Blackouts and Babies

July 15, 2019

This weekend was my cousin Vincent’s and his wife Julia's baby shower. He threw me my first one in ‘07 and this weekend I got to attend his. I was thrilled. These are 2 of my favorite pictures from that afternoon

On my way back home there was a little blackout in the city. It was actually the 42nd anniversary of the 1977 nyc blackout when I was a baby- one month and 12 days old. Technically it only took place in a part of Manhattan, but it affected a lot of trains throughout the outer boroughs. When I marked myself safe on facebook, fam joked that I was in the train yet again when it happened, namely the bigger one in ‘03 and in the same area too- the F train on my way from Brooklyn to Manhattan. In '03 I was on my way to my friend Michelle’s get-together to the Fat Black Pussycat in the Village. We were all about to pass over the East River when it happened, so we were between Brooklyn and Manhattan, didn't even leave Brooklyn yet. Regular civilians voluntarily and graciously came by from wherever they managed to escape in order to help us out of the train and I decided to walk over to Park Slope to stay with my cousin Allison and her family. Since I lived further down into Brooklyn at the time, Park Slope was a closer option. Besides, after 9/11 happened, Allison told me that if I ever find myself in the same area, (and in a similar wtf situation), that I should try to make it over to her house. So two years later, that's what I did. I was on the F train on 9/11 too actually, and I saw the smoke out the window before I knew anything else about that day.
I came across this article that advises us to prepare more for blackouts. My daughter’s father has always been a real doomsday prepper, my husband not so much. Neither am I. But he’s right, we should have some stuff ready if some serious shit happens to go down. 

Back to the Baby Shower 

In the baby shower, Vincent and Julia actually welcomed advice for being new parents. Advice can be a dicey thing when it is not asked for, so they made a point that this would be very welcomed and even gave us stationery to write it out and a little box to place it in afterwards. My first piece of advice wasn't exactly advice. It was remarking that having a baby is like loving x 3, because it's loving a mix of yourself, your partner (assuming you love or at least like the other parent a little bit), and this new little individual who just stepped into the world. That's exactly how I felt when holding my newborn son 12 years ago. And even though I had problems with his father, loving my new little baby was not the challenge. The 2nd point I made was that whatever kind of person you naturally are, you’ll have to make adjustments and sometimes go the counter intuitive route just to get things done and make things happen. For example, if you're a great multi-tasker, you'll have to learn to focus on one thing more often. If that's what you like to do then guess what, you're now going to have to learn how to multi-task a bit. You like quiet? Get used to some noise now. You thrive on a lively atmosphere? Adjust to some numb moments of deafening silence and boredom.

The last thing I wrote was something along the lines of "love her, be open, ask for help and you’ll be great." Because I truly believe that. A few days later I wrote them on facebook a P.S. to that and said not to care about judgy opinions from judgy people if it doesn’t feel right since people are going to judge no matter what, and I warned them that they might not always feel great about their baby or of being a parent, but that that's normal and to please not beat themselves up about it. To instead, get help, take a breath, maybe find the humor if possible, just anything other than putting yourself down. I hope they find my learned wisdom useful. And I hope you did too, even though you didn't ask for it. If not, just disregard and know that this is what I was telling Vincent and Julia who did ask for this advice lol 

Happy Leo season! Rawr!