Fri 16 Jun 2006
Miscelleni
Posted by Liza under Personal, Books, The Real Live Boy
Today is my last Friday on FMLA leave. As of next week, I am officially back at work full time. I asked for that to be this week, but changes in status must happen at the beginning of a new pay period, so no.
Therefore, I’m enjoying the quiet of the house, and taking the time to cobble together a blog post on several disconnected things I’ve been thinking about recently.
- Why does Virginia show up so often in google searches leading to this blog? First there was the one about leaking fluids from Virginia, and yesterday, there was one for "imputed income investigation Virginia." (Actually, it was a search in all caps, but I find that annoying so I won’t inflict the "shouting" on you.)
- Noah’s teachers say he has a girlfriend. As soon as they told me, I knew who it was. The two of them ogled each other on Noah’s very first day. Mostly I find it hilarious and cute, but part of me also thinks, "I can’t believe we’re already romanticizing his relationships! Baby boys and baby girls can’t just be friends?"
- Work looks like it’s about to get more interesting! I can’t say much yet, since how exactly that will happen may still go in a couple of different directions for me, but I’m excited about the possibilities. The timing of my going back full time couldn’t be better.
- Assuming nothing goes wrong, in less than 2 weeks, Noah will have 2 legal parents. I rocket between excitement about it happening, and outrage at how long and expensive and complicated causing that to happen has been.
- Jill is feeling better, and she and I are communicating better about both how she’s feeling and how I’m feeling, and about what both of us need. She felt a little blindsided by my last post on the subject, and I can’t blame her for that.
- This weekend we’re buying a new carseat, the Graco SafeSeat Step 1. At his current rate of growth, Noah has at most 3 more weeks before he’s too tall for the SnugRide, but we should make it to November in the SafeSeat. And if he drops back down to the 95th percentile in height, all the way through his first birthday. It’s expensive, but it is so worth being able to leave him asleep when he dozes off in the car.
June 17th, 2006 at 3:26 pm
glad things are going well for you.
i have to say (even though i know it’s none of my damn business), i think that the stuff about noah have a girlfriend is ridiculous and you shouldn’t buy into it or encourage it. i hate how people treat babies and young children like they are characters in a novel and make up whatever kind of motivations or beliefs or feelings they want to impute to the child.
i think it’s disrespectful. babies may not have fully formed identities the way adults do, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t entitled to have their baby identities free from faux adult identities being foisted on them. noah has his own thoughts and feelings, BABY thoughts and feelings that have nothing to do with romantic attachments, and adults should respect him as an individual and not make him the butt of some cutesy joke because he’s not old enough to be able tell them to shut up and leave him alone. which you know is what he’d do if his 1st grade teacher or 11th grade teacher or his co-worker said the same thing. and he’d be absolutely justified in doing so.
anyway, who says noah is going to even grow up to like girls anyway? not only can a baby girl and a baby boy not have a platonic relationship, the teacher has already decided that noah is straight!?! would the teacher say something like that if noah was three and able to start to understand the underlying subtext that he, as a boy, is supposed to have girlfriends, but not boyfriends.
sorry, but this is a huge pet peeve of mine. i know the comment seems so harmless, but i think it’s indicative of a prevalent attitude; so often adults treat children as possessions or toys and not as individuals.
June 18th, 2006 at 10:05 pm
Good point, Jen.
But I have to admit, it’s really hard not to “anthropomorphize” (maturopomorphize?) babies the way you described.
Even though we know intellectually that those facial expressions don’t mean anything, or at least don’t mean what they do in adult communication, it’s really hard not to interpret them. Especially when they are either contextually appropriate, or comical.
The whole nature/nuture thing has been very interesting too. Of course all we want is for Noah to grow up a happy, well adjusted person who has a nice life. But we can already see how he reacts to different people, and see patterns in those reactions.
For example, Noah seems to pay more attention to conventionally attractive women. It seems like those are the strangers he smiles at more than anyone else.
Now of course, there could be a chicken and egg problem. Those may be the very people most likely to interact with a baby they don’t know.
I don’t have an answer to any of this, or even a clear opinion (unusual for me). But it’s an interesting experience in immersion learning and anthropology.