All’s Fair

Who knew that men’s legwear was such an organized movement? Not I, for one. The pro-men’s legwear contingent will be happy to hear that we gave a pair of tights to another boy in the class. (We asked permission first because we weren’t sure how traditional this kid’s parents might be.)

The whole discussion about gender “appropriate” clothing made me think about what goes on in our family; what messages might we be sending HB re: gender roles. And since I love lists, I made one.

Below are the main household/family duties and activities I could think of. I’ve highlighted the more traditionally female ones in pink (since we’re being traditional, you know) and the male ones in blue. I put an item in one person’s column if that person does it 70-100% of the time.

Me Work longer hours Make more money Laundry Gardening Power tools Buying presents Home repair/remodeling Buying clothes for kid Groceries Finances Baking (with kid) Housecleaning

Him Work shorter hours Make (slightly) less money Assemble toys and furniture Schlep kid to & from school Stay home when kid is sick/has day off Trips to playground etc. Dinner Kid birthday parties Playdates T-ball Drycleaner’s Clean cat box

We’re pretty even on bathtime, story reading, taking out trash, doctor’s visits, and getting the kid dressed and fed in the morning.

These divisions were never really spelled out, we just kind of fell into them, but we are both committed to being—or at least feeling—equitable. And either of us will do the things in the other person’s column if specifically asked to do so.

This list looks pretty reasonable to me—and I think we’re setting a gender-equal message to HB. I’m curious—what goes on in your family? Is it a struggle? Do you have to negotiate?

Finally: Jogging Strollers

Here are the questions I think you need to answer before dropping any serious change down on a jogging stroller:

• Do you really need one? If you aren’t planning on logging serious hours on it, it may not be worth it. You can get usually get away with using one of those hybrid-type strollers. A lot of people also have a jogging stroller gathering dust in their basement—maybe you can borrow?
  
  
• Will it ever be folded up? How small? This turned out to be the clincher for us; the only stroller that folded FLAT was the Dreamer Design, and since we have to haul our stroller up very narrow basement stairs every single time it’s used, that was our only option. I’m not sure if any other brand folds like that yet—we got ours five years ago. If you’re NEVER going to fold it, you will be able to spend less, since that’s the most expensive part of a stroller mechanism.
  
  
• How far do you run? The farther you go, the more a slightly out-of-true stroller will bother you, and you might want a really good one. Otherwise, it doesn’t matter that much.
  
  
• Where do you run? If it’s not over boulders or cobblestones, don’t worry about any fancy or extra shocks. They add weight and cost, and babies/kids usually enjoy the ride more if they’re jounced around a bit anyway.

Just about every jogging stroller comes with the same basic setup, but there are a couple of extra things that I couldn’t do without:

• A truly adjustable sunshade—with the fixed ones, you inevitably end up needing some kind of complicated blanket-draping setup.
  
  
• Enough room for clothes/snacks/drinks—unless you have the mellowest kid on the planet, you’ll need that stuff.

And finally, a piece of advice with older kids: Unless it’s an emergency, don’t ever get them out of the stroller until the end of the run, no matter how bad they get. Once they know it’s an option, it’s all over.

The floor is open for recommendations.

“My Son Wears Tights”—Good for Him! & “Too Old to Run?”—Absolutely Not!

A surprising (to me) number of people land on my website from the above queries, so I thought I’d make it easier by putting the answers to them right up there in the title. To expand:

Re: tights on boys. It makes me a little sad that anyone would feel the need to question this. Yes, my son wears colorful tights. This usually delights people, perhaps as seeing a court jester might. He is occasionally mocked for them by other kids. This concerns him not a bit, which makes me think that I do not need to worry much about him either being bullied or bowing to peer pressure. (Whether he will be pushing others to do the designer drugs of the 2020s remains to be seen. Some of the boys in his class have asked him if he could bring them some tights, too.) Wearing tights does not appear to be a sign of wishing to be a girl for my son, but if it were, I know that there would be nothing I could do about it except try to smooth his path to adulthood. I recently witnessed an 18 month old boy who was reaching for a doll be chastised by his mother because “that’s for girls! You’re a boy!” I guess I’m sheltered in my liberal world, but I didn’t realize this kind of thing still went on. Don’t people know that you can’t influence this stuff? That you’re only inducing shame?

Re: too old to run? If this guy can do it, you can too. (I surreptitiously snapped him when I was out running with my phone.) (No, I don’t ordinarily run with my phone. I was on call.) Most of the queries I see are from 50-somethings. All of my advice applies to everyone of any age, and anyway, 50-something is very young. Go to it, elderly maggots. (But maybe don’t do any triathlons.)

(Sorry, felt the need to rant. Strollers soon.)

Making Friends

Just got back from Mexico, which was lovely, though the trip was a tad short because CERTAIN PEOPLE need to have their Saturdays free so as to take part in bike races. I shouldn’t complain, though, because I am probably the worst packer on earth and it took me almost the entire day Saturday to do it. Seriously, I’m outrageously bad at packing. I once left home on a long car trip and remembered everything except my birth control pills (ha! remember those?) and my wallet. I do now have a system: I have everything I could ever possibly want to pack on a list that I customize for each trip, and I am not allowed to tick off an item until it is actually resting inside the suitcase. Since I have to check off every solitary thing (e.g., “toiletries bag” doesn’t cut it: toothbrush, q-tips, brush—everything has its own little check box), the process is rather time-consuming. Also I tend to go off on hours-long tangents—no quart-size ziplocks for the plane? Target trip!

HB is becoming more and more tolerable on these trips. The main tantrum-inducing problem was that I neglected to pack tights (I didn’t forget—I just foolishly assumed that shorts alone would suffice in 85 degree weather), so when the one pair that he’d worn on the plane finally had to be washed before they wandered down to the beach under their own power he had NO TIGHTS TO WEAR TO DINNER, my god, you incompetent idiot. At least I remembered the nail polish so that I could give him touchups as needed.

At one point during our stay when HB wanted me to play in the pool with him but I preferred to drink another Dirty Monkey, I said, “Why don’t you make some friends?” (I’m not ordinarily prone to asking such asinine questions but reference Dirty Monkeys #1 and #2.) Next day, he spent three solid hours playing with a seriously drunk-plus-something-else-that looked-awfully-fun young woman from Manitoba who was sporting multiple homemade tattoos including a prominent “RIP” for her last boyfriend, severally equally homemade piercings, and a much older gentleman who was probably not her father. It was really very nice of her to lavish such attention on him, though we had to keep a rather close eye on them on account of the drowning risk (mainly hers). Afterwards HB said, “See, Mom, I did make a friend!” and spent the next day pretending to smoke cigarettes and demanding that I point out every “No Smoking” sign so that he could smile and insolently continue puffing away.

This wasn’t the post I started out to write—I meant to discuss jogging strollers—but now I’m out of time, so if you have any advice re that subject, get it ready for next time.

Darwin's Baby

Owen.
8 pounds 3 ounces, 22 inches, 22 hours labor, 1 c-section.
He's delectable.
She's delirious with that special combination of joy and I-thought-this-level-of-sleep-deprivation-was-fatal-but-I-guess-it-isn't-because-I'm-still-here-or-am-I?-ness.
Congratulations!!!!

Run Slowly Forward, Maggots—No Springing Allowed

Well then. I think we have pretty clearly established that a LOT of you have slacked off in the winter months (Southern hemisphere readers excepted; bookmark this page and save my yelling at you for September). Since I failed at motivating you in the cold, I must lecture you about not getting all uppity in the warmth. Now that it’s light out in the evening, and balmy (or at least non-frigid) breezes are blowing, I see you all out there running like you think you know how to do it, in your cute pants and not-tight-enough bras (the women, that is—you men are in too-floppy shorts and shoes that should have been replaced two years ago).

SLOW DOWN. No, you cannot run that 10k in April or that half-marathon in May if you sat on your ass most of the winter. You will hurt yourselves, people! It’s not going to take you as long to get back into it as it did to start running, but you can’t just pick up where you left off. Check the Running sidebar if you need refreshing on the basics, and get back on that horse. Next winter, plan to suck it up. (Bloody snot? Bah! Par for the course. Use a humidifier at night.)

(BTW, Darwin is in a holding pattern, 2 days past her due date. I’ll keep you updated.)

Bitch, Doctor, or Normal?

There’s something I want to get off my chest, at the risk of offending some. It’s this: I really don’t like reading blog entries (or Facebook updates) about people being sick. Wait wait wait—I don’t mean terrible illnesses, or hilarious entries about horrendous plagues that necessitate HazMat cleanups, or updates on, say, surgical procedures that others are concerned about. I mean the “I have a cold / stomach bug,” “I still have a cold / stomach bug,” “I’m over my cold / stomach bug” entries.

Wait wait wait—I love you! I care that you’re not feeling well! I’m sure I’ve done it myself! I welcome your medical questions to me, truly! I thought your last entry about that awful situation was funny!—I just don’t like it when I’m expecting to read, well, something else and instead have to read about run-of-the-nose snot.

Is this because I’m

a) an unsympathetic bitch
b) a doctor or
c) normal?

Opinions?

This One Is Mostly About ME

First, about your comments on the previous post: I was highly amused but not surprised at the unwillingness of most of you to follow the instructions re: only one piece of advice. It’s good stuff, though. Pretty much all of it mirrors my discoveries, and are things I wish I’d known earlier.

Just a few of my favorites (and I have many):

• Ice diapers (genius!) (Darwin wanted to know if a maxi pad would work as well?)
• “And then I thought: if a goddamn monkey can do it, I sure as hell can.”
• “NEVER EVER talk to a mother of an ‘easy’ baby. EVER!”

Dar’s initial reaction (she only recently found out I even have a blog): “I am speechless—and I love my moniker. The comments will be there a while right? I want access to them at 3:00 am when I am all bits and pieces.” She is deeply grateful.

Now, all about me. All this baby stuff got me thinking about—NO, not about having another one!—about my own childhood. Coincidentally, as I was cleaning up some files I discovered some old photos.

I’ve written before about how I didn’t like being a child—I found the powerlessness awful, and I had very few carefree experiences. But looking at these pictures, I was struck by how very unhappy I look in almost every one of them. See what you think:

This one is hilariously—oh, I don’t know the politically correct term, but let’s say underprivileged Caucasian:



This one I remember really liking, believe it or not (awkward age, anyone?):



The happy toddler in this one is my little sister; I’m the one huddled in the background:



“Playing” in front of our house:



My main pleasure in life at the time—and evidence of where HB gets his love of tight colorful outfits:



At my grandparents’:



About to perform in a play for a Medieval Renaissance festival (don’t I look festive?):



And finally, fun times at the beach:


My conclusions? I am happier than ever to be an adult, and I should worry less about HB’s childhood experiences, because it does get better.

Advice to a New Mother (Whose Own Mother is AWOL)

One of my best friends—let’s call her Darwin—is due to give birth to her first child (a son) in a couple of weeks. This pregnancy was the result of years of trying, a journey that featured an ugly ectopic and expensive IVF. Her mother, who is nutty but usually endearing (I’ve known her since I was about 12), decided that the birth of her only grandchild could not compete with an offer to travel to another country (where she will be mostly incommunicado) for four months. Dar is one of the most good-humored, stable people I know, and she’s incredibly tough (she endured an ovarian torsion with nothing but Tylenol and then had to have emergency surgery for it in her 8th week of this pregnancy, and she’s still walking a mile and a half to work and back every day), but she’s a little apprehensive about this whole new baby thing, and I think that having a newborn is an experience that can be smoothed by a little bit of reassurance from the battle-tested.

Here’s the assignment: for those of you who have some experience in this area, what was the ONE—choose only one!—most helpful piece of advice you received during this time (or if you received no helpful advice, what is the one piece of advice you have to offer)?

Keep it pithy—she’s too sleep-deprived at this point in her pregnancy to focus on long sentences—and I will depart from my policy of never deleting real comments if anyone leaves a horror story.

UPDATE: Check out the nursing basket Dar made based on the advice here:



Some serious nesting going on.

It May Be Frozen Over, But It Isn't Hell (It Just Feels That Way Sometimes)

One little cold snap, and you maggots all take cover? OK, maybe a few of you are on a treadmill in a warm gym somewhere, but I know there are a lot of you sitting in front of the computer eating cookies and whining about the cold.

Get your mewling asses out there. If little old ladies could wait for hours in the cold for the inauguration, you can bundle up and run for 30 freaking minutes.

After all, these days they can bring you back to life even after you freeze to death.

Just remember: synthetics, layering, a 20 dollar bill for emergencies, and maybe a toe tag (I bought one after nearly perishing under the wheels of a cell phone infested pickup truck).

Let’s hear some inspiring stories of your cold-weather running. If there’s a really good one, I’ll ship out another shirt – long sleeve this time.

Wimpy Changing of Subject!

How about some more “kids say the darndest things,” since it won me an award last time?

HB, bringing me the doll he calls his “little sister”: Criss-cross applesauce, sit down on the floor and close your eyes!

[I obediently sit cross-legged on the floor. HB lifts my shirt and tucks the doll under it.]

HB: OK, now, you’re going to feel something a little weird, but don’t worry, it’s just your va gina stretching as the baby is born! [Pulls the doll back out.]

Me: [muffled horrified laughter] Is everything okay?

HB: Oh sure. Your va gina is already going back to normal—look down! Now say, “What’s this white stuff in my breasts?”

Me: … what’s this … white stuff ... in my breasts?

HB: Did you forget? It’s milk! For the baby! Feed her!

I swear I haven’t been drilling him with inappropriately detailed info on where babies come from. Don’t all the books say to just answer the questions asked? Well, he asked how babies get out, and then he kept probing and probing and probing … and clearly remembered it all. At least he didn’t seem freaked out by it. He knows more about the process than some pregnant people.

Changing the subject yet again: I got this for my husband (the Pro version), and I’m astonished to report that it works—I no longer have the distasteful task of nagging him out of bed.

(I did respond more on the last post, if you want to look in the comments.)

The Problem with Lists (Updated)

A while back, I made mention of doctors’ dread of lists. Now, I love a good list. I make them all the time. For example, here is a list I made for one weekend day last month. (And I wonder why I feel pressed for time. The ones on the side, by the way, were the “possible if I magically morph into a superhero,” so I don’t feel too bad about all the blank boxes. I’m not sure why “side tables” merited an exclamation point, unless it was because I was unlikely to attend to them, as evidenced by the glaringly unchecked box next to that item. And yes, Aaron did come.)

I don’t mind most patient lists either. A list like this one is quite helpful.

But. A list like this one will give any clinician an overwhelming sense of being sucked into a vortex of negative energy. I have removed anything that might identify this patient in any way, but I will tell you that this patient is in their 20’s and is remarkably healthy, despite having had these symptoms for years.

Healthy, but not well. When you see a list like this, you know that you are about to embark upon one of the least satisfying clinical relationships in the world. Because this is a person who, for some reason, must be a Patient. This is a person who has no interest in being well, because they feel so rewarded by being sick. Why? I have no idea. Personally, I find being a Patient absolutely horrifying; I will deny that I need help until I am lying on the floor, and even then I’ll refuse to go to the ER.

Wanting to be a Patient has no relationship to how sick you are. I have one patient with a terrible neuromuscular condition who comes to my office on a ventilator, in a motorized wheelchair that he steers with the one finger he can still move a tiny bit. When I ask him how he’s doing, he has to wait for a puff from the vent to answer, “Great!” (I doubt my aversion to being a Patient would take me quite that far, but I like to think it would.)

It’s very hard not to take these list-writers by the shoulders, shake them, and shout “Get a life!” Maybe I should, because what I do—nod sympathetically, gently suggest exercise and possibly antidepressants, and try my best to avoid the unnecessary testing that will involve random false positive results that will then engender more testing—doesn’t seem to help much.

It seems a miserable kind of life, but then again, how would I know? Perhaps this feels like fun for them. Perhaps what they need is a Patient Theme Park: giant stuffed medical personnel walking around and giving injections, an MRI Tunnel (with Realistic Banging Noises!), a 24-Hour Urine Collection Log Slide, lots and lots of blood draw concession stands, a place to pose for overpriced photos of yourself that make it look like you’re intubated, and people hawking baseball caps emblazoned with Another Sufferer of A Really Rare Disease Whose Doctor Totally Dropped the Ball* and t-shirts that read I MAY LOOK FINE, BUT I KNOW MY BODY.

*Not that this does not ever happen, OF COURSE. I have dropped a few balls myself. However, most bad things will “declare themselves,” as we say; they get worse and become diagnosable. Not-bad things usually go away, and the less you test for, the better off you will be. As I teach my residents, “follow” is not a dirty word.

UPDATE: To all who are saddened/angered by this, let me say a few more things:

• There are many, many crappy doctors, I know. Believe me, I know. I do not excuse any of them. They’ve messed me up too.
• Most of us have had frightening, unexplainable symptoms at some time or another. That doesn’t make us Patients.
• Yes, most people just want someone to listen carefully and, if appropriate, reassure. I love listening to people, watching them, finding out what it is that frightens them about their symptoms. I’m not talking about those people here. I’m not talking about you here.
• There are a few diseases that have multiple seemingly unrelated symptoms that can be overlooked. I test for these where appropriate. That patient who wrote the list? Had had multiple tests already.
• These folks can get sick too, and that’s frightening, because they do fall victim to the crying-wolf problem. It’s part of what makes them so tough as patients.
• There are also, I am quite sure, many diseases that we cannot yet diagnose no matter how many tests we do. We doctors must remain humble about this.
• And know this: if you’re suffering, I wish I could help you.

And In the Summer, He Wears Toenail Polish

Thanks for your wise counsel and perspectives. I’m feeling much better now (at least, as long as I don’t think too hard about another Tom Cruise in the making). I was also heartened by the result of the recent (and I am sure scientifically very accurate) Glamour poll of men: when offered the choice of being 6'2" with a 3-inch pen is or 5'2" with a 7-inch pen is, 68% chose the latter. I will not discuss my son’s package even on an anonymous blog, but I do not expect the former to be his fate.

I think my freakout was a combination of contemplating kindergarten starting next year and having a visit from Nana, who truly, truly believes that HB would be taller if we fed him more. But when I think about HB’s personality, he could not be more temperamentally impermeable to the taunts of others. For instance, these were his favorite holiday gift:



Yes, those are tights, and he has coveted them for a long time. He’s been making do with tight-ish long johns (always paired with colorful shorts), but has been begging for the real article. I had told him, “I will probably have to buy girls’ tights,” and he said, “Girls’ tights are fine!” Then a pause. “But not pink.” Another pause. “Hearts are okay though.”

This past Monday he wore them to preschool for the first time, and that night I asked him if people had liked them. “Oh yes,” he said. “Jacqueline and Emily said, ‘What are those?’ And I said, ‘tights,’ and they laughed together and said that only girls could wear tights.” Yet he said this in a quite gleeful way. “Did you tell them that wasn’t true?” I asked. “No,” he said as he wandered away. “A teacher did, though.” Then Tuesday he wore the second pair to school. Wednesday, he was upset that I hadn’t done the laundry yet so he could wear them again. Clearly, this is a kid to whom the only opinion of importance is his own. He reminds me a little of those tiny dogs who don’t know how small they are and run up and challenge gigantic Cujos—successfully.

(He says he likes the tights partly because they’re like his father’s cycling tights, but partly because they’re … “tight.” He has not worn regular pants since last year.)

(He does run around shooting things All. The. Time. with anything that could remotely be interpreted as a weapon, so I doubt the tights are an expression of gender confusion. Actually I know they’re not, because this kid is never confused about anything. If he wanted to be a girl, he’d be a girl, and nothing anyone could say would stop him.) (Not that I would try to stop him, FYI.)

(Click here for a picture of the toes.)

Sure, Frodo's Cute, but Aragorn Gets All the Action

While I’m on the topic of body image: there is a type of prejudice of which I have become acutely aware since the birth of my son.

Why is still okay to make fun of short people?

Why is it a compliment to remark upon how tall a child is, but a slur to point out that a child is short?

Why is everyone so happy when babies are big?

Why is automatically better for a man to be tall?

How is height any different from any other immutable physical characteristic?

The first time I watched Shrek, long before HB was born, I didn’t find it odd that one of the running jokes is about how short the prince is while the movie is (ostensibly) about how it’s okay to look different from society’s expectations of beauty. Now it grates on my nerves, and I wonder if I should even let HB watch it.

HB is normal—he’s “on the curve”—but he’s waaaayyyy down there, usually in the single digits percentage-wise. He’s the size of the average child a full year younger, and there are kids in his class who are taller than he is who are two years younger. In some ways this is an advantage for him now; people routinely think that he’s outrageously advanced for his age. (My husband used to correct people who said things like “He talks so well!” by saying “No, he’s really small for his age,” until I pointed out that he was implying that HB was short and stupid.)

It won’t be an advantage forever. He’s currently on track to be about 5'5" or 5'6" when he’s an adult – maybe 5'7" if he jumps the curve at the end the way a lot of boys on my side of the family do. This means that he will be routinely eliminated during findasmokinhotguy.com searches (or whatever it is they have in 2025). He will probably be accused at some point of having a Napoleon Complex or “short man syndrome.” He might have trouble being elected president.

Let me make clear that I realize this is not a terrible problem to have. I am tremendously grateful that my son is healthy and normal. I don’t actually want to be the mother of a president. But it does worry me, and I really don’t know how to help him negotiate his way as he gets older. With one exception, all of his close male relatives—father, uncles, grandfathers—are 5'10" to 6'3", so not a lot of role modeling there.

There is a fair amount of advice out there on how to help your daughter gain a healthy body self-image, but very little for boys.

Those of you with experience with the short guy thing: any advice?

Wire Monkey

My friend J and I were talking about body image recently, and she said, “I’m very comfortable with my body—I don’t mind being naked in front of people—but I don’t really like it.”

“What’s wrong with your body??!” I asked. J is beautiful and tall and solid and stacked. She’s a Brick. House.

“Well, there are parts of it that are just ugly,” she said.

“Like what?”

“Like—like my back fat.”

“What’s wrong with back fat?”

“Back fat is objectively unattractive.” Which has to be one of the most ridiculous things she’s ever said.

“Not liking back fat is the epitome of subjective,” I said. “Take my brother. You’re too skinny for his taste.”

Then I confessed one of my body issues to her: when I see well-upholstered mothers cuddling their children, I feel sad that HB will never have that kind of comfort. All he gets are clavicles and acromion processes.

J eyed me for a moment, then said, “You know, you’re right. You’re like the wire monkey.”

And damn it if that image doesn’t keep cropping up in my head every time I hug my child now.

So go enjoy your holiday feasts. Do it for the children.