Hand-Eye Coordination

When my sister and I were little, our dad used to play games with us to improve our hand-eye coordination. One of his favorite games was to throw things at us, often quite hard, and see if we'd respond quickly enough to catch them.  After being hit in the face with various objects a few times, your skill level improves tremendously.

Another favorite game?  Dad would "pass" us food, but we had to catch it in order to eat it.  If you wanted him to pass you a bun, you might have to catch it with your left hand in order to consume it.  Failure meant you had to throw the bun back and try again.

We also played a game in our local cemetery called something like "Ionosphere, troposphere" where dad would throw a baseball or football up in the air (low throws reached the troposphere, higher throws were in the ionosphere range) and we had to catch them.  Often, we'd start with our backs turned to him  and whirl around after he yelled out some atmospheric term, searching the skies for whatever object was destined for our heads.

Those skills were further refined playing racquetball with dad.  I don't think I ever managed to beat him at racquetball, but by undergrad and graduate school, I could easily beat most of the males who ventured onto the court to challenge me (and I wouldn't brag, but most of those males were pompous jerks who thought that I -- as a girl -- shouldn't even be participating on the challenge court.  It was wholly satisfying to demolish them).

I also played tennis throughout my adolescence and through most of my 20s, which only helped to improve my hand-eye coordination.

All of these games paid off.  Many people have complimented me after I've snatched some object out of the air before being conscious of what I was doing.  And it is largely an embodied, unconscious response.  Somewhere along the way, my hands became hardwired to snatch things, especially things flying towards my face.  Not a bad skill to develop.

Of course, all of those unexpected objects flying at my face might also explain my overly developed startle reflex, but that's another post.  Likewise, my foot-eye coordination (which might be the worst I've ever seen), is a story for another time.

All of this self aggrandizing provides the evidence to support my ultimate point:  I have well developed hand-eye coordination.  Or so I thought.

Among other things (such as memory loss, diminished urinary control, and waddling), pregnancy seems to have affected my hand-eye coordination.  As my pregnancy progresses, communication routes between my hands and eyes seem to be shutting down.  My hand-eye coordination deficiencies are most notable when concerning my mouth.  I am losing the ability to put food in my mouth, which is a skill most toddlers have adequately mastered.  (I also seem to drool a lot more and snort when I laugh, but again, these quirks are for another day).

I can handle my food.  I can see my food.  But getting food into my mouth seems to elude me.  Normally, I don't think other people would notice this deficiency, but my growing belly serves as a window into my deteriorating world.  Let me recount an experience from the Friend's School to illustrate what has now become a common humiliation:

The 3rd and 4th grade class had a bake sale last week in order to raise funds for class trips.  "Bake sales" at the school would better be termed "Lunch sales" because you can buy all types of foods, both sweet and savory.  On the menu that day: french bread pizzas (vegetarian or with ham), green salad, potato salad, and a variety of desserts.  I was standing in line to clean up my plate, after enjoying a delicious lunch of bake sale items when one of the older students approached me.

"Kate, I bet I can guess what you had for lunch!"

"Oh yeah?"  I responded, silently adding "smart ass" to my challenge.

"Yeah, let's see . . . you definitely had pizza.  I think you chose a piece with ham.  You had green salad.  You also had the chocolate cake with colored sprinkles.  Oh, and I think you had the pineapple juice."

Damn.  He was dead on.  Didn't miss an item.

"You cheated," I said.  "You must have seen me eating."

"Nope, I swear I didn't", he said, as he smiled triumphantly and pointed to my shirt.  I looked down and there the evidence lay scattered and smeared like material artifacts of an archaeological investigation.  A mountain of french bread crumbs sprinkled my belly, along with a dribble of pineapple juice, a piece of lettuce, a rogue carrot shred, and chocolate cake remnants mixed with a few sprinkles.

It was more difficult to keep the "smart ass" to myself after realizing the little smart ass had duped me and that I looked like a complete slob.

Looking like a slob seems to have become the norm rather than the exception.

I can no longer wear a shirt more than once, because it inevitably becomes stained with food that was destined for my mouth.  I find that no matter how hard I concentrate, food won't stay on my fork long enough to make it to my mouth.  Direct hand to mouth contact (sans fork) doesn't seem to help either.  Somewhere along the way things go south.  Literally.

If I'm lucky enough to get food into my mouth, it doesn't seem to want to stay there.  It just falls out.

Ernesto's mom and sister have told me that they have enjoyed watching me eat while pregnant because I seem to eat with, as they put it, "such gusto".  From their perspective, it appears as if I eat with a never before seen sense of meaning.  That food has taken on a new and joyous role in my life.  Certainly some foods taste better now than they did before -- especially given that I was coming off of three months where everything made me want to puke.  But really, I think they might mistake gusto with concentration, as I struggle to unite hands, eyes, and mouth in an epic battle to delivery food down my throat rather than on the tablecloth or my belly.

I don't know why my hand-eye (and mouth) coordination has failed me, all I know is that the affliction appears to be worsening as the pregnancy progresses, or is perhaps only more obvious as my protruding belly acts as a wider and wider canvas capable of preserving the evidence of my failures.

We've received a lot of baby bibs for Santiago.  I am now beginning to think that a more necessary shower gift is a maternity bib.  It's not the most dignifying thing to wear a bib while eating, but I'm starting to think that dignity and my third trimester might be incompatible anyway.