No One Who Has Ever Had a Baby

Dear Amelia,

Can you read the words in the (blurry, camera-phone) picture above?  It is from a book called 25 Things Every New Mother Should Know, by Martha Sears and it says:

"'You have a beautiful new baby.  Why are you crying?'

No woman who has ever had a baby would ask this question." 

Ha!  It made me laugh a lot, and also think of you.  I've been reading parenting/baby books lately, even though Samantha has now passed the one-year mark.  For some reason, returning in my mind to the days when she was a little bundle soothes me, and I guess I like confirming all the things I've (potentially) done right, saying, "Yup, check, good - I did that."

Why am I doing this now, instead of when I was pregnant, say, or when she was just born?  Because I seem to always be six steps behind - and really comfortable there.  In fourth grade, my art teacher called me Pokey.  It stung then and still stings now, like, aren't most artists a little dreamy, drifting along at their own slow pace?  It should be the future business majors who speed through their projects.  In fact, one of the things that makes me laugh every time I remember it is the memory of a grade-school friend - one of the nicest people you will ever meet - who finished his sixth-grade sweatshirt for Family Studies class by just sewing over the neck hole and wrist holes.  The project was due at the end of the day, so he just sewed right over what needed to be finished! 

It was a revelation at the time.  You can do that?!?  We were both in the Family Studies room at the same time, but I was there painting bunnies and grass onto the front of my sweatshirt.  (See Also: Future Perfectionists of America.) 

For the record, the Family Studies teacher was a wreck of a control freak, but she never called me names, especially not Pokey. 

All right, I am writing this in the early morning and soon my baby will wake up.  I'm off to proof read, publish, and cram whatever other panicky adult moment I can into the day before I'm needed for full-time foam-letter, cheddar-cracker chitter-chatter!
XOXO