sahm I am
you know, I have even less unconstructed time this week than I have had as a working mother.
The difference is, I guess, that I am damn grateful.
monday: drop kids, grocery shop, get sidetracked talking to a friend in IM for an hour and a half, scramble around the house wringing hands for an hour, go pick up kids, scramble to get supper cooked so that I can go to my women’s group, wolf supper, go to group, watch two episodes of I Love New York (that shit is soooo addictive!).
tuesday: finish writing long letters to board of former employer. pick up one kid. Mail letters, scared, but thinking, this one’s for my friends. pick up other kid. Make eggplant moussaka– damn good. reread letters while drinking red wine left over from the moussaka sauce (now you know why I was anxious to make moussaka) and realize I am such a f-ing whiner, but those people are still a-holes and these things had to be said, and maybe if a white woman complains they’ll finally take it seriously? Awful to say but if it helps, I’m in. go see friend back from her mom’s in hawaii. put baby to bed. Watch one episode of I Love New York. Be sad when it’s over and wish had another. go to bed tired as hell.
wednesday: drop off kids. sit down to work on flyer for energy healing business, because i only have one month of child care left. divert to post briefly to myspace page. panic because the blessing way is Sunday. And this is Wednesday. And I am out of town for healing school Friday and Saturday. run downstairs and spend a couple of hours making carrot muffins and black bean and garbanzo hummus– black bean sooooooo good, garbanzo yummy but not outstanding. talk to friends on phone (will have to bump our plan back up to the more expensive one at this rate). finally take the time to sit down with a cup of tea and panic about how to get done what i need to for blessing way *and* get where I need to be for craft night tonight.
now… go wring hands or maybe even get some housework done until time to pick up kids.
overheard
shaky mommy: come on, hon, let’s go get dressed and have some lunch.
shaky baby, with a vehemence that would have seemed exorcist-like if it hadn’t been so funny: NO DRESS! NO LUNCH!
it would be better if you could see the look on her face.
cosleeping
A fellow mom just sent this link to the Mother Baby Behavioral Sleep Laboratory at Notre Dame to our mom’s group.
Cosleeping is such a polarizing thing, unfortunately. Add it to the arsenal of issues mothers use to tell each other they are good or bad parents.
I believe in it… but in my mom friend’s post she notes how she loved cosleeping and how eventually she had to transition into letting him sleep by himself, resulting in better sleep for her and her child.
There are various ways in which cosleeping can be accomplished safely and save the sanity of parents. It’s a paradigm thing I think… we come at it from the position that it is best for babies and parents if babies sleep alone (I certainly did), and so we aren’t prepared to create a cosleeping arrangement that might feel safe to us and let us get good sleep but still work with the baby’s needs, such as an attached but separate cosleeper or a large firm safe mattress with no gaps around the headbooard or frame.
What if we came at it from the position of understanding how babies and mothers respond to each other, and put safety and parental sanity at the top of the list and *then* evaluated options– of which there are many?
Some of each, I say, according to what’s right for each family. But for us, cosleeping benefits have far outweighed the concerns. And… we never hung our hat on it, particularly. We came at it accidentally. Sometimes sleeping with her drove me *crazy* and I needed to sleep alone real real bad. Sometimes sleeping with her was the sweetest and most helpful thing in the world. She ended up in our bed for a while, she slept in a toddler bed for a while, she transitioned herself into a big girl bed the moment we set it up. It was all good. I fervently cherish and believe in it… and think safe and satisfying arrangements for baby and parent sleeping are as varied as the personalities and needs of families.
moon baby
I was on the phone with my mom, smoking a cig on the back porch, when a small pale shade blew silently and quickly past me and disappeared into the dark.
I walked out to check on her, and she was digging in the horseshoe pit in the pale moonlight.
I walked back to the porch and finished my conversation with my mom, and then went out to get her.
I said honey aren’t you cold? She said, as she always does, I have long sleeves. I said, what are you doing? She was burying croquet balls. She said, burying balls. She had a little tiny garden trowel. I said, can’t we go inside now? I can’t leave my baby outside. She said, the moon will keep me company.
Wow.
2x pajamas
I had my 33rd birthday shortly after I found out I was pregnant with shaky baby.
My husband– oh wait, we weren’t married yet– babydaddy brought home a small but loving offering. We were probably broke at that time, we were perennially broke. It was a beautiful dream journal and a pair of pajamas.
The pajamas were from Wal Mart, but they had a small botanical print on them that was lovely, satin trim, and they were so soft. The ADD, or HSP, or whichever, in me is so grateful for clothing that does not rub my skin in any way whatsoever. Such clothes are hard to find.
As he handed them to me with this sweet aww shucks look on his face he said, I know it’s not much, and you aren’t this big, but you will be, and you will need something soft and comfortable for while you are pregnant. It is one of my sweetest memories of our time together.
Fast forward over four years. I’m still wearing the pajamas. The elastic is soft and gentle but tight enough to hold the britches up. The satin covers have come off the buttons. I have stained them with the various fluids and substances of my humanity. I wash them and wear them over and over. The fabric is softer than ever, and I think they are lovely. The crotch hangs almost to my knees.
A while back I forgot them at my friend’s house. I was staying with her on a healing school weekend… her mother runs the school and she’s my best friend from library school and that’s how I know her mother and ended up in healing school. Anyhoo I forgot them on the floor in her bathroom when I got up and left for school in the morning. Now that I think of it… I had run away early when I had a sudden and huge late grief explosion regarding my miscarriage a year and a half before. No wonder I forgot them.
Anyway. I went there last weekend and spent several hours with her and her new precious little baby, born Dec. 31. It was such a special time. I can never spend enough time holding a tiny baby.
She said, I keep forgetting to give your pajamas back to you. I said, those are my pregnant girl pajamas. She said, I know. I wore them to the hospital.
I teared up then, and I am tempted to cry now. I am wearing the pajamas. I finally unpacked them from my trip. They smell sweetly of whatever fabric softener she uses.
She and I have been through many years and many friendship obstacles. Not least, she lives five hours away and has a busy life of her own. If it weren’t for the healing school I mightn’t see her ever. To have her silently reach out and affirm our friendship after so many years, in that way, to need me, I guess is the only way I can think of to say it, when we are so far apart– I had felt like a pretty fraudulent friend, not to be at the hospital for her c section. But she took me with her.
Snif.
suddenly sahm
O my brothers.
I quit my job today.
My superviser (supervisor?) was mean to me. He’s been treating others this way for months, but I wanted the paycheck so I hadn’t as yet said anything. Wanted to… but it took a long time to get in just the right headspace. But today… it was on.
Anyone who has worked with me, anyone who knows me in fact, will note that I will bend over backward to help someone out or fulfil a need/expectation if it is communicated respectfully.
When it is communicated as an order, as if I am in the military, and includes spoken doubts about my professionalism… it’s on.
I was torn between trying to work this out in a way that might save my job, and simply getting out of that environment. If I kept my job, retaliation would surely follow and abuses would ramp up.
My husband noted that I should protect myself by quitting and detailing the reasons on my way out the door. Getting fired would be a spot on my record in a way that quitting would not. He was very proud of my resignation letter. It is possible that the Universe sent me there to work in order to help take down the people who are so mean. My letter certainly called attention to some of the same things we’re being sued for, by other staff. I hope it will lend strength to those suits.
Man.
Would you like fries with that?
I shouldn’t joke about that. I am going to stay positive and know that doors will open and things are flowing along for the best as we speak.
I need another drink.
nurturing and whatnot
Yesterday I gave a twenty minute presentation as part of a brief workshop on ‘the new technology and why it matters’. It was an agony because a) public speaking is something I actually enjoy, but I also dread it and I’m not sure it’s my strength and b) as usual our leadership’s announcements caused us to start thirty five minutes later than we were supposed to. Then… each of us who spoke, tried to stay within 20 minutes, and agonized because we had to cut out so much and were acutely conscious that we were already over time and couldn’t fit it all in. There was so much I wanted to say and share that I left out. How about the way that games like World of Warcraft teach players teamwork, win-win, and calculated risk skills? What about the folks who showed up at my request to contribute to the discussion who were not included in the discussion because we ran over and the entire room emptied when we asked for questions and discussion? So frustrating.
So I left work at two for a doctor appointment and stayed gone the rest of the day. I picked up my kids and took them to the library (however it took me an hour to find it when it should have taken me ten minutes… have I had a stroke? Or what?) and got us books on tape for our long morning commutes– eragon for son and wrinkle in time for me. I got them only for me and shaky stepson, because shaky baby was behaving soooooo badly.
As a side note we are taking her off both biaxin and singulair because she had a bloody nose night before last, and after some reading up, strong antibiotics can cause nosebleeds, and singulair has behavioral side effects and more.
Anyway, we got shaky baby some mary janes at payless and that was that. She insisted on black mary janes because to head off the inevitable pleas for Dora and Princess light up shoes I told her that was the only thing we were getting before we went in. Only they didn’t have her size, so we had to get a half size too big, and she rejected out of hand the perfectly cute pink and brown t strap shoes because they weren’t black mary janes. Sigh. That will teach me.
Then I came home and decided I would spend one hour nurturing the family (laundry, dishes, food for tomorrow, etc.) and then I would hop in bed with my wonderful book about an American teaching English in China.
Well… I never made it to bed with a book. I stayed up blogging and emailing and went to bed at nine forty-two dreading the next day. I tried, I really did.
what enjoying yourself at lunch gets you
So… I didn’t run the errand at lunch. So I had to run it tonight after work. I thought it would be funner to bring the baby anyway.
So with my child being herself and arguing with my husband because I do not want to take my child to the third pump it up party in a row Saturday night and it’s his turn, I didn’t get out of the house until seven. Still, a reasonably simple trip to Wal Mart and Payless, right? In the same shopping center, sharing a parking lot? Ten minutes from my house?
So we find adorable light blue and purple croc style shoes on sale and snap them up. Then we go to Wal Mart, because I have to go to Wal Mart and I don’t feel like going to another shoe store to get her Mary Janes. She has to have Mary Janes, or else she can’t wear her dresses. I am not putting her in sneakers with her colored tights and dresses. And she is sick of wearing pants. My rough boyish child throws a fit if I ask her to wear pants or deviate from the same three outfits she wants to wear every single day. She has to have Mary Janes tomorrow, which is why we are doing this errand tonight.
So we go to Wal Mart, a place I love to hate, but I have to have canned Italian tomatoes. There’s only one pair of shoes in the store that even close to fits and is comfortable enough and cute enough. I snap them up. I finish my shopping. We pay. We leave.
The whole time we are out of course, I’m constantly saying, come here. stay where I can see you. hold the cart. watch out. please put that back. that’s too expensive. I should have recorded myself and just played it back as a loop for the hour we were out. She’s skipping for miles ahead of me because she is so excited about her purple crocs. [Actually I spent a lot of time worshiping, thinking about how amazingly adorable her little butt is in her mud brown gymboree leggings and turtleneck ensemble, and thinking about the strange things hormones do to you when you have a kid.
So. I paid for the shoes. I picked up my bags of groceries. I left. I got home. I looked for the shoes. I did not have the f*cking shoes.
I called the store. Nobody has seen them. I have to go back even to get my damn refund. I am pissed.
Note to self. Get the f*cking errand done.
I don’t know why I am so wrapped around the axle about this. Poor me, you know? If this is my only problem… etc. It’s not pms, or it shouldn’t be.
I think I’m actually feeling cornered by what’s needed to do at home and the stupid presentation I have to do tomorrow and the shitty controlling way my supervisors insure that nobody gets anything done– either by giving no answer whatsoever to direct questions, or micromanagement, such as — I’ll need to see your agenda before you set any dates. Because regardless of the fact that you’ve done this before, went to school for this shit, and actually ran a library for four years (unlike your supervisor) you are suddenly and obviously too stupid to represent this agency in the field. I wish I had taken issue with this and called him on it, asking the kind of direct questions that shame most posturing self congratulating incompetent bullies, including this one, into backing down. But la la la, I had just come back from healing school… and I had just given my son a speech about how if he thinks someone is trying to piss him off he needs to a) remember that he’s just fine the way he is and nobody can bring him down b) his teacher is just tryign to keep things running smoothly and he needs to listen to her and c) inquire further into the situation to see if someone is actually trying to piss him off and d) if they truly are, to tell his parents because if someone is truly trying to hurt him we will come down on them like ton of bricks. La la la.
Here’s your f*cking agenda:
your library– services and the work which is needed to provide them.
the duties of a trustee.
advocacy.
ethics and legal concerns.
the role of this agency.
And does he think I like birthday parties?
things I’ll need to know how to say…
Thank you gracious hostess, I don’t eat meat.
May I have a cigarette?
