Busy

We have been so busy so far this week, and as of now, we will be for the rest of it too. Mornings have been packed, and afternoons have been spent playing in the backyard mostly (it's doing great, check it out!)


Here is a sample of my new life with Henry, replacing conference calls and drafting deadlines...

Monday: Target shopping for things we need, like storage boxes, shower liner, sponges, bungee cords (they didn't have any I could find), ironing board pad... you get the idea. Mall playtime for an hour (that place is a little bit sketchy, but he loves it and I can guard the only exit without running around). Lunch at Chick-fil-A (I know, I know...). Home just in time for nap. Afternoon art projects with paint and puppets.

Tuesday: Swimming with Alex, Mimi, Ben, Sophia, and Maya. Lunch by the pool, and home for a nap. Afternoon naked time with water and swings in the backyard. (Note: Naked sliding is not the best thing, and I think Henry's down with this concept now.)

Wednesday: Playgroup at our house, in our fun new backyard! Afternoon... hmmm (Bret's not home until super late, so we have to figure something good out so as not to go crazy before bedtime!)

Thursday: Swimming at the community pool with Karen, Sebastian, and Sarah. Possibly an additional playdate early in the morning.

Friday: MusikGarten (music class), playtime and lunch with Maya.

With 3 million things to do, I have been trying not to nap when Henry does, but it's very hard to get anything accomplished when you are ready to pass out. I have been doing some napping, but more nothing because I am trying not to nap (but can't quite get it together to work on things). All this seems kind of ridiculous, so I have a new list of things that I need to get done, and I hope to work through some of it this week and then this weekend.

I've also been working on a couple of knitting projects - Mr. Noisy and Brobee for Henry, and a blanket for soon-to-be Toby. I'll try to update on those pretty soon, but honestly, you may be waiting a while (the projects may be waiting a while too!).

Now I am going to go take a nap, thank you very much.

Yay for summer, so far.

Gainesville gets hot in the summertime. Really hot.

I'm not completely ready for all that, but right now, it's lovely. Hot, yeah, but not bad like it will be for sure.

We're all ready to hang out in the pool, in the sprinklers, in the backyard - anyplace Henry can have fun, run about, wear himself out, but not get away. I just can't chase him anymore...

Yay for summertime!

Open letter to British mystery writers

(and mystery writers generally, but mainly those brits)

Come on. One of you must be bored to tears rereading all the old Christie, Marsh, Sayers, and Cauldwell too. Please sit yourself down and write something new. And good. It must be good.

I'm going mad. Not even Wodehouse is doing it for me. I need something that is BOTH a comedy of manners and a good, solid mystery. And none of this gory, twisted, how-sick-can-we-make-the-killer crap that has been coming out of late. It's far worse over here, but you all are guilty too. (Yes PD James, I am talking to you!) I've been reduced to combing through my paperbacks to find plots I can only vaguely remember, because there is simply no fun in reading a mystery novel that you know through and through (with the exception of a couple of Dame Agatha's classics, but that would be TWO books, and I can't read them even one more time - it just won't work anymore). I donated almost all of my books to Books for Prisoners, thinking I needed to pass the joy along, not knowing my well would run dry!

Give me my little vice, my little substitute-for-daytime TV (I guess that's what it would be, I don't really know how the daytime TV thing works, but it seems comparable). I sometimes need a little escape during naptime or in the middle of the night when I can't sleep due to baby-in-belly going wild.

But please, I like it saucy and smart. Give me Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane, give me Hilary Tamar, give me Miss Jane Marple! If you don't I will have no choice but to take more naps or watch trashy TV, and these prospects alone make me feel dumber.

My knitting personality.

My knitting personality is sort of half-assed, faking it. I love starting projects, working through them, and giving away a finished project, but if something requires too much attention to detail (or math), I tend to just move on to something I know I can finish easily. I do enjoy learning new stitches, techniques, etc., but unless I can master them right away and integrate them into things I do a lot, I don't really bother. (I'd like to think all this applies only to knitting, but let's be real.)

I learned to knit from my grandmother Thea when I was in college. I think it was my sophomore year, so that would be like 1998 or thereabouts. I made a ridiculously pointless half-scarf in garter stitch and gave it to a friend. He was kind and did not diss it, but really, this thing was crap. It was like 12" x 20" (I had one skein, so it ended when the yarn did), and it was a mess. I had learned to purl, but it freaked me out, so I just knit - hence the garter stitch. I had no clue how to bind off by the time I finished the thing, so I sort of rigged the end of it somehow with lots of knots. The number of dropped and arbitrarily-added stitches was spectacular, and the tension was all over the map. Did I mention that it was bright teal, 100% acrylic? Uncomfortable, unusable, hideous thing. But, I was so excited to give away my very first knitting project, I could hardly contain myself.

I honestly don't recall if I made anything else for years, but I managed to pick knitting up again sometime around the time I took the Bar Exam in 2006. I made a lot of scarves to start. All in garter stitch, because I could remember how to knit, but had totally forgotten how to purl. I tried to look it up and practice, but it never quite worked, and rather than really working at it, I just settled for garter stitch and made a lot of scarves. You can get a fair amount of variation out of garter stitch scarves using different needles and yarns. But I exhausted the possibilities pretty quickly.

I was getting better, though. My stitches and tension were much more even, I was getting fast, and things were going well. I decided it was time to branch out... in 2007. I decided I really did want to purl, so I looked up tutorials online. How did we exist without the internet? Or, specifically, YouTube? You can learn to do anything. From like five (or fifty) different people. Between knitting blogs and videos, I learned to purl. I also learned about using circular needles to make roll brim hats. The hats made me swallow some fear and learn to use double pointed needles, knit together, and read very basic patterns, all of which hugely expanded my horizons.

Oh, around this time I also learned about proper ways to change colors, add an additional skein in the same color, and why having an embroidery needle for weaving in ends is actually something necessary. Let me back up - before this period, I would tie the ends of yarn together and keep knitting. I tried to time it for the end of a row if I was changing color, but just went with it if not. My knitting was just messy and basic - I accepted this wholly. As for weaving in excess thread, oh dear. I'd cut it as short as possible (hoping to avoid this at all), and then do it with my fingers, which usually made a huge mess of things too. It was crazy, all over the place. Not invisible. You see, these "small details" required either a bit too much faith (the yarn would, in fact, stay kitted together even if not knotted!), and a bit too much effort (I had to keep track of embroidery needles, and I lose these sorts of things). Now they are part of what I do (and I have my gear in a knitting bag!), but it took me ever so long to get to embrace them.

I have learned more since then, but really I stick to the basics because the next leap will require a lot more work, and probably more math. I can make really large simple things (like baby/toddler blankets) using a few stitches on circular needles. I can still make scarves, but now they can be much more interesting, and can come with coordinating hats. I have figured out how to improvise making my own patterns enough to make toys for Henry, which I really like doing because it's all messy and crazy, but it's OK. Of course, I need to learn more techniques to get better at this one, especially if I intend to share patterns with others (right now I just put the crazy messy out there, but knitters tend to be more tidy, so I need to work on that).

But the toys are really a good measure of my kitting personality. I learned and tried new things to make Muno, but I also had to improvise and fake it a lot too. I had to just make it work, with no road map and a lot of gaps in my skills. If you look closely at him, you'll find he's an utter mess of pieced together bits. But he works. And I believe he can make it through the washing machine, although I might be afraid to stick him in the dryer. There is something to that.

I can't make gorgeous sweaters or cabled socks (yet anyway), but I can make some stuff. Eventually, I may focus and really learn to do some major things, but I kind of like my simple projects. I know how often I toss Henry's blanket in the washer/dryer, and how he loves it. And how he totes around a red cyclops or wears his little hat (not often, he hates hats, but he wore it all morning the other day when it was cold outside!). I love that I can do that much. And that there is not a lot of math.

Another thought on the politics of breastfeeding and motherhood in the US...

I know I went on and on here on breastfeeding culture and the ongoing discussion/debate about its impact on women, but I had another thought. And you know, this is where I go on and on about my thoughts.

One point that I thought all of the critical articles raised that I think is valid is that breastfeeding is not free because women's time is not free, and it is a significant commitment - physically and emotionally. It can totally be seen as work.

Of course, women's work on every level is devalued in our culture, both inside and outside the home. But ponder for a second - what if we paid women to do the work they do caring for babies? That would be kind of amazing, and a step toward valuing it in a more realistic way. I mean, CEO's make how much, while women get paid how much to be mamas? And which job ends up having more impact on our daily lives and our society? I mean, paternity leave would also help, because fatherhood is terribly undervalued as well and offering real paternity leave would demonstrate to papas that we value them and their contribution as parents as well.

But back to my point. Changing minds about the value of the work of breastfeeding is a totally class-charged thing in the US. We live in a society that doesn't even blink when a member of Congress gets on the floor of the House with a sign that reads "Do not feed the alligators" to illustrate his point that mothers on welfare should be cut off. Whether we want to acknowledge it or not, depending on our own level of privilege, income, status, etc., the value we as a society place on mothering as work gets devalued when we degrade mothers on public assistance.

To be a family-friendly society, we have to deal with a lot of issues we have floating around involving racism, sexism, classism, and other deeply-rooted prejudices that are part of so many parts of our culture.

And that was what I was thinking.

So, breastfeeding...

I know I'm late to the discussion that has exploded in recent months, in part because I have been super busy, in part because I have a lot to say, and in part because I'm not terribly excited about trying to sort through all the issues. Breastfeeding is such a personal thing, and such a touchy thing - but I can't help myself.

I'll start by saying breastfeeding is great. I was a poster-child for breastfeeding. Literally. Huge photo of my mom breastfeeding me was part of the decor for the 1979 Year of the Child at the United Nations in NYC. My mom was hardcore Le Leche League, so nursing has always been how you feed a baby in my world. But, thanks to forces outside my control (nature? genetics? hormones in livestock?), I grew into some huge knockers, developed back problems, and decided to get breast reduction surgery when I was about 22. Oh my golly day, what freedom! Ye of small boobs, you have no idea how good you have it. I am still completely happy with my decision (and will likely have it again after I am done making babies if these things stick around, which seems to be what's happening...), but it meant that I had to deal with some serious physical and emotional issues when it came to feeding my baby.

Because I have this sort of bizarre perspective, I've really been interested in reading the recent articles that have been bashing breastfeeding. It seems like the first punch (in this round, anyway) was thrown by Hanna Rosin in the Atlantic with her piece The Case Against Breastfeeding. The title makes it sound a bit more inflammatory than it actually is, but it absolutely does challenge the notion that breastmilk is demonstrably better for babies, and does deconstruct breastfeeding culture in interesting ways. As this piece in Mother Jones by Debra Dickerson highlights, Rosin's article takes issue with the ways that breastfeeding culture has come to represent a new feminine ideal into which we must shove ourselves, dismissing the real impact that the work of breastfeeding has on mothers while whitewashing the physical and emotional demands as part of an idealized connection that a mother neglects if she does not breastfeed. Judith Warner puts a slightly different spin on the same point, proclaiming in her blog for the New York Times "Ban the Breastpump." She makes a stark argument that mothers of young babies should get more time off, have fewer demands, and be able to choose how to feed their baby without having to live like they are a dairy cow. She points out that we've fetishized breast MILK as a commodity that is best for babies, while devaluing mothers' presence with babies and making even more fervent demands of mothers' time for everything else in life.

I can't really argue with these points. I have to admit that part of the stress I had as a new mother stemmed from my guilt at not being able to exclusively breastfeed, and my feeling of inadequacy when I couldn't handle keeping up the impossible schedule of pumping, nursing, and feeding Henry formula for the first month. Honestly, feeding him formula completely freaked me out. I tried to time my arrival at mommy groups around his feeding schedule so I didn't have to give him a bottle in public. I felt like I had to explain to perfect strangers why I wasn't nursing, why I wasn't able to nurse, and how badly I felt about it.

And yet.

Breastfeeding is great. Breast milk is pretty incredible. After a friend of mine died just a few days after giving birth, I helped organize mamas to donate breast milk for her new baby, and I can't help but feel like that was important and special for her baby's early life. I'm glad so many women are committed to breastfeeding, and I am glad that there is a breastfeeding culture around me to make it an option for so many women. I want more real education for medical staff (see a great discussion about why this is important here).

For me, it's a complex thing. I guess it's tough to negotiate creating an environment that is sufficiently supportive of breastfeeding while also allowing moms to make truly informed choices about what will work best for them and their babies. Do we really need to make the case that breastfeeding is NOT great to give moms all their options? Why can't we have a blanced discussion that doesn't get entrenched in X is better than Y, period? Why aren't we asking more probing questions about the weight that we place on mothers to be absent from their babies? And why aren't we OK if moms choose to work away from their babies and pass along the feeding responsibilities to others (and don't pump)? Why aren't we talking about whether there is a new cult of true womanhood, and what this means for women's lives? And why aren't we working harder to protect women's ability to make choices about where and how to feed their babies? Or fighting to protect their ability to keep their jobs regardless of how they have decided to feed their babies?

So yeah. My contribution to the ongoing war of words.

Gotta have goals.

I'm going to try to start updating every day (or other day) because I have about twenty draft posts that are half-written hanging out because I am very bad about getting started and not finishing. This is true of many things, but apparently posting is way up the list. So is knitting, but I digress. Help me out and bug me if I'm not being good about this, pretty please. At least until I'm in labor, because then I might let it slide, and that will be just fine. I should go and finish a substantive post right now, but...

Open letter to the person (or persons) who, somtime in the past week, spent a little too much time uninvited in our carport.

Yo. I'm annoyed.

I know times are tough. Trust me, I know this. But stealing a kid's bike trailer and their helmet? Come on. That is just mean.

I don't have a picture to post, because I just never actually got out the camera when Henry was all ready to go in his baby bike helmet, strapped into the cute red trailer behind Bret on his bike. I guess it never really occurred to me that perhaps I should cherish those images because I would not get to see the cutie-pie red helmet with a little Amnesty International sticker on it again.

Yeah buddy, times are tough. I hope you needed money to feed yourself or your children, because that is what I will be telling myself as I try to let this one go. You see, now our 2 year old won't get to go for long bike rides with his papa (which he adores, by the way). Why don't we just replace it since he so adores it, you ask? Hey jerk face, times are tough.

Getting ready for baby... very slowly.

Henry and his baby monkey
Originally uploaded by Bret, Virginia, and Henry

Today Henry let me tie the monkey to him. He liked it, for 30 seconds. He would NOT let Bret change the monkey's diaper. Or let us read him the big brother book we have. It's the only book in the house he won't read, making it less popular than assembly instructions, catalogs, and CD cases. But maybe we put a toe in the right direction. And 30 seconds was long enough to get this picture, which is pretty darn cute.

OK, mea culpa.

Dear Henry,

Good job, sleeping boy. Clearly, you just needed more craziness and fun in the morning, and perhaps an extra half an hour before lunch. I'll work on that from now on.

I'm glad you had such fun with Maya at the museum. I can't wait to see how much fun you have picking strawberries tomorrow. This "being busy" is working better for me too.

Big kisses, Mommy

For goodness' sake!

Dear Henry,

I love you to bits and pieces. Go to sleep. Seriously, you are making me crazy. Sleep, please, sleep. You know you want to. You keep getting almost there, and then going crazy. Let it go. Sleep. You can sing Happy Birthday to Brobee and talk about oatmeal and applesauce when you get up. I promise, promise, promise. Shhh, sleep.

Love, Your mommy

PS - 3:15 is too late to finally fall asleep. Let's work on that together tomorrow, huh?

Clarification, or something like that.

Since posting this a while back, I have had a lot of private comments, and I want to add a little something to clarify, as I think I adopted a bit of a tone that made it seem like I had the answer to some universal "should," which is oh so far from the case. That, and my own perspective on "should" is quite a bit different now that I have been hanging out with a rambunctious 2 year old all day for several weeks, while also getting progressively bigger and slower due to being super-pregnant.

#1: I think it got a bit buried, but what should (ha!) have been the most important thing I said in that whole tirade was that every parent has to make a million decisions every day, week, month, year - and all of those decisions are a balance between circumstances, what your kid wants, what your kid needs, what you want and need, and how it all fits into your life. It's friggin' messy as hell. You have to make decisions and compromises on everything all the time, from what to feed the kid for lunch, to what preschool the kid will attend (or not), to whether or not you should take the AAP's advice on everything (TV, vaccines, car seats - I have to write about all that another time), it doesn't end. The decisions you end up making are as varied as the intensity and impact the decisions will have. There is no universal "should" for ANY of these questions, no matter what the professionals, your mom, me, your nosy neighbor, other moms, or any other "they" might say. The "should" becomes the decision you make, and whether I think it might not be the best thing is so beyond irrelevant that really the only "should" there is that I should shut my mouth.

#2: Decisions about life constantly shift. I was a working mom from the time Henry was 10 weeks old until he was 2 years old. In the balance, this worked for us. When it stopped working - or when circumstances shifted so that we had other options and could think about whether it was working - then what I felt like I should be doing shifted. I have a ton of respect for moms who work outside the home - it is exhausting to split yourself! Trust me, taking care of a firecracker 2 year old all day while incubating a fetus is exhausting too, but I have to admit that even though I am finding Henry incredibly challenging right now, I'm not the same kind of tired all the time.

#3: It is absolutely, 100% none of my buisiness how fast anyone gets into their clothes after birth. (And it's absolutely, 100% none of anyone else's buisiness that my butt stayed in some maternity clothes continuously from pregnancy with Henry to now because they are comfy my bottom clings to extra weight like... I don't have a pithy thing to say, I just stay fat, OK.)

#4: Mamas that make it work are good mamas, no matter what. You have to work pretty hard to screw up a baby - they are just resilliant little boogers. So mamas, ignore me and my judgmental self, and so long as things are working for you, power to you.

#5: I'm not a perfect mama, even when I try. To start, there is no such thing as a perfect mama. And beyond that, even when I try to live by my internal "should" compass, I can't do everything. My to do list is obscene. I'm sitting here, writing this, next to a window that has Henry tongue prints that are months old on it while within eyeshot of crushed graham crackers in the carpet from yesterday. I'm watching Henry spin in circles in his crib on the monitor, hoping he will fall asleep for his nap, knowing there's not a whole lot I can do to make him go to sleep since my belly's too big to let me rock him, and feeling guilty that his playing in there right now means he'll spend three hours in his crib since he'll probably sleep for at least 2 hours. Since I've been home with him, he's learned the words "french fries" and "banana popsicle." He's eaten fewer vegetables (except for tomatoes - he's eaten loads of tomatoes). I have developed a growning sense of inadequacy as a parent, mainly because his behavior is challenging, and I'm not handling that terribly well. There are a lot of "should" moments I let pass because I am tired, frustrated, or overwhelmed. But in the end, it will be OK. We're making it work, in our own little way, and that is kind of the most important thing (or I hope it is!).

Right now...

...being hugely pregnant is annoying the heck out of me. It's starting to get hard to put on my underwear, and I remember this being the portent of being done with it from last time around. I don't remember it happening with six weeks to go, however. Grrr.

Between chasing Henry, trying to manage the house, and trying to get everything together for the new baby, I'm feeling like I don't get anything actually done in a day. I kind of wish I had stopped working before I was pregnant, or at least before I was pretty darn pregnant, so I could have gotten things done around the house, chased Henry around all over the place, and learned the ropes of this whole stay-at-home bit before I felt like a full-sized home myself.

Ah well. In another couple of months something else will be annoying me, and this will seem great, right?

Menace.

When I say that Henry gets into everything, I think people assume it's maternal hyperbole. He's two, he's adorable, he's only about 3 feet tall, how bad could it possibly be?

We were at a friend's house the other day for a playdate. This mama friend has the most toddler-proof house I have ever seen. Not in a sterile way, but in a laid-back, sensible, kid-friendly way. Her daughter has run of the house (without incident). My friend's a mama that has this ability to channel both calm and control all at the same time, and it's quite incredible. She talks about homeschooling her now-2-year-old, and it makes perfect sense. (And I am of the opinion that many or most of us mamas should leave the schooling to the professionals, as discussed very well here. Right on sister.) My friend, however, will be a badass homeschooler.

By the end of our little visit, she joked (OK, she was probably only half-joking) that I should hire Henry out as a consultant for toddler-proofing. In the course of a wee 2 hours, Henry managed to 1) find and open the knife drawer, weilding the largest, sharpest knife in the house for about three seconds, and 2) open the closed bathroom door, find a bottle of cleaner with bleach, bring it in the hallway and spray it in the air.

I don't think we did any permanent damage. Mama, if we did, we will make it right. (I really hope the rug is OK!) So general warning: if you hear me say he gets into everything, or that he is like some kind of homing pigeon for danger, trust me, I mean it at face value. But he is still adorable.

New favorite thing.

Henry's latest favorite thing is here.

Whatever, man.