Category: parenting

driving home

So, um, yeah. I have another bad driver’s license photo.

I didn’t end up going to the RMV on Wednesday, and went this morning before John had to go to a meeting. I wasn’t sure there would be time, but I thought I should give it a try. In the end, my number got called just at the point that I’d determined would be the latest time I could wait before heading back home. The transaction went fine, except I had trouble getting a decent signature with that stupid plastic fake pen dealy. By the time it was time for my photo, I just really needed to get out of there. I went with the first photo. I look bedraggled, disheveled, and weary.

In other words, just how I felt.

I guess I’ve been feeling rather run down. I just hadn’t really realized how much. I’ve been falling asleep while working at night and waking up bone tired in the morning, I’ve been so fatigued the past few weeks that I was actually convincing myself that I must be pregnant. The last few days had me practically at the point where I was choosing names for the twins (as surely it must be twins).

But I’m not pregnant. I’m just really damn tired.

Yesterday was a particularly tiring (and trying) day, with rushing around and a long commute and meetings, and trying (not all that successfully) to fit in pumping. I ended up getting stuck in traffic, being late to meet with the friend who was kind enough to be my subject, late to my scheduled lab meeting, getting a parking ticket, rushing out of my meeting, and having a really long uncomfortable drive back to pick up Phoebe and Theo from daycare. And I was late for that, too.

So today, I should have probably just taken it easy instead of rushing around some more. And now I’m stuck with another awful photo for up to ten years. I was amused when I left the RMV with my new temporary license, and drove home feeling mildly victorious for having gotten that dealt with.

But by the time I got home, I was hating the photo, and feeling like crap. I’m actually pretty comfortable with my looks in general. I mean, I’m not thrilled with them all the time, but my appearance is just not all that important to me. Until I see a bad photo, that is. And it reminds me that I haven’t managed to get my hair cut in over a year, and that I’m tired and busy and rushing all the time and that most of my clothes don’t fit me all that well. It reminds me of how little time I have to take care of my own needs, let alone my appearance.

Nothing like a bad photo to drive all of that home.

dam

We have some foam letters that Phoebe plays with at bath time. We’ll often talk about and name letters, and sometimes spell a few words on the tub walls.

A couple of nights ago, Phoebe picked up a D.

“What words start with a D,” John asked.

“Dog,” says Phoebe, quite quickly. We are impressed, and feel quite pleased with our parenting.

“Right! What else?”

Phoebe thought a bit. “Um…”

“Door,” I suggest.

“Dandelion,” says John.

“Daddy,” I say.

“Damn!” Phoebe suggests. John and I pause. Crap, we do swear too much in front of her.

“Oh…dam! Right! Like the dam where we go for walks sometimes!” I say, gladly remembering the dam where we go for walks sometimes.

“And dammit!” Phoebe says proudly.

Phoebe on the dam where we go for walks sometimes.
Phoebe on the dam where we go for walks sometimes.

Photo by John.

file under d for distraction

Yes, I admit it. This post is an attempt to distract you from the recent utter lack of content here. But look! A baby!

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File under c for cute. Or would that be b for baby?

I brought Theo into work for a meeting. Here we are in the little library of the lab where I work.

theo_and_mommy
Theo, Mommy, and lots of old issues of JASA.

As you can see, having a baby along with me can sometimes be a distraction from work.

In related news, I’ve made some progress towards starting Theo in daycare. He starts Tuesday. I’m still trying to process that information. (And maybe file it. Under p for progress? Or maybe p for pants. Just because.)

falling off the moving sidewalk

Traveling with small children is challenging. Aside from keeping physical needs met and tempers in check, you need to tote a lot of stuff. On top of your own clothing, laptops and personal items, you have to pack clothing, diapers, toys, books and gear for the little ones, who aren’t able to transport this stuff on their own. And depending on their size, you also have to be able to lug along the actual children.

At the start of our trip, we parked in the Boston airport central parking garage, where, for whatever reason, it is impossible to find baggage carts. It was going to be tricky just to get to the terminal.

We put Theo in the stroller, had Phoebe walk with her little Hello Kitty suitcase, strapped one carseat to a suitcase, and put various backpacks and other shoulder bags (including the other carseat) on our backs and shoulders. John pulled two wheeled suitcases, and I pulled the third suitcase with one hand and pushed the stroller with the other. We were an awkward caravan, but somehow we got moving, down in the elevator and over to the pedestrian walkway to the terminal.

We got on the moving sidewalk, which moved us along at a nice pace. John and Phoebe were a few paces ahead of me, and stepped off at the end. I was ready to do the same.

Then the front wheel of the stroller turned as it went over the bump, and jammed into the base of the stationary railing just over the threshold. The stroller stopped, with its back wheels still rolling along merrily on the conveyor. The stroller blocked my way to step off, and I couldn’t manage to dislodge it with my one free hand. I had to run backwards in place to avoid being propelled into the back of the stroller, while trying to get the stroller unjammed with one hand, and keep my suitcase from hurtling forward with the other.

It wasn’t pretty.

Such is my life these days, especially since having kids. There I was, smoothly rolling forward, carrying on at something I’ve done dozens of times before. Maybe my hands were a bit full, but I never questioned that I was in control. Then one little snag hits, and wham! I’m flailing awkwardly, dropping my load, caught in the machinery. Trying not to be crushed by my baggage or to crush my offspring. Running clumsily in place to avoid falling on my ass.

These past few weeks I’d been moving along quite well, accomplishing things. And now all the other things I’d been letting slide are starting to come hurtling back towards me, but my hands are too full to get a good grip. Our house continues to be chaotic, and I have work, home and family obligations to attend to. Missed bills. Taxes. Wedding gift for the wedding we already attended. Birth announcments for my 7-month-old. Thank you notes. Home repairs and car repairs and yard work.

Meanwhile, I’m feeling pretty wiped out from the efforts of travelling, my push to submit the abstract, and the damn stomach bug. I’ve had this low level headache that I just can’t seem to shake. Things have also been rocky with Phoebe, who is adjusting to being home after the trip, sleeping in her own room and the 3-hour time difference. She’s still traumatized by her recent bout with the stomach bug.

She is also showing signs of being a three-year-old. There have been tantrums. Basically daily. And maybe not just Phoebe.

So, I continue to not be caught up with my blog reading. To make things trickier in that respect, my feed reader (Safari) has gone all wonky on me, and my laptop apparently keeps going into overdrive because of something related to that. I can’t access my feeds, so my blog visiting has been rather erratic. Once more, I apologize for being generally absent.

finding a way to volunteer with my hands full

A little over a year ago, Jen and Mad celebrated their first anniversary of social justice marriage, and a year of encouraging online activism in a little corner of the blogosphere with the Just Posts. As part of that celebration, they asked for Just Post participants to consider giving a gift: to take our activism beyond the online world, and to commit to volunteerism. In the real world. I scribbled a hasty I-owe-you of a post, promising to them (and to myself) that I would write more about my past volunteer work, and to find a way to do more volunteer work.

I’m ashamed to say that I have made no substantial progress in that area since that post. My main excuse has been overload. At the time I was teaching a class, trying to plow forward with my research job and degree-related projects, and suffering from first trimester morning sickness. Since then, I was busier than ever getting ready for conferences, traveling, and trying to move forward with my degree before my impending due date. Then I was busy with parenting a newborn and a toddler, while still trying to keep a foot in my research job.

I really want to do volunteer work, but I haven’t found the time or energy.

Theo will soon start daycare, and I will then need to work harder at making up hours I owe from my not-quite-maternity-leave stretch. With two children in daycare, the costs of childcare and occasional commuting to my job will probably just about equal my net income from my graduate stipend. John is super busy with his work, and already putting in long hours at parenting as it is. We can’t reasonably take time away from his work time or mine for me to have a few child-free hours to put into volunteering.

But I have an idea.

My hope is that I can find meaningful volunteer work where I can bring along Phoebe and Theo. I would like them to grow up with the acceptance of service as being a normal part of life, and including them seems a good way to further that goal.

So, my plan is to start investigating ways that I can volunteer with a baby and toddler in tow. I am very much open to suggestions, and would love to hear from any who have experience doing such things. Jen has inspired me on many occasions with her mentions of bringing her daughter M along with her to work in homeless shelters. Holly wrote about the doors opened for her in her research on public health by bringing along her small children.

My past volunteer work with resettled refugees was very important to me. I signed on as an ESL tutor, with goals of gaining experience that might be applicable to my studies and career. What I found, though, was that I was often able to help in more ways that just helping with language: I helped negotiate bureaucracy, helped interpret bills and other notices that came in the mail, and answered questions about life in the US.

It has occurred to me that many refugee (and other immigrant) families also have small children. I love the idea of getting together with such a family to help with their English or otherwise provide insight into US culture, and having Phoebe and Theo along with me to play with and get to know young kids from another culture. I’m hoping to find an organization that will be amenable to such an arrangement.

My next step is to start contacting some groups. I’ve identified two or three that I’ll try, and I plan to send some emails. I’ll try to have an update of my progress next month.

excuses, excuses (ad nauseam)

Dear Blogosphere,

Please excuse Alejna’s continued absence from posting and visiting and other blog-related activities. She has been recovering from a blechy stomach virus, which has been making her feel really icky since Wednesday night. She has also been tending to a very sick sweet Phoebe, who was hit even harder by the nasty bug. Also to a teething Theo, who thankfully seems not to be overly affected by the virus.

Alejna hopes to return to her regular blog attendance in the next couple of days, and hopes she can be allowed to turn in any missed assignments at that time.

Sincerely,

Alejna’s Largely Neglected Laptop

So much for jumping right back into blogging.

I was feeling really great Wednesday morning, if just starting to deal with the the 3-hour time difference. I took Phoebe late to daycare, ran some errands with Theo, then came home. At which point I noticed that the contractor we’ve been working with installed a different door on our deck than the one we discussed. (Have I mentioned we’ve been dealing with home repais?) Then I tried to do a little work, trying to hold on to my recent productivity, and encountered a big setback in my research. So I turned to the internet for solace, and skimmed through friends’ recent status updates on Facebook. And saw that azahar, who had been told she was clear of any signs of cancer, now has evidence of two new tumors. Fuck.

These various things, combined with jetlag, left me feeling drained, and then queasy with worry for the evening. Or at least I thought it was the anxiety causing the queasiness. The 101 fever seemed a bit much. And then when my anxiety caused Phoebe to start vomiting, I realized that there was probably something else going on, too.

John was up with Phoebe just about all night. Theo was also quite fussy, though that may have just been teething. (His first tooth broke through Thursday night.) Phoebe was sicker than we’ve ever seen her on Thursday, and recovery’s been pretty slow. I’ve had a much milder version of whatever it is, but I haven’t managed to eat normal food until today. It’s been largely impossible for me to get in the sort of calories I need to keep up with Theo’s feeding.

We’re glad this didn’t hit us while we were on the trip. And relieved that John has (at least so far) seemed to have missed it. (I don’t know how single parents manage sometimes.) John has some important work deadlines he’s got to keep working towards, too.

We largely gave up on trying to adjust to the time zone, so we are still on West Coast time. Sleep, whenever we could get it, seemed more important than paying attention to the clocks.

I’m still feeling pretty icky, but am clearly on the mend. Phoebe’s mostly better, but is now afraid both of sleeping in her own bed, and of vomiting. Theo is still teething, and may have a second tooth about to pop through.

I haven’t really managed to get online much, so I’m sorry for my continued neglect. Thanks so much for your comments on my last post, and thanks to anyone else who is still reading for standing by.

I’ll be back for real. Sometime. Soon, I hope.

p.s. The March Just Posts are just around the corner, and they need you! Have you read posts this month that moved you or made you think about topics of relating to social justice? Have you written one? There’s still time. For more info, check out the info page.

p.p.s. Just to add to my general crankiness, I am informed that my post title contained a spelling error, so I have fixed it.

nothing like coming home to a clean house

There’s nothing quite like coming home to a clean house, especially after a long and exhausting trip. Walking in to see a clean kitchen, tidy living room, and lots of clear surfaces instantly takes away much of the stress of the journey.

Our own homecoming was nothing like this.

Our house still showed all the evidence of our pre-trip chaos. Living room floor covered in toys, piles of clothes on the couch that were rejected candidates for taking on the trip, a heap of dirty laundry in the laundry room, kitchen counters covered in our usual clutter.

We pulled into our driveway at about 1:30 last night (or this morning). In all, it was about 13 hours door to door, with barely a moment to relax. The flights went quite well, but it took a lot of energy to keep the little ones entertained (or at least contained).

But we’re home! We had a great trip. The traveling part was a challenge, as you might imagine. Even though most everything went smoothly over the 3 travel days, 3 trips through security and 4 flights. No missed or cancelled flights, no lost luggage, no run-ins with TSA. Not even any major tantrums. (Well, maybe John and I came close when a family of 8 cut us off in the security line at Houston, jumping into the gap when the family ahead of us moved through, and before John could slide our things down the table. They said we “didn’t look ready.” So we had to wait for all of them to take off shoes and coats, etc.)

We had a wonderful visit with my family in California, and it was great to see all 4 cousins together for the first time. The days were quite full of baby care and toddler-wrangling, but we did manage a few outings and festivities. Which were themselves quite full of baby care and toddler-wrangling. The visit in Texas before that was also good, we enjoyed ourselves at the wedding, and got to spend some nice time with various members of John’s family.

I also managed to submit that abstract that was due on Sunday. I was working on the project just about every “free” chunk of time I could find for the last few weeks, even to the point of coding and analyzing data with a baby attached to me. Thanks to the help and understanding of my family, I was able to hole myself up in my sister’s office for a few uninterrupted hours to make the last critical push to get the abstract revised and sent in. I also owe thanks to some of my friends who acted as subjects, under rather unusual circumstances, as I had Theo with me. And to John, who encouraged me to keep trying, when I could very easily have been convinced to give up. Thank you!

In all, my days and nights have been very full for the last few weeks.

my baby love

I was never much of a baby person. My attitude ranged from mild interest in the offspring of close friends, to irritation with babies encountered elsewhere. I never understood why anyone would want to buy a greeting card with a photo of someone else’s baby, or how a baby in a commercial was supposed to make anyone feel compelled to purchase a product. When I thought of having children, I’d think of babyhood as a period of investment, a time that must be endured in order to achieve the goal of “child.”

As I wrote about a couple of years ago, I have since become a different person. I have learned to appreciate the creature that is “baby.”

Even with this new pro-baby attitude, as I anticipated Theo’s arrival, I still didn’t look forward to the early months. I braced myself for the dreaded newborn stage.

When Phoebe was a newborn, you see, I had a tough time. Her weight gain was too slow, and feeding-related activities took over 12 hours a day. She spent many hours a day crying and needing soothing, and so did I. I was extremely sleep-deprived. It was the most exhausting and overwhelming time of my life, and each day felt like a week.

With Theo, these months have flown by. He is generally mellow, and feeding has been uncomplicated. I’m amazed that I have been able to provide all the nourishment Theo needs to grow and thrive.

The flip side to this is that my days and nights are a bit of a blur of feedings and diaper changes, and that it’s rare that I can get even 4 consecutive hours of sleep at night.

In the past 6 months, I haven’t been away from Theo for even a full hour. I have been alone in the house exactly once, when John took Theo with him to pick up Phoebe from daycare. I spent that half hour or so on the phone, as I was in the middle of a work conference call. And I was making dinner.

While part of me is going crazy from the constant tether and lack of decent sleep, another part of me doesn’t really mind.

I have been really enjoying Theo’s babyness. The chubby legs, the impossibly soft skin, the tiny toes. The fuzzy mostly bald head. The wide toothless smile. I love it when he looks up at me, and touches my face, even when he grabs my lip or my nose with his sharp little baby nails. I love it that I can make him laugh when I kiss his cheeks back and forth. I love it that I can scoop him up and hold him high over my head.

I know that I fell in love with Phoebe, too, as a baby. But I don’t remember so much just enjoying the here and now of the there and then. When Phoebe was tiny, the uncharted territory was so much more stressful. I questioned myself often, agonized over mistakes. I found myself thinking “next time, I will know what to do,” and “next time, things won’t be so hard.” And now, remarkably, I have largely known what to do. Things have been easier. Even though life has been more complicated with our jobs and with having a toddler to parent as well as a baby.

I think I was in a hurry for Phoebe to grow and develop, too. I was eager for all those big next steps. Now they seem to be coming all too quickly. Theo keeps growing, and climbing that developmental ladder. He’s babbling now, and has started sitting up unsupported. He’s discovered toys, and is entranced by sounds and shapes and colors. It’s fun and exciting, but I want to slow down the time. Or at least to bottle it up and save it.

I need to get the time to buckle down and catch up with the work that I’ve committed to doing. I owe many hours to my job, and need to get moving on my degree requirements. There are plenty of other things that I have been letting slide, too. Plus I would like to have more time to myself, or time with John go to a movie or dinner.

Theo is 6 months old now, as of Wednesday. He’ll start daycare, as soon as I can get myself organized enough to get him used to a bottle. He’ll be starting solid foods, which will probably mean longer stretches between nursing. He’ll hopefully sleep longer at night, and nap better during the day.

I find it funny how I can, near-simultaneously, feel like I’m going crazy, and lament that these days of near-constant baby care will soon end.

I find myself sad that this is it for me. This time, there isn’t a “next time.” No more babies. I always imagined myself having two kids, and I am incredibly fortunate to have them. I find it terribly surprising that I can even imagine having another baby, but I know it doesn’t make sense for us. And realizing this makes this baby time feel all the more sweet.

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Photo by John.