What happens when you take an American girl, give her a Canadian husband, a dual-citizen daughter, two Mexican dogs and a German car? Anything goes when it's A Very Good Year!
This weekend, it was unseasonably warm outside (this has been an ‘unseasonable’ winter, really… only one snowstorm!) and so Chris and I bundled up Maia, put the dogs on their leashes, and headed out to the nearest park. Last time she went to the park, she was hardly crawling — things have changed!
We were all so ecstatic to be outside that it was almost laughable. The dogs ran in circles as if they were trying to wear themselves out.
I was most excited about getting Maia back into a swing, because she kind of loves them.
The best thing about the swingset was her giggling and ESPECIALLY her little kicky feet:
I also made Chris get a picture of Maia and I together because honestly, we just don’t have enough of those.
I can’t wait for real spring and summer to get here. We are going to have a blast together!
“You’re much more shy than I expected,” she says, regarding me, “I thought you’d be way louder from your tweets and blog posts.”
I feel my cheeks heat up, and I force myself both to smile and to continue meeting her gaze. “Yeah, I am,” I reply. What the hell else am I supposed to say? I am deeply, almost comically, shy. Particularly in a situation like this, where I am judging myself constantly against women who are supposedly (superficially?) my “peers” — but they’re not. Sure, we’re all moms. Sure, we’re all members of a certain website. But they’re infinitely more put-together, successful, and confident than I am.
I make small talk — wracking my brain for things to say — with her for a few minutes before, blessedly, the waiters start to deliver dinner to everyone and I excuse myself. I’ve ordered a steak — the first time I’ve ordered a steak in many years, since I’ve just begun to eat beef again — but there’s no one to share this fact with. They’re all talking with one another.
I look down at my plate and dig in.
The conversation all around me is raucous and happy, women laughing and joking with each other. There are smiles everywhere — perfect smiles with perfect teeth surrounded by perfect glossy lips — and although I look around, waiting for an opening in a conversation that I can awkwardly thrust myself into, my smile is as thoroughly timid as I am.
And so I eat.
“Wow, that must be really tasty,” says the woman seated to my left. A little cube of steak and half a pile of mashed potatoes are all that remains on my plate, whereas hers looks as though it’s barely been touched.
“It is,” I say quietly. I’m desperately embarrassed that my nearly empty plate has been noticed and remarked upon. I berate myself, silently, for being such a shitty conversationalist and a pig and for thinking that I should ever, ever attend a get-together like this. “How is yours?”
When I see the pictures from this event, I break down in tears right in front of my computer. I had so carefully considered my hair and makeup, and I even bought an adorable black dress to wear for it, and yet… I hate every single picture that I’m in. I look cheap and unsophisticated. I look fat, my skin looks shiny, my tight-lipped smile is uninviting, my hair is frizzy, and the camera’s flash reflects off my glasses.
More hurtfully, however, is the realization I come to as I look through the gallery of photos. There are a few shots of me in a group with all of the attendees, and a few of me alone. But there is not a single shot where a woman there grabbed me and said, “I need a picture with you!” Not once during the night did I make enough of an impression on anyone that they wanted to capture a moment in time where we were together, smiling, arms around one another’s shoulders.
I don’t blame them.
I wouldn’t want a picture with me either.
I want to move beyond being this way. I want to stop feeling so fucking inadequate as a human being and as an adult. I feel like the only things I’ve accomplished in life are finding a husband and having a child, and while those are wonderful and I wouldn’t trade them for the world, having Maia has thrust the sharp, painful awareness of my own shortcomings into the forefront of my mind. There is so very little in me for her to be proud of. Her mother is a high school dropout. A runaway. A college student of one semester. A part-time minimum wage retail worker. A social misfit.
She came skulking out of the fitting room, a pair of jeans hanging off her arm. Her red face displayed all I needed to know, but the careless way she flung the jeans on the counter behind me and turned away from them towards her older sister highlighted it. “I’m not eating anything tonight,” she [...]
“My daughter’s birthday is coming up soon,” I say, fussing with the button on the blouse I’m holding. It’s a pretty colour, a vibrant sort of rose that seems inspired by the deep violet hues that have dominated the past season.
She nods. She has ashen blonde hair with hints of gray at the roots, cut [...]
Two years ago today, on my 25th birthday, I was in a very different place in my life. Chris and I lived in a basement apartment and he worked nights, so I was also on a nighttime schedule; I slept from 10am til 4pm or so. I was not working, having been fired from my [...]
2009 is the year I really started to pay attention to the parenting blogosphere. Oh sure, I was pregnant in 2008, but I only really liked reading the blogs of other moms pregnant with their first, which doesn’t provide an accurate depiction of what’s going on in general. This year, I like to think that [...]
Lately, we’ve just been relaxing.
Chris and I alternate waking up with her in the morning. She has Cheerios and apple juice for breakfast, and she’s the happiest, smiliest little creature you could imagine.
We spend all day together, playing, talking, walking, learning. I chase her around the house and she squeals with delight; every day she [...]
And Tatiana also hearts bookmarking recipes, then never getting around to them.
That’s all about to change though, with the launch of my new mini-blog, “It Was a Very Good Meal“. My goal there is to start getting through the 112 recipes I have bookmarked, and document the journey along the way, to let you know [...]
I am already thinking about 2010. Not that I want 2009 to end, but I feel like I’m finally getting a grasp on my life, like I’m finally comfortable with who I am and what I want to achieve to feel fulfilled.
- Take French classes.
I am very, very good with languages. Despite the fact that [...]
My mother-in-law, MJ, was up last week from Florida. She wanted to watch Maia overnight, and while I was hesitant about it for awhile — because of 1) my boobs 2) that’s a long time not to see my baby 3) Maia being in a strange place with a relatively strange person — Chris and [...]
We were all so ecstatic to be outside that it was almost laughable. The dogs ran in circles as if they were trying to wear themselves out.
