I am supermom
I am super mom
So sue me.
Well it helps to be raising the coolest kid on this earth. But it’s really beside the point.
Here’s the icing on the cake. Or the proverbial straw, more like it.
Shaky baby loves pancakes. What have I done every morning for the past several days or maybe couple weeks?
Got up and made pancakes.
From scratch.
With non hydrogenated vegan butter and pure maple syrup, of course.
It has to be better for her than the refined sugar and flour in breakfast cereals– even the small amount in the generic cheerios we get.
Yep, cigarette smokin’, adderall-poppin’, scrapbookin’, curtain makin’, vegan cookin’, taking on to much-in’, highball swillin’, nightly story time-in’ beggin’ for a divorce, Spoon-lovin,’ world savin’ (one library book at a time), kitchen redoin’ super mom.
I don’t know how long it will last, but it’s been going on for a while and I am nearly at the top of my game.
I got up this morning shortly after four, after tossing and turning for quite a while. I made pumpkin muffins and got started on from scratch, vegan veggie burgers and sweet potato rolls to share with my girlfriend tonight. I made said pancakes. I updated my list of folks for Christmas cards– oy vey! I’m up to fifty four and counting! — and addressed and slipped photos inside several. I took the baby to school, went to Wal Mart and Dollar Tree, came home to finish our supper, and got started cleaning up the house.
WTF?
Shaky baby goes to gymnastics Monday and Wednesday, 4.50-5.45. For the past few weeks and for the next couple weeks she also has swimming lessons Tuesday-Thursday at 5.50. I cart her to school at 8.15 and go off to work, to return home about 6.20 exhausted. I have two wonderful days off– Sunday and Monday, today being Monday– and those go so quickly and I feel so bitter when they are over. I spent the luxurious days off of Thanksgiving week– working my ass off.
We got our kitchen mostly painted… I have one more set of curtains to make. I cooked a big vegan Thanksgiving dinner. We watched Santa Clause (can you believe Tim Allen’s a big cokehead? I’m in total denial. but I should have known.) and made some family portraits on our front porch that will do for Christmas cards. I took the kids to get scrapbooking supplies and let them print some photos on my computer. I’ve started my Christmas cards and I’ve started ordering gifts and I’m providing the table decorations, flatware and plates for my mom’s group Christmas party. I work constantly on the mountains of laundry and dog hair bunnies and dishes.
And that’s just the stuff I remember.
My husband and I have been going round and round. You know what’s sad? A housekeeper visit a couple times a month would eliminate about 85% of my gripe with him. Or, if he doesn’t want to pay a housekeeper he can pay me. He says no damn way will he pay me.
I called my (divorced, sadly) brother almost in tears to bitch about the situation, and one of the pithy things he said– he’s a man of few words, my bro, but they’re good words– is that men just don’t have that problem with taking on too much.
It was like the clouds opened to reveal the golden rays of sun.
Well at the time it wasn’t really like that. But as I’ve thought on it… it’s become kinda like that.
My husband is so much better than most husbands I know. That’s the other sad part. He brings shaky baby home from school most nights and there is never, ever a question whether I will have child care so that I can go do something important to me, baby free. He takes shaky baby to gymnastics and swimming lessons three times a week– I only take her once. (After five years of bitching and complaining on my part) he alternates weeks with me, cooking and doing dishes or getting shaky baby her bath and reading her a story and putting her to bed. He is patient and kind to her almost without exception. He’s a workhorse. When he wants to, he will work til he drops to assist me with something– like that damn kitchen, or the Halloween party we had a few weeks ago.
It isn’t that he isn’t working. He may be working somewhat less than I am, but he works.
I have *got* to start taking care of myself first.
I clean, cook, clean some more, fold, craft, cook, drive here, drive there, craft some more… I put everything outside of myself, first.
My attic office is a shambles. My bedroom is piled with laundry. I never take long warm baths any more.
Our kitchen looks damn good though.
It’s so clear, what’s happening here. I have got to put myself first each day. I can’t spend *more* hours on selfish pursuits than I do on family pursuits– well I guess I could but I won’t. But when I run out of hours at the end of the day, if something is going to be left undone, it had better not be my personal, emotional and spiritual work.
I can take care of myself– healing work, journaling, organizing and planning, bath and high quality paperback fiction, creating a comfort zone in my bedroom and office– before I set out to be supermom and the best damn library director, friend, and all round person *ever.*
I don’t know why I do this. And I thought I was well beyond the problem of being unable to say no. But it goes far deeper than I ever imagined. My inner house is a terrible mess, while I struggle to keep up appearances, do the right thing, make the world a better place, and buy the affection and admiration of the people I care about– and the people I don’t care about, too.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
Doesn’t it suck to realize that one’s problems with someone else really do start within oneself? Sigh.
Okay gotta go finish those curtains, fold three loads of laundry, clean the bathroom, and veganize my favorite petits-fours cake.
Hahahahaha!
I really am going to do those things. But first I’ll clean my little office some, make it more of a haven of comfort and sweetness and less of a dumping ground for the ruins of my attempts to keep up appearances and make the world a better place at my own expense. I’ll get a nice warm bath today too.
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Currently listening : Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga By Spoon Release date: 10 July, 2007 |
tireder than dammit
Tahini sauce, falafels (more like fritters cause I made the batter too thin) tabbouleh and megadarra– I have got to learn to be quicker in the kitchen. I guess I’ll get used to it. You know, my husband [who is most graciously acting happy to take leftovers for lunch tomorrow, what a sweetie!] did all the cooking for a long time. And you know what else? The reason there’s more cleaning to do all of a sudden is that… nobody cleaned before. And there’s a double whammy… not only do I think I should have all this time to clean, but we’re home, and cooking, and playing, and messing it up.
I’m not complaining, particularly. Or, maybe I am. My bed calls, and I have cramps, and I think my poor kid was such a brat today because she suffers from side effects of singulair, which I happened to give her this morning… but I am soooo happy to be complaining about this, rather than thinking about going to my shitty job tomorrow. We are broke, yes. But I am happy.
And I do love that bed.
Hoooooo boy
Terrible PMS? If it’s seasonal depression, it must be really bad to be squeezing through the barrier of the highest dose of my particular anti depressant that you can take before risking seizures.
My new schedule is that I (plan to) get up at five each morning, have some me time, get my shower by six, get my kids up and out by seven, then drive for an hour dropping everyone off, then work until five. That’s ten hours a day– I know, lunch, but that’s just an hour in the middle of regimented nine more.
I was so depressed about this last night I just couldn’t even think about it.
I need some serious books and cd’s on tape.
I considered just going on strike, not going to work. But that ain’t going to fly. We need to pay down our credit card bills first. I do remember the penury we suffered the last time I stayed home for a while… although truthfully… our income gradually grew and our debts gradually decreased, until it was doable.
First line of sanity defence:
This is only for another year or less. Next year around Christmas or Thanksgiving I hope to be quitting, having a wonderful Christmas season, and going to China. If China doesn’t work out I’ll still quit, and start building my business.
Second line: My work pays for my healing school. And that’s over in May, and I can reassess where I want to go with that.
Third line: I’m going to start charging for my student work. Not much, but enough to start filtering in a little bit of income, slowly transitioning into letting that be my career. I hope to have a little bit of money in the bank when I quit my job, for setup in that work and refreshers when I come back from China.
Fourth line: Just generally remembering that I truly am an adult, and I truly am driving this bus.
Fifth line: This work pays for plane tickets so that I can go see my family and fly my mom down here.
Sixth line: I am going to try to align my life with the skinny bitch wisdom. If I am not drinking coffee and smoking in the morning I can sleep later. If I am putting less garbage into my body, I will feel better. [And it is not possible to maintain my level of luxury/garbage eating in China, no way, so I better start sucking it up now. ] Etc.
It’s only for a year… it’s only for a year…
to do list
By tomorrow at five: drive out to target, purchase six gift cards, drive back down to old town, distribute gift cards
by tomorrow at six or seven:
strip beds (the girls’ beds because I need to get the covers on, mine just because it’s time)
make beds
tidy up dining room– get sewing machine upstairs, break down table, dispose of crap– because it’s our tree and present room
by… pretty darn soon
finish Nick Hornby’s How to Be Good
get stockings stuffed (By Sunday night)
buy stocking stuffers (er, by Sunday night)
finish baby quilt
wrap and mail baby quilt
give my spill-encrusted cabinets a good hard wipe
wrap all presents because Santa’s coming a week early
husband promised to scrub the floors!! I think it’s because I asked if we could get a maid
Wash china and lay out for party
plan menus so we won’t be bankrupt yet again next payday (don’t worry M we budgeted PLENTY for the party)
‘do’ Christmas cards
purt’ near constantly…
keep Quicken updated so we don’t bounce checks which we narrowly avoided this morning thank goodness tomorrow’s payday…
keep yard scooped so friends can come play in it
do dishes
make beds
home again
I am so glad to be home.
Again I am faced with this what to do first concern… but I wrote a list and if I can mark off most of that stuff I’ll be okay. I have two days home, this time.
My husband is doing all the cooking. I feel kind of bad about that, because I like to cook. This is something that has been going on for a long time, but with the work travel I really have to just kiss it goodbye. The last time I cooked was Halloween, and it threw such a wrench in my day that I was an absolute trick or treat loser mom and felt terrible.
It’s kind of hard… pressing needs include painting my stepson’s room and our dens upstairs, raking soooo many leaves off my extensive lawn, working on healing school, and oh, uh, let’s not forget my actual job and parenting and personal hygiene. Sigh.
I don’t even know what to do first
I am in this nowhere land between home and traveling. I get right back up and hop on a plane for DC tomorrow.
While I am always excited at the idea of staying in a hotel I couldn’t possibly afford on my own, preferably on a high floor so I can leave my shades open and look out over the city lights at night as I fall asleep, hangin’ out with other librarians, and getting good nights’ sleep without a snoring husband or burrowing, kicking baby, and while three days is an easy trip compared to the week I’ll be doing next week… I feel kind of overwhelmed.
I can’t even begin to work on anything in the house. It just seems like too much. Since shortly before eight when I got up I halfheartedly did some laundry, halfheartedly went through and threw away some mail and papers, drank lots of coffee, and had a tomato cheese sandwich for brunch.
We’re going shopping in an hour or two, and out to dinner, and then my energy will just be finished I am pretty sure, cause I have a cold. When my husband told me a couple of days ago that he was getting sick, I felt kind of smug, as I haven’t been sick since July. And then of course I got a sore throat. Serves me right.
I’m scrambling just to get packed before what little lingering presence of mind I have runs out. How I’m going to get self and shaky baby showered and dressed any time soon I don’t know. I have to absentee vote. I wanted to make pumpkin muffins, although we can’t share them because we have germs. I wanted to do some more work on my various quilt projects. That will surely fall by the wayside.
And this whole airport security thing… can I, or can I not, bring my big purple bottle of aqua net hairspray in my checked baggage? How’m I gonna manage big hair while I’m gone? How about the baby quilt I’m working on, including quilting needle? And I don’t think they make f*cking three ounce size bottles or tubes of the special and expensive shampoo I use to keep my expensive dye job pretty. What the hell can I do about that? I’ve checked the TSA site but it isn’t too clear.
And with this cold I don’t think I can go walking with my friend L, no matter how good it is for my body or my mental state. Phoo.
It’ll be okay. I’ll do what I can. I’m just sick. And despite it all, very, very thankful to be at home. If I can just get through this week and the next, I’ll probably be off three whole days during Thanksgiving week, with no hit to my annual leave whatsoever. How nice that will be!
division of labor
I need to know.
Let’s assume that a parent is working at *least* 8 hours a day whether he/she goes to a paying job outside the home each day or stays home with children.
In how many families do husband and wife split the labor left over after the 8 hour day, evenly? (I’m not talking about keeping a spotless house, here. I’m just talking the minimum that needs to be done for hygiene, nutrition, and for each parent to have some time to him/herself each day.)
Have the husbands who take this responsibility always been that way, or did they respond decently to some requests/coaching from the wives?
If your husband or wife does not split household labor, above and beyond your respective 8-10 hour work days, evenly, how do you justify that? How do you feel about it? Why do you stay married? Do you talk about it? Are you okay with it?
Who gets more time to him or herself in your family? As in, time to do what you want free of housework, cooking, or babies? The husband? Or the wife? Is that person the sole breadwinner? Does breadwinning entitle a spouse to opt out of housework, cooking, and child care in your family?
Is that okay with you? Why or why not?
I’ve talked to a few girlfriends about this. I’d love to have a larger sample, outside of my own little circle of friends.
the second shift
Isn’t a husband telling his wife that there is no imbalance in the division of household labor a bit, just a bit, like whites telling blacks there is no problem with racism?
And no, I do not think of myself as the Rosa Parks of housework.
cooking and cleaning for the last three hours
Maybe it’s because smoking is no longer available to me– at least artificially and arbitrarily, since I’m quitting. Maybe it’s because of this Fast Company blog post I read today about being happy wherever you are vs. always thinking about if only. Or– I don’t know. Maybe I just didn’t want to waste the vegetables we picked up on our blissful trip to the local farmer’s market Saturday.
In any case, I cooked up Delia’s Roasted Mediterranean Vegetable Lasagne. It is so damn good. I came home at lunch and cut and salted and pressed the ‘aubergines’ and ‘courgettes.’ Then after shaky baby’s ballet class I started right in cleaning the kitchen (spaghetti carbonara dishes, my half of the deal in which my husband took shaky baby to school and picked her up today) and cooking the lasagne. And it is almost three hours later. Sigh. I’m finally sitting down having a glass of cheap pinot grigio white (decaf Constant Comment is waiting in the wings, already steeped) and I can’t believe I just willingly and happily spent the last almost three hours cooking my ass off.
Here’s the thing. Some of my unexamined articles of faith are– dinner *must* take place at five thirty or six, bubble bath for the baby at seven, baby to bed at eight, tranquil and perhaps a little romantic grownup time until nine. Somewhere in there I must make time for the brief flylady routine that keeps my house tidy and comfortable with very little effort.
Regardless of all the clues and red flags reality hands me, I still feel like I am, or my life is, somehow deficient because it just doesn’t happen this way. It’s baggage I haul around constantly.
I’m f*cking crazy, is what I am. I just had a great time cooking vegetable lasagne worthy of fine dining. No, my child will not get to bed until nine thirty or ten, yes I will probably waste tranquil grownup romance time watching another episode of Flavor of Love, rather than reading or looking into my spouse’s eyes. And…?
no flamingos after labor day
I put away the natural fiber pocketbook, the white linen outfit, the baby’s little turquoise outfit with flamingos and pink plaid ribbons etc. etc. What’s funny is that it is still going to be well hot enough for summer styles. They just can’t look like summer styles, I guess. I’m not bowing to stupid Southern fashion tyranny. I literally cannot bring myself to wear summer stuff after labor day. Unless, of course, it’s black.
My husband says he’s going to wear linen every single day now.
I had a wonderful weekend. I didn’t get ‘it all’ done, but I got significant yardwork done– that was what I chose to do first, so that is what got done. I have this niggling sense that I wish I’d chosen to do bass first, or writing first, or quilting… but that is just the way it goes.
‘The girls’ are coming over tonight for an informal book club visit, not that it has to be shipshape for that, but it is my next obligation or hurdle and there’s some minimum level I’d like to get done. I have more girls coming next Monday night, too, for a ‘group’ meeting, so I’d like to pay a bit more attention to making a tranquil, comfy and clean space for that. So I guess another weekend will be shot.
I never did bake my wonderful vegan chocolate or carrot cakes… is it worth busting my ass to get that done? This morning I dreamed I had a temperature of 106.9. And of course in real life I don’t. Is my subconscious prompting me to figure something out vis a vis sick leave?
I also made time, for the first time in ages, to watch some of the countless TV we’ve added up on our DV-R– Rockstar Supernova and Flavor of Love season two, to be exact. I’m ashamed to say I hated to turn off Flavor of Love, I was so hooked in, but my small extravert was going nuts for lack of attention, it was after nine pm, and I was feeling pretty guilty and upset that the weekend was over and I hadn’t been able to do everything including hours of quality time with my little ‘un. We watched Bill Maher and Jon Stewart too, of course. And we walked one night with our new jogging stroller.
The three-day weekend just went too fast.
I thought of how, when I was a kid, I would ask my parents if we were doing anything for labor day. ‘Everybody else’ would be cooking out with friends or going to the lake. My parents, however, would answer ‘laboring.’ That is, they’d be working on the yard and garden, usually.
That used to make me so mad. Will I do anything different in my life, with my kids? I’ll try to remember how that felt.
But here we are, in my first house (my husband’s third, I think?) at the ripe old age of almost 37, and honestly laboring is all I really want to do. There I was, sweating my ass off cutting down the forest that has grown around our fence line, just trying to clear away so that I can see what we have– so far, hibiscus and crape myrtle choking to death among all sorts of trees and overgrown hedge shrubs. I was actually enjoying myself. I could have worked longer but I was tired of running back to the house to make sure the baby was okay. And tired of sweating.
I realize my parents must have felt that way. Maybe that feeling is common to people who have homes and feel like that is a big deal, because it wasn’t long ago that a home was out of reach– I know that was the case for us in the five years since we hooked up, and for my parents until I was five, and then the house they bought needed soooo much fixing up it isn’t funny. (I will only mention the gum and the goat shit embedded in the red orange and yellow shag carpet– that was probably the worst of it but it needed *hard* work in every single room and on every single surface to get it livable. That place was in terrible shape. I’ll say no more.)
If I’m honest, the main reason I want more time at home is to be able to work on this house. I’m aching to paint and use the unfinished bedrooms upstairs, to just live in this place, which we’ve blessed with so much love and work so far, every spare moment.
But, and I’m not complaining, I need to work a paying job to help finish out several financial goals that will give us some fun and freedom. I think about the whole, when you’re lying on your deathbed, will this matter to you? The answer is, when I’m lying on my deathbed it’s likely that both working outside the home AND compulsive housework or house labor will be lowish down on my list of what I think on the most intensely. But I’m still working on prioritizing the deathbed way. It’s not easy. So many distractions, so much denial of just how precious is our time with our loved ones on this earth.
I do recognize the addictive thought pattern that says, I’ll just do housework first and then I’ll do what matters… if I can just get this house just so *then* I will spend time with my child/write/work on my art/etc. I can see that this is something I need to work on. At least I think it is.
Anyhoo… it’s off to work we go. To cake? Or not to cake? One of the girls is bringing French wine to go with Irene Nemirovsky’s Suite Francaise. A cake doesn’t sound too appetizing with wine, does it, but what about those of us who can’t imbibe? We count at least two pregnant women in our midst. I’d better bake a cake, quick.
I don’t think I’ve mentioned how my heart sings when the seasons change, especially from summer to fall. This is the most wonderful time of the year.
