guess my answers to those questions. (Hint: my reaction to each was roughly, “Are you f***ing kidding me?”)

The conversations on those posts, though, demonstrate that the community of moms on BabyCenter is rather homogeneous and that I’m on the outside of that group. For each of the discussions I’ve linked to, the comments trend overwhelmingly in one direction with only a very few outliers, and, time after time, my views fall with the outliers. (Seriously, multiple posters on the question of “Would you defer to your husband?” commented that their husbands are already the heads of their households, so of course they defer to him on every decision. The last time I looked, there were 25 “yes, I’d defer to him” comments to 3 “are you crazy?” comments.)

The discussions that I’ve referenced are filed under the blogging section of ParentCenter/BabyCenter called “MOMformation.” On the one hand, I realize that they intend you to read that as Mom-(In)formation, as in information for moms. But given the homogeneity of opinion and the sometimes strident tone that the posters use in reinforcing conformity to the consensus opinion, I can’t help reading it as Mom-Formation, as in the formation of mothers. It feels like there’s an expectation that moms can be shaped into one particular mold, one who agrees with the majority of other BabyCenter users. Those users, as I’ve said before, clearly reflect social and economic diversity, and what links them together is their common status as mothers. “Mom” appears to be a category that not only crosses class and educational and religious boundaries, but one for which the assumption is that, once you’re in it, it should take precedence over other beliefs.

I can’t help wondering, then, what kind of mother I’m going to be. Not in a “I’m worried I’ll screw Nathan up” kind of way, but in a “Hmm, the other moms aren’t going to like me much, are they?” kind of way. Living in Texas, Dan and I have become accustomed to simply keeping our mouths shut when political discussions come up, but this isn’t a red state/blue state thing. Moms are everywhere, and, apparently, they nearly all agree with each other. I’ll have the next eighteen years to figure out how I’ll handle this, but, as Nathan’s expected to make his debut in the next week or so, I have to start very soon.

I had promised before that I would lay out some of the criteria for judging, but the Pappas post seemed like it was getting too long to include it there. I’m coming to understand after these two trials how much the bun matters. It needs to either be completely unobtrusive, which means a low bun-to-meat ratio (which is where thick Texas barbecue buns fail), or it needs to be a really good bun, as the lightly-grilled poppyseed ones at Prince’s are. I’m not looking for fancy buns, like the wheat ones at Barnaby’s that Dan likes so much.

For the patty, it should be greasy enough that you know it’s a juicy, grill-cooked burger. Anything too thin, pre-formed, overcooked, etc., has no flavor and no grease to it. A really good burger needs to have some flavor and some grease, without being drenched in it or being fatty.

And as far as condiments go, the ratio is what’s most important. If I get cheese on the burger, I want to know it’s there, not have to go lifting the bun to make sure they put it on. Pickles should not be heaped in one giant lump in the middle, and mustard should not saturate and dominate the burger. When a burger is really, really good, I’ll tolerate other condiments, like lettuce, tomato, and onion (never mayonnaise), because it’s good enough to overcome my dislike of those items and comes to taste like a package deal. This is how I approach the burgers at Scotty P’s and Avalon Diner.

For those of you who don’t live in Houston, let me provide some examples of what I consider great burgers from elsewhere, so you might get a sense of what I’m searching for in Houston:

• Scotty P’s (Dallas area): “That’s one historic burger!” as they say about themselves. One of the secret criteria that Scotty P’s matches is that they have really good chocolate milkshakes, which adds cred to any burger joint. Also, their burgers are the main focus of the menu, although they do have other items, and I think that’s another minor criterion for a good burger: it really is the focus, or at least the showcase item, of what the restaurant has to offer.
• 101 Hamburgers (Daytona, FL): This is not the name of the place, but I don’t know the name of it. It’s a roadside biker bar that a friend took us to last year during the AP reading. They literally have a menu with 101 different kinds of hamburgers on it, which they cook on an open-flame grill behind the bar. All the burgers are the same price, and you can get unlimited french fries or sweet potato fries for $1.00 on the side. I don’t even remember exactly which burger I got, but it was excellent.
• In-N-Out Burger (Western U.S.): I’m including In-N-Out, even though it’s a chain, because it’s pretty much the best chain burger you can get. Their buns and fries are particularly noteworthy, and they do proportion the condiments just to your liking; in fact, they’re famous for it. In-N-Out is so good that we make a point of stopping there anytime we’re in California, much as former Houston residents put Chuy’s on their “must-eat” list anytime they’re back in Houston. I’ll also go ahead and mention Rally’s here, which is my favorite fast-food burger from back home. Until conducting this research, I didn’t know that Rally’s is known as Checkers in some parts of the country and, even more surprisingly, that there’s a Checkers in Beaumont. Now, if I only had a reason to be in Beaumont…

We were finally able to sample Pappas Bar-B-Q’s burgers today after an aborted attempt earlier this week. It seems that not only do certain locations not serve burgers, which we found out about two weeks ago when we tried to go to the location on S. Main near Reliant Stadium, but even those that do don’t serve them all the time, as we found out this week. The location on San Jacinto at Pierce, downtown, only serves them after 2:00 p.m. during the week, so imagine our disappointment when we went there for lunch at noon on Wednesday and couldn’t get them.

However, the third time was the charm, and we finally got burgers at the location on 59 near Beechnut today. Mom, Dan, and I all sampled them, and we all give them a thumbs-up rating. The patties, in particular were very good, and the cheeseburgers had a nice amount of cheese on them. The buns were nothing special; in fact, they were the same buns that they use for the barbecue sandwiches, so they’re really just bland Texas barbecue buns, but the patties made up for it. They were juicy and thick and well-cooked. The condiments were a little skimpy for my taste, other than the cheese, but overall it was a very good burger. Those of us who had tried Prince’s rated it higher than Prince’s, although we also all agreed that these were not “best burger ever” burgers.

Other places we plan to try: Lankford’s Grocery in Midtown; Avalon Diner (although we’ve been many times, this time is for official research purposes); and if there’s time (i.e., if the baby doesn’t cut short our research), Cue’s Burgers in SW Houston and Bellaire Broiler Burger.