My gradual descent and saving myself from it

I noticed today while packing up the Christmas tree and decorations that my day-to-day life has become way too housewifey. Somehow, I was cooler when my kid was a tiny baby. Somehow, I've gotten dragged into a situation where I am doing an awful lot of cleaning and picking up, reorganizing of the house—and too, too many trips to the grocery store and Target.

Enough!

I hereby declare, with 2010 upon us, that I will return to my bohemianism and get in touch with myself. And myself is not a housewife.

Not that there's anything wrong with it.

No, I chose to quit my job after maternity leave to stay home with my little one. I chose to take the salary cut and the cut from connection with lots of grown-up people each day to work from home in my spare time. But, somewhere along the line I started doing more housework, and this, I do not like. I don't know if its because housework is one of the few things that is relatively easy to do when you have a toddler/preschooler around, because they either like to help, or they think that you are playing, OR if its because there is more of a need for it with all the messes that toddlers/preschoolers make, but it has taken over my life. And housework makes me want to drink...and get high...because, it is boring! Even playing with a toddler/preschooler, to me, is probably less boring than housework, but it is sometimes less gratifying, or, maybe I am just compelled to do the work because I see this mess building around me all the time and I am obsessive/compulsive like that. But, I often feel like I have spent the whole day picking up stuff and cleaning and thinking, man, if only I didn't have to pick up and clean so much I'd be able to spend more time actually playing with my kid.

This is what it's come down to? I lament the fact that I do too much housework to play with my kid? What happened to learning guitar and Portuguese? (These things I mentioned to a friend I would do in my "spare" time during my sabbatical from work, staying home with my kid, of course, while I freelanced, too...WTF was I thinking?!?)

The worse parts of all this are that I have gotten too fat and I have turned into a bitch. Being around here all day, making countless mini meals for someone who doesn't seem to like anything but yogurt and cookies (OK, I am exaggerating) and eating and drinking out of boredom and frustration has added up. As for being a bitch, without a decent release, without good breaks or good mental maintenance, I blame my husband for my discontent. If he would only pick up his shit...if he would only this...only that....I hate myself for all this. It's not his fault I'm a nut.

I kind of feel like I've turned a corner just by making these observations, but, what to do next? What direction can I take, now that I have saved myself by seeing the problem state that I've arrived at? I'll have to think about that. I will probably blog a bit about some things I've been wrestling with over the past couple weeks of the holidaze, and then usher in the New Year with some kinda fresh attitude I hope will last.

Revelations from everyday entertainment

Last night we watched 5oo Days of Summer and it dawned on me...I actually love my husband!

Of course, this is something I should already know, but, I am often highly annoyed with him (probably my problem, not him) and I often (in the past, before my recent decade-end epiphanies) have felt at my wit's end. BUT, now that I have seen this movie, I know I love him.

First of all, I will say, the movie was cute, not the greatest movie, not the worst. The leading man vacillated between mildly cute and wholly unappealing. It almost made me dislike Zooey Deschanel until I reminded myself she was just playing a role. (Because I have to like her, as a frequent collaborator with musical fave M. Ward.) But, at the end, I was like...damn, I guess I do love my husband.

Because, when they were showing the parts where the guy was rethinking their relationship and remembered her irked smirk when he showed her a Ringo Starr record (she had told him Ringo was her favorite Beatle) and when she was like, I am tired, I just want to go be by myself....I thought, I never would feel that way about my guy. Even when I am totally pissed at him, I am never repulsed...and she looked repulsed...like she wanted him gone. Even when I am sooooo very annoyed, I still want to snuggle. He still is...my life. It is so weird! He would never gross me out. And watching this movie, I could see why Zooey Deschanel would be grossed out by this guy. He is so needy and so adoring of her when he doesn't even seem to really get her. My husband on the other hand is attractively detached. At times, I may feel like he does not know, care about or respect the real me...but he's not cloying about a me he doesn't know.

Weird. I know. Must be chemistry. It seems, he will never gross me out. Ever.

Going Underground

Regular visitors to this blog (all three of you—ha!) may notice a change in our banner. We are going underground and going anonymous! So...you don't know me. Shhh.

I am going to lay it all out now and use this blog for therapy—I need it. There are some things I need to sort out and things I need to say and hash out that might even provide content for future, more-developed pieces. At first, some of it may be ugly...but I think, eventually, it will help me be a better person. I just need to get some of that stuff out before I move on. Like cleaning house. And my poor husband has heard so much of it that he has become numb to it. And it doesn't really matter to me who hears it...it's just that I need to get it out and the semi-anonymous format of a blog is what fits me right now, I like to type and be on the computer more than writing in notebooks, for one thing.

So, here goes...

Update

I think I am in one of my lulls again. So much to say, but then again, not so much.

I won a $10 Starbucks card for my cupcakes—one of the very cards I went and purchased for prizes for the event, but my cupcakes were chosen anonymously for the prize. Nobody knew whose they were.

I was going to write about how I feel like an outsider amongst the suburbanites who have money and are into decor and other bourgeois stuff...but that doesn't sound quite right.

I am in a phase where I am wanting to be more inside myself and live a more private life, so may have another lull for a while.

Having your cake and eating it, too

I'm always coming across little things on Babble.com that annoy...I guess the subjects of Motherlode and Judith Warner's Domestic Disturbances on the New York Times' site are just too serious, or frustrating (I don't think not using federal funds for abortions is a symptom of widespread misogyny, sorry!), for me to synthesize responses to. And, in keeping with my pledge to blog more about things that are actually close to home (my life), it was timely to see this post on Babble where some fake career woman wrote in a letter about not wanting to make stuff for the school bake sale.

I say "fake" because it was one of those advice column things and she was asking if she should "raise a stink" or not about being asked to bake something, because, the men weren't asked (how sexist!) and she was so busy with work (how very important she must be).

I guess there are two kinds of people in the world, whether feminist or not, moms or not, men or women—those who like to bake and those who do not like to bake. Me, I like to bake. I love to bake. And I love having the opportunity to bake something and not have to eat the whole damn thing myself or worse, throw it away in three days when it dries out. So, I was very happy to sign up to make something to donate to my daughter's preschool for the "cake walk" at a little "fun fair" they are having tonight. For a couple tickets, the kids can participate in a musical-chairs kind of thing where they walk around colored pictures and when the music stops, if they are on a certain square, they win a cake (or cupcakes, as the case may be...my "Constellation Cupcakes" are pictured here...the event had an outer space theme).

Of course, I, too, am busy. I have a toddler who only goes to preschool a couple days a week. I have a freelance design practice with deadlines and such. Whatever. Even when I worked full time outside of the home I enjoyed making holiday cookies to bring into the office.

The point is, I believe we can all find time to do something nice that will delight and make people smile. Maybe baking is not her thing (this woman who wrote in). That's fine. Why not just say so and ask if there was some other way she could help. Maybe they need signs or something? Maybe they need someone to sit at the bake sale table for an hour. She wanted to just write a check and be done with it and that's fine, too. But, then she shouldn't complain about being an "outsider" among parents and feeling shunned—although I suspect that many people who feel this way are just projecting.

These silly things like bake sales and school activities where everyone pitches in with some hokey active contribution help build community. I got involved early because I want to be in the mix for my daughter. It's very likely I will have only one child, so I want to plant the seeds early of connections with other parents, families and kids so that she will feel part of a community. Parts of the process of being involved in the fun fair (I helped with other aspects than just making cupcakes) were a little annoying for a type-A, e-mail addict like me—with multiple-day lags in communication, trails of unanswered questions and a very, uhm...organic...work flow process. BUT, it was good for me to be forced to be part of something kind of amorphous and more laid back that I am used to, and something that I am not in charge of...and to see it all work out, with happy kids and families having a fun time together (hopefully, we will see how it pans out tonight).

For those parents who are too busy to lend a little hand to their kids' schools, and yet feel like outsiders, I say, you can't have your cake and eat it, too, if you can't even be bothered to make a cake. But of course, it doesn't have to be cake. Find a way you can be part of things—even if its small, make it meaningful and make it more than throwing money at the school. Make an impression. Be part of the community.

Why I don't want my child to be "gifted"

A couple posts I saw on Babble this week have got me thinking about "gifted" kids, learning, and society. And, I'm convinced, I want my child to do well, but I'm not so sure about being "gifted."

That's such an odd term. Like "well-endowed" or something. It makes me laugh and wince a little bit at the same time. Especially when I think of the range that could cover, like the "idiot savant" (whatever that is) or the Rainman types or the autistic kids who can play Chopin flawlessly. I just kind of want my kid to be normal. Smart, but normal. See, I was what people might have thought of as "gifted". I seem to recall testing at a 135 150 IQ (I asked my my and she told me it was 135) when I was 8 or so and they skipped me out of 3rd grade at the beginning of the schoolyear into 4th grade (it's called being double-promoted). It was just weird. I liked getting away from my old classmates who made fun of me a lot and into a new class where they were nicer. But, I still never felt like I belonged. And, in the end, when it took me 10 years to finish a Bachelor's degree, that one year advantage ended up not really counting at all.

So, I look at my girl now and I see she is definitely smart. She's very verbal, she is curious, she makes interesting connections and likes to explore. She was an early walker. She's precocious, and yet shy around new people. We talk about letters and numbers and things, but casually. It's not like I'm teaching her anything. We're just living life, and life involves letters and numbers and things and making connections. I have magnetic letters, bathtub letters, flashcards with letters, and we have them out sometimes, but even if I think I am going to go through and do some kind of organized lesson, it always turns into something else. It's very organic. It's very "2-year-old" and it is so appropriate. I love it! We have an abacus. We count sometimes, but whenever it approaches being forced, it backfires. I think this is something I love about toddlers, these 2-year-olds, specifically. They are so free, so in-the-moment and so cool and open about the connections they make and they way they want to do things. Who am I to impose some false sense of order on the scene? I can set the stage, but if she wants to take it somewhere else, then I should see where it goes rather than hold her in. There will be a developmental stage where ordering things is part of what she wants. To some degree, there already is, it's just a different kind of order than what my mind would have. I have to sit back and learn as she learns, and respect the mind of the 2-year-old, and try to plant the seeds to remind myself to do this throughout her whole life. And let her be who she is.

So, getting back to being "gifted" versus being just regular. I am never going to hold anybody back and I am going to do all I can to nurture my girl's talents. But, I am not going to freakishly push her to be something out of touch with everybody else. I have always felt like an outsider and I don't know that I think that is so great. I want my girl to feel like she belongs, if she wants to. A person can excel and make something of themselves without being so above and beyond and different. Sometimes the sense of connectedness with peers can contribute to a person's wellbeing and achievement, too. And, with the strong likelihood that she will be an only child, I want to carefully guard against her being the lone, freak genius who nobody really knows or gets.

She already talks about her friends at preschool. When we go somewhere with kids playing, she often says, I love these kids. She wants to be part of something. Yet, when we are on the playground or in a playgroup, she often is on the sidelines or playing independently. Already. That might just be an age/development thing, though. I guess the bottom line is that my philosophy on the health of my child is to not nurture the "giftedness" to a the point that separates them from their peers or a healthy, social and cultural sense of community and belonging. I know they don't have to be mutually exclusive, but they often are. And, as much as being "misunderstood" can provide material for the artist or excuses for the genius, it can be a very lonely, sad place.

Pride cometh before a fall

OK, not pride, exactly, but, acknowledgment of happiness?

That seems to be what's going on. Immediately after my post about how great my life is, things start to get ugly with my girl. I guess it's not so bad, even ugly with this angel is not all that bad, but still. I am nursing a Belgian trippel to get through this day of no gym, no preschool, all toddler, all the time. I fear at the end of the day it will only make me tired and cranky—like her? Well, then, at least I will be able to empathize.

It seemed to start on Monday when I had the bright idea of an outing downtown to museums. She likes trains, yay! We rode the Metro, but she insisted on getting out, like a million stops before our destination. I thought I'd let her self-direct a little and play things by ear. Big mistake. We ended getting out at Foggy Bottom when we needed to get out way over by Judiciary Square or Gallery Place. I thought we'd go to Starbucks, hang out a little, then get back on a train to the museums then lunch with Dad. But, of course, at Starbucks she wanted to have her Vivianno outside. It was cold and too breezy and none of the tables outside were set up (for good reason). To make a long story short, we wandered around climbing on curbs, looking in flower boxes and otherwise wasting time til I couldn't take it any more. Then we finally got to the Navy Memorial where the relief scultpures kept her busy long enough to get us to lunch time. At lunch, she didn't eat much (another thing driving me crazy about her lately) but just wanted to climb around. After lunch, we finally made it to the Building Museum and she played a little. Sigh of relief. But the whole thing was so exhausting and not what I expected. Play date with preschool people Tuesday. Gym and random stuff Wednesday. Preschool Thursday—thank god!

Something is wrong with her today, since yesterday afternoon. She's not terribly sick. No fever. At least, she didn't have a fever when I checked yesterday, with the rectal thermometer, much to her protest. Just last spring she didn't care about such things, but she has already grown to know that butts are private and people shouldn't stick things in them against your will, and so it feels really awkward to try and cajole her into allowing this. She's too young, of course, to hold it under her tongue. I should probably get one of those quicky ear ones, but not now. She doesn't feel feverish. I was sick and didn't have a fever, just a cold. So, I think she has what I had. She keeps whining, and whining, and whining, except for when she's running around playing. I can't figure her out. She whines that she has to go poo poo. I think she is having some kind of tummy troubles. I can't say she's constipated because she did go yesterday. Once she goes today, things will be better, I know. I give her all the things that are supposed to make you poop and help your tummy...fiber...yogurt...and the things that make her happy and stop her whining, temporarily at least.

She's been asking to nurse like crazy. I obliged a couple days but I have to cut back. Not at this age. It's too damn much. It's got to be only for naps and going to bed. And then, even that has to go within the next six months or so. I am not going to be nursing a 3-year-old for god sakes!

When I went to the gyno yesterday, the doc practically laughed at me when I mentioned I was still nursing, when discussing birth control options. I was sick of the damn mini-pill, with its long, frequent and irregular periods and was ready to go on the regular pill with the no-period-for-three-months schedule. I am one of those sporty, sex-interested women who cannot STAND being held down by something like a period, which, before pregnancy lasted about 3 days for me, but now, lasts the full 5 days and is a royal pain-in-the-ass. She told me it was fine to go on the regular pill but it would decrease my milk supply. I was curious about how much, because, I said, I want to help boost my girl's immunity through the winter. And the doc was like, you've done all you can do for her immunity already! Like, give it up, woman. And, maybe she's right. Maybe she's wrong. But, whatever comes of it, that's fine. I do need to wean.

Anyway, I hope, once she wakes up from her nap, she will eat something, take a shit and be in a good mood. My mother in law is coming tomorrow and I don't want her to see us like this.

A rarefied life, right now

Reading The Women's Room, fiction from 1977 that paints a really ugly picture of women's lives in the 50s and 60s, I am struck with what a very easy and pleasant life I have. My mom suggested we read the book; one of her friends is reading it as part of a reading group. So far, so good, if not a little much. Nobody's happy. I suppose there are moments of happiness, or at least of relief, but overall, the women seem so unfulfilled, oppressed, and, well, sad. In addition to this novel feeding my obsession for mid-century American socio-realist entertainment, I have become a big fan of the popular Mad Men series, watching every new episode and catching up on the old ones on DVD. The women of Mad Men do a litttle better than those in The Women's Room, but there's still much to bristle at.

I want to know, was it really like this? My mom was a hippie artist type in the 70s, married to my dad, a long-haired pot-smoking guitar god who worshipped her as his "primordial woman," and this stuff was actually before her time. She told me she didn't think it was quite like this for all women, reminiscing about her own mother, who would've been living this life during the period covered in the book, and thinking of her own mother-in-law. Both worked outside the home (one in a canning factory, sad, the other as a milliner and in retail, something she liked) neither were sexually repressed, and both had nice husbands—my grandpas. My mom said she thought maybe it was a New England upper middle class thing, these tortured women. She said our Eastern European people in the working classes in the city were different. I don't know, but, boy is life different for me now than what's described in The Women's Room and what I see on Mad Men.

I live like a queen.

I don't have to keep a particularly sparkling clean home. Although I keep it orderly, basically clean, and bug-free, my husband doesn't really have any expectations of me in this area. Or, maybe I just haven't tested him, but why would I want to? I have a certain standard for my own surroundings, of course. I get to go to the gym, go shopping (I'm not a big shopper, so by this, I mainly mean grocery or house supply shopping or toys), hang out with my adorable one girl child. It's a dream! I also get to work a little bit, earn some money, stimulate my brain and interact with serious adults just enough to keep myself "sharp" with a foot into the door of the "real world." We're not wealthy, but I don't worry about money when I go on my daily stops to Whole Foods for a snack, Starbucks for a smoothie for A and a coffee for me, Walgreens for some fresh playdough or new markers, or Macys for an occasional Clinique treat for myself, or books, books, books from Amazon. Oh, and my husband is not selfish or brutish in the bedroom, either! We have so much and we are so very happy.

Women back then were expected to keep a spotless home (or so it seems) and had fewer modern technologies to help them do so. The "exotic" foods that light up my days (sushi, kombucha tea, chips and salsa, dark chocolates, microbrews...) weren't readily available. I mean, in Mad Men, even cosmopolitan Don Draper admits he's never had Mexican food! Most women had more than one child, increasing the work load and decreasing the magic significantly, in my opinion (but that's fodder for a whole other post, and purely a matter of individual choice). Women didn't get to choose whether to get pregnant, at least not as easily as we do today, with so many birth control options available to us on one hand, and fertility help on the other. Women didn't get to choose whether they were going to work or not, what they would do for work, or when, either.

I realize that even today many women don't have that choice about work. Some need to and don't want to. Others want to and can't get it. And then there are the very lucky, very blessed women like me, who have the rarefied experience of doing just enough satisfying work, on their own terms, and I get to do this while enjoying the cool experience of raising a "perfect" daughter in her early pre-school years from the comfort of home.

I gush about my girl because she is so gorgeous, so smart and so good. She is a genuine pleasure to be around. I actually enjoy hanging out with her, going to the coffee shop, doing art at home, going on outings to farms, playgrounds, museums and such. Sometimes I think a mom who really likes her child is rare, too, and I don't know whether that's just them or their lousy circumstances that detract from the pleasures of parenting.

Anyway, so often I find myself thinking how good I have it and that maybe its not so common to have it so good. Other times, I get into slumps, feeling a little bit of that spoiled, suburban ennui that seems so shameful. I get testy with my husband, thinking he doesn't help enough around here, etc. etc. etc. But, when I look at the whole picture of the world around me, and history falling off behind me, I am struck by what a glorious time in my life these years are, spent basically just chilling out and enjoying life with my small child at home.

Someday, I will have to either go back to work for someone else or build my business. My girl will get older and will want friends other than me. Maybe the fact that these golden years of my daughter's babyhood are but a short stage of my whole life adds to their fun and beauty, and tolerability—knowing I don't have to stay home, forever, with a gaggle of children and do housework, the lifestyle that seemed to ruin so many women back in the day. (But, maybe I would even have liked that, who knows?)

Everything changes. And, I do worry, just for a minute here and there, about what if this all got taken away from me. What if I lost my contract or my husband lost his job? Things would be harder. We'd be OK, but the ease of it all would vanish and I'd have to readjust a few things, for sure. I don't even venture into the territory of worrying about if something happened to my child. That's too scary.

I'm sure I will find plenty of happiness in my future, but damn, are things great for me now, and I just want to look back and remember it in this post.

You don't have to have an opinion about everything

Preamble: I took a long break from this blog because it was making me tired. I was caught in a weird cycle of looking for things that pissed me off online, mostly surrounding children, parenting and "womens" issues, and coming up with some kind of retort. It may not have been reflected in my posts, which, at the end, sort of moved away from that, on purpose, as I tried to have a more gentle outlook.

While I stopped blogging, for a little while, my opinion-spewing continued in the form of comments on other sites, and, in some ways, that was even more exhausting. But, I'm happy to say, I've wound that down alot, too, and have been reaping the benefits of not being so caught up in all this—more time for more productive pursuits and a calmer mind. There were plenty of opportunities to get worked up, on a couple of my favorite online places—Babble and The New Yorks Times' Motherlode had posts on disciplining children, breastfeeding, and the ever-popular "to work or stay-at-home" question, with its many hooks...but I remained on the sidelines for the most part, just taking in all the comments and sighing a breath of relief that I was not compelled to enter the fray. In reading all the comments, it really hit me that most of this stuff is really just a matter of opinion—to which everyone is entitled.

Premise: I've never liked the old saying "Opinions are like assholes—everybody's got one." It's kind of disgusting in what it brings to mind, first of all. Second of all, it's kind of obvious. Yes, we all have opinions. And that is fine. Good, even. It keeps us thinking, it keeps us from being stupid, boring people. But, do we all have to have an opinion about everything?

Case in point: Bill Maher. Much has been made lately about his comments concerning the swine flu vaccine. He basically poo-pooed the need for the vaccine and said that people who get it are idiots, blurting out a bunch on unscientific nonsense along the way. In following the trail of Mr. Maher's latest opining about something he seems to know little about, I came across his previous comments on public breastfeeding.

OK, so why would a guy with no wife or kids who apparently loves titties and thinks America is too puritanical (he's dated a string of models and hangs out at the Playboy mansion, bully for him, I've got no problem with that, it's none of my business) even have an opinion on public breastfeeding, much less take the time on his show to rail against it? Maybe it offends his sensibilities that breasts are for showy sexual pleasure...only? My only other guess is he thinks that "lactivists" somehow downgrade activism overall (for more....important things). In the segment, he says that the lactivist cause shows how "activism has become narcissism" and is "why Al Gore can't get people to focus on global warming unless there's a rock concert." He goes on to say "its why there'll be no end to this dumb war until there's a draft, because at the end of the day Iraq is someone else's problem." So, women who want to be able to feed their infants when the babies are hungry are responsible for the war not ending. Mmmmkay, Bill. He shouldn't even have treaded in this territory. I mean, really, why?

Digression: I'm not big on "lactivism," personally. I mean, I definitely think that women should breastfeed wherever and whenever they want. For me, it was never a problem, except one time in Nice a security guard at the Chagall museum told me to take it outside. Another guard later defended me and said the other fellow was "a very sick man." Go figure. Anyway, I never needed to be a "lactivist", it was just something I did. Breastfeed my baby. Now that she's nearly two-and-a-half, and we are still at it a few times a day, I won't do it in public because she is so big and it is a little strange for people to see this, and because I'm gradually weaning her anway. But, I think its cool if other women want to be "lactivists." What's wrong with tooting about something you believe in that's important to you? Why not? Why should I care if they do this?

Back to the point: I was never a big fan Mr. Maher, nothing is ever progressive enough for him, right? And he's ugly, too. He makes this big deal about "reason" in his movie, "Religiosity." But, his stance on swine flu and breastfeeding pretty much display an utter lack of reason, in my opinion. Sometimes you need to just shut up and focus on your own area of interest or expertise, or you risk looking like a big, inconsistent fool. So, I may be back on the blog, but I am going to try and be mindful of this whole "opinion on everything" trend that blogging seems to beget, and stick to what I know, or what I can offer a truly valuable perspective on.

Finding things in common

My daughter loves to do the Yoga Kids DVD and especially perks up when they sing the Namaste song.

I am you and you are me
I am part of all I see
Namaste, namaste, namaste, namaste
I am the light and the light is me
Namaste, namaste, namaste, namaste
I am part of all I see...

It's very sweet and touching to see her spring into action and doing the bows and saying "Namaste" and so I am forced to think about what this means, again.

And what I think of is how I constantly fall short of recognizing the truth of the word in my life. I often recognize ways I am so different from everybody else. (How teenage of me!) But, isn't the idea of Namaste to recognize ways we are similar to other people? We are all part of the universe and the universe is all of us, right?

Instead of always gravitating to thoughts of how my way is better than someone else's way, but, bless their hearts, they are doing the best they can, I should see ways that we are the same. We both love our kids. We both feel awkward sometimes. We both like a fresh breeze in the summer at a playground. We both like to relax with a cold drink at the end of the day. We both like ice cream. We both hope our husbands love us. We both worry about what our lives will be like when our kids grow up. And on and on. Does it matter who works outside the home, who doesn't, how many kids someone has, whether they let their toddler watch Hannah Montana, whether they breastfeed. All the kiddoes need love. All the people need love. We all make mistakes. We all have victories...and defeats.

Watching my daughter's purity and simplicity and pure joy teaches me every day.

Namaste.

On mothering and blogging

Well, I've been off and on with this blog about since the time I had my daughter and my opinions and ideas about things have kind of ebbed and flowed in different directions over this time. When I first started I was unaware of all the mommy blogging going on out there because, of course, I didn't follow such things before having a kid. How boring!

Over the past couple of years, I've learned all about mommy culture, mommy wars, mommy this, mommy that, and tried to put my voice out into the ether on this blog and various comment sections of other (far more widely read) blogs in some meaningful way. But, I have pretty much come to the conclusion now that I am bored and/or frustrated with the exercise. I have come across few posters or bloggers who share my ideas/values/style and I go from feeling disdain to pity to indifference to most of them.

I don't care to complain about my child or my husband, because when I sit back and think about my life, it is pretty damn good and I don't care that I have to do a little more housework than my husband or that I work harder in general. That's who I am an I am happy that way. I mean, there is actually a blog out there called "Angry Mamas". Now, I may have expressed passing irritation from time to time in my posts, but I would never want to characterize myself as, in general, angry. My child is healthy, I am well-fed, I have a roof over my head. I vacation—in Europe. I am middle class (not rich). What the hell have I got to be angry about? I suspect that many of these "angry mamas" are probably also doing pretty well for themselves. Those that aren't, who are struggling to make ends meet, have sick kids or jerky husbands, etc. I feel for them. Seriously. This is why I am cutting the blogging about working vs. staying at home and all the other "who's better" kind of stuff (breastfeeding vs formula, etc.).

I am speed-reading Ayelet Waldman's Bad Mother (because it is so good, she is such a good writer and so easy to ready) where she shares her experiences, springboarding off the notion that women are so judged (by other women) and feel so much pressure to be perfect (from society?) that it's just too much and we need to let go of all that. I try to search myself and honestly, I would say that I don't really feel this pressure. I tend to insulate myself a bit and I always sort of do things my own way. I think because I am staying home with my kid and breastfeeding and co-sleep, etc. that I banked alot of personal good will that makes me feel like I am such a good mother. But, if Waldman's memoir is the barometer, then I am a "Bad Mother" too. And she never even mentioned hitting her kids. (I have, I regret it and vow to not do it again. It's wrong.) I bet alot of moms who put their kids in daycare never hit them. So now, who's the better mom?

We all have our shortcomings and our failures and I have many. I guess I just don't think of mothers as good or bad unless they are seriously really bad. Most of us are just trying to get by and my best is different from your best or someone else's best. And our bests differ on different days. So...if this blog is to continue, I think I will shift the focus of the posts to other things. I don't want to be one of the judgers for those women who are a little weaker and feel judged or insecure. (Not that I have hordes of readers, anyway.)

The past is gone...literally.

On my 37th birthday, two days ago, I did something I'd been thinking of on and off for a while. I threw out my old journals. That's probably nearly 20 years of my life's ramblings now in a dump somewhere. Good. Whenever I went back and re-read them, I never thought how cool or creative or interesting I was...I just ended up thinking how pitiful I was. Maybe I was not that pitiful. Who knows? But, I didn't see any value in keeping those reminders of angst-ridden, sad years of trying to figure out life through a boy, art or drugs around anymore.

My life is pretty "settled" now, and I actually haven't written regularly in journals like I used to for...hmm...longer than I have been married, which is six years. I have still felt angst, recently, actually, but am ready to be rid of it. I know what I need to do so now I am just going to do it. The angst may still be there, the uncertainty will be, too, but I can find some peace by embracing spirituality in the universe and my place in that, rather than the self, self, self that I was so absorbed in for so many years.

***

I look at my daughter's face and into her eyes. She is so beautiful. There is such a cleanness and purity to her and I am struck with the notion that she is very special. She will be something important. She will do great things. And I wonder if my mother thought this of me and whether all parents think this of their young ones...and I think of how much of a "nothing" I actually am now as an adult. And it gives me pause. I am not pure. I am not clean. My skin in blemished, burnt, wrinkled. My body has fat and sags in places. My teeth are yellow. My hair is dry. I have done bad things. I have hurt people. My brain is scrambled. I strive. I fail. I grasp. I lose. How far have I fallen from the perfection of my babyhood when my mother must have gazed at me in wonder? Yet, she is not disappointed. I know this because I know my mother and because she tells me she is not disappointed. In fact, she tells me how wonderful I am, and special. Still. Amazing. Of course, we are all our own worst critics. Perhaps that's how it should be. So, I know, that in order to "save myself" in order for me to go forth in my life, getting older, getting further from the purity and perfection, in order for me to maybe, maybe have a chance at something good, something important, I have to give up my notion of what is good and what is important. I have to give up my ideas about gain and the self. Because that stuff does not matter. I have to savor the here and now.

***

Breathing in, I calm my body.
Breathing out, I smile.
Dwelling in the present moment,
I know this is a wonderful moment.

***

And life is just a string of moments, no?

Of babies and bathwater

OK, so this is one example of the kind of annoying voices of feminism out there that I reference in my last post. It seems so petty and so desperately clawing to "save one's identity".

Katie Roiphe writes on the new Double X website from Slate about why women shouldn't use their kid(s)' image as their Facebook avatars. She writes:

What, some future historian may very well ask, do all of these babies on our Facebook pages say about the construction of women’s identity at this particular moment in time?

Sigh.

I know these writers have to come up with new ideas for articles all the time, but this is why I have to STOP reading these things. They are just so ridiculous.

Maybe the women are just proud of their kids. Maybe they are fat and ugly and not comfortable with their own picture. Or maybe they are beautiful and still not comfortable with their own picture. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

One of my Facebook friends actually had a picture of her nieces and nephews instead of herself. So? Maybe she thinks they are cute.

What about people like me who have a picture of me with my kid? Where's my husband? Uhm, he was the man behind the camera.

What about those people who don't bother to upload a picture at all, but keep the Facebook blue and white head silhouette? Do they have no identity?

Who cares!

Like so many of the commenters said, it's just Facebook. Some of my favorite other comments:

To me it sounds like someone is trying to invent ways to be even more superior to her equally-educated female peers....

I don't know who this writer is but I have to say that I take offence at the idea that wearing sneakers every day and forgetting to get your hair cut makes a woman dowdy and invisible. To be honest I would feel at lot more dowdy and invisible having to stick to the ancient "etiqutte" rules that say a woman has to wear neat court shoes, have a neat manageable haircut and a pretty frock to be someone. I thought feminism was all about having freedom to express yourself even in the way you look or don't look. It strikes me that this writer has a very narrow view of what women should and should not do. It's like going back to the 1950s for god's sake...

...my problem isn't with people who do or do not use whatever picture they choose, or how they express their identity. It's that the article reinforces the notion that they 1)pick the kid's picture because they value being a parent above something else and 2) that this is wrong. If (the hypothetical) she had posted a picture of her dissertation would we be having this discussion? No. WHY? That's what you keep jumping away from. The why of how we view certain accomplishments as more valid, specifically because they are traditionally male accomplishments.

But, alongside all her petty annoying bullshit, Roiphe made some interesting points about how parents may have become a little too doting or child-centric:

Our parents, I can’t help thinking, would never have tolerated the squeaky sneakers, or conversations revolving entirely around children. They loved us as much as we love our children, but they had their own lives, as I remember it, and we played around the margins. They did not plan weekend days solely around children’s concerts and art lessons and piano lessons and birthday parties. Why, many of us wonder, don’t our children play on their own? Why do they lack the inner resources that we seem to remember, dimly, from our own childhoods? The answer seems clear: because with all good intentions we have over-devoted ourselves to our children’s education and entertainment and general formation. Because we have chipped away at the idea of independent adult life, of letting children dream up a place for themselves, in their rooms, on the carpets, in our gardens, on their own.

I would argue with her last sentence a bit, though, and wonder if people weren't trying to overcompensate for a day-to-day lack of involvement in their kids' lives. If they choose to, or are forced to, leave them with caregivers all day, or for more hours than they are comfortable with, perhaps they are compelled to "make it up to them" in other ways. (I am not judging whether they should feel this way or not, just making an observation that they might.) As a work-at-home mom who is basically on 24-7, I don't have so much guilt and so much drive to do so much for my toddler. I feel like I deserve the break and the treat. Because I do! From my perspective, kids do need to be allowed—trained even— to play on their own and spend time cultivating independence. Sadly, this more interesting discussion gets lost in Roiphe's petty Facebook/identity blurb.

If a problem has no name, is it really a problem?

Lately, I've been mentally bogged down by a morbid interest in feminism—what it is, what it isn't, what it means to me. I've come to the conclusion that I can't care anymore. I often feel angry and bored, but it's not because of any patriarchal agenda or oppressive system. It's because it is a real challenge to deal all day long with a little person who is learning what free will and independence is (while at the same time being clingy). It's damn hard. My husband says he understands, but he doesn't have to live it. It's not his fault that he doesn't have to do it and I do. I chose to stay home with my kid during her early years. I could have put her in daycare after my 16 weeks of leave (DC FMLA is relatively long). But, I didn't. We didn't need the money and it seemed like the right thing to do. More than seemed like it. I have, still, strong convictions that it is the right thing to do. But, it is damn hard.

I think this thing of staying at home with a kid drew me into reading about feminist issues because of all the "mommy war" debates about working vs. staying home, how long to breastfeed, etc. etc. etc. Somehow feminism creeps into all these things. I think maybe those women who can't take it, can't take the staying home with the young kids might sometimes use the high-minded concepts of feminism to justify their working. They are doing what's important for womankind, for their identities and all that. They are not throwing away all the years of hard work of the women who have gone before, like Betty Friedan who famously examined the housewife's ennui and yearning for something more—a "problem that has no name." Of course, many other women have to work for financial reasons (or believe they do).

But, back to this problem that has no name. I got to thinking, if you can't name the problem, is it really a problem? Is the boredom or sense of being adrift just a symptom of being "spoiled" or part of the disease of our contemporary consumer culture? It sounds like alot of what Betty Friedan describes in her first chapter of The Feminine Mystique is related to having things too easy and too tied into material goods and status. She writes about a change that occured in the mid-20th century, from a time in the earlier part of the century, the 20s, where more women actually went to college and a century earlier had fought for the right to higher education. So what happened? A war. Commercialism. Why did women let it happen? Why did they let things be taken away from them? Everyday men were just pawns in the game like women. All this seems so far removed from my reality now. I sit and wonder whether there was really a single problem that united women, or rather just a bunch of individual problems.

When can we ever rest? When will it be enough? I read so much online that claims to be "feminist" which says nothing to me about my life. And I am a woman. The voices that call for this policy or that policy, that complain about not enough of this or that, always uttering some kind of discontent, some slight, they sound so...tired. And they make me tired trying to keep up with them all and formulate my opinion. Meanwhile, my child is growing up and I'm missing it. My husband is living a parallel life alongside me and I've drifted from engagement with him because my mind has been embroiled in all...this.

It was made worse when I watched Revolutionary Road on the plane from Barcelona and was so moved and impressed by it. I was ashamed to identify ways in which I saw I was similar to the crazy lead woman, April Wheeler. Til she got progressively more crazed, then I breathed a sigh of relief. I found myself feeling sorry for her husband, who did cheat on her, but who seemed desperately to just want their little life to be OK. She wanted more. But, couldn't she find happiness in her children or her husband, or reading books, or making gourmet meals, or painting, or masturbating, or martinis? I mean, what you don't allow yourself to enjoy in your own private life has little to do with cultural mores and more to do with your own hangups or pathological discontent, doesn't it? Now I am reading the book. It doesn't have to be about just feminism, although that aspect of it can't be denied. A Huffington Post blogger says, "Revolutionary Road shows what life was like for women before feminism. It's an important history lesson from the not too distant past. Watch it and read The Feminine Mystique and be thankful that there was a feminist movement or who knows what life would be like now." Still, I have my doubts about the degree to which feminism was part of Richard Yates' intended message. There's the whole ball of wax about what matters in life and what doesn't, transcending suburbia, holding on to the idea that you're meant for something more—and all of these things can be felt by both men and women.

My answer is a spiritual one. The only way I can survive is to break into meditation in the things I do. Of course, on the surface it may be mind-numbing to do housework or play with a toddler. (I do have my consulting work to "escape" to, and countless books and websites, too...but still...) When you can see beyond the surface of a "task" or activity—the pattern of the rug you're cleaning, the beauty of the wood grain you're polishing, the leaves dancing on the trees outside, the blue, blue sky, the sparkle in the toddler's eyes as she proudly identifies orange, red, blue, green, her voice as it now forms sentences, the sweet creaminess of homemade salt caramels, the bold zestiness of homemade salsa—you can groove on these "mundane"' things and they can make a life. The longing for your husband's scruffy kiss after his day away...I could go on and on. It doesn't have to be all bad. It doesn't have to be a problem.

Of course, I am living in the 21st century and I have the world handed to me on a platter, practically. It must have been different for women before. I have to live my life in the here and now, though. We don't have tons of money. We probably aren't rich by American standards at all, and yet I want for nothing material. My life is pretty good, actually, and feminism is, frankly, a buzzkill.

What did I learn?

Since I didn't relax much on my vacation, I'd like to think I came away from the week-long trial having learned something. I have a handful of happy memories, yes, but I have many sad ones, too.

I think this time in Barcelona was even more difficult than last year's French drama/disaster. Maybe it is because I thought this time would be different. I thought I'd be able to hold it together better. I thought it would be easier. It was only a week, versus 15 days, for one thing. I envisioned hanging out in parks, strolling the Ramblas and the wide avenues of the Eixample, some beach time. We did all these things, but I must have somehow forgotten that this is a bustling city. These things did not bring me the happiness I thought they would. The stress of traveling got the best of me, again. And the European service industry (at least in my experience in Spain, France and Italy), though just friendly enough, can be awfully lackadaisical to a degree I cannot comprehend. (Maybe I should have re-read last summer's post before this trip, but I forgot!)

I could also blame my troubles on the challenges of traveling with a toddler (demanding, flighty, bossy, insane) or on my husband's personality of being a little spacey and self-focused, but, bottom line, how I react to things is my own problem and must be under my own control. Problem is, I did not keep it under control. I lashed out in frustrated stress and rage at both husband and child on countless occasions. I am ashamed of my reactions to their petty annoying actions (of which there are many) and although I could go into descriptions of what went down on the trip, all the things I had to endure that I could say drove me to my anger—many might understand why I'd get upset—I am not going to because to do so would suggest that I am making excuses or looking for sympathy. I didn't get alot of sympathy from my husband on the trip when I tried to make my troubles known, it was more like, this is the way it is, this is what you've chosen, what we've chosen. And, you know what? He is right. I chose him, with his personality as it is, and here we are. I chose to certain ways of parenting my daughter, and here we are. So I will have to skillfully act in ways that will best gently shift things in the way I need them to go, and I must start with myself.

I guess that's what I learned. And it seems that its a lesson I am forced to learn over and over and over again: that the only thing I can change is me. It is just too tiring and frustrating to try and change other people. And, if my own reactions make me feel worse than the perceived offenses of others against me, I have to find other ways to react, or not react at all.

***

I was thinking alot of getting a tattoo as a ritual experience to help me remember these life lessons (since I keep forgetting them in the moments of stress). In addition to the experience, I would then have the mark as a reminder. I'm having problems with following through on the permanence of a tattoo, though. I'm also afraid of the pain, although I understand this would add to the ritual experience of it. My husband doesn't want me to get it on my wrist, which is where I want to get it. He is worried about potential job interviews! So, I started "trying one on" by drawing the design I wanted (Sanskrit script of the word "namaste") with a Sharpie. It looks good and I am thinking that maybe drawing it on each day (or filling in where it is inevitably fading) could be a ritual/meditative process (it only takes a couple minutes) and might even be better than getting a permanent tattoo, since I would have to do it regularly and that would help remind me of the purpose and the message I am trying to give myself (basically, be nice and try to be understanding of and compassionate to others).

***

It's definitely a process, though. At the present moment I have locked myself in the bathroom to finish my post and my toddler is literally banging on the door wailing...mama!!!!!!!! I've played with her already. I've made her breakfast. She said she wanted to wash her hands and made a big deal about it, totally out of the blue. We go to wash her hands and now she doesn't want to, so now what? I am done. Seriously, what am I supposed to do when I can't get a moment to myself or finish a thought? I simply refuse to CONSTANTLY play with a child. I should not have to. I refuse to constantly give a child my attention. I am confident that I give her enough attention. She is just very demanding. She is a good girl, very smart, extremely cute, but she is very demanding and I've got to curb that. There is a difference between instilling self-esteem in a child and nurturing them versus letting them think they rule the world. I am at the point right now where it is extremely frustrating to me. I mean EXTREMELY. At the moment, I feel a tad bit betrayed by attachment parenting and extended nursing. What have I gotten myself into? We have never used a babysitter except my parents, once, when we were visiting. I am resentful that I don't get much alone time with my husband and that I am almost always "on" with nearly no breaks. (Yes, I go to the gym for an hour and a half or so, but that's not enough). This is not a sustainable way of living. All I can do is try to hold on and know that kids grow up, or at least turn three, right? That's when the madness is supposed to end, I hear. I know I have seriously digressed, but this needs to be said. Maybe others can take some comfort in the fact that other good moms feel anger and frustration? Whatever. I need to get it out. The post didn't start this way, but it is going to end this way. I will collect myself and go face her and try to be kind. I learned during the vacation that it doesn't work to vocalize my anger to my husband or my daughter, it somehow just ignites it and it explodes. Whereas, as I have been doing all weekend since I've drawn on my tattoo, I can just get mad quietly within myself and let it diffuse inside and vanish, and nobody gets hurt.

***

OK. Out of the bathroom. Gave her some attention and she is fine. Fine. I am trying to teach myself that it is alright to let a toddler have their tantrum. I used to respond quickly and actively to all her cries when she was a baby. My nature is that I can't stand the sound of a baby crying (not my baby, anyway) and think that I must be doing something wrong and need to take care of it right away. I guess evolutionarily that is a good thing. I am programmed to protect and care. But, as a baby becomes a toddler and a child, I have to let go and understand that she is going to need to freak out and not get what she wants when she wants it all the time...and I don't need to get mad or be resentful, it's just part of her growing—and mine.

Why I am not trying to lose weight anymore

I'm not going to try and lose weight anymore. Almost two years after the birth of my daughter I still weight about 15 lbs. more than I did before my pregnancy. I've weighed less than I do now since giving birth, by about 5 lbs., only to gain it back. I've been appropriately active, going to the gym usually 5 days a week and running also on a 6th. My activity at the gym has varying degrees of intensity. Some weeks, when I was feeling tired, I would mostly ride the stationary bike for 45 minutes or so at a time while reading. Other times, I'd do what I feel are some pretty intense and fast runs of about 3 miles on the treadmill followed by decent weight training both with free weights and on the machines. I used to take classes, but felt out of place with the mostly 50-somethings and the moves were either too easy or sometimes too hard and the music was rarely just right. I even tried a stint with a trainer. Nothing seems to be working for me right now, though, and I think it's because maybe I am just not fat enough—and therefore not motivated enough.

You see, I think I look pretty good. Sure, about 75 percent of my clothes don't fit anymore, but I don't really go that many places where I need to wear size 6 trousers anymore. My stretchy size 8 Banana dark wash jeans work fine, as do my many pairs of yoga pants and various flowy skirts. I don't feel that bad because many of my old tops don't fit anymore either, so, its not just my gut and butt that are bigger, but my breasts, too. Yay, right? And I think the breast thing has much to do with my inability to shed the final 5-10...uh, 15 lbs. I am still breastfeeding. Everyone I hear says that once you stop breastfeeding, you typically lose that last 10 lbs. Well, I hope so. That would be cool. But, I am done worrying about it.

I know why I am not losing weight. It's because I eat like a maniac. Seriously. For whatever reason, being home all day with a toddler, for me, lends itself to wild eating binges. It's part boredom, part frustration and part because food is just so damn tasty. I will say I don't eat alot of "junk" food. I don't eat store-bought cookies or chips. I do make my own cookies, muffins and chips. I eat chips with salsa, chips with cheese sauce on occasion, chips with avocado. Lots of avocado. I eat banana pecan muffins and zucchini chocolate chip muffins. I eat breakfast burritos. I eat the baby's leftovers. I eat trail mix. I eat chocolate. I swig swigs of skim milk. I eat fruit. I eat the fruit the baby left behind. I eat carrots and hummus. Lots of hummus. I drink beer. Flavorful, heavy beer. I drink wine. I eat pasta. I eat fish. I eat salad. I eat cheese. I eat yogurt. I eat fries. I eat black beans. I eat pinto beans. I eat pizza. I eat the baby's goldfish crakcers. I eat air-popped popcorn. With butter.I eat it all. I just basically eat too much. Luckily, I have a good metabolism and I work out faithfully, so I am not obese and I look alright.

I know this can't go on forever, though. My metabolism is going to get slower as I get older, even with weight training. My threshold for pleasure is going to get higher. It always does unless you somehow check it. I think I am getting to the point where the eating has become a little manic. Like, oh, this is so good! How much can I really eat before I do get really fat? Or, I am not going to be penned into some anti-feminist skinny box and toe someone else's line of what looks good on a woman. Or, I like being a little bigger, and strong. Or, after watching The Pianist a few weeks ago, what if there is a war and I have to go without food, or live on very little food, for weeks or months? Wouldn't it be better if I was a little overweight, as an insurance policy? Then I could suffer the scarcity better. Uhm, okay, sure.

I know I have to somehow get a mature grip on my eating. I eat like a 16-year-old quarterback. I have to start eating like the late-30-something woman that I am. I recently read Naturally Thin by the NYC Real Housewife Bethenny Frankel and thought she made some really good points. She also advocates scooping out bread from bagels and throwing it away. She seems to do alot of "portion control" (read, "throwing food away"), as in eating "1/3 of an omelet". Come on, now? Am I going to eat 1/3 of an omelet? No. I am going to eat the damn omelet.

Still, I like what she says about quieting down the food noise. So many women think eating something is "bad" and not eating is being "good". Other examples of the food noise is how we are always thinking of food. I am like this. I go to bed looking forward to what I am going to eat when I wake up. Will it be one of those banana pecan muffins, warmed with pats of butter melting on them, or will it be a breakfast burrito? Mmmm. I like what she says about really savoring ones food, taking mindful bites. I like what she says about waiting til you really know what you want to eat before you start shoveling food into your face. I like her rule that says "You can have it all, just not all at once." But, we have different interpretations of this. For example, she says, you can have an egg with the yolk, or, if you want egg with cheese, you've got to throw away the yolk and have just the egg white with cheese. Now, I am not going to throw away a perfectly good egg yolk. That's just wrong. I even avoid recipes that call for using just whites or just yolks, although I did make some really good homemade pudding last year with just yolks (later found a use for the whites).

Of course, it's hard to savor food slowly when you are working on borrowed time with a toddler at the table and you want to try and have "family meals". But, I will try and do that more. And, I could use a healthy dose of increased mindfulness in everything I do, including eating. Also, it's hard not to eat leftovers of what you're feeding your toddler if it's something you like, such as avocado or macaroni and cheese or fries. But, more and more, I have been just giving her a portion of what I am eating instead of making her something separate, so that might help me in this area.

I called my mom the other night very upset about some stresses I was having with my kid. Something about "discipline", nursing, weaning. She talked me down and told me to make sure I do something for myself each day, no matter how small. Even if it is just enjoying a piece of chocolate or something. Ha ha. I told her, that's why I never lose weight. Food is about the only way I treat myself these days. She observed that weight loss will just have to wait then, that my mental health is more important. She understood that treating myself in other ways would require more free time, and that was just not something I had. So, that night, late, after my husband went to bed, I made myself the one mini frozen lava cake from Trader Joe's that we had left over from his mom's birthday celebration (they wanted store-bought) and savored it slowly, on my own, with a glass of skim milk. Next day, as I mentioned in another post, my child and I made chocolate chip cookies. A big batch. It was pure pleasure and I ate ALOT of them. That said, I think I may be getting this conspicuous consumption of food out of my system. It's just not thrilling me that much anymore because of my excesses. It just may be part of my journey on the path to balance.

The old cliché goes that if you want to find love, stop looking...so maybe the same applies to weight loss. So, I am going to just stop trying.

Oh yeah! Parallel play is the thought of the day...

Little one napping, me waiting for next round of newsletter edits, checks NYT Motherlode blog to find this.

Amen! My style is validated. Hurray.

And a good post from a blog referenced in the Motherlode post...

I have to say that today I played a good strategy (although admittedly the day is not yet over and I still have a couple hours of work ahead of me). I invested into my daughter's attention bank this morning while waiting for some work items to come in. We read about a million books, went to the park, went to the library where they have huge human-sized stuffed bears and a book sale (lots of kids book), came home made chocolate chip cookies, watched a couple DVDs mostly together, had lunch...and she wasn't a huge pain in the ass. She went to sleep fairly easily for her nap and is sleeping well. I am thinking the attention investment allowed me the time to break away from time to time in the morning when we were home to answer e-mails, write a quick late-breaking story, post a press release, and that following this guide will allow me to finish my work this afternoon. Although, I do have the ace-in-the-hole of my husband coming home at 4:30 to relieve me so I can focus, if need be.

Weaning baby from the breast and me from the web

I realized last week on my daughter's 22 month "birthday"—that weaning has got to be imminent for us. I was laying there, trying to put her to sleep. She was fidgeting around, nibbling at my nipple in a grating way. This happens most of the time now. During the past week, my feelings have only intensified. At first, I had mixed feelings. I am really into breastfeeding. Maybe I should say I was really into breastfeeding, but Ava is almost two and I am questioning whether the breastfeeding is holding back our relationship in other ways. Also, I am just kind of getting tired of it. I know that sounds horrible and it makes me feel like I'm on a slippery slope toward Hanna Rosin territory (not really), but after almost two years of it, part of me feels like I have done my time. All good things must come to an end, and all that.

I used to really, really love it. It was cozy and tender. I literally felt a wave of relaxation come over me when she latched on as the hormones started a-flowin'. Now, I still feel that from time-to-time, but mostly, I feel a 31 lb. toddler crawling all over me and switching from breast to breast every minute. Oh, and she usually likes to be grabbing the one she's not sucking on, just to make sure it's still there. It is really maddening. I feel almost used and abused by the way she goes about it. I resent it. Deep inside, I know I will miss nursing. I will miss the closeness and the tenderness of it. But, Ava's helping with that pain since there's not much of that cuddliness happening right now.

All this negativity is telling me it's time to wean. But I still want to do it kindly and gently. We leave for a week's vacation overseas next week, and we have a weekend in New York later this month, so I have to take a very slow and measured approach—not only because it is the right thing to do for Ava's feelings, but because it is the convenient thing to do for me. I have found that nursing is a great tool to have when traveling to help keep a child calm, satisfied and more manageable in unusual situations. With a toddler at the height of her headstrong and demanding phase, I need all the help I can get to avoid major scenes.

I've already technically started the weaning process by not breastfeeding "on demand" and instead trying to divert her attention, talk her out of it, tell her the milk is "not ready" and, once in a while, putting some vinegar on my boobs along with saying they're not ready in order to really give myself a break.

Sadly, I think I understand why she may have been so needy lately (now that she's over being sick, which was why she was so needy before) and its probably a combination of boredom and wanting more attention. I had some challenges work-wise this past week with my computer hard drive crashing and I had to spent time getting a new one, purchasing, installing and setting up software, re-doing work I'd lost, and doing more work I had due for a deadline this week. Admittedly, I was probably not as attuned to her as I should have been.

So, a big strategy of our weaning process—which will kick into high gear once we are back from Spain, then really, really high gear after New York—will be for me to make sure I give her alot of attention and love, and keep her busy and not bored. This is easier said than done, of course, because when I try to play with her, she still interrupts the play and grabs at my boobs, pulls on my shirt and says, "milkies! milkies!" And then I get frustrated and skulk off to lock myself in the bathroom with my laptop for a few minutes just to get some distance.

And, the laptop—that brings me to another issue about why it will be a new challenge to keep her busy and not bored which is related to keeping me not bored. I have, in the past, always kept the laptop at arm's reach and bounced back and forth between playing and doing stuff with her and doing stuff on the laptop. But, the balance has gotten a little off. It really hit home when my machine died Sunday morning and I was without a laptop til the following morning when I went out and bought a new one that I am close to being a web addict. (I still had access to my husband's PC and posted on Facebook, checked my e-mail, etc. still during this period of being "without" a computer.) But, I was so, so uneasy without my machine. It was an awful feeling. Like withdrawal.

Now, I am not as bad as some of the moms I read about in a recent article on internet addiction, where they don't clean the house or they take drugs to stay up late so they can be online more. I don't think I neglect my kid. After all, she is not even two years old yet and she already knows her colors—red, blue, yellow, orange, brown, black, pink—and we are working on numbers and letters, too, a little, but those seem a little ways off. Still, I think that by cutting down on my non-essential screen time (like I keep saying I am going to do) that will aid in the weaning process. It might also clear my head a little, too. It will help shake me out of the funk I am in and help jump start a new phase for my girl.

I'm glad to be getting away for a week, I have to say, I need something to shake things up in my life. I rarely go online when I am overseas, there's just too many other fun things to do, I don't bring a laptop so would be relegated to internet cafés or public machines in the hotel, so that will be helpful in weaning me from the web—just a little bit. Vacations always change me a little, change my perspective, help me shift gears. I really need that right about now. Then, I can help my child shift gears a bit, too.

What kind of mother paints her toddler's toenails?

Me!

Moving on from foolish debates to a more useful focus

I still have alot of good posts in me, but I think for a little while at least I have to move on to other pursuits, those that are more likely to position me to be where I want to be in coming years. Maybe I can post once a month on current mothering/feminist issues and such, but in my day to day, I need to focus back on my career—graphic design.

See, the reason I was well-positioned enough to be able to live out my ideals of staying home with my daughter til she was in school is because I was doing what I should be doing when I should be doing it. In my case, that was working and saving before the baby came. Now that I am home and working part time, I need to use more of my free time to beef up my skills, keep my creativity fresh and maybe even do some networking. There is so much information on the web available to me to enhance my skills and knowledge base with regard to graphic design (this includes web design and related stuff, in my definition) that it really is too much of a waste of time to get embroiled in debates over idiotic questions like is breastfeeding better than formula.

I know I said something like this a last week in my Noise post, but I keep getting roped in!

And, it seems like that crazy beyotch Hanna Rosin is not going to quit. She's like a dog with a bone—as evidenced by her most recent post on Slate: Breastfeed more, earn less. Here she again overinterprets, or misinterprets, a single random (not randomized, or even peer-reviewed as far as one can tell) "study" that tends to conclude that women who breastfeed longer earn less money. That's a shocker.

My unscientific guess is that women who breastfeed longer earn less because they choose to shift their priorities during their child's earliest years. From my perspective, that's just what they should do, ideally. From Rosin's perspective, earning power is the top metric of women's success, apparently. To her, this study "...means that breast-feeding now loses its free pass into the feminist cause." I say, breastfeeding doesn't need a "free pass" into anything. It's how our bodies are programmed to work under normal conditions, as mammals. It is the norm. Secondly, nature and appropriately feeding a baby come before feminism and if they fit in great, if not, then feminism must change. Why expect that biology should be altered or denied in order to "fit in" to some narrow idea of what's best for women?

This discourse is tired and I am not going to give the bitter shrew any more of my attention. Check out the rest of my day's web play on my other blog: Logo My Life. Other than that, I am going to research some new CSS tricks and spend my time building my business so I can maybe continue to work from home even after my kid's in school. The Hana Rosins and other narrow-minded feminists of her ilk can continue the futile (and in my opinion anti-feminist) pursuit of making women's biology fit into man's (the universal sense) constructed constraints of the marketplace. I, on the other hand, am going to figure out how to make the marketplace work for me on my terms.

Dirty diaper secret

Diaper rash!

Until last week I could proudly claim that my 21-month-old daughter had never had a diaper rash. For what that's worth. Whether that was attributable to my astuteness about changing her diapers, the fact that we'd switched to cloth, or just the kind of skin she had, I don't know. But, when she did get her first rash last week, I was horrified. I remembered hearing somewhere that antibiotics could cause diaper rash, so I quickly looked into that possibility and sure enough, it was true. Phew! OK. That probably explained the rash of rash. My kid was on a nine-day course of antibiotics to combat her pneumonia. Now, what to do?

Because of the kind of fabric her cloth diapers—Fuzzi Bunz— are made of, it's a no-no to use any kind of cream or ointment with them. But, I deemed some good, old-fashioned, creamy Desitin, with the zinc-oxide and cod liver oil was necessary to protect her skin and fight the rash, so, I decided we'd temporarily go back to disposables til the rash cleared up. And slather on copius amounts of ointment.

At the grocery store, the child immediately spots some old friends in the baby aisle—Elmo, Bert and Ernie! We grab the pack of Pampers Cruisers (our preferred brand before switching to cloth at 9 months) size 5. Unlike with her cloth diapers, she is very excited about these. The diapers themselves are decorated with pictures of Elmo, Grover, Ernie, and other Sesame Street characters. She now asks for her diaper to be changed instead of running around the room and making me chase her with a Fuzzi Bunz in hand. She'll go over to the linen closet where I've been keeping the temporary supply of disposables and cry out "Elmo! Elmo!" or she will say "Diaper need! Diaper need!" (She probably got this last bit from a song I sing for her where I say "I am here for your diapering needs!" which sprung from a dialogue we used to have with a stuffed rabbit, Clifford, who was there "for all of your diapering needs.") She'll look at the diaper and say "coot" (cute).

So the rash is clearing up and I'm now wondering whether I should just ride out the rest of her diaper-wearing days with disposables. I've kind of enjoyed the lessened laundry load and not having to do battle every time she needs a diaper change. It could be a coincidence that she has found a new awareness and desire to be diapered at the same time we were using disposables, but that's not so likely. I'm about to buy a potty anyway and start heading in that direction, so I'm guessing within a few months she may be out of diapers anyway.

I love the Fuzzi Bunz and am happy to do my part for the environment, however, I'm not super-committed to it. As I mentioned, we used disposables for my kid's first 9 months. My thinking was that I'd be busy enough as a new mom and I didn't want to deal with laundering diapers. I thought cloth diapering was crazy. I figured, since we were only having one child and used limited energy, were otherwise not putting a big drain on the environment, this could be our "pass", our allowed transgression. Then, at 9 months, my little one's thighs had gotten pretty chunked out and the disposables were cutting into them and leaving marks. This, I could not tolerate, so I started researching cloth and fell in love with the cute styles and accoutrements of cloth diapering. It was fun. Like with so many things, though, the fun wears off. I don't mind the laundry that much, and if she showed no preference, I'd probably go back to cloth once the rash was all cleared, but now, I just don't know...

My crunchy credentials may be tarnishing!

Noise

I am fairly sensitive to noise and I have really good hearing. So, when there was some unidentified droning coming from...where...the other night when my husband and I were trying to have sex, I found it very distracting. I kept getting up and having a look around, going to different windows to see if I could determine where it was coming from. I gave up and came to the conclusion that the neighbor was playing a saxophone or something and with that thought was able to get back to what I was doing.

Later that night, when I went to check on the baby who'd woken up and lay down with her for a while, I couldn't relax and sleep because I heard another droning sound. It was different from the first one. It had odd pitch changes and was really driving me crazy. I remembered once that a lightly running sink downstairs made a noise that got on my nerves before, so I went down there to check it and discovered that the noise was coming from a clock radio that was blasting pretty loudly in the extra bedroom. When I was dusting earlier that day, I must have moved the knobs on the clock radio from "off" to "alarm" or something. What could it mean that that noise I thought was coming from somewhere else was actually originating from inside my own house—from a radio I had unwittingly turned on?

When I was laying there with the baby, before I identified what it was, I was really disturbed by the strange sound and not knowing what it was. This same night, my daughter wouldn't sleep for almost 4 hours, about 9:30 pm til after 1 am. She kept tossing and turning, getting off and on the breast. I have to admit she really upset me and I got mad. Previously she acted really bratty at dinner and I had really had enough. After a little over 3 hours trying to help her sleep, I ended up having to leave her room and make her fall asleep on her own, crying her eyes out, wailing, til she finally slept. It took about 45 minutes of crying. I had tried to lay with her, tried to nurse her. I even tried the reset button, turning on the lights, reading her a couple stories, to do the bedtime process all over again. But she was just too restless.

I didn't realize til going over my utter frustration the next day that maybe the weird sound had gotten to her. I wonder if it had anything to do with her problems going to sleep. I mean, she probably had heard the sounds and maybe her unruly behavior persisted even after I turned the radio off because she didn't know, like I did, where it came from and that it was over? I know she has very sensitive ears, like I do.

That night, amidst all the aggravation and sadness, and the day after, I was also thinking of the virtual "noise" I've been exposing myself to lately in the form of my near obsessive searching out and reading bits on the web about babies, children and parenting. The more controversial the better. Bottle or breast. Homebirth or C-section. Who hits their kids? Who's doing AP? How to get toddlers to do what you want. How to love them unconditionally. Parents are too lenient today. We coddle them too much, are too focused on their self-esteem. If you don't discipline them now, they will sour forever. Blah blah blah. What can get me riled up? What can stir me to expound my opinion about something? Why was I so into all that?

Then, there was my own "noise"—from within my own house, just like that radio. I had to really listen and look inside my own realm to find out where the truly annoying droning was coming from. I felt like such a loser and a hypocrite because I didn't really like the negative feelings I had about my daughter that day, nor did I like the way I acted or the way I treated her.

In my "talk", I had vowed to eschew authoritarian parenting, yelling, hitting, etc., but in my "walk", I was being brutish and not at all the strategic, gently guiding force in her life that I wanted to be. I decided I needed a serious break from the noise and that I myself would not add to it for at least a little while til I found time to get my heart right and my head right about my kid.

Hopefully when I come back I will be less confrontational and snarky, have a more positive outlook and can be more honest.

Maternal Desire

I’ve been reading Maternal Desire by Daphne de Marneffe, a book that looks at motherhood as something worthy of desire, that brings pleasure, rather than an obligation. I often ask myself why I stay home with my child. I do believe in my choice as being better for very small babies, and probably to some extent better for her even at this age, but there’s so much more to it. I do it for me. I like it. It’s hard. There are lots of challenges and long days. I do think working outside of the home in an office is definitely easier. But, I would not give this up. A phrase in the book describes one small part of it, saying “many mothers endorse the value of intensive mothering in part as an explicit protest against the dehumanizing aspects of the marketplace.” And yes, I do stay home partially because I believe a family should be able to make it on one salary. (The fact that many can’t being more a problem with U.S. policy and programs than with the people struggling on two incomes to raise families.) However, I have to be honest and say that when my child is a little older…4, 5? who knows…I will go back to working full time.

The book has some other interesting information about how even though we Americans feel like we have a time famine, we actually have reduced work hours and gained free time in the last 30 years. (OK, this seems unbelievable to me, but I will go with it.) The researchers, Robinson and Godbey, looked into what people actually do moment to moment with their time, and as it turns out, they watch alot of TV. Yeah, me, too. And then there’s the Internet. Double the time suck because online you can take it in as well as dish it out. So, I am going to try and cut down (this means TV, unnecessary and excessive checking of e-mails and Facebook and other stuff, no more watching the Dow plummet all day, etc.)

One more excerpt from the book before I go. It talks about how our culture has become one of having rather than being. “We consume not only material goods, but also information, education, and experiences, and we define ourselves by what we consume,” it says. The book provides a lovely example of the being mode as illustrated by a children’s book, which I found heartwarming and charming.

In the book, Peek-a-Boo, “a baby plays peek-a-boo with his family throughout the day—when he wakes up, at breakfast, during chores, at the park, at supper, at bath and at bedtime. What charms me as a reader is how messy the house is. The mother and father in every fram are tending to the tasks of life—washing the windows, ironing, cooking, feeding children, bathing the baby—with no illusion of completion; around them are a jumble of children’s toys and shoes, heaps of dirty laundry, open drawers, and sponges soaking in the sink. The pictures burst with the process of living, with the thousand undone jobs that betoken the priority of responsiveness over efficiency that makes for a happy family.” De Marneffe adds, “A starker contrast to the pristine, lifeless tableaux of Martha Stewart Living could not be found. Though Martha’s surfaces seduce, you need no more than a nanosecond to determine which emotional world you’d rather live in.”

All this, I find very encouraging!

Probably not going to go out for a beer with Dr. Laura, but...

Ugh. The latest taking head in the, ahem, discourse, between working moms and stay-at-home moms, Dr. Laura Schlessinger, is making the rounds on daytime TV and in print interviews promoting her new book, "In Praise of Stay-at-Home Moms." In the book, she "unapologetically urges mothers to remain at home instead of juggle a career and motherhood." O.K...but...

Anyone who knows me or has read my blog knows that I have made the choice to work at home so I can be with my daughter. I know this is a fairly uncommon arrangement, and that some women need to work full time to support their families. That said, I do think it is best for a child UNDER THREE to be with his or her mom all the time, just like Dr. Laura says. Because I am lucky and we've done some planning, I think I will be able to extend this period to age five. Beyond that age, I don't really agree as strongly with Dr. Laura about the necessity or importance of a mom being at home all the time.

Here's what she says, from a Wall Street Journal interview:

WSJ: At what point do you advise mothers to go back to work?

Dr. Schlessinger: The answer is never. One woman asked me the other day when I think mothers should be home, and I told her, "Whenever your kid is at home." When [my son] Deryk started kindergarten, it was from 8 to 3. So I arranged to be on the air from 11 to 2. That was it. He always had a mom. Quite frankly, my mom was one of the least warm mommies out there. Nonetheless, when I came home from school, she was always there and it made me feel safe.

I'm happy for her that she was able to work just when her kid was in school and that's something that I am going to try and do, too, to some extent. I might continue to pursue building my independent consulting, taking on more hours gradually as my daughter gets older. Or, if I do work for someone else, outside the home, my husband and I have discussed doing slightly staggered work schedules so he might go in for a 7-3:30 and I might go for a 9-5:30 or something like that. Still, we may have to take advantage of at least part of the hours of an after school program. I honestly think school-age kids enjoy such programs and benefit from being able to bond more with their friends outside the structure of classrooms during the school day. I think maybe the kids that aren't in the after school programs could be left out, even. I don't really know, but what I do know is that I want to be able to send my daughter to a good college. I want to be able to take her abroad on vacations. Maybe even buy her a (modest) car (don't tell Dad I said that). We're really more into experiences than things, but sometimes experiences cost, too. And, in reality, I am not sure we could really afford even an average life without me working more, for like 18 years! In addition, I want my daughter to see her mom working at things other than "the home". And, I like to work! I like to make money and I like for people to notice me for the work I do. There, I said it.

That's not to say that raising a child is not important work. Or, that, if we were totally rich, I wouldn't NOT work. I think I would not work for money, maybe, but would do more artsy things, you know, fine art instead of design. Or do charity work. Or I'd start a restaurant or something. I like to do stuff. I think kids like when their parents do stuff, you know, have lives. That's why the path I've take is the perfect solution—for me anyway. But, I would highly recommend it to others, if they can make it happen: the three to five year "sabbatical". Be close to your babies when they're babies, then ramp up. Of course, this is not for everyone, and I am well aware that not everyone has been so fortunate to have the luxury to make the choices I, or ol' Dr. Laura, have made. That's why I bristle a little to hear her talk. And she, too, talks of sacrifice, a concept I have become very wary of.

The editorial notes for her book say that by reading it one will learn, among other things, "to realize that the sacrifices you endure now will make for lasting bonds and a stronger family, in addition to a more cohesive community." What's with the sacrifice? I hate that word when it comes to women's choices and their families. I am doing exactly what I want to do. It's no sacrifice. It's a luxury, as I said before. For her to act like people just aren't willing to make the sacrifice is mean, and naiive, I think. And some women just aren't cut out to be home with their kids all day. One might argue that perhaps they should not have had kids, but that's a whole other discussion and one that I don't want to get into.

Bottom line, people need to do what they want and what works for them. Women should, though, look deeply into their hearts—and minds—and budgets, and if they can afford it, consider being with their babies when they're babies. At the very least for one year! I wish this country would give us just that, one year of paid or highly-subsidized maternity leave. Beyond subsidizing maternity leaves, I would observe that many Americans have probably become a little too materialistic. However, I'm not sure Dr. Laura does as good a job as she should in differentiating those who would have both parents working 50, 60, 70, 80 hours a week in order to afford Hummers, designer clothes and Cristal from those who have to each hold down a job just in order to make rent or student loan payments. She says her heart aches for the moms who want to stay home but can't, but...what about the suggestions for policy change? I keep asking, when did it become necessary for two adults to work full time (or more) in order to maintain an average middle class home? And why do we tolerate it? That's another post, I guess.

Dr. Laura did make some interesting comments on the Mike and Juliet Show, which I saw while on the treadmill this morning. She was asking, how low does a woman's confidence about herself as a mother have to be for her to think that hired help could give her child as much love as she could? That struck a chord with me, as I wondered how much the confidence question comes in to play with some moms today who choose to go to work very early in their child's life. I had the example of a stay-at-home mom (who later when on to get a Masters and is now a speech pathologist). Many women did not. A friend of mine confided that she was glad to go back to work because, frankly, she just didn't know what to do with the baby all day—this was at, like fourth months!

One reason I have chosen to stay at home during my daughter's youngest years is that I really believe nobody could do a better job with her than I can, right now. To me, there is just something very primal, animalistic and intimate about mothers and babies, much linked to the nursing relationship. And I want the chance to get her attached to me, to build that trust and to give her the balls to know who she is so that when she does go out into the world for kindergarten, she is strong, knows where she comes from, who's got her back (me!) and won't take crap from anybody. As far as teaching her math, how to get along with her peers, chemistry and all that stuff, I will leave that to the schoolteachers and to her and the other kids, when that time comes, supporting her with homework help—although Dad will most likely deal with the calculus. I will be there for her in the morning and at the end of the day to give her what I can in the way of love, support, advice, companionship, direction, and will go out into the world (or reach out to clients in the world) during the day while she is at school to be a good example in that regard. And, I will always be a cell phone call away. (My husband and I had a good argument about phones before she was even born, and I insisted, no matter what the school rules are, my daughter will carry a phone so she can get me if she needs to. As a former teacher, he is big on school rules, I am not.)

So, odd as is may be, this progressive, bohemian hipster has a few things in common with ol' Dr. Laura. That's a little scary, but at the same time, it's cool. I'm not a big fan of her style, though, and so I don't think we will become BFFs any time soon, though.