One Week

I haven't quit many jobs. Now, I went through a span for a couple of years that every place I worked at would either close, or have their office condemned or some one would urinate on my desk but leaving those jobs is simple. Your resume is a mess and at a certain point you wonder am I asking for this somehow but leaving is pretty easy. You get up and you go home. Sometimes you turn some one in for tax fraud.

I've worked at current company for eight years. I've changed jobs a bunch of times in there but kept plugging away at this company. I've worked very hard, been a very good employee and yeah, I am struggling with leaving. Not because I am not thrilled to--I am. This is the right decision for me and for my family and though it is going to be an adjustment I believe in a year I will be here writing about how I wish I had done it all sooner.

It's hard leaving because I feel like I am not being treated the way I should be. This sounds bizarre right, I quit, so why do I care. But I did the right thing, I gave notice and am working very hard to leave the place better than I found it. So why are they acting like I betrayed some one personally? I didn't have an affair--I am not even going to work for a competitor--I am just doing something different. I suppose this attitude is part of why I am leaving in the first place.

So I am going to work every day. Trying to do a good job. And well, I am getting the silent treatment. But the great news is that I only have to do it for one more week.

Happy Father's Day

My husband has a complicated relationship with his father. It's not my story to tell but it's a situation where I am in awe that he sees him. It takes a great deal of effort to see his father, to deal with his social issues, to hold his temper, to cope with the complicated feelings that it always brings up. J is usually angry when the visits are over--they never go well. He will have a headache, he will be sad, and he will feel relief that, for now, it is over with.

I can tell you that I would have given up probably ten years ago.

I think that he continues with the relationship out of guilt, naturally, but also because he wishes things were different. And J believes in the best in people. I know that his father will not change, and I am sure J knows it too, but there is always that hope.

I am proud of him for being the kind of person who keeps trying, even though as recently as this morning I was pretty much yelling "TELL HIM NO FOR THE LOVE OF GOD TELL HIM NO," but I am even more proud of the kind of father he is for our daughter. And more than a little smug because I knew he would be.

The two of them are crazy for each other. It is like watching two teenagers falling in love and hanging on to each other's every word--without the humping. They have inside jokes and their little rituals. They hold hands and giggle and it is a little sickening. I can't imagine a circumstance that would make their relationship change into what he has with his dad. I am pretty sure it would involve a lobotomy and possibly some sort of imprisonment. Our daughter will grow up knowing her father loves her every single day of her life.

I feel so lucky to have him as my husband, to build our family together. And though I find his complicated relationship with his father frustrating I know that it is just part of the package. He wants to keep that relationship because he knows what it means to love your child.

Brave

I remember when I could keep a thought in my head. This was years ago, obviously, because now I am a scattered woman and I am likely to say "what was I going to tell you" at least three times if we talk long enough. This past week has been particularly bad, as my brain is smoking from all the spinning around it's been doing.

This is my shitty explanation for not writing.

Also. I was supposed to quit my job today.

I would have, and will tomorrow, which is why I feel ok saying this here, but my boss didn't come to work. Hard to quit if he isn't there. Though I will tomorrow, no matter what. This will force me to anyhow.

There are a million reasons. Some of them having to do with the normal soul sucking work stuff, and some not. Many that involve just the shit that is being a working mother (and lord I believe all mother's are working mothers--we all just have to figure out how to make that work WORK). I have another job lined up, one doing something that I had given up doing for a living long ago. I will make a whole lot less money--which makes me wake up at night in a sweat. But also this job will give me more time to do some other things that need doing. Spend time with my daughter. Have a life.

Also, I will stop being so angry. I hope. I am not an angry person. Which might be a hard argument to make here since all I do is rage. But mostly I am not an angry person. But lately I walk into my office, read three emails, take a phone call and turn into the Hulk. I start smashing up furniture and tearing up phone books and really--who can afford a new wardrobe all the time from their muscles bursting through fabric? I don't like being angry, which shouldn't shock anyone. Don't like teaching my daughter that is how adults should be. Don't like how I feel all the time. And since I am lucky enough to do something else, I am.

I am also freaking out about it. Really truly frightened.

I do tend to think that if you are scared it doesn't count though.

I am not a brave person. I don't take risks. But I have come to realize that nothing will ever happen if I just don't JUMP already. So I am. Tomorrow morning you will probably hear me screeching over the edge--making that Goofy wail like in the cartoons.

This is me being Brave.

Welcome Sun

The first year my family moved here from Iowa none of us wore coats. It just never got cold enough for us to upgrade from rain slickers (this is where we stood out as no one here wears raincoats for some reason). And in the summer, my mother was harpied by the other mothers for letting me play outside when it was eighty degrees. Apparently Northwestern children's brains cook in temps above 75. Considering my mother didn't allow us to wear shorts until is was 75 (a rule that was scrapped that first year) she thought those ladies were very silly. The climate here is mild here, is what I am saying, and well as a group we lose our damn minds when things go up or down the thermometer (exhibit A our crazy ice storm this winter which wiped out the city for two weeks).

It's been over eighty degrees here for almost a week. Sweet delicious sun, the kind that makes the evenings stay warm. This is weather that the rest of the country takes for granted but there are about eight nights a year in Seattle where you don't need at least a windbreaker (yes, I have been here twenty years so I wear coats now I am WEAK AND PITIFUL). Everyone has lost their collective shit and are sunbathing in the streets and wearing flip flops to the office. And well, there is whining about how HOT IT IS.

I admit it, our weather service has issued a heat advisory because it is supposed to be ninety degrees this week. Before you laugh your asses off, and it is funny, remember how amazing unprepared people here are for any sort of heat.

1. There is no air conditioning. So all of you that think "what wimps" while turning up your AC just know that my house is over eighty degrees right now and it is 8:30 at night. If we want AC we go to the movies.

2. Ditto for fans. A lot of people don't have them and I had to school several people at work about how to use box fans to exhaust your house.

3. People are just stupid. They will stay out in the weather for hours an hours, doing outdoorsy things--because Northwesterners who are not me are very outdoorsy--and not drink water, take shade or wear sunscreen. Lots of sun poisoning headed this way.

4. I think the sun is a little like the full moon to other parts of the country. It gives everyone an excuse to do foolish things.

So be prepared for hilarious national news stories about all the stupid shit that Seattlites have done in their "heat wave." We didn't make big enough asses of ourselves in the snow.

Pretty in YES Pink

There was a lot of chuckling when I found out I was having a daughter. If you are a woman, but not girly, not traditionally feminine, it seems that other women especially are eager to have you pay in some way for that. How dare you be different? A lot of people broke out the pitchforks, eager to poke me in the thighs so that I would dress my daughter in pink.

My mother gets an exemption for this. That poor woman walked over all of creation trying to find dresses for me without frills. Or ruffles. Or lace. Or adornment of any kind. That were not pink. In Iowa. During the 80's. Yes, I wore a lot of sailor dresses. And yes, she really does love me.

But everyone else seemed to think that I would have to start liking dolls and lace and decorate my kid's room in pink. And I didn't and people fretted and harpied me and wow, do people need to butt out. I have been bitched at for dressing my child like a boy and painting her room aqua and for not putting bows in her hair. Our definition of girlhood seems sort of stupid to me--there is nothing wrong with any of those things but it seems sad to me that those are the only things that should matter.

Secretly I didn't think this would matter. My girl would wear track pants and Ramones t-shirts and Converse sneakers. And she DOES. But there are also dresses that twirl a bit and the way she demands hair cream after her bath and her obsession with her mary jane shoes.

For the record my daughter has a doll, and a doll stroller. She has bears and books and blocks and toy kitchen. I bought many of things for her or bossed some one else into buying them.

And for the record she wears pink! Hot pink, usually, because she is pale like me and pastels aren't her colors.

And she wears dresses. Though this is her choice. Because my girl loves dresses. If given the choice she will always choose a dress. I usually put them over pants because this is the northwest and it is usually rainy or chilly and also girlfriend has enough bruises without going pantsless all over the universe. But her love of dresses is enough that I have bought half a dozen in the past couple of weeks--I don't want to do too much laundry.

I do this not because I have to but because she loves them. Because they make her laugh and beam and smile. And I will keep cruising the sale racks, finding fun and funky dresses I know my girl will love. I do this because I want to.

I don't have to do anything.

At Least Let Me Nap

I found it vaguely insulting that J was so insistent that I would need help with the baby this weekend. I am fully capable of taking care of my child for Fuck's Sake. But, as anyone with a young toddler can tell you, killing daylight with a child with fully mobility and shitty judgement is daunting. Four days of being trapped in this house would probably be a bit much.

Yesterday I hauled her ass to my mother's. This is not as much for help as you might think. Now I am grateful for my mother, and her assistance (and am painfully aware of how many of my friends are not so lucky to have supportive families), but dragging my kid, the dogs, all of their assorted crap and my shit to her house for an overnight is not a relaxing thing. Her house isn't childproofed at all. So constant vigilance is needed. Fortunately, Mo is pretty great about bringing you all of the dangerous objects in the house immediately just to get the heart attacks out of the way.

Few things. Disposable diapers really smell awful. How do people deal? Also, they leak and explode. Every time I've used disposables she has had shit spurting up her back. It makes no sense that people make fun of my cloth diapering her when disposables (and we've used different brands) are so awful. And SMELL. Good lord.

The kid didn't nap. We are having work done in the backyard and we left early yesterday because they were so loud I knew she wouldn't sleep. Not that it helped. She got up at FIVE THIRTY this morning. GODDAMN. If this is a preview of our trip later this morning I will be returning home in a body bag. She was exhausted after one night. I am beat to a pulp. The poor dogs ran around like crazies.

Oh and my mother is on Facebook now. GOOD LORD.

Four Day Weekend Baby

The soundtrack of my life is the squeaky keen of a toddler. All day long she chatters and screeches and wails. It is like living with a scarily large and bald parakeet. Since there is no way on earth to make the kid shut up we are trying to channel that noise into learning animal noises.

Y'all I didn't just go to college I graduated from kindergarten so I have the basics covered. I can moo and baaa and say woof. We have added in monkey and kitty and now fancy things like owls. But I admit there are some animals that have me stumped. WHAT DO TURTLES SAY? Or giraffes? Do they stare in stony-faced silence because that is all I was able to come up with.

In other ways I am failing my child she has started having very occasional, but volcanic tantrums. In infant mode you just are trying to soothe your child. But I feel like we have grooved over to toddler mode and the tantrums are not something to be soothed away.

So I put her in her room (WITH TOYS OR THE INJUSTICE) and well, I apologize West Coast for that shaking at 4:43 pm this afternoon. That was my child cracking open the center of the earth with the power of her rage.

In other news she hates me. Just in time for J to go away for the weekend. I suspect when he gets home we will either have improvement in the tantrums or well I will move to Hawaii and J can deal with her ass. He is going to a music festival this weekend and we are doing the vaccination appointment tomorrow followed by the toddler tour to my mother's house. She will probably have no need for tantrums because Grandma will give her anything she wants. Even dictators can't bitch if they are catered to. At least not much.

I am pretty sure I can convince my mother to make me breakfast Sunday and go with me to Ikea so I am all set.

Fell

I fell down the stairs today, at work. I was mincing down the stairs in my ridiculous shoes--with high wedge heels that make me look like I had foot binding done (they are, I am sorry to say, by J. Lo)--I always mince on the stairs because well otherwise I will fall. BAM, the stairs went flat like I was in a fun house.

I went down the whole flight, pretending that none of it was happening to me. I didn't scream or make any noise. And when I looked up everyone the next floor up was standing at the edge of the stairs staring at me. Nobody said anything.

It's weird when something like that happens to me, oh and they happen a LOT, my urge is to keep quite. To ignore the situation. If no one sees it it isn't real. So I got up and smiled at that crowd of people and practically sprinted back to my cube. I don't know how I got to be the kind of person who doesn't want anyone to watch her fall--or check to make sure she is alright. I wish I was a screamer, the kind of woman who beats off an attacker with a heavy pocketbook while tweeting her police whistle. Instead I would probably apologetically hand him my handbag and then look around embarrassed.

On the bus on the way home another rider admired the shoes. So there is that.

Happy Mother's Day

I remember sitting at a table with a lot of women I know, drinking cocktails, when I mentioned that I was meeting my mother for lunch that day. All around the table there were understanding shakes of heads and groans. All of them were commiserating on the unluckiness of having to meet Mom for lunch.

The problem was that I didn't really understand how they felt. Back then I met my mother for lunch or shopping or just went to her house to hang out pretty much weekly. We would drink wine, eat french fries, shop and not buy anything on any given Sunday. My mother has never once criticized me. She has liked some of my haircuts enough to copy them. She has never called me fat or bitched about my clothes. She has never once been unkind to me.

My biggest regret about my mother is that every woman I know doesn't have one just like her.

When I was six months pregnant she and I were eating cheeseburgers when she hung her head a bit and admitted she worried that things would change. I knew just what she meant. She was thrilled that I was having a baby--had privately prayed for that (no pressure) for years--but we had a good run going. It seemed impossible that we could enjoy each other so much with a baby. I had to tell her that I was worried too. Worried that I wouldn't make her proud, that she would try to parent my daughter, that I wouldn't measure up.

I have to say that from here we were right to worry and things have definitely changed. We don't meet for leisurely lunches or wander around aimlessly now. But I can say that my mother has still never said an unkind word to me. That she provides the reassurance that she thinks I am a great mom that I think no one can hear enough. She is crazy about my daughter and Mo is mad for her.

My mom told me once that our friendship was the prize for surviving the year I turned thirteen. We were not always so close, though we never fought the way she fought with my sister (I saved that for my dad). She has held my hand through some very difficult times and laughed with me during more good times. When I was two weeks postpartum she came and fed me roast chicken when I hadn't eaten in days. She comes to my house every week and never once wrinkles her nose at my messy house. She gives great advice and even listens to mine in return.

I think our friendship is my prize for not killing her when I was thirteen. And I hope that Mo is watching it--absorbing it through her pores. I hope that one day when she is older, and I take care to treat her with kindness and never ever criticize her hair, she will go out to lunch with me and bug me about my skincare and be my friend. I hope that one day she will have a baby and understand what I now know about my mother: she can't stand to criticize me because my sister and I split her wide open. She can't love anything as much as she does us. And nothing that could ever happen would change that.

That is a truth that I knew always but didn't KNOW until now. I am so grateful that Ramona taught me that. And so very lucky that my mother feels that way about me.

I hope that all of you are so fortunate.

Aquarium

In the past few weeks family life has definitely transitioned from oh the baby is a toddler now to OH THE BABY IS A TODDLER. What I fear would happen with the baby home with my MIL all day is happening. Girl is stir crazy in the evenings and on weekends. It's still a good arrangement for us all but we do have to plan to wear the be-diapered ass of some one.

Saturday we took her to the aquarium. We were treated with joyous cries of SHISH and much gleeful running around. Fortunately, on a rainy day the aquarium was full of similarly happy but psychotic children. It was a little like a frat party with sippy cups. And less booze. Every child there screamed NEMO at each tank. My child kept calling the seals GOGS.

Then yesterday she turned into a whirling dervish of rage and irrational tears. My parents got to witness an epic meltdown as she wailed for her daddy (because I am nothing! this is the gratitude that nine months of nausea, heartburn and having your intestines pulled out gets you). We dragged her to the park where she screamed and stomped because I wouldn't let her run down a ramp into the parking lot. Here is where I flip the bird at every fucking person who glared at me at that park because we were outside! Not at a goddamn library! Was I supposed to take her indoors at that point?

A tiny bipolar being lives in my house--she is the size of leprachaun and has the vocal projection of an opera singer. She makes dramatic faces if there are no strawberries for breakfast. She claps her hands every single time the Daddy finds Knuffle Bunny in her favorite book. She will walk over to her kitchen and hit the switch on the blender when I say "Make Mama a margarita." When I was having a bad day she came over, crawled in my lap and tried to cram her binky in my mouth (I tried it and I confess it was comforting). We get in daily arguments about the fucking dishwasher and how babies DON'T TOUCH. Every day is the best day of her life until you thwart whatever evil plot she has involving the toilet. And LORD HELP YOU if you try to clean shit off of her ass even if that is clearly what is making her crabby.

But she is a blast at the aquarium.

Bus Mishap

Every morning I wake up at five am, rush around to get dressed and hurry to get on a bus that leaves at 5:55 am. It is a surprisingly full bus, considering that no one should ever willingly go to work that early. Commuter buses, as a rule, are not nearly as lively as city buses. We do get our occasional drunk but mostly it is guys in suits, a few construction workers in hard hats and a couple of girls doing a very devoted commute in to a private high school downtown. People mostly nap, nurse a coffee or listen to music. Some read books or the newspaper. And there is one really obnoxious lady who whispers louder than I speak in the front. Usually about how bad her cramps are, or how they were last month or how horrible she is sure they will be next month.

It's quiet is my point, at least the morning one. Except this morning. When a plastic compartment on the ceiling exploded.

Apparently coolant on buses is circulated throughout the carriage and there is a tank above the center aisle. One that popped open and leaked a shit load of liquid all over everyone and the floor.

We were all lucky and no one was really hurt. The engine started smoking and there were fumes but the bus immediately pulled over. The worst injury was a twisted ankle from a woman who slipped on the wet floor. Another woman had gotten splashed and had a small chemical burn on her face. Most people were like me--annoyed and late for work with a small chemical rash on my foot from wearing open toed shoes in a coolant flood.

Of course on the way home I found myself sort of inspecting the ceiling. No need to take a coolant bath twice in one day.

Bitter

Am struggling with the end of the school year countdown feeling I have.

Since I haven't been in school well . . .FOR A REALLY LONG TIME.

Wouldn't it be awesome if your job could be like school once in a while. I mean I would love to go home at three every day. And actually get a lunch. And summer vacation? Brilliant. But also, that sort of do-over feeling that September brings. That you could build on what you learned but also begin something new and be better than you were the year before.

Adult work has this way of running together. And eight years later you look around and go wait . . .it's been eight years. That is longer than junior high and high school together. Where is my cap and gown?!

At any rate my brain is cycling down to finals week and tick tock tick tock my psyche is about to be bitterly disappointed. The summer is coming but I will not be spending it sleeping in and working on my tan.

There is actually no point to this. I am just bitter about being an adult sometimes.

Buy Me A Mini Van Because I Think I Am One of Those Moms

If you are a shameful, stumbling cliche like me and read tons of mommyblogs you have seen the meme about Five Reasons I Love Being a Mom. I haven't been tagged but I wanted to do it anyway. I am trying to really live in the moment with the baby and enjoy it. Since I am a What's Next kind of person this is hard for me.

What is also hard for me is to admit how cheesily I love being a mom. Longtime readers know that I am a cynical person. I had no illusions about motherhood and I am not a romantic. But you might also recall that I longed for a child. She was wished for, hoped for in a way that is vaguely embarrassing. And it was embarrassing because I didn't know why. There was no logic behind it, I just knew I wanted a family.

I didn't expect to love it so much.

Of course it is drudgery. And the lack of personal time and space and the ability to sleep in EVER is torture. And I would never suggest to anyone that they cannot be happy without children as sometimes it is mind numbing and eyeball searing and I really really want to run away to Brazil.

But then there are these five things, and countless more, that make me so happy to be her mother. I can't help it.

1. She loves popcorn (oh I know you are not supposed to give toddlers popcorn, close that OMG email--but she is a good chewer and we heavily supervise). And so sometimes we sit on the couch and eat a bowl together. We try to crunch louder, we dance, we feed some to the dogs. Something so simple as a bowl of popcorn makes her so thrilled. It makes me savor both the snack and her more than I ever would otherwise.

2. J and I have been together almost ten years. And we have bonded in a way that you only can being in a relationship like that. And I knew he would be an amazing father. But watching him with her breaks your heart wide open. Parenting her together has really changed how we relate to each other. And makes me love him even more.

3. Her favorite book has a page that features Eight Buzzy Bugs. And we always tickle her belly on that page. Except now if you even say buzzy bugs (or are on the page before) she starts to tickle her own self. And laugh. And laugh. It kills me dead with the cute and her laugh is the best music I have ever heard. No adult laughs like that. They are too worried everyone is staring at them.

4. This is also a hard thing about being a mother for me. But people are drawn to my daughter. I think because she is cute, objectively cute, but also because she really looks people in the eye. She flirts, she asks for their attention. So she is often the star of the play area or the child old men stop to talk to. Since I am socially stunted and she can't talk well . . .I muddle through. But she thinks the whole world is her friend and right now they are. It's a beautiful way to see people and I am learning it more each day. Plus some small talk ability because her ten words make shitty conversation.

5. I put her to bed almost every night (J does it once a week because I need a break and because WOW I do not want to have it become I can't leave the house around bedtime until she is thirty). If I get it together and give her a bath she smells like baby shampoo. But always she is warm and soft and in footie pajamas. It is the one time you can be certain she wants to snuggle. We read stories and she drinks the only bottle she gets all day. We talk about our days. And I sing her the Shema as I zip her into her sleep sack. Those are the 10-15 minutes that I look forward to every day. And when I miss them, the way I did last night, I feel restless and sad. Even on J's night I have to fight myself from drifting in there.

And now I will go scrape the cheese off of myself with a Ritz cracker.

Glamour Girl

Well, that outage was unexpected. J upgraded my laptop which was supposed to take less than two days and it turned into two weeks. Of course I had access to his computer but really if I can't read the internet from my bed than I don't use it? I didn't know this about myself but it does seem in keeping my character.

So two weeks without internet and I am going to tell you about yesterday. This is mommyblogging GOLD people. The child wakes up at six am but we're good. We eat waffles, we watch Sesame Street, we are playing ball. It's J's sleep in day which is a religious experience in this house--we don't disturb sleep-in day unless the house is burning down. And even then, it is to be done in a quiet manner--better to just roll up the other person in a rug and scoot them out to the front lawn undisturbed if possible.

So the kid and I are playing. There is a big rubber ball involved, she is using her baby doll to club the ball and it is fun. There is laughing. And then a bird flew at her head and we both screamed our faces off.

YES A BIRD. FLEW IN MY HOUSE! AND TRIED TO EAT MY BABY!

I don't know exactly how the bird got in the house and I really didn't know how to get the damn thing out. I tried and the baby cried and screamed and lost her mind. After twenty minutes I gave up, the child was hysterical and I had to go wake up J. Mo and I huddled with her blankie in room, talked about books and sang songs and then the bird was gone. We had a drink--hers was milk and mine was a Coke. GOOD MORNING EVERYONE.

Our day progressed. We had a great family day and got home in time to put the kid down for a much needed nap. She hadn't pooped yet and yes, those are chimes of DOOM you are hearing. All I know is that J went to get her because she was freaking out, almost passed out from the smell and the second I heard "OH MY GOD" I fired up the bathtub. There was a half off diaper, a sleep sack that needed a lot hot water and a baby who got an afternoon swim in the tub.

I am very sorry ya'll missed out on the glamour the last couple of weeks. But I am back and maybe now my laptop won't burn up in flames every night.

On Our Own

The Jewish calendar still doesn't come naturally to me. Since we don't have Jewish family and we still haven't joined a temple, we don't have traditions to lean on. And Reform Judaism really is about finding your own meaning in the rituals and holidays. It's hard to do on your own and we have really begun by each year layering on more observance. I guess we figure that when we find the right amount for us we'll know it.

As a side note, this seems to really piss of some people--none of whom are Jewish. Because to this segment of the population the whole point of Judaism is to keep kosher? I don't really understand their point really, except that they all happened to be Christian (though by no means are all Christians like this) and they would get het up about us not keeping over 200 commandments when I can say without assurance that those assholes weren't even really keeping up with their ten.

All of this means that last night was the first night of Passover and well . . .I had ice cream for dinner. We didn't go to a Seder (and fuck it, next year we are going to a couple of community Seder and I am attaching myself to old Jewish ladies until one teaches me how to make matzo ball soup!). But this year we are keeping a very wavy gravy HI WE ARE CONVERTS version of kosher for Passover. Which means we are eating in the Sephardic tradition (no grains but hell yes I am eating beans and corn), but not actually separating meat and dairy. And well, I am taking the baby to my parents' house on Sunday (for our interfaith SPRING DINNER) and there will be ham. Oh and probably bacon.

I actually do find meaning in given up the grains. It makes you thoughtful about what you are eating. Not just in the GODDAMN everything has wheat in it way (though it does and I really really want a brownie), but it makes you feel connected to a tradition. And to people around the world. Today I ate peanut butter on matzoh and knew that people around the world were doing the same. There is something to that, though I am not sure that it makes me feel closer to God. It does make me feel something for others. Which can only be a good thing.

Maybe next year I will host my own Seder. Or keep separate meat and dairy. Hell, maybe I will give up bacon! Anything is possible. I know we will find the place where we have meaning for our family. And we'll keep those traditions with our daughter. So when she is older, whether she stays Jewish or not, she will carry that with her.

But it's hard to do it on our own.

PJ Panic

When I was in high school my mother gave me a lecture about grocery shopping. She detailed what was a good price for items—prices that I believe were set in 1985 in suburban Iowa and have not budged—and given my cheap nature . . .well those same prices are my barometer today. I continually have rages about how name brand triple ply toilet paper should be 25 cents a roll even though rationally I know that, yes prices are not the same as they were when I was seven years old. It’s possible I have issues. But it’s also true that once a price gets in my head that becomes the One True Price and well really you should try to find something cheaper than that.

This isn’t about toilet paper, not really, though I guess a lot in life really is about toilet paper. It’s about pajamas, baby pajamas, and how sometimes my cheapness compulsion—which is weird enough on it’s own really—morphs into a whirling vortex of obsession.

I am an outlier with baby clothes. Because my kid is still wearing sleepers. Her pajamas have to have feet in them, textured feet so she doesn’t slide around like she is ice skating, and longs sleeves. We prefer they zip up the front but snaps are ok too. It’s April but it snowed yesterday and my house is a hundred years old and drafty. It doesn’t get hot enough to strip the kid down to the shorts pajamas they have everywhere right now until one week in early August. The rest of the year it is footies all the way. I must be the only one in America though, because it is really hard to find footed sleepers. Everyone else must live in warm climates with real summer and have newer homes with triple paned windows. My kid also wears her pj’s all the time—since my MIL rarely gets her dressed during the week. That is why the feet are key—she takes off socks unless she is wearing shoes. Two piece pj’s are going to result in my kid walking around in pj’s and a pair of Mary Janes.

As a side note, I confess that I feel a little strung out about the political statements my kids pj patterns make. They are so gendered! Everything is pink with hearts and kittens and shit. The "boy" patterns are so much more badass. At Old Navy this issue made me disproportionately enraged. The girl pajamas had twee things like ladybugs and the boys had really killer modern robots. Ridiculous. And yet I get harpied so much for dressing her like a boy that I feel self conscious buying things that are marketed for boys. My choices are to scar her for life by oppressing her gender identity or to bow to the patriarchy.

Uh. Not that I am over thinking this.

Anyway, rescue me from PJ hell. Where can I find cute, sleepers that are not $26 dollars each? GOOD LORD THAT IS A LOT OF MONEY PEOPLE. That will buy me two Target t-shirts and a twelve pack of Diet Coke.

Also, where can I find some fucking plain white onsies*? NO ONE HAS THEM. Size 18 months.

*Heh, how happy does it make me that spell check wants me to change onsie to ANUS?

Balance

When I was a tiny girl, probably around five or six years old, my parents were concerned by my sad inability to walk across the room without falling. Their solution was to sign me up for gymnastics class--probably because of Mary Lou Retton. In a class with a dozen other tiny girls in black leotards and white slippers I learned important life skills. Seat drops, straddle rolls and how to cling desperately to a bar and beg to come down.

Not surprisingly, since I was so klutzy that these classes were necessary, I was not exactly a gifted gymnasts. I did somersaults in all sorts of directions, I tripped trying to learn to vault, and I fell eighty-four thousand times from the balance beam.

My biggest memory of those classes, other than a bizarre fantasy I had about Mary Lou magically appearing from a tiny door that no one used int he corner, was trying to just walk across the beam without bobbling.

Sometimes I feel like parenting a baby is like walking on a balance beam. Besides all of the obvious and incredibly hard ways--the work thing, the staying married to the father if it is possible thing, the having good hair but not looking too Mommy thing--there is the family thing. As in your family and his family and how do you get everyone to shut up.

I have a good relationship with my parents and so the needing them to shut up hasn't happened much. Other than a few highly stupid comments my dad made about Mo not needing a nap anymore (uh, I remember napping in kindergarten, girlfriend is a year old Pop) we have had no issues. But they are my folks, their weirdness makes sense to me.

But figuring out how to cope with my MIL, has been such a challenge. In almost every way I think she is near perfect. She loves my daughter, which is the biggest thing. She takes such amazing care of her. She is supportive of the way we are trying to bring her up. But things come up. And because she cares for her every day she feels like she gets a bigger vote. I guess she does get a bigger vote. There is a tug of war between her being a grandmother and caregiver and GAH. It is confusing. I have a hard time feeling like maybe I am too critical of her or don't want to do what she wants just because she wants me to do something. Would I feel differently if this stuff was coming from my mother? Probably. Because I have this layered relationship with my mother built on her being a great mother, a great friend to me now and an amazing grandmother. My MIL and I don't have that relationship even though she is a wonderful person and I love her. So, yes, even though I hate it, I do listen to my mother in a different way.

This all came to a head last week. As many people know, cough medicine manufacturers pulled infant medications a couple of years ago. I think this is stupid, as the reason was mainly that parents didn't follow directions. But it doesn't change that medications are not available for infants at this point. And my MIL and husband were pressuring me to give the baby children's medicine at a dosage she remembered giving him as a child. Setting aside my doubts about her being able to remember the correct dosage thirty years later (I can't remember six months ago so how can she be SURE), I don't know that the medications are even exactly the same. I would love to have a cough medicine for her but I wasn't going to take unnecessary risks.

And for the first time J was on the other side. He wanted to give her something and was using his mother as a deciding vote. Oh I resented it. If we are bringing mothers into it well mine should be coming too (hi she would agree with ME) but somehow his mom counts more? Should she?

Eventually, we found a compromise, these are genius and worked very well. But trying to sort it out was this arduous process, so loaded and messy. A million of these situations will happen in the next eighteen years and we will continue to figure them out.

But I still feel like I am six years old, up on a balance beam. But now I am carrying a baby, a MIL, a husband, my parents, a cat, a pug and a dachshund along with me. I just keep inching along trying not to fall.

And the cat is digging her claws into my neck.

Competimommy

I feel lucky that there are other moms at my office. Workplace is not the most family friendly place in the world but there are a couple of us with small children. I am definitely the youngest, since again not a family friendly environment so people tend to wait until they are closer to forty and can't wait any longer.

One woman in particular talks to me about the baby. Her son is exactly one month younger and so it is fun to compare notes.

Except she isn't comparing notes. She is comparing babies. In every way. Every time I talk to her it is about how Baby C is doing this or that, how big he is, etc. I love talking about babies but I have long since learned not to mention anything that Mo can do that he cannot. I am sure she thinks that Mo is ages behind but I just can't handle how she panics if Baby C isn't doing whatever she thinks he should.

I don't know what compels parents to do this. Well I do a bit, I mean we all think that our children are the most perfect ever but rationally it doesn't matter if Timmy walks before Tommy or Mary has ten words when Marie has seven. The range of abilities and development between children, even those very close in age, is incredibly wide.

In other words, I am pretty sure her kid is going to get into college even though he can only say Dada at this point.

In the meantime I just smile and nod. And have the knowing conversations about how brilliant my daughter is--with my husband.

Suddenly That Flu Shot Seems Like a Better Idea

J texted me Friday afternoon. Don't stop anywhere. Since my bus was late I figured the kid had a case of Moldy Fridays and we would air her out and she would be fine. Sometimes Friday afternoons are awful--she is just bored and done with being home and a good dip in the pool or a trip to the mall play area and everything is right again. Then the next text, I am sick. And well . . .

J doesn't get sick. At least not often and not bad. So I was shocked to come home and find a mass of snot and fever on my couch. One who could barely hold up the slobbery copy of The Hungry Little Caterpillar he was trying to read. He was shaking and sweaty and OH IN A BAD WAY.

I felt fine, baby was chipper and in a good mood. We went to Target to stock up on Daddy medicine and had a lovely evening. The next day we had a good breakfast, nap, played and went to meet my parents at the Yuppie Mall. She played at the mall play area, we went out for lunch. It was a really nice day. And J was still sick and feverish, though somewhat better.

So I was single parenting again. Except I woke up with a fever, and limbs made of lead, and a cough that rattled the house windows. J seemed a little better when he woke up and it was a damn good thing because I was crashing at that point. Then the baby got a fever and well all hell broke loose in my house.

Eventually everyone napped and everyone's bedding got washed and we all drank some flat seven-up. My MIL came over and fussed over everyone (and thank GOD FOR MIL). And now Mo is down for the night. She's already woke up once from the coughing.

I apologize to everyone at Yuppie Mall play area Saturday. I didn't know I was letting a plague carrier drool on the tugboat.

I haven't had a true sore in your bones, feverish and dizzy flu in about ten years. I hope it is at least ten more until I have it again.

Tooth Drama

Those of you who follow me on Twitter would have seen a stomping fit of rage two weeks ago when I was home sick. I bit into a piece of toast and CRACK--off came a piece of my tooth. Actually two teeth.

Neither of these two teeth was a surprise offender. I knew they both needed to be fixed. In fact, I went to the dentist because one of them had been broken before. They built it back up and sent me on my way. Three weeks ago it was gone and crap. I am so pissed.

With jury duty and a bunch of work nonsense, tomorrow was the first time that I could get it to have it fixed. The past two weeks have given me a new appreciation for what Mo is going through teething. Mouth pain is something that you can deal with but god it makes me a bitch.

I will admit I even snagged a couple of the kid's teething tablets this morning in desperation. Those buggers actually work. Hip Hip Hooray for homeopathic remedies.

Tomorrow I am going to pay some one large amounts of money to drill into my head while I am doped up on a mild numbing agent. My face will be swollen and GAH. And I just cannot wait.