because I have all the time in the world...

I spent a lot of time thinking and planning out Santa's gift for M.  A dollhouse.  

While I did go with a pretty basic design from Melissa and Doug, which some of you may recognize, I loved thinking about it for weeks, reading reviews, etc.  And then when it came, I wallpapered it.  I added a nursery, bedroom, and bathroom furniture set from Pottery Burn, as the nursery furniture is a close match to M's room.  And the M&D bedroom and bath that came with the house were not so exciting.  The floor in the kitchen kinda looks like the floor in our kitchen. 

I am pretty excited about it.  And I am even more excited that M seems to love it.  Seeing her playing with it makes me so warm and fuzzy inside.  There just aren't words to properly describe how happy it makes me.  

It rocks to be Santa.

Clinging tightly

I am a little relieved, if that's the right word, to read other blog sisters (like here, and here) similarly feeling particularly effected by all the really horrible stuff happening lately.  Relieved, because I am feeling this same way.  While I feel like it is just one medium-bad thing after another lately in my life, it is one absolutely horrible thing after another in the world around us.  

I feel the pain of a child's suffering and/or death so much more now that I have a child of my own; I hadn't really expected that.  And the shooting in CT kinda put me over the top.  I am definitely one of those women who prides herself on not being scared of the dark or easily intimidated, but the CT shooting on top of all the other stuff lately, our home break-in, the continued home break-ins on our block since then, add it all up and I admit it.  I have gotten spooked.




A few nights ago, M was having trouble falling asleep.  It was about 8:30pm and we were sitting in her room in the dark.  The house was just about entirely dark because I'd been sitting in her room with her for quite a while and hadn't gone to turn on lights.  She was laying across my lap in the comfy rocking chair and we were singing and talking and feeling particularly snuggly.  Then I heard a noise.  I couldn't tell where it came from exactly but I really stopped in my tracks when I heard it.  M immediately clambered up and clung very tightly around my neck.  I couldn't tell if she'd heard it too or was reacting to my reaction.  In some ways it doesn't really matter which it was.

The point is that we are clingy with each other.  Very.  I have always loved to carry her around, and she loves to be carried too, but we've both been particularly clingy lately.

My parents arrived on Wednesday.  I was definitely relieved to get some more adults in the house, as it was getting harder and harder to keep it together and not let my mind go into freak-out mode. 

But it is also hard.  They want to play with M, give her baths, read to her, put her to bed.  But she wants to be with me.  And she cries about it.

Plus, they have such a different parenting style.  I am definitely into the parenting advice of giving M advance notice about what will happen next.  She responds to this really well too.  So I always let her know a couple minutes before that we are going to change her diaper, wash hands, etc.  And then I tell her it's time and ask her to come with me.  If she doesn't, I tell her that I'll give her to the count of 5 and then I'm going to carry her to where we need to be.  About 50% of the time she comes over happily before I get to 5.  25% of the time she thinks it is hilarious to have me come get her (as I always make it fun).  15% of the time she doesn't seem to care one way or the other; I carry her to where we need to go and she's cool with it.  And 10% of the time she complains bitterly but accepts it pretty quickly.  I like to think she gets over it quickly because she knew it was coming.

My parents?  They go over and scoop her up with no warning and take her off to wash her hands, or to be put in her high chair, etc.  They don't ask her which bib she wants to wear, but rather just put one on her while she's freaking out. about the sneak-attack high chair placement.  I always ask which bib she wants to wear, as this way she's then happy to put it on because it's one she's in the mood to wear.  Or, if she doesn't want to wear it, if she's not eating anything too messy, I just skip it.  If she is eating messy food, I explain that if she wants to eat yogurt, say, that she needs to wear a bib because it's particularly messy.  I am always pleasantly surprised that this logic just about always works.  It's pretty cool, if you ask me.  I think little kids understand a lot more than I ever would have guessed.

Three things about this parental situation that make me sad:

1) I hate seeing M so upset.  She gets this perfectly rectangular mouth when she cries and it absolutely breaks my heart.  I try so hard to avoid the rectangle-mouth cry as a consequence, so I don't do well when my parents so casually and carelessly (and in my mind, needlessly) inflict it on her.

2) It is really counterproductive.  Once M goes into rectangle-mouth mode, it is hard to get her back to happy-kid mode. 

3) My self-righteous mother was just going on and on the other day about how only really mean parents would make their toddler sit on Santa's lap even though they were scared and upset.  So... if M gets scared and upset when my mom rips her from my arms in the grocery store when I just got her calmed down... 

you get my point.

I guess the question I have is this.  How do you know if you are being too clingy with your child?  Is there such a thing when they are 20 months old?  I definitely don't want a co-dependent relationship, that would be mean of me to not teach M how to be independent.  But, I also really want my arms to always be a warm and safe place for her.  Where is the line between good mothering and co-dependency?

receiving gifts

A little over a year ago, M sent her daddy an email and told him that she thought I'd like a particular ring for my birthday that she'd seen online.  It had her birthstones and her daddy's birthstones alternating.  She's awesome that way, always looking out for me,  :)

You will likely not be surprised that I did get it for my birthday.

It was amongst the things that were stolen.  And while I realy liked the ring, it didn't have that huge of a sentimental value since I had picked it out and it had been my idea.  but I was sad it was gone, as I did really like it and it was sort of a representational gift from M and her daddy.

Then in the mail yesterday I get a box from a company that I didn't remember ordering from.  I opened it and was super surpised that it was from the same place as where my ring was from.  It had earring that matched the ring, and a note from dh saying that this would match my ring... he'd ordered them a week or so before the robbery.

I was really really touched.  I totally teared up.  I needed the special gesture, and it as so amazing to get nice jewelry that addressed that new psychological void.  It isn't like I actually wear much jewelry at any one time, but I still feel a hole in my psyche.

Now, can I ask you a really hard question to ask?  I need some honest advice.  I love the concept and the gesture of the earrings.  But, I don't really like the earrings.  I am not into big earings, esp heavy ones.  I usually just wear very small earrings, like teeny tiny hoops.  These are big and heavy.  But I love the gift part.

Have you ever gotten a really really meaningful gift of jewelry that you loved for all the sentimental reasons, but that totally wasn't your style? what did you do? did you just wear the piece(s) anyway?

this and that

Nothing soothes like a lot of web friends telling you that you have every right to drown your worries with wine aand smeared mascara.  THANK YOU.

M totally had a meltdown on Sat evening, b/c no nap usu does... I took the opportunity to lose it with her.  We sat on the couch and cried together until we both realized that it was kind of funny.

I made an apt to get my forehead botoxed tomorrow.  Maybe I don't have any jewelry, but I can express my vanity in other superficial ways now that I will have some insurance money coming my way.  And I went out and bought an iPad mini, which I am loving.  Maybe a bit too much.  Add in a new coat from Anthropologie and I'd say that the retail therapy made a nice dent in my bad mood.  At least I no longer feel the need to rip the insurance guy's eyeballs out.

To add to my superficiality, which I can be honest about even while recognizing that its nothing to take pride in... so a few months ago I was interviewed by an investigative journalist who is doing a story on some financial issues in higher ed.  This is something I got immersed into in a somewhat controversial way a couple of years ago, and it turns out that he seems to agree with me (which always makes someone seem more favorable).

any of you ever meet an investigative journalist? me, I have now met two.  They are both tall and exceedingly good looking with a take-no-prisoners attitude that, to be totally homest, totally appeals to me.  I wonder if that's a trend or a coincidence? not that I have a thing for men like that, but that investigative journalists are all like that...

Any who.  This man is hot, but wears a wedding ring.  I am kinda happy about that b/c it precludes/removes from my mind weird inappropriate thoughts, but I do still want to make a good impression.

We have had some back and forth phone calls over the last few days to figure out when to film this follow-up interview.  He ends up calling me around 6pm this evening, which is smack towards the end of M's dinner time.  So we talk a bit about Monday, and I am managing to keep my cool-all-business persona that I've been emphasizing with him, cause he's like that.

Of course, M starts totally losing it.  And I mean losing it.

What is up with the universal law that the minute you get on the phone, toddlers totally go from happy collegial baby to freak-out-birth-control-type-behavior?

So I am pretty sure this guy doesn't have kids, cause anyone in their right parenting mind would have let me get off the phone without needing much prompting.  But NOOOOO. He just keeps talking and talking and asking questions that I am now too distracted from being able to answer.

Think I blew my "i am so cool and all business serious" aura?  ;)
makes me chuckle when I think about what musta been going through his mind.

On a different train of thought, that is somewhat related, it kinda makes me a little sad when people without kids just see that side of M.  She really isn't like that very often, but I really remember being totally frightened when I was witness to that kind of kid behavior when I was pre-kid.  It is a little sad when people give you the look, you know the one, the one that says, "your crazy wild child has just extinguished the one glimmer of baby-desire I was having, and I am pretty convinced that I will now stay on birth control forever."  My kid really isn't the birth-control-advocacy type, she's usually the awe-i-want-one-of-those types.  so it bums me out a bit when people get the wrong first impression.

at what point?

The last few months have been kind of hard.  I haven't posted much because it has just been one thing after another at home.  Nothing hits the "tragedy" mark, and so I have been trying really really hard to go on as if things are wonderful.  Essentially, they are.  But at what point do you decide that you just need to break down, feel sorry for yourself, and cry?

September: husband gets a hernia, no longer able to lift child or do any house chores for fear of making it worse

Early November: husband has his hernia operation, he's got a bit of a hypochondriac streak in him and this is characteristically "horrible"

But then he really doesn't get better, and in fact feels much worse than before the surgery.  Turns out that 5% of people who have this surgery get nerve damage in their pelvic region that also runs down their leg.  He's got that.  And his testicles hurt really bad, which makes for some amazingly panicked needs for "adjustment" at unexpected times.

Over the last couple of years his hands have started to hurt worse and worse, and he has a hard time fully opening them (actually, he can't).  Turns out he's got Dupuytren's contracture, exacerbated by bad arthritis.  We saw the specialist a week ago and learn about all the options for treatment, but after the bad hernia operation we are both a bit hesitant.

Place all of this into the context of a rather crazy time at work.  For example, our early childhood education program is run through the university, and it totally rocks.  On halloween we learned that the administrators way high up who oversee it decided to hand it over to a for-profit company (that would be on the advice of Bain Consulting, which is a sister corporation of Bright Horizon's --the for-profit childcare company that also employs the daughter of the administrator who made the decision to outsource without any consultation).

While I have nothing against a for-profit day care, if you have the absolute best, the center where research is being done and they are setting the ideal standards for early childcare nation-wide, why would you downgrade to child care that is "acceptable"?  So, we fought it.  I fought it.  I have connections into some of the power players on campus and so I raised the alarm with all of them.  Which then meant that I was deeply embedded in the fight.  I really didn't have time for this, but I had to do it.  We won.  Crazy to think, but we did win.  So it was worth it.  But it was exhausting.

Add on top of all of this that I am in the midst of my heavy teaching semester and all of the other crappola that comes along with running a lab.  Plus, the administrative staff in my dept got merged with another one, we lost all of our staff, and I haven't had a financial statement about any of my research funds since August.  But who has time to chase that down and get it fixed?  Anyway.

Dh absolutely has to go to the field this year, no way to back out if he is at all healthy enough to get on an airplane.  Long story behind this, but I agree with him.  He has to go.  So he is working all this time to leave on Dec 4th, Tuesday night.  Leaving for 2 months of fieldwork is always stressful.  But given all the health issues leading up to it, this was the worst departure yet.

And then Dh gets a bad cold over the weekend.

M and I were planning on taking him to the airport Tuesday night.  We get home a few minutes before 5pm on Tuesday.  I think it odd when I unlock the front door that the key turns really easily, like it wasn't really locked.

And then we get inside and walk into the kitchen.  The back door is wide open.

Yep, you guessed it.  Someone had kicked in the door.  They tore apart all the drawers in our bedroom, stealing virtually all of my jewelry save for the couple of pieces that I had just thrown in a drawer messily.

Keep in mind, Dh has to leave for the airport in 1.5 hours.  I call the police.  And then I frantically try to find someone who can drive Dh to the airport.

M sits in her highchair for the next 2 hours, happily watching as all of this unfold.  The police officer comes and starts the report.  Then, about 6:30pm the detective shows up to take prints.  While she's here, Dh's ride arrives and he has to leave.  For two months.  We all say goodbye in front of the mess that is our house and the detective looking for prints.

Over the next few hours I was able to clean up and figure out all of my jewelry that was stolen.

You should immediately stop reading this email and go take photographs of all of your stuff.  Anything you think might be worth $500 or more, get it itemized on your insurance plan.  

I was woefully unprepared and will lose so much of the monetary worth.  And then there were the pieces that had huge sentimental value, like the ones from my deceased grandmother, the earrings that were the last gift my grandfather ever gave to my mom that she had just given to me, the ring Dh and M gave me for my birthday last year...

I then learn that our homeowners insurance won't deal with me because the policy is not in my name.  But keep in mind Dh is in a remote part of a developing country with no telephone or email access.  Luckily I just remembered that we set up a power of attorney for when one of us is out of the country, but now I have to get the lawyer involved.

I then realize that the thief also stole an Alexander McQueen scarf with skulls that a very wealthy friend had given me in September (well, she really gave it to little M, but I've been "borrowing" it from her).  I would never have spent that much on a scarf, but I loved it and have been wearing it very happily.

I had splurged over the last year and bought two ridiculously expensive pairs of designed jeans.  They took both of those.  They stole my cool floweredy thermos.

And then this morning, when I went to pack up the diaper bag to leave the house with M, I realized that they stole the diaper bag too.  I loved this diaper bag.  Again, something I had spent much too much on, one of those petunia picklebottom bags, brown with big pink tulips.  I loved it, loved it, I tell you.

WHO STEALS A DIAPER BAG???

That one crossed the line.  I was upset about the jewelry, the clothes, the beautiful scarf.  But not as much as I might have thought I would be.  I feel safe in the house despite the invasion.  They came in the middle of the day when we weren't home.  They didn't tear up stuff just to tear it up.  They took two ipads, but nothing of my husbands or my baby's.  But then, they took the diaper bag.

That put me over the edge.  NOW, I AM PISSED OFF.

You'll love this one:  there have been a rash of thefts just like this in my neighborhood over the last year or two.  It's a pretty tight radius, less than a mile.  There was a house just down the block that got robbed on Tuesday too.

And guess what?  The lady who lives next door, her daughter is a meth addict who recently got out of prison for, you guessed it, robbery.  Her mother keeps all of their valuables locked in her bedroom because her daughter had done identity theft on her a few years ago.

I have a deep, deep urge to go over to their house and demand to look in her bedroom.  I want my diaper bag back.

I think I am about at my whit's end.  I really want to break down and cry, but I can't because I don't have the energy to then wash my face and redo my mascara.  The situation is that pathetic.

And M has stopped napping.  She's in her crib as I type this banging on the railings, singing to herself.

I am so tired.  So, so tired.  Just how many ridiculously medium-bad things can happen in a row?

BTW, my neighbor has bedbugs.

SAHM thoughts

There are a few blogs that I follow that are SAHMs.  Some have been Stay-at-home-moms forever, some are newly resigned from professional careers.  All offer me a window into a world I don't inhabit.  But I do really like to visit.

I love the weekends.  I love the long weekends.  I love pretending to be a SAHM from time to time.  But mostly, I love it because it is temporary.

I really, really loved my maternity leave.  I got to pretend to be a SAHM for about 6 months, and then a part-time SAHM for another 9 months.

In fact, I had a ridiculously awesome maternity leave situation.  Professor-life has its serious perks, and at my university maternity leave is perhaps the best one.  I got two semesters off from teaching, full pay, but had to participate in service stuff, and research productivity was supposed to be the same.  Given how my teaching schedule works and that I have tenure, I backed way the hell off from work for about 6 months beyond my formal maternity leave as well.  Yep, that's almost a year and a half.

For the first few months after M was born, I did email every few days, but only answered the emails I felt like answering.  When M was about 8 weeks old I started holding office hours in a local coffee shop once or twice a week to meet with my graduate students.  But, I spent most of that time organizing pictures of my baby.

By the time M was about 5 months old I was kind of ready for a little bit more work.  On my longer days at school, I would drop her off at daycare around 9am and pick her up around 3:30pm or 4pm, Monday through Friday.  Some days I would drop her off later and pick her up earlier.  That flexibility was a perfect amount of time at each of my "jobs".

This fall has been so much harder.  This was the first semester I was back to my regular time demands, teaching a very big lecture course with a lab and all the associated graduate teaching assistants, a pretty heavy university service load, and significant dept service tasks, a lot of graduate students in my lab at the point where they really need my attention, a couple of manuscripts that had to be submitted/turned around, etc.  And then my husband hasn't been so well.  He got a hernia and hasn't done well with the recovery from surgery, so I have been almost a single mom in terms of all the parenting duties since September.

But this is still the best job for parenting, from my perspective.

I used to complain like mad about how hard and stressful my job is.  I worked about 10-12 hours 7 days a week every week of the year from 1996-2009.  I spent 3-6 months each year in Africa.  Stressful, hell yes, but it was mostly self-imposed.  I then cut down to about 10 hours 6 days a week for a couple of years, and dropped down to taking weekends off for the most part once I got pregnant.

I did work my ass off in those early years.  There were definitely afternoons when I laid my head on my desk and cried from all the stress and pressure.  But it is good that I made all that effort b/c I would not have this awesome job had I not. Someone else who was willing to work such ridiculous hours would have my job instead.

While I would not really recommend my path to parenthood, given all the uncertainties and tears and sadness, and feared regret, now that I have my baby this is a wonderful age and career stage to do so.

Career-wise I have a lot of projects and collaborations.  I find it easier to come up with paper ideas and I have graduate students and younger colleagues very motivated to do the heavy lifting in exchange for the ideas and support.  I teach classes I've taught many times before, so prep time can be more variable rather than always requiring a huge effort.  I have enough gravitas that I can get away with being a bit more remote with students, including my own graduate students.  That sounds bad, but hopefully you know what I mean.

And on the personal side, I have a lot less to prove these days.  I kind of feel like I accomplished some of the big things I wanted to do, or at least I am close enough to realize that they don't matter as much to me as I thought they would.  So I am comfortable falling into a SAHM role from time to time, and rather enjoy the perception of being in a low-stress job (as if SAHM is a low-stress job*).  I don't care about meeting people through my husband and being seen as "just his younger wife who takes care of their little baby."  That would have driven me nuts 5 years ago and really pissed me off.  But now, I honestly don't give a crap if someone doesn't know about my academic position and accomplishments.

* Honestly, I think it would be incredibly stressful to be 30 years old and staying home with small kids.  Not only are you responsible for them 24/7, but you have to teach them stuff like manners and using the potty.  AND, if it were me, I would have constantly felt like I was missing out on my career options.  I still had shit to prove to myself and everyone else.

Anyway, all of this just a really long post to say that I am really grateful for having an awesome "early childhood education program" where my daughter learns things like manners and sharing and all kinds of other cool things I never would have thought to teach her if we'd been hanging out at home together all the time.  I don't have to feel so guilty about letting her watch Elmo on the weekends b/c she doesn't watch any TV during the week.  And I am really grateful that I have a solid career with really good pay.  I can afford to pay someone else to clean my house and change my sheets every week.  And I can buy cute little crafty things like this that make me feel all crafty but don't take much time.  I get to pretend to be a SAHM with essentially none of the stress/hard work/monotony that comes along with it.  Not a bad situation, not bad at all.

Me is very, very lucky.  :)

The Naked Helper

Thank you all so much for the words of wisdom and comfort.  I am definitely going to just wait until she's three and then spend, hopefully, only 3 days on potty training.  I'll enjoy diapering for another year!!!

They do grow up way too fast.  For example, today.  Two things happened.

M has started getting into being naked.  Which is cute.  At least she isn't fighting too much on wearing a diaper while naked, and is even into wearing her hat with the kitty-cat ears and her kitty-cat slippers, so at least she isn't totally freezing.

And THEN... she helped with the groceries.  It absolutely blew my mind.  I had left all the grocery bags over by the entry-way and carried one to the kitchen and started putting the frozen stuff away.  When, without a word or any prompting at all from me, M started carrying the bags over to the kitchen one-by-one.  There was one  bag that was too heavy for her, so she picked some of the stuff out of the bag, carried those things in one-by-one, and then carried the bag over when it was light enough for her.

OMG.

She actually helped!  I mean, she cooperates a lot, which is helpFUL.  But to actually HELP?  This was the first time.  And it rocked, even if it did weird me out.  What a grown-up thing to do.

Diaper confession

I need to confess that I have not been trying to potty train M.  Like, not at all.  I did buy the little potty for her, and she likes to play with it from time to time.  She even used it a few times when we first got it.  But now it is just furniture.

I don't know if I am dragging my feet just because diapers are convenient and potty training seems hard.  Maybe that is part of it.

But I think it is more about the fact that I loved the baby M was.  And when we change diapers now it is like old times.  It is a connection to those days and that intimacy and that cuteness.  I am just not really ready to give up my little baby.

And so I feel a little twinge of guilt every time that huge box of diapers shows up on my doorstep.  I wonder if I am being a bad mom.

the end of nursing

I have been meaning to write for a while to talk about nursing.

First off, I miss it.  It was a beautiful experience for me.

Don't get me wrong.  It was hard, it was very messy at the beginning, it hurt, it was weird to always have to dress with nursing in mind, it was annoying that I had such large breasts and had to wear a nursing bra all the time, etc.  There were definitely days when I hated that pump with a passion.

But then there were nights when I loved how easy it was to sort-of wake up, nurse my baby, and then go right back to bed without hardly having to open my eyes.  I vividly remember sitting in the comfy rocking chair in M's room, feeling very content, connected to the cycle of life, very womanly, etc.

I loved the hormones.  God how I loved how laid back the hormones made me feel.  That part of breastfeeding really doesn't get anywhere near as much discussion as it should, as I think more women would nurse if they had any idea.

The first 6 weeks were really tough.  I wasn't sure we would make it, but I was determined.  It still kind of hurt at 6 weeks.

The first few months were one adventure-in-breastfeeding after another.

But by 6 months we were pros, mostly.  It felt so freaking right and normal.  It was what we did, such an essential part of our relationship I couldn't fathom ever not nursing.

By 12 months I was thinking that it would be so nice to nurse until she was ready to end on her own, but I knew that wouldn't play out for us.  For one, her day care wouldn't do bottles of breast milk anymore.  At 12 months they do cows milk for breakfast and lunch.  So there was no need to pump anymore.  We went down to just nursing maybe twice a day, first thing in the morning when I brought her back to bed to snooze with me, and always before bedtime or naptime as a way for her to relax.  She would go to bed with someone else and not need to nurse, but if she was with me she'd want to nurse.

And then, logistics of my career became the final straw for our nursing days.  When she was 15 months old, I had to go to the field in Africa for 5 weeks.  I nursed her to sleep the night before I left.  I was so stressed and sad about leaving that she stopped nursing at one point, looked up at me in all seriousness, and made the hand sign for "milk", as I had apparently been so stressed that the milk was not to her liking.

I got on the plane the next morning before she woke up, and that was it.  She never asked to nurse again, and didn't seem to think of it at all while I was gone (as I wasn't there to remind her).  Her daddy wouldn't take her into our bedroom in the morning, and still doesn't if I'm not in town.  And she didn't remember nursing when I got back.  I looked for the signs carefully, kind of wanting her to want to resume.  In fact, I had taken a little hand pump and pumped a few times while I was gone.  That was not easy and totally sucked, but I wanted to have a little milk if M asked for it.

But she never did.

And now I fit into my former bra size, all of my old shirts and dresses.  I wear dresses, which I couldn't do while nursing or pumping.  I can drink lots of caffeine, and eat crappy food and not feel too terribly bad about it.

And it hasn't really changed our relationship.  She still loves to snuggle with me more than anyone else.  We are very physical with each other, very intimate.  We just don't nurse anymore.

It is kind of weird to have my body back all to myself.  I remember saying, when I was pregnant and then when I was nursing, that I was lending my body to little M for a while.  And that was exactly what it was like.  I kinda miss it, and then again, I kind of like being all to myself.  I feel very lucky to have gotten to have had that experience, and that it was so positive.  I really feel for the women who have a rough go at it.

infertility (not) in the news

I just ran across a mention of Mitt Romney's son having hired a surrogate for his last three children (a singleton and then twins).  Apparently, Mitt helped to pay for the cost.

Does it strike anyone else as kind of odd that someone with his stance on abortion and his vice presidential running mate, and someone who endorses other candidates that are really regressive on women's reproductive freedoms...  does it strike anyone else as kind of odd that he seems to think this way despite having had a close relative go through infertility issues?

There was an abortion clause in the contract when they had the twins.
And what about the likely frozen embryos, if they did IVF?

A little throat-clearing for Mr. "personhood starting at conception"...

(granted, his son and daugther-in-law apparently had three babies the regular way before having three through a surrogacy.  maybe that's the difference/explaining factor.)

Just when there was an opportunity to really get some empathy for infertility out there.

Swoooosh.

Did you hear the missed opportunity fly out the door?

in someone's photo album thousands of miles away...

A few weeks ago a rather odd thing happened...

I was hanging out on campus with M and I let her run ahead.  It was sort of an experiment to see just how far she'd go away from me before coming back.  Ok, I'm a first-time mom.  I'm naive.  Turns out that these little toddlers will just keep going and going and going.

But as I was taking off after her she tripped.  This of course resulted in a pool of tears, mama picking her up, snuggles and soft words to comfort her.

As we were sitting on a bench recovering from the trip, a group of Chinese tourist came by and started taking our picture.  They were talking with each other animatedly, having a conversation that I didn't understand one word of but the tone certainly was something like, "oh look, American mother and child.  Her toddler ran off and then tripped, needing to be comforted.  Just like our toddlers do!"

And then, you'll love this.  One of the women sat down beside me and posed for the camera.  "Hey honey, take my picture with American mother and child! No one at home will believe this!"

Too freaking funny.  I was so weirded out, but I did smile for the posed photo.  What else can you do???

project PI

Sometimes I get really tired of always being the parent who pays attention to the clock, who gets us out the door on time, who remembers to replenish the diaper bag or to take astronaut tubes when we are going on a little journey with the baby.  I get tired of planning every meal, or making sure that we leave to pick up M at 4:50pm instead of 5pm, as I have found that those 10 minutes are the difference between a child fed and happy and a child in total hungry meltdown mode.

But I also know that I am the project PI, so it is my job to pay attention to when she needs a doctor's appointment, the diaper genie emptied, or something new added to her highchair plate.

How I would kind of enjoy a couple of days of someone else being the adult in the house, make me dinner, drive the car, etc. Dh said that he leaves me to do all those things because I'm better at it than he is.

I mentioned that this is like saying that I should do all the housing cleaning because I am better at it, and he replies, "but you have particular ways you like things done..."

He seems to have misunderstood my metaphor...

drowning

Thanks so much for your comments re Maddy getting bitten by another kid in her class.  I esp needed to hear "it's a toddler thing".  I was feeling horrible about feeling like all little boys are horrible.  I know it isn't true logically but my emotions run so strong when it comes to my little girl... 

BTW, she's been wanting to read "hop on pop" every night, which she didn't really seem to be partial to before.  There is a page in there where a little boy is biting the tail of a cat, and Dr. Seuss writes something like "don't bite him!"  Maddy forcefully says, "no!" in agreement every time we get to this page.  I think the incident is in her head and she's still processing it.  But it makes me feel good to hear her say this; it seems like a good thing that she thinks the behavior is a bad thing and that the book helps reinforce this.

I don't know about you all but I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed lately.  Not just at school, since the semester just started and we have so much new administrative crappola to deal with on top of teaching my big lecture course for the first time since Mads was born.  But I am also feeling really overwhelmed with the world at large. 

I am livid over Todd Akin's remarks.  Honestly, if someone is against abortion no matter what, I don't understand how they got to that mental place, but that's ok.  What I can't accept is that he thinks that women have some witchy secret mental power over getting pregnant.  WTF?  It's like jumping back into medieval times.  It's like the old practice of throwing accused witches into the water -- if they drowned they weren't a witch and if they swam, they were a witch and got burned at the stake.  So if you are raped and get pregnant, then you must have enjoyed it so it wasn't really rape.  Oh my god.  How did we get here?

Did you see this op-ed in the NYTimes?

And to top it off, not only do a lot of people seem to think his understanding of human reproduction is right, but he serves on the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology.  He is setting science policy for our country yet he is completely ignorant about human reproduction.  I can't even begin to express how upset this makes me.  How did our country completely lose rational science-driven logic?

Then this morning, getting out of bed to another f*&%$ing shooting with a semi-automatic gun.  Really?  How in the world can people be ok with this?  How many people have to be killed with semi-automatic guns before we collectively decide that this isn't liberty or freedom? 

It feels like our country is running with open arms back towards a time when mystical beliefs and violence ruled the day.  I don't want to go there.

Boys

A boy in M's class clawed her face and bit her arm today when she sat down beside him to look at the book a teacher was reading to them.

I am pretty upset about it and can't quite figure out exactly why. There are so many things. From not being able to protect her from mean nasty people like that to being pissed at how nonchalant one of the other mothers was who was picking up her mean little boy at the same time (likely the kid who attacked M, there are two rather angry little boys in her class). To feeling bad about disliking two little boys as much as I do and worrying that I need to figure out how to act about all of this in front of M.

What do you do in this kind of situation? Teach her to bite and claw back? Teach her to stay away and be afraid of mean boys? Let her see that I don't like those two boys? What do I say and do?

bain is the new bane

Is that right?  how do you spell "bane" as in "bane of my existance"?  Mitt and his damn Bain Corp came into my university and 9 million dollars later made us so efficient that it took  me 90 minutes to reserve a rental car using the new all-on-your-own online travel reservation multi step system.  Is that really a good use of faculty time?  I would look up how to spell "bane" but after my fun-with-administration day, I just don't have the energy to thus tax my bain.  I mean, my brain.

baby addict

I worry that my baby might be addicted to orajel.  She wakes up at night now and wants it.  I went to sit down with her last night when she woke up and she freaked out until I started walkimg toward the bathroom.  It was like that hot-warm-cold game.  She would start to cry with different intensities if I was heading in the wrong direction or not doing the right thing.  Very interesting.

And she did the same thing with goldfishy crackers and fig newtons this afternoon.

do you ever read?

For those of you who are academics, when in the world do you find time to read articles, keep up with the literature, etc.?  I could really use some advice here.  In all honesty, I haven't read a journal article that I wasn't intentionally needing to cite in years.  Years, I tell you.

Me no feel like a scholar.

the pleasure of the day

Today was a mama day. I played mama all day and enjoyed it immensely. It's been a while. The three of us took the kitty to the vet early in the morning, then figured out how to install the big-girl car seat in our car. Wethen went for a little drive so M could enjoy the view facing forward. This seemed to be of absolutely no consequence to her, which surprises me, but minimally it is more fun to have her facing forward because then at least she is more involved in the conversation and we can see her. After a lunch out we dropped dh at school where he's planning to stay until late. So it was just me and M all afternoon. It iphas been a really long time since it was just the twos of us. And it went really well. There is a rhythym to being with a baby/toddler by yourself that is immpossible to have when there is more than one adult around. I find the rhythym that M and I get into is very relaxing for me, comfortable, happy. We are totally happy with her daddy around but it isn't the same. You know what I mean? M's daycare is closed all next week so we have all week together. I am looking forward to it. And then, I am looking forward to travelling to a conferency-thing for the weekend.

the end of the infant room

M had her last day of daycare for the year, the last day in the infant room. When she returns she and her classmates will be in a toddler room. Wow. Just a year ago I was feeling a little traumatized that my baby was old enough to be left at daycare. Now she throws beautiful toddler tantrums. I particularly love the stiff stick leg scissor kicks. Dh and I like to rank these fits on a 10 point scale. This morning was definitely an 11. I can't believe my tiny baby is a true toddler now.

dressing

I started out my first professor job in new shoes, dress pants, and some nice silk shirts that my sister bought me as a PhD graduation gift.  I had a strong desire to dress like a professor even if I didn't look old enough to be one.  At that point only about 5 years had passed since I was a clerk in a law firm, so most of those professional-attire things still worked too.

But now?  I am actually old enough to have worn out most all of those dress clothes.  I have been in a bit of denial and didn't want to either fork over the money or endure the psychological "scars" of moving on to new professional clothes.  So I stopped dressing nicely, adopting the more "casual professor" look.  I had even convinced myself that wearing jeans or cords meant that I had somehow reached some level of professional maturity that I didn't need the clothes to make the professor anymore.


Whatever.  


I wore a nice professional dress and little heels to a couple of meetings with administrators and a journalist yesterday and the reaction to me felt quite different than usual.  How much of that was me and how much was them, who knows.  Whichever the case...


I just got a total bee in my bonnet and ordered a bunch of grown-up clothes online.  While I'd been feeling the desire to update my wardrobe since before M was born, I hadn't yet felt comfortable enough with my post-baby body shape, or milk-excretion (which is now completely over, M & I aren't nursing at all anymore), or spending the money, or seeing styles that I actually wanted to wear.  But now after a field season of lots of physical activity, a return to my old bra size, and a month of summer salary I was ready.


That is when a perfectly timed 10% off from Boden with free shipping & returns email showed up in my in-box and check out some of my selections...  

Maybe the dresses and heels are a bit too feminine for my 20% female faculty department.  But you know what?  Who gives a shit?  Not me anymore.

sort-of-sleep thoughts

You know that semi-awake state you go into several times a night, usually when you roll over or something like that?  You are aware but not really awake.  And your brain can play weird games on you?  Like when you are traveling and forget where you are?

Ever since I started working pretty closely on a project with a male co-director I have the same semi-awake thing happen for weeks after I get home every year.  I panic a little that I am sharing a bed with him but am sleeping too close, or wearing PJs that are a little too revealing, or something along those lines.  It takes me a few seconds to wake up enough to realize that its ok, that the man beside me is my husband and I am allowed to sleep close or have my nightgown up around my waist.

Weird.

and mama makes three

I'm back!!!  Mads and her daddy came to pick me up at the airport.  She immediately went into my arms but was looking at me with a confused look of "you seem so familiar but..." and then I kissed her neck, made funny kissy noises and dipped her like I like to do and she immediately broke into laughter and "mama!"

That first day was kind of weird, to be a visitor in the role that I used to dominate, but wonderful to see dh doing it so well.  I've had to learn the new details of the routine and get to know the new M-quirks.

And it was odd to see her in 3-d.  I had gotten so used to her being 2 dimensional from the photos and videos.  And she smells different, a little more like a typical toddlery kid which is something I had never noticed before.  I think it might be the diaper cream or the diapers.

M also got her deciduous molars while I was away.  The funny thing about this is that now she gets bad breath at night.  Cute, in a kind of yucky way.  Bad baby breath.  :)

All in all I think this field work thing was ok.  Everyone seems to be doing really well, including me, so maybe, just maybe we'll be able to make this 2-parents-who-do-fieldwork-thing work.

far far away

I got pretty self-absorbed over the last few weeks before I left for the field.  And here I am posting after 6 weeks...  and from the field.  Well, we had to come to town for a couple of meetings with government officials (all good stuff), but it has left me alone and (amazingly) with internet for a couple of hours.  It will take me years to catch up on reading blog posts...  ok, well not really years but definitely more than a couple of hours...  but in the meantime I wanted to update you all on what is doing here.

First off, I had myself some serious crying after putting M to bed the night before I left.  The airport shuttle picked me up at 5:45am and dh and I were really hoping that M wouldn't wake up before I left.  We knew she'd be really sad b/c she's pretty mama-clingy in the morning.  She didn't wake up.  And despite the fact that it was the hardest thing I've ever done, I got on that airplane.

I did it.  I left for my field work.  I've been gone for 3 weeks so far, 2 more to go.  And in all honesty, it hasn't been anywhere near as bad as I anticipated.  In fact, I haven't cried at all (so far).  It's like I stepped back in time to myself 3 years ago, and not just to my infertile-sad-self but to the self I was proud of and liked.  And I have been sleeping really well.

I do miss M a lot though.  I cling to the daily 10 minute phone calls, getting the updates on teething, what she ate for dinner, the diaper rash incident, how her diaper supply is holding up, etc.  I love the small details.  I don't know what it is about motherhood, but I have been obsessed with the minutia of M's life since before she was born.  It feels silly but I can't help it.  Luckily, dh has been really understanding and does his best to throw in lots of micro-details every time we talk.  He'll even tell me what PJs she has on without my asking.

And he blogs for her.  M has a blog that I started in May of 2011 soon after she was born.  It's written from her perspective, and dare I be so immodest as to say that it is pretty cute?  It's pretty cute.  But there was lots of concern over what would happen to her blog while I was away.  Dh sucked it up and took it on.  He posts once a week and gives a long summary with lots of pictures.  It is a total life saver for me.  I can get access to extremely slow internet about once every 5-7 days, so I've been able to see them within a day or two of when he posts.

Dh and I had a few heart-to-heart talks before I left.  I think it really sunk in for him what I needed and that as the stay-at-home parent it was his responsibility to take care of both M and me.  And he's done a great job of it.  I am actually really impressed with how great he has been about stepping up to the plate.  Not just any guy would do this.  I love him dearly.

The time away is starting to get harder though.  The downtime driving back to the city and hanging out between meetings is hard.  My mind wanders to going home.  I need to fight the homesickness, it can't kick in just yet.  I still have 2 weeks to go.  But so far, it'd been ok.  I'm doing it.

A little bit 'o b$#@h

Maybe the mothers day rant & your comments helped me approach the day better, or maybe Dh pulled through on his own. Whatever the case, I had a really nice mother's day.

We went to my MIL's saturday afternoon and randomly decided to have dinner in the dining room of her retirement place. We sat outside on the patio and had a lively dinner with very little logistical brouhaha. Everyone walked away happy.

And that meant we had Sunday all to ourselves. The best part was that we did stuff all together, nothing big or too out of the usual, but together and Dh made a point of saying things all day that were mothers-day-like, so it was fun. The ironic thing is that he installed lots of hooks in our coats closet, a project I've been wanting to do for years. So we all organized the coat closet together for mothers day. Last year I organized my closet and cried, and this year we all had fun. So funny how similar the days look on paper but how different in reality.

I love you all & hope you survived the weekend without too many scratches!

i hate mothers day

The problem is that I love the idea of mothers' day.  I love the idea of days that you just decide are going to be special because you want them to be, so you celebrate just for the hell of it.  I love making "adventures" out of routine things, makes them more fun.  And I love doing little things to try to remind someone how special they are to me.  I am not saying that I'm all that good at any of this, but I totally enjoy trying.

And so mothers day sucks for me because I am not married to someone who feels similarly.  Last year, my first mothers day was horrible.  I still get really mad when I think about it.  As you might imagine, I am starting to feel bad about the impending anniversary on Sunday.  I just don't want to be reminded about last year. 

I have gotten the cards and gift for my mother-in-law, and I already mailed off things for my mom and my sister (as this is her first double-mothers-day what with her new baby).  I wrapped my MIL's present and signed the cards last night because I knew I would be too angry doing it on Saturday.  Angry, it sounds horrible to say it.  But I just kind of wish that someone would do something for me this one day. 

I used to care a lot about my birthday, but that totally doesn't matter to me these day.  What means a lot to me, what I cherish the absolute most, is getting to be M's mama.  And so I want to celebrate that, and it would mean the world to me if someone else (i.e., my husband) would participate in celebrating this thing that means the world to me. 

But we will likely go to see his mother and she'll act flat, in her usual manner, and not be appreciative because she is so damn practical about everything.  She likes to brag about giving you a recycled gift.  For example, for my 40th birthday she sent me a pink silk scarf.  I thought it was really sweet and made a point of wearing it next time I saw her, when she promptly told me that someone had given to her years ago and she never liked it so she decided to give it to me.  Oh, and for her granddaughter's high school graduation gift?  a watch she got for free from a catalog for spending over $40.  And she told her granddaughter, bragging that the watch is worth $40 and she got it for free...  I don't mind the idea of free watches or recycled scarves, but YOU DON'T TELL THE PERSON!  She just doesn't get that it totally demeans the gift.

So I'm likely going to go spend Sunday morning sitting on the floor at my MIL's apartment, trying to keep my one year old away from the little bird figurines on the coffee table while my husband goes through bills with his mom or fixes something around her apartment.  Then I'll have to figure out how to get him to leave when it gets too close to M's nap time, because he'd never watch the clock and initiate our need to leave so that his daughter stays on the schedule that works so well for her.  We'll come home late so she'll be too hungry and tired to either eat lunch or take a nap easily.  I'll be the one who deals with that, which is stressful b/c I can't help but think "if only we could have left 30 minutes earlier".  And then it will be the end of Sunday, and time to do the bed time routine and get everyone ready for the week.  My second mothers day will be over, and it will be just like any other Sunday when I am the dutiful ignored daughter-in-law who's husband doesn't give a shit.

Can you say, "bad attitude"?  I know, I really need to get over myself...  I'll see what I can do.  Helps to have vented a bit here.  Thanks for listening.

One of my absurd fears

I had a constant worry when I was pregnant that I wouldn't know what to put my baby in when she slept so that she'd be warm enough but not too hot. I woke up completely panicked one night while pregnant as I was freezing cold, shivering,and just knew I'd be a horrible mother. How would I be able to keep a baby warm if I couldn't even do it for myself?!

Well, I have been making it through although every evening is filled with some dread as I have to decide on what to put Maddy in for the night. It is always stressful.

But last night I really screwed up. I live in a place that can be pretty warm in the day but then get pretty chilly at night, even in the summer. So it is tough to dress a baby for the night when it can be 75 degrees at bedtime at 7:30pm but drop down to the 50's in the deep night. And last night was one of those. But I had put M to bed in just her PJs, no sleep sack. I meant to put her in it later but fell asleep and was disoriented when she woke up at 12:30am and forgot. So I put blankets on her but she moves so much that they came off. She was really cold this morning.

So much so that her lips were blue and staid that way for 2 hours after she woke up. I was so freaked out that I took her to the pediatrician's office thinking maybe there was something wrong with her circulation. But luckily that wasn't the case. She just has a sucky-ass mom who let her freeze her little baby butt off.

Conference observations

Today I find myself at a day-long conference that brings together academics and venture capitalists. Here are some things I have noticed:

1. Women in venture capitalism are much better looking and better dressed than women in academia

2. Men who do research in psychiatry look more schizophrenic than most other people

3. Academics cluster at lunch & talk about research

4. Venture capitalists cluster at punch and talk about other things that make them break out into laughter regularly.

I want my hormones back

I had sorta thought that the relaxed, laid back mental place I'd found was because I finally got pregnant and then had my wonderful baby. I am starting to think that a good chunk of that also derived from hormones, pregnancy hormones & then nursing hormones. Now that we are down to only nursing once a day I find I feel a lot more stressed out. And even some of those pissed-off feelings about work stuff have found me again.

Me no like it.

I want those good-feeling hormones back.

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Adventure in public transportation, part 2

So I decided to take the train into the city for the dinner rather than driving. Given my not-so-great luck I just wasn't in the mood to deal with the traffic and parking. Turns out that I had forgotten my ticket at home & had to buy a new one. The machine went funky on me so I ended up missing the train (but did manage to refrain from smacking the girl behind me who kept aggressively and obnoxiously asking if I needed help). So I caught the next train; no big deal, I'd just be a little late to the dinner. I manage to get a seat, which is pretty cool. But then the train breaks down... The guy beside me strikes up a conversation and we get nice and flirty. He was about my age and very cute. He'd been having the public transportation adventure day too. I found myself hiding my left hand and purposely not saying anything about my husband or family... It was delicious fun. His name is Carl. And he totally made my day, whoever he is.

And by the way, the dinner was actually pretty fun. I did miss the cocktail portion of the dinner though.

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Adventures in public transportation

I was asked to introduce speakers and MC a scientific symposium tomorrow (saturday) morning for a nonprofit organization. They gave one of my past grad students a fellowship a few years back so I felt obliged to say yes, even tho they had turned down a research proposal of mine recently and I am still kinda bitter.

This grew into a presentation to the board of trustees the day before, an outreach thing with a local school, an a fundraising dinner tonight.

I said no at first to some of it but they kind of freaked out, so I relented.

I regret this decision.

My family is a one-car family, so we often juggle stuff around to make it worked. I had to leave the house before we usually even wake up in order to make it to the board of trustees thing via public transportation... And of course there is a sign saying that the bus isn't running today, walk 4 blocks up the steep hill to catch it. There is no way I can get there in time to make the bus I meant to catch, and the next one wouldn't arrive for 30 minutes... I call a cab, but the dispatcher was clueless and I didn't have the time to work through it. So I had to go back home & get husband and child to take me to the train station... M thought it was totally cool to get to leave the house in PJs with no diaper change but Dh wasn't amused.

Ok, so the rest of the morning was just plain weird. I arrive at the board meeting as instructed, in time for the breakfast part but there wasn't a chair for me to sit at at the table. So I can't exactly eat anything. The president introduces me and claims to have funded me for the work they actually turned me down for, awkward. I give my presentation. No questions at all. I am ushered out of the room quickly, handed all my stuff, computer, cable, coat, and thank-you-baby-gift. I was standing in the hall almost having to laugh as the door closed behind me 'cause it was just like being totally used for sex and then kicked out of the front door still naked with your clothes in a jumble in your arms.

So I am pretty hungry now but am supposed to wait around for 2 hours to be picked up and taken to the high school thing. Thank heavens for Starbucks and their wireless. After a cup of coffee, a morning bun, and the girl who all but collapses on the floor & the subsequent ambulance... I return to the foundation thing. The high school thing is crazy disorganized and we get there like 45 minutes too early. So we sit through campaign speeches for student government, and then I give what I think turned out to be a pretty good presentation, considering.

Now it's 1pm and I'm thirsty & hungry, but someone from the foundation was supposed to drop me off at he train station and I'd be back at my office in about 20 minutes. But she drops me off at the city train station rather than the one that goes more widely. I had to walk 10 long blocks to get to the closest station. So here I am at school, 2:40pm, hungry, thirsty, tired, and really not in the mood to drive all the way back there to pay $20 for parking to attend a dinner I didn't even want to go to... Fun times!

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And the beat goes on...

Two Vignettes...

We ordered room service for dinner last night b/c tiny tot was too tired fora restaurant meal. Food came. Dh ordered a cold salad entree. I ordered a hot entree. Baby had warm salmon & spinach baby dinner (I'm telling you, this swanky place rocked!). Dh sits down in the only chair at the table and eats his salad, noting how delish it is. I juggle M on my lap in the footstool and feed her dinner while mine gets colder and colder... Oblivious...

This afternoon we stop by Dh's mom's place to pick her up for the 10 hour drive back to our home & her senior living community nearby. There's a pool at the mobile home park so we decide to go for a quick swim to let Maddy stretch her legs before getting back in the car seat for a long time. Swimming was fun. We are then back at MIL's place and I'm changing Tiny Tot out of her swim suit when she sneaky pees on the bed... You know, when they pee in the few moments between diapers... We are so needing to get on the road. So, what did I do? Of course I sopped up what I could and then didn't say anything. And we left. Me can be so bad.

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Is it just me or...

Maybe it's just in my family, but I find it fascinating that when we go out to eat that Dh typically orders something that the baby would not be able to eat too, and even if he does he will eat it all himself and not offer her any. And he let's me feed her all off my plate and all by myself, so that he's long done and jut sitting there while my food gets really cold and me and the baby are not even halfway through. He doesn't even then take over, but leans back in his chair... I don't mean to complain cause so much is going really well between is. But geez, that clueless thing really is amazing.

And why does it seem to be really really complicated to remember what all goes into a diaper bag? Or to feel responsible to stock it? Weird, just weird I you ask me.

I got a massage yesterday during nap time and it was wonderful...

I am so relieved to hear that I am not the only one who thinks a margarita improves dinner with small child!

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On the road

Dh is speaking at a fancy lawyers' meeting. In exchange for the lecture they offered to cover our room & incidentals at this very swanky resort we would never be able to afford, or actually chose to visit of our own accord. But in someone else's dime, why not?! Two profs at swanky resort with one year old wild child. This is gonna be interesting!

We are driving, and stayed over half way at a university that Dh lectured at last night. This meant me and Mads were on our own for dinner. We went to a mexican restaurant, just the two of us. Hmmm. Adventurous I am... The margarita helped.

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13 months and then some

Mads' 13 month birthday past and it was the first month birthday that went by without my noticing. The 14th of April was just any old day and didn't catch my attention. I am a little sad about that.

I am a little bit of a wreck these days. I feel really stressed out, and I look terrible. All my nervous habits are back, which made me realize how nice it was when they were gone. Which makes me remark to myself how odd it is that having a mewborn baby was so much less stressful than my job... seriously. I have never felt so relaxed in all my adult life as I did the first 5 months of M's life. If I hadn't been a bit baby-fattish, partly bald from losing hair around my temples post-baby, and really sleep-deprived, I would have looked pretty good. By 9 months post delivery I had lost all the pregnancy and TTC weight, but now I look so stressed out and out of shape... and my face is broken out like a teenagers'! oof.

It's also kind of weird how my tastebuds have changed. I am not so keen on spicy foods anymore, and I was completely addicted before. And wine? I went from being in love with all reds to now really only liking white, with a strong preference for the very specific chardonnay from the bourgundy area of france. Go figure.

And my allergies? mostly gone since M was born. Such a crazy thing how much pregnancy changes your body. For those ofyou who have done it more than once, do you change this much every time? or is the first time around the doozy?

The end of an era

I have been taking prenatal vitamins for years... Trying to get pregnant, finally pregnant, and then nursing.  I always felt so silly, like a fool, buying them when I was TTC.  That sting never really went away, even when I was visibly pregnant buying prenatal vitamins.  

It felt so, well, so *something* today to buy regular vitamins. 

a reminder

I have been a bit overwhelmed with life lately, thinking lots about all of my blog sisters out there, composing posts in my head, but never finding the time or emotional energy to actually sit down and post.

It's so easy to get into that place, isn't it?

And then something happens.

I was at a meeting today with faculty and staff -- a rare "community-wide" meeting (without students) that we have maybe once every few years, at most.  After the meeting a woman who I know only a little, and only in how great she is at what she does, she calls out to me and asks to see my bracelet.

Since a few days after Maddy was born I have worn a pomegranate colored thread around my wrist, and then later moved to this bracelet.  I have it tied around my wrist and never take it off, so it's looking pretty ragged these days.

The woman said that her friend makes them...  I paused, not sure if she was saying that she was in the IF community or if there might be another pomegranate movement I don't know about.  I have been completely mum about my IF life in my non-web-world.  Completely. 

But I asked her if she was a part of "that" world and she said yes, unfortunately.  I gave her a big hug because I just didn't know what else to do, and we hugged for a bit longer than is usually socially acceptable.  I wonder what all the other people in the room were thinking when they saw that.  Whatever.

We are having lunch together on Friday.  I still feel a bit tingly about it all.  I don't have any experience talking about this side of my life in person, so this will be strange.  I am kind of scared about losing my secret to someone in person.  But I am oddly really looking forward to it. 

the dreaded day care call

It has been one hell of a week here. I started out pregnant and sick with a really nasty cold that I think might have actually been conjunctivitis. By Tuesday I was no longer pregnant but still pretty sick. Wednesday I decided to take the afternoon off to sleep, but dh then comes down with the flu so I end up taking care of him instead. He is still home sick, quarantined to the guest bedroom, so I am a single mom again now also trying to give some attention to the flu-daddy.

and then this morning 10 minutes after I walk out of my second meeting of a meeting-filled day I get the call. Yes, THAT dreaded kind of call from M's daycare. They say that she has come down with a nasty rash on her legs and hands, I should take her to the dr immediately because it might be hand, foot & mouth.

I drop everything of course and head off to pick her up, calling dh on the way to see if he feels well enough to consult with dr. google about hand, foot & mouth disease. M is pretty grumpy when I get there and definitely has a rash on her legs. We get home, have a quick lunch, and then head to the dr's office after realizing that we really don't want her to have hand, foot & mouth, and that her rash-dots don't seem quite the same as the pictures on the web.

This is now deep into M's 2 hour nap time, so she's pretty exhausted and totally asleep on my shoulder as we walk into the dr's office. I manage to undress her while she is still asleep and start noticing that the rash is now all over her body save for her face. No fever. No weight gain over the last 3 weeks, for what that's worth.

Turns out that M has an ear infection, so she must have had a cold over the week that I basically missed. The rash is apparently fairly common after a virus and is likely nothing to worry about. I feel like a bad mama that I not only didn't realize that she had a cold but I also didn't notice that she has an ear infection. Poor kid.

So we are on health watch this weekend to see if the ear clears up on its own without antibiotics. And we will be taking care of sick-daddy in the guest room. And I will just forget about the lingering cold I can't seem to shake and the miscarriage. This wife- mother thing is exhausting, but also great to help you forget about your own problems.

The bummer is that I had to cancel my hair appointment, again. People will start noticing soon that I have lots of gray roots... ;)

bunny kisses

When I was growing up we'd rub noses and call it an eskimo kiss. In this day and age "eskimo" is kinda insensitive, and "inuit kiss" just doesn't roll off the tongue the same, plus I don't even know if they do kiss like that.

But the nose-rubbing is so cute that I had to teach it to Mads. So ever since she was a newborn I have been giving her "bunny kisses".

Every now and then over the last 4 months or so she would move her head back and forth and participate, but not always.

Until this past week. Now she is really into it. You can ask her for a bunny kiss and she totally starts it. Every day when I pick her up from day care she gives me bunny kisses and she's the one who'll initiate it. And she'll walk across the room and give a bunny kiss to her daddy when I ask.

The other day right after I'd arrived at her school to pick her up she was sitting in my lap. I asked if she could give her teacher a bunny kiss. Instead of getting up, she looks towards her teacher, tilts her head up a little and moves her nose back and forth. Yep, that, my friends, is the innovation of the air-bunny-kiss.

moving forward

So that was one hell of a mind f&$?! over the last month. There I was, happily moving forward in M-bliss.

After all kinds of emotional hand-wringing and worrying and insomnia trying to figure minutia like whether or not one changing table would work and how I would work the organization to include two sizes of diapers... now I am right back on the same road I was on in early January.

Schwoosh.... did you feel the wizz of my head spinning around really fast? Aside from some lingering bleeding I could easiy convince myself that it was all a very weird dream.

So now it is back to my prior worries. Although I must admit that they now seem so much easier compared to what I was imagining I was facing.

I feel guilty for jumping right back into my 6-weeks-ago life after just one bout of crying as I clung to Mads after her bath Monday night. Where did all my grief go? I guess the big difference for me is that this time I lost a potential baby but not my chance at motherhood. And since it was a baby that I had not even imagined in my life... I really hadn't yet fallen in love.

So now, I am back to where I was. Weird. So weird.

Back to buying airline tickets for my fieldwork this summer and trying to figure out what kind of cake to make Mads for her first birthday. I was reading my blog entries from around this time last year, remembering it all. Wow. What an amazing year. I feel so incredibly lucky, and happy. Despite the crazy last 6 weeks.

a bad day

It dawned on me as I walked into the ob's office that today is the day I got married the first time around.  Twenty years ago exactly.  That marriage didn't work out, in a bad way.  I left four years later, a move that I am not proud of but that I know lead to my having a much happier life.

Isn't it crazy how life changes?  The amazing twists and turns, so many of them unpredicted.  And then here I am, 20 years later.  A mature woman, middle-aged technically speaking.  Those years having flown by.

I wish that I had had the wisdom then that I do now.  I wonder what all I would have done differently.  But I guess that is the beauty of age, you learn so much with each passing year.  I didn't really realize it until I stop and remember on who I was.  And who I am.

Things did not go well in the doctor's office.  The baby isn't a take-home baby.

I've been here before, miscarried around 6 weeks with my first.  I was absolutely devastated.

This time I feel so conflicted.  In all honesty a part of me is relieved.  But that makes me feel horrible.  And I mean Horrible.  Horrible.  Horrible.  I can't get over how the particular circumstances of every event set the stage for how we feel about it.

I'm sorry little guy. I'm sorry that I wasn't rooting for you like I did your sister.  I know that my thoughts can't change a pregnancy outcome, rationally.  But I still feel like I really let you down.

This is a date that will always bring a bad feeling, twice over now.

the funny thing about work

Female Science Prof had a recent post about career/productivity trajectories before and after tenure. My tenure experience was so demoralizing that I definitely had a dip in productivity and motivation, although you could easily not recognize it from my CV unless you were looking for it and knew me well.

And then I decided to have a baby and totally enjoy her post-tenure. Which I have.

But the funny thing about it is that post-baby I am finding that I am working a lot less but doing some bigger things. It is like I found some chutzpah in having a child, or that I don't want to spend my timeaway from her doing rinky dink things. Or maybe I care less about the risk of failure/rejection?

Well, we'll see how I feel about the importance of my work once I finally get this manuscript submitted to kind-of-big journal, which will hopefully be within a couple of weeks and get the nasty reviews back (they flat out rejected a previous paper of mine as not being a topic of broad enough interest, and then promptly turned around 2 months later and published a paper written by big-name-asshole based on the a subset of the exact same population talking about a much smaller point...) Anyway, I finished re-writing the discussion section today so now we are dangerously close to a draft that is good enough to giveto other people for comment!!!

The crazy turns of life

For the last year and a half, and really strongly for the last 6 months, I have been overwhelmed with how perfect my life has become.  I love the balance between family and career; I love where I am on all fronts.

I have had a slight fear in the back of my mind knowing that nothing in life is permanent, and that this wouldn't last.  But I put that fear aside because I didn't want the fear of change to ruin what was so perfect.

But change does come.  And, I am learning, it often comes from a completely unpredictable direction.

I had thought it would be health that would be our problem, particularly that of my 61 year old husband who is always under a lot of stress and doesn't take as good of care of himself as he could/should.  But that wasn't it.

Over the last 2 years I have had sex once.  Once.  This miraculous date was Jan 21, 2012, and it was very nice.  No stress of trying to get pregnant, like all those years in the past that had basically ruined our sex life.

Then I noticed towards the end of January that my milk supply was weirdly reduced. 

My period didn't come.

Yes, I am pregnant.

Yes, I have been a bit freaked out.

1) I never ever thought I would ever get pregnant again, especially without having to TRY.

2) I feel so weird being the woman that I had grown to hate, you know, the 41 year old woman who gets pregnant without trying.

3) I had never actually envisioned having two children, and so I have no mental framework for seeing how this would work and how it would be my life.

4) I have been pretty freaked out.  Do you know that I can count on one hand the number of nights that I have slept for more than 5 hours in a row over the last 1.5 years, yes, ON ONE HAND?  I am already really tired and have been looking forward to maybe sleeping one night in the next year or so as M gets older.

5) I have been pretty freaked out.  My house is very small.

6) I have been pretty freaked out. How would I work daycare logistics?  How would I afford daycare for two? 

7) And then there is the strangeness of having gotten pregnant like normal people do.  This is not my identity.  I still wear an infertility awareness bracelet.  This all feels surreal.

8) I just got off of my 2 semesters of pregnancy leave, and after one semester back, might be going on another 2 semesters of leave.  Am I even allowed to take that much so close together?

9) It is petty, but it was just at the start of December that I got back into my old clothes, and bought a pair of skinny jeans in a size I haven't worn since I was in my early 20s.  The bald spot on my temple was starting to fill in -- I had lost a lot of hair after delivery, very weird.  I was even thinking of saving up for a botox treatment after I finished nursing.  I was starting to feel good in my body again.  It feels too soon to go through it again, like the memories of the hard parts are still too fresh.

10) the miscarriage rate at my age is about 35%, and the chances of a genetic abnormality feel even higher than normal for my age because, well, we weren't trying to get pregnant so we hadn't done any of those things couples do to make sure sperm is as fresh and healthy as possible.

11) I feel incredibly guilty for not immediately being excited and happy. 

12) I worry terribly about what this will do to my ability to mother M.  I love our relationship.  She is such an amazing kid.  If I end up having to pay attention to a newborn when she's 1.5 years old...  she feels too young to be losing her mother like that.

13) I feel terrible that she cries and cries at night because she wants more milk but there is no more -- I hardly make enough for her now and might have to start supplementing with formula.  This makes me feel sick to my stomach as it is so incredibly different from how I envisioned the end of our nursing relationship.

14) And then I remember that life is not scripted.  Turns come at you without anticipation, and sometimes the most wonderful things come when you roll with the punches.  Maybe this is a good way for M and I to dwindle down our nursing.  Maybe a sibling so close in age will give her a family that lasts much longer than her aging parents will.  Maybe all the details and logistics of having two will work out as easily as they did for when we were preparing for one and had no idea how it would work. 

I watched the movie "The Help" tonight.  It is wonderful.  Have you seen it?  While the whole thing made me cry and laugh and be very sad and angry, one part really resonated with me in my current situation.  It's when the maid Constantine tells Skeeter that it is her choice every day to decide how she is going to feel about what people say about her.  This is very sage, and extends beyond what other people think.  It also applies to how we think about our own lives.  It is my decision every day as to whether or not I embrace my life and the curveballs, laughing at every opportunity, or if I freak out and worry incessantly about the details.

So, I am embracing.  I am a bit freaked.  But I am embracing.  We'll see what happens at my ob appointment a week from Monday.  Maybe there will be a heartbeat, maybe not.  Either way I think it will be ok.  Either way life has thrown me a lot of wonderful, and hopefully that will endure through the inevitable changes.  Change was going to come, I know that.  At the very minimum, M is going to grow up and our relationship will change. It was guaranteed to change, no matter what.  I just had never anticipated that THIS would be the impetus.

where does the time go?

I have completely lost the ability to keep up. I am back at work "full time" and teaching, which means I am trying to do 50 hours of work in 35. I haven't blogged in ages. I haven't written in Maddy's journal in several weeks, and I used to write in it every other day. I haven't taken any pictures of her in more than a week, which is sad given that I think I have at least one picture of every day of her life up until class started this semester.

Life is basically really good though and passing by way too fast.

I cannot believe that my little baby will be 11 months old on Valentine's day. She is walking these days, but prefers to hold a hand while doing so, which gets tricky. She has a serious grip and will not let go. She is also still waking up 2 times at night, and sometimes three, rarely just once. And the best part is that she loves to mimic. So freaking cute. We taught her how to give kisses on the lips tonight before she went to bed.

I have a question for those of you with more than one child... is it twice the work? twice as much fun? twice as hard? is two better then one? how hard is it to be a professor AND mama to two? did you have to cut back at work way more with the second, or was the first baby the biggest adjustment with work?

swimming

Irrational Exuberance's post on swim class & B reminded me of a story I wanted to share.

I have been taking M to a baby swim class at the Y since early november. I really enjoy it even though it is really corny. I am not sure that M really loves swimming, but she definitely doesn't mind it. And honestly, as long as there are lots of people for her to watch she'd be happy doing just about anything. The kid is really social. Not sure where she got that from.

But anyway, I wanted to share a funny story with you. As Irrational Ex notes, the logistics of putting on and taking off bathing suits is kinda crazy. I have to mentally prepare myself and go into it like a live-action video game.

M is pretty much walking now, but isn't very stable. And she is one curious little bug. Oh, and she absolutely hates having her diaper changed or clothes put on or taken off because it really cramps one's time for exploraton. Luckily the women in the locker room are typically the same crowd (9am saturday), and they are soooooo nice.

The funny thing last week was that M took off crawling across the floor. I hadn't managed to get a diaper on her. She paused, looked at me kind of funny... a look I know... I tried to get there in time but didn't make it. She peed all over the floor.

what do you do?

sop it up and hope no one really noticed, but I think one lady totally did and pretended to be looking in the other direction as I did my sopping.

And one other thought. I am always really cold walkng back to the locker room in my wet swim suit. M doesn't seem to care at all. I wrap dry her off and wrap her up in a towel, but she seems oblivious.

I have been tempted to change myself first, but I never do. I am too afraid that it'd make me look like a bad mother. So I shiver, for appearances sake.

what would you do?

true confessions

I find my own baby absolutely adorable but 90% of the other babies I see? not so much.

Sometimes when I pick up M from daycare I don't immediately recognize which kid is mine.

I am sad to think about weaning M as I will really miss the amazing intimacy we share. I have never had that with someone before and know I never will again. The more she learns to walk and be independent, the more she moves away from that intimacy, and it makes me sad. Although I guess it is good that my immediate reaction when she does something new is excitement. Later, when I am holding her sleeping in my arms before putting her in her crib for the night, I hold my face very close to hers, feel her breath on my face, and feel very nostalgic.

M knows the word "shoe". She is so my daughter.

I have been pumping extra milk for my sister's new baby. I am very, very tired of doing it. In fact, I am really tired of the whole pumping thing. I loved the christmas trip to visit family as I didn't pump at all. But my sister is so grateful that I feel guilty for wanting to stop. One more month... and then my last couple of months of nursing M will be just for M.

The last couple of evenings I have found myself watching MTV's "Teen Moms 2". It is like a bad car accident that I can't look away from... Tears well up in my eyes for some of those little babies. It is just so unfair how the chance of who your parents are determines so much of your life.

the cream incident

I am at my parent's... M and I got here on the 20th and it is so starting to be time to go home. I thought I'd share an amusing mom freak-out so you could savor in the wonder of my family.

Yesterday my mom had invited some family friends over for lunch. It was very nice, and every detail was perfect, as my mom would have it no other way. The amazing thing was that a few hours after everyone left mom decided it was time to critique my dad's hosting skills. She was really ticked at how he had arranged the desert on the desert plates and that he hadn't specifically offered HER cream for her coffee. Since she thought it rude to ask the guests to pass the cream, she had had to drink her coffee black.

I couldn't help but say, "I don't see why you didn't just ask for someone to pass the cream."

Needless to say, I am persona non grata today...

so much to catch up on, but first...

Wow. Have you seen this?
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/dec/28/local/la-me-1228-ucla-death-20111228
The PI of the lab at UCLA where the staff research assistant died in a lab accident in 2008 has been charged with a FELONY and could get 4.5 years in prison.

Not all that long ago I was involved in a close-call situation where a graduate student working on her own project, in a "shared" lab space 5 floors away from my lab and office, and using her own research funds was not cautious enough with a fairly dangerous chemical, although she technically did follow the MSDS. Nothing happend, but it was close and EH&S got all involved and the safety officer kept saying that this was all my fault and that I could face all kinds of legal things.

I was really annoyed about this and have since cut way back on the freedom I allow my graduate students to have. This is sad for them, as it means they can't explore techniques that I do not know well, a pretty limited repertoire to say the least since I don't get all that much time at the bench now that I run the lab. This is stifling for science. But I feel forced to cover my ass.

As financial resources are cut back on campuses, we have lost the staff who can serve as lab managers and safety officers. "Shared" lab space has no responsible PI, and despite my efforts to try to gain some control over the space I was involed with, I was not allowed to exert the control that would have prevented the near-incident. However, because of how universities have reorganized due to budget cutbacks, whichever faculty member is closest to the incident is held responsible. Hence, in my situation, while I was not allowed to have control I was expected to bear all the rsponsibility.

I have mixed feelings about these felony charges. Obviously I have no idea what really happened, what lead up to it, etc. The end result is horrible, and I am a bit surprised that Harran, the prof, doesn't have any mention of the scientist who was killed on his lab website...

But from my own personal experiences and seeing how more and more responsibilty and liability is being put onto the shoulders of PIs with shrinking institutional support, I feel like faculty are in a horrible position. How are we honestly supposed to do all of the work to develop research projects, procure grant funding, teach classes, design research, get all of the permissions for that research (be it IACUC, IRB, BUA, etc.), mentor students, write letters of recommendation, write papers, AND be paying super close attention to the details of what every single person in your lab is doing even if they are not working on one of your projects but rather on their own independently funded project. Don't forget about service on departmental and campus committees, reviewing manuscripts, etc. Add onto this the increasing adminsitrative work that my university has been shifting onto our shoulders in order to save costs by reducing administrative staff (i.e., professors can do their own xyz themselves in just 15 minutes!), and this is getting ridiculous.

I feel really nickled and dimed to death, and I hate that if anyone screws up in my lab I am the one who pays the price no matter what. To think that this could result in a felony charge as well as having my ass sued in criminal court... I am worried about this precedent.