You Should Have Known by Jean Hanff Korelitz

I borrowed You Should Have Known from the library thanks to Swistle’s review. When I picked it up I noticed that on the cover the book’s described as a ’psychological thriller’ which made my heart pound and panic, until my head said, “Calm down, Heart. What’s your favourite book of all time?” and my heart said, “We Need to Talk about Kevin,” and my head said, “…?” and my heart said, “?!” and my head said, “And how do you think that book would be described?” and my heart realised, “Hey! Maybe I actually like reading psychological thrillers! Thanks, Head!” and my head said “No worries” and then there was an awkward silence until I stepped in and asked, “So, do I read You Should Have Known?” and my head and heart both said “Yes.” So I read it over the weekend.

You Should Have Known is about a psychotherapist named Grace who writes a book based on her theory that no relationship breakdown is a complete surprise to the woman involved – if she’d been really listening to what the man was saying from the beginning, she should have known he was a flirt/terrible with money/gay/whatever else and could have picked someone better with whom to share her life, thus saving herself a whole lot of drama. “But how well does Grace know her own husband?” the back cover asks, as ominous music begins to play...

I liked this book. Despite the fact that the story develops slowly and is set in a world I know nothing about (Grace is a New Yorker, to pick just one example), I was hooked fairly early and rather enjoyed the pace. The story is thoroughly and cleverly told, less predictable than I expected, and also far less scary than I feared it would be based on the ‘thriller’ tag; it did keep me awake, but with thoughts of “Hmmm, interesting!” rather than “AARGH, SOMEONE’S COMING TO STAB ME!” This is another novel I want to start up a book club in order to talk about (we can have two meetings now: one for Kevin, and one for You Should Have Known); the book explores the idea of how our relationships (with all people, not just a significant other) are coloured by what’s going on in our own heads, and how we can often get our assumptions wrong. I don’t even know if this is saying too much. 

Read it, and then come to my two-meetings-only book club and let me know what you thought. It’ll be awesome. There’ll be biscuits.

Hazel's birthday

Hazel is one. ONE!

This fact is hard to believe for opposite reasons: I’m feeling both “Has it really been 12 months already? It doesn’t feel like that much time has passed!” and “Has it only been 12 months? It feels as though Hazel’s been around forever!” 

This is Hazel a year ago:

This is her at 6 months old:

And this is her at almost-one, playing a game Moses invented which involves Mo trying to get his finger away before Hazel bites it and makes him cry:

This is Hazel just hanging out:

And this is Hazel stuck in a stool:

(The photo’s terrible because I was laughing so hard taking it quickly so I could then rescue her.)

When Moses was a baby, I’d guess at possible future careers for him based on his interests. I’d imagine me one day telling everyone that we just always knew he was going to be a locksmith (for example), because he was so fascinated by the deadlock on our front door (for example). I’ve been doing the same for Hazel, and I’m pretty sure that when she grows up she’s going to be a vacuum cleaner. We gave up cleaning the floors when Hazel was around 9 months old, preferring instead to let her crawl (“crawl”) around picking everything up and eating it: she gets fed and works on her fine motor skills, and we get spotless floors! Everybody wins! (THIS IS A JOKE.) Based on how often she hears them, I wouldn’t be surprised if her first sentence was either, “That’s not for eating!” or “Hazel! What do you have in your mouth?!” I’ve caught her munching into part of Mo’s leftover vegemite sandwich which I’d thrown in the bin a little earlier, and have also found her sucking on a (dead) cockroach. (UNFORTUNATELY THIS IS NOT A JOKE.)

Hazel loves food. She’s the only non-cartoon-character I’ve ever seen lick her lips when a meal approaches. She lunges at my lunches and races for the bin if I forget to put it up on the bench while doing laundry, and she’s therefore tried lots of things I’d never have given Mo by this age (peri peri sauce, gelato, vegemite sandwich, cockroach, etc.). Peas are her all-time favourite. Apples and pears were fun but now they’re boring. Carrots were fun, but now they’re boring. Peas were fun and now they’re still fun. She loves peas. She refuses to eat anything that has been mashed or in any way baby-fied; she wants whatever everyone else is having. Plus insects.

This is Hazel helping us unpack the shopping:

This is Hazel eating a corn thin with avocado:

And this is Hazel eating woodchips:

Hazel is playful, observant, funny and affectionate. Sometimes her facial expression or smile or the frustrated sound she makes has me wondering if she’s a much older person trapped inside a baby’s body. Over the year she’s morphed from a placid newborn into a spirited almost-toddler. She’s very good at communicating, despite being able to say only three words. Her first word was “no” (she crawls up to power points and as she reaches out to touch them she shakes her head and says “no”). Her second was “Dada” (Moses and I are convinced she says our names too. Sometimes. Mainly when no one else is around to hear it). Her third word was “more.“ She took her first (very wobbly) step two days ago.

Besides food, Hazel loves drinking water through a straw, poking bare bellies, playing peekaboo, having baths, taking the Duplo people out of whatever Mo builds, and being tickled. She loves her big brother, too, most of the time. She hates lying still for nappy changes, having anything she’s holding taken away from her (especially the Duplo people she just stole from whatever Mo built), and not being allowed to eat something that Mo’s eating. She’s very good at copying noises and actions (she holds her hands up for Twinkle Twinkle, and can make an impressive diamond shape when that line rolls around). Her latest tricks include blowing her nose whenever a tissue approaches, blowing her food if it seems too hot, turning around to get down feet first (from the bed or couch), climbing stairs and ladders, and strumming on her lips. Others have said she’s “determined” and “strong-minded,” and I’ve said “OHMYGOODNESS I DON’T THINK I’LL SURVIVE HER AS A THREE-YEAR-OLD.” (They’re great adjectives for an adult, though, so… only 17 years to go now.)

Hazel has a hundred different smiles, ranging from “I find you mildly amusing” to “YOU ARE THE FUNNEST PERSON EVER”, and she makes me want to say gaggy things about apples and eyes.

WE LOVE YOU, Hazely-woo. Happy birthday!

M + H

This post compares Moses and Hazel as babies, and I’m putting it up so that I remember it in future, and not because I think you’ll find this information riveting. Please feel free to skip this post (although look at the photos, because they’re SO CUTE!!!).

Moses and Hazel at 6 months old

My pregnancy with Moses was complication-free but filled with nausea and gagginess. My pregnancy with Hazel started off scarily (which meant it was an anxious 9 months waiting for her to arrive), but didn’t involve anywhere near as much vomit. When pregnant with Mo, I craved risotto. When pregnant with Hazel, I had to stop myself from drinking vinegar, I wanted it so badly. Moses was 4.1kg and 53cm when he was born; Hazel was 4.18kg and 56cm when she was born. Moses didn’t have much hair; Hazel had a lot. Moses has always looked like Alan, with olive skin and brown eyes pretty much from birth. Hazel looks like me and shares my skin and eye colours (her eyes have changed a lot over the year, from blue, to blue-grey, to blue-grey-with-gold-streaks-which-made-the-blue-look-green, to hazel). Moses sounds like “noses.” Hazel rhymes with “nasal.”

Suckiness

Moses was described as a sucky baby before he’d reached 2 weeks old; he loved to suck. (He still sucks his fingers, nearly 4 years later). Because of his suckiness, I could dreamfeed him; he’d stay asleep but happily latch on and suck, and then when he stopped I’d put him back in his cot and creep out again to head to bed myself (the idea was that he’d then have a full enough tummy to let me sleep for a while before calling out for more food; I don’t know that it ever worked, but I kept trying anyway).

Hazel, on the other hand, was not a sucky baby. She’s never sucked anything to go to sleep. The one time I tried dreamfeeding her she lay in my lap, sleeping soundly, and finally turned her head away as if to say, “WHY ARE YOU POKING ME WITH YOUR NIPPLE? IS IT NOT CLEAR TO YOU THAT I’M SLEEPING?!” I felt a right fool, and never tried it again.

Talkiness

My midwife with Mo commented on how chatty he was, even as a newborn. Hazel, on the other hand, was quiet. At one point my mother-in-law asked, “Does she ever cry?” She’s making up for those quiet months now.

Personality

As with Moses, I judged Hazel’s personality too early. At first she seemed very solemn, and I wondered how she’d cope with Alan and me and Mo for her family. And then she went through a long phase of being happy and super chillaxed, to the point where I took photos of her cranky face when we eventually saw it at 5 months old because it was so novel, and I worried that she was too easy-going and that Moses would always take advantage of that, being the older and bigger one. But then, when she was about 9 months old, I watched her respond to Mo stealing a toy from her by shrieking and lunging at him in an attempt to claw out his eyeballs, and I realised she was going to be fine. And since this has become her regular reaction to Mo coming near, even if he’s just leaning in for a kiss, I now worry for him. Hazel knows what she wants (or doesn’t want), and is rather good at communicating this with whoever’s around her. Mo at this age was more laid-back and less assertive. I’m not sure how much of this is to do with birth order, and how much is simply personality.

Although Hazel seems to love people and tries anything to get the attention of strangers when we’re out (she then grins at them when they finally look at her), she’s far happier than Moses was to be on her own sometimes. When she was a baby, she’d lie in her cot and sing to herself for a while after waking up; Moses, on the other hand, wanted to be where the action was as soon as he woke up. Hazel’s okay with me reading  a book while she explores, or even to be left on her own as I duck out to a different room to grab something; Moses had superpowers that allowed him to sense when my attention was diverted even when I’d carefully hidden whatever I was reading so that he wouldn’t be able to see it. I couldn’t leave him on his own in a room without him crying for me, even if I called out a narration of my journey all the way there and all the way back (“I’m just going to grab my glasses, I won’t be gone long, I’m running to the bathroom, I’ve got them now, I’m coming back now, I’m back!!”)

Milestones

While I’ve missed some things about not being part of a mother’s group this time around, I like having no idea which milestone Hazel’s supposed to be up to or what she’s due to do next. It means that each new achievement is more surprising than it was with Mo, and I get to go, “Oh, look! She’s pointing! I forgot that was a thing!” rather than, “I wonder when Hazel will point.” Moses sat up earlier than other babies at mother’s group (4 months), but he didn’t roll for a loooong time after the other kids had mastered it (maybe after 6 months? I can’t remember. I do know that his grandmother started to panic about it). If he was lying down, he’d just stay there. This was handy for changing his nappy; we used to change him on top of a freezer, a metre and a bit off the ground. When we were out I’d wonder why there were straps on change tables: were the makers just covering themselves so they couldn’t be sued? Why else would a change table need straps?! It seemed a little OTT. 

Well, now I know: Hazel is why change tables need straps. If we didn’t change her nappy on the floor, she would not be around to celebrate this birthday. I‘ve had to learn how to dress her as she races away. She’s been dying to move from very early on; she was rolling both ways at 4 months old, and started “crawling” at 6 months. I say “crawling” because it wasn’t really crawling; I don’t even know if I could call it “commando crawling”, unless you picture said commando trying to get to safety after having been shot in the left shoulder and right thigh. It was a rather inefficient way of getting around, but it worked, and so she persisted with it for months despite Mo’s efforts to demonstrate an actual crawl. At 10 months she ditched the injured commando movements and started crawling and pulling herself up; now she’s close to walking judging by how well she stands on her own, but still a little while off judging by her Monty-Python-esque leg movements when she takes steps while I hold her hands. Moses started crawling at exactly 8 months (we hadn’t thought he was close, but he spotted an iPod on the floor at a party, and off he went), and he started to walk at exactly 11.

Together

It’s kinda crazy that though there are only three years between them, Mo and Hazel’s experiences of being a baby will be so very different, probably mostly because Moses was an only child while Hazel has an extra person to dote on her. Moses loves babies, so it hasn’t surprised me that he’s been a huge fan of Hazel’s from the day she was born. Since she’s started to crawl, though, Mo’s realising that little sisters aren’t all about cuddles and laughs, and sometimes they knock over your towers and destroy your Duplo creations. Part of the morning routine before Mo heads to preschool now involves him instructing me, “DON’T LET HAZEL RUIN MY [whatever he’s made]” and part of the afternoon routine before I head out to pick Mo up from preschool involves me frantically piecing buildings back together and hoping Mo won’t notice that it’s not exactly how he left it (he does, and I play dumb; this seems to be working so far).

Hazel’s been a huge fan of Mo’s, too. He’s the only one who’ll let her poke his eyes and pinch his cheeks. She’s generous with smiles, handing them out to anyone who looks interested, but she saves her biggest laughs for Moses (which is rather unfair seeing as Alan and I try much harder, plus we’ve never stolen her toys or sat on her legs so she couldn’t crawl away). The times when I’m about to say, “Be careful, Mo, she’s just a baby!” are the times she’ll crack up. She’s realising, though, that Moses can be annoying and get in her way and take her toys, and she’s starting to make it clear to him that she’s not cool with that. It seems the day is fast approaching when they will drive each other nuts, although I hope even then there are still many moments where I turn around and catch the two of them holding hands.