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.