the underwear drawer

dispatches from night float

So I was looking around on kidsurplus.com trying to get some ideas on stuff to get Cal for Christmas (that's the excuse, anyway) when I happened upon these "Friends With Diverse Abilities" action figures.




Teaching kids about diversity, I can get behind that! Oh, that's nice, look, there's the kid in a wheelchair who plays basketball! And the really happy guy with crutches who looks like Barack Obama! Hello Senator! And the deaf girl signing "Hi!" Why, that's the same way I say hi! We're not so different, she and I! There's the zippy old guy with the walker! Out of his way, he's not slowing down for anyone! And the saucy independent blind lady! No light perception? No problem! And the...girl with strabismus?

A lazy eye? Does that count?


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I figured out, by the way, why so many people have kids about two years apart. When your kid turns one, you start to realize that he's not a baby anymore. He's still very small, obviously, and still needs you for every little thing, but his days of sitting quietly on your lap cooing and staring at dust motes are over. And then you think, "Wait, since when did you become a kid? I thought you were a baby! I was just getting warmed up to the baby stuff and now it's over! Unfair! Bring back the baby!" But your kid isn't interested in being a baby anymore, he's more interested in stuffing papers down the radiator and poking the dog. (I mean, for example.) So then you do what seems logical. You have another baby.

I wouldn't mind having another baby. I'm planning on it, in fact, if things go as planned, which I understand they don't always. I just need to wait for residency to be over first. Mostly because if I still had to work these hours and split my time at home between two kids and a husband and a dog, the guilt would eat me alive. Also, Cal's at a really fun age right now, and I kind of just want to enjoy it. Just enjoy what I have right now instead of seeing what more I can add on top of it. All this, right now, is more than enough.

But it doesn't stop me from sitting around during idle moments thinking about what I want to name our next kid.


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Speaking of names, what's with kids names now? Like just the other day, there was a kid at the playground named "Didion." Named after Joan Didion, perhaps? Except the kid was a BOY. Also, at Cal's music class this week, there was a boy named "Walker," which made me think of "Walker, Texas Ranger," though I'm pretty sure that was not what these trendy Manhattan parents were trying to convey when naming their kid. This is the thing now, apparently, the last-name-as-first-name trend. Other names overhead in the playground or at Gymboree: Brinkley (a girl), Ellison (a boy), and Ziggy. (OK, Ziggy was a dog.)

I know I'm be inviting this, so I'll just say that that some people think Cal is a weird name too, because it caused such a furor in ye olde comments section when I announced that that was what we were going to name our kid. People were all, "You're going to name him what? That's child abuse! Also, you suck and your kid will hate you!" But hopefully, everyone's gotten used to the idea by now. Yes? Not to mention that "Cal" was the name of Billy Zane's character in "Titanic."

(For the record, we didn't name Cal after Billy Zane's character in "Titanic". We actually named him after Seth Rogan's character in "The 40 Year-Old Virgin.")

(Just kidding. We saw that movie a month after Cal was born. But would that have made me more or less cool if I had named my kid after a character in "The 40 Year-Old Virgin?" Maybe more cool to teenage boys, but much less cool to Joe's parents.)

Currently eating: Caramello. Very messy.