Fight For The Right To Party

Almost every day at around 3 p.m. we go for a drive to get my toddler to sleep. I tune in to a little "Fresh Air" on NPR and listen to grown ups talk.

But it just isn't the same when the guests on Fresh Air are the Beastie Boys and my toddler is bouncing up and down to the clips Terry Gross is playing. Maybe some classic rock would be more soothing?

What Is Up With the Grouchy Mommies At The Playground?

Daddytypes has a couple of posts on Daddy/Mommy interactions on the playground, and it couldn't be more timely for us. In our house Daddy does more of the playground time, because I often only go if I have a friend going and a guaranteed extra pair of hands with both S. and L. My darling husband goes with S. on his own, which is a little more straightforward.

Anyway, he came home from the playground Sunday a little shaken, and said he'd learned to be careful what he said. Apparently a smaller boy started trying to walk down the "bridge" which is made of very flexible rubber while two larger boys were bouncing on it. Since the mom of the smaller boy didn't try to stop him, the mom of the larger boys quickly herded her kids off the bridge. My husband told her it was a good thing she moved the boys, as he'd seen kids fall off the bridge, though the wood chips below are pretty soft and they weren't injured.

Later, as the mom of the smaller boy left, she turned on my husband and said "I heard what you said and I didn't appreciate your sarcasm." She was clearly quite angry. My husband didn't quite understand what she meant, but apologized. I said maybe she thought you were being sarcastic about wood chips being soft. But, of course, they are relatively soft. That is why they are there. When my nephew broke his arm under their family swing, the first thing my brother did was put down more wood chips.

Per the commenters on DaddyTypes, there are apparently just a lot of hypervigilant moms out there, and they don't appreciate Dads' jokes.

So today I went to the playground with S. and L. and a friend and her son. Another mom was hovering over her daughter, who was quite small but probably about the same age as S. The mom appeared to be, if anything, slightly older than me. The daughter appeared to be adopted, which I only mention because maybe the mom didn't have a lot of experience with other kids, and maybe that explained the mom's hovering and her actions. A little boy tried to get in front of her daughter to go down the slide, not roughly and her daughter was ready to just stop and yield. The mother then quite literally shoved the little boy out of the way and started to lecture him that her daughter was smaller than him and that he should not get in the way of smaller children. Now, her daughter was smaller than him, but my bet is that she was the same age or older (2). The little boy just stared at the irate mom like a deer in the headlights, uncertain how to respond. Finally he moved a little and the angry mom relaxed a bit and thanked him. He continued to stare at her. I'm not sure where his mom was, but it was a very strange scene.

Later just to check some of my hypotheses I asked her how old her daughter was, and found out she was the same age as S., which I'd figured even though S. was taller. The angry mom also warned me that her daughter had had a rough landing at the bottom of one of the slides, and I thanked her and said we hadn't tried that one yet. I thought about telling her that little boy was too little to understand what she was saying, but I didn't want to make an ugly scene any uglier.

My husband and I were discussing it at lunch and agreed that (1) when there is a rough kid around, we just remove our kid and (2) it is so much nicer to go to the playground with people you know rather than meet the crazies.

Things I Find In The Play Area #2

This one, I'm told, is the baby in the Night Kitchen. "In The Night Kitchen," which for those unfamiliar with it is a story by Maurice Sendak. I wasn't familiar with it either, but it is one of the stories on a very fine Scholastic video of "Where The Wild Things Are" we were given (thanks Anita!). I find the "In the Night Kitchen" a little odd, actually, but S. is fascinated by it. It involves the dreams of a little boy, Mickey, who goes off into space and gets kneaded into some dough by large chefs, then ruins the bread by popping out of it. The chefs are irritated and need more milk for more cake, so Mickey makes an airplane out of dough and goes up through the Milky Way to get milk. I think I've got that right; I don't always watch S.'s videos too closely.

I suspect my husband may have had a hand in this particular tableaux, but I'm not sure. S. is very taken with the Night Kitchen and chants "milk in the batter" a lot and makes the little baby doll ride her toy plane, as well as kneading the baby doll into playdough.

On a side note, "In The Night Kitchen" is apparently a commonly banned book (and I'm always in favor of those) as Mickey is nude in parts of it. I found various analyses of it here and here. I don't think S. is interested in the banned book status, though. She just likes the plane.

Things I Find In The Play Area #1

I don't know what the puppy did to wind up in the stockade, but it must have been something bad.

No, Doctor, Please

S. is very big on playing doctor. Her favorite activities are checking your heartbeat, saying ahh, checking ears, and checking your reflexes (or as she calls it "bop your knee."). She started doing this after we got an "Elmo Goes to the Doctor" video and an extensive collection of hand-me-down doctor toys from my sister.

The problem is that the stethescope has a piece of sponge in it. And L., who is teething, likes to chew on it and fill the sponge with drool.

So I'm changing L.'s diaper, and S. is "listening" to my heartbeat and I suddenly realize that the stethescope is wicking spit through my shirt. Cold wet spit. Then she moves the stethescope and starts a new spit spot. It is all I can do not to shreik or cringe.

And here I thought my grossest parenting experience was going to involve poop. I really hate spit.

Sitting Baby

L. sat up on her own for the first time Sunday. I find sitting up a great milestone. It is very clear when it first happens. One of my big surprises as a parent was to find that so many of the milestones you hear about aren't very easy to observe. The hardest one for me was walking. Learning to walk was such a process for S. She did a lot of holding onto tables and chairs and walking, and then she'd let go for a second... no ... then maybe half a step .... then a little more. There was no "a-ha" moment of a first step.

Sitting, though, is very clear. S. sat up one day on her own in the crib, and surprised me as I turned around. It was July 2, 2004. L. was very clearly aiming to sit up Sunday morning, and I caught most of it on videotape. That was nice.

So L. is a little less of a baby. I know I will miss the toddler stage for my children, but I don't think I'll miss the 0-4 month stage. They are just too easy to break, even if they are yours. I'm glad to have a sturdy little girl who can sit and reach and make trouble.

I'm At War. Who Knew?

I just found this article the Washington Post ran this weekend called "Moms at War." The author has a book (big surprise) and is trying so hard to give a balanced picture of work-at-home and stay-at-home moms. But when it comes right down to it, it is clear that she doesn't like stay-at-home moms much. To quote: "What puzzles me is that despite the fact that I've crafted a pretty ideal work/family situation, at times I'm still envious of the trust stay-at-home moms seem to have in their husbands and in life, a breezy Carol Brady confidence that they will always be taken care of. Some days I'd kill for a dose of their faith that neither my husband nor life will leave me stranded, destitute, unable to protect myself and my children without the independence conferred by a job and paycheck of my own."

CAROL BRADY????? Could she pick a more insulting archetype? A never-employed career mom who was detached from reality in more ways than just her mom decisions.

And while I have a great deal of trust in my husband, what is up with the assumption that by staying home I'm assuming I "will always be taken care of." I worked for many years and have a large pile of savings to fall back on, savings of my own. I have a nice education and experience that I can use to find employment again.

What I am doing is living my life for the current scenario, not for some hypothetical worst case scenario (what if my husband, my savings, and my extended family all disappeared in a poof of smoke). I am also assuming I have a community; it always strikes me as very Western and maybe even very American to assume that we have no one to ask for help if the worst happens. I've had a pretty charmed life, but from others experience I have the impression that when the worst happens people are more willing to help than you'd think.

I admit, I have some jealousy of SOME working moms. I'm not jealous of the ones who feel they have to work, but I am a little jealous of the ones who want to work. My jealousy takes two forms. (1) I'm jealous of their having a job they like enough to stick with it. A big part of the reason I am at home is that I was very burned out on my job. (2) I am jealous of having a standing childcare arrangement. It is so hard for me to schedule anything, but especially self-care, like doctor's appointments and haircuts. It makes me feel like a more marginal person. I have a hard time justifying paying money for childcare when I'm not working.

Mostly, though, I notice that everyone's situation is different. I know mine is. It is a function of age and financial status and the work situation at the time. I have friends who work; I have friends who stay home. I don't try to assign them to one of two opposing armies. The world is much more complicated than that.

Things My Daughter Loves

S. has announced she loves the following items:

1. Purple
2. Blue
3. Books
4. Sketti (spaghetti)

If repetition is any guide, she loves books very very much.

Now, what is missing from this list? Hmm. Let me think.

I know I am not alone in this, since my cousin's husband tried to get her daughter to say "I love Mommy" and instead they'd get "I ... love .... PIZZA."

And a friend of my sister's had her daughter come home from pre-school around Thanksgiving with a turkey that said "I am thankful for .... carrots."

The Jackson Five Just Don't Sound The Same Anymore

My toddler S. loves music with a bouncy beat, so my darling husband put in his old Jackson Five Greatest Hits CD. S. loves it and dances around, but my husband and I both find that we just can't listen to the Jackson Five in the same way anymore. We hear that cute little Michael singing about adult themes and think "poor little guy. He got so messed up." The only song we can listen to easily is "ABC," though even that has a little "baby you and me" mixed in. We're going to pick a new CD for dancing around the living room.

Yet another article on moms

Maybe I need to stop surfing while nursing, 'cause I found another voice chiming in on the whole feminist mom/stay-at-home mom discussion. Since so many paid journalists are taking assignments to write articles on this topic, I can tell it has a lot of readers.

This article discusses the fact that feminist moms tend to be less happy with their choices and maybe it is because they just have too much choice. Apparently there is a lot of research lately that says more choice doesn't lead to more happiness. I haven't read up on this thought yet, but my dad is reading a book on it and is very taken with the idea (so it has been mentioned in multiple conversations). Anyway, the article ends well, with the line "sometimes the personal is just personal."

I keep feeling vaguely guilty for staying at home, as if I am forfeiting points in our life scoring system (money). I think I keep reading all these articles hoping to find someone just like me who is staying home, but the people like me are the ones still working. What does that mean?

Early Potty Training Success

My darling husband has successfully gotten our 26-month-old to pee in the potty every night for almost a week.

The reason I know this is that he leaves the pee in the potty, and I find the "pee surprise" when I go up for the night.

So my question is: should I be pleased or irritated? I'm torn. Mostly I'm going with "pleased," since it is pretty characteristic of my darling husband to be absent minded. The moments of "irritated" are as I empty the pot. But I am getting a lot of mileage out of complaining about it, always when my husband is within earshot. He does at least have the grace to seem embarassed.

Three Years As A Dropout

Today marks three years since I left corporate wonderland (c.w.). I got pregnant within days of leaving c.w., so I've been pregnant or breastfeeding for the last three years. And that's all. Or it feels that way anyway.

There was that brief foray into teaching for bigonlineuniversity, which was truly miserable and took me about 40 hours a week and paid me $960 for six weeks. You don't need a calculator to know that is well under minimum wage.

My mom talked me into "organizing" her accounts a while back and I got her all set up on Quicken, and she recently told me she hadn't maintained it since. And she didn't pay me. Meanwhile, my obsessive interest in tracking my own accounts in Quicken has completely fallen off the rails.

I've done a little writing, but not as much as I hoped.

I cook a lot. I do a lot of laundry.

Other than that, just been raising kids. Yup, that's all. I wonder where the time goes but then I realize an hour of it went to watercolors this morning, then there was the half-hour for the bath because in order to have the full watercolor experience one must paint one's arms and face. It just slips away in these moments, and they are wonderful moments.

Yet I feel vaguely guilty for not working. I love being with my kids and I don't miss c.w., but I feel like I should be working. Part of this is that I surf while nursing my younger daughter, and there is so much in current media discussing the "opt out revolution" and accusing women who opt out of living "lesser lives" . My life now feels a lot better most of the time, but I'm letting myself be affected by those who think I'm not living up to my potential.

I confess I'm feeling a little down on my three-year anniversary of dropping out. My brother and I are going to a franchise fair this weekend, so maybe evaluating some ideas for my own business will make me either (a) find something else or (b) enjoy what I have more.

More Evidence My Child Is Like Me

(Dialogue between Curious George and stuffed Bunny, as spoken by S.)
George: Hi Bunny.
Bunny: Hi George. What doin'?
Bunny (spotting my coffee cup): Hey! Coffee!
(Bunny is moved over to drink from coffee cup, George is forgotten)

Never Cut Your Own Bangs

As the oldest child, I remember vividly not just my own traumas, but those of my siblings. Especially those traumas I was powerless to prevent.

So I remember what my sister refers to only as "the haircut."

I'm not sure how it started, but one of my parents tried to give her a haircut when she was about 5. It wasn't quite even, so they trimmed a little more off. It still wasn't quite right, so the other gave it a try. That wasn't quite even, so they trimmed a little more off. Then they switched scissor operators again.

By the time it was over my sister's hair barely cleared her ears in a classic bowl cut. She was mortified and sobbing inconsolably. I remember wishing so much for something I could do to save her from this trauma.

My own hair was a rat's nest. My dad referred to me as Phyllis Diller. I think he thought this was funny. Around the time I was 10, my mother stopped giving me the classic bowl cut and decided to actually spend some money on proper haircuts for me. She attached a lot of ceremony to the process, calling multiple salons and asking if they had someone who was particularly good with (lowered voice) curly hair. Curly hair wasn't a point of pride in the 70s. But at least my haircuts were of reasonable length.

By the time I hit college, the whole process of calling salons and asking for specialists in curly hair seemed a little arduous, so I took to cutting my own bangs. As anyone can tell you, it was a bad idea. I couldn't get them straight. I'd try again, trimming a little more off, and they'd just get shorter. I am immortalized in the Class of 1987 yearbook with bangs that are very clearly 1/2 inch shorter on one side than the other, and climb across my forehead in a jagged slope.

So once I had an income I swore I'd never cut bangs again.

Then I had a kid. A kid who didn't like strangers. A kid with a lot of curly hair.

First, I waited to cut her hair. My sister told me it was bad luck to cut hair before 1 year old, so I used that excuse. My husband started to complain though, so I very cautiously trimmed her bangs a small amount. He kept complaining, so I let him take her to a salon designed for kids. When he came back he reported "she screamed the whole time." They both seemed a little shaken by the experience.

But after several months, her hair was in her eyes. My husband said "we must cut her hair." I said "but she'll scream at the salon." He said "we must cut her hair." I said "but it doesn't work to do it yourself." He said "we must cut her hair." Finally we wound up in a strange and not-at-all-well-thought-out tableaux with one of us holding her bangs and the other holding the scissors.

Her bangs wound up short AND crooked. Bitter words followed. Her hair continued to grow.

About a year after her first salon visit, my husband started with the "we must cut her hair" again. I thought "maybe she can do the salon now." We went with no appointment, just at a moment when I had the kids organized. The front of the salon had toys and a fun play area. I thought "this is great, she'll get used to the place, it will be no problem." And she loved it. Until it was time for the haircut. Then she fused her little body to mine and wouldn't stop screaming. The stylist moved tentatively around us, trying to cut her hair and not mine. It worked, mostly, but when we got home I found a large "V" of hair remained at the very back.

Last week my husband started again on the hair. I couldn't face the salon, so I broke all my own rules and when S. was in the bath with wet hair I whipped out the scissors and took a quick snip across the front. That was all I was permitted, then she started yelling "MY hair. MY hair." It was a little short and a little crooked, but not the worst job ever. I live in fear of straightening it, though. I don't want to do what my parents did to my sister. A couple nights later I saw an opportunity and took one more snip. A couple days later, another snip. Now it looks semi-respectable, but since then I've also done what I should have done all along: I googled cutting bangs.

I think I found some good instructions. Some of them should have been a little obvious, like maybe I should get some good scissors instead of using the ones I bought to use in my dorm room 20 years ago. So my next attempt should go better, because despite all my resolutions, sometimes there is no getting around cutting your own (child's) bangs.

My Kid is Just Like Me

Before I had kids I didn't realize how often Sesame Street repeats, but it does.

So we're watching an episode we'd seen before, where Zoe's tutu flew off into a tree and she and Baby Bear were discussing how to recover it. S. marches up to the TV and says "get Big Bird to get it! Where's Big Bird?"

This is in fact how the story ends. I was impressed with her memory and problem solving skills.

However, as the story went on she kept saying "Where's Big Bird?" and seemed to be getting frustrated that he hadn't yet come on the scene and solved everything. She knew the answer to this problem, why didn't the people who live in the TV know it too? I was reminded of my own performace reviews when working, where I was told that I didn't "suffer fools gladly."

People are always telling me that S. looks like me. Apparently she acts like me too.

Toddler Milestones: Learn to Pass the Buck

Me: Everyone needs a diaper change. Who should go first?
S: (points at her sister, walks away)