Working Mommy, Part I

I named this entry "part I" because I know it will be topic I return to repeatedly throughout the life of this blog. A well-known urban legend suggests that men think about sex on average every 7 seconds. I am confident that moms who work outside of the home think about their decision to put their child in daycare at least as often as that.

Let me say at the outset that I love my job. It never occurred to me or to Keith that one of us would stay home once we had a child - that is, until after Owen arrived. Then the thought of returning to work, to my dream job, scared the crap out of me. At this point, I can happily say that Owen is absolutely thriving at his school/daycare, and that I am glad we made the decision that we did. Even still, it's hard to find a perfect balance where I feel everything and everyone is getting enough of my attention. I miss my kiddo most of the day. I often leave work feeling like I've gotten nothing done. I imagine both frustrations will always be present.

Owen had a fever yesterday morning, so I stayed home with him. In the late morning, Owen and I went to the park where it was positively swarming with Moms and their kids. The Moms all knew each other, were all relaxing and chatting together on benches while their kids played. It was clear this was their 11-1pm routine every day. I felt so out of place, feeling like I was somehow playing hookey, and I imagined I looked bewildered too - I was half expecting one of them to come up and show me how to use the infant swing with Owen. It felt so foreign to be at the park in the middle of the day on a Tuesday.

Later in the day my boss called me to check in from a conference in the Cayman Islands (rough, isn't it?) not knowing that I was at home. When I told him where I was, he said "Owen is sick again?" I know he didn't mean it like that. My boss is one of the coolest people I know, and has not once insinuated that my work-life balance is out of whack. Although he is patently incapable of turning off his science brain, he is often the first person to suggest that I relax about balancing work and Mommyhood.

But however innocently his comment was intended, it brought up a whole cascade of feelings that I struggle with. Guilt, sadness, defensiveness, exhaustion. Owen has gotten sick regularly - natural for a kid in daycare during the winter. I do register that I've missed at least one day a month of work since coming back from maternity leave. I wonder if I will ever feel that each part of my life is getting enough of my attention. I used to know that I was great at at least one thing - work. Now I question whether I'm doing anything better than 50%, ever.

I am sure it will get easier over time, as Owen becomes more independent, and begins school. We hope that we teach Owen that it is not important that he follow in our footsteps to science, but that he choose to do something he really loves, where he feels that he is contributing something to the world. If I did not genuinely believe that my job is important, and that I am still able to show my child that he is loved - treasured - I wouldn't be a working Mommy. Regardless, I know that it will always be a decision I reassess and redefend - probably only to myself.

Seriously?

I think this might be the most racist playset I've ever seen! Can you see that the white guy (who came with the car) is holding a cell phone and credit cards? And the darker fellow is holding an oil can and rag (oh, and he came with a tow truck - not pictured).

Owen loves it though - vroom vroom!

If you click on the picture it opens larger.

My husband rocks

More on our awesome Saturday soon - maybe tomorrow if I have time. It included a fantastic day at the Wild Animal park with Auntie and Unc, and then a fabulous evening at Stone Brewery with my two boys, where we tasted the best beer EVER (um. it wasn't a Stone, but their beer is awesome too).

For now, an exerpt from the drive home tonight:

Me: ZZZzzzzzz [in the backseat]
Keith: This sounds like it was originally a Neil Young song.
Me: Huh? Oh...mmmyeah. It does.
Keith: It's a cool song.
Me: Yeah, originally Gary something. Mad world?
Keith: Yeah, Mad world. It was that song in that creepy Jake Gyllenhall movie. [he says it like "gil-en-hall"]
Me: I think it's pronounced "Jill-en-hall".
Keith: [ignores this] Is he related to Maggie Gil-en-hall?
Me: Yeah, it's his sister.
Keith: She kind of reminds me of you.
Me: Yeah?
Keith: Yeah. She's got that scrappy hotness.
Me: Awesome.
Keith: Yeah, like, she's cute, but I wouldn't want to go up against her in a fight.
Me: I'll take that.

So we're supposed to feed them?

Tonight I would normally be hanging out with Jenn (but she totally abandoned me; something about "wonderful family she never gets to see" and "once-a-year trip to Disneyland with the kids" and "blah blah blah selfish") but instead invited myself along on Daddy/Son night. Their routine is to go the park and do all the things Owen loves to do that make Mommy nervous for no good reason.

We got home and Owen cruised straight over to the patio door, stared longingly at his new trike and started banging the door to get to it. We offered him some food but NO, he wanted the BIKE. So, we decided to head to the park, maybe grabbing food on the way there. It appears we should have tried harder and that it's best to feed the kid BEFORE he gets cranky and unsatisfiable (yes, it's a word - check it out on Dictionary.com you doubters!).

The rest of the evening consisted of a frantic trip to El Pollo Loco to get him some food he didn't want to eat at the restaurant, and to the park where he wanted to eat but NOT chicken, and NOT beans, and NOT mac n' cheese, and NOT tortilla, he wanted something else, and then after a pathetic 15 minutes of offering up any possible selection of FOOD and FUN and SNUGGLES we were heading back home with us pushing the trike and carrying him because now he didn't want to RIDE the trike he wanted to WALK and interact with all the very nice people passing us in the park...but he can't walk on his own yet so it would have taken 15.3346 years to get home.

He decided about 1/2 way home that AT THAT VERY MOMENT he wanted some nursies and wanted them NOW (flash backs to a 5 week old baby) so we stopped to nurse on some random steps to someone's house and that sort of worked for about two minutes while I'm trying to shield my boobs from the kids walking down the street, and then we're back to carrying a big bag of dinner, pushing a trike, holding a 23-pound back-arching hungry child and...yeah, we feel like stupid assholes. As soon as we get home I put some yogurt and applesauce in a bowl for him and he gobbles it down, giggles, smiles, hugs, delivers slobbery kisses, then crashes. Poor kiddo! Sometimes, even with the best of intentions, we don't always get it right. Sometimes we realize that it would all be much easier if we were mind-readers, and that teaching Owen to sign "more" "dog" "milk" "shoe" "hat" and "ball" barely bridges the communication gulf between 30something parents and a 13-month old.

At least I think he knows is that we're always trying and he is loved.

And, at least we got it right for ourselves tonight after he fell asleep: we easily polished off a delicious bottle of Preston. Thank all that is holy for Wine Clubs.

Off to the races!

For anyone who loves Owen's unique crawl, enjoy it while it's here. He's almost walking now. We've been warned that this accomplishment comes with a twinge of sadness, a farewell to something that is uniquely a baby behavior. This is true for us, and perhaps moreso because Owen has always had his own way of getting around. Farewell, sweet crawl.

From now on: no covert ice cream ops

I was never a big fan of ice cream when I was younger. I actually was totally abnormal in my relative dislike for ice cream and pizza (For example, in high school I dated a guy who worked at an ice cream parlor and never once asked him for free ice cream. And when we would go to Round Table Pizza after a softball game I'd get a ham sandwich). But those pregnant women + ice cream love affairs are no joke, and pretty much as soon as I saw the extra line on the pregnancy test, I was craving ice cream constantly. Keith and I joke that Owen is 50% tangerine and 50% ice cream - my two favorite pregnancy foods.



Ever since then, going for a little stroll after dinner to get ice cream has become a lovely once or twice a week excursion. And for better or for worse, Owen loves ice cream. The Baskin Robbins taster spoons are perfectly Owen-sized, and I will share bits of my treat with him (I'd like to take this opportunity to register my complaint that Keith only ever gets pralines n' cream, and because of the nuts he never has to share any of his treat). So I'll give Owen a bite and a few seconds later my little bird is cheeping at me with his mouth wide-open waiting for more goodies. This is all well and good if we go earlier in the day on a weekend. But during the week we like to take a walk after dinner, and because we're hoping Owen goes to bed sometime oh, before midnight, we don't want to give him sugar. (For us this is not a problem - I mean, please. We have a 13-month old. We are still so ridiculously sleep deprived. Even after eating ice cream chased with an espresso I could probably fall asleep holding a jackhammer with a monkey on my head).


So last night around 7:15, we go to BR for some tasty treats and we register that we're going to have to make this a covert op somehow. Keith, thankfully, decides that he is full from dinner and doesn't want any ice cream. So the entire way home, I'm hunched over my ice cream like Golem with the ring, trying to gobble it down slyly while Keith is distracting Owen like "What? There's nothing to see here HEY LOOK! Birds! A tree! Nope, no one is eating ice cream in our vicinity." It kind of took the joy out of the evening walk+ice cream routine. I guess it's ice cream trips on weekends or not at all.

Musicology

In the car earlier today, Owen let me know with a screech or two that NPR was not doing it for him, entertainment-wise. I switched over to XM Kids. After a few songs, Hannah Montana came on and, along with her synth robot band, reminded us that “nobody’s perfect”. My finger hovered above the tuner knob. I looked back and realized that Owen was just as relaxed and happy with this song as he had been with Three Little Birds and Stray Cat Strut. I sighed. At these moments, we parents realize that we can play Pixies and Bob Marley and Beatles and Peter Gabriel and Sam Cooke for our kids all we like, but at some point it’s out of our hands. His journey to good music will be fraught with wrong turns and – if karma has a say in it – he may at some point beg me to buy him the latest album by the 2017 version of New Kids on the Block or Whitesnake. So, I relaxed my expectations for the first of many, many times to come, and let the wise sage, Hannah Montana, continue her life-lesson-in-song.

Nibbles

Tell me the truth: who in their right mind could resist nibbling that?

College bound

On the way to work this morning, we were stopped at a red light behind a car that had a license plate holder saying “Alumni” on top with the school name at the bottom.

KEITH: Why do these things always say “alumni” instead of “alumnus”?
ME: Well…consider the school.
KEITH: It’s not that bad a school, is it?
ME: No, but it made the joke work, see?
KEITH: Ah yes.
ME: Not that Owen will go to that school.
KEITH: No, it’s true.
BOTH OF US IN UNISON (dreamily): Cal.
ME: Or UCSD.
KEITH: Yeah, UCSD. Or M.I.T. [pause] Nope, too far.
ME: Well, UC Davis would also be ok. Or University of Oregon.
KEITH: But really: Cal.
OWEN: Ooohoohooh! Dadada! pbbbbttttttttttttt
KEITH: Well said, Owen. [then, to me] I think he’s letting us know we’re getting a little ahead of ourselves.

Giggles from an unanticipated source

Anyone who knows me at all knows that I'm a pretty die-hard leftie. But I gotta say, this (below) from Mitt Romney made me laugh out loud. I wish politicians could be funnier while they're STILL IN the race! #s 10, and 4-1 made me laugh out loud.

From CNN:

At Wednesday night’s Radio and Television Correspondents Dinner in Washington, D.C., former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney gave his “Top 10 Reasons for Dropping Out of the Race":
10. There weren't as many Osmonds as I thought.
9. I got tired of corkscrew landings under sniper fire.
8. As a lifelong hunter, I didn't want to miss the start of the varmint season.
7. There wasn’t room for two Christian leaders.
6. I was upset that no one had bothered to search my passport files.
5. I needed an excuse to get fat, grow a beard and win the Nobel prize.
4. I took a bad fall at a campaign rally and broke my hair.
3. I wanted to finally take off that dark suit and tie, and kick back in a light-colored suit and tie.
2. Once my wife Ann realized I couldn't win, my fundraising dried up.
1. There was a miscalculation in our theory: "As Utah goes, so goes the nation.”

Bellies are for raspberries

Owen has decided, since his father and I use his belly for the sole purpose of such things, that bellies are for raspberries. After work today Mr. Doodle and I were unwinding on the bed playing around and he pulled up my top and planted a big raspberry on my belly then looked at me with such a look of pride. I was proud too, because that realization is an important one for any playful soul - and my child is nothing if not playful. I was also relieved: up until about 2 months and 10 mommy-pounds ago, Owen really wasn't sure what to do with my belly. He could tell that my belly-button wasn't like the rest of my belly, and he could tell too (after several interesting attempts) that my belly-button was not an oddly shaped nipple. So, this realization that bellies are for raspberries is one I consider equal to the realization that farts are funny and that it is not ok to throw food off the high chair. We're still eagerly anticipating these last two.

Balloon love

I'm not sure what it is about balloons that captivate kids so. I suppose it's that they float, and are often covered in colorful pictures and words. And maybe they're associated with parties, cake, and attention. Or it could just be something inherent to balloons. Regardless, Owen has a fiery passion for the round things, particularly ones filled with helium. He practically assaulted a miraculously-still-surviving Valentine's Day balloon at Monica & Klaus' house on Sunday; I guess we figured if the balloon lasted from February 14 to April 13 that it could probably handle Owen's chubby grabs and slobbery gnaws. The problem is it caused him to squeal so enthusiastically that we feared he would wake up Kai, and perhaps any other poor soul trying to sleep somewhere within a 2 mile radius.


So today at the store I bought Owen a Spiderman balloon. My acquiesing to Marvel Comics' marketing seemed somehow more honest than buying him a "Congratulations!" or "Good luck!" balloon. I figure, for a kid with an XY chromosomal makeup, Spiderman is pretty much always appropriate. At any rate, it was love at first grab, kiss, slobber, and shake. He hugged the balloon the whole way home, squeaking it with his hands, squealing at it when it dared to bob above him, and rubbing his face on it. It was then that I realized with some mixture of horror and amusement that Owen felt the way about this balloon that I feel about the tub of cookie dough in our refrigerator.

Life from pregnancy onwards: it's all fair game

I've told some of you the (now old) story of the woman at work who, when she saw me rinsing my pumping supplies in the ladies room, asked me "How old is your baby now?" I said, "He's 7 months" and she said "And you're still pumping? You're not going to be one of those women who breastfeeds their kid until he's three, are you?" I was impressed: I had never heard someone make the word "those" and "three" sound so dirty.


Suffice to say, my reply contained no expletives or rude gestures (not that she deserved such restraint), but more of the "Would it really bother you?" variety of reaction followed by awkward silence and then some more awkward silence as I realized that she believed my question to be rhetorical and she realized that it wasn't.


I've come to understand, since the moment I was widely-known to be pregnant (either through word-of-mouth at work or through the belly protruding later) that people have no hesitation about sharing unsolicited advice, opinions, or horrific stories with pregnant women and moms. For example, there was the woman who asked me when I was about 32 weeks pregnant, "How much weight have you gained?" And when I just stared at her blankly trying to think of a situation where that would ever be an appropriate question, she lost all frontal lobe function right before my eyes: "...because I hope you're not going to be one of those women who gain 40 pounds!" You can bet my response was a shrug and a smile - this woman is easily 1/3 of my non-pregnant weight - to tell her I hit 196 would probably send her into some type of frothy convulsions. Come to think of it, it may have been worth it.


The truth is, I was one of those women - I proudly gained 46 pounds and have lost 40 of those pounds since the birth of my child. I may also be one of those women who breastfeed my child until he is three. Who is to say? And who does it bother? Both the Canadian and British pediatric associations recommend breastfeeding until age 2. The American Medical Association only goes so far as to recommend nursing for 1 year (but they're off the hook as far as I'm concerned: they're probably just happy if you do not feed your child McDonald's before s/he has teeth). My friend Monica and I would be happy, I'm sure, to discuss the benefits of extended breastfeeding at length to any interested parties.


My friend Jenn and I were talking about this and I think she put it best: people who have a problem with nursing older babies/toddlers probably imagine a scenario where the child nurses every two hours like a newborn and relies on breastfeeding for a majority of their nutrition. That's not it at all. As Jenn rightly pointed out, at this point, nursing Owen isn't really about his nutrition anymore, although of course it is good for him; it's about snuggles and comfort. Sure, it has been shown to boost immunity even beyond 1 year, and it has been correlated with improved social skills and higher IQ - but any of these things could also be correlated with being raised by fabulous hippie parents who, coincidentally, are also more prone to extended breastfeeding. For Owen, it's a way to settle down after an active day at school with his friends, and to transition in and out of naps and nighttime. For me, it's time I get snuggles with an increasingly active boy. I love the way he giggles and says "yum yum" when I ask him if he wants nursies. It's things like this that make me relate - somewhat - to the women who nurse their kids well past their first math exam.


Even in my open-minded world I have gotten the occasional well-meaning query about how long I plan to nurse Owen, and to that I can only offer this deal: I will stop nursing Owen sometime between now and when he prefers his breastmilk chilled in a wine glass. Deal?

My other kids

Ahhh just got home from an AWESOME day in San Diego with the Havens. We had a picnic at the park - the pics will soon be uploaded to Picasa - the weather, food, & company were all unbelievable. But I have this post I started Friday and want to get posted - I'll try to post another update tomorrow on all-things-Owen (he's just amazing lately!).



Can I do another plug for Jenn's blog? The link is now at left. Because honestly, it's probably my favorite blog out there, and that includes dooce, so that's saying something. Read it. All the entries. Jenn is laugh-out-loud funny, and none of it (I promise) is made up. Her posts make me want to go back and edit all of mine to make them funnier.



Thursday night Jenn and I had girls-night-out, which consisted of a very tame evening of Margaritas and appetizers, which we chased with a trip to the Carters store. I told Marcy at daycare about this and although my point was how fun last night was, her first comment was "You went to Carters for girls night out? Lauren. Carters?" It's true, we did. But did I mention the part about the margaritas?

Jenn told me a couple of awesome stories about the kiddos, but my favorite one was about Cathryn. Cathryn is my current muse of the three (it rotates pretty evenly) and she is an entirely different kid than her younger (by a couple minutes) sister. Again, Jenn describes Cate perfectly on her blog, but another story, which Jenn shared with me Thursday, is just classic, perfect Cate:

[Cate walks into the bedroom holding her crotch and dancing side to side]
Jenn: Cathryn, do you need to use the potty?
Cate: Nope. I'm just scrrratchin'!



I love it because she's just so funny and blunt. I'd love to write a million more stories about all the kiddos (I just got off the phone with the Services; Charlie and I counted to 20 together and it was totally adorable. I love how some numbers are more fun to say than others - apparently Charlie likes to say "seventeeeeeen!"), but need to get back to my own precious boy. More soon.

Daycare

Yeah, my kiddo has no fun at daycare! If you want to see more pics of Owen at daycare, email me and I'll send you the link. The boy with him is his buddy Brandon.

Hellplantation

I need some reassurance. Either reassure me that it's normal for an angel child to have an occasional demon possession, or reassure me that the stage we're entering is "not so bad".

Last night we met Gary and Kim at Souplantation. Kim is 20 weeks pregnant and we haven't gotten together in awhile, so we figured we'd meet at Souplantation for some dinner, some parental advice, some good times. The good times were really no where to be found - Owen was just a total joy (or, wait, no I mean the opposite of joy) and poor Gary and Kim - it wasn't their fault. Or was it? We tease them that Owen is a hellion only around them, and I must admit that I've yet to be convinced otherwise. You see, when Owen was 7 weeks old, Gary and Kim came over for dinner and Owen cried for about 30 minutes straight that night. Inconsolable. His crying, up to that point, was easily squelched with a boob or a diaper change. After that dinner, he cried for ~15-30 min nightly for a few weeks, and we've since read that it's really common for very little babies to do that - as a kind of letting-go-of-the-day kind of thing - but it was the first time they'd met Owen so I'm sure they thought he cried like that all the time. It was so out of character for him at the time that both Keith and I were completely bewildered and it totally stressed us out.

So, let's return to last night. Remember how I was saying that Owen was an angel this weekend? Last night - not so much. He wouldn't eat anything (unheard of!), would throw whatever we gave him (the poor cleaning staff, honestly), shook his head "no" to every offering, screeched a good portion of the evening, didn't want to sit, didn't want to be held, only wanted Mama (that's pretty normal) but then didn't really want Mama. Gary and Kim laughed and we all joked about it. But Owen was acting like a maniac, and I have to admit that I'm just not ready for this. I know we've been lucky and I realize that this is largely a brag-blog, but honestly - I don't know how I will deal with it if my sweet boy becomes a normal toddler. Sigh.

Playing catch up

I feel so lame that I haven't updated this blog in over a week! To be fair, last week was a doozy, and then I went up north for the weekend to see Nonnie and Papa with Owen, so I apologize for not being more "in touch" on this site. I pledge to do better this week! Yeah, we'll see how that goes.

Owen and I flew up Thursday night. I had no idea what to expect on the flight. He's 12 months now - his reaction to flying could range from mellow to screaming banshee not wanting to sit still for an HOUR. Who am I to predict such a thing?

The airport was interesting. He wanted to crawl all over; any mother can tell you that the last thing she really wants to see is her child crawling on the floor of an airport terminal, but I can also guarantee that the last thing that anyone else wanted to see was a screaming back-arching child waiting to board the same plane as them. Sooo, he crawled on the floor of the airport terminal. To all those gaping in horror at their computer screen, believe me when I say that we washed his hands very well and went through almost an entire bottle of hand sanitizer. It was all worth it because as soon as we got on the plane, we read some books, he nursed, and then he was asleep. We had a whole row to ourselves - bliss! He slept the whole flight, the whole drive home, I put him to bed and it was fantastic. And, aside from the green fungus on the palms of his hands, he's totally fine!

The trip back to OC was somewhat less subdued but I was blessed with no one in the middle seat and so Mr. Snuggles was able to play on the floor (again with the floor, I know I know), play with the man behind us (which was all fun and games until Owen smacked the top of this guy's head when he was reading leaning over his tray table - whoops!), and look out (and occasionally attempt to lick) the window.

In between the two flights, Owen learned a new word ("doggie!" - exclamation point included of course), charmed the pants off of all our friends up north, crawled all over Nonnie's garden, and spent a good amount of time hugging Ozzie (this activity is also known as "collecting dog hair" - seriously, springtime is not a good time to introduce a 2.5 foot tall dog fanatic to a laborador). Ozzie is such a perfect dog for kids, though. He gave the occasional sweet lick (nothing like Blue's unending painting in dog slobber), let Owen roll all over him and hug him, and - and this part is amazing - let Owen touch his tongue, nose, eyes, ears...he's a sweet DOGGIE!! Owen was constantly signing and saying "doggie" it was cute and also exhausting because I knew each snuggle session with Ozzie meant a change of clothes. Anyone who knows me at all probably knows that I brought more clothes for Owen than he would normally need for a 2 week vacation, and yet I could have used many more clothes for him given how quickly they were covered in Ozzie fur.

I, myself, had a great time. It was one of the funnest trips in recent memory, not only because of the fantastic cocktail party Mommers threw on Friday (complete with 6 types of homemade savory galettes and fabulous company) but also because of the nice visiting time with Mommers, Diana, Meredith & Bill, and Michelle & Lance. I was somewhat anxious about traveling with Owen alone at this age (his, not mine - at 33 I've learned the ropes) but I seem to always forget what a joy he is and what a charmer he is; he manages to win people over no matter where he goes.

While we were gone, Keith went for a looong ride on Saturday and started an Oktoberfest brew with Stew & Jenny on Sunday. I came home to a fabulous dinner and tasty Lambic. All in all, a really great week!

Tonight: Dinner with Gary & Kim (she's pregnant!). Thursday - girls night out with Jenn. Friday - fun at home with Owen & the Triplets. I'll keep everyone up-to-date with the scoop.