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R

Car Shopping: It’s the Most Eh Time of the Year

We raised the stakes at the dealership by bringing along a cranky 9 month old, over-tired 3 year old, and a small stuffed duck that quacks for a long, long time when you squeeze it.

 

Oh, the elegance we’ve enjoyed as the proud owners of a 1996 Honda Accord, with her 170k miles, hanging front bumper, and delightfully irreverent windshield wipers that turn on whenever they please.  All this is nearly at an end.  For the old gal is now burning oil, and we have already sunk untold (or, more accurately, embarrassing to tell about) moneys into keeping her running.  Time to put it to rest and get a car that doesn’t require re-routing to avoid highways.

Not that my husband hasn’t enjoyed it.  I think he rather enjoyed his scrappy professor-mobile.  It told the world: all I care about is SCIENCE!  Professor G doesn’t need your flash or material markers of success.  He’s got degrees for days!  [Side note: this is what happens when you meet your mate at eighteen years old.  You don’t really have an opportunity to get a wider view of how their eccentricities will manifest.]  But even he, Mr. Take-What-You-Must-But-Leave-Me-My-MATLAB, has admitted that he’d like to drive something a bit sturdier.   He is, after all, regularly in the position of wooing graduate students (to work in his LAB, people! C’MON!).  And while the Honda may or may not chase them into the arms of another university, it will likely nudge them toward business school.

What do we want? A family car.  As big as the wagon used to seem, two car seats have taken up more space than I ever dreamed.  I can wedge myself in between them only at contortionist angles with the acceptance of significant pain.  Plus, kids be needing stuff!  They’re hungry, they’re hot, they’re cold, they’ve soiled themselves, they’re bored.  So much stuff.  Something a little roomier than the station wagon would be awesome.

So, we’re back to the car buying.  The first time we bought a car together was when we graduated college and Will's parents helped buy him a car.  We had our budget, the wind at our back, no children or even mutts to speak of, and off we went.  After about 15 minutes in a car dealership, we just wanted bus fare home.  Will and I are sensitive people, often to a fault.  And car dealerships?  I’m not sure why, but they make me awfully sad.  Hordes of sales people all working late into the evening, livelihoods dependent on the luck of which customer they happen to glom onto.  This could be utterly projected despair.  For me, every aspect of this job is what I would not want, so that’s the tainted lens I see it through, I suppose.

The sales strategies I’ve come across can be lumped in two categories: sales people with looks of resignation and melancholy in their eyes causing you to want to buy a car just to cheer them up; or a manic, slick-guy vibe that leaves you confused and panicked that you may accidentally buy a car if you aren’t totally vigilant.  Not sure which I prefer.  At least with the latter you end up with a car and the whole thing can end.

Right now we are in the throes of negotiation.  Which means I get five calls a day from car dealers.  I keep saying “YOU WANT TOO MUCH MONEY.”  And they’re all, “Just come on back.  Let’s take a look at that trade in.  We’ll make it work.”  So I then reiterate “Our trade in is worthless so just SELL THE CAR FOR LESS MONEY.” I don’t know what they think a face-to-face will do.  There was no, shall we say, chemistry in these interactions.  I even required a Diet Coke to stick with the whole ordeal, which delicious poisonous caffeine nectar I gave up long ago.  Unless the strategy is to drain our life force till we drive off the lot in a shiny CR-V…  That’s actually a solid strategy.  “Ok, let me just go back to talk to my manager again and….” “Oh God, STOP! You’ve got me! I’ll just buy the thing! WHAT DO YOU DO BACK THERE WITH YOUR MANAGER? I don’t want to be here any more *sob*.”

We do need the new car before ye’ oldest car bursts into flames.  Soon enough I will have my pound of flesh in the form of mud flaps or a free cargo mat.  And they will sell us a car.  We will get a reasonable deal, because I am not terrible at this.  Better, at least, than my husband.  During our second car transaction many years ago, I asked if I could get a better price if I took a car off the lot that they were having difficulty moving.  One, I was told, was in an unpopular color.  I was shown this Superman blue Jetta, and my (should have been) silent partner offers: “That’s not a bad color at all! I like it!”  Simmer down there, Pollyanna.  I got this. 

This whole thing would be a lot more pleasant, too, obviously, if this were not money we neither wanted nor readily had to spend.  It has conjured up the always fun: “Lord.  Maybe I need to get a job.”  “Yeah, that would help.”  “WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOUR LIFE WOULD BE LIKE IF I WORKED FULL TIME?” (Husband exits stage left, walking backwards and muttering incoherently.)  

The big car reveal, I believe, will come in the next week or so.  Till then, feel free to start sending me amazing bumper stickers.  I will accept “I’d Rather Be In Ann Arbor”, “Is that your FINAL answer?”, and “Lost Your Cat? Check Under My Tires.”

How to Give Medicine to a Baby

How YOU doin'? 

Oh, wait. He's not winking.  No.  That's a medical issue.

So, your 8 month old has both pink eye and an ear infection.  A little medical background to start. "Pink eye," also known as conjunctivitis, is caused by poop.  Poop gets in an eye.  And blammo.  Pink eye.  Congratulations! Your house really is as filthy as you thought it was!  I know you spend countless hours cleaning, but I think we both knew that your current standards of cleanliness have taken a real nose dive in the past few years.  Way to give and and let go.

As for the ear infection, babies have very tiny ears to go with their tiny selves, and the drainage tubes in there can get plugged up.  Especially if your baby has a lot of colds.  Breastfeeding and staying at home with baby should be enough to prevent your child from having constant colds.  Unless you have a disease-y three year old who, more or less, rubs her face and hands in your baby's face and hands.  And if your house is repulsive enough that this poor child could contract pink eye from it, well, then, may God help you!  Because your babe is going to be riddled with colds and coughs.  Most moms would notice signs of an ear infection.  But, if you are particularly ill-attuned to your baby, perhaps because narcissism dictates your existence, or just plain old stupidity, you may not learn of an ear infection unless you are at the doctor for something else.  For example, if your baby's eye swells shut and crusts over; i.e. the pink eye.

Now, you finally managed to make one right move and sought medical care.  Not that you didn't try to fight it because going to the doctor is a pain! Haha, you are one funny, lazy woman. But, seriously, once you took your cyclops baby in to be seen, and he is diagnosed with pink eye and an ear infection, you'll then be armed with medication to alleviate these conditions.  How, oh how, though, will you get this stuff into your baby?

As for the antibiotic suspension, this needs to be administered orally.  Twice a day for ten days.  Now, your baby will not swallow this willingly.  He's not even going to let you get that liquid syringe near him with out flailing and screaming and whipping his head about.  So, you'll get to pin him down.  You've got to get that screaming mouth turned upwards, because you are going to need gravity on your side.  Fill the syringe, tip the mouth open, and then wrestle wildly with this freakishly strong human child.  A little squirt got in! Oh, watch it! He squirreled it away in his cheek and spit it out at you.  Rookie mistake.  Next time, after that squirt blow hard in his face.  This causes his swallow reflex to kick in.  And scares the bejeezes out of him!  While you're blowing into his stunned face, administering tiny amounts whenever you can get access to his clamped jaws, squeeze his cheeks to coax a bit more in.  Now, don't fool yourself, it's not all getting in.  A good bit will be spewed out of his mouth and will pool in his ear.  His infected ear.  But, just consider this to be a bonus on-site application.  Repeat 19 more times.

Now, don't rest yet! (Actually, just stop trying to rest.  It's not going to happen and everyone is tired of hearing about how you're tired.)  You've got eye drops to get in there.  Did you know that 45% of the muscles in one's face reside in the eye lids, making them virtually impenetrable if one is determined not to open them?  This is 100% not true, but it's going to feel true! Once that baby opts for fight, since the only thing you can even somewhat prevent is flight, you will find that you are using more strength than you are comfortable with the pry those suckers open.  Try this right before you nurse baby.  He's happy and comfortable, awaiting a warm and quiet cuddle.  And that's when you AMBUSH! Shove it in there.  2 to 3 drops, the bottle says.  You will have no way of knowing how many drops are getting in. Just squeeze! Squeeze! The drops must go in three times a day for ten days, so, try to find a way to enjoy this one.

Well, you're now on your way to having a baby with two working eyes and an ear that does not plague him with pain that you'd never have noticed anyways.  Kudos for not dropping every ball, and may the winds of fate protect your children.  Because you'll be a little too busy on Facebook to ensure this yourself.

My new hoodie

Well, after a week of existential crises and embarrassing dramatics, things are calmer around here.  I've got myself a brand new sweatshirt and I'm now at the point where I feel like I can pull down the hood and face myself again. I hate when I boil over emotionally.  Mostly, I hate it in retrospect.  It makes me cringe.  I have an abiding fear of being a drama queen, and yet I can't seem to totally avoid falling into it now and again.

Like my long-sleeved tie-dye shirt, and striped Goodwill tank top before it, my new blue hoodie is a security blanket.  And like those items, I realize that I am wearing it conspicuously often, but I just love it so much! I feel good in it.  Not good looking in like an attractive to other people sense.  But in this weird way where it is cozy and I am happy with how I look in it on an inaccessible level.  I don't know how to describe it, and I also don't know how to stop wearing it because the comfort I get in putting it on is completely irresistible to me right now.

Setting aside the blue American Apparel leisure suit fiasco of 2007, which I vehemently think we all should, this is the first time in awhile I've felt the need to find an article of clothing to hide under.  Over the years, I've grown up, gained a modicum of self-awareness, and learned to think before emoting.  It's been a very good thing.  I've grown into the habit of distancing myself from the turmoil and focusing on the desired end - feeling peaceful - instead of the toxic lure of the drama.  Hearing about my biological father's mind deteriorating at such a young age threw me for a loop, though, and I had some raw stuff that I guess I needed to let out before I could get my head on about it.

So what was going on in that crying head of mine? I think it was the big one.  You know, fear of mortality and all that.  It is rarely advertised that when you first hold your baby, your joy in their existence will get snuffed out by the like-a-brick-to-the-head realization that this means that one day you will die, and also one day they will die, and that this fleeting insignificant moment - which is so monumental to you as to be soul-crushing - has already slipped through your fingers. Hopefully this feeling only lasts for the briefest moment. But, depending on your propensity for darkness, that may not be the case.  Now it's not something most of us keep on deck in our psyches.  Because who could cope with that?  But it's there.  And there are moments - birthdays, first steps, quiet spaces where you can see that the child they are is not the little baby you still have in your mind - that it's too much to bear.  That's why we cry when they blow out the candle.  Why we weep in our cars before we can pull away from that first day of preschool.  It's because our kids aren't just precious, and they're not just the hardest job we could never have imagined.  They're also the embodiment of the sand running through the hour glass. Brutal.

Anyways, even though I've given my life over to two people who constantly remind me of my own imminent demise (wheeee!), this whole thing struck some old chords.  I'm aware that I'm always moving forward, and fast.  But it seems like I haven't totally made peace with the fact that the past can't be changed.  It's funny because my three year old has this amazing cylical view of time.  She's always talking about what we'll do one day when she's a mom, and I'm a baby.  Or when her brother is a girl.  Or when we are both adults together.  I love listening to it, and I totally see what she's struggling with.  How can her unlimited imagination grasp that this is it?  I'm sure in no hurry for that realization. But I do know. There will never be a day when child-me knows this man, my biological father.  There is no way to cultivate a history together.  And it's not that I would trade my past for it.  I have a father, and we have a history.  He is a pillar to me and loves me unconditionally.  I don't mean to Hallmark-card this up.  But I do count myself lucky in the dad department.  Just like my daughter, though, it doesn't mean I didn't once spend time imagining other realities where the I did know my biological father.  And there have been times when that felt like an important piece of the puzzle.  So hearing that the "him" I day dreamed about many years ago was, for all intents and purposes, someone who was fading away, shook me up.  I can't totally access why that is. But it did.  A chapter unwritten was closed.

While I now *think* I have a better grasp on it all now, upon hearing the news, my mind first went to fear for my family.  I feared for my own health, for the health of my children.  That somehow his brain's deterioration was in my DNA and that it was an unstoppable force that was going to take this all away from me even sooner than the far too soon I already struggled with.  It felt selfish to think this thought.  But it just burst out of me.  And I can make some sense of that now.  There are, of course, hereditary risks. As there are with so many things.  As there is a risk involved with getting in your car and driving down the road, as well.  I think hearing this news hit a still-delicate part of me, took away something I never had, and since that was all too subtle and tricky to comprehend, my instinct went straight to mama-lion.  My mind felt this pain and immediately said: you cannot take away MY family.  MY kids.  The realest things in my life somehow felt threatened by this news, even though it didn't quite make sense.  I'm in a better place with it now.  Thanks in large part to some amazingly generous and loving friends and family members who did not hide from me, write off my fears, or scold me when I said these things.  They just said they were sorry for me.  And that gave me comfort and space, which is what I needed.

Now, I have the fun opportunity to try and not be wildly embarrassed about my over-reaction.  Or at least my misdirected reaction. Not. there. yet.  But it did cause me to go through an old photo album to find pictures of the predecessors to my fantastic new sweatshirt.  Photos which immediately invoked eerily similar emotional memories of the various shame-states I used to live in over my inner dramas.  I will say I had an amazing rant against my first serious boyfriend when he dumped me.  No regrets there.  Oh, you just want to be friends??  Well, sir, I do NOT!  So. With that.  How about a photo history of my therapy-wear, set, of course, to I'll Stand By You, by The Pretenders.

(p.s. Can someone teach my how to take a selfie? You all look awesome in yours.  I always look pear-shaped - which is odd because my central body flaw is that I'm unfortunatley apple-shaped.  Plus the camera always seems to find some serious jowls and several spare chins.)

 I wore this shirt until it disintegrated.  I think I blew on it's remains like a wispy dandelion and made a wish.  

For several summers, I would go to get dressed, and if I saw this thrift store tank top in the drawer, there was just no use resisting.  It was gonna get worn.

And today.  Oh, Whole Foods blue hoodie.  I rly love you.  And I am sorry I have to wash you every single day because the children use you as a napkin and Kleenex. 

Words on which I have no words

I got news yesterday that has really shaken me badly.  It turns out that my biological father has frontal lobe dementia.  This is apparently a devastating condition.  And likely hereditary.  I fear, or maybe know, that it is callous, but I think much of the grief I am feeling is fear for myself.  Trumped only for fear for my children.  I am not someone who believes in a destiny and to think that I have one, one fraught with disability and pain inflicted on those I love, it is incomprehensible.  I may not be as wise as I generously allow myself to believe, but at a minimum I can almost always come up with a label, and explanation, for how I am feeling.  For (the deeper) why I am feeling this way.  And how I can rise above it.  I might not do all the right things with this information, but for me, a perception of understanding is a great comfort.  I am without this comfort at the moment.

As with any news or happenings with my biological father, a man who I have not had a significant relationship with, having not even met him until I was twenty years old, I feel so many different things.  He is a person who is suffering, and he has a family who is suffering, and I feel love and sympathy for that.  I feel the confusing detachment and pangs of wanting to feel more for him. I no longer feel any loss for the absence we have had in each others' lives. Or perhaps I do.  But it's not been a preoccupation of mine for a very long time.

But I think I know what I need to do right now.  Or at least I think I have to decide to do something.  There are steps to be taken to figure out what the risk is to me.  I can't even go there when it comes to my kids.  So I have to table that, otherwise I will be crushed by the agony.   I'm going to take those steps.  I do think I need to purge a bit. I need to get my head on straight, cut out the distractions, and take care of myself and my family the best I can.  If the news is bad, I'll need the reserves to come to terms with that reality.  If the news is good, I hope I can carry some of these lessons with me - some of which I can almost catch a glimpse of when I take a deep breath and the sun hits me just right.  And I think I need to create space for myself not to directly contemplate this man without whom I would not be, yet whose path so seldom crossed with my own; but to give myself some fertile ground to make peace and to send out true compassion for him and for the many around him who are hurting.

Every rough patch in my life has graced me with greater resonance with the world and people around me.  And this time may be a hiccup or a game changer.  That remains to be seen.  Either way, right now, I've got to focus on breathing.  So I must head back to my meditation cushion and to the yoga mat, give myself permission to reach out for support and permission to guard my personal resources of energy and optimism for a little while, try and cut out the white noise from constant media, and be sure to find silence when I can.  Some of these are so much easier than others.  I'm not going away.  But I am stepping back. All my love to all of you, and my eternal gratitude for all the love that gets showered on me.
  

When 2 Feels Like More Than 2

I love these shirts without apology.

I’m not a great mom.  I am, on average, a decent mom.  I have moments of greatness and moments of horror.  Which was irritatingly predicted years ago by a Meyer-Briggs personality test.  It told me what kind of parent I’d be – namely, a rather manic and topsy turvy type – and I was all, psssh, whatever.  But it was right.  I’m real good and real bad, but not quite in 50/50 parts.  On the whole, my kids will have enough traumas to give them some good stories and reasonably thick skin.  But will also love to laugh, have gotten ten million hugs and kisses, and know what it feels like to be unconditionally loved by a very imperfect person.

So perhaps my skills are lacking, but it is more and more apparent that I was born with a healthy amount of mom dorkiness and that has been fun to cultivate.  Seeing my kids together has really let me let my freak flag fly, too.  With one, I held on to some shred of former me, I think.  But now, I see former me as a nonentity.  In a good way.  I mean, she ain’t here any more, so may as well be real about it.  And I also see more clearly how blazingly fast this is all going, and it makes me in less of a hurry to get “back” to the other stuff – the looking good, the being well read, the earning a living.  I still want that stuff.  And I work at them.  But in a forgiving, mostly light-hearted way.  I don’t love my muffin top, but I’m not losing any sleep over it either (AS IF I HAD ANY SLEEP TO LOSE!!! AH HAHAHA *sob*). 

And it’s not just that with two now I am that much deeper into motherhood, and that much busier and frantic.  It’s also that my house is so full.  The addition of Eli was greater than he himself.  When he laughs at his sister, when she whispers in his ear or strokes his head when he cries, when he shrieks in glee at his dad’s return home while his sister simultaneously attempts jumping jacks in anticipation of that same guy, it’s almost too much to bear.  My capacity for love and tolerance has grown more than I could’ve anticipated through it all, too. 

It feels just great to unironically make terrible puns on homemade valentines.  To find my hand on my heart when I see my children love on each other.  To shut off NPR and belt out Wheels on the Bus, complete with at least eighteen invented verses including “The daddy on the bus says DRINK A GLASS OF BEER!”, while driving down the road, making Edie dance in her carseat as she sings along and Eli giggle incessantly at big sister.  Doing this doesn’t feel more or less like “me” – but “me” doesn’t seem like that important or real of a thing to define right now.  When you’ve got very little choice but to take things hour to hour, it wears you down but now and again gives you the gift of presence.  Something that I found a lot harder to grasp onto when I had more time to ponder and plan.  I’m surely grateful for my crazy little teachers, and I hope they don’t get too frustrated as I keep having to learn the same lessons over and over again.

Soon I am going to be a great-aunt again.  And my niece and I were corresponding about the addition of the second.  I don’t try to be a Debbie Downer, but I have a total inability to sugar coat.  I am always reaching for authenticity, and when it comes to offering thoughts on the experience of parenting, even though there is all this amazing and happy stuff to talk about, I immediately feel like a liar if I don’t try to get down deeper to the life changing challenges.  (Which is why I have no idea why anyone asks me anything.  All they ever get are meandering, borderline depressing responses.  But I am so glad that anyone does.  Xoxo.)  On this topic, I did manage to tell her how profound it has been to watch the love between these siblings grow.  Something outside of me and my husband, that we may guide and hopefully set a good tone for, but something that is ultimately between the two of these amazing people that they will carry for their lives.

Not that it is all rosy, I have to point out because I am terrible like that and also because whenever I get sappy I have to pull back and make bad jokes so – poof – I’m not vulnerable! C’mon!  For example.  The boy is crawling now.  And he bites feet and ankles. Incessantly.  Edie is like “YEEOUCH! He’s biting me!”  I look down to see a gleeful eight month old, who not only got a tasty chunk of flesh but also truly enjoyed the sounds of pain that it produced.  And though I honestly feel bad for her, I also just want to finish whatever menial task I have been toiling at for five times as long as it should take, so I say “Can you just climb up somewhere he can’t get you?” “Yeeaa-uuh.” she complies with a pout, never taking her eyes off baby Hannibal Lector.  And besides the blood, there’s the exhaustion, and the guilt (which flips and flops between either child), and the milliseconds of regret (“I was so good at just one kid.” “Maybe we should’ve waited longer.”) that are in themselves not all that powerful but that make you feel so very ashamed. 

So life with the two of them has been harder than I imagined.  And more important than I could’ve imagined.  I don’t know that I believe I was destined for any of this.  Life in any other of the infinite directions it could’ve taken would’ve had its own unique meaning.  But I’m glad to be living in this plane of existence, that’s for sure.  I am a little sorry for my husband, who sees me fall to the floor in defeat over my day to day struggles, and then has to listen to me cry when he mentions not wanting any more kids (a position I ostensibly agree with, but just don’t have the heart to assent to any, erm, permanent solutions just yet).  I don’t feel that bad for him, though, because even on my worst days, I am pretty integral in him coming home to these little people.  And sometimes I make brownies or tell him to just go to the gym and I’ll deal with naptime alone. 

Today, I was home with both of them, and it’s lousy outside, and we were all super tired.  But sometimes that means an outing is even more necessary so we don’t just get on each other’s nerves.  We went to a nearby megachurch that has a giant indoor playground so the kids could blow off steam.  But about fifteen minutes after arriving, another child there dropped a load up on the structure and they had to shut it down for biohazard cleanup.  And I felt … nothing.  Not annoyance.  Not grossed out.  Not even anymore tired than when I arrived.  Just like, well, okay.  Let’s eat a snack and head on home.  I don’t want to put too fine a point on it, but that, for me, is what having two kids has done.  I’m good with that.

Keeping them alive

Recently, an old friend and I were communicating via a popular social media site (Friendster, perhaps?).  She was soon due to birth her second child, and was experiencing the predictable excitement colored with a bit of dread.  And so, as I am wont to do, I began do dole out heaps of Rachael’s Unsolicited Advice on Life.  I commented things like yeah, coordinating naps is a hassle, and, the older one will have a period of adjustment.  But she was like, um, I’m more concerned with keeping them both alive.  Touché. 

Now, Big Sis Edie has given me sufficient scares to be sure.  Make no mistake: children do / try to do pretty much all of the things one is warned about, and all those things that one is instinctively afraid of.  Edie has subjected herself and me to plastic bags over her head, spastic slapping at an in-use stove top, nearly performing finger-amputation with my sewing scissors, and even splitting her eyebrow open by falling – from a seated position – onto a plastic mixing bowl at apparently just the perfect angle.  And all of this from a child who did not crawl until she was eleven months old and who has a relatively low threshold for danger.  

Just a little head glue.  No thang at all.

 

Edie also has a mom who has absolutely no threshold for danger.  I was the kid crying at the bottom of the mall escalator while her mom cheerily (frantically?) begged her to get on.  Kind of hard to obey when you are basically certain that this metal monster is going to inhale you and spit you out in ribbon form! Nowawdays, I get through life by bullying myself while involuntarily imagining nightmarish outcomes to everyday scenarios in order to get through these tasks.  Well, I tell myself after a bit of turbulence, if the plane is going down, my screams aren’t going to change anything, so I may as well sit back and try to relax before the engines explode.  But oddly, I’ve been able to take most of the kid stuff in stride.  At least in the moment of it all I stay calm.  Though I bet my grey hairs could be directly linked to my repressed terror. 

“Keeping the kids alive” is a jokey, self-deprecating parenting cliché.  But my son is making it a legitimate task these days.  And while I am still generally able to get by, he is making it a challenge.  And making it really, really hard to ever sit down to write anything like this.

Par exemple:

Eli has generally enjoyed his bassinet attachment on the stroller.  It’s comfy and unencumbered in there, giving him a bit of room to squirm around.  In fact, he quickly discovered that he could easily roll around in there, much to his delight.  But when, I (never had time to) wonder, is it time to graduate him to the five point restraint?  Maybe when walks become a game of whack-a-mole, except the mole is your son’s butt which keeps popping up as he attempts to crawl out of the bassinet and onto the sidewalk below.

Then there are other restraining devices.  Big sister loved her bouncie seat.  Eli?  He tolerated it for a bit.  But I started to get the feeling that it wasn’t his favorite place to be…

And then, there is this fun new activity.  I call it Socket Hunting.  No, actually I call it “bleargh!”  I captured this little series today once I could see the idea spark.  Not captured: me hurling my phone once I realized that he’d figured out how to scale the base boards at was thisclose to getting a digit in there.  Most likely a well-moistened digit.

My motherly instinct to act now and react later was pushed to what may be its limit last week when Eli did one of the most dreaded, most steeped in lore moves.  He is, of course, only seven months old, so I’m the first to point out that him “doing” always means me “letting.”  Which is to say, I know I’m to blame, but I also know that I try really hard!  Which is all to lead up to the event: he rolled off his changing table and fell to the ground.  He’s rolled off before, but into my arms.  And I know he’s a wild man up there, so I often have to resort to sweeping a leg over top him to pin his 17ish lb self down, much to his dislike.  This time, I turned my head to grab a diaper.  My arms were not on him but I thought that my body was close enough to feel him squirm so that I could stop anything before it happened.  I was right there.  But not quite right there, apparently, because after an eternal moment of silence, I heard a thud.  And then a worse silence.  And then, quite happily, a scream.  In the moment, I wasn’t surprised or upset. I held him and rocked him, and he was so frightened.  Only later, I was frightened too.  But he’s 100%, and he learned just absolutely nothing at all from the experience.  I stress-ate half a roll of Thin Mints and vowed to do better.  Somehow I’m still optimistic, though, that I’m going to keep them all alive.

Sedona: you're gorgeous. Let's meet again not real soon.

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Writing here from gorgeous, spell-binding Sedona, Arizona.  But, I should not be here.  This is a cautionary tale, a tale in defiance of the Facebook photos of babies napping under beach umbrellas, families standing proudly in front of the World’s Largest Ball of Twine, and bright smiles from car seats.  I don’t doubt that there are kids so flexible and easy-going that traveling with them is (relatively) enjoyable.  But I do know that I don’t have them.  And that, nevertheless, I, too, could manufacture a very happy picture of it all with careful editing.

So, husband-of-mine has been traveling a lot since starting his job about a year and a half ago.  And 2013 was to start off with a flurry of trips – five in four months? Something like that.  In an effort to appease the Irritated Wife Goddess, he convinced me that we should all go to Sedona.  I don’t mean to place blame on him.  I’d never have suggested joining him because I make roughly $10 a month (more, but not much more), and we are getting by without getting ahead right now, so I may mope about money occasionally but it is not my wont to spearhead any efforts to lay out large amounts of cash.  But when he brought it up, I was cautious but excited.  And as he pressed, I got more excited and was soon on board.  Could we afford it?!  Um, kind of!  (Thank you, Christmas money!)  Plus most of the cost would be shouldered by his work, since they paid for his travel and lodging.  We’d shell out for an upgraded room and plane tickets for us lay folk.  

We should’ve taken a hint from the beginning.  I looked at the website and drooled.  Breathtaking place, inside and out.  Top notch spa.  Yoga classes, led meditation.  A juice bar!  I said to myself “This looks amazing!” And I said it so loud that I didn’t here the little reasonable voice that said “Dear, this is not for you.”  The first message came with the price quotes on an upgraded room.  One of the biggest burdens of traveling with partially-formed humans is that they go to bed early.  Like, 7 or 8 pm early.  And – though I have been told this is not always the case – mine don’t just not got to bed at their time with out much fire, brimstone, and gnashing of teeth.  And – again, Facebook photos tell me this is not a rule – but mine do not, ever, ever, just “pass out.”  Those pictures you may post of little Suzie “all tuckered out from her big day!” head-first onto her high chair, or face-planted into a couch amid a raucous party?  I don’t dislike you for posting them, dear friends.  Truly.  Live and be well.  Life’s not about evening scores, and I am sure you have your challenges that may far exceed my own.  But, I must admit these images make me weep just a little.  No, mine scream and holler, possibly vomit, definitely kick, and generally go freaking bananas until there is a dark room, white noise machine, clean jammies, and often my boob.  I know not the joys of “aww, Honey, look at Johnny! He’s asleep over there in his Big Wheel!”  If Little Johnny were mine own, I would put him and his Big Wheel in the car and drive straight the ER because something must have gone terribly wrong.

But I digress.  Room cost.  Yes. To avoid the whole having to remain motionless and silent for several hours so that the children can sleep when they must, we decided to get a room with bedrooms.  A “casita,” as it were.  Casita – Spanish for little house.  How lovely sounding is that?  The quote for an upgrade to a 2 bedroom casita was one bajillion dollars.  But a one bedroom was only half a bajillion.  We swallowed hard, and I said that I cold not in good conscience allow us to spend the full bajillion.  I’d make the one bedroom work.  All four of us, one of whom does not nearly sleep through the night and another who suffers from voice immodulation, in one room.  My hair must have been standing on end when I committed to this, but I ignored it and pressed on.

Then we had to look at the physical travel aspect.  3.5 hour flight.  2.5 hour drive.  Not fun, but we can do it!  Forgot about that whole 1.5 hours before the flight.  And the hour to get the rental car.  And surprisingly bad head winds.  Not to mention potty breaks for toddler-sized bladders. All told, we ended up at a travel time of nine hours.  I don’t think we ever did the math, though we could’ve.  Willful ignorance.  Remember that fire, brimstone and gnashing of teeth? There was a goodly amount of it in that 9 hours, and during and in between such times, there was an all-hands-on-deck level of effort to keep the wee ones managably fed, kempt, and amused.

 Edie feeding Baby Jane on PHX airport bus.  Legit cute.  Nearing the age of travel-readiness.

 Pretty much the only pic I got of Eli because he spent the trip screaming, 

fussing, not sleeping, or sleeping at inconvenient hours. 

We arrived, saw the grounds and got into our quarters, and everything was stunning! Stunning!  Not to mention thoughtful details.  For example, there is a fireplace in our room that you can turn on with a light switch located only 2 ½ feet above the ground!  Perfect for a curious three-year old.  And an indoor pool.  That you can go in if you are over 16.  Trails galore that are inaccessible by stroller.  I have no problem with any of these on principle.  I am well aware that my three year-old is not conducive to the Zen-like experience that patrons of this resort are paying, literally, bajillions of dollars to enjoy. My issue is with my own inability to get it through my own thick skull that vacations with little kids are now “vacations.”  Or maybe “ “vacations” ”.  

Now, it does not help that I got sick on day one, sicker on day two, ending up feverish, exhausted and rather snippy, and currently settled into a hacking cough and an inability to be further than three feet from a box of Kleenex.  But germ-mongers that children are, me getting sick is not exactly shocking.  And I basically begged for an incapacitating illness when I spastically highlighted the resort’s activity schedule like an over-enthusiastic and over-grown summer camper. 

Oh, you and your bright eyes, Monday-Rachael.

Two of the best things about this place?  We have a kitchenette and there is a gratis laundry room only steps from our front door.  It took me a day to realize that what I was most excited about would also be what resulted in me doing dishes and laundry, without access to a dishwasher or my extra-jumbo-sized front loading washer or dryer. 

The three year old is on the verge of being at the age of enjoying this.  But she’s not quite there.  Upon gazing out at the majestic red rocks that fill up the panoramic view out our window, I said with awe “Edie, look at that!”  She looks up, and then asks for the second time “But who BRINGED these orange juices?!?!”, unable to let go of the mystery of how tiny bottles of OJ ended up on our porch this morning.  “The orange juice people.  I don’t know! What do you think of the rocks?”  *Smacks lips after taking another sip of glorious magic juice and walks away*  But she is generally easy to travel with, as long as you pay loads of attention to her, and – here’s the big one – she may not be flexible about sleeping on the go, but once you’ve got it right, the child sleeps through the night.

Static electricity and bananas.

Compare: the seven month old.  Who generally wakes twice a night, but here in sunny Arizona, wakes up when he hears a bed sheet move.  A bed sheet!  I do not exaggerate! I have been in bed here now three nights, holding back scratching an itch or rolling to a position where my arm is not being deprived of blood because at that moment there is nary a sound coming from that pack’n’play. And when I give into my pitiful, mortal urge, WAAAH!! Instantly! And we’ve got a serious white noise machine going on full blast.  It’s a frightening talent.  But, he makes up for it during the day.  Wait! Nope! He just cries. And cries.  And it’s exhausting.  He just wants to be home. And so do I.

I am glad to be here. It truly is a wonder.  But I’ve got to remember to be a little more patient with it all.  As fondly as I’ll remember the highlights, this has taken it out of me like what.  And I’m a-day dreaming of my bed, of a napping schedule, of being able to roll over or blow my nose without fear of reprisal.  These little baby days are short, and there are many good things about this time.  But few of these good things are apparent in a hotel or road trip setting.  It’s telling that I’m excited to have a kitchen and a place to wash my clothes.  There’s a lot of beauty in routine and comfort.  No question it’s what kids need and crave.  Time for our wild outings to be to the zoo instead of across the country, I think.  Next time I want to impress my kids, I’ll just sneak around the house, deposit a couple of Odwalla’s on the porch, and ding’n’ditch.  They’ll be dazzled and I won’t be clucking my tongue at a resort’s choice not to offer scent-free detergent.

The "my family vacations are always peaceful and joyful" shot. Pretty cool one.  I did have to straight beg her to pose for it, however.

To all of you who love traveling with your littles: God bless.  For those whose own anal retentiveness and children make stay-cations seem a lot more appealing, lets all meet up at a spa in 2016.  A thirty and over spa.  I’ll pack the highlighters.

From 2 to 3, just like that.

Last night I went to say good night to my not so terribly little daughter.  I curled up next to her, wrapped my arms around her, and begged her to close her eyes and go to sleep.  I wanted to drink her in and, for once, have her fall asleep next to me.  She’s never been able to do that.  Countless times, she’s fallen asleep in my arms, back when she was my nursling.  But even then, I had to get her in bed before she’d been out too long because Edie was not able to stay asleep anywhere but in her own bed.  Once, somewhere around her second birthday after she’d moved from a crib into a twin sized bed, I snuggled up with her hoping that with this new found space, maybe now we could doze off together.  But after a few minutes, she patted my cheek and said “Mama, go see Daddy.”  I was able to laugh then and be on my way, but last night, I was trying to hold time still and keep her at two for as long as I could.  But, it’s not a child’s job to soothe her parent, and I managed to leave my not-at-all-sleeping kid before she wondered what I was up to.

Because she would wonder, before long.  Nothing distresses her more than seeing me in distress.  The handful of times I’ve banged my head or stubbed my toe with such force I wasn’t able to laugh it off, she’s oftentimes fallen at my feet, trembling, waiting for me to smile.  These days if she thinks I’ve hurt myself, she jogs over chanting, “It’s ok. It’s ok, mom. It’s ok.” Half reassurance, half question.  When it’s physical pain, I am quick to let her know that it is ok, but I have a harder time when what’s wrong is day three of a grinding headache caused by her screaming brother and exacerbated by exhaustion.  I don’t want to shield her from all negative emotions, but I do want her to trust that her mom, in the end, is always ok.  Usually this takes the form of an explanatory talk once cooler heads can prevail.

My sensitive girl.  I know that I’m toughest on my Edie, pushing her behave, speaking to her like an adult, pressing her to explain her thoughts and feelings, and encouraging her to play on her own.  But this does not mean that she does not both break and light up my heart, nor is my toughness itself always the right call.  Just a few weeks ago I saw her dancing around near a group of her friends, looking hesitant and wide-eyed.  I stepped closer and heard a classmate whom I know Edie adores say “This is only for big kids. You can’t sit down.”  And I may have wanted to let her work this out, but instead I said flatly in my best Tony Soprano-esque low voice, “She’s big enough.  Go ahead and sit down, honey.”  Best believe that no one argued with me.

When Edie woke up today, I pulled her into bed with me.  Again, looking to hang on.  I whispered “happy birthday” and held her tight.  But Eli woke up, and the school day was approaching, so I had to chase her- and drag myself - out of that warm bed and get started on this day that would tick by, just like all the rest.  I’d made her a birthday present: a “this is your life” style book that chronicled the highlights of her first thirty-six months.  It crushed me to make, but I knew she’d love it, since she had been asking all kinds of questions about her life since her brother was born.  Edie has wanted to know about her birth story, where she’s lived, and what she’s done.  So this was my way of telling her.  I couldn’t wait for this evening to give it to her, so I brought it out before breakfast.  She climbed in my lap and I read it.  Half way through, I looked down at her face and saw she was getting really overwhelmed.  I said, “hey, what’s up.”  Then the tears began to fall.  Quiet sobbing, not in pain or anger.  I asked her what was wrong – a silly reflex, considering I don’t think adults are typically capable of fully grasping the “what” in that question during the heat of the moment.  She mumbled something about a beloved water bottle that she had lost and missed.  I held her tight and promised I’d get her a new one.  I asked if she wanted me to keep reading and she nodded fervently.  So I did.  And then it was over, too.

In a flash, she was out the door, armed with her new book and a lunch filled with her favorite things, and her Dad balancing two giant containers of minicupcakes for her class to have today.  Tonight, we are getting a sitter for two hours to come and watch baby brother so Edie can have a dinner of undivided parental attention.  And I am so grateful that for the moment, that is still in the future.

I’m not even really a baby person.  I like my own babies (though they confuse and frustrate me to no end), and I have an appreciation for the babies of family and friends.  But I’ve never had baby fever.  I’m a kid person, and my Edie is truly a kid now.  It is fun and only getting better.  I joke that my kids took my youth and beauty.  I mean, I joke, but it’s true.  But they take so much more than that.  They take your armor, expose you to the truth that you control nothing.  And that has been a bitter pill for me to swallow.  That it all goes by so fast is a cliché, no doubt.  But what else is there to say?  Nothing this hard, this magical, this grueling, this gorgeous could do anything but pass quickly, or else no one could bear it. 

Happy Birthday, Edie! If I had it to do over, I think I would.  I don’t know that I could do better, but I can’t lie and say I wouldn’t want to try.  I love you so much it hurts, but I’d never want to go a moment without it.

Get a job, woman

Not sure how much longer hubs can be the only one working for the man. 

Or woman. 

Or sock monkey.

Today, like too many days, I drank coffee in order to a fill a hole where sleep should go. This left me jittery and even more spastically talkative than usual.  I went to a gathering of some neighborhood moms, and over the course of a half an hour, I overheard that another mom there was a lawyer who is now staying at home with her child. I proceeded to think she was someone I'd already met (she wasn't). I then immediately segued into proposing we set up shop together as contract attorneys, deftly using our legal skills and our maternal gifts as time-management geniuses to make bucks while raising the youngin's.  Since she had resigned not three months prior, and her child is five months old, she rightfully backed away slowly as I let my caffeine-haze pummel her with my misplaced enthusiasm.  Besides just tired and socially-awkward, though, I am always secretly hoping that if I keep my feelers out, the universe will sweep in and pull me in the career path I was destined for.  Alas.  This time, it may end in a restraining order instead.

Is 2013 the year of the job for me? It goes without saying that being a stay at home mom is work.  But, in case it needed saying: it is work.  Lots of work.  Bottomless fount of über-repetitive, cyclical rather than linear work, with tons, and tons, of bodily-fluid clean up involved.  By "job" I mean to refer to something that fits into the capitalist framework of fee-for-service.

I won't get into the ways in which I am challenged being home with the kids.  Because that's a sort of never-ending side track for me.  Suffice it to say, I'm challenged in ways I'd never encountered; in ways that have nothing to do with intellect, adult social interactions or validation. But there is one aspect of it all that is a bit of a crutch to me is that I have long-harbored the fear that I could never really be employed long-term.  So, being a stay at home mom has stoked that fear, keeping me out of the career loop as I hear about my friends and former classmates climbing the ranks, while my resume rots and my meager skills evaporate.  I wouldn't go back and change a thing.  But it is a nagging and dark place in my thoughts, this whole job thing.

So, then, why go to law school?  I honestly don't know.  But I don't think many fully know why we do what we do.  I think we backwards rationalize our decisions to give ourselves a satisfactory narrative.  I mean, I like the content of a legal education.  So I guess that's why I did it in part.  And that being a lawyer meant that working for "justice" in some grand sense was possible.  But I did not ever have a concrete sense of what kind job I saw myself in.  What I do know is that I am very decisive.  I don't him and haw. I do.  This is not to say I am always (or ever) pleased with my decisions, from what to order in a restaurant to what house to buy, but, dang it, I fill in that circle on life's Scantron sheet and I turn the page.  And therefore, I applied. I attended. I got my JD. But when it comes to committing to gainful employment, I am running scared.

My fear is that I could never stay put in one job long term.  I've been employed in some capacity or another since I was 15.  Since 12 if you count baby sitting jobs. (Yes, people let me babysit at the age of 12. And in turn they got a super-enthusiastic sitter who - armed with a precocious sense of responsibility as well as a comprehensive knowledge of childcare based on the informational series The Babysitters Club -  arrived with lesson plans and games in exchange for sweatshop wages.  In sharp contrast to 17 year old baby sitting me, who let your kids run amok, and got them in bed as soon as possible so I could talk on your phone, eat your snacks, and watch your glorious cable television.) I have always doubted my own stick-to-itiveness when it comes to a real grown-up job. I'm 31 now, and between a lot of years of school and these past three at home with the kids, I've certainly not proven myself wrong yet.

Right now, Eli is six months old.  Edie is a few weeks away from being three years old.  Though I'm in the thick of it with little Eli, Edie is on her way to being a full time school-er.  And while he's six months now, this baby time is so so fleeting.  Not just in a wistful, 'where do the days go?' way.  Also in a temporal sense that is making me ponder my next move.

On any given day, I have an entirely different sense of what I want to be when I grow up.  I want to be a lactation consultant.  I want to open my own practice for family law.  I want to get back into public interest, working for equality, providing access to legal services to the under-served. Maybe I want to homeschool my kids.  And, I want to do none of that but instead focus on writing and blogging and somehow turn that into a career.  I do wonder whether I will ever be able to pull the trigger here.

My husband and I, we want to retire one day.  And one day, his sad old little car will die and he will need a replacement - at a minimum a sound mule or a pair of roller blades - to get to work.  These things, among others, depend in part on me getting a job.  I also know that I want to work outside my home, to be challenged in ways that involve little-to-no bodily fluids.  And I know that this is no small goal, given the sad state of the economy and sadder state of my skillset. 

It's too scary to commit to 2013 being my job year.  I'm not there yet.  But I do want to take some steps, mental or tangible.  Because it's getting to that point.  And I think if I try to take another bar exam to put this off much further, I may get arrested for fraud.  Three is enough, Rach.  Saddle up.