Up for air

Since my last post Elias Paul Waitz, my little baby son was born. I did not have the time or energy to tend to this blog although I drafted short and witty entries in my mind while feeding Eli or changing his diapers or just generally poking or cuddling him that I would post the next day, but without fail I completely forgot each of these by the time I could have sat down to write. I am also hesitant to write a "baby blog," as many women do, because I am aware of the limited interest that a small baby's daily routine holds. For example:

"Woke up at 8 and fed him after a difficult night. Now he is able to hang out in his seat for 20 minutes or so and he smiles a full smile at me when he sees me. He even laughs, but the laugh is slient. In any case he seems excited to look at me. He also loves staring at the fan on the ceiling. He seems almost as excited by the fan as he is by me. After a while though he gets bored and needs a change of position. Then he gets tired but won't go to sleep. Now it is 10 and he is finally asleep."

When I re-read the above, I know that aside from me none of the above is interesting or important and I promise not to give such updates again. After seven weeks of this I feel slightly brain-damaged and quite narrow minded; the only people with whom I can have long conversations about poop, vomit, sleeping patterns, breastfeeding and the like - things that occupy my mind 90 per cent. of the time - are other mothers with small babies and young children. With them, incuding my sister, some friends in Budapest and the Park Slope women (more about them in a moment) I can talk for hours about my issues and they will talk about theirs and the best part is that chances are that my partner and I are both so tired that we don't even notice if the other person is not really paying attention.

I joined a new mom's club at the invitation of a friendly woman that I met at my pregnant yoga class. They all live in and around the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn, which is close to us, are mostly in their thirties and are mostly what I call "organic mothers" i.e. into natural childbirth (no epidural for them), carry their babies around in slings, like the Bolivian or African women (I use a Baby Bjorn), are members of the Food Co-op, the organic food store that has come as close to putting communism into practice as I have ever seen and breastfeeding on demand for them means that they stuff their breasts into their baby's face every time he or she makes a peep. Of course, I am exaggerating and they are perfectly nice and good Mommy company - we just hang out at someone's place or a cafe, each with a baby in hand and talk about poop, breasts, (lack of) sleeping and the like.