Almost.

I don't usually pay much attention to my horoscope, but I was led to this one in sort of a weird way, and it's pretty damn uncanny.

ARIES [March 21–April 19] I don't think I'm being unduly optimistic when I say that you're on the verge of achieving a victory over your bad self. You have been dealing more forthrightly with the lowest aspects of your character and have also become aware of the difference between your out-and-out unregenerate qualities and the unripe aspects of your character that may someday become very beautiful. There's a second sign that you're close to transforming one of the most negative things about you: You have almost figured out the truth about a murky curse that you internalized some time ago. When you identify it, you will know how to banish it forever.

Oh, the look on my face when I read this horoscope. I think I'm going to have to subscribe to this zodiac guy (Rob Breszney). You don't have to know me well to know that I've been battling some demons lately. Let's break it down, shall we?

I don't think I'm being unduly optimistic when I say that you're on the verge of achieving a victory over your bad self.

True. After a bit of soul-searching, discussion, and some hormone shifts, I am feeling a lot better about things.

You have been dealing more forthrightly with the lowest aspects of your character and have also become aware of the difference between your out-and-out unregenerate qualities and the unripe aspects of your character that may someday become very beautiful.

What are the lowest aspects of my character? I suppose this hearkens back to my little essay about my dad, that whole Edwards why-am-I-worth-the-space-I-take-up thing. It's so easy for me to feel very bad about myself, not so much in a self-pitying way, but in a self-berating way. I start feeling useless. And to sum up, I often feel like I'm not making my parents proud, which is one of my biggest motivations in life. I don't know if that's a good motivation to have or not.

Anyway, one of my worst character flaws is that I tend not just to feel like I'm not worthy of my parents' pride, but to feel that I will never and can never be worthy of it. Total uselessness. Total despair.

Moving on to unripe aspects. I hope and pray that I will someday become the woman I'm forever striving to be. Someone successful, secure, happy. Someone worth being proud of. Someone who can tackle things with confidence. And I'm starting to see that a little bit, as far as my job goes. I'm forced to deal with strangers, so that's getting easier. And as I teach more lessons, I'm becoming more confident in myself as a tutor. I can be good at this.

There's a second sign that you're close to transforming one of the most negative things about you: You have almost figured out the truth about a murky curse that you internalized some time ago. When you identify it, you will know how to banish it forever.

That "almost" is a key word here. And I am figuring it out. The more I read books and forums and articles about parenting, the more I think about how I was raised, and how I'm going to do things differently.

I have always felt that my parents did a very good job, and my relationship with them is great. But they weren't perfect; no parents are. I was an extremely sensitive child, and very shy. I only realized this fully when I worked at the after-school program, and realized that no child there, no matter how shy, was as painfully shy as I was as a kid. I found it humiliating to talk to strangers. I turned bright red at the drop of a hat. I was so sensitive to the anger and disappointment of my parents that I'm kind of surprised they ever really had to punish me. My little sister was the button-pusher in the family, and made my parents (especially my dad) angry with no fear. Meanwhile I walked on eggshells to avoid making waves of any kind.

(And here I'm sure my sister will remind me that we did fight with each other, and that obviously made our parents angry, and I most certainly initiated most of those fights. I won't deny that I did my utmost to piss off my sister, which is what I was punished for 90% of the time I had to be punished.)

I was such a sensitive child that I couldn't take a joke or a tease or an off-color comment lightly. I remember just about every negative thing my parents ever said to me, stuff that they've long forgotten.

I remember when my sister was a baby and crying a lot, as babies do, and I said to my mom, "Don't you wish you'd never had her?" (What? I was FOUR.) And she said, "Maybe I wish I'd never had you." This sent me into a fountain of tears, instantly. Probably not the most sensitive thing she could've said to me, but in retrospect she was trying to say "That's not nice, Miranda. What if someone said something like that to you?" What I heard, very clearly, was: "I wish I'd never had you." Years later, when I was still a kid, I reminded my mom of this incident and she said she didn't remember it, and would never have said that to me. But it's burned into my memory.

I cried a lot as a kid. Bedtime was often a source of tears, because I would lay in bed thinking about things, and end up mulling over something that upset me. (I've always been a poor sleeper; as far back as I can remember, it has always taken me an hour or more to fall asleep after going to bed.)

Once when I was a second-grader, I came out to the living room long after bedtime, in tears, and wailed to my parents that I had no best friend. All my friends seemed paired up with each other, and I was the odd one out. My dad, frustrated from many nights in a row of me coming out to the living room with sob-stories, made the grumpy retort: "Oh Miranda, why are you always thinking about things?" Again, the insensitive response of a tired parent, which I understand now that I'm an adult. At the time, I heard "I don't care about your problems, and you've made me angry by bringing them up." Again, etched into my memory forever.

These slips made by my parents were the exception, not the rule, of their parenting. On the whole they were very loving, supportive, everything good parents should be. But it just goes to show how much of an impact words can have on a sensitive child.

It's a lesson for me as a parent. My goal with Téa is to help her to be a more secure child than I was, and a more confident woman than I am.

Nightmares

My worst dreams are about Téa's skin. People tattooing her without my permission; her skin inexplicably torn and falling off in strips.

When she was born, before I saw her, the doctor told me that she had two "lesions"-- one on her face, and one on her hand. He used the word "lesion." My heart sank and I wondered what kind of disfigured monster I had created.

They showed her to me finally, and she had a beauty mark on her cheek. And a mark on the back of her left hand, that we thought must be a bruise, but it turned out to be a Mongolian spot. A greyish-blue birthmark. I still haven't forgiven that doctor for frightening me like he did.

What strikes fear into my heart is somehow marring this beautiful, perfect girl. I don't let her into the kitchen while I'm cooking. If I'm carrying hot coffee into the living room, I make the widest berth possible around her. I warm up her food and then wait till it's cold again before giving it to her. If she's out of my sight, worst-case scenarios start popping into my mind.

I can't help but think that somehow, someday, something is going to happen to her. I've lived a life of very few tragedies. I keep feeling like I'm due for one. I keep thinking, "I need to enjoy her as much as possible while I can; she may not live to be any older." I try to think how I would cope with it if she died. I read stories about babies her age dying-- I force myself to read them, and yet I can't help but read them with a morbid sort of gluttony, like they're some kind of horrifying pornography. Babies her age can die. They die all the time. They die so easily.

I examine her chubby, perfect body and think, "How easily this could be dead." A sick thrill of fear runs through me. I pray that she'll be spared, that somehow her delicate little body will survive this dangerous world unscathed.

Almost as much as I worry about her dying, I worry that I am doing everything wrong for her. That she'll end up developmentally delayed or autistic because of me. I worry about this every single day, almost constantly. I worry because my 11 month old isn't talking yet. She's not even close to the age where I should worry about her not talking.

She's a very happy child, seemingly intelligent, and does amazing, cute things like dancing, and is learning to clap, and babbles nonstop, and has started nodding while she does it, as if she's very convinced of what she's babbling about. She's incredibly active, and has taken her first steps. She's also very social; she smiles at people on the train and at the playground. She stares at people until they smile back at her. If she spends any time at all with new people, she'll crawl into their laps.

And still I worry. I feel like I'm a terrible mother. I'm actually, for the first time, starting to consider not having another child, because I don't feel good enough. I always thought we'd have another to round out the family, but things are hard enough with one. What makes me think I deserve another?

How I spent my summer vacation

Summer is quickly coming to an end and we survived. There were ups and downs, as there always are. But most importantly, we survived.

Highlights:

• Téa cut two teeth and is currently cutting her third. Teething is hell.
  
• I joined a Brooklyn moms group and actually met some other women. Slightly awkward since they were all about 10 years older than me and much wealthier, but socializing was still refreshing.
• I found a $50 bill on the ground.
  
• We went to Maine for a week. Téa and I went up alone on a midnight-to-8am bus ride, and she was very well behaved. It was absolutely wonderful to be around my family. However,
• I did not get invited to the wedding of one of my high school friends. There's been some drama between us, but it's long past, or so I thought. It hurt a lot, because EVERYONE else was invited and it would've been so great to see everyone again. I'm still bitter about that.
  
• The week after we went to Maine was one of the worst weeks I've had since Téa was born. I was ridiculously depressed and anxious. I'm still fighting off the depression, and I'm starting to wonder if it isn't PPD.
  
• The August heat wave was god-awful. Next summer we are getting AC, I don't care what it costs. I refuse to spend any more time in a humid 90-degree apartment with a sticky, grumpy child.
  
• One of the root causes of that horrible week was me fretting about starting work. Starting a new job always causes me ridiculous levels of anxiety; I hate doing things when I'm not entirely sure what I'm doing. And there was just no alleviating the anxiety until I had my first lesson with a student. I've now taught four lessons, and I feel completely better about it. It's actually fun, something I look forward to. It's nice to get out of the house.
• The day before yesterday, Téa took her first steps. Three in a row. She hasn't repeated it since, but she has been practicing standing up all on her own, which is very cute. Most of the time she'll stand up just so she can dance. She loves dancing, and actually has rhythm, which amazes us.
  
• Anthony started a part-time job. It's only 4 to 6 hours a week; on Wednesdays and Thursdays he goes to work early so he can go to his second job afterward, and comes home late. Both of us working part-time is great for our financial situation, but those long days are rough. Mothers were not meant to stay home alone with babies day in and day out with no friends or family. You know those stories of depressed moms who kill their children? Andrea Yates? Yeah, that all makes sense to me now.
  

Don't get me wrong, I'm not going to kill my baby, no matter how tempting it sometimes is. But there are times when I REALLY REALLY need a break, and there's no break in sight. My mom is hundreds of miles away. My best friends live several states away. My in-laws... let's not go there. But there is no help. And when Téa is teething, and it's hot, and I can't stop her crying, and I haven't showered in days, and it's been almost a year since I had a stretch of sleep more than a few hours... You see where I'm going with this. Sometimes (OFTEN) I think Anthony can't possibly appreciate what I do and how insane it is driving me.

And that's a whole other rant I don't want to get into.

Basically Téa's at that tough age where she's getting around like a toddler, but there's no communicating with her. I've heard this described as "legs without brains." I know toddlerhood marks the beginning of a tough stage of meltdowns and defiance, but I look forward to being able to communicate somewhat.

Anyway, like I said, we survived. And the summer heat has thankfully abated. We'll get into our groove, hopefully.