Status Quo

I am no longer waiting, though I have to say that the result left me without much enthusiasm for writing. I did not get the job, which was disappointing. More of an issue is that the two people who were chosen (there were two positions) have crackerjack credentials. This makes me a little proud, since I must have been considered somewhat competitive with them to have made it to the second round of interviews, but it also worries me a bit, because I'd like the apply again when another position opens up but am not sure if there is much point if the applicants are going to be so remarkable. These applicants had experience on their resumes that I simply cannot compete with, no matter how much time I spend in my present position. I am hoping that this time, with the poor economy, we just got more stellar applicants than usual. I did get some very positive feedback even when the bad news was delivered, and I felt that the whole process was handled very professionally, which I appreciated.

None of this matters in the short term. I love my job and my colleagues, and I feel extremely lucky to have been able to work only half time over the last three and a half years. I'd really like to do it for another three or four years, but I don't know that our budget can handle that. Actually, I'm pretty sure that it can't. But full time in my current position isn't presently an option, and I don't have any other options in front on me at this moment, so I will have to make the best of what I have.

The squeaker was very comforting when I told him. "Don't be sad, mama!" he said. "Now you get to spend more time with us!" Which is very true. I had not been looking forward at all to the changes the new position would have entailed; I don't see how I could have been nearly as involved with mothering my little boys. My hope was that I would have adjusted in time. But as it is, the squeaker is right, and for now I get to continue the wonderful schedule I have had, where work stays on the margins of my life and my main job is to love and care for my little boys. My job is so easy, so stress-free, so simple, and so few hours each week -- and yet I get all the benefits of staying in the job market, I get some time to do work that I think is good and important and yet separate from my identity as a mother, and I get enough pay to make it feel worth it. Really, it's an ideal situation -- if I can pay the bills at the end of the month.

I used to think that I had to stay home full time, that anything less than that would be a compromise I'd never make. I remember telling my mother I simply wouldn't have children if I had to put them in day care. I thought she'd agree with me; she was, after all, a stay-at-home mother with seven children. But instead, she told me that was foolish, and that I needed to do what I could to make having a family work without setting out absolute parameters. Sure, staying home might be ideal, but does that mean anything short of that negates the whole experience of having children? Of course not, I now know. And in fact, I don't know that I'd say staying home seems like the ideal anymore, at least for me.

I do think it is important that a child under two spend as much time as possible with his or her parents, or, as a next best option, family members. When the squeaker was born, I stayed home for six months, and returning to work full time was wrenching. But my husband was able to work part time, and when we were both at work, the squeaker was in the care of my sister and, later, the squeaker's grandma. When the squeaker was two, I found my current part time job. When the pipsqueak was born, I stayed home for five months, and returning to work was not nearly so wrenching because of the kind of work I do now and because it is only part time. And again, the pipsqueak and squeaker spend the time when I work with their adoring grandma, so it works out extremely well.

Even now, all these years after that conversation with my mother, I cannot imagine leaving my boys in the care of strangers for 8 or 9 hours each day. I don't know that I could have ever reconciled myself to that; if I had felt forced to choose that, I think I would have struggled a lot with the situation. But I have also learned that the choices are not nearly as simple as full time stay-at-home mom and full-time working-away-from-home mom. One thing I didn't properly appreciate until relatively recently (though my mother had told me so) is that at around three, kids really like to spend time with other kids. A few hours in a preschool is something they LIKE and ENJOY. And the experience is valuable for them in many ways.

Also, while I believe strongly in child-centered parenting, I also think there is a danger in letting your kids be everything to you. Some stay-at-home moms, I think, risk allowing an intense kind of mothering to be what they do, and who they are. Every decision about every small parenting thing becomes fraught with heavy meaning because it is the whole of the parent's identity. This doesn't happen to every stay-at-home parent; I think my own mother was great at caring for us and yet leaving us lots of room to grow in our own ways. But part of the reason for this may have been that there were so many of us. She was able to direct her intense mothering towards the newest baby (and there was always a new baby around the house...), leaving us older kids to develop our independence and individuality. Had I been an only child, or one of only two children, I'm not sure it would have been beneficial for my mom to stay at home with us for the long term. There would have been, I think, the distinct possibility that we would have felt constantly managed, and I don't think that is a good thing for kids. Maybe it wouldn't have turned out that way; some stay-at-home moms have so many hobbies and interests of their own -- cooking, art, music, writing, gardening, sewing -- that they are able to strike a balance that is good for them and good for their kids (my mom had many of these interests, so maybe it would have worked out OK even if she did have fewer children). But I do think stay-at-home moms need to be cautious about making their children the whole fabric of their own lives. Most, I think are all too aware of that and look for other things to engage them.

Of course, the flip side is probably even worse: career women who essentially leave the task of raising their children to stranger-caregivers because they define themselves primarily by their career success. I think this category is pretty extreme; I don't even know anybody who really does this. Most of the women I know are muddling through the gray in-between areas, trying to figure out how to provide the best parenting for their kids but also to find meaning outside of their role as a parent, whether that is an outside profession, a patchwork of hobbies, or a single passion they can focus on. I feel pretty good about my own balance, and maybe it's not such a bad thing that my present situation will not be changing.

Waiting

Feeling kind of jumbled today.

The pix from Haiti are so very sad. 200,000 people? At least they are finally getting aid. It seems to me that the world needs to improve its disaster relief coordination. It seems that we need a single body, with good representation of many nations, that coordinates relief efforts. I am not sure that the U.N. seems able to fill this role. It does not seem right that it took a week for aid to really flow in. The continued suffering is just awful, and there is no end in sight even though food and water and other supplies are finally getting distributed.

Today I had a second interview for a job. Very nervous about the whole thing. If I get it, things will change drastically. If I don't, things will also have to change because the economy has really hit us hard. No, that's not exactly true -- we haven't lost our jobs or anything like that. But things are much tighter than they were, and I don't think we can stay in the black much longer if we can't find a way to increase our income or get rid of some expenses. This job is a great opportunity, but it would bring many hugely stressful changes. I applied for this job nearly 5 months ago, and the waiting has been interminable. Now I will finally know my fate by the middle of next week.

Today I am wearing a purple suit. I did both my interviews in purple. I know the conventional wisdom is a very traditional color -- black or navy. But I decided it was OK to stand out a little, and to be my quirky self. Purple makes me happy.

Some days, I really miss being at home, with the pipsqueak asking me to 'nuggle, nurse, and nap. Such a lovely way to spend the afternoon.

I think we are going to give away the goats. They are kind of cute, but the whole experiment didn't really achieve what we had hoped. For longs stretches of the year, the boys cannot really be with them. The goat pen is a swamp of mud and goat poo, inches thick. If the pipsqueak falls flat, as he so often does, he ends up covered. Or the ground is frozen into a rock solid slab, which means it's too cold for us to linger. Or it's summer, and the mosquitoes are awful because the goats attract the bugs. When the boys do visit the goats, I worry about their horns near the kids' faces. The goats are not at all aggressive, but they are skittish, and that makes them jump around a bit.

The goats did give the boys an opportunity to be around animals, just in a much more limited way than I had hoped. And for such a limited benefit, the goats are a ton of work, some of which is really just beyond our ability. Hoof-trimming every 12 weeks? You've got to be kidding me. We can't even pet the goats, much less pin them down and trim their hooves. I am afraid that our incompetence means continued neglect for the goats, so while I feel kind of guilty for getting rid of them (I think pet owners should follow through on caring for pets they adopt), I think they'd be better off with someone who has the time and ability to care for them properly. And a barn! That would help, too.

So I put them on craigslist for free and got something like 20 responses in 36 hours.

Thanks for all the comments on my last post. It was very nice to know that there are people who read and enjoy the nonsense I post here.

And that is all. For today, anyway.

Seeing Red

Today, the squeaker is wearing red sweatpants to school. Bright red, with a small hole in the leg.

I have a rule about sweatpants: they are not school clothes. Pants with holes are also not school clothes. Thus, these pants should be in the HOUSE WEAR ONLY pile for multiple reasons.

HOWEVER, today is "Rainbow Day" at school. Each grade is supposed to wear a different color. Had kindergarten been assigned BLUE, I would have been golden. Blue jeans, plenty of blue shirts in the closet. GREEN? Would have been OK with that, too. YELLOW, we could have managed.

But no, we got RED.

I had thought maybe we'd ignore these "school spirit days" because the squeaker is pretty oblivious and I didn't think he'd notice. But then on the last one -- 80s day -- he cried on the bus because he realized he was not "dressed like an 80."

I kid you not! I should have drawn a big "80" on his shirt. Instead, I read the notice about 80s day thinking, "What the heck??? Why would I have any size 4/5 clothes that look remotely like 1980s stuff?" I couldn't think of a single thing in his closet that would look like the 1980s. Now, the 1990s I could have managed -- a tee shirt with a flannel shirt over it and some rolled jeans -- but 1980s????

So I sent him off in his ordinary clothes, and he cried on the bus and was so pathetic that the school bullies comforted him, and then when he got home I tried to explain that it wasn't dressing like an 80 but rather dressing like the 1980s, and he just looked miserable.

SO, today he is wearing red. All red. And that means bright red, holey sweatpants and hopefully no tears! Ugh.

Leave me a comment!!

So there is a little ripple going through the blogosphere that tells me that this is de-lurking week. And while I normally take pains to ignore the issue of whether I actually have any readers (because I really just like an excuse to write something even if no one reads it), I do sometimes wonder if anyone actually reads the silliness that I post. Yes, yes, there are comments now and then, and I do know that a few of you read regularly (mostly people who know me IRL). But maybe I have legions of fans just lurking in the shadows!! You never know, as the squeaker would say.

So want to leave me a comment today? Pretty please? Yes, you!!

BI-CYCLE

The pipsqueak: "BI-CYCLE, BI-CYCLE..."

His auntie: "Um, is that Queen he's singing??"

Why, yes it is.

Why he loves that song, I do not know. Not that it isn't a great song, but what two-year old sings Queen?

Still, it's welcome relief from hearing the boys sing the Decemberists' Mariner's Revenge Song: "Find him, bind him, tie him to a pole and break his fingers to splinters. Drag him to a hole until he wakes up, naked, clawing at the ceiling of his grave..."

No Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star around here.

Mom is Definitely Not a Warrior

So the boys and I were talking about what I do for a living earlier this week. The pipsqueak seems fairly intrigued by the idea that one is a doctor or a teacher (or Elmo). And he is curious about what I do at work.

I told them I was a lawyer, which I'm sure I have mentioned plenty of times before.

Long pause.

"You fight monsters?" the pipsqueak asked.

"What? Monsters? No, I don't fight monsters." I couldn't figure out what he meant at first.

Then -- "A lawyer, not a warrior. I read and write stuff. I don't fight monsters. Or bad guys."

"It's an 'L,' not a 'W,'" added the squeaker helpfully.

The pipsqueak looked pretty disappointed.

There and Back Again

So Christmas was a whirlwind. I am not sure I have completely recovered.

I always feel like Xmas eve has me boarding a speeding train that I’ll be stuck on until the day after Xmas. This year, we were leaving for a vacation early the day after Xmas, so I knew I’d be on the train a bit longer than usual. In fact, I still feel that I just got off of it!!

We spent Xmas eve at my in-laws, as usual. The boys had a nice time with their cousins, and my in-laws always have their family friends over. Not so exciting for me, but not bad, either. Then we zipped home in the evening, and the boys threw reindeer food out the bedroom window onto the roof beyond so that Santa would stop. The squeaker was very excited, and the pipsqueak was a little puzzled but excited too.

Both boys slept until their usual time on Xmas day, which surprised me. Then we all went downstairs and the boys opened their gifts. The pipsqueak is still at an age where the first gift is so glorious and distracting that it’s hard to get him to open his other items. Not so for the squeaker. He ripped through everything quickly and seemed very pleased. They played with their toys all morning while I packed for our trip. We planned to leave for Florida at 4 AM the day after Xmas. Not my idea, but my mother-in-law’s. She’s been dying to take the boys to Disney World, a place I have never been to and frankly, that I’ve never had the slightest bit of interest in. But she was excited, and so we agreed to go.

Plane tickets turned out to be expensive, so we looked into the train. When we discovered the train was also pricey and quite slow (20 hours), we decided to drive. I was dreading the trip, sure that we were going to be trapped in the car for hours with fussy, fighting little boys.

In the darkness of the morning after Xmas day, we slipped out of the house and into the car. We’d hoped the boys would stay asleep, but they were too excited. We stopped to pick up my MIL (FIL was flying) and headed south.

The boys were amazing for the trip. For the first few hours, they looked out the window and dozed. We stopped for a late breakfast and then continued on. We’d borrowed a portable DVD player, which I am normally very opposed to in cars, but I figured an exception was appropriate for a trip that looked to be about 16 hours. So we spaced things out as best we could – breaks, meals, movies, books, music. After about 10 hours, we were close to Savannah, GA, but the traffic on I-95 had slowed to a crawl. The final hour took about twice that, and then we were very glad to get out of the car in Savannah. We spent the night there; my mother-in-law had lived there for years, and that was where she’d met my FIL, so we went on a quick driving tour of the city afterwards, including the Pirates’ House.

Then it was on to Orlando, a few hours further away. We got there around 4 PM, with just enough time to get oriented, have dinner, and get the boys to bed. I was amazed at how great they were on the long drive.

We got up the next day and headed to SeaWorld. There was a huge crush of people at the gates, and I didn’t like that. Just getting in felt like an ordeal, with the security checks and finger-printing device for the tickets. But once we were in, it wasn’t all that crowded. The boys got to feed dolphins (the pipsqueak was pretty horrified at the idea of handling dead fish at first, but when he saw that the dolphins would flock to him, he thought it was pretty cool). We saw the manatees and some alligators and walked through some nice aquarium displays. We also went through the penguin area. I am very fond of penguins.

In the early afternoon, we went to the orca show, “Believe,” which I thought was pretty silly. They did some very cool stuff – surfing through the water on the orcas, and orchestrating a kind of complex dance with them. But there was some pretty maudlin stuff about “bringing together two species,” which I thought was ridiculous in the context of a stadium built by people and filled with 6,000 people, where people rode on captive orcas they had trained to perform for their entertainment. Seemed like the usual human dominance over everything to me. But the tricks were admittedly impressive. We had to sit in the splash zone because we could not find dry seats, so my husband bought some ponchos to drape over us like plastic blankets. We could see the orca headed our way at one point, so we pulled up the ponchos. Somehow, though, the pipsqueak got soaked. I wondered if he’d pulled the poncho down. With his hair and little nose dripping, he said in his usual dry little way, “That whale splashed me. But I’m alright.” It was pretty funny.

Last, we fed the stingrays, which was cool. The boys were pretty impressed by that. By about 3 PM, everyone was wiped out, especially the grandparents. So we headed back to the hotel, cleaned up, had dinner, and went to bed.

The next day was Universal Studios. It was a cold morning – in the 30s – and I hadn’t brought heavy coats or hats or gloves. So we were all a bit cold. Just getting in was a half-hour walk over conveyor belts and through gates and crowds. Visually, the park was pretty interesting. The Dr. Seuss area was arresting, and the boys seemed entertained. We took them on the Cat in the Hat ride and the carousel. But things were pretty crowded, and the boys were overwhelmed. We went to the area designed to look like ancient ruins, and we went through the Poseidon show/ride – after waiting in line over an hour. The pipsqueak was pretty terrified. The show is meant to be a little scary (“We’re locked in this temple and can’t escape! The doors are sealed!”), but it’s campy enough that even the squeaker knew it was just play-acting. But the pipsqueak was worried (“We can’t get out? Open doors! Out!”), and the show, with the booming voices and fire with heat you could feel, did not put his mind at ease. He was relieved when it was all over. And that was about all we did there.

The third of our four days, we headed to the Magic Kingdom. We had decided to go in the afternoon, after the pipsqueak’s nap, so that we could stay late into the evening for the parade and fireworks. But when we got there at 2 PM, the park was closed because it had reached capacity. So we had to head to Animal Kingdom, which my MIL had previously crossed off the itinerary because of the expense of so many parks.

While my FIL got in line for tickets, the boys went to visit Turk, the gorilla from Tarzan. They were so excited that they ran right up to her, and then we reprimanded for not waiting in line by an employee with a camera. He was not mean or rude – he just told them they had to get in line and wait their turn – but it took some of the wind out of their sails.

We got in by 3 PM and headed straight for the safari – where we waited in line for over an hour. Once we got into the jeep and saw some animals, the boys were happy. It was cool, but not so different from a good zoo. Afterwards, we had some dinner (where there were ducks that the pipsqueak was delighted to chase) and headed towards Dino Land. There was a scary ride there that the squeaker was just barely tall enough for, so we did it, though the wait in line was quite long. By the time we got off the ride, it was dark, so we headed home.

The fourth day, we got up early and headed for the Magic Kingdom. The crowds were crazy. The park reached capacity by 11 AM, but this time, we were in. We went straight to the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, which both boys enjoyed (though the pipsqueak said “Off! Off!” at first). I loved the way each ride ended in the gift shop. Ugh. We waited an hour in line for the haunted house, and then the squeaker and his dad headed for the Buzz Lightyear ride, since two girls ahead of us in line for the haunted house had given us their fast passes. We also went through the Swiss Family Robinson treehouse. The park was getting very crowded – by 1 PM or so, there were incredibly long lines in the bathrooms, full of little girls in princess dresses crying because they could not wait that long to use the bathroom. So we called it a day by 2 PM.

I had thought that maybe I’d become s secret Disney convert once I actually experienced Disney World. Since so many people want to go there and it is so hugely popular, I thought there must be something really special about it. But it didn’t seem all that different from any other theme park. It had the same kitschy theme park stuff – face painting, stilt-walkers, souvenirs, overpriced food, carnival games and cheap stuffed toys as prizes – but with intense crowds, long long lines, and a hefty price tag. There were a few very cool things, especially at SeaWorld, which I definitely liked best, but I had thought the place must really be extraordinary.

Still, it was an interesting experience, and my boys enjoyed themselves. And it was great to be warm! While the first two days were chilly, the last two days were in the 70s, and we were able to swim in the heated outdoor pool. I will post some pix later.

We had planned to stop in Savannah, GA again on the way home, but my husband was eager to get home, so we did the 16 hours straight, with stops only for lunch and dinner. We left Orlando around 8 AM and were home by midnight. The squeaker cried because he wanted a bath, but then he fell asleep quickly. It was great to be home!