March, is it?

So, here it is, the Monday of my 4th week back to work full time, with Gopher in daycare full time.

And you know what? It's going just fine.

Sure, I miss my days of working from home. Mostly the parts when I was baby-snuggling and coffee-getting, though, which meant that I spent a lot of nights working from home to meet my deadlines. And as fantastically snuggly as that Gopher can be, I don't miss working FT with an infant and no childcare.

The month of February was a great opportunity to live the dream, refine the dream. What was once "I want to work from home" is now the more specific "I want to work for myself." Which is good to know. And what was once "sooner than later" is now "when the time is right," which is not now. And what was once "I could totally handle it" is now "I would really, really have to work at time management and give up on perfection."

And for whatever reason (maybe the refined and less urgent dream), I am much more comfortable where I am and I'm realizing that I really like what I do, that I get to do some really interesting things with interesting people, that I am treated with much kindness, and that I am really, really lucky when it comes to my job and many, many other areas in my life. I mean, I knew that before Gopher, but coming back to work was a nice reminder that everything is FINE. GOOD, even. That there is no need to reinvent everything, all the time.

The mornings, though. If I could just fix ONE thing, please. The fucking mornings. The racing around, the unpreparedness, the madness. The limited baby-snuggling, lack of patience-having. The feeling like I've been clawing my way out of a deep, dark pit for hours upon hours before I even hit the office door. That I could do without.

***

Spring must be hiding and giggling and almost peeing its pants somewhere, waiting to jump out and be all "Bloodeedoo!" because I have been feeling CRAFTY and RESTLESS. I've been knitting washcloths like your Granny, I made Birdy 4 little belts to hold her jeans up (bless her heart), and I've been threatening for three weeks to leave this damned house with no children strapped or otherwise attached to my body to go to the fabric store and purchase one of about 8 dress patterns I've had my eye on. That's right, I said it. DRESS PATTERN.

Which is funny, right? Miss jeans and solid-colored t-shirt over here? Well, despite my legendary * ahem * simple fashion sense, I spend a weird amount of time thinking about clothing, partially from a nerdy construction angle and partially from an "I'd like to be in over my head on a project" angle. Plus, dresses. I mean, how much easier does it get? One piece of clothing + shoes. Tights if it's cold. No finding multiple clean pieces. And in my current body shape, no waistband, amen. What may seem like a move toward the fancy is actually a move toward the lazy, and I am totally cool with that.

***

Bird and I ran into one of her former daycare teachers at the hotdog stand a few weekends ago. She's a lovely person, mid-twenties, who has recently become a police officer. She spends her working hours patrolling on foot in the projects. Which is, as you might have guessed, is totally hard core.

I realized as we were talking that becoming a cop is one of the most unsettling things I could imagine. In my life now, with my constantly humming little brain thinking up bizarre scenarios in the background of my actual, valuable thoughts, there are plenty of situations (plausible and implausible) that I am able to dismiss with "I would call the police."

But for Laura, holy shit, she IS the police. Which, for some, might feel empowering. To me, it seems terrifying. To know that this idea of an all-seeing protector is truly just a human, with no superhuman powers and no more magic than anybody else. That since Joe Policeman visited my 4th grade class, I've had this imaginary army of officers who totally had my back and really? There's just ME. I'm IT, and I know just exactly how un-magical I am. And there are a bunch of people out there who think I'm capable of being not only a badass, but a superhero badass.

And really (this is my point), it's kind of the same thing being a parent, isn't it? Those moments when you say to yourself, "Holy shit, I AM the mom. And I don't have a clue what I'm doing."

Vocabulary Police, Dawdling, and Over-thinking

If you had been at our house this morning, you would have seen me standing over the washing machine with my arm in almost up to the shoulder, frantically fishing through cold, dark water for my drowned cell phone. Already late for work, you would have heard me say a lot of things to myself. And you would have heard me end with "FUCKING STUPID."

And then, you would have heard a firm little voice in the kitchen say, "Mom. We don't say 'stupid'."


--

Ah, my Bird. She is a piddling, dawdling, piddledawdler in the mornings. A. puts up with most of it since I (theoretically, anyway) start my paid workday earlier than he does, and it is more frequently becoming a power struggle/ battle of wits/ tangle of wills between the two of them. They argue like teenagers. He asks her to put on her shoes, she puts on five finger puppets. He askes her to go get dressed, she spends her time jumping on the bed. He asks her to brush her hair, she ends up in a puddle of tears because she's found her winter coat in the too-small box. He asks her to put on her listening ears, and she says, "I left them at school." He counts to three. She complies at the final second. And more than a few times, Bird says, "Daddy. Settle down." Which, if you know my mild-mannered A., is especially funny. Except not to him.

--

So, about that too-small box. Looks like it's going to be seeing a lot of action starting this winter-- baby #2 is officially a girl. Time to start naming, sorting, wrapping our heads around what's going on around here. Two girls. Yay and yikes.

--

No time like the pregnant to over-think some shit: In halfway following a discussion board comment thread, I read the words that push the overthink-buttons of WOH mamas around the country: "evaluate what you give up to go to work and decide if it's really worth it." I'll spare you the details of my rabbit-hole thinking-- my ever-changing and always hazy list of gains and losses that never declares a winner.

All this talk of giving up and gaining. Of worth. How much of it is truly about the benefit to the child and how much of it is about having sorted laundry and clean sheets and time to slow-cook a meal? How much is about parenting and how much is about physically being in and keeping up a home? How much is just straight-up personal, on both sides of the decision?

I have wrestled with internal and external voices that both encourage and challenge my choices as a working-away-from-home mama, and I can tell you with complete honesty that sometimes, the desire to be home with my child during the day really does boil down to having naptime to myself and getting some flowers planted. Running an errand in the middle of the day without paying for it with my lunch hour. Spending enough time in my house to clean it and enough time in my neighborhood to enjoy it. And having time for actual, personal, non-facebook connections with my actual, personal friends. That is what I am missing-- or feel like I've given up-- the most right now. I have time with Bird every night, but I haven't seen some of my dearest friends in months.

I'll open with a quote, then there will be eleven things:

mama: Bird, which coat do you want to wear?

bird: My pink coat.

mama: Good choice.

bird: I love this coat, in spite of everything.


1. After the holiday feeding frenzy, A. and I gave up cheese, large portions, and junk food. We gave up laziness and tight pants. We bought a bathroom scale and a pedometer, fired up the ipod and started exercising. It's been about a month and we are still, for the most part, on the wagon. The wagon that is full of sunflower seeds and carrot sticks. The wagon in which we sit and stare wistfully at the other wagon, the one full of feta crumbles and sour cream and stringy, gooey lasagna.

2. I have discovered some super kick-ass vegan cookbooks, and have gotten in over my head on occasion but for the most part have learned that there is life after cheese. And that things actually have a taste when they are not covered in dairy products. I'll stop short of calling myself a vegan because I'm just not ready to be That Girl, but it has been a satisfying road so far. Highly recommend Veganomicon and the Vegan Lunch Box, both of which were available at my local library, and that means FREE for all of you playing along at home.

3. Also, I have started running. First on the elliptical machine at the community center, then on the treadmill at the community center during the commercial breaks on Oprah (walking the rest of the time) and in the last few days, running on the actual sidewalks in the actual neighborhood. It is not graceful, and it sure as shit is not easy. And it hurts like the devil, but I keep doing it.

4. A. is doing great with the running, the bastard.

5. We quit smoking a little over a year ago. WOOT!

6. Who the hell do I think I am, anyway?? 13 months ago, I was gnawing on hunks of cheddar and the only place I was running was into the 4-stop to buy a pack of smokes. And look at me now, with all of this bothersome health crap. Apologies. If it makes you feel any better, I am farting like an aging dog with a belly full of pinto beans. On that topic, we are trying to dissuade Bird from saying "fart." She now says she "has the vapors." Ah yes, much better.

7. Job. I like it. Being a mom. Like that, too. Not as mutually exclusive as I once thought. Either I'm getting better at balance or numb to the guilt and the second-guessing. Both, probably.

8. To the person that told me to clean my cast iron skillet with vegetable oil and coarse kosher salt, avoiding water unless it's a true stuck-on emergency: Thank you, kitchen wizard.

9. I hate playing "school." I get put in Time Out a lot. And then there is a version where there is a "teacher" and a "mama" and we replay a dropping-off-at-preschool scenario until I can't remember my own name. This is Bird's favorite thing to do-- she starts insisting on playing school before we even have our coats hung up in the afternoons.

10. I think it is time for a blog diet to compliment my new healthy eating plan. I have, like, nine thousand jillion blogs on my Google Reader. That link over there to my bloglines? Ancient. I've moved on to the Google Reader, and I will subscribe to anything. Everything. Cooking blogs. Mama blogs. People I Know blogs. And all of this blog checking has become a task, a pain in the ass, and it keeps me from writing here. There are things! Out there! That I haven't read yet! So I'll just read one more!

Mostly it's this: I subscribe to a lot of very beautiful blogs where people take pictures of their morning cups of coffee or write essays about their cherubic children weaving on looms in the wilderness or their gorgeous collection vintage dresses and heirloom quilts and and perfect crafts made in their tranquil, sunlit rooms before they prepare beautiful homemade meals for the family they love so very much, and it is all just such a huge load of bullshit. Obnoxious fiction. But I get sucked in, I scroll through these perfect little fantasies and they cast an ugly little shadow on my real life until I snap out of it and feel disgusted that I've just spent a very real part of my very real life looking at pictures of white curtains and whitewashed floors and reading about peaceful mornings spent playing with blocks in front of the fire or stitching up aprons or other such nonsense. So I am going to unsubscribe to these blogs very, very soon. Or at least put it all in one folder so I can avoid it as if it were cheese.

11. My mom is totally on facebook.

WOHM

You know, some days, this work/life balance thing comes pretty naturally. I get up on time, I make Birdy’s breakfast, give her a big snuggle, blow her a kiss and head downtown to my office. I work in peace and quiet, I think interesting thoughts, I take an hour for lunch, I am challenged, I create. I make the grade and I meet the expectation. I receive a pat on the back. I have this thing and this time that is mine. I get my work done, it is good work, it puts food on our table. I pick Bird up on time, she runs to me and tells me about her day, about the special snack for somebody’s birthday and using the big-kid scissors and how she shared with this kid or that kid, how they all played a game together, how she loves her friends and teachers. We go home and everyone behaves, Birdy coloring at the kitchen table while A. and I make a dinner for which we already have all of the ingredients. It’s bath time, then bedtime, then I take a few hours to hang out with A. or catch up on the Stuff That Must Be Done. The laundry makes it into the drawers, the bills are paid ahead of schedule, the dog hair tumbleweeds are minimal, thank you notes get sent, emails get returned, bread gets baked. It is busy, but it's joyful, manageable. I crawl in bed after eight and before midnight.

On these days, I am much more than a mama, but I don’t feel like less of a mama, if that makes sense.

And then, there are the other days, the days when Birdy shouts at me while I’m in the shower about the new coat she got in the mail from her Granny, and stick my head around the curtain to see a big girl, MY big girl, joyfully trying to jam her arm through the hood of her coat, and realize just how fast it’s really going, how distracted I can be, how I am spending my time racing around the lobby trying to buy popcorn when the show is already starting inside. There are the mornings when she is rude to me, that devastating preschool-rude, pushing me away, hurting my feelings, and there is no time to fix it because I’m out the door. There are the days when her willfulness clashes with my own willfulness, and I’m at a loss so I flip her the middle finger behind her back. There are the days when I fight back tears when I get in the car and for the better part of the morning, knowing that she’s pissed off at me because I leave her, because I don’t have time to find matching socks for myself let alone sit with her for two minutes when she says, “mama! I need some company!”, don’t have time to watch her stand on one foot, balance a lump of playdough on the dog, don’t have time to be her mama until much, much later in the day and by then, it feels like it’s too late.

And those are the days when the balance is gone, so lopsided, when the laundry spills out of the bedrooms and into the kitchen, when the to-do lists are scattered around the house like breadcrumbs I think I’ll be able to follow later to find my balance again. Those are the days when the dinner hits the table late, when I hit the bed too early, when it's hard to be kind, when the calendar is too full and the bank account is too empty. The days when I feel like my whole relationship with this Bird of mine is to prepare food, feed, and hustle her off to sleep, to some commitment, to another place so I can get on with the business of the Not Very Important But Very Necessary Things.

Days like today, for example.

Good Thursday Morning

Had that dream this morning-- the one where you get up, get in the shower, start breakfast. Everything normal, even the laundry is where you left it on the table. And then, you really wake up. And it's been 45 minutes since your alarm went off. And you shout obscenities and throw yourself at the shower, because it's the one day you have an outside meeting, and you have to find some un-embarrasing pants. And that can take a minute or two.

And your daughter, she wants to wear spooky socks. But mom? Not THOSE spooky socks. Those have SPIDERS on them, see? Not spooky. She needs the green ones with TWELVE PUMPKINS on them. TWELVE! She's holding one green sock, and the other? Well, anywhere. Your guess is as good as mine. But miraculously, you find it, in the bottom of the clean laundry. And honestly, if you'd found it in the bottom of the dirty laundry? Same result. Here's your sock. Please put it on. PLEASE. PUT IT-- hand the marker to me, please-- ON. And we have socks.

And then, shit, it's picture day at school. Let's have a look at you... bedhead, weird black and white hoodie and too-big pink cords, and the aforementioned bright green and orange spooky socks with TWELVE PUMPKINS. And you know the photographer brings "fancy clothes" for the kids, but last year the proofs of your simple girl looked like "trailer park pageant princess," dress too big and outdated, ruffly, falling off her shoulder. You know you're not buying photos anyway. But you dig around in the closet and find her pink and brown polka dot dress from your cousin's wedding, shove it in her bag, along with the Morningstar nuggets you'll be sending for lunch for the third day this week.

And we're off.

Finally, a non-vacation post

We had a slew of people visit us from Indianapolis for a few days over the 4th, effectively filling our little house to noisy, joyful capacity (total bodies: 8 adults, 2 toddlers, 2 dogs, 1 cat, 1 fish. Plus 6 additional dinner guests on Friday.) Birdy had a fabulous time with her small friend P.,we laid on old blankets to watch fireworks in the park in our neighborhood and Bird spent half the time with her hands on top of her head, afraid the fireworks would fall on her. She and P. ate popsicles that stained their skin green until morning, despite heavy scrubbing. We all stayed up too late and ate too much. We talked about old times and how much things have changed. We laughed at my dog’s haircut. We waited in line for the one shower in my 80-year old house. We braved the heat.

I love to be the host of that kind of party. It was perfect.

I read something in a glossy home magazine recently about a woman who, of course, had some fabulously rustic summer home in, like, France or something, and it was all about her laid-back style of hosting (she doesn’t match towels!) (Mama says WTF, do people really match their towels?) and how she hosts these lounge-y weekends with fabulously simple dinners at an enormous table probably with fireflies and famously interesting people lolling around on hammocks with candles hanging from the trees, smoking fancy cigarettes and having a few too many glasses of wine, everyone jolly and singing a little too loudly and helping cook breakfast in the morning.

Well. Our style of hosting is more of a fend-for-yourself, you-know-where-the-band-aids-are, if-you-want-a-clean-shower-here's-a-sponge model. And yet, we still have loads of guests year-round, so that must be somewhat appealing. Or at least not completely revolting. Anyway.

This woman in the magazine was talking about her steady stream of summer guests and how she felt it was good for her children as they grew up, that it encouraged spontaneity and joy de vivre, that observing an unscripted, uncensored moment around the grown-up table was healthy and made kids feel included, valued, one of the pack.

Recently, someone I respect very much wondered aloud if our constant visitors were causing stress to our little Bird. It was a part of a larger conversation about attention-seeking behaviors that really made me feel helpless and honestly, hurt my little feelings as a full-time worker bee who’s just trying her damndest to be a good mama.

Uh-oh. Shake it off.

Anyway. I believe that yes, Birdy does need very special one-one-one attention from us. And she also needs to be left alone (within earshot) to get lost in her little world of babies and songs and playdough pancakes. And I believe it’s good for her, on occasion, to be a valued member of a raucous bunch of good-natured and treasured friends, where everybody cooks and everybody parents, where people aren’t hanging on her every precious word and she can gain the confidence to strike up conversation with anyone, even (gasp) a grown-up, or feel loved enough by a non-family member to snuggle on the couch with her favorite grown up friend A.L., or discuss scarecrows in-depth with a plentifully tattooed photographer friend, or rub a pregnant guest’s belly and ask two hundred questions and never feel embarrassed, or too young, or insignificant. It's good for her to have structure, yes, but it's good for her to learn that you don't always have to give a shit about bedtime. That sometimes things not going according to plan is the plan. That friends can be family and you can never be loved too much.

(Wish I would have thought to say that then.)

Quitter

So, I quit my job.

And I've been brewing up a post about this transition but haven't sat down to write it yet, partially because I've been up to my ears in other pressing issues and partially because... well, mlech. It's layered and thorny and it kind of makes me want to throw up.

The quick and dirty:
+More money.
-Less time at home.
+Better benefits (in that there are at least SOME).
-Less flexibility.
+Creative challenge.
-Constant judgment.
+Room to grow.
+/-Giving up permission to be mediocre 8 hours a day.
+/- taking a job on purpose, because I want it, not because I need a job while I work on the next big thing. That's the scariest.

The long and muckier:
And then there is the gnawing fact that when I left my desk job to go to massage school, the last place I ever wanted to be again was behind a desk. And now I'm staring at a 40 hour workweek and the words 'business casual.' What I envisioned was something I would love that would allow me to take my time in the mornings and swing by the Goodwill to kill a few hours in the afternoon if I felt like it, drag out my sewing machine, or take my dog to the vet without rearranging the world. You know, a total non-job. Actually, that setup? I think they call that inheritance.

And then there is the part about this being selfish in positive ways, about giving myself permission to find something I like to do, something that keeps my interest. And the part about being selfish in not-so-positive ways, putting my career before my family, giving up my extra day with Bird when I already have a job that makes ends meet, albeit barely. There's the feeling that I have years to be career-minded, that I should trudge through whatever job lets me be more of a mama.

Okay that's it. We're not talking about it anymore. This is boring. Except:

The day before I accepted this job I was sitting at a stoplight right here in Middle Tennessee, next to a semi truck from beautiful Las Cruces, NM. Hold on, this is significant.

Here's what I know about Las Cruces: It's a smallish city/college town near the border of Mexico, home to one of the schools that accepted me into its MFA program in creative writing in 1999. It's the town where I signed a lease on a one-bedroom adobe house and spent a few days meeting the other students in the program and talking with the writer in residence. And it's the place I never lived after my dad had a heart attack that year and I couldn't wrap my brain around not being able to drive home.

I didn't go for a lot of reasons I don't regret, another one of them being my now-husband who was my then-newish-boyfriend. But it has been my "what if" for going on ten years, and it showed up-- a semi truck from a smallish NM town-- right next to me here in Middle Tennessee. A truck from the town that was going to make me a writer appears during the days I spent trying to decide if I'm meant to be one. My 'what if' reminder.

So there you have it. Still making me nauseous, but I believe the hard part is over-- now if I could just warm up these damn feet. Here's to slacks on the 21st. I can't believe I just said that.

And on to the important stuff:

Bird is driving me fucking bananas. TWO. OhmygodTWO. Simultaneously sugar-sweet and raised from the pits of hell. She moved into the 2-3 year old class at daycare: big kid undies, big-kid swings, the whole shootin' match. She's a little person going through a big transition, just like me, and it isn't always graceful. I have a feeling we're driving each other fucking bananas.

*

Two things a mama doesn't love to hear when she's contemplating trading a part-time work schedule for a full-time one:

1.

A: Birdy, come up here and snuggle me!

Bird: I wish I could, but I have to go to work now.

2.

(I hear this regularly, when she's feeling willful, which, hello she is TWO)

Mama: Please stop banging that spoon on the dishwasher.

Bird: NO! YOU ARE NOT MY TEACHER!

That one makes my blood boil and my insides turn inside out.




Oh, and Slob Minterview went all kinds of real nice. Slob Minterview Part Deux happens next week.

Eight Things That Can Totally Suck It*

1. Construction across the street. Please, drive the backhoe in reverse for ten straight minutes. Then drop something that weighs several tons.
2. Mailman. We don't need that mail, man.
3. Anyone calling my phone.
4. Me, for forgetting to turn off the ringer.
5. Neighbor with booming bass sounds in car. Don't get out of your vehicle and knock on the door, please, just honk your em-effing horn until somebody comes out.
6. Clumsy cat.
7. Stompy, barky dogs.
8. Tickle in my throat/ sneezing.

* When I'm trying to snuggle a freshly-vaccinated toddler down for a nap which, after over an hour of clingy, fussy discomfort will require a 74-point slow-motion maneuver to extract myself from under her fragile sleepiness.

View of a nap through the keyhole

Awful Mama

This morning, first thing, Bird started removing ornaments from the tree. Dragging all of my shoes out of the closet. Losing my comb. Screeching. Opening cabinets. Throwing forks. Using about 10 perfectly good diapers on her baby doll. Coloring on the floor. Putting stickers on the dog. Climbing the stairs in secret. Emptying the recycling one cracker box and water bottle at a time. Taking items one-by-one from the "Get Out The Door" pile and putting them "away," checkbook in the toy basket, sun glasses under the couch, phone God only knows where.

So I say, as I'm trying for the third time to get mascara on BOTH eyes before dealing with another Bird-related issue:

"Hey Bird, would you like to watch some TELEVISION?"

She immediately dropped my day planner into the dog food. Yes. Yes she would.

I finally got my lunch together, Bird's lunch together, daycare check written, dogs fed, clothes on, etc. I came back into the living room to find her on the couch watching a brain-melting show, looking completely medicated. Awful mama can't be bothered with being a mama, must put child out of commission.

And from there, we moved on to going completely boneless and floppy in a tantrum over her hat, another over her shoes, another over carrying her own bag, and still another over the zipping of the coat, ending in the mother of all tantrums about walking down the front steps ALL BY MYSELF. There was a point where she arched and kicked and twisted in the car seat so that I couldn't buckle it. There was a point where she laid face-down in the yard and I just stood there and stared at her while my eyes welled up. There was a point where I physically wrestled this child into her car seat, with the screaming and kicking and arching.

There was screaming all the way to daycare with a brief period of discussion about having a lovely snack when she got there, what do you think it will be? French toast? Great! and then more horrible, heart-wrenching, snotty, tearful wailing and grabbing at my jacket as Louise the Daycare Lady had to physically remove this little person from my body and I melted right out of the building.

Awful, awful.

And for what? So I can get to my job on time? So I can sit at this desk at a certain mark on the clock and check my effing email?

I'd like to say I handled all of this gracefully, but I'm unimpressed by my performance, starting with the television doping all the way up to the gnashing of teeth and wringing of hands and total loss of all patience and reason.

And now, at my desk, I just feel like a bad mama, like I should run as fast as I can to my Bird and make it up to her.

Again, three solid days of living my real life makes the work-week life seem so cruel.

Ah, the Thanksgiving, It is Over.

In case you were wondering, I chose to watch cable instead of posting for the last several days.

Actually, that isn't accurate. For all of the delicious cable television that was available, I actually watched very little of it. And for all of the delicious food that was available, well, that's another story. Two words: Gingersnap Cheesecake. Two more words: Twenty Pounds.

Here's the Recap:

First off, Our Bird. Our Bird, our Bird. Could not have been a better traveler (except maybe that last hour in the car where I had to contort my body to hold her hand from the front seat and sing "mockingbird," complete with the made-up verses, over and over in the dark and pouring rain). But the rest of the time, with the chattering from the back seat and the self-entertaining, really, she just could not have been better. And to top it all off, we had a fabulous impromptu dance party, just Bird and I, south of Louisville in the empty, too-bright, too-loud restroom at McDonalds, jumping around all rumpled and wrinkled and weary, happy to be off the road, unbuckled and on our feet, finally out of the rain. I'm telling you, that kid has some serious moves. And she knows it's funny to dance in the bathroom. I am a lucky mama.

And that says nothing of our first real holiday-with-toddler experience, watching Birdy chattering with family, losing her shyness, baking pretend food for her grandparents, saying "please" and "thank you" and a hundred hilarious one-liners I can't seem to hold long enough in my brain. Snuggling in the guest room at my Mom and Dad's, nose to nose with me, saying, "you be quiet now, mommy. I have to go to sleep."

And the Thanksgiving went on like that, generally peaceful and easy, visiting with my grandparents who made the journey to Littleplace with the help of my Dad, spending time too-rare with my brother and Mrs. Brother and their completely reconstructed dog, talking more about life now, and less about life then.

That distance between past and present is both jarring and peaceful, depending on the second it hits you.

And it isn't always easy to know who or how you are supposed to be-- even as unshakable a person as you may be in your daily life-- when you are back in the mix of family, being a mother and a daughter, a sister and an in-law, a cook and a guest, under the old roof, sleeping in the old bedroom, with the old roles and the new roles and the new people and the old people.

And truly, we are so thankful. We are thankful for family, for a safe trip, for our healthy, happy Bird and her sweet spirit. We are thankful for cars that run well and twenty bucks secretly slipped into my purse for gas. We are thankful for all of the reasons that pull us toward moving back to Indiana, and just as thankful for all of the reasons that keep us here in Tennessee. We are thankful to have enough reasons to want to be in two places at the same time.

And you know, that exhausted and joyful dance party in the bathroom on our long drive home is probably my favorite memory of the whole five days. Which is not to say the rest of our time wasn't completely lovely, because it absolutely was, with the pies and the hugs and the catching up. But this is what I'm talking about, whether I make any sense or not-- the past and the present and roles and relationships and parents and children and things now and things then and it all shifts with this new family of mine that is unfolding, holding me tighter and tighter in a little ball with Bird and A.



On another note, my dogs shit on the floor almost every day we were gone. We're going to run out of dog sitters if this continues.

What do you do?

So, let's say you're a potty training parent.

It's morning, and your spouse has left for work already, and you have just taken a seat in the parlor with a nice bowl of Corn Chex and soy milk, watching your little potty trainer feed some sort of wooden pizza to a seated, stuffed baby. She chit-chats, you chit-chat, you eat a few of your Corn Chex. They are delicious.

And it gets quiet. Your toddler looks both surprised and terrified.

She says, quietly, "haffa use the potty."

You leap from your chair, shouting, "LET'SGOLET'SGOLET'SGO," like you're heading up some potty-focused fire and rescue squad entering a burning building full of kittens and babies. You shuffle your toddler into the bathroom, a bathroom so small there is really only room for one of you, even when one of you is two years old, but you crowd in and jockey with the door and the sink and try to pull out the potty chair in time for this joyous pee event. You set your cereal bowl on the toilet tank and realize it is about to start an avalanche of magazines and catalogs. You set your cereal bowl on the floor.

Your toddler is having trouble pulling down her jammie pants. You turn around to help and manage to ram your hip squarely into the doorknob, but you don't curse. You help with the pants, you help with the diaper, you realize it is partially too late. There is poop in the diaper. You seat the toddler on the potty chair and proceed to try to shake the poop pancake into the toilet for flushing. You try to turn around and ram your other hip squarely into the sink. You don't curse. You shake the (suprisingly stubborn) poop from the diaper into the toilet. Your toddler pee pees. You make a big deal about it, high fives, stickers for the chart. You help her clean up. You get a clean diaper. You empty the pee-pot and swish it with vinegar, all the while talking up the potty success.

Your toddler goes back to the wooden pizza. You look at your cereal bowl on the bathroom floor.

You think, "I didn't see any poop fall in my cereal when I was shaking out the diaper."

You think, "Surely there is no poop in my cereal."

You think, "But what if there is poop in my cereal? I wasn't exactly watching the cereal."

You think about the floater in the bathtub last week. You gag a little.

You think, "Really, the chance of some poop flying off of the shaking diaper and landing in my cereal are so slim."

You think, "Who has a bathroom this tiny, anyway? Without some kind of flat space to put a cereal bowl?"

You think, "Seriously, what if there is poop in my cereal? There is no poop in my cereal."

You think, "but what if. What if it is down at the bottom of the bowl, or even worse, just a small morsel of poop that I wouldn't even notice."



And then you throw the cereal away, that's what you do.

Tuesday is the New Saturday (because I am not working today, that's the only thing they really have in common)

Debate with Toddler, Round II
"You lay on the white poller and I lay on the green poller."
"Okay."
"This poller is orange, and that poller is white."
"Um, okay, but I think your pillow is green. You just told me that."
"This one is orange, and that one is white."
"That one is green, and this one is white."
"Orange."
"Green."
"Orange."
"We'll just have to agree to disagree."
"Orange."

You say potato, and I say vagina
Also, by evening on the day of the potato-vagina debates, everything was vagina (bachina). Bachina bachina bachina. Bachina for dinner. Bachina on the phone. Bachina in the bedtime book.

As of today, the bachina storm seems to be on its way out, unless you ask Bird what something is called, because you know it's gonna be bachina. My favorite is her scuffed and beloved baby Stella, now known affectionately as Bachina Baby if you ask.

Finally I get to really pretend to be a stay-at-home mom
Bird and I went to story time today at the public library downtown, and she's now sleeping off all of the excitement of the puppets and the songs and the other kids, worn out from exclaiming things. It was all shock and awe at the Story Time today. Bird even walked right up to the puppeteer/ story reader after it was all over and gave him a proper toddler stare down, she was so impressed (and so brave).

We showed up a half-hour early (or a half-hour late, take your pick) for one of the three story times scheduled for today, and went upstairs to check out some books from my list while we waited. I set my water bottle down while dewy-decimaling, and took a few steps away from it to a different shelf. And Bird said, in a non-library voice, "MOMMY! DON'T LEAVE YOUR BEER!"

Recipe Corner and Deeper Thoughts

Okay, so I know what you're thinking. That's just pasta and vegetables with melted cheese.


You're right. It's just pasta (the very last straggly pieces of 2 mismatched boxes, combined) boiled right in the same water with frozen peas, carrots, and corn. Then drained and served with a healthy handful of shredded marble cheddar and some delicious, sinful butter. And some salt.

I didn't invent it and I'm not even pretending it's a big deal. I know you probably make your own version. I just don't want you to forget how fabulous and uncomplicated it is.

So I am eating this always-true formula of comfort food deliciousness while my Bird naps and my husband plays basketball with kids half his age at the community center. The house is quiet. I just finished an article I'd been wanting to read. I'm still in my pajamas, and it's 2pm. Even more delicious.

Last week, I got worked up about chemicals and the toxic dangers lurking under our sink, and I threw every spray and solution and powder away, replacing them with a Farmer's Almanac guide to simple cleaning, a bottle of vinegar, some lemons, a bottle of peroxide and a box of baking soda. So far so great, as Bird and I spent the morning deep-cleaning the kitchen, and she was completely welcome to go buck wild with the spray bottle of safe, homemade cleaner and her own sponge. And now my kitchen is mostly clean, my 1930s cast-iron sink is closer to white than I have seen it in a while, the house is quiet, and all is well.

Like I was saying, I'm eating my lunch. I heard some stirring from the direction of Bird's room, and I walked down the hall and leaned against her door frame for a minute, listening for the normal scritching and scratching as she wakes from her nap. No scritching. But all of a sudden, I am socked in the gut by the fact that I am somebody's parent. That I am standing in my quiet house with no larger agenda than to take care of my own, listening for that little person, human being, thing that I created, thing that is both a part of me and a separate life, to rejoin our day. I have a child. I am a mother. It's a sock in the gut and a deep embrace at the same time, and I have to catch my breath because it is too big and too powerful and to sweet and too terrifying to handle.


Like knowing all along there is light in the world and one day looking right into the sun.

We Have Reached Maximum Occupancy of Brain

Oh, oh, oh, my head is on the verge of explosion. There's too much going on in there, bumping around and against itself and still not making a shred of sense.

I have one more day of intern clinic, and then one more weekend of classes (proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation, which is not as bad as it sounds), and then school is over. I will study. I will take the national board exam and I will become licensed.

And then I can't use "I'm in school" as an excuse to not have my shit together, or at least have some kind of a plan for thinking about deciding how said shit will come together. And by my shit, I mean my whole family's shit, because I tend to be in charge of the shit that needs to come together. And I can no longer use "I'm in school" as an excuse for working part time and keeping my family broke. Even a little bit. I'm going to have to own the part-time thing as it relates to the broke-ass thing, knowing that the good-hearted effort to spend more time with Bird also includes the reality that I could be doing more. I could be trying harder to save us from broke-assness.

So then maybe I will give massage somewhere one day a week in addition to my now three-day-a-week job with the dying people and the small-but-steady paycheck. But then, am I following my initial plan to have more time with my family? Or am I just really looking for full-time work after all, no matter how you piece it together? And do I really want to stick around with the dying people? This was supposed to be temporary. And oh, what a mess.

So begins the whirring of my gears, but the cogs and wheels are getting all mucked up with muck and it becomes overwhelming. What if this, what if that, what about childcare, what about another baby, what about the bills, what about the mortgage, what about that ten-year-old car, what about a drink? Yes, I could use a drink, thank you. And I'll kiss you on the mouth if you give me a smoke and talk to me about something else.

Quick! I have ten minutes.

Oh, hi. Sorry for my absence. I've been doing things, like working.

Because, long story short, I realized that I'm not going to start loving my job until I start really doing it, giving a shit about it, and just because I don't plan on being there forever doesn't mean I can't focus a little bit and take the opportunity I have to do good work in the world. Well, as much as possible anyway. It would be much easier if my patients would stop it with the dying, but we've talked about that.

So I've been working, and that's really cut down on my blogging time. Also, I have (as usual) everything and nothing to say, and sometimes that makes beginning a post seem like starting a twenty-five page research paper. Today, I must keep things brief.

A quick aside: my Bird is in the next room, babbling/ shouting at me from her crib, where she is supposed to be napping. I could go in there, but I'm afraid I'll start the I-only-sleep-on-my-mama-so-don't-even-give-me-this-crib-bullshit game. And normally I wouldn't be so rigid, but my in-laws are on their way and are expected at my doorstep in about twenty minutes, and this kid needs a nap like nobody's business. And if they come busting up in here with the hugging and the cooing and the what have you, we can kiss this nap goodbye for sure.

In the spirit of brevity, which I seem to be losing, here are a few things:

The Father's Day Card people need to branch out a little bit. Not all dads fix things or like to plunk their fat asses down on the couch with the remote control. And not all Dads grill. I was hard pressed to find a card that did not involve tools, some promise of remote controls/ couch time/ beer, or grilling accessories. Oh, or dumb jokes about how Dad pays for everything, but you're still a slacker kid, and thanks for the money, aren't I a bunch of trouble, nudge nudge, right? All dumb.

Also, the downtown public library, in its (I'm for real here) splendor, is really kind of a hobo camp. But the hobos are nice and they sit at the study tables pretending to read, and they always smile kindly at my little banshee as she runs down the long aisle in the fiction section screaming her ass off. But I'm just sayin', it's the sweetest, most marble-laden homeless shelter in town.

I've been having work-free fridays lately, and I don't feel like explaining it, but what I can say is that I now see the SAHM role in a new light-- several new lights, in fact. One of those is that it could really be a potential spend-a-thon. Because getting out of the house usually involves running errands, errands at places where there are things for sale.

Oh, and this week the Bird has been to the doctor for a mysterious come-and-go limp, and now is covered from head to toe in a spooky looking, non-itching, unidentifiable rash.
I'm just shrugging over here.

Feverino

So, where have I been?

Nursing a feverish Bird.

Daycare called on Monday to report that her fever was 103. Tuesday she was off to the doctor with A, and Wednesday she hovered around 100 all day and slept and snuggled, and Thursday started to look like she was on the mend, until I discovered a pinpoint-y rash all over her little tummy and neck.

Turns out it's probably a reaction to the MMR vaccine, or a virus she picked up when we went in to get it last Friday. At least it wasn't the chickenpox. And at least she's feeling better. High fevers scare the shit out of me, because I start thinking about Little House on the Prairie, and how somebody always had some kind of dramatically high fever and had to get in an ice bath and they always died or almost died.

Or lost their hearing. Or was it her sight? It was her sight. Mary was blind.* Because of a fever, I think. I used to have a patient who went deaf as a child as a result of a high fever. She was wild and crazy, and I once spend a solid six hours with her in the emergency room waiting area after she'd downed a bottle of calamine lotion because her face was itchy.

(The hospital I speak of is a part of Prestigious Private University, and offered 18 different language translation options in the ER, but NO American Sign Language. Which wouldn't have mattered anyway because this person's signs were for the most part all her own made-up gestures, and when we finally made it to the desk to sign forms, she drew huge hearts all over the pages and refused to write anything except "I Love Lucy." But still. No ASL. Screw you, Deaf people! And especially you, deaf and crazy people! But bring on the Turkish interpreters!)

Anyway, so Mary Ingalls was blind, not deaf. And the high fevers on the Prairie are one of the many reasons I do not care for "pioneer"-type stories. There you have it.

In any case, I've hardly been in my office at all this week. How do people do it? How do moms without ridiculously flexible work situations (like mine, fortunately) do this? I feel guilty for neglecting my job when I stay home with Bird (though she is my most important job, make no mistake), and then guilty when I come to work and leave my still-clingy Bird at daycare. With all this guilt, I might as well just suck it up and convert to Catholicism. At least my father-in-law would be happy.

This schedule suits me, though-- one and a half days in the office, about four hours of freelance work during naptimes and after bedtime. I could get used to this. I mean, I wish I could get used to this. For this short week, I felt like my time was allotted in line with my priorities.

I remember last year at this time, working at my strangely rigid non-job (where I did literally absolutely nothing and my suspicion is that I was not the only one by a long shot, but everyone took it all very seriously), when Bird first started daycare and got sick and then sicker, mended and then sicker, after being thrown into the cesspool Baby Warehouse. We lost so much sleep, and I missed so much work. I remember being called into one of the partners' offices to be told that "You have used all of your personal days, and any time you take to care for Bird from this point forward will be unpaid." And I remember feeling so fucking DOOMED by the whole thing, because I sure as shit wasn't going to let such a meaningless job make me less of a mother than it already had, but at the same time, I felt like I had crossed some kind of line, was pushing my luck with my bosses. Doomed and Damned. I cried over that.

PANICPANICPANIC
Today our city essentially shut down, due to about an inch (you heard me) of snow. But I am a Hoosier! I'm used to this shit, you wussy middle Tennesseans! SUCK IT UP! BWAH!!

Stinky Drink
Oh, and it's finally happened... someone brought flavored coffee into the office. It stinks like charred Kahlua, and I won't be drinking any. In fact, I wish I didn't have to breathe it. Like my grandpa once said, "Tastes like coffee with perfume in it."

He washes darks with lights, but he's still the Greatest
This morning, A. went out to scrape off the cars while Bird and I ate cheerios and watched Teletubbies (which is so bizarre, but I know you know that) in our jammies. Snow day, remember? I looked out the front window to find him gloveless, having a snowball fight with our neighbor kid who was out of school with no kids around to play with. He may be an Alfani man, but that husband of mine has a heart of gold. And really, really cold hands.

*Edited to Add: Mary did not go blind due to fever.

If you make it to the end and it still makes sense, you win the prize

Well, I think I can safely say we are over the early 2007 stomach yuck. I hope.

That is, unless I pick up Bird at daycare and her teacher gets all snooty about how she had a runny diaper again today. Because, you know, I knew she was going to have precisely this kind of gross diaper today and I purposely kept that information a secret so that I could drop my kid off and go home and eat bonbons and watch Montel and scratch my butt all day at home by myself while somebody else takes care of my recovering-from-the-yuck child. mwahahahahaha.

Although, I do have to give the daycare lady a little break on her attitude, because somehow my child managed to poop in her face (yeah, read that again) on Friday. Some kind of splattering incident. So I guess she can be a little put out that I'm not stopping life to nurse my kid back to completely solid defecations before returning her to daycare.

And we are off to a wordy start!

Merry Effing Christmas
First off, let me vent in a vague way about Christmas and belated Christmases. We are making another (groan) trip to Indiana this weekend for yet another em-effing Christmas, which was sprung upon us yesterday, the result of poor planning and poor... whatever. Actually, I don't want to vent about this anymore. I just want it to be over.

The Rambling. Oh, the rambling.
So you know when you're getting ready to go out (do you go out? like with friends? really? can I come sometime?) or getting ready for work or something, and you put on a necklace that you really like, and you try on, like, everything you own but nothing looks quite right with the necklace, and after way too many costume changes you think, "Wait a second... I thought the necklace was the best part but everything is fine except for the necklace". So you take the necklace off and go out or to work or whatever without the necklace, wearing something perfectly acceptable and you know then that it was the necklace that was wrong in the first place?

Yeah, I know, not the clearest train of thought but it's the best I can do right now. Maybe I should have said "square peg in a round hole?"

The point is that I was beginning to feel like that about massage school. That school was the necklace. Having a month off made it seem like more of an obstacle than an opportunity. I started thinking about slowing down my classes. I started thinking about how if I could just get a few more freelance clients I could skip everything all together and just write newsletters and dumb articles and have even more flexible time at home with my Bird. That I could write in the middle of the night if I needed to, and save the kajillion dollars a month I spend on childcare. That massage was dumb and a hasty decision and more hassle than it's worth. That I could never grow a practice from scratch. That it would be too hard. Too much overhead. That I should just take off the damn necklace.

Class started today, though, and while this one is going to be a long and hard road, I'm excited about it again. The possibility. The learning. The work, the doing. The soft focus of it, the mindfulness, the connection.

And I realized that the necklace was a grand combination of things, no small part of which is the stalling between the frenzy of November and December and the real kicking-off of the new year-- that no-man's land after Christmas, before people start to look alive again, where you have no idea what day it is or when you last showered. It made me crazy. It made me lose focus and run in a million directions half-assedly in slow motion and spend an entire precious morning scrubbing my kitchen. I got pretty micro.

And in the stalling time, I had those few SAHM days. I got really jealous and entitled. I got sad about my Bird getting bigger and smarter and funnier "without" me. I felt like I didn't have time to waste with this school nonsense. I needed that quick fix, whatever would get me home with Bird. I envisioned how it would look when I quit my job and school and worked from home. The things we'd do. The places we'd go. The new and improved mother I would be. The new and improved craftsperson I would be. The glowing, healthy, happy person I would be.

What did I not envision? Doing the work. Actually working. Trying to find clients. Trying to find the time to work. Trying to find enough clients to pay the bills. I just saw me and Bird in the park morning after morning.

The stalling time made me scrambly to get to those mornings. Scrambly because I don't have a down-to-the-letter plan. Scrambly to know what "it" will look like. Made me really question my path because I can't see exactly where it leads.

So today in class, we had to do the talk-about-yourself thing, introductions, etc. And our instructor started by saying "So, I'll tell you a little about who I am... so far." And that struck me in just the right way. He told his story about how he came to do what he does, the little milestones and events along the way that were "supposed to happen when they did." And I had a little more perspective on my anxiety, my restlessness, my thoughts of scrapping everything because I couldn't see the future, right down to the dollar signs. I think (and you may need to remind me of this later) that I need to appreciate more where I am now, and let my self be surprised by where I'm going, as long as I pay attention to the things that are "supposed to happen" for me to see clearly. Because this is only who I am so far, and so far, I'm wearing this necklace.


ETA: However, I have a maybe-promising meeting with an ad agency to take on some possibly regular freelance projects. Nothing is scrapped, but that's the point. This is all going to fit together nicely, I just don't know how.

Itchiness and Mark Twain

I am, as I usually am in the twilight of the old year and the whirring gear-up of the new year, feeling itchy and restless.

I had a nice little window into stay-at-home-momming this past week, having a day off to meet up with the visiting S. and her kiddos to run errands and play* in the kids' section at Barnes and Noble. It's all I want in this world, my friendly internetties, and I rack my brain regularly for a way to make it happen, but the numbers don't ever add up. They don't add up by a long shot. I want to stay home with my Bird and have adventures, go to MAU playgroup, library story time. Make her my focus. After having consecutive days off and spending those days with my girl, I felt like we understood each other so much better. Like I knew her better. I loved our little time for what it was, but it made me notice what I'm missing. If you are a SAHM out there, I know it is not all a walk in the park, but please, count your lucky stars that you HAVE all those walks in the park. I would do anything to be in your shoes right now.**

* The kids's section at Barnes and Noble is full of germs. I know this because my kid was a generous contributor to the population of germies. Not that she's deathly ill, but come on-- in the winter, everybody's snotty. So be warned: don't touch the hedgehog puppet. Or 90% of the stuff on the train table.

**I know, whiny whiny me. I'm not saying daycare doesn't have its merits, because it really does have some incredible benefits for parents and children, PROVIDING YOU FIND THE RIGHT ONE, and I cannot make that clear enough. I try to remind myself of the Mark Twain quote that I am about to bungle: "Happiness is not having what you want, it's wanting what you have." I have alluded and proclaimed several times that I want to be a SAHM, but there are many things I enjoy about our current setup, one of which is the two nickels I earn here at the jobby that keeps a roof over our hairy little heads. I have much, I am thankful.

But I really wish I could be a stay at home mom and do art projects on the coffee table vs. sitting at this desk talking to you all. And I will have the last word, Mark Twain, because this is my blog.