…who tells me my kid will lack essential social experiences by doing the last months of kindergarten. With me. At museums. And in the real world…? Will get a poke in the eye with a sharp stick. Those are my missing social skills, apparently.
I love seeing pictures of my friends’ growing families on their blogs and FB pages. Seriously, BABIES! Almost everyone I know is on #2 or #3 right now, it seems. And then I wonder….how? Not the mechanics, but the sanity how and the money how and the energy how. Because even if another pregnancy wasn’t a good bet at killing me, I don’t know how I could do it. What’s more, I don’t have any desire to do it, and didn’t, even when the perinatologist knowingly said, “You’ll be back as soon as she says ‘Mama’ for the first time.” I said, “No, but thank you for all you’ve done.” Because we both made it out alive and that was enough. Other MILPs have…
For all of you who had good mothers–imperfect, to be sure, but women who loved and nurtured and set good examples for you–I envy you. I don’t know what that’s like. For years I struggled with the dissonance of a narcissistic, sociopathic mother who occasionally did things that seemed like caring–that maybe even were caring, as much as she could–and tried to reconcile it with the years of verbal abuse, the coldness, the years when I was the bad one, barely tolerated, unjustly accused. Mother’s Day is the worst day of the year when you have a bad mother. There, writ large on every card and every oversized balloon and in every sermon and every floral arrangement, I saw how I was supposed to feel…
I’m working with Pea on taking ownership of her misdeeds. Generally this isn’t a problem, because she self-reported from about the time she could talk. It’s only recently she’s tried to invent stories, but they quickly unravel without much work on my part. This morning it went like this: “Mama, can you come here? Some toilet paper fell into the tub.” “By itself?” I asked. “Yes. In pieces–I mean, I–I–I accidentally–” Big sigh. “No, I did it on purpose. Can you help?” Which is great. I mean, if she’s anything like me, she’ll be lying convincingly about fake sleepovers and states of inebriation in ten years. Some TP in the tub is no big deal. That said, I’m still bitter about the red Sharpie…
Sadly, the video file is too large to upload, but in it, she turns to me and says, “I speak Lorikeet, you know.” Then she proceeded to interpret for the birds. It was pretty damned funny. After the zoo, we ate at the restaurant, where I worked in some academics. We skip counted. We did “which number is larger?” questions. We played number guessing games. At home, it was time for piano practice, the one place I’m a total tiger mom. Seriously, I am a martinet about piano. I make it fun, but — maybe this is because I know how important it is, or maybe this is because this is something I know — she works harder on piano practice than in any…
Disclaimer: My undergraduate school is a land-grant university west of the Mississippi. In case you missed it, Susan Patton is the Princeton alumna and mother of two Princeton students (male) who wrote a letter to the young women of Princeton about how they would do well to get married to someone they met while at Princeton. It wasn’t tongue in cheek. Women fell over themselves to excoriate her. I cringed. If there’s anything I hate, it’s constant media women-vs-women “my way is best/most feminist” churn. The Mommy Wars are nothing but a gimmick to sell shit to women already contorted by the Twister game of “work-life balance.” (Because work-life balance, like utopia, doesn’t exist.) This is all you need to know about my take…
This week, a friend from the east coast made his annual pilgrimage to Portland. Part of the pilgrimage ritual is a stop at Powell’s, because, well. Powell’s. As far as I’m concerned, if you come to Portland and skip Powell’s, there is something wrong with you. (Also, watching the cashier’s face when our friend checks out is awesome. Because, well. Four figures. And they’ll ship it all for something like $11.) Since we used to live so close to Powell’s (10 minute walk), and because Pea’s tolerance for browsing in sections other than children’s quickly devolves into her pulling books out and saying, “Here’s one for you,” I’ve gotten used to either browsing online, buying the book(s) I want and trudging up to the…
As we know, I didn’t get the job. I am not an “everything happens for a reason” person, because, well, I don’t think there’s any sort of omniscient/omnipotent being interested in my employment status. (The career services office at my law school doesn’t even care. Why would a sky god?) I do think opportunities arise all the time and one must be open-minded enough to see them and seize them. Not getting this job means my time to write still remains my time to write. The downside is I am tired of The Poverty (TM). I would like to not worry about money, or at least not worry about little things like rent and food and gas money. So I’m trying to make lemonade.…
We were discussing why I could not take a sleeping pill until Pea was asleep. “Sure you can,” M said. “Just take the pill and go to sleep.” “You don’t understand. I’m the captain of this ship. I don’t sleep until everything is settled and everyone else is asleep.” “The captain.” “Yes, the captain. I’m in charge. This is my little ship.” “The captain,” he repeated. “Yes. You are the XO.” He blinked. “Well…I do seem to deal with a lot of personnel issues.” “Exactly. Happy Valentine’s Day, Number 1.” *Discipline in our house does work this way. XO’s mast? Pea gets a talking to, and M straightens her out when she backtalks. Captain’s mast? Pea runs around, exclaims, “I’m in trouble!”…
