Irons in the fire May 29, 2008

So much has happened and is happening! A short list

Happened:
–Darwin fell off the bed! (on Joe’s watch, not mine) -another advantage of cloth diapers is they both weight a baby down so they land butt-first, and cushion the fall.
–on the same day, we forgot to tell the temp babysitter about his Mongolian spot, which looks like a giant bruise on his back, and she called me in a panic. Oops.
–Two more teeth! We’re up to five!
–More sleep training needed — awake from 1-4:30am. Ugh. Visit to Grandma’s did more damage to sleep habits than originally thought.
–Mommy got out of the house to see Avenue Q, and had three (count ‘em, THREE) vodka gimlets!
–Army crawls beginning, and “real” crawling will start soon. And not a baby gate or outlet cover in sight, and cathair held together by baby spit up all over the floor. We will soon be very busy.
–A trip to the in-laws for the twin cousins’ first birthday.  Which gave MamaKim the opportunity to once again tell me how “cinchy” it is to have just one child as opposed to two (does she want to come to my house at 3am?), and how we should have trained Darwin as a newborn and not spoiled him, because “look at the twins” who nap and don’t need to be held. (She also told us IN THE HOSPITAL that we were holding Darwin too much.  When he was 3 days old)
– I refrained from sticking a chopstick up MamaKim’s nose.

Coming up:
–We get his head-reshaping helmet tomorrow at 7:45am.
–We start aquababies Saturday at noon.
–Mommy looks for another opportunity to drink three vodka gimlets. At least three.

A balancing act May 22, 2008

Today was such a beautiful day — and to make it even better, I had an offsite meeting that ended early, and I decided to just go home. I mean, coming bck to work for 45 minutes would be pointless, right? So, I was walking to the el and saw a lovely pub with outdoor seating and thought to myself “Wouldn’t it be great if I could sit in the sunshine and drink a beer and read my book. But I have to get home.” Then, I thought “Why do I have to get home? The babysitter doesn’t expect me for 2 hours!’ So, I sat in the sun and drank a beer and read my book. It was quite nice.

I’m glad I took the time to do that, and get a little mini refresh.  Joe and I are getting better at balancing things, but we’re still not great. Joe has gone back to work this week (hooray!), and that creates a new wrinkle into things. As much as I complain, Joe really does the lion’s share of the parenting during the day, since he’s the one at home (but what fun would it be to just write nice posts about him? BO-ring!). Since I have to work late a couple times a month, or have evening meetings for other things, or work on weekends, he sees Darwin a lot more than I do.  Or, did, at least.  So now it’s like he’s been on maternity leave and is going back to work, and dealing with all the guilt and sadness of leaving The Peanut in the morning, knowing he’ll come home right at bedtime.  It’s a hard adjustment to make.  So now we’re struggling again with this whole working thing.  Is it bad for both of us to work just because we like “stuff?”  Because really, plenty of people support their families on less than Joe makes alone, I’m sure.  But, we like our things, and our house, and our trips, etc etc.  And I have to admit that it sure is nice to get out of the house and have some “adult time” (even though that sounds slightly dirty).  I struggle with whether or not it makes me a better mom or a worse mom to work.  Am I setting a bad example if I give up my outside interests to be a full-time mom?  Am I neglecting my child for no reason other than materialism and selfishness?  Sigh.  And the thing is, that I know Darwin will turn out fine no matter what.  He has 2 parents who love him very much, and love spending time with him, and shower him with attention whenever we can.  It’s really just a matter of degrees — how much BETTER will he be if I make the “right” decision?  Even though I don’t think there is a right decision.  At work, someone who has been at the Foundation for 10 years is leaving to be a full time mom, just after getting a big promotion.  She has huge regrets, but would have more if she didn’t leave.  Sarah, you’re definitely right — we should all work 9-2, and have the rest of the time for family and books and beers.  And be able to make huge cash doing it…

Another way babies are just like cats May 21, 2008

Darwin and I just returned from flying out to see my parents and grandmother for the last few days.  On the plane, I brought a cornucopia of distracting objects to keep him occupied.  What did he like best?  The plastic cup that my soda came in.

And, just a note that just when your baby is beginning to realize that places and people are different than what he’s used to is NOT the time to take him to grandma’s.  It will only lead to much freaking out, crying, and sleepless nights where said baby bolts awake looking around at everything and then promptly starting to cry at 3am because he has no idea where you’ve taken him and what he’s doing there.

Almost the same thing May 16, 2008

On Monday, Joe decided that he would travel to Milwaukee to “hang out” with friends on Wednesday.  After his tee time here in the city, of course.  Priorities.  So, today, he spent his time watching a baseball game.  And keep in mind that the last time we went to Miller Park, we were used to Wrigley, and Joe asked at the concession stand how many beers he could buy at a time.  The cashier gave him a really strange look and slowly said “How many can you carry?”  So you can imagine what his day was like today.  Or at least I can.  And tonight, who knows?  The world is his oyster.  Or at least, Milwaukee is his oyster.  Not really an appealing image, actually.

But, lest you feel sorry for me, allow me to tell you how I have been spending MY time.  On Wednesday, the day that Joe left, I was lucky enough to work a 13-hour day and still have to come in early for a staff meeting today, while Joe was probably sleeping in until 10 or so.  But, this afternoon I was able to leave work early, probably about the same time Joe was stuffing down his first hot dog at the park, for an indulgent, decadent trip to the dentist to get a filling, after which I slobbered on the Brown Line riders and was not able to eat anything for several hours so that I wouldn’t bite off my completely numbed tongue.  Tomorrow, I anticipate several readings of “The Hungry Caterpillar” while Joe arrives unshowered nursing a hangover.  

I’m thinking of starting my own line of board books for passive aggressive mothers to read to their children in earshot of husbands.  Things like “The Daddy Who Slept on the Couch” or “Find Mommy’s Free Time and Youth”  (It’s a “lift the flap” book:  ”Use your eagle eye — look underneath the crusty spaghetti sauce that mommy washes from the pot.  Look inside the empty bottles daddy leaves by the XBox.  Look underneath daddy’s closed eyelids in the middle of the afternoon.  Can YOU find mommy’s free time?”  It is, of course, only found when you lift the last flap, the door to mommy’s room in the rest home.)

It’s amazing how you can live with someone, and share so much, and somehow have such different lives for several days.

Teacher for a day May 5, 2008

Tomorrow, I will be participating in the Teacher for a Day program through the Chicago Public Schools.  I’m really excited to do it, and was hopeful that I’d get to help teach a lesson or something, instead of just sit back and watch (I was hoping for an English class, but got World History instead.  Oh well.)  I just talked to the teacher, and I will get to help teach.  I will help lead a discussion of vocabulary words for a new unit on nationalization and globalization.  “I try to really make the words relevant to the lives of the kids,” he told me.  “I really try to make them realize what this means to them, in their lives, not just in the history book.  Bring it to life, you know?  So look for examples of things that they’ll understand, and that connect with what they do every day”  Of course.  That’s exactly what you should do for these things.  The only problem?  Here’s my list of words:

Genocide
Ethnic Cleansing
Pan Africanism
Zionism
Civil Disobedience

The teacher told me “I try to get pictures to help, too.”  Great.  So I’m going to breeze into class, show some photos of decaying bodies in mass graves, and talk about how ethnic cleansing relates to high schoolers in Chicago.  I really wish I had gotten an English class, and were going to talk about To Kill a Mockingbird or something instead.  Wish me luck.

Silver Lining May 1, 2008

Not too long ago, I re-read Gone with The Wind.  Right now, I’m reading A Light in August, and both of these books, as most historical fiction, make me wish I could transport the characters here and show them 2008.  But with these books it’s more than wishing I could take Eleanor of Aquitane on an airplane, or giving Anne Boleyn her first miniskirt to wear.  These books both have racism at their core, and either prettify it in hoop skirts and barbecues or complicate it with stark hatred and gray areas.  I wish I could bring the characters from these books to 2008 just to see the presidential primaries and ultimate election.  How long would Aunt Pitty’s swoon last if she knew that a woman and a black man were duking it out for the nomination?  What wry and defeatist comment would Joe Christmas make about a bi-racial man in a quest for the presidency?  This is such an interesting election, in that there is the stereotypical candidate — a white, male, war veteran with military credentials — and there are two “new guard” type of candidates, both totally viable and being taken seriously.  It’s like you can actually see the changes happening in our thinking and our mores.

As the Dems get uglier and uglier, I am trying very hard to remember the history that is being made.  No matter the outcome of the primaries, this will be a(n) historic election.  William Faulkner did not write that long ago.  Women’s suffrage was not that long ago.  The Civil War, really, was not that long ago.  In the US, we tend to think of things that happened 80 years ago as the distant past, but it’s just the blink of an eye.  If we had more ancient ruins, as in Europe — if you could walk on a Roman aqueduct, or see a sword from the Battle of Hastings — maybe we’d feel differently.  I hope that this primary doesn’t suck the hope and life out of the politicians running, or those of us backing them.  I hope we can all keep our perspective and realize that this is a momentous, and ultimately transforming event for our country, no matter what happens in between.  I hope, and firmly believe, that we are making progress, and that the world that Darwin inherits will be better than the one that came before.  I don’t often think of him as “bi-racial,” but really he is, and the fact that I don’t think about it attests to our progress, just as this election does.