This is part uno in my new series on The Ugly Politics of Parenting. Won’t this be a fun theme!?

Yesterday I sat down to type out the first draft of my birth plan, the culmination of lots of weeks worth of reading, researching, and talking to L/D nurses, midwives and doulas. A lot of my research wound up really turning me around positively on a number of issues. For instance, Matt and I think that next time around we’re going to attempt to have a home water birth if it’s not cost prohibitive (and if this first experience doesn’t change our minds); a type of labor and delivery I used to think was super crunchy crazy and quite possibly dangerous.

But just as I did more reading and learned more about how this natural process has always worked and how we have augmented it over the years, I became absolutely disgusted by parents. Yes, you heard me correctly. I had been forewarned, and had often seen with my own eyes that parents are the most judgmental self-destructive species alive. Mothers are made to feel inferior if they are unable to breastfeed. Women who experience drug-free births get off on thinking they’re Superwomen. Midwives are painted as tribal African medicine-men and OBs as heartless 9-5ers whose own nurses are frightened of them. And then there’s attachment parenting, and Ferbering, and stay at home moms versus working moms, and parents that wind up eating other parents alive at Chuck E Cheese playdates.

I don’t want to be a part of that. I don’t want that to be my identity. I don’t want to feel pressured to live up to a certain identity or label. I just want to do my research, make my decision, and have the freedom to change my mind. And I will change my mind. I haven’t even had the kid yet, and I’ve already changed my mind on a lot of things. And if that alienates me, then so be it. I’ll still have my best friend by my side who last night told me that he continues to be amazed at my maternal intuition about these things – quite possibly the greatest compliment he could ever give me.

So my plan has been written, and it’s a plan that I hope can be followed, but will not be devastated if it cannot. It’s based partially on my desire to allow my body the space to do what it was created to naturally do and feel the natural rush that goes along with that, and partially because I am more afraid of needles and surgery being inflicted upon me by people with multiple medical degrees and years of experience than I am of agonizing internal pain being inflicted upon me by wee little Penelope.

And I’m hoping that maybe, just maybe, I can be the tie that finally binds the two childbirthing philosophies together. Because the woman who will be saying “no” to interventions during labor as a way to experience the natural process will also say “HELL YEAH!” to general anesthesia in the event that she needs major abdominal surgery.

Call it hypocrisy, I choose to call it “reaching across the aisle.”

And with that I leave you this lovely video. Yes, I’m afraid our child will grow up with the entire Monty Python catalog if Matt has anything to do with it.

This post is coming for two reasons. The first is that my sister asked for more Nashville related content, which makes sense because she loves to travel, and she has an affinity for the South after living in Louisville for a number of years. Secondly, with my monstrous appetite, I have been on a mission to find all the best places to eat, and especially find the places that do takeout and delivery well as we might be resorting to that quite a bit when Penny arrives.

Now, I’ll preface this by saying that I’ve lived here less than a year so I don’t know all of the hot spots yet. Also, Matt and I really aren’t into doing touristy stuff. We haven’t been to the Ryman yet, or the Country Music Hall of Fame. In contrast we’ve been to most of the parks in the city to take Berlin on nice long strolls. Eventually we’ll get around to the touristy things, but we want to know the other part of this town more, the places where the people who actually live here go. And that sentiment is reflected in my restaurant choices.

So if you’re in Nashville, and hate me too much to call me up and let me invite you over for a roast pork sandwich, these are the places you should check out for yummy fare.

The Family Wash – We’ve taken my mom and dad here before, and it’s one of my favorite neighborhood spots because of the yummy comfort food (think mac n cheese and shepherd’s pie). You can go in any night of the week and hear some fun bluegrassy or rock music and try one of the many great beers that they have on tap. The Wash resides in a neighborhood so you won’t necessarily find lots of night life around it, but that’s what we like. Be sure to chat it up with the waitstaff and bartenders – they are some of the nicest people around. You’ll get a great meal for two including beers and tip for $25 – $30. There is rarely a cover charge, so you’re getting fine music as well, and it’s VERY kid friendly.

For full disclosure, I’ve never had anything other than their mac and cheese because it is THAT good. In fact, I’d imagine this is what I’ll be demanding an hour after giving birth.

The Local Taco – This is probably Matt’s favorite place in town, other than Rosepepper’s where the food isn’t anything spectacular but they apparently make the world’s greatest margaritas. You’ll have to take his word for that since I don’t like margaritas. But back to the Local Taco. We like to hit it after church on Sunday because it’s a quick drive over there, and the food is to die for. Unfortunately you pay for the tacos individually, and you don’t exactly get huge portions, so if you order enough to fill up you can easily spend $10 per person just on tacos. But they are fresh, unique and delicious. Their homemade salsa is to die for, and basically everything tastes of fresh cilantro. They have a lot of imported Mexican beers which is great fun if you’re not preggers.

Bosco’s – This is a place that is called “The Restaurant for Beer Lovers” which is interesting to me since we’ve only been there once when Matt’s folks took us there for brunch, and the brunch was divine. So I can’t vouch for their apparently exquisite beer menu. But their brunch was the best we’ve had yet in the city. We’ve been to a couple other places around here for Sunday brunch (which seems to be popular down here due to the church-goin population), and have honestly been a bit disappointed. But not Bosco’s. We’ll have to go back for dinner sometime to let you know what it’s like eating something other than eggs benedict.

Ok, this is Nashville, though right? So where is my BBQ joint? Well, I have to be honest in that we’re a little bit disappointed with the BBQ fare of all the popular joints in Nashville. We’ve been to a couple places, and we find that the neighborhood dives typically have the best BBQ. Everything seems to have been cooked to death, which is great for the meat but kinda gross for the “vegetable sides.” And yes, they consider mac n cheese to be a vegetable.

Jack’s has been the best BBQ so far, and we’ve only been to their downtown location. They have another location situated away from the hubbub, and I’d venture to guess their food is a bit better there. So if you’re in town, you’ll probably do OK at Jack’s where you can then stroll down Broadway and have your fill of neon lights and country music karaoke.

Overall, the thing that I’ve noticed is that different BBQ sauces seem to be really popular here, and perhaps the best BBQ that you are gonna get is slow smoked in someone’s backyard. I’ve found that I’m making  more and more BBQ at home and trying to perfect my technique, so maybe that’s what everyone else is up to. We’ve gotta get over to Memphis at some point to try some REAL BBQ there.

Eastland Cafe – This is my favorite place that’s worth taking a shower for. An ever-changing, very creative menu, good service, and a beautiful outdoor patio that is pup-friendly in the summertime! What more can you ask for? The food never disappoints, and they have a nice wine selection as well. Dinners are around $18-$25 per plate.

There are a handful of places we’ve visited and have been nonplussed by including Noshville, Marche, and Allium. We’d like to try the Pancake Pantry which gets rave reviews, but last time we tried the patrons were such complete jerks in the waiting line, that it left a bad taste in our mouth and we walked away. We have yet to try Loveless Cafe, PM, and Southern Bred which are all high on my priority list.

So that should give you a couple of places to try if you’re ever in our neck of the woods, and maybe a few places to steer clear of.

Any Nashvillians have recommendations of places we ought to try?

You simply ought to cruise over to my sister’s blog to read her newest post. She’s spot on.

Next month Matt will be turning the big Three Oh. We were talking about it briefly last night and I asked him if he is where he thought he’d be at thirty. His response was, “I knew I didn’t want to have kids until I was thirty, and then I figured once I turned thirty I might as well bite the bullet and go whole hog.”

Well, Penny, know that at least I wanted you.

I was thinking about it all a bit more, this him turning thirty thing, and realized how jealous I am that he’s there now and I’m still two and a half years behind. Some people look at thirty as the end of all their fun, the time they need to settle down and get serious about life. I see it, at least from watching Matt draw nigh unto it, as the real beginning of your life.

I mean think about it, so maybe you’re expected to be married, have a real job, maybe some kids and own a house? That’s hardly a heavy weight when you realize that you’re no longer expected to go out for ridiculous cocktails after work with slutty people who are just trying to score. You’re no longer expected to wear a bikini, or even come close to thinking about looking good in any type of bathing attire whatsoever. And you can completely forgo listening to pop music in exchange for the 80s rock you know and love so well. In other words, you can just be your regular old ordinary self, and suddenly all your attempts to seem “hip” really just make you look like a person who is not aging gracefully.

Take all of that into consideration, and frankly I’ve been waiting to be 42 my whole life.

I can’t speak for him, but from what I see Matt is happier now in his approach to his thirties than he ever was way back when he married me at age 24. He’s found so many things that he loves completely independent of me or anyone else. He plays music regularly with talented musicians, has found rock climbing and a passionate love for the food and drinks of the Spanish people. He is in his element both in his job and also on the weekends when he meticulously creates things out of wood. And soon he’s going to have a motorcycle of his own to tinker around with.

All around thirty seems like an age where you can be unabashedly genuine. If so, sign me up.

From Daily Daguerreotype

Expertise is a funny thing. You can gain it from the school of hard knocks or from years of continuous education. I don’t know where I got my instinct to trust expertise, but 9 times out of 10 I will trust the guy with the experience or the degrees over the armchair observer. I may enjoy being a contrarian, but what are my hunches if I have no research to support them?

I was talking on the phone a couple weeks ago with one of my former bosses who had a lot of practical experience with reputable organizations and also claimed an Ivy League education. She was smart. Smarter than most people. And one of the things that made her such an awesome boss was the way she trusted me to do that which I knew about. I knew more about websites than she did, and she let me just do my thing. She’d ask me for advice, and she’d take my advice. She respected my expertise, and you know what? I really respect that she respected it. I went on to realize that this is a pretty rare trait – trusting other people who know more about something than you do.

Why is it that we all think we know everything best? We all think we’re experts at every field of life. And we really really don’t like taking advice from “experts.” I bet you’re wondering why I’m going on about all of this. It’s because in the circle of motherhood there’s this weird vibe that a mother’s instinct is always best. That moms will just inherently know what is right for their children. And they question teachers and doctors and grandparents and people with way more experience or degrees than them. BECAUSE THERE A MOM, DAGGONIT!

Listen, I’m all about questioning the status quo to find improvements. I became a moderate Libertarian because I think the other two options suck. I’ll go ahead and boldly state that I believe ALL women should start trending back towards the healthcare model of midwifery, and that OBs should be around for complications and specialization. Having babies is not akin to having cancer. But you know what else? I also think that your kids teacher has a degree and a state certification for a reason. And yeah, there are plenty of sucky teachers out there. But ya know what? There are pretty sucky content management systems out there. Doesn’t mean you should build your own. Why not try to find a good one to use?

All of this to say that I am realizing I don’t want to be the mother who doesn’t take advice from the Behavioral Analyst who comes to my house with a proven methodology to potty train my kid. I want to be the mother who does my research to find the best Behavioral Analyst from the best company in the country to come and potty train my kid. Because that person straight up knows more than I do. Sure, I want to trust some of my instinct, but why reinvent the wheel?

I am a lucky woman because I have two sisters (and a mom!) who have gone before me and raised their kids really really well. Sure, I’ll do a few things differently (like not driving a minivan! ), but goshdarnit, if I can follow their advice and have Penny turn out half as good as their kids, I will be one proud mama. And then I have some dear friends, the cloth diaper sage, the expert on getting your kid to eat anything, the mom whose child plays really well with others, and the girl who sleep-trained her kid into the third dimension. And of course the husband who can stop self-injurious behavior in the kids with the most intense diagnoses. These people, along with my trusty midwives, my pediatrician, and the teachers at the school that we will eventually find for Penny after agonizing research, they will be my experts, and I will need to trust them.

Of course, if you have a PhD in psychology but your kid is in juvie, I’m liable to ignore much of what you say.

And on that note, sleeping patterns: nature vs. nurture. If you have a great sleeper, did you sleep train them into it, or do you think it’s just in their genes?

I’ve been contemplating this post for quite a while because I keep bumping into people who ask about my blog and want to know why I write what I write. I’ve had people wonder if I’m in it to make money, or because I fancy myself a good writer (no, to both of those). And I’ve had people get offended that I openly talk about things on my blog that they think I should only talk about with people who are close (in real life) to me.

I’ll tell you first and foremost what drives me to blog, and then I’ll fill in a couple of gaps. You know how the internet is killing off print media and is even doing a number on tv and radio? Well, sure it’s because you can get your news faster and watch pirated videos easier and all that good stuff. But it’s also because for the first time ever, there’s an actual CONVERSATION taking place. People toss around the phrase “online community,” but it’s only as good as the people involved. And just like any community, there has to be give and take. So on a blog, the author puts thoughts out there and the readership responds.

This part is going to offend the lurkers on Verbal Intent, so I apologize in advance. But if you lurk on blogs, you’re basically reading the paper. And the paper is dying. The thing that keeps blogs alive is an active readership that is commenting, and posting, and cross-linking. And even if the readership of Verbal Intent chose to never do that, I would still blog. Because blogging (along with commenting on other blogs) is my way of contributing to the greater online community, something I think is important.

See I read tons of blogs (check out that blogroll on the right!), and throughout the years of reading these blogs I have learned a whole host of things. I learned how to program in PHP by reading blogs. I learned why I should just stick with V-neck shirts by reading blogs. I learned that I love wallpaper and I love that it’s coming back! All from blogs! I formulated many of my political opinions because of blogs. I learned how to get through a miscarriage by reading blogs and participating in communities. And if I don’t give back by commenting and by blogging in return, I am really sucking up the benefits of online community without doing anything to grow it. KINDA LIKE WHAT WE’RE DOING TO OUR NATURAL RESOURCES.

I’ve also benefited greatly from the specific “community” of Verbal Intent since I’ve been blogging. By being the first to open myself up to people who read this blog, I have seen my relationships with them blossom offline in a really cool way. I also got through a really tough loss last year in many ways because of how many of YOU came out of the woodwork to send me emails about your experience with loss and how you got through it. I’ve seen how we can mutually respect each other in that when I ask you to keep your negative opinions to yourself, you did. A whole host of you read that post and never remarked, so I thank you for keeping it to yourself that you think Penelope is a stripper name.

So that’s the “why”, but here’s the “in spite of.” Bloggers face a lot of criticism, even a very little fish in a big pond, as I am. So I have to have a tough shell, or as I often choose to do, only put myself out there when it’s something I’m confident in. Bloggers get a lot of unsolicited advice. But I have learned a lot from unsolicited advice, the biggest lesson being that you can go your own way. Bloggers have to put up boundaries. While it may seem that I’m willing to talk about anything on my blog, that is far from the truth. For instance, I don’t talk about my sex life, because I assume you don’t want to hear about how great Matt is in the sack. And I’ve never spoken about the work I do except in the most positive of lights, because I have some old bosses who read my blog. And straight up, there are still some subjects I call up my sisters or my BFF, Kiki, to discuss over the phone because it’s far too personal and I need their one on one advice. And of course there are many things that I’ll only discuss with Matt, because he’s all I’ll ever need.

I speak about people frequently, but if you haven’t caught onto it yet, if they’re not a celebrity, I will always make myself look like the bad guy. Obviously this isn’t the whole story. There are many many times when people near and dear to me do stupid, rude and mean things to me that really hurt. But this will never be a place for me to rat them out. It’s a place for me to rat me out.

And that brings me to my final point. Will I blog about my kids? Heck yes. Because it’s going to be a crazy new experience for me to be a mom, and I’m going to need help. But not only that, I’m going to be proud! And if they look anything like I did as a kid, they’re going to be flipping cute! But I’ll always use the same rule for my kids as I do for everyone else. I will always show myself to be the inept mom, as this is not a place to rat them out or embarass them.

Is this post as long or longer than a Grateful Dead song? Have I missed anything?

It’s been just shy of two years that I’ve been writing on Verbal Intent, and I thank you for coming along for the ride. I hope you stick around in the future because I really treasure the conversations we have together.