Third night in a row without a pacifier

And the eleventh day in a row that Milo has slept through the night.

Hmm. Do you think I'm jinxing myself for even mentioning it?

Milo went to bed tonight wearing a gorgeous new organic cotton terrycloth diaper. This thing is as soft as a high-quality bath towel, but three times as absorbent. It's a Motherease Sandy's fitted snap diaper. I'm going to write about it and all the other purchases I made at Discount Diapers in Vancouver in my cloth diaper blog tomorrow.

Yes, for those of you who weren't aware, I've been two-timing you with another blog. That one's dedicated solely to my um, cloth diaper obsession. Now please don't worry, I'm not a cloth diaper snob or anything. I don't care about the kind of diapers you use. I only care about the diapers I use. Some would say a little bit too much, perhaps... but mostly because they're just so damned cool.

There are some really amazing diapers out there that don't stink, don't stain, won't cause rashes and won't leak at night. They're cheaper than disposables in the long run because one diaper can last a baby pretty much from birth right through to age two or three. And they totally make your kid's butt look styling.

But I don't want to bother you with my monotopical rantings here... that's what my cloth diapers blog is for.

We now return you to all Milo, all the time...

Um, hello? I thought we were supposed to be talking about ME, here.

And the heavens opened and choirs of angels sang

I just put Milo to bed without a pacifier. It's the second night in a row he's gone down without his usual sleep crutch and I'm quite ridiculously psyched about it.

I HATE pacifiers. Hate 'em. Binkies, dummies, soosies, call them what you will -- to me they just scream "gateway addiction." First the babies start with the pacifiers... next thing you know, they're smoking in the boy's room or shooting up in some dank, urine-soaked alley on the outskirts of Chinatown.

Okay, that might be a bit extreme. I know my aversion is unreasonable -- lots of babies need soothers to calm them down to sleep or when they're in unfamiliar situations. I know a number of children who were hooked on their binkies during the early years of their life, and they eventually managed to give them up without a problem. They don't seem to have suffered any debilitating after-effects from their addiction, either.

And yet... and yet... every time I see a toddler crying frantically for his or her pacifier, I can't help but shudder inside. It's totally a me thing. There's something about that naked desparate neediness that makes me want to go out on to the back porch and smoke an entire pack of cigarettes in one go. And I don't even smoke.

So of course, after Milo was born, I resisted the lure of the soother. Even when he spent hours fussing and crying and refusing to settle down to sleep, still I resisted. Even after Rob went out and bought a couple of soothers on my mother's suggestion after a particularly trying two-hour screaming session between one and three in the morning, still I resisted. It wasn't until we were visiting Rob's folks on the island for five days and I was desparate to show his eager-to-be-doting grandparents that Milo wasn't a miserable, chronically fussy child whose mother clearly didn't have the first clue about how to make him happy that I finally caved in to all the peer pressure and gave him a soother.

And oh, the silence, the blessed silence of a calm baby. I couldn't believe how long I'd been willing to live without it, when all that time it was just one little piece of rubber and plastic away.

So yes, I started using a pacifier. Whenever Milo would get the least bit fussy, ploop! In it would go. It would quiet him down immediately and allow him to remain calm enough to suss out his surroundings and try to figure out what the heck this whole "reality" thing was all about. Finally, I began to work up the courage to take him out of the house for long periods of time. And with a soother, I could put Milo down for a nap or to sleep while still awake and could be reasonably sure that he wouldn't wake up an hour later crying, wondering where the hell he was or how he'd got there.

But still... whenever I'd plug that soother in Milo's mouth, I'd feel like a pimp or a pusher man. I worried that I was inviting a rabid monkey to hunker right down on his back and never leave. Heck, I felt like I was providing that damned monkey with building materials and floorplans so he could build a condo and rent out space to all his rabid little monkey friends.

I've got a terribly addictive personality myself, you see, and so I couldn't imagine a future in which a child of mine would be able to wean himself off a habit that made him feel good.

Well, whaddya know, despite all my worries and fears, my little boy has gone and proven me wrong. Twice! Not once, but twice! I'm giggling as I type this. MILO'S SOOTHER IS GOING THE WAY OF THE DODO!

Of course, Milo's currently developing an equally powerful addiction to sucking on his own fingers now, and that could be dangerous, because if he turns into a constant thumb-sucker he might eventually deform the shape of his palate and develop speech problems, and it's not like I can ever take his hands away from him. (Well I could, but I don't think that limb-reattachment surgery is covered by our medical plan.)

So we'll just have to see how this all pans out. For now, I'm just going to sleep happy tonight, knowing that my baby has proven himself capable of getting over one addiction, at least. I'll worry about the heroin and the crystal meth some other day.

Faced with increasing neglect, the pacifier couldn't help but
suspect that Milo was cheating on it with someone else...

And it was right. Caught -- in flagrante delicto!

A cursed inheritance

Generally, I try to refrain from gushing about Milo, for fear of bringing an ironic Twilight Zonian curse down upon his head. I fear that if I admit how adorably cute I really think he is, I'll accidentally trip and drop him face first on to our George Foreman grill; or if I brag -- even silently, within the confines of my own mind -- about his obvious superior intelligence, a gigantic block of frozen airplane pee will fall from the sky and hit him right smack on the head.

Okay, so I'm a little superstitious.

Still, there's no denying it. That little boy definitely won a sizeable jackpot in the gene pool lottery. He seems to have inherited the best that Rob and I have to offer. He's got Rob's long, lean frame and my almost-reaching-Angelina-Jolie-proportions mouth. His wide, perceptive blue eyes could have come from either side of our family. Ditto for his high forehead and mischievous grin. His hands are huge and long-fingered and his ears are perfect. And his strength, oh my, have I ever mentioned his strength? His adamantium-reinforced skeletal structure could only have been inherited from Wolverine. Not really sure where Wolverine fits on the family tree (though Rob's chest is pretty hairy), but Milo's got to be related to him somehow.

Of course, Milo's not perfect. But I was prepared for all the less desirable traits we'd pass on to him. Or so I thought.

I expected him to be stubborn and impatient (and he is). I'm sure that as he gets older, he'll also reveal himself to be indecisive and overly self-absorbed at times. Possibly even judgmental. And oh yes, I'm already steeling myself for the inevitable trip to the optometrist's office before the age of 10, where he'll be told he needs glasses. Thick ones.

But one trait that I HADN'T been expecting to pass on to him -- that hadn't even occurred to me as a possibility -- was the feet. The stinky, sweaty Whalen feet. The feet that really make it infinitely more polite NOT to take your shoes off at the front door of an acquaintance's house. The feet that can drive coffin nails into what might have been a promising first date. The feet that can cause loved ones to gag.

Yes. Those feet. Milo has inherited them, I'm certain of it. The poor kid is only four months old, and already when I pull his socks off, they're damp with sweat, and even smell a bit sour.

What evil have I wrought upon my poor, unsuspecting progeny? Will he ever forgive me for the curse I've so thoughtlessly bestowed upon him?

Dear lord, I forgot about the feet.

I'd better get my kisses in while he's still willing
to be in the same room with me...

Future girlfriend? Check. Future career? Check. Future rehab clinic? Currently scoping out the options...

Last Wednesday night, Rob and I escaped the house sans Milo to go see our friend Luke Doucet play his phenomenal brand of alt-pop rock 'n roll at Richard's on Richards, a bar in downtown Vancouver.

(A thousand thanks to Milo's Grammy and Grampy for cheerfully agreeing to babysit. I love Milo to death and all that, but still, sometimes it's nice to hang out with the big kids in a place where babies aren't allowed, even if it is Dick's on Dicks.)

Luke rocked the house, as usual. He's one of those uber-talented people that makes you want to bang your head against the wall until it bleeds, because his consummate skill with his chosen instrument of expression (read: geetar) is so transcendant that it makes the artistic attempts of us mere mortals seem like feeble kazoo squawks in comparison.

When Luke's not touring the world promoting his music, he can often be seen onstage alongside of Sarah McLachlan. He's been the lead guitarist for most of her live shows for over a decade now.

Personally, I've never been particularly drawn in by Sarah's music, but I've got to say this for her: the woman has taste. In guitarists, at least.

Yes, Luke is that good. Kind of makes you sick to see so much talent packed into "136 wet dog pounds of skinny white boy," to quote the man himself.

So you can imagine the audience's surprise last Wednesday when Luke was totally eclipsed by a guest singer he'd invited onstage for the last song of his set. For the duration of that song, everyone forgot about Luke. All eyes were fixed on the pint-sized performer on the stage beside him: his nine-year-old daughter, Chloe Winkelman Doucet.

When Luke introduced Chloe and she first bounced up onstage, the audience was clearly charmed. She's a tiny little bird of a girl who looks just like her dad, and she was clearly thrilled to be onstage in front of a crowd of hollering concert-goers.

Scanning the crowd, I saw that most people were smiling indulgently at her. "Aw, how cute," is probably what they were thinking.

Then she opened her mouth and began to sing, and all those indulgent smiles widened into egg-shaped O's . The sound of jaws hitting concrete might have been audible, had it not been drowned out by the far more impressive sound of Chloe belting out the opening verses of Tom Waits' "Gun Street Girl."

That little girl's got pipes, I tell you. Already, at the tender age of nine, she can sing circles around all those vacuous over-produced bubblegum pop stars that usually tend to dominate the music charts.

Hardly surprising, when you consider the fact that her dad's a rock star and her mom, Tallulah Winkelman, is herself a talented actress. Ever since Chloe was born, everyone around her has been counting the days until she takes center stage in her own right. Clearly that day is not long in coming.

And so, as I watched Chloe upstage her own father and wildly surpass all of her biggest fans' expectations, only one thought dominated my mind: "Oh, sh*t. Sh*t. Sh*t. Sh*t. Sh*t. Sh*t."

Just a couple of months ago, when Chloe was telling me about a band that she and some of her friends were putting together, I jokingly made her promise that as soon as he was old enough, Milo could become a member of her band as well.

"Sure!" she cheerfully agreed. "He can play the drums! And when I'm 21 and he's 13, he can go on tour with me."

Suddenly, that proposition doesn't seem nearly as far-fetched as it did back at the end of summer. Chloe's definitely going places, and I can all too easily see Milo wanting to hitch on to her star and go along for the ride.

He's already showing a definite ear for music. He wiggles and squeals when I play my djembe for him and he watches Rob with wide-eyed amazement when he sings and plays guitar. We've got no shortage of musical instruments in this house, and Rob and I are going to do our very best to encourage Milo to learn how to play every single one of them.

And so, against my better judgment, when he turns 13, I'm going to remind Chloe of the promise she made. I feel I owe it to my son. I mean, wouldn't nearly ALL teenagers kill to travel the country with a rock band fronted by pretty girl with a wicked voice?

Lord knows I would have. That was my dream growing up. Of course, in my dreams, I was the pretty girl with the wicked voice. But alas, the Fates decreed otherwise, and so I leave it to my son to do what he can to fulfill my unrealized dreams for me. Damnit, if Joanie Cunningham couldn't go on tour with Leather Tuscadero, and if I couldn't sing backup vocals for Bon Jovi (who, now that I think of it, has borne a marked resemblance to both Tuscadero sisters at different points in his career) , then I swear by all that's good in the world, Milo's going on tour with Chloe!!! Just you wait and see if he doesn't!

And yet I can't seem to shake the fear that some day in the not-so-terribly-distant future, I'm going to be calling up the Betty Ford Clinic to ask if they have a cot available for a washed-up, strung-out 13-year-old drummer boy.

He heard the siren sweetly singing...

My boy won't ever lack for partners at those Friday high school soc hops

He's already mastered the white man's overbite:


Now all he needs to do is learn how to shuffle his feet from side to side and he's set.

Things that wouldn't strike you as examples of learned behaviour

The musician tunes his instrument...

Back when I was pregnant and trying to imagine what life with my new baby would be like, I always conceived of it in terms of all the different milestones (or Milostones, heh) he or she would experience during the process of developing from a newborn to child.

I wondered what it would be like to play with Sitting Up Baby, to chase after Crawling Baby and wipe sweet potato off the chin of Learning to Eat Baby. I imagined how magical it would be to stretch out on the day bed and cuddle with Breastfeeding Baby. I anticipated how happy I'd be to meet Sleeping Through The Night Baby, how excited I'd be to be able to chat with Saying First Words Baby, and how throat-chokingly awestruck I'd be to watch the accomplishments of Taking First Steps Baby.

What I never appreciated was how many different stages of development there'd be, or how surprising most of them would be. I mean, who would have thought that shivering when cold or being capable of being tickled were acquired skills?

Milo has gone through countless incarnations while learning all these new abilities over the past four months. Just this week, for example, he has become:

• Biting Lower Lip Milo
  
  
• Exploring One Foot With The Other Milo
  
  
• Puckering Up To Whistle Like Gramma and Poppa Milo
  

...and, last but most certainly not least,

• Staying at Home With Grammy and Grampy Without Freaking While Mom and Dad Go Out To Trip The Light Fantastic Milo.
  

I'm sure you can imagine how happy Rob and I were to meet that last incarnation... Much as we adore our son and love getting to know all him in all his different guises, still, sometimes it's still fun to be able to go out and play with the big kids.

tabula rasa

Why, Mommy? Why?

I made Milo bleed the other day.

It happened while I was trimming his fingernails. My parents were coming over that afternoon, and I knew I had to declaw him so he wouldn't leave permanently disfiguring gashes on their faces.

It was all going fine until I got to his right thumb. Oh, that thumb, the way the skin clings so adamantly to the nail. No matter how much care I took in trying to insert only the nail between the two sharp blades of the clipper, some skin managed to sneak in there as well.

Finally, I repositioned the clipper one last time and decided to hope for the best and make the darned cut. 'Cause that's what I would have done if it had been my nail.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

As soon as the nail clipper went "click," I knew I had made a serious mistake. Milo's eyes flew wide and his mouth opened in a round "O" of shock. His quivering lips pulled down into a pathetic little "m" and then opened again to let out the second loudest howl I've ever heard him make (go here if you dare to learn the story of the loudest).

I looked down at the injured thumb, and sure enough, saw a thin line of red welling up where the end of the fingernail used to be. I grabbed his hand and shoved the bleeding digit into my mouth, hoping to suck away the pain like snake venom.

Milo got over his injury within a few short minutes, but my pain lingered on for hours afterward. I felt like I've failed some sort of test. Clearly, making your child bleed isn't something that mothers are supposed to DO.

Oh, I know that Milo is going to experience pain and suffering in his life. There's no escaping it. If you listen to the Buddhists, they'll tell you that's what life is all about, and if you want to discover how to truly enjoy life, you need to learn how to deal properly with pain and rise above it in order to prevent it from developing into actual suffering.

(I love how Buddhism makes a distinction between pain and suffering. One is clean and sharp like a blade and can strengthen the character of the person who experiences it. The other festers like a gangrenous wound and saps a person's soul.)

I know I can't completely protect Milo from pain, be it physical, emotional, or spiritual. That's impossible. I only hope that I'm able to help him learn how to cope successfully with the pain that life will inevitably bring him.

Yet when I look at my little boy and imagine all the cuts, bruises, abrasions, and broken bones that will someday mar his beautiful blank slate of a body (not to mention the more painful wounds that will one day be inflicted on his heart), I can't help but wish for a magic wand that would erase all possibility of anything bad ever happening to him.

Even though I know that all the unpleasant experiences awaiting him will help him acquire more character and wisdom than all the hugs and kisses that I could ever possibly give him, still, I wish.

At the very least, I wish I could learn how to use those stupid nail clippers properly, so that it won't be me who continues to be the bringer of pain.