In Defense of Nest

My college roommate picked a fight with a bunch of moms on Facebook today. Which actually turned out to be a jumping off point for she and I to spend an embarrassing large chunk of time first IM’ing and then talking on the phone about the whole thing. It’s a really huge parenting can of worms. Or at least it’s been turned into a huge can of worms for modern day parents. I don’t remember it being all that big of a deal for my parents when I was a kid.

It’s the question of how old your children should be before you allow them to have a sleepover at someone else’s house. I remember the biggest issue being whether or not I was ready to be away from home all night or not. I remember having to call my parents at about midnight my first sleepover because I just couldn’t handle it. It turns out now the biggest concern is one of trust. Trusting the parents and children at whose house your child will be sleeping. Mostly in terms of safety. Whether or not the parents can be trusted to provide adequate levels of supervision. Whether or not older siblings will introduce your child to inappropriate things. Whether or not your child will be put in a position to be hurt in this surrounding. And to be entirely honest, the whole thing baffles me.

See, these other mothers immediately jumped to sexual abuse and molestation as an imminent and real threat. And my mouth just dropped at this. I think it’s the imminence these mothers see that shocks me the most. They essentially feel like they won’t allow sleepovers at all until they feel their children are old enough to be their own advocates. Which essentially means their first night away from home will happen when they leave for college. I don’t mean to be flip, but seriously. Can anyone truthfully say they were completely equipped to be their own advocates, not to be influenced by questions of social or emotional pressures, much before they left the nest? Or more to the point, until they had to create (and perhaps defend) their own nest?

Story Day!

It’s story day again! Yippee! No, seriously. This week wasn’t so bad. I had a pretty clear idea of what I wanted to do and then, crazy as it sounds, I actually did it. I decided to play with the microfiction format this week (stories with a word count of 300-500 words). I spent a good portion of the week thinking about story ideas, trying to figure out how to squeeze any of the ideas that bubbled to the top into that kind of word count. I mean, I am pretty good at writing down my thoughts in a concise manner, but I have no idea how to put a leash on a character. So, again, I focused on a very specific situation and decided to focus that down ever farther by really concentrating on trying to get the reader to feel something very specific. So the whole point of the story was more to make the reader feel with the character than to define the character or even really tell a story.

I know, I know. But the project is all about writing stories you say. And I agree with you. But I am discovering there are a lot of components to story writing. I have been trying to figure out how to work on all of those elements so that I can get stronger. The thought being that if I can strengthen my abilities with the separate elements, then my story as a whole will also get stronger and my abilities as a writer will continue to grow. At least that is the theory. But you’ll have to read this week’s story and tell me if you think I’ve succeeded (hint! hint!). Of course you could also read it and it could only serve to cement your thought that I’ve no business writing and should go back to my day job.

Yeah. Well, the jury is still out. So I’ll just keep plugging along, trying to push my own boundaries.

And I’m almost ready to move on to reading James Patterson or Tom Clancy although I’ll be sad to leave Pern, but I’m excited to see where my imagination takes me from here.

Decision Made

I am sitting on my couch. In my house. Writing on my laptop and posting to the blog using our Wi-Fi instead of “borrowed” internet from the neighbors. I’m home. For three and half days.

It was hard to make myself walk out the door. It was hard to leave the children with their beatific smiles. It was hard to leave my dad who woke up feeling crappy this morning. It was hard to leave my mom with everything to handle on her own. It felt utterly selfish. But I did it anyway. Because I know that regardless of what path this process takes, it’s going to get infinitely harder before the end and I needed to take a few days to rejuvenate. To do absolutely nothing I didn’t want to do. To not have my days dictated by my gorgeous little authoritarian offspring. And maybe if I’m really lucky, I will get to meet E and C’s new baby boy before I head back down to my parents’ house.

The drive was easy again thanks to the books on CD (which I shamelessly subjected my husband to). The roads were mostly clear and even though there is something very wrong with the electrical system in my car (I drove home with no speedometer or RPM, oil and battery gauges) we made it in great time.

We only brought one car back, so I’ll be housebound unless I want to take my husband to work every morning (which I don’t). But that’s fine. I have plenty that I want to get done while I’m here. Although I think I probably will take the car one day if for no other reason than to be able to pick my husband up from work and have us do a mega-splurge for a date night (most of our “dates” are shoe-horning a movie in when my mom is visiting and it’s usually at a very non-date time, like first thing in the morning).

I’m giving myself permission to put the guilt down and walk away. So that when I do return, I can resume my role as mother and daughter and be at the top of my game.

I Choose Company

Typically when life gets hard or when I’m in the midst of something profoundly emotional, I contract. I pull inwards; away from friends and family. It’s how I process. I go inside my head to make sense of whatever is going on so that I can be whatever I need to be to get through whatever is going on.

But contrary to my historical nature, I’m finding myself choosing to reach out to friends and family. I’m being really open with the people around me and with myself for that matter. Maybe I’ve been through enough over the course of this last year that I’ve finally learned how to be gentle enough with myself to truly just be in any given moment. Without judgment or persecution.

I actually went out with friends last night. A woman in the mom’s group I’ve been a part of for years started a Random Art Workshop (RAW) night where we get together and work on whatever art we want to for an evening in the company of lovely friends. I didn’t go last month because of the weather, but also because of that new friend fear I’ve talked about before. But last night, even though my cold was making me feel pretty crappy, even though I was in a more vulnerable place than I’ve been in maybe ever and even though I’m not overly artistic or crafty, I went anyway. And it was lovely.

A sweet girlfriend offered to buy me and The Girl lunch today, so we did that after preschool. And then we went to the weekly playdate. I’ve had more social interaction in the last week than I’ve had in the last month. I just have no real desire to make myself do all of this alone. I don’t want to suffer in silence and play martyr through the sorrow. I want help. I want hugs. I want company. I want to have the tangible proof that I am not alone that being with girlfriends brings.

It is my dearest hope to stay grounded and present through the next few months and right now, being with these amazing women is allowing me to do just that.

A Little Bit of Information

So I’ve known since Thursday that my dad probably has cancer. I thought I was pretty well prepared to deal with it as soon as I had all the information. Unfortunately, that’s just not how medicine works. With modern medicine, you find out there’s a problem. And then you find out it’s a big problem. And then they run tests and you wait. And then the results come in that the big problem is indeed a big problem. And then they have to run more tests to see how big of a problem it is and what or if they can do about it. So you don’t ever really a full picture until you’re sufficiently freaked out and overwhelmed by the lack of knowledge by the huge amount of thinking you’ve had the time to do while the doctors were getting their ducks in a row.

My dad got the biopsy results back today. A day early. He has adenocarcinoma. What does that mean? Well given the research I’ve done thus far, it doesn’t mean a lot until they do the PET scan and can figure out if the cancer has metastasized to other parts of his body, from there they will be able to determine what stage the cancer is in. But long story short, he has lung cancer. A particular lung cancer that has a 17% survival rate beyond 5 years, even with surgery, chemo and radiation. So the odds are not good.

And I am scraping and clawing to keep level headed. I am demanding that my brain not go down oh shit rabbit hole of doom. I am chaining myself to reality. Because it’s not just me that I have to worry about. I have to figure out how the hell to tell my children that their papa is going to leave them forever. I have to figure out how to maximize our time with my dad. I have to do whatever I can to help my parents make some hard decisions and make sure that whatever time my dad has left is exactly what he wants it to be.

I have to be brave enough to stay present with this.

This? This is a Vent

I woke up crabbier than crabby this morning so today’s post is just one big ‘ol vent session. I was going to vent on Facebook and then remembered that today is Veteran’s Day and felt like a big ‘ol selfish person for wanting to vent instead of thanking all the soldiers past, present and future. So you get it instead. Feel free to just come back tomorrow.

The children don’t have school today and I would love to take them to Denver and go the Natural History Museum or the Children’s Museum or go out for a fun lunch at one of their favorite places. But I can’t do any of that. I can’t drive to Denver because I have to conserve gas. I can’t even take them to McDonald’s for lunch let alone Fargo’s or Chuck E. Cheese. I can’t really do anything with them today because we have no fucking money.

I’ve tried really hard to stay positive about this whole financial crisis that we’re in. I’ve tried really hard to keep it all in perspective and know that it’s for the best and will give us a chance at real stability instead of credit card funded illusion. I’ve struggled to keep the bitterness at bay by taking responsibility for my actions while not laying a gigantic morass of guilt around my neck. I’ve done all of these things every day since we first realized that bankruptcy was our only option.

But today? Today I am angry and bitter and guilty. Because I manage the money in this house and I am apparently so good at it that I managed us right into near complete financial ruin. I so want to take my sweet children and do something fun and frivolous today and I can’t because I fucked up. And that feels pretty awful. And that’s not even touching the guilt that floods if I consider what would happen if one of the cars broke down or our heater went out.

Today I want to throw a huge, out of control temper tantrum about the whole thing and go to Starbuck’s on the way to Red Robin. But I can’t. And that sucks.

Fairy Godmother

My mom revealed herself as my own personal fairy godmother today. It was wholly unexpected and it made me cry.

The Boy’s 6th birthday is just over 3 weeks away and I’ve been trying to figure out what to do for his birthday. Or, to put a more painfully truthful point on it, I’ve been trying to figure out how to finagle money for a birthday party and a birthday present out of our completely debt consumed budget. As I’ve already told you, The Boy was promised a pair of guinea pigs for his birthday and that was to be his big present from us and my parents. But as our financial picture is worsening daily, I finally had to face up to the fact that we simply could not afford to do both. So in the interest of acknowledging my son’s new found grown-up-ed-ness, I asked him what he wanted more – the guinea pigs or a birthday party. And he asked for some time to think about it. I asked him about it last night as I was giving him a hugkiss good night, this is what he said to me, “I think I’ll choose the birthday party. Maybe I can get my own special pet for my birthday next year, maybe you’ll be able to afford it then.”

And I can honestly say that I’ve never felt like a more horrible mother than in that moment. That moment when I burdened my son with my adult money troubles. There was so much wrong with that I didn’t know what to do but cry and tell him I loved him more than anything, tuck him in and turn off his light.

So I was tearfully relating this story to my mother this morning and she gracefully, mercifully and wonderfully offered to pay for The Boy’s birthday party and his guinea pigs (if that’s what he really wants for his birthday). I know she did it to protect her grandson and make sure his birthday memories are fun and carefree for as long as possible. But with one stroke of her wand, she brought just a touch of magic back into my life as well.

Cartoons and NPR

The Girl is watching Tom & Jerry right now. She loves them and asks to watch them often (almost as often as she asks to watch Max & Ruby). I just looked up and the current tomfoolery afoot was Tom holding Jerry’s tail onto a stump of wood while he attempted to put a hatchet into Jerry’s little mouse body. All with a smile on his face. And it dawned on me that perhaps this is not quite on the appropriate side for my 3 year old daughter.

Some of my friends would be aghast at the very thought of allowing either of my children to watch this particular cartoon. Of course most of those same friends would come unglued at the very knowledge of how much TV I allow our children to watch in the first place. I know I should turn on the TV less and bring out the art supplies more. I know I should do some research on Montessori methods that can be done at home with stuff around the house. The Girl is seriously my little Montessori poster child and I should encourage that now so that she doesn’t run into the problems starting school that her brother did.

But at the same time I think about the fact that I grew up watching Tom & Jerry, Looney Tunes and a host of others that were perhaps a bit too old for me and I’ve never once had the urge to murder a mouse with a hatchet. Or anything else for that matter. I just always knew that it was a cartoon and therefore not real. Not to be imitated. Not to be attempted. It has a level of common sense to me. And maybe I’m just willing to give my kids the benefit of the doubt that they too will know that it is all just pretend.

And yes there is the whole exposure issue, i.e. not wanting to expose kids to that sort of violence/behavior until they are much older. And I get that, I really do. But I guess if I am really concerned about exposure, I shouldn’t listen to NPR in the car with them either.

Fear and Anger

Here’s something I haven’t quite figured out yet – how do I get far enough away from the fear and/or anger in a situation so that I can be active in the problem solving?

We’ve had this whole money problem thing dogging us for years. It all started when I quit a really toxic job not long after we moved back to Colorado. I got pregnant with The Boy soon after that and even though I was still looking for a replacement job, no one wanted to hire me when I was already pregnant and would be leaving for maternity leave so soon after being hired. My husband lost his job when The Boy was 6 weeks old and with both of us essentially being unemployed (I had started my consulting business by then but was nowhere close to bringing in a consistent paycheck) we drained our savings and racked up a suffocating amount of credit card bills. That was more than 6 years ago now and we’ve been seriously struggling ever since. There have been times of respite, when my consulting business was going gangbusters or when my husband was on hurricane catastrophe duty and getting doubled paychecks with all the overtime. But essentially it’s been a constant struggle.

And with each passing year the options available have lessened and become less solutions and more choice between two bad alternatives. I’m just not a big fan of being pushed into a corner, especially when I’m the one who has done the pushing.

It pisses me off that we haven’t been able to visit my husband’s parents since The Boy was about 18 months old simply because we can’t afford it. It pisses me off that I’m about to ask The Boy to choose between a birthday party and his guinea pig birthday present because we cannot afford both. It pisses me off that I can’t put The Girl in preschool this year. It pisses me off that we don’t get to have date nights nearly as often as we need them.

But under all that pissed-offedness is fear. A deep fear that my family will be living in a cardboard box in the near future.

6/12/09 - Interview Follow-up

***I done forgot to post this yesterday, sorry!!***

I had the phone interview today and it went really well. I was prepared for it take quite a while, but it only took about half an hour or so and by the end the human resources people I was talking to were fawning over me and telling me how great all my answers were. Which was pretty unexpected.

I mean, don’t get me wrong, I know that I’m good at what I do. But I’m not entirely sure I have ever really considered myself a great interviewer. I can stumble over what I’m trying to say and often I look back and wish I had said something differently. But either I’m getting good enough at what I do that I don’t fumble my words anymore or I’m just getting better at this whole “sell myself” thing.

Probably the biggest thing I was worried about was that because it was a phone interview I knew I was going to be talking to these people on a speaker phone. I hate talking on a speaker phone. For some reason I start talking really loudly as if I imagine them sitting in the next room and listening to me through the wall or something. I always double check to make sure they’ve heard and understood everything I’ve said. It’s just plain taxing. Plus I just really like to be able to see people’s facial expressions. They can tell me if I’ve answered a question in a satisfactory way or if I need to keep going. With a phone interview I just have to guess that they aren’t sitting there making funny faces at each other over every word that I’ve said.

I got to learn a bit more about the company and the position. And I think my biggest hesitation at this point is that I’ll get bored. It seems that there is not a lot of creativity involved in the position and I will only be writing state and federal grants. I’m sure I’ll have my plate continually full; I just hope it’s full with different things.

So now I get to play the waiting game. Just kidding…no waiting game. I have another interview next week.

The Boy vs. The Choice

The antibiotics are in my system now. And they’re working hard. I do feel a bit better today. I’m still exhausted and hacking mercilessly, but I’m no longer actively begging to be taken out back and put out of my misery. And my fever finally broke. So I think we’re heading in the right direction.

But because I still feel pretty crappy, I have zero patience. The Boy has become relentless is his “I’m bored!” “I’m hungry!” “I want to do something fun!” His incessant baying for me to entertain him constantly has been wearing on my nerves quite a bit lately, but now that I’m sick I have lost even the smallest mote of tolerance I once had. He is one of the smartest and most creative boys his age I’ve ever known and this unending dependence upon me to give him things to do has been intact since his birth for the most part. The only real change has been in the complexity of what keeps him entertained for any given amount of time. It used to only take breastfeeding or dangling keys in front of his face to quiet him down. Now it takes some complicated obstacle course of activity to garner his attention for more than 30 seconds.

And it’s not that he can’t focus. He has an intent, and at times intense, ability to focus. When he wants to. And that right there is the key – when he wants to. Which is true for all of us to some extent I suppose, but the only other person whose entire existence is so completely dependent on choice that I’ve ever seen is my husband. The Boy has to choose to focus, to engage, to pay attention, to be entertained. Once that choice is made he’s good to go and can play or work or whatever for hours. But without that choice being made, it’s an endless volley of irritating questions that pushes me to the very edge of sanity.

Perhaps instead of trying to put him off or redirect him to something else, I should focus more on getting him to make choices. Maybe that will save both of our sanity.

Eavesdropping

“I’m all about babysitters these days.”
“Well that’s because you’ll have another one soon, demanding all of your attention and demanding boob access.”
“Not these boobs. Bottles only thank you.”

This was a conversation between two other mothers on our way out of preschool. As you can guess, one of them is very pregnant and due at the end of the month. They are both wonderfully sweet women. But I gotta tell you, this comment really took me off guard. And since it’s occupying most of my brain right now, I thought I’d write about it to try to get it out of my head so I can focus on other things. Like the migraine hangover I have. And everything that needs to be done.

I’m just completely flabbergasted. I guess I’m naïve enough to think that every woman would want to breastfeed their babies the moment they emerged from the womb. I have to say that before Elijah was born I sort of took it for granted that it would just be something that I’d be able to do with little to no problem. Until I read a breastfeeding book. And even though it was a really liberal, really fun book, it still scared the shit out of me. Because it broke my illusion and told me that nursing was work.

And it was work. But worth every minute of it. And I chose to let my children self-wean when they were ready. This meant that The Boy nursed until he was 22 months and The Girl nursed until she was 30 months. Now I can fully understand not every woman wanting to take on that sort of time commitment. I was lucky that I had the space and support to do it. But I simply CANNOT imagine choosing not to nurse at all. Not only is it totally confusing, but it makes me very, very sad.

Nursing my children was such a gift and such an avenue for soul level bonding for us. Not to say that it’s the only way to bond. But because I had the choice to nurse my children, I couldn’t imagine ever choosing a bottle over that opportunity.