My blond babies

I have so many real topics that I want to write about, but the arrival of August is sending me into full-on panic mode about finishing school, finding a job, etc. The pressure is on, and some days I wilt, but I guess that is to be expected.

Thank you for your lengthy comments on my last post. I guess that I was not thinking so much about the logistics as the changes that children bring. It is weird to think that despite the fact that we just celebrated our third wedding anniversary, I only notified one of my three bridesmaids about pregnancy #2 (at that one happened to be my sister, although quite by luck a second bridesmaid did show up at the bris). I guess that it's just the speed of the changes. When we moved (last month) I got rid of so many items from my closet, but I am obviously not going to have time/money/need to replace them. And in some ways friendships are much the same. I have plenty of lovely acquaintances who I spend time with, but whenever I read a blog where someone mentions calling their friend every day to check in, or flying across the country to meet up with a lifelong friend, well ... sigh. Oh yeah, and it doesn't help that JD categorically refuses to socialize with other families, except for 2 or 3 couples (some of whom happen to be blog readers). I can drag him to a toddler birthday party, but ain't no way that man is going to make small talk.

And speaking of lovely acquaintances, one of the things which I am most deeply grateful for is the diversity of our acquaintances. I am always interested in how other women parent biracial or adopted children, but I feel like in many ways we have been able to postpone those conversations. Maybe our child is particularly clueless, maybe I am particularly tolerant of potentially inappropriate comments, but mostly I think that we just happen to live in a delightfully diverse neighborhood/circle of friends.

I love that every Chinese grandmother within a 2 mile radius recognizes my children and asks enthusiastically after them (usually not in English, so the conversations are brief).

I love that the fusspot has a dear friend with a physical disability, which she seems to have never noticed.

I love that the owner of our local dry cleaner comes out from behind the counter to tell my daughter funny stories in Chinese. And yes, I am happy to let a 50 year old man whose name I don't know hold my baby when he asks because it is so very apparent that he is watching out for our family (we live above the dry cleaner and our bus stop is in front of it, so we spend a lot of time waving to him from the window).

I love that the waiters at our favorite mediocre local sushi place come over to show me photos of their toddlers and to sing my daughter nursery rhymes in Chinese. Oh, and the free miso soup. Makes cheap sushi even better.

I love that my daughter is often the whitest child in her dance class. Definitely not the closest class, but worth the commute.

I love that we live equidistant from 2 gorgeous NYC playgrounds. At the ritzy one, the diversity can be heard in the nannies' accents. At the sun-drenched barbecue-smoke-filled one we get quite a few stares from the adults (who are far far fewer in ratio to kids than at the other playground), but nothing but affection from the children.

I love that when my friend was complaining that her daughters' first word was dada despite the utter absence of such a figure in her life, the fusspot could ask: "No dada?" to which I replied: "No, but she has 2 mamas" (and a known donor) and the fusspot muttered "Lucky" and wandered off.

I love that when waiting in line for the museum the fusspot asked me rather innocently if the security guard happened to be "my dada." It was exceedingly adorable since the 300 or so pound guy looked younger than me. Oh yeah, and he was black. But it made excellent toddler sense given that she is always lining up "Mama pasta, baby pasta; Mama shoes, baby shoes; Mama poo; baby poo." If size determines family relationship, she had a good chance of being correct.

I love that our local childrens' bookstore has a huge display celebrating gay marriage, and that the fusspot has books in at least 6 languages on her bookshelf (not that we anticipate her understanding those languages, but it is nice to know that people who love her have gifted us books close to their hearts from such different places).

And it is in part the delightful bubble of innocence surrounding race which in part seems to keep me from engaging properly with the very community that I grew up in, the religious one which defines my moral standards and provided so much support throughout my life. Although we are still under a mile from our old synagogue, our new apartment is exactly one block from a very popular synagogue (as in, you open our front door, walk to the end of the block, and up the ramp to the synagogue) and I keep considering going. And then don't. I know that this too will change. As I read more waldorf books about education and think about the "rhythm" of our home it's hard not to translate that for us into the jam-packed fall holiday schedule, and I certainly have no intention of "skipping" any of that. I guess that I hope my children will someday be able to "pass" (not necessarily with all of the negative connotations as that is often used), to be comfortable in both communities, to at least be able to choose how to identify. But here it is, shabbos eve, and I am yet again out at my in-laws preparing for a (kosher) barbecue and quick swim before sunset, rather than bathing the kids and dressing them in neatly ironed (who are we kidding - just not stained will do) outfits. I do not think that feeling comfortable in one community neccessarily means giving up the other, and I am sure that this waxing and waning will shift over time, but for now I am in part choosing to keep my children in a (large, amorphous) bubble. Just not the one I thought we'd be in.

Sadly this post is not all rainbows and butterflies

although neither is it in any way about regret. I guess I am just trying to come to terms with reality, and wondering in part if my experience is a little different than other peoples'.

1. There was a Wall Stree.t Journal article last week about a woman detailing her IF struggles. In it she laments that her friends with kids did not sternly admonish her to start trying to have a baby at 26 (no idea where that magical number comes from), that she did not seize every one night stand/casual boyfriend as a possible opportunity to get pregnant, the usual lament of a single, infertile 42 year old. And reading it I was thinking about what I would say if one of my friends asked about the ideal time to have a baby (and related I'm 99% sure that the colleague I am having lunch with today is going to tell me that they are "just about ready"). And I'm really not sure that I would say 26 (by which point we'd already been trying for a little while and were certainly fully enrolled in our IF clinic). Not that I have any regrets at all, and in my case given the litany of IF problems I had I cannot imagine having anything other than eternal thanks that I both had a partner and the resources to be doing an IF work-up at 24 ...

2. Since JD is currently on leave and thus home before 11 pm, it would be quite easy for me to go out one night with friends for a drink, a movie, exploring the big city. So it came as a rather sad realization that I don't have any friends to do that with. I turns out that I do 100% of my socializing over the heads of my babies so my local friends are either working mothers who are too busy to get together or SAHMs who want to spend time with their husbands at night. My pre-baby friends? Gone. I have 2 close work colleagues but they are both guys and I'm pretty sure neither would consider going out for a drink at night with me (one because of the gf, one because of the lack of a gf). Let's put that more succintly: I live in the city that never sleeps and I don't have a single friend to go out and have a drink at 9 pm with. Or see a movie. Or go shopping. And that is because I "decided" to have kids before 30, because my college and grad school friends are still living life without schedules and naptimes.

3. Two of my close mom friends just moved to the suburbs. Since they both work full-time, they are well-aware that their lives will now consist of daycare drop-off, pick-up, bedtime routine. They are not going to meet local moms, they are not going to be able to squeeze in a 4:30 pm playtime, as we did quite happily with both of them. My best friend (who is a military wife) says she has no friends from the last 2 places she's lived that she plans to keep in touch with. I am just not sure that I can live that way.

I guess that the breaks in our routine are so few that it's just now that I am realizing the extent of the change.

The trivial things

We are back from our much-needed family vacation. It was quite lovely, apart from a few stints in the car with a disgruntled baby. We kept the fusspot up way past her bedtime every evening and she held it together exceedingly well. We skipped some of the more popular tourist sites for the municipal swimming pool on multiple occasions and it was an excellent decision. My husband even grudgingly admired my superior skills at packing a car for a road trip (this trip 6 small totes on the back seat floor ready for every eventuality: one for swimming, one for snacks, one for quick outfit/diaper changes at a rest area, one with toddler entertainment including an etsy quiet book which she loves and is only allowed on long trips, one with pjs and story books for pre-bedtime preparation when we were out late, etc.). I am exhausted but back at work and slowly getting things done.

The only real issue is that about 2 hours before we took off we went for the dumpling's 4 month appointment. And the kid is little. Skinny, practically no weight gain from 2 months, overall small. Yes, he's definitely still on the growth charts and if it weren't for his rather robust entry into the world at 8 lbs 2 oz and gain to 12 lbs at 4 weeks they probably wouldn't have noticed. The rational part of my brain knows that this is all so much fuss over nothing, that he's well-fed and that healthy babies grow on their own schedule. 99% of me wants to ignore this entirely and skip the follow-up appointment. If you just look at him he looks lovely and healthy: rolls on his arms and legs, rolling in both directions with ease, content baby. It's only when you line him up next to other 4 month olds that he starts to look small. I saw 2 babies out at the pool yesterday who I guess were at least 6 months old, but no, they were in fact both younger than my dumpling.

So much of me just feels angry about this. I grew a beautiful baby, I spend hours every day nursing on demand, he is rarely even set down and yet the pediatrician finds a way to make me feel guilty. She strongly encouraged me to up his bottles even though the kid shows no hunger signs between sessions and will sometimes refuse a bottle of pumped milk (even a warm bottle pumped just for the occasion). She was just about to gear up for the ever-so-earnest formula conversation when I assured her that I have no supply problems at all and if she wants me to pump extra I will (time and nipple pain apparently being irrelevant to this faux-selfless mother, and yes I am very thankful that I do not have supply problems although longtime readers may recall that we have had plenty of nursing issues over the years and I hardly take this feeding method for granted).

But I am way too nervous to actual skip the appointment and so instead here I sit pumping (again) and feeling rather remorseful that I have entirely un-night weaned my heavy sleeper in order to add a few extra feeds into the day. I really think that my anger is one of the lasting legacies of infertility. My body has been scrutinized so thoroughly over the past years: not only by the usual bouts of doctors but the fertility clinic which put me on the strictest of diets, the gestational diabetes clinic which monitored every bite I ate, the baby who would not latch on for 3 weeks and the many people who helped, etc. I guess I just wish that either there could be a little less surveillance, or I could learn to distance myself from the endless numbers.

If the dumpling were 8 ounces heavier, we would have been briskly ushered out with a "see you in 2 months" wave. Eight ounces really nothing in the big scheme of things and yet here I sit obsessing.

Upstate New York? Toronto?

Really, I have things to write about. Substantive things. Like co-parenting and the racial composition of our local neighborhoods and mom friends and work. But for now, another quick question for my dear readers.

After much lingering anger at my darling JD for failing to plan a summer vacation, I finally told him outright that I was really pissed and I expected him to fix it immediately. Hence, we going on a real Va-Kay! After a good hour pricing all of our options, including train and plane to various local-ish destinations we are off to Toronto by car. Our current plan is to spend a night in Rochester on the way up to Toronto and a night each in Niagara and Syracuse on the way back to the city (the fusspot and dumpling are in their carseats exceedingly rarely, which means that long car trips don't always go that smoothly). So now I ask you, dear readers:

1. Good stops enroute from NYC to upstate New York?
2. Good restaurants/places to run around in the Finger Lakes district?
3. Thoughts on visiting Toronto?
4. Thoughts on visiting Niagara with a toddler in tow?

All advice very much appreciated.