Move is over

mostly.  I mean, all but locating the nearest grocery store and unpacking the remain hundred or so boxes ...

The thing that slowed me down was 2 full days of extensive medical testing for the dumpling.  And it's ... not good?  Good to at least finally have aggressive doctors?  But the possible diagnosis floating around are getting scary, and the real possibility that there will be no conclusive diagnosis within a month and after all appropriate testing, and then we will have to decide what to do.  The head doctor told me to start preparing for a feeding tube.  He's almost 2.  Seems like that boat has sailed, but we'll see.

The fusspot is grumpy about the move and talks about her friends non-stop, but is really doing fine.  But the dumpling is home with me ... and he seems to be fine.  He is cheerful, plays happily, seems pretty stable.  But then I wonder if I am simply missing the signs that he is missing our daycare provider.  Or maybe he just thinks this is all one big vacation and he'll see her again soon.  Because she ... well she called on Friday night just as we were about to light candles to tell me quite succinctly that she "felt dead inside."  For all that we quibbled and she did things which I absolutely and categorically forbade (the very last week she had him she put him in the backseat of a car, sitting on another kid's lap and drove around NYC ... so very, very glad that she has completely left the childcare line of work because I certainly would not be able to recommend her to anyone else, for all that she is great with kids.  2.5 years of employment and the rule was always: no cars.  Period.  Ever) Y. loved the dumpling like her own kids.  She started watching him at 2 weeks old (for an hour or two) and starting in September she had only the dumpling for the majority of every day (although he was only there 30 hours a week). 

He called her mama and I am pretty sure that she held him in her arms for most of his naps this past year.  And there's nothing like breaking that type of bond to make you feel guilty.  Any thoughts on helping a not-yet-two-year-old with grief?  I realized that although we have lots of photos of them together, we don't have any up at the moment and I'll fix that early this week.  But I really don't have much else to offer.  They've "talked" on the phone a few times, her computer isn't set up for skype.  You'd think I'd have ideas having lived apart from JD for 11 months with the fusspot, but she is so much more resilient of a kid (and oh how I dislike that description since that's always what my parents said about me, and overwhelmingly the fusspot's interests and behavior are almost exactly the same as mine) and I am really at a loss.  I also wish I could do something to help Y. - we've invited her down for spring break, and I'll mail her some more photos, but I don't know what else to do.

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.

Where to start ...

when my long-time reader and fellow traveler, the other Rachel, writes to inquire how I am doing I figure I should start posting again.  Still here, still stressed as can be about this stupid degree (and working against a clock of less than a month to prove I can do it.  Fun times ...), still single parenting, still battling a mice infestation, still worrying about the dumpling who is currently on a food strike ...

So let's jump into the 2 dilemmas of the evening which happen to be on my mind.

Maternal guilt, aka the great school district-quality of life debate.  Even though it is practically impossible to do, we are moving from the heart of NYC to an equally expensive neighborhood in a new city.  And we plan to use public schools.  JD has now visited at least a half dozen public schools, charter schools, magnet schools, and by all accounts there is one that is far and away our top choice.  It happens to be Reggio Emilia inspired, which has always been my favorite educational philosophy for all that I find it quite hard to implement cohesively at home.  But there are also other options: charter schools, schools on the up and coming, the full gammit.  And tomorrow JD will most likely sign a lease on a lovely apartment literally on the wrong side of the street from the school district we want (odd numbers - lovely small charter school, even numbers - problematic public school).  In part, I just want to be done.  I want an address, a place to plan for (and oh the pre-move nesting is in full mode.  4 new prints have arrived for our as-yet-unadorned new apartment), I want to finalize daycare plans for the dumpling .... but there is also the maternal guilt factor.  We could wait another month or two and probably find something in our ideal school district.  Something smaller, something more expensive, but then the fusspot would be able to attend an art-inspired tiny public school.  And while we are not even close to considering the suburbs, a little more space would be really nice.  Since I have a friend staying in the kids' room, we are basically living in a 500 square foot apartment with 2 kids, 1 double stroller, 1 bugaboo, several mice, and a lot of books.  So part of me thinks we should go for the big apartment (1500 square feet!  Back yard!  Eat-in kitchen and formal dining room which will become our art space/playroom), but then a part of me wonders about the guilt of choosing a large apartment over an incredible educational opportunity for the fusspot.

And I really don't want to make too much of it because the child is freakin' 3 years old, but she is not currently excelling in school.  Sure, she loves it and they love her, and she's toddling along at the very end of their age-appropriate range (not surprising since she's the youngest kid in the class by 2 full months), but at our recent parent-teacher conference the poor teacher (who I quite like) spent a good 5 minutes talking her way around the fact that, well, if the fusspot were her kid, well, she probably wouldn't waste the 2 hours to get G & T testing done ... yeah.  Am I worried?  Not at all.  She's 3, she has very specific interests, and I think in a better classroom she would be more challenged to explore other things ... but still, makes you think.

And while we are in move angst, JD accidentally signed us up for a local HMO (local as in local to where he resides, not NYC) so healthcare for the kids has been rather a soul-squelching process of calling the HMO, coordinating with our local urgent care clinic, calling upon the kindness of our old pediatrician ... and all because?  Well, the local HMO has the best fertility coverage.  But now JD wants to switch plans during open enrollment because they are such a hassle to deal with and I don't think he realized how few options we would be offered for handling the dumpling's food aversions ... but if we switch then we are back to zero fertility coverage.  Which of course is what we had for both the dumpling and the fusspot and it was fine (thank you Amex).  And I could easily see us spending a good year paying out of pocket and switching back next December to the local HMO if we were really only considering IVF.  But then again, any coverage would be nice now that we have childcare for two ...

SO: anyone ever used Kaiser for fertility treatments?  Know a friend of a friend of a friend who did?  Any wisdom on whether they are good, amenable to varying protocols (flashback: I have a highly unusual diagnosis combined with severe PCOs), responsive?  If you don't want to post your response, you can always e-mail: longdistanceinfertility (at) gmail.

Ok, back to work.  Hopefully something more to say soon.  But in short, still here, still stressed, still enjoying my adorable children.

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.