Weighty.

I have just been putting together a very heavy and sturdy piece of child-specific furniture given to us by Steve's parents for my birthday. Jane is not yet quite big or old enough to make use of it, and it remains to be seen whether it will be an albatross or the opposite.

When I was pregnant with Jane, Steve's parents bought us a crib. I hemmed and hawed and suggested that we wait until after she was born to see what we wanted, but that clearly made them feel extremely uneasy. So as her birth approached and they began gnawing off their limbs from anxiety, we caved in and I found a crib that we thought looked nice. It was not cheap. I felt a little discomfort about this, but it arrived and we assembled it and it was quite attractive and the grandparents were happy.

Then Jane slept in our bed for six months and in a portable baby tent at the foot of our bed (or other places around our house and the houses of others—it's portable, after all) ever since. She has spent about four naptimes in the expensive crib and hated every one of them. In the tent she sleeps like—who is a famously good sleeper? Not Rip Van Winkle, because she wakes up appropriately. Like a cat, maybe, or a newly pregnant woman. Anyway, she sleeps and is happy and so are we, except for the guilt about the expensive crib.

So, have Steve's parents bought us yet another guilt-inducing large item, to my specifications, that will never get any use? Time will tell!

For now I am feeling a complex emotional brew of tired satisfaction in the wake of all that manual labor, a shimmering liminal sheepishness in anticipation of the albatross outcome, optimistic anticipated enjoyment in the case of the alternative outcome, and some trepidation over their rapidly approaching visit, which naturally is what occasioned my assembling the thing now despite its unsuitability to Jane's current developmental moment.

On the other hand, a friend says that he has been eying the selfsame child-specific furniture because his daughter always wants to be up! up! up! in the kitchen to see what's going on. This gives me hope, because (as you know) "up! up! up!" is both the majority of Jane's dialogue and her well-conceived moral and political philosophy. Up with upism!

PS. I recently got and deleted some spam from "Leaky Bowels." If you are feeling sorry for yourself, imagine for a moment what it would be like if "Leaky Bowels" were your real name.

PPS. I searched for "famous sleepers" and found this. "Perhaps because of the fame and brilliance of these chronic sleepers, it is considered socially acceptable, and even chic, to sleep during conference, colloquium, and seminar talks."