What a week here in our little neighborhood

Sitting snug and cozy on the couch listening to the wind and the sirens go by.  For now we have internet and power, and as renters pretty high up in a building and away from the water our only fear is losing either of those for a couple of days.  Of course, it's not like we even have a working flashlight in the apartment as I discovered last night at midnight while exploring another mouse nest in the hall closet, but we are well stocked with tea lights, candles and sugar cookies.

Just like Irene, the start of this storm was even odder.  Public transport shut down last night but we stayed out at a toddler birthday party and caught a late bus home.  And then this morning I took my kids in to daycare for a few hours through clear skies and back well before the wind picked up.  We even stopped for fresh bagels, bakery bread, and more toppings for sugar cookies.  When it started really raining this afternoon we headed literally across the street for a playdate.

NYC is a city of neighborhoods and it is astounding what storms can do to make you painfully aware of distances.  The fusspot's best friend lives exactly a mile from us, but we weren't really up for walking that far.  Another friend lives at the half mile mark, but that seemed too far.  However, across the street was entirely reasonable and safe despite all of the glowers we received as my two rainboat and bright raincoat clad children -finally- seized the opportunity to go puddle jumping.

And speaking of our neighborhood, well, it was an incredibly emotional week for many mothers here.  I did not know the victims, but it's a small community, and sure enough I received a call from a friend on Friday who said she couldn't bear to take her kids to pre-K while the grief counselors were there so they'd taken the day off.  Tragedies happen, and some capture our hearts either because they are so close, so familiar, or so picture perfect.  The same day that 2 little white children were stabbed to death in a situation which could not have been predicted or prevented, a newborn related to our public pre-K died in a fire which could have been both predicted and prevented.  Except she wasn't "all American" (read: wealthy.  white) and so the coverage was practically nil.  That is not to minimize in any way the tragedy on W. 75th, but I do think that a large part of the media coverage stems from a wave of cultural anxiety about working parents (not that the mother worked, but it was assumed she did because she had a nanny.  And to all of the awful commenters across the U.S. deriding a SAHM for having a nanny, I dare you to drag 3 children on the bus and subway every time one of them has a late school pick-up or birthday party or activity.  It is simply fundamentally different than driving a crowd of children around and urban transport with small children is endlessly exhausting.  If I could afford a babysitter so that I didn't have to bring the dumpling along to the fusspot's incredibly inaccessible dance class I would do so instantly).  The reality is that women work, and childcare is outsourced to all sorts of people, but as a country so many people seem to still fantasize about an idealized 1950s dynamic.  Nobody asked why the father was working, nobody even wondered whether he had thought to background check the nanny.  It was all about the mother.  And of course because the crime was so random there is so little that the mothers on the street can do to distance themselves and make their own homes feel safe again.

And in a week when the weather was topsy turvy and the playground talk was full of fear, someone smashed our car windows (the car was on loan from my in-laws).  It is 100% covered by insurance and even happened at a time I wasn't in a rush to get anywhere, but there is a still a feeling of violation.  And more so because the bags the thieves were going after were actually the fusspot's summer clothes which I had finally packed up and put on the floor of the backseat so they could go into my in-laws basement.  Which is to say that someone took a razor and sliced open plastic bags of clothes my children wore, ruffled through them, and stashed 2 bags under the wheels of another car.  It had to be kids clothes.  I know it is trifle compared to the violence of both the storm and the murders, but it still sticks with you.

Obviously I haven't slept much.  This is undoubtedly incoherent.  Signing off now.  There is a small carved pumpkin, roses, and a pile of tea lights on the table ready for tomorrow.  And chances are the kids and I have a full day of painting, gak, and decorating sugar cookies ahead of us.  More thoughts on (weekday) single parenting some other night.

Just a very quick post

to say things are going much better.  Not the least of which is having our apartment newly hermetically sealed this week and thus far ... no mice!  I hadn't quite realized what a hassle mice would be when living alone with 2 kids, but it just felt like every 5 minutes I was stopping to sweep up crumbs or do dishes, etc., and it certainly made getting out the door in the morning that much harder.  The thing is that we live in an old building with a lot of old folks, above a pizza place and Dunkin Donuts, and there are going to be mice in the building, and the only thing I can do is to keep them out of my apartment by limiting the food.  Just to give you a sense of how bad it was, the mice had actually scaled a bookshelf and eaten a cookie the fusspot left in a bag she has ... 4 feet off the ground.  And of course, I am just too paranoid of neurotoxins to use pesticides in the apartment when both my children routinely put toys in their mouth.

Anyway, this post wasn't meant to be about mice.  Just a note to say work is going better, got a small vote of confidence when it mattered, had a thorough talking to by a woman I admire about rising above, and gave my husband a clear ultimatum which he handled much better than expected (nothing serious, just that I must have hours to work every weekend when he is in town, and it is entirely absurd that I get less done the weekends he comes to visit).   So we're off to visit him in DC for a long weekend, and to see a very close friend who lives abroad and will be in town.

And yes, Ms. J, as ever I appreciate your wisdom.  I am rarely very articulate here, but my point was that I realize that there are choices involved, that something has to give eventually, and I want to write down quite how hard this is so that next year when I look back and wonder exactly what happened, I will be able to remember the absurdity of it all.  And it helps so much to hear that this is not all me, that other people also struggle, Luxzia. 

Even though it was late and dark before we even set out, I accepted an invitation to a friend's house for dinner last night.  And even though the fusspot had to be at school at 8 am this morning, I put my feet up and sat on my friend's plush couch and sipped a (miniscule) glass of wine while our kids played long past bedtime (only possible because her husband was out of town on a business trip).  And it was good.  And hopefully there will be more of the same this weekend.  Especially if I can manage to get a few hours work done in the morning, instead of late late night after watching the kids all day.

Eh, back to doom and gloom for a bit

a very clever friend pointed out that a large part of my stress is from being in a transitional moment, and that I will certainly feel at least a bit better once I figure out exactly what the imminent future holds for me.  But for now, another doom and gloom post.  Because I do want to remember this.  I want to remember how it felt, what happened, how I came to the choices I made.  Because so often I look back and cannot remember how I came to decisions.

The thing is that our "new job opportunity in a different city" is looking more and more like a trial separation.  I don't really know what JD is thinking, but we did after all do long distance for 6 years.  And during that time we wrote or spoke daily, and usually many, many times a day.  Not so much now.  And it's so much worse now that the fusspot can ask to speak to her father, and I have to explain that he's busy, that he went out rather than back to his apartment, that he's still sleeping ...

No, I don't actually think it's all that serious.  We are both entirely committed to this relationship.  But in the short term, it's pretty clear that I can't exactly rely on him for the little things.  Of course, that realization was the entire reason I encouraged him to take some time to himself.

And I've been feeling queasy and stressed all day about a meeting tomorrow.  A meeting in which I need to explain exactly why I am in such a rut, and convince someone that things are getting better.  The type of meeting where having a clear plan would help.  But not so much.  I'm basically just whittling down the hours.

I joined a writing group, and was amazed to learn that a good 90% of the other students have therapists.  And they all seem to have friends or parents who they call late at night when they get stuck.  Friends who check in for accountability, who encourage them.  And I don't.  I presume because they are just sick of hearing about all of this.  But all evening I've just wanted to talk to someone, to get some feedback, to think through what I am going to say tomorrow.  And nope.  And that is most certainly because the people I know are too busy.  This past weekend I ran into 3 formerly close friends, none of whom I had seen in the prior 6 months and one of whom I had not seen in a full year (oh, and she was 32 weeks pregnant.  surprise!).  I would like to find a different community of women, a community that stops and cares for its own, that celebrates the little things.  But then again, I would also have to feel like I have something to offer. 

I did have a friend over for dinner with her 2 kids.  It was lovely and the usual crazy.  The fusspot scratched her daughter, her daughter broke a huge glass mixing bowl, one of the babies spilled a glass of milk ... but between that we talked about the ordinary life stresses.  I can't really complain to her about work because I really do feel that this situation is a personal failing.  I should have started therapy sooner, I should have tried harder, I should have at least told everyone what was going on.  I read stories of men and women who go through repeat depressive episodes and still manage to hold onto their jobs and wonder how.  And then I read stories about this economy and panic because I really do need an income, a job.

Anyway, limbo is bad.  But I will be fine.  And in the meantime I will read plenty of stories and find a way to calmly rush my daughter out of the door on school mornings.  And I will keep in mind that even though graduate school is something people are deeply emotionally invested in, it really is no different than any other job, and most likely a far less worthy endeavor than most career paths.

Let's stick to the cheerful for a while

The dumpling turned 19 months old yesterday.  And he is delightfully toddler-ish.

He is exceedingly good-natured, although he has a very strong preference for walking and usually spends his first few minutes in the stroller yelling.  He can (and does) walk up to a mile on his own, although the pace is rather slow.  I have lots of photos of him toddling along next to the stroller while the fusspot rests her feet.

At the playground he takes off without so much as a look back.  Even on the huge playground in Central Park with a hundred other kids he does not seem to feel the need to check in with me as the fusspot did (and does).

He is very social.  He also has absolutely no idea that he is small.  When a 5 year old cut him in line for the slide last week he just walked up to him and tried to shove him out of the way.  He happily pushes his way to the front of the preschool drop-off rush through both 50+ preschoolers and their parents.

He still nurses to sleep and snuggles next to me all night long.  He also wakes up to eat at least once a night.  And he is really hungry in the middle of the night, so I have no plans to drop that nursing session.  Also, he basically doesn't nurse during the day so he is only nursing 3-4 times per 24 hours, although 2 of those are good half hour sessions.

He loves books and will sit and read to himself for a good 10 minutes.  He will read board books, but is also fine with real books.  He also plays on his own quite well.

He loves to paint and draw.  Less interest in playdoh.

At brunch over the weekend he spilled some of his water.  He looked at the spilled water, paused, and then a huge grin came over his face as he grabbed a napkin to clean up. 

Potty training has stalled because I don't have the time.  Also, he went through a phase where he rather seemed to enjoy peeing on things and that put a damper on my enthusiasim for diaper free by 18 months.  I am however hand washing diaper covers every night so I need to return to this project.  This morning he was carrying around two of the fusspot's dolls (yes, he has his own.  He prefers hers).  He carried them into the bathroom, seated them in front of the toddler potty, and then proceeded to sit on the potty for a good while.   Apparently he does better with an audience.

He loves his sister most of all, no matter what she does to him.  In the morning he wakes up nurses on one side, then clambers over to the edge of the bed to check on the fusspot, then returns to nursing.  He spends a lot of time wandering aimlessly around the apartment going "mine" "mine."

He also happily goes to our daycare provider and seems to really enjoy being there.  He is very rarely in a rush to leave.  I know she spoils him.  He seems to have about equal comprehension in English and Chin.ese.  He does an adorable rendition of ABCs with a passable tune but never gets past D and often resorts to "AB ... AB ... AB .... AB .... AB ..."  He also sings a recognizable Langzi laohu.

He has never had a haircut and we are trying to hold out until his 3rd birthday.  Thus far, thankfully, no rat tail.

He is still not on the growth chart and frequently refuses food.  He occasionally seems to be in food-related pain, but probably only once a week at most.  His favorite foods (when he will eat) are apples, berries, pasta, and hot dogs.  He does not like olives or ice cream in any form.  He also rarely eats sweets, even when offered. 

the angst continues

It is 4 am and I am sitting here trying to send a work-related e-mail explaining exactly how the utter meltdown in my personal life has affected my work.  Fun stuff, as always.

In fact, it is so trite and predictable that I am left at a loss as to how we can really be almost done with 2012 and still dealing with this stuff.  Let's see, student who also happens to be mother of two suddenly deals with husband in tailspin, single parenting, bizarre and stressful situation at work, and potentially seriously ill child (although thankfully probably not anything serious) while still battling post-partum anxiety, and you're wondering why she missed a deadline?  And really does it matter in the big scheme of things?  (Of course, the answer may well be yes and hence my fear of sending this e-mail).

A very wise friend and one I see fairly often (read: no longer working) pointed out that a large part of this stress is being in transition from a career-oriented future to ????  She reminded me that as soon as choices are made and paths are closed I will feel better, and I think she is right.  On the other hand she had a successful career until she gave birth at age 41 so she is in much, much better position to return to the workforce in 5-10 years.  For the past 2 weeks I have been asking everyone about life choices, about working and not working, about family size.  And the short answer is that here in my exceedingly privileged pocket of NYC the options suck.  I actually only know two women who genuinely work full-time and parent, and one is kind-of superwoman and the other is deeply miserable and has a very supportive husband.  That's not so suggest that there aren't other mothers who work, I just would never even meet them or have entirely fallen out of touch (superwoman and I see each other 1-2 times a year even though we live in the same neighborhood).

Example A, the kids participate in a truly idyllic shared-tutoring in Chin.ese with another little girl.  I have e-mailed with her mother at least 20 times, but we've never met.  Her nanny arrives at 7 am and leaves at 8 pm weekdays, and puts in a shorter weekend day.  Everything indicates that she's an involved parent: planning activities for her kids, nursing, co-sleeping ... but I am never going to meet this woman because she's simply too busy with work to take a day off and see what her daughter does on an average day (just like JD has yet to step foot into the fusspot's classroom and apparently the teachers were playing the game guess-that-kids-racial-identity game because they've never so much as laid eyes on him, and probably never will.  School drop-off is at 9 am and pick up is at 3 and he'll be at work during this hours every day this year).

Exhibit B, the friend who had us over for dinner on Saturday night.  She is worried about her fertility (with possibly some cause) but has decided to put off children for another 5 years to establish her career.  She doesn't want to, but feels like she has no other option.  She also has a boss who "can't afford childcare and has to leave her baby with her elderly mother" and "is putting off #2 until after a big work event next year."  Now this is all hearsay and I've certainly never met her boss, but it is exactly the type of hearsay floating around our neighborhood.  In summary, sub-par childcare, a mother crying at her desk at work, and delaying her second child until after a work deadline (for the record she's neither a political candidate nor a scientist about to cure AIDs, in fact the boss has a rather low-level job that is not exactly saving the world, and she's also pushing 40).  Working women who really want careers (as opposed to jobs, which is what happened in Lalaland.  All of the women worked but they never advanced, and many simply stopped trying to do so) are unhappy.   Or they are too busy to see their kids or their friends.  Like say my friend of 8 or so years who also lives in the neighborhood and used to have her nanny put their son down for a "third nap" at 7 pm.  He would then wake up when she got home at 10 pm and they'd have a family dinner and he'd go back to bed with his mother at midnight.  Needless to say I haven't seen her in over a year, although last I heard she was trying an 80% workweek.

I have never doubted that I'd enjoy being a stay at home mother for a few years, or even a decade or so.  I love the time I spend with my kids, I know the other SAHMs in the neighborhood, and I grew up in a very hippie environment so I have hundreds of hours of fun things I would like to do with my children while they are young.  The problem is that while we could swing it financially temporarily, we couldn't do it for all that long.  And JD really doesn't cope well with the stress of being the only breadwinner.  So sooner or later I would need to go back to work, and as someone without any type of established career my fear is that work would be so extremely limited as to be problematic.  If I really want part-time work and agree to take over all of the household stuff as part of the exchange for having JD being the only worker for a year or two, I will not be ready to jump back into a high stress full-time job in a new field (since mine has zero "on ramp."  Zero).  So then I'm left with childcare, teaching middle or high school, secretarial-style work.  Nothing that I would not regret in the long run or that would bring in enough money to help pay for the kids' college, a few big trips, etc.  And the guilt of knowing that my "choices" mean that my kids will only be able to go to college if they are willing to take on huge amounts of student loans.  Or the utter disjuncture of encouraging my daughter to work hard in school ... towards what?  A future at home?  Or stuck in a workforce that cannot accommodate women?

And back to today.  I was not getting anything done at work, so rather than pick the fusspot up from school at 3 and walk her to daycare, then go back to work for an hour and a half, I took the afternoon off.  And as I was walking down the street, pushing the double stroller with one hand and carrying the dumpling on my hip, I ran straight into a female professor I know quite well.  One who has not exactly been supportive, despite being a middle aged mother (of one son, now in high school and with a husband with a very flexible work schedule).  So basically one of the few women who made it through.  She looked straight at me with a look of disgust as I walked down the street at 3 pm with my two children.  And then she kept walking.  No hello, nada. 

It just feels like I am scratching my way into a fortress that I don't even want to get into anymore.  And while I am sure that I would adjust, the alternative still feels like an utter failure.  Not the more time for parenting, less stress part, but the part where I spend 26 years in school (continuously, folks, age 5 to age 31) and land up with a job I could have done at 22. 

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.