I haven't blogged for exactly 6 months. That's because I'm an old mom (I turned 40) and I'm tired and I spend all my time chasing a 15 month old, trying to figure out how to shower before 4PM, retrieving raisins from under the refrigerator, and tryiing to open the cupboards that now have baby latches on them. (Now that I'm finally blogging, my husband just leaned over in bed and told me that holding a computer on your lap exposes you to beta waves that are as powerful as the beams of the sun -- something not recommended right before bed. Great. He says he learned this in the NY Times but I think he really got it from the John Tesh radio show.)
My reason for blogging tonight is to record the end of an era -- and one that actually doesn't seem to be a bit funny. My baby stopped nursing yesterday and I didn't know it would be the last time ever. (OK - now I really need to think of a joke or a witty anecdote because I'm starting to cry -- here's one: today at the grocery store, I was standing in line pondering the fate of Demi and Ashton and also simultaneously wondering if Kim Kardashian could be, in fact, a completely fictional person, when I noticed a woman pushing a cart that was holding a week's worth of groceries plus a two-year old. - Side note -- don't you love it how once people have kids they "automatically" know how old every other kid on the planet is? We can eyeball someone else's offspring and guess their age to the week -- "Your baby is so cute. 16 months, 2 weeks and 5 days? No? 17 months, you say? I guess he's just a little small for his age.--So this woman looks at my aisle and walks to the next one. Upon seeing how long the line is, she utters, "Damn," loud enough to be heard by more than just me. Next, her two year old belts out, "Damn." It really was priceless.)
OK - so Emma Clare and I had been collaborating on the weaning process for some time now as she'd gotten more active, slept less, and was taking in more regular foods. We'd dropped down to just the morning breastfeeding, but until a couple of weeks ago, she had shown no signs of wanting to let go of it. Since she is undoubtedly the last baby I will ever nurse, I was happy to let her take her time. Despite the struggles we had during her first 6 weeks, resulting in my being semi-permanently attached to a breast pump, we'd grown to love the ritual and she would be so peaceful laying in my arms -- the one time of day she was happy just to be held. Then, about two weeks ago, I sensed the end was near. She was only content to nurse for a couple of minutes and then wanted to be up seeing what was going on in the world. No time for anything but a quick snack. Then, this week, she was down to just one side. And then it was yesterday and I had no idea that she had already booked a new appointment during our "regular" time slot. This morning when I held her, she looked at me, looked at the breast, looked back at me, and started to struggle. And cry. And motion to get down. And just like that, we were done. Done with a bonding ritual we'd shared every day for the past 15 months, 2 weeks and 4 days. A door has closed behind us and we can't walk through it again. I thought I would be teary this morning and it actually took a few hours for me to be so. This morning it was the tyranny of the urgent and there was no time to reflect. But melancholy reflection and nighttime were made for each other and so now the tears are falling and just when I should feel glad to be free, I'm not.
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Monday, May 30, 2011
I'm the Fourth Child - An Urban Fable
One blustery, gray day in Ithaca, an urchin child was spotted driving a Big Wheel, aimlessly, through the aisles of Target. When stopped by a kindly old woman, who asked, "Don't you know you're not supposed to play with the toys in the store? You could run into someone. Where's your mother?" the urchin child replied, "I'm not sure where my mother is. She's in here somewhere. She told me to go play while she did her shopping in peace. You see -- I'm the fourth child."
Later that same week, in the Tompkins County Public Library, the urchin child was seen randomly grabbing books off the shelves in the children's section, and tossing them into a pile behind her. The children's librarian touched her gently on the shoulder and said, "We musn't mess up the organization of the books. You aren't even looking at the titles. Books are not meant to be grabbed up and thrown around. Didn't your mother teach you to respect books?" The urchin child smiled and said, "This is what I do when my mother is folding laundry. She doesn't care what I do as long as I'm quiet. You see, I'm the fourth child."
A family in Panera Bread watched as the urchin child retrieved a dropped cracker from the floor and placed it in her mouth. In horror, the family rushed over and grabbed the cracker in the nick of time. "Where's your mother?" they asked. "I'm sure she wouldn't want you eating food that's been dropped on the floor!" The urchin child gazed at them in wonder and said, "It's fine to eat food off the floor if you blow on it. That's what my mother says. You see, I'm the fourth child. With my brother, who was the first child, she boiled and sterilized everything that came in contact with a foreign surface, but that was a LONG time ago. We don't do that anymore."
The urchin child peered in at the local Mom & Me play group and watched as the moms & tots spoke to each other using sign language. Using sign, one mother gestured for the urchin child to join them. Of course, the urchin child didn't know what she was saying. The mother tiptoed over and said, "I was inviting you to join us. Hasn't your mother ever signed with you?" The urchin child thought, "A few times. I know 'please' and 'high five' and I know what thumbs up and thumbs down mean. Does that count?" The mother frowned as the urchin child continued. "She did a lot of signing with my siblings, but she's more tired now and says I'll communicate when I'm ready. There's always writing if the speech thing doesn't work out. She says if I know how to wave, I will be set, as I can use that for flagging a cab, saying 'good-bye' AND 'hello', and fanning myself if there's no A/C. It's different when you're the fourth child."
Right at that moment, the urchin child's mother appeared. "Wave 'good-bye' to the nice lady, sweetheart. It's almost lunchtime. I bet you'd like a Frappachino."
Later that same week, in the Tompkins County Public Library, the urchin child was seen randomly grabbing books off the shelves in the children's section, and tossing them into a pile behind her. The children's librarian touched her gently on the shoulder and said, "We musn't mess up the organization of the books. You aren't even looking at the titles. Books are not meant to be grabbed up and thrown around. Didn't your mother teach you to respect books?" The urchin child smiled and said, "This is what I do when my mother is folding laundry. She doesn't care what I do as long as I'm quiet. You see, I'm the fourth child."
A family in Panera Bread watched as the urchin child retrieved a dropped cracker from the floor and placed it in her mouth. In horror, the family rushed over and grabbed the cracker in the nick of time. "Where's your mother?" they asked. "I'm sure she wouldn't want you eating food that's been dropped on the floor!" The urchin child gazed at them in wonder and said, "It's fine to eat food off the floor if you blow on it. That's what my mother says. You see, I'm the fourth child. With my brother, who was the first child, she boiled and sterilized everything that came in contact with a foreign surface, but that was a LONG time ago. We don't do that anymore."
The urchin child peered in at the local Mom & Me play group and watched as the moms & tots spoke to each other using sign language. Using sign, one mother gestured for the urchin child to join them. Of course, the urchin child didn't know what she was saying. The mother tiptoed over and said, "I was inviting you to join us. Hasn't your mother ever signed with you?" The urchin child thought, "A few times. I know 'please' and 'high five' and I know what thumbs up and thumbs down mean. Does that count?" The mother frowned as the urchin child continued. "She did a lot of signing with my siblings, but she's more tired now and says I'll communicate when I'm ready. There's always writing if the speech thing doesn't work out. She says if I know how to wave, I will be set, as I can use that for flagging a cab, saying 'good-bye' AND 'hello', and fanning myself if there's no A/C. It's different when you're the fourth child."
Right at that moment, the urchin child's mother appeared. "Wave 'good-bye' to the nice lady, sweetheart. It's almost lunchtime. I bet you'd like a Frappachino."
Friday, May 6, 2011
Barbie doesn't live in Ithaca
You know you've been sucked into the Ithaca vortex when you begin to question whether there might be a better doll than Barbie. Let me paint a picture of Ithaca for you: it is fair-trade, buy local, drive a Subaru Forester, breastfeed until they go to kindergarten, wear socks you knitted yourself while eating kale land. We love it, but we are still aliens. We've only eaten kale once. I've come to appreciate and love our little local shops and today I visited a couple that specialize in making you feel like every toy you've ever gotten for your child is not merely wrong, but, in fact, debilitating. I perused the shelves, admiring the all wood, not-made-in-China wares. In particular, I noted two families of dolls: one was all wooden (of course) with yarn hair, clothes clearly made of hemp, and cheerful smiles. They live in a lovely wooden house with wooden furniture, a wooden dog and cat, and no car in sight. The other house was also wooden, with another little cheerful family. Sensibly dressed mom with a bob haircut and a pair of high-waisted denim-ish pants. They had what appeared to be a fuel-effecient car and a recycling bin in their kitchen. I was drawn in by their simplicity. They reminded me of my first dolls: the Sunshine Family. The Sunshine Family had a long jumper-wearing mom with sandals, a dad with a shaggy haircut, turtleneck and hiking boots, and a baby. They had their own pottery studio and seemed quite content with the furniture I constructed for them out of plastic strawberry baskets and kleenex boxes. As I took this nostalgic trip in the downtown toy stores, something occurred to me --- I had never seen a Barbie in Ithaca. Oh sure, maybe there were some in Wal-mart or Target, but those aren't REAL Ithaca stores. I began to think, "Maybe Barbie is too shallow. Materialistic. Hung-up on clothes and parties and her career and tanning. Maybe Emma Clare NEEDS the Sunshine Family or their responsible recycling or wooden counterparts." What a traitor I am.
Barbie was my friend (until I was 12, truth be told...). She had an awesome house --- they don't call it "Barbie's Dream House" for nothing. She had a car. A Winnebago. (OK -- if you were born after 1976 and are asking yourself, 'what the heck is a Winnebago?', please go and Google it right now.) She had an enviable wardrobe. Little tiny food in her fridge. A flushing toilet. A boyfriend with perfect hair and an equally substantial wardrobe. She could whip herself instantly back into shape after giving birth. She was perfectly comfortable in high heels (although not so comfortable in flat shoes, alas...) She was fluent in many languages (Spanish Beauty Barbie, Jamaican Fun Barbie, Parisian Barbie) How could I abandon her so easily? The wooden family didn't have extra clothes in their closet. The recycling family was not very stylish. They were probably manufactured in the USA -- not very diverse or well-travelled.
I think Barbie can fit in here. She has an outfit for every occasion, so it's not a stretch to assume that she has a pair of sandals and a knit hat in there somewhere. Her house is large, so she can rent some rooms out to Cornell students. The Winnebego -- perfect. And I'm sure Mattel manufactures a pink Prius. Now all she needs is a hemp bag and a boyfriend with braidable hair. Look out Ithaca - there's a new girl in town.
Barbie was my friend (until I was 12, truth be told...). She had an awesome house --- they don't call it "Barbie's Dream House" for nothing. She had a car. A Winnebago. (OK -- if you were born after 1976 and are asking yourself, 'what the heck is a Winnebago?', please go and Google it right now.) She had an enviable wardrobe. Little tiny food in her fridge. A flushing toilet. A boyfriend with perfect hair and an equally substantial wardrobe. She could whip herself instantly back into shape after giving birth. She was perfectly comfortable in high heels (although not so comfortable in flat shoes, alas...) She was fluent in many languages (Spanish Beauty Barbie, Jamaican Fun Barbie, Parisian Barbie) How could I abandon her so easily? The wooden family didn't have extra clothes in their closet. The recycling family was not very stylish. They were probably manufactured in the USA -- not very diverse or well-travelled.
I think Barbie can fit in here. She has an outfit for every occasion, so it's not a stretch to assume that she has a pair of sandals and a knit hat in there somewhere. Her house is large, so she can rent some rooms out to Cornell students. The Winnebego -- perfect. And I'm sure Mattel manufactures a pink Prius. Now all she needs is a hemp bag and a boyfriend with braidable hair. Look out Ithaca - there's a new girl in town.
Monday, May 2, 2011
Thank you, Mike Chowns...
for spurring me on to post something, already! It's been a while...
So, allow me to tell you about my recent trip to the Boston Marathon. Not to be IN IT mind you ( I barely enjoy driving 26 miles in a car), but to watch it and to cheer Ryan on. It is a surreal experience to be surrounded by so many uber-fit people, who say, "What the heck? I wasn't doing anything for the next 2-6 hours anyway. Why don't I just start running?" Some of the more intense ones (insert: my husband) don't listen to music or anything. Just them and their thoughts. For 2-6 hours. So, I went along to gawk in curiousity and in the hopes of getting some freebies at the Race Expo. At times I tried to project a runner's air about me, so that people would think I was one of them. I think they could see through that, though. They probably have a sense for their own kind, like dogs do. The second American woman to finish had a baby just 6 months ago. Show off.
I digress -- I also brought Emma Clare along for company, and convinced my sister, Stacy, that she had nothing better to do with her weekend than to fly from the opposite coast and gawk at really fit crazy people with me. Unlike me, she has actually done a marathon before, however she said afterwards she was peeing blood -- another reason I'll never do one. As if I needed another reason. So, the night before the marathon, just when Ryan and the rest of the racers in our hotel were settling down for a little pre-race slumber (to dream about running, Gatorade stations, those shoes that look like bare feet with all the toes...) Emma Clare declared that she was having none of this sleep business, and proceeded to protest, loudly, anytime she was put down in her pack & play. (For the uninitiated, the pack & play is like a small animal kennel with no top, that we took with us to avoid the requisite sketchy hotel crib that always seems to be lacking a regular crib sheet and instead has a giant queen size bed sheet wrapped multiple times around the sketchy mattress, rendering it a virtual death-trap.) She didn't even care that the portable crib/dog kennel had a lovely Burberry-like dust ruffle. She wasn't buying it. We tried to ignore her, but, as she knew it would, it proved impossible. Enter the Martyr Mom. I snatched her up and, with a sigh, left the hotel room. Now, it is an interesting thing to see what's going on in a mammoth hotel, pre-marathon, after 11PM. While I would have thought that most racers would be sound asleep (minus those with contentious babies in their midst) it seems that a good number were also Celtics fans and decided that the hotel bar was the place to be. You wouldn't think that so many rum & Cokes would be good for your race time, but I think you'd be wrong (or maybe you'd be right and I'm wrong....whatever). Along with the Celtics fans watching a playoff game, the other late-night (and yes, I'm that old that I consider post-11PM to be 'late night') inhabitants of the Marriott were:
1. The "Starbucks is closed, man!" man: He lurks in the dark just outside the closed hotel "We Proudly Serve Starbucks" place. He just sits. No phone, no computer, nothing. Just sitting. Waiting for it to open, I guess. Maybe nobody told him that it would be 8 more hours. It probably doesn't matter because he had so much espresso before it closed, that he'll be awake that entire time. Since he'll be first in line, I briefly consider giving him some money and having him grab me a Boston Starbucks mug.
2. Gamer-dude: At this point, you should know that I walked around the hotel and attached mall for a good 2 hours before returning to my room to try to get EC to sleep. The entire time I was walking, gamer-dude was making use of the free Wi-fi to play computer games. He was all alone (undoubtedly there was a reason for this -- maybe because he plays so many computer games?) and just sat, glued to the same spot, playing games. No email. No Facebook. No brilliant blog. Just games. He never even looked up when I passed by him for the thousandth time. Presumably he sees a lot of haggard hotel moms in his line of late-night leisure.
3.Really important security guard: RISG wishes that he had followed his dream and become a police officer. Instead, he is patrolling the Marriott, keeping the conference rooms safe from uber-fit partiers on the night before the Big Dance. He kept giving me the eye, maybe thinking that underneath the baby blankets, I had a giant bottle of Jack and some Uno cards, and was looking to meet up with some other moms in the "Harvard Room." I noticed that he had also helpfully cordoned off the motionless escalator, but not the stairs (?)
4. The guy who pushes the loud floor-mopper/sweeper machine. He chased me all over the mall.
I got to do a lot of window shopping in the deserted mall during my late-night jaunt. I could have left Boston with a replica of Kate Middleton's engagement ring, for a mere $199. I'm sure no one would have known the difference. For a few hundred more, I could have purchased a pair of Jimmy Choo's which, although nice looking, don't really seem like theyre worth that much. I think people just like saying the name. It helps that it rhymes with "Shoes." JC's has something called a "Double-Banded Bootie." Doesn't that sound like an endangered bird?
Eventually I was too tired to continue, although EC showed no signs of weariness. Perhaps she should have been training for a marathon. I walked back to the room and tried to put her down again. No dice. I picked her up again and sat, in desperation, outside the bathroom, with tears streaming down my face. Pitful scene, isn't it? At that point, Ryan came over and offered to help. It seems that he'd gotten some sleep and why should he need more than 2 hours of sleep just to run 26 miles? We compromised and put her in bed with us where, promptly, I fell asleep. I don't know what she did, but at least she did it quietly.
The next day we watched as our man, on very little sleep, placed 3021st out of over 23,000 runners. While we waited amongst throngs of screaming people with clanging cowbells, Emma Clare drifted off to sleep.
So, allow me to tell you about my recent trip to the Boston Marathon. Not to be IN IT mind you ( I barely enjoy driving 26 miles in a car), but to watch it and to cheer Ryan on. It is a surreal experience to be surrounded by so many uber-fit people, who say, "What the heck? I wasn't doing anything for the next 2-6 hours anyway. Why don't I just start running?" Some of the more intense ones (insert: my husband) don't listen to music or anything. Just them and their thoughts. For 2-6 hours. So, I went along to gawk in curiousity and in the hopes of getting some freebies at the Race Expo. At times I tried to project a runner's air about me, so that people would think I was one of them. I think they could see through that, though. They probably have a sense for their own kind, like dogs do. The second American woman to finish had a baby just 6 months ago. Show off.
I digress -- I also brought Emma Clare along for company, and convinced my sister, Stacy, that she had nothing better to do with her weekend than to fly from the opposite coast and gawk at really fit crazy people with me. Unlike me, she has actually done a marathon before, however she said afterwards she was peeing blood -- another reason I'll never do one. As if I needed another reason. So, the night before the marathon, just when Ryan and the rest of the racers in our hotel were settling down for a little pre-race slumber (to dream about running, Gatorade stations, those shoes that look like bare feet with all the toes...) Emma Clare declared that she was having none of this sleep business, and proceeded to protest, loudly, anytime she was put down in her pack & play. (For the uninitiated, the pack & play is like a small animal kennel with no top, that we took with us to avoid the requisite sketchy hotel crib that always seems to be lacking a regular crib sheet and instead has a giant queen size bed sheet wrapped multiple times around the sketchy mattress, rendering it a virtual death-trap.) She didn't even care that the portable crib/dog kennel had a lovely Burberry-like dust ruffle. She wasn't buying it. We tried to ignore her, but, as she knew it would, it proved impossible. Enter the Martyr Mom. I snatched her up and, with a sigh, left the hotel room. Now, it is an interesting thing to see what's going on in a mammoth hotel, pre-marathon, after 11PM. While I would have thought that most racers would be sound asleep (minus those with contentious babies in their midst) it seems that a good number were also Celtics fans and decided that the hotel bar was the place to be. You wouldn't think that so many rum & Cokes would be good for your race time, but I think you'd be wrong (or maybe you'd be right and I'm wrong....whatever). Along with the Celtics fans watching a playoff game, the other late-night (and yes, I'm that old that I consider post-11PM to be 'late night') inhabitants of the Marriott were:
1. The "Starbucks is closed, man!" man: He lurks in the dark just outside the closed hotel "We Proudly Serve Starbucks" place. He just sits. No phone, no computer, nothing. Just sitting. Waiting for it to open, I guess. Maybe nobody told him that it would be 8 more hours. It probably doesn't matter because he had so much espresso before it closed, that he'll be awake that entire time. Since he'll be first in line, I briefly consider giving him some money and having him grab me a Boston Starbucks mug.
2. Gamer-dude: At this point, you should know that I walked around the hotel and attached mall for a good 2 hours before returning to my room to try to get EC to sleep. The entire time I was walking, gamer-dude was making use of the free Wi-fi to play computer games. He was all alone (undoubtedly there was a reason for this -- maybe because he plays so many computer games?) and just sat, glued to the same spot, playing games. No email. No Facebook. No brilliant blog. Just games. He never even looked up when I passed by him for the thousandth time. Presumably he sees a lot of haggard hotel moms in his line of late-night leisure.
3.Really important security guard: RISG wishes that he had followed his dream and become a police officer. Instead, he is patrolling the Marriott, keeping the conference rooms safe from uber-fit partiers on the night before the Big Dance. He kept giving me the eye, maybe thinking that underneath the baby blankets, I had a giant bottle of Jack and some Uno cards, and was looking to meet up with some other moms in the "Harvard Room." I noticed that he had also helpfully cordoned off the motionless escalator, but not the stairs (?)
4. The guy who pushes the loud floor-mopper/sweeper machine. He chased me all over the mall.
I got to do a lot of window shopping in the deserted mall during my late-night jaunt. I could have left Boston with a replica of Kate Middleton's engagement ring, for a mere $199. I'm sure no one would have known the difference. For a few hundred more, I could have purchased a pair of Jimmy Choo's which, although nice looking, don't really seem like theyre worth that much. I think people just like saying the name. It helps that it rhymes with "Shoes." JC's has something called a "Double-Banded Bootie." Doesn't that sound like an endangered bird?
Eventually I was too tired to continue, although EC showed no signs of weariness. Perhaps she should have been training for a marathon. I walked back to the room and tried to put her down again. No dice. I picked her up again and sat, in desperation, outside the bathroom, with tears streaming down my face. Pitful scene, isn't it? At that point, Ryan came over and offered to help. It seems that he'd gotten some sleep and why should he need more than 2 hours of sleep just to run 26 miles? We compromised and put her in bed with us where, promptly, I fell asleep. I don't know what she did, but at least she did it quietly.
The next day we watched as our man, on very little sleep, placed 3021st out of over 23,000 runners. While we waited amongst throngs of screaming people with clanging cowbells, Emma Clare drifted off to sleep.
Monday, March 7, 2011
Project Simplify - Week 1
So, this week's Hot Spot for Project Simplify is the closet, or more generally, your entire wardrobe. Great. I've been needing to get motivated to sort through mine. I have a rare combination of hand-me-downs (my sisters have great taste), maternity clothes, post-maternity clothes, nice clothes for the office in which I no longer work (sniff), and things that I've had since I got married almost 17 years ago (absolutely true.) Tonight's highlight of this process was a short-sleeved silk sweater that I was on the fence about. I couldn't decide if I liked it and should wear it more, or if I wouldn't miss it. I held it up for Ryan's helpful inspection. "Do you have a gut reaction about this sweater?" "Yes," he said, "It reminds me of my grandma."
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Simplify
Wow – has it actually been two months since I blogged? I keep trying to tell Ryan and the kids that dinner EVERY NIGHT is actually a luxury. Obviously one my readers can ill afford. Sorry.
Another well-baby check-up. They just keep coming.
This time I was sure I would pass – EC has been sitting up, unsupported, for a month – so, way ahead in that developmental milestone and I was confident that would be impressive and earn me a “Good job Mom” pat on the back.
I failed. The doctor observed that she hadn't gained as much weight as we might have expected her to since her last appointment. This is an idictment against me, the person in charge of the food supply. “I'm not too worried,” she said. (This is clearly code for 'Nice job, negligent parent.') I don't think I mentioned how I ditched my previous set of pediatric specialists for a nice, mellow, comfortable set of family practice doctors. They don't even take the baby's temperature. They don't need to – they're THAT good. I like their style, however, and their lack of “judging eyes” (copyright, Linda Branton). My “underweight” baby and I will go back in a month to see how she's gaining. I guess that having significant rolls on your thighs can still mean that you're not eating enough. Would that it were true for the rest of us.
This week I'm starting on a 5-week journey that my favorite blog (well, besides this one, obviously) is calling “Project Simplify” where we are aspiring to make order out of the organizational chaos that is our home. This intrigues me on several levels. That I need to improve my organizational skills should not be a shock to anyone who knows me well. I'm an enigma (a mystery wrapped in a riddle, for those of you who don't watch enough Seinfeld) in that I can come across as being extremely organized, but this is a well constructed facade – behind the scenes there are grocery sacks full of unfiled documents in my closet, expired medications and an old retainer in the bathroom, and moldy cheese in my fridge. I'm usually teetering on the brink of being overwhelmed by my surroundings. So, I'm hopeful that this project will be a breakthrough. The other thing that I'm currently deconstructing is the word “simplify.” It's the buzzword of the day – “Simplify Your Life” is the mantra being recited by domestic gods and goddesses everywhere. Case in point – one of the recent books Ryan and I both read – “The Dirty Life.” The premise: NYC night-life loving, martini-drinking, Tory Burch boot-wearing journalist meets zany but handsome organic farmer who once went an entire year (including a Pennsylvania winter) barefoot. They fall in love and nearly overnight, in real “Green Acres” style she chucks her swell city life and learns to milk cows, butcher her own meat, and make sausage out of blood. She learns to absolutely love her country life and “ta da” - she becomes the poster child for Simplifying Your Life. Everywhere I go people are talking about it and I'll grant you that it does sound charming and satisfying. Until you dig deep and find that it is REALLY HARD and not quite simple at all to pull off. Personal example – I'm trying to make my own baby food. There is nothing simple about this, despite what the books try to make you believe (“just mash up whatever you're eating”). Getting bananas to resemble a soup-like consistency, de-husking your oatmeal, getting the stringy bits out of your green beans – none of it easy. So, in order to do all this life simplification, I think I'm going to have to hire some help. I think that employing servants probably defeats the spirit of the idea, though, so I'm going to have give this a lot more thought. I'm curious to see how simple Project Simplify is going to turn out to be. My idea is to ask my sister, Stacy, to take 5 weeks off from her job, fly out here, organize my home, allow me to pose for the “Before and After” pictures, and then bask in the afterglow of the uber-organized home. For at least three hours. I think that my idea of Simplify is “to not make things harder than they have to be.” Currently not as trendy, but believe me, it will catch on.
At this point, if you are still reading, you're clearly impressed with the genius of this blog. Well, why don't you ask 99,999 of your friends to come and read it and then I can become highly successful and rich and make the Forbes list of the Most Influential Women in Media (only 25 places behind Oprah)? Apparently that's what happened to the woman known in the blogosphere as “Dooce.com” Have you read her? Basically she writes about her husband and kids – vomiting, dry cleaning, home repairs, etc – and it's great enough for 100,000 a day to follow her. And a million and a half on Twitter. Amazing. And she only has two kids. Think of it – I have twice the fodder that she does – it should be so easy to surpass her achievements. I think I'll start my empire with the story of how a kind gentleman at the grocery store was helpful enough to point out to me that EC had just spit up down the front of the Moby Wrap. This had gone unnoticed by me, as I was trying to figure out what, in my grocery cart, was leaking. That's a million-dollar story, don't you think?
Incidentally, I'm thinking of starting to “Tweet” - what do you think?
Oldmom: “snowing in Ithaca”
Oldmom: “I think the cat threw up in the basement”
Oldmom: “snowing in Ithaca”
See you next time. If you haven't all abandoned me for Dooce.com. Stick with me and you'll be able to say you knew me back when I was just a humble Old Mom, cleaning up after the cat.
Another well-baby check-up. They just keep coming.
This time I was sure I would pass – EC has been sitting up, unsupported, for a month – so, way ahead in that developmental milestone and I was confident that would be impressive and earn me a “Good job Mom” pat on the back.
I failed. The doctor observed that she hadn't gained as much weight as we might have expected her to since her last appointment. This is an idictment against me, the person in charge of the food supply. “I'm not too worried,” she said. (This is clearly code for 'Nice job, negligent parent.') I don't think I mentioned how I ditched my previous set of pediatric specialists for a nice, mellow, comfortable set of family practice doctors. They don't even take the baby's temperature. They don't need to – they're THAT good. I like their style, however, and their lack of “judging eyes” (copyright, Linda Branton). My “underweight” baby and I will go back in a month to see how she's gaining. I guess that having significant rolls on your thighs can still mean that you're not eating enough. Would that it were true for the rest of us.
This week I'm starting on a 5-week journey that my favorite blog (well, besides this one, obviously) is calling “Project Simplify” where we are aspiring to make order out of the organizational chaos that is our home. This intrigues me on several levels. That I need to improve my organizational skills should not be a shock to anyone who knows me well. I'm an enigma (a mystery wrapped in a riddle, for those of you who don't watch enough Seinfeld) in that I can come across as being extremely organized, but this is a well constructed facade – behind the scenes there are grocery sacks full of unfiled documents in my closet, expired medications and an old retainer in the bathroom, and moldy cheese in my fridge. I'm usually teetering on the brink of being overwhelmed by my surroundings. So, I'm hopeful that this project will be a breakthrough. The other thing that I'm currently deconstructing is the word “simplify.” It's the buzzword of the day – “Simplify Your Life” is the mantra being recited by domestic gods and goddesses everywhere. Case in point – one of the recent books Ryan and I both read – “The Dirty Life.” The premise: NYC night-life loving, martini-drinking, Tory Burch boot-wearing journalist meets zany but handsome organic farmer who once went an entire year (including a Pennsylvania winter) barefoot. They fall in love and nearly overnight, in real “Green Acres” style she chucks her swell city life and learns to milk cows, butcher her own meat, and make sausage out of blood. She learns to absolutely love her country life and “ta da” - she becomes the poster child for Simplifying Your Life. Everywhere I go people are talking about it and I'll grant you that it does sound charming and satisfying. Until you dig deep and find that it is REALLY HARD and not quite simple at all to pull off. Personal example – I'm trying to make my own baby food. There is nothing simple about this, despite what the books try to make you believe (“just mash up whatever you're eating”). Getting bananas to resemble a soup-like consistency, de-husking your oatmeal, getting the stringy bits out of your green beans – none of it easy. So, in order to do all this life simplification, I think I'm going to have to hire some help. I think that employing servants probably defeats the spirit of the idea, though, so I'm going to have give this a lot more thought. I'm curious to see how simple Project Simplify is going to turn out to be. My idea is to ask my sister, Stacy, to take 5 weeks off from her job, fly out here, organize my home, allow me to pose for the “Before and After” pictures, and then bask in the afterglow of the uber-organized home. For at least three hours. I think that my idea of Simplify is “to not make things harder than they have to be.” Currently not as trendy, but believe me, it will catch on.
At this point, if you are still reading, you're clearly impressed with the genius of this blog. Well, why don't you ask 99,999 of your friends to come and read it and then I can become highly successful and rich and make the Forbes list of the Most Influential Women in Media (only 25 places behind Oprah)? Apparently that's what happened to the woman known in the blogosphere as “Dooce.com” Have you read her? Basically she writes about her husband and kids – vomiting, dry cleaning, home repairs, etc – and it's great enough for 100,000 a day to follow her. And a million and a half on Twitter. Amazing. And she only has two kids. Think of it – I have twice the fodder that she does – it should be so easy to surpass her achievements. I think I'll start my empire with the story of how a kind gentleman at the grocery store was helpful enough to point out to me that EC had just spit up down the front of the Moby Wrap. This had gone unnoticed by me, as I was trying to figure out what, in my grocery cart, was leaking. That's a million-dollar story, don't you think?
Incidentally, I'm thinking of starting to “Tweet” - what do you think?
Oldmom: “snowing in Ithaca”
Oldmom: “I think the cat threw up in the basement”
Oldmom: “snowing in Ithaca”
See you next time. If you haven't all abandoned me for Dooce.com. Stick with me and you'll be able to say you knew me back when I was just a humble Old Mom, cleaning up after the cat.
Friday, January 14, 2011
Personal Space
Amidst the joys of watching EC learn to do all sorts of new things - sit up, roll over (sorry, that makes her sound a little like a dog, doesn't it?), play with toys- and watching my two home-schooled kids develop new interests and skills, I find that I am grieving the loss of personal space a bit. And also the space that has grown-ups in it. Let me set the scene for you:
I've been trying to wake up earlier and earlier in the morning, hoping for just a tiny window of time to call my own. I creep quietly down the stairs only to turn a corner and find that one child (let's call her "Sally") is already there to greet me. I feign a smile and a half-hearted "good morning". I walk over to sit on the couch, hoping for a few minutes of quiet reading before the day REALLY gets going. Sally follows me to the couch where she sits down and prepares to stare at me while I am reading. This is disconcerting. I ask if she has something to do. She says no. I suggest a few things that might take her out of my space. She does not bite. I query further - is she sure she's had enough sleep? Wouldn't she like to go back to bed? She would not. Side note here: I have never understood why children want to stay up as late as possible, get up as early as possible, and never want to nap. It's as if they think that there is some secret world that exists during the time they are asleep. Their only hope in accessing this world is to stay awake as much as possible. Adults, on the other hand, know that this secret world is only inhabited by taxes, telemarketers, dishes, and laundry, and are happiest when they can sleep and avoid entering the secret world.
Back to Sally. She continues to stare at me. I can't concentrate on what I am reading. I get up. She follows me. Everywhere. Finally I pretend to go to the bathroom where I just sit. At least here I am alone. Eventually, I have to come out. I would like someone to build a bathroom large enough for a small sofa -- then I would stay in there longer. The one seat that bathrooms normally come equipped with is only so cozy. Now the next child (we'll call him "Bob") is awake. He's been standing outside of the bathroom door waiting for me. He notes that he didn't hear a "flush". I tell him he is mistaken. He's been waiting for me so that he can tell me three things:
1. 10 minutes of lines from the movie he watched the previous evening. He prefaces this by telling me it will just take a second.
2. The dream he had about the movie that he watched last night.
3. His idea for a planet where no one would ever sleep and no one would ever be alone. (OK - that was actually MY dream from last night...)
I try to grab a bit of morning news and adult conversation (albeit one-sided) by watching the Today show while simultaneously trying to eat some breakfast and nurse the baby. Sally and Bob join me. Sally comments on Merideth Viera's new haircut and Matt Lauer's suit. Bob wonders if the camera men enjoy their job. I do not want Sally and Bob in this space. I don't want them to become friends with Meredith and Matt. They are MY friends. Adult friends who don't want anything from me. They just want to entertain me and share important news with me. Desperately hoping to buy myself a few minutes, I ask them if they've made their beds. They lie and say they have, but since I don't want to leave Meredith and Matt, and am nursing the baby while also drinking a glass of juice and washing down a multi-vitamin, I'm not that mobile anyway, so I don't realize this is a lie until it's too late. Finally the baby is finished nursing and I put her down and loudly state, for all to hear, that I need to use the bathroom. Again.
I've been trying to wake up earlier and earlier in the morning, hoping for just a tiny window of time to call my own. I creep quietly down the stairs only to turn a corner and find that one child (let's call her "Sally") is already there to greet me. I feign a smile and a half-hearted "good morning". I walk over to sit on the couch, hoping for a few minutes of quiet reading before the day REALLY gets going. Sally follows me to the couch where she sits down and prepares to stare at me while I am reading. This is disconcerting. I ask if she has something to do. She says no. I suggest a few things that might take her out of my space. She does not bite. I query further - is she sure she's had enough sleep? Wouldn't she like to go back to bed? She would not. Side note here: I have never understood why children want to stay up as late as possible, get up as early as possible, and never want to nap. It's as if they think that there is some secret world that exists during the time they are asleep. Their only hope in accessing this world is to stay awake as much as possible. Adults, on the other hand, know that this secret world is only inhabited by taxes, telemarketers, dishes, and laundry, and are happiest when they can sleep and avoid entering the secret world.
Back to Sally. She continues to stare at me. I can't concentrate on what I am reading. I get up. She follows me. Everywhere. Finally I pretend to go to the bathroom where I just sit. At least here I am alone. Eventually, I have to come out. I would like someone to build a bathroom large enough for a small sofa -- then I would stay in there longer. The one seat that bathrooms normally come equipped with is only so cozy. Now the next child (we'll call him "Bob") is awake. He's been standing outside of the bathroom door waiting for me. He notes that he didn't hear a "flush". I tell him he is mistaken. He's been waiting for me so that he can tell me three things:
1. 10 minutes of lines from the movie he watched the previous evening. He prefaces this by telling me it will just take a second.
2. The dream he had about the movie that he watched last night.
3. His idea for a planet where no one would ever sleep and no one would ever be alone. (OK - that was actually MY dream from last night...)
I try to grab a bit of morning news and adult conversation (albeit one-sided) by watching the Today show while simultaneously trying to eat some breakfast and nurse the baby. Sally and Bob join me. Sally comments on Merideth Viera's new haircut and Matt Lauer's suit. Bob wonders if the camera men enjoy their job. I do not want Sally and Bob in this space. I don't want them to become friends with Meredith and Matt. They are MY friends. Adult friends who don't want anything from me. They just want to entertain me and share important news with me. Desperately hoping to buy myself a few minutes, I ask them if they've made their beds. They lie and say they have, but since I don't want to leave Meredith and Matt, and am nursing the baby while also drinking a glass of juice and washing down a multi-vitamin, I'm not that mobile anyway, so I don't realize this is a lie until it's too late. Finally the baby is finished nursing and I put her down and loudly state, for all to hear, that I need to use the bathroom. Again.
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