Eat crow... if prepared well.

Amateur blogging lesson No. 447:

Don't insult people by name in this era of Google alerts. Especially if they don't deserve it.

Food Network show host Sunny Anderson left a very gracious comment on a blog post where I said some not-so-nice things about her employer, her colleagues, and well, her. She was sweet, engaging and complimentary of my daughter. What a class act. Hats off to you, Sunny.

This might sound like butt-kissing of the highest order, but it's a good lesson for me. This is why I, as a rule, don't like diary-style blogs. It's too easy for folks to make sweeping generalizations and pick on celebrities -- the blogger has to answer to no one and gets to remain anonymous and high and mighty from his/her sweatsuit on the couch. (I write this now wearing boxer shorts, brown socks and slippers. I am that jerk).

I'm not nearly as gracious as Sunny. I remember seeing negative comments from idiots like myself insulting my dad's book or my younger brother's old TV show and making real efforts not to come out with defensive guns blazing. What the hell do they know, I'd think. In fact, I maybe didn't show much restraint, if I recall. It never ends well.

This is why I could never be a "stick-it-to-'em" style newspaper columnist. The first upset call I'd get, I'd be backpedaling so fast the gears would shoot sparks. I just don't like people being mad at me. Call me soft, call me safe, I don't care. Saying mean things in a blog is easy. Too easy. And tacky as hell.

So Sunny, if your google alerts alerted you to this one, allow me to apologize. You are clearly doing something you love, and doing it extremely well. That's a blessing. And you also taught me a valuable lesson in grace. Thoughtful, charitable responses like yours are what I'd like to teach my daughter. A quick laugh is easy, but a kind word is character building.

Bravo.

Slackin'

Hi all,

Whoops. Slacking off, here. But I guess it's not slacking off when the reason I've been absent is because I'm working... doesn't really count if it's the paper chase, no?

I'll get on this soon. I got ideas, folks. Ideas I tell ya. In the meantime, I leave you with kind of a lame column I wrote for the Valley News' quarterly parenting magazine, Valley Parent. This came out a couple months ago. Actually, that's what I'm working on now -- the column, and a story, for the next one.

Enjoy. Well, sort of.

***

I was experiencing the quintessential motherhood moment.

My 7-week-old daughter June, nestled in her portable car seat, met my gaze with her big, shiny blue eyes and smiled.

Then came the fury.

It stunned me that out of such sweetness erupted something meriting a haz-mat suit and industrial cleanup. But as I high-stepped through the restaurant where my husband, visiting sister and I hoped to grab a meal, carrying June like a football to keep the mess contained, I caught a couple of knowing glances from fellow patrons.

The “Say no mores.” The “I’ve been theres.” The “I hope you packed a spare outfits.”

I did.

Moments later I was in the restaurant’s bathroom running interference with the offending diaper. There was a knock on the door and I could hear a woman’s voice outside. From my cross-legged position on the floor I reached up, opened the door and said, “We’ve got a diaper situation here. It will be a few minutes.”

The woman nodded and gave a little wave, a sort of wordless “I’m with you, sister.”

These silent sentences from fellow parents, new and old, have often become more comforting to me than actual articulated language; the little smiles, the exaggerated frowns, the hands placed over hearts after glances at the pink bundle in the car seat hooked over my arm. Good and bad advice comes barreling in regardless of my queries, but the quiet support of a fellow parent is an indication that I’m doing something right. Or that I’m doing something wrong that has at least been done before.

Such was the case when I hovered around a noisy heating duct in a store hoping the consistent racket would lull my baby to sleep during some errand running. It was unorthodox, and she would have been much better off napping in her crib at home, but we weren’t home, and a gray-haired man passed us and gave a wink. I read it as “Whatever it takes, right?”

For all I know it could have been, “Lady, you’re out of your mind.”

I recently thanked my dad for drumming the capacity to be embarrassed right out of me during my childhood. He started early, with his silly public behavior, questionable fashion choices and unyielding “war on rudeness” that usually resulted in unsolicited lectures to sullen teens in the service sector. It was hellish for a while, but now little fazes me, which has helped quite a bit now that I’m a mom and my social mirror has fogged up.

This was helpful the time I caught myself involuntarily swaying in the cereal aisle of a grocery store to lull my baby to sleep – only my baby was at home with my husband. Or the time I did about 75 reps of deep-knee bends in a pub during the lunch rush to keep her entertained. Or the time I belted out the falsetto harmonies to Prince’s “1999” to counter her fussiness in the handbag aisle of a discount store.

During that performance, a woman alongside her preteen daughter caught my eye and smiled, indicating familiarity with both the song and the tactic. I smiled back and then launched into the chorus.

The nice thing about this behavior is that none of it is a surprise to me, nor is it unwelcome. Sure, others are witnessing my introductory course in motherhood, but they are also watching me having a lot of fun. Parenting with an audience means my husband and I are getting the baby used to being around other people and situations, I get to practice my public singing, and the Upper Valley gets a chance to steal a glimpse at the cutest baby girl ever (biased?). And where there’s an audience, hopefully there’s a little applause, if silent.

So next time you see a baby-toting blonde woman belting out a rousing rendition of “Junie Trotter, She’s My Daughter” (second verse, same as the first), say hi. Or better yet, shoot me a smile.

It can speak volumes.

Food Notwork

We canceled cable the other day, but it's taking a few days to take hold. Fine by me -- I'm jamming all the crap in I can before it's curtains.

But no love lost, really. As I've mentioned before, I have a bit of a love/hate thing going on with television and right now we're ebbing toward hate. Especially of (duh-duh-DUH) Food Network.

That's right, I think I've official burnt (pun intended) out of cooking shows. Well, more specifically, those offered by the sugar peddlers at Scripps. I've given them some of the best years of my life and what do I get in return? A growing list of people who make my skin crawl.

I remember Food Network fondly in a purer, less polished time. Mornings were spent with the flavorful cookery and mild lesbian undertones of "Too Hot Tamales." Afternoons captivated me with "Molto Mario's" implausible girth and roster of "B" celebrity guests. And evenings were ushered in by Sara Moulton, fresh off her day job with the Lollipop Guild, stumbling around her kitchen set and talking about her kids Ruthie and Sam (I didn't have to look that up) and living without a microwave. Then there was Emeril Legasse, all pudgy swagger and catchphrases, ruining a perfectly good meal with a splitting headache. Last I checked he had burned through a couple of trophy wives and was on PBS* chasing people through Whole Foods stores. Bam, indeed.

But then Food TV execs discovered telegenics, and the polarizing British humor of "Gordon Elliott" reruns were replaced with Giada DiLaurentis' leviathan tits. I was on board there for a while, shows and tits alike, and was legitimately learning things. Practical things. How to make risotto. How to carve a chicken. Why using kosher salt was preferable. And I'm talking about watching these shows on our couch in college, hungover, with the only thing of any culinary measure under our roof being deli turkey atop Reduced Fat Wheat Thins. But these were lessons I would stow away only to apply later.

Most of our current household dinner staples can be credited to Ina Garten, and June has Bobby Flay to thank when the scents of frying onions and roasted peppers waft their way through the ceiling grate in our kitchen and right into her bedroom. Tyler Florence's bloat convinced me his boeuf bourgignon was worth trying -- it was -- and Alton Brown, nerdy has he is, had me at "macaroni and cheese."

But then Paula Deen patented her phony "yeeeaaaawwwwwwwll," and Sandra Lee was greenlit to comport with earthlings, and the Neely's felt fit to pause from their Sock-It-To-Me cake assembly to make out. Ugh, get a room. And -- oh God -- Guy Fieri. They were starting to lose me.

I peaced out recently when I realized that in 14 years of devoted Food Network viewing, I had seen every recipe come to life in their two-dimensional anondized aluminum archives. I was explaining this to Trish and Dave when they were here the other night: you know that mathematical principal where you can figure out how many numeral combinations are in a given number by multiplying each of the digits in that number? Factorials I think they were called. Well, I've experienced a Food Network Factorial. I have seen every possible combination of every ingredient out there. In fact, I think they've just started over. It's 1998 again, only Rachael Ray has been charged with replacing every occurrence of "chipotle" with "pancetta."

In honor of this I've assembled a log of glossary terms that played not a small part in my defection from the brand.

Nutty: One of the more overused words in cooking television. Whether it's a "Walnut Encrusted Nutty Nut Loaf" or a fruit salad, these hosts will describe something as "nutty" in order to sound like they know what the hell they're talking about. Usually they don't. The likelihood of an ingredient actually "imparting a nutty flavor on these cake balls" is slim, and moreover I want my cake balls to taste like cake balls, not nuts. Find a new adjective.

Nice: I've got here a nice leg of lamb. Get yourself some nice blood oranges. You want the pan nice and hot. Another filler word. When you have to fill 22 minutes with step-by-step instructions on how to scramble eggs, a word like "nice" comes in handy. But I never want to hear it again.

Cut to size: This is a Sunny Anderson staple. Cut to size? Cut to what size? You're chopping an onion, not trying to fit it through a button hole. That's not the term you're looking for, Sunny.

"Go ahead and...": Having been to j-school, it was hammered home to omit unnecessary words, especially when trying to meet a length requirement (clearly that lesson didn't stick). So hearing "I'm going to go ahead and heat this pan," or "Go ahead and add the beef suet," I go ahead and flip off the TV. Really? Go ahead? This is an attempt to sound casual and it reminds me of the boss I once had who fake yawned every time he asked me to do something because he was uncomfortable giving orders and this was a way to project to his underlings that he was ok with it. He could have been confused for a narcoleptic. Come to think of it, he also abused "go ahead and..."

"Aaaaaaaaaahhhh- can you go ahead and call Ameritech and talk us out of this bill? And maybe clean the toilet? Oh, and work this weekend? - aaaaahhhhhh."

Please.

Chiffonade/mirepoix/bain marie/braise: If you're glued to "$10 Dinners With The Blonde Harpy Who Won That Contest," then chances are you've seen a cooking show or two before. So explaining to the viewing public how to operate a peppermill is likely superfluous. Just go on the assumption that they're only watching you because the "How I Met Your Mother" channel is at commercial. Somewhere James Beard is rolling over in his grave. Wait, is he dead?

Ok, so you've gotten this far and you're thinking, "Boy, she sure is whining a lot about TV," or "Wait, I thought this blog was about motherhood?" If so, I don't know what to tell you. It's actually been heavy on my mind lately, and as my mom would say, "if it's not paying rent, put it out." So out it goes.

Next one will be about June and not just co-opting her image to draw in readers. I promise. And if you're wondering, she's still pure joy.



*PBS still has the only cooking shows worth watching. Emeril's excluded.

Clothes make the June

I had an unusually hard time picking out an outfit this morning.

It was a crummy day, so it had to be something comfortable. We weren't planning on going anywhere, so it didn't have to be anything special or need to be jammed in a raincoat. But just for a little boost of confidence amid all this bad weather, I wanted something fun and colorful.

Pink stretch pants and a polka dot hoodie it was.

You've all read enough USA Today articles to see that writing device coming from a mile away. Wait a sec! She's talking about her daughter! Not her! How clever!

And yet, I still use it. Amateur.

Anyway, such is the decision making process for dressing my daughter. Even on the days where I know the only mammals we'll interact with are a couple of mutts wont to eat her dirty diapers, I go through the same a.m. rigamarole.

I open her dresser drawer and pull out all manners of pastel loungewear, peter pan collars, cardigans and novelty socks. For someone who isn't herself preppy at all, I seem to be dressing my daughter like a drooling Rory Kennedy. Alas, I pull each item out, drape it over her wriggling person, prone on her changing table, and weigh the possibilities. Is it warm enough? Will she be comfortable? Does it make the most of her beautiful coloring? Did the sh*t stain come out? Then after careful deliberation do I make the plunge. Three times out of five she's crapped clear out of it within an hour and back in her ill-fitting fuzzy jammies with reindeers all over 'em. Point being, the gal needs to, at the very least, attempt to put on a proper outfit in the morning.

The buck (reindeer segue intended) stops at June, however. This morning after I actually switched up her outfit mid-change because option No. 1 didn't play up her eyes enough, I shuffled into my room and slapped this doozy on my pasty butt: jeans that weren't flattering five years ago when I bought them, much less now with a substantial post-partum muffin top, a sweater oft chosen for its vomit repelling properties, and to cap it off, slippers that are a couple strands of DNA away from getting up and walking out on their own.

When I was packing us up for Phoenix last month, I pulled out a suitcase that could have reasonably fit both of our clothes for a long weekend. Could have. After carefully folding the fifth pair of "fancy pants" and reaching the meniscus of the bag, I brought out the big guns. An orange monstrosity we've nicknamed "Big O." It's the sort of suitcase where you do an internal "No whammies! No whammies! No whammies!" when the ticket agent at the airport puts it on the scale, even if it's half-full.

I filled it. Mostly with her stuff.

This annual trip used to be where I'd roadtest my own spring looks. Break out the creamy white gams, kick it in some sundresses, see what accessories work with what duds. I put a lot of thought into this stuff, which is interesting considering I never really looked that good.

But this is the Junie Show now. Ain't nobody looking at me, and plus, sundresses are pretty impractical if you're a breastfeeding mother and don't take kindly to sitting on a picnic bench in the Phoenix Muni beer garden in nothing but sensible drawers and a pair of flipflops.

I have transferred most of my clothes fixations onto my dear girl, with a notable predilection toward those aforementioned peter pan collars and gingham.

I know precisely where this interest, nay, obsession comes from.

My own mother.

She has, for years, said she wants to launch a "What Not to Wear" spinoff about kids clothing. Mention a baby bikini and you might get a response about how people have 80-some years to look like adults and only three to look like babies so what's the hurry. She makes a convincing argument about why putting an infant in a novelty tu-tu is a bad idea. Bring up Gwen Stefani's boys and their tendency to tackily overaccessorize, she'll counter with their Easter 2010 "Little Lord Fontleroy" knee-sock get-ups. But whatever you do, don't utter the words "baby tuxedo" in her presence.

You're not ready for it.

The first time I ever brought Greg home to meet my parents, so early in our dating days that my parents didn't even know that we were dating, my mom somehow got fired up about baby tuxedos. Frankly, I have no idea what could have triggered it. We were sitting in their back room with the big farm table, having a nice little casual chat and then the conversation took a dark turn toward itty bitty bow ties and cummerbunds. My mom's voice, always sweet and loving, got a little loud. I remember derailing the diatribe to nervously explain to Greg, "Uhh, hahaha, uh, She feels very strongly about kids clothes."

Mom, I'm here to tell you I get it. I really do.

I've been humbled by how unbelievably generous friends and family have been with gifts, many of which were clothing. I'm also impressed that everyone has good taste -- or at least my taste -- because I love everything she has received. My mom is right about one thing: babies ought to look like babies. Not little John Gosselins in training.

June is dressed like a baby.

Anyone who knows me well is aware of the sort of psychotic relationship I have with my duds. I used to boast being able to recall the outfit I wore on some of the more insignificant days of my life. Simply put, if I could remember the day, I could remember what I wore. I'll admit I've fallen off a bit since June was born, but only because I've reassigned that talent (?) to her wardrobe. I attribute this flirtation with savant-itude to being in preschool, wearing a pair of purple overalls and a turtleneck with pink and purple hearts on it, and standing in a group of classmates wearing dresses. A mother dropping off her child walked past and said, "Oh, look at you girls, all pretty in your dresses!"

I was devastated. Little Kerry Leonard was not wearing a dress, ipso facto I was a troll.

Don't think I don't remember that moment every time I snap the crotch of June's tear-away Oshgosh B'Goshes.

But overalls aside, most of her "daywear" resembles jammies, meaning they have a "footy" feature. So I can see why Greg shakes his head when I change her out of a "jammy" set with footies and hearts into a "romper" set with footies and hearts. If it were up to him entirely, she'd spend the day in her boy's dinosaur jams. Ladies, can I get a amen?

On the days when he does dress her, and she is paraded through the living room wearing a get-up clearly (admittedly to me only)meant as nightwear, I'll say to him, "This is not the Playboy Mansion! We get dressed in this house!"

The cruel irony being this soapbox is usually mounted while I'm wearing a bathrobe.

But clothes are my thing so Greg gladly passes that baton.

It might sound a little crazy, but I talk to my mom every day. Sometimes multiple times. The trend started when we moved to Springfield and needed to touch base for wedding plans. It accelerated when I was pregnant and sought guidance. Now those phone calls are to gush about my sweet girl, and garnished with a near-daily skyping.

Every morning during that first call she asks, "What is June wearing today?"

She used to ask that question of me.

But I totally understand why she queries. When that time comes where I can't see June every day, I hope to Jesus she calls me and tells me in detail everything she has on, so I can have her in, as my mom would say, my mind's eye.

Tomorrow when I put her in her white Polo romper with the ruffled collar (it's supposed to be nice. I've been known to plan ahead), she'll be in mind's eye and my arms alike.

Clip on, clipper

I've taken on a new hobby.

I figured a new baby, a fledgling career in freelance writing, professional-grade pet hair removal, and other basic household tasks just weren't enough.

Enter the coupon clipping.

And I'm not just talking about scouring the Sunday circulars for a couple pennies off a can of Alpo folks, I'm trolling Web sites for free samples, mail-in rebates and big ticket manufacturer's discounts. If I didn't get that can of Febreeze for 35 cents last week, I'd say this was all pretty pathetic.

Nah, still pretty pathetic.

This morning I said to Greg, "Ooh, today is the Sunday paper! I can't wait to see what coupons are waiting for me!" Greg, my reporter husband, responded, "Really, coupons? Not the story I worked all week on?"

Oh yeah, that too.

My mom is an excitable partner in crime in all this, having picked up the habit during her more destitute days as a new mom in Phoenix. I remember her telling us about the time she unloaded on my dad for buying cans of 7-Up, rather than a two-liter bottle from the store that honored double coupons. It was a dark day in their marriage.

I feel like we're crossing another frontier in my move toward being a raging cliche. Get married, have baby, quit job, start a blog about motherhood, clip coupons, get an unflattering but sensible haircut, and cap it off with a drinking problem. More than halfway there, I reckon.

Driving home from Price Chopper on Wednesday, I called her to tell her how much I saved on groceries thanks to my savings measures. Fifty-eight dollars, I revealed after considerable build-up. She gasped. I told her they were having double coupons days. She gasped again. Just the reaction I was looking for.

That night after he returned from work I told Greg, who was also happy for me in a better-you-than-me sort of way. But then I made the mistake of expounding how I was able to finagle a 16 oz. bottle of Ken's Steakhouse Salad dressing for 75 cents. There was math involved, and detailed explanations of number-of-servings savings with getting a larger size. I watched the light flicker out of his eyes when I started in on why buying two was more economical than one. He raised one eyebrow -- and if you know Greg you know just the look I'm talking about -- and said, "Uhh, good?"

I asked him if he never wanted me to explain anything like that ever again. He nodded.

I don't blame him one bit. It's a pretty geeky hobby, and if you're not careful, you become like those people on "Extreme Couponing" who abuse the system and act put-out that those criminals at Gatorade expect to get paid for their product.

I got sucked into an episode while I was nursing June back in Winnetka in February. I watched in horror as the big lady with the rosacea snapped at grocery store employees because her nine-cart haul crashed their register's computer system. My jaw went slack upon seeing their storage space, stacked floor-to-ceiling with jars of Prego pasta sauce, packets of Top Ramen and Dial handsoap. I winced every time she blathered on about how much she loved couponing, which she pronounced "q-pawning." I decided she was what was wrong with America.

Then I thought, "Wait, I can do that!"

Last week at Price Chopper (double coupons!) I realized what am amateur I was. The left pocket of my coat was dedicated to coupons for items I had already placed in my cart, the right was for coupons I was contemplating using. I kept forgetting which pocket was designated for which and wound up inadvertently dropping fuel in the process, gasping as I watched my 50 cents off any Newman's Own product coupon flutter to the store's sticky floor. I snatched it up, blowing off the dust it had collected upon its descent, while my heart pounded at the thought of paying full price for microwave popcorn. June, in her carseat stuffed into the grocery cart, yawned and crinkled my $1 off Gillette Body Wash in her wet paw.

An attractive woman and her preteen daughter rolled past and I noticed a large binder lodged in the child's seat, full of plastic baseball card sleeves holding hundreds of coupons. They lingered in the room spray section and I watched as she flipped through her book, located her desired savings, and then cleared the shelves of dozens of Glade Plug-In refills. I felt that same hot flush of jealousy wash over me I used to feel when a classmate would saunter in with a new outfit on during non-uniform days. "I want that," I thought, ignoring the fact that most electric room deodorizer scents give me a headache.

June, normally a wonderfully patient grocery store companion, began to fuss while I compared Land O' Lakes butter with a coupon versus the cheaper store brand. I imagined she was saying in her bellow, "Jesus, just pick one already! What are you vacillating on, like a nickel savings?" Channeling her maternal grandfather, for sure.

My mom says these are habits that I'll take with me through our marriage, richer or poorer indeed, and that I'll never just willy-nilly throw things in the grocery cart that we don't absolutely need. I think that's a worthwhile lesson to learn.

I'll certainly remember that when my free sample of Efferdent arrives in the mail in eight to 12 weeks.

I can hardly wait.

To quote Homer Simpson ...

I'm busier than a Japanese beaver.

Well, that's a bit much. I've got a decent amount of things to do and June is on a nap strike today. Ergo, blog is getting shelved. Again.

I hate to disappoint you all (mom), but check back tomorrow (mom). I hope to have something up then (mom).

Ok, off to bribe June to sleep with a clean diaper and a hooter.

fuel

It might be time to start thinking about giving June solids.

When we were at her pediatrician's last week, she told me to start looking for cues that June might be ready for rice cereal. Do her eyes follow objects from your plate to mouth? Does she root while watching you eat? Has she tried to grab food from you?

As of last week, the answer was largely "no." Yes, she has shown increased interest in watching me eat, but it ends there.

Until yesterday.

June, perched in her exersaucer, stared in peckish fascination, and rooted, as I ate (wait for it) a peanut butter-and-Dorito sandwich.

Spinach salad? Yawn. Chicken breast and brown rice? Booooring. An apple? I'll stick with the liquid stuff. But arguably the most laughably nutritionally bereft thing I could be stuffing into my pie hole has her captivated. Captivated!

That's my daughter, all right.

Now, I'm a reasonably healthy person, but when I say I have been taking that "breastfeeding burns an additional 500 calories a day" factoid (I hate that word) to the bank, that's no puffery.

And they're 500 empty calories, believe that. The sandwich was a snack.

So I was a little crestfallen to see that June reserved her big admission of readiness for a disgusting sandwich I invented when I was 13. I mean, don't get me wrong, it's disgusting in a stoner's delight sort of way, but it's not something I imagined wrapping up with love and and a handwritten note and sending off with her in her lunchbox. That note would read something like, "Dear June, I love you so much. Mind the corners of the Doritos because the peanut butter is like spackle and these things are wont to lodge in your throat and cause some minor esophageal tearing. I am a cautionary tale. Kisses! -Mom."

I say a little prayer of thanks every time I swallow one of my CVS brand prenatal/lactating vitamins because there have been some questionable meals I've passed on to this poor girl. Mounds of pasta with sodium-heavy jarred sauce. Generic Tombstone frozen pizzas. Ice cream. That's it, just ice cream for dinner. Poor thing ingested that for the first 12 weeks of her zygotic life. The midwife had me convinced that wasn't such a bad thing for a newly pregnant woman. Her words? "It's better than potato chips." I didn't have the heart to confess that's what I had eaten for breakfast.

Entire days would go by where the only green thing I ate was a Mike & Ike.

Greg said something yesterday about getting excited for out CSA to begin. For those who don't know, CSA, or community supported agriculture, is a sort of farm cooperative where one buys a "share" in a local farm and in turn get a basket of fresh produce every week. Our landlord, Steve, runs a thriving and well respected organic farm called Blue Ox. We, naturally, subscribed to his CSA and the veggies started rolling in around mid-April.

Those first boxes were a mani-chromatic sight for winterized eyes. Flushed-pink radishes, verdant chard, peppery baby arugula, piquant scallions -- just thinking about it makes me want to barf.

You see, these shipments coincided with some beefy morning sickness so my memories of the veggies are of excitement, then reticence, then hauling arse to the bathroom. To this day I can't look at a radish without seeing post-traumatic memory flashes of our toilet lid.

It didn't end with vegetables. The morning of my birthday Greg made me bacon and eggs. The smell of frying bacon, normally the sweetest of perfumes, prompted me to barf. Five minutes later I was eating that bacon.

Meh.

I didn't really have the cliched pickle-and-ice-cream cravings (well, the pickle part) you hear about in pregnancy. More than anything, I had strong aversions. Mostly to green vegetables. And chicken. Unless it was fried or ground, I couldn't go near the stuff.

But I did ramp up the sugar consumption. At around five months, I went to the dentist, per recommendations for pregnant women. The dentist, also five months pregnant, told me she would be calling out numbers for the hygienist as she looked at my teeth. Ones and twos? All is good. Threes and fours? A cavity or similar. Pretty soon after beginning she wasn't calling out numbers. It was her defeatedly rattling off, "Same. Same. Same. Same. Same." A mouth full of fours. Ouch.

But I did some good. Notably, the night I went into labor. Greg and I were out to dinner and I was eyeing fried chicken and french fries on the menu. At 39-and-a-half weeks pregnant, what's a little trans fat? Something inside of me, likely my daughter descending into the birth canal, guided me toward shrimp scampi with steamed vegetables and brown rice. Energy food, I thought. It ought to do me some good. As I shoved the last forkful in my face, I had the first crampy trace of a contraction.

A little concerned about June's interest in my bread-bound abomination, I sat her on my lap today and slowly paraded a carrot through her field of vision. Back, forth, back, forth, and finally to my mouth, June's giant blue unblinking eyes were locked on it until it was chewed and out of sight. Her little tongue slowly emerged from her mouth. Victory, I thought, and hugged my little girl.

To celebrate, I ate a Dorito.

lost dog

Dilla went missing yesterday.

Ho hum.

Where we live, on Mars, there are no fences, but the dogs are obedient enough that if you open the door and let them out, they'll stay on our property. Most of the time.

Dilla, age 2, is technically no longer a puppy. But she's still a young dog, so I guess she's hovering in teenage territory. Therefore, while she is responsive and able to be reasoned with, she still tests boundaries like a mother scratcher, and consequently makes me seriously regret pet ownership.

So yesterday, like other instances, Dilla exited the house, dilly-dallied for a minute, and then went to roost on our landlord Steve's tomato field, still snow-covered but undoubtedly redolent in the scent of deer and woodchuck. That's her boxed wine right there.

After about 40 minutes of her not returning, I put June in her bouncy seat, locked her in tight, and then started shouting Dilla's name out various doors.

"Mother-effing effing mutt," I'd mutter after she didn't reappear, keeping my Lenten promise, then turn to smile at my gurgling daughter. "Screw that freaking dog."

The poor dogs. I've been sort of a deadbeat caretaker since June was born. I remember reading all this preemptive psychology about how postpartum women tend to have trouble showing affection for their partners, given they spend all day in a very physical relationship with their baby. I didn't experience that. I relished hugging Greg at the end of the day and being cuddled as opposed to the other way around. I would have loved to have read something that said, "You might be able to snuggle with your husband, but in turn you might find great catharsis in verbally abusing your pets."

Dingdingdingdingding.

Anyone who has met these dogs knows how good they are. Sweet, obedient, mellow (mostly) and incredibly gentle and loving with June. But when you're a winter shut-in and all they do is follow you around begging for food and love, and emit hair in cartoonish puffs at every turn, one might see where I start to go a little nuts.

It's the little things that have driven me bonkers with them. The way Dilla cannot lie down without flailing into a wall and allowing her dead weight to fall to the floor in a nap-busting thud. Or how she manages to fall asleep in the most oft-traveled corridors of our downstairs. Or when either or both are gassy. Or the Sisyphian challenge of staying on top of their shedding. Or how Gypsy insists on licking Dilla's empty bowl, pushing it around the kitchen in stoned hope of kibble magically appearing in its drool-smeared confines. That's usually met with a, "Gypsy? Seriously?" which prompts him to look super guilty, pupils dilated from his phenobarbital high, and slink off to pout.

I can just imagine folks reading this and thinking, "Jesus Christ, what's wrong with this woman? They're just dogs." You're right, folks. They are just dogs, doing what dogs do. But a loooong New Hampshire winter stuck indoors and a priority shift has made me more of a jerk than I was four months ago. So there.

Greg has laughed, and stifled some judgment, when he hears me interacting with our brood:

"HI JUNIE! HOW'S MY SWEET BABY?! I LOVE YOU SO MUCH YOU WONDERFUL LITTLE GIRL!"

Then the falsetto drops several octaves to a demonic growl, brows furrow, shoulders hunch in anger, eyes blacken.

"DILLA! SHUT THE F*** UP!"

Don't get me wrong, I love my dogs, I really do. On the purely practical side, I'm easily spooked when alone, so having them around puts me at ease considerably, especially those nights where Greg works late and I've plotted our escape from backwoods cannibals through June's room, into the barn and out the back. Dilla will start barking if she hears something in Vermont, so I've always got one foot out the door and the other on a banana peel.

If actual backwoods cannibals were to actually break in, the dogs would quickly acquiesce and give them the licking of a lifetime. Ah well.

But these are a couple of sweet, sweet animals. Gypsy's been Greg's dog and companion for nine years, a duration longer than a whole lot of marriages. Dilla's the newer addition, but has proven to be affectionate, smart, curious and protective, especially of me and June. It's humbling when I think or what an arsehole I've been to these poor little dudes. I tell them to get the hell out of my face, they look at me with sad eyes, and then the obediently oblige.

Ouch.

About two weeks ago, I was getting June ready for bed, rocking her and nursing her toward a deep sleep. The dogs aren't allowed in her room in order to spare her things from a canvassing of coarse, canine hair, but Dilla stuck her head in to see what was going on. I didn't shoo her out for once, so she entered quietly, sniffing June's toys and eventually finding purchase near my feet. She watched me sing to my daughter, tail wagging, eyes illuminated and with a real look of doggie joy to her. My heart broke a little, thinking about how I had spent the day resenting her presence as I was trying to devote all my time and love to this baby. Dilla just wants to be part of the family, I thought. Ease up, Kerry.

And just like that, she got up and headed for the door, without me having to kick her out. Impressed with her intuition, I said, "Dilla! Good dog! Good dog!" Clearly excited by the compliment, she came puttering back in, tail wagging so violently it hit June's exersaucer and sent a discordant orchestra of bells and jangles into our peaceful ritual. June startled.

I felt myself tense up as Dilla parked herself by June's playmat, back leg lifting and scratching violently at the feather boa of fur she grows around her head in winter. I watched a blizzard of black hair tickle each one of June's toys, many which spend significant amounts of time in my baby's mouth.

"DILLA! UGH, DILLA! GO! NO, BAD DOG! LEAVE! Uh, please?"

At this point June's eyes were open and she was looking at me like, "Do you mind? I'm trying to enjoy a meal here."

So much for that.

I didn't grow up with pets. There was a very literal rule about it in my house as a kid: people in, animals out. It didn't matter if it was a chipmunk hoarding acorns in a bureau in the attic, a skunk meeting its demise in the chimney, or a dog crapping on the kitchen floor. In the Leonard house, four-legged creatures need not apply.

But it didn't end with the legged varieties. When I was about 10 I won 13 goldfish at a local fair. They were my first pets and I joyfully dumped the Ziplock baggies full of stunned fishies into a glass serving bowl, relishing my water-logged harem. Not four hours later, my dad, in disgust, flushed the entire lot down the toilet after convincing me that they would not only survive the trauma of our 100-year-old septic system, but go on to grow, thrive and multiply in the great fishbowl that was Lake Michigan. I recall standing above the toilet, stomach in knots, bidding my adieus.

"We'll meet again," I thought, imagining a "Splash"-esque reunion the following summer at Tower Road Beach. It wasn't to be.

In fact, my dad has long joked that he wants to start a business called "Pet Assassins." Have a gerbil you don't want anymore? Give P.A. a call and they can paint some rubber tire treads on Fluffy that will distract everyone from the small caliber bullet hole in his head. And for those looking at this in disgust, it's just a joke. He is not capable of harming animals. Someday I'll write about the bird who got into our basement and had to be released as proof. Oh wait a sec, there was that instance with the mouse and the blowgun dart... never mind.

Point being, I always loved dogs but I never had them, so the little things that dogs do I'm still figuring out. It's funny to think that June will have this experience of growing up with these two. I often wonder what she's thinking when she sees them, these ambling, salivating, fur-bearing quadrupedes -- but she probably looks at them the same way she looks at us. We've always been here so she doesn't know differently.

And yesterday, when Dilla returned home, sitting by the back door with the weight of her conscience hanging her head low, I let her in and admonished her for being a jerk. I then picked June up from her bouncy seat and brought her to the couch to feed her. Dilla approached to give the baby a sniff.

June squealed in delight.