A Girl’s Diaper Change

I’m a girl with girl parts that I’ve had for 35 years and am very familiar with their operation and maintenance. When I had my baby boy 8 years ago, he came with a whole new set of parts – externally hanging ones. I could not relate to these parts, but quickly became a diaper-changer extraordinaire – the baby penis and the balls were easy to clean.

Fast forward to 7 weeks ago when my baby girl was born. One of the pediatricians in the hospital came in to give her an exam and off came the diaper and with it, the girl diapering lesson.

"Make sure you clean her vagina – inside the folds," she instructed. "Pull it apart and get it thoroughly clean," she went on. Then she not-so-gingerly spread my baby's delicate parts and checked them out.

Oh goodness me. This felt very invasive. She made mention that we don’t have to get rid of “all the lubrication” – some was normal.

But how would I know how much was normal? I’m a perfectionist and would lean on the side of scrubbing said-body-part clean. After baby girl’s first poop, it became apparent that the spreading part of the diaper change was imperative to thorough cleaning. Whereas a boys parts are ‘what you see is what you get,’ a girl’s parts are in line with a girl’s character – always hiding something inside and you really have to dig deep to clean the shit out.

Another difference that I never expected was the fountain pee. Baby boys have a bad reputation for peeing the minute the diaper comes off – a yellow streaming fountain that usually saturates diaper changer. Girls, however, with their folded parts, don’t come with this assumption. My baby girl has proven to me – over and over now – how wrong it was to presume there would be no female pee fountain. In fact, she has, in her 7 short weeks, given me more squirting yellow displays than my boy ever did.

I love that she’s bold like that. Just wait until I impose and pass along onto her my public restroom shtick.

I was a Witness?

Two years ago I played the role of a good Samaritan and now I got a subpoena delivered to my home. (Two weeks after having a newborn.) Delivered to my doorman (not in my hands). Without an envelope and left for me to pick up at my leisure.

It all began on an August afternoon two years ago when after taking my grandmother to the doctor, I vaguely saw (they call this “a witness”) a woman get hit by a car. I think the car hit her foot or leg. I don’t remember the specifics and she never told me. I remember she was able to walk, but I also remember thinking she must be in serious shock. I was not the one who called 9-1-1. I don’t remember who did that.

There were others there, but nobody stayed after the initial Manhattanite gasp and chatter. The woman was all by herself; no one bothered to stay with her, assuming the authorities would take care of it. But because I didn’t have to be anywhere by any certain time, I felt compelled to stay with her.

Just earlier that year, on another midtown corner during rush hour, a much older and heavier woman had broken her fall with my knee. I remained standing still, stuck in pain, as she fell crashing forward. I stood shocked, in serious knee pain, thinking to myself, “Shit, this is more than just a boo-boo.” While everyone surrounding the fallen women jumped to help her up; I was the broken tree on the corner.

She got up and on her way, continuing uptown, someone’s eyes caught mine as I winced in pain and she asked me, “You’re not OK, are you?”

The Russian martyr in me took possession of my voice and I mouthed that I was OK. I somehow managed to hobble one block up to the bus and then up a flight of stairs to my boyfriend’s apartment. Later that night I put together a living room full of Ikea furniture, unevenly balancing on one leg. Good practice for the next six weeks I spent on crutches.

The moment that lingers with me during that incident will be the feeling of being very alone in a big city when I was in pain. Now on this August afternoon, I wanted to be there for someone who was also feeling very alone, hurt and afraid.

About a year later, or sometime between now and then, I got a call or a letter or both from someone that led me to understand that now there was a lawsuit and I was the only witness. For which side, I’m not sure.

Apparently one of them wants me to testify or give a deposition or something that sounds very Law & Order – and I don’t want to. (Nor can I as a lactating mom of a newborn.)
The reality is that I didn’t even see the whole accident; I just saw a scared woman. I’ve told them that.

Now I’m being harassed - on the phone, on Facebook, now at my home - by legal assholes or insurance assholes or any other person that fits into the ambulance-chasing scene.
It kind of made me understand why everyone else fled the scene and I was left being the only one that stayed behind to bear witness.

What kind of lesson is this perpetuating in society?

Month One: Check

Throughout life, we’re behaviorally trained to rely on somebody else to tell us that we’re doing a good job. We perpetually seek validation (and reward?) for our actions. First our parents chant “good job” as we learn life’s basics. Then throughout our childhood and our educational careers, we count on teachers, tests and grades to present us with the grand check mark that we are in fact doing what we’re supposed to be doing. Finally in our jobs, we wait for our bosses to commend us or to give us a review – or at least to sign our paychecks to substantiate the job we’re doing.

Being a mother, though, is a job where we give ourselves our own grade. We raise our children, watching as their actions mirror our parenting. But before they’re old enough to be in the pre-therapy phase, they’re tiny babies. And how do we know if we’re doing it right?

I count on the pediatrician for that. Oh, what a power I bestow upon her.

Yesterday we took our baby for her one-month doctor’s visit.

Even though this is offspring number 2, many (of the same) questions made my sheet. Silly things like, “is her skull bones supposed to dip in like that?” or “how long will she do the cross-eyed Jerry Lewis thing?” Mostly I eagerly awaited the grand weigh-in. Fattening her up in these first few months of life is much akin to a final exam in determining the class’ overall grade.

While my baby was sleeping well and seeming satisfied after feedings, I wanted to see the proof that breastfeeding was working. I was still in doubt and in shock that I could do it. I needed to see the numbers. And we did, we did! Weight and height and head size – all properly growing!

The doctor tells us that she’s very proud of us. She used those specific words.

So elated, a huge smile spreads on both our faces. Nothing better than hearing words of a healthy baby. Good job boobies.

Month one, check plus.

Capture a Screen Shot with Mac

Warning: For those of you whose google search to “How to Screen Capture on Mac” brought you to this page, I apologize because I don’t usually write about this kind of stuff. (Not that I’m not great at technical stuff; I actually am. I just choose not to write about it. Because there are funnier things to write about. This isn’t funny, it’s just darn useful. For those of you that have Macs. And for those of you that want to capture a screen shot.

This is a great list of ways to Capture a Screen Shot with Mac OS X:

1. To capture the entire desktop, press Command-Shift-3. The screen shot will be automatically saved as a PNG file on your desktop.

2. To copy the entire desktop, press Command-Control-Shift-3. The screen shot will be placed on your clipboard for you to paste into another program.

3. To capture a portion of the desktop, press Command-Shift-4. A cross-hair cursor will appear and you can click and drag to select the area you wish to capture. When you release the mouse button, the screen shot will be automatically saved as a PNG file on your desktop. (The file is saved as PDF in Mac OS 10.3 and earlier.)

4. To capture a specific application window, press Command-Shift-4, then press the Spacebar. The cursor will change to a camera, and you can move it around the screen. As you move the cursor over an application window, the window will be highlighted. The entire window does not need to be visible for you to capture it. When you have the cursor over a window you want to capture, just click the mouse button and the screen shot will be saved as a PNG file on your desktop. (The file is saved as PDF in Mac OS 10.3 and earlier.)

5. Add Control to the two shortcuts above to place the screen shot on the clipboard instead of saving it to the desktop.

6. Another method for capturing screen shots in Mac OS X is by using the bundled Apple utility, Grab, located in the Applications > Utilities folder. Grab is useful if you need to include a cursor or a menu in your screen shot, or if you want to save your screen shot to TIFF format. To include a cursor, first go to Grab Preferences and select the cursor icon you wish to have in your screen shot. To capture the screen with Grab, run Grab, then choose of the capture modes from the "Capture" menu: Selection, Window, Screen, Timed Screen.

7. When you choose the Selection mode in Grab, you can capture a specific region of the screen by dragging around it. Grab will display a tooltip showing the size of the region you have selected and the screen shot will open in a window when you release the mouse button. The cursor will not be included.

8. When you choose the Window mode in Grab, an instruction window will appear asking you to select the window you wish to capture, then click the "Choose Window" button. When you click the button, the instructions will disappear and the window you click ill be captured, including the mouse cursor at the position where you click (if a cursor was selected in Preferences).

9. When you choose the Screen mode in Grab, an instruction window will appear asking you to click the screen when you are ready to capture. The mouse cursor will be included in your screen shot at the position where you click (if a cursor was selected in Preferences).

10. When you choose the Timed Screen mode in Grab, an instruction window will appear, allowing you to prepare your screen for capture. When you are ready, press the "Start Timer" button and you will have ten seconds before the screen is captured. This allows you to open menus and sub-menus, if necessary. After ten seconds the entire screen will be captured. The mouse cursor will be included in your screen shot if a cursor was selected in Preferences.

3 Weeks of Mommyhood-squared

I made it through the first 3 weeks without breaking baby # 2. This second rendition of Mommyhood is entirely different from the first installment, when I was given the title 8 years ago.

Gone are the moments (OK, fewer are the moments) when you check on your perfectly angelic sleeping newborn just to see if she’s alive. Gone are the sleepless moments while she sleeps because you wonder why she’s still sleeping. (I’m taking every opportunity to sleep when she sleeps.) Gone are the phone calls to the pediatrician after every weird cry, burp or poop (or lack there of).

The biggest surprise, despite every second-child cliché realized, is that every baby is so very different – even if it came from the same womb. Truly, though, she only feels like a partial second child. After all, for the baby daddy, she is still a first child and our first child together; an altogether new family dynamic.

Throughout my 41 weeks of pregnancy, I had an internal breastfeeding debate: would I or wouldn’t I. After much deliberation and overwhelming self scrutiny and doubt (READ: GUILT), I decided that I owed it both to my child and to myself to give it another chance. Mostly because I didn’t want to believe that my body couldn’t do it. Gosh darn it, my boobs could make milk as much as the next female!

And when this time around, I squirted my sore nipples to see the white droplets ooze out, it brought tears to my eyes. Like the boobies that thought they could, they chugged their way through the first few days to be healthy milk producers. The little boobies that could!

Along with the fabulous benefits of being a milk producer, I also feel a bit trapped, never allowing more than 2 hours between me and baby boob sucker. The “Breastaurant” is open 24/7 at my daughter’s request and I am the sole proprietor. It strikes me as interesting fodder that some women actually love this – gaining a certain power or control that they are the only ones that can feed their baby. For me, it feels a bit restricting; different from the life I once had – even 3 short weeks ago.

While I have an 8-year old, the joint custody bit allowed me half a week of complete freedom and even when he was with me, the 8-year-old has become so incredible self-sufficient, that this constant attachment is a newfound challenge. “But it’s not forever,” they chant. So I nod and switch baby on the boob and take a deep breath.

But there’s another benefit to the boob feeding: THE BOOBS! Of course only my eyes and those of baby daddy have gotten to appreciate them since I have barely left the house for 3 weeks. (Why aren’t I on St. Martin’s topless beaches now?) He would argue that why else would anyone else have to appreciate them? I would counter-argue that outfits would just look exponentially better – and this is like the free boob job I’ll never have. But alas vanity has got the better of me.

Then there’s the pacifier. Also known as the binky, the paci, the bobo, baby # 2 has become enamored with it. On our third night at the hospital, she was just sucking on the boob - sucking her way into a newborn coma. Flashbacks of baby # 1 came back to me and I quickly declared unproductive boob sucking banned from the Breastaurant. So, we did the pinkie in the mouth – and it soothed her immediately. An hour later, daddy’s pinkie was getting as sore as my nipples and he quickly suggested a pacifier.

A trip to the local Duane Reade yielded a pacifier and the beginning of our mutual love affair with it. Aside from the self-inflicted guilt, it’s fabulous. (The American Association of Pediatrics even say so. ) It’s like a plug for any drip. Sometimes it seems that the pacifier will soothe any of a number of her needs – not just the sucking one. It just seems like the greatest distraction tool.

My issue is that babies just look dumber with the sucky thing in their mouth. They also whine as soon as it falls out of their mouth in the middle of the night, day, and nap. And then there is the final how will we get rid of it once said baby gets addicted? But I save that concern for another day.

Another newbie to this installment of Motherhood is the swaddle. At first we implemented the hospital swaddle and her hands would escape. But no – there is a better, more proper swaddle. Larger sheets, trapped arms and legs. It’s the latest trend (or at least back to what the rest of the world has been doing for hundreds of years). Mr. Happiest Baby on the Block said so in his books, CDs and quoted in every parenting magazine around. It seems to work magic. The first night we did it, she slept 7 hours straight. At two weeks. Dare I judge?

Then there are the hormones. The stuff that no one really wants to talk about because it doesn’t fit the pretty picture. (The stuff that even I don’t have the balls to write about. No one wants to hear whining, least of all me.) So while the 9-months of hormones leaves your body silently, it creates plenty of loud havoc in your brain. I read somewhere that it’s like the worst PMS you can experience – times ten. “It’s not your fault,” they say. “It’s normal,” they say. None of these words is a salve to the invisible wound that’s bleeding profusely through your mind.

The hormones course through your veins, creating insanity where there needn’t be; creating illogical thoughts to justify the irrational emotions. It’s hard to fit in with the angelic image of society’s picture of the newborn mom. Euphoric, glowing and madly in love.

Since I have joint custody of my 8-year-old, the days that he’s not here seem like a breeze. I wonder why I never thought a newborn was easy the first time around when I didn’t have another one to entertain? Having an 8-year-old creates a new brand of self-inflicted guilt. Both when I’m having to take care of the newborn and just when I need some extra z’s. I can’t let him play on Club Penguin for another hour! I should be doing something creative, brain stretching or body stretching with him. I can’t keep him in the house another hour (even though he loves it). All these guilt-inducing, mother-like reprimands chant loudly in my head.

“Give yourself a break,” the baby daddy says. “Take it easy,” the parents say. “Don’t be so hard on yourself,” my sister tells me. It’s only three been weeks.

So we tread forward – the new family. Every day a new challenge, a new opportunity to learn something – or teach something – or just feed the baby I grew inside me for 41 weeks. I hold onto something I learned with baby # 1 – as soon as you figure it out, they change it.

Motherhood: Take 2

Every baby comes with its own birth story, and the journey it took to bring it to life.

Mackenzie Riley came into this world on a Tuesday morning via emergency cesarean section after almost 24 hours of trying to be induced. She is perfect. For every hardship pregnancy gave me for 41 weeks, she is taking it away by the minute. It only took me a day to say ‘it was all worth it.’

This is my Take 2 on Life. I did this once before – with another partner, much more planned and strategically plotted. I was so much more nervous; so much more calculating; so much more judgmental of the process and myself. I threw away any motherhood instincts, mostly because I had a partner who doubted me, criticized me and didn’t believe in me – or in love. Not in the way of the fairytale. Not in the way it’s supposed to be.

I never was a girl who loved princesses, but I love stories – especially ones with a happy ending. So when I didn’t have a happy ending the first time, I set out to write another story.

When I met Andrew over 5 years ago, I didn’t know that he’d be the perfect daddy to my gorgeous baby girl. But I did have a vision, as he walked away from me the first day we met, of him walking down the street holding the hand of a long-haired little girl. I filed this crazy image out of my mind until many years later.

But this man, whose heart belongs to children, was meant to be a daddy all his life. A man that came into my life to love me, my son and now our beautiful daughter.

My first marriage went sour the day my son was born and my ex-husband decided that I was superfluous to our son. I spent over 2 years in a controlling relationship, crying every day. He sucked out every morsel of happiness during my son’s first months of life.

I was terrified for what this new baby could do to my new relationship. How would we handle the stress of a newborn? The feedings, the restless nights, the crying.

But now we have this gorgeous baby girl and she is so different from my son. My energy is different. Our house is filled with love and positivity. Andrew supports me as a mother, as a woman, as his partner, as the other half of the love that created this new life. And that has made this experience – even in the short week that has been – remarkable, life altering, euphoric.

I used to see men with babies and cringe. It was never one of those images that made me awe. Until now. Until I see Andrew holding our daughter, his eyes deep into hers, thankful that I took the courage to make this fairytale my reality.

I look down at her head of full black hair, at her steel eyes as she looks through me; I smell the sweetest baby fragrance.

She is sweetness defined. A delicate baby girl that makes me pinch myself. I am thankful for anything and everything I did to be given this precious gift.

I am inhaling every moment; soaking up every fleeting second – eternally grateful for the man who gave me a second chance to be a mommy. A man who taught me not to be afraid to dream – because if we can dream it, and imagine it, we can achieve it.

Cheers to Life 2.0.

Mackenzie Riley's First 5 Days on Earth


Born 6.8.10 at Beth Israel Hospital, NYC.


Daddy will never let her feet touch the ground.


Now I'm a mommy of 2.


Meeting her big brother for the first time.

Big brother holds little sister's hands.


First day home.


She looks at you with these soulful eyes. Day 4 of life.

Flowers, Flowers and More Flowers

Each spring ... and every season, actually, I become obsessed with taking photos of flowers. The colors, the intricacies, the secret details. I've been doing it for years and never get bored. Here are just some (oh yes, there are many more) snapshots of flowers from New York City this spring.

Snapshots in Sepia

I've always loved capturing images in sepia. It's nostalgic, classic - almost like a little black dress. Whenever my pictures don't seem to convey what I'm truly seeing with my eye, I switch to sepia and it transports it to a peaceful interpretation.



Central Park, NYC


Same Bench - Central Park, NYC


Flower in Central Park, NYC


Belvedere Castle, Central Park, NYC


Central Park, NYC


Flower with Sunlight, Central Park, NYC


Central Park, NYC


Fountain outside Tarrytown Castle, Tarrytown, NY


Tarrytown, NY


Tarrytown, NY

41 Weeks - Seriously?

My first baby (8 years ago) came 3 days early, which duplicitously led met to believe that this one would also arrive a few days before the June 1st day circled red on the calendar. However, here I sit 2 days away from hitting the 41-week pregnant mark and I'm not smiling too broadly.

I'm thankful for the little things that could make it much worse. I'm not on bed rest and my feet aren't swollen beyond shoes, but I'm anxious and I'm as ready as I'll be ... and between me and the rest of the universe, I'm really done with this journey. Every pregnancy is unique, I know. Every baby is different, of course. But most mama-to-be are pretty much at the "stick a fork in me, I'm done" part when 41 weeks has come and gone on the calendar.

At the doctor's appointment last week, they scheduled me for 3 visits next week, all including the non-stress testing where they hook me up to a monitor and check baby's movements, fluid levels, and heart rate. Fun! Then at 42 weeks they induce. I really wanted to take a less invasive route. Why is my body slacking off on its job? There is no extra credit for this overtime.

I started all the stereotypical labor-inducing techniques right around 39 weeks ... obviously to no avail. I've tried spicy food, eggplant, pineapple, Indian food. I've tried sex - a lot, believe it or not. We've tried acupressure points. I've even tried coaxing it out with promises of candy and ice cream (mommy and daddy's favorite foods). I've walked and walked and walked. Yesterday under the 87-degree New York City heat, I walked about 4 miles. Then later at night we went back out and walked some more.

But alas, I wake up with a huge belly laying next to me and an unborn Baby Beluga still comfortably hanging out inside. Deep sigh. All in time. Patience. The earth's plans are bigger than mine ... and of course, good things come to those who wait. So ... I clean the house again and walk again ... and hope that my body knows when my baby is ready to hear its first Happy Birthday song.

39 weeks Pregnant

“Sick” has always been one of my favorite Shel Silverstein poems and I’ve always read it in a whiny complaining voice, which explains why it comes to mind now that I’m 39 weeks pregnant. Everything I say now feels like I’m uttering words to my own version of the poem.

I have never been one to wallow in the sickly mindset. Luckily my A+ immune system banishes my annual cold in a few days – and most of the time I ignore it (à la Monica in the Friends episode where she denies being sick as she disgustingly coughs and sneezes on everyone and everything). But this pregnancy – oh it has had me feeling sick for the last 273 days.

“It’s for a good reason,” they say. “It will all be worth it,” they reassure me. And I have no doubt - but it’s still a long time to feel like shit every day.

In the course of the last 273 days, the feeling of shit has varied in flavors – but the common denominator has been the same. No glowing skin or luminous hair or fabulous nails. Just nausea, vomiting, heartburn and now heaviness and tightness that makes me feel like I’m wearing a girdle securing a watermelon around all my organs 24 hours a day.

My muscles feel like they’ve completely atrophied. I am thankful for my wrought iron bed so that I can use the headboard like a disabled handrail when I pull myself out of bed. I’d like to think that I was strengthening my abdominal muscles when I raise myself, like some Rocky-worthy exercise where he puts 25-pounds of weight on his chest and does sit-ups. But alas, I think my abdominal muscles have retreated somewhere behind my stomach or lungs, both of which function at partial capacity at this point.

Sleep, oh sleep, how I used to love you. But somehow my body is readying my schedule for a newborn with frequent trips to pee – or to toss and turn and toss again. They tell me to sleep on the left side, so I try, but then I get restless and venture to the right side guiltily. Then it’s back to the left, where I have to tuck a blanket between my legs and under the heavy belly.

My reflection never fails to shock me. My shadow is like an exaggerated monster. How did my petite frame become this huge? The baby daddy says he loves the shape … but I’m part Humpty-Dumpty, part Weeble Wobble.

Then there’s the way others perceive me. I pass by strangers in the street and their eyes are drawn directly to my belly as if it’s an eye-to-belly magnet. This must be what it’s like for women with big boobs. Eye-to-boob contact rather than eye-to-eye. And speaking of big boobs – where was that when they doled out the pregnancy side effects?

Full-term pregnancy, how lucky that I am here, but you are the antithesis to comfort.

Now I wait, eagerly in anticipation to see this new life I've created that erases all memory of the above.

Sick
by Shel Silverstein

"I cannot go to school today,"
Said little Peggy Ann McKay.
"I have the measles and the mumps,
A gash, a rash and purple bumps.
My mouth is wet, my throat is dry,
I'm going blind in my right eye.
My tonsils are as big as rocks,
I've counted sixteen chicken pox
And there's one more--that's seventeen,
And don't you think my face looks green?
My leg is cut--my eyes are blue--
It might be instamatic flu.
I cough and sneeze and gasp and choke,
I'm sure that my left leg is broke--
My hip hurts when I move my chin,
My belly button's caving in,
My back is wrenched, my ankle's sprained,
My 'pendix pains each time it rains.
My nose is cold, my toes are numb.
I have a sliver in my thumb.
My neck is stiff, my voice is weak,
I hardly whisper when I speak.
My tongue is filling up my mouth,
I think my hair is falling out.
My elbow's bent, my spine ain't straight,
My temperature is one-o-eight.
My brain is shrunk, I cannot hear,
There is a hole inside my ear.
I have a hangnail, and my heart is--what?
What's that? What's that you say?
You say today is. . .Saturday?
G'bye, I'm going out to play!"