A Girl...

Crafting and Crying

So I got me some fabric paint and I got me some brushes and I got me some (twenty) onesies, which for some reason didn't respond the way I'd hoped when I tickled their wee ittle tummies and sang them a silly song. Tomorrow is the baby shower at which said onesies will be artfully and/or offensively decorated by attendees drunk on wine and new parenthood, and hopefully the honored parents-to-be will actually use the onesies instead of putting them in a drawer in favor of coordinated layettes in pastel cashmere. Not that they're regularly pastel cashmere people, but having a baby seems to do strange things to otherwise sensible people, and firstborns obviously bear the brunt of the fantasy that my baby will never cry and my baby will always sleep through the night and my baby will never have a diaper blowout and my baby will always smell like a peach parfait. It's like those Fancy Feast commericals where the cat eats her moist pile of food sludge off a cut-crystal platform. (Is there also a tiara involved, or am I making that up?) People who don't own cats probably think that's the reality, and I'm here to tell you that my cat's lucky if I open up the bag of dry kibble instead of making her grow some opposable thumbs and figure it out herself. Although I did just buy her that drinking fountain. And regularly dress her in fairy wings. Nevermind. Moving on. Nothing to see here.

So last night I decide to do a little trial run with onesie painting just to make sure everything works out and I have all the equipment I need. (Did you ever do one of those "Learning to Give Directions" lessons in elementary school, where you have to write out every step of some common task like sharpening a pencil or making a pb&j, and then your teacher stands in front of the class and follows your directions exactly and ends up sticking the pencil in the sharpener eraser-side first or spreads the jelly on the bread with her fingers and you realize, wow, this world is so much more complex and harsh than Mister Rogers made it out to be?)

So I sat at the table with my forty colors of paint and my twelve brushes and started to "create," which actually looks a lot like sitting there dumbfounded because TABULA RASA, PANIC, PANIC. Add to that the fact that my drawing aptitude is stuck at lopsided hearts and 3D cubes
that defy the laws of physics. Then add that the parents for whom these onesies will be lovingly designed haven't found out the sex of the baby...

Now, part of the reason the parents didn't find out the sex was because they didn't want to get a bunch of "gendered" gifts--Baby's First Football, Baby's First Vacuum, the usual. And I think that's admirable and wise but also just delaying the inevitable because as soon as people find out the sex post-birth, they're going to carry on just like they would have if they'd found out the sex in utero and their son will be a musclehead jerk or their daughter will be a subserviant bitch, because isn't that how we all turned out? There's only so much a parent can do.

That said, I found it really hard at first to come up with onesie-decorating ideas that fit the criteria of (a) unisex and (b) able to be drawn by a girl with "two left hands." On the first matter, something tells me that even the most carefree, liberal, open-minded parent is not going to clothe his or her son in anything featuring a unicorn jumping over a rainbow into a field of pink Gerber daisies. Not that I can paint that, but you know what I mean. I've heard too many stories about strangers asking the age of the "little guy" in the pink puff-sleeved dress, and I can't in a million years see these particular parents being cool with that happening to them, even on a what-a-funny-story-to-bore-our-childless-friends-with-at-the-next-party-we'll-come-late-to-and-leave-early-from-because-we're-SO-TIRED level. I'm all about gender equality and giving people the benefit of the doubt, but that doesn't mean I'll take my future son to the park wearing a onesie picturing a bejewled tiara (not that I can paint that either).

And you know what happens when you start thinking about it too hard? Even the stuff that seems like it would be unisex somehow develops a gender cast. Lollipop? Girl. Octopus? Boy. Cherubs on the wing? Obviously girl. Sailboat, wagonwheel, ham radio? Boy, boy, boy. Girls and boys both seem to like Brad Pitt, but I sure as hell can't draw that.

For a minute I seriously considered just accepting my artistic limitations and painting a lop-sided heart on top of a 3D cube, and maybe, if I were feeling adventurous, a fat pig or cat on the back. Then I decided that this venture deserved a little more of my creative brainpower, and so it was that I imagined and then successfully executed a lovely yellow sun with some simple orange shading in the center and tiny gold dots at the ends of the rays for a little extra non-gender-specifc sparkle.

Simon was borderline astounded when he saw the finished product, not because he underestimated my skillz but because he knows their limits quite precisely and I had exceeded them by furlong. It was a bit of a fluke that it turned out so well, and I'm amazed I had the sense to put down the brush before I ruined my creation and embarrassed myself and my family by adding sunglasses to the sun (get it? a sun? is wearing sunglasses? HA!).

Of course now, fueled by my triumph, I can't stop thinking of easy, unisex designs, even though I'm supposed to save the rest of the onesies for the party guests. A cantaloupe! A beach ball! A wooly blue sheep! A tree! A crescent moon! All of them with sunglasses! (Maybe not.) And now that I've tested the paint color and coverage for creating solid objects, I've also started thinking of words and phrases that could be painted in simple black letters for that snarky-yet-understated attitude all the kids are so crazy about these days. "I suck." "Li'l Liberal." "Stinky."

I seriously can't stop coming up with ideas, and that's in addition to the things I've seen online and am now suddenly remembering with a frequency that makes me wonder what all I've forgotten to make room for that sort of thing in my brain. I used to know the capital of Zaire, but now I don't. Sigh.

What's worse, I have in my secret craft cache a full pack of iron-on transfer paper, which means I can print out my own words or photographs or images from the web, a la the Cutest Baby on the Internet. You know how some girls keep wedding scrapbooks of flower arrangements and dress details before they've even found a potential and willing groom? I think I might need to start a onesie idea book and then have sixteen kids so everything gets worn at least once.

Speaking of which, today I told my awesome landlord of five and a half years that I'm moving out of my awesome apartment next month. I told him over email because I knew I'd cry and cry and cry if I did it in person, and yeah, I cried when I wrote the email. And then I cried when I read his reponse, which said, in short: "I'll miss you! I knew it was coming, but George [the Jockey] and I thought you'd get pregnant first. Guess not. Will you stay if I install a washer and dryer?"

Hello? Let's skip over the washer/dryer thing because after five and a half years I CAN'T EVEN GO THERE, but gawd, my landlord and George the Jockey were discussing my uterus. Gross. And also "aw," because those two (plus the other single, male housemate, who moved away a year ago) have been my surrogate family in California. They've cooked me dinner, babysat my cat, lowered my rent by $450 when I broke up with my fiance, complimented my hair, scared away solicitors, helped jumpstart Simon's car, and never ever complained when I do TaeBo in the living room or dance party in the kitchen or other things in the bedroom. As much as I'll miss my apartment for its porch, its period details, its magnolia trees, its off-street parking, and its lack of drug-related police activity across the street, I will miss Scarecrow most of all (Scarecrow being, of course, the men who have been there from the very beginning). In 2001 I moved out of my parents' house for the first time and was beyond lucky to have found a space and people who made it that much easier to be nine hundred miles away from everything familiar. Into the idea scrapbook goes a picture of each of them, and I'll make a point to visit when I have a little something to snap the onesie on.

Is anyone else crying? Gah.

Posted by Leah at October 6, 2006 02:53 PM