Q and A: the one where I fail as a parent. Again.

We are winding down on these, aren’t we?  You are grateful, I’m sure.  But listen up!  You are dying for this one.

Brooke wanted to know 1) whether the Buddha ever moved up to the toddler room and 2) if so, whether I managed to feed her proper toddler food.

Why, yes, she did move up.  Just this very week, in fact.  So, despite the fact that it’s Friday evening by the time I’m getting to this, I’ve got to report out in the interest of synergy.  This is synergy, right?  Whatever.

The transition went very smoothly, because my child is incredibly well-adjusted and mature.  Also because she’s been in and out of that room for the last two months.  I was particularly worried about naptime, what with the mats instead of the a crib and previous experiences trying to get her to sleep without bars, but after needing someone to sit with her the first day she figured it out pretty quick.  But you don’t care about that, do you?  You care about the food.

On to the food!

Day One: Turkey, cheese, Triscuits, cooked carrots, banana
This is pretty much what I sent to the baby room.  Okay, this is exactly what I sent to the baby room.  I didn’t want to shock her too much and also, it was Monday morning.  You want me to break from routine on Monday morning?  She ate pretty well, but skipped the carrots.  She always skips the vegetable but usually eats it in the car on the way home.  We’ll consider this our baseline.

Day Two: Turkey and cheese in a tortilla roll-up, red pepper pieces, blueberries
See what I did there?  See how I got a little funky with the tortilla and the rolling?  And it had nothing to do with the fact that I took the box of crackers to work on Monday and accidentally left it there.  Or with the fact that I didn’t have time to make bread this weekend and kept forgetting to buy it.  Nope, nothing at all.  Ate the blueberries and a teensy bit of the turkey that she pulled out of the roll-up.  No tortilla, no cheese.  The toddler teacher admitted that she may have given her too much applesauce at morning snack, which may have hurt her appetite.  Entirely possible since the Buddha will eat applesauce until cut off by the bartender.  We’ll call this a mild fail.

Day Three: Triscuits, cheese, peas, blueberries.  Still with no bread, I attempt to recreate the success of Day One.  Except now I have no turkey either.  She eats one cracker and all the blueberries.  Full fail.

Day Four: Peanut butter sandwich, carrots, strawberries.  I bought bread!  It only took me until Thursday, but I remembered to buy bread.  She ate the whole sandwich, most of the carrots, and the strawberries.  Success!  Success is mine!

Day Five: Macaroni and cheese with peas, red pepper, banana.  I know, right?  I totally caved on the mac and cheese.  But I was riding high on the success of Day Four and feeling a little frisky.  Besides, it was totally leftover hippie mac and cheese, which means homemade with real, actual shredded cheddar and whole wheat macaroni.  And I added the peas, see?  Healthy!  To no avail, though.  Despite being assured that all children love mac and cheese, the Buddha wouldn’t eat a bite.  She only ate the banana.  Epic fail.

Clearly, the answer is to send her with a peanut butter sandwich everyday.  That’s okay, right?  Because I think that’s where we are.

But, you know, it is somewhat reassuring that I suck as much as I thought it would.  Bad mother, know thyself, that’s what I say.

Q and A: the one where I’m awkward at my own pretend dinner party

Emilie asked that age-old question: If you could have dinner with seven people who would they be?  I don’t know why seven, it was her number.  I assume because most circular tables can fit eight comfortably and surely my dream dinner party would be all egalitarian and use a round table.  That’s why, right Emilie?

Anyway, the answer is: I have no bloody idea.  I always avoid this question because I know the right answer involves Jesus and Gandhi and Malcolm X or some combination thereof.  But that sounds a little intense to me.  I don’t really want a dinner party to be that challenging.  I just want to chill out, have some laughs, and eat some tasty food.  So then I thought of funny people like Dorothy Parker and Douglas Adams and Ben Stiller.  But I don’t always like spending time with people who are aggressively witty.  It’s too competitive for me what with all the vying for laughs.  I spent a good part of high school and college hanging out with the theater crowd and found all that fronting to just be exhausting.  Plus, those folks can turn on you in a second if you show any weakness.  So, no.

Who then?

I really don’t know.  I spent a lot of time thinking about this today and…nothing.  Apparently I have no desire to eat with famous people.  I may be the only one in America.

In fact, the only scenario I thought of that really got me jazzed was having dinner with the grown-up Buddha.  What can I say?  I’m curious.

And that, as they say (do they really?), got me pondering.  It makes me a little sad that the Buddha will never know my grandmothers, both lively, funny Great Depression survivors who could make a mean Jello mold.  So I think I’d like to have dinner with them.  And my great-grandmother–my father’s mother’s mother, to be specific–a tough, red dirt southerner that owned a giant feather bed we liked to play on (yes, just like the John Denver song).  And my two sisters, of course, because they are lots of fun.  My mother, too, we’d just have to keep plying her with wine to keep her cheery.  I think that’s seven, yes?

There we have it.  The female members of my family, past and present.  That’s my dinner table.  It wouldn’t be all laughs, mind you.  We’d get on each others nerves something fierce.  My sisters would snipe at each other, my mother would complain no one was paying attention to her, my maternal grandmother would only eat one bite before declaring herself full in a self-satisfied fashion, my paternal grandmother and her mother would get into an argument about kids today, and the Buddha, if her current personality carries through to adulthood, would likely hide in a corner.  But we’d all be together.  And I think that would be enough.

So that’s my choice.

Can you make it happen, Emilie?

Q and A: the one where I pretend you care about what I read

Small Town Small Times requested that I share my five favorite books of all time.  Actually, she said five or ten but because I have this problem where I’m full of my love of books until you ask me to actually name some and then I’m all, “uh….I dunno” I’m going to stick with five.  It actually did take me a while to think of these.  Am stupid.

Plus, I get kind of shy about my favorites.  I don’t know if you listen to NPR’s You Must Read This, but a few months ago one of their authors talked about how some books make you feel protective.  Like you don’t want to share your love for them because putting it out there makes you and your friendships vulnerable.  That’s kind of how I feel about some (not all) of these.  But nothing ventured, nothing gained, eh?

So here are some of my favorites (in no particular order):

1)  To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.  Let’s start with an easy one.  Obviously, everyone loves this book.  That’s because it’s perfect.  I really believe it’s perfect.  But, beyond that, I love books about place, stories that are so rooted in where they are that you have visited just by reading about it.  I long for that in my own fiction writing.  If I achieve even one iota of the magic in this book, I’ll call it a success.

2) Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman.  I love fantasy novels.  There.   I said it.  I spent my entire childhood in love with Tolkien and Lloyd Alexander and Narnia and Terry Brooks.  This is technically a fantasy novel, but it’s one of the first grown-up fantasies I ever read.  There’s no elves or dwarves and the other world they slip into is nothing more than this one made more insane.  But he’s got a sly, sideways style of storytelling here that changed my entire conception of how you can tell a story.  I love all Neil Gaiman’s books (it’s only his penchant for leather trench coats that keeps him off the list) and freely admit that others of his are deeper and better-written (Anansi Boys is straight up awesome).  But this one got me first and I will love it unconditionally.

3) Cat’s Eye by Margaret Atwood.  Like Gaiman, I like almost all of Atwood’s books.  Can she be beat as a lyrical stylist?  I don’t think so.  Occasionally I get annoyed with her female characters, who kind of just sit there, stunned and dopey, while action happens around them.  Here the main character goes back to her hometown of Toronto for an opening and relives one of her childhood friendships.  A bit slow in parts, but overall thumbs up, mostly because of her skill with imagery.  Cat’s Eye contains images that are forever in my brain.  I haven’t read it in years, but it’s still the first book I think of when I hear Atwood’s name.

4) Minor Characters by Joyce Johnson.  My senior year in college, I took a seminar on the Beats.  This wasn’t out of any great love for them but because I had to take a senior seminar and this was the only one offered that was mildly interesting to me.  We read Ginsberg and Kerouac and Snyder and Ferlinghetti.  I liked them, but I also felt like I could see right through the BS they were spewing.  You couldn’t actually live like these guys were claiming to live, I thought.  You can’t live your life that wild and free with no center like that.  When I read this, my suspicions were confirmed, because this is the story of what was happening at that undiscussed center.  It’s a memoir of the Beat generation as lived by a woman.  One of the women who picked up all the pieces in between the road trips and binges and writing sprees and crazy drug-fueled highs.  This is what happens when you want to be wild and free and write true, but you also need to pay the damn bills and make dinner.  Oh, yeah, and she was Kerouac’s girlfriend.  This book reminds me that there’s always another side to the story and truly honest writing will reflect that.

5) Good Behaviour by Molly Keane.  I was assigned this in an Irish Literature class and I’ve read it probably 20 times since then.  The story of the crumbling Anglo-Irish aristocracy in Ireland of the 1930s, this thing is a plot and characterization masterwork.  It’s dark humor of the darkest kind.  It is never what you expect.  It’s just absolutely marvelous.

Bonus: any Terry Pratchett book.  Really.  Any of them.  Pick one.  The man is a comic, satirical genius with the same sideways plot trick thing that Gaiman has.  Plus, my daughter’s name appears in one of his books but I didn’t know that until after I’d named her.  Come on.  How cool is that?

Q and A: the one where I talk endlessly about names

Thanks for giving me something talk about, folks.  Me and my dull little brain appreciate it. I’ll dig through these throughout the day today and tomorrow.  Feel free to keep asking if you came in late, too.

Waltz wanted to know about baby names, why we chose what we chose and what our thoughts are next time.  We are big name traditionalists.  I mean, it’s fine with me if you want to name your kid Snappy la Barton, but that doesn’t really work for me.  In particular, we really wanted to use family names for our kids, to create that tie through the generations blah blah blah.  At least that was the theory.  We started digging through the family trees when I was pregnant with Buddha and it all started to fall apart.  I mean, we had all sorts of girl names to choose from.  Girl names were not a problem.  We were able to assemble the Buddha’s name (first name: a derivitive of my grandmother’s/his mother’s name; middle name: my mother’s name) without even breaking a sweat AND even come up with a great alternate name that we may use this time around.  Or we might just go back to our list of pretty, pretty girl names and think some more.  But, but, but…

Our boy name options suck, y’all.

My side of the family leans towards boy names that are god-awful old-fashioned.  Abner.  Amos.  Lester.  Ralph.  I am not making these up.  If you name a boy one of these, I suspect his going-home outfit would have to involve a top hat and tails.  There’s a few that aren’t bad (Wesley) but that have been terribly overused.  I have a grandfather Wesley, an uncle Wesley, a cousin Wesley, two second-cousin Wesleys, I think you will agree with me that we cannot handle any more Wesleys.  And then there is one name that I like just fine despite its old-fashionedness (Preston) but that the Alias Father hates with every fiber of his being.  Which brings me to his side of the family.

The Alias Father’s family is loaded down with names that are fine but are, uh, boring.  Really boring.  John.  Gregory.  Allen.  William.  I’m sorry, did you fall asleep?  This is also a good time to mention that we use my last name (yes, I’m one of those women) as a second middle name and the Alias Father’s last name as the actual last name (no hyphen, no assumption that my last name will be ever be used, I just wanted to get it in there for the record).  Unfortunately, the Alias Father’s last name is also a bit dull.  Which is fine (mine is impossible to spell, so I get the appeal), but combining a boring first name with a commonplace last name is how we end up with people named John Smith.  I’m sorry if your name is John Smith, but I’d like something a bit zippier for my kid.  Nothing personal.*

So there we are.  Abner or John.  These are our options.  Or abandon the family thing all together.

Le’s hope for another girl, eh?

* In all fairness, I admit there are advantages to being “John Smith.”  For instance, my name is Google-unique.  If you Google my name, I am the only me you will find.  Which is kinda creepy, I think, and makes me super-stalkerable.  Good luck finding the right John Smith.  Good freakin’ luck.

Blocked

I have five posts in the draft stage.  I can’t seem to finish any of them for some reason that is completely unidentifiable.

Actually, it is completely identifiable: gots nothing to say, man.

Feel free to suggest topics below.  Or, have any questions you’d like answered?  Have I left you hanging on anything?  Just generally curious about me?

Ask away.

Things I look forward to doing with my daughter (a Wednesday afternoon sampling)

1) Taking her to movies that make her eyes light up with wonder.

2) Giving her my (and my mother’s) beaten-up copy of Little Women.  Good books should be passed down.

3) Reading her a book, one chapter a night, and listening to her beg for just five more minutes.

4) Going hiking with her not on my back, but walking beside me.

5) Helping her pack a lunch that she can take fishing with her father.

6) Teaching her to throw a frisbee.

7) Arguing about whether she can wear that outfit in public, nosirree, get back upstairs, we don’t dress like that.  And take that make-up off.

8) Making Christmas cookies.  And Easter cookies.  And just because cookies.

9) Doing math homework after dinner.  Until Algebra II.  Then she’s on her own.

10) Tucking her in at night.  In a bed, not a crib.

11) Exploring the fine line between being a proper smart-aleck and just being rude.

12) Talking her down, or pumping her up, before a school performance or athletic event.

13) Braiding her hair before school–even if I have to put her in Puritan-era wooden stocks to do it.

14) Sharing a bowl of popcorn on Friday night movie night and arguing over who gets the last piece.  Me.  I’m the momma.

15) Stumbling upon an inside joke that we will laugh about for years and years and years.

345

That’s how many times I have left the Buddha at day care without any tears on her part.  Without her even noticing my departure, really.

The streak ended today.

Not only did she cling to me as I was trying to leave, not only did she refuse to go to her favorite teacher who tried to bribe her with offers of cuddles and books, not only did she break down sobbing when I actually did manage to slip out the half-door and wave to her, she actually crawled up to the door and head-butted it repeatedly in an effort to get to me.

I think I just died a little inside.

Also, it didn’t occur to me until I was nearly at work that maybe her stuffy nose isn’t just a stuffy nose and maybe she is really, really sick.  And I just left her screaming at day care.  Am terrible, terrible mother.

Terrible.

Ooohhh, maybe I should have another!

Ah, yes. It’s all coming back to me now

Forget peeing on a stick.  How do I really know I’m pregnant?

1) Inexplicable rage.  If you read my Twitter, you saw this yesterday as I went off periodically on various bits of nonsense.  I’m sorry.  I can’t help it.  The world is just really annoying right now.

2) I’m hungry again.  And again.  And again.  How about now?  Yep.  Again.

3) I’m bloated.  Long-time readers will remember that I gained 60 pounds with the Buddha (I can’t believe I just admitted that again).  At least half of that was water.  I truly cannot believe how much my body holds onto water when I am pregnant.  My rings are already sinking into my fingers.  I’d love to be that thin, pretty woman with only a cute, pregnant belly (see: Becoming Sarah), but that is just not my fate.  I am a giant, puffy, pregnant woman, my friends.  Be grateful I don’t do pictures.

4) Doughnuts.  I generally don’t mind doughnuts, but I don’t really seek them out either.  But oh my god.  Something about doughnuts.  It was really the only thing I craved last time  (aside from olives.  I was big into olives for a while) and right now I would totally cut you for a chocolate glazed.  If I weren’t still suffering from the delusion that I’m going to eat healthy this time around, that is.  No more 60 pounds for me!  I will survive on lean protein and fruit!  I will be svelte, dammit!  (I am so doomed to 70 this time, aren’t I?)

5) Boobs.  My bra is so itchy today.  Why does it feel so tight?  The underwire feels like it is slicing my in half…oh.  Right.

6) I’d come up with more, but I need to climb under my desk and take a nap.

Bless my heart, I’ll tell you how

I’ve had this post in draft form for a long time.  Since April.  But I never finished it because it seemed, I don’t know, picky.  Fussy.  A little curmudgeonly.  But today the marvelous Miss Zoot published a post that reignited my annoyance (and not just because she was talking about a “Momversation”).  I commented on her post that there just aren’t that many blogs out there that talk about what it’s like to be a working mother.  Then I remembered this draft and thought that it was about time to finish it off for the record.

****************************************

“I don’t know how you do it.  I don’t know how you work full time.”

I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve heard this over the last year.  I’ve heard it from coworkers.  I’ve heard it from friends.  I’ve heard it from random people.  I’ve read it on the internet, from people who weren’t even talking about me.

“I don’t know how you do it.”

Most of the time it isn’t meant snottily.  They don’t really mean it as, “I don’t know how you can throw your child to the wolves for eight hours a day while you go off to live your fancy life of expensive cars and designer shoes.”  And good thing, too, as I’d be forced to kick them with my clearance rack shoes until they tripped over my ancient rust heap.  And I think that’s illegal in my state.

They really mean it admiringly.  I think.  But I don’t take it that way.  I hear it a bit more passive aggressive.  I hear it like, um, let’s see.  How can I say this?

I hear it like, “Bless her heart.”

You know about “bless her heart,” right?  That classic Southernism?  That one where it seems like they mean it all sweet, but what they really mean is, “I’d love her to pieces if  she wasn’t such a wretched woman capable of husband-stealing and bad fashion.”

I have this friend who moved down south a few years ago.  Like me, she’s a born and raised Yankee.  To say it’s been a bit of culture shock is an understatement, but by far the hardest part has been adjusting to interpersonal relations.  (Okay, she freaked out a little bit the time she heard a car horn play “Dixie” like in the Dukes of Hazzard, too.)  She’s had a hard time with the “bless her heart” thing.  “Why can’t they just tell me they don’t like me?  I mean, if you are going to insult me, insult me to my face.”  That’s what we do up here in Yankee-land.  We tell it straight.  So here it is, straight.

I’ll tell you how I do it.  I do it the same way single parents do it, or cancer patients do it, or people who are grieving do it, or anyone who is facing a tricky time does it.*  You get up every morning.  And you do it.

I’ve learned a lot in the last year-and-a-half of being a working mother.  I’ve learned that there are things that need to be done and things that NEED TO BE DONE and it helps to know the difference.  I’ve learned that it sucks that I don’t get a chance to sit down until about 9 p.m. but that those hours on my feet will mean an easier time the next day.  I’ve learned that sometimes my lunch consists of a can of tuna and a box of crackers, but that, really, that’s okay.  I’ve learned that I’m likely to stay out of shape because exercise just doesn’t make the cut for my limited time.  I’ve learned that as much as I’d like him to, sometimes my husband doesn’t man up for the job and I have to do it myself.  I’ve learned that nagging doesn’t help, but it actually does make me feel a little better.  I’ve learned that daycare can be a pain in the butt, but they mean well.  I’ve learned that I don’t get as much time with my daughter as I’d like, but that when I am with her, I need to give her my undivided attention, even if that means the dishes wait and the television stays off.

I’ve learned that I need to figure out what my priorities are and stick to them.

I’ve learned that it only works when I stop whining about how hard it is and I show up with my game face on and I do it.

And that’s how I handle being a working mother.

Now, Miss Zoot, she’s a whole ‘nother ball game.  She’s got three kids, one a teenager.  She works full-time, she blogs daily, if not more, and she takes incredible photographs.  She’s always up on the latest pop culture, she reads like crazy, and she runs half-marathons.

So, yeah.  Zoot?  Bless her heart, I have no idea how she does it.

*Edited to add:  The Internet makes me overly careful to not offend, so let me just say that I’m not comparing being a working mother with cancer.  It was just an example of times when you need to buck up.  Possibly a bad example, but it’s all I had.  You got that, right?  Right?

Questions frequently asked of my uterus

Actually, very few of you asked any questions.  What a polite, non-gossipy bunch you all are.  Shame, really.  I’m disappointed.

Did we plan this?

No.  Not really.

Our original idea, back before our world collapsed around our ears and we started doing things like ravaging our kid’s savings account to pay the mortgage, was to try for another kid this summer.  Later this summer.  Like, August maybe.  My goal was to time the next kid for the springtime so that I didn’t have to spend three months locked in house, hiding away from -20 degree weather and killer snowdrifts.

But then things kind of fell apart financially for us and we began to think this plan was on hold.  Then the job opportunity came up and we thought that was it.  No kid right now.  Which was a little sad, because I am of the “get the poopy part of kids over with as quickly as possible” school.  But the career opportunity seemed worth it.  So we decided it was worth waiting on Kid Redux for a while.

Apparently, Kid Redux had an opinion about that.  Great.  Looks like we’ve got a bossy one coming!  Also, if my calculations are correct, I’m looking at a February birth.  Which is not anywhere close to spring here.  Kid Redux, you are totally grounded.  Get to your womb and stay there for nine months!  (Can you believe I just wrote that?  And that I’m leaving it up?  Things are going downhill already!)

How far along am I?

Hard to say.  In order to know that, I would have had to have been tracking my cycles like a good girl.  Which I always mean to do but, you know, I’ve got better things to put in my calender.  My best guess would be 5 weeks.  Maybe.  Early.  Really, really early.  Unless my last period was a Fakey Fakerton period in which case: between five and nine weeks.  I should probably make an appointment with my doctor, shouldn’t I?

How did I know?

I didn’t.  At least not consciously.  Here is an exact transcription of my thought process during grocery shopping on Saturday morning:

My boobs are really sore.
Man, this round of PMS has sucked hard.
Huh, now that I think about it, it seems like I should have started my period already.
Heh heh.  Maybe I’m pregnant.
Yeah, right!
Heh.
Wait, maybe I am pregnant.
No, can’t be.  Stop being dramatic.
It’s unlikely, but possible.  Theoretically.
You aren’t pregnant.  Don’t forget to buy bananas.
I’ve already got the bananas.  Wouldn’t it suck to accept the job and then find out I’m pregnant?
Well, yes, but that won’t happen because you aren’t pregnant.
But what if I am?
You aren’t.
But maybe I am.
You aren’t.
I’m going to go look at the pregnancy tests.
Fine, but this is a waste of time.
Okay, look, the generic pregnancy test is only $4.
We are trying to keep the groceries under $80.
Isn’t peace of mind worth $4?
*sigh* Fine.  But you are going to feel really stupid when it’s negative.
No I won’t.  I will feel confirmed that I have chosen the right course.
Whatever.

And there you go.  The subconscious proved correct over the rational mind.  So far I am 2 for 2 on knowing I was pregnant before I had any real reason to believe I was.  This isn’t a particularly useful talent, but hey.  I’ll take what I can get.

If I wasn’t planning it then…how?  Also known as: Didn’t I pay attention in 9th grade health class?

Yes, yes I did, which is how I managed to make it all the way to 34 before my first unplanned pregnancy.  Of course, since I made it all the way to 34, I think I got a bit lazy.  Let’s just say this (and let this serve as a warning to the hundreds of teenagers who I’m sure read my mommyblog on a daily basis): when your health teacher tells you that it is possible to get pregnant at any point in your cycle and therefore you should always use condoms, you should believe him.

Yes.  EVEN THEN.

Are you actually, really happy about this?

Yes.  I am actually, really happy about this.  So is the Alias Father.  I believe that we can only control what we can control in this world.  For everything else, we need to just shut up and enjoy the ride.