It is the eve of the most important time for reflection in our calendar ...

I should be busy calling friends, having a serious conversation with my husband, prepping my children to behave in synagogue, preparing a break-fast and ...

instead I am sitting on the couch horror-stricken as I watch the mice run freely across the living room.  You know, the floor strewn with toys and where my children will get dressed in a few short hours.  All career angst will be postponed until the mice are under control.

The thing is that this is NYC.  We live above Dunkin Donuts (up 6 floors, but still).  And a famous pizza place.  And a bubble tea storefront.  And we are the only residents of our floor who have been here less than 40 years (nothing against old folks, but their tolerance for mice is way higher than mine).

Oh, and I am paranoid of spraying chemicals and my adorable dumpling is a toddler boy who loves to explore gadgets, so no glue traps or even kid-friendly snap traps allowed.  Instead we bleach, scrub, reseal every electrical outlet and crack ... and hope that our neighbors eventually call in the toxic chemicals.  Other suggestions welcomed (we have the plug-in sound rodent things, and don't think they work).  There have been mice before and they have always disappeared within a week.  All of our food is in glass jars or the fridge.  The bleach is out.  But I am suspicious that these are baby mice and the nest may well be near our apartment.  I am also so entirely grossed out by NYC rodents touching toddler toys that I may well spend the next week disinfecting every toy in sight (seriously, there were bite marks on two board books ... and the cardboard box where we keep the blocks ...).

Mice.  Gross.  Career angst on hold.

But in all seriousness, even if JD were living here, you'd better bet that both the mice and the fusspot's doctor's appointment would fall to me.  Speaking of which, utter success.  I priced appointments with CityMD (very reasonable), the copay at the pediatric ER (covered by insurance), got an estimate from our pediatrician ($350 and they wouldn't even commit to no higher than that) ... and then got our actual pediatrician on the phone who offered to just write off the bill entirely.  So yeah, I paid $50 cash and she wrote a note for the billing department and that was easy and done.  But 4 phone calls that I placed this morning even though theoretically any of them could have been done by JD, even from afar (this is not really a criticism of him, but more a need to acknowledge that even in 2012 household management is time consuming and annoying).

Mice.  4 feet away from me.  Not in the least scared of me.  So gross.

Let's just fess up

I had dinner last night with some of JD's friends.  You know the rather intimidating sort who you'd love to be friends with but maybe can't quite cut it.  And managed to say quite a few embarrassing things, which made me far less talkative today. 

Anyway ...

This goes against practically everything I've written here before about being a working parent (and I really and genuinely hope that it comes just from a place of pure exhaustion), but it is hard at this point in my life (age 31) to fathom exactly how my chosen career will work out with 2 kids (and dreams of more).  I realize that this is and was patently obvious to many people; that entering a highly competitive, family-unfriendly field with a very defined and limited "clock" to prove oneself and just figuring I could work harder/strategize better and make it was delusional.  But it worked for a while, and now I have to try and figure something out. 

And it really, really doesn't help that the only women I see on a daily or weekly basis are SAHMs.  The working moms I know simply don't have time to e-mail or pick up the phone or get together on the weekends.  In NYC even the working women without kids are exceedingly hard to meet up with.  One of JD's endless frustrations with the big city is living within 2 miles of at least 10 friends and seeing them once or twice a year at most, and usually at big events.  We have good friends who live 2 blocks away from us and we have not seen them except at weddings for the past 2 years.

So I spent this afternoon on the playground with 2 SAHMs and it is hard not to be envious of their lives.  One worked and has the presence of mind to acknowledge quite how delightful not working is, the other never worked and does not have the grace to realize how lucky she is that her husband can support their family in the city.  They are just relaxed (and yes, I realize that neither has any financial concerns which helps immensely).

I always said I'd love to take 5 years off and then work, but there's just no on ramp in my career, and despite having held a multitude of minimum wage jobs (waitressing, nannying, restaurant management, greeter at the Mall of Ameri.ca, retail, unloading trucks, low level secretarial work ...) my CV right now is full of things that only someone in academia could possibly value.  So if I were to step off the career track now (whether by choice or not) it is hard to imagine a good next step.  And what I conclusively don't want to do is wake up to find myself 50 and home alone with no prospects of interesting work.  So there's that.  But there's also the fact that I very rarely get to bed before 2 am, that I can't stand feeling guilty for taking 20 minutes to watch the Daily Show on my computer, the endless stress ...

Yesterday I yelled at the fusspot perhaps a dozen times.  Until this summer I had never even raised my voice at my child.  Yes, she can get into a lot more serious trouble now that she's older and sometimes the loud urgent voice is necessary to keep her out of trouble (barefoot on a playground with broken glass, for example, circa 4 pm today.  She took her shoes off behind my back and then headed straight toward the smashed bottle ...), but it's just not okay.  I try so hard every day to bracket the work stress, to separate, to slow to the pace of my toddlers.  But it is hard.  And while I can deal with the sleeplessness and the stress, I cannot handle the guilt of transferring that stress onto my kids. 

In an entirely unrelated question: any advice of finding a way to see a pediatrician inexpensively?  My silly husband signed us up for a local HMO (meaning only coverage is in an entirely different state) and the fusspot seems to have come down with a UTI.  Of course, I am also super-hesitant to give her antibiotics (I am deathly allergic) but we at least need to have the UTI closely monitored since it can turn into rather scary things quickly ... and I really don't want to pay $300 to spend 60 seconds talking to our doctor while she scribbles out a prescription.  I really doubt a target-like clinic could handle this, but any other thoughts?  And yes, of course, if necessary we'll just pay cash for the appointment.

The usual, and a few thoughts on happines

I went to bed around 1:30 am.  The fusspot woke up wet at 3 am and proceeded to wake the dumpling (we're all sleeping in one room at the moment).  I carried a very grumpy fusspot to the living room, nursed dumpling back to sleep, changed and snuggled the fusspot ... rushed out the door to school/work ... stepped on a bee in Central Park and now have a rather ouchy foot ...

Of course, I also got to spend a half hour with the fusspot in Starbucks before her Chin.ese class.  I had this fantasy that since it was just the two of us for once we would take her sketchpad to Central Park and color and read books.  But no, she was quite clear that she wanted to "go to that place with the chocolate milk with straws in the counter" and so we did.  And she had such a great time perched on the windowsill chattering about all of the people who came into the store.

Here's the thing: I have always been committed to working.  For financial reasons yes (and more importantly to reduce the stress of being the sole breadwinner on my husband especially given the uncertainty of this economy) but also because I watched my mother work part-time at a traditionally female job and have seen how her work is perpetually undervalued.  She has always wished in retrospect that she had a more useful degree.  And I have also been given every possible educational benefit: elite prep school, graduated debt-free from an elite college (ok, under $2000 in debt, and most of that was from unpaid parking tickets my ex accrued on my car while cheating on me ... always a great story when I explain exactly why I desperately needed my first post-graduate job at that ever-iconic Mall of A.me.erica), attended 7 years of graduate school with a very generous stipend.  It seems like all of that must have been toward something.

But there was a moment when I picked the fusspot up from school last week when I started to dread the future.  She's actually in a full-day free pre-K program, so her schedule is the same as the elementary and middle school kids.  And there I was lined up to collect her at 2:45 pm.  And the thought of 15 more years of mid-afternoon school pick-ups, of rushed school lunches packed in the morning, of doctors appointments squeezed into weird teacher workdays.  Absolutely nothing about the current educational schedule is set up to allow both parents to work.  And despite all wishes for an egalitarian marriage, I will be the one planning school pick-ups and calling babysitters and remembering forms and creating lovingly complex summer schedules.  For 15 years, or more if we get super-de-duper-lucky.  I'm not complaining about that at all, but just wondering what having a stressful career adds to that mix.

And right now what I am doing is fairly torturous.  And I keep reading wonderful mommy blogs about "seize the day" and "enjoy what you're doing" and such.  And I actually find that rhetoric useful in parenting.  Finding time to light a candle before dinner to make it special, packing silly notes in the fusspot's backpack, randomly agreeing to head to Starbucks because she likes their chocolate milk (even if I had planned a much "cooler" afternoon activity).  But there is nothing to suggest that my chosen career will be enjoyable for the next many years.  Of course, JD would say that such a question would never be prioritized for a guy.  He would call it decidedly self-centered to abandon my incredible privileges and revert to something easier.  It is certainly a decision I would regret later in life, as I see myself being particularly low on patience for the lack of respect given to many female-dominated careers like teaching.  But perhaps the costs are too great now?  And then what do I tell my daughter?  Study hard, plan for your college app, pull you all-nighters in school ... all so you may too marry and have children some day? (This is in no way meant to offend my SAHM readers.  For many being at home is a calling, a religious obligation, a lovingly supported position.  I just find it hard to encourage my child to push herself if that is truly the likely end outcome.  I would assuredly be as good a mother without the multiple advanced degrees.  No matter how we try to delay it, the pressure has already started.  She knows that all of her friends are in private school except for her.  And this very afternoon I was that mother dragging my 3 year old to Chin.es.e classes when she would have been just as happy at the playground running in circles.  And honestly, my two closest friends who planned to be SAHMs had much more pleasant early 20's because they held non-career jobs, focused on setting up their households, etc.  I'm not sure the friend I talked to tonight who spent 6 years getting an engineering degree and is now at home, most likely for good, really considers all of that work worth it).  Or maybe it's just giving up the idea of happiness.  Work is work and I may just need to get used to that.

We're off tomorrow afternoon to my mom's for the New Years.  Chag sameach and best wishes for a wonderful holiday for those of you who celebrate.

So back to single parenting

well, it's exhausting.  We all know that.  And it makes you doubt yourself a lot.  And at least once a day I snap at the fusspot, and that sucks and I am working very, very hard not to.

That's all background to the awful thing which happened on Friday night.  Awful.  I haven't even really been able to talk about it much.  I waited to tell JD for 2 days.  But then again, maybe it's over and done and my ambivalence is not so much a fear of exploring the "what ifs" but a genuine thought that it happened, and people are good, and everything was fine in the end.

On Friday night, while I was chatting with a friend and wrangling the dumpling into shoes at the end of services, someone opened the huge heavy wood door to our synagogue and let the fusspot walk out onto the street.  For unknown reasons my fusspot saw the open door (and it has to be held open, there is no way to prop it, and it is a heavy door) and decided to walk home.  And neither whoever opened the door nor the security guard noticed.  We live almost a mile away.  It was almost 9 pm.  Dark.  Oh, and the street happens to be a rather big one ... let's just called it Broadway. 

In summary, I lost my daughter in the big city when she decided to walk herself home at 9 pm at night on a busy, busy street.  Don't worry, it gets better.  I didn't even notice.  The fusspot had been playing with 2 other little girls and I just figured that they were playing together, or that she'd gone to sit in the stroller, or was even just standing behind me.  In short, I presumed she was fine because we were in a space we go to every week, where almost everyone knows her name and there are plenty of other children running around and very little mess she can get into, and where she is usually super happy.  A man whose name I don't even know spotted her at a street corner, picked her up, and returned her to me.  She might have only made it to the first traffic light (about 25 feet from the door), she might have only been gone 30 seconds.  It could easily have been several minutes and she could have been much farther.  I don't know because I was not paying particularly much attention to the details once I realized that she'd been out on the dark street alone.

It's hard.  She started school last week and we've been telling her she can do it, that she'll be fine on her own, that people will be nice to her.  We let her walk without holding our hands on the street because she's 3 and a half, and folks, it is hard to run all of your errands on foot with two children and not let them play/wander a bit.  And she's never once tried to cross a street alone.  She was not in the least scared and far more annoyed to have been returned when she was obviously ready to leave.  And we've talked about it every day since.

I don't know.  Part of me feels like everything that was supposed to happen happened.  A person I don't even really know saw her, asked her what was going on, and brought her back (he's a member of our shul and recognized us, I've just never spoken to him).  Presumably if she'd made it farther someone else would have grabbed her and called the police.  We live in a neighborhood full of strollers.  The traffic is dangerous, but statistically the chances of someone evil grabbing her when she was walking alone are much, much smaller than the chances she'll die in a plane crash or even the chance she'll die in a subway accident.  But of course, there's also the part of me that says I failed as a parent.  I let my not-yet-four-year-old run wild with 3 other little girls at the end of services and play and as a result she could have been hurt. 

Ah yes, and not helping my confidence at all.  Both the mother-of-two who told me "But that's why I always watch my children.  So scary" at school drop off today.  Thanks wonderwoman.  I presume that when you have a tantruming toddler who won't put on his shoes and a dear friend wants to simultaneously introduce you to his new fiance, you just pull a pair of handcuffs out of your back pocket and attach your older child to the security bar for a minute or two, right?  And of course the fact that her public pre-K seems to have no system for authorizing people to pick up children.  Most days I will either pick up the fusspot or our daycare provider will do so, but I'm sure they'll be a few days when we use a babysitter (like, say, this Thursday when she has Chinese), or next week if my father-in-law wants to pick her up.  Basically you tell the teacher, she remembers, and she releases her kid.  Except there are 18 kids in the room and what if she's out sick for the day?  And we know now that the fusspot is confident enough to try and take herself home.

Just a little venting

To start with the obvious, I know that it's not just my husband who is annoying me tonight.  There are rather a few other annoying (but none too serious triggers):

- Not knowing if I have skin cancer
- Having to break it to the fusspot that she can't do her very most favorite activity in the world
- Having broken reading glasses
- The stupid judgmental woman I had to deal with tonight

And really, these are not that big a deal.  Even the stupid skin cancer.  But for not quite fair reasons, all of them are making me pissed at my husband.  See, he's been gone a week.  A week in a new job, in a new city, but with a fully furnished apartment, plenty of friends around, and fairly normal working hours.  And in the past week (and honestly, the many weeks before), it apparently has not so much as crossed his mind to ask if I might need some help.  I know he can't change diapers or sort laundry or do dishes or supervise bedtime, but there are plenty of things he can do from 200 miles away.  And it seems to have not even crossed his mind.

Skin cancer.  Runs in my family, of the fairly serious variety.  Many years ago I had 2 moles removed and biopsies.  No problem.  I thought all was well but one of them regrew in a rather ominous shape so I saw a dermatologist about 2 weeks ago.  The good news is that when moles re-grow after being removed, they apparently always look odd.  The bad news is that it looks really odd and covers a fairly large amount of skin.  BUT, I might not need the surgery to remove it if we could get the medical records from the last biopsy (circa 2007) to find out what type of mole it was.  Cue medical records soundtrack of doom.  3 faxed release forms, 5 phone calls, and they still haven't released the biopsy (which has now been located) to me.  I'm pretty sure any competent adult could assist with nagging phone calls at this point, but nope, that'll be all me and as a result I may not know whether I have skin cancer for another full week or two.

Ballet.  The fusspot loves ballet.  She's really awful at it, and we managed to not only find a very fun, relaxed class but I loved it because it was both cheap and uber-diverse (we're on the edge of 2 quite distinct neighborhoods.  When we head South, you get the millionaires, when you head North you get the policewomen taking their sons to ballet after a long shift).  At least once a day she puts on her ballet shoes and practices and role plays being Ms. S, her beloved teacher.  Except that this year the class has been moved to 1:45 pm, when she'll still be in school.  There are options: commit to weekend classes, or find another ballet class in the neighborhood (there are at least 10 in a 10 minute walk).  This seems like an easy task for my husband and google, but nope, that'll be me e-mailing every program for their schedule and availability.  And also breaking it to the fusspot that she may not see her beloved teacher again.

Len.scrafters.  Kinda sucks.  5 visits to get new lenses in my reading glasses, and apparently this time they got the prescription right but somehow stretched out the glasses for someone with a much, much bigger head than me (they are the same frames as before).  Seems like someone could take over calling to complain since I've already been there 5 times.  I mean, it's a busy NYC store and they didn't even have to ask my name when I walked in this evening.

Which takes us to tonight.  Synagogue (and yes, I know I shouldn't be on my computer but I'm sitting here alone stewing and I figure this will at least get some of the anger out so I can be pleasant when my children wake up at 4 am again).  And very judgmental old ladies.  I spent the afternoon with some mormon friends, and like the evangelical churches where I grew up, they have a super-well-developed hot meals for new moms and childcare during services program.  Not so much my people.  There is nothing on Friday night, and if we commit to kids services on Saturday I never step foot in real services (note: missing husband, single parent).  So we go every Friday night.  And usually people are lovely, but all summer the old ladies have been giving me death glowers.  And tonight my kids were really obnoxious.  The fusspot took of her shoes and danced on the pews, the dumpling fussed non-stop unless I let him play with the door handles ... so it was a bit rough.  And nobody offered to help.  Or a kind word.  Or even just a nice to see you tonight.  All I got was judgey judgey point up their nose and turn away distastefully looks.  And it made me so pissed.  It's Friday night.  I'm exhausted.  I'm single parenting.  I need to go to services to recharge, and I am committed to raising my children in a religious community that I love.  And not a single woman there could so much as give me a smile (and this is not true of the men, mind you.  We sit separately but the men are overwhelmingly polite, friendly, and happy to help out the kids.  My guess is the men who don't like other peoples kids find it easy to steer a wide berth).

So yeah, it's just me sitting on the couch feeling pissed.  I don't get it.  I even teach this stuff: the second shift, the economics of women juggling more than men ... and yet I really can't figure out an easy way out.

Ah, preschool

We had orientation today.  Or something like that.  It was mostly an utterly useless plug for the technology classes at the school.  For fourth graders.  Did I mention that this was just pre-K orientation?  It was so useless that 2 out of 3 pre-K teachers did not attend, so I could not even introduce my daughter to her teacher.  Eh, at least it was in the library and we sat in the back and read books.

Of course, from the back I could see that a fair half of the children in tow were playing on some type of gadget during the presentation (see above: not targeted to this audience).  Yes, half of the children had an iphone or an ipad in hand.   That's pretty terrifying.  And of course, my poor kid who lives in a house without a TV and with about 10-15 minutes of screen time a week (skype with grandparents, a youtube video while we're cutting nails) was fascinated by the poorly put together video in the presentation.  A movie, she whispered in awe, while her classmates played complicated games on their parents' iphones ... which was always JD's best argument pro-TV.  Let's not raise a weirdo, eh, he'd say smiling at me (yes, I grew up without screentime in the woods down South)?

But the really absurd part was that the big draw of the orientation was receiving the school uniform polo shirt.  Light blue short sleeved polo with the logo on it.  And they had a lot of them.  It's just that ... the smallest size they ordered was a 6-8 (kids medium).  Now the fusspot was immediately intimidated walking into the room because she is the youngest kid in her class (Dec. 31 cut off and she's a mid-December baby) and she's already not so tall ... but when the head teacher said she had to wear the uniform anyway I had to actually put a size 6 polo shirt over her dress and show the woman that it covered her knees and she'd probably trip if she had to walk in it ... and no, she won't be wearing it ... and no, neither GAP nor Old Navy online stocks uniforms in size 2/3 ... if anyone knows a cheap place for plain blue polos and blue jumpers in toddler sizes that would be much appreciated (amended: ah, children's place.  Thank you).

The good news is that another mom I quite like has a daughter in the pre-K (she's a friend of a friend so I had no idea she'd even applied) and the fusspot had warmed up enough by the end of the tour to waltz out of the school holding hands with her two new friends and talking about the playground.  And I can always tell myself it's just pre-K when things are quite this disorganized.  And really, it's quite a cute school.  Apparently full of very, very tall and wide kids ...

Have to start somewhere

something tells me that I'm going to be posting here a lot more in the coming months.  A few tidbits from this week:

- One benefit of having a husband 300 miles away is that it is so much easier to co-sleep with an active toddler when it's just the two of you in bed.

- One downside of having a husband 300 miles away is the realization that living alone in NYC with 2 kids is really, really hard.  Even just taking out the trash is a production (our trash is outside, and it's really hard to corral both kids into a trip to take out the trash, but I also can't carry it while maneuvering the stroller down the front stairs so it has to be a separate trip.  Plus, there are rats so if I bring the kids with to the trash I have to be careful that they don't get too close) ... all of which has resulted in my inviting a friend to come stay for a while.  A single guy.  He has no idea what he's in for.  I am really hoping it makes things easier and not harder.

- The fusspot really has no idea what is going on with her father and his new job.  She understands that he's gone for a while, but keeps asking if he'll be back next week.  Um, no.

- My work life is a complete and utter debacle.  I'm not even holding on by a thread, I am plunging into the gorge and hoping it will all end well.

- Speaking of which, I have a conference in the UK next week and haven't even decided yet if I'm going.  Or if I'll be ready.

- The fusspot also starts school next week.  She isn't ready.

- I only overeat and shop online when I am feeling emotionally abandoned.  I need to stop doing both.  Any advice?

- I did join a group therapy.  I also realized that the first week I went I had not spoken to anyone other than my children for more than 60 seconds in the proceeding 7 days.  It's really odd to sit in a room and talk to people for an hour.

- Also, see above re: weight gain.  I was inspired by a blog and bought a scale.  154.8.  I was 160 when I finished pregnancy #2.  I was 125 when I got pregnant both times.  I could use to lose some weight.  For now I'm keeping a food diary and trying to eliminate desserts and coffee drinks.  No time to exercise so project-look-better (and maybe even ovulate) will rely on food control.

- Speaking of weight gain, not so much as a hint of cycle at the moment.  As I'd assumed, the miracolous potential ovulation and bleeding episode 2 months ago were an isolated incident.  Let's really hope some weight loss could change that.  If not, it's on to metformin and harrassing JD about finding a new clinic in the new city we may or may not be moving to.

- JD needs to sign up for a new insurance by the end of this week through his new job.  I have told him at least 10 times that I want to help make that choice since he is particularly bad at insurance things, and he has not so much as forwarded me any info.  99% chance that he signs us up for insurance with no IF coverage. 

- Getting out the door in the morning with 2 kids is the worst part of living alone.