Salon.com > Vicki Glembocki http://www.salon.com Wed, 30 May 2012 10:39:24 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 Welcome to the nuthouse http://www.salon.com/2008/03/03/second_nine_months/ http://www.salon.com/2008/03/03/second_nine_months/#comments Mon, 03 Mar 2008 12:26:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/life//feature/2008/03/03/second_nine_months Two weeks after the baby is born, I push the stroller down a street I've never been on before. This is the first walk the baby and I are taking together. There is probably a line in the baby book my mother gave me, the one that's still in its plastic box in one of the many piles on our dining room table, where I'm supposed to document this moment -- First Walk in Stroller. Taking this walk is supposed to be relaxing. "The Girlfriend's Guide to Surviving the First Year of Motherhood" said so: "Get out and get fresh air ... it does wonders for your spirit." My spirit is supposed to be inhaling the warm, late March air, feeling invigorated while I maternally point out the many things the baby is seeing for the first time. The buds on the maple trees. The trail from an airplane. The tabby cat sunning itself on the back stoop of the white house we just passed. But I'm not. Because the baby is crying.

I push faster.

She keeps crying.

I hum "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star."

She keeps crying.

I shift the angle of the canopy, in case the sun's shining in her eyes.

She keeps crying.

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