Life is a Banquet

Redivision of Labor

This domestic rant is courtesy of the Mom Central Clorox Greenworks blog tour. My sample is still in transit, so instead of singing its praises, I'm going to talk about the dish divide in our house.

For the first five years of our relationship, I was really obsessed with fairness. I cooked. He did dishes. I did laundry. He did trash & yardstuff. He did bills. I did grocery & meal planning. And this worked. To a point. But, the dishes, they piled. And piled. And every other day or so, they'd be attacked with the fervor of a politician who knows he'll be out of a job come November. And then we had a baby. And suddenly the 3x a week dish plan just wasn't cutting it. And faced with the choice of a husband doing time with the scrubby or a husband doing time with the baby, I chose the baby.

So, I appointed myself the grand czar of the dishes in effort to maintain family harmony (and my sanity) despite hating dishes. I really, really, really hated dishes. I always just assumed that I lacked the necessary gene for all cleaning. My grandmother LOVES doing dishes. Loves it. Even now when she doesn't have to, when after 85+ years, she's earned a whole fleet of dishwashers, she still does the dishes. My mother inherited this gene, and for years, washed dishes after we went to bed at night while listening to late night radio talk shows. The two of them could form the cult of clean dishes, but the idiosyncrasies of their method escaped my adolescent blinders. Thus, I went off to college not really understanding the mysteries of dish cleaning. Combined with my chronic procrastination, it was a match made in heaven when Freak said he liked to do dishes more than he liked to cook (However, by like, he meant, "When the spirit moves me.")

But, a month into our big dish trade, I've discovered that perhaps the gene is less inherited and more maternal activated because dishes are now one of my escapes too. Sad I know. And I've also discovered that perhaps I never really understood the fundamentals of the process. Like presoaking. I'm now a huge convert for presoaking. Did you know that if you simply place all used dishes in a soapy sink of hot water you don't have to scrub? NO SCRUBBING CAKED OFF NASTINESS. Um. Yes. Obvious to everyone else on the planet, I know.

And now, I soak, and I load the dishwasher, and I wash the hand stuff by hand (our dishwasher is more or less a glorified rinse machine as it creaks along). And I make other great discoveries--like the vast quantities of dish soap and detergent required. There's nothing like a baby who thinks soapy wash cloths and just-washed-cups are great to chew on (SNATCH!) to make you stop and look at the list of ingredients. I'm excited to get my sample of the Greenworks dish soap, and I'll tell you what I think when it comes, because I'd love to find a way to do good for my sanity, her, and the planet all in one swipe. Greenworks looks like a good place to start!

Who does the dishes in your house? How did you learn to do dishes? What "method" do you use for washing?

11 months!

Telling a Fish Story
Originally uploaded by wavybrains.

My pregnancy journal from one year ago, "Maybe today? Anytime now! I'm ready!" Um. Not so much. It would be another MONTH before she made her blessed arrival. Not that I was counting. Not at all. However, right now I'm THRILLED that we have another month to go before the big B-day. I'm not ready. I'm so not ready. I laugh at the me that thought I was ready. I had no idea what was in store.

She can now toddle along, even holding a toy, and while she still crawls when she feels the need for speed, she's definitely a WALKER now, and I'm not ready for that either.

She says "Cat." "Cat." "Cat." "CAT!" Everything is a cat. Anything with a face is a cat. Tonight, Ted Kennedy was a big CAT! CAT! CAT! on TV. All Dr. Seuss characters are CATS! And the poor, poor dog is a CAT! CAT! CAT! When she's not spotting CAT! CAT! she's blowing rasperries, making weird sounds by moving her fingers on her lips (Wowowowowow), She points and gestures and speaks complex Tavy language the rest of the time. I'm not ready for all these commands!

She's HUNGRY. She eats handfuls of blueberries, green beans, chunks of chicken, and we're buying stock in baby mum-mum biscuits. But, please, don't try to feed her baby food! She only wants whats on YOUR plate, and I'm not ready to share!

She's always looking for the next obstacle. A drawer to empty. A drawer to climb in. A drawer to climb to the top of the table. A shelf to clear. A shelf to climb. Dear, lordy, I'm not ready for a climber.

But, she's such a happy busy bug, that you forgive the attempts to scale Everest in the living room. She hands us toys. She likes to give us bites of her food. She raises her foot up to be tickled. She brings me books to read and shoes to wear. She brings us diapers when she needs changing. I'm not ready for this . . . PERSON.

Thank you universe for this gift, for this bonus month, for this wonderful, amazing, incredible, tightly packed bundle of energy. 11 months. I'm still not ready.

Review: Mama PhD

When I saw MotherTalk's announcement for the Mama PhD tour, I was at a vulnerable place, wrestling with my identity as Mama J.D. and Mama Professor. I got my invitation for the five year reunion for my law school class, and I hid it under the toaster. I'd just sent out a request to a lovely friend to re-do my masthead, because it seems like the Mama part of my identity is subsuming everything else, and it's just not accurate to pretend otherwise right now. To be honest, I have a hard time mentioning law school and teaching when I'm hanging out with my other mother friends because it seems so irrelevant. But it's not, and that's why I needed Mama PhD.

The book is a lovely series of essays, divided into sections: The Conversation (having kids/being pregnant in the academy), That Mommy Thing (juggling child raising and life in the academy), Recovering Academic (nontraditional ways of combining higher education and child raising), and Momifesto (Why the academy needs to change). I loved that a wide range of disiplines, ages, geography, and experiences are represented by the essays. The women representing the sciences, psychology, economics, and history add a depth to the conversation, one that I'm not sure could be achieved in a book of MFA's and English PhD's. Consequently, I would make this book a must-read and a must-gift for any woman contemplating or living with a graduate degree.  Because so many of the women report being blindsided by parenthood and its impact on their careers, I think this is an especially important read for those considering a graduate degree.

I was not blindsided by parenthood's impact on my career.I was blindsided by my career period, and I spent the five years prior to Tavy's arrival wrestling with the fact that I just didn't want to be a practicing attorney. I'm not sure if I've put it that bluntly before. I always blame my health first, which to be sure, was a major contributing factor, but if the passion for law was there, I'd have found a way to be practicing right now. I wanted to be a professor, I wanted to teach, and I think I knew this as far back as high school, but I got a law degree to have more options. I'd heard too many horror stories of PhD's doomed to a life of adjuncting and ramen.

I'd like to slap my 20 year old self, and show her how satisfying a life of adjuncting, motherhood, and yes, rice noodles, can be. I turned immediately to the Recovering Academic section before returning and reading the whole book (and discovering that many of the writers are also recovering academics), because I wanted to connect with others who have chosen not to go the full-time route.

The theme of discovering a new direction is echoed by all the essays. All the women were profoundly changed by motherhood, and the shape of their careers transformed. Martha Ellis Crone finished her dissertation with no intent to "use" her PhD. She writes, "I won't say I never wonder what would have happened if I'd made a different decision . . . There's a certain degree of guilt and regret in my story, as  I think there must be in everyone's, because every chose we make entails a universe of unlived possibilities. My life is different than the one planed by the idealistic and driven young woman I was two decades ago. But I set out to become anything I wanted to be, and that is what I have become."

Get out the highlighter. I wanted to leap through the book and give her a giant hug, while offering to be her BFF and start a super-secret Ya-Ya club for women with advanced degrees who ended up 45 degrees west of their intended landing zone. And who were still happy. Because the happy part resonates just as loudly as the guilt part throughout Mama PhD.

Jennifer Margulis writes, "I realized then that I was always doing what I had longed to do: teaching people who wanted to learn, exchanging ideas with students who had as much to give to me as I to them, exposing and expanding minds to new ideas and new ways of thinking."

Now, admittedly, she went halfway around the work to Nigeria to come to this epiphany, but her words inspire me to take more pride in what I do. I LOVE teaching basic writing. I do. But, I often offer up apologies as to why I'm not currently teaching law classes. Honestly, I'm not sure I have as much to give law students as I do my students, and I'm not sure that they have as much to give me. Margulis's story is particularly inspiring because she didn't let lack of university affiliation stop her from getting a Fulbright. Rebecca Steinitz walked away from tenure at a good school (as did several of the other writers). The gutsiness involved in walking away from the academy enabled me to frame my own experience more accurately, and for that, I'm profoundly grateful.

The five year reunion invitation still stings. It does. But, for the first time ever, I wouldn't change anything right now. I'm not looking to change--this is remarkable, really. I like my life as Mama first, adjunct professor second, and writer-waiting-in-the-wings. And I'm so glad to find other women struggling with the same identity questions, and coming up with their own answers. (And solutions--the discussions of how Academia can better accommodate mothering highlight that this isn't just a matter of individually reconcliling two competing parts of the self, but also reconfiguring the academy so that the distinction is less harsh). Mama PhD is must read for Mama J.D., Mama MFA, Mama MBA, Mama M.S., and all those other mothers in the classroom, and those with degrees in the attic and babies on the hip.

(To see a neat trailer for the book, click here, and to visit the great website the editors have set up, click here).

 

The power of No

Is this your phone, Ma'm?
Originally uploaded by wavybrains.

I think I've written about this before, but I'm not a very confrontational person (surprise, surprise that law didn't agree with me). I'm also definetely far left on the Attachment Parenting spectrum--baby wearing, breast feeding on demand, no CIO, occasional co-sleeping, co-rooming, etc. Furthermore, I kind of lucked into a good dog--I would be a total failure as a dog trainer. Caylis still has bad habits that given her awesome intelligence and total willingness to please any reasonably firm owner probably would have eliminated 3 years ago. Sigh.

I'm not good with the NO!

Knowing this, the goddess should have sent me a compliant child, or at the very least, one without the danger-seeking chip. But, no, the universe, with it's crazy sense of humor, sent me Ms. Thrill Seeker. She's a climber. A jumper. A puller. A biter. A grabber. No contraband is too dangerous, no place too high enough, no object too heavy enough to sway her. You may have noticed the profusion of baby gates in all the Tavy pictures. That's all that's standing between me and sanity, folks.

I suck at the No!. Does anyone have any advice? Any at all?

Baby Olympics

Look What I can do!
Originally uploaded by wavybrains.

I am an evil, evil, evil Mama. I've been actively attempting to instill a love for one of my all-time favorite guilty pleasures--Olympic vegetation. Now, if you know me IRL, you know that I am so genetically uncoordinated and athletically impaired as to need a warning label lest any unsuspecting soul lob a ball in my direction. I'm pretty sure I still hold my school's PE record for contact injuries in non-contact sports. Also, for being hit with the widest diversity of balls in the head (and yes, this does indeed explain a lot). But, despite my lack of athletic inclination, I've always loved Olympics. One of my earliest memories is of the 1984 LA Olympics, and I spent the next several Olympiads glued to the tube.

Unfortunately, this never really inspired me to undertake a personal commitment to physical fitness. I'm hoping for slightly different results with Tavy. Her pediatrician predicts a six foot plus amazon of a girl, so I've been watching this year with an eye to what sports the little daredevil might aspire to. Disappointedly, couch diving and stroller pushing aren't yet Olympic events.

My Olympic addiction led to me purchasing Rabbit Ears so that I can watch the evil peacock of corporate exclusivity, and I find myself wishing that I could see the international channels--we need to find Tavy a support that the US doesn't typically dominate. Or perhaps a lesser team support. Water polo? Rowing? Her reaction to the Olympics has been mixed: She's noticed the TV for the first time ever, but she mainly wants to poke the eyes out on the anchors, and claps for the gymnasts and the beach volleyball music. She pats the screen for the water sports though, so I'm thinking that holds some possibilities.

And while she's doing this, I'm not thinking of her future eyesight, attention span, IQ, social skills, or psychological fitness--I'm just thrilled that she's letting me watch.

Evil, Evil, Evil, Mama.

Are you watching the Olympics? Do you have any Olympic crushes yet?

Rasberry!

The cuteness just does not stop. This morning while laying across me, Tavy kept giving me raspberries on my stomach and laughing uproariously at her brilliance.  Then, I gave her raspberries, and we traded stomach kisses until we both had to catch our breath from all the laughing.

I love 10 months.

Give Her a House To Wreck

Greetings Home Owners!

Tired of unsightly clutter? Can't keep your "hot spots" clear of papers? Is your desk space lost under the random object brigade? Tumbleweeds of pet hair depressing you? Dust Bunnies without birth control ruining your day? Lint irritating your tootsies?

I've got the solution for you!

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We'll send you a wannabe toddler to your home, COD, and you can start reaping the many rewards of your Rent-a-baby:

• Baby will start by surveying your environment, deciding which services will provide the most benefit to YOU.
• As she makes her way around the room, she will deftly remove clutter from your counters and desks. Note that she doesn't even have to SEE the clutter--she goes on feel alone, boldly tossing bottle caps, laptops, gum packages, and bowls of cereal with the same confidence.
• When she discovers your cluttered bookshelves, she will systematically cull your shelves. Devoid of any emotional attachment to your keepers, she will ruthlessly toss until your shelves are clear and ready to serve their intended purpose: CLIMBING. Bonus: If you purchase our "Bucket" upgrade package, baby will happily fill boxes with the books, easing carting them off. Don't dally though, or she'll empty the boxes next!
• Bored with decluttering, baby will now take to the floors. All those hard-to-reach places? No problem! Baby will dust them all! The human swiffer will have your floors sparkling in no time. Bonus: Those of you with truly hideous floors will appreciate the fact that you may not need to feed your rent-a-baby, and instead can put her down to graze three times a day.
• Mystery drawers? Boxes of Junk? Hidden piles? Don't despair! Baby will find them all, and sort them for you!
• Slipcover dated? Pillows worn? Toss, toss, toss! Baby will redecorate for you too!

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• Whistle while you work: This add-on-package will delight you as baby YELLS her way through her tasks. She's just discovered that yelling while wiggling her fingers back and forth on her lips makes a most delightful sound. Lucky you, you can have this musical accompaniment to baby's tasks.
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