Viva la Blog!

Well hello again! After almost a ten-month hiatus, I am returning to the blog. With school out, my days are filled with thousands of unscheduled minutes just waiting to be seized. While my primary impulse is to lie horizontal on the couch for the next two and a half months eating cheese, I am reluctantly trying to find ways to use my time in a semi-productive manner.

As most of you probably know, the preceding year has brought the exciting and, of course, life-altering news that Will and I are expecting our first child in October. Like any expectant parents, we are riding an emotional roller coaster of joy, anticipation, confusion, love, bewilderment, nervousness, and occasional vomiting. We’ve tried to break the news to our dogs as gently as possible, but at this point they appear to be in a state of collective denial. As happy as this news is, it has regrettably forced us to cancel our plans to spend 2 months in Oxford this summer while I continue my Master’s Degree. This, to quote Wayne Campbell, is both bogus and sad.

Since I will not get to spend the summer pretending to be Hermione Granger, I will be living an equally gripping existence here in Benbrook, cooking various meat-related items, reading fictional and non-fictional works about British people, and fantasizing about red wine. And, of course, I’ll be attempting to mentally prepare myself for the idea that Will and I will soon be parents. This, I’ve discovered, is something that almost certainly takes nine months. If not longer.

As I transition from non-mom to mom, I find my interactions with other people’s babies becoming more natural and less full of painful silences. While Will is a stone-cold baby magnet, historically I haven’t ever really felt that uterus flutter of glee whenever a tiny human enters the room. I observed that most people’s babies were cute, objectively speaking, it’s just that I couldn’t really relate to them on a personal level. A typical interaction might go something like this:

Amanda: (stares at drink) Sooooo…

Baby: kdeoirjknbvieurh


Amanda: Did you read Christopher Hitchens’ latest essay for Slate?

Baby: (eats handful of dog hair off the floor)

Amanda: (pats baby on the head with primitive Frankenstein hand) So, no?

Baby: (drools and stares reflectively into middle distance). Lkheriuhkjsbvn ciuerihiuhernmnvkjheroiu

Amanda: (joins baby in eating handful of dog hair)

In short, despite my chosen career path, I am not maternal. While I believe that is changing as I grow more attached to the 1 pound critter swimming around in my stomach, I am resolved not to allow my brain to completely succumb to an endless loop of mom-thoughts after my child is born, never to return to its former state. Like the survivors living among the infected in 28 Days Later, it is crucial to remain ever-vigilant. 

Unlike 28 Days Later, it is possible to be both a mother and a human. I realize that any actual parents out there reading this may be laughing coldly at my ignorance, but my simple hope is that, even when I am a quivering pile of goo compulsively posting pictures of my adorable child on facebook, I will still be able to sustain the occasional adult interaction. As such, I plan to use this blog to 1) Exercise my brain’s writey-typey-thinky areas, and 2) serve as a permanent record that I once used these areas of my brain. Hopefully I’ll be posting stuff about food that I cook and food that I want to cook, books I read, and the exotic destination spots Will and I visit this summer, e.g., Chattanooga, TN and Archer City, TX.

Cheers!