Thursday, August 14, 2003 posted by Jen at 8/14/2003 06:09:00 PM
Hello again...
Lots of news to report. First of all, the ABC World News Tonight piece on chick lit (okay, I said it) is scheduled to air on Saturday at 6:30. Check your local listings, and tune in to see the Cutest Baby in the History of Babies (and me, too).
The taping went as well as can be expected. I think I sounded like a reasonably thoughtful and intelligent person, and did not spit when I spoke. Lucy performed what I gather is a standard baby stunt -- the "I'm the cutest, sweetest, best-behaved baby in the world -- until it's time to take my picture" trick. Seriously, she was adorable, smiling and cooing in my arms, and as soon as they pointed the cameras at her, she started whimpering.
They wanted to film us playing together, so I put her under her Gymini, and she started to cry, and I went to pick her up and soothe her, except the camera guy was all, "No! No! Don't pick her up! Keep her there!" So there's footage of poor Lucy lying on her back weeping and me sort of patting her belly ineffectually and saying things like "Oh, don't cry! Don't cry!" I knew that all she wanted was to be picked up, and perhaps lifted into the air a few times (which she loves), but they didn't want her up, so down she stayed. Down and crying. I think maybe I won't watch that part.
All the funny stuff happened off camera, when we were getting ready for the film crew to show up. Like when I finally convinced Adam do something about the snarl of cable/TV/stereo/VCR/DVD wires clustered around our entertainment unit like an engraved invitation for baby electrocution, on the grounds that if we didn't we'd find ourselves the unwitting subjects of a John Stossel investigation. ("Tonight on 20/20 -- Authors Who Kill!")
The best part was having a house so clean and stocked with decorative bases of flowers and bowls of fresh fruit that I made Adam take pictures so I could remember it like that forever (because God only knows when I'll have the time or incentive to clean like that again.)
And, in the most exciting development since the Cameron Diaz news -- we got TiVo! (Warning to non-USA readers -- here be Sex and the City spoilers. Yar).
I'm excited. Very excited. Ready-to-join-the-cult excited. Adam hooked it up last night and we've already played around with stopping shows, reviewing scenes, and moving back to real-time viewing, during a "Sex and the City" re-run. And what did we pause upon? Why, Charlotte and Harry's wedding announcement, of course! So now I know that in the SaTC universe, Charlotte's mother's name is Muffin, Charlotte attended Smith, and Charlotte is the descendent of one of the original signers of the Declaration of Independence. Which all makes perfect sense.
The only tiny quibble I had with that episode -- which did a wonderful job of characterizing Times-wedding-announcement anxiety, and the way a bride feels when stuff goes wrong at her wedding (my husband missed the glass on his first try, too) -- is that I think Charlotte would've been less freaked out by the blot on her face than by the blot on her record, because you just know the Times would have reported, as the Times insists on doing, that "the bride's first marriage ended in divorce."
But anyhow, TiVo is marvelous. And Lucy's great, too. In the past few days she's learned how to reliably get her thumb in her mouth, and she's smiling and laughing a lot, and enjoying her baths, and her walks, and her Sandra Boynton books, and her friends James' Symphony in Motion mobile. (We checked it out during playgroup, and when we got home and I put her in her crib, I swear, she looked up at her guaranteed baby-brightening Stim Mobile -- the same one Miranda's got on SaTC -- and gave me a look like, "What happened to the one that played Mozart?")
And even as I speak, TiVo is TiVo-ing away, scanning our cable system for "The Big Lebowski" and "What Not to Wear." Life is good. Hot, but good.
Welcome to A Moment of Jen, author Jennifer Weiner's constantly-updated take on books, baby, and news of the world. Email me at jen (a) jenniferweiner.com.
