Nursing homes are the new opera house.

Recently I was asked whether I've done any singing since I became a mom. My knee jerk (or should I say voice jerk) reaction was to say "oh no, I don't have time right now...I just sing to Elliot sometimes". As I offered this pretentious response with an aire (singing pun intended) of humility, a nightlight-voltage light bulb turned on in my head. I thought "wait, doesn't singing to my son count????".

I spent what some would call the most formative adult years of my life (age 16 to 22ish) toiling away in practice rooms, desperately yearning to reach the pinnacle of success for a classical singer: a career as an opera performer. Starting in high school, I worked my opera-singer sized booty off to become the best soprano I could be. I took weekly voice lessons. I spent my evenings (OK every other evening if I'm honest - I never did practice enough) vocalizing on every vowel sound in the romantic languages, at every tempo and on every pitch I could physically produce. Ambitious as this may sound, I probably worked 10% as hard as most professional singers do. Because classical singing is nothing short of a sport; a complex, demanding, and mysterious sport that requires an intricate dance of fine-tuned yet invisible muscles.

The story of my decision to leave the opera path behind would fill a novel-length (and very tediously self-absorbed) blog entry. So instead I will sum it up in 1 short list. I left the opera path for these reasons:
1) while I do have a good voice, I don't have the vocal stamina or emotional drive to sing for a living. In short, I just don't have the chops.
2) I wanted to settle down in one place and have a family.
3) Although performing is fulfilling, and sometimes even enthralling, it just stresses me out too much. I knew I wasn't cut out for a performance career when I landed a lead role in Steven Sondheim's "Passion" at the Eastman Opera Theater (with a steamy sex scene to boot) and my primary reactions were panic and anxiety.

Since I left that world behind, it's been difficult to find the right place for music in my life. I'm sure many of my trained singer friends would agree. I've oscillated between extremes: from supporting myself entirely through music-related jobs (church gigs and teaching) to avoiding musical activities altogether. While I don't think there's a perfect answer, one thing I'm learning is that I shouldn't stew in a sulky soprano silence while waiting for the perfect solo opportunity to present itself.

The most fulfilling musical moments I've had in the past year or so have sprung up in the most humble and intimate circumstances; when my mother-in-law and I sang "Amazing Grace" at my Grandma-in-law's bedside moments before she let go of this world, or in the sparsely populated dining room of my Grandmother's nursing home, where I sang "Smoke gets in Your Eyes" with the resident physical therapist/pianist and my gleefully growling son. And last but not least, singing to my son in a variety of goofy and absurd contexts: when he's screaming in the backseat of the car, or when he won't drink his bottle because of his feeding issues and the only thing that will keep him sucking contentedly is a coloratura aria.

In short, when I get over myself and get the hell out of the way, my voice can actually do a bit of good in this world. And I know there are other voices out there that have stayed silent for too long (ahem, cough, you know who you are). In many cultures, people sing their way through the day to commemorate both the subtle nuances of daily life and the monumental emotions experienced at weddings and funerals. So why should we singers (trained OR untrained) deprive ourselves of such joy and comfort?

the womanly art of tubing (i.e. motherhood)

Yes, that's right, I said tubing. And I don't mean fallopian tubes (which I will someday learn to spell without spell check) or breast pump tubes (which I never did disinfect before returning my rental breast pump). I mean inner tubing, the kind you do on a river.

First, a little background. Many summers ago (OK only 2, but 2 sounds less dramatic) I learned a profound lesson about life while inner tubing down the Yakima river with my fabulous cousins, Sarah Joy and Rachel.

We began our tubing adventure somewhat spontaneously, as most adventures begin. It fell at the end of a two day girl's trip to Leavenworth, WA: a Bavarian themed tourist town surrounded by mountains and rivers, and overflowing with businesses whose names begin with "Der" or "Das". We had just checked out of "Der Ritterhoff" hotel (famous for its 50 foot plastic statue of a knight in der shining armor) and had picked up a few food items at "der Safeway" (I am not making this up) when we decided we could not conclude der weekend without one more sporty adventure. And thus we arrived at Der Inner Tubing place (I AM lying about this title, because I can't remember der actual name).

Clad in ill-fitting skorts and fresh farmer tans, we boarded a dilapidated van and traveled with our Bavarian tubes roughly .23 miles down the road to the riverside. I should have known I was in for a rough ride when the other tubers (not to be confused with flower bulb appendages) began their graceful glide down the river while I was still planted on the shore, desperately searching my inner tube for a hidden compartment in which to put my beverage (it ended up in my crotch...thank goodness for skorts).

Once I was finally IN the water, all was well...for roughly .23 centimeters. At which point I encountered some frightening rapids (OK, just 1) and began the behavior that has now come to symbolize my less impressive moments as a mother. I am not sure how to describe this behavior. If you imagine a beetle stuck on its back, flailing its numerous legs in a desperate attempt to flip over (and wearing a skort for some reason), you may get the idea. Except my flailing was part of an effort to steer away from the imminent rapids. I applied all of the skills I learned in swim team to this effort, but to no avail. Because apparently when you're in a tube, circling your arms rapidly and gyrating your torso in an upside down butterfly stroke does not give you much leverage. In fact, it just makes you swirl around in clumsy circles as the river carries you towards what you fear most.

Thankfully, at this point my cousins (who were peacefully floating about 500 feet ahead of me like water nymphs) came to my rescue by yelling this profound advice: "Just go with the flow Lana!". I said a small prayer to God to take care of my husband and family when I was gone, imagined what the reporters would say ("champion swimmer found at the bottom of the Yakima river, wearing a skort for some reason")and grudgingly ceased my frantic beetle/butterfly stroke. And you can guess what happened next, because I am here to write this very profound blog post. I passed safely over the rapid(s) and eventually joined the nymphs on the journey forward, or downward. I then spent the remainder of the journey rambling about how life is like inner tubing, and you must just let go and go with DER flow.

Although I remembered this lesson often in the following years, it appears to have been erased from my psyche by motherhood hormones. Motherhood has been amazing; all the cliches you hear, and then some. I never knew it was possible to love one little person so much, and life with a child is incredibly fulfilling. But (cue change of mood music) there have been countless moments of frantic flailing since I became a mommy six months ago. Part of it can be blamed on that good old scapegoat: hormones. Part of it is the responsibility of caring for a helpless human who is totally dependent on you. And part of it, I believe, is the monumental stack of expectations I brought to the adventure of motherhood.

When I was pregnant, I made many cocky statements such as "I think breastfeeding problems are largely psychological, so I'm just not going to worry about it" and "I'm just going to take my baby everywhere..I mean you still have to live your life right?". I envisioned myself the quintessential Seattle mom; strolling through farmer's markets, wearing my cherubic infant in a trendy wrap, gushing breast milk and a calm maternal aura. I'm not sure where I got this image- but I suspect it may have something to do with the childhood pictures of my hippie mother nursing a naked 3 year old me in various pristine natural settings.

So it came as quite a surprise when Elliot was 2 months old and I still found myself afraid to take him anywhere alone. I bravely ventured out one day to join a new mom's group in order to vent about my fear of venturing out. Five minutes into the journey, Elliot began to cry (as babies do, I'm told) and I turned my inner tube around in a tearful butterfly stroke and rushed home, singing "the Wheels on the Bus" at an increasingly frantic tempo. Thankfully I am blessed with numerous wise mother friends (including my mother and mother-in-laws) who reassured me that Elliot WOULD survive a tearful car ride, and would not be damaged for life if I took him to the grocery store.

It came as an even bigger surprise to discover that breastfeeding problems are NOT all psychological...unless you consider flat nipples, mastitis infections, and nipple blisters to be psychological challenges. I forged my tube over these rapids and continued to breastfeed, with the aid of many visits to the lactation consultant water nymph. But nothing prepared me for the biggest rapid of all. At 3 months of age, Elliot began to pull away and look at me like I'd stabbed him each time he nursed. I did everything I could think of to get him back on the breast, but most of the time we both ended up in tears. I could go on about this issue, but what it came down to was a bad case of infant acid reflux. Basically, it hurt Elliot to eat, and so he learned that nursing equaled pain. Not exactly the hippie mom nursing nirvana I had planned on.

I spent about a month (which I now refer to as "the July from HELL") flailing down the reflux river, pumping a dwindling supply of breast milk and bottle feeding a resistant baby about 14 times a day to get him to eat enough to grow. Just when it seemed that Elliot and I were going to capsize, we found a medication for his reflux that let him eat with far less discomfort. That was 3 months ago. Today, he only fights the bottle in public or when he first begins to drink, and he is grazing in the far greener pastures of solid foods. We are incredibly thankful.


I still find myself gyrating in a frantic butterfly stroke whenever Elliot's reflux flares up or he just isn't very hungry. During these times, my husband serves as the water nymph (visual of Rob in a speedo) calmly reassuring me that Elliot WILL be OK. Elliot's smiles, drooly kisses, and giggles also remind me to relax, take a breath, and go with the flow. Once I stop flailing and let go of my expectations for myself and my child, I realize that motherhood truly IS a beautiful thing- even if it's a bumpier ride than I anticipated.

Living Cheap in Yuppy Town

Hi alert readers. It's been awhile since my last entry, due in part to a minor and unnecessary meltdown. The good news is that this meltdown led to a highly profound revelation and plan that I will soon share (in about 5 paragraphs from now). That's right, put on your yoga pants and your Yanni CD, and prepare to be enlightened. Actually, since 2 of the 5 followers of this blog (can we say famous?) are male members of my family, please do not feel pressured to put on tight yoga pants. In fact, I specifically forbid you to do so.

Those of you who are members of my vague generation (X? Y? What are we again?) have probably heard stories from your parents/grandparents about how much simpler things were when you were born. You may have been told that as an infant, you or your siblings slept in a dresser drawer because there was no room in the tiny one bedroom apartment that your parents rented.

Charming as these drawer stories are, at some point in the past 30+ years the norm of American childrearing progressed, or digressed, from drawer-crib parenting to McMansion parenting. In our country, or at lest the northwest corner of it, there is an underlying expectation that in order to be ready for parenthood, a couple must first own a home with a enough square footage to cover an entire village in [insert 3rd world country of choice]. This home should be furnished by Pottery Barn (Ikea is for losers). In order to be able to afford such a purchase, both parents must first work their way up some type of impressive career ladder, even if they might feel like jumping off of this ladder and into a Barista position at Starbucks most days of the week. Another modern prerequisite to parenthood is that both parents meet a quota of rich (literally) life experiences prior to procreating. In order to truly appreciate changing a diaper, one more first know the pleasure of wine tasting in Napa, traveling abroad, and attending fancy yoga and meditation retreats, for which the registration fees could feed the aforementioned 3rd world village for a year.

These expectations may seem a bit extreme. Please recall that I live in Seattle: land of evergreens, slugs, hipsters, and family incomes that frequenty top 150k. Either way, my recent meltdown was due to the fact that I've let these expectations (or guilt surrouding our inability to meet them) create an unnecessarily large bubble of financial anxiety around parenthood. I desparately want to take a break from my own career ladder (a vaguely promising PhD program and research position that pays our mortgage) to be at home with the baby, at least during his first year of life. However, the thought of our family living on one income, even for 6 months, feels just plain scandalous. It may lead to (you may want to sit down for this) calamitous events such as renting an apartment, grocery shopping at stores than end in "mart" and do not have a gourmet organic cheese counter, and (here's where it just gets shocking) eating at home, even when there are amazing 3 for 30 specials at all the trendy Seattle restaurants.

So, getting to the point finally, here is the profound revelation: our baby won't care if we shop at Whole Paycheck or Walmart, if we own or rent, or if our combined income is half that of most of the families we know. But he WILL care if his parents are constantly freaking out about status and money. He will care because his parents (the female one in particular) will be annoying stresscases. In light of this, my husband and I have developed a plan that will likely change our day to day life quite a bit, for the better I think. I hope to expand on the details of this plan in subsequent blog entries (which will be read by elite publishers who will decide to make it into a book that will pay massive royalties...oh wait, I've gone and missed the point again). A few bullet points from this plan:

1) Eat leftovers for dinner, rather than look at them disdainfully and then go out to the neighborhood Indian restaurant instead, leaving the leftovers to wallow in dejection for yet another month before being thrown out in a cleaning flurry.
2) Make soup from the random concoction of dried lentils, veggies, and canned goods hibernating in our cabinets. See point 1 for instructions on soup leftovers.
3) Resist the urge to stop at Starbucks every day, and make our own combinations of coffee, milk, and corn syrup at home.
4) convince friends that potlucks are the new happy hour.
5) sell a car and introduce baby to the variety of intresting humanoids on this planet by taking him places on the bus. This should be an especially educational venture since Tent City has planted itself in the church parking lot across the street from our local bus stop.
6) attend free/homemade mommy & me music groups, rather than paying to talk about baby gear with strangers while a desparate kindermusic teacher flings herself around the room in hopes of getting a response (I say this because I used to BE the kindermusic teacher, and it was impossible to get the moms off the topic of baby clothing brands, even while shaking maracas in their faces and singing "Silly Sam the Sneaky Snake" at full opera volume).

And I'm spent. But I think this is a good start. Of course, as I write this, I am dreaming of a short soy mocha from Starbucks. Maybe I'll start #3 tomorrow. But we WILL have leftovers for dinner!

For the love of all that is round.

Fear not, avid followers of this blog. I am back. This blogging thing is so high pressure! What do bloggers do when they have actual readers depending on them??? If they are like that chick Julie, they write about yet another convoluted and occasionally repulsive recipe from "The Art of French Cooking". I say occasionally repulsive because I decided to read "Julie and Julia" during the first trimester of pregnancy, and one thing a woman with morning/noon/evening sickness should never do is attempt to read about brains soaked in red wine.

Sadly I do not have a concrete theme such as a famous recipe book that I am attempting to cook my way through. However, I DID think of one unifying factor to all of my blog topic ideas (insert drum roll)......things that are round. Our cat Francine, for example. Or the star of my new favorite book, "Diary of a Wombat", who looks remarkably like Francine (see picture for proof). My pregnant self, I am proud to say. And the list goes on. Even the star of the previous blog entry, Willy the gerbil, was round (sadly no picture available, but imagine the hamster from "Bolt" and you get the idea). Willy would chew his way through anything we put in his path. Which led to many amusing games like "guess how long it will take Willy to chew through this toilet paper roll" and "count the holes that Willy chewed in my new hypercolor T-shirt". Hmmm, this could explain the lack of dates in 7th grade.

The profound point of all of this is to say that pregnancy has allowed me a greater appreciation of roundness. And this is miraculous, because like the majority of women I know, I spent roughly half of my mental energy in my teens and early 20s counting calories and daydreaming about how much better life would be if I were a size 8. The only time I ever approached a size 8 was after a relationship ended, when I had a brief rebound affair with chain smoking. Let me tell you, life was NOT better then, despite the glamorous waifdom and chronic bronchitis.

There is something to be said for feeling bountiful, womanly, and maternal. A friend and I use the term "squishy" to describe things that are lovable and warm, such as our mothers and each other, and I am happy that our little son will have a squishy mom to nuzzle up against. I only hope that once he is born, I will continue to feel so gracious towards these mama curves, rather than trying to sweat them off at excessive hot yoga classes (which may have crossed my mind a few times). Ideally, Thumper will learn to appreciate real beauty, rather than women who look like skelator.

And on that note, I am going to go have a snack, in preparation for fondue dinner.

Pregnancy update: mysterious fluids and gerbil behavior.

Welcome readers, all 2 of you, to my blog. You may be wondering why I decided to start a blog (or more realistically, why anyone would read this blog). Three reasons.
First, there is only so much one can type on a facebook status update without annoying all (insert obscenely high number, or in my case, 58) of one's facebook friends. Second, I used to journal, but honestly, I got tired of hearing myself whine. Because if your only audience is yourself, that's what you end up doing, at least if you're me. But if I am forced to write to the massive number of individuals who will put this blog on their bookmark bar, I may start to talk about something slightly more interesting than my current angst-provoking issues. Last, I have a feeling that once this baby arrives, I will want to share his amusing antics. And perhaps drone on and on about how many times he has pooped in one day, the quality of the poo, and other exciting topics that new parents always seem so enthralled with. And because my husband and I have a giant extended family, I know I have an instant audience for such ehthralling posts, so long as we post baby pics.

But since our baby has not exited his little indoor pool yet, I will instead talk about my own bodily functions. Last week, 33 weeks into the pregnancy, I experienced something I haven't experience since age, uhh, 3 (OK, really more like 12, who am I kidding). I peed in my pants. Having spent too much time on anxiety-inducing pregnancy websites which, notice, are NOT on my list of fave sites, I immediately assumed the worst. I assumed that this must have been what they call in serious medical circles a "ruptured bag of waters". It could not possibly be related to the five pound human learning to riverdance atop my bladder. Don't ask me where he found bagpipes in there. That's a whole other blog entry.

So, upon notifying the doctor of aforementioned pant-wetting, we were told to rush to the hospital, and pack a bag in case this was the start of pre-term labor. So I did what any responsible pregnant woman would do. I picked up my knitting bag and stuffed it full of my toothbrush, yoga pants, and a creepy Ann Rice novel. Because apparently I mistook the word "triage" for "rustic retreat center in the mountains". I didn't even think to stop by that mysterious room that harbors bins and bins of newly acquired onesies to pack something for the BABY. I would like to think that this behavior was a result of my maternal instinct telling me that baby wasn't really coming out yet. While that may be partly true, in reality, I think it hadn't quite dawned on me that the movement in my belly was due to a real human being, and not the result of a severe case of indigestion.

To make a long story slightly less long- all is fine with the baby. I went home after a few hours on the baby monitor, where it finally sunk in that there really WAS a human in there, whose little heart continues to beat like a tiny drum regardless of which kinky Ann Rice scene I am reading. He is going to cook a bit longer (I have always gagged inwardly when others compared gestation to roasting a turkey, and now here I am doing it) and this is great news, because we want his lungs to develop so we can squeeze him continuously when he arrives, without the interference of a NICU cage.

To call this event a reality check is an understatement. It was more like a reality bomb. I have been on modified rest since peeing in my pants, just to make sure all is well, and to save our floor from undue urine stains. But my lack of movement has been more than made up for by the sudden flurry of activity from my wonderful husband. Nothing like taking your wife to the hospital with her knitting needles to make a man realize he is about to become a daddy.

I had two wonderful gerbils when I was growing up (I promise, this really does relate somehow). Their names were Kara and Willy, and, in the words of Milton from Office Space (when he lost his red stapler, and his desk with a and view of the squirrels outside), they were married. The happy gerbil couple soon did what gerbils do (although rabbits always get the credit): they bred like gerbils and produced roughly 500 pink, hairless, eraser-like babies per week. In prepaparation for their first batch of erasers, they scurried around the cage anxiously, flinging bits of shavings and seed around haphhazardly.

This is where the point of this story comes in. My mother said months ago that my husband and I remind her of Kara and Willy, scurrying around anxiously in our house (and at 800 square feet, our house IS somewhat cage-like) in preparation for our son's arrival. Although I could acknowledge that my recent onset of pregnancy-induced body-hair growth did lend me some gerbil-like qualities, I didn't really understand the comparison at that point. Now I do. Sure enough, my husband has been scurrying around the baby room every night this week in a flurry of gerbil-like antics. Instead of pine shavings, there are cardboard boxes and clothing tags being flung about haphhazardly. It's a wonderful and exciting time, and I can't wait to bring our pink little son home to his nest.