zygote daddy

like asking PETA which fur coat they like best

Hell yes, people. We are now a Nielsen household.

I guess it's nothing but PBS and C-SPAN for us from here on out. After all, subverting networks and advertisers (sorry, Mom-101) is the least we can do, right? I mean, I really don't need the stress of knowing that Rupert Murdoch is increasing his ad revenue because of me, you know?

Think of it as our little gift to humanity.

a company that knows what kids dig

Just received the most recent issue of Ode, which contains their list of the 17 best green products and companies from 2006. Not sure why they chose 17 exactly, but sometimes these things are best chalked up to journalistic idiosynchrasy.

Therein was Paperpod, a UK company that makes assorted "creations" for kids out of plain old recycled cardboard. This, in my opinion, is one of the most brilliant ideas ever.

I mean, how many times are kids enthralled more by a gift's packaging than the gift itself? Besides, how fun would it be to break out a little cadmium red (mmm...cadmium...) with your toddler and go to town on a rocketship?

And? They're all less than fifty bucks. Same price as one of those horrible Elmo things, and a cardboard rocketship won't precipitate any unfortunate Bruce Banner moments on my part.

Just one more piece of the puzzle in our (likely futile) attempt to give the hatchling a battery-free childhood...

more evidence that organics are making inroads

Oh, the conversations you have with the checkout guy when you're buying bananas in the middle of the night:

"So man, like, do organic bananas taste like regular bananas?"

"Um, yeah—"

"—Cuz I ain't tried 'em yet cuz I did'n want 'em to taste fuckin' nasty, man."

"No, they taste just the same—"

"—Ya know, man, a lotta people come through here with that organic shit, man, but I ain't tried it yet. I did'n want it to be fuckin' nasty, man."

"Uh huh..."

"Yeah, I was thinkin' 'bout tryin', like, that organic mac' n' cheese or some shit, man. You think that'd taste awright?"

"Sure, I think it would be just great."

kind of like a canadian sombrero

In our town we have an amazingly excellent little Thai restaurant. It sits on a little side street, in behind the carport of a big apartment building. You would have no idea it was there if you weren't looking for it.

It's run by this retired Thai couple whose son is getting a Ph.D. here, and they decided they might as well follow him and enjoy a few years of their retirement by working 12-hour days six days a week in a restaurant kitchen. What I love about the place (besides their magnificent pad kra pow) is that whenever d.w. and I go, we're the only ones speaking English; needless to say, a rarity in Iowa.

So why do I bring it up? It's because of the chopsticks:

At first I thought it was just kind of funny. Then I thought they were taking a jab at the Chinese. Now I can't help but think they are making fun of us white Americans, who eat Thai food with chopsticks, despite the fact that the Thai themselves rarely do.

Am I over-thinking this one?

in which I am long-winded and not really all that funny

51 days left. That would be only three weeks, if weeks were 17 days long.

But anyway.

Another fortnight, another trip to the midwife. Before she cut our visit short to attend to her third home birth in two days (and it's not even a full moon!), we got on the topic of vaccinations.

It's hard to find many people who are not in either the "Stick my child with everything you got" camp or the "Hell no, you're not giving my kid an autism cocktail" camp.

Here's the thing: both extremes are pretty shitty options, but I find a little critical thought can go a long way. On the one hand, the ability to prevent otherwise deadly childhood diseases is, along with the invention of the microscope and the discovery of penicillin, one of the greatest hallmarks of Western medical science. On the other hand, vaccines work by transmiting a small dose of the disease, so that the immune system can create its own defenses. This puts enormous stress on the under-developed immune system of a days-old or weeks-old infant, potentially elevating the risk of developmental and immune disorders.

So it all comes down to a game of risk assessment: Does the risk incurred by potential exposure to disease outweigh that posed by potential additional health problems down the road?

What, you want me to give you an answer?

I can tell you this much: I am a big fan of the Western tradition of science and medicine, but every day I am less and less enamored by those who purport to stand on the shoulders of Pasteur, Curie, and Salk. 

Did you know that they give a Hepatitis-B vaccine to newborns? TO NEWBORNS? Where, pray tell, is my little boy going to be picking up a sexually-transmitted disease? What kind of monster does the CDC think I am? Of course I'll make sure he gets vaccinated for it, but why exactly shouldn't it wait until high school? After all, he'll need a booster after his immunity to the disease degrades anyway.

Hepatitis-B is an excellent example of epidemiology getting in the way of personal medical care. Of course a baby doesn't need the vaccine. That is not the issue. Newborns get it because it is important that the population as a whole is universally vaccinated, and newborns have the most consistent medical visits of any segment of the population. While I understand that perspective epidemiologically, doctors are not in the business of public health. They are in the business of treating individuals according to what will "do no harm" to the individual, and I fear that line gets crossed more often than necessary or appropriate, especially during and after pregnancy.

And don't even get me started on the chicken pox vaccine.

IT'S CHICKEN POX, PEOPLE.

We're not talking about meningitis or polio here. You get a week off school, a lot of oatmeal baths, and a few pock marks where you just couldn't resist scratching. Not a big deal. Seriously. Furthermore, widespread immunization will likely only make chicken pox worse (in the epidemiological sense) because it will slow the rate of transmission in the population, meaning that those without the vaccine as infants may not get infected until adulthood, when the effects of the disease are far, far more serious.

So what are d.w. and I going to do? Why, we'll do what is best for the hatchling, of course.

So what's your perspective? Curious minds and all that, you know.

a little message from zygote d-a-double-dizzy

Thanks to Samantha from Back to Me, I have discovered a new favorite time-suck. Incidentally, I also feel way, way whiter.

But at least now Fox (Faux?) News is mildly tolerable.

laying bare my soul's dark underbelly

Um...Hi there.

I'd almost forgotten what it was like around here, having been gone from the innernets for ten days or so. Nice to be reacquainted. Onward:

We saw our midwife Sheryl again last week, and finally the neurotic first-time father in me melded with my often incessant (d.w. would probably call it "irritating") need to plan plan plan plan plan, creating a seething (though focused) ball of micro-managerial worry. It's not that I'm incapable of being spontaneous (or, more accurately, impulsive) you understand, but I need to have things laid out beforehand: if I decide that tomorrow it would be fun to take a road trip to Tierra del Fuego (wouldn't it though?), expect me to be up half the night memorizing every road, path, and llama trail between Panama and Patagonia.

Having a home birth has only increased exponentially the side of my brain tending toward hyper-preparedness, so our wonderfully patient midwife kindly bore the brunt of my neurotic babblings when all of a sudden the dam holding back the swirling waters of neurosis decided to crumble. What supplies do we need, and where should they be kept? How will you know if everything is going ok? What do I need to do, when do I need to do it, and where do I need to be?

These may sound like rather self-centered questions for me to be asking, considering I'm not the one who can't sit in restaurant booths anymore. But it's my blog. And besides, d.w. is quite capable of asking her own questions. She just doesn't seem to need to.

Cool as a cucumber, that one.

A great match for Sheryl, who must be the most laid-back midwife EVER. And how could she not be when she raises puppies? I mean, you think about babies all day and then go home to your puppies? Who would ever need therapy if you go home to a house full of puppies?

What I wanted to know more than anything was when during d.w.'s labor I should plan on calling her. She said she preferred to have the mother call, because she would know it was time to come over when all she heard on the other end was incoherent babbling.

"But what happens," I asked, "if the baby comes before you get there?"

"Simple," she said. "If the baby comes out that fast, it means everything went perfectly, and you'll get to hold him that much sooner. But every birth is different. It's impossible to predict what'll happen, so it's best to take it as it comes."

Not easy when the spontaneous, easy-going part of me is so quickly yielding to my soul's dark underbelly of organization and preparedness. What gives? I was never even a boy scout.

on urban memory

Well, on Monday d.w. and I made it back from our little weekend jaunt to Chicago. While we were there we did our part to bridge the internet/reality divide, stopping by with Samantha from Back to Me, who is easily as cool in person as she is on the innernets. But that whole bloggers-are-actually-three-dimensional-sentient-beings thing sure takes some getting used to.

Yikes. You know you need to get out more when real human contact becomes a novelty.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah. We had a blissfully relaxing weekend with various college and grad school friends who all somehow managed to get sucked into the Midwestern vortex from Florida, New York, and southeastern Ohio (totally not the Midwest -- it's like West Virginia without the inbreeding) upon entering the real world. 

Ok, hold on.

I was about to go into one of those totally uncreative "What is it with people getting sucked into the Midwest?!" rants, but I think I'll take a different tack. Because really, Chicago is a totally cool place. For a city so relatively young, I just love how bursting with history and memory it is. Untold decades of deferred maintenance and outright neglect have slowed the relentless advance of sterile urban homogeneity. Train platforms remain creaky, gnarled wood, and the once elegant, now rusting wrought iron trusses are held together by 132 coats of paint, urine, and hope.

And the apartment buildings! While ascending the back stairs to our friend's fourth-floor apartment, you could feel the memory of the place seeping up through floorboards worn to concavity.

But you know, something tells me d.w. wasn't feeling it. That's the other thing about Chicago: it's got a hell of a lot of stairs when you're 30 weeks pregnant.

just a quarter of a pregnancy to go

Welcome to September, one and all. That's right, we're into the -ember months, and before they're done we'll have a little one running around. Well, wriggling anyway.

In fact, he's doing a pretty good job of it already. It is quite amusing (if not a little unnerving) to look over at my spouse in the evening and see the zygote's little fists and feet squirming around doing his very best to make just a little more room in his cozy amnion. And the other day when d.w. was poking at his foot, he actually kicked back. I don't think I've ever heard d.w. yelp before. Very cute, and very funny.

Of course, this means I'll have to wait another two months or so to scold the little guy for kicking his mom...

Anyway, d.w.'s 30 weeks along now, which is certifiably in "holy shit" territory. I know I should be freaked out, but I'm just excited. Ridiculously, giddily excited. So is d.w., which makes me love and respect her more than I ever thought I could. I'm sure with my embarrassing aversion to pain I would have chickened out on natural childbirth long ago. That's the one thing about going the Bradley route; they make no illusions about childbirth being painless or easy.

As a big sign in the "classroom" (actually the converted hay loft of an old carriage house) says: "Labor is hard, and it hurts, and you can do it." I like that. Reassuring and empowering, with no dicking around.

So now we're headed to Chicago for the weekend to see some college friends. I must say I'm more than ready for a little taste of a real city for a couple of days. That, and the masochism of Ikea on a Saturday during a sale. But hey, when you need beautiful Swedish home furnishings of questionable durability, you need beautiful Swedish home furnishings of questionable durability.

Lest you think this is our last out-of-town trip before hatching time, fear not; childlessness is going out with a bang at chez zygote. Next month, when d.w. is fully 36 weeks along, we'll be driving the 1,600 - 1,800 miles (depending on our route) from Iowa to Maine for the Society for Human Ecology annual conference. We ran it by our midwife, whose response was simple:

"Not a big deal. Just remember to take your medical records."

Sounds good to me. Of course, as cartography-obsessed as I am (oh the sweet sweet nectar of GIS), I'll probably map all the hospitals, clinics, and birthing centers within 20 miles of our route, arranged hierarchically using metrics quantifying their congruence with d.w.'s birth plan.

Or I could just stock the car with plenty of paper towels. Either way.