All that uncertainty

First, not everything is stress and gloom.  I took the kids out for a lovely day today.  Special storytime in the Morgan library, kosher Indian lunch, spice shopping, Christmas train exhibit at Grand Central ... and then home to a fine dinner of pasta and shredded cheese.  And I am really trying to separate, to enjoy my time with the kids, to try and squeeze in a few more NYC things.   I even have a long list taped to the back of our apartment door of things to do before we leave, including haircuits (ah, Spanish-bodega-$5-haircuits, we will miss you), museum exhibits, playdates ... but let's talk about what happens when we get to the new city.

And  I guess this is what makes this whole thing so very, very hard.  I literally have no idea.  I don't know if this whole career choice of mine is over, but JD seems to be acting distinctly as if it is.  He has made -zero- effort to find me any type of childcare (which really is not the kind of thing one can do remotely).  Zero.  I had him interview two nannies from nanny shares, but both fell apart as we waited to find an apartment.  Even if I need to take a hiatus from grad school, I would like to work.  At least part-time.  At least doing something.  For many reasons, but primarily including that I need to have the possibility to support my children before I consider having more.   And I have even already lined up some entirely flexible 20-30 hours per week work.  But to do that and stay sane I need some childcare, even 10 hours a week.  We are actually bringing our favorite babysitter with to help with the first day or two of the move (and the final throwing air mattresses and suitcases in the car and driving 4-hours since JD is not planning to come for the move itself), but after she leaves?  No idea.

I really love the idea of taking a few weeks off, of enjoying some quality time with my kids, of exploring a new neighborhood, but why there?  Why is it one am and I am still working here in NYC, but may not be there.  And does JD really expect me to work part-time without any childcare? 

And the fear.  In the past month I have spent a significant amount of time with 3 teens/early-20s girls.  One of them we are trying to help support financially because her parents are awful and it is only through her incredible generosity that she still has any relationship with them, one of them we employ to babysit but I have also been finding her legal advice/paying random medical expenses/getting financial advice, and one is the daughter of our daycare provider, a lovely confident girl whose college applications I just finished editing.  And they so much remind me of the freedom of being young and unencumbered and full of energy, but also the grim economic prospects for their generation.  Last week our babysitter showed up at our apartment with a bruised, possibly broken, hand.  She was actually there with another charge, so I immediately dispensed her to urgent care, promising to cover the bill if necessary.  When she returned I went out (I know!!! wild times!!!) and received a phone call a few minutes before 11 pm from girl #3, panicked about a last minute revision to a college essay.  This child comes from a stable, loving family with 2 very well-educated parents ... who are not native English speakers.  And apparently her NYC public high school (a truly prestigious one) has provided her with no language help on her applications.  So there I was, on my one night out, borrowing a friend's computer to add subject-verb agreement minutes before the deadline.  And of course there are the weekly check-ins with girl #1 who has bravely set off alone on an airplane for a study abroad program.  I know this is incoherent, but the point is the whole picture terrifies me.  These girls are 17, 21, and 22, and yet they desperately need financial and emotional support.  It would be nice to take some time to consider "career options" and look for a job and think about "what I really want to do," but the truth is that the best option for me right now might just be a stable, reliable paycheck.  I just don't have the confidence I once did in my skills, credentials, and the job market to sit back and relax about a regular paycheck, and I really just don't want to imagine my children at 17 or 21 or 22 left quite as stranded as all 3 of these children are.

Back with a little more doom and gloom

Instead of thinking of posts, I am just going to start writing.  And I have a lot to write about, but tonight I guess it's anger.

It's 2 am.  I am packing.  There are so many things I really should be doing instead (work, for example, cooking something other than mac and cheese, for another) but I am too tired.  The fusspot is sick and she keeps crying and waking the dumpling (yes, we're still all sleeping in one room, the other room is a wall of boxes at the moment).

And I just don't get it.  I have spent so many hours watching other people's kids, running errands for them, helping with parties, rearranging my entire schedule for their convenience ... and yet I'm all alone and no one has so much as offered to help.  The silly favors I did (like loaning our moving boxes out) have entirely backfired. 

And my fear is simply that I am so burned out on flakey friends and people who are "too busy" to check in or offer to help that I will not even bother to make new friends in this new city.  No one wants to befriend doom and gloom, but it's hard to feel sweet! and perky! and interesting! when I keep wondering whether it's worth it.  Two friends wrote 2 weeks ago to say they "desperately" wanted to see me before I go.  I wrote back within hours asking them to tell me when and we'd do it and ... silence.  I suppose those were meant to be sweet, rhetorical words about getting together?

And I need friends.  I am not only fairly social, but I often really need help.  On Friday night we got home from dinner at 11 pm with 2 very tired but awake children.  And the battery was going in the carbon monoxide detector ... so it beeps every 60 seconds.  On the ceiling.  The 12 foot ceiling.  It was truly too late to call the super, but there was no way to sleep through that.  So I sent out a desperate e-mail to friends, and within 15 minutes a friend had dispatched her husband to come fix it (helps that he was out at 11 pm on Friday night picking up groceries ... ah, more things I'll miss in the big city).

And moreover, we all know it's easier to make friends at moments of transition - high school, college, first jobs, new babies.  And even harder to meet the type of women I get along with the best (and who keep similar schedules) - those who work part-time or with a flexible schedule but not the 80-hour-a-week-jobs many of my friends do.  Is it expecting too much to think that friends might offer to help the (locationally) single-parent-of-two with her move?  I have certainly mentioned to several people that we are (of course) packing everything ourselves (by which I mean myself, last move JD packed one box, this year he has yet to get there) and even if we weren't you'd think someone might think to invite us over for a meal the last week or have my kids over for a playdate?  Or is that just not done?

And in case anyone is considering a move anytime soon, my firm advice is to try not to find yourself in a position where you have to keep your apartment "show ready" for subletters every day while packing and living alone with 2 kids ... it's fairly tiring. 

The usual overwhelmed, but with end in sight

Ugh, new blogger features.  Sorry about the blank post.

I sat down to write an update last Thursday night and JD promptly called "just to check" if it was okay that someone wanted to see our apartment at 8 am the next morning.  And so goes life.

I am busy: writing, trying to keep our apartment mildly presentable so we can get it sublet before the end of the month, packing a full apartment, arranging all sorts of absurd moving details (car insurance, pre-K, doctors appointments, new utilities, new drivers license, blackout curtains, the usual mundane details) ... all without JD who is busy at his new job in DC.  It's a little exhausting.

And more than just the moving details (which honestly don't faze me that much), I am in the process of saying goodbye to friends and trying to squeeze in a few more city activities, and spending as much time as I can with the fusspot as she processes leaving her school and friends and dance and language classes ... and I am just not sure where I am going to get the energy to enthusiastically set about building a new social network.  We know plenty of people in DC (I did grow up down South) but they all work full-time, and given the awful geography, I just don't see us actually seeing any of them very much.  And of course, we are the only ones with "older" children.  Several have very new babies, but we have only one local friend to meet up with at the playground and such.

And in the midst of all of that, just a few days before the rest of the Western hemisphere turns to navel gazing on January 1st, I looked in the mirror on Christmas Day and realized I really, really need to diet (wish I could exercise but seeing as I have trouble finding time to take the trash out without the kids, I don't really see any time for a jog).  I weigh as much as I did at the end of pregnancy #2, and quite honestly look rather pregnant.  My JJ bras don't fit, and my metabolism surely isn't getting any better.  So I decided to take small and moderate steps towards reducing my sugar intake ... and what do you know 2 weeks later (and 21 months post-partum) I started spotting.  So there's that.  Which is to say that I am pretty sure that with enough resolve I could get my body onto some type of cycle (long-time readers may recall that both of my pregnancies were the result of IF treatments in a month following a weight loss of 30+ lbs.  Yes, 30+ lbs in under 30 days seems to be the magic math which kicks my body into recognizable cycle shape, even if I probably still don't ovulate without help.  And no, I am not overweight.  My BMI is still normal and I wear size 6 pants.  This is entirely about insulin resistance, not weight).  So here's to hoping to return here to vent about many absurd things (the joys of showing a rodent-infested apartment are one I will try not to discuss in too much detail, but oh my!) and also a little actual IF-related angst.