Digging Out of my Rut

Starting tomorrow, I begin a new (temporary) path.  I’ll be working outside of my home, full-time, for the first time since 2001.  In the past eight years, I’ve finished two college degrees, held two part-time jobs and a few work-from-home and/or volunteer positions, and birthed and cared for a now-almost-two-year-old little boy.  I haven’t worked in any kind of office since my son was born, and I haven’t worked a full 40-hour week since before I (re)started college.

Yes, I’m nervous.  I’m also excited.  Even before we moved to Florida, I had been wanting a change.  I have loved the past two years of being home to care for my son, but I was ready for something different.  Then, the plan had been that I would try to find something part-time back in NY, and put him in a day-care program for those part-days.

Then when everything fell apart on us in July and we made the decision to move down here, we discussed the possibility of me being the bread-winner and my husband being the stay-at-home parent. Of course, it was all just theoretical until one of us actually landed some kind of gainful employment. And that happened officially on Friday. I begin tomorrow on a temporary assignment scheduled to last through mid-January.

So yes, I’m excited for the change, but nervous about starting something new. I’m looking forward to the weekly paycheck, but concerned about how my son and husband will fare without me for ten (!) hours every day. I feel like a schoolgirl again, on an early September evening. I’ve picked out my clothes, packed my bag, and even bought a new purse (because my old one wasn’t big enough to comfortably house any reading material). I’ve had my shower this evening, so I don’t have to be up quite as obnoxiously early in the morning. Everything is ready for my 6:45 a.m. wakeup and 7:30 a.m. departure.

Am I ready? I guess I’ll have to be!

“That’s All Anybody Really Needs”

Monday is my wedding anniversary – 6 years since I married my best friend.  Today is the wedding anniversary of a dear friend of mine – 3 years since she married the man I never had the chance to meet.  A year ago on July 4th, her husband unexpectedly passed away.  Her Facebook status today reads:

Happy anniversary, honey. I hope it’s nicer where you are than where I am, and that cool music is always playing on the radio there.

During our conversation earlier today, I mentioned the similarities in our anniversary dates, and that I didn’t expect we would be doing anything special because money is fairly tight around here.  Her response (paraphrased):  “A night of cuddles and closeness are all anybody really needs.”

Yes.  She was absolutely right.  Times may be tough, but there is still so much for which I am grateful.  Taking a look at the situation from her perspective, I admonished myself for what I had said.  Though I know she did not intend to make me feel guilty, and that she welcomes “normal” conversation that does not tiptoe around her widowhood, I still chided myself not only for my insensitivity, but for taking for granted what I do have.

The Author and Jer Husband in July 2009

In all honesty, I already have those things that most valuable to me.  I have a roof over my head, even if it is not my own roof.  I have food on my table, and enough money to continue to buy that food, even if it means eventually dipping into savings to make ends meet.

But most importantly, I have someone to curl up with on the couch while we watch Veronica Mars or The West Wing, or play Wii games.  I have a Scrabble or Trivial Pursuit opponent, there for the asking.  I have a life partner, a father to my little boy and any future children we may have, and a companion.  I have him, and he has me.  And in the end, that’s all anybody really needs.

Separation Anxiety (Mine, That Is)

I know I can’t always be there for my son, but I didn’t necessarily expect that it would happen for the first time when he’s only 20 months old.

You see, part of this new adventure of ours is going to involve leaving Buggie with O’s parents for several days while we fly back up here, collect the remainder of the stuff that is coming with us, put the rest in storage, and make the 2-3 day drive back down to FL. Note that I’ve only ever been away from him even as long as overnight, once.

I’m worried that something will happen – he’ll get sick, or fall and hurt himself, or … something worse that I don’t even want to think about. I’m worried that in some way, he’ll need me and I won’t be there.

L on Merry-Go-Round, July 2009

L’s first playground fall, July 2009

I’m worried that he’ll suddenly decide to have separation anxiety for the first time in his life.

Or that he’ll have trouble sleeping. (Not exactly an unheard of event around here. He takes after me, that way.)

I don’t know what to do about weaning. I’d hoped he would wean himself by now, but it hasn’t worked out that way. He only nurses once a day, and only when he sees me for the first time in the morning, so I don’t think it’ll be a problem for him while we’re gone. But if he doesn’t wean between now and then, I’m not sure what to do. Will I have to refind and take my pump and bottles (after some 8 months of not using them), so I can pump while we’re apart, in case the separation doesn’t force weaning? Do I have to just force weaning myself, between now and then? I really don’t know, and I could use some advice on this one.

I’m also worried about what all this chaos (and the inevitable mild spoiling of doting grandparents) is going to do to the routines we’ve worked so hard to foster. I anticipate writing up a huge list of things, including his schedule, to give to my in-laws (and hope they don’t think I’m an overprotective mom, but I think they’ll understand – especially since their other daughter-in-law is stricter with schedules than we are, so they’re probably used to it). But even with that, we’re going to probably have a good 2-3 weeks where things are just going to be “different.” Nana and Grappa with be with us until the end of August. I don’t expect that we’ll be able to fully settle into our (temporary) new life until after they’ve gone. (And of course, we’ll get to do a lot of it all over again when we find a place of our own, particularly if we don’t stay in FL… but that’s another blog post all its own, later.)

The fact is, as my mother-in-law and I just discussed … this is likely going to be harder for me than for him. I don’t quite know how to cope with being away from him for five whole days.  (Nor, to be totally honest, how to cope with moving so far away from my mommy, but that too is it’s own separate issue.)

The Secret Is in the Sauce

My son has a soybean allergy.  We haven’t yet gone through the rigamarole of allergy testing yet, though that comes soon, but trust me when I say that his body reacts poorly to soy.  Now that he is eating table foods pretty much exclusively (with the occasional exception of a toddler-meal soup here and there), this makes for some interesting challenges.  Grocery shopping takes longer now because I have to read labels carefully (note: the absence of the words “Allergens: soy,” does not necessarily mean soy is not an ingredient).  Some previously-loved foods have become absent from our cupboards because it’s easier to just avoid keeping them in the house, than to allow my husband I access to them but disallow them from Buggie.

However, the biggest challenge we’ve found centers around restaurant-eating.  Over the course of the past couple of weeks, O and I have started what we’d like to have become a tradition of Friday Night Dinners Out.  What used to be as simple as just making our minds up where we wanted to go now has a whole set of extra hoops to jump through because we also have to make sure the restaurant will have Bug-friendly foods.  We’ve lucked out both times we’ve gone recently.  And we learned that Red Robin actually gives out allergen information on all of their core menu items upon request.  Color me impressed!

Covered in non-soy spaghetti sauce.

On the flipside, however, I am having serious issues with the idea of soybean oil being used in, of all things, pizza/pasta sauces.  We wanted to take my mother out for an early Mother’s Day dinner on Saturday evening.  She wanted pizza and suggested Pizza Hut, figuring it to be reasonably kid-friendly.  My husband called them, and we were surprised to learn that there is not one single item on their menu that our son could eat.  Not only does every one of their different crusts contain soybean oil, but the same is true of each of their various sauces.  I have been making yuck-faces about this since O hung up the phone that evening.  When I make (or, more accurately, when O makes) sauce, there’s no oil in it at all.  Tomatoes, spices, water, etc.  Why would you need oil in sauce?

But even laying aside personal preferences, it’s frustrating to find situations like that.  We ended up at Friendly’s instead, which honestly wasn’t much better.  In their case, there is soybean oil in the butter they use (which to me sounds rather like they’re using margarine, rather than butter), which means … there is soy in almost all of their food as well.  Luckily their macaroni and cheese (pre-made, from Kraft) is soy-free, so Bug was able to eat.  But of course, I couldn’t order him a vegetable because those tend to be slathered in butter at restaurants.  So his dinner was macaroni and cheese with applesauce on the side.

As if it weren’t difficult enough to feed a toddler (because let’s face it – toddlers are picky by nature), and to find him something that isn’t absolute junk, we have this extra challenge.  It’s not the restaurants’ faults that my son has an allergy, and I can’t – and don’t – expect them to cater especially to him.  But it is frustrating.

And I still maintain that soybean oil in pizza sauce sounds gross.

“Hanging” on to Memories

Laundry seems a strange thing to be nostalgic about.  Yet there I was today, out in my backyard (by which I mean the postage-stamp-sized lot in back of the duplex in which I rent), hanging my first load(s) of laundry for this season, and remembering.

Buggie outside at 4 1/2 months

Last spring and summer when I would go outside, it took numerous trips.  I needed to get the laundry, a blanket, some toys, and then finally the baby.  I would put him on the blanket in the shade with his toys while I hung the laundry, and he would just stay there.  He would sometimes play with the toys, but he was also just content to watch the world go by around him.  He loved the change of scenery.  When the laundry was hung, the whole process was reversed – baby inside, then the blanket and toys.  (The laundry would stay put, obviously.)  In the spring, he was only just rolling over.  By summer, he could sit up, but crawling wouldn’t come for a while yet.

Me at 31 weeks pregnant

Let’s back up by another year, then.  Two summers ago, I was pregnant.  As the weather got warmer and warmer, I got bigger and bigger.  I remember the unique challenges in hanging maternity clothes because the seams don’t line up quite the same way as they do in regular clothes.  I remember the end of summer, when I received my first lot of hand-me-down baby clothes.  I washed them and hung those outside as well.  It made me smile to see those tiny garments on my clothesline.  Burpcloths, receiving blankets, and tiny, tiny little clothes.  We never had any “newborn” sizes, which was just fine.  At 8 pounds and 5 ounces and 21 inches long, Buggie would never have fit into them anyway.

Buggie at 16 months old

This year, I have neither a growing belly, nor a tiny little baby.  Now I have a toddler.  Today, he came outside with me again.  This time, we didn’t have the blanket, but we still had toys.  I didn’t have to carry him out to the backyard; he walked there himself.  I couldn’t just park him in the shade because he’s so very mobile, which meant being sure he was slathered with sunblock and wearing a hat.  Today, he kept me company as I hung up our clothes – his (which keep getting bigger!), his daddy’s, and my own.  He “helped” by taking the clothes out of the basket, and either handing them to me or (more often) dropping them on the ground next to it.  Once or  twice, he started to wander off, but mostly he stayed right nearby, finding his own amusements.

By next summer, I expect even more changes.  By then, we hope to have bought and moved into our own home.  Perhaps I’ll have returned to the workforce and Buggie will be in daycare.  Will we be expecting baby #2 then?  What changes will be shown on 2010’s clotheslines?

Read for Earth Day

It’s Earth Day. I have to admit, I hadn’t really given it much more than a passing thought this year. This may be a surprise for some of my readers, as I tend to be considered the Green one among my friends. But really, I don’t celebrate the Earth any more today than any other day.

Michael Recycle by Ellie Bethel

All that said, I did choose an Earth Day themed book to read to my son before his nap today. The book, Michael Recycle was a gift from his grandparents in Italy, and I hadn’t yet taken the time to read it to him. O and I both looked through it when it first arrived, but Buggie wasn’t really in a “read to me” stage at that time. Now, he loves books, and we read to him every day. So today, this was my choice. I’m sure that at 16 months, he doesn’t yet understand words like “recycle” and “sustainability,” but I want him to grow up with them. Books are an excellent way to achieve that.

Eco Babies Wear Green by Michelle Sinclair Colman

As such, I was thinking of other “green”-themed books we have in the house. For Buggie’s first birthday, he received a copy of Eco Babies Wear Green. It’s a board book, and is an amusing take on ecological concepts, as they pertain to children. For the most part, its humor is there for the parent or other reader. And if you’ve ever read to a young child, you know that board books can get monotonous, so humor is a nice touch.

Gaia Girls: Enter the Earth by Lee Welles

Now, if your young reader is old enough to start on chapter books, I heartily recommend the Gaia Girls series. At present, there are three books, with a fourth due sometime this year, according to their website. So far, I’ve only read the first, but I was very impressed. It’s written for the YA audience, but even as an adult, I found it enjoyable. I’ve no doubt that the rest of the series is just as good.

Take a few minutes today – with your child, or on your own – to pick up a book, and to learn a little bit about the Earth.

Feeling Like a Grown-up

(not our actual car)

In 2004, my husband and I bought our first “real” car. It was actually the third car we owned together – the first we bought from a guy down the street for $600, and the second was given to us by O’s brother. Our current car, a Subaru Outback sedan, was our first experience with going to a dealership, taking test drives, getting financing, and eventually coming home with a shiny new-to-us vehicle.

Throughout the whole experience, I remembered going to car dealerships (and being bored to tears!) with my parents, when I was a child. It’s rather surreal to do things for yourself that you remember your parents doing when you were a child. It really hit me then (at age 28) – I was a grown-up, at least in one way.

one of the houses we looked at

This year, O and I started shopping for houses. That, too, brought back memories of trips with my parents to view homes. Doing it myself, though, was overwhelming and more than a little terrifying. Somehow it was a lot less scary dealing with cars than with houses. Perhaps because instead of the 5-figures of debt that a car purchase brings, we were looking at going for 6. Six-figure sums are pretty intimidating to think about! Besides, we were choosing the place where our son would grow up, thereby reminding me of all the responsibilities in my life. So again, now at 33 years of age, I was becoming a grown-up in a whole new way.

People ask me sometimes what I want to be when I “grow up,” and I jokingly respond that I don’t necessarily plan to grow up at all. Those who know my family well know that we all tend to stay pretty young-at-heart well into our golden years. I’ve gotten married (twice), become a mother, graduated from college. I’ve made life-changing decisions, and moved way from the area that was my home for nearly 26 years. I know what I want my career to be, and I am taking steps in that direction. I’m the one who generally handles our finances, and I am very responsible with our spending.

Somewhere along the line, when I wasn’t looking, I think I actually did become a Grown-up. In all the ways that count.

The Camouflage Sweatshirt

L in his camo shirt

Today, my son is wearing his camouflage sweatshirt. It was a baby shower gift; my family was smart and gave us various sizes of clothing instead of just the small sizes. My husband thinks this shirt is adorable, and was eager for Buggie to wear it the first time. I, on the other hand, was hesitant. He has only worn the shirt twice because while I agree that it is adorable on him, it also represents much more to me than just a cute baby boy.

I grew up in a hunting family. My father hunted when I was a child. I remember many conversations with him about how uncomfortable it made me, and I remember him explaining to me how hunting helps keep the deer from getting overpopulated and killing each other even more brutally. Logically, I came to understand this perspective, but emotionally it was still troubling. I’m sure this is colored by the fact that I also don’t much care for venison, so deer hunting was of little personal benefit to me. Still, these conversations are a large chunk of my childhood memories of my dad.

Eventually my father gave up hunting, but I still have uncles and cousins who seem to live for the autumn and winter months when they can set up tree-stands, dress in greens and browns (or oranges and blacks, depending whether it’s bow season or gun season, of course), and wait for a set of antlers to wander by. These are not relatives with whom I have a close relationship. There are too many things on which we will never, ever see eye-to-eye. You see, I am very liberal, and this section of my family is very … not. Our opinions on politics, homosexuality, and racial issues have led me to either bite my tongue entirely, or leave the room when these subjects get mentioned. Family gatherings have never seemed the right place to cause a scene, after all.

Please note that I am not claiming there is a direct correlation between hunting and closed-mindedness in general. This is specific only to my own experience within my own family and childhood. Having said that, the connection is very strong. Camouflage patterns trigger the memories of all I have sought to escape from my background. Mind you, I do own one or two garments in camo-print fabrics myself, and those items have never made me feel the way Buggie’s toddler-sized sweatshirt does. Perhaps it’s the difference in colors. Or maybe it’s the realization that he is inheriting the history I have left behind me, and the fear of him growing up with that kind of negativity. If it’s the latter, I suppose that’s just more impetus to educate him about diversity and about animal kindness. He will grow up to make his own decisions about the world around him. I can only hope his mind stays open.

“Common” Courtesy

image from The Bostonist

As a culture, we’ve become just plain rude. We bump into each other in a crowded mall and glare instead of apologizing, pushing past instead of saying, “Excuse me,” and letting doors slam in the faces of those behind us instead of holding them open. We carry on loud, personal conversations via cellphone in libraries or other spaces where people may not want to hear the personal details of our lives, but when we sit down to dinner together, the cellphone becomes a barrier as we engage in our individual conversations rather than bonding with the person sitting right there across the table.

When in our history did we become so selfish and self-centered that we lost sight of our manners? When did it become acceptable to show up late for an appointment or social engagement without so much as a phone call? Or to agree to do something, then renege when it becomes inconvenient? And when did parents stop teaching their children the basic rules of politeness?

Mei Tai carrier made by Nisha Berg

As an example, I was recently in a children’s store, pushing a stroller while my husband wore our 10-month-old son in a baby carrier. Out of nowhere, three young children came barrelling through, shoving my (thankfully empty!) stroller out of their way as they sped toward the toys they wanted and ignoring the signs asking children their age not to use the riding toys. Where were their parents, and why did they think it was acceptable to behave this way? Unfortunately, such behavior in children often comes as direct example from their parents, who are equally rude to and disrespectful of others.

While I think the phenomenon does seem to grow ever more common with each passing generation, even older adults are not immune to this sort of behavior. In fact, the inspiration for this article was my irritation at my landlord, who has agreed not to come by the property without 24 hours’ notice (48 if he needs to get into my apartment itself), as respect for our privacy. I cannot begin to count the times this has been impinged upon. Today’s example occurred just after I’d gotten my son down for his afternoon nap, and only days after my husband told the landlord not to come by at a certain time because of Buggie’s schedule. Is he oblivious, or simply inconsiderate?

We are living in the “I” generation, where getting one’s own is so much the focus that we’ve lost sight of how our actions and words affect those around us. As a parent, I want to correct that thinking in my son, hopefully before it even has a chance to take root. I want him to grow up with the understanding that the world does not, in fact, revolve around him. I want him to know that his actions have an impact. And really, I want to help him to be a polite and pleasant little man. I hope my husband and I can set that sort of example for him, to counteract what he is likely to see in public and the media.

Communicating With a Baby

Everyone knows that adults have different communication styles. There are countless books on the subject, and really it’s just common sense. What I never realized before becoming a mom, though, is how many ways there are to communicate with a prelingual baby.

My husband and I have approached this very differently since our son was born in December. At first, it was a source of anxiety for me: what do I talk to him about? I was actually insecure about sounding “silly,” even though various books had told me that baby-talk is actually good for his language development.

As we’ve bonded over the past 11 weeks, though, I’ve developed my own style and place of comfort. Where my husband is happy to just randomly babble at our son – and I don’t mean baby-talk there, but rather just incessant chatter about things like the solar system and the periodic table – that’s not what works for me.

Likewise, I have a friend who specializes in “baby-scat.” Just like a jazz singer, she’ll improvise random syllables in different pitches and rhythms. The baby seems to enjoy it, even if no one else understands her. This, too, is outside of my comfort zone.

With me, the communication started at my son’s changing table. We spend a lot of time there, after all, so why not make it fun? We play little games, I tickle him, we smile at each other, and we mimic each other’s sounds and expressions. After a while, it becomes second-nature, even in public. I just needed to realize that everything, every smile and touch, is a way of communicating. Suddenly, it was so much easier.

The bottom line is, there is no “right” way to communicate with a child. If you’re comfortable, so will they be. Don’t worry about appropriateness or sounding silly. As an infant, the most important part is the attention you are paying to him or her. So babble away – whatever that word may mean to you.