JJust Kidding

Bath Time Equals T Minus Five Minutes

noreply@blogger.com (JJ Keith) — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 21:56:49 PST

I Really Do Need an Editor to Title My Stuff

noreply@blogger.com (JJ Keith) — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 19:34:02 PST

In the beginning of December, a lady from the pet crematorium made her delivery to our home. She was a friendly, middle-aged, wearing practical sneakers and a freebie t-shirt. She understood without me saying to not hold up the fabric gift box holding my dog's ashes and announce, "Bernie's in here." It's been hard enough repeatedly telling Bea that Bernie's not coming back without explaining to her how all twenty pounds of his mighty little body fit in that box. I'm all about parenting with honesty, but she can wait a few years to learn the details of our beloved pet being ravaged by cancer, euthanized, then consumed in flame. (I have a hard enough time with it myself.)

Bea insisted on giving the lady a tour of our house, which was fine with me because I was busy sobbing over the clay impression of my dead dog's paw print. When the tour concluded, the lady said, ostensibly to make me feel better about my 700-square-foot cottage, "I raised my two kids in a house just as small this and we have really happy memories of that itty bitty home."

I didn't really know what to say ("Uh, thanks?), but I talked anyway, as I am wont to do in awkward situations. "Yeah, it's tiny, but we're used to it. The only problem is I can't get the kids to share the bedroom so we're stuck with Bea in our bed."

She rushed to comfort me. "You're absolutely doing the right thing! Did you know that? There is no better way for a child to sleep than in her parents' bed. Have you ever heard of a man named Dr. Sears?"

As it so happens, I was up late the night before editing the essay that would eventually be this. Were it not for the fact that I was still clutching my dead dog's paw print, I might have had fun with the lady. No, who is the mysterious doctor of whom you speak? Does he write books? Might I be able to read them and learn how to be the bestest parent ever? Tell me at least he has a website. And, dare to dream, might he have a line of BPA-free feeding accessories?

But instead I stood there and dumbly nodded along as she told me all about how I didn't have to be ashamed of co-sleeping and there are a lot of resources out there for parents like me. I didn't even say, Lady, do you really think if I was ashamed of co-sleeping I'd tell the person who just torched my dog?

We co-sleep with Bea because she likes it. She wakes several times a night and says, "Can I has a hug?", which is really cute and almost makes up for the fact that she kicks like a donkey with restless leg syndrome. We probably would have reclaimed our space by now, but doing so would require way to much work. That, and every time we try to put her in her bed she wakes Kasper, which is pretty much the worst thing that can happen in our entire universe. We're living based on the assumption that one day Bea will announce, "Know what guys? I want to sleep in my bed!" Kind of like the embarrassingly recent day when I told her that her bottle was gone and she'd have to drink her milk from the awesome rocket ship cup and she was like, "Rocket ship!" and never asked again about her bottle.

I have no problem with attachment parenting and do many of the things prescribed by Dr. Sears and his cohorts. However, I'm not a disciple of that or any other parenting method. I did some parenting book reading when Bea was a baby and identified with attachment parenting more than other variety, but these days we're off the grid. We're just figuring it out as we go along, like every family. There are few parenting absolutes. I could run myself breathless talking about how much easier co-sleeping with Beazy has made our lives, but I'll be goddamned if I let Kasper back into our bed. A particularly deep inhale will wake him and he won't go back to sleep for hours. That baby-man needs to be sequestered in a sound-proof chamber with a fleet of white noise machines. Parenting (and this is so cliched that I'm embarrassed to even be saying it) is not a one-size-fits-all kind of endeavor.

I mention this not to clarify what I wrote in Salon -- I think it stands on its own -- but because I've just spent a week sifting through hundreds and hundreds of responses to the article, few of which I responded to directly. Many were flattering, some were stupid and nasty or had nothing to do with me, and a few were accurately critical. But several people chimed in to reflexively defend attachment parenting or to note that the title was misleading, to which I say, "Did you know that editors, not writers, get the final word on article titles, but your willingness to defend attachment parenting as if it were The One True Way To Parent even though it is barely implicated in the essay justifies the editor's decision to re-title it that and illustrates the point of my essay?" But thanks for the click through!

The Pros and Cons of Having a Baby

noreply@blogger.com (JJ Keith) — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 11:39:39 PST

Pros	Cons
Baby kisses	Baby barf
Having someone look just like you (provided you go the “from scratch” route)	Having all your worst flaws mirrored in your child
Doing it differently from your parents	Ultimately parenting like your parents did no matter how hard you try
Being able to force another human being to wear a sailor suit without being an officer in the Navy	Having another human being’s shit on your hands
Handing down your personal collection of Legos	Relieving all your childhood traumas
Being in charge of forming their perception of the world	The probability that you will warp them
Making jokes about obnoxious parents	Being the butt of jokes of other parents who think you're obnoxious
Seeing the world through the eyes of a child	Barney
Never being alone again	Never being alone again

Have any to add?

Kool

noreply@blogger.com (JJ Keith) — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 20:34:16 PST

Both my husband and I played clarinet in our high school bands. In our courtship this was established about two hours after we met and fifteen minutes before we slept together (fifteen minutes being the amount of time it takes to hash out which chairs we held and our favorite clarinet solos).

As might be assumed of a couple of clarinetists, Alden and I are not, nor have we ever been, cool. However, we’ve blown many a night in Los Angeles hanging out in back rooms of music venues, listening to now famous bands before they had any cache. For a brief portion of my mid-20s, I repressed my love of Sondheim’s musicals and "Classical Gas" and worked as a music writer for a reasonably trendy website. I knew people. I did interviews. I went backstage. I smoked.

Smoking was my thing. To my regrettably superficial thinking, cigarettes were the catalyst for my transformation from a frizzy-haired straight edge band nerd to the kind of person who could blend in at a Sleater-Kinney show. But I loved being a smoker more than smooth, deep inhales or being able to climb stairs without gasping for air, but my desire to be a mother won out. I quit smoking when we started talking kids. I don’t regret quitting, but now, as a mother of two, I suspect that I lost my groove the day I dropped the pack-a-day-habit like... a bad... habit?

In a true baby-with-the-bathwater stroke, along with the cancer sticks, I quit music writing. I understand that smoke-free rock criticism exists, but I don’t get it. It seems sort of like being a sober bartender to me. I figured I'd never be able to go to shows once I had kids, and it turns out, I was right. The last show I went to was to see Canadian indie darlings, Stars (not THE Stars, that's a different band) in 2008. Sandra Oh was there because she's Canadian and the best kept secret in the world is that there are only fifty Canadians and they all know each other. (True fact: 1 out of 5 Canadians has been in Broken Social Scene at one point or another.)

These days the only new music I hear is on commercials, movie trailers, Glee, or in spinning class at the YMCA. Alden, however, continues to work tangentially in the music biz as a purchaser for a sound gear company. While he’s getting into the latest anti-pop outfit to bust out of Quebec, I’m blasting Ke$ha in the car so often that Beazy knows most of the words to “Tik Tok.” (Though, thankfully, she believes it to be a rollicking ditty about a clock.)

Rolling around Hollywood with two carseats in the back, I don’t need to worry about being cool. But, unfortunately, all my Amazon and iTunes receipts go to Alden's email and I have to answer to him every time I buy a Glee cast cover of a Katy Perry track. (If anyone wants to drive me to a karaoke bar and funnel pints into of Stella or a comparable foreign lager into my mouth with a beer bong, I'd be happy to perform my rendition of "Firework." Eat your heart out, Lea Michele.)

I keep trying to tell Alden how great Adele is: “Look honey. It’s like she wanted to marry this guy, but he married someone else. She’s not even bitter about it. She wishes him well, but she wants to find someone like him for herself. Isn’t that such a beautiful, original sentiment?” Alden is the only person with "a heart and iTunes account" who doesn't like that song. He's all hung up on the vocal mix because something something something. I never listen when he starts talking about "the mix." Give a boy a journeyman certificate in sound engineering and he thinks he can undo a million downloads. Fancy boy almost divorced me when the Coldplay receipt came through. Then again, over a receipt for a Glee cast cover of a Coldplay track.

I'm Facebook friends with several of my former students from the freshman writing classes I used to teach. When one of them, beloved to me for his wiseass ways, posted about Drake I asked him, “Does it make me old that I can’t see Drake and not think of Jimmy from Degrassi: TNG?” (Did I mention I'm kind of obsessed with Canada?) I meant it as a rhetorical question, but my student took the liberty of answering: “No, having a mom blog makes you old.” Fair enough.

Alden is trying to reform my pop music ways. It’s not all altruistic. I think he senses that I’m dragging his street cred down with mine, like I’m just one Maroon 5 song away from going to see a Twilight movie on opening night. He recently approached me with a compromise. “I’m going to put the first New York Pony Club album on your iPhone, okay? You’ll like them. They use their stuff in Garnier Fructis commercials.”

Those pony people, they’re okay, but they’re no Rihanna. And have you heard Beyonce’s latest single? Not only is it awesome, but it’s teaching my daughter to count. Once that kid finally works the choreography out, I’ll be thrilled to post the internet’s one millionth “little kid doing the Single Ladies dance” video. Alden can cling to his slurry shoegazer revival acts and Canadian supergroups, but even he can't deny the saucy finger waggings of a towheaded toddler in a leotard.

Though, the poor kid shakes it like both her parents played the clarinet in high school.

Your blogger in 2005

Elle est formidable / She is formidable -- A Lesson in Strangely Applicable False Cognates

noreply@blogger.com (JJ Keith) — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 20:31:47 PST

I'm not a big astrology person, but I'm hung up on the significance of my daughter being born four days before my birthday. Bea and I, we're Aquarii, which I guess means that we're supposed to be independent, rebellious, and unemotional. Check and check. Score one for astrology.

Before I had kids, I was not one of those people who was told what a great mother she'd be. I'm not a softie. I don't deal well with other people's emotions (or my own for that matter). Empathy doesn't always come easily to me. I can be a harsh lady, maybe a little intimidating. Not motherly. Also, I don't bake and I can probably take you in an arm wrestling match. I most certainly can drink you under the table.

That Beazy (as she goes by these days) is a tough little mutha. She'd eat a softer woman alive, reeling her in by the strings of her apron. I may be offering myself up as a case study in faulty Foucauldian narratives, but that Beazy, she's not only made of me, but for me. I have birthed the one person most able to amuse and terrify me. (Which was sort of the point of my entry in the "Your Life... The Reader's Digest Version contest. And by the way, I won a $2500 runner-up prize and my entry will appear in the March issue. Thanks for the votes folks!)

Beazy cares not for potty training. In my harried passivity, I've essentially given her the choice between crapping on herself all the time and being mildly inconvenienced by having to visit the potty periodically. She chose the former. It galls me to no end that she'll pull out a clean diaper, a package of wipes, then lie down on the ground and announce in immaculately enunciated English, "Mom. I needs a change. I has poop." Then when I clean her, she'll take a wipe in her hand and correct me, "No mom, like this. Wipe too slow." Really? Cause I'm pretty sure that by the time a kid can clearly articulate her preferences for how a diaper change should be performed, she should be using the fucking potty. I don't want to be overly didactic, but that just seems obvious.

Beazy isn't a huge fan of hanging out in the childcare area of the gym. They don't change diapers there, so poop in the pants results in a parent being beckoned. Beazy knows this: the key to getting out childcare is feces. She may not be able to crap on command, but here's what she did: she pantomimed pooping for one of the teachers then announced, "I pooped my pants. Get my mom." Fortunately the caretaker called her bluff, but, definitely, by the time a kid can pretend to poop her pants in order to get out of childcare (and harsh on the one hour a day I spend away from her), she should be using the fucking potty. No, like, seriously. I know she knows what she's doing when she pees her pants. She used to announce it, but then her dad and I were always like, "Come sit on the potty!" She hated being goaded towards the bathroom so now she doesn't say anything until the damage is done. Dastardly, for a not-yet three-year-old, me thinks.

What I find most disturbing about the attempted manipulation at the gym is that it's totally something I would do, I mean, other than the pretending-to-crap-my-pants-in-a-room-full-of-people part. That Beazy and I, we're cut from the same cloth, one of viciously reductive thinking. She's a little shit in all the same ways I'm a big shit (no potty training pun intended).

Elle est formidable. She is formidable. I am the mother for her.

Im in Ur Facebook Likin Ur Baby Pics

noreply@blogger.com (JJ Keith) — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 16:58:11 PST

One of my sisters was a Facebook hold out, arguing that she was too busy leading a "real" life to be online. Eventually she relented, but refuses to write status updates and rarely posts pictures. She's one of those people who believes that Facebook is for people who can't make friends in real life. For her, privacy is king. Every post is an "over-share." Meanwhile, I live on the other side of the country from her and would love some updates. Does my nephew get his front teeth in? Does shoveling snow suck? Does the baby keep his winter hat on or does he rip it off just like his cousins do?

What my sister sees as obnoxious reportage of minutiae, I see as the stuff of life. I want to know if my friend's newborn is sleeping, or that another friend's co-workers are pissing her off, or even that a long ago ex-boyfriend is craving miso soup. (Mmmm.... miso soup.) These are likely the things I would say to people in passing at the water cooler, when I stopped by their house to drop their casserole dish off, or when I was doing any of the interactive things that I no longer do now that I'm a stay-at-home mom and no one eats casseroles any more. Many of us live apart from our families of origin, childhood friends, college pals, and former colleagues. As our analog lives become more anonymous and disconnected, we have compensated by making our online lives more public. Or at least I have.

There are Facebook posts that bug me -- boasts about potty trained six-month-olds, an overwrought prayer of thanks to the $150 heritage bird who's about to become Thanksgiving's main course, photos of new sports cars purchased in a down economy.* Or worse, nasty diatribes about ex-husbands being total dicks regarding joint custody or rants about parents who "let their kids run wild."** In face-to-face life, there are many people who annoy me. On the internet, there are equally many people who annoy me. At least on Facebook I can unsubscribe from their feeds.

I knew a lady with fertility troubles who'd get bent out of shape over Facebook. She argued that people should stop posting about pregnancies and babies, like the entire purpose of those posts was to rub it in that she was striking out in the womb department. Hers was a narcissistic impulse, but one that I think most people share to some degree. My weak spot? Real estate. I try not to begrudge anyone their successes, but hearing about a newly purchased three-bedroom on a cul de sac with new hardwood floors and a large xeriscaped backyard makes me want to jump off a bridge. I'd never argue that people should stop posting about their new homes/craft projects/finely cooked meals/family outings/cars/diamond earrings, but I might block a new homeowner's feed for awhile so I can cry to myself about choosing a low-paying career in a place with a high cost of living. The things that get under my skin say everything about me, and nothing about the things under my skin.

People whine, "Why would I want to be Facebook friends with someone I went to junior high with?" Well, why wouldn't you? What's so awful about getting back in touch with people you may have forgotten about? I like knowing who has kids, who went to law school, who has a super glamorous single lady career and fascinatingly chaotic love life. It's awesome to me that so many folks I went to high school with have kids the same age as mine and whether they're Mormon housewives in Utah or working moms in New York City, their experiences echo and illuminate my own.

Sure, I get a little twitchy about the fact that bitch with the bad Manic Panic job who made out with my boyfriend in 1998 can happen upon my Facebook profile and sneer at the baby weight I'm holding on to or this extraordinarily awkward hair phase I'm stuck in... or that I'm raising my family in a rented two-bedroom in-law unit half a block from a pot dispensary. But at the same time, I have nothing to hide. Here we are, my little family of four living our funny little lives in the badlands of Hollywood, good days and bad. And if we're Facebook friends I'm gonna like the shit out of your baby and pet pics and block you for about a month after you buy a new house. Cool?

* I'm not talking about you. Or you. Stop being paranoid. I made these up. Kinda.
** Also made these up. Mostly.

The Tenth Good Thing About Bernie

noreply@blogger.com (JJ Keith) — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 20:58:08 PST

"S'not flying." Bea poked a dead monarch butterfly in our front yard with a twig, then looked to me. "S'not flying mommy. Butterfly not flying."

I crouched down next to her, determined to make this a teachable moment. "He's not flying because he's not alive anymore." I glanced over to Bernie, tethered under the orange tree. "You know, pretty soon Bernie's not going to be alive anymore and he won't be able to run around."

I reached my arm out to hold her, to comfort her after delivering such tough news, but she deflected my embrace and made a break for the butterfly. She picked it up and threw it. "Now's flying!" I looked back at Bernie, then at Bea forcibly reanimating the butterfly, and knew that this was gong to be hard.

We took Bernie off chemo several months ago. He'd been out of remission for a few months and while he wasn't quite his old self, he wasn't getting worse. Everyone who'd seen him lately was impressed by the vibrancy of my dying dog. But meanwhile, his veterinary oncologist and I had started a hospice program for him. He was on steroids and pain pills, and he was never going to come off of either.

He'd been seeing the same vet since Bernie's diagnosis with canine lymphoma, back when Bea was but a nugget in my tummy. Initially Bernie had only six months to live, putting his expiration date right about the same as my due date. Bernie, who used to go by the nickname, B, was getting his first round of chemo when Alden and I sat in a waiting room sobbing. I said, "If this baby is a girl, let's name her Beatrix and call her Bea." It took a while to train ourselves out of calling both the baby and the dog by the same name. We hadn't anticipated that Bernie would be around long enough for it to be a problem.

His vet assured me that I'd know when it was time to put Bernie down, but I didn’t believe her. Later in my pregnancy with Bea we had to put two cats to sleep. I regretted both. We put Oni down too soon. There were other treatment options we could have tried. So five weeks later when Prunella got sick, we kept her alive a few days longer that we should have, hoping that we could save her.

Bernie was normal on Thursday night, or rather, he was his new normal: finicky and defensive. It had been a long time since he was his happy go lucky self. He developed a bit of 'roid rage over the last two months of constant steroid intake, barking at delivery people, eating like a maniac and being short tempered with the kids. Friday morning he was dragging a little, then Friday afternoon I found him outside shaking. An hour after I brought him inside I checked on him. That's when I knew. He was still but tense, obviously in pain, and his eyes had retreated back into his skull.

While one of my neighbors was holding Bernie and saying goodbye, I got a hold of another neighbor to watch the kids while we took Bernie on a one-way trip to the vet. (Thank jeebus for our neighbors!) Alden picked Bea up from preschool early and brought her home to give her a chance to say goodbye, but she wanted nothing to do with it. "Are you sure Bea? Wouldn't you like to pet him and say goodbye? Tell him thank you for being your dog?" I pleaded with her.

"Nooooooooo," she shrieked, and turned away.

I'd been sobbing for hours by that point. I'm sure I was freaking her out with my puffy eyes and snot face. I tried to explain. "Do you see how sad mom is? Do you see me crying? I'm sad because Bernie is going away. How do you feel about Bernie going away?"

"I want strawberries."

I thought a lot about how we'd handle Bernie's death, and in doing so had to nail a few things down about the kind of parents we are. I want my kids to see us experiencing strong emotions, as long as we are dealing with them constructively. I want to be honest and not fabricate a protective universe, but I also don't want to tell her more than she needs to know. If push comes to shove, we'll talk about heaven before we bandy about phrases like "worm food," but we wouldn't tell her that Bernie was at a farm or anything.

The moment we put him down was so crushingly sad that even his vet cried. When we got home, we told Bea the news. "Bernie's not going to be our dog anymore. He died today and we're very sad about it."

"I played Kassie and Judy and cars and book. Read book!" she thrust some stupid Disney princess Christmas piano book at me.

My worrying about how Bea would take Bernie dying was for nothing. She's too young. Yesterday I started crying in the car when we passed Griffith Park. Bea said, "You sad? You sad mom?"

I said, "Yes, I am sad. I'm sad because I miss Bernie."

Demonstrating on her own face, she held up the corners of her mouth with her fingers, forcing a creepy smile. "See? Happy now! You happy." She pointed to my mouth, instructing me to do the same. I guess this is her way of telling me that she's not ready to process death.

Besides, I can't deflect mourning onto Bea. Alden and I are the ones who adopted him, were comforted by him, took care of him, and managed his health care. It was Alden and I who wept as we packaged up his food and leash to give away, moved out his bed, and then rearranged all the furniture so the house would look different as it feels. In the sad act of gathering up his things, there was one bright spot: throwing out his prescriptions. We had a bin high in our kitchen cabinet with all his meds in it. Zofran and raglan for nausea. A few types of pain pills. Steroids. Pepcid. Anti-diarrheals. Appetite stimulants. It was hard to be Bernie. And it was hard to be us taking care of Bernie. At least he'll never have to take another pill again.

Bernie's ashes will arrive in a few weeks and we'll bury them under the orange tree. I don't know if Bea will starting asking more questions before then. We have a copy of The Tenth Good Thing About Barney left over from when I was a kid. It has a "maybe there's a heaven, but at least we know that animals return to the earth and help plants grow" message that works well for us. I guess I should be glad that Bernie's death isn't a parenting trial on top of being a personal trial.

Still, I know Bea adored B. A week before he died she insisted that Alden take the pictures below.

Like, Totally, Yeah

noreply@blogger.com (JJ Keith) — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 21:06:08 PST

Hey JJust Kidding readers! A couple of friendly announcements from your blogger. You should head over to jjkeith.net to check out my lovely new personal webpage. It's lovely, no? I also started a Facebook page for announcements and information related to my writing career. You can "like" me here.

More importantly, I'm very close to end of Your Life... The Reader's Digest Version Contest. You may not know this, but the modern fledgling writer has to depend on stuff like competitions, page hits, likes, followers, and all sorts of bullshit stats. As much as it's lame that this is true, it is totally fucking true. I tried to get in on Dorothy Parker's roundtable, but it's been recently occupied by a dozen 22-year-olds pushing their zany Tumblrs about white trash hairstyles and cats who act like ducks.

In this brave new internet writing world, my future depends, at least partially, on my ability to coerce people to vote for me. This is lamentable, in part because I am a shitty coercer, but mostly because it makes me feel all icky and vulnerable. It's maddening to have one's future hinge upon the willingness of friends and family to complete a fifteen-second task and gnaw on one's cuticles for weeks as barely anyone takes the fifteen seconds to do that task.

I'd love to win $25,000, but I'd also be delighted to be published in Reader's Digest. There are six days left in the contest. All you have to do is like Reader's Digest here, then vote for my entry here. It's only a paragraph long, features ample cuteness from Bea, and makes me look like just a little bit of a douche. Voting ends November 15th, which, if you're counting, is six days away.

Here's my deal for you. If you vote for me and I win the $25,000 prize, I'll buy you a drink. "But wait!" you say, "I live in Oklahoma and I've been sober for fourteen years and I'd still like to vote." I'll send you a Starbucks gift card for a drink. For serious. I'm bribing y'all. If you're local to L.A. you will receive an invite to the "JJ Just Totally Won $25,000 Party," which will feature fun and merriment for the whole family PLUS a keg. If you're not, I'll hook you up anyway. Am I desperate? YES!

Got it? Like here, then vote here. You can vote once per day for each of the remaining six days, then WE ALL WIN.

Capice?